Jill (11 page)

He held out his plate resentfully. “Oh, you don’t understand. It’s all daft. I s’ll fail, so what’s the use of trying? As sure as I’m sittin’ here——”

“Well, no one’ll think owt less of you for that,” said Joe Kemp in a reasoning voice. “An’ it’ll be practice.”

The boy fell silent. Later, when the six o’clock news had been switched off, he renewed his complaints to his father, who was sitting comfortably in the armchair. Joe Kemp said nothing but things he hoped would comfort the boy, but privately he decided to have a word with Mr. Crouch, and later that evening called round to see him. Mr. Crouch was packing a suitcase; he was returning the next day to Watford. The Headmaster had called all the masters together for an emergency staff meeting immediately following the outbreak of war.

He was not over-pleased to see Joe Kemp, but welcomed him in, and they sat by the fire with the half-full suitcase open on the table. When he listened to what Joe Kemp had to say for three minutes he began nodding his head wisely, in order to halt Joe’s monologue by suggesting that he knew everything he was going to say next. “Yes,” he said. “Yes … yes.… What you’re afraid of, Mr. Kemp, if I see it rightly, is that John will try for this scholarship and the Higher School Certificate in one year—and miss both of them. I don’t think there’s any danger of that. Even if he doesn’t bring the scholarship off, he’ll still have four months to prepare for the Higher Certificate, and he’ll meet the second examination with all the more experience and confidence through having taken the first. But apart from that, I think he has a very good chance of success in both. Next year it would be a certainty: this year it’s just very likely. I’m not suggesting the impossible, Mr. Kemp. John has an exceptional brain. In fact, he is the most remarkable pupil I have ever taught. I don’t deny that I would rather have waited, but circumstances have changed, and we have to change our plans too. And the authorities will recognize this, and make all due allowances. No, I understand your doubts, but they’re quite groundless—you can take my word for it.”

“You take my word for it,” said Joe Kemp later that evening
to John, who sat miserably by the fire unable to concentrate on the book he held. “Mr. Crouch knows what he’s doin’. You needn’t worry; you think too little of yourself, lad. You don’t know what you can do. You’re shapin’ fine, I reckon; don’t worry thaself.”

“Eh, John was always a modest one,” put in Mrs. Kemp, who was putting a new heel on a sock. “Wasn’t ’e?”

The boy sighed, guessing his father had been to see Mr. Crouch, and feeling too weary to struggle against the alliance. He pushed his hair back and bent his attention to the book again. Resistance was useless.

Not even Mr. Crouch had foreseen the energy with which John threw himself into his work during the autumn and winter, that haphazard period when hours were topsy-turvy and lessons were frequently interrupted by real or imaginary air-raid warnings. Indeed, it passed unnoticed for a week or two, until Mr. Crouch noticed the number of notebooks Kemp was using up and the number of books he borrowed from the school library, and the pallor of his face. He had always, of course, worked hard, but effortlessly, within his own capacity: now there seemed a danger that he would outrun even his own powers. Mr. Crouch noticed that when he was asked a question in class, a momentary flash of panic came into his face, as he sought about his brain for the answer, caused by the fear he would not know, that he would be found wanting. Indeed, Mr. Crouch forbore to ask him questions for this reason.

At home he was treated like an invalid. The front room was set aside for him to work in, and when he was working the wireless was never played and visitors were asked to keep their voices low. His mother made special dishes that she imagined were “strengthening”, and gave him large helpings at mealtimes: this aggravated him and his irritable outbursts were excused on the grounds that he was “tired from workin’”. It seemed impossible to do anything naturally: if he offered to run an errand for his mother, he saw her hesitate lest she would be keeping him from his books; if on the other hand she asked
him casually to fetch something from the general shop on the corner, he fancied she was trying to make him take exercise and get some fresh air. The neighbours, of course, knew all about it: they never greeted him with any other phrase but “Workin’ ’ard?”

Mr. Crouch knew he was working too hard, but did nothing to stop him. It was such a delightful change to have him working independently, without need for guidance; Mr. Crouch felt strangely as if a mechanical man he had painfully constructed had suddenly come to life. And in this sudden luxury an indifferent cruelty came to him: it interested him to see to what pitch the boy could drive himself. He did not hold himself responsible in any way.

