Mr. Binney was the first to notice him. He frowned slightly in a determined effort to regain his scattered senses. Then the amiable smile spread once more over his face as he recognised his friend.
"Dorrertoller!" he cried, in a delighted impulse of hospitable welcome. "Come in, my dear sir, and dring a glass o' wine. You see me, Dorrertoller, s'rounded by m' friends, celebrelating merrificent vickery, boclub. Genelmel, 'low me, ole friend, Dorrertoller. Come in, ole boy. Mayself tome. Siddown."
"Mr. Binney!" said the good doctor in an awful tone. "Are you aware, sir, of the terrible scandal you are bringing upon yourself and your friends by this unseemly—this disgraceful conduct?"
"Thashalri, Dorrertoll," said the unhappy Mr. Binney. "Siddow. All ole frells here."
It would ill become us to protract the account of this shameful scene. Dr. Toller, shocked and horrified beyond all bounds, lifted up his voice in expostulation and reproof to the best of his ability, but all in vain. Mr. Binney was past taking heed of rebukes, and wandered foolishly along, pressing the doctor to make one of the party, and drink the health of some of the best fellows he was ever likely to meet. That at least was the intention of his invitation, but his enunciation not being so clear as could be wished, the warmth of his welcome could only be gathered from his engaging smile and his ineffectual attempts to drag a chair up to the table, a chair on which one of his guests happened already to be sitting. Most of the other men took Dr. Toller for a Proctor and kept quiet, while Mr. Binney used his utmost endeavours to induce him to join them. They returned again to their previous state of merriment when the Doctor had left the room, having perceived that anything that he might have to say to Mr. Binney would have to be kept until the next morning.
Later on in the evening, a Proctor did pay them a visit, the noise having become so insistent that it was bound to attract the attention of any one passing down Jesus Lane. He took the names of all the party, but Mr. Binney went to bed in happy oblivion of the event, as well as of the advent of his pastor, and woke up in the morning with a bad headache and a dim impression that something had happened the night before which would cause him great uneasiness if only he could remember what it was.
As he sat with throbbing head and smarting eyeballs over a late cup of tea, which he dignified by the name of breakfast, a "bull-dog" was announced, who brought him a slip of paper requesting him to call on the Junior Proctor at a stated time.
Mr. Binney groaned. He had a dim idea that he had had an unfinished conversation with a Proctor at some previous state of his existence, but he could not remember when. He supposed it must have been during the previous evening, but he could not remember having gone out after dinner.
A little later on, a similar notice was brought to him from his Tutor. Mr. Binney was in such a low state that he actually shed tears at this fresh misfortune. He must have done something very bad indeed. If only he could remember what it was! But he couldn't, and his head was too painful to allow him to exert it to any great extent. All he knew was that he would never be able to hold up that head again. He would be sent down for a certainty. He would be eternally disgraced in the eyes of all his friends, before whom he had been used to bear himself so proudly. He grew cold when he thought of what Mrs. Higginbotham would say to him. Then his thoughts flew with a deadly sinking of heart to Dr. Toller and his fellow-officers in the congregation of which Dr. Toller was the shining leader. At this moment there was a ring at the bell, and in a few moments Dr. Toller himself was announced. Mr. Binney buried his head in the cushions of his armchair and wept aloud.
Dr. Toller left Mr. Binney an hour afterwards, chastened and repentant. The full enormity of his crime had been brought home to him. His only plea was that this was the first time such a dreadful thing had happened. Dr. Toller did not refer in direct terms to theNew Court Chronicle, as he remembered in time that his wife had not told him before he left home how its numbers had fallen into her hands. But he drew from Mr. Binney an account of the occurrences of the term, and amongst them of the attack that Piper had made upon him in his paper. "I went in for revelry to some extent last term," Mr. Binney explained, "but, even then, nothing of the sort that happened last night took place. This term my life has been hitherto irreproachable, and I did not deserve these attacks."
Dr. Toller was pleased to hear it. Poor Mr. Binney was so ashamed of himself and looked such a pitiable object bundled up in his armchair with a despairing look on his white face and black rings under his eyes, that he readily promised to keep the account of the previous night's orgie from Mr. Binney's friends in Bloomsbury, and before he went gave the repentant sinner full absolution and a great deal of very good advice.
When the doctor had removed himself it was time for Mr. Binney to call on the Proctor, who was a Fellow of Jesus College. Mr. Binney crawled along down the sunny side of the lane feeling very miserable. But the interview was not quite so painful as he had imagined. The Proctor was a young man with a keen sense of humour. He tried to impart a fitting air of severity into his strictures on the disgraceful scene he had interrupted, but spoilt it all by bursting into a peal of laughter in the middle of his lecture. After that there was nothing further to be done but to extort a heavy fine from the culprit and to let him go. Mr. Binney felt somewhat relieved as he walked out through the gates of Jesus down the passage into the lane, but his heart sank again like lead as he remembered his coming interview with his Tutor. He had just time enough to go into his rooms and drink a glass of milk and soda, before it was time to repair to Trinity College to undergo the ordeal of Mr. Rimington's displeasure.
Mr. Binney had to wait some time in the Tutor's ante-room. His thoughts were very bitter as he sat turning over the pages of a book, keenly aware of the titters and whispers of the men who were waiting with him.
The Tutor's face, when Mr. Binney at last entered the inner room, was not reassuring. It wore a severe, and, to Mr. Binney's overstrung perceptions, it seemed a contemptuous look. Mr. Rimington did not shake hands with his pupil as was his wont, but motioned him to a chair and plunged immediatelyin medias res.
"You know, of course, why I have sent for you, Mr. Binney," he said. "I have no intention of expostulating with you. I have tried that already, and it proved to be of no avail. I simply have to say that the college can no longer put up with the way you choose to behave yourself, and you must go down to-day."
"What? go down for good, sir?" said poor Mr. Binney in a broken voice.
"Yes, I think so," said the Tutor.
"Oh, surely you can't be so hard as that," pleaded Mr. Binney. "Think of the disgrace, sir."
"I do think of the disgrace," said the Tutor, with a short laugh. "I wish you had thought of it yourself a little sooner."
It will be remembered that on the last occasion of a conversation between Mr. Rimington and Mr. Binney, the latter had taken a very high line, for which he had subsequently apologised, but not quite adequately. Mr. Rimington had become very tired of Mr. Binney's methods of speech and conduct, and had made up his mind to speak shortly and sharply, and not to allow any discussion of his decision. He was not, however, prepared for the total breakdown of Mr. Binney's opposition to his authority. The poor little creature sitting crumpled up before him in abject and hot-eyed misery was a very different person from the combative self-sufficient gentleman who had resisted his warnings in such a high-handed fashion when he had before animadverted on his conduct, so he did not refuse to listen when Mr. Binney began to plead with him in a piteous, broken-hearted manner.
"I know I have disgraced myself, sir," he said, "I feel it deeply. But such a thing will never happen again, and it has never happened before."
