THE PROFESSOR AND HIS SON
There is not much room for a feud in a small family, and, thank
goodness, I did not belong to a large one. Collier had five brothers
and four sisters, some of whom were never on speaking terms with the
others except at Christmas or a birthday when, from habit, they
declared a truce. "The truce is no good," Collier said to me when he
told me about it, "because the only thing which happens is that they
change sides. I believe they pick up." "What happens to you?" I
asked. "Oh, I'm neutral, a sort of referee, and have a worse time than
anybody," he replied, and I was glad that fate had not decreed that I
should be born into the Collier family.
I am sure that had I been able to find any one else to talk to, I
should have left Nina alone after she had refused to go to the 'Varsity
match. It would have been a great effort, but I thought that Nina was
going out of her way to be particularly horrid, and she liked talking
as much as I did. Silence, an air of offended dignity, the sort of
not-angry-but-very-sorry business, would have been a heavy punishment
for her if I could only have inflicted it, but when my father and
mother were engaged there was often nobody, except Nina, to ask to do
anything. So after wasting one beautiful afternoon I decided that the
best thing I could do was to come to a plain understanding with her.
Fortified by my idea, but at the same time rather nervous, because I
knew that unless you are a master and the other person happens to be a
boy it is much easier to talk about a plain understanding than to
arrive at it, I strolled on to the lawn, and after taking a circuitous
route I sat down by Nina. I had got her at a disadvantage because she
was reading a book which my mother had said was good for her, and if I
sat there long enough and bounced a tennis-ball up and down in front of
me I knew she was bound to talk. For some reason or other I did not
feel like beginning, and this disinclination did not come from
chivalry, but I must confess from fear, Nina being armed with all sorts
of weapons which if I had possessed I should not have known how to use.
"You seem to be very busy," she said after I had bounced my ball up and
down two hundred and eleven times without missing it. I took no notice
of that remark except to count out loud. "Twelve, thirteen, fourteen"
I went on carefully, and when I was half-way through fifteen she threw
her hat at the ball and, by a miracle, hit it.
"You are as big a baby now as you were ten years ago," she said.
"I only wish you were," I answered, and threw the ball away from me.
"So that I might everlastingly fetch and carry for you and Fred," she
replied quickly.
"That isn't true," I retorted; "at least if it is true of me it isn't
of Fred. He always treats you well."
"You will talk to me about Fred until I shall positively hate him."
"I want to talk about him now," I said.
"Of course you do, he is your favourite topic of conversation," and
really I believe she knew that if she attacked me I should forget to
talk about Fred.
"You don't seem to see what a friend he is of mine," I answered.
"If I liked all the friends of every one I know, I should never have
any time to do anything else."
"You forget that I happen to be your brother," I said, but I might have
known better than to make such a remark, for she seemed to think it was
amusing.
"Sometimes you are quite delicious," she returned, and I began to feel
that we were as far off a plain understanding as we had ever been.
"Look here, Nina, you are beginning to give yourself airs, and it is
time some one told you," I began desperately. "You will be known as a
nice girl gone wrong; you were nice once, and now you talk as if you
know a lot of people and try to make out you are about twice as old as
you really are. It won't do, it really won't; what's the good of
pretending things, it's such a waste of time?"
She looked away from me when I had finished, and I had not the vaguest
idea how she would reply, but at any rate she did not laugh.
"You are really serious for once," she said half questioningly.
"I often try to be serious, only no one ever suspects it," I answered,
unable to keep myself out of it.
"But you are always one-sided."
I very nearly said that I had only spoken for her good, but managed to
stop myself, because no one ever believes you when you say it.
Besides, it would have annoyed her, so I was silent.
"You see you have not got much older, and I have. I couldn't bounce a
ball up and down two hundred and thirteen times now."
Again I used abstinence and stopped myself from telling her that she
could never have done it, for she was quite solemn, and I thought we
were getting at something. I hoped, too, that we should get it
quickly, for a tired feeling was creeping over me.
"You are only eighteen," I said.
"I am nineteen next week," she answered, and I knew that she meant this
both as a rebuke and a reminder.
"That's not very old."
"It's old enough for me to know that you and I will never quarrel about
trifles," she said.
"Then will you come to the 'Varsity match?" I asked.
