"Pip" Part 4

Things at Wentworth House School move in a stereotyped circle, and Pip and Pipette soon became familiar with the curriculum. There were three cla.s.ses, they found. The First Cla.s.s, the veterans, nearly old enough to go to a preparatory school, dwelt in a stuffy apartment called "The Study." Their learning was profound, for they were taught a mysterious language called Latin, and another, even more mysterious, called "Alzeber" (or something like that). The Second Cla.s.s, conducted by Miss Mary--formidable, but a good sort--in a corner of the schoolroom, did not fly so high. They studied history and geography, and were addicted to a fearsome form of parlour-game called "Mentalarithmetic," which involved much shrieking of answers to highly impossible questions about equally dividing seventeen apples among five boys.

Pip and Pipette occupied a humble position in the Third Cla.s.s, where they soon developed a fervent admiration for pretty Miss Amelia, who was always smiling, always daintily dressed, and charmingly inaccurate and casual.

On Thursday afternoons the whole school a.s.sembled in the Music Room.

Here faded Miss Arabella thumped mechanically on the piano, while the pupils of Wentworth House School chanted an inexplicable and interminable ditty ent.i.tled "Doh-ray-me-fah." The words of this canticle were printed on a canvas sheet upon the wall, and the method of inculcation was somewhat peculiar. Mr. Pocklington, taking his stand beside the sheet, would lay the tip of his little white wand upon the word "Doh" printed at the bottom. Miss Arabella would strike a note upon the piano, and the school would reproduce the same with no uncertain sound, sustaining it by one prolonged howl until the white wand slid up to "Ray," an example which the vocalists would attempt to follow to the best of their ability, and with varying degrees of success. Having rallied and concentrated his forces on "Ray," Mr. Pocklington would advance to "Me," and then to "Fah," the effects achieved by the elder male choristers, whose voices were reaching the cracking stage, as the scale approached the topmost "Doh," being as surprising as they were various.

The hour always concluded with a sort of musical steeplechase. The white wand would skip incontinently from Doh to Fah, and from Me to Soh, the singers following after--faint yet pursuing. At the end of three minutes, the field having tailed out, so to speak, every note in the gamut was being sung, _fortissimo_, by at least one member of the choir, and the total effect was more suggestive of a home for lost dogs than an academy for the sons and daughters of gentlemen.

Our friends enjoyed this diversion hugely. Pipette, who could carol like a lark, hopped from note to note with an agility only equalled by that of the white wand itself. Pip, who had no music in his soul, adopted a different method of procedure. Selecting a note well within his compa.s.s, he would stick to it with characteristic thoroughness and a gradually blackening countenance, until a final flourish from the white wand intimated to all and sundry that this nuisance must now cease.

Pip and Pipette were also submitted to a rather farcical ordeal which Mr. Pocklington called his "common-sense test." Shortly after their arrival they were called into the Study, where Mr. Pocklington, after a little homily on the danger of judging by appearances and the fallaciousness of giving preference to quant.i.ty rather than quality, produced a threepenny-bit and a penny, and commanded his auditors to take their choice. Pipette unhesitatingly picked the threepenny-bit, and was commended for her ac.u.men. Pip, when it came to his turn, selected the penny, and after being soundly rated for his stupidity was cast forth from the Study and bidden to learn sense. A week later he was again put to the test, and again chose the penny, repeating his performance with stolid regularity when given a further opportunity of redeeming his character the following week. After that the affair developed into a kind of round game, Mr. Pocklington producing the two coins from time to time and Pip invariably selecting the penny,--a proceeding which gave his preceptor unlimited opportunities for tiresome little lectures to the school in general, and Pip in particular, on the subjects mentioned above.

Finally, after the entertainment had been repeated week by week for some time, Pipette, whose loyal little soul chafed at the sycophantic giggles of the other boys and girls when Pip was being scarified by Mr.

Pocklington, boldly broached the matter to her brother.

"Pip, why don't you take the fripenny-bit? If you did he'd stop bein' so howwid to you."

Pip regarded his sister's small eager face with cold scorn.

"If once I took the threepenny-bit," he replied, "he'd stop offerin' the money altogether. Why, I've made eightpence since I came here. Silly kid!"

This was the last occasion in their lives on which Pipette ever questioned the wisdom of her beloved brother's actions.

Both children made friends rapidly. Pip, indeed, soon after his arrival, received a proposal of marriage, which, ever ready to oblige a lady, he accepted forthwith. But he was reckoning without Pipette. That jealous little person, finding one day that Pip had suddenly deserted her, and was at that moment actually sharing his morning bun with his fiancee in the boot-room, incontinently burst in upon the lovers, and after a brief but decisive interview despatched her rival howling from the room, remaining herself to share the bun with the newly restored Pip, who, to be quite frank, had been finding the role of a Romeo, however pa.s.sive, rather exacting.

Isabel Dinting, the disappointed lady, was inconsolable for a day or two, but she eventually recovered her spirits, and lived to heap coals of fire on Pip's head, as you shall hear.

One of the most curious and characteristic inst.i.tutions at Wentworth House School was Mr. Pocklington's system of "Task-Tickets." Every boy and girl on entering the school received ten little tablets about the size of visiting-cards, inscribed with his or her name, and numbered from one to ten consecutively. If a pupil failed in a lesson or broke a rule, one of his Task-Tickets was impounded, and was not restored until the faulty lesson was perfected or a specified imposition performed.

Periodically there would be an "inspection," and many a small head whose owner was discovered to be short of tickets would be hung in shame that day. Only such confirmed reprobates as Thomas Oates, the bad boy of the school (whom Mr. Pocklington in his more jocular moments addressed as "t.i.tus," much to his hearers' mystification), could endure the stigma of being perpetually without a full complement. Thomas indeed once electrified the school by announcing to Miss Mary, when asked for a ticket in default of an unlearned lesson, that _all_ his tickets were in p.a.w.n already, and that, until he had redeemed one of the same, he would be unable to oblige her. Mr. Pocklington and the majority of his staff were horror-struck at such iniquity; but Miss Mary, in whom was concentrated most of the common sense of the family, inst.i.tuted a search in Master Thomas's desk, with the result that she triumphantly fished out no less than five tickets. All of which goes to prove that Thomas Oates, like a good many of us, preferred notoriety, even as a malefactor, to respectable oblivion.

The Task-Ticket system presented another feature of interest. Besides their regulation ten ordinary tickets, Mr. Pocklington's pupils were ent.i.tled to acquire "Special Task-Tickets." If you weeded the garden, or filled some ink-pots, or wrote a specially neat copy, you were presented with a Task-Ticket marked "Special" in red ink in one corner. Next time a breakdown in work or the infraction of a rule brought you within the sphere of operations of Mr. Pocklington's penal code, exemption from punishment could be purchased by payment of one or more of your Special Task-Tickets. This scheme was attractive in several ways. Good children--chiefly little girls, it must be admitted--acc.u.mulated these treasures a.s.siduously for the mere joy of possession, the trifling fact that their owners were far too virtuous to be likely ever to have need of them being more than counterbalanced by the comfortable glow of satisfaction with which the existence of such a moral bank-balance suffused their rather self-righteous little bosoms. Wicked children, on the other hand, would laboriously collect tickets against a rainy day, and, having acc.u.mulated a sufficient store to pay for the consequences, would indulge in a prolonged orgy of sin until the last ticket was gone. Thomas Oates once found ten Special Task-Tickets in an old desk, and having straightway filled a like number of b.u.t.toned boots in the girls' dressing-room with soap-and-water, proffered the same in compensation. However, the possession of so much h.o.a.rded virtue in such a proclaimed reprobate roused the suspicions of the authorities. Inquiries were set on foot, the fraud was discovered, and Thomas was only saved from expulsion from Wentworth House School by the intercession of pretty Miss Amelia, who cherished a weakness for all renegades of the opposite s.e.x.

Pip's tear-stained ex-fiancee, Isabel Dinting, anxious to drive away the depression resultant upon her unfortunate attachment, allowed herself to become badly bitten with the ticket-collecting mania. Her own ten ordinary tickets invariably presented a full muster, and all her soul was set upon the acquisition of Specials. These, by the way, were transferable, and consequently Isabel's friends were requested to bestir themselves, and by extra acts of virtue earn something to contribute to her store. Pip himself a.s.sisted her. One day he caught and expelled from the cla.s.sroom a troublesome b.u.mblebee, and, much to his surprise, was awarded a Special Task-Ticket by the grateful Miss Amelia. He promptly handed over the gift to Isabel, whose gratification knew no bounds.

Touched by his adorer's thanks, Pip decided in his quiet way to help her further. Next morning the schoolroom suffered from a positive inundation of b.u.mblebees, and the services rendered by Pip in removing them were rewarded by more Specials, all of which were duly handed over to the now greatly consoled Isabel. When, however, the phenomenon occurred again on the following morning, Miss Mary, who did not share her sister's romantic belief in the integrity of the male s.e.x, became suspicious, and insisted on searching Pip's desk. An incautiously handled paper bag emitted a perfect cascade of moribund b.u.mblebees, and Pip's ingenious device for obliging a lady stood revealed. After that he made no more contributions to the supply.

Mention has already been made of that arch-ruffian Master Thomas Oates.

With him Pip waged war from the day that he entered the school.

Hostilities commenced immediately. Thomas dared Pip to place his hand in a can of almost boiling water in the dressing-room. Pip did so, and kept it there unwinkingly for the s.p.a.ce of a full minute. Next day his hand was skinless, and Father had to dress it for him in splendidly conspicuous bandages. Pip retaliated by initiating a breath-holding contest, in which his opponent was not only worsted, but admitted his defeat by an involuntary and sonorous gurgle right in the middle of one of Mr. Pocklington's customary harangues on nothing in particular in the large schoolroom. He was promptly scarified for his unseemly conduct and fined three Task-Tickets.

