THE visit began on the usual lines of such visits, the home team, so to
speak--Howard and Jack--having to fit a round of festivities into a
life which under normal circumstances was already, if anything, too
full, with the result that, at all events, Howard's geniality was
tense, and tended to be forced. Only in youth can one abandon oneself
to high spirits; as one grows older one desires more to contemplate
one's own mirth, and assure oneself that it is genuine.
Jack met them at the station, and they had tea in his rooms, Howard
refusing firmly to come.
"You must just give them a chance of a private word or two!" he said.
"Why, that's exactly what I want to avoid!" said Jack. "Besides, my
family is never private--we haven't any company manners. But I expect
you are right. Father will want one innings, and I think it's fair he
should have it!"
They were, however, to dine with Howard, who, contrary to his wont,
lavished some care on flowers and decorations, to make the place
unobtrusively pretty and home-like, and he determined that he would be
as quiet and straightforward as he could, but promised himself at least
one afternoon with Maud strolling round the place. But this was all to
happen as if by chance, and with no scheming or diplomacy.
They came; and Howard saw at once that Maud was timid and somewhat out
of spirits; she looked tired, and this, so far from diminishing her
charm, seemed to Howard to make it almost intolerably appealing to him.
He would have desired to take her in his arms, like a child, to pet and
caress her into happiness. Jack was evidently feeling the weight of his
responsibilities, and was frankly bored; but never had Howard been more
grateful for Mr. Sandys' flow of spirits than he was that evening. Mr.
Sandys was thirsting for experience and research, and he was also in a
state of jubilant sentimentality about Cambridge and his old
recollections. He told stories of the most unemphatic kind in the most
emphatic way, and Howard was amused at the radiant hues with which the
lapse of time had touched the very simplest incidents of his career.
Mr. Sandys had been, it seemed, a terrible customer at
Cambridge--disobedient, daring, incisive, the hero of his
contemporaries, the dread of the authorities; but all this on
high-minded lines. Moreover, he had brought with him a note-book of
queries, to be settled in the Library; while he had looked up in the
list of residents everyone with whom he had been in the remotest degree
acquainted, and a long vista of calls opened out before him. It was a
very delightful evening to Howard, in spite of everything, simply
because Maud was there; and he found himself extraordinarily conscious
of her presence, observant of all she said and did, glad that her eyes
should rest upon his familiar setting; and when they sat afterwards in
his study and smoked, he saw that her eyes travelled with a curious
intentness over everything--his books, his papers, his furniture. He
had no private talk with her; but he was glad just to meet her glance
and hear her low replies--glad too to find that, as the evening wore
on, she seemed less distraite and tired.
They went off early, Mr. Sandys pleading fatigue for Maud, and the
necessity for himself of a good night's rest, that he might ride forth
on the following day conquering and to conquer.
The next day they lunched with Jack. When Howard came into the room he
was not surprised to find that two undergraduates had been
asked--Jack's chief allies. One was a big, good-humoured young man, who
was very shy and silent; the other was one Fred Guthrie, who was one of
the nicest men in the College; he was a Winchester boy, son of a
baronet, a Member of Parliament, wealthy and distinguished. Guthrie had
a large allowance, belonged to all the best clubs, played cricket with
the chance of a blue ahead of him, and had, moreover, a real social
gift. He had a quite unembarrassed manner and, what is rare in a young
man, a strong sense of humour. He was a prominent member of the A. D.
C., and had a really artistic gift of mimicry; but there was no touch
of forwardness or conceit about him. He had been in for some
examination or other; and when Howard came in he was describing his
experiences. "What sort of questions?" he was saying. "Oh, you know the
kind--an awful quotation, followed by the question, 'Who said this, and
under what circumstances, and why did they let him?'" He made himself
entirely at home, he talked to Mr. Sandys as if he were welcoming an
old family friend, and he was evidently much attracted by Maud, who
found it remarkably easy to talk to this pleasant and straightforward
boy. He described with much liveliness an interview between Jack and
the Master on the subject of reading the lessons in chapel, and
imitated the suave tones of that courteous old gentleman to the life.
"Far be it from me to deny it was dramatic, Mr. Sandys, but I should
prefer a slightly more devotional tone." He related with great
good-humour how a heavy, well-meaning, and rather censorious
undergraduate had waited behind in his room on an evening when he had
been entertaining the company with some imitations, and had said, "You
are fond of imitating people, Guthrie, and you do it a great deal; but
you ought to say who it is you are imitating, because one can't be
quite sure!"
Mr. Sandys was immensely amused by the young man, and had related some
of his own experiences in elocution--how his clerk on the first
occasion of reading the lesson at Windlow was reported to have said,
"Why, you might think he had been THERE, in a manner of speaking."
