CHAPTER XVI
THE SCHEMES OF DENNISON
My life for several days after Nina went away was just what I expected it would be. Everybody I knew wanted to be told about the accident, and congratulated me on her narrow escape. I was gloriously rude to several men, but nothing I could do was really any good. The first man at whom I let myself go was Dennison, and in this I made a very great mistake, because in letting him know that I was sick of the whole business I gave him a chance which he did not miss. He went round finding men who had not seen me, and persuaded them to come to me and say how sorry they had been to hear of the accident, and how glad they were that Jack Ward had saved Nina, and a lot of other desperate twaddle. Finally, Dennison having worked this joke most diligently, decided that a dinner must be given in Jack's honour, and when he met me in the quad on Sunday and told me about it I refused flatly to go.
"Of course you will come," he said, "it would be a disgrace to the college if we didn't do something to celebrate Ward's pluck and your sister's escape."
"It is a disgrace to the college to make a wretched fuss about nothing," I replied.
"You are the only man who thinks that. Next Thursday night, half-past seven, at the Sceptre," he said, and walked off.
Ward and I had been avoiding each other ever since the Wednesday night, when he having first of all been to Brasenose because they were Head of the River and lively, came to see me afterwards and talked very stupidly. I was in bed, and he woke me up to talk to me for over half-an-hour about love. Any one would have been angry, and though I tried to be polite, because he had jumped into the Cher, I told him to go away several times before he went. I had never thought it possible that I could have so much trouble about Nina. I suppose he knew that he had made an idiot of himself that evening, for if there is any time when it is decent to wake a man up and talk to him about wonderful subjects, I am sure it can never be after a huge celebration at Brasenose. I didn't know much about love, but I thought that there must be the wrong and the right kind, and that Jack had made a bad start.
So we kept out of each other's way as much as possible, and I did not know that he hated the idea of this dinner even more than I did. We might together have done something to stop it, but we had no chance unless we combined. I thought Jack wanted to be fêted, and in consequence I felt absolutely savage with him, while he told me afterwards that he was simply dragged into the thing by Dennison. However, I am not altogether sorry that the dinner took place, for though neither Jack nor I were anything like wily enough to score off Dennison, we got some rare fun out of him before that evening finished.
Collier, Lambert and Learoyd all came to tell me that I must go to the dinner before I could be persuaded to have anything to do with it, and it was really comical to hear why each of them was so keen on the affair. Collier gloried openly in the fact that it would be a huge feed, and said he was glad Dennison had engaged Rodoski to play the fiddle because music gave him a better appetite, and he advised me strongly not to miss such a good chance of enjoying myself, and thought me mad to hesitate. Lambert said that Dennison had asked him to propose Ward's health, and that he hoped his speech—though quite unprepared—would not be unworthy of the evening. "The dinner itself will be nothing, just like any other kind of dinner, but don't you miss it," he concluded, and I felt sure that he had already got his speech in his pocket. Learoyd begged me not to stay away from a jolly good rag. "If we can't row, we can rag," he said, and when I told him that I was sick to death of ragging, he took such a serious view of my case that I promised that I would go so that I could get rid of him.
There were about fourteen men at the dinner-party, including Ward, Dennison, Lambert, Learoyd, Collier, Webb, and Bunny Langham, and since Dennison had taken a free hand in arranging everything, it was a tremendous affair. I never doubted that his idea was to make Ward and me look as foolish as possible, for he was the kind of man who was never really contented unless he was trying to make some one feel uncomfortable. The whole thing, I knew, was an elaborate joke at our expense, but I was not going to starve because Nina had fallen into the "Cher" and Jack had pulled her out, so I set to work to enjoy myself, though I had to sit next to Dennison. In fact, having once got to the Sceptre, I think I made more row than any one at dinner, and this must have disappointed Dennison, who started by saying those half sweet and half bitter things to me, which I never know how to answer, but which make me long to put the man who says them under the table. So I talked and shouted loud enough to drown Dennison's remarks, for it would never have done to put him out of sight during the dinner. I suppose that being unable to get any fun out of me, and having Collier, who did not like to speak much at meals, on the other side of him, he must have found some fresh amusement, for he became very quiet as the evening went on, and there was only one thing which ever made him silent and that was the kind of thing which makes most people talk.
