St. Winifred's Part 44

"Well?"

"Do you mind coming out into the court, then?" said Tracy, glancing at Wilton.

"Oh, never mind me," said Wilton; "I'll go out."

"I shan't be a minute," said Tracy, "and then you can come back. What I wanted to say, Kenrick, was only this, and it was a great shame of me not to tell you before; but I see now that I've been a poor tool in the hands of those fellows. Jones made you believe, you know, _that Evson had told him_ all about your home affairs, and about the pony-chaise, and so on," said Tracy, hurrying over the obnoxious subject.

"Yes, yes," said Kenrick impatiently. "Well, he never did, you know.

I've heard Jones confess it often with his own lips."

"How can I believe him in one lie more than another, then? I believe the fellow couldn't open his lips without a lie flying out of them. How could Jones possibly have known about it any other way? There was only one fellow who could have told him, and that was Evson. Evson _must_ have told me a lie when he said that he'd mentioned it to no one but Power."

"I don't believe Evson ever told a lie in his life," said Tracy.

"However, I can explain your difficulty. Jones was in the same train as Evson; he saw you and him ride home; and, staying at Littleton, the next town to where you live, he heard all about you there. I've heard him say so."

"The black-hearted brute!" was all that Kenrick could e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, as he paced up and down his study with agitated steps. "O Tracy, what an utter, utter a.s.s, and fool, and wretch, I've been."

"So have I," said Tracy; "but I'm sorry now, and hope to improve.

Better late than never. Good morning, Kenrick."

When Wilton returned to the study a quarter of an hour after, he found Kenrick's attention riveted by a note which he held in his hand, and which he seemed to be reading with his whole soul. So absorbed was he that he was not even disturbed by Wilton's entrance. Listlessly turning over the pages of his Herodotus to divert his painful thoughts by looking for the pa.s.sage about the crocodiles, Kenrick had found an old note directed to himself. Painful thoughts, it seems, were to give him no respite that day; how well he knew that handwriting, altered a little now, more firm and mature, but even then a good, though a boyish hand.

He tore it open; it was dated three years back, and signed Walter Evson.

It was the long lost note in which Walter, once or twice rebuffed, had frankly and even earnestly asked pardon for any supposed fault, and begged for an immediate reconciliation--the very note of which Walter of course imagined that Kenrick had received, and from his not taking any notice of it, inferred, that all hope of renewing their friendship was finally at an end. Kenrick could not help thinking how very different a great part of his school-life would have been, had that note but come to hand!

He saw it all now as clearly as possible--his haste, his rash and false inferences, his foolish jealousy, his impetuous pride, his quick degeneracy, all the mischief he had caused, all the folly he had done, all the time he had wasted. Disgraced, degraded, despised by the best fellows in the school, censured unanimously by his colleagues, given up by masters whom he respected, without a single true friend, grievously and hopelessly in the wrong from the very commencement, he now felt _bowed down and conquered_, and, to Wilton's amazement, he laid his head upon his arms on the table before him without saying a word, and broke into a heavy sob. If his conscience had not declared against him, he could have borne everything else; but when conscience is our enemy, there is no chance of a mind at ease. Kenrick sat there miserable and self-condemned; he had injured his friend, injured his fellows, and injured, most deeply of all, himself. For, as the poet sings--

"He that wrongs his friend, Wrongs himself more; and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast; Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.

And that drags down his life."

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

IN THE DEPTHS.

How easy to keep free from sin, How hard that freedom to recall!

For dreadful truth it is, that men _Forget_ the heavens from which they fall.

Cov. Patmore.

It may be thought strange that Kenrick did not at once, while his heart was softened, and when he saw so clearly how much he had erred, go there and then to Walter, confess to him that everything was now explained, that he had never received his last note, and that, for his own sake, he desired to be restored, as far as was possible, to his former footing.

If that had not been for Kenrick a period of depression and ill-repute, he would undoubtedly have done so; but he did not like to go, now that he was in disgrace, now that his friendship could do no credit, and, as he feared, confer no pleasure on any one, and under circ.u.mstances which would make it appear that he had changed his views under the influence of selfish interest, rather than of true conviction or generous impulse.

