THE EXAMINATION.
November came in. The nineteenth approached, and the travelling
carriages of the different prebendaries bowled into Westerbury, as was
customary at that season, bringing their owners to their residences in
the Grounds. A great day in cathedral life was the nineteenth of
November. It was the grand chapter day; the day when every member
attached to the cathedral had to attend in the chapter-house after
morning prayers, and answer to their names, as called over from the roll
by the chapter clerk. The dean, the canons, the minor canons, the king's
scholars, the organist, the lay-clerks, the sextons, the vergers, the
bedesmen, and the two men-cooks officiating for the audit dinners at the
deanery; all had to be there, health permitting. It was also the grand
audit day; and the first day of the series of dinners held at the
deanery; the dinner on this day being confined to the members of the
cathedral: that is, the clergy, the choristers, and the lay-clerks. The
rest of the boys, those who were only king's scholars, were not
included, and very savage they were; but things were done in accordance
with ancient custom. When the dean, at the conclusion of the ceremonies
in the chapter-house, proffered an invitation to the "gentlemen
choristers" to dine with him that evening at the deanery, and the
gentlemen choristers bowed a gracious or a confused acquiescence,
according to their state of nerves, the thirty king's scholars turned
rampant with envy; and always wished either the choristers or the dean
might come to some grief before the night arrived.
The great day came; an unusually great day, this, for the school, the
examination having been fixed to take place on it by the dean. The
morning service in the cathedral was at ten o'clock, the usual daily
hour; and at eleven began the business in the chapter-house. Next came
the examination. There had been some consultation between the dean and
canons as to whether the examination should take place in the college
hall, as the schoolroom was called, or the chapter-house; but they
decided in favour of the college hall. As the boys were passing through
the cloisters from the chapter-house on their way to it, walking orderly
two and two in their surplices and trenchers, Georgina Beauclerc met
them, her blue eyes smiling, the blue strings of her bonnet flying. The
undaunted girl stopped to have a word, although the clergy, with the
dean at their head, were actually coming out of the chapter-house,
within view.
"There _is_ to be a prize, boys," she whispered. "Good luck to whoever
gets it. Will it be you, Jocelyn?"
"That it will not, Miss Beauclerc," was the reply of the senior boy.
None knew better than he his own deficiencies, and that they chiefly
arose through his own idleness.
"Whose will it be, then?"
"Well, if it turns upon general scholarship it ought to be Arkell's no
doubt, Miss Beauclerc, only you see he is not a senior. If we are
examined in Greek and Latin only, the merit may lie between him and
Lewis senior."
Lewis senior, a great big hulky fellow, with hair as black as his uncle
Ben's, sly eyes, and an ugly face, was standing close to Jocelyn. Taking
the classics only, he was the best scholar in the school, Henry Arkell
excepted; but he was more than a year older than Henry. Miss Beauclerc
saw his countenance light up with triumph, and she threw back her pretty
head. She detested Lewis, though perfectly conscious that he entertained
more than a liking for her.
"_You_ won't have much chance, Lewis, by the side of Arkell. Don't
deceive yourself; don't faint with the disappointment."
She turned round and flew off, for the dean and clergy were close at
hand. The boys continued their way to the college hall, Lewis's
amiability not improved by the taunt. The general opinion in the school
was, that if a prize was given, Lewis would gain it. He was a clever
boy, though not popular; more clever than any one of the other seniors.
Seniority went for everything in the college school, and for the dean to
be guilty of the heterodoxy of awarding the prize to any except one of
the four seniors had not occurred to the boys as being within the range
of serious possibility.
The boys took their station in the school, and the dean proceeded to the
examination. Two of the canons were with him, and the masters of the
school, one of whom was the Rev. Mr. Prattleton; but he attended only
twice a week for an especial branch of study. The clergy and boys all
wore their surplices, and the dean and prebendaries retained their caps
on their heads.
The examination proceeded smoothly enough, for the complaisant dean
confined himself chiefly to the classics. He questioned the boys in the
books and at the places put into his hands by the masters, and he winked
metaphorically at the low promptings administered when the classes came
to a full stop or a stammer. The masters recovered confidence, and were
congratulating themselves inwardly at the dreaded event being well over,
when, to their unspeakable dismay, the dean disbanded the classes, and,
desiring the forty boys to stand indiscriminately before him, began to
question them.
