Boreham had been very successful that afternoon. He had managed to secure Mrs. Dashwood without having to be rude to her hostess. He had done it by exchanging Mrs. Potten for the younger lady with a deftness on which he congratulated himself, though it was true that Lady Dashwood had said to May Dashwood, "Go and see over the College with Mr. Boreham."
Miss Scott was, most fortunately, absorbed in playing at shop with Mrs. Harding.
Boreham's course was clear. He calculated with satisfaction that he had a good hour before him alone with Mrs. Dashwood. He could show her every corner of Christ Church and do it slowly; the brief explanation (of a disparaging nature) that he would be obliged to make on the details of that historic building would only serve to help him out at, perhaps, difficult moments. It would be easier for him to talk freely and prepare her mind for a proper appreciation of the future which lay before her, while he walked beside her and pointed out irrelevant things, than it would have been if he had been obliged to sit still in a chair facing her, for example, and stick to his subject. It seemed to him best to begin by speaking quite frankly in praise of himself. Boreham had his doubts whether any man is really humble in his estimation of himself, however much he may pretend to be; and if,indeed, any man were truly humble, then, in Boreham's opinion, that man was a fool.
As soon as they had crossed St. Aldates and had entered the gate under Tom Tower, Boreham introduced the subject of his own merits, by glancing round the great quadrangle and remarking that he was thankful that he had never been subjected to the fossilising routine of a classical education.
"The study of dead languages is a 'cul-de-sac,'" he explained. "You can see the effect it has had in the very atmosphere of Oxford. You can see the effect it has had on Middleton, dear fellow, who got a double First, and the Ireland, and everything else proper and useless, and who is now—what? A conscientious schoolmaster, and nothing more!"
It was necessary to bring Middleton in because May Dashwood might not have had the time or the opportunity of observing all Middleton's limitations. She probably would imagine that he was a man of ideas and originality. She would take for granted (not knowing) that the head of an Oxford College was a weighty person, a successful person. Also Middleton was a good-looking-man, as good-looking as he, Boreham, was himself (only of a more conventional type), and therefore not to be despised from the mere woman's point of view.
Boreham peered eagerly at his companion's profile to see how she took this criticism of Middleton.
May was taking it quite calmly, and even smiled. "So far, good," said Boreham to himself, and he went on to compare his larger view of life and deeper knowledge of "facts" with the restricted outlook of the Oxford Don. This she apparently accepted as "understood," for she smiled again, and this triumph of Boreham's was achieved while they looked over the Christ Church library.
"The first thing," said Boreham, when they cameagain into the open air—"the first thing that a man has to do is to be a man of the world that we actually live in, not of the world as it was!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Dashwood "the world we actually live in."
"You agree?" he said brightly.
She smiled again.
"Oxford might have been vitalised; might, I say, if, by good luck, somebody had discovered a coal mine under the Broad, or the High, and the University had been compelled to adjust itself to the practical requirements of the world of labour and of commerce, and to drop its mediæval methods for those of the modern world."
May confessed that she had not thought of this way of improving the ancient University, but she suggested that some of the provincial universities had the advantage of being in the neighbourhood of coal mines or in industrial centres.
Boreham, however, waived the point, for his spirits were rising, and the sight of Bingham in the distance, carrying his table-cloth and slippers and looking wistfully at nothing in particular, gave him increased confidence in his main plan.
"This staircase," said Boreham, "leads to the hall. Shall we go in? I suppose you ought to see it."
"What a lovely roof!" exclaimed May, when they reached the foot of the staircase.
Boreham admitted that it was fine, but he insisted that it was too good for the place, and he went on with his main discourse.
When they entered the dining-hall, the dignity of the room, with its noble ceiling, its rich windows and the glow of the portraits on the walls, brought another exclamation from May's lips.
But all this academic splendour annoyed Boreham extremely. It seemed to jeer at him as an outsider.
"It's too good for the collection of asses who dine here," he said.
As to the portraits, he insisted that among them all, among all these so-called distinguished men, there was not one that possessed any real originality and power—except perhaps the painter Watts.
"It's so like Oxford," he added, "to produce nothing distinctive."
May laughed now, with a subdued laughter that was a little irritating, because it was uncalled for.
"I am laughing," she explained, "because 'the world we actually live in' is such a funny place and is so full of funny people—ourselves included."
That was not a reason for laughter if it were true, and it was not true that she was, or that he was "funny." If she had been "funny" he would not have been in love with her. He detained her in front of the portrait of Wesley.
"I wonder they have had the sense to keep him here," said Boreham. "He is a perpetual reminder to them of the scandalous torpor of the Church which repudiated him. Yes, I wonder they tolerate him. Anyhow, I suppose they tolerate him because, after all, they tolerate anybody who tries to keep alive a lost cause. Religion was dying a natural death and, instead of letting it die, he revived it for a bit. It was as good as you could expect from an Oxford man! When an Oxford man revolts, he only revolts in order to take up some lost cause, some survival!"
"I suppose," said May, "that if Wesley had had the advantage of being at one of the provincial colleges, he would have invented a new soap, instead of strewing the place with nonconformist chapels?"
This sarcasm of May's would have been exasperating, only that the mention of soap quite naturallysuggested children who had to be soaped, and children did bring Boreham actually to an important point. He did not really care two straws about Wesley. He went straight for this point. He put a few piercing questions to May about her work among children in London. Strangely enough she did not respond. She gave him one or two brief answers of the vaguest description, while she turned away to look at more portraits. Boreham, however, had only put the questions as a delicate approach tothesubject. He did not really want any answers, and he proceeded to point out to her that her work, though it was undertaken in the most altruistic spirit, and appeared to be useful to the superficial observer, was really not helpful but harmful to the community. And this for two reasons. He would explain them. Firstly, because it blinded people who were interested in social questions to the need for the endowment of mothers; and secondly, the care of other women's children did not really satisfy the maternal instinct in women. It excited their emotions and gave them the impression that these emotions were satisfying. They were not. He hinted that if May would consult any pathologist he would tell her that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a life like hers, seemingly so full, would not save a woman from the disastrous effects of being childless.
Now, Boreham was convinced that women rarely understand what it is they really want. Women believe that they want to become clerks or postmen or lawyers, when all the time what they want and need is to become mothers. For instance, it was a common thing for a woman who had no interest in drama and who couldn't act, to want to be an actress. What she really wanted then was an increased opportunity of meeting the other sex.
