Peter Binney Part 10

"You were not with your father, I think, when the door in the New Court was broken in?" said the Dean.

"No, I wasn't," said Lucius shortly, his face a deep red.

The Dean threw a quick glance at him.

"Is your father--?" he began, and then stopped.

"Off his head?" said Lucius. "I don't know. I never thought he was until he came up here. I know _I_ shall be, pretty soon, if this goes on."

"I didn't mean that," said the Dean, "I was going to ask if he intended to stop here until he takes a degree."

"I suppose so, if he isn't sent down first," said Lucius bitterly.

The Dean could not disguise a smile. "Don't get downhearted about it, Binney," he said kindly, "we've all got our little trials to bear. One of mine is having continually to ask undergraduates why they don't come to chapel. I see you haven't kept a single chapel this term. How is that?"

"I was afraid I might meet my father," said Lucius.

The Dean smiled again.

"Your father has conscientious objections to joining in our services,"

he said, "and I'm afraid I couldn't accept that as an excuse in any case. Have you been anywhere instead?"

"I go to King's sometimes."

"Well, I think you had better come to Trinity sometimes too in the future. Good-night, Binney."

His introduction to Howden was the beginning of Mr. Binney's fall from steadiness. He soon made the acquaintance of other athletes of similar character to Howden, and was very proud of being seen about with them.

These accommodating gentlemen had no sort of objection to his being constantly in their company, so long as he fed them generously and put no check on their boisterous behaviour when he was with them. And Mr.

Binney was far from wishing to do this. The new cap which he had bought under Lucius's directions was soon exchanged for a very old and battered one. Howden and all his friends were rowdies, and Mr. Binney in his mild way became a rowdy too.

One Tuesday evening towards the end of the term, Lucius found himself in the gallery at the Union listening to a debate on the motion: "That this house views with alarm the growing tyranny of University officials," and sat dejectedly through an uproariously applauded speech from his father, in the course of which Mr. Binney inquired "why a fellow shouldn't smoke in cap and gown if he wanted to," and was twice called to order for alluding to "the progginses."

"Come out of this; it makes me sick," he said to his companion. They went out and strolled slowly down Jesus Lane to Edwards's billiard rooms. Opposite the "Pitt," Mr. Binney pa.s.sed them with two of his noisy friends, carrying his gown on his arm. He did not notice them, nor a Proctor who was coming along Park Street, and Lucius had the gratification of seeing his father stopped at the corner, and peremptorily ordered to put on his gown by the Proctor. Mr. Binney did as he was told, taking off his gown again when the Proctor had turned his back, and was let into his lodgings feeling himself the very devil of a fellow.

After his first escapade with Howden, Mr. Binney was a little upset by a letter he received from Mrs. Higginbotham in answer to the one in which he had given her an account of the proceedings.

"You must not let yourself be led away by your high spirits," wrote Mrs. Higginbotham, "and pray be careful that these new grand young friends you have made do not lead you astray. I should like you to keep a good character with your masters and bring home a good report at the end of the term. My dear father often used to say that he would rather my brothers won the conduct prize at school than any other, and they always did so, which pleased my father very much until he discovered that they used to buy the prizes themselves out of their very liberal allowance of pocket money and write their master's name in them, which was not right, and earned them a whipping from Mr.

Wilkinson who was at that time the head of the Lewisham Academy for Young Gentlemen, where they were educated, as well as another from my father, which they told me was far the worse of the two, as I can quite credit, because my dear father, who made his own way in the world, had been employed in early life in a furniture warehouse, and among his duties was that of beating carpets."

Mr. Binney wrote in answer that little occurrences such as the one in which he had taken part were common in Cambridge and increased the fame of those who inaugurated them, and rebuked Mrs. Higginbotham for talking of his "masters." "The 'Varsity is not a school, my dear Martha," wrote Mr. Binney, "and we are allowed a great deal of freedom to amuse ourselves as we please."

Mr. Binney and Lucius now saw very little of one another, but before Mr. Binney had allied himself with Howden and his crew, Lucius had paid him a visit one afternoon and found a young man with a long, solemn face not unlike Minshull's sitting on Mr. Binney's sofa.

