Brother Copas | Page 9

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 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