Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 10

"I don't know what you expect to get," Foster said.

"You needn't bother about that. We know," Tom Harrison replied.

After a little more conversation we started on our way back to Oxford, and as we left the garden I heard Tom Harrison say, "Two beers and two bottles of stout as quick as we can 'ave em; my throat's like a limekiln." And considering the amount he had said at the top of his voice, I should think it was very likely true.

CHAPTER VIII

LUNCHEON WITH THE WARDEN

Our walk was certainly not a success, in fact I was very sick of it before we reached Oxford, because I am no good at walking and cannot stride along at a steady pace. And it also involved me in what, if real diplomatists will pardon me, I will call diplomacy, in which art or craft, or whatever the right name of it may be, I am most unskilled.

I was on the point of telling Fred that I knew the party of peashooters when he, being in a much happier state of mind than he had been in the morning, began to talk about Jack Ward, and to say that I was very likely right about him, and that he was sure to be a nice kind of man when one got to know him. Hearing this made me put off what I was going to say, and when I begin to postpone anything I am lost. Second thoughts with me nearly always lead to trouble, however good they may be for other people. I think I must have taken a fatherly interest in Ward, for what else it could have been which made me wish to s.h.i.+eld him I do not know. But I had seen him stand up in the dog-cart, and I thought he had recognized me and had tried to make Langham turn back, so I determined not to tell Fred anything until I had found out what really happened. But I felt very uncomfortable, for I do hate keeping things dark, and when he went on to say that the pea-shooting people must have been unutterable bounders to go away and leave us in the lurch, I was again on the point of telling him that Ward was one of them, only he suddenly began to sing, which gave me time to think, and frightened two children who came round a corner of the road. We were quite close to Broadmoor lunatic asylum at that moment, and Fred walking along with his hat in his hand might easily have been mistaken for some one else. His mood had become most cheerful, and he said that he did not suppose Tom Harrison would ever be heard of again, and that the whole thing had been rather fun; but he added that he should like to tell the men who had been in the room above us what he thought of them. He also told me that he had never known me so quiet, and when I continued to be silent he asked me if I was well, which annoyed me, for I am often asked that question when I do not happen to be talking, and in a lurking sort of way there seems to me to be something insulting about it. I answered that I was thinking, which was quite true, but he only laughed and said I must have changed a lot lately. I was quite tired of him before we separated in the High, and he was angry because I would not go to Oriel and have tea, but I felt that the day so far had been a hopeless failure, and I wanted to see Jack Ward.

When I got back to my rooms at St. Cuthbert's my fire was nearly out and I saw two notes lying on the table, but could not find any matches to light my lamp. I felt more gloomy than ever, and I was already feeling as if I had treated Fred most unfairly. I might say that my end was all right, or I might declare that I meant well, which is another way of saying that I was a fool, and of the two I think the latter is the more correct.

Murray had borrowed my matches and I spoke severely to him without producing any effect except amus.e.m.e.nt; whether I was thinking or angry the result seemed to be always the same--laughter, silly, idiotic chuckles. I was in a very fair rage before I got my lamp to light, and I upset a large box of matches on the floor. Murray came and helped to pick them up, and he b.u.mped my nose with his head. I felt sure that it was his fault and told him so, and he said I could jolly well pick up my own matches; so I apologized, for though my nose hurt there were a lot of matches still on the floor, and it was no use making my nose out worse than it was to spite my face.

After that I read my notes, and they were not the usual invitations to breakfast, of which I had already received enough. The first was to ask me to play for the twenty against the Rugger XV. in the Parks on the following Tuesday, and the second was from Miss Davenport to ask me to luncheon with the Warden on the same day. These notes were more or less commands, but I neither felt very keen on playing for the XX. nor on lunching with the Warden.

"I shall be glad when Tuesday is over," I said to Murray; "I have to lunch with the Warden."

"I lunched there last Tuesday," he returned.

"What was it like?"

"Like no meal I have ever been at before. Miss Davenport talked all the time and the Warden said precious little, but I was too afraid to listen to her for fear he might ask me something and I should not catch what he said. Apart from saying 'yes' and 'no' and 'please' and 'thank you,' he only spoke once, and then it was the most extraordinarily long sentence I have ever heard. It began about pork, which Miss Davenport said was more wholesome than people imagined, it went on about the Jews, and finished up with a tale about Nero. He chuckled over his tale, but I didn't see much point in it, and Miss Davenport looked as if she had heard it before."

"I know that tale, it's a chestnut; I can't remember it, but Nero behaved like a beast to a lot of Jews who came to see him in Rome. The Warden oughtn't to tell old tales and then chuckle over them; besides, Nero was a brute."

"I don't think that would make any difference to the Warden. He terrifies me; I daren't say anything because I am sure he would remember that it was a stupid thing to say. I felt as if I was a convict, and that if I spoke I should give myself away. I can tell you it was something awful, and for all I know he may have expected me to say something."

