Watersprings Part 10

XV

JACK'S ESCAPADE

The college slowly filled; the term began; Howard went back to his work, and the perplexities of Windlow rather faded into the background.

He would behave very differently when he went there next. It should all be cool, friendly, unemotional. But in spite of everything, his aunt's words came sometimes into his mind, troubling it with a sudden thrill.

"Power, spirit, the development of life,"--were these real things, had one somehow to put oneself into touch with them? Was the life of serene and tranquil work but marking time, wasting opportunity? Had one somehow to be stirred into action and reality? Was there something in the background, which did not insist or drive or interfere with one's inclinations, because it knew that it would be obeyed and yielded to some time? Was it just biding its time, waiting, impelling but not forcing one to change? It gave him an impulse to look closer at his own views and aims, to consider what his motives really were, how far he could choose, how much he could prevail, to what extent he could really do as he hoped and desired. He was often haunted by a sense of living in a mechanical unreality, of moving simply on lines of easy habit.

That was a tame, a flat business, perhaps; but it was what seemed to happen.

And yet all the time he was more and more haunted by the thought of Maud. He could not get her out of his head. Over and over again he lived through the scenes of their meetings. Against the background of the dusk, that slender figure outlined itself, the lines of her form, her looks, her smiles; he went again and again through his talks with her--the walk on the down, the sight of her in the dimly-lighted room; he could hear the very tones of her low voice, and see the childlike appeal of her eyes. Worst of all the scene at the Vicarage, the book held in her slender fingers, her look of bewilderment and distress--what a pompous a.s.s he had been, how stupid and coa.r.s.e! He thought of writing to her; he did write--but the dignified patronage of his elder-brotherly style sickened him, and he tore up his unfinished letter. Why could he not simply say that he cared for her, and was miserable at having hurt her? That was just, he thought, what he must not do; and yet the idea that she might be making other friends and acquaintances was a jealous horror to him. He thought of writing to his aunt about it--he did write regularly to her, but he could not explain what he had done. Strangest of all, he hardly recognised it as love. He did not face the idea of a possible life with Maud. It was to be an amiable and brotherly relation, with a frank confidence and an outspoken affection. He lost his old tranquil spirits in these reveries. It was painful to him to find how difficult it was becoming to talk to the undergraduates; his mild and jocose ironies seemed to have deserted him. He saw little of Jack; they were elaborately unaffected with each other, but each felt that there had been a sort of exposure, and it seemed impossible to regain the old relation.

One morning he had an unpleasant surprise. The Dean of the College, Mr.

Gretton, a tall, rather grimly handsome man, who was immensely conscientious and laborious, and did his work as well as a virtuous man could, who was not interested in education, and frankly bored by the irresponsibility of undergraduates, walked into his rooms one morning and said, "I hope I don't interrupt you? I want to have a word with you about Sandys, as he is your cousin. There was a dinner in College last night--a club, I think--Guthrie and that lot--and Sandys got undeniably drunk. They were making a horrible row about two o'clock, and I went down and dispersed them. There were some outside men there whose names I took; but Sandys was quite out of control, and spoke very impertinently to me. He must come and apologise, or I shall ask that he may be sent down. He is a respectable man on the whole, so I shall not push it to extremes. But he will be gated, of course, and I shall write to his father. I thought you had better see him, and try if you can do anything. It is a great nuisance, and the less said about it the better; but of course we can't stand this kind of thing, and it had better be stopped at once."

"Yes, I will see him at once," said Howard. "I am very sorry. I did not think he would play the fool like that."

"One never knows!" said the Dean; "to speak plainly, I don't think he is doing much good here. Rather too much a man of the world for my taste. But there is nothing particular against him, and I don't want to be hard on him."

Howard sent for Jack at once. He came in, in an obviously rebellious frame of mind.

"I know," he said. "Yes, of course I was a fool; but it isn't worth making a row about. I don't go in for soaking, like some of the men who don't get caught, and I have no intention of going to the bad, if that is what you mean."

"You are an a.s.s!" said Howard, "a real a.s.s! Now don't say a word yet, till I have told you what I think. You may have your say afterwards. I don't care twopence about your getting drunk once in a way. It's a stupid thing to do, to my mind, and I don't see the point of it. I don't consider you a reprobate, nor am I going to take a high line about drunkenness; I know perfectly well that you are no more likely to take to drink than the Master is. But it isn't good enough. You put yourself on the wrong side, you give people a wrong idea of yourself.

You get disapproved of by all the stupid and ordinary people who don't know you. Your father will be in an awful state of mind. It's an experiment, I suppose? I imagine you thought you would like to see how it felt to be drunk? Well, living at close quarters like this, that sort of thing can't be done. And then you were rude to Gretton. What's the point of that? He is a very good fellow, minds his own business, doesn't interfere, and keeps things very straight here. That part of it seems to me simply ungentlemanly. And in any case, you have no business to hurt the people who care for you, even if you think they ought not to be distressed. I don't say it is immoral, but I say it is a low business from beginning to end."