"Oh, pardon me, Mr. Binney," said the Tutor. "This affair is only the climax to a consistent course of such behaviour. I have had reason to speak to you before about it. You can't possibly have forgotten that."
"Not about drunkenness, sir," said Mr. Binney. "I was drunk last night, you know. I confess it. That has never happened before, and will never happen again."
"There are degrees of culpability, of course, in these matters," said Mr. Rimington. "Where you seem to disagree with me is in thinking that these disorderly meetings are allowable at all when a man of your age and influence takes the lead in setting all rules of order and good conduct aside."
"I don't disagree with you at all, sir," said Mr. Binney. "I am very sorry that anything of the sort has ever happened in my rooms. I promise you, if you will only give me another chance, that it shall never happen again."
"You forget, Mr. Binney, that I ventured to impress my views upon you at the end of last term, and warned you that if anything of the sort happened again I should be compelled to take a serious view of it. The first man I had to deal with at the beginning of this term had got into trouble through—er—his companionship with you. And further than that your name has become synonymous with disorderly behaviour throughout the University."
What would not Mr. Binney have given at that moment to recall the vanished days and spend them to better advantage? The contemptible light in which he must appear to men of his own standing was borne in upon him like a flood, and he felt that it would indeed be better if he left Cambridge for good and never showed his face there again.
"I deserve to be sent down in disgrace," he said feebly. "There is only one reason why I beg you to exercise your clemency—for the sake of my boy."
Mr. Rimington's mild eyes flashed fire. "I can scarcely trust myself to speak to you on that subject," he said. "If I do so it is because I feel it my duty as a clergyman to try and bring home to you the enormity of your conduct towards your son. Are you incapable of——"
"Oh, don't, don't," interrupted Mr. Binney in a broken-hearted voice. "I see it all. Nothing you could say would be so severe as what I say to myself. I can't bear it. I can't really. But just think what an awful thing it would be for him to have it said that his father was sent down for drunkenness. He would bear the brand of it all his life."
"It seems to me," said the Tutor dryly, "that you have already given him something that he will have reason to be ashamed of all his life. I have a great admiration for your son. I tell you candidly, Mr. Binney, that I don't know one other undergraduate who could have held up his head in Cambridge after what he has gone through."
"Oh, don't say any more, I beg of you," cried Mr. Binney, cut to the heart. "And don't make things worse for him by sending me down."
"If I thought for a moment that your staying up here would make things easier for him," said Mr. Rimington, "I own I should hesitate, although I don't say that my decision would be altered. But it seems to me that the very kindest course to pursue on his account would be to prevent his having any further cause to be shamed by your conduct up here. No, Mr. Binney. You must go down this afternoon. I have spoken to one or two of my colleagues about it, and our decision is irrevocable. I see no use in protracting this painful interview."
Mr. Binney pleaded and besought, but all to no avail, and left his Tutor's presence at last, a disgraced and despairing man.
The feelings of Lucius towards his father are too painful a subject to dilate upon. Never surely, since the wide doors of Cambridge University were opened to all comers, had any of its members been placed in a more disagreeable position. Looking back on this trying time in after years, Lucius wondered how he could ever have endured life at Cambridge for a single day. But he had attained to that state of sympathetic intimacy with his cousin in which he could pour out some of his troubles to her when they met, and be gently but effectually consoled for them. Betty had never met Mr. Binney, but she knew him by sight, and nourished a fierce and bitter enmity towards him.
Lucius met his cousin, on the morning after his father's fall, outside the lecture room of St. John's College, where she was engaged for an hour three mornings in the week. The other girls who were with her gave Lucius a glance and then hurried off through the gate, leaving them alone.
"Good-bye, Lucius," she said hastily, "I must go. I don't know what those girls are running away for like that."
"Do let me walk back with you, Betty," said Lucius. "I'm so beastly miserable, I don't know what to do."
"Very well, then. Just for once," said Betty, after a look at his face. "We'll go along the Backs."
"I suppose you haven't heard about my father last night, have you?" asked Lucius, as they made their way across the bridge.
"No. What about him?" asked Betty.
"I really sometimes think he's going off his head," said Lucius despondently. "He was so pleased at his boat going head of the river that he gave a great feed. There was a terrific row. In the middle of it the old fool I have to go and hear preach at home turned up. Goodness knows what brought him. He came to see me this morning just after breakfast, and seems to think I must have been in it too, although he knew I wasn't there. He began a long solemn jaw, but I was so sick I shut him up. He's an awful old outsider, and he's got nothing to do with me, even if I had done something he didn't approve of, which I haven't."
"But it doesn't matter whathethinks, does it?" asked Betty with all the scorn of the rector's daughter against a member of a usurping caste.
"I don't know," said Lucius dubiously. "His wife is a spiteful old woman. Of course it will get to her ears and then it will be all over the place. There's one good thing, I have been away from home such a lot, and have so many friends outside, that it won't matter so much to me as it might have done. But it will be awful for the poor old governor. I don't think he knows what he's laying up for himself."
"Oh, I shouldn't bother my head about him if I were you," said Betty airily. "It's his own fault, and he's got himself to thank for it. It's you I'm thinking of." Then she blushed a little.
Lucius blushed too. "You are so awfully kind," he began, "and——"
"Yes. Thank you," interrupted Betty, hastily.
"But I really shouldn't know what to do if it wasn't for you," persisted Lucius. "It's like——"
"Yes, I know," interrupted Betty again. "But you haven't told me all about last night yet, have you?"
"No," said Lucius, his face falling again. "The row reached such a pitch that the Proctors came in. My gyp told me that the governor was going to be hauled this morning, and I shouldn't wonder if he were sent down."
"Well, that will be all the better for you, won't it?" inquired Betty, unmoved at the awful announcement.
"I don't know. I haven't thought of that yet," Lucius admitted. "But I'm afraid it will kill the poor old governor. I shall go and see him when I get back. I'm awfully sorry for him, although he has been so tiresome. But don't let's talk any more about it. We're nearly there. I say, Betty——"
"I think you'd better go back now," said Betty. "You've come quite far enough," and Lucius was not bold enough to disobey her.
He found Mr. Binney just returned from his visit to his Tutor. "It's all over, Lucius. I'm sent down," he said hopelessly.
Lucius was at a loss for words. The humour of the situation suddenly struck him, and he had hard work to prevent himself smiling.
"I've been a bad father to you, my boy," went on Mr. Binney. "I see it all now. I wish I had behaved differently. But it is too late. All is over. The blow has fallen. I am a disgraced man."
"Oh, come, cheer up, father," said Lucius. "I should think they would give you another show if you promise to keep quiet in future."
"No, they won't," said Mr. Binney. "They think I am spoiling your chances at Cambridge. And they are quite right—oh,absolutelyright."
"What nonsense," said Lucius. "Is it only on my account they have sent you down?"
"That chiefly," said Mr. Binney, with the calm voice of despair. "But they have lost faith in me. And quite right too. Oh,quiteright."
"Well, I'll tell you what, father," said Lucius, "I'll go and see Rimington and ask him to give you another chance. We're rather pals, and he might listen, although it's rather cheek my tackling him."
