The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (4 page)

“Are you sure, Harris?” whispered Bostock, dimly sensing the enormous disaster and struggling to deny it. For answer, Harris glared at his friend with terrible eyes set in a face beside which the pallid moon was rosy. Of course he was sure. What was to be done? Piteously Bostock gazed at Harris for instructions. Such was his admiration and the size of his heart that he would have done anything for his friend. He would have plucked the cock from the church steeple, he would have brought him an alderman's ring or the mayor's chain—if only Harris would speak and command.

But what could Harris do or say? Even had he ten Bostocks at his command, there was too little time. Minutes alone remained to fill the empty cot in the Harris nursery and dispose of the beetle-browed babe in his trembling arms.

Then panic inspired him. “Bosty,” he whispered. “We'll have to put it in Adelaide's place.”

Bostock stared at him in veneration; then a doubt soiled its edges. “But—but won't they notice?”

Harris shrugged his shoulders. Having decided on his course, a feeling of deathly calm had overcome him. “What else can we do, Bosty? Answer me that. What else
is
there?”

The two friends gazed at each other over the head of the sleeping baby, the one resolved, the other still hesitant. Then Bostock knew, in his heart of hearts, that Harris's was the only way. “You're a genius, Harris.”

Palely, Harris nodded, and returning the infant to Bostock, beckoned him on. As they neared the unsuspecting house, once more they removed their boots and flitted on with phantom stealth. A moment later, the small street was deserted and the riding moon stared down on the empty boots which lay like mysterious vessels on the shore of adventure . . .

MR. BRETT LAY
in his bed in the awkward attic where even the moon came in contemptuously. It laid a silver finger across the humble blanket as if wondering whether it was a man or a mouse that lay so quietly beneath. Wake up, wake up, James Brett, it seemed to say, or be buried forever in this dull spot!

But Mr. Brett did not seem to heed the moon's warning. Instead, he brooded on the evening's alarm. Though he was a peace-loving man, opposed to all violence save in the ancient world where heroes battered each other's immortal brains out till a turn of the page resurrected them, the prospect of a duel between Major Alexander and Ralph Bunnion excited him enormously. Like the worried father, he
too dreamed of phantom bullet holes in proud breasts, but unlike the father, he cared not in which. Both the adversaries had cast their shadows across his secret life, and he detested them equally.

Mr. Brett's secret led him down strange paths and gave him bloody thoughts. But they were only thoughts, for his secret itself was of the softest kind. He was in love! Helplessly, frantically, wildly, and above all, hopelessly, he was in love with Tizzy Alexander. The very sound of her footfall made him tremble and the sight of her face obstructed his heart. He no longer knew whether he'd come to this state little by little or whether, in the winking of an unguarded eye, he'd fallen into the midst of the sea of desire in which he now floundered.

But however it had begun, it was now an exquisite torment and a marvelous misery. He dared not breathe a word of his passion. He was violently terrified she would laugh at him and so extinguish the forlorn hope he still nursed. So he quaked and turned pale to every knock on the door and endured all the miseries of life in Dr. Bunnion's school. He became a walking knot of complicated emotions that daily tightened about his heart and caused him to snarl and snap at the one being he loved to distraction.

He sighed and gave a tortured smile. Whether or not the duel and the possible deaths of the Major and the headmaster's lecherous son would improve his situation was doubtful, but he didn't see that it could do any harm.

Suddenly there came a knock on the door. The
smile left his face and a look of uncertainty and dread replaced it. He sat up. “Who's there?”

The door opened and Tizzy Alexander, in her shift with a netted black shawl about her shoulders, came in. Amazed and intoxicated, he stared at her, and before he could utter a word, she raised her finger to her lips and gently closed the door. “You must help me,” she whispered.

“For pity's sake,” he breathed, “go back to your room! What—what would your mother say?” His heart thundered as passion and propriety fought a battle in his breast beside which the fury of Hector and Achilles was as but a tiff between children.

“Ma sent me,” said Tizzy, with a worried smile that was intended to reassure Mr. Brett, but did not.

“In heaven's name, why?” Such was Mr. Brett's terror and excitement that his voice took on an edge he deeply regretted.

“She said you was the only one in the house with any sense,” said Tizzy nervously. “She said you was the only one who could stop them fighting . . .” Then Tizzy, quite overcome by the horrible circumstances, sat down on the edge of the bed and began to cry. “They'll kill each other,” she wept, “and I'll be to blame for it.”

“Isn't that what young women dream of?” muttered Mr. Brett bitterly. “To have men fight to the death on their account?”

Once again he regretted his words. That Tizzy had come to him filled his heart with joy, but that she'd come only to beg his help in preventing the very
thing he half hoped would happen was a deep humiliation. Nonetheless, the sight of her weeping in the moonlight moved him almost unbearably and it was as much as he could do to stop himself folding her in his aching arms. The coldness of his words had been more to cool his own ardor than to reproach Tizzy. But she, who knew nothing of this, raised her eyes and looked at him in utter misery.

“I thought . . . I thought you would understand . . .”

“Oh, but I do understand!” said Mr. Brett rapidly, and went on to lash himself still more with his own cruel tongue. “I understand very well, Miss Alexander! I understand you're frightened out of your wits for what your silly, flirting little heart has brought about! I understand that you don't know where to turn for escape! I understand that you're willing to do anything—even to come to the wretched, despised Mister Brett in the attic to implore him to save your lover from the wrath of your father—”

“He's never my lover!” sobbed Tizzy furiously. “I hate him! I hate you! I hate everybody!” She stood up and wore the moonbeam from the window like a sash. “I wish I was dead! I—I'll drown myself like—like—”

“Ophelia?” offered Mr. Brett savagely.

“No,” said Tizzy with sudden dignity. “Like Maggie Hemp.” With that she swept from the room, leaving the moonbeam empty and Mr. Brett in an agitated torment of misery, wondering why he was always his own worst enemy. You fool, you fool! he groaned
to himself, you've killed your only hope! Why did you do it? Why do you always do it?

Then, as the storm subsided, the answer came to him cold and clear. It was because he despised himself more than anyone else he knew. Not even in his dreams of ancient grandeur could he ever aspire to anything. The armor of Achilles would have crushed him and the very sight of Hector's nodding plume would have sent him shrieking from the field. He was a pigmy, a dwarf beside whom even that lout Ralph Bunnion stood up as a man.

Tizzy and Mr. Brett were not the only ones denied the ease of sleep. Dr. Bunnion was restless, too. He had dozed off, but his dreams had been of so alarming a nature and a sharp creaking of floorboards or joists had so fitted in with the dread of a leveled pistol that he'd awakened with a faint cry and had not dared close his eyes since.

The thought of the duel fell like the hand of death across his imaginings. Although in privacy the fiery Major had offered to withdraw his challenge, his conditions had been as hateful to Dr. Bunnion as the prospect of the fight itself. To wipe out the stain on his family honor, the Major had had the impudence to propose a marriage between the handsome Ralph and his own child, the penniless, wretched Tizzy. He had said it and stood back with almost a smile. It was plain he'd not budge an inch.

Dr. Bunnion scowled into the darkness of his bed and contemplated informing a magistrate of the duel and so having the Major jailed for two years. This at
least would save Ralph, and if news of the affair could be prevented from reaching Cuckfield, there would still be hope for the baronet's daughter. But on the other hand it would deprive the school of its arithmetic master and of Mrs. Alexander, who taught German.

He sighed and gently eased his huge body out of the bed where Mrs. Bunnion slept like a stately ship, rising and falling at anchor. He paced the room, then, shaking his head, quietly opened the door and went out in search of a solution to his problems.

He passed along the passage until it joined another where his candle illuminated both ways as if to give him a choice of direction. He paused, frowned, then seemed to make up his mind. Quietly he moved down one passage while his shadow seemed to go down another.

There were a great many such passages in the upper part of the academy, linking, dividing and turning sharply away. Sometimes there were stairs between—not flights, but single steps that seemed like spies from lost battalions, lying in wait and wondering where the rest had gone. All this was in consequence of Dr. Bunnion's desire to expand his prémises. He had knocked through and thrown out in so many directions that the house itself had come to resemble a pupil, endlessly outgrowing its suit of bricks.

Such then was the hapless complication of corridors, that the prowling headmaster did not meet with Tizzy, who having left Mr. Brett, was drifting
around strange corners like a melancholy ghost. Her agitated tears still flowed, and having more pride than sense, she would not return to her room from which her mother could have heard her sobs of distress.

