Part 10

"Tony, I'm going to make a confession." Lallie turned half round, and leaning an elbow on his knee lifted her face, earnest and serious, so that she might look into his. "I'm fond of a house. I like housekeeping, and pottering, and looking after things, and ordering dinner, and sewing, and mending, and arranging flowers, and cooking if I want to, and I can cook well; and you can't do any of these things in other people's houses--at least, only the sewing part."

"I'm sure you may cook here if you wish to. I'll undertake to eat anything you make if it's really good."

"Oh, it's not that. I don't mean that I'd like to be always cooking, but I like to feel that I've got a house to look after--my own house. I'd be perfectly happy if Dad wanted a house, but he doesn't. He kept it up for Paddy and me when we were small because he thought it was the right thing to do; but now he doesn't seem to think it so necessary. Poor man, he's too young to have grown-up children, Tony, and that's a fact. He has small patience with Paddy, because, you know, their interests clash. It's different with a woman, the younger she is the prouder is she to have grown-up sons and the cleverer she thinks herself that they are grown up. Don't you think I'm right?"

"Your generalisation," Tony began deliberately, when Lallie interrupted by pinching his knee and exclaiming:

"Now, none of the schoolmaster, I won't have it."

"As I was about to remark when you interrupted me, what you say has a certain amount of truth in it, but your father has not yet returned from India. When he does return he may not feel the slightest inclination for wandering; at any rate, not for some considerable time--so why worry?"

"I should like to feel settled and secure."

"My dear Lallie, you'll never feel settled, you're not that sort; and as to security, pray in what way do you feel insecure at present?"

Lallie removed her elbow from Tony's knee, she leant back against him again so that he could not see her face, and said, very low:

"I feel insecure because in the course of the next few weeks I'll have to make up my mind definitely one way or other, and whichever way it is, it seems to me I shall regret it."

Again the whole of Tony's mentality fairly cried the name of Ballinger aloud, and although the stillness in the quiet room was so great that you might have heard a pin drop it seemed that his thought must have reached Lallie, for she broke the silence by saying in quite a different tone:

"I wish you had met Dad's friend, Mr. Ballinger, Tony; I'd like to know what you think of him."

"That can be easily managed; we'll ask him to dinner when you come back."

"He is going to the Chesters, you know."

"I didn't know, but I'm glad to hear it for your sake, since you like him."

"Then you don't think I'd be better in a home of my own--married, I mean," said Lallie with startling bluntness.

"I never said anything of the kind."

"Well, you didn't seem to smile upon the notion."

"The notion, as you call it, appears to me in itself quite admirable, if not exactly novel; but you would need to make sure, wouldn't you? that the husband--I think a husband is included in your scheme of felicity--is in keeping--in the picture as it were."

Tony's voice was dry as that in which he instilled the rules of prosody into his form. In fact it was less impassioned, for on occasion he waxed eloquent though vituperative when dealing with that form's Latin prose.

Again Lallie turned half round and leant her elbow on his knee. Again her grey eyes searched his face, apparently in vain, for some clue to the tone in which he spoke.

"I wish I was a rich widow," she said vindictively, "with a nice little place of my own, then there'd be no bother at all, and you could come and stay with me and arrange cricket matches all the summer holidays. I'd put up that eleven you always go off with, and we'd have a cricket week and lovely times."

"The prospect is certainly pleasing," Tony remarked, without enthusiasm; "but it seems to me a little callous on your part to be so anxious to kill off your husband before ever you've tried one."

"Do you think Mr. Johns would make a nice husband?" Lallie asked in a detached, impersonal sort of way.

"Good heavens! How should I know? I hope he won't think of being any one's husband for years to come. He couldn't keep a wife; for one thing, he's too poor."

"Oh, but he is sure to get on; he'll be a headmaster some day. You'll see. I never met a young man who was more wrapped up in his profession. He's influencing boys all day long."

"By Jove! is he though? I'm glad to hear it."

"I think he'd be a very _kind_ husband," said Lallie, "but a bit boring sometimes. I suppose I'd better be thinking of bed. You haven't helped me much, Tony," and Lallie arose and stood in front of him, slender and upright, in her straight green gown. Tony rose too.