"Oh, Lucius, if you only would," exclaimed Mr. Binney, grasping his son eagerly by the arm. "I believe he would listen to you. I do really, and it's my only chance. I thought this morning that I shouldn't care to stay at Cambridge any longer after what has happened. But I can't bear the thought of going down like this. It is too awful."
"Of course not," said Lucius. "I'll go at once."
Mr. Rimington was still receiving when Lucius presented himself in his anteroom. After a time he found himself cordially greeted by his father's Tutor, and sat down without an idea as to how he should begin what he had to say.
"I've come about my father," he said, reddening and playing with the tassel of his cap. "I hope you'll give him another chance, sir. It wasn't altogether his fault that all the noise was made last night, and he'll be very careful that it doesn't happen again. It will be rather unpleasant for me if he is sent down," he added.
"Has your father asked you to come to me?" asked Mr. Rimington.
"No," said Lucius, "I come of my own accord."
"Wouldn't you be happier up here if your father were—were at home, Binney?"
"I shouldn't be any happier if people could say he had been sent down. In fact, I don't think I could stand it. He'll keep pretty well in the background after this, I should think, and I don't much mind his being up here if he does that."
"I can't hold out any hopes of our decision being altered," said Mr. Rimington after a pause. "It is not I alone who am responsible for it. But I think that your wishes in the matter should certainly be considered. I can't say more than that at present, and, as I say, your father had better not entertain any hopes of our decision being reversed. If there is anything more to say, I will write to him in London."
With this slender thread of hope Mr. Binney travelled home to Russell Square that afternoon in sad and lonely dejection. His head still ached after his excesses of the previous night, and his mood was so dark that he put off the confession which he knew he should have to make to Mrs. Higginbotham, until the next morning. As he dined in solitary state that evening, attended by his neat and soft-footed maids, he found himself wondering how the habits and customs of twenty years could have broken down so completely under the influence of new surroundings. Two years ago he would have been the first to hold up pious hands of horror at the mere mention of an orgie such as he had taken part in the night before. And, having returned once more to his accustomed manner of life, he felt just as far apart from it as he would have done then. But he could not keep his thoughts away for long from the dark fact that he had just been expelled from the University for continuous bad conduct, and it will be agreed that this cannot have been a pleasant recollection for a middle-aged gentleman with a grown-up son.
Dr. Toller had promised Mr. Binney that he would keep to himself all mention of the scene he had surprised. His doing so was only another example of the eternal self-complaisance of human nature. Dr. Toller was about as capable of keeping anything to himself that his wife wanted to hear about, as a puppy is of holding a stick that its master wants to take away. At twelve o'clock Dr. Toller returned from Cambridge to the wife of his bosom. By a quarter past, Mrs. Toller was in possession of the main outlines of his story, which had been filled in before the half hour struck by all the details that Dr. Toller's memory could supply.
"You won't tell anyone else what has happened, my dear, will you?" said Dr. Toller, when his wife had extracted all the information from him he was capable of affording.
"I shall tell what I please to whomsoever I please," said Mrs. Toller.
"But, my dear, my promise," expostulated the doctor.
"Bother your promise!" said Mrs. Toller, as she went out of the room.
After breakfast the next morning Mr. Binney, to whom another day had brought no cessation of the gnawing pains of remorse, took his courage in both hands, and putting on his hat and coat, went round to Woburn Square.
The maid who opened the door to him gave a little start. "Mrs. Higginbotham is not at home, sir," she said. "But she told me to give you this little parcel if you happened to call."
Mr. Binney took the parcel, neatly tied up and directed in Mrs. Higginbotham's well-known writing. "Do you know when Mrs. Higginbotham will be in?" he asked.
The maid hesitated. "She told me to say she was not at home, sir," she repeated awkwardly, and Mr. Binney went down the steps with the terrible realisation hammering at his brain, that Mrs. Higginbotham had heard of his disgrace and refused to receive him.
He waited until he had returned to the seclusion of his own library before he opened the packet which she had directed to him.
It contained all the letters he had ever written to her.
It was ten o'clock of a late April morning, one of those hot sunny days which sometimes make it not unfitting that the term which in Cambridge begins in April and ends in the middle of June should be known as the Summer Term. The morning in Cambridge, as has been explained, is usually devoted to books, but here was Mr. Lucius Binney of Trinity College in a very light grey flannel suit and a straw hat apparently making preparations for some sort of an expedition. He had collected from different corners of the room a Japanese umbrella, two plethoric silken cushions and a large box of chocolate creams. He put them down on the table and looked for a moment longingly at his collection of pipes, but finally contented himself with filling a cigarette case, which he slipped into his pocket. At this juncture a step was heard approaching. Lucius had just time to cover the box of chocolate creams with a cushion before the door was opened and Mr. Benjamin Stubbs entered the room. He was in cap and gown and carried a notebook.
"Holloa!" he exclaimed, "going on the Backs? Not a bad idea this fine morning. I've a good mind to cut lecture and come with you."
"Oh I shouldn't do that, Dizzy, if I were you," said Lucius, "you'd better go and hear what Mansell has got to say. I can crib your notes afterwards."
"We can both crib 'em off Hare," said Dizzy. "I should like a paddle in a canoe. Lend us a hat and I'll leave these things here."
"I haven't got another hat except that one with the Third Trinity colours and you can't wear that."
"Well, you Juggins, you can wear that and lend me the one you've got on."
"The other doesn't fit me very well," objected Lucius.
"What rot! why, you wear it every day. I'll tell you what it is, young man, you've got some game on and you don't want me to come. What is it?"
Dizzy here took up one of the cushions on the table and disclosed the box of chocolates which it hid. Enlightenment diffused itself over his intelligent features.
"Oh, I see, yes," he said, "Good morning, Binney, I'm afraid I shall be late for lecture." And he betook himself out of the room.
"Silly ass!" soliloquised Lucius. Then he gathered up his properties and made his way out across the Great Court, which lay wide and still beneath a smiling April sky, through the Hostel and down the narrow lane which leads to the river and the raft, where in summer-time a flotilla of boats and canoes is moored under the trees. Lucius selected a Canadian canoe and deposited a cushion at either end, supplementing those supplied by the boatmen. The chocolate creams he stowed carefully behind his own cushion, and taking his seat pushed out into the open water through the maze of pleasure boats which stretched half-way across the river. He was almost alone on the water. The rooks cawed in the high elms which fringe the pleasant gardens by the river, the whirr of a mowing machine came from some unseen lawn close by; there was an idle summer feeling in the air. Lucius paddled in a leisurely manner up the river, past the terraced gardens of Trinity Hall, the prow of his canoe breaking up the reflection of the beautiful Clare Bridge as he passed under it, along the spacious level lawn of King's and under the King's bridge into the darker waters bounded by the old buildings of Queens'. The illicit tinkling of a piano came from an open window in the new King's buildings and two men leant idly on the parapet of the bridge and watched him as he paddled slowly underneath. When he reached the wooden bridge of Queens', the bridge which Sir Isaac Newton is said to have erected without a bolt or nut, he turned round and dropped down the river again. As he neared the King's bridge he pulled out his watch.
