Chapter Twenty Eight.

Falling Away.

Oh deeper dole!
That so august a spirit, sphered so fair,
Should from the starry sessions of his peers,
Decline to quench so bright a brilliancy
In hell’s sick spume. Ay me, the deeper dole!
 
Tannhauser.

It was generally on Sundays that boys walked in the croft with those who were, and whom they wished to be considered as, their most intimate and confidential friends. To one who knew anything of the boys’ characters, it was most curious and suggestive to observe the groups into which they spontaneously formed themselves. The sets at Saint Winifred’s were not very exclusive or very accurately defined; and one boy might, by virtue of different sympathies or accomplishments, belong to two or three sets at once. Still there were some sets whose outermost circles barely touched each other; and hitherto the friends among whom Kenrick had chiefly moved would never have associated intimately with the fellows among whom Harpour was considered as the leading spirit.

It was therefore with no little surprise that Mr Percival, who with Mr Paton passed through the croft on his Sunday stroll, observed Kenrick—not with his usual companions, Power or Walter or Whalley—but arm in arm with Harpour and Tracy, and accompanied by one or two other boys of similar character. It immediately explained to him much that had taken place. He had heard vague rumours of the part Kenrick had taken at the meeting; he had heard both from him and from Walter that they were no longer on good terms with each other; but now it was further plain to him that Kenrick was breaking loose from all his old moorings, and sailing into the open sea of wilfulness and pride.

“What are you so much interested about?” asked Mr Paton, as his colleague followed the boys with his glance.

“I am wondering how and why this change has come over Kenrick.”

“What change?”

“Don’t you see with whom he is walking? Oh, I forgot that you never notice that kind of outer life among the boys; on the other hand, I always do; it helps me to understand these fellows, and do more for them than I otherwise could.”

“You observe them to some purpose, Percival, at any rate, for your influence among them is wonderful—as I have occasion to discover every now and then.”

“But Kenrick puzzles me. ‘Nemo repente fuit turpissimus’ one used to think; yet that boy has dropped from the society of such a noble fellow as Power, with his exquisite mind and manners, plumb into the abyss of intimacy with Harpour. There must be something all wrong.”

A very little observation showed Mr Percival that his conjectures about Kenrick were correct. Clever as he was, his work deteriorated rapidly; the whole expression of his countenance changed for the worse; he was implicated more than once in very questionable transactions; he lost caste among the best and most honourable fellows, and proportionately gained influence among the worst and lowest lot in the school, whose idol and hero he gradually became. His descent was sudden, because his character had always been unstable. The pride and passion which were mollified and restrained as long as he had moved with wise and upright companions, broke forth with violence when once he fancied himself slighted, and had committed himself to a course which he well knew to be wrong. There was one who conjectured much of this at a very early period. It was Kenrick’s mother; his letters always indicated the exact state of his thoughts and feelings; and Mrs Kenrick knew that the coldness and recklessness which had lately marked them were proofs that her boy was going wrong. The violence, too, with which he spoke of Evson, and the indications that he had dropped his old friends and taken up with new and worse companions, filled her mind with anxiety and distress; yet what could she do, poor lady, in her lonely home? There was one thing only that she could do for him in her weakness; and those outpourings of sorrowful and earnest prayer were not in vain.

Mr Percival tried to make some effort to save Kenrick from the wrong courses which he had adopted; he asked him quietly to come and take a glass of wine after dinner; but the interview only made matters worse. Kenrick, not undated by his popularity among the lower forms as a champion of the supposed “rights” of the school, chose to adopt an independent and almost patronising tone towards his tutor; he entered in a jaunty manner, and glancing carelessly over the table, declined to take any of the fruit to which the master invited him to help himself. He determined to be as uncommunicative as possible; avoided all conversation, and answered Mr Percival’s questions on all subjects by monosyllables, uttered in a disrespectful and nonchalant tone. Yet all the while he despised himself and was ill at ease. He knew the deep kindness of the master’s intentions, and felt that he ought to be grateful for the interest shown towards him; but it required a stronger power and a different method from his own, to exorcise from his heart the devil of self-will; and besides this, it cannot be denied that in the first bloom and novelty of sin, in the free exercise of an insolent liberty, there is a sense of pleasure for many hearts; it is the honey on the rim of the poison-cup, the bloom on the Dead Sea apple, the mirage on the scorching waste.

