THE WARDEN AND THE BRADDER
Of all penalties, sending a man down from the 'Varsity for a short time
seems to me the most unfair. For some people treat the culprit as if
he was almost a criminal, while others are glad to see him and aren't
in the least annoyed. Had I been sent down from Oxford I am sure my
father would have stormed and told me that I was going to that
universal rubbish-heap, called "The dogs," while my mother would have
been very hurt and very kind; but I know one man who went home
unexpectedly and was told by his father that if he had not been sent
down he would have missed the best "shoot" of the year. In some cases
the penalty is nothing, and in other cases it is far too heavy.
From the little I knew of Jack's people I did not expect that they
would be as unpleasant as they were, for as far as I could see he had
not done anything which was much of a disgrace to anybody.
Unfortunately, however, he went home at an unlucky moment, for his
father was mixed up with the Stock Exchange, and there was a slump or
something equally disagreeable in the City. Jack wrote to me: "I have
often seen my father in a bad temper, but I have never seen him keep it
up for so long before. There is a large bear syndicate formed in the
City, and my father is a bull, and fumes like one. I am very useful if
he would only see it, because he can work his rage off on me, and that
is a great relief to everybody else. But it is no use thinking of what
is to happen next; he has told me that I am going to start to Canada in
a month, and Australia in a fortnight, but wherever I go I am to have
only £10 besides my passage-money--he does the thing thoroughly. The
last scheme, announced at breakfast this morning, is that I am going to
Greece, to a quarry which has something to do with either marble or
cement; I didn't listen much, because I shall probably be booked for
Siberia before night. Anywhere but back to Oxford is really his idea,
and the more often he changes the place the better. Meanwhile I flaunt
history books before him. I left _Taswell Langmead_ on the lawn,
because it is the fattest book I have got, and it looks so like one of
the Stock Exchange books that I knew he would look at it. He did and
growled, but he put it back on the chair, which rather surprised me,
for I expected him to launch forth on the uselessness of me reading
such things. If I sit tight for a bit and don't get ready to go
anywhere, perhaps I shall get back to Oxford after all."
I knew nothing about the Stock Exchange, but I sympathized very much
with any one who had to live in the same house with a fuming bull.
Even Fred agreed with me that Jack was being treated unfairly, and he
never spoke about him at all if he could help it. When Jack and he had
met during the last year at Oxford, as they had often, they were so
astonishingly polite to each other that had I not known the reason I
should have been very amused, but as it was, I thought they were making
a great fuss about something quite unimportant.
To pretend not to notice a thing which is as clear as daylight is not a
part which I can play with any comfort, so Jack and Fred fidgeted me
terribly, but they had got some idea firmly fixed in their heads, with
which I was wise enough not to meddle. They were both such friends of
mine that I hoped they would see as quickly as possible that there was
something very humorous in the way they treated each other.
Owen took a first in his final schools, and as soon as the list was out
he wrote to me and said that he hoped to come up for a fifth year to
read for a first in History. This, I thought, was tempting Providence,
for he had already got two firsts, and he seemed to me to be collecting
them as I had once collected birds' eggs. He decided, however, to give
up his plan, and accepted a mastership at a school in Scotland. I must
say that I was relieved at this, for I intended to take two more years
before my examinations, and if he had got a first in one year I am sure
that I should have heard a very great deal about him, when my father
felt unwell or wished to make me feel uncomfortable.
I spent most of my second summer vac in France, partly because my
mother was not well, and also because an old scheme for improving my
French had been revived. When Fred and I had gone to Oxford there had
been some idea of us trying for the Indian Civil Service, but for
various reasons this was abandoned, and although Fred had determined
that he would go back to Cliborough as a master if he could manage it,
I had drifted through two years without having made up my mind what was
to happen to me when I got my degree. The Bishop wanted me to be a
clergyman, my mother thought that if Fred was going to be a
school-master there was no reason why I should not be one, and although
my father did not say anything he was not the man to see me finish my
time at Oxford and then sit down to wait for some employment to turn
up. It was really no use for me to decide what I should do, for unless
I showed an especial craving for some profession I knew that he would
settle everything, and as I had two years before me I thought that
there was no particular hurry, which is, I suppose, the dangerous state
of mind of many undergraduates.
