It was on one of these picnics that I met Walter. George had
invited him; it was generally George that brought new people
in. He was more interested in different sorts of people than
Guy and Hugo.
We were waiting in Guy’s room to start for the picnic. He had
rooms in Broad Street then, looking on to the Sheldonian Theatre.
George came in and said:
‘I’ve invited Sebright to come too. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Well, I suppose not,’ said Guy. ‘He is a dull dog.’
‘Who is Sebright?’ asked Mollie.
‘Oh, he is the star of New College,’ said Guy. ‘He’s got all
the pots this year—Ireland, Hertford, Gaisford. I don’t know
what all—and looks like a mouse.’
‘No, not a mouse,’ corrected George, ‘more buttoned up than a
mouse.’
‘Well, a stick then—a burnt stick;’ and Guy laughed.
‘I like him,’ said George, ‘and I am rather sorry for him too.
What do you think, Hugo?’
Hugo was sitting on the table. He smiled his vague absent-minded
smile.
‘Do you know, I don’t believe I’ve ever thought about him,’ he
said, and we all laughed at Hugo.
He did not come for thirty-five minutes. That was like Walter
too—just to spoil it by keeping every one waiting too long. Hugo
was late very often, but no one minded it in Hugo. In Walter
they did, but I suppose that was not Walter’s fault.
Guy kept saying:
‘I shall tell him what I think of him,’ and looking out of the
window.
He was in a hurry when he did come. Guy saw him first, coming
across the Broad from New College Lane. I looked out too and
saw him, but he was running and I could only see a figure scurrying
along past the corner of the Sheldonian. Then we heard him on
the stairs. He was coming upstairs very fast, and stumbled on
a loose rod or something at the top. We heard a great scrabble
and bump, and then he tumbled against the door and came in.
‘I am sorry,’ he began, ‘awfully sorry I was late.’
He looked round, rather timidly, I thought—but Walter wasn’t
timid really. ‘I had to finish some things.’ He was blinking,
for the sun shone straight in through the window into his eyes,
and the staircase was dark.
I remember him very distinctly as he stood there; his light blue
eyes and the iron-rimmed spectacles, and the greenish Norfolk
jacket that didn’t seem to fit anywhere, and the grey flannel
trousers, baggy at the knees, and his fair hair, very straight
and lanky, one lock of it flopping down over his forehead. His
mouth I noticed even then, rather wide and thin-lipped; a sensitive,
rather beautiful mouth, and he had beautiful hands, but that
I did not notice till much later.
I felt then chiefly amused at him. He looked so funny blinking
there in the sun, and I knew that Guy was very much annoyed with
him, and equally well, that he would not say anything at all.
‘You didn’t tell me you couldn’t come at half-past two,’ said
George mildly.
‘No—I’m awfully sorry—I didn’t think it would take so long; I
had something to finish.’
‘All right, we’ll come along now,’ said Guy. ‘This is my cousin
Miss Woodruffe, and Miss Addington.’
Walter bowed jerkily at us, and we all went downstairs and out.