The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
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had refused him--twice, because she believed that Mr. Worthington would oppose the marriage, and had declared that she would never be the cause of a breach between father and son. Bob asked for his father's consent, and hoped to have it, but he thought it only right to add that he had given his word and his love, and did not mean to retract either. He spoke of his visit to Brampton, and explained that Cynthia was teaching school there, and urged his father to see her before he made a decision. Mr. Worthington read it through to the end, his lips closing tighter and tighter until his mouth was but a line across his face. There was pain in the face, too, the kind of pain which anger sends, and which comes with the tottering of a pride that is false. Of what gratification now was the overthrow of Jethro Bass?
He stared at the letter for a moment after he had finished it, and his face grew a dark red. Then he seized the paper and tore it slowly, deliberately, into bits.
Dudley Worthington was not thinking then--not he!--of the young man in the white beaver who had called at the Social Library many years before to see a young woman whose name, too, had been Cynthia.--He was thinking, in fact, for he was a man to think in anger, whether it were not possible to remove this Cynthia from the face of the earth--at least to a place beyond his horizon and that of his son. Had he worn the chain mail instead of the frock coat he would have had her hung outside the town walls.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. And the words sounded profane indeed as he fixed his eyes upon Mr. Flint. "You knew that Robert had been to Brampton."
"Yes," said Flint, "the whole village knew it."
"Good God!" cried Mr. Worthington again, "why was I not informed of this? Why was I not warned of this? Have I no friends? Do you pretend to look after my interests and not take the trouble to write me on such a subject."
"Do you think I could have prevented it?" asked Mr. Flint, very calmly.
"You allow this--this woman to come here to Brampton and teach school in a place where she can further her designs? What were you about?"
"When the prudential committee appointed her, nothing of this was known, Mr. Worthington."
"Yes, but now--now! What are you doing, what are they doing to allow her to remain? Who are on that committee?"
Mr. Flint named the men. They had been reelected, as usual, at the recent town-meeting. Mr. Errol, who had also been reelected, had returned but had not yet issued the certificate or conducted the examination.
"Send for them, have them here at once," commanded Mr. Worthington, without listening to this.
"If you take my advice, you will do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Flint, who, as usual, had the whole situation at his fingers' ends. He had taken the trouble to inform himself about the girl, and he had discovered, shrewdly enough, that she was the kind which might be led, but not driven. If Mr. Flint's advice had been listened to, this story might have had quite a different ending. But Mr. Flint had not reached the stage where his advice was always listened to, and he had a maddened man to deal with now. At that moment, as if fate had determined to intervene, the housemaid came into the room.
"Mr. Dodd to see you, sir," she said.
"Show him in," shouted Mr. Worthington; "show him in!"
Mr. Dodd was not a man who could wait for a summons which he had felt in his bones was coming. He was ordinarily, as we have seen, officious. But now he was thoroughly frightened. He had seen the great man in the barouche as he drove past the hardware store, and he had made up his mind to go up at once, and have it over with. His opinions were formed now, He put a smile on his face when he was a foot outside of the library door.
"This is a great pleasure, Mr. Worthington, a great pleasure, to see you back," he said, coming forward. "I callated--"
But the great man sat in his chair, and made no attempt to return the greeting.
"Mr. Dodd, I thought you were my friend," he said.
Mr. Dodd went all to pieces at this reception.
"So I be, Mr. Worthington--so I be," he cried. "That's why I'm here now. I've b'en a friend of yours ever since I can remember--never fluctuated. I'd rather have chopped my hand off than had this happen--so I would. If I could have foreseen what she was, she'd never have had the place, as sure as my name's Levi Dodd."
If Mr. Dodd had taken the trouble to look at the seneschal's face, he would have seen a well-defined sneer there.
"And now that you know what she is," cried Mr. Worthington, rising and smiting the pile of letters on his desk, "why do you keep her there an instant?"
Mr. Dodd stopped to pick up the letters, which had flown over the floor. But the great man was now in the full tide of his anger.
"Never mind the letters," he shouted; "tell me why you keep her there."
"We callated we'd wait and see what steps you'd like taken," said the trembling townsman.
"Steps! Steps! Good God! What kind of man are you to serve in such a place when you allow the professed ward of Jethro Bass--of Jethro Bass, the most notoriously depraved man in this state, to teach the children of this town. Steps! How soon can you call your committee together?"
"Right away," answered Mr. Dodd, breathlessly. He would have gone on to exculpate himself, but Mr. Worthington's inexorable finger was pointing at the door.
"If you are a friend of mine," said that gentleman, "and if you have any regard for the fair name of this town, you will do so at once."
Mr. Dodd departed precipitately, and Mr. Worthington began to pace the room, clasping his hands now in front of him, now behind him, in his agony: repeating now and again various appellations which need not be printed here, which he applied in turn to the prudential committee, to his son, and to Cynthia Wetherell.
"I'll run her out of Brampton," he said at last.
"If you do," said Mr. Flint, who had been watching him apparently unmoved, "you may have Jethro Bass on your back."
"Jethro Bass?" shouted Mr. Worthington, with a laugh that was not pleasant to hear, "Jethro Bass is as dead as Julius Caesar."
It was one thing for Mr. Dodd to promise so readily a meeting of the committee, and quite another to decide how he was going to get through the affair without any more burns and scratches than were absolutely necessary. He had reversed the usual order, and had been in the fire--now he was going to the frying-pan. He stood in the street for some time, pulling at his tuft, and then made his way to Mr. Jonathan Hill's feed store. Mr. Hill was reading "Sartor Resartus" in his little office, the temperature of which must have been 95, and Mr. Dodd was perspiring when he got there.
"It's come," said Mr. Dodd, sententiously.
"What's come?" inquired Mr. Hill, mildly.
"Isaac D.'s come, that's what," said Mr. Dodd. "I hain't b'en sleepin' well of nights, lately. I can't think what we was about, Jonathan, puttin' that girl in the school. We'd ought to've knowed she wahn't fit."
"What's the matter with her?" inquired Mr. Hill.
"Matter with her!" exclaimed his fellow-committeeman, "she lives with Jethro Bass--she's his ward."
"Well, what of it?" said Mr. Hill, who never bothered himself about gossip or newspapers, or indeed about anything not between the covers of a book, except when he couldn't help it.
"Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Dodd, "he's the most notorious, depraved man in the