Chapter Three.
How a Mysterious New Boy came to Stonebridge House.
When I rose next morning, and proceeded to take my turn at the washstand, and array my person in the travel-stained garments of the previous day, it seemed ages since I had parted with Brownstroke and entered the gloomy precincts of Stonebridge House.
Everything and everybody around me was gloomy. Even Flanagan seemed not yet to have got up the steam; and as for the other boys—they skulked morosely through the process of dressing, and hardly uttered a word. It was a beautiful day outside; the sun was lighting up the fields, and the birds were singing merrily in the trees; but somehow or other the good cheer didn’t seem to penetrate inside the walls of Stonebridge House.
I tried to get up a conversation with Flanagan, but he looked half-frightened and half guilty as I did so.
“I say,” said I, “couldn’t we open the window and let some fresh air in?”
(Mrs Hudson had always been strong on fresh air.)
“Look-out, I say,” said Flanagan, in a frightened whisper; “you’ll get us all in a row!”
“In a row?” I replied. “Who with?”
“Why, old Hen; but shut up, do you hear?” and here he dipped his face in the basin, and so effectually ended the talk.
This was quite a revelation to me. Get in a row with Miss Henniker for speaking to one of my schoolfellows in the dormitory! A lively prospect and no mistake.
Presently a bell rang, and we all wended our way down stairs into the parlour where I had yesterday enjoyed my tête-à-tête with Miss Henniker. Here we found that lady standing majestically in the middle of the room, like a general about to review a regiment.
“Show nails!” she ejaculated, as soon as all were assembled.
This mysterious mandate was the signal for each boy passing before her, exhibiting, as he did so, his hands.
As I was last in the procession I had time to watch the effect of this proceeding. “Showing nails,” as I afterwards found out, was a very old-established rule at Stonebridge House, and one under which every generation of “backward and troublesome boys” who resided there had groaned. If any boy’s hands or nails were, in the opinion of Miss Henniker, unclean or untidy, he received a bad mark, and was at once dismissed to the dormitory to remedy the defect.
One or two in front of me suffered thus, and a glance down at my own extremities made me a little doubtful as to my fate. I did what I could with them privately, but their appearance was not much improved.
At last I stood for inspection before the dreadful Henniker.
“Your hands are dirty, Batchelor. A bad mark. Go and wash them.”
The bad mark, whatever it might mean, appeared to me very unjust. Had I known the rule, it would have been different, but how was I to know, when no one had told me?
“Please, ma’am, I didn’t—”
“Two bad marks for talking!” was my only reply, and off I slunk, feeling rather crushed, to the dormitory.
I found Flanagan scrubbing at our basin.
“Ah,” said he, “I thought you’d get potted.”
“I think it’s a shame,” said I.
“Look-out, I say,” exclaimed Flanagan, skipping away as if he’d been shot, and resuming his wash at the other basin.
Presently he came back on tip-toe, and whispered, “Why can’t you talk lower, you young muff?”
“Surely she can’t hear, here up stairs?”
“Can’t she? That’s all you know! She hears every word you say all over the place, I tell you.”
I went on “hard all” at the nail-brush for a minute or so in much perplexity.
“Keep what you’ve got to say till you get outside. Thank goodness, she’s rheumatic or something, and we can open our mouths there. I say,” added he, looking critically at my hands, “you’d better give those nails of yours a cut, or you’ll get potted again.”
I was grateful for this hint, and felt in my pocket for my knife. In doing so I encountered the box of sweets Mrs Hudson had left in my hand yesterday, and which, amid other distractions, I had positively forgotten. “Oh, look here,” said I, producing the box, delighted to be able to do a good turn to my friendly schoolfellow. “Have some of these, will you?”
Flanagan’s face, instead of breaking out into grateful smiles, as I anticipated, assumed a sudden scowl, and at the same moment Miss Henniker entered the dormitory!
Quick as thought I plunged the box back into my pocket, and looked as unconcerned as it was possible to do under the trying circumstances.
“Flanagan and Batchelor, a bad mark each for talking,” said the now painfully familiar voice. “What have you there, Batchelor?” added she, holding out her hand. “Something Mrs Hudson gave me,” I replied.
“I wish to see it.”
