JACK WARD AND DENNISON
The morning following the wine was no morning for me. Of course I
awoke with a headache, but that was nothing in comparison with a
general feeling that the day was not likely to be a peaceful one. I
lay awake and thought over matters as well as I could until Clarkson
came in to put my bath. Then I pretended to be asleep, but out of the
corner of my eye I saw him looking at me and I conceived a great
dislike for him. He seemed to think I was a curiosity of some kind.
He tidied my room, and having finished he asked if I should be taking
breakfast. I sat up in bed and inquired why he supposed I did not want
breakfast, and my question, I flatter myself, surprised him
considerably. I told him to get me twice as much breakfast as usual
and to be quick, but while I was dressing I wondered how I should eat
it, so I went into Murray's room and persuaded him to breakfast with
me. Murray had already begun to eat, but when I explained to him that
this was a little matter between Clarkson and myself, and that it would
not do for me to be scored off, he agreed to come. Clarkson, however,
was a difficult man to defeat; he provided enough breakfast for four
men, and though I bustled him as much as I could and was very
dictatorial, I could see that he was quietly amused. Murray ate for
all he was worth, but the amount of food which Clarkson carried away
for his hungry family was evidence enough to prove who had won the
battle.
Conversation did not play any conspicuous part in that meal, but I told
Murray that if everybody at the wine had been as sensible as Ward we
should have got through without any row. "My opinion of Ward has
changed," I said more than once, for Murray was not inclined to give
him any credit and he certainly deserved some.
At ten o'clock I went to a lecture, and when I returned I found a note
from the Sub-Warden asking me to call upon him at noon. It was
precisely what I expected, but the prospects of another row depressed
me. The morning was dark and rainy, and my room was so dismal that I
stood on the ledge outside my window and leant against the parapet. It
was neither a comfortable nor a very safe position, but it suited my
mood. I looked down on the back quadrangle below me and watched for
something interesting to happen. I had not been up long enough to know
that my wish was not likely to be gratified, nothing exciting ever does
happen in Oxford during the morning, or if it does I was always
unfortunate enough to miss it.
A man in a scholar's gown hurried across the quadrangle, rushed up a
staircase, and came back with a note-book in his hand. The Warden came
out of his house and stood upon his doorstep as if he was trying to
remember what he wanted to do. Then he turned round and went into the
house again. Miss Davenport, the Warden's sister, a lady who was
reported to be talkative and in love, came out and observed the
weather. Two minutes afterwards she appeared in a mackintosh, which
was thoroughly business-like. She was most obviously bent on shopping.
Two men, regardless of the rain, strolled out of the front quadrangle
and shouted for Dennison, who did not come to his window. I told them
that he was probably in bed, and they answered that I should fall over
if I did not look out. It was all most painfully dull, and I was just
going in when the Subby appeared and went into the Warden's house. I
could guess the reason for that visit, and waited to see no more. I
sat down by the fire and tried to think out what I should say to the
Subby, and what he would say to me. I did not know much about him
except that his name was Webster, and that he was a great authority on
Etruscan pottery, facts which did not help me much. He also had one of
the finest stamp collections in the world, but I had never collected
anything for more than a week at a time. I felt that he was a
difficult man to gauge, because he had never been what I considered a
sportsman. His appearance at any rate was not imposing, and I was
depressed enough to feel thankful for very small mercies. If dons only
remembered what men feel like after their first wine, they would
scarcely be hard-hearted enough to inflict further penalties upon them.
But it was the vocation of the Subby to keep order in the college, and
some one had told me that rowdy men were his pet abomination. He
regarded St. Cuthbert's as the intellectual centre of Oxford, and
Oxford as the intellectual centre of the world. No wonder the poor man
looked serious and seldom smiled, for he must have had a lot to think
about. He covered up his eyes with enormous spectacles, and the lower
part of his face with a straggling moustache and beard, you got neither
satisfaction nor information from looking at him.
It was nearly twelve o'clock before I saw any of the men who had been
at the wine, and then Ward and Collier came into my rooms. I was still
sitting by the fire, and Ward, who would have gibed at my gloom under
ordinary conditions, simply told me that I didn't look very cheerful,
and sat down on the edge of the table, which tilted up and nearly
placed him on the floor. Collier threw himself into the nearest chair,
and pulling a pipe out of his pocket, carefully rubbed the bowl of it,
but showed no anxiety to smoke, and considering that I felt as if I
should never smoke again, I was not surprised.
