Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

was one of the set books for the English Literature prize, and that he would rather be struggling in the coils of that huge stone snake than standing thus invertebrate before this portentous door.

Then Michael tapped. There was no answer but a dull buzz of voices. Again Michael tapped and, beating down his heart, turned the handle that seemed as he held it to swell to pumpkin size in his grasp. Slowly he pushed the door before him, expecting to hear a bellowed summons to appear, and wondering whether he could escape unknown to his classroom if his nerve failed him even now. Then he heard the sound of tears, and indignation drove him onwards, drove him so urgently that actually he slammed the great door behind him, and made the intent company aware of his presence.

“What do you want?” shouted Dr. Brownjohn. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I want to speak to you, sir.” The words actually seemed to come from his mouth winged with flames, such a volcano was Michael now.

“I’m busy. Go outside and wait,” roared the Headmaster.

Michael paused to regard the scene⁠—the two boys sobbing with painful regular intake of breath, oblivious of him; the witnesses, a sheepish crew; the school-porter waiting for his prey; old Mr. Caryll coughing nervously and apparently on the verge of tears himself; the odious Paul Pry of a Secretary nibbling his pen; and in the background other masters waiting with favourable or damning testimony.

The drama of gloating authority shook Michael to the very foundation of his being, and he came rapidly into the middle of the room, came right up to the Headmaster, until he felt engulfed in the black silk gown, and at last said slowly and with simple conviction:

“I think you’re all making a mistake.”

When he had spoken Michael could have kicked himself for not shouting furiously the torrid denunciations which had come surging up for utterance. Then he immediately began to talk again, to his own great surprise, calmly and very reasonably.

“I know these kids⁠—these two boys, I mean⁠—quite well. It’s impossible for any of this to be true. I’ve seen them a lot this term⁠—practically every day. Really, sir, you’ll make a terrible mistake if you expel them. They’re awfully decent little chaps. They are really, sir. Of course they’re too frightened now to say anything for themselves. It’s not fair for everybody to be set at them like this.”

Michael looked despairingly at the masters assembled.

“And these other boys who’ve been brought in to tell what they know. Why, they’re frightened too. They’d say anything. Why don’t you, why don’t you⁠—”

Michael looked round in despair, stammered, broke down, and then to his own eternal chagrin burst into tears. He moved hastily over to the window, striving to pull himself together, seeing through an overpowering blur the great green field in the garish sunlight. Yet his tears, shameful to him, may have turned the scale, for one by one the masters came forward with eager testimony of good; and with every word of praise the tears rushed faster and faster to Michael’s eyes. Then he heard old Caryll’s rasping cough and broken benignant sentences, which with all their memories lulled his emotion to quietude again.

“Hope you’ll bring it in non probatum, Headmaster”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“good boys both”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“sure it’s a mistake⁠—Fane’s a good boy too⁠—idle young rascal⁠—but a good heart”⁠—cough⁠—cough⁠—“had him under me for a year⁠—know him well⁠—”

Dr. Brownjohn, with a most voluminous wave, dismissed the matter. Everyone, even the Paul Pry of a Secretary, went out of the room, and as the door closed Michael heard Mr. Caryll addressing the victims.

“Now then, don’t cry any more, you young boobies.”

Michael’s thoughts followed them upstairs to the jolly classroom, and he almost smiled at the imagination of Mr. Caryll’s entrance and the multitudinous jokes that would demonstrate his relief at his pupils’ rescue. Michael recovered from his dream to find the Headmaster speaking to him in his most rumbling bass.

“I don’t know why I allowed you to interfere in this disgraceful affair, boy. Um?”

“No, sir,” Michael agreed.

“But since you are here, I will take the opportunity of warning you that the company you keep is very vile.”

Michael looked apprehensive.

“If you think nothing is known of your habits out of school, you are much mistaken. I will not have any boy at my school frequenting the house of that deboshed nincompoop Wilmot.”

Dr. Brownjohn’s voice was now so deep that it vibrated in the pit of Michael’s stomach like the diapason of the school organ.

“Give up that detestable association of mental impostors and be a boy again. You have disappointed me during the whole of your career; but you’re a winning boy. Um? Go back to your work.”

Michael left the august room with resolves swaying in his brain, wondering what he could do to repay the Old Man. It was too late to take a very high place in the summer examinations. Yet somehow, so passionate was his gratitude, he managed to come out third.

Michael never told his mother about his adventure, but in the reaction against Wilmot and all that partook of decadence, and in his pleasure at having done something, however clumsily, he felt a great wish to include his mother in his emotion of universal love.

“Where are we going these holidays?” he asked.

“I thought perhaps you’d like to stay at your monastery again,” said Mrs. Fane. “I was thinking of going abroad.”

Michael’s face fell, and his mother was solicitously penitent.

“My dearest boy, I never dreamed you would want to be with me. You’ve always gone out on Sundays.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I won’t again,” Michael assured her.

“And I’ve made my arrangements now. I wish I’d known. But why shouldn’t you go and see Stella? It seems a pity that you and she should grow up so much apart.”

“Well, I will, if you like,” said Michael.

“Dearest boy, what has happened to you? You are so agreeable,” exclaimed Mrs. Fane.

In the end it was arranged that Michael should accompany Mr. Viner on his holiday in France, and afterwards stay with Stella