morning and realised his incredible good fortune; in a few hours he
would be travelling safely and comfortably home, with every facility for
regaining his rights. He chuckled--though his sense of humour was not
large--he chuckled, as he lay snugly in bed, to think of Dick's
discomfiture on seeing him return so unexpectedly; he began to put it
down, quite unwarrantably, to his own cleverness, as having conceived
and executed such a stroke of genius as procuring his own expulsion.
He remained in bed until long after the getting-up bell had rung,
feeling that his position ensured him perfect impunity in this, and when
he rose at length it was in high spirits, and he dressed himself with a
growing toleration for things in general, very unlike his ordinary frame
of mind. When he had finished his toilet, the Doctor entered the room.
"Bultitude," he said gravely, "before sending you from us, I should like
to hear from your own lips that you are not altogether without
contrition for your conduct."
Mr. Bultitude considered that such an acknowledgment could not possibly
do any harm, so he said--as, indeed, he might with perfect truth--that
"he very much regretted what had passed."
"I am glad to hear that," said the Doctor, more briskly, "very glad; it
relieves me from a very painful responsibility. It may not impossibly
induce me to take a more lenient view of your case."
"Oh!" gasped Mr. Bultitude, feeling very uncomfortable all at once.
"Yes; it is a serious step to ruin a boy's career at its outset by
unnecessary harshness. Nothing, of course, can palliate the extreme
baseness of your behaviour. Still from certain faint indications in your
character of better things, I do not despair even yet (after you have
received a public lesson at my hands, which you will never forget) of
rearing you to become in time an ornament to the society in which it
will be your lot to move. I will not give up in despair--I will
persevere a little longer."
"Thank you!" Paul faltered, with a sudden sinking sensation.
"Mrs. Grimstone, too," said the Doctor, "has been interceding for you;
she has represented to me that a public expression of my view of your
conduct, together with a sharp, severe dose of physical pain, would be
more likely to effect a radical improvement in your character, and to
soften your perverted heart, than if I sent you away in hopeless
disgrace, without giving you an opportunity of showing a desire to
amend."
"It's--very kind of Mrs. Grimstone," said Paul faintly.
"Then I hope you will show your appreciation of her kindness. Yes, I
will not expel you. I will give you one more chance to retrieve your
lost reputation. But, for your own sake, and as a public warning, I
shall take notice of your offence in public. I shall visit it upon you
by a sound flogging before the whole school at eleven o'clock. You need
not come down till then--your breakfast will be sent up to you."
Paul made a frantic attempt to dissuade him from his terrible
determination. "Dr. Grimstone," he said, "I--I should much prefer being
expelled, if it is all the same to you."
"It is not all the same to me," said the Doctor. "This is mere pride and
obstinacy, Bultitude; I should do wrong to take any notice of it."
"I--I tell you I have great objection to--to being flogged," said Paul
eagerly; "it wouldn't improve me at all; it would harden me,
sir,--harden me. I--I cannot allow you to flog me, Dr. Grimstone. I have
strong prejudices against the system of corporal punishment. I object to
it on principle. Expulsion would make me quite a different being, I
assure you; it would reform me--save me--it would indeed."
"So, to escape a little personal inconvenience, you would be content to
bring sorrow upon your worthy father's grey head, would you, sir?" said
the Doctor. "I shall not oblige you in this. Nor, I may add, will your
cowardice induce me to spare you in your coming chastisement. I leave
you, sir--we shall meet again at eleven!"
And he stalked out of the room. Perhaps, though he did not admit this
even to himself, there were more considerations for commuting the
sentence of expulsion than those he had mentioned. Boys are not often
expelled from private schools, except for especially heinous offences,
and in this case there was no real reason why the Doctor should be
Quixotic enough to throw up a portion of his income--particularly if he
could produce as great a moral effect by other means.
But his clemency was too much for Mr. Bultitude; he threw himself on the
bed and raved at the hideous fate in store for him; ten short minutes
ago, and he had been so happy--so certain of release--and now, not only
was he as far from all hope of escape as ever, but he had the certainty
before him of a sound flogging in less than two hours!
Just after something has befallen us which, for good or ill, will make a
great change in our lives, what a totally new aspect the common everyday
things about us are apt to wear--the book we were reading, the letter we
had begun, the picture we knew--what a new and tender attraction they
may have for us, or what a grim and terrible irony!