"She said half-past ten," he murmured to himself. "I suppose she is bound to be a bit late. Girls always are."
He lay back on his cushions and allowed the canoe to drift. Opposite to him was the entrance to a backwater, arched over with trees, and crossed by a wooden bridge. Lucius surveyed it idly. "I wonder if she will come down there with me," he said to himself.
At this moment a fair vision of youth and beauty in diaphanous summer draperies came into sight on the river bank just above him. Lucius sprang out on to the bank and knelt down on the grass to hold the canoe for the fair vision to step into it. It was his cousin Betty. She looked cool and fresh and not at all as if she was doing a very bold thing as she stepped into the wobbly craft and settled herself on the cushions opposite him.
"This is ripping, Betty," said Lucius. "It is most charming of you to come out with me like this."
"You don't think I came for the pleasure of your company, do you?" inquired Betty.
"Oh, no, not in the least."
"How conceited you are! You know you do think it."
"I assure you, Betty, it never entered my head. When a girl writes to her cousin and asks him to take her out on the river, he would be a conceited ass, as you say, to imagine for a moment that she wanted to go with him."
"I didn't say I didn't want to go with you. If I must go at all I would just as soon go with you as any one."
"I don't know that there's any necessity for you to go at all if you don't want to."
"Ah, but you don't know everything."
"Why did you come, then?"
"I'll tell you when we get back again. Now paddle up to the Bridge of Sighs."
"How mysterious you are! But there's no hurry. Let us go down this little backwater. You can't think how jolly it is. There are shady trees on one side and a field with daisies and cows and buttercups and things on the other."
"No thank you, I don't want to go down a backwater. I want to paddle down to St. John's and back."
"What for?"
"I shan't tell you yet."
"Then I shan't paddle."
"How tiresome you are, Lucius! You spoil all my pleasure in your society."
"You said you didn't take any pleasure in my society just now."
"No more I do. Now paddle along, there's a good boy."
"Who is that female on the bank taking such an interest in us?"
"She isn't a female. Don't be rude. She's one of my particular friends. Now go on please."
"What is she doing there? Why doesn't she go home?"
"She will, when we have been up to the Bridge of Sighs and back, and I shall go with her. Now do paddle on and be quick. I shall get into a row, you know, if anyone else sees me here."
"I shan't go on until you tell me what all this is about. Don't get into a temper. If you kick the bottom of the boat like that your foot will go through and we shall both be in the water."
"You really are too provoking, Lucius. I'll never speak to you again if you don't go on directly."
Lucius began to paddle on slowly. "Now, tell me," he said, "why you wanted to come."
"Well, if you must know, that girl betted me a box of chocolates that I wouldn't, and I do love them so and I've spent all last quarter's allowance and can't afford to buy any. Now do go on, Lucius, there's a good boy. We have only got to get up to the Bridge of Sighs and back, and I shall get them."
Lucius stopped again. "I don't know that I want you to get them particularly," he said, "after what you have said about not wanting to come with me. Didn't you want to come with me a bit?"
"No, of course not."
"Not a little bit?"
"No."
"Then I shan't go on."
"Oh—oh—oh! I feel as if I should like to throw something at you."
"Well, why don't you? Look, there's the girl on the bank grinning at you. How pleased she'll be if I let her win."
"Horrid thing, she is! But I hate you worse still. I feel as if I could do anything to you now."
"What, hurt poor little Cousin Lucy? Oh, Betty, for shame!"
"Well, if you won't go on, turn back then, and I'll get out. Only I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."
"I say, Betty, are you very fond of chocolates?"
"Yes, I am, but I wouldn't sit here for another five minutes for all the chocolates in the world. Turn round and go back, please."
Lucius put his hand behind his back, and drew out the big box already mentioned.
"Look here; let's stop and eat these here, while that girl looks on. Then we'll go up to St. John's and back and you can have hers too."
This plan commended itself to Betty, and she spent a happy ten minutes while the girl on the bank strolled about and pretended to be admiring the Chapel of King's and the beautiful College of Clare, which are both seen to advantage at the point where the canoe had stopped.
There is a time when even Buszard's most expensive confections cease to charm. When this time had arrived for Betty, she said, "I don't much care if I don't get the others now, but I know I shall want them to-morrow, so paddle on, Lucius. I'm much more pleased with you now."
"Thank you, Betty," said Lucius, and the canoe proceeded on its way, under the Clare, Hostel, and Trinity Bridges with the graceful willows sweeping the water, round the curve where the classical front of the Trinity library looks severely towards the paddocks and the elms, and under the wall of the Master of Trinity's garden, where a blossoming tree showed a mass of delicate pink against the red-tile gables of Neville's Court, under yet another bridge flanked by the stone eagles of St. John's, and between the walls of that college until they reached their goal, the covered bridge, which, through no merit of its own, has usurped the name of the Bridge of Sighs.
"Thank you," said Betty. "Now be quick and get back. What a sell for that girl! and we haven't met anybody to matter either."
"Plenty of time for that. We've got to get all the way back again. I didn't tell you before, because I thought you would be frightened, but you remember Dizzy whom you met in my rooms last term when your mother was up?"
"Yes, I hope he isn't coming out, is he?"
"Well, I'm afraid he is. It's an old standing engagement; he promised to row a party of Newnham dons—seven of them—on the Backs this morning."
For one moment Betty's face blanched with terror. Then she said, "You are a donkey, Lucius. Hurry up, please."
But Lucius wasn't going to hurry up. He was very well content with his present position. Betty reclined opposite to him in a graceful attitude, the brilliant colour of the Japanese umbrella a setting to her pretty face.
"Why did you put on that pretty frock?" asked Lucius.
"Because it is so hot; just like summer."
"I know why you put it on."
"Of course you do when I've just told you."
"You put it on because you wanted me to think how pretty you looked in it."
"I didn't do anything of the sort. Don't be so silly."
"You do look awfully pretty in it, you know."
"Now, Lucius, if you begin saying that sort of thing I shall get out."
"All right. The river is shallow here. It won't come much above your shoulders."
"Be quiet, and go on."
"I am going on. I say, Betty!"
"Well?"
"Do you remember those lectures last October term?"
"Yes, pretty well; I've got the notes of them at home if you want them."
"Bother the notes! Do you remember how regular I was?"
"How should I? I didn't know you then."
"Oh, you wicked story! You knew who I was perfectly well, you little witch, and you let me go on like that for two whole terms without making a sign. It was cruel of you."
"Well, did you expect me to stop you in the street and say I was your cousin, when you had never taken the trouble to call on me?"
"You know I thought you were at Girton. Father said you were, and thereissomeone called German there."
"Yes, and you went to Girton such a lot, didn't you?"
"I could swear now when I think what an idiot I was."
"Then don't do it, please, although I quite agree with you. And, of course, you were much too grand to come and see us at Christmas."