Jack, who bore signs of his overnight experience, gave Howard a smile.

"That's all right!" he said. "I don't object to that! You have rather taken the wind out of my sails. If you had said I was a sensual brute, I should have just laughed. It is such NONSENSE the way these men go on! Why I was lunching with Gretton the other day, and Corry told a story about Wordsworth as an undergraduate getting drunk in Milton's rooms at Christ's, and how proud the old man was of it to the end of his life. Gretton laughed, and thought it a joke; and then when one gets roaring drunk, they turn up their eyes and say it is unmanly and so on. Why can't they stick to one line? If you go to b.u.mp-suppers and dinners, and just manage to carry your liquor, they think you a good sort of fellow, with no sort of nonsense about you--'a little natural boyish excitement'--you know the sort of rot. One gla.s.s more, and you are among the sinners."

"I know," said Howard, "and I perceive that I have had the benefit of your thought-out oration after all!"

Jack smiled rather sheepishly, and then said, "Well, what's to be done?

Am I to be sent down?"

"Not if you do the right thing," said Howard. "You must just go to Gretton and say you are very sorry you got drunk, and still more sorry you were impertinent. If you can contrive to show him that you think him a good fellow, and are really vexed to have been such a bounder, so much the better. That I leave to your natural eloquence. But you will be gated, and he will write to your father."

Jack whistled. "I say, can't you stop that?" he said. "Father will be fearfully upset."

"No, I can't," said Howard, "and I wouldn't if I could. This is the music, and you have got to face it."

"Very well," said Jack rather glumly, "I suppose I must pay the score.

I'll go and grovel to Gretton. I was simply beastly to him. My frank nature expanded in his presence."

Howard laughed. "Well, be off with you!" he said. "And I will tell you what. I will write to your father, and tell him what I think."

"Then it will be all right," said Jack, greatly relieved. "Anything to stop the domestic howl. I'll write too. After all, it is rather convenient to have a cousin among the Dons; and, anyhow, you have had your innings now. I was a fool, I admit. It won't happen again."

Howard wrote at once to the Vicar, and was rewarded by a long and grateful letter. "It is a disreputable affair," he wrote, "and it has upset me very much, and Maud even more. But you have put it in the right light, and I am very grateful to you for your good offices. I couldn't have believed it of Jack, but I look back to dear old Pembroke, and I remember there was one occasion--but I need not revive ancient memories, and I am sufficiently versed in human nature not to waste indignation over a boyish escapade. I have ventured to address letters to Mr. Gretton and the Master on the subject, apologising for Jack's misdemeanour, and saying how much I appreciate the excellence of the tone that prevails in the College."

What, however, pleased Howard still more was that Gretton spoke to him after Hall and said, "I am much obliged to you, Kennedy, for your prompt action. Sandys came and apologised to me in a very proper manner, and entirely removed the disagreeable impression from my mind.

I owe this to your kindly intervention; and I must honestly say that I thought well of Sandys. He did not attempt to excuse himself, or to extenuate his fault. He showed very good feeling, and I believe that henceforth his influence will be on the side of order. I was really pleased with him."

Howard spoke to Jack again the following day, and said he was glad he had done the thing thoroughly.

"Thoroughly?" said Jack; "I should think I did. I fairly licked the old man's boots. We had quite an affecting scene. I rather think he gave me his blessing, and I went away feeling that I had been almost recommended to repeat my performance. Gretton's a sensible man. This is a good College. The thing would have been mismanaged anywhere else; but now I have not only an unblemished character, but I am like gold tried in the furnace."

"One more thing," said Howard; "why not get your people to come up for two or three days? It will clear off the whole affair. I think they would like to be asked, and I should be very glad to help to look after them."

"It will be a bore," said Jack, making a grimace; "it wrecks my health to take people round to King's and Trinity. It simply knocks me up; but I expect you are right, and I will ask them. You won't fail me? When I go off duty, you will go on? If that is clearly understood, they shall come. I know Maud would like to realise my background, as she says; and my father will rush to the 'Varsity Library, and break the spirit of the Pemmer Dons. He'll have the time of his life; but he deserves a treat--he really wrote me a very decent letter. By George, though, these emotional experiences are not in my line, though they reveal the worth of suffering, as the Chaplain said in his Hospital Sermon last Sunday."

Howard wrote a further note, saying that he hoped that Mr. Sandys and Maud would be able to come; and it was soon arranged that they should spend the inside of a week at Cambridge, before the May week, as the Vicar said he had little taste for social pleasures, and had some matters of considerable importance to turn up in the Library, to say nothing of the intellectual stimulus he antic.i.p.ated.

XVI

THE VISIT

THE visit began on the usual lines of such visits, the home team, so to speak--Howard and Jack--having to fit a round of festivities into a life which under normal circ.u.mstances was already, if anything, too full, with the result that, at all events, Howard's geniality was tense, and tended to be forced. Only in youth can one abandon oneself to high spirits; as one grows older one desires more to contemplate one's own mirth, and a.s.sure oneself that it is genuine.