"You don't think the 'Varsity match a trifle, do you?"
"I'm not going to sit here and quibble; you're too clever altogether,"
I said, and I got up and wondered in which direction there was most to
do, but Nina stood up, too, and put her hand through my arm.
"Let us go for a walk by the river before dinner," she said, and after
asking what good she thought that would do I went.
"My dear Godfrey, you are simply splendid," she went on, "the dearest
old bungler I know. You remind me of the Faulkners' ostrich, which
goes on tapping at the window when it has been opened and there is
nothing to tap at."
I did not know what she meant, and if that ostrich had not been rather
a friend of mine I should have been insulted. As it was I did not feel
pleased.
"You will spend your life running your head against brick walls," she
continued.
"I am not going down to the river if you are going to preach to me,"
but we were already half-way there. "What about the 'Varsity match?"
"You don't understand things, Godfrey."
"Fred has told me that already," I said sulkily.
"Oh, has he?" she replied, and I saw that I had stumbled upon something
which made her think. We sat down by the river and did not speak to
each other for a long time, and when Nina broke the silence her mood
had changed completely. She cajoled me; I think that must have been
what she did, and I was weak enough to like it. It was so nice to have
me home again; we were going to have a splendid time together, we
always had been together; Mrs. Faulkner said Oxford spoiled so many men
at first, it made them prigs; but there was no chance of me becoming a
prig, I was just the best sort of brother in the world, because when I
did meddle in other people's business I hated doing it, and did it all
wrong; in the future she would try to do everything to please me, for
she was never happy unless I was. As regards my digestion, I certainly
must have resembled the Faulkners' ostrich, for I swallowed all this;
and when we had walked back home I felt as if my attempt to come to an
understanding had not been a failure.
When, however, I thought over what she had said I was not so pleased,
for I began to see that if the summer was to be splendid and I was not
to be called a prig I must give up the idea of taking her to the
'Varsity match. In fact, in ten minutes I had come to the conclusion
that I had been made a fool of, but no one could expect me to begin the
thing all over again. I made a resolution then, which is worth
recording because I kept it, that I would never tackle Nina again about
my friends; she was too much for me, I acknowledged to myself, and
apart from determining that she should at least behave decently to
Fred, I made up my mind to keep clear of things which seemed altogether
out of my line.
It was arranged finally that I should go alone to town for the 'Varsity
match, and should bring Jack Ward back with me. My mother said I must
stay with the Bishop, and if she had not wanted me to go very much I
think I should have found a number of reasons why I had better stay
with him at some other time. For though the Bishop in the country had
made himself quite pleasant, I had a sort of feeling that he had his
eye on me and that this visit would be one of inspection. My
reluctance was apparent to Nina, and one evening she mentioned it
before dinner.
"I don't see what there is to be afraid of. Think of him as an uncle,"
she said.
"I am not afraid of a hundred bishops," I answered.
"Then you needn't be nervous about going to stay with half one, because
he's only a suffragan."
"You shouldn't speak of your uncle in that way, Nina," my mother said.
"It makes no difference whether he is an archbishop or a curate, but I
won't have him spoken of as if he is a fraction."
"Godfrey used to hate him, at any rate," she replied, simply to create
a diversion.
"I am sure he didn't," and my mother's eyes turned questioningly upon
me.
"I did rather bar him at one time until he was decent in the summer, he
used to think himself so funny," I explained.
"I wish you would talk English," my father said. "Dinner is already a
quarter of an hour late, I am going into the dining-room." He marched
off quickly and Nina began to laugh, but I think she must also have
been a little ashamed of herself.
"I am a scapegoat for everybody," I said to her; "for you, the cook,
and the gardener's boy, whose whistle is always mistaken for mine."
"Never mind," she answered, "you don't look very depressed."
"It isn't fair, all the same; you don't play the game," and as my
mother had already gone into the dining-room to sit rebukefully at a
foodless table I followed her.
These solemn waitings, which did not happen unfrequently, were comical
to me, and since my father never could understand why Nina and I were
amused at them, he had generally forgotten his original grievance
before dinner began.
