The New Warden

Lady Dashwood's surprise was painful. "I do mind your running off," she said, and she looked a little bewildered. "Must you go to-morrow? Must you? To-morrow!"

Lady Dashwood had talked a great deal, both before May went into Gwendolen's room and afterwards, when May came back again to the drawing-room. May had told the reason for her long absence from the drawing-room, but in an abstracted manner; and Lady Dashwood, observing this, looked long and wistfully at her, but had asked no questions. All she had said was, "I'm glad you've been with the child," and she spoke in a low voice. Then she had begun talking again of things relevant and irrelevant, and in doing so had betrayed her excitement. It was indeed May now who was calm and self-contained, all trace of her "chill" gone, whereas Lady Dashwood was obviously over-excited.

It was only when May said good night, and made this announcement about going away on the following day, that Lady Dashwood's spirits showed signs of flagging.

That moment all her vivacity suddenly died down and she looked no longer brisk and brilliant, but limp and tired, a hollow-eyed woman.

"I do mind," she repeated. But she gave no reason for minding, she merely added: "Don't go!" and stared at her niece pathetically.

But May was firm. She kissed her aunt very affectionately, and was very tender in her manner and voice, but she was immovable.

"I must go, dear," she said; and then she repeated again: "Your troubles are over! Seriously, Aunt Lena, I want to go!"

Lady Dashwood sighed. "You have done a great deal for me, May," she said, and this gratitude from her Aunt Lena shook May's courage more than any protest.

"I don't want to go," she said, "but I must go." That was her last word.

And May wanted to go early. Everything must be ready. She wanted to get away as soon as Gwendolen had gone. She must not risk meeting the Warden! He might return to lunch, she must go before lunch. She must not see him come back. She could not bear to be in the house when he read the letter from Gwendolen. That was what made her fly. To stay on and witness in cold blood his feelings at being rescued, to witness his humiliation, because he was rescued, would be an intrusion on the privacy of a human soul. She must go. So May packed up over night, slept uneasily and in snatches, conscious of Oxford all the time, conscious of all that it meant to her!

It was a grey morning when she got up and looked out of narrow window's on to the quiet, narrow grey street. She heard no one moving about when she came down the broad staircase and into the hall, prepared to go, hardening herself to go, because to stop would be impossible.

In the breakfast-room she found Lady Dashwood. The two women looked at each other silently with a smile only of greeting. They could hear steps outside, and Gwendolen came in with swollen eyes and smiled vaguely round the room.

"Good morning," she said, and then gulped. Poor girl! She was making an effort to be brave, and May gave her a glance that said plainly her approval and her sympathy.

Lady Dashwood was almost tender in her manner.

Gwen ate hurriedly, and once or twice made spasmodic faces in trying not to break down.

Of course, no reference was made to anything that had happened, but it was necessary to talk a little. Silence would have made things worse. So Lady Dashwood praised Potten End, and said it was more bracing there than at Oxford; and May said she had not seen Potten End. Then both ladies looked at each other and started some other subject. They spoke at great length about the weather. At last breakfast was over, and Lady Dashwood rose from her chair and looked rather nervously across at Gwendolen.

"I'm ready," said Gwendolen, bravely. "At least, I've only got to put my hat on."

"There is no hurry, dear," said Lady Dashwood. "Let me see, you have nearly an hour." The car was to come at ten – an unearthly hour except in Oxford and at Potten End.

Gwendolen disappeared upstairs, and the two ladies lingered about in the breakfast-room, neither able to attend to the papers, though both read ostentatiously. At last the car was announced and they went into the hall.

Gwendolen came downstairs hastily. That horrible umbrella was in her hand, in the other hand was a handkerchief. She was frowning under her veil to keep herself from crying.

"Well, good-bye, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, and she kissed the girl on both cheeks. "Good-bye, dear; give my love to Mrs. Potten."

"Thanks – " began Gwen, but her voice began to fail her. "Thanks – "

"My love to Mrs. Potten," repeated Lady Dashwood hurriedly, and Gwendolen turned away without finishing her sentence.

May kissed Gwendolen and murmured in her ear: "Brave girl!" "Good-bye," she said aloud.

"Good-bye," said Gwen.

