Sinister Street

"Of course the earliest type of gate was without hinges--without hinges, Fane! Very much like your attention, Fane!"

Several sycophants giggled at this, and Michael, gazing very earnestly at Mr. Cray's benign but somewhat dirty bald head, took a b.l.o.o.d.y revenge upon those in reach of his javelin of quadruple penholders.

"For Monday," said Mr. Cray, when he had done with listening to the intelligent advice of his favourite pupils on the subject of gates ancient and modern, "for Monday the essay will be on Patriotism."

Michael groaned audibly.

"Isn't there an alternative subject, sir?" he gloomily enquired.

"Does Fane dislike abstractions?" said Mr. Cray. "Curious! Well, if Fane wishes for an alternative subject, of course Fane must be obeyed. The alternative subject will be An Examination into the Fundamental Doctrines of Hegelian Idealism. Does that suit Fane?"

"Very well indeed," said Michael, who had never heard of Hegel until that moment, but vowed to himself that somehow between this muggy Friday afternoon and next Monday morning he would conquer the fellow's opinions. As a matter of fact, the essay proved perfectly easy with the a.s.sistance of The Popular Encyclopedia, though Mr. Cray called it a piece of impudence and looked almost baleful when Michael showed it up.

From this atmosphere of complacent effort Michael withdrew one afternoon to consult Father Viner about his future. Underneath the desire for practical advice was a desire to talk about himself, and Michael was disappointed on arriving at Father Viner's rooms to hear that he was out. However, learning that there was a prospect of his speedy return, he came in at the landlady's suggestion to amuse himself with a book while he waited.

Wandering round the big bay-windowed room with its odour of tobacco and books, and casting a careless glance at Father Viner's desk, Michael caught sight of his own name in the middle of a neatly written letter on the top of a pile of others. He could not resist taking a longer glance to see the address and verify the allusion to himself, and with this longer glance curiosity conquered so completely the prejudice against prying into other people's correspondence that Michael, breathing nervously under the dread of interruption, took up the letter and read it right through. It was in his present mood of anxiety about himself very absorbing.

CLERE ABBEY,

_Michael Ma.s.s._

PAX [Maltese cross symbol]

_Dear Brother,_

_I have been intending to write to you about young Michael Fane ever since he left us, and your letter of enquiry has had the effect of bringing me up to the point._

_I hardly know what to tell you._ _He's a curious youth, very lovable, and with enough brains to make one wish that he might have a vocation for the priesthood._ _At the same time I noticed while he was with us, especially after the admirable Chator departed, an overwhelming languor which I very much deplored._

_He spent much of his time with a very bad hat indeed, whom I have just sent away from Clere. If you ever come across Mr. Henry Meats, be careful of him. Arbuthnot of St. Aidan's, Holloway, sent him to me. You know Arbuthnot's expansive (and for his friends expensive) Christianity. This last effort of his was a snorter, a soft, nasty, hysterical, little

Henry Meats. He's really bad._

_Another fellow I don't recommend for Michael is Percy Garrod. Not that I think there is much danger in that direction, for I fancy Michael was very cold with him. Percy is a decent, honest, hard-working, common a.s.s, with a deep respect for the Pope and the Polytechnic. He's a trifle zealous, however, with b.a.s.t.a.r.d information about physical science, and not at all the person I should choose to lecture Michael on the complications of adolescence._

_We are getting on fairly well at Clere, but it's hard work trying to make this country believe there is the slightest necessity for the contemplative life. I hope all goes well with you and your work._

_Yours affectionately in Xt.,_

_Cuthbert Manners, O.S.B._

_Poor Michael. His will be a difficult position one day. I feel on re-reading this letter that I've told you nothing you don't already know. But he's one of those elusive boys who have lived within themselves too much and too long._

Michael put this letter back where he had found it, and wondered how much of the contents would be discussed by Father Viner. He was glad that Brother Aloysius had vanished, because Brother Aloysius had become like a bad dream with which he was unwilling in the future to renew acquaintance. On his own character Dom Cuthbert had not succeeded in throwing very much light--at any rate not in this letter. Father Viner came in to interrupt Michael's meditations, and began at once to discuss the letter.

"The Lord Abbot of Clere thinks you're a dreamer," he began abruptly.

"Does he, Mr. Viner?" echoed Michael, who somehow could never bring himself to the point of addressing the priest as 'Father.' Shyness always overcame his will.

"What do you dream about, young Joseph?"

"Oh, I only think about a good many things, and wonder what I'm going to be and all that," Michael replied. "I don't want to go into the Indian Civil Service or anything with exams. I'm sick of exams. What I most want to do is to get away from school. I'm sick of school, and the fellows in the Upper Fifth are a greasy crowd of swats always sucking up to Cray."

"And who is the gentleman with the crustacean name that attracts these barnacles?"

"Cray? Oh, he's my form-master, and tries to be funny."

"So do I, Michael," confessed Mr. Viner.

"Oh, well, that's different. I'm not bound to listen to you, if I don't want to. But I have to listen to Cray for eighteen hours every week, and he hates me because I won't take notes for his beastly essays. I think I'll ask my mater if I can't leave school after this term."

"And then what would you do?"

"Oh, I don't know. I could settle when I'd left."

"What about Oxford?"

"Well, I could go to Oxford later on."

"I don't think you could quite so easily as you think. Anyway, you'd much better go to Oxford straight from school."

"Eight more terms before I leave. Phew!" Michael groaned. "It's such a terrible waste of time, and I know Oxford's ripping."

"Perhaps something will come along to interest you. And always, dear boy, don't forget you have your religion."

"Yes, I know," said Michael. "But at the Abbey I met some people who were supposed to be religious, and they were pretty good rotters."

The priest looked at him and seemed inclined to let Michael elaborate this topic, but almost immediately he dismissed it with a commonplace.

"Oh, well," Michael sighed, "I suppose something will happen soon to buck me up. I hope so. Perhaps the Kensit.i.tes will start making rows in churches again," he went on hopefully. "Will you lend me the Apocryphal Gospels? We're going to have a discussion about them at the De Rebus Ecclesiasticis."

"Oh, the society hasn't broken up?" enquired Mr. Viner.

"Rather not. Only everybody's changed rather. Chator's become frightfully Roman. He was Sarum last term, and he thinks I'm frightfully heretical, only of course I say a lot I don't mean just to rag him. I say, by the way, who wrote 'In a Garden'?"

"It sounds a very general t.i.tle," commented Mr. Viner, with a smile.

"Well, it's some poem or other."

"Swinburne wrote a poem in the Second Series of Poems and Ballads called 'A Forsaken Garden.' Is that what you mean?"

"Perhaps. Is it a famous poem?"

"Yes, I should say it was distinctly."

"Well, that must be it. Cray tried to be funny about it to-day in form, and said to me, 'Good heavens, haven't you read "In a Garden"?' And I said I'd never heard of it. And then he said in his funny way to the cla.s.s, 'I suppose you've all read it.' And none of them had, which made him look rather an a.s.s. So he said we'd better read it by next week."

"I can lend you my Swinburne. Only take care of it," said Mr. Viner.

"It's a wonderful poem."