Kitabı oku: «The New Warden», sayfa 4
CHAPTER V
WAITING
If Pilate had uttered the sardonic remark "What is truth?" in Boreham's presence, he would certainly have compelled that weary official to wait for definite enlightenment. Boreham would have explained to him that although Absolute Truth (if there is such a thing) lies, like our Destiny, in the lap of the gods, he, Boreham, had a thoroughly reliable stock of useful truths with which he could supply any inquirer. Indeed to Boreham, the discussing of truths was a comparatively simple matter. Truths were of two kinds. Firstly, they were what he, himself, was convinced of at the moment of speaking; and secondly, they were not what the man next him believed in. Boreham found intolerable any assertion made by people he knew. He knew them! Voila! But he felt he could very fairly well trust opinions expressed by the native inhabitants of – say Pomerania – or still better – India.
Boreham had already some acquaintances in Oxford to whom he spoke, as he said himself, "frankly and fearlessly," and who tolerated him, whenever they had time to listen to him, because he was entirely harmless and merely tiresome. But he was not surprised (it had occurred before) that the Warden refused his invitation to lunch at Chartcote. The ladies had accepted; and when Boreham said "the ladies," on this occasion he was thinking solely of Mrs. Dashwood. Lady Dashwood had accepted the invitation because it was given verbally. She made no purely social engagements. The Warden, himself, did not entertain during the war, and the only engagements were those of business, or of hospitality of an academic nature.
The day following May Dashwood's arrival was entirely uneventful. The Warden was mostly invisible. May was as bright as she had been on her arrival. Gwen went about wide-eyed and wistful, and spoke spasmodically. Lady Dashwood was serene and satisfied. A shy Don accompanied by a very nice, untidy wife, appeared at lunch, and they were introduced by the Warden as Mr. and Mrs. Stockwell. Mr. Stockwell was struck dumb at finding himself seated next to Mrs. Dashwood, a type of female little known to him. But May bravely taking him in hand, he recovered his powers of speech and became epigrammatic and sparkling. This round-shouldered, spectacled scholar, with a large nose and receding chin, poured out brilliant observations, subtile and suggestive, and had an apparently inexhaustible store of the literature of Europe. He sat sideways in his chair and spoke into May's sympathetic ear, giving an occasional swift appealing glance at the Warden, who came within the range of his vision.
How Stockwell ate his food was impossible to discover. He seemed to give automatic twiddles to his fork and apparently swallowed something afterwards, for when Robinson's underling, Robinson petit fils, removed Stockwell's plates, they contained only wreckage.
The Warden, aided by Lady Dashwood, struggled courteously with Mrs. Stockwell. She was obliged to talk across Gwendolen, who spent her time silently observing Mrs. Dashwood.
Mrs. Stockwell had pathetic pretensions to intellectuality, based on a masterly acquaintance with the names of her husband's books and the fact that she lived in the academic circle. She had drooped visibly at the first sight of her hostess and Mrs. Dashwood, but was soon put at her ease by Lady Dashwood, who deftly drew her away from vague hints at the possession of learning into talk about her children. Gwen, watching the Warden and Mrs. Dashwood across Mrs. Stockwell's imitation lace front, could not be moved to speech. To any one in the secret there was written on her face two absorbing questions: "Am I engaged or not?" "Is she trying to oust me?"
The Warden's enigmatic eyes held no information in them. He looked at her gravely when he did look, and – that was all. Was he waiting to know whether he was engaged or not? Gwen doubted it. He would be sure to know everything. He would know. Think of all those books in the library! Supposing he had found that letter – suppose he had read it? No, if he had, he would have looked not merely grave, but angry!
When the ladies rose from the table, Stockwell rose too, reluctantly and as if waking from a pleasant dream. He stared in a startled way at the Warden, who moved to open the door; he looked as if about to spring – then refrained, and resigning himself to the unmistakable decision of the Fates, he remained standing, staring down at the table-cloth through his spectacles, with his cheeks flushed and his heart glad.
Mrs. Stockwell passed out of the room in front of May Dashwood, gratified, warm and trying to conceal the backs of her boots.
Finally the Stockwells went away, and then Lady Dashwood took her niece to the Magdalen walk. There among the last shreds of autumn, and in that muzzy golden sunshine of Oxford, they walked and talked with the constraint of Gwen's presence.
