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<h2> CHAPTER VII—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; THEY OPEN FIRE </h2>
<h3> I. </h3>
<p class="pfirst">
<span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>UT, during the
week that followed, Traill's good-temper slowly reasserted itself
once more. After all, it was really impossible to be angry with anyone
when the world was alight and trembling with so wonderful an adventure.
They had each of them written to those in authority. Isabel had a
complacent father who knew something of young Traill's family and,
answering at once, said that he would come down to see them and made it
his only stipulation that the engagement should last for at least a year,
until they were both a little older. Traill's mother was delighted
with anything that could give her son such happiness. It had all been very
sudden of course; but then, was not true love always like that? Had not
she, a great many years ago, fallen in love with Archie's father
“all in a minute,” and was not that the beautiful incautious
way that the new practical generation seemed so often to forget? So, she
sent him her blessing and also wrote a little note to Isabel.</p>
<p>But they still kept their secret from the others. They meant every day to
reveal it, but they shrank, as each morning came, from all the talk and
chatter that would at once follow. It would mean an end, Isabel knew, to
any easy and pleasant relations that she might have with anyone at the
school. She never understood the reason, but she knew that they would feel
that she had acted in a conceited, presuming manner. It would not be
pleasant.</p>
<p>So their meetings were, during these days, few and difficult. They met in
the wood and at the sea, and their eyes crossed over the chapel floor, and
they even wrote to one another and posted them elaborately in the
letter-box.</p>
<p>But on any morning the secret might be revealed. Traill told Isabel about
his quarrel with Perrin, and she urged him to make it up.</p>
<p>“When we ourselves are so happy,” she said, “we can't
quarrel with anyone—and, poor man, no wonder his temper is
irritable. He's a miserably disappointed man, and I don't
think he's very well either. He looks dreadfully white and strained
sometimes. We can afford to put up with some ill-temper from other people,
Archie, just now. When we are so happy and he is so unhappy, it is a
little unfair, isn't it?”</p>
<p>And so he kissed her and went back resolved to be pleasant and agreeable.
But Perrin gave him no opportunity. They spoke to each other a little at
meals for appearance' sake, but any advances that Traill made were
cut short at once without hesitation.</p>
<p>Perrin passed about the passages and the class-rooms during this week
heavily, with a white face and a lowering brow—he had headaches, bad
headaches; and his form suffered.</p>
<h3> II. </h3>
<p>And so it was suddenly, without warning or preparation, that the storm
broke—the storm that was to be remembered for years afterwards at
Moffatt's: the great Battle of the Umbrella, about which strange
myths grew up, that will become, doubtless, in later centuries at Moffatt's
a strange Titanic contest, with gods for its warriors and thunderbolts for
their weapons; the great battle that involved not only the central
combatants, not only Traill and Perrin and their lives and fortunes, but
also others—the Combers, the matrons, the masters, the whole world
of that place seized by the Furies... and, in the corner, in that
umbrella-stand by the hall door, underneath the stairs, that faded green
umbrella—now, we suppose, passed into that limbo into which all
umbrellas must eventually go, but then the gage, the glove, the sign token
of all that was to come.</p>
<p>Let, moreover, no one imagine that these things are not possible. This
Battle of the Umbrella stands for more, for far more, than its immediate
contest. Here is the whole protest and appeal of all those crowded,
stifled souls buried of their own original free-will beneath fantastic
piles of scribbled paper, cursing their fate, but unable to escape from
it, seeing their old age as a broken, hurried scrambling to a no-man's
grave, with no dignity nor suavity, with no temper nor discipline, with
nerves jangling like the broken wires of a shattered harp—so that
there is no comfort or hope in the future, nothing but disappointment and
insult in the past, and the dry, bitter knowledge of failure in the
present—this is the Battle of the Umbrella.</p>
<p>It was Monday morning, and Monday morning is worse than any other day of
the week.</p>
<p>There has been, in spite of many services and the reiteration of religious
stories concerning which a shower of inconvenient questions are flung at
the uncertain convictions of authority, a relief in the rest and repose of
the preceding day.</p>
<p>Sunday was, at any rate, a day to look forward to in that it was different
from the other six days of the week, and although it might not on its
arrival show quite so pleasant a face as earlier hours had given it,
nevertheless it was something—a landmark if nothing else.</p>
<p>And now on this dark and dreary Monday—with the first hour a tedious
and bickering discussion on Divinity, and the second hour a universal and
embittered Latin exercise—that early rising to the cold summoning of
the hell was anything but pleasant.</p>
<p>Moreover, on this especial Monday the rain came thundering in furious
torrents, and the row of trees opposite the Lower School wailed and cried
with their dripping, naked boughs, and all the brown leaves on the paths
were beaten and flattened into a miserable and hopeless pulp.</p>
<p>Monday was the only morning in the week on which Traill took early
preparation at the Upper School, and he had noticed before that it nearly
always rained on Mondays. He was in no very bright temper as he hurried
down the cold stone passages, pulling on his gown and avoiding the bodies
of numerous small boys who flung themselves against him as they rushed
furiously downstairs in order to be in time for call-over.</p>
<p>He heard the rain beating against the window-panes and hurriedly selected
the first umbrella that he saw in the stand and rushed to the Upper
School.</p>
<p>That preparation hour was unpleasant. M. Pons, the French master, was in
the room above him, and the ceiling shook with the delighted stamp of
twenty boys blessed with a sense of humor and an opportunity of power. M.