When I got to London I could not help being struck by the difference
between a bishop at work and a bishop at play. The chief impression I
got of my uncle was of a man most strenuously at labour; if he wanted
to lecture me he never had time to do it, and nearly the first thing he
said was that I was to do exactly as I liked, and he gave me a
latch-key so that I might feel that I was a bother to nobody. He was
so extraordinarily kind and simple that I wondered how on earth it was
that I had really hated him at one time, for I had hated him quite
honestly, and I came to the conclusion that as soon as he had ceased to
be a pompous humorist he had become a very nice man. At any rate he no
longer made jokes, and I never had been able to think them good ones,
because those which I remembered had been nearly always directed at me.
The 'Varsity match was a complete failure owing to the weather, and was
never likely to be finished. Fred made fifteen in the one Oxford
innings, and as the whole side made under a hundred, he didn't do so
badly. But I think Cambridge might have won if the game had been
played out, so when it poured with rain on the third day, I did not
mind very much, apart from the fact that Lord's in wet weather is a
terribly dismal place. I went back about one o'clock to my uncle's
house and having found a huge London directory, I hunted for the name
of Owen. I soon found an address in Victoria Street, which seemed to
be the one for which I was looking. "Professor of Gymnastics, Boxing
and Fencing" was pretty well bound to be right, and in the afternoon I
started off to find Owen.
I wanted to ask him to come and stay with us as soon as Jack Ward had
gone, and I had already told my mother about his illness, though I had
never mentioned the life-saving tale. I had often wanted to ask my
father what really happened, only having made a promise, I had got to
stick to it, and I wished I had never been fool enough to make it; it
seemed to be making a lot of fuss about nothing. But, if I could
persuade Owen to come, the whole thing would have to be cleared up, and
I thought being in the country would do him so much good, that the
Professor would make him come whether he wanted to or not. I did not
know quite what my father would say when he heard all about Owen, for
in some ways he belonged to what, I believe, is called "the old
school," and clung tenaciously to the belief that there was not a
Radical yet born who did not work night and day for the destruction of
the British Empire. We never talked politics at home, though sometimes
we listened to a lecture. But, as Owen said that he would never have
lived if it had not been for my father, they ought, I imagined, to have
a sort of friendly feeling for each other, though I cannot say that I
felt any great confidence in this idea. I relied more on the fact that
as soon as you had removed the crust from my father, you found a huge
lot of kindness underneath it. He liked to complain, and some people,
who knew him very slightly, thought he liked nothing else, but they
were most hopelessly wrong.
My chief recollection of that walk along Victoria Street is that my
umbrella was constantly bumping into other umbrellas; I must have tried
to walk too fast, and the result was that by the time I reached the
Professor's, I was hot and splashed, and my umbrella had a large rent
in it. The door of the house was open, and I saw a notice hanging on
the side of the wall which told me to walk up-stairs. What I was to do
when I had walked up-stairs puzzled me, so I went back into the street,
and having rung a bell as a sort of announcement that some one was
coming, I went up slowly. The house seemed to be full of stuffiness
and gloom, so much so that had I been unable to find either the
Professor or his son, I should not have been at all sorry. I was,
however, met on the first landing by a servant who must have been
cleaning a grate when I interrupted her. Her hair was straying over
her face, and as she stood waiting for me to explain my business, she
tried to arrange it properly, but she only succeeded in putting two
large streaks of black upon her nose and forehead.
"I want to see Professor Owen," I said untruthfully.
"'E's porely this afternoon."
"Never mind," I replied quickly, "is Mr. Owen in--his son?"
"'E don't live 'ere, 'e lives at West-'Am with 'is ornt."
"Would you give me his address, I won't interrupt the Professor if he
is not well?"
"Who may you be, I don't remember your fice?"
"I know Mr. Owen at Oxford, I have never been here before."
She laughed for a moment and then said she should have to ask the
Professor for the address, but just as I was going to say I would write
and ask him to forward my letter, a door opened on my right, and an
enormous man in a blue pair of trousers and a flannel shirt came out
into the passage.
"This gent wants Mr. 'Ubert's address," the servant said, and
disappeared very quickly up another flight of stairs.
"Are you the Professor?" I asked.
"That's me."
I held out my hand, but the passage was dark and his attempt to get
hold of it went wide.
"Will you come into my room? Business, I suppose?"
I said it was business, and walked into a small sitting-room, which
seemed to be furnished principally with a table, a big arm-chair, and
empty bottles.
