Mike - Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (the reading strategies book TXT) 📗

said, “So you’re back from Moscow,

eh?” Mike was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly

gloomy. And, so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had

set himself deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for

instance, that he had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more

obviously incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a

firm grasp to the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction

of the luggage-van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the

colour of his hair. Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, and

the man who took his ticket.

 

“Young gents at the school, sir,” said the porter, perceiving from

Mike’s distrait air that the boy was a stranger to the place,

“goes up in the ‘bus mostly. It’s waiting here, sir. Hi, George!”

 

“I’ll walk, thanks,” said Mike frigidly.

 

“It’s a goodish step, sir.”

 

“Here you are.”

 

“Thank you, sir. I’ll send up your luggage by the ‘bus, sir. Which

‘ouse was it you was going to?”

 

“Outwood’s.”

 

“Right, sir. It’s straight on up this road to the school. You can’t

miss it, sir.”

 

“Worse luck,” said Mike.

 

He walked off up the road, sorrier for himself than ever. It was such

absolutely rotten luck. About now, instead of being on his way to a

place where they probably ran a diabolo team instead of a cricket

eleven, and played hunt-the-slipper in winter, he would be on the

point of arriving at Wrykyn. And as captain of cricket, at that. Which

was the bitter part of it. He had never been in command. For the last

two seasons he had been the star man, going in first, and heading the

averages easily at the end of the season; and the three captains under

whom he had played during his career as a Wrykynian, Burgess, Enderby,

and Henfrey had always been sportsmen to him. But it was not the same

thing. He had meant to do such a lot for Wrykyn cricket this term. He

had had an entirely new system of coaching in his mind. Now it might

never be used. He had handed it on in a letter to Strachan, who would

be captain in his place; but probably Strachan would have some scheme

of his own. There is nobody who could not edit a paper in the ideal

way; and there is nobody who has not a theory of his own about

cricket-coaching at school.

 

Wrykyn, too, would be weak this year, now that he was no longer there.

Strachan was a good, free bat on his day, and, if he survived a few

overs, might make a century in an hour, but he was not to be depended

upon. There was no doubt that Mike’s sudden withdrawal meant that

Wrykyn would have a bad time that season. And it had been such a

wretched athletic year for the school. The football fifteen had been

hopeless, and had lost both the Ripton matches, the return by over

sixty points. Sheen’s victory in the light-weights at Aldershot had

been their one success. And now, on top of all this, the captain of

cricket was removed during the Easter holidays. Mike’s heart bled for

Wrykyn, and he found himself loathing Sedleigh and all its works with

a great loathing.

 

The only thing he could find in its favour was the fact that it was

set in a very pretty country. Of a different type from the Wrykyn

country, but almost as good. For three miles Mike made his way through

woods and past fields. Once he crossed a river. It was soon after this

that he caught sight, from the top of a hill, of a group of buildings

that wore an unmistakably school-like look.

 

This must be Sedleigh.

 

Ten minutes’ walk brought him to the school gates, and a baker’s boy

directed him to Mr. Outwood’s.

 

There were three houses in a row, separated from the school buildings

by a cricket-field. Outwood’s was the middle one of these.

 

Mike went to the front door, and knocked. At Wrykyn he had always

charged in at the beginning of term at the boys’ entrance, but this

formal reporting of himself at Sedleigh suited his mood.

 

He inquired for Mr. Outwood, and was shown into a room lined with

books. Presently the door opened, and the housemaster appeared.

 

There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In

appearance he reminded Mike of Smee in “Peter Pan.” He had the same

eyebrows and pince-nez and the same motherly look.

 

“Jackson?” he said mildly.

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“I am very glad to see you, very glad indeed. Perhaps you would like a

cup of tea after your journey. I think you might like a cup of tea.

You come from Crofton, in Shropshire, I understand, Jackson, near

Brindleford? It is a part of the country which I have always wished to

visit. I daresay you have frequently seen the Cluniac Priory of St.

Ambrose at Brindleford?”

 

Mike, who would not have recognised a Cluniac Priory if you had handed

him one on a tray, said he had not.

 

“Dear me! You have missed an opportunity which I should have been glad

to have. I am preparing a book on Ruined Abbeys and Priories of

England, and it has always been my wish to see the Cluniac Priory of

St. Ambrose. A deeply interesting relic of the sixteenth century.

Bishop Geoffrey, 1133-40–-”

 

“Shall I go across to the boys’ part, sir?”

 

“What? Yes. Oh, yes. Quite so. And perhaps you would like a cup of tea

after your journey? No? Quite so. Quite so. You should make a point of

visiting the remains of the Cluniac Priory in the summer holidays,

Jackson. You will find the matron in her room. In many respects it is

unique. The northern altar is in a state of really wonderful

preservation. It consists of a solid block of masonry five feet long

and two and a half wide, with chamfered plinth, standing quite free

from the apse wall. It will well repay a visit. Good-bye for the

present, Jackson, good-bye.”

 

Mike wandered across to the other side of the house, his gloom visibly

deepened. All alone in a strange school, where they probably played

hopscotch, with a housemaster who offered one cups of tea after one’s

journey and talked about chamfered plinths and apses. It was a little

hard.

 

He strayed about, finding his bearings, and finally came to a room

which he took to be the equivalent of the senior day-room at a Wrykyn

house. Everywhere else he had found nothing but emptiness. Evidently

he had come by an earlier train than was usual. But this room was

occupied.

 

A very long, thin youth, with a solemn face and immaculate clothes,

was leaning against the mantelpiece. As Mike entered, he fumbled in

his top left waistcoat pocket, produced an eyeglass attached to a

cord, and fixed it in his right eye. With the help of this aid to

vision he inspected Mike in silence for a while, then, having flicked

an invisible speck of dust from the left sleeve of his coat, he spoke.

 

“Hullo,” he said.

 

He spoke in a tired voice.

 

“Hullo,” said Mike.

 

“Take a seat,” said the immaculate one. “If you don’t mind dirtying

your bags, that’s to say. Personally, I don’t see any prospect of ever

sitting down in this place. It looks to me as if they meant to use

these chairs as mustard-and-cress beds. A Nursery Garden in the Home.

That sort of idea. My name,” he added pensively, “is Smith. What’s

yours?”