The New Warden Read online

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  THE NEW WARDEN

  BY MRS. DAVID G. RITCHIE

  AUTHOR OF "TWO SINNERS," ETC.

  LONDON

  JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

  1919

  FIRST EDITION, _Nov., 1918_. _Reprinted ... March, 1919_. _All rights reserved_

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. THE WARDEN'S LODGINGS 1

  II. MORAL SUPPORT 14

  III. PASSIONATE PITY 26

  IV. THE UNFORESEEN HAPPENS 37

  V. WAITING 50

  VI. MORE THAN ONE CONCLUSION 57

  VII. MEN MARCHING PAST 72

  VIII. THE LOST LETTER 82

  IX. THE LUNCHEON PARTY 92

  X. PARENTAL EFFUSIONS 108

  XI. NO ESCAPE 124

  XII. THE GHOST 133

  XIII. THE EFFECT OF SUGGESTION 141

  XIV. DIFFERENT VIEWS 151

  XV. MRS. POTTEN'S CARELESSNESS 166

  XVI. SEEING CHRIST CHURCH 177

  XVII. A TEA PARTY 188

  XVIII. THE MORAL CLAIMS OF AN UMBRELLA 201

  XIX. HONOUR 209

  XX. SHOPPING 217

  XXI. THE SOUL OF MRS. POTTEN 227

  XXII. MR. BOREHAM'S PROPOSAL 236

  XXIII. BY MOONLIGHT 251

  XXIV. A CAUSE AND IMPEDIMENT 259

  XXV. CONFESSIONS 267

  XXVI. THE ANXIETIES OF LOUISE 280

  XXVII. THE FORGIVENESS OF THE FATES 290

  XXVIII. ALMA MATER 301

  XXIX. DINNER 310

  XXX. THE END OF BELINDA AND CO. 319

  XXXI. A FAREWELL 331

  XXXII. THE WARDEN HURRIES 343

  THE NEW WARDEN

  CHAPTER I

  THE WARDEN'S LODGINGS

  The Founders and the Benefactors of Oxford, Princes, wealthy priests,patriotic gentlemen, noble ladies with a taste for learning; any ofthese as they travelled along the high road, leaving behind thempastures, woods and river, and halted at the gates of the grey sacredcity, had they been in melancholy mood, might have pictured tothemselves all possible disasters by fire and by siege that could marthis garnered glory of spiritual effort and pious memory. Fire and siegewere the disasters of the old days. But a new age has it owndisasters--disasters undreamed of in the old days, and none of theselovers of Oxford as they entered that fair city, ever could haveforetold that in time to come Oxford would become enclosed and well-nighstifled by the peaceful encroachment of an endless ocean of friendly redbrick, lapping to its very walls.

  The wonder is that Oxford still exists, for the free jerry-builder offree England, with his natural right to spoil a landscape or to destroythe beauty of an ancient treasure house, might have forced his cheapvillas into the very heart of the city; might have propped his shamelessbricks, for the use of Don and of shopkeeper, against the august greycollege walls: he might even have insulted and defaced that majesticstreet whose towers and spires dream above the battlemented roofs andlatticed windows of a more artistic age.

  But why didn't he? Why didn't he, clothed in the sanctity of cheapness,desecrate the inner shrine?

  The Wardens and the Bursars of colleges could tell us much, but thestranger and the pilgrim, coming to worship, feel as if there must haveflashed into being some sudden Hand from Nowhere and a commanding Voicesaying--"Thus far shalt thou come and no farther," so that the accursedjerry-builder (under the impression that he was moved by some financialreasons of his own) must have obediently picked up his little bag oftools and trotted off to destroy some other place.

  Anyhow the real Oxford has been spared--but it is like a fair mystic gemin a coarse setting. No green fields and no rustling woods lead thelover of Oxford gently to her walls.

  The Beauty of England lies there--ringed about with a desolation ofugliness--for ever. Still she is there.

  Oxford has never been merely a city of learning, it has been a fightingcity.

  In the twelfth century it sheltered Matilda in that terrible, barbaricstruggle of young England.