He was, however, capable of asking Lambert to propose the toast of the evening, but nothing would make Lambert stir before some one had proposed the royal toasts, which Dennison had forgotten; and three or four men who did not want any one to talk except themselves shouted, "No speeches," until Bunny Langham got up and surprised every one by making them laugh. He did not stick to his subject very much, but he managed to make everything he said ramble round in an odd sort of way to an apology for Dennison's forgetfulness, and if only he had been sitting on the other side of me I should not have been compelled to shout during the whole of dinner, for I believe he would have been able to help me in answering the gibing remarks which had been made to me. Dennison smiled across the table at Langham, but his smile looked as if it had been glued on to his face, and if I had been in his place I should have thrown something solid, like a pine-apple, at Bunny.
My penance, however, was to come, and when Lambert at last got up to finish off the business of making fools of Jack Ward and me, I thought of pretending that my nose had begun to bleed and of hurrying out of the room, only it seemed to be rather a weak thing to do. So I just sat there and imagined that everybody was looking at me, which made me feel most uncomfortably hot. Lambert admitted afterwards that he was in his very best form that evening, and I think he must have been, for I never heard anybody talk such a lot of nonsense in all my life. I looked at Jack Ward once, and he was evidently having a very bad time, but every one else except Collier, who was sleepy, seemed to think that Lambert was amusing. He referred to Jack in a patronizing way as "our young hero," and said that my mind had been so completely upset by this brave deed that for some days I had been a cause of considerable anxiety to my friends. When he made that remark I took a very ripe pear from a dish in front of me, but Learoyd persuaded me not to throw it. I couldn't have missed Lambert, and I think he deserved to be mobbed, but he saw what was happening and I think it made him forget some of the things he was going to say about me. At the end of his speech he actually began to recite a piece of poetry of his own, though the first line was about the brave deserving the fair and sounded like somebody else's, which was a way his poems had. He had arranged for slow music to be turned on while he did this, and there was such a general feeling against the combination that he had to sit down before he had finished. Bunny Langham, who was a member of the Horace Club, and disliked any poems made in Oxford except those which he wrote himself, led the hubbub, and after we had drunk Jack's health there was such a noise that he escaped having to reply. When any one shouted for him, as they did fitfully for some time, their voices were always drowned in the general cheerfulness of the evening, and he finally came round from the other side of the table and sat down by me.
"You have been making a most awful row," he said.
"Self-defence," I answered, "I didn't want to hear anything which Dennison said."
"A most rotten evening, the proggins will come in a few minutes if he is within shouting distance. They have been trying to get us out for the last quarter of an hour."
"Several men seem to have gone already."
We talked for some minutes, and then a waiter came in and said the proctor was coming down "The High," so we all bolted as hard as we could. Instead of turning down the Turl, I saw Dennison run down the High, with Lambert pursuing him and telling him to stop. But Dennison had been careful during the last part of the evening, and had arrived at the state when any one shouting at him made him run all the faster, while Lambert, excited by oratory and the after-effects of it, declared very loudly that he would catch Dennison if he had to run a mile.
"Dennison thinks that the proggins and all his bulldogs are after him," Bunny Langham said; "the whole thing was only a trick to get us out before anything happened."
"They can catch me if they like," Ward replied, "I can't run to-night."
So the three of us walked back to St. Cuthbert's, and Bunny complained bitterly that he could not come in and wait until Lambert and Dennison turned up. The first man to come into college after us was Collier, who said he had been dodging round the Radcliffe for a quarter of an hour, and soon afterwards Learoyd and Webb strolled in and pretended that they had been sitting under the table in the Sceptre, but they looked exceedingly warm. We all went to Ward's rooms, which were a kind of club for any men he knew and very often used when he was not even in them, to wait for Dennison and Lambert; but we had to stay until nearly twelve o'clock before either of them came, and then there was a tremendous thumping on the door, and Dennison, in a most exhausted condition, tottered in and nearly collapsed in the porter's arms.
It was some time before he had breath enough to walk across to Ward's rooms, but when we had got him settled in an arm-chair he began to feel better.
"At any rate I did the brute," he said, "that bulldog will remember me for the rest of his life."