There was the familiar hall, its great bevelled doors, its oak panelling and its wide oak staircase. There was the round table in the middle under the electric chandelier and the dim portraits on the walls. All was familiar, and all had been thought of as hers for a time, all too short; for a day that now seemed as if it could never have been; for a dream and no part of the reality of Gwen's life.

There outside was the car which was to take her away for ever. Robinson Junior was holding open the door, his snub nose well in the air, his cheeks reddened by the chill autumn wind. He was waiting for her to get in. Then he would bang the door to, and have done with her, and the Lodgings would never again have anything to do with her – nor Oxford.

Oh, it was too wretched, but brave she would be, and Mrs. Dashwood at least would pity her and understand. What Lady Dashwood thought she did not care so very much.

Gwen went down the steps and got into the car. Robinson Junior did bang the door. He banged it and caught a piece of Gwendolen's skirt. Then he opened the door with ferocity as if it was somebody else's fault. Gwendolen pulled her skirt and he banged the door to again. This time it shut her out from the Lodgings. The last moment had come. The car moved. The two ladies waved their hands. Robinson Junior raised his finger to his ear. The car turned and went out of the Court into the narrow street.

It was all over! Robinson Junior did not come in. He slipped somewhere round at the back with mysterious swiftness, and Lady Dashwood shut the door herself. It was like closing a book at "The End" or writing a last Will and Testament. It was all over!

Then Lady Dashwood, who had been so composed that May had been deceived into thinking that she had almost recovered from her excitement and fatigue, suddenly leaned against the hall table. "May!" she called.

May did not hear her name called, she was already retreating up the staircase to her room as hastily as she dared. There was not much time, and yet she had not told her Aunt Lena yet that she meant to leave that very morning; she had mentioned no hour.

Her luggage was packed and labelled. Her hat and coat and gloves, exactly the things she had arrived in from Malvern, were there waiting for her to put them on and go away. Meanwhile he was in Town, little dreaming of what was happening. He would be back soon. It would be horrible if he arrived before she left, and there was still an hour before she must start for the station! She would put on her hat and then go down, tell her Aunt Lena that she must go in an hour, and talk to her, give herself up to her till the taxi came. No, it would be impossible for him to arrive before she left; she was foolish to worry about it. It was pure nonsense – merely a nervous fear.

When she had put on her hat, it flashed into her mind that Mr. Bingham was coming to dinner, ostensibly to meet her. After their talk together she must write to him. She must scribble a little note and get it taken to All Souls. She must tell him that she had to leave Oxford quite unexpectedly.

She sat down at her writing table and took up a pen. She wrote a few words, and thought the words too cold and too abrupt. She must begin again, and she tore up the letter and threw it into the waste-paper basket. She wanted to write sympathetically and yet not to appear to think he needed sympathy. She wanted to write as if she was very much disappointed at not meeting him again, but without putting it into words that would sound self-assured – as if she knew and counted on his being grateful at her disappointment. And indeed, she thought, he was not much in love with her. Why should he be? That was a question May always asked herself when a man professed to be in love with her. Why? Why in the name of all – , etc. May always failed to see why.

This lack of vanity in May had led many people, who did not understand her, to accuse her of flirting.

But May, in writing to Bingham, realised to the full his attractions. He was too interesting a personality to be going about unclaimed. He ought to make some woman happy – some nice woman – not herself.

She began a fresh letter and was at the first sentence when a knock came at the door.

"Come in," she called.

In came Louise, looking full of sinister importance. Her hair, which was never very tidy, looked as if it had taken an intelligent interest in some crisis.

Louise glanced round the room at the luggage, at the coat, at the hat on May's head.

"Oh, Madame, what a desolation!" cried Louise, and she wrung her hands.

"I have packed very well, Louise," said May Dashwood. "I am accustomed to do it – I have no maid."

"Oh, what a desolation!" repeated Louise, as she advanced further into the room. Then she stopped and announced, with an affectation of horrible composure: "I come to inform Madame that it is impossible for her to depart."

May put down her pen. "What is the matter, Louise?"

Louise drew in her breath. "My lady suffers," she began, and as she proceeded her words flowed more and more quickly: "while Madame prepares to forsake her, my lady faints upon the floor in the breakfast parlour, she expires."

