Gerald Eversley’s first act upon returning to school was to inquire after the health of Lady Venniker. He learnt from Harry that she had not suffered permanent injury from the fright experienced at seeing the girl run under the horses’ feet, and that her recovery had been accelerated when she knew that the girl was getting well of her fractured leg and would soon be able to walk about again. ‘It was lucky, old man,’ said Harry, ‘that you were in the carriage with her; I don’t know what would have happened if she had been alone.’
It was the Michaelmas term of 186—, three years since the two boys had come to St. Anselm’s. There was good hope that, before the term came to an end, Mr. Brandiston’s house would be the cock house at football. By a strange chance the house was drawn in the first round of the matches against one of the two houses which were expected to be its most dangerous rivals; in fact, the prevailing opinion of the school was that if the house was successful in its first match it would be successful in all. The match was played on a fine afternoon at the end of October. A stiff wind was blowing down the ground. Sometimes, when the two sides in a football match are very evenly balanced, the winning of the toss is decisive of the issue, for it gives one side the right of beginning play with the wind at its back, and as the goals are gained alternately by the two sides, the side which is playing with the wind having always the advantage, the side which obtains the first goal wins the match. The side opposed to Mr. Brandiston’s won the toss. The match was hotly contested from the ‘kick-off’ to the finish. Every one who has been a spectator at a house football match in a public school knows the volleys of cheering which attend the efforts of the two sides, and the torrents of rebuke, invective, exhortation, applause, poured out at critical moments of the game upon the players. Nowhere perhaps in human life is so much irresponsible advice given as at such a time, and nowhere is it so futile. Great indeed was the excitement on this day. It was a point of honour with all the members of the two contending houses to be present at the match, and to make their presence known by loud vociferation. According to custom, the boys of Mr. Brandiston’s house stood on one side of the match-ground, and the boys of the rival house on the other side, their feelings being presumably too much excited to allow of their coming without peril to closer quarters. Loud and eager were the cries as the balance of the match shifted this way and that—while Zeus, in Homeric phrase, ‘held the cords of battle even’—such as ‘Play up,’ ‘Well played,’ ‘Back up, will you?’ ‘Off side,’ ‘Well fouled,’ first one player and then another being held to cover himself with an eternal weight of glory or of ignominy. At last there remained only ten minutes—eight minutes—six minutes to the call of ‘time.’ The score of the two houses stood at three goals each. The wind had somewhat abated. A fine rain was beginning to fall. It became clear that whichever side obtained the next goal, if any were obtained, would win the match.
Not to have been educated at a public school is not to understand the thrilling, enthralling excitement of such a moment. In some sense a house match is more exciting than a match between rival schools; for all the players are intimately known to all the spectators, and every incident is criticised not only in itself, but in relation to the player who is concerned in it. It would need the pen of a Thucydides depicting the scene in the great harbour at Syracuse to convey an idea of the conflicting emotions and expressions and the energetic actions by which the partisans of one house or the other testify their own vivid interest in the match. Nor is any occasion of human life fraught with reminiscences so terrible of mistakes that are made. Lifelong friendships have been formed—friendships, too, I am afraid, have not seldom been broken—by the events of a house match. It is difficult for the most Christian mind to forgive, quite impossible to forget, the mistake which lost the match. There are elderly gentlemen leading quiet respectable lives in remote parts of the country who cannot now meet after fifty years without exchanging words like these: ‘You remember that catch;’ ‘My dear fellow, why did you let that ball go through your legs?’
The youthful champions in Mr. Brandiston’s house match were not unaware of the great issue dependent upon their prowess. They performed untold feats of gallantry and daring. They ‘ran’ and ‘charged’ and ‘passed’ as if their lives, no less than their reputations, were at stake. Hardly more than three minutes of ‘time’ remained when the ball was forced by Mr. Brandiston’s boys into the neighbourhood of the enemy’s goal, and one of the players attempting to ‘middle’ it sent it by a too violent kick a good way past the centre of the ground to a spot where the two players who would have the best chance of reaching it were Venniker and one of the ‘backs’ (as I think they are technically called) belonging to the opposite side. Both boys made for it amidst the cheers of the spectators. The ball bounded on towards the ‘back;’ he made ready to give it a mighty kick before Venniker was upon him; his leg flashed—it was literally a flash—in the air, and a loud shout rising from both sides of the ground—of exultation on one side, of indignation on the other—told that he had missed the ball. Whether it was that Harry Venniker was so close upon him as to disturb his aim, or that he did not allow for the unevenness of the surface along which the ball was rolling, he missed it and fell sprawling on the ground. It was but the work of a moment for Harry to ‘dodge’ past him and turn the ball in the direction of the goal. So sudden, so unexpected had been the manœuvre that in a straight line between Harry and the goal stood the goalkeeper only. ‘Shoot, shoot!’ was the cry raised instantly by Mr. Brandiston’s boys. But Harry was still too far from the goal to be sure of success. He gave the ball a short sharp kick which brought it into line with the goal-post; the goalkeeper hesitated for a moment—that fatal moment!—uncertain whether to run forward and ‘charge’ him, or to fall back upon the goal and take the chance of being able to stop the ball when it was kicked; Harry followed close upon the ball, steadied himself for an instant, and then, just as three of his enemies were within a yard or two of him, kicked it hard, and full in view of all the spectators it passed clear over the goalkeeper’s head between the posts. There was a shout that rent the heavens. The spectators rushed upon the ground—for they knew there was no hope of resuming play—the members of Mr. Brandiston’s house clustering around the victorious eleven, most of all around Harry Venniker, applauding on the ground and all the way up the hill and along the street and through the courtyard into the house. It was a striking and inspiring sight. Boys are the only beings who know how to clap or cheer, all other clapping and cheering seems impotent after theirs, and Mr. Brandiston’s boys made full use of their knowledge. Mr. Brandiston himself, meeting Harry Venniker at the entrance to the house, remarked with more than his usual graciousness that he had done the house good service; he added, ‘You will never be a greater person in life, Venniker, than you are to-day.’