This was the real examination: some of the questions were simple, some
difficult, embracing various subjects. But, simple or difficult, it was
all one, for, taken by surprise, ill-educated, ill-grounded, the boys
could not answer. One of them alone proved himself equal to the
emergency. You need not be told that it was Henry Arkell. Not at a
single question did he hesitate, till at length the dean told him, with
a smile, _not_ to answer, until the questions had gone the round of the
school. Of all branches of education, save their rote of Latin and
Greek, the boys were entirely ignorant, though some of the dean's
questions were ludicrously simple.
"Can you make the square of a cube?"
Nobody answered, save by a prodigious deal of coughing, and Henry Arkell
had once more to be appealed to.
"What is the difference between a right angle and an acute one?"
More coughing, and then a dead silence. The dean happened to be looking
hard at one particular boy, or the boy fancied so, and his ears became
as red as the head master's. "If you please, Mr. Dean, our desk is not
in algebra."
"Who was Caligula?" continued the dean.
"King of France in the ninth century," was the prompt answer from one
who thought he was in luck.
It was now the dean's turn to cough, as he replaced the question by
another: "Can you tell me anything about Charles the Second?"
"He invented black lap-dogs with long ears."
The dean nearly choked.
"And was beheaded," added a timid voice.
"Was he?" retorted the dean. "Can you say anything about Charles the
First, and the events of his reign?"
"Yes, sir. He found out the Gunpowder Plot, and was succeeded by Oliver
Cromwell."
"Where are the Bahama Isles," asked the dean, in despair.
"In the Mediterranean," cried a tall boy.--"And they are very fertile,"
added another.
The dean paused a hopeless pause. "Can you spell 'Dutch?'"
"D-u-c-h." "D-u-t-s-h." "D-u-s-h-t," escaped from various tongues,
drowning other novel phases of the word.
"Spell 'Cane,'" frowned the dean, though he was laughing inwardly.
"K-a-n-e," was the eager reply.
"Perhaps you can spell 'birch,'" roared Dr. Ferraday, an irascible
prebendary.
They could: "B-u-r-c-h."
"What was the social condition of the Ancient Britons when their country
was invaded by Julius Caesar?" the dean asked, rubbing his face.
"They always went about naked, and never shaved, and their clothes were
made of the skins of beasts."
"This is frightful," interrupted Dr. Ferraday. "The school reflects the
greatest discredit upon--somebody," glaring through his spectacles at
the purple and scarlet faces of the masters. "There's only one boy who
is not a living monument of ignorance. He--what's your name, boy?"
"Arkell, sir."
"True; Arkell," assented Dr. Ferraday. He knew who he was perfectly
well, but he was the proudest man of all the canons, and would not
condescend to show that he remembered. "Sir, for your age you are a
brilliant scholar."
"How is it?" puzzled Mr. Meddler, another of the prebendaries: "has
Arkell superior abilities, and have all the rest none? Answer for
yourself, Arkell."
The boy hesitated. Both in mind and manners he was so different from the
general run of schoolboys; and he could not bear to be thus held out as
a sort of pattern for the rest.
"It is not my fault, sir--or theirs. My father has always kept me to my
studies so closely out of school hours, and attended to them himself,
that I could not help getting on in advance of the school."
"Wilberforce," roughly spoke up Dr. Ferraday, in his overbearing manner,
"how is it that this boy is not senior?"
"That post is attained by priority of entrance, sir," replied the
master. "Arkell can only become senior boy when those above him leave."
"He ought to be senior now."
"We cannot act against the customs of the school, Dr. Ferraday,"
repeated the master. "Arkell is at the first desk, but he cannot be
senior of the school out of his turn."
"Can you tell me whence England chiefly procures her supplies of
cotton?" asked Mr. Meddler, mildly, of a mild-looking boy belonging to
the third desk. "You, sir; Van Brummel, I think your name is."
Mr. Van Brummel, considerably taken-to at being addressed individually,
lost his head completely. "From the signing of Magna Charta by King
John."
"Why, what a stupid owl you must be!" snapped Dr. Ferraday, before Canon
Meddler could speak. Mr. Van Brummel's face turned red; he was a timid
boy, and he wondered whether they would order him to be flogged.
"Please, sir, I know that's the answer in the book," he earnestly said:
"I learnt them over again this morning."
"It may be an answer to something, but not to my question," said Mr.
Meddler, as he stepped apart to confer with his colleagues. "What is to
be done, Mr. Dean? This state of things cannot be allowed to go on."
