A Bit of a Fool

Chapter I

I WAS at school at Winchester and fourteen years old when my mother died. At that age I had not any deeper feelings than the average boy, and I know that when the first grief, which is one of the simplest of human emotions, had passed away, I felt a certain sense — I will not say of relief, but of a removal of constraint, of greater freedom. I had no great compunction about annoying my father. When I did any of the usual evil things that boys do, he would get angry, and I, in con sequence, defiant. He was a man, and it always seemed a fair stand-up fight. But with my mother it was different. My wrong-doings B I provoked no hardness from her, but rather a tenderness. They caused her sorrow, and I could see it, so that with the momentary susceptibility of youth, I regretted what I had done, and endeavoured in future to avoid causing her pain.

This shows that I was always sensitive in the matter of women. After my mother's death the only feminine influence remaining, which touched me directly, was my sister's : she was fifteen months younger than I, and as she was my only sister, and I her only brother, we were close companions. But at the time of which I speak she was not of an age to take seriously the follies of an admired brother, but rather to see in them evidences of the superiority of sex, making her regret that she was a woman. It took a few more years yet to make her realize her advantage in this respect. Winifred had a governess : a very good looking lady, about twenty-three, as I judge, with a pale, calm face, grey eyes, and fine fluffy hair, blonde-cendree, was Miss Tennant. A very proper, unimpassioned person, with irreproachable manners.

At least, that was her apparent character — but, although during the holidays I saw much of her, I was never quite able to make up my mind about her. There was something behind her habitual restraint which I was unable to decipher. Every one of my mother's friends had nothing but praise to say of her, and she was re garded as a perfect model of propriety. Winifred was the only one who did not quite admire her. " What is it you don't like in Miss Tennant, Winnie ? " I asked one day. " I don't know," my sister replied, " but sometimes she looks at me." " I don't see much harm in that. " Pr'aps not," — she shuddered a little — " but it's a funny look, and then suddenly she kisses me on the mouth, and makes me feel — ugh ! " She shook her head and drew in her chin as she said this. " I shouldn't mind that."

As a matter of fact, although I didn't tell Winifred, it was just what Miss Tennant did 3 B to me, when we were alone, as sometimes happened. As a boy, I did not care about being kissed by women ; I liked to kiss a girl for fun, but to be kissed by a grown-up woman annoyed me. I thought it derogatory to my years. But most women kissed me on the cheek or forehead. Miss Tennant was different ; she kissed me full on the mouth, and made a kind of shiver go through me. I think I liked it ; I know I never resisted. I don't think I had the power. After the death of my mother Miss Tennant's manner changed. She never kissed me again, and began to assume an air of authority over me. Winifred found it the same. I now think it probable that she was forming the design of becoming the second Mrs. Manners.

But my father was not the man to marry again in a hurry, and if he had some thought of doing so, it would not have been Miss Tennant that he would have chosen. He was a busy, careful, austere, religious, unimpassioned man, with an enormous sense of family pride and social position. He had some good reason to be proud of his relationships by blood and marriage, for our family Table of Affinities scarcely included a name which was not to be found in Debret, and had he chosen a second wife, she would have been selected, I am sure, from some family having a name to which no reasonably near relationship with us could be traced. I think it was one of his ambitions to form an alliance with the entire aristocracy of England, and if he had had enough children he might have done so, for he was rich, and being also a careful man — careful almost to meanness in his household — he was continually adding to his fortune.

I knew we were rich because people said so, and on occasions a fine display of profusion was made at home when some important function took place. But as a rule this was not the case, and we lived most simply. Of course there was enough of everything, but it represented an income of from two to three thousand a year rather than one of from twenty to thirty thousand, and I know that I was very much limited in the matter of pocket money. " You have everything that is necessary and becoming your position," my father used to say when I wanted something more than usual ; and the only way of getting it was through my mother, who gave it to me out of her own pocket. But after her death I had no one to turn to, and was often greatly chagrined to find myself unable to gratify the small extravagances that are possible at school, and that other boys, with fathers not so rich, but more generous, were able to afford.

