Surely this was the question of philosophy—the very question they had discussed that evening! And now, for the first time, he realized that the theories and systems he had been studying so long were not mere exercises of thought, and abstract speculations, but almost passionate attempts to explain the meaning of existence—of his own existence!
But the great solutions of the philosophers—Aristotle's "Contemplation," Kant's "Moral Law," the "Calculated Pleasure" of the Hedonists, and all the rest—there seemed to be a mortal coldness in them all. Surely they could never give a motive, or make life desirable to anyone! Vaguely dismayed at this conclusion, he repeated over to himself all the words again. Still he could find in them no motive for existence; and in a dim way he began to feel half proud of this discernment. Yes, Waters had been right after all, (and somehow he pitied both Waters and himself), philosophy was but a barren waste. And the picture of a great desert filled his mind—a desert of endless sand.
When he was again conscious of himself, for a moment he wondered where he was, confused by the discomfort of his position, and the coolness of the air. Then through the darkness he saw, outlined against the starry sky, the trees and buildings of the College quadrangle, and remembered how he had sat down there to rest after their discussion. He must have fallen asleep, and now it was late—the night had grown completely silent, and only one or two windows shone yellow in the blackness of the walls. What had their argument been about? he began to ask himself; but, chancing to look up again, he forgot everything in his wonder at the brilliance of the stars. The whole patch of sky, shut in by the dark College roofs, quivered and glowed with shining stars; he thought he had never seen the vault of heaven so wonderful and luminous.
The long, faint sigh of a passing train on the distant railway brought back his thoughts at last, out of their vague wonder, to the earth and himself again. His imagination wandered after the train as it went through the night towards London. Soon he would be in London himself, he thought, smiling. It was not three weeks now. There were some dances he was going to, and a cricket match, and the theatre, of course....
But then a vague sense of misfortune weighed him down, and in a moment he remembered how, a little while before, he had decided that life was altogether inane and meaningless. How was it that he had grown so foolishly eager again? No secret had been revealed to him; he had found no meaning behind desire, no purpose in existence. Yet here he was, looking forward to dances, actually counting the days to a cricket match! It was absurd for a self-conscious spirit to desire such things as these, especially after surveying life and philosophy, and finding there was no reason why you should desire anything at all!
But somehow Cornish did not seem to need a reason now; success, love, friendship, and even dances and cricket matches, he desired these things for themselves, they shone with their own brightness; no theory, no sanction of Greek or German philosophy could possibly make him want them more. How was it that there were desires that reason did not give? He puzzled over this, till at last he saw the question was rather a meaningless one, a question of words only. For desire of life came long before reasoning about it; reason did not sit aloft in a purer air, creating out of itself the meanings of experience. It could create no desires, could give us indeed none of the ultimate facts of life, for the ideas it used were all abstracted from things our direct perceptions gave us. And the existence of these things themselves—the blue sky, the solid earth, the sweetness of youth and sunshine—it could never prove, it did not need to prove! When, a little while before, he had felt no desire, reason had not helped him. And now he did not want its help.
The striking clocks told Cornish the lateness of the hour, and he got up to go in. As he walked across the quadrangle he heard voices and laughter in the darkness, and dimly saw a group of young men come out of a doorway in front of him.
"Well, have you had a good game, Waters?" he asked, as he joined them.
"Oh, a ripping game. What have you been doing?"
"Nothing much—thinking."
"Thinking! Lord, I'd turn looney if I thought so much. What's the good of it? You'd much better have taken a hand."
Cornish laughed. "Well, I believe you're right," he said.
William Waters had dreamed that the Persians, in a fleet of Canadian canoes, had come up the Thames to attack the College barge, and that he himself had been sent on foot to demand reinforcements from the Oxford examiners at Sparta. And after the weary, breathless running, the hopeless search, in his dream, for the right Greek words, it was most delightful to open his eyes and find himself comfortably lying in his familiar bedroom, with the sunlight glowing on the blinds.
"Why am I so happy?" he asked himself, and then he remembered that it was all over now; for the future he would never have to trouble about Greek or examinations, or getting up in the morning, or any of their stupid rules and worries. For the future! As he lay there, lazily opening and shutting his eyes, vague, bright pictures of the life before him floated through his mind, and set his heart beating a little quicker.
William Waters was the son of a business man in a northern town, who, with some sacrifice, had sent him, the eldest son, to the University, in order that his education, and the connections he would form, might help him on in the world. Now that the young man, after a lucky scramble through the examinations, had just finished four pleasant years of Oxford life, it was his vague purpose to find some occupation in London, something pleasant and gentlemanly, which would enable him to live as he liked.
"Of course, sir, I know one can't expect anything very much at first," he said, half aloud, as he imagined himself talking modestly and sensibly to his tutor. For he was going to talk about it to Ames; old Ames wasn't such a fool about things of that kind. "There is no nonsense about that young Waters," Ames would say afterwards; "a modest, sensible chap, the kind of man who'll always do well." Waters was determined to do well of course; he would get on, he told himself, when people came to realize how hard he worked. And as the young man lay there in bed, he decided that in the future no one should ever accuse him of laziness and neglecting work. By simply making up his mind to it, he thought he would entirely change his character, and begin life anew, winning position and wealth by his own unremitting industry.
Buller and Antrobus would be in London, he told himself, and Philpotts, most likely, and they would belong to the same club, where they would go on Sunday mornings to smoke and read the sporting papers. He would work tremendously hard, of course, spending laborious nights over his books, but he would also go out a great deal into society. He would not be dissipated—he didn't care much for that—but still he would not be Puritanical either. He meant to be moral and steady, and at the same time he would enjoy the pleasures of a man of the world. But he would be always kind and popular; people in fashionable society would say that William Waters was such a good fellow, and in the Park ladies would smile at him from their carriages, and smart young men would walk with him arm in arm. And he would live well; but still he would save money, and would soon pay off his Oxford bills, and send money to his father. For he would always be very kind to his people, having his sisters to visit him, helping them to marry well (he himself meant to marry someone for love who was very rich), and sometimes he would give up parties at country houses in order to pay them visits at home. How his fur coat and knowledge of the great world would impress all the neighbours!
