The New Warden Part 15

"It isn't any man's business," broke in Boreham, "whether another man can or can't judge what's good for him."

Boreham had been getting up steam for an attack upon Christ Church because it was ecclesiastical, upon Balliol because it had been Bingham's college, and upon Oxford in general because he, Boreham, had not been bred within its walls. In other words, Boreham was going to speak with unbia.s.sed frankness. But this sudden deviation of the talk to claret and Harding's cool a.s.sumption that his view was like his host's, could not be pa.s.sed in silence.

"What I say is," said Harding again, "that when a man gets to my age----"

"Age isn't the question," interrupted Boreham. "Let every man have his own view about drink. Mine is that I'm not going to ask your permission to drink. If a man likes to get drunk, all I say is that it's not my business. The only thing any of your Bishops ever said that was worth remembering was: 'I'd rather see England free than England sober.'"

Harding allowed that the saying was a good one. He nodded his head.

Bingham sipped his claret. "You do get a bit free when you're not sober," he said sweetly. "I say, Harding, so you would rather see Mrs.

Harding free than sober!"

Harding made an inarticulate noise that indicated the place to which in a future life he would like to consign the speaker.

"Every man does not get offensive when drunk," said Boreham, ignoring, in the manner peculiar to him, the inner meaning of Bingham's remark.

"That's true," said Bingham. "A man may have as his family motto: 'In Vino Suavitas'(Courteous though drunk, Boreham); but when you're drunk and you still go on talking, don't you find the difficulty is not so much to be courteous as to be coherent? In the good old drinking days of All Souls, of which I am now an unworthy member, it was said that Tindal was supreme in Common Room _because_ 'his abstemiousness in drink gave him no small advantage over those he conversed with.'"

"Talk about supreme in Common Room," said Boreham, catching at the opportunity to drive his dagger into the weak points of Oxford, "you chaps, even before the war, could hardly man your Common Rooms. You're all married men living out in the brick villas."

"Harding's married," said Bingham. "I'm thinking about it. I've been thinking for twenty years. It takes a long time to mature thoughts. By the by, was that a Miss Dashwood who sat next Harding? I don't think I have ever met her in Oxford."

"She is a Miss Scott," said Boreham, suddenly remembering that he wanted to join the ladies as soon as possible. He would get Bingham alone some day, and squeeze him. Just now there wasn't time. As to Harding--he was a hopeless idiot.

"Not one of Scott of Oriel's eight daughters? Don't know 'em by sight even. Can't keep pace with 'em," said Harding.

"She's the daughter of Lady Belinda Scott," said Boreham, "and staying with Lady Dashwood."

"I thought she didn't belong to Oxford," said Bingham.

Harding stared at his fellow Don, vaguely annoyed. He disliked to hear Bingham hinting at any Oxford "brand"--it was the privilege of himself and his wife to criticise Oxford. Also, why hadn't he talked to Miss Scott? He wondered why he hadn't seen that she was not an Oxford girl by her dress and by her look of self-satisfied simplicity, the right look for a well-bred girl to have.

"I promised to show Mrs. Dashwood my house," said Boreham. "We mustn't keep the ladies too long waiting. Shall we go?" he added. "Oh, sorry, Harding, I didn't notice you hadn't finished!"

The men rose and went into the drawing-room. Harding saw, as he entered, that his wife had discovered that Miss Scott was a stranger and she was talking to her, while Mrs. Greenleafe Potten had got the Dashwoods into a corner and was telling them all about Chartcote: a skeleton list of names with nothing attached to them of historical interest. It was like reading aloud a page of Bradshaw, and any interruption to such entertainment was a relief. Indeed, May Dashwood began to smile when she saw Boreham approaching her. Something, however, in his manner made the smile fade away.

"Will you come over the house?" he asked, carefully putting his person between herself and Lady Dashwood so as to obliterate the latter lady.

"I don't suppose Lady Dashwood wants to see it. Come along, Mrs.

Dashwood."

May could scarcely refuse. She rose. Harding was making his way to Gwendolen Scott and raising his eyebrows at his wife as a signal for her to appropriate Mrs. Potten. Bingham was standing in the middle of the room staring at Lady Dashwood. Some problems were working in his mind, in which that lady figured as an important item.