They talked for a few moments together, and then the dean turned to the
boys.
"Stand forward, Arkell."
Henry Arkell advanced, a hot flush on his sensitive face; and the Dean
threw round his neck a broad blue ribbon, suspending a medal of gold. "I
have much pleasure in bestowing this upon you; never was reward more
justly merited; and," he concluded, raising his voice high as he swept
the room with his eyes, "I feel bound to declare publicly, that Henry
Cheveley Arkell is an honour to Westerbury collegiate school."
"As all the rest of you are a disgrace to it," stormed Dr. Ferraday on
the discomfited lot behind.
"You must let me have it back again to-morrow morning, that I may get
your name inscribed on it," said the dean to Henry, in a low tone.
"Wear it for to-day."
The boys were dismissed. They took off their surplices in the cloisters,
not presuming to unrobe in the presence of the cathedral dignitaries,
who prolonged their stay in the college hall: "to blow off at
Wilberforce and the rest," one of the seniors irreverently surmised
aloud. Some swung the surplices across their arms; some crammed them
into bags; and an unusual silence pervaded the group. Lewis was bitterly
disappointed. He was as good a classical scholar as Arkell, and thought
he ought to have had the medal.
Miss Beauclerc was waiting at the deanery door. "Well, boys, and who has
got it?" was her salutation before any of them were up.
"A sneaking young beggar," called out Lewis, thinking he might as well
make the best of things to her, and answer first.
"Then you have not got it, Lewis; I told you you wouldn't," laughed the
young lady; "though I heard that you made certain sure of it, and had
ordered a glass case to keep it in."
Lewis nearly boiled over with rage.
"Arkell has gained it, Miss Beauclerc," said the senior boy.
"Of course; I knew he would. I was sure from the first that none of you
could contend against him, provided there was a fair field and no
favour."
"No favour!" scornfully echoed Lewis. "A bright eye and a girl's face,
these are what we should covet now, to curry favour with the Dean and
Chapter."
"Lewis, you forget yourself," reproved Miss Beauclerc; "and I'll inform
against you if you talk treason of the dean," she laughingly continued.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Beauclerc," was the sullen apology of Lewis,
delivered in a most ungracious tone.
"Arkell's merits alone have gained the prize, Lewis, and you know it,"
proceeded the young lady; "they must have gained it had he been as ugly
as you."
"I am much obliged to you, Miss Beauclerc," foamed Lewis, with as much
resentment as he dared show to the dean's daughter.
"Well, you are right about his merits, Miss Beauclerc," interrupted
Jocelyn; "no question came amiss to him. By Jove! old Ferraday was not
wrong in calling him a brilliant scholar; I had no idea he knew half as
much. The dean said he was an honour to the school."
"_That_ he has been a long while," she said, quietly. "You boys may
sneer--you are sneering now, Aultane, but----"
"No, indeed, Miss Beauclerc," interrupted Aultane, "I would not do such
a thing as sneer in your presence. Of course it couldn't be expected
that he'd be anything but a good scholar, when his father's a
schoolmaster."
"And teaches boys at half-a-crown an hour," put in Lewis junior. "He
acknowledged to the dean, it was all through his father's cramming him."
Henry Arkell was coming up; Miss Beauclerc moved forwards and shook him
by the hand.
"I congratulate you," she said, in a half whisper. "Why it looks like
the ribbon of the Garter. You may win that some time, if you live; who
knows? I knew you would get it, if you were only true to yourself;
Frederick St. John said so too. Mind you write to-day to tell him."
She had taken the medal in her hand, and was looking at it. The rest
pressed round as closely as they dared. Lewis only stood aside, a bitter
expression on his ugly lips.
A little fellow ran up, all in a fright. "Oh! if you please, if you
please, Miss Beauclerc, here comes the dean."
"What if he does?" retorted Miss Beauclerc; "he won't eat you. There,
you may go, boys. Henry Arkell, you know you are expected at the deanery
to-night."
"Yes, thank you, Miss Beauclerc," he replied, some hesitation, or
surprise, visible in his tone.
"Ah, but I mean to _us_, after the dinner. Mamma has what she calls one
of her quiet soirees. You'll be sure to come."
One glance from his brilliant eyes, beneath which her blue ones fell,
and he drew away. The rest were already off. Georgina walked forward to
meet the dean, and she put her arm within his in her loving manner.
"Oh, papa, the boys are so envious of the medal. I stopped them and made
them show it me. That ugly Lewis is ready to cut his throat."
