The clock struck midnight, and yet the Warden had not done what he had intended to do before he picked up that letter and read it. He had not gone to bed. He was still in his library, not at his desk, but in a great shabby easy-chair by the fire. He had put the lights out and was smoking in the half-dark.
So deeply absorbed was the Warden in his own thoughts that he did not hear the first knock on the door. But he heard the second knock, which was louder.
"Come in," he called, and he leaned forward in his chair. Who wanted him at such an hour? It would not be any one from the college?
The door opened and Lady Dashwood came in. She was in a dressing-gown.
"You haven't gone to bed," she said.
It was obvious that he hadn't gone to bed.
"No, not yet," said the Warden. And he added, "Do you want me?"
"I ought not to want you, dear," she said, "for I know you must be very tired."
Then she came up to the fireplace and stood looking down at her brother. She saw that the spring and the hope had gone out of his face. He looked older.
"I have put Gwen to bed in my room, but eventhat has not quieted her," said Lady Dashwood, speaking slowly.
The Warden's face in the twilight looked set. He did not glance at his sister now.
"She has lost her self-control. Do you know what the silly child thinks she saw?"
Here Lady Dashwood paused, and waited for his reply.
"I hadn't thought. She fancied she saw something—a man!" he answered, in his deep voice.
He hadn't thought! There had been no room in his mind for anything but the doom that was awaiting him. One of his most bitter thoughts in the twilight of that room had been that a woman he could have loved was already under his roof when he took his destiny into his own hands and wrecked it.
"I don't know," he said, repeating mechanically an answer to his sister's question.
"She thought she saw the Barber's ghost," said Lady Dashwood.
The Warden looked up in surprise. There was a slight and bitter smile at the corners of his mouth. Then he straightened himself in his chair and looked frowning into the fire. That Gwendolen should have taken a college "story" seriously and "made a scene" about it was particularly repugnant to him.
"She came in here; why I don't know, and no doubt was full of the story about the Barber appearing in the library," said Lady Dashwood. "We ought not to have talked about it to any one so excitable. Then she knocked her head against the book-case and was in a state of daze, in which she could easily mistake the moonlight coming through an opening in the curtains for a ghost, and if a ghost, then of course the Barber's ghost. And so all this fuss!"
"I see," said the Warden, gloomily.
"As soon as we got upstairs, I had to pack Louise off before she had time to hear anything, for I can't have the whole household upset simply because a girl allows herself to become hysterical. May is now sitting with Gwen, as she won't be left alone for a moment."
"What are you going to do?" asked the Warden, in a slow hard voice.
"That's the question," she said, looking down at him narrowly.
"Do you want a doctor?" he asked. "Is it bad enough for that? It is rather late to ask any one to come in when there isn't any actual illness."
"A doctor would be worse than useless."
"Well, then, what do you suggest?" he asked.
"Couldn't you say something to her to quiet her?" said Lady Dashwood.
The Warden looked surprised. "I couldn't say anything, Lena, that you couldn't say. You can speak with authority when you like."
"More is wanted than that. She must be made to think she saw nothing here in this library," said Lady Dashwood. "You used to be able to 'suggest.' Don't you remember?"
The Warden pondered and said nothing.
"She would like to keep the whole house awake—if she had the chance," said Lady Dashwood, and the bitterness in her voice made her brother wince.
"Couldn't you make her believe that the ghost won't, or can't come again, or that there are no such things as ghosts?"
The Warden sat still; the glow was dying out of the cigar he held between his fingers. He did not move.
"When you were a boy you found it easy enough to suggest; I remember I disapproved of it. I want you to do it now, because we must have quiet in the house."
"She may not be susceptible to suggestion!" said the Warden, still obstinately keeping his seat.
"You think she is too flighty, that she has too little power of concentration," suggested Lady Dashwood, with a sting in her voice. "You must try: come, Jim! I want to get some rest, I'm very tired."
She did, indeed, look hollow-eyed, and seeing this he rose and threw his cigar into the fire. So this was the first thing he had to do as an engaged man: he had to prevent his future wife from disturbing the household. He had to distract her attention from absurd fears, he had to impose his will upon her. Such a relationship between them, the husband and wife that were to be, would be a relationship that he did not wish to have with any one whom he ought to respect, much less any one whom he ought to love.
The errand on which he was going was a repulsive one. If even a faint trace of romantic appreciation of the girl's beauty had survived in him, it would have vanished now. What he was going to do seemed like a denial of her identity, and yet it seemed necessary to do it. Had he still much of that "pity" left for her that had impelled him to offer her a home?
They left the library and, as they passed the curtained door of the Warden's bedroom, Lady Dashwood said, "You'll go to bed afterwards, Jim?"
She had spoken a moment ago of her own fatigue as if it was important. She had now forgotten it. Her mind was never occupied for many moments with herself, she was now back again at her old habit, thinking of him. He was tired. No wonder, worn out with worries, of his own making, alas!
"Yes," said the Warden, "yes, dear."
The lights in the hall were still burning, and he turned them out from the wall by the head of the staircase. Then they went up the short steps into the corridor. Lady Dashwood's room was at the end.
At the door of her room Lady Dashwood paused and listened, and turned round to her brother as if she were going to say something.
"What?" whispered the Warden, bending his head.
"Oh, nothing!" said Lady Dashwood, as if exasperated with her own thoughts. Then she opened the door and went in, followed by the Warden.
The room was not spacious, and the canopied bedstead looked too massive for the room. It had stood there through the reign of four of the Wardens, and Lady Dashwood had kept it religiously. Gwen was propped up on pillows at one side of it, looking out of her luminous eyes with great self-pity. Her dark hair was disordered. She glanced round tearfully and apprehensively. An acute observer might have detected that her alarm was a little over expressed: she had three spectators—and one of them was the Warden!
Near her stood May Dashwood in a black dressing-gown illumined by her auburn hair. It was tied behind at her neck and spread on each side and down her back in glistening masses. She looked like some priestess of an ancient cult, ministering to a soul distressed. The Warden stood for a moment arrested, looking across at them, and then his eyes rested on May alone.
Gwen made a curious movement into her pillows and May moved away from the bed. She seemed about to slip away from the room, but Lady Dashwood made her a sign to stay. It was such an imperative sign that May stayed. She went to the fireplace silently and stood there, and Lady Dashwood came to her. No one spoke. Lady Dashwood stood with face averted from the bed and closed her eyes, like one who waits patiently, but takes no part andno responsibility. May did not look at the bed, but she heard what was said and saw, without looking.
The Warden was now walking quietly round to the side where Gwendolen was propped. She made a convulsive movement of her arms towards him and sobbed hysterically—
"Oh, I'm so frightened!"
He approached her without responding either to her exclamation or her gestures. He put his hand on the electric lamp by the bed, raised the shade, and turned it so as to cast its light on his own face. While he did this there was silence.
Then he began to speak, and the sound of his voice made May's heart stir strangely. She leaned her elbow on the mantelpiece and pressed her hand over her eyes. All her prayers that night, all her self-reproach, meant very little. What were they but a pretence, a cloak to hide from herself the nakedness of her soul? No, they were not a pretence. Her prayer had been a real prayer for forgetfulness of herself. But in his presence the past seemed to slip away and leave her clamouring for relief from this strange present suffering, and from this dull empty aching below her heart when she drew her breath. She knew now how weak she was.
She could hear his voice saying: "What is it you are afraid of?" and as he spoke, it seemed to May herself that fear, of all things in the world, was the least real, and fear of spirits was an amazing folly.
"I thought I saw something," said Gwendolen, doubtfully; for already she was under the influence of his voice, his manner, his face; and her mind had begun to relax the tenacity of its hold on that one distracting fear.
"You thought you saw something," he said, emphasising the word "thought"; "you made amistake. You saw nothing—you imagined you saw—therewasnothing!"
May could not hear whether Gwendolen made any reply.
"And now I am going to prevent you from frightening yourself by imagining such foolish things again."
Although she did not look towards them, but kept her eyes on the ground, May was aware that the Warden was now bending over the bed, and he was speaking in an inaudible voice. She could hear the girl move round on the pillow in obedience to some direction of his. After this there came a brief silence between them that seemed an age of intolerable misery to May, and then she perceived that the Warden was turning out the bed light, and she heard him move away from the bed. He walked to the door very quietly, as if to avoid awakening a sleeper.
"Good night," he said in a low voice, and then, without turning towards them, he went out of the room.
The door was closed. The two women moved, looked at each other, and then glanced at the bed. Gwen was lying still; she had slid down low on her pillows, with her face towards the windows and her eyes closed. They stood motionless and intent, till they could see in the dim light that the girl was breathing quietly and slowly in sleep. Then Lady Dashwood spoke in a whisper.
"Now, I suppose, I can go to bed!"
Then she looked round at May. "Go to bed, May! You look worn out."
"Shall you sleep?" whispered May Dashwood, but she spoke as if she wasn't listening for an answer.
"I don't know," said Lady Dashwood, in a whisper too. "It's so like life. The person who has made all the fuss is comfortably asleep, and we who have had to endure the fuss, we who are worn out with it, are awake and probably won't sleep."
May moved towards the door and her aunt followed her. When May opened the door and went outside, Lady Dashwood did not close the door or say good night. She stood for a moment undecided, and then came outside herself and pulled the door to softly behind her.
"May!" she said, and she laid a detaining hand on her niece's arm.
"What, Aunt Lena?"
"If he liked, he could repel her, make her dislike him! If he liked he could make her refuse to marry him! You understand what I mean? He must know this now. The idea will be in his mind. He'll think it over. But I've no hope. He won't act on it. He'll only think of it as a temptation that he must put aside."
May did not answer.
"He could," said Lady Dashwood; "but he won't. He thinks himself pledged. And he isn't even in love with her. He isn't even infatuated for the moment!"
"You can't be sure."
"I am sure," said Lady Dashwood.
"How?" And now May turned back and listened for an answer with downcast eyes.
"I asked him a question—which he refused to answer. If he were in love he would have answered it eagerly. Why, he would have forced me to listen to it."
May Dashwood moved away from her aunt. "Still—they are engaged," she said. "They are engaged—that is settled."
Lady Dashwood spoke in a low, detaining voice. "Wait, May! Somehow she has got hold of him—somehow. Often the weak victimise the strong. Those who clamour for what they want, get it. Every day the wise are sacrificed to fools. I know it, and yetI sleep in peace. But when Jim is to be sacrificed—I can't sleep. I am like a withered leaf, blown by the wind."
May took her aunt's arm and laid her cheek against her shoulder.
"How can I sleep," said Lady Dashwood, "when I think of him, worried into the grave by petty anxieties, by the daily fretting of an irresponsible wife, by the hopeless daily task of trying to make something honourable and worthy—out of Belinda and Co.? When I say Belinda and Co., I think not merely of Belinda Scott and her child, but of all that Jim hates: the whole crew of noisy pleasure-hunters that float upon the surface of our social life. The time may come when we shall say to our social parasites, 'Take up your burden of life and work!' The timewillcome! But meanwhile Jim has to be sacrificed because he is hopelessly just. And yet I wouldn't have him otherwise. Go, dear, try and sleep, for all my talk." Then, as she drew away from her niece, she said in a tense whisper: "What an unforgivable fool he has been!"
May closed her eyes intently and said nothing.
"Oh, May," sighed Lady Dashwood, "forgive me; I feel so bitter that I could speak against God."
May looked up and laid her hand on her aunt's arm.
"You know those lines, Aunt Lena—
"Measure thy life by loss and not by gain,Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth!"
"Measure thy life by loss and not by gain,Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth!"
Lady Dashwood's eyes flashed. "If Jim had offered his life for England I could say that: but are we to pour forth wine to Belinda and Co.?"
The two women looked at each other; stared, silently.
Then Lady Dashwood began to turn the handle of the door.
"Why should he be sacrificed to—to—futilities?" Then she added very softly: "I have had no son of my own, May, so Jim fills the vacant place. I think I could, like Abraham, have sacrificed my son to the Great God of my nation, but this sacrifice! Oh, May, it's so silly! He might have married some nice, quiet Oxford girl any day. And he has waited for this!"
