Vice Versa Part 11

As this appeal was not of a very conciliatory nature they at once proceeded to form a circle round him and, judging their distance with great accuracy, jerked towels at his person with such diabolical dexterity that the wet corners cut him at all points like so many fine thongs, and he span round like a top, dancing, and, I regret to add, swearing violently, at the pain.

When he was worked up almost to frenzy pitch Biddlecomb's sweet low voice cried, "_Cave_, you fellows! I hear Grim. Let him undress now, and we can lam it into him afterwards with slippers!"

At this they all cast off such of their clothes as they still wore, and slipped modestly and peacefully into bed, just as Dr. Grimstone's large form appeared at the doorway. Mr. Bult.i.tude made as much haste as he could, but did not escape a reprimand from the Doctor as he turned the gas out; and as soon as he had made the round of the bedrooms and his heavy tread had died away down the staircase, the light-hearted occupants of No. 6 "lammed" it into the unhappy Paul until they were tired of the exercise and left him to creep sore and trembling with rage and fright into his cold hard bed.

Then, after a little desultory conversation, one by one sank from incoherence into silence, and rose from silence to snores, while Paul alone lay sleepless, listening to the creeping tinkle of the dying fire, drearily wondering at the marvellous change that had come over his life and fortunes in the last few hours, and feverishly composing impa.s.sioned appeals which were to touch the Doctor's heart and convince his reason.

5. _Disgrace_

"Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning's face."

Sleep came at last, and brought too brief forgetfulness. It was not till the dull grey light of morning was glimmering through the blinds that Mr. Bult.i.tude awoke to his troubles.

The room was bitterly cold, and he remained shivering in bed for some time, trying to realise and prepare for his altered condition.

He was the only one awake. Now and then from one of the beds around a boy would be heard talking in his sleep, or laughing with holiday glee--at the drolleries possibly of some pantomime performed for his amus.e.m.e.nt in the Theatre Royal, Dreamland--a theatre mercifully open to all boys free of charge, long after the holidays have come to an end, the only drawbacks being a certain want of definiteness in the plot and scenery, and a liability to premature termination of the vaguely splendid performance.

Once Kiffin, the new boy, awoke with a start and a heavy sigh, but he cried himself to sleep again almost immediately.

Mr. Bult.i.tude could bear being inactive no longer. He thought, if he got up, he might perhaps see his misfortunes shrink to a more bearable, less hopeless scale, and besides, he judged it prudent, for many reasons, to finish his toilet before the sleepers began theirs.

Very stealthily, dreading to rouse anyone and attract attention in the form of slippers, he broke the clinking crust of ice in one of the basins and, shuddering from the shock, bathed face and hands in the biting water. He parted his hair, which from natural causes he had been unable to accomplish for some years, and now found an awkwardness in accomplishing neatly, and then stole down the dark creaking staircase just as the butler in the hall began to swing the big railway bell which was to din stern reality into the sleepy ears above.

In the schoolroom a yawning maid had just lighted the fire, from which turbid yellow clouds of sulphurous smoke were pouring into the room, making it necessary to open the windows and lower a temperature that was far from high originally.

Paul stood shaking by the mantelpiece in a very bad temper for some minutes. If the Doctor had come in then, he might have been spurred by indignation to utter his woes, and even claim and obtain his freedom.

But that was not to be.

The door did open presently, however, and a little girl appeared; a very charming little maiden indeed, in a neat dark costume relieved by a fresh white pinafore. She had deep grey eyes and glossy brown hair falling over her forehead and down her back in soft straight ma.s.ses, her face was oval rather than round, and slightly serious, though her smile was pretty and gay.

She ran towards Mr. Bult.i.tude with a glad little cry, stretching out her hands.

"d.i.c.k! dear d.i.c.k!" she said, "I am so glad! I thought you'd be down early; as you used to be. I wanted to sit up last night so very much, but mamma wouldn't let me."

Some might have been very glad to be welcomed in this way, even vicariously. As for boys, it must have been a very bad school indeed which Dulcie Grimstone could not have robbed of much of its terrors.

Mr. Bult.i.tude, however, as has been explained, did not appreciate children--being a family man himself. When one sees their petty squabbles and jealousies, hears their cruel din, and pays for their monkeyish mischief, perhaps the daintiest children seem but an earthly order of cherubim. He was only annoyed and embarra.s.sed by the interruption, though he endured it.

"Ah," he said with condescension, "and so you're Dr. Grimstone's little girl, are you? How d'ye do, my dear?"

Dulcie stopped and looked at him, with drawn eyebrows and her soft mouth quivering. "What makes you talk like that?" she asked.

"How ought I to talk?" said Paul.

"You didn't talk like that before," said Dulcie plaintively. "I--I thought perhaps you'd be glad to see me. You were once. And--and--when you went away last you asked me to--to--kiss you, and I did, and I wish I hadn't. And you gave me a ginger lozenge with your name written on it in lead pencil, and I gave you a cough-lozenge with mine; and you said it was to show that you were my sweetheart and I was yours. But I suppose you've eaten the one I gave you?"

