REVELATION OF BUNNING (I)
1
On that evening the College Debating Society exercised its mind over the
question of Naval Defence.
One gentleman, timid of voice, uncertain in wit, easily dismayed by
the derisive laughter of the opposite party, asserted that "This House
considers the Naval policy of the present Government fatal to the
country's best interests." An eager politician, with a shrill voice
and a torrent of words, denied this statement. The College, with the
exception of certain gentlemen destined for the Church (they had been
told by their parents to speak on every possible public occasion in
order to be ready for a prospective pulpit), displayed a sublime and
somnolent indifference. The four gentlemen on the paper had prepared
their speeches beforehand and were armed with notes and a certain
nervous fluency. For the rest, the question was but slightly assisted.
The prospective members of the Church thought of many things to say
until they rose to their feet when they could only remember "that the
last gentleman's speech bad been the most preposterous thing they had
ever had the pleasure of listening to--and that, er--er--the Navy was
all right, and, er--if the gentleman who had spoken last but two
thought it wasn't, well, all they--er--could say was that it reminded
them--er--of a story they had once heard (here follows story without
point, conclusion or brevity)--and--er--in fact the Navy was all right.
. . ."
The Debate, in short, was languishing when Dune and Cardillac entered
the room together. Here was an amazing thing.
It was well known that only last night Cardillac and Dune had both
been proposed for the office of President of the Wolves. The Wolves, a
society of twelve founded for the purpose of dining well and dressing
beautifully, was by far the smartest thing that Saul's possessed. It was
famous throughout the University for the noise and extravagance of its
dinners, and you might not belong to it unless you had played for the
University on at least one occasion in some game or another and unless,
be it understood, you were, in yourself, quite immensely desirable.
Towards the end of every Christmas term a President for the ensuing year
was elected; he must be a second year man, and it was considered by
the whole college that this was the highest honour that the gods could
possibly, during your stay at Cambridge, confer upon you. Even the
members of the Christian Union, horrified though they were by the amount
of wine that was drunk on dining occasions and the consequent peril
to their own goods and chattels, bowed to the shining splendour of the
fortunate hero. It had never yet been known that a President of the
Wolves should also be a member of the Christian Union, but one must
never despair, and nets, the most attractive and genial of nets, were
flung to catch the great man.
On the present occasion it had been generally understood that Cardillac
would be elected without any possible opposition. Dune had not for a
moment occurred to any one. He had; during his first term, when his
football prowess had passed, swinging through the University, been
elected to the Wolves, but he had only attended one dinner and had then
remained severely and unpleasantly sober. There was no other possible
rival to Cardillac, to his distinction, his power of witty and malicious
after-dinner speaking, his wonderful clothes, his admirable football,
his haughty indifference. He would of course be elected.
And then, some three weeks ago, this wonderful, unexpected development
of Olva Dune had startled the world. His football, his sudden geniality
(he had been seen, it was asserted, at one of Med-Tetloe's revival
meetings with, of all people in the world, Bunning), his air of being
able to do anything whatever if he wished to exert himself, here was
a character indeed--so wonderful that it was felt, even by the most
patriotic of Saulines, that he ought, in reality, to have belonged to
St. Martin's.
It became at once, of course, a case of rivalry between Dune and
Cardillac, and it was confidently expected that Dune would be victorious
in every part of the field.
Cardillac had reigned for a considerable period and there were many men
to whom he had been exceedingly offensive. Dune, although he admitted no
one to closer intimacy, was offensive never. If, moreover, you had seen
him play the other day against the Harlequins, you could but fall down
on your knees and worship. Here, too, he rivalled Cardillac. Tester,
Buchan, and Whymper were quite certain of their places in the University
side--Whymper because he was the greatest three-quarter that Cambridge
had had for many seasons, and Tester and Buchan because they had been at
Fettes together and Buchan had played inside right to Tester's outside
since the very tenderest age; they therefore understood one another
backward. There remained then only this fourth place, and Cardillac
seemed certain enough . . . until Dune's revival. And now it depended
on Whymper. He would choose, of the two men, the one who suited him the
better. Cardillac had played with him more than had Dune. Cardillac
was safe, steady, reliable. Dune was uncertain, capricious, suddenly
indifferent. On the other hand not Whymper himself could rival the
brilliance of Dune's game against the Harlequins. That was in a place by
itself--let him play like that at Queen's Club in December and no Oxford
defence could stop him.
