Spring gave place to summer, and still I kept studiously to my books. I
saw less of Owen, for in the afternoons I played cricket, and Owen did
not. On the thirteenth of June my examination commenced, and from the
first I did well, having good luck with the papers. On Tuesday evening
when I went home I had only one more exam. in front of me, and it would
take place the following afternoon. After that I should be free for the
summer.
It was a hot, breathless kind of night, and I did not intend to work
too much. I loafed about the shop after tea, talking to Miss Izzy. She
had asked me to go to the Free Library to get her a book, but nothing
on the list she had given me, though it was a fairly long one, was in,
and I had come back with a tale of my own selecting.
“You might have got one of Annie Swan’s,” Miss Izzy said, eyeing the
work I had chosen, dubiously, “but of course you couldn’t tell what
ones I’d read.”
“Annie Swan’s?”
“Yes; they’re all good. Mr. Spicer mentioned ‘Carlowrie’ from the
pulpit on Sunday, and you don’t often hear _him_ praise a novel.”
“When he does it’s a spicy one,” said George, who was going out.
Miss Izzy took no notice.
“I’ve got to meet the girl at a quarter-to-eight, so I can’t stop,”
George threw back gaily from the door, which next moment swung after
him, as he stepped into the street, fixing a flower in his button-hole.
“You get ‘Aldersyde’ and read it,” said Miss Izzy, “or ‘Across Her
Path.’”
“I thought you said Carl-something-or-other.”
“You’ll maybe like the others better. If George McAllister would join
the literary society instead of running about the streets at nights it
would answer him better. Who’s this girl he’s going to meet?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s only talk, I suppose. Girls have more sense than to bother with
the likes of him.”
“Do you think so?” I murmured sceptically. “The kind that George cares
for I don’t imagine have very much.”
“You know nothing about them. If you’d any sisters you’d know more.”
“I’m very glad I haven’t,” I replied.
Miss Izzy bounced round. “Why?” she demanded sharply. “Girls can do
everything as well as men can; only they never get the chance.”
“That’s all rot,” I said ungallantly. “They’re quite different. You
might as well compare cats and dogs.”
“And we’re the cats, I suppose? It’s well you’re still a puppy.”
“I didn’t mean you, Miss Izzy. I know there are exceptions. But most
girls don’t think; or if they do, it’s only about who’s going to marry
them.”
“Don’t think! Well, of all!――And you and George McAllister and the
others――you think a lot, don’t you?”
“George doesn’t,” I admitted.
“But _you_ do――especially about yourself. Do you know this, Peter
Waring, you’re about as conceited and full of yourself as a monkey
that’s been taught a few tricks!”
“Well, I’m going away to-morrow, and you’ll not see me again for a long
time.”
This was not fair, as I knew it would soften Miss Izzy, and it had
indeed this result. “I don’t mind seeing you,” she confessed, with
a sigh, “if that’s all. It’s hearing you talk. You may give me your
photograph if you like.”
I had had my photograph taken quite recently for Mrs. Carroll’s
birthday, and I ran upstairs and brought one down. Miss Izzy examined
it critically. “I’ve got a red plush frame at home that’s about your
mark.”
“Don’t put me in red plush,” I begged.
Miss Izzy looked up from the photograph to the original. “Is red plush
not good enough for you? You’d like a gold frame, maybe?”
“It’s not that,” I said hastily. “It’s only that I don’t care much for
red plush. Can’t you get a plain frame? I will get one for you.”
“No, thanks. I always put a plain person in an ornamental frame: it
gives them a better chance.”
“All right.”
There was never any use trying to get an advantage over Miss Izzy
in verbal skirmishes, so I gave in, and, as the shop appeared to be
comparatively deserted to-night, I sat down on an empty wooden box, and
read aloud to her the first two chapters of the novel I had brought
from the library. It was Hardy’s “Two on a Tower,” and as I turned the
pages, the circumstances, so different, under which I had read them
before, kept floating into my mind. When I had finished the second
chapter, and drummed for a while with my heels against the box, I went
upstairs, and got out my notes on French composition to look them over
before to-morrow’s examination. The room, although the window was wide
open, seemed to me unbearably stuffy, and moreover I had a slight
headache and felt tired and irritable. I put up with the heat for half
an hour, and then undressed and sat down in my nightshirt close to the
window, which looked out on to a dirty strip of back garden, threaded
with clothes-lines, and forming, after dark, a kind of debased Paradise
for dissipated cats.
