Mr. Lumsden, the senior partner of Lumsden and Westmacott, the
well-known scholastic and clerical agents, was a small, dapper man, with
a sharp, abrupt manner, a critical eye, and an incisive way of speaking.
“Your name, sir?” said he, sitting pen in hand with his long, red-lined
folio in front of him.
“Harold Weld.”
“Oxford or Cambridge?”
“Cambridge.”
“Honours?”
“No, sir.”
“Athlete?”
“Nothing remarkable, I am afraid.”
“Not a Blue?”
“Oh, no.”
Mr. Lumsden shook his head despondently and shrugged his shoulders in a
way which sent my hopes down to zero. “There is a very keen competition
for masterships, Mr. Weld,” said he. “The vacancies are few and the
applicants innumerable. A first-class athlete, oar, or cricketer, or a
man who has passed very high in his examinations, can usually find a
vacancy—I might say always in the case of the cricketer. But the average
man—if you will excuse the description, Mr. Weld—has a very great
difficulty, almost an insurmountable difficulty. We have already more
than a hundred such names upon our lists, and if you think it worth
while our adding yours, I daresay that in the course of some years we
may possibly be able to find you some opening which——”
He paused on account of a knock at the door. It was a clerk with a note.
Mr. Lumsden broke the seal and read it.
“Why, Mr. Weld,” said he, “this is really rather an interesting
coincidence. I understand you to say that Latin and English are your
subjects, and that you would prefer for a time to accept a place in an
elementary establishment, where you would have time for private study?”
“Quite so.”
“This note contains a request from an old client of ours, Dr. Phelps
McCarthy, of Willow Lea House Academy, West Hampstead, that I should at
once send him a young man who should be qualified to teach Latin and
English to a small class of boys under fourteen years of age. His
vacancy appears to be the very one which you are looking for. The terms
are not munificent—sixty pounds, board, lodging, and washing—but the
work is not onerous, and you would have the evenings to yourself.”
“That would do,” I cried, with all the eagerness of the man who sees
work at last after weary months of seeking.
“I don’t know that it is quite fair to these gentlemen whose names have
been so long upon our list,” said Mr. Lumsden, glancing down at his open
ledger. “But the coincidence is so striking that I feel we must really
give you the refusal of it.”
“Then I accept it, sir, and I am much obliged to you.”
“There is one small provision in Dr. McCarthy’s letter. He stipulates
that the applicant must be a man with an imperturbably good temper.”
“I am the very man,” said I, with conviction.
“Well,” said Mr. Lumsden, with some hesitation, “I hope that your temper
is really as good as you say, for I rather fancy that you may need it.”
“I presume that every elementary schoolmaster does.”
“Yes, sir, but it is only fair to you to warn you that there may be some
especially trying circumstances in this particular situation. Dr. Phelps
McCarthy does not make such a condition without some very good and
pressing reason.”
There was a certain solemnity in his speech which struck a chill in the
delight with which I had welcomed this providential vacancy.
“May I ask the nature of these circumstances?” I asked.
“We endeavour to hold the balance equally between our clients, and to be
perfectly frank with all of them. If I knew of objections to you I
should certainly communicate them to Dr. McCarthy, and so I have no
hesitation in doing as much for you. I find,” he continued, glancing
over the pages of his ledger, “that within the last twelve months we
have supplied no fewer than seven Latin masters to Willow Lea House
Academy, four of them having left so abruptly as to forfeit their
month’s salary, and none of them having stayed more than eight weeks.”
“And the other masters? Have they stayed?”
“There is only one other residential master, and he appears to be
unchanged. You can understand, Mr. Weld,” continued the agent, closing
both the ledger and the interview, “that such rapid changes are not
desirable from a master’s point of view, whatever may be said for them
by an agent working on commission. I have no idea why these gentlemen
have resigned their situations so early. I can only give you the facts,
and advise you to see Dr. McCarthy at once and to form your own
conclusions.”
