This quiet, gentle Doctor might
be a profound hypocrite, a criminal, a forger possibly, or a poisoner. Only such a secret as this could account for the complete power which
the young man held over him. Why else should he admit so hateful a
presence into his house and so harmful an influence into his school? Why
should he submit to degradations which could not be witnessed, far less
endured, without indignation? And yet, if it were so, I was forced to confess that my principal
carried it off with extraordinary duplicity. Never by word or sign did
he show that the young man’s presence was distasteful to him. I have
seen him look pained, it is true, after some peculiarly outrageous
exhibition, but he gave me the impression that it was always on account
of the scholars or of me, never on account of himself. He spoke to and
of St. James in an indulgent fashion, smiling gently at what made my
blood boil within me. In his way of looking at him and addressing him,
one could see no trace of resentment, but rather a sort of timid and
deprecating good will. His company he certainly courted, and they spent
many hours together in the study and the garden. As to my own relations with Theophilus St. James, I made up my mind from
the beginning that I should keep my temper with him, and to that
resolution I steadfastly adhered. If Dr. McCarthy chose to permit this
disrespect, and to condone these outrages, it was his affair and not
mine. It was evident that his one wish was that there should be peace
between us, and I felt that I could help him best by respecting this
desire. My easiest way to do so was to avoid my colleague, and this I
did to the best of my ability. When we were thrown together I was quiet,
polite, and reserved. He, on his part, showed me no ill-will, but met me
rather with a coarse joviality, and a rough familiarity which he meant
to be ingratiating. He was insistent in his attempts to get me into his
room at night, for the purpose of playing euchre and of drinking. “Old McCarthy doesn’t mind,” said he. “Don’t you be afraid of him. We’ll
do what we like, and I’ll answer for it that he won’t object.” Once only
I went, and when I left, after a dull and gross evening, my host was
stretched dead drunk upon the sofa. After that I gave the excuse of a
course of study, and spent my spare hours alone in my own room. One point upon which I was anxious to gain information was as to how
long these proceedings had been going on. When did St. James assert his
hold over Dr. McCarthy? From neither of them could I learn how long my
colleague had been in his present situation. One or two leading
questions upon my part were eluded or ignored in a manner so marked that
it was easy to see that they were both of them as eager to conceal the
point as I was to know it. But at last one evening I had the chance of a
chat with Mrs. Carter, the matron—for the Doctor was a widower—and from
her I got the information which I wanted. It needed no questioning to
get at her knowledge, for she was so full of indignation that she shook
with passion as she spoke of it, and raised her hands into the air in
the earnestness of her denunciation, as she described the grievances
which she had against my colleague. “It was three years ago, Mr. Weld, that he first darkened this
doorstep,” she cried. “Three bitter years they have been to me. The
school had fifty boys then. Now it has twenty-two. That’s what he has
done for us in three years. In another three there won’t be one. And the
Doctor, that angel of patience, you see how he treats him, though he is
not fit to lace his boots for him. If it wasn’t for the Doctor, you may
be sure that I wouldn’t stay an hour under the same roof with such a
man, and so I told him to his own face, Mr. Weld. If the Doctor would
only pack him about his business—but I know that I am saying more than I
should!” She stopped herself with an effort, and spoke no more upon the
subject. She had remembered that I was almost a stranger in the school,
and she feared that she had been indiscreet. There were one or two very singular points about my colleague. The chief
one was that he rarely took any exercise. There was a playing-field
within the college grounds, and that was his farthest point. If the boys
went out, it was I or Dr. McCarthy who accompanied them. St. James gave
as a reason for this that he had injured his knee some years before, and
that walking was painful to him. For my own part I put it down to pure
laziness upon his part, for he was of an obese, heavy temperament. Twice, however, I saw him from my window stealing out of the grounds
late at night, and the second time I watched him return in the grey of
the morning and slink in through an open window. These furtive
excursions were never alluded to, but they exposed the hollowness of his
story about his knee, and they increased the dislike and distrust which
I had of the man. His nature seemed to be vicious to the core. Another point, small but suggestive, was that he hardly ever during the
months that I was at Willow Lea House received any letters, and on those
few occasions they were obviously tradesmen’s bills. I am an early
riser, and used every morning to pick my own correspondence out of the
bundle upon the hall table. I could judge therefore how few were ever
there for Mr. Theophilus St. James. There seemed to me to be something
peculiarly ominous in this. What sort of a man could he be who during
thirty years of life had never made a single friend, high or low, who
cared to continue to keep in touch with him? And yet the sinister fact
remained that the head master not only tolerated, but was even intimate
with him. More than once on entering a room I have found them talking
confidentially together, and they would walk arm in arm in deep
conversation up and down the garden paths. So curious did I become to
know what the tie was which bound them, that I found it gradually push
out my other interests and become the main purpose of my life. In school
and out of school, at meals and at play, I was perpetually engaged in
watching Dr. Phelps McCarthy and Mr. Theophilus St. James, and in
endeavouring to solve the mystery which surrounded them. But, unfortunately, my curiosity was a little too open. I had not the
art to conceal the suspicions which I felt about the relations which
existed between these two men and the nature of the hold which the one
appeared to have over the other. It may have been my manner of watching
them, it may have been some indiscreet question, but it is certain that
I showed too clearly what I felt. One night I was conscious that the
eyes of Theophilus St. James were fixed upon me in a surly and menacing
stare. I had a foreboding of evil, and I was not surprised when Dr.
McCarthy called me next morning into his study.