Mildred Arkell. Vol. 2 (of 3)

"You used to call me Fred."

"But I was not a grown-up young lady then," making him a mock curtsey; "after all, I suppose I must call you Fred still, for I should be sure to lapse into it. Where have you been all this while? We have heard of you everywhere; in Paris, in Madrid, in Vienna, in Rome, in Antwerp, in–oh, all over the world."

"I think I have been nearly all over Europe," said Mr. St. John.

"Which of us has the most changed?" she abruptly asked, a curl of the finger indicating that she meant to speak of her cousin.

"Sarah has not changed," he answered, turning to Sarah Beauclerc, and an involuntary tenderness was again perceptible in his tone. "You have not changed either, Georgie, in manner," he added, with a laugh.

Georgina pouted. "You are not to call me 'Georgie' any longer, Mr. St. John."

"Very well, Miss Beauclerc, our careless times have gone for ever, I suppose; old age is creeping upon us."

"Don't be stupid," said Georgina. "Have you seen Lady Anne since your return?"

"Yes."

"You have!" she exclaimed, not expecting the answer.

"I saw her in London, as I came through it."

"Ah—yes—of course, I might have guessed that," was Georgina's rejoinder, spoken mysteriously. "Shall we have a battle royal?"

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. St. John.

"Between Lady Anne and another; you can't cut yourself in two, you know. Sarah, what's the matter with your face?"

It was a very conscious face just then, and a very haughty one. St. John knitted his brows, as if he divined Georgina's meaning, and was angered at it; and he began speaking hastily.

"Mine has been one of the pleasantest of tours. The galleries of paintings alone would have been worth–"

"Now, Fred, if you begin upon that everlasting painting theme, you'll never leave off," unceremoniously interrupted Georgiana. "Mrs. St. John says paintings will be your ruin."

"Does she?"

"Your purse has a hole at both ends, she says, where pictures are concerned, and she wishes you had only a tithe of the prudence of Mr. Isaac St. John."

Another slight knit of the brows. Sarah Beauclerc went to a side table and opened a book of views, taken in Spain, artistic sketches, exquisitely done. She turned her fair face to Mr. St. John.

"Will you kindly tell me if these are correct, Mr. St. John? That is, if you are personally acquainted with the spots."

He needed no second invitation. He did know the spots, and they bent over the views together, St. John growing eloquent. Henry Arkell, tolerably at home at the deanery, had drawn away from the group and was touching the keys of the piano; some sweet, extemporized melody, played so softly that it could scarcely be heard. Suddenly he found Georgina at his side.

"What did I tell you?" she abruptly said.

"What did you tell me?" he replied. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Miss Beauclerc."

"Go on with your playing; why do you stop? I don't care to be heard by the chairs and tables. Did I not tell you that he was in love either with her or with her beauty? You see, and hear."

"Are you sure he is not in love with somebody else?" asked Henry, his heart beating with that wild tumult that it mostly did when in the presence of Miss Beauclerc.

She understood his meaning, however it might please her to affect not to do so. He did not raise his eyes to look at her; and he continued the soft sweet playing, as she desired.

"Somebody else! Do you mean Lady Anne?"

"Oh, Miss Beauclerc! I was not thinking of Lady Anne."

"Perhaps you mean me, you stupid boy; perhaps you would like to insinuate that I am in love with him. You are stupid, Henry. Play a little louder. How I wish I played with half your taste. I should not get so much of old Paul's frownings and mamma's reproachings. Do you think I'd have Fred St. John? No, not though he were worth his weight in gold. We should never get along together; you might as well try to mix oil and water."

Oh, false words! But how many such are uttered daily, in the natural reticence of the shy heart, loving for the first time! Henry Arkell believed her at the moment, and his heart bounded on in its wild love, in spite of that ever present conviction that had taken up an abode within it. The strain changed to a popular love melody; but the playing was soft and sweet as before. Few have the charmed gift of playing as he played.

"I have been making something for you. I can't give it you now with those two pairs of eyes in the room. Lovers though they may be, I dare say they are watching; and Sarah's blue ones are very sharp. She might get telling mamma that I flirt with the college boys. And I won't give it you at all if you are stupid. What's Fred St. John to me, do you suppose? It's nothing really worth having, you know; but your vanity likes to be humoured, and–"

"Henry! how exquisitely you play!"

