Crescendo Page 7

  III

  Richard Cressey, Schoolmaster

  1

  Richard Cressey was six years old when, putting out a hand to prevent his younger brother from falling down the cellar steps of the Wesleyan manse which was their parents’ home, he overbalanced, fell down the steps himself and slightly damaged his spine. The damage was not terribly serious, though perhaps it might have been thought so if examined by methods available in more recent times—the year of the accident was 1926, so that he was now thirty-seven. Nothing was broken; no distortion of any kind was visible; Richard had no limp (or very little); he suffered no regular or persistent pain; he could walk quite well and endure fatigue as well as the next boy, up to a point. There was just some slight displacement which made it difficult for him to hit or kick really hard and straight, or balance with complete steadiness. At first this not very obvious disability was attributed not to his accident but to general weakness, for he was not very tall, and somewhat slight in frame. But one day in his early teens the truth broke upon him.

  It was winter; a bright, cold, hard, sparkling winter’s day in the Christmas holidays. A light coating of snow covered the ground, and the outlines of the interlocking West Riding hills made a delicious white pattern against the clear blue sky. Richard and Edward were given sandwiches and sent off for the day to the field down beside the mill in the valley, which was flooded when the weather made skating seem probable. For the first time in some years the field was now a vast expanse of ice, on which experienced skaters were already drawing beautiful figures-of-eight. The two Cressey boys were so excited when they saw this novel spectacle from the hill that they both broke into a run, slipping and sliding down the slope and hurrying under the railway arch without a thought for its dark charms, which usually intrigued them greatly. A stall for buns and tea had been set up beside the gate of the field; there were skates for hire and rough wooden benches on which to sit to put them on. Richard as the elder had been entrusted with the funds for the expedition; he laid them out carefully, studying the various types of skates and watching to see that Edward’s were securely clamped to his boots.

  Edward tottered impetuously over the rough frozen hummocks of grass to the ice, struck out, flailed his arms, fell heavily, rose laughing, repeated this performance several times, was lost to view amid other skaters and presently reappeared skating about at a great pace in a crouching attitude, which though not very elegant was undoubtedly effective. His cheeks were red, he laughed aloud in the joy of the swift motion. Richard reached the ice with less abandon than his brother, struck out with his left foot and enjoyed for a moment the exquisite sensation of smooth gliding. He then attempted to strike out with his right foot. But somehow his right foot could not be persuaded into smooth gliding; it proceeded only for a few inches, in a sideways direction, and then halted, while his right ankle wobbled painfully. He struck out again with the left foot; the right foot trailed behind.

  Seriously, conscientiously, trying with all his might and main to skate in a proper fashion, Richard proceeded slowly round the field. Presently Edward came up at a great rate and circled round his brother. (Edward and Richard were devoted friends.) He stood still and watched Richard’s efforts soberly.

  “Let’s try together,” he said then, ranging himself at Richard’s side.

  With hands criss-crossed they struck out down the field. On the left foot the action was superb. On the right foot, Richard clung desperately to Edward (the taller of the pair); his right ankle quavered, he acted as a brake to Edward and eventually brought him down.

  “Tell you what,” said Edward when this had happened twice or thrice: “That right skate of yours needs tightening.”

  They repaired to the bank. The skate was tightened. For a few moments Richard’s skating improved, then the right foot dragged again. At noon, when they ate their sandwiches, this had happened several times, and Richard gratefully accepted the advice of the skate-man, who suggested he might do better on old-fashioned wooden skates, they being, as he said, so much nearer the ground. Edward scowled a little at the thought of his brother wearing old-fashioned girls’ skates, but the change seemed to bring Richard some relief. The brothers continued as before, Edward flying around, Richard soberly struggling, every so often the two joining for a few moments of joyous motion before Richard brought the pair to the ground.

  It was afternoon, and the sun was sinking in a red glow behind the hills, when this happened for the last time. As the brothers rose, dusting the snow from their jackets, Richard remarked in a regretful but untroubled tone:

  “Don’t bother with me any more, Ted. I can’t do it.”

  “But why not?” said Edward, his cheerful round face puzzled.

  “My right foot just won’t go.”

  “But why won’t it?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Richard, gazing down at the offending ankle thoughtfully.

  Then, suddenly, he knew. For suddenly there rose up in his mind, apparently without reason, a picture of bare whitewashed walls and a stone floor with a pool of milk lying across it. The walls were cellar walls, the milk had just been spilt by his mother in the alarm caused by his fall. He looked again at the mental picture; yes, there in the middle distance behind the milk rose a flight of white-stoned steps. He knew.

  “See you later!” he cried, striking out on his left foot with all his force.

  He went off behind an island formed amid the ice by a grassy ridge topped by thorn bushes, and standing quite still in the shadow, argued the matter out with himself.

  What pierced his heart and almost bore him to the ground was the fact that his disability had been imposed on him because he had engaged in a good action. If he had not stretched out his arm to prevent Edward from falling down the stairs, he would not have fallen down the stairs himself and thrown his vertebrae slightly out of true. Or so it seemed. Did he, then, wish that Edward had been hurt instead of himself? No! But what kind of God was it who posed such awful questions?

