CHAPTER I
GUMBRIL, Theodore Gumbril Junior, B.A. Oxon., sat
in his oaken stall on the north side of the School Chapel and wondered, as he listened
through the uneasy silence of half a thousand schoolboys to the First Lesson,
pondered, as he looked up at the vast window opposite, all blue and jaundiced
and bloody with nineteenth-century glass, speculated in his rapid and rambling
way about the existence and the nature of God.
Standing
in front of the spread brass eagle and fortified in his convictions by the
sixth chapter of Deuteronomy (for this first Sunday of term was the Fifth after
Easter), the Reverend Pelvey could speak of these things with an enviable
certainty. ‘Hear, O Israel,’ he was
booming out over the top of the portentous Book: ‘the Lord our God is one
Lord.’
One
Lord; My Pelvey knew; he had studied theology.
But if theology and theosophy, then why not theography and theometry,
why not theognomy, theotrophy, theotomy, theogamy? Why not theophysics and theo-chemistry? Why not that ingenious toy, the theotrope or
wheel of gods? Why not a monumental
theodrome?
In
the great window opposite, young David stood like a cock, crowing on the
dunghill of a tumbled giant. From the
middle of Goliath’s forehead there issued, like a narwhal’s budding horn, a
curious excrescence. Was it the embedded
pebble? Or perhaps the giant’s married
life?
‘ … with all thine heart,’ declaimed the Reverend Pelvey,
‘and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.’
No,
but seriously, Gumbril reminded himself, the problem was very troublesome
indeed. God as a sense of warmth about
the heart, God as exultation, God as tears in the eyes, God as a rush of power
or thought – that was all right. But God
as truth, God as 2+2=4 – that wasn’t so clearly all right. Was there any chance of their being the same? Were there bridges to join the two
worlds? And could it be that the
Reverend Pelvey, M.A., foghorning away from behind the imperial bird, could it
be that he had an answer and a clue?
That was hardly believable.
Particularly if one knew Mr Pelvey personally. And Gumbril did.
‘And
these words which I command thee this day,’ retorted Mr Pelvey, ‘shall be in
thine heart.’
Or in the heart, or in the head? Reply, Mr Pelvey, reply. Gumbril jumped between the horns of the
dilemma and voted for other organs.
‘And
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when
thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou
liest down, and when thou risest up.’
Diligently unto thy children…. Gumbril remembered his own
childhood; they had not been very diligently taught to him. ‘Beetles, black beetles’ – his father had a
really passionate feeling about the clergy.
Mumbo-jumbery was another of his favourite words. An atheist and an anti-clerical of the strict
old school he was. Not that, in any
case, he gave himself much time to think about these things; he was too busy
being an unsuccessful architect. As for
Gumbril’s mother, her diligence had not been dogmatic. She had just been diligently good, that was
all. Good; good? It was a word people only used nowadays with
a kind of deprecating humorousness. Good. Beyond good and evil? We are all that nowadays. Or merely below them, like earwigs? I glory in the name of earwig. Gumbril made a mental gesture and inwardly
declaimed. But good in any case, there
was no getting out of that, good she had been.
Not nice, not merely molto
simpatico – how charmingly and effectively these foreign tags assist one in
calling a spade by some other name! – but good. You felt the active radiance of her goodness
when you were near her…. And that feeling, was that less real and valid than
two plus two?
The
Reverend Pelvey had nothing to reply. He
was reading with a holy gusto of ‘houses full of all good things, which thou
filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive
trees, which thou plantedst not.’
She
had been good and she had died when he was still a boy; died – but he hadn’t
been told that till much later – of creeping and devouring pain. Malignant disease – oh, caro nome!
‘Thou
shalt fear the Lord thy God,’ said Mr Pelvey.
Even
when the ulcers are benign; thou shalt fear.
He had travelled up from school to see her, just before she died. He hadn’t known that she was going to die,
but when he entered her room, when he saw her lying so weakly in the bed, he
had suddenly begun to cry, uncontrollably.
All the fortitude, the laughter even, had been hers. And she had spoken to him. A few words only; but they had contained all
the wisdom he needed to live by. She had
told him what he was, and what he should try to be, and how to be it. And crying, still crying, he had promised
that he would try.
‘And
the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes,’ said Mr Pelvey, ‘for our good
always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.’
And
had he kept his promise, Gumbril wondered, had he
preserved himself alive?
‘Here
endeth the First Lesson.’ Mr Pelvey
retreated from the eagle, and the organ presaged the coming Te Deum.