  In the seventeenth century it was a city in arms for the Stuarts. Butthese were civil wars. Now in the twentieth century Oxford has risenlike one man, like Galahad--youthful and knightly--urgent at the Call ofFreedom and the Rights of Nations.

  And this Oxford is filled with the "sound of the forging of weapons,"the desk has become a couch for the wounded, the air is full of thewings of war.

  * * * * *

  In this Oxford where the black gown has been laid aside and young menhurry to and fro in the dress of the battle-field--in this Oxford no manwalked at times more heavily, feeling the grief that cannot be madearticulate, than did the Warden of King's College as he went about hiswork, a lonely man, without wife or child and with poignant memories ofthe very blossom of young manhood plucked from his hand and gone forever.

  And of the men who passed under his college gates and through theivy-clad quadrangles, most were strangers--coming and going--learningthe arts of war--busy under orders, and the few, a poor remnant ofacademic youth--foreigners or weaklings. And he, the Warden himself,felt himself almost a stranger--for into his life had surged newthoughts, anxious fears and ambitious hopes--for England, the England ofthe years to come--an England rising up from her desolation and hermourning and striving to become greater, more splendid and morespiritual than she had been before.

  It was a late October afternoon in 1916 and the last rays of autumnsunshine fell through the drawing-room windows of the Warden's lodgings.These rays of sunshine lit up a notable portrait over the stonefireplace. The portrait was of a Warden of the eighteenth century; afine fleshy face it was, full of the splendid noisy paganism of histime. You can stand where you will in the room, but you cannot escapethe sardonic stare that comes from his relentless, wide-open, luminouseyes. He seems as if he challenged you to stop and listen to the secretof his double life--the life of a scholar and divine of easy morals.Words seemed actually upon his lips, thoughts glowing in his eyes--andyet--there is silence.

  There was only one person in the room, a tall vigorous woman, stillhandsome in spite of middle age, and she was looking up at the portraitwith her hands clasped behind her back. She was not thinking of theportrait--her thoughts were too intent on something else. Her thoughtsindeed had nothing to do with the past--they were about the future,
thefuture of the new Warden, Dr. Middleton, the future of this only brotherof hers whom she loved more than anyone in the world--except her ownhusband; a brother more than ten years younger than herself, to whom shehad been a mother till she married and who remained in her eyes a sortof son, all the more precious to her because children had been deniedher.

  She had come at her brother's call to arrange his new home for him. Shehad arranged everything with sober economy, because Oxford was mourning.She had retained all that she found endurable of the late Warden's. Andnow she turned round and looked on her handiwork.

  The room wore an air of comfort, it was devoid of all distressfulknick-knacks and it was arranged as were French "Salons" of the time ofMademoiselle de Lespinasse for conversation, for groups of talkers, forbooks and papers; the litter of culture. It was a drawing-room forscholars in their leisure moments and for women to whom they could talk.But there was no complaisance in Lady Dashwood's face as she looked ather brother's drawing-room, just because her thoughts were deeplyoccupied with his future. What was his future to be like? What was instore for him? And these thoughts led her to give expression to a suddenoutspoken remark--unflattering to that future.

  "And now, what woman is going to become mistress of this room?"

  Lady Dashwood's voice had a harshness in it that startled even herself."What woman is going to reign here?" she went on, as if daring herselfto be gentle and resigned. After she had looked round the room her eyerested upon the portrait over the mantelpiece. He looked as if he hadheard her speak and stared back at her with his large persistent selfisheyes--full of cynical wonder. But he remained silent. These were timesthat he did not understand--but he observed!

  "It's on Jim's conscience that he _must_ marry, now that men are soscarce. He's obsessed with the idea," continued Lady Dashwood, thinkingto herself. "And being like all really good and great men--absolutelyhelpless--he is prepared to marry any fool who is presented to him."Then she added, "Any fool--or worse!"

  "And," she went on, speaking angrily to herself, "knowing that he ishelpless--I stupidly go and introduce into this house, a silly girl witha pretty face whose object in coming is to be--Mrs. Middleton."

  Lady Dashwood was mentally lashing herself for this stupidity.