Gerald Eversley, who was not often seen on the football field, had watched the match with an interest in which his zeal for Harry’s success overshadowed all other feelings; it was no surprise to him that Harry should become the hero of the hour, he felt a sort of reflected honour in the honour paid to his friend; he did not venture to offer him congratulations in the presence of the shouting throng, but as soon as Harry had retired to his room Gerald went to it and said, ‘Oh! how are you? Are you all right? How splendidly you played! I am so glad. All the school are talking about it.’
Harry Venniker shook hands with him, but said only, ‘Thanks, dear old fellow.’
Gerald thought he seemed weary.
Next morning Gerald was expecting him at breakfast, but he did not come; he sent word by a lower boy that he had a cold and a slight headache. Gerald went to see him in his room, but reported that he ‘did not look very bad.’ It seemed probable that he had stayed out in the rain too long, receiving his numerous congratulations, after the match, and had caught a chill; at all events that was the opinion of the captain of the football eleven, who, as being the chief authority on football, was in the boys’ eyes equally an authority on health. The school doctor, who was called in to see him, spoke of his case as an ordinary cold, and said, if he were kept out of school for a day or two, he would be all right. Mr. Brandiston, though always punctual in writing to parents of boys who were ill, did not think it necessary to inform Lord Venniker of his son’s illness. In the evening, despite a slight rise of temperature, Harry was reported to be better; he inquired, with much interest, what house Mr. Brandiston’s had been drawn against in the second ‘ties’ of the house matches. But he passed an uneasy night, and when the doctor came in the morning he detected some symptoms of ‘lung trouble,’ and advised Mr. Brandiston to write to Lord Venniker, though not in such a way as to cause him anxiety. The doctor ordered Harry’s removal to the sick-room, which was at the top of the house, well separated from the boys’ rooms.
Harry was much worse next day, feverish and restless. It was clear that he was suffering from inflammation of the right lung. Lord Venniker was telegraphed for; he arrived in the evening.
Twenty-four hours later the other lung had been attacked. Sir William D——, the great London specialist, who was called in, pronounced the patient’s condition to be critical.
After prayers that evening, Mr. Brandiston, addressing the house, said in a voice which betrayed the depth of his emotion, ‘I should like you all in your private prayers to-night to remember Venniker; he is very ill indeed, almost at the door of death.’ There was absolute silence even before he spoke these words—for the boys anticipated what he was going to say—and there was absolute silence afterwards. Tears rose to the eyes of not a few among the boys; but they brushed them quickly away. That Mr. Brandiston should speak in that manner—he who was so stern and self-controlled, and so seldom used the language of religion—made the case seem doubly critical. And Harry Venniker was so young, so popular.
Nowhere is the presence of sickness or death so awful as among the young. One whose spirit was not always serious has written of his own great loss: ‘O Death! thou hast right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high and to the haughty; but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress can erase the dear image from my imagination. In the same week I saw her dressed for a ball, and in her shroud.’
To the old Death cometh as a friend. But to the young he is a stranger, a foe. His cold step is abhorrent to the joy, the motion, the strong, happy, buoyant life of youth. It is the sense of contrast which creates this painful feeling. Who is there that has passed from the sick-room where one boy lies tossing between death and life through the playing-fields where all the others are at their games, and has not marvelled that the sickness could be possible—or the play? In the chapel of one of the great public schools of England is a memorial tablet recording the name of a boy who died during his school life, to the eternal sorrow of his parents, and on it are the words: ‘Beside him they had neither son nor daughter.’ What a tale! what a tragedy is there!
And should Harry Venniker be cut off, the light of his parent’s home, the idol of his school? Was there no pity, no compassionateness for him? It was but five days since he had been seen, strong and beautiful, a hero among his comrades—and now! O Death, Death, is there no mercy with thee?
