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“Won’t I!”
“Why should you?”
“I never wanted to come here, for one thing.”
“You’ll like it well enough, now you are here.”
“I hate it!”
“Only to begin with; lots of chaps do at first.”
“I always shall. I never wanted to come here; it wasn’t my doing, I can tell you.”
Evan stared, but did not laugh; he was now studiously kind in look and word, and yet there was something about both that strangely angered Jan. Look and word, in fact, were alike instinctively measured, and the kindness perfunctory if not exactly condescending. There was, to be sure, no conscious reminder, on Evan’s part, of past inequality; and yet there was just as little to show that in their new life Evan was prepared to treat Jan as an equal; nay, on their former footing he had been far more friendly. If his present manner augured anything, he was to be neither the friend nor the foe of Jan’s extreme hopes and fears. And the unforeseen mien was not the less confusing and exasperating because Jan was confused and exasperated without at the time quite knowing why.
“You needn’t think it was because you were here,” he added suddenly, aggressively – “because I thought you were at Winchester.”
“I didn’t flatter myself,” retorted Evan. “But, as a matter of fact, I should be there if I hadn’t got a scholarship here.”
“So I suppose,” said Jan.
“And yet I’m in the form below you!”
Evan was once more openly amused at this, and perhaps not so secretly annoyed as he imagined.
“I know,” said Jan. “That wasn’t my fault, either. I doubt they’ve placed me far too high.”
“But how did you manage to get half so high?” asked Evan, with a further ingenuous display of what was in his mind.
“Well, there was the vicar, to begin with.”
“That old sinner!” said Evan.
“I used to go to him three nights a week.”
“Now I remember.”
“Then you heard what happened when my father died?”
“Yes.”
“It would be a surprise to you, Master Evan?”
It had been on the tip of his tongue more than once, but until now he had found no difficulty in keeping it there. Yet directly they got back to the old days, out it slipped without a moment’s warning.
“You’d better not call me that again,” said Evan, dryly.
“I won’t.”
“Unless you want the whole school to know!”
“You see, my mother’s friends – ”
“I know. I’ve heard all about it. I always had heard – about your mother.”
Jan had only heard that pitiful romance from his father’s dying lips; it was then the boy had promised to obey her family in all things, and his coming here was the first thing of all. He said as much in his own words, which were bald and broken, though by awkwardness rather than emotion. Then Evan asked, as it were in his stride, if Jan’s mother’s people had a “nice place,” and other questions which might have betrayed to a more sophisticated observer a wish to ascertain whether they really were gentlefolk as alleged. Jan answered that it was “a nice enough place”; but he pointed to a photograph in an Oxford frame – the photograph of a large house reflected in a little artificial lake – a house with a slate roof and an ornamental tower, and no tree higher than the first-floor windows.
“That’s a nicer place,” said Jan, with a sigh.
“I daresay,” Evan acquiesced, with cold complacency.
“There’s nothing like that in Norfolk,” continued Jan, with perfect truth. “Do you remember the first time you took me up to the tower?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“What! not when we climbed out on the roof?”
“I’ve climbed out on the roof so often.”
“And there’s our cottage chimney; and just through that gate we used to play 'snob’!”
Evan did not answer. He had looked at his watch, and was taking down some books. The hint was not to be ignored.
“Well, I only came to say it wasn’t my fault,” said Jan. “I never knew they were going to send me to the same school as you, or they’d have had a job to get me to come.”
“Why?” asked Evan, more stiffly than he had spoken yet. “I shan’t interfere with you.”
“I’m sure you won’t!” cried Jan, with the bitterness which had been steadily gathering in his heart.
“Then what’s the matter with you? Do you think I’m going to tell the whole school all about you?”
Jan felt that he was somehow being put in the wrong; and assisted in the process by suddenly becoming his most sullen self.
“I don’t know,” he answered, hanging his head.
“You don’t know! Do you think I’d think of such a thing?”
“I think a good many would.”
“You think I would?”
“I don’t say that.”
“But you think it?”
Evan pressed him hotly.
“I don’t think anything; and I don’t care what anybody thinks of me, or what anybody knows!” cried Jan, not lying, but speaking as he had suddenly begun to feel.
“Then I don’t know why on earth you came to me,” said Evan scornfully.
“No more do I,” muttered Jan; and out he went into the quad, and crossed it with a flaming face. But at the further side he turned. Evan’s door was still open, as Jan had left it, but Evan had not come out.
Jan found him standing in the same attitude, with the book he had taken down, still unopened in his hand, and a troubled frown upon his face.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Evan.
“I’m sorry – Devereux!”
“So am I.”
“I might have known you wouldn’t tell a soul.”
“I think you might.”
“And of course I don’t want a soul to know. I thought I didn’t care a minute ago. But I do care, more than enough.”
