"Uncle Copas," said Corona, as the two passed out through the small doorway in the southern aisle and stood blinking in the sunshine, "I want you next to show me what's left of the old Castle where the kings lived: that is, if you're not tired."
"Tired, child? 'Tis our business—'tis the Brethren's business— to act as guides around the relics of Merchester. By fetching a very small circuit we can take the Castle on our way, and afterwards walk home along the water-meads, my favourite path."
Corona slipped her hand into his confidentially. Together they left the Close, and passing under the King's Gate, turned down College Street, which led them by the brewhouse and outer porch of the great School. A little beyond it, where by a conduit one of the Mere's hurrying tributaries gushed beneath the road, they came to a regiment of noble elms guarding a gateway, into which Brother Copas turned aside. A second and quite unpretentious gateway admitted them to a green meadow, in shape a rough semicircle, enclosed by ruinated walls.
"You may come here most days of the month," said Brother Copas, holding the gate wide, "and never meet a soul. 'Tis the tranquillest, most forsaken spot in the city's ambit."
But here, as Corona caught her breath, he turned and stared. The enclosure was occupied by a squad of soldiers at drill.
They wore uniforms of khaki, and, dressed up with their backs to the gateway, were performing the simple movements of foot drill in face of a choleric sergeant-major, who shouted the words of command, and of a mounted officer who fronted the squad, silent, erect in saddle, upon a strapping bay. Some few paces behind this extremely military pair stood a couple of civilian spectators side by side, in attire— frock-coats, top-hats, white waistcoats—which at a little distance gave them an absurd resemblance to a brace of penguins.
"Heavens!" murmured Brother Copas. "Is it possible that Bamberger has become twins? One never knows of what these Jews are capable.…"
His gaze travelled from the two penguins to the horseman in khaki. He put up a shaking hand to shade it.
"Colt? Colt in regimentals? Oh, this must be vertigo!"
At a word from the sergeant-major the squad fell out and stood in loose order, plainly awaiting instructions. Mr. Colt—yes, indeed it was the Chaplain—turned his charger's head half-about as the two frock-coated civilians stepped forward.
"Now, Mr. Bamberger, my men are at your disposal."
"I t'ank you, Reverent Mr. Major—if zat is ze form to address you—" began Mr. Bamberger's double.
"'Major,'tout court, if you please," Mr. Colt corrected him. "One drops the 'reverend' while actually on military duty."
"So? Ach, pardon!—I should haf known. . . Now Ze first is, we get ze angle of view, where to place our Grandt Standt so ze backgrount mek ze most pleasing pigture. At ze same time ze Standt must not tresbass—must not imbinge,hein?—upon our stage, our what-you-call-it area. Two t'ousand berformers—we haf not too mooch room. I will ask you, Mr. Major, first of all to let your men—zey haf tent-pegs,hein?—to let your men peg out ze area as I direct. Afterwards, with your leaf, you shall place z'em here—z'ere—in groups, zat I may see in some sort how ze groups combose, as we say. Himmel! what a backgroundt! Ze Cathedral, how it lifts over ze trees—Bar-fect! Now, if you will follow me a few paces to ze right, here… Ach! see yonder, by ze gate! Zat old man in ze red purpleponcho—haf ze berformers already begon to aszemble zemselves?…"
Mr. Colt slewed his body about in the saddle.
"Eh?… Oh, that's Brother Copas, one of our Beauchamp Brethren. Mediaeval he looks, doesn't he? I assure you, sir, we keep the genuine article in Merchester."
"You haf old men dressed likezat?… My dear Julius, I see zis Bageant retty-made!"
"It was at St. Hospital—the almshouse for these old fellows—that the notion first came into my head."
"Sblendid!… We will haf a Brocession of them; or, it may be, a whole Ebisode.… Will you bid him come closer, Mr. Major, zat I may study ze costume in its detail?"
"Certainly." Mr. Colt beckoned to Brother Copas, who came forward still holding Corona by the hand. "Brother Copas, Mr. Isidore Bamberger here—brother of Our Member—desires to make your acquaintance."
"I am honoured," said Brother Copas politely.
"Ach, so!" burst in Mr. Isidore. "I was telling the major how moch I admire zat old costume of yours."
"It is not for sale, however." Brother Copas faced the two Hebrews with his ironical smile. "I am sorry to disappoint you, sirs, but I have no old clothes to dispose of, at present."
"No offence, no offence, I hope?" put in Mr. Julius. "My brother, sir, is an artist—"
"Be easy, sir: I am sure that he intended none. For the rest," pursued Brother Copas with a glance at Mr. Colt and a twinkle, "if we had time, all four of us here, to tell how by choice or necessity we come to be dressed as we are, I dare say our stories might prove amusing as the Calenders' inThe Arabian Nights."