May rose, her heart beating.

"She now swallows a glass of brandy and a biscuit brought by Mrs. Robinson, who is so slow, so slow and who understands nothing, but has the keys. I call and I call, eh bien, I call – oh, but what slowness, what insupportable delay."

May put her letter inside the writing case and moved away from the writing-table. She was composed now.

"Is she very ill?" she asked quietly.

"My lady has died every day for two weeks," continued Louise; "for many days she has died, and no one observes it but myself and the angels in heaven. Madame agonises, over what terrible events I know not. But they know, the spirits of the dead – they know and they come. I believe that, for this house, this Lodgings is gloomy, this Oxford is so full of sombre thought. My Lady Dashwood martyrs herself for others. I see it always with Monsieur le General Sir John Dashwood, excellent man as he is, but who insists on catching severe colds in the head – colds heavy, overpowering – he sneezing with a ferocity that is impossible. At last old Robinson telephones for a doctor at my demand, oh, how I demand! It was necessary to overcome the phlegm and the stupidity of the Robinson family. I say! I demand! It is only when Mrs. Robinson comes to assist at this terrible crisis, that I go to rush upstairs for Madame. I go to rush, but I am detained! 'Stay!' cries my lady, 'I forbid you to speak of it. I am not ill – it is an indisposition of the mildest.' You see, Madame, the extraordinary generosity of my Lady Dashwood! Her soul full of sublime resignation! 'I go to prevent Madame Mrs. Dashwood's departure,' I cry! My lady replies with immense self-renunciation, like that of the blessed saints: 'Say nothing, my poor Louise. I exist only to do good on this earth. I ask for nothing for myself. I suffer alone. I endure without complaint. I speak not of my extreme agony in the head. I do not mention the insupportable nausea of the stomach. I subdue my cries! I weep silently, alone in the presence of my God.'"

Louise paused for a second for breath.

Nothing at this moment could have made May smile. She looked at Louise with gravity.

"But," continued Louise, with the same vehement swiftness, "a good moment arrives. The form too full of Mrs. Robinson hides me as I escape from the room. I come to Madame here. Eh bien!" Here Louise broke off and, glancing round the room, made a gesture that implied unpacking May's luggage and putting everything back in the proper place. "I unpack for Madame, immediately, while Madame descends and assures my lady that she does not forsake her at the supreme moment."

Louise's eyes now seemed to pierce the space in front of her, she defied contradiction.

"I will go and see Lady Dashwood," said May, calmly. "But don't unpack yet for me. I shall put her ladyship to bed, Louise. Go and see that everything is ready, please."

"I go to countermand Madame's taxi," said Louise, astutely.

"You can do that," said May; "I shall wait till the doctor comes – anyhow. Ask Robinson to telephone at once."

May went down to the breakfast-room, and found Mrs. Robinson's stout form coming out of the door. Within Lady Dashwood was seated in a chair by the fire.

"I am perfectly well, May," said Lady Dashwood, lifting up a white face to her niece as she came up to her. "I have sent Mrs. Robinson away. That silly old fool, Louise, has made Robinson telephone for a doctor."

"Quite right of her," said May, quietly, "and I shall stop till he has come and gone."

"You didn't mean to go before lunch?" murmured Lady Dashwood.

"I can go after lunch," said May.

Lady Dashwood leaned her head back in a weak manner.

"Not so convenient to you perhaps, dear," she murmured, but in a voice that accepted the delay to May's departure. She accepted it and sighed and stared into the fire, and said not one word about the Warden, but she said: "I'm not going to bed. The house will be empty enough as it is;" and May knew she was thinking of the Warden's return.

"You must go to bed," May replied.

"I can't go to bed, child. I shall stay up and look after things," said Lady Dashwood, and she knew she was speaking with guile. "You forget, dear, that – the house will be so empty!"

"I shall put you to bed," said May.

"How do you know I shall remain?" said Lady Dashwood. "The doctor will say that there is nothing wrong." She looked white and obstinate and clung to her chair.

Then at last May said: "I am going to stay on till the doctor comes. Like all managing people, you are absolutely irresponsible about yourself, Aunt Lena. I shall have to stay and make you obey me."

