by Ellen Wood
Looking to the left, as Georgina Beauclerc stood at the deanery window, just beyond the gate that inclosed the grounds on that side, might be seen the tall red chimneys of the Palmery. It was, perhaps, inside, the worst of all the larger houses; but the St. John’s came to it often because they owned it. They (the St. John’s) were the best family in Westerbury, and held sway as such. Mr. St. John had died some years ago, leaving one son, about thirty years of age, greatly afflicted; and a young little son, by his second wife. But that young son was growing up now: time flies.
Georgina Beauclerc’s great blue eyes, so clear and round, were fixed on one particular spot, and that appeared to be one rather difficult to see. She had her face and nose pressed against the glass, looking toward the college schoolroom, a huge building on the right of the deanery, just beyond the cloisters.
“They are late again!” she exclaimed, in a soliloquy of resentment. “I wish that horrid old Wilberforce was burnt!”
“Georgina!”
The tone of the reproof, more fractious than surprised, came from a recess in the large room, and Georgina turned hastily.
“Why, when did you come in, mamma? I thought you were safe in your bed room.”
Mrs. Beauclerc came forward, a thin woman with a somewhat discontented look on her face, and a little nose, red at the tip. She had long given up all real rule of Georgina, but she had not given up attempting it. And Georgina, a wild, spoilt child, was in the habit of saying and doing very much what she liked. She made great friends of the college schoolboys, and had picked up many of their sayings; and this was particularly objectionable to the reserved Mrs. Beauclerc.
“What did you say about Mr. Wilberforce?”
“I said I wished he was burnt.”
“Oh, Georgina!”
“I do wish he was scorched. It has struck one o’clock and the boys are not out! What business has he to keep them in? He did it once before.”
“May I ask what business it is of yours, Georgina? But it has not struck one.”
“I’m sure it has,” returned Georgina.
“It has not, I tell you. How dare you contradict me? And allow me to ask why Miss Jackson quitted you so early to-day?”
“Because I dismissed her,” returned the young lady, with equanimity. “I had the headache, mamma; and I can’t be expected to attend to my studies when I have that.”
“You have it pretty often,” grumbled Mrs. Beauclerc; and indeed upon this plea, or upon some other, Georgina was perpetually contriving, when not watched, to get rid of her daily governess. “My opinion is, you never had the headache in your life.”
“Thank you, mamma. That is just what Miss Jackson herself said yesterday afternoon. I paid her out for it. I sent her away with Baby Ferraday’s kite fastened to her shawl behind.”
“What?” exclaimed Mrs. Beauclerc.
“The kite was small, not bigger than my hand, but the tail was fine,” continued the imperturbable Georgina. “You cannot imagine how grand the effect was as she walked along the grounds, and the wind took the tail and fluttered it. The college boys happened to come out of school at the moment; and they followed her, shouting out ‘kites for sale; tails to sell.’ Miss Jackson couldn’t think what was the matter, and kept turning round. She’d have had it on till now, I hope, only Fred St. John went and tore it off.”
Mrs. Beauclerc had listened in speechless amazement. When Georgina talked on in this rapid way, telling of her exploits — and to do the young lady justice, she never sought to hide them — Mrs. Beauclerc felt powerless for correction.
“What is to become of you?” groaned Mrs. Beauclerc.
“I’m sure I don’t know, mamma; something good, I hope,” returned the saucy girl. “Little Ferraday — I had called him up here to give him some cakes — could not think where his kite had vanished, and began to roar; so I found him sixpence and sent him into the town to buy another. I don’t know whether he got lost or run over. The nurse seemed to think it would be one of the two, for she went into a fit when she found he had gone off alone.”
“Georgina, I tell you these things cannot be permitted to continue. You are no longer a child.”
