"My good friend," said Monsieur Lablache, "you are in a great trouble.
I am sorry for you."
Monsieur had looked in as he sometimes did to breakfast in his friend's
study.
The two men, one strong, the other weak, still clung to one another in
an odd sort of friendship. Railsford's protection had improved
monsieur's position in the school not a little. The boys of his own
house were more tolerant of his foreign peculiarities; and some of the
other masters, taking to heart the chivalrous example of their junior
colleague, had begun to think better of the unpopular detention master,
and to recognise good qualities in him to which hitherto they had been
blind.
If monsieur could only have got it out of his head that he was a born
diplomatist, there would not have been a more harmless master in
Grandcourt.
"I am sorry for you, my good friend," repeated he. "But you will be
brave."
"Really, Lablache, you don't give a man an appetite for breakfast.
Things don't look very cheerful, I know; but what special cause for
lamentation have we?"
"Bad lies will be told of you at the masters' meeting to-night," said
the Frenchman, "but take courage, _mon ami_, I shall be there."
"Have you any idea what the lies are to be?" asked Railsford, who
perhaps was not as jubilant as he might have been at this last cheering
promise.
"Meester Beekaire, so I have heard, desires to accuse you of having
assaulted him. It is absurd. But no; I overhear him say to Meester
Rogers in the masters' hall that he has evidence, he has evidence--ho!
ho! it is absurd."
Railsford had not much difficulty after his talk with Arthur last night
in guessing where this evidence was likely to be, and whence it
proceeded. If that was the whole of the trouble he had to face, he
could have afforded to laugh with monsieur. But the doctor's question
still rang in his ears. That, he could not get round or avoid.
"Bickers no doubt believes he is right," said he, "but, as you say,
monsieur, he is absurd--I wish he had been allowed to say what he wanted
at the last meeting, when I wasn't there."
"But, _mon ami_, it would be unfair. Let him say it to your face, and
you stand up and say to him to his face, it is one--what you call it,
one very big lie."
"Well, I will do my best," said Railsford, smiling. "It is a wretched
business altogether."
"It is strange it is a secret still. I have my thoughts often, friend
Railsford. I sometimes think of this boy, and sometimes of that boy; I
have even said to myself, Why do we look only in Meester Railsford's
house? Why could it not be--for I see boys of all the houses--why could
it not be perhaps one of Meester Beekaire's own boys? They hate him--I
wish Branscombe would come back. I think if he did, I would ask him."
Railsford shifted his chair uneasily, and suddenly changed the
conversation.
"How are the little girls?" asked he.
Poor monsieur! It was easy to turn him from any subject by a question
like this. His eyes glistened at the mere mention of their names, and
as he sat there and talked about them, with their portraits lying on the
breakfast-table before him, Mr Bickers, Branscombe, even Railsford
himself vanished out of sight, and his world held nothing but just those
three little absent girls of his far away in his beloved France.
Railsford was tempted more than once during the day to absent himself
boldly from the masters' meeting in the evening, and allow matters to
take whatever course they chose in his absence.
"After all," he said to himself, "the fatal question will be put sooner
or later, and then I must go down."
"Probably," said the bolder spirit within him; "but keep your feet,
Railsford, my brave fellow, as long as you can."
So he braced himself up to the ordeal, and walked across at the
appointed time, calm and collected, determined to "die game," if die he
must.
It was a full meeting, but, to everybody's surprise, most of all
Railsford's, Dr Ponsford was not present.
The head-master, as I have said, had the greatest belief in holding
himself aloof from the settlement of any question which could possibly
be settled without him. One might have supposed that the present
question was one which would require his particular handling.
Ultimately it would, no doubt; but meanwhile he would let his
lieutenants sift the various issues raised, and send up to him only the
last point for his adjudication.
Railsford was disappointed, on the whole; for his one wish was to have
the matter settled once for all, and to know the worst before he went to
bed that night.
Mr Roe, and Grover, and one or two more of his friends came forward to
greet him as he entered, as if nothing was about to take place. But he
did not feel actor enough to keep up the farce, and retired to his back
seat at the first opportunity, and waited impatiently for the meeting to
begin.
The usual routine business seemed interminable. The little questions of
procedure and discipline which were brought up and talked over had very
little interest to him, and once, when he found his opinion was being
directly invited on some matter, he had with confusion to admit that he
had not gathered what the question was.