My cousin Percy Manners Wynne, to give him his full name, who was also at Winchester, had the knack of causing me almost unbearable mortification by his remarks. He knew all about us, as he was very intimate. He was the son of my father's sister who unfortunately had married none too well, from the point of view of fortune, and was the next heir after myself to the entailed property. He passed for being a very good boy, and was a great favourite with my father, who paid for his education at Winchester in order to relieve my aunt, who was left a widow, of that burden. I suppose Percy was a good boy. I never remember him doing anything wrong himself, but, unintentionally or not, he had a way of making suggestions of a very mischievous nature to others. But of course, as he said, he was not to blame if other fellows were stupid enough to follow suggestions which were never meant to be taken seriously.

" Why don't you get so-and-so, Horace ? " he would say. " Why don't you ? " I would reply evasively. " That's different : I can't afford it, you know ; my mother is so badly off. But you can." " No, I can't : I haven't got the money." " O nonsense ! your governor will buy it for you if you ask." " I don't think he will." I did not think : I knew. And Percy knew too. " Why not ? He's so rich. " It's no good my asking. He refused me the last time," I say with annoyance. "Shall I ask him for you?" asks Percy sweetly. " What's the good of that ? " I reply, rather sharply, for I feel that it is quite possible that my father would give way to Percy, and am consequently angry. " Oh, all right, but lots of other chaps have one, and I didn't think you'd like to go with out. I can't help myself. There's Wilkin son," — seeing another fellow passing — " I say Wilkinson, where did you get your — ?

" (what ever it was). " At old Smith's in the town." " How much did it cost ? " " I'm not quite sure," Wilkinson says, " I didn't pay for it. Smith let me have it on tick, and I shall try to get the mater to stand it." " Oh ! " Percy says, and then turning to me, " You see, Wilkinson's mother is rich, and Smith knows that. But of course you mustn't do that, Horace, without getting the governor's approval. It wouldn't do. But it does seem a pity." The natural consequence of this is that I promptly go to Smith's and get it for credit, and in the end of course the bill is sent in to my father, and there is a row, and Percy, with reluctance and only under strong pressure, admits that he advised me not to do it, although we did discuss the question of how much we should have both liked to have had one had we been able to afford it.

And then after rating me severely, my father gives one — a better one — to Percy. This is only an example of what occurred somewhat frequently. I didn't like it, and I felt somehow that Percy had bested me — although I had to admit candidly that there was nothing in his conduct to which I could take exception, and in those occasional moments of honest self-criticism, which come even to boys, I was forced to confess that my cousin had only obtained the reward of virtue. There is only one other incident in my school-life which I need recount, as it led to the serious consequence of my leaving school, and being sent for the year before going up to Oxford to a private tutor. I have said that I was always susceptible to the influence of women, and, unlike many boys, I was fond of girls. In going about the town we met, naturally, many girls in the streets.

But there was one that I was led to notice particularly, partly because I saw her very often, and partly because there was something about her that attracted me. She was a very pretty dark girl about sixteen — I was seventeen then — very demure, quiet, and neatly dressed, the daughter of a small tradesman. I first noticed that she looked up shyly from under her eye lashes when I passed, and this led me first to stare at her, and then to smile in silent recognition when we passed, which was answered on her part by a blushing smile, a hanging of the head, and a quickening step. She really looked so simple, and so modest, yet so pretty, that, although I looked forward to the encounter, which made my heart beat more quickly and my skin to be affected by a creeping, tingling sensation, I should never have dreamed of seeking to become closer acquainted.

At that time I had a passion for a special kind of gingerbread made by an old woman who kept a small shop, and I went there for my favourite delicacy nearly every day. One day, to my surprise, the old lady gave me a letter and asked if I thought it was meant for me. The envelope was addressed : — "For the nice, good-looking, fair boy who comes to buy gingerbread." I said that it was very likely, and put the letter in my pocket with an inward trembling, and then bought twice the quantity of sweet meat from the old woman. Outside I quickly opened the letter, and, with a surging through my veins, read — " I love you. I am the dark girl you smile at. I know you so well that I must speak to you. Can you meet me to-night at half-past seven at " Your loving Nellie Sawyer. " P.S. — I want to kiss you.

