one, as they came into our charge. A little struggling and choking, a fluttering of helpless limbs, and then—a perfect specimen of young criminal ready to be preserved, dissected, lectured upon and buried, according to his uses as an anatomical, biological or psychological specimen.
I wish now that I had followed my original intention, and kept this diary from New Year's Day instead of waiting until the beginning of the term. One is lazy in the holidays, I suppose.
It was good of Tom and Muriel to invite me to stay with them for the last few days before I returned to the Institution, especially as they have moved recently. I think Tom is overdoing this psychical research business, and Muriel looks a wreck. I am sure that ghost-hunting does not improve her nerves. A nice little modern house at the seaside would be far better for her—and for me, too. I should very much enjoy spending a rent-free weekend or two at Bournemouth, say, or Ilfracombe, during the summer.
Muriel makes a good wife, though, and Tom is so keen on his work that I suppose she feels she must help him all she can. But this dodging from one reputedly haunted house to another must be past a joke, especially as they find out nothing exciting enough for Tom to make into a best-seller. What he wants is a house like Borley Rectory. I often wonder why he never rented it. Can it be that he doesn't really
Well, anyhow, apart from the nervous strain, I must say Muriel seems to keep pretty well. A pity they don't have children, but I suppose it must be rather hard on children to have a ghost-hunter for a father, so possibly all is for the best.
Talking of wives, it appears that unbeknown to everybody except Ronald who acted as best man, Denny was married during the Christmas holidays and has brought his wife to live in a house about half a mile from the front gates of the Institution. I think William is a little worried. He has to give married instructors permission to live out, as that is in the regulations. On the other hand, we can't have too many people living out, otherwise there are not enough left here to look after the boys at night. Therefore the next instructor who wants to get married will have to resign, as already we are what William calls (without mincing matters) dangerously understaffed at nights with Denny off the premises.
This is, of course, an overstatement. Nobody, least of all a man in William's position, is justified in accepting the responsibility of our being
Denny's wife seems a nice enough little thing. I was invited to tea there. I wonder sometimes what kind of wife I should have made, and whether it would have been better if I had married in 1916 when he wanted it. I wonder whether he really was killed, or whether, after he was reported missing, he ever turned up again, a case of lost memory or shell-shock. For all I know (or am ever likely to know) he is in a mental hospital. There was insanity in his family, and these things persist. There was no one but myself to wonder what had happened, and sometimes I wonder also whether I really cared, for I certainly don't care now. It is a very strange thing, when one thinks about it, to be forty-seven years old, and to be quite certain that not a soul on earth cares whether one is alive or dead. I suppose if I left the Institution, or died, the staff here would feel compelled to subscribe either to a gift or a wreath. As it would come to about half-a-crown each in either case, it would not matter to them, I suppose, whether I were going to a new post or to the grave.
A new post! Sometimes I used to think that, if only I could hit upon the right place, I might enjoy my job. Nowadays, of course, I know that I should be a failure anywhere; not a spectacular failure, like poor Justin, who was almost kicked to death by the boys before he was dismissed by the managers, but the sort of failure that rubs along somehow without ever being quite bad enough to get the sack.
'Hangs on by her eyebrows, poor devil,' I heard Colin say in the staff-room the other day; and I am certain he was talking about me. It was kind of him to call me a poor devil. Most of them hate me like poison because, when I take my sick-leave, they are put to a good deal of inconvenience. But I know I could not manage a whole year right through, even with the holidays. I should die without my little bits of ill- health.
Two boys, Piggy and Alec, escaped last night and appear to have got clean away from the Institution. Both were serious cases. Piggy is in for killing his little sister by pushing her off a bedroom window-sill, and Alec was a thieves' boy, and used to get through larder windows which were too small for the cracksmen. They are nice boys and I hope they will not be caught. Piggy's little sister was a horrid child, he says. We are not supposed to discuss with the boys the reasons for their having been sent here, but when I am superintending the washing-up and the other household tasks they do as fatigues when the better-behaved (that means the cleverer) ones are at football, I hear a good many things which I am not supposed to know.
Alec is a merry little boy. Although he is fifteen now, and has been with us for two years, he does
William is spending all his time at the end of the telephone while the search for the boys continues. He looks worried, as well he may, for it proves, upon investigation of the sleeping quarters (we do not call them dormitories here, lest these lads should get ideas beyond their station!), that the bars of F room have been filed through and that Arthur, who is in charge of this room, ought to have known what was happening.
William has interrogated a boy named Larry, and search is still being made for the files, but Larry has said that Piggy and Alec must have taken the files away with them, and he has declared that he knows nothing about the bars.
It is part of William's policy to accept the word of a boy until he can disprove it. When he has disproved it (which he usually manages to do) he has the boy punished. This system is open to two objections. It has undermined William's moral sense, which can never have been very robust, and it disproves any theories that William is a gentleman. William is not a gentleman. He does not even punish the boys himself. This is Arthur's part of the work. He is called the Second Master and most of the boys are in awe of him. It was very daring of Piggy and Alec to make their escape from Arthur's room.
I received a telegram this morning and have had to ask for special leave of absence. Aunt Flora is seriously ill.
I have spent most of yesterday and all of to-day at Aunt Flora's bedside. She is unconscious. It appears that she tumbled over her flannel petticoat when she was walking along the landing and hit her head against the bathroom door. She had refused to allow Eliza
I find myself wondering (for there is little to do except sit and wait for the end) whether it will be in order to have Aunt Flora's hair washed after she is dead. I have been noticing that her parting is very grimy, and that her white hair is so tinged with dirt as to be rather shocking. I do not like to speak to Eliza about this, in case she should think that I was finding fault, for she is a touchy old thing and I should not care to offend her. Perhaps the dirt is partly the result of the fall, although it hardly looks like it.
Aunt Flora has recovered consciousness, and this, says the doctor, is the end. He had rather thought that she would never speak again, or recognise any of us, but she has wonderful rallying powers. I only hope that they will not prove too wonderful, for that would be too bitterly disappointing. Tom and Muriel arrived at ten this morning. They had travelled all night, they said, in order to be in at the death. At least, Tom said this, and was immediately hushed by Muriel, who thought it an unfortunate metaphor. It was certainly very clumsy, but what does that matter? It is true—or so I profoundly hope.
William rang me up on long distance—a pretty penny it cost, but I suppose he will not pay it himself—to ask me when I could conclude my family business and return. There is still no news of Piggy and Alec, he says, although the police are doing their best, but a boy named Dick has bitten Francis in the hand, and the bite has turned septic and Francis is very feverish, and not able to continue his duties. Will I be prepared to 'fill-in?' I should like to retort that I cannot hurry Aunt Flora into eternity, much as I should like to do so, and that even Dick's bite would not turn septic when applied to an instructor's hand if the instructor drank whisky instead of taking drugs. (I know for a fact that Francis does