Something of this Paul felt dimly, as he finished dressing, in a dazed,
unconscious manner. The comfortable bedroom, with its delicately-toned
wall-paper and flowery cretonnes, had become altogether hateful in his
eyes now. Instead of feeling grateful (as he surely ought to have been)
for the one night of perfect security and comfort he had passed there,
he only loathed it for the delusive peace it had brought him.
There was a gentle tap at the door, and Dulcie came in, bearing a tray
with his breakfast, and looking like a little Royalist bearing food to a
fugitive Cavalier; though Paul did not quite carry out his share of the
simile.
"There!" she said, almost cheerfully; "I got Mummy to let me take up
your breakfast; and there's an egg for you, and muffins."
Mr. Bultitude sat on a chair and groaned.
"You might say 'thank you,'" said Dulcie, pouting. "That other girl
wouldn't have brought you up much breakfast if she'd been in my place. I
was going to tell you that I'd forgiven you, because very likely you
never meant her to write to you" (Dulcie had not been told the sequel to
the Davenant episode, which was quite as well for Paul). "But you don't
seem to care whether I do or not."
"I feel so miserable!" sighed Paul.
"Then you must drink some coffee," prescribed Dulcie decidedly; "and you
must eat some breakfast. I brought an egg on purpose; it's so
strengthening, you know."
"Don't!" cried Paul, with a short howl of distress at this suggestion.
"Don't talk about the--the flogging, I can't bear it."
"But it's not papa's _new_ cane, you know, Dick," said Dulcie
consolingly. "I've hidden that; it's only the old one, and you always
said that didn't hurt so very much, after a little while. It isn't as if
it was the horsewhip, either. Daddy lost that out riding in the
holidays."
"Oh, the horsewhip's worse, is it?" said Paul, with a sickly smile.
"Tom says so," said Dulcie. "After all, Dick, it will be all over in
five minutes, or, perhaps, a little longer, and I do think you oughtn't
to mind that so much, now, after mamma and I have begged you off from
being expelled. We might never have seen one another again, Dick!"
"You begged me off!" cried Paul.
"Yes," said Dulcie; "Daddy wouldn't change his mind for ever so
long--till I coaxed him. I couldn't bear to let you go."
"You've done a very cruel thing," said Paul. "For such a little girl as
you are, you've done an immense amount of mischief. But for you, that
letter would not have been found out. You need not have spoilt my only
chance of getting out of this horrible place!"
Dulcie set down the tray, and, putting her hands behind her, leaned
against a corner of a wardrobe.
"And is that all you say to me!" she said, with a little tremble in her
voice.
"That is all," said Paul. "I've no doubt you meant well, but you
shouldn't have interfered. All this has come upon me through that. Take
away the breakfast. It makes me ill even to look at it."
Dulcie shook out her long brown hair, and clenched her small fist in an
undeniable passion, for she had something of her father's hot temper
when roused. "Very well, then," she said, moving with great dignity
towards the door. "I'm very sorry I ever did interfere. I wish I'd let
you be sent home to your papa, and see what he'd do to you. But I'll
never, never interfere one bit with you again. I won't say one single
word to you any more.... I'll never even look at you if you want me to
ever so much.... I shall tell Tipping he can hit you as much as ever he
likes, and I shall show Tom where I put the new cane--and I only hope it
will hurt!" And with this parting shot she was gone.
Mr. Bultitude wandered disconsolately about the upper part of the house
after this, not daring to go down, and not able to remain in any one
place. The maids who came up to make the beds looked at him with pitiful
interest, but he was too proud to implore help from them. To hide would
only make matters worse, for, as he had not a penny in his pocket, and
no probability of being able to borrow one, he must remain in the house
till hunger forced him from his hiding-place--supposing they did not
hunt him out long before that time.
The shouts of the boys in the playground during their half-hour's play
had long since died away; he heard the clock in the hall strike
eleven--time for him to seek his awful rendezvous. The Doctor had not
forgotten him, he found, for presently the butler came up and
ceremoniously announced that the Doctor "would see him now, if he
pleased."
He stumbled downstairs in a half-unconscious condition, the butler threw
open the two doors which led to the schoolroom, and Paul tottered in,
more dead than alive with shame and fear.