"Confound it! I say, Betty, was it you who got me asked there?"
"I certainly shouldn't think of doing so again. And it was mother who asked you last vacation. I had nothing to do with it."
"Then itwasyou. Betty, you are a dar——"
"Now, then, be quiet, please."
"You and John are coming to us in town for a week, directly after term."
"Poor old John. I wonder whatever he would say if he saw me now!"
They had now passed Clare again, and were gliding slowly along between the pleasant meadow and the great lawn towards King's bridge.
"I say, Betty," said Lucius, "I don't want to frighten you, but who is that on the bridge?"
"I should think the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Newnham waiting for us," answered Betty without turning round.
"No, but really, I do believe it is John."
Betty turned round and saw a man in a straw hat with a green and black ribbon leaning over the bridge.
"Yes, it is," she said, blushing scarlet, but speaking quite unconcernedly, "he ought to be working. I shall blow him up for it."
"Shall we turn round? He hasn't spotted us yet."
"Turn round? Whatever for? You don't suppose I'm frightened of John, do you?"
"I don't know. You look rather as if you were."
"Of course I'm not. But I don't know what he will think, and I should look so idiotic if I began to explain."
"What about that backwater?"
"Is it very pretty?"
"Yes, very. Hold your umbrella towards the bridge as we go round the corner and he won't see you. I'll pull my hat over my face."
So the canoe glided under the little wooden bridge and into the still, shaded water beyond.
The other girl, who was still walking about along the river bank, and had seen it disappear, waited for an hour, and then went away furious, half intending to report Miss Betty Jermyn to the authorities of her college. Directly she had gone, the canoe came sliding out into the river again.
Betty was speaking.
"I shouldn't much mind if John did see us now, should you, Lucius?"
"Not a bit, darling," answered the happy Lucius. "But it wasn't John at all. I looked when you were holding the umbrella in front of your face."
Our narrative has dwelt so long on a series of painful and discreditable events, that it is hoped that the account of how Lucius and Betty, boy and girl as they were, made up their minds to spend their lives together, may have dissipated the gloom which the sympathetic reader will have experienced in following the chequered career of Mr. Binney. We must now go back a little and fill up the gap which we have left between the end of February and the end of April.
And first let us say that the very time Lucius and Betty were cooing like a pair of young doves in the seclusion of that backwater of the Cam, which now holds for them more tender memories than any other spot in the world, Mr. Binney was still in evidence as an undergraduate member of the University of Cambridge. Lucius's plea had been successful. A week after Mr. Binney's return to Russell Square he had received a letter from Mr. Rimington, to inform him that he might come up again at the beginning of the following term, but that the slightest breach of discipline on his part in the future would mean a sentence of instant dismissal from which there would be no appeal.
But alas! this letter, welcome as its contents were, did not suffice to raise Mr. Binney from the despondency into which he had fallen. After the receipt of Mrs. Higginbotham's mute but eloquent dismissal he had passed a week of such black despair that he could never look back upon it in after life without shuddering. He had beaten his wings against the doors of Mrs. Higginbotham's dwelling, but in vain. There was no admittance for him. He had importuned her by post. His letters remained unanswered. He scarcely knew how to bear the hard fate that he had brought upon himself. He was all alone in the house, for Lucius had gone straight from Cambridge to Norfolk, and was now engaged in the Reverend Mr. Jermyn's pleasant rectory house and garden in laying the train which eventually culminated in the scene between him and Betty recounted at the beginning of this chapter. He would have gone down to his place of business, but he was ashamed to face his manager and his clerks. He thought that every one would know he had been sent down from Cambridge.
As a matter of fact, this particular event of his University career never did become known to any but a very few. Even Mrs. Toller did not know it, although Mr. Binney was convinced that she must have done, for she cut him pointedly in Gower Street one afternoon as he crept miserably along taking a little air and exercise, and audibly instructed her daughter to do the same, as Mr. Binney raised his hat.
After that he was not surprised to receive a letter from his fellow deacons of Dr. Toller's chapel requesting him to resign his office, which he did that day with an added pang of shame, and resolved that, as he had now made the Baptist community too hot to hold him, he would become a Wesleyan Methodist, and work his way up to a position of authority in that body. He also made up his mind to let the house in Russell Square, which was far too large for himself and Lucius, and take a flat in Earl's Court, since Mrs. Higginbotham seemed to be made of adamant, and there seemed very little chance now of her ever gracing his establishment. With all these wrenches in his life, actual and imminent, it may be imagined that Mr. Binney was not a happy man at this time.
When Mr. Rimington's letter came, he decided to make one more appeal to Mrs. Higginbotham. He told her that he was going back to Cambridge, and intended to lead a very different life in the future from that of the past. Might he nourish a hope that if he did something to make up for past disgrace, Mrs. Higginbotham would forgive him and smile on him once more?
To his intense relief and tearful joy Mrs. Higginbotham replied to his letter. It appeared that he was not to be debarred from all hope. But he was not to be allowed to see Mrs. Higginbotham again until he had done something definite at Cambridge to atone for his past misconduct.
"I do not mean success in your play-hours, Peter," wrote Mrs. Higginbotham. "That you have already attained, and it has been the means of leading you astray. Such success as that will never restore my lost confidence in you. You must come to be well spoken of by masters and pupils alike. You must rise to the top of your classes, and acquit yourself well in your examinations. When you have done that you may come and see me again. Until then the memory of the dreadful trouble you have brought upon yourself and upon me, who trusted you, must abide with me. I do not wish to load you with reproaches. Your own conscience must be a very heavy burden for you to bear. But I could not bear to see you with the account that one who shall be nameless gave me of your conduct and appearances still fresh in my memory."
Mr. Binney stifled his renewed feelings of remorse and wrote to ask if the passing of his Little-go in the following June might be considered a passport to Mrs. Higginbotham's society? Mrs. Higginbotham replied, Yes. If he passed that examination well and behaved immaculately in the meantime he might consider himself on the old footing with her. So Mr. Binney took heart, re-engaged the useful Minshull and retired to Cornwall for the Easter vacation, where he ploughed away at his studies so energetically that Minshull held out hopes of his attaining a second class in one part at least of the examination.
When Lucius paddled his canoe out of the backwater with Betty sitting opposite to him in a flutter of dimples and happiness, there was literally no cloud on his horizon. He had been up at Cambridge now for three weeks and his father had never once given him occasion to wish himself away. Mr. Binney behaved himself irreproachably. In fact, if he had kept himself in the background as he was doing now from the time he had entered the University, Lucius would have had no reason to be ashamed of him at all. Even as it was, the contrast of what Mr. Binney was now and what he had been when he first came up was so great that the relief felt by Lucius almost made up for the distress he had previously undergone. Mr. Binney as a subject for discussion had somewhat lost interest by this time, and Lucius lived much in the same way as he would have done if his father had never come to Cambridge. Mr. Binney, whose nature was elastic, had recovered a little of his self-importance now that he had nothing to fear from outraged officialdom, and was rather inclined to patronise his son, and generally to assume the high parental air with which he had treated him before his own arrival in Cambridge.