So it was argued, so discussed. Certain, at any rate, that Dune's
recrudescence threatened the ruin of Cardillac's two dearest ambitions,
and Cardillac did not easily either forget or forgive.
And yet behold them now, gravely, the gaze of the entire company,
entering together, sitting together by the fire, watching with serious
eyes the clumsy efforts of an unhappily ambitious Freshman to make
clear his opinions of the Navy, the Government and the British Islands
generally--only, ultimately, producing a tittering, stammering apology
for having burdened so long with his hapless clamour, the Debate.
2
Olva liked Cardillac--Cardillac liked Olva. They both in their attitude
to College affairs saw beyond the College gates into the wide and bright
world. Cardillac, when it had seemed that no danger could threaten
either his election to the Wolves or the acquisition of his Football
Blue, had regarded both honours quietly and with indifference. It amazed
him now when both these Prizes were seriously threatened that he should
still appreciate and even seek out Dune's company.
Had it been any other man in the College he would have been a very
active enemy, but here was the one man who had that larger air, that
finer style whose gravity was beautiful, whose soul was beyond Wolves
and Rugby football, whose future in the real world promised to be of a
fine and highly ordered kind. Cardillac wished eagerly that these things
might yet be his, but if he were to be beaten, then, of all men in the
world, let it be by Dune. In his own scant, cynical estimate of his
fellow-beings Dune alone demanded a wide and appreciative attention.
To Olva on this evening it mattered but little where he was or what he
did. The snow had ceased to fall, and now, under a starry sky, lay white
and glistening clear; but still with him storm seemed to hover, its snow
beating his body, its fury yieling him no respite.
And now there was no longer any doubt. He faced it with the most
matter-of-fact self-possession of which he was capable. Some-thing was
waiting for his surrender. He figured it, sitting quietly back in the
reading-room, listening to the Debate, watching the faces around him, as
the tracing of some one who was dearly loved. There was nothing stranger
in it all than his own certainty that the Power that pursued him was
tender. And here he crossed the division between the Real and the
Unreal, because his present consciousness of this Power was as actual as
his consciousness of the chairs and tables that filled the reading-room.
That was the essential thing that made the supreme gulf between himself
and his companions. It was not because he had murdered Carfax but
because he was now absolutely conscious of God that he was so alone. He
could not touch his human companions, he could scarcely see them. It was
through this isolation that God was driving him to confession. Now, in
the outer Court, huge against the white dazzling snow, the great shadow
was hovering, its head piercing the stars, its arms outstretched.
Let him surrender and at once there would be infinite peace, but with
surrender must come submission, confession . . . with confession he must
lose the one thing that he desired--Margaret Craven . . . that he might
go and talk to her, watch her, listen to her voice. Meanwhile he must
not think. If he allowed his brain, for an instant, to rest, it was
flooded with the sweeping consciousness of the Presence--always he must
be doing something, his football, his companions, and often at the end
of it all, calmly, quietly, betrayed--hearing above all the clatter that
he might make the gentle accents of that Voice. He remembered that peace
that he had had in St. Martin's Chapel on the day of the discovery of
the body. What he would give to reclaim that now!
Meanwhile he must battle; must quiet Craven's suspicions, must play
football, join company with men who seemed to him now like shadows.
As he glanced round at them--at Lawrence, Bunning, Galleon
Cardillac--they seemed to have far less existence than the grey shadow
in the outer Court. Sounds passed him like smoke--the lights grew faint
in his eyes . . . he was being drawn out into a world that was all of
ice--black ice stretching to every horizon; on the edge of it, vast
against the night sky, was the Grey Figure, waiting.
"Come to Me. Tell Me that you will follow Me. I spoke to you in the
wood. You have broken My law. . . ."
"Lot of piffle," he heard Cardillac's voice from a great distance.
"These freshers are always gassing." The electric light, seen through a
cloud of tobacco smoke, came slowly back to him, dull globes of colour.
"It's so hot--I'm cutting," he whispered to Cardillac, and slipped out
of the room.
He climbed to his room, flung back his door and saw that his light was
turned on.
