The Launching of Roger Brook (2 page)

After their two previous encounters Gunston had actually had small hope of inciting young ‘Bookworm Brook’ to fighting pitch so when the attack came it took him by surprise. He was, moreover, temporarily at a disadvantage in that his right hand was still behind him holding Roger’s cap.

Dropping it he stepped back a pace, but not quickly enough to avoid a savage jab on the nose. Tears started to
his eyes and the mocking grin was wiped from his pudgy face. But George Gunston was not the type of bully who is a coward, and promptly caves in when stood up to. Swiftly throwing himself into the attitude he had often admired in semi-professional pugs during knuckle fights at fairs and on village greens, he easily parried the unscientific rain of blows that Roger aimed at his head.

After a moment Roger stepped back to regain his breath. Instantly his red-headed antagonist took the initiative. Closing in he landed a heavy punch on Roger’s chest that drove him back another pace towards the angle of the corridor. Following up Gunston swung a right hook to Roger’s jaw, missed it by a fraction, but landed another left on his body.

Roger gasped, threw up his arms to protect his head and retreated another couple of steps. His one advantage lay in the fact that he was much the nimbler of the two and had he had more space he might have dodged some of Gunston’s blows, but here, in the narrow corridor, he was deprived of any chance to use his agility.

He knew, too, that without losing his balance, he could easily have thrown his adversary into confusion by giving him a swift kick on the shin, and he had never been able to understand why, if one was set upon by a bigger fellow, one should not resort to any such trick for one’s own protection. But a strange unwritten law of England forbade such tactics, just as it also ordained that he must not turn and run. To have done either would have been thought worse than spitting on the floor of the Chapel during Holy Communion.

Yet he was seized now with a blind, despairing misery. He fought on automatically, but knew that he had no hope of escaping a thorough drubbing. In another moment Gunston would have him in the corner and lam into him with those freckled, brutal fists until he fell to his knees and cried for quarter.

As through a haze he saw that Gunston’s nose was bleeding, but before he had any chance to feel elation at the sight he received a terrific wallop on the ear that knocked him sideways and made his head sing. For a moment he was deafened and as he ducked to avoid another blow he did not hear a quiet voice drawl:

‘What’s this? Fighting on end of term night? For shame
now! Desist at once! Who have you in that corner, Gunston?’

As the expected blow did not fall, Roger lowered his arm, raised his head and realised the cause of his deliverance.

A tall, thin young man, with an elegant air, narrow shoulders and a pronounced stoop had appeared on the scene. He had a large fleshy nose and a pair of very pale blue eyes, which now surveyed the still breathless combatants with an expression of indolent disapproval. Although he was some two years older than either of them, he was so frail that Gunston could have laid him out with a single blow; yet the habitual bully almost cringed before him.

The interrupter of the fight was known as ‘Droopy Ned’ and he held a highly privileged, if curious, position in the school. This was not alone because he was a member of one of those great families which, in that heyday of the aristocracy, collectively wielded a far more potent power in the governance of England than the occupant of the throne. In fact, the century was approaching in which any son of a peer was to be given an extra kick at his public school, just because he was the son of a peer; so, even in this era when patronage counted for so much. Droopy Ned’s prestige had little connection with the fact that he was the younger son of the Most Noble the Marquess of Amesbury, and that his proper style was Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel.

His real, although quite unorthodox, authority—since for some reason best known to themselves the school authorities had repeatedly passed him over in their selection of prefect—was based upon his most unusual personality. He differed so abnormally from his schoolfellows that they were quite incapable of understanding him but, recognising instinctively that he possessed the brain of a mature man, they accepted his idiosyncrasies and deferred to his judgments without question.

