CHAPTER III

TRIAL OF MR. WRIFORD

I

He had determined, writhing in those tortures of that night, at daybreak to get out of it. He had promised himself, striving to subdue his mental torments, that early morning, the house not yet astir, should see him up and begone. Sleep betrayed him his promises and his resolves. While he writhed and while he cried aloud to sleep to come and rest his fevered writhings, she would not be won. Towards morning she came to him. He awoke to find daylight, sounds about the house, escape impossible.

His reception at breakfast in the little parlour changed his intention. His reception made the desertion that now he intended immediately he could leave the house as impossible as, now he saw, escape at daybreak had been most base. He found in Mr. and Mrs. Bickers and in Essie not the smallest trace of recognition that his conduct upon the previous evening had been in the smallest degree remiss. He found them proving in innumerable little ways that, as Mrs. Bickers had told him, they liked their lodgers to be "one of us like." Mr. Bickers proposes to walk with him towards Tower House School in order to show him short cuts that will lessen the way by five minutes. Mrs. Bickers inquires if she may go through his bundle to see if any buttons or any darnings are required. Overnight he had been made to put on a pair of Mr. Bickers' slippers. Essie has put a new lace in one of his boots because one, when she was polishing the boots, was "worn out a fair treat." How can he run away from them without paying them in face of such kindness and confidence as all this? "Glad you like bacon," says Essie, helping him generously from the steaming dish she brings from the kitchen; and says to her mother: "Haven't some of our lodgers bin fanciful, though? Oh, we haven't half had some cautions!" and her eyes sparkle and her lips twitch as though her merry mind is running over the entertainment that some of the cautions have given.

No, there can be no desertion of his duties here after this. They trust him. They accept him as "one of us like." Already he is indebted to them. Until the week is out he is penniless and unable to repay them. When his week is up he can thank them and pay them and go. Till then, at whatever cost--and he will stiffen himself for the future; he was ill and overwrought last night--he must stay and earn and settle for the week for which he is committed.

"Ready?" says Mr. Bickers. "Time we was moving now."

Yes, he is quite ready. Essie runs to the shop door to open it for them. Mrs. Bickers comes with them to see them off. Some cows are being driven down the street. Essie stops with hand on the door to watch them. "Now, Essie," says Mr. Bickers. Two cows lumber onto the pavement. Mr. Wriford sees Essie's eyes sparkling and her lips twitching as she watches.

Mr. Bickers again: "Now, Essie dear--Essie!"

But Essie still watches. "Oh, jus' look at them!" says Essie with a little squirm of her shoulders and then turns round: "Aren't cows funny, though? Let's have a laugh!"

There is nothing at all to laugh at that any of the waiting three can see--except at Essie. Essie laughs as though cows were indeed the very funniest things in the world, and her laugh is impossible of resistance. Mr. Bickers is smiling as they start down the street, and Mr. Wriford is smiling also.

"She's such a bright one, our Essie," says Mr. Bickers.

"You must be very fond of her," says Mr. Wriford--"You and Mrs. Bickers;" and Mr. Bickers replies simply: "Why, I reckon our Essie is all the world to us."

II

Mr. Wriford suits Mr. Pennyquick. Mr. Pennyquick, indeed, as Mr. Wriford finds, is suited by anybody and anything that permits him leisure in which to nurse his ailment. His ailment requires rest which he takes all day long on the sofa in his study; and his ailment requires divers cordials which he keeps handily within reach in long bottles under the sofa. He is an outdoor man, as he tells Mr. Wriford when Mr. Wriford comes into the study on some inquiry. He is all for the open air and for sports; he only missed a double Blue at Cambridge--Rugby football and cross-country running--through rank favouritism, and he can't bear to be seen taking physic. To look around his room, says he, you'd never think he was a regular drug-shop inside owing to these rotten doctors, would you? Not a bottle of the muck to be seen anywhere. That's because, says he, his breath exuding the muck in pungent volumes, he hides the bottles through sheer sensitiveness. He's feeling a wee bit brighter this afternoon, thank goodness, and if Wriford, like a good chap, would just start the First Form in their Caesar he'll be in in about two ticks and take them over.

