Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 20

"Five," I heard her say, and I withdrew my head from the cupboard and whispered "Jack Ward" to Nina.

"Five," Mrs. Faulkner repeated and looked at Nina, Fred and me, as if she was holding a roll-call.

"Who's the fifth?" Fred asked; "at any rate, I vote we begin."

At that moment I heard some one rus.h.i.+ng up-stairs several steps at a time. Outside my door he stopped to get some breath, and when I introduced him to Mrs. Faulkner and Nina he was so apologetic for being late that it was quite difficult for me to stop him. I must say that Mrs. Faulkner tried to adapt herself to the spirit of this luncheon.

There was not much shyness about Jack Ward, and in a very few minutes Mrs. Faulkner was fairly beaming upon him. She found out that she knew his cousins, and Jack, who would say anything to please any lady, declared that he had often heard of her. As he asked me afterwards what her name was, I had to tell him that he was a regular humbug, but he said that he was sure that she was the kind of lady who liked to think she was never forgotten, and it was a pity to miss a harmless chance of making her feel pleased.

At first I think Jack made her almost too pleased, and later on there was rather a distinct reaction. She was not content with discovering his cousins, but also found out that his father was what she called a most generous benefactor. "The sort of man who does so much good quietly, so unlike those noisy, discomforting people who will give something if somebody will give something else. Charity ought not to be limited by conditions," I heard her say.

"I don't think my father exactly throws his money about," Jack said.

"I am sure he doesn't," Mrs. Faulkner agreed readily.

"I mean that if he gives a lot away he expects to make a lot besides.

He is a business man, you see," Jack returned.

"Business men are the backbone of England," Mrs. Faulkner said at once.

"But they aren't heroes or anybody of that kind," Jack answered.

Mrs. Faulkner shook her head sorrowfully. "You young men are all alike, you will never allow your parents to have any virtues."

I was on the point of breaking a silence which had been extraordinarily prolonged, but Jack got ahead of me.

"I know every one is always saying that," he began, "but I don't think it is true. If you praised my father for being generous he would simply laugh at you. He isn't built that way, you see, and he would think anybody a fool who gave a tremendous lot without hoping to get something back. It is a matter of business with him and he is honest enough to admit it."

"You do allow that he is honest," Mrs. Faulkner put in.

"Of course," Jack replied quite good-temperedly, "only no one cares to brag about their relations unless they want to be called a sn.o.b or a bore. It wouldn't do, you see, for a man to go about declaring that he had an uncle who was miles ahead of everybody else's uncle, or an aunt who could give a start to any other aunt in the world."

"It depends upon what sort of start the aunt gave," Nina, who had been talking to Fred, remarked, and I knew by her smile that she intended this for humour; but Fred did not hear what she said, or I expect he would have laughed. Sometimes he was very weak with Nina.

"I am to believe then," Mrs. Faulkner said, "that all of you are very proud of your parents, only it is what you call bad form to admit it."

Jack gave a great laugh which made everything rattle on the table, and Mrs. Faulkner, being unaccustomed to him, looked surprised.

"Why is it such a joke?" she asked.

"I am sorry," Jack replied; "I laugh sometimes quite unexpectedly, in my bath and places like that. I think my nerves must be wrong."

"Cigarettes," Mrs. Faulkner declared. "I think I shall write to the papers about the University man of the day; I don't understand him in the least," and I unfortunately caught Fred's eye and smiled. Her statement seemed to account for so much unnecessary correspondence.

"Do," Jack answered, "and Foster, G.o.dfrey and I will answer it."

"There wouldn't be much to write, which any one who hasn't been at Cambridge or here would believe," Fred said.

"Why not?" Mrs. Faulkner asked.

"Because they wouldn't understand that a great many men amuse themselves in odd ways and yet are not complete idiots. If you saw us dancing round a bonfire you might think we were all mad, but we aren't a bit."

"I shouldn't choose a bonfire to dance round," Mrs. Faulkner said.

"That's just it," Fred replied; "but it's very good sport when you happen to like it."

The college messenger came into the room with a note for me which was marked "urgent," and I asked if I might read it. Jack Ward was the only man who ever wanted me in a hurry, and so confident was I in the infallibility of my chemist that I was not thinking of Owen. When I had finished reading the note I found that the conversation had taken a more lively turn.

"It is so fortunate I brought something fit to wear," Mrs. Faulkner was saying.

"I have only got four tickets, I wish I had got one for you," Fred said to Jack Ward, and then I remembered that Fred had promised to get tickets for the Brasenose ball which was taking place that evening.

"You can have mine," I told Jack Ward.

"Of course I can't do that," Jack answered; "I expect I can get one all right, if I may join you."

Nina, who was nothing if not expeditious, said that he had better go at once and see if he could get a ticket, but I stopped him by repeating that he could have mine.

"It won't be used unless you take it," I added.

Every one except Fred, who saw that something had happened, led me to believe that I was very disagreeable and foolish.

"We arranged last night that we should go if Fred could get the tickets," Nina said, and then by way of propitiating me she told me that I knew how well I danced.

"You will spoil Nina's evening," Mrs. Faulkner declared, and Nina, I must say, was pouting most magnificently.

"Why can't you come?" she asked. "Has it got anything to do with that wretched note?"

"Not another row?" Jack Ward put in most inconsiderately.

"Fred never said anything about it till too late," I answered; "he kept the whole thing so dark."

"I knew before luncheon," Nina replied, as if she had settled me completely.

I managed to let Fred know that I wanted him to read the note, and having opened the Oxford "Mag" no one saw that he had got the letter inside the pages. For a minute I persuaded Jack steadfastly to take my ticket and he refused with determination. If it had not been that Nina was upset very easily, and Mrs. Faulkner had been known to have hysteria without giving any one a moment's notice, I would have brandished the note in their faces instead of standing first on one leg and then on the other and looking a most hopeless fool.

I did not know what to say next, when Fred put down the magazine and joined us by the window.

"If you can't well manage to come to-night," he said, "and it was most awfully stupid of me not to tell you at once that we were going, I am sure Ward will have this ticket," and he pulled it out of his pocket and simply made Jack take it.

"I don't really think I can go, though I will turn up if I can," I said, and Fred made the most of my promise and talked so much that before I had to say anything else I found that he had persuaded Mrs.

Faulkner and Nina to go down to the river and watch Oriel rowing in the earlier division. I went with them as far as the college lodge and then I disappeared, for the note which I had received upset all my hopes of enjoying myself for the rest of the day.

The first part of it was from Owen, who said he was feeling dreadfully ill, but the second part was written by his landlady, and she seemed to be in a terrible temper. As far as I could make out Owen was very much worse and still refused to have a doctor. "He says," his landlady wrote, "that if I send for a physician he won't pay him and I was up last night five times and who is going to stand it cough he coughs something awful and what's going to happen I don't know I expect he's got typhoid fever or something horrible." She did not use any stops, but that might have been because she was in a hurry; clearly, however, she was very angry, and there was only one thing for me to do.

I went round to Lomax Street as fast as I could, and I had no sooner got inside the house then I heard Owen coughing. I found his landlady in the state her letter had suggested I should find her, she was infinitely more sorry for herself than she was for Owen, and since he was too ill for her to get any satisfaction from visiting her grievance upon him she started off upon me.

"You are his friend," she said as she met me in the pa.s.sage, "and you ought to have been here before. I was just doing myself up before putting on my bonnet to go out and report this case."

"To whom were you going to report it?" I asked, for I felt very much as if I should like to know.