Chapter Fifteen.
A Crime.
Once every term the cricket and football committees assembled to transact business. They learned what funds were in hand, what subscriptions had been paid and what were in arrear, also the expenditure for balls, nets, goals, stumps, rolling the ground, and all other items. After which, rules were discussed, and arrangements for future matches made. It was part of the principle of the school that the boys should manage all these things for themselves, as it was considered that to learn practically how to set such matters going and keep them in order was quite as educational as to acquire the right use of the subjunctive. All that the authorities had to do with the arrangement was that when the day and hour for a committee meeting was fixed, the master in whose house the secretary was, gave leave for his pupil-room to be used for the occasion; and it was also customary to ask one of them to audit the accounts. These assemblages were of a twofold character: during the first part, when the accounts were read out, and what had been done gone over, any boy who liked might attend and ask questions. But when arrangements for the future were discussed, the room was cleared of all but the committee. Experience had brought that about; for when outsiders had been allowed to remain, the number and variety of absurd and futile suggestions which were made, prevented any conclusion being come to at all.
Since Crawley was the secretary and treasurer of both the cricket and football clubs there was only one general meeting, at which the accounts of both were taken together, instead of two in the term, as when those offices were vested in different individuals. Crawley had found these burdens rather onerous this term; with that stiff examination looming nearer and nearer every month he began to feel serious, for he had set his heart upon getting into the artillery if he could, and he was going at his subjects in downright earnest, with no shirking or trifling when the humour was not on him. So that the time it took him to prepare these accounts, and still worse, to collect the subscriptions, he did rather grudge. But he never dreamed of resigning on that account; he had undertaken these duties, and would go on with them without grumbling. Perhaps he had the feeling which energetic folk who are accustomed to other people leaning on them are naturally apt to acquire, that things would get into a muddle without him. However he had got in the subscriptions, docketed his papers, and prepared everything for the meeting that evening, and the last finishing stroke being put, he locked all up in the japanned box which he kept in his room, with “Weston Cricket Club” neatly painted on it in white letters, changed his clothes for flannels, and ran out to the football field.
He had not been gone a quarter of an hour before Saurin and Edwards approached the house on their visit to Gould, who was also an inmate of Dr Jolliffe’s. They had chosen that time in order to find him alone, for he had had a slight sprain of the ankle—not enough to lay him up altogether, but sufficient to prevent his playing at football; and as he was rather glad than otherwise of an excuse to sit in with a novel, the chances were that he was now so occupied. It was a fine March day, with a bright sun and a cold east wind—not high enough to be unpleasant though, unless you dawdled about. When they came to the side-door which led to the boys’ part of the house, which was a separate block of buildings from the doctor’s residence, though joined to and communicating with it, Saurin stopped and said: “I think perhaps you had better wait here for me; I shall get on better with him alone.”
“All right!” replied Edwards with a feeling of relief, for he dreaded the interview with Gould beyond measure. It is nervous work to ask anyone to lend you money, unless you are quite hardened. Saurin felt that too; it was a bitter pill for his pride to swallow, with the prospect on one side of a refusal and on the other of being subjected to insolent airs of superiority, for Gould was not the fellow to grant a favour graciously. But he had a stronger will than Edwards, and the situation made extreme measures necessary.
He entered the passage alone, then, and mounted the staircase, not meeting anyone. Dead stillness pervaded the house except for the trills of a canary at the far end of the second landing. Crawley’s door was open as he passed, and he saw his clothes strewn about over a couple of chairs and the japanned box standing in a corner by his bureau. Saurin passed on, the song of the canary growing louder as he advanced, and knocked at Gould’s door; there was no response. “Gould!” he cried, “Gould! are you in?” As there was still no answer he turned the handle and looked in; there
was the canary hanging in the window, through which the sun poured, and his shrill notes went through his head; but no Gould. “Plague take it!” muttered Saurin; “it is all to do now another time, and I cannot get this suspense over. I wonder where the fellow has gone to!”