06 The Head of Kay's Read online

  And, to emphasise this point, he walked towards the school buildings again. For a moment it seemed as if Mr Kay intended to call him back, but he thought better of it. Mr Blackburn, in normal circumstances a pacific man, had one touchy point—his house. He resented any interference with its management, and was in the habit of saying so. Mr Kay remembered one painful scene in the Masters’ Common Room, when he had ventured to let fall a few well-meant hints as to how a house should be ruled. Really, he had thought Blackburn would have choked. Better, perhaps, to leave him to look after his own affairs.

  So Mr Kay followed Fenn indoors, and Kennedy, having watched him vanish, made his way to Blackburn’s.

  Quietly as Fenn had taken the incident at the gate, it nevertheless rankled. He read prayers that night in a distinctly unprayerful mood. It seemed to him that it would be lucky if he could get through to the end of the term before Mr Kay applied that last straw which does not break the backs of camels only. Eight weeks’ holiday, with plenty of cricket, would brace him up for another term. And he had been invited to play for the county against Middlesex four days after the holidays began. That should have been a soothing thought. But it really seemed to make matters worse. It was hard that a man who on Monday would be bowling against Warner and Beldam, or standing up to Trott and Hearne, should on the preceding Tuesday be sent indoors like a naughty child by a man who stood five-feet-one in his boots, and was devoid of any sort of merit whatever.

  It seemed to him that it would help him to sleep peacefully that night if he worked off a little of his just indignation upon somebody. There was a noise going on in the fags’ room. There always was at Kay’s. It was not a particularly noisy noise—considering; but it had better be stopped. Badly as Kay had treated him, he remembered that he was head of the house, and as such it behoved him to keep order in the house.

  He went downstairs, and, on arriving on the scene of action, found that the fags were engaged upon spirited festivities, partly in honour of the near approach of the summer holidays, partly because—miracles barred—the house was going on the morrow to lift the cricket-cup. There were a good many books flying about, and not a few slippers. There was a confused mass rolling in combat on the floor, and the table was occupied by a scarlet-faced individual, who passed the time by kicking violently at certain hands, which were endeavouring to drag him from his post, and shrieking frenzied abuse at the owners of the said hands. It was an animated scene, and to a deaf man might have been most enjoyable.

  Fenn’s appearance was the signal for a temporary suspension of hostilities.

  “What the dickens is all this row about?” he inquired.

  No one seemed ready at the moment with a concise explanation. There was an awkward silence. One or two of the weaker spirits even went so far as to sit down and begin to read. All would have been well but for a bright idea which struck some undiscovered youth at the back of the room.

  “Three cheers for Fenn!” observed this genial spirit, in no uncertain voice.

  The idea caught on. It was just what was wanted to give a finish to the evening’s festivities. Fenn had done well by the house. He had scored four centuries and an eighty, and was going to knock off the runs against Blackburn’s tomorrow off his own bat. Also, he had taken eighteen wickets in the final house-match. Obviously Fenn was a person deserving of all encouragement. It would be a pity to let him think that his effort had passed unnoticed by the fags’ room. Happy thought! Three cheers and one more, and then “He’s a jolly good fellow”, to wind up with.

  It was while those familiar words, “It’s a way we have in the public scho-o-o-o-l-s”, were echoing through the room in various keys, that a small and energetic form brushed past Fenn as he stood in the doorway, vainly trying to stop the fags’ choral efforts.

  It was Mr Kay.

  The singing ceased gradually, very gradually. It was some time before Mr Kay could make himself heard. But after a couple of minutes there was a lull, and the house-master’s address began to be audible.

  “…unendurable noise. What is the meaning of it? I will not have it. Do you hear? It is disgraceful. Every boy in this room will write me two hundred lines by tomorrow evening. It is abominable, Fenn.” He wheeled round towards the head of the house. “Fenn, I am surprised at you standing here and allowing such a disgraceful disturbance to go on. Really, if you cannot keep order better—It is disgraceful, disgraceful.”

  Mr Kay shot out of the room. Fenn followed in his wake, and the procession made its way to the house-masters’ study. It had been a near thing, but the last straw had arrived before the holidays.

