Читать книгу The New Warden - Ritchie David George - Страница 4

Before his maternal aunt had left him Chartcote, the Honourable Bernard Boreham's income had been just sufficient to enable him to live without making himself useful. The Boreham estate in Ireland was burdened with obligations to female relatives who lived in various depressing watering-places in England. Bernard, the second son, had not been sent to a public school or University. He had struggled up as best he might, and like all the members of his family, he had left his beloved country as soon as he possibly could, and had picked up some extra shillings in London by writing light articles of an inflammatory nature for papers that required them. Boreham had had no real practical acquaintance with the world. He had never been responsible for any one but himself. He was a floating cloudlet. Ideas came to him easily – all the more easily because he was scantily acquainted with the mental history of the past. He did not know what had been already thought out and dismissed, nor what had been tried and had failed. The world was new to him – new – and full of errors.

From the moment that Chartcote became his and he was his own master, it occurred to him that he might write a really great book. A book that would make the world conscious of its follies. He felt that it was time that some one – like himself – who could shed the superstitions and the conventions of the past and step out a new man with new ideas, uncorrupted by kings or priests (or Oxford traditions), and give a lead to the world.

It was, of course, an unfortunate circumstance that Oxford was now so military, so smitten by the war and shorn of her pomp, so empty of academic life. But after the war Boreham meant among other things to study Oxford, and if perfectly frank criticism could help her to a better understanding of her faults in view of the world's requirements – well, it should have that criticism. Boreham had considerable leisure, for apart from his big Book which he began to sketch, he found nothing to do. Every sort of work that others were doing for the war he considered radically faulty, and he had no scheme of his own – at the moment. Besides, he felt that England was not all she ought to be. He did not love England – he only liked living in England.

Boreham had arrived punctually for dinner on that October evening; in fact, he had arrived too early; but he told Lady Dashwood that his watch was fast.

"All the clocks in Oxford are wrong," he said to her, as he stood on the hearthrug in the drawing-room, "and mine is wrong!"

Boreham was tall and fair and wore a fair pointed beard. His features were not easy to describe in detail, they gave one the impression that they had been cut with insufficient premeditation by the hand of his Creator, from some pale fawn-coloured material. He wore a single eyeglass which he stuck into a pale blue eye, mainly as an aid to conversation. With Boreham conversation meant an exposition of his own "ideas." He was disappointed at finding only Lady Dashwood in the drawing-room; but she had been really good natured in asking him to come and meet May Dashwood, so he was "conversing" freely with her when the door opened and Gwendolen Scott came in. Boreham started and put his eyeglass in the same eye again, instead of exercising the other eye. He was agitated. When he saw that it was not May Dashwood who had come in, but a youthful female unknown to him and probably of no conversational significance, he dropped his glass on to his shirt-front, where it made a dull thud. Gwen's face was flushed, and her lips still a little swollen; but there was nothing that betrayed tears to strangers, though Lady Dashwood saw at once that she had been crying. As soon as the introduction was over Gwen sank into a large easy-chair where her slight figure was almost obliterated.

She had got back her self-control. It had not, after all, been so difficult to get it back – for the glow of a new excitement possessed her. For the first time in her life she had succeeded. Until to-day she had had no luck. At a cheap school for the "Education of Daughters of Officers" Gwen had not learnt more than she could possibly help. Her first appearance in the world, this last summer, had been, considering her pretty face, on the whole a disappointment. But now she was successful. Gwen tingled with the comfortable warmth of self-esteem. She looked giddily round the spacious room – was it possible that all this might be hers? It was amazing that luck should have just dropped into her lap.

Boreham had turned again to Lady Dashwood as soon as he had been introduced and had executed the reverential bow that he considered proper, however contemptuously he might feel towards the female he saluted.

"As we were saying," he went on, "Middleton – except to-day – has always been punctual to the minute, by that I mean punctual to the fastest Oxford time. He is the sort of man who is born punctual. Punctually he came into the world. Punctually he will go out of it. He has never been what I call a really free man. In other words, he is a slave to what's called 'Duty.'"

Here the door opened again, and again Boreham was unable to conceal his vivid curiosity as he turned to see who it was coming in. This time it was the Warden – the Warden in a blameless shirt-front. He had changed in five minutes. He walked in composed as usual. There was not a trace in his face that in the library only a few minutes ago he had been disposing of his future with amazing swiftness.

"Go on, Boreham," said the Warden, giving his guest, along with the glance that serves in Oxford as sufficient greeting to frequenters of Common Room, a slight grasp of the hand because he was not a member of Common Room. The Warden had not heard Boreham's remarks, he merely knew that he had interrupted some exposition of "ideas."

