Mike at Wrykyn (20 page)

“You must
have been mistaken.”

“Possibly,”
said Mr. Appleby, a little nettled. Gaping astonishment is always apt to be
irritating. “Let’s leave it at that, then. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“No,
sit down, Appleby. Dear me, this is most extraordinary. Exceedingly so. You
are certain it was James?”

“Perfectly.
It’s like daylight out of doors.”

Mr.
Wain drummed on the table with his fingers.

“What
shall I do?”

Mr.
Appleby offered no suggestion.

“I
ought to report it to the headmaster. That is certainly the course I should
pursue.”

“I
don’t see why. It isn’t like an ordinary case. You’re the parent. You can deal
with the thing directly. If you come to think of it, a headmaster’s only a sort
of middleman between boys and parents. He plays substitute for the parent in
his absence. I don’t see why you should drag in the Head at all here.”

“There
is certainly something in what you say,” said Mr. Wain on reflection.

“A good
deal. Tackle the boy when he comes in, and have it out with him. Remember that
it must mean expulsion if you report him to the headmaster. He would have no
choice. Everybody who has ever broken out of his house here and been caught has
been expelled. I should strongly advise you to deal with the thing yourself.”

“I
will. Yes. You are quite tight, Appleby. That is a very good idea of yours. You
are not going?”

“Must. Got
a pile of examination papers to look over. Good night.”

“Good
night.”

Mr.
Appleby made his way out of the window and through the gate into his own
territory in a pensive frame of mind. He was wondering what would happen. He
had taken the only possible course, and, if only Wain kept his head and did not
let the matter get through officially to the headmaster, things might not be so
bad for Wyatt after all. He hoped they would not. He liked Wyatt. It would be a
thousand pities, he felt, if he were to be expelled. What would Wain do? What
would
he
do in a similar case? It was difficult to say. Probably talk
violently for as long as he could keep it up, and then consider the episode
closed. He doubted whether Wain would have the common sense to do this.
Altogether it was very painful and disturbing, and he was taking a rather
gloomy view of the assistant master’s lot as he sat down to finish off the rest
of his examination papers. It was not all roses, the life of an assistant
master at a public school. He had continually to be sinking his own individual
sympathies in the claims of his duty. Mr. Appleby was the last man who would
willingly have reported a boy for enjoying a midnight ramble. But he was the
last man to shirk the duty of reporting him, merely because it was one
decidedly not to his taste.

Mr.
Wain sat on for some minutes after his companion had left, pondering over the
news he had heard. Even now he clung to the idea that Appleby had made some
extraordinary mistake. Gradually he began to convince himself of this. He had
seen Wyatt actually in bed a quarter of an hour before—not asleep, it was true,
but apparently on the verge of dropping off. And the bars across the window had
looked so solid…. Could Appleby have been dreaming? Something of the kind
might easily have happened. He had been working hard, and the night was
warm….

Then it
occurred to him that he could easily prove or disprove the truth of his
colleague’s statement by going to the dormitory and seeing if Wyatt were there
or not. If he had gone out, he would hardly have returned yet.

He took
a torch and walked quietly upstairs.

Arrived
at his step-son’s dormitory, he turned the door-handle softly and went in. The
light of the torch fell on both beds. Mike was there, asleep. He grunted, and
turned over with his face to the wall as the light shone on his eyes. But the
other bed was empty. Appleby had been right.

If
further proof had been needed, one of the bars was missing from the window. The
moon shone in through the empty space.

The
house-master sat down quietly on the vacant bed. He switched the torch out, and
waited there in the semidarkness, thinking. For years he and Wyatt had lived
in a state of armed neutrality, broken by various small encounters. Lately, by
silent but mutual agreement, they had kept out of each other’s way as much as
possible, and it had become rare for the house-master to have to find fault
officially with his step-son. But there had never been anything even remotely
approaching friendship between them. Mr. Wain was not a man who inspired
affection readily, least of all in those many years younger than himself. Nor
did he easily grow fond of others. Wyatt he had regarded, from the moment when the
threads of their lives became entangled, as a complete nuisance.

It was
not, therefore, a sorrowful, so much as an exasperated, vigil that he kept in
the dormitory. There was nothing of the sorrowing father about his frame of
mind. He was the house-master about to deal with a mutineer, and nothing else.

This
breaking-out, he reflected wrathfully, was the last straw. Wyatt’s presence had
been a nervous inconvenience to him for years. The time had come to put an end
to it. It was with a comfortable feeling of magnanimity that he resolved not to
report the breach of discipline to the headmaster. Wyatt should not be
expelled. But he should leave, and that immediately. He would write to the bank
before he went to bed, asking them to receive his step-son at once; and the
letter should go by the first post next day. The discipline of the bank would
be salutary and steadying. And—this was a particularly grateful reflection—a
fortnight annually was the limit of the holiday allowed by the management to
its junior employees.

Mr.
Wain had arrived at this conclusion, and was beginning to feel a little
cramped, when Mike Jackson suddenly sat up.

“Hullo
!“ said Mike.

“Go to
sleep, Jackson, immediately,” snapped the house-master.

Mike
had often heard and read of people’s hearts leaping to their mouths, but he had
never before experienced that sensation of something hot and dry springing in
the throat, which is what really happens to us on receipt of a bad shock. A
sickening feeling that the game was up beyond all hope of salvation came to
him. He lay down again without a word.

What a
frightful thing to happen! How on earth had this come about? What in the world
had brought Wain to the dormitory at that hour? Poor old Wyatt! If it had upset
him
(Mike) to see the house-master in the room, what would be the effect
of such a sight on Wyatt, returning from the revels at Neville-Smith’s!

