Vice Versa Part 25

I am sorry to say that Mr. Bult.i.tude, fearing lest he should be asked if he had the required sum about him, and thus his penniless condition might be discovered and bring him trouble, got behind the door at the beginning of the money-changing transactions and remained there till it was over--it seemed to him that it would be too paltry to be disgraced for want of threepence.

Now, being thus completely furnished for their devotions, the school formed in couples in the hall and filed solemnly out for the march to church.

Mr. Bult.i.tude walked nearly last with Jolland, whose facile nature had almost forgotten his friend's shortcomings on the previous day. He kept up a perpetual flow of chatter which, as he never stopped for an answer, permitted Paul to indulge his own thoughts unrestrained.

"Are you going to put your threepenny-bit in?" said Jolland; "I won't if you don't. Sometimes, you know, when the plate comes round, old Grim squints down the pews to see we don't shirk. Then I put in sixpence.

Have you done your hymn? I do hate a hymn. What's the use of learning hymns? They won't mark you for them, you know, in any exam. I ever heard of, and it can't save you the expense of a hymnbook unless you learnt all the hymns in it, and that would take you years. Oh, I say, look!

there's young Mutlow and his governor and mater. I wonder what Mutlow's governor does? Mutlow says he's a 'gentleman' if you ask him, but I believe he lies. See that fly driving past? Mother Grim" (the irreverent youth always spoke of Mrs. Grimstone in this way) "and Dulcie are in it.

I saw Dulcie look at you, d.i.c.k. It's a shame to treat her as you did yesterday. There's young Tom on the box; don't his ears stick out rummily? I wonder if the 'ugly family' will be at church to-day? You know the ugly family; all with their mouths open and their eyes goggling, like a jolly old row of pantomime heads. And oh, d.i.c.k, suppose Connie Davenant's people have changed their pew--that'll be a sell for you rather, won't it?"

"I don't understand you," said Mr. Bult.i.tude stiffly; "and, if you don't object, I prefer not to be called upon to talk just now."

"Oh, all right!" said Jolland, "there aren't so many fellows who will talk to you; but just as you please--I don't want to talk."

And so the pair walked on in silence; Jolland with his nose in the air, determined that after this he really must cut his former friend as the other fellows had done, since his devotion was appreciated so little, and Paul watching the ascending double line of tall chimney-pot hats as they surged before him in regular movement, and feeling a dull wonder at finding himself setting out to church in such ill-a.s.sorted company.

They entered the church, and Paul was sent down to the extreme end of a pew next to the one reserved for the Doctor and his family. Dulcie was sitting there already on the other side of the part.i.tion; but she gave no sign of having noticed his arrival, being apparently absorbed in studying the rose-window over the altar.

He sat down in his corner with a sense of rest and almost comfort, though the seat was not a cushioned one. He had the inoffensive Kiffin for a neighbour, his chief tormentors were far away from him in one of the back pews, and here at least he thought no harm could come to him.

He could allow himself safely to do what I am afraid he generally did do under the circ.u.mstances--s.n.a.t.c.h a few intermittent but sweet periods of dreamless slumber.

But, while the service was proceeding, Mr. Bult.i.tude was suddenly horrified to observe that a young lady, who occupied a pew at right angles to and touching that in which he sat, was deliberately making furtive signals to him in a most unmistakable manner.

She was a decidedly pretty girl of about fifteen, with merry and daring blue eyes and curling golden hair, and was accompanied by two small brothers (who shared the same book and dealt each other stealthy and vicious kicks throughout the service), and by her father, a stout, short-sighted old gentleman in gold spectacles, who was perpetually making the wrong responses in a loud and confident tone.

To be signalled to in a marked manner by a strange young lady of great personal attractions might be a coveted distinction to other schoolboys, but it simply gave Mr. Bult.i.tude cold thrills.

"I suppose _that's_ 'Connie Davenant,'" he thought, shocked beyond measure as she caught his eye and coughed demurely for about the fourth time. "A very forward young person! I think somebody ought to speak seriously to her father."

"Good gracious! she's writing something on the flyleaf of her prayer-book," he said to himself presently. "I hope she's not going to send it to _me_. I won't take it. She ought to be ashamed of herself!"

Miss Davenant was indeed busily engaged in pencilling something on a blank sheet of paper; and, having finished, she folded it deftly into a c.o.c.ked-hat, wrote a few words on the outside, and placed it between the leaves of her book.

Then, as the congregation rose for the Psalms, she gave a meaning glance at the blushing and scandalised Mr. Bult.i.tude and by dexterous management of her prayer-book shot the little c.o.c.ked-hat, as if unconsciously, into the next pew.

By a very unfortunate miscalculation, however, the note missed its proper object, and, clearing the part.i.tion, fluttered deliberately down on the floor by Dulcie's feet.

Paul saw this with alarm; he knew that at all hazards he must get that miserable note into his own possession and destroy it. It might have his name somewhere about it; it might seriously compromise him.

So he took advantage of the noise the congregation made in repeating a verse aloud (it was not a high church) to whisper to Dulcie: "Little Miss Grimstone, excuse me, but there's a--a note in the pew down by your feet. I believe it's intended for me."

Dulcie had seen the whole affair and had been not a little puzzled by it, a clandestine correspondence being a new thing in her short experience; but she understood that in this golden-haired girl, her elder by several years, she saw her rival, for whom d.i.c.k had so basely abandoned her yesterday, and she was old enough to feel the slight and the sweetness of revenge.

