Shame and Consciences

adapted by Mihangel

19. Fame and fortune

There was really only one bowler in that year's Eleven, and Chips Carpenter was his prophet. There were others who took turns at the other end, who even captured a few wickets between them; but "the mainstay of our attack was Rutter," as the Magazine found more than one occasion to remark. The Magazine displayed a marked belief in the new bowler, from his very first appearance with his lowly black school cap pulled down behind his prominent ears. Its rather too pointed phrases were widely attributed to the new editor, who was none other than Crabtree, now a polly and captain of Heriot's house. The fact was, however, that Crabtree employed Chips as cricket correspondent, though he had to edit him severely, especially in those remarks which found disfavour in other houses.

Old Crabtree, who had suddenly grown into a young man, made by far the best captain the house ever had in Jan's time. But he was a terrible martinet. You had to shut yourself up in your study to breathe the mildest expletive, and it cost you sixpence to throw the smallest stone in the quad. Crabtree was not precisely popular, but he was respected for his scornful courage and his caustic tongue. He ruled by dint of personality unaided by athletic prowess, and during his four terms of authority there can have been few better houses than Heriot's in any school. Shockley likened it to a nunnery without the nuns, and left in disgust for reasons best known to himself. Buggins and the portly Eyre grew into harmless and even useful members of the community. And the fluent and versatile Chips learnt a lesson or two for the rest of his literary life.

"I wish you'd use people's names, instead of saying "the latter" and "the former," said Crabtree, coming into Chips's study with a proof. "And look here! I'm blowed if I have "The Promise of May" dragged in just because we happen to have lost a match in June! And we won't butter Rutter more than twice in four lines, if you don't mind, Chips."

But Crabtree was not cricketer enough to distinguish the quality of the butter from its quantity, and some sad samples escaped detection. "Rutter took out his bat for a steadily-played five," for instance, and "the third ball -- a beauty -- bowled Rutter for a well-earned eight." They were certainly Jan's largest scores for the team, for he was no batsman, but even on firmer ground the biased historian went much too far. "Better bowling than Rutter's would be hard to imagine. Many of his deliveries were simply unplayable." Jan really had taken six wickets, but at considerable cost. And this report concluded: "At the end of the first day's play I. T. Rutter received his First XI colours which, needless to say, were thoroughly well merited."

Jan's best performance, however, was against the Old Boys on Founder's Day. Repton and Haileybury Schools it was good to meet and better to defeat. But the Old Boys' Match was the most popular feature of the chief festival of the school year. It inspired the rising generation with a glimpse of famous forerunners, and gave the forerunners the chance to judge their successors. This year the Old Boys came down in force. There was Boots Ommaney who, despite being a Cambridge don, had played for England at both ends of the earth. There was A. G. Swallow, for some seasons the best bowler and still the finest all-round player the school had ever turned out. There was the ever-cheerful Swiller Wilman, younger and less exalted, who nevertheless compiled an almost annual century in the match. In all there were six former Captains of the Eleven and four old university Blues. But Jan had seven of their wickets in the first innings -- five of them clean bowled -- on a wicket a shade less than fast.

"Well done again! " said Dudley Relton in the pavilion. "Don't be disappointed if you don't do so well next innings, or even next year. But on that wicket you might run through the best side in England -- for the first time of asking."

"It's the break that does it," replied Jan modestly, "and I don't even know how I put it on."

"Most left handers bowl leg-breaks. Batsmen expect it. You bowl off-breaks, which are unexpected. But they're easier to play, once they're ready for them. If only you had 'em both, there'd be no holding you. You're coming to the Conversazione, of course."

"I don't think so, sir." Jan was blushing furiously.

"But you've got your colours, and all the team came last year. It's school songs from the choir, and ices and things for all hands, you know."

"I know, sir."

"Then why aren't you coming?"

Jan looked left and right to make sure that nobody could hear. "I haven't got a dress suit," he whispered bitterly. "That's why, sir!"