Jack met them at the station, and they had tea in his rooms, Howard refusing firmly to come.

"You must just give them a chance of a private word or two!" he said.

"Why, that's exactly what I want to avoid!" said Jack. "Besides, my family is never private--we haven't any company manners. But I expect you are right. Father will want one innings, and I think it's fair he should have it!"

They were, however, to dine with Howard, who, contrary to his wont, lavished some care on flowers and decorations, to make the place un.o.btrusively pretty and home-like, and he determined that he would be as quiet and straightforward as he could, but promised himself at least one afternoon with Maud strolling round the place. But this was all to happen as if by chance, and with no scheming or diplomacy.

They came; and Howard saw at once that Maud was timid and somewhat out of spirits; she looked tired, and this, so far from diminis.h.i.+ng her charm, seemed to Howard to make it almost intolerably appealing to him.

He would have desired to take her in his arms, like a child, to pet and caress her into happiness. Jack was evidently feeling the weight of his responsibilities, and was frankly bored; but never had Howard been more grateful for Mr. Sandys' flow of spirits than he was that evening. Mr.

Sandys was thirsting for experience and research, and he was also in a state of jubilant sentimentality about Cambridge and his old recollections. He told stories of the most unemphatic kind in the most emphatic way, and Howard was amused at the radiant hues with which the lapse of time had touched the very simplest incidents of his career.

Mr. Sandys had been, it seemed, a terrible customer at Cambridge--disobedient, daring, incisive, the hero of his contemporaries, the dread of the authorities; but all this on high-minded lines. Moreover, he had brought with him a note-book of queries, to be settled in the Library; while he had looked up in the list of residents everyone with whom he had been in the remotest degree acquainted, and a long vista of calls opened out before him. It was a very delightful evening to Howard, in spite of everything, simply because Maud was there; and he found himself extraordinarily conscious of her presence, observant of all she said and did, glad that her eyes should rest upon his familiar setting; and when they sat afterwards in his study and smoked, he saw that her eyes travelled with a curious intentness over everything--his books, his papers, his furniture. He had no private talk with her; but he was glad just to meet her glance and hear her low replies--glad too to find that, as the evening wore on, she seemed less distraite and tired.

They went off early, Mr. Sandys pleading fatigue for Maud, and the necessity for himself of a good night's rest, that he might ride forth on the following day conquering and to conquer.

The next day they lunched with Jack. When Howard came into the room he was not surprised to find that two undergraduates had been asked--Jack's chief allies. One was a big, good-humoured young man, who was very shy and silent; the other was one Fred Guthrie, who was one of the nicest men in the College; he was a Winchester boy, son of a baronet, a Member of Parliament, wealthy and distinguished. Guthrie had a large allowance, belonged to all the best clubs, played cricket with the chance of a blue ahead of him, and had, moreover, a real social gift. He had a quite unembarra.s.sed manner and, what is rare in a young man, a strong sense of humour. He was a prominent member of the A. D.

C., and had a really artistic gift of mimicry; but there was no touch of forwardness or conceit about him. He had been in for some examination or other; and when Howard came in he was describing his experiences. "What sort of questions?" he was saying. "Oh, you know the kind--an awful quotation, followed by the question, 'Who said this, and under what circ.u.mstances, and why did they let him?'" He made himself entirely at home, he talked to Mr. Sandys as if he were welcoming an old family friend, and he was evidently much attracted by Maud, who found it remarkably easy to talk to this pleasant and straightforward boy. He described with much liveliness an interview between Jack and the Master on the subject of reading the lessons in chapel, and imitated the suave tones of that courteous old gentleman to the life.

"Far be it from me to deny it was dramatic, Mr. Sandys, but I should prefer a slightly more devotional tone." He related with great good-humour how a heavy, well-meaning, and rather censorious undergraduate had waited behind in his room on an evening when he had been entertaining the company with some imitations, and had said, "You are fond of imitating people, Guthrie, and you do it a great deal; but you ought to say who it is you are imitating, because one can't be quite sure!"

Mr. Sandys was immensely amused by the young man, and had related some of his own experiences in elocution--how his clerk on the first occasion of reading the lesson at Windlow was reported to have said, "Why, you might think he had been THERE, in a manner of speaking."

Guthrie was not in the least concerned to keep the conversation in his own hands, and received Mr. Sandys' stories with exactly the right amount of respectful interest and amus.e.m.e.nt. But the result of all this upon Howard was to make him feel extraordinarily heavy and elderly. He felt that he and Mr. Sandys were the make-weights of the party, and he was conscious that his own contributions were wanting in liveliness.

Maud was extraordinarily amused by the bits of mimicry that came in, because it was so well done that it inspired everyone with the feeling that mimicry was the one art worth practising; and Mr. Sandys himself launched into dialect stories, in which Somersets.h.i.+re rustics began by saying, "Hoots, mon!" and ended by saying, "The ould divil hissilf."