Boreham put this before May Dashwood, and was gratified at the reception of his remarks.
"What you sayistrue," she said, "though so few people have the courage to say it."
Boreham went on. He felt that May Dashwood, in spite of all her sharpness, was profoundly ignorant of her own psychology. It was necessary to enlighten her, to make her understand that it was not her duty to go on mourning for a husband who was dead, but that it was her duty to make the best of her own life. He entirely exonerated her from the charge of humbug in her desire to mother slum children; all he wanted was for her to understand that it wasn't of any use either to herself or to the community. How well she was taking it!
He had barely finished speaking when he became unpleasantly aware that two ladies, who had just entered, were staring at himself and his companion instead of examining the hall. The strangers were foreigners, to judge by the boldness with which they wore hats that bore no relation to the shape or the dignity of the human head. They were evidently arrested and curious.
May did not speak for some moments, after they both moved away from the portraits. Boreham watched her, rather breathlessly, for things were going right and coming to a crisis.
"You are quite right," she repeated, at last. "But people haven't the courage to say so!"
"You think so?" he replied eagerly. He now appreciated, as he had never done before, how much he scored by possessing, along with the subtle intuitions of the Celt, the plain common-sense of his English mother.
"I am preparing my mind," said May, as they approached the door of the hall, "to face a future chequered by fits of hysteria."
"But why!" urged Boreham, and he could not conceal his agitation; "when I spoke of theendowment of mothers I did not mean that I personally wanted any interference (at present) with our system of monogamy. The British public thinks it believes in monogamy and I, personally, think that monogamy is workable, under certain circumstances. It would be possible for me under certain circumstances."
The sublimity of his self-sacrifice almost brought tears to Boreham's eyes. May quickened her steps, and he opened the door for her to go into the lobby. As he went through himself he could see that the two strangers had turned and were watching them. He damned them under his breath and pulled the door to.
"There are women," he went on, as he followed her down the stairs, "who have breadth of character and brains that command the fidelity of men. I need not tellyouthis."
May was descending slowly and looked as if she thought she was alone.
"'Age cannot wither, nor custom stale thy infinite variety,'" he whispered behind her, and he found the words strangely difficult to pronounce because of his emotion. He moved alertly into step with her and gazed at her profile.
"When that is said to a woman, well, a moderately young woman," remarked May, "a woman who is, say, twenty-eight—I am twenty-eight—it has no point I am afraid!"
"No point?" exclaimed Boreham.
"No point," repeated May. "How do you know that thirty years from now, when I am on the verge of sixty, that I shan't be withered—unless, indeed, I get too stout?" she added pensively.
"You will always be young," said Boreham, fervently; "young, likeNinon de l'Enclos."
May had now reached the ground, and she walked out on to the terrace into open daylight.
Boreham was at her side immediately, and she turned and looked at him. His pale blue eyes blinked at her, for he was aware that hers were hostile! Why?
"You would seem young to me," he said, trying to feel brave.
"Men and women ought," she said, with emphasis on the word "ought"—"men and women ought to wither and grow old in the service of Humanity. I think nothing is more pathetic than the sight of an old woman trying to look young instead of learning the lesson of life, the lesson we are here to learn!"
Boreham had had barely time to recover from the blow when she added in the sweetest tone—
"There, that's a scolding for you and for Ninon de l'Enclos!"
"But I don't mean——" began Boreham. "I haven't put it—you don't take my words quite correctly."
May was already walking on into the open archway that led to the cathedral. Before them stood the great western doors, and she saw them and stopped. Boreham wished to goodness that he had waited till they were in the cathedral before he had made his quotation. Through the open doors of that ancient building he could hear somebody playing the organ. That would have been the proper emotional accompaniment for those immortal lines of Shakespeare. He pictured a corner of the Latin chapel and an obscure tender light. Why had he begun to talk in the glare of a public thoroughfare?
"Shall we go inside?" he asked urgently. "One can't talk here."
But May turned to go back. "I should like to see the cathedral some other time," she said. "I must thank you very much for having shown me over the College—and—explained everything."
"Yes; but——" stammered Boreham. "We can get into the cathedral."
She was actually beginning to hold out her hand as if to say Good-bye.
"Not now," she said; and before he had time to argue further, Bingham came suddenly upon them from somewhere, and expressed so much surprise at seeing them that it was evident that he had been on the watch. He had disposed of his purchases and was a free man. He had actually pounced upon them like a bird of prey—and stealthily too. It was a mean trick to have played.
"Are you coming out or going in?" asked Bingham.
"Neither," said May, turning to him as if she was glad of his approach.
"You've seen it before?" said Bingham.
"No, not yet," said May.
"It's as nice a place as you could find anywhere," said Bingham, calmly, "for doing a bit of Joss."
Boreham's brain surged with indignation. This man's intrusion at such a moment was insupportable. Yes, and he had got rid of his miserable table-cloth and shoes, probably taken them to Harding's house, and was going to tea there too. Not only this, but here he was talking in his jesting way, exactly in the same soft drawling voice in which he reeled off Latin quotations, and so it went down—yes, went down when it ought to have given offence. May ought to have been offended. She didn't look offended!
"You forget," said Boreham, looking through his eyeglass at Bingham and frowning, "that Mrs. Dashwood is, what is called a Churchwoman."
"I'm a Churchman myself," said the imperturbable Don. "To me a church is always first a sanctuary, as I have just remarked to Mrs. Dashwood. Secondly, it is the artistic triumph of some blooming engineer. Nowadays our church architects aren't engineers;they don'tcreatea building, they just run it up from books. Our modern churches are failures not because we aren't religious, but because our architects are not big enough men to be great engineers."
"Ah, yes," said May, looking up with relief at Bingham's swarthy features.
"I deny that we are religious, as a whole," said Boreham, stoutly.
"You may not be, my dear fellow," said Bingham, in his oily voice; "but then you are the only genuine conservative I meet nowadays. You are still faithful to the 'Eighties'—still impressed by the discovery that religion don't drop out of the sky as we thought it did, but had its origin in the funk and cunning of the humanoid ape."
