The Wonder (15 page)

“Then why, exactly, do you wish me to prohibit the child from coming to Challis Court?”

“Possibly you have not realised that the child is now five years old?” said Crashaw with an air of conferring illumination.

“Indeed! Yes. An age of some discretion, no doubt,” returned Challis.

“An age at which the State requires that he should receive the elements of education,” continued Crashaw.

“Eh?” said Challis.

“Time he went to school,” explained Mr. Forman. “I’ve been after him, you know. I’m the attendance officer for this district.”

Challis for once committed a breach of good manners. The import of the thing suddenly appealed to his sense of humour: he began to chuckle and then he laughed out a great, hearty laugh, such as had not been stirred in him for twenty years.

“Oh! forgive me, forgive me,” he said, when he had recovered his self-control. “But you don’t know; you can’t conceive the utter, childish absurdity of setting that child to recite the multiplication table with village infants of his own age. Oh! believe me, if you could only guess, you would laugh with me. It’s so funny, so inimitably funny.”

“I fail to see, Mr. Challis,” said Crashaw, “that there is anything in any way absurd or—or unusual in the proposition.”

“Five is the age fixed by the State,” said Mr. Forman. He had relaxed into a broad smile in sympathy with Challis’s laugh, but he had now relapsed into a fair imitation of Crashaw’s intense seriousness.

“Oh! How can I explain?” said Challis. “Let me take an instance. You propose to teach him, among other things, the elements of arithmetic?”

“It is a part of the curriculum,” replied Mr. Forman.

“I have only had one conversation with this child,” went on Challis—and at the mention of that conversation his brows drew together and he becamevery grave again; “but in the course of that conversation this child had occasion to refer, by way of illustration, to some abstruse theorem of the differential calculus. He did it, you will understand, by way of making his meaning clear—though the illustration was utterly beyond me: that reference represented an act of intellectual condescension.”

“God bless me, you don’t say so?” said Mr. Forman.

“I cannot see,” said Crashaw, “that this instance of yours, Mr. Challis, has any real bearing on the situation. If the child is a mathematical genius—there have been instances in history, such as Blaise Pascal—he would not, of course, receive elementary instruction in a subject with which he was already acquainted.”

“You could not find any subject, believe me, Crashaw, in which he could be instructed by any teacher in a Council school.”

“Forgive me, I don’t agree with you,” returned Crashaw. “He is sadly in need of some religious training.”

“He would not get that at a Council school,” said Challis, and Mr. Forman shook his head sadly, as though he greatly deprecated the fact.

“He must learn to recognise authority,” said Crashaw. “When he has been taught the necessity of submitting himself to all his governors, teachers,spiritual pastors, and masters: ordering himself lowly and reverently to all his betters; when, I say, he has learnt that lesson, he may be in a fit and proper condition to receive the teachings of the Holy Church.”

Mr. Forman appeared to think he was attending divine service. If the rector had said “Let us pray,” there can be no doubt that he would immediately have fallen on his knees.

Challis shook his head. “You can’t understand, Crashaw,” he said.

“I
do
understand,” said Crashaw, rising to his feet, “and I intend to see that the statute is not disobeyed in the case of this child, Victor Stott.”

Challis shrugged his shoulders; Mr. Forman assumed an expression of stern determination.

“In any case, why drag me into it?” asked Challis.

Crashaw sat down again. The flush which had warmed his sallow skin subsided as his passion died out. He had worked himself into a condition of righteous indignation, but the calm politeness of Challis rebuked him. If Crashaw prided himself on his devotion to the Church, he did not wish that attitude to overshadow the pride he also took in the belief that he was Challis’s social equal. Crashaw’s father had been a lawyer, with a fair practice in Derby, but he had worked his way up to a partnership from the position of office-boy, and Percy Crashaw seldom forgot to be conscious that he was a gentleman by education and profession.

“I did not wish to
drag
you into this business,” he said quietly, putting his elbows on the writing-table in front of him, and reassuming the judicial attitude he had adopted earlier; “but I regard this child as, in some sense, your protégé.” Crashaw put the tips of his fingers together, and Mr. Forman watched him warily, waiting for his cue. If this was to be a case for prayer, Mr. Forman was ready, with a clean white handkerchief to kneel upon.