"Random-spoken as usual, my darling. Who's throat?"
"Henry Arkell's of course, papa. But I knew no one else would gain it.
They are not fit to tie his shoes."
"In learning, they certainly are not. You can't imagine what a ludicrous
display we have had! And some of them go soon to the university!"
"It's not the fault of the boys, papa. If they are never taught anything
but Greek and Latin, how can they be expected to know anything else?"
"Very true, Georgie," mused Dr. Beauclerc. "Some of these old systems
are stupid things."
The audit dinner in the evening went off as those dinners generally did.
The boys dined at a table by themselves, and Henry, as their senior,
had to exert firm authority over some, for the supply of wine was
unlimited. Later in the evening, he passed through the gallery to the
drawing-room, as invited by Miss Beauclerc. A few ladies were assembled:
the canons' wives and daughters, Mrs. Wilberforce, and two or three
other inhabitants of the Grounds; all very quiet, and what in these
later days might have been called "slow:" Mrs. Beauclerc's parties
mostly were so. They were talking of Frederick St. John when Henry went
in, who was again absent from Westerbury, visiting somewhere with his
mother and Lady Anne.
Henry wore his medal; the broad blue ribbon conspicuous. Some time was
taken up examining that, and then he was asked to sing. It was a treat
to hear him; and his voice as yet gave forth no token of losing its
power and sweetness, though he was close upon sixteen.
He sang song after song--for they pressed for it--accompanying himself.
One song that he was especially asked for, he could not remember without
the music. Mrs. Wilberforce suggested that he should fetch it from home,
but Georgina said she could play it for him, and sat down. It was that
fine song called "The Treasures of the Deep," by Mrs. Hemans. It was
found, however, that she could not play it; and after two or three
attempts, she began a waltz instead; and the ladies, in the distance
round the fire, forgot at length that they had wanted it.
Georgina wore an evening dress of white spotted muslin, a broad blue
sash round her waist, and a bit of narrow blue velvet suspending a cross
on her neck. She had taken off her bracelets to play, and her pretty
white arms were bare. Her eyes were blue as the ribbon, and altogether
she looked very attractive, very _young_, and she was that night in one
of her wild and inexplicable humours.
What she really said, how he responded, will never be wholly known:
certain it is, that she led him on, on, until he resigned himself wholly
to the fascination and "told his love;" although he might have known
that to do so was little less than madness. She affected to ridicule
him; she intimated that her love was not for a college boy; but all the
while her looks gave the lie to her words; her blue eyes spoke of
admiration still; her flushed face of triumphant, gratified vanity.
_They_ were engaged round the fire, round the tables, anywhere; and
Georgina had it all to herself, and played bars of music now and then,
as if she were essaying different pieces.
"Let us put aside this nonsense," she suddenly said. "It _is_ nonsense,
and you know it, Harry. Here's a song," snatching the first that came
to hand--"sing this; I'll play it for you."
"Do you think I can _sing_?--now? with your cold words blighting me. Oh,
tell me the worst!" he added, his tone one of strange pain. "Tell
me----"
"Goodness, Henry Arkell. If you look and talk in that serious manner, I
shall think you have become crazy. Come; begin."
"I seem to be in a sort of dream," he murmured, putting his hands to his
temples. "Surely all the past, all our pleasant intercourse, is not to
be forgotten! You will not throw me away like this?"
"Where's the use of my playing this symphony, if you don't begin?"
"Georgina!--let me call you so for the first, perhaps for the last
time--dear Georgina, you cannot forget the past! You cannot mean what
you have just said."
"How unpleasant you are making things to-night!" she said, with a laugh.
"I shall begin to think you have followed the example of those wretched
little juniors, and taken plentifully of wine."
"Perhaps I have; perhaps it is owing to that that I have courage freely
to talk to you now. Georgina, you _know_ how I have loved you; you know
that for years and years my life has been as one long blissful dream,
filled with the image of you."
She stole a glance at him from her blue eyes; a smile hovered on her
parted lips. He bent his head until his brown wavy curls mingled with
her lighter hair.
"Georgina, you know--you know that you can be life or death to me."
He could not speak with consecutive smoothness; his heart was beating as
if it would burst its bounds, his whole frame thrilled, his fingers were
trembling.
"Tell me that it is not all to be forgotten!"