"What infernal luck! We're much the same build, though, aren't we? Would you let me see if I can fix you up, Jan?"

Had it been possible to strengthen the existing bond between man and boy, those words would have done so. But it was the last of those words that meant most to Jan, for it was the first time that Relton had called him by his Christian name. The Eleven traditionally went by theirs among their peers, but as yet the Eleven had not exactly treated Jan as one of themselves. He was younger than any of them, and lower in the school than most. In moments of excitement there was still a marked breadth to his vowels; and when he pulled his new white cap tight over his head, making his ears stick out more than ever and parting his back hair horizontally to the skin, there was sometimes a wink or a grin behind his back. That this little habit was often the prelude to a wicket was noticed not only by the fielding side, but by many of the spectators on the rugs.

"Don't hustle," you would hear some fellow say. "The Tiger's got his cap pulled down, and I want to watch."

Chips had never had so much material for his poetising ("The bowler came down like a wolf on the fold") and Jan, on whom he tried it all out, listened as usual with tolerance and amusement.

"Cricket's your religion, isn't it, Chips?" he remarked one day. "And these are your hymns."

Chips was much struck. "That's a ripping idea, Tiger! There's any amount of raw material there!"

He seized a bit of paper and scribbled. "What about this?

Abide with me; fast fall the wickets and
The time has come to make a final stand.
When other batsmen fail and hope's all gone,
Tail-end left-hander, save the follow-on!

Well, it could do with a bit of polishing, but you see the possibilities."

Jan had winced both at the words and at Chips's attempt at singing. "Hmm. Crabtree'd never accept things like that -- he'd smell blasphemy. I don't think you could use hymns."

Chips was a little dashed. "I suppose not. All right, not hymns, then. Still, you're right. Cricket is a sacred subject, and sacred subjects need sacred poems."

That was a halcyon term for Jan, and to crown it all he was still in Dudley Relton's form. There he was treated with cynical indulgence, for Relton's job was to uphold the cricketing tradition, and he would not have upset his best bowler even if there had been no other tie between them. That other tie was never mentioned, but thinking of it sweetened the bowler's triumph.

Heriot, moreover, was delighted to see a colleague giving Jan the encouragement which delicate circumstances prevented him from giving himself. There was no jealousy or narrowness in Robert Heriot. He was a staunch champion of Relton, whose methods and temperament scarcely commended themselves to hardened masters like Haigh. But then Heriot himself was having a very good term. His house was in order under the incomparable Crabtree, and Rutter was not its only member in the Eleven. Stratten already had his colours for wicket-keeping, and Jellicoe looked certain of his as a batsman. The three provided a bit of the best of everything for the house eleven, which was already carrying all before it in the All Ages competition. Haigh had not spoken to Heriot for two whole days after his own house went down before "the most obstinate blockhead that ever cumbered my hall."

Jan enjoyed that match, like all his triumphs, but it was not his nature to show it. Chips made up for him. He not only penned his sacred poems singing Jan's praises in print, but talked about him by the hour, so much so during the match in question that Haigh told him straight that he was "behaving like a private-school cad." Heriot, on the other hand, had never thought so highly of Chips, for he knew what he would have given to be a practical player instead of a mere enthusiast. And Heriot liked Jan no less for sticking to his first friend. He wished he could overhear their Sunday evening chats, which still took place in the immaculate museum of Chips's study, the only one of the two fit to sit in. Jan was still indifferent to his surroundings. His walls were still innocent of pictures, grease-spots had multiplied on Shockley's green tablecloth, and the papers on the floor were now transparent with blots of oil from his bat.

"I hope you're keeping the scores of all your matches," said Chips one night. "You ought to stick 'em in a book. If you won't, I'll do it for you."

"What's the good?"

"Good? Well, for one thing, it'll be jolly interesting for your kids some day."

Chips had not smiled, but Jan grinned from ear to ear. He was feeling indolent and content.

