In spite of his untoward mania for study, or rather because of it, the
years spent at Cambridge were the happiest of Sainty’s life. He allowed
himself to be dissuaded from going in for a scholarship, which he had
much wished to do, on the ground that, as he would certainly have got
it, it was grossly unfair to men to whom it was of real importance.
Balked in this ambition, he concentrated his efforts on his degree, but
here he encountered a new difficulty.
It happened that his second year at the University was also the
twenty-first of his life, a coincidence which to most of his
fellow-students would have been productive of no derangement; but it
became apparent that in the very middle of the long vacation, just when
he hoped to go up to Cambridge and do his most valuable and undisturbed
work for the tripos, he had got to be present at a horrible function
known as ‘coming of age.’
Nothing like serious hospitality on a large scale had been attempted at
Belchamber during the two-thirds of his life in which he had been the
nominal head of his family, but Lady Charmington was conscientiously
anxious that this event should lack no befitting pomp and ceremony.
Unfortunately, fourteen years of ceaseless watchfulness and economy are
not a good training for lavish display when the time demands it; so the
poor lady found herself much exercised in mind over many details, and
not a little perturbed at the thought of what it was all going to cost.
By no means a diffuse or prolific correspondent at ordinary times, she
began early in the May term to rain letters upon her son about the
selection of the house party for the great occasion. ‘Your Uncle Cor,’
she would write one week, ‘says that we must ask your grandmother and
the duke. Of course I am only anxious to do what is right, and I suppose
we must have them, though the duchess has never shown any particular
interest in you or Arthur. Tell me what _you_ think about it.’ The next
it would be, ‘I am told there must be a ball, that there has always been
a coming-of-age ball; the county will expect it. Such things are not
much in my line, as you know, but I shouldn’t like anything to be
wanting that ought to be done, or that people expect.’
To Sainty the whole thing loomed an unmitigated horror. What pleasing
anticipations, for instance, could the prospect of a ball awaken in a
young man, one of whose legs was shorter than the other, and to whom a
highly polished floor was nothing but a danger? He came to dread these
letters of his mother, each one of which contained some new detail of
the approaching martyrdom; such alarming obligations as the necessity of
a speech at the tenants’ dinner sprang suddenly on him at the turn of a
page, and left him gasping.
‘You have rather a cold nature,’ his mother wrote, ‘not very
imaginative, so I don’t feel I need fear your being carried off your
balance by all this fuss. If you were excitable and emotional like
Arthur, I should feel more anxious. In your case the danger is more that
you will take the whole thing as a matter of course, and not realise
fully the importance of this epoch in your life, and all the new
responsibilities it entails on you.’ Characteristic passages like the
above, scattered up and down the letters, seemed to give Sainty the
measure of his exact knowledge of his mother, and cast a flickering
light into the depths of her abysmal ignorance of him. The sense of a
somewhat unfair advantage bred in him by these revelations of his
superior insight brought into his love for her an element of almost
pitying tenderness which alone was wanting to rivet the chains of his
early acquired habit of obedience to her will.
‘Are you afraid of your mother?’ Gerald Newby asked him once, with some
scorn, in reply to his repeated assertion of the impossibility of going
counter to her wishes.
‘I am very fond of her,’ Sainty answered, with gentle dignity. He had an
almost painful intuition of her sacrifices, her hopes, her frustrate
ambitions for him, and of the disappointment he must inevitably be to
her; he probably read into her not very complex emotions, fine shades of
sensibility from his own consciousness, after the manner of
tender-hearted ladies with their dogs, which made his sympathy for her a
little exaggerated. It was this habit of deference to her lightest wish
that sent him forth sorely against his will to make a solemn call on a
youth whom Lady Charmington had indicated for this attention. ‘My friend
Lady Eccleston has been staying here,’ she wrote, ‘with her daughter,
and I have asked them to come in August for your coming of age. She
tells me her son Thomas is at Cambridge. I didn’t know he had left
Harrow, but it seems he has been at the University two terms. She said
it would be very kind of you to call on him, and I hope you will, as his
mother is a friend of mine. If you find the young man agreeable, you
might ask him to come with his mother and sister in the vacation. _A
propos_, of course you will ask any of your own friends you would like;
we shall want some young men; there will be Cissy Eccleston and the two
de Lissac girls--only let me know in good time how many you ask.’