I did not understand that my father's wish for me to talk French was
part of any definite scheme, and for the life of me I cannot make out
why he settled upon my profession and told me nothing about it, but I
suppose that unless I ever become a parent there are some things which
will puzzle me all my life.
"One of the reasons the English are hated on the Continent is because
they can only speak their own language, and when they are not
understood they shout," he said to me, and I am afraid I did not care
much what the English were thought of on the Continent; at any rate I
did not see what I could do to make them more popular. "I intend that
you shall at least be able to speak French properly," he went on; "you
are not going to stay with us at the hotel, but live with a French
family about three miles out of the town."
I detested the idea and had to submit to it, but I acknowledge that I
enjoyed my visit to France, though I was told that I spent too much
time at the hotel. The fact was that my family lived three miles up
hill from the town, and on a bicycle I could reach the sea or my people
in a few minutes, but after I had bathed I had to think a lot before I
started back. I was arrested twice, once for riding furiously and also
for not having my name on my bicycle, accidents which my father assured
me would never have happened had I been able to talk French fluently,
though it was absolutely impossible that I could under any
circumstances or in any language have talked as fluently as the
policeman who stopped me. My French family were very nice to me, and
we got on splendidly together after they discovered that I did not mind
them laughing at my pronunciation. After two months, during which I
had attacked the language vigorously, Nina came from Paris to join us.
I expected that she would find my accent amusing, but I made a mistake.
What my mother had once mentioned to me as her awkward age had been
lived through, and after a few days I began to wonder why I had ever
found it easy to be irritated with her. If things go well I generally
have an attack of thinking them perfect, but all the same Nina and I
became better friends than we had been since I had left school, and we
were together so often that nothing but a promise to talk French to her
prevented my people from forbidding me to come near the hotel.
On Saturday afternoons, however, I stipulated that I should do and talk
what I pleased, but unless I went to the Casino there was not much to
do on my first holiday after Nina had arrived; so I persuaded her to
come to a concert, have tea on the terrace, and then watch the "petits
chevaux." She was ready to do anything, but my mother detested any
kind of gambling, and begged me not to take her into the room in which
the tables were. I could have imagined the time when to be told that
something was not good for her was the surest way to make Nina want it,
but now she said at once that she would much rather sit on the terrace
than stay in a room with a crowd of people, and after tea I left her
for a few minutes while I went for a walk through the rooms. There was
a crowd round each table, and not being able to see anything I was
going back to Nina at once when I felt some one touch me on the arm. I
turned round quickly for I suspected that my pocket was being picked,
though that would not have caused me any serious inconvenience, and
before I could remember what I ought not to say I had exclaimed "Good
Heavens," but if people will turn up in utterly unlikely places they
ought not to be too critical of the way in which they are greeted. I
should as soon have expected to see Mr. Edwardes at a Covent Garden
Ball as the Warden in a French Casino, and I had an intense and
immediate desire to ask him what he was doing there. I suppressed it,
however, and only shook him so violently by the hand that he winced
perceptibly.
"I have been guilty of watching your movements for the last four
minutes," he said, as we walked towards the door leading to the
terrace. "I observed you as you entered this chamber of horrors, and I
was afraid that you were about to give an exhibition of your
generosity."
"Did you think I was going to play?" I asked.
"Yes, if that is the right expression for an act of madness. There
are, if I have observed exactly, eight chances against you, and the
fool, for believe me he is a fool, who is fortunate enough to win is
paid seven times his stake. The man who tries to make money in that
way must be generous and a fool."
"The bank must win to pay for the croupiers and keep the place going,"
I said.
"In my opinion there is no acute necessity for the place to be kept
going, as you express it. I entertain a hope that if you have ever
taken part in that orgie, at which every one with the exception of the
croupiers looks greedy and hungry, that you will in the future abstain
from it. Gambling is the meanest of all vices," he said slowly, and he
tapped my arm seven times.
He did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and as I cannot
bear anybody tapping at me, I thought Nina might help to calm him. So
I walked down the terrace and introduced her to him suddenly, for he
had a reputation for bolting from strange ladies, and I thought it best
to leave nothing to chance. But as soon as he saw Nina the cloud
disappeared from his face, and his aggressively moral mood changed. In
fact I distinctly heard him say "delightful," though I am sure that he
did not intend his remark to be audible. He inspected Nina as if she
was for sale or on show, but he so clearly approved of her that she did
not seem to mind him.
"Won't you sit down?" she said.
"Only on one condition," he answered.
"What is it?"
"That you tell me the name of your dressmaker," but before Nina could
speak he had settled himself beside her, and continued: "You are not
only successful in being cool but also in looking cool; now I have ten
nieces, delightful girls, but they cannot take exercise without
rivalling the colour of a peony. They look what I can only describe to
you as full-blown."
"But I have not been taking exercise," Nina said.
"That, I suppose, is true," he replied, and forgot promptly what he had
been talking about.
After a minute's silence his head began to sink forward, and I was
afraid he was beginning to think hard or go to sleep, so I told Nina
that it was time for us to go back to the hotel; for much as I liked
the Warden I had no wish to watch over him while he slept on the
Terrace of the Casino, and I thought that he might expect to find me
there when he woke up. Nina held out her hand to wish him good-bye,
but he said that he was coming with us, and while we were walking to
the hotel I left him to her, for I was debating whether I had better
ask him to meet my father and mother or not. I knew that he had
offended a great many people who had come to see him in Oxford about
their sons, and he was reported to have said that the greatest
difficulty in dealing with undergraduates was the parent difficulty.
"If I was dictator of Oxford it should be a city of refuge for young
men, and no father or mother should be allowed to enter it during
twenty-four weeks of the year," was one of the things he was supposed
to have said, and if my father happened to get him upon that subject I
foresaw trouble.
But the question settled itself, for my mother was sitting on the
verandah in front of the hotel and came down the garden to meet us. I
had heard the Warden chuckle three times as we had walked up the road,
and though I could not imagine how Nina was amusing him, I thanked
goodness that he seemed to be thinking about ordinary things.
"I have the pleasure of knowing your brother," he said as soon as he
was introduced; "he and I disagree upon every subject I have ever had
the privilege of discussing with him."
"I do not think my brother would ever discuss a subject with any one
whom he expected to agree with. It would be hardly worth while," my
mother answered, and the Warden looked at her quickly.
"Surely the benefit arising from a discussion does not depend wholly,
or I may say chiefly, from disagreement upon the subject discussed. A
Cabinet Council, for instance, may conceivably arrive at a satisfactory
and at the same time an unanimous conclusion."
"My brother would not call that a discussion," my mother answered
shortly, and the Warden said "Ah," which meant, I believe, that however
the Bishop defined the word discussion, it was useless to discuss
anything with ladies.
"You will have some tea?" my mother said, as soon as we had reached the
verandah.
"You will excuse me, my absence from the hotel at which I have taken a
room for to-night, has already been too prolonged. You drink tea in
France, madam?"
"We brought our tea with us."
"Admirable foresight, but it remains for you to see the water boiling,"
and then as if he knew that he had hurt my mother's feelings and wished
to make some recompense, he continued, "The Bishop, madam, is a man for
whom I have a most sympathetic regard, neither politics nor pageants
divert him from the work he has pledged himself to do; I know of no man
more fitted to be a Bishop."
My mother bowed slightly, and said nothing, and really it was not easy
to guess from the Warden's tone whether he considered any man fit to be
a Bishop.
"We think differently on many subjects, and on one, I may say, I think
with perfect truth, we have differed so widely that a little less
self-restraint on the one side or on the other would have brought us to
the verge of a very vulgar quarrel. The Bishop preaches what is called
Humanity, he practises Humanity, he would have a manufactory--which he
would manage on a profit-sharing system--for Humanity pills, and make
every young man in Oxford swallow two of them every morning. But there
is another meaning to the word Humanity which has been lost sight of in
this age of upheaval, it is 'classical learning.' Oxford has a duty to
perform; it has something to teach in addition to the development of
kindly feelings which must be taught at the mother's knee, and grow
naturally if they are ever to be effective. We are attacked at Oxford
by many kinds of outside influence, and you know enough of young men,
madam, to realize that there is no influence which appeals to them so
strongly as that which is outside, what I must call, constituted
authority. The Bishop, in short, if I judge him with accuracy, thinks
that Oxford is the finest playground for the East-end of London which
can be imagined by the wit of man. On this point I disagree with him
entirely, not from any dislike to the people of the East-end, but from
a profound conviction that young men in Oxford, if they are to do their
work with success, have already more than enough to occupy their minds."
