The Passionate Year Read Online Free PDF Page A

because
the old duke was so mean . Dick goes back to Marlborough
to-day—they begin the same day as yours. By the way, why did you choose
Millstead? I’d never heard of it till we looked it up, it isn’t well-known
like Harrow and Rugby, is it. We had old Bennett and Sir Guy Blatherwick with
us the last week-end, Sir Guy told us all about his travels in China, or
Japan, I forget which. Well, write to us, won’t you, and drop in if yon get a
day off any time—your affectionate mother, FANNY.”
    After he had read it he washed and dressed in a leisurely fashion and
descended in time for School breakfast at eight. Hartopp showed him his
place, at the head of number four table, and he was interested to see by his
plate a neatly folded Daily Telegraph . Businesslike, he commented
mentally, and he was glad to see it because a newspaper is an excellent cloak
for nervousness and embarrassment. His mother’s hint about his being possibly
a bad disciplinarian put him on his guard; he was determined to succeed in
this immensely important respect right from the start. Of course he possessed
the enormous advantage of knowing from recent experience the habits and
psychology of the average public-schoolboy.
    But breakfast was not a very terrible ordeal. The boys nearest him
introduced themselves and bade him a cheerful good morning, for there is a
sense of fairness in schoolboys which makes them generous to newcomers,
except where tradition decrees the setting-up of some definite ordeal.
Towards the end of the meal Pritchard walked over from one of the other
tables and enquired, in a voice loud enough for at any rate two or three of
the boys to hear: “Well, Speed, old man, did you have a merry carousal at the
Head’s last night?”
    Speed replied, a little coldly: “I had a pleasant time.”
    “I suppose now,” went on Pritchard, dropping his voice a little, but still
not sufficiently to prevent the nearest boys from hearing, “you realise what
I meant yesterday.”
    “What was that?”
    “When I said that you’d find out soon enough what she was like.”
    Speed said crisply: “You warned me yesterday against talking shop. I might
warn you now.”
    “But that isn’t shop.”
    “Well, whether it is or not I don’t propose to discuss
it— now —and here .”
    Almost without his being aware of it his voice had risen somewhat, so that
at this final pronouncement the boys nearest him looked up with curiosity
tinged with poorly-concealed amusement. It was rather obvious that Pritchard
was unpopular.
    Speed was sorry that he had not exercised greater control over his voice,
especially when Pritchard, reddening, merely shrugged his shoulders and went
away.
    The boy nearest to Speed grinned and said audaciously: “That’ll take Mr.
Pritchard down a peg, sir!”
    Speed barked out (to the boy’s bewilderment): “Don’t be impertinent!”
    For the rest of the meal he held up the Telegraph as a rampart
between himself and the world.
II
    He knew, at the end of the first school day, that he had
been a success, and that if he took reasonable care he would be able to go on
being a success. It had been a day of subtle trials and ordeals, yet he had,
helped rather than hindered by his peculiar type of nervousness, got safely
through them all.
    Numerous were the pitfalls which he had carefully avoided. At school meals
he had courteously declined to share jam and delicacies which the nearest to
him offered. If he had he would have been inundated immediately with pots of
jam and boxes of fancy cakes from all quarters of the table. Many a new
Master at Millstead had finished his first meal with his part of the table
looking like the counter of an untidy grocer’s shop. Instinct rather than
prevision had saved Speed from such a fate. Instinct, in fact, had been his
guardian angel throughout the day; instinct which, although to some extent
born of his recent public-school experience, was