Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 18

When I like anybody I want to tell them so, but once when I saw a splendid sunset in Bavaria and said, "How simply ripping," my father told me not to make a fool of myself, and somehow or other I felt that he was right. So I was very glad that I had to show Nina the beauties of St. Cuthbert's while it was her duty to admire them. She had never been inside an Oxford quadrangle before, and though I think any one with two eyes and a grain of common-sense would say that Oxford is beautiful, I must admit that Nina saw St. Cuthbert's for the first time under the most favourable circ.u.mstances possible. She looked at the old walls and the flower-boxes which were outside nearly all the windows, and did not talk any nonsense about them; even the creepers seemed to be greener than usual in the sunlight of the afternoon. In the chapel somebody was playing the organ, which may have been a meretricious effect, but it pleased Nina, and that was all I cared about. The whole college was most wonderfully peaceful, no one could imagine that the quadrangle had ever been made hideous by Baccha.n.a.lian yells. And I felt proud of it, which was quite a new sensation to me, and I suppose it was Nina's delight that made me see things differently. I took her to my rooms, which seemed to be small and gloomy enough after the hall and the quadrangle, but she said that they were far more comfortable than she had expected them to be, and she sat down in the most comfortable of my easy-chairs and looked as if she intended to stop for ever. I suggested to her that we should go down to the river and see Oriel struggling in the second division, but she decided that one dose of racing would be enough for her, and said that Fred could take Mrs. Faulkner to the river if she wanted to go. She had not been so fond of my society for a long time, and for quite ten minutes, with the aid of cherries, we got on splendidly together. Then the conversation languished and I began to show her things which she did not want to see; it is so very hard to please anybody who does not pretend to like things which they do not like. Nina began to hum at last, and if there is one noise which I detest it is humming. To make matters worse her tune was one I especially disliked, but as I was her host I made a gallant attempt not to listen to it. So I whistled, and I expect we had nearly reached a crisis when Mrs. Faulkner and Fred appeared. I was very fond indeed of Nina, and I am sure that she would have been indignant if any one had told her that she was not fond of me, but when we had not seen each other for some time and were left alone together we often irritated each other. It was a terrible nuisance, but it is no use denying that I was glad to see Mrs. Faulkner again, and if any one had told me that such a thing was possible when I left her at the lodge I should have denounced him with many words. I could see that Fred had not been enjoying himself, and while Mrs.

Faulkner and Nina were discussing loudly what they should do next, he told me that he had been asked a perfect fusillade of questions none of which he could answer. "How old is that fig-tree in your garden?" he asked thoughtlessly, and Mrs. Faulkner's attention was turned upon me.

"What fig-tree?" I asked.

Fred t.i.ttered audibly, and Mrs. Faulkner seemed to forget that only a short time before she had discovered an immense improvement in me.

"Do you mean to say that you live close to that beautiful fig-tree and don't even know of its existence?" she demanded.

"Oh yes, I know about it," I answered; "it has stuff put round to keep it warm in the winter, but I have never asked how old it is. You see the dons more or less monopolize our gardens, so you can't expect us to know much about them."

"Notices are put up to say that certain parts of them are reserved for the dons of the college, aren't they?" Foster said, and he laughed again, but I said nothing. "I shall tell Nina the tale if you don't,"

he added.

"I should like to hear something amusing," Nina said, as if there was not the slightest chance of her wish being gratified.

"It's not very funny," I began, for I had a feeling that Mrs. Faulkner would not like this tale.

"Well, anything's better than nothing," Nina declared wisely, and so, to pacify her, I continued.

"These notices annoyed some men, so they dug a hole and bought a large sort of milk-pail arrangement to fit into it and a box of sardines.

Then we filled the pail with water and put in the sardines, and Jack Ward put up a little notice, 'This fis.h.i.+ng is reserved for the dons of the college. Licences may be obtained at the lodge.' The dons should not be so greedy about the garden," I added, because Mrs. Faulkner looked very disgusted.

"Did you really make a large hole in that beautiful turf?" she asked at once. "You began in the third person, but I expect you and this Mr.

Ward did it; you ought to have been rusticated, or whatever the word is."

"We were never found out, and the dons didn't mind; they thought it not a bad joke of its kind," I answered.

"Then their sense of humour must have become perverted," she replied.