"Oh, I didn't know I was so wicked!" sighed Lady Dashwood, in a suddenly contented voice. Now she allowed herself to be helped out of her chair and led upstairs to her room. "And can you really stay, May? Really, dear?"

"I must," said May. "You are so wicked."

"Oh dear, am I wicked?" said Lady Dashwood. "I knew my dear old John was very tiresome, but I didn't know I was!"

So May remained. What else could she do? She left Lady Dashwood in Louise's hands and went to her room. What was to be done about Mr. Bingham? May looked round the room.

Her boxes had disappeared. Her clothes were all put away and the toilet table carefully strewn with her toilet things. Louise had done it. On the little table by the bed stood something that had not been there before. It was a little plaster image of St. Joseph. It bore the traces of wear and tear from the hands of the pious believer – also deterioration from dust, and damage from accidents. Something, perhaps coffee, had been spilt upon it. The machine-made features of the face also had shared this accidental ablution, and one foot was slightly damaged. The saint was standing upon a piece of folded paper. May pulled out the paper and unfolded it. Written in faultless copper-plate were the words: "Louise Dumont prays for the protection of Madame every day."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FORGIVENESS OF THE FATES

Lady Dashwood submitted gracefully to being put to bed and propped up by pillows.

The doctor had come, pronounced his patient very greatly over-fatigued though not seriously ill, but he had forbidden her to leave her bed till he gave permission.

"Keep a strict watch over her," he had said to May, outside in the corridor. "She has got to the point when rest will put her right, or fatigue will put her all wrong."

When he had gone May came back into her aunt's room.

"Now you know what it is to be under orders," she said with a smile.

"And what about you, dear?" murmured Lady Dashwood, sweetly. "You can't stay on, of course, darling?"

May frowned to herself and then smiled. "I shall stay till the doctor comes again, because I can't trust you, dear aunt, to keep in bed, if I go."

"You can't trust me," sighed Lady Dashwood, blissfully. "I am beginning to realise that I am not the only reasonable person in the world. I suppose it is good for me, but it is very sad for you, May, to be sacrificed like this."

May said she wasn't being sacrificed, and refused to discuss the matter any longer.

So Lady Dashwood lay quietly looking at the narrow windows, from which college roofs opposite could be seen in a grey Oxford daylight. She made no reference to the Warden's return. She did not tell May when he was expected home, whether he was coming back to lunch, or whether he was coming by a late afternoon train. She did not even mention his name. And May, too, kept up the appearance of not thinking about him. She merely looked up with a rather strained attention if the door opened, or there were sounds in the corridor.

The time came for her to go down to lunch, and Lady Dashwood did not even say: "You will have to take lunch alone." But she said: "I wonder what Marian Potten and Gwendolen are doing?"

So May went into the dining-room and glanced round her with apprehension.

Two places were laid, one for the Warden at the head of the table and one at his right hand.

"You expect the Warden?" she asked of Robinson, who was standing in the room alone, and she came towards the table apprehensively.

He pulled out her chair and said: "No, m'm, I don't think 'e will be in to lunch."

May sat down and breathed again. "You think he will be late?" she asked, speaking as one who cares not, but who needs the information for purposes of business.

"'E said to me, m'm," said Robinson, as he handed a dish to her with old gnarled hands that were a little shaky but still full of service, "as I was 'andin' 'im 'is 'at what 'e wears in London: 'If I'm not 'ome in time for lunch, I shall be 'ome by 'alf-past five.'"

"Oh yes," said May. "Then you'll be putting tea for him in the library, won't you, Robinson?"

Robinson assented. "Yes, m'm, if you 'as tea with 'er ladyship." Then he added, "We're glad, m'm, that you're stayin' on," – now he dropped his voice to a confidential whisper, and wore the air of one who is privileged to communicate private information to a member of the family – "because that French Louise is so exactin' and that jealous of Mrs. Robinson, and no one can't expect a learned gentleman, what 'as the 'ole college on 'is shoulders and ain't used to ladies, to know what to do."

"No, of course not," said May.

"But we've all noticed," said Robinson, solemnly, as he poured out some water into May's glass, "as 'ow 'er ladyship's indisposition 'as come on gradual."