May was standing between the two men, and all three had their backs to the cathedral, just as if they had emerged from its doors. And it was at this moment that she caught a sudden sight through the open archway of two figures passing along the terrace outside; one figure she did not know, but which she thought might be the Dean of Christ Church, and the other figure was one which was becoming to her more significant than any other in the world. He saw her; he raised his hat, and was already gone before she had time to think. When she did think it came upon her, with a rush of remorse, that he must have thought that she had been looking over the cathedral with her two companions, after having refused his guidance on the pretext that she wished to be alone. Yes, there was in his face surely surprise, surprise and reproach! How could she explain? He had gone! She vaguely heard the two men beside her speaking; she heard Boreham's protesting voice but did not follow his words.
"While we are engaged in peaceful persuasion," said Bingham in her ear, "you are white with fatigue."
"I'm not tired," she said, "not really—only I think I will go to the rooms where Lady Dashwood is to meet me. Will you show me them?"
She spoke to Bingham, and touched his arm with her hand as if to ask for his support.
Boreham saw that he was excluded. It was obvious, and he stood staring after them, full of indignation.
"I shall see you later," he said in a dry voice. How did it all happen?
As soon as they were on the terrace, May released Bingham's arm.
"You want to get a rest before you go to the Hardings," he said. Then he added, in a voice that threw out the words merely as a remark which demanded no answer, "Was it physical—or—moral or both? Umph!" he went on. "Now, we have only a step to make. It's the third doorway!"
Mrs. Harding had not succeeded in finding some chance of "casually" asking Mrs. Potten to have tea with her, but she had secured the Dashwoods. That was something. Mrs. Harding's drawing-room was spacious and looked out on the turreted walls of Christ Church. The house witnessed to Mrs. Harding's private means.
"We have got Lady Dashwood in the further room," she murmured to some ladies who arrived punctually from the Sale in St. Aldates, "and we nearly got the Warden of Kings."
The naïveté of Mrs. Harding's remark was quite unconscious, and was due to that absence of humour which is the very foundation stone of snobbishness.
"But the Warden is coming to fetch his party home," added Mrs. Harding, cheerfully.
Harding, too, was in good spirits. He was all patriotism and full of courteous consideration for his friends. So heartened was he that, after tea, at the suggestion of Bingham, he sat down to the piano to sing a duet with his wife. This was also a sort of touching example of British respectability with a dash of "go" in it!
Bingham was turning over some music.
"What shall it be, Tina?" asked Harding, whose repertoire was limited.
"This!" said Bingham, and he placed on the piano in front of Hording the duet from "Becket."
The room was crowded, khaki prevailing. "All the women are workers," Mrs. Harding had explained.
Gwendolen Scott was there, of course, still conscious of the ten-shilling note in the pocket of her coat. Mrs. Potten had gone, along with the Buckinghamshire collar, just as if neither had ever existed. Boreham was there, talking to one or two men in khaki, because he could not get near May Dashwood. She had now somehow got wedged into a corner over which Bingham was standing guard.
At the door the Warden had just made his appearance. He had got no further than the threshold, for he saw his hostess about to sing and would not advance to disturb her.
From where he stood May Dashwood could be plainly seen, and Bingham stooping with his hands on his knees, making an inaudible remark to her.
The remark that gentleman was actually making was: "You'll have a treat presently—the greatest surprise in your life."
Mrs. Harding stood behind her husband. She was dressed with strict regard to the last fashion. Dressing in each fashion as it came into existence she used to call quite prettily, "the simple truth about it." Since the war she called it frankly and seriously "the true economy." Her face usually expressed a superior self-assurance, and now it wore also a look of indulgent amiability. Her whole appearance suggested a happy peacock with its tail spread, and the surprise which Bingham predicted came when she opened her mouth and, instead of emitting screams in praise of diamonds and of Paris hats (as one would have expected), she piped in a small melancholy voice the following pathetic inquiry—
"Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear in the pine overhead?"
"Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear in the pine overhead?"
And then came Harding's growling baritone,avoiding any mention of cigars or cocktails and making answer—
"No! but the noise of the deep as it hollows the cliffs of the land."
"No! but the noise of the deep as it hollows the cliffs of the land."
Mrs. Harding—
"Is there a voice coming up with the voice of the deep from the strand,One coming up with the song in the flush of the glimmering red?"
"Is there a voice coming up with the voice of the deep from the strand,One coming up with the song in the flush of the glimmering red?"
Mr. Harding—
"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea."
"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea."
Bingham was convulsed with inward laughter. May tried to smile a little—at the incongruity of the singers and the words they sang; but her thoughts were all astray. The Warden was here—so near!
No one else was in the least amused. Boreham was plainly worried, and was staring through his eyeglass at Bingham's back, behind which May Dashwood was half obliterated. Gwendolen Scott had only just caught sight of the Warden and had flushed up, and wore an excited look on her face. She was glancing at him with furtive glances—ready to bow. Now she caught his eye and bowed, and he returned the bow very gravely.
Lady Dashwood was leaning back in her chair listening with resigned misery.
May looked straight before her, past Bingham's elbow. She knew the song from Becket well. Words in the song were soon coming that she dreaded, because of the Warden standing there by the door.
The words came—
"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea,Love that can shape or can shatter a life till the life shall have fled."
"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea,Love that can shape or can shatter a life till the life shall have fled."
She raised her eyes to the Warden. She could seehis profile. It looked noble among the faces around him, as he stood with his head bent, apparently very much aloof, absorbed in his own thoughts.
He, of all men she had ever met, ought to have understood "love that is born of the deep," and did not. He turned his head slightly and met her eyes for the flash of a second. It was the look of a man who takes his last look.
She did not move, but she grasped the arms of her chair and heard no more of the music but sounds, vaguely drumming at her ears, without meaning.
She did not even notice Bingham's movement, the slow cautious movement with which he turned to see what had aroused her emotion. When he knew, he made a still more cautious and imperceptible movement away from her; the movement of a man who discerns that he had made a step too far and wishes to retrace that step without being observed.
May did not even notice that the song was over and that people were talking and moving about.
"We are going, May," said Lady Dashwood. "Mr. Boreham has to go and hunt for a ten-shilling note that Mrs. Potten thinks she dropped at Christ Church. She has just sent me a letter about it. She can't remember the staircase. In any case we have to go and pick up our purchases there, so we are all going together."
"She's always dropping things," said Boreham, who had taken the opportunity of coming up and speaking to May. "She may have lost the note anywhere between here and Norham Gardens. She's incorrigible."
