A few days later Howard was summoned back to Cambridge. One of his
colleagues was ill, and arrangements had to be made to provide for his
work. It astonished him to find how reluctant he was to return; he
seemed to have found the sort of life he needed in this quiet place. He
had walked with the Vicar, and had been deluged with interesting
particulars about the parish. Much of it was very trivial, but Howard
saw that the Vicar had a real insight into the people and their ways.
He had not seen Maud again to speak to, and it vexed him to find how
difficult it was to create occasions for meeting. His mind and
imagination had been taken captive by the girl; he thought of her
constantly, and recalled her in a hundred charming vignettes; the hope
of meeting her was constantly in his mind; he had taught Jack a good
deal, but he became more and more aware that for some reason or other
his pupil was not pleased with him.
He and Jack were returning one day from fishing, and they had come
nearer than Howard had liked to having a squabble. Howard had said
something about an undergraduate, a friend of Jack's. Jack had seemed
to resent the criticism, and said, "I am not quite sure whether you
know so much about him as you think. Do you always analyse people like
that? I sometimes feel with you as if I were in a room full of
specimens which you were showing off, and that you knew more about them
dead than alive."
"That's rather severe!" said Howard; "I simply try to understand
people--I suppose we all do that."
"No, I don't," said Jack; "I think it's rather stuffy, if you want to
know. I have a feeling that you have been turning everyone inside out
here. I think one ought to let people alone."
"Well," said Howard, "it all depends upon what one wants to do with
people. I think that, as a matter of fact, you are really more inclined
to deal with people, to use them for your own purposes, than I am. You
know what you want, and other people have got to follow. Of course, up
at Beaufort, it's my business to try to do that to a certain extent;
but that is professional, and a matter of business."
"But the worst of doing it professionally," said Jack, "is that you
can't get out of the way of doing it unprofessionally. You seem to me
to have rather purchased this place. I know you are to be squire, and
all that; but you want to make yourself felt. I am not sure that you
aren't rather a Jesuit."
"Come," said Howard, "that's going too far--we can't afford to quarrel.
I don't mind your saying what you think; but if you have the right to
take your own line, you must allow the same right to others."
"That depends!" said Jack, and was silent for a moment. Then he turned
to Howard and said, "Yes, you are quite right! I am sorry I said all
that. You have done no end for me, and I am an ungrateful little beast.
It is rather fine of you not to remind me of all the trouble you have
taken; there isn't anyone who would have done so much; and you have
really laid yourself out to do what I liked here. I am sorry, I am
truly sorry. I suppose I felt myself rather cock of the walk here, and
am vexed that you have got the whole thing into your hands!"
"All right," said Howard, "I entirely understand; and look here, I am
glad you said what you did. You are not wholly wrong. I have interfered
perhaps more than I ought; but you must believe me when I say
this--that it isn't with a managing motive. I like people to like me; I
don't want to direct them; only one can overdo trying to make people
like one, and I feel I have overdone it. I ought to have gone to work
in a different way."
"Well, I have put my foot in it again," said Jack; "it's awful to think
that I have been lecturing one of the Dons about his duty. I shall be
trying to brighten up their lives next. The mischief is that I don't
think I do want people to like me. I am not affectionate. I only want
things to go smoothly."
They drew near to the Manor, and Jack said, "I promised Cousin Anne I
would go in to tea. She has designs on me, that woman! She doesn't
approve of me; she says the sharpest things in her quiet way; one
hardly knows she has done it, and then when one thinks of it
afterwards, one finds she has drawn blood. I am cross, I think! There
seems to be rather a set at me just now; she makes me feel as if I were
in bed, being nursed and slapped."
"Well," said Howard, "I shall leave you to her mercies. I shall go on
to the Vicarage, and say good-bye. I shan't see them again this time.
You don't mind, I hope? I will try not to use my influence."
"You can't help it!" said Jack with a grimace. "No, do go. You will
touch them up a bit. I am not appreciated there just now."
Howard walked on up to the Vicarage. He was rather disturbed by Jack's
remarks; it put him, he thought, in an odious light. Was he really so
priggish and Jesuitical? That was the one danger of the life of the Don
which he hoped he had successfully avoided. He was all for liberty, he
imagined. Was he really, after all, a mild schemer with an ethical
outlook? Was he bent on managing and uplifting people? The idea
sickened him, and he felt humiliated.
When he arrived at the Vicarage, he found the Vicar out. Maud was
alone. This was, he confessed to himself with a strange delight,
exactly what he most desired. He would not be paternal or formative. He
would just make friends with his pretty cousin as he might with a
sensible undergraduate. With this stern resolve he entered the room.