He leaned forward in his chair and looked hard at me; he did not
apparently expect any answer to his oration, but he had touched on a
subject which was near my mother's heart, and I felt so uneasy that I
moved from my seat and leaned against one of the posts of the verandah.
"Don't you exaggerate what my brother wants?" my mother asked. "He
knows too well the value of time to wish to waste that of anybody, and
he loves Oxford."
"Too well," the Warden jerked out, as if he was an automatic
arrangement and some one had touched a spring.
"I don't think any one could love Oxford too well, and I should be
sorry if Godfrey did not learn something from his life there which
could help him to sympathize with other people."
I knew that I was bound to be pulled in sooner or later, and I thought
of disappearing behind my post and of leaving the Warden to say what he
liked.
"The sympathies of your son are already as wide as those of a Charity
Organization Society, and, I venture to say, as misdirected," the
Warden returned, and seemed to have forgotten that I was standing in
front of him, but if he was going to say things about me I decided to
stay and hear them. "I find him the most pleasant companion, he has
the gift of silence--Meredith wrote--'Who cannot talk!--but who
can?'--he is also amusing, always unconsciously. I have great hopes
that he may become a man who will not waste his youth in vain struggles
with a ball. Had I the power I would banish all balls from England for
one short year, the experiment would be entertaining."
"It would result in a national dyspepsia," my mother said, laughing.
"Godfrey would play catch with an orange," Nina remarked.
The Warden looked up and saw me. "An orange bursts," he said. "I must
return to my hotel. Would you find me a conveyance, one with a
coachman as unlike a furious driver as possible?" he asked, and as Nina
came with me he was left alone with my mother. I don't know what he
said during those few minutes, but when we got back I found my mother
smiling placidly, though when I had gone away I was certain that she
disapproved of the Warden most thoroughly.
"The Warden wishes you to dine with him to-night," she said to me, and
without waiting for me to reply she went on to say how sorry my father
would be to miss him. The Warden began to express regrets at my
father's absence, but forgot what he was talking about in the middle of
his sentence, and finished up by telling the driver to go very slowly.
As he stepped into the vehicle I had found for him, he expressed a
fervent hope that it was more robust than it appeared to be.
"What a funny old man!" Nina exclaimed as soon as he had gone, "and
what nonsense he talks. He is a dear, but he does look odd!"
"He looks like a gentleman, and is one," my mother replied.
"You didn't like him at first," I said to her.
"I thought he spoke slightingly of your uncle and that he meant all he
said, which of course was stupid of me. He was delightful after you
had gone, and talked most kindly and sensibly about you, I wish your
father could have heard him."
But my father had gone to Rouen and was not coming back until ten
o'clock, and I am not sure that he would have liked the Warden, so
perhaps it was as well that they did not meet.
My dinner was wearisome, for Miss Davenport, the Warden's sister, was
with him, and she talked while I listened. I am sorry to say she was
in a very bad temper, and it seemed that the naughty Warden had kept
her waiting for two hours during the afternoon. She was by no means in
love with France, and though I tried to soothe her I only succeeded in
making her sarcastic; I thought the Warden ought to have protected me,
but he had known his sister longer than I had, and probably had
forgotten that she could make any one suffer. He took no part in the
conversation, and most obviously did not listen to it. My mother was
disappointed when I told her about the dinner, but I think that she had
expected the Warden to give me advice as well as a meal. She had
formed the highest opinion of him, and said that he was so wise that he
was the only man she knew who could afford to say foolish things. But
when my father heard that the foolish things were said about the Bishop
he did not believe in the folly of them, for he could not forget that
my uncle had once played stump cricket for three hours at a stretch.
