The New Warden Part 29

"I suppose," said May, "that if Wesley had had the advantage of being at one of the provincial colleges, he would have invented a new soap, instead of strewing the place with nonconformist chapels?"

This sarcasm of May's would have been exasperating, only that the mention of soap quite naturally suggested children who had to be soaped, and children did bring Boreham actually to an important point.

He did not really care two straws about Wesley. He went straight for this point. He put a few piercing questions to May about her work among children in London. Strangely enough she did not respond. She gave him one or two brief answers of the vaguest description, while she turned away to look at more portraits. Boreham, however, had only put the questions as a delicate approach to _the_ subject. He did not really want any answers, and he proceeded to point out to her that her work, though it was undertaken in the most altruistic spirit, and appeared to be useful to the superficial observer, was really not helpful but harmful to the community. And this for two reasons. He would explain them. Firstly, because it blinded people who were interested in social questions to the need for the endowment of mothers; and secondly, the care of other women's children did not really satisfy the maternal instinct in women. It excited their emotions and gave them the impression that these emotions were satisfying. They were not. He hinted that if May would consult any pathologist he would tell her that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a life like hers, seemingly so full, would not save a woman from the disastrous effects of being childless.

Now, Boreham was convinced that women rarely understand what it is they really want. Women believe that they want to become clerks or postmen or lawyers, when all the time what they want and need is to become mothers.

For instance, it was a common thing for a woman who had no interest in drama and who couldn't act, to want to be an actress. What she really wanted then was an increased opportunity of meeting the other s.e.x.

Boreham put this before May Dashwood, and was gratified at the reception of his remarks.

"What you say _is_ true," she said, "though so few people have the courage to say it."

Boreham went on. He felt that May Dashwood, in spite of all her sharpness, was profoundly ignorant of her own psychology. It was necessary to enlighten her, to make her understand that it was not her duty to go on mourning for a husband who was dead, but that it was her duty to make the best of her own life. He entirely exonerated her from the charge of humbug in her desire to mother slum children; all he wanted was for her to understand that it wasn't of any use either to herself or to the community. How well she was taking it!

He had barely finished speaking when he became unpleasantly aware that two ladies, who had just entered, were staring at himself and his companion instead of examining the hall. The strangers were foreigners, to judge by the boldness with which they wore hats that bore no relation to the shape or the dignity of the human head. They were evidently arrested and curious.

May did not speak for some moments, after they both moved away from the portraits. Boreham watched her, rather breathlessly, for things were going right and coming to a crisis.

"You are quite right," she repeated, at last. "But people haven't the courage to say so!"

"You think so?" he replied eagerly. He now appreciated, as he had never done before, how much he scored by possessing, along with the subtle intuitions of the Celt, the plain common-sense of his English mother.

"I am preparing my mind," said May, as they approached the door of the hall, "to face a future chequered by fits of hysteria."

"But why!" urged Boreham, and he could not conceal his agitation; "when I spoke of the endowment of mothers I did not mean that I personally wanted any interference (at present) with our system of monogamy. The British public thinks it believes in monogamy and I, personally, think that monogamy is workable, under certain circ.u.mstances. It would be possible for me under certain circ.u.mstances."

The sublimity of his self-sacrifice almost brought tears to Boreham's eyes. May quickened her steps, and he opened the door for her to go into the lobby. As he went through himself he could see that the two strangers had turned and were watching them. He d.a.m.ned them under his breath and pulled the door to.

"There are women," he went on, as he followed her down the stairs, "who have breadth of character and brains that command the fidelity of men. I need not tell _you_ this."

May was descending slowly and looked as if she thought she was alone.

"'Age cannot wither, nor custom stale thy infinite variety,'" he whispered behind her, and he found the words strangely difficult to p.r.o.nounce because of his emotion. He moved alertly into step with her and gazed at her profile.

"When that is said to a woman, well, a moderately young woman," remarked May, "a woman who is, say, twenty-eight--I am twenty-eight--it has no point I am afraid!"

"No point?" exclaimed Boreham.

"No point," repeated May. "How do you know that thirty years from now, when I am on the verge of sixty, that I shan't be withered--unless, indeed, I get too stout?" she added pensively.

"You will always be young," said Boreham, fervently; "young, like Ninon de l'Enclos."

May had now reached the ground, and she walked out on to the terrace into open daylight.