She saw the pain in May's eyes and added: "I am wearing you out with my talk. I am getting very selfish. I am thinking too much of my own suffering. You, too, have suffered, dear, and you say nothing," and as she spoke her voice softened to a whisper. "But, May, your sacrificewasto the Great God of your nation—the Great God of all nations."
"The sacrifice had nothing to do with me," said May, turning away. "It was his."
"But you endure the loss, the vacant place," said Lady Dashwood.
"I know what a vacant place means," said May, quietly, "and my vacant place will never be filled—except by the children of other women! Good night, dear aunt," and she walked away quickly, without looking back. Then she found the door of her room and went in.
Lady Dashwood's eyes followed her, till the door closed.
"I ought not to have said what I did," murmured Lady Dashwood. "Oh, dear May, poor May," and she went back into her room.
Gwen was still sleeping peacefully.
The Lodgings at King's were built at a period when the college demanded that its Warden should be a bachelor and a divine, and it contained neither morning-room nor boudoir. The Warden's breakfast-room was used by Lady Dashwood for both purposes.
It was not such an inconvenient arrangement, because the Warden, as the war advanced, had reduced his breakfast till it was now little more than the continental "petit déjeuner," and it could be as rapidly removed as it was brought in.
The breakfast-room was a small room and had no academic dignity, it was what Mrs. Robinson called "cosy." It was badly lighted by one window, and that barred, looking into the quadrangle. The walls were wainscoted. One or two pictures brightened it, landscapes in water-colour that had been bought by the Warden long ago for his rooms when he was a college tutor.
At the breakfast table on the morning following Gwendolen's brief interview with the Barber's ghost, her place was empty.
No one remarked on her absence. The Warden came in as if nothing had happened on the previous night. He did not even ask the ladies how they had slept, or if they had slept. He appeared to have forgotten all about last night, and he seated himself at the table and began opening his letters.
Mrs. Dashwood gave him one furtive glance when he came in and responded to his salutation. Then she also sat in silence and looked over her letters. She was making a great effort not to mind what happened to her, not to feel that outside these few rooms in a corner of an ancient college, all the world stretched like a wilderness. And this effort made her face a little wan in the morning light.
Lady Dashwood poured out the coffee with a hand that was not quite as steady as usual, but she, too, made no reference to the events of last night. Nobody, of course, had slept but Gwendolen, and Gwendolen had awakened from her sleep fresh and rosy.
It was only after several minutes had passed that Lady Dashwood remarked across the table to the Warden—
"I have kept Gwendolen in bed for breakfast, not because she is ill, she is perfectly well, but because I want her to be alone, and to understand that she has completely got over her little hysterical fit and is sensible again."
The Warden looked up and then down again at his letters and said, "Yes!"
Lady Dashwood went on with her breakfast. She evidently did not expect any discussion. She had merely wished to make some reference to the occurrence of last night in such a way as not to reopen the subject, but to close the subject—for ever.
"Is it your club morning?" asked the Warden, as he looked over his letters.
"Yes," said Lady Dashwood.
"I'll come and help you to cut out," said May. "I'm an old hand."
"Why should you come?" said Lady Dashwood. "This is your holiday, and it's short enough."
She thought that the Warden noted the words, "short enough."
"I shall come," said May, and glancing at her aunt as she spoke, she now fancied her grown a little thinner in the face since last night only that it was impossible. The lines in the face were accentuated by want of sleep, it was that that made her face look thinner.
"I shall take Gwen," said Lady Dashwood. "She can hand us scissors and pins, and can pick up the bits." She spoke quite boldly and quietly of Gwendolen, and met May's eye without a flicker. "Our plan, May, is to get these young mothers and teach them at least how to make and mend their clothes. It isn't war work. It's 'after the war' work. Those young mothers who have done factory work, know nothing about anything. We must get something into their noddles. Two or three ladies will be there this morning, and we shall get all the work ready for the next club meeting—mothers and babies. Babies are entertained in a separate room. We have tea and one half-hour's reading; the rest of the time gossip. Oh, how they do talk!"
"How much do you expect to get from the Sale of work to-day for your club?" asked May, avoiding the Warden's eye when he put out his hand to her for the cup of coffee that she was passing him.
"Not very much," said Lady Dashwood, "but enough, I hope."
A moment later and Lady Dashwood was opening her letters.
"Mr. Boreham," she remarked suddenly, "is bringing Mrs. Potten in to the Sale. He is the last person I should expect to meet at a Sale of work in aid of a mother's club."
The Warden raised his eyes and apparently addressed the coffee-pot across the table.
"Boreham is usually suspicious of anything that is organised by what he calls 'respectable people.'"Then he looked round at May Dashwood for the first time. The reason why Boreham was going to drive Mrs. Potten in to the Sale of work was obvious both to him and to Lady Dashwood. May did not meet the Warden's eye, though she was tinglingly conscious that they rested on her face.
"I object," she said, imitating Boreham's voice, "not only to the respectable members of the British public, but to the British public in general. I am irritated with and express my animosity to the people around me with frankness and courage. But I have no inimical feelings towards people whom I have never met. Them I respect and love. Their institutions, of which I know nothing, I honour."
The Warden's lips parted with a smile, as if the smile was wrung from him, but May did not smile. She was still making her effort, and was looking down into her plate, her eyebrows very much raised, as if she was contemplating there the portrait of somebody with compassionate interest.
Lady Dashwood saw the Warden's smile, and saw him lean forward to look at the downcast face of May, as if to note every detail of it.
Well into the early morning Lady Dashwood had lain awake thinking, and listening mechanically to the gentle breathing of the girl beside her, and thinking—thinking of May's strange exhibition of emotion. Was May——? No—that made things worse than ever—that made the irony of her brother's fate more acute! That was a tragic thought! But it was just this tragic thought that made Lady Dashwood now at the breakfast table observe with a subtle keenness of observation and yet without seeming to observe, or even to look. She sat there, absorbing May, absorbing the Warden, measuring them, weighing them while she tried to eat a piece of toast, biting it up as if she had pledged herself to reduce it to the minutest fragments.