Maud got up hastily from her chair--she was writing in a little
note-book on her knee. "I thought I would just come in and say
good-bye," he said. "I have to go back to Cambridge earlier than I
thought, and I hoped I might just catch you and your father."
"He will be so sorry," said Maud; "he does enjoy meeting you. He says
it gives him so much to think about."
"Oh, well," said Howard, "I hope to be here again next vacation--in
June, that is. I have got to learn my duties here as soon as I can. I
see you are hard at work. Is that the book? How do you get on? You have
promised to send it me, you know, as soon as you have enough in hand."
"Yes," said Maud, "I will send it you. It has done me good already,
doing this. It is very good of you to have suggested it--and I like to
think it may be of some use."
"I have been with Jack all the afternoon," said Howard, "and I am
afraid he is rather vexed with me. I can't have that. He drew a rather
unpleasant picture of me; he seemed to think I have taken this place
rather in hand from the Don's point of view. He thinks I should die if
I were unable to improve the occasion."
Maud looked up at him with a troubled and rather indignant air. "Jack
is perfectly horrid just now," she said; "I can't think what has come
over him; and considering that you have been coaching him every day,
and getting him shooting and fishing, it seems to me quite detestable!
I oughtn't to say that; but you mustn't be angry with him, Mr. Kennedy.
I think he is feeling very independent just now, and he said to me that
it made him feel that he was back at school to have to go up with his
books to the Manor every morning. But he is all right really. I am sure
he is grateful; it would be too shameful if he were not. Please don't
be vexed with him."
Howard laughed. "Oh, I am not vexed! Indeed, I am rather glad he spoke
out--at my age one doesn't often get the chance of being sincerely
scolded by a perfectly frank young man. One does get donnish and
superior, no doubt, and it is useful to find it out, though it isn't
pleasant at the time. We have made it up, and he was quite repentant; I
think it is altogether natural. It often happens with young men to get
irritated with one, no doubt, but as a rule they don't speak out; and
this time he has got me between the joints of my armour."
"Oh, dear me!" said Maud, "I think the world is rather a difficult
place! It seems ridiculous for me to say that in a place like this,
when I think what might be happening if I were poor and had to earn my
living. It is silly to mind things so; but Jack accuses me of the same
sort of thing. He says that women can't let people alone; he says that
women don't really want to DO anything, but only to SEEM to have their
way."
"Well, then, it appears we are both in the same box," said Howard, "and
we must console each other and grieve over being so much misunderstood."
He felt that he had spoken rather cynically, and that he had somehow
hurt and checked the girl. He did not like the thought; but he felt
that he had spoken sensibly in not allowing the situation to become
sentimental. There was a little silence; and then Maud said, rather
timidly: "Do you like going back?"
"No," said Howard, "I don't. I have become curiously interested in this
place, and I am lazy. Just now the life of the Don seems to me rather
intolerable. I don't want to teach Greek prose, I don't want to go to
meetings; I don't want to gossip about appointments, and little
intrigues, and bonfires, and College rows. I want to live here, and
walk on the Downs and write my book. I don't want to be stuffy, as Jack
said. But it will be all right, when I have taken the plunge; and after
I have been back a week, this will all fade into a sort of impossibly
pleasant dream."
He was again conscious that he had somehow hurt the girl. She looked at
him with a troubled face, and then said, "Yes, that is the advantage
which men have. I sometimes wonder if it would not be better for me to
have some work away from here. But there is nothing I could do; and I
can't leave papa."
"Oh, it will all come right!" said Howard feebly; "there are fifty
things that might happen. And now I must be off! Mind, you must let me
have the book some time; that will serve to remind me of Windlow in the
intervals of Greek prose."
He got up and shook hands. He felt he was behaving stupidly and
unkindly. He had meant to tell Maud how much he liked the feeling of
having made friends, and to have talked to her frankly and simply about
everything. He had an intense desire to say that and more; to make her
understand that she was and would be in his thoughts; to ascertain how
she felt towards him; to assure himself of their friendship. But he
would be wise and prudent; he would not be sentimental or priggish or
Jesuitical. He would just leave the impression that he was mildly
interested in Windlow, but that his heart was in his work. He felt
sustained by his delicate consideration, and by his judicious
chilliness. And so he turned and left her, though an unreasonable
impulse seized him to take the child in his arms, and tell her how
sweet and delicious she was. She had held the little book in her hand
as they sate, as if she had hoped he would ask to look at it; and as he
closed the door, he saw her put it down on the table with a half-sigh.