One afternoon, to the curiosity of all and the trepidation of some, "Whistle-in" sounded at two-fifteen instead of two-twenty-five.

Evidently something momentous was about to occur.

All his pupils being seated, and the roll having been called, Mr.

Pocklington, with an air of portentous solemnity, explained the reason for which they were a.s.sembled and met together. It was nothing very dreadful after all, but the seriousness with which the subject was treated by their preceptor impressed the children with a hazy feeling that they were a.s.sisting at a murder trial.

Some person or persons unknown, it appeared, had invaded the Study, and had embellished the features of a bust of Julius Caesar, which stood on the mantelpiece, with some a.s.sorted coloured chalks, which further investigation proved to have been stolen from the chalk-box by the blackboard. Mr. Pocklington, who was not blessed with a sense of humour, sought to drive home the enormity of this offence by ocular demonstration. He rang the bell; and after a short but impressive pause the door of the schoolroom was thrown open by the pageboy, and the butler staggered majestically in, carrying Julius Caesar on a tea-tray.

That empire-builder's "make-up" could hardly be called a becoming one. A red nose gave him a bibulous appearance, his blue chin suggested late rising and the absence of a razor, and a highly unsymmetrical moustache, executed in mauve chalk, stood out in vivid contrast to his blackened right eye. It says much for the impression which Mr.

Pocklington's introductory harangue had produced that not a child in the room so much as smiled.

The perspiring butler having set down his alcoholic-looking burden upon a small table and withdrawn, attended by his satellite,--the only person present, by the way, who appeared inclined to regard the situation with levity,--Mr. Pocklington once more addressed his cowering audience.

"I will now ask the perpetrator of this outrage," he thundered, "to stand up, that I may punish him as he deserves."

The little girls all shivered with apprehension, but one or two little boys looked slightly amused. They were not very old or experienced, but they were not green enough to join gratuitously in a game of "Dilly, Dilly, come and be killed!"

Mr. Pocklington played his next card.

"I may add," he continued, "that a boy was seen to leave the Study in a surrept.i.tious manner shortly after this offence must have been committed. No one has entered the Study since. That boy, therefore, must be the culprit. If he does not immediately respond to the dictates of his conscience and stand up in his place--I shall expose him! Now, please!"

There was a death-like silence, suddenly broken by piercing shrieks from one Gwendoline Harvey, aged seven, for whose infant nerves the strain had proved too great.

"Please, it wasn't me," she wailed, "and--and--and I've lost my hankey!"

Tender-hearted Miss Arabella supplied the deficiency, and led her out, still sobbing. The inquisition was resumed.

"I shall give the culprit one more minute," announced Mr. Pocklington in the tones of a Grand Inquisitor.

There was another tense silence. The inmates of Wentworth House School breathed hard, looked straight before them, and waited with their small mouths wide open. One or two little girls--and small boys, for that matter--gripped the benches convulsively, and with difficulty refrained from screaming.

"The minute has elapsed," proclaimed the Grand Inquisitor. "Philip, stand up!"

"Ah!" A long, shuddering sigh, partly of relief and partly of apprehension, ran round the room. Pipette turned deathly pale. Pip rose slowly to his feet, staring intently in his disconcerting way at the besotted features of Julius Caesar.

"Philip," said Mr. Pocklington, "you were seen coming out of the Study at one-twenty. What have you to say?"

Pip had nothing to say, but transferred his gaze to Mr. Pocklington. As a matter of fact he had not entered the Study. He had spent some time, it was true, in the pa.s.sage outside the door, but that was because he was waiting for Thomas Oates, having arranged to meet him there for five minutes, for the purpose of adjusting a small difference on a matter of a purely personal character, calling for plenty of elbow-room and freedom from publicity. Tommy Oates had not appeared, and Pip had been late for luncheon in consequence.

"Do you confess to this outrage?" inquired Mr. Pocklington, coming suddenly to the point.

Pip collected himself. Then as common politeness seemed to demand some sort of reply, he said, "No."

Another slight shudder pa.s.sed round the room.

"Do you know anything about the matter?"

Pip was about to reply with another negative, when it suddenly flashed across his mind that as he stood outside the Study waiting for Master Oates he had experienced considerable difficulty in getting rid of Isabel Dinting, who had hovered around him in a highly flattering but most embarra.s.sing fashion just when he wished to compose and concentrate his faculties for his coming interview with Tommy. What was she doing there? What could her business have been? In plain truth she had come to avert a possible battle between Pip and Tommy, but this never occurred to Pip: he had not thought it possible that any one should take such a close interest in his movements. Anyhow this was no concern of his. Accordingly he said, "No" a second time.

Then came another question.

"Do you deny having been in the Study?"

"Yes."

"But you were seen coming from the pa.s.sage leading to the Study door."

No answer.

"Do you admit that you were in that pa.s.sage?"