'THAT CONFOUNDED CUCUMBER!'
Lucy didn't go to Wyatt Edgell's room again. She caught sight of the
friendly bed-maker once or twice on the staircase when she went to Mr.
Colville's room to be coached in mathematics, and she held a little
whispered conference with her on the stairs.
Edgell was better: he was up again and at work--working very hard, the
woman said (and bed-makers know something about work). He was 'going on
as quiet and as steady as any gentleman on the staircase.' This verdict
from such a quarter was as good as a college testimonial.
When there is a mixed University, and a lady President at the lodge,
and a female Vice-Chancellor, and the affairs of the Senate are
conducted by dowagers, bed-makers will no doubt be required to sign
college testimonials.
The first time Lucy saw Wyatt Edgell after that day when she put the
wet bandage round his head, and promised to pick up the dreadful thing
Eric had thrown out of window, and carry it away with her, was at the
college chapel.
It was a fortnight after the day when she had picked him out from
among all the men of St. Benedict's as Pamela Gwatkin's brother. He
was sitting in the same place, and he was very little changed; he was
paler, Lucy thought, and he was muffled up round the throat for that
warm May day. She couldn't help looking at him. Her eyes would wander
over to the bench where he sat, do what she would to keep them fixed in
quite an opposite direction.
The Master took such a long time over the Litany that morning. He had
read it for so many years in that college chapel, Sunday after Sunday,
but he had never read it so slowly as he was reading it to-day. The
men yawned and fidgeted as he read, and the old fellows in the stalls
opposite looked across with grave, questioning eyes--they would have to
elect another Master shortly--and the women-folk kneeling by his side
looked up anxiously; but Lucy's eyes had wandered again to the end seat
on the last bench, while her lips were murmuring:
'"That it may please Thee to raise up them that fall, and finally to
beat down Satan under our feet."'
Wyatt Edgell looked up while she was praying for him--she was
distinctly praying for him, she had prayed this very prayer for him
every night and morning since Eric had told her how he needed her
prayers--and their eyes met.
Lucy was covered with confusion. She was quite sure in that swift
momentary glance that he had read her inmost thoughts. She was ashamed
that he should know that she had been praying all this time that he
should be strengthened and comforted and helped and picked up again
when he fell, and that the enemy should be beaten down under his feet.
She never looked at that end of the chapel again all the rest of the
service.
It was over at last--the long, long Litany and the slow, faltering
prayers: the men need not have been so restless, they would not hear
them much longer. The old walls would echo another voice soon, and the
feeble lips would be repeating another Litany elsewhere.
The old college chapel was full of echoes and shadows; there would be
another shadow shortly, and the echo of a tremulous, quavering voice
would join those other ancient echoes in the roof. It was a dark,
gloomy old chapel; it had been built for hundreds of years, and it was
full of old memories. Every bench and stall and desk had a memory of
its own, stretching back, far back, into quite early ages--memories
of old Masters and Fellows and scholars and undergraduates who had
worshipped there through, oh! so many generations.
There was a musty smell of old Masters rising up from the vaults
beneath and pervading the chapel, and in the ante-chapel beyond there
were monuments on the walls, and brasses--quite lovely old brasses--on
the pavement, and great hideous tombs of long dead and gone Masters
and Fellows. It was touching to see how they were forgotten after a
generation or two; how even their very tomb-stones were hidden away in
a corner, and covered up with organ pipes. There was the marble effigy
of an old, old Master, whose learning and virtues were recited in a
long Latin epitaph on an elaborate tablet hidden away behind the organ.
Everyone had forgotten him years ago, and his old monument was in the
way, and so they had covered it up. Music is so much more delightful
than old memories. They will all be swept away soon, and a new chapel
will be built. There will be no old memories and old ghosts and old
storied windows, no decaying woodwork or musty odour of old Masters. It
will all be fresh and bright and sweet-smelling and shiny as new paint
and varnish can make it, and there will be a new organ with electric
stops. It will be dark and shadowy no longer; the old echoes and the
old ghosts will all be scared away--they will vanish quite away in the
blaze of the new electric lamps with which the chapel will be lighted.
