INTO THE FIRE.
'Let me see, Le Breton,' Dr. Greatrex observed to the new master,
'you've taken rooms for yourself in West Street for the present--you'll
take a house on the parade by-and-by, no doubt. Now, which church
do you mean to go to?'
'Well, really,' Ernest answered, taken a little aback at the
suddenness of the question, 'I haven't had time to think about it
yet.'
The doctor frowned slightly. 'Not had time to think about it,'
he repeated, rather severely. 'Not had time to think about such
a serious question as your particular place of worship! You quite
surprise me. Well, if you'll allow me to make a suggestion in the
matter it would be that you and Mrs. Le Breton should take seats,
for the present at least, at St. Martha's. The parish church is high,
decidedly high, and I wouldn't recommend you to go there; most of
our parents don't approve of it. You're an Oxford man, I know, and
so I suppose you're rather high yourself; but in this particular
matter I would strongly advise you to subordinate your own personal
feelings to the parents' wishes. Then there's St. Jude's; St.
Jude's is distinctly low--quite Evangelical in fact: indeed, I may
say, scarcely what I should consider sound church principles at
all in any way; and I think you ought most certainly to avoid it
sedulously. Evangelicism is on the decline at present in Pilbury
Regis. As to St. Barnabas--Barabbas they call it generally, a most
irreverent joke, but, of course, inevitable--Barabbas is absolutely
Ritualistic. Many of our parents object to it most strongly. But
St. Martha's is a quiet, moderate, inoffensive church in every
respect--sound and sensible, and free from all extremes. You can
give no umbrage to anybody, even the most cantankerous, by going
to St. Martha's. The High Church people fraternise with it on the
one hand, and the moderate church people fraternise with it on the
other, while as to the Evangelicals and the dissenters, they hardly
contribute any boys to the school, or if they do, they don't object
to unobtrusive church principles. Indeed, my experience has been,
Le Breton, that even the most rabid dissenters prefer to have their
sons educated by a sound, moderate, high-principled, and, if I may
say so, neutral-tinted church clergyman.' And the doctor complacently
pulled his white tie straight before the big gilt-framed drawing-room
mirror.
'Then, again,' the doctor went on placidly in a bland tone of
mild persuasion, 'there's the question of politics. Politics are
a very ticklish matter, I can assure you, in Pilbury Regis. Have
you any fixed political opinions of your own, Le Breton, or are
you waiting to form them till you've had some little experience in
your profession?'
'My opinions,' Ernest answered timidly, 'so far as they can be
classed under any of the existing political formulas at all, are
decidedly Liberal--I may even say Radical.'
The doctor bit his lip and frowned severely. 'Radical,' he said,
slowly, with a certain delicate tinge of acerbity in his tone.
'That's bad. If you will allow me to interpose in the matter, I
should strongly advise you, for your own sake, to change them at
once and entirely. I don't object to moderate Liberalism--perhaps
as many as one-third of our parents are moderate Liberals;
but decidedly the most desirable form of political belief for a
successful schoolmaster is a quiet and gentlemanly, but unswerving
Conservatism. I don't say you ought to be an uncompromising
old-fashioned Tory--far from it: that alienates not only the
dissenters, but even the respectable middle-class Liberals. What
is above all things expected in a schoolmaster is a central position
in politics, so to speak--a careful avoidance of all extremes--a
readiness to welcome all reasonable progress, while opposing in
a conciliatory spirit all revolutionary or excessive changes--in
short, an attitude of studied moderation. That, if you will allow
me to advise you, Le Breton, is the sort of thing, you may depend
upon it, that most usually meets the wishes of the largest possible
number of pupils' parents.'
'I'm afraid,' Ernest answered, as respectfully as possible, 'my
political convictions are too deeply seated to be subordinated to
my professional interests.'