The whole school were at their places, with no books before them, and
arranged as if to hear a lecture. Mr. Blinkhorn alone was absent, for,
not liking these exhibitions, he had taken an opportunity of slipping
out into the playground, round which he was now solemnly trotting at the
"double" with elbows squared and head up; an exercise which he said was
an excellent thing for the back and lungs. He had a habit of suddenly
leaving the class he was taking to indulge in it for a few minutes,
returning breathless but refreshed.
Mr. Tinkler was at his seat, wearing that faint grin on his face with
which he might have prepared to see a pig killed or a bull-fight, and
all the boys fixed their eyes expectantly on Mr. Bultitude as he
appeared at the doorway.
"Stand there, sir," said the Doctor, who was standing at his
writing-table in an attitude; "out there in the middle, where your
schoolfellows can see you." Paul obeyed and stood where he was told,
looking, as he felt, absolutely boneless.
"Some of those here," began the Doctor in an impressive bass, "may
wonder why I have called you all together on this, the first day of the
week; most of those who reside under my roof are acquainted with, and I
trust execrate, the miserable cause of my doing so.
"If there is one virtue which I have striven to implant more than any
other in your breasts," he continued, "it is the cultivation of a modest
and becoming reserve in your intercourse with those of the opposite sex.
"With the majority I have, I hope, been successful, and it is as painful
for me to tell as for you to hear, that there exists in your midst a
youthful reprobate, trained in all the arts of ensnaring the vagrant
fancies of innocent but giddy girlhood.
"See him as he cowers there before your gaze, in all the bared
hideousness of his moral depravity" (the Doctor on occasions like these
never spared his best epithets, and Paul soon began to feel himself a
very villain); "a libertine, young in years, but old in--in everything
else, who has not scrupled to indite an amatory note, so appalling in
its familiarity, and so outrageous in the warmth of its sentiments, that
I cannot bring myself to shock your ears with its contents.
"You do well to shun him as a moral leper; but how shall I tell you
that, not satisfied with pressing his effusions upon the shrinking
object of his precocious affections, the impious wretch has availed
himself of the shelter of a church to cloak his insidious advances, and
even force a response to them from a heedless and imprudent girl!
"If," continued the Doctor, now allowing his powerful voice to boom to
its full compass--"if I can succeed in bringing this coward, this
unmanly dallier in a sentiment which the healthy mind of boyhood rejects
as premature, to a sense of his detestable conduct; if I can score the
lesson upon his flesh so that some faint notion of its force and purport
may be conveyed to what has been supplied to him as a heart, then I
shall not have lifted this hand in vain!
"He shall see whether he will be allowed to trail the fair name of the
school for propriety and correctness of deportment in the dust of a
pew-floor, and spurn my reputation as a preceptor like a church hassock
beneath his feet!
"I shall say no more; I will not prolong these strictures, deserved
though they be, beyond their proper limits.... I shall now proceed to
act. Richard Bultitude, remain there till I return to mete out to you
with no sparing hand the punishment you have so richly merited."
With these awful words the Doctor left the room, leaving Paul in a
state of abject horror and dread which need not be described. Never,
never again would he joke, as he had been wont to do with Dick in
lighter moods, on the subject of corporal punishment under any
circumstances--it was no fit theme for levity; if this--this outrage
were really done to him, he could never be able to hold up his head
again. What if it were to get about in the city!
The boys, who had sunk, as they always did, into a state of torpid awe
under the Doctor's eloquence, now recovered spirits enough to rally Paul
with much sprightly humour.
"He's gone to fetch his cane," said some, and imitated for Paul's
instruction the action of caning by slapping a ruler upon a copy-book
with a dreadful fidelity and resonance; others sought to cross-examine
him upon the love-letter, it appearing from their casual remarks that
not a few had been also honoured by communications from the artless Miss
Davenant.
It is astonishing how unfeeling even ordinary good-natured boys can be
at times.
Chawner sat at his desk with raised shoulders, rubbing his hands, and
grinning like some malevolent ape: "I told you, Dickie, you know," he
murmured, "that it was better not to cross me."
And still the Doctor lingered. Some kindly suggested that he was "waxing
the cane." But the more general opinion was that he had been detained by
some visitor; for it appeared that (though Paul had not noticed it)
several had heard a ring at the bell. The suspense was growing more and
more unbearable.
At last the door opened in a slow ominous manner, and the Doctor
appeared. There was a visible change in his manner, however. The white
heat of his indignation had died out: his expression was grave but
distinctly softened--and he had nothing in his hand.
