The New Warden. Ritchie David George

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СКАЧАТЬ Dashwood.

      "Please stop winding," she said quietly, and still she did not look up, though she might have easily done so for she had left off knitting.

      The Warden stopped, but he stood looking at her as if to challenge her eyes. Then, as she remained obstinately unmoved, he came towards her chair and dropped the ball on her lap.

      "You couldn't know I was winding it beautifully because you never looked."

      "I knew without looking," said May. "I took for granted that you did everything well."

      "If you will look now," said the Warden, "you will see how crookedly I've done it. So much for flattery."

      He stood looking down at her bent head with its gold-brown hair lit up to splendour by the electric light behind her. Her face was slightly in shadow. The Warden stood so long that Lady Dashwood was seized with an agreeable feeling of embarrassment. May Dashwood was apparently unconscious of the figure beside her. But she raised her eyebrows. Her eyebrows were often slightly raised as if inquiring into the state of the world with sympathy tinged with surprise. She raised her eyebrows instead of making any reply, as if she said: "I could make a retort, but I am far too busy with more important matters."

      The Warden at last moved, and putting a chair between the two ladies he seated himself exactly opposite the glowing fire and the portrait above it. Leaning back, he smoked in silence for a few moments looking straight in front of him for the most part, only now and then turning his eyes to Mrs. Dashwood, just to find out if her eyebrows were still raised.

      Lady Dashwood began smiling at her book because she had discovered that she held it upside down.

      "You were interested in Stockwell?" said the Warden suddenly. "He is doing multifarious things now. He is an accomplished linguist, and we couldn't manage without him – besides he is over military age by a long way."

      Lady Dashwood felt quite sure that his silence had been occupied by the Warden in thinking of May, so that his question, "You were interested," etc., was merely the point at which his thoughts broke into words.

      "I was very much interested in him," said May. "It was like reading a witty book – only much more delightful."

      "Stockwell is always worth listening to," said the Warden, "but he is sometimes very silent. He needs the right sort of audience to draw him out. Two or three congenial men – or one sympathetic woman." Here the Warden paused and looked away from May Dashwood, then he added: "I'm obliged to go to Cambridge to-morrow. You will be at Chartcote and you will get some amusement out of Boreham. You find everybody interesting?" He turned again and looked at her – this time so searchingly that a little colour rose in May Dashwood's cheek.

      "Oh, not everybody," she said. "I wish I could!"

      "My dear May," said Lady Dashwood, briskly seizing this brilliant opportunity of pointing the moral and adorning the tale, "even you can't pretend to be interested in little Gwendolen, though you have done your best. Now that you have seen something of her, what do you think of her?"

      "Very pretty," said May Dashwood, and she became busy again with her work.

      "Exactly," said Lady Dashwood. "If she were plain even Belinda would not have the impertinence to deposit her on people's doorsteps in the way she does."

      The Warden took his cigar out of his mouth, as if he had suddenly remembered something that he had forgotten. He laid his hands on the arms of his chair and seemed about to rise.

      "You're not going, Jim!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood. "I thought you had come to talk to us. We have been doing our duty since dawn of day, and this is May's little holiday, you know. Stop and talk nicely to us. Do cheer us up!" Her voice became appealing.

      The Warden rose from his chair and stood with one hand resting on the back of it as if about to make some excuse for going away. Except for the glance, necessitated by courtesy, that May Dashwood gave the Warden when he entered, she had kept her eyes obstinately upon her work. Now she looked up and met his eyes, only for a moment.

      "I'm not going," he said, "but I find the fire too hot. Excuse me if I move away. It has got muggy and warm – Oxford weather!"

      "Open one of the windows," said Lady Dashwood. "I'm sure May and I shall be glad of it."

      He moved away and walked slowly down the length of the room. Going behind the heavy curtains he opened a part of the casement and then drew aside one of the curtains slightly. Then he slowly came back to them in silence.

      This silence that followed was embarrassing, so embarrassing that Lady Dashwood broke into it urgently with the first subject that she could think of. "Tell May about the Barber's ghost, Jim."

      "Where does he appear?" asked May, interestedly, but without looking up. "What part of the college?"

      "In the library," said the Warden.

      "And at the witching hour of midnight, I suppose?" said May.

      "Birds of ill omen, I believe, appear at night," said the Warden. "All Souls College ought to have had an All Souls' ghost, but it hasn't, it has only its 'foolish Mallard.'"

      "And if he does appear," said May, "what apology are you going to offer him for the injustice of your predecessor in the eighteenth century?"

      The Warden turned and stood looking back across the room at the warm space of light and the two women sitting in it, with the firelight flickering between them.

      "If I were to make myself responsible for all the misdemeanours of the Reverend Charles Langley," he said, "I should have my hands full;" and he came slowly towards them as he spoke. "You have only to look at Langley's face, over the mantelpiece, and you will see what I mean."

      May Dashwood glanced up at the portrait and smiled.

      "Do you admire our Custos dilectissimus?" he asked.

      The lights were below the level of the portrait, but the hard handsome face with its bold eyes, was distinctly visible. He was looking lazily watchful, listening sardonically to the conversation about himself.

      "I admire the artist who painted his portrait," said May.

      "Yes, the artist knew what he was doing when he painted Langley," said the Warden. He seemed now to have recovered his ease, and stood leaning his arms on the back of the chair he had vacated. "Your idea is a good one," he went on. "I don't suppose it has occurred to any Warden since Langley's time that a frank and pleasant apology might lay the Barber's ghost for ever. Shall I try it?" he asked, looking at his guest.

      "My dear," said Lady Dashwood slowly, "I wish you wouldn't even joke about it – I dislike it. I wish people wouldn't invent ghost stories," she went on. "They are silly, and they are often mischievous. I wish you wouldn't talk as if you believed it."

      "It was you, Lena, who brought up the subject," said Middleton. "But I won't talk about him if you dislike it. You know that I am not a believer in ghosts."

      Lady Dashwood nodded her head approvingly, and began turning more pages of her book.

      "I sometimes wonder," said the Warden, and now he turned his face towards May Dashwood – "I wonder if men like Langley really believed in a future life?"

      May looked up at the portrait, but was silent.

      "The eighteenth century was not tormented with the question as we are now!" said the Warden, СКАЧАТЬ