  For a moment Richard Cressey almost rejected God altogether. Then something strong and passionate rose up in a great flood within him, saying: I will not be defeated. Whether this great impulse came to him from his father, that warm-hearted, sweet-tempered lover of the good, or from his mother, sandy-haired and freckled and upright, with Scottish Covenanters in her ancestry, he did not know; perhaps indeed it came from neither, but from something he had read in the books he devoured: some Roman conception of virtue, some idea of nobility gleaned from the poets. But there it was; he made up his mind that he would not allow himself to be defeated by this accident and its circumstances. He would be defeated if he abandoned God; he would be defeated if Edward ever knew that his brother’s effort to save him had damaged his brother; he would be defeated if anyone ever pitied him. Therefore none of these things should be allowed to happen.

  He came to himself and found that his teeth were chattering with cold, and saw Edward in the distance skating about with an anxious look, evidently searching for him. It was now quite dark. Richard skated vigorously round the island (on his left foot) and fell two or three times, in order to gain warmth and an appearance of animation, before joining his brother.

  As they trudged up the long snowbound slope together towards Ashworth, Richard was silent, burdened with too many thoughts.

  “Are you tired, Richard?” enquired Edward. (Edward had always a slight trace of Yorkshire accent which Richard, who had none, found endearing.)

  “Yes and no.”

  “I don’t see why your right foot won’t skate properly.”

  “It’s just that you skate better than I do—you play all games better than I do. Games come more naturally to some people than to others,” said Richard lightly.

  “You’re better at lessons than I am,” said Edward in his staunch Yorkshire tones.

  “True,” said Richard, nodding.

  It was indeed true, and the remembrance of its truth brought a touch of warmth and ease to Richa
rd’s ravaged heart.

  Next day, the ice held and skating continued to be possible. Richard, who woke early, saw that it would be so by the appearance of the icicles depending from the wooden canopy above the bedroom window. They were hard and firm and cold—as hard as the decision which he had to make, as cold as the world in which he had to make it. That he meant to be a scholar, a learned man, was already settled in his mind. But was he to be one of those arid, dried-up, half-atrophied scholars who took no part in ordinary life? The kind of scholar known as swot and sap in old-fashioned school stories? Was he to run away from all physical effort, escape from life into books, shelter from participation in the sweat and tussle of ordinary men behind the plea of mental superiority? That would be altogether too easy, reflected Richard; that would be defeat in its most dishonourable because most unacknowledged form. He declined to be defeated. The question lay right before him for a decision, for he had to make up his mind at once whether to stay at home and read all day, or go out skating with Edward, knowing that he was inferior to his younger brother on the ice. He went to the skating field and spent quite a happy day there.

  From that time onward Richard played all games with a cheerful mediocrity, while Edward excelled. In cricket, for example, Richard became one of those useful persons who stay in for a very long time, making almost no score, while brilliant batsmen at the other end pile up large totals and go quickly out. Thus, although he was undoubtedly a scholar (“too brainy for words” was Edward’s description), of slight physique and mildly plain—his school nickname was Tadpole, which he thought justifiable, his grey eyes being somewhat too large for his face—he retained the respect and affection of his schoolfellows, and though he was not made head boy during his last year when he might have expected this honour, he acted as prefect with sufficient success. An agreeable feature of his schooldays, which of course were spent at various schools as his father moved round the circuit, was the complete mutual affection and respect felt by the Cressey brothers. They were entirely loyal; no wedge could ever be driven between them. They closed their schooldays in a blaze of different glories; Edward as captain of everything and victor ludorum, and Richard by winning a desirable scholarship to Oxford.

  In Oxford Richard thought that he was now entitled to let games drop. He was a reading man among other reading men and there was nothing weak or cowardly in that. This was a relief; but his previous participation in games enabled him to take an intelligent interest when they were spoken of, and thus to share the interests of many of his fellows; he thought this a gain.

  The second world war supervened, and here for the first time his physical disability gave Richard an advantage, for which he was heartily sorry. The whole thing was rather a muddle as far as he was concerned; there were periods when he was allowed to stay in his university—during these he contrived to take a good degree; periods when he was in the army, and periods when he was encouraged and even commanded to follow his wish and enter the teaching profession. In the army he found himself handing out stores. Here he invented one small but very effective improvement in the method of record-keeping. (His superior officer gained a decoration as a result.) Richard often chuckled to himself when he thought of the brass-hats solemnly adopting this detail originating in the brain of a C3 highbrow whom they would have scorned to speak to in regimental life. Meanwhile Edward entered the R.A.F. and presently became a squadron-leader with a decoration. The service he rendered his country was great, and nobody was prouder of this, or respected Edward more, than Richard. A lucky crash threw Edward into hospital for a few months and saved his life.