"I want you outside, Bultitude," he said; and Paul, still uncertain
whether the scene of his disgrace was only about to be shifted, or what
else this might mean, followed him into the hall.
"If anything can strike shame and confusion into your soul, Richard,"
said the Doctor, when they were outside, "it will be what I have to tell
you now. Your unhappy father is here, in the dining-room."
Paul staggered. Had Dick the brazen effrontery to come here to taunt him
in his slavery? What was the meaning of it? What should he say to him?
He could not answer the Doctor but by a vacant stare.
"I have not seen him yet," said the Doctor. "He has come at a most
inopportune moment" (here Mr. Bultitude could _not_ agree with him). "I
shall allow you to meet him first, and give you the opportunity of
breaking your conduct to him. I know how it will wring his paternal
heart!" and the Doctor shook his head sadly, and turned away.
With a curious mixture of shame, anger, and impatience, Paul turned the
handle of the dining-room door. He was to meet Dick face to face once
more. The final duel must be fought out between them here. Who would be
the victor?
It was a strange sensation on entering to see the image of what he had
so lately been standing by the mantelpiece. It gave a shock to his sense
of his own identity. It seemed so impossible that that stout substantial
frame could really contain Dick. For an instant he was totally at a loss
for words, and stood pale and speechless in the presence of his
unprincipled son.
Dick on his side seemed at least as much embarrassed. He giggled
uneasily, and made a sheepish offer to shake hands, which was
indignantly declined.
As Paul looked he saw distinctly that his son's fraudulent imitation of
his father's personal appearance had become deteriorated in many
respects since that unhappy night when he had last seen it. It was then
a copy, faultlessly accurate in every detail. It was now almost a
caricature, a libel!
The complexion was nearly sallow, with the exception of the nose, which
had rather deepened in colour. The skin was loose and flabby, and the
eyes dull and a little bloodshot. But perhaps the greatest alteration
was in the dress. Dick wore an old light tweed shooting-coat of his, and
a pair of loose trousers of blue serge; while, instead of the formally
tied black neckcloth his father had worn for a quarter of a century, he
had a large scarf round his neck of some crude and gaudy colour; and the
conventional chimney-pot hat had been discarded for a shabby old
wide-brimmed felt wideawake.
Altogether, it was by no means the costume which a British merchant,
with any self-respect whatever, would select, even for a country visit.
And thus they met, as perhaps never, since this world was first set
spinning down the ringing grooves of change, met father and son before!
14. _An Error of Judgment_
"The Survivorship of a worthy Man in his Son is a Pleasure scarce
inferior to the Hopes of the Continuance of his own Life."
_Spectator._
"Du bist ein Knabe--sei es immerhin
Und fahre fort, den Froehlichen zu spielen."
SCHILLER, _Don Carlos_.
Paul was the first to break a very awkward silence. "You young
scoundrel!" he said, with suppressed rage. "What the devil do you mean
by laughing like that? It's no laughing matter, let me tell you, sir,
for one of us!"
"I can't help laughing," said Dick; "you do look so queer!"
"Queer! I may well look queer. I tell you that I have never, never in my
whole life, spent such a perfectly infernal week as this last!"
"Ah!" observed Dick, "I thought you wouldn't find it _all_ jam! And yet
you seemed to be enjoying yourself, too," he said with a grin, "from
that letter you wrote."
"What made you come here? Couldn't you be content with your miserable
victory, without coming down to crow and jeer at me?"
"It isn't that," said Dick. "I--I thought I should like to see the
fellows, and find out how you were getting on, you know." These,
however, were not his only and his principal motives. He had come down
to get a sight of Dulcie.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Bultitude, with ponderous sarcasm, "you'll be
delighted to hear that I'm getting on uncommonly well--oh, uncommonly!
Your high-spirited young friends batter me to sleep with slippers on
most nights, and, as a general thing, kick me about during the day like
a confounded football! And last night, sir, I was going to be expelled;
and this morning I'm forgiven, and sentenced to be soundly flogged
before the whole school! It was just about to take place as you came in;
and I've every reason to believe it is merely postponed!"
"I say, though," said Dick, "you must have been going it rather, you
know. I've never been expelled. Has Chawner been sneaking again? What
have you been up to?"
"Nothing. I solemnly swear--nothing! They're finding out things you've
done, and thrashing _me_."
