By imperceptible degrees Paul had dropped from the head of his class to the bottom, and in June failed to pass his examinations. He was shocked at his failure, for it seemed to place him in the category of dunces, but he quickly relapsed into apathy. He had failed—well, what of it? Repeat the year? No fear! He was still himself, a person more important than any other, and he could be even more completely himself in some town like Halifax or Montreal or Boston or New York.
When the prospect of the vacation was hanging drearily on his hands, Dr. Wilcove drove up to Mrs. Kestrell's door one morning and asked to see him. In the walnut and horsehair parlour, with its paper roses and musty odour, Dr. Wilcove assumed an expression which Paul intuitively understood.
"I know what you've come to tell me," he forestalled. "You're wondering how you can break it to me. It's all right."
In his own ears the words seemed hard and stilted. But he was by no means as unfeeling as Dr. Wilcove momentarily judged, for he had already lived through the impending tragedy and had been preparing himself for this day ever since the doctor had first refused to let him see Aunt Verona. If it was true that she had been unable to move or to speak during all the long dragging weeks since she had burned her manuscripts, Paul felt it much more merciful that she should cease to live. The news which he read on Dr. Wilcove's countenance made it again possible for the boy to think of Aunt Verona with a sense of ease. Henceforth, for ever and ever, though he should not see her again, she would be with him in spirit as the old Aunt Verona, the kind, quiet Aunt Verona who sat at his side when he did his lessons; who made hot scones for his supper and doughnut men and animals; who called out from the kitchen when he got the time wrong; the Aunt Verona who said pungent things about neighbours with whom she never communed; who broke into odd, serious smiles when he said amusing things; who had solemnly taught him the way to accept invitations and lift his hat; the Aunt Verona who understood his pride and emotional intemperance; the Aunt Verona to whom he could explain his alien ideas; who confirmed his faith in the validity of his own impressions and encouraged him to formulate them honestly; the Aunt Verona who set a daily example of mental playfulness; who had made him realize that there was a feminine attitude toward phenomena which differed from the masculine; the Aunt Verona who inquired what his teacher had said to him, what Miss Todd had worn at Flora Ashmill's strawberry social; the Aunt Verona who had been very important when she was younger and who might have continued to be important but for some unkind defeat; who had lived a life romantic and distinguished beyond the guessing capacities of Hale's Turning; the Aunt Verona who never overlooked his faults yet who never made fun of him nor took an unfair advantage; who reproved and corrected but never scolded; the Aunt Verona who—who collected texts. And the thought of those poor useless scraps of paper stuffed pell-mell into the cabinet on the dresser, that irrational but methodically compiled jumble, that painstakingly memorized but mad record of three or four hundred sermons that even the preacher had forgotten—this thought twisted his face out of shape, and Dr. Wilcove had cause to revise his hasty judgment and utter a little speech which Paul rather cynically prided himself on recognizing to be nicely adjusted to the occasion. He had long since acquired the habit of indulging grown-ups in their favourite attitudes, of playing down to their preconceptions of juvenility, of making responses that appeared to confirm them in their superior sense of fitness. Dr. Wilcove would have been put out, could he have known with what accuracy his young ward had, in his own mind, fore-echoed his words and the gravity of his tone.
The preparations for the funeral meant very little to Paul. He had not even flinched when he had suddenly realized why Mr. Kestrell was so busy in his workshop. He had a strange conviction that Aunt Verona was now, in some inexplicable manner, getting her second opportunity, that the empty years were being made up to her. He was equally sure that she was not languishing in that silly Sunday-school-card paradise in which he had once believed—as he had believed in Santa Claus.
And when the mealy-mouthed minister said at the funeral service that Verona Windell was now in the presence of her Maker, Paul squirmed in his seat and longed to yell hot denials of the ineptitude. He knew Aunt Verona would never have wished to go to what the minister spoke of as her Maker, and he knew that Aunt Verona was now where she had wished to be. The minister was getting it all crookedy. Who was he, to take smug charge of such a delicate ceremony!
As "chief mourner" Paul felt a sense of importance which soon left him, for he passionately resented the spirit of the proceedings. Why had all these people come? Curiosity? The minister spoke of "one whom some of you here gathered were privileged to see growing up as a girl amongst you." Yes, but if Aunt Verona had finally come back to them and for years and years steadfastly refused to receive them, what right had they to intrude now? They had been privileged to see her growing up because she was only a child and couldn't prevent it; but they hadn't been privileged to see her after she had grown up, and Paul begrudged the posthumous invasion upon her privacy. He had almost snarled when the villagers had walked past the ebony box and peered through the little window at Aunt Verona's wasted face.