Facing him, waiting for him, was Bunning.
3
"If you don't want me----" he began with his inane giggle.
"Sit down." Olva pulled out the whisky and two siphons of soda. "If I
didn't want you I'd say so."
He filled himself a strong glass of whisky and soda and began feverishly
to drink.
Bunning sat down.
"Don't be such a blooming fool. Take off your gown if you're going to
stop."
Bunning meekly took off his gown. His spectacles seemed so large that
they swallowed up the rest of his face; the spectacles and the enormous
flat-toed boots were the principal features of Bunning's attire. He sat
down again and gazed at Olva with the eyes of a devoted dog. Olva
looked at him. Over Bunning's red wrists the brown ends of a Jaeger vest
protruded from under the shirt.
"I say, why don't you dress properly?"
"I don't know---" began Bunning.
"Well, the sleeves of your vest needn't come down like that. It looks
horribly dirty. Turn 'em up."
Bunning, blushing almost to tears, turned them back.
"There's no need to make yourself worse than you are, you know," Olva
finished his whisky and poured out some more. "Why do you come
here? . . . I'm always beastly to you."
"As long as you let me come--I don't mind how beastly you are."
"But what do you get from it?"
Bunning looked down at his huge boots.
"Everything. But it isn't that--it is that, without being here, I
haven't got anything else."
"Well, you needn't wear such boots as that--and your shirts and things
aren't clean. . . . You don't mind my telling you, do you?"
"No, I like it, Nobody's ever told me."
Here obviously was a new claim for intimacy and this Olva hurriedly
disavowed.
"Oh! It's only for your own good, you know. Fellows will like you better
if you're decently dressed. Why hasn't any one ever told you?"
"They'd given me up at home." Bunning heaved a great sigh.
"Why? Who are your people?"
"My father's a parson in Yorkshire. They're all clergymen in my
family--uncles, cousins, everybody--my elder brother. I was to have been
a clergyman."
"_Was_ to have been? Aren't you going to be one now?"
"No--not since I met you."
"Oh, but you mustn't take such a step on my account. I don't want to
prevent you. I've nothing to do with it. I should think you'd make a
very good parson."
Olva was brutal. He felt that in Bunning's moist devoted eyes there was
a dim pain. But he was brutal because his whole soul revolted against
sentimentality, not at all because his soul revolted against Bunning.
"No, I shouldn't make a good parson. I never wanted to be one really.
But when your house is full of it, as our house was, you're driven. When
it wasn't relations it was all sorts of people in the parish--helpers
and workers--women mostly. I hated them."
Here was a real note of passion! Bunning seemed, for an instant, to be
quite vigorous.
"That's why I'm so untidy now," Bunning went desperately on; "nobody
cared how I looked. I was stupid at school, my reports were awful, and
I was a day boy. It is very bad for any one to be a day boy--very!" he
added reflectively, as though he were recalling scenes and incidents.
"Yes?" said Olva encouragingly. He was being drawn by Bunning's artless
narration away from the Shadow. It was still there, its arm outstretched
above the snowy court, but Bunning seemed, in some odd way, to
intervene.
"I always wanted to find God in those days. It sounds a stupid thing
to say, but they used to speak about Him--mother and the rest--just as
though He lived down the street. They knew all about Him and I used to
wonder why I didn't know too. But I didn't. It wasn't real to me. I used
to make myself think that it was, but it wasn't."
"Why didn't you talk to your mother about it?--
"I did. But they were always too busy with missions and things. And then
there was my elder brother. _He_ understood about God and went to all
the Bible meetings and things, and he was always so neat-never dirty--I
used to wonder how he did it . . . always so neat."
Bunning took off his great spectacles and wiped them with a very dirty
handkerchief.
"And had you no friends?"
"None--nobody. I didn't want them after a bit. I was afraid of
everybody. I used to go down all the side-streets between school and
home for fear lest I should meet some one. I was always very nervous as
a boy--very. I still am."
"Nervous of people?"
"Yes, of everybody. And of things, too--things. I still am. You'd
be surprised. . . . It's odd because none of the other Bunnings are
nervous. I used to have fancies about God."
"What sort of fancies?"
"I used to see Him when I was in bed like a great big shadow, all up
against the wall. A grey shadow with his head ever so high. That's how I
used to think of Him. I expect that all sounds nonsense to you."
