If only Mr. Brett had had the decency to wait another day, even . . . The more she thought of it, the harder she found it not to dislike the interfering way he’d come between husband and wife; much as she despised Major Alexander, she couldn’t help agreeing with him that the sooner Mr. Brett went the better it would be for the school.
As for the Major himself, he was bitterly disappointed in the lack of resolution shown by Dr. Bunnion who now showered such esteem and gratitude on Mr. Brett that the Major felt quite sickened by it. Like all sly, furtive and underhand men, Mr. Brett had a gift for ingratiating himself at the expense of his betters.
“Very well done, Brett,” said the Major warmly during the evening. “Delighted it should have been you who found him. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man!”
No matter what he thought privately of a man, the Major always believed in giving praise where it was due; or even where it wasn’t, for that matter, so long as it served a worthwhile purpose.
The Major was fighting desperately to save his honor, and if at times he suspected that his conduct did not appear entirely straightforward, he knew it was because honor was the hardest of taskmasters and demanded the cruelest of sacrifices. As Mr. Brett was the particular sacrifice he still had in mind, he did not spare himself in his efforts to catch him unawares.
Mr. Brett smiled gratefully. He was in that state of mind when all the world was goodness and every man a friend. Had Tizzy Alexander come in his way that evening, he would undoubtedly have swept her up in his arms and put out the lights in her eyes and the fire in her lips with kisses that extinguished only to rekindle. But Dr. Bunnion kept plying him with port and congratulations till gradually he sank beneath both.
Then Dr. Bunnion went once more to reassure himself that Sorley’s return was not a dream; after which he retired to bed, where Mrs. Bunnion overwhelmed him with such tenderness and affection as he had not known since the first nights of their marriage. “My dear,” he murmured. “Life is so good . . .”
Mrs. Bunnion, veil-eyed in the dimness, smiled enigmatically, and trusted that her efforts would have kindled such a flame in her husband’s heart that no unpleasantness to come would quite put it out.
Certainly it lasted through the Friday morning. Though the sky was full of dark clouds scudding towards London like black coaches stuffed with letters of dismay, Dr. Bunnion went his ways in a private sunshine. Not even the thought of the morrow’s duel overcast it as much as it might have done. The vanishing of one shadow from his life went a long way towards dispelling the other; and he promised himself that he would apply himself vigorously to halting the whole insane venture—after lunch.
On his way down from Religious Instruction—which he’d left for the few remaining minutes in the charge of the most trustworthy pupil—he came upon Mrs. Bunnion who was unaccountably lingering in the hall. He twinkled his eyes with an almost mischievous knowingness. Life was so good . . .
Mrs. Bunnion smiled back with all the sweet mystery of a lovely woman whose powers are about to be put to the test. She had, at that very moment, seen Sir Walter Sorley dismount from his steaming horse and make for the door.
Fleetingly she wondered if she ought to prepare her husband for the blow that was about to fall; but before she could decide, it fell. The baronet had knocked, been admitted and called Dr. Bunnion a damned scoundrel who needed horse-whipping.
It had all been frighteningly sudden. Who had let him in was not very clear to Mrs. Bunnion. Perhaps she’d done so herself? He stood in the hall, panting and sweating slightly from the healthful exercise of his ride and demanding that a servant should attend to his horse. He did this with a directness that implied pretty strongly that if no one else was available, Mrs. Bunnion herself should oblige.
He was a strong, upright looking man, not so tall as Dr. Bunnion, but broader across the shoulders. His brow also was on the massive side, and his heavy, almost handsome, face had an expression of natural authority. He was, in truth, what he was always proud to call himself: an English country gentleman of the old school. It may not have been a very good school, but all such gentlemen seem to have gone to it.
“Bunnion! I trusted my boy to you—and now you’ve betrayed that trust! What the devil are you doing about finding him? Answer me, sir! Don’t just stand there!”