"You remind me," said Mr. Isidore, "zat I at any rate must not keep zese good Territorials standing idle. Another time—at your service—"
He waved a hand and hurried off to give an instruction to the sergeant-major. His brother followed and overtook him.
"Damn it all, Isidore! You might remember that Merchester is my constituency, and my majority less than half a hundred."
"Hein? For what else am I here but to helb you to increase it?"
"Then why the devil start by offending that old chap as you did?"
"Eh? I offended him somehow. Zat is certain: zough why on earth he should object to having his dress admired—" Mr. Isidore checked his speech upon a sudden surmise. "My goot Julius, you are not telling me he has a Vote!"
"You silly fool, of course he has!"
"Gott in himmel! I am sorry, Julius.… I—I sobbosed, in England, that paupers—"
"State-paupers," corrected his brother. "Private paupers, like the Brethren of St. Hospital, rank as tenants of their living-rooms."
"I shall never gombrehend the institutions of zis country," groaned Mr. Isidore.
"Never mind: make a Pageant of 'em," said his brother grimly. "I'll forgive you this time, if you'll promise me to be more careful."
"I'll do more, Julius. I'll get aroundt ze old boy somehow: mek him bivot-man in a brocession, or something of the sort. I got any amount of tagt, once I know where to use it."
"Smart man, Our Member!" commented Mr. Colt, gazing after the pair. "And Mr. Isidore doesn't let the grass grow under his feet, hey?"
"Has an eye for detail, too," answered Brother Copas, taking snuff. "See him there, upbraiding his brother for want of tact towards a free and independent elector.… But—excuse me—for what purpose are these two parcelling out the Castle Meadow?"
"You've not heard? There's a suggestion—and I may claim some share in the credit of it, if credit there be—to hold a Pageant here next summer, a Merchester Pageant. Mr. Bamberger's full of it. What's your idea?"
"A capital notion," said Brother Copas slowly. "Sincejam pridem Syrus in Tamesin defluxit Orontes, I commend any attempt to educate Mr. Bamberger and his tribe in the history of this England they invade. But, as you say, this proposed Pageant is news to me. I never seem to hear any gossip. It had not even reached me, Mr. Chaplain, that you were deserting St. Hospital to embrace a military career."
"Nor am I.… At Cambridge I ever was an ardent volunteer. Here in Merchester (though this, too, may be news to you) I have for years identified myself with all movements in support of national defence. The Church Lads' Brigade, I may say, owed its inception to me; likewise the Young Communicants' Miniature Rifle Association; and for three successive years our Merchester Boy Scouts have elected me President and Scoutmaster. It has been a dream of my life, Brother Copas, to link up the youth of Britain in preparation to defend the Motherland, pending that system of compulsory National Service which (we all know) must eventually come. And so when Sir John Shaftesbury, as Chairman of our County Territorial Force Association, spoke to the Lord-Lieutenant, who invited me to accept a majority in the Mershire Light Infantry, Second Battalion, Territorial—"
"I can well understand, sir," said Brother Copas, as Mr. Colt drew breath; "and I thank you for telling me so much. No wonder Sir John enlisted such energy as yours! Yet—to be equally frank with you—I am sorry."
"You disapprove of National Service?"
"I approve of it with all my heart. Every young man should prepare himself to fight, at call, for his country. But the devotion should be voluntary."
"Ah, but suppose our young men will not? Suppose they prefer to attend football matches—"
"That, sir—if I may respectfully suggest it—is your business to prevent. And I might go on to suggest that the clergy, by preaching compulsory military service, lay themselves open, as avowed supporters of 'law and order,' to a very natural suspicion. We will suppose that you get your way, and every young Briton is bound, on summons, to mobilise. We will further suppose a Conservative Government in power, and confronted with a devastating strike—shall we say a railwaymen's strike? What more easy than to call out one-half of the strikers on service and oblige them, under pain of treason, to coerce the other half? Do you suppose that this nation will ever forget Hounslow Heath?"
"Let us, then," said Mr. Colt, "leave arguing this question of compulsory National Service until another occasion, when I shall hope to convince you. For the moment you'll allow it to be every man's duty, as a citizen, to carry arms for his country?"
"Every man's, certainly—if by that you exclude priests."
"Why exclude priests?"
"Because a priest, playing at warfare, must needs be mixing up things that differ. As I see it, Mr. Colt, your Gospel forbids warfare; and if you consent to follow an army, your business is to hold a cross above human strife and point the eyes of the dying upward, to rest on it, thus rebuking men's passions with a vision of life's ultimate peace."
"Yet a Bishop of Beauvais (as I read) once thought it not unmeet to charge with a mace at the head of a troop; and our own dear Archbishop Maclagan of York, as everyone knows, was once lieutenant in a cavalry regiment!"