Mr. St. John was coming towards them with the remark, and the spell was broken. Henry rose from the piano, laughing carelessly in answer; and Frederick St. John wondered at the bright light in his eye, the flush of emotion on his cheek. But he did not read the signs correctly.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE EXAMINATION

November came in. The nineteenth approached, and the travelling carriages of the different prebendaries bowled into Westerbury, as was customary at that season, bringing their owners to their residences in the Grounds. A great day in cathedral life was the nineteenth of November. It was the grand chapter day; the day when every member attached to the cathedral had to attend in the chapter-house after morning prayers, and answer to their names, as called over from the roll by the chapter clerk. The dean, the canons, the minor canons, the king's scholars, the organist, the lay-clerks, the sextons, the vergers, the bedesmen, and the two men-cooks officiating for the audit dinners at the deanery; all had to be there, health permitting. It was also the grand audit day; and the first day of the series of dinners held at the deanery; the dinner on this day being confined to the members of the cathedral: that is, the clergy, the choristers, and the lay-clerks. The rest of the boys, those who were only king's scholars, were not included, and very savage they were; but things were done in accordance with ancient custom. When the dean, at the conclusion of the ceremonies in the chapter-house, proffered an invitation to the "gentlemen choristers" to dine with him that evening at the deanery, and the gentlemen choristers bowed a gracious or a confused acquiescence, according to their state of nerves, the thirty king's scholars turned rampant with envy; and always wished either the choristers or the dean might come to some grief before the night arrived.

The great day came; an unusually great day, this, for the school, the examination having been fixed to take place on it by the dean. The morning service in the cathedral was at ten o'clock, the usual daily hour; and at eleven began the business in the chapter-house. Next came the examination. There had been some consultation between the dean and canons as to whether the examination should take place in the college hall, as the schoolroom was called, or the chapter-house; but they decided in favour of the college hall. As the boys were passing through the cloisters from the chapter-house on their way to it, walking orderly two and two in their surplices and trenchers, Georgina Beauclerc met them, her blue eyes smiling, the blue strings of her bonnet flying. The undaunted girl stopped to have a word, although the clergy, with the dean at their head, were actually coming out of the chapter-house, within view.

"There is to be a prize, boys," she whispered. "Good luck to whoever gets it. Will it be you, Jocelyn?"

"That it will not, Miss Beauclerc," was the reply of the senior boy. None knew better than he his own deficiencies, and that they chiefly arose through his own idleness.

"Whose will it be, then?"

"Well, if it turns upon general scholarship it ought to be Arkell's no doubt, Miss Beauclerc, only you see he is not a senior. If we are examined in Greek and Latin only, the merit may lie between him and Lewis senior."

Lewis senior, a great big hulky fellow, with hair as black as his uncle Ben's, sly eyes, and an ugly face, was standing close to Jocelyn. Taking the classics only, he was the best scholar in the school, Henry Arkell excepted; but he was more than a year older than Henry. Miss Beauclerc saw his countenance light up with triumph, and she threw back her pretty head. She detested Lewis, though perfectly conscious that he entertained more than a liking for her.

"You won't have much chance, Lewis, by the side of Arkell. Don't deceive yourself; don't faint with the disappointment."

She turned round and flew off, for the dean and clergy were close at hand. The boys continued their way to the college hall, Lewis's amiability not improved by the taunt. The general opinion in the school was, that if a prize was given, Lewis would gain it. He was a clever boy, though not popular; more clever than any one of the other seniors. Seniority went for everything in the college school, and for the dean to be guilty of the heterodoxy of awarding the prize to any except one of the four seniors had not occurred to the boys as being within the range of serious possibility.

The boys took their station in the school, and the dean proceeded to the examination. Two of the canons were with him, and the masters of the school, one of whom was the Rev. Mr. Prattleton; but he attended only twice a week for an especial branch of study. The clergy and boys all wore their surplices, and the dean and prebendaries retained their caps on their heads.

