Two Worlds and Their Ways (20 page)

“The first, sir. The first two.”

There was further mirth.

“The last, sir,” said Bacon, with less confidence.

“The next boy,” said Mr. Bigwell. “Your name, my son?”

“Sefton Shelley, sir.”

“Yes, he is my half-brother,” said Oliver. “My stepmother has sent me here to keep an eye on him.”

“You will not often see him.”

“Then I cannot do as she said.”

“Are you the boy I dropped in the passage?” said Mr. Spode, in faint surprise, as if he had hardly expected Sefton to emerge.

“Yes, sir. But I met the others.”

“That was a resourceful boy.”

“Next young man?” said Mr. Bigwell.

“Hubert Holland, sir. Nearly eleven.”

“Colin Sturgeon, sir. Ten and a half.”

“A tall, pale, aquiline boy, and a short, snub, rosy boy.” said Mr. Spode in a dreamy tone. “The old story that is always new.”

Bacon glanced at Holland and then at the men.

“You could describe us as well as we can describe you?” said Mr. Spode.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, remember that a pleasant description is more difficult than an unpleasant one,” said Mr. Bigwell. “You want to do the difficult thing, don't you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?” said Mr. Spode.

“Because fewer people could do it, sir.”

“May you never have a worse reason for doing things than that,” said Mr. Bigwell. “Now you may go to Miss James. And remember that she is always there, and we are always here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Miss James will make them feel at home,” said Mr. Dalziel.

“She will make them feel at school,” said Mr. Spode. “She will show them the truest kindness. That is cruelty in a condensed form.”

“I had no idea that schoolmasters were so alive to boyish troubles,” said Oliver. “I thought they became callous to suffering they constantly witnessed.”

“They may become sharpened to it,” said Mr. Bigwell. “I wish that could be said of the little ruffians themselves.”

“Well, they would hardly be tender with a man's tenderness,” said Oliver.

The four boys outside the room paused and looked at each other. Their pursuit of Miss James seemed to have fallen from their minds.

“What relation did he say you were to him?” said Bacon to Sefton. “The darker one of the two large men.”

“Half-brother. That means that one parent is the same, and the other is not. We have the same father and different mothers.”

“Then has your father more than one wife?”

“No, of course not. The first wife has to die before a man can have a second. Oliver's mother was the first.”

“Then your father does not keep a harem?”

“Of course not. He has only had one wife at a time. Oliver's mother died and he married again later.”

“But she was still his wife. So is your mother his concubine?”

“No, of course not. A second wife is as much a wife as the first. Just like a second husband.”

“When he happens to be a wife,” said Holland.

“We want to get at the truth,” said Bacon, with a frown. “Perhaps his father is a Mohammedan.”

“Of course he is not,” said Sefton. “He is just like anyone else.”

“Then he is a commonplace man,” said Holland.

“That is what you will be,” said Bacon. “But Shelley can't make things true by just saying ‘of course'. His mother is probably a concubine. He might not be told about it. I don't suppose he would be.”

“It may be like Agamemnon bringing back Cassandra when he already had a wife,” said Sturgeon.

“It is not,” said Sefton. “The first wife died before he married my mother, before he even saw her, years and years before.”

“Is your brother treated differently from you?” said Bacon. “I mean apart from his being older. Does he have more of everything?”

“He will have the place in the end. But that is because he is the oldest.”

“You see,” said Bacon, nodding at the others. “That is how it would be. The brother is the child of the real wife, and is more important. Won't you have any share of things at all, Shelley?”

“Has he any right to be called that?” said Holland. “Perhaps his mother called him Sefton, to give him a surname.”

“My name is Sefton Shelley, just as my brother's is Oliver Shelley. Sefton is my mother's surname.”

“Well, there it is,” said Bacon. “His mother's surname is the one he has a right to.”

“I shall have a profession, and he will have the place, because it is the law.”