“In some sense, perhaps,” returned Challis. “I haven’t seen him for some months.”

“Cannot you see the necessity of his attending school?” asked Crashaw, this time with an insinuating suavity; he believed that Challis was coming round.

“Oh!” Challis sighed with a note of expostulation. “Oh! the thing’s grotesque, ridiculous.”

“If that’s so,” put in Mr. Forman, who had been struck by a brilliant idea, “why not bring the child here, and let the Reverend Mr. Crashaw, or myself, put a few general questions to ’im?”

“Ye-es,” hesitated Crashaw, “that might be done; but, of course, the decision does not rest with us.”

“It rests with the Local Authority,” mused Challis. He was running over three or four names of members of that body who were known to him.

“Certainly,” said Crashaw, “the Local Education Authority alone has the right to prosecute, but——” He did not state his antithesis. They had come to the crux which Crashaw had wished to avoid. He had no influence with the committee of the L.E.A., and Challis’s recommendation would have much weight. Crashaw intended that Victor Stott should attend school, but he had bungled his preliminaries; he had rested on his own authority, and forgotten that Challis had little respect for that influence. Conciliation was the only card to play now.

“If I brought him, he wouldn’t answer your questions,” sighed Challis. “He’s very difficult to deal with.”

“Is he, indeed?” sympathised Mr. Forman. “I’ve ’ardly seen ’im myself; not to speak to, that is.”

“He might come with his mother,” suggested Crashaw.

Challis shook his head. “By the way, it is the mother whom you would proceed against?” he asked.

“The parent is responsible,” said Mr. Forman. “She will be brought before a magistrate and fined for the first offence.”

“I shan’t fine her if she comes before me,” replied Challis.

Crashaw smiled. He meant to avoid that eventuality.

The little meeting lapsed into a brief silence. There seemed to be nothing more to say.

“Well,” said Crashaw, at last, with a rising inflexion that had a conciliatory, encouraging, now-my-little-man kind of air, “We-ll, of course, no one wishes to proceed to extremes. I think, Mr. Challis, I think I may say that you are the person who has most influence in this matter, and I cannot believe that you will go against the established authority both of the Church and the State. If it were only for the sake of example.”

Challis rose deliberately. He shook his head, and unconsciously his hands went behind his back. There was hardly room for him to pace up and down, but he took two steps towards Mr. Forman, who immediately rose to his feet; and then turned and went over to the window. It was from there that he pronounced his ultimatum.

“Regulations, laws, religious and lay authorities,” he said, “come into existence in order to deal with the rule, the average. That must be so. But if we are a reasoning, intellectual people we must have some means of dealing with the exception. That means rests with a consensus of intelligent opinion strong enough to set the rule upon one side. In an overwhelming majority of cases there
is
no such consensus of opinion, and the exceptional individual suffers by coming within the rule of a law which should not apply to him. Now, I put it to you, as reasoning, intelligent men” (’ear, ’ear, murmured Mr. Forman automatically), “are we, now that we have the power to perform a common act of justice, to exempt an unfortunate individual exception who has come within the rule of a law that holds no application for him, or are we to exhibit a crass stupidity by enforcing that law? Is it not better to take the case into our own hands, and act according to the dictates of common sense?”

“Very forcibly put,” murmured Mr. Forman.

“I’m not finding any fault with the law or the principle of the law,” continued Challis; “but it is, it must be, framed for the average. We must use our discretion in dealing with the exception—and this is an exception such as has never occurred since we have had an Education Act.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Crashaw, stubbornly. “I do not consider this an exception.”

“But you
must
agree with me, Crashaw. I have a certain amount of influence and I shall use it.”

“In that case,” replied Crashaw, rising to his feet, “I shall fight you to the bitter end. I am
determined
”—he raised his voice and struck the writing-table with his fist—“I am
determined
that this infidel child shall go to school. I am prepared, if necessary, to spend all my leisure in seeing that the law is carried out.”