On his way to show a grudging civility to Tommy Eccleston, Belchamber
revolved in his mind his mother’s parting injunction to provide a band
of youths for the feast. Luckily, here lay one ready indicated to his
hand, but as he ran over the restricted roll-call of his intimates, they
did not strike him as ornamental. Young Lord Springald and Sir Vaux
Hunter and their friends would have been the very people for the
occasion. They would have been voted ‘nice, gentlemanly young fellows,’
or ‘fine, high-spirited lads,’ according as they were shy and dull, or
noisy and rowdy; but then, unfortunately, he did not know them. He could
not ask men whom he had spent two years in avoiding, and who had
blackballed him for their club, but his terrible habit of appreciating
other people’s points of view showed him how unsuitable his own friends
would seem in the eyes of the duke and duchess. Gerald of course he
wanted, and Gerald would be at home and imposing anywhere. His uncle
Corstorphine at least, who had many friends among the intelligent
obscure, could be trusted to appreciate Gerald; but he inwardly hoped
that his friend might not select Lady Charmington as the recipient of
his views on revealed religion. Apart from Newby, his progress towards
the compilation of a list had been purely one of elimination up to the
time of his arrival at Mr. Eccleston’s lodgings. In response to his
knock, the voice of some one who evidently spoke with a jersey over his
head made muffled answer from an inner apartment.
‘All right, damn you, wait a sec., there’s no hurry. I’m changing,’ and
a moment after the owner of the rooms appeared, a pleasant commonplace
pink youth struggling into a college blazer, with one shoe on and the
other dangling by its strings from his teeth.
‘Hulloa! beg pardon,’ he remarked; ‘I thought you were Johnson, who was
coming to go down to the river with me. I thought as he was so quiet he
was probably smashing something,’ and he held out a blistered palm of
welcome.
‘Oh! er--how d’ye do,’ said Sainty, laying his own in it with no
unnecessary cordiality. ‘My name’s Belchamber. My mother asked me to
call on you; she knows your mother, don’t you know. I should have come
sooner, but I didn’t know you were up.’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter; awfully good of you,’ answered Tommy. ‘Sit down,
won’t you; have some lunch?’ A piece of cold pressed beef and a boxed
tongue, with a pot of marmalade, showed that the host had himself
recently partaken of that meal.
‘No thanks, I’ve had lunch,’ said Sainty. ‘But I oughtn’t to keep you;
you are just going out.’
‘Oh no, not at all; there’s no hurry; I haven’t got to be at the river
for half an hour. Besides, I’m waiting for Johnson; he said he’d come
and go down with me.’
Then there was a moment of uneasy silence, broken with an effort by
Sainty.
‘Your mother and sister have been staying with my mother,’ he remarked.
‘No, really?’ said Tommy, with the faintest possible show of interest.
‘My mother stays about a lot; she’s awfully popular.’
There was another pause, during which he finished putting on his shoes.
‘I say, are you _sure_ you won’t have some lunch?’ he cried suddenly,
with quite a show of eagerness. ‘Do. I’m afraid I haven’t got any cake
or anything, ‘cos I’m in training. Have a whisky and soda, won’t you?’
‘No thanks, really not; I’ve just lunched. But I’m sure I’m keeping you
in.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Tommy responded genially, and added, not very
consistently, ‘I can’t think where that ass can be?’
The conversation seemed in danger of collapsing altogether, when the
long-looked-for appearance of Johnson came as a welcome relief to both.
‘Tommy, you brute, why ain’t you ready?’
‘Well, I like that, when I’ve been waiting half an hour for you.’
Sainty got up.
‘Well, I mustn’t keep you,’ he said.
‘Beg pardon; didn’t know you’d got any one here,’ said Johnson.