"Perhaps I'm not fair to Mr. Boreham," said May, shaking her head. "But I am an ignoramus. How can one," she said smiling, but keeping her eyelids still downcast, "how can one combine the bathing of babies and feeding them, the dressing and undressing of them, the putting them to bed and getting them up again, with any culture (spelt with a 'c'). I get only a short and rather tired hour of leisure in the evening in which to read?"
"You do combine them," he said, still bending towards her with the same tense look. "Only one woman in a thousand would."
The colour had slightly risen in May's face, and now it died away, for she was aware that no sooner were the last words spoken than the Warden seemed to regret them. At least he stiffened himself and looked away from her, stared at nothing in particular and then put out his hand to take a piece of toast, making that simple action seem as if it were a protest of resolute indifference to her.
May felt as if his hand had struck her. She had partly succeeded in her effort and she had refused to glance at him. But she had not succeeded in thinking of something else, and now this simple movement of his hand made thoughts of him burn in her brain. Why did this man, with all his erudition, with his distinction, with all his force of character, his wide sympathies and his curious influence over others, why did this man with all his talk (and this she said bitterly) about life and death—and yes—about eternity, why did he bind himself hand and foot to a selfish and shallow girl? He who talked of life and of death, could he not stand the test of life himself?
The Warden rose from the table the moment that he had finished and looked at his sister. She had put her letters aside and appeared to have fallen into a heavy preoccupation with her own thoughts.
"Can I see you—afterwards—for a moment in the library, Lena?" he asked.
Lady Dashwood's tired face flushed.
"I will come very soon," she said, and she pushed her chair back a little, as if to cover her embarrassment, and looked at her niece. "May," she said, in a voice that did not quite conceal her trouble, "we ought to start at a quarter to ten. That will give us two clear hours for our work."
May bent her head in assent. Neither of them was thinking of the Club. They could hear the Warden close the door behind him. Then Lady Dashwood rose and casting a silent look at May, went out of the room.
In the library a fitful sunshine was coming and going from a clouded sky. The curtains were drawn back and there seemed nothing in the room that could have justified even a hysterical girl in imagining a ghost. The Warden had left the door open, for he heard his sister coming up the stairs behind him.
Lady Dashwood came in, and she began speaking at once to cover her apprehension of the interview. "A funny sort of a day," she began. "I hope it will keep up for this afternoon."
The Warden had gone to one of the windows, and he moved at the sound of her voice.
"Mrs. Harding," she said, "has written to ask us to come in to tea, as she's so near. It is convenient, as we shall only have to walk a few steps from our Sale, so I am going to accept by telephone."
The Warden came towards her, and taking a little case from his pocket, handed her some notes. "Will you spend that for me at your Sale?"
That was not his reason for the interview! Lady Dashwood took the notes and put them into her bag, and then waited a moment.
"I may possibly have to go to the Deanery this afternoon," he said, and then he paused too.
"Very well," said Lady Dashwood. They both were painfully aware that this also was not what he wanted to say.
"Please let me have my lunch early, at a quarter to one," he said.
"I have asked Mr. Bingham here to dinner on Saturday, he seemed to interest May, and, well, of course, it is not a lively holiday for her just now."
Lady Dashwood's eyes were on him as she spoke. He seemed not to hear. He went up to his desk and turned over some papers, nervously, and he was a man who rarely showed any nervousness in his movements.
Then he suddenly said: "Gwendolen has practically accepted my offer." And he did not turn round and look at his sister.
It had come! She knew it was coming, and yet it was as keenly painful as if she had been wholly unprepared.
"I can't delay our engagement," he said. "I must speak to her to-day—some time."
Then he moved so as to face his sister, and their eyes met. Misery was plainly visible in hers, in his the fixed determination to ignore that misery.
"May I ask you one question?" she began in a shaky voice.
He made no reply, but waited in silence for the question.
"When did it happen? I've no right to ask, dear, but tell me when did it happen?"
There was a strange look of conflict in his face that he was unable to control. "On Monday, just before dinner," he said, and he took some papers from the desk as if he were about to read them. Then he put them down again and took out his cigar case.
Lady Dashwood walked slowly to the door. When she reached it, she turned.
"No man," she said, still with an unsteady voice,"is bound to carry out a promise made in a reckless moment, against his better judgment, a promise which involves the usefulness of his life. As to Belinda, I suppose I must endure the presence of that woman next week; I must endure it, because I hadn't the sense—the foresight—to prevent her putting a foot in this house."
The Warden's face twitched.
"Am I expecting too much from you, Lena?" he asked.
"Expecting too much!" Lady Dashwood made her way blindly to the door. "I have wrecked your life by sheer stupidity, and I am well punished." At the door she stayed. "Of course, Jim, I shall now back you up, through thick and thin."
She went out and stood for a moment, her head throbbing. She had said all. She had spoken as she had never spoken in her life before, she had said her last word. Now she must be silent and go through with it all unless—unless—something happened—unless some merciful accident happened to prevent it. She went downstairs again and crossed the hall to the door of the breakfast-room. May was still there, holding a newspaper in her hands, apparently reading it.
Lady Dashwood walked straight in, and then said quietly: "They are practically engaged." She saw the paper in May's hand quiver.
"Yes," said May, without moving her paper. "Of course."
Her voice sounded small and hard. Lady Dashwood moved about as if to arrange something, and then stood at the dull little window looking out miserably, seeing nothing.
"I wonder—I hope, you won't be vexed with me. Aunt Lena," began May. "You won't be angry——"
"I couldn't be angry with you," said LadyDashwood briefly, "but——" She did not move, she kept her back to her niece.
"I want you to let me go away rather earlier than Monday," said May, and speaking without looking towards her aunt. "I think I ought to go. The fact is——"
Lady Dashwood turned round and came to her niece. "Do you think I am a selfish woman?" she asked. There was a strange note of purpose in her voice.
May shook her head and tried to smile. She did smile at last.
"Then, May," said Lady Dashwood, "I am going to be selfish now. I ask you to stop till Monday, and help me to get through what I have to get through, even if you stay at some sacrifice to yourself. Jim has decided, so I must support him. That's clear."
May stared hard at the paper that was still in her hand, though she had ceased to read it.
