Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate Part 19

The time had come for me to take Nina into my confidence. Mrs.

Faulkner's eyes were fixed on the plate and her back was turned to me; I poked out one leg tentatively and Nina understood. There was one splendid thing about Nina, you could always rely upon her in a crisis.

She took up a chair at once and said that she would get the plate down; she added that unless I sat still after meals I might have very bad indigestion, but that was too much for Mrs. Faulkner.

"I shouldn't think G.o.dfrey has had indigestion in his life," she said.

"I don't believe he has ever heard of pepsine. He is in a disgracefully bad temper; there is nothing else the matter with him as far as I can see."

"He was a very delicate child," Nina answered, "and has always been quite disgracefully spoilt. He never does anything which he doesn't like." I felt that Nina was over-playing her part, but I could not defend myself.

"It is so nice having Nina here to do things for me," I said meekly; "and I hope you don't mind me treating you as if you are a relation," I added to Mrs. Faulkner.

"I do mind very much; nothing is an excuse for being lazy and ill-natured. I was brought up in the old school, I suppose," she answered, and I wished to goodness she had never left it.

Nina got up on the chair and pretended that she could not reach the plate.

"Now if you stood up here you could reach it," she said, turning round to Mrs. Faulkner.

"But G.o.dfrey will surely not allow me to do that," she replied.

"I always said that you were taller than Nina," I could not help remarking, for Nina prided herself on being about three inches taller than she was; and she had said all sorts of things about me.

"I wonder if I could reach the plate," Mrs. Faulkner said.

"It would be rather a sporting thing to try," I answered. "Nina couldn't reach it."

"I think not," she returned; "I might fall over backwards." And she sat down carefully in my biggest arm-chair.

My scout came in to clear away breakfast, and the situation was desperate. I picked up a piece of toast hastily and told him to come back in half-an-hour. Mrs. Faulkner had taken her seat behind me, and I could only turn with difficulty to talk to her; while Nina's enthusiasm on my behalf seemed to have waned since her plot to get Mrs.

Faulkner on the chair had failed. If I had only dressed the lower part of myself properly instead of the top part it would not have mattered so much, but as it was a collar and a St. Cuthbert's XI. tie were superfluous when other more necessary garments were lacking. I was on the point of throwing myself upon the mercy of Mrs. Faulkner and of explaining to her that a lot of men I knew wore very short pyjama trousers and no socks in the mornings if they intended to read, when Murray burst into my rooms and almost asked me why I had cut a lecture before he saw that I had visitors.

I introduced him, and in the same breath declared that he would be delighted to show his rooms. I was becoming reckless, and did not care if he thought me mad. I went on to say that he had some splendid prints which Mrs. Faulkner would like to see, and Nina was kind enough to ask him if he would mind very much if they invaded his rooms. He saw that something odd was happening; but Mrs. Faulkner was looking at me, and I could make only one sign to him. I reached as far as I could under the table and having kicked off a bedroom slipper, I stuck out enough toes to tell him as much as he wanted to know.

"Will you come?" he asked Mrs. Faulkner. "I am afraid I have only one print; but I should like you to see my rooms."

Mrs. Faulkner said that she would be delighted.

"Let us all go," she added; "I am sure G.o.dfrey has been sitting long enough at that table."

"I will be with you in two minutes," I answered.

Murray stood aside for them to go out, and closed the door behind him, and I fairly bolted into my bedroom. But in two minutes I was dressed and able to go to Murray's rooms, armed with the most beautiful suggestions for spending the day.

"Will your digestion really allow you to walk about so soon?" Mrs.

Faulkner asked.

"He never has anything the matter with him," Murray said, with all the thoughtlessness of a dyspeptic. "He used to eat huge lunches, and then play footer; there's not much wrong with a man like that."

"You don't know what I have suffered in secret," I replied; and Nina now that I was clothed again turned upon me and said, "Have you known him all these years and not found that out, Mrs. Faulkner?"

"There is a good deal about G.o.dfrey that I don't quite understand," was the answer, and since I could not wonder at that, I begged to be allowed to take her wherever she wished to go.

We strolled about Oxford until lunch-time, and I answered every question asked me, and most of my answers were accurate. For I had been careful enough to take an Oxford guide-book to bed with me, and had not entirely wasted the early morning. In fact Mrs. Faulkner's visit forced me to see that I knew very little about Oxford. My guide-book knowledge was so condensed that it was more satisfying than satisfactory, and if I had been asked what I charged per hour, I should have had no right to be angry.

