Chapter Three.
Opening Day.
The combined labours of Mesdames Farthing, Hastings, Wilson, and their myrmidons had barely reached a successful climax that afternoon, in the rescue of order out of the chaos which had reigned in Railsford’s house, when the first contingent of the Grandcourtiers arrived in the great square. Railsford, who had at last been permitted to take possession of his rooms and to unstrap his boxes, looked down from his window with some little curiosity at the scene below.
The solemn quadrangle, which an hour ago had looked so ghostly and dreary, was now alive with a crowd of boys, descending headlong from the inside and outside of four big omnibuses, hailing one another boisterously, scrambling for their luggage, scrimmaging for the possession of Mrs Farthing’s or the porter’s services, indulging in horseplay with the drivers, singing, hooting, challenging, rejoicing, stamping, running, jumping, kicking—anything, in fact, but standing still. In their own opinion, evidently, they were the lords and masters of Grandcourt. They strutted about with the airs of proprietors, and Railsford began to grow half uneasy lest any of them should detect him at the window and demand what right he had there.
The scene grew more and more lively. A new cavalcade discharged its contents on the heels of the first, and upon them came cabs top-heavy with luggage, and a stampede of pedestrians who had quitted the omnibuses a mile from home and run in, and one or two on tricycles, and one hero in great state on horseback. Cheers, sometimes yells, greeted each arrival; and when presently there lumbered
up some staid old four-wheeler with a luckless new boy on board, the demonstration became most imposing.
“See you to-morrow!” thought Railsford to himself, as he peered down. Suddenly an unwonted excitement manifested itself. This was occasioned by an impromptu race between two omnibuses and a hansom cab, which, having been all temporarily deserted by their rightful Jehus, had been boarded by three amateur charioteers and set in motion. The hero in charge of the hansom cab generously gave his more heavily-weighted competitors a start of fifty yards; and, standing up in his perch, shook his reins defiantly and smacked his whip, to the infinite delight of everyone but the licenced gentleman who was the nominal proprietor of the vehicle. Of the omnibuses, one got speedily into difficulties, owing to the charioteer getting the reins a trifle mixed and thereby spinning his vehicle round in a semicircle, and bringing it up finally in the middle of the lawn, where he abruptly vacated his post and retired into private life.
The other omnibuses had a more glorious career. The horses were spirited, and entered into the fun of the thing almost as much as their driver. Railsford long remembered the picture which this youthful hero presented; with his face flushed, his head bare, his sandy hair waving in the breeze, his body laid back at an obtuse angle, as he tugged with both hands at the reins. The cab behind came on apace, its jaunty Jehu flourishing his whip and shouting loudly to his opponent to keep his right side. The crowd forgot everything else, and flocked across the grass with loud cheers for the champions.
“Wire in, hansom,” shouted some.
“Stick to it, Dig,” cried others.
How the mad career might have ended no one could tell; but at each corner the cab closed in ominously with its clumsy competitor, whose horses were fast getting beyond the control of their driver, while the vehicle they were dragging rocked and yawed behind them like a tug in a gale. Railsford was meditating a descent on to the scene, with a view to prevent a catastrophe, if possible, when a shout of laughter greeted the appearance on the scene of the lawful master of the omnibus, in headlong pursuit of his property. By an adroit cut across the grass this outraged gentleman succeeded in overtaking the vehicle and boarding it by the step behind; and then, amid delighted shouts of “Whip behind, Dig!” the spectators watched the owner skip up the steps and along the top, just as “Dig,” having received timely warning of his peril, dropped the reins and skipped the contrary way along the top and down the back stairs, depositing himself neatly on terra firma, where, with admirable sang-froid, he joined the spectators and triumphed in the final pulling up of the omnibus, and the consequent abandonment of the race by the indignant hero of the hansom cab, who protested in mock heroics that he was winning hand over hand, and would have licked the ’bus to fits if Dig hadn’t funked it.
In the altercation which ensued the company generally took no part, and returned, braced up and fortified by their few minutes’ sport, to the serious business of identifying and extricating their luggage from the general mêlée, and conveying themselves and their belongings into winter quarters.
The new master was impressed by what he had seen—not altogether unfavourably. True, it upset in a moment all his dreams of carrying Grandcourt by the quiet magic of his own influence to the high level he had arranged for it. Still, the race had been a pretty one while it lasted, and both competitors had handled the ribbons well. They would be the sort of boys to take to him—an old ’Varsity Blue; and he would meet them half-way. Railsford’s house should get a name for pluck and esprit de corps; and Railsford and his boys should show the way to Grandcourt! How Dr Ponsford and the “session of masters” would follow their lead it did not at present enter into the head of the vain young man to settle.