Had Dr. Wilcove been gossiping? Did those farmer cousins from Upper Bridgetown know something of Aunt Verona's life abroad? Or was the minister guessing when he spoke glibly of "brilliant promise" and "voluntary retirement to a life of piety and seclusion" And why spoil it all by calling poor Aunt Verona "one of the 'Lord's handmaidens?" He pictured the twisted smile with which Aunt Verona would have received that description. He heard her saying, "Me, Verona Windell, a handmaiden of the Lord God! Well, well—poor God! You mustn't say that word, child—I can but you mustn't—promise!" Then she would have gone to the playroom and sat looking out of the window. Aunt Verona might conceivably be the handmaiden; but to think of her as one of the handmaidens, standing with a group of others, wearing the same robes, indistinguishable from them, her grey-black hair down her back—it was grotesque.
Not only did he scorn the minister, but he bore a grudge against the ecclesiastical machinery that had inculcated such untenable notions. Recalling the days when he had seen a tiny replica of hell in the red coals over which Aunt Verona had braised onions to cure his colds, he felt extravagant compassion for that child who had been so needlessly terrified, and extravagant anger against the Man of God who so obtusely lied—yes, lied, whether he meant to or not. Ass! And the service went on and on. Gurgling Gertrude—dear old thing, with tears in her eyes—was singing "Abide with Me."
Suddenly a flash of understanding came to him. Out of the dim past he recalled a phrase of Aunt Verona's which now explained much. "You must always try to listen to the sermon, child, and believe all they tell you in church. It was your mother's wish." That was it! That was why Aunt Verona had never checked his piety; that explained her queer smiles and reticences and sighs and head-shakes; that was why she could say "God" and he couldn't—because of some dying injunction of her sister's! The loyalty of Aunt Verona—and the unquestioning faith of his poor mother! It was beautiful that his mother had believed in all these notions. They ceased to be silly when she believed in them; they only became so when it was a question of his own mind. Aunt Verona had known better. And now he would, gradually, have to think back through his whole life and make a new allowance for the fact that Aunt Verona had been under a handicap regarding the free expression of her views. Was that, perhaps, why she had made him memorize texts? He was glad of his mother's injunction, glad that Aunt Verona had dutifully fulfilled her compact in so far as she was able, glad that he was free to disbelieve for himself now that Aunt Verona's stewardship was at an end and he was—well, scarcely grown-up, but very old for his age—much older than other boys of twelve, almost old enough to commence that vague worldwide adventure which he had often discussed with Aunt Verona.
The day on which Aunt Verona had burnt her manuscript had been a milestone in his experience. Her act had turned the key in a lock of desire. She had destroyed his only clue to romantic and adventurous living; therefore he must plan to see for himself all the marvels he and Aunt Verona had talked about, do all the marvels she and he knew there were to be done. She could have done them—had indeed commenced, then stopped. He must go on alone, pretending she was at his back to suggest and encourage, to call out whenever he skipped a note or got the time wrong. Dr. Wilcove had said Paul reminded him of his aunt, and Paul was shrewd enough to notice that the remark had been made when he was in a rebellious mood. Through the haze of memory there came a ring of revolutionary spears against conventional bucklers. It came in the form of daring epigrams muttered by Aunt Verona which, though incomprehensible, had lingered for future consideration. Dr. Wilcove's remark gave him not only a clue to himself, but a clue to Aunt Verona. They were bold pioneers, he and Aunt Verona. The minister said that the meek should inherit the earth. The meek! What had the meek minister inherited, or the meek Miss Todd? Mr. Silva was meek and had inherited more than all the others, though he was one of the poorest men in the village—but his inheritance, which was an inheritance of understanding and common sense, he had brought with him—from Portugal! And he enjoyed his heritage in spite of his meekness, rather than by reason of it. Mr. Silva could have been an adventurer; indeed when he had been ship's carpenter on the Brandywine he had been an adventurer, serving under a very prince of adventurers, who had roamed the world over, who had saved Dutch sailors from a burning ship in an Atlantic hurricane, and brought Aunt Verona one of the finest pianos in all Germany.
To the minister Paul announced that he would like to resign his post as organist. His only excuse was "Under the circumstances," but he advanced it so adroitly that the minister had no choice but to look and say:
"Well, my little man, you've done a splendid work for the Master, and we shall sorely miss your help. I trust that when the next few weeks have brought comfort and blessing, you will be ready to resume the post again."
"No fear!" Paul vowed to himself. Never, never, never. But all he said was, "Thank you."
That night when, after saying good night to Gritty and her parents in the kitchen, he took his candle and went up the steep back-stairs to the "spare bedroom" that had become his makeshift home, his loss came to him in a blinding flash, which for an instant illuminated his life then left him in darkness. Never again would he experience the sense of safety and protection he had known ever since he could remember. From now on, nothing stood between him and the buffetings of life but his own puny will and the clumsy if well-meaning kindness of strangers who chanced to take a liking to him. For a moment he stood on the stairs while the candlelight cast wavering shadows which hideously dwarfed him. The moment seemed an eternity, for with his sudden serenity of thought and feeling the very universe stood still.
