CHAPTER V

ESSIE'S IDEA OF IT

I

It is Essie who helps Mr. Wriford carry forward the advantage that Master Cupper has gained him. Mr. Pennyquick did not show himself throughout the remainder of the day. The expected dismissal for having struck Master Cupper--awaited in the grim satisfaction of grovellingly docile pupils throughout afternoon school and evening preparation--is deferred, therefore, as Mr. Wriford supposes, until the morrow; and in the morning he finds himself mentioning it to Essie.

He is the reverse of talkative with the Bickers household. The oppression that nightly he brings home from Tower House sits heavily upon him in the bright little parlour, intensified, as on his first evening there, rather than relieved by it. He always dreads the ordeal of the Bible reading. He always escapes to bed immediately it is over. At breakfast he has excuse to hurry over his meal and hurry from the house. On this morning, however, Essie comes to breakfast dressed in hat and jacket. She is going to spend the day with friends in a neighbouring town. She has to start for her train as Mr. Wriford starts for his work and, as his way lies past the railway station, "Why, we'll jus' skedaddle together," says Essie.

He cannot refuse. Facing the dismissal he anticipates, he more than ever desires to be alone; but Essie takes their companionship on the way for granted, and presently is chattering by his side of whom she is going to see, and what a long time it is since she has seen them, and appearing not at all to notice that he gives her no response. She is wonderfully gay and excited, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes even more radiant than commonly they sparkle. She has new gloves, which she shows him, turning the hand next him this way and that for their better display and announcing them "not half a bargain at one-an'-eleven-three, considering I never had this dress then to match 'em by;" and she has a linen coat and skirt of lilac shade and a hat of blue flowers in which she looks quite noticeably pretty; and she looks at herself in all the shop windows as she chatters and appears to be more delighted than ever at what she sees reflected there.

"Don't think I shall miss the train, do you?" says Essie. "Takes me a long time to say good-bye to Mother and Dad through not liking leavin' them alone all day. Don't think it's very unkind, do you, jus' once in a way, you know? You'd never think how I hate doin' it, though."

These are questions, in place of chattering information, and Mr. Wriford feels he must come out of his own thoughts to answer them. He chooses the first and tells her--his first words since they left the shop: "You've plenty of time. It takes exactly nine minutes to the station. I notice it by the big clock every day."

"Well, that's safe as the Bank of England then," declares Essie. "Plenty of time," and she takes advantage of it to stop deliberately for a moment and twitch her veil in front of a tobacconist's shining window. Mr. Wriford pauses for her, and she turns dancing eyes to him when she has settled her veil to her liking. "Isn't it funny, though, seeing yourself with pipes and all in your face? Let's have a laugh!"

He does not join her in the merry laugh she enjoys; and suddenly he is aware that she is regarding him curiously, and then that she is making the first personal remark she has ever addressed to him. "You aren't half one of the solemn ones," says Essie.

It is then that he tells her: "Well, I'm on my way to be dismissed. There's not much joke in that."

Essie gives a little exclamation and stops abruptly, her face all concern. "Oh, you don't say!"

"Yes, I do. Come on."

"The proper sack?"

"Come along. You'll miss your train."

"Oh, bother the old train!" cries Essie. "That's fair done it. I shan't be half miserable thinking of you."

"Why should you?" says Mr. Wriford indifferently.

She replies: "Well, did you ever! Me going off to enjoy myself and thinking of you getting the sack! Oh, that old Whiskyquick, he's a caution!"

"But there's no earthly need for you to mind."

"Why, of course there is," says Essie. "Especially with me going off on a beano like this. Of course there is. My goodness, I know what it is for a lodger when he gets the sack! Whyever didn't you tell us before--all of us? Then we might have talked it over, and ten to one Dad could have advised you. I've seen Dad get a lodger out of a mess before now. Just tell me. Whatever is it for?"

"I hit one of the boys."

Essie's eyes wince as though herself she felt the blow. "Not hard?"

"As hard as ever I could."

"Oh, dear!" says Essie reproachfully. "You never ought to do that, you know. Just a slap--that's nothing. I've fetched one of my Sunday-school boys a slap before now. But losing your temper, you know!"