Mrs. Bunnion looked to her husband in alarm. Although he was, as Sir Walter observed, standing, he was swaying slightly—as might some tall forest tree that has received the fatal stroke of the woodman’s ax and totters before crashing to its ruin. A glazed and terrified look was in his eyes and he passed his hand across them.
Who had done this thing to him? Incredulously he stared at the baronet. How had the news reached him? Who had betrayed him? Some venomous servant, perhaps? Someone who ached for his destruction? Someone who hated him with a cold and implacable hatred?
All this Mrs. Bunnion read in her stricken husband’s face; and her heart almost failed within her. How—how could she reveal to him that the vicious traitor was his gentle lover—the companion of his days and the comfort of his nights? That the hand that had written the fatal letter was the selfsame hand that had so sweetly caressed him? How could she strike him to the ground when he was in most need of support?
She could not do it. There comes a time when truth is no longer the shining sword of the angels, but rather the arrogant ax of the butcher. So Mrs. Bunnion trembled and held her tongue and prayed for a miracle to save her from discovery.
“My dear Sir Walter—my dear Sir Walter,” moaned Dr. Bunnion, “I—I—” Then he was spared further explanation as the pupils came out to lunch. They roared and tumbled and thundered from their several classrooms and united in a single stream of immense force that flowed towards the wooden extension of the kitchen where the day boys ate.
“Papa!” shouted Sorley; and Sir Walter stared in angry bewilderment at his son.
“He—he was recovered yesterday,” mouthed Mrs. Bunnion faintly above the din.
“Then why the devil wasn’t I told?” The baronet’s anger had taken another turn. Though no one could have questioned the depth of his feelings for his son, this sudden sight of him had thrown the baronet quite off course. During his great ride he had worked himself up into a state of pleasurable anticipation at the thought of browbeating the Bunnions. He was, at heart, a simple man and had simple pleasures. Now the unexpected sight of his son thwarted him and made him feel unnecessary and foolish.
Dr. Bunnion tried ineffectually to explain that it had all been a schoolboy prank . . . no cause for real alarm . . . in fact one of his own people had brought the boy back quite unharmed . . . everything all right now . . . and what pleasure and indeed an honor to have Sir Walter visit, even though, as it turned out, unnecessarily . . . would he care to stay to lunch?
“So you panicked, eh?” said Sir Walter, glancing contemptuously from husband to wife as the last of the boys eddied round him like a small ripple round an old pile. “Thought you’d lost your prize pig, eh?” Here he nodded to the portly Sorley who remained beside him. Suddenly he grinned. “Shouldn’t wonder if you filled your breeches, eh, Bunnion?” He laughed, then observing that Mrs. Bunnion had gone very red, added, “Saving the lady’s presence, eh? But I expect she knows what’s what!”
Mrs. Bunnion curtsied feebly in acknowledgment. There was no doubt that Sir Walter, despite his rough exterior, was one of nature’s gentlemen. In the farmyard anyone might have told him apart from the pigs; it was only in company that there might have been some difficulty.
He stayed to lunch. There was enough to eat as Mrs. Bunnion had no appetite. The discovery of her treachery had not yet been made and she had felt quite ill with apprehension. Once or twice her husband had muttered to her, “Who could have told him? Who could have been so vile?” but she’d shaken her head and had been unable to answer him; so Dr. Bunnion had lapsed into a state of listless despair in which the only consolation seemed to be that matters could get no worse.
But here he was mistaken. Sorley was stabbing him in the back. In order to ingratiate himself with his sport-loving father, the fat boy was telling him about the approaching duel. Despite all the headmaster’s efforts, it had proved impossible to keep the affair from the pupils. Major Alexander had discovered that wagers were actually being laid among the boys; and he had been mortified to learn that the odds were heavily against him.
Now Dr. Bunnion was forced to sit and listen in helpless shame as Sorley acquainted his father with the affair in all its sordid details. He was amazed how much the boy had found out—and how his miserable brain had retained it all.
Dr. Bunnion knew he was done for. Nothing could survive such a scandal. The school would have to close. God knew how he would make a living. Not even an obscure curacy in some dingy parish would be open to him after this. The scoundrel who’d informed Sir Walter had done his work well. He was ruined beyond recall. But who—who could it have been?