The little gathering was beginning to melt away. Harding and Bingham had hurried off on business, and there was nobody now left but Boreham and the party from King's and Mrs. Harding, who wasdetermined to help in the search for Mrs. Potten's lost note.
"Miss Scott is coming back with me—to help wind up things at the Sale," said Mrs. Harding, "and on our way we will go in and help you."
Gwendolen's first impulse, when Mrs. Potten's note was discussed, was to get behind somebody else so as not to be seen. Would Mr. Harding and Mr. Bingham remember about the extra note? Probably—so her second impulse was to say aloud: "I wonder if it's the note I quite forgot to give to Mrs. Potten? I've got it somewhere." Alas! this impulse was short-lived. Ever since she had put the note in her pocket, the mental image of an umbrella had been before her eyes. She had begun to consider that mental umbrella as already a real umbrella and hers. She walked about already, in imagination, under it. She might have planned to spend money that had fallen into her hands on sweets. That would have been the usual thing; but no, she was going to spend it on something very useful and necessary. That ten shillings, in fact, so carelessly flung aside by Mrs. Potten, was going to be spent in a way very few girls would think of. To spend it on an umbrella was wonderfully virtuous and made the whole affair a sort of duty.
The umbrella, in short, had become now part of Gwendolen's future. Virtue walking with an umbrella. Without that umbrella there would be a distinct blank in Gwendolen's life!
If she obeyed her second impulse on the moment, that umbrella would never become hers. She would for ever lose that umbrella. But neither Mr. Harding nor Mr. Bingham seemed to think of her, or her note. They were already rushing off to lectures or chapels or something. The impulse died!
So the poor silly child pretended to search in the rooms at Christ Church with no less energy thanMrs. Harding and Mrs. Dashwood, and much more thoroughly than Boreham, who did nothing more than put up the lights and stand about looking gloomy.
The Warden was walking slowly with Lady Dashwood on the terrace below when the searchers came out announcing that no note could be found.
Boreham's arms were full of parcels, and these were distributed among the Warden, Lady Dashwood, and Mrs. Dashwood.
Mrs. Harding said "good-bye" outside the great gate.
"I shall bring Miss Scott home, after the work is over," she said; and Gwendolen glanced at the Warden in the fading afternoon light with some confidence, for was not the affair of the note over? What more could happen? She could not be certain whether he looked at her or not. He moved away the moment that Mrs. Harding had ceased speaking. He bowed, and in another moment was talking to Mr. Boreham.
May Dashwood had slipped her hand into her aunt's arm, making it obvious to Boreham that he and the Warden must walk on ahead, or else walk behind. They walked on ahead.
"I've got to fetch Mrs. Potten from Eliston's," he said fretfully, as he walked beside the Warden. All four went along in silence. They passed Carfax. There, a little farther on, was Mrs. Potten just at the shop's door, looking out keenly through her glasses, peering from one side of the street to the other.
She came forward to meet them, evidently charmed at seeing the Warden.
"I'm afraid I made a great fuss over that note. Did you find it, Bernard?"
Boreham felt too cross to answer.
"We didn't," said May Dashwood. "I'm sorry!"
"No, we couldn't find it," said Lady Dashwood.
"You really couldn't," repeated Mrs. Potten. "Well, I wonder—— But how kind of you!"
Now, Mrs. Potten rarely saw the Warden, and this fact made her prize him all the more. Mrs. Potten's weakness for men was very weak for the Warden, so much so that for the moment she forgot the loss of her note, and—thinking of Wardens—burst into a long story about the Heads of colleges she had known personally and those she had not known personally.
Her assumption that Heads of colleges were of any importance was all the more distasteful to Boreham because May Dashwood was listening.
"Come along, Mrs. Potten," he said crossly; "we shall have to have the lamps lit if we wait any longer."
But they were not her lamps that would have to be lit, burningheroil, and Mrs. Potten released the Warden with much regret.
"So the poor little note was never found," she said, as she held out her hand for good-bye. "I know it's a trifle, but in these days everything is serious, everything! And after I had scribbled off my note to you from Eliston's I thought I might have given Miss Scott two ten-shilling notes instead of one, just by mistake, and that she hadn't noticed, of course."
"I thought of that," said Lady Dashwood, "and I asked Mrs. Harding; but she said that she had got the correct notes—thirty shillings."
"Well, good-bye," said Mrs. Potten. "I am sorry to have troubled everybody, but in war time one has to be careful. One never knows what may happen. Strange things have happened and will happen. Don't you think so, Warden?"
"Stranger than perhaps we think of," said the Warden, and he raised his hat to go.
"Come, Bernard," said Mrs. Potten, "I must try and tear you away. Good-bye, good-bye!" and even then she lingered and looked at the Warden.
"Good-bye, Marian," said Lady Dashwood, firmly.
"I am afraid you are very tired," whispered May in her aunt's ear, as they turned up the Broad.
"Rather tired," said Lady Dashwood. "Too tired to hear Marian's list of names, nothing but names!"
They walked on a few steps, and then there came a sound of whirring in the sky. It was a sound new to Oxford, but which had lately become frequent. All three looked up. An aeroplane was skimming low over steeples, towers, and ancient chimney stacks, going home to Port Meadow, like a bird going home to roost at the approach of night. It was going safely. The pilot was only learning, playing with air, overcoming it with youthful keenness and light-heartedness. They could see his little solitary figure sitting at the helm. Later on he would play no more; the air would be full of glory, and horror—over in France.
The Warden sighed.
When they reached the Lodgings they went into the gloom of the dark panelled hall. The portraits on the walls glowered at them. The Warden put up the lights and looked at the table for letters, as if he expected something. There was a wire for him; more business, but not unexpected.
"I have to go to Town again," he said. "A meeting and other education business."
"Ah!" said Lady Dashwood. She caught at the idea, and her eyes followed the figure of May Dashwood walking upstairs. When May turned out of sight she said: "Do you mean now?"
"No, to-morrow early," he said. "And I shall be back on Saturday."
Lady Dashwood seated herself on a couch; her letters were in her hand, but she did not open them. Her eyes were fixed on her brother.
"Can you manage somehow so that I can speakto Gwendolen alone?" he asked. "I am dining in Hall, but I shall be back by half-past nine."
Lady Dashwood felt her cheeks tingle. "Yes, I will manage it, if it is inevitable." She dwelt lingeringly upon the word "inevitable."
