CHAPTER VI
JACK WARD AND DENNISON
The morning following the wine was no morning for me. Of course I awoke with a headache, but that was nothing in comparison with a general feeling that the day was not likely to be a peaceful one. I lay awake and thought over matters as well as I could until Clarkson came in to put my bath. Then I pretended to be asleep, but out of the corner of my eye I saw him looking at me and I conceived a great dislike for him. He seemed to think I was a curiosity of some kind. He tidied my room, and having finished he asked if I should be taking breakfast. I sat up in bed and inquired why he supposed I did not want breakfast, and my question, I flatter myself, surprised him considerably. I told him to get me twice as much breakfast as usual and to be quick, but while I was dressing I wondered how I should eat it, so I went into Murray's room and persuaded him to breakfast with me. Murray had already begun to eat, but when I explained to him that this was a little matter between Clarkson and myself, and that it would not do for me to be scored off, he agreed to come. Clarkson, however, was a difficult man to defeat; he provided enough breakfast for four men, and though I bustled him as much as I could and was very dictatorial, I could see that he was quietly amused. Murray ate for all he was worth, but the amount of food which Clarkson carried away for his hungry family was evidence enough to prove who had won the battle.
Conversation did not play any conspicuous part in that meal, but I told Murray that if everybody at the wine had been as sensible as Ward we should have got through without any row. "My opinion of Ward has changed," I said more than once, for Murray was not inclined to give him any credit and he certainly deserved some.
At ten o'clock I went to a lecture, and when I returned I found a note from the Sub-Warden asking me to call upon him at noon. It was precisely what I expected, but the prospects of another row depressed me. The morning was dark and rainy, and my room was so dismal that I stood on the ledge outside my window and leant against the parapet. It was neither a comfortable nor a very safe position, but it suited my mood. I looked down on the back quadrangle below me and watched for something interesting to happen. I had not been up long enough to know that my wish was not likely to be gratified, nothing exciting ever does happen in Oxford during the morning, or if it does I was always unfortunate enough to miss it.
A man in a scholar's gown hurried across the quadrangle, rushed up a staircase, and came back with a note-book in his hand. The Warden came out of his house and stood upon his doorstep as if he was trying to remember what he wanted to do. Then he turned round and went into the house again. Miss Davenport, the Warden's sister, a lady who was reported to be talkative and in love, came out and observed the weather. Two minutes afterwards she appeared in a mackintosh, which was thoroughly business-like. She was most obviously bent on shopping. Two men, regardless of the rain, strolled out of the front quadrangle and shouted for Dennison, who did not come to his window. I told them that he was probably in bed, and they answered that I should fall over if I did not look out. It was all most painfully dull, and I was just going in when the Subby appeared and went into the Warden's house. I could guess the reason for that visit, and waited to see no more. I sat down by the fire and tried to think out what I should say to the Subby, and what he would say to me. I did not know much about him except that his name was Webster, and that he was a great authority on Etruscan pottery, facts which did not help me much. He also had one of the finest stamp collections in the world, but I had never collected anything for more than a week at a time. I felt that he was a difficult man to gauge, because he had never been what I considered a sportsman. His appearance at any rate was not imposing, and I was depressed enough to feel thankful for very small mercies. If dons only remembered what men feel like after their first wine, they would scarcely be hard-hearted enough to inflict further penalties upon them. But it was the vocation of the Subby to keep order in the college, and some one had told me that rowdy men were his pet abomination. He regarded St. Cuthbert's as the intellectual centre of Oxford, and Oxford as the intellectual centre of the world. No wonder the poor man looked serious and seldom smiled, for he must have had a lot to think about. He covered up his eyes with enormous spectacles, and the lower part of his face with a straggling moustache and beard, you got neither satisfaction nor information from looking at him.
It was nearly twelve o'clock before I saw any of the men who had been at the wine, and then Ward and Collier came into my rooms. I was still sitting by the fire, and Ward, who would have gibed at my gloom under ordinary conditions, simply told me that I didn't look very cheerful, and sat down on the edge of the table, which tilted up and nearly placed him on the floor. Collier threw himself into the nearest chair, and pulling a pipe out of his pocket, carefully rubbed the bowl of it, but showed no anxiety to smoke, and considering that I felt as if I should never smoke again, I was not surprised.
