Chapter Two.
“Veni, Vidi, —”
If a light heart and faith in one’s own good luck are omens of success, Mark Railsford undoubtedly entered on his new duties at Grandcourt under the most favourable of auspices. It would not have been to his discredit if his light heart had acknowledged even slightly the weight of the responsibility it was undertaking. But, as a matter of fact, it was all the lighter for that very responsibility. The greater the task, he argued, the greater the achievement; and the greater the achievement, the greater the triumph. A less sanguine hero might have been daunted by the pictures with which his nervous friends did their best to damp his ardour. Grover, delighted as he was at the success of his friend’s application, took care to keep the rocks ahead well above the surface in all his letters and conversations. Railsford laughed him pleasantly to scorn.
Grover’s was not the only attempt made to intimidate our hero. A week or so before he entered upon his duties, a nervous-looking man called to see him. It was Mr Moss, the late master.
“I hear you have been appointed to my house,” he said, by way of explanation, “and I thought it would be only friendly to call and tell you the sort of thing you are to expect when you go there.”
“Thanks, very much,” said Railsford, with a smile of the corner of his mouth.
“You may be made of cast iron, or be possessed of the patience of a Job,” began this cheery adviser. “If so, you’re all right. I wasn’t either.”
“Did you find the boys unmanageable?”
“No—not more than other boys—all boys, of course, are the sworn foes of law and order, and nobody imagines anything else. No, your difficulties, if you have anything like my luck, will be more with your colleagues than your subjects.”
“And how do they make themselves objectionable?” asked the new master, rather contemptuously.
Mr Moss did not miss the tone of this question, and fired up himself.
“Of course, if you don’t mind being systematically snubbed at head-quarters—thwarted and slandered by your fellow-masters—baulked in every attempt to improve the condition either of your house or the school—and misrepresented and undermined in your influence among your boys, you may go up and enjoy it. I didn’t. That’s why I left.”
“At any rate, I have one friend among the masters—Grover.”
“Oh, poor Grover. He is the only master who can get on at all, and he does so by effacing himself on every possible occasion, and agreeing with everybody.”
“Not a very noble character to hear of one’s friend,” said Railsford, who was beginning to get tired of this jeremiad.
“I don’t blame him; he can stand more than you or I can.”
“That, I suppose, is meant for a compliment to me?” said Railsford, laughing. “You think, then, I would be wise to back out before it is too late?”
“I don’t say that, only—”
“Only you pity me. Thanks, very much.”
That evening Railsford sent a line to Grover:—
“Tell me in two words why Moss left Grandcourt.”
A telegram came next morning, “Incompatibility of temper.”
Whereat the new master chuckled, and dismissed the lugubrious ex-master and his friendly warnings from his mind. But although the gloomy prognostications of his Job’s comforters failed in the least to depress his spirits, one very small cloud hovered occasionally on the horizon. This was the attitude of his worthy and respected prospective pupil and brother-in-law, Arthur Herapath. That young gentleman, who had been prudently kept in the dark while term lasted, was, as may be imagined, considerably astounded on arriving home to be met with the news that the new master of the Shell at Grandcourt was to be Mark Railsford.
“What a lark!” he exclaimed.
Now, genial as the remark was, the tone in which it was uttered was not calculated to inspire confidence in the breasts of those to whom it was addressed. There was more of enjoyment in it than respect. Yet boys will be boys, and who can gauge the depths of a nature below the smiles that ripple on the surface?
It was little incidents like these which occasionally suggested to Railsford, far more forcibly than the lugubrious warnings of his officious friends, that the task before him at Grandcourt would tax his powers considerably. But, on the whole, he rejoiced that all would not be plain-sailing at first, and that there was no chance of his relapsing immediately into the condition of a humdrum pedagogue.
The Christmas holidays slipped away only too fast for Arthur and for Daisy. Mark, much as he felt the approaching separation from his betrothed, could not suppress a slight feeling of exultation as the day drew near when he was to “go, see, and conquer” at Grandcourt. His three idle years made the prospect of hard work now welcome; and the importance which everyone else attached to his new duties made him doubly keen for a fray on which so many eyes were turned.
Dr Ponsford had suggested, in terms which amounted to a mandate, that the new master might find it convenient to arrive at Grandcourt a day before the school returned, in order to take possession of his quarters and acquaint himself with the details of his coming duties. This arrangement was not altogether satisfactory, for it deprived Mark of the pleasure of his future brother-in-law’s escort, which was a great loss, and also of the prospect of finding Grover at his journey’s end, on which he had reckoned with some confidence. However, it was only the difference of a day, and during that day he would at least do his utmost to make a favourable impression on his chief. So, with a heart full of confidence, and a cab full of luggage, he set out gaily on his new career.