"Oh, la, la!" chuckled Brother Copas. "Be off, then, to your Territorials, Mr. Chaplain! I see Mr. Isidore, yonder, losing his temper with the squad as only an artist can.… But—believe an old man, dear sir—you on your horse are not only misreading the Sermon but mistaking the Mount!"
Mr. Colt rode off to his squad, and none too soon; for the men, startled by Mr. Isidore's sudden onslaught of authority and the explosive language in which he ordered them hither and thither, cursing one for his slowness with the measuring-tape, taking another by the shoulders and pushing him into position, began to show signs of mutiny. Mr. Julius Bamberger mopped a perspiring brow as he ran about vainly trying to interpose.
"Isidore, this is damned nonsense, I tell you!"
"You leave 'em to me," panted Mr. Isidore. "Tell me I don't understand managing a crowd like this! It's part of zemethod, my goot Julius. Put ze fear of ze Lord into 'em, to start wiz. Zey gromble at first; Zen zey findt zey like it: in the endt zey lof you.Hein? It is not for nozzing zey call me ze Bageant King!…"
The old man and the child, left to themselves, watched these operations for a while across the greensward, over which the elms now began to lengthen their shadows.
"The Chaplain was right," said Brother Copas. "Mr. Isidore certainly does not let the grass grow under his feet."
"If I were the grass, I shouldn't want to," said Corona.
"The nasty pigs!"
Nurse Branscome's face, usually composed and business-like (as a nurse's should be), was aflush between honest shame and equally honest scorn.
"To be sure," said Brother Copas soothingly. He had met her by chance in the ambulatory on her way from Brother Bonaday's rooms. On a sudden resolve he had told her of the anonymous letter, not showing it, but conveying (delicately as he might) its substance. "To be sure," he repeated. "But I am thinking—"
"As if I don't know your thoughts!" she interrupted vigorously. "You are thinking that, to save scandal, I had better cease my attendance on Brother Bonaday, and hand over the case to Nurse Turner. That I could do, of course; and ifheknows of it, I certainly shall. Have you told him?"
Brother Copas shook his head.
"No. What is more, I have not the smallest intention of telling him."
"Thank you.… Oh, but it is vile—vile!"
"So vile that, believe me, I had great difficulty in telling you."
"I am sure you had.… I can hand over the case to Nurse Turner, of course; in fact, it came on herrota, but she asked me as a favour to take it, having her hands full just then with Brother Royle and Brother Dasent's rheumatics. It will be hard, though, to give up the child." Nurse Branscome flushed again. "Oh, yes—you are a gentleman, Brother Copas, and will not misunderstand! I have taken a great liking for the child, and she will ask questions if I suddenly desert her. You see the fix?… Besides, Nurse Turner—I hope I am not becoming like one of these people, but I must say it—Nurse Turner has not a nice mind."
"There we get at it," said Brother Copas. "As a fact, you were far from reading my thoughts just now. They did not (forgive me) concern themselves with you or your wisest line of conduct. You are a grown woman, and know well enough that honesty will take care of its own in the end. I was thinking rather of Corona. As you say, she has laid some hold upon the pair of us. She has a pathetic belief in all the inmates of St. Hospital—and God pity us if our corruption infects this child!… You take me?"
Nurse Branscome looked at him squarely.
"If I could save her from that!"
"You would risk appearances?"
"Gladly.… Will you show me the letter?"
Brother Copas shook his head.
"You must take it on faith from me for a while… at any rate until I find out who in St. Hospital begins her 'w's' with a curl like a ram's horn. Did you leave the child with her father?"
"No; she had run out to the kitchen garden. Since she has discovered it she goes there regularly twice a day, morning and evening. I can't think why, and she won't tell. She is the queerest child."
The walled kitchen garden of St. Hospital lies to the south, between the back of the "Nunnery" and the River Mere. It can be reached from the ambulatory by a dark, narrow tunnel under the nurses' lodgings. The Brethren never went near it. For years old Battershall, the gardener, had dug there in solitude—day in, day out—and had grown his vegetables, hedged in from all human intercourse, nor grumbling at his lot.
Corona, exploring the precincts, had discovered this kitchen garden, found it to her mind, and thereafter made free of it with the cheerfullestinsouciance. The dark tunnel, to begin with, put her in mind of some adventure in a fairy tale she could not recall; but it opened of a sudden and enchantingly upon sunshine and beds of onions, parsley, cabbages, with pale yellow butterflies hovering. Old Battershall, too, though taciturn, was obviously not displeased by her visits. He saw that while prying here and there—especially among the parsley beds, for what reason he could not guess—the child stole no fruit, did no harm. She trampled nothing. She lifted no leaf to harm it. When she stopped to speak with him her talk was "just nonsense, you know." Unconsciously, by the end of the third day he had looked up twice or thrice from his delving, asking himself why she was late.