Guthrie was not in the least concerned to keep the conversation in his
own hands, and received Mr. Sandys' stories with exactly the right
amount of respectful interest and amusement. But the result of all this
upon Howard was to make him feel extraordinarily heavy and elderly. He
felt that he and Mr. Sandys were the make-weights of the party, and he
was conscious that his own contributions were wanting in liveliness.
Maud was extraordinarily amused by the bits of mimicry that came in,
because it was so well done that it inspired everyone with the feeling
that mimicry was the one art worth practising; and Mr. Sandys himself
launched into dialect stories, in which Somersetshire rustics began by
saying, "Hoots, mon!" and ended by saying, "The ould divil hissilf."
After luncheon it became clear that Jack had given up the afternoon as
a bad job, and suggested that they should all go down to the river. The
rowing man excused himself, and Howard followed his example, pleading
occupation of a vague kind. Mr. Sandys was enchanted at the prospect,
and they went off in the charge of Guthrie, who was free, promising to
return and have tea in his rooms. Guthrie, who was a friend of
Howard's, included him in the invitation, but Howard said that he could
not promise, but would look in if he could.
As a matter of fact, he went out for a lonely walk, ashamed of himself
for his stupidity. He could not put himself in the position, he
dismally thought, of competing for Maud's attention.
He walked off round by Madingley, hardly aware of what road he was
taking. By the little chalk-pit just outside the village a rustic pair,
a boy and girl, stood sheepishly clasped in a dull and silent embrace.
Howard, to whom public exhibitions of emotion were distasteful, walked
swiftly by with averted eyes, when suddenly a poignant thought came on
him, causing him to redden up to the roots of his hair, and walk faster
than ever. It was this, then, that was the matter with him--he was in
love, he was jealous, he was the victim of the oldest, simplest,
commonest, strongest emotion of humanity. His eyes were opened. How had
he not seen it before? His broodings over the thought of Maud, the
strange disturbance that came on him in her presence, that absurd
desire to do or say something impressive, coupled with that wretched
diffidence that kept him silent and helpless--it was love! He became
half dizzy with the thought of what it all meant; and at the same
instant, Maud seemed to recede from him as something impossibly pure,
sweet, and unapproachable. All that notion of a paternal close
friendship--how idiotic it was! He wanted her, at every moment, to
share every thought with her, to claim every thought of hers, to see
her, to clasp her close; and then at the same moment came the terrible
disillusionment; how was he, a sober, elderly, stiff-minded
professional person, to recommend himself? What was there in him that
any girl could find even remotely attractive--his middle-aged habits,
his decorous and conventional mind, his clumsy dress, his grizzled
hair? He felt of himself that he was ravaged with age and decrepitude,
and yet in his folly he had suggested this visit, and he had thrown the
girl he loved out of her lonely life, craving for sympathy and
interest, into a set of young men all apt for passion and emotion. The
thought of Guthrie with his charm, his wealth, his aplomb, fell cold on
his heart. Howard's swift imagination pictured the mutual attraction of
the two, the enchanting discoveries, the laughing sympathy. Guthrie
would, no doubt, come down to Windlow. It was exactly the kind of match
that Mr. Sandys would like for Maud; and this was to be the end of this
tragic affair. How was he to endure the rest of the days of the visit?
This was Tuesday, and they were not to go till Saturday; and he would
have to watch the budding of a romance which would end in his choosing
Maud a wedding-present, and attending at Windlow Church in the
character of the middle-aged squire, beaming through his glasses on the
young people.
In such abject reflections the walk passed away. He crept into College
by the side-entrance, settled down to his evening work with grim
tenacity, and lost himself in desperate imaginings of all the pleasant
things that might be happening to the party. They were to dine at a
restaurant, he believed, and probably Guthrie would be free to join
them.
Late that night Jack looked in. "Is anything the matter?" he said. "Why
didn't you come to Guthrie's? Look here, you are going to play fair,
aren't you? I can't do all the entertaining business myself. I really
must have a day off to-morrow, and get some exercise."
"All right," said Howard, "I'll take them on. Suppose you bring them to
luncheon here. And I will tell you what I will do. I will be
responsible for to-morrow afternoon. Then on Thursday you shall come
and dine here again; and on Friday I will try to get the Master to
lunch--that will smooth things over a bit."
"Thanks very much," said Jack; "that's splendid! I wish we hadn't let
ourselves in for quite so much. I'm not fit to lead a double life like
this. I'm sure I don't grudge them their outing, but, by George, I
shall be glad to see the last of them, and I daresay you will be too.
It's the hardest work I've had for a long time."
The two came and lunched with Howard. After luncheon he said, "Now, I
am absolutely free to-day--Jack has got a lawn-tennis match on--what
shall we do?"
"Well," said Mr. Sandys genially, "I will be entirely selfish for once.
I have come on the track of some very important matters in the Library,
and I see they are going to take up my time. And then I am going in to
have a cup of tea at Pembroke with the Dean, an old friend of mine.
