He was a young don, but the habits of incessant study had early bent
his back, bleared his eyes, and given him a weak, nervous manner.
He rarely took any exercise, and even when he did he only walked a
little way along the Trumpington Road. Out of his rooms he was like
a sheep that had gone astray, and coasted down the streets, keeping
close to the houses, as if afraid that, should he launch himself into
mid-pavement, he would lose himself irretrievably. He was a member of
an occult, some said obscure, club called the Apostles, the members of
which met in each other’s rooms in a shame-faced manner every Saturday
night, though there was really nothing in the least shameful about
their proceedings. In theory it was supposed that they set the world
straight once a week, but no doubt they lacked practical ability.
The Babe, whose varied acquaintance included several members of this
Society, used to ask them to dinner on Saturday night, in order to have
the pleasure of hearing them excuse themselves at a quarter to ten. The
excuse offered was always the same.
“I’m afraid I’ve got to go round and see a man.”
The Babe followed this up by asking who the man was, to which the
invariable reply was: “Oh, only a man I know.” Then the brutal Babe
throwing the mask aside would say: “Oh, you’re going to a meeting of
the Apostles, aren’t you?” Somehow the members seemed rather ashamed
of this fact being thus ruthlessly dragged into light, and the Babe in
his May week paper had informed the world that the Apostles were the
spiritual descendants of the old Hell-Fire Club of Medmenham Abbey,
and that their deeds grew darker and darker every year. For the most
part they were radical Agnostics, and they disestablished the English
Church about once a month. They affected red ties, to show that they
disapproved of everything.
Swotcham was not only an eminent Apostle, a sort of Peter among them,
but an eminent historian, and the Babe had the sense to attend to what
he said. It is true that this morning he watched with overpowering
interest the turning over of the leaves of Swotcham’s note-book, until
the corpse of the fleshy spider was discovered, blotching and staining
the articles of the Magna Charta, but when Swotcham had scratched it
off with a J nib, his attention wandered no more.
It was a hopelessly wet and sloppy afternoon, the sort of afternoon
when everything looks at its worst, and Cambridge worst of all. Grey
sheets of rain drifted and drizzled over the Great Court, driven
fretfully against the window panes by a cold easterly wind which
struck the spray of the fountain beyond the basin out sideways onto
the path. Outside the gate, the lime trees wept sooty tears and leaves
early-dead, and the asphalt of Trinity Street looked like the surface
of some stagnant dirty river, distortedly reflecting the dull-faced
houses on each side. A melancholy gurgle of water streamed into the
grating in the centre of the so-called Whewell’s Court, and its more
classical name seemed to be divinely apt. The air was close, cold, and
infinitely damp, and two or three terriers inhumanely left outside the
Pitt, appeared like a realistic rendering of discomfort personified.
So the judicious Babe betook himself to the smoking room of that club,
which always maintains a uniformity of gloom and comfort, whatever the
weather is, and thought to himself as he settled in a big armchair
that until he left, the weather could have no further depressing
influence. He took out of the library the inimitable _Ravenshoe_
which he already knew nearly by heart, and read with undiminished
enjoyment of how Napoleon and a colonial Bishop whose real name was
Jones, gave testimonials to a corn-cutter, who had them printed in his
advertisement, and of how Gus and Flora were naughty in church. Later
on, he proposed to have hot toast with his tea.
He had not been there long when Reggie came in, and as the Babe was not
disposed to talk, and merely grunted when he was sat on, he got out a
new book called _Gerald Eversley’s Friendship_, and proceeded to read
about the peculiarities which mark the boys at St. Anselm’s.
A short silence.
“Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy,” quoted the Babe.
“Look here, Babe.”
“Well.”
“Harry Venniker produces from the bottom of his box a quantity of
sporting prints, and an enormous stag’s head--a ‘royal’ he called it.
Did you ever see a play-box that size?”
“No. There isn’t one. ‘My dear, there is going to be a collection, and
I have left my purse on the piano.’ I wish I knew Flora.”
Silence.
“‘After all, in this life the deepest, holiest feelings are
inexpressible.’ Oh, I draw the line somewhere--”
“Yes, if you don’t draw the line somewhere,” murmured the Babe, “where
are you to draw the line?”