And what (do you suppose) did Corona seek in the kitchen garden? She too, unknowing, was lonely. Unknowing, this child felt a need for children, companions. Uncle Copas's doll—well meant and priced at 1s. 3d.—had somehow missed to engage her affections. She could not tell him so, but she hated it.
Like every woman-child of her age she was curious about babies. She had heard, over in America, that babies came either at early morning or at shut of eve, and were to be found in parsley beds. Now old Mr. Battershall grew parsley to make you proud. At the Merchester Rural Gardening Show he regularly took first prize; his potting-shed, in the north-east angle of the wall, was papered with winning tickets from bench to roof. At first when he saw Corona moving about the bed, lifting the parsley leaves, he had a mind to chide her away; for, as he put it, "Children and chicken be always a-pickin'—the mischief's in their natur'." Finding, however, that she did no damage, yet harked back to the parsley again and again, he set her down for an unusually intelligent child, who somehow knew good gardening when she saw it.
"Glad to see you admirin' it, missie," he said one morning, coming up behind her unperceived.
Corona, in the act of upturning a leaf, started and drew back her hand. Babies—she could not tell why—made their appearance in this world by stealth, and must be searched for furtively.
"A mort o' prizes I've took with that there parsley one time and another," pursued Mr. Battershall, not perceiving the flush of guilt on her face (for his eyesight was, in his own words, not so young as it used to be). "Goodbody's Curly Mammoth is the strain, and I don't care who knows it, for the secret's not in the strain, but in the way o' raisin' it. I grows for a succession, too. Summer or winter these six-an'-twenty years St. Hospital's ne'er been without a fine bed o' parsley, I thank the Lord!"
Six-and-twenty years.… It was comforting in a way to know that parsley grew here all the seasons round. But—six-and-twenty years, and not one child in the place save herself, who had come over from America! Yet Mr. Battershall was right; itseemedexcellent parsley.
"You don't find that anything comes and—and takes away—" she hazarded, but came to a full stop.
"There's slugs," answered Mr. Battershall stolidly, "and there's snails. Terrible full o' snails the old wall was till I got the Master to repoint it."
"Would snails—"
"Eh?" he asked as she hesitated.
"They might take away the—the flowers, for instance."
Old Battershall guffawed.
"You wasn' sarchin' for flowers, was you? Dang me, but that's a good 'un!… I don't raise my own seed, missie, if that's your meanin'; an' that bein' so, he'd have to get up early as would find a flower in my parsley."
Ah, this might explain it! As she eyed him, her childish mind searching the mystery, yet keeping its own secret, Corona resolved to steal down to the garden one of these fine mornings very early indeed.
"Now I'll tell you something about parsley," said Mr. Battershall; "something very curious, and yet it must be true, for I heard the Master tell it in one of his sermons. The ancients, by which I mean the Greeks, set amazin' store by the yerb. There was a kind of Athletic Sports—sort of Crystal Palace meetin'—thegreat event, as you might say, and attractin' to sportsmen all over Greece—"
"All over what?"
"Greece. Which is a country, missy, or, at any rate, was so. The meeting was held every four years; and what d'ye suppose was the top prize, answerin', as you may say, to the Championship Cup? Why, a wreath o' parsley! 'Garn!' says you. And 'Parsley!' says you. Which a whole wreath of it might cost fivepence at the outside.…"
Now Corona, whose mind was ever picking up and hoarding such trifles, had heard Uncle Copas two days before drop a remark that the Greeks knew everything worth knowing. Plainly, then, the parsley held some wonderful secret after all. She must contrive to outwit old Battershall, and get to the garden ahead of him, which would not be easy, by the way.
To begin with, on these summer mornings old Battershall rose with the lark, and boasted of it; and, furthermore, the door of her father's bedroom stood open all night. To steal abroad she must pass it, and he was the lightest of sleepers. She did not intend to be beaten, though; and meanwhile she punctually visited the parsley morning and evening.
Heaven knows how the day-dream came to take possession of her. She was not consciously lonely. She worshipped this marvellous new home. Sometimes in her rambles she had to pinch herself to make sure this was all really happening. But always in her rambles she saw St. Hospital peopled with children—boys, girls, and little toddlers—chasing one another across the lawns, laughing at hide-and-seek in the archways, bruising no flower-bed, filling old souls with glee. They were her playmates, these innocents of her fancy, the long day through. At evening in her prayers she called them home, and they came reluctant—
No, no, let us play, for it is yet dayAnd we cannot go to sleep;Besides, in the sky the little birds flyAnd the hills are all covered with sheep.
No, no, let us play, for it is yet dayAnd we cannot go to sleep;Besides, in the sky the little birds flyAnd the hills are all covered with sheep.
