CHAPTER IV
UNEXPECTED PEOPLE
The idea of working for Mr. Gilbert Edwardes never had much attraction for me, and for the first two or three weeks at Oxford I found it very difficult to satisfy him. However, the excuse that I took a long time to settle down in a fresh place did not seem as reasonable to him as it did to me, so I had to abandon it and try to appease him. The worst of him was that I never knew whether he was pleased or not; he accepted my most determined efforts at scholarship as a matter of course and reserved his eloquence for the occasions on which my work showed symptoms of haste. In less than a fortnight I felt that my tutor and I were watching each other, an element of distrust seemed to have sprung up; he took it for granted that I would do as little as possible, while I was searching for something which could tell me that he was human as well as learned.
I could not understand him in the least, for I had been accustomed to masters who talked about things of which I knew a little even if they were bored by doing so; but when I met Mr. Edwardes I felt that he belonged to the ice period, and that he would think the smallest thaw a waste of time.
I do like a human being, I mean a man who lets you know something about him and does not barricade himself against you. But a man who puts up the shutters in front of his virtues and faults bothers me most terribly, and I always seem to be bumping my head against something invisible whenever I see him, which is a most disconcerting performance.
Mr. Edwardes was also Murray's tutor, but Murray was not afflicted, as I was, with the desire to know people more than they wanted to be known, and he told me that if I would only take Edwardes as I found him we should get on together splendidly. In spite of Jack Ward, I saw Murray every day, and the more I knew of him the more I liked him. He was in my room one evening after Ward had arranged that we were to have a freshers' wine, and I asked him if he was coming to it.
"I can't go unless I am asked," he said, "and I shan't go now if I am asked."
I resolved to say a few things to Ward, but I did not know what to say to Murray.
"Ward is asking everybody he wants, isn't he?" he inquired.
"Yes it was left to him and Dennison, I believe."
"Then I am not likely to be invited, for he and I never could do anything but have rows with each other at Wellingham."
"What about?" I asked, for Murray had never said much about Ward to me and I wanted to hear his side of the quarrel.
"It isn't worth repeating," he answered. "I was head of the school and Ward thought a friend of his ought to have seen. He thinks I am a smug because I have to work, and I suppose I think he is a fool because he thinks I am a smug. He is a queer sort, and it is hopeless for me to try to be friends with him, even if I wanted to be, and I don't."
"He is a fairly good cricketer, isn't he?" I asked, for I had discovered that when Murray had once made up his mind no efforts of mine would change it.
"Yes, he would have got into the XI. quite easily only he was so slack, and the master who looked after our cricket couldn't stand him. It was rather a swindle that he didn't get into the team all the same."
"I hate slackers," I said, and to prove it I set to work on some Homer for Edwardes. Murray got his books and we slaved together for nearly two hours, when a most timid knock sounded on my door, and a man came in who seemed to be most fearfully nervous. He was carrying a gown and a cap in his hand, and he looked at Murray, who was not at all an alarming sight, as if he had encountered a wild man from one of those regions where wild men are bred. I had never had much practice at putting any one at their ease, for most people hit me on the back and call me "old fellow" far too soon; but I tried very hard to calm my visitor, and though it was six o'clock I asked him to have tea and every conceivable other thing I could think of, all of which he refused. He told me his name was Owen, but apart from that I knew nothing, and the more he fidgeted with the tassel of his cap the more I wondered why he had come.
Murray, however, guessed that he was in the way and hurried off as soon as he could. Then Owen made two or three unsuccessful efforts to begin, until I felt that I must offer him something more, only I had nothing left to offer. The man who said that hospitality covers a multitude of emotions went nearer the mark than most of those word-turning people do. But at last it all came out in jerks, and I felt most thoroughly sorry for him; if I had been in his place I am certain I should never have faced such an ordeal.
"I didn't like to tell you why I had come before your friend," he began; and he still twisted his cap round and round by the tassel. "I suppose a sort of false modesty prevented me, but I might just as well have spoken before him."