The colloquy was interrupted by the entrance of the dean: a genial-looking man, with silver buckles in his shoes, and a face very much like Georgina’s own. He had apparently just come in, for he had his shovel hat in his hand. The girl loved her father above everything on earth; to his slightest word she rendered implicit homage; though she waged hot war with all others in authority over her, commencing with Mrs. Beauclerc. She flew to the dean with a beaming face, and he clasped his arms round her with a gesture of the fondest affection. Mrs. Beauclerc left the room. She never cared to enter into a contest with her daughter before the dean.
“My Georgina!” came forth the loving whisper.
“Papa, is it one o’clock?”
“Not yet, my dear.”
“I’m sure I heard the college clock strike.”
“You thought you did, perhaps. It must have been the quarters.”
“Oh, dear! I have been calling Mr. Wilberforce hard names for nothing.”
“What has Mr. Wilberforce done to you, my Georgie?”
“I thought he was keeping the school in; and I want to speak to Frederick St. John.”
They were interrupted. One of the servants appeared, and said a gentleman was asking permission to see the dean. The dean took the credential card handed to him: “Mr. Peter Arkell.”
“Show Mr. Arkell up,” said the dean. “Georgina, my dear, you can go to your mamma.”
“I’d rather stay here, papa,” she said, boldly.
One word of explanation as to this visit of Peter Arkell’s. It had of course been his intention to get his son Henry entered at the college school, and to this end had the boy been instructed. Of rare capacity, of superior intellect, of sense and feeling beyond his years, it had been a pleasure to his teachers to bring him on: and they consisted of his father and mother. From the one he learnt the classics and figures; from the other music and English generally. Henry Arkell was apt at all things: but if he had genius for one thing more than another, it was certainly music. The sole luxury Mrs. Peter Arkell had retained about her, was her piano; and Henry was an apt pupil. Few boys are gifted with so rare a voice for singing, as was he; and his mother had cultivated it well: it was intended that he should enter the cathedral choir, as well as the school.
By the royal charter of the school, its number was confined to forty boys, king’s scholars; of these, ten were chosen to be choristers: but the head master had the privilege of taking private pupils, who paid him handsomely. The dean had the right of placing in ten of these king’s scholars, but he rarely exercised it; leaving it in the hands of the head master. Mr. Peter Arkell had applied several times lately to Mr. Wilberforce; and had received only vague answers from that gentleman— “when there was a vacancy to spare, he would think of his son” — but Peter Arkell grew tired. Henry was of an age to be in the school now, and he resolved to speak to the dean.
He came in, leading Henry by the hand. Georgina fell a little back, struck — awed — by the boy’s wondrous beauty. The dean, one of the most affable men that ever exercised sway over Westerbury cathedral, shook hands with Peter Arkell, whom he knew slightly.
“I don’t know that there’s a vacancy,” said the dean, when Mr. Arkell told his tale. “Your son shall have it, and welcome, if there is. I have left these things to Mr. Wilberforce.”
At this juncture Miss Beauclerc threw the window up, and beckoned to some one outside. Had her mother been present she would have administered a reprimand, but the dean was absorbed with the visitors, and he was less particular than his wife. Georgina was but a child, he reasoned; she might be too careless in her manners now, but it would all come right with years. Better, far better see her genuine and truthful, if a little brusque, than false, mincing, affected, as young ladies were growing to be. And the dean checked her not.
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“I know Mr. Wilberforce well, sir, and he has said he will do what he can,” said Peter Arkell, in reply to the dean. “But I fear that I may have to wait an indefinite period. There are others in the town of far greater account than I, who are anxious to get their sons into the school; and who have, no doubt, the ear of Mr. Wilberforce. A word from you, Mr. Dean, would effect all, I am sure: if you would only kindly speak it in my behalf.”
Dr. Beauclerc turned his head to see who was entering the room, for the door had opened. It was a handsome stripling, growing rapidly into manhood — Frederick, heir of the St. John’s. He was already keeping his terms at Oxford; Mrs. St. John had sent him there too early; and in the intervals, when they were sojourning at Westerbury, he was placed in the college; not as an ordinary scholar; the private pupil, and the chief one too, of Mr. Wilberforce.