There, I make no excuses! I did suggest to Herries that I had a
daughter with me; but he rather pointedly didn't ask her. Women are not
in his line, and he will like a quiet talk with me. Now, what do you
say to that, Howard?"
"Well, if Miss Maud will put up with me," said Howard, "we will stroll
about, and we might go to King's Chapel together. I should like to show
her that, and we will go to see Monica Graves, and get some tea there."
"Give Monica my love," said Mr. Sandys, "and make what excuses you can.
Better tell her the truth for once! I will try to look in upon her
before I go."
Maud assented very eagerly and gratefully. They walked together to the
Library, and Mr. Sandys bolted in like a rabbit into its hole. Howard
was alone with her.
She was very different, he thought, from what she had seemed that first
night. She was alert, smiling, delighted with everything and everybody
about the place. "I think it is all simply enchanting!" she said; "only
it makes me long to go to Newnham. I think men do have a better time
than women; and, what is more, no one here seems to have anything
whatever to do!"
"That's only our unselfishness," said Howard. "We get no credit! Think
of all the piles of papers that are accumulating on my table. The other
day I entertained with all the virtue and self-sacrifice at my command
a party of working-men from the East end of London at luncheon in my
rooms, and took them round afterwards. They knew far more than I did
about the place, and I cut a very poor figure. At the end the
Secretary, meaning to be very kind to me, said that he was glad to have
seen a glimpse of the cultured life. 'It is very beautiful and
distinguished,' he added, 'but we of the democracy shall not allow it
to continue. It is always said that the Dons have nothing to do but to
read and sip their wine, and I am glad to see it all for myself. To
think of all these endowments being used like this! Not but what we are
very grateful to you for your kindness!'"
They strolled about. Cambridge is not a place that puts its
characteristic beauties in the forefront. Some of the most charming
things lurk unsuspected beyond dark entries and behind sombre walls.
They penetrated little mouldering courts; they looked into dim and
stately halls and chapels; they stood long on the bridge of Clare,
gazing at that incomparable front, with all the bowery gardens and
willow-shaded walks, like Camelot, beside the slow, terraced stream.
It was a tortured kind of delight for Howard to feel the girl beside
him; but she showed no wish to talk intimately or emotionally. She
asked many questions, and he could see that she drank in eagerly the
beauty of the place, understanding its charm in a moment. They went in
to see Monica, who was in a mood of dry equanimity, and rallied Howard
on the success of his visit to Windlow. "I hear you entered on the
scene like a fairy prince," she said, "and charmed an estate out of
Cousin Anne in the course of a few hours. Isn't he magnificent, Maud?
You mustn't think he is a typical Don: he is quite one of our brightest
flowers."
"When am I to come again to Windlow?" she added; "I suppose I must ask
Howard's leave now? He told me, you know," she said to Maud, "that he
wanted a change--he was bored with his work; so I abandoned Aunt Anne
to him; and he set up his flag in a moment. There are no diplomatists
like these cultured and unworldly men, Maud! It was noble of me to do
as I did. If I had exercised my persuasion on Aunt Anne, and kept
Howard away, I believe she would have turned over Windlow to me, and I
would have tried a social experiment there. It's just the place for an
inebriate home; no public-houses, and plenty of fine spring water."
Maud was immensely amused by Monica. Howard contented himself by saying
that he was much misinterpreted; and presently they went off to King's
together.
Maud was not prepared for King's Chapel, and indeed the tame, rather
clumsy exterior gives very little hint of the wonders within.
When they passed the swing-door, and saw the fine soaring lines leading
to the exquisite intricacies of the roof, the whole air full of rich
colour; the dark carved screen, with the gleaming golden trumpets of
the angels on the organ, Howard could see her catch her breath, and
grow pale for an instant at the crowded splendour of the place.
They sat in the nave; and when the thin bell died down, and the
footsteps passed softly by, and the organ uttered its melodious voice
as the white-robed procession moved slowly in, Howard could see that
the girl was almost overcome by the scene. She looked at him once with
a strange smile, a smile which he could not interpret; and as the
service slowly proceeded--to Howard little more than a draught of sweet
sensation--he could see that Maud was praying earnestly, deeply, for
some consecration of hope and strength which he could not divine or
guess at.
As they came away, she hardly spoke--she seemed tired and almost rapt
out of herself. She just said, "Ah, I am glad I came here with you. I
shall never forget this as long as I live--it is quite beyond words."