Boreham was at her side immediately, and she turned and looked at him.

His pale blue eyes blinked at her, for he was aware that hers were hostile! Why?

"You would seem young to me," he said, trying to feel brave.

"Men and women ought," she said, with emphasis on the word "ought"--"men and women ought to wither and grow old in the service of Humanity. I think nothing is more pathetic than the sight of an old woman trying to look young instead of learning the lesson of life, the lesson we are here to learn!"

Boreham had had barely time to recover from the blow when she added in the sweetest tone--

"There, that's a scolding for you and for Ninon de l'Enclos!"

"But I don't mean----" began Boreham. "I haven't put it--you don't take my words quite correctly."

May was already walking on into the open archway that led to the cathedral. Before them stood the great western doors, and she saw them and stopped. Boreham wished to goodness that he had waited till they were in the cathedral before he had made his quotation. Through the open doors of that ancient building he could hear somebody playing the organ.

That would have been the proper emotional accompaniment for those immortal lines of Shakespeare. He pictured a corner of the Latin chapel and an obscure tender light. Why had he begun to talk in the glare of a public thoroughfare?

"Shall we go inside?" he asked urgently. "One can't talk here."

But May turned to go back. "I should like to see the cathedral some other time," she said. "I must thank you very much for having shown me over the College--and--explained everything."

"Yes; but----" stammered Boreham. "We can get into the cathedral."

She was actually beginning to hold out her hand as if to say Good-bye.

"Not now," she said; and before he had time to argue further, Bingham came suddenly upon them from somewhere, and expressed so much surprise at seeing them that it was evident that he had been on the watch. He had disposed of his purchases and was a free man. He had actually pounced upon them like a bird of prey--and stealthily too. It was a mean trick to have played.

"Are you coming out or going in?" asked Bingham.

"Neither," said May, turning to him as if she was glad of his approach.

"You've seen it before?" said Bingham.

"No, not yet," said May.

"It's as nice a place as you could find anywhere," said Bingham, calmly, "for doing a bit of Joss."

Boreham's brain surged with indignation. This man's intrusion at such a moment was insupportable. Yes, and he had got rid of his miserable table-cloth and shoes, probably taken them to Harding's house, and was going to tea there too. Not only this, but here he was talking in his jesting way, exactly in the same soft drawling voice in which he reeled off Latin quotations, and so it went down--yes, went down when it ought to have given offence. May ought to have been offended. She didn't look offended!

"You forget," said Boreham, looking through his eyegla.s.s at Bingham and frowning, "that Mrs. Dashwood is, what is called a Churchwoman."

"I'm a Churchman myself," said the imperturbable Don. "To me a church is always first a sanctuary, as I have just remarked to Mrs. Dashwood.

Secondly, it is the artistic triumph of some blooming engineer. Nowadays our church architects aren't engineers; they don't _create_ a building, they just run it up from books. Our modern churches are failures not because we aren't religious, but because our architects are not big enough men to be great engineers."

"Ah, yes," said May, looking up with relief at Bingham's swarthy features.

"I deny that we are religious, as a whole," said Boreham, stoutly.

"You may not be, my dear fellow," said Bingham, in his oily voice; "but then you are the only genuine conservative I meet nowadays. You are still faithful to the 'Eighties'--still impressed by the discovery that religion don't drop out of the sky as we thought it did, but had its origin in the funk and cunning of the humanoid ape."

May was standing between the two men, and all three had their backs to the cathedral, just as if they had emerged from its doors. And it was at this moment that she caught a sudden sight through the open archway of two figures pa.s.sing along the terrace outside; one figure she did not know, but which she thought might be the Dean of Christ Church, and the other figure was one which was becoming to her more significant than any other in the world. He saw her; he raised his hat, and was already gone before she had time to think. When she did think it came upon her, with a rush of remorse, that he must have thought that she had been looking over the cathedral with her two companions, after having refused his guidance on the pretext that she wished to be alone. Yes, there was in his face surely surprise, surprise and reproach! How could she explain?

He had gone! She vaguely heard the two men beside her speaking; she heard Boreham's protesting voice but did not follow his words.

"While we are engaged in peaceful persuasion," said Bingham in her ear, "you are white with fatigue."

"I'm not tired," she said, "not really--only I think I will go to the rooms where Lady Dashwood is to meet me. Will you show me them?"