Fortitude. Hugh Walpole
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with your back to the wall and say nothing … and if these fellows, who thought him so pleasant last year, thought him pleasant no longer, well, then he must put up with it. He had not changed—there he was, as ever.
But the Easter term was a chronicle of mistakes. He could not be genial to people who defied and mocked him; he found, dangerously, that they could all be afraid of him. When his face was white and his voice very quiet and his whole body tense like a bow, then they feared him—the biggest and strongest of those criminals obeyed. He was sixteen now and he could when he liked rule them all, and gradually, as the term advanced, he used his strength more and more and was more and more alone. Days would come when he would hate his loneliness and would rush out of it with friendly advances and always he would be beaten back into his reserve again. Had only Cards been there! … But what side would Cards have taken? Perhaps Peter was fortunate in that the test was not demanded. Poor Bobby simply did not understand it at all. Peter! the most splendid fellow in the world! What were they all up to? But that point of view did not help matters. No other monitor spoke to Peter now if he could help it, and even the masters, judging that where there was smoke there must be fire, passed him coldly. That Easter term, in the late winds and rains of March, closed hideously. The Easter holidays, although perhaps he did not realise it, were a deliberate backing for the ordeal that was, he knew, to come.
He faced it on his return almost humorously, prepared, with a self-consciousness that was unusual in him, for all the worst things, and it is true enough that they were as bad as they could be. Bobby Galleon shared in it all, of course, but he had never been a popular person and he did not miss anything so long as there was Peter. Once he said, as Cards had said before:
“Leave 'em alone, Peter. After all, we can't do anything. They're too many for us, and, most important thing of all, they aren't worth it.”
“Not much,” said Peter, “things have got to be different.”
Things were not different. They were too many for him, but he struggled on. The more open bullying he stopped, and there were other things that he drove into dark corners. But they remained there—in those corners. There were so many dark places at Dawson's, and it began to get on his brain so that he heard whispers and suspicions and marked the trail of the beast at every minute of the day. He could find nothing now in the open—they were too clever for him. The Captain of the Citadel—Ellershaw—was as he knew the worst fellow in the school, but there was nothing to be done, nothing unless something were caught in the open. As the term advanced the whispers grew and he felt that there were plots in the air. He was obeyed, Ellershaw and some of the others were politer than they had ever been, and for many weeks now there had been no disturbance—then suddenly the storm broke.
One hot afternoon he was sitting in his study alone, trying to read. Things seemed to him that day at their very worst, there was no place to which he might turn. People were playing cricket beyond his window. Some fly buzzed on his window pane, the sunlight was golden about his room and little ladders of dust twisted and curved against the glare—the house was very still. Then suddenly, from a neighbouring study, there were sounds. At first they did not penetrate his day dream, then they caught his ear and he put his book down and listened. The sounds were muffled; there was laughter and then some one cried out.
He knew that it was Jerrard's study and he hated Jerrard more than any one in the school. The fellow was a huge stupid oaf, low down in the middle fourth, but the best bowler that the school had; yes, he hated him. He opened his study door and listened. The passage was deserted, and, for a moment, there was no sound save some one shouting down in the cricket field and the buzzing of the fly on the pane. Then he heard voices from behind Jerrard's door.
“No, I say—Jerrard—don't give me any more—please … please don't.”
“There I say—hold his mouth open; that's right, pour it down. We'll have him singing in a moment.”
“Oh I say—” there were sounds of a struggle and then silence again. At last there began the most horrible laughter that Peter had ever known; weak, silly, giggling, and little excited cries.
Then Jerrard's voice: “There, that will do; he's merry enough now.”
Peter waited for no more, but strode across the passage and flung open the door. Some chairs were overturned; Jerrard and a friend, hearing the door open, had turned round. Leaning against the table, very flushed, his eyes shining, his hair covered with dust, waving his arms and singing in a quivering voice, was a small boy, very drunk. A glass and a whisky bottle were on the table.
“You damned hound!” Peter was trembling from head to foot. “You shall get kicked out for this.”
Peter closed the door quietly behind him, and went back to his study. Here at last was the moment for which he had been waiting. Jerrard should be expelled if he, Peter, died in the attempt. Jerrard was the school's best bowler; he was immensely popular … it would, indeed, be a matter of life and death. On that same evening he called a meeting of the Monitors; they were bound to meet if one of their number had anything of sufficient importance to declare, but they came reluctantly and showed Peter that they resented his action. When they heard what Peter had to say their attitude was even more mutinous. Jerrard, the school's best bowler, was their one thought. The end of the term was at hand, and the great match of the year against Radford, a neighbouring school, approached. Without Jerrard Dawson's would be hopelessly defeated. If Barbour heard of the incident Jerrard would be expelled; Barbour might be reluctant to act, but act he must. They were not, by an absurd and ancient rule, allowed to punish any grave offence without reporting it to the head-master. If, therefore, they took any action at all, it must be reported, Jerrard would be expelled, a boon companion and the great cricket match of the year, would be lost. And all this through that interfering prig of a Westcott! Any ordinary fellow would have shut his eyes to the whole affair. After all what is there to make a fuss about in having a rag with a kid? What are kids for? Thus the conclave sourly regarding Peter who watched them in turn, and sat sternly, ominously militant. They approached him with courtesy; Ellershaw showed him what this might mean to the school were it persisted in. After all, Jerrard was, in all probability, sorry enough … it was a rotten thing to do—he should apologise to them. No, Peter would have none of it, they must 'act; it must be reported to the Head. He would, if necessary, report it himself.
Then they turned and cursed him, asking him whom he thought that he was, warned him about the way that the school would take his interference when the school knew, advised him for his own good to drop the matter; Peter was unmoved.
Barbour was informed; Jerrard was expelled—the school was beaten in the cricket match by an innings.
Then the storm broke. Peter moved, with Bobby Galleon, through a cloud of enemies. It was a hostility that cut like a knife, silent, motionless, but so bitter that every boy from Ellershaw to the tiniest infant at the bottom of the first took it as the motif of his day. That beast Westcott was the song that rang through the last fortnight.
Bobby Galleon was cowed by it; he did not mind his own ostracism, and he was proud that he could give practical effect to his devotion for his friend, but deep down in his loyalty, there was an unconfessed suspicion as to whether Peter, after all, hadn't been a little unwise and interfering—what was the good of making all this trouble? He even wondered whether Peter didn't rather enjoy it?
And Peter, for the first time in his school life, was happy. There was something after all in being up against all these people. He was a general fighting against tremendous odds. He would show them next year that they must obey.
On the last afternoon of the term he sat alone in his study. Bobby was with the matron, packing. He was conscious, as he sat there, of the sound of many feet shuffling. There were many whispers beyond his door, and yet a great silence.
He waited for a little, and then he opened his door and looked out. As he did so the bell for roll-call rang through the building, and he knew that it was his roll.
Afternoon roll-call was always taken in the gymnasium, a large empty room beyond the study passage, and it was the custom for boys to come up as their name was about to be called