"I should like to flay Lambert, Webb, and Dennison alive," Collier said quite solemnly.
"I've got to go to the Subby in ten minutes," I said, and Collier's face brightened.
"I didn't think you would have to go," Ward remarked; "what an infernal nuisance, and why has he sent for you?"
"I tried to rescue the stupid man from Lambert and Webb, and got entangled in his blessed arm. He was as sick as blazes, and I shall hear more stuff about being an exhibitioner," I answered.
"The man's a fool," Collier said, "but the biggest ass in the place is Dennison. He knew the Subby was out to dinner, and wouldn't be back till goodness knows when, but he must go on and kick up a row on that piano after he knew the Subby was in his rooms. And the beauty of it is that Dennison hasn't been sent for. I call it a confounded shame. We have just been round to see him, and the brute is still in bed as fit as anything, and thinks it the best joke he has heard for ages. He wouldn't see much humour in it if he went and smelt my rooms."
"Who has been sent for?" I asked.
"You, Collier, Lambert, and Webb," Ward replied.
"Not you?"
"I have seen the Subby already. I met him in the quad and asked if I might speak to him."
"Was he furious?" I inquired.
"I tried to explain things to him; he was not altogether furious, but stuck on a sort of injured dignity business which was rather funny."
"It isn't likely a man would want to be danced down-stairs by Lambert and Webb," Collier said; "I wonder they didn't break his neck, and it would have been a thundering good job if they had smashed themselves."
I got up and seized my gown, leaving Collier to continue his wishes for the destruction of Lambert and Webb if he felt inclined. At any other time they would have amused me, for Collier was generally difficult to move in any way, and he was quite funny when his indignation could be roused.
I am not going to describe my interview with the Subby at any length. He listened patiently to what I had to say, but if a man came to me and said that he had caught hold of me by accident I confess that I should think it a poor sort of story. I could not tell him that I was trying to save him from Lambert and Webb, because that would have been contrary to what I should have expected them to say about me, if the positions had been reversed. The Subby ought to have guessed it for himself and rewarded me, but he had been so hustled that it was perhaps too much to expect him to guess anything. My reputation for work seemed to have been of the worst. There was no denying that the Subby and I had been entangled, and it was no use for me to say that it was his fault. I spoke of it as a very unfortunate occurrence, and I assured him most warmly that it should not happen again. Assurances of that kind do not, I should say, count for much. He was so occupied by the importance of what had passed, that I could not make him see that the future was also important. And I did try hard to point this out to him, I regretted much, I promised more, and I meant everything I said most honestly. I had never been so penitent before, but I must at the same time admit that I had never previously felt quite so unwell.
Perhaps my protestations had some effect, for my sentence was that I should be gated for three weeks, and I received also what must, when translated into simple English, have been a warning that unless I changed the errors of my ways my exhibition would be taken away from me. The Subby jawed badly, he was not to be compared with Mr. Edwardes, and he hesitated and coughed, until once or twice I was almost inclined to help him out, for I knew what he was going to say and he fidgeted me. I was, however, in too great a hole to risk much, so as soon as he began I remained silent and hoped steadily that he would either end soon or be interrupted. He did not know how to begin or when to finish, and if Collier had not knocked at the door and come into the room, it seemed to me that nothing but the pangs of hunger would have warned him that he had said enough.
I have never seen a more welcome arrival than Collier's, because I had really been with the Subby a very long time, and to stand with an attentive expression for ten minutes at a stretch and listen to the usual remarks is in its way quite a feat. I found Ward waiting for me in the front quad, and he asked at once what had happened to me.
"Gated for three weeks," I answered; "I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky, he might have sent me down."
"It knocks all your fun on the head," he said, "being in by nine o'clock every night is average rot."
"It won't matter to me, I am going to settle down and read for a first in Mods," and I turned into the common room and picked up The Sportsman. There were no other men in the room, and Ward stood in front of the fire and kept looking at me as if he wanted to say something and could not manage to begin. I read the names of the 'Varsity XV. chosen to play that afternoon against Richmond, and saw that Foster was still among them.
