Chapter IX In the Pillory
The somewhat strained situation brought about by Mr Jefferson’s remark was suddenly relieved by a loud scream, and then a volume of shrill protest from Mary, who appeared, judging by the sound of her voice, to be in close proximity to the drawing-room door.
“Shut hup, Master Frank—give hover, I say. Your pa shall ’ear of this——”
Master Frank jeered rudely. “Bah, tell-! Don’t care if he does!”
“Oh!” shrieked Mary, “it’s bitin’ me. Take it off, Master Frank!”
Mr Maybury walked to the door and, opening it, looked into the hall.
“What is the matter, Mary—why are you making so much noise?” he inquired.
“Master Frank put a beetle on my neck,” whimpered Mary.
“Didn’t,” said Frank.
“Don’t tell an untruth, Frank,” his father warned him. “Did you or did you not put a beetle on Mary’s neck?”
“It was a spider,” admitted Frank, who, tease and scapegrace as he was, had not yet developed into that most difficult of persons to deal with—a liar.
“It was something crawly, and I thought it was a beetle,” said Mary; “he keeps beetles,” she added, in a tone conveying painfully correct knowledge on the point.
“Apologise at once to Mary,” Mr Maybury commanded his son.
“Don’t see why I should,” muttered the rebellious youth.
“Very well, then—you will not go to the theatre to-night with Mr Jefferson and Dora.”
The younger Miss Maybury, blushing somewhat (Jim noted the fact with a sinking heart), hastened to the scene of reprimand. “Oh, Frank—say you are sorry. You must come to-night.”
Mr Jefferson, with his eye on the old-fashioned chandelier, fervently hoped that Frank would remain obstinately unrepentant.
“I’m—er—sorry,” said Frank, stiffly.
“Dear Frank—I knew you would!” said Dora, flinging her arms round her brother’s neck and bestowing a kiss of gratitude upon his brow.
“Here—chuck that!” cried Frank, shaking himself free. “What time must I be ready by?” he added.
“We shall start directly after dinner—I’m going up to dress now,” cried Dora, and so the group separated, Frank and his sister proceeding upstairs, Mary descending to the kitchen—where Miss H. R. Maybury was preparing the evening meal—and Mr Maybury returning to the drawing-room.
“That boy,” exclaimed Miss Bird, in a loud, nutmeg-grating tone, “ought to be sent to a reformatory.”
Mrs Maybury turned on her lady boarder with asperity.
“You will oblige me, Miss Bird, by moderating your language when speaking of Frank.”
“Idle, graceless young rascal!” added Miss Bird, who was not at all afraid of Mrs Maybury.
“Of course,” said Mrs Maybury, with a contemptuous glance at her husband, “if the boy’s father allows him to be spoken of in this way, I, who am only his stepmother——”
“Miss Bird is a little severe in her strictures, but I am afraid something must shortly be done to curb Frank’s insubordination,” said Mr Maybury with admirable tact.
“Try him with a whipping and dry bread and water for a week,” snarled Miss Bird, who disliked children generally, and abominated Master Maybury.
“Pardon?” inquired Mr Cleave, who had sat through all the clamour deep in a bilious-looking periodical called The Total Abstainer. Mr Cleave, it should be added, was a little deaf. As, on looking up, he found Miss Bird scowling at him, he concluded that she had addressed him.
“—Bread and water for a week!” shouted Miss Bird, irritably. She hated having to repeat anything, and the case was made worse in Mr Cleave’s case by the defect in his hearing.
“Water?” Mr Cleave nodded and smiled. “Certainly—plenty of water. Are you an abstainer, sir?” he concluded, turning to Jim, whose name he had not properly caught when they were introduced.
“Not I,” replied Jim heartily.
Mr Cleave blinked severely.
“You sometimes fall into deadly sin by polluting your lips with alcoholic liquor?” he inquired.
“I occasionally have a drink,” acknowledged Jim.
Gradually a very pained and shocked expression stole over Mr Cleave’s cadaverous countenance. For Mr Cleave, as need hardly be explained, was a fanatic on the liquor question—the kind of ill-balanced enthusiast that does his cause more harm than good by his unbridled and immoderate denunciations of the evil he wishes to abolish. He gazed upon Jim with wonder and shame, and then, deeming him too hardened to be affected by remonstrance, turned for comfort to the pages of The Total Abstainer, and particularly to that part where notorious cases of drunkenness were set down under the kind, Christian-like heading of “OUR PILLORY.”