I should have given the whole thing away by laughing if I had said anything, and I moved to the window so that I could put my head outside if I really had to laugh, while Collier, who had been scored off by Dennison very often, began to ask him questions. He had not to ask many, because when Dennison once began to talk, he told us everything without needing much encouragement.
"That big bull-dog has had his eye on me for ages," he said, "ever since I dodged him one night last term in the Corn, and I know that he has been saying that he would catch me some day." He stopped for a minute, being still rather breathless, and Collier asked him where he had been. "Directly I went out of the Sceptre he started off after me, and I made up my mind I would give him the deuce of a time before I had done with him, so I ran like blazes down the High, and when I turned round by Magdalen to see if he was coming I saw the brute in the distance. So off I went again, and when we got to the running-ground I heard him panting and swearing and shouting a hundred yards away. I let him get a bit closer and then went on towards Iffley; but I got a most horrible stitch, so I went as hard as I could for a bit, and then climbed over a gate and sat down under a hedge. I waited until he had gone past, and then came back to college. It is the easiest thing in the world to score off a bull-dog, they are simply the stupidest men in the world."
"He must have got a long way past Iffley by now," Collier said.
"I don't care where he is, but I shall have to look out that he doesn't get level with me," Dennison replied.
"You will always have to wear a cap and gown now," Learoyd remarked.
But Dennison took no notice of this advice.
"Where's Lambert?" he asked; "everybody else seems to be here except him and that fool, Bunny Langham."
"We don't know, he has not come in yet," Collier answered, and at that moment there was a rap at the door, and as soon as Lambert got into the porch I put my head out of the window and told him to come up to Ward's rooms. As he walked across the quad I saw that he had been having a rough time of it, for his clothes did not look as immaculate as usual. He was carrying an overcoat over his arm, and his shirt and collar had given way so badly that the first thing he did when he got into the room was to go to a looking-glass, and see how he could improve the appearance of things. A lot of men asked him where he had been, but he had forgotten that any of us had seen him start after Dennison, and he answered that he had just been for a stroll. "I like to have a walk by myself after a noise," he added; "the heat of that room made me feel absolutely ill."
Then Ward could not restrain himself any longer, and told Dennison that we all knew Lambert had been running after him, and that there had been no proctor and bull-dogs in the High.
"Coming suddenly out of a hot room into the open air always affects me," Lambert said. "I made up my mind I would catch Dennison if I ran until my legs gave way."
"It's all a silly lie," Dennison exclaimed; "I was chased by the big bull-dog; I should have seen that shirt, which was white when you started."
"I had on an overcoat," was Lambert's reply.
"Did you go to Iffley?" Collier asked.
"Iffley? Good heavens, no, I never went any further than Magdalen Bridge."
There was such a shout of laughter that I believe I should have thought anybody else except Dennison had been rotted enough.
"Then I was chased by a bull-dog!" he said emphatically.
"You weren't chased by any one after I stopped, for I sat on the bridge for quite ten minutes, and then I thought I would come home by Long Wall Street, the High being rather exposed at night. I made an unfortunate choice." He shot his cuffs down, but they were terribly limp, and he looked at them with disgust.
"What happened?" Ward asked.
"I met the proggins, and having got my wind I charged right past him. Then I ran round by the Racquet Courts, and finally hid in a garden by Keble. I ought not to have done that, because the bull-dogs know me, and I found them waiting outside when I came in. It is all your fault for running away when I told you to stop," he said to Dennison.
"I expect you were hiding in the garden at the same time Dennison was hiding from you behind a hedge in the Iffley Road," Collier said, and the idea pleased Lambert so much that he took off his tie and went to the looking-glass again. But he soon made up his mind that no tie, however beautifully tied, had a chance with a collar which looked like a piece of moderately white blotting-paper, so he stalked out of the room without wishing any one good-night, though he did wave his tie in Jack Ward's direction as he went, and since it was very late I followed him.