Great is the power of the man who has nothing to lose, and it was
therefore with perfect serenity, but with a good deal of curiosity, that
I rang early that afternoon the heavy wrought-iron bell of the Willow
Lea House Academy. The building was a massive pile, square and ugly,
standing in its own extensive grounds, with a broad carriage-sweep
curving up to it from the road. It stood high, and commanded a view on
the one side of the grey roofs and bristling spires of Northern London,
and on the other of the well-wooded and beautiful country which fringes
the great city. The door was opened by a boy in buttons, and I was shown
into a well-appointed study, where the principal of the academy
presently joined me.
The warnings and insinuations of the agent had prepared me to meet a
choleric and overbearing person—one whose manner was an insupportable
provocation to those who worked under him. Anything further from the
reality cannot be imagined. He was a frail, gentle creature,
clean-shaven and round-shouldered, with a bearing which was so courteous
that it became almost deprecating. His bushy hair was thickly shot with
grey, and his age I should imagine to verge upon sixty. His voice was
low and suave, and he walked with a certain mincing delicacy of manner.
His whole appearance was that of a kindly scholar, who was more at home
among his books than in the practical affairs of the world.
“I am sure that we shall be very happy to have your assistance, Mr.
Weld,” said he, after a few professional questions. “Mr. Percival
Manners left me yesterday, and I should be glad if you could take over
his duties to-morrow.”
“May I ask if that is Mr. Percival Manners of Selwyn?” I asked.
“Precisely. Did you know him?”
“Yes; he is a friend of mine.”
“An excellent teacher, but a little hasty in his disposition. It was his
only fault. Now, in your case, Mr. Weld, is your own temper under good
control? Supposing for argument’s sake that I were to so far forget
myself as to be rude to you or to speak roughly or to jar your feelings
in any way, could you rely upon yourself to control your emotions?”
I smiled at the idea of this courteous, little, mincing creature
ruffling my nerves.
“I think that I could answer for it, sir,” said I.
“Quarrels are very painful to me,” said he. “I wish every one to live in
harmony under my roof. I will not deny Mr. Percival Manners had
provocation, but I wish to find a man who can raise himself above
provocation, and sacrifice his own feelings for the sake of peace and
concord.”
“I will do my best, sir.”
“You cannot say more, Mr. Weld. In that case I shall expect you
to-night, if you can get your things ready so soon.”
I not only succeeded in getting my things ready, but I found time to
call at the Benedict Club in Piccadilly, where I knew that I should find
Manners if he were still in town. There he was sure enough in the
smoking-room, and I questioned him, over a cigarette, as to his reasons
for throwing up his recent situation.
“You don’t tell me that you are going to Dr. Phelps McCarthy’s Academy?”
he cried, staring at me in surprise. “My dear chap, it’s no use. You
can’t possibly remain there.”
“But I saw him, and he seemed the most courtly, inoffensive fellow. I
never met a man with more gentle manners.”
“He! oh, he’s all right. There’s no vice in him. Have you seen
Theophilus St. James?”
“I have never heard the name. Who is he?”
“Your colleague. The other master.”
“No, I have not seen him.”
“_He’s_ the terror. If you can stand him, you have either the spirit of
a perfect Christian or else you have no spirit at all. A more perfect
bounder never bounded.”
“But why does McCarthy stand it?”
My friend looked at me significantly through his cigarette smoke, and
shrugged his shoulders.
“You will form your own conclusions about that. Mine were formed very
soon, and I never found occasion to alter them.”
“It would help me very much if you would tell me them.”
“When you see a man in his own house allowing his business to be ruined,
his comfort destroyed, and his authority defied by another man in a
subordinate position, and calmly submitting to it without so much as a
word of protest, what conclusion do you come to?”
“That the one has a hold over the other.”
Percival Manners nodded his head.
“There you are! You’ve hit it first barrel. It seems to me that there’s
no other explanation which will cover the facts. At some period in his
life the little Doctor has gone astray. _Humanum est errare._ I have
even done it myself. But this was something serious, and the other man
got a hold of it and has never let go. That’s the truth. Blackmail is at
the bottom of it. But he had no hold over me, and there was no reason
why _I_ should stand his insolence, so I came away—and I very much
expect to see you do the same.”
For some time he talked over the matter, but he always came to the same
conclusion—that I should not retain my new situation very long.