"I don't quite know what you wanted me to say, Lallie, but I'd like to say this: Don't you marry anybody for the sake of having a house of your own. Your mother's daughter is capable of something finer and better than that. I cannot in all my experience recall such a happy marriage as hers. Child, there is such a thing. Don't you believe people who say that respect, and affection, and mutual suitability, and all the rest of it are one atom of good if you're not in love with the man. You spoke to-night of your father's restlessness. Do you think he would have been like that if your mother had lived? It was simply that he had the most perfect home man ever had on this earth; and when she was taken away from him the wrench destroyed his will-power, and he has been at the mercy of his impulses ever since. Never judge him, Lallie; he can't help it."

The tears welled up into Lallie's eyes.

"I don't judge him," she faltered; "it's myself I judge, and blame, and yet I tried so hard to make his home happy and comfortable, so that he'd want to stay with me; and I can make a nice home, I really can, but it wasn't enough for Dad. Last winter I thought we were settled. He liked the hunting, and we were so happy, and had such jokes about Aunt Emileen, but it all came to an end--and _he'd like me to marry_, Tony; that's the har-r-d part."

The big tears hung on Lallie's lashes, the corners of her mouth drooped, and she looked so small, and pathetic, and forlorn that Tony fairly turned his back upon her and leant his arms on the chimneypiece, staring with the greatest interest at the shield bearing his college arms, which he did not see.

"I am convinced," he said, and his voice was almost gruff, "that your father would hate to think you married anybody simply for the sake of getting married. Of course he would like to see you well and happily married--but----"

"Good-night, Tony," Lallie said meekly.

He turned and shook her outstretched hand and stood at the door watching her as she went slowly up the stairs with drooping head and deep depression in every line of the slender little figure that always looked so much taller than it really was. She never turned her head to look back at him, and Tony shut the door and sat down at his desk with a groan.

Matron was right: he'd got it late, and he'd got it badly. But she was wrong when she informed Val that he didn't know what was the matter with him.

He cursed himself for an old fool; for a betrayer of trust; for a dog in the manger.

Fitz wanted Lallie to marry this Ballinger; told him so. And here was he, Tony Bevan, actually using what influence he had to prevent her doing anything of the kind. Fitz wouldn't want it unless Ballinger were a good fellow. He knew Ballinger and Tony didn't. Was it likely that Fitz would be anxious for the marriage unless Ballinger was the best of good fellows? And yet, he, Tony, who knew nothing whatever about the man, had interfered. "But she doesn't love him!" cried this old fool, this betrayer of a father's trust.

"How do you know?" sternly demanded the inward mentor; "is she a girl to wear her heart upon her sleeve? She may be deeply in love with him, but won't confess it to herself even, just because he is rich and eligible, and because she would like a home of her own."

"She doesn't seem a bit in love with him," pleaded the fatuous one. "Lallie in love would----"

The mentor shrugged his shoulders and retired, for Tony Bevan had embarked upon a sea of speculation so deliciously problematical, so wholly removed from such sober themes as duty and expediency, that it was hopeless just then by the clearest call to reach ears that were deaf to all but the siren song.

"I wonder," mused Tony, "if I'd met her now for the first time, if she hadn't always put me down as a friend of her father's, worlds away from any touch of sentiment--I wonder if, as a mere man, I might have had a chance. Upon my soul I'd have tried for it."

For a good half hour Tony sat dreaming; then he stooped and patted Val, remarking, "I'm d--d if she's in love with Ballinger," and Val wagged his tail in cordial assent.

*CHAPTER XVI*

"_From_ LALLIE CLONMELL, B. HOUSE, HAMCHESTER COLLEGE, TO FITZROY CLONMELL, c/o MESSRS. KING AND Co., BOMBAY, INDIA.

