WYATT EDGELL.
Late on the evening of the day when Lucy was supposed by the students
of Newnham to have eloped, the man she was said to have eloped with sat
working in his college-room.
It was not a Selwyn man. The crest on the pocket of the blazer he was
wearing was the crest of St. Benedict's. It was nearly the eve of the
Mathematical Tripos; there were only a few days more, and, having lost
all the early part of the term, Wyatt Edgell was sitting down now at
the last minute to recover by a tremendous effort the ground he had
lost. He had always been sure of a first; he had never yet taken a
second class in any examination at school or college, and his name had
generally stood first in the lists. The authorities of St. Benedict's
had predicted that it would stand first now in the coming Tripos.
There would have been no doubt about it but for that ugly
'accident'--he called it an 'accident'--in the beginning of the term.
He had not been himself since he came up this May term. He had been
moody and taciturn, and subject to fits of depression. He had given up
his wine-parties, and his club suppers and breakfasts, and he had shut
himself up in his rooms and sported his oak. Everybody, Tutors and all,
said he was working hard, and they 'let him alone'; but his bed-maker
knew better! Bed-makers know so much more about a man than anyone else.
She fetched Gwatkin to him one morning, when she had come in and found
him lying on the floor in a fit of delirium tremens. They kept the
matter quiet between them and put him to bed, and the bed-maker gave
out to all the men on her staircase that 'he was a-readin' hisself to
death.'
It was not a very bad attack--it was not the first, but Gwatkin didn't
know that at the time--there were no violent ravings, only mutterings
and depression--dreadful depression. Gwatkin and the bed-maker looked
after him during the morning, and towards noon he fell into a deep
sleep. It didn't seem at all likely that he would wake for hours. The
bed-maker had had some experience of such cases, and she knew that the
fever would take eight or ten hours' sleep to spend itself, and then
he would awake with shaking hands and a splitting headache, and have a
fine time of it for a week.
Leaving him as she thought sleeping soundly, she went about her work.
She had to clear the tables of the other men on the staircase, but
before she went she took the precaution to fasten his oak, and to take
the key to Gwatkin's rooms.
Gwatkin ran over as fast as he could to Edgell's rooms. He had given
such strict injunctions that he was not to be left alone on any
pretence. Run as fast as he could, he was only just in time. Had he
been a minute later he would have been too late. He took the razor
from the poor fellow's hand, and he bound up the wound he had made with
it as he best could without assistance. He had not the heart to call
for help, to reveal his miserable secret to the whole college. He did
for him as he would have wished others to have done for himself if he
had been in his place. He kept his secret.
There was a man on his own staircase who had a sister a nurse at
Addenbroke's, and when he had done all he could for Edgell, and
fastened his arms down to the bed, Gwatkin ran across the court and
brought Brannan over. He had to let him into the secret; there was no
help for it. He saw exactly how matters stood. He was in his third
year, and it was not the first time that he had helped to cover up an
act of undergraduate folly. Brannan went away to fetch his sister. He
could promise her silence. Phyllis Brannan was as true as steel; but in
his haste and agitation he had left the outer oak open, and Lucy came
in.
Wyatt Edgell's secret had been faithfully kept by these men and women.
Only one of them had committed a breach of trust--Lucy had told Pamela.
She couldn't help it, she explained, if she had had to die for it the
next day; but Pamela had held her tongue. Not a soul in the college
guessed his secret--his dreadful secret. Everybody looked up to him,
and praised him, and expected great things of him--everybody but his
bed-maker.
She knew something about that last orgie. She had helped to put him to
bed, and she had cleared away the small sodas the next morning. She
smiled when she saw him settling down to work on the evening of the day
when he had brought Lucy to the lodge from Newnham. 'A lot of readin'
'e'll get through,' she said, shaking her head as she went down the
stairs with her basket under her shawl. ''E'll be under the table, I
reckon, when I come in in the mornin'.'
Eric Gwatkin was doubtful about him, too. He was more anxious about
Edgell's Tripos than he was about his own Special. He couldn't rest
before he went to bed without coming over and seeing if he was all
right. He found his oak sported, and he had to knock a good many times
before Edgell would let him in.
'Confound it----' he began, and then he saw Eric and stopped. 'Oh, it's
you, Wattles!'
He didn't say it very graciously, and Eric was sorry he had disturbed
him. He really looked in working trim. He had thrown off his coat, and
he was sitting in his shirt-sleeves. He wore a flannel shirt, and the
collar was open and showed his white throat and chest, as it had showed
it that day when Lucy leaned over the bed and put on the wet bandage.
It showed, too, what it had not shown on that day, when a scarf was
thrown over the throat--an ugly scar extending for some inches beneath
the left ear. It was still purple and red and discoloured--a hideous
livid mark on the beautiful white skin.
Eric shuddered when he saw it. The sight of it always made him shudder
to think what a near thing it was--what _might_ have been! He could
not understand how Edgell could bear to see it in the glass, could bear
to uncover it, that others coming in might see it.
'I am sorry to disturb you, old man,' he said, looking round at the
work on the table, and the books lying open before Edgell. 'I only
looked round to see--if--if you were all right.'
'To see if I had cut my throat again,' said Edgell calmly.
There was a shade of bitterness in his voice, and his lips curled
slightly with amusement or scorn, or both. They were beautiful
clear-cut lips, full and tender as a woman's, and they had a way of
curving when he spoke. They never quivered, they curved; and his
nostrils dilated. It was a strong face, with a massive square jaw, but
it had these nervous tricks.
'Very kind of you, Wattles,' he went on with a laugh; 'but I'm not
going to repeat that performance again--at least, not for the present.
I'm going in for my Trip--and--and I'm going to marry Miss Lucy.'
Gwatkin's face fell.
'I don't think this is a time to talk of marrying,' he said, with a
certain hesitation in his voice, and the cloud on his plain, homely
face deepening. 'The poor old Master is dying.'
'So much the more reason to talk about it. Lucy will want a home. She
won't be able to stay up at Newnham, she tells me; she will have no one
but her cousin Mary when the Master is dead, and the old lady. I think
I shall ask her to-morrow. I should like her to feel that she will not
be left friendless when the end comes.'
'I should wait till after the exam., if I were you. I shouldn't let
anything interfere with the exam. You will have all your life to marry
in.'
Edgell lay back in his chair and laughed good-naturedly at his Mentor.
'Anyone would think, Wattles, that you wanted to marry her yourself.'
There was no occasion for that very common-place-looking young man to
blush so dreadfully.
'I only meant to advise you for your good,' he said awkwardly, and then
he went over to the door and said good-night; but when he reached the
door, and he had the handle in his hand, he paused irresolutely, and
looked across the room at the man with the scar in his throat leaning
back in the chair. The scar was dreadfully visible in that light. It
seemed to have a charm for Gwatkin. He couldn't keep his eyes off it.
'What's up?' said Edgell, seeing that he paused by the door.
Eric came back to the table where Edgell was seated, and laid his hand
on his shoulder, a friendly, unmistakable grip.
'Dear old man,' he said in a broken voice, and the other could see that
his foolish weak lips were quivering, 'you won't mind my speaking my
mind to you; you will forgive what I say?'
'Fire away!' said Edgell; but he didn't look at Gwatkin, he looked at
the opposite wall.
'Before you go any farther--before you ask Lucy Rae to marry you--pause
and consider----'
'I've already considered,' Edgell interrupted impatiently, and with his
face still averted.
'You have not considered everything. You have thought only of yourself.
You have not thought of her.'
'I have thought of her!'
'No, no; you have not thought of her in the way I mean. Bear with me,
dear fellow. God knows I am saying this for your sake and hers. You
have not thought of her as orphaned and friendless, having no one but
you in the world, being bound up in you, having all her happiness
dependent upon you. A little, tender, delicate creature, with no
spirit of her own, who would suffer, and break her heart, and never
complain----'
'What would she have to complain of?' Edgell interrupted savagely.
'God only knows!'
'You--you think I shall go over the old thing again--that----'
'Hush! For heaven's sake don't let us even suppose it! You haven't got
to consider yourself in this matter, you have to consider her. Do you
think it fair to ask her--to--to--forgive me, dear fellow--to ask her
to risk it?'
Wyatt Edgell bowed his head.
'You have no faith in me,' he said moodily, with his head upon his
breast and his brows knitted.
'I have every faith in you, dear fellow; but I want you to think of
her. It is the chivalrous thing to do. Forgive me for saying it. Unless
you felt that you could make her happier than any other man in the
world--and--and ensure her happiness, you have no right to ask her to
marry you!'
Eric Gwatkin was quite astonished at his own temerity--astonished and
frightened. He was a weak, nervous, emotional fellow; he couldn't
trust himself to say another word. His voice broke, and his eyes were
clouded, and he was afraid he had said too much, and with a grip of
Edgell's great muscular shoulder he went away and left him sitting in
his chair, with his head on his breast, and that ugly scar gleaming
like the dark blade of a knife across his white throat.
END OF VOL. I.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
NEW LIBRARY NOVELS.
THE IVORY GATE. By Walter Besant, Author of 'All Sorts and
Conditions of Men,' etc. 3 vols.
THE MARQUIS OF CARABAS. By Aaron Watson and Lillias
Wassermann. 3 vols.
TRUST-MONEY. By William Westall. 3 vols.
A FAMILY LIKENESS. By Mrs. B.M. Croker. 3 vols.
THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S. By Alan St. Aubyn. 2 vols.
MRS. JULIET. By Mrs. Alfred Hunt. 3 vols.
BARBARA DERING. By Amélie Rives. 2 vols.
GEOFFORY HAMILTON. By Edward H. Cooper. 2 vols.
TREASON-FELONY. By John Hill. 2 vols.
London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214, Piccadilly, W.