No, no, let us play, for it is yet dayAnd we cannot go to sleep;Besides, in the sky the little birds flyAnd the hills are all covered with sheep.
The tunnel was populous with them as she passed through it from the garden to the ambulatory, and at the end of the tunnel she came plump upon Branny and Uncle Copas in converse. They started guiltily.
"I've been looking for you this half-hour," said Brother Copas, recovering himself. "Didn't a certain small missy make an appointment with me to be shown the laundry and its wonders? And isn't this Tuesday—ironing day?"
"You promised to show it to mesome time," answered Corona, who was punctilious in small matters; "but you never fixed any time in p'tic'lar."
"Oh, then I must have made the appointment with myself! Never mind; come along now, if you can spare the time."
Nurse Branscome nodded and left them, turning in at the stairway which led to her quarters in the Nunnery. At the foot of it she paused to call after them—
"Mind, Corona is not to be late for her tea! I've invited myself this evening, and there is to be a plum cake in honour of the occasion."
Brother Copas and Corona passed down the ambulatory and by the porter's lodge to the outer court. Of a sudden, within a few paces of the laundry, Brother Copas halted to listen.
"You had better stop here for a moment," he said, and walked forward to the laundry door, the hasp of which he lifted after knocking sharply with his staff. He threw the door open and looked in, surveying the scene with an angry disgust.
"Hallo! More abominations?" exclaimed Brother Copas.
The quarrel had started in the forenoon over a dirty trick played by Brother Clerihew, the ex-butler. (Brother Clerihew had a name for underhand practice; indeed, his inability to miss a chance of it had cost him situation after situation, and finally landed him in St. Hospital.) This time he had played it upon poor old doddering Brother Ibbetson. Finding Ibbetson in the porter's gateway, with charge of a lucrative-looking tourist and in search of the key of the Relique Room, he noted that the key, usually handed out by Porter Manby, hung on a hook just within the doorway; but old Ibbetson, being purblind, could not see it, or at all events could not recognise it, and Manby happened to be away at the brewhouse on some errand connected with the Wayfarers' Dole. Brother Clerihew, who had left him there, sent Ibbetson off on a chase in the wrong direction, loitered around for a couple of minutes chatting about the weather, and then, with a remark that it was shameful to keep gentlefolks waiting so, looked casually in at the doorway.
"Why the key is here all the time!" he exclaimed. "If you are in any hurry, sir, permit me to take brother Ibbetson's place, and show you round. Oh," he added falsely, seeing the visitor hesitate, "it won't hurthimat all! I don't like to mention it, but any small gratuities bestowed on the Brethren are carried to a common fund."
Ibbetson, harking back from a vain search to find his bird had flown, encountered Porter Manby returning with Brother Warboise from the brew-house, and tremulously opened up his distress.
"Eh?" snapped Warboise, after exchanging glances with the Porter. "Clerihew said Manby was in the kitchen, did he? But he'd left us at the brewhouse not a minute before."
"And the key! gone from the hook!" chimed in Porter Manby, "where I'll swear I left it. This is one of Clerihew's monkeyings, you bet."
"I'll monkey him," growled Brother Warboise.
The three kept sentry, knowing that Clerihew must sooner or later return with his convoy, there being no other exit. When at length he hove in sight with his convoy his face wore an uneasy, impudent smile. He was the richer by half a crown. They stood aside and let him brazen it past them; but Manby and Ibbetson were still waiting for him as he came back alone. Ibbetson was content with a look of reproach. Manby told him fair and straight that he was a swindling cur. But meanwhile Warboise had stumped off and told Ibbetson's wife. This done, he hurried off, and catching Clerihew by the steps of the Hundred Men's Hall, threatened the rogue with his staff. Manby caught them in altercation, the one aiming impotent blows, the other evading them still with his shameless grin, and separated them. Brother Ibbetson looked on, feebly wringing his hands.
But Mrs. Ibbetson was worth three of her husband, and a notorious scold. In the laundry, later on, she announced within earshot of Mrs. Clerihew that, as was well beknown, Clerihew had lost his last three places for bottle-stealing; and Mrs. Royle, acknowledged virago of St. Hospital, took up the accusation and blared it obscenely. For a good five minutes the pair mauled Mrs. Clerihew, who, with an air of high gentility, went on ironing shirts. She had been a lady's maid when Clerihew married her, and could command, as a rule, a high-bred, withering sneer. Unhappily, the united attack of Mrs. Ibbetson and Mrs. Royle goaded her so far beyond the bounds of breeding that of a sudden she upped and called the latter a bitch; whereupon, feeling herself committed, this ordinarily demure woman straightened her spine and followed up the word with a torrent of filthy invective that took the whole laundry aback.