The boys in Mr. Brandiston’s house were touched with the sympathy of a new undreamt-of sorrow. Their footsteps were hushed as they moved about the house, their voices stilled; though he, their schoolfellow, was far removed, and no sound of theirs would reach his ear, they felt instinctively that haste, noise, thoughtlessness, impatience would be ill-timed. It was observed that no one used an oath in the house during those days. Even the selfish and giddy seemed subdued. With full hearts they asked each day in the morning if the worst were past, and at night their loving solicitude shaped itself in such a prayer as this: ‘O Lord God, who art all-merciful, suffer him to live.’ But no boy prayed, or could have prayed, for him like Gerald Eversley.
The tragic nature of the situation was made more acute because Lady Venniker, whose health had become even more delicate than before, was peremptorily forbidden by her medical advisers to undertake the journey to St. Anselm’s. Harry longed for her presence with passionate intensity. More than once in his moments of delirium he was overheard to be murmuring ‘Mother.’ But she could not come to him. It was a bitter pang to her. It needed all Lord Venniker’s influence, as well as the authority of her medical advisers, to keep her at Helmsbury. After all, it may be doubted whether the anguish of being kept away from Harry’s bedside did not endanger her life as much as any railway journey. But medical men are wise—and sometimes heartless.
Lady Venniker being left at Helmsbury, where her daughter remained as her companion, was wholly dependent upon the information sent to her from St. Anselm’s. Her husband wrote to her often. Mr. Brandiston wrote several times, though rather formally. But her most frequent correspondent in that anxious, torturing time was Gerald Eversley. In his own heartrending anxiety, quickening, as it did, his sympathetic intuitions, it occurred to him to seek the consolation of his sorrow in trying to console one yet more sorrowful than himself. He felt so much for Lady Venniker, especially as she was prevented from coming to St. Anselm’s, that he could not help informing her of his feeling. He wrote to her timidly and half-apologetically at first; but afterwards, as he found she welcomed his letters, with a larger freedom, telling her of the medical reports (though these she knew from others), of the hopes and fears of the school, of the boys’ sayings, of Harry’s popularity, of his own great love for him, what Mr. Brandiston had said, how Dr. Pearson had asked the prayers of the whole school in chapel, and had spoken in his sermon of the cloud which hung over it, and what a stillness of awe prevailed all over the house. The unconscious pathos of the letters was a truer comfort to Lady Venniker than any assurance conveyed in them. Her daughter generally replied in her name, giving him her mother’s heartfelt thanks, and her own, for his thoughtfulness. Every day, morning and evening, the letters were sent. They were the simple natural outpourings of a sorrowing soul. But they created a sympathy—a sympathy that was destined to be of enduring value—between Lady Venniker and her son’s friend. She ceased to call him ‘Mr. Eversley;’ she called him ‘Gerald.’ ‘We feel,’ wrote Miss Venniker, ‘that you are indeed one of ourselves, from your love of our dear Harry, and we can never think of you as a stranger any more.’
The critical time—the time of intense anxiety—lasted eight days. In the course of them Gerald wrote once to his father, describing the ebb and flow of anxiety in the school—he would have written oftener but for his correspondence with Lady Venniker—and Mr. Eversley replied most tenderly, assuring him that he was daily ‘wrestling with the Lord in prayer’ for his friend’s recovery.
At last the turn came. The delirium ceased. The breathing grew less difficult. The dark cloud lifted from the house. The doctors pronounced that Harry was better; then, that there was no cause for immediate anxiety about him; then, that he was out of danger; and, finally, that his recovery was only a question of time. When he was able to sit up in the bed, Gerald was allowed to see him, at first only for a few minutes, and afterwards for a longer time. Lord Venniker, who had been profoundly touched by the sympathy—all the more expressive because so silent—of the boys, and by Gerald Eversley’s in particular, felt able to leave St. Anselm’s, though it was understood that he would return to take Harry home as soon as his travelling was permitted.
Those were happy days, it will be believed, for Gerald Eversley. To see his friend brought back by slow steps from the brink of the grave was a holy joy to him. He watched with more than brotherly eagerness the signs of reviving health. Lord Venniker having now returned to Helmsbury, Miss Venniker came to spend a few days with Mr. and Mrs. Brandiston and to assist in nursing her brother. She and Gerald were thus thrown together; sometimes they were the only persons with him in the sick-room. Gerald looked with admiring surprise at her tenderness, her solicitude, her thoughtfulness, which seemed a little beyond her years, and her skill or tact in anticipating wants. His own life had not afforded him much insight into the ministering charities of womanhood. But as Miss Venniker sat at her brother’s bedside, holding his hand in hers, smoothing his pillows from time to time, or whiling away the long, long hours with talks of home, her eyes, her whole being illumined with the light of loving sympathy, Gerald could think of nothing so beautiful, unless it were the vision that came to him sometimes in his morning dreams, and he felt within himself that he had seen, as it were, the face of an angel.
