The New Warden Part 27

The two men walked very slowly along. Bingham was in no hurry. The Canon also was in no hurry. In these gloomy days he was glad of a few minutes'

distraction in the company of Bingham, whom nothing depressed. They walked so slowly that Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Potten, who had just entered the quadrangle, attended by Miss Scott laden with parcels, came up to them, bowed and pa.s.sed them on their way to the rooms of one of the Fellows who had begged them to deposit their parcels and rest, if they wished to.

The two men went on talking, though their eyes watched the three ladies, who were looking for the rooms where they were going to deposit their purchases. Bingham took out his watch. It was half-past three. The ladies had found the right entrance, and disappeared. Then Lady Dashwood's face was to be seen for a moment at a window. Simultaneously Harding appeared from under Tom Tower.

He came up and spoke to the two men, and while he did so Bingham observed Miss Scott suddenly appear and make straight for them, holding something in her hand.

"Bravo! What a sprint," murmured Bingham, as Gwendolen reached them rather breathless.

"Oh, Mr. Harding," she panted, "Lady Dashwood saw you coming and thought you wouldn't know where she and Mrs. Potten were. Have you got the Buckinghams.h.i.+re collar?"

Bingham burst into subdued laughter.

"My wife sent me over with it," said Harding, who could not see anything amusing in the incident. "She said Lady Dashwood had got Mrs. Potten here. That's all right," and he gravely drew from his sleeve a piece of mauve paper, carefully rolled up, on which was st.i.tched the collar in question.

"Here's the money," said Gwen, holding out a folded paper.

Harding took the paper.

"Thirty s.h.i.+llings," said Gwen. "Is that right?"

"Yes, thirty s.h.i.+llings," said Harding. "The price is marked on the paper."

"Extraordinarily cheap at the price," remarked Bingham. "There is no other collar equal to it in Buckinghams.h.i.+re."

The Canon turned and walked off, wondering in his mind who the very pretty, smartly dressed girl was. Harding unfolded the paper. It was a pound note and inside was not one but two new ten-s.h.i.+lling notes--only stuck together.

"You've given me too much, one pound and two tens," he said, and he separated the two notes and gave one back to Gwen. "You're a bit too generous, Miss Scott," he said.

Gwen took the note, dimpling and smiling and Harding wrote "paid" in pencil on the mauve paper.

"Here's your receipt," he said, handing her the paper, "the collar and all," and he turned away and went back to the sale room, with the money in his pocket.

Meanwhile Gwendolen did not run, she walked back very deliberately. She had the collar in one hand and the ten-s.h.i.+lling note in the other. She heard the two men turn and walk towards the gate. The old gentleman with a gown on, by which she meant the Canon, had disappeared. The quadrangle was empty. Gwen was thinking, thinking.

It wasn't she who was generous, it was Mrs. Potten, at least not generous but casual. She was probably casual because, although she was supposed to be stingy, a ten-s.h.i.+lling note made really no difference to her. It was too bad that some women had so much money and some so little. It was especially unjust that an old plain woman like Mrs.

Potten could have hundreds of frocks if she wanted to, and that young pretty women often couldn't. It was very, very unjust and stupid. Why she, Gwen, hadn't enough money even to buy a wretched umbrella. It looked exactly as if it was going to rain later on, and yet there was no umbrella she could borrow. The umbrella she had borrowed before, had disappeared from the stand: it must have been left by somebody and been returned. You can't borrow an umbrella that isn't there. It was all very well for her mother to say "borrow" an umbrella, but suppose there wasn't an umbrella! The idea flashed into Gwen's mind that an umbrella could be bought for ten s.h.i.+llings. It wouldn't be a smart umbrella, but it would be an umbrella. Then she remembered very vividly how, a year ago, she was in a railway carriage with her mother and there was one woman there sitting in a corner at the other end. This woman fidgeted with her purse a great deal, and when she got out, a sovereign was lying on the floor just where her feet had been. Gwen remembered her mother moving swiftly, picking it up, and putting the coin into her own purse, remarking, "If people are so careless they deserve to lose things," and Gwen felt that the remark was keenly just, and made several little things "right" that other people had said were wrong. Now, as she thought this over, she said to herself that it was only a week ago she had lost that umbrella: somebody must have got that umbrella and had been using it for a week, and she didn't blame them; beside the handle had got rather bashed. Another dozen steps towards the rooms made her feel very, very sure she didn't blame them, and--Mrs. Potten deserved to lose her ten-s.h.i.+lling note. Now she had reached the doorway, an idea, that was a natural development of the previous idea, came to her very definitely. She slipped the note into the right-hand pocket of her coat just as she stood on the threshold of the doorway, and then she ran up the stone stairs. No one was looking out of the window. She had noticed that as she came along. Now, she would see if Mrs. Potten was really careless enough not to know that she had given away two ten-s.h.i.+lling notes instead of one.

Gwendolen walked into the sitting-room. There were Mrs. Potten and Lady Dashwood sitting together and talking, as if they intended remaining there for ever.