But Lucius, whose appeal had saved his father from expulsion, took it all in excellent part, and was only too thankful that things were not worse. He could have borne a great deal more and thought nothing of it now that Betty had at last allowed him to put to her the all-important question, and had given him the answer he wanted. He whistled gaily as he walked up to his rooms from the river and thought himself the luckiest fellow in the world.
At the entrance to Whewell's Court he met Dizzy.
"I've done it, old man," he said with a beaming face. "You're the first person I've told about it."
"Then I'm sure I'm extremely flattered," answered Dizzy, "although I haven't the slightest notion what you're talking about."
"I'm going to be married, Dizzy," said Lucius. "Will you be my best man?"
"Well, I'm going to play racquets at two," said Dizzy. "If you could put it off till to-morrow perhaps I could——"
"No, but really, Ben, I asked Betty this morning, and it's all right."
"My dear old man," said Dizzy, grasping him warmly by the hand, while a bright smile lit up his ingenuous features, "I couldn't have been better pleased if I'd done it myself!"
There never was such a little man as Mr. Binney for getting knocked down flat and picking himself up again as cocky as ever. Lucius's announcement of his engagement to his cousin Betty brought him to his feet as pompous as if he had never been fined by a Proctor or rebuked by a Dean.
"I never heard of such a thing," he said indignantly. "Getting engaged to be married at your age! Why, it's ridiculous. I won't have it. That's flat."
"What won't you have, father?" asked Lucius. "You can't stop my being engaged to her, you know. That's over and done with."
"It is not over and done with, sir," said Mr. Binney. "The engagement, if there is one, must be broken off."
"Why?" asked Lucius.
"Because I say so," said his father.
"You ought to give me a reason," said Lucius. "I'm not a child. I love her and she loves me. Why shouldn't we be married? Of course I don't mean now, but in two years' time or so, when you make me a partner in the business."
"You'll never be a partner in the business," said Mr. Binney, "if you persist in this folly. You're a boy and she's a girl, and I won't have it. It's ridiculous."
"Of course she's a girl. I shouldn't want to marry her if she were an old woman," said Lucius. "If you can't give me any better reason than that, father, I don't think you're treating me fairly."
Mr. Binney laid down the law for half-an-hour or so longer. He did not produce a better reason for refusing his sanction to the engagement, not having a better one to produce, unless he had told Lucius that he was objecting simply for the pleasure of asserting his authority, which was about the long and short of it. Lucius left him at last, somewhat dispirited, and sought the society of Dizzy, his friend.
"Governor won't hear of it," he said, laconically, as he threw himself into an easy chair.
"Why not?" asked Dizzy.
"Wants to show his independence, I fancy," said Lucius. "He talked a powerful lot of rot. Told me he'd turn me out of the house if I didn't break it off."
"Oh, he'll come round," said Dizzy encouragingly. "I know his little ways. You stick to it. You'll find yourself settled in a semi-detached villa at Brixton in a twelve-month, bringing home a basket of fish for dinner, and making a row about the water-rate. It'll turn out right in the end. You see if it don't."
"I don't see much chance of it," said Lucius despondently. "The governor swears he won't allow me enough to marry on for five years at least. I've a good mind to take to gambling and try and pick up a bit that way."
"Rub your eyes, old man," said Dizzy. "This is Cambridge. It isn't a novel by Alan St. Aubyn, although youarein love with a Newnham girl, and the first fellow I've ever known up here who's gone anywhere near it. Not that they're not regular toppers, some of them," he added hastily, anxious to clear himself from any suspicion of being wanting in chivalry. "But that sort of thing don't happen, as they say in the play. And that's all about it."
"Well, it's happened with me," said Lucius. "And I'm pretty well down in the mouth about it."
"Look here," said Dizzy. "Shall I go and tackle your old governor? I daresay he'd listen to me."
Lucius laughed. "I won't stop you," he said, "but it won't be any good."
"We'll see," said Dizzy. "I'll go at once."
When Lucius left his father, Mr. Binney began to turn over in his mind the news he had received. He was not really displeased at it now he came to think it over. Betty Jermyn was a very charming girl, and there was no objection to her on the score of blood relationship, for her mother had only been a second cousin of his wife's. They were both very young, it is true, certainly too young to marry yet; but then they did not want to marry yet. As far as money was concerned, Mr. Binney fully intended to take Lucius into partnership with him in two or three years' time. And even if the girl should prove to be penniless, as was probable, Lucius would have quite enough to marry on directly he gave him a share in the business. At this point in his ruminations Dizzy entered the room.
"Ah, Mr. Binney!" he said. "I thought I'd just look you up as I was passing. How's the work getting on?"
"Very well, thank you, Stubbs," replied Mr. Binney, with a pre-occupied air. "Have you heard anything about this nonsense between Lucius and his cousin?"
"What, Miss Jermyn?" asked Dizzy. "Yes. I did hear they were thinking of getting married or something of that sort. I didn't take much notice of it."
"Then you don't think Lucius is in earnest about it?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I should say he was in devilish deep earnest."
"Now, look here, Stubbs," said Mr. Binney. "Don't you think it's a very ridiculous thing a boy not much over twenty getting engaged to be married?"
"Well, if you ask me for a plain answer, I can't say I do. I believe in early marriages myself. It don't come so hard on the children. Now look at my case. My old governor didn't marry till he was past fifty. What's the consequence? When I go down from this place and want to go about a bit and amuse myself, I shall have to sit by his bedside and hold his hand. I'm fond of my old governor, but it isn't good enough."
"That is a point, certainly," said Mr. Binney, thoughtfully.
"Yes, and look at the other side of the question," continued Dizzy. "You married young yourself, I take it, and here you are at the prime of life with a son old enough to be a companion to you. Old enough! Why, bless me, you're the younger of the two, and that's a fact."
Mr. Binney was very much impressed by this argument. "There is a good deal in what you say, Stubbs," he remarked. "I don't want to be hard on the boy, of course, and I've no objection to the girl personally. She seems a very nice girl, what little I've seen of her."
"Oh,she'sall right. She's a topper," said Dizzy.
"Of course I've got to keep up my authority, you know," pursued Mr. Binney. "It won't do to slack the rein yet awhile."
"By George, no," said Dizzy. "I should be a whale on parental authority myself if I were in your place. Still, I don't think you'll find Lucius disposed to question your decision. He told me himself he had the utmost faith in your judgment and should follow your advice whatever it might cost him."
"Did he really tell you that?" inquired Mr. Binney, somewhat surprised.
"Well, he didn't put it quite in that way," admitted Dizzy. "But that's about what it came to."
"Then if he feels like that about it," said Mr. Binney, "I shall put no further obstacles in his path. He's a good boy, Lucius, and I'm pleased with him."
"He's got a good father," said Dizzy. "That's about the size of it," and he took himself off to inform Lucius that he had managed everything for him in a perfectly satisfactory manner.
