08 The White Feather Read online

  That Sheen should have been amongst these surprised one or two people, notably Mr Seymour, who, being games’ master had come a good deal into contact with Stanning, and had not been favourably impressed. The fact was that the keynote of Sheen’s character was a fear of giving offence. Within limits this is not a reprehensible trait in a person’s character, but Sheen overdid it, and it frequently complicated his affairs. There come times when one has to choose which of two people one shall offend. By acting in one way, we offend A. By acting in the opposite way, we annoy B. Sheen had found himself faced by this problem when he began to be friendly with Drummond. Their acquaintance, begun over a game of fives, had progressed. Sheen admired Drummond, as the type of what he would have liked to have been, if he could have managed it. And Drummond felt interested in Sheen because nobody knew much about him. He was, in a way, mysterious. Also, he played the piano really well; and Drummond at that time would have courted anybody who could play for his benefit “Mumblin’ Mose”, and didn’t mind obliging with unlimited encores.

  So the two struck up an alliance, and as Drummond hated Stanning only a shade less than Stanning hated him, Sheen was under the painful necessity of choosing between them. He chose Drummond. Whereby he undoubtedly did wisely.

  Sheen sat with his Thucydides over the gas-stove, and tried to interest himself in the doings of the Athenian expedition at Syracuse. His brain felt heavy and flabby. He realised dimly that this was because he took too little exercise, and he made a resolution to diminish his hours of work per diem by one, and to devote that one to fives. He would mention it to Drummond when he came in. He would probably come in to tea. The board was spread in anticipation of a visit from him. Herbert, the boot-boy, had been despatched to the town earlier in the afternoon, and had returned with certain food-stuffs which were now stacked in an appetising heap on the table.

  Sheen was just making something more or less like sense out of an involved passage of Nikias’ speech, in which that eminent general himself seemed to have only a hazy idea of what he was talking about, when the door opened.

  He looked up, expecting to see Drummond, but it was Stanning. He felt instantly that “warm shooting” sensation from which David Copperfield suffered in moments of embarrassment. Since the advent of Drummond he had avoided Stanning, and he could not see him without feeling uncomfortable. As they were both in the sixth form, and sat within a couple of yards of one another every day, it will be realised that he was frequently uncomfortable.

  “Great Scott!” said Stanning, “swotting?”

  Sheen glanced almost guiltily at his Thucydides. Still, it was something of a relief that the other had not opened the conversation with an indictment of Drummond.

  “You see,” he said apologetically, “I’m in for the Gotford.”

  “So am I. What’s the good of swotting, though? I’m not going to do a stroke.”

  As Stanning was the only one of his rivals of whom he had any real fear, Sheen might have replied with justice that, if that was the case, the more he swotted the better. But he said nothing. He looked at the stove, and dog’s-eared the Thucydides.

  “What a worm you are, always staying in!” said Stanning.

  “I caught a cold watching the match yesterday.”

  “You’re as flabby as—” Stanning looked round for a simile, “as a dough-nut. Why don’t you take some exercise?”

  “I’m going to play fives, I think. I do need some exercise.”

  “Fives? Why don’t you play footer?”

  “I haven’t time. I want to work.”

  “What rot. I’m not doing a stroke.”

  Stanning seemed to derive a spiritual pride from this admission.

  “Tell you what, then,” said Stanning, “I’ll play you tomorrow after school.”

  Sheen looked a shade more uncomfortable, but he made an effort, and declined the invitation.

  “I shall probably be playing Drummond,” he said.

  “Oh, all right,” said Stanning. “I don’t care. Play whom you like.”

  There was a pause.

  “As a matter of fact,” resumed Stanning, “what I came here for was to tell you about last night. I got out, and went to Mitchell’s. Why didn’t you come? Didn’t you get my note? I sent a kid with it.”