It was with no very pleasant feelings after this preparation that I
found myself face to face with the very man of whom I had received so
evil an account. Dr. McCarthy introduced us to each other in his study
on the evening of that same day immediately after my arrival at the
school.
“This is your new colleague, Mr. St. James,” said he, in his genial,
courteous fashion. “I trust that you will mutually agree, and that I
shall find nothing but good feeling and sympathy beneath this roof.”
I shared the good Doctor’s hope, but my expectations of it were not
increased by the appearance of my _confrère_. He was a young,
bull-necked fellow about thirty years of age, dark-eyed and
black-haired, with an exceedingly vigorous physique. I have never seen a
more strongly built man, though he tended to run to fat in a way which
showed that he was in the worst of training. His face was coarse,
swollen, and brutal, with a pair of small black eyes deeply sunken in
his head. His heavy jowl, his projecting ears, and his thick bandy legs
all went to make up a personality which was as formidable as it was
repellent.
“I hear you’ve never been out before,” said he, in a rude, brusque
fashion. “Well, it’s a poor life: hard work and starvation pay, as
you’ll find out for yourself.”
“But it has some compensations,” said the principal. “Surely you will
allow that, Mr. St. James?”
“Has it? I never could find them. What do you call compensations?”
“Even to be in the continual presence of youth is a privilege. It has
the effect of keeping youth in one’s own soul, for one reflects
something of their high spirits and their keen enjoyment of life.”
“Little beasts!” cried my colleague.
“Come, come, Mr. St. James, you are too hard upon them.”
“I hate the sight of them! If I could put them and their blessed
copybooks and lexicons and slates into one bonfire I’d do it to-night.”
“This is Mr. St. James’s way of talking,” said the principal, smiling
nervously as he glanced at me. “You must not take him too seriously.
Now, Mr. Weld, you know where your room is, and no doubt you have your
own little arrangements to make. The sooner you make them the sooner you
will feel yourself at home.”
It seemed to me that he was only too anxious to remove me at once from
the influence of this extraordinary colleague, and I was glad to go, for
the conversation had become embarrassing.
And so began an epoch which always seems to me as I look back to it to
be the most singular in all my experience. The school was in many ways
an excellent one. Dr. Phelps McCarthy was an ideal principal. His
methods were modern and rational. The management was all that could be
desired. And yet in the middle of this well-ordered machine there
intruded the incongruous and impossible Mr. St. James, throwing
everything into confusion. His duties were to teach English and
mathematics, and how he acquitted himself of them I do not know, as our
classes were held in separate rooms. I can answer for it, however, that
the boys feared him and loathed him, and I know that they had good
reason to do so, for frequently my own teaching was interrupted by his
bellowings of anger, and even by the sound of his blows. Dr. McCarthy
spent most of his time in his class, but it was, I suspect, to watch
over the master rather than the boys, and to try to moderate his
ferocious temper when it threatened to become dangerous.
It was in his bearing to the head master, however, that my colleague’s
conduct was most outrageous. The first conversation which I have
recorded proved to be typical of their intercourse. He domineered over
him openly and brutally. I have heard him contradict him roughly before
the whole school. At no time would he show him any mark of respect, and
my temper often rose within me when I saw the quiet acquiescence of the
old Doctor, and his patient tolerance of this monstrous treatment. And
yet the sight of it surrounded the principal also with a certain vague
horror in my mind, for supposing my friend’s theory to be correct—and I
could devise no better one—how black must have been the story which
could be held over his head by this man and, by fear of its publicity,
force him to undergo such humiliations. This quiet, gentle Doctor might
be a profound hypocrite, a criminal, a forger possibly, or a poisoner.
Only such a secret as this could account for the complete power which
the young man held over him. Why else should he admit so hateful a
presence into his house and so harmful an influence into his school? Why
should he submit to degradations which could not be witnessed, far less
endured, without indignation?