“Of course it would be. The child of the real wife is the only one the law recognises. You are what is called a natural son. That is why you are to have work of your own. Natural sons are often made quite important in that way. There is a lot of it in history.”

“He ought not really to be at the same school as we are,” said Sturgeon. “He ought to be at one for the sons of concubines. There are schools for the sons of almost all kinds of people.”

“I expect his mother managed it for him,” said Holland. “Concubines are often more spoilt than ordinary women.”

“Is his father a gentleman?” said Sturgeon.

“Yes,” said Bacon. “It is gentlemen who do these things. They are the only ones who can afford to do them. They cost a great deal, though they are generally not mentioned.”

“Do all men who can afford to, keep concubines?”

“No, only in China. In England only a few keep them. And they are generally kept outside the house. Sometimes the real wife does not know about them.”

“I am the son of a real wife,” said Sefton, with tears in his voice. “My father's first wife died before he ever saw my mother.”

“Well, there is no need to cry about it,” said Bacon.

“Your father may love your mother the best. That does happen with concubines. I daresay Agamemnon loved Cassandra better than Clytaemnestra. Indeed it seems as if he did.”

“How do you know so much about concubines? Do all your fathers keep several?”

“What is all this noise?” said Miss James, opening her door. “No talking is allowed in the passage. Oh, it is the four new boys! Well, even you can read the rules. Were you looking for my room?”

“Yes,” said Bacon, as he recalled this purpose.

“‘Yes, Miss James,'” said the latter, putting things at once on a proper footing. “Why are you crying, Shelley? You are Shelley, are you not? I saw you arriving with your brother. What is wrong?”

“My mother is not a concubine.”

“Well, of course she is not. Who said she was?”

“All of them. All of them, Miss James.”

“Well, he said our fathers kept several,” said Holland.

“Several, Miss James.”

“I never heard of such talk. I was never so shocked in my life,” said Miss James, rapidly. “And new boys, and one of you related to the Head! I should complain to him, if I liked to talk about such things, if I wished to be degraded by them. And telling tales of each other on your first day! I can hardly believe it. Are you not ashamed of it yourselves?”

“Yes, Miss James.”

“Well, it is best to say no more about it. Indeed, it is not fit to speak about. Here is the key of your playbox, Bacon. And of yours, Sturgeon.” Miss James here waited for the keys to be accepted, to attach names to their owners, a capacity taken by them as part of a general unfathomable power. “You have yours, Shelley. Then Holland will lead us upstairs. You are to have a dormitory to yourselves. There is a playbox by each bed, and you must claim your own.”

Miss James kept her eyes on Holland, to register her impression of him, and the boys gave their first signs of interest in their new world.

“Now I am going to put you all on your honour,” said Miss James, her eyes now resting easily on the claimants of the boxes. “I am sure you know what that means. You are on your honour as gentlemen not to mention the word, ‘concubine', again.”

“The word comes in the Bible,” said Bacon.

“And so do a great many words that are not fit for you to use, that are not suitable for people who do not understand how to use them,” said Miss James, with the rapidity that was frequently her resource. “And you want a great knowledge of the Bible to understand its language.”

“Suppose we have to read the word aloud?”

“Then you will do so without giggling or exchanging glances,” said Miss James, to the discomfort of her hearers, who recognised in her some power of divining
their nature. “And in ordinary conversation you will not mention it. You are on your honour not to do so. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss James.”

“And now here are the rules of the school,” said Miss James, with the faint sigh of one approaching the last and most arduous stage. “Here is the printed list on the wall. Now can you all read?”

“Yes, Miss James.”

“You need not say it too easily. I have often met boys who apparently could not. This is an important thing,” said Miss James, who had disposed of such matters as could be settled through the medium of honour. “Will you read the first rule, Bacon?”

“‘Rise on hearing the first bell.' How do we know it is the first?”

“Well, you can count as far as one, can you not?”

