06 The Head of Kay's Read online

  “I was just going,” said Fenn, politely.

  “Oh, don’t let me disturb you,” protested Kennedy, with winning courtesy.

  “Not at all,” said Fenn.

  “Oh, if you really were—”

  “Oh, yes, really.”

  “Get out, then,” growled Jimmy, who had been listening in speechless disgust to the beautifully polite conversation just recorded. “I’ll forward that bronze medal to you, Fenn.”

  And as the door closed he had turned to rend Kennedy as he had rent Fenn; while Fenn walked back to Kay’s feeling that there was a good deal in what Jimmy had said.

  So that when he went down town that afternoon in search of his cap, he pondered as he walked over the advisability of making a fresh start. It would not be a bad idea. But first he must concentrate his energies on recovering what he had lost.

  He found the house in the High Street without a great deal of difficulty, for he had marked the spot carefully as far as that had been possible in the fog.

  The door was opened to him, not by the old man with whom he had exchanged amenities on the previous night, but by a short, thick fellow, who looked exactly like a picture of a loafer from the pages of a comic journal. He eyed Fenn with what might have been meant for an inquiring look. To Fenn it seemed merely menacing.

  “Wodyer want?” he asked, abruptly.

  Eckleton was not a great distance from London, and, as a consequence, many of London’s choicest blackguards migrated there from time to time. During the hopping season, and while the local races were on, one might meet with two Cockney twangs for every country accent.

  “I want to see the old gentleman who lives here,” said Fenn.

  “Wot old gentleman?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know his name. Is this a home for old gentlemen? If you’ll bring out all you’ve got, I’ll find my one.”

  “Wodyer want see the old gentleman for?”

  “To ask for my cap. I left it here last night.”

  “Oh, yer left it ‘ere last night! Well, yer cawn’t see ‘im.”

  “Not from here, no,” agreed Fenn. “Being only eyes, you see,” he quoted happily, “my wision’s limited. But if you wouldn’t mind moving out of the way—”

  “Yer cawn’t see ‘im. Blimey, ‘ow much more of it, I should like to know. Gerroutovit, cawn’t yer! You and yer caps.”

  And he added a searching expletive by way of concluding the sentence fittingly. After which he slipped back and slammed the door, leaving Fenn waiting outside like the Peri at the gate of Paradise.

  His resemblance to the Peri ceased after the first quarter of a minute. That lady, we read, took her expulsion lying down. Fenn was more vigorous. He seized the knocker, and banged lustily on the door. He had given up all hope of getting back the cap. All he wanted was to get the doorkeeper out into the open again, when he would proceed to show him, to the best of his ability, what was what. It would not be the first time he had taken on a gentleman of the same class and a similar type of conversation.

  But the man refused to be drawn. For all the reply Fenn’s knocking produced, the house might have been empty. At last, having tired his wrist and collected a small crowd of Young Eckleton, who looked as if they expected him to proceed to further efforts for their amusement, he gave it up, and retired down the High Street with what dignity he could command—which, as he was followed for the first fifty yards by the silent but obviously expectant youths, was not a great deal.

  They left him, disappointed, near the Town Hall, and Fenn continued on his way alone. The window of the grocer’s shop, with its tins of preserved apricots and pots of jam, recalled to his mind what he had forgotten, that the food at Kay’s, though it might be wholesome (which he doubted), was undeniably plain, and, secondly, that he had run out of jam. Now that he was here he might as well supply that deficiency.

  Now it chanced that Master Wren, of Kay’s, was down town—without leave, as was his habit—on an errand of a very similar nature. Walton had found that he, like Fenn, lacked those luxuries of life which are so much more necessary than necessities, and, being unable to go himself, owing to the unfortunate accident of being kept in by his form-master, had asked Wren to go for him. Wren’s visit to the grocer’s was just ending when Fenn’s began.

  They met in the doorway.