"I should like to flay Lambert, Webb, and Dennison alive," Collier said
quite solemnly.
"I've got to go to the Subby in ten minutes," I said, and Collier's
face brightened.
"I didn't think you would have to go," Ward remarked; "what an infernal
nuisance, and why has he sent for you?"
"I tried to rescue the stupid man from Lambert and Webb, and got
entangled in his blessed arm. He was as sick as blazes, and I shall
hear more stuff about being an exhibitioner," I answered.
"The man's a fool," Collier said, "but the biggest ass in the place is
Dennison. He knew the Subby was out to dinner, and wouldn't be back
till goodness knows when, but he must go on and kick up a row on that
piano after he knew the Subby was in his rooms. And the beauty of it
is that Dennison hasn't been sent for. I call it a confounded shame.
We have just been round to see him, and the brute is still in bed as
fit as anything, and thinks it the best joke he has heard for ages. He
wouldn't see much humour in it if he went and smelt my rooms."
"Who has been sent for?" I asked.
"You, Collier, Lambert, and Webb," Ward replied.
"Not you?"
"I have seen the Subby already. I met him in the quad and asked if I
might speak to him."
"Was he furious?" I inquired.
"I tried to explain things to him; he was not altogether furious, but
stuck on a sort of injured dignity business which was rather funny."
"It isn't likely a man would want to be danced down-stairs by Lambert
and Webb," Collier said; "I wonder they didn't break his neck, and it
would have been a thundering good job if they had smashed themselves."
I got up and seized my gown, leaving Collier to continue his wishes for
the destruction of Lambert and Webb if he felt inclined. At any other
time they would have amused me, for Collier was generally difficult to
move in any way, and he was quite funny when his indignation could be
roused.
I am not going to describe my interview with the Subby at any length.
He listened patiently to what I had to say, but if a man came to me and
said that he had caught hold of me by accident I confess that I should
think it a poor sort of story. I could not tell him that I was trying
to save him from Lambert and Webb, because that would have been
contrary to what I should have expected them to say about me, if the
positions had been reversed. The Subby ought to have guessed it for
himself and rewarded me, but he had been so hustled that it was perhaps
too much to expect him to guess anything. My reputation for work
seemed to have been of the worst. There was no denying that the Subby
and I had been entangled, and it was no use for me to say that it was
his fault. I spoke of it as a very unfortunate occurrence, and I
assured him most warmly that it should not happen again. Assurances of
that kind do not, I should say, count for much. He was so occupied by
the importance of what had passed, that I could not make him see that
the future was also important. And I did try hard to point this out to
him, I regretted much, I promised more, and I meant everything I said
most honestly. I had never been so penitent before, but I must at the
same time admit that I had never previously felt quite so unwell.
Perhaps my protestations had some effect, for my sentence was that I
should be gated for three weeks, and I received also what must, when
translated into simple English, have been a warning that unless I
changed the errors of my ways my exhibition would be taken away from
me. The Subby jawed badly, he was not to be compared with Mr.
Edwardes, and he hesitated and coughed, until once or twice I was
almost inclined to help him out, for I knew what he was going to say
and he fidgeted me. I was, however, in too great a hole to risk much,
so as soon as he began I remained silent and hoped steadily that he
would either end soon or be interrupted. He did not know how to begin
or when to finish, and if Collier had not knocked at the door and come
into the room, it seemed to me that nothing but the pangs of hunger
would have warned him that he had said enough.
I have never seen a more welcome arrival than Collier's, because I had
really been with the Subby a very long time, and to stand with an
attentive expression for ten minutes at a stretch and listen to the
usual remarks is in its way quite a feat. I found Ward waiting for me
in the front quad, and he asked at once what had happened to me.
"Gated for three weeks," I answered; "I suppose I ought to consider
myself lucky, he might have sent me down."
"It knocks all your fun on the head," he said, "being in by nine
o'clock every night is average rot."
"It won't matter to me, I am going to settle down and read for a first
in Mods," and I turned into the common room and picked up _The
Sportsman_. There were no other men in the room, and Ward stood in
front of the fire and kept looking at me as if he wanted to say
something and could not manage to begin. I read the names of the
'Varsity XV. chosen to play that afternoon against Richmond, and saw
that Foster was still among them.
