Читать книгу The Dawn of Reckoning - James Hilton - Страница 19

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Philip's rooms at Cambridge were at the top of the corner staircase of Christ's, with windows that faced on the one side the delightful, not quite rectangular quadrangle, and on the other the junction of two narrow and busy streets. Opposite on the same staircase was another set of rooms, and these were occupied, as the inscription on the door announced, by a certain "A. Ward."

They had come up to Christ's together, Philip from his years of private tuition and study, and Aubrey Ward from one of the lesser public-schools. Though tenants of adjacent rooms they hardly spoke during their first year, except for an occasional greet ing on the stairs; and indeed, it seemed that they had little, if anything at all, in common. Philip was a "reading" man, taking no part in sports of any kind, and allowing himself no recreation save now and then a grim walk over the ploughed fields to Madingley. Ward, on the other hand, was a keen Rugby player (having more than once been tried for the University team), and the leading figure not only in most of the College sports but in all the College "rags."

The "gyp" who attended both sets of rooms was never tired of giving Philip information about his neighbour. "I must say 'e's a very fair man, is Mr. Ward, and very generous an' open-'anded. You'd think 'e was so quiet an' shy when you speak to by 'imself, but crikey, when 'e lets 'imself go!—I never seed a gentleman get so mad as he can when there's a rag or anythin' on...No, 'e don't drink—'e's a teetotaller. The other gentlemen bring beer and wines up to 'is room when 'e 'as a party, but he 'as lemonade 'imself. I know 'cos 'e 'as me to wait on 'em...But crikey, 'e can get noisier on lemonade than what all the others put together can on whisky!"

One night during Philip's second year, Ward was holding a large party in his rooms to celebrate the success of the College hockey team. It began about eight o'clock and became progressively noisier until midnight. About that time Philip, who was reading late, heard the party breaking up, and from the way they clattered and clumped down the narrow winding stairs he guessed that they were all pretty drunk. Five minutes later they were racing round the quadrangle, shouting and catcalling, and in a little while Philip heard them clumsily reascending the stairs to Ward's rooms. Ward had sported his oak, but they hammered on it with their fists till he came to the door. "Come out and let's have a rag," one of them yelled ferociously, and others shouted, "Let's raid the porter's lodge!"—"Come on, Ward, and rag the Dean," etc.

Then Philip heard Ward's voice, very quiet and calm: "No, it's too late. Go back to bed, you fellows, I'm not coming."

Then a voice cried out: "I say, who's this man next door? 'P. Monsell'—Anybody heard of 'P. Monsell'—Who is he, anyway? Come on, boys, let's rag P. Monsell's rooms!"

Somebody pushed open the door, and Philip, putting down his book, turned to face a recklessly drunken crowd.

He turned very pale. It was not that he was afraid, for he was no coward, and would certainly have defended himself if anybody had set about him. It was rather that, as his mother had often said, he lacked a certain "tact," the power of dealing ingeniously with a difficult situation. As one of the men staggered and almost fell into his room, knocking over in doing so a table with crockery on it, he did not know whether to smile and treat the matter as a joke or to allow himself to get angry. Really, he was embarrassed almost up to the point of panic.

"I say, look what you've done..." he began, ineffectually. "Mind that desk or you'll smash something else."

A roar of laughter greeted his protest.

Then all at once there was a scuffle out on the land ing, and he saw Ward, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, forcing his way through the crowd and into his room.

"Get back..." said Ward sharply.

No more than that. Somehow they all, even those who were hopelessly drunk, took notice of him. He stood between Philip and the invaders, with his rather sunburnt face set very grimly. "Get back," he repeated, and he gave one of the foremost men a push that sent him sprawling over the carpet. The crowd on the landing guffawed with laughter, but Ward did not even smile.

"Somebody help me to pull Briggs out," he ordered curtly, and one of the others, less drunk than the rest, took the prostrate figure by the arms and, with Ward's assistance, dragged him ignominiously through the doorway.

"Better sport your oak now," Ward said to Philip, as the last intruder shuffled his way back on to the landing.

Philip did so, too uncomfortable even to murmur thanks.