He stared stonily down the table, and chanced to see Mr. Brett smiling to himself as if some private dream was about to come true. What dream? Then he saw Major Alexander frowning at Mr. Brett distastefully. Suddenly he recalled how the Major had warned him about Brett being furtive and sly.
“Brett!” he whispered to his wife. “It must have been Brett!”
“Oh no!” breathed Mrs. Bunnion. “I’m sure—he couldn’t—oh, never! I can’t believe it! Not Mr. Brett?”
“Brett!” repeated Dr. Bunnion bitterly; and Mrs. Bunnion, feeling it hopeless to argue with her husband in his present mood, shrank back and let matters take what course they would.
In her heart she knew she was acting unwisely—that no scapegoat could or even should save her; but she was drowning and when a straw hove into view, she was inclined to clutch at it regardless of its propriety in holding her up.
“And where’s that young stallion Ralph?” asked Sir Walter amiably. “A good lad even if he is only a schoolmaster’s son.”
Sir Walter did not mean to be offensive. He honestly liked Ralph and was well aware of the Bunnions’ hopes concerning the lad and his daughter Maud. Frankly, he wasn’t opposed to the match. Though a baronet, he was not a rich man and could spare little in the way of a dowry for his child. In fact, whoever took her off his hands would have to take her as she stood, with nothing but her shift and his noble name. If that was all right by the Bunnions, it was all right by him. Sir Walter, whatever faults some might have seen in him, was no snob. God in Heaven! He’d sent his son to be educated alongside a riffraff of tradesmen’s brats! If his daughter married beneath her, he wouldn’t break his heart; and the lad was well set up and would, most likely, breed clean.
Ralph was sent for and Major Alexander excused himself. Since the challenge it had not been thought discreet for the antagonists to sit at the same table. It would have created an embarrassment. This gentlemanly behavior had been proposed in the first place by Mr. Brett—to each of the principals separately—and had helped tremendously in keeping his own extraordinary situation from general discovery.
The baronet greeted Ralph kindly and hoped all would go well on the morrow. Had he known of the affair, he would have been pleased to act for Ralph himself as, being a gentleman, he had some knowledge of such sporting events. Then he went on to give Ralph sound advice on where and how to stand so as to present the smallest target. If the ground sloped, it was an advantage to be lower down as landscape offered a more confusing background than sky to one’s opponent. Also, he said with a smirk, it was better to be hit above rather than below the waist.
“Ha—ha! We don’t want you gelded, eh?” He stared round. “Saving the ladies’ presence, eh, but I expect they know what’s what!”
“Bitte?” said Mrs. Alexander.
“Bitter,” agreed the baronet, grinning broadly. “Very! You’ve hit the nail on the head, ma’am! Bitter for his bride. Like a mare being served by a feedbag instead of with it!”
He laughed immoderately at this and only subsided when he saw the ladies were not joining him. “Mealymouthed lot,” he grunted and returned to the business of powder and shot, but continued to look round hopefully whenever he had occasion to mention balls.
The duel was now inevitable. In spite of all Dr. Bunnion’s intended efforts, the fatal event was to take place. The headmaster’s spirits, briefly raised by the baronet’s unexpected pleasure in the wretched business, had collapsed when the full enormity of it struck home. By tomorrow his only son would be either a murderer or a corpse. This was the reality.
“And yet it serves me right,” he whispered to his wife in the privacy of their room which they were preparing to vacate for Sir Walter to sleep there that night. “It serves me right for being so meek and gentle. Believe me, my dear—oh, believe me—when the meek inherit the earth, I fear it’s only six feet of it. O God, if only I’d listened to that well-meaning, honorable fellow Alexander and got rid of Brett days ago!”
“But—but is it too late?” murmured Mrs. Bunnion, an unworthy hope stirring.
“How can I dismiss him when everyone knows it was he who fetched Sorley back?”
“And—and if he stays there’s really no hope of saving our son?”