"Thank you," said the Warden, and he turned and walked slowly upstairs. Very heavily he walked, so Lady Dashwood thought, as she sat listening to his footsteps. Of course it was inevitable. If vows are forgotten, promises are broken, there is an end to "honour," to "progress," to everything worth living for!
At the drawing-room he paused; the door was wide open, and he could see May Dashwood standing near one of the windows pulling her gloves off. She turned.
"I have to be in town early to-morrow and shall not return till the following day, Saturday," he said, coming up slowly to where she was standing.
She glanced up at him.
"This is the second time I have had to go away since you came, but it is a time when so much has to be considered and discussed, matters relating to the future of education, and of the universities, and with the future of Oxford. Things have suddenly changed; it is a new world that we live in to-day, a new world." Then he added bitterly, "Such as was the morrow of the Crucifixion."
He glanced away from her and rested his eyes on the window. The curtains had not yet been drawn and the latticed panes were growing dim. The dull grey sky behind the battlements of the roof opposite showed no memory of sunset.
"Of course you have to go away," said May, softly, and she too looked out at the dull sky now darkening into night.
Should she now tell him that she had kept her word, that she had not seen the cathedral because she hadnot been alone. She had had a strong desire to tell him when it was impossible to do so. Now, when she had only to say the words for he was there, close beside her, she could not speak. Perhaps he wouldn't care whether she had kept her word—and yet she knew that he did care.
They stood together for a moment in silence.
"And you were not able to go with me to the cathedral," he said, turning and looking at her face steadily.
May coloured as she felt his eyes upon her, but she braced herself to meet his question as if it was a matter about which they cared nothing.
"I didn't want to waste your time," she said, and she drew her gloves through her hand and moved away.
"Bingham," he said, "knows more than I do, perhaps more than any man in Oxford, about mediæval architecture."
"Ah yes," said May, and she walked slowly towards the fireplace.
"And he will have shown you everything," he persisted.
May was now in front of the portrait, though she did not notice it.
"I didn't go into the cathedral," she said.
The Warden raised his head as if throwing off some invisible burden. Then he moved and came and stood near her—also facing the portrait. But neither noticed the large luminous eyes fixed upon them, visible even in the darkening room.
"I suppose one ought not to be critical of a drawing-room song," said the Warden, and his voice now was changed.
May moved her head slightly towards him, but did not meet his eyes.
"I was inclined," he said, "but then I am by trade a college tutor, to criticise one line of Tennyson's verse."
She knew what he meant. "What line do you object to?" she asked, and the line seemed to be already dinning in her ears.
He quoted the line, pronouncing the words with a strange emphasis—
"'Love that can shape or can shatter a life, till the life shall have fled.'"
"'Love that can shape or can shatter a life, till the life shall have fled.'"
"Yes?" said May.
"It is a pretty sentiment," he said. "I suppose we ought to accept it as such."
"Oh!" said May, and her voice lingered doubtfully over the word.
"Have we any right to expect so much, or fear so much," said the Warden, "from the circumstances of life?"
May turned her head away and said nothing.
"Why demand that life shall be made so easy?" Here he paused again. "Some of us," he went on, "want to be converted, in the Evangelical sense; in other words, some of us want to be given a sudden inspiring illumination, an irresistible motive for living the good life, a motive that will make virtue easy."
May looked down into the fire and waited for him to go on.
"Some of us demand a love that will make marriage easy, smooth for our temper, flattering to our vanity. Some demand"—and here there was a touch of passion in his voice that made May's heart heavy and sick—"they demand that it should be made easy to be faithful."
And she gave no answer.
"Isn't it our business to accept the circumstances of life, love among them, and refuse either to be shaped by them or shattered by them? But you will accuse me of being hyper-critical at a tea-party, of arguing onethics when I should have been thinking of—of nothing particular."
This was his Apologia. After this there would be silence. He would be Gwendolen's husband. May tried to gather up all her self-possession.
"You don't agree with me?" he asked to break her obstinate silence.
She could hear Robinson coming in. He put up the lights, and out of the obscurity flashed the face of the portrait almost to the point of speech.
"Do you mean that one ought and can live in marriage without help and without sympathy?" she asked, and her voice trembled a little.
He answered, "I mean that. May I quote you lines that you probably know, lines of a more strenuous character than that line from 'Becket.'" And he quoted—
"'For even the purest delight may pall,And power must fail, and the pride must fall,And the love of the dearest friends grow small,But the glory of the Lord is all in all.'"
"'For even the purest delight may pall,And power must fail, and the pride must fall,And the love of the dearest friends grow small,But the glory of the Lord is all in all.'"
They could hear the swish of the heavy curtains as Robinson pulled them over the windows.
"And yet——" she said. Here a queer spasm came in her throat. She was moving towards the open door, for she felt that she could not bear to hear any more. He followed her.
"And yet——?" he persisted.
"I only mean," she said, and she compelled her voice to be steady, "what is the glory of the Lord? Is it anything but love—love of other people?"
She went through the open door slowly and turned to the shallow stairs that led to her bedroom. She could not hear whether he went to his library or not. She was glad that she did not meet anybody in the corridor. The doors were shut.
She locked her door and went up to thedressing-table. The little oval picture case was lying there. She laid her hand upon it, but did not move it. She stood, pressing her fingers upon it. Then she moved away. Even the memory of the past was fading from her life; her future would contain nothing—to remember.
She moved about the room. Wasn't duty enough to fill her life? Wasn't it enough for her to know that she was helping in her small way to build up the future of the race? Why could she not be content with that? Perhaps, when white hairs came and wrinkles, and her prime was past, she might be content! But until then....
The ghost was, so to speak, dead, as far as any mention of him was made at the Lodgings. But in the servants' quarters he was very much alive.
The housemaid, who had promised not to tell "any one" that Miss Scott had seen a ghost, kept her word with literal strictness, by telling every one.
Robinson was of opinion that the general question of ghosts was still an open one. Also that he had never heard in his time, or his father's, of the Barber's ghost actually appearing in the Warden's library. When the maids expressed alarm, he reproved them with a grumbling scorn. If ghosts did ever appear, he felt that the Lodgings had a first-class claim to one; ghosts were "classy," he argued. Had any one ever heard tell of a ghost haunting a red brick villa or a dissenting chapel?