"No, not at all!" said Olva.
"I think they thought me nearly an idiot at home--not sane at all. But
they didn't think of me very often. They used to apologise for me when
people came to tea. I wasn't clever, of course--that's why they thought
I'd make a good parson."
He paused--then very nervously he went on. "But now I've met you I
shan't be. Nothing can make me. I've always watched you. I used to look
at you in chapel. You're just as different from me as any one can be,
and that's why you're like God to me. I don't want you to be decent to
me. I think I'd rather you weren't. But I like to come in sometimes and
hear you say that I'm dirty and untidy. That shows that you've noticed."
"But I'm not at all the sort of person to make a hero of," Olva said
hurriedly. "I don't want you to feel like that about we. That's all
sentimentality. You mustn't feel like that about anybody. You must stand
on your own legs."
"I never have," said Burning, very solemnly, "and I never will. I've
always had somebody to make a hero of. I would love to die for you, I
would really. It's the only sort of thing that I can do, because I'm not
clever. I know you think me very stupid."
"Yes, I do," said Olva, "and you mustn't talk like a schoolgirl. If
we're friends and I let you come in here, you mustn't let your vest come
over your cuffs and you must take those spots off your waistcoat, and
brush your hair and clean your nails, and you must just be sensible and
have a little humour. Why don't you play football?"
"I can't play games, I'm very shortsighted."
"Well, you must take some sort of exercise. Run round Parker's Piece or
something, or go and run at Fenner's. You'll get so fat."
"I _am_ getting fat. I don't think it matters much what I look like."
"It matters what every one looks like. And now you'd better cut. I've
got to go out and see a man."
Burning submissively rose. He said no more but bundled out of the door
in his usual untidy fashion. Olva came after him and banged his "oak"
behind him. In Outer Court, looking now so vast and solemn in the
silence of its snow, Bunning, stopping, pointed to the grey buildings
that towered over them.
"It was against a wall like that that I used to imagine God--on a night
like this--you'll think that very silly." He hurriedly added, "There's
Marshall coming. I know he'll be at me about those Christian Union
Cards. Good-night." He vanished.
But it was not Marshall. It was Rupert Craven. The boy was walking
hurriedly, his eyes on the ground. He was suddenly conscious of some
one and looked up. The change in him was extraordinary. His eyes had
the heavy, dazed look of one who has not slept for weeks. His face was
a yellow white, his hair unbrushed, and his mouth moved restlessly. He
started when he saw Olva.
"Hallo, Craven. You're looking seedy. What's the matter?"
"Nothing, thanks. . . . Good-night."
"No, but wait a minute. Come up to my rooms and have some coffee. I
haven't seen you for days."
A fortnight ago Craven would have accepted with joy. Now he shook his
head.
"No, thanks. I'm tired: I haven't been sleeping very well."
"Why's that? Overwork?"
"No, it's nothing. I don't know why it is."
"You ought to see somebody. I know what not sleeping means."
"Why? . . . Are _you_ sleeping badly?" Craven's eyes met Olva's.
"No, I'm splendid, thanks. But I had a bout of insomnia years ago. I
shan't forget it."
"You _look_ all right." Cravan's eyes were busily searching Olva's face.
Then suddenly they dropped.
"I'm all right," he said hurriedly. "Tired, that's all."
"Why do you never come and see me now?"
"Oh, I will come--sometime. I'm busy."
"What about?"
Olva stood, a stern dark figure, against the snow.
"Oh, just busy." Craven suddenly looked up as though he were going to
ask Olva a question. Then he apparently changed his mind, muttered a
good-night and disappeared round the corner of the building.
Olva was alone in the Court. From some room came the sound of voices and
laughter, from some other room a piano--some one called a name in Little
Court. A sheet of stars drew the white light from the snow to heaven.
Olva turned very slowly and entered his black stairway.
In his heart he was crying, "How long can I stand this? Another day?
Another hour? This loneliness. . . . I must break it. I must tell some
one. I _must_ tell some one."
As he entered his room he thought that he saw against the farther wall
an old gilt mirror and in the light of it a dark figure facing him; a
voice, heavy with some great overburdening sorrow, spoke to him.
"How terrible a thing it is to be alone with God!"