Vice Versa Part 29

"Have you anything on your mind?" asked the Doctor suddenly.

Paul could hear steps and voices in the adjoining cloakroom--the churchgoers had returned. "Yes--no!" he answered, losing his head completely now.

"That's a somewhat extraordinary, not to say an ambiguous, reply," said the Doctor; "what am I to understand by----"

There was a tap at the door. Paul started to his feet in a panic. "Don't let him in!" he shrieked, finding his voice at last. "Hear me first--you shall hear me first! Say that other rascal is not to come in. He wants to ruin me!"

"I was going to say I was engaged," said the Doctor; "but there's something under this I must understand. Come in, whoever you are."

And the door opened softly, and Chawner stepped meekly in; he was rather pale and breathed hard, but was otherwise quite composed.

"Now, then, Chawner," said the Doctor impatiently, "what is it? Have you something on your mind, too?"

"Please, sir," said Chawner, "has Bult.i.tude told you anything yet?"

"No, why? Hold your tongue, Bult.i.tude. I shall hear Chawner now--not you!"

"Because, sir," explained Chawner, "he knew I had made up my mind to tell you something I thought you ought to know about him, and so he threatened to come first and tell some falsehood (I'm sure I don't know what) about me, sir. I think I ought to be here too."

"It's a lie!" shouted Paul, "What a villain that boy is! Don't believe a word he says, Dr. Grimstone; it's all false--all!"

"This is very suspicious," said the Doctor; "if your conscience were good, Bult.i.tude, you could have no object in preventing me from hearing Chawner. Chawner, in spite of some obvious defects in his character," he went on, with a gulp (he never could quite overcome a repulsion to the boy), "is, on the whole, a right-minded and, ah, conscientious boy. I hear Chawner first."

"Then, sir, if you please," said Chawner, with an odious side smirk of triumph at Paul, who, quite crushed by the horror of the situation, had collapsed feebly on his chair again, "I thought it was my duty to let you see this. I found it to-day in Bult.i.tude's prayerbook, sir." And he handed d.i.c.k's unlucky scrawl to the Doctor, who took it to the lamp and read it hurriedly through.

After that there was a terrible moment of dead silence; then the Doctor looked up and said shortly, "You did well to tell me of this, Chawner; you may go now."

When they were alone once more he turned upon the speechless Paul with furious scorn and indignation. "Contemptible liar and hypocrite," he thundered, pacing restlessly up and down the room in his excitement, till Paul felt very like Daniel, without his sense of security, "you are unmasked--unmasked, sir! You led me to believe that you were as much shocked and pained at this girl's venturing to write to you as I could be myself. You called it, quite correctly, 'forward and improper'; you pretended you had never given her the least encouragement--had not heard her name even--till to-day. And here is a note, written, as I should imagine, some time since, in which you address her as 'Connie Davenant,'

and have the impudence to admire the hat she wore the Sunday before! I shudder, sir, to think of such duplicity, such precocious and shameless depravity. It astounds me. It deprives me of all power to think!"

Paul made some faint and inarticulate remark about being a family man--always most particular, and so forth--luckily it pa.s.sed unheard.

"What shall I do with you?" continued the Doctor; "how shall I punish such monstrous misconduct?"

"Don't ask _me_, sir," said Paul, desperately--"only, for heaven's sake, get it over as soon as possible."

"If I linger, sir," retorted the Doctor, "it is because I have grave doubts whether your offence can be expiated by a mere flogging--whether that is not altogether too light a retribution."

"He can't want to _torture_ me," thought Paul.

"Yes," said the Doctor again, "the doubt has prevailed. On a mind so hardened the cane would leave no lasting impression. I cannot allow your innocent companions to run the risk of contamination from your society.

I must not permit this serpent to glide uncrushed, this c.o.c.katrice to practise his epistolary wiles, within my peaceful fold. My mind is made up--at whatever cost to myself--however it may distress and grieve your good father, who is so pathetically anxious for you to do him credit, sir. I must do my duty to the parents of the boys entrusted to my care.

I shall not flog you, sir, for I feel it would be useless. I shall expel you."

"What!" Paul leaped up incredulous. "Expel me? Do I hear you aright, Dr.

Grimstone? Say it again--you will expel me?"

"I have said it," the Doctor said sternly; "no expostulations can move me now" (as if Mr. Bult.i.tude was likely to expostulate!) "Mrs. Grimstone will see that your boxes are packed the first thing to-morrow morning, and I shall take you myself to the station and consign you to the home you have covered with blushes and shame, by the 9.15 train, and I shall write a letter to-night explaining the causes for your dismissal."

Mr. Bult.i.tude covered his face with his hands, to hide, not his shame and distress, but his indecent rapture. It seemed almost too good to be true! He saw himself about to be provided with every means of reaching home in comfort and safety. He need dread no pursuit now. There was no chance, either, of his being forced to return to the prison-house--the Doctor's letter would convince even d.i.c.k of the impossibility of that.

