Part 11 (2/2)

Hastily sc.r.a.ping his cheeks with a corner of his dilapidated Norfolk jacket--if you have ever tried to do this you'll know that it is more or less of a test of suppleness--he went slowly to the door, and in another minute was lifted high into the air and shaken violently by a slight, rather plain young man, who bore with the utmost meekness a pa.s.sionate embrace highly detrimental to his immaculate collar: and the best of it all was, that he was quite unconscious of the fact that Ger had not met him with the others, nor seemed aware of anything unusual beyond the pleasantness of once more sitting in the big slippery leather-covered arm-chair beside the schoolroom fire, while the rest of the family, having given him exactly the two minutes' start he had demanded, came flocking back to sit all over him and shout their news in an excited chorus.

Next morning, while his father was out in the village, Ger ensconced himself in one of the deep-seated windows of the study, as a quiet haven wherein he might wrestle in solitude with the perfect and pluperfect of the verb _esse_, which he had promised his mother he would repeat to her that morning.

Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs Ffolliot) every morning. Ger could not read. It was extraordinary how difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered, appeared capable of giving so much pleasure.

It puzzled Ger extremely.

Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations were ever vaguely a.s.sociated with the scent of violets. The reason for this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her waistband.

It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing table, the promise would be faithfully kept. Besides, like all true book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his books, and provided the children treated them with due care and respect, had no objection to their taking them out of the shelves and reading them.

For a long time there was no sound in the room but an occasional whispered, ”_fui, fuisti, fuit_.” Presently Grantly and Mary came in to discuss a fancy-dress dance to which they were bidden that evening at a neighbour's; then, in rushed Reggie in coat and hat with a newly arrived parcel in his hand. Ger had seen the railway van come up the drive, but as he had promised his mother not to move until he had mastered his verb, he did not make his presence known to anyone.

Reggie went over to Mr Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a s.h.i.+lling lying on the table seized it and fled from the room. Three minutes later Ger saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the ”perfect and pluperfect and future perfect,” went slowly upstairs to his mother to repeat it.

All went on peacefully and quietly in the schoolroom for the next half hour, when suddenly Grantly and Mary whirled into the room in a state of such excited indignation as took their mother quite five minutes to discover what all the fuss was about. When at last they had been induced to tell their story separately, and not in a chorus almost oratorio-like in its confusion, Mrs Ffolliot discovered to her dismay that they were accused of meddling with a s.h.i.+lling which their father had placed on the book-club collecting card, ready for the collector when she should call.

When she _did_ call the s.h.i.+lling was gone, and as Grantly and Mary were known to have been in the study, the squire came to the conclusion that one of them must have knocked against his table and brushed it off, and he gave it out that ”unless they found it, and thus repaired the mischief and annoyance their carelessness had caused, he would not allow them to go to the dance that evening!”

He never suspected that any member of his family would take the s.h.i.+lling, but he was ready to believe all things of their clumsiness.

In vain did Grantly and Mary protest that they had never been near his desk; the squire might have been Sherlock Holmes himself, so certain was he as to the exact.i.tude of his deductions.

”The card has been pushed from where it was originally placed to the extreme edge of the table; the s.h.i.+lling must have been knocked off, and had doubtless rolled under some article of furniture; let them see to it that it was found; they might hunt there and then if they liked, as he would not require the room for half an hour.”

The consciousness of their innocence in no way sustained Grantly and Mary under the appalling prospect of losing the party. They had of course hunted frantically everywhere, but naturally had found no trace of the s.h.i.+lling.

Ger sat quite still during the recital of their wrong's, his face growing paler and paler, and his honest grey eyes wider and wider in the horror of his knowledge. For he knew who had taken the s.h.i.+lling, and he knew also that it was his plain duty to right his innocent brother and sister. But at what a cost! He could not tell of Reggie, and yet it was so unlike Reggie for it was . . . even to himself Ger hardly liked to confess what it was--and he had gone off in such a hurry! To Ger, a s.h.i.+lling seemed a very large sum, his own greatest wealth, ama.s.sed after many weeks of h.o.a.rding, had once reached five pence halfpenny, nearly all in farthings; and he even found himself conjecturing the sort of monetary difficulty into which Reggie had fallen, and from which a s.h.i.+lling might extricate him. He knew there were such things as ”debts,” and that the army was ”very expensive,”

for he had heard his grandfather say so. Like many extremely upright people Ger was gentle in his judgments of others. Himself of the most crystalline honesty, he could yet conceive of circ.u.mstances wherein a like probity might be hard for somebody else: at all costs poor Reggie must be screened, but it was equally clear to him that his brother and sister must not lose the pleasure long looked-forward-to as the opening joy of the holidays.

Now there was about Ger a certain loyalty and considerateness in his dealings with others, that had earned for him the _sobriquet_ of ”Gentleman Ger.” He was very proud of the t.i.tle, and his mother, whom he adored, had done all in her power to foster the feeling of _n.o.blesse oblige_; so Ger felt that here and now a circ.u.mstance had arisen which would try what stuff he was made of. The excited talk raged round him like a storm, but after the first he heard none of it. He slipped quietly off his chair, and unnoticed by the group round his mother, left the room and crept down the back staircase. All doubt and questioning was at an end. His duty seemed quite clear to him: he would take the blame of that s.h.i.+lling, Mary and Grantly would go to their party, and Reggie . . . Reggie would not be back till quite late, when he, too, was going to the fancy-dress dance. Reggie need never know anything about it.

By this time he had reached the study door, and stood with his hand upon the handle. And as he waited, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his courage to the sticking point, there came into his mind the words of a psalm that he had learned by heart only last Sunday to repeat to his mother. He learned it more easily than usual because he liked it; when she read it to him he found he could remember it, and now, just as a dark room is transiently illumined by the falling together of the fire in sudden flame, there came into Ger's mind the words, ”He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.” He turned the handle and went in.

The squire was sitting in his big armchair in front of the fire reading _Marius the Epicurean_, and trying to compose his nerves, which still vibrated unpleasantly after all the fuss about the s.h.i.+lling. He had even quoted to himself somewhat testily something about ”fugitive things not good to treasure”; but whether he referred to the nimbly disappearing s.h.i.+lling, or to the protestations of Grantly and Mary, was not clear. He generally solaced himself with Pater when perturbed, and he had nearly persuaded himself that he was once more nearly attuned to ”perfect tone, fresh and serenely disposed of the Roman Gentleman,”

when Ger opened the door, and walked over towards him without shutting it--an unpardonable offence at any time.

”Gervais,” exclaimed the squire, and his tone was the reverse of serene, ”Why are you not in the schoolroom? What on earth do you want?”

Ger went back and shut the door carefully and quietly, and once more crossed the room till he stood directly in front of his father. The squire noted with a little pang of compunction how pale the child was.

”What is it?” he said more gently.

”Father, I've come about that s.h.i.+lling. I took it.”

”_You_ took it,” exclaimed the squire in amazement. ”Why?”

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