Mr. Binney had asserted his authority and was content. Subject to the approval of Betty's parents, she and Lucius were allowed to consider themselves engaged, with the prospect of marriage when Lucius should reach the age of twenty-three. Mr. and Mrs. Jermyn made no objections. Lucius had made himself very popular in the Norfolk rectory, and he was a good match for their daughter from a worldly point of view. He went about Cambridge for the rest of that term in the seventh heaven of happiness.
A few days after Lucius's future had been satisfactorily settled for him, Mr. Binney had occasion to call on his Tutor. He now no longer looked upon this as an ordeal. The sternest official critic could have found no flaw in his behaviour during that part of the term that was past, and he had no intention of giving any occasion for complaint during the remainder of his residence in Cambridge. He could hold up his head before anybody, and entered the Tutor's presence with an air of conscious worth.
Mr. Rimington received him pleasantly and attended to the business upon which Mr. Binney had come. "I hope you are feeling happy amongst us now that things are going more smoothly, Mr. Binney," he said as he blotted the paper in front of him.
"Thank you," said Mr. Binney, "University life is full of interest to those who know how to value it."
Mr. Rimington looked at him and smiled. "You have found out how to value it now, have you?" he asked.
"Certainly," said Mr. Binney. "I hope, sir, that you do not intend to allude to past mistakes. I should resent such remarks on your part."
"Oh, not at all," said Mr. Rimington hastily, "we have had no cause to complain of you this term, Mr. Binney, and I have no wish to remind you of what is over and done with. I hope you are getting on well with your work."
"I expect to take a first in both parts of the examination," said Mr. Binney, rising. "Good-morning, sir."
As the summer term passed quickly away with its feverish work and its incessant pleasures, for it is the term when examinations closely jostle its crowded gaieties, Mr. Binney found himself nearing two important events. In one week about the beginning of June he was to go in for both parts of his Little-go, and at the end of it to steer the First Trinity first boat in the May races. With regard to his examination, he felt confident of acquitting himself well. That he was over-confident was shown by his boast to Mr. Rimington, for it is not out of material such as himself that first classes are made, even in the most elementary examination that Cambridge affords. But he had worked so hard that he was certain of passing, and he looked forward with trembling hope to a renewal of his intercourse with Mrs. Higginbotham as a reward of his success. In being chosen to steer the representative oarsmen of First Trinity he had been extremely fortunate. When he had so disgraced himself in the previous term after the success of his boat in the Lent races, Mirrilees had sworn that he should never again steer a boat with which he had anything to do. But one of the coxswains tried for the first boat had fallen ill, others had proved unsatisfactory, and by the middle of term, by which time Mr. Binney had already proved that his manner of life would be innocuous for the future, Mirrilees had relented, and he was installed in the proud position that he so coveted. Trinity Hall was the head boat on the river, First Trinity was second, and Third Trinity was behind them. All three were considered equally good, and no one could safely prophesy what the result of the races would be so far as they were concerned. The Hall men laughed at the idea of losing their place; the First Trinity men expected to bump them, and said so; while Third Trinity kept quiet, but expected to find themselves in the second place if not head of the river by the time the races were over.
Lucius was rowing bow in the Third Trinity boat, and his quiet confidence that Third were a better crew than First exasperated Mr. Binney, who wouldn't hear of it.
"Don't talk such nonsense," he said in an annoyed tone, when Lucius ventured to advance the opinion that Third would finish head of the river and First second. "We shall row away from you, and catch the Hall at Ditton on the first night."
"We shall see," said Lucius calmly.
"No, we shall not see, sir," said Mr. Binney angrily. "I mean weshallsee. And we shall see that I am right." He had quite recovered his bombastic tone, only he had learnt by bitter experience to quell it, except when addressing his son, who was too good-tempered to resent it.
Betty, of course, showed the utmost interest in the prospects of the Third Trinity crew. She was delighted when she heard that they were to row behind the boat which was to be steered by Mr. Binney, for she still maintained a deep-rooted prejudice against her future father-in-law, in spite of the welcome he had given her as Lucius's intended bride. "If they bump them, and I see it," she said to one of her friends, the girl from whom she had won the box of chocolate creams, "I think I shall scream with joy. Oh, won't cousin Peter's face be worth seeing when he has to hold up his hand and acknowledge he has been beaten. I'd give worlds to see it."
"You show a very vindictive spirit," said her friend.
Mr. Binney's time was fully occupied between putting the finishing touches to his reading, and his work on the river. He had almost entirely dropped out of the social side of University life. Although his wings had been clipped, and he would now have been a quite harmless companion, the men with whom he might have associated, had he behaved differently when he first came up, still looked rather shyly on him; and he had entirely dropped the society of men like Howden, for he had learnt such a lesson that he would have been almost frightened of results if one of them had even come into his rooms. Indeed, the poor little man led a very dull life, and when he had time to think about it, on Sundays perhaps, or for half-an-hour after his work was done, and before he went to bed, he often asked himself what was the use of his staying up at Cambridge at all, since so much of what he had hoped to gain from the place seemed to have been an illusive dream. He had lost his Martha, at any rate for the present, and in his moments of insight he could not disguise from himself the fact that he was unpopular, although he endeavoured to carry off the conviction with an added bumptiousness of manner which did not endear him to those with whom he came in contact. He would probably have made up his mind to leave Cambridge after this term, when he would have passed one examination and attained to a considerable measure of success on the river, but one consideration deterred him. He hoped to be chosen to steer the University boat in the following spring, and on the chance of having that ambition realised he would have stayed on at Cambridge if everyone in the place had cut him.
June came and brought the roses, and with them the anxieties of Triposes and all the multitude of lesser examinations. Mr. Binney went in for the Little-go. All day long he sat at a narrow desk in the Corn Exchange, that classical building which the University of Cambridge periodically hires for the purpose of putting her sons through their facings, and wrote assiduously, only leaving off now and again to gaze up at the roof with an expression of agonised effort, or to rest his brain for a minute by idly reading the names on the corn dealers' lockers which lined the walls. On these occasions he would find his thoughts wandering off to business affairs, for the corn dealers' names meant considerably more to Mr. Binney than to the other few hundred undergraduates who attained a short-lived familiarity with them during those few days of effort. But when he found his thoughts slipping he would bring them back with a frown and wrestle eagerly with his translations and his problems, for the card nailed on to the desk before him reminded him that he was "Binney of Trinity," and that Peter Binney of the Whitechapel Road must be ignored at least for the next few days.
