The New Warden Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  WAITING

  If Pilate had uttered the sardonic remark "What is truth?" in Boreham'spresence, he would certainly have compelled that weary official to waitfor definite enlightenment. Boreham would have explained to him thatalthough Absolute Truth (if there is such a thing) lies, like ourDestiny, in the lap of the gods, he, Boreham, had a thoroughly reliablestock of useful truths with which he could supply any inquirer. Indeedto Boreham, the discussing of truths was a comparatively simple matter.Truths were of two kinds. Firstly, they were what he, himself, wasconvinced of at the moment of speaking; and secondly, they were _not_what the man next him believed in. Boreham found intolerable anyassertion made by people he knew. He knew them! _Voila!_ But he felt hecould very fairly well trust opinions expressed by the nativeinhabitants of--say Pomerania--or still better--India.

  Boreham had already some acquaintances in Oxford to whom he spoke, as hesaid himself, "frankly and fearlessly," and who tolerated him, wheneverthey had time to listen to him, because he was entirely harmless andmerely tiresome. But he was not surprised (it had occurred before) thatthe Warden refused his invitation to lunch at Chartcote. The ladies hadaccepted; and when Boreham said "the ladies," on this occasion he wasthinking solely of Mrs. Dashwood. Lady Dashwood had accepted theinvitation because it was given verbally. She made no purely socialengagements. The Warden, himself, did not entertain during the war, andthe only engagements were those of business, or of hospitality of anacademic nature.

  The day following May Dashwood's arrival was entirely uneventful. TheWarden was mostly invisible. May was as bright as she had been on herarrival. Gwen went about wide-eyed and wistful, and spoke spasmodically.Lady Dashwood was serene and satisfied. A shy Don accompanied by a verynice, untidy wife, appeared at lunch, and they were introduced by theWarden as Mr. and Mrs. Stockwell. Mr. Stockwell was struck dumb atfinding himself seated next to Mrs. Dashwood, a type of female littleknown to him. But May bravely taking him in hand, he recovered hispowers of speech and became epigrammatic and sparkling. Thisround-shouldered, spectacled scholar, with a large nose and recedingchin, poured out brilliant observations, subtile and suggestive, and hadan apparently inexhaustible store of the literature of Europe. He satsideways in his chair and spoke into May's sympathetic ear, giving anoccasional swift appealing glance at the Warden, who came within therange of his vision.

  How Stockwell ate his food was impossible to discover. He seemed to giveautomatic twiddles to his fork and apparently swallowed somethingafterwards, for when Robinson's underling, Robinson _petit fils_,removed Stockwell's plates, they contained only wreckage.

  The Warden, aided by Lady Dashwood, struggled courteously with Mrs.Stockwell. She was obliged to talk across Gwendolen, who spent her timesilently observing Mrs. Dashwood.

  Mrs. Stockwell had pathetic pretensions to intellectuality, based on amasterly acquaintance with the names of her husband's books and the factthat she lived in the academic circle. She had drooped visibly at thefirst sight of her hostess and Mrs. Dashwood, but was soon put at herease by Lady Dashwood, who deftly drew her away from vague hints at thepossession of learning into talk about her children. Gwen, watching theWarden and Mrs. Dashwood across Mrs. Stockwell's imitation lace front,could not be moved to speech. To any one in the secret there was writtenon her face two absorbing questions: "Am I engaged or not?" "Is shetrying to oust me?"

  The Warden's enigmatic eyes held no information in them. He looked ather gravely when he did look, and--that was all. Was _he_ waiting toknow whether he was engaged or not? Gwen doubted it. He would be sure toknow everything. He would know. Think of all those books in the library!Supposing he had found that letter--suppose he _had_ read it? No, if he_had_, he would have looked not merely grave, but angry!

  When the ladies rose from the table, Stockwell rose too, reluctantly andas if waking from a pleasant dream. He stared in a startled way at theWarden, who moved to open the door; he looked as if about tospring--then refrained, and resigning himself to the unmistakabledecision of the Fates, he remained standing, staring down at thetable-cloth through his spectacles, with his cheeks flushed and hisheart glad.

  Mrs. Stockwell passed out of the room in front of May Dashwood,gratified, warm and trying to conceal the backs of her boots.

  Finally the Stockwells went away, and then Lady Dashwood took her nieceto the Magdalen walk. There among the last shreds of autumn, and in thatmuzzy golden sunshine of Oxford, they walked and talked with theconstraint of Gwen's presence.

  At tea two or three people called, but the Warden did not appear evenfor a hasty cup. At dinner an old pupil of the Warden's--lamed by thewar--occupied the attention of the little party.

