Art thou a magistrate? Then be severe.--GEORGE HERBERT.
Early in the day General Mohun received a note from Clement Underwood,
begging him to look in at St. Andrew’s Rock as soon as might be
convenient.
“Ah,” said his sister, “I strongly suspect something wrong about the
boys. Fergus was very odd and silent last night when I asked him about
Jem Horner’s picnic, and he said something about that Harewood cousin
being an unmitigated brute.”
“I hope Fergus was not in a scrape.”
“Oh no, it is not his way. His geology is a great safeguard. If it had
been Wilfred I might have been afraid.”
“His head is full--at least as much room as the lost aralia leaves--of
the examination for the Winchester College election.”
“Yes, you know Jasper has actually promised Gillian that if either
of her brothers gets a scholarship, she may be allowed a year at Lady
Margaret Hall.”
“Yes, it incited her to worry Wilfred beyond sufferance in his holidays.
I know if you or Lily had been always at me I should have kicked as hard
as he does.”
“Lily herself can hardly cram him with his holiday task; but Fergus is a
good little fellow.”
“You have kept him at it in a more judgmatical way. But won’t Armytage
come in between the damsel and her college?”
“Poor Mr. Armytage--Captain, I believe, for he has got his
commandership. Gill snubs him desperately. I believe she is afraid of
herself and her heart.”
“I hope she won’t be a goose. Jasper told me that he is an excellent
fellow, and it will be an absolute misfortune if the girl is besotted
enough to refuse him.”
“Girls have set up a foolish prejudice against matrimony.”
“Well, I am off. Clement Underwood is a reasonable man, and would not
send for me without cause.”
General Mohun came to that opinion when he heard of the scene on the
beach, and of the absolute certainty that the contraband goods had been
procured at Mrs. Schnetterling’s. Before his visit was over, a note came
down on gold-edged, cyphered pink paper, informing the Reverend E. C.
Underwood that Mrs. Campbell was much obliged to him for his attention
to her son, who was very unwell, entirely from the effects of clotted
cream. And while they were still laughing over the scored words, Anna
knocked at the door with a message from her aunt, to ask whether they
could come and speak to poor Mrs. Edgar, who was in a dreadful state.
“It is not about Adrian, I hope?” said she.
“Oh no, no, my dear; Adrian is all right, thanks to Fergus again,” said
her uncle. “He is the boy’s great protector; I only wish they could be
always together.”
Poor Mrs. Edgar! Rumours had not been slow in reaching her of the
condition in which her scholars had been found, very odd rumours too.
One that James Campbell had been brought home insensible, and the two
sailors carried on board in the like state; and an opposite report, that
the poor dear boys had only made themselves sick with dainties out of
Mrs. Schnetterling’s, and it was all a cruel notion of that teetotal
ritualist clergyman. Some boys would not speak, others were vague and
contradictory, and many knew nothing, Horner and Campbell were absent.
Clement much relieved her by giving an account of the matter, and
declaring that he feared his own elder nephew was the cause of all the
scandal, though he believed that some of her bigger pupils were guilty
of obtaining a smaller quantity, knowingly, of the Schnetterling’s
illicit wares, chiefly so far for the fun of doing something
forbidden--“Stolen waters are sweet.”
“A wicked woman! Surely she should not be allowed to go on.”
“I am going, on the spot, to see what can be done,” said General Mohun;
“but indeed I should have thought young Campbell rather too old for your
precincts.”
“Ah! yes. He is troublesome, but he is so backward, and is so delicate,
that his mother has implored me to keep him on, that he may have
sea-bathing. But this shall be the final stroke!”
“It will be the ruin of your school otherwise,” said the General.
“Ah! it might. And yet Mrs. Campbell will never be persuaded of the
fact! And she is a person of much influence! However, I cannot have my
poor dear little fellows led astray.”
Then, with some decided praises of dear little Sir Adrian, and regrets
at losing Fergus Merrifield, whom she declared, on the authority of her
gentleman assistant, to be certain of success, she departed; and Clement
resumed his task of writing letters, which he believed to be useless,
but which he felt to be right--one a grave warning to Edward Harewood,
and one to his father, whose indulgence he could not but hold
accountable.