Mr Percival understood him thoroughly, and saw that he must be left to the bitter teachings of experience. Always fond of Kenrick, he had never been blind to his many faults of character, and was particularly displeased with his present manner, which he knew to be only adopted on purpose to baffle any approach to advice or warning.

“Good morning, Kenrick,” he said, rising rather abruptly, while a slight smile of pity rested on his lips.

“Good morning, sir,” said Kenrick; and as he rose in an airy manner to leave the room, Mr Percival put a hand on each of the boy’s shoulders, and looked him steadily in the face. Kenrick tried to meet the look, not with the old open gaze of frank and innocent confidence, but with an expression half shrinking, half defiant. His eyes fell immediately, and satisfied by this perusal of his features that Kenrick was going wrong, Mr Percival said only this—

“Your face, my boy, is as a book where men
May read strange matters.”

Kenrick had tried to be off-hand and patronising in manner, but the attempt had failed egregiously, and he felt very uncomfortable as he left the room where he had so often met with kindness, and which he never entered on the same terms again.

Meanwhile our two invalids, Walter and Eden, recovered but slowly. But for the kindness of every one about them their hours would have passed very wearily in the sickroom. Their tedium was enlivened by constant visits from Henderson and Power, who never failed to interest Walter by their school news, and especially by telling of those numerous little incidents which tended to show that although after the late excitements there was a certain detumescence, still the general effect had been to arouse a spirit of opposition to all constituted authority. Kenrick’s name was sometimes on their lips, but as they could not speak of him favourably, and as the subject was a painful one, they rarely talked much about him.

Among other visitors was Dr Lane, who, as well as Mrs Lane, showed great solicitude about them. The Doctor, who had been told by Dr Keith that, but for Walter’s tender nursing, Eden’s case might have assumed a far more dangerous complexion, lent them interesting books and pictures, and often came for a few minutes to exchange some kind words with them. Mrs Lane asked them to the Lodge, read to them, sang to them, played chess and draughts with them, and often gave them drives in her carriage. These little gracious acts of simple kindness won the hearts of both the boys, and hastened their convalescence.

Sometimes Walter was allowed to take Eden for a stroll on the shore during school hours, when there was no danger of their being excited or interrupted by the boisterous society of other boys. There was one favourite spot where the two often sat reading and talking. It was by the mouth of the little river—a green knoll sheltered under the rising hills, to the very feet of which the little waves came rippling musically as the summer tide flowed in. And here Eden would lie down at full length on the soft grass, and doze quietly, while the gentle breeze lifted his fair hair from his forehead with refreshful coolness; or he would listen while Walter read to him some stirring ballad or pleasant tale.

And thus in the course of a fortnight Walter was himself again, and Eden, not long after, was so far recovered as to be allowed to join his schoolfellows in the usual routine. He was, however, removed with Walter, and Henderson, and Power, to another dormitory, which they had to themselves; and the promise of this, relieving his mind from a constant source of dread, helped him to recover. The boys, too, conscious how great a wrong had been done to him, received him back among them with unusual consideration and delicate kindness. They pitied him heartily. It was impossible not to do so when they looked at his wan, sad face, so changed in expression; and when they observed his timid, shrinking manner, and the tremor which came over him at any sudden sight or sound. So every voice was softened when they spoke to him, and the manner of even the roughest boys became to him affectionate and even caressing. If any had felt inclined to side with Harpour against the monitors before, the sight of Eden went far to alter their convictions.

Yet the poor child was never happy except when he was in Walter’s society, and in Power’s study. Even there he was changed. The bright merry laugh which once rang out incessantly was rarely or never heard now; and a somewhat sad smile was all that could be elicited from him. He seemed, too, to have lost for a time all his old interest in work. The form competition had no further attraction for him; the work seemed irksome, and he had no spirits to join in any game. Once Power kindly rallied him on his general listlessness, but Eden only looked up at him appealingly, and said, while the weak tears overflowed his eyes, “Don’t be angry with me, Power, I can’t help it; I don’t feel quite, right yet. O, Power, I’m afraid you’ll never like me again as you did.”

“Why, Arty, your illness is all the more reason why I should.”

“But, Power, I shall never be the same as I once was. It seems as if some light had gone out and left me in the dark.”

“Nonsense, Arty; the summer holidays will bring you round again.”

But Eden only shook his head, and muttered something about Colonel Braemar not being kind to him and his little sister.

“Do you think they would let you come and stay part of the holidays with us?”

Eden brightened up in a moment, and promised to write and ask.