Lucy vanished out of the college chapel almost as rapidly as the ghosts
will by-and-by. She did not linger in the cloisters to-day. She hurried
back to the lodge, and left Cousin Mary and the Master's wife to toddle
back beside the Master.
'How do you think your uncle looks to-day, my dear?' the old lady asked
Lucy when they had got him safely back to the lodge, and had put him in
his great armchair, and given him some wine.
There was a shade of anxiety in her voice as she asked the question.
Lucy hadn't seen the Master for a week, so she might have been expected
to notice any change in him.
'Oh, I think he looks lovely, aunt! He walked back from chapel quite
strong.'
Mrs. Rae shook her head; she was not quite convinced.
'There were two of us supporting him, my dear, one on either side, and
I thought he leant rather heavily.'
He had nearly crushed the poor little soul into the ground; she could
not have supported his weight a dozen steps more.
'Perhaps you are not so strong yourself to-day, auntie dear; you are
looking pale. Most likely the weakness is yours, and you are not so
well able to bear his weight. He always leans heavily; I often wonder
how you and Mary can keep him up!'
'Perhaps so, my dear. I hope it may be so!' But still the cloud on the
dear old face did not quite vanish. 'I fancied that his reading in
chapel was slower to-day than usual--that his voice was weak. Did you
notice it?'
'Oh yes; I noticed that he read lovely! I never heard him read so well
as he read to-day.'
'You really think so? I am very glad! The fault must be in me. I don't
think I am quite so strong to-day--I can't expect to be at my age; but
I am very glad there is nothing unusual the matter with the Master. You
would have been quite sure to have noticed it, my dear, if there had
been, as you haven't seen him for a week.'
She kissed that mendacious little Lucy and tottered out of the room.
She was very feeble to-day--perhaps the Master's weight had been too
much for her; but there was quite a glad smile on her patient face. She
was so happy, the brave old soul, to feel that the weakness was hers,
not his.
Wyatt Edgell went back straight from chapel to his own rooms. He met
Eric coming out of chapel, and they went back together.
'Where have I seen that girl before?' he asked Eric when they got back
to the room.
'Oh, you've often seen her in chapel. She's the Master's niece, or
grand-niece, or something of the kind,' said Eric evasively.
But the other was not so easily put off.
'I have seen her somewhere else, besides in chapel,' he said
thoughtfully. 'I've seen her in this room. I've seen her beside my bed.
Good heavens! Wattles, you didn't let that girl in--when--when----'
'When you weren't quite yourself, old man,' said Eric cheerfully,
filling up the gap. 'What on earth should the Master's niece come in
here for? Be reasonable, and don't ask such foolish things!'
'Foolish or not, I'll be hanged if I didn't see her in this room,
standing where you stand now! You may as well tell the truth, Wattles.
You may as well say you called her in and showed her the spectacle!'
He was a very determined-looking young man, and he didn't look like one
to be trifled with, as he stood with his back to the empty fireplace,
leaning against the mantelpiece, and his great hands stuck down well in
his pockets.
'Dear old man, you may take my word for it: I did not call her in; I
should as soon have thought of calling the Master in!'
'I wish to Heaven you had called the Master in--I should have known the
worst then; but for this girl to see me--in--in that state!'
He paused and groaned, and two upright lines came out on his forehead.
'You take too much for granted, old man,' said the other; but he
couldn't put any heartiness into his voice. 'Haven't I told you
that not a soul in the college but Brannan and myself came into the
room--while--while you were ill?'
'Yes,' said the other moodily--'not a soul in the college; but this
girl from Newnham came in. I'll swear it! I saw it in her eyes.'
It was no use Eric pretending. Edgell was not in a mood to be trifled
with. He was a great big, determined fellow. He could have taken Eric
up and flung him to the other end of the room with the same ease with
which he had flung the pillow.
'Go on,' he said moodily; 'go on, and tell me all about it. Tell me why
this girl came in, and the spectacle she saw. Let me know exactly the
degradation to which I have sunk!'