"Fred Foster's going to get his blue," I said.
"Who the deuce wants to get a blue?" Ward replied.
"Well, it's better than getting into rows, anyway," I retorted.
"You seem to have taken this thing very quietly," he said, "don't you
see that your being dropped on is a most wretched swindle. Lambert and
Webb are only gated for three weeks."
"It doesn't make a tuppenny-ha'penny bit of difference to me what has
happened to them. If they had been gated for two years it wouldn't
give me any satisfaction."
"But they had been mixing all kinds of drink."
"And the Subby thinks I had," I said.
"But you hadn't."
"No, but that doesn't make any difference. The Subby may be a fair
ass, but I caught hold of him, and I must be a bigger fool than he is.
It's the last time I ever try to rescue a don."
Two senior men, Bagshaw and Crane came into the room and overheard my
last remark, so I had to tell them the whole thing over again. Both of
them laughed tremendously, but Crane, who was captain of the college
cricket eleven, and President of the Mohocks, which was the
inappropriate name of the St. Cuthbert's wine club, seemed to be more
amused at the solemn way I told the story, while Bagshaw said he would
have given anything to have seen the Subby rushing down-stairs. They
laughed loudly, and as soon as I could escape I went back to my rooms,
leaving Jack Ward to talk to them.
For once I wanted to be by myself, but there was no shaking off Ward
that morning, and he turned up again in about ten minutes and said that
he had told his scout to bring his lunch round to my rooms. I had
struggled nobly with breakfast, but I hated the suggestion of more food
and told him he had better go and eat somewhere else. My head ached
abominably, and I wanted to sit by the fire and go to sleep. Ward,
however, decided that I wanted cheering up, though how he was likely to
enliven me by eating when I had no appetite he did not tell me. As a
matter of fact cheering me up was only an excuse, what he really wanted
to do was to give me the explanation which he thought I must be
expecting. If he had known me better he would not have expected me to
wait for anything, had I imagined any explanation was necessary I
should have asked him for it at once. But I was not taking any
interest in explanations, my mouth felt like a cinder, and when some
man had met me in the quad and told me I looked "precious cheap," which
is an expression I detest, I had not the energy to retaliate.
Ward, having eaten his luncheon and gulped down a most horrible
quantity of beer, lit a cigarette, and sat down by the fire.
"You must think me a most awful brute for having got out of this row,"
he began. I told him that if he felt as I did, he would think
everybody in the world was a brute.
"Well, you see," he went on, "I got the thing up and the Subby didn't
send for me."
"It was Dennison's fault," I said, for I saw no good in dividing the
blame, "and if a man can't take his luck in these things he is no use
to anybody. My luck's always vile, but that doesn't matter to any one
except me, and I am used to it."
He took no notice of what I said, and continued, "So I told the Subby
it was my fault, but when I saw him I thought only Collier, Webb and
Lambert had been nailed."
I roused myself and looked at Ward, who was staring into the fire.
"You are a fool," I stated, but I didn't mean it.
"I had to do it or I should have felt awful," he said, and then he
jumped up and banged round the room, tossing things about and failing
to catch them.
He stood in a new light, and it took me some time to digest what he had
told me. Of all the men I had met since coming to Oxford I should have
said that Jack Ward was the one who would watch his own interests most
closely, and he had upset all my opinions by walking into a quite
unnecessary row.
"Why did you do it?" I asked him, and I added, "it isn't as if you
could do anybody else any good," for it is at first very perplexing to
find a man doing exactly the reverse of what you expect.
"I have told you why I did it, I should have felt so confoundedly mean
if I hadn't. But while I was with the Subby I wish I had known that he
had nailed you as well, because I might have told him that you hate
drinking. A don seems to me to have the fixed idea that freshers
naturally drink too much, at least that was the impression the Subby
gave me."
"What happened to you?"
"I'm gated for a fortnight, and he talked a lot of tommy-rot."
"Well, I think it is most frightfully decent of you," I said.
"Oh, shut up," Ward answered, "I can't stand that. I have never done
anything of the kind before and shan't again. I simply couldn't have
faced you men if I hadn't owned up, and that ends it."
At that moment Dennison walked in wearing an enormous overcoat and a
Wellingham scarf round his neck, he looked as beautifully pink as ever,
and I hated the sight of him.
