Tom Brown's Body

'And she could have a look at the rest of the boys in that House,' said Mr Wyck to his wife, when he had put the telephone receiver down. 'I am not satisfied with matters there. It is really quite time that Loveday retired, although I haven't the heart at present to suggest it.'

'I'm longing to meet Mrs Bradley,' said Mrs Wyck. 'What is she like to look at?'

'As far as my memory serves me, singularly unprepossessing,' replied Mr Wyck judicially. 'But a character. Yes, certainly a character. And, of course, an exceptionally brilliant woman.'

But Mrs Wyck was accustomed to unprepossessing people in the persons of the masters, their wives, and the parents of the boys; and she had met so many brilliant people that one more or less made no difference.

'I suppose she will live at Loveday's,' she remarked.

'I expect Miss Loveday will invite her to do so.'

'Then we will have her to dinner once or twice, if that will do.'

'When she's examined Merrys and so forth, I'm going to ask her to stay on at the School until we get this awful business cleared up,' said Mr Wyck, suddenly. 'She has had some success, I believe, in such cases, and she may be able to cope with the police. They've already trodden twice on my rock garden.'

Mrs Bradley, quite as anxious to get to the School as Miss Loveday and the Headmaster were to have her there, burst upon Mr Loveday's astonished House at supper time, although she had arrived in time to pay an afternoon call upon her hostess.

At supper she sat upon Mr Loveday's right and scanned the ranks of Tuscany with interest. Her bright black eyes took in all details whilst she listened with every appearance of interest to Mr Loveday's conversation, for Mr Loveday, shying away from the point at issue, was giving her an earnest account of the construction and heating of his Roman Bath, so that comments and interjections on her part were redundant, which, with her usual intelligence, she had realized at the outset that they would be.

Miss Loveday, at the foot of her brother's table, conversed with the prefects Stallard and Compton (who agreed non-committally with her views and proffered none of their own) upon the House's chances of lifting the cricket cup next season. Of football Miss Loveday had less knowledge than of cricket, but football she referred to during May and June. She had a theory that it made boys nervous to have the current game discussed at meal- times, and she thought that this nervousness gave boys indigestion. She was known to the House as Nancy the Nark, a sufficiently descriptive nickname, and one which had wounded her when first she heard it, but it had resulted in a certain amount of ironic popularity which she learned to enjoy. Her brother placed her second only to his Roman Bath in his affections, and gave way to her lightest whim. Mild and easy-going as he was, he was known to have thrashed a boy severely merely for bouncing a tennis ball against the wall beneath her bedroom window whilst she was taking her afternoon rest. He was, in point of fact, afraid of her, a mental state which is apt to result in affection.

After supper the House prefects were summoned to Mr Loveday's drawing-room to be introduced formally to the guest with whom they had sat at supper.

'Stallard, my head boy, Cartaris, captain of football, and the School full-back, Compton. Here, also, are Edgeley and Findlay,' said Mr Loveday. 'Boys, this is Mrs Lestrange Bradley, of whom, no doubt, you have heard.'

The prefects looked obstinate, a sign of shyness, and Mrs Bradley, grinning, gave Edgeley, who was near her, a poke in the ribs. He yelped involuntarily, and the others laughed with embarrassed heartiness.

'Well, now that Edgeley has taken the edge off things,' said Miss Loveday (adding to the slight hysteria of the gathering by her awkward choice of nouns), 'we can get down to brass tacks, as you boys say.' The prefects, who would not have dreamed of employing this metaphor, maintained their previous expressions. 'Mrs Bradley,' continued Miss Loveday, 'has come to turn you all inside out, so here is your chance to show your guilt.'

'I don't want the House to be informed of this,' interposed Mr Loveday hastily, 'but you five, as House prefects, are to be taken into our confidence. Now, you must all begin by feeling thoroughly at ease.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Stallard, not knowing what else to say, and feeling anything but at ease. 'We – I think we understand what you mean.'