“Well, no one shall hear from me. I give you my word about that.”
“Thank you!”
Jan was holding out his hand.
“Oh, that’s all right.”
“Won’t you shake hands?”
“Oh, with pleasure, if you like.”
But the grip was all on one side.
CHAPTER VII
REASSURANCE
Jan went back to his house in a dull glow of injury and anger. But he was angriest with himself, for the gratuitous and unwonted warmth with which he had grasped an unresponsive hand. And the sense of injury abated with a little honest reflection upon its cause. After all, with such a different relationship so fresh in his mind, the Master Evan of the other day could hardly have said more than he had said this afternoon; in any case he could not have promised more. Jan remembered his worst fears; they at least would never be realised now. And yet, in youth, to escape the worst is but to start sighing for the best. Evan might be loyal enough. But would he ever be a friend? Almost in his stride Jan answered his own question with complete candour in the negative; and having faced his own conclusion, thanked his stars that Evan and he were in different houses and different forms.
Shockley was lounging against the palings outside the door leading to the studies; the spot appeared to be his favourite haunt. It was an excellent place for joining a crony or kicking a small boy as he passed. Jan was already preparing his heart for submission to superior force, and his person for any violence, when Shockley greeted him with quite a genial smile.
“Lot o’ parcels for you, Tiger,” said he. “I’ll give you a hand with ’em, if you like.”
“Thank you very much,” mumbled Jan, quite in a flutter. “But where will they be?”
“Where will they be?” the other murmured under his breath. “I’ll show you, Tiger.”
Jan could not help suspecting that Carpenter might be right after all. He had actually done himself good by his display of spirit in the quad! Young Petrie had been civil to him within an hour, and here was Shockley doing the friendly thing before the afternoon was out. He had evidently misjudged Shockley; he tried to make up for it by thanking him nearly all the way to the hall, which was full of fellows who shouted an embarrassing greeting as the pair passed the windows. They did not go into the hall, however, but stopped at the slate table at the foot of the dormitory stairs. It was covered with parcels of all sizes, on several of which Rutter read his name.
“Tolly-sticks – don’t drop ’em,” said Shockley, handing one of the parcels. “This feels like your table-cloth; that must be tollies; and all the rest are books. I’ll help you carry them over.”
“I can manage, thanks,” said Jan, uncomfortably. But Shockley would not hear of his “managing,” and led the way back past the windows, an ironical shout following them into the quad.
“You should have had the lot yesterday,” continued Shockley in the most fatherly fashion. “I should complain to Heriot, if I were you.”
Jan’s study had also been visited in his absence. A folding chair, tied up with string, stood against the wall, with billows of bright green creton bulging through string and woodwork; an absurd bit of Brussels carpet covered every inch of the tiny floor; and it also was an aggressive green, though of another and a still more startling shade.
“Curtains not come yet,” observed Shockley. “I suppose they’re to be green too?”
“I don’t know,” replied Rutter. “I left it to them.”
“I rather like your greens,” said Shockley, opening the long soft parcel. “Why, you’ve gone and got a red table-cloth!”
“It’s their doing, not mine,” observed Jan, phlegmatically.
“I wonder you don’t take more interest in your study,” said Shockley. “Most chaps take a pride in theirs. Red and green! It’ll spoil the whole thing; they don’t go, Tiger.”
Jan made some show of shaking off his indifference in the face of this kindly interest in his surroundings.
“They might change it, Shockley.”
“I wouldn’t trust ’em,” said that authority, shaking and scratching a bullet head by turns. “They’re not too obliging, the tradesmen here – too much bloated monopoly. If you take my advice you’ll let well alone.”
“Then I will,” said Jan, eagerly. “Thanks, awfully, Shockley!”
“Not that it is well,” resumed Shockley, as though the matter worried him. “A green table-cloth’s the thing for you, Tiger, and a green table-cloth you must have if we can work it.”
“It’s very good of you to bother,” said Jan, devoutly wishing he would not.
Shockley only shook his head.
“I’ve got one myself, you see,” he explained in a reflective voice, as he examined the red cloth critically. “It’s a better thing than this – better taste – and green – but I’d rather do a swop with you than see you spoil your study, Tiger.”
“Very well,” said Jan, doubtfully.
Shockley promptly tucked the new table-cloth under his arm. “Let’s see your tolly-sticks!” said he, briskly.
“Tolly-sticks?”
“Candle-sticks, you fool!”
Jan unpacked them, noting as he did so that the fatherly tone had been dropped.
“I suppose you wouldn’t like a real old valuable pair instead of these meagre things?”
“No, thanks, Shockley.”
“Well, anyhow you must have a picture or two.”
“Why must I?” asked Jan. He had suddenly remembered Carpenter’s story of the seven-and-sixpenny chair.