  Gwen's spirits rose at the sight of a really young man, but sheremembered her mother's admonition and did not make any attempt toattract his attention beyond opening her eyes now and then suddenly andwidely and with an ecstasy of interest at some invisible object justabove his head. Whether the youthful warrior's imagination was excitedby this "passage of arms" Gwen never knew, because the Warden took hispupil off to the library after dinner, and did not even bring him intothe drawing-room to bid farewell.

  In the quiet of the drawing-room Gwen fell into thought. She wonderedwhether the Warden expected her to come and knock on his library doorand walk in and tell him that she really did want to be married to him?Or had he read that letter and----? Why, she had thought all this over ahundred times, and was no farther on than she had been before.

  After playing the Reverie by Slapovski, which Mrs. Dashwood had not yetheard, and which she expressed a desire to hear, Gwen settled down toknitting a sock. She had been knitting that sock for five months. It wassurprising how small the foot was, at least the toe part; the heelindeed was ample. She had followed the directions with great care, andyet the stupid thing would come out wrong. It was irritating to see Mrs.Dashwood knitting away at such a pace. It made Gwen giddy to look at herhands. Lady Dashwood took up a book and read passages aloud. This was sointolerably dull that Gwen found it difficult to keep her eyes open. Itis always more tiring when nothing is going on than when plenty ofthings are going on!

  Lady Dashwood had just finished reading a passage and looked up to makea remark to May Dashwood, when she became aware of Gwen's face.

  "My dear, you looked just like a melancholy peach. Go to bed!"

  Gwen smiled and tumbled her pins into her knitting. She rose and said"Good night," glad to be released. Outside the drawing-room she stoodholding her breath to hear if there was any sound audible from thelibrary. She heard nothing. She moved over the soft carpet and listenedagain, at the door. She could hear the Warden's deep, masculinevoice--like the vibration of an organ, and then a higher voice, but whatthey said Gwen could not tell. She turned away and went up to bed. Shewas beginning to lose that feeling of not being afraid of the Warden. Hewas becoming more and more what he had been at first, an impressive andalarming personage, a human being entirely remote from her understandingand experience. At moments during dinner when she had glanced at him, hehad seemed to her to be like a handsomely carved figure animated by someliving force completely unknown to her. That such an incomprehensiblebeing should become her husband was surely unlikely--if not impossible!Gwen's thoughts became more and more confused. Notwithstanding thisconfusion in what (if compelled to describe it) she would have calledher soul, she closed her eyes and settled upon her pillow. She wasconscious that she was disappointed and not happy. Then she suddenlybecame indifferent to her fate--saw in her mind's eye a hat--it absorbedher. The hat was lying on a chair. It was trimmed like some other hat.Then the hat disappeared, and Gwen was asleep.

  As soon as Gwendolen had left the drawing-room Lady Dashwood closed herbook and looked at her niece.

  "Now," said Lady Dashwood, "I begin to think that I was unnecessarilyalarmed about Jim. But it may be because you are here--giving me moralsupport." Lady Dashwood spoke the words "moral support" with greatfirmness. Having once said it and seen that it was
wrong, she meant tostick to it.

  "I wonder," began Mrs. Dashwood, and then she remained silent and lookedhard at her knitting.

  Lady Dashwood still stared at her niece. But May did not conclude hersentence, if indeed she had meant to say any more.

  "Why, you haven't noticed anything?" asked Lady Dashwood.

  "Nothing!" said May, and she knitted on.

  "To-day," said Lady Dashwood, "Jim has been practically invisible exceptat meals, but you've no idea how busy he is just now. All one's oldideas are in the melting-pot," she went on, "and Jim has schemes. He isfull of plans. He thinks there is much to be done, in Oxford, withOxford--nothing revolutionary--but a lot that is evolutionary."

  Mrs. Dashwood dropped her knitting to listen, though she could haveheard quite well without doing this.

  "Imagine!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood, with a little burst of anger, "whata man like Jim, a scholar, a man of business, an organiser, what onearth he would do with a wife like Gwendolen Scott! The idea is absurd."

  "The absurd often happens," said May, and as she said this she took upher knitting again with such a jerk that her ball of wool tumbled to thefloor and began rolling; and being a tight ball it rolled some distancesideways from May's chair in the direction of the far distant door. Shegave the wool a little tug, but the ball merely shook itself, turnedover and released still more wool.

  "Very well, remain there if you prefer that place," said May, and as shespoke there came a slight noise at the door.

  Both ladies looked to see who was coming in. It was the Warden. He helda cigar in his hand, a sign (Lady Dashwood knew it) that he intendedmerely to bid them "Good night," and retire again to his library. But henow stood in the half-light with his hand on the door, and lookedtowards the glow of the hearth where the two ladies sat alone, eachlighted by a tall, electric candle stand on the floor. And as he lookedat this little space of light and warmth he hesitated.

  Then he closed the door behind him and came in.