Chapter Thirteen.
Telson and Parson go to an Evening Party.
It was the Saturday before the boat-race, and the excitement of Willoughby was working up every hour. Boys who were generally in the habit of lying in bed till the chapel bell began to ring had been up at six for a week past, to look at the practices on the river. Parliament had adjourned till after the event, and even the doings of the rival captains indoors were forgotten for a while in prospect of the still more exciting contest out of doors.
Everybody—even the Welchers, who at the last moment had given up any attempt to form a crew, and “scratched”—found it hard to think or talk of any other subject, and beyond the school bounds, in Shellport itself, a rumour of the coming race had got wind and attracted many outsiders to the river banks.
But it was not the prospect of the coming race which this Saturday afternoon was agitating the mind of Master Henry Brown.
Brown was a Limpet, belonging to the schoolhouse, who occupied the distinguished position of being the only day-boarder in Willoughby. His parents lived in Shellport, and thus had the benefit of the constant society of their dear Harry; while the school, on the other hand, was deprived of that advantage for a portion of every day in the term.
It was probably to make up for this deprivation that Mr and Mrs Brown made it a practice of giving an evening party once a term, to which the doctor and his ladies were always invited, and also any two of dear Harry’s friends he liked to name.
In this way the fond parents not only felt they were doing a polite and neighbourly act to their son’s schoolmaster and schoolfellows, but that they were also the means of bringing together teacher and pupil in an easy unconstrained manner which would hardly be possible within the walls of the school itself.
It was the prospect of one of these delightful entertainments that was exhilarating Brown this Saturday afternoon.
And it must be confessed the excitement was due to very opposite emotions in the breast of the day-boarder. The doctor and his ladies were coming! On the last two occasions they had been unfortunately prevented, which had been a great blow to Brown’s “pa and ma” but a relief to Brown himself. And now the prospect of meeting these awful dignitaries face to face in his own house put him in a small panic. But on the other hand, he knew there would be jellies, and savoury pie, and strawberries, and tipsy-cake, at home that night. He had seen them arrive from the confectioner’s that morning, and, Limpet as he was, Brown smiled inwardly as he meditated thereon. This was a second ground for excitement. And a third, equal to either of the other two, was that Parson and Telson were invited and were coming!
He had tried one or two other fellows first. He had sounded Coates on the subject, but he unfortunately was engaged. He had pressed Wyndham to come, but Wyndham was busy that evening with the library. He had appealed to one or two other schoolhouse Limpets, but all, on hearing that the doctor and Co. were to be present, respectfully declined.
Finally Brown dropped upon Telson, and condescendingly proposed to him to be present as one of his two friends.
Telson thought the matter over and fancied it promised well. He liked the sound of the jellies and the tipsy-cake, and just at present he knew of no special reason for “funking” the doctor. As for the doctor’s ladies, Telson had never seen them, so they did not weigh particularly with him.
“Who else is going?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know yet,” said Brown, rather grandly. “I’ve one or two fellows in my mind.”
“Why don’t you ask young Parson?” suggested Telson, innocently.
“Parson? he’s not a schoolhouse kid.”
“I know he’s not, but he and I are very chummy, you know. I wouldn’t mind coming if he went.”
“I’ll see,” said Brown, mightily, but secretly relieved to know of some one likely to come as his second “friend.”
“All right,” said Telson. “I’ve not promised, mind, if he can’t come.”
“Oh, yes, you have!” replied Brown, severely, as he left the room.
In due time he found Parson and broached the subject to him.
Parson viewed the matter in very much the same light as Telson had. He liked the “tuck-in” better than the company.
It never occurred to him it was odd that Brown should come all the way from the schoolhouse to invite him, a Parrett’s junior, to his feast; nor did it occur to him either that the invitation put him under any obligation to his would-be host.
“I tell you what I’ll do,” said he, in a business-like manner, much as if Brown had asked him to clean out his study for him, “if you ask Telson to come too, I’m game.”
Brown half doubted whether these two allies had not been consulting together on the subject, so startling was the similarity of their conditions.
“Oh! Telson’s coming,” he said, in as offhand a way as he could.
“He is! Then I’m on, old man; rather!” exclaimed the delighted Parson.
“All right! Six-thirty, mind, and chokers!” said Brown, not a little relieved to have scraped up two friends for the festive occasion. At the appointed time—or rather before the appointed time, for they arrived at twenty minutes past six—our two heroes, arrayed in their Sunday jackets and white ties, presented themselves at the house of their host. They had “put it on” considerably in order to get ahead of the doctor’s party; for they considered that—as Parson expressed it—“it would be a jolly lot less blushy work” to be there before the head master arrived. There was no doubt about their success in this little manoeuvre, for when the servant opened the door the hall was full of rout seats, and a man, uncommonly like the greengrocer, in a dress coat, was busily unpacking plates out of a small hamper.