  "I go and actually put her in his way--at least," she added swiftly, "Iallow her mother to bring her and force her upon us and leave her--forthe purpose of entrapping him--and so--I've risked his future! And yet,"she went on as her self-accusation became too painful, "I never dreamtthat he would think of a girl so young--as eighteen--and he forty--andfull of thoughts about the future of Oxford--and the New World. SomehowI imagined some pushing female of thirty would pretend to sympathisewith his aspirations and marry him: I never supposed----But I ought tohave supposed! It was my business to suppose. Here have I left myhusband alone, when he hates being alone, for a whole month, in order toput Jim straight--and then I go and 'don't suppose'--I'm more than afool--I'm----" The right word did not come to her mind.

  Here Lady Dashwood's indignation against herself made the blood tinglehotly in her hands and face. She was by nature calm, but this afternoonshe was excited. She mentally pictured the Warden--just when there wasso much for him to do--wasting his time by figuring as a sacrifice uponthe Altar of a foolish Marriage. She saw the knife at his throat--shesaw his blood flow.

  At this moment the door opened and the old butler, who had served otherWardens and who had been retained along with the best furniture as amatter of course, came into the room and handed a telegram to LadyDashwood.

  She tore open the envelope and read the paper: "Arrive thisevening--about seven. May."

  "Thank----!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood--and then she suddenly paused, forshe met the old thoughtful eye of Robinson.

  "Yes!" she remarked irrelevantly. Then she folded the paper. "There isno answer," she said. "When you've taken the tea away--please tell Mrs.Robinson that quite unexpectedly Mrs. Jack Dashwood is arriving atseven. She must have the blue room--there isn't another one ready. Don'tlet in any callers for me, Robinson."

  All that concerned the Warden's lodgings concerned Robinson. Oxford--toRobinson meant King's College. He had "heard tell" of "other colleges";in fact he had passed them by and had seen "other college" portersstanding about at their entrance doors as if they actually were part ofOxford. Robinson felt about the other colleges somewhat as theold-fashioned Evangelical felt about the godless, unmanageable, tangled,nameless rabble of humanity (observe the little "h") who were notelected. The "Elect" being a small convenient Body of which he was amember.

  King's was the "Elect" and Robinson was an indispensable member of it.

  Robinson went downstairs with his orders, which, dropping like a pebbleinto the pool of the servants' quarters, started a quiet expandingripple to the upper floor, reaching at last to the blue bedroom.

  Alone in the drawing-room Lady Dashwood was able to complete herexclamatory remark that Robinson's solemn eye had checked.

  "Thank Heaven!" she said, and she said it again more than once. Shelaughed even and opened the telegram again and re-read it for the purepleasure of seeing the words. "Arrive this evening."

  "I've risked Jim's life--and now I've saved it." Then Lady Dashwoodbegan to think carefully. There was no train arriving at seven fromMalvern--but there was one arriving at six and one at seven fifteen.Anyhow May was coming. Lady Dashwood actually laughed with triumph andsaid--"May is coming--_that_ for 'Belinda and Co.'!"

  "Did you speak to me, Lady Dashwood?" asked a girlish voice, and LadyDashwood turned swiftly at the sound and saw just within the doorway agirlish figure, a pretty face with dark hair and large wandering eyes.

  "No, Gwen!" said Lady Dashwood. "I didn't know you were there----" andagain she folded the telegram and her features resumed their normalcalm. With that folded paper in her hand she could look composedly nowat that pretty face and slight figure. If she had made a criminalblunder she had--though she didn't deserve it--been able to rectify theblunder. May Dashwood was coming! Again: "_That_ for Belinda and Co.!"

  The girl came forward and looked round the room. She held two books inher hand, one the Warden had lent her on her arrival--a short guide toOxford. She was still going about with it gazing earnestly at the printfrom time to time in bird-like fashion.

  "Mrs. Jack Dashwood is arriving this afternoon," said Lady Dashwood asshe moved towards the door.

  "Oh," said Gwen, and she stood still in the glow of the windows, her twobooks conspicuous in her hand. She looked at the nearest low easy-chairand dropped into it, propped one book on her knee and opened the otherat random. Then she gazed down at the page she had opened and thenlooked round the room at Lady Dashwood, keenly aware that she was abeautiful young girl looking at an elderly woman.

