Kitabı oku: «The New Warden», sayfa 19
CHAPTER XXX
THE END OF BELINDA AND CO
Lady Dashwood professed to be very much better the next morning when May looked in to see how she had slept.
"I'm a new woman," she said to May; "I slept till seven, and then, my dear, I began to think, and what do you think my thoughts were?"
May shook her head. "You thought it was Sunday morning."
"Quite true," said Lady Dashwood; "I heard the extra bells going on round us. No, what I was thinking of was, what on earth Marian Potten did with Gwendolen yesterday afternoon. I'm quite sure she will have made her useful. I can picture Marian making her guest put on a big apron and some old Potten gloves and taking her out into the garden to gather beans. I can picture them gathering beans till tea-time. Marian is sure to be storing beans, and she wouldn't let the one aged gardener she has got left waste his time on gathering beans. I can see Marian raking the pods into a heap and setting fire to the heap. I imagined that after tea Gwendolen played the 'Reverie' by Slapovski. After dinner: 'Patience.'"
May pondered.
"And now. May," said Lady Dashwood, looking tired in spite of her theory that she had become a new woman, "it's a lovely day; even Louise allows that the sun is shining, and I can't have you staying indoors on my account. I won't allow you in my bedroom to-day. I shall be very busy."
"No!" said May, reproachfully. "I shall not allow business."
"I'm just going to write a letter to my dear old John, whom I've treated shamefully for a week, only sending him a scrawl on half a page. Now, I want you to go to church, or else for a walk. I can tell you what the doctor says when you come back."
May said neither "Yes" nor "No." She laughed a little and went out of the room.
In the breakfast-room the Warden was already there. They greeted each other and sat down together, and talked strict commonplaces till the meal was over. He did not ask May what she was going to do, neither did she ask him any questions. They both were following a line of action that they thought was the right one. Neither intended meeting the other unless circumstances compelled the meeting; circumstances like breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was clear to both of them that, except on these occasions, they had no business with each other. The Warden was clear about it because he was a man still ashamed.
May was clear that she had no business to see the Warden except when necessity occasioned it, because each moment made her more unfaithful to the memory of the dead, to the memory of the dead man who could no longer claim her, who had given away his all at the call of duty and who had no power to hold her now. So she, too, being honourably proud, felt ashamed in the presence of the Warden.
All that morning was wasted. The doctor did not come, and May spent the time waiting for him. Lady Dashwood sat up in bed and wrote an apparently interminable letter to her husband. Whenever May appeared she said: "Go away, May!" and then she looked long and wistfully at her niece.
Two or three men came to lunch and went into the library afterwards with the Warden, and May went to her Aunt Lena's room.
"The doctor won't come now till after three, May, so you must go out, or you will really grieve me," said Lady Dashwood. "Jim will take you out. He came in just after you left me before lunch, and I told him you would go out."
"You are supposed to be resting," said May, "and I can't have you making arrangements, dear Aunt Lena. I shall do exactly what I please, and shall not even tell you what I please to do. I do believe," she added, as she shook up the pillows, "that in the next world, dear, you will want to make plans for God, and that will get you into serious trouble."
Lady Dashwood sighed deeply. "Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I suppose I must go on pretending I'm ill."
May shook her head at her and pulled down the blinds, and left her in the darkness suitable for repose.
The Warden had not mentioned a walk. Perhaps he hadn't found an opportunity with those men present! Should she go for a walk alone? She found herself dressing, putting on her things with a feverish haste. Then she took off her coat and sat down, and took her hat off and held it on her knees.
She thought she heard the sound of a voice in the corridor outside, and she put on her hat with trembling fingers and caught up the coat and scarf and her gloves.
She went out into the corridor and found it empty and still. She went to the head of the stairs. There was no sound coming from the library. But even if the Warden were still there with the other men, she might not hear any sounds of their talk. They might be there or they might not. It was impossible to tell.
Perhaps he had gone to look for her in the drawing-room and, finding no one there, had gone out.
The drawing-room door was open. She glanced in. The room was empty, of course, and the afternoon sunshine was coming in through the windows, falling across the floor towards the fireplace. It would soon creep up to the portrait over the fireplace.
