After luncheon Arthur went out--the time had to be spent somehow--and
walked idly along the High Street. It was all so familiar: the shops,
the windows of the club to which he had belonged, the rooms where his
friends had lived. But he knew no one now. The streets were wet with
winter mud, there was a commonplace light on the houses, and Arthur
looked about him with very little interest and emotion. Walking past the
Colleges, he loitered for a little on Magdalen Bridge, and then turned
back again. It was still early, and he began to meet now the young men
who were starting out of Oxford for the open air and country. Some were
dressed for football; three or four in brown coats rode by on horses,
talking and laughing as they passed; but the greater number were in
flannels, and moving towards the river. These Arthur followed--he had
nothing else to do--through the streets and meadows, coming at last to
the barges and windy river. Men were calling to each other, boats were
pushing out, and the turbid current of the Thames ran swiftly with the
winter floods.
But for him there was too much sound about the wind and water, the cold
sunshine was too bright and harsh, and he felt doubly weary, as he
looked at all that life and activity and health. And yet once he would
have delighted in it.
When Arthur Lestrange had come first from school to Oxford, he had
entered with eagerness and youthful ambition into the pleasures and
activities of university life, wishing to do everything well that he
tried to do, and with distinction if he could. And all these ambitions
and activities he came to share, in the pleasant, intimate Oxford way,
with a friend, slightly older than himself.
But after a while he began to grow discontented; success was not so
easy;--and what was the good of it after all? he asked himself, with
impatient lassitude. Finding new friends and more exciting pleasures, he
gradually drifted away from his old companions. What was the harm? he
said impatiently to Austen, resenting his friend's affectionate advice.
He would enjoy life as other people enjoyed it; he only wanted to be
left alone. So they grew less intimate; and when Lestrange found himself
in trouble, serious enough to make him leave Oxford, he had been too
angry and proud to see Austen, or answer his friendly letter. "How
stupid it has all been," he said to himself, the memory of all this
coming over him rather drearily, as he walked back towards Oxford.
But his feeble attempts to make some change in his life--these were the
stupidest of all his memories; how, when his father died abroad, he was
really frightened, fearing for himself a death like that, and going back
to the half-neglected place that was now his own, he remembered his old
plans of life, and tried to do his duty there, and be a good landlord
and neighbour. But in a few months he grew weary of it all; it was too
lonely, too depressing....
And then a year after, when he hoped for a while that a nice girl he
knew might care for him; and this last time, when his losses at play
had made him mortgage his property still more heavily. Then, sobered for
a moment by his uncle's warnings, and by the ruin that seemed not far
off, he suddenly resolved to change, to give up playing, to keep away
from all those people.
But he had started for Marcham after all. It was no good trying, and no
one cared. Of course no one cared--why should they? With worldly
derision he remembered now the foolish, tattered hope he had cherished
all along--the hope that some day, coming back to Oxford, he would find
the old life, the old friend, who _had_ cared once. And without stopping
he walked past his College, the place where Austen was still living. He
did not want to see any of them, nor would they want to see him.
Oppressed by the slowness of the time, the afternoon quiet of the
streets, he resolved to go back to the station and wait there, watching
the railway clock slowly eat up the hours. But passing by chance the
livery stable where he had always kept his horses, with an aimless
impulse he sauntered into the open court. One of the stable grooms
coming up, addressed him by name, and asked him if he wanted to order a
horse.
"It's a long while since we've seen you in Oxford, sir."
This recognition and friendly look in the man's face, touched Arthur,
and, with a revival of eagerness, he felt that a ride would be just the
thing to kill the time. So, ordering a horse to be sent to the hotel
where he had left his luggage, he hurried back to get ready.