"Ah, Lucius," said Mr. Binney, "I'm glad you have come. This is your mother's cousin, John Jermyn, whose father you may have heard me speak of as a respected clergyman in Norfolk. John tells me he has gained a scholarship at Queens' and I am very glad to hear it--very glad. It is most laudable of him. We must go and call on him when we have time.

Let me see, where is Queens'? That little college at the end of the Backs with a wooden bridge, isn't it? Quite so. A very nice little college indeed. I should have liked to have been at Queens' myself if I hadn't been at Trinity. Pity you couldn't come to Trinity, John.

However, we can't all be at the best college, can we?"

After a little more patronage from his uncle, John Jermyn took his leave.

"You must look that young fellow up, Lucius," said Mr. Binney, "and he tells me his sister Elizabeth is at Girton. They both came up this term. A clever family. You must go and call on her too--I believe it's allowed--I don't care about going out there myself. Their mother was a great friend of your dear mother's when they were girls together.

We never saw much of her after she was married, for her husband held his head high, although I have never heard that he was at Trinity or any good college as a young man. It is our turn to hold our heads high now, but you must certainly call on John and Elizabeth, and show them that we are not too proud to recognise our relations."

Lucius did call on John Jermyn soon afterwards and asked him to lunch.

The two young men found they had very little in common and the acquaintanceship dropped.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NEWNHAM GIRL

The morning hours in Cambridge are for books, the afternoon for exercise, and the evening for social intercourse. So, at least, the majority of the undergraduate members of the University regard them, and sometimes throw in an extra hour or two of work between tea and dinner. Of course there are those who work all the evening as well as all the morning, and there are others who do not work at all; but the morning for lectures and books is a general rule, and one that has few exceptions, however squeezed up the morning may be between late breakfast and early luncheon. If you go into the Great Court of Trinity, let us say about ten minutes to eleven in the morning, you will find it, comparatively speaking, deserted. Quite deserted it never is, unless in the dead hours of night, and not always then; but now its chief occupants appear to be the bed-makers, who empty their pails down the gratings, or stand for a few minutes' gossip by their respective staircases. Every now and then an idler pa.s.ses through in a leisurely manner, or a don scurries across the gra.s.s in a terrible hurry. White-ap.r.o.ned cooks from the college kitchens collect plate and crockery from the various gyp-rooms and carry them away in green boxes balanced on their heads. Tradesmen's boys, their baskets on their arms, pa.s.s from one staircase to another, quite unawed by their surroundings, whistling as if their errands were taking them down a street of numbered houses instead of to the studious rooms of a venerable college, for centuries devoted to learning. But of the undergraduate life which is so busy in the courts of a college at other times of the day there is very little, for most undergraduates are listening to lecturers or coaches, or reading in their own rooms.

But the hour strikes and everything is changed. Men in gowns of blue or black, with note-books under their arms, come pouring out of the lecture-rooms into the court. Interspersed with them are the lecturers, laden with books, their long gowns and ribbons flying; and most curious of all, little groups of girls stand about the court waiting until it is time for another lecturer to appear and dart hurriedly into the room where his wisdom is to keep them entranced for the next hour. How horrified our grandfathers would have been could they have pictured girls and men sitting in the same lecture-room to-day, and how incredulous, could they have been told what a very little difference such an unforeseen arrangement would make in the daily life of their colleges. For the women are already in Cambridge.

They have their own colleges, and if they have not yet their own lecturers, they make very good use of ours. And, strange to say, n.o.body takes much notice of them, or realises that they are there at all, except when they form their little groups round the college doorways, or when their names are read out before those of the men in the Senate House, or when they want something which Cambridge with all its chivalry is not quite prepared to give them.

One such little group of girls was standing by the Trinity Chapel one bright November morning in the first term of Lucius's second year, waiting for the learned gentleman who was to lecture to them during the next hour on some subject connected with the Cla.s.sical Tripos. The learned gentleman was a little late and all the other lecturers had by this time penned their flocks and were busily engaged in feeding, and in some cases shearing them. The men who were booked for the same lecture as the girls were standing in twos and threes a little distance away, or strolling up and down the flagged pathways. At ten minutes past the hour the lecturer was seen approaching at a hurried pace from the direction of Neville's Court, and a minute later, girls, men, and lecturer had disappeared, and the Great Court had settled down again to its normal morning condition of dignified calm.