  Wren looked embarrassed, and nearly dropped a pot of honey, which he secured low down after the manner of a catch in the slips. Fenn, on the other hand, took no notice of his fellow-Kayite, but walked on into the shop and began to inspect the tins of biscuits which were stacked on the floor by the counter.

  XIX

  THE GUILE OF WREN

  Wren did not quite know what to make of this. Why had not Fenn said a word to him? There were one or two prefects in the school whom he might have met even at such close quarters and yet have cherished a hope that they had not seen him. Once he had run right into Drew, of the School House, and escaped unrecognised. But with Fenn it was different. Compared to Fenn, lynxes were astigmatic. He must have spotted him.

  There was a vein of philosophy in Wren’s composition. He felt that he might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. In other words, having been caught down town without leave, he might as well stay there and enjoy himself a little while longer before going back to be executed. So he strolled off down the High Street, bought a few things at a stationer’s, and wound up with an excellent tea at the confectioner’s by the post-office.

  It was as he was going to this meal that Kennedy caught sight of him. Kennedy had come down town to visit the local photographer, to whom he had entrusted a fortnight before the pleasant task of taking his photograph. As he had heard nothing from him since, he was now coming to investigate. He entered the High Street as Wren was turning into the confectioner’s, saw him, and made a note of it for future reference.

  When Wren returned to the house just before lock-up, he sought counsel of Walton.

  “I say,” he said, as he handed over the honey he had saved so neatly from destruction, “what would you do? Just as I was coming out of the shop, I barged into Fenn. He must have twigged me.”

  “Didn’t he say anything?”

  “Not a word. I couldn’t make it out, because he must have seen me. We weren’t a yard away from one another.”

  “It’s dark in the shop,” suggested Walton.

  “Not at the door; which is where we met.”

  Before Walton could find anything to say in reply to this, their conversation was interrupted by Spencer.

  “Kennedy wants you, Wren,” said Spencer. “You’d better buck up; he’s in an awful wax.”

  Next to Walton, the vindictive Spencer objected most to Wren, and he did not attempt to conceal the pleasure he felt in being the bearer of this ominous summons.

  The group broke up. Wren went disconsolately upstairs to Kennedy’s study; Walton smacked Spencer’s head—more as a matter of form than because he had done anything special to annoy him—and retired to the senior dayroom; while Spencer, muttering darkly to himself, avoided a second smack and took cover in the junior room, where he consoled himself by toasting a piece of india-rubber in the gas till it made the atmosphere painful to breathe in, and recalling with pleasure the condition Walton’s face had been in for the day or two following his encounter with Kennedy in the dormitory.

  Kennedy was working when Wren knocked at his door.

  He had not much time to spare on a bounds-breaking fag; and his manner was curt.

  “I saw you going into Rose’s, in the High Street, this afternoon, Wren,” he said, looking up from his Greek prose. “I didn’t give you leave. Come up here after prayers tonight. Shut the door.”

  Wren went down to consult Walton again. His attitude with regard to a licking from the head of the house was much like that of the other fags. Custom had, to a certain extent, inured him to these painful interviews, but still, if it was possible, he preferred to keep out of them. Under Fenn’s rule he had o
ften found a tolerably thin excuse serve his need. Fenn had so many other things to do that he was not unwilling to forego an occasional licking, if the excuse was good enough. And he never took the trouble to find out whether the ingenious stories Wren was wont to serve up to him were true or not. Kennedy, Wren reflected uncomfortably, had given signs that this easy-going method would not do for him. Still, it might be possible to hunt up some story that would meet the case. Walton had a gift in that direction.

  “He says I’m to go to his study after prayers,” reported Wren. “Can’t you think of any excuse that would do?”

  “Can’t understand Fenn running you in,” said Walton. “I thought he never spoke to Kennedy.”

  Wren explained.

  “It wasn’t Fenn who ran me in. Kennedy was down town, too, and twigged me going into Rose’s. I went there and had tea after I got your things at the grocer’s.”

  “Oh, he spotted you himself, did he?” said Walton. “And he doesn’t know Fenn saw you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then I’ve got a ripping idea. When he has you up tonight, swear that you got leave from Fenn to go down town.”