'That's that, then,' said Miss Loveday. 'Now, find seats. Findlay, the most lissome, had better sit on the floor, and Edgeley, his friend, may join him, and then we will all eat cake and drink sherry. I encourage the boys to like sherry,' she added to Mrs Bradley, whilst Mr Loveday busied himself with the decanter and Stallard handed round cakes, 'because I think it is so much better for them than the gin they all drink in the holidays.'

The boys, who were at the manly age when they were learning to drink beer in preparation for going up to the University, accepted the sherry politely, balanced plates on their knees, or, in the case of Findlay and Edgeley, on the fender, and wished that the social evening was over. It was to prove more interesting, however, than they had expected. After Mr Loveday, in a discouraging voice, had offered everybody a second glass of sherry, he put down the decanter, leaned against the mantelpiece, pulled at his lower lip for a moment, and then came out with it.

'As Miss Loveday has indicated,' he said, 'Mrs Bradley is here on very important business, and I shall look to my prefects to give her all the assistance in their power.'

'Of course, sir,' said Stallard, as this seemed to be expected.

'Certain boys in this House,' Mr Loveday continued, 'are showing signs of nervousness and unrest. These are indications of a disorder with which you prefects are not qualified to deal.' Findlay looked up quickly from his seat on the hearthrug. Cartaris looked down at his fingernails and smiled grimly. The others remained politely poker-faced, wondering what all this was about. 'Oh, I don't mean that kind of disorder,' added Mr. Loveday hastily. 'I mean –'

'In other words,' said Miss Loveday, who often embarrassed her brother by acting as his interpreter, 'your Housemaster means that Mrs Bradley is a psychiatrist and that she has come to interview Merrys.'

'You may perhaps wonder,' said Mr Loveday, resuming his position as head of the House, 'why I should take the responsibility of such proceedings. It is, of course, in connexion with Mr Conway's death.'

'Do you mean you think Merrys knows something, sir?' demanded Findlay; and the other prefects looked up, interested to hear Mr Loveday's reply.

'No, no. But the boy is in a nervous state, and I – Miss Loveday and I – think that treatment here might be better than sending him home. His parents concur in this view, and so Mrs Bradley has very kindly consented to examine him. She will place the boy under observation, and –'

'Is he – do you mean he's insane, sir?' blurted out Edgeley.

'No, of course not! It is merely –' Mr Loveday cast about for the most suitable words with which to remove an unfortunate impression.

'By the way, sir,' said Stallard, before his Housemaster could continue, 'that reminds me. I've never thought of it before, but I remember now that the week before Mr Conway's – before it happened to Mr Conway – Merrys came to me with some tale which caused me to give him permission to go round into your garden. I hope that was quite all right, sir?'

'My garden? But – Stallard, you don't think Merrys can have borrowed my bicycle? You know, it was borrowed.'

'I don't think anything, sir,' said Stallard uncomfortably, 'but I thought I ought to mention it, that's all.'

'And quite right, too!' said Mr Loveday emphatically. 'Quite right! What do you think, Annette?'

'I picked on Merrys, and it looks as though I was not far wrong,' said Miss Loveday, with great satisfaction.

'You will therefore excuse Merrys from all attendance at football practice if Mrs Bradley finds that the football practice hour is a convenient time at which to interview the boy,' said Mr Loveday, eyeing Cartaris, whom he privately suspected of beating boys who cut football, 'and the rest of you must keep an eye on him without appearing to do so. You must exercise great discretion. Great discretion. I would not have the boy know for the world that he is being watched. Miss Loveday and I have felt considerable anxiety as to the possible effects of this dreadful business on nervous and sensitive boys.'

'Merrys walks in his sleep, sir,' said Findlay. 'He frightens the boys in his dormitory.'

Everybody stared at Findlay; his fellow prefects because they admired his nerve in introducing this (to their minds) extraneous subject of conversation, and the Lovedays because they were genuinely taken aback. Mrs Bradley stared because she was summing up Findlay, whom she suspected of having invented this tit-bit of