Pons could be figured with shaking hands in the middle of the room,
appealing for quiet. And, as was ever the case, the spirit of rebellion
passed down through the ceiling to the room beneath. Traill had his boys
well under control; but whereas on ordinary occasions it was all done
without effort and worked of its own accord, on this morning continual
persistence was necessary, and he had to make examples of various
offenders.</p>
<p>A preparation hour always invited the Seven Devils to dance across the two
hundred of open books, and the tweaking of boys' bodies and the
digging of pins into unsuspecting legs was the inevitable result. Traill
rose at the end of the hour, cross, irritable, and already tired. He
hurried down to the Lower School to breakfast and forgot the umbrella.</p>
<p>The rain was driving furiously against the window-panes of the Junior
common room. The windows were tightly closed, and still the presence of
yesterday's mutton was felt heavily, gloomily, about the ceiling.
The brown and black oilcloth contained numberless little winds and
draughts that leapt out from under it and crept here and there about the
room.</p>
<p>A small fire was burning in the grate—a mountain of black coal and
stray spirals of gray smoke, and little white edges of unburnt paper
hanging from the black bars. Beyond the side door voices quarreling in the
kitchen could be heard, and beyond the other door a hum of voices and a
clatter of cups.</p>
<p>It was all so dingy that it struck even the heavy brain of Clinton, who
was down first. Perrin was taking breakfast in the big dining-room, and
Traill was not yet hack from the Upper School.</p>
<p>Clinton seized the <i>Morning Post</i> and, with a grunt of
dissatisfaction at the general appearance of things, sat down. He never
thought very intently about anything, but, in a vague way, he did dislike
Monday and rain and a smoking fire. He helped himself to more than his
share of the breakfast, ate it in large, noisy mouthfuls, found the <i>Morning
Post</i> dull, and relapsed on to the <i>Daily Mail</i>. The rain and the
quarreling in the kitchen were very disturbing.</p>
<p>Then Traill came in and sat down with an air of relief. He had no very
great opinion of Clinton, but they got on together quite agreeably, and he
found that it was rather pleasanter to have an entirely negative person
with one—it was not necessary to think about him.</p>
<p>“My word,” said Clinton, his eyes glued to the <i>Daily Mail</i>,
“the London Scottish fairly wiped the floor with the Harlequins
yesterday—two goals and a try to a try—all that man Binton—extraordinary
three-quarter—no flies on him! Have some sausages? Not bad. I wonder
if they 'll catch that chap Deakin?”</p>
<p>“Deakin?” said Traill rather drearily, looking up from his
breakfast. How dismal it all was this morning! Oh, well—in a year's
time!</p>
<p>“Yes, you know—the Hollins Road murder—the man who cut
his wife and mother into little bits and mixed them up so that they couldn't
tell which was which. There's a photograph of him here and his front
door.”</p>
<p>“I think,” said Traill, shortly, “following up murder
trials like that is perfectly beastly. It isn't civilized.”</p>
<p>“All right!” said Clinton, helping himself to the remaining
sausages. “Perrin's having breakfast in there, isn't he?
