The cabman carried the luggage up the steps and was duly overpaid. The servant shut the great door with a bang — it was a door that would not shut without one — and Harry Ringrose had gone to school again at one-and-twenty.
He was shown into a very nice drawing-room — the kind of drawing-room to reassure an anxious parent — and here for a minute he was alone. Through a thin wall came a youthful buzz, and Harry distinctly heard, “I wonder if he’s strict?” He also heard an irritable, weak, feminine voice exclaiming: “Be silent — be silent — or you shall all have fifty lines!” Then the door opened, and he was shaking hands with Mrs. Bickersteth.
The lady was short, stout, and rather more than elderly, yet with a fresh-coloured face as free from wrinkles as it was full of character, and yellow hair which age seemed powerless to bleach. Her manner was not without kindness or distinction, but neither quality was quite so noticeable as when Harry had seen her at the agents’ in her mantle and bonnet. Indeed the fresh cheeks had a heightened tinge, and the light eyes a brightness, which Harry Ringrose was destined to know better as the visible signs of Mrs. Bickersteth’s displeasure.
“We are a little late,” began the schoolmistress (who had this way of speaking to the boys, and who early discovered a propensity to treat Harry as one of them): “we are a little later than I expected, Mr. Ringrose. Now that we have come, however, we will say no more about it.”
And the lady gave a perfunctory little laugh, meant to sound indulgent, but Harry had a true ear for such things, and he made his apologies a little stiffly. If Mrs. Bickersteth had named an hour he would have made it his business to be there by that hour; as she had but said the afternoon, he had presumed that five o’clock would be time enough. Mrs. Bickersteth replied that she called five o’clock the evening, with a playfully magnanimous smile which convinced Harry even less than her laugh: he had a presentiment of the temper which it masked.
“But pray let us say no more about it,” cried the lady once more. “I only thought that it would be a good opportunity for you to get to know the little men. I am glad to say that all the boarders have arrived; they are now, as I daresay you hear, in the next room with the other governess. Dear me, what am I saying! You see, Mr. Ringrose, I have always had two governesses in the house hitherto. Mr. Scrafton, who comes every morning (except Saturday) to teach the elder boys, has been our only regular master for many years, though a drill-sergeant also comes twice a week from the barracks at Hampton Court. But in taking a master into my house, in place of one of the governesses, I am trying an experiment which I feel sure we will do our best to justify.”
Harry replied as suitably as possible, but made more than one mental note. His engagement had not been termed an experiment at their previous interview. Neither had he heard the name of Mr. Scrafton until this moment.
“I hear the servant taking your portmanteau upstairs,” continued Mrs. Bickersteth, “and presently I shall show you your room, as I am going to ask you to oblige me by always wearing slippers in the house. The day-boys change their boots the moment they arrive. Before we go upstairs, however, there is one matter about which I should like to speak. We have a delicate little fellow here whose name is Woodman, and whose parents — very superior, rich people — live down in Devonshire, and trust the little man entirely to my care. He is really much better here than he is at home; still he has to have a fire in his room throughout the winter, and consequently he cannot sleep with the other boys. Hitherto one of the governesses has slept in his room, but now I am going to take the opportunity of putting you there, as I am sorry to say he is a boy who requires firmness as well as care. If you will accompany me upstairs I will now show you the room.”
It was at the end of a passage at the top of the house, and a very nice room Harry thought it. The beds were in opposite corners, a screen round the smaller one, and the space between at present taken up with Harry’s portmanteau and the boy’s boxes, which were already partially unpacked. A fire burnt in the grate; a number of texts were tacked to the walls. Harry was still looking about him when Mrs. Bickersteth made a dive into one of the little boy’s open boxes and came up with a gaily-bound volume in each hand.
“More story-books!” cried she. “I have a good mind to confiscate them. I do not approve of the number of books his parents encourage him to read. If you ever catch him reading up here, Mr. Ringrose, I must ask you to report the matter instantly to me, as I regret to say that he has given trouble of that kind before.”
