And now he hated Griffin for a new reason. While they were together in the Sanatorium, after the departure of Payne, Griffin had spoken boastfully of his relations with one of the “Skivvies” whose morning task was the making of beds in D dormitory. It appeared that Griffin had met her first by accident, and later by appointment, and he himself described her as “very hot pastry.” He was familiar with certain shops in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue, which made persuasion easy. To Edwin, whose life at home had kept him in ignorance of all that a boy of fifteen ought to know, everything sounded horrible, and he said so. He remembered the look of the girl quite well: rather anæmic with black hair and a pretty oval face. Griffin and Widdup howled over his innocence, and began to instruct him in the “origins of life.” All these things came as a great shock to Edwin. He felt a passionate conviction that the other two were fooling him. Unfortunately his father had never employed a coachman.
“I don’t believe a bit of it,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“You silly kid,” said Widdup. “Everybody knows it’s true.”
“I don’t believe my father would do a thing like that,” cried Edwin.
It seemed suddenly as if the world had become a gross and horrible planet. The fetters of earth were galling his limbs. He felt a sudden immense yearning for the coolness and cleanliness of stellar space. If only he could pass the rest of his life in the great square of Pegasus! . . . And he was consoled by the assurance that in heaven, at any rate, there was no marrying or giving in marriage. . . .
Next term, to his great joy, he was moved up into the Upper Fourth, and had for his form-master the gentle Mr. Leeming, a fat and cheerful cleric with clean-shaven cheeks that shone like those of a trumpet-blowing cherub. He was very shortsighted, rather lazy, and intensely grateful for the least spark of intelligence to be found in his class. Edwin soon attracted him by his history and essays. His mother had fulfilled her promise of reading _The Fortunes of Nigel_ aloud in the holidays, and, as luck would have it again, the Upper Fourth were supposed to be concentrating on the early Stuarts. To the bulk of the form the period was a vast and almost empty chamber like the big schoolroom, inhabited by one or two stiff figures, devitalised by dates—a very dreary place. But to Edwin it was crowded with the swaggerers of Alsatia, the bravoes of Whitehall, with prentices, and penniless Scotchmen, and all the rest of Scott’s gallant company.