So it was that Dr Daunt and his wife attained an enviable measure of prosperity and eminence in the country round about Evenwood. It would surely have been forgivable if Mrs Daunt, surveying her work, and seeing that it was good, privately allowed herself the merest smile of satisfaction. But in accomplishing her ends, she had opened a veritable Pandora"s Box, with consequences she could not possibly have foreseen.
I sometimes like to imagine Dr Daunt, for whom I have always had a sincere regard, coming into his study of a morning say a bright August morning in the year 1830 and throwing open the windows to a nascent and glittering world, in a conscious gesture of satisfaction at his lot.
Observe him now, on this imagined morning. It is early, the sun new risen, and the servants not yet about. The Rector is in high good humour, and hums a merry tune quietly to himself as the sweet sunrise air flows gently in from the garden. He turns from the window, and looks about him with pleasure and pride.
As I have seen for myself, his books are arranged methodically from floor to ceiling on every wall; uniform notebooks (carefully categorized and labelled) and papers (sorted and docketed) are stacked neatly to hand, together with a plentiful supply of writing materials, upon a large square table, on which also stands a seasonal posy, renewed daily by his wife. All is order, comfort, and convenience exactly as he likes it.
He stands by his desk, affectionately surveying his library. In an alcove on the far wall are the works of the Church Fathers his eye picks out the familiar presence of his Eusebius, St Ambrose (a particularly choice edition: Paris, 1586), Irenaeus, Tertullian, and St John Chrysostom. By the door, in an ornate case, are his biblical commentaries, the writings of the Continental reformers, and a cherished edition of the Antwerp Polyglot, whilst on either side of the fireplace are ranged the cla.s.sical authors that are his enduring pa.s.sion. But this is no ordinary morning. It is, in every sense, a new dawn; for a task now lays before him which, G.o.d willing, may vindicate at last his decision to quit the University.
Late the previous afternoon, a message had come from Lord Tansor asking if the Rector would be good enough to step up to the house as soon as was convenient. It was, as it happened, rather inconvenient just then, for Dr Daunt had earlier ridden into Peterborough on business and, on the way back, been forced to walk the final four miles when his horse had lost a shoe. He"d arrived at the Rectory hot, uncomfortable, and ill tempered, and had barely had time to remove his boots when Lord Tansor"s man knocked at the front door. But no request from Evenwood could easily be refused least of all because of sore feet and an unbecoming sweat.
He was admitted to the house and conducted through a succession of formal reception rooms towards the terrace that runs the length of the West Front. Here he found his Lordship seated in a wicker chair in the purple evening light, his spaniel by his side. He was smoking a cigar and contemplating the sun setting over Molesey Woods, which marked the boundary of his property on its western side.
A word or two concerning Dr Daunt"s patron. In person, he was of no more than middling height height; but he carried himself like a guardsman, his ramrod back making him seem far taller than he really was. His world was circ.u.mscribed by his princ.i.p.al seat, Evenwood, his town-house in Park-lane, the Carlton Club, and the House of Peers. He rarely travelled abroad. His acquaintances were many, his friends few.
One did not trifle with his Lordship. It took very little for him to suspect presumption. The only thing to do with Lord Tansor was to defer to him. On that simple principle was the world of Evenwood, and all its dominions, maintained. The inheritor of an immense fortune, which he had already significantly augmented, he was a naturally accomplished politician, with influence at the highest levels. When the Duport interest demanded action, his Lordship had only to whisper quietly in the ear of Government, and it was done. By nature he was an implacable opponent of reform in every sphere; but he knew none better that publicly articulated principles, of whatever complexion, can gravely incommode the man of affairs; and thus he was careful so to frame his views as to remain always at the pivot of power. His opinion was sought by men from all sides. It was of no consequence who was in, and who was out: his sagacity was valued by all. Lord Tansor, in a word, mattered A summons from his Lordship, therefore, was always something to heed, and perhaps to be anxious about. Whether Dr Daunt was definitely anxious when he approached his patron, I cannot say; but he would certainly have been curious to know why he had been called up to the house so urgently on aThursday afternoon.
