Читать книгу Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family - Fenn George Manville - Страница 4

“Oh!” in a loud shrill voice; and then a general titter.

“Silence! who was that?”

“Please, Miss, Cissy Hudson, Miss. Please, Miss, it’s Mr Bone.”

This last delivered in a chorus of shrill voices; and Sage Portlock turned sharply from the semi-circle of children, one and all standing with their toes accurately touching a thickly-chalked line, to see a head thrust into the schoolroom, but with the edge of the door held closely against the neck, pressing it upon the jamb, so that the entire body to which the head belonged was invisible.

The head which had been thus suddenly thrust into the schoolroom was not attractive, the face being red and deeply lined with marks not made by age. The eyes were dull and watery, there was a greyish stubble of a couple of days’ growth upon the chin, and the hair that appeared above the low brow was rough, unkempt, and, if clean, did no justice to the cleansing hand.

“How tiresome!” muttered Sage Portlock, moving towards the door, which then opened, and a tall man, in a very shabby thin greatcoat which reached almost to his heels, stumped into the room.

Stumped or thumped – either word will do to express the heavy way in which Humphrey Bone, thirty years master of Lawford boys’ school, drew attention to the fact that he had one leg much shorter than the other, the difference in length being made up by a sole of some five inches’ thickness, which sole came down upon the red-brick floor like the modified blows of a pavior’s rammer.

Such a clever man! Such a good teacher! the Lawford people said. There was nothing against him but a drop of drink, and this drop of drink had kept Humphrey Bone a poor man, dislocated his hip in a fall upon a dark night, when the former doctor of the place had not discovered the exact nature of the injury till it was too late, and the drop of drink in this instance had resulted in the partaker becoming a permanent cripple.

Lawford was such a slow-moving place in those days, that it took its principal inhabitants close upon twenty years to decide that a master who very often went home helplessly intoxicated, and who had become a hopeless moral wreck, living in a state of squalor and debt, could not be a fitting person to train and set an example to the boys left in his charge. And at last, but in the face of great opposition from the old-fashioned party arrayed against the Rev. Eli Mallow and his friends – the party who reiterated the cry that Humphrey Bone was such a clever man, wrote such a copperplate-like hand, when his fingers were not palsied, and measured land so well – it was decided that Humphrey Bone should be called upon to resign at Christmas, and Luke Ross, the son of the Lawford tanner, then training at Saint Chrysostom’s College, London, should take his place.

It was only natural that Sage Portlock, as she advanced to meet Humphrey Bone, should think of the coming days after the holidays, when Mr Ross, whom she had known so well from childhood, should be master of the adjoining school, and that very unpleasant personage now present should cease to trouble her with visits that were becoming more and more distasteful and annoying.

“Mornin’! Ink!” said Mr Bone, shortly. “Ours like mud. How are you?”

“Ink, Mr Bone?” said the young mistress, ignoring the husky inquiry after her health. “Yes; one of the girls shall bring some in.”

This and the young mistress’s manner should have made Mr Humphrey Bone retire, but he stood still in the middle of the room, chuckling softly; and then, to the open-eyed delight of the whole school, drew a goose-quill from his breast, stripped off the plume from one side of the shaft, and, with a very keen knife, proceeded to cut, nick, and shape one of the pens for which he bore a great reputation, holding it out afterwards for the young mistress to see.

“That beats training, eh? Didn’t teach you to make a pen like that at Westminster, did they, eh?”

“No,” said Sage, quietly; “we always used steel pens.”

“Hah – yes?” ejaculated the old schoolmaster, with a laugh of derision. “Steel pens – steel teaching – steel brains – they’ll have steel machine teachers soon, who can draw a goose like that on a black board with a bit of chalk. Faugh!”

He pointed to one of a series of woodcuts mounted on millboard and hung against the whitewashed wall, stumped away three or four yards, and then returned.

“New ways – new theories – new machines! Wear the old ones out and chuck ’em away – eh?”

“I do not understand you, Mr Bone,” said the young mistress, longing for the interview to come to an end; but he went on, speaking angrily, and ignoring her words —

“When old Widow Marley died, I said to Mallow and the rest of ’em, ‘Knock a hole through the brick wall,’ I said; ‘make one school of it; mix ’em all up together, boys and gals. Give me another ten a year, and I’ll teach the lot;’ but they wouldn’t do it. Said they must have a trained mistress; and here you are.”

“Yes, I am here,” said Sage Portlock, rather feebly, for she had nothing else to say.

“Only the other day you were a thin strip of a girl. Deny it if you can!”

“I do not deny it, Mr Bone,” said Sage, determining to be firm, and speaking a little more boldly.

“No,” he continued, in his husky tones, “you can’t deny it. Then you leave Miss Quittenton’s school, and your people send you to town for two years to be trained; and now here you are again.”

Sage Portlock bowed, and looked longingly at the door, hoping for some interruption, but none came.