"I'm cleaning up a bit to-day, you must excuse the bottles," he said,
and put his hands on the table. I would have excused everything if
only the room had not been so dreadfully close, and I stood while the
Professor looked at the bottles and finally picked one up and put it
down again in the same place. Then, as if the exertion was too much
for him, he sank with a thud into the chair.
"You aren't well, I am afraid."
"No," he answered, "not at all well; damp heat always affects my head."
I sat down on a box labelled "soda-water" and looked at him. My first
impression of him had been one of huge strength, my second was one of
flabbiness, and no one could help guessing the reason. Everything
about him was huge except his eyes, and they might have been had I been
able to see what they were like, but all I could see was the puffiness
beneath them, and that was enough to make me wish I had never come. I
stared at him for some time, but he did not speak, and at last he began
to breathe so heavily that I had to interrupt him. "I say, Professor,"
I began, and he jumped up and began to rub his eyes. Then he sat down
again and putting his elbows on his knees looked at me as if he was
trying to remember what brought me there.
"This is my afternoon off," he said; "I have no pupils until to-morrow
at ten o'clock, and then I give a fencing-lesson to the Honourable Mr.
Bostock. Perhaps you know him?"
I said that I did not, and I thought the Professor was a snob.
"What can I do for you? Fencing or boxing? I trained Ted Tucker years
ago--you remember Ted Tucker, the Bermondsey Bantam as they called him?
My eye, he was a hot 'un with his fists."
I had never heard of Ted Tucker, and said so.
"You don't seem to know anybody," he replied, and for the life of me I
could not help laughing.
"Look here, young man, I'm not going to be laughed at. I may have my
little weakness, but I keep my self-respect, and I'd like you to
remember that, if you can remember anything. Who are you, I've asked
you that before, and where did you come from?" He glared angrily in my
direction and I did not like the look of him at all.
"I came to see your son," I answered; "I don't want to fence or box,
but his address."
His manner changed at once. "Are you from Oxford?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And you call on my afternoon off, that's most unlucky." He talked all
right but his legs were uncertain, and when he stood up he found the
mantelpiece useful. "Rheumatism, I'm a martyr to it," he said.
"Very painful," I remarked, and got off my soda-water case.
"Don't get up, it's passing off. If you're from Oxford, I must put on
a coat and collar. Would you oblige me with your name?"
"Godfrey Marten," I said.
"Colonel Marten's son? Here, sit in this chair. I must put on two
coats," and he made a most gurgly kind of sound which must have meant
that he was amused with himself. Then he looked towards the door as if
wondering whether he could reach it.
"Please don't put on anything for me," I said, and I took his arm and
directed him back to the chair.
"Your father saved my life, and you're the very image of him. It's
enough to upset an old man like me," and without the slightest warning
tears began to roll down his checks.
"Cheer up," I said, for I felt very uncomfortable.
"And you'll go and tell him that you found me--that you called on my
afternoon off."
"I shan't," I said stoutly.
"And you've been a good friend to Hubert."
"That's nothing; I want his address in West Ham."
"Don't say it's nothing, no deed of kindness was yet cast away in this
world of sin," and two more tears began to roll.
"Stop that kind of thing, I simply can't stand it. Pull yourself
together," I said, "and if you will give me his address I'll go."
"Don't go, you must stay and have a cup of tea. The Colonel, I hope
he's well?"
"He's all right; you write to him still, don't you?"
"No, I never write to him."
"Hubert told me you did."
"He made a mistake. The Colonel and I quarrelled, but you must never
say a word. I was treated badly, but I don't bear anybody any grudge,
leastways not to the man who saved my life. Hasn't he ever told you
about it?"
"Never."
"That's like him, but he will never want to hear my name again; I
should take it as a favour if you will not mention it."
"Why shouldn't I?" I asked.
He stood up again and was ever so much better.
"I was misunderstood," he said.
"How did you ever know anything about me?"
"The gymnasium instructor at Cliborough is my brother-in-law. He was
in the old regiment. He told me about you."
"He taught me fencing," I said, and added, "But why did you want Hubert
to see me?"
"You do want to get to the bottom of things; would you like some tea?"
I did not want any tea, but I asked if I might open the window, and
then I took my case across the room and got some air.