I was prepared to resist. I could stand a good deal, but sheer robbery was a thing I never fancied. However, a knowing look on Flanagan’s face warned me to submit, and I produced the box.
The lady took it and opened it. Then closing it, she put it in her own pocket, saying—
“This is confiscated till the end of the term. Flanagan and Batchelor, ‘Show nails.’”
We did show nails. Mine still needed some trimming before they were satisfactory, and then I was bidden descend to the parlour for prayers.
Prayers at Stonebridge House consisted of a few sentences somewhat quickly uttered by Mr Ladislaw, who put in an appearance for the occasion, followed by a loud “Amen” from Miss Henniker, and in almost the same breath, on this occasion, the award of a bad mark to Philpot for having opened his eyes twice during the ceremony.
After this we partook of a silent breakfast, and adjourned for study. Miss Henniker dogged us wherever we went and whatever we did. She sat and glared at us all breakfast time; she sat and glared at us while Mr Ladislaw, or Mr Hashford, the usher, were drilling Latin grammar and arithmetic into us. She sat and glared while we ate our dinner, and she stood and glared when after school we assembled in the boot-room and prepared to escape to the playground. Even there, if we ventured to lift our voices too near the house, a bad mark was shot at us from a window, and if an unlucky ball should come within range of her claws it was almost certainly “confiscated.”
I don’t suppose Stonebridge House, except for Miss Henniker, was much worse than most schools for “backward and troublesome boys.” We were fairly well fed, and fairly well taught, and fairly well quartered. I even think we might have enjoyed ourselves now and then, had we been left to ourselves. But we never were left to ourselves. From morning to night, and, for all we could tell, from night till morning, we were looked after by the lady housekeeper, and that one fact made Stonebridge House almost intolerable.
We were lounging about in the so-called “playground” that afternoon, and I was beginning to discover a little more about some of my new schoolfellows, when there appeared walking towards us down the gravel path a boy about my own age.
He was slender and delicate-looking, I remember, and his pale face contrasted strangely with his almost black clustering hair and his dark big eyes. He wasn’t a handsome boy, I remember thinking; but there was something striking about him, for all that. It may have been his solemn expression, or his square jaw, or his eyes, or his brow, or his hair, or the whole of them put together. All I know is, that the sight of him as he appeared that afternoon walking towards us in the playground, has lived in my memory ever since, and will probably live there till I die.
“Here comes the new boy,” said Philpot. Of course we all knew it must be he.
“And a queer fish, too, by all appearances,” responded Flanagan.
“Very queer indeed,” said Hawkesbury. Hawkesbury was one of the two “backwards,”—but for all that he was the cleverest boy, so the others told me, in the whole school.
“He doesn’t seem very bashful,” said another.
Nor indeed did he. He sauntered slowly down the path, looking solemnly now on one side, now on the other, and now at us all, until presently he stood in our midst, and gazed half inquiringly, half doubtfully, from one to the other.
I know I felt a good deal more uncomfortable than he did himself, and was quite glad when Flanagan broke the solemn silence.
“Hullo, youngster, who are you, eh?”
“Smith,” laconically replied the new boy, looking his questioner in the face.
There was nothing impudent in the way he spoke or looked; but somehow or other his tone didn’t seem quite as humble and abject as old boys are wont to expect from new. Flanagan’s next inquiry therefore was a little more roughly uttered.
“What’s your Christian name, you young donkey? You don’t suppose you’re the only Smith in the world, do you?”
We laughed at this. It wasn’t half bad for Flanagan.
The new boy, however, remained quite solemn as he replied, briefly, “John Smith.”
“And where do you come from?” said Philpot, taking up the questioning, and determining to get more out of the new-comer than Flanagan had; “and who’s your father, do you hear? and how many sisters have you got? and why are you sent here? and are you a backward or a troublesome, eh?”
The new boy gazed in grave bewilderment at the questioner during this speech. When it was ended, he quietly proceeded to move off to another part of the playground without vouchsafing any reply.
But Philpot, who was on his mettle, prevented this manoeuvre by a sudden and dexterous grip of the arm, and drew him back into the circle.
“Do you hear what I say to you?” said he, roughly, emphasising his question with a shake. “What on earth do you mean by going off without answering?”