And
what could he do? Nothing. There was literally no way out. His mind went back
to the night when he had saved Wyatt by a brilliant
coup.
The most
brilliant of
coups
could effect nothing mow. Absolutely and entirely the
game was up.

Every minute that passed
seemed like an hour to Mike. Dead silence reigned in the dormitory, broken
every now and then by the creak of the other bed, as the house-master shifted
his position. Twelve boomed across the field from the school chock. Mike could
not help thinking what a perfect night it must be for him to be able to hear
the strokes so plainly. He strained his ears for any indication of Wyatt’s
approach, but could hear nothing. Then a very faint scraping noise broke the
stillness, and presently the patch of moonlight on the floor was darkened.

At that
moment Mr. Wain snapped on his flashlight.

The
unexpected glare took Wyatt momentarily aback. Mike saw him start. Then he
seemed to recover himself. In a calm and leisurely manner he climbed into the
room.

“James!”
said Mr. Wain. His voice sounded ominously hollow.

Wyatt
dusted his knees, and rubbed his hands together.

“Hullo,
is that you, Father!” he said pleasantly.

CHAPTER
XXV

MARCHING ORDERS

A SILENCE followed. To
Mike, lying in bed, holding his breath, it seemed a long silence. As a matter
of fact it lasted for perhaps ten seconds. Then Mr. Wain spoke.

“You
have been out, James?”

It is
curious how in the more dramatic moments of life the inane remark is the first
that comes to us.

“Yes,
sir,” said Wyatt.

“I am
astonished. Exceedingly astonished.”

“I got
a bit of a start myself,” said Wyatt.

“I
shall talk to you in my study. Follow me there.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left
the room, and Wyatt suddenly began to chuckle. “I
say,
Wyatt!” said
Mike, completely thrown off his balance by the events of the night.

Wyatt
continued to giggle helplessly. He flung himself down on his bed, rolling with
laughter. Mike began to get alarmed.

“It’s
all right,” said Wyatt at last, speaking with difficulty. “But, I say, how long
had he been sitting there?”

“It
seemed hours. About an hour, I suppose, really.”

“It’s
the funniest thing I’ve ever struck. Me sweating to get in quietly, and all the
time him camping out on my bed!”

“But
look here, what’ll happen?”

Wyatt
sat up.

“That
reminds me. Suppose I’d better go down.”

“What’ll
he do, do you think?”

“Ah,
now, what!”

“But, I
say, it’s awful. What’ll happen?”

“That’s
for him to decide. Speaking at a venture, I should say—”

“You
don’t think—?”

“The
boot. The swift and sudden boot. I shall be sorry to part with you, but I’m
afraid it’s a case of ‘Au revoir, my little Hyacinth.’ We shall meet at
Philippi. This is my Moscow. Tomorrow I shall go out into the night with one
long, choking sob. Years hence a white-haired bank clerk will tap at your door
when you’re a prosperous professional cricketer with your photograph in
Wisden.
That’ll be me. Well, I suppose I’d better go down. We’d better all get to
bed
some
time tonight. Don’t go to sleep.”

“Not
likely.”

“I’ll
tell you all the latest news when I come back. Where are me slippers? Ha, ‘tis
well! Lead on, then, minions. I follow.”

In the study Mr. Wain was
fumbling restlessly with his papers when Wyatt appeared.

“Sit
down, James,” he said.

Wyatt
sat down. One of his slippers fell off with a clatter. Mr. Wain jumped
nervously.

“Only
my slipper,” exclaimed Wyatt. “It slipped.”

Mr.
Wain took up a pen, and began to tap the table.

“Well,
James?”

Wyatt
said mc thing.

“I
should be glad to hear your explanation of this disgraceful matter.”

“The
fact is—” said Wyatt.

“Well?”

“I
haven’t one, sir.”

“What
were you doing out of your dormitory, out of the house, at that hour?”

“I went
for a walk, sir.”

“And, may
I inquire, are you in the habit of violating the strictest school rules by
absenting yourself from the house during the night?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“What?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“This
is an exceedingly serious matter.”

Wyatt
nodded agreement with this view.

“Exceedingly.”

The pen
rose and fell with the rapidity of the cylinder of a motor-car. Wyatt, watching
it, became suddenly aware that the thing was hypnotizing him. In a minute or
two he would be asleep.

“I wish
you wouldn’t do that, Father. Tap like that, I mean. It’s sending me to sleep.”

“James!”

“It’s
like a woodpecker.”

“Studied
impertinence—”

“I’m
very sorry. Only it
was
sending me off.”

Mr.
Wain suspended tapping operations, and resumed the thread of his discourse.

“I am
sorry, exceedingly, to see this attitude in you, James. It is not fitting. It
is in keeping with your behaviour throughout. Your conduct has been lax and
reckless in the extreme. It is possible that you imagine that the peculiar
circumstances of our relationship secure you from the penalties to which the
ordinary boy—”

“No,
sir.”

“I need
hardly say,” continued Mr. Wain, ignoring the interruption, “that I shall treat
you exactly as I should treat any other member of my house whom I had detected
in the same misdemeanour.”

“Of
course,” said Wyatt, approvingly.

“I must
ask you not to interrupt me when I am speaking to you, James. I say that your
punishment will be no whit less severe than would be that of any other boy. You
have repeatedly proved yourself lacking in ballast and a respect for discipline
in smaller ways, but this is a far more serious matter. Exceedingly so. It is
impossible for me to overlook it, even were I disposed to do so. You are aware
of the penalty for such an action as yours?”