Poor fellow, he never does manage to get in in two ticks or in any more considerable circumference of the clock. Mr. Wriford, as he closes the study door, hears the chink of bottle and glass and knows that the open-air man will breathe no other air than that of his room until he is able to grip his malady sufficiently to stagger up to bed.

The trial week, indeed, is not many days old before Mr. Wriford obtains a pretty clear comprehension of the state of affairs at the Tower House and the reputation of its Headmaster. "Pennyquick! Whiskyquick, I call him," says Essie; and though her mother reproves this levity, and though ill-natured gossip has no exercise in the Bickers' establishment, even the cert. plumber and his wife admit that the school is not what it was, and speak of a time when there were forty or fifty boys and several resident masters. There are only twenty-four boys now--all boarders. There are no day-boarders. The town knows its Mr. Pennyquick; and the time cannot be far distant when the tradesmen in different parts of the county, now attracted by the past reputation of this "School for the Sons of Gentlemen," also will know him for what he is. Six boys left the Tower House at the end of the previous term; five are leaving at the end of this. They are sorry to go, Mr. Wriford finds, and at first rather wonders at the fact. But the reason is clear before even the trial week is out. The reason is that these twenty-four young Sons of Gentlemen, dejected-looking as he had seen them at play when he accosted Mr. Pennyquick, are dejected also in spirit--morally abased, that is to say, partly as coming from homes too snobbish to commit them to the rough and tumble of local elementary or grammar schools, and partly as being received into the atmosphere emanated by their Headmaster at the Tower House. They like the school. It suits them, and therefore, wiser than they should be, they carry no tales to their parents. They like the school. They like the utter slackness and slovenliness of the place. There is no discipline. There is scarcely a pretence of education. They wash in the mornings not till after they are dressed, Mr. Wriford finds, and they do not appear to wash again all day. They are thoroughly afraid of Mr. Pennyquick, but he scarcely ever visits them, leaving them now entirely to Mr. Wriford as formerly he left them to Mr. Wriford's predecessors who seemed to have been much of a habit of mind and character with themselves. Domestic arrangements are looked after by Mr. Pennyquick's mother who is a little, frightened grey wisp of a woman with hands that shake like her son's, but shake for him and because of him, Mr. Wriford discovers, not as a result of similar ailment and remedy. She adores her son. She is terrified of him. She is terrified for him. She sees his livelihood and his manhood crumbling away, simultaneously and disastrously swift, and what she can do, by befoolment of parents in correspondence relative to her son's ill-health and their own son's happiness and success, by pathetic would-be befoolment of Mr. Wriford on the same counts, and by lenient treatment of the pupils, that does she daily and hourly to avert the doom she sees.

III

Within the first days of the trial week Mr. Wriford's duties fall into a regular routine. This is his trial week, his temporary week, a week in which he comes to his duties overwrought, shaken, uncertain and, thus conditioned, is wretched in his performance of them. Shortly before nine he presents himself at Tower House. The boys are wandering dejectedly about the playground. He passes nervously through them--they do not raise their caps--and hides from them in the schoolroom till the hour strikes on a neighbouring church clock. Then Mr. Wriford rings a large hand-bell, and the boys drift in at their leisure and take their places on the benches. Sometimes, before Mr. Wriford has finished ringing, Mr. Pennyquick, in gown and untasselled mortar-board, comes charging across the playground from the house, and there is then an alarmed stampede on the part of the boys to get in before him or to crowd in immediately upon his heels. Sometimes there is a very long wait before the appearance of the Headmaster; and Mr. Wriford, nervously irresolute as to whether to ring again or to begin school without him, stands wretched and self-conscious at his raised desk while the boys titter and whisper, or throw paper pellets, or look at him and--he knows--titter and whisper at his expense. This is his trial week, his temporary week. He is much overwrought in body and in mind. He does not know what authority he should show or how to show it. He hesitates till too late to interfere with one outburst of horse-play or of giggling. At the next he hesitates in doubt as to whether, having overlooked the former, he can attempt to subdue this. While he hesitates, and while the noise increases, and while the humiliation and wretchedness it causes him increase--in the midst of all this Mr. Pennyquick charges in. Mr. Pennyquick is either unshaved and looking the worse for it; or he has shaved and has cut himself and dabs angrily at little tufts of cotton wool that decorate his chin.