When the time came for us to go back to England I could talk French
without putting in one or two English words to fill up every sentence,
but I did not think that Dover Station was the place in which to be
told that I must not be satisfied until I could think in French--though
what the station at Dover is the proper place for, I leave to people
who are cleverer than I am. I was so glad to get home again that the
idea of thinking in French was quite comical. My father and I were
going to shoot together, and when he is shooting he forgets all the
little grievances with which he has riddled his life and he is--though
it makes me blush to confess it--the best companion in the world. If
he could only shoot all the year round I believe that Ritualists and
Radicals would lose their powers of annoying him, and he might even end
by admitting that our long-suffering cook makes curry which is fit to
eat, and no more generous admission than that could be expected from an
Anglo-Indian.
For nearly three weeks we lived in a state of peace and contentment
which none of us thought dull, but during the first week of October I
had a letter from The Bradder in which he said that he was on a walking
tour and should be passing near our house. There was only one answer
for me to give, but I gave it reluctantly, for though I liked him I
thought that if he and my father once started upon politics our calm
season would be interrupted abruptly.
"Does he shoot?" my father asked, and I said that as he was walking for
amusement he would probably only stay a few hours. "We can't treat him
like that; tell him to stay a week and send for his gun. For the
matter of that he can have one of mine. I don't expect he will be able
to hit a haystack," was his reply.
So I wrote again, and to my surprise The Bradder accepted the
invitation and appeared a few days afterwards with no marks of the
tourist upon him; for there is no mistaking people who are on walking
tours, their anxiety to get on stamps itself upon their faces, and
their luggage is generally on their backs or in their pockets. He told
us that his companion had broken down three days before, and that he
had been back to Oxford to get his gun. I never remember having seen
anybody who looked quite so fit as he did, and my father, who had a
kind of general impression that every tutor in Oxford was anaemic,
seemed to be thoroughly pleased with him. Thus I was lulled into a
false state of security, for I had intended to warn The Bradder not to
speak of politics while he was with us, but as every one took a fancy
to him at sight I thought that I need not trouble to say anything.
There was a lot of speculation about The Bradder's shooting, he shot
whenever he got the ghost of a chance, but he added more to the noise
than to the number of the bag. He tried to persuade my father before
he started that he was the worst shot in the world, but he was not
believed until he had proved that he had spoken the truth. He was,
however, much happier in a bad than in a good place, and he seemed to
be perfectly pleased as long as he could see an occasional bird to
shoot at. My father said that he was a good sportsman, though had he
not liked him he would have called him a rank bad shot.
Two days passed by successfully, and then The Bradder discovered that
there was an old abbey near us, and arranged with Nina to go over and
see it. Why in the world any one should want to see an abbey when he
could shoot at pheasants, was more than my father could understand.
"The abbey will be here the next time you come, let it wait," he said
at breakfast.
"I should like to see it," The Bradder replied; "besides, I never kill
anything."
"You needn't bother about that."
"I have promised Miss Marten to go, she said she would drive me over,"
he replied, and any one could see that he didn't mean to shoot.
"As you like," my father said, and told me to be ready in ten minutes,
though we were not going to start for an hour.
On the top of this we had a very disappointing day, and finished up by
getting wet through, so at dinner there were many more danger signals
flying than were usual in the shooting season. The Bradder, however,
did not notice them, or if he did he thought them ridiculous, and he
amused my mother and Nina very much, which under the circumstances was
a grievous offence. I found myself in the position of trying to catch
my tutor's eye, so that I could warn him to be careful with my father,
and although I realized the comedy of the position I did not appreciate
it. To make matters worse The Bradder would not drink any port, and as
it was a wine of which my father was proud, he had to say that he never
drank any wine at all before his refusal was accepted. Teetotalism in
the abstract was a thing which I was encouraged to believe in, but
teetotalers, who did not know when to make an exception to general
rules, were not approved of at our table when '63 port was before them.
Everything seemed to be going most hopelessly wrong, and I was so
anxious to get into the drawing-room that I made several exceedingly
fatuous remarks.
"You talk like a Radical," my father said in answer to one of them;
"you want this changed and that changed, you had better go up to Hyde
Park and take a tub with you, if you want to talk nonsense."
"I probably shouldn't get two people to listen to me," I replied.