  At the end of the war Edward went into business with a Scottish relative, and did well—he was always a pleasant, capable, active fellow. He married an agreeable Scottish girl and they had several delightful children, to whom Richard was an affectionate and well-thought-of uncle. He enjoyed his visits to them very much—although occasionally, in this as in other experiences of Richard’s life, his enjoyment was streaked with pain and wistfulness. (His equable manner, his affable tone were the results of continued victory in struggle, not easy acceptance.) He envied with all his heart Edward’s happiness as a husband and father. He wished with all his heart that he could have such happiness himself. He was not unsusceptible to feminine charm nor devoid of the ordinary instincts of a man, and he often saw pretty and intelligent women whom he could imagine himself loving—he had a fund of tenderness, he reflected sometimes wistfully, which it seemed a pity not to use. Women liked him, too; they trusted him and gave him confidences. But that, he told himself sternly, occurred only because they felt safe with him; they knew they would feel for him only as a friend, never as a lover. How could they do otherwise, thought Richard, comparing his insignificant person with the tall, broad Edward’s virile and handsome figure. No! Love and marriage were not for him; he must content himself with what was after all, he assured himself, his deepest love, his profession.

  For he was an excellent teacher. He had, of course, an excellent knowledge of literature, which was his “subject,” but nobody knew better than Richard Cressey that knowledge, though necessary, did not necessarily bear with it good teaching. There was something else one had to have, and to his grateful joy, Richard turned out to have it. It was not just sympathy—boys were apt to resent too much sympathy. It was not merely the power of interesting exposition, though Richard in a modest way could claim that. Charlotte Bronte’s M. Heger had called it dévoue absolu, reflected Richard, and certainly one must be able to detach oneself from one’s own interest, one’s own ambition, and devote oneself to those of one’s pupils, at any rate while one was teaching them. (It was not difficult for Richard to detach himself from his private interests, reflected Richard, because apart from a genuine interest, such as all good citizens should take, in politics, art, music, literature and culture generally, he really had no private interest of his own. As to ambition, he would like to try his hand as a headmaster, naturally, for then he could work out some ideas of his own for the boys’ welfare.) But on the whole, Richard liked to think that his ability to teach came from his long struggle to disregard his physical disability.

  Presently a post as Senior English Master offered itself in Ashworth. Richard had not been to Ashworth for a long time, but suddenly he felt drawn to the place. Several years of his childhood had been spent there, and the skating field, scene of the most profound and formative experience of his life, lay in one of Ashworth’s many valleys. He examined himself carefully to discover whether any morbidity, any self-pity or self-admiration, lay at the root of his desire for these scenes of his youth; on the whole he thought he was innocent in these respects.

  He obtained the post in the Ashworth Grammar School, and at once felt at home again in the West Riding; its dramatic industrial landscapes, its significant sociological history, the independent, efficient and stubborn character of its people, their love of music and football, their rough sardonic manners, even their very accent, found their way straight to his heart; he felt for them a strong if amused affection. He adapted himself to their customs, and would sometimes employ their mode of intercourse to keep his end up. For example, about a month after his arrival, one of the lads in his class said to him, as they were walking back from the football field together after watching a school match:

  “We weren’t sure we were going to like you when you first came, you know.”

  “Suspension of judgment about a newly made acquaintance is natural and proper,” said Richard mildly. He spoke thus far with perfect sincerity and ease, but then added in what he called his Yorkshire style: “I felt the same about you.”

  The boy gave him a startled look, then grinned and drawled:

  “But now we’re fairly sure we do.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” responded Richard without emphasis.

  Naturally the bookshops of the town, and its municipal library, soon became familiar haunts to him, and it was in the best furnished of these bookshops that he met D
orothea.

  “What a radiant creature!” thought Richard, as she advanced smiling towards him and enquired his needs.

  She was taller than Richard, with a shapely not too slender figure, a rich carmine cheek, fine dark eyes, thick arched eyebrows and a mass of short, curly, glossy black hair; she held herself superbly and walked with vigorous grace. She was not pretty, handsome or beautiful, for her features were irregular, but the rich vitality, the glowing life, which her personality radiated around her had the same effect on Richard as some magnificent painting or master symphony. Her age, he guessed, was twenty-two or three. Her eyes were kind and her speech, though faintly Yorkshire, was accurate and pleasing, her voice being a rich contralto; she attended intelligently to Richard’s requirements and took pains to see that he got exactly what he wanted.

  “Yes, a radiant creature,” thought Richard as he stepped out of the shop with a couple of books under his arm.

  Really it was a pleasure to see such a radiant creature! Especially as in dress she was always extremely fresh and crisp and had an air of style about her which Richard recognised though he could not define. In his subsequent visits to the bookshop, which owing to the nature of his profession and interests were many, he always sought her out and presently by chance learned her name. Soon he was known there as her customer.

  “Miss Dean won’t be a minute, Mr. Cressey,” said other assistants and even the proprietor, apologetically, as they passed by.

  Miss Dean was very quick in the uptake—to use a West Riding phrase. She soon understood that Richard liked to carry books away loose under his arm, not hidden away and constrained by string in a brown paper parcel. Richard had hardly known before that he had this predilection, but now he realised that he had, and it was pleasant to have it as a quiet little joke between himself and Miss Dean. He noticed too that if he mentioned a book which had been reviewed in the Sunday newspapers, she often knew of it; an intelligent girl, he thought approvingly.