“Gerald of course sobs violently on getting into bed, the first night
at St. Anselm’s, and Harry puts his hand on his shoulder, and says
he’ll be his friend for ever. Then ‘Gerald laid his head anew upon the
pillow, and was at peace.’ Good Lord! This was an ‘incident of which
the pale moon, throned in heaven, was the sole arbitress.’ He says so,”
shouted Reggie, “and it is a ‘study in real life.’ He says that too,
on the title-page, in capital letters. He says it very loud and plain,
several times.”
The Babe chuckled comfortably, and shut up _Ravenshoe_.
“I read it yesterday,” he said. “Turn on to about page 90 or so. I
think you’ll find the passage marked in pencil. He has to sing a song
in which a swear-word comes, and when he gets to it, he breaks down,
hides his face in his hands, and rushes from the hall.”
Reggie’s eyes grew rounder and rounder.
“So they propose to send him to Coventry for a month.”
“That’s the place my governor is member for,” remarked the Babe, “and
they make bicycles there.”
“The little brute--aged thirteen, Babe, about as old as you,” continued
Reggie, “reads books of science (particularly archæology), even sermons
and books of controversial divinity, in the college library. If that is
real life, give me fiction.”
“Quite a little Zola,” said the Babe, “our new, harmless, English
realist. A little later on a churchyard becomes an element in Gerald’s
life. Are churchyards elements in your life, Reggie?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Later on again,” continued the Babe, “he gets in a row for cribbing.
The author gets hold of such wonderfully new and original situations.
The evidence against him is overwhelming, absolutely overwhelming, and
the mystery is never cleared up. As you read, your suspense is only
equalled by the suspense of the author. He finds it almost unbearable.”
“I can’t read any more,” said Reggie. “Tell me what happens.”
“Oh, all the regular things. Harry gets into the eleven, and Gerald
Eversley turns into Robert Elsmere for a time. Then of course he falls
in love with Harry’s sister, who gallops away in consumption, and dies.
So Gerald determines to commit suicide, and leaves a note for Harry
saying what he is going to do, and just as he is preparing to jump
into a lake--he has previously thrown his coat with a stone wrapped
up in it, into the water--he feels a hand on his shoulder. It’s Harry
of course. Naturally he has found the letter, which tells him that the
writer will be a corpse when he finds it, which is a black lie, and
goes off just in time to the place where Gerald very prudently tells
him that the deed will be done. So Gerald goes to a town in the North
of England, probably Coventry again, and wears a locket of purest
enamel, with the name ‘Ethel’ on it. The book ends: ‘He is dead now.’”
Reggie was still turning over the leaves of the book.
“Who is Mr. Selby?”
“The good young master with a secret sorrow, to whom all the boys open
their hearts.”
“I see that Harry lies at death’s door, having caught inflammation of
the lungs in a football match. That’s another original situation.”
“Oh dear, yes, and old gentlemen cannot meet fifty years after they
have left school without saying: ‘You remember that catch? My dear
fellow, why did you let that ball go through your legs?’ I would sooner
be Babe all my life than live to be an old man like that.”
“And Harry gets the last goal just before time. The back’s leg
‘flashed.’ I’ve never seen your legs flash, Babe.”
“No--I’m only a half-back.”
“That accounts for it. Let’s have tea, and then we’ll play a game of
pills.”
“All right. Then you can dine in Hall with me. I can’t afford dinner in
my room, and we’ll work afterwards.”
X.--ROYAL VISITORS.
“Prince and Princess!” he cried. “That means
Will play at being kings and queens.”--HOTCH-POTCH VERSES.
Mr. Stewart, as has been indicated before, had a weakness, and that
was an amiable and harmless one. His weakness was for the aristocracy.
Compared with this, his feeling for royalty which was of the same
order, but vastly intensified, might also be called a total failure of
power, a sort of mental general paralysis. So when one day towards the
middle of August, the wife of the Heir Apparent of a certain European
country caused a telegram to be sent to him, to the effect that her
Royal Highness wished to visit Cambridge before leaving the country,
and would be graciously pleased to take her luncheon with him, Mr.
Stewart was naturally a proud man. He bought a long strip of brilliant
red carpet, he ordered a lunch from the kitchen that set the mouth of
the cook watering, “and altogether,” as the Babe very profanely and
improperly said, “made as much fuss as if the Virgin Mary had been
expected.” He also sent printed cards, “to have the honour of,” to
the Vice-chancellor, the heads of four colleges and their wives, and
also to another Fellow of his college, who only a term before, had
entertained at tea a regular royal queen, and had asked him to meet
her. And remembering that he had once met the Prince of Wales at a
dance in London given by the Babe’s mother, he also asked the Babe.