At half-past ten or so George stepped jauntily in. “Hello! Not done
yet?” He took the now withered flower from his button-hole and flung it
out among the cats; then he began to turn over some papers I had laid
down on the table in the exact order I required them.
“You’ll mix those up,” I said crossly. “Leave them alone.”
George threw the papers down. “All right. Keep your wool on!” Two or
three of the sheets fluttered to the floor.
I picked them up in a very bad temper, and George began to whistle――the
same few bars over and over again. “Oh, shut up,” I cried. “Can’t you
see I’m working?”
“Temper! Temper!” said George, cheerfully. “I’ll have to tell Katherine
about this!”
He was standing before the looking-glass, and had begun to remove
his dickey; but at the very moment of speaking he knew he had made a
mistake. He looked round with a sort of foolish, apologetic grin. I,
too, knew that his words had slipped out unintentionally, for I had
never mentioned Katherine’s name to him. There were, in fact, only
two ways in which he could have come by his information: either Aunt
Margaret had managed to get hold of some of my letters again, or else
he had read one of them himself.
“What do you mean?” I asked coldly, looking steadily into his eyes as
they were reflected in the glass.
George tried to laugh it off. “I was only joking,” he said, nervously.
But I wanted a better explanation than this.
“Who told you about Katherine?” I asked, getting up from my chair
deliberately, and walking over to him, while he spun round to meet me
with bright eyes and a forced smile.
“What’s the matter? What are you losin’ your rag about? I don’t want to
annoy you.”
“The matter is this: I want to know if you have been reading my
letters? If you have, you must have unlocked the box I keep them in.”
“I never unlocked any box.” George backed away from me, his eyes not
leaving mine.
“You’d better tell me,” I said, but George would say nothing further.
He stood with his back now against the wall. I struck him on the cheek
with my open hand. “Answer,” I said.
I saw his eyes turn to the door, and anticipated the spring he made
to get past me. The next moment I had him by the throat and we were
struggling together. Suddenly I released my hold, flinging him from me.
He struck out at me as I came toward him again, but it was the feeble,
half-hearted blow of a coward, and I felt my fist in contact with his
face, almost as if he had run up against it. He staggered back, and a
crimson stream poured down over his chin and on to his shirt, making
a horrible mess, while he stood blubbering like a baby. I did not hit
him again, but simply watched him. I knew he was really more frightened
than hurt, for though his nose was bleeding profusely, I had seen it
do that on several occasions before, quite spontaneously. We must, all
the same, have kicked up a considerable racket, for I heard the sound
of quick footsteps in the passage, and then our door was flung open
and a wild figure rushed in. It was Aunt Margaret, in a stained, red
dressing-gown, her black eyes blazing in her big, puffy face. Her huge
loose body shook and panted with rage as she turned from George to
me. I stepped quickly out of her way, for there was something rather
fearful in the great white mask of hate she turned on me. She said not
a word, but shooting out an arm, like a shoulder of mutton, gripped
me by the collar of my nightshirt, and began to rain down a torrent of
heavy blows on my head and uplifted arms. I protected myself as well
as I could, and at last, with a violent wrench, tore myself out of her
grasp, my nightshirt ripping down to the hem, a considerable portion of
it remaining in Aunt Margaret’s hand. “Stop that!” I shouted furiously,
but she came at me again, her fat body panting yet displaying an
incredible activity, her eyes shining with madness.
I knew there would be mischief done, for I saw her catch up an iron rod
that was part of George’s trouser-stretcher. I was really frightened
now, and made a dive to get past her and out of the door. I felt her
nails tear my naked shoulder; at the same moment I flung up my arm and,
it may be, saved my life, for something crashed down over my elbow,
striking on the back of my head with a sickening jar that I seemed to
hear as the floor swept up to meet me.