To You, Mr Chips (8 page)

'He says the motor-car charged straight into him!' shouted Aunt Flo, for Uncle Richard's benefit.

'Let the boy tell his own story,' said the Candidate.

That calmed them, and also, in a queer way, it gave Gerald calmness of his own. He continued: 'The motor-car came charging into me and knocked me over--'

'Was it going fast?'

'It was going 
very
 fast,' answered Gerald, and added raptly: 'Nearly as fast as the Scotch Express.'

'He's all trains,' said Aunt Flo. 'Never thinks of anything else.'

But the Candidate showed an increasing unwillingness to listen to her. 'So the motor-car was travelling fast,' he said to Gerald quietly, 'and I suppose you were knocked down because you couldn't get away in time. Is that it?'

'Yes, sir--Sir Thomas.'

'And what happened then?'

'The motor-car stopped and two men got out and came up to me. One of them was wearing a blue badge.'

'Beale!' cried Aunt Flo. 'Didn't I say so? Richard, he says one of them was Beale himself!'

'Please go on,' said the Candidate.

Gerald said after a pause: 'They picked me up and stared at me.'

'Stared at you?'

'Yes. That's what they did.'

'And what after that?'

What, indeed? Gerald could not, for the moment, remember just how everything had happened. But suddenly the answer came. 'They laughed,' he said.

'They 
what?'
 asked the Candidate, leaning forward nearer to Gerald.

'He says they jeered at him!' shouted Aunt Flo.

'They laughed,' continued Gerald, with gathering confidence. 'And one of them said it was all my fault for being in the way. He hit me.' Pause. 'He hit me in the eye. I ran away then and they both chased me, but they couldn't catch me.' He sighed proudly. 'I ran too fast.'

'Richard--Richard--just listen to that--would you believe it--he says they hit him!'

'Wuff-wuff--my--goodness--wuff--just wait--scandalous--wuff--'

'Tell me now,' said the Candidate, still quietly. 'You say one of the men hit you and gave you this black eye. You're sure he hit you?'

'He hit me,' answered Gerald, with equal quietness, 
'twice.'

Gerald stayed in bed for several days after that, for it seemed that despite all the doctoring and hot bricks, he was destined to catch the thoroughly bad cold that he deserved. For a time his temperature was high--high enough to swing the hours along in an eager, throbbing trance, invaded by consciousness of strange things happening in the rooms below and in the streets outside. Voices and footsteps grew noisier and more continual, shouting and singing waved distantly over the rooftops. Aunt Flo brought him jellies and beef-tea, and Uncle Richard sometimes came up for a cheery word; but for the most part Gerald was left alone, while the rest of the house abandoned itself to some climax of activity. He could feel all that, as he lay huddled up under the bedclothes. But he was not unhappy to be left alone, because he felt the friendliness of the house like a warm animal all around him, something alive and breathing and lovely to be near. There had been nothing in his life like this before. He could not remember his father and mother (they had both died when he was a baby); and Aunt Lavinia, who usually took charge of him during the school holidays, lived in a dull, big house in a dull, small place where nothing ever happened--nothing, at any rate, like this magic of Browdley streets and Ulio's ice-cream and climbing right to the very top of Mickle.

But the most wonderful thing of all had been when the Candidate bent over him and touched his forehead. As he lay feverishly in bed and thought of it, it all happened over again, but with more detail--with every possible detail.

'Gerald Holloway, I owe everything to you. If that letter had been discovered . . .' And suddenly Gerald thought of a big improvement: the Candidate was really his father, who hadn't actually died but had somehow got lost, but now here he was, found again, and they were both going to be together for always. They would live in the Parade, quite near to Uncle Richard, and Gerald need never go back to Grayshott except to see Martin Secundus and ask him to come and stay with them. 'Father . . . this is Martin . . .'

And when he grew up he would go on serving his father in the Secret Service, because he was more than an ordinary father. He was a Loving Father, like the Father people talked about in church.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked through Gerald's dreaming, ticking on the seconds to the time when he should be grown up and a man. What a long time ahead, but it was passing; he was eight already, and he could remember as far back as when he was four and Aunt Lavinia hit him for blowing on his rice pudding to make it cold.