And yet, if it were so, I was forced to confess that my principal
carried it off with extraordinary duplicity. Never by word or sign did
he show that the young man’s presence was distasteful to him. I have
seen him look pained, it is true, after some peculiarly outrageous
exhibition, but he gave me the impression that it was always on account
of the scholars or of me, never on account of himself. He spoke to and
of St. James in an indulgent fashion, smiling gently at what made my
blood boil within me. In his way of looking at him and addressing him,
one could see no trace of resentment, but rather a sort of timid and
deprecating good will. His company he certainly courted, and they spent
many hours together in the study and the garden.
As to my own relations with Theophilus St. James, I made up my mind from
the beginning that I should keep my temper with him, and to that
resolution I steadfastly adhered. If Dr. McCarthy chose to permit this
disrespect, and to condone these outrages, it was his affair and not
mine. It was evident that his one wish was that there should be peace
between us, and I felt that I could help him best by respecting this
desire. My easiest way to do so was to avoid my colleague, and this I
did to the best of my ability. When we were thrown together I was quiet,
polite, and reserved. He, on his part, showed me no ill-will, but met me
rather with a coarse joviality, and a rough familiarity which he meant
to be ingratiating. He was insistent in his attempts to get me into his
room at night, for the purpose of playing euchre and of drinking.
“Old McCarthy doesn’t mind,” said he. “Don’t you be afraid of him. We’ll
do what we like, and I’ll answer for it that he won’t object.” Once only
I went, and when I left, after a dull and gross evening, my host was
stretched dead drunk upon the sofa. After that I gave the excuse of a
course of study, and spent my spare hours alone in my own room.
One point upon which I was anxious to gain information was as to how
long these proceedings had been going on. When did St. James assert his
hold over Dr. McCarthy? From neither of them could I learn how long my
colleague had been in his present situation. One or two leading
questions upon my part were eluded or ignored in a manner so marked that
it was easy to see that they were both of them as eager to conceal the
point as I was to know it. But at last one evening I had the chance of a
chat with Mrs. Carter, the matron—for the Doctor was a widower—and from
her I got the information which I wanted. It needed no questioning to
get at her knowledge, for she was so full of indignation that she shook
with passion as she spoke of it, and raised her hands into the air in
the earnestness of her denunciation, as she described the grievances
which she had against my colleague.
“It was three years ago, Mr. Weld, that he first darkened this
doorstep,” she cried. “Three bitter years they have been to me. The
school had fifty boys then. Now it has twenty-two. That’s what he has
done for us in three years. In another three there won’t be one. And the
Doctor, that angel of patience, you see how he treats him, though he is
not fit to lace his boots for him. If it wasn’t for the Doctor, you may
be sure that I wouldn’t stay an hour under the same roof with such a
man, and so I told him to his own face, Mr. Weld. If the Doctor would
only pack him about his business—but I know that I am saying more than I
should!” She stopped herself with an effort, and spoke no more upon the
subject. She had remembered that I was almost a stranger in the school,
and she feared that she had been indiscreet.
There were one or two very singular points about my colleague. The chief
one was that he rarely took any exercise. There was a playing-field
within the college grounds, and that was his farthest point. If the boys
went out, it was I or Dr. McCarthy who accompanied them. St. James gave
as a reason for this that he had injured his knee some years before, and
that walking was painful to him. For my own part I put it down to pure
laziness upon his part, for he was of an obese, heavy temperament.
Twice, however, I saw him from my window stealing out of the grounds
late at night, and the second time I watched him return in the grey of
the morning and slink in through an open window. These furtive
excursions were never alluded to, but they exposed the hollowness of his
story about his knee, and they increased the dislike and distrust which
I had of the man. His nature seemed to be vicious to the core.
Another point, small but suggestive, was that he hardly ever during the
months that I was at Willow Lea House received any letters, and on those
few occasions they were obviously tradesmen’s bills. I am an early
riser, and used every morning to pick my own correspondence out of the
bundle upon the hall table. I could judge therefore how few were ever
there for Mr. Theophilus St. James. There seemed to me to be something
peculiarly ominous in this. What sort of a man could he be who during
thirty years of life had never made a single friend, high or low, who
cared to continue to keep in touch with him? And yet the sinister fact
remained that the head master not only tolerated, but was even intimate
with him. More than once on entering a room I have found them talking
confidentially together, and they would walk arm in arm in deep
conversation up and down the garden paths. So curious did I become to
know what the tie was which bound them, that I found it gradually push
out my other interests and become the main purpose of my life. In school
and out of school, at meals and at play, I was perpetually engaged in
watching Dr. Phelps McCarthy and Mr. Theophilus St. James, and in
endeavouring to solve the mystery which surrounded them.