"As you wish, dear aunt," she said, and turned away.
"Thanks," said Lady Dashwood, in a low voice. "I shall be ready to start in a few minutes," she went on, looking at her watch. Then she added bitterly, "I'm not going to talk about it any more, but I must say one thing. When you first shook hands with Jim he was already a pledged man. He is capable of yearning for the moon, but he has decided to put up with a penny bun;" here she laughed a hard painful laugh. "Nobody cares but I," she added. "I have said all I can say to him, and I am now going to be silent."
The door of the breakfast-room was slightly open and they could hear the sound of steps outside in the hall, steps they both knew.
The Warden was in the hall. Lady Dashwood listened, and then called out to him: "Jim!" Hervoice now raised was a little husky, but quite calm. They could hear the swish of a gown and the Warden was there, looking at them. He was in his gown and hood, and held his cap in his hand. He was at all times a notable figure, but the long robe added to the dignity of his appearance. His face was very grave.
"May has not seen the cathedral," said Lady Dashwood quietly, as if she had forgotten their interview in the library, "and we shall be close to Christ Church. Our Sale, you know."
"Oh," said May, slowly and doubtfully, and not looking as if she were really concerned in the matter.
"May ought to see the cathedral, Jim," said Lady Dashwood, "so, if you do happen to be going to Christ Church, would you have time to take her over it and make the proper learned observations on it, which I can't do, to save my life?"
The Warden's eyes were now fixed on May. "You would like to see it?" he asked.
"You, May," said Lady Dashwood. It seemed necessary to make it very clear to May that they were both talking about her.
"I?" said May, with her eyes downcast. "Oh, please don't trouble. You mustn't when you're so busy. I can see the cathedral any time. I really like looking at churches—quite alone."
The Warden's blue eyes darkened, but May did not see them, she had raised her paper and was smiling vaguely at the print.
The Warden said, "As you like, Mrs. Dashwood. But I am not too busy to show you anything in Oxford you want to see."
"Thank you," said May, vaguely. "Thanks so much! Some time when you are less busy, I shall ask you to show me something."
The Warden looked at her for a more definite reply. She seemed to be unaware that he was waiting for it,and when she heard the movement of his robes, and his steps and then the hall-door close, she looked round the room and said "Oh!" again vaguely, and then she raised her eyebrows as if surprised.
Lady Dashwood made no remark, she left the room and went into the hall. The irony of the situation was growing more and more acute, but there was nothing to be done but to keep silence.
Another step was coming down the stairs, steps made by a youthful wearer of high heels. It was Gwendolen.
She looked just a little serious, but otherwise there was no trace on her blooming countenance of last night's tragedy. A little lump on her head was all that remained to prove that she really had been frightened and really and truly had stupidly thought there was something to be frightened of. Gwen constantly put her finger up to feel the lump on her head, and as she did so she thought agreeably of the Warden.
"You see I'm not a bit frightened," she said, and her cheeks dimpled. "When I passed near the library, I thought of Dr. Middleton."
"You understand, don't you, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, "that I don't want any talk about 'a ghost,' even though, you are now quite sensible about it. I don't think the Robinsons are silly, but Louise and the other two are like children, and must be treated as such."
"Oh no," said Gwen, innocently, "I won't!" And she meant what she said. It was true that she had just hinted at something, perhaps she even used the word "ghost," to the housemaid that morning, but she had made her promise faithfully not to repeat what she had heard, so it was all right.
"We start at half-past ten," said Lady Dashwood.
Gwen said she would be punctual. Her face was full of mysterious and subdued pleasure when shelooked into the breakfast-room to see if by any chance Mrs. Dashwood was still there. The girl's fancy was excited by the Warden's behaviour last night. She kept on thinking of his face in the lamp light. It looked very severe and yet so gentle. She was actually falling in love with him, so she said to herself. The Barber's ghost was no longer alarming, but something to recall with a thrill of interest, as it led on to the Warden. She was burning to talk about the Warden. She was so glad she had delivered her letter to the Warden. He would be simply obliged to speak some time to-day. How exciting! Now, was Mrs. Dashwood in the breakfast-room? Yes, there she was, standing in the window with a newspaper in her hand.
"Oh, good morning," said Gwen, brightly. "I must thank you for having been so awfully sweet to me last night. It was funny, wasn't it, my getting that fright? I really and truly was frightened, till Dr. Middleton came up and told me I needn't. Isn't he wonderful?" Here Gwen's voice sank into a confidential whisper.
Mrs. Dashwood said "Yes" in a lingering voice, and she seemed about to go.
"I do think he is the nicest man I have ever met," said Gwen hurriedly, "don't you? But then, of course, I have reason to think so, after last night. It must have looked queer, I mean to any one merely looking on. How Ididsleep!" Then after a moment she said: "Don't you think he is very good-looking? Now, do tell me, Mrs. Dashwood! I promise you I won't repeat it."
"He is a very charming man," said May, "that is obvious."
"Wasn't it silly of me to think of the Barber's ghost—especially as it only appears when some disaster happens to the Warden? I mean that is the story. Now the Warden is perfectly well this morning, Iparticularly asked, though I knew he would be, of course. Now, if there had been a real ghost, he ought to die to-day, or perhaps to-morrow. Isn't it all funny?" Then, as there came another pause, Gwendolen added, "I suppose it couldn't mean that he might die in a week's time—or six months perhaps?" and her voice was a little anxious.
"Death isn't the only disaster," said May, "that can happen to a man."
"Don't you think it's about the worst?" said Gwen. "Worse even than losing lots of money. You see, if you are once dead, there you are! But I needn't bother—there was no ghost."
"No, there was no ghost," said Mrs. Dashwood, and she laid her paper down on a side table.
Gwen felt that she had not had a fair chance of a talk. In the absence of anybody really young it was some comfort to talk to Mrs. Dashwood. She much preferred Mrs. Dashwood to Lady Dashwood. Lady Dashwood was sometimes "nasty," since that letter affair. Fortunately she had not been able todoanything nasty. She had not been able to make the Warden nasty.
Gwen stood watching May, and then said in a low voice to detain her: "I wish mother would come!"