‘Oh! Lord Belchamber--Mr. Johnson,’ said Eccleston, getting very red
over the fearful embarrassment of an introduction. Then to Sainty, who
remained standing, ‘Must you go? Awfully good of you to come; wish you’d
have had some lunch.’
‘Good-bye,’ Sainty said. ‘I hope you’ll come and see me--D, Old Court.
Come to lunch or tea or something; or look me up in the evening if it
suits you better.’
Sainty reported this conversation verbatim to Newby.
‘You see,’ he said, ‘how hopeless it is for me to try and be gracious to
people with whom I have nothing in common. If you could have seen how
hard that poor boy struggled to look pleased to see me, and the grimness
with which I sat and scowled upon him, you would have felt sorry for us
both; you couldn’t have helped it.’
‘Of course, if your idea of being gracious is to sit and scowl at
people----’ Newby said.
‘I didn’t mean to; I wanted to wreathe my unfortunate features in
smiles, but it was not a success. I am sure I feel as kindly towards my
fellow-creatures as most people do; but I approach them with invincible
terror; and there is no such sure way of making a dog bite you, as to
think he is going to.’
‘Then don’t think so,’ Newby said. ‘Have you _no_ control over your
apprehensions? Strengthen yourself in any way you like. If you can do it
in no other way, say to yourself that you are a great personage and that
most men will be only too glad of your attentions.’
‘Oh! but _that_ is a way that I should _not_ like,’ Sainty cried in
horror; ‘the one thing that finishes me completely is any idea that
people may think _I_ think they could want to know me for such a
reason.’
‘“The idea that people may think that you think,”’ Gerald repeated. ‘My
dear Belchamber, this is very morbid. Do try and be simple.’ Like all
elaborately synthetical people, Newby was always preaching simplicity
and a return to nature.
‘And the sad part of this individual failure,’ Sainty continued, ‘is
that I particularly wanted it to be a success. I had a purpose in
calling.’
‘And what dark designs had you on this innocent fresher?’
‘My mother told me to ask him to the horrible business in August; his
people are coming. By the way, she suggests that I should provide other
victims, and I can’t think of any one who would not be hopelessly
inappropriate and bored to death. None of our friends _could_ take the
thing seriously, except, perhaps, Og.’
‘Well, he’s no use to you, as Providence having unkindly made him nearly
your twin, he has got, in a small way, the same business on, at home,
and _he_ takes it seriously enough, I promise you. I happen to know,
because he has done me the honour to ask me to stay for it.’
Sainty gave the cry of a thing in pain. ‘You haven’t accepted?’
‘Well, I didn’t commit myself; I’m really not quite sure yet where I
shall be this Long. I rather want to go abroad, and perhaps do some
climbing. Holmes and Collinson want me to coach them part of the time,
and I thought we might combine the reading and the exercise, and drop
down to the Italian lakes in the autumn.’
‘And I had so counted on your being there, Gerald,’ Sainty said. ‘You
are just the one person I did want. I felt there would be something
human about it all if I had you with me.’
‘You never said so, you know,’ Newby interjected.
Sainty felt the hot pricking sensation at the back of his eyes which was
the nearest he ever got to tears. He had so intensely desired that
Gerald should be at Belchamber in August, that it had not occurred to
him to put his desire into words; they had talked the subject over so
often that he took it for granted his friend would know that he looked
for his help on the occasion.
‘I thought--’ he began, ‘I hoped--I suppose you would feel----’ He
couldn’t express just what he meant at the moment.
‘You see, you didn’t ask me,’ Newby persisted, ‘whereas Og did.’
‘Oh! go to Og, or Switzerland, or Hell, as far as I’m concerned,’ Sainty
broke out.
Gerald laid a kind restraining hand upon his shoulder. ‘My dear boy, you
needn’t lose your temper and swear at me,’ he said; ‘I haven’t said I
wouldn’t come. I only said you hadn’t asked me, and I couldn’t be
expected to assume that I was invited to your coming of age, unless you
said something about it.’
Sainty was trembling all over; his little gust of passion had passed and
left him humbled and ashamed. How could he have spoken so to his friend?
‘Oh! forgive me,’ he cried. ‘I suppose I felt in my heart such a need of
you, that I couldn’t but fancy you would know it.’