During the rest of the term I hardly saw anything of Fred, as he was playing cricket for the 'Varsity, and whenever I tried to see him I nearly always failed. I did not try much, for I did not see why he wanted to avoid me, and I thought he was treating me very badly. Besides, my people were bothering me a lot during the last few days of the term, and I didn't see any use in telling Fred that my mother wanted Jack Ward to come down to Worcestershire during the summer. As a matter-of-fact I was in an awkward position, for my mother had written to Jack Ward to thank him for pulling Nina out of the "Cher," and to say that she would be very glad if he could come down sometime to stay with us. But I thought Jack Ward would not come unless I asked him myself, and that rotten jumble he talked about love on my bed, and a sort of feeling that Fred would not like him to come kept me from saying anything to him. Jack only told me that my mother had written to him, and I heard from her that she had asked him to stay, so I had some time to think of what I had better do, and the more I thought the more bothered I became.
I had one idea which pleased me for a quarter of an hour; it was that Jack should come while Nina was away, but as soon as I thought of the temper Nina would be in when she found out this little plan I abandoned it quickly. Another idea, which did not please me for so long, was that I should tell Jack that my people simply hated any one who flirted, but that seemed both to be taking a good deal for granted and to be rather hard on Nina; besides, it reminded me unpleasantly of those advertisements for servants which end up, "No followers allowed," and which, I should think, are a great waste of money. In addition to this bother which I manufactured more or less for myself, I had another trouble which did not worry so much because I understood it better. Mrs. Faulkner had told my mother, quite privately, that I was in her opinion doing very little work at Oxford, and my mother was not as disturbed at this as her informant thought she ought to have been. At least I suppose that must have been the reason why Mrs. Faulkner told my father the same tale, and even took the trouble to show him some of the papers which were in that wretched parcel. I could not expect him to approve of all those papers, and I did not dare to tell him that I had not chosen them myself, because he would then have accused me of laziness and extravagance and a whole host of unpleasant things, so I accepted his rebukes with a contrite spirit and wrote and told him, quite truthfully, that I read very serious papers nearly every week. But when you have been fairly caught buying a host of sporting and theatrical literature, it isn't much good trying to persuade your father that it was a fluke. I sent him The Spectator soon afterwards, but he never acknowledged it, and my mother in her next letter drew my attention to the fact that he had subscribed to this review for the last seven years. My luck was very bad just then, I seemed unable to do anything right.
There was only one thing which cheered me up, and it was that Owen had got over the worst part of his illness. But I could not even think of this without being bothered, for when a man is ill you don't mind promising to do anything, and it is only when he is getting better that you begin to realize how much you have promised. It was certain that I must pay the expenses of his illness, and it was equally certain that I should not have enough money to pay my college bills as well; the whole thing made me very pensive.
Murray was in my rooms one night just before the end of the term, and I was talking over my difficulties, for he was always hard-up himself and not likely to offer to lend me anything, when a note was brought in from Fred, and the first thing which fell out of the envelope was a cheque for fifty pounds. I did not know what to think of that, but the note upset me altogether.
"Dear Godfrey," Fred wrote, "you told me some time ago that you were hard up, so I am sending you a cheque in case you want it. My people have just sent me more money than I shall use this year, and you can pay me back when you like. I am afraid I shan't be able to come down to you after the 'Varsity match, as I have promised to go with a reading party to Cornwall for two months. I believe the only thing to do down there is to play golf, which isn't much fun, but Henderson is coming, and we shall try to get some cricket. Please remember me to your people. Yours ever, F. F.
"P.S. I suppose you won't come down to Cornwall; the men are all right, five of them."
Now Fred had spent nearly all his school-holidays with me, and since we had been at Oxford he had been down for both vacs, so for him to write and say calmly that he had made arrangements to go on a wretched reading party and then to ask me in a postscript to join it, made me want to go to Oriel at once and speak to him. But, fortunately, it was nearly eleven o'clock and I could not get out of college, so as Murray had gone back to his room I went along the passage to work off some of my agitation on him. Murray, however, was one of those annoying men who know exactly when they have had enough of anybody, and I found his oak sported. I beat upon it for some time without any result, and having told Murray my opinion of him in a voice loud enough to penetrate almost anything, I went back to my own rooms and sat down to write to Fred. In the course of an hour I wrote and tore up several letters. Some of them I intended to be dignified, some of them were abusive; in some I kept the cheque, but in most of them I sent it back; in one I enclosed it with the words, "you will find the cheque you were good enough to offer me;" that was the first I wrote, for I was quite incapable of even thanking him until the labours of the imposition which I had set myself began to tell upon me.