“And now – ” began the old master.

“Mary Smith, take the large ink-bottle into the boys’ school,” said the young mistress, quickly; and the girl went to the school cupboard, took out the great wicker-covered bottle, and was moving toward the door, when the old master caught her by the shoulder, and held her back.

“Stop!” he said sharply. “Take it myself. Ha! ha!”

Sage started and coloured, for the children were amused.

“Ha, ha! – Ha – ha – ha – ha – ha!”

The old man continued his hoarse cachinnation, ending by wiping his eyes on a washed-out ragged old print cotton handkerchief.

“It makes me laugh,” he said. “Young Ross – him I taught to write – evening lessons up at his father’s house. Young Luke Ross! warmed him up like a viper in my breast to turn and sting me. Ha, ha, ha! Master here!”

“For shame, Mr Bone,” exclaimed the young mistress, indignantly. “Mr Ross never sought for the engagement. It was only after Mr Mallow’s invitation that he accepted the post.”

“Mr Mallow’s invitation, eh? The Rev. Eli Mallow, eh? Better look after his sons. Nice wild sons! Nice old prophet he is. Better look after his boys.”

“And only the other day when he was down, young Mr Ross said that he was doubtful about taking the post, and thought of declining it after all.”

“Told you so, eh? Ha – ha – ha! Not he. Sweet-hearting, eh? Ha – ha – ha! Very well, when he comes, knock a hole through the wall, and make one school of it, eh? Get married. Fine thing for the school. Faugh!” Sage Portlock’s face was now scarlet, and she was about to utter some indignant remonstrance against the old man’s words, when, to her intense relief, he took the ink-bottle roughly from the girl’s hand, and stumped with it to the door.

Before he reached it, however, there was a sharp rap. It was opened, the latch rattling viciously, and a common-looking woman, whose face told its own tale that its owner had been working herself up ready for the task in hand, entered, dragging behind her a freshly-washed girl of eleven or twelve, whose face bore the marks of recent tears.

“Youkem here,” exclaimed the woman, dragging in the unwilling child, and finishing by giving her a rough shake. “Youkem here, and I’ll see as you’re reighted, Miss.”

To Sage Portlock’s great disgust, instead of the old schoolmaster passing through the open door, he carefully closed it behind the woman, set the ink-bottle down upon a form, and, taking out his knife, began to remake the pen, well attent the while to what went on.

“Now, Miss, if you please,” said the woman, “I want to know why my girl was kep’ in yesterday and punished. I told my master last night I’d come on wi’ her this morning, and see her reighted; and, if you please, I want to know what she’s done.”

“I am sorry to say, Mrs Searby – ” began the young mistress.

“Oh, you needn’t be sorry, Miss. Strite up and down’s my motto. I want to know what my ’Lizabeth’s done. There’s no getting her to school nowadays. When Mrs Marley was alive all the gals loved to come to school, but now they hates it, and all the noo-fangled ways.”

As the woman spoke, she darted a glance at the old schoolmaster, who chuckled softly, and shook his head.

“If you will allow me to speak – ” began the young mistress.

“Oh, lor’, yes, Miss, I’ll allow yer to speak. I don’t forget my position. I’m only a humble woman, I am; but I says to my master only last night, the trouble there is to get them gals to school now is orful. When Mrs Marley was alive – ”

“Your daughter, Mrs Searby – ” began the young mistress, again.

“Yes, Miss, my daughter went to Mrs Marley, she did, and there was never no trouble with the gal then. As I said to Mrs Marley, I said, all she wants is properly putting forward, that’s all she wants; for there couldn’t be a quicker gal wi’ her book; but nowadays there’s no gettin’ of her to come; and when she do come she don’t larn a bit, with the noo-fangled ways, and gettins up and sittins down, and holdin’ out their hands, and being drilled, and stood out, and kep’ in for doing nowt. I say it isn’t fair to a child, for as I said to Mrs Marley, I said, and she said to me, all my gal wanted was putting forward, for a quicker gal with her book there never was, and now there’s no getting of her to school of a morning, and never no getting her back when she does come; and the boys as goes to Mr Bone a loving their master and their books, and a getting on wonderful. And now, if you please, Miss,” said the woman, with a derisive curtsey, and so far run down that she had to keep taking up the tantalising iteration of uneducated people in a fit of temper, “I want to know, if you please, what my gal has done.”

“Your daughter was very rude, very inattentive, refused to learn the lesson I set, and incited some of the older girls to insubordination, Mrs Searby, so that I was compelled, most reluctantly, to punish her as an example.”

The old master went on carving the quill to pieces, making and remaking it, till the amount of useful pen was getting very short, chuckling the while, and evidently enjoying the sidewise compliments directed at him and his old system by the irate woman.

“My gal not behaving herself! Why, she’s as good in school as her brothers is. She’s the best o’ gals at home; and poor old Mrs Marley, who used to keep the school here, said as my gal was one of the best behaved and nicest children she ever see.”