"Murray is a most awfully good sort," I said lamely, for I wanted to help him so much that my head felt hot and I could not think.
"I expect he is," Owen went on, "but I haven't come to be friends with your friends. I only wanted to see you, and the reason is that over twenty years ago in India your father saved my father's life."
I did feel relieved when he told me that, for I had been imagining that he was the kind of man who is known as a freak, and had come to win me over to some stupid crank which he would call a noble cause.
"I am most tremendously glad you have come," I said, and then I began talking about my father's old regiment, and Owen could not get a word in until I had finished.
"You don't understand," he said, as soon as he got a chance; "when you talk about a regiment you only think of the officers, my father was one of the men."
"I don't see what that matters as long as his life was saved."
"It does matter," Owen replied; "it matters here very much, where there is not much liberality except in offering meals and things not wanted." I moved my feet and kicked the fender, the fire-irons jangled together and he went on: "I ought not to have said that, it is my blundering way to say the thing I oughtn't; what I meant was that Oxford is not very liberal to a man like I am, who is here by hard work, and not because his fathers and grandfathers were here before him. It is impossible in a place of sets—social, athletic, and all the rest—for a man who has to work to keep himself, to be treated in the same way as you, for instance, are treated. I am not what the world calls a gentleman."
"Oh, confound the world," I said, "it is always mixed up in my mind with the flesh and the devil," and as Owen did not say anything for a minute I asked him what college he was at.
"I am unattached, St. Catherine's if you like; we are called 'The Toshers,'" he answered, and there was a note of bitterness in his voice. "Of course," he went on, "I am boring you to death, but I must say that I should never have come to see you if my father had not made me promise that I would. He takes a tremendous interest in both your brother and you; he knows the place your brother passed into Sandhurst and where he was in the list when he went out, and last summer he watched for your name in The Sportsman, and when you got any wickets he was as pleased as Punch. He writes to Colonel Marten still."
I wished I could have said that my father had mentioned him to me, but if I had I am certain that Owen would have seen that I was not telling the truth. "My father," I tried to explain, "never talks about anything he has done. If your father had saved his life I should have heard of it a hundred times."
"You have the knack of saying the right thing, I shall never get that if I live to be a hundred;" and then he stood up, and putting a hand on the mantel-piece looked at the photographs of my people, but he did not say what he thought about them.
"If I did say the right thing, it was a most fearful fluke," I said, for I could not be silent. "I simply hate men who walk about patting themselves on the back because they have had what they call success with a remark."
He did not listen to what I was saying, but stood staring into the fire; at last he turned round and held out a hand to me.
"I must thank you," he began; "and there is one other thing I have got to ask you before I say good-bye. My father asked me to make you promise that you would never mention what I have told you about his life being saved by your father, or anything about him. It seems to be a sort of compact, I don't understand it. He doesn't want your people to know anything about me, but only you."
I promised, of course, but I felt rather bothered.
"We may meet some day in the street," he said, and he pushed his hand into mine; but I let it go, and told him to sit down again. For this last speech of his was annoying, he had evidently got a wrong idea of me.
"It is no use talking rot," I said. "To begin with, what on earth have you got to thank me for?"
"If Colonel Marten hadn't saved my father's life, I should never have been born," he said.
"And you have come to thank me for that?" I said, and I did not mean to be rude.
"I was told to, you see," he answered.
I looked at him and we both laughed, though I went on laughing long after he had stopped. The idea of me being thanked for anybody's existence was beautifully comic.
"It is very good of you to have come," I said, as soon as I could; "but I don't deserve any thanks and you know that I don't."
"You haven't got much to do with it, perhaps, but you were here and I should never have been forgiven if I hadn't come to see you. I shan't come again."
"Oh, bosh," I replied. "What's the good of talking stuff like that? Of course you will come again, and I am coming to see you, if I may. How long have you been up here?"