Into this scene of confusion Parson and Telson were ushered, and here they were left standing for about five minutes, interested spectators, till the hall was cleared and the domestic had leisure to go and tell Master Harry of their arrival.
Master Harry was dressing, and sent down word they had better go into the shoe-room till he came down. Which they did, and amused themselves during the interval with trying on Mr Brown’s Wellingtons, and tying together the laces of all Harry’s boots they could discover.
In due time Harry appeared in grand array. “How jolly early you are!” was his hospitable greeting. “You said six-thirty, didn’t you?” said Telson. “Yes; it’s only just that now. Nobody will be here for a quarter of an hour yet. You had better come in and see ma.”
The two guests obeyed cheerfully. Ma was in the drawing-room, busily adjusting the sashes of the three juvenile Misses Brown, with her mouth full of pins. So all she could do was to smile pleasantly at her two visitors and nod her head as they each came up and held out their hands to be shaken.
“Better sit down,” suggested Brown.
Parson and Telson thereupon retreated to the sofa, on the edge of which they sat for another five or ten minutes, looking about them complacently, and not attempting to break the silence of the scene.
The silence, however, was soon broken by a loud double knock at the hall door, which was the signal for Mr Brown, senior, to bolt into the room in a guilty way with one cuff not quite buttoned, and stand on the hearthrug with as free-and-easy an air as if he had been waiting there a quarter of an hour at least. Knock followed knock in quick succession, and after the usual amount of fluttering in the hall, the greengrocer flung open the drawing-room door and ushered in Dr and Mrs Patrick, Miss Stringer, and half a dozen other arrivals.
Our two heroes, sitting side by side, unnoticed on the edge of the sofa, had full opportunity to take stock of the various guests, most of whom were strangers to them.
As every one appeared to be about the doctor’s age, things promised slowly for Parson and Telson, whose interest in Brown’s party decidedly languished when finally they found themselves swept off their perch and helplessly wedged into a corner by an impenetrable phalanx of skirts.
But this was nothing compared with a discovery they made at the same time that they had missed their tea! There was a merry rattle of cups and spoons in a room far off, through the half-open door of which they could catch glimpses of persons drinking tea, and of Brown handing round biscuits and cake. The sight of this was too much to be borne. It was at least worth an effort to retrieve their fatal mistake.
“I say,” said Telson, looking for his friend round the skirts of a stately female, “hadn’t we better go and help Brown, Parson?”
Luckless youth! The lady in question, hearing the unexpected voice at her side, backed a little and caught sight of the speaker.
“What, dear?” she said, benevolently, taking his hand and sitting down on the sofa; “and who are you, my little man?”
“My little man” was fairly trapped; there was no escaping this seizure. Parson got away safely to the tea-room, and the sight of him dodging about among the cakes and cups only added to the misery of the hapless Telson.
“Who are you, my little dear?” said the lady, who was no other than Miss Stringer herself.
Telson, fortunately for him, was ignorant of the fact—as ignorant, indeed, as Miss Stringer was of the fact that the little dear she was addressing was a Willoughbite.
“Telson, ma’am,” said Telson, following Parson with longing eyes.
“Johnny?” said the lady.
“No—Augustus,” replied the proud bearer of the name.
Miss Stringer surveyed him benevolently. He was a nice-looking boy, was Telson—and the lady thought so too.
“And will you give me a kiss, Augustus dear?” she said, with her most winning smile.
What could Augustus do? A hundred desperate alternatives darted through his mind. He would bolt into the tea-room; he would shout for help; he would show fight; he would— But while he was making up his mind what he would do, he found himself being kissed on the cheek in the most barefaced manner, before everybody, by this extraordinary female; and, more than that, being actually set down on the sofa beside her! He only hoped Parson or Brown had not seen it.
Well for Miss Stringer she did not guess the wrath that boiled in the bosom of her small companion!
“And do you live here, dear?” inquired she, pleased to have this opportunity of studying the juvenile human nature in which she was so much interested.
“No, I don’t,” said Telson, surlily; then, suddenly recollecting he was in polite though disagreeable company, he added, “ma’am.”
“And where do you go to school, pray?” inquired the spinster.
“Oh, Willoughby,” replied Telson, who had gradually given up all hope of tea, and was making up his mind to his fate.
Miss Stringer gave a little start at this piece of information, and was on the point of betraying her identity, but she forbore. “After all,” thought she, “he might be more constrained if I were to enlighten him on that subject.”
