The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (15 page)

Mr. Brett stared at her; an idea was stirring in his mind. It was an idea of some desperation, but then desperate situations demanded desperate measures.

Desperate situations demand desperate measures. Sorley was starving again. His extraordinary benefactor seemed to have been gone for hours. All day he'd remained in the little room, waited on hand and foot by the curious Mr. Raven. Whenever he'd asked to go out, Mr. Raven had warned and begged him to remain where he was as he was in great danger. Mr. Raven never said what this danger was, but his manner put the fear of God into Sorley. He had known all about the visit of Dr. Harris to the school, and when Sorley had told him about the powder he had been given, Mr. Raven had looked very troubled and grave.

This seemingly supernatural piece of knowledge had alarmed Sorley still further and he obeyed Mr. Raven willingly. Though people might have called him a fool, he certainly wasn't foolhardy, and anyway, Mr. Raven treated him so well. Sorley had never known such gentleness and even deference before. Toward afternoon he'd begun to gain in confidence and quite put on airs. He found himself rather enjoying lording it in this little kingdom with
its view of the sea. It tickled him no end to see Mr. Raven clump about on menial errands so readily.

That was why he began to feel alarmed and desperate when Mr. Raven was gone so long for his supper. It wasn't like him to keep Sorley waiting.

Sorley scowled and went to the door. The loud, angry voices he'd heard before had now subsided into a murmur. He opened the door. He remembered the way he'd come up. He wouldn't be so silly as to risk those stairs. He smiled cunningly, and went down the back stairs.

“
Sorley!
” roared Mr. Brett. “Come here, boy!”

DESPITE THE VIGOR
of the gale that rattled the windows and buffeted the doors, the relief and joy on Sorley's return produced a burst of sunshine in almost every heart, Mrs. Bunnion and Major Alexander alone having slight reservations.

Though she would certainly never have wished Sorley ill, his untimely return presented Mrs. Bunnion with an unpleasant problem. Uncomfortably she watched her husband congratulating himself on the narrowness of his escape from an awkward and painful situation. Unfortunately, though he did not at present know it, he had not quite escaped. The servant who had taken Mrs. Bunnion's letter to Cuckfield had returned to her with the murmured news that Sir Walter Sorley would be arriving
tomorrow. She sighed. She did not care to think how her husband would take what he would surely regard as an unwarranted going behind his back. Like all weak men—and Dr. Bunnion
was
a weak man—he was apt to be indiscriminate in his anger and not pause to think.

Though considering the matter narrowly, Mrs. Bunnion was willing to admit that she
had
gone behind her husband's back, but it was only because, at the time, he'd been facing the wrong way. After all, he should have written the letter himself and not left it to her sense of fitness and duty. Supposing the worst had happened and Sorley had not been found, what then? Where would the headmaster have been if his wife had not written her timely letter? And now, because of the merest chance on Mr. Brett's part, Dr. Bunnion would never appreciate what a treasure he had in his wife. Anger would blind and destroy his judgment.

If only Mr. Brett had had the decency to wait another day, even . . . The more she thought of it, the harder she found it not to dislike the interfering way he'd come between husband and wife. Much as she despised Major Alexander, she couldn't help agreeing with him that the sooner Mr. Brett went the better it would be for the school.

As for the Major himself, he was bitterly disappointed in the lack of resolution shown by Dr. Bunnion, who now showered such esteem and gratitude on Mr. Brett that the Major felt quite sickened by it. Like all sly, furtive, and underhanded men, Mr.
Brett had a gift for ingratiating himself at the expense of his betters.

“Very well done, Brett,” said the Major warmly during the evening. “Delighted it should have been you who found him. Couldn't have happened to a nicer man!”

No matter what he thought privately of a man, the Major always believed in giving praise where it was due—or even where it wasn't, for that matter, so long as it served a worthwhile purpose.

The Major was fighting desperately to save his honor, and if at times he suspected that his conduct did not appear entirely straightforward, he knew it was because honor was the hardest of taskmasters and demanded the cruelest of sacrifices. As Mr. Brett was the particular sacrifice he still had in mind, he did not spare himself in his efforts to catch him unawares.