But, unfortunately, my curiosity was a little too open. I had not the
art to conceal the suspicions which I felt about the relations which
existed between these two men and the nature of the hold which the one
appeared to have over the other. It may have been my manner of watching
them, it may have been some indiscreet question, but it is certain that
I showed too clearly what I felt. One night I was conscious that the
eyes of Theophilus St. James were fixed upon me in a surly and menacing
stare. I had a foreboding of evil, and I was not surprised when Dr.
McCarthy called me next morning into his study.
“I am very sorry, Mr. Weld,” said he, “but I am afraid that I shall be
compelled to dispense with your services.”
“Perhaps you would give me some reason for dismissing me,” I answered,
for I was conscious of having done my duties to the best of my power,
and knew well that only one reason could be given.
“I have no fault to find with you,” said he, and the colour came to his
cheeks.
“You send me away at the suggestion of my colleague.”
His eyes turned away from mine.
“We will not discuss the question, Mr. Weld. It is impossible for me to
discuss it. In justice to you, I will give you the strongest
recommendation for your next situation. I can say no more. I hope that
you will continue your duties here until you have found a place
elsewhere.”
My whole soul rose against the injustice of it, and yet I had no appeal
and no redress. I could only bow and leave the room, with a bitter sense
of ill-usage at my heart.
My first instinct was to pack my boxes and leave the house. But the head
master had given me permission to remain until I had found another
situation. I was sure that St. James desired me to go, and that was a
strong reason why I should stay. If my presence annoyed him, I should
give him as much of it as I could. I had begun to hate him and to long
to have my revenge upon him. If he had a hold over our principal, might
not I in turn obtain one over him? It was a sign of weakness that he
should be so afraid of my curiosity. He would not resent it so much if
he had not something to fear from it. I entered my name once more upon
the books of the agents, but meanwhile I continued to fulfil my duties
at Willow Lea House, and so it came about that I was present at the
dénouement of this singular situation.
During that week—for it was only a week before the crisis came—I was in
the habit of going down each evening, after the work of the day was
done, to inquire about my new arrangements. One night, it was a cold and
windy evening in March, I had just stepped out from the hall door when a
strange sight met my eyes. A man was crouching before one of the windows
of the house. His knees were bent and his eyes were fixed upon the small
line of light between the curtain and the sash. The window threw a
square of brightness in front of it, and in the middle of this the dark
shadow of this ominous visitor showed clear and hard. It was but for an
instant that I saw him, for he glanced up and was off in a moment
through the shrubbery. I could hear the patter of his feet as he ran
down the road, until it died away in the distance.
It was evidently my duty to turn back and to tell Dr. McCarthy what I
had seen. I found him in his study. I had expected him to be disturbed
at such an incident, but I was not prepared for the state of panic into
which he fell. He leaned back in his chair, white and gasping, like one
who has received a mortal blow.
“Which window, Mr. Weld?” he asked, wiping his forehead. “Which window
was it?”
“The next to the dining-room—Mr. St. James’s window.”
“Dear me! Dear me! This is, indeed, unfortunate! A man looking through
Mr. St. James’s window!” He wrung his hands like a man who is at his
wits’ end what to do.
“I shall be passing the police-station, sir. Would you wish me to
mention the matter?”
“No, no,” he cried, suddenly, mastering his extreme agitation; “I have
no doubt that it was some poor tramp who intended to beg. I attach no
importance to the incident—none at all. Don’t let me detain you, Mr.
Weld, if you wish to go out.”
I left him sitting in his study with reassuring words upon his lips, but
with horror upon his face. My heart was heavy for my little employer as
I started off once more for town. As I looked back from the gate at the
square of light which marked the window of my colleague, I suddenly saw
the black outline of Dr. McCarthy’s figure passing against the lamp. He
had hastened from his study then to tell St. James what he had heard.