May waited several minutes, walking about the room and listening, and then she went out and closed the door behind her. She went down the staircase into the hall, opened the front door very slowly and went out.
An indescribable loneliness seized her as she walked over the gravelled court to the gates. The afternoon sunshine was less friendly than rain and bitter wind. She took the road to the parks, meeting the signs of the war that had obliterated the old Sunday afternoons of Oxford in the days of peace. Here was suffering, a deliberate preparation for more suffering. Did all this world-suffering make her small personal grief any less? Yes, it did; it would help her to get over the dreary space of time, the days, months, years till she was a grey-haired woman and was resigned, having learned patience and even become thankful!
Once she thought she saw the figure of the Warden in the distance, and then her heart beat suffocatingly, but it was not he. Once she thought she saw Bingham walking with some other man. He rounded the walk by the river and – no, it was not Mr. Bingham – the face was different. She began asking herself questions that had begun to disturb her. Was the real tragedy of the Warden's engagement to him not the discovery that Gwendolen was silly and weak, but that she was not honourable? Had he suspected something of the kind before he received that letter? Wasn't it a suspicion of the kind that had made him speak as he did in the drawing-room after they had returned from Christ Church? Might he not have been contented with Gwendolen if she had been straight and true, however weak and foolish? Was he the sort of man who demands sympathy and understanding from friends, men and women, but something very different from a wife? Was the Warden one of those men who prefer a wife to be shallow because they shrink from any permanent demand being made upon their moral nature or their intellect? Perhaps the Warden craved a wife who was thoughtless, and, choosing Gwendolen, was disappointed in her, solely because he found she was not trustworthy. That suspicion was a bitter one. Was it an unjust suspicion?
As May walked, the river beside her slipped along slowly under the melancholy willows. The surface of the water was laden with fallen leaves and the wreckage of an almost forgotten summer. It was strangely sad, this river!
May turned away and began walking back to the Lodgings. There was a deepening sunshine in the west, a glow was coming into the sky. Oh, the sadness of that glorious sunset!
May was glad to hide away from it in the narrow streets. She was glad to get back to the court and to enter the darkened house, and yet there was no rest for her there. Soon, very soon, she would say good-bye to this calm secluded home and go out alone into the wilderness!
She walked straight to her room and took off her things, and then went into Lady Dashwood's room. Louise was arranging a little table for tea between the bed and the windows.
"Well!" cried Lady Dashwood. "So you have had a good walk!"
"It was a lovely afternoon," said May. She looked out of the window and could see the colour of the sunset reflected on the roof opposite.
Lady Dashwood watched Louise putting a cloth on the table, and remarked that "poor Jim" would be having tea all alone!
"I think the Warden is out," said May, as she stood at the window.
"Oh!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood, but at that moment the doctor was ushered into the room. He apologised for coming so late in the day, he had been pressed with work. "I'm perfectly well," said Lady Dashwood; "I don't need a doctor, you are simply wasted on me. I can come down to dinner."
There was no doubt that she was better. The doctor admitted it and praised her, but he refused to let her get up till the next day, and then only for tea in the drawing-room; and, strange to say, Lady Dashwood did not argue the point, merely remarking that she wasn't sure whether she could be trusted to remain in bed. She wouldn't promise that she could be trusted.
When the doctor left May slipped out with him, and they went along the corridor together.
"How much better is she?" she asked. "Is she really on the road to being quite well?"
"She's all right," said the doctor, as they went down the staircase, "but she mustn't be allowed to get as low as she was yesterday, or there will be trouble."
"And," said May, "what about me?" and she explained to him that she was only in Oxford on a visit and had work in London that oughtn't to be left.
"Has she got a good maid?" asked the doctor.
"An excitable Frenchwoman, but otherwise useful." They were at the front door now.
"And you really ought to go to-morrow?"
"I ought," said May, and her heart seemed to be sinking low down – lower and lower.
"Very well," said the doctor, "I suppose we must let you go, Mrs. Dashwood," and as he spoke he pulled the door wide open. "Here is the Warden!" he said.
There was the Warden coming in at the gate. May was standing so that she could not see into the court. She started at the doctor's remark.