Mr. Brett smiled gratefully. He was in that state of mind when all the world was goodness and every man a friend. Had Tizzy Alexander come in his way that evening, he would undoubtedly have swept her up in his arms and put out the lights in her eyes and the fire in her lips with kisses that extinguished only to rekindle. But Dr. Bunnion kept plying him with port and congratulations till gradually he sank beneath both.

Then Dr. Bunnion went once more to reassure himself that Sorley's return was not a dream, after which he retired to bed, where Mrs. Bunnion overwhelmed him with such tenderness and affection
as he had not known since the first nights of their marriage. “My dear,” he murmured. “Life is so good . . .”

Mrs. Bunnion, veil-eyed in the dimness, smiled enigmatically, and trusted that her efforts would have kindled such a flame in her husband's heart that no unpleasantness to come would quite put it out.

Certainly it lasted through Friday morning. Though the sky was full of dark clouds scudding toward London like black coaches stuffed with letters of dismay, Dr. Bunnion went his way in a private sunshine. Not even the thought of the morrow's duel overcast as much as it might have done. The vanishing of one shadow from his life went a long way toward dispelling the other, and he promised himself that he would apply himself vigorously to halting the whole insane venture—after lunch.

On his way down from Religious Instruction, which he'd left for the few remaining minutes in the charge of the most trustworthy pupil, he came upon Mrs. Bunnion who was unaccountably lingering in the hall. He twinkled his eyes with an almost mischievous knowingness. Life was so good . . .

Mrs. Bunnion smiled back with all the sweet mystery of a lovely woman whose powers are about to be put to the test. She had, at that very moment, seen Sir Walter Sorley dismount from his steaming horse and make for the door.

Fleetingly she wondered if she ought to prepare her husband for the blow that was about to fall, but before she could decide, it fell. The baronet had
knocked, been admitted and called Dr. Bunnion a damned scoundrel who needed horsewhipping.

It had all been frighteningly sudden. Who had let him in was not very clear to Mrs. Bunnion. Perhaps she'd done so herself? He stood in the hall, panting and sweating slightly from the healthful exercise of his ride and demanding that a servant should attend to his horse. He did this with a directness that implied pretty strongly that if no one else was available Mrs. Bunnion herself should oblige.

He was a strong, upright-looking man, not so tall as Dr. Bunnion, but broader across the shoulders. His brow also was on the massive side, and his heavy, almost handsome face had an expression of natural authority. He was, in truth, what he was always proud to call himself: an English country gentleman of the old school. It may not have been a very good school, but all such gentlemen seem to have gone to it.

“Bunnion! I trusted my boy to you, and now you've betrayed that trust! What the devil are you doing about finding him? Answer me, sir! Don't just stand there!”

Mrs. Bunnion looked to her husband in alarm. Although he was, as Sir Walter observed, standing, he was swaying slightly, as might some tall forest tree that has received the fatal stroke of the woodman's axe and totters before crashing to its ruin. A glazed and terrified look was in his eyes and he passed his hand across them.

Who had done this thing to him? Incredulously he
stared at the baronet. How had the news reached him? Who had betrayed him? Some venomous servant, perhaps? Someone who ached for his destruction? Someone who hated him with a cold and implacable hatred?

All this Mrs. Bunnion read in her stricken husband's face, and her heart almost failed within her. How—
how
could she reveal to him that the vicious traitor was his gentle lover—the companion of his days and the comfort of his nights? That the hand that had written the fatal letter was the selfsame hand that had so sweetly caressed him? How could she strike him to the ground when he was in most need of support?

She could not do it. There comes a time when truth is no longer the shining sword of the angels, but rather the arrogant axe of the butcher. So Mrs. Bunnion trembled and held her tongue and prayed for a miracle to save her from discovery.

“My dear Sir Walter—my dear Sir Walter—” moaned Dr. Bunnion, “I—I—” Then he was spared further explanation as the pupils came out to lunch. They roared and tumbled and thundered from their several classrooms and united in a single stream of immense force that flowed toward the wooden extension of the kitchen where the day boys ate.

“Papa!” shouted Sorley, and Sir Walter stared in angry bewilderment at his son.

“He—he was recovered yesterday,” mouthed Mrs. Bunnion faintly above the din.