I had just torn up the seventh letter, and after a desperate struggle whether I should begin the eighth "Dear Fred" or "Dear Foster" had compromised matters by writing "Dear F. F.," when Jade Ward began to yell my name down in the quad, and I went to the window at once and told him to shut up. For the Warden's house was in the back quad, and although I was pleased to think the Warden my friend I knew he always slept with his window open, because he had told me so in a very great outburst of confidence, and I did not want my wretched name to break in upon his night's rest. I had not got so many dons on my side that I could afford to make the Warden angry; besides, I really liked him, and he was always nice to me, though he did tell the Bishop in the Easter vac that, until I lost a certain exuberance of animal spirits, any credit I did to the college would be more physical than intellectual. But I did not bear him any grudge for that, because he could not help using long phrases, and if he had just said that I liked athletics I should have been rather pleased, which was what he really meant, only the Bishop did not think so.
I shoved the fragments of my letters into a drawer, and when Jack Ward came in I said I was going to bed. The sight of him reminded me of Nina, and to think of Nina gave me a headache. I had never imagined it possible that I should find it difficult to manage her, and here she was at the bottom of all my troubles. As I stood in my room and looked at Jack sitting in my most comfortable chair, the reason why Fred had written that note suddenly occurred to me. Of course she was the reason, and leaving Jack to amuse himself I sat down and wrote another note; but when I read it through it seemed as hopeless as the others, so I tore it up, and having no more note-paper I decided to see Fred in the morning. Then I went into my bedroom and began to undress noisily, so that Jack might know what I was doing, but he gave a huge snore just as I was ready to go to bed and I had to throw a cushion at his head.
"Turn the lamp out, when you go," I said, and I got into bed. I left the door partly open, because my room wanted all the air it could get, and I heard him waking up slowly and stretching himself. After that he attacked a soda-water syphon until it gave a protesting gurgle.
"I've found the whisky, but you don't seem to have any soda," he called to me, but I pretended that I was asleep. However, he ransacked my cupboard until he found another syphon, and then he came and sat on my bed. I told him I was very tired, because I had not forgotten the last time he had invaded me in this way, and two doses of talking about love would be a trial to any man.
"I wanted to talk to you, only you were so busy, and then I went to sleep," he began.
"Well, cut it short, it must be nearly one o'clock."
"Your people have asked me to stay with them in the vac, and I want to know what time would suit you best."
He had cut it far too short to suit me, and I asked him not to sit on my foot, which he was not sitting upon, so that I could think for a moment. Then I turned my face to the wall. But I brought myself round pretty quickly, and felt very displeased with Jack. Things were much worse than I thought they were, if he could throw away all decency and simply insist on coming. Had I wanted him I should have asked him.
"I had a letter from Mrs. Marten this morning, asking me to settle the time with you," he said.
"Any time will suit me," I answered, "except that I may go away with a reading party, and I am afraid you will find it most awfully slow."
"I shan't find it slow," he asserted with conviction.
"There's nothing much to do except loll about," I said.
"That will suit me down to the ground," he said, and I turned over once more. It isn't much good talking to a man who confesses that he likes lolling about; but I thought I would make things out as bad as possible.
"We do nothing but slack down there," I said; "there's not much cricket, and we only keep one fat cob, which is a sort of horse-of-all-work."
"Got a river?"
"A sort of glorified brook."
"And a boat?"
I had to say that we had a boat, but I explained that it was very old.
"That's all right," he said most cheerfully, and I believe he would have been pleased if I had told him that we lived in a barn with several holes in the roof.
