Chapter 28

ACTON'S LAST MOVE

Phil's unpopularity had somewhat abated, for his victory in the rackets had given him a good leg up in the estimation of his fellows; but still there was the uneasy feeling that in the matter of the "footer" cap his conduct was shady, or at least dubious.

I was awfully sorry to see this, for I myself was leaving at midsummer, and in my own mind I had always looked upon Phil to take up the captaincy. He would have made, in my opinion, the _beau ideal_ of a captain, for he was a gentleman, a scholar, and an athlete. But the other monitors, or at least many of them, did not look upon Phil with enthusiasm, and his election for the captaincy did not now seem the sure thing it had done a few months before.

At St. Amory's the monitors elect a captain, and Corker confirms the appointment if he thinks their choice suitable, but he insists that he must be well up in the Sixth, and not a mere athlete.

Now, Phil's ambition was to be Captain of St. Amory's, as his father had been before him, and when the home authorities finally decided that I was to go to Cambridge in the Michaelmas term; Phil hoped and desired to step into my shoes. He had one great lever to move the fellows in his favour, he was much the best cricketer in the school and deservedly Captain of the Eleven, and, besides that, was one of the best all-round fellows in Sixth Form work. But Phil did not in the least hint that the captaincy was his soul's desire; he determined to merit it, and then leave the matter in the hands of the school. So, from the very beginning of the term, he read hard and played hard, and he left his mark on the class lists and the scoring-board in very unmistakable fashion.

And now Acton came like an evil genius on the scene. In a word, he had determined that if he could in any way baulk poor Phil's ambition, he would. If by his means he could put Phil out of the running for the captaincy it should be done. If he could succeed, this success would make up and to spare for his two former defeats. Therefore, warily and cautiously, he set to work.

Acton himself was not much of a cricketer; the game was not, as it were, second nature to him, as it was to Phil, but he was a very smart field--cover was his position--and he could slog heavily, and often with success. He threw himself heartily into the game, and crept rapidly up the ladder of improvement, until Biffen's whispered that their shining light stood a good chance of getting into the Eleven. "That is," said Biffen's crowd, "if Bourne will run straight and give a good man his flannels. But after the 'footer' fraud, what can one expect?" I heard of this, and straightway told Phil.

"Oh, they need not fear. If Acton deserves his flannels, he will get them. I've nothing whatever against his cricket."

Acton learned this, and instantly his new-found zeal for cricket slackened considerably.

"Oh!" said he to himself, "I can't blister you there, Bourne, eh? I can't pose as the deserving cricketer kept out of the Eleven by a jealous cad of a captain, eh? So I'll try another tack to keep you in evil odour, Mr. Bourne."

Acton did not turn up at the nets that night, and when Worcester noticed this, Acton calmly sailed on his new tack.

"What's the good of sweating away at the nets, Dick? I'll not get my flannels in any case."

"Oh yes, you will. Bourne has said he's got nothing against your cricket."

"And you believe that, Dick?" said Acton, with a whistle of contemptuous incredulity.

"I do," said Dick. "But you are not exactly quite the flier at cricket that you are at 'footer,' so you can't afford to slack up now."

"I've got private knowledge," said Acton, with a filthy lie, "that I won't get 'em in any case, so I shall not try."

Dick was considerably upset by this, and Acton's sudden stoppage of practice after an intense beginning made his lie seem a good imitation of truth, and gave Worcester food for bitter thoughts against Phil. Acton worked "the-no-good-to-try" dodge carefully and artistically; he never actually said his lie openly, or Phil would have nailed it to the counter, but, like a second Iago, he dropped little barbed insinuations here, little double-edged sayings there, until Biffenites to a man believed there would be a repetition of the "footer" cap over again, and the school generally drifted back to aloofness as far as Phil was concerned.

Acton laid himself out to be excessively friendly with the monitors, and just as he entered into their good graces, Phil drifted out of them--in fact, to be friendly with Acton was the same thing as being cool towards Bourne. Phil made splendid scores Saturday after Saturday, but the enthusiasm which his fine play should have called out was wanting.

"Why don't you cheer your captain, Tom?" I overheard a father say to his young hopeful.

"No fear!" said the frenzied Biffenite. "Bourne is a beast!"

In fact, the only one who seemed to derive any pleasure from Bourne's prowess in the field was Acton himself. He used to sit near the flag-staff, and when Phil made his splendid late cut, whose applause was so generous as his? whose joy so great? Acton's manoeuvres were on the highest artistic levels, I can assure you, and in the eyes of the fellows generally, his was a case of persecuted forgiving virtue. Acton, too, kept in old Corker's good books, and his achievements in the way of classics made the old master beam upon him with his keen blue eye.

I saw with dismay how persistently unpopular Phil remained, and I heard the charms of Acton sung daily by monitor after monitor, until I saw that Acton had captured the whole body bar Phil's own staunch friends, Baines, Roberts, and Vercoe. And then it dawned upon me that Acton was making a bid for the captaincy himself, and when I had convinced myself that this was his object, I felt angrier than I can remember. I thereupon wrote to Aspinall, gave him a full, true, and particular account of Acton's campaign against Phil, and asked him to release me--and Phil--from our promise of secrecy regarding the football-match accident. His reply comforted me, and I knew that, come what might, I had a thunderbolt in my pocket in Aspinall's letter, which could knock Acton off the Captain's chair if he tried for that blissful seat.

I told him so, to save trouble later on, and he heard me out with a far from pretty sneer, which, however, did not quite conceal his chagrin. But though I made sure of his being out of the hunt, I could not make sure of Phil being elected, and in a short time Mivart was mentioned casually as the likeliest fellow to take my place. I have nothing whatever to say against Mivart; he was a good fellow, but he was not quite up to Phil's level.

Phil knew of these subterranean workings of his enemy, but he was too proud a fellow to try and make any headway against the mining.

"If they elect Mivart they will elect a good man, that is all, though I'd give a lot, old man, to take your place."

Thus things went on until Lord's came and ended in the usual draw. Phil's selection of the Eleven was in every way satisfactory, and his score for first wicket had made St. Amory's safe from defeat, but, despite all, his unpopularity was pronounced.

The election was going to take place in a week, and Mivart, thanks to Acton's careful "nursing," was evidently going to romp home in the election with something like a sixteen to four majority. Vercoe determined to propose Phil, and Baines was only too delighted to second it; but Phil's cronies had no more hope of his success than Phil had himself.