"Anderson!" barks Mr. Pennyquick, seizing the roll-call book and a pencil but not looking at the one or using the other. "Adsum," responds Anderson; and Mr. Pennyquick barks through the roll, which he knows by heart, much as if he were a sheep-dog with each boy a sheep and each name a bark or a bite in pursuit of it. He does not wait for responses. He barks along in a jumble of explosions, interspersed with a jumble of squeaked replies; punctuated at intervals, as if it were part of the roll, by a very much louder bark in the form of a fierce "SPEAK UP!" and concluded by a rush without pause into prayers--Mr. Pennyquick plumping suddenly upon his knees, much as if the sheepdog had suddenly hurled itself upon the flock, and the first portion of the devotions being lost in the din of his pupils extricating themselves from their desks in order to follow his example, much as if the flock had responded by a panic stampede in every direction.

"Samuel Major," barks Mr. Pennyquick, as if he were biting that young gentleman. "'Sum!" squeaks Samuel Major, as if he were bitten. "Minorsum - Smithsum - Stoopersum - Taylorsum--SPEAK UP!--Tooveysum - Westsum - Whitesum--SPEAK UP!--Williamssum - Wintersum - Woodsum - Ourfatherchartinheavenhallo'edbeth'name ... Amen--SPEAK UP!--mightyanmosmercifulfatherwethynunworthyservants ... Amen--SPEAK UP!"

The schoolroom is divided by a red baize curtain into two parts. The scholars are divided into three forms of which Form One is the highest. Mr. Pennyquick, who knows the time-table of lessons by heart just as he knows the roll-call, follows the last Amen with a last "SPEAK UP!" and is himself followed in haste and trepidation by the members of Form One as he jumps from his knees and charges through the curtain barking "Form One. Thursday. Euclid. Blackboard. Come round the blackboard. Last night's prep?"

"Twelfth proposition, sir," squeaks the boy whose eye he has caught.

This--or the same point in whatever else the subject may be--invariably marks the end of Mr. Pennyquick's early morning energy. He begins to draw on the blackboard or to find the place in a text-book. The energy goes, or the recollection of his medicine begins, and he changes his mind and barks: "Revise last night's prep!" There is a stampede to the desks and a burying in books. The Headmaster paces the room between the wall and the curtain, barking a "WORK UP!" at intervals and hesitating a little longer each time he turns at the curtain. "WORK UP!" and he comes charging through towards Mr. Wriford and the door. "Keep an eye on Form One, Wriford. Draw the curtain. I'm not quite the thing this morning. Take them on for me if I'm not back in ten minutes, will you? I ought to be in bed, you know. I shan't be long. WORK UP!"

He is gone. He rarely appears again. If he appears it is when clearly he is not quite the thing and is only to skirmish a few times up and down the schoolroom to the tune of "WORK UP! WORK UP!" or to show himself on the playing-field, bellow "PLAY UP!" and betake himself again to the treatment of his complaint.