"Do you expect her?" asked May, turning round and facing the girl.
"I do and I don't and I do," said Gwen. "That sounds jolly vague, I know, and please don't even say to Lady Dashwood that I mentioned it. You won't, will you? It jumped out of my mouth. Things do sometimes."
May smiled a little.
"Mother is so plucky," said Gwen; "I'm sure you'd like her—you really would, and she would like you. She doesn't by any means like everybody. She's very particular, but I think she would like you."
May smiled again, and this gave Gwen complete confidence.
"Our relations, you know, have really been a bit stingy," she said. "Too bad, isn't it, and there's been a bother about my education. Of course, mother needn't have sent me to school at all, only she's so keen on doing all she can for me, much more keen than our relations have been. Why, would you believe it, Uncle Ted, my father's youngest brother, who is a parson in Essex, has been saving! What I mean is that the Scotts ain't a bit well off—isn't it hard lines? You see I tell you all this, I wouldn't to anybody else. Well, Uncle Ted had saved for years for his only son—for Eton and Oxford: I don't think he'd ever given mother a penny. Wasn't that rather hard luck on mother?"
May said "Oh!" in a tone that was neutral.
"Well, but I'll explain," said Gwen, eagerly, "and you'll see. When poor Ted was killed, almost at once in the war, there was all the Oxford money still there. Mother knew about it, and said it couldn't be less than five hundred pounds, and might be more. And mother just went to them and spoke ever so nicely about poor Ted being killed—it was such horrid luck on Uncle Ted—and then she just asked ever so quietly if she might borrow some of the Oxford money, as there would be no use for it now. She didn't even ask them to give it, she only asked to borrow, and she thought they would like it to be used for the last two years of my school, it would be such a nice thought for them. And would you believe it, they were quite angry and refused! So mother thought they ought to know how mean it was of them. She is so plucky! So she told them that they had no sympathy with anybody but themselves, and didn't care about any Scott except their own Ted, who was dead and couldn't come to life again, however much they hoarded. Mother does say things so straight.She is so sporting! But wasn't it horrid for her to have to do it?"
May had gradually moved to the door ready to go out. Now she opened it.
So this was the young woman to whom the Warden had bound himself, and this was his future mother-in-law!
May left the breakfast-room abruptly and without a word.
She mounted the stairs swiftly. She wanted to be alone. As the servants were still moving about upstairs, she went into the drawing-room.
There was no one there but that living portrait of Stephen Langley, and he was looking at her across the wide space between them with an almost imperceptible sneer—so she thought.
There is little left in Christ Church of the simplicity and piety of the Age of Faith. It was rebuilt when the fine spiritual romanticism of our architectural adolescence had coarsened into a prosperous and prosaic middle age.
The western façade of the College is fine, but it is ostentatious for its purpose, and when one passes under Tom Tower and enters the quadrangle there is something dreary in the terraces that were intended to be cloistered and the mean windows of the ground floor that were intended to be hidden.
"It is like Harding," said Bingham to himself, as he strolled in with a parcel under his arm. "He is always mistaking Mrs. Grundy for the Holy Ghost. But Harding has his uses," he went on thinking, "and so has Tom Quod—it makes one thankful that Wolsey died before he had time to finish ruining the cathedral."
An elderly canon of Christ Church, with a fine profile and dignified manner, stopped Bingham and demanded to know what he was carrying under his arm.
"Nothing for the wounded," said Bingham. "I've bought a green table-cloth and a pair of bedroom slippers for myself. I've just come from a Sale in which some Oxford ladies are interested. One of the many good works with which we are going strong nowadays."
The Canon turned and walked with Bingham. "Do you know Boreham?" he asked rather abruptly.
Bingham said he did.
"I met him a moment ago. He is taking some lady over the college. I met him at Middleton's, I think, not so long ago."
"He's a connection of Middleton's," said Bingham.
"Oh," said the Canon, "is he? A remarkable person. He gave me his views on Eugenics, I remember."
"He would be likely to give you his views," said Bingham. "Did he want to know yours?"
The Canon laughed. "He pleaded so passionately in favour of our preserving the leaven of disease in our racial heredity, so as to insure originality and genius, that I was tempted to indulge in the logical fallacy: 'A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter,'" and the Canon laughed again.
"His father was a first-rate old rapid," said Bingham, "who ended in an asylum, I believe. His aunt keeps cats; this I know as a fact. His brother, Lord Boreham, as everybody knows, has been divorced twice. What matter? The good old scrap-heap has produced Bernard Boreham; what more do you want?"
Bingham's remarks were uttered with even more than his usual suavity of tone because he was annoyed. He had come to the Sale, he had bought the green table-cloth and the shoes, ostensibly as an act of patriotism, but really in order to meet Mrs. Dashwood. He had planned to take her over Christ Church and show her everything, and now Boreham, who had also planned the same thing, had turned up more punctually, had taken her off, and was at this moment going in and out, banging doors and giving erroneous information, along with much talk about himself and his ideas for the improvement of mankind.
The two men walked very slowly along. Bingham was in no hurry. The Canon also was in no hurry. In these gloomy days he was glad of a few minutes' distraction in the company of Bingham, whom nothingdepressed. They walked so slowly that Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Potten, who had just entered the quadrangle, attended by Miss Scott laden with parcels, came up to them, bowed and passed them on their way to the rooms of one of the Fellows who had begged them to deposit their parcels and rest, if they wished to.
The two men went on talking, though their eyes watched the three ladies, who were looking for the rooms where they were going to deposit their purchases. Bingham took out his watch. It was half-past three. The ladies had found the right entrance, and disappeared. Then Lady Dashwood's face was to be seen for a moment at a window. Simultaneously Harding appeared from under Tom Tower.
He came up and spoke to the two men, and while he did so Bingham observed Miss Scott suddenly appear and make straight for them, holding something in her hand.
"Bravo! What a sprint," murmured Bingham, as Gwendolen reached them rather breathless.
"Oh, Mr. Harding," she panted, "Lady Dashwood saw you coming and thought you wouldn't know where she and Mrs. Potten were. Have you got the Buckinghamshire collar?"
