The Prelude to Adventure Part 16

CHAPTER X

CRAVEN

1

That evening Olva was elected President of the Wolves. It was a ceremony conducted with closed doors and much drinking of wine, by a committee of four and the last reigning President who had the casting vote. The College waited in suspense and at eleven o'clock it was understood that Dune had been elected.

According to custom, on the day following in "Hall" Olva would be cheered by the a.s.sembled undergraduates whilst the G.o.ds on the dais smiled gently and murmured that "boys will be boys."

Meanwhile the question that agitated the Sauline world was the way that Cardillac would take it. "If it had been any one else but Dune . . ."

but it couldn't have been any one else. There was no other possible rival, and "Cards," like the rest of the world, bowed to Dune's charm.

The Dublin match, to be played now in a fortnight's time, would settle the football question. It was generally expected that they would try Dune in that match and judge him finally then on his play. There was a good deal of betting on the matter, and those who remembered his earlier games said that nothing could ever make Dune a reliable player and that it was a reliable player that was wanted.

When Olva came into "Hall" that evening he was conscious of two pairs of eyes, Craven's and Bunning's. On either side of the high vaulted hall the tables were ranged, and men, shouting, waving their gla.s.ses, lined the benches. Olva's place was at the end farthest from the door and nearest the High Table, and he had therefore the whole room to cross.

He was smiling a little, a faint colour in his cheeks. At his own end of the table Craven was standing, silent, with his eyes gravely fixed upon Olva's face. Half-way down the hall there was Bunning, and Olva could see, as he pa.s.sed up the room, that the man was trembling and was pressing his hands down upon the table to hold his body still.

When Olva had sat down and the cheering had pa.s.sed again into the cheerful hum that was customary, the first voice that greeted him was Cardillac's.

"Congratulations, old man. I'm delighted."

There was no question of Cardillac's sincerity. Craven was sitting four places lower down; he had turned the other way and was talking eagerly to some man on his farther side--but the eyes that had met Olva's two minutes before had been hostile.

Cardillac went on: "Come in to coffee afterwards, Dune; several men are coming in."

Olva thanked him and said that he would. The world was waiting to see how "Cards" would take it, and, beyond question, "Cards" was taking it very well. Indeed an observer might have noticed that "Cards" was too absorbed by the way that Dune was "taking it" to "take it" himself consciously at all. Olva's aloof surveying of the world about him, as a man on a hill surveys the town in the valley, made of "Cards'" last year and a half a gaudy and noisy thing. He had thought that his att.i.tude had been nicely adjusted, but now he saw that there were still heights to be reached--perhaps in this welcome that he was giving to Dune's success he might attain his position. . . . Not, in any way, a bad fellow, this Cardillac--but obsessed by a self-conscious conviction that the world was looking at him; the world never looks for more than an instant at self-consciousness, but it dearly loves self-forgetfulness, for that implies a compliment to itself.

Afterwards, in Cardillac's handsome and over-careful rooms, there was an attempt at depth. The set--Lawrence, Galleon, Craven and five or six more--never thought about Life unless drink drove them to do so, and drink drove them to-night. A long, thin man, Williamson by name, with a half-Blue for racquets and a pensive manner, had a favourite formula on these occasions: "But think of a rabbit now . . ." only conveying by the remark that here was a proof of G.o.d's supreme, astounding carelessness.

"You shoot it, you know, without turning a hair (no joke, you rotter), and it breeds millions a week . . . and--does it think about it, that's what I want to know? Where's its soul?

"Hasn't got a soul. . . ."

"Well, what _is_ the soul, anyway?"

There you are-the thing's properly started, and the more the set drinks the vaguer it gets until finally it goes happily to bed and wakes with a headache and a healthy opinion that "Religion and that sort of stuff is rot" in the morning. That is precisely as far as intellect ever ventured in Saul's. There may have been quaint obscure fellows who sported their oaks every night and talked cleverly on ginger-beer, but they were not admitted as part of the scheme of things. . . . Saulines, to quote Lawrence, "are _not_ clever."

They were not especially clever to-night, thought Olva, as he sat in the shadow away from the light of the fire and watched them sitting back in enormous armchairs, with their legs stretched out, blowing wreaths of smoke into the air, drinking whiskies and sodas . . . no, not clever.