“Good-bye, Mark. You’ll be good to my son, I know,” said Mrs Herapath.
“Good-bye, my boy; take care of your health,” said Mr Herapath.
“Good-bye, Mark,” said Daisy.
“Ta-ta, old man,” called Arthur. “See you to-morrow.”
This last greeting, strange as it may seem, recurred to Railsford’s memory more frequently than any of the others during the course of the long railway journey to Grandcourt. It took all sorts of forms as the day wore on. At first it seemed only a fraternal au revoir, then it became a rather serious promise, and finally sounded in his ears rather like a menace.
Here was he, going down like a prince to his coronation, and his subjects would “see him to-morrow.” It had never occurred to him before that these subjects might have something to say to the ordering of the new kingdom, and that he should have to reckon with them, as well as they with him. The idea was not altogether comfortable, and he tried to shelve it. Of course he would get on with them. They would look up to him, and they would discover that his interests and theirs were the same. He was prepared to go some way to meet them. It would be odd if they would not come the rest to meet him. He turned his mind to other subjects. Still he wished he could be quite sure that Arthur’s innocent “see you again to-morrow” had no double meaning for him.
The railway took him as far as Blankington Junction, about five miles from Grandcourt; and, as it would be some time before a Grandcourt train came up, he decided, after seeing his effects into a cab, to take advantage of the fine, frosty afternoon, and complete his journey on foot. He was, in fact, beginning to grow a little depressed, and the exercise would brace him up. He had, foolishly enough, looked forward to a somewhat different kind of advent, dropping, perhaps, with some little éclat on a school where Arthur had already proclaimed his fame among the boys, and where Grover had prepared him a welcome among the masters. Compared with that, this solitary backstairs arrival seemed tame and dispiriting, and he half regretted that he had not postponed his coming till to-morrow, even in the face of Dr Ponsford’s suggestion.
A mile from Grandcourt he caught sight of the square red ivy-covered brick tower of the school among the trees. Even in winter it looked warm and picturesque. It was growing dark when he passed the lodge, and crossed the playing-field towards the school-house. The cabman was awaiting him in the square.
“Never gave me your name,” explained he, “and nobody knows nothink about you here. Five miles is seven-and-six, and luggage is two bob more, and waiting another ’alf-hour’s a crown,—namely, twelve shillings, and thank you, mister.”
Railsford rang the bell at the porter’s lodge. A small child of eight appeared.
“Where’s your father?” asked the new master.
“Yout,” replied the girl.
“Well, your mother?”
“Please, she’s—she’s in the churchyard along of my Aunt Sally.”
“Well, run and— You mean she’s dea—?”
The child nodded before he had finished his sentence.
“Is there anyone about?” inquired the perplexed new-comer.
“There’s Mrs ’Astings, doing the floors in Bickers’s.”
Mrs Hastings was duly summoned, and arrived with her broom and kneeling-pad.
“My good woman, can you tell me the fare from Blankington here?”
The lady looked perplexed, then embarrassed, then angry.
“And you fetched me over from Bickers’s—me, with my lame foot, over the cobbles—to ask me that! You oughter be ashamed of yerself, young man. Ask the cabman; he knows.”
It was hopeless. Railsford assisted to unload the cab, and meekly gave the cabman the fare demanded.
“I am Mr Railsford, the new master,” said he presently, overtaking Mrs Hastings, as she hobbled back in dudgeon to her work; “which are my rooms?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. You’re a day too early. All the rooms is up, and it will take us all our times to get them done against the school comes back to-morrow.”
“It is an extraordinary thing,” said Railsford, who began to feel his dignity somewhat put upon, “that Dr Ponsford should tell me to come to-day, and that no preparations—”
“’Tain’t got to do with me. You’d best go to the doctor’s house, out of that gate, across the little square, the house on the far side of the chapel.”
Railsford, leaving his luggage stacked on the pavement outside the porter’s lodge, started off with flushed cheeks to the lion’s den. The doctor, said the maid, was in, but was at dinner. The gentleman had better call again in half an hour.
So Railsford, in the closing twilight, took a savage walk round the school precincts, in no mood to admire the natural beauties of the place, or to indulge in any rhapsodies at this near view of the scene of his coming triumphs. In half an hour he returned, and was shown into the doctor’s study.
“How do you do, Mr —;” here the doctor took up his visitor’s card to refresh his memory—“Mr Railsford?”