  Mr Kay wheeled round as he reached his study door.

  “Well, Fenn?”

  Fenn said nothing.

  “Have you anything you wish to say, Fenn?”

  “I thought you might have something to say to me, sir.”

  “I do not understand you, Fenn.”

  “I thought you might wish to apologise for slanging me in front of the fags.”

  It is wonderful what a difference the last straw will make in one’s demeanour to a person.

  “Apologise! I think you forget whom it is you are speaking to.”

  When a master makes this well-worn remark, the wise youth realises that the time has come to close the conversation. All Fenn’s prudence, however, had gone to the four winds.

  “If you wanted to tell me I was not fit to be head of the house, you needn’t have done it before a roomful of fags. How do you think I can keep order in the house if you do that sort of thing?”

  Mr Kay overcame his impulse to end the interview abruptly in order to put in a thrust.

  “You do not keep order in the house, Fenn,” he said, acidly.

  “I do when I am not interfered with.”

  “You will be good enough to say ‘sir’ when you speak to me, Fenn,” said Mr Kay, thereby scoring another point. In the stress of the moment, Fenn had not noticed the omission.

  He was silenced. And before he could recover himself, Mr Kay was in his study, and there was a closed, forbidding door between them.

  And as he stared at it, it began slowly to dawn upon Fenn that he had not shown up to advantage in the recent interview. In a word, he had made a fool of himself.

  III

  THE FINAL HOUSE-MATCH

  Blackburn’s took the field at three punctually on the following afternoon, to play out the last act of the final house-match. They were not without some small hope of victory, for curious things happen at cricket, especially in the fourth innings of a match. And runs are admitted to be easier saved than made. Yet seventy-nine seemed an absurdly small score to try and dismiss a team for, and in view of the fact that that team contained a batsman like Fenn, it seemed smaller still. But Jimmy Silver, resolutely as he had declared victory impossible to his intimate friends, was not the man to depress his team by letting it become generally known that he considered Blackburn’s chances small.

  “You must work like niggers in the field,” he said; “don’t give away a run. Seventy-nine isn’t much to make, but if we get Fenn out for a few, they won’t come near it.”

  He did not add that in his opinion Fenn would take very good care that he did not get out for a few. It was far more likely that he would make that seventy-nine off his own bat in a dozen overs.

  “You’d better begin, Kennedy,” he continued, “from the top end. Place your men where you want ‘em. I should have an extra man in the deep, if I were you. That’s where Fenn kept putting them last innings. And you’ll want a short leg, only for goodness sake keep them off the leg-side if you can. It’s a safe four to Fenn every time if you don’t. Look out, you chaps. Man in.”

  Kay’s first pair were coming down the pavilion steps.

  Challis, going to his place at short slip, called Silver’s attention to a remarkable fact.

  “Hullo,” he said, “why isn’t Fenn coming in first?”

  “What! By Jove, nor he is. That’s queer. All the better fo
r us. You might get a bit finer, Challis, in case they snick ‘em.”

  Wayburn, who had accompanied Fenn to the wicket at the beginning of Kay’s first innings, had now for his partner one Walton, a large, unpleasant-looking youth, said to be a bit of a bruiser, and known to be a black sheep. He was one of those who made life at Kay’s so close an imitation of an Inferno. His cricket was of a rustic order. He hit hard and high. When allowed to do so, he hit often. But, as a rule, he left early, a prey to the slips or deep fields. Today was no exception to that rule.

  Kennedy’s first ball was straight and medium-paced. It was a little too short, however, and Walton, letting go at it with a semi-circular sweep like the drive of a golfer, sent it soaring over mid-on’s head and over the boundary. Cheers from the pavilion.

  Kennedy bowled his second ball with the same purposeful air, and Walton swept at it as before. There was a click, and Jimmy Silver, who was keeping wicket, took the ball comfortably on a level with his chin.

  “How’s that?”

  The umpire’s hand went up, and Walton went out—reluctantly, murmuring legends of how he had not gone within a yard of the thing.