At tea two or three people called, but the Warden did not appear even for a hasty cup. At dinner an old pupil of the Warden's – lamed by the war – occupied the attention of the little party.
Gwen's spirits rose at the sight of a really young man, but she remembered her mother's admonition and did not make any attempt to attract his attention beyond opening her eyes now and then suddenly and widely and with an ecstasy of interest at some invisible object just above his head. Whether the youthful warrior's imagination was excited by this "passage of arms" Gwen never knew, because the Warden took his pupil off to the library after dinner, and did not even bring him into the drawing-room to bid farewell.
In the quiet of the drawing-room Gwen fell into thought. She wondered whether the Warden expected her to come and knock on his library door and walk in and tell him that she really did want to be married to him? Or had he read that letter and – ? Why, she had thought all this over a hundred times, and was no farther on than she had been before.
After playing the Reverie by Slapovski, which Mrs. Dashwood had not yet heard, and which she expressed a desire to hear, Gwen settled down to knitting a sock. She had been knitting that sock for five months. It was surprising how small the foot was, at least the toe part; the heel indeed was ample. She had followed the directions with great care, and yet the stupid thing would come out wrong. It was irritating to see Mrs. Dashwood knitting away at such a pace. It made Gwen giddy to look at her hands. Lady Dashwood took up a book and read passages aloud. This was so intolerably dull that Gwen found it difficult to keep her eyes open. It is always more tiring when nothing is going on than when plenty of things are going on!
Lady Dashwood had just finished reading a passage and looked up to make a remark to May Dashwood, when she became aware of Gwen's face.
"My dear, you looked just like a melancholy peach. Go to bed!"
Gwen smiled and tumbled her pins into her knitting. She rose and said "Good night," glad to be released. Outside the drawing-room she stood holding her breath to hear if there was any sound audible from the library. She heard nothing. She moved over the soft carpet and listened again, at the door. She could hear the Warden's deep, masculine voice – like the vibration of an organ, and then a higher voice, but what they said Gwen could not tell. She turned away and went up to bed. She was beginning to lose that feeling of not being afraid of the Warden. He was becoming more and more what he had been at first, an impressive and alarming personage, a human being entirely remote from her understanding and experience. At moments during dinner when she had glanced at him, he had seemed to her to be like a handsomely carved figure animated by some living force completely unknown to her. That such an incomprehensible being should become her husband was surely unlikely – if not impossible! Gwen's thoughts became more and more confused. Notwithstanding this confusion in what (if compelled to describe it) she would have called her soul, she closed her eyes and settled upon her pillow. She was conscious that she was disappointed and not happy. Then she suddenly became indifferent to her fate – saw in her mind's eye a hat – it absorbed her. The hat was lying on a chair. It was trimmed like some other hat. Then the hat disappeared, and Gwen was asleep.
As soon as Gwendolen had left the drawing-room Lady Dashwood closed her book and looked at her niece.
"Now," said Lady Dashwood, "I begin to think that I was unnecessarily alarmed about Jim. But it may be because you are here – giving me moral support." Lady Dashwood spoke the words "moral support" with great firmness. Having once said it and seen that it was wrong, she meant to stick to it.
"I wonder," began Mrs. Dashwood, and then she remained silent and looked hard at her knitting.
Lady Dashwood still stared at her niece. But May did not conclude her sentence, if indeed she had meant to say any more.
"Why, you haven't noticed anything?" asked Lady Dashwood.
"Nothing!" said May, and she knitted on.
"To-day," said Lady Dashwood, "Jim has been practically invisible except at meals, but you've no idea how busy he is just now. All one's old ideas are in the melting-pot," she went on, "and Jim has schemes. He is full of plans. He thinks there is much to be done, in Oxford, with Oxford – nothing revolutionary – but a lot that is evolutionary."
Mrs. Dashwood dropped her knitting to listen, though she could have heard quite well without doing this.
"Imagine!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood, with a little burst of anger, "what a man like Jim, a scholar, a man of business, an organiser, what on earth he would do with a wife like Gwendolen Scott! The idea is absurd."
"The absurd often happens," said May, and as she said this she took up her knitting again with such a jerk that her ball of wool tumbled to the floor and began rolling; and being a tight ball it rolled some distance sideways from May's chair in the direction of the far distant door. She gave the wool a little tug, but the ball merely shook itself, turned over and released still more wool.