"Probably not," I replied; "I should think he hears far too many people jawing. I hope he makes me feel like a convict, and then I shall behave myself all right, but a silence at a meal gives me fits."

"Miss Davenport is never silent," Murray a.s.serted. "If she can talk about pork, you may guess she has plenty to say. The Warden looks at her in a forgiving sort of way--as if he knows she is talking rot, but can't help herself."

"They must be a funny pair. You don't think I shall laugh, do you?" I asked.

"I didn't feel like laughing. I never thought of it in that way, but it couldn't strike you as being funny while you are there."

"I don't know," I said; "I think I had better be ill on Tuesday." But then I remembered I had got to play footer, and I chucked the card over to Murray.

"I've got to play in this thing, too. The Warden kicks you out about two, so it will be all right. You simply must go. Where have you been to this afternoon?"

"I walked to Sampford with Foster, and we had a row there with two men, not much of a row. I must go and see Ward." I jumped up, but the chapel bell began to ring, and I had to postpone seeing him.

"I am all behind with my chapels and roll-calls," I said to Murray; "this will be my twenty-first, and five weeks of the term have gone."

"I kept six chapels last week," Murray answered; "you will have to go hard to keep nineteen in three weeks."

"I mean doing it and getting up very early in the morning. I am going to reform," and I left him at the chapel door, for he, being a scholar, sat in the seats behind all of us who were commoners or exhibitioners.

After chapel, at which the Regius Professor of Divinity preached and told us that Sunday luncheon parties were very wrong, I seized Ward and bore him off to his rooms, where we found Dennison sitting by the fire with his legs stuck up on the mantelpiece. I wanted to see Ward alone, but Dennison had been at Sampford, so he did not matter much, though Ward with Dennison never seemed to be quite the same as he was without him.

Dennison twisted round in his chair, and as soon as he saw me he began to talk. "You ought to have been with us this afternoon," he said, "we had a most lovely rag. Bunny Langham took us over to Sampford in his cart, and I had a peashooter."

The loveliness of the rag was too much for him, and he had to stop his account of it so that he might laugh. I looked at Ward, and although he did not appear to be very amused, he showed no signs of knowing that Foster and I had been at Sampford.

"After lunch," Dennison went on, "I discovered some people in an arbour, the bill and coo business, and I fairly peppered them; I am no end of a shot with a peashooter."

"You missed them about a dozen times," Ward put in.

"Those were sighting shots, you must get your range, and they were about as far off as my shooter will carry; but I got them out of the place at last, and another fellow, Oxford written all over him, walked bang into them. I gave him one on the neck and then we bolted. It was a pity we couldn't stop and see what happened."

"We ought to have stopped," Ward declared and disappeared into his bedroom.

"I can tell you what happened," I said, and I lifted Dennison's legs off the mantelpiece and stood between him and the fire. I had been angry before Dennison described Foster as having Oxford written all over him, but the cheek of labelling Fred as if he was some tailor's dummy made me furious.

Dennison looked at me and then shouted for Ward. "Marten can tell us what happened after we went, come and hear it."

"Wait a second. I am going to dine with Bunny at the Sceptre and am changing."

In a minute he appeared and went on dressing.

"I think you are the meanest lot of brutes unhung," I began, for I had been given time to think of something which would make Dennison see at once that this joke was not such a good one after all. "Foster of Oriel was one of the men you bolted from, and I was the other, and the thing isn't ended yet, for they got Foster's name. You hit one woman in the eye; do you think that very funny?"

"Sheer bad luck," Dennison said, but he did not look quite as unruffled and smug as usual.

Ward stood with his tie in his hand and did not say a word. I knew already that he had wanted to go back when he saw that there was a row, and since he had neither recognized Foster nor me my wrath was concentrated upon Dennison.

"You may call it what you like," I continued, "but if you get up a row and then haven't the pluck to see it out I call it a dirty thing to do."

I thought that must be enough to rouse Dennison, but he actually smiled at me and told me to go on.

"What do you think?" I asked Ward.

"Of course I did not recognize you and Foster, but when I saw those people had b.u.t.toned on to the wrong man I said we ought to go back. I wish that we had gone back," he answered.

"What did they do?" Dennison inquired.

"They found out Foster's name, and one of them, an awful man called Tom Harrison, says he is going to get compensation from him because you hit Susan in the eye with a pea and hadn't the decency to stay there and own up to it. There's the dinner bell, and I'm about sick of you fellows."

"I hit Susan in the eye," Dennison said reflectively. "Was Susan Tom Harrison's inamorata?" he asked.

"Talk English and I may answer you. It doesn't matter a row of pins who Susan was as long as she has a black eye," I replied.

"It is evidently no good speaking to you until you have calmed down.