It was five weeks and three days from the great house match when Harry Venniker was able to be moved from St. Anselm’s. On the Sunday before, Dr. Pearson had offered public thanks in the chapel for his recovery. When the day of his departure arrived, the invalid carriage in which he was to travel all the way to Helmsbury was brought to the door of Mr. Brandiston’s house. Quite a knot of boys had gathered outside the house as Harry was lifted into the carriage, and his father and sister took their places in it at his side. Gerald Eversley stood among them. A warm pressure of his hand and a hearty ‘God bless you’ from Lord Venniker, and a sweet smile from Miss Venniker as she gave him her hand and whispered, ‘We can never thank you enough for all you have done. I will write to-morrow and tell you how he has borne the journey,’ were the rewards of his devotion. Harry Venniker waved his hand to the boys. His eyes met Gerald’s with a glance of deep affection as the carriage drove away. The boys all raised their hats in respectful sympathy. Gerald Eversley turned on his heel, without a word, and went to his room. He was bereft of his friend for a time; and he was bereft of him—though he knew it not then—at the time when he would have the sorest need of his presence.
After Harry Venniker’s departure, life at St. Anselm’s for such brief part of the term as was left, resumed its usual tenor. The memory of errors and sorrows is but short-lived, among the young especially—nay, among all men. God be thanked that it is so; for if we remembered all the past, the present would be unendurable. We sigh at times for a greater power of remembering; it were better to give thanks for our power of forgetting. Time, with its softening, sanctifying grace—Time, that makes the green grass spring and the golden corn wave over fields that once were reddened with human slaughter—Time is the divinely appointed healer of all wounds.
Yet Gerald Eversley did not soon emerge from the shadow of the dark weeks through which he had passed. He was as one who moves in an unseen world. Though there came to him good news of Harry’s convalescence, and at last a few lines written by Harry himself, he could not succeed in fixing his thoughts upon his ordinary duties. He became more dreamy than ever; his mind was ever far from the book that he held in his hand, and his place in form was so much below the first that Mr. Brandiston felt it necessary to send for him, to urge upon him the duty of using his time well and conferring credit upon the house, and to threaten him with punishment if his work in the coming examination did not make amends for his indolence in the term. Mr. Brandiston, though he made some allowance for Gerald’s failures during the time when the issue of his friend’s illness was trembling in the balance, was not a man capable of imagining or appreciating any romantic explanation of a long-continued indifference to classical scholarship. He told Gerald that, as he was himself going to take part in the examination of his form, he should be able to see what he was worth.
Mr. Brandiston’s method of dealing with his examination papers was (like all Mr. Brandiston’s habits) simple and precise. The papers were printed in London. They were forwarded to St. Anselm’s by post in a carefully sealed packet. Mr. Brandiston would open the packet of papers when he was alone in his study, take out one paper in order to satisfy himself that there were no mistakes in the printing, count the number of the papers, divide them, if necessary, into several packets (also carefully sealed) for the use of such masters as might need them, then put back the paper which he had taken out into its packet, lock up all the papers in one of the drawers of his writing-table, of which he alone possessed the key, and leave them there until the day of examination. He kept the key of the writing-table in his purse. He had acted so for more than twenty years. He acted so now. Mr. Brandiston was not the master of Gerald Eversley’s form, but he was examining it in two subjects. One of these was Latin translation. The printed papers reached him in the usual way. It was not necessary to divide the papers into several packets; for he was going to sit with the form himself, and it was the only form to which the paper would be set. He took one paper (as usual) out of the packet, found that it was accurately printed, all his corrections of the proof having been made, and locked up the papers in his drawer.
This was done on Tuesday evening. The paper was to be set on Friday morning.
Late on Thursday night, when the boys had all gone to their rooms after supper, Mr. Brandiston opened the drawer containing the packet of papers, to assure himself that, when he wanted the papers next morning, he would find them there. It struck him, rightly or wrongly, that they were not arranged in his ordinary exact manner. He took them out. He counted them again. The number was—one short. There had been fifty when he counted before; there were forty-nine now. He repeated the counting as many as three times, but always with the same result. One paper was missing. He looked into the drawer again, ransacked it thoroughly; but it contained nothing, except some few copies of old examination papers which had been left there casually. He unlocked the other drawers of the writing-table and searched them all. It was no good.
Mr. Brandiston was in a quandary. Had he counted the number aright in the first instance? or had the printers, by mistake, sent only forty-nine? That was a possibility, but it was not improbable. He telegraphed early next morning to the firm of printers; the reply was that the number of papers sent had undoubtedly been fifty.
It seemed clear, then, to Mr. Brandiston that some one must have come into his study during his absence and taken a paper out of the drawer. If so, it was presumably some one who was interested in learning the contents of the paper.
That being his conclusion, his thoughts turned, naturally, to the two boys in his house who were members of the form to which the paper would be set. One of them was Gerald Eversley, the other a very good boy named Pomfret.