Bingham burst into subdued laughter.
"My wife sent me over with it," said Harding, who could not see anything amusing in the incident. "She said Lady Dashwood had got Mrs. Potten here. That's all right," and he gravely drew from his sleeve a piece of mauve paper, carefully rolled up, on which was stitched the collar in question.
"Here's the money," said Gwen, holding out a folded paper.
Harding took the paper.
"Thirty shillings," said Gwen. "Is that right?"
"Yes, thirty shillings," said Harding. "The price is marked on the paper."
"Extraordinarily cheap at the price," remarked Bingham. "There is no other collar equal to it in Buckinghamshire."
The Canon turned and walked off, wondering in his mind who the very pretty, smartly dressed girl was. Harding unfolded the paper. It was a pound note and inside was not one but two new ten-shilling notes—only stuck together.
"You've given me too much, one pound and two tens," he said, and he separated the two notes and gave one back to Gwen. "You're a bit too generous, Miss Scott," he said.
Gwen took the note, dimpling and smiling and Harding wrote "paid" in pencil on the mauve paper.
"Here's your receipt," he said, handing her the paper, "the collar and all," and he turned away and went back to the sale room, with the money in his pocket.
Meanwhile Gwendolen did not run, she walked back very deliberately. She had the collar in one hand and the ten-shilling note in the other. She heard the two men turn and walk towards the gate. The old gentleman with a gown on, by which she meant the Canon, had disappeared. The quadrangle was empty. Gwen was thinking, thinking.
It wasn't she who was generous, it was Mrs. Potten, at least not generous but casual. She was probably casual because, although she was supposed to be stingy, a ten-shilling note made really no difference to her. It was too bad that some women had so much money and some so little. It was especially unjust that an old plain woman like Mrs. Potten could have hundreds of frocks if she wanted to, and that young pretty women often couldn't. It was very, very unjust and stupid. Why she, Gwen, hadn't enough money even to buy a wretched umbrella. It looked exactly as if it was going to rain later on, and yet there was noumbrella she could borrow. The umbrella she had borrowed before, had disappeared from the stand: it must have been left by somebody and been returned. You can't borrow an umbrella that isn't there. It was all very well for her mother to say "borrow" an umbrella, but suppose there wasn't an umbrella! The idea flashed into Gwen's mind that an umbrella could be bought for ten shillings. It wouldn't be a smart umbrella, but it would be an umbrella. Then she remembered very vividly how, a year ago, she was in a railway carriage with her mother and there was one woman there sitting in a corner at the other end. This woman fidgeted with her purse a great deal, and when she got out, a sovereign was lying on the floor just where her feet had been. Gwen remembered her mother moving swiftly, picking it up, and putting the coin into her own purse, remarking, "If people are so careless they deserve to lose things," and Gwen felt that the remark was keenly just, and made several little things "right" that other people had said were wrong. Now, as she thought this over, she said to herself that it was only a week ago she had lost that umbrella: somebody must have got that umbrella and had been using it for a week, and she didn't blame them; beside the handle had got rather bashed. Another dozen steps towards the rooms made her feel very, very sure she didn't blame them, and—Mrs. Potten deserved to lose her ten-shilling note. Now she had reached the doorway, an idea, that was a natural development of the previous idea, came to her very definitely. She slipped the note into the right-hand pocket of her coat just as she stood on the threshold of the doorway, and then she ran up the stone stairs. No one was looking out of the window. She had noticed that as she came along. Now, she would see if Mrs. Potten was really careless enough not to know that she had given away two ten-shilling notes instead of one.
Gwendolen walked into the sitting-room. There were Mrs. Potten and Lady Dashwood sitting together and talking, as if they intended remaining there for ever.
"Here's your collar, Mrs. Potten," said Gwen, coming in with the prettiest flush on her face, from the haste with which she had mounted the stairs.
She handed the roll of mauve paper and stood looking at Mrs. Potten. Now, she would find out whether Mrs. Potten knew she had flung away her precious ten-shilling note or not. If she was so stingy why was she so careless? She was very, very short-sighted, of course, but still that was no excuse.
"Thanks, my dear," said Mrs. Potten. "I doubt if it is really as nice as the one we saw that was sold. Thirty shillings—the receipt is on the paper. It's the first time I've ever had a receipt at a bazaar or sale. Very business-like; Mr Harding, of course. One can see the handwriting isn't a woman's!" So saying Mrs. Potten, who had been peering hard at the collar and the paper, passed it to Lady Dashwood to look at.
"Charming!" said Lady Dashwood.
Now Lady Dashwood knew Mrs. Potten's soul. Mrs. Potten had come into Oxford at no expense of her own. Mr. Boreham had driven her. She had also, so Lady Dashwood divined, the intention of helping the Sale as much as possible, by her moral approbation. Nothing pleased Mrs. Potten that she saw on the modest undecked tables. Then she had praised a shilling pincushion, had bought it with much ceremony, and put it into her bag. "There, I mustn't go and lose this," she had said as she clicked the fastening of her bag. Then she had praised a Buckinghamshire collar which was marked "Sold," and in an unwary moment had told Lady Dashwood that she would have bought that; that was exactly what she wanted, only it was unfortunately sold. But Lady Dashwood, who was business-likeeven in grief, had been equal to the occasion. "I know there is another one very like it," she had said in a slightly bullying voice; and when Mrs. Potten moved off as if she had not realised her luck, murmuring something about having to be somewhere almost immediately, Lady Dashwood had swiftly arranged with Mrs. Harding that the other collar, which was somewhere in reserve and was being searched for, should be sent after them.
This was why Lady Dashwood had conveyed the reluctant Mrs. Potten into the quadrangle, and had made her climb the stairs with her into these rooms and wait.
So here was Mrs. Potten, with her collar, trying to believe that she was not annoyed at having been deprived of thirty shillings in such an astute way by her dear friend.
"Am I wanted any more?" asked Gwen, looking from one lady to the other.
She took the collar from Lady Dashwood and returned it to Mrs. Potten.
Mrs. Potten opened her bag disclosing the shilling pincushion (which now she need not have bought) and placed the collar within. Then she shut the bag with a snap, and looked so innocent that Gwendolen almost laughed.