Gumbril
hoisted himself to his feet; the folds of his B.A. gown billowed nobly about
him as he rose. He sighed and shook his
head with the gesture of one who tries to shake off a fly or an importunate
thought. When the time came for singing,
he sang. On the opposite side of the
chapel two boys were grinning and whispering to one another behind their lifted
Prayer Books. Gumbril frowned at them
ferociously. The two boys caught his eye
and their faces at once took on an expression of sickly piety; they began to
sing with unction. They were two ugly,
stupid-looking louts, who ought to have been apprenticed years ago to some
useful trade. Instead of which they were
wasting their own and their teacher’s and their more intelligent comrades’ time
in trying, quite vainly, to acquire an elegant literary education. The minds of dogs, Gumbril reflected, do not
benefit by being treated as though they were the minds of men.
‘O
Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.’
Gumbril
shrugged his shoulders and looked round the chapel at the faces of the
boys. Lord, indeed, have mercy upon
us! He was disturbed to find the
sentiment echoed on a somewhat different note in the Second Lesson, which was
drawn from the twenty-third chapter of St Luke.
‘Father, forgive them,’ said Mr Pelvey in his unvaryingly juicy voice;
‘for they know not what they do.’ Ah,
but suppose one did know what one was doing? suppose
one knew only too well? And of course
one always did know. One was not a fool.
But
this was all nonsense, all nonsense. One
must think of something better than this.
What a comfort it would be, for example, if one could bring air cushions
into chapel! These polished oaken stalls
were devilishly hard; they were meant for stout and lusty pedagogues, not for
bony starvelings like himself. An air cushion, a delicious
pneu.
‘Here
endeth,’ boomed Mr Pelvey, closing his book on the back of the German eagle.
As
if by magic, Dr Jolly was ready at the organ with the Benedictus. It was
positively a relief to stand again; this oak was adamantine. But air cushions, alas, would be too bad an
example for the boys. Hardy young
Spartans! it was an essential part of their education
that they should listen to the word of revelation without pneumatic
easement. No, air cushions wouldn’t
do. The real remedy, it suddenly flashed
across his mind, would be trousers with pneumatic seats. For all occasions; not
merely for church-going.
The
organ blew a thin Puritan-preacher’s note through one of its hundred
nostrils. ‘I believe …’ With a noise like the breaking of a wave, five hundred
turned towards the East. The view of
David and Goliath was exchanged for a Crucifixion in the grand manner of
eighteen hundred and sixty. ‘Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do.’
No, no, Gumbril preferred to look at the grooved stonework rushing
smoothly up on either side of the great east window towards the vaulted roof;
preferred to reflect, like the dutiful son of an architect he was, that
Perpendicular at its best – and its best is its largest – is the finest sort of
English Gothic. At its worst and smallest,
as in most of the colleges of
For
prayer, Gumbril reflected, there would be Dunlop knees. Still, in the days when he had made a habit
of praying, they hadn’t been necessary.
‘Our Father …’ The words were the same as they
were in the old days; but Mr Pelvey’s method of reciting them made them sound
rather different. Her dresses, when he
had leaned his forehead against her knee to say those words – those words, good
Lord! that Mr Pelvey was oboeing out of existence –
were always black in the evenings, and of silk, and smelt of orris root. And when she was dying, she had said to him:
‘Remember the Parable of the Sower, and the seeds that fell in shallow
ground.’ No, no. Amen, decidedly. ‘O Lord, show thy mercy upon us,’ chanted
oboe Pelvey, and Gumbril trombone responded, profoundly and grotesquely: ‘And
grant us thy salvation.’ No, the knees
were obviously less important, except for people like revivalists and
housemaids, than the seat. Sedentary are
commoner than genuflectory professions.
One would introduce little flat rubber bladders between two layers of
cloth. At the upper
end, hidden when one wore a coat, would be a tube with a valve: like a hollow
tail. Blow it up - and there would be
perfect comfort even for the boniest, even on rock. How did the Greeks stand marble benches in
their theatres?
The
moment had now come for the Hymn. This
being the first Sunday of the Summer term, they sang
that special hymn, written by the Headmaster, with music by Dr Jolly, on
purpose to be sung on the first Sundays of terms. The organ quietly sketched out the tune. Simple it was, uplifting and manly.
One, two, three, four; one, two three – 4.
One, two-and-three-and-four-and; One, two THREE – 4.
ONE – 2,
THREE – 4; ONE – 2 – 3 – 4,
and-One – 2, THREE – 4; ONE – 2 – 3 – 4.
One, two-and-three, four; One, two THREE – 4.
Five
hundred flawed adolescent voices took it up.
For good example’s sake, Gumbril opened and closed his mouth;
noiselessly, however. It was only at the
third verse that he gave rein to his uncertain baritone. He particularly liked the third verse; it
marked, in his opinion, the Headmaster’s highest poetical achievement.