"But I must get up," Waters said to himself, remembering how he was to go and see his tutor and talk over plans. And after luncheon Buller was going to drive them out, three of them, with his tandem to Woodstock. And thinking vaguely of this drive, and of some new clothes that he meant to wear, Waters was just falling off to sleep again, when his bull-dog came rushing up the stairs, and began to whine and scratch at the door. Rousing himself, Waters jumped up, and went with a call of affection to the door to let Lo-Ben in.
After he had bathed and dressed himself in his new fresh-smelling clothes, the young man sauntered into the sitting-room of his lodgings, and rang the bell for breakfast. The day was bright; Waters felt wonderfully fresh and well; there were pleasant aches in his arms and legs as he moved, for the whole of the day before he had been rowing on the river.
After breakfast he was just sitting down to smoke his pipe comfortably, when, looking at his watch, he snatched up his cap and rusty gown, and started out towards College. By Jove! what a day it was! He walked along through the sunshine, smiling to himself, while Lo-Ben barked and bounced from side to side. It was a good world, Waters thought a good world, and now he was really going to enjoy it.
As Waters was tying up Lo-Ben in the College porch, he was seized on suddenly from behind.
"Come along, fat William," they cried, pulling and pushing him along, "we're going to have a little game—you must take a hand."
Twisting himself around, as he struggled, Waters recognized two of his friends, and appealed to reason breathlessly; he had to go and see old Ames, on his honour he had; he would look in afterwards, in about half-an-hour, and stay to luncheon if they liked. So he started across the quadrangle, looking back and smiling and shaking his head, as he dodged the bits of gravel with which they pelted him. It was a good place after all, the old College, Waters thought, when he was out of danger and could look about. He remembered the two years he had lived in rooms looking out on this quadrangle; the pleasant hours he had spent, sitting in the window with his pipe, or lying on the grass whole Sunday afternoons, lazily reading, or talking with his friends; he thought of the beautiful chapel, and the old hall that was so much admired, and how he had sat up a tree one evening and poured water on the Dean, and how at night the stealthy bonfires had blazed up red and sudden in the dark.
He was really sorry to leave the old place, he thought sentimentally, remembering the emotions he had read of as felt by young men in books when about to leave their school or college. But then, with healthy common-sense, he told himself that all they wrote in books about your college days, and life never being so happy afterwards, was damned nonsense. Waters knew how men lived in London!
"Sorry I'm late, sir," he said as he entered his tutor's room, addressing the spare shining head that was bent over a heap of papers.
Mr. Ames raised his worn, cynical, kind face, and looked at Waters with short-sighted eyes. "Oh, no matter, sit down won't you, Waters," and he gave a last hurried shuffle to his papers. Waters thought that Ames must spend his life looking for lost papers; and although occasionally surprised by flashes of almost supernatural knowledge in his tutor, for the most part he entertained—as a heathen might towards his helpless, yet vaguely awful, idol—a certain good-natured pity for the absent-minded, easily outwitted man.
"I thought I'd like to talk things over with you a little," Waters said, sitting down in a chair that groaned with his athletic weight. "I must decide what I shall choose, what to go in for."
"To go in for?" Ames repeated, looking at him vaguely.
"I mean, I must choose"; Waters found a pleasure in talking, not as an undergraduate, but as a serious young man. "One must do something of course."
"Of course itisbetter," Ames assented, though he still looked rather puzzled.
"I thought I'd talk to you about the Bar, or something of the kind."
Ames looked at him blankly. "Talk to me about the Bar?"
"Yes, I thought I'd better ask your advice."
"Do you mean for yourself?" Ames asked after a moment, "but I supposed—I always supposed you were going into your father's business; he has some business, hasn't he, or am I wrong?"
"Into my father's business!" Waters laughed comfortably. "No, I shouldn't ever think of that. No, I want to live in London."
"Oh, I see!"
"Yes, of course if anything very good was offered me somewhere else,—but no, I think I prefer London. What would you advise?"
"What I should advise!" Ames said, looking at him hopelessly. "I suppose you've thought of something for yourself; you have some preference?"
"Preference? Oh no, nothing special. I thought I'd ask you."
Again Ames looked at him with an odd expression. Then in his polite, weary, equable voice, he said, "Well, I must try and think. I suppose your father—what does he want you to do?"
"My father—!" Waters' voice showed what he thought of fathers. "Oh, he said that if I had a university education, there would be something."
"Ah, did he! Well, I suppose he ought to know," Ames said doubtfully.
"Oh, he doesn't know of anything definite," Waters explained; and then, speaking loudly, as if to a deaf man, he added, "It was only what he thought."
"Ah, that's quite different, isn't it?" Ames exclaimed, his face brightening.
"But surely there is a great deal to do in London," Waters continued.
Yes, there must be a good deal, Ames admitted doubtfully; at least everyone seemed very much occupied there.
"All I want is some work, that isn't too much grind, and decent pay."
"Ah, that is all that most people want," Ames observed, with half a sigh.
"Of course at first I shouldn't expect anything very much," Waters went on, hardly heeding his tutor's vague remarks; and he explained again that he only wanted some decent occupation, with pay enough to live on. Then he waited, gazing at his tutor's blank face as one might gaze at a revolving lighthouse, waiting for its flash of light. As nothing came, however, he said, "Surely there are lots of places where they want Oxford men?"
"Possibly there were"; Ames looked as if he, however, had never heard of them.
"But Grant and Vaughan had got good places, and Sturdy, they said, was doing well at the Bar."
"Ah, I see you mean those clever men, who do so well in the Schools and all. You're quite right; a man like Cornish for instance; I thought you meant more the average man."
No, it wasn't Cornish, Waters meant; it wasn't the average man either. "I mean more the man—what you call an all-round-man."
"What I call an all-round-man?" Ames looked bewildered.
"I mean," Waters continued, with desperate efforts to explain himself, "I mean the man who is rather good all round, rows, and that sort of thing. Perhaps he didn't get a First; didn't care much what he got, didn't approve of the system."
Ames seemed busy looking for his glasses.
"There are people who don't approve of the system," Waters went on. "I read an article once by someone, Professor something, not approving of examinations. I forget just who it was."
"Professor Freeman, perhaps?"
"Yes, that's it! Well now, a man like that, what is he going to do?" Waters asked, with renewed confidence.
"But Professor Freeman is dead, you know."
"But,—but,—I'm not speaking of Professor Freeman."
"How would you like to be a solicitor?" Ames asked, putting on his glasses.
"A solicitor! oh, I shouldn't care for that," Waters promptly replied. "You see it isn't the kind of work I like, and then the vacations are too short."
