The New Warden Part 35

"No; mother thought I had better have a change. You can't think how horrid the matron was to me--she had favourites, worse luck; and now mother is looking--has been"--Gwen corrected herself sharply--"for something for me to do that would be more suitable, but the difficulty is to find anything really nice."

The Warden meditated. "Yes," he said.

Gwen continued to look at him, her face full of questioning.

"You have been thinking whether you should trust yourself to me," he said very gravely, "and whether you could face the responsibility and the cares of a house, a position, like that of a Warden's wife?"

"Oh yes," said Gwen.

"You think that you understand them?" he asked.

"Oh yes," said Gwen. "At least, I would try; I would do my best."

"There is nothing very amusing in my manner of life; in fact, I should describe it as--solemn. The business," he continued, "of a Warden is to ward his college. His wife's business is to a.s.sist him."

"I should simply love that," said Gwen. "I should really! I'm not clever, I know, but I would try my best, and--I'm so--afraid of you,"

she said with a gulp of emotion, "and admire you so awfully!"

The Warden's face hardened a little, but Gwen did not observe it; all she saw and knew was that the dismal part of the interview was over, for he accepted this outburst as a definite reply on her part to his offer. She was so glad she had said just what she had said. It seemed to be all right.

"That is your decision?" he said, only he did not move towards her. He stood there, standing with his back to the projection of the fireplace, his head on a level with the frame of the portrait. The two faces, of the present Warden of the year 1916 and the Warden of the eighteenth century, made a striking contrast. Both men had no lack of physical beauty, but the one had discovered the "rights" of man, and therefore of a Warden, and the other had discovered the "duties" of men, including Wardens.

He stood there and did not approach her. He was hesitating.

He could, if he wished it, exercise his power over her and make her answer "No." He could make her shrink away from him, or even deny that she had wished for an interview. And he could do this safely, for Gwendolen herself was ignorant of the fact that he had on the previous night exercised any influence over her except that of argument. She would have no suspicion that he was tampering with her will for his own purposes. He could extricate himself now and at this moment. Now, while she was still waiting for him to tell her whether he would marry her.

The temptation was a heavy one. It was heavy, although he knew from the first that it was one which he could and would resist. There was no real question about it.

He stood there by the hearth, a free man still. In a moment he would be bound hand and foot.

Still, come what may, he must satisfy his honour. He must satisfy his honour at any price.

Gwendolen saw that he did not move and she became suddenly alarmed.

Didn't he mean to keep his promise after all? Had he taken a dislike to her?

"Have I offended you?" she asked humbly. "You're not pleased with me.

Oh, Dr. Middleton, you do make me so afraid!" She got up from her chair, looking very pale. "You've been so awfully kind and good to me, but you make me frightened!" She held out her hands to him and turned her face away, as if to hide it from him. "Oh, do be kind!" she pleaded.

He was looking at her with profound attention, but the tenseness of his eyes had relaxed. Here was this girl. Foolish she might be naturally, badly brought up she certainly was, but she was utterly alone in the world. He must train her. He must oblige her to walk in the path he had laid out for her. She, too, must become a servant of the College. He willed it!

"I hope, Gwendolen," he said gently, "that I shall never be anything but kind to you. But do you realise that if you are my wife, you will have to live, not for pleasure or ease; and you will have not merely to control yourself, but learn to control other people? This may sound hard. Does it sound hard?"

Oh, she would try her very best. She would do whatever he told her to do. Just whatever he told her!

Whatever he told her to do! What an unending task he had undertaken of telling her what to do! He must never relax his will or his attention from her. It would be no marriage for him; it would be a heavy responsibility. But at least the College should not suffer! Was he sure of that? He must see that it did not suffer. If he failed, he must resign. His promise to her was not to love her. He had never spoken of love. He had offered her a home, and he must give her a home.

He braced himself up with a supreme effort and went towards her, taking her into his arms and kissing her brow and cheeks, and then, releasing himself from her clinging arms, he said--

"Go now, Gwendolen. Go to bed. I have work to do."

"Are you--is it----" she stammered.

