SUCH. SUCH WERE THE JOYS
525
bad food, or an unjustified caning, or some other ill-treatment in–
flicted by masters and not by boys. The fact that Sim never beat
the richer boys suggests that such complaints were made occasionally.
But in my own peculiar circumstances I could never have asked my
parents to intervene on my behalf. Even before I understood about
the reduced fees, I grasped that they were in some way under an
obligation to Sim, and therefore could not protect me against him.
I have mentioned already that throughout my time at Crossgates I
never had a cricket bat of my own. I had been told this was be–
cause "your parents couldn't afford it." One day in the holidays,
by some casual remark, it came out that they had provided ten
shillings to buy me one: yet no cricket bat appeared. I did not protest
to my parents, let alone raise the subject with Sim. How could I?
I was dependent on him, and the ten shillings was merely a frag–
ment of what lowed him. I realize now, of course, that it is im–
mensely unlikely that Sim had simply stuck to the money. No doubt
the matter had slipped his memory. But the point is that I assumed
that he had stuck to it, and that he had a right to do so
if
he
chose.
,
How difficult it is for a child to have any real independence
of attitude could be seen in our behavior toward Bingo. I think it
would be true to say that every boy in the school hated and feared
her. Yet we all fawned on her in the most abject way, and the top
layer of our feelings toward her was a sort of guilt-stricken loyalty.
Bingo, although the discipline of the school depended more on her
than on Sim, hardly pretended to dispense justice. She was frankly
capricious. An act which might get you a caning one day, might
next day be laughed off as a boyish prank, or even commended
because it "showed you had guts." There were days when everyone
cowered before those deepset, accusing eyes, and there were days
when she was like a flirtatious queen surrounded by courtier-lovers,
laughing and joking, scattering largesse, or the promise of largesse
("And if you win the Harrow History Prize I'll give you a new
case for your camera!"), and occasionally even packing three or
four favored boys into her Ford car and carrying them off to a
teashop in town, where they were allowed to buy coffee and cakes.
Bingo was inextricably mixed up in my mind with Queen Elizabeth,
whose relations with Leicester and Essex and Raleigh were intelligible