  Mitchell was a young gentleman of rich but honest parents, who had left the school at Christmas. He was in his father’s office, and lived in his father’s house on the outskirts of the town. From time to time his father went up to London on matters connected with business, leaving him alone in the house. On these occasions Mitchell the younger would write to Stanning, with whom when at school he had been on friendly terms; and Stanning, breaking out of his house after everybody had gone to bed, would make his way to the Mitchell residence, and spend a pleasant hour or so there. Mitchell senior owned Turkish cigarettes and a billiard table. Stanning appreciated both. There was also a piano, and Stanning had brought Sheen with him one night to play it. The getting-out and the subsequent getting-in had nearly whitened Sheen’s hair, and it was only by a series of miracles that he had escaped detection. Once, he felt, was more than enough; and when a fag from Appleby’s had brought him Stanning’s note, containing an invitation to a second jaunt of the kind, he had refused to be lured into the business again.

  “Yes, I got the note,” he said.

  “Then why didn’t you come? Mitchell was asking where you were.”

  “It’s so beastly risky.”

  “Risky! Rot.”

  “We should get sacked if we were caught.”

  “Well, don’t get caught, then.”

  Sheen registered an internal vow that he would not.

  “He wanted us to go again on Monday. Will you come?”

  “I—don’t think I will, Stanning,” said Sheen. “It isn’t worth it.”

  “You mean you funk it. That’s what’s the matter with you.”

  “Yes, I do,” admitted Sheen.

  As a rule—in stories—the person who owns that he is afraid gets unlimited applause and adulation, and feels a glow of conscious merit. But with Sheen it was otherwise. The admission made him if possible, more uncomfortable than he had been before.

  “Mitchell will be sick,” said Stanning.

  Sheen said nothing.

  Stanning changed the subject.

  “Well, at anyrate,” he said, “give us some tea. You seem to have been victualling for a siege.”

  “I’m awfully sorry,” said Sheen, turning a deeper shade of red and experiencing a redoubled attack of the warm shooting, “but the fact is, I’m waiting for Drummond.”

  Stanning got up, and expressed his candid opinion of Drummond in a few words.

  He said more. He described Sheen, too in unflattering terms.

  “Look here,” he said, “you may think it jolly fine to drop me just because you’ve got to know Drummond a bit, but you’ll be sick enough that you’ve done it before you’ve finished.”

  “It isn’t that—” began Sheen.

  “I don’t care what it is. You slink about trying to avoid me all day, and you won’t do a thing I ask you to do.”

  “But you see—”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Stanning.

  III

  SHEEN RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE

  While Sheen had been interviewing Stanning, in study twelve, farther down the passage, Linton and his friend Dunstable, who was in Day’s house, were discussing ways and means. Like Stanning, Dunstable had demanded tea, and had been informed that there was none for him.

  “Well, you are a bright specimen, aren’t you?” said Dunstable, seating himself on the table which should have been groaning under the weight of cake and biscuits. “I should like to know where you expect to go to. You lure me in here, and then have the cheek to tell me you haven’t got anything to eat. What have you done with it all?”

  “There was half a cake—”

  “Bring it on.”

  “Young Menzies bagged
it after the match yesterday. His brother came down with the Oxford A team, and he had to give him tea in his study. Then there were some biscuits—”

  “What’s the matter with biscuits? They’re all right. Bring them on. Biscuits forward. Show biscuits.”

  “Menzies took them as well.”

  Dunstable eyed him sorrowfully.

  “You always were a bit of a maniac,” he said, “but I never thought you were quite such a complete gibberer as to let Menzies get away with all your grub. Well, the only thing to do is to touch him for tea. He owes us one. Come on.”

  They proceeded down the passage and stopped at the door of study three.

  “Hullo!” said Menzies, as they entered.

  “We’ve come to tea,” said Dunstable. “Cut the satisfying sandwich. Let’s see a little more of that hissing urn of yours, Menzies. Bustle about, and be the dashing host.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I can’t help your troubles,” said Dunstable.

  “I’ve not got anything. I was thinking of coming to you, Linton.”

  “Where’s that cake?”

  “Finished. My brother simply walked into it.”

  “Greed,” said Dunstable unkindly, “seems to be the besetting sin of the Menzies’. Well, what are you going to do about it? I don’t wish to threaten, but I’m a demon when I’m roused. Being done out of my tea is sure to rouse me. And owing to unfortunate accident of being stonily broken, I can’t go to the shop. You’re responsible for the slump in provisions, Menzies, and you must see us through this. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Do either of you chaps know Sheen at all?”