Newby coughed uneasily. ‘For Heaven’s sake, don’t let us be
sentimental,’ he said, in his little, prim, dry manner.
‘My mother says I am cold and unimaginative,’ Sainty answered sadly,
‘and you accuse me of hysteria. You can’t both be right; but anyway, I
suppose _I’m_ wrong. After all, why should I assume that just because I
wanted you I was certain to get you? I haven’t so often got what I
wanted in life. I should have remembered that though you are nearly
everything to me, I am to you only one of a hundred men your kindness
has helped.’
Gerald smiled. Like all Englishmen he had been frightened by the
indecency of a glimpse of naked emotion, but he was always prepared to
accept any amount of solid adulation soberly offered.
‘You make too much of anything I may have been able to do for you,’ he
said graciously. ‘And affection is a great gift; I’m sure I’m very proud
that you like me and feel I have been of some use to you. I have no
doubt I can manage to make it fit in.’
Sainty was profusely grateful; he really felt that Gerald had conferred
a tremendous favour on him, which is probably what Newby meant he should
feel.
His other invitations were less successful. Even Ringwood, whom at last
he decided to ask, though he knew his mother and Arthur would say he was
an affected ass, had pledged himself to the rival celebration.
Tommy Eccleston, to be sure, accepted. ‘Oh, thanks!’ he said, ‘very good
of you; I shall like it awfully.’
So Sainty wrote and announced this meagre harvest to Lady Charmington,
who forthwith responded: ‘Do you mean to say that out of all the young
men you must know at Cambridge, you can only get two? Try and find two
more, or we shall be more women than men. Johnny Trafford is coming, and
I have asked Algy Montgomery, and of course there will be Claude, but
none of the other Trafford boys can come, and I know so few young men.
You see, we are such a lot of women. There is grandmamma (my mother, I
mean), and your Aunt Susie, and Lady Eccleston and her daughter, and
Alice de Lissac writes that her husband, she is sure, won’t come, so
there are three more women. And now the duchess insists on my asking
Lady Deans, whom I don’t know, and your Aunt Eva wants to bring a friend
of hers. I counted on your having lots of friends you would want asked,
or I should not have agreed.’
At last, in despair, Sainty had recourse to Tommy Eccleston again, who
seemed sociable and friendly, and was the only person who had accepted
with anything like cordiality. ‘You haven’t got any friend you’d like to
bring, have you?’ Sainty asked.
‘I think Johnson would come, if he was asked,’ said Tommy thoughtfully.
‘You see, between you and me, he’s rather sweet on my sister.’
It only wanted two days to the end of the term, when the list was
finally completed in the most unexpected manner.
Sainty was hobbling disconsolately across the court one evening, when he
almost ran into Parsons. Since he had invited this gentleman to lunch as
an attempt at greater catholicity, they had frequently met, and
something like friendship might by a little stretch of imagination be
said to exist between them. Sainty, feeling how very little strain their
intercourse would bear, was always careful not to tighten it unduly.
‘I hear you are coming of age,’ Ned remarked, ‘and have got a regular
corroboree in honour of the event at the family fried-fish shop. I can’t
think why you haven’t asked me.’
The intention was evidently humorous, but Sainty was a little taken
aback. The fact was that Parsons was the only man of whom he saw
anything like as much, whom he had not tried as the possible fourth
demanded by the necessity for sexual symmetry.
‘Should you care about it?’ he asked, a little doubtfully.
‘My dear fellow,’ Ned answered candidly, ‘don’t ask a poor devil like me
to a place like Belchamber; I should be ludicrously out of place.
Besides, you know, you don’t really like me. Of course I was only
joking.’
Sainty was touched. Perhaps he had done Ned injustice. He certainly had
never been very civil to him, and Parsons had borne no malice.
‘Will you come?’ he said.
‘Do you mean it?’ said Ned. ‘Of course I will.’
As Sainty wrote to announce this last recruit to Lady Charmington, he
could not help smiling at the thought of three out of the four who were
to represent his chosen intimates and cronies on the great occasion.