AFTERMATH
Mr. Chowdler took the blow standing. “What else could you expect,” he
said contemptuously, “from such a Council! Like master, like man!”
He did not even break down when his house gave him an ovation at
prayers, such as might have greeted a conqueror. It was not so much a
demonstration against the headmaster as a display of tribal loyalty to
a fallen chief; and it had its touch of chivalry.
Mrs. Chowdler was completely bewildered. She could not understand how
anybody, having to choose between Harry and that dreadful Mr. Flaggon,
could fail to choose Harry. But she played up to her husband nobly.
“Of course,” she said, “we never expected anything else; but Harry
felt that it was his duty to give the Council a last chance of saving
the school. They have rejected it, and that is the end of Chiltern.”
Needless to say, nobody contradicted her, and she was the object of
much silent sympathy.
Some people supposed, and many hoped, that, when the verdict was given
against him, Mr. Chowdler would leave at once or at least withdraw from
active life; and the headmaster allowed it to be known in the Chowdler
circle, through Mr. Chase, that if such a step were contemplated
everything would be done to make it easy. But Mr. Chowdler preferred
to die fighting. In deference to the entreaties of his friends, he
did indeed absent himself from masters’ meetings; but, otherwise, his
presence was as much felt, his voice as often heard, as ever. No martyr
has ever stood at the stake with a prouder or more defiant mien.
Now a martyrdom is always an unpleasant business for others than the
victim; and one of the spectators who felt the unpleasantness most
acutely was Mr. Bent. Mr. Bent repudiated the title of sportsman, but
he had scruples and susceptibilities of his own. As unacknowledged heir
to Mr. Chowdler’s house he found his position a delicate one, and he
hesitated to proclaim his right to the succession while Mr. Chowdler
was so very much alive. It would have been comparatively easy to speak
the word while the battle was still raging and the issue in doubt; but
he had missed the psychological moment, and to speak it now, smacked
too much of a mean triumph over a fallen foe. Therefore, when people
wondered in his presence who would succeed to the house, he held his
peace and felt a little like a boy who had committed an offence and
fears to own up to it. The situation was particularly awkward, because
it was high time that he should be making arrangements for moving in;
and the holidays were short.
His friend Plummer put a finger, inadvertently, one afternoon on the
raw place and received a disagreeable shock.
“I wonder,” he said, “who will get Chowdler’s house. It’s very tactful
of Flaggon to keep it in abeyance; but he’ll _have_ to make the
appointment soon--certainly before the end of Term.”
“Perhaps it’ll be _me_,” said Mr. Bent, colouring slightly.
“Impossible!” cried Mr. Plummer in a voice of genuine alarm. “You’re
joking, I hope.”
“Why impossible, pray?” asked Mr. Bent, in tones of unusual chilliness.
“Why, because ...” replied Mr. Plummer irritably, “... it’s really very
difficult to explain ... but of all people you’re the very last who
ought to succeed Chowdler. Think what people would say!”
“_What_ would they say?” asked Mr. Bent doggedly.
The task of enlightening an obtuse friend as to what people are saying
of him is a delicate one; and Mr. Plummer couldn’t help thinking that
Bent was singularly and unexpectedly obtuse.
“Well, of course,” he began, “it _has_ been said by ill-natured
people--when you became a Flaggonite, you know, and seemed to be seeing
a good deal of him, that.... Well, in fact, that you had an axe of your
own to grind, and wanted----”
“The women, I suppose,” interrupted Mr. Bent.
“I expect so,” Mr. Plummer admitted.
Mr. Bent had always suspected that something of this kind would be
said. But it is one thing to have disagreeable suspicions, and another
to hear them confirmed. He looked pained, and said after a short pause:
“And do you believe it?”
“Of course not,” cried Mr. Plummer. “Nobody who knows you would believe
anything so ridiculous for the moment.”
“Then I don’t see why I should mind,” said Mr. Bent.
“But, my dear fellow,” protested Mr. Plummer, “you can surely see ...
and then there are the boys. Have you thought about them? Everybody
knows--or at least thinks--that you have a special ‘down’ on that
house; and the boys----”
“You mean they’ll fight?” suggested Mr. Bent.
“Undoubtedly,” replied his friend.
“Good!” cried Mr. Bent. “Excellent! Then there’ll _be_ a fight; that’s
all. It will be the making of me; and, by the Lord Harry, I’ll smash
’em.”
There was only one other incident in the Term that could be called at
all sensational. At the last masters’ meeting, about a week before the
holidays, Mr. Flaggon distributed some printed papers, which were found
to be a rough draft of the summer hours for Sunday, and a proposed new
curriculum. “I meant you to have these before,” he said, “but I fear I
have been too busy. I propose to discuss the whole question early next
Term.”
Mr. Beadle buried his head in his hands but said nothing; and almost
everybody felt a slight shock of pained surprise. This was surely
pushing the claims of the conqueror ungenerously far! They had accepted
their new headmaster--had even begun to discover qualities in him which
extorted admiration. But they expected that he, in his turn, would
make concessions, come at least part of the way to meet them; whereas,
to choose this particular moment for securing their tacit assent to
disputed principles, seemed an unfair use of a delicate situation and
peculiar circumstances. And it was inevitable that they should think
so; for, as Mr. Bent observed, they could not understand that what
they were willing to accept as the end, was to Mr. Flaggon only the
beginning.
The remaining days of the Term lingered like an unwelcome guest who
does not know how to take his leave. Everybody was nervously anxious
to have got through without further shocks or excitement, to close
a tragic chapter and plunge into the waters of oblivion before
beginning a new page. For the strain of the past weeks had been almost
intolerable.
And the end came at length, and in a gloom that made the last chapel
seem like a funeral service. Dotted about among the congregation were
the boys who were leaving under a cloud, and, in his stall on the south
wall of the nave, sat Mr. Chowdler, red, unhappy, and defiant. Though
he was convinced of the necessity, Mr. Flaggon could not but feel the
pity of it all; indeed, for a moment, he experienced the sensations
of a humane executioner in the presence of his victims. And worse was
to come. For, as he knelt for the last time in the school chapel,
Mr. Chowdler was suddenly overpowered by his emotions, and his broad
shoulders shook with the sobs that he was powerless to control. It was
not remorse; it was not even regret for anything he had done. Something
there was of the bitterness of defeat, and something of the grief of
a sanguine man who has lost an only child. Mr. Chowdler had loved
Chiltern with all the strength of a robust and unimaginative nature;
and, in a few short months, he had seen his roots in the past and his
heritage in the future destroyed, utterly and for ever. The holy places
had been defiled and Jerusalem made a heap of stones.
The headmaster saw and understood; and he had to make an unusual effort
before he was able to pronounce the blessing.
With the departure of Mr. Chowdler the Lanchester tradition, according
to one school of thought, received its death-blow. According to
another, it was really disinterred and given a new lease of life; and a
pamphlet containing some hitherto unpublished letters of the great man,
which can be obtained at the school stationer’s, lends some colour to
this view.
What Mr. Flaggon made of Chiltern and how Mr. Bent fared with his
house, may, possibly, be told hereafter. For the present we will leave
them to fight out their battles under the eyes of watchful colleagues
and the shadow of Dr. Lanchester’s statue in the great quadrangle.
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Badger = Mr. Bent; the Mink = Mr. Grady.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.