  “I don’t,” said Linton. “Not to speak to.”

  “You can’t expect us to know all your shady friends,” said Dunstable. “Why?”

  “He’s got a tea on this evening. If you knew him well enough, you might borrow something from him. I met Herbert in the dinner-hour carrying in all sorts of things to his study. Still, if you don’t know him—”

  “Don’t let a trifle of that sort stand in the way,” said Dunstable. “Which is his study?”

  “Come on, Linton,” said Dunstable. “Be a man, and lead the way. Go in as if he’d invited us. Ten to one he’ll think he did, if you don’t spoil the thing by laughing.”

  “What, invite ourselves to tea?” asked Linton, beginning to grasp the idea.

  “That’s it. Sheen’s the sort of ass who won’t do a thing. Anyhow, its worth trying. Smith in our house got a tea out of him that way last term. Coming, Menzies?”

  “Not much. I hope he kicks you out.”

  “Come on, then, Linton. If Menzies cares to chuck away a square meal, let him.”

  Thus, no sooner had the door of Sheen’s study closed upon Stanning than it was opened again to admit Linton and Dunstable.

  “Well,” said Linton, affably, “here we are.”

  “Hope we’re not late,” said Dunstable. “You said somewhere about five. It’s just struck. Shall we start?”

  He stooped, and took the kettle from the stove.

  “Don’t you bother,” he said to Sheen, who had watched this manoeuvre with an air of amazement, “I’ll do all the dirty work.”

  “But—” began Sheen.

  “That’s all right,” said Dunstable soothingly. “I like it.”

  The intellectual pressure of the affair was too much for Sheen. He could not recollect having invited Linton, with whom he had exchanged only about a dozen words that term, much less Dunstable, whom he merely knew by sight. Yet here they were, behaving like honoured guests. It was plain that there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but he shrank from grappling with it. He did not want to hurt their feelings. It would be awkward enough if they discovered their mistake for themselves.

  So he exerted himself nervously to play the host, and the first twinge of remorse which Linton felt came when Sheen pressed upon him a bag of biscuits which, he knew, could not have cost less than one and sixpence a pound. His heart warmed to one who could do the thing in such style.

  Dunstable, apparently, was worried by no scruples. He leaned back easily in his chair, and kept up a bright flow of conversation.

  “You’re not looking well, Sheen,” he said. “You ought to take more exercise. Why don’t you come down town with us one of these days and do a bit of canvassing? It’s a rag. Linton lost a tooth at it the other day. We’re going down on Saturday to do a bit more.”

  “Oh!” said Sheen, politely.

  “We shall get one or two more chaps to help next time. It isn’t good enough, only us two. We had four great beefy hooligans on to us when Linton got his tooth knocked out. We had to run. There’s a regular gang of them going about the town, now that the election’s on. A red-headed fellow, who looks like a butcher, seems to boss the show. They call him Albert. He’ll have to be slain one of these days, for the credit of the school. I should like to get Drummond on to him.”

  “I was expecting Drummond to tea,” said Sheen.

  “He’s running and passing with the fifteen,” said Linton. “He ought to be in soon. Why, here he is. Hullo, Drummond!”

  “Hullo!” said the newcomer, looking at his two fellow-visitors as if he were surprised to see them there.

  “How were the First?” asked Dunstable.

  “Oh, rotten. Any tea left?”

  Conversation flagged from this point, and shortly afterwards Dunstable and Linton went.

  “Come and tea with me some time,” said Linton.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Sheen. “Thanks awfully.”

  “It was rather a shame,” said Linton to Dunstable, as they went back to their study, “rushing him like that. I shouldn’t wonder if he’s quite a good sort, when one gets to know him.”

  “He must be a rotter to let himself be rushed. By Jove, I should like to see someone try that game on with me.”

  In the study they had left, Drummond was engaged in pointing this out to Sheen.

  “The First are rank bad,” he said. “The outsides were passing rottenly today. We shall have another forty points taken off us when we play Ripton. By the way, I didn’t know you were a pal of Linton’s.”

  “I’m not,” said Sheen.

  “Well, he seemed pretty much at home just now.”