"Very well, remain there if you prefer that place," said May, and as she spoke there came a slight noise at the door.
Both ladies looked to see who was coming in. It was the Warden. He held a cigar in his hand, a sign (Lady Dashwood knew it) that he intended merely to bid them "Good night," and retire again to his library. But he now stood in the half-light with his hand on the door, and looked towards the glow of the hearth where the two ladies sat alone, each lighted by a tall, electric candle stand on the floor. And as he looked at this little space of light and warmth he hesitated.
Then he closed the door behind him and came in.
CHAPTER VI
MORE THAN ONE CONCLUSION
The Warden came slowly towards them over the wide space of carpeted floor.
Lady Dashwood, who knew every passing change in his face and manner (they were photographed over and over again in every imaginable style in her book of life), noticed that the sight of herself and May alone, that is, without Gwen – had made him decide to come in. She drew her own conclusions and smiled.
"When you pass that ball of wool, pick it up, Jim," she said.
She spoke too late, however, and the Warden kicked the ball with one foot, and sent it rolling under a chair. It took the opportunity of flinging itself round one leg, and tumbling against the second. With its remaining strength it rolled half way round the third leg, and then lay exhausted.
"I'm not going to apologise," said the Warden, in his most courteous tones.
"You needn't do that, my dear, if you don't want to," said Lady Dashwood. "But pick up the ball, please."
"If I pick the ball up," said the Warden, "the result will be disastrous to somebody."
He looked at the ball and at the chair, and then, putting his cigar between his teeth, he lifted the chair from the labyrinth of wool and placed it out of mischief. Then he picked up the ball and stood holding it in his hand. Who was the "somebody"? To whom did it belong? It was obvious to whom it belonged! A long line of wool dropped from the ball to the carpet. There it described a foolish pattern of its own, and then from one corner of that pattern the line of wool ran straight to Mrs. Dashwood's hands. She was sitting there, pretending that she didn't know that she was very, very slowly and deliberately jerking out the very vitals of that pattern, in fact disembowelling it. Then the Warden pretended to discover suddenly that it was Mrs. Dashwood's ball, and this discovery obliged him to look at her, and she, without glancing at him, slightly nodded her head, very gravely. Lady Dashwood grasped her book and pretended to read it.
"I suppose I must clear up this mess," said the Warden, as articulately as a man can who is holding a cigar between his teeth.
He began to wind up the ball.
"How beautifully you are winding it!" said May Dashwood, without looking up from her knitting.
The Warden cleared the pattern from the floor, and now a long line of wool stretched tautly from his hands to those of Mrs. Dashwood.
"Please stop winding," she said quietly, and still she did not look up, though she might have easily done so for she had left off knitting.
The Warden stopped, but he stood looking at her as if to challenge her eyes. Then, as she remained obstinately unmoved, he came towards her chair and dropped the ball on her lap.
"You couldn't know I was winding it beautifully because you never looked."
"I knew without looking," said May. "I took for granted that you did everything well."
"If you will look now," said the Warden, "you will see how crookedly I've done it. So much for flattery."
He stood looking down at her bent head with its gold-brown hair lit up to splendour by the electric light behind her. Her face was slightly in shadow. The Warden stood so long that Lady Dashwood was seized with an agreeable feeling of embarrassment. May Dashwood was apparently unconscious of the figure beside her. But she raised her eyebrows. Her eyebrows were often slightly raised as if inquiring into the state of the world with sympathy tinged with surprise. She raised her eyebrows instead of making any reply, as if she said: "I could make a retort, but I am far too busy with more important matters."
The Warden at last moved, and putting a chair between the two ladies he seated himself exactly opposite the glowing fire and the portrait above it. Leaning back, he smoked in silence for a few moments looking straight in front of him for the most part, only now and then turning his eyes to Mrs. Dashwood, just to find out if her eyebrows were still raised.
Lady Dashwood began smiling at her book because she had discovered that she held it upside down.
"You were interested in Stockwell?" said the Warden suddenly. "He is doing multifarious things now. He is an accomplished linguist, and we couldn't manage without him – besides he is over military age by a long way."
