Tom Brown's Body

15. And Puppy-Dogs' Tails

*

But now, since you have nothing better to do, ev'n go to your Book and learn your Catechism.

IBID. (Act 1, Scene 6)

THE School Concert was one of the great occasions of the year. From three o'clock the parents began to turn up. Lessons were cancelled from half-past twelve onwards, and the School veiled itself in its best. By half-past three Big School had begun to fill up. Parents did not sit with their boys. These formed a solid phalanx at the back, except for the School prefects (who acted as stewards to the visitors), and the House prefects (who were responsible for the orderliness of their Houses). The masters, gowned and remote, occupied the second and third rows. Directly in front of them, on either side of Mr Wyck (whose throne-like chair was in the middle of the first row), sat such members of the governing body as had chosen to grace the occasion with their presence. Directly behind the Staff sat the twittering and egoistic parents.

*

Ingpen, of Mr Poundbury's House, had, on the day of the plays, a very adventurous time. Spey depended upon no preparatory school in particular for its regular intake, and when, under Mr Wyck's predecessor, the numbers had fallen slightly below the complete accommodation of the School, the governing body had decided to instal a small preparatory department of its own for boys of eight to thirteen.

These children were allotted in strict rotation to the Houses, so that each Housemaster received his fair share of them. Wealthy Housemasters, such as Mr Mayhew, thought them a complete nuisance. Indigent ones, such as Mr Poundbury, charged them some extras and were very glad to have them.

There were strict rules governing their upbringing. They were in charge of a special prefect in each House whose duty it was to make certain that they were not bullied, imposed upon, or spoilt by the older boys. They went to bed a good deal earlier than the rest of the House, and had special dormitories allotted to them. They had their own Day Room, which was not in the House at all, but in an annexe of Big School, so that they were nominally, during parts of the day, in Mr Wyck's own charge.

They were in great request at certain times and seasons. The treble voices in the School choir were bound, for obvious reasons, to be chosen from their number. One of them usually coxed the School boat. As children, dwarfs, Midsummer Night's Dream fairies, girls, and so forth, they were much in request for the School plays. Mr Poundbury, in fact, made even more use of them than this, for he made them pay a Dramatic Society fee and charged them heavily for the hire or purchase of their costumes, two impositions from which his older actors were free. The governing body, as a matter of actual fact, financed all such School activities, but Mr Poundbury felt that the pleasure experienced by the little boys, and the pride taken in their dramatic prowess by their mothers, justified him in these otherwise doubtful sources of private profit.

On the day of the School plays, Ingpen, nephew of the woodwork master and a robust and comely child of nine and a half, awoke at the sound of the rising bell, and, remembering what day it was, jumped out of bed excitedly, slid on his bedside rug underneath which the housemaid had smeared and rubbed up a forbidden household polish, and cracked his head rather hard against the wall towards which, as Fate would have it, he had taken a toss.

Ingpen, who was a plucky enough creature, got up rather shakily, explored, with delicate finger and wincing eyes and mouth, that part of his cranium which had struck the wall, said, 'You silly fools, it's not funny,' to the rest of the dormitory, and was suddenly very sick in the middle of the dormitory floor.

The catcalls, whoops, realistic imitations, and general pandemonium caused by this performance brought along Timms, Mr Poundbury's unfortunate Preep-Weep, as such dry-nurses were called at Spey, for question and answer.

'Now what?' shouted Timms, successfully dealing with the din.

'Please, Timms, Ingpen catted. Look.'

Timms, who had a queasy stomach before breakfast, unwisely accepted this invitation.

'Lord!' he said, in disgust. 'Here, you, Tomalin, go and tell matron. What's the matter with you?' he added wrath-fully to Ingpen. 'Have you been eating in dorm, you filthy little beast?'

'Please, Timms, he slipped on his Prigga and hit his head,' volunteered a pale child whose bed was next that of Ingpen.

'Lord!' said Timms, more mildly this time, however. 'You'd better sit down, you little fathead. What on earth do you want to slip on mats for?'

'I don't know, Timms,' replied Ingpen; and astonished and alarmed his interlocutor by sitting on the bed, falling sideways, and, apparently, going to sleep. Matron, fortunately, arrived at this moment, scanned the mess on the floor with noteworthy lack of interest, pointed it out to the maid who had followed her up with sand, sawdust, disinfectant, and such other appurtenances as the situation demanded, and then hurried all the children out of the room with their clothing under their arms. She commanded Timms to lift up Ingpen and bring him into the Senior Day Room, which, at that hour of the morning, was empty.

There they walked him up and down a bit, and the School doctor, for whom Mrs Poundbury, summoned at matron's request, had immediately telephoned, examined the bump on Ingpen's head. The doctor did not think the concussion was serious, but advised that Ingpen should be kept quiet and caused to 'go steady' for a bit.

'A bit?' said Mrs Poundbury. 'What does that mean, doctor? He's in one of the School plays this afternoon! He'll go crazy if he isn't allowed to go on!'

The doctor was a sensible man. He did not think that the child was seriously hurt. He studied Ingpen.

'A big part?' he enquired.

'Oh, yes, sir, please, sir, no, sir!' gasped Ingpen, who believed that the play could not possibly be put on without him.

'Well, you keep very quiet until this afternoon, then, or I'll take you out of the whole show,' said the doctor.

Ingpen was enormously relieved. His mother, father, and sister were all invited to the play, and his Uncle Henry and his Cousin Marion were on the premises already. It would have broken his heart to fail them. On the other hand – he studied the luminous hands of his watch in the darkened room when everybody had gone and he was left tucked up under a rug on Mrs Poundbury's drawing-room sofa – at least five hours, and perhaps more, must elapse before he could rejoin his fellow-men; hours and hours and hours when he would have nothing to do, no one to talk to, no lessons, no anything.