  It was only when the next batsman who emerged from the pavilion turned out to be his young brother and not Fenn, that Silver began to see that something was wrong. It was conceivable that Fenn might have chosen to go in first wicket down instead of opening the batting, but not that he should go in second wicket. If Kay’s were to win it was essential that he should begin to bat as soon as possible. Otherwise there might be no time for him to knock off the runs. However good a batsman is, he can do little if no one can stay with him.

  There was no time to question the newcomer. He must control his curiosity until the fall of the next wicket.

  “Man in,” he said.

  Billy Silver was in many ways a miniature edition of his brother, and he carried the resemblance into his batting. The head of Blackburn’s was stylish, and took no risks. His brother had not yet developed a style, but he was very settled in his mind on the subject of risks. There was no tempting him with half-volleys and long-hops. His motto was defence, not defiance. He placed a straight bat in the path of every ball, and seemed to consider his duty done if he stopped it.

  The remainder of the over was, therefore, quiet. Billy played Kennedy’s fastest like a book, and left the more tempting ones alone.

  Challis’s first over realised a single, Wayburn snicking him to leg. The first ball of Kennedy’s second over saw him caught at the wicket, as Walton had been.

  “Every time a coconut,” said Jimmy Silver complacently, as he walked to the other end. “We’re a powerful combination, Kennedy. Where’s Fenn? Does anybody know? Why doesn’t he come in?”

  Billy Silver, seated on the grass by the side of the crease, fastening the top strap of one of his pads, gave tongue with the eagerness of the well-informed man.

  “What, don’t you know?” he said. “Why, there’s been an awful row. Fenn won’t be able to play till four o’clock. I believe he and Kay had a row last night, and he cheeked Kay, and the old man’s given him a sort of extra. I saw him going over to the School House, and I heard him tell Wayburn that he wouldn’t be able to play till four.”

  The effect produced by this communication would be most fittingly expressed by the word “sensation” in brackets. It came as a complete surprise to everyone. It seemed to knock the bottom out of the whole match. Without Fenn the thing would be a farce. Kay’s would have no chance.

  “What a worm that man is,” said Kennedy. “Do you know, I had a sort of idea Fenn wouldn’t last out much longer. Kay’s been ragging him all the term. I went round to see him last night, and Kay behaved like a bounder then. I expect Fenn had it out with him when they got indoors. What a beastly shame, though.”

  “Beastly,” agreed Jimmy Silver. “Still, it can’t be helped. The sins of the house-master are visited on the house. I’m afraid it will be our painful duty to wipe the floor with Kay’s this day. Speaking at a venture, I should say that we have got them where the hair’s short. Yea. Even on toast, if I may be allowed to use the expression. Who is this coming forth now? Curtis, or me old eyes deceive me. And is not Curtis’s record score three, marred by ten chances? Indeed yes. A fastish yorker should settle Curtis’s young hash. Try one.”

  Kennedy followed the recipe. A ball later the middle and leg stumps were lying in picturesque attitudes some yards behind the crease, and Curtis was beginning that “sad, unending walk to the pavilion”, thinking, with the poet,

  “Thou wast not made to play, infernal ball!”

  Blackburn’s non-combatants, dotted round the boundary, shrieked their applause. Three wickets had fallen for five runs, and life was worth living. Kay’s were silent and gloomy.

  Billy Silver continued to occupy one end in an immovable manner, but at the other there was no monotony. Man after man came in, padded and gloved, and looking capable of mighty things. They took guard, patted the ground lustily, as if to make it plain that they were going to stand no nonsense, settled their caps over their eyes, and prepared to receive the ball. When it came it usually took a stump or two with it before it stopped. It was a procession such as the school grounds had not often seen. As the tenth man walked from the pavilion, four sounded from the clock over the Great Hall, and five minutes later the weary eyes of the supporters of Kay’s were refreshed by the sight of Fenn making his way to the arena from the direction of the School House.

  Just as he arrived on the scene, Billy Silver’s defence broke down. One of Challis’s slows, which he had left alone with the idea that it was going to break away to the off, came in quickly instead, and removed a bail. Billy Silver had only made eight; but, as the full score, including one bye, was only eighteen, this was above the average, and deserved the applause it received.