"MY DARLING DAD,

"It's eleven o'clock at night and I ought to be getting to bed, but it's mail day to-morrow and I'm going to the Chesters at Fareham quite early, so I'll do your letter to-night. I'm sleepy enough, for I've been out with the Hamchester hounds to-day. Mr. Ballinger has come to hunt here, why, I leave you to imagine, and he mounted me and took me. Tony had forbidden me to go till we heard from you, but he went to Oxford; then I met Mr. Ballinger; then I had ever such a row with Miss Foster, and I felt reckless; and as Tony was not there to make me feel conscientious or repentant I went. I didn't enjoy it much, though the day and the little mare and the run were all as good as they could be. Mr. Ballinger is going to the Chesters also. There's a Primrose meeting to-morrow night, and I've got to sing some absurd tum-ti-tum sort of Jingo song about Empire and Tariff Reform and a large loaf. They call it a 'topical' song over here. I'd much rather sing them 'The Vicar of Bray' or 'Love's Young Dream' or 'Rory O'More,' but they won't let me. I offered to.

"Dad, dear, you will have gathered from my letters that Miss Foster and I do not exactly hit it off. I could forgive her not liking me, though I think it's bad taste on her part, if only she wouldn't treat me as though I were a contagious disease. The boys call her Germs, but indeed it's me that she makes feel a mass of microbes of the most noxious kind. She's rude, Dad, downright rude; and it would be absurd to say she doesn't mean it, for she does. And what's more, she takes care that I know she means it. I wouldn't mind a bit if she was ever so pernicketty and peppery if only she would be kind and pleasant sometimes, but she never is pleasant--to me. And yet I can't help admiring her for the way she looks after B. House. She really loves the boys, and if one of them is the least little bit ill Miss Foster is in a dreadful way. Both she and Tony are very worried just now because a boy is ill. They fear he has got scarlet fever. There has been a case in another house.

"Miss Foster has taken it into her head that I am bad for the boys, and that's one reason why she dislikes me. In what way I'm bad for them I don't know, and any that I have met seem to like talking to me, but whenever they do, I can see she is worried. I think she likes Tony awfully--but who doesn't? Yet she doesn't seem to make a really comfortable home for him somehow. As for poor Paunch! she hates him as much as she hates me, and never says a civil word to him.

"Paunch and I are great friends; we sit and shiver together in the chill blast of Miss Foster's displeasure, and 'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' especially Paunch. He is a most earnest young man, Dad; all day long he is thinking of the influence he may be on others, and the result is that Tony, who never thinks about himself at all, makes far more impression when he tells a boy he's a silly young ass than Paunch would if he talked about ideals till Doomsday. It's very odd how the boys really care what Tony thinks; of course they don't say so, but any one can see it. Mr. Johns is awfully good at games, so the boys respect that. The other day I asked Mr. Hamilton, one of the pre's, if Tony ever gave them a 'pi-jaw' as they call it.

"He looked very funny for a minute, and then he said, 'I don't know any one I'd sooner go to than old Bruiser if I was in a very bad mess.' It wasn't an answer to my question, but it was enlightening all the same. Tony makes me think of those lines at the beginning of 'Stalky':

"'For they taught us common sense, Tried to teach us common sense, Truth and God's own common sense, Which is more than knowledge.'

"I was reading 'Stalky' last night, and that seemed to me to explain Tony. The queer thing is that both Mr. Johns and Miss Foster, though they love him dearly, think Tony is a bit of a slacker. Miss Foster, because he will not work himself up into a fever whenever there's a rumour of mumps or chicken-pox; and Mr. Johns because Tony never talks about moral training, and never seems to be watching or prying about the boys; and yet I remember Paddy saying that somehow undesirable chaps never come back to B. House, though how or why nobody never knows, and I'm certain Tony's ideals are quite as high as Mr. Johns', although he never talks about them.

"I think it's rather a great thing, don't you, to send so many boys out into the world so that they keep straight and work and are useful members of the community, and so that they remember you and know you'd be awfully sorry if things went wrong. All the years I've known Tony, I've thought it such a pity he was anything so humdrum as a schoolmaster. Since I've been here I don't think that any more. I think it's such a jolly good thing for all the boys who've come under him. I wish he'd had the house all the time Paddy was there; but then, Paddy had him in the holidays, so it didn't matter so much.