It has been remarked upon more than once by those who are knowledgeable and experienced in such matters, that young children genuinely enjoy school work. It is only in early adolescence that the irksome, irritating, and unnecessary nature of the tasks allotted by our mentors and preceptors becomes obvious. At nine and a half, young Ingpen enjoyed his lessons. He honestly and ingenuously believed that it would be much more dull without than with them. Odd as it might seem to the rest of Spey, the preparatory-school section even mildly liked the staff who taught them, and offended these less from set intention than from sheer puppy exuberance or as the result of legitimate experiment.

At the end of twenty minutes' peace and boredom, Ingpen was almost desperate. He was meditating a quiet sneak out on the excuse, if he were encountered, of needing to visit the privy, when a maid carrying a breakfast tray followed Mrs Poundbury into the room.

'Well, Bill,' she said – following her casual habit of addressing all boys under twelve by this cognomen – 'how goes it?'

'Oh, I'm quite all right,' declared Ingpen. 'Please mayn't I go over to School?'

'Better not. Have some breakfast with me. Would you like me to send for Marion? She came over with your uncle to his woodwork class to show the boys how to upholster the chairs they're making.'

'No, thanks. Just talk to me, please.'

Thus passed a pleasant half hour, but then Mrs Pound-bury had to go away. She consented, however, as there was no sunshine, to leave the curtains partly open so that Ingpen could see the garden.

'You must keep very quiet, or the doctor won't let you go on in the play,' she said. 'Does your head ache much?'

'It doesn't ache at all,' said Ingpen, not quite truthfully. But he did not renew his entreaty to be allowed to go over to School.

Another half hour went very slowly by . . . and then another half hour. It would be a long time yet, reflected Ingpen miserably, even to mid-morning break. He loved mid-morning break, with its shrill hooliganism, its glass of milk and its biscuits. Then a dreadful thought came to his mind. Perhaps he was not to have a mid-morning break! Perhaps they would forget all about him! He grew restless and felt suddenly very hungry. There was nothing to do; there was nothing to eat; there was nothing to learn; there was – Ah!

He put back the rug and swung his feet to the ground. His head still hurt, but it was nothing more than a tight, bruised sort of feeling. He stood up, began to feel better, walked over to the bookcase and scanned the backs of the books. You could learn something, even from titles, he decided. He would not touch anything, of course, but surely Mrs Poundbury would not mind a man looking at her books?

Most of the titles were beneath notice; novels of a type which he did not like at that age, and never did like afterwards. These filled one and a half shelves; some of Mr Poundbury's more scholarly reading filled two and a half; then – and Ingpen caught his breath – then came a whole shelf of detective stories. Ingpen read title after title . . . then he stretched out a small, still babyishly plump hand.

The note fell on the floor unheeded at the moment by the child. He carried the book to his sofa and tucked it under the rug. Then, with the depravity common to his years, he returned to the bookcase and artistically adjusted the position of the rest of the books on the shelf so that no gap was immediately to be noticed. Then he spotted the note, and realized at once that it must have dropped out of the book which he had borrowed.

He did not open the folded paper. It did not interest him, for one thing. He merely took it over to the sofa and used it as a bookmark. This was necessary, for twice, whilst he was gobbling the story, somebody came in and he was obliged to push the book under the rug until he was alone again.

Lunch was at one. He had it where he was. From twenty minutes to two until two o'clock the preparatory schoolboys were obliged to sit quietly in their Day Room, under strict supervision, and read, before they went on with the lessons which intervened between this free time and their football, gymnastics, or boxing.

Ingpen read harder than anybody. Mrs Poundbury, coming to fetch him to be costumed and made up for the play, found him red-eyed, flushed, and not at all rested and refreshed. So worried did she feel – for she was a tenderhearted woman where the smallest boys were concerned – that she sent a maid for Mrs Bradley to ask whether she would be kind enough to give an eye to the patient.

Mrs Bradley turned up within ten minutes. She looked at the patient, touched the bruise on his head with gentle, exploratory, yellow fingers, and then, before the child could divine her intentions, she had whipped the rug back with her free hand and disclosed the incriminating book.

'Oo!' said the jackdaw, nonplussed. 'I'm sorry! I ought to have asked, but there wasn't quite anyone to ask, and really I haven't hurt it! I've been most frightfully careful, really I have!'

But neither the old nor the young woman was taking the slightest notice of him, for the bookmark had fallen to the floor.

'Good heavens! There it is!' said Mrs Poundbury, hastily snatching it up.

'You had better give that to me or to Detective-Inspector Gavin,' said Mrs Bradley at once. She turned to the round-eyed child on the sofa. 'And now, young man, I think perhaps a drink of milk and soda, and your promise to lie here, quite still, whilst I myself go on reading this most delightful story aloud, would be the best way of ensuring that you play your part this afternoon. How long can you give him, Mrs Poundbury?'

'Oh, as long as you like – that is, if I make him up last. We don't begin the plays until four, and the School has tea in the first interval. He doesn't come on until the third play – do you, Bill? – oh, dear, must I really give the note to Scotland Yard?' She found difficulty in pulling herself together, it was clear.

Mrs Bradley grimaced and nodded.

'Unless you'd prefer to give it to me,' she repeated, 'you must show it to the police.'

'Oh, no!' said Mrs Poundbury hastily. 'No, I couldn't do that!'

Mrs Bradley gave a faint cackle, reminiscent of the far-off calling of rooks. 'Don't be foolish,' she said. 'You don't want to get into trouble.' She then picked up the detective story and settled herself beside the child.