Harry bowed obedience.
“Little Woodman,” continued the schoolmistress, “though sharp enough when he likes, is, I am sorry to say, one of our most indolent boys. He would read all day if we would let him. However, he is going to Mr. Scrafton this term, so he will have to exert himself at last! And now, if you like your room, Mr. Ringrose, I will leave you to put on your slippers, and will take you into the schoolroom when you come downstairs.”
The schoolroom was long and bare, but unconventional in that a long dining-table did away with desks, and the boys appeared to be shaking off their depression when Harry and his employer entered five minutes later. They were making a noise through which the same angry but ineffectual voice could be heard threatening a hundred lines all round as the door was thrown open. The noise ceased that moment. The governess rose in an apologetic manner; while all the boys wore guilty faces, but one who was buried in a book, sitting hunched up on the floor. Like most irascible persons, however, the schoolmistress had her moments of conspicuous good-temper, and this was one.
“These are the little men,” said she. “Children, this is your new master. Miss Maudsley — Mr. Ringrose.”
And Harry found himself bowing to the lady with the voice, a lady of any age, but no outward individuality; even as he did so, however, Mrs. Bickersteth beckoned to the governess; and in another moment Harry was alone with the boys.
The new master had never felt quite so shy or so self-conscious as he did during the next few minutes; it was ten times worse than going to school as a new boy. The fellows stood about him, staring frankly, and one in the background whispered something to another, who told him to shut up in a loud voice. Harry seated himself on the edge of the table, swung a leg, stuck his hands in his pockets (where they twitched) and asked the other boys their names.
“James Wren,” said the biggest, who looked twelve or thirteen, and was thickly freckled.
“Ernest Wren,” said a smaller boy with more freckles.
“Robertson.”
“Murray.”
“Gifford.”
“Simes.”
“Perkins.”
“Stanley.”
“And that fellow on the floor?”
“Woodman,” said James Wren. “I say, Woodman, don’t you hear? Can’t you get up when you’re spoken to?”
Woodman shut his book, keeping, however, a finger in the place, and got up awkwardly. He was one of the smallest of the boys, but he wore long trousers, and beneath them irons which jingled as he came forward with a shambling waddle. He had a queer little face, dark eyes and the lightest of hair; and he blushed a little as, alone among the boys, but clearly unconscious of the fact, he proceeded to shake hands with the new master.
“So you are Woodman?” said Harry.
“Yes, sir,” said the boy. “Have you come instead of Mr. Scrafton, sir?”
“No, I have come as well.”
At this there were groans, of which Harry thought it best to take no notice. He observed, however, that Woodman was not among the groaners, and to get upon safe ground he asked him what the book was.
“One of Ballantyne’s, sir. It’s magnificent!” And the dark eyes glowed like coals in what was again a very pale face.
“The Red Eric,” said Harry, glancing at the book. “I remember it well. You’re in an exciting place, eh?”
“Yes, sir: the mutiny, sir.”
“Then don’t let me stop you — run along!” said Harry, smiling; and Woodman was back on the floor
and aboard his whaler before the new master realised that this was hardly the way in which he had been instructed to treat the boy who was always reading.
But he went on chatting with the others, and in quite a few minutes he felt that, as between the boys and himself, all would be plain sailing. They were nice enough boys — one or two a little awkward — one or two vocally unacquainted with the first vowel — but all of them disposed to welcome a man (Harry thought) after the exclusive authority of resident ladies. Traces of a demoralising rule were not long in asserting themselves, as when Robertson gave Simes a sly kick, and Simes started off roaring to tell Mrs. Bickersteth, only to be hauled back by Harry and given to understand (evidently for the first time) that only little girls told tales. The bigger boys seemed to breathe again when he said so. Then they all stood at one of the windows in the failing light, and Harry talked cricket to them, and even mentioned his travels, whereat they clamoured for adventures; but the new master was not such a fool as to play all his best cards first. They were still at the window when the gate opened and in walked a squat silk-hatted gentleman with a yellow beard and an evening paper.