  “But he’ll ask him.”

  “The odds are that he won’t. He and Fenn had a row at the beginning of term, and never speak to one another if they can help it. It’s ten to one that he will prefer taking your yarn to going and asking Fenn if it’s true or not. Then he’s bound to let you off.”

  Wren admitted that the scheme was sound.

  At the conclusion of prayers, therefore, he went up again to Kennedy’s study, with a more hopeful air than he had worn on his previous visit.

  “Come in,” said Kennedy, reaching for the swagger-stick which he was accustomed to use at these ceremonies.

  “Please, Kennedy,” said Wren, glibly. “I did get leave to go down town this afternoon.”

  “What!”

  Wren repeated the assertion.

  “Who gave you leave?”

  “Fenn.”

  The thing did not seem to be working properly. When he said the word “Fenn”, Wren expected to see Kennedy retire baffled, conscious that there was nothing more to be said or done. Instead of this, the remark appeared to infuriate him.

  “It’s just like your beastly cheek,” he said, glaring at the red-headed delinquent, “to ask Fenn for leave instead of me. You know perfectly well that only the head of the house can give leave to go down town. I don’t know how often you and the rest of the junior dayroom have played this game, but it’s going to stop now. You’d better remember another time when you want to go to Rose’s that I’ve got to be consulted first.”

  With which he proceeded to ensure to the best of his ability that the memory of Master Wren should not again prove treacherous in this respect.

  “How did it work?” asked Walton, when Wren returned.

  “It didn’t,” said Wren, briefly.

  Walton expressed an opinion that Kennedy was a cad; which, however sound in itself, did little to improve the condition of Wren.

  Having disposed of Wren, Kennedy sat down seriously to consider this new development of a difficult situation. Hitherto he had imagined Fenn to be merely a sort of passive resister who confined himself to the Achilles-in-histent business, and was only a nuisance because he refused to back him up. To find him actually aiding and abetting the house in its opposition to its head was something of a shock. And yet, if he had given Wren leave to go down town, he had probably done the same kind office by others. It irritated Kennedy more than the most overt act of enmity would have done. It was not good form. It was hitting below the belt. There was, of course, the chance that Wren’s story had not been true. But he did not build much on that. He did not yet know his Wren well, and believed that such an audacious lie would be beyond the daring of a fag. But it would be worth while to make inquiries. He went down the passage to Fenn’s study. Fenn, however, had gone to bed, so he resolved to approach him on the subject next day. There was no hurry.

  He went to his dormitory, feeling very bitter towards Fenn, and rehearsing home truths with which to confound him on the morrow.

  XX

  JIMMY THE PEACEMAKER

  In these hustling times it is not always easy to get ten minutes’ conversation with an acquaintance in private. There was drill in the dinner hour next day for the corps, to which Kennedy had to go directly after lunch. It did not end till afternoon school began. When afternoon school was over, he had to turn out and practise scrummaging with the first fifteen, in view of an important school match which was coming off on the following Saturday. Kennedy had not yet received his cap, but he was playing regularly for the first fifteen, and was generally looked upon as a certainty for one of the last places in the team. Fenn, being a three-quarter, had not to participate in this practice. While the forwards were scrummaging on the second fifteen ground, the outsides ran and passed on the first fifteen ground over at the other end of the field. Fenn’s training for the day finished earlier than Kennedy’s, the captain of the Eckleton fifteen, who led the scrum, not being satisfied with the way in which the forwards wheeled. He kept them for a quarter of an hour after the outsides had done their day’s work, and when Kennedy got back to the house and went to Fenn’s study, the latter was not there. He had evidently changed and gone out again, for his football clothes were lying in a heap in a corner of the room. Going back to his own study, he met Spencer.

  “Have you seen Fenn?” he asked.

  “No,” said the fag. “He hasn’t come in.”

  “He’s come in all right, but he’s gone out again. Go and ask Taylor if he knows where he is.”