"This is the beginning of my third year."
"What did you get in Mods?" I asked, for I felt sure that he had done well.
"A First," he answered.
"I wish I had. Where do you live?"
"I shan't tell you."
"You may just as well, for I shall easily find out."
He stood up again, and talked as he strode up and down my room.
"I have been here two years," he began, "and I know that it is impossible for us to be friends; and when you have thought it over you will think as I do. My father teaches fencing and boxing in London; I was educated at a school you never heard of; I am helped here by an old gentleman who discovered that I was more or less intelligent. He has a mania for experiments, and I am his latest hobby. Have I said enough to put you off, or must I go on?"
"I suppose I can please myself when I choose my friends," I said.
"That you most certainly can't do here," he answered. "Let me alone and I won't bother you any more. Good-night, your bell is going for dinner."
He walked straight out of my room, and before he had closed the door Jack Ward rushed in.
"Who is that man?" he asked at once.
"I am not going to tell you," I answered, for I wanted time to think.
"Well he is a funny-looking Johnny anyway, looks as pale as a codfish and as solemn as a boiled owl. You do collect an odd set of friends; there's that man Foster, who seems to be deaf and dumb, and Murray, who gives me the blues whenever I see him, and then this apparition."
"You can just shut up jawing," I answered, as I hunted round for my gown; "when I want you to criticize my friends I will tell you. Foster's worth about ten billion of you any day."
I was very angry, but Ward only laughed and told me to hurry up unless I wanted the soup to be cold.
"We are going to have a little roulette in my rooms to-night," he said, as we walked across the quad. "Will you come?"
"No, I won't," I answered, and I let him go into the hall first, and as soon as he had chosen his seat I got as far from him as I could. I saw him talking to Collier, and they seemed to be amused, which did not lessen my annoyance. If the freshers' wine had been held on that evening, I am very nearly sure that I should not have gone to it.
After dinner I waylaid Murray, and dragged him off to see Foster at Oriel. Two days before Foster had been playing rugger for the 'Varsity against the London Scottish, and I had neither seen the game, because I had to play in a college match on the same afternoon, nor had I seen him since. I wanted to hear whether he was satisfied with himself, but I wanted also to tell him about Owen.
We found him in the college lodge talking to a whole lot of men, but as soon as he saw us he grabbed one man and took us to his rooms. I did not want this fourth fellow, but since he was there I must say that Foster could not have got any one nicer. His name was Henderson, and he had been so successful as captain of his school cricket XI. that he had played three times for Somersetshire during August. His legs and arms were extraordinarily long and his face was covered with freckles; one freckle had placed itself on the tip of his nose and I did not get accustomed to it for a long time—it was the sort of thing which one kept on looking at to see if it was still there. He would not talk about his cricket, except to say that he should not have played for Somersetshire if half the regular team had not been laid up, and he kept on clamouring to play whist, so that at last we gave way to him.
I had a good opinion of my whist, though how I arrived at it I cannot explain. Henderson was my partner and he seemed to me to do the most odd things. For instance when I led a spade and he took the trick, instead of leading another spade he would begin some fresh suit, which made me wonder what in the world he was doing. And he did not seem to think his trumps half as valuable as I thought mine, but just led them whenever he felt inclined. When Nina, Foster and I played whist it was considered pretty bad form to lead trumps when we had anything else to lead, and we kept them for a big outburst at the finish. I pitied myself considerably for having Henderson as a partner, and I was very surprised to see Murray doing the same odd sort of things. So at the end of one rubber Foster and I played together, but I cannot say that we had much luck, and just at the end I made a revoke which Murray was brute enough to notice. When Henderson had gone I said that he seemed to be a rare good sort, but it was a pity he did not know a little more about whist. I hoped Murray would take that remark partly to himself, because at the end of every hand he had talked to Henderson about what might have happened if he had led a different card, and sometimes he even went on jawing when he had got his fresh hand, which quite put me off my game. But all Murray did was to laugh, while Foster said to me that he was afraid our way of playing whist was all wrong, and I had some difficulty in persuading him that it was not. Then Murray said something about reading Cavendish carefully, but I had heard some one say that Cavendish was out of date, so I borrowed this man's opinion and expressed it as my own, which amused Murray so much that if I had not been sorry for him I believe I should have lost my temper.