"This is such a blighted day that I am going to watch a footer match,"
he said, "it amuses me to see thirty people tumbling about in the mud,
and we can go and play pool at Wright's when we have had enough, if you
will come."
I did not intend to tell Dennison that I was ill, so I said I would go
if Ward would come with us, and as soon as we got into the Broad and
the rain fairly beat upon us, I began to feel much better and more
capable of being disagreeable to Dennison. I was in the state of mind
which makes one anxious to be unpleasant, the sort of mood in which
horrid people abuse servants or try to kick animals, and I was glad to
have Dennison, who deserved every rudeness imaginable, at my disposal.
But the worst of feeling so thoroughly disagreeable is that you are
ashamed of yourself so quickly. I am either violently angry or not
angry at all, and it is the people who are good at sulks and call them
dignity who get their own way in this world. I once tried to be
dignified at home, and I am not inclined to repeat the experiment; my
father told me not to be a fool, my sister walked about as if wrestling
with suppressed laughter, and my mother offered me various medicines.
Rudeness is my _rôle_, its intention is not so easily mistaken.
So I hung on to Dennison very earnestly, and though Ward did all he
knew to keep the peace, I had managed before we reached the Parks, to
convince both of them that our walk was a mistake.
We went to the far end of the ground where very few spectators were
standing, for an Oxford crowd always collect behind the goal of the
visiting side, hoping magnificently that by those means they will see
most of the game. It is very noble of them, but they are sometimes
disappointed, and this happened to be one of the days on which those
who were behind the 'Varsity goal-posts saw a good deal more than they
wanted. For the day was made for the Richmond XV., who were big, bulky
men, very heavy in the scrimmage, and the three-quarter backs on both
sides spent most of their time trying to keep warm. Dennison said he
was bored to death, and I told him Richmond never were any good outside
the scrum and were playing a jolly good game. He answered that he was
not a Football Encyclopaedia, and I assured him that he never could be
anything half so useful. We kept up this kind of conversation for some
time, while Ward stamped his feet and asked us to stop.
"How long have you been gated for?" I asked Dennison suddenly,
springing the question upon him as had been the habit of one master at
Cliborough when he was going to ask me something very embarrassing.
Ward hit me in the ribs with his elbow, and Dennison pretended not to
hear, so I moved a little further from Ward and repeated my question.
"The Subby didn't send for me," he replied; "I wasn't caught and I made
no row to speak of."
"Oh well, if you like to get out of the whole thing it has nothing to
do with me," I said, and the thought suddenly struck me that if I
really goaded Dennison into giving up his name I should feel a brute
for the rest of my existence. What I wanted to do was to prove that
Ward was worth about ten of him, but it is very uphill work trying to
convince a man that he is only a fraction of the fellow he thinks
himself, I have often seen people going sorrowfully away from tasks of
that kind.
"There is no question of getting out of it," Dennison said quite
calmly, "because I have never been in it."
"No question at all," Ward put in.
"At any rate you arranged it," I retorted.
"And the very deuce of a job it was," he replied.
"Of course it was," Ward said, and though I imagined I was out of
elbow-shot I got another blow which did nothing to improve my temper.
"It's like this," I began, "Ward went to the Subby and said----" But
Ward burst in with, "By Jove, that is about the tenth time that man
Foster has fallen on the ball, and now I believe he's hurt."
For quite two minutes Fred lay on the ground, and I forgot all about
Dennison and the exasperating mood I was in. At last he got up and
moved about in a dazed condition, while some people clapped and others,
more enthusiastic than anxious, began to shout, "Now then, 'Varsity."
The game went on again, but my desire to be nasty had vanished, and I
found that I had moved away from Ward and Dennison. When I returned to
them I found that my interrupted remark had created a greater
disturbance than I had expected. Dennison was fuming like anything,
and so far was he from thinking that Ward and I had a grievance against
him that he was treating himself as a thoroughly injured man.
"It is a pretty low down game," he was saying to Ward, when I came
back, "for you to go and give your name up to the Subby and tell me
nothing about it. What do you think everybody will be saying about me?
Marten has been talking to me as if I was a pick-pocket, while you were
standing there and thinking yourself a sort of tin hero. If you want
to know what I think you are, my opinion is that you're a confounded
fool, but since you have done this I must go and see the Subby when I
get back to college."