On becoming aware of his visitor, Lord Tansor rose, stiffly proffered his hand, and gestured to his visitor to sit beside him. I have obtained a resume of their conversation, from a most reliable source, which forms the basis of the following elaboration.
"Dr Daunt, I"m obliged to you."
"Good evening, Lord Tansor. I came as soon as I could. There is nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Wrong?" barked his Lordship. "By no means." Then he stood up, dropping the b.u.t.t of his still smoking cigar into a nearby urn as he did so. The spaniel looked up expectantly.
"Dr Daunt, I was lately in Cambridge, dining with my friend Pa.s.singham."
"Dr Pa.s.singham? Of Trinity?"
Disdaining the question, his Lordship continued.
"You are well remembered there, sir, very well remembered. Cambridge is not a place I have ever cared much for, though it is my Alma Mater. But Pa.s.singham is a sound fellow, and he spoke highly of your abilities."
"I am flattered to hear you say so."
"I do not say it to flatter you, Dr Daunt. I will be frank. I deliberately sought Pa.s.singham"s opinions of your competence as a scholar. I believe, from his testimony, that you once stood pretty high in the estimate of the best men there?"
"I had some small reputation, certainly," replied Dr Daunt, with increasing wonderment at the course his interrogation was taking.
"And you have, as I understand, kept up your learning reading, articles, and what not."
"Certainly I have endeavoured to do so."
"Well, then, the case is this. I am satisfied from my enquiries that your talents recommend you for a commission of the highest importance to me. I hope I can rely on your acceptance."
"By all means, if it is within my power . . . " Dr Daunt felt rather acutely that the qualification was redundant. He knew that he had no choice in the matter. The realization was irksome to his still doughty self-esteem; but he had learned discretion. His education in humility since coming to Evenwood from Millhead had been swift, spurred on by necessity and by the exhortations of his wife, who was ever eager to oblige the Duports whenever an opportunity presented itself.
Lord Tansor turned and, followed by his dog, walked towards a pair of imposing French-windows, leaving Dr Daunt to make the a.s.sumption that he intended him to follow.
On the other side of the windows lay the Library, a magnificent apartment of n.o.ble proportions, decorated in white and gold, with a sumptuous painted ceiling by Verrio.2 Lord Tansor"s grandfather, the twenty-third Baron, had been a gentleman of various, though somewhat contradictory, talents. Like his father and grandfather before him, this gentleman had possessed a cool head for business and had shrewdly extended the family"s interests, before retiring at an early age to Evenwood, where he sat to Gainsborough with his plump wife and two rosy-cheeked boys, planted a great number of trees, bred pigs, and to the complete indifference of his wife entertained numerous lady admirers (his Lordship being both handsome and famously virile) in a secluded tower situated in the far reaches of the Park.
From these activities he would turn, in a moment, to his other great pa.s.sion: his books, for he was one of the great collectors of his day, paying frequent trips each year to Paris, Cologne, Utrecht, and other Continental cities, where he purchased liberally, and with discernment, amongst the booksellers and collectors of those places. The consequence, at his death, was a collection of over forty thousand books and ma.n.u.scripts, for the housing of which he had caused the former ballroom on the West Front of Evenwood to be transformed into the Library in which his grandson and Dr Daunt now stood.
The present Lord Tansor had not, in the slightest degree, inherited his grandsire"s bibliographical enthusiasms. His reading matter was confined, on the whole, to the Morning Post, The Times, his accounts, and an occasional foray into the novels (never the poetry) of Sir Walter Scott; but he was aware, no one could be more so, that the volumes in his custody represented a considerable material a.s.set, if it were ever to be realized, as well as a visible demonstration of the family"s talent for augmenting its physical possessions generation by generation. For the intangible significance of the collection, he cared not a jot. He wished instead to establish exactly what he owned and its approximate value in pounds, shillings and pence, though it was not in these terms that he presented Dr Daunt with the task of preparing a catalogue raisonee of the entire collection.
As they entered the Library, a man, small of stature and wearing a pair of round spectacles, looked up from an escritoire at the far end of the room, where he had been busily engaged with a pile of doc.u.ments.