The examination proceeded smoothly enough, for the complaisant dean confined himself chiefly to the classics. He questioned the boys in the books and at the places put into his hands by the masters, and he winked metaphorically at the low promptings administered when the classes came to a full stop or a stammer. The masters recovered confidence, and were congratulating themselves inwardly at the dreaded event being well over, when, to their unspeakable dismay, the dean disbanded the classes, and, desiring the forty boys to stand indiscriminately before him, began to question them.

This was the real examination: some of the questions were simple, some difficult, embracing various subjects. But, simple or difficult, it was all one, for, taken by surprise, ill-educated, ill-grounded, the boys could not answer. One of them alone proved himself equal to the emergency. You need not be told that it was Henry Arkell. Not at a single question did he hesitate, till at length the dean told him, with a smile, not to answer, until the questions had gone the round of the school. Of all branches of education, save their rote of Latin and Greek, the boys were entirely ignorant, though some of the dean's questions were ludicrously simple.

"Can you make the square of a cube?"

Nobody answered, save by a prodigious deal of coughing, and Henry Arkell had once more to be appealed to.

"What is the difference between a right angle and an acute one?"

More coughing, and then a dead silence. The dean happened to be looking hard at one particular boy, or the boy fancied so, and his ears became as red as the head master's. "If you please, Mr. Dean, our desk is not in algebra."

"Who was Caligula?" continued the dean.

"King of France in the ninth century," was the prompt answer from one who thought he was in luck.

It was now the dean's turn to cough, as he replaced the question by another: "Can you tell me anything about Charles the Second?"

"He invented black lap-dogs with long ears."

The dean nearly choked.

"And was beheaded," added a timid voice.

"Was he?" retorted the dean. "Can you say anything about Charles the First, and the events of his reign?"

"Yes, sir. He found out the Gunpowder Plot, and was succeeded by Oliver Cromwell."

"Where are the Bahama Isles," asked the dean, in despair.

"In the Mediterranean," cried a tall boy.—"And they are very fertile," added another.

The dean paused a hopeless pause. "Can you spell 'Dutch?'"

"D-u-c-h." "D-u-t-s-h." "D-u-s-h-t," escaped from various tongues, drowning other novel phases of the word.

"Spell 'Cane,'" frowned the dean, though he was laughing inwardly.

"K-a-n-e," was the eager reply.

"Perhaps you can spell 'birch,'" roared Dr. Ferraday, an irascible prebendary.

They could: "B-u-r-c-h."

"What was the social condition of the Ancient Britons when their country was invaded by Julius Cæsar?" the dean asked, rubbing his face.

"They always went about naked, and never shaved, and their clothes were made of the skins of beasts."

"This is frightful," interrupted Dr. Ferraday. "The school reflects the greatest discredit upon—somebody," glaring through his spectacles at the purple and scarlet faces of the masters. "There's only one boy who is not a living monument of ignorance. He—what's your name, boy?"

"Arkell, sir."

"True; Arkell," assented Dr. Ferraday. He knew who he was perfectly well, but he was the proudest man of all the canons, and would not condescend to show that he remembered. "Sir, for your age you are a brilliant scholar."

"How is it?" puzzled Mr. Meddler, another of the prebendaries: "has Arkell superior abilities, and have all the rest none? Answer for yourself, Arkell."

The boy hesitated. Both in mind and manners he was so different from the general run of schoolboys; and he could not bear to be thus held out as a sort of pattern for the rest.

"It is not my fault, sir—or theirs. My father has always kept me to my studies so closely out of school hours, and attended to them himself, that I could not help getting on in advance of the school."

"Wilberforce," roughly spoke up Dr. Ferraday, in his overbearing manner, "how is it that this boy is not senior?"

"That post is attained by priority of entrance, sir," replied the master. "Arkell can only become senior boy when those above him leave."

"He ought to be senior now."

"We cannot act against the customs of the school, Dr. Ferraday," repeated the master. "Arkell is at the first desk, but he cannot be senior of the school out of his turn."

"Can you tell me whence England chiefly procures her supplies of cotton?" asked Mr. Meddler, mildly, of a mild-looking boy belonging to the third desk. "You, sir; Van Brummel, I think your name is."

Mr. Van Brummel, considerably taken-to at being addressed individually, lost his head completely. "From the signing of Magna Charta by King John."

"Why, what a stupid owl you must be!" snapped Dr. Ferraday, before Canon Meddler could speak. Mr. Van Brummel's face turned red; he was a timid boy, and he wondered whether they would order him to be flogged.

