To You, Mr Chips (10 page)

Chips reminded him that he had long retired from schoolmastering and took no active part in the life of the modern Brookfield, but Menvers brushed the implication aside. 'Nonsense, Chips. My spies report that your footsteps are heard on dark nights pacing up and down the old familiar corridors. . . . What was that tag in Virgil you used to teach us--begins 
'Quadrupedante putrem'--
ah yes, I remember now--
'Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.'
 Have I got it right?'

'Perfectly right,' answered Chips, 'except that--umph--I am not yet--umph--a ghost, and I was never--umph--a horse. . . . But I'm glad to find you still keep up your classical knowledge. It was never--umph--so considerable as to be--umph--a burden to you.'

So they talked and joked together throughout a simple but exquisitely expensive meal. Chips found that he still like Menvers, and neither more nor less because the fellow was a millionaire. Nor, in his innocence, did it occur to him as in the least remarkable that a wealthy City magnate should devote two hours of a busy day to reminiscing with an octogenarian schoolmaster. Finally, when they were on the point of shaking hands and wishing each other the best of luck, Menvers said:

'Oh, by the way, Chips, I happen to be on the board of National and International Trust, and I saw your name on our register the other day. . . . Hardly the sort of investment for 
you,
 I should have thought. Quite safe, mind you--don't think there's anything wrong about it. But what's the matter with War Loan for a staid old buffer like yourself?'

Chips explained about his bank manager's recommendation, to which Menvers listened with, it seemed, a touch of exasperation. 'Those fellows shouldn't take chances--why can't they leave that sort of thing to those in the game? . . . Not, mind you, that I want to give you a false impression. The stock's sound enough. . . . Fact is, I want as much of it for myself as I can get hold of. What did you pay for your packet?'

And Chips, of course, having no head for figures, couldn't remember. But by the time he reached his house at Brookfield that evening a long and (he thought) a quite unnecessarily costly telegram awaited him. It ran:

AFTER YOUR DEPARTURE I FOUND OUT PRICE YOU PAID FOR NATS AND INTERNATS STOP OFFER YOU DOUBLE IF YOU WILL SELL STOP BEG YOU TO DO SO AND DEVOTE PROFIT IF YOU WISH TO SCHOOL MISSION OR ANY SIMILAR RACKET REGARDS CHARLES THE ROOFWALKER.

Now Chips, had he been a shrewd thinker in financial matters, would have argued: This man wants my stock so urgently that he is apparently willing to pay twice the market price for it. Ergo since he is a financier and in the know, there must be something especially promising about it, and I should do better to refuse his offer and hold on. But Chips was not a shrewd thinker of this kind. He was simple enough to feel that acceptance of the offer was an easy way of obliging Menvers and at the same time benefiting a deserving charity. So he wrote (not telegraphed) an acceptance; and that was that.

April, remember. In June, as you probably won't need to remember, National and International Trust crashed into spectacular bankruptcy. When Chips saw the newspaper headlines his immediate reaction made him write to Menvers a sympathetic note in which he said:

'I feel that your generous purchase of my shares was so recent that I cannot possibly allow you to bear any extra loss, however small, that would otherwise have fallen on me. I am therefore enclosing my cheque for the full amount. . . .'

By return came a scribbled postcard enclosed in an envelope:

'I have torn up your cheque. Don't be a damned fool. I could see this coming and I wanted to get you out in time. If you must help me, pray for me. . . .'

Two days later the arrest of Charles E. Menvers on serious and complicated charges of fraud provided the City with its biggest sensation for years.

Chips, as I have stressed all along, did not understand High Finance. His business code, so far as he had any, was simple--to sell things fairly (though in point of fact he never sold anything in his life except old books to a second-hand dealer), to pay all debts promptly (which was easy for him, as he never owed anything but gas and lighting bills), and to give generously to the needy (which was also easy for him, as he was in the habit of living well within his income). Simple--yes, simple as his life. He didn't understand the money axis on which the lives of so many people revolve--or stop revolving. What he 
did
 understand, however, was the notion that any one of his old boys never ceased to be 
his,
 no matter what happened . . . no matter 
what
 happened . . . and therefore, though he was old enough to find such a duty arduous, he attended every session of the four-day trial of Charles Menvers.

He sat for hours in one of the back rows of the public gallery at the Old Bailey, listening to expositions by counsel, long arguments by accounting experts, judicial rulings on incomprehensible issues, and (the only really interesting interludes) the prisoner's evidence under cross-examination. For Menvers, in that stuffy courtroom, provided the sole focus of anything even remotely aligned to humanity. The rest of the proceedings--long discussions as to the interpretation of abstruse points in company law--passed beyond Chips's intelligence as effortlessly as had the 'x
²
 + y
²
' of his algebra lessons seventy years before. All he gathered was that Menvers had done something (or perhaps many things) he shouldn't have done, but in a game so complicated that it must (Chips could not help feeling) be extremely difficult to know what should be done at all. Only one incident contributed much to the old man's understanding, and that was when the Crown Prosecuting Counsel asked Menvers why he had done something or other. Then had followed:

Menvers:
 Well, I took a chance.

C.P.C.:
 You mean a risk?

Menvers:
 A risk, if you prefer the word.

C.P. C.:
 And what you risked was other people's money?

Menvers:
 They gave it to me to risk.

C.P.C.:
 Why do you suppose they did that?

Menvers:
 Because they were greedy for the big profits that can only be obtained by taking risks and they didn't know how to take risks themselves.

C.P.C.:
 I see. That is your opinion?

Menvers:
 Yes.