(f) For slack hands and (dim.) idle minds
(mf) Mischief still the Tempter finds.
(ff) Keep him captive in his lair.
At
this point Dr Jolly enriched his tune with a thick accompaniment in the lower
registers, artfully designed to symbolize the depth, the gloom and general
repulsiveness of the Tempter’s home.
(ff) Keep him captive in his lair.
(f) Work
will bind him. (dim.) Work is (pp) prayer.
Work, thought Gumbril, work.
Lord, how passionately he disliked work!
Let
Gumbril
sat down again. It might be convenient,
he thought, to have the tail so long that one could blow up one’s trousers
while one actually had them on. In which
case, it would have to be coiled round the waist like a belt; or looped up,
perhaps, and fastened to a clip on one’s braces.
‘The
nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, part of the thirty-fourth
verse.’ The Headmaster’s loud, harsh
voice broke violently out from the pulpit.
‘All with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’
Gumbril
composed himself as comfortably as he could on his oaken seat. It was going to be one of the Headmaster’s
real swingeing sermons. Great is
Diana. And Venus? Ah, these seats, these seats!
Gumbril
did not attend evening chapel. He stayed
at home in his lodgings to correct the sixty-three Holiday Task Papers which
had fallen to his share. They lay, thick
piles of them, on the floor beside his chair: sixty-three answers to ten
questions about the Italian Risorgimento.
The Risorgimento, of all subjects!
It has been one of the Headmaster’s caprices. He had called a special masters’ meeting at
the end of last term to tell them all about the Risorgimento. It was his latest discovery.
‘The
Risorgimento, gentlemen, is the most important event in modern European
history.’ And he had banged the table;
he had looked defiantly round the room in search of contradictors.
But
nobody had contradicted him. Nobody ever
did; they all knew better. For the Headmaster was as fierce as he was capricious. He was forever discovering something
new. Two terms ago it had been singeing;
after the haircut and before the shampoo, there must be singeing.
‘The
hair, gentlemen, is a tube. If you cut
it and leave the end unsealed, the water will get in and rot the tube. Hence the importance of
singeing, gentlemen. Singeing
seals the tube. I shall address the boys
about it after chapel tomorrow morning; and I trust that all housemasters’ –
and he had glared around him from under his savage eyebrows – will see that
their boys get themselves regularly singed after cutting.’
For
weeks afterwards every boy trailed behind him a faint and nauseating whiff of
burning, as though he were fresh from hell.
And now it was the Risorgimento.
One of these days, Gumbril reflected, it would be birth control, or the
decimal system, or rational dress.
He
picked up the nearest batch of papers.
The printed questions were pinned to the topmost of them.
‘Give
a brief account of the character and career of Pope Pius IX, with dates wherever possible.’
Gumbril
leaned back in his chair and thought of his own character, with dates. 1896: the first serious and conscious and
deliberate lie. Did you break the vase,
Theodore? No, mother. It lay on his conscience for nearly a month,
eating deeper and deeper. Then he had
confessed the truth. Or rather he had
not confessed; that was too difficult.
He led the conversation, very subtly, as he thought, round through the
non-malleability of glass, through breakages in general, to this particular
broken vase; he practically forced his mother to repeat her question. And then, with a burst of tears, he had
answered, yes. It had always been
difficult to say things directly, point-blank.
His mother had told him, when she was dying…. No, no; not that.
In
1898 or 1899 – oh, these dates! – he had made a pact
with his little cousin, Molly, that she should let him see her with no clothes
on, if he would do the same by her. She
had fulfilled her part of the bargain; but he, overwhelmed at the last moment
by a passion of modesty, had broken his promise.
Then,
when he was about twelve and still at his preparatory school, in 1902 or 1903
he had done badly in his exams, on purpose; he had been frightened of Sadler,
who was in the same form, and wanted to get the prize. Sadler was stronger than he was, and had a
genius for persecution. He had done so
badly that his mother was unhappy; and it was impossible for him to explain.
In
1906 he had fallen in love for the first time – ah, much more violently than
ever since - with a boy of his own age.
Platonic it had been and profound.
He had done badly that term, too; not on purpose, but because he had
spent so much time helping young Vickers with his work. Vickers was really very stupid. The next term he had ‘come out’ – Staphylococcus pyogenes is a lover of
growing adolescence – with spots and boils all over his face and neck. Gumbril’s affection ceased as suddenly as it
had begun. He finished that term, he
remembered, with a second prize.