He thought, too, that friendship over was like water spilt, and could not be gathered up again; that it was like a broken thread which cannot again be smoothly reunited. So things remained on the same footing as before, except that Kenrick's whole demeanour was changed for the better. He bore his punishment in a quiet and manly way; took his place without a murmur below Henderson at the bottom of the monitors; did not by any bravado attempt to conceal that he felt justly humiliated, and gave Whalley his best a.s.sistance in governing the Noelites, and bringing them back by slow but sure degrees to a better tone of thought and feeling. Towards Walter especially his whole manner altered. Hitherto he had made a point of always opposing him, and taking every opportunity to show him a strong dislike. If Walter had embraced one opinion at a monitors' meeting, it was quite sufficient reason for Kenrick to support another; if Walter had spoken on one side at the debating society, Kenrick held it to be a logical consequence that, whatever he thought, he should speak on the other, and use his powers of speaking, which were considerable, to throw on Walter's ill.u.s.trations and arguments all the ridicule he could. All this folly and virulence was now abandoned; the swagger which Kenrick had adopted was from that time entirely laid aside. At the very next meeting of the debating society he spoke, as indeed he generally thought, on the same side with Walter; and spoke, not in his usual flippant conceited style, but more seriously and earnestly, treating Walter's speech with approval and almost with deference. Every one noticed and rejoiced in this change of manner, and none more so than Walter Evson and Power.

Kenrick finished with these words--"Gentlemen, before I sit down I have a task to perform, which, however painful it may be to me, it is due to you that I should not neglect. I may do it now, because I see that none but the sixth-form are present, and because I may not have another early opportunity. I have incurred, as you are all well aware, a unanimous vote of censure from my colleagues--unanimous, although, through a delicacy which I am thankful to be still capable of keenly appreciating, the name of one..." the word "friend" sprang to his lips, but humility forbade him to adopt it, and he said... "the name of one monitor is absent from the appended signatures. Gentlemen, I do not like public recantations or public professions, but I feel it my duty to acknowledge without palliation that I feel the censure to have been deserved." His voice faltered with emotion as he proceeded: "I have been misled, gentlemen, and I have been labouring for a long time under a grievous mistake, which has led me to do much injustice and inflict many wrongs; for these errors I now ask the pardon of all, and especially of those who are most concerned. Your censure, gentlemen, concluded with a kind and friendly wish, and I cannot trust myself to say more now, than to echo that wish with all my heart, and to hope that ere long the efforts which I shall endeavour to make may succeed in persuading you to give me back your confidence and esteem, and to erase from the book the permanent record of your recent disapproval."

Every one present felt how great must have been the suffering which could wring such an expression of regret from a nature so proud as Kenrick's. They listened in silence, and when he sat down greeted him with an applause which showed how readily he might win their regard; while many of them came round him and shook hands with warmth.

"Gentlemen," said Power, rising, "I am sure we all feel that the remarks we have just heard do honour to the speaker. I hold in my hand the monitors' book, open at the page on which our censure was written.

After what we have heard there can be no necessity why that page should remain where it is for a single day. I beg to move that leave may be given me to tear it out at once."

"And I am eager to second the motion," said Henderson, starting up at the same moment with several others; "and, Kenrick--if I may break through, on such an occasion as this, our ordinary forms, and address you by name--I am sure you will believe that though I have very often opposed you, no one will be more glad than myself to welcome you back as a friend, and to hope that you may soon be, what you are so capable of being, not only our greatest support, but also one of the brightest ornaments of our body." He held out his hand, which Kenrick readily grasped, whispering, with a sigh, "Ah, Flip, how I wish that we had never broken with each other!"

The proposal was carried by acclamation, and Power accordingly tore out the sheet and put it in the fire. And that night brightened for Kenrick into the dawn of better days. Twenty times over Walter thought that Kenrick was going to speak to him--for his manner was quite different; but Kenrick, though every particle of ill-will had vanished from his mind, and had been replaced by his old unimpaired affection, put off the reconciliation until he should have been able in some measure to recover his old position, and to meet his friend on a footing of greater equality.

Do not let any one think that his reformation was too easy. It took him long to conquer himself, and he found the task sorely difficult; but after many failures and relapses, the words of another who had sinned and suffered three thousand years ago, and who, after many a struggle, had discovered the true secret, came home to Kenrick and whispered to him the message--"Then I said, _It is mine own infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right-hand of the Most Highest_."

It was not long before one great difficulty confronted him, the consequence of former misdeeds, and put him under circ.u.mstances which demanded the whole courage of his character, and thoroughly tested the sincerity of his repentance.