Ames said nothing. He was sitting unusually still, and his large glasses reflecting the light, resembled two enormous shining oval eyes in the smoothness of his face. What he was really looking at Waters could not tell, and he grew more and more uncomfortable. At last, with diminished confidence, "Therearemen who get on well at the Bar?" he said.
"There are."
"And if I were living in London I might do some writing? They do that, don't they?"
"They do." Then Ames sighed and shook his head. "I think you had better go home, Waters," he added; "I'm afraid there's nothing else. If you had spoken to me before, I should have told you this."
"Oh, good Lord, Mr. Ames, you don't mean there's nothing!" Waters sat up in his chair, with open mouth, staring at his tutor.
"Well, you know, I'm afraid there isn't."
"Oh but, Mr. Ames, there must be something!"
"Well you can try; but honestly, I think you had—if your father can have you—I think you had better go home."
Waters looked at him. "He knows I helped to paint his door red last week," the young man muttered to himself, "and now he's furious about it."
But the comfort of this ebbed away gradually, as Ames went on to describe the different professions, the struggle for success, the cruel competition. Ames indeed seemed to have focussed himself, and instead of the vague astonished way in which he was wont to speak of practical affairs, he now showed a precision, and clearness, and knowledge of life that was really appalling. "I am sorry it is so, Waters," he ended. "We live pleasantly here, and we almost forget what the world outside is like."
"I do think some one might have told me, Mr. Ames; I do indeed." Waters could have cried with disappointment.
"You would never have believed it, Waters; we none of us can believe that the world doesn't need us. It's hard, but whether we live or die, the world doesn't care, can get on perfectly well without us. We each have to find it out for ourselves." He sighed as if he too had once known youth and hope, and the indifference of the world.
"But, Mr. Ames, I can't go home, indeed I can't. My other brother was going into the business, and I always told people,—and everybody supposed,—and to think that all my time here is wasted."
"Oh, not exactly wasted," Ames answered kindly. "It will always help you, to be an Oxford man, and you will be sure to find it pleasanter at home than you expected." Then beginning again to look at his papers, he added, more in his old distant way, "I'll see you again, I hope, before you go down. They'll miss you in College," he added politely, as Waters moved towards the door. "I'm sure the 'Torpid'—"
"I might be a solicitor, Mr. Ames," Waters said in a meek voice, as he stood disconsolately, his hand on the door-knob.
"Well, talk it over with your father," Ames replied, without looking up. "It takes time and money you know. You think he wouldn't mind?"
"Oh no, he won't mind," Waters said, although he knew his father would mind very much indeed.
He walked away slowly through the familiar quadrangle. His father!—how would he ever dare tell his father? But no, it couldn't be true that there was nothing for him, that nobody wanted him. He was well known in College, had played in the football team, and rowed in the "Torpid," and people liked him. Besides it was such a thing, they always said, to be an English gentleman; and then Oxford culture—and you read of the successful careers of rowing men, how they became Cabinet Ministers, and Bishops, and things. No, it couldn't be true....
"Poor Lo-Ben," he said, patting his dog tenderly, as he unchained him in the porch. "Poor old Lo-Ben, you'll stick to your master, won't you?" The dog whined and licked the young man's hand, and they went out into the street together.
Well, they would live alone, he and Lo-Ben, and they would go out for lonely walks, after the long dreary days of work in his father's office. And the people there would see him, and wonder about him; but he would always be distant, only coldly polite when they met. Sometimes his old College friends would come to stay in the neighbourhood; but they would not look him up: all his friends would forget him, though he would always remember them. And that afternoon they would all drive off without him, probably they would be really glad not to have him. And they would be perfectly happy; but he would never be happy again.
For no, it was not true, what Ames had said, about his getting to like it at home. He would always hate it, he told himself desperately; and life and everything was hateful; there was a chill in the sunshine, the streets seemed full of noise and work and ugly working people. What was the good of it? he wondered. And Ames said it was all like that. What was the good of it, he asked again, when he flung himself down into one of the great easy chairs in his lodgings. If you had to live in a dirty provincial town, and sit on a stool all day, what was the good? Of course some of the men at home seemed happy enough; they had their cricket on Saturdays and things; but then they weren't university men. For himself, Waters decided, for the first time in his life considering in his concrete way the problem of existence, for himself it was all finished; there was nothing more in life which could give him pleasure.
The servant brought up luncheon. At first Waters thought he could eat nothing, and when he did begin in a melancholy way, he bitterly contrasted his lonely meal with the happy party in College. He felt an immense pity for himself; he would die young, he was sure; the life might even drive him to suicide—such things had happened.
After his luncheon and beer he lit his pipe. By this time Buller and Philpotts must have finished their luncheon too, and have started for the stables. They would wonder at first why he did not come, but they would not really care.
And now they must have started. He had done well not to go with them; he would not have enjoyed it, Waters assured himself, repeating the old phrases; he would never enjoy anything again. He looked at his watch furtively. What! they wouldn't start for three minutes yet. Then he had still just time enough to catch them. He seized his hat, and without waiting for a reason—he had no time to wait—he hurried out, Lo-Ben barking at his heels.
They had all been to luncheon with Mr. Windus, and now, under his guidance, they started out to see the College, walking together across the quadrangle through the summer sunshine. Mr. Windus talked to Mrs. Ellwood of Dalmouth, the Devonshire town where she lived, and he had friends; the others were gossiping of the heat, the Oxford dances, while Ruth Ellwood and young Rutherford came last of all.
Rutherford too belonged to Dalmouth, was, indeed, a cousin of the Ellwoods—all the Dalmouth families were somehow related; but going away early to school, and afterwards to Oxford, he had come at last to seem more like a stranger to them than a friend or cousin. And this invitation to meet the Ellwoods he had accepted merely out of politeness; he was busy with his work, felt in no mood for the Oxford gaieties, and anyhow cared, or thought he cared, very little indeed for Dalmouth or the Dalmouth people.
But soon he had begun to listen with pleasure and interest to the home news, as his charming cousin told it.
"And so the town isn't much changed?" he asked; "and the different cousins, what has become of them all?"
With eager interest she went on telling him of all the old families, who lived in the different houses; how the young girls had grown up—there were so many pretty ones among the cousins!—and the young men had gone into the family offices. Some of them were married and settled down already.