"Steady on! It's just like you to look a hundred years ahead." He did not add that he was unlikely to have kids.

"Well, but surely your people would take an interest in them?"

"My people!"

Chips knew it was a sore subject. "But surely they're jolly proud of your being in the Eleven?"

"My uncle might be. But he's in India."

"And I suppose the old people don't know what it means?"

"They might. I haven't told them."

Chips could hardly believe his ears. But he could not comment on that revelation, so he shifted back to where he had started.

"You'll bowl for the Gentlemen before you've done. And then you'll be sorry you haven't got the first chapter in black and white. You should see the book A. G. Swallow keeps ! I saw it once when he visited my private school. He's even got his leave to be in the Eleven, signed by Jerry. If I were you I'd have yours in a frame!"

Nobody could obtain his Eleven or Fifteen colours without a permit signed by house-master and form master and finally endorsed by Mr Thrale himself, whose signature was seldom added without a cordial word of congratulation.

"I believe I have got that, somewhere or other."

Chips eventually found it among the Greek and Latin litter on the floor.

"What a chap you are! I'm going to keep this for you until one or other of us leaves, Tiger. You're -- well, I can't say you're not fit to be in the Eleven, but I'm blowed if you deserve to own a precious document like this!"

Yet there was another document which Jan already had under lock and key, except when he took it out to read once more. Chips never saw or heard of this one, but he would have recognised the writing at a glance, and Jan knew what sort of glance it would have been. This was what it said:

Dear old Jan,

I can never tell you how I rejoice at your tremendous success. Heaps of congratulations! I'm proud of you, so will they all be at home. School is awful for dividing old friends unless you're in the same house or form. You know that's all it is or ever was! Will you forgive me and come for a walk after second chapel on Sunday?

Always your old friend,

Evan

Chips knew nothing until the Sunday, when he said he supposed Jan was coming out after second chapel as usual, and Jan replied very off-hand that he was awfully sorry, he was engaged. "One of the Eleven, I suppose?" said Chips, not in the least inclined to grudge him to them. Then Jan told the truth aggressively, and Chips made a tactless comment, and Jan told him he could get somebody else to sit in his study that night. It was the first break in an arrangement which had lasted since their first term.

In the event, Jan enjoyed the afternoon walk and talk more than any since the affair of the haunted house a year before. It was just as well that Chips had been left out. He would not have found Evan Devereux improved; indeed he saw quite enough of him in school to be convinced of that already. They never fraternised in the least, and it is in his intimate moments that a boy is at his worst or best.

Evan was immediately as intimate with Jan as though they had been at different schools for the past year. Outside the chapel he took Jan's arm, at which Jan rejoiced, and off they went like old bosoms. Evan seemed a good deal more than a year older. His voice had settled into a rich tenor and his reddish hair was crisper and perhaps less red. But he was still short for his age, and acquiring the cock-sparrow strut of some short men. His conversation strutted deliciously. It would have made Chips grind his teeth. Of course it was cricket conversation, but Evan soon turned it to his own cricket, and Jan followed him in all humility. Evan had been a bit of a batsman all his life. The stable lad, who in the old days had usually been able to bowl him out at will, had always wished that he could bat as well. He said so now, and Evan, who was going to get into the third eleven with luck, was full of sympathy with the best bowler in the school.

"It must be beastly always going in last. I expect you're jolly glad when you don't get a ball. But at least you don't have to walk back alone!"

"I'm always afraid I may have to go in when a few runs are wanted to win the match, and a good bat well set at the other end. That's the only thing I should mind."

"You remember the Pinchington ground?" asked Evan abruptly, as though he had not been listening.

"I do that!" cried Jan, and Evan looked round at him. Jan remembered how he had longed, when as small boys they played village cricket there, to be in flannels like Master Evan instead of his Sunday shirt and trousers. Evan was thinking that the school bowler had spoken exactly like the stable lad.