"I'll speak to him," he said, and, bowing, he went down the steps, leaving the door open behind him. May turned away and walked upstairs. She wouldn't have to tell the Warden that she was going to-morrow; the doctor would tell him, of course. Would he care?
She went back to the bedroom, and Lady Dashwood looked round eagerly at her, but did not ask her any questions.
"Now, dear, pour out the tea," she said. "The doctor was a great interruption. My dear May, I wish I wasn't such an egotist."
"You aren't," said May, sitting down and pouring out two cups of tea.
"I am," said Lady Dashwood.
"Why?" asked May.
"Well, you see," said Lady Dashwood, "I was terribly upset about Belinda and Co., because Belinda and Co. had pushed her foot in at my front door, or rather at Jim's front door; but she's gone now, as far as I'm personally concerned. She's a thing of the past. But, and here it comes, Belindas are still rampant in the world, and there are male as well as female Belindas; and I bear it wonderfully. I shall quite enjoy a cup of tea. Thanks, darling."
"If anybody were to come and say to you," said May, looking deeply into her cup, "'Will you join a Society for the painless extermination of Belindas – Belindas of both classes – Belindas in expensive furs, and tattered Belindas,' wouldn't you become a member, or at least give a guinea?"
Lady Dashwood smiled a little. "Dear May, how satirical you are with your poor old aunt!"
"I'm not satirical," said May.
"I'm afraid," groaned Lady Dashwood, "it's mainly because we think things will be made straight in the next world that we don't do enough here. Now, I haven't that excuse, May, because you know I never have looked forward to the next world. Somehow I can't!"
Something in her aunt's voice made May look round at her.
"Don't be sorrowful, dear," she said.
"Now that I've slanged Belinda," murmured Lady Dashwood, "I've begun to think about my own short-comings."
"Nonsense, dear aunt," said May. "You are not accustomed to think about yourself; it must be a sign that you are not feeling well. I shall ring for Louise." May spoke in a bantering voice, but her eyes did not smile.
"For mercy's sake, don't," said Lady Dashwood.
The glow had faded from the roof of the college opposite, and had become grey and cold when May got up and took the little tea tray from her Aunt Lena's bed.
"Now, I've got just a few lines more to add to my letter to my old dear one," said Lady Dashwood. "Suppose you go down and see what's happening?"
"What's happening!" said May, but she did not ask a question, merely she repeated her aunt's words.
"Yes, dear," said Lady Dashwood. "What's happening. All sorts of things happen, you know; things go on! Please ring, I want Louise to clear away. Now, go down into the drawing-room and, if you see Jim, give him my love."
May went into the empty drawing-room and sat there till it grew dark, doing nothing. Robinson came in to make up the fire and draw the curtains. He apologised for his lateness, explaining that he did not think any one was in the drawing-room.
"Will you have dinner with 'er ladyship?" he asked, "or in the dining-room, m'm? The Warden is dining in 'all."
May walked to a little table and took up one of the books that were lying there.
"Upstairs, please, Robinson," she answered.
She began looking through the book, turning over the pages, but the print seemed unintelligible. She stood listening to Robinson's movements in the room. Then the door opened and the Warden came in and startled her so much that she dropped the book upon the table.
He was in his gown, just come back from chapel. He came some way into the room and stood at a little distance from her. She did not look at him, though she turned towards him in acknowledgment of his presence.
"Wasn't the sunset wonderful?" she said.
"It was a wonderful sunset!" he said.
Robinson was still busy in the room, and the Warden moved to the fireplace and stood looking as if he was undecided whether to stay or to go.
"I'm sorry I have to dine out this evening," said the Warden. "I have no choice in the matter, unfortunately."
"Of course," said May. "Please don't think of me. I have Aunt Lena to look after."
"You are very good to her," he said, and lingered for a moment.
Robinson was now going towards the door with his soft, light, though rather shambling movements.
The Warden moved towards the door too, and then stopped and said —
"There isn't anything I can do for you, any book I can lend you for this evening?"
"No, thanks very much," said May. "I have all I want," and she took up the book she had dropped with an air of wanting it very much, and went towards the chair she had been sitting in before Robinson disturbed her.