The slamming of an outer door caught him out of his thrall and he mounted the remaining steps.
Mrs. Kestrell was kind to him—kind and stupid. She had a rather absurd respect for his talents and good manners and always gave him a white linen table-napkin, whereas Gritty's was of crash with a pink border. While he secretly shared Mrs. Kestrell's respect for himself, he was ashamed of the feeling and disliked to use finer linen than Gritty. Not that Gritty minded, for she was a good sport. Besides, if Gritty had been piqued she would have gone straight to the cupboard and helped herself to the best table-napkin in the house. He preferred the rôle of quite ordinary boy. If you were treated as a quite ordinary boy you could surprise people by occasional revelations of superior wisdom, and it was amusing to surprise people; whereas if you were treated as a superior being you were cramped and intimidated by the consciousness that you must do nothing inferior, and in lots of ways you really were inferior—football, for instance. The deference of Mrs. Kestrell, the pats and endearments of Miss Todd, and the practical solicitude of Dr. Wilcove were in a sense more embarrassing than indifference would have been. Their kindness only blurred the edges of his problem, and he had never been more in need of keeping the edges sharply defined.
The condolence of Phœbe Meddar was the sweetest of all. She saw him at Gritty's gate, crossed the road and stopped before him, then said, shyly but sincerely, "I'm sorry about your auntie, Paul; and I missed your playing in church last Sunday." That was the most delicate manifestation of sympathy and the most thrilling recognition of his musical importance that had ever been vouchsafed to him, but, after all, it was only a negative offering to a boy whose whole attention must be concentrated on putting together the puzzle-pieces of his disrupted life. And Phœbe's little offering summed up the whole of Hale's Turning. Hale's Turning took the trouble to be sorry because he cut a picturesque figure. He could not do much with its sorrow, still less with its white linen table-napkins and its plans to enfold him within the bigoted traditions of its life. He was obsessed with a desire to escape, to go where he could see only strange faces, hear only strange voices, move among people who had never even heard of Hale's Turning and its sleepy ways, people whose ideas were fresh and exciting and drawn from rich sources. He wanted to leave his old self—the self that had somehow been laid to rest in the graveyard—and set out in search of a new self, to wander, if necessary, to the very edge of the world in search of it.
If anything had been needed to tip the scale more sharply on the side of rebellion, the effect was accomplished by a series of revivalist meetings, which, sweeping over the country-side like a plague, had the magnetic effect of a circus. Paul disdained any public celebration which he had not helped to organize. School concerts, tableaux, "socials," and First of July parades were different, for in them he had always played "no mean part." But Gritty Kestrell, who adored crowds, half dragged him along to the big tent on the hill above the church where a renowned evangelist was to hold forth.
Some of the hymns were new and stirring, but Paul could not subscribe to the machine-like manner in which the evangelist's partner played them on the portable organ. The tent was crowded to suffocation. Baptists predominated, but Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and nondescripts kept squeezing in between the chairs and the sides of the tent. In front were benches kept vacant for penitents.
Paul had come to scoff, and there was material at hand at the very outset. How, for instance, could anything be made "whiter than snow" by being "washed in the blood of the lamb"? At best it was an ugly picture.
Moment by moment the atmosphere became tenser. Impossible to keep one's eyes off that electric man, whose mouth writhed, whose arms never rested, whose eyes flashed and pierced, whose voice made your spine shiver. Paul could hear his neighbours breathing. Women and old men were whispering, "Praise be to His Holy Name." At regular intervals the speaker leaned forward like an impassioned auctioneer, making his congregation feel that when the gavel descended the bargain would be for ever lost to them, salvation beyond their reach, damnation and agony their portion.
Suddenly Paul caught sight of Becky States. Growling and chattering more weirdly than ever, rolling her eyes till they glistened like porcelain in her black face, she wrenched the prisms from her ears and flung herself on her knees, crawling up the aisle over the grass floor and sobbing hoarsely. And the evangelist leaned still farther forward and said soothingly to her—to black Becky—"Ay, sister, ay, sister!"
Holy smoke! Yet Paul couldn't laugh—he felt too tight.
