Ivy Compton-Burnett - Two Worlds and Their Ways

“An instance of the all-in-one, indeed,” said Bacon, showing it had done so in his case.

“Couldn’t you run away instead of going home?” said Holland, in whose case it had gone further.

“No, thank you. I prefer the comforts of home to hanging about without a roof over my head.”

“Comforts of home!” said Sturgeon.

“You might stay away just long enough to make them anxious,” said Holland. “Then they might be too relieved to see you, to say much.”

“I have not enough money. And I can’t very well ask for it for that purpose,” said Sefton, implying that for any other it would be forthcoming.

“Ask for it for something else.”

“There is not time. We go home in two days.”

“Well, the sooner it comes, the sooner it will be over,” said Sturgeon.

“True,” said Sefton lightly, unable to imagine the latter stage.

“We could lend you enough between us,” said Bacon. “That is, if you really think it is a wise course.”

“No, thank you. I won’t take it. You will need it on the journey. And, after all, I am accustomed to imposing my own ideas at home.”

“You may find the idea of cheating through a term an exception,” said Bacon.

“Oh, parents don’t use those words about little, trivial, school affairs.”

“I wonder what words the report will use.”

“Two different people will write them, Spode and Bigwell,” said Sefton, on a note of interest. “It will be amusing to see what they make of it.”

“If amusement is your feeling.”

“I suppose you began by wanting to be a success?” said Holland, puzzled by ambition in one under so little pressure to realise it.

“Something of the kind. I really can’t quite explain. The whole thing was a novelty to me. And then the ball gathered force as it rolled. You know how it is.”

“Yes,” said Holland and Sturgeon.

“No, we do not know,” said Bacon. “We are not versed in such courses.”

“What does your brother say about it?” said Holland.

“Oliver? Oh, I don’t know. I daresay he has not heard anything. What is it to do with him?”

“Will you go home with him?” said Sturgeon.

“We shall travel together in the normal way.”

“Couldn’t you intercept the report and destroy it?” said Holland. “It comes in the first few days. You could watch the posts and get hold of it. Your parents might not think of its coming.”

“Hardly worth while,” said Sefton, in a considering manner. “It would waste the first days of the holidays. I should have to think of nothing else.”

“You know you will do that anyhow,” said Bacon. “But it is not worth while to get any deeper in the mire. Your parents might be looking for the report too. It would not do for your all to intercept it together.”

“They would hardly think so much about it. But my brother would know it would come, wouldn’t he? Why he will have to write reports himself. That might put it into his head.”

“It is a good thing that parents do not see the people at the school,” said Holland.

“Or only on festive occasions, when it cannot be called seeing them,” said Sturgeon.

“Or seeing the parents either,” said Bacon.

“The Cassidys will come to us for part of the holidays,” said Sefton. “They are related, you know, connections of some kind, really relations of Oliver’s. But they don’t talk about the school when they are with us. Before I came here I hardly knew they kept one.”

“They must have talked about it, when it was arranged for you to come to it,” said Sturgeon.

“This time you will know that they keep one, and that you are at it,” said Bacon.

“Will you come back next term?” said Holland. “Or will you be expelled?”

“There has not been any talk of it. If I were, my life would be a perpetual holiday. There would be nothing to mind in that.”

“Make no mistake,” said Sturgeon.

“Shelley does not make as many as you think,” said Bacon.

“Wouldn’t you have your tutor again?” said Holland.

“Oh, yes, I suppose I should. Yes, that was a mistake.”

“I wonder if the masters are discussing you at this moment,” said Sturgeon. “I believe people are always talking about what we should expect.”

“They are engaged with their own business,” said Sefton. “I don’t suppose they take so much interest in mine.”

“Your affairs are interesting enough at the moment,” said Bacon. “And I expect they think so. They would not be so different from other people.”

It was Bacon who took the correct view, or took it openly. Sefton was the subject of the talk in the common room, where the group had been joined by Lucius and Juliet.

“Do I understand that the child has cheated through the term?” said Oliver. “For one thing, I should not have thought he had it in him.”

“I agree that he must have a good deal in him,” said Juliet. “Only a resourceful person could have done it. I do not know why he came to school, when he had progressed so far.”

“I wonder if we ought to keep him there,” said Lucius.

“Why should pupils be expelled for wrongdoing? If schools cannot train them, what is their purpose?”

“We must think of his influence over the other boys.”

“Well, that seems to be good. He kept all knowledge of evil from them. It is not his fault, if their ears have been sullied by it.”

“Did you not suspect anything, Spode?” said Oliver.

“Not at first. I pampered him and spoke him honeyed words. Then I saw the cloud as big as a man’s hand. And when he came down so much in his papers, I went to his desk and examined his work. And what I have told you, was made plain.”

“How dreadful to be a child!” said Juliet. “Suppose someone went to our desks and examined our private papers! Because it must be said that these were private.”

“It was leaving him so much to himself, that led to the trouble,” said Lucius. “He should have been treated as a child from the beginning.”

“So he should, if he was going to be in the end.”

“And he hoodwinked you too, Bigwell?” said Oliver.

“Well, I did not think of his having translations,” said Mr. Bigwell, as though this were not a likely line of thought. “He had no opportunity to buy them. He must have had them in his possession.”

“Well, they are not rare things.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Mr. Bigwell, accepting light on the subject.

“I must not say that I wish it had been any other boy,” said Lucius. “But its being the child of relations complicates the issue.”

“Can’t you wish it had been no boy at all?” said his wife. “And why must there be an issue? When we resent parents’ interference in so many things, ought we to demand it in others?”

“Perhaps it is inconsistent.”

“You are clutching at a straw. And when people do that, it does sometimes save them.”

“But how can we write a report with any meaning, without allusion to the matter? And the boy should be checked in his course for his own sake.”

“Are you really thinking what is involved for him? He will not see it as arranged for his benefit.”

“And yet it is, Mrs. Cassidy,” said Mr. Bigwell.

“The report must be written, including my own, as if for any other boy,” said Lucius. “I cannot see my way to anything else. I should only be saving myself.”

“And that, of course, you must not do,” said his wife. “Sefton must be sacrificed to prevent it.”

“The boy looks better for having the strain off his mind,” said Mr. Bigwell, who did not know of the nightly demand on Sefton’s body.

“Did you notice nothing amiss with him, Oliver?” said Lucius.