Lady Dashwood felt quite sure that his silence had been occupied by the Warden in thinking of May, so that his question, "You were interested," etc., was merely the point at which his thoughts broke into words.
"I was very much interested in him," said May. "It was like reading a witty book – only much more delightful."
"Stockwell is always worth listening to," said the Warden, "but he is sometimes very silent. He needs the right sort of audience to draw him out. Two or three congenial men – or one sympathetic woman." Here the Warden paused and looked away from May Dashwood, then he added: "I'm obliged to go to Cambridge to-morrow. You will be at Chartcote and you will get some amusement out of Boreham. You find everybody interesting?" He turned again and looked at her – this time so searchingly that a little colour rose in May Dashwood's cheek.
"Oh, not everybody," she said. "I wish I could!"
"My dear May," said Lady Dashwood, briskly seizing this brilliant opportunity of pointing the moral and adorning the tale, "even you can't pretend to be interested in little Gwendolen, though you have done your best. Now that you have seen something of her, what do you think of her?"
"Very pretty," said May Dashwood, and she became busy again with her work.
"Exactly," said Lady Dashwood. "If she were plain even Belinda would not have the impertinence to deposit her on people's doorsteps in the way she does."
The Warden took his cigar out of his mouth, as if he had suddenly remembered something that he had forgotten. He laid his hands on the arms of his chair and seemed about to rise.
"You're not going, Jim!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood. "I thought you had come to talk to us. We have been doing our duty since dawn of day, and this is May's little holiday, you know. Stop and talk nicely to us. Do cheer us up!" Her voice became appealing.
The Warden rose from his chair and stood with one hand resting on the back of it as if about to make some excuse for going away. Except for the glance, necessitated by courtesy, that May Dashwood gave the Warden when he entered, she had kept her eyes obstinately upon her work. Now she looked up and met his eyes, only for a moment.
"I'm not going," he said, "but I find the fire too hot. Excuse me if I move away. It has got muggy and warm – Oxford weather!"
"Open one of the windows," said Lady Dashwood. "I'm sure May and I shall be glad of it."
He moved away and walked slowly down the length of the room. Going behind the heavy curtains he opened a part of the casement and then drew aside one of the curtains slightly. Then he slowly came back to them in silence.
This silence that followed was embarrassing, so embarrassing that Lady Dashwood broke into it urgently with the first subject that she could think of. "Tell May about the Barber's ghost, Jim."
"Where does he appear?" asked May, interestedly, but without looking up. "What part of the college?"
"In the library," said the Warden.
"And at the witching hour of midnight, I suppose?" said May.
"Birds of ill omen, I believe, appear at night," said the Warden. "All Souls College ought to have had an All Souls' ghost, but it hasn't, it has only its 'foolish Mallard.'"
"And if he does appear," said May, "what apology are you going to offer him for the injustice of your predecessor in the eighteenth century?"
The Warden turned and stood looking back across the room at the warm space of light and the two women sitting in it, with the firelight flickering between them.
"If I were to make myself responsible for all the misdemeanours of the Reverend Charles Langley," he said, "I should have my hands full;" and he came slowly towards them as he spoke. "You have only to look at Langley's face, over the mantelpiece, and you will see what I mean."
May Dashwood glanced up at the portrait and smiled.
"Do you admire our Custos dilectissimus?" he asked.
The lights were below the level of the portrait, but the hard handsome face with its bold eyes, was distinctly visible. He was looking lazily watchful, listening sardonically to the conversation about himself.
"I admire the artist who painted his portrait," said May.
"Yes, the artist knew what he was doing when he painted Langley," said the Warden. He seemed now to have recovered his ease, and stood leaning his arms on the back of the chair he had vacated. "Your idea is a good one," he went on. "I don't suppose it has occurred to any Warden since Langley's time that a frank and pleasant apology might lay the Barber's ghost for ever. Shall I try it?" he asked, looking at his guest.
"My dear," said Lady Dashwood slowly, "I wish you wouldn't even joke about it – I dislike it. I wish people wouldn't invent ghost stories," she went on. "They are silly, and they are often mischievous. I wish you wouldn't talk as if you believed it."
"It was you, Lena, who brought up the subject," said Middleton. "But I won't talk about him if you dislike it. You know that I am not a believer in ghosts."
Lady Dashwood nodded her head approvingly, and began turning more pages of her book.