In a flash the Warden saw, without looking at her, that Gwen was there, half hidden in a chair; and Gwen, on her side, felt her heart thump, and was proudly and yet fearfully conscious of every movement of the Warden as he walked across the room and stood on the other side of the hearthrug. "Does he – does that important person belong to me?" she thought. The conviction was overpowering that if that important person did belong to her, and it appeared that he did, she also must be important.

Boreham's appearance did not gain in attractiveness by the proximity of his host. He began again in his rapid rather high voice.

"You see for yourself," he said, turning back to Lady Dashwood: "here he is – the very picture of what is conventionally correct, his features, his manner, before which younger men who are not so correct actually quail. I'm afraid that now he is Warden he has lost the chance of becoming a free man. I had hopes of one day seeing him carried off his feet by some impulse which fools call 'folly.' If he could have been even once divinely drunk, he might have realised his true self, I am afraid now he is hopeless."

"My dear man, your philosophy of freedom is only suitable for the 'idle rich.' You would be the first person to object to your cook becoming divinely drunk instead of soberly preparing your dinner."

Boreham always ignored an argument that told against him, so he merely continued —

"As it is, Middleton, who might have been magnificent, is bound hand and foot to the service of mere propriety, and will end by saddling himself with some dull wife."

The Warden stood patient and composed while Boreham was talking about him. He took out his watch and glanced at Lady Dashwood.

"I've given May five minutes' grace," she said, and then turned her face again to Boreham. "But why should Jim marry a dull wife? It will be his own fault if he does."

Gwen in her large chair sat stupefied at the word "wife."

"No," said Boreham, emphatically. "It won't be his fault. The best of our sex are daily sacrificed to the most dismal women. Men being in the minority now – dangerously in the minority – are, as all minorities are, imposed upon by the gross majority. Supposing Middleton meets, to speak to, in his whole life, a couple of hundred women here and elsewhere, none of whom are in the least charming; well, then, one out of these two hundred, the one with the most brazen determination to be married, will marry him, and there'll be an end of it. The kindest thing, Lady Dashwood," continued Boreham, "and I speak from the great love I have for Middleton, is for you just to invite with sisterly discrimination some women, not quite unbearable to Middleton, and he, like the Emperor Theophilus, will come into this room with an apple in his hand and present it to one of them. He can make the same remark that Theophilus made to the lady he first approached."

"And what was that?" asked Lady Dashwood. She was amused at finding the conversation turn on the very subject nearest her heart. Even Mr. Boreham was proving himself useful in uttering this blunt warning of dangers ahead.

"His remark was: 'Woman is the source of evil.' And the lady's reply was – "

Both Lady Dashwood and Gwen were gazing intently at Boreham and Boreham was staring fixedly at the ornament in Lady Dashwood's grey hair. No one but the Warden noticed the door open and May Dashwood enter. She was dressed in black and wore no ornaments. She had caught the gist of what Boreham was saying, and she made the most delightful movement of her hands to Middleton that expressed both respectful greeting to him as her host, and an apology for remaining motionless on the threshold of the room, so that she should not break Boreham's story.

"And her reply was," went on the unconscious Boreham, "'But surely also of much good!'"

So that was all! May Dashwood came forward and walked straight up to the Warden. She held out both her hands to him in apology for her behaviour.

"I hope he – whoever he was – did not marry the young woman who made such an obvious retort," she said. "Fancy what the conversation would be like at the breakfast table."

Boreham was too much occupied with his own interesting emotions at the sudden appearance of Mrs. Dashwood to notice what was plain to Lady Dashwood and Gwendolen Scott, that the Warden seemed wholly taken by surprise.

"He didn't marry her," he said, as he held May Dashwood's hands for a moment and stared down into her upturned face with his narrow eyes. "But," he added, "the story is probably a fake."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Dashwood, as she released her hands. Then she turned to Boreham, who was waiting – a picture of self-consciousness in pale fawn.

Gwen's recently regained self-confidence was already oozing out of every pore of her skin. It didn't matter when the Warden and Mr. Boreham talked queer talk, that was to be expected; but what did matter was this Mrs. Dashwood talking queerly with them. Rubbish she, Gwen, called it. What did that Mrs. Dashwood mean by saying that the retort, "And also of much good," was obvious? What did "obvious" mean? To Gwen the retort seemed profoundly clever – and so true! How was she, Gwen, to cope with this sort of thing? And then there was the Warden already giving this terrible woman his arm and looking at her far too closely.