Mr. Brandiston tried to recollect what had happened since the sealed packet of papers came into his hands. He remembered opening it and putting it into the drawer. He remembered, or he believed he remembered, that as he was putting the packet into the drawer, just before dinner, he was called away by a message from Mrs. Brandiston, who wanted to speak to him about the invitations to be sent out for a proposed party. He remembered, too, that between nine and ten o’clock on the Wednesday evening—the evening before this—he had gone out of his study for a few minutes, leaving the key of his writing-table in one of the drawers—not, indeed, in the drawer which contained the examination papers, but in another drawer on the opposite side of the table.
Then he began to ask himself whether any one could have been in the study while he was not there. His study was a sanctum. It was not a place to which people went freely. A maidservant cleaned it out in the morning; but the cleaning was in some sense superficial, for it was as much as her life was worth to disturb Mr. Brandiston’s papers or letters. The same maidservant came in the evening during dinner to look at the fire and sweep up the grate. Except for these purposes no servant would naturally enter the study, unless it were the butler, and he only for the sake of seeing if Mr. Brandiston was there when a master or somebody else wanted him; for it was Mr. Brandiston’s rule that nobody was to be shown into the study, if he himself was not there. The study was the place where Mr. Brandiston interviewed the boys of his house; but it was understood that they must come and see him at fixed times—at nine in the morning, or after prayers at night—unless there were some exceptionally pressing reason for seeing him. Still it was always possible that a boy would enter the study during the day. Mrs. Brandiston no doubt might come there, though she did not in fact come often; but he did not associate his wife with the thought of the stolen paper.
As Mr. Brandiston cast his mind over the time that had elapsed since the Tuesday evening when he received the papers, he could recall various interviews with masters and boys, but he did not think that they had entered the study while he was out of it. Any one making his way to the study from the boys’ part of the house must pass by the butler’s pantry. Accordingly Mr. Brandiston rang the bell, and asked the butler if he remembered seeing any boy go into his study or come out of it between nine and ten o’clock on the evening before.
The butler, a rather sententious person, said he remembered hearing two boys—there might have been more, but he was certain of two—knock at the study door during that part of the evening—he would not like to swear, but he felt sure it was between nine and ten—and he saw them go by the pantry, though he did not take particular notice of them. Being asked who the boys were, the butler hesitated a good deal—he was a man who did not like committing himself—but finally expressed his belief that they were ‘Mr. Venables’ (who was now the head of the house) ‘and that Mr. Eversley’ (the ‘that’ meant only that the butler, like the house in general, looked upon Gerald as a rather curious, distinct, inexplicable creature).
That was the first step in Mr. Brandiston’s investigation. It did not lead him far, but he went to bed in some disquietude. He did not tell the butler the reason of his inquiry.
The next thing, as Mr. Brandiston considered, was to see whether the work of the examinees themselves would shed any light upon the mystery. The examination was held in the morning. As soon as Mr. Brandiston had collected the papers, he glanced with eager interest at Gerald Eversley’s. It was a brilliant performance. If it had been done by him honestly, it was a proof of remarkable knowledge. One particular expression in it struck Mr. Brandiston especially. In a passage of Cicero which he had set, occurred the words quodcunque in solum venit. Not a boy, as it proved, except Eversley, had translated them rightly. But he gave the exact modern equivalent for them—‘whatever is on the tapis.’
Still, Mr. Brandiston was only puzzled; circumstances, he could not help feeling, were suspicious, but Gerald Eversley, although undoubtedly eccentric, had the reputation of being an unusually conscientious, as well as an unusually clever, boy.
Mr. Brandiston, however, could not help reflecting that he had lately threatened him with the consequences of failing in his examination, and especially in his own paper. He resolved, therefore, to ascertain, if possible, whether Gerald Eversley had actually been in his study on the critical Wednesday evening. To avoid exciting suspicion, he sent first for the other boy whose name had been mentioned by the butler. Venables admitted at once that he had come to the study, but said he had come to bring Mr. Brandiston the list of the ‘placings’ of all the boys in the house. The ‘placings’ were the positions which all the boys occupied in their forms according to weekly order; and it was the regular duty of the head of the house to bring the list of them to Mr. Brandiston, though in this week they had been brought on an earlier day than usual, owing to the beginning of the examination. Venables added that, as he had not found Mr. Brandiston in the study, he had taken the list away; he offered to fetch it at once.
The butler having now been proved right in regard to one of the boys whom he professed to have seen going to the study, Mr. Brandiston thought it well to assume that he was right in regard to the other. Accordingly, when Gerald Eversley came into the room Mr. Brandiston addressed him in these words:
‘Eversley, will you tell me why you came to the study on Wednesday evening between nine and ten?’
Gerald looked surprised.
‘You know you did come, Eversley,’ continued Mr. Brandiston, assuming a confidence which was not altogether his at heart. This is not an uncommon way of some masters.
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Gerald.
Mr. Brandiston felt relieved.
‘Will you tell me,’ he said, ‘what you came for?’
Gerald hung his head down for a moment; then he replied,
‘Please, sir, I came to ask if I might “stay out.”’