“It’s no business of yours, is it?” said the new boy, mildly.
“Yes,” exclaimed Philpot, “it is. You don’t suppose we fellows are going to be humbugged by a young sneak like you, do you?”
“I sha’n’t tell you, then!” quietly replied Smith.
This astounding reply, quietly as it was uttered, quite took away Philpot’s breath, and the breath of all of us. We were so astonished, indeed, that for some time no one could utter a word or make up his mind what to do next.
Then gradually it dawned on the company generally that this defiant, stuck-up youngster must immediately be put down.
“Come here!” said Philpot, as majestically as he could.
Smith remained where he was, as solemn as ever. But I, who stood near, could detect a queer light in his black eyes that looked rather ominous.
When one fellow, in the presence of an admiring audience, grandly orders a junior to “Come here!” and when that junior coolly declines to move, it is a very critical situation both for the boy who orders and the boy who disobeys. For the one, unless he follows up his brag, will pretty certainly be laughed at; and the other, unless he shows the white feather and runs away, will generally come in for a little rough usage. This seemed likely to happen now. As Smith would not come to Philpot for a thrashing, Philpot must go to Smith and thrash him where he stood. And so doubtless he would have done, had not Mr Hashford appeared at that very moment on the gravel walk and summoned us in to preparation.
This interruption was most unsatisfactory. Those who wanted to see what the new boy was made of were disappointed, and those whose dignity wanted putting to-rights were still more disappointed.
But there was no helping it. We trailed slowly indoors, Philpot vowing he would be quits with the young cub some day, and Hawkesbury, in his usual smiling way, suggesting that “the new boy didn’t seem a very nice boy.”
“I know what I should do,” said Flanagan, “if I—”
“A bad mark to Flanagan for not coming in quietly,” said the voice of Miss Henniker; and at the sound the spirit went out from us, and we remembered we were once more in Stonebridge House.
“Preparation” was a dreadful time. I knew perfectly well, though I could not see her, that Miss Henniker’s eyes were upon me all the time. I could feel them on the back of my head and the small of my back. You never saw such an abject spectacle as we nine spiritless youths appeared bending over our books, hardly daring to turn over a leaf or dip a pen, for fear of hearing that hateful voice. I could not help, however, turning my eyes to where the new boy sat, to see how he was faring. He, too, seemed infected with the depressing air of the place, and was furtively looking round among his new schoolfellows. I felt half fascinated by his black eyes, and when presently they turned and met mine, I almost thought I liked the new boy. My face must somehow have expressed what was passing through my mind, for as our eyes met there was a very faint smile on his lips, which I could not help returning.
“Batchelor and Smith, a bad mark each for inattention. That makes four bad marks to Batchelor in one day. No playground for half a week!”
Cheerful! I was getting used to the lady by this time, and remember sitting for the rest of the time calculating that if I got four bad marks every day of the week, that would be twenty-eight a week, or a hundred and twelve a month; and that if four bad marks deprived me of half a week’s playground, one month’s bad marks would involve an absence of precisely fourteen weeks from that peaceful retreat; whereat I bit my pen, and marvelled inwardly.
The dreary day seemed as if it would never come to an end. My spirits sank when, after “preparation,” we were ordered up stairs to tea. How could one enjoy tea poured out by Miss Henniker? Some people call it the “cup that cheers.” Let them take tea one afternoon at Stonebridge House, and they will soon be cured of that notion! I got another bad mark during the meal for scooping up the sugar at the bottom of my cup with my spoon.
“Surely,” thought I, “they’ll let us read or play, or do as we like, after tea for a bit?”
Vain hope! The meal ended, we again went down to our desks, where sheets of paper were distributed to each, and we were ordered to “write home”! Write home under Miss Henniker’s eye! That was worse than anything!
I began, however, as best I could. Of course, my letter was to Mrs Hudson. Where she was, was the only home I knew. I was pretty certain, of course, the letter would be looked over, but for all that I tried not to let the fact make any difference, and, as I warmed up to my task, I found my whole soul going out into my letter. I forgot all about its contents being perused, and was actually betrayed into shedding a few tears at the thought of my dear absent protectress.