In some ways he shocked them unutterably. In an age when blood sports occupied nine-tenths of the thoughts and leisure of every English gentleman, Droopy Ned made no secret of the fact that he abhorred bull-baiting, fox-hunting and cock-fighting; he also displayed an aloof disregard for all schoolboy crazes, ball games and field sports. Instead, he concerned himself with strange expensive hobbies, such as the collecting of antique jewellery, the study of ancient religions and experimenting on himself with eastern drugs:
the latter then being neither forbidden by law nor frowned on morally. Without appearing to concern himself with his studies he mastered them with ease and would always give his help to more backward class-mates with the utmost readiness. He possessed great charm of manner and was extremely generous but, on occasions when provoked by the bumptious or offensive, his lazy good nature gave place to a bitter, devastating wit, of which both the masters and his schoolfellows went in dread.

Droopy airily waved a fine cambric handkerchief under his big nose and both the boys caught a whiff of the French scent that was on it, as he inquired: ‘What were you two fighting about?’

Gunston would no more have challenged the speaker’s right to put the question than he would have thrown an inkpot at the Head.

‘I took the little fool’s cap,’ he answered sheepishly.

‘Why, may I ask?’

‘Oh, it was just a rag.’

Droopy’s pale blue eyes hardened. ‘I vow you had a deeper reason. You did it to force a fight on young Brook. The love of fighting for fighting’s sake is forgivable in the little savages of Lower School, but you will be moving into Upper School next term, and it ill becomes a fellow of your age to act the bully and the bore. Retrieve Brook’s cap now, and give it to him.’

Gunston hesitated only a second, then he picked up Roger’s cap and handed it over.

‘Now shake hands,’ Droopy ordered.

As they obeyed, with ill-concealed reluctance, he looked at Roger and went on: ‘You are about to wait on Old Toby, are you not? I have just come from him and he was speaking of you. He was saying that you show great promise, particularly in languages and English composition. Such gifts may incline you to enter public life. As you may know, I am leaving this term to start on the Tour, but I shall be back in England in three or four years’ time. If in the future I can be of any service to you, pray command me. You will always be able to obtain news of my whereabouts from Amesbury House, in Arlington Street.’

Roger made him a little formal bow. That is most kind of you, Lord Edward.’ His quick wit led him to use the title deliberately in recognition of the fact that Droopy Ned was
virtually no longer a schoolfellow, but, on leaving, had become a man.

A smile of appreciation showed in the pale blue eyes. ‘I see you have the making of a man of parts, Mr. Brook, but I shall always remain “Droopy” to my friends, and I hope that I may count you among them.’

Gunston had been standing by with a surly look on his face, and he now shuffled his feet awkwardly. Droopy glanced at him and went on: ‘I must continue my farewells, so I will not detain either of you longer.’

As Gunston turned away with a muttered ‘Good-bye’ Roger said: ‘I envy you vastly going abroad. I would give anything to travel.’

Droopy nodded. ‘No doubt you will, one day. In the meantime all good fortune to you. Pray remember to come and see me on my return.’

‘Indeed, I will. The best of fortune on your journey and my duty to you for rescuing me just now.’

‘ ’Twas a pleasure.’ With another airy wave of his scented handkerchief Droopy Ned followed Gunston down the corridor.

The three were not destined to meet again for several years, but if Roger could have seen into the future it would have been revealed to him that both the others were to enter his life at many of the most important crises in it.

Again and again he was to come up against the pig-headed stupidity of Gunston, as Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, and, finally as General Sir George on the field of Waterloo. While Droopy Ned was to prove a powerful friend and wise counsellor in the tortuous path that he, Roger Brook, was to tread, as Mr. Pitt’s principal secret agent during the dark days of the French Revolution and the mighty struggle against Napoleon.

The Reverend Mr. Tobias Chapwode, or ‘Old Toby’ as he was called by the boys of his House, was by no means one of the most popular masters. His real interest lay in his own special subject, English History, upon which he had written several scholarly books. Had he had an income of his own he would have retired to devote himself exclusively to these studies, but he was dependent on his stipend and so compelled to remain at Sherborne although his duties there often conflicted with his private work.

In consequence, whenever he was immersed in a particularly tricky passage of his writings he became extremely lax and discipline suffered. Then, suddenly becoming aware of this, to restore the situation he would pounce and punish with considerable severity. As the boys were unaware of the cause of this inconsistency in his treatment of them, they were naturally apt to resent it, and some even regarded him as a malicious old man who delighted in deliberately playing a cat and mouse game for his own amusement.