But why '
Our
 Father'? 
My
 Father, he said to himself proudly, remembering how the Candidate had smiled.

So the hours passed in that shabby little back bedroom at Uncle Richard's; but Gerald never noticed the shabbiness, never noticed that the furniture was cheap and the wallpaper faded, never realised from such things that Uncle Richard and Aunt Flo were poor people compared with rich Aunt Lavinia in her dull, big house. All he felt was the realness here, and the unrealness of everywhere else in the world.

One morning the doctor pronounced him better and fit to get up. 'His school begins again on Tuesday,' said Aunt Flo. 'Will he be able to go?'

'Good gracious, yes,' replied the doctor. 'Good gracious, yes.'

Till then Gerald had had hopes that somehow the cloud of Grayshott on the horizon might be lifted, that the holidays would not end as all other holidays had done; but now, hearing that most clinching 'Good gracious, yes,' he felt a pin point of misery somewhere inside the middle of him, and it grew and grew with every minute of thinking about it.

That night was very quiet and there were no footsteps or voices, and in the morning, when he got up and dressed and went downstairs, he saw that the door of the parlour was wide open.

'Well,' said Uncle Richard, tapping the barometer as usual, 'so here you are again, young shaver.'

There was a difference somewhere. Something had happened. After breakfast he began to ask, as he had so often begun: 'Can Olive and I--' and Uncle Richard said: 'Eh, what's that? Olive's not here any more--wuff-wuff--she's gone away with her father.'

'Gone away? The Candidate's gone away?'

Uncle Richard laughed loudly. 'Don't you go calling him the Candidate any more, my boy. Because he isn't. He's the Member now.'

'What's the Member?'

'It means he's Got In. Margin of twenty-three--narrow squeak--but that doesn't matter. Still, it shows he wouldn't have done but for young Beale's behaviour with that motor-car of his--perfectly scandalous thing--as I said at the time--perfectly scandalous--wuff-wuff--and--consequently was--as I said--it turned the scale. Turned the scale--wuff-wuff--didn't I say it would?'

All this was nothing that Gerald could understand much about, except that the Candidate had gone. 'Uncle Richard,' he said slowly, and then paused. Aunt Flo shouted: 'Richard, why don't you answer the boy? He wants to ask you something!'

Uncle Richard put his hand to his ear. 'Ask away, my boy.'

'Uncle Richard--will--it--all--ever--happen--again?'

'Eh, what? Happen again? Will what happen again?'

Then Gerald knew it was no use; even Uncle Richard couldn't understand. He ran away into the greenhouse and stared through the red glass.

The next morning Aunt Flo wakened him early and gave him a brown egg for breakfast, because he had 'a journey in front of him.' Then he kissed her and said good-bye, and looked at the tricycle in the greenhouse for the last time. Uncle Richard took him to the station and told the guard about his luggage and where he was going. Thump, thump, thump, along the wooden platform; the train came in, actually drawn by a Four-Six-Nought, but Gerald had hardly the heart to notice it.

'Good-bye, my boy. Wuff-wuff. Don't forget to change at Crewe--the guard will put you right. And here you are--this is to buy yourself some sweets when you get back to school.'

Fancy, thought Gerald, Uncle Richard didn't know that you weren't allowed to buy sweets at school; still, a shilling would be useful; perhaps he would buy some picture-postcards of railway engines. 'Oh, thank you, Uncle Richard. . . . Good-bye . . . Goodbye.'

'Good-bye, my boy.'