"This is dreadful!" thought Mr. Bult.i.tude. "What shall I do now? The child evidently takes me for that little scoundrel d.i.c.k." "Tut-tut," he said aloud, "little girls like you are too young for such nonsense. You ought to think about--about your dolls, and--ah, your needlework--not sweethearts!"

"You say that now!" cried Dulcie indignantly. "You know I'm not a little girl, and I've left off playing with dolls--almost. Oh, d.i.c.k, don't be unkind! You haven't changed your mind, have you?"

"No," said Paul dismally, "I've changed my body. But there--you wouldn't understand. Run away and play somewhere, like a good little girl!"

"I know what it is!" said Dulcie. "You've been out to parties, or somewhere, and seen some horrid girl ... you like ... better than me!"

"This is absurd, you know," said Mr. Bult.i.tude. "You can't think how absurd it is! Now, you'll be a very foolish little girl if you cry.

You're making a mistake. I'm not the d.i.c.k you used to know!"

"I know you're not!" sobbed Dulcie. "But oh, d.i.c.k, you will be. Promise me you will be!" And, to Paul's horror and alarm, she put her arms round his neck, and cried piteously on his shoulder.

"Good gracious!" he cried, "let me go. Don't do that, for Heaven's sake!

I can hear some one coming. If it's your father, it will ruin me!"

But it was too late. Over her head he saw Tipping enter the room, and stand glaring at them menacingly. Dulcie saw him too, and sprang away to the window, where she tried to dry her eyes unperceived, and then ran past him with a hurried good morning, and escaped, leaving Paul alone with the formidable Tipping.

There was an awkward silence at first, which Tipping broke by saying, "What have you been saying to make her cry, eh?"

"What's that to you, sir?" said Paul, trying to keep his voice firm.

"Why, it's just this to me," said Tipping, "that I've been spoons on Dulcie myself ever since I came, and she never would have a word to say to me. I never could think why, and now it turns out to be you! What do you mean by cutting me out like this? I heard her call you 'dear d.i.c.k.'"

"Don't be an a.s.s, sir!" said Paul angrily.

"Now, none of your cheek, you know!" said Tipping, edging up against him with a dangerous inclination first to jostle aggressively, and then maul his unconscious rival. "You just mind what I say. I'm not going to have Dulcie bothered by a young beggar in the second form; she deserves something better than that, anyway, and I tell you that if I once catch you talking to her in the way you did just now, or if I hear of her favouring you more than any other fellows, I'll give you the very juiciest licking you ever had in your life. So look out!"

At this point the other boys began to straggle down and cl.u.s.ter round the fire, and Paul withdrew from the aggrieved Tipping, and looked drearily out of the window on the hard road and bare black trees outside.

"I _must_ tell the Doctor how I'm situated!" he thought; "and yet directly I open my mouth, he threatens to flog me. If I stay here, that little girl will be always trying to speak to me, and I shall be thrashed by the red-haired boy. If I could only manage to speak out after breakfast!"

It was not without satisfaction that he remembered that he paid extra for "meat for breakfast" in his son's school-bills, for he was beginning to look forward to meal-time with the natural desire of a young and healthy frame for nourishment.

At eight o'clock the Doctor came in and announced breakfast, leading the way himself to what was known in the school as the "Dining Hall." It scarcely deserved so high-sounding a name perhaps, being a long low room on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor, with a big fireplace, fitted with taps, and baking ovens, which provoked the suspicion that it had begun existence as a back kitchen.

The Doctor took his seat alone at a cross table forming the top of one of the two rows of tables, set with white cups and saucers, and plates well heaped with the square pieces of bread and b.u.t.ter, while Mrs.

Grimstone with Dulcie and Tom, sat at the foot of the same row, behind two ugly urns of dull block-tin.

But when Mr. Bult.i.tude, more hungry than he had felt for years, found his place at one of the tables, he was disgusted to find upon his plate--not, as he had confidently expected, a couple of plump poached eggs, with their appetising contrast of ruddy gold and silvery white, not a crisp and crackling sausage or a mottled omelette, not even the homely but luscious rasher, but a brace of chill forbidding sardines, lying grim and headless in bilious green oil!

It was a fish he positively loathed, nor could it be reasonably expected that the confidence necessary for a declaration was to be forgotten by so sepulchral a form of nutriment.

He roused himself, however, to swallow them, together with some of the thin and tin-flavoured coffee. But the meal as a whole was so different from the plentiful well-cooked breakfasts he had sat down before for years as a matter of course, that it made him feel extremely unwell.

No talking was allowed during the meal. The Doctor now and then looked up from his dish of kidneys on toast (at which envious glances were occasionally cast) to address a casual remark to his wife across the long row of plates and cups, but, as a rule, the dull champing sound of boys solemnly and steadily munching was all that broke the silence.

Towards the end, when the plates had been generally cleared, and the boys sat staring with the stolidity of repletion at one another across the tables, the junior house-master, Mr. Tinkler, made his appearance.

He had lately left a small and little-known college at Cambridge, where he had contrived, contrary to expectation, to evade the uncoveted wooden spoon by just two places, which enabled the Doctor to announce himself as being "a.s.sisted by a graduate of the University of Cambridge who has taken honours in the Mathematical Tripos."