(To ‘stay out,’ it must be explained, in the language of schoolboys, is to be absent from school with the permission of the house master.)
‘What was the matter with you?’ asked Mr. Brandiston.
‘I had a headache, sir,’ was the answer.
‘Did you go and see Mrs. Podmore’ (the matron) ‘as I was not in?’ said Mr. Brandiston.
‘No, sir,’ replied Gerald.
‘Why not?’ asked Mr. Brandiston.
No reply.
It was not known to Mr. Brandiston that Gerald Eversley and Mrs. Podmore had been for some time sworn enemies. Mrs. Podmore was ‘a woman with a temper.’ Most good servants, it is said, have bad tempers.
Mr. Brandiston proceeded.
‘Did you, in fact, “stay out” next morning?’
‘No, sir,’ answered Gerald.
‘But how was that,’ said Mr. Brandiston, ‘if you were ill?’
‘Please, sir, I felt better in the morning,’ was the answer.
‘Did you tell any one on Wednesday night that you felt ill?’ asked Mr. Brandiston.
‘No, sir,’ answered Gerald; but as he answered, his face became suffused with a deep blush. There was a rather awkward pause. Then Mr. Brandiston put a final question by way of disguising his real object.
‘I suppose you went straight back from the study, when you saw I was not here, to your own room?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Gerald, still blushing.
‘That is all I want, Eversley. You may go now. Good night.’
Gerald closed the door and went quietly away.
Mr. Brandiston remained plunged in profound meditation.
It was a strange story, he thought, that this boy had told him. There was nothing, indeed, to show that it was not true, but it was strange. Boys who seek permission to absent themselves from school, as being ill, are not generally anxious to conceal their illness; they are more apt to exaggerate than to conceal it. Why, then, had Gerald Eversley not informed anybody that he was ill? What was the meaning of this sudden attack, this sudden recovery? It was strange, very strange. Mr. Brandiston was a man of experience; he flattered himself that he knew boys; he was confident that something was wrong. Then the blush, the hesitation in Gerald’s manner—they were suspicious. An honest boy had no reason to blush; why should he not look his master in the face and give him a straightforward answer? Mr. Brandiston was a man of experience; he flattered himself that he knew boys; he confessed he did not like that blush.
Mr. Brandiston knew boys; but did he know this boy? That was the question. Rules of behaviour, like rules of law, have their exceptions. Had he been familiar with Mr. Darwin’s scientific observations on the expression of human emotions, he would have understood that people do not always blush on the same occasions or for the same reasons. It is an error to assume that a blush is invariably a sign of guilt; it may be a sign of conscious rectitude or wounded honour. There are those who are pained as much by the suspicion of guilt as by detection in guilt. There are natures that feel a doubt as a stab, and resent insinuation as a stain. Was it so here?
Two things only were settled in Mr. Brandiston’s mind. One was that he would probe the mystery of the stolen paper to the bottom. The other was that, if possible, he would probe it himself alone. He felt that it would be unjust to Gerald Eversley—may it not be added, unjust to Mr. Brandiston’s house?—to let anybody else know his suspicion of foul play. It was pretty obvious that the only chance of throwing light upon the mystery lay through Gerald Eversley himself. If he were guilty, he might be induced to make a confession, or there might be found in his room some evidence of his guilt. Mr. Brandiston resolved therefore—I do not know whether his resolution would be justified in the circumstances by schoolboy public opinion or not—to make an examination of his room late at night. It was past midnight when he entered the room. Gerald was fast asleep. Mr. Brandiston surveyed the room. He looked at a blotting-case that was lying on the table, and some papers, one of them the very examination paper done the day before; took down one or two books, a Cicero or a part of Cicero among them, from the shelves; picked up some fragments of paper that had fallen to the floor, and read them carefully. There was nothing. Mr. Brandiston, not wishing to awake Gerald, felt he must retire baffled, yet somewhat relieved. Gerald Eversley was not a favourite of Mr. Brandiston; but he was after all a member of Mr. Brandiston’s house, and the good name of the house was involved in the proof of his innocence. It was with this feeling that Mr. Brandiston was closing the door of the room when his eye lighted upon some pieces of paper, more or less charred, that were lying, as if by accident, under the grate. One of them seemed to contain some printed matter. He stooped down and picked them up. They were all fragments of letters or exercises—all except that one. What was Mr. Brandiston’s horror when he perceived that the little bit of paper which he held in his hand was the corner of the same examination paper as the one that was lying on the table! It seemed to be the irresistible conclusion that somebody had intended to destroy the paper, and with that object had put it on the fire, but that this one fragment of it had fallen out of the grate before being consumed in the flames. And that somebody—who could it be but Gerald Eversley?
Mr. Brandiston shut the door with a heavy heart. He returned to his study and sat down in his armchair. What was he to do next?
Suddenly it occurred to him that the burnt paper might be Pomfret’s. He and Eversley might have been comparing notes (though this was unlikely as they were not intimate friends); he might have left his paper in Eversley’s room, and Eversley might have thrown it into the fire.