"I think Mr. Ward must have a very bad influence over you."

Nina laughed and said she insisted upon meeting Jack.

"I sincerely hope you won't do anything of the kind," Mrs. Faulkner stated. "The dons must know what is best for the undergraduates, and such tricks are very unbecoming; I am sure my husband always admitted this when he was at Cambridge."

It was hardly fair to pull in Mr. Faulkner, so I said that I would get some tea, which put an end to the discussion, for I did not think it wise to say that I had asked Jack to meet Nina at luncheon on the following day. By the time we had finished tea Fred was tired of Mrs.

Faulkner, and he slipped off with Nina in a way which was really too clever to be very nice. Mrs. Faulkner, however, was quite amiable, and she smiled on me steadily from the beginning of the Broad Walk to the end of it, which as a feat of endurance I feel it my duty to mention.

When we got down to the river the band was playing on the 'Varsity barge, and Mrs. Faulkner really began to enjoy herself. The flags flying from all the barges pleased her, and the smartness of the ladies made her compare the scene to church parade on a June morning in Hyde Park. I knew nothing about church parades and very little about Hyde Park, but I said that I thought this must beat anything in London.

Then I got a chair for her and looked round to find Nina and Fred, but as I could not see them anywhere, I said that I must go and hunt for them. Mrs. Faulkner, however, had no intention of letting me go, and I had to be a kind of Baedeker for over half-an-hour. I was not a very good Baedeker, I confess, but I had found out that one way to make things uncomfortable with this lady was not to answer every question she asked, so I supplied her with a good deal of information which I sincerely hope she never pa.s.sed on to any one else. Unfortunately our barge is near the 'Varsity's, and during the races a string of little flags fly from the 'Varsity barge to show the order of the colleges on the river. I knew them well enough down to ours, and I even knew the ninth and tenth, but when Mrs. Faulkner wanted to know the whole lot, I had to use my imagination. I know that I said Hertford twice and I finished up with All Souls, who only have about three undergraduates, so if they had rowed at all they would have been several men short.

"I should like to write the colleges down if I had a pencil," she said; "you rattle them off so fast. Didn't you say that one flag belonged to the University, but the University flag is surely dark blue?"

And then I had to explain that University was a college and not the whole place, and she replied that she knew so much more about Cambridge than Oxford, and complained that our colleges had very confusing names.

"Oriel!" she said scornfully, "it reminds me of a window, and then you have no originality. Exeter, Worcester, Lincoln, why they are just names of towns, you can find them all in Bradshaw."

"Well, at any rate Bradshaw's got nothing to do with it," I replied.

"These colleges are hundreds of years old, and Bradshaw's a chicken compared with them."

"What dreadful slang. Fancy calling Bradshaw a chicken!" she exclaimed. "Besides, you have a college called Keble, and my father knew Dr. Keble, so that _can't_ be hundreds of years old. No, Cambridge have chosen their names better than Oxford."

"Sidney Suss.e.x," I said, for I thought it necessary to make some reply; "it's more like the name of one of Ouida's heroes than a college."

She shook her head gently. "I can't get over your colleges sounding like railway-stations," she answered.

"You must blame the bishops who founded them and not Bradshaw or me," I replied, for I was getting very tired.

"Some one told me Keble is built of red-brick," she said.

"Red-brick is so bright," I answered, but I wanted to say something quite different, and at last a dim noise which quickly developed into a tremendous roar told us that the boats were coming.

Brasenose paddled home first, and not one of the next six boats were in any danger of being caught. It was reserved for us and Merton to give the people on the barges some excitement, but when I saw Merton pressing us fearfully I wished that I was not hemmed in by a crowd of ladies. I yelled tremendously because I could not help myself, and Mrs. Faulkner, after saying something which I did not catch, put her hands over her ears. But shouting was useless. The abominable thing happened right in front of our barge, and when I saw our c.o.x's hand go up to show that all was over, it was a very bad moment indeed.

"Poor St. Cuthbert's, how very unfortunate they are," I heard a girl say; and some one else answered, "Yes, it's quite pathetic, so different from what one used to expect from them, but I am told that they are not the college they were." That remark made me feel furious, and it was not until Mrs. Faulkner pulled my coat violently that I remembered that she was sitting close to me.