Her success was but momentary. Mrs. Royle had a character to maintain. Fetching a gasp, she let fly the dirtiest word one woman can launch at another, and on the instant made a grab at Mrs. Clerihew's brow.… It was a matter of notoriety in St. Hospital that Mrs. Clerihew wore a false "front." The thing came away in Mrs. Royle's clutch, and amid shrieks of laughter Mrs. Royle tossed it to Mrs. Ibbetson, who promptly clapped down a hot flat-iron upon it. The spectators rocked with helpless mirth as the poor woman strove to cover her bald brows, while the thing hissed and shrivelled to nothing, emitting an acrid odour beneath the relentless flat-iron.
"Ladies! ladies!" commanded Brother Copas. "A visitor, if you please!"
The word—as always in St. Hospital—instantly commanded a hush. The women fled back to their tables, and started ironing, goffering, crimping for dear life, with irons hot and cold. Brother Copas, with a chuckle, leant back and beckoned Corona in from the yard.
At sight of her on the threshold Mrs. Royle broke into a coarse laugh. It found no echo, and died away half-heartedly. For one thing, there might yet be a real visitor behind the child; for another, these women stood in some little awe of Brother Copas, who paid well for his laundry-work, never mixed himself up with gossip, and moreover had a formidable trick of lifting his hat whenever he passed one of these viragoes, and after a glance at her face, fixing an amused stare at her feet.
"Pardon me, ladies," said he; "but my small laundry-work has hitherto gone, as you know, to old Mrs. Vigurs in St. Faith's Road. Last week she sent me word that she could no longer undertake it, the fact being that she has just earned her Old Age Pension and is retiring upon it. I come to ask if one of you will condescend to take her place and oblige me."
He paused, tasting the fun of it. As he well knew, they all feared and hated him for his trick of irony; but at least half a dozen of them desired his custom, for in St. Hospital (where nothing escaped notice) Brother Copas's fastidious extravagance in body-linen and his punctuality in discharging small debts were matters of common knowledge. Moreover, in their present mood each of these women saw a chance of spiting another by depriving her of the job.
Brother Copas eyed them with an amiable smile.
"Come," he said, "don't all speak at once!… I'll not ask you to bid for my little contract just now when I see you are all so busy. But seriously, I invite tenders, and will ask any one of you who cares for my custom to send me (say by to-morrow evening) a list of her prices in a sealed envelope, each envelope to bear the words 'Washing List' in an upper corner, that I may put all the tenders aside and open them together. Eh? What do you say, ladies?"
"I shall be happy for one," said Mrs. Clerihew, laying stress on the aspirate. She was always careful of this, having lived with gentlefolks. She burned to know if Brother Copas had heard her call Mrs. Royle a bitch. Mrs. Royle (to do her justice) when enraged recked neither what she said nor who overheard. But Mrs. Clerihew, between her lapses, clung passionately to gentility and the world's esteem. She was conscious, moreover, that without her false "front" she must be looking a fright.… In short, the wretched woman rushed into speech because for the moment anything was more tolerable than silence.
"I thank you, ma'am."
Neither voice nor look betrayed that Brother Copas had overheard or perceived anything amiss.
Mrs. Clerihew, baffled, began desperately to curry favour.
"And you've brought Brother Bonaday's pretty child, I see.… Step over here, my dear, and watch me—when I've heated this iron. 'Crimping,' they call it, and I've done it for titled folks in my time. One of these days, I hope, you'll be going into good service yourself. There's nothing like it for picking up manners."
She talked for talking's sake, in a carneying tone, while her bosom still heaved from the storm of battle.
Mrs. Royle attempted a ribald laugh, but it met with no success, and her voice died down under a disapproving hush.
Mrs. Clerihew talked on, gaining confidence. She crimped beautifully, and this was the more remarkable because (as Corona noted) her hand shook all the while.
In short, the child had, as she put it, quite a good time.
When it was time to be going she thanked Mrs. Clerihew very prettily, and walked back with Brother Copas to her father's room. They found Nurse Branscome there and the table already laid for tea; there was a plum cake, too.
After tea Branny told them all very gravely that this must be her last visit. She was giving over the care of Corona's father to Nurse Turner, whose "case" it had really been from the first. She explained that the nurses, unless work were extra heavy, had to take their patients in a certain order, by what she called arota.
"But he's bettering every day now, so I don't mind." She nodded cheerfully towards Brother Bonaday, and then, seeing that Corona's face was woebegone, she added: "But you will often be running across to the Nunnery to see me. Besides, I've brought a small parting gift to console you."
She unwrapped a paper parcel, and held out a black boy-doll, a real Golliwog, with white shirt buttons for eyes and hair of black Berlin wool.
"Oh, Branny!"
Corona, after holding the Golliwog a moment in outstretched hands, strained it to her breast.
"Oh, Branny! And till this moment I didn't know how much I've wanted him!"