"Fred Foster's going to get his blue," I said.
"Who the deuce wants to get a blue?" Ward replied.
"Well, it's better than getting into rows, anyway," I retorted.
"You seem to have taken this thing very quietly," he said, "don't you see that your being dropped on is a most wretched swindle. Lambert and Webb are only gated for three weeks."
"It doesn't make a tuppenny-ha'penny bit of difference to me what has happened to them. If they had been gated for two years it wouldn't give me any satisfaction."
"But they had been mixing all kinds of drink."
"And the Subby thinks I had," I said.
"But you hadn't."
"No, but that doesn't make any difference. The Subby may be a fair ass, but I caught hold of him, and I must be a bigger fool than he is. It's the last time I ever try to rescue a don."
Two senior men, Bagshaw and Crane came into the room and overheard my last remark, so I had to tell them the whole thing over again. Both of them laughed tremendously, but Crane, who was captain of the college cricket eleven, and President of the Mohocks, which was the inappropriate name of the St. Cuthbert's wine club, seemed to be more amused at the solemn way I told the story, while Bagshaw said he would have given anything to have seen the Subby rushing down-stairs. They laughed loudly, and as soon as I could escape I went back to my rooms, leaving Jack Ward to talk to them.
For once I wanted to be by myself, but there was no shaking off Ward that morning, and he turned up again in about ten minutes and said that he had told his scout to bring his lunch round to my rooms. I had struggled nobly with breakfast, but I hated the suggestion of more food and told him he had better go and eat somewhere else. My head ached abominably, and I wanted to sit by the fire and go to sleep. Ward, however, decided that I wanted cheering up, though how he was likely to enliven me by eating when I had no appetite he did not tell me. As a matter of fact cheering me up was only an excuse, what he really wanted to do was to give me the explanation which he thought I must be expecting. If he had known me better he would not have expected me to wait for anything, had I imagined any explanation was necessary I should have asked him for it at once. But I was not taking any interest in explanations, my mouth felt like a cinder, and when some man had met me in the quad and told me I looked "precious cheap," which is an expression I detest, I had not the energy to retaliate.
Ward, having eaten his luncheon and gulped down a most horrible quantity of beer, lit a cigarette, and sat down by the fire.
"You must think me a most awful brute for having got out of this row," he began. I told him that if he felt as I did, he would think everybody in the world was a brute.
"Well, you see," he went on, "I got the thing up and the Subby didn't send for me."
"It was Dennison's fault," I said, for I saw no good in dividing the blame, "and if a man can't take his luck in these things he is no use to anybody. My luck's always vile, but that doesn't matter to any one except me, and I am used to it."
He took no notice of what I said, and continued, "So I told the Subby it was my fault, but when I saw him I thought only Collier, Webb and Lambert had been nailed."
I roused myself and looked at Ward, who was staring into the fire.
"You are a fool," I stated, but I didn't mean it.
"I had to do it or I should have felt awful," he said, and then he jumped up and banged round the room, tossing things about and failing to catch them.
He stood in a new light, and it took me some time to digest what he had told me. Of all the men I had met since coming to Oxford I should have said that Jack Ward was the one who would watch his own interests most closely, and he had upset all my opinions by walking into a quite unnecessary row.
"Why did you do it?" I asked him, and I added, "it isn't as if you could do anybody else any good," for it is at first very perplexing to find a man doing exactly the reverse of what you expect.
"I have told you why I did it, I should have felt so confoundedly mean if I hadn't. But while I was with the Subby I wish I had known that he had nailed you as well, because I might have told him that you hate drinking. A don seems to me to have the fixed idea that freshers naturally drink too much, at least that was the impression the Subby gave me."
"What happened to you?"
"I'm gated for a fortnight, and he talked a lot of tommy-rot."
"Well, I think it is most frightfully decent of you," I said.
"Oh, shut up," Ward answered, "I can't stand that. I have never done anything of the kind before and shan't again. I simply couldn't have faced you men if I hadn't owned up, and that ends it."