"He wanted it," said Mr. Wriford.

"That's what you think," says Essie. "Well, never mind about that now. Just tell me."

He tells her. He finds himself less indifferent to her sympathy as he proceeds. He finds it rather a relief to be telling her of it--rather pleasantly novel to be telling anybody anything. He tells her from the moment of his blow at Cupper, and why the blow was struck, to the furious onset of Mr. Pennyquick, slashing among the boys with his cane--the humourous aspect of which he for the first time perceives and laughs at--and he finds himself, as he concludes, rather leaning towards the sympathy he expects.

But the sympathy is not for him; nor does Essie, who usually can see a joke in nothing at all, laugh at Mr. Pennyquick's wild gallop among his pupils.

"Oh, those poor boys!" says Essie. "Don't I just feel sorry for them!"

"You wouldn't if you knew them."

"Wouldn't I, though! I wish I had half your chance!"

He asks her impatiently, irritated at the unexpected attitude she has taken: "My chance at what?"

"Why, your chance to make them happy. Why, they're not boys at all. I think it every time I see them."

"No, they're little fiends."

"That's silly talk," says Essie rather sharply. "I daresay you'd be a fiend, for that matter, with that old toad of a Whiskyquick not to care what happens to you except to frighten you to death."

Mr. Wriford says coldly: "I didn't know we were talking about the boys. You asked me to tell you--"

"Oh," cries Essie, "don't you get a crosspatch now! I know it was about your sack we were talking, and I am sorry, truly and reely sorry. But, look here, I don't believe you'll get it, you know. I believe old Whiskyquick's that ashamed of himself he won't show his face for a week. An' I don't believe he even knows you hit that poor what's-his-name--Cupper?--so there! I believe he hit him for disturbing him, and I daresay catching him drinking, before the poor little fellow could speak. I do reely. Look here--"

They have reached the station and Essie stops outside the booking-office. "Look here, I tell you what there is to it. Don't you worry about the sack. Ten to one you won't get it till he's got some one instead of you, anyway. Just you don't worry. It only makes it worse, like when you're going to have a tooth out. You see if you can't make those poor boys happy. Why, you know, when I first had my Sunday-school class, oh, they were cautions! They'd never had any one to be kind to them, jus' like your boys. I told 'em stories, and told 'em games, and took 'em a walk every time, and showed 'em things, and you'd never believe how good they are now. You just try. I mean to say, whatever's the good of anybody if you don't try to make other folk happy, is there? Oh, there's my train signalled. Goo'-by. I shan't half think how you're getting on. I say, though--" and Essie, who has been extraordinarily grave in this long speech, begins to sparkle in her eyes again.

"Yes," says Mr. Wriford.

"You haven't got a minute to buy my ticket?"

"I'll get your ticket, of course."

"That's fine." She counts him some money from her purse. "Third return Wilton, excursion. Mind you say excursion. One and tuppence. Here comes the puffer."

Mr. Wriford says "excursion;" and then Essie, by hanging back as the train comes in, indicates clearly enough that she would like him also to find her a carriage. When she is in and leaning from the window she explains the reason of these manoeuvres.

"Thanks awfully," says Essie and whispers: "You know, I like people to see me with a young man to fuss me about."

Mr. Wriford's smile is the first expression of real amusement he has known in many long months. As the train begins to move he raises his hat. "Oh, thanks awfully," cries Essie, immensely pleased. "Remember what I said. I shan't half think how you're getting on. Mind you remember! Goo'-bye! Goo'-bye!"

II

He remembers. Mr. Pennyquick's manner at roll-call and prayers distinctly bears out all three of Essie's conjectures, and that helps him to remember. The Headmaster charges through the names and through the devotions even more rapidly than usual. At their termination he does not even indulge the pretence of taking Form One in a lesson. "Amen--WORK UP!" concludes Mr. Pennyquick and turns at once to Mr. Wriford. "Can you possibly take them all this morning, Wriford? Just for once. I absolutely ought to be in bed. I'm on the very verge of a breakdown. You saw what happened to me yesterday. I really don't know what I'm doing. The doctor insists on a little wine, but I'm fighting against it. Perhaps I'm wrong. But you know my principles. If you could just look after them till lunch." He strides to the door, opens it, closes it again, strides back and glares upon his pupils, strained over their books. "WORK UP!" and then more threateningly, more hoarsely than ever: "WORK UP! WORK UP!" and then to the door and a last "WORK UP!" and then discharges himself from view as abruptly as if Three Star (old) had stretched a hand across the playground and grabbed him out.