“So you go to Willoughby,” she said, with interest. “And how do you like it?”
“Oh, well enough,” said Telson, relenting somewhat towards his companion as she showed no further signs of kissing him. “Nice lot of fellows, you know, on the whole.”
“Indeed? Let me see, who is the head master?” inquired the lady.
“Oh, Paddy—that old boy there by the fire. And that’s Mrs Paddy there with the curls.”
Miss Stringer appeared to receive another shock at this piece of information, which, however, Telson, flattered by her evident interest in his remarks, did not take to heart.
“And,” said she, presently, with a slight nervousness in her voice, “I hope you like them?”
“Oh,” blurted out Telson, “Paddy’s not so bad, but the dame’s an old beast, you know—at least, so fellows say. I say,” added he, “don’t you tell her I said so!”
Miss Stringer regarded him with a peculiar smile, which the boy at once took to mean a promise. So he rattled on. “And she’s got a sister, or somebody hangs about the place, worse than any of them. Why, when old Wynd—”
“And,” said Miss Stringer, suddenly—“and which house are you in—in the schoolhouse?”
“Hullo, then! you know Willoughby?” demanded Telson sharply.
Miss Stringer looked confused, as well she might, but replied, “Ah! all public schools have a schoolhouse, have they not?”
“I suppose so,” said Telson. “Yes, I’m a schoolhouse fellow. I’m the captain’s fag, you know—old Riddell.”
“Mr Riddell is the captain, then?”
“Rather! Do you know him?”
Poor Miss Stringer! How sad it is, to be sure, when once we go astray. She, the Griffin of Willoughby, was as much at the mercy of this honest unconscious fag as if he had caught her in the act of picking a pocket. For how could she reveal herself now?
“I—I think I met him once,” she said.
“Where? at his home, was it?” asked Telson, who seemed to be urged by a most fiendish curiosity on the subject.
“No,” faltered the lady; “it was—er—I think it was at Dr Patrick’s.”
“Very likely,” said Telson. “He was up there to tea, I know, just before he was made captain. But I didn’t know any one else was there except Paddy and his hyenas.”
“His what, sir!” exclaimed Miss Stringer, in a voice which nearly startled Telson off the sofa.
“I mean, you know, the fellows—?”
“And where do you live at home?” asked Miss Stringer, determined to steer clear of this awkward topic.
“Oh, London,” said Telson; “do you know London?”
“Yes—it is indeed a wonderful place,” said Miss Stringer, “and whereabouts does your father live?”
“Oh, my governor’s in India,” began Telson.
“Your who?” said Miss Stringer, with a feeble attempt at severity.
“My dad, you know; and I live with my grandfather. Jolly old boy. He was at Willoughby when he was a boy. Did you know him then? I expect he’ll recollect you, you know.”
“I do not think,” said Miss Stringer, with a very ruffled countenance, “that your grandfather and I ever met.”
“Oh, I don’t know. He recollects most of the old people down here, you know. I say, there’s Parson beckoning; he’s my chum, you know. I expect he wants me to help with some of the things.”
And so saying off he went, leaving Miss Stringer, so to speak, fairly doubled up, and in a state of mind which may be more easily imagined than described.
Every one observed how singularly silent and retiring Miss Stringer was all that evening. Some attributed it to the heat of the room, others feared she might not be well, others guessed she found the Browns’ entertainment very slow; but no one, least of all Telson himself, had a suspicion of the true reason.
That young gentleman and his ally, after finding out that there was not much chance of their services being required to “look after the things”—the greengrocer being quite able to deal with the business single-handed—found themselves once more stranded in the drawing-room, and gradually getting edged back by the skirts, when an unlooked-for distinction rescued them from their perilous situation.
The distinction was none other than a sign of recognition from the doctor and a friendly signal to approach.
Like a pair of small well-trained circus ponies the two friends obeyed the summons and climbed over the intervening skirts.
“Well, Telson and Parson,” said the doctor, shaking hands, “I’d no idea you were here—how are you?”
“We got a captain’s permit. Quite well, thank you, sir.”
“My dear, these are two of our boys, Telson and Parson.”
Mrs Patrick regarded the two boys in her usual precise way, and said,—
“Among so many boys under our roof, I find it impossible to remember every face. And which is Master Telson?”
“This is Telson,” said Parson. “He’s in the schoolhouse, you know—”
“I do not know,” said Mrs Patrick, severely.
“Don’t you?” said Parson, with genuine astonishment. “He’s captain’s fag, you know.”
“I must repeat I do not know,” reiterated Mrs Patrick.