At last, however, we stopped discussing whist, and after I had made Foster and Murray swear they would tell no one else, I gave them an account of Owen coming to see me. Before I began Foster declared that the reason I bound them to keep my secret was because I wanted to tell it to every one myself. In fact he expected the whole thing to be some miserable little affair, for I had a habit, which I have since abandoned, of extracting the most terrific promises of secrecy from my friends and then telling them something which they did not think as important as I did. I started that game because I had once told something really funny to a lot of fellows at Cliborough, and they went and spread it about so quickly that I could never find any one else who did not know it, which was simply nothing less than a fraud.
But as soon as I had got fairly into my tale I saw that both Foster and Murray were interested, and at the end of it I asked them what I was to do.
"Do you think he meant that he wouldn't have anything more to do with you, or that he just wanted to show you that he would leave you to decide what was to happen next?" Murray asked.
"I don't know what he meant," I answered. "He seemed to be in a rage with the whole of Oxford, only it was not a noisy sort of rage but a kind of smouldering business, and perhaps I only imagined the whole thing."
"What was he like to look at?" Foster inquired.
"Pale and dark, and he looked unwell without looking unwholesome," I replied.
"I saw him," Murray said, "and I thought he would have been rather nice if he hadn't been so nervous. He has got great big eyes and about half an acre of forehead."
"He wore a flannel shirt and a turned-down collar, and looked clean," I told Foster, for I thought he had better know everything.
"Ask him to lunch and Murray and me to meet him," Foster suggested.
"I can't ask a senior man to lunch, it would show that I thought it didn't make any difference in his case, and I think he would be on the look-out for things like that. Besides, he wouldn't come."
"I should leave him alone," Murray said.
"I shan't do that, it would make me feel a brute," I replied.
"Find out where he lives and I will come with you and see him. I know your father, so it will be all right," Foster proposed.
"He has called on me, so he can't mind me going to see him, and I should like to take you with me. I'll let you know as soon as I have found out where his rooms are;" and then, as it was getting late, Foster came down with us to the lodge, and I was half out of the door before I remembered to ask him about his footer.
"I am playing against Cooper's Hill on Wednesday," he said; "but I shall be kicked out if I don't play any better than I did on Saturday."
As we walked up King Edward Street Murray did nothing but talk about Foster, and since I was always delighted whenever I could get any one on that subject I did not look half carefully enough where I was going. Murray was in cap and gown, but I was not wearing what is sometimes magnificently called "academical attire," but had on a cloth cap. It had never occurred to me that we were likely to meet the "proggins," but as I turned into The High we ran full tilt into him, and before I had time to think of running, a "bulldog" had told me that the proctor would like to speak to me. There was no way out of it, so I turned to gratify this unforeseen gentleman and found that he was my tutor, Mr. Edwardes. He did not trouble to go through the usual formula of asking me whether I belonged to the University and all the rest of it, but told me to call upon him the next morning. He spoke so quickly that I could not hear what time he told me to come, but I supposed any time would do.
"Did you know that Edwardes was a proctor?" I asked Murray, as soon as we could go on.
"Some one told me he was; he is a junior proctor, I think."
"And a vile nuisance," I added. "He will be more down on me than ever now."
"There is no harm in walking about without cap and gown," Murray said.
"I'll bet Edwardes thinks there is," I answered, and as I was feeling furious at being caught so simply, I gave a tremendous hammer upon the door of St. Cuthbert's, and when I wished the porter good-night he glared at me and did not answer.