There was no help for it. Eric had to tell him all about Lucy's
visit--Lucy's second visit; he didn't say anything about the first. How
could he tell the poor fellow that she had come in at that dreadful
time; that it was her hands that had wiped up all the traces of
his crime; that it was she who had helped him when he had put those
stitches in that gaping wound in his throat!
Eric told him quite enough. His head had fallen forward on his breast,
and he looked a picture of despondency. A despondent giant of six
feet, with a great broad chest, and big muscular limbs, and a splendid
head splendidly set on a splendid full white throat--it was muffled up
now, but it was as white and shapely as a woman's beneath the crisp,
close-cut whisker curling down below the cheek. His chin and his great
square jaw were close-shaven, but there was a thin, slight, crisp
moustache on his upper lip, and his short hair curled crisply at the
edges. He wore it parted in the middle, not very neatly parted, and
tossed back off his forehead. Everything about him denoted strength and
courage--such a man could not be despondent long.
'Then she knows the worst,' he said--'the very worst. There is nothing
else she has got to learn about me. There is only one thing to be
done, Wattles, with a girl who knows so much about me: I must marry
her. You must introduce me again, old man, and I shall make her an
offer, and--and she will marry me.'
His gloom and depression had quite gone, and he was smiling again. He
was a delightful fellow when he smiled. Not a man in the college could
resist that delightful smile; it disarmed the wrath of all the Dons,
and it won the hearts of bed-makers.
'Marry her!' said Eric, turning quite pale. 'Dear old man, don't be
in such a hurry. Think it over. She isn't the sort of woman for you,
Edgell.'
Wyatt Edgell laughed. His laugh was a full-blown edition of his smile;
but Gwatkin looked serious.
'Perhaps you'll tell me, Wattles, what is the sort of woman for me.'
'Oh, I wouldn't pretend to say; only, old man, don't trifle with this
poor little thing. She's the sort of girl to break her heart for a man.
I wouldn't break her heart if I were you.'
'Perhaps she'll break mine,' said Edgell dryly; and then he sat down
and ate his lunch which the bed-maker had already spread out on the
table.
It was a very nice college lunch. It was not tinned beef, or brawn, or
tongue, or any questionable dainty that had been soldered up a year
or two in a metal case. It was a lovely head and shoulders of salmon,
and it had been judiciously pickled, and there was cucumber cut up
in a dish--little delicate flakes of cucumber which Edgell ate with
the healthy returning appetite of a man who had long been denied this
delicacy.
The salmon was followed by a chicken and a ham, to which he also
applied himself with the same zest. The edge was quite taken off his
appetite, when Eric pushed these things aside and set a jelly just
freshly turned out of a mould before him.
'I don't want any of that stuff,' he said, and he pushed over his glass
in the direction of the claret.
'I don't think I'd take any more, old man,' said Eric; 'you've already
had four glasses. I wouldn't have any more. Have a soda?'
'I'll be hanged if I do!' said the other doggedly, 'unless you put
some brandy in it. I must have a nip of brandy, Wattles. I'm sure that
cucumber has disagreed with me. I haven't had any cucumber for an age,
and it never did agree with me.'
Eric got up and unlocked a cupboard, and took out a liqueur-bottle more
than half full of brandy, and poured a small--a very small--quantity
into a glass, and filled it up with seltzer-water.
He had put the bottle back into the cupboard and the key into his
pocket, and was putting on his gown to go out. He always took a service
somewhere in the country, or did some open-air preaching on Sunday
afternoons, and he was in a hurry to get away.
'I wish you'd leave that key behind you, Wattles,' Edgell called out
when he got to the door. 'That confounded cucumber or the pickled
salmon has disagreed with me. I may want the key before you come back.'
Eric took the key out of his pocket reluctantly and laid it on the
mantelpiece.
'You'll be careful, old man,' he said; 'you'll be sure to be careful.
Remember----'
'Shut up!' said the other angrily. 'Do you think I'm such a fool?'
Eric went out and shut the door. When he came back two hours later the
liqueur-bottle was on the table empty, and Edgell was breathing heavily
on the floor.
It was all that confounded pickled salmon and cucumber!