Here he ended his observations, and he went and stood by his carving table with his accustomed bearing of humble importance.

But it would have been a mistake to suppose that Robinson was really humble. He was, on the contrary, proud. Proud because he was part of King's College and had been a part thereof for fifty years, and his father had been part before him. But his pride went further. He was proud of the way he waited. He moved about the room, skimming the edges of the long table and circumventing chairs and protruding backs of awkward guests with peculiar skill. Robinson would have had much sympathy with the Oxford chaplain who offered to give any other clerical gentlemen a generous handicap in the Creed and beat them. Robinson, had he been an ecclesiastic, would have made such a boast himself. As it was, he prided himself on being able to serve round an "ontray" on his own side of the table and lap over two out of the other man's, easy. Robinson was also proud of having a master with a distinguished appearance, and this without any treachery to the late Warden's bald head and exceedingly casual nose. There was no obligation on Robinson's part to back up the old Warden against the new, or indeed the new against the old, because all Wardens were Wardens, and the College was continuous and eternal.

Robinson gloried on there being many thousand volumes in the library. Mrs. Robinson did not share his enthusiasm. He enjoyed opening the door to other Heads of colleges and saying: "Not at 'ome, sir. Is there any message I can take, sir?" for Robinson felt that he was negotiating important affairs that affected the welfare of Oxford. When waiting on the Warden, Robinson's solemnity was not occasioned by pure meekness, nor was his deferential smile (when a smile was suitable) an exposition of snobbery nor the flattery of the wage-earner. Robinson was gratifying his own vanity; he was showing how he grasped the etiquette of his profession. Also he experienced pleasure in being necessary to a human being whose manner and tastes were as impressive as they were unaccountable.

"There's more of these 'ere periodicals coming in," he said that very afternoon, as he arranged the lamp in the library, "though there aren't no more Germans among 'em, than there ever were before in my time." He spoke to Robinson Junior, who had followed him into the library.

"'E don't read 'em," said Robinson Junior, his nose elevated, in the act of drawing the curtains.

"'Ow d'you know?" asked Robinson.

"They ain't cut, not all of 'em," said Junior.

"'E don't read the stuff what is familiar to 'im," explained Robinson, and so saying, he took from some corner of the room a little table and set it up by a chair by the fire, for the Warden's tea-tray.

Meanwhile May Dashwood had taken tea with her Aunt Lena and then had gone to her own room. So that when the Warden did arrive, just about half-past five, he found no one moving about, no one visible. He came in like a thief in the night, pale and silent. He glanced round the hall, preoccupied apparently, but really aware of things that were around him to a high degree of sensitiveness. He moved noiselessly, rang the bell, and then looked at the table for letters. Robinson appeared immediately. The Warden's narrow eyes, that seemed to absorb the light that fell upon them, rested upon Robinson's face with that steady but veiled regard with which a master controls those who are under him.

The Warden did not ask "Where are the ladies?" he asked whether Lady Dashwood was in.

"In 'er room, sir," said Robinson; and he then proceeded to explain why, and gave the doctor's report. "Nothin' alarmin', sir."

The Warden said "Ah!" and looked down at the table. He glanced over the letters that were waiting for him. He gathered them in his hands.

"Tea is in the library for you, sir," said old Robinson; "I will bring it in a minute."

The Warden went upstairs.

He went past the drawing-room and past his bedroom into the library. He threw his letters down on the writing-desk, walked to the fire, and then walked back again to the desk. Then he finally went out of the room and passed the head of the staircase and up the two or three steps into the corridor.

He had been into the corridor three times since the arrival of his sister. Once when he conducted her to her room, on her arrival, once again when she had made alterations in the bedrooms and had asked for his approval, and then on that wretched night when he had gone to calm Gwendolen and assure her that there were no such things as ghosts. Now he went along over the noiseless floor, anxious to meet no one. Why was Lena ill? He knew why Lena was ill, but for a moment he felt wearily vexed with her. Why did she make things worse? This feeling vanished when he opened her door and went in, and saw her sitting up in bed supported by pillows. Then his feeling was of remorse, of anger increased against himself, and himself only.