"And Aunt Warner's house under the beeches, with its lawn, where we used to play, is it just the same?"
"Oh, yes, just the same, only the Bartons live there now—Uncle James's family; and on Thursdays we meet there—I mean the cousins' Tennis Club—and when it rains we dance in the old drawing room. But how shocked dear old Aunt Warner would have been to see us!" Then, as they went through the gateway into the College garden, she added, "I'm afraid all this gossip bores you; it's interesting for us who live at home, but for other people—"
"Oh, but I belong to Dalmouth!" he protested.
"Of course you do, only it's so long since you've been there," she said in half apology, "and we thought—I thought you didn't care."
It was indeed a long time, it was years since he had been there, he remembered with a certain regret for the preoccupation, the youthful intolerance, that had made him half despise his home. It was a charming place after all, the grey seaport town with its wharves, and shipping, and narrow streets, and the pleasant homes and gardens just outside where his cousins and uncles, the merchants, lived—where as a boy he had lived. How well he remembered watching, on summer afternoons, the white sails of the family ships, as they floated up with the tide past the green lawns and square old houses. A pleasant life it must be there, he thought, and quite untroubled in its tranquil interests by any great ambitions or ideas—the echoes of which, indeed, could hardly reach them in their quiet old corner of the world.
And, as they talked, the young man began to fancy idly what his own life would have been, had he never gone away from the old Devonshire town. It had been intended, of course, that he should stay there, and take his own part in the family concerns; even yet his uncles were keeping a place for him; and although they feared he was quite spoiled by Oxford, yet they would welcome him back, he knew, should he only give up those ambitions, that to them—and to himself sometimes!—seemed so impossible, so dreamy and unreal.
Ruth Ellwood stopped now and then to look at the garden flowers. "What lovely irises, and how quaint those roses are, trained so stiffly on the old walls."
"Are you fond of gardening?" he asked.
She was very fond of it, she said—not that she knew much about it! But she liked planting things and tying them up, and she always gathered the flowers for the house. Things grew so well at Dalmouth—roses and peonies, and great chrysanthemums in the autumn. Only it made her a little sad to see the chrysanthemums; their summers were so lovely!
Rutherford knew the house in which his cousin lived, and now he could almost see her there, moving over the sweet grass, hatless, in the morning light, to gather roses, filling old china bowls with their fragrant leaves; or walking home on rainy evenings past the great cedar, the wet lawn, and borders of dripping flowers.
"How beautiful she is!" he thought, looking furtively at her. The impression of this beauty, her pleasant voice, the friendly people she spoke of, and all the memories that made them seem so intimate together, affected him with a curious fresh sense of happiness, coming into his life, which had been of late somewhat discouraged and lonely, with a charm as real and actual as that of the warmth of the sun, the scent of roses.
They had reached the end of the garden, and as they turned back, still following the others, he said hesitatingly to his companion something about coming to Dalmouth soon for a visit.
"Oh, do come!" she cried, "I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and they will all be so glad to see you."
"I hope so—but I'm afraid they must think rather badly of me—will be prejudiced against me; you will have to introduce me."
"Oh, I will—only really, they won't be prejudiced against you." Then she added, "Oxford is so charming!" in a way that touched Rutherford a little. She at least, in spite of all she had heard at home, plainly could see nothing so dreadful or dangerous in Oxford, or her cousin, after all!
Yes, Oxford was charming, she said again, and not at all what she had expected—at first she had been really almost afraid to come! But it was all so pleasant; why had people such a prejudice against the University?—her two brothers wanted to come, but her father would not hear of it. But how could it unfit them for living at home? She had seen how the undergraduates lived. And her brothers would have enjoyed it so. She had been in several of the Colleges now, and had been on the river, and was going out to tea that afternoon, and afterwards, to a dance.
"Tell me," she asked, as they followed the others towards the chapel door, "are you going to any of the dances?"
He was afraid he wouldn't have the time, he said.
"Oh, what a pity, you ought to come," she cried; but her voice was hushed when, out of the glare and sunshine, they went into the blue obscurity, the cool old smell and quiet of the chapel.
The ladies looked at the windows, the religious carving; and their movement, as they went about, filled with a rustling sound the vacant silence of the place. Then they all gathered in a group while one of the Fellows told them something of the history of the chapel: how it had been built in the fourteenth century, and how ever since then the members of the College had worshipped there, and among them many whose names had afterwards grown famous.
"Tell me," Ruth Ellwood whispered, as they walked away, "is this where the undergraduates sit; where do you sit?" He showed her the Scholars' seats, and the old brass eagle from which they read the lessons, and then, when they went through the ante-chapel, she paused a moment, looking at the inscriptions and monuments.
"Were there any nice old epitaphs?" she asked. "Do show them to me, if there are."
The rest of the party had left the chapel, but could still be seen through the open door standing not far off in the sunshine, and the gossip of their voices came in faintly now and then.
The old brasses, dating from Gothic times, bore inscriptions in rhyming Latin, that Rutherford read and translated to his companion; there were monuments of a later time, adorned with urns, cherubs, and garlands—old trappings of death that made death itself seem almost quaint and charming. But in the seventeenth century the tranquil records of the scholars' lives were disturbed by echoes of old war and exile. "Reader, look to thy feet! Honest and Loyal men are sleeping under Thee," one inscription ran; and the name of more than one was recorded "who, when Loyalty and the Church fainted, lay down and Died."
Other monuments were put up to the memory of young men who had died at College. Well-born and modest, the old Latin described them, and dead, centuries ago, in the flower of their fruitless years. "Vivere dulce fuit!" one of them had complained, as four hundred years before, in florid Latin, he bade farewell to youth and hope.
Of another it was quaintly said, "Talis erat vita, qualis stylus, elegans et pura"; while another undergraduate's virtues were recorded in verses ending with the line,
"Expertus praedico, tutor eram."
"Expertus praedico, tutor eram."
Then there was an inscription in English verse, from some Cavalier poet, Rutherford thought,
"Him while fresh and fragrant TimeCherisht in his golden prime;Ere Hebe's hand had overlaidHis smooth cheeks with downy shade,The rush of Death's unruly waveSwept him off into his grave.* * * * *Eyes are vocall, teares have tongues,And there be words not made with lungs;Sententious showres: Oh let them fall!Their cadence is rhetoricall."