What was the meaning of it all, this atmosphere of mystery, this
inexplicable terror, these confidences between two such dissimilar men?
I thought and thought as I walked, but do what I would I could not hit
upon any adequate conclusion. I little knew how near I was to the
solution of the problem.
It was very late—nearly twelve o’clock—when I returned, and the lights
were all out save one in the Doctor’s study. The black, gloomy house
loomed before me as I walked up the drive, its sombre bulk broken only
by the one glimmering point of brightness. I let myself in with my
latch-key, and was about to enter my own room when my attention was
arrested by a short, sharp cry like that of a man in pain. I stood and
listened, my hand upon the handle of my door.
All was silent in the house save for a distant murmur of voices which
came, I knew, from the Doctor’s room. I stole quietly down the corridor
in that direction. The sound resolved itself now into two voices, the
rough bullying tones of St. James and the lower tone of the Doctor, the
one apparently insisting and the other arguing and pleading. Four thin
lines of light in the blackness showed me the door of the Doctor’s room,
and step by step I drew nearer to it in the darkness. St. James’s voice
within rose louder and louder, and his words now came plainly to my ear.
“I’ll have every pound of it. If you won’t give it me I’ll take it. Do
you hear?”
Dr. McCarthy’s reply was inaudible, but the angry voice broke in again.
“Leave you destitute! I leave you this little goldmine of a school, and
that’s enough for one old man, is it not? How am I to set up in
Australia without money? Answer me that!”
Again the Doctor said something in a soothing voice, but his answer only
roused his companion to a higher pitch of fury.
“Done for me! What have you ever done for me except what you couldn’t
help doing? It was for your good name, not for my safety, that you
cared. But enough cackle! I must get on my way before morning. Will you
open your safe or will you not?”
“Oh, James, how can you use me so?” cried a wailing voice, and then
there came a sudden little scream of pain. At the sound of that helpless
appeal from brutal violence I lost for once that temper upon which I had
prided myself. Every bit of manhood in me cried out against any further
neutrality. With my walking cane in my hand I rushed into the study. As
I did so I was conscious that the hall-door bell was violently ringing.
“You villain!” I cried, “let him go!”
The two men were standing in front of a small safe, which stood against
one wall of the Doctor’s room. St. James held the old man by the wrist,
and he had twisted his arm round in order to force him to produce the
key. My little head master, white but resolute, was struggling furiously
in the grip of the burly athlete. The bully glared over his shoulder at
me with a mixture of fury and terror upon his brutal features. Then,
realizing that I was alone, he dropped his victim and made for me with a
horrible curse.
“You infernal spy!” he cried. “I’ll do for you anyhow before I leave.”
I am not a very strong man, and I realized that I was helpless if once
at close quarters. Twice I cut at him with my stick, but he rushed in at
me with a murderous growl, and seized me by the throat with both his
muscular hands. I fell backwards and he on the top of me, with a grip
which was squeezing the life from me. I was conscious of his malignant
yellow-tinged eyes within a few inches of my own, and then with a
beating of pulses in my head and a singing in my ears, my senses slipped
away from me. But even in that supreme moment I was aware that the
door-bell was still violently ringing.
When I came to myself, I was lying upon the sofa in Dr. McCarthy’s
study, and the Doctor himself was seated beside me. He appeared to be
watching me intently and anxiously, for as I opened my eyes and looked
about me he gave a great cry of relief. “Thank God!” he cried. “Thank
God!”
“Where is he?” I asked, looking round the room. As I did so, I became
aware that the furniture was scattered in every direction, and that
there were traces of an even more violent struggle than that in which I
had been engaged.
The Doctor sank his face between his hands.
“They have him,” he groaned. “After these years of trial they have him
again. But how thankful I am that he has not for a second time stained
his hands in blood.”
As the Doctor spoke I became aware that a man in the braided jacket of
an inspector of police was standing in the doorway.
“Yes, sir,” he remarked, “you have had a pretty narrow escape. If we had
not got in when we did, you would not be here to tell the tale. I don’t
know that I ever saw any one much nearer to the undertaker.”