“Oh, well, he’s only been that a little time, since the sports, you know, when old Wyndham left. I say, ma’am, are you going to be at the race on Wednesday?”
Mrs Patrick looked somewhat baffled as she replied,—
“I think it very possible.”
“It’ll be a jolly good race,” said Telson. “Old Parson is coxing Parrett’s, and it looks like a win for them. Only we aren’t so bad, and now Gilks is out of the boat and Riddell’s settled as cox we ought to make a race of it. Fairbairn’s quite as long a reach as Bloomfield, only he doesn’t kick his stretcher so hard—does he, Parson?”
“Rather not,” said Parson. “That’s where we get the pull of you; besides, I’m a lighter weight than Riddell, though he’s boiled down a good bit since he went into training.”
“Good deal depends on who gets the inside berth,” said Telson, delightfully oblivious of the bewildered Mrs Paddy’s presence. “It’s a jolly long swing round Willow Point for the outsiders—half a length at least.”
“Yes; but it’s just as bad round the corner at the finish the other way.”
“Ah! talking about the race, I see,” said the doctor, returning to the group at this point. “So, Telson, Riddell’s to steer your boat after all.”
“Yes, sir,” said Telson; “it’s settled now.”
“So that the schoolhouse boat is still the captain’s boat, eh? Ah! Parson, though, I suppose, wants the Parrett’s boat to win.”
“Parson coxes for Parrett’s,” said Telson.
“Parrett—I mean Mr Parrett—stopped my river-play a week, sir,” said Parson, by way of explaining the circumstance; “but I’ve had captain’s leave to row out since, so they kept me in the boat.”
This sporting conversation went on for some time longer, Mrs Patrick not venturing again to join in. At last the doctor broke up the conference of his own accord, and our two heroes, once more adrift, went out for a lounge in the hall, as they explained, to cool themselves, but really to be at hand for a bolt into the supper-room whenever the happy moment should arrive.
It did arrive after what seemed to be a week’s suspense and then the hardships and perils of the evening were fully compensated for. The two friends got into a snug corner, “far from the madding crowd,” where, to put it mildly, they spent a very busy half-hour. They managed it well. Neither boy helped himself—he wouldn’t be so greedy; but each helped the other. When Telson saw Parson’s plate getting empty of sandwiches, he most attentively fetched him a clean one with a trifle on it; and when Telson had finally got through his jellies (for he had more than one) it was Parson’s brotherly hand which assisted him to an ice!
As they sat there they positively wished Brown’s “pa and ma” gave a party once a week!
But all good things come to an end, and so did this grand party. Guests began to depart, and among the earliest were the doctor and his ladies. The doctor came up to the boys, and said, kindly, “We’re driving up; you two had better come with us, there’s plenty of room on the box. Now, my love—now, Miss Stringer.”
Miss Stringer! Telson nearly fainted as he saw who it was who answered to the name.
“Let’s walk up,” he said, entreatingly, to Parson.
“I don’t mind, only Paddy—”
“Now then, boys,” cried the doctor, “there’s room for one inside. Telson, will you come?”
Telson bounded up on to the box without another word, and Parson beside him, and the fly drove off.
“Oh, Parson, old man, I’m a gone coon!” exclaimed Telson, in tones of abject misery, as soon as they were clear of the Browns’ premises.
“Why, what’s up?”
“Miss Stringer!”
“What about her? Isn’t she a cad, eh?”
“Yes, and I told her so,” groaned Telson; “I didn’t know who she was, and I said—”
“Hullo, I say, look there!” exclaimed Parson, suddenly catching his friend by the arm.
They were passing the Aquarium, which at that moment was disgorging its visitors. Among those who emerged exactly as the doctor’s fly passed were three boys, whom Telson and Parson recognised in a moment.
They were Silk and Gilks and another younger boy, who seemed to shrink from observation, and whose head was turned another way as the fly passed. The three, immediately on gaining the street, started to run towards Willoughby ahead of the fly.
The two boys on the box pulled their caps over their eyes, and said not a word till the truants were clear. Then Telson said, “That was young Wyndham!”
“I know. I wonder if Paddy saw them?”
“Shouldn’t think so. And they didn’t see us. I say, will they get in before us?”
“It’ll be a shave if they do. What a row there’ll be if they don’t!”
It was a curious thing that almost immediately after this short dialogue Telson’s cap fell off into the road, and the fly had to be pulled up while he and Parson got down and looked for it. It was a dark night, and the cap took some time to find. When finally it was recovered, and progress was resumed, full five minutes had been lost over the search, by which time the truants had got a clear half-mile to the good, and were safe.