"Him while fresh and fragrant TimeCherisht in his golden prime;Ere Hebe's hand had overlaidHis smooth cheeks with downy shade,The rush of Death's unruly waveSwept him off into his grave.
* * * * *
Eyes are vocall, teares have tongues,And there be words not made with lungs;Sententious showres: Oh let them fall!Their cadence is rhetoricall."
Another of the same date recorded the deeds of the young scholar-soldiers "who, at the news of Battle, changed their Gownes for Armour, and Faithfully served King Charles I. from Edge Hill fight, to the End of those unhappie Wars." But one youth in that early conflict had been killed in the pursuit of victory "after Gloriously redeeming, with his own hands, the banner Royal of the King."
So they linger there for a few moments, passing from one to another of the epitaphs, with their records of knightly effort, of the ideal and romantic hopes of youth, completed afterwards, or quenched long ago by early death. And to the young man, as he spells them out, they seem at last to form a continuing tradition of lives dauntlessly lived and lost, and then recorded here, briefly, in this ancient corner of the College. His companion, too, was vaguely charmed and touched by the old inscriptions, and as they turned at last to go out she stopped in front of another tablet. Would he read it? It was too high for her to see.
Rutherford looked at it. "It's a modern one, I don't think it will interest you—"
"Oh yes, it will—do read it."
He looked at it in silence for a minute. Faint sounds of music floated into the dim chapel from the world outside—music, and distant voices calling. Then he read the name and date; a young man who had been drowned the year before. "His companions at School and College have erected this tablet, wishing to preserve the recollection of one who was much beloved, and whose influence for good was greatly felt in this place. He was of a courageous and enthusiastic nature; the example, had he lived, of his generous ambitions—" But in the middle, Rutherford's voice changed a little, and with a shiver his cousin turned and went away. Had she guessed that they had been friends, these two, or was it merely that she felt at last the chill of the place, and of all the old dead about her?
In a moment the young man turns to go out too. But as he looks through the dimness of the chapel on the summer and sunlight, and his cousin standing there outside the door, how far it all seems, how unreal! Only real to him is a sense of the briefness of life, and of the great, difficult things that may nevertheless be done or attempted before death comes. And as he walks away again with his cousin, he is quite certain, now at last, that this is no mere emotion or boyish enthusiasm, but an influence that for evil or good must rule his life—must come, at least, between him and any choice of ease and the common happiness.
The air tasted fresh; through the sunshiny mist the London houses shone beautiful and vague; the passers-by seemed to be whistling and singing as they went to their morning work. Already at Paddington cabs were arriving; they drove down under the clock in an endless procession; the family luggage was unloaded, and the passengers, muffled for winter journeys, hurried into the station.
Then a hansom pulled up sharply, and a young man got out, whose air of fashion and slim figure, as he stood there paying his driver, drew for a moment the notice of the other travellers.
On the platform within, by the waiting trains, all was movement; the great adventurous station was full of grey light, and a confusion of sounds and echoes. Arthur Lestrange, as he walked across, looked about with quick eyes on the orderly tumult, the heaps of moving luggage, the hurrying people. They were all starting off on pleasant holiday journeys, he fancied; indeed, everything seemed eager and gay that morning.
He chose an empty first-class carriage in the train going northwards; but in a moment he hurried out back to the bookstall to get a paper, and returned with several novels in his hands. On the top of one was pictured, in bright tragic colours, a young man suspended over the edge of a perilous cliff.
"Why did I buy them?" Arthur wondered, looking at the books with amusement.
Settling himself again, he watched through his window the anxious procession of people who came peering by, looking for corner seats. Then he saw his own luggage passing.
"Oh, you can put those things in here with me," he called out to the porter.
"I've labelled them, sir," the porter said, looking up with a stupid face.
"Put them in, put them in, don't you see there's plenty of room," Arthur said with a certain sharpness and nervous agitation.
There were two young men standing on the platform near his window.
"Well, good-bye," one of them said, as he looked at the other with friendly eyes, "you mustn't wait, and you'll come up and see us, won't you?"
They were Oxford men, young Lestrange thought, as he watched them, feeling envious, and almost lonely for a moment as he remembered the times when he had travelled down so often with friends from Paddington to Oxford.
But surely it was time for the train to start! The movement on the platform seemed to be increasing; the tumult and screaming whistles sounded louder and louder in his ears, as he waited, leaning uncomfortably forward.
At last all the doors were shut; the platform grew more vacant; a few belated people hurried up; a green flag was waved; a whistle blown; everything about him seemed to glide backwards, and then, with the shaking and noise of travel, the train drew itself slowly out of the station. Arthur leaned back with a sensation of immense relief. He was really away at last. Away from everybody! He had been almost afraid that they might come to the station and try to stop him. But it was absurd, he told himself, as he opened the morning paper, it was absurd to make so much trouble; for what was there to bother about? He could take care of himself; and anyhow his relations had better mind their own business. As for talking about ruin! He thought of his pompous uncle and dull pale cousins, and then of the people with whom he was going to stay.
"Good old ruin," he said half aloud, running down the news of the day with eyes that hardly noticed what he read. In a moment he turned to look out of the window.
After making its way through the suburbs, the train had begun at last to travel more quickly through the open country. The trees and earth and houses near at hand drifted backwards; the more distant fields moved back with a slower motion, while the horizon seemed to glide forward with the train. The sun shone on the brown earth and mist and leafless trees; a young horse galloped the length of his field in a playful race with the moving carriages.
Young Lestrange changed his seat restlessly. Then he began to rearrange his luggage on the rack; he looked at himself in the mirror, caressing his slight moustache. His hair was smooth and dark over his handsome young face. Only his straight eyebrows, twitching nervously now and then, would give him rather a harassed, anxious look for a moment.
What was the use of bothering, he said to himself, smiling as he turned carelessly away. If one was young! Men sowed their wild oats; he would settle down soon enough, but in the meantime he would enjoy himself. You have only one life to live....
The winter morning seemed unusually bright and clear; the train went swiftly; its wheels beat on the rails an unquiet and delicious measure, answering and echoing his thoughts. Restless and excited, he again threw down the paper, for the bright images of desire, that floated before his eyes, made the printed words seem almost meaningless.
He pictured to himself the end of his journey—the trap that would probably meet him—a dog-cart, with shining bay horse and man in livery, standing in the gravel sweep of a country station. The drive up, and then at tea, or just before dinner, he and she would meet in the drawing room, greeting each other with pretended indifference. How he hated and loved her!
