INTERVIEWS
I soon found out that Jack Ward was of a most friendly disposition, for
he came over to my rooms before ten o'clock the following morning and
bounced in with an air of having known me all my life. At the moment I
was talking to a man called Murray, whose acquaintance I had made an
hour before. My introduction to Murray could hardly be called formal;
he lived in the next rooms to me and at precisely the same time each of
us had poked our heads into the passage and shouted for our scout. We
then looked at each other and laughed, and the deed was done. I wish
that I could have made all my friends at Oxford as easily; it would
have saved so much time.
Murray was going as Ward came in, and they nodded and said
"Good-morning" in the way men do when they don't altogether love one
another.
"You seem to know everybody," I said, without much reason, as soon as
Murray had disappeared.
"I can't well help knowing that fellow, considering that he was at
Wellingham with me for five years."
"He didn't tell me he was at Wellingham."
"He would have in another minute, and that he was captain of the school
and the footer fifteen, and what he was fed on as a baby and how many
muscles he had got in his big toe," Ward jerked out as he pulled
furiously at his pipe, which he had already tried to light two or three
times.
"I thought he seemed a nice sort of man," I said.
"I expect you think everybody you see nice sort of men," he replied
rather queerly, though he laughed as he spoke.
"I hope so; it is a jolly comfortable state to be in," I answered.
"But a very dangerous one. You must get awfully left."
I picked up _Wisden's Cricket Almanack_, which had been one of the
things in my bag, and began to read it, for I had taken a fancy to
Murray and did not see much use in listening to what I felt Ward wanted
to say about him.
"You will probably be friends with Murray for about a month, and then
it will end with a snap," he said.
"I can promise you that if I am friends with him for a month it won't
end with a snap, even if his toes simply bulge with muscles," I replied.
"If anybody warned you against a man you would take no notice."
"It depends who warned me, and whom I was warned against. And since it
is no use pretending things," I added, "I don't see much wrong in a
fellow because he happens to remember something about baby's food."
"He might be a bore."
"So may anybody," I answered, for Ward's persistence was beginning to
annoy me. He got up from his chair with a great laugh, and put his
hands on my shoulders.
"We mustn't begin by having a row with each other," he said.
I stood up so that I could get rid of his hands, and felt inclined to
say that I did not want to begin at all, but I stopped myself. There
was something in the man that attracted me. I may be peculiar, but I
like people who shake the furniture when they laugh, having suffered
much from a master at Cliborough who never let himself go farther than
a giggle.
"I suppose we must go and see these blessed dons. They want to see us
at half-past ten, don't they?" he said.
I looked at my watch and found that it was nearly eleven o'clock, so we
bolted down-stairs and across the quadrangle as hard as we could. It
was a very bad start but I had completely forgotten that we had to go
to the hall at half-past ten, and Ward gave me no comfort by saying
that he did not suppose it mattered when we went as long as we turned
up some time. Dons would have to be very different from masters if
that was the case, and as I imagined that they would be of much the
same breed only glorified, I had no wish to begin by making them angry.
There were thirty or forty freshers in the hall when we got there, and
a few dons sitting at the high table at the end of it. Murray and two
or three other men were up talking to them when I arrived, and I
guessed that they were taking the scholars and exhibitioners
alphabetically, and that I was too late for my turn; though Ward, who
was a commoner and fortunate enough to begin with a W, was probably in
heaps of time.
When Murray came down he told me that they had called out my name
several times, which made me, quite unreasonably, feel angry with Ward,
but presently they shouted for me again and I went up.
Though I felt rather agitated as I walked up the hall and saw these
gowned people waiting for me, the idea flitted across my mind that they
looked most extremely like a row of rooks sitting on a long stick. My
prevailing impression as I approached them was one of beak, they seemed
to me like a lot of benevolent and expectant birds. As a matter of
fact this impression was false, and I got it because I was looking at
the Warden--as the Head of St. Cuthbert's was called--and not at the
group of dons on each side of him.
The Warden was a little man whose head had apparently sunk down into
his neck and got a tilt forward in the process. His eyes were grey and
shrewd, the sort of eyes which one watches to see the signs of the
times; his nose, being that of the Warden, I will only call prominent,
and he had a habit of passing his hand over his mouth and chin, which
was merely a habit, but suggested to me at first sight that he was
pleased with his morning shave. He was nearly sixty years old, and
when he wanted to be nice his efforts were not intelligible to
everybody, but there was no mistaking him when he really wished to be
nasty. However, he was one of those men who are spoken of at Oxford as
having European reputations, and possibly the burden of an European
reputation gives the owner of it a right to behave differently from
ordinary people who have no reputation at all, or if they have one
would prefer that it should be forgotten.
The Warden held out a hand to me and almost winced at my manner of
grasping it. My father always said that he knew a man by his
hand-shake, but I ought to have been wise enough to spare the Warden.