Reginald Mohun meanwhile went his way to the officer of Inland Revenue,
who already had his suspicions as to Mrs. Schnetterling, and was glad
of positive evidence. He returned with the General to hear from Mr.
Underwood the condition in which he had found the boys, and the cause he
had for attributing it to the supplies from Mother Butterfly, and this
was thought sufficient evidence to authorize the sending a constable
with a search-warrant to the shop. The two gentlemen were glad that the
detection should be possible without either sending a spy, or forcing
evidence from the boys, who had much better be kept out of the matter
altogether. No lack of illicit stores was found when the policemen made
their descent, and a summons was accordingly served on its mistress to
appear at the next Petty Sessions.
Reginald Mohun, used to the justice of county magistrates, and the
unflinching dealings of courts-martial, was determined to see the affair
through, so he went to the magistrates’ meeting, and returned with the
tidings that the possession of smuggled tobacco ready for sale had been
proved against Mrs. Schnetterling, and she had been fined twenty-five
pounds, to be paid at the next Petty Sessions. Otherwise goods would be
seized to that value, or she would have a short term of imprisonment.
There was no doubt that contraband spirits were also found, but it was
not thought expedient to press this charge.
He said the poor woman had been in a great passion of despair, wringing
her hands and weeping demonstratively.
“Quite theatrical,” he said. “I am sure she has been an actress.”
“It did not prejudice your hard-headed town-councillors in her favour,”
said Gerald.
“Far from it! In fact old Simmonds observed that she was a painted
foreign Jezebel.”
“Not to her face!” said Gerald.
“We are not quite brutes, whatever you may think us, my boy,” said the
General good-humouredly.
“Well,” said Gerald, in the same tone, “how could I tell how it might be
when the Philistines conspired to hunt down a poor foreign widow trying
to pick up a scanty livelihood?”
“If the poor foreign widow had been content without corrupting the
boys,” said Clement, “she would have been let alone.”
“It was not for corrupting the boys. That was done--or not done--by my
amiable cousin Ted. What harm did her ‘baccy do to living soul?”
“It is a risky thing, to say the least of it, for a living soul to
defraud the revenue,” said Clement.
“Of which probably she never heard.”
“She must have seen the terms of her licence,” said the General.
“Aye, a way of increasing the revenue by burthens on the chief solace of
poverty,” said Gerald hotly.
“You’ll come to your senses by and by, young man,” imperturbably
answered the General.
“Is she likely to be able to pay?” asked Gerald in return.
“Oh yes, the policeman said she drove a very thriving trade, both with
the boys and with the sailors, and that there was no doubt that she
could pay.”
Clement was very glad to hear it, for it not only obviated any sense
of harshness in his mind, but he thought Gerald, in his present mood
of compassion--or opposition, whichever it was--capable of offering to
undertake to pay the fine for her.
Poor little Ludmilla was found the next day by Mrs. Henderson, crying
softly over her work at the mosaic department--work which was only
the mechanical arrangement from patterns provided, for she had no
originality, and would never attain to any promotion in the profession.
Mrs. Henderson took the poor girl to her own little office, to try to
comfort her, and bring her into condition for the rehearsal of the scene
with Ferdinand, which she was to go through in Mr. Flight’s parlour
chaperoned by his mother. She was so choked with sobs that it did not
seem probable that she would have any voice; for she had been struggling
with her tears all day, and now, in the presence of her friend, she
gave them a free course. She thought it so cruel--so very cruel of the
gentlemen; how could they do such a thing to a poor helpless stranger?
And that tall one--to be a clergyman--how could he?
Mrs. Henderson tried to represent that, having accepted the licence on
certain terms, it was wrong to break them; and that the gentlemen must
be right to hinder harm to their nephews.
It seemed all past the poor girl’s understanding, since the nephews had
taken no harm; and indeed the other boys had only touched the spirits
by way of joke and doing something forbidden: it had all come of those
horrid young midshipmen, who had come down and worried and bothered her
mother into giving them the bottles of spirits which had not been mixed.