A knock came at his door as he stood lost in these pleasing reflections, and Grover entered.
“Here you are, then, old man,” said he—“an old stager already. It was a great disappointment I could not be here when you got down.”
“I wish you had. I have had not exactly a gay time of it.”
And he related his experiences. Grover laughed.
“That’s Ponsford all over,” said he. “He’s a fine fellow, but a bear. How do you like your quarters?”
“I’ve only just got into them, and really haven’t had time to look round. And, to tell the truth, for the last ten minutes or so I’ve been so interested in the scene below that I had forgotten what I was doing. There was a most amusing chariot race between a cab and an omnibus.”
Grover looked serious.
“I know,” said he. “I’m afraid there will be trouble about that. It’s as well, perhaps, you are not expected to know the chief offenders. One or two of them belong to your house.”
Railsford looked uncomfortable. It had not occurred to him till now that the proceeding which had so moved his interest and amusement was a breach of discipline.
“I hope I shall not be called upon to deal with it,” said he.
“No. I hear Ponsford has the matter in hand himself.”
And the friends went on to talk of other matters.
After a while Grover hastened away to his own house, leaving Railsford somewhat uneasy in his mind.
If Dr Ponsford were to question him on the subject of the chariot race, he felt that he would be seriously compromised at the outset of his career. He knew at least the nickname of one of the delinquents; and had actually, by standing and watching the contest without protest, been an accessory to the offence. He busied himself forthwith in his unpacking, and studiously avoided the window until daylight departed, and the court below became silent and deserted.
Just about four o’clock another knock sounded at his door, and Arthur Herapath presented himself, leading by the arm the tawny-haired hero of the chariot race.
“What cheer, Marky?” cried the brother-in-law to be. “Here we are. Had a spiffing spin up from the station, hadn’t we, Dig? This it Dig, you know, Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, M.P., A.S.S., and nobody knows what else. He and I have bagged Sykes’ old room, just over here.”
Railsford in his shirt-sleeves, and hemmed round by his luggage, looked up rather blankly at this friendly oration. However, his dignity came to his rescue.
“How are you both? I hope we’re to have a good steady term, my boys. Go to your study now—later on we must have a talk.”
Arthur looked at his friend and winked; Sir Digby was visibly agitated, and grinned vehemently at a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling.
“All serene,” said the former. “By the way, Daisy was all right when I left her, and sent her love and a—”
“Do you hear me, Arthur? Go to your study.”
“Oh, all right—but there was a message from the gov. I was to be sure and give you directly I saw you. He says I can have a bob a week pocket-money, and you’re to give it to me, and he’ll owe it to you at the end of the term. I’d like the first now, please.”
“Go immediately to your room,” shouted Railsford, as near to losing his temper as his future brother-in-law had ever seen him. “How dare you disobey me?”
“Well, but it was a message from the gov., and—I say, Dig,” added he, turning to his friend with a nudge, “you cut when Mark tells you.”
Dig departed, and Railsford weakly fell in with the arrangement of the junior, and allowed him to remain and deliver the rest of his domestic messages.
“Now, look here, Arthur,” said the master, closing the door and facing his unabashed future kinsman, “we must come to an understanding at once. During term time I forbid you to mention Daisy’s name, either to me or anybody else, unless I wish it—”
The boy whistled. “What, have you had a row, then? Is it all broken off? My eye, what will—”
“Rubbish!” said Mark, scarcely able to keep grave; “it’s neither one nor the other. But I don’t choose you should talk of her, and I insist on being obeyed.”
“Jolly rough not to be able to talk about one’s own sister!” interposed the innocent.
“Of course, I mean not in connection with me,” said Railsford. “And another thing, you must not call me Mark, but Mr Railsford, while term lasts.”
“All serene, Mr Railsford, old man! Jolly stiff, though, between brothers, isn’t it?”
“You must treat me as if I were merely your master, and no other relative.”
“How queer! Mayn’t I even be fond of you?”
“Yes, as your master. I count on you, mind, to set a specially good example to the other boys, and back me up in every way you can. You will be able to do a great deal if you only try.”
“I’m game! Am I to be made a prefect, I say, Mark—Mr Railsford, I mean?”
“And remember,” said Mark, ignoring the question, “that we are here to work, and not to—to drive omnibuses.”
Arthur brightened up suddenly.
“You saw the race, then? Stunning spurt round the last lap, only Dig hadn’t any stay in him, and the cab had the inside berth. I say, don’t let anybody know it was Dig, will you? He’d get in rather a mess, and he’s going to put it on hard this term to make up.”
Could anything be more hopeless than the task of impressing this simple-minded youth with a sense of his duty and deportment towards the new Master of the Shell?
Railsford gave the attempt up, and the school-bell happily intervened to make a diversion.