“I couldn’t approach Alexander again. The man has a fanatical sense of honor. He won’t budge an inch . . . and then it will be all over the town . . . his wretched daughter . . . no!”
“Perhaps you could—put it to Mr. Brett? Surely he’ll be human enough to listen? I’m sure he’s a good man at heart. There is a kindness about him . . .”
Mrs. Bunnion was a deeply honest woman. She was doing her very best for Mr. Brett; and, short of owning up directly to her own unfortunate treachery which had not yet been discovered, it was hard to see how she could have acted more generously. Had anyone suggested she was deceiving herself she would have been rightly indignant.
“The man is a viper! He is furtive, underhand, sly! Never forget it was he who brought Sir Walter here! Never forget it was he who has ruined us!”
“Until he is proven guilty, my dear, I shall continue to believe in his innocence.”
“You are too good and trusting, my love.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Mrs. Bunnion uneasily. “But I am a mother and have a mother’s heart. I’m more inclined to forgive than you are, my dear. Whatever Mr. Brett may have done, I still believe in the goodness of his heart. If you choose to think the worst of him, I cannot prevent you. It is because you are a man and look at the world more sternly. To you, everything is either right or wrong. But to me there is no real wrong, only sadness and mistakes and things done for the best. All I can do is to try to soften you . . .”
“My love! If only I had such a heart as yours!”
“You have—you have!” whispered Mrs. Bunnion with a wistful smile. “I will go to Mr. Brett myself. I will plead with him for Ralph’s sake. He will listen—I know he will listen.”
“Be careful—be careful! I fear you are no match for him!”
A steely glint came into Mrs. Bunnion’s eyes as if the very thought of Mr. Brett’s being too much for her was insulting. “My dear,” she said firmly, “even Mr. Brett has a mother; and it is as a mother I shall plead.”
Chapter Sixteen
WHEN MRS. Bunnion left her husband she had no fixed idea of what she should do. All she knew was that Mr. Brett must leave and somehow or other she must bring it about. She was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve this as she had by now fully persuaded herself that any sacrifice on her part was to save her son. Mothers throughout the ages had performed prodigies of heroism for their children, and she would not lag behind. Nature and custom sanctified her; and love lent a dignity to her intentions. She would exploit the full range of a woman’s means to gain her ends, and no woman, so prepared, has ever failed. From the soft warmth of her mature charms to the icy force of her contempt, from anguished pleading to cataracts of reason, she would use all the weapons at her command. The prospect both excited and in
spired her. She felt herself to be every-woman—all things to all men: lover and flail, mother and bride . . . Such was the concern of this woman for her child.
At no time at all was she ever directly moved by the consideration that, if she succeeded in getting rid of Mr. Brett, the blame for having written the unlucky letter might go with him as an uncustomed item in a general baggage of guilt.
While Mrs. Bunnion was thus troubled with thoughts of her child, the other mother in the distracted household was similarly occupied in this, the deepest business of nature. Mrs. Alexander, having at last finished her sewing, was attempting to guide the gentle torrent of Tizzy’s black hair.
“Up, Ma. I like it up.”
“A vooman’s peauty is in her hair, liebchen. So vy make it look like a puddink? Ma knows best vat suits her child. Ah—like silk . . .”
And so it was; Tizzy couldn’t help smiling in the glass.
“Look up, liebchen. Keep still . . .”
“Oh, Ma, I can’t see a thing when you put them drops in my eyes.”
“A vooman don’t need to see, but only to be seen, liebchen. Ach—it makes your eyes look as deep and vide as the River Elbe at Hamburg.”
“Really, Ma?”
“A man might fall in and lose his heart forever, liebchen. Ach! Vy vear your bodice so high? It vill choke you!”
“But, Ma—it won’t be decent if it’s any lower!”
“Decent? Decent? Vat’s decent? Liebchen—I made your bodice; but Gott made vat’s under it. So vy talk of decent? Ain’t Gott’s vork better than your ma’s?”
The Complete Bostock and Harris Page 12
