Brother Copas | Page 9

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 friendship."
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 unobservant. 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?"
"Damn!" 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.
"Hallo, Warboise! Halt, and give the countersign!"
Brother Warboise halted, taken at unawares, and eyed the two doubtfully from under his bushy grey eyebrows. They were Beauchamp both, he Blanchminster. He wore the black cloak of Blanchminster, with the silver cross patte at the breast, and looked--so Copas murmured to himself--"like Caiaphas in a Miracle Play." His mouth was square and firm, his grey beard straightly cut. He had been a stationer in a small way, and had come to grief by vending only those newspapers of which he could approve the religious tendency.
"The countersign?" he echoed slowly and doubtfully.
He seldom understood Brother Copas, but by habit suspected him of levity.
"To be sure, among three good Protestants! 'Bloody end to the Pope!' is it not?"
"You are mocking me," snarled Brother Warboise, and with that struck the point of his staff passionately upon the pathway. "You are a Gallio, and always will be: you care nothing for what is heaven and earth to us others. But you have no right to infect Bonaday, here, with your poison. He has promised me." Brother Warboise faced upon Brother Bonaday sternly, "You promised me, you know you did."
"To be sure he promised you," put in Brother Copas. "He has just been telling me."
"And I am going to hold him to it! These are not times for falterers, halters between two opinions. If England is to be saved from coming a second time under the yoke of