"Paddy seems very happy at the Shop. He knows a lot of gunner people outside, and he goes out every Saturday and Sunday, but he's rather sick that they don't ride till their second term.

"Please don't fancy I'm unhappy here, I like it awfully. Every one is as kind and jolly as possible, and the attitude of Germs just gives the necessary touch of excitement to the situation. She positively dislikes music, poor woman, so I must be a trying guest. I'm obliged to practise, for I'm always singing somewhere. The music-hater is decidedly in the minority in this world.

"I'm afraid, Dad, that Mr. Ballinger means to propose again very shortly, and Tony says I ought not to marry any one I'm not really in love with, and I can't imagine myself in love with Mr. Ballinger, though I do like him, really, he's so kind and nice and says such agreeable things.

"Tony is not so amusing here as at home. He's a tiny bit stiff sometimes. I suppose it's the atmosphere. It must be awful to think all the time about setting an example, like Mr. Johns--so tiring. But he seems to thrive under it, and Tony says he'll be stout if he doesn't take care.

"I hope you'll bring back a lot of nice skins. They're a mangy lot in the drawing-room over in Kerry, some new ones will be a great improvement.

"Please write me longer letters, dear Dad. I'm very homesick sometimes, and I miss Bridget, but she could never have got on with Miss Foster; and if she heard Miss Foster speak nastily to me there would be wigs on the green indeed. It's a good thing Biddy is not here.

"I wonder why extreme monotony in the matter of meals is considered so beneficial to the youthful palate. It wouldn't cost a penny more to have a little variety, but they never do in the houses. There's heaps and heaps to eat, even the boys own that, but it is so dull for them having the same things over and over again. I'd love to go into Tony's kitchen and teach that cook of his how to make real good soup and a proper haricot. Dinner is always a nice meal, but Miss Foster has no imagination. I wonder what she'd do if she had to keep house for you. She'd probably grovel to you because you'd bully her. Now, as it is, she bullies Tony, and he can't call his soul his own. They say, (Who are they? I hear you ask), well, rumour hath it that if Tony ever wants to get married he'll have to do it in the holidays secretly, and then bring his wife home to have it out with Miss Foster. I can't imagine Tony married, can you? Oh, I'd hate it. I do hope he won't.

"Good-night, my dearest Dad. I'm really quite good here on the whole, though I did disobey Tony about hunting just this once.

"Your own loving daughter,

"LALLIE."

*CHAPTER XVII*

Tarrant had got scarlet-fever, and very badly too.

He was removed to the fever hospital on Friday, and by Sunday morning it looked as though things would go hardly with Tarrant. There were complications, and the boy seemed to have no power, either mental or physical, to resist the disease.

So ill was he that the Principal went to see him after morning chapel. Tarrant was quite conscious, and made whispered, suitable answers to Dr. Wentworth's kind and serious remarks.

"Keep your heart up," said the Principal just before he left; "remember that we are all thinking about you and praying that you may get well."

"Did they pray for me in chapel?" Tarrant asked.

On being assured that this was so, the boy turned his face to the wall, feeling that all was over for him. Like a good many older folk who ought to know better, Tarrant thought that to be prayed for in public proved that the case was indeed desperate.

He had been prayed for in chapel!

Only people who were very ill, who were going to die, were ever prayed for in chapel. Chaps had told him so.

There was a chap died in the Easter term, and he'd been prayed for in chapel for a fortnight.

Tarrant was too weak to be much upset. It was a footling thing to do, to die in one's first term, but it couldn't be helped. Rotten luck though! Old Bruiser would be awfully cut up. Fellows had told him how cut up old Nick was when that chap died in his house, and Bruiser was a jolly sight decenter than old Nick.

What ought a chap to think about when he was dying? Religion and that, he supposed. He tried to remember a hymn, but the only hymns that really appealed to Tarrant were those with "_ff_." against several of the verses, when the Coll. all sang at the tops of their voices and nearly lifted the roof off the chapel. And somehow he didn't feel very jubilant just then.

