Jaspar Tristram/Chapter 1
JASPAR TRISTRAM
CHAPTER I
It was late in the afternoon of a desolate and cold January
day when Jaspar Tristram arrived at Scarisbrick on his way to
Dr. Tower’s school as a new boy. The journey had been
long; at every stage that he had left behind his heart had
sunk more and more, and now, as the fly began heavily to
lumber off, he leant out of the window, still, if he might, to
keep the station to the last in view as the one remaining link
by which he could fancy himself yet bound to home. So
when at length it was hidden from his eyes by an envious
turn of the road, he drew in his head and flinging himself
back, burst into a passion of tears. Doubtless it was true
that what he was obliged to call his home was very far from
being happy; and true too that for weeks he had been looking
forward to this going for the first time to school as to an
entrance into a life in which those about him would not, as
at Telscombe Rectory, be for ever finding fault. Yet now
somehow the worst of home seemed as if it could not but be
better than the best of that unknown world towards which
he was thus irresistibly being forced. And then suddenly it
occurred to him—and at the thought he sat upright and alert
and looked out—that after all it was possible to escape. It
would be easily enough done: the horse now, as they mounted
a hill, was only walking, and it needed but to open the door
and slip out and he would be safe from pursuit amidst the
thick furze of the common that now spread as far as he could
see on either side of the way. But it was only for the briefest of moments that he was thus dazzled by a flash of hope; in another it had disappeared and he was in darkness still darker than before. No, he was helpless; for he could only have gone home; and where would have been the good of that? Whatever there might be before him, he must bear it as best he could; and the fly, as it imperturbably rolled on, seemed to be the instrument of some mysterious force against which it was useless to fight. And as, with a glooming gaze, he continued to stare out of window, in the gathering dark the heath appeared so inexpressibly forlorn and ghostly that his melancholy grew yet more intense. He wondered if in the whole world there was any one half so wretched as he. How happy and contented they must be, the people who were clustering round the fires which glowed so comfortably through the red blinds of the little cottages by the roadside! How cheerful they looked, the labourers he met trudging by! But could any one be otherwise, who was not being carried off to school?
A few moments more and the fly turned in at a gate and running smoothly and softly over the gravel of a drive, stopped at last before a portico of which the pillars glimmered white in the shades of the winter evening now fast drawing in. The driver clambered down and pulled out the bell; the echoes it awoke appeared to speak of an endless series of great empty rooms and passages. He tried to make out what the place was like; but it was now too dark to be able to see more than that the house was big and high and looked singularly mysterious and forbidding; to the left there seemed to be a sort of shrubbery beyond which again was another building with one long range of lighted windows; across their uncurtained panes from time to time moved dark figures which must surely be those of the boys. But at that moment the door was opened by a maid-servant who with much bantering the while—everybody but himself had some one to speak to—helped the man to carry in his box; and he himself got slowly out and went indoors:—just to his fancy, it seemed, like one of those State prisoners he had read of, who, when he descended from his coach at the foot of the scaffold, was still left free, but only to mount to the block.
And presently he was with the Doctor and being 'put through his facings' as the old gentleman called it with a laugh. He, for his part, could see no particular cause for merriment in the remark at which however he did his best to smile; but he was sadly conscious that his nervousness only allowed him to do so after rather a sickly fashion. And then he became absorbed in the task of trying to answer the various questions put to him in such a way as would, he thought, be most likely to please. Yet, anxious though he was to impress his new master with the extent of his attainments, he was even more so to gain his good-will, whose power over him was to be so great, and whom at any rate he would have given much to have made well-disposed towards him, so that he might have had at least one person in that all-strange world of whom he could have thought as a friend; and he was therefore at no little pains to throw into his voice such inflections of humility and deprecation as were, he conceived, best suited to gain this end. But the effort was such a strain that: his examination seemed already to have lasted hours, when the Doctor suddenly came to a stop. If only something would interrupt them and so allow him to get off without further danger to the good impression he flattered himself he had already made!
And even as he wished a bell began to ring. With an obvious movement of satisfaction, the Doctor let his coat-tails drop and, leaving the fire before which he had all this while been standing:
'Ah, tea!' he said, 'come with me!' and he was already moving towards the door, when, stopping and half-turning round:
'You must remember, Tristram, to say "sir," when you speak to me, do you hear?'