The dean gave him a nod, and took the hand of the eager, exquisite face turned to him. Like his daughter, he was a great admirer of beauty in the human face: it would often give him a thrill of intense pleasure.
“What is your name, my boy?”
“Henry Cheveley Arkell, sir.”
The dean glanced at Peter Arkell with a half smile. He remembered yet the commotion caused in Westerbury when Miss Cheveley married the tutor, and the name brought it before him.
“How old are you?”
“Nearly ten, sir.”
“If I could paint faces, I’d paint his,” cried Georgina to young St. John, in a half whisper. “Why don’t you do it?”
“I suppose you mean his portrait?”
“You know I do. But, Fred, is he not beautiful?”
“You may get sent away if you talk,” was the gentleman’s answer.
“Has he been brought on well in his Latin? Is he fit to enter as a king’s scholar?” inquired the dean of Peter Arkell.
“He has been brought on well in all necessary studies, Mr. Dean; I may say it emphatically, well. I was in the college school myself, and know what is required. But learning has made strides of late, sir; boys are brought on more rapidly; and I can assure you that many a lad has quitted the college school in my days, his education finished, not as good a scholar as my son is now. I have taken pains with him.”
“And we know what that implies from you, Mr. Arkell,” said the dean, with a kindly smile. “You would like to be a king’s scholar, my brave boy?”
“Oh yes, sir,” said Henry, his transparent cheek flushing with hope.
“Then you shall be one. I will give you the first vacancy under myself.”
They retired with many thanks; Frederick St. John giving Henry’s bright waving hair a pull, as he passed him, by way of parting salutation.
“Papa! if you don’t put that child into the college school, I will,” began Georgina; her tone one of impassioned earnestness. “I will; though I have to beg it of old Wilberforce. I never saw such a face. I have fallen in love with it.”
“I am going to put him in, Georgie. I like his face myself. But he can’t go in until there’s a vacancy. I must ask Mr. Wilberforce.”
“There are two vacancies now, Dr. Beauclerc,” spoke up Frederick St. John. “One of them is under you, I know.”
“Indeed!”
“That is, there will be to-morrow. Those two West Indian boys, the Stantons, are sent for home suddenly: their mother’s dying, or something of that. The master had the news this morning, and the school is in a commotion over it. If you do wish to fill the vacancy, sir, you should speak to Mr. Wilberforce at once, or he may stand it out that he has promised it,” concluded Frederick St. John, with that freedom of speech he was fond of using, even to the dean.
“Stanton?” repeated the dean. “But were they not private pupils of the master’s?”
“Oh dear no, sir, they are on the foundation. You might have seen them any Sunday in their surplices in college. They board at the master’s house; that’s all.”
“Two dark boys, papa, the ugliest in the school,” struck in Georgina, who knew a great deal more about the school than the dean did.
When Mr. Peter Arkell and Henry quitted the deanery, the former turned to the cloisters; for he had an errand to do in the town, and to go through the cloisters was the shortest way. He encountered some of the college boys in the cloisters, whooping, hallooing, shouting; their feet and their tongues a babel of confusion. Mr. Arkell looked back at them with strange interest. It did not seem so very long since he and his cousin William had been college boys themselves, and had shouted and leaped as merrily as these. Two or three of them touched their trenchers to Mr. Arkell: they were evening pupils of his.
Henry had turned the other way, towards his home. At the gate, when he reached it, the boundary of the cathedral grounds on that side, he found a meek donkey drawn up, the drawer of a sort of truck, holding a water barrel. A woman was in the habit of bringing this water every day from a famous spring outside the town, to supply some of the houses in the grounds. The water was drawn out by means of a contrivance called a spigot and faucet, and she was stooping over this, filling a can. Henry, boy like, halted to watch the process, for the water rushed out full force.