"Do not mind us, Mr Carteret," said Lord Tansor to his secretary, and the man returned quietly to his work, though Dr Daunt noticed that he would now and again look surrept.i.tiously across to where they stood, returning to the perusal of the doc.u.ments that lay upon the desk with an exaggerated expression of concentration.
"It would be a service to me to know what I have here," continued Lord Tansor to Dr Daunt, looking about him coldly at the ranks of volumes packed tightly behind their gilded metal grilles.
"A service also to learning," said the Rector, lost for a moment in delighted consideration of the task that had been laid before him.
"Quite so."
Here was an undertaking of great usefulness and, for Dr Daunt, of surpa.s.sing interest. He could not imagine a more congenial a.s.signment, or one more suited to his talents and inclinations. The scale of the project did not dismay him in the least; indeed he welcomed it as making its accomplishment all the more worthy of applause. He also saw how he might revive his lapsed reputation as a scholar, for in preparing a catalogue of the collection he had already determined to produce extensive commentaries and annotations to the most important volumes, which in themselves would be of lasting value to generations of scholars and collectors to come. Of these unspoken aims Lord Tansor guessed nothing, and would have cared less. He wished, like the man of business that he was, to have an accurate inventory of his stock, and this Dr Daunt appeared to be both willing and capable of supplying.
It was speedily agreed that the work would start the very next day. Dr Daunt would come up to the house every morning, excepting of course Sundays, to work in the Library. Everything needful would be placed at his disposal Carteret would see to it all; and, said Lord Tansor magnanimously, Dr Daunt might have the use of one of his own grey cobs for the daily journey across the Park.
They retraced their steps to the terrace. There was a slight sunset wind moving through the avenue of limes that led away from the formal gardens to the lake. The rustle of its pa.s.sing only served to deepen the sense of descending silence. Lord Tansor and Dr Daunt stood for a moment looking out across the darkling flower-beds and the criss-cross of clipped gra.s.s paths.
"There is another matter I wished to put before you, Dr Daunt," said Lord Tansor. "It would please me to see your boy do well in life. I have often had occasion to observe him of late, and I discern in him qualities a father could be proud of. Do you intend that he should take Orders?"
Dr Daunt hesitated slightly. "That has always been . . . understood." He did not say that he already sensed a distinct animosity towards the prospect of ordination in his only son.
"It is gratifying, of course," continued Lord Tansor, "that the young man"s inclinations concur with your own wishes. Perhaps you may live to see him made a Bishop."
To his surprise, Dr Daunt saw that Lord Tansor"s expression had formed into something approaching a smile.
"As you know," he resumed, "your wife has been kind enough to bring your son to visit us here often over the course of the last few weeks, and I have become fond of the boy," his Lordship resumed, gravity resettling his features. "I think I may even say that I envy you. Our children are a sort of immortality, are they not?"
The Rector had never before heard his patron speak with such frankness, and did not well know what to say in reply. He was aware, naturally, that Lord Tansor"s son, Henry Hereward Duport, had died only a few months before he and his family had been led out of Millhead through the exertions of his second wife. On first coming into the great vestibule, the visitor to Evenwood was confronted with a large family group by Sir Thomas Lawrence his Lordship and his first wife, holding their baby son in her arms illuminated by a glazed Gothic lantern high above by day, and at night by six large candles set in a semi-circle of ornate sconces.
The premature death of his son, at the age of seven years, had left Lord Tansor cruelly exposed to the thing he dreaded most. Though generally accounted to be a proud man, his pride was of a peculiar character. Having inherited enough and more than enough to satisfy the most acquisitive and prodigal nature, he nevertheless continued to acc.u.mulate wealth and influence, not simply for his own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, but in order to bequeath an augmented, inviolable inheritance to his children, as his immediate predecessors had done.
But when his longed-for son had been taken from him, compounding the loss of his first wife, he had been confronted by the possibility of having to forfeit all he held most dear; for without a direct heir, there was every likelihood that the t.i.tle, along with Evenwood and the other entailed property, would fall into the hands of his collateral relatives a prospect to which Lord Tansor was viscerally, and perhaps irrationally, opposed. Considering all that lay to his name in the way of wealth, property, possessions, and power, I do not suppose that his Lordship"s situation would have excited much pity or compa.s.sion in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those less fortunately placed; yet it went hard with him, for he felt that a cruel fate had opposed itself to the animating principle of his life. He simply wanted an heir.
