Sinister Street Volume Ii Part 28

"It's a pity," he said, "Sterne missed that catch in the slips. Though of course I wasn't bowling for the slips. Five for forty-eight would have looked pretty well. Still four for forty-eight isn't so bad in an innings of 287. The point is whether they can afford to give a place to another bowler who's no earthly use as a bat. It seems a bit of a tail.

I went in eighth wicket both innings. Two--first knock. Blob--second.

Still four for forty-eight was certainly the best. I ought to play in the first trial match." So Alan voiced his hopes.

"Of course you will," said Michael. "And at Lord's. I think I shall ask my mother and sister up for Eights," he added.

Alan looked rather disconcerted.

"What's the matter?" Michael asked. "You won't have to worry about them.

I'll explain you're busy with cricket. Stella inquired after you in a letter this week."

During the Easter vacation Alan had stayed once or twice in Cheyne Walk, and Stella who had come back from an arduous time with music and musical people in Germany had seemed to take a slightly sharper interest in his existence.

"Give her my--er--love, when you write," said Alan very nonchalantly.

"And I don't think I'd say anything about those four wickets for forty-eight. I don't fancy she's very keen on cricket. It might bore her."

No more was said about Stella that evening, and nothing indeed was said about anything except the seven or eight men competing for the three vacancies in the Varsity eleven. At about a quarter to ten Alan announced as usual that "those men will be coming down soon for cocoa."

"Alan, who are these mysterious creatures that come down for cocoa at ten?" asked Michael. "And why am I never allowed to meet them?"

"They'd bore you rather," said Alan. "They're people who live on this staircase. I don't see them any other time."

Michael thought Alan would be embarra.s.sed if he insisted on staying, so to his friend's evident relief he got up to go.

"You House men are like a lot of old bachelors with your fads and regularities," he grumbled.

"Stay, if you like," said Alan, not very heartily. "But I warn you they're all awfully dull, and I've made a rule to go to bed at half-past ten this term."

"So long," said Michael hurriedly, and vanished.

A few days later Michael had an answer from his mother to his invitation for Eights Week:

173 CHEYNE WALK,

S.W.

May 5.

My dearest Michael,

I wish you'd asked me sooner. Now I have made arrangements to help at the Italian Peasant Jewelry Stall in this big bazaar at Westminster Hall for the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of Agricultural Laborers all over the world. I think you'd be interested. It's all about handicrafts. Weren't you reading a book by William Morris the other day? His name is mentioned a great deal always. I've been meeting so many interesting people. If Stella comes, why not ask Mrs. Ross to chaperone her? Such a capital idea. And do be nice about poor d.i.c.k Prescott. Stella is so young and impulsive. I wish she could understand how _much much_ happier she would be married to a nice man, even though he may be a little older than herself. This tearing all over Europe cannot be good for her. And now she talks of going to Vienna and studying under somebody with a perfectly impossible name beginning with L. Not only that, but she also talks of unlearning all she has learned and beginning all over again.

This is most absurd, and I've tried to explain to her. She should have thought of this man beginning with L before. At her age to start scales and exercises again does seem ridiculous. I really dread Stella's coming of age. Who knows what she may not take it into her head to do? I can't think where she gets this curious vein of eccentricity. I'll write to Mrs. Ross if you like. Stella, of course, says she can go to Oxford by herself, but that I will not hear of, and I beg you not to encourage the idea, if she suggests it to you.

Your loving

Mother.

Michael thought Mrs. Ross would solve the difficulty, and he was glad rather to relieve himself of the responsibility of his mother at Oxford.

He would have had to be so steadily informative, and she would never have listened to a word. Stella's view of the visit came soon after her mother's.

173 CHEYNE WALK,

S.W.

May 8.

Dear M.,

What's all this about Mrs. Ross chaperoning me at Oxford? Is it necessary? At a shot I said to mother, "No, quite unnecessary." But of course, if I should disgrace you by coming alone, I won't. Isn't Mrs. Ross a little on the heavy side? I mean, wouldn't she rather object to me smoking cigars?

"Great scott!" interjaculated Michael.

I'm going to Vienna soon to begin music all over again, so be very charming to your only sister,

Stella.

P.S.--Do crush mother over Prescott.

Michael agreed with his mother in thinking a chaperone was absolutely necessary for Stella's visit to Oxford, and since the threat of cigars he cordially approved of the suggestion that Mrs. Ross should come.

Moreover, he felt his former governess would approve of his own att.i.tude toward Oxford, and he rather looked forward to demonstrating it to her.

In the full-blooded asceticism of Oxford Michael censured his own behavior when he was seventeen and looked back with some dismay on the view of himself at that time as it appeared to him now. He was as much shocked by that period now as at school in his fifteenth year he had been shocked by the memory of the two horrid little girls at Eastbourne.

Altogether this invitation seemed an admirable occasion to open the door once again to Mrs. Ross and to let her personality enter his mind as the sane adjudicator of whatever problems should soon present themselves. It would be jolly for Alan, too, if his aunt came up and saw him playing for the Varsity in whatever cricket match was provided to relieve the tedium of too much rowing.

So finally, after one or two more protests from Stella, it was arranged that she should come up for Eights Week under the guardianship of Mrs.

Ross.

Michael took care some time beforehand to incorporate a body of a.s.sistant entertainers. Lonsdale in consideration of Michael having helped him with his people for one day last year was engaged for the whole visit. Maurice was made to vow attendance for at least every other occasion. Wedderburn volunteered his services. Guy Hazlewood, who was threatened with Schools, was let off with a lunch. Nigel Stewart spoke mysteriously of a girl whose advent he expected on which account he could not pledge himself too straightly. Rooms were taken in the High.

Trains were looked out. On Sat.u.r.day morning Lonsdale and Michael went down to the station to meet Mrs. Ross and Stella.

"I think it was a very bad move bringing me," said Lonsdale, as they waited on the platform. "Your sister will probably think me an awful a.s.s, and ..."

But the train interrupted Lonsdale's self-depreciation, and he sustained himself well through the crisis of the introductions. Michael thought Mrs. Ross had never so well been suited by her background as now when tall and straight and in close-fitting gray dress she stood in the Oxford sunlight. Stella, too, in that flowered muslin relieved Michael instantly of the faint anxiety he had conceived lest she might appear in a Munich garb unbecoming to a reserved landscape. It was a very peculiarly feminine dress, but somehow she had never looked more like a boy, and her gray eyes, as for one moment she let them rest wide open on the city's towers and spires, were more than usually gray and pