Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 29

"You are only eighteen," I said.

"I am nineteen next week," she answered, and I knew that she meant this both as a rebuke and a reminder.

"That's not very old."

"It's old enough for me to know that you and I will never quarrel about trifles," she said.

"Then will you come to the 'Varsity match?" I asked.

"You don't think the 'Varsity match a trifle, do you?"

"I'm not going to sit here and quibble; you're too clever altogether,"

I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her hand through my arm.

"Let us go for a walk by the river before dinner," she said, and after asking what good she thought that would do I went.

"My dear G.o.dfrey, you are simply splendid," she went on, "the dearest old bungler I know. You remind me of the Faulkners' ostrich, which goes on tapping at the window when it has been opened and there is nothing to tap at."

I did not know what she meant, and if that ostrich had not been rather a friend of mine I should have been insulted. As it was I did not feel pleased.

"You will spend your life running your head against brick walls," she continued.

"I am not going down to the river if you are going to preach to me,"

but we were already half-way there. "What about the 'Varsity match?"

"You don't understand things, G.o.dfrey."

"Fred has told me that already," I said sulkily.

"Oh, has he?" she replied, and I saw that I had stumbled upon something which made her think. We sat down by the river and did not speak to each other for a long time, and when Nina broke the silence her mood had changed completely. She cajoled me; I think that must have been what she did, and I was weak enough to like it. It was so nice to have me home again; we were going to have a splendid time together, we always had been together; Mrs. Faulkner said Oxford spoiled so many men at first, it made them prigs; but there was no chance of me becoming a prig, I was just the best sort of brother in the world, because when I did meddle in other people's business I hated doing it, and did it all wrong; in the future she would try to do everything to please me, for she was never happy unless I was. As regards my digestion, I certainly must have resembled the Faulkners' ostrich, for I swallowed all this; and when we had walked back home I felt as if my attempt to come to an understanding had not been a failure.

When, however, I thought over what she had said I was not so pleased, for I began to see that if the summer was to be splendid and I was not to be called a prig I must give up the idea of taking her to the 'Varsity match. In fact, in ten minutes I had come to the conclusion that I had been made a fool of, but no one could expect me to begin the thing all over again. I made a resolution then, which is worth recording because I kept it, that I would never tackle Nina again about my friends; she was too much for me, I acknowledged to myself, and apart from determining that she should at least behave decently to Fred, I made up my mind to keep clear of things which seemed altogether out of my line.

It was arranged finally that I should go alone to town for the 'Varsity match, and should bring Jack Ward back with me. My mother said I must stay with the Bishop, and if she had not wanted me to go very much I think I should have found a number of reasons why I had better stay with him at some other time. For though the Bishop in the country had made himself quite pleasant, I had a sort of feeling that he had his eye on me and that this visit would be one of inspection. My reluctance was apparent to Nina, and one evening she mentioned it before dinner.

"I don't see what there is to be afraid of. Think of him as an uncle,"

she said.

"I am not afraid of a hundred bishops," I answered.

"Then you needn't be nervous about going to stay with half one, because he's only a suffragan."

"You shouldn't speak of your uncle in that way, Nina," my mother said.

"It makes no difference whether he is an archbishop or a curate, but I won't have him spoken of as if he is a fraction."

"G.o.dfrey used to hate him, at any rate," she replied, simply to create a diversion.

"I am sure he didn't," and my mother's eyes turned questioningly upon me.

"I did rather bar him at one time until he was decent in the summer, he used to think himself so funny," I explained.

"I wish you would talk English," my father said. "Dinner is already a quarter of an hour late, I am going into the dining-room." He marched off quickly and Nina began to laugh, but I think she must also have been a little ashamed of herself.

"I am a scapegoat for everybody," I said to her; "for you, the cook, and the gardener's boy, whose whistle is always mistaken for mine."

"Never mind," she answered, "you don't look very depressed."

"It isn't fair, all the same; you don't play the game," and as my mother had already gone into the dining-room to sit rebukefully at a foodless table I followed her.

These solemn waitings, which did not happen unfrequently, were comical to me, and since my father never could understand why Nina and I were amused at them, he had generally forgotten his original grievance before dinner began.

