CHAPTER XXV
TOMMY FINNEMORE’S foolish boasting lost nothing in repetition. When it came with accretions to his father’s ear, that gentleman, who shared the general high respect and admiration for Meadowcroft on the part of the village, and who was, moreover, secretly very proud of the latter’s friendliness towards his son, threatened Tommy with such dire punishment in case of the slightest misbehavior while Mr. Meadowcroft acted as principal of the school, that the boy told Betty and Rose on the way to school Monday morning that he felt as if he ought to remove his shoes before crossing the floor. George Pogany, too, heard at the store of Tommy’s boast, and commenting on it to his daughter declared that he was more than ever glad to know that she was always a good girl in school and would make things as easy for the substitute teacher as she knew how. Mrs. Phillips, who, considering that she had nothing to do with her neighbors, kept up amazingly with local news and gossip, rather gleefully repeated to her brother her own version of the remark as she had received it, which had, even then, little in common with Tommy’s idle words.
For a few seconds, Meadowcroft was hurt and a bit indignant. Already deeply attached to the boy as he was, the remark as he heard it sounded more than unfriendly—it seemed almost malicious. But after his sister had left him alone, and he considered the mattercalmly, he recollected the fact that Isabel, who did not in any case care for children, seemed almost to have a grudge against the boy and girl he found so engaging, companionable, and altogether delightful. He knew, moreover, by sad, even bitter experience that she was capable, in the arrogance of her wealth and independence, of quite misconstruing facts or statements of others even when such action served no purpose unless that of affording herself amusement. Tommy might make foolish remarks, and he was quite capable of boasting; but he would never be hateful and upstart as Isabel would have made him believe. Before the end of the evening, Meadowcroft had dismissed the matter from his mind, forgotten it utterly as he believed, though it was to come up again later.
Having prevailed upon Mrs. Appleton to allow him to send a trained nurse of his acquaintance from Philadelphia to care for her husband, and being assured that all was going as well with his friend as could be expected, Humphrey Meadowcroft was able to give himself wholly to the service of the school, and truly it was with immense satisfaction that he did so. And success seemed to be with him from the start. The enthusiastic welcome that he received seemed to endure permanently in the fact of a school extraordinarily amenable and well-disposed. The pleasure he gained from his teaching, great as it was, seemed to be exceeded by that which it imparted. In truth, Meadowcroft’s polished manners, his beautiful voice, his refined face, his finished scholarliness, the quiet elegance of his dress, his familiarity with a world almost unknown to the quiet country town, exerted a romantic spell over the impressionable boysand girls who made up the seventy-odd pupils. Even his lameness added to his utter difference from other folk; and very shortly his genuine kindness and sympathetic insight had warmed their romantic admiration into real hero-worship.
For himself, Humphrey Meadowcroft had never been so content. It seemed to him as if he had never known happiness until now. And though the labor involved was not slight in preparing for and teaching from six to eight subjects a day, having at the same time that he held his classes oversight of as many of the pupils as were not having a recitation in another classroom to the one assistant teacher, his zeal and zest rather increased than abated.
This endured for three weeks. But directly after the end of the third week, the clear horizon seemed on a sudden to be clouded over. There was a change. Meadowcroft did not know when, how, or whence the intimation came to him, but he found himself subtly aware that something was wrong. He actually heard or saw nothing to which exception could be taken: everything appeared quiet, orderly, pleasant as before. But somehow he gathered the impression of something amiss, seemed to deduce it from silence and negation. And the impression became more and more strong without being really definite. Finally it seemed like actual suspicion, though there was nothing upon which the acting master could center or base it.
Then quite suddenly and inexplicably, quite appallingly, indeed, it narrowed down and seemed to connect itself with the three pupils he had known well before he came to take Mr. Appleton’s place—the three South Pauldingchildren, two of whom he considered his intimate friends. He had decided at the beginning that he must bear himself towards Betty, Rose, and Tommy just as he bore himself towards the other pupils, to hold his relationship to them to exactly the same plane of formality or informality—that is, with just enough formality to keep the relation of master and pupils dignified and seemly and yet all friendliness. No particular effort had been required, for these three had appeared quite as thoughtful and well-disposed as the others—which was much to say. But now that something seemed to single them out, Meadowcroft suddenly recollected Tommy’s boast and decided that he was the culprit. Somehow or other, the boy was misbehaving. He was putting up some game on the substitute master which the other children understood but which he himself had hitherto been too unsuspecting to detect. Betty Pogany wouldn’t, he was assured, have anything to do with such plot; she would use her influence against it. But that failing, she wouldn’t, of course, tell, and he wouldn’t have her. None the less, he determined to catch and punish the malefactor as he deserved.
Which undertaking was not, however, simple. Constant watching and surveillance spoiled Mr. Meadowcroft’s fourth week and availed nothing. He saw Betty and Tommy outside of school hours fairly often, though not of course so frequently as he had been accustomed to do when his days were less full. He did not return to South Paulding until the half-past four train, arriving after dark, and when the children came in, their visits were naturally curtailed. In any event, he didn’t feel like bringing up this matter at home, still believingit better to keep the spheres of home and school, neighbors and school-master separate.
And when finally he discovered what was amiss, it was quite by accident. It happened in the midst of his fifth week at the high school—on a Wednesday.