Louise had gathered up the story without difficulty, but she had secret doubts whether Miss Scott might not have invented the whole thing. She did not put much faith in Miss Scott. Now, if Lady Dashwood had seen the ghost, that would have been another matter!
What really excited Louise was the story that the Barber came to warn Wardens of an approaching disaster. Now Louise was in any case prepared to believe that "disasters" might easily be born and bredin places like the Lodgings and in a city like Oxford; but in addition to all this there had been and was something going on in the Lodgings lately that was distressing Lady Dashwood, something in the behaviour of the Warden! A disaster! Hein?
When she returned from St. Aldates, Gwendolen Scott had had only time to sit down in a chair and survey her boots for a few moments when Louise came into her bedroom and suggested thatMademoisellewould like to have her hair well brushed.Mademoiselle'shair had suffered from the passing events of the day.
"Doesn't Lady Dashwood want you?" asked Gwendolen.
No, Lady Dashwood was already dressed and was reposing herself on the couch, being fatigued. She was lying with her face towards the window, which was indeed wide open—wide open, and it was after sunset and at the end of October—par example!
Gwendolen still stared at her boots and said she wanted to think; but Louise had an object in view and was firm, and in a few minutes she had deposited the young lady in front of the toilet-table and was brushing her black curly hair with much vigour.
"Mademoisellesaw the ghost last night," began Louise.
"Who said that?" exclaimed Gwendolen.
"On dit," said Louise.
"Then they shouldn't on dit," said Gwendolen. "I never said I saw the ghost, I may have said I thought I saw one, which is quite different. The Warden says there are no ghosts, and the whole thing is rubbish."
"There comes no ghost here," said Louise, firmly, "except there is a disaster preparing for the Warden."
"The Warden's quite all right," said Gwen, with some scorn.
"Quite all right," repeated Louise. "But it may be some disaster domestic. Who can tell? There is not only death—there is—par exemple, marriage!" and Louise glanced over Gwendolen's head and looked at the girl's face reflected in the mirror.
"Well, that is cool," thought Gwendolen; "I suppose that's French!"
"The whole thing is rubbish," she said.
"One cannot tell, it is not for us to know, perhaps, but it may be that the disaster is, that Mrs. Dashwood, so charming—sodouce—will not permit herself to marry again—though she is still young. Such things happen. But how the Barber should have obtained the information—the good God only knows."
Gwendolen blew the breath from her mouth with protruding lips.
"What has that to do with the Warden? I do wish you wouldn't talk so much, Louise."
"It may be a disaster that there can be no marriage between Mrs. Dashwood andMonsieurthe Warden," continued Louise.
"The Warden doesn't want to marry Mrs. Dashwood," replied Gwendolen, with some energy.
"Mademoiselleknows!" said Louise, softly.
"Yes, I know," said Gwendolen. "No one has thought of such a thing—except you."
"But perhaps he is about to marry—some one whom Lady Dashwood esteems not; that would be indeed a disaster," said Louise, regretfully. "Ah, indeed a disaster," and she ran the brush lengthily down Gwendolen's hair.
"I do wish you wouldn't talk," said Gwen. "It isn't your business, Louise."
"Ah," murmured Louise, brushing away, "I will not speak of disasters; but I pray—I pray continually,and particularly I pray to St. Joseph to protect M. the Warden from any disaster whatever." Then she added: "I believe so much in St. Joseph."
"St. Joseph!" said Gwendolen, sharply. "Why on earth?"
"I believe much in him," said Louise.
"I don't like him," said Gwendolen. "He always spoils those pictures of the Holy Family, he and his beard; he is like Abraham."
"He spoils! That is not so; he is no doubt much, much older than the Blessed Virgin, but that was necessary, and he isun peu homme du monde—to protect the Lady Mother and Child. I pray to St. Joseph, because the good God, who was the Blessed Child, was always so gentle, so obedient, so tender. He will still listen to his kind protector, St. Joseph."
"Oh, Louise, you are funny," said Gwendolen, laughing.
"Funny!" exclaimed Louise. "Holy Jesus!"
"Well, it all happened such ages ago, and you talk as if it were going on now."
"It is now—always now—to God," exclaimed Louise, fervently; "there is no past—all is now."
This was far too metaphysical for Gwendolen. "You are funny," she repeated.
"Funny—again funny. Ah, but I forget,Mademoiselleis Protestant."
"No, I'm not," said Gwen; "I belong to the English branch of the Catholic Church."
"We have no branch, we are a trunk," said Louise, sadly.
"Well, I'm exactly what the Warden is and what Lady Dashwood is," said Gwendolen.
"Ah, my Lady Dashwood," said Louise, breaking into a tone of tragic melancholy. "I pray always for her. Ah! but she is good, and the good God knows it. But she is not well." And Louise changed her toneto one of mild speculation. "Madameperhaps issouffrantebecause of so much fresh air and the absence of shops."
"It is foolish to suppose that the Warden does just what Lady Dashwood tells him. That doesn't happen in this part of the world," said Gwendolen, her mind still rankling on Louise's remark about Lady Dashwood not esteeming—as if, indeed, Lady Dashwood was the important person, as if, indeed, it was to please Lady Dashwood that the Warden was to marry!
"Ah, no," said Louise. "Themonsieurshere come and go just like guests in their homes. They do as they choose. The husband in England says never—as he does in France: 'I come back, my dearest, at the first moment possible, to assist you entertain our dear grandmamma and our dear aunt.' No, he says that not; and the English wife she never says: 'Where have you been? It is an hour that our little Suzette demands that the father should show her again her new picture book!' Ah, no. I find that the English messieurs have much liberty."
"It must be deadly for men in France," said Gwendolen.
"It is always funny or deadly withMademoiselle," replied Louise.
But she felt that she had obtained enough information of an indirect nature to strengthen her in her suspicions that Lady Dashwood had arranged a marriage between the Warden and Mrs. Dashwood, but that the Warden had not played his part, and, notwithstanding his dignified appearance, was amusing himself with both his guests in a manner altogether reprehensible.
Ah! but it was a pity!
When Louise left the room Gwendolen went to the wardrobe, and took out the coat that Louise had putaway. She felt in the wrong pocket first, which was empty, and then in the right one and found the ten-shilling note. Now that she had it in her hand it seemed to her amazing that Mrs. Potten, with her big income, should have fussed over such a small matter. It was shabby of her.