When I got to London I could not help being struck by the difference between a bishop at work and a bishop at play. The chief impression I got of my uncle was of a man most strenuously at labour; if he wanted to lecture me he never had time to do it, and nearly the first thing he said was that I was to do exactly as I liked, and he gave me a latch-key so that I might feel that I was a bother to n.o.body. He was so extraordinarily kind and simple that I wondered how on earth it was that I had really hated him at one time, for I had hated him quite honestly, and I came to the conclusion that as soon as he had ceased to be a pompous humorist he had become a very nice man. At any rate he no longer made jokes, and I never had been able to think them good ones, because those which I remembered had been nearly always directed at me.

The 'Varsity match was a complete failure owing to the weather, and was never likely to be finished. Fred made fifteen in the one Oxford innings, and as the whole side made under a hundred, he didn't do so badly. But I think Cambridge might have won if the game had been played out, so when it poured with rain on the third day, I did not mind very much, apart from the fact that Lord's in wet weather is a terribly dismal place. I went back about one o'clock to my uncle's house and having found a huge London directory, I hunted for the name of Owen. I soon found an address in Victoria Street, which seemed to be the one for which I was looking. "Professor of Gymnastics, Boxing and Fencing" was pretty well bound to be right, and in the afternoon I started off to find Owen.

I wanted to ask him to come and stay with us as soon as Jack Ward had gone, and I had already told my mother about his illness, though I had never mentioned the life-saving tale. I had often wanted to ask my father what really happened, only having made a promise, I had got to stick to it, and I wished I had never been fool enough to make it; it seemed to be making a lot of fuss about nothing. But, if I could persuade Owen to come, the whole thing would have to be cleared up, and I thought being in the country would do him so much good, that the Professor would make him come whether he wanted to or not. I did not know quite what my father would say when he heard all about Owen, for in some ways he belonged to what, I believe, is called "the old school," and clung tenaciously to the belief that there was not a Radical yet born who did not work night and day for the destruction of the British Empire. We never talked politics at home, though sometimes we listened to a lecture. But, as Owen said that he would never have lived if it had not been for my father, they ought, I imagined, to have a sort of friendly feeling for each other, though I cannot say that I felt any great confidence in this idea. I relied more on the fact that as soon as you had removed the crust from my father, you found a huge lot of kindness underneath it. He liked to complain, and some people, who knew him very slightly, thought he liked nothing else, but they were most hopelessly wrong.

My chief recollection of that walk along Victoria Street is that my umbrella was constantly b.u.mping into other umbrellas; I must have tried to walk too fast, and the result was that by the time I reached the Professor's, I was hot and splashed, and my umbrella had a large rent in it. The door of the house was open, and I saw a notice hanging on the side of the wall which told me to walk up-stairs. What I was to do when I had walked up-stairs puzzled me, so I went back into the street, and having rung a bell as a sort of announcement that some one was coming, I went up slowly. The house seemed to be full of stuffiness and gloom, so much so that had I been unable to find either the Professor or his son, I should not have been at all sorry. I was, however, met on the first landing by a servant who must have been cleaning a grate when I interrupted her. Her hair was straying over her face, and as she stood waiting for me to explain my business, she tried to arrange it properly, but she only succeeded in putting two large streaks of black upon her nose and forehead.

"I want to see Professor Owen," I said untruthfully.

"'E's porely this afternoon."

"Never mind," I replied quickly, "is Mr. Owen in--his son?"

"'E don't live 'ere, 'e lives at West-'Am with 'is ornt."

"Would you give me his address, I won't interrupt the Professor if he is not well?"

"Who may you be, I don't remember your fice?"

"I know Mr. Owen at Oxford, I have never been here before."

She laughed for a moment and then said she should have to ask the Professor for the address, but just as I was going to say I would write and ask him to forward my letter, a door opened on my right, and an enormous man in a blue pair of trousers and a flannel s.h.i.+rt came out into the pa.s.sage.

"This gent wants Mr. 'Ubert's address," the servant said, and disappeared very quickly up another flight of stairs.

"Are you the Professor?" I asked.

"That's me."

I held out my hand, but the pa.s.sage was dark and his attempt to get hold of it went wide.

"Will you come into my room? Business, I suppose?"

I said it was business, and walked into a small sitting-room, which seemed to be furnished princ.i.p.ally with a table, a big arm-chair, and empty bottles.

"I'm cleaning up a bit to-day, you must excuse the bottles," he said, and put his hands on the table. I would have excused everything if only the room had not been so dreadfully close, and I stood while the Professor looked at the bottles and finally picked one up and put it down again in the same place. Then, as if the exertion was too much for him, he sank with a thud into the chair.