C.P.C.:
 You admit, then, that your policy has always been to take risks?

Menvers:
 Yes, always.

Chips smiled a little at that. But two hours later he did not smile when, after the verdict of 'Guilty on all counts,' the Judge began: 'Charles Menvers, you have been found guilty of a crime which deeply stains the honour of the City of London as well as brings ruin into the lives of thousands of innocent persons who trusted you. . . . A man of intelligence, educated at a school whose traditions you might better have absorbed, you deliberately chose to employ your gifts for the exploitation rather than for the enrichment of society. . . . It is my sad duty to sentence you to imprisonment for twelve years. . . .'

Chips paled at the words, was startled by them, could hardly believe them for a moment. And then (such was his respect for English law and its implacable impartiality) he told himself, as he shuffled out of the court: Well, I suppose it must have been something pretty serious, or they wouldn't have come down on him so hard. . . .

He had asked for permission to see Menvers during the trial but it had not been granted; in lieu of that, he intended to offer what help he could to Mrs. Menvers, and with this object planned to intercept her as she left the court. It had not occurred to him that some scores of journalists would have the same idea, plus a greater knack in carrying it out. He did, however, contrive a meeting at her house that evening. He introduced himself and she seemed relieved to talk to him. 'Twelve years!' she kept repeating. 'Twelve years!'

He stayed with her for an hour, and between them, during that time, there grew a warm and gentle friendliness. 'Charles was a good man,' she told him simply; and he answered: 'Yes--umph--I know he was, the young rascal!'

'Young?'
 she echoed, and then again came the terror: 'Twelve years! Oh, my God, what will he be like in twelve years?'

And Chips, touching her arm with a movement rather than a contact of sympathy, murmured: 'My dear; I am eighty-one,' which might have seemed irrelevant, yet was somehow the most comforting thing he could think of.

Later she said: 'He's worried about the boy. We were to have sent him to Brookfield next term. Of course that's impossible now . . . the disgrace . . . everybody knowing who he is . . . that was the only thing Charles really worried about. . . .'

'Tell him not to worry,' said Chips.

The next day, from Brookfield, he wrote to the prisoner in Pentonville Gaol:

'MY DEAR MENVERS,--
I understand that you always take risks--even on behalf of others. Take another risk, then, and send your boy to Brookfield as you had intended. . .
 .'

Young Menvers arrived on the first September day of the following school term, by which time his father had already served a month of the sentence. The boy was a nice-looking youngster, with more than a touch of the same eager charm that had lured thousands of profit-seekers to their doom.

On those first nights of term, despite his age and the fact that he was no longer on the official staff of the school, Chips would often take prep in substitution for some other master who had not yet arrived. He rather enjoyed being asked to do so; and the boys were equally satisfied. It relieved the misery of term-beginning to see old Chips sitting there at the desk on the platform, goggling over his spectacles, introducing new boys, and sometimes making jokes about them. Of course there was no real work done on such an evening, and it was an understood thing that one could rag the old man very gently and that he rather liked it.

But that evening there was an especial sensation--young Menvers. 'I say, d'you see the fellow at the end of the third row--new boy--his name's Manvers--his father's in prison!' 'No? Really?' 'Yes--doing twelve years for fraud--didn't you read about it in the papers?' 'Gosh, I wonder what it feels like to have your old man in quod!' 'Mine said it served him right--we lost a packet through him. . . .' And so on.

And suddenly Chips, following his age-old custom, rose from his chair, his hand trembling a little as it held the typewritten sheet.

'We have--umph--quite a number of newcomers this term. . . . Umph--umph. . . . Astley . . . your uncle was here, Astley--umph--he exhibited--umph--a curious reluctance to acquire even the rudiments of a classical education--umph--umph. . . . Brooks Secundus. . . . These Brooks seem--umph--to have adopted the--umph--Tennysonian attribute of--umph--going on for ever. . . . Dunster . . . an unfortunate name, Dunster . . . but perhaps you will claim benefit of the 
"lucus a non lucendo"
 theory--umph--umph . . . eh?'

Laughter . . . laughter . . . the usual laughter at the usual jokes. . . . And then, in its due alphabetical order:

'Menvers. . . .'

Chips said:

'Menvers--umph--your father was here--umph--I well remember him--umph--I hope you will be more careful than he has been--umph--lately . . . (laughter). He was always a crazy fellow . . . and once he did the craziest thing that ever was known at Brookfield . . . climbed to the roof of the hall to rescue a kitten . . . the kitten--umph--had more sense--didn't need rescuing--so this--umph--crazy fellow--umph--in sheer petulance, I suppose--climbed to the top of the belfry--umph--and tied up the weathervane with a Brookfield tie. . . . When you go out, take a look at the belfry and think what it meant--umph--crazy fellow, your father, Menvers--umph--umph--I hope you won't take after him. . . .'

Laughter.

And afterwards, alone in his sitting-room across the road from the school, Chips wrote again to the prisoner in Pentonville:

'MY DEAR MENVERS, 
I took a risk too, and it was well taken. . .
 .'

CHAPTER FIVE

MR. CHIPS MEETS A SINNER

When Chips went on his annual climbing holidays he never told people he was a schoolmaster and always hoped that there was nothing in his manner or behaviour that would betray him. This was not because he was ashamed of his profession (far from it); it was just a certain shyness about his own personal affairs plus a disinclination to exchange 'shop' talk with other schoolmasters who might more openly reveal themselves. For when Chips was on holiday he didn't want to talk about his job--he didn't even want to think about it. Examination papers, class lists, terminal reports--all could dissolve into the thin air of the mountains, leaving not a wrack behind.