And, best of all, this magnificent stroke of good luck had been obtained without the ignominy and pain of a flogging, without even the unpleasant necessity of telling his strange secret.

But (having gained some experience during his short stay at the school) he had the duplicity to pretend to sob bitterly.

"But one night more, sir," continued the Doctor, "shall you pa.s.s beneath this roof, and that apart from your fellows. You will occupy the spare bedroom until the morning, when you quit the school in disgrace--for ever."

I said in another chapter that this Sunday would find Paul, at its close, after a trying course of emotions, in a state of delicious ecstasy of pure relief and happiness--and really that scarcely seems too strong an expression for his feelings.

When he found himself locked securely into a comfortable, warm bedroom, with curtains and a carpet in it, safe from the persecutions of all those terrible boys, and when he remembered that this was actually the last night of his stay here--that he would certainly see his own home before noon next day, the reaction was so powerful that he could not refrain from skipping and leaping about the room in a kind of hysterical gaiety.

And as he laid his head down on a yielding lavender-scented pillow, his thoughts went back without a pang to the varied events of the day; they had been painful, very painful, but it was well worth while to have gone through them to appreciate fully the delightful intensity of the contrast. He freely forgave all his tormentors, even Chawner--for had not Chawner procured his release?--and he closed his eyes at last with a smile of Sybaritic satisfaction and gentle longing for the Monday's dawn to break.

And yet some, after his experiences, would have had their misgivings.

13. _A Respite_

"Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras."

Blithe and gay was Mr. Bult.i.tude when he opened his eyes on Monday morning and realised his incredible good fortune; in a few hours he would be travelling safely and comfortably home, with every facility for regaining his rights. He chuckled--though his sense of humour was not large--he chuckled, as he lay snugly in bed, to think of d.i.c.k's discomfiture on seeing him return so unexpectedly; he began to put it down, quite unwarrantably, to his own cleverness, as having conceived and executed such a stroke of genius as procuring his own expulsion.

He remained in bed until long after the getting-up bell had rung, feeling that his position ensured him perfect impunity in this, and when he rose at length it was in high spirits, and he dressed himself with a growing toleration for things in general, very unlike his ordinary frame of mind. When he had finished his toilet, the Doctor entered the room.

"Bult.i.tude," he said gravely, "before sending you from us, I should like to hear from your own lips that you are not altogether without contrition for your conduct."

Mr. Bult.i.tude considered that such an acknowledgment could not possibly do any harm, so he said--as, indeed, he might with perfect truth--that "he very much regretted what had pa.s.sed."

"I am glad to hear that," said the Doctor, more briskly, "very glad; it relieves me from a very painful responsibility. It may not impossibly induce me to take a more lenient view of your case."

"Oh!" gasped Mr. Bult.i.tude, feeling very uncomfortable all at once.

"Yes; it is a serious step to ruin a boy's career at its outset by unnecessary harshness. Nothing, of course, can palliate the extreme baseness of your behaviour. Still from certain faint indications in your character of better things, I do not despair even yet (after you have received a public lesson at my hands, which you will never forget) of rearing you to become in time an ornament to the society in which it will be your lot to move. I will not give up in despair--I will persevere a little longer."

"Thank you!" Paul faltered, with a sudden sinking sensation.

"Mrs. Grimstone, too," said the Doctor, "has been interceding for you; she has represented to me that a public expression of my view of your conduct, together with a sharp, severe dose of physical pain, would be more likely to effect a radical improvement in your character, and to soften your perverted heart, than if I sent you away in hopeless disgrace, without giving you an opportunity of showing a desire to amend."

"It's--very kind of Mrs. Grimstone," said Paul faintly.

"Then I hope you will show your appreciation of her kindness. Yes, I will not expel you. I will give you one more chance to retrieve your lost reputation. But, for your own sake, and as a public warning, I shall take notice of your offence in public. I shall visit it upon you by a sound flogging before the whole school at eleven o'clock. You need not come down till then--your breakfast will be sent up to you."

Paul made a frantic attempt to dissuade him from his terrible determination. "Dr. Grimstone," he said, "I--I should much prefer being expelled, if it is all the same to you."

"It is not all the same to me," said the Doctor. "This is mere pride and obstinacy, Bult.i.tude; I should do wrong to take any notice of it."

"I--I tell you I have great objection to--to being flogged," said Paul eagerly; "it wouldn't improve me at all; it would harden me, sir,--harden me. I--I cannot allow you to flog me, Dr. Grimstone. I have strong prejudices against the system of corporal punishment. I object to it on principle. Expulsion would make me quite a different being, I a.s.sure you; it would reform me--save me--it would indeed."