第54章 XVI(1)

In three years Mr. Pembroke had done much to solidify the day-boys at Sawston School. If they were not solid, they were at all events curdling, and his activities might reasonably turn elsewhere. He had served the school for many years, and it was really time he should be entrusted with a boarding-house. The headmaster, an impulsive man who darted about like a minnow and gave his mother a great deal of trouble, agreed with him, and also agreed with Mrs. Jackson when she said that Mr. Jackson had served the school for many years and that it was really time he should be entrusted with a boarding-house. Consequently, when Dunwood House fell vacant the headmaster found himself in rather a difficult position.

Dunwood House was the largest and most lucrative of the boarding-houses. It stood almost opposite the school buildings.

Originally it had been a villa residence--a red-brick villa, covered with creepers and crowned with terracotta dragons. Mr. Annison, founder of its glory, had lived here, and had had one or two boys to live with him. Times changed. The fame of the bishops blazed brighter, the school increased, the one or two boys became a dozen, and an addition was made to Dunwood House that more than doubled its size. A huge new building, replete with every convenience, was stuck on to its right flank. Dormitories, cubicles, studies, a preparation-room, a dining-room, parquet floors, hot-air pipes--no expense was spared, and the twelve boys roamed over it like princes. Baize doors communicated on every floor with Mr. Annison's part, and he, an anxious gentleman, would stroll backwards and forwards, a little depressed at the hygienic splendours, and conscious of some vanished intimacy.

Somehow he had known his boys better when they had all muddled together as one family, and algebras lay strewn upon the drawing room chairs. As the house filled, his interest in it decreased.

When he retired--which he did the same summer that Rickie left Cambridge--it had already passed the summit of excellence and was beginning to decline. Its numbers were still satisfactory, and for a little time it would subsist on its past reputation. But that mysterious asset the tone had lowered, and it was therefore of great importance that Mr. Annison's successor should be a first-class man. Mr. Coates, who came next in seniority, was passed over, and rightly. The choice lay between Mr. Pembroke and Mr. Jackson, the one an organizer, the other a humanist. Mr. Jackson was master of the Sixth, and--with the exception of the headmaster, who was too busy to impart knowledge--the only first-class intellect in the school. But he could not or rather would not, keep order. He told his form that if it chose to listen to him it would learn; if it didn't, it wouldn't. One half listened. The other half made paper frogs, and bored holes in the raised map of Italy with their penknives. When the penknives gritted he punished them with undue severity, and then forgot to make them show the punishments up. Yet out of this chaos two facts emerged. Half the boys got scholarships at the University, and some of them--including several of the paper-frog sort--remained friends with him throughout their lives. Moreover, he was rich, and had a competent wife. His claim to Dunwood House was stronger than one would have supposed.

The qualifications of Mr. Pembroke have already been indicated.

They prevailed--but under conditions. If things went wrong, he must promise to resign.

"In the first place," said the headmaster, "you are doing so splendidly with the day-boys. Your attitude towards the parents is magnificent. I--don't know how to replace you there. Whereas, of course, the parents of a boarder--""Of course," said Mr. Pembroke.

The parent of a boarder, who only had to remove his son if he was discontented with the school, was naturally in a more independent position than the parent who had brought all his goods and chattels to Sawston, and was renting a house there.

"Now the parents of boarders--this is my second point--practically demand that the house-master should have a wife.""A most unreasonable demand," said Mr. Pembroke.

"To my mind also a bright motherly matron is quite sufficient.

But that is what they demand. And that is why--do you see?--we HAVE to regard your appointment as experimental. Possibly Miss Pembroke will be able to help you. Or I don't know whether if ever--" He left the sentence unfinished. Two days later Mr. Pembroke proposed to Mrs. Orr.

He had always intended to marry when he could afford it; and once he had been in love, violently in love, but had laid the passion aside, and told it to wait till a more convenient season. This was, of course, the proper thing to do, and prudence should have been rewarded. But when, after the lapse of fifteen years, he went, as it were, to his spiritual larder and took down Love from the top shelf to offer him to Mrs. Orr, he was rather dismayed.

Something had happened. Perhaps the god had flown; perhaps he had been eaten by the rats. At all events, he was not there.

Mr. Pembroke was conscientious and romantic, and knew that marriage without love is intolerable. On the other hand, he could not admit that love had vanished from him. To admit this, would argue that he had deteriorated.

Whereas he knew for a fact that he had improved, year by year.