At the last moment, however, the Princess sent a telegram saying that
she was going to bring her husband with her, which would mean two more
places, one for him, and one for his gentleman-in-waiting, and Mr.
Stewart, whose table would not hold any more than fifteen conveniently,
sent a hurried message and apology to the Babe, saying that all
this was very upsetting, and unexpected, and uncomfortable, and
inconvenient, but that he was sure the Babe would see his difficulty.
He would, however, be delighted and charmed if the Babe would come in
afterwards, and at least take a cup of coffee, and a cigarette (for the
Princess did not mind smoking, and indeed once at Aix-les-Bains he had
seen her, etc., etc.), and sun himself in the smile of royalty.
The Babe received this message at half-past one; he had refused
an invitation to lunch at King’s on the strength of the previous
engagement, and he was rather cross. It was too late to go to King’s
now, but after a few moments’ thought, his face suddenly cleared and he
sent a note to Reggie saying that he would come round about half-past
two, adding that he had “got an idea,” which they would work out
together. He then ordered some lunch from the kitchen, which there was
little chance of his receiving for some time, for all the cooks and
kitchen boys who were not engaged in serving up Mr. Stewart’s lunch,
were busy making little excursions into the court, where they stood
about with trays on their heads, to give the impression that they were
going to or from some other rooms, in order to catch a sight of Mr.
Stewart’s illustrious guests as they crossed the court. However, the
Babe went to the kitchen himself as it did not come, and said bitter
things to the head cook who was a Frenchman, and asked him whether he
had already forgotten about Alsace and Lorraine.
He lunched alone and half-way through he nearly choked himself with
laughing suddenly, apparently at nothing at all, and when he had
finished he went round to King’s. He and Reggie talked together for
about an hour, and then went out shopping.
Later in the day Mr. Stewart called on the Babe, to express his
regret at what had happened, but his regret was largely tempered
with sober and loyal exultation at the success of his party. Their
Royal Highnesses had been the embodiment of royal graciousness and
amiability; they had written their names in his birthday book, and
promised to send their photographs. The conversation, it appeared, had
been carried on chiefly in French, a language with which Mr. Stewart
was perfectly acquainted, and which he spoke not only elegantly, but
what is better, intelligibly. The Princess was the most beautiful and
delightful of women, the Prince the handsomest and most charming of
men. Mr. Stewart, in fact, had quite lost his heart to them both, and
he had promised to look them up when he next happened to be travelling
in their country, which, thought the cynical Babe, would probably be
soon. Best of all, Mr. Medingway, the entertainer of queens, could
not talk French, though he was the first Arabic scholar in Europe, a
language, however, in which it was not possible for a mixed company to
converse, and he had necessarily been quite thrown into the shade.
The Babe received this all with the utmost interest and sympathy. He
regretted that he had not been able to come in afterwards, but he hoped
Mr. Stewart could come to breakfast next day at nine. Mr. Stewart
both could and would, and as soon as he had gone, the Babe danced the
_pas-de-quatre_ twice round the room.
That evening Reggie and the Babe went to call on Jack Marsden who had
come up for a week. Jack was very short, barely five feet high, but he
made up for that by being very stout. The Babe also got a fine nib,
and employed half an hour in copying something very carefully onto the
back of a plain black-edged envelope.
He was up in good time next morning, and he had three letters by the
post. One of these was black-edged, and had on the back of the envelope
a Royal Crown, and _Windsor Castle_. He opened them all, and left this
last face downwards on the table.
Mr. Stewart came in, still in the best of spirits, and walked about the
room, expatiating on the superiority of royal families, while the Babe
made tea.
“It makes a difference,” said Stewart, “it must make a difference, if
one’s fathers and forefathers have been kings. One would have the habit
and the right of command. I don’t know if I ever told you--”
His eye caught sight of the Royal Crown and Windsor Castle, and he
paused a moment.
“I don’t know if I ever told you of that very pleasant day I once spent
at Sandringham.”
“Yes, you told me about it yesterday,” said the Babe brutally.
“I suppose they are all up in Scotland now,” said Stewart.
“No, the Queen is at Windsor for a day or two,” said the Babe. “She
goes up early next week. Will you have a sole?”