The belief was fostered owing to the fact that few of his pupils ever got to know him. He regarded boys in the main as young animals, whom time alone could change from barbarous little savages into reasoning human beings. Moreover, he considered that his responsibility consisted only in keeping the worst of their natural vices in check and sending them out into the world stuffed with enough knowledge, acquired parrot fashion, to form a basis for further education should they later choose to develop any talents they might have.

Yet to the few of whom he took conscious notice he presented a very different personality. In the seclusion of his untidy, book-bestrewn study he was no longer the reserved and apparently dreamy individual, who nine times out of ten failed to take notice of minor misdemeanours but on the tenth occasion would deal out birchings and impositions with startling suddenness. Those whom he invited there occasionally for purposes other than inflicting punishment, always found him both tolerant and kindly; moreover,
he had a strange facility for setting them at their ease and talking to them, not as their House Master, but as a friend.

These favoured few were always boys who had attracted his notice by the promise they showed of becoming something worthwhile later in life. His historical studies had long since made him aware that these were by no means always the youngsters who did best at their lessons and he had an uncanny knack of singling out those showing incipient strength of character, regardless of their talents or lack of them. Among those with whom during the past year he had felt it worth while to bother was Roger Brook.

Roger, therefore, had been in no trepidation on being sent for and, even had he not just been reassured by Droopy Ned, would have felt no qualms as he knocked on Old Toby’s door.

‘Come in,’ boomed a sonorous voice, and on entering the study, Roger saw that, as usual for such interviews, Old Toby had dispensed with all formality. He was a fat, elderly man, with a round face, sharp nose and rather fine green eyes. The desk behind which he sat was covered with a disorderly mass of parchments, his ill-curled grey wig reposed on a wig-stand beside his chair, the double lappets of his white clerical collar were undone and his rusty black gown was stained with spilt snuff.

‘Ah, ’tis you, Brook,’ he said. ‘Come in and sit down. Take that armchair and make yourself comfortable.’

As Roger obeyed, Old Toby scratched his shaven pate and went on with a smile: ‘Now why did I send for you? For the life of me I can’t remember, but ‘twill come back in a minute; that is, if you don’t grudge me the time from your packing for a little conversation.’

‘Of course not, Sir,’ Roger replied politely, marvelling, not for the first time, that his House Master could be so affable when in the seclusion of his own room. ‘I’ve naught left to do but cord my boxes tomorrow morning.’

‘Have you far to go?’

‘Only some forty-odd miles, Sir. I live at Lymington, on the Solent.’

‘Ah, yes. That is something of a cross-country journey, though, and the coaches would serve you ill. You’ve bespoken a post-chaise, no doubt?’

‘No, Sir, I prefer to ride. Jim Button, our groom, will
have arranged a change of horses for us on his way over today, and my baggage will go by carrier.’

‘That should be pleasant if the weather is clement, as it has been these few days past. You’ll take the turnpike road to Poole and so on through Christchurch, I suppose?’

Roger shook his head. ‘We go by way of Blandford, and then through the New Forest. The tracks are quite passable at this time of year, and the forest glades are wondrous beautiful.’

‘You’re not afraid of footpads then,’ Old Tony smiled. ‘’Tis common knowledge that the forest is rarely free of such dangerous gentry.’

‘I’ve never met any, Sir. But if we do we’ll hope to give a good account of ourselves. Jim always ports his blunderbuss and he’ll bring me my brace of pistols.’

‘You would stand and fight, then?’

‘Why not, Sir?’ Roger’s dark eyes gleamed with excitement at the thought. ‘I can shoot the pip out of an ace at fifteen paces, but I’ve had no opportunity to try my pistols on a human target, yet. I’d like the chance.’

Old Toby chuckled. ‘You young spitfire! Our Master-at-Arms tells me, too, that you are becoming quite a dangerous antagonist with the foils. But this recalls to me the matter about which I wished to talk. Does the interest you display in weapons incline you to the profession of Arms?’