  "Mrs. Dashwood is my husband's niece by marriage," said Lady Dashwood.

  "Oh, yes," said Gwen, who would have been more interested if the subjectof the conversation had been a man and not a woman.

  "You don't happen to know if the Warden has come back?" asked LadyDashwood as she moved to the door.

  "He is back," said Gwen, and a slightly deeper colour came into hercheeks and spread on to the creamy whiteness of her slender neck.

  "In his library?" asked Lady Dashwood, stopping short and listening forthe reply.

  "Yes!" said Gwen, and then she added: "He has lent me another book."Here she fingered the book on her knee. "A book aboutthe--what-you-may-call-'ems of King's, I'm sorry but I can't remember.We were talking about them at lunch--a word like 'jumps'!"

  If a man had been present Gwen would have dimpled and demanded sympathywith large lingering glances; she would have demanded sympathy andapprobation for not knowing the right word and only being able tosuggest "jumps."

  One thing Gwen had already learned: that men are kinder in theircriticism than women! It was priceless knowledge.

  "Founders, I suppose you mean," said Lady Dashwood and she opened thedoor. "Never mind," she said to herself as sh
e closed the door behindher. "Never mind--May is coming--'Jumps!' What a self-satisfied littlemonkey the girl is!"

  At the head of the staircase it was rather dark and Lady Dashwood put onthe lights. Immediately at right angles to the drawing-room door two orthree steps led up to a corridor that ran over the premises of theCollege porter. In this corridor were three bedrooms looking upon thestreet, bedrooms occupied by Lady Dashwood and by Gwendolen Scott, andthe third room, the blue room, about to be occupied by Mrs. Dashwood.Lady Dashwood passed the corridor steps, passed the head of thestaircase, and went towards a curtained door. This was the Warden'sbedroom. Beyond was his library door. At this door beyond, she knocked.

  An agreeable voice answered her knock. She went in. The library was anoble room. Opposite the door was a wide, high latticed window, hungwith heavy curtains and looking on to the Entrance Court. To the rightwas a great fireplace with a small high window on each side of it. Onthe left hand the walls were lined with books--and a great wingedbook-case stood out from the wall, like a screen sheltering the doorwhich Lady Dashwood entered. Over the door was the portrait of aCardinal once a member of King's. Over the mantelpiece was a largeengraving of King's as it was in the sixteenth century. At a desk in themiddle of the room sat the Warden with his back to the fire and his facetowards the serried array of books. He was just turning up areading-lamp--for he always read and wrote by lamplight.

  "Robinson hasn't drawn your curtains," said Lady Dashwood.

  "I am going to draw them--he came in too soon," said the Warden, withoutmoving from his seat. His face was lit up by the flame of the lamp whichhe was staring at intently. There was just a faint sprinkling of greyin his brown hair, but on the regular features there was almost no traceof age.

  "You have given Gwen another book to read," said Lady Dashwood coming upto the writing-table.

  The Warden raised his eyes very slowly to hers. His eyes were peculiar.They were very narrow and blue, seeming to reflect little. On the otherhand, they seemed to absorb everything. He moved them very slowly as ifhe were adjusting a photographic apparatus.

  "Yes," he said.

  "You might just as well, my dear, hand out a volume of the _EncyclopaediaBritannica_ to the sparrows in your garden," said his sister.

  The Warden made no reply, he merely moved the lamp very slightly nearerto the writing pad in front of him.

  He had a stored-up memory of pink cheeks, a pure curve of chin and neck,a dark curl by the ear; objects young and graceful and graduallyabsorbed by those narrow eyes and stored in the brain. He also hadmemories less pleasant of the slighting way in which once or twice hissister had spoken of "Belinda and Co.," meaning by that the mother ofthis pretty piece of pretty girlhood, and the girl herself.

  "She tries hard to read because we expect her to," continued LadyDashwood. "If she had her own way she would throw the books into thefire, as tiresome stodge."

  The Warden was listening with an averted face and now he remarked--

  "Did you come in, Lena, to tell me this?"

