Adrian Glynde (12 page)

Before the end of the holidays Aunt Clara and Uncle Bob had turned up at Abbot's Randale. One afternoon, as they walked together in the garden, Aunt Clara had said to him in her discreetly humorous way:

“I heard from your mother a fortnight ago, Adrian. If I am to believe her, a visit to the Crowhursts is an experience so delightful as to be almost intoxicating. You wouldn't, of course, agree with that view.”

Adrian smiled. “Not quite!” he said.

“It's extraordinary,” said Aunt Clara meditatively, “how tastes differ. When I was a girl at school, a friend offered me a shilling if I would eat a snail. I accepted, but found the experience so revolting that for two days I could eat nothing else. Yet there was another girl at the same school who ate them by the dozen, free of charge, and declared them delicious. Her name, I remember, was Matilda Slatterley, and I thought, and still think, that it served her right.”

Adrian, dreaming alone in the Common-room at Taylor's, smiled to himself as he recalled Aunt Clara's absurd anecdote. Then he suddenly took his elbows off the table and sat up. Quick footsteps, which he recognised from their sound as the steps of barred and studded football boots, came ringing down the passage. Now they
had reached the door, and their sound suddenly changed from the ring and squeak of nails on stone flags to a hollow knocking on the boards of Common-room floor. Adrian glanced over his shoulder. Round the edge of the half-open door the face of Ronny Dakyn appeared and surveyed the room. Then he caught sight of Adrian. “Hello, nipper,” he said, fixing his bright blue eyes on him. “No one else about? Then you might get me a jug of hot water, will you? Know where to get it?”

Adrian jumped up and answered that he did.

“Bring it up to Prefects' Room. And look sharp: I've got to be changed in five minutes.”

The bright face disappeared and the footsteps tramped down the passage, and as Adrian hurried out to get the hot water he heard Dakyn dashing noisily up the stone stairs.

At first he had been overcome with shame at being discovered, idle and alone, in Common-room, but now he was all aglow at the chance of doing something for this godlike person whom he so much admired.

He got the hot water, climbed the stairs, and knocked at the door of the prefects' bedroom. It seemed almost profane that he, a mere new boy, should enter that august chamber. Dakyn, his boots and stockings already off and flung on the floor, was struggling out of his shirt. “Thanks, nipper!” he said, emerging red-faced and touzle-haired and flinging the shirt on his bed. “Shove it on the washstand. Is it hot?”

“Yes, very!” said Adrian.

“You're a new boy, aren't you?” asked Dakyn over his shoulder, as he poured the water into the basin. “What's your name?”

“Glynde,” said Adrian.

“You oughtn't to have been frowsting in Commonroom, you know.”

Adrian blushed. “I … I had no one to go about with,” he stammered.

“I see. Yes, it
is
a bit awkward at first. You ought to get hold of some other chap if your name isn't down for a game. It's rotten wandering about alone. Are you any good at footer?”

“Not very,” said Adrian, hanging his head.

Dakyn glanced at him again. “That's a pity,” he said. “You must try and improve. And of course there's fives and squash.” He spoke in jerks as he scrubbed his face and neck and armpits with soap. “Anyhow, you mustn't hang about in Common-room in the middle of the afternoon. It isn't done. It's a good thing it was only me that caught you. You mustn't turn into a little frowster. See?” His kind blue eyes glanced at Adrian again. “You'd better skip off now. Understand, don't you?” he said as Adrian turned to go.

Adrian smiled back at him and said: “Yes, thank you!” and as he went downstairs he heard, two flights below him, the boys swarming back into the house.

At the bottom of the stairs he was swallowed unobserved into the multitude, and all at once he felt that he was one of them, that he had settled down and was no longer a single, lonely new boy.