Craven, the shadows blacker than ever under his eyes, was on the opposite side of the room from Olva. He sat with his head down and was silent.

"Think of a rabbit now," said Williamson.

"I suppose," said Galleon, who was not gifted, "that they're happy enough."

"Yes, but what do they _make_ of it all?"

At this moment Craven suddenly burst in with "Where's Carfax?"

This question was felt by every one to be tactless. Elaborately, with great care and some considerable effort, Carfax had been forgotten--forgotten, it seemed, by every one save Craven. He had been forgotten because his death did not belong to the Cambridge order of things, because it raised unpleasant ideas, and made one morbid and neurotic. It had, in fact, nothing in common with cold baths, marmalade, rugby football, and musical comedy.

On the present occasion the remark was especially unpleasant because Craven had made it in so odd a manner. During the last few weeks it had been very generally noticed that Craven had not been himself--so pleasant and healthy a fellow he had always been, but now this Carfax business was too much for him. "Look out for young Craven" had been the general warning, implied if not expressed. Persons who threatened to be unusual were always marked down in Cambridge.

And now Craven _had_ been unusual--"Where's Carfax?" . . . What a dreadful thing to say and how tactless! The note, moreover, in Craven's voice sounded a danger. There was something in the air as though the fellow might, at any moment, burst into tears, fire a pistol into the air, or jump out of the window! So unpleasant, and Carfax was much more real, even now, than an abstract rabbit.

"Dear boy," said Cardillac, easily, "Carfax is dead. We all miss him--it was a beastly, horrible affair, but there's no point in dwelling on things; one only gets morbid, and morbidity isn't what we're here for."

"It's all very well," Craven was angrily muttering, "but it's scandalous the way you forget a man. Here he was, amongst the whole lot of you, only a month or so ago and he was a friend of every one's. And then some brute kills him--he's done for--and you don't care a d.a.m.n . . . it's beastly--it makes one sick."

"Where do _you_ think he is, Craven?" Olva asked quietly from his shadowy corner.

Craven flung up his head. "Perhaps _you_ can tell us," he cried. There was such hostility in his voice that the whole room was startled. Poor Craven! He really was very unwell. The sight of his tired eyes and white cheeks, the shadow of his hand quivering on his knee--here were signs that all was not as it should be. Gone, now, at any rate, any possibility of a comfortable evening. Craven said no more but still sat there with his head banging, his only movement the shaking of his hand.

Cardillac tried to bring ease back again, Williamson once more started his rabbits, but now there was danger in that direction. Conversation fell, heavily, helplessly, to the ground. Some man got up to go and some one else followed him. It was the wrong moment for departure for they had drunk enough to make it desirable to drink more, but to escape from that white face of Craven's was the thing--out into the air.

At last Craven himself got up. "I must be off," he said heavily.

"So must I," Olva said, coming forward from his corner. Craven flung him a frightened glance and then pa.s.sed stumbling out of the door.

Olva caught him up at the bottom of the dark stairs. He put a hand on Craven's trembling arm and held him there.

"I want to talk to you, Craven. Come up to my room."

Craven tried to wrench his arm away. "No, I'm tired. I want to go to bed."

"You haven't been near me for weeks. Why?"

"Oh, nothing--let me go. I'll come up another time."

"No, I _must_ talk to you--now. Come." Olva's voice was stern--his face white and hard.

"No--I won't."

"You must. I won't keep you long. I have something to tell you."

Craven suddenly ceased to struggle. He gazed straight into Olva's eyes, and the look that he gave him was the strangest thing--something of terror, something of anger, a great wonder, and even--strangest of all!--a struggling affection.

"I'll come," he said.

In Olva's room he stood, a disturbed figure facing the imperturbability of the other man with restless eyes and hands that moved up and down against his coat. Olva commanded the situation, with stern eyes he seemed to be the accuser. . . .

"Sit down--fill a pipe."

"No, I won't sit--what do you want?"

"Please sit. It's so much easier for us both to talk. I can't say the things that I want to when you're standing over me. Please sit down."

Craven sat down.