Lying in his armchair one night after tea, the heavy curtains drawn and the lamplight showing the smoke from his cigarette curling up around the ornaments on the mantelpiece, he thought about the last two years with some surprise. It did not seem likely to him now that he would ever leave Huddlesford, at least of his own free will. The war had wrought some curious change in him: he no longer bothered to read intelligent books, or subscribe to weekly reviews; the book that lay face downwards on the carpet by his chair was an indifferent novel, and he was smoking many more cigarettes a day. The chief interest of his life was a correspondence he was conducting with the girl he now wanted to marry.

“The business was queer, very queer,” he said to himself, thinking of the afternoon he had first lent John Kemp some of his own notes. “What on earth can have made me.… No, I can’t imagine. A most curious episode.” He heaved himself to his feet, scattering ash, and frowned at his waistcoat. Must wear the blue suit more. Then, putting on his hat and coat and taking up a torch, he went out to a nearby public-house, where he expected to meet the junior science master.

“So your protégé’s actually gone, has he?” Mr. Crouch and the junior science master were hanging about the playing fields one afternoon in March, during the running-off of some junior heats. “When was it? Thursday?”

“Yes, Thursday.” Mr. Crouch pulled a flag out of the ground and stuck it back again. “He should be back today. Empty-handed, I fear.”

“I thought you said he was the cat’s whiskers.”

“Oh, yes, he is in a way. Certainly he is a phenomenal worker. Do you know, starting on Christmas Day, he got up at seven every morning to work?”

The junior science master raised his eyebrows.

“He kept that up till Thursday, I hear. I had it all from his father. They were proud of him at first, but towards the end they became a little frightened, I feel.”

“You mean, he was working too hard?”

“Frightened for him, yes, and even frightened of him in a way. It was uncanny the way he worked. ‘’S’not ’uman,’ as old Kemp said to me. He’d hardly eat or speak or anything.”

“Well, surely he should get a pretty good result on those lines?”

“I wonder. I can’t help thinking the Oxford people will send him back to grow up for another year.”

“Do you think that would be a good thing?”

“Possibly, but I don’t want to teach him for another year. You remember Jarrett?”

“The youth who was always quoting
Adonais
?”

“That’s the one. He’s in the Army now, I hear. Kemp is almost exactly the opposite. You don’t feel that reading a poem means any more to him than adding up a column of figures. All he can do is work, work, work in this mechanical, inhuman way. He’ll just wear himself out.”

“Strange.”

“Very. He’s a curious character: one of these mysteries that are not worth solving.”

“That’s a mighty expressive phrase,” said the junior science master, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette. “Oh, lord, they’ve finished the jumping. Get your end of the tape.”

Mr. Crouch obeyed, wondering if the expressive phrase expressed the truth.

As he was shuffling out of the school gates at four twenty-five
he was met by John, who had been standing awkwardly there in his blue overcoat, his hair blowing in the wind.

“Sir——”

“Why, hallo, Kemp. So you’re back. How did it go?”

“Oh—well, average really. I did some things wrong.”

“Got the papers?”

“No, they kept them.”

“Oh. Well, tell me about it.”

They walked along the avenue, discussing the questions. “And the viva?” Mr. Crouch settled his hat more firmly on his head as the wind tugged at it. “What did they ask about? Did you tell any lies?”

John blushed scarlet at the memory.

“I said I edited the magazine.”

He gulped and looked away. “Well, that’s all right, they won’t bother to verify it,” said Mr. Crouch, as they came to his front gate. “I shouldn’t worry: you seem to have done very creditably on the whole. At any rate, you aren’t over-depressed.” And that in itself is a bad sign, he thought. Looking at the boy’s face in the sharp afternoon light, he could see lines of strain that had not been there six months ago. He became aware John Kemp was holding out his hand nervously.

“Thank you, sir, for all you’ve done.”

Late in the next week John was informed that he had won a scholarship worth a hundred pounds a year.