“Here comes old Lennie!” exclaimed Gifford, who was the one with the most to say for himself.
“Who?” said Harry.
“Lennie Bickersteth, sir — short for Leonard,” replied Gifford, while the other boys laughed.
“But you mustn’t speak of him like that,” said Harry severely.
“Oh, yes, I must!” cried Gifford, excited by the laughter. “We all call him Lennie, and Reggie Reggie, and Baby Baby; don’t we, you fellows? Bicky likes us to — it makes it more like home.”
“Well,” said Harry, “I know what Mrs. Bickersteth would not like, and if you say that again I shall smack your head.”
Which so discomfited and subdued the excitable Gifford that Harry liked him immensely from that moment, and not the less when he discovered that the boy’s incredible information was perfectly correct.
Mrs. Bickersteth was a widow lady with three grown-up children, whom she insisted on the boys addressing, not merely by their Christian names, but by familiar abbreviations of the same. Leonard and Reginald were City men who went out every morning with a bang of the big front door, and came home in the evening with a rattle of their latch-keys. Both were short and stout like their mother, with beards as yellow as her hair, while Leonard, the elder, was really middle-aged; but it was against the rules for the boys to address or refer to them as anything but Lennie and Reggie, and only the governess and Harry were permitted to say “Mr. Bickersteth.” As for the baby of the family, who was Baby still to all her world, she was certainly some years younger; and the name was more appropriate in her case, since she wore the family hair down to eyes of infantile blue, and had the kind of giggle which seldom survives the nursery. She knew no more about boys than any other lady in the house, but was a patently genuine and good-hearted girl, and deservedly popular in the school.
When Harry went to bed that night he smelt the smoke of a candle, though he carried his own in his hand. Woodman was apparently fast asleep, but, on being questioned, he won Harry’s heart by confessing without hesitation or excuse. He had The Red Eric and a candle-end under his pillow, and the wax was still soft when he gave them up. Harry sat on the side of his bed and duly lectured him on the disobedience and the danger of the detected crime, while the criminal lay with his great eyes wide open, and his hair almost as white as the pillow beneath it. When he had done the small boy said —
“If they had spoken to me like that, sir, last time, sir, I never should have done it again.”
“You shouldn’t have done it in any case,” said Harry. “You’ve got to promise me that it’s the last time.”
“It’s so hard to go asleep the first night of the term, sir,” sighed Woodman. “You keep thinking of this time yesterday and this time last week, sir.”
Harry’s eye was on the little irons lying on top of the little heap of clothes, but he put on the firmest face he could.
“That’s the same for all,” he said. “How do you know I don’t feel like that myself? Now, you’ve got to give me your word that you won’t ever do this again!”
“But suppose they say what they said before, sir?”
“Give me your word,” said Harry.
“Very well, sir, I never will.”
“Then I give you mine, Woodman, to say nothing about this; but mind — I expect you to keep yours.”
The great eyes grew greater, and then very bright. “I’ll promise not to open another book this term, sir — if you like, sir,” the little boy cried. But Harry told him that was nonsense and to go to sleep, and turned in himself glowing with new ideas. If he could but influence these small boys as Innes had influenced him! The thought kept him awake far into his first night at Teddington. His life there had begun more happily than he could have dared to hope.
Morning brought the day-boys and work which was indeed within even Harry’s capacity. It consisted principally in “hearing” lessons set by Mrs. Bickersteth; and it revealed the educational system in vogue in that lady’s school. It was the system of question and answer, the question read from a book by the teacher, the answer repeated by rote by the boy, and on no condition to be explained or enlarged upon by extemporary word of mouth. Harry fell into this error, but was promptly and publicly checked by the head-mistress, with whom some of the elder boys were studying English history (from the point of view of Mrs. Markham and her domestic circle) at the other end of the baize-covered dining-table.