"It's right for every man to have one ambition," he said, in the way
which made me loathe him.
"What's yours?" I asked promptly.
"That Hubert shall be a gentleman, that's why I wanted him to know you,
only he's so shy----"
"Good gracious!" was all I could exclaim, and it did not express my
astonishment in the least.
"You'd have done very well for my job if he'd only buttoned on to you."
"He is not the kind of man to 'button on.'"
"Don't you teach your grandfather to suck eggs," he said angrily. "I
like your impudence, but I'm busted if I can put up with it," but
before I could answer him he was apologizing and shaking my hand most
vigorously.
At that moment Hubert opened the door, and both saw and heard what was
happening.
The Professor turned round quickly and forgot to drop my hand, with the
result that I was pulled from my soda-water case on to the floor.
"I thought," he gasped, "it was old Ally Sloper."
I managed to escape from him and to stand up. Hubert, however, did not
say anything, but began to brush my coat with his hand.
"Who is Ally Sloper?" I asked, for I began to think that the Professor,
who was looking ashamed of himself, was a lunatic.
"He's Mr. King, the man who helps me at Oxford, he dresses rather
funnily," Hubert explained.
"He bothers me when I am not well," the Professor added, but he did not
seem certain what line to take and kept his back turned to both of us.
"If you would only be well, he wouldn't bother you," Hubert said at
once.
"I am better than I used to be. You know how the weather upsets me, I
haven't had an afternoon off for six weeks. Ask Emily," and when he
turned round the tears were once more rolling down his cheeks, and I
was desperately afraid that I was in for a regular scene.
"You are nearly all right now," I said, "and I must be going if Hubert
will walk a little way with me."
He took my hand again and held it. "You will not think very badly of
an old man who has served his country," he said.
"No, but I do think you ought to be----" and then I stopped.
"What?"
"It's no business of mine."
"You are the son of the man who saved my life."
"Oh don't," I replied, and a tear dropping plump on the back of my hand
settled me. "I was going to say ashamed of yourself."
"To think that any one should say that in the presence of my son," he
said, and dropped my hand.
"I have said it a hundred times, but no one else has ever had the pluck
to," Hubert put in.
"Kick a worm when he doesn't turn," he said confusedly.
"That's all rot," I answered, and something compelled me to walk up to
him and tap him on the shoulder. "You aren't a worm, and I wouldn't
dare to kick you. Wouldn't dare, do you see; you're a fine, big chap,
why in heaven's name don't you pull yourself together? I don't know
much about it, but I'll bet it's worth it. A man like you oughtn't to
go crying like a baby."
"No sympathy," he moaned.
"Rot," I said again. "I shall tell my uncle about you, he'll be a
jolly useful friend."
"What's he?"
"A parson."
"Two pennuth of tea and a tract. No thanks," he shook his head
decidedly.
"He's not that kind. A man isn't bound to be an ass because he is a
parson."
"You seem to have kind of taken charge of me," he said.
"I don't mean any harm," and then, for it was no time for facts, I
added, "I like you, you are an awfully good sort, really."
"Me and the parson uncle," he said, and he gave a hoarse chuckle. "We
should do well in double harness. I'd pull his head off in about ten
minutes."
"May I ask him to call on you?"
"You'd better see what Hubert says. I'm only a dummy."
"A good big dummy," I answered, with the intention of taking myself off
pleasantly.
"Oh, be rude. Trample on me, call me names," and then swelling out his
chest and glaring at me, he added, "Hit me."
"I shouldn't care to risk it," I returned, and asked Hubert, who had
been walking aimlessly round the room, if he was ready.
We left at last, and were pursued down-stairs by volleys of apologies.
I had to stop twice and shout back that I was not offended and that I
forgave everything, though from the way I had talked to him it struck
me that he had about as much to forgive as I had.
We walked towards Victoria without speaking, and when I did try to talk
I was most horribly hoarse, I must have fairly shouted at the Professor.
"My father's often like that after an afternoon off," Owen said
presently. "He's first angry and then apologetic, and in the end he's
most horribly ashamed of himself. Wednesday afternoon is his worst
time, and I generally try to be with him and then he's all right, but I
got stopped to-day. He comes down to my aunt's on Sundays, though he
hates it."