Putting in the spigot when the can was full, she was proceeding to carry it up the old stairs belonging to the gateway, above which lived one of the minor canons, when the first shout of the college boys broke upon her ear.
“Oh, mercy!” she screamed out, as if in abject fear; and Henry Arkell, who was then continuing his way, halted again and stared at her.
“Young gentleman,” she said in a voice of appeal, “would you do me a charity?”
“What is it?” he asked. He was tall and manly for his years.
“If you would but stand by the barrel and guard it! The day afore yesterday, while my donkey and barrel was a stopped in this very spot, and I was a going up these here stairs with this very can, them wild young college gents came trooping by, and they pulled out the spigot and set the water a running. There warn’t a drop left in the barrel when I got down. It was a loss to me I haven’t over got.”
“Go along,” said Henry, “I’ll guard it for you.”
Unconscious boast! The boys came on in a roar of triumph, for they had caught sight of the water barrel. A young gentleman of the name of Lewis, a little older than Henry, was the first to get to the barrel, and lay his hand on the spigot.
“Oh, if you please, you are not to touch it,” said Henry; “I am taking care of it.”
“Halloa! what youngster are you? The donkey’s brother?”
“Oh, don’t take it out — don’t!” pleaded Henry. “I promised the woman I’d guard it for her.”
At this moment the woman’s head was protruded through one of the small, deep, square loopholes of the ancient staircase; and she apostrophized the crew in no measured terms, and rather contradictory. They were a set of dyed villains, of young limbs, of daring pigs; and they were dear, good, young gentlemen, that she prayed for every night; and that she’d be proud to give a drink of the beautiful spring water to any thirsty day.
You know schoolboys; and may, therefore, guess the result of this. The derisive shouts increased; the woman was ironically cheered; and Henry Arkell had a struggle with Master Lewis for possession of the spigot, which ended in the former’s ignominious discomfiture. He lay on the ground, the water pouring out upon him, when a tall form and authoritative voice dashed into the throng, and laid summary hands on Lewis.
“Now then, Mr. St. John! Please to let me alone, sir. It’s no affair of yours.”
“I choose to make it my affair, young Lewis. You help that boy up that you have thrown down.”
Lewis rebelled. The rest of the boys had drawn back beyond reach of the splashing water. St. John stooped for the spigot, and put it in; and then treated Lewis to a slight shaking.
“You be quiet, Mr. St. John. If you cock it over us boys in school, it’s no reason why you should, out.”
Another instalment of the shaking.
“Help hi
m up, I tell you, Lewis.”
Perhaps as the best way of getting out of it, Lewis jerked himself forward, and did help him up. Henry had been unable to rise of himself, and for a few moments he could not stand: his knee was hurt. It was a curious coincidence that the first fall, when he was entering the school, and the last fall —— But it may be as well not to anticipate.
“Now, mind you, Mr. Lewis: if you attempt a cowardly attack on this boy again — you are bigger and stronger than he is — I’ll thrash you kindly.”
Lewis walked away, leaving a mental word behind him — not spoken, he would not have dared that — for Frederick St. John. The woman came down wailing and lamenting at the loss of the water, and the boys scuttered off in a body. St. John threw the woman half-a-crown, and helped Henry home.
The dean held to his privilege for once, and gave Mr. Wilberforce notice that he had filled up the vacancy by bestowing it on the son of Mr. Peter Arkell. Mr. Wilberforce, privately believing that the world was about to be turned upside-down, could only bow and acquiesce. He did it with a good grace, and sent a courteous message for Henry to be there on the following Monday, at early school.
Accordingly, at seven o’clock, Henry was there. He did not like to troop in with the college boys, but waited until the head-master had come, and entered then. Mr. Wilberforce called him up, inscribed his name on the school-roll, put a few questions to him as to the state of his studies, and then assigned him his place.