"Here's your collar, Mrs. Potten," said Gwen, coming in with the prettiest flush on her face, from the haste with which she had mounted the stairs.

She handed the roll of mauve paper and stood looking at Mrs. Potten.

Now, she would find out whether Mrs. Potten knew she had flung away her precious ten-s.h.i.+lling note or not. If she was so stingy why was she so careless? She was very, very short-sighted, of course, but still that was no excuse.

"Thanks, my dear," said Mrs. Potten. "I doubt if it is really as nice as the one we saw that was sold. Thirty s.h.i.+llings--the receipt is on the paper. It's the first time I've ever had a receipt at a bazaar or sale.

Very business-like; Mr Harding, of course. One can see the handwriting isn't a woman's!" So saying Mrs. Potten, who had been peering hard at the collar and the paper, pa.s.sed it to Lady Dashwood to look at.

"Charming!" said Lady Dashwood.

Now Lady Dashwood knew Mrs. Potten's soul. Mrs. Potten had come into Oxford at no expense of her own. Mr. Boreham had driven her. She had also, so Lady Dashwood divined, the intention of helping the Sale as much as possible, by her moral approbation. Nothing pleased Mrs. Potten that she saw on the modest undecked tables. Then she had praised a s.h.i.+lling pincus.h.i.+on, had bought it with much ceremony, and put it into her bag. "There, I mustn't go and lose this," she had said as she clicked the fastening of her bag. Then she had praised a Buckinghams.h.i.+re collar which was marked "Sold," and in an unwary moment had told Lady Dashwood that she would have bought that; that was exactly what she wanted, only it was unfortunately sold. But Lady Dashwood, who was business-like even in grief, had been equal to the occasion. "I know there is another one very like it," she had said in a slightly bullying voice; and when Mrs. Potten moved off as if she had not realised her luck, murmuring something about having to be somewhere almost immediately, Lady Dashwood had swiftly arranged with Mrs. Harding that the other collar, which was somewhere in reserve and was being searched for, should be sent after them.

This was why Lady Dashwood had conveyed the reluctant Mrs. Potten into the quadrangle, and had made her climb the stairs with her into these rooms and wait.

So here was Mrs. Potten, with her collar, trying to believe that she was not annoyed at having been deprived of thirty s.h.i.+llings in such an astute way by her dear friend.

"Am I wanted any more?" asked Gwen, looking from one lady to the other.

She took the collar from Lady Dashwood and returned it to Mrs. Potten.

Mrs. Potten opened her bag disclosing the s.h.i.+lling pincus.h.i.+on (which now she need not have bought) and placed the collar within. Then she shut the bag with a snap, and looked so innocent that Gwendolen almost laughed.

No, Gwen was not wanted any more. She turned and went. Mrs. Potten deserved to lose money! "Yes, she did, and in any case," thought Gwen, "at any moment I can say, 'Oh yes, I quite forgot I had the note. How stupid, how awfully stupid,' etc."

So she went down the stairs and out into the terrace.

A few steps away she saw Mr. Bingham, coming back again. This time alone.

As soon as Gwen had gone Mrs. Potten remarked, "Now I must be going!"

and then sat on, as people do.

"Very pretty girl, Gwendolen Scott," she added.

"Very pretty," said Lady Dashwood.

"Lady Belinda wrote to me a day or two ago, asking me if Gwen could come on to me from you on Monday."

"Oh!" said Lady Dashwood, but she uttered the exclamation wearily.

"I have written and told her that I'm afraid I can't," said Mrs. Potten.

"Can't!"

Lady Dashwood looked away as if the subject was ended.

"If I have the child, it will mean that the mother will insist on coming to fetch her away or something." Here Mrs. Potten fidgeted with her bag.

"And I really scarcely know Lady Belinda. It was the husband we used to know, old General Scott, poor dear silly old man!"

Lady Dashwood received the remark in silence.

"I can't do with some of these modern women," continued Mrs. Potten.

"There are women whose names I could tell you that I would not trust with a tin halfpenny. My dear, I've seen with my own eyes at a hotel restaurant a well-dressed woman sweep up the tip left for the waiter by the person who had just gone, I saw that the waiters saw it, but they daren't do anything. I saw a friend of mine speaking to her afterwards!

Knew her! Quite respectable! Fancy the audacity of it!"

Lady Dashwood now rested her head on the back of her chair and allowed Mrs. Potten to talk on.

"I'm afraid there's nothing of the Good Samaritan in me," said Mrs.

Potten, in a self-satisfied tone. "I can't undertake the responsibility of a girl who is billeted out by her mother--instead of being given a decent home. I think you're simply angelic to have had her for so long, Lena."

Lady Dashwood's silence only excited Mrs. Potten's curiosity. "Most girls now seem to be doing something or other," she said. "Why, one even sees young women students wheeling convalescent soldiers about Oxford. I don't believe there is a woman or girl in Oxford who isn't doing something for the war."