Gerald kept his head out of the window and waved his hand till the train curved out of sight of the station. Then, as the wheels gathered speed, they began to say things. . . . Grayshott tonight, Grayshott tonight. . . . This time a week ago. . . . This time two weeks ago. . . . Oh dear, how sad that was. . . . The train entered a tunnel and Gerald decided: If I can hold my breath until the end of this tunnel, then it means that I shall soon go to Uncle Richard's again and the Candidate will be there and Olive too, and we shall all climb Mickle together and see Mrs. Jones and Nibby. . . . He held his breath till he felt his ears singing and his eyes pricking . . . then he had to give way while the train was still in the tunnel. That was an awful thing to have had to do. He took out of his pocket the pencil he had poked Polly with (that first morning, how far away!) and began to write his name on the cardboard notice that forbade you to throw bottles on the line. 'Gerald,' he wrote; but then, more urgently, it occurred to him to black out the 'p' in 'Spit,' so that it read 'Please do not Sit.' Very funny, that was; he must tell Martin Secundus about that, because Martin had his own train-joke when there was nobody else in the compartment; he used to cross out the 's' in 'To Seat Five,' so that it read 'To Eat Five.' Gerald did not think this was quite as funny as 'Please do not Sit.' But suddenly in the midst of thinking about it, a wave of misery came over him at having to leave Uncle Richard's, and he threw himself into a corner seat and hid his face in the cushions.

All this happened a long time ago. Gerald never stayed with Uncle Richard again.

Uncle Richard is dead, but Aunt Flo is still living, an old woman, in a small cottage on the outskirts of Browdley--for Number 2, The Parade, has been pulled down to make room for Browdley's biggest super-cinema. The parrot, too, still lives--as parrots will. Just the two of them, in that small cottage.

The Candidate is dead, and Olive is married--to somebody in India, not such a good match, folks say.

The Other Candidate, however, has done pretty well for himself, as you would realise if you heard his name. He is in Parliament, of course, but not as member for Browdley. Indeed, if he ever thinks of Browdley, it is with some natural distaste for a town whose slanderous gossip circulated the most fantastic stories about him once, delaying his career, he reckons, by three whole years. He is very popular and a fine after-dinner speaker.

And Gerald grew up to be happy and miserable like any other boy. He passed from Grayshott to Brookfield, where he became head of house; then he went to Cambridge and took a double-first. But it is true to say that the world was never more wonderful to him than during that holiday at Uncle Richard's when he was eight, and never afterwards was he as miserable (not even during the War) as in the train going back to Grayshott; never did he adore anyone quite so purely as he adored the Candidate, or hate so fiercely as he hated the Other Candidate.

And never afterwards did he tell such a downright thumping lie, nor was there a time ever again when right and wrong seemed to him so simply on this side and on that. A little boy then, and a man now if he had lived; he was killed on July 1st, 1916. When Chips read out his name in Brookfield Chapel that week, his voice broke and he could not go on.

CHAPTER THREE

YOUNG WAVENEY

When Waveney had been at Brookfield for a month he was moved up into the Lower Fourth, Mr. Pearson's form; which was a pity, because he did not like Mr. Pearson. Nor, to be quite frank, did Mr. Pearson like 
him.
 For Waveney was everything that Mr. Pearson was not; he was young, he was attractive, and he possessed an inexhaustible vitality. Mr. Pearson, on the other hand, was no longer young; he had never been particularly attractive, and he had lately become exceedingly tired. Actually he was forty-three, and owing to a weak heart that made him ineligible for the army, he had come to Brookfield as a wartime deputy.

How a schoolmaster must envy a boy who is obviously going to grow up into a man of much superior personality to his own, and how easily that envy can turn to loathing if the boy senses it and is cruel!

Waveney was not cruel, but he was a passionate hater of injustice, and before he had been in Mr. Pearson's class for a week, that passionate hatred was aroused.

For Mr. Pearson had a 
system.
 The system, which had served well enough at his previous school, was new to Brookfield; and it was as follows. If anyone in his class talked or fooled about while his back was turned, Mr. Pearson would swing round to try and catch him, but if (being rather short-sighted) he failed to do so, he would say: 'Stand up the boy who did that.' Nobody would respond, of course, because there was a feeling at Brookfield that a schoolmaster had no 
right
 to ask such a question. He ought to spot offenders for himself, or else leave them unspotted. For, after all, as young Waveney eloquently remarked, if you ride your bicycle on the footpath, you may be copped, but you aren't expected to go to the police station and give yourself up; and all life was rather like that, one way and another.