"Strahan told me yesterday," he went on, "that they are teaching a lot
of this Radical tomfoolery in Oxford now; he says his son has come home
stuffed with it, thinks agricultural labourers are underpaid and all
the rest. Is it true, Bradfield?"
"I should not say that the feeling at Oxford is as out-and-out Tory as
it was, but the young Radical is often a very ridiculous man," The
Bradder replied, and took a pear off the dish in front of him and began
to peel it.
"Always," my father said.
"Not always; he may conceivably be very sane indeed."
"Never."
The Bradder was quite willing to let the subject drop, but his pear was
a mistake and prevented me from suggesting that we should go.
"You sympathize with this Radical feeling?" my father asked him.
"To some extent I share it."
"I can't believe it, I really can't--why, the Radicals want to ruin the
army, spend no money on the navy, make magistrates of Tom, Dick, and
Harry, and top everything by letting Ireland do what it likes. They
are a dangerous crew."
"I am not a Home-Ruler, though every one must admit that our way of
managing Ireland up to the present has not been fortunate."
"But you wouldn't try experiments with a volcano?"
"I would try any experiment with Ireland which it wants, and which I
did not think dangerous," The Bradder said, and he seemed to be wholly
occupied in trying to say as little as possible without appearing to be
ashamed or afraid of his opinions.
"So you are a Radical, but not a Home-Ruler. Well, from the look of
you, I should never have thought it. You can go if you like, Godfrey;
I should be glad to talk to Mr. Bradfield for a few minutes; he is the
first Radical I have ever liked," and he smiled at The Bradder,
anticipating triumph.
I did not go, and I am glad that I stayed, for both of them had to
fight hard to keep their tempers, and their struggles fascinated me.
From the beginning The Bradder made up his mind to treat the duel
lightly, but my father pressed him hard, and occasionally provoked a
retort which flashed. For more than an hour they talked, and indignant
servants, showing heads of expostulation, had to go away unnoticed.
But The Bradder met explosions with what my father called afterwards
rank obstinacy, and the man who explodes is naturally angry if he
cannot get some one to explode back at him.
"The Warden, from what I have heard of him, would not approve of your
opinions," my father said at last.
"He does not meddle with our politics," The Bradder answered.
"He's a wise man," my father returned, and The Bradder laughed.
"The Warden talks about politicians as if they were an army of
tuft-hunters, hunting for tufts which they will never find. He refuses
to speak seriously about politics."
"The habit of being amused at our failures or cynical about them is
becoming too common."
I could not help smiling at the quickness with which the Warden had
been toppled off his seat of wisdom, and my father pushed his chair
back impatiently.
"The Warden is, I believe, a strong Tory, and reserves his contempt for
what he calls 'modern politicians.'"
"I said he was a wise man," my father replied, and the Warden was
reinstated.
"He is certainly," The Bradder answered, as we went into the
drawing-room.
During the next day I heard from Nina that The Bradder had been
denounced as a very dangerous man, all the more dangerous because he
was so attractive.
"Father wants him to go," she said.
"He will have to go soon, because term begins in a few days," I
answered.
"But why shouldn't a man be a Liberal if he wants to be? We are about
a hundred years behind the times down here."
"And had better stay there if we want peace," I added.
"Are you a Liberal?"
"Goodness knows."
"I like a man who knows what he is."
"You mean you like The Bradder; why not say so?"
"Because I meant nothing of the kind. We are going to walk over to
Chipping Norbury, if you will come with us."
"I can't. I have promised to call on Mrs. Faulkner, who won't see me."
"Mrs. Faulkner has been rude to mother, and has behaved very
foolishly," Nina said, in a way which she considered impressive and I
thought humorous.
So The Bradder and Nina went to Chipping Norbury without me, and he
stayed for three more days, by which time even my father did not want
him to go, though he talked to my mother about him as one of those
misguided young men who want England to stand on its head just to see
what it would look like.
I found out afterwards that The Bradder described my father to some one
as a mixture of cayenne pepper and kindness, and, since there was no
harm in it, I passed it on.
"I won't have people making up these things about me," he said, but he
chuckled, and I am sure he liked the cayenne pepper part of the mixture.