Suddenly his attention leapt as though it had been lashed with a whip. For the man was pointing straight at him. "You there, you and you and you! How much longer do you reckon you can go on concealing your shame—eh? What would your feelings be if you found out that somebody had been watching you all those times you thought nobody was looking? Ay, my poor friends, you'd blush and stammer if you thought your neighbours could see all the meanness in your heart. But in the darkest hours, behind the locked door, in the most unlikely places, where nobody is looking, God can see. He has seen—think back, he saw you; he's got it down in a book; what excuse will you make on the Day of Judgment when he confronts you with the record? What will your blushing and stammering avail you then? You may go on hoodwinking yourself and your neighbours, but you can't hoodwink the Almighty. You can't flee the wrath to come—not by a long sight! The flames of hell are never damped. They're hungry for fuel. What kind of a fix will you and you and you and you be in if God reaches down His hand this very night and smites you?"
Paul was not trying to guess the answer; he was merely swallowed up in the terror of his own shortcomings. He was mesmerised by this horrid man who fingered the secrets of one's soul. His throat was dry and his heart bumped. People were moaning and pushing their way towards the front; he felt that in a moment he would be drawn there himself; desperately he was trying to remember some reason why he shouldn't follow, why he shouldn't answer this final invitation to be saved. One might die in the night.
He felt a hot little hand grip his fingers, and looked around to find Gritty in a panic. Her blue eyes were fairly growing, her lips were apart, her face had lost its pertness and was pale and appealing. A sudden revulsion of feeling swept over him. Gritty too! That swine up there had been making Gritty think she was a sinner—Gritty, the best little sport in Hale's Turning, a girl who would tackle anybody with her fists, even John Ashmill, in the interests of truth; Gritty who got into scrapes but who always owned up, Gritty who had run out into the hall and bitten the Principal's hand when he tried to strap Wilfrid Fraser for shooting spit-balls! That duffer might point out his sins, the sins of Paul Minas, but he needn't go insulting Gritty Kestrell! If God was going to send Gritty to eternal punishment, well, he could send Paul Minas along with her—they would go to hell together, just as they had planned to go on the stage together. Paul thought of the Sweet Caporal they had smoked, and hesitated. There was that of course. Gritty wasn't faultless—far from it. She wasn't above stealing things from the pantry, or pelting people's windows on Hallow-e'en. But it was all in fun. And if God wanted faultless people he could whistle for them.
"Hey, Gritty," he whispered. "Let's get out of this." She was still in a tremble and quite prepared to go through with whatever the man should prescribe. This was unlike Gritty, who usually said something saucy when you commanded her. He got up, dragging at her arm, and she followed. The evangelist saw them turn towards the exit, instead of towards the mercy seat, and called out to them. Paul's knees threatened to give way, and Gritty gasped. A surge of nervous indignation swept over Paul and he went grimly on.
"Come on," he said and gave her a brutal yank.
"You two there—you boy and girl"
Paul could bear it no longer. Pushing Gritty through the opening in the tent he stepped outside, then thrust back his head and cried at the top of his lungs:
"Mind your own business and go to hell!"
It was the first time he had ever said a real "swear word."
He saw a blur of outraged heads swing round, and was for an instant aware of two startled eyes in a familiar face, terror-stricken eyes that ought somehow to have been cajoling. Walter Dreer! He grasped Gritty more tightly by the hand and ran with her for dear life down the hill, past the church, bringing up at Gritty's gate. The twilight had turned to night—indigo night—and on the hill the entrance to the tent showed in an orange triangle, surrounded by faintly luminous canvas. A miniature hell set up as a puny challenge to a vast, dark, beneficent world.
A scent of syringas clung to the little brown house. The windmill creaked faintly and the trees rustled. Gritty was panting from the swift run. The sparkle had come back to her eyes, which caught a gleam from the lamplight pouring softly through the window. It was Paul who collapsed on the doorstep, scared by the enormity of his deed. But he was just daring to be glad, glad! That swine had tried to prevent him from leaving the meeting! He had retaliated by doing something he had wanted to do ever since he could remember. Often, before the mirror, he had practised "faces" he would like to make at people—the minister, for one. At last he had done even better: had sworn out loud in a meeting-place, and everybody had heard. He had got even with the community for an injury he couldn't quite formulate. The long smouldering had given way to a flare-up. Now they would know he was on fire.
"Oh, Paul," Gritty broke the silence, speaking with a hushed, ecstatic admiration, "I wouldn't a dreamt you'd ever a dasst do a thing like that! Not even John Ashmill would a dasst! What'd Miss Windell a said?"
He pictured himself bursting into the old kitchen with the story on his lips—no text this time. A tardy realization of Aunt Verona's sense of fitness brought back his composure as if by magic, for instead of the dreaded blank expression he saw Aunt Verona's lips work strangely and her hands give a little nervous jerk—while her eyes half narrowed and she walked to the stove to test an iron with a moistened finger.
"I think Aunt Verona would have laughed," he said; then added, with a touch of repressed glee, "I'm sure she'd have laughed—to herself!"
