Fortitude. Hugh Walpole
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seems to be late. Good-bye, dearest boy.”
An interval, during which the stout boy leaned out of the window and was embraced. Soon his bowler hat was flung wildly on to the rack and he was leaning out of the window, screaming:
“Cocker! I say, Cocker! Cocker! Oh! dash it, he's going in there. Cocker! Cocker! Hullo, Bisket! going strong? Cocker! Oh! there he is! Hullo, old man! Thought I should miss you. Come on in here! Thought I'd never get rid of the mater. They do hang about!”
A small boy with his hat on one side got into the carriage, stepped on Peter's feet without apologising, and then the two gentlemen sat down at the other end of the carriage and exchanged experiences.
“What sort of hols.?”
“Oh, pretty rotten! Got nothing for Christmas at all except a measly knife or two—governor played it awfully low down.”
“I rather scored because my sister had a ripping writing case sent to her, and I gave her a rotten old book in exchange, and she jolly well had to.”
And so it continued. To Peter it was completely unintelligible. The boys at old Parlow's had never talked like this. He was suddenly flung into a foreign country. The dismay in his heart grew as he remembered that he was going into this life entirely alone and without a friend in the world. He felt that he would, had it been possible, gladly have exchanged this dreadful plunge for a beating from his father.
At any rate, after that there were friends to whom one might go—after this? …
As the train dragged slowly and painfully along the dreariness and the loneliness increased. The dusk fell, and they stopped, as it seemed, every other minute, and always Peter thought that it must be Salton and prepared to get out. The two boys in his carriage paid no attention to him whatever, and their voices continued incessantly, and always the little train jolted along sleepily wandering through the dark country and carrying him to unknown terrors. But he set his teeth hard and remembered what the Old Gentleman had told him. He would fight it out and see it through.
“'Tisn't Life that matters, but the Courage—”
And then suddenly the train stopped, the two boys flung themselves at the window, and the porter outside, like a magician who kept a rabbit in a bag, suddenly shouted “Salton!” After that there were mixed impressions. He stood alone on the dark, windy platform whilst dark figures passed and repassed him. Then a tall, thin Somebody said “Are you Westcott?” and Peter said “Yes,” and he was conveyed to a large wagonette already crowded with boys. Then there was a great deal of squeezing, a great deal of noise, and some one in authority said from somewhere, “Less noise, please.”
The wagonette started in a jolting uncertain way, and then they seemed to go on for ever and ever between dark sweet-smelling hedges with black trees that swept their heads, and the faint blue of the evening sky on the horizon. Every one was very quiet now, and Peter fell asleep once more and dreamed of the Old Gentleman, plum cake, and Stephen.
A sudden pause—the sound of an iron gate being swung back, and Peter was awake again to see that they were driving up to a dark heavy building that looked like a hospital or a prison.
“The new boys please follow me,” and he found himself, still struggling with sleep, blinded by the sudden light, following, with some ten others, a long and thin gentleman who wore a pince-nez. His strongest feeling was that he was very cold and that he hated everybody and everything. He heard many voices somewhere in the distance, doors were being continually opened and shut, and little winds blew down the dismal passages. They were suddenly in a study lined with books and a stout rubicund gentleman with a gold watch chain and a habit (as Peter at once discovered) of whistling through his teeth was writing at a table.
He turned round when he heard them enter and watched them for a moment as they stood by the door.
“Well, boys” (his voice came from somewhere near his watch chain), “come and shake hands. How are you all?”
Some eager boy in the front row, with a pleasant smile and a shrill piping voice said, “Very well, thank you, sir,” and Peter immediately hated him.
Then they shook hands and their names were written in a book. The stout gentleman said, “Well, boys, here you all are. Your first term, you know—very important. Work and play—work and play. Work first and play afterwards, and then we'll be friends. Oh, yes! Supper at nine. Prayers at nine-thirty.”
They were all bundled out, and the tall man with pince-nez said: “Now, boys, you have an hour before supper,” and left them without another word in a long dark passage. The passage was hung with greatcoats and down each side of it were play-boxes. At the other end, mistily and vaguely, figures passed.
Peter sat down on one of the play-boxes and saw, to his disgust, that the eager boy with the piping voice sat down also.
“I say,” said the piping boy, “don't you like school awfully?”
“No, I hate it,” said Peter.
“Oh, I say! What's your name?”
“Peter.”
“Peter! Oh! but your other name. The fellows will rag you most awfully if you tell them your Christian name.”
“Westcott, then.”
“Mine's Cheeseman. I'm going to like everybody here and get on. I say, shall we be chums?”
“No.”
“Oh, I say! Why not?”
“Because I don't like you.”
“Oh, I say!”
“In another minute I'll break your neck.”
“Oh! I say!” The piping boy sprang up from the play-box and stood away. “All right, you needn't be ratty about it! I'll tell the fellows you said your name was Peter! They'll give it you.”
And the piping boy moved down the passage whistling casually.
After this, silence, and only all the greatcoats swaying a little in the draught and bulging out and then thinning again as though there were two persons inside them. Peter sat quite motionless for a long time with his face in his hands. He was very tired and very cold and very hungry.
A crowd advanced towards him—five or six boys, and one large fat boy was holding the piping one by the ear.
“Oh, I say! Let me go! Let me go! I'll do your boots up, really I will. I'll do whatever you like! Oh! I say! There's a new boy. He says his name is Peter!”
So did the wretched piping one endeavour to divert attention from his own person. The fat boy, accompanied by a complacent satellite, approached Peter.
“Hullo, you. What's your name?”
“Westcott.”
“'Tisn't. It's Peter.”
“Peter Westcott.”
“Well, Mr. Peter Westcott, stand up when you're spoken to by your betters. I say, hack him up, you fellows.”
Peter was “hacked” up.
“Now, what do you mean by not speaking when you're spoken to?”
Peter stood square and faced him.
“Oh! you won't speak, won't you? See if this will do it.”
Peter's arm and ear were twisted; he was also hit in the mouth.
He was still silent.
Some one in the back of the crowd said, “Oh, come on, you chaps—let's leave this kid, the other fellow's more fun.”
And they passed on bearing the piping one with them.
Peter sat down again; he was feeling sick and his head ached. He buried his head in the greatcoat that hung above him, and cried quite