12

There was a new classroom block.

Mr Jaraby examined it disapprovingly. It seemed a little gimcrack to him, a little out of keeping with the main buildings, worse even than New House, that architectural monstrosity that had appalled so many in the early thirties. Mr Jaraby should have felt proud. The Association had contributed handsomely at the time, and he himself had been instrumental in the organized dunning of its members. He sought the Headmaster, not so much to register a complaint as to express a hope that the projected annexe to the Chapel would not follow a similar pattern.

‘Those iron window frames, Headmaster!’

The Headmaster, who detested Old Boys for a private reason, smiled.

‘They displease you, Mr Jaraby?’

‘Do they please you? Can they please anyone? What a cheap, nasty building after all our efforts!’

‘The age we live in, Mr Jaraby, the age we live in.’

‘I saw the plans, they did not look a bit like what has gone up. Were they altered?’

‘It is difficult, is it not, to make much of architects’ plans? They were approved by the Governors, by Lord Glegg who gave us the bulk of the money, by the Old Boys’ Association and incidentally by me.’

‘Let us pray the Chapel annexe will not come from the same mould.’

‘That is far in the future, Mr Jaraby. What luck we have had with the weather!’

‘What?’

‘How goes the cricket? Shall we bend our steps in that direction?’

When he was President there would be no question of his wife attending this gathering. There was no need for Lady Ponders today. Simply, he would behave as an unmarried man. It would be like her, who had never taken an interest before, to develop suddenly an interest while she was in her present condition. As though divining his thoughts the Headmaster asked:

‘Mrs Jaraby? Is she well?’

‘No. She is far from well. She is in a sad, sorry state.’ He would have liked to continue, to go into detail and tell about his visit to Dr Wiley. But there was no need to shout it from the roof-tops. Already it was widely enough known that he was married to a mad woman.

‘I am sorry to hear that. Is it perhaps this hot spell of weather?’

‘It may well be. I have heard of that kind of thing. There is no way of telling; personally I have little faith in the medicos of today. Let us talk of something pleasanter. Who is this young man who is to take over Dowse’s?’

‘He is a good man, I believe. Certainly he comes with a high reputation.’

‘He has much to live up to. I refer to Dowse, not his successors.’

‘Ah, Dowse.’

‘Dowse,’ said General Sanctuary who was standing near by with Mr Nox. ‘We shall not forget Dowse, eh, Jaraby?’

‘I shall not,’ said Mr Jaraby, and the Headmaster slipped away.

‘Dowse,’ repeated General Sanctuary. ‘The most sinister figure I ever encountered.’

‘I was speaking of H. L. Dowse, our old Housemaster.’

‘So was I. So am I. H. L. Dowse was perverted, sadistic, malicious, and dangerous. He should never have held that position.’

‘But Dowse –’

‘He hated all boys, possibly all people. He was a misanthrope of the deepest dye. He had so many peculiar tricks you couldn’t keep count of them.’

‘Really, Sanctuary, this is a lot of nonsense.’

‘I well remember once he invited me to his room, opened a small notebook and read me some of the filthiest stories I have ever heard. When I made some appropriate remark he hit me thunderously across the face. I thought my nose had been broken, but I had the presence of mind to threaten to report him to the Headmaster. Whereupon he promptly desisted and begged me to spare him. He was an old man, he said, the disgrace would kill him. Imagine that to a child of fifteen!’

‘Dowse was not above a bit of man-to-man smut. He saw it as part of conversation. Don’t tell me you’ve never told a smutty story, Sanctuary?’

‘Mainly at school. At school such stories were half one’s education.’

‘That’s an exaggeration. And Dowse cannot defend himself against your slander. I never heard anyone say such a thing of him before.’

‘Everyone took it as a fact. At least I’ve always assumed so. Surely I am right, Nox?’

‘Of course, of course. Dowse was half crazy.’

‘Nox’s opinion –’ Mr Jaraby checked himself. ‘Really, I’ve never heard such balderdash.’

‘Dowse used to tell boys they were going mad. He used actually to recommend brothels to boys who were leaving, claiming that he knew them to be free of disease when in fact he had specifically ascertained the opposite.’

‘Be careful, Sanctuary. You are going too far. I cannot stand here and have Dowse maligned like this. You know I think highly of him.’

‘I only speak the truth.’

‘It is not the truth.’

‘Everyone –’

‘Everyone nothing. He was a good man, he did wonders for the House. It is Dowse’s House today, after his name.’

‘It is typical hypocrisy that it should be.’

‘It is only fair. You have got some grudge against H. L. Dowse. So has Nox.’

‘My only grudge,’ replied General Sanctuary, ‘is that the man half killed me.’ He laughed and Mr Nox laughed with him.