"Come, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, "Mr. Boreham must take us both!"

Gwen's head swam. Along with this new and painful sensation had come a sudden recollection of something! That letter of her mother's! It had not been in her hand when she went into her bedroom. No, it had not. Had she dropped it in the library, when the Warden had – Oh!

"I've lost my handkerchief," murmured the girl, "somewhere – " Her voice was very small and sad, and she looked helplessly round the room.

"Mr. Boreham, stop and help her find it," said Lady Dashwood, "I must go down."

Boreham stood rigidly at the door. He saw his hostess go out and still he did not move.

Gwen looked at him in despair. What she had intended, of course, was to have flown into the library and looked for her letter. How could she now, with Mr. Boreham standing in the way? And that terrible woman had gone off arm-in-arm with the Warden. Gwen stared at Boreham. An idea struck her. She would go into the library – after dinner – before the men came up. But she must pretend to look for her handkerchief for a minute or two.

"Do you call Mrs. Dashwood pretty?" she asked tremulously, not looking at Boreham, but diving her hand into the corners of the chair she had been sitting in. She must find out what men thought of Mrs. Dashwood. She must know the worst – now, when she had the opportunity.

"Pretty!" said Boreham, still motionless at the door. "That's not a useful word. She's alluring."

"Oh!" said Gwen. She had left off thumping the chair, and now walked slowly to him – wide-eyed with anxiety. To Gwen, a man past his youth, wearing a fair beard and fair eyebrows that were stiff and stuck out like spikes, was scarcely a person of sex at all; but still he would probably know what men thought.

"I don't think she is pretty – very," she said, her lips trembling a little as she spoke, and she gazed in a challenging way at Boreham.

"She is the most womanly woman I know," said Boreham. "Middleton is probably finding that out already."

Gwen patted her waistband where it bulged ever so slightly with her handkerchief. "Womanly!" she repeated in a doubtful voice.

"He'll fall in love with her to-day and propose to-morrow. Do him a world of good," said Boreham.

"Propose!" Gwen caught her breath. "But he couldn't – she couldn't – he couldn't – marry!"

"Couldn't marry – I didn't say marry – I said he will propose to-morrow." Boreham laughed a little in his beard.

"I don't understand," stammered the girl. "You mean – she would refuse?"

"No," said Boreham. "It mightn't go as far as that – the whole thing is a matter of words – words – words. It's a part of a man's education to fall in love with Mrs. Dashwood!"

Gwen blinked at him. A piercing thought struck her brain. Spoken words – they didn't count! Words alone didn't clinch the bargain! Words didn't tie a man up to his promise. Was this the "law"? She must get at the actual "law" of the matter. She knew something about love-making, but nothing about the "law."

"Do you mean," she said, and she scarcely recognised her own voice, so great was her concentration of thought and so slowly did she pronounce the enigmatic words, "if he had kissed you as well, he would be obliged to marry one?"

Boreham knitted his brows. "If I was, at this moment to kiss you, my dear lady," he began, "I should not be compelled to marry you. Even the gross injustice meted out to us men by the laws (backed up by Mrs. Grundy) dares not go as far as that. But there is no knowing what new oppression is in store for us – in the future."

"I only mean," stammered Gwen, "if he had already said – something."

Boreham simply stared at her. "I am confused," he said. "Confused!"

"Oh, please don't imagine that I meant you," she entreated. "I never for one single instant thought of you. I should never have imagined! I am so sorry!"

And yet this humble apology did not mollify him. Gwen almost felt frightened. Everything seemed going to pieces, and she was no nearer knowing what the legal aspects of her case were.

"Have you found your handkerchief?" Boreham asked, and the spikes in his eyebrows seemed to twitch.

"It was in my band, all the time," said Gwen, smiling deprecatingly. "Oh, what a bother everything was!"

"Then we have wasted precious time for nothing," said Boreham. "All the fun is going on downstairs – come along, Miss Wallace."

Boreham knew her name wasn't Wallace, but Wallace was Scotch and that was near enough, when he was angry.

Gwen went downstairs as if she were in an ugly dream. Her brief happiness and security and pleasure at her own importance was vanishing. This broad staircase that she was descending on Boreham's stiff and rebellious arm; this wall with its panelling and its dim pictures of strange men's faces; these wide doors thrown back through which one went solemnly into the long dining-room; this dining-room itself dim and dignified; all this was going to be hers – only – . Gwendolen, as she emerged into the glow of the long oval table, could see nothing but the face of Mrs. Dashwood, gently brilliant, and the Warden roused to attentive interest. What was Gwen to do? There was nobody whom she could consult. Should she write to her mother? Her mother would scold her! What, then, was she to do? Perhaps she had better write to her mother, and let her see that she had, at any rate, tried her best. And in saying the words to herself "tried her best," Gwen was not speaking the truth even to herself. She had not tried at all; the whole thing had come about accidentally. It had somehow happened!