He is gone. Mr. Wriford is left with all the three forms in his charge. It is his trial week. He does not know what authority he should show or how to show it. He does not know what has been learnt or what is being learnt, and he is cunningly or cheekily frustrated at every attempt to discover it. In whatever way he attempts to set work afoot an excuse is found to stop him. By one boy he is told that "please, sir," they do not do this, and by another that "please, sir," they have never done the other. He has neither sufficient strength of himself nor sufficient certainty of his position to insist. Without advice, without support, he is left very much at the mercy of the three forms, and they show him none. While he tries to settle one form it is under the distractions and the interruptions of the other two. When he turns to one of these the first joins the third in idleness and disorder. At eleven o'clock he is informed "Please, sir, we have our break now," and there is a stampede for the door without awaiting his assent. Similarly at half-past twelve, when morning school ends, and similarly again at four and at half-past seven, which are the terminations of afternoon school and of evening preparation. There is no asking his permission. His position is exactly summarised by this--that the boys know the rules and customs, he does not; and further by this--that while he remains miserably uncertain of the extent of his authority and of how he should assert it, they, by that very uncertainty, well estimate its limits and hourly, with each advantage gained, more narrowly confine it, more openly defy him.

IV

At one o'clock there is lunch. Sometimes Mr. Pennyquick is present as the boys assemble, and then they assemble in timid silence and eat with due regard to manners. Sometimes he does not appear till midway through the meal, till when there is greedy and noisy and slovenly behaviour, which frightened-looking Mrs. Pennyquick attempts occasionally to check with a timid: "Hush, boys," or upon which she looks with nervously indulgent smiles. There is painfully evident in all her dealings with the boys a dread amounting to a lively terror that anything shall be done to displease them. Mr. Wriford soon realises that her hourly fear is of a boy writing home anything that may lead to parental inquiry and thence to the disclosure of her son's affliction. In out-of-school hours she frequently visits the schoolroom and looks anxiously at any boy who may be engaged in writing. Mr. Wriford at first wonders why. He understands when one day, passing behind a boy thus occupied, she stops and says: "Writing home, Charlie? That's a good boy. Do tell your father that Mr. Pennyquick only this morning was telling me what a good boy you are at your lessons and how well you are getting on. Write a nice letter, dear. Would you like to come with me a minute and see if I can find some sweeties in my cupboard? Come along, then."

With like purpose it is in fearful apprehension that she watches her son's face and his every movement when he is at the luncheon table. Mr. Wriford sees her look up with face in agony of misgiving when the Headmaster comes in late, sees her eyes ever upon him in constant dread as he sits opposite her at the head of the table. There does not appear great cause for nervousness. As a rule the Headmaster sits glowering and glum and fires off no more than, his own plate being empty, an occasional "EAT UP!" Sometimes he is boisterously cheerful. Whatever his mood he never omits one very satisfactory tribute to his own principles in which his mother joins very happily and impressively. It takes this form. Immediately Mr. Pennyquick sits down he calls in a very loud voice for the water to be passed to him. He then fills his glass from such a great height as to make all the boys laugh, then drinks, then sets down the tumbler with a sharp rap, and then says to Mr. Wriford: "I don't know if you're a beer-drinker, Wriford, but I'm afraid we can't indulge you here. I never touch anything but water myself. I attribute every misery, every failure in life, to drink, and I will allow it in no shape or form beneath my roof. I can give no man a better motto than my own motto: Stick to Water!"

Mr. Pennyquick then drinks again with great impressiveness, and Mrs. Pennyquick at once cries: "Boys, listen to that! Always remember what Mr. Pennyquick says and always say it was Mr. Pennyquick who told you. Stick to Water is Mr. Pennyquick's motto, and he never, never allows drink in any shape or form beneath his roof. Why, do you know--I must tell them this, dear--a doctor once ordered Mr. Pennyquick just a small glass of wine once a day, and Mr. Pennyquick said to him: 'Doctor, I know I'm very ill; but if wine is the only thing to save me, then, doctor, I must die, for wine I do not and will not touch.'"

All eyes in great admiration on this unflinching champion of hydropathy, who modestly concludes the scene with a loud: "EAT UP!"