While these remarks were being passed, Mr Jefferson, who had dressed for the theatre before he went to meet Dora, had been turning over the pages of a magazine and occasionally stealing a glance at Jim. For he was rather puzzled at finding the latter at No. 9. He was—it must be remembered—entirely ignorant concerning Jim’s identity. He had seen Jim before, it was true, when visiting the Exhibition with Dora and her sister, and had looked diligently in the paper for several days afterwards to see what sort of punishment had been meted out to the turbulent youth, but had failed to glean any information there, thanks to the absolute silence Koko’s press friends had maintained on the subject.
So, gradually, the incident faded out of Mr Jefferson’s mind, and he had forgotten all about it when he entered Mr Maybury’s house on this particular evening, to find himself face to face with the disturber of the peace whose toes he had trodden on some ten days since—and whose pardon he had so unwisely omitted to beg.
Jefferson was the son of a wealthy City man. He enjoyed a liberal allowance, golfed, motored, and ploughed the smooth waters of the Thames in a steam-launch. He did everything, in fact, which cost money. Golf is not a cheap game as played in clubs round London; motoring is not a poor man’s hobby; a steam-launch is a fairly expensive toy. Football and cricket are trifles light as air—from an expenditure point of view—compared with the pastimes Mr Jefferson followed. Mr Jefferson might have played football and cricket, for he was only twenty-six, but he preferred pursuits which betokened him to be the possessor of a well-filled purse. When he referred to his recreations he endeavoured to make it clear to his listeners that he had been out in his own motor-car, and that he had not been churning the pleasant reaches of Henley and Maidenhead at the invitation of any whisky baronet or tea and coffee knight. He had been, if you please, in his own launch. An unkind City acquaintance of his had once wondered—audibly—why Jefferson didn’t have the receipted bill for his launch pasted on the exterior of the craft, just under her name. This was unkind, but they say very unkind things about and to each other in the City. The Stock Exchange—of which the Messrs Jefferson, father and son, were both members—is as merciless in its chaff as a public school. Which, as my public school readers will agree, is speaking very highly of the Stock Exchange.
For the rest, Mr Jefferson could make himself exceedingly agreeable when he liked, and as he was good-looking, attentive, gentlemanly, and always well dressed, it was not surprising that he had managed to make an impression on Dora’s girlish and inexperienced mind. To tell the truth, Mr Jefferson had come to the conclusion that Dora would be his for the asking, and, therefore, was not going to hurry himself over the matter. She was a charming girl—the most charming girl he had ever met—and he admired her immensely. Possibly he would have been deeply in love with her by this time had she not always received him with a smile of genuine welcome and accepted his invitations to go here and there, and see this and that, with unconcealed delight. After the drudgery of the post-office counter, and the doubtful joys offered by her home circle, Mr Jefferson’s society came as a very pleasant relief to Dora. Whenever they went out together he spent his money handsomely and gave her of the best—and Dora was accordingly grateful and quite prepared to whisper a tender affirmative when Harold Jefferson asked her to be his wife.
So stood the matter when Jefferson drove her home—she had begged off from her work early, at his request—this September evening. So stood the matter when Dora entered the drawing-room and was introduced to “Dr Mortimer.”
When Harold Jefferson, following Dora at a leisurely pace, heard Jim say that he had met Miss Maybury before, he pricked up his ears. And when, on entering the drawing-room, he saw who the gentleman was that had met Dora before, a vague but distinct feeling of annoyance came over him. He had met Jim in the inimical manner already described, and, as he turned over the pages of the magazine, made up his mind to take an early opportunity to inform Mrs Maybury of the part this new boarder—Jefferson presumed Jim was a new boarder—had lately played before a large and interested audience.
Presently Dora and Frank came downstairs. The former looked prettier than ever in a white dress—with a pearl necklace, a gift Of Mr Jefferson’s, round her fair neck, and some other tiny shining ornament in her hair. Frank looked unusually clean and dapper in his best suit, Dora having tied a neat bow for him and generally supervised his toilet.
Dora seated herself on the arm of her father’s chair, and stroked the thin hair on his head in the caressing way both pretty and plain daughters are often pleased to exhibit. Once only Dora stole a shy and somewhat apprehensive glance at Jim. She had recognised Jim’s voice directly he spoke to Mr Jefferson at the Exhibition, and had turned her face away, as she did not desire Jim, on the strength of his introduction to her earlier in the day, to address her whilst he was in such a quarrelsome mood.
And now—here he was—this Mr (or Dr) Mortimer—under her own father’s roof; and here, too, was Mr Jefferson, who had already expressed his feelings with regard to this Mr (or Dr) Mortimer. Under the peculiar circumstances, Dora had no desire to enter into conversation with Jim, and so took shelter—as girls so often, and so wisely, do—under the paternal wing.
Frank, however, had no reason to avoid Mr Mortimer. He rather admired him for the easy way he had picked up his portmanteau and shouldered it upstairs. A real boy admires a strong man, and Frank was a real boy enough—suffering, at present, from being too much at home—for his summer holidays were only just over. So he seated himself by Jim.