The examination lasted from the beginning of the week until Friday, and the May races began on that day. The hotels and lodgings throughout the town gradually filled up with ladies, old and young, plain and pretty, amiable and perhaps ill-tempered, although the smiling faces one met in all the streets might have given the impression that all the bad-tempered ladies had been left at home. But Mr. Binney took very little notice of the change. By day he slaved in the Corn Exchange. After his afternoon's work was over he went out with his crew on the river. In the evening he looked up his subjects for the following day and went to bed early with his mind full of books and boats. Even Mrs. Higginbotham retired into the background of his mind, and other things were forgotten entirely. By the time the examination was over Mr. Binney was rather despondent. He had done fairly well, but not so well as he had expected. But he remembered a saying of his coach: "If you think you have doneratherbadly you may have done well. If you think you have doneverybadly, you probably have." He knew he had not done very badly, so he took heart, dismissed the Little-go from his mind entirely, and threw himself heart and soul into anticipations of success in the races. We have already described the gay scene on the river bank at Ditton Corner in the May races, and one bumping race is very much like another; so the experiences of Mr. Binney, when he had steered in the previous Lent races, were not unlike those he underwent in the Mays. Of course he was now in a much more important position, and his appearance in the coxswain's seat of the First Trinity boat, as the First Division rowed down to the starting-point, never failed to cause a flutter of amusement and inquiry to go through the waiting crowd at Ditton Corner, which brought a blush to the cheek of Betty Jermyn, who was generally to be found in a boat or on the bank, in a position from which she could see everything that was going on.
She did not waste much time, however, on the contemplation of Mr. Binney, in his dark blue coat and speckled straw hat, for in the bows of the boat just in front of him, as they rowed down in reversed order, was a slim muscular figure whose eyes eagerly sought the crowded ranks of the onlookers as the crews rested for a minute on their oars before they went swinging round the bend to their stations. Betty was very proud of her lover then, for even her inexperienced eyes could see that the grace and ease with which he rowed were something to be admired, and poor little Mr. Binney sank still lower in her esteem as he gave the words of command "Get ready all! Forward all! Are you ready? Paddle!" which was the signal for his boat to move on.
On the first night of the races there was no change in the position of the three head boats. Third Trinity drew up to First at Ditton Corner, but then fell away and finished at about their distance. First Trinity gained on the Hall, but never got within a length of them. Mr. Binney steered with great judgment, and was told that he could not have done better, but he was disappointed at not catching the head boat and a little alarmed at Third Trinity having come so close to them during the early part of the race.
"They always bustle up like that at first," said Mirrilees, to whom he confided his tremors. "We shall keep away from them all right, and I hope we shall catch the Hall to-morrow."
Mr. Binney was comforted, but on the next night Third not only got to within a length of them at Grassy Corner but hustled them right up the Long Reach and very nearly caught them at the railway bridge. This pursuit seemed, however, to have increased their own pace, for it drove them right on to Trinity Hall, whom they very nearly succeeded in bumping. All three boats passed the winning post overlapping, but if Mr. Binney had made a shot at the head boat he would almost certainly have missed it, and the boat behind would almost as certainly have run into them.
He was warmly congratulated on his presence of mind by the Captain, but he went home to his rooms by no means at ease, for he now saw plainly that Third Trinity were just as likely to bump First as First Trinity were to catch Trinity Hall. He was as keenly anxious as any member of his crew to go head of the river, and he felt that not only to fail in that object but to be taken down a place instead would be more than he could bear.
It was characteristic of Mr. Binney, as may already have been gathered, to throw himself heart and soul into what he happened to be doing for the moment. He had entirely dismissed all thoughts of his late examination from his mind, and even Mrs. Higginbotham scarcely entered his thoughts during the whole of the next day, which was a Sunday, as he walked or sat and went over, in his mind all the events of the last two races and the probabilities of those that were to come. He was alone all day, for he now had very few friends, and Sunday was for Lucius a happy day spent mostly in Betty's charming society. So Mr. Binney brooded, and by-and-bye dark thoughts began to enter his mind.
During the progress of Saturday's race, when First Trinity had been chased all the way up the Long Reach by Third, Mr. Binney had cast one fleeting glance behind him, and had seen the little indiarubber ball on the nose of the Third Trinity boat within a few inches of his own rudder, while the back of his son was swinging regularly and steadily behind it. An unreasoning anger and jealousy had taken hold of his mind. It was as much as he could do to prevent himself from shouting out to Lucius to ask him where he was coming to. It seemed to him an intolerable thing that he should be prevented from gaining something that he wanted by the action of his own son, and the more he thought of it the more intolerable it seemed. He had only to say a word to Lucius, and Third Trinity would keep away from him, for it was quite certain that if one man in the boat "sugared" they would have no chance of making a bump.
Should he say that word? That was the black thought that held Mr. Binney in its grip during the whole of that pleasant June Sunday, when Cambridge was full of life and gaiety, and he only wandered about lonely and distraught. It would not be sportsman-like behaviour certainly, but Mr. Binney had not been brought up to be a sportsman, and the iniquity of the proceeding did not strike him very forcibly. It also never entered his head that Lucius would disobey his behests if he brought pressure to bear on him. Lucius was entirely dependent on his father, and could be threatened with being immediately taken away from Cambridge if he refused to do what he was told. Mr. Binney had worried himself into such a fever of desire that he could not bring himself to look upon his possible defeat with the slightest equanimity. He would have preferred that his boat should go head of the river on the merits of its crew, but rather than not go head at all, he was prepared to take any steps that would bring about what he desired.
But the morning light happily brought better counsels. He dismissed his half-formed intention of tampering with a member of the Third Trinity crew, and went down to the river with renewed hopes.
The First Trinity men rowed like heroes and got up to the head boat at Ditton Corner. Third were pressing them hard, but lost a little by bad steering.
The shouts from the bank were deafening. Mr. Binney lost his head and made shot after shot. If he had waited, his crew would have made their bump. But in the meantime they lost ground, and Third was creeping up again.
Mr. Binney turned round in his seat and saw a long sharp point with a little ball at the end of it dancing gaily past his rudder. Behind it was the back of his son, swinging regularly.
"Keep off!" roared Mr. Binney, and made another dab at the Head boat. Then he turned round again. The little ball was within reach of him, and behind it was Lucius rowing more vigorously than ever. Mr. Binney was aware of the ball and the back, and nothing else in all the world.
He lost his head completely and turned round in his seat, half rising, pulling his right rudder line, and so crammed his boat right on to the high bank under the tow-path.
"Catch a crab, or you go down to-morrow," he shrieked to Lucius.
The next moment, he could never recall how, he found himself floundering in the river, in an inextricable confusion of boats, oars, and shouting, struggling humanity. He could not swim. As he rose to the surface the blade of an oar hit him on the head. He went down again, and gave himself over, but when he came up the second time he felt himself grasped by the collar of his blazer. "Don't kick!" gasped the voice of his son. "I'll get you out."
When he was hauled on to the tow-path, panting and dripping, he turned round on Lucius in a fury: "What do you mean by it? It was your fault," he shrieked. "You'll go down! you'll go down!"
Mirrilees, dripping from head to foot, with a slimy weed clinging round his leg, shouldered his way through the crowd.
"Hold your tongue, you little beast, or I'll pitch you into the river again," he said.
Other things happened to Mr. Binney that evening, of which he does not now speak—some of them on his way to the First Trinity boat-house, some of them when he got there, others as he made his way for the last time to his rooms in Jesus Lane, and others again before he found himself in the train on his way to London, having shaken the dust of Cambridge from his feet for ever.