Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 21

"You can report it now, I put all responsibility upon you," she stated loudly, and she took me up-stairs and announced me in a voice which would have shaken the nerves of a strong man. I could not put up with her any longer and I told her abruptly to go. She went energetically, her shoulders protesting against my rudeness, and she marched down the stairs with as much noise as she could make without hurting her feet.

I am glad that there are very few landladies left, at least in Oxford, who look upon any illness as an opportunity for showing how nasty they can be. I simply hated that woman, and before I had done with her I was weak enough to tell her so. I was defeated in that battle of plain speaking. To me, unaccustomed to illness, Owen looked as bad as anyone could look, and apart from his cough and his temperature he had got all sorts of worries on his mind which he wanted me to hear. I listened to what he said without interrupting him, but I was impressed with the fact that I must creep about a sick-room, and I am afraid I was ostentatiously quiet. His troubles had to do with the expenses of his illness, and he beseeched me not to send for a doctor or a nurse. I tried to set his mind at rest, but I failed; he saw that I thought him very ill, and when I moved round the room on tiptoe he asked me to make as much noise as I liked. I was no use as a sick nurse, and my efforts to make the room look fit to live in, though meant splendidly, seemed to me to make the place more uncomfortable and cheerless than ever.

I promised faithfully that I would stay with him during the night, but he could not make me say that I would not see a doctor, and as soon as I could I went off and got a man whom I had once met at a smoking conceit. This doctor was a bustling little man who did not sympathize with nonsense, and I had to explain a lot of things before I made him understand that this was a peculiar case.

"What is the good of you sitting up all night, even if it is necessary," he said to me as we walked from his house to Lomax Street; "you would certainly go to sleep and do more harm than good."

"Owen has a fairly bad cough," I answered.

"If it is bad enough to keep you awake he ought to have a proper nurse."

"He doesn't want to have a proper nurse, he is rather hard up," I said.

"Pish," was his only answer, but when he got to Owen's rooms I should think he must have known that I had spoken the truth.

I got leave from the Subby to stay with Owen during the night, but I cannot say that I was a successful nurse. I took some books with me because I thought it would be a good opportunity to do some reading, but of course I went to sleep, and woke up with a snort which would have made me unpopular in any dormitory in the world. Owen was so much worse in the morning that he had to be moved out of his wretched lodgings into a place where he would be properly looked after.

I went back to St. Cuthbert's about eleven o'clock in a state of horrible depression. I had promised to pay all the expenses of this illness, and how I was to do it I had not an idea. The year was nearly over and my funds were exceedingly low, but I could not help making Owen believe that I had more money than I knew how to spend.

Outside St. Cuthbert's I met Mrs. Faulkner and Nina, and while Mrs.

Faulkner was commenting upon my dejected appearance Nina told me frankly that I looked dirty.

"I have been up all night," I said, for there was no longer any reason why I should not explain what had happened.

"We were not in bed until four o'clock," Nina answered proudly.

"What have you been doing?" Mrs. Faulkner asked.

"I have been nursing a man who is ill," I replied.

"Infectious?" Mrs. Faulkner asked breathlessly.

"Pneumonia, double pneumonia, I believe," I answered.

"And you heard about it yesterday afternoon?" Nina said.

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you tell us?" Mrs. Faulkner asked. "Fred and Nina have been quarrelling about you, and I have said the most awful things.

You really might have more consideration."

"I thought it would spoil your dance if I told you; I didn't know what was the matter with the man."

"You are a dear, G.o.dfrey," Nina said, and she linked her arm in mine.

"I am an idiot if you want to call me any names," I replied.

"You were always that," Nina said in the manner which is called playful; "we are just going to see Mr. Ward, who is perfectly charming; won't you come with us?"

"I am going to have a bath, and then I must see Fred."

Nina looked displeased.

"What's the matter with Fred?" I asked.

"He's as perfect as usual," Nina answered, and swung her parasol to show that she was not interested in him.

"We are blocking the street, and you nearly hit a man in the eye with that thing," I said.

"You will be in a better temper when you are cleaner," Nina retorted.

"We go down at 4.15," Mrs. Faulkner said as we went into the lodge; "we are going on some river, the one that isn't deep, in a punt with Mr.

Ward, and he is taking luncheon for us. Do you think it is quite safe, G.o.dfrey?"

"Quite, if Nina doesn't try to punt," I answered.

"Must we go away this afternoon?" Nina asked.

"My dear, I have three, if not four, people arriving to-night," Mrs.

Faulkner replied.

"I will be at the station to see you off," I said, for even if they wanted me I did not feel like punting on the Cherwell.

I pointed out Jack Ward's rooms to Nina, and had walked half-way across the quad when Mrs. Faulkner called me back.

"I hope your friend is better?" she asked.

"He has only just begun to be ill," I answered.

CHAPTER XV

MISHAPS

After I had been to my rooms and had a bath I went round to Oriel to see Fred, but he was not in his rooms, so I left a note to tell him that he must come to luncheon with me. Then I rushed back to St.

Cuthbert's and went to hear Mr. Edwardes lecturing. I missed the beginning of the lecture, and I might just as well have stayed away altogether, for Mr. Edwardes asked me to speak to him at the end of it, though what he meant was that he was going to speak while I was to listen. Grave things were happening, at least I thought them grave, and Mr. Edwardes had nothing whatever to do with them. While he talked to me I was trying by a process of mental arithmetic to discover how much money I had to my credit in the bank; the voice which I heard seemed to me to belong to bygone ages, and I was so worried by actual and present facts that I could not screw up a vestige of interest in antiquities. I know that it was always my fate to arouse either the irony or the anger of my tutor, for to other men he was far more pleasant than he was to me, but I could not help thinking of him as representative of a system which could never influence me in the least.

He soon discovered that I was paying no attention to him, and I suppose that I must have got most vigorously on his nerves, for he really became quite humanly angry, I must have been nearer to an understanding with him at that moment than I had ever been. But when his rage abated, his lips snapped and the thunderbolts ceased. He went on too long and became sarcastic again, as if ashamed of being properly angry, and I left him with the usual hopeless feeling that we should never understand each other.

I went into the common room as I was crossing the quad, and before I had been there two minutes Dennison came in with Lambert and two or three other men of their set. No one else was in the room except Murray, who was reading, and absolutely refused to talk to me about Edwardes, so I turned over various papers until Dennison asked me if I did not think our eight was quite the most comically bad boat I had ever seen.

"The whole college is going to the deuce," I answered.

"You look as if you were up late last night, and have got a fair old head on this morning," Dennison declared.

"I haven't been to bed at all, if you want to know," I said.

"Going to the deuce with the rest of the college, well, you have the consolation of being quite the most amusing man in it."