The New Warden Part 49

"How do you know I shall remain?" said Lady Dashwood. "The doctor will say that there is nothing wrong." She looked white and obstinate and clung to her chair.

Then at last May said: "I am going to stay on till the doctor comes.

Like all managing people, you are absolutely irresponsible about yourself, Aunt Lena. I shall have to stay and make you obey me."

"Oh, I didn't know I was so wicked!" sighed Lady Dashwood, in a suddenly contented voice. Now she allowed herself to be helped out of her chair and led upstairs to her room. "And can you _really_ stay, May? _Really_, dear?"

"I must," said May. "You are so wicked."

"Oh dear, am I wicked?" said Lady Dashwood. "I knew my dear old John was very tiresome, but I didn't know I was!"

So May remained. What else could she do? She left Lady Dashwood in Louise's hands and went to her room. What was to be done about Mr.

Bingham? May looked round the room.

Her boxes had disappeared. Her clothes were all put away and the toilet table carefully strewn with her toilet things. Louise had done it. On the little table by the bed stood something that had not been there before. It was a little plaster image of St. Joseph. It bore the traces of wear and tear from the hands of the pious believer--also deterioration from dust, and damage from accidents. Something, perhaps coffee, had been spilt upon it. The machine-made features of the face also had shared this accidental ablution, and one foot was slightly damaged. The saint was standing upon a piece of folded paper. May pulled out the paper and unfolded it. Written in faultless copper-plate were the words: "Louise Dumont prays for the protection of Madame every day."

CHAPTER XXVII

THE FORGIVENESS OF THE FATES

Lady Dashwood submitted gracefully to being put to bed and propped up by pillows.

The doctor had come, p.r.o.nounced his patient very greatly over-fatigued though not seriously ill, but he had forbidden her to leave her bed till he gave permission.

"Keep a strict watch over her," he had said to May, outside in the corridor. "She has got to the point when rest will put her right, or fatigue will put her all wrong."

When he had gone May came back into her aunt's room.

"Now you know what it is to be under orders," she said with a smile.

"And what about you, dear?" murmured Lady Dashwood, sweetly. "You can't stay on, of course, darling?"

May frowned to herself and then smiled. "I shall stay till the doctor comes again, because I can't trust you, dear aunt, to keep in bed, if I go."

"You can't trust me," sighed Lady Dashwood, blissfully. "I am beginning to realise that I am not the only reasonable person in the world. I suppose it is good for me, but it is very sad for you, May, to be sacrificed like this."

May said she wasn't being sacrificed, and refused to discuss the matter any longer.

So Lady Dashwood lay quietly looking at the narrow windows, from which college roofs opposite could be seen in a grey Oxford daylight. She made no reference to the Warden's return. She did not tell May when he was expected home, whether he was coming back to lunch, or whether he was coming by a late afternoon train. She did not even mention his name. And May, too, kept up the appearance of not thinking about him. She merely looked up with a rather strained attention if the door opened, or there were sounds in the corridor.

The time came for her to go down to lunch, and Lady Dashwood did not even say: "You will have to take lunch alone." But she said: "I wonder what Marian Potten and Gwendolen are doing?"

So May went into the dining-room and glanced round her with apprehension.

Two places were laid, one for the Warden at the head of the table and one at his right hand.

"You expect the Warden?" she asked of Robinson, who was standing in the room alone, and she came towards the table apprehensively.

He pulled out her chair and said: "No, m'm, I don't think 'e will be in to lunch."

May sat down and breathed again. "You think he will be late?" she asked, speaking as one who cares not, but who needs the information for purposes of business.

"'E said to me, m'm," said Robinson, as he handed a dish to her with old gnarled hands that were a little shaky but still full of service, "as I was 'andin' 'im 'is 'at what 'e wears in London: 'If I'm not 'ome in time for lunch, I shall be 'ome by 'alf-past five.'"

"Oh yes," said May. "Then you'll be putting tea for him in the library, won't you, Robinson?"

Robinson a.s.sented. "Yes, m'm, if you 'as tea with 'er ladys.h.i.+p." Then he added, "We're glad, m'm, that you're stayin' on,"--now he dropped his voice to a confidential whisper, and wore the air of one who is privileged to communicate private information to a member of the family--"because that French Louise is so exactin' and that jealous of Mrs. Robinson, and no one can't expect a learned gentleman, what 'as the 'ole college on 'is shoulders and ain't used to ladies, to know what to do."

