Читать книгу The Sins of the Children - Cosmo Hamilton - Страница 4

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When Peter Guthrie laughed the rooks stirred on the old trees behind the Bodleian and the bored cab-drivers who lolled in uncomfortable attitudes on their cabs in St. Giles perked up their heads.

He threw open his door one morning and leaving one of these laughs of his rolling round the quad of St. John's College found the recumbent form of Nicholas Kenyon all among his cushions as usual, and as usual smoking his cigarettes and reading his magazines. The words "as usual" seemed to be stamped on his forehead.

"What d'you think?" cried Peter, filling the room like a thirty-mile gale.

"You ought to know that I don't think. It's a form of exercise that I never indulge in." Kenyon lit a fresh cigarette from the one which he had half-smoked and with peculiar expertness flicked the end out of the window into St. Giles Street, which ran past the great gates of the college. He hoped that it might have fallen on somebody's head, but he didn't get up to see.

"Well," said Peter, "I was coming down the High just now and an awful pretty girl passed with a Univ. man. She looked at me—thereby very nearly laying me flat on my face—and I heard her ask, 'Who's that?' It was the man's answer that makes me laugh. He said: 'Oh, he's only a Rhodes scholar!'" And off he went again.

Nicholas Kenyon raised his immaculate person a few inches and looked round at his friend. The Harvard man, with his six-foot-one of excellent muscles and sinews, his square shoulders and deep chest, and his fine, honest, alert and healthy face, made most people ask who he was. "If I'd been you," said Kenyon, "I should have made a mental note of that Univ. blighter in order to land him one the next time you saw him, that he wouldn't easily forget."

"Why? I liked it, from a man of his type. I've been 'only a damned Rhodes scholar' to all the little pussy purr-purrs ever since I first walked the High in my American-made clothes. I owe that fellow no grudge; and if I meet that girl again—which I shall make a point of doing—I bet you anything you like that his scoffing remark will lend a touch of romance to me which will be worth a lot."

"Was she something out of the ordinary?"

"Quite," said Peter.

He hung his straw hat on the electric bulb, threw off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and started to tidy up his rooms with more energy and deftness than is possessed by the average housemaid. He flicked the little pile of cigarette ash, which Kenyon had dropped on the floor, into a corner. He gathered the weekly illustrated papers which Kenyon had flung aside and put them on a back shelf, and then he picked up the man Kenyon in his arms, deposited him in a wide arm-chair in front of the fireplace and started punching all the cushions.

Kenyon looked ineffably bored. "Good God!" he said. "What's all this energy? You shatter my nervous system."

"My dear chap," said Peter, "you seem to forget that this is Commem. and that my people have come three thousand miles to see their little Peter in his little rooms. I'm therefore polishing up the knocker of the big front door. My mother has a tidy mind and I want my father to gain the impression that I'm methodical and responsible. He has a quick eye. They wired me from London last night to say that they'll be here at five o'clock to tea. I dashed round to the Randolph early this morning to book rooms for them. Gee, it's a big party, too! I can't make out why they want so many rooms. It'll be like my sister to have brought over one of her school friends. I guess I shall be darned glad to see them, anyway."

There was a touch of excitement in the boy's voice, and his sun-tanned, excellent face showed the delight that he felt. He had not seen his mother, brother and sister for two years, having spent his vacations in England.

Nicholas Kenyon got up slowly. He did everything slowly. "Well," he said, "I thank God that my people don't bother me on these festive occasions. To my way of thinking the influx of fathers and mothers into Oxford makes the whole place provincial. However, I can understand your childish glee. You are pretty badly dipped, I understand, and with the true psychology of the rasping undergraduate you are first going to throw the glamour of the city of spires over your untravelled parent and then touch him for a fairly considerable cheque."

Peter gave a sort of laugh. "Touch my father!" he said. "Not much. I shall put my case up to my mother. She's the one who does these little things."

Kenyon was faintly interested. Being perennially impecunious himself and unable to raise money even from the loan sharks, he looked to the advent of Peter's parents to bring him at least fifty pounds. He always borrowed from Peter.

"Oh, I see," he said. "It's the old lady who carries the money-bags, is it?"

"No, it isn't," said Peter; "but as a matter of fact I never have gone to my father for anything and I don't think I ever shall. I don't know why it is, but none of us have ever been able to screw up courage to say more than 'Good-morning' and 'Good-night' to the Governor, although of course we all think he is a very wonderful person."

Kenyon yawned. "I see," he said. "Bad luck. I should hate to have such a disagreeable devil for a father—one of the martinet type, who says don't all the time when he ought to say do, and makes home a sort of pocket-hell for everybody."

Peter twisted round and spoke quickly and rather warmly. "So should I," he said, "but luckily I haven't. I didn't want to suggest that my father was that type of man. He's one of the very best—one of the men who count for something in my country. He's worked like a dog to give us a chance in life and his generosity makes me personally sometimes feel almost indecent. I mean that I feel that I have taken advantage of him,—but—but, somehow or other,—oh, I don't know,—we don't seem to know each other—that's all. He hasn't the knack of winning our confidence—or something. So it comes to this: when we want anything we ask mother and she gets it for us. That's all there's to it. And look here, Nick, I want you to be frightfully nice to the Governor. Get out of your ice-box and warm up to the old man. I can't, you see; but as he has come all this way to look me up I want somebody to show some appreciation."

With his eyes to the small relief which the visit of Dr. Hunter Guthrie, of New York City, might bring him, Nicholas Kenyon nodded. "Rely on me," he said. "Butter shan't melt in my mouth; and before your father leaves Oxford I'll make him feel that he's been created a Baronet and appointed Physician in Ordinary to His Majesty the King. Well, so long, Peter! I'm lunching with Lascelles at the House this morning. I'll drop in to tea and hand cakes round to your beloved family."

"Right-o," said Peter. "That'll be great!" And when the door closed and he found himself alone he arranged a certain number of silver cups which he had won in athletics all along his mantel-piece, for his father to see, gazed at them for a moment with a half-smile of rather self-conscious pride, finished tidying his room, gazed affectionately for a few moments at the familiar sight of Pusey House through the leaf-crowded trees that lined the sunny street, and then sat down to his piano and played a rag-time with all that perfect excellence and sense of rhythm which had opened the most insular doors to him during his first days as a fresher.