"I believe he would like my uncle, he wouldn't jaw and cant."
"Do as you like. I've never thanked you, except in letters, for seeing
me through that illness."
"How are you now?"
"All right; I feel as if I have been ill, that's all."
"You've got to come down to Worcestershire," I said; "a fortnight there
will do you more good than years of West Ham."
"I can't do that," he answered at once.
We turned into Victoria Station and sat down on a bench. For some
minutes I listened to his objections and answered them; in all my life
I do not think I have ever been quite so sorry for any one, though I
had sense enough not to tell him so. I felt rather a brute when I left
him; it seemed to me that I had been having a most splendid time
without knowing it, while he had been having a very wretched one, but I
can't keep on feeling a brute long enough for it to do me any good, if
feeling a brute ever does any good.
I overcame all Owen's objections, and I made him promise to come to
Worcestershire, but as soon as I had time to think about it I wondered
what on earth I should do with him when I had got him. I could count
on my mother as an ally. I did not altogether know what my father
would think, and Nina, as far as I was concerned, was represented by x
in a problem to which no one had ever found an answer which was
anything like right.
The first thing to do, however, was to go for the Bishop, and I think I
can say that I went for him at some length. I didn't explain well, or
he was very stupid, because he got dreadfully mixed up before he got
the facts of the case clearly, and I can't say that he seemed
altogether pleased when I told him that I had as good as promised that
he would be a friend to the Professor.
"As it is, I am rushed off my legs. Who was it you said he had
trained?"
"Ted Tucker." I had brought that in as a piece of local colour or
whatever it is called, just to liven things up a bit, but I am afraid
it was a mistake.
"You see, I don't know anything about prize-fighters. I did box once,
but that's years ago."
"Why, you're the very man," I exclaimed. "He'd love you; he's not a
bit more like a prize-fighter than he is like a Professor, he's more
like a sort of prehistoric man in blue trousers and a shirt."
But prehistoric men did not seem to appeal to my uncle any more than
prize-fighters. He looked very sombre indeed, so much so that I was
quite impressed, but I had taken this job in hand and really had to see
it through. So I talked, and I won in the way all my few triumphs have
been won, by talking until the other man wanted to go to bed.
"I like your enthusiasm, Godfrey," he said at last, "and I wouldn't
check it for the world. I will do all I possibly can, both with the
Professor and with your people. But you can't persuade me that your
father will like the son of a man, who has been dismissed from the army
for some cause, to come down and stay with you."
"Don't you tell that to anybody else," I said. "Owen only told me this
afternoon, he's only just found it out himself."
"Are you going to tell your father all this?"
"Everything except that the Professor gets drunk now, and you're going
to stop that," I added cheerfully.
"Oh, am I?" he answered, "I can't help wishing that it had not rained
this afternoon and that you had been safely at Lord's."
"Well you can't say that I've wasted my time."
"You have got your hands too full, considering that you have promised
to work this summer. Don't forget you have got to work, we don't want
any fourth in Mods," and then he wished me good-night, and on the next
day I went home with Jack Ward, who had a most astounding lot of
luggage.
I am not going to describe my first summer vac at any length, because
if I once began I should not have any idea when to stop, it was the
kind of time which made gloomy people cheerful and cheerful people
gloomy; silly, ridiculous things happened, and Mrs. Faulkner was at the
bottom of most of them. She even found a niece for me, but that came
to nothing, for the niece was a very nice girl and in a week we
understood each other beautifully. She stayed a month with the
Faulkners and thought of me as a brother, which was most satisfactory;
sometimes, however, she treated me like one and then I was not so
pleased.
Jack Ward and Nina, in my opinion, behaved none too well; but my father
liked Jack and my mother did not say much about him, which explains the
whole thing. He was always ready to do anything, and his only fault in
my father's eyes was that he was never in time for breakfast.