They reminisced about past cricket for a while, and then moved to present cricket. But Jan, who always preferred doing a thing to talking about it, and who wanted to know a lot of things that he did not like to ask, tried to change the subject. He tried the horses, and was sorry and embarrassed to hear that the stables had been reduced. He tried the Miss Christies. But cricket was the only talk that Evan would sustain. As they wandered back towards the thin church spire with the golden cock atop, looking rather like an inverted exclamation mark on a sheet of pale blue paper, it was made clear to Jan that he was not to regard himself as the only cricketer. But he had no desire to do so, and he could not have been heartier in his agreement.

"You'll get your colours next year, Evan, and then we'll be in the same game every day of our lives!"

"I have my hopes, I must say. But it's not so easy to get in as a bat."

"No. You may get a trial and not come off, but a bowler's bound to if he's any good. Anyhow, you're in a jolly strong house, and that's always a help."

"We ought to be in the final this year," said Evan thoughtfully.

"And so ought we."

They were both right, and the last match of the term on the Upper, on the last Saturday, was the decisive one between their two houses. A few days beforehand Evan told Jan that his people were coming down to see it. Jan could not conceal his nervousness at that prospect. But it left him more determined than ever that Heriot's should have the cup. He had some new flannels specially made at the last moment, and had his hair cut the day before the match. As he took the ball and pulled his cap down further than ever, it gashed his back hair the more conspicuously to the scalp.

In the event, his bowling was on form. True, variety was lacking, and a first-class batsman would have taken its measure in about an over. But there were scarcely the makings of one in the Lodge team, and great was the fall of that house. Heriot's won a low-scoring match by an innings in the course of an afternoon. Jan had fifteen wickets in all, including Evan's twice over. The first time, when he was caught in the slips, Evan's nought might be counted as hard luck. But in the second innings it was a complex moment for Jan when Evan strutted in with the air of a saviour of situations. Jan did not want him to fail again, and yet he did because Evan's people were looking on. He felt mean and yet exalted as he led off with a trimmer, and the leg bail hit Stratten in the face.

"I'm awfully sorry!" he stammered tactlessly, but Evan passed him flaming, without a sign of having heard.

Mr Devereux, however, could afford to treat the whole affair differently. He was a florid and fine-looking man with a light grey bowler, a flower in his coat, and all the boisterous self-confidence proper to a successful ironmaster. He was far from grudging Jan his success. On the contrary, he seemed only too ready to transfer his paternal pride to his old coachman's son, and was sorely tempted to boast of him as such. Some saving sense of fitness, assisted by a quiet hint from Heriot, sealed his itching lips. But in talking to Jan by himself Mr Devereux naturally saw no need for restraint.

"I remember when you used to bowl to my son in front of your father's -- ah -- in front of those cottages of mine -- with a solid india-rubber ball! We never thought of all this then, did we? But I congratulate you, my lad, and very glad I am to have the opportunity."

"Thank you very much, sir," said Jan, in a grateful glow from head to heel.

"I'll tell them all about you down there. And some day you must come and stay with us, as a guest, you know, and play a match or two for Evan and his friends at Pinchington. You'll be one too many for the village lads. Quite a hero, you'll find yourself!"

Jan was not sure what to say to that, and could only be grateful again when Mr Devereux slipped a sovereign into his hand. It was the first whole sovereign that he had been given in all his life.

But whatever Jan's gratitude to Devereux senior, his bitterness over Devereux junior had been reviving ever since their walk together. Evan turned his charm on and off as he chose, now fanning the flames, now damping them down; aware, surely, that he was playing with the flames of friendship, but unaware that they were flames of something more. And ever since that walk, when his place had been usurped by Evan, Chips had been quite unusually aloof and distant. Jan found himself even more sorry about that than about Evan's blowing hot and cold. The evening of the day after the All Ages final he went, as he always had done until things turned sour, to sit in Chips's study as if nothing had happened, and silly old Chips nearly wept with delight. But nothing was said about the few weeks of sourness.