'Eh! What!' the doctor cried sharply. 'Subordinate your principles
to your personal interests! Oh, pray don't mistake me so utterly
as that! Not at all, not at all, my dear Le Breton. I don't mean
that for the shadow of a second. What I mean is rather this,' and
here the doctor cleared his throat and pulled round his white tie
a second time, 'that a schoolmaster, considering attentively what
is best for his pupils, mark you--we all exist for our pupils, you
know, my dear fellow, don't we?--a schoolmaster should avoid such
action as may give any unnecessary scandal, you see, or seem to
clash with the ordinary opinion of the pupils' parents. Of course, if
your views are fully formed, and are of a mildly Liberal complexion
(put it so, I beg of you, and don't use that distressful word
Radical), I wouldn't for the world have you act contrary to them.
But I wouldn't have you obtrude them too ostentatiously--for your
own sake, Le Breton, for your own sake, I assure you. Remember,
you're a very young man yet: you have plenty of time before you to
modify your opinions in: as you go on, you'll modify them--moderate
them--bring them into harmony with the average opinions of ordinary
parents. Don't commit yourself at present--that's all I would
say to you--don't commit yourself at present. When you're as old
as I am, my dear fellow, you'll see through all these youthful
extravagances.'
'And as to the church, Mr. Le Breton,' said Mrs. Greatrex, with
bland suggestiveness from the ottoman, 'of course, we regard the
present very unsatisfactory arrangement as only temporary. The
doctor hopes in time to get a chapel built, which is much nicer
for the boys, and also more convenient for the masters and their
families--they all have seats, of course, in the chancel. At Charlton
College, where the doctor was an assistant for some years, before
we came to Pilbury, there was one of the under-masters, a young man
of very good family, who took such an interest in the place that
he not only contributed a hundred pounds out of his own pocket
towards building a chapel, but also got ever so many of his wealthy
friends elsewhere to subscribe, first to that, and then to the organ
and stained-glass window. We've got up a small building fund here
ourselves already, of which the doctor's treasurer, and we hope
before many years to have a really nice chapel, with good music
and service well done--the kind of thing that'll be of use to the
school, and have an excellent moral effect upon the boys in the
way of religious training.'
'No doubt,' Ernest answered evasively, 'you'll soon manage to raise
the money in such a place as Pilbury.'
'No doubt,' the doctor replied, looking at him with a searching
glance, and evidently harbouring an uncomfortable suspicion,
already, that this young man had not got the moral and religious
welfare of the boys quite so deeply at heart as was desirable in
a model junior assistant master. 'Well, well, we shall see you at
school to-morrow morning, Le Breton: till then I hope you'll find
yourselves quite comfortable in your new lodgings.'
Ernest went back from this visit of ceremony with a doubtful heart,
and left Dr. and Mrs. Greatrex alone to discuss their new acquisition.
'Well, Maria,' said the doctor, in a dubious tone of voice, as soon
as Ernest was fairly out of hearing, 'what do you think of him?'
'Think!' answered Mrs. Greatrex, energetically. 'Why, I don't think
at all. I feel sure he'll never, never, never make a schoolmaster!'
'I'm afraid not,' the doctor responded, pensively. 'I'm afraid
not, Maria. He's got ideas of his own, I regret to say; and, what's
worse, they're not the right ones.'
'Oh, he'll never do,' Mrs. Greatrex continued, scornfully. 'Nothing
at all professional about him in any way. No interest or enthusiasm
in the matter of the chapel; not a spark of responsiveness even
about the stained-glass window; hardly a trace of moral or religious
earnestness, of care for the welfare and happiness of the dear boys.
He wouldn't in the least impress intending parents--or, rather, I
feel sure he'd impress them most unfavourably. The best thing we
can do, now we've got him, is to play off his name on relations in
society, but to keep the young man himself as far as possible in
the background. I confess he's a disappointment--a very great and
distressing disappointment.'
'He is, he is certainly,' the doctor acquiesced, with a sigh of
regretfulness. 'I'm afraid we shall never be able to make much of
him. But we must do our best--for his own sake, and the sake of the
boys and parents, it's our duty, Maria, to do our best with him.'
'Oh, of course,' Mrs. Greatrex replied, languidly: 'but I'm bound
to say, I'm sure it'll prove a very thankless piece of duty. Young
men of his sort have never any proper sense of gratitude.'
Meanwhile, Edie, in the little lodgings in a side street near the
school-house, had run out quickly to open the door for Ernest, and
waited anxiously to hear his report upon their new employers.
