Free A Difficult Young Man by Martin Boyd

recalled from his first term. He was useless to enhance the school’s academic record, he was not good at games which bored him as he preferred more individual sports like hunting andsailing, and Mr Porson’s slight satisfaction at having ‘landed gentry’ at the school was negatived by Dominic’s indifference to class distinctions, unless his pride was offended, when his arrogance was preposterous. His reports were consistently shocking, and Mr Porson hoped that they would lead him to be punished at home, but Steven expected nothing else, and would merely pass them to Dominic across the breakfast table with the comment: ‘You don’t appear to be gifted with the academic mind.’ In those days education was not intended to fit a boy to earn his living, but to make him a certain kind of person. As Dominic was obviously already the kind of person he would always be, Steven saw no reason to worry as yet. But the very lightness with which he accepted these bad reports upset Dominic, giving him the feeling that he was not worth worrying about.
    Our clothes at this time were probably rather shabby, as our parents were not well off until after Alice’s death. Laura provided us with clothes which were strong and suitable, but which Sarah supervised during term, and if Sarah could make us look needy and impoverished she would certainly do so. Our parents thought Mr Porson’s ideas of the grandeur of his school ridiculous. To them a school was simply something you made use of, like a shop, and the idea that grew up with the nineteenth-century middle class, that one derived social standing from a school, had not reached them. They would have thought it as absurd toexpect to derive social importance from their dentist.
    Dominic in his sixteenth year was shooting up quickly, and he grew out of clothes which still had a good deal of wear left inthem. Sarah passed them on to Brian, who one day appeared in a suit which was noticeably too big for him. Aboy in a suit too small for him is at least a symbol of bursting life, but in a suit too large, and worn at that, he gives the pitiful impression that he has already begun to shrink. Mr Porson by that time must have been sick of all of us, probably exasperated by some density of Dominic’s, and when he saw Brian’s discreditable appearance it must have been the last straw, and he gave way to the desire to humiliate us, which he had felt ever since Dominic had kissed Laura’s hand. He was also maddened by a slight air of derision which was congenital in us, when faced with any pomposity. It is hard to understand why he fixed on Brian, who was the most satisfactory, but was like a horse harnessed three-in-hand, when the leader kicks and rears, and his companion by the pole is docile, but disinclined to pull the carriage.
    However, he called him up to the rostrum, and before the assembled school ridiculed him for his shabby clothes. He took out a tape and measured his trousers, and with an unbelievable vulgarity he sneered at our family, saying what he expected of them and what he received.
    Brian simply looked embarrassed, but Dominicwas affronted in his pride, which always meant trouble. I was gaping with dismay at Brian, when suddenly I heard Dominic’s voice, barking from the back of the hall, where the bigger boys sat.
    â€˜Will you shut up, sir?’
    Dominic did not like Brian, and they were always having rows, but one of his strongest characteristics was loyalty to his own kind. I turned, as did the whole school, to stare at him. He was standing up and his eyes were black and blazing with that anger, which, when it awoke, I found terrifying.
    Mr Porson, on the contrary, appeared extremely satisfied. It is likely that he had foreseen some insolence from Dominic, and had intended to provoke it, as he immediately snapped, with a gleam in his eyes: ‘Langton, you are expelled.’
    Dominic, as so often when he performed a