Lord Tansor, then, was but a man for all he seemed above mere mortal cares. Cruelly, his second union had so far produced no children, and, in the dark watches of the night, he began to feel himself accursed. With every pa.s.sing year, he became conscious of an acc.u.mulating weight of foreboding that he could not, under any circ.u.mstance, communicate to another person.
As he gazed now, with Dr Daunt, upon the perfect portion of earth that was Evenwood, the scene before him as so often recently seemed to him to have become transposed to a different and darker pitch. Instead of the former satisfaction of possession, he now felt only the keen edge of fear. Where once these woods and waters, and the wondrous beauty of the house itself, had spoken of permanence and stability, now they served only to remind him that rushing time was carrying all these things away with every pa.s.sing second. In the warm twilight of this August evening, Lord Tansor knew more certainly than ever before that the gates of Eden had been opened, and that death had entered in.
"Returning to the matter of your boy," he said after a moment or two. "Is it still the case that you intend to prepare him for the University yourself?"
Dr Daunt replied that he saw no particular advantage in sending his son to school. "It would be unwise", he continued, "to expose him to circ.u.mstances which might well be injurious to him. He is able in many ways, but weak and easily lead. It is better for him that he should remain here, under my care, until such time as he attains more discretion and application than he presently possesses. "
"You are, perhaps, a little hard on him, sir," said Lord Tansor, stiffening slightly. "And you will permit me to say that I do not altogether concur with your plan. It is a bad thing for a boy to be shut up at home. A boy needs early exposure to the world, or it will go badly for him when he has to make his way in it as your boy certainly must. It is my view, Dr Daunt, my decided view," he added, with slow emphasis, "that he should be sent to school as soon as possible."
"Of course I respect your opinion on this matter, sir," said the Rector, insinuating as much a.s.sertion as he dared into his smiling response, "but you will allow, perhaps, that a father"s wishes on such a point must count for a great deal."
He felt uneasy at even so hesitant a display of defiance towards his patron, and reflected to himself that the years had wrought much change in him, dulling his once fiery temper, and rendering him diplomatic where once he would have relished confrontation.
Lord Tansor allowed one of his threatening silences to descend on the conversation, and turned his eyes towards the dark outline of trees, standing out now blackly against the afterlight of the setting sun. With his hands clasped behind his back, and continuing to stare into the gathering darkness, he waited for a second or two before resuming.
"Naturally, I could not insist upon usurping your wishes in respect of your son. You have the advantage of me as far as that goes." He meant Dr Daunt to take the point that he had no son of his own, and the rebuke that it implied. "Permit me to observe, however, that your new duties here will leave you little time to devote to the instruction of your son. Mr Tidy is able to do much of your work about the parish; but Sundays remain" it was his Lordship"s strict requirement that the Rector took all the Sunday services, and delivered the morning sermon "and I am surprised that you are able to contemplate no reduction in your other occupations to accommodate the task the not inconsiderable task that you have so kindly agreed to undertake."
Dr Daunt saw where he was being lead and, remembering that a patron can take away as well as bestow, conceded that some rearrangement of his responsibilities would be necessary.
"I am glad we are in agreement," returned Lord Tansor, looking now straight into the Rector"s eye. "That being so, and having the interests of your son equally in mind, which I have recently had the pleasure of discussing with your wife, I venture to suggest that you might do worse than to put the boy up for Eton."
So that was that. It needed no elaboration from Lord Tansor for Dr Daunt to recognize that a decree had been made. He made no further attempt to argue his case, and, after some further discussion on the practical arrangements, finally a.s.sented to the proposal, with as much good grace as he could muster. Young Master Phoebus, then, would go to Eton, with which the Duports had a long connexion.
The matter being settled, Lord Tansor wished Dr Daunt good-night and a safe journey home.
LINKS, ALWAYS LINKS; forged slowly in the mould, acc.u.mulating, entwining more subtly and stronger still under the Iron Master"s hand; growing ever longer and heavier until the chain of Fate strong enough to hold even Great Leviathan down becomes unbreakable. A casual act, a fortuitous occurrence, an unlooked-for consequence: they come together in a random dance, and then conjoin into adamantine permanence.