Thus are proved, as Mr. Wriford reflects, seated in the shivering silence that remains after the Headmaster's disappearance, two of Essie's beliefs. Mr. Pennyquick is obviously ashamed of himself--apprehensive of the results upon his boys and upon his assistant-master of his yesterday's exhibition and seeking by greater fierceness to coerce the one and by pitiable excuses to cajole the other; obviously also he projects no summary measures against Mr. Wriford--likely enough, indeed, is ignorant of cause of offence. There remains Essie's third premise: that the boys are wretched and to be pitied; and with it her advice that it is for Mr. Wriford to make them happy. He remembers. He looks on them, cowed before him, with the new eyes of these instructions, and for the first time since he has assumed his position here sees them, not as little fiends who have made his life a burden, but as luckless unfortunates whose lives have themselves been burdensome under one tyrant, and who now believe themselves delivered over to another.

He remembers. He remembers Essie's Sunday-school boys who were "little cautions" until she told 'em stories and showed 'em games and took 'em for walks and showed 'em things; and suddenly Mr. Wriford sits upright and says briskly: "Look here!"

There is a sharp catching at breaths all about the room, a nervous jump--a panic apprehension, clearly enough, that this is the prelude to repetition of yesterday's violence. It makes Mr. Wriford feel very sorry. He remembers Essie's "Poor little fellows. I don't feel half sorry for them." He contrasts their dejected and aimless and slipshod and now frightened ways with his own bright school-days. He gets up and steps down from the platform on which his desk is raised and stands amongst them, his hands in his pockets, feeling curiously confident and easy. "Look here," says Mr. Wriford, "let's chuck work this morning and have a talk. We ought to be jolly good pals, you know, instead of messing about like we've been doing ever since I came. When I was at school we used to be frightful pals with our masters. Of course we couldn't stick 'em in Form sometimes, but out of school they were just like one of us. They played footer and all that with us, and the great thing was to barge them like blazes, especially if one had had a sock over the ear like poor old Cupper there."

First surprise; then a nervous giggle here and there; then more general giggling; now all turning towards Master Cupper (very red and sheepish), and very cheerful giggling everywhere.

Rather jolly, thinks Mr. Wriford, and proceeds: "How is old Cupper, this morning, by the way? Cupper, you and I ought to shake hands, you know," and Mr. Wriford strolls down to Master Cupper, and they shake, Master Cupper grinning enormously. "That's all right. You and I are pals, anyway. You and I versus the rest in future, Cupper, if they get up to any of their larks. You were a silly young ass, you know, yesterday, cocking a snook at me behind my back. That's absolutely what you'd expect a Board School kid to do. What's your father, Cupper?"

"Please, sir, he's an auctioneer," says Cupper.

"Auctioneer, is he? Well, you look out he doesn't sell you one of these days, my boy, if you go cocking snooks all over the place."

Immensely delighted laughter at this brilliant flash of wit, and Mr. Wriford sits easily on Cupper's desk with his feet on the form before him and goes on. "You know, you're all rather young asses, you are, really. You don't work in school, and you don't play out of it. Why, hang it, you don't even play cricket. You're keen on cricket, aren't you?"

Enthusiastic exclamations of "Rather!"

"Well, you go fiddling about with rounders--a girl's game; and you don't even play that as if you meant it. Why on earth don't you play cricket?"

"Please, sir," says some one, "we haven't got any proper bats and wickets."

