Guilty: The Lost Classic Novel (10 page)

I was still half stunned by the news when the small boy lately assigned to me as a fag in my new glory came in with another letter, which had come by a later post. The sight of this youngster inflamed my resentment still further. The coming year was to have been my reward for all that had been difficult in the past. During this last year of my school life, I should have enjoyed most of the privileges of an adult without the responsibilities; members of the sixth were near-fabulous beings to the junior school, respected, almost worshipped; from henceforth I had only to speak and people would fight to fulfil my wishes, my words would
be listened to like those of an oracle, for my will was law. Whenever things had been hard during the long years, I’d comforted myself with the prospect of this idyllic period now opening before me. To have it snatched away at the very moment of attainment was bitter indeed.

I was in as black a mood as I’d ever known when I opened my mother’s letter. She seemed almost panic-stricken at the idea of leaving home – why, I couldn’t imagine;
she
had nothing to lose by the change. Her agitation annoyed me, for it seemed so pointless. And when she went on to say that my career would be ruined, bringing up all my own arguments, I felt she was only pretending to be concerned because she wanted my backing, being so disturbed on her own account. The one sensible suggestion the letter contained was that I should appeal to the Headmaster and get him to write to my father on my behalf. Of course, I couldn’t possibly go to the Head; but, all the same, it wasn’t a bad idea to get somebody to write.

Long before this, I’d heard all about the famous speech in which the whole school had been warned against me, and I still felt the hostility of the speaker; indeed, he made no secret of it and always took care to avoid any contact with me. Not once had he spoken to me personally in all the time I’d been here or displayed the least interest in anything I did.

My housemaster was the obvious person for me to consult; a good-natured, plodding, conscientious man, in no way remarkable, whose name I’ve even forgotten, though he was known as Jaggers among us. The events of the past had faded out of my memory, so that it was not till I was facing him at the interview I had requested that I recalled he was the very man who had witnessed my first encounter with the Head all those years ago. Now the details of the scene
came back to me, but, humiliating as it had been for him, I was forced to refer to it when explaining how my father had gone away and left me in the lurch – I could only hope time had removed the sting from the insults he had received.

But clearly they’d been rankling ever since, and, though I tried to placate him by attributing Mr Spector’s arrogant behaviour on that occasion to the effects of strain and the exhaustion of the long hours he had spent at the wheel, neglecting his work in the city to bring me here, taking over the duties my father had abandoned, he stopped me, exclaiming, ‘Stop! I won’t hear any more of this’, starting to pace the room in considerable agitation.

He seemed to me quite absurdly upset; but what most dismayed me was his unmistakable antagonism, for which I could see no reason but the inevitable one, so that I blurted out reproachfully, ‘You always sympathize with other people’s troubles. But when I ask you to help me you get angry – you’re against me like everyone else. And this is so important to me – it means my whole future. I did think that for once …’ Ashamed of becoming emotional, I relapsed into silence. He seemed affected, even slightly embarrassed, by my outburst, for he stopped walking about and said in a more moderate tone, ‘I would gladly help you, if I could be sure of not ruining myself in the process.’

I had expected him to contradict my statement that everyone was against me; but, though it surprised me that he let it pass, I was much more struck by his use of the word ‘ruin’, which sounded wildly extravagant in this context, almost suggestive of persecution mania. I’d often heard it said that old Jaggers had a screw loose. But when I thought of the Head’s vindictiveness towards me, a private vendetta carried on over the years by an elderly scholar against a defenceless boy under his protection, Jaggers’s fears seemed
more justifiable, and I said impulsively, ‘Is the Head really such a tyrant? Would he really take it out on you for helping me? Why has he always hated me so much?’ I couldn’t have asked these questions of anyone else, and I regretted my impetuousness in asking them now, though their effect was far from any I could have foreseen.

‘The Head … ?’ Jaggers stared at me with a bewildered expression, which changed quickly to one of incredulous excitement as he seized my arm, dragging me over to the light, and tilted my face up to scrutinize it minutely, muttering under his breath, ‘Can it be true? Is it possible?’ and similar expressions of wondering disbelief.