I was chiefly engaged during his visit in paving the way for Owen's. I
told my mother everything and wanted to tackle my father at once, but
she said I must wait for a favourable opportunity. I waited a whole
week, and it had a most depressing effect on me, so I just walked into
his study at last and got it over. It happened to be a damp day,
during which he had felt two twinges of lumbago, but he forgot those
twinges before he had done with me. I bore everything he said
silently, because when he is in a furious rage in the beginning he
tails off wonderfully at the end. It seemed that he had a very low
opinion of the Professor, and he declared emphatically that he was not
going to have his house made into a sanatorium. I listened to a crowd
of disagreeable facts about my new friend, and my father declared that
even the sight of his son would give him an attack of gout. "It is
true," he said, "that I did save his life, and he had, as far as that
went, cause to be grateful, and he wasn't grateful but a disgrace to
the regiment. I want to forget all about the man and then you rake him
up again, and you say that stupid uncle of yours, who plays cricket
when he ought to be writing sermons, is going to be a friend to him.
It's more than I can or will put up with," and he banged _The
Nineteenth Century_ down on his writing-table so violently that he
upset a vase of roses and some of the water went into his ink-pot.
After that he was incoherent for a minute, and I, not knowing what to
say, remarked that the Bishop could not be expected to write sermons
during his holidays.
"A bishop ought always to be writing sermons," was his only answer, and
I guessed that his rage had reached its climax. I tried to lower the
flood on his table by means of my pocket-handkerchief, and waited.
"What sort of a fellow is this son who pushes himself upon you in this
way? It's monstrous."
"He's quiet and all right, and he has never pushed himself at all. I
made him promise to come; he didn't want to, only it's his chance to
get well and he must take it. You would have done the same thing."
"What's he like?"
"He's not exactly like any one else I know at Oxford, but----"
"Of course he isn't."
"I was going to say no one could possibly dislike him."
"I suppose he will have to come, but I want you to understand that in
future I insist on knowing whom you want to ask here before you ask
them. I am exceedingly annoyed, I shall go and see your mother."
I went with him, as when I am about I generally manage to absorb most
of his anger, but after a few outbursts my mother soothed him, and in
the end he even gave a grim sort of smile when I said that unless he
had saved the Professor there would have been no bother about his son.
"Don't call that man a Professor," he said, "he's a humbug, he always
was and always will be, and if it wasn't that I am sorry for a son who
has such a father I wouldn't be talked over by you. But you have given
your uncle something to think about," and that idea sent him smiling to
the window.
One most splendid thing happened while Jack Ward was staying with us,
for just before he was going away Nina fell into the river again and
Jack was superb enough idiot to repeat his previous performance and
jump in after her. I met them trying to get into the house by a back
way, and from the look of them I saw that they were feeling rather
silly. It is all very well to fall into one river, but when you start
going overboard anywhere the thing becomes comical, and they fell from
their high position as rescued and rescuer and had to put up with a
good deal of wit, as we understood it at home. I didn't say much,
because Nina was better than I was at saying things, but whenever I saw
her I gave way to fits of silent laughter. I can't think how I thought
of that dodge, it was so extraordinarily successful and so far above my
average efforts, and as soon as I saw that it was working properly, I
did not mind being called anything she liked. And my father, being
particularly well just then, helped me by what, I was determined to
believe, were very humorous remarks. Jack did not hear many of them,
but the few he did hear must have upset him a little, for he tried to
explain himself by saying that he would jump into anything to save a
kitten, which from the look of Nina did not seem to satisfy her much.
In the end I don't believe she was as sorry for Jack to go as I was.
She could not stand being a family joke, and I, having suffered in that
way many times, could have sympathized with her if I had not thought
that it was much the best thing which could happen.
I felt dull after Jack went, for he was the sort of man who does
brighten up a place, and he was never by any chance bored; besides, I
was wondering how I could make Owen enjoy himself, because the only
thing I knew about him was that he did not care for any exercise except
walking, and I hoped that he would be reasonable about the distances he
wanted to go.
However, the day before he was to come, Miss Read arrived, which was an
idea of my mother's, and a very good one. Miss Read had been Nina's
governess for eight years, and she knew all of us better than we knew
ourselves. She was a kind of tonic when any of us were depressed, and
a cooling draught when we were angry; in my case she had seldom been a
tonic, but all the same when she had left us at Easter I was very
sorry. She was the only person I have ever seen of whom Nina was
really afraid. I am sure she could have told some funny tales if she
had felt inclined. She was supposed to be coming to see Nina, who was
going to Paris in a few weeks to be "finished," but I am sure that my
mother thought Owen would like her, and that she would like him. And
as it happened, they were both botanists and butterfly-catchers, at
least Miss Read knew a lot about butterflies, though her time for
catching them had gone by, and they were always doing things together.