John saw little of Christopher the next morning, who did not get up till nearly twelve, when after a cold shower he went off to the Bull and Butcher for meat pies and beer and a game of darts with Patrick. John spent the morning working with a dreary persistence, while the rain fell outside. After lunch he went and read a book in the Bodleian Library and returned at five o’clock to find Christopher, Eddy and Patrick having tea. Christopher’s face, pallid in the early morning, had regained
its normal flush, but he was as unshaven as a soldier who has fought in a battle lasting several days. They were discussing the evening they had spent.

“You were a fool to break that glass door.”

“I don’t remember a thing about it.” Eddy was complacent. “Not a thing.”

John poured himself a cup of strong tea and, looking round, found there was no milk left. His spirits had sunk when he realized that Christopher was seeming to disregard the pound he had borrowed, and he told himself in vain that this casualness was in itself the very sign of intimate friendship. Friends did not dun each other for small loans, but he could imagine Whitbread saying in his flat voice: “I’d be glad of that pound, if you could let me have it, Warner.” The fancy depressed him, and a suspicion crawled about his mind that it was a direct personal slight.

On the Saturday morning he finally gave up hope and drew out another pound from his Post Office account, the pound that should have covered the fortnight from November 10th till November 24th. He was acutely aware that it was only October 26th. The streets were busy as he walked back towards the College for lunch, but they aroused no corresponding excitement in him, for an unconquerable sense of isolation was starting to possess him as he grew aware that people who had come into residence when he did had now made their own ways and had fallen into definite ways of life. They had run up the framework on which their university careers would be woven. John had not done so. Christopher was his closest friend. And this money business was creating a gaping hole of uncertainty in his mind, so that there was nothing to build on there.

He sat silent among the chatter at lunch, hearing Whitbread joining in a discussion on coal-tar products farther down the table, and lingered over the bread and cheese that finished the meal. It had begun to rain again lightly outside and people intending to play games turned on their benches and regarded the sky indignantly. The captain of the football team came and talked to Christopher as the latter ate. Groups of students strolled off to the cinema.

After lunch John sat on the sofa, his elbows on his knees, recollecting that the libraries were closed till Monday morning. He stared a long time at the carpet beneath his feet and when he looked up suddenly to see the time there was not a trace of expression on his face. There was a sound of someone in rubber shoes running fast and calling voices echoed round the cloisters. In the distance two o’clock struck.

For a few seconds he felt unbelievably calm.

Then feet clattered up the steps and Christopher Warner banged the door open in the way he had of kicking the panelling and twisting the knob at the same time. He was dressed for sport in flannels, a sweater and a blazer, and his hair was untidy.

“Thank God you’re here. Here’s a go.” He pulled a telegram from his pocket, roughly crumpling it open. “Are you doing anything today—this afternoon, I mean?”

If it had been anyone else, John would have tried to play for time.

“No——”

“Well, this is from my mother. It says ‘Meet 3.45 train for tea.’ As it happens, I can’t—there’s this match, and I don’t want to cut that, even if I could. Silly of her to send it so late; it was only handed in at ten. Will you go for me?”

“Go—for you? …”

“Yes, and take her somewhere for tea, where I can meet you.”

John had twisted round on the sofa, and an expression of alarm replaced one of bewilderment.

“I … But I don’t know her——”

“Oh, hell, you know what she looks like. You know her photograph.” He gestured towards the double frame that stood on the little shelf. “Tall and dark. Just explain, you know, and apologize, and take her somewhere—the Green Leaf will do.”

“But——”

“I’ve rung up Eddy,” said Christopher patiently. “And the fool isn’t in College.… Elizabeth and Patrick have gone off to Banbury to see some cousin of theirs. You’re the only person I can ask.”

John thrilled at this, managing to say:

“Yes, but—but what shall I do with her?”

“I’ve told you,” said Christopher impatiently. “Just take her to the Green Leaf. I’ll meet you at half-past four.” Glad to have settled the matter satisfactorily, he went out. The door banged with its usual double-jointed sound.

An hour later John showed his platform ticket and passed on to Oxford station, looking about him uncertainly. Of course he was too early. His hair was plastered down with water and he had rubbed his shoes with the tablecloth; into the breast pocket of his overcoat he had tucked a white handkerchief in an attempt to look smart. His alarm at the mission had been replaced in part by a determination to do Christopher justice, and he was keenly aware of the great compliment Christopher had paid him by indicating that he was a fit person to welcome and escort his mother.