"Please, sir, I know that's the answer in the book," he earnestly said: "I learnt them over again this morning."

"It may be an answer to something, but not to my question," said Mr. Meddler, as he stepped apart to confer with his colleagues. "What is to be done, Mr. Dean? This state of things cannot be allowed to go on."

They talked for a few moments together, and then the dean turned to the boys.

"Stand forward, Arkell."

Henry Arkell advanced, a hot flush on his sensitive face; and the Dean threw round his neck a broad blue ribbon, suspending a medal of gold. "I have much pleasure in bestowing this upon you; never was reward more justly merited; and," he concluded, raising his voice high as he swept the room with his eyes, "I feel bound to declare publicly, that Henry Cheveley Arkell is an honour to Westerbury collegiate school."

"As all the rest of you are a disgrace to it," stormed Dr. Ferraday on the discomfited lot behind.

"You must let me have it back again to-morrow morning, that I may get your name inscribed on it," said the dean to Henry, in a low tone. "Wear it for to-day."

The boys were dismissed. They took off their surplices in the cloisters, not presuming to unrobe in the presence of the cathedral dignitaries, who prolonged their stay in the college hall: "to blow off at Wilberforce and the rest," one of the seniors irreverently surmised aloud. Some swung the surplices across their arms; some crammed them into bags; and an unusual silence pervaded the group. Lewis was bitterly disappointed. He was as good a classical scholar as Arkell, and thought he ought to have had the medal.

Miss Beauclerc was waiting at the deanery door. "Well, boys, and who has got it?" was her salutation before any of them were up.

"A sneaking young beggar," called out Lewis, thinking he might as well make the best of things to her, and answer first.

"Then you have not got it, Lewis; I told you you wouldn't," laughed the young lady; "though I heard that you made certain sure of it, and had ordered a glass case to keep it in."

Lewis nearly boiled over with rage.

"Arkell has gained it, Miss Beauclerc," said the senior boy.

"Of course; I knew he would. I was sure from the first that none of you could contend against him, provided there was a fair field and no favour."

"No favour!" scornfully echoed Lewis. "A bright eye and a girl's face, these are what we should covet now, to curry favour with the Dean and Chapter."

"Lewis, you forget yourself," reproved Miss Beauclerc; "and I'll inform against you if you talk treason of the dean," she laughingly continued.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Beauclerc," was the sullen apology of Lewis, delivered in a most ungracious tone.

"Arkell's merits alone have gained the prize, Lewis, and you know it," proceeded the young lady; "they must have gained it had he been as ugly as you."

"I am much obliged to you, Miss Beauclerc," foamed Lewis, with as much resentment as he dared show to the dean's daughter.

"Well, you are right about his merits, Miss Beauclerc," interrupted Jocelyn; "no question came amiss to him. By Jove! old Ferraday was not wrong in calling him a brilliant scholar; I had no idea he knew half as much. The dean said he was an honour to the school."

"That he has been a long while," she said, quietly. "You boys may sneer—you are sneering now, Aultane, but–"

"No, indeed, Miss Beauclerc," interrupted Aultane, "I would not do such a thing as sneer in your presence. Of course it couldn't be expected that he'd be anything but a good scholar, when his father's a schoolmaster."

"And teaches boys at half-a-crown an hour," put in Lewis junior. "He acknowledged to the dean, it was all through his father's cramming him."

Henry Arkell was coming up; Miss Beauclerc moved forwards and shook him by the hand.

"I congratulate you," she said, in a half whisper. "Why it looks like the ribbon of the Garter. You may win that some time, if you live; who knows? I knew you would get it, if you were only true to yourself; Frederick St. John said so too. Mind you write to-day to tell him."

She had taken the medal in her hand, and was looking at it. The rest pressed round as closely as they dared. Lewis only stood aside, a bitter expression on his ugly lips.

A little fellow ran up, all in a fright. "Oh! if you please, if you please, Miss Beauclerc, here comes the dean."

"What if he does?" retorted Miss Beauclerc; "he won't eat you. There, you may go, boys. Henry Arkell, you know you are expected at the deanery to-night."