One of the girls was conspicuously attractive. She wore a neat costume of blue serge and a hat that showed up the gold of her pretty head.

Her eyes were blue and innocent, her little nose had a mischievous tilt to it, and her mouth was like Cupid's bow. These last named attractions were not visible to Lucius Binney, who sat at the corner of a desk a few rows behind her; but he had a good view of the soft curves of a delicate tinted cheek, and a little sh.e.l.l-like ear perched coquettishly underneath the wavy brown hair, and, to do him justice, these beauties were not unappreciated by him, for he paid a good deal more attention to them than to the dulcet tones of the learned lecturer. It was now about the middle of the Michaelmas term, and Lucius had already sat in the same corner and looked at the same girl three times a week since the beginning of term, eleven times in all, and each time he looked his sense of the beautiful was more satisfied than before. Besides minor varieties the girl sometimes wore another costume of grey-green cloth and a felt hat to match, with a woodc.o.c.k's tip in it. Lucius was like the lover in Tennyson's poem who speaks of his lady's dresses:--

"Now I know her but in two, Nor can p.r.o.nounce upon it, If one should ask me whether The habit, hat and feather, Or the frock and gipsy bonnet Be the neater and completer; For nothing could be sweeter Than maiden Maud in either."

He sometimes spoke of her to Dizzy, who attended the same lecture, and whose admiration of the girl was aesthetically great, but had not succeeded in penetrating his feelings. These two would hang about the court, chatting unconcernedly together, while she went out through the Great Gate with her companions. After the first week, when Lucius's appreciation of her charms had begun to bite a little, she sometimes gave him the merest glance out of the corners of her blue eyes as she pa.s.sed him. There seemed to be a trace of amus.e.m.e.nt lurking in the glance, and Lucius understood that his admiration, although by no means obtrusive, had been observed--and dared he hope in some measure accepted?--by its object.

"Oh, Dizzy, old man, she really _is_--that girl!" sighed Lucius, after silently watching the blue serge coat and skirt and the fair hair under the little hat disappear round the corner. "She really _is_--"

What she really was did not transpire, but Dizzy quite understood and agreed.

"She's a topper," said Dizzy. "I can't say fairer than that. She's a topper."

"Have you noticed those little fluffy curls on her neck?" inquired Lucius. "With most girls they stick out straight and look as if they ought to be tucked in somewhere. But hers don't."

"Why don't you take a snap-shot at them with a Kodak in the lecture-room?" suggested Dizzy.

Lucius did buy a Kodak after this, and stayed away from the charmed lecture-room one morning with a heavy heart, in order to take photographs of the girl as she went through the court to and from the lecture. He ensconced himself in a friend's rooms on the kitchen staircase, the nearest position he could gain, for he did not want her to see him standing in the court; but after pressing the b.u.t.ton feverishly six or eight times, and waiting impatiently for three weeks until the other people had done the rest, he was rewarded with several curious pictures of fog effects, only one of which showed a scene which could be recognised as the Great Court, with a few dark little spots some miles away, which Lucius interpreted as the girl and her companions leaving the college, but did not gain much satisfaction from the possession of them even with the help of a magnifying gla.s.s.

The girl was a Newnhamite (hideous word!). Lucius and Dizzy knew that much, though they could not discover her name. She must have known theirs, for the lecturer was in the habit of calling them over after each lecture. Unfortunately he omitted to do so in the case of the lady students.

"It's just my luck, you know," said Lucius disconsolately. "I've got a cousin of sorts at Girton. I ought to have looked her up before now--I promised the governor I would--and I'd have done it pretty quick, you bet, if she had had the sense to go to the other place."

"What is she like?" asked Dizzy.

"I don't know. I've never seen her. She is a sister of my cousin at Queens'."

"Oh, I should look her up if I were you. She may be pretty," said Dizzy.