At that moment Dennison walked in wearing an enormous overcoat and a Wellingham scarf round his neck, he looked as beautifully pink as ever, and I hated the sight of him.
"This is such a blighted day that I am going to watch a footer match," he said, "it amuses me to see thirty people tumbling about in the mud, and we can go and play pool at Wright's when we have had enough, if you will come."
I did not intend to tell Dennison that I was ill, so I said I would go if Ward would come with us, and as soon as we got into the Broad and the rain fairly beat upon us, I began to feel much better and more capable of being disagreeable to Dennison. I was in the state of mind which makes one anxious to be unpleasant, the sort of mood in which horrid people abuse servants or try to kick animals, and I was glad to have Dennison, who deserved every rudeness imaginable, at my disposal. But the worst of feeling so thoroughly disagreeable is that you are ashamed of yourself so quickly. I am either violently angry or not angry at all, and it is the people who are good at sulks and call them dignity who get their own way in this world. I once tried to be dignified at home, and I am not inclined to repeat the experiment; my father told me not to be a fool, my sister walked about as if wrestling with suppressed laughter, and my mother offered me various medicines. Rudeness is my rôle, its intention is not so easily mistaken.
So I hung on to Dennison very earnestly, and though Ward did all he knew to keep the peace, I had managed before we reached the Parks, to convince both of them that our walk was a mistake.
We went to the far end of the ground where very few spectators were standing, for an Oxford crowd always collect behind the goal of the visiting side, hoping magnificently that by those means they will see most of the game. It is very noble of them, but they are sometimes disappointed, and this happened to be one of the days on which those who were behind the 'Varsity goal-posts saw a good deal more than they wanted. For the day was made for the Richmond XV., who were big, bulky men, very heavy in the scrimmage, and the three-quarter backs on both sides spent most of their time trying to keep warm. Dennison said he was bored to death, and I told him Richmond never were any good outside the scrum and were playing a jolly good game. He answered that he was not a Football Encyclopaedia, and I assured him that he never could be anything half so useful. We kept up this kind of conversation for some time, while Ward stamped his feet and asked us to stop.
"How long have you been gated for?" I asked Dennison suddenly, springing the question upon him as had been the habit of one master at Cliborough when he was going to ask me something very embarrassing. Ward hit me in the ribs with his elbow, and Dennison pretended not to hear, so I moved a little further from Ward and repeated my question. "The Subby didn't send for me," he replied; "I wasn't caught and I made no row to speak of."
"Oh well, if you like to get out of the whole thing it has nothing to do with me," I said, and the thought suddenly struck me that if I really goaded Dennison into giving up his name I should feel a brute for the rest of my existence. What I wanted to do was to prove that Ward was worth about ten of him, but it is very uphill work trying to convince a man that he is only a fraction of the fellow he thinks himself, I have often seen people going sorrowfully away from tasks of that kind.
"There is no question of getting out of it," Dennison said quite calmly, "because I have never been in it."
"No question at all," Ward put in.
"At any rate you arranged it," I retorted.
"And the very deuce of a job it was," he replied.
"Of course it was," Ward said, and though I imagined I was out of elbow-shot I got another blow which did nothing to improve my temper.
"It's like this," I began, "Ward went to the Subby and said——" But Ward burst in with, "By Jove, that is about the tenth time that man Foster has fallen on the ball, and now I believe he's hurt."
For quite two minutes Fred lay on the ground, and I forgot all about Dennison and the exasperating mood I was in. At last he got up and moved about in a dazed condition, while some people clapped and others, more enthusiastic than anxious, began to shout, "Now then, 'Varsity." The game went on again, but my desire to be nasty had vanished, and I found that I had moved away from Ward and Dennison. When I returned to them I found that my interrupted remark had created a greater disturbance than I had expected. Dennison was fuming like anything, and so far was he from thinking that Ward and I had a grievance against him that he was treating himself as a thoroughly injured man.
"It is a pretty low down game," he was saying to Ward, when I came back, "for you to go and give your name up to the Subby and tell me nothing about it. What do you think everybody will be saying about me? Marten has been talking to me as if I was a pick-pocket, while you were standing there and thinking yourself a sort of tin hero. If you want to know what I think you are, my opinion is that you're a confounded fool, but since you have done this I must go and see the Subby when I get back to college."