Gwendolen Scott looked round her. Mr. Harding had ignored her at lunch, and she did not mean to have him sitting beside her again. She was quite sure she wouldn't know what to say to him, if he did speak. She got up hurriedly from her chair, pa.s.sed the astonished Harding and plunged at Mrs. Dashwood.

"Oh, do let me come and see over the house with you," she said, laying a cold hand nervously on May's arm. "I should love to--I simply love looking at portraits."

"Come, of course," said May, with great cordiality.

Boreham stiffened and his voice became very flat. "I've got no portraits worth looking at," said he, keeping his hand firmly on the door. "I have a couple of Lely's, they're all alike and sold with a pound of tea. The rest are by n.o.bodies."

"Oh, never mind," said Gwen, earnestly. "I love rooms; I love--anything!"

Boreham's beard gave a sort of little tilt, and his innermost thoughts were noisy and angry, but he had to open the door and let Gwendolen Scott through if the silly little girl would come and spoil everything.

Boreham could not conceal his vexation. His arrangements had been carefully made, and here they were knocked on the head, and how he was to get May Dashwood over to Chartcote again he didn't know.

"What a nice hall!" exclaimed Gwen. "I do love nice halls," and she looked round at the renaissance decorations of the wall and the domed roof. "Oh, I do love that archway with the statue holding the electric light, it is sweet!"

"It's bad style," said Boreham, walking gloomily in front of them towards a door which led into the library. "The house was decent enough, I believe, till some fool in the family, seeing other people take up Italian art, got a craze for it himself and knocked the place about."

"Oh," said Gwen, crestfallen, "I really don't know anything about how houses ought to look. I only know my cousin Lady Goosemere's house and mother's father's old place, my grandfather's and--and--I do like the Lodgings, Mrs. Dashwood," she added in confusion.

"So do I," said May Dashwood.

"This is the library," said Boreham, opening the door.

Boreham led them from one room to another, making remarks on them expressly for the enlightenment of Mrs. Dashwood, using language that was purposely complicated and obscure in order to show Miss Scott that he was not taking the trouble to give her any information. Whenever he spoke, he stared straight at May Dashwood, as if he were alone with her.

He did not by any movement or look acknowledge the presence of the intruder, so that Gwendolen began to wonder how long she would be able to endure her ill-treatment at Chartcote, without dissolving into tears.

She kept on stealing a glance at the watch on Mrs. Dashwood's wrist, but she could never make out the time, because the figures were not the right side up, and she never had time to count them round before Mrs.

Dashwood moved her arm and made a muddle of the whole thing.

But no lunch party lasts for ever, and at last Gwendolen found herself down in the hall with the taxi grunting at the door and a bustle of good-byes around her. The rain had stopped. Mrs. Greenleafe Potten and Bingham were standing together on the shallow steps like two children.

The Hardings were already halfway down the drive. Lady Dashwood looked out of the window of the taxi at Boreham, as he fastened the door.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Boreham," she said. "Tell Mr. Bingham we can take him into Oxford."

"He's going to walk," said Boreham, coldly. "He's going to walk back with Mrs. Potten, who wants to walk, and then return for his bicycle."

"Oh, very well," said Lady Dashwood, leaning back. "Good-bye, so many thanks, Mr. Boreham."

Boreham's face wore an enigmatic look as he walked up the steps.

Bingham had opened a pocket-book and was making a note in it with a pencil.

"Excuse me just one moment, Mrs. Potten. I shan't remember if I don't make a note of it."

The note that Bingham jotted down was: "Sat. Lady Dashwood, dinner 8 o'clock."

Boreham glanced keenly and suspiciously at him, for he heard him murmur aloud the words he was writing.

Boreham did not see that Bingham had any right to the invitation.

"I've forgotten my waterproof," exclaimed Mrs. Potten, as she went down the steps.

Bingham dived into the hall after it and having found it in the arms of a servant, he hurried back to Mrs. Potten.

"I do believe I've dropped my handkerchief," remarked Mrs. Potten, as he started her down the drive at a brisk trot.

"Are you afraid of this pace?" asked Bingham evasively, for he did not intend to return to the house.