He was beginning to think it was time for him to go to bed, when I heard somebody else blunder into my sitter, and in a moment Lambert appeared at the door. Now Lambert, who was only gorgeous by day, frequently became aggressive at night, and I told him to clear out jolly quickly. But instead of doing what he was wanted to he lit a huge cigar, and began smoking the thing in my bedder. He also made a number of stupid remarks about my personal appearance, and though I hate getting out of bed when once I am comfortable I really could not put up with the man, for he compared me to several people, ancient and modern, who suffered from various defects. Jack Ward told him several forcible things, but he went on insulting me, and then cackled as if he had made a joke. So at last I hopped out of bed, and he, escaping from my bedder, continued to cackle in the next room; I just stopped to put on a pair of shoes, and then I went after him; he ran down the dark staircase as hard as he could, and I, anxious to give him one kick, for the sake of honour, pursued him. Both of us got safely to the bottom of the stairs, and I fairly raced him across the back quad, but just as we were going into the front one Lambert stopped suddenly and doubled back, while I was running so furiously that I did not turn quickly enough, and before I could follow him I saw another man standing in front of me with a little straggly beard and great big spectacles. We looked at each other, and then I gave up thinking about Lambert and walked back to my rooms; there was a horrid wind, and I shivered in my pyjamas as I went back to my staircase. Lambert seemed to have disappeared altogether, but I met Jack striking matches and groping his way down.
"Did you catch him?" he asked.
"Just like my luck," I answered. "I met the Subby."
"What's he doing at this time of night?"
"That's what he will ask me to-morrow if he recognized me. There wasn't much light."
"He ought to have been in bed."
"I don't believe dons ever go to bed," I replied. "Give me a match, so that I can get up without breaking my neck."
The next morning Lambert came round while I was at breakfast. He was full of apologies and hopes that the Subby had not recognized me.
"He told me that he sleeps so badly, that he often gets up in the middle of the night and takes a walk," he said, without the slightest regard for truth.
"Then there is no reason why I shouldn't take a run if I like," I replied.
"But you were shouting," he said, as if he wished I had not been.
"I'm a somnambulist, only I somnambulate faster than most people."
"I'm afraid that won't wash," he said, and he started striding up and down my room until he found he was always coming to a wall, and then he stopped in front of the looking-glass, and stared earnestly at himself. "Can't we think of anything better than that?" he asked.
"Doesn't your own face help you?" I asked, and he turned round slowly.
"One of my front teeth has got a chip off it," he said.
"By Jove!" I answered, for Lambert both the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, was too much for me.
"But about the Subby?"
"He hasn't sent for me yet. Just poke your head out of the door and yell for Clarkson; yell, don't think you are singing."
He did yell, and I had breakfast cleared away.
"I am afraid he must have seen you if you saw him," he went on, and the bulk of the man seemed to cover up all my mantelpiece.
"Get out of the light, I want some matches," I said. "Perhaps he saw you."
"No, I caught a glimpse of his beard coming round the corner."
"I wish men wouldn't come and talk rot to me in the middle of the night."
"I have apologized for that; of course I shall tell the Subby it was my fault."
"You are a big enough fool to do anything," I retorted, but he only smiled at me, and after helping himself to a cigarette he went away.
About half-past ten I got a wretched notice from the Subby to say he wished to see me at one o'clock, and I decided to stay in my rooms to work, and not to go round to Oriel until the afternoon. My work however, was sadly interrupted, for as soon as I had really settled down, and I settle down slowly, Dennison came in to condole with me about my bad luck, but when I told him that I had got to go to the Subby I caught him grinning, which exasperated me. So he soon disappeared, and then Jack Ward came, and after he had gone I went and had a talk with Murray. I have never known a morning go so quickly.
I had scarcely looked at the Subby's notice when I got it, for I only read the time I was to go to him, and then shoved the card into my pocket; but at one o'clock I went off to see him, wondering how I could explain matters best. On my way across the front quad I met Lambert and Dennison lounging about arm-in-arm; they wished me luck, and I told them to go to blazes. I simply hate men who can't stand without propping themselves up, the one against the other.
I knocked at the Subby's door without having made up my mind why I had been running about in pyjamas at one o'clock in the morning; the somnambulist tale did all right to annoy Lambert, but I was not such an idiot as to try it on a don. I had to knock twice before he told me to come in, and when he saw me he only said "good-morning." So I said "good-morning" and waited.
"What is it?" he asked, when he discovered that I did not want to go to some impossible place because my teeth ached, or my great-aunt wanted me.
"You sent for me," I said.
"No," and he shook his head until a lock of hair fell over his forehead.
"At one o'clock."
"I didn't send for you."
"I have the notice in my pocket," and I took it out and looked at it. Then I saw that some one had been scratching at the top of the card, but they had done it very neatly.