“I say, Dr Mortimer,” he said at length, “would you mind telling me how tall you are?”
Jim was genially glad of somebody to talk to.
“Six foot four,” he replied.
“I say! Do you like being so tall?”
“Don’t mind it,” said Jim; “knock my head rather too often, perhaps.”
Frank laughed. “There’s a master at my school almost as tall as you,” he proceeded, “but much broader.”
“Indeed!” said Jim, who frequently had to listen to comparisons of this sort.
“Well,” continued Frank, surveying Jim with a critical eye, “I don’t know whether he’s much broader. You are rather broad, aren’t you? But he’s much fatter. They say he weighs eighteen stone. What do you weigh?”
“Frank,” said Mrs Maybury, “don’t ask such personal questions, dear.”
Dora smiled. She was listening in a not uninterested way to her brother’s ingenuous remarks.
“Oh, I don’t mind, Mrs Maybury,” said Jim; “I go just over thirteen stone,” he added, addressing Frank.
The boy looked thoughtful. Presently he said: “Can you fight well, Dr Mortimer?”
He asked the question in all innocence, for Dora had not breathed a word about Jim’s performance at the Exhibition.
“I don’t like fighting,” replied Jim; “I am afraid of my nose bleeding.”
Frank gazed at him with suspicion. Then, as Jim’s face remained quite grave, Frank’s grew scornful. Afraid of his nose bleeding! That was a nice thing for a man of six feet four to say!
To what extent Frank might have continued his interrogations we can only vaguely surmise, but at this point Miss Bird—who had been much irritated by Frank’s inquisitive treble tones—dashed into the breach.
“And what, Mr Cleave,” she asked, “are the cases in your ‘Pillory’ this week? Anything of an exceptional nature?”
Mr Cleave came to life with a convulsive start. He had been absorbed in a series of reports supplied by the Abstainer’s special commissioner from the London police-courts.
“Pardon?” he asked. “Didn’t catch——”
Miss Bird snapped her teeth, which came together much as a man-trap would close on an unfortunate poacher’s leg.
“‘Pillory!’ What’s the worst case?” she bawled.
“Oh! The cases in ‘Our Pillory’?” bleated Mr Cleave.
“Yes! Read ’em out!” Miss Bird returned in a saw-like, rasping growl.
Mr Cleave turned over the pages of The Total Abstainer with evident relish.
“The worst,” he said, in a high, thin voice, “is one that our commissioner only heard by unexpected good fortune. He does not often go westwards. He finds that Bow Street and Whitechapel bring more grist——”
“Read it out!” shouted Miss Bird.
“A piteous example of what over-indulgence in alcohol may bring a man to (read Mr Cleave) was afforded by a case which came before our notice one day last week in the Kensington Police Court. The degraded being, who faced the magistrate with an unabashed gaze, was a young doctor named Mortimer, who gave as his address a place of mercy and healing—the Hospital of St Matthew.”
“By George!” exclaimed Jim, “that’s how our local rag got hold of it! Copied it out of your paper.”
“Pardon?” observed Mr Cleave.
“Go on!” roared Miss Bird.
“The facts were few but terrible (continued Mr Cleave). This member of a noble calling, inflamed and rendered reckless of all consequences by the Bend aforesaid, actually made a ferocious onslaught on a band of six policemen. In a fair pleasure garden he let loose his unruly passions, and only after a terrific struggle was he captured, handcuffed, and thrust into a cell——”
“They locked you up, then?” inquired Jefferson, glancing maliciously at Jim.
“Not they,” said Jim; “I was let out on bail.”
Miss Bird turned sharply round and glared into Jim’s face.
“Are you the person referred to in that report?” she demanded.
“I am,” said Jim.
A silence fell on the room. Even the dim-of-hearing Mr Cleave appreciated the situation, and understood that the lately arrived Dr Mortimer was identical with the prime villain of the “Pillory” that week.
“Pray continue, Mr Cleave,” said Jefferson at length, with a curl of his lip; “I am sure Dr Mortimer does not mind.”
Mr Cleave was bending over the paper again, when an interruption came from an unthought-of quarter. Mr Maybury rose to his feet.
“I do not think,” he said, “that Mr Cleave had better proceed with his reading.”
“Nonsense!” said Jefferson. “Go ahead, Mr Cleave.”
“For the sake of the Cause, Mr Maybury,” piped Cleave, “I wish to——”
“I am master of this house,” said the ruined manufacturer, who, generally so mild and retiring, now spoke with unfaltering firmness, “and I say that no man shall be insulted to his face under my roof. You will oblige me, Mr Cleave, by not reading another word of that report. Frank, go and see if dinner is ready.”