The Warden swung himself round. She could hear the sound of his robe against the lintel of the door as he went out and left her alone. He might have stayed a few minutes if he had wished! He didn't wish!
When she went to her Aunt Lena's bedroom, half an hour later, she found that he had been there, sitting with her and talking, and had gone five minutes ago. The Warden seemed to move like some one in a dream. He came and went and never stayed.
During dinner Lady Dashwood said, not à propos of anything —
"Your poor Uncle John is beginning to get restive, and I suppose I shall have to go back to him in a few days. Having done all the mischief that I could, I suppose it is time I should leave Oxford. Louise will be glad and Jim will be sorry, I am afraid. I haven't broken to him yet that my time is coming to an end. I really dread telling him. It was different when he was a college tutor – he had only rooms then. Now he has a house. It's very dismal for him to be alone."
Here Lady Dashwood stopped abruptly and went on eating. About nine o'clock she professed to be ready "to be put to bed," and May, who had been knitting by her side, got up and prepared to leave her for the night.
As she kissed her she wondered why her Aunt Lena had never asked her how long she was going to stay. Why hadn't she told her after seeing the doctor, and got it over? The Warden knew and yet did not say a word, but that was different!
Should she tell her aunt now? She hesitated. No, it might perhaps make her wakeful. It would be better to give her nothing to think about. There would be time to-morrow. She would tell her before breakfast, on the way downstairs. It would be giving her long enough notice if she put off her journey till the late afternoon. And there was no need to leave on Monday till the late afternoon.
"You are going down into the drawing-room again?" said Lady Dashwood.
"Yes; you must sleep well, dear," said May, bending down and kissing her.
"Oh, very well," said Lady Dashwood, closing her eyes.
Later on disturbing thoughts came to her. Why had May ceased to show any emotion? Why had she become quiet and self-contained? That wasn't a good sign. And what about to-morrow? Did she mean to go? She had said nothing, but she might have made up her mind to go. And there was Jim going in and out and doing nothing! Oh, why couldn't the dear things see that they were made for one another? Why couldn't they go about mysterious, blown up with self-importance – and engaged?
When Louise came in she found her mistress still awake.
"Louise, before you settle me, see if Mrs. Dashwood has gone to bed. Don't disturb her, of course."
"Bien, Madame," said Louise; and she left the room with the air of one who is going to fathom a mystery.
"What a nuisance Louise is," sighed Lady Dashwood, turning on her pillow. She did not turn her head again when Louise came back.
"Madame is not in her room," said Louise, in a voice of profound interest, and she waited to hear the result.
"Oh!" said Lady Dashwood, brightening a little. "Well, Louise, light a night light and leave it at the other end of the room, so that the light doesn't come on my face! I don't want to be in complete darkness or the Warden will not come in. He will think I am asleep."
"Madame will not sleep?" demanded Louise.
"Of course I shall sleep," said Lady Dashwood, and she began thinking again.
CHAPTER XXXI
A FAREWELL
When May went back again to the drawing-room she did not sit down immediately but walked round, taking up the books that were lying about. Some she had read, and the book she had taken up by accident before dinner did not interest her. She took up one after another and read the title, and then, seeing a small soft yellow volume full of verse, she carried it with her to her chair. She might be able to read and follow something slight; she could not concentrate herself on anything that needed thought.
She opened the volume. It was an anthology of Victorian verse. She began looking through it. She read and read – at least she turned over page after page, following the sense here and there. Books could not distract her from painful thoughts about herself; hard work with hands and eyes, work such as hers would be able to distract her. She was relying upon it to do so; she felt that her work was her refuge. She was thankful that she had a refuge – very thankful, and yet she was counting how many more hours she still had before her in Oxford. There she showed her weakness; she knew that every hour in Oxford meant pain, and yet she did not want to go away! At last she had turned over all the pages and had come to the last page. There her eyes were caught, and they held on to some printed words. She read! The words were like the echo of a voice, a voice that thrilled her even in memory!
"And the Glory of the Lord shall be all in all."
She read the poem through and through again. It took hold of her.