Mr. Brandiston lighted his candle again and went as rapidly as he could to Pomfret’s room. The school clock struck one o’clock as he entered it. Pomfret, too, was asleep. Sleep looks awful when it is associated with the suspicion of guilt. Mr. Brandiston glanced at the table; there, half hidden by a lexicon, was Pomfret’s paper with his name, G. Pomfret, written upon it, and his ink-marks against the questions which he had been unable to answer.
Mr. Brandiston retired to bed, but he hardly slept that night.
Mr. Brandiston’s mind was made up. Unless Eversley could offer some explanation of the finding of the fragment of paper in the fireplace of his room—and what explanation could be satisfactory?—there could be no doubt that he had been guilty of fraud.
Mr. Brandiston, as he lay wakeful in his bed, felt that his proper course of action was unmistakable. It was to send for Gerald Eversley next morning, lay before him the evidence which appeared to justify the most serious suspicion against him, and, in the event of his being unable to meet it, to report him formally to the head master. Mr. Brandiston would be just—that was certain; but justice demanded the exposure and punishment of the guilty boy.
The interview with Gerald Eversley next morning was not calculated to set Mr. Brandiston’s suspicion at rest. It is true that Gerald Eversley throughout asserted his innocence. But his manner was confused; it was not, Mr. Brandiston thought, the manner of an innocent boy. He admitted at once that the paper found in his fireplace had not been borrowed from Pomfret or any other boy. He professed himself totally unable to explain how it came to be in his fireplace. Mr. Brandiston thought it best not to tell him who had found it there; but he assured him that there was no doubt as to its having been found. He concluded by saying that the facts which he had collected and weighed with scrupulous care, pointed, in his opinion, irresistibly to one conclusion—that the paper must have been stolen from a drawer in his study; that only two boys in the house, of whom Gerald was one, could have been interested in stealing it; that Gerald had been seen to enter his study at a time when it might have been stolen; that a charred fragment of the paper had been found in his room, and that he could give no account of its being found there.
In the circumstances, Mr. Brandiston, after consideration, felt that he could not do otherwise than report Gerald Eversley to the head master for dishonesty.
By this time Gerald Eversley’s trouble had become known in the house, and a good many different opinions were expressed about it. Had the boys been perfectly acquainted with the facts, it is possible that they would have taken the same view of them as Mr. Brandiston. But as it was, starting with the general prepossession of boys in a schoolfellow’s favour as against a master, and looking upon the case as one of strong but not overwhelming probability, they were inclined to think that it was ‘hard luck upon Eversley’ to be sent on so grave a charge before the head master. Boys are not incapable of harbouring unfounded suspicions themselves, as Gerald Eversley’s experience in the matter of the Sunday boxing had shown; but they are unwilling that other people, especially masters, should harbour them. They strongly held, too, that a boy’s word ought always to be taken; and so it ought, if boys never told lies. In Gerald Eversley’s case, they argued that he was too clever to stand in need of unfair procedure in examinations. And, though he was not popular and had no intimate friend but one, they had formed the impression that he was a boy who would not cheat or lie. It was an impression only; but the impressions of boys, as of women, are worth more than their reasons, or rather they are reasons not yet spoiled by imperfect expression.
Nevertheless, it was with an anxious, awful foreboding that Gerald Eversley looked forward to the ordeal of meeting the head master. He had not as yet come much into contact with Dr. Pearson. On two or three occasions he had received prizes, and with them a few kind, complimentary words from him. But for the most part, after the manner of boys, he regarded the head master as not a being of the same flesh and blood as himself and other boys. In the chapel—that one sacred meeting-ground where a head master can make himself known to all his pupils—he was wont to listen with solemn and attentive reverence to Dr. Pearson’s sermons. He hoped next term to get into Dr. Pearson’s own form, and so to come under his immediate notice. But he debated with a trembling heart how Dr. Pearson would deal with the charge of dishonesty laid before him by Mr. Brandiston.
A brief interval occurred before he was summoned into Dr. Pearson’s presence.
Dr. Pearson, before seeing Gerald, had taken time to consider his action, and to inform Mr. Brandiston what it would be. Being alone with Gerald, he went through the facts of the case one by one, pointing out their seriousness, and asking if he wished to offer any comment upon any one of them; he begged him to realise how strongly they told against him (to this Gerald assented), but he added that he gave him the fullest credit for his hitherto unblemished moral character. He concluded the interview in these words: ‘Eversley, I have now put the case fully before you. I do not wish you to answer at once. I wish you to take twenty-four hours to consider. Come to me to-morrow at nine o’clock, and I will ask you what you have to say in face of this strong evidence. I am sure you will tell me the truth.’
Gerald went away. Were the twenty-four hours a respite, or an aggravation, of his doom?
