The dinner-bell rang out, and we went down. Dr. Frost was putting up the letter which old Fontaine had been translating to him. It was full of directions about Van Rheyn’s health. What he was to do, and what not to do. Monsieur Van Rheyn said his son was not strong: he was not to be allowed to do gymnastics or “boxing,” or to play at rough games, or take violent exercise of any kind; and a small glass of milk was to be given him at night when he went to bed. If the clothes sent over with him were not suitable to the school, or in accordance with the English mode, Dr. Frost was prayed to be at the trouble of procuring him new ones. He was to be brought well on in all the studies necessary to constitute the “gentilhomme,” and especially in the speaking and reading of English.
Dr. Frost directed his spectacles to Charles Van Rheyn, examining him from top to toe. The round, red face, and the strongly-built frame appeared to give nothing but indications of robust health. The doctor questioned him in what way he was not strong—whether he was subject to a cough, or to want of appetite, and other such items. But Van Rheyn seemed to know nothing about it, and said he had always been quite well.
“The father fears we should make him into a muscular Englishman, hence these restrictions,” thought Dr. Frost.
In the afternoon the fellows began to come in thick and threefold: Tod amongst them, who arrived about tea-time. To describe their amazement when they saw Van Rheyn is quite beyond me. It seemed that they never meant to leave off staring. Some of them gave him a little chaff, even that first night. Van Rheyn was very shy and silent. Entirely at his ease as he had been with me alone, the numbers seemed to daunt him; to strike him and his courage into himself.
On the whole, Van Rheyn was not liked. Once let a school set itself against a new fellow at first—and Van Rheyn’s queer appearance had done that much for him—it takes a long time to bring matters round—if they ever are brought round at all. When his hair began to sprout, it looked exactly like pig’s bristles. And that was the first nickname he got: Bristles. The doctor had soon changed his style of coat, and he wore jackets, as we did.
Charles Van Rheyn did not seem inclined to grow sociable. Shy and silent as he had shown himself to them that first evening, so he remained. True, he had no encouragement to be otherwise. The boys continually threw ridicule on him, making him into an almost perpetual butt. Any mistake in the pronunciation of an English word—Van Rheyn never made a mistake as to its meaning—they hissed and groaned at. I shall never forget one occasion. Being asked when that Indian lot intended to arrive (meaning the Scotts), and whether they would make the voyage in a palanquin (for the boys plied him with questions purposely) he answered, “Not in a palanquin, but in a sheep”—meaning ship. The uproar at that was so loud, that some of the masters looked in to know what was up.
Van Rheyn, too, was next door to helpless. He did not climb, or leap, or even run. Had not been used to it, he said. What had he been used to do, then, he was asked one day. Oh, he had sat out in the garden with his mother; and since her death, with Aunt Claribelle, and gone for an airing in the carriage three times a week. Was he a girl? roared the boys. Did he do patchwork? Not now; he had left off sewing when he was nine, answered Van Rheyn innocently, unconscious of the storm of mockery the avowal would invoke. “Pray, were you born a young lady?—or did they change you at nurse?” shouted Jessup, who would have kept the ball rolling till midnight. “I say, you fellows, he has come to the wrong school: we don’t take in girls, do we? Let me introduce this one to you, boys—‘Miss Charlotte.’” And, so poor Charley Van Rheyn got that nickname as well as the other. Miss Charlotte!
Latin was a stumbling-block. Van Rheyn had learnt it according to French rules and French pronunciation, and he could not readily get into our English mode. “It was bad enough to have to teach a stupid boy Latin,” grumbled the under Latin master (under Dr. Frost), “but worse to have to un-teach him.” Van Rheyn was not stupid, however; if he seemed so, it was because his new life was so strange to him.