When the boys returned to the house after morning school they crowded round the games-board that hung on the wall in Common-room to see if their names were down for a game that afternoon. On entering Commonroom next day Adrian found such a seething, struggling crowd round the board that he couldn't get at it. Bolder spirits than he hurled themselves into the throng and, pushing to the front, gained a glimpse of the lists by main force. But Adrian was incapable of such vigorous tactics
and stood timidly on the fringe, waiting. A new boy, struggling out of the
mêlée
, passed him. “Your name's down for footer, Glynde,” he said, and Adrian's heart sank. Yes, as he saw for himself a minute or two later, his name was down to play on Ground 8. He had always been a little afraid of football. It was not that he was afraid of being hurt, but that he felt himself somehow incapable of the unself-conscious impulse and cheerful self-assertion that the game demanded. He felt foolish and awkward and was haunted by the fear of making himself ridiculous. The thought of having to play this afternoon filled him with apprehension; but Dakyn had said yesterday, when he had confessed that he was no good at footer, that he must try to improve, and he now made a stern resolve to shake off his fears and throw himself recklessly into the game. In one way he was glad to be playing: it would save him from the necessity of finding someone to go out with this afternoon, a problem which had been troubling him all morning. Before lunch, he had been telling himself, he must at all costs ask one of the other new boys, otherwise he would find himself left in the lurch again. But now his afternoon was at last provided for, and after lunch he rushed off to the boot-room and there, among a shouting and pushing and struggling crowd, he changed into footer things and went off with Phipps, who was down to play in the same game, to find Ground 8.

Adrian was put outside left. He was pleased to find that there was no master present. At Waldo Mr. Austin had always supervised games loudly and insistently. “Go on now, Glynde. Get at him. Run. You're not at a funeral. You ought to be
there
; not
here
.”

Those encouraging shouts of Mr. Austin's had always paralysed Adrian. They had somehow made it impossible for him ever to do what they urged him to do. But here
at Charminster he found that no one paid any special attention to him. Everyone was playing: there were no spectators; and Adrian, full of his new resolve, discovered, when to his amazement half-time was called, that he had been getting along just like everyone else. During the second half he found himself running with the ball in front of him, far ahead of the rest. How it had come about he did not know. There seemed to be no one in front of him, and he paused, feeling sure that he must be off-side. Somebody shouted “Go on!” and he went on, and then a voice shouted “Shoot!” He glanced up and saw the goalkeeper rushing at him, and he shot. Somebody behind him said “Good man,” there were a few formal hand-claps, and he discovered to his astonishment that he had shot a goal. He glanced round shyly, but no one was taking any notice of him. Apparently it was a matter of course that he, like anyone else, should get a goal. He ran back to his place full of a warm, surprised satisfaction, and in a moment he was lost once more in the engrossing whirl of the game. When the whistle blew, he turned, expecting it was for an offside and could hardly believe that the game was over. He was breathless, happy, and tingling all over his body. For the first time in his life he had achieved the state of a healthy young animal.

That evening Adrian was told that he was wanted in Hall. “Me?” he asked, wondering uneasily what he was wanted for.

“Yes, you!” said the boy who had delivered the message. “You're Glynde, aren't you?”

Adrian with beating heart approached the sacred door, opened it, and went nervously in. For the first time he beheld that sanctuary, with its battered armchairs, its two long tables, and ancient benches, the great glasspanelled bookcase that contained the house library, and the exalted persons of the upper school taking their ease in the chairs and on the benches. He stood with his back to the door, his hand on the door-knob behind him, timidly waiting. For a moment it seemed to him that immense numbers of eyes were staring at him, but no one spoke. He was conscious of Ronny Dakyn sitting at the far end of one of the tables diligently writing. Adrian could see nothing of him but his bright golden head bent over two black arms. Waiting there, he felt horribly embarrassed.

Coulter, the head prefect, glanced round the room. “Who sent for this fag?” he asked.

Dakyn raised his head from his writing and saw Adrian. “Oh, it's all right. I sent for him,” he said and beckoned to Adrian, who made his way towards him through the armchairs as if through a hostile jungle. When Adrian reached him, Dakyn had resumed his writing and Adrian stood waiting beside his chair. He cast a quick side-glance across the room, but no one, he saw with relief, was any longer conscious of his presence.
The room was full of talk. Dakyn pushed away the list he was making out and looked up at him. “Would you like to be my fag, Glynde?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” Adrian replied almost in a whisper. He did not know what the offer implied, but whatever it implied he would unhesitatingly have accepted.

“It's not a bad job, you know,” said Dakyn. “You've got to do jobs for me and look after my study, and you get off all other fagging.”