"Yes, thank you, Miss Beauclerc," he replied, some hesitation, or surprise, visible in his tone.

"Ah, but I mean to us, after the dinner. Mamma has what she calls one of her quiet soirées. You'll be sure to come."

One glance from his brilliant eyes, beneath which her blue ones fell, and he drew away. The rest were already off. Georgina walked forward to meet the dean, and she put her arm within his in her loving manner.

"Oh, papa, the boys are so envious of the medal. I stopped them and made them show it me. That ugly Lewis is ready to cut his throat."

"Random-spoken as usual, my darling. Who's throat?"

"Henry Arkell's of course, papa. But I knew no one else would gain it. They are not fit to tie his shoes."

"In learning, they certainly are not. You can't imagine what a ludicrous display we have had! And some of them go soon to the university!"

"It's not the fault of the boys, papa. If they are never taught anything but Greek and Latin, how can they be expected to know anything else?"

"Very true, Georgie," mused Dr. Beauclerc. "Some of these old systems are stupid things."

The audit dinner in the evening went off as those dinners generally did. The boys dined at a table by themselves, and Henry, as their senior, had to exert firm authority over some, for the supply of wine was unlimited. Later in the evening, he passed through the gallery to the drawing-room, as invited by Miss Beauclerc. A few ladies were assembled: the canons' wives and daughters, Mrs. Wilberforce, and two or three other inhabitants of the Grounds; all very quiet, and what in these later days might have been called "slow:" Mrs. Beauclerc's parties mostly were so. They were talking of Frederick St. John when Henry went in, who was again absent from Westerbury, visiting somewhere with his mother and Lady Anne.

Henry wore his medal; the broad blue ribbon conspicuous. Some time was taken up examining that, and then he was asked to sing. It was a treat to hear him; and his voice as yet gave forth no token of losing its power and sweetness, though he was close upon sixteen.

He sang song after song—for they pressed for it—accompanying himself. One song that he was especially asked for, he could not remember without the music. Mrs. Wilberforce suggested that he should fetch it from home, but Georgina said she could play it for him, and sat down. It was that fine song called "The Treasures of the Deep," by Mrs. Hemans. It was found, however, that she could not play it; and after two or three attempts, she began a waltz instead; and the ladies, in the distance round the fire, forgot at length that they had wanted it.

Georgina wore an evening dress of white spotted muslin, a broad blue sash round her waist, and a bit of narrow blue velvet suspending a cross on her neck. She had taken off her bracelets to play, and her pretty white arms were bare. Her eyes were blue as the ribbon, and altogether she looked very attractive, very young, and she was that night in one of her wild and inexplicable humours.

What she really said, how he responded, will never be wholly known: certain it is, that she led him on, on, until he resigned himself wholly to the fascination and "told his love;" although he might have known that to do so was little less than madness. She affected to ridicule him; she intimated that her love was not for a college boy; but all the while her looks gave the lie to her words; her blue eyes spoke of admiration still; her flushed face of triumphant, gratified vanity. They were engaged round the fire, round the tables, anywhere; and Georgina had it all to herself, and played bars of music now and then, as if she were essaying different pieces.

"Let us put aside this nonsense," she suddenly said. "It is nonsense, and you know it, Harry. Here's a song," snatching the first that came to hand—"sing this; I'll play it for you."

"Do you think I can sing?—now? with your cold words blighting me. Oh, tell me the worst!" he added, his tone one of strange pain. "Tell me–"

"Goodness, Henry Arkell. If you look and talk in that serious manner, I shall think you have become crazy. Come; begin."

"I seem to be in a sort of dream," he murmured, putting his hands to his temples. "Surely all the past, all our pleasant intercourse, is not to be forgotten! You will not throw me away like this?"

"Where's the use of my playing this symphony, if you don't begin?"

"Georgina!—let me call you so for the first, perhaps for the last time—dear Georgina, you cannot forget the past! You cannot mean what you have just said."

"How unpleasant you are making things to-night!" she said, with a laugh. "I shall begin to think you have followed the example of those wretched little juniors, and taken plentifully of wine."

"Perhaps I have; perhaps it is owing to that that I have courage freely to talk to you now. Georgina, you know how I have loved you; you know that for years and years my life has been as one long blissful dream, filled with the image of you."