Gwendolen took her purse out of a drawer which she always locked up. Even if her purse only contained sixpence, she locked it up because she took for granted that it would be "stolen."
As she put away her purse and locked the drawer a sudden and disagreeable thought came into her mind. She would not like the Warden to know that she was going to buy an umbrella with money that Mrs. Potten had "thrown away." She would feel "queer" if she met him in the hall, when she came in from buying the umbrella. Why? Well, she would! Anyhow, she need not make up her mind yet what she would do—about the umbrella.
Meanwhile the Warden surely would speak to her this evening, or would write or something? Was she never, never going to be engaged?
She dressed and came down into the drawing-room. Dinner had already been announced, and Lady Dashwood was standing and Mrs. Dashwood was standing. Where was the Warden?
"I ought not to have to tell you to be punctual, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood. "I expect you to be in the drawing-room before dinner is announced, not after."
"So sorry," murmured Gwen; then added lightly, "but I am more punctual than Dr. Middleton!"
"The Warden is dining in Hall," said Lady Dashwood.
So the Warden had made himself invisible again! When was he going to speak to her? When was she going to be really engaged?
Gwendolen held open the door for the two ladies and, as she did so, glanced round the room. Now that she knew that the Warden was out somehow the drawing-room looked rather dreary.
Her eyes rested on the portrait over the fireplace. There was that odious man looking so knowing! She was not sure whether she shouldn't have that portrait removed when she was Mrs. Middleton. It would serve him right. She turned out the lights with some satisfaction, it left him in the dark!
As she walked downstairs behind the two ladies, she thought that they too looked rather dreary. The hall looked dreary. Even the dining-room that she always admired looked dreary, and especially dreary looked old Robinson, and very shabby he looked, as he stood at the carving table. And young Robinson's nose looked more turned-up, and more stumpy than she had noticed before. It was so dull without the Warden at the head of the table.
There was very little conversation at dinner. When the Warden was away, nobody seemed to want to talk. Lady Dashwood said she had a headache.
But Gwendolen gathered some information of importance. Mrs. Potten had turned up again, and had been told that the right money had gone to Mrs. Harding.
Gwendolen stared a good deal at her plate, and felt considerable relief when Lady Dashwood added: "She knows now that she did not lose her note in Christ Church. She is always dropping things—poor Marian! But she very likely hadn't the note at all, and only thought she had the note," and so the matterended.
Just as dinner was over Gwen gathered more information. The Warden was going away early to-morrow! That was dreary, only—she would go and buy theumbrella while he was away, and get used to having it before he saw it.
That the future Mrs. Middleton should not even have an umbrella to call her own was monstrous! She must keep up the dignity of her future position!
The drawing-room was empty except for the figure of Gwendolen Scott. Her slim length was in a great easy-chair, on the arms of which she was resting her hands, while she turned her head from side to side like a bird that anticipates the approach of enemies.
Mrs. Dashwood and Lady Dashwood had gone upstairs, and, to her astonishment, when she prepared to follow them, Lady Dashwood had quietly made her wait behind for the Warden!
The command, for it seemed almost like a command, came with startling abruptness. So Lady Dashwood knew all about it! She must have talked it over with the Warden, and now she was arranging it as if the Warden couldn't act without her! But the annoyance that Gwen felt at this proof of Lady Dashwood's power was swallowed up in the sense of a great victory, the prize was won! She was going to be really engaged at last! All the waiting and the bother was over!
She was ready for him, at least as ready as she could be. She was glad she had got on her white frock; on the whole, she preferred it to the others. Even Louise, who never said anything nice, said that it suited her.
When would he come? And when he did come, what would he do, what would he say?
Would he come in quietly and slowly as he had done last night, looking, oh, so strong, so capable of driving ghosts away, fears away? She would never be afraid of anything in his presence, except perhaps of himself! Here he was!
He came in, shut the door behind him, and advanced towards her. She couldn't help watching him.
"You're quite alone," he said, and he came and stood by the hearth under the portrait and leaned his hand on the mantelshelf.
"Yes," said Gwen, blushing violently. "Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Dashwood have gone. Lady Dashwood said I was to stay up!"
"Thank you," said the Warden.
Gwen looked up at him wistfully.
"You wrote me a letter," he began, "and from it I gather that you have been thinking over what I said the other evening."
"Yes," said Gwen; "I've been so—bothered. Oh, that's the wrong word—I mean——"
"You have thought it over quietly and seriously?" said the Warden.
Gwen's eyes flickered. "Yes," she said; and then, as he seemed to expect her to say more, she added:
"I don't know whether you meant——" and here she stopped dead.
"Between us there must be absolute sincerity," he said.
Gwen felt a qualm. Did absolute sincerity mean that she would have to tell about the—the umbrella that she was going to get?
"Yes," she said, "I like sincerity; it's right, isn't it?"
He made no answer. She looked again at him wistfully.
"Suppose you tell me," he said gently, "what you yourself think of your mother's letter in which shespeaks to you with affection and pride, and even regrets that she will lose you. Her letter conveys the idea that youareloved and wanted." He put emphasis on the "are."
"It was a nice letter," said Gwen, thinking hard as she spoke. "But you see we haven't got any home now," she went on. "Mother stays about with people. It is hard lines, but she is so sporting."
"Yes," said the Warden, "and," he said, as if to assist her to complete the picture, "yet she wants you!" As he spoke his eyes narrowed and his breath was arrested for a moment.
"Oh no," said Gwen, eagerly. "She doesn't want to prevent—me—me marrying. You see she can't have me much, it's—it's difficult in other people's houses—at least it sometimes is—just now especially."
"Thank you," said the Warden, "I understand." He sighed and moved slightly from his former position. "You mean that she wants you very much, but that she can't afford to give you a home."
"Yes," said Gwen, with relief. The way was being made very clear to her. She was telling "the truth" and he was helping her so kindly. "You see mother couldn't stand a small house and servant bothers. It's been such hard luck on her, that father left nothing like what she thought he had got. Mother has been so plucky, she really has."
"I see," said the Warden. "Then your mother's letter has your approval?"
Her approval! Yes, of course; it was simply topping of her mother to have written in the way she did.
"It was good of mother," she said. If it hadn't been for her mother she would not have known what to do.
The Warden moved his hand away from the mantelshelf and now stood with his back against it, away from the blaze of the fire.
