"Aren't you impressed? I was. I told him that he was on no account to unsettle the vicar. Open that cupboard, one of those sixpenny books tells Podge that he's made of hard little black things, another that he's made of brown things, larger and squashy. There seems a discrepancy, but anything is better for a thoughtful youth than to be made in the Garden of Eden. Let us eliminate the poetic, at whatever cost to the probable." When for a moment she spoke more gravely. "Here he is at twenty, with nothing to hold on by. I don't know what's to be done. I suppose it's my fault. But I've never had any bother over the Church of England; have you?""Of course I go with my Church," said Miss Pembroke, who hated this style of conversation. "I don't know, I'm sure. I think you should consult a man.""Would Rickie help me?"
"Rickie would do anything he can." And Mrs. Failing noted the half official way in which she vouched for her lover. "But of course Rickie is a little--complicated. I doubt whether Mr. Wonham would understand him. He wants--doesn't he?--some one who's a little more assertive and more accustomed to boys. Some one more like my brother.""Agnes!" she seized her by the arm. "Do you suppose that Mr. Pembroke would undertake my Podge?"
She shook her head. "His time is so filled up. He gets a boarding-house next term. Besides--after all I don't know what Herbert would do.""Morality. He would teach him morality. The Thirty-Nine Articles may come of themselves, but if you have no morals you come to grief. Morality is all I demand from Mr. Herbert Pembroke. He shall be excused the use of the globes. You know, of course, that Stephen's expelled from a public school? He stole."The school was not a public one, and the expulsion, or rather request for removal, had taken place when Stephen was fourteen. Aviolent spasm of dishonesty--such as often heralds the approach of manhood--had overcome him. He stole everything, especially what was difficult to steal, and hid the plunder beneath a loose plank in the passage. He was betrayed by the inclusion of a ham.
This was the crisis of his career. His benefactress was just then rather bored with him. He had stopped being a pretty boy, and she rather doubted whether she would see him through. But she was so raged with the letters of the schoolmaster, and so delighted with those of the criminal, that she had him back and gave him a prize.
"No," said Agnes, "I didn't know. I should be happy to speak to Herbert, but, as I said, his time will be very full. But I know he has friends who make a speciality of weakly or--or unusual boys.""My dear, I've tried it. Stephen kicked the weakly boys and robbed apples with the unusual ones. He was expelled again."Agnes began to find Mrs. Failing rather tiresome. Wherever you trod on her, she seemed to slip away from beneath your feet.
Agnes liked to know where she was and where other people were as well. She said: "My brother thinks a great deal of home life. Idaresay he'd think that Mr. Wonham is best where he is--with you.
You have been so kind to him. You"--she paused--"have been to him both father and mother.""I'm too hot," was Mrs. Failing's reply. It seemed that Miss Pembroke had at last touched a topic on which she was reticent.
She rang the electric bell,--it was only to tell the footman to take the reprints to Mr. Wonham's room,--and then murmuring something about work, proceeded herself to the house.
"Mrs. Failing--" said Agnes, who had not expected such a speedy end to their chat.
"Call me Aunt Emily. My dear?"
"Aunt Emily, what did you think of that story Rickie sent you?""It is bad," said Mrs. Failing. "But. But. But." Then she escaped, having told the truth, and yet leaving a pleasurable impression behind her.