I dream of you every night, xxxxxxxxx x." Of course I knew what the crosses meant. This letter set my mind on fire, and I determined to carry out the meeting at all risks. The place chosen was a quiet spot at the further end of the town. As I was in the sixth form I was not expected to put in an appear ance in the class-room in the evening, but I was supposed to be preparing work for the next day in my study. To get out of the school was not a difficult matter : there was a well-known way, well known to the boys. It was necessary to have someone to cover my absence in case of accidents, and I decided that I would confide in my cousin Wynne. He advised me not to go, but, seeing I was determined, promised to do what was necessary in the way of accounting for my absence if required. So I went.

I found that my inamorata, Nellie Sawyer, however demure she might look in the street in public, was by no means so shy when by herself in a quiet spot, and the interview fully came up to my expectations, and more. I got back into school safely without being discovered, and, emboldened by this success I planned and carried out several other meet ings. But the affair ended abruptly. One day I was sent for by my house-master, and by him con ducted to the head-master. There I found also a man who proved to be Sawyer, the girl's father. I need say little more. I was punished privately in the usual way, and at the end of the term I left school. No one else in the school knew anything about it. My father was so angry with me that he declined to have me home for the holidays, and I spent a much jollier time with some relations, the only thing I missed being my sister Winnie, who thought the whole matter great fun, though she did not dare to say anything.

I was never able to discover how this affair was found out, or who it was told the girl's father. Percy declared that he had said nothing, and indeed it appeared from what was said that it was Sawyer who first came to the head-master about it. I supposed that someone of her family had seen us together. And yet it was a mystery how her father should have known my name, as he did, for I had never told my surname to Nelly, and there were two other Horaces at the school.

Chapter II

Shortly after this I was sent to a private tutor to prepare for the University. I was accounted a clever boy at school, and, however that may be, I know that I had no difficulty in keeping abreast of the fellows of my own age with the smallest trouble to myself. I should probably have found it easy to matriculate and pass " smalls " with the education I then had. But my father was a brilliant man, having taken every possible honour and prize at the University, and my mother was a highly intellectual woman, although she had no certificates to show for it, as Girton and its like were not in existence in her day. It was therefore taken for granted that I also was to have a brilliant intellectual career, and the idea of simply taking my degree never entered my father's head. I was to take a scholarship in the first place, and after that to take as many honours as possible with added trifles such as the " Craven " ; and even the " Newdigate " was designed for me, as my mother was a poetess — privately published — of the Mrs. Browning-Hemans order, religio intellectual.

The private tutor, vulgarly and far more correctly called a " Crammer," had an establishment a little way out west of London. My father had exercised considerable care in the selection, and striking a balance between successful results and fatherly supervision, had selected Mr. Jones, D.C.L. (Duthie), M.A., B.Sc. (Lond.), from a long list of others whose prospectuses were so much alike in unvarying success and care of the pupils' morals as to make the final choice a matter of difficulty. This choice was somewhat influenced by a certain incident. I knew a fellow named Scovell whose people were neighbours of ours. They were very well off, and the family, although not at present aristocratic, was old c A BIT OF A FOOL and honourable. My father, therefore, had no objection to our acquaintance.

Scovell was one of the most charming, light-hearted fellows I ever met : he uttered and honestly believed the most airy paradoxes as regards life. It is something to say that he lived up to his opinions. Perhaps that is hardly the way it should be put, as it implies an effort to conform to a moral code. It was not so with him : he lived his natural life, and his curious ethical perversions were the result of his peculiar conception of things. The closest comparison I can make is that of language and grammar. Language is not formed on grammar, but grammar deduced from language. So it was with Egbert Scovell. Had he lived in an ancient day he would have been an Epicurean. But the adjective is now dead or misused. Scovell was certainly " sweet " on Winifred, and she on him. Had my father perceived this, he would surely have put a stop to it, as he had other designs for her.

I told Scovell so once. " Then we must seriously fall in love," he said. " If your governor had any sense he would encourage it, and we should get sick of each other in the end. But meanwhile it would be much better fun all round. He ought to know that no self-respecting girl would stifle her first love by marrying it. Besides, if I were going to marry your sister, I couldn't afford to be so friendly with you. It is safer to marry someone you don't know anything about." Scovell was at Jones's cramming for the University also. He, my cousin Wynne, and I were talking about it one day. " Jones' is all right," Scovell said. " No fellow need do a stroke of work unless he pleases, and as for supervision, there isn't any. That's how Crammers are so successful. No chap who isn't encased in the two tables of stone and a perfect glutton for work ever goes up for examination.

