Agnes looked bewildered.
“Aren’t you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account to unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny books tells Podge that he’s made of hard little black things, another that he’s made of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a discrepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be made in the Garden of Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever cost to the probable.” When for a moment she spoke more gravely. “Here he is at twenty, with nothing to hold on by. I don’t know what’s to be done. I suppose it’s my fault. But I’ve never had any bother over the Church of England; have you?”
“Of course I go with my Church,” said Miss Pembroke, who hated this style of conversation. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I think you should consult a man.”
“Would Rickie help me?”
“Rickie would do anything he can.” And Mrs. Failing noted the half official way in which she vouched for her lover. “But of course Rickie is a little—complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand him. He wants—doesn’t he?—some one who’s a little more assertive and more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother.”
“Agnes!” she seized her by the arm. “Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke would undertake my Podge?”
She shook her head. “His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house next term. Besides—after all I don’t know what Herbert would do.”
“Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles may come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief. Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused the use of the globes. You know, of course, that Stephen’s expelled from a public school? He stole.”
The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. A violent spasm of dishonesty—such as often heralds the approach of manhood—had overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was betrayed by the inclusion of a ham. This was the crisis of his career. His benefactress was just then rather bored with him. He had stopped being a pretty boy, and she rather doubted whether she would see him through. But she was so raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and so delighted with those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave him a prize.
“No,” said Agnes, “I didn’t know. I should be happy to speak to Herbert, but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know he has friends who make a speciality of weakly or—or unusual boys.”
“My dear, I’ve tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and robbed apples with the unusual ones. He was expelled again.”
Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you trod on her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet. Agnes liked to know where she was and where other people were as well. She said: “My brother thinks a great deal of home life. I daresay he’d think that Mr. Wonham is best where he is—with you. You have been so kind to him. You”—she paused—“have been to him both father and mother.”
“I’m too hot,” was Mrs. Failing’s reply. It seemed that Miss Pembroke had at last touched a topic on which she was reticent. She rang the electric bell,—it was only to tell the footman to take the reprints to Mr. Wonham’s room,—and then murmuring something about work, proceeded herself to the house.
“Mrs. Failing—” said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy end to their chat.
“Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?”
“Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?”
“It is bad,” said Mrs. Failing. “But. But. But.” Then she escaped, having told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind her.
XII
Table of Contents
The excursion to Salisbury was but a poor business—in fact, Rickie never got there. They were not out of the drive before Mr. Wonham began doing acrobatics. He showed Rickie how very quickly he could turn round in his saddle and sit with his face to Aeneas’s tail. “I see,” said Rickie coldly, and became almost cross when they arrived in this condition at the gate behind the house, for he had to open it, and was afraid of falling. As usual, he anchored just beyond the fastenings, and then had to turn Dido, who seemed as long as a battleship. To his relief a man came forward, and murmuring, “Worst gate in the parish,” pushed it wide and held it respectfully. “Thank you,” cried Rickie; “many thanks.” But Stephen, who was riding into the world back first, said majestically, “No, no; it doesn’t count. You needn’t think it does. You make it worse by touching your hat. Four hours and seven minutes! You’ll see me again.” The man answered nothing.
“Eh, but I’ll hurt him,” he chanted, as he swung into position. “That was Flea. Eh, but he’s forgotten my fists; eh, but I’ll hurt him.”
“Why?” ventured Rickie. Last night, over cigarettes, he had been bored to death by the story of Flea. The boy had a little reminded him of Gerald—the Gerald of history, not the Gerald of romance. He was more genial, but there was the same brutality, the same peevish insistence on the pound of flesh.
“Hurt him till he learns.”
“Learns what?”
“Learns, of course,” retorted Stephen. Neither of them was very civil. They did not dislike each other, but they each wanted to be somewhere else—exactly the situation that Mrs. Failing had expected.
“He behaved badly,” said Rickie, “because he is poorer than we are, and more ignorant. Less money has been spent on teaching him to behave.”
“Well, I’ll teach him for nothing.”
“Perhaps his fists are stronger than yours!”
“They aren’t. I looked.”
After this conversation flagged. Rickie glanced back at Cadover, and thought of the insipid day that lay before him. Generally he was attracted by fresh people, and Stephen was almost fresh: they had been to him symbols of the unknown, and all that they did was interesting. But now he cared for the unknown no longer. He knew.
Mr. Wilbraham passed them in his dog-cart, and lifted his hat to his employer’s nephew. Stephen he ignored: he could not find him on the map.
“Good morning,” said Rickie. “What a lovely morning!”
“I say,” called the other, “another child dead!” Mr. Wilbraham, who had seemed inclined to chat, whipped up his horse and left them.
“There goes an out and outer,” said Stephen; and then, as if introducing an entirely new subject— “Don’t you think Flea Thompson treated me disgracefully?”
“I suppose he did. But I’m scarcely the person to sympathize.” The allusion fell flat, and he had to explain it. “I should have done the same myself,—promised to be away two hours, and stopped four.”
“Stopped-oh—oh, I understand. You being in love, you mean?”
He smiled and nodded.
“Oh, I’ve no objection to Flea loving. He says he can’t help it. But as long as my fists are stronger, he’s got to keep it in line.”
“In line?”
“A man like that, when he’s got a girl, thinks the rest can go to the devil. He goes cutting his work and breaking his word. Wilbraham ought to sack him. I promise you when I’ve a girl I’ll keep her in line, and if she turns nasty,