This is only an expurgated copy of what Dennison said, as a matter of fact he called Ward and me much worse names than a pick-pocket, and qualified them with adjectives too violent to be recorded.
I looked blankly at Ward, who had his head down and looked thoroughly ashamed of himself.
"It is one of the few times in my life," he said, "when I have tried to do the right thing, and it seems to have been all wrong."
There was only one line to take, and I started on it at once. "That's rot," I began, "because you suggested the whole thing, and if you felt like owning up to it no one else has any right to swear at you. Dennison is altogether different, and if he goes to the Subby everybody else will have to go. We are like a lot of school-boys."
I thought my last remark a sound one, for Dennison pretended to despise boys, because he said they always got up so late for morning school that they had not time to wash properly. There was always a faint smell of scent about Dennison, which did not make me take much notice of his opinion about school-boys.
I cannot even now tell whether he was really angry or whether he was just pretending a rage to put us into a hole. I did find out afterwards that he knew all the time that Ward had given up his name, so if he pretended one thing I do not see why he should not have pretended another. But the result was the same whether he was shamming or not. Ward and I implored him not to go to the Subby, for quite ten minutes during that damp and shivery afternoon we besought him to leave things as they were. And at last with great reluctance he gave way, and to please us he said that he would forgive Ward for having done rather a mean thing, and he pardoned me for having been so rude. Of course we were most properly taken in, but that was the fate of most men who had much to do with Dennison, and I was so glad to be at peace once more that it did not occur to me then that Ward and I were two colossal idiots.
I went round to see Foster after the match, but found that he was going to dine early with the Richmond team, so he did not tell me anything except that he had got a splitting headache. Each time I had been to see him for the last fortnight he had either been out, just going out, or had a room full of men with him. Whenever he had come to see me the same kind of things had happened, so we had not managed to have one respectable talk together. I determined that this was most unsatisfactory, so after dinner I wrote him a note, asking him to go for a walk with me on the following day, and then I went to see Jack Ward. My opinion of him had been changing all day, and as I went to his room I felt that whatever Foster and Murray said about him, he was at bottom a splendid sort. Roulette was going on in his rooms, and the usual crowd were playing. Ward was banker, and he did not even ask me to play, but roulette is a very difficult game to watch without playing, and after black had come up six times consecutively, I thought it must be red's turn. It was not, however, and five times I lost my money; then I had sense enough to stop for a bit until the numbers began to fascinate me, and I picked nineteen, being my age. A lot of people may say I was old enough to know better, but it is so easy to make remarks of that kind, and until they find something a little less stale, they will never do any good. I stood by the table at first, and then sat down and made up my mind to get my money back. I tried everything in turn, but luck was dead against me, and Ward once or twice said he wished I would win something. In the end I lost nearly six pounds, and went back to my rooms a sorrowful man. Before I went into my bedder I looked at my cheque-book, and it gave me no satisfaction. I had borrowed four pounds from Ward, and I wrote him a cheque for the amount, and laying it on the table beside me, I sat thinking. My door was wide open, and I must have been nearly asleep, for I did not see any one come into my room, and a hand falling on my shoulder surprised me. I looked up and saw Ward standing by my side.
"Sorry to wake you up," he said, "but I felt like coming to see you." He saw the cheque made out to him, and taking it from the table he tore it into bits.
"You have wasted a penny," I said, for I could not help guessing what he meant.
"I don't want to take your money," he replied, "and for heaven's sake don't make me."
He was most desperately in earnest, but the mere fact that I should have taken his without a thought of returning it, settled the little argument which followed.
"I can't help gambling," he said, "but I wish to goodness you wouldn't."
"But only a few days ago you sneered at me for not backing a horse," I retorted, for though it was very good of him, I felt he was treating me like an infant.
"I never asked you to," he said, "and I should like to have one friend who doesn't bet or play cards or anything."
"There's Collier," I suggested.
"He is different," Ward answered, and I suppose I wanted him to say something like that.
We talked for an hour, at least Ward talked and I listened, but during the years to come I always remembered what he said about himself on that night.