The rest are ' not yet advanced enough ' for so long that their parents take them away, as they pass the age limit." And because, I suppose, he saw I should like to know a nice fellow like Scovell when I got there, my cousin told my father that he had heard Jones' very well spoken of. I sincerely believe this settled the decision. I found Jones' to have all the merits that Scovell assigned. I shall not trouble to describe my life there. I can only say that I have tried to imagine a worse place to which to send a boy of seventeen, but have failed. A reformatory school does not meet the case. There was no need to do anything unless one chose. If one did not voluntarily " sweat," the tutors at once perceived that the case was hopeless and took no further trouble. The supervision was stated to be both religious and moral.

A guinea a year was charged for a seat in church. At eleven o'clock on Sunday morning Jones himself perambulated once through the great rambling old house in which we lived, and observing no one in the rooms, was satisfied that we were attending our spiritual devotions. He did not look under the beds or tables, nor apparently notice that a noisy procession of boys was preceding him up the front stairs, down the back stairs, and 19 c up the front stairs again as he slowly went his round, and at the end he went back to his own quarters, not to appear again till dinner time. On the moral side, the facts which lead me to say that supervision did not exist are hardly such as one can relate. But one safeguard existed. Pupils were permitted to be away from Saturday till Monday morning if invited by relations.

So ran the prospectus. I soon discovered that the invitation was not required to be a written one to be produced to the principal — (Mr. Jones was the principal) — and that the rule was satisfied by the mere state ment that one was going to stay with one's aunt. All the fellows had aunts who lived mostly in the S.W. district of London. It became apparent, however, that even the statement was not required. It was taken for granted that if we were not in the house on Sunday morning, we had received the usual invitation. Our potential viciousness was only limited by our means : and my own means at this time made the limit a narrow one. Ever since the episode at school my father had placed the strictest bounds to my allowance for pocket money, with the laudable intention of hamper ing my progress along the primrose path.

If the primrose path invites, it is best that it should lie in flat and easy country : the scenery will probably become monotonous. But let it lie in difficult and broken ground, and there is no trouble a young man of spirit will not take to trace it to its end. This was my case. It was made difficult for me and therefore alluring. Moreover, I chafed under the sense that many of my companions, whose families were far less wealthy than mine, were able to take the road easily, and I determined, when my chance should come, to take it headlong. Scovell lent me money at times under the distinct understanding that I should repay him as soon as I could. At first he scorned the idea. " My dear Manners," he said, " I have much more fun with you than without. Why should I expect you to pay for my pleasure ?

" However, he gave way in the end — I was firm on the point, and we did what we pleased within what we could ; so we became the closest friends. As I had been at Winchester, it was assumed as a matter of course that I should go to New College. Scovell was going to Christ Church. I therefore begged, and finally obtained the consent of my father, that I should be allowed to go up for a Junior Studentship at Christ Church, instead of a scholarship at New College. My cousin, who had just then obtained a Wykhamist Scholar ship from the school, was, I believe, instru mental again in helping this decision. He represented that as I was not going up direct from Winchester, it would probably be better that another College should be selected, and, if another, none could be better than "The House." In due time I went up, and failed.

Not by many places, but still failed. However, the College was willing to matriculate me on my examination, and as there were several incollege scholarships to be obtained, my dis appointed sire was prevailed upon to let me enter the College and make an effort to obtain one of these, which Mr. Jones, who was no doubt sick of me, thought I should do easily. Scovell had meanwhile matriculated. He did not aspire to scholarship honours. "A scholarship," he said, "is not a test of the pupil, but of the coach." I passed "smalls" and tried for one scholarship and failed. I then went under a famous university tutor to prepare for another. I was really obliged to do some work this time, and to my intense surprise I succeeded. Success brings a wonderful sense of self gratulation. I patted myself on the back, and felt proud.