She sat musing over it. The clock struck ten. To sit on and on was like waiting for him! She resented the thought bitterly. She rose from her chair, meaning to take the book up with her to her room. To have it beside her would be a little consolation. She would read it through again the last thing before trying to sleep. She was already walking to the door, very slowly, her will compelling unwilling limbs.
"You are just going?" said the Warden's voice. He had suddenly opened the door and stood before her.
"I was going," she said, and held on to the book, open as it was at the last page. "Have you just come back from dinner?"
"I have just come back," he said, and he closed the door behind him. But he stayed near the door, for May was standing just where she had stood when he came in, the book in her hand. "I regretted very much that you should be alone this last evening of your stay – " He paused and looked at her.
"I ought to have asked some one to dine with you. I am so little accustomed to guests, but I ought to have thought of it."
"I am used to being alone in the evening," said May, now smoothing the page of her book with her free hand. "Except on Saturdays and Sundays, when I go to friends of mine, I am usually alone – and generally glad to be, after my day's work. Besides, I have been with Aunt Lena this evening. I only left her an hour ago."
He came nearer and stood looking at her and at the book in her hands. He seemed suddenly to recognise the book, and saw that it was open at the last page.
"I ought not to have quoted that to you," he said in a low voice; "those words of that poem – there under your hand."
"Why not?" she asked, shutting the book up and holding it closed between her hands. "Why shouldn't you have quoted it?" and she looked at the book intently, listening for his voice again.
"Because it savoured of self-righteousness, and that was not becoming in a man who had brought his own troubles upon himself."
May did not look up at him; she felt, too keenly the poignancy of that brief confession, dignified in its simplicity, a confession that a weaker man would have been afraid to make, and a man of less intelligence could not have made because he would not have understood the dignity of it. May found no words with which to speak to him; she could only look at the carpet stupidly and admire him with all the pulses in her body.
"Your interpretation of 'the Glory of the Lord' is the right one; I think – I feel convinced of it."
He stood before her, wearing a curiously pathetic expression of diffidence.
That moment passed, and then he seemed to force himself back into his old attitude of courteous reserve.
"You were just going when I came in," he said, moving and putting out his hand to open the door for her. "I am keeping you."
"I was going," said May, "but, Dr. Middleton – "
He let his arm drop. "Yes?" he said.
"You have, I am afraid, a totally wrong idea of me."
He stared straight into her face as she spoke, but it was his veiled stare, in which he held himself aloof for reasons of his own.
"I don't think so," he said quickly.
"I talked about 'my interpretation' of the words you quoted," she said, "just as if I spoke from some special knowledge, from personal experience, I mean. I had no intention of giving you that idea; it was merely a thought I expressed."
How could she say what her heart was full of without betraying herself? He was waiting for her to speak with a strained look in his eyes.
"And, of course, any one can 'think.' I am afraid – Somehow – I find it impossible to say what I mean – I – I am horribly stupid to-night."
She moved forward and he opened the door, and held it open for her. She went out with only a brief "Good-night," because no more words would come. She had said all she was able to say, and now she walked along trying to get her breath again. In the corridor she came upon Louise, who seemed to have sprung suddenly from nowhere.
"Can I assist Madame?" said Louise, her face full of unrestrained curiosity. "Can I brush Madame's hair?"
May made one or two more steps without finding her voice, then she said —
"No, thank you, Louise." And feeling more than seeing the Frenchwoman's ardent stare of interrogation, she added: "Louise, you may bring back my travelling things, please, the first thing to-morrow morning. I shall want them."
Louise was silent for a moment, just as a child is voiceless for a moment before it bursts into shrieks. She followed May to her door.
"I shall pack everything for Madame," she exclaimed, and her voice twanged like steel. She followed May into her bedroom. "I shall pack everything when Madame goes truly." Here she glanced round the room, and her large dark eyes rested with wild indignation on the little stained figure of St. Joseph standing on the table by the bed.
The small pathetic saint stood all unconscious, its machine-made face looking down amiably upon the branch of lilies in its hands.
"I want them early," said May, "because I prefer to pack myself, Louise. You are such a kind creature, but I really prefer waiting upon myself."