No, Gwen was not wanted any more. She turned and went. Mrs. Potten deserved to lose money! "Yes, she did, and in any case," thought Gwen, "at any moment I can say, 'Oh yes, I quite forgot I had the note. How stupid, how awfully stupid,' etc."
So she went down the stairs and out into the terrace.
A few steps away she saw Mr. Bingham, coming back again. This time alone.
As soon as Gwen had gone Mrs. Potten remarked, "Now I must be going!" and then sat on, as people do.
"Very pretty girl, Gwendolen Scott," she added.
"Very pretty," said Lady Dashwood.
"Lady Belinda wrote to me a day or two ago, asking me if Gwen could come on to me from you on Monday."
"Oh!" said Lady Dashwood, but she uttered the exclamation wearily.
"I have written and told her that I'm afraid I can't," said Mrs. Potten. "Can't!"
Lady Dashwood looked away as if the subject was ended.
"If I have the child, it will mean that the mother will insist on coming to fetch her away or something." Here Mrs. Potten fidgeted with her bag. "And I really scarcely know Lady Belinda. It was the husband we used to know, old General Scott, poor dear silly old man!"
Lady Dashwood received the remark in silence.
"I can't do with some of these modern women," continued Mrs. Potten. "There are women whose names I could tell you that I would not trust with a tin halfpenny. My dear, I've seen with my own eyes at a hotel restaurant a well-dressed woman sweep up the tip left for the waiter by the person who had just gone, I saw that the waiters saw it, but they daren't do anything. I saw a friend of mine speaking to her afterwards! Knew her! Quite respectable! Fancy the audacity of it!"
Lady Dashwood now rested her head on the back of her chair and allowed Mrs. Potten to talk on.
"I'm afraid there's nothing of the Good Samaritan in me," said Mrs. Potten, in a self-satisfied tone. "I can't undertake the responsibility of a girl who is billeted out by her mother—instead of being given a decent home. I think you're simply angelic to have had her for so long, Lena."
Lady Dashwood's silence only excited Mrs. Potten's curiosity. "Most girls now seem to be doing somethingor other," she said. "Why, one even sees young women students wheeling convalescent soldiers about Oxford. I don't believe there is a woman or girl in Oxford who isn't doing something for the war."
"Yes, but it is the busy women who almost always have time for more work," said Lady Dashwood.
"Now, I suppose Gwendolen is doing nothing and eating her head off, as the phrase goes," said Mrs. Potten.
Lady Dashwood was not to be drawn. "Talking of doing something," she said, to draw Mrs. Potten off the subject, and there was a touch of weariness in her voice: "I think a Frenchwoman can beat an Englishwoman any day at 'doing.' I am speaking now of the working classes. I have a French maid now who does twice the work that any English maid would do. I picked her up at the beginning of the war. Her husband was killed and she was stranded with two children. I've put the two children into a Catholic school in Kent and I have them in the holidays. Well, Louise makes practically all my things, makes her own clothes and the children's, and besides that we have made shirts and pyjamas till I could cut them out blindfolded. She's an object lesson to all maids."
Lady Dashwood was successful, Mrs. Potten's attention was diverted, only unfortunately the word "maid" stimulated her to draw up an exhaustive inventory of all the servants she had ever had at Potten End, and she was doing this in her best Bradshaw style when Lady Dashwood exclaimed that she had a wire to send off and must go and do it.
"I ought to be going too," said Mrs. Potten, her brain reeling for a moment at this sudden interruption to her train of thought. She rose with some indecision, leaving her bag on the floor. Then she stooped and picked up her bag and left her umbrella; and then at last securing both bag and umbrella, thetwo ladies made their way down the stairs and went back into St. Aldates.
All the time that Mrs. Potten had been running through a list of the marriages, births, etc., of all her former servants, Lady Dashwood was contriving a telegram to Lady Belinda Scott. It was difficult to compose, partly because it had to be both elusive and yet firm, and partly because Mrs. Potten's voice kept on interrupting any flow of consecutive thought.
When the two ladies had reached the post-office the wire was completed in Lady Dashwood's brain.
"Good-bye," said Mrs. Potten, just outside the threshold of the door. "And if you see Bernard—I believe he means to go to tea at the Hardings—would you remind him that it is at Eliston's that he has to pick me up? There are attractions about!" added Mrs. Potten mysteriously, "and he may forget! Poor Bernard, such a good fellow in his way, but so wild, and he sometimes talks as if he were almost a conscientious objector, only he's too old for it to matter. I don't allow him to argue with me. I can't follow it—and don't want to. But he's a dear fellow."
Lady Dashwood walked into the post-office. "Thank goodness, I can think now," she said to herself, as she went to a desk.
The wire ran as follows:—
"Sorry. Saturday quite impossible. Writing."
It was far from cordial, but cordial Lady Dashwood had no intention of being. She meant to do her duty and no more by Belinda. Duty would be hard enough. And when she wrote the letter, what should she say?
"If only something would happen, some providential accident," thought Lady Dashwood, unconscious of the contradiction involved in the terms. The word "providential" caused her to go on thinking. If there were such things as ghosts, the "ghost" ofthe previous night might have been providentially sent—sent as a warning! But the thought was a foolish one.
"In any case," she argued, "what is the good of warnings? Did any one ever take warning? No, not even if one rose from the dead to deliver it."
She was too tired to walk about and too tired to want to go again into the Sale room and talk to people. She went back to the rooms, climbed the stairs slowly and then sat down to wait till it was time to go to Mrs. Harding's. Perhaps May would soon have finished seeing Christ Church and come and join her. Her presence was always a comfort.
It was a comfort, perhaps rather a miserable comfort, to Lady Dashwood because she had begun to suspect that May too was suffering, not suffering from wounded vanity, for May was almost devoid of vanity, but from—and here Lady Dashwood leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. It was a strange thing that both Jim and May should have allowed themselves to be martyrised, only May's marriage had been so brief and had ended so worthily, the shallow young man becoming suddenly compelled to bear the burden of Empire, and bearing it to the utmost; but Gwen would meander along, putting all her burdens on other people; and she would live for ever!