It was very hard.
“Ah, Lydia, one sin leads no one knows where! Those little boys, think
of their first learning the taste for alcohol in secret!”
Lydia did see this, but after all, she said, it was not the spirits, but
the tobacco, which the Dutch and American sailors were glad enough to
exchange for her mother’s commodities. She had never perceived any harm
in the arrangement, and hardly comprehended when the saying, “Custom to
whom custom,” was pointed out to her.
Kalliope asked whether the fine would fall heavily on her mother.
“Oh, that is worst of all. Mother is gone to Avoncester to raise the
money. She won’t tell me how. And I do believe O’Leary’s circus is
there.”
Then came another sobbing fit.
“But how--what do you mean, my dear?”
“O’Leary was our clown when my father--my dear father--was alive. He was
a coarse horrid man, as cruel to the poor dear horses as he dared. And
now he has set up for himself, and has been going about all over the
county. Mother has been quite different ever since she met him one day
in Avoncester, and I fear--oh, I fear he will advance her this money,
and make her give me up to him; and my dear father made her promise that
I would never be on the boards.”
This was in an agony of crying, and it appeared that Schnetterling had
really been a very decent, amiable person, who had been passionately
fond of his little daughter. Her recollection dated from the time when
the family had come from America, and he had become partner in a circus,
intending to collect means enough to retire to a home in Germany, but he
had died five years ago, at Avoncester, of fever, and his wife had used
his savings to set up this little shop at Rockquay, choosing that place
because it was the resort of foreign trading-vessels, with whom her
knowledge of languages would be available. She had suffered from the
same illness, and her voice had been affected at the time, and she was
altogether subdued and altered, and had allowed her daughter to receive
a good National school training; but with the recovery of health,
activity, and voice, a new temper, or rather the old one renewed,
had seized her, and since she had met her former companion, Ludmilla
foreboded that the impulse of wandering had come upon her, and that if
the interference of the authorities pressed upon her and endangered her
traffic, she would throw it up altogether, and drag her daughter into
the profession so dreadful to all the poor child’s feelings.
No wonder that the girl cried till she had no voice, and took but
partial comfort from repeated assurances that her friends would do their
utmost on her behalf. Mrs. Henderson tried to compose and cheer her,
walking with her herself to St. Kenelm’s Parsonage, and trying to keep
up her earnest desire to please Mr. Flight, the special object of her
veneration. But wishes were ineffectual to prevent her from breaking
down in the first line of her first song, and when Mr. Flight
blamed, and Lady Flight turned round on the music-stool to say
severely--“Command yourself, Lydia,” she became almost hysterical.
“Wait a minute,” said Gerald. “Give her a glass of wine, and she will be
better.”
“Oh no, no; please, I’m temp--” and a sob.
The five o’clock tea was still standing on a little table, and Gerald
poured out a cup and took it to her, then set her down in an arm-chair,
and said--
“I’ll go through Angus’ part, and she will be better,” and as she tried
to say “Thank you,” and “So kind,” he held up his hand, and told her to
be silent. In fact, his encouragement, and the little delay he had made,
enabled her to recover herself enough to get through her part, though
nothing like as well as would have been expected of her.
“Never mind,” said Gerald, “she will be all right when my uncle comes.
Won’t you, Mona?”
“I should have expected--” began Lady Flight.
Gerald held up his hand in entreaty.
“People’s voices can’t be always the same,” he said cheerily. “I know
our Mona will do us credit yet! Won’t you, Mona? You know how to pity me
with my logs!”
“You had better go and have some tea in the kitchen, Lydia,” said Lady
Flight repressively; and Ludmilla curtsied herself off, with a look of
gratitude out of her swollen eyelids at Gerald.
“Poor little mortal,” he said, as she went. “I am afraid that in her
case summum jus was summa injuria.”
“It was quite right to prosecute that mischievous woman,” said Mr.
Flight.
“Maybe,” said Gerald; “but wheat will grow alongside of tares.”
“I hope the girl is wheat,” half ironically and severely said the lady.
Gerald shrugged his shoulders and took his leave.