A few days later he was walking along the bluff and was arrested by the sight of a group of people in black clothes standing up to their waists in the river. The penitents were being baptized. Paul knew the rite. "They call it the Jordan!" he remarked to himself, and sat down on the cliff to watch. "Like sheep dipping," he commented cynically, then caught himself up, for into his mind had come the echo of something Mark Laval had once said about narrow-mindedness. "But it won't make Becky whiter than snow," he mused.
After supper that night there was a ring at the doorbell.
"It's the minister to see Paul," Mrs. Kestrell announced, in her most subservient manner.
For a moment Paul was intimidated. He would fight the minister if need be, but would rather elude him. He remembered the days when he had answered the bell for Aunt Verona.
"Say I'm not at home," he instructed, with a not too successful attempt at lordliness.
"Oh, but" Mrs. Kestrell began.
Her unmanageable daughter elbowed her to one side. "I'll tell him," Gritty announced.
Mrs. Kestrell looked frightened, but Gritty's hand was already on the door-knob.
"You know where girls go for telling fibs," Paul cautioned her in the bantering tones he and Gritty had begun to assume with regard to religious discussions.
"Oh, pooh!" she flung back. "I ain't afraid of no hell nor no ministers."
"Why, Margaret!" exclaimed Mrs. Kestrell in deep distress. She had never used the nickname by which her daughter was universally known.
"Leave me be, ma. I'm going, I tell you."
Paul stole out through the back door, and from behind the well watched the minister leave the house. When Gritty joined him, they went to the gate and, with thumbs to their noses, waggled eighteen grubby fingers at the retreating broadcloth.
When Paul had gained his point with regard to the Baptist school at Wolfville, he had no valid excuse for rejecting the alternative, a non-sectarian boy's school in Halifax. The fact that the suggestion emanated from Dr. Wilcove implied that the school was depressingly safe, but he could scarcely object on such negative evidence. After all, the school was in Halifax, a city infinitely bigger than Bridgetown, with a population of 40,000—so many people that you might never "get to know" them all by sight. It was thrilling too, to be going so far alone on the train, with a trunk, two bags, and five dollars. It was kind of Dr. Wilcove to give him so much money, It never occurred to him that the money might be his own, and not the doctor's. He had heard vague talk of trustees, but had thought of them as officers who met in the vestry of the church after Wednesday night prayer-meetings.
During the summer Dr. Wilcove had given him the key of the playroom in order that he might practise on the big piano, but he had made no use of the privilege, because when he had gone back one afternoon he had been so strangely subdued by the stillness of the house that he had replaced the lid on the piano with a shudder, tiptoed out of the room, locked the door, and walked away without having struck a note. In Halifax he was to receive lessons from a lady to whose name was affixed a string of letters. He would ask her to teach him the Liszt sonata.
It was two weeks before Paul was shown into the presence of this personage. He was impressed by her spectacles and her "English accent." She told him she had a diploma from an academy in London, and he marvelled. Then she placed Schumann's "Merry Peasant" on the piano before him and said: "Can you play that?" He shut the book impatiently and handed it back to her.
"I played that at a concert in Hale's Turning Town Hall when I was six," he said. "I'm twelve now."
"Then will you play me one of your latest pieces," she invited, not as impressed as she might have been, Paul thought.
Something unyielding behind her spectacles made him bristle. He was sure of his ground in the realm of music, for he had been subjected to a rigorous discipline. Aunt Verona had seldom complimented him, but when she had done so she had given minute reasons for her approval. There was one piece, not as difficult as some, but tricky in an unusual way. After he had toiled over it for weeks with Aunt Verona, she had said, "Endlich, mein Kind, hast du es richtig begriffen."
Then she had gone on to tell him, in a rare burst of confidence, that the composer of the piece, whose name was Leschetizky, had himself shown her how it ought to be done, and that Paul had reproduced it in a manner which would have made the composer pat him on the back. He decided to test his new teacher. Without announcing the name of the piece he began to play it. Except for occasional hours at Mrs. Kestrell's feeble instrument he had neglected his exercises, and he was not in his best form. For all that he gave, as he secretly felt, a creditable performance, without faltering once on the runs. When he had finished he waited. The teacher was visibly taken aback. Paul was sure she had no idea what he had been playing.
"Very good indeed," she finally said. "You have a mature grasp. Unfortunately your method is quite wrong. We shall have to put you on exercise for a long while yet. You'll have to begin at the beginning."
She motioned him from his seat and gave a demonstration of what he must learn to do with his hands.
"Do you see?" she kept asking, as she explained each new step in a bookish rigmarole.
He nodded his head repeatedly by way of answer, but his whole being was stiff with disgust.
"Come to-morrow at three for the first lesson," she said, ushering him from the studio.
He went straight to the head master's study. "I've decided not to take music lessons," he announced timidly.
The master looked him over. "It's not exactly for you to decide my lad," he said. "You're here to study what your guardian has arranged for you to study."