Mr. Forman had also risen. “Very right, very right, indeed,” he said, and he knitted his mild brows and stroked his patriarchal white beard with an appearance of stern determination.

“I think you would be better advised to let the matter rest,” said Challis.

Mr. Forman looked inquiringly at the representative of the Church.

“I shall fight,” replied Crashaw, stubbornly, fiercely.

“Ha!” said Mr. Forman.

“Very well, as you think best,” was Challis’s last word.

As Challis walked down to the gate, where his motor was waiting for him, Mr. Forman trotted up from behind and ranged himself alongside.

“More rain wanted yet for the roots, sir,” he said. “September was a grand month for ’arvest, but we want rain badly now.”

“Quite, quite,” murmured Challis, politely. He shook hands with Mr. Forman before he got into the car.

Mr. Forman, standing politely bareheaded, saw that Mr. Challis’s car went in the direction of Ailesworth.

CHAPTER XI

HIS EXAMINATION

CHALLIS’S FIRST VISIT WAS
paid to Sir Deane Elmer,
^*
that man of many activities, whose name inevitably suggests his favourite phrase of “Organised Progress”—with all its variants.

This is hardly the place in which to criticise a man of such diverse abilities as Deane Elmer, a man whose name still figures so prominently in the public press in connection with all that is most modern in eugenics; with the Social Reform programme of the moderate party; with the reconstruction of our penal system; with education, and so many kindred interests; and, finally, of course, with colour photography and process printing. This last Deane Elmer always spoke of as his hobby, but we may doubt whether all his interests were not hobbies in the same sense. He is the natural descendant of those earlier amateur scientists—the adjective conveys no reproach—of the nineteenth century, among whom we remember such striking figures as those of Lord Avebury and Sir Francis Galton.

In appearance Deane Elmer was a big, heavy, rather corpulent man, with a high complexion, and his clean-shaven jowl and his succession of chins hung in heavy folds. But any suggestion of material grossness was contradicted by the brightness of his rather pale-blue eyes, by his alertness of manner, and by his ready, whimsical humour.

As chairman of the Ailesworth County Council, and its most prominent unpaid public official—after the mayor—Sir Deane Elmer was certainly the most important member of the Local Authority, and Challis wisely sought him at once. He found him in the garden of his comparatively small establishment on the Quainton side of the town. Elmer was very much engaged in photographing flowers from nature through the ruled screen and colour filter—in experimenting with the Elmer process, in fact; by which the intermediate stage of a coloured negative is rendered unnecessary. His apparatus was complicated and cumbrous.

“Show Mr. Challis out here,” he commanded the man who brought the announcement.

“You must forgive me, Challis,” said Elmer, when Challis appeared. “We haven’t had such a still day for weeks. It’s the wind upsets us in this process. Screens create a partial vacuum.”

He was launched on a lecture upon his darling process before Challis could get in a word. It was best to let him have his head, and Challis took an intelligent interest.

It was not until the photographs were taken, and his two assistants could safely be trusted to complete the mechanical operations, that Elmer could be divorced from his hobby. He was full of jubilation. “We should have excellent results,” he boomed—he had a tremendous voice—“but we shan’t be able to judge until we get the blocks made. We do it all on the spot. I have a couple of platens in the shops here; but we shan’t be able to take a pull until to-morrow morning, I’m afraid. You shall have a proof, Challis. We
should
get magnificent results.” He looked benignantly at the vault of heaven, which had been so obligingly free from any current of air.

Challis was beginning to fear that even now he would be allowed no opportunity to open the subject of his mission. But quite suddenly Elmer dropped the shutter on his preoccupation, and with that ready adaptability which was so characteristic of the man, forgot his hobby for the time being, and turned his whole attention to a new subject.

“Well?” he said, “what is the latest news in anthropology?”

“A very remarkable phenomenon,” replied Challis. “That is what I have come to see you about.”

“I thought you were in Paraguay pigging it with the Guaranis——”

“No, no; I don’t touch the Americas,” interposed Challis. “I want all your attention, Elmer. This is important.”