“It is quite unnecessary for you to enter into explanations, Mr. Ringrose,” said Mrs. Bickersteth down the length of the table. “I have used Little Steps for very many years, and I am sure that it explains itself, in a way that little people can understand, better than you can explain it. Where it does not go into particulars, Little Arthur does; so no impromptu explanations, I beg.”
Whereafter Harry received the answers to the questions in Little Steps to Great Events without comment, and was equally careful to take no explanatory liberties with Mangnall’s Questions or with the Child’s Guide to Knowledge when these works came under his nose in due course.
Saturday was, of course, a half-holiday; nor could the term yet be said to have begun in earnest. It appeared there were some weekly boarders who would only return on the Monday, while Mr. Scrafton also was not due until that day. Meanwhile an event occurred on the Saturday afternoon which quite took the new master’s mind off the boys who were beginning to fill it so pleasantly: an event which perplexed and distracted him on the very threshold of this new life, and yet one with a deeper and more sinister significance than even Harry Ringrose supposed.
CHAPTER XVII.
AT FAULT.
Harry had been requested to put on his boots in order to take the elder boys for a walk. He was to keep them out for about an hour and a half, but nothing had been said as to the direction he should take, and he was indiscreet enough to start without seeking definite instruction on the point.
“Do you always walk two-and-two?” he asked the boys, as they made for the High Street in this doleful order.
“Yes, sir,” said two or three.
“But we needn’t if you give us leave not to,” added the younger Wren, with a small boy’s quickness to take advantage.
“No, you must do as you always do, at any rate until we get out of the village,” said Harry as they came to the street. “Now which way do you generally go?”
The boys saw their chance of the irregular, and were not slow to air their views. Bushey Park appeared to be the customary resort, and the proverbial mischief of familiarity was discernible in the glowing description which one boy gave of Kingston Market on a Saturday afternoon and in the enthusiasm with which another spoke for Kneller Hall. Richmond Park, said a third, would be better than Bushey Park, only it was rather a long walk.
To Harry, however, who had come round by Wimbledon the day before, it was news, and ra
ther thrilling news, that Richmond Park was within a walk at all. The boys told him it would be near enough when they made a bridge at Teddington.
“There’s the ferry,” said one; and when Harry said, “Oh, there is a ferry, then?” a little absently, his bias was apparent to the boys.
“The ferry, the ferry,” they wheedled, jumping at the idea of such an adventure.
“It’s splendid over Ham Common, sir.”
“The ferry, sir, the ferry!”
Of course it was very weak in Harry, but the notion of giving the boys a little extra pleasure had its own attraction for him, and his only scruple was the personal extravagance involved. However, he had some silver in his pocket, and the ferryman’s toll only came to pennies that Harry could not grudge when he saw the delight of the boys as they tumbled aboard. One of them, indeed, nearly fell into the river — which caused the greatest boy of them all his first misgivings. But across Ham fields they hung upon his arms in the friendliest and pleasantest fashion, begging and coaxing him to tell them things about Africa; and he was actually in the midst of the yarn that had failed on paper, when there occurred on the Common that which was to puzzle him in the future even more than it startled him at the moment. A lady and gentleman strolled into his ken from the opposite direction, and that instant the story ceased.
“Go on, sir, go on! What happened then?”
“I’ll tell you presently; here are some friends of mine, and you fellows must wait a moment.”
He shook them off and stepped across the road to where his friends were passing without seeing him. Thus his back was turned to the boys, who fortunately could not see how he blushed as he raised his hat.
“It’s Mr. Ringrose!” cried Fanny Lowndes.
“The deuce it is!” her father exclaimed. “Why, Ringrose, what the blazes are you doing down here, and who are your young friends?”
“I’m awfully sorry I didn’t let you know,” said Harry, “but the whole thing was so sudden. As I told you when you came to see us, Miss Lowndes, I have been trying for a mastership for some time; and just as I had given it up — —”
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 142