"Some one has been having a joke with you," he said, and he smiled as if he thought it a better joke than I did.
"They will be watching for me to come out," I said, and I took my courage in my two hands.
"I suppose they will," he answered, "but I don't want to know their names."
"I didn't mean that," I replied.
"What did you mean?" he asked, and I thought he was behaving splendidly.
"I wish you would ask me to lunch if you aren't engaged," I said, "and then they will have to wait for longer than they bargained."
"Of course," he answered, "they certainly deserve to wait."
I enjoyed that meal very much, the Subby only wanted knowing a little and then he became quite a good sort, and I think he was amused at a fresher calmly asking himself to luncheon with him, but it ought to have shown that I had a certain amount of confidence in him, for even I could not have asked myself to a meal with Mr. Edwardes. I doubt, however, if he ever thought of it in that light, for he had been Subby for five rather troubled years, and had so much to do with dealing with men who did things they ought not to have done, that he could have had no time to wonder why they did them.
We began by condemning practical jokes, which was very tactful of him; he said that he knew only one good practical joke, and that was played upon himself, but he would not tell me what it was though I promised that I would never try it on anybody. Then we talked about all sorts of things, until I had been with him nearly an hour, and the conversation was inclined to droop.
"Do you sleep very badly?" I asked, because I had heard several dodges for getting rid of insomnia, and I should like to have done something for him.
He blinked at me for an instant, and I think he was wondering what I was driving at, for I suppose it would not do for a Subby to sleep too soundly. "I am thankful to say I have never been troubled with sleeplessness," he said, and he looked rather drowsy at that moment.
"Some men do tell the most awful lies," I meant to say to myself, but somehow or other I said it much louder than I intended.
But he took no notice, and after thanking him very much I left him, feeling that I had another ally; but it is never prudent to reckon upon a man who has to look after the conduct of the college, he gets worried and then does not understand things quite right.
Lambert's head was poking out of Learoyd's window as I went back through the front quad, and thinking that I might as well get this thing finished off at once, I ran up-stairs and found Dennison and him in possession of Learoyd's rooms.
"Much of a row?" Dennison said, with a kind of sickly sarcastic smile which meant that he had scored off me pretty badly.
"Row?" I asked.
"Was the Subby furious?"
"I have been lunching with him," I answered; "I hope your lunch was not spoilt by waiting for me to come out."
They did not know what to say to this, so Dennison went on smiling and Lambert stroked his upper lip with one finger.
"You were nicely scored off," Dennison said at last.
"I had a jolly good lunch," I replied.
"Dennison doesn't make a bad Subby, and I imitate his writing pretty well," Lambert said.
"The Subby himself must decide that, when he finds out who was ass enough to buy a beard like his."
This reduced them to silence again, until Lambert said that he did not see how anybody could find out.
"The Subby is much more wide-awake than you think. I wouldn't care to be in Dennison's place, he has just done the one thing which dons can't stand. However, the Subby is a rare good sort, and I shouldn't wonder if he let the thing drop, especially as it is the end of term," I said.
"You looked fairly sick this morning," Dennison remarked, but he was more vicious and less smiling than he had been at the beginning.
"You took me in all right," I acknowledged, "and I hope you won't hear any more about it."
"What did you tell the Subby?" he asked.
"Not much," and if he was fool enough to think that there was any chance of the Subby trying to find out anything, I thought I had better leave him to his doubts, so I went round to my rooms, and having got a straw-hat, I started off to see Fred; and fortunately I found him at Oriel trying to make his cricket-bag hold more things than it was meant to hold. He did not look particularly pleased to see me, but I have never yet met a man who can pack and be in a good temper at the same time.
"Where are you off to?" I asked, for there were still some days before the end of the term.
"I am going to Brighton to-night with Henderson."
"How did you manage to get leave?"
"We have both been seedy, and Rushden wanted us to go before we play Surrey again. In my last three innings I've made seven runs, and I should think Rushden begins to wish he had never given me my blue. I don't feel as if I should ever make another run."
"Your dons must be good sorts," I said.