"No, of course not," said May.

"But we've all noticed," said Robinson, solemnly, as he poured out some water into May's gla.s.s, "as 'ow 'er ladys.h.i.+p's indisposition 'as come on gradual."

Here he ended his observations, and he went and stood by his carving table with his accustomed bearing of humble importance.

But it would have been a mistake to suppose that Robinson was really humble. He was, on the contrary, proud. Proud because he was part of King's College and had been a part thereof for fifty years, and his father had been part before him. But his pride went further. He was proud of the way he waited. He moved about the room, skimming the edges of the long table and circ.u.mventing chairs and protruding backs of awkward guests with peculiar skill. Robinson would have had much sympathy with the Oxford chaplain who offered to give any other clerical gentlemen a generous handicap in the Creed and beat them. Robinson, had he been an ecclesiastic, would have made such a boast himself. As it was, he prided himself on being able to serve round an "ontray" on his own side of the table and lap over two out of the other man's, easy.

Robinson was also proud of having a master with a distinguished appearance, and this without any treachery to the late Warden's bald head and exceedingly casual nose. There was no obligation on Robinson's part to back up the old Warden against the new, or indeed the new against the old, because all Wardens were Wardens, and the College was continuous and eternal.

Robinson gloried on there being many thousand volumes in the library.

Mrs. Robinson did not share his enthusiasm. He enjoyed opening the door to other Heads of colleges and saying: "Not at 'ome, sir. Is there any message I can take, sir?" for Robinson felt that he was negotiating important affairs that affected the welfare of Oxford. When waiting on the Warden, Robinson's solemnity was not occasioned by pure meekness, nor was his deferential smile (when a smile was suitable) an exposition of sn.o.bbery nor the flattery of the wage-earner. Robinson was gratifying his own vanity; he was showing how he grasped the etiquette of his profession. Also he experienced pleasure in being necessary to a human being whose manner and tastes were as impressive as they were unaccountable.

"There's more of these 'ere periodicals coming in," he said that very afternoon, as he arranged the lamp in the library, "though there aren't no more Germans among 'em, than there ever were before in my time." He spoke to Robinson Junior, who had followed him into the library.

"'E don't read 'em," said Robinson Junior, his nose elevated, in the act of drawing the curtains.

"'Ow d'you know?" asked Robinson.

"They ain't cut, not all of 'em," said Junior.

"'E don't read the stuff what is familiar to 'im," explained Robinson, and so saying, he took from some corner of the room a little table and set it up by a chair by the fire, for the Warden's tea-tray.

Meanwhile May Dashwood had taken tea with her Aunt Lena and then had gone to her own room. So that when the Warden did arrive, just about half-past five, he found no one moving about, no one visible. He came in like a thief in the night, pale and silent. He glanced round the hall, preoccupied apparently, but really aware of things that were around him to a high degree of sensitiveness. He moved noiselessly, rang the bell, and then looked at the table for letters. Robinson appeared immediately.

The Warden's narrow eyes, that seemed to absorb the light that fell upon them, rested upon Robinson's face with that steady but veiled regard with which a master controls those who are under him.

The Warden did not ask "Where are the ladies?" he asked whether Lady Dashwood was in.

"In 'er room, sir," said Robinson; and he then proceeded to explain why, and gave the doctor's report. "Nothin' alarmin', sir."

The Warden said "Ah!" and looked down at the table. He glanced over the letters that were waiting for him. He gathered them in his hands.

"Tea is in the library for you, sir," said old Robinson; "I will bring it in a minute."

The Warden went upstairs.

He went past the drawing-room and past his bedroom into the library. He threw his letters down on the writing-desk, walked to the fire, and then walked back again to the desk. Then he finally went out of the room and pa.s.sed the head of the staircase and up the two or three steps into the corridor.

He had been into the corridor three times since the arrival of his sister. Once when he conducted her to her room, on her arrival, once again when she had made alterations in the bedrooms and had asked for his approval, and then on that wretched night when he had gone to calm Gwendolen and a.s.sure her that there were no such things as ghosts. Now he went along over the noiseless floor, anxious to meet no one. Why was Lena ill? He knew why Lena was ill, but for a moment he felt wearily vexed with her. Why did she make things worse? This feeling vanished when he opened her door and went in, and saw her sitting up in bed supported by pillows. Then his feeling was of remorse, of anger increased against himself, and himself only.