'Well, Ernest dear,' she asked, with something of the old childish
brightness in her eager manner, 'and what do you think of them?'
'Why, Edie,' Ernest answered, kissing her white forehead gently,
'I don't want to judge them too hastily, but I'm inclined to
fancy, on first sight, that both the doctor and his wife are most
egregious and unmitigated humbugs.'
'Humbugs, Ernest! why, how do you mean?'
'Well, Edie, they've got the moral and religious welfare of the
boys at their very finger ends; and, do you know--I don't want to
be uncharitable--but I somehow imagine they haven't got it at heart
as well. However, we must do our best, and try to fall in with
them.'
And for a whole year Ernest and Edie did try to fall in with them
to the best of their ability. It was hard work, for though the
doctor himself was really at bottom a kind-hearted man, with a mere
thick veneer of professional humbug inseparable from his unhappy
calling, Mrs. Greatrex was a veritable thorn in the flesh to poor
little natural honest-hearted Edie. When she found that the Le
Bretons didn't mean to take a house on the Parade or elsewhere,
but were to live ingloriously in wee side street lodgings, her
disappointment was severe and extreme; but when she incidentally
discovered that Mrs. Le Breton was positively a grocer's daughter
from a small country town, her moral indignation against the baseness
of mankind rose almost to white heat. To think that young Le Breton
should have insinuated himself into the position of third master
under false pretences--should have held out as qualifications for
the post his respectable connections, when he knew perfectly well
all the time that he was going to marry somebody who was not in
Society--it was really quite too awfully wicked and deceptive and
unprincipled of him! A very bad, dishonest young man, she was very
much afraid; a young man with no sense of truth or honour about
him, though, of course, she wouldn't say so for the world before
any of the parents, or do anything to injure the poor young fellow's
future prospects if she could possibly help it. But Mrs. Greatrex
felt sure that Ernest had come to Pilbury of malice prepense, as
part of a deep-laid scheme to injure and ruin the doctor by his
horrid revolutionary notions. 'He does it on purpose,' she used to
say; 'he talks in that way because he knows it positively shocks
and annoys us. He pretends to be very innocent all the time; but
at heart he's a malignant, jealous, uncharitable creature. I'm sure
I wish he had never come to Pilbury Regis! And to go quarrelling
with his own mother, too--the unnatural man! The only respectable
relation he had, and the only one at all likely to produce any good
or salutary effect upon intending parents!'
'My dear,' the doctor would answer apologetically, 'you're really
quite too hard upon young Le Breton. As far as school-work goes, he's
a capital master, I assure you--so conscientious, and hard-working,
and systematic. He does his very best with the boys, even with that
stupid lout, Blenkinsopp major; and he has managed to din something
into them in mathematics somehow, so that I'm sure the fifth form
will pass a better examination this term than any term since we
first came here. Now that, you know, is really a great thing, even
if he doesn't quite fall in with our preconceived social requirements.'
'I'm sure I don't know about the mathematics or the fifth form,
Joseph,' Mrs. Geatrex used to reply, with great dignity. 'That
sort of thing falls under your department, I'm aware, not under
mine. But I'm sure that for all social purposes, Mr. Le Breton
is really a great deal worse than useless. A more unchristian,
disagreeable, self-opinionated, wrong-headed, objectionable young
man I never came across in the whole course of my experience. However,
you wouldn't listen to my advice upon the subject, so it's no use
talking any longer about it. I always advised you not to take him
without further enquiry into his antecedents; and you overbore me:
you said he was so well-connected, and so forth, and would hear
nothing against him; so I wish you joy now of your precious bargain.
The only thing left for us is to find some good opportunity of
getting rid of him.'
'I like the young man, as far as he goes,' Dr. Greatrex replied
once, with unwonted spirit, 'and I won't get rid of him at all, my
dear, unless he obliges me to. He's really well meaning, in spite
of all his absurdities, and upon my word, Maria, I believe he's
thoroughly honest in his opinions.'
Mrs. Greatrex only met this flat rebellion by an indirect remark
to the effect that some people seemed absolutely destitute of the
very faintest glimmering power of judging human character.