He won't want any more.”</p>
<p>“He sometimes does,” said Traill, feeling that at the moment
he hated Clinton's good-natured face more than anything in the whole
world. “He's awfully sick if he comes in hungry and doesn't
find anything.”</p>
<p>Clinton smiled. “He's rather amusing when he's sick,”
he said. “He so often is. By the way, has the Head passed those
exam, questions of yours yet?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Traill, frowning. “He 's made me do
them five times now, and last time he crossed but a whole lot of questions
that he himself had suggested the time before. I pointed that out to him,
and he called me, politely and gently, but firmly, a liar. There's
no question that he's got his knife into me now, and I've got
friend Perrin to thank for it!”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Clinton, helping himself to marmalade, “Perrin
does n't love you—there's no question of that. Young
Garden Minimus has been helping the feud.”</p>
<p>“Garden? What's he got to do with it?”</p>
<p>“Well, you know that he was always Old Pompous' especial pet—well,
Pompous has riled him, kept him in or something, so now he goes about
telling everybody that he's transferred his allegiance to you. That
makes Pompous sick as anything.”</p>
<p>“I like the kid especially,” Traill said. “He 's
rather a favorite of mine.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Clinton. “Well, look out for trouble, that
's all. There 'll be open war between you soon if you are not
careful.”</p>
<p>At that moment Perrin came in. He was continuing, as he entered, a
conversation with some small boy whose head just appeared at the door for
a moment and revealed Garden Minimus.</p>
<p>“Well, a hundred times,” Perrin was saying, “and you don't
go out till you 've done it.”</p>
<p>Garden displayed annoyance, and was heard to mutter under his breath.
Perrin's face was gray; his hair appeared to be unbrushed, and there
was a good deal of white chalk on the back of his sleeve.</p>
<p>“Really, it's too bad,” he said to no one in particular
and certainly not to Traill. “I don't know what's come
over that boy—nothing but continuous impertinence. He shall go up to
the Head if he isn't careful. Such a nice boy, too, before this
term.”</p>
<p>At this moment he saw that Traill was reading the <i>Morning Post</i> and
Clinton the <i>Daily Mail</i>. He looked as though he were going to say
something, then by a tremendous effort controlled himself. He stood in
front of the dismal fire and looked at the other two, at the dreary
window-panes and the driving rain, at the dusty pigeon-holes, the untidy
heap of books, the torn lists hanging from the wall.</p>
<p>He had slept badly—had lain awake for hours thinking of Miss Desart,
of his own miserable condition, of his poor mother—and then,
slumbering at last, in an instant he had been pulled, dragged wide-awake
by that thundering, clamoring bell.</p>
<p>He had been so tired that his eyes had refused to open, and he had sat
stupidly on the edge of his bed with his head swaying and nodding. Then he
had been late for preparation, and he knew that they had been “playing
about” and had rubbed Somerset-Walpole's head in the ink and
had stamped on his body, because, although it was so early,
Somerset-Walpole's eyes were already red, his back a horrible
confusion of dust and chalk, his hair and collar ink and disaster.</p>
<p>He was sorry for Somerset-Walpole, whose days were a perpetual tragedy;
but as there was no other obvious victim, he selected him for the subject
of his wrath, expatiated to the form on the necessity of getting up clean
in the morning, and sent the large, blubbering creature up to the matron
to be cleansed and scolded. Verily the delights of some people's
school days have been vastly exaggerated!</p>
<p>Then Garden Minimus had been discovered sticking nibs into the fleshy
portion of his neighbor, and, although he had vehemently denied the crime,
had been heavily punished and had therefore sulked during the rest of the
hour. At breakfast-time Perrin had called him up to him and had hinted
that if he chose to be agreeable once again the punishment might be
relaxed; but Garden did not please, and sulked and muttered under his
breath, and Perrin thought he had caught the word “Pompous.”</p>
<p>All these things may have been slight in themselves, but combined they
amounted to a great deal—and all before half-past eight in the
morning. Also he had had very little to eat.</p>
<p>He had been brought a small red tomato and a hard, rocky wedge of bacon
with little white eyes in it, and an iron determination to hold out at all
costs, whatever the consumer's appetite and determination. He smelt,
when he came into the common room, sausages, and he saw, with a glance of
the eye, that there were sausages no longer.</p>