"Did you make a b.u.mp?" I heard her asking me.

"No, Merton b.u.mped us. We shall soon be sandwich boat," I answered, for I spoke without thinking.

"Sandwich boat, my dear G.o.dfrey, is this a picnic?" she returned, and I did not know whether she was serious or only trying to be funny.

"There's not much picnic about it," I replied; "we've gone down four places in four nights."

"But what is a sandwich boat. They don't have such things at Cambridge."

"They do, at any rate my cousin rowed eight times in four nights and nearly died after it. A sandwich boat is bottom of one division and top of the other, so it has got to row in both; it's got nothing to do with ham. Shall we go?"

Every one was leaving the barges, but Mrs. Faulkner remained in her chair.

"Isn't that girl in mauve a perfect dream?" she said to me, but I pretended not to hear. I had to wait for several minutes while dresses and the people who wore them were criticized, and I am sure that nothing but the National Anthem or force could have stirred Mrs.

Faulkner from her seat.

We found Nina and Fred waiting for us, and Nina said she had been having a splendid time on the Oriel barge. But I could think of nothing except that we were not the college we used to be, and I left Fred to talk to both Mrs. Faulkner and Nina.

CHAPTER XIV

GUIDE, HOST AND NURSE

When I got back to my rooms after leaving Mrs. Faulkner and Nina I found a note from Owen asking me to go and see him at once. Since he had, until then, avoided me in every possible way I guessed that something serious had happened, and when I got to his rooms in Lomax Street, I found him in bed with a cough which ought to have frightened his landlady instead of making her in a very bad temper. He was, however, more worried about the interruption to his reading than anxious about himself, and he said flatly that he could not afford to have a doctor. I tried to cheer him up--but you can't cheer up a man with a cough--and I told him I would come to him whenever he wanted me, and made him promise he would send for me if I could do anything for him. He did not seem to have a single friend in Oxford, and the loneliness of the man made me feel absolutely wretched.

I went to a very confidential chemist who knew nearly every man who had ever been at Oxford, and everything under the sun, and explained to him what sort of cough Owen had. He understood instantly, and said that he would send a mixture which worked miracles, but I could not get Owen off my mind at once, and when Jack Ward came in very late to see me I sat up talking to him until a most unrighteous hour, with the result that I lay in bed the next morning until I was perfectly tired of my scout coming to call me.

A letter from my mother was on my table in which she said that I was on no account to allow Nina to interrupt my reading, but I had only just finished breakfast, when Mrs. Faulkner and Nina came into my rooms.

Mrs. Faulkner fixed her eyes on the tea-pot and said nothing; Nina, however, asked if everybody in Oxford breakfasted at eleven o'clock. I had not expected them, and was consequently a little flurried; the truth is that I was not properly dressed, which handicapped my movements considerably. Decency compelled me to keep my legs under the table, until I could slip into my bedder. I was not in a condition to treat visitors who goaded at my laziness with any courage; tact was the only thing possible. In my agitation I did not notice that Nina had put on the clock quite twenty minutes, and when she asked me if I was going to sit in front of the marmalade for the rest of the day, I had to reply that I thought it was rather a good place to sit. I had managed to hide myself behind the table-cloth when I stood up to wish them good-morning, but I simply did not dare to move again.

Mrs. Faulkner fluttered round the room looking at photographs; the bare knees of the Rugger XV. compelled her to say that she did not think them at all nice. I put my legs farther under the table and felt like blus.h.i.+ng. She began to suspect that I was hiding something, and I am afraid she was the sort of woman who did not understand, until she had discovered them, that there are some things which had better remain hidden. She tried little tricks to entice me from my seat, and even came and examined the table-cloth, which was ordinary enough, though she said it was a beautiful one. I did not see how a white table-cloth could be beautiful, but I clutched it most fervently and her ruse failed. She then asked me if a plate which had cost elevenpence-farthing was Wedgwood, and asked me to take it off the wall so that she might see the mark on the back. I told her I had bought it at the j.a.panese shop and mentioned the sum it cost, but she declared that I had got a bargain and she must have it down. I replied that it was a fixture, though I meant that I was, and that no one had ever been known to find a bargain in a j.a.panese shop. Then she grew plaintive; "I think you might please me in this, G.o.dfrey," she said.