"But she doesn't know," cried Paul. He groped for words. "I can almost play the Liszt sonata," he hurried on, "and she says I'll have to begin at the beginning—her funny old beginning. I've been organist in a church and everything, and she asked me if I could play 'The Merry Peasant!' I won't be her pupil," he continued, with the boldness of desperation. 'She hits the keys like an old stick!"
The master had got up from his seat. "I'll speak to Miss Mason," he said, "and find out what she has to say about it. Meanwhile you must learn once and for all that schools are not run in accordance with the whims of scholars who think they know more than their teachers. And it isn't exactly respectful to apply such a term as 'old stick' to one's music-mistress. You'll report as usual for your music lesson until your grade has been finally settled. Now go and report yourself to the physical instructor."
Indeed, he would do no such thing. Gym was all right in a way. The swimming tank was a delight, and basket-ball was good fun when not taken too seriously. Drill, however, with its concerted lunging and bending and marching to the tune of "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey" on a jangling piano, was grotesque, and they might as well know—"once and for all" as the head master said—that he just couldn't be bothered with it.
The tragedy of the music-room had blurred his sense of duty. There was a good measure of liberty in the school, but for a boy whose comings and goings had always been adjustable to his mood the schedules were an insufferable nuisance. As he walked through the campus his eyes lifted toward the distant hill crowned by the citadel. From that eminence there must be a splendid view of the city and the harbour. With a sense of guilt and a still stronger sense of elation he slipped through the gate and ran down the road.
"But your method is quite wrong!" That sentence kept ringing in his ears. A fat lot she knew about methods! "The Merry Peasant!" Why, even Gritty Kestrell could play that! She could have her old diploma! "You're here to study what your guardian has arranged for you to study!" And what did old boy Wilcove know about it? Who was he, to arrange one's life! Hadn't one agreed to come here simply to escape the Wilcoves and the wiseacres! "Report yourself to the physical instructor!" Let the physical instructor report himself and see how he liked it!
He had started to run up the long grassy slope towards the citadel.
The French class was droning out, in unison, the parts of the verb "to have." Paul sat sullen beside a young savage with whom he had been paired, presumably, in accordance with a theory that Paul's good manners would have a civilizing effect. The theory may have been excellent, but it scarcely compensated Paul for the pin-pricks and pinches, the surreptitious kicks and hair-pulling whereby the savage was working his way up in the scale of civilization.
A stormy scene in the head master's study, following Paul's failure to appear for music lessons, had been followed by a still stormier séance in which he had been held to account in the matter of absences from Gym. This morning there had been a humiliating exposition in the arithmetic class, all because Paul, standing at the blackboard, hadn't been able to see through a new system of "doing" decimals, and had, after a long, fatiguing, chalky evolution come to the conclusion that the farmer had paid $185,363 for a dozen sheep. His classmates had slapped their legs in ecstasy, and the teacher, with an air of relenting—which only made matters worse, for it was a new way of belittling him; as if the silly answer mattered one way or another!—had said, "Don't you think you could reduce that sum so that it would be more in keeping with a poor farmer's purse? Experiment with the decimal. See if you can't put it in a more reasonable place."
Exasperated by taunts, exhausted by the arduous figuring, Paul had gone hot, then cold—cold with vindictiveness. He had had enough of standing at the blackboard and furnishing amusement for those who were safe in their seats. With ominous deliberation he picked up the chalk and put a solid white point after every digit in the long answer. Let them take their choice! He replaced the chalk and walked to his seat. The class was too dumbfounded to laugh.
As Paul sat down, the teacher sharply called his name:
"Minas, stand up." Paul stood up. "Did I ask you to leave the blackboard?"
Paul felt thirty pairs of eyes on him. "You asked me to experiment with the decimal," he replied in a steely voice.
"But not to make a fool of yourself."
Paul winced. "And I didn't ask to be sent to the board to be made a fool of, either."
"You will report to the head master at three o'clock."
That interview was still pending, and Paul, sick at heart, weighed during the endless French lesson the pros and cons of reporting to the head master. The world was becoming hideously impersonal; his raw smarts were being reduced to a neuralgic ache. Nothing now seemed to matter. All he knew was that he would never knuckle under—never, never, never!
"J'ai, tu as, il a," chanted the class, "nous avons, vous avez, ils ont."
The savage beside him was chanting it with the rest, but Paul was dumb. The teacher's eyes had been watching him.
"Some members of the class," he said, "are not repeating the words after me. Now once again."
Still Paul declined to move his lips, and the savage, from the tail of his eye, gave him a wondering glance.
At the end of this repetition there was a portentous silence.
"Stand up, Minas."
As Paul stood up with the usual weary shuffle, the savage dropped a book, as though it had fallen from Paul's knees.