“Yes. But we might be asleep when it went. Miss James.”

“The bell would wake you. That is its purpose. Read the second rule, Shelley.”

“‘Leave the dormitory on second bell, and descend in silence to classroom.'”

“And the third, Sturgeon.”

“Observe silence in passages and on stairs.' Suppose we observe a noise, Miss James?”

“You do not know that use of the word?” said Miss James, in a tone that mingled kindliness, suspicion and resignation, in case any of these qualities was called for. “It just means ‘keep'. You can remember that.”

“‘Observe silence in dormitory after lights are out,'” read Holland. “‘and when visiting dormitory during day. Observe punctuality at meals.' Suppose we do forget what the word, ‘observe', means?”

Miss James took a pencil and altered the word to ‘keep', and on second thoughts produced a pen and traced it where it occurred.

“
Keep
punctuality at meals?” said Holland, as if to himself.

“It is an old use of the word. You would not know it,” said Miss James, going to the door. “Now, if you want me, you know where I am. Remember all I have said.”

“If we do not want her, we forget where she is,” said Holland.

“As is true in many cases,” said Bacon.

“Not a bad old dame,” said Sturgeon.

“She might be better-favoured,” said Bacon.

“If she was, she would not be here,” said Holland. “There would be a risk of the masters' falling in love with her.”

“She would not be chosen for—for what must not be said,” said Sturgeon.

“You are breaking your promise,” said Bacon.

“He is not. He did not say the word,” said Holland.

“And we did not really give the promise.”

“We did in effect. There is a point beyond which we do not go. Now I am going to open my playbox.”

“The size of mine is in keeping with myself,” said Sturgeon, getting over what had to come.

“You are of a wizened stature,” said Bacon. “Perhaps you will grow up a dwarf.”

“Then you could earn your living in a show,” said Holland. “Indeed, you might have to. I don't think a dwarf would be employed in ordinary ways.”

“Should I be paid enough for that?”

“You would not want much,” said Bacon. “You would not have family expenses. No one would marry a dwarf.”

“Dwarfs sometimes marry each other,” said Sturgeon. “Sometimes their children are dwarfs, and sometimes not. It happens in the big circuses, and I might succeed in my profession.”

“And what profession is that?” said Miss James, returning with the air of one who had expected to do. so.
“When you cannot remember a simple thing for a few minutes!”

“A dwarf in a fair, Miss James.”

“Well, what extraordinary characters you think of! First a—and then a dwarf, first one thing and then another. And did I, or did I not, tell you to read the rules, and hear you reading them?”

“Yes, you did, Miss James.”

“And did you read the one about keeping silence in the dormitories during the day? Or did you miss that one out?”

“No, Miss James. But that was
visiting
the dormitory,” said Bacon. “We are unpacking in this one and settling down.”

Miss James again produced her pen, made an alteration on the list, and turned on her way. A bell rang as she reached the door, and she looked at the four boys engaged with their boxes.

“What sound was that?”

“A bell, Miss James.”

“And what bell would it be at this hour?”

“A bell for tea?” said Sturgeon, in a dubious tone.

“And did you miss this rule out?” said Miss James, tapping her pen against the list. “Will you please read it again, all together?”

“‘Observe punctuality at meals.'”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Four pairs of eyes met hers and sought each other.

“Ought we to go down?” said Holland, in a tone of hazarding a just possible suggestion.

“Perhaps our tea will be brought up to us on our first night,” said Sturgeon.

“Go down, all of you, and let me have no more nonsense,” said Miss James, tapping her pen on his head and almost smiling. “You will miss grace now. You can say your grace to yourselves. You all know a grace, don't you?”

“Yes, Miss James.”

“Then mind you do not forget to say it. And talk among yourselves and not to the other boys. That leads to trouble.”

The boys went down and followed a hum of voices to the dining-room. An elder boy leaned from his seat and pointed them to their place. They took their seats and turned their eyes on the table.