“I wish I was back with you,” I wrote. “It’s miserable here. The sweets you gave me have been stolen by that horrid old—”
At this interesting juncture I was conscious of somebody standing behind me and looking over my shoulder. It was Miss Henniker!
“Give me that,” she said.
I snatched the letter up and tore it into pieces. I could stand a good deal, as I have said, but even a boy of twelve must draw the line somewhere.
Miss Henniker stood motionless as I destroyed my letter, and then said, in icy tones—
“Follow me, Batchelor.”
I rose meekly, and followed her—I cared not if it was to the gallows! She led me to her parlour, and ordered me to stand in the corner. Then she rang her bell.
“Tell Mr Ladislaw I should like to see him,” said she to the servant.
In due time Mr Ladislaw appeared, and the case for the prosecution forthwith opened. My misdemeanours for the entire day were narrated, culminating with this last heinous offence.
“Batchelor,” said Miss Henniker, “repeat to Mr Ladislaw word for word what you were writing when I came to you.”
I know not what spirit of meekness came over me. I did as I was told, and repeated the sentence verbatim down to the words, “The sweets you gave me have been stolen by that horrid old—”
“Old what?” said Mr Ladislaw.
“Old what?” said Miss Henniker, I hesitated.
“Come, now, say what you were going to write,” demanded Mr Ladislaw.
“Old what, Batchelor?” reiterated the Henniker, keeping her eyes on me.
I must be honest!
“Old beast,” I said in a low tone.
“I thought so,” said the lady. “Batchelor has called me a beast twice since he came here, Mr Ladislaw.”
“Batchelor must be punished,” said Mr Ladislaw, who, I could not help privately thinking, was a little afraid of Miss Henniker himself. “Come to my study, sir.”
I came, followed of course by the Henniker; and in Mr Ladislaw’s study I was caned on both hands. Miss Henniker would, I fancy, have laid it on a little harder than the master did. Still, it was enough to make me smart.
But the smart within was far worse than that without.
“Return to the class-room now, and write at once to your uncle, Mr Jakeman,” said Miss Henniker, “and to no one else.”
I returned to the room, where I found an eager whispered discussion going on. When a boy was taken off for punishment by the Henniker, those who were left always had a brief opportunity for conversation.
The subject of discussion, I found, was Smith, who sat apart, with no paper before him, apparently exempt from the general task. As usual, he was looking solemnly round him, but in no way to explain the mystery. At last Hawkesbury, the “pet” of the school—in other words, the only boy who seemed to get on with Miss Henniker and Mr Ladislaw—had walked up to Mr Hashford’s desk, where the usher sat in temporary authority, and had said, “Oh, Smith, the new boy, hasn’t any paper, Mr Hashford.”
“No, I was told not to give him any,” said the usher, terrified lest the Henniker should return.
“I wonder why?” said Hawkesbury.
“Yes, it is strange,” replied Mr Hashford; “but please go to your place, Hawkesbury; Miss Henniker will return.”
Hawkesbury had reported this brief conversation to his fellows, and this was what had given rise to the discussion I found going on when I returned from my caning. It was soon cut short by the Henniker’s reappearance; but the mystery became all the greater when it was seen that no notice was taken of the new boy’s idleness, and that at the close of the exercise, when we were all called upon to bring up our letters, his name was distinctly omitted.
My effusion to my uncle was brief and to the point.
Dear Uncle Jakeman,—Miss Henniker wishes me to say that I have had five bad marks to-day. I have also been caned hard on both hands for writing to dear Mrs Hudson, and for calling Miss Henniker bad names. I hope you are very well. Believe me, dear uncle, your affectionate nephew,—
Fred. Batchelor.
With the exception of striking out the “dear” before Mrs Hudson this letter was allowed to pass.
In due time and to my great relief the bell rang for bed, and glad of any chance of forgetting the hateful place, I went up stairs to the dormitory.
The new boy, I found, was to occupy the bed next mine, at which I was rather pleased than otherwise. I could not make out why I should take a fancy to Smith, but somehow I did; and when once during the night I happened to wake, and heard what sounded very much like a smothered sob in the bed next mine, I at least had the consolation of being sure I was not the only miserable boy at Stonebridge House.