“Thank you!” Adrian murmured.

“Right!” said Dakyn. “Come to my study in about ten minutes and I'll put you up to some of the jobs.”

Adrian threaded his way back through the chairs to the door. It seemed to him that his unspoken desires were being miraculously fulfilled. When he had shut the door behind him, he received the stare of Common-room as he had received the stare of Hall.

“Well?” asked a noisy, inquisitive boy called Jenkins whom Adrian had hated from the first. He was sitting near the door beside another boy with a large mouth.

“Dakyn's made me his fag,” said Adrian.

“You? Well, I'm damned.”

“Know him at home?” asked the big-mouthed boy.

“No,” said Adrian.

The big-mouthed boy wagged his head mysteriously at Jenkins.

“Must be a case,” he said with mock disapproval.

Jenkins looked searchingly at Adrian. “Is it a case?” he asked.

Adrian had no idea what they were talking about. “I don't know,” he said vaguely.

Both the boys laughed, and the one with the big mouth mimicked Adrian's “I don't know,” exaggerating its tone into one of farcical demureness.

Adrian's duties as prefect's fag afforded him some respite from the incessant rowdiness of Common-room. He had to polish Dakyn's shoes, brush his clothes, keep his study clean, get tea ready for him there on certain occasions and wash up afterwards, as well as perform various other jobs which kept him pleasantly and not too onerously employed.

Though these things brought him into touch with Ronny Dakyn several times a day, he did not become familiar with him. It was not to be expected and Adrian had not expected it. He was far too much in awe of Dakyn to have dared to respond with much success even if Dakyn had encouraged him to talk. But he was quite content, in his state of humble adoration, to black Daykn's shoes and brush his clothes; indeed merely to handle these intimate possessions of his hero gave him an ecstatic happiness. He polished the shoes until they shone like jet, brushed black coats and waistcoats and pressed grey trousers until Dakyn looked immaculate. Nor was Dakyn unappreciative.

“I must say, Glynde,” he said one day, when Adrian had brought him his shoes, “you're a marvel with shoes.”

Adrian soon found that he could craftily take advantage of his job to enjoy a little of the peace and quietness which it was so difficult to find downstairs. In the middle of tidying Dakyn's study he would choose a book from the top shelf where Dakyn kept novels and stories, and kneeling on a chair with his elbows on the table he would read happily, keeping one ear open for footsteps in the passage. There was just time, at the first sound of a step, to snap the book shut, pop it back in its place, and be dusting a picture-frame before the study door opened.

But one day he had incautiously allowed himself to become so engrossed in
Mr. Polly
, which he had been
reading in this way by short stages, that Dakyn was standing in the doorway watching him before he could pull himself together. He sat back on his heels on the chair, the book blatantly open on the table before him, scarlet in the face. Dakyn was looking at him with eyebrows raised and a smile on his face. Adrian gazed back at him helplessly. At last he found a voice.

“I … I'm very sorry,” he stammered. “I … I'm afraid I was reading one of your books.”

Dakyn shut the door. “Well, why shouldn't you?” he said. “I don't mind. You can always come in here when the place is empty. Except of course in the afternoon when you ought to be out,” he added with mock severity, and Adrian knew he was referring to the afternoon when he had caught him in Common-room. He turned red with shame; but Dakyn, seeing his mortification, gave him a fatherly pat on the back. “All right,” he said. “I didn't really think you would.” He bent over Adrian's shoulder and looked at the book. “What was it?” he said. “Oh,
Mr. Polly
. Yes, a damned good book. No wonder I caught you bending. Well, I've got to work now, so you must scoot. Leave
Mr. Polly
here on the table, under these others. Then he'll be handy when you want him.”

It was not long before Adrian became conscious of Ellenger. He was continually looking into Dakyn's study and Adrian would sometimes find him sitting there alone, reading or writing. On such occasions, unless he had something to do for Dakyn that could not be postponed, Adrian would retire discomfited. Often when Adrian was reading there, it would be Ellenger's step which interrupted him, and Adrian got to know that step so well, to distinguish it so clearly from the light,
cheerful step of Dakyn, that he would have his book put away and be emerging from the study before Ellenger was half-way down the passage.