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I think Josephine's habit of snooping must have been catching. Quite unashamedly I leaned against the door jamb and listened. It was a history lesson that was in progress, and the period in question was the French directoire.
As I listened astonishment opened my eyes. It was a considerable surprise to me to discover that Laurence Brown was a magnificent teacher.
I don't know why it should have surprised me so much. After all, Aristide Leonides had always been a good picker of men. For all his mouse-like exterior, Laurence had that supreme gift of being able to arouse enthusiasm and imagination in his pupils.
The drama of Thermidor, the decree of Outlawry against the Robespierrists, the magnificence of Barras, the cunning of Fouche - Napoleon, the half starved young gunner lieutenant - all these were real and living.
Suddenly Laurence stopped, he asked Eustace and Josephine a question, he made them put themselves in the places of first one and then another figure in the drama.
Though he did not get much result from Josephine whose voice sounded as though she had a cold in the head, Eustace sounded quite different from his usual moody self.
He showed brains and intelligence and the keen historical sense which he had doubtless inherited from his father.
Then I heard the chairs being pushed back and scraped across the floor. I retreated up the steps and was apparently just coming down them when the door opened.
Eustace and Josephine came out.
"Hullo," I said.
Eustace looked surprised to see me.
"Do you want anything?" he asked politely.
Josephine, taking no interest in my presence, slipped past me.
"I just wanted to see the schoolroom," I said rather feebly.
"You saw it the other day, didn't you? It's just a kid's place really. Used to be the nursery. It's still got a lot of toys in it."
He held the door open for me and I went in.
Laurence Brown stood by the table. He looked up, flushed, murmured something in answer to my good morning and went hurriedly out.
"You've scared him," said Eustace. "He's very easily scared."
"Do you like him, Eustace?"
"Oh! he's all right. An awful ass, of course."
"But not a bad teacher?"
"No, as a matter of fact he's quite interesting. He knows an awful lot. He makes you see things from a different angle. I never knew that Henry the Eighth wrote poetry - to Anne Boleyn, of course - jolly decent poetry."
We talked for a few moments on such subjects as The Ancient Mariner, Chaucer, the political implications behind the Crusades, the Mediaeval approach to life, and the, to Eustace, surprising fact that Oliver Cromwell had prohibited the celebration of Christmas Day. Behind Eustace's scornful and rather ill-tempered manner there was, I perceived, an inquiring and able mind.
Very soon I began to realise the source of his ill humour. His illness had not only been a frightening ordeal, it had also been a frustration and a setback, just at a moment when he had been enjoying life.
"I was to have been in the eleven next term - and I'd got my house colours. It's pretty thick to have to stop at home and do lessons with a rotten kid like Josephine. Why, she's only twelve."
"Yes, but you don't have the same studies, do you?"
"No, of course she doesn't do advanced maths - or Latin. But you don't want to have to share a tutor with a girl."
I tried to soothe his injured male pride by remarking that Josephine was quite an intelligent girl for her age.
"D'you think so? I think she's awfully wet. She's mad keen on this detecting stuff - goes round poking her nose in everywhere and writing things down in a little black book and pretending that she's finding out a lot. Just a silly kid, that's all she is," said Eustace loftily.
"Anyway," he added, "girls can't be detectives. I told her so. I think mother's quite right and the sooner Jo's packed off to Switzerland the better."
"Wouldn't you miss her?"
"Miss a kid of that age?" said Eustace haughtily. "Of course not. My goodness, this house is the absolute limit! Mother always haring up and down to London and bullying tame dramatists to rewrite plays for her, and making frightful fusses about nothing at all. And father shut up with his books and sometimes not hearing you if you speak to him. I don't see why I should be cursed with such peculiar parents. Then there's Uncle Roger - always so hearty that it makes you shudder. Aunt Clemency's all right, she doesn't bother you, but I sometimes think she's a bit batty. Aunt Edith's not too bad, but she's old. Things have been a bit more cheerful since Sophia came back - though she can be pretty sharp sometimes. But it is a queer household, don't you think so? Having a step-grandmother young enough to be your aunt or your older sister. I mean, it makes you feel an awful ass!"
I had some comprehension of his feelings. I remembered (very dimly) my own supersensitiveness at Eustace's age. My horror of appearing in any way unusual or of my near relatives departing from the normal.
"What about your grandfather?" I said. "Were you fond of him?"
A curious expression flitted across Eustace's face.
"Grandfather," he said, "was definitely antisocial!"
"In what way?"
"He thought of nothing but the profit motive. Laurence says that's completely wrong. And he was a great individualist. All that sort of thing has got to go, don't you think so?"
"Well," I said rather brutally, "he has gone."
"A good thing, really," said Eustace. "I don't want to be callous, but you can't really enjoy life at that age!"
"Didn't he?"
"He couldn't have. Anyway, it was time he went. He -" Eustace broke off as Laurence Brown came back into the schoolroom.
Laurence began fussing about with some books, but I thought that he was watching me out of the corner of his eye.
He looked at his wrist-watch and said:
"Please be back here sharp at eleven, Eustace. We've wasted too much time the last few days."
"O.K., sir."
Eustace lounged towards the door and went out whistling.
Laurence Brown darted another sharp glance at me. He moistened his lips once or twice. I was convinced that he had come back into the schoolroom solely in order to talk to me.
Presently, after a little aimless stacking and unstacking of books and a pretence of looking for a book that was missing, he turned to me.
"Er - How are they getting on?" he said.