“Thanks--not a whole one. I asked because I saw you had a letter here
from Windsor.”
The Babe looked up quickly and just changed colour--he could do it
quite naturally--and picked up his letters.
“Yes, it’s from my cousin,” he said. “She’s in waiting, just now.”
“Lady Julia?”
“Yes. Apparently they are not going straight up.”
The subject dropped, but a few minutes later the Babe said suddenly and
in an absent-minded way.
“I don’t think she’s ever been to Cambridge before.”
“Lady Julia?”
Again the Babe started.
“Yes, Lady Julia. She is thinking of coming up to--to see me on Monday.
Is there anything in the papers?”
“I only read the _Morning Post_,” said Mr. Stewart. “There is of course
a short account of the Prince’s visit here, but I saw nothing else.”
For the next day or two the Babe was very busy, too busy to do much
work. He went more than once with Reggie and Jack to the A.D.C. where
they looked up several dresses, and he had a long interview with the
proprieter of the Bull. He took a slip of paper to the printer’s, with
certain elaborate directions, and on Monday morning there arrived at
Trinity a Bath chair. Then he went to Mr. Stewart, who was his tutor,
and had a short talk, with the result that at a quarter to two, Mr.
Stewart was pacing agitatedly up and down his room, stopping always in
front of the window, from which he could see the staircase on which
were the Babe’s rooms, and on which now appeared a long strip of
crimson carpet. As luck would have it Mr. Medingway selected this time
for going to Mr. Stewart’s rooms to borrow a book and the two looked
out of the window together.
The Trinity clock had just struck two, when a smart carriage and pair
hired from the Bull stopped at the gate, and the Babe’s gyp, who had
been waiting at the porter’s lodge, wheeled the Bath chair up to it.
Out of it stepped first the Babe, next a short stout old lady dressed
in black, and last a very tall young woman elegantly dressed. She was
quite as tall as the Babe, and seemed the type of the English woman
of the upper class, who plays lawn-tennis and rides bicycles. The gyp
bowed low as he helped the old lady into the chair, and the Babe, hat
in hand until the old lady told him to put it on, and the tall girl
walked one on each side of it. The porter who was just going into the
lodge, stopped dead as they passed, and also took off his hat, and
the Bath chair passed down an inclined plane of boards which had been
arranged over the steps into the court.
Mr. Stewart, standing with Medingway at his bow window, saw them
enter, and in a voice trembling with suppressed excitement said to his
companion: “Here they are,” and though benedictions were not frequent
on his lips, added: “God bless her.”
He pressed Medingway to stop for lunch, and the two sat down together.
“Was it in the papers this morning?” asked the latter.
Mr. Stewart took the _Morning Post_ from the sofa.
“It is only announced that the Court will leave Windsor to-day. They
are expected at Balmoral on Wednesday, not Tuesday, you see. It does
not give their movements for to-day.”
Mr. Medingway was looking out of the window.
“They have got to the staircase,” he said. “And she is getting out. Are
we--is anyone going in afterwards?”
“I believe not. It is to be absolutely quiet, and strictly incognito.
They leave again by the 4.35.”
“An interesting, a unique occasion,” said Medingway.
“Yes; the Babe takes it all so easily. I wish I had been able to have
him to lunch last week.”
Mr. Medingway smiled, and helped himself to a slice of galantine.
“They wouldn’t perhaps take a cup of tea before going--”
“Certainly not,” said Mr. Stewart, who, if he was not playing the _beau
rôle_ to-day, at any rate had been in the confidence of him who was.
“The Babe was most urgent that I should not let it get about. Indeed, I
have committed a breach of confidence in telling you. Of course I know
it will go no further.”
Meantime, the Babe having successfully conveyed his party across the
court, and having taken the precaution of sporting his door, was having
lunch. Opposite to him sat Jack Marsden, dressed in a black silk gown;
on his right Reggie, attired in the height of fashion. He wore a blue
dress with very full sleeves, and a large picture hat. He was taking a
long draught of Lager beer.
“Stewart and Medingway both saw,” he said, “and they are both at
Stewart’s window now.”