"You've ignored my warnings. Now explain why you've refused to repeat the drill."
Despair and nausea were pulling at the vitals of the rebel. Once more the smouldering embers broke into flame. He felt himself on some pedestal surveying a mob which was taunting him with his inability to get down. Couldn't get down, eh! He'd show them that he was "King of the Castle" and they were the "dirty rascals!" His eyes narrowed, he leaned forward, and whipped out the words with a vicious little flourish:
"Parce que c'est pire qu'idiot—ces chansons que vous nous faites chanter. J'en ai plein le dos!"
For a moment he thrilled at the showing off, then his spirits sank to despondent depths. How he longed for the safe kitchen, the freedom and wisdom and comprehension of the empty house where he and Aunt Verona had enjoyed a communion more precious than he had realized at the time, more wonderful than anybody would ever be able to understand. He felt the friendly warmth of that historic little stove, smelt the friendly odour of fresh-baked scones, the evening odour of kerosene, heard the clatter of logs which Mr. Silva dropped from his arms to the floor of the porch, the sound of a protective voice which called out "Paul, Paul, go back two bars!"
He was too sick to enjoy the dramatic effect his outpour had created, too apathetic to fear the inevitable punishment. He was dimly conscious that, for once, there was a spirit of deference in the regard of his fellows; but he was also aware that the teacher was getting ready to say something "teacherish." He waited with cynical patience.
"You don't seem to realize, Minas, that there is such a thing as esprit de corps. Even though you know something about French, it doesn't absolve you from doing as the rest of the class does, so long as you're a member of it."
Paul remained silent, relentless.
"You see that, don't you?"
Paul would have one more shot, were it suicidal. "I don't see what esprit de corps has to do with my wasting my time. I'd rather be in the library reading French books than saying J'ai, tu as, il a."
The vindictive mimicry of the last phrase brought a suppressed chuckle from the class. The savage whispered, "Sail into him, Polly!" With the bully's instinct he had hit on the nickname which John Ashmill had made traditional in Hale's Turning.
"I think, Minas," said the teacher, "you had better leave the room, and report your grievance to the head master at three."
Paul gathered up his books and departed. As he was closing the door he heard the teacher say, "Now, class, once more, J'ai'"
The "cons" had it at last. He would not report to the head master. He flung his books into a locker and walked out of the building. Nearly two dollars remained of his fund. Setting out for the heart of the town he mentally composed a telegram to Dr. Wilcove. "Will not stay here a minute longer. Can you come or shall I return?" That was the form he finally approved.
Yet when it came to the scratch he hesitated. The telegraph office was in sight now, and his knees were trembling, his steps lagging. He pictured Dr. Wilcove's dismay, his sigh of vexation, his protestations. There would be more interviews, more arguments—an expostulating group of grown-ups seized in the grip of a pitiable necessity to defend their wisdom from the affronts of juvenility. They would have all the words they needed—logic, that grown-up monopoly!—whereas, he, well, somehow there were no words to describe his misery. There was an implacable ego within him which protested, which saw the injustice of their attitude, which refused to be gulled by their phrases, which could cry out, but which couldn't coherently state itself. It could put a sling into his hands wherewith he might slay a legion of Philistines, but it couldn't devise an articulate battle-cry. So far his rebelliousness had only beat against the wall without forcing a breach.
He walked past the telegraph office, past the smutty-looking post office, past the markets, on and on blindly toward the harbour. He liked the acrid, tarry smells of the warehouses and ship chandlers' stores. He envied the stevedores who were lounging about, chewing tobacco and drinking out of tin cans, envied them for having outlived the nightmare of school. They could whistle as they trundled heavy bales over the cobble-stones.
Paul noticed a big, bronzed, bearded man who looked ill at ease in a tweed suit, new boots and a hat too small for him. This man acknowledged the greeting of a lounging stevedore and his words struck a sudden spark against the flint of the boy's heart.
"Ay, I expected to clear to-day," he said, "and I may yet, if I can complete my crew. I've put my steward in the forecastle. He'd been at me the last two trips to go before the mast. But that leaves one watch still a man short, and no steward. Too long a voyage to start out short-handed."
The lounging stevedore turned over his wad of tobacco and spat. "Astraly's a long ways off," he commented. "Nobody's anxious to go so far from home, not in a wind-jammer. They're all for steam these days. You'll soon be a back number, captain."
Paul heard no more. His faculties were merged in a single wild hope. He hurried forward, plunged into the group, and turned to the bearded man.
"Oh, captain, won't you take me as cabin-boy?" he begged.
The captain surveyed him with a surprised, twinkling eye, and Paul's wits began to work at high tension. Instinct told him he must lie as he had never before lied, boldly and directly, must rapidly invent a story that would hold water, at the same time allowing this particular specimen of grown-up-ness to indulge to the full whatever cut and dried theories it might have as to the judging and handling of youth. But, above all, he must gain his end, for if he didn't something would die within him.
