Even the summer term was a bondage with its incessant fagging for balls, while the lords of the House practised assiduously at the nets. He and Alan walked together sometimes during the “quarter” and held on to the stray threads of their friendship that still resisted the exacting knife of the House’s etiquette; but it became increasingly difficult under the stress of boarding-school existence. Indeed, it was only the knowledge that this summer term would end the miserable time and that Alan was catching up to Michael’s class which supported the two friends through their exile. Michael was savagely jealous when he saw Alan leaving the School at five o’clock arm in arm with another boy. He used to sulk for a week afterwards, avoiding Alan in the “quarter” and ostentatiously burying himself in a group of boarders. And if Alan would affectionately catch him up when he was alone, Michael would turn on him and with bitter taunts suggest that Alan’s condescension was unnecessary. In School itself Michael was bored by his sojourn both in the Middle Fourth and in the Upper Fourth B. The Cicero and the Thucydides were vilely dull; all the dullest books of the Aeneid were carefully chosen, while Mr. Marjoribanks and Mr. Gale were both very dull teachers. At the end of the summer examinations, Michael found himself at the bottom of the Upper Fourth B in Classics, in Drawing and in English. However, the knowledge that next term would now inevitably find him and Alan in the same class, meeting again as equals, as day-boys gloriously free, sustained him through a thunderous interview with Dr. Brownjohn. He emerged from the Doctor’s study in a confusion of abusive epithets to find Alan loyally waiting for him by the great plaster cast of the Laocoön.
“Damn old Brownjohn,” growled Michael. “I think he’s the damnedest old beast that ever lived. I do hate him.”
“Oh, bother him,” cried Alan, dancing with excitement. “Look here, I say, at this telegram. It’s just arrived. The porter was frightfully sick at having to give me a telegram. He is a sidy swine. What do you think? My uncle is going to marry Miss Carthew?”
“Get out,” scoffed Michael, whose brain, overwhelmed by the pealing thunders of his late interview, refused to register any more shocks.
“No, really. Read this.”
Michael took the piece of paper and read the news. But he was still under the influence of a bad year, and instead of dancing with Alan to the tune of his excitement, grumbled:
“Well, why didn’t Miss Carthew send a telegram to me? I think she might have. I believe this is all bally rot.”
Alan’s face changed, changed indeed to an expression of such absolute disappointment that Michael was touched and, forgetting all that he had endured, thrust his arm into Alan’s arm and murmured:
“By Jove, old Alan, it is rather decent, isn’t it?”
When Michael reached the House, he found a letter from Miss Carthew, which consoled him for that bad year and made him still more penitent for his late ungraciousness towards Alan.
Cobble Place,
July 27.
My dear old Michael,
You will be tremendously surprised to hear that I am going to marry Captain Ross. I fancy I can hear you say “What rot, I don’t believe it!” But I am, and of course you can understand how gloriously happy I feel, for you know how much you liked him. Poor old boy, I’m afraid you’ve had a horrid time all this year and I wish I hadn’t been so stupid as to get ill, but never mind, it’s over now and Captain Ross and I are coming up to London to fetch you and Alan down here to spend the whole of the holidays and make the wedding a great success. May, Joan and Nancy and my mother all send their very best love and Nancy says she’s looking forward to your new ties (I don’t know what obscure jest of hers this is) and also to hear of your engagement (silly girl!). I shall see you on Wednesday and you’re going to have splendid holidays, I can promise you. Your mother writes to say that she is coming back to live at home in September, so there’ll be no more boarding-school for you. Stella wrote to me from Germany and I hear from Frau Weingardt that everybody prophesies a triumphant career for her, so don’t snub her when she comes back for her holidays in the autumn. Just be as nice as you can, and you can be very nice if you like. Will you? Now, dear old boy, my best love till we meet on Wednesday.
Then indeed Michael felt that life was the finest thing conceivable, and in a burst of affectionate duty wrote a long letter to Stella, giving with every detail an account of how Wheeler’s beat Marlowe’s at cricket, including the running-out of that beast Buckley by Michael amidst the plaudits of his House. Next morning Alan told him that his mother was frightfully keen for Michael to stay with them at Richmond, until his Uncle Ken and Miss Carthew arrived; and so Michael by special leave from Mr. Wheeler left the House a day or