So she held her head rather higher than usual, with her firm little chin projecting wilfully, and waited for the next verse but one before retorting, "Little Master Bult.i.tude, I know it is."

"Could you--can you manage to reach it?" whispered Paul entreatingly.

"Yes," said Dulcie, "I could."

"Then will you--when they sit down?"

"No," said Dulcie firmly, "I shan't."

The other girl, she noticed with satisfaction, had become aware of the situation and was evidently uneasy. She looked as imploringly as she dared at remorseless little Dulcie, as if appealing to her not to get her into trouble; but Dulcie bent her eyes obstinately on her book and would not see her.

If the letter had been addressed to any other boy in the school, she would have done her best to shield the culprits; but this she could not bring herself to do here. She found a malicious pleasure in remaining absolutely neutral, which of course was very wrong and ill-natured of her.

Mr. Bult.i.tude began now to be seriously alarmed. The fatal paper must be seen by some one in the Doctor's pew as soon as the congregation sat down again; and, if it reached the Doctor's hands, it was impossible to say what misconstruction he might put upon it or what terrible consequences might not follow.

He was innocent, perfectly innocent; but though the consciousness of innocence is frequently a great consolation, he felt that unless he could imbue the Doctor with it as well, it would not save him from a flogging.

So he made one more desperate attempt to soften Dulcie's resolution: "Don't be a naughty little girl," he said, very injudiciously for his purpose, "I tell you I must have it. You'll get me into a terrible mess if you're not careful!"

But although Dulcie had been extremely well brought up, I regret to say that the only answer she chose to make to this appeal was that slight contortion of the features, which with a pretty girl is euphemised as a "_moue_," and with a plain one is called "making a face." When he saw it he knew that all hope of changing her purpose must be abandoned.

Then they all sat down, and, as Paul had foreseen, there the white c.o.c.ked-hat lay on the dark pew-carpet, hideously distinct, with _billet doux_ in every fold of it!

It could only be a question of time now. The curate was reading the first lesson for the day, but Mr. Bult.i.tude heard not a verse of it. He was waiting with bated breath for the blow to fall.

It fell at last. Dulcie, either with the malevolent idea of hastening the crisis, or (which I prefer to believe for my own part) finding that her ex-lover's visible torments were too much for her desire of vengeance, was softly moving a heavy ha.s.sock towards the guilty note.

The movement caught her mother's eye, and in an instant the compromising paper was in her watchful hands.

She read it with incredulous horror, and handed it at once to the Doctor.

The golden-haired one saw it all without betraying herself by any outward confusion. She had probably had some experience in such matters, and felt tolerably certain of being able, at the worst, to manage the old gentleman in the gold spectacles. But she took an early opportunity of secretly conveying her contempt for the traitress Dulcie, who continued to meet her angry glances with the blandest unconsciousness.

Dr. Grimstone examined the c.o.c.ked-hat through his double eyegla.s.ses, with a heavy thunder-cloud gathering on his brows. When he had mastered it thoroughly, he bent forward and glared indignantly past his wife and daughter for at least half a minute into the pew where Mr. Bult.i.tude was cowering, until he felt that he was coming all to pieces under the piercing gaze.

The service pa.s.sed all too quickly after that. Paul sat down and stood up almost unconsciously with the rest; but for the first time in his life he could have wished the sermon many times longer.

The horror of his position quite petrified him. After all his prudent resolutions to keep out of mischief and to win the regard and confidence of his gaoler by his good conduct, like the innocent convict in a melodrama, this came as nothing less than a catastrophe. He walked home in a truly dismal state of limp terror.

Fortunately for him none of the others seemed to have noticed his misfortune, and Jolland made no further advances. But even the weather tended to increase his depression, for it was a bleak, cheerless day, with a bitter and searching wind sweeping the gritty roads where yesterday's rain was turned to black ice in the ruts, and the sun shone with a dull coppery glitter that had no warmth or geniality about it.

The nearer they came to Crichton House the more abjectly miserable became Mr. Bult.i.tude's state of mind. It was as much as he could do to crawl up the steps to the front door, and his knees positively clapped together when the Doctor, who had driven home, met them in the hall and said in a still grave voice, "Bult.i.tude, when you have taken off your coat, I want you in the study."

He was as long about taking off his coat as he dared, but at last he went trembling into the study, which he found empty. He remembered the room well, with its ebony-framed etchings on the walls, bookcases and blue china over the draped mantelpiece, even to a large case of elaborately carved Indian chessmen in bullock-carts and palanquins, on horses and elephants, which stood in the window-recess. It was the very room to which he had been shown when he first called about sending his son to the school. He had little thought then that the time would come when he would attend there for the purpose of being flogged; few things would have seemed less probable. Yet here he was.

But his train of thought was abruptly broken by the entrance of the Doctor. He marched solemnly in, holding out the offending missive. "Look at this, sir!" he said, shaking it angrily before Paul's eyes. "Look at this! what do you mean by receiving a flippant communication like this in a sacred edifice? What do you mean by it?"

"I--I didn't receive it," said Paul, at his wits' end.

"Don't prevaricate with me, sir; you know well enough it was intended for you. Have the goodness to read it now, and tell me what you have to say for yourself!"

Paul read it. It was a silly little school-girl note, half slang and half sentiment, signed only with the initials C.D. "Well, sir?" said the Doctor.

"It's very forward and improper--very," said Paul; "but it's not my fault--I can't help it. I gave the girl no encouragement. I never saw her before in all my life!"

"To my own knowledge, Bult.i.tude, she has sat in that pew regularly for a year."