'Yes—sir!' he said, and not without some difficulty; for indeed this was an express acknowledgment of those new conditions of life, which since he could not altogether escape, it was his effort still if possible to differentiate from those imposed on the rest. He had indeed been told that he would have to call the masters 'sir,' but, having so far got out of using the word, he had begun to hope that they would accept instead such a tone of deference as that in which he had been careful to speak. It was disappointing to find himself mistaken; and then too this being addressed by his surname seemed as if it had made him lose in a moment every inch of the ground he had been at such pains to win, and set a gulf between the Doctor and himself, which he was sure that he would never succeed in crossing.
Presently, as they drew near the end of a low narrow passage, against one wall of which there hung a long row of curiously-shaped boards whose use it was quite beyond him to guess at, he caught a muffled sound of talk that, as the door was opened, became a hubbub of chatter, and then, as the Doctor was perceived, sank into silence, but only to be immediately succeeded by a hum of 'New boy' which went buzzing round the room from form to form. Meanwhile the Doctor, stopping, had put a hand upon his shoulder with a gesture which for a moment Jaspar almost took for one of kindly protection, and had begun a little speech about new playfellows, and how you should treat them. He for his part the while stood still, looking indeed intently at the floor, but conscious all the time that many pairs—how many he could not tell—of curious eyes were bent on him: and that the boys were nudging each other and pointing at him; and some one said:
'See how he's been blubbing!'
And his ears tingled as they used to do when boxed by his Guardian's wife, and his cheeks burned so hotly as to make him blink. Somehow too he felt that he and the others already understood each other quite well; and that he was saying to them as plain as if he had used words:
'I'm awfully sorry, but it's really not my fault, all the rot he's talking about being kind to a new-comer!'
While they on their side were making answer:
'Oh, that's all jolly fine, but just you wait until we get you alone!'
But once he had dropped into a seat, no one seemed to pay him any further heed, and he began to look about. How ever could they laugh and talk as they were doing? And how, above all, could they find such an appetite for those stodgy blocks of bread and scrape? He supposed—though it was hard to realise—that he would by and by be one of them, and feeling towards some new chap as doubtless they were then doing towards him; but he was sure that no one ever would see him helping with anything like the heartiness which they displayed to clear of their contents those high-piled dishes they were pushing about the clothless table, up and down and from side to side. But he thought he would like a little tea; and very shyly and politely he asked his neighbour on the form to give him some.
'What is it you want? Tea?' inquired the boy whom he had thus addressed, stopping in the midst of an animated conversation with some one on his other side; and then in an assured voice that, as Jaspar felt, contrasted curiously with his own diffident tones:
'I say, Piggy,' he cried, 'shove us over the jug, will you?'
'It's made out of the fellows' old slate-pencil ends, you know!' he added, as he saw the look of dismay wherewith the other considered the greyish-coloured fluid to which he was being helped. Jaspar felt vaguely there was something very winning and pleasant in the way he spoke and laughed. But he had scarce set his lips to the mug, when there was a great scuffling of feet and a scraping of forms pushed back and everybody stood up for Grace. Some little distance off at the farther end of the room, over the heads of the boys, he could see the Doctor who, his eyes fast shut, and waggling to and fro his old white poll, was mumbling out some form of thanks to which, hardly waiting for the last word—'carter' it appeared to be—they all sang out 'Amen!' and began to troop tumultuously out; he could hear the foremost noisily hurrying upstairs, and hulloing and whooping as they went.
He let them one after another jostle past, being busy watching the Doctor as, slowly and with care, he stepped down from off the platform, and followed the other masters out. With a sort of fascination, he looked at the door as it swung slowly to, and the bang with which at last it shut seemed to announce that now indeed he was cut off from every possibility of help and left to sink or swim by himself. So turning dolefully in the opposite direction, he went out by the double-doors through which the others had disappeared. In the little stone-flagged passage just outside there was no one to be seen, but through a brick archway on the left was a steep dark staircase which must be that up which he had heard them go clattering a few minutes before. He was already sorry he had stayed behind; had he not done so he would not now have had to face them all at once, but going with the rest might perhaps have escaped notice altogether. However he could not stay where he was:
'I think I'll go up here!' he said out loud, and so began to mount the stairs, groping and stumbling as he went, for the steps were evidently much worn, nor was: there any light to show you where you ought to tread.