But
it was time to be thinking seriously of Pio Nono. With a sigh of disgusted weariness, Gumbril
looked at his papers. What had Falarope
Major to say of the Pontiff? ‘Pius IX was called Ferretti. He was a liberal before he was a Pope. A kindly man of less than average
intelligence, he thought that all difficulties could be settled by a little
goodwill, a few reforms and a political amnesty. He wrote several encyclicals and a
syllabus.’ Gumbril admired the phrase
about less than average intelligence; Falarope Major should have at least one
mark for having learnt it so well by heart.
He turned to the next paper.
Higgs was of opinion that ‘Pius the Ninth was a good but stupid man, who
thought he could settle the Risorgimento with a few reforms and a political
armistice.’ Beddoes was severer. ‘Pius IX was a bad man, who said that he was
infallible, which showed he had a less than average intelligence.’ Sopwith Minor shared the general opinion
about Pio’s intelligence, and displayed a great familiarity with the wrong
dates. Clegg-Weller was voluminous and
informative. ‘Pius IX was not so clever as his prime minister, Cardinal Antonelli. When he came to the tiara he was a liberal,
and Metternich said he had never reckoned on a liberal pope. He then became a conservative. He was kindly, but not intelligence,
and he thought Garibaldi and Cavour would be content with a few reforms and an
amnesty.’ At the top of Garstang’s paper
was written: ‘I have had measles all he holidays, so have been unable to read
more than the first thirty pages of the book.
Pope Pius IX does not come into these pages, of the contents of which I
will proceed to give in the follow précis.’
And the précis duly followed.
Gumbril would have liked to give him full marks. But the business-like answer of Appleyard
called him back to a better sense of his duty.
‘Pius IX became Pope in 1846 and died in 1878. He was a kindly man, but his intelligence was
below the …’
Gumbril
laid the paper down and shut his eyes.
No, this was really impossible.
Definitely, it couldn’t go on, it could not go on. There were thirteen weeks in the summer term,
there would be thirteen in the autumn and eleven or twelve in the spring; and
then another summer of thirteen, and so it would go on for ever. For ever. It wouldn’t do. He would go away and live uncomfortably on
his three hundred. Or, no, he would go
away and he would make money – that was more like it – money on a large scale,
easily; he would be free and he would live.
For the first time, he would live.
Behind his closed eyes, he saw himself living.
Over
the plushy floors of some vast and ignoble Ritz slowly he walked, at ease, with
confidence: over the plushy floors and there, at the end of a long vista, there
was Myra Viveash, waiting, this time, for him; coming forward impatiently to
meet him, his abject lover now, not the cool, free, laughing mistress who had
lent herself contemptuously once to his pathetic and silent importunity and
then, after a day, withdrawn the gift again.
Over the plushy floors to dine. Not that he was in love with
He
sat in his own house. The Chinese
statues looked out from the niches; the Maillols passionately meditated, slept,
and were more than alive. The Goyas hung
on the walls, there was a Boucher in the bathroom; and when he entered with his
guests, what a Piazzetta exploded above the dining-room mantelpiece! Over the ancient wine they talked together,
and he knew everything they knew and more; he gave, he inspired, it was the
others who assimilated and were enriched.
After dinner there were Mozart quartets; he opened his portfolios and
showed his Daumiers, his Tiepolos, his Canaletto sketches, his drawings by
Picasso and Lewis, and the purity of his naked Ingres. And later, talking of Odalisques, there were
orgies without fatigue or disgust, and the women were pictures and lust in
action, art.
When
he spoke to women – how easily and insolently he spoke now! - they listened and
laughed and looked at him sideways and dropped their eyelids over the
admission, the invitation, of their glance.
With Phyllis once he had sat, for how long? in
a warm and moonless darkness, saying nothing, risking no gesture. And in the end they had parted, reluctantly
and still in silence. Phyllis was now
with him once again in the summer night; but this time he spoke, now softly,
now in the angry breathless whisper of desire, he reached out and took her, and
she was naked in his arms. All chance
encounters, all plotted opportunities, recurred; he knew, now, how to live, how
to take advantage of them.
Over
the empty plains towards
Feeling
a little ashamed at having been interrupted in what was, after all, one of the
ignobler and more trivial occupations of his new life, Gumbril went down to his
fatty chop and green peas. It was the
first meal to be eaten under the new dispensation; he ate it, for all that it
was unhappily indistinguishable from the meals of the past, with elation and a
certain solemnity, as though he were partaking of a sacrament. He felt buoyant with the thought that at last,
at last, he was doing something about life.
What
the chop was eaten, he went upstairs and, after filling two suitcases and a
Gladstone bag with the most valued of his possessions, addressed himself to the
task of writing to the Headmaster. He
might have gone away, of course, without writing. But it would be nobler, more in keeping, he felt, with his new life, to leave a
justification behind – or rather not a justification, a denouncement. He picked up his pen and denounced.