The men standing near seemed to take it as a joke. Then there were arguments and cross-examinations, questions advanced in the hope of tripping him up. He met them all, and found new arguments to support every answer. Away at the base of sub-consciousness was an image of Gritty Kestrell. He was employing tactics that Gritty had, by her example, taught him—Gritty who braved everybody and always got what she wanted.
His name? Minas was too well known among sailors. Once more Aunt Verona must be his stand-by. But Windell was also well known. Then he had an inspiration. "Laval," he lied. "Paul Laval."
"Parlez-vous ding-dong?
"Parfaitement, monsieur."
More questions, more and more, but Paul held his ground. A harbour official advanced, accompanied by a lurching figure.
"Just looking for you, Captain Caxton," he said. "I've found you a man. He's not an A. B., but he's been before the mast." He jerked his thumb towards the applicant. "It'll take a day or two to sober him up, but he's a husky brute. Been working at the fisheries."
The captain turned to question the seaman, who replied in a beery voice and fished out a greasy discharge certificate. Paul's nerves were tense, and every moment of delay added to his anxiety.
"About the tug," broke in the harbour official, "McDonald is ordered out to look for the Swanhilda. If you're ready in an hour he'll tow you out, and kill two birds with the one stone."
The captain breathed deeply at the prospect, consulted his watch, then turned to Paul with a more business-like interest.
"Are you willing to swear to all you've told me?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
The captain pursed his lips and ruminated. "Well," he said at length, "you know what you're in for. If you're ready to rough it, you can come up to the office and sign on."
"Thank you, sir." Paul knew that this particular grown-up expected some such acknowledgment, and his nerves relaxed as the captain turned to the others with a twinkle and said:
"I reckon we've all of us run away once in our lives, eh?" The others nodded. "Might do worse than take this hobo," he continued, indicating the swaying seaman. "Hate to wait any longer. Been held up a week a'ready getting a crew. My cook only come aboard to-day. A Russian Finn. All right, boy, this way."
Paul was digging his nails into his palms. The thought of signing the articles under the eyes of government officials intimidated him. Even yet something might go wrong.
The process of signing on was a simple matter. The esteem in which the captain seemed to be held made it even a pleasant social function. Still more pleasant was Paul's discovery that he was going to be paid for being rescued! The thought of a salary hadn't entered his head until the captain said, "The wages is three pound ten."
Paul knew what pounds were. Miss Todd had one made into a brooch and called it her "Jubilee sovereign." And he was to receive three of them every month and ten shillings as well! Shillings were quarters. He would send jubilees to Phœbe and Gritty.
His mind went soaring, until he was on board the tow-boat, seated beside his beery shipmate.
"No dunnage?" inquired the captain.
Paul recalled an incident in Thaddeus of Warsaw. "Pawned everything I had," he explained. Instantly he saw the pitfall.
"Got the tickets?"
Surely he wasn't going to blunder at the last minute. Ah, he had it! "Gave 'em to a waitress for my last meal," he said.
The captain looked sceptical, but the engine bell had rung and the hawser came plump down in the stern. The wharf retreated and with the churn of the water all the discords of the past weeks suddenly ceased, giving place to a thrilling serenity. A hoarse scream from the whistle proclaimed the beginning of a new theme, a theme which he could play as he chose; and he knew, despite a hundred Miss Masons, that his method would prove to be the right one.
Far above the blackened buildings rose a brown, grassy hill, crowned by the citadel from whose ramparts he had, only a few days since, looked down with a vague yearning at this very harbour, at the high masts and broad yards of the very ship towards which he was now being propelled. Quel miracle!
In his pocket there was a pencil and a school notebook. He could get an envelope from the captain of the tug, give him two cents for a stamp, and ask him to post the letter on his return to port.
"Dear Gritty," he scribbled.
"I'm running away to sea. School was driving me crazy. You know how I mean. Gritty be a sport and tell Dr. Wilcove for me. I haven't got the nerve to. He's kind and I'm grateful for what he did, but I don't know how to explain to him. The music teacher was the worst, she was something fierce, and the French teacher too. They picked on me like the Principal used to pick on Wilfrid Fraser and if you'd of been here you would have bitten them. But it was my fault because I didn't obey the rules. So I picked back on them. I can't tell you where I'm going, but I'll write when I arrive. You won't get the letter for months and months, because I'm going as far as you can see on the geography. I'm only running away because I want to see everything, and hate school. Break it as nicely as you can to Dr. Wilcove. Thank your mother again for me. And good-bye, old Gritty. Don't ever forget me. I won't you. And don't you dare say coffin out loud.