All love being a mystery, I see no reason to speculate how or why it came to pass that Corona, who already possessed two pink and waxen girl-dolls, and treated them with the merest contempt, took this black manikin of a Golliwog straight to her heart to share its innermost confidences.
It happened so, and there's no more to be said. Next morning Corona paid an early call at the Nunnery.
"I'm afraid," she said in her best society manner, "this is a perfeckly ridiklous hour. But you are responsible for Timothy in a way, aren't you?"
"Timothy?" echoed Nurse Branscome.
"Oh, I forgot!" Corona patted the red-trousered legs of the Golliwog, which she held, not as little girls usually hold dolls, but tucked away under her armpit. "Timothy's his name, though I mean to call him Timmy for short. But the point is, he's becoming rather a question."
"In what way?"
"Well, you see, I have to take him to bed with me. He insists on it, which is all very well," continued Corona, nodding sagely, "but one can't allow it in the same clothes day and night. It's like what Uncle Copas says of Brother Plant's linen; it positively isn'tsanitary."
"I see," said Branny, laughing. "You want me to make a change of garments for him?"
"I've examined him," answered Corona. "There's a stitch here and there, but on the whole he'll unbutton quite easily; only I didn't like to do it until I'd consulted you.… And I don't want you to bother about the clothes, if you'll only show me how to cut out. I can sew quite nicely. Mamma taught me. I was making a sampler all through her illness—Corona Bonaday, Aged Six Years and Three Months; then the big and little ABC, and the numbers up to ten; after that the Lord's Prayer down toForgive us our trespasses. When we got to that she died.… I want to begin with a suit of pajamas—no, I forgot; they'repyjamas over here. Whatever happens, Idowant him to be a gentleman," concluded Corona earnestly.
The end was that Nurse Branscome hunted up a piece of coloured flannel, and Master Timothy that same evening was stripped to indue a pyjama suit. Corona carried him thus attired off to her bed in triumph—but not to sleep. Brother Bonaday, lying awake, heard her voice running on and on in a rapid monotone. Ten o'clock struck, and he could endure the sound no longer. It seemed to him that she must be rambling in delirium, and slipping on his dressing-gown, he stole to her chamber door.
"Cannot you get to sleep, little maid?"
"Is that you, daddy?" answered Corona. "I am so sorry, but Timmy and I have been arguing. He's such a queer child; he has a lingering belief in the House of Lords!"
"Now I wonder how she gets at that?" mused Brother Bonaday when he reported the saying to Copas.
"Very simply we shall find; but you must give me a minute or so to think it out."
"To be sure, with her American up-bringing there might naturally grow an instinctive disrespect for the hereditary principle."
"I have not observed that disrespect in Americans," answered Brother Copas dryly. "But we'll credit it to them if you will; and there at once you have a capital reason why our little Miss Bull should worship the House of Lords as a fetish—whereas, it appears, she doesn't."
"It's the queerer because, when it comes to the King, she worships the 'accident of birth,' as you might call it. To her King Edward is nothing less than the Lord's Anointed."
"Quite so.… But please, my dear fellow, don't clap intomymouth that silliest of phrases. 'Accident of birth!' I once heard parturition pleaded as an accident—by a servant girl in trouble. Funny sort of accident, hey? Does ever anyone—did she, your own daughter, for example—come into this world fortuitously?"
Brother Copas, taking snuff, did not perceive the twitch of his friend's face. His question seemed to pluck Brother Bonaday up short, as though with the jerk of an actual rope.
"Maybe," he harked back vaguely, "it's just caprice—the inconsequence of a child's mind—the mystery of it, some would say."
"Fiddlestick-end! There's as much mystery in Corona as in the light of day about us at this moment; just so much and no more. If anything, she's deadly logical; when her mind puzzles us it's never by hocus-pocus, but simply by swiftness in operation.… I've learnt that much of the one female child it has ever been my lot to observe; and the Lord may allow me to enjoy the success towards the close of a life largely spent in misunderstanding boys. Stay a moment—" Brother Copas stood with corrugated brow. "I have it! I remember now that she asked me, two days ago, if I didn't think it disgusting that so many of our English Peers went and married American heiresses merely for their money. Probably she supposes that on these means our ancient nobility mainly finances itself. She amused me, too, by her obvious reluctance to blame the men. 'Of course,' she said, 'the real fault is the women's, or would be if they knew what's decent. But you can't expect anything ofthem; they've had no nurture.' That was her word. So being a just child, she has to wonder how Englishmen 'with nurture' can so demean themselves to get money. In short, my friend, your daughter—for love of us both maybe—is taking our picturesqueness too honestly. She inclines to find a merit of its own in poverty. It is high time we sent her to school."