"I sometimes wonder," said the Warden, and now he turned his face towards May Dashwood – "I wonder if men like Langley really believed in a future life?"
May looked up at the portrait, but was silent.
"The eighteenth century was not tormented with the question as we are now!" said the Warden, and again he looked at the auburn head and the dark lashes hiding the downcast eyes. "Those who doubt," he said slowly and tentatively, "whether after all the High Gods want us – those who doubt whether there are High Gods – even those doubt with regret – now." He waited for a response and May Dashwood suddenly raised her eyes to his.
"There is no truculence in modern unbelief," he said, "it is a matter of passionate regret. And belief has become a passionate hope."
Lady Dashwood knew that not a word of this was meant for her. She disliked all talk about the future world. It made her feel dismal. Her life had been spent in managing first her father, then her brother, and now her husband, and incidentally many of her friends.
Some people dislike having plans made for them, some endure it, some positively like it, and for those who liked it, Lady Dashwood made extensive plans. Her brain worked now almost automatically in plans. For herself she had no plans, she was the planner. But her plans were about this world. To the "other world" Lady Dashwood felt secretly inimical; that "unknown" lurking in the future, would probably, not so long hence, engulf her husband, leaving her, alas! still on this side – with no heart left for making any more plans.
If she had been alone with the Warden he would not have mentioned the "future life," nor would he have spoken of the "High Gods." He knew her mind too well. Was he probing the mind of May Dashwood? Either he was deliberately questioning her, or there was something in her presence that drew from him his inmost thoughts. Lady Dashwood felt a pang of indignation at herself for "being in the way" when to be "out of the way" at such a moment was absolutely necessary. She must leave these two people alone together – now – at this propitious moment. What should she do? She began casting about wildly in her brain for a plan of escape that would not be too obvious in its intention. The Warden had never been with May alone for five minutes. To-morrow would be a blank day – there was Chartcote first and then when they returned the Warden would be still away and very probably would not be visible that evening.
She could see May's raised face looking very expressive – full of thoughts. Lady Dashwood rose from her chair confident that inspired words would come to her lips – and they came!
"My dear Jim," she heard herself saying, "your mentioning the High Gods has made me remember that I left about some letters that ought to be answered. Horribly careless of me – I must go and find them. I'll only be away a moment. So sorry to interrupt when you are just getting interesting!" And still murmuring Lady Dashwood made her escape.
She had done the best she could under the circumstances, and she smiled broadly as she went through the corridor.
"That for Belinda and Co.!" she exclaimed half aloud, and she snapped her fingers.
And what was going to happen after Belinda and Co. were defeated, banished for ever from the Lodgings? What was going to happen to the Warden? He had been successfully rescued from one danger – but what about the future? Was he going to fall in love with May Dashwood?
"It sounded to me uncommonly like a metaphysical wooing of May," said Lady Dashwood to herself. "That I must leave in the hands of Providence;" and she went up to her room smiling. There she found Louise.
"Madame is gay," said the Frenchwoman, catching sight of the entering smile. "Gay in this sad Oxford!"
"Sad!" said Lady Dashwood, her smile still lingering. "The hospitals are sad, Louise, yes, very sad, and the half-empty Colleges."
"Oh, it is sad, incredibly sad," said the maid. "What kind of city is it, it contains only grey monasteries, no boulevards, no shops. There is one shop, perhaps, but what is that?"
Lady Dashwood had gone to the toilet table, for she caught sight of the letters lying on the top of the jewel drawers. She had seen them several times that day, and had always intended tearing them up, for neither of them needed an answer. But they had served a good purpose. She had escaped from the drawing-room with their aid. She took them up and opened them and looked at them again. Louise watched her covertly. She glanced at the first and tore it up; then at the second and tore that up. She opened the third and glanced at it. And now the faint remains of the smile that had lingered on her face suddenly vanished.
"My dear Gwen," (Lena badly written, of course).
"I hope you understood that Lady Dashwood will keep you till the 3rd. You don't mention the Warden! Does that mean that you are making no progress in that direction? Perhaps taking no trouble! The question is – "
Here Lady Dashwood stopped. She looked at the signature of the writer. But that was not necessary – the handwriting was Belinda Scott's.