"You have never mentioned, in my presence," he said, "what you think about the work that most girls of your age are doing for the war."
"Oh yes," said Gwen, eagerly; "mother is so keen about that. She does do such a lot herself, and she took me away from school a fortnight before time was up to go to a hospital for three months' training."
"And you are having a holiday and want to go on," suggested the Warden.
"No; mother thought I had better have a change. You can't think how horrid the matron was to me—she had favourites, worse luck; and now mother is looking—has been"—Gwen corrected herself sharply—"for something for me to do that would be more suitable, but the difficulty is to find anything really nice."
The Warden meditated. "Yes," he said.
Gwen continued to look at him, her face full of questioning.
"You have been thinking whether you should trust yourself to me," he said very gravely, "and whether you could face the responsibility and the cares of a house, a position, like that of a Warden's wife?"
"Oh yes," said Gwen.
"You think that you understand them?" he asked.
"Oh yes," said Gwen. "At least, I would try; I would do my best."
"There is nothing very amusing in my manner of life; in fact, I should describe it as—solemn. The business," he continued, "of a Warden is to ward his college. His wife's business is to assist him."
"I should simply love that," said Gwen. "I should really! I'm not clever, I know, but I would try my best, and—I'm so—afraid of you," she said with a gulp of emotion, "and admire you so awfully!"
The Warden's face hardened a little, but Gwen did not observe it; all she saw and knew was that thedismal part of the interview was over, for he accepted this outburst as a definite reply on her part to his offer. She was so glad she had said just what she had said. It seemed to be all right.
"That is your decision?" he said, only he did not move towards her. He stood there, standing with his back to the projection of the fireplace, his head on a level with the frame of the portrait. The two faces, of the present Warden of the year 1916 and the Warden of the eighteenth century, made a striking contrast. Both men had no lack of physical beauty, but the one had discovered the "rights" of man, and therefore of a Warden, and the other had discovered the "duties" of men, including Wardens.
He stood there and did not approach her. He was hesitating.
He could, if he wished it, exercise his power over her and make her answer "No." He could make her shrink away from him, or even deny that she had wished for an interview. And he could do this safely, for Gwendolen herself was ignorant of the fact that he had on the previous night exercised any influence over her except that of argument. She would have no suspicion that he was tampering with her will for his own purposes. He could extricate himself now and at this moment. Now, while she was still waiting for him to tell her whether he would marry her.
The temptation was a heavy one. It was heavy, although he knew from the first that it was one which he could and would resist. There was no real question about it.
He stood there by the hearth, a free man still. In a moment he would be bound hand and foot.
Still, come what may, he must satisfy his honour. He must satisfy his honour at any price.
Gwendolen saw that he did not move and she became suddenly alarmed. Didn't he mean to keephis promise after all? Had he taken a dislike to her?
"Have I offended you?" she asked humbly. "You're not pleased with me. Oh, Dr. Middleton, you do make me so afraid!" She got up from her chair, looking very pale. "You've been so awfully kind and good to me, but you make me frightened!" She held out her hands to him and turned her face away, as if to hide it from him. "Oh, do be kind!" she pleaded.
He was looking at her with profound attention, but the tenseness of his eyes had relaxed. Here was this girl. Foolish she might be naturally, badly brought up she certainly was, but she was utterly alone in the world. He must train her. He must oblige her to walk in the path he had laid out for her. She, too, must become a servant of the College. He willed it!
"I hope, Gwendolen," he said gently, "that I shall never be anything but kind to you. But do you realise that if you are my wife, you will have to live, not for pleasure or ease; and you will have not merely to control yourself, but learn to control other people? This may sound hard. Does it sound hard?"
Oh, she would try her very best. She would do whatever he told her to do. Just whatever he told her!
Whatever he told her to do! What an unending task he had undertaken of telling her what to do! He must never relax his will or his attention from her. It would be no marriage for him; it would be a heavy responsibility. But at least the College should not suffer! Was he sure of that? He must see that it did not suffer. If he failed, he must resign. His promise to her was not to love her. He had never spoken of love. He had offered her a home, and he must give her a home.
He braced himself up with a supreme effort and went towards her, taking her into his arms and kissing her brow and cheeks, and then, releasing himself from her clinging arms, he said—
"Go now, Gwendolen. Go to bed. I have work to do."
"Are you—is it——" she stammered.
"We are engaged, if that is what you mean," he said.
"Oh, Dr. Middleton!" she exclaimed. "And may I write to my mother?"
The Warden did not answer for a moment.
That was another burden, Gwendolen's mother! The Warden's face became hard. But he thought he knew how he should deal with Gwendolen's mother; he should begin from the very first.
"Yes," he said; "but as to her coming here—she mentions it in her letter—Lady Dashwood will decide about that. I don't know what her plans are."
Gwendolen looked disappointed. "And I may talk to Lady Dashwood, to Mrs. Dashwood, and anybody about our engagement?" she asked.
"Certainly," he said, but he spoke stiffly.
"And—and—" said the girl, following him to the door and stretching out her hand towards his arm as she walked but not touching it,—"shall I see you to-morrow morning before you go to town?"
The Warden felt as if he had been dealt a light but acutely painful blow.
Shall I see you to-morrow morning? Already she was claiming her right over him, her right to see him, to know of his movements. He had for many years been the servant of the College. He had given the College his entire allegiance, but he had also been its master. He had been the strong man among weaker men, and, as all men of his type are, he had been alone, uninterfered with, rather remote in matters concerninghis private personal life. And now this mere child demanded explanations of him. It was a bitter moment for his pride and independence. However strictly he might bind his wife to his will, his own freedom had gone; he was no longer the man he had been. If this simple question, "Shall I see you to-morrow morning?" tortured his self-respect, how would he be able to bear what was coming upon him day by day? He had to bear it. That was the only answer to the question!
"I am starting early," he said. "But I shall be back on Saturday, some time in the afternoon probably."
Gwendolen's brain was in a whirl. Her desire had been consummated. The Warden was hers, but, somehow, he was not quite what he had been on that Monday evening. He was cold, at least rather cold. Still he was hers; that was fixed.
She waited for a moment to see if he meant to kiss her again. He did not mean to, he held out his hand and smiled a little.
She kissed his hand. "I shall long for you to come back," she said, and then ran out, leaving him alone to return to his desk with a heart sick and empty.