Just at this time he received a letter from his father. Mr. Eversley had been informed by Mr. Brandiston of the action which he had felt it his duty to take in Gerald’s case. The news shocked and staggered Mr. Eversley. It is possible that Mr. Brandiston, as taking a strong view himself, put his view in too strong a light before Mr. Eversley. The desire that others should see things as we see them lies deep down in human nature. Or it is possible that the dread lest the charge should be true was the shadow cast by Mr. Eversley’s own affection for his son. He did not, indeed, write as if he believed Gerald to be guilty. He told him how earnestly he hoped that he were innocent. But he dwelt upon the heinousness of cheating, as a sin against God. He exhorted Gerald, if he had done wrong, if in a moment of weakness (and we are all weak) he had yielded to the Tempter, not to deny what he had done, not to defend or excuse himself, but, for his immortal soul’s sake, to make confession and reparation, and to endure any penalty rather than stain his soul with a lie. ‘And Joshua said unto Achan’—Mr. Eversley quoted the passage—‘My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.’ Gerald read the letter, and re-read it, then he put it away in his pocket. His heart was sad.
Punctually at nine o’clock the next morning he stood before Dr. Pearson.
‘I have shown you, Eversley,’ said the head master, ‘what the evidence against you is, and having done so, I put to you the question, Did you see Mr. Brandiston’s examination paper before the time when it was set to the form in school?’
‘No, sir,’ answered Gerald, ‘I did not.’
‘Have you any idea of the means by which a second copy of the paper came into your room?’ said Dr. Pearson.
‘No, sir, none at all,’ was the answer.
Gerald Eversley gave these answers with a blushing cheek; but Dr. Pearson, not being a man of so much experience as Mr. Brandiston, did not draw from it an unfavourable inference.
Dr. Pearson continued:
‘Eversley, I believe what you say. I think Mr. Brandiston could not have done otherwise than lay the case before me. But, strong as the evidence is—and you see how strong it is—it falls short of proof, and you, who have never been suspected of falsehood before, are entitled to be believed. I believe you. You may go now. I shall tell Mr. Brandiston what I have said to you.’
Dr. Pearson rose from his seat, and just as Gerald was preparing to go, he said, ‘I hope—I think—you will one day do something that will make Mr. Brandiston proud of you,’ and he added, with a kindly smile, ‘yes, and me too.’
Gerald Eversley left the head master’s presence with a profound and reverential feeling of gratitude. He had been believed. The head master had believed him. His word, standing alone, had been accepted. The thought filled his heart with pride, and brought tears of joy into his eyes.
Great, great is the potency of faith! It is faith that ‘removes mountains.’
But there was another person whose good opinion was to Gerald Eversley worth almost as much as Dr. Pearson’s, and he too did not fail him in his hour of need. It was Harry Venniker. To him Gerald had written, giving a brief account of the circumstances in which he found himself, as soon as he knew how grave a view Mr. Brandiston took of them, only begging him not to say anything to his mother or his sister about them. He received an answer on the morning of his first interview with Dr. Pearson. Harry was getting better now, and wrote in his own hand. He said, in his boyish way, ‘I declare it’s a beastly shame, old man. I wish I were at St. Anselm’s to tell old Brandiston what I think about it. But never mind; I will bet ten to one that you will come out all right. It’s very odd about the paper in the fireplace, but nobody who knows you could ever think you had done it. Anyhow, I don’t, and I won’t.’
Harry Venniker’s faith in his friend had grown stronger since the days of the Sunday boxing. The letter was signed, ‘Ever affectionately yours, H. V.’ Below the signature was a postscript: ‘My mother says you must pay us another visit in the holidays. When will you come? I want so much to see you.’
So Gerald had some ground for satisfaction. Mr. Brandiston, indeed, made no further allusion to the examination paper. He had always treated Gerald somewhat distantly, and he did not treat him more distantly now. In fact, he went out of his way once or twice to show that he did not think worse of him than before. But Dr. Pearson believed in his innocence. Harry Venniker believed in it. The boys in the house, with hardly an exception, seemed convinced of it, and glad to be convinced. His father wrote expressing his deep satisfaction that the head master had not lost confidence in his ‘dear boy’s character.’ Gerald began to feel, for the first time at St. Anselm’s, the favouring breeze of popularity. And, above all, there was the prospect of a visit to Helmsbury.
One word remains to be added. If this were an ordinary tale, it would be natural that the mystery of the stolen paper should be solved. It will not be solved here. Life is full of unsolved mysteries, fiction is not. This is one of the ways in which fiction differs from life. No new fact to prove or disprove Gerald’s innocence ever came to Mr. Brandiston’s ears. But in after-days, if allusion was made to the mystery of the stolen examination paper, the butler used to say with bated breath that he knew nothing—he did not—but that, if he must say what he thought, he had reason to think that Mr. Brandiston, being disturbed in the moment of placing the examination papers in his drawer, might have let one paper drop on to the floor; that the housemaid, who came in as soon as he had left the study, might have gathered it up with the papers and letters which were strewn about in or near the waste-paper basket, and that it might have been used a day or two afterwards to light a fire.
Who knows? Who will ever know?