I never could stand being handled by people in this way, and Jaggers’s mystification and his whole conduct were so peculiar that I was growing convinced I’d made a mistake in confiding in him. So I said nothing but disengaged myself as unobtrusively as I could, not wanting to offend him.

‘And what about the authorities that sent you here?’

I was quite unprepared for the question, rapped out in his stern classroom voice, and it startled me, by recalling the Head’s words, reviving suddenly my feeling of being exposed and somehow in need of special protection – a need which, since I’d reached the security of the sixth form, I’d almost forgotten.

However, I answered coolly enough, I believe, that I’d always assumed the Head’s talk of authorities was meant to frighten ignorant little boys and that he might just as well have referred to the bogey-man. I smiled at the fantastic idea of important, powerful persons concerning themselves with my insignificant affairs; which left Jaggers no choice but to smile back. Pretending to believe I’d convinced him I was sincere, I began to thank him effusively, saying I was sure my father would be guided by his advice and experience both as
a scholar and as a man of the world; flattery to which he succumbed, agreeing to write the letter, though he evidently had difficulty still in getting over his amazement, constantly interrupting himself with incredulous exclamations. ‘All these years … how could I not have known?’

I was much relieved when the letter was finally finished. But, as I was leaving, he detained me at the door, giving me some very strange looks which I couldn’t interpret and seeming to want to say something more; though he thought better of it in the end, and we parted without any further talk.

My father’s reply came a few days later, a coldly worded note, stating briefly that he’d cancelled the reservations previously made and would wait for my return to discuss things more fully. I gathered that he was going ahead with the business of getting our passports and other necessary documents, so that the project was only postponed in his mind. On the other hand, he hadn’t told the Head he would be taking me away at the end of the term; and I derived what comfort I could from this fact.

Jaggers’s cooperation, seen retrospectively, didn’t seem very wholehearted; I was faintly ashamed of having made use of someone I really rather despised, and if I’d followed my inclinations I would have had no more contact with him. But, in common politeness, I had to show him the letter; and I couldn’t find any excuse for declining an invitation to tea. His teas, famous for their lavishness, were one source of the mild popularity he enjoyed, particularly among the juniors, and I remember this one because of the effort I made to disguise my lack of friendliness by a determined onslaught upon the cakes, scones, sandwiches, pastries and so on.

Though Jaggers positively radiated goodwill, this, too, seemed of doubtful spontaneity. I had the idea he had first
to overcome some sort of constraint or discomfort, even dislike; so that our feelings for one another were very likely mutual. He had merely glanced through my father’s note at the start without commenting on it. Presently he picked it up again from among the tea things and began to study it so minutely and for such a long time that (though I guessed he was only concealing the fact that his genial talk had run dry) I was impelled to ask what he thought of it.

I hoped he might have noticed some encouraging point I had overlooked. But he only added to the discomfort I already felt on this score by saying my father had evidently been terribly disappointed and it must have been a great blow to him that I didn’t share his views. ‘He’s a good and brave man – even a great man; I’m certain of that.’ Jaggers spoke the unexpected words with defiance almost, looking me straight in the face, as if waiting for me to contradict him (which I was much too taken aback to do) and adding still more vehemently, ‘No one could have acted as he did without very great courage – heroic courage.’

I was most disconcerted; but not too much so to notice that he flushed slightly as he spoke and afterwards fidgeted awkwardly with his cup, seeming to wish he hadn’t expressed himself so openly and emphatically before a critical – possibly even a hostile – listener.

I’d made no great effort, I had to admit, to overcome his distrust. But it caused me, all the same, to be overwhelmed once more by that frightening sense of being an outlaw, vulnerable beyond others, everyone’s hand against me. And though the feeling was momentary, it left an aftermath of depression; and, as soon as was decently possible, I excused myself and prepared to leave. Jaggers came to the door with me, keeping me there as before; this time he did succeed in saying something, though with a curious shyness, looking
aside, as if speaking to someone else. ‘The greatest courage isn’t always found on the battlefield, you know.’ Observing him then, with his grizzled head and baggy grey tweeds, the gown he’d forgotten to take off hanging behind him like the dishevelled black wings of some great moulting bird, I dimly perceived that this mild, undistinguished, unprepossessing man knew a good deal about courage himself at first hand – which disconcerted me once again.