It was high time, as Brother Bonaday knew; if only because every child in England nowadays is legally obliged to be educated, and the local attendance officer (easily excused though he might be for some delay in detecting the presence of a child of alien birth in so unlikely a spot as St. Hospital) would surely be on Corona's track before long. But Brother Bonaday hated the prospect of sending her to the parish school, while he possessed no money to send her to a better. Moreover, he obeyed a lifelong instinct in shying away from the call to decide.
"But we were talking about the House of Lords," he suggested feebly. "The hereditary principle—"
Brother Copas inhaled his snuff, sideways eyeing this friend whose weakness he understood to a hair's-breadth. But he, too, had his weakness—that of yielding to be led away by dialectic on the first temptation.
"Aye, to be sure. The hereditary—principle, did you say? My dear fellow, the House of Lords never had such a principle. The hereditary right to legislate slipped in by the merest slant of a side wind, and in its origin was just a handy expedient of the sort so dear to our Constitution, logically absurd, but in practice saving no end of friction and dispute."
"You will grant at any rate that, having once adopted it, the Lords exalted it to rank as a principle."
"Yes, and for a time with amazing success. That was their capital error.… Have you never observed, my good Bonaday, how fatally miracles come home to roost? Jonah spends three days and three nights in the whale's belly—why? Simply to get his tale believed.Credo quia impossibileseldom misses to work well for a while. He doesn't foresee, poor fellow, that what makes his fortune with one generation of men will wreck his credit with another.… So with the House of Lords—though here a miracle triumphantly pointed out as happening under men's eyes was never really happening at all. That in the loins of every titled legislator should lie the germ of another is a miracle (I grant you) of the first order, and may vie with Jonah's sojourn in the whale's belly; nay, it deserved an even longer run for its money, since it persuaded people that they saw the miraculous succession. But Nature was taking care all the time that it never happened. Actually our peerages have perished, and new ones have been born at an astonishing rate; about half of them at this moment are younger than the great Reform Bill. A shrewd American remarked the other day, that while it is true enough a son may not inherit his father's ability, yet if the son of a Rothschild can keep the money his father made he must in these days of liquid securities be a pretty able fellow. Weaklings (added my American) don't last long, at any rate in our times. 'God and Nature turn out the incompetents almost as quickly as would the electorate.'… But my point is that the House of Lords, having in the past exploited this supposed miracle for all it was worth, are now (if the Liberals have any sense) to be faced with the overdraft which every miracle leaves to be paid sooner or later. The longer-headed among the Peers perceived this some years ago; they all see it now, and are tumbling over each other in their haste to dodge the 'hereditary principle' somehow. It is for the Liberals to hold them firmly to the dear old miracle and rub their noses in it. So, and so only, will this electorate of ours rid itself, under a misapprehension, of a real peril, to which, if able to see the thing in its true form and dimensions, it would in all likelihood yield itself grovelling."
"Eh? I don't follow—"
"I tell you, Bonaday, the House of Lords is in fact no hereditary curse at all. What the devil has it to do with the claims of old descent? Does it contain a man whose ancestor ever saw Agincourt? Bankers, brewers, clothiers, mine-owners, company-promoters, journalists—our Upper House to-day is a compact, fairly well-selected body of men who have pushed to success over their fellows. Given such a body of supermen, well agreed among themselves, and knowing what they want, supplied with every temptation to feed on the necessities of the weak, armed with extravagant legal powers, even fortified with a philosophy in the sham Darwin doctrine that, with nations as with men, the poverty of one is the wealth of another—there, my dear sir, you have a menace against which, could they realise it, all moderate citizens would be fighting for their lives.… But it is close upon dinner-time, and I refuse to extend these valuable but parenthetical remarks on the House of Lords one whit farther to please your irresolution.… It's high time Corona went to school."
"I have not been well lately, as you know, Brother. I meant all along, as soon as I picked up my strength again, to—"
"Tilly vally, tilly vally!" snapped Brother Copas. "Since we are making excuses shall we add that, without admitting ourselves to be snobs, we have remarked a certain refinement—a delicacy of mind—in Corona, and doubt if the bloom of it will survive the rough contact of a public elementary school?… Come, I've thought of that, as a godfather should. You're aware that, a couple of years ago, a small legacy dropped in upon me—a trifling windfall of ten guineas a year. Well, I've been wasting it on luxuries—a few books I don't read, a more expensive brand of tobacco, which really is no better than the old shag, some extra changes of body-linen. Now since the Education Act of 1902 the fees in the public secondary day schools have been cut down to a figure quite ridiculously low, and the private day schools have been forced to follow suit. I dare say that seven pounds a year will send Corona, say, to Miss Dickinson's genteel seminary—nay, I'll undertake to beat the lady down to that sum—and I shall still be left with three pounds and ten shillings to squander on shirts. Now if you start thanking me—Ah, there goes the dinner-bell! Hurry, man—you're first on the roster!"