He replied, "A momentary contact with reality," and she, who did not look for sense in his remarks, hurried away to the dining-hall to announce him.
The dining-hall was not unlike the preparation room. There was the same parquet floor, and dado of shiny pitchpine. On its walls also were imperial portraits, and over the harmonium to which they sang the evening hymns was spread the Union Jack. Sunday dinner, the most pompous meal of the week, was in progress. Her brother sat at the head of the high table, her husband at the head of the second. To each he gave a reassuring nod and went to her own seat, which was among the junior boys. The beef was being carried out; she stopped it. "Mr. Ansell is coming," she called. "Herbert there is more room by you; sit up straight, boys." The boys sat up straight, and a respectful hush spread over the room.
"Here he is!" called Rickie cheerfully, taking his cue from his wife. "Oh, this is splendid!" Ansell came in. "I'm so glad you managed this. I couldn't leave these wretches last night!" The boys tittered suitably. The atmosphere seemed normal. Even Herbert, though longing to hear what had happened to the blackmailer, gave adequate greeting to their guest: "Come in, Mr. Ansell; come here. Take us as you find us!"
"I understood," said Stewart, "that I should find you all. Mrs. Elliot told me I should. On that understanding I came."
It was at once evident that something had gone wrong.
Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then clearing his throat and ruffling his hair, he began—"I cannot see the man with whom I have talked, intimately, for an hour, in your garden."
The worst of it was they were all so far from him and from each other, each at the end of a tableful of inquisitive boys. The two masters looked at Agnes for information, for her reassuring nod had not told them much. She looked hopelessly back.
"I cannot see this man," repeated Ansell, who remained by the harmonium in the midst of astonished waitresses. "Is he to be given no lunch?"
Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings. Rickie knew that the contest was lost, and that his friend had sided with the enemy. It was the kind of thing he would do. One must face the catastrophe quietly and with dignity. Perhaps Ansell would have turned on his heel, and left behind him only vague suspicions, if Mrs. Elliot had not tried to talk him down. "Man," she cried—"what man? Oh, I know—terrible bore! Did he get hold of you?"—thus committing their first blunder, and causing Ansell to say to Rickie, "Have you seen your brother?"
"I have not."
"Have you been told he was here?"
Rickie's answer was inaudible.
"Have you been told you have a brother?"
"Let us continue this conversation later."
"Continue it? My dear man, how can we until you know what I'm talking about? You must think me mad; but I tell you solemnly that you have a brother of whom you've never heard, and that he was in this house ten minutes ago." He paused impressively. "Your wife has happened to see him first. Being neither serious nor truthful, she is keeping you apart, telling him some lie and not telling you a word."
There was a murmur of alarm. One of the prefects rose, and Ansell set his back to the wall, quite ready for a battle. For two years he had waited for his opportunity. He would hit out at Mrs. Elliot like any ploughboy now that it had come. Rickie said: "There is a slight misunderstanding. I, like my wife, have known what there is to know for two years"—a dignified rebuff, but their second blunder.
"Exactly," said Agnes. "Now I think Mr. Ansell had better go."
"Go?" exploded Ansell. "I've everything to say yet. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Elliot, I am concerned with you no longer. This man"—he turned to the avenue of faces—"this man who teaches you has a brother. He has known of him two years and been ashamed. He has—oh—oh—how it fits together! Rickie, it's you, not Mrs. Silt, who must have sent tales of him to your aunt. It's you who've turned him out of Cadover. It's you who've ordered him to be ruined today."
Now Herbert arose. "Out of my sight, sir! But have it from me first that Rickie and his aunt have both behaved most generously. No, no, Agnes, I'll not be interrupted. Garbled versions must not get about. If the Wonham man is not satisfied now, he must be insatiable. He cannot levy blackmail on us for ever. Sir, I give you two minutes; then you will be expelled by force."
"Two minutes!" sang Ansell. "I can say a great deal in that." He put one foot on a chair and held his arms over the quivering room. He seemed transfigured into a Hebrew prophet passionate for satire and the truth. "Oh, keep quiet for two minutes," he cried, "and I'll tell you something you'll be glad to hear. You're a little afraid Stephen may come back. Don't be afraid. I bring good news. You'll never see him nor any one like him again. I must speak very plainly, for you are all three fools. I don't want you to say afterwards, 'Poor Mr. Ansell tried to be clever.' Generally I don't mind, but I should mind today. Please listen. Stephen is a bully; he drinks; he knocks one down; but he would sooner die than take money from people he did not love. Perhaps he will die, for he has nothing but a few pence that the poor gave him and some tobacco which, to my eternal glory, he accepted from me. Please listen again. Why did he come here? Because he thought you would love him, and was ready to love you. But I tell you, don't be afraid. He would sooner die now than say you were his brother. Please listen again—"
"Now, Stewart, don't go on like that," said Rickie bitterly. "It's easy enough to preach when you are an outsider. You would be more charitable if such a thing had happened to yourself. Easy enough to be unconventional when you haven't suffered and know nothing of the facts. You love anything out of the way, anything queer, that doesn't often happen, and so you get excited over this. It's useless, my dear man; you have hurt me, but you will never upset me. As soon as you stop this ridiculous scene we will finish our dinner. Spread this scandal; add to it. I'm too old to mind such nonsense. I cannot help my father's disgrace, on the one hand; nor, on the other, will I have anything to do with his blackguard of a son."
So the secret was given to the world. Agnes might colour at his speech; Herbert might calculate the effect of it on the entries for Dunwood House; but he cared for none of these things. Thank God! he was withered up at last.
"Please listen again," resumed Ansell. "Please correct two slight mistakes: firstly, Stephen is one of the greatest people I have ever met; secondly, he's not your father's son. He's the son of your mother."
It was Rickie, not Ansell, who was carried from the hall, and it was Herbert who pronounced the blessing—
"Benedicto benedicatur."
A profound stillness succeeded the storm, and the boys, slipping away from their meal, told the news to the rest of the school, or put it in the letters they were writing home.
XXVIII
The soul has her own currency. She mints her spiritual coinage and stamps it with the image of some beloved face. With it she pays her debts, with it she reckons, saying, "This man has worth, this man is worthless." And in time she forgets its origin; it seems to her to be a thing unalterable, divine. But the soul can also have her bankruptcies.
Perhaps she will be the richer in the end. In her agony she learns to reckon clearly. Fair as the coin may have been, it was not accurate; and though she knew it not, there were treasures that it could not buy. The face, however beloved, was mortal, and as liable as the soul herself to err. We do but shift responsibility by making a standard of the dead.
There is, indeed, another coinage that bears on it not man's image but God's. It is incorruptible, and the soul may trust it safely; it will serve her beyond the stars. But it cannot give us friends, or the embrace of a lover, or the touch of children, for with our fellow mortals it has no concern. It cannot even give the joys we call trivial—fine weather, the pleasures of meat and drink, bathing and the hot sand afterwards, running, dreamless sleep. Have we learnt the true discipline of a bankruptcy if we turn to such coinage as this? Will it really profit us so much if we save our souls and lose the whole world?