Worcestershire must certainly be a better place than West Ham for a
botanist, and after Owen had got used to us I believe he enjoyed
himself. We worked together in the mornings, which pleased my father,
and he let my mother give him as much medicine as she wanted to, which
pleased her, and I feeling virtuous after reading every morning for
nearly four hours, was very pleased with myself. But he was in a
mortal terror of Nina, though she really never gave him any cause to
be, and made the most valiant efforts to learn the Latin names of
plants. Miss Read and he made excursions and grubbed about in hedges,
and Nina and I often met them at some place to have tea. It wasn't
very exciting, for I had always to carry the kettle and the things to
eat; but the sun shone most of the time, which was really a blessing,
because on wet days Owen persuaded me to work in the afternoons as well
as the mornings, and that was more than I had ever thought of doing in
a vac.
I suppose Owen was what is generally called a smug, but he was not one
by choice but by compulsion, which is the best kind I should think. He
was so totally different from any other kind of friend I have ever had
that I sometimes caught myself wondering whether I really liked him.
But I could always satisfy myself about that, for there was one thing
about him which no one could help liking; he was most tremendously
clever and never tried to make out that he was, and having already seen
plenty of people who were about as clever as I was, and who talked as
if they were Solomon and Solon rolled into one, I was grateful to him.
We got on very well together, though we had not got a single thing in
common, except that we both liked sunshine; and that can't be said to
be much, for I have only met one man in England who did not like the
sun, and he had been affected, permanently, by too much of it.
Men get blamed freely enough for putting on side about playing cricket
and football well, and they deserve all they get, but the men who put
on intellectual side ought, I think, to be spoken to more severely,
because they get worse as they get older, while the first sort of side
generally dies an early death. Owen was a kind of encyclopaedia, who
did not air or advertise himself, and I thought him a very rare
specimen. Athletics meant no more to him than botany or butterflies
meant to me, but when he went away my father said emphatically that it
was refreshing to think Oxford turned out some men who took interest in
useful things. I did not answer that remark, because he did not really
know very much about Oxford, and his occasional hobby was that the
country was being ruined by too many games. "A very well-conducted
young man," he said of Owen, "always up in the morning, and always
ready to go to bed at night."
"He looked much better when he went away than when he came," my mother
said; "I hope we shall see him down here again."
"I think he means to make a name for himself," Miss Read added; "he
knows exactly what he wants."
Nina yawned, and although I thought my father need not have described
Owen as a well-conducted young man, I was thankful that his visit had
passed off so well, and I said nothing.
After Owen had gone away we had a fellow to stay with us out of my
brother's regiment. He was home on sick-leave, but had quite recovered
from whatever had been the matter with him, and was as full of bounce
as a tennis-ball. Mrs. Faulkner loved him and wanted Nina to follow
her example, as far as I could make out, for she gave a dance and a
moonlight supper party on the river. Mr. Faulkner, who was always more
or less semi-detached, disappeared before the supper-party, which he
told me was a midsummer madness.
"There will be a mist and the food will be damp and horrid, and
everybody will be wanting foot-warmers and hot-water bottles before
they have done, you had better put on your thickest clothes and borrow
my fur overcoat," he said to me. And he was a true prophet, for Nina
caught a violent cold in her head, which checked and really put a stop
to a more violent flirtation.
Nina went to Paris a few days after Fred came to us, and we all agreed
that she would enjoy herself there, though I do not believe that any of
us really thought she would. As a matter-of-fact she was so home-sick
that my mother would have gone to fetch her back if it had not been for
Miss Read, who was blessed with much courage and common-sense. Mrs.
Faulkner tried her hardest to persuade my mother to bring Nina home
again, and she came to our house and wept so much that I thought she
was sure to win. But Miss Read met tears with arguments, until Mrs.
Faulkner stopped crying, and having lost her temper, forgot that Miss
Read had not only been Nina's governess, but was also one of my
mother's greatest friends. So Nina stayed in Paris, and I wrote to her
twice a week for a fortnight, but after that she began sending me
messages in other people's letters, and I was sorry for her no longer.