Again he tried to think of something soothing and suitable, but the only thing he could remember was a bit of a French exercise--"The nature of Frederick William was harsh and bad." And this he found himself saying over and over again.

The kind nurse bent down to hear what he was muttering, but all she could catch was "harsh and bad," and she wondered if he had been bullied in B. House.

From the nature of Frederick William, Tarrant's wandering thoughts turned to Germs.

What a stew old Germs would be in!

She was kind though; he remembered that with dreamy gratitude. She hated chaps to be ill, and did her level best to make them comfortable. All the house said that. But my aunt! she was afraid of infection, and fever was awfully infectious. Now Dr. Wentworth wasn't afraid, and he had kids. Bruiser wasn't afraid either; but you wouldn't expect Bruiser to be afraid of things. He had a comfortable big hand, had Bruiser. Tarrant wasn't capable of wishing for much, but he rather wished Bruiser could have stayed. He felt less like floating away into space when Bruiser held him.

What was it Bruiser had said?

"You must buck up, you know. Think of your father and mother in India, how worried they'll be."

Poor mater, it would be a bad knock for her. The pater, too, he'd been at the good old Coll.--his name was up in the big Modern.

Tarrant supposed the chaps would subscribe for a wreath. They did for that other chap. Briggs minor told him. He wondered what sort of a wreath it would be; he hoped it would be nice and large.

What was that hymn they had in chapel last Sunday evening? Ah, he had thought of a hymn at last--

"Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go; Thy word into our minds instil, And make our luke-warm hearts to glow With lowly love and fervent will...."

He wished his heart would have glowed, but somehow it refused to do anything of the kind.

It had a nice cheerful tune, that hymn, especially the last two lines--

"Through life's long day and death's dark night, O gentle Jesus, be our light."

Would it be very dark? he wondered. Perhaps for him, seeing his life had been so short, the gentle Jesus of the hymn might see to it that it was not so dark as to be frightening...

* * * * *

When Tony Bevan got back from the hospital that afternoon Miss Foster was waiting for him in the hall. She wore a long travelling-cloak and a most imposing hat, and she appeared very much upset. Tony's sad, worn face did nothing to reassure her.

"He is just slipping away," he said sadly, as he followed her into the drawing-room. "There seems no real reason why he should die, but he seems to have no stamina, and they give very little hope. Everything has been done. The nurses are most devoted, the doctors have tried everything. The next few hours will decide it."

"You will have to manage without me for a day or two," Miss Foster said abruptly; "I'm going to that boy. It's just providential that Miss Clonmell is out of the house. I've put on a cotton dress, which can be burnt before I leave the hospital, so can everything I wear in his room, but I'm going. My cab will be here directly. I could never forgive myself or rest easy another hour if I don't go and see after that boy myself. I have no faith in trained nurses, nor much in doctors for the matter of that. I believe they carry about all sort of horrid microbes in their clothes. They never change or disinfect or anything. I've no doubt Tarrant rubbed up against some doctor when he was watching football and caught it from him. I wish all those doctors were forbidden the field; that I do."

Miss Foster spoke very crossly, but there was something underlying her irascible manner suspiciously like tears, and Tony held out his hand to her, saying in an almost inaudible mumble:

"It's very good of you. It's particularly hard for us--the little chap's first term, and his people so far away. It will be an inexpressible comfort to me to think that some kind woman----"

Tony's voice gave out, and he turned away just as Ford came in to announce that Miss Foster's cab was at the door.

Tarrant dozed and dreamed and then came back to realities with a start; and the queer light feeling of being suspended in space became so acute that he plucked at the sheet to assure himself that there was a bed and that he was lying in it.

A very firm hand closed over his; a smooth hand and soft, but yet with a purposeful quality about it that seemed to send a little intangible current of some kind through his arm right to his very brain, so that he was seized by a quite definite curiosity as to the personality belonging to the hand.

Lazily he opened his tired eyes and looked along the sheet at the hand covering his own.

It was white, with particularly well-tended nails: surely, too, the rings were familiar. He was certain he had seen those rings before, and had noticed them in the sub-conscious way one does observe such things.