This is only an expurgated copy of what Dennison said, as a matter of
fact he called Ward and me much worse names than a pick-pocket, and
qualified them with adjectives too violent to be recorded.
I looked blankly at Ward, who had his head down and looked thoroughly
ashamed of himself.
"It is one of the few times in my life," he said, "when I have tried to
do the right thing, and it seems to have been all wrong."
There was only one line to take, and I started on it at once. "That's
rot," I began, "because you suggested the whole thing, and if you felt
like owning up to it no one else has any right to swear at you.
Dennison is altogether different, and if he goes to the Subby everybody
else will have to go. We are like a lot of school-boys."
I thought my last remark a sound one, for Dennison pretended to despise
boys, because he said they always got up so late for morning school
that they had not time to wash properly. There was always a faint
smell of scent about Dennison, which did not make me take much notice
of his opinion about school-boys.
I cannot even now tell whether he was really angry or whether he was
just pretending a rage to put us into a hole. I did find out
afterwards that he knew all the time that Ward had given up his name,
so if he pretended one thing I do not see why he should not have
pretended another. But the result was the same whether he was shamming
or not. Ward and I implored him not to go to the Subby, for quite ten
minutes during that damp and shivery afternoon we besought him to leave
things as they were. And at last with great reluctance he gave way,
and to please us he said that he would forgive Ward for having done
rather a mean thing, and he pardoned me for having been so rude. Of
course we were most properly taken in, but that was the fate of most
men who had much to do with Dennison, and I was so glad to be at peace
once more that it did not occur to me then that Ward and I were two
colossal idiots.
I went round to see Foster after the match, but found that he was going
to dine early with the Richmond team, so he did not tell me anything
except that he had got a splitting headache. Each time I had been to
see him for the last fortnight he had either been out, just going out,
or had a room full of men with him. Whenever he had come to see me the
same kind of things had happened, so we had not managed to have one
respectable talk together. I determined that this was most
unsatisfactory, so after dinner I wrote him a note, asking him to go
for a walk with me on the following day, and then I went to see Jack
Ward. My opinion of him had been changing all day, and as I went to
his room I felt that whatever Foster and Murray said about him, he was
at bottom a splendid sort. Roulette was going on in his rooms, and the
usual crowd were playing. Ward was banker, and he did not even ask me
to play, but roulette is a very difficult game to watch without
playing, and after black had come up six times consecutively, I thought
it must be red's turn. It was not, however, and five times I lost my
money; then I had sense enough to stop for a bit until the numbers
began to fascinate me, and I picked nineteen, being my age. A lot of
people may say I was old enough to know better, but it is so easy to
make remarks of that kind, and until they find something a little less
stale, they will never do any good. I stood by the table at first, and
then sat down and made up my mind to get my money back. I tried
everything in turn, but luck was dead against me, and Ward once or
twice said he wished I would win something. In the end I lost nearly
six pounds, and went back to my rooms a sorrowful man. Before I went
into my bedder I looked at my cheque-book, and it gave me no
satisfaction. I had borrowed four pounds from Ward, and I wrote him a
cheque for the amount, and laying it on the table beside me, I sat
thinking. My door was wide open, and I must have been nearly asleep,
for I did not see any one come into my room, and a hand falling on my
shoulder surprised me. I looked up and saw Ward standing by my side.
"Sorry to wake you up," he said, "but I felt like coming to see you."
He saw the cheque made out to him, and taking it from the table he tore
it into bits.
"You have wasted a penny," I said, for I could not help guessing what
he meant.
"I don't want to take your money," he replied, "and for heaven's sake
don't make me."
He was most desperately in earnest, but the mere fact that I should
have taken his without a thought of returning it, settled the little
argument which followed.
"I can't help gambling," he said, "but I wish to goodness you wouldn't."
"But only a few days ago you sneered at me for not backing a horse," I
retorted, for though it was very good of him, I felt he was treating me
like an infant.
"I never asked you to," he said, "and I should like to have one friend
who doesn't bet or play cards or anything."
"There's Collier," I suggested.
"He is different," Ward answered, and I suppose I wanted him to say
something like that.
We talked for an hour, at least Ward talked and I listened, but during
the years to come I always remembered what he said about himself on
that night.