After a while the train, going more slowly now, began to draw into Reading. With the beginnings of weariness and headache Arthur looked at the waste of railway trucks, the heaps of coal and blackened snow, the red factory buildings, and the dreary streets beyond. Biscuit factories—who could eat all the biscuits they made? he wondered; "Clapper's Restaurant"—suppose you should dine there, they would give you nothing but biscuits, probably. Did the train stop at Reading?—he could get some spirits at the refreshment room.
At the bar, Lestrange saw the figure and long grey coat of a man he thought he recognized; and then, getting sight of Boyle's smooth-shaven face, and remembering his supercilious manners and reputation, he felt with sudden repulsion how much he hated men of that kind—men of pleasure, who were no longer young. When you were young it was different—but to go on always....
But when Boyle turned and greeted him in an indifferent, half-friendly way, and then walked up and down with him on the platform, Arthur could not help feeling, in spite of himself, somewhat flattered and pleased. After all, Boyle knew most of the best people, and went everywhere.
"I have an empty carriage; you might as well come in with me, if you are by yourself." Boyle seemed not unwilling, and soon appeared at Arthur's carriage.
"I'm just on my way to Marcham," Arthur said, as if casually; "the Vallences', you know." There was a slight lisp in his pleasant musical voice.
Boyle was putting his golf clubs in the rack, but turned round at this and glanced at Arthur oddly. However he said nothing, and after a moment he sat down, and, lighting a cigarette, began looking at the paper.
As the train went out of Reading they began to talk, or rather Arthur talked. Soon he was discussing horses and actresses and gambling debts. It was a good game, baccarat, Arthur said, but you had to pay for it sometimes. He had just dropped a cool thousand or two, which was rather a bore. There was a music hall singer to whom Arthur referred more than once as "Mamie."
"And how about Lulu, hey?" Boyle asked, with his disagreeable laugh.
"Oh, Lulu—good old Lulu!" Arthur said, but he really had no idea of what Boyle meant.
Boyle told a story in his short, indifferent way, and Arthur exclaimed, "Capital! capital!" and laughed loudly in the fashion of a popular man he knew.
Had he ever been to the Vallences' before? Boyle asked.
No, he had never gone before. Did Boyle know them?—Boyle had been there; was going there now, in fact, he said.
"Really, are you going there now? How odd we should meet like this!" They talked a little about the place and people. It would be rather a lively set, wouldn't it? Arthur asked; and he boasted that his uncle, Lord Seabury, had warned him against them. But, good God! what did he care if people were amusing. "Do you know who else will be there?"
"Oh, a lot of people. Mrs. Stair (Arthur blushed at this), and that young Glass."
"Glass?" Arthur exclaimed; "oh, not really that man! They can't like him."
"They like his money."
"You don't mean they ask a man—a stupid boy like that—to get his money."
"They don't say they do," and Boyle looked up from his paper with an expression that seemed to say, "You young fool, you don't know much."
("Is that what I'm asked for?" Arthur wondered for a second.)
"I say, did you read about that young Hughes?" Boyle was saying. "It seems he's gone and played the fool—shot himself; wrote to his mamma he was ruined. So he won't be there."
"Used he to go to Marcham?"
"Oh, always there."
"Well, it's the pace that kills," Arthur said sententiously, though his hand, as he lighted another cigarette, shook a little. "It isn't everyone that can stand the racket."
"If they weren't all such sickening young fools," Boyle replied in a short contemptuous way, as if the talk bored him.
"He thinks a damned lot of himself," Arthur thought, looking with a sidelong glance at Boyle. His head began to ache again; a sudden disgust came over him; he felt he hated Boyle. And he hated himself too, for talking and boasting as he had talked and boasted but a few minutes before. And they were all like Boyle, all those people; they cared only for his name and money. "Name and money, name and money," the wheels beat on the rails. Well, soon he would lose them, most likely—his name and money—like the young suicide, who had lost them both and his life too.
Still he made an effort to ward off the mood that was settling down on him—the mood he knew so well! He was not ruined, he told himself, and there was nothing ruinous in an ordinary visit. He could take care of himself. The chief of his debts were gambling debts, and he was going to stop playing soon; would settle down quietly; he would make a resolution, and keep to it.
But what was he doing now in that rattling train? Only the day before he had resolved not to come; had promised solemnly that he would not come; had made a resolution to break with all that set, and not yield to the passion which people said would ruin him. Yet here he was, going on to it all! There seemed to him something sinister in his journey, something fatal in the swiftness of the rattling train, as if he were being carried on to a dreadful place, and into misfortune, against his will. He leaned away from Boyle, and touched his cheek to the cool pane of the window. Masses of steam enveloped the train, but Arthur saw the quiet landscape now and then, glimpses of faded green fields with snow, and, over the hedges, the shining river, and bluish hills beyond. He saw a boat on the river; recognized a bit of wood, a church tower. Those were the hills that he had ridden over; the lanes through which he had so often walked; the river down which he had floated in the summer sunshine, pulling up refreshed and strong after bathing. With an eager, almost childish interest he waited for the green visions, through the shifting steam, of these familiar places.
He opened the window; the singing air tasted pleasantly cool and fresh. Over the flooded fields and the moving trees he saw the spires and towers of Oxford. He could well remember the quiet streets there; seemed to see himself, indeed, moving through them; and he almost believed that in a few minutes he would be driving up, as he had driven up so often before, in that procession of racing cabs to the old College, and to all his friends.
The steam blew again about the train, wrapped his face in its warm breath, and blotted out the view. Inside the shaking carriage was the tobacco smoke, and his luggage. "Where am I going with that man?" he asked himself suddenly, for the picture of Oxford had filled his mind entirely for a moment. The buildings and towers were so near now, the water of the reservoir gleamed slowly past. Arthur took down his luggage from the rack. At the bottom of his mind he had been wanting for a long time to go back to Oxford, and see it all, and see an old friend there; and so, eagerly, almost before the train had stopped, he hailed a porter and got out of the carriage.
"I must stay over here a few hours," he said to Boyle, with apparent calmness. "There is something I have just thought of, and must attend to. I'll telegraph, but you'd better tell them, though, not to meet me." He turned and walked away.