We are born within months of each other, like millions of others. We take our first breath and open our eyes for the first time on the world, like millions of others. In our separate ways, and under our separate influences of instruction and example, we grow and are nourished, we learn and think, like millions of others. We should have remained immured in our separateness and disconnexion. But we two have been singled out by the Iron Master. We will be engineered and stamped with his mark that we may know each other, and the links will be coiled tight around us.
Out of a hard, dark northern place he came, with his papa and step-mamma, to settle without the right of blood into the paradise that should be mine; from the south, honey-warm in memory, I was brought back to England; and now we are to meet for the first time.1 11:.
Floreat1 ______________________________________________________________________.
The days of Dr Daunt"s dependence on surplice fees to pay for occasional luxuries might now be over; but since Lord Tansor had not felt it necessary to offer any degree of financial a.s.sistance in the furtherance of his desire that young Phoebus should be sent to Eton merely furnishing a recommendation, not easily refused, to the Provost and Fellows that the boy should be found a place it was impossible that the Rector"s son could be supported there as an Oppidan.2 He must therefore be entered for a scholarship, despite the lowly standing of those who lived on the foundation. But the young man acquitted himself well, as was to be expected of one who had been so ably and constantly tutored, and in the year 1832 when all was reformed3 became Daunt, K.S., the most junior of the band of scholars provided for by the bounty of King Henry VI.
Thus the Iron Master threw us together, with fatal consequences for us both; and on the very same day that Phoebus Daunt made his way south to Eton from Evenwood to begin his schooling, Edward Glyver travelled north from Sandchurch to commence his. Here, perhaps, I may give my faculties rest and quote directly from the recollections compiled by Daunt for the Sat.u.r.day Review. It is typically maundering and self-regarding in character, but I flatter myself that its introduction into this narrative will not be uninteresting to those readers who have persevered so far.4 MEMORIES OF ETON.
BY.
P. RAINSFORD DAUNT.
I went to Eton, as a Scholar, in the year 1832, at the behest of my father"s patron, Lord T -. My first few days were, I confess, miserable enough, for I was homesick and knew no one at the School. We Collegers also had to endure the venerable hardships of Long Chamber now swept away and I have the dubious distinction of being amongst the last witnesses of its ancient brutalities.
My closest friend and companion during my time at the School was a boy of my own Election, 5 whom I shall call G-.
I see him now, striding across School Yard on the day of my arrival, like some messenger of Fate. I had made the journey to Eton alone my father having important diocesan business, and my step-mother being indisposed and was standing beneath the Founder"s statue, admiring the n.o.ble proportions of the Chapel, when I noticed a tall figure detach itself from a knot of boys at the entrance to Long Chamber. He approached with purpose in his dark eyes, clasped my hands warmly, and introduced himself as my new neighbour. Within a moment, the formalities were concluded, and I found myself caught up in a dazzling stream of talk.
His long pale face and the refinement of his features gave him a rather delicate, almost girlish look; but the effect was countered by the broadness of his shoulders, and by ma.s.sive square hands that seemed somehow to have made their way to the ends of his arms from some other and coa.r.s.er body. He appeared, from the first, to possess the experience and wisdom of a more senior boy. It was he who tutored me in the customs of College life, and elucidated its mysterious patois.
And so my thralldom began. I never thought to reflect on why G had taken such complete charge of me, with whom he had enjoyed no previous acquaintance. But I was a docile young fellow then, and, all unthinking of my dignity, was content enough to trot behind in G"s shadow a friend, but never quite an equal. Because he seemed indubitably marked out for greatness in some sphere or other, it was by no means disadvantageous for me to be known as his friend, and I was spared from the worst of the torments reserved for new tugs as a consequence of the a.s.sociation.
He possessed a formidable precocity of intellect and understanding, which elevated him far above the common herd. He was our Varro,6 having a vast store almost a superfluity of obscure knowledge, though it lay tangled and unsorted in his mind, and would spill out constantly in rambling effusions. This made him a kind of magus in our eyes, and bestowed upon him an aura of brilliance and genius. I had been coached methodically by my father, and knew by his example how to recognize the lineaments of the true scholar. G was no such thing. He h.o.a.rded knowledge greedily, but indiscriminately; yet there was something marvellous about it all. His memory was so prodigious, and the exercising of it so expressive and captivating, that he overwhelmed the pedant in me.