“That’s for dinner. It’s generally at two, you know; but on opening day it’s 4.30,” said the boy. “We shall have to cut, or we shall be gated, I say.”
“Well, you must show me the way,” said Mark. “I’m ready.”
“You’ll have to wear your cap and gown, though,” replied Arthur, “or you’ll get in a row.”
Railsford hastened to rectify the omission, and next moment was standing in the great square beside his lively young pilot, amid a crowd of boys hastening towards the school hall.
“We’d better do a trot,” said the boy.
“We shall do it all right, I think,” said the master, whose dignity revolted against any motion more rapid than quick walking. Arthur, trotting at his side and encouraging him from time to time to “put it on,” detracted a little from the solemnity of the procession. The bell was just ceasing to ring as they entered the hall, and for the first time Railsford found himself in the presence of the assembled school.
Arthur had darted off to his own table, leaving his companion to find his way to the masters’ table at the head of the hall, where all his colleagues were already in their places, standing for grace.
Railsford, considerably flurried, slipped into the place which Grover had reserved for him just as the head boy present began to recite the Latin collect, and became painfully aware that his already damaged character for punctuality was by no means enhanced in the severe eyes of Dr Ponsford. The new master glanced round a little nervously at his colleagues. Grover introduced him to a few of the nearest, some of whom received him with a friendly greeting, others eyed him doubtfully, and one or two bristled up grimly. The éclat of his first appearance at Grandcourt had paled somewhat, and he was thankful to have Grover to talk to and keep him in countenance.
“Tell me who some of these men are,” he whispered. “Which is Roe?”
“On the other side of me. He has the house next to mine. You, I, Roe, and Bickers have the four sides of the Big Square.”
“Which is Bickers?”
“The man with the black beard—last but one on the other side.”
Railsford gave a furtive look down the table, and encountered the eyes of Mr Bickers fixed discontentedly on him.
A lightning flash at midnight will often reveal minute details of a scene or landscape which in the ordinary glare of day might pass unnoticed by the observer. So it was in this sudden chance encounter of glances. It lasted not a moment, but it was a declaration of war to the knife on one side, hurled back defiantly on the other.
“Not a bad fellow if you don’t stroke him the wrong way,” said Grover.
“Oh,” said Railsford, in a tone which made his friend start. “Who is beyond him?”
“Lablache, the French master; not very popular, I fancy.”
And so on, one master after another was pointed out, and Railsford formed his own opinions of each, and began to feel at home with several of them already. But whenever his eyes turned towards the end of the table they invariably encountered those of Bickers.
There was not much general conversation at the masters’ table. Dr Ponsford rarely encouraged it, and resented it when it arose without his initiative.
The buzz and clatter at the boys’ tables, however, growing occasionally to a hubbub, amply made up for any sombreness in the meal elsewhere; and Railsford, having exhausted his inquiries, and having failed to engage one of his neighbours in conversation, resigned himself to the enjoyment of the animated scene. He was not long in discovering the whereabouts of his youthful kinsman, whose beaming face shone out from the midst of a bevy of particular friends, while ever and again above the turmoil, like a banner in the breeze, waved the tawny mane of Sir Digby Oakshott. It amused Railsford to watch the group, and when now and then they looked his way, to speculate on what was the subject of their conversation. Perhaps Arthur had been telling them of the new master’s athletic achievements at Cambridge, and how he had rowed his boat to the head of the river; or possibly he had been describing to them some of the big football-matches which he, Mark, had taken his young friend to see during the holidays; or maybe they were laying down some patriotic plan for the future good of Railsford’s house. His heart warmed to the boys as he watched them. It was a pity, perhaps, he could not catch their actual words.
“Seems jolly green,” said Dig.
“So he is. Blushes like a turkey-cock when you talk about spoons. Never mind, he’s bound to be civil to us this term, eh, Dig? We’ve got the whip hand of him, I guess, over that summer-house business at Lucerne.”
Here Dig laughed.
“Shut up! He’ll hear!”
“What’s the joke?” demanded a bullet-headed, black-eyed boy who sat near.
“What, didn’t I tell you, Dimsdale? Keep it close, won’t you? You see that chap with the eyeglass next to Grover. That’s Railsford, our new master—Marky, I call him. He’s engaged to Daisy, you know, my sister. Regular soup-ladles they are.”
Here Dig once more laughed beyond the bounds of discretion.
“What an ass you are, Dig!” expostulated Arthur; “you’ll get us in no end of a mess.”
“Awfully sorry—I can’t help. Tell Dimsdale about—you know.”