But as he drove up to Oxford, "What a fool I am," he kept saying to himself. Indeed Boyle's surprise, the commonplace platform, the ticket-collector's questions, the sight outside of his own luggage being lifted up on a hansom, had soon made his foolish, helpless impulse fade, like the flame of a candle, taken out into the daylight and windy air. But to go back to the train would have seemed doubly foolish, so, borne on by the impetus of his dead desire, he drove away. The next train was not till half-past six. He would get luncheon, and, after all, it might be pleasant to see the old place. But he was resolved that never again would he act on those stupid, sudden ideas—they made him seem like a fool.
After luncheon Arthur went out—the time had to be spent somehow—and walked idly along the High Street. It was all so familiar: the shops, the windows of the club to which he had belonged, the rooms where his friends had lived. But he knew no one now. The streets were wet with winter mud, there was a commonplace light on the houses, and Arthur looked about him with very little interest and emotion. Walking past the Colleges, he loitered for a little on Magdalen Bridge, and then turned back again. It was still early, and he began to meet now the young men who were starting out of Oxford for the open air and country. Some were dressed for football; three or four in brown coats rode by on horses, talking and laughing as they passed; but the greater number were in flannels, and moving towards the river. These Arthur followed—he had nothing else to do—through the streets and meadows, coming at last to the barges and windy river. Men were calling to each other, boats were pushing out, and the turbid current of the Thames ran swiftly with the winter floods.
But for him there was too much sound about the wind and water, the cold sunshine was too bright and harsh, and he felt doubly weary, as he looked at all that life and activity and health. And yet once he would have delighted in it.
When Arthur Lestrange had come first from school to Oxford, he had entered with eagerness and youthful ambition into the pleasures and activities of university life, wishing to do everything well that he tried to do, and with distinction if he could. And all these ambitions and activities he came to share, in the pleasant, intimate Oxford way, with a friend, slightly older than himself.
But after a while he began to grow discontented; success was not so easy;—and what was the good of it after all? he asked himself, with impatient lassitude. Finding new friends and more exciting pleasures, he gradually drifted away from his old companions. What was the harm? he said impatiently to Austen, resenting his friend's affectionate advice. He would enjoy life as other people enjoyed it; he only wanted to be left alone. So they grew less intimate; and when Lestrange found himself in trouble, serious enough to make him leave Oxford, he had been too angry and proud to see Austen, or answer his friendly letter. "How stupid it has all been," he said to himself, the memory of all this coming over him rather drearily, as he walked back towards Oxford.
But his feeble attempts to make some change in his life—these were the stupidest of all his memories; how, when his father died abroad, he was really frightened, fearing for himself a death like that, and going back to the half-neglected place that was now his own, he remembered his old plans of life, and tried to do his duty there, and be a good landlord and neighbour. But in a few months he grew weary of it all; it was too lonely, too depressing....
And then a year after, when he hoped for a while that a nice girl he knew might care for him; and this last time, when his losses at play had made him mortgage his property still more heavily. Then, sobered for a moment by his uncle's warnings, and by the ruin that seemed not far off, he suddenly resolved to change, to give up playing, to keep away from all those people.
But he had started for Marcham after all. It was no good trying, and no one cared. Of course no one cared—why should they? With worldly derision he remembered now the foolish, tattered hope he had cherished all along—the hope that some day, coming back to Oxford, he would find the old life, the old friend, whohadcared once. And without stopping he walked past his College, the place where Austen was still living. He did not want to see any of them, nor would they want to see him.
Oppressed by the slowness of the time, the afternoon quiet of the streets, he resolved to go back to the station and wait there, watching the railway clock slowly eat up the hours. But passing by chance the livery stable where he had always kept his horses, with an aimless impulse he sauntered into the open court. One of the stable grooms coming up, addressed him by name, and asked him if he wanted to order a horse.
"It's a long while since we've seen you in Oxford, sir."
This recognition and friendly look in the man's face, touched Arthur, and, with a revival of eagerness, he felt that a ride would be just the thing to kill the time. So, ordering a horse to be sent to the hotel where he had left his luggage, he hurried back to get ready.
As he rode back towards Oxford, two hours afterwards, the light was already fading from the winter sky. Sleepily and quietly he jogged along now, his horse tired at last after the quick gallop through grass lanes and over the wet fields and commons. The young man, too, was tired; but with a healthy, physical fatigue, pleasant in all his body. He felt almost happy after the motion, the wide light, the freshness of the air. And when he rode into the old city, walking his horse through the darkening streets, it seemed to him as if he were riding home now, as often he had ridden home into Oxford before, at just this hour of the twilight. The groups in the doorways, the lighted windows in the dim buildings, the sounds about him of bells and footsteps and friendly voices, brought back to him confusedly, mixed with the memory of this and that, the charm and comfort of that old life—that life of order and disciplined ways, and high old-fashioned purposes. How quietly the days had gone by: the mornings of work, the rides with friends, or afternoons on the river, between the yellowing autumn willows; the evenings with the white lamplight and pleasant talk and books. He had quarrelled with the restraint, the subordination, sometimes; had thought it too severe, too painful, to go out on the river in the wind and rain, to get up so early in the cold of winter mornings. But now, after the stale dissipation of his life, it was only the friendly warmth, the lazily-wasted hours he remembered, the pleasant fatigue after exercise, and the taste of the winter air when he had hurried out to chapel through the earliest sunlight.
If he could only go back to it all; if, putting up his horse, he could walk to his rooms through the twilight, and find his books, and the fire burning there, and friends not far off! But things had been against him somehow. And yet he had meant it all to be so different. And with half a sigh he remembered the summer evenings when he and Austen had walked in the old garden, talking of their plans in life—of all they meant to do—together! if they could. But then, people never did remain friends like that.
When he gave up his horse, however, he looked at his watch, and, after standing in hesitation for a moment, he turned with a sudden impulse, and walked quickly towards his old College.
In the porch stood a group of undergraduates, just up from the river, and vaguely gossiping before they separated. But they were all strangers to Arthur, and the porter, who answered his questions, was a stranger too. Crossing the darker quadrangle, the young man went into a staircase and up two flights of steps. Then he stopped, and stood breathing quickly for a moment. There was the door, and the name over it, but he had grown suddenly ashamed of his errand. Austen might have forgotten him, or might not want to see him.... But, bah! what did he care? and his footsteps must have been heard....