Kind and friendly as he had been, he’d somehow put me on the defensive. I felt that he criticized my attitude towards my father and probably regretted having helped me reveal it to him. So, though he’d pressed me to drop in for a chat, I never did, only seeing him in public till the term was almost at an end.

Prefects, naturally, were expected to set an example by being punctually in their places in Big Hall for the evening assembly. Jaggers’s house where I lived was further than the rest from the main building, and, as I never started till the bell was ringing, I always had a last-minute dash across the chess-garden to be on time. No flowers grew here among the rows of tall evergreens, immensely old and cunningly clipped in the shapes of chessmen, by which I’d been so impressed when I first arrived. Even now, after years have passed, their weird aspect, hard and solid-looking as if carved out of malachite, is the thing I remember most clearly about the school. Only one man in the whole country was expert enough to give them their yearly trim, and his family had held the hereditary office since time immemorial. When the sun was high, these arborial curiosities could resemble a grotesque company of medieval giants, with their attendant dwarf-shadows. Or an army of green invaders from an alien planet sometimes seemed to be marching in ordered formation across the lawn, where only masters and prefects
were allowed to tread. All their transformations, however, as my first glimpse had showed me, possessed the common quality of malice, which infected the air around them, as if, throughout the centuries of their long lives, they’d been accumulating contempt and bitterness for their human creators, which found expression in this emanation. As a new boy, looking out of the dormitory, I used to tremble at the sight of these spectral shapes, all looking towards me. Obviously, they knew all my secrets; they despised me and regarded me with suspicion, always wanting to trick and harm me, enveloping me in their malevolent influence. Later on, as I grew more sure of myself, the trees bothered me less. But I always thought of them as personifying derision and hostility; and I still felt an unacknowledged antipathy towards them.

On the summer’s day I’m describing, my mind was occupied solely by the need for haste, as I was even later than usual. Swinging around one of the great green towers at full speed, not expecting to meet anyone here, where all sounds were muffled by the soft turf and dense compact foliage with its strange medicinal smell, I collided with someone I almost sent flying before I could pull myself up. Grasping his arms to steady him, I saw that it was Jaggers and gasped a breathless, ‘Sorry, sir’, inwardly cursing the unlucky delay. At this moment the bell ceased to ring. In the ominous hush I became aware of my victim’s silence, then of his grey shocked face, which made me forget I was late and start asking anxious questions, afraid he’d been injured somehow by our collision. I felt, I remember, a curious pang of foreboding.

Waving a sheet of paper he held in his hand, he waved away my inquiries and instead put a question of his own – a question so extraordinary that I could scarcely believe my ears, hearing him ask the sailing date of the ship on which
my father had first intended to leave the country. Amazed, I told him it should have sailed over a week ago. Whereupon he nodded slowly, a look of extreme anguish overspreading his face, and muttering, ‘Yes, I thought so’, in the way of a man overwhelmed by guilt, so that he might have been saying, ‘Yes, it’s all my fault.’

Though I had no idea what he meant, and was completely bewildered by the whole situation, for a moment he seemed to project his guilt on to me; as in a nightmare flashback I suddenly recalled with horror the guilty child whose imagination had once assumed responsibility for his father’s fate. ‘He’s too late now,’ I heard Jaggers murmur; but paid no attention to the words, too perturbed by his condition, convinced that he was wandering, temporarily out of his mind.

I tried to lead him towards the entrance of the main building. But he resisted, violently threw off my hand and, thrusting upon me the page he carried, covered his face with his hands and to my consternation began shaking from head to foot as if silently sobbing. I was thankful to catch sight of one of the gardeners who must have been working late, to whom I shouted, telling him to get help at once.