It needed no elaboration from Lord Tansor for Dr Daunt to recognize that a decree had been pronounced. He made no further attempt to argue his case and, after some further discussion on the practical arrangements, finally assented to the proposal, with as much good grace as he could muster. Young Master Phoebus, then, would go to Eton, with which the Duport family had a long connexion.
The matter being settled, Lord Tansor wished Dr Daunt goodnight, and a safe journey home.
*[The idealized pastoral world evoked by Virgil’s Eclogues. Ed.]
*[Antonio Verrio (c. 1639–1707), Italian decorative painter who settled in England in the early 1670s. He enjoyed much royal patronage, being employed at Windsor Castle, Whitehall Palace, and Hampton Court. He also worked at a number of great houses, including, besides Evenwood, Chatsworth and Burghley. Ed.]
A DREAM OF THE IRON MASTER
DECEMBER, MDCCCXLVIII*
LINKS, ALWAYS LINKS; forged slowly in the mould, accumulating, entwining more subtly and stronger still under the Iron Master’s hand; growing ever longer and heavier until the chain of Fate – strong enough to hold even Great Leviathan down – becomes unbreakable. A casual act, a fortuitous occurrence, an unlooked-for consequence: they come together in a random dance, and then conjoin into adamantine permanence.DOWN comes the great unstoppable hammer. Clang! Clang! The links are forged; the chain runs out a little further. Closer, ever closer, until we are fast bound together.
We are born within months of each other, like millions of others. We take our first breath and open our eyes for the first time on the world, like millions of others. In our separate ways, and under our separate influences of instruction and example, we grow and are nourished, we learn and think, like millions of others. We should have remained immured in our separateness and disconnexion. But we two have been singled out by the Iron Master. We will be engineered and stamped with his mark that we may know each other, and the links will be coiled tight around us.
Out of a hard, dark northern place he came, with his papa and step-mamma, to settle – without the right of blood – into the paradise that should be mine; from the south, honey-warm in memory, I was brought back to England; and now we are to meet for the first time.
*[These paragraphs, written in darker ink than the rest, have been pasted into the text at this point. Ed.]
11
Floreat*
The days of Dr Daunt’s dependence on surplice fees to pay for occasional luxuries might now be over; but since Lord Tansor had not felt it necessary to offer any degree of financial assistance in the furtherance of his desire that young Phoebus should be sent to Eton – merely furnishing a recommendation, not easily refused, to the Provost and Fellows that the boy should be found a place – it was impossible that the Rector’s son could be supported there as an Oppidan.† He must therefore be entered for a scholarship, despite the lowly standing of those who lived on the foundation. But the young man acquitted himself well, as was to be expected of one who had been so ably and constantly tutored, and in the year 1832 – when all was reformed‡ – became Daunt, KS, the most junior of the band of scholars provided for by the bounty of King Henry VI.
