Brother Copas Part 3

"Oh, of course, of course! Still--"

"I suggest that, living as he does on the Church's benefaction, eating the bread of her charity--"

The Chaplain paused, casting about for a third phrase to express Brother Warboise's poor dependence.

The Master smiled whimsically.

"'The bread'--that's just it, he would tell you . . . And Alberic de Blanchminster, moreover, was a layman, not even in any of the minor orders; so that, strictly speaking--"

"But he left his wealth expressly to be administered by the Church.

. . . Will you forgive me, Master, if I repeat very respectfully the suggestion I made at the beginning? If you could see your way to be celebrant at the early office, your mere presence would silence these mutineers. The Brethren respect your authority without question, and, the ice once broken, they would come to heel as one man."

The Master shook his head tremulously, in too much of a flurry even to note the Chaplain's derangement of metaphors.

"You cannot guess how early rising upsets me. Doctor Ainsley, indeed, positively forbids it. . . . I can sympathise, you see, with Ibbetson . . . and, for Brother Warboise, let us always remember that St. Hospital was not made, and cannot be altered, in a day--even for the better. Like England, it has been built by accretions, by traditions; yes, and by traditions that apparently conflict--by that of Brother Ingman, among others. . . .

"We who love St. Hospital," continued the Master, still tremulously, "have, I doubt not, each his different sense of the _genius loci_.

Warboise finds it, we'll say, in the person of Peter Ingman, Protestant and martyr. But I don't defend his behaviour. I will send for him to-morrow, and talk to him. I will talk to him very severely."

CHAPTER III.

BROTHER COPAS HOOKS A FISH.

"Well," said Brother Copas, "since the fish are not rising, let us talk. Or rather, you can tell me all about it while I practise casting. . . . By what boat is she coming?"

"By the _Carnatic_, and due some time to-morrow. I saw it in the newspaper."

"Well?--" prompted Brother Copas, glancing back over his shoulder as Brother Bonaday came to a halt.

The bent little man seemed to have lost the thread of his speech as he stood letting his gentle, tired eyes follow the flight of the swallows swooping and circling low along the river and over the meadow-gra.s.ses.

"Well?--" prompted Brother Copas again.

"Nurse Branscome will go down to meet her."

"And then?--"

"I am hoping the Master will let her have my spare room," said Brother Bonaday vaguely.

Here it should be explained that when the Trustees erected a new house for the Master his old lodgings in the quadrangle had been carved into sets of chambers for half a dozen additional Brethren, and that one of these, differing only from the rest in that it contained a small spare room, had chanced to be allotted to Brother Bonaday. He had not applied for it, and it had grieved him to find his promotion resented by certain of the Brethren, who let slip few occasions for envy. For the spare room had been quite useless to him until now. Now he began to think it might be, after all, a special gift of Providence.

"You have spoken to the Master?" asked Brother Copas.

"No: that is to say, not yet."

"What if he refuses?"

"It will be very awkward. I shall hardly know what to do. . . . Find her some lodging in the town, perhaps; there seems no other way."

"You should have applied to the Master at once."

Brother Bonaday considered this, while his eyes wandered.

"But why?" he asked. "The boat had sailed before the letter reached me. She was already on her way. Yes or no, it could make no difference."

"It makes this difference: suppose that the Master refuses, you have lost four days in which you might have found her a suitable lodging.

What's the child's name, by the by?

"Corona, it seems."

"Seems?"

"She was born just after her mother left me and went to America, having a little money of her own saved out of our troubles." Again Brother Copas, in the act of making a cast, glanced back over his shoulder, but Brother Bonaday's eyes were on the swallows.

"In 1902 it was, the year of King Edward's coronation: yes, that will be why my wife chose the name. . . . I suppose, as you say,"

Brother Bonaday went on after a pause, "I ought to have spoken to the Master at once; but I put it off, the past being painful to me."

"Yet you told Nurse Branscome."

"Someone--some woman--had to be told. The child must be met, you see."

"H'm. . . . Well, I am glad, anyway, that you told me whilst there was yet a chance of my being useful; being, as you may or may not have observed, inclined to jealousy in matters of friends.h.i.+p."

This time Brother Copas kept his face averted, and made a fresh cast across stream with more than ordinary care. The fly dropped close under the far bank, and by a bare six inches clear of a formidable alder. He jerked the rod backward, well pleased with his skill.

"That was a pretty good one, eh?"

But clever angling was thrown away upon Brother Bonaday, whom preoccupation with trouble had long ago made un.o.bservant.

Brother Copas reeled in a few feet of his line.

"You'll bear in mind that, if the Master should refuse and you're short of money for a good lodging, I have a pound or two laid by.

We must do what we can for the child; coming, as she will, from the other side of the world."

"That is kind of you, Copas," said Brother Bonaday slowly, his eyes fixed now on the reel, the whirring click of which drew his attention, so that he seemed to address his speech to it.

"It is very kind, and I thank you. But I hope the Master will not refuse: though, to tell you the truth, there is another small difficulty which makes me shy of asking him a favour."

"Eh? What is it?"

Brother Bonaday twisted his thin fingers together. "I--I had promised, before I got this letter, to stand by Warboise. I feel rather strongly on these matters, you know--though, of course, not so strongly as he does--and I promised to support him. Which makes it very awkward, you see, to go and ask a favour of the Master just when you are (so to say) defying his authority. . . . While if I hide it from him, and he grants the favour, and then next day or the day after I declare for Warboise, it will look like treachery, eh?"

"d.a.m.n!" said Brother Copas, still winding in his line meditatively.

"There is no such casuist as poverty. And only this morning I was promising myself much disinterested sport in the quarrelling of you Christian brethren. . . . But isn't that Warboise coming along the path? . . . Yes, the very man! Well, we must try what's to be done."

"But I have given him my word, remember."

Brother Copas, if he heard, gave no sign of hearing. He had turned to hail Brother Warboise, who came along the river path with eyes fastened on the ground, and staff viciously prodding in time with his steps.