“Don’t go spreading it, though,” said Arthur, shutting his eyes to the fact that he was confiding his secret to the greatest gossip in Grandcourt, and that one or two other heads were also craned forward to hear the joke. “I caught them going it like one o’clock in the hotel garden at Lucerne—it was the first time I twigged what was up; and what do you think he called my sister?”
“What?” they all demanded.
“Keep it close, I say. Ha, ha!—give you a guess all round; Dig knows.”
“Pussy cat,” suggested one.
“Jumbo,” suggested another.
“Cherubim,” suggested a third.
Arthur shook his head triumphantly.
“Out of it, all of you. You can tell ’em, Dig.”
Dig composed his features once or twice to utter the word, but as many times broke down. At last in high falsetto he got it out,—
“Chuckey!”
The laugh which greeted this revelation penetrated to the upper region, and caused Dr Ponsford to rise on his seat and look in the direction of the uproar.
At the same moment the Sixth-Form boy at the head of the table left his place and bore down on the offenders.
“Cave!” muttered Arthur, purple in the face; “here’s Ainger.”
Instantly the party was thoroughly buried in its bread and cheese.
“Was that you, Oakshott, making that row?”
“I was only saying something to Herapath,” replied the innocent; “I’m sure I didn’t make a row.”
“Don’t tell falsehoods. Do fifty lines, and next time you’ll be sent up.”
“That’s a nice lark,” muttered the baronet as the senior retired. “It was you chaps made the row, and I get potted for it. But I say,” added he, as if such a mishap were the most common of incidents, “that isn’t a bad joke, is it? Fancy calling Herapath’s sister—”
“Cave, shut up!” exclaimed Arthur, dealing his friend a ferocious kick under the table; “they’ve got their eyes on us. Don’t play the fool, Dig.”
Railsford was aroused from the pleasant contemplation of this little comedy by a general rising, in the midst of which the doctor, followed by his staff, filed out of the hall into the governor’s room adjoining, which was ordinarily used as a masters’ withdrawing-room. Here Railsford underwent the ordeal of a series of introductions, some of which gave him pleasure, some disappointment, some misgivings, and one at least roused his anger.
“Mr Bickers,” said Dr Ponsford, “let me introduce Mr Railsford. You will be neighbours, and ought to be friends.”
“I am proud to know Mr Railsford,” said Mr Bickers, holding out his hand; “Grandcourt, I am sure, is fortunate.”
Railsford flushed up at the tone in which this greeting was offered; and touching the proffered hand hurriedly, said, with more point than prudence—
“I heard of Mr Bickers from my predecessor, Mr Moss.”
It was some satisfaction to see Mr Bickers flush in his turn, as he replied, with a hardly concealed sneer—
“Ah, poor Moss! He was a great flatterer. You must not believe half he says about his absent friends.”
“Railsford,” said Grover, taking his friend by the arm, and anxious to interrupt what promised to be an uncomfortable dialogue, “I must introduce you to Roe. He had charge of the Shell for some years, and can give you some hints which will be useful to you. You’ll like him.”
Railsford did like him. Mr Roe was one of the best masters at Grandcourt, and his university career had been as brilliant in athletics, and more brilliant in scholarship, than his younger colleagues. He had a quiet voice and manly bearing, which bespoke a vast fund of power latent beneath the surface; and Railsford, for once in his life, experienced the novel sensation of standing in the presence of a superior. Mr Roe accepted Mark’s apologies for his non-appearance the evening before with great good-humour, and invited him to his rooms to spend an evening and talk over school-work.
“You are not likely to have much leisure at first. I wish you had a quieter house; but a little good government and sympathy will go a long way towards bringing it up to the mark. As to the Shell, you will find that pretty easy. It wants more management than teaching—at least, I found so. If once the boys can be put on the right track, they will go pretty much of their own accord. It’s easier to guide them than drive them; don’t you think so?”
“I have no experience yet; but that is my idea, certainly.”
“Then you’ll succeed. Have you been introduced to Monsieur Lablache? This is Mr Railsford, the new Master of the Shell, monsieur.”
Monsieur shrugged himself ceremoniously. He had a big moustache, which curled up in an enigmatical way when he smiled; and Railsford was at a loss whether to like him or dislike him.
“We shall be friends, Meester Railsford, I hope,” said the foreigner; “I have much to do wiz ze young gentlemen of the Sell. Hélas! they try my patience; but I like them, Meester Railsford, I like them.”
“I only wish I knew whether I liked you,” inwardly ejaculated the new master, as he smiled in response to the confession.
A bell put an end to further conference, and Mark went off in a somewhat excited state of mind to his own house.
Mr Roe’s few words stuck in his mind—especially one of them.
What did he mean by classing sympathy and good government together in the way he had? How can you reduce a disorderly house to order by sympathy?
However, he had no leisure for guessing riddles that night.