Thus the Iron Master threw us together, with fatal consequences for us both. On the very same day that Phoebus Daunt made his way south to Eton from Evenwood to begin his schooling, Edward Glyver travelled north from Sandchurch to commence his. Here, perhaps, I may give my faculties rest and quote directly from the recollections compiled by Daunt for the Saturday Review. They are typically maundering and self-regarding in character, but I flatter myself that their introduction into this narrative will not be uninteresting to those readers who have persevered so far.*Memories of Eton
by
P. RAINSFORD DAUNTI went to Eton, as a Scholar, in the year 1832, at the behest of my father’s patron, Lord T—. My first few days were, I confess, miserable enough, for I was homesick and knew no one at the School. We Collegers also had to endure the venerable hardships of Long Chamber – now swept away – and I have the dubious distinction of being amongst the last witnesses of its ancient brutalities.My closest friend and companion during my time at the School was a boy of my own Election,† whom I shall call G—.I see him now, striding across School Yard on the day of my arrival, like some messenger of Fate. I had made the journey to Eton alone – my father having important diocesan business, and my step-mother being indisposed – and was standing beneath the Founder’s statue, admiring the noble proportions of the Chapel, when I noticed a tall figure detach itself from a knot of boys at the entrance to Long Chamber. He approached with purpose in his dark eyes, clasped my hands warmly, and introduced himself as my new neighbour. Within a moment, the formalities were concluded, and I found myself caught up in a dazzling stream of talk.His long pale face, and the refinement of his features, gave him a rather delicate, almost girlish look; but the effect was countered by the broadness of his shoulders, and by massive square hands that seemed somehow to have made their way to the ends of his arms from some other and coarser body. He appeared, from the first, to possess the experience and wisdom of a more senior boy, and it was he who tutored me in the customs of College life, and elucidated its mysterious patois.And so my thraldom began. I never thought to reflect on why G— had taken such complete charge of me, with whom he had enjoyed no previous acquaintance. But I was a docile young fellow then and, all unthinking of my dignity, was content enough to trot behind in G—’s shadow. Because he seemed indubitably marked out for greatness in some sphere or other, it was by no means disadvantageous for me to be known as his friend, and I was spared from the worst of the torments reserved for new tugs as a consequence of the association.He possessed a formidable precocity of intellect and understanding, which elevated him far above the common herd. He was our Varro,* having a vast store – almost a superfluity – of obscure knowledge, though it lay tangled and unsorted in his mind, and would spill out constantly in rambling effusions. This made him a kind of magus in our eyes, and bestowed upon him an aura of brilliance and genius. I had been coached by my father, and knew by his example how to recognize the lineaments of the true scholar. G— was no such thing. He hoarded knowledge greedily, but indiscriminately; yet there was something marvellous about it all. His memory was so prodigious, and the exercising of it so expressive and captivating, that he overwhelmed the pedant in me.My education under my father had been thorough but conventional and, like others, I was dazzled by G—’s displays of learning, and struggled hard to keep up with him in the schoolroom. He would even compose Latin Alcaics and Greek Iambics aloud on our Sunday walks, whilst I would labour long over my verses and drive myself nearly mad.We had our differences, naturally. But, particularly when we reached the Fifth Form, there were golden times, of which I still like to think. Summer afternoons on the river, when we would swing down to Skindle’s, past the murmuring woods of Cliveden, then back for a plunge in the cool waters of Boveney Weir; and then I like to recall slow autumn saunters back and forth along the Slough Road, kicking through carpets of elm leaves, whilst G— discoursed torrentially – on what Avicenna had to say about the sophic mercury, or the manner of St Livinus’ martyrdom – before returning to Long Chamber for tea and Genoa cake round the fire.Of his home and family G— never spoke, except to discourage further enquiry. Consequently, no invitations to visit him during the holidays were ever issued; and when I once blushingly suggested that he might care to pass part of the summer with me, I was coldly rebuffed. I remember the incident well, for it coincided with the beginning of a change in our relations. Over the course of a few weeks, he became ever more solitary and aloof, and at times seemed clearly disdainful of my company.I saw him for the last time one perfect autumn evening. We were returning from Windsor, after attending Evensong in St George’s Chapel – whither we and a group of like-minded companions would often resort to feed G—’s passion for the old Church music. G— was in high spirits, and it began to seem as if our progress towards estrangement had been halted. Just as we crossed Barnes Pool Bridge we were met by his fag. G— had been urgently summoned to see the Head Master.As I watched his departing figure, I heard the distant chimes from Lupton’s Tower. Carried on the still evening air, the sound spoke to me with such dolesome import as I stood there – beneath shadowy gables in the empty street – that I felt suddenly bewildered and helpless. It soon became clear that he had left Eton. He never returned.I do not wish to dwell on the reason for the sudden nature of his premature departure from the School. It is as painful for me, his closest friend, to recall the circumstances, as it must be for him.After his departure, G— soon passed into legend. In time, new tugs were regaled with stories of his prowess at the Wall* or on the river, and of how he confounded his masters with his learning. But I thought only of the flesh-and-blood G—: of the little tricks of speech and gesture; and of the warm-hearted patronage so freely bestowed on his undeserving companion. Life had become a poor dull thing indeed without his enlivening presence.