"I was in doubt whether or no we were to have the privilege of seeing
you this morning. Perhaps the fatigues of a long journey by rail
caused you to remain in your bedroom for a longer time than is usual,
or indeed beneficial."
I was on the point of saying that I had been up at eight o'clock, when
it occurred to me that an apology would be shorter than an explanation,
so I mumbled that I was very sorry for being late. My chief desire was
to get away from an atmosphere which I found overpowering.
I had to listen to some more remarks from the Warden, all of which were
spun out in his extraordinary way, and at last I was introduced to my
tutor, Mr. Gilbert Edwardes, who took me on one side and set to work
telling me what lectures I was to attend. I think he meant to be
friendly but he had a dreadfully stiff manner, and I am sure that he
found it very difficult to unbend. He reminded me most strongly of a
shirt with too much starch in it, or whatever it is that makes shirts
as stiff as boards.
Later on in the day I went to see him in his rooms in college and he
gave me a little advice and exhorted me to work. It was all a
cut-and-dried sort of affair which did not appeal to any feelings I
had, but since he was my tutor I thought I had better tell him
something about myself.
He was even smaller than the Warden and quite the most prim-looking man
I have ever beheld. His face was colourless and smooth, and as I sat
opposite him in his gloomy room he looked so tidy and sure of himself
that I found a great difficulty in speaking to him. Having said the
usual things he was very obviously expecting me to go, but I did not
want him to begin by thinking that I was a saint, though why I imagined
that he was in any danger of thinking so I cannot explain. He had,
however, said so much about work and the great care I must take in
avoiding men who distracted me from my duty, that I thought I had
better tell him that I was a very human being.
I never remember having twiddled my thumbs before but I caught myself
doing it in his room. He was so placid and demure that I could not
imagine that he had ever done a foolish thing in his life. It was
impossible for me to think that he had ever been young, and I wanted
him to know that I was both young and foolish. He must have known the
one and I expect he guessed the other, but at any rate my intention was
to begin fair. Then whatever happened he would not be able to say that
I had not warned him.
But he made me so nervous that I did not get the right words, and I
made him look more like a poker then ever. "Thanks, most awfully," I
began, and it was a bad beginning, "for all your advice. But I want to
tell you that I do the most stupid things without meaning to do them.
I mean that they only strike me as being stupid after I have done them."
Mr. Edwardes made noises in his throat which sounded like a succession
of "Ahems," and I floundered on: "I am afraid it is very hard for me
not to like amusing myself as much as possible, but of course I will
try to work and all that sort of thing as well." He stood up when I
got as far as that and smiled at me, but I cannot say that he seemed to
be pleased. "I thought I had better tell you, so that you would know,"
I added before I left him, and I went away with the hopeless feeling
that I had made a complete idiot of myself. I hated Mr. Edwardes as I
went back across the quadrangle, for I felt that I had tried to take
him into my confidence and that he had responded by getting rid of me.
When I reached my rooms my luggage had arrived and I let off steam--so
to speak--by having a dispute with the man who had brought it. I did
not get the best of that dispute, but I did make an effort to practise
the economy which my people had advised, and Clarkson saw me in a rage,
which must have been very good for him. For a solid hour I unpacked
things which I had thought beautiful in my study at Cliborough and put
them about my room, but somehow or other most of them did not seem as
beautiful as I had thought them, and there was a picture--I had won it
in a shilling raffle, and been very proud of it--which filled me with
sorrow. It had been painted by the sister of a fellow at Cliborough,
and when he was frightfully hard-up he arranged a raffle, and everybody
said I was jolly lucky to win it. I was even bid fifteen shillings for
the picture by the original owner, but as I suspected that he wanted to
get up another raffle I refused the offer. When I saw the thing
hanging on my wall I wished that I had not been such a fool. Having
got the thing I did not like to waste it, but if some one would have
come in and stuck a knife into it I should have been very pleased. The
name of this burden was "A Last Night at Sea," and the subjects
represented were a small boat and two or three people huddled together
at one end of it, while in the middle of the boat a woman with long
streaming hair was stretching out her arms towards a terrific wave. If
I had not remembered the name it might not have been so bad, but under
the circumstances no one could say that it was a cheerful thing to live
with. I suppose the satisfaction of having it in my study at
Cliborough had been enough, for I did not recollect having looked at it
before, and when a lot of fellows are swarming around saying what a
lucky chap you are to have won a thing, it is not very likely to give
you the blues then, whatever it may have in store for you afterwards.
I turned "A Last Night at Sea" with its face to the wall and went on
decorating my room. Photographs of my father and mother which I put on
my mantelpiece made me feel rather better, but Nina resplendent in a
green plush frame made me think again. I had been very proud of that
frame some years before when Nina had given it to me; she had sold two
rabbits and borrowed sixpence from Miss Read, her governess, to buy it,
and it had never occurred to me that I could grow out of my admiration
for green plush. The question of what to do with it puzzled me
tremendously; I didn't want to treat Nina badly but the frame was an
abomination. Fortunately there was a ring attached to the frame and I
hung it up in a dark corner, but I promised myself that it should come
out the following morning.