"They're all right," he answered, and he sat down in a chair by the window and looked so unlike himself that I knelt down on the floor and took everything out of the bag. Then I packed my best, which must have been worse than anybody else's except Fred's, and when I had finished, though the bag still bulged and was not a thing to be proud of, it did not bulge so very badly; at any rate Fred said it would do, but when I looked at him again I forgot entirely that I had intended to be angry with him.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing to speak of. I've had a cold and a headache, and just rotten little things like that. Brighton will cure me," but he didn't speak as if he cared whether it did or not.
"You've got to come to us directly that reading party is over or I won't have this cheque, and if I don't take the cheque I shall be in an awful hole," I said, for I can't lead up to things.
"I would very much rather not come," he answered.
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know," he said, and then he got up and gave the bag a kick which, landing on a bat, hurt his toe. "You're the best fellow in the world, Godfrey, but you don't understand."
"There is something odd the matter with you, or you wouldn't say that. We don't say things like that to each other."
"Won't you come down to Cornwall?"
"No, I won't."
"Is Ward going to stay with you?"
"My people have asked him."
"And is he going?"
"He seems to think he is. I told him the boat was rotten and the cob fat, and that there was nothing on earth to do," I added most stupidly, but I had no idea then that any one could really be troubled by things which had never affected me in the least.
"And he is going all the same," Fred said, and he did not look a bit more cheerful.
So I sat forward in my chair and talked to him. It does not matter what I said, but I kept clear of Nina, and told him my people would be desperately sick with him, which made him uncomfortable, because he and my mother liked each other very much. I also told him that he was treating me badly; but I soon had to drop that, because he did not seem to think that it would make any difference how he behaved to me. However, I stirred him up, and if ever a man wanted stirring up he did; so at last he promised that he would come to us in September and stay until the end of the vac, if he was wanted. I told him that if no one else wanted him I always should; but this remark did not appear to cheer him up at all, and I began to think he must be bilious. I know that whenever I had a cold at one of my private schools, the wife of the head-master always said it came from eating too much. But she was a curious woman with a large imagination, and when I wouldn't eat boiled rice and rhubarb-jam she told me that it was rice that made the niggers such fine men; this, however, did not have the effect upon me which she desired, for I was only eight years old, and had got an idea that if I agreed to eat rice I should become black. That lady has made me think ever since that from whatever cause an illness comes it is never from over-eating.
So I soon rejected the theory of Fred being bilious, though any reason for his unfitness except Nina would have been welcome. After a few minutes spent in the unsatisfactory pursuit of finding out that my batting average for St. Cuthbert's was 2.4, which I discovered not for my own gratification but to please Fred, Henderson came in, looking more freckled than ever and not in the least ill.
"You have got to come to Cornwall with us, hasn't he?" he said at once.
"The brute won't come," Fred said.
"You will have to; you know all the men, and they all want you to come. We will have a rare good time—only Fred and Hawkins have to work hard, the rest of us are not going to do much."
"I have to work all the vac," I said sorrowfully, and Fred, who had smiled at my average, began to laugh once more, and he really seemed to be much more cheerful when I saw him and Henderson off at the station, than he had been earlier in the afternoon.
The last few days of the term were terribly dull, because some of us had to do collections, and my papers did not altogether please Mr. Edwardes. I promised again that I would do a lot of work in the vac; but Jack Ward arranged that he would come down and stay with us directly after the 'Varsity match was over, and I could not be expected to allow him to loll in a boat and play the fool without restraint.
I had not been at home in June for years, and June is the month in which to see my mother's garden. Everything went swimmingly for a day or two; Fred made a lot of runs against Sussex, and Henderson—whose blue was very uncertain—made seventy-six. I was enormously pleased, and suggested at dinner that we should all go up to town to see Fred play in the 'Varsity match. My father and mother were rather delighted with the idea, and said they would go if Nina cared to come with us.
"It's the middle of the season," I said promptly, for I suppose I was getting artful.
"I would rather not go," Nina said decidedly, "but do take Godfrey up with you."
"I shan't leave you here by yourself," my mother answered.
"It's a pity Miss Read has gone," I put in, and Nina looked very savagely across the table at me.
"You had better go up by yourself," my father said.
"Don't you want to see Fred playing in his first 'Varsity match—you came up in December to see me play?" I asked Nina.
But she simply went on eating her fish as if I had not spoken, and I wished again that Miss Read had not left us.