  When the Warden was annoyed there was in his voice and in his manner a"something" which many people called "formidable." As Lady Dashwoodstood looking down at him, there flashed into her mind a scene of longago, where the Warden, then an undergraduate, had (for a joke at aparty in his rooms) induced by suggestion a very small weak man withpeaceful principles to insist on fighting the Stroke of the collegeEight, a man over six feet and broad in proportion. She remembered howshe had laughed, and yet how she made her brother promise not toexercise that power again. Probably he had completely forgotten theincident. Why! it was nearly eighteen years ago, nearly nineteen; andhere was James Middleton no longer an undergraduate but the Warden! LadyDashwood bent over him smiling and laid her solid motherly hand upon hishead. "Oh, dear, how time passes!" she said. "Jim, you are such a sweetlamb. No, I didn't come to tell you that. I came to ask you if you weregoing to dine with us this evening?"

  "Yes," said the Warden. "Why?" and he now looked round at his sisterwithout a trace of irritability and smiled.

  "Because Mrs. Jack Dashwood is coming here. I didn't mention it before.Well, the fact is she happens to have a few days' rest from her work inLondon. She is with some relative in Malvern and coming on here thisafternoon."

  "Mrs. Jack Dashwood!" repeated the Warden with evident indifference.

  "Jack Dashwood's widow. You remember my John's nephew Jack? Poor Jackwho was killed at Mons!"

  Yes, the Warden remembered, and his face clouded as it always did whenwar was mentioned.

  "May and he were engaged as boy and girl--and I think she stuck toit--because she thought she was in honour bound. Some women are likethat--precious few; and some men."

  The Warden listened without remark.

  "And I am just going to telephone to Mr. Boreham," said Lady Dashwood,"to ask him to come in to dinner to meet her!"

  "Boreham!" groaned the Warden, and he took up his pen from the table.

  "I'm so sorry," said Lady Dashwood, "but he used to know May Dashwood,so we must ask him, and I thought it better to get him over at once andhave done with it."

  "Perhaps so," said the Warden, and he stretched out his left hand forpaper. "Only--one never has done--with Boreham."

  "Poor old Jim!" said Lady Dashwood, "and now, dear, you can get back toyour book," and she moved away.

  "Book!" grumbled the Warden. "It's business I have to do; and anyhow Idon't see how anyone can write books now! Except prophecies of thefuture, admonitions, sketches of possible policies, heart-searchings."

  Lady Dashwood moved away. "Well, that's what you're doing, dear," shesaid.

  "I don't know," said the Warden gloomily, and he reached out his hand,pulling towards him some papers. "One seems to be at the beginning ofthings."

  Lady Dashwood closed the door softly behind her.

  "He's perplexed," she said to herself. "He is perplexed--not merelybecause we are at 'the beginning of things,' but because--I have been afool and----" She did not finish the sentence. She went up early to herroom and dressed for dinner.

  It was impossible to be certain when May would come, so it would bebetter to get dressed and have the time clear. May's arrival was seriousbusiness--so serious that Lady Dashwood shuddered at the mere thoughtthat it was by a mere stroke of extraordinary luck that she could comeand would come! If May came by the six train she would arrive beforeseven.

  But seven o'clock struck and May had not arrived. She might arrive abouteight o'clock. Lady Dashwood, who was already dressed, gave orders thatdinner was to be put off for twenty minutes, and then she telephonedthis news to Mr. Boreham and sent in a message to the Warden. But shequite forgot to tell Gwen that dinner was to be later. Gwen had goneupstairs early to dress for dinner, for she was one of those individualswho take a long time to do the simplest thing. This omission on the partof Lady Dashwood, trifling as it seemed, had far-reachingconsequences--consequences that were not foreseen by her. She sat in thedrawing-room actively occupied in imagining obstacles that might preventMay Dashwood from keeping the promise in her telegram: railwayaccidents, taxi accidents, the unexpected sudden deaths of relatives. Asshe sat absorbed in these wholly unnecessary and exhaustingspeculations, the door opened and she heard Robinson's quavering voicemake the delicious announcement, "Mrs. Dashwood!"