<p>“I really think, Clinton,” he said, “that a little less
appetite on your part in the early morning would be better for everyone
concerned.”</p>
<p>Clinton was always perfectly good-tempered, and all he said now was,
“All right, old chap—I always have an awful appetite in the
morning. I always had.”</p>
<p>Perrin drew himself to his full height and prepared to be dignified.</p>
<p>Clinton said, “I say, old man, you 've got chalk all over your
sleeve.”</p>
<p>And Perrin, finding that it was indeed true, could say nothing and feebly
tried to brush it off with his hand.</p>
<p>Traill had not spoken since Perrin had come in. He disliked intensely the
atmosphere of restraint in the room. He had never before been on such bad
terms with anyone, and now at every turn there were discomforts,
difficulties, stiffnesses. At this moment he loathed the term and the
place and the people as he had never loathed any of them before; he felt
that he could not possibly last until the holidays.</p>
<p>Perrin was going to the Upper School for first hour. He was going to teach
Divinity, the lesson that he loathed most of all. He gathered his. books
up and his gown, and went out into the hall to find his umbrella. The rain
was falling more heavily than before, and lashed the panes as though it
had some personal grievance against them.</p>
<p>Robert, the general factotum—a long, pale man with a spotty face and
a wonderful capacity for dropping china—came in to collect the
breakfast things. He passed, clattering about the table. Traill was still
deep in the <i>Morning Post.</i></p>
<p>Perrin came in with a clouded brow. “I can't find,” he
said, “my umbrella.”</p>
<p>The rain beat upon the frames, Robert clashed the plates together, but
there was no answer. Clinton's head was in his pigeonhole, looking
for papers.</p>
<p>“Robert, have you seen my umbrella?”</p>
<p>No, Robert had not seen any umbrella. He might have seen an umbrella last
week, somewhere upstairs, in Miss Madder's room—an umbrella
with lace, pink—Oh! of course, a parasol. There were three umbrellas
in the stand by the hall door. Perhaps one of those was the one. No? Mr.
Perrin had looked? Well, he didn't know of anywhere else. No—perhaps
one of the young gentlemen.... There was nothing at all to be got out of
Robert.</p>
<p>“Clinton!” No answer. “Clinton!”</p>
<p>At last Clinton turned round.</p>
<p>“Clinton, have you seen my umbrella?”</p>
<p>“No, old man—why should I? Isn't it outside?”</p>
<p>It was getting late, the rain was pelting down, and Perrin was quite
determined that he would <i>not</i> under any circumstances use anyone
else's umbrella.</p>
<p>He went out again and looked in the hall. He was beginning to get very
angry. Was not this the last straw sent by the little gods to break his
humble back? That it should be raining, that he should be late, and that
there should be no umbrella! He stormed about the hall, he looked in
impossible places, he shook the three umbrellas that were there; he began
to mutter to himself—the little red and yellow china man was
creeping down the stairs. He was shaking all over, and his hands were
trembling like leaves.</p>
<p>He came into the common room again. “I can't think—”
he said, with his trembling hand to his forehead. “I know I had it
yesterday—last night. Clinton, you <i>must</i> have seen it.”</p>
<p>“No,” said Clinton in that abstract voice that is so
profoundly irritating because it shows that the speaker's thoughts
are far away. “No—I don't think I've seen it. What
did I do with that Algebra? Oh! there it is. My word! is n't it
raining!”</p>
<p>The Upper School bell began, far in the distance, its raucous clanging.
Perrin was pacing up and down the room; every now and again he flung a
furtive glance at Traill. Traill had paid, hitherto, no attention to the
conversation. At last, hearing the Upper School bell, he looked up.</p>
<p>“What's the matter?” he said.</p>
<p>“Really, Robert,” said Perrin, turning round to the factotum,
“you <i>must</i> have seen it somewhere. It's absurd! I want
to go out.”</p>
<p>“There are the other gentlemen's,” said Robert, looking
a little frightened of Perrin's twitching lips and white face.</p>
<p>It dawned upon Traill slowly that Perrin was looking for an umbrella. Then
on that it followed that possibly the umbrella that he had taken that
morning might be Perrin's umbrella.</p>
<p>Of course it <i>must</i> be Perrin's umbrella. It was just the sort
of umbrella, with its faded silk and stupid handle, that Perrin would be
likely to have. However, it was really very awkward—most awkward.</p>
<p>He stood up and stayed with a hand nervously fingering the <i>Morning Post</i>.</p>
<p>Perrin rushed once more into the hall and then came furiously back.
“I <i>must</i> have my umbrella,” he said, storming at Robert.