  “I can’t understand it. I’m certain I never asked him to tea. Or Dunstable either. Yet they came in as if I had. I didn’t like to hurt their feelings by telling them.”

  Drummond stared.

  “What, they came without being asked! Heavens! man, you must buck up a bit and keep awake, or you’ll have an awful time. Of course those two chaps were simply trying it on. I had an idea it might be that when I came in. Why did you let them? Why didn’t you scrag them?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Sheen uncomfortably.

  “But, look here, it’s rot. You must keep your end up in a place like this, or everybody in the house’ll be ragging you. Chaps will, naturally, play the goat if you let them. Has this ever happened before?”

  Sheen admitted reluctantly that it had. He was beginning to see things. It is never pleasant to feel one has been bluffed.

  “Once last term,” he said, “Smith, a chap in Day’s, came to tea like that. I couldn’t very well do anything.”

  “And Dunstable is in Day’s. They compared notes. I wonder you haven’t had the whole school dropping in on you, lining up in long queues down the passage. Look here, Sheen, you really must pull yourself together. I’m not ragging. You’ll have a beastly time if you’re so feeble. I hope you won’t be sick with me for saying it, but I can’t help that. It’s all for your own good. And it’s really pure slackness that’s the cause of it all.”

  “I hate hurting people’s feelings,” said Sheen.

  “Oh, rot. As if anybody here had any feelings. Besides, it doesn’t hurt a chap’s feelings being told to get out, when he knows he’s no business in a place.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Sheen short
ly.

  “Glad you see it,” said Drummond. “Well, I’m off. Wonder if there’s anybody in that bath.”

  He reappeared a few moments later. During his absence Sheen overheard certain shrill protestations which were apparently being uttered in the neighbourhood of the bathroom door.

  “There was,” he said, putting his head into the study and grinning cheerfully at Sheen. “There was young Renford, who had no earthly business to be there. I’ve just looked in to point the moral. Suppose you’d have let him bag all the hot water, which ought to have come to his elders and betters, for fear of hurting his feelings; and gone without your bath. I went on my theory that nobody at Wrykyn, least of all a fag, has any feelings. I turfed him out without a touch of remorse. You get much the best results my way. So long.”

  And the head disappeared; and shortly afterwards there came from across the passage muffled but cheerful sounds of splashing.

  IV

  THE BETTER PART OF VALOUR

  The borough of Wrykyn had been a little unfortunate—or fortunate, according to the point of view—in the matter of elections. The latter point of view was that of the younger and more irresponsible section of the community, which liked elections because they were exciting. The former was that of the tradespeople, who disliked them because they got their windows broken.

  Wrykyn had passed through an election and its attendant festivities in the previous year, when Sir Eustace Briggs, the mayor of the town, had been returned by a comfortable majority. Since then ill-health had caused that gentleman to resign his seat, and the place was once more in a state of unrest. This time the school was deeply interested in the matter. The previous election had not stirred them. They did not care whether Sir Eustace Briggs defeated Mr Saul Pedder, or whether Mr Saul Pedder wiped the political floor with Sir Eustace Briggs. Mr Pedder was an energetic Radical; but owing to the fact that Wrykyn had always returned a Conservative member, and did not see its way to a change as yet, his energy had done him very little good. The school had looked on him as a sportsman, and read his speeches in the local paper with amusement; but they were not interested. Now, however, things were changed. The Conservative candidate, Sir William Bruce, was one of themselves—an Old Wrykinian, a governor of the school, a man who always watched school-matches, and the donor of the Bruce Challenge Cup for the school mile. In fine, one of the best. He was also the father of Jack Bruce, a day-boy on the engineering side. The school would have liked to have made a popular hero of Jack Bruce. If he had liked, he could have gone about with quite a suite of retainers. But he was a quiet, self-sufficing youth, and was rarely to be seen in public. The engineering side of a public school has workshops and other weirdnesses which keep it occupied after the ordinary school hours. It was generally understood that Bruce was a good sort of chap if you knew him, but you had got to know him first; brilliant at his work, and devoted to it; a useful slow bowler; known to be able to drive and repair the family motor-car; one who seldom spoke unless spoken to, but who, when he did speak, generally had something sensible to say. Beyond that, report said little.