Instead of going straight to bed that evening Gwen seated herself at the writing-table in her bedroom. She must write a letter to her mother and ask for advice. The letter must go as soon as possible. Gwen knew that if she put it off till the morning, it might never get written. She was always too sleepy to get up before breakfast. In Oxford breakfast for Dons was at eight o'clock, and that was far too early, as it was, for Gwen. Then after breakfast, there was "no time" to do anything, and so on, during the rest of the day.

So Gwen sat at her writing-table and wrote the longest letter she had ever written. Gwen's handwriting was pointed, it was also shaky, and generally ran downhill, or else uphill.

"Dear Mummy,

"Please write and tell me what to do? I've done all I could, but everything is in a rotten muddle. This evening I was crying, crying a little at your letter – I really couldn't help it – but anyhow it turned out all right – and the Warden suddenly came along the passage and saw me. He took me into his library, I don't know how it all happened, Mummy, but he put his arms round me and told me to come to him if I wanted a home. He was sweet, and I naturally thought this was true, and I said 'Yes' and 'Thanks.' There wasn't time for more, because of dinner. But a Mr. Boarham, who is a sort of cousin of Dr. Middleton, says that proposals are all words and that you needn't be married. What am I to do? I don't know if I am really engaged or not – because the Warden hasn't said anything more – and suppose he doesn't – Isn't it rotten? Do write and tell me what to do, for I feel so queer. What makes me worried is Mrs. Dashwood, a widow, talks so much. At dinner the Warden seemed so much taken up by her – quite different. But then after dinner it wasn't like that. We sat in the drawing-room all the time and at least the men smoked and Lady Dashwood and me, but not Mrs. Dashwood, who said she was Early Victorian, and ought to have died long ago. She worked. Lady Dashwood said that she smoked because she was a silly old heathen, and that made me feel beastly. It wasn't fair – but Lady Dashwood is often rather nasty. But afterwards he was nice, and asked me to play my reverie by Slapovski. I have never forgotten it, Mummy, though I haven't been taught it for six months. I am telling you everything so that you know what has happened. Well, Mr. Borham said, 'For God's sake don't let's have any music.' He said that like he always does. It is very rude. Of course I refused to play, and the Warden was so nice, and he looked at me very straight and did not look at Mrs. Dashwood now. I think it must be all right. He sat in an armchair opposite us, and put his elbow on the arm and held the back of his neck – he does that, and smoked again and stared all the time at the carpet by Mrs. Dashwood's shoes, and never looked at her, but talked a lot. I can't understand what they say, and it is worse now Mrs. D. is here. Only once I saw him look up at her, and then he had that severe look. So I don't think any harm has happened. You know what I mean, Mummie. I was afraid he might like her. I tell you everything so as you can judge and advise me, for I could not tell all this to old Lady Dashwood, of course. Lady Dashwood says smoking cigars in the drawing-room is good for the furniture!!! I thought it very disgusting of Mr. Borham to say, 'For God's sake.' He used not to believe in God, and even now he hasn't settled whether there is a God. We are all to go to Chartcote House for lunch. There is to be a Bazaar – I forget what for, somewhere. I have no money except half-a-crown. I have not paid for my laundry, so I can leave that in a drawer. Now, dear Mummy, do write at once and say exactly what I am to do, and tell me if I am engaged or not.

"Your affectionate daughter,

"Gwen.

"I like the Warden ever so much, and partly because he does not wear a beard. I feel very excited, but am trying not to. Mrs. D. is to stay a whole week, till I go on the 3rd."

Gwen laid down her pen and sat looking at the sheet of paper before her. She had told her mother "everything." She had omitted nothing, except that her mother's letter had dropped somewhere, either in the library or the staircase, and she could not find it again. If it had dropped in the library, somebody had picked it up. Supposing the Warden had picked it up and read it? The clear sharp understanding of "honour" possessed by the best type of Englishman and Englishwoman was not possessed by Gwen – it has not been acquired by the Belindas of Society or of the Slums. But no, Gwen felt sure that the Warden hadn't found it, or he would have been very, very angry. Then who had picked it up?