At the top was a small landing, and on the farther side a door; this he pushed open and then stopped short, dazed by the sudden change from darkness into light and taken aback by the general shout with which his appearance was greeted by the rest of the boys. He hesitated however but for a moment and then, moving forward half-mechanically, he saw himself in an instant surrounded by a crowd all hustling up about him, and all at the top of their voices asking questions of all sorts and kinds. Unable to distinguish a single voice amidst the din or a single face amongst the many which were pressing in on him at once, he was trying to think of what to say, when, with a sort of laugh that he had never heard before, one of them gave a companion a quick shove and sent him cannoning against him with a force so great as almost to bring them both to the ground; at the same instant he heard a cry:
‘Here’s Orr!’ and every one fell back.
Through the opening thus made he saw come lazily swaggering along, his hands deep in his trouser-pockets, a boy, who was taller by the whole of his bullet-head and broad shoulders than him or indeed, as it seemed, anybody there; at his side he recognised the little chap who had poured out the tea. For a moment or so Orr looked him in silence up and down; then, turning to one of those who were standing round:
‘What’s his name?’ he asked.
‘Tristram, Orr! Jaspar Tristram!’ they all shouted out. ‘Did you ever hear such a name?’
‘Oh, well,’ said Orr, ‘of course we can’t have such a rotten name as that here! What shall we call him?’
‘I votes we call him “Rosy ” as he blushes so!’ observed the good-looking small boy who stood by Orr; and even as he was speaking Jaspar noticed what a curious charm there was in his voice. Everybody began to applaud:
‘Rosy, Rosy!’ they cried.
‘I say,’ suddenly said a voice in his ear; it came from a boy who was sprawling across the desk, up against which he had been gradually pressed: ‘I say, do you know why your tie’s like a telescope?’ and at the same instant an arm was slipped quickly under his, and his tie was jerked so sharply out of his waistcoat that its sailor’s-knot was drawn into a wisp unpleasantly close about his throat.. And in the midst of the general laugh that followed, he saw one of them hitch his leg up on to the desk behind, evidently preparatory to scrambling up in order to get a better view of what was going forward.
‘I say!’ began another; but he did not answer, being busy tucking back his tie.
‘I say!’ repeated the other who had now elbowed his way to the front.
‘What?’ he asked in an impatient voice; he felt his temper beginning to give way. Never before had any one laid hands upon him after such a fashion; and, besides, it was very irritating to see Orr standing there looking on as if the whole thing were being done for his amusement.
‘Squat! You’re an ass an’ I’m not!’ the other gabbled out, evidently delighted at having got the answer he wanted; and there was‘a fresh roar of laughter.
‘Well, I call it a beastly chouse, humbugging a new chap like that his very first night!’ interrupted Orr’s small friend; and then added: ‘But, I say, tell us, do you smoke?’
The question appeared odd, but not only was it put in a simple kindly way that contrasted with that in which the others had spoken, but it was asked besides by the only boy who had been the least nice to him, and so he answered ‘No’ in such a tone as might, he hoped, be understood to mean that if it would give his questioner any pleasure he would certainly try and learn. Nor did he the least understand what was meant by the general shout of:
‘Oh, what a beastly bung! why you’re doing it now!’ with which his reply was greeted.
But the small boy looked round with a pained and reproving air, and then, as silence ensued, went on:
‘Well, are you up to snuff?’
By now, however, Jaspar had begun to have a dim s suspicion that he was being made fun of, and he was thus still considering within himself what answer he had better make to this second inquiry, which seemed still more extraordinary and unintelligible than the first, when Orr broke in with:
‘Oh, come along, Els, do! I’ll give you a ride!’ and hitching him up on his back, he ran lightly off, followed by the rest, whooping and shouting, just, so Jaspar thought, like a lot of savages.