“It was complete,” said the Babe solemnly, “wonderfully complete, and
the bogus copy of the _Morning Post_, which I substituted for his, was
completer still. It will also puzzle them to know how you get away,
for they are sure to wait there on the chance of seeing you again. I
shouldn’t wonder if Stewart went to the station. And now if you’ve
finished, you can change in my bedroom, and we’ll go round and get a
fourth to play tennis. Stewart must confess that I have gone one better
than either him or Medingway.”
XI.--THE REHEARSAL.
They had a rustic woodland air
--After WORDSWORTH.
Ealing had not been up in the Long, but Reggie and the Babe spent a
week with him early in October, before going up to Cambridge again.
They arrived on the last day of September, and from morn till eve on
the first day the silly pheasants fled before the Babe’s innocuous gun.
However, that gentleman said he liked aiming, without any thought of
ulterior consequences, and that this was the true essence of sport, and
as Reggie and Ealing were both good shots, it is to be presumed that
everyone, even including the keeper, was fairly contented.
The October term began as October terms always begin. There was, as
usual, a far larger number of Freshmen of unique brilliance than had
ever been heard of before, who were duly asked to coffee with men of
other years after Hall, and these ceremonies were neither more nor
less exciting than usual. There was the Freshman who wore spectacles,
and didn’t play games because he had a weak heart, and who when asked
from what school he came, said ‘Giggleswick,’ with almost incredible
coolness; there was the Freshman who had been captain of the eleven in
some obscure school, and already saw himself captain of the University
team; there were Freshmen who could play all kinds of music, the
Freshman who played the flute, and the Freshman who played the violin,
and probably the Freshman who could play the sackbut and psaltery;
the Freshman who already seemed to know half the University, and the
Freshman who knew nobody at all; the Freshman who called his tutor
“Sir,” and the Freshman who very kindly treated him as one man of the
world treats another. There were the usual trial games of football
played under a tropical sun, and the usual interminable lists of
tubbings put up in the Reading-Room.
But after a fortnight or so the world in general, with all its
sorts and conditions of men, settled down into its usual routine,
the Freshmen who had all started together diverged into the sets
where their particular tastes attracted them. Some joined musical
societies, and some were put up and blackballed at a meeting of the
old Giggleswickians; some played in the Freshmen’s matches, and some
bought college blazers, and passed contented and leisurely afternoons
in canoes on the Backs. Alan St. Aubyn published his annual humorous
libel on what he playfully called University Life, and the Babe moved
from Malcolm Street into the rooms he had occupied in the Long in the
Great Court Trinity, and Mr. Sykes signalised the occasion by killing
the under-porter’s best cat.
No doubt it was primarily the best cat’s fault, for she had taken an
independent and solitary walk on her own account down Trinity Street,
and Sykes who was waiting at the gate, quite quiet and as good as gold,
for the Babe, who had gone into his room to put down his cap and gown,
saw her returning. So he killed her. Of course he had to tell the Babe
about it, and he thought the best plan would be to take the mangled
corpse--she was not neatly killed--to the Babe’s rooms, which, though
he was not allowed in college, he happened to know, and the first thing
the porter saw was Mr. Sykes racing across the grass with his best cat
hopelessly defunct, dangling from his mouth. He followed, but Sykes got
there first, and was wagging his stumpy tail with a pleased air, as
he deposited his burden on the hearth-rug, when the infuriated porter
entered.
The porter said:
(I.) That Sykes had no business to kill his cat.
(II.) That he had, if possible, even less business in college.
(III.) That Sykes ought to be poisoned.
The Babe answered:
(I.) That there was no question of poisoning Sykes.
(II.) That the death must have taken place outside college, for he had
seen Sykes enter with the corpse in his mouth.
(III.) That the cat had no more business in Trinity Street than Sykes
had in college, so it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.
(IV.) That Sykes should be beaten.
(V.) That, though the cat was not worth it, sentiment went for
something, and there was such a thing as a sovereign.
So Sykes was beaten there and then with a rug strap, and the porter
had a sovereign, and the beaten Sykes was granted safe conduct out of
college again.
The Babe took a hansom down to the theatre, for he was going to
rehearse for the Greek play, and blew tobacco smoke at Sykes all the
way to show him he was in disgrace. He had not much wanted to act,
for it meant six weeks of rehearsing and learning his part, but he
had consented to read through the play and see whether the part of
Clytemnestra in the _Agamemnon_ did not recommend itself to him. This
had of course ended in his undertaking it, and he found that though he
had dropped Greek for two years, he did not experience much difficulty
in learning his part.