"Indeed, if you have been cultivating a wrong impression--I can only
advise you to forget it. I have liked you;" her voice sank to the lowest
whisper--"very much; I have been so stupid as to let you see it; but I
never meant you to--to--presume upon it in this uncomfortable manner."
"One question!" he urged. "Only one. Is it that you have played with me,
loving another?"
Her right hand was on the keys of the piano, striking chords
continually; a false note grating now and then on the ear. Her left hand
lay passive on her lap, as she sat, slightly turned to him.
"Stuff and nonsense! No, I have not. You will have them overhear you,
Harry."
"Do not equivocate--dearest Georgina--let me hear the truth. It may be
better for me; I can bear anything rather than deceit. Let me know the
truth; I beseech it of you by all the hours we have passed together."
"Harry, you are decidedly beside yourself to-night. Don't suffer the
world behind to get a notion of it."
"You are playing with me now," he said, quite a wail in his low voice.
"Let me, one way or the other, be at rest. I never shall bear this
suspense, and live. Give me an answer, Georgina; one that shall abide
for ever."
"An answer to what?"
"Have you all this while loved another?"
She took her hand off the keys, and began picking out the treble notes
of a song with her forefinger, bending her head slightly.
"The answer might not be palatable."
"No, it may not. Nevertheless, I pray you give it me. You are killing
me, Georgina."
She looked up hastily; she saw that the bright, transparent complexion
of the face had turned to a deadly whiteness; and, perhaps, in that one
moment, Georgina Beauclerc's heart smote her with a slight reproach of
cruelty. But she may have deemed it well to put an end to the suspense,
and she bent her head again as she spoke.
"Even though I had loved another, what of that? I don't admit that I
have; and I say that it is a question you have no right to ask me.
Harry! be reasonable; though I had loved _you_, it could not come to
anything; you know it could not; so what does it signify?"
"But you have _not_ loved me?"
"Well--no. Not in that way. Here's the dean coming in; and here's
pompous old Ferraday. You must sing a song; papa's sure to ask for one."
She hastened from the piano, as if glad to escape. The dean did ask for
a song. But when they came to look for him who was to sing it, he was
nowhere to be seen.
"Bless me!" cried the dean, "I thought Henry Arkell was here. Where is
he?"
"I dare say he has gone home for the 'Treasures of the Deep,' papa,"
readily replied Georgina. "Somebody asked him to fetch it just now."
He had not gone for the "Treasures of the Deep;" and, as she guessed
pretty accurately, he had no intention of returning. He was walking
slowly towards the master's house, his temporary home; his head was
aching, his brain was burning, and he felt as if all life had gone out
of him for ever. That she had been befooling him; that she loved
Frederick St. John with an impassioned lasting love, appeared to him as
clear as the stars in a frosty sky.
But there were no stars then, and no frost; the fineness of the night
had gone, and a drizzling rain was falling. He did not heed it; it
might wet him if it would, might soak even that gay blue badge on his
breast. Two people within view seemed to heed it as little; they were
pacing together, arm-in-arm, in a dark part of the grounds, talking in
an undertone. So absorbed were they, that both started when Henry came
up; they were near a gaslight then, and he recognised George Prattleton.
The other face, on which the light shone brightly, he did not know.
"How d'ye do?" said Henry. "Do you know whether Prattleton junior has
got home yet?" Prattleton junior, the younger of the Reverend Mr.
Prattleton's sons, was in the choir under Henry; and the senior
chorister had had some trouble with that gentleman at the dinner-table
on this, the audit-night.
"I don't know anything about Prattleton junior," returned George
Prattleton in a testy tone, as if the question itself, or the being
spoken to, had annoyed him.
Henry walked on, and round the corner came upon the gentleman in
question, Prattleton junior, with another of the choristers, Mr.
Wilberforce's son Edwin, each having taken as much as was good for him,
both to eat and to drink.
"Who's that with George?" asked Henry--for it was somewhat unusual to
see a stranger in the grounds at night.
"Oh, it's a Mr. Rolls," replied young Prattleton: "I heard my brother
ask George. He meets him in the billiard rooms."
"Well, you be off home, now; you'll get wet. Wilberforce, I'm going in.
You can come with me."
Young Mr. Prattleton appeared disposed to resist the mandate. He liked
being in the rain, he persisted. But the arrival of his father at that
moment from the deanery settled the matter.
And Henry Arkell, having happened to look back, saw George Prattleton
draw the stranger into the shade, and remain in ambush while the minor
canon passed.