When I told Scovell, he said, " What did I tell you ? " which was not flattering to me, though quite sincere on his part. And really it seemed that he was justified. Jones, who had nothing to do with the matter, published my name as one of his successes in his next prospectus. On first going up to Oxford, my father had allowed me -£500 a year, which I found quite inadequate. By the time I had joined a Wine Club or two, and been elected to the Bulling don Club, I discovered that if I did not wish to be entirely outstripped for pace by the other members, I should have to discover some means of making the sum go several times its own distance. My cousin Wynne, now at New College, came to see me, and I confided my difficulties to him. " Let me see," he said ; "you say that if you cut a respectable figure with the Bullingdon room, that alone will cover your £500, and my uncle expects that to do for everything — fees, battels, wines, cigars, and dress.

Well, the only thing is to drop the Bullingdon." " I can't do that, you know, Percy." " It's awkward, but I don't see what else. Of course I know that many men don't pay their battels, and go on credit for all their other things. But you mustn't do that, Horace. The College would send in their bill to your father, and then he'd have to pay it, or you would be sent down. You mustn't think of that. As for the tradesmen, they wouldn't trouble you till you took your degree, but it's a frightfully bad thing to run into debt with them, as they charge you ruinous prices for everything, and you can't get rid of them. For goodness' sake don't run any risk of that sort. All I can say is," he added with a hopeless shake of the head, " drop the Bull ingdon." Wynne's admonition had suggested possi bilities to me, but before trying them I thought to consult Scovell.

" As for debts," he said airily, " no careful man would be without them. The truest economy is to get credit for everything. Just think of the pull you have over others when the end comes ! So much more goods for so much less outlay. In fact, you have cheapened your market. And I once heard of a man who made an immense fortune by getting his first stock on credit when he hadn't a penny." This light-hearted, cynical philosophy had a curious effect upon me. Although I laughed at it, I began to take it seriously, and I determined to take the plunge. The tradesmen were most obliging, but I discovered that they were inclined to place a limit on my orders. They did not say so — University tradesmen are far too clever for that ; but I saw that they knew pretty well the amount of my resources and expectations.

So also with my fellow members of the Bullingdon. They were as nice as could be to me. But I felt instinctively that I was kept down to a certain position. When I obtained my scholarship, my father in his delight — for he was beginning to despair of me — doubled my allowance. "It is more profitable to be thought a fool than to be considered a genius," observed philosopher Scovell on hearing of it. I immediately discovered that I had gone up some rungs on the Bullingdon ladder, that I had doubled the number of my friends and acquaintances, and that the honest traders were willing to allow me just twice the amount of credit. How this happened I did not know. No one except Scovell and Wynne knew anything of my private affairs. So within my first year I began to taste some of the pleasures of living, and the taste made me long for a full feed : but that my limited means denied me for the present.

Chapter III

At the end of the Lent term I went to stay with Scovell's people at their London house. Colonel Scovell was a pleasant-faced, easy tempered man who had completed his army service in India, and had come home to England to pass the rest of his life smiling. He meant to take things easily, and quite succeeded in his endeavour. His virtues, and his vices if he had any, were entirely negative. It was difficult to say what the Colonel was, his description was necessarily what he was not. He was not a politician, and considered the Parliament and all its ways an unmitigated bore. He declined to stand as a candidate, and never took the trouble to go to the poll. He was not a philanthropist, and had no desire to do good or harm to men in general or to any set of men in particular. He was not religious, held missions in contempt, and declined to distinguish between the merits of creeds and sects.

He was not a financier, was no company's guinea-pig, and held no opinion on bimetallism. He was not a sportsman, in the trade sense of the word, and was only once known to have inquired the name of the winner of the Derby one autumn day, and then could not say why he had asked. He was not fond of society, but, as became a gentleman of good family, was not a recluse, and took matters as they came, neither seeking nor avoiding. Altogether, then, he was a happy man, happy by the avoidance of any of the cares that men in a like position seem voluntarily to assume and continually to grumble at. Colonel Scovell regarded his son in the light of a curious accident in his life, which had happened he did not know how, but which having happened was to be taken as easily as possible. Mrs. Scovell was the apt companion for her husband, a good-looking, placid, sweet-tempered woman, whose pleasant object in life was to pet her husband and adore her son.