"Well," said Dick soothingly, "you'll work them all off during the term,
I daresay. There aren't many really bad ones. I suppose he's seen my
name cut on his writing-table?"
"No; not that I'm aware of," said Paul.
"Oh, he'd let you hear of it if he had!" said Dick. "It's good for a
swishing, that is. But, after all, what's a swishing? I never cared for
a swishing."
"But I do care, sir. I care very much, and, I tell you, I won't stand
it. I can't! Dick," he said abruptly as a sudden hope seized him. "You,
you haven't come down here to say you're tired of your folly, have you?
Do you want to give it up?"
"Rather not," said Dick. "Why should I? No school, no lessons, nothing
to do but amuse myself, eat and drink what I like, and lots of money.
It's not likely, you know."
"Have you ever thought that you're bringing yourself within reach of the
law, sir?" said Paul, trying to frighten him. "Perhaps you don't know
that there's an offence known as 'false personation with intent to
defraud,' and that it's a felony. That's what you're doing at this
moment, sir!"
"Not any more than you are!" retorted Dick. "I never began it. I had as
much right to wish to be you as you had to wish to be me. You're just
what you said you wanted to be, so you can't complain."
"It's useless to argue with you, I see," said Paul. "And you've no
feelings. But I'll warn you of one thing. Whether that is my body or not
you've fraudulently taken possession of, I don't know; if it is not, it
is very like mine, and I tell you this about it. The sort of life you're
leading it, sir, will very soon make an end of you, if you don't take
care. Do you think that a constitution at my age can stand sweet wines
and pastry, and late hours? Why, you'll be laid up with gout in another
day or two. Don't tell me, sir. I know you're suffering from indigestion
at this very minute. I can see your liver (it may be _my_ liver for
anything I know) is out of order. I can see it in your eyes."
Dick was a little alarmed at this, but he soon said: "Well, and if I am
seedy, I can get Barbara to take the stone and wish me all right again,
can't I? That's easy enough, I suppose."
"Oh, easy enough!" said Paul, with a suppressed groan. "But, Dick, you
don't go up to Mincing Lane in that suit and that hat? Don't tell me you
do that!"
"When I do go up, I wear them," said Dick composedly. "Why not? It's a
roomy suit, and I hate a great topper on my head; I've had enough of
that here on Sundays. But it's slow up at your office. The chaps there
aren't half up to any larks. I made a first-rate booby-trap, though, one
day for an old yellow buffer who came in to see you. He _was_ in a bait
when he found the waste-paper basket on his head!"
"What was his name?" said Paul, with forced calm.
"Something like 'Shells.' He said he was a very old friend of mine, and
I told him he lied."
"Shellack--my Canton correspondent--a man I was anxious to be of use
to when he came over!" moaned Mr. Bultitude. "Miserable young cub, you
don't know what mischief you've done!"
"Well, it won't matter much to you now," said Dick; "you're out of it
all."
"Do you--do you mean to keep me out of it for ever, then?" asked Paul.
"As long as ever I can!" returned Dick frankly. "It will be rather
interesting to see what sort of a fellow you'll grow into--if you ever
do grow. Perhaps you will always be like that, you know. This magic is a
rum thing to meddle with."
This suggestion almost maddened Paul. He made one stride forward, and
faced his son with blazing eyes. "Do you think I will put up with it?"
he said, between his teeth. "Do you suppose I shall stand calmly by and
see you degrading and ruining me? I may never be my old self again, but
I don't mean to play into your hands for all that. You can't always keep
me here, and wherever I go I'll tell my tale. I know you, you clumsy
rogue, you haven't the sense to play your part with common intelligence
now. You would betray yourself directly I challenged you to deny my
story.... You know you would.... You couldn't face me for five minutes.
By Gad! I'll do it now. I'll expose you before the Doctor--before the
whole school. You shall see if you can dispose of me quite so easily as
you imagine!"
Dick had started back at first in unmistakable alarm at this unexpected
defiance, probably feeling his self-possession unequal to such a test;
but, when Paul had finished, he said doggedly: "Well, you can do it if
you choose, I suppose. I can't stop you. But I don't see what good it
would do."
"It would show people you were an impudent impostor, sir," said Paul
sternly, going to the door as if to call the Doctor, though he shrank
secretly from so extreme and dangerous a measure.