And when she was dying, she had said to him: ‘Remember the Parable of the Sower, and the seeds that fell in shallow ground.’ No, no. Amen, decidedly. ‘O Lord, show thy mercy upon us,’ chanted oboe Pelvey, and Gumbril trombone responded, profoundly and grotesquely: ‘And grant us thy salvation.’
No, the knees were obviously less important, except for people like revivalists and housemaids, than the seat. Sedentary are commoner than genuflectory professions. One would introduce little flat rubber bladders between two layers of cloth. At the upper end, hidden when one wore a coat, would be a tube with a valve: like a hollow tail. Blow it up – and there would be perfect comfort even for the boniest, even on rock. How did the Greeks stand marble benches in their theatres?
The moment had now come for the Hymn. This being the first Sunday of the Summer term, they sang that special hymn, written by the Headmaster, with music by Dr Jolly, on purpose to be sung on the first Sundays of terms. The organ quietly sketched out the tune. Simple it was, uplifting and manly.
One, two, three, four; one, two THREE – 4.
One, two-and three-and four-and; One, two THREE – 4.
ONE – 2, THREE – 4; ONE– 2 – 3 – 4,
and-ONE – 2, THREE – 4; ONE – 2 – 3 – 4.
One, two-and three, four; One, two THREE – 4.
Five hundred flawed adolescent voices took it up. For good example’s sake, Gumbril opened and closed his mouth; noiselessly, however. It was only at the third verse that he gave rein to his uncertain baritone. He particularly liked the third verse; it marked, in his opinion, the Headmaster’s highest poetical achievement.
(f)For slack hands and (dim.) idle minds (mf)Mischief still the Tempter finds. (ff)Keep him captive in his lair. At this point Dr Jolly enriched his tune with a thick accompaniment in the lower registers, artfully designed to symbolize the depth, the gloom and general repulsiveness of the Tempter’s home.
(ff)Keep him captive in his lair. (f)Work will bind him. (dim.) Work is (pp) prayer. Work, thought Gumbril, work. Lord, how passionately he disliked work! Let Austin have his swink to him reserved! Ah, if only one had work of one’s own, proper work, decent work – not forced upon one by the griping of one’s belly! Amen! Dr Jolly blew the two sumptuous jets of reverence into the air; Gumbril accompanied them with all his heart. Amen, indeed.
Gumbril sat down again. It might be convenient, he thought, to have the tail so long that one could blow up one’s trousers while one actually had them on. In which case, it would have to be coiled round the waist like a belt; or looped up, perhaps, and fastened to a clip on one’s braces.
‘The nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, part of the thirty-fourth verse.’ The Headmaster’s loud, harsh voice broke violently out from the pulpit. ‘All with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’
Gumbril composed himself as comfortably as he could on his oaken seat. It was going to be one of the Headmaster’s real swingeing sermons. Great is Diana. And Venus? Ah, these seats, these seats!
Gumbril did not attend evening chapel. He stayed at home in his lodgings to correct the sixty-three Holiday Task Papers which had fallen to his share. They lay, thick piles of them, on the floor beside his chair: sixty-three answers to ten questions about the Italian Risorgimento. The Risorgimento, of all subjects! It had been one of the Headmaster’s caprices. He had called a special masters’ meeting at the end of last term to tell them all about the Risorgimento. It was his latest discovery.
‘The Risorgimento, gentlemen, is the most important event in modern European history.’ And he had banged the table; he had looked defiantly round the room in search of contradictors.
But nobody had contradicted him. Nobody ever did; they all knew better. For the headmaster was as fierce as he was capricious. He was for ever discovering something new. Two terms ago it had been singeing; after the hair-cut and before the shampoo, there must be singeing.
‘The hair, gentlemen, is a tube. If you cut it and leave the end unsealed, the water will get in and rot the tube. Hence the importance of singeing, gentlemen. Singeing seals the tube. I shall address the boys about it after chapel to-morrow morning; and I trust that all house-masters’ – and he had glared around him from under his savage eyebrows – ‘will see that their boys get themselves regularly singed after cutting.’
For weeks afterwards every boy trailed behind him a faint and nauseating whiff of burning, as though he were fresh from hell. And now it was the Risorgimento. One of these days, Gumbril reflected, it would be birth control, or the decimal system, or rational dress.
He picked up the nearest batch of papers. The printed questions were pinned to the topmost of them.
‘Give a brief account of the character and career of Pope Pius IX, with dates wherever possible.’
Gumbril leaned back in his chair and thought of his own character, with dates. 1896: the first serious and conscious and deliberate lie. Did you break that vase, Theodore? No, mother. It lay on his conscience for nearly a month, eating deeper and deeper. Then he confessed the truth. Or rather he had not confessed; that was too difficult. He led the conversation, very subtly, as he thought, round through the non-malleability of glass, through breakages in general, to this particular broken vase; he practically forced his mother to repeat her question. And then, with a burst of tears, he had answered, yes. It had always been difficult for him to say things directly, point-blank. His mother had told him, when she was dying… No, no; not that.
In 1898 or 1899 – oh, these dates! – he had made a pact with his little cousin, Molly, that she should let him see her with no clothes on, if he would do the same by her. She had fulfilled her part of the bargain; but he, overwhelmed at the last moment by a passion of modesty, had broken his promise.
Then, when he was about twelve and still at his preparatory school, in 1902 or 1903 he had done badly in his exams, on purpose; he had been frightened of Sadler, who was in the same form, and wanted to get the prize. Sadler was stronger than he was, and had a genius for persecution. He had done so badly that his mother was unhappy; and it was impossible for him to explain.
In 1906 he had fallen in love for the first time – ah, much more violently than ever since – with a boy of his own age.
Platonic it had been and profound. He had done badly that term, too; not on purpose, but because he had spent so much time helping young Vickers with his work. Vickers was really very stupid. The next term he had ‘come out’ – Staphylococcus pyogenes is a lover of growing adolescence – with spots and boils all over his face and neck. Gumbril’s affection ceased as suddenly as it had begun. He finished that term, he remembered, with a second prize.
But it was time to be thinking seriously of Pio Nono. With a sigh of disgusted weariness, Gumbril looked at his papers. What had Falarope Major to say of the Pontiff? ‘Pius IX was called Ferretti. He was a liberal before he was a Pope. A kindly man of less than average intelligence, he thought that all difficulties could be settled by a little goodwill, a few reforms and a political amnesty. He wrote several encyclicals and a syllabus.’ Gumbril admired the phrase about less than average intelligence; Falarope Major should have at least one mark for having learnt it so well by heart. He turned to the next paper.
Higgs was of opinion that ‘Pius the Ninth was a good but stupid man, who thought he could settle the Risorgimento with a few reforms and a political armistice.’ Beddoes was severer. ‘Pius IX was a bad man, who said that he was infallible, which showed he had a less than average intelligence.’ Sopwith Minor shared the general opinion about Pio’s intelligence, and displayed a great familiarity with the wrong dates. Clegg-Weller was voluminous and informative. ‘Pius IX was not so clever as his prime minister, Cardinal Antonelli. When he came to the tiara he was a liberal, and Metternich said he had never reckoned on a liberal pope.
He then became a conservative. He was kindly, but not intelligent, and he thought Garibaldi and Cavour would be content with a few reforms and an amnesty.’ At the top of Garstang’s paper was written: ‘I have had measles all the holidays, so have been unable to read more than the first thirty pages of the book. Pope Pius IX does not come into these pages, of the contents of which I will proceed to give the following précis.’ And the précis duly followed. Gumbril would have liked to give him full marks. But the business-like answer of Appleyard called him back