"I'm afraid you don't recognize me," Arthur said, in his assured voice, as he went forward into the room. "I was in Oxford; I thought I'd look you up."
Austen, who was sitting by a lamp, turned round with a puzzled expression on his staid, pleasant face. Then, pushing aside a heap of papers, he got up and said: "Oh, Lestrange, I didn't recognize you at first, it's so dark there. But I'm glad to see you—do sit down; you'll have tea, won't you?"
He was passing through Oxford, Arthur said; and having a few hours on his hands after riding over Shotover, he had come back, and happened to look in at the old College. The plausibility of this explanation, and Austen's voice as he said politely, "That's right, that's right, I'm delighted to see you again," soon overcame most of the shyness behind Arthur's easy, unembarrassed manner. They still talked to each other rather formally, however, as men do who have not met for years.
"It's a long time since you've been in Oxford, isn't it?" Austen asked.
"Yes, it is; I've been at home, in London. But I suppose it hasn't changed much."
No, there wasn't much change, Austen said; old people went and new came.
What had become of all the men who had been with them in College, Arthur asked; he had lost sight of them somehow.
Austen said that some were at the Bar; some in the government offices; one or two in Parliament already; the most of them seemed to be getting on pretty well, he thought, though he had lost sight of many of them, as one did.
"And you've been living on here ever since? I heard you had been made a Fellow. You like it, I suppose?"
Yes, Austen said, he liked it well enough, the work was tiring sometimes; that afternoon he had been going through papers. Arthur noticed that he looked fatigued, and a good deal older. It was dry, hard work no doubt, but still it was not the kind of thing that changed you.
"I say, you have jolly rooms here, Austen; I envy you living in a place like this. Do you remember your old rooms over the garden? I think I used to live in them almost."
As the old memories revived they seemed to grow less shy of each other. Arthur leaned forward, talking in a vague, intermittent way as he stared into the fire. Sometimes he would gaze at nothing, with a vacant, dazed look, for minutes together; or he would take the fire-irons and break up the coals. Once the tongs slipped and fell with a sudden clatter; he started nervously.
"Well," he said at last, rousing himself from a reverie in which he seemed conscious of nothing but the warmth and comfort and pleasant, physical fatigue, "Well, it seems very jolly here, like old times; I almost wish I had never gone away. But then, of course, I couldn't help it," he added; "I wasn't asked."
"You had hard luck," Austen said; "I hope it hasn't made any difference."
The words sounded friendly and sympathetic to Arthur. Hard luck, yes, that was it; he had always had hard luck.
"What have you been doing since?" Austen said politely.
"What have I been doing, Charles? Oh, nothing much; seeing about things at home a little. There were some cottages I had rebuilt. You remember we used to talk about it. It isn't so easy though, or I suppose I'm not so clever at it. But of course you know a great deal more about those things."
"No, oh no! I've been so busy. That sort of thing is good in moderation, and I'm glad you keep it up."
"Oh yes, in a way ... but no, what am I saying? I don't really keep it up. It was all two years ago. I haven't done much of anything since—anything good. Things, you know," he went on, as he stared into the fire, "haven't gone just—I mean, it's been rather stupid—stupid, and worse, I'm afraid; I don't seem good for much somehow."
The familiar Oxford room, with its order, and books, and shaded light, seemed so shut in, so far from the friendless world in which he lived, that for the moment Arthur almost forgot the lonely distrust, the derision of everything, which his life had taught him. "I suppose it's fate," he added, staring into the fire, as if he were half-ashamed of what he was saying. "I suppose itisfate—but still, I wonder—sometimes it seems if—that if I had had a chance, if anybody—" He waited a minute indecisively. But Austen said nothing. Arthur glanced at him, and then, flushing slightly, he got up. "But I must be going now," he said, with a curious change and coldness in his voice; "I have a train to catch."
"Oh, don't go," Austen replied awkwardly, "don't go just yet. I'm sorry to hear what you say; but don't you think, if you will allow me to say so, don't you think it is a mistake to blame fate for such things? If you would tell me more—"
"Oh, thanks," Arthur said, "I think I must be going."
"But you were going to say something," Austen urged, "and if you would tell me more, I might be able to help you, or give you advice at least."
Arthur glanced at him quickly. Then suddenly the idea seemed to amuse him, and coming back a step or two he said, with a smile, "Tell you more, Austen? Oh, I was only going to tell you what everyone knows, that I've turned out a bad lot, that's all."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Austen, in a rather shocked voice; "I hope it's not so bad."
Arthur smiled pleasantly. "Oh well, you know, itispretty bad, I'm afraid."
"But what do you mean, Lestrange?"
"What do I mean? Oh, all the usual things—bad company, gambling, and women."
Austen looked still more shocked. "But surely you could change if you wanted to!"
"I suppose I might, if I wanted to," Arthur said, playing with his riding whip. "But I'm afraid I don't want to. What's the good?"
"What's the good?" Austen repeated. "I don't see how you can ask such a question; if what you say is true, you ought to want to change."
Arthur mused a moment. Then looking up, with apparent candour, he said, "Well, I suppose it is odd; but honestly, you know, I don't want to change in the least. You see, your respectable people, they don't want to have anything to do with me; and anyhow, the things they care for bore me to death, really they do. You only have one life, so why not be happy in your own way? that's my principle."
"But surely, Lestrange, you can't go on—"
"No, I suppose I can't for ever; but you try to enjoy it while it lasts; and anyhow, my father, you know how he died—I suppose it's fate; heredity you call those things, don't you?"
"Really, I'm shocked to hear you talk so recklessly, as if you didn't care. You seem very much changed."
"Am I changed? I don't know; I suppose I am. We've both changed a little, don't you think? At least, things seem different. I wonder where I put my gloves,—I really must be going."
"Well, of course, I can't keep you, Lestrange; I can only give you my advice. But I can't believe you're happy."
For a moment Arthur looked at him sullenly.
"Well, what if I ain't?" he asked. "What's that to you?"
"I was only going to say," Austen went on, "I was only going to say that it seems to me that if you would try—"
"Try! Good Lord, I've tried enough, but what's the good?" Arthur said, with his old calmness and indifference, as he turned away towards the door. "I don't care, and no one else does, either. But I must be off. Good bye."
He went down the steps quickly, whistling as he walked away through the darkness. He was angry at himself, and bitterly ashamed of his visit to Austen. They were all like that—he ought to have known. And yet it was a pity, too!