“Then she must have altered very much in her opinion, Mrs Searby,” said a quiet, deep, rich voice; and the woman and the old schoolmaster started to see the Rector standing in the open door. “Mrs Marley consulted me several times upon the advisability of expelling your child from the school, and, for my part, I must say that she is the most tiresome girl that attends the Sunday classes.”

“My gracious, sir!” exclaimed the woman, curtseying humbly.

“Leave her a little more to Miss Portlock here, and don’t interfere,” continued the Rector. “Elizabeth Searby, you had better go to your class. Mr Bone, I have been waiting in the boys’ school to see you. Mrs Searby’s two sons are heading a sort of insurrection there, and the boys, when I went in, were pelting each other with pieces of coke from the stove.”

“Let ’em,” said Humphrey Bone, snapping his fingers in defiance, as Miss Elizabeth Searby took the opportunity of her elders’ backs being turned to put out her tongue at them, as if for medical inspection, and then sought her class, while her mother beat a hasty retreat from the Rector’s presence.

“Let ’em!” said Humphrey Bone again; “I’ve done with ’em all. I defy you all I’ve worked for this school,” he cried, raising his voice, “for thirty years, and trained boys to make good men. As for you, Rev. Eli Mallow, head of the parish as you call yourself, you haven’t.”

“Don’t be foolish, Humphrey Bone,” said the Rector, with a grave smile. “Don’t try to quarrel about the past. What I did was as my duty; and when you are calm you must know that it was inevitable. Forbearance has its limits.”

“Quarrel! Forbearance!” cried the old schoolmaster, furiously. “How have you done your duty? I’m not afraid of you; you shan’t kill me like you did old Warmoth; and I’ll speak now.”

“My duty? Not so well as I should,” said the old clergyman, sadly. “We all have our regrets, Bone, for the past.”

“Yes, for what you’ve neglected,” cried the master, furiously. “You’re not pitched out of your living in your old age; I am. I trained my boys well. How about the training of yours, Rev. Eli – old prophet? How about your boys? Say, if you can, they are not a disgrace.”

The old clergyman started as if he had been stung; his handsome, florid face turned deadly pale, but the next moment the hot flush of indignation suffused his countenance, mounting right up amongst the roots of his silver hair.

“How dare – ” he began; but he checked himself by an effort, and the colour faded slowly from his face.

“Bone,” he said, sadly, “you are angry, and in no fit state, mental and bodily, to talk about these matters. I will forget what you have just said. Now, back to your school; but before you go, let me tell you that I am not the enemy you seem to think. I have here,” he said, drawing a blue envelope from his breast, “a list of contributions, which I am getting towards a testimonial to our old schoolmaster for his long services. I hope to make it reach a handsome sum.”

Humphrey Bone’s lips were parted to speak, but these words disarmed him, and, muttering and shaking his head, he turned and left the place.

“Poor fellow!” said the Rector, calmly. “I fear that at times he hardly knows what he says.”

Sage Portlock looked at him wonderingly for a few moments, and he stood gazing at her, his countenance growing less troubled the while; and no wonder, for Sage Portlock’s was a pleasant face. She was not handsome, but, at the same time, she was far from plain; and there was something attractive about her broad forehead, with its luxuriant, smoothly-braided hair crossing each temple – for young ladies in those days had not taken to either cutting their hair short, or to wearing fringes or hirsute hysterics on their fronts. There was a pleasant regularity in her by no means classical features; her eyes were large and winning, and her well-cut mouth, if too large according to an artists ideal, curved pleasantly, and displayed on parting the whitest of teeth.

“Well, Miss Portlock,” said the Rector, smiling, “what a bad mistress you must be!”

“Indeed, sir,” she exclaimed, colouring, “I try very hard to – ”

“Of course – of course,” he said, laughing, as he walked up the schoolroom by her side. “My dear child, it is the old story.”

“But was Mrs Marley so good a mistress, sir?” asked Sage, eagerly.

“My dear Miss Portlock, she was one of the most amiable of old women; but it was quite shocking to see the state of the school. ‘Steeped in ignorance’ is about the best description I can give you of its condition. Such encounters as you have had this morning fall of necessity to the lot you have embraced, and, as you see, one of my cloth is not exempt from such troubles.”

The old man started and frowned, for just then the door was once more opened in reply to a summons, and the gentleman who had troubled Polly entered the school, took off his hat politely to the mistress, replaced it, and then, apparently feeling that he had done wrong, took it off once more.

“I heard you had come to the school,” he said, “and I thought I would follow you.”

“You might have known, Cyril, that I should not be long,” said the Rector coldly. “Good-morning, Miss Portlock,” and without another word he went to the door, pausing to hold it open while the new-comer passed out, saluting the mistress as he did so; and then Sage Portlock was left to continue her task.