Scarcely had they vanished through the doorway when the master entered who was that evening to keep school. By him he was appointed a desk at which to sit and furnished with such books as he wanted for the next day’s work. So for a while he did his best to keep his thoughts fixed on the lesson he had been given to prepare. But presently, do what he would, they began to stray off towards the home he had that morning left, and soon the page was swimming before him in a mist of tears. Raising his head he threw a despairing look round the room; it was quiet enough now; the only sounds he heard were the creaking of the master’s boots as he walked slowly up and down; the dreamily-mournful flaring of the gas burning in uncovered jets high up on bare cross-bars; and the low murmur of a boy two places off upon his right, who was softly repeating something to himself, now raising his head and looking about, now again consulting his book. Through the sort of haze with which the place seemed filled, he saw and noted the cracked and dirty yellow maps hanging awry against the dingy walls; the uncurtained windows, through the steam on which you could just perceive the close blackness of the winter’s night that seemed, as it were, to be pressing against them on the other side; and the deal boards of the floor all splotched with ink. Everything was very strange: there was not so much as a fire whose cheerful blaze he could have welcomed as a friend.
And then, in the course of his rounds, the master went into the farther room: as he disappeared through the narrow doorway there was a general sigh of relief, and everybody began to take their ease. Just opposite him, side by side, were Orr and Els; the former, leaning back against the wall, was looking with a smile at his companion; the latter, alert and full of life, was sitting up, his hands already clenched and stretched out towards the big boy in readiness for the playful attack upon him which he was obviously intending, his eyes sparkling with fun, as now they followed the master’s retreating back, and now returned to Orr on whom, the moment that the coast was clear, he began to bear rapidly down. The other, pretending to be afraid, put up his arm to shelter himself and went edging off along the form. And what a savage look he gave the boy next him, who was a little slow in making room! At last, driven back as far as he could go:
‘Southwood, Southwood!’ he said in a loud whisper, as if he wished to make the master hear—‘Southwood, go on with your work!’
Then the kitchen-clock over the door struck nine, the school-bell began to clang—he could hear the rope as it rushed up and down—desk-lids banged and bed-time, it appeared, was come.
His neighbour on the form—the boy he had heard called Piggy—had already told him he was to sleep in the ‘Long Room,’ and now was good enough, not only to show him the way but even, when they got there, to point out which of the many beds was his. So, falling upon his knees on the narrow strip of gaudy drugget which covered the bare and well-scrubbed boards at the side, he buried his face and hands in the hollow of the knot-patterned counterpane, and began to say his prayers. He found no little comfort in the thought that at any rate the God he was praying to was the same whom he had had at home; yet after the consolation was exhausted, which he had at first derived from this reflection, he still knelt; for the longer he so remained, the longer, he felt, he was putting off the moment, the steady approach of which he had now for some while past been considering with dread, when, for the first time in his life, he would have to undress in public. However, at last he got up and, seating himself upon the edge of his bed, began slowly to take off his things. But having pulled off his jacket and waistcoat and undone his tie and shirt-collar, he stopped; under pretence of looking about he could still perhaps gain a few minutes. As for the rest, they were already most of them in bed; but five or six, including Orr, were looking on and applauding Els who, mounted upon his bed, was apparently trying to see how high by jumping he could send his nightshirt fluttering above his head.
‘I back you won’t do that, Dick!’ he cried to his friend, as, breathless, fora moment he paused. And then Jaspar after a last hesitation—for once he had taken it off he would never again be able to say of anything: ‘This was put on at home!’—pulled his jersey over his head. As he did so he heard a low hurried cry of ‘Cavé, cavé!’ and when once more he was able to see, the Doctor was in the room on which a sudden quiet had fallen. As for Els, he was lying on his back in bed, quite still and with the clothes drawn demurely up under his chin. Stopping for a moment by Orr as he went along, the Doctor said:
‘You had better tell Tristram of our rules as to not talking and so forth! And remember it is on you that I rely for their being kept!’
‘Yes, sir!’ answered Orr.
‘Good-night, boys!’ said the Doctor as he passed on.
‘Good-night, sir!’ they chorused in reply.
Scarcely, however, had the sound of his footsteps died away than they began to talk; but though for a while Jaspar tried to listen, he was so tired with all he had gone through since that morning he had left home, that very soon the different voices began to mingle drowsily one with another and he sank into a doze. He was woke by a noise as of some one jumping violently out of bed and darting across the room, and then there came muffled sounds as of a body being violently bethumped, and then a choking cry:
‘Look here!’ he heard Orr say, ‘the next time you wake me with your beastly snoring, Ill just jolly well stick my soap down your throat!’
Then, turning round, he put his hand under his pillow, and drew out his watch which he had tucked there with his handkerchief—now but a limp and sorry rag though that morning new and stiff—and, as it grew gradually warm in his clasp, once more fell asleep.