“Come in!” breathed Mr. Brett. There had come a second knock on his door. His heart had leaped. She had forgiven him! Now for certain he would tell her of his love. His voice trembled with hope . . .

The door opened and Major Alexander slipped in with the air of looking for somewhere to lay a mine.

An unreasonable anger seized Mr. Brett, and it was so apparent that the Major felt obliged to apologize for having disturbed him. Mr. Brett neither accepted nor rejected the apology, but seemed to leave it in the air like an invisible third party between them.

“Brett, my dear fellow,” murmured the Major, shifting restlessly around the little room. “I've come to beg a favor.” He had reached the window and frowned out onto the night world. Then, with sharp, sidelong glances at the foot of the bed, he went on. “I know you and I haven't always seen eye to eye, but I've always understood our differences were honorable.” Here he looked inquisitively at the top of Mr. Brett's head. “We've differed on principle alone—but I've always felt our natures, underneath it all, to be sincerely friendly.”

Mr. Brett, who had felt no such thing, mumbled feebly into his blanket and the Major nodded. “Truth of the matter is, Brett, I need your help. This—this
shocking affair . . . if it comes to anything—and we all pray it won't—well, the upshot is, I'd like you to act as me second.”

“What?”

“Second, my dear fellow. Arrange all the details. Weapons etcetera . . . time and place . . . surgeon . . .”

Mr. Brett sat bolt upright. Weapons? Surgeon? He knew nothing about such matters. He knew nothing about dueling.

“You ain't engaged for the—um—other side?” asked the Major, whose first instinct was to assume everyone was as devious as himself. “If so I'd rather you came out with it openly, Brett. You know me—man of honor—can't abide subterfuge—all in the open—no excuses—”

Mr. Brett stared at him and wondered that such a father could have produced such a daughter. Then the unworthy thought struck him that such a father had not produced such a daughter and that Mrs. Alexander had been swept off her feet by some unlawful broom . . . He smiled, and the Major, mistaking his expression, darted up to him, shook him warmly by the hand and exclaimed, “Thank you, Brett. From the bottom of my heart. Knew I could count on you. Pays to open one's heart . . . always . . .”

With a last affectionate squeeze of Mr. Brett's helpless hand and a last reference to his heart's bottom, he vanished from the room, leaving behind a faint smell of brandy and sweat as if in token of having briefly opened that secret place in his breast. Once outside, the Major paused for a moment, cocked his
head toward the door, then departed, wearing that curious smile that nature has drawn on the jaws of snakes and crocodiles.

He moved swiftly and silently, and even as the pale skirt of his nightgown whisked around a corner, a flickering light and accompanying shadow approached from the opposite direction.

“For God's sake, what now?” groaned Mr. Brett, and his third visitor came in.

Dr. Bunnion, gowned and candled, seemed to fill the tiny room like some immense spirit on a dreadful errand to guilty beds. This sternness of aspect was, however, the work of nature and could not be helped. Within was a very discreet and hopeful gentleman, even timid at times.

“Jack,” he murmured. “I may call you Jack, I take it?”

Mr. Brett nodded. His name was James, but it did not seem to matter.

“This unhappy affair, you know. Of course, one cannot blame Alexander. These military men and their honor—where would we be without them? I blame the girl, I'm afraid. But still, what's done is done and we must all face the consequences and look to the future . . .”

He drifted on in this way for some minutes while his candle tilted and shed its wax on Mr. Brett's folded breeches. Angrily, Mr. Brett watched, and each time the headmaster paused for breath, attempted to draw attention to the circumstances.

“So, Jack, you understand why I'd rather it was you than any of Ralph's wild friends. So long as there's a chance of reconciliation, it's important to have someone of good sense acting as his second.” The headmaster smiled painfully. “Thank you for bearing with me, Jack. And above all, thank you for standing by me—standing by the school, I should say—in this time of trial. But then I knew I could count on you, Jack . . .” He shifted his candle so that a final little cataract of wax fell on the folded breeches, before wishing Mr. Brett a heartfelt goodnight. A moment later he popped his large head back into the room and murmured, “All this is only if the worse comes to the worst. But I've every confidence that in the clear light of day everything will be cleared up. Let us pray for it, Jack eh?”