Philip was moved into the Sixth, but he hated school now with all his
heart, and, having lost his ambition, cared nothing whether he did ill or
well. He awoke in the morning with a sinking heart because he must go
through another day of drudgery. He was tired of having to do things
because he was told; and the restrictions irked him, not because they were
unreasonable, but because they were restrictions. He yearned for freedom.
He was weary of repeating things that he knew already and of the hammering
away, for the sake of a thick-witted fellow, at something that he
understood from the beginning.
With Mr. Perkins you could work or not as you chose. He was at once eager
and abstracted. The Sixth Form room was in a part of the old abbey which
had been restored, and it had a gothic window: Philip tried to cheat his
boredom by drawing this over and over again; and sometimes out of his head
he drew the great tower of the Cathedral or the gateway that led into the
precincts. He had a knack for drawing. Aunt Louisa during her youth had
painted in water colours, and she had several albums filled with sketches
of churches, old bridges, and picturesque cottages. They were often shown
at the vicarage tea-parties. She had once given Philip a paint-box as a
Christmas present, and he had started by copying her pictures. He copied
them better than anyone could have expected, and presently he did little
pictures of his own. Mrs. Carey encouraged him. It was a good way to keep
him out of mischief, and later on his sketches would be useful for
bazaars. Two or three of them had been framed and hung in his bed-room.
But one day, at the end of the morning's work, Mr. Perkins stopped him as
he was lounging out of the form-room.
"I want to speak to you, Carey."
Philip waited. Mr. Perkins ran his lean fingers through his beard and
looked at Philip. He seemed to be thinking over what he wanted to say.
"What's the matter with you, Carey?" he said abruptly.
Philip, flushing, looked at him quickly. But knowing him well by now,
without answering, he waited for him to go on.
"I've been dissatisfied with you lately. You've been slack and
inattentive. You seem to take no interest in your work. It's been slovenly
and bad."
"I'm very sorry, sir," said Philip.
"Is that all you have to say for yourself?"
Philip looked down sulkily. How could he answer that he was bored to
death?
"You know, this term you'll go down instead of up. I shan't give you a
very good report."
Philip wondered what he would say if he knew how the report was treated.
It arrived at breakfast, Mr. Carey glanced at it indifferently, and passed
it over to Philip.
"There's your report. You'd better see what it says," he remarked, as he
ran his fingers through the wrapper of a catalogue of second-hand books.
Philip read it.
"Is it good?" asked Aunt Louisa.
"Not so good as I deserve," answered Philip, with a smile, giving it to
her.
"I'll read it afterwards when I've got my spectacles," she said.
But after breakfast Mary Ann came in to say the butcher was there, and she
generally forgot.
Mr. Perkins went on.
"I'm disappointed with you. And I can't understand. I know you can do
things if you want to, but you don't seem to want to any more. I was going
to make you a monitor next term, but I think I'd better wait a bit."
Philip flushed. He did not like the thought of being passed over. He
tightened his lips.
"And there's something else. You must begin thinking of your scholarship
now. You won't get anything unless you start working very seriously."
Philip was irritated by the lecture. He was angry with the headmaster, and
angry with himself.
"I don't think I'm going up to Oxford," he said.
"Why not? I thought your idea was to be ordained."
"I've changed my mind."
"Why?"
Philip did not answer. Mr. Perkins, holding himself oddly as he always
did, like a figure in one of Perugino's pictures, drew his fingers
thoughtfully through his beard. He looked at Philip as though he were
trying to understand and then abruptly told him he might go.
Apparently he was not satisfied, for one evening, a week later, when
Philip had to go into his study with some papers, he resumed the
conversation; but this time he adopted a different method: he spoke to
Philip not as a schoolmaster with a boy but as one human being with
another. He did not seem to care now that Philip's work was poor, that he
ran small chance against keen rivals of carrying off the scholarship
necessary for him to go to Oxford: the important matter was his changed
intention about his life afterwards. Mr. Perkins set himself to revive his
eagerness to be ordained. With infinite skill he worked on his feelings,
and this was easier since he was himself genuinely moved. Philip's change
of mind caused him bitter distress, and he really thought he was throwing
away his chance of happiness in life for he knew not what. His voice was
very persuasive. And Philip, easily moved by the emotion of others, very
emotional himself notwithstanding a placid exterior--his face, partly by
nature but also from the habit of all these years at school, seldom except
by his quick flushing showed what he felt--Philip was deeply touched by
what the master said. He was very grateful to him for the interest he
showed, and he was conscience-stricken by the grief which he felt his
behaviour caused him. It was subtly flattering to know that with the whole
school to think about Mr. Perkins should trouble with him, but at the same
time something else in him, like another person standing at his elbow,
clung desperately to two words.
"I won't. I won't. I won't."
He felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the weakness that
seemed to well up in him; it was like the water that rises up in an empty
bottle held over a full basin; and he set his teeth, saying the words over
and over to himself.
"I won't. I won't. I won't."
At last Mr. Perkins put his hand on Philip's shoulder.
"I don't want to influence you," he said. "You must decide for yourself.
Pray to Almighty God for help and guidance."
When Philip came out of the headmaster's house there was a light rain
falling. He went under the archway that led to the precincts, there was
not a soul there, and the rooks were silent in the elms. He walked round
slowly. He felt hot, and the rain did him good. He thought over all that
Mr. Perkins had said, calmly now that he was withdrawn from the fervour of
his personality, and he was thankful he had not given way.
In the darkness he could but vaguely see the great mass of the Cathedral:
he hated it now because of the irksomeness of the long services which he
was forced to attend. The anthem was interminable, and you had to stand
drearily while it was being sung; you could not hear the droning sermon,
and your body twitched because you had to sit still when you wanted to
move about. Then philip thought of the two services every Sunday at
Blackstable. The church was bare and cold, and there was a smell all about
one of pomade and starched clothes. The curate preached once and his uncle
preached once. As he grew up he had learned to know his uncle; Philip was
downright and intolerant, and he could not understand that a man might
sincerely say things as a clergyman which he never acted up to as a man.
The deception outraged him. His uncle was a weak and selfish man, whose
chief desire it was to be saved trouble.
Mr. Perkins had spoken to him of the beauty of a life dedicated to the
service of God. Philip knew what sort of lives the clergy led in the
corner of East Anglia which was his home. There was the Vicar of
Whitestone, a parish a little way from Blackstable: he was a bachelor and
to give himself something to do had lately taken up farming: the local
paper constantly reported the cases he had in the county court against
this one and that, labourers he would not pay their wages to or tradesmen
whom he accused of cheating him; scandal said he starved his cows, and
there was much talk about some general action which should be taken
against him. Then there was the Vicar of Ferne, a bearded, fine figure of
a man: his wife had been forced to leave him because of his cruelty, and
she had filled the neighbourhood with stories of his immorality. The Vicar
of Surle, a tiny hamlet by the sea, was to be seen every evening in the
public house a stone's throw from his vicarage; and the churchwardens had
been to Mr. Carey to ask his advice. There was not a soul for any of them
to talk to except small farmers or fishermen; there were long winter
evenings when the wind blew, whistling drearily through the leafless
trees, and all around they saw nothing but the bare monotony of ploughed
fields; and there was poverty, and there was lack of any work that seemed
to matter; every kink in their characters had free play; there was nothing
to restrain them; they grew narrow and eccentric: Philip knew all this,
but in his young intolerance he did not offer it as an excuse. He shivered
at the thought of leading such a life; he wanted to get out into the
world.
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