“I was afraid, sir,” said Mark, “I had mistaken your letter about coming to-day; there appears to be no one—no one who can—I have been unable to ascertain where I am to go.”
The doctor waited patiently for the end of this lucid explanation.
“I rather wonder it did not suggest itself to you to call on me for information.”
Railsford wondered so too, and felt rather sheepish.
“Your train must have been late. I expected you an hour ago.”
“I think we were up to time. I walked from Blankington here.”
“Really—I wish I had known of your intention.”
“I trust,” said Railsford, struck by a horrible suspicion, “you were not waiting dinner for me.”
“Not in the least,” said the doctor, with a grim smile; “but I had calculated on taking you round before nightfall. We must defer our visit till the morning. Talking of dinner,” he added, “you will be ready for something after your journey, will you not?”
As Railsford was nearly famishing, he could only colour up and reply—
“Thank you.”
The doctor rang the bell.
“See that Mr Railsford gets dinner. I have to go out,” he added, “but you will, no doubt, make yourself at home;” and the great man withdrew, leaving the new master in a very crestfallen and disturbed state of mind.
If this was a sample of the sympathy he might expect at head-quarters, Moss’s prognostications, after all, were not quite baseless. He made the best of his solitary dinner, and then sallied out in the dark to try to find the porter’s lodge once more and rescue his luggage. That functionary was still absent, and Mark was compelled himself to haul his belongings in under cover, and leave word with the little girl that they were to be taken over to Mr Railsford’s rooms as soon as her father came in. Then taking with him a bag which contained what he wanted for the night, he returned to the head-master’s house and made a point of retiring to rest before his host reappeared on the scene.
Once more luck was against him.
“You vanished early last night,” said the doctor, blandly, at breakfast next morning. “I brought Mr Roe in to supper, thinking you and he might like a chat about the work in the Shell, about which he could have given you some useful hints. However, early hours are very commendable.”
“I am extremely sorry,” faltered Railsford. “I had no idea you would be home so early. I should have liked to meet Mr Roe so much.”
“Take some more coffee?” said the doctor.
After breakfast Mark was conducted in state to his house. The floors were all damp and the carpets up; beds and washstands were piled up in the passages, and nowhere was a fire to be seen.
“There are your rooms,” said the doctor, pointing out a suite of three apartments opening one into the other, at the present time reeking of soft-soap and absolutely destitute of furniture. “You will find them comfortable and central. The inner room is the bedroom, the middle your private sitting-room, and this larger one the house-parlour. Now we will go to the dormitories and studies. You understand your head boys—those in the Sixth and Fifth—have a study to themselves; the Shell have studies in pairs, and the junior school-work in the common room. But all these points you will make yourself familiar with very shortly. As a house-master, you will of course be responsible for everything that takes place in the house—the morals, work and play of the boys are under your supervision. You have four Sixth-form boys in the house, who are prefects under you, and in certain matters exercise an authority of their own without appeal to you. But you quite understand that you must watch that this is not abused. The house dame, Mrs Farthing, superintends everything connected with the boy’s wardrobes, but is under your direction in other matters. I shall introduce you to her as we go down.
“I refer you to the school time-table for particulars as to rising, chapel, preparation, and lights out, and so forth. Discipline on all these points is essential. Cases of difficulty may be referred to a session of the other masters, or in extreme cases to me; but please remember I do not invite consultation in matters of detail. A house-master may use the cane in special cases, which must be reported through the masters’ session to me. So much for your house duties.
“As Master of the Shell, you preside at morning school there every day, and, as you know, have to teach classics, English, and divinity. In the afternoon the boys are taken by the French, mathematical, and chemical masters. But you are nominally responsible for the whole, and any case of insubordination or idleness during afternoon school will be reported to you by the master in charge, and you must deal with it as though you had been in charge at the time.
“Now come and make Mrs Farthing’s acquaintance.”
Mrs Farthing, a lean, wrathful-looking personage, stood in the midst of a wilderness of sheets and blankets, and received her new superior with a very bad grace. She looked him up and looked him down, and then sniffed.
“Very good, Mr Railsford; we shall become better acquainted, I’ve no doubt.”
Railsford shuddered at the prospect; and finding that his luggage was still knocking about at the porter’s lodge, he made further expedition in search of it, and at last, with superhuman efforts, succeeded in getting it transferred to his quarters, greatly to the disgust of Mrs Hastings, who remarked in an audible aside to her fellow-scrubber, Mrs Willis, that people ought to keep their dirty traps to themselves till the place is ready for them.
After which Railsford deemed it prudent to take open-air exercise, and await patiently the hour when his carpets should be laid and Grandcourt should wake up into life for the new term.