V

Afternoon school, in its idleness, inattention, and indiscipline, is a repetition of the morning. Preparation from six to half-past seven again discovers irresolution, uncertainty and wretchedness set in the midst of those who by every device increase it and advantage themselves from it. At four o'clock it is Mr. Wriford's duty to keep an eye on the boys while they disport themselves in the field where he had first seen them; at half-past five is tea; at shortly before eight Mr. Wriford is making his way to where supper awaits in the cheerful parlour behind the little shop of the cert. plumber.

Thither he goes through the darkness; and, as one in darkness that gropes for light, can see no light, and dreads the sudden leap of some assault, so trembles he among the dark oppressions of his mind.

These are evenings of early summer, and they have early summer's dusky veils draped down from starry skies. Her pleasant scents they have, her gentle airs, her after-hush of all her daylight choirs. They but enfever Mr. Wriford. Her young nights, these, that not arrest her days but softly steal about her, finger on lip attend her while she sleeps, then snatch their filmy coverlets while eastward she rubs her smiling eyes, springs from her slumber, breaks into music all her morning hymns, and up and all about in sudden radiance rides, rides in maiden loveliness. Ah, not for him!

These are young nights that greet him as he leaves the school. In much affliction he cries out upon their stilly peace. Look, here that new year in summer is, her peace, her happiness attained, that from the windows of the ward at Pendra he had watched blown here and there, mocked, trampled on, caught by the throat and thrust beneath the iron ground in variance with winter's jealousy. In her he had envisaged his own stress. Look, here she reigns in happy peace, in ordered quiet: he?

He moans a little as he walks. There is something in life that he has missed, and to its discovery he can bring no more than this--that it rests not in violent disregard of what happens to him or what he does, for that he has proved empty; nor rests in the ease that, by communication with London, might be his, for that inflicts return to the old self, hatred and fear of whom had driven him away. Where then? And then it is he moans. His mind presents him none but these alternatives; his mind, when miserably he rejects them, threateningly turns them upon him in forms of fear. "Well, you have got to live," his mind threatens him. "To-morrow you shall perhaps be turned out from this post at the school. You will have to face anew some means of life; you will have to suffer what has to be suffered in that part; face men and submit to their treatment of such as you, or face them and find fierceness sufficient to defy them."

"No, no!" he cries. "No, no!" He fears his powers of endurance, fears that beneath those trials he will be driven back to where is turned upon him the other threat. "Well, you must go back," his thoughts threaten him. "Money and comfort await you in London for your asking. You must go back to what you were. Live at ease in seclusion, if you will; ah, with your old way of life to tell you hourly that now it has you chained--that now you have tried escape, proved it impossible, and never again can escape it!"

He cries aloud: "No, no!" He moans for his abject hopelessness. He trembles for his fears at these his threats. Under his misery he wanders away from the direction of the little plumber's shop, hating to enter it and to its brightness expose his suffering; under his fears he hastens to it, clinging to this present occupation lest, losing it, one of the threats that threaten him unsheaths its sword upon him.

VI

When, by these vacillations, he is late for the supper hour, Essie will be at the shop door watching for him.

"Well, aren't you half late, though!" cries Essie. "I was jus' goin' to dish up. Oh, you lodgers, you know, you're fair cautions!"

"I was kept late," he says.

"Well, you weren't half walking slow when you come round the corner, though." She sees his face more clearly in the light of the shop and she says: "Oh, dear, you don't look half tired! My steak-and-kidney pudding, that's what you want! Here he is, Dad! Get his slippers, Mother? That old Whiskyquick's been fair tiring him out!"

She runs to the kitchen and in a minute calls out: "All ready? Oh, it's cooked a fair treat!" She bears in the steaming steak-and-kidney pudding, sets it on the table, but stops while above the bubbling crust she poises her knife and watches it with her little twitches of her lips and with her sparkling eyes.

"Come, Essie," says Mrs. Bickers.

"Oh, isn't it funny, though," says Essie, "all bubbling and squeaking! Let's have a laugh!"