For a moment or two Lady Dashwood stood as if she intended to remain in the same position for the rest of her life. Then she breathed rather heavily and her nostrils dilated.
"Ah! Well!" said Louise to herself, and she nodded her head ominously.
Soon Lady Dashwood recovered herself and folded up the letter. She looked at the envelope. It was addressed to Miss Gwendolen Scott. She put the letter back into its envelope.
Had she opened the letter and then laid it aside with the others, without perceiving that the letter was not addressed to her and without reading it? Was it possible that she, in her hurry last evening, had done this? If so, Gwen had never received the letter or read it.
Of course she could not have read it. If she had, it would not have been laid on the toilet table. If Gwen had read it and left it about, it would have either been destroyed or taken to her room.
"Does Madame wish to go to bed immediately?" asked Louise innocently. She had been waiting nearly twenty-four hours for something to happen about that letter. She was beginning to be afraid that it might be discovered when she would not be there to see the effect it had on Madame. Ah! the letter was all that Louise's fancy had painted it. See the emotion in Madame's back! How expressive is the back! What abominable intrigue! It was not necessary, indeed, to go to Paris to find wickedness. And, above all, the Warden – Oh, my God! Never, never shall I repose confidence even in the Englishman the most respectable!
"Presently," said Lady Dashwood, in answer to Louise's question.
Lady Dashwood had made up her mind. She must have opened all three letters but only read two of them. There was no other explanation possible. What was to be done with Gwen's letter? What was to be done with this – vile scribble?
Lady Dashwood's fingers were aching to tear the letter up, but she refrained. It would need some thinking over. The style of this letter was probably familiar to Gwendolen – her mind had already been corrupted. And to think that Jim might have had Belinda and Co., and all that Belinda and Co. implied, hanging round his neck and dragging him down – till he dropped into his grave from the sheer dead weight of it!
"Yes, immediately," said Lady Dashwood. She would not go downstairs again. It was of vital importance that Jim and May should be alone together, yes, alone together.
Lady Dashwood put the letter away in a drawer and locked it. She must have time to think.
A few minutes later Louise was brushing out her mistress's hair – a mass of grey hair, still luxuriant, that had once been black.
"I find that Oxford does not agree with Madame's hair," said Louise, as she plied vigorously with the brush.
Lady Dashwood made no reply.
"I find that Oxford does not agree with Madame's hair at all, at all," repeated Louise, firmly.
"Is it going greyer?" said Lady Dashwood indifferently, for her mind was working hard on another subject.
"It grows not greyer, but it becomes dead, like the hair of a corpse – in this atmosphere of Oxford," said Louise, even more firmly.
"Try not to exaggerate, Louise," said Lady Dashwood, quite unmoved.
"Madame cannot deny that the humidity of Oxford is bad both for skin and hair," said Louise, with some resentment in her tone.
"Damp is not bad for the skin, Louise," said her mistress, "but it may be for the hair; I don't know and I don't care."
"It's bad for the skin," said Louise. "I have seen Madame looking grave, the skin folded, in Oxford. It is the climate. It is impossible to smile – in Oxford. One lies as if under a tomb."
"Every place has its bad points," said Lady Dashwood. "It is important to make the best of them."
"But I do not like to see Madame depressed by the climate here," continued Louise, obstinately, "and Madame has been depressed here lately."
"Not at all," said Lady Dashwood. "You needn't worry, Louise; any one who can stand India would find the climate of Oxford admirable. Now, as soon as you have done my hair, I want you to go down to the drawing-room, where you will find Mrs. Dashwood, and apologise to her for my not coming down again. Say I have a letter that will take me some time to answer. Bid her good night, also the Warden, who will be with her, I expect."
Louise had been momentarily plunged into despair. She had been unsuccessful all the way round. It looked as if the visit to Oxford was to go on indefinitely, and as to the letter – well – Madame was unfathomable – as she always was. She was English, and one must not expect them to behave as if they had a heart.
But now her spirits rose! This message to the drawing-room! The Warden was alone with Mrs. Dashwood! The Warden, this man of apparent uprightness who was the seducer of the young! Lady Dashwood had discovered his wickedness and dared not leave Mrs. Dashwood, a widow and of an age (twenty-eight) when a woman is still young, alone with him. So she, Louise, was sent down, bien entendu, to break up the tête-à-tête!