"I shall pack for Madame," repeated Louise.
May went to the toilet table and put down the book that she was carrying.
"Good night, Louise," was all she said.
Louise moved. She groaned, then she took hold of the door and began to withdraw herself behind it.
"I wish Madame a good repose. I shall pack for Madame, comme il faut," she said with superb obstinacy, and she closed the door after her.
Good repose! Repose seemed to May the last word that was suitable. Fall asleep she might, for she was strong and full of vigour, but repose – !
She read the poem once again through when she was in bed. Then she laid the book under the pillow and turned out the light.
How many hours had she still in Oxford? About seventeen hours. And even when she was back again at her work – sundered for ever from the place that she had learned to love better than any other place in the world – she would have something precious to remember. Even if they never met again after those seventeen hours were over, even though they never saw each other's faces again, she would have something to remember: words of his spoken only to her, words that betrayed the fineness of his nature. Those words of his belonged to her.
And it was in this spirit of resignation, held more fully than before, that she met him again at breakfast. She was in the breakfast-room first and seized the paper, determined to behave as cheerfully as if she had arrived, and not as if she was going away. She was going to make a successful effort to start her new life at once, her life with Oxford behind her. She was not going to be found by him, when he entered, silent and reminiscent of last evening.
When the Warden came in she put down the paper with the air of one who has seen something that suggests conversation.
"I suppose," she said, starting straight away without any preliminary but a smile at him and an inclination of her head in answer to his old-fashioned courteous bow as he entered – "I suppose when I come back to Oxford – say in ten years' time, if any one invites me – I shall find things changed. The New Oxford we talked of with Mr. Bingham will be in full swing. You will perhaps be Vice-Chancellor."
The Warden did not smile. "Ah, yes!" he remarked, and he looked abstractedly at the coffee-pot and at the chair that May was about to seat herself in. "Ah, yes!" he said again; then he added: "Have I kept you waiting?"
"Not a bit," said May.
"I ran in to see Lena," he explained.
May took her place opposite the coffee. He watched her, and then went and sat down at the opposite end of the table in his own seat. Then he got up and went to the side table.
Try as they would they were painfully conscious of each other's movements. Everything seemed strangely, cruelly important at that meal. May poured out the Warden's cup, and that in itself was momentous. He would come and take it, of course! She moved the cup a little. He waited on her from the side table and then looked at his coffee.
"Is this for me?" he asked.
"Yes," said May; "it is yours."
He took up the cup and went round with it to his place, as if he was carrying something rare and significant.
They sat opposite each other, these two, alone together, and for the last time – possibly. They talked stiffly in measured sentences to each other, talk that merely served as a defence. And behind this talk both were painfully aware that the precious moments were slipping away, and yet nothing could be done to stay them. It was only when the meal was over, and there was nothing left for them to do but to rise and go, that they stopped talking and looked at each other apprehensively.
"You are not going till the afternoon?" he questioned.
"Not till the afternoon," she answered, but she did not say whether she was going early or late. She rose from the table and stood by it.
"The reason why I ask," he said, rising too, "is that I cannot be at home for lunch, and afterwards there is hospital business with which I am concerned."
May had as yet only vaguely decided on her train, though she knew the trains by heart. She had now to fix it definitely, it was wrung from her.
"I may not be able to get back in time to go with you to the station, but I hope to be in time to meet you there, to see you off," he said; and he added: "I hope to be in time," as if he doubted it nevertheless.
"You mustn't make a point of seeing me off," said May. "And don't you think railway-stations are places which one avoids as much as possible?" She asked the question a little tremulously and smiled, but did not look at him.
"Ours is pretty bad," he said, without a smile. "But I hope it won't have the effect of making you forget that there is any beauty in our old city. I hope you will carry away with you some regret at parting – some memory of us."
"Of course I shall," said May; and detecting the plaintiveness of her own voice, she added: "I shall have to come and see it again – as I said – perhaps ten years hence, when – when it will be different! It will be most interesting."
He moved slowly away as if he was going out, and then stopped.
"I shall manage to be in time to see you off," he said, as if some alteration in his plans suddenly occurred to him. "I shall manage it."