After Mackworth's expulsion, and under Whalley's good government, the state of the Noelites greatly improved. Charlie Evson, for whom, now, by the by, Kenrick always did everything that lay in his power, became far more a model among the younger boys than Wilton had ever been, and there was a final end of suppers, smoking parties, organised cribbing, and recognised "crams." But just as the house was recovering lost ground, and had ceased to be quite a byeword in the school, it was thrown into consternation by a long-continued series of petty thefts.

Small sums were extracted from the boys' jacket pockets after they had gone to bed; from the play-boxes which were not provided with good locks and keys; from the private desks in the cla.s.srooms, from the dormitories, and from several of the studies. There was no clue to the offender, and first of all suspicion fell strongly on the new boy, little Elgood. A few trifling items of circ.u.mstantial evidence seemed to point him out, and it began to be gradually whispered, no one exactly knew how or by whom, that he must be the guilty boy. Hints were thrown out to him to this effect; little bits of paper, on which were written the words "Thou shalt not steal," or "The devil will have thieves," were dropped about in his books and wherever he was likely to find them, and whenever the subject was brought on the tapis his manner was closely watched. The effect was unsatisfactory; for Elgood was a timid nervous boy, and the uneasiness to which this nervousness gave rise was set down as a sign of guilt. At length a sovereign and a half were stolen out of Whalley's study, and as Elgood, being Whalley's f.a.g, had constant access to the study, and might very well have known that Whalley had the money, and in what place he kept it, the prevalent suspicions were confirmed.

The boys, with their usual thoughtless haste, leapt to the conclusion that he must have been the thief.

The house was in a perfect ferment. However lightly one or two of them, like Penn, may have thought about taking trifles from small tradesmen, there was not a single one among them, not even Penn himself, whose morality did not brand this thieving from schoolfellows as wicked and mean. The boys felt, too, that it was a stigma on their house, and unhappily Just at the time when the majority were really anxious to raise their corporate reputation. Every one was filled with annoyance and disgust, and felt an anxious determination to discover and give up the thief.

At last the suspicions against Elgood proceeded so far, that out of mere justice to him the heads of the house, Whalley, Kenrick, and Bliss, thought it right that he should be questioned. So, after tea, all the house a.s.sembled in the cla.s.sroom, and Elgood was formally charged with the delinquency, and questioned about it, Wilton, in particular, urging him in almost a bullying tone to surrender and confess. The poor child was overwhelmed with terror--cried, blushed, answered incoherently, and lost his head, but would not for a moment confess that he had done it, and protested his innocence with many sobs and tears.

"Well, I suppose if he persists in denying it, we can't go any further,"

said Kenrick; "but I'm afraid, Elgood, that you must have had something to do with it, as every one seems to see ground for suspecting you."

"Oh, I hadn't, I hadn't; indeed I hadn't," wailed Elgood; "I wish you wouldn't say so, Kenrick; indeed I'm innocent, and I'd rather write home for the money ten times over than be suspected."

"So would any one, you little fool," said Wilton.

"Don't bully him in that way, Wilton," said Whalley; "it's not the way to get the truth out of him. Elgood, I should have thought you innocent, if you didn't behave so oddly."

"May I speak?" modestly asked a new voice. The speaker was Charlie Evson.

"Yes, certainly," said Kenrick, in an encouraging tone.

"Well then, please, Kenrick, and the whole of you, I think you _have_ had the truth out of him; and I think he _is_ innocent."

"Why, Charlie?" said Whalley; "what makes you think so?"

"Because I've asked him, and talked to him privately about it," said Charlie; "when you frighten him he gets confused, and contradicts himself, but he can explain whatever looks suspicious if you ask him kindly and Quietly."

"Bosh!" said Wilton; "who frightened him?"

"Silence, Wilton," said Whalley. "Well, Charlie, will you question him now for us?"

"That I will," said Charlie, advancing and putting his hand kindly round Elgood's shoulder, as he seated himself on the desk by which Elgood was standing. "Will you tell us, as I ask you, all you told me this morning?"

"Yes," said Elgood eagerly, while his whole manner changed from nervous tremor to perfect simplicity and quiet new that he had a friend to stand by him.

"Well, now, about the money you've been spending lately?" questioned Charlie, with a smile. "You usen't to be so flush of cash, you know, a month ago."

"I can tell you," answered Elgood; "I had a very large present--large for me, I mean--three weeks ago. My father sent me a pound, because it was my birthday, and my big brother and aunt sent me each a pound too."