My education under my father had been thorough but conventional, and, like others, I was dazzled by G"s displays of learning, and struggled hard to keep up with him in the schoolroom. We read often together: Juvenal was a particular favourite of his, and he would often declaim the celebrated line in Satire VI that a.s.serts the exercise of Will as a subst.i.tute for Reason.7 He would compose Latin Alcaics and Greek Iambics aloud on our Sunday walks, whilst I would labour long over my verses and drive myself nearly mad.
We had our differences, naturally. But, particularly when we reached the Fifth Form, there were golden times, of which I still like to think. Summer afternoons on the river, when we would swing down to Skindle"s, past the murmuring woods of Cliveden, then back for a plunge in the cool waters of Boveney Weir; and then I like to recall slow autumn saunters back and forth along the Slough Road, kicking through carpets of elm leaves, whilst G discoursed torrentially on what Avicenna had to say about the sophic mercury, or the manner of St Livinus" martyrdom before returning to Long Chamber for tea and Genoa cake round the fire.
Of his home and family G never spoke, except to discourage further enquiry. Consequently, no invitations to visit him during the holidays were ever issued; and when I once blushingly suggested that he might care to pa.s.s part of the summer at Evenwood, I was coldly rebuffed. I remember the incident well, for it coincided with the beginning of a change in our relations. Over the course of a few weeks, he became ever more solitary and aloof, and at times seemed clearly disdainful of my company.
I saw him for the last time on a perfect evening in late spring. We were returning from Windsor, after attending Evensong in St George"s Chapel whither we and a group of like-minded companions would often resort to feed G"s pa.s.sion for the old Church music. G was in high spirits, and it began to seem as if our progress towards estrangement had been halted. Just as we crossed Barnes Pool Bridge we were met by his f.a.g. G- had been urgently summoned to see the Head Master.
As I watched his departing figure, I heard the distant chimes from Lupton"s Tower. Carried on the still evening air, the sound spoke to me with such dolesome import as I stood there beneath shadowy gables in the empty street that I felt suddenly bewildered and helpless. It soon became clear that he had left Eton. He never returned.
I do not wish to dwell on the reason for the sudden nature of his premature departure from the School. It is as painful for me, his closest friend, to recall the circ.u.mstances, as it must be for him. I will say only this: he was accused of a most serious offence, and was required to quit the School immediately, of his own accord, or be formally expelled, and face public exposure. This, naturally, was a very great scandal; but throughout it all, I steadfastly maintained his innocence, and maintain it still.
In spite of his disgrace, G soon pa.s.sed into legend. In time, new tugs were regaled with stories of his prowess at the Wall8 or on the river, and of how he confounded his masters with his learning. But I thought only of the flesh-and-blood G-: of the little tricks of speech and gesture; and of the warm-hearted patronage so freely bestowed on his undeserving companion. Life had become a poor dull thing without his enlivening presence.
My last year at Eton pa.s.sed drearily. The taste had gone out of the place.
All I could do was apply myself, with desperate a.s.siduity, to my studies. I read hard and proceeded to the University. There I found new friendships, and renewed old ones. But the memory of G continued to beat quietly within me, like a second heart . . .
A touching account, is it not? And I am naturally sensible of the encomiums he has seen fit to bestow on me. We were friends for a time: I acknowledge it. But he comes the litterateur too much seeing significance where none existed, making much of nothing, dramatizing the mundane: the usual faults of the professional scribbler. This is memory scrubbed and dressed up for public consumption. Worse, he exaggerates our intimacy, and his claims on the matter of our respective intellectual characters are also false, for I was the careful scholar, he the gifted dabbler. I had many other friends in College besides him, and amongst the Oppidans too Le Grice in particular; and so I was very far from depending solely on Master Phoebus Daunt for company. A dull dog, indeed, I would have been had that been the case! Finally, he omits to say though perhaps this is understandable in the light of what happened that the friendship we enjoyed when we were first neighbours in Long Chamber had, by the end of our time at Eton, through his perfidy, crumbled to dust.