"Man alive," says Mr. Wriford, "you've got some stumps and a ball, and I've seen an old bat kicking about. What more do you want? Tell you what, we'll start right away and get up Cricket Sixes--single wicket, six a side. They're a frightful rag. We can get three--four teams of six boys each. Each team plays all the rest twice to see which is the champion. We'll keep all the scores in an exercise book and call it the Tower House Cricket League. I'll be scorer and umpire. Come on, we'll pick the Sixes right away."

Up to his desk Mr. Wriford goes amidst a buzzing of delight and gets a clean exercise book and then says: "Half a moment, though. We ought to have a Captain of the School, you know, and some Prefects--Monitors. The Captain will be my right-hand man, and the Prefects will be his. We'll vote for him. That's the best way. Each of you chaps write down the man you think ought to be the Captain, and then old Cupper will collect the papers and bring them to me, and we'll count them together."

It is done amid much excitement, and presently Mr. Wriford hails Abbot as Captain of the School, and up comes Abbot, loudly applauded, a red-headed young gentleman of pleasant countenance, to shake hands with Mr. Wriford and with him to select the Prefects. Three Prefects, Mr. Wriford thinks, and says: "I vote we have old Cupper for one."

"And Toovey," says Abbot.

"Right, Toovey. And what about Samuel Major? He looks a bit of a beefer. Well now," continues Mr. Wriford, thoroughly interested, "you four chaps had better each be captain of one of the Cricket Sixes. We'll pick them next. They must all be as equal as possible."

This takes quite a long time, but is satisfactorily settled at last and the names written down in the exercise-book and the first two matches arranged for that afternoon: Abbot's _versus_ Toovey's, and Samuel Major's _v._ Cupper's. Then "Good Lord," says Mr. Wriford, looking at the clock, "it's nearly lunch time. I vote we chuck it now and go and look out these stumps and things and find a decent pitch. Half a minute, though. You, Abbot, you know, and you three Prefect chaps must remember what you are and must help me to keep order and to see that no one plays the fool in school or out, and all that kind of thing; and you other chaps must jolly well obey them. This afternoon, for instance, we'll have a talk about work and see just where we all stand and make up our minds to work like blazes. Well, while I'm fixing up Form Three, you must see that Form One doesn't play the goat, Abbot, and you, Samuel, must look after Form Two. See the idea of the thing? Work is jolly interesting, you know, if you go at it properly, like I'll show you. Some subjects--like geography for instance--we'll take all together, and that'll be quite a rag. We're simply going to pull up our socks and work like blazes and play like blazes, too. See? Come on, let's get those cricket things fixed up."

Out they go. Mr. Wriford holding Abbot's arm, and other boys clinging about him--out to the field where first from the roadside he had seen them dejected and listless, and where now they run before him, keen, excited, eager, taken right out of their old sorry habits.

He, also, the first time in many months, out of himself removed.

III

Mr. Wriford goes back to the plumber's shop that night occupied with plans for developing on the morrow the interests of the Cricket Sixes, the Captaincy, the Prefects, and the new schedule of lessons drawn up during the afternoon. Essie is home before him, chattering more volubly and more brightly than ever by reason of her doings with her friends and her day-long desertion of Mother and Dad. She runs to the shop door when she hears Mr. Wriford and greets him eagerly.

"You never got the sack, did you?"

"No, he never said a word. I believe you were right about him being rather ashamed."

Essie does a little dance of joy and claps her hands. "Oh, if I'm not lucky, though!" cries Essie. "That was the one thing would have spoilt the fair jolly old time I've had, and there it's turned out A1 just like all the rest!"

Mr. Wriford tells her: "It's very nice of you to be glad about it."

"Why, of course I'm glad," cries Essie. "That's just finished up my day a treat! Now you won't half enjoy the things I've brought home for supper from my young lady friends. I was afraid--oh, you don't know what it is to have a lodger about the house when he's lost his job! They're fair cautions, lodgers are, when they've got the sack!"

And later in the evening, when he sees Essie sitting and looking before her with her eyes smiling and her lips twitching, she suddenly looks up, and catching his gaze, reveals that it is of him she is thinking. "You weren't half in the dumps, though, were you?" she says. "Isn't it funny, though, when a thing's turned out A1, to look back and see what a state you were in? Isn't it, though? Let's have a laugh!"