"We are engaged, if that is what you mean," he said.

"Oh, Dr. Middleton!" she exclaimed. "And may I write to my mother?"

The Warden did not answer for a moment.

That was another burden, Gwendolen's mother! The Warden's face became hard. But he thought he knew how he should deal with Gwendolen's mother; he should begin from the very first.

"Yes," he said; "but as to her coming here--she mentions it in her letter--Lady Dashwood will decide about that. I don't know what her plans are."

Gwendolen looked disappointed. "And I may talk to Lady Dashwood, to Mrs.

Dashwood, and anybody about our engagement?" she asked.

"Certainly," he said, but he spoke stiffly.

"And--and--" said the girl, following him to the door and stretching out her hand towards his arm as she walked but not touching it,--"shall I see you to-morrow morning before you go to town?"

The Warden felt as if he had been dealt a light but acutely painful blow.

Shall I see you to-morrow morning? Already she was claiming her right over him, her right to see him, to know of his movements. He had for many years been the servant of the College. He had given the College his entire allegiance, but he had also been its master. He had been the strong man among weaker men, and, as all men of his type are, he had been alone, uninterfered with, rather remote in matters concerning his private personal life. And now this mere child demanded explanations of him. It was a bitter moment for his pride and independence. However strictly he might bind his wife to his will, his own freedom had gone; he was no longer the man he had been. If this simple question, "Shall I see you to-morrow morning?" tortured his self-respect, how would he be able to bear what was coming upon him day by day? He had to bear it.

That was the only answer to the question!

"I am starting early," he said. "But I shall be back on Sat.u.r.day, some time in the afternoon probably."

Gwendolen's brain was in a whirl. Her desire had been consummated. The Warden was hers, but, somehow, he was not quite what he had been on that Monday evening. He was cold, at least rather cold. Still he was hers; that was fixed.

She waited for a moment to see if he meant to kiss her again. He did not mean to, he held out his hand and smiled a little.

She kissed his hand. "I shall long for you to come back," she said, and then ran out, leaving him alone to return to his desk with a heart sick and empty.

"There can be no cohesion, no progress in the world, no hope for the future of man, if men break their word; if there is no such thing as inviolable honour," the Warden said to himself, just as he had said before. "After all, as long as honour is left, one has a right to live, to struggle on, to endure."

CHAPTER XX

SHOPPING

Mrs. Potten found that it "paid" to do her own shopping, and she did it once every week, on Friday. For this purpose she was compelled to use her car. This grieved her. Her extreme desire to save petrol would have been more patriotic if she had not availed herself, on every possible occasion, of using other people's petrol, or, so to speak, other people's oats.

She had gone to the Sale of work in Boreham's gig, but there was not much room in it for miscellaneous parcels, so she was obliged to come into Oxford on the following morning as usual and do her regular shopping.

Mrs. Potten's acquaintance with the University consisted in knowing a member of it here and there, and in accepting invitations to any public function which did not involve the expenditure of her own money. No Greenleafe Potten had ever given any endowment to Oxford, nor, for the matter of that, had any Squire of Chartcote ever spent a penny for the advancement of learning. Indeed, the old County had been mostly occupied in preserving itself from gradual extinction, and the new County, the Nouveaux Riches, had been mainly occupied in the dissipation of energy.

But Mrs. Potten had given the Potten revenues a new lease of life. Not only did she make a point of not reducing her capital, but she was increasing it year by year. She did this by systematic and often minute economies (which is the true secret of economy). The surface of her nature was emotional, enclosing a core of flint, so that when she (being short-sighted) dropped things about in moments of excitement, agreeable or disagreeable, she made such losses good by drawing in the household belt. If she inadvertently dropped a half-crown piece down a grating while exchanging controversial remarks with a local tradesman, or mixed up a note with her pocket handkerchief and mislaid both when forced to find a subscription to some pious object, or if she left a purse containing one s.h.i.+lling and fivepence behind her on a chair in the agitation of meeting a man whom she admired (a man like the Warden, for instance); when such misfortunes happened she made them up--somehow!