“Then why the devil wasn't I told?” The baronet's
anger had taken another turn. Though no one could have questioned the depth of his feelings for his son, this sudden sight of him had thrown the baronet quite off course. During his great ride he had worked himelf up into a state of almost pleasurable anticipation at the thought of browbeating the Bunnions. He was, at heart, a simple man and had simple pleasures. Now the unexpected sight of his son thwarted him and made him feel unnecessary and foolish.

Futilely Dr. Bunnion tried to explain that it had all been a schoolboy prank . . . no cause for real alarm . . . in fact one of his own people had brought the boy back quite unharmed . . . everything all right now . . . and what a pleasure and indeed an honor to have Sir Walter visit, even though, as it turned out, unnecessarily . . . would he care to stay to lunch?

“So you panicked, eh?” said Sir Walter, glancing contemptuously from husband to wife as the last of the boys eddied around him like a small ripple around an old pile. “Thought you'd lost your prize pig, eh?” Here he nodded to the portly Sorley who remained beside him. Suddenly he grinned. “Shouldn't wonder if you filled your breeches, eh, Bunnion?” He laughed, then observing that Mrs. Bunnion had gone very red, added, “Saving the lady's presence, eh? But I expect she knows what's what!”

Mrs. Bunnion curtsied feebly in acknowledgment. There was no doubt that Sir Walter, despite his rough exterior, was one of nature's gentlemen. In the farmyard anyone might have told him apart from
the pigs; it was only in company that there might have been some difficulty.

He stayed to lunch. There was enough to eat, as Mrs. Bunnion had no appetite. The discovery of her treachery had not yet been made and she had felt quite ill with apprehension. Once or twice her husband had muttered to her: “Who could have told him? Who could have been so vile?” but she'd shaken her head and had been unable to answer him, so Dr. Bunnion had lapsed into a state of listless despair in which the only consolation seemed to be that matters could get no worse.

But here he was mistaken. Sorley was stabbing him in the back. In order to ingratiate himself with his sport-loving father, the fat boy was telling him about the approaching duel. Despite all the headmaster's efforts, it had proved impossible to keep the affair from the pupils. Major Alexander had discovered that wagers were actually being laid among the boys, and he had been mortified to learn that the odds were heavily against him.

Now Dr. Bunnion was forced to sit and listen in helpless shame as Sorley acquainted his father with the affair in all its sordid details. He was amazed how much the boy had found out, and how his miserable brain had retained it all.

Dr. Bunnion knew he was done for. Nothing could survive such a scandal. The school would have to close. God knew how he could make a living. Not even an obscure curacy in some dingy parish would be open to him after this. The scoundrel who'd
informed Sir Walter had done his work well. He was ruined beyond recall. But who—who could it have been?

He stared stonily down the table, and chanced to see Mr. Brett smiling to himself as if some private dream was about to come true. What dream? Then he saw Major Alexander frowning at Mr. Brett distastefully. Suddenly he recalled how the Major had warned him about Brett being furtive and sly.

“Brett!” he whispered to his wife. “It must have been Brett!”

“Oh, no!” breathed Mrs. Bunnion. “I'm sure—he couldn't—oh, never! I can't believe it! Not Mister Brett?”

“Brett!” repeated Dr. Bunnion bitterly, and Mrs. Bunnion, feeling it hopeless to argue with her husband in his present mood, shrank back and let matters take what course they would.

In her heart she knew she was acting unwisely—that no scapegoat could or even should save her. But she was drowning and when a straw hove into view, she was inclined to clutch at it regardless of its propriety in holding her up.

“And where's that young stallion Ralph?” asked Sir Walter amiably. “A good lad even if he is only a schoolmaster's son.”

Sir Walter did not mean to be offensive. He honestly liked Ralph and was well aware of the Bunnions' hopes concerning the lad and his daughter Maud. Frankly, he wasn't opposed to the match. Though a baronet, he was not a rich man and could spare little
in the way of a dowry for his child. In fact, whoever took her off his hands would have to take her as she stood, with nothing but her shift and his noble name. If that was all right by the Bunnions, it was all right by him. Sir Walter, whatever faults some might have seen in him, was no snob. God in heaven! He'd sent his son to be educated alongside a riff-raff of tradesmen's brats! If his daughter married beneath her, he wouldn't break his heart, and the lad was well set up and would, most likely, breed clean.