Yet this was the estimation of my character and abilities that Phoebus Daunt claims to have formed after our first meeting in School Yard, and which he saw fit to lay before the British reading public in the pages of the Sat.u.r.day Review. But what was my estimation of him; and what was the true nature of our relation? Let me now place the truth before you.
My old schoolmaster, Tom Grexby, had accompanied me from Sandchurch to Windsor. He saw me down to the School, and then put himself up at the Christopher for the night. I was glad to know that the dear fellow was close by, though he left early for Dorset the next day, and I did not see him again until the end of the Half.
I did not feel in the least non-plussed by my new surroundings, unlike several of the other new inmates of College whom I encountered standing and kicking nervously around their allotted places in Long Chamber, some looking pale and withdrawn, others with affected swaggers that only served to show up their discomfort. I was strong in both body and mind, and knew I would not be intimidated or hounded by any boy or master, come to that.
The bed next to mine was empty, but a valise and canvas bag stood on the floor. Naturally, I bent down to look at the handwritten label pasted on the side of the former.
The name of Evenwood, though not of my as yet unseen neighbour, was instantly familiar to me. "Miss Lamb has come from Evenwood to see your mamma"; "Miss Lamb wishes to kiss you, Eddie, before she leaves for Evenwood"; "Miss Lamb says you must come to Evenwood one day to see the deer". The echoes came ringing back across the years, faint but clear, of the lady in grey silk who had sometimes visited my mother when I was young, and who had looked down so sadly and sweetly at me, and had stroked my cheek with her long fingers on the last occasion when I remember seeing her. I found I had not thought about her all this time, until the name of this place Evenwood had brought her misty image to my mind. Miss Lamb. I smiled fondly at the memory of her name.
Despite my sequestered upbringing at Sandchurch, without many friends to speak of, beyond a few desultory companions amongst the local boys, I had, and have, a natural gregariousness. I soon made the acquaintance of my new neighbours in Long Chamber and accounted for their names and places; together, we then clattered down to take the air in School Yard before dinner.
P. R.. Daunt Evenwood Rectory Evenwood, Nthants I saw him immediately, slouching disconsolately beside the Founder"s statue, and knew it was my new neighbour in Long Chamber. He stood, hands in pocket, occasionally kicking the ground, and looking about him purposelessly. He was a little shorter than me, but a well-formed boy, with dark hair, like mine. None of the other boys had noticed him, and no one seemed inclined to go over to him. So I did. He was my neighbour, after all; and, as Fordyce Jukes was to point out to me many years later, neighbours should be neighbourly.
And so it was in this friendly spirit that I walked towards him with outstretched hand.
"Are you Daunt?"
He looked at me suspiciously from beneath the crown of a new hat that allowed a little too much for future growth.
"And if I am?" he said, with a surly pout.
"Well then," says I, cheerfully, still holding out my hand, "we are to be neighbours friends too, I hope."
He accepted the proffered greeting at last, but still said nothing. I encouraged him to come over and join the others, but he was unwilling to leave the little patch of territory beneath the statue of King Henry in his Garter robes that he appeared to feel he had secured for his private use. But by now it was time for dinner in Hall and, gracelessly, he finally relinquished his place, dragging himself along beside me like some reprimanded but still defiant puppy.
Over our first meal together, I coaxed some hesitant conversation out of him. I learned that he had been taught at home by his father; that his mamma was dead, though he had a step-mamma who had been very kind to him; and that he did not much like his new surroundings. I ventured to say that I supposed he was naturally a little homesick, like several of the other new boys. At this, something like a spark of life arose in his pale blue eyes.
"Yes," he said, with a curious sigh, "I do miss Evenwood."
"Do you know Miss Lamb?" I asked.
He thought for a moment. "I know a Miss Fox," he replied, "but not a Miss Lamb." At which he giggled.
This exchange seemed to encourage him to greater intimacy, for he leaned forward and, lowering his voice to a whisper, said: "I say, Glyver. Have you ever kissed a girl?"
Well, the truth was, that I had known very few girls of my own age, let alone any whom I might have wanted to kiss.