However, I did march Mrs. Faulkner and Nina round some of the sights of the place. I showed them the Bodleian, All Souls, Sh.e.l.ley's memorial, and finally brought them to a shady seat in Addison's Walk. I had been compelled to hurry for two reasons; in the first place we had not very much time, and secondly, my knowledge was not proof against the string of questions which only want of breath could stop Mrs. Faulkner from asking. I should imagine that a large number of men never find out how great their ignorance of Oxford is until they have to show people round it, and I candidly confess that on this day I was ashamed of myself. I was more at home in Addison's Walk than in any other place to which I had taken them, for it was in the open air, and also there was something about Addison and Steele and Gay which made me like them.

The coffee-houses at which they met must have had some mysterious attraction for me, I think, and led me on to read what they had written. I should have liked to have Sir Roger de Coverley for my uncle, and I cannot imagine a nicer man to have a day's fis.h.i.+ng with than Will Wimble. I hated Pope as much as I liked Addison, and though Mrs. Faulkner said he was a great satirist, I thought of him only as a man who wrote most disagreeable things about his friends.

"It is necessary to separate the man from his work, if you are to be a good critic," Mrs. Faulkner said, and though this remark may be true enough I did not answer it, for Nina was looking extremely bored by the conversation we had been having about Addison.

"We may as well go to Oriel and find Fred," I suggested, and Nina got up at once.

"Unfortunately the art of satire is dead, drowned by exaggeration,"

Mrs. Faulkner said as we went through the cloisters.

"I think it's a better death than it deserves, don't you, Nina?" I replied.

"I know nothing whatever about it," she answered.

"Abuse has taken the place of satire," Mrs. Faulkner continued.

"And a jolly good job, too," I said, for Nina's face of disgust made me forget to whom I was talking; "it is those sly digs in the ribs which make me ill."

"My dear G.o.dfrey, what dreadful slang you use. A few minutes ago you surprised me by being interested in English literature, and now you talk as if there had never been such a thing."

"You surprised me, too," I said, for I felt as if I had concealed enough for one day.

"How? Do tell me," Mrs. Faulkner said quickly.

"I should not have thought that you cared about Addison or any of those old people," I answered, but I began to wish I had been more cautious.

"Why not?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"But, why not?"

"Well, I thought you were more modern."

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"I am sure I don't," I answered; and as we pa.s.sed Long Wall Street I managed to get on the far side of Nina, and to beseech her to say something.

"I insist on you telling me what you mean," I heard Mrs. Faulkner say, but before I could even think of my answer Nina had come to my rescue by declaring that she admired the hat of a girl who was walking in front of us. It was a flower-garden hat, and looked more like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for somebody's seeds than a decent covering for the head.

Nina's remark, however, turned Mrs. Faulkner's attention away from me, and we listened to a lecture on taste until we were safely in Oriel.

But Fred was not forthcoming, and Mrs. Faulkner promptly decided that he was working. Comparisons, in which I took no kind of interest, were drawn between his industry and my laziness. I endured them in silence, though I could have given Fred away had I liked, for his cap and gown were both in his rooms, and I knew that he was more probably batting in a net than taking notes at a lecture.

After looking round Oriel, Mrs. Faulkner and Nina went back to the Rudolf, and I said that I must go to St. Cuthbert's and see that their luncheon had not been forgotten. Mrs. Faulkner smiled at me sorrowfully when I left her, and I believe she intended me to believe that I had hurt her feelings very much. If I live to threescore years and ten I shall not understand Mrs. Faulkner. I felt very bothered that morning, for Nina and Mrs. Faulkner would not be in a good temper at the same time; but I met Dennison in the quad, who introduced me to his mother, two sisters, two cousins and an aunt. He looked quite tired, and asked me to luncheon, but unless he had engaged the biggest room at the Sceptre I should think he must have been glad when I refused. He was, however, most palpably short of men. I had hardly got rid of Dennison when I ran into Lambert, escorting four more ladies with prodigiously long names; I think he must have found them at the theatre, and he looked more pleased with himself than ever. When I got back to my rooms I felt quite thankful that my party had not reached an unwieldy size, and I had not to wait long before Mrs. Faulkner, Nina and Fred all arrived together.

It is no use trying to give a luncheon party in a very small room, which was not built for parties of any kind, unless every one is prepared to be thoroughly uncomfortable. You have got to put dishes wherever they will go and worry through as best you can. I had taken quite a lot of trouble over the food, and the size of the room was not my fault. My scout had made many subtle dispositions of furniture, but the fact remained that the table was not made to hold five people, unless the whole lot were really good sorts. So I was delighted to find that Mrs. Faulkner was in her amiable mood and to hear her say that she was prepared for anything, though had I not been so sure that she would be inconvenienced, not to say squashed, before she finished, I am not sure that I should have accepted this reckless mood as much of a compliment. The table was so crowded that it was not easy to see how many people were expected to sit at it, and I was not surprised when Nina suggested that we should begin luncheon. I pretended not to hear what she said, and poked my head into a cupboard in the vain hope that I might find something which I did not know I had lost. Mrs. Faulkner, however, ranged herself by the table and counted the napkins.