  Fenn came in in the unusual position of eleventh man, with an expression on his face that seemed to suggest that he meant business. He was curiously garbed. Owing to the shortness of the interval allowed him for changing, he had only managed to extend his cricket costume as far as white buckskin boots. He wore no pads or gloves. But even in the face of these sartorial deficiencies, he looked like a cricketer. The field spread out respectfully, and Jimmy Silver moved a man from the slips into the country.

  There were three more balls of Challis’s over, for Billy Silver’s collapse had occurred at the third delivery. Fenn mistimed the first. Two hours’ writing indoors does not improve the eye. The ball missed the leg stump by an inch.

  About the fifth ball he made no mistake. He got the full face of the bat to it, and it hummed past coverpoint to the boundary. The last of the over he put to leg for three.

  A remarkable last-wicket partnership now took place, remarkable not so much for tall scoring as for the fact that one of the partners did not receive a single ball from beginning to end of it, with the exception of the one that bowled him. Fenn seemed to be able to do what he pleased with the bowling. Kennedy he played with a shade more respect than the others, but he never failed to score a three or a single off the last ball of each of his overs. The figures on the telegraph-board rose from twenty to thirty, from thirty to forty, from forty to fifty. Williams went on at the lower end instead of Challis, and Fenn made twelve off his first over. The pavilion was filled with howling enthusiasts, who cheered every hit in a frenzy.

  Jimmy Silver began to look worried. He held a hasty consultation with Kennedy. The telegraph-board now showed the figures 60—9—8.

  “This won’t do,” said Silver. “It would be too foul to get licked after having nine of them out for eighteen. Can’t you manage to keep Fenn from scoring odd figures off the last ball of your over? If only that kid at the other end would get some of the bowling, we should do it.”

  “I’ll try,” said Kennedy, and walked back to begin his over.

  Fenn reached his fifty off the third ball. Seventy went up on the board. Ten more and Kay’s would have the cup. The fourth ball was t
oo good to hit. Fenn let it pass. The fifth he drove to the on. It was a big hit, but there was a fieldsman in the neighbourhood. Still, it was an easy two. But to Kennedy’s surprise Fenn sent his partner back after they had run a single. Even the umpire was surprised. Fenn’s policy was so obvious that it was strange to see him thus deliberately allow his partner to take a ball.

  “That’s not over, you know, Fenn,” said the umpire—Lang, of the School House, a member of the first eleven.

  Fenn looked annoyed. He had miscounted the balls, and now his partner, who had no pretensions to be considered a bat, would have to face Kennedy.

  That mistake lost Kay’s the match.

  Impossible as he had found it to defeat Fenn, Kennedy had never lost his head or his length. He was bowling fully as well as he had done at the beginning of the innings.

  The last ball of the over beat the batsman all the way. He scooped blindly forward, missed it by a foot, and the next moment the off stump lay flat. Blackburn’s had won by seven runs.

  IV

  HARMONY AND DISCORD

  What might be described as a mixed reception awaited the players as they left the field. The pavilion and the parts about the pavilion rails were always packed on the last day of a final house-match, and even in normal circumstances there was apt to be a little sparring between the juniors of the two houses which had been playing for the cup. In the present case, therefore, it was not surprising that Kay’s fags took the defeat badly. The thought that Fenn’s presence at the beginning of the innings, instead of at the end, would have made all the difference between a loss and a victory, maddened them. The crowd that seethed in front of the pavilion was a turbulent one.

  For a time the operation of chairing Fenn up the steps occupied the active minds of the Kayites. When he had disappeared into the first eleven room, they turned their attention in other directions. Caustic and uncomplimentary remarks began to fly to and fro between the representatives of Kay’s and Blackburn’s. It is not known who actually administered the first blow. But, when Fenn came out of the pavilion with Kennedy and Silver, he found a stirring battle in progress. The members of the other houses who had come to look on at the match stood in knots, and gazed with approval at the efforts of Kay’s and Blackburn’s juniors to wipe each other off the face of the earth. The air was full of shrill battle-cries, varied now and then by a smack or a thud, as some young but strenuous fist found a billet. The fortune of war seemed to be distributed equally so far, and the combatants were just warming to their work.