  Taylor was Fenn’s fag.

  Spencer went to the junior dayroom, and returned with the information that Taylor did not know.

  “Oh, all right, then—it doesn’t matter,” said Kennedy, and went into his study to change.

  He had completed this operation, and was thinking of putting his kettle on for tea, when there was a knock at the door.

  It was Baker, Jimmy Silver’s fag.

  “Oh, Kennedy,” he said, “Silver says, if you aren’t doing anything special, will you go over to his study to tea?”

  “Why, is there anything on?”

  It struck him as curious that Jimmy should take the trouble to send his fag over to Kay’s with a formal invitation. As a rule the head of Blackburn’s kept open house. His friends were given to understand that they could drop in whenever they liked. Kennedy looked in for tea three times a week on an average.

  “I don’t think so,” said Baker.

  “Who else is going to be there?”

  Jimmy Silver sometimes took it into his head to entertain weird beings from other houses whose brothers or cousins he had met in the holidays. On such occasions he liked to have some trusty friend by him to help the conversation along. It struck Kennedy that this might be one of those occasions. If so, he would send back a polite but firm refusal of the invitation. Last time he had gone to help Jimmy entertain a guest of this kind, conversation had come to a dead standstill a quarter of an hour after his arrival, the guest refusing to do anything except eat prodigiously, and reply “Yes” or “No”, as the question might demand, when spoken to. Also he had declined to stir from his seat till a quarter to seven. Kennedy was not going to be let in for another orgy of that nature if he knew it.

  “Who’s with Silver?” he asked.

  “Only Fenn,” said Baker.

  Kennedy pondered for a moment.

  “All right,” he said, at last, “tell him I’ll be round in a few minutes.”

  He sat thinking the thing over after Baker had gone back to Blackburn’s with the message. He saw Silver’s game, of course. Jimmy had made no secret for some time of his disgust at the coolness between Kennedy and Fenn. Not knowing all the circumstances, he considered it absolute folly. If only he could get the two together over a quiet pot of tea, he imagined that it would not be a difficult task to act effectively
as a peacemaker.

  Kennedy was sorry for Jimmy. He appreciated his feelings in the matter. He would not have liked it himself if his two best friends had been at daggers drawn. Still, he could not bring himself to treat Fenn as if nothing had happened, simply to oblige Silver. There had been a time when he might have done it, but now that Fenn had started a deliberate campaign against him by giving Wren—and probably, thought Kennedy, half the other fags in the house—leave down town when he ought to have sent them on to him, things had gone too far. However, he could do no harm by going over to Jimmy’s to tea, even if Fenn was there. He had not looked to interview Fenn before an audience, but if that audience consisted only of Jimmy, it would not matter so much.

  His advent surprised Fenn. The astute James, fancying that if he mentioned that he was expecting Kennedy to tea, Fenn would make a bolt for it, had said nothing about it.

  When Kennedy arrived there was one of those awkward pauses which are so difficult to fill up in a satisfactory manner.

  “Now you’re up, Fenn,” said Jimmy, as the latter rose, evidently with the intention of leaving the study, “you might as well reach down that toasting-fork and make some toast.”

  “I’m afraid I must be off now, Jimmy,” said Fenn.

  “No you aren’t,” said Silver. “You bustle about and make yourself useful, and don’t talk rot. You’ll find your cup on that shelf over there, Kennedy. It’ll want a wipe round. Better use the table-cloth.”

  There was silence in the study until tea was ready. Then Jimmy Silver spoke.

  “Long time since we three had tea together,” he said, addressing the remark to the teapot.

  “Kennedy’s a busy man,” said Fenn, suavely. “He’s got a house to look after.”

  “And I’m going to look after it,” said Kennedy, “as you’ll find.”

  Jimmy Silver put in a plaintive protest.

  “I wish you two men wouldn’t talk shop,” he said. “It’s bad enough having Kay’s next door to one, without your dragging it into the conversation. How were the forwards this evening, Kennedy?”