I had just sat down to survey my labours when Murray came in and
proposed we should go for a walk in the town, and as I was perfectly
sick of my room I was quite ready to go. Although the time was barely
four o'clock and the sun doesn't set for another hour in the middle of
October, it was half dark and drizzling with rain as we walked down
Turl Street and came into The High. But I had got rid of my gloom and
was eager to spend money. I did not quite know what I wanted but that
was not of much consequence. We went into a shop which seemed to be
exactly the place for any one who wished to buy things, and did not
care much what he bought. Before I came out of it I had bought two
chairs, a standard lamp, a small book-case, an enormous bowl--which got
in my way for two years until somebody smashed it--a tea-set, a small
table and half-a-dozen china shepherdesses. I then went to other shops
and made more purchases, while Murray looked on and smiled until I was
waylaid by an accommodating man in the Cornmarket, who wanted to sell
me a fox-terrier pup, and was ready to keep it for me if I had no place
for it; and then I was told not to be a fool. That man's opinion of
Murray is not worth mentioning.
When we got back to college it was past five o'clock, and between us we
managed to find everything that was necessary for tea. I had a fire in
my room, but Murray had not one in his; he had tea-cups, but I had
none; while I had things to eat, which our cook at home had declared
would be useful and I had most reluctantly brought with me. We were in
the middle of this very substantial meal when Fred Foster came in, and
from his glance round my room I saw that he thought it was a fairly
dismal spot.
"Rather like an up-stairs dungeon," I said. "Have you got a better
place than this?"
"It is bigger and not so stuffy," he answered; "but it won't make you
very jealous."
"You wait until I have got all the things I have just bought, and then
you will think this no end of a place," I remarked.
"If any one can get inside," Murray put in.
"It will be rather a squash," I admitted; "I've spent over twelve
pounds already."
"That's just the sort of thing you would do," Foster said.
We sat and talked for an hour until Ward burst in, knocking and opening
the door at the same moment.
Murray and Foster had been getting on splendidly together, but directly
Ward came they hardly said a word. Possibly they did not get much
chance, but any one could see that Foster had taken a dislike to Ward
at sight.
Murray went away very soon and left the three of us together.
"I've been over to Woodstock in a dog-cart with Bunny Langham and Bob
Fraser," Ward said. "By Jove, that cob of Bunny's can move. We got
back in five-and-twenty minutes."
As I didn't know how far it was to Woodstock and didn't care, I said
nothing, so Ward went on, "Bunny's a rare good sort; you ought to meet
him."
"What college is he at?" I asked.
"At the House--Christchurch, you know." I did know, and thought the
explanation cheek. "I have hired a gee from Carter's to-morrow, and am
going to drive over to Abingdon with Bunny, will you come?"
"To-morrow's Sunday," I said.
"Yes, there is nothing else to do. The better the day the----" But I
interrupted him.
"Don't talk rot, I hate those things. Are you going in a dog-cart?" I
asked.
"Yes, it is Bunny's cart."
"I am jolly well not going to sit on the back seat of a dog-cart if I
can help it; I would rather go about in a perambulator," I said.
"You are so confoundedly particular," he went on with a great guffaw of
laughter, "but since it is Bunny's cart and I am going to drive I don't
see how we can offer you any other seat."
"Who the blazes is Bunny?" I asked, for his name was beginning to get
on my nerves, and Fred Foster sitting as dumb as a mute was enough to
upset any one.
"I know him at home, his father is the Marquis of Tillford and his real
name is Lord Augustus Langham, only his teeth stick out and every one
calls him Bunny," Ward answered.
"Heaps of money?" I said.
"Plenty, I should think."
"Then he is no use to me, though he may be the best fellow in the
world," I declared.
"You are a rum 'un, why he is just the sort of man who is some use."
"That depends," Foster said suddenly.
"Yes, it depends," I repeated, though I didn't know exactly what
depended.
"What depends?" Ward asked Foster.
"Well, if a man hasn't got much money it is no use knowing a lot of men
who have got no end."
"It never struck me that way. Perhaps you are right," and then turning
to me, he added, "Come to breakfast anyhow to-morrow morning, Bunny
won't be there then."
I promised to go, and then he left us. I walked back to Oriel with
Foster and he had got a lot to say about Jack Ward. "Where in the
world did you find that man?" was his first remark after we were alone.
"He found me," I said.
"I should lose him as soon as possible," Fred went on.
"I don't think that would be very easy," I answered, "and I don't
believe he is a bad sort really."
"I'll bet he never came back from Woodstock in five-and-twenty
minutes," Foster said.