‘You couple of old fools, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ His voice had risen to a high-pitched shout. General Sanctuary spoke to calm him.

‘Never mind, Jaraby, we probably don’t. Dowse was a fine upstanding fellow, eh, Nox?’ And the two men, who didn’t much care for one another, laughed again.

But Mr Jaraby, walking alone towards the cricket field, was angry and upset. He had always thought Sanctuary a level-headed, sensible fellow. And what was he doing hobnobbing like that with Nox? Nox had a sly poisonous tongue and would make trouble where he could. Mr Jaraby, not for the first time in recent weeks, felt himself beset by idiots and sinners.

He slipped into a deck-chair. The players were coming on to the field again; the School had declared at a hundred and twenty for three, and now fielded. Nox used to keep the score at cricket matches; Mr Jaraby seemed to recall someone once telling him that Nox eventually became scorer for the first eleven. He closed his eyes. As President, there would be no further need to fear incurring the wrath of Nox, no need to fear his tongue and the direction it spread its venom. As President he would be once again in a position to overrule Nox when Nox got out of hand. As President he would have asked for Sanctuary’s resignation a moment or two ago; in time he might well have to ask for it, and Nox’s too, if the unfounded rumour about Dowse was not agreed to be a figment of Sanctuary’s imagination. But waiting until the time came, waiting about, neither here nor there, curbing his speech so that he should not give offence – none of that suited him; it irritated, and made him feel almost imprisoned. He wished they had had the sense to make the decision at the last meeting, so that he knew where he stood.

Mr Jaraby slept and in his dream he was one of the flannelled figures at the wicket. Cricket had never been his game; he had always regretted his inability to reach high figures quickly, to bowl a deadly ball, neatly and to a length. Yet he had acquitted himself without disgrace. He had tried, and in turn he had received an adequate satisfaction. He was happier as a second-row forward, a forward who was not just one of the eight, but one who was out on his own: the pick of the pack. In his time Dowse’s had won the House Cup four seasons running.

Jaraby’s entry to the School had been, more or less, like everyone else’s. He had suffered indignities similar to Nox’s. He had fagged and been beaten, and lazed when he should have worked. Once when he was very new his fag-master sent him into the town to buy two pounds of sugar. On the way back he dropped the soft grey bag on the road; it burst and the sugar spilled, mingling with the dust. He spooned together as much as he could with his hands, but three-quarters was lost. He explained about it to his fag-master, who beat him first and then sent him back for more. His face was blotched and red as he trudged for the second time along the road. His body, in the process of development, was awkward and gangling; his gait, affected by the punishment, somewhat out of control. He hated the whole incident, the image of the torn paper-bag, his untidy efforts to clear up the mess, the set face of his fag-master as he learnt the news, the gesture with which he so casually reached for his cane, and the deft strokes with which he inflicted pain. Years afterwards Jaraby remembered the incident. When Nox was his fag, and others before and after Nox, he saw in retrospect the justice of what had happened to him. It was not difficult to see it thus, when justice might be justly passed on. Even as he returned to the shop for another two pounds of sugar he realized that he was there to accept such things, that he must learn to ‘take it’. That was what he had not been able to teach Nox. Nox would not learn that his time would come, that for the moment he must simply ‘take it’ and live for the future, harbouring no grievance.

Mr Jaraby awoke, refreshed and lively. The scoreboard registered twenty-five for five, last man one.

‘On the contrary,’ said General Sanctuary, ‘I think Jaraby would make an excellent President. He is just the sort of man to fill the position impeccably. Ponders is nicer but less efficient.’

Seeking an ally, Mr Nox was disappointed. Back in the environs of the School, so totally the scene of Jaraby’s triumphs, his case seemed lost. Not that he had ever had one. The whole Swingler business was ridiculous; Swingler and the work he did were beneath contempt. Mr Nox felt ashamed of his own chicanery in employing the man. He would call Swingler off and would not see him again, since he disliked him so as a person. At this stage in his life he could at least choose with whom to associate.

Sanctuary, while obviously disapproving of Jaraby, would accept him as President. To Sanctuary he was just a clown. Mr Nox had not known that it was Dowse’s practice to recommend brothels. Clearly – or it could be made to seem so – Jaraby had simply been passing information on; there was nothing to support an accusation that he had spoken from his own experience. It was perhaps a little odd that he had kept this address of Dowse’s by him for half a century, but retaining an address of that nature hardly amounted to the picture of a reckless and disgraceful profligate that Mr Nox had hoped to paint. Abruptly he accepted defeat. He knew his limitations, and the knowledge hurt him; he could not see how he might ever now achieve victory. Jaraby remained top dog: it was still in the nature of things.