“I want to go to the Upper School.”</p>
<p>He had left the door a little open.</p>
<p>“I am very sorry,” Traill began; the paper crackling beneath
his fingers.</p>
<p>Perrin wheeled round and stared at him, his face very white.</p>
<p>“I'm very sorry,” said Traill again, “but I'm
afraid I must have taken it—my mistake. I wouldn't have taken
it if I had dreamed—”</p>
<p>“You!” said Perrin in a hoarse whisper.</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Traill, “I'm afraid I took the first
one I saw this morning. I'm afraid it must have been yours, as yours
is missing. I assure you—”</p>
<p>He was smiling a little—really it was all too absurd. His smile
drove Perrin into a trembling passion. He took a step forward.</p>
<p>“You dared to take my umbrella?” he said, “without
asking? I never heard such a piece of impertinence. But it's all of
a piece—all of a piece!”</p>
<p>“But it's really too absurd,” Traill broke in. “As
though a man mightn't take another man's umbrella without all
this disturbance. It's too absurd.”</p>
<p>“Oh! is it?” said Perrin, his voice shaking. “That's
all of a piece—that's exactly like the rest of your behavior
here. You come here thinking that everything and everyone belongs to you.
Oh, yes! we've all got to bow down to everything that your Highness
chooses to say. We must give up everything to your Highness—our
clothes, our possessions—you conceited—insufferable puppy!”</p>
<p>These words were gasped out. Perrin was now entirely beside himself with
rage. He saw this man here before him as the originator of all his
misfortunes, all his evils. He had put the other masters against him, he
had put the boys against him, he had taken Garden away from him, he had
been against him at every turn.</p>
<p>All control, all discipline, everything had fled from Mr. Perrin. He did
not remember where he was, he did not remember that Robert was in the
room, he did not remember that the door was open and that the boys could
hear his shrill, excited voice. He only knew that here, in this smiling,
supercilious, conceited young man, was his enemy, the man who would rob
and ruin him.</p>
<p>“Really, this is too absurd,” said Traill, stepping back a
little, and conscious of the startled surprise on the face of Robert—he
did not want to have a scene before a servant. “I am exceedingly
sorry that I took your umbrella. I don't see that that gives you any
reason to speak to me like that. We can discuss the matter afterwards—not
here.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes!” screamed Perrin, moving still nearer his enemy.
“Oh! of course to you it is nothing—nothing at all—it is
all of a piece with the rest of your behavior. It you don't know how
to behave like a gentleman, it's time someone taught you. Gentlemen
don't steal other people's things. You can be put in prison
for that sort of thing, you know.”</p>
<p>“I didn't steal your beastly umbrella,” said Traill,
beginning in his anger to forget the ludicrousness of the situation.
“I don't want your beastly things—keep them to yourself.”</p>
<p>“I say”—this from Clinton—“chuck it, you
two. Don't make such a row here—everyone can hear. Wait until
later.”</p>
<p>But Perrin heard nothing. He had stepped up to Traill now and was shaking
his fist in Traill's face.</p>
<p>“It's beastly, is it?” he shouted. “I 'll
give you something for saying that—I 'll let you know.”
And then, in a perfect scream, “Give me my umbrella! Give me my
umbrella!”</p>
<p>“I haven't got your rotten umbrella,” shouted Traill.
“I left it somewhere. I've lost it. I'm jolly glad. You
can jolly well go and look for it.”</p>
<p>And at this moment, as Clinton afterwards described it, “the scrap
began.” Perrin suddenly flung himself upon Traill and beat his face
with his fist. Traill clutched Perrin's arm and flung him back upon
the breakfast-table. Perrin's head struck the coffee-pot, and as he
rose he brought with him the tablecloth and all the things that Robert had
left upon the table. With a fearful crash of crockery, with the odors of
streaming coffee, with the cry of the terrified Robert, down everything
came. Afterwards there was a pause whilst Perrin and Traill swayed
together, then with another crash, they too came to the floor.</p>
<p>Clinton and Robert rushed forward. Two Upper School masters, Birkland and
Comber, surveyed the scene from the doorway. There was an instant's
absolute silence.</p>
<p>Then suddenly Traill and Perrin both rose from the floor. Traill's
lip was cut and bleeding—coffee was on Perrin's collar; their
faces were very white.</p>
<p>For a moment they looked at each other in absolute silence, then they
passed, without a spoken word, through the open door.</p>
<p>In such a way, and from such a cause, did this Battle of the Umbrella have
its beginning.</p>
<p>Let us credit the gods with interest sufficient, and we see that it had
been their pleasant amusement to beguile those tedious Olympian hours with
a game; and to the onlooker, here is comedy enough, for about what simpler
can mortals dispute than this green umbrella? But for others, more nearly
concerned, there is some question of tragedy involved.</p>
<p><br/><br/></p>
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