He took her back to the lodgings where they were staying. She shook
hands with him, smiled faintly, almost tearfully, and went in without a
word. Howard went back in a very agitated frame of mind. He did not
understand what was in the girl's mind at all. She was different,
utterly different. Some new current of thought had passed through her
mind. He fancied that the girl, after her secluded life, with so many
richly perceptive faculties half starved, had awakened almost suddenly
to a sense of the crowded energies and joys of life, that youth and
delight had quickened in her; that she foresaw new relations, and
guessed at wonderful secrets. But it troubled him to think that she had
not seemed to wish to revive their former little intimacy; she had
seemed half unconscious of his presence, and all alive with new
pleasures and curiosities. The marvellous veil of sex appeared to have
fallen between them. He had made friends with her, as he would have
made friends with some ingenuous boy; and now something wholly new,
mysterious, and aloof had intervened.
The rest of the visit was uneventful enough. Maud was different--that
was plain--not less delightful, indeed even more so, in her baffling
freshness; but Howard felt removed from her, shut out from her mind,
kept at arm's length, even superseded.
The luncheon with the Master as guest was a success. He was an old
bachelor clergyman, white-haired, dainty, courteous, with the
complexion of a child. He was very gracious to Mr. Sandys, who regarded
him much as he might have regarded the ghost of Isaiah, as a spirit who
visited the earth from some paradisiacal retreat, and brought with him
a fragrance of heaven. The thought of a Doctor of Divinity, the Head of
a College, full of academical learning, and yet perfectly courteous and
accessible, filled Mr. Sandys' cup of romance to the brim. He seemed to
be storing his memory with the Master's words. The Master was delighted
with Maud, and treated her with a charming and indulgent gaiety, which
Howard envied. He asked her opinion, he deferred to her, he made her
come and sit next to him, he praised Jack and Howard, and at the end of
the luncheon he filled Mr. Sandys with an almost insupportable delight
by saying that the next time he could visit Cambridge he hoped he would
stay at the Lodge--"but not unless you will promise to bring Miss
Sandys as well--Miss Sandys is indispensable." Howard felt indeed
grateful to the gallant and civil old man, who had so clear an eye for
what was tender and beautiful. Even Jack, when the Master departed, was
forced to say that he did not know that the old man had so much blood
in him!
That night Mr. Sandys finished up his princely progress by dining in
Hall with the Fellows, and going to the Combination Room afterwards. He
was not voluble, as Howard had expected. He was overcome with
deference, and seized with a desire to bow in all directions at the
smallest civility. He sat next to the Vice-Master, and Mr. Redmayne
treated him to an exhibition of the driest fireworks on record. Mr.
Sandys assented to everything, and the number of times that he
exclaimed "True, true! admirably said!" exceeded belief. He said to
Howard afterwards that the unmixed wine of intellect had proved a
potent beverage. "One must drink it down," he said, "and trust to
assimilating it later. It has been a glorious week for me, my dear
Howard, thanks to you! Quite rejuvenating indeed! I carry away with me
a precious treasure of thought--just a few notes of suggestive trains
of inquiry have been scribbled down, to be dealt with at leisure. But
it is the atmosphere, the rarefied atmosphere of high thought, which
has braced and invigorated me. It has entirely obliterated from my mind
that odious escapade of Jack's--so judiciously handled! The kindness of
these eminent men, these intellectual giants, is profoundly touching
and inspiring. I must not indeed hope to trespass on it unduly. Your
Master--what a model of self-effacing courtesy--your Vice-Master--what
a fine, rugged, uncompromising nature; and the rest of your
colleagues"--with a wave of his hand--"what an impression of reserved
and restrained force it all gives one! It will often sustain me," said
the good Vicar in a burst of confidence, "in my simple labours, to
think of all this tide of unaffected intellectual life ebbing and
flowing so tranquilly and so systematically in old alma mater! The way
in which you have laid yourself out to entertain me is indeed
gratifying. If there is a thing I reverence it is intellect, especially
when it is framed in modesty and courtesy."
Howard went with him to his lodgings, and just went in to say good-bye
to Maud. Jack had been dining with her, but he was gone. He and Guthrie
were going to the station to give them a send-off. "A charming young
fellow, Guthrie!" said Mr. Sandys. "He has been constantly with us, and
it is very pleasant to find that Jack has such an excellent friend. His
father is, I believe, a man of wealth and influence? You would hardly
have guessed it! That a young man of that sort should have given up so
much time to entertaining a country parson and his daughter is really
very gratifying--a sign of the growing humanity of the youth of
England. I fear we should not have been so tolerant at dear old
Pembroke. I like your young men, Howard. They are unduly careless, I
think, about dress; but in courtesy and kindness, irreproachable!"
Howard only had a few words with Maud, of a very commonplace kind. She
had enjoyed herself very much, and it was good of him to have given up
so much time to them. She seemed to him reserved and preoccupied, and
he could not do anything to restore the old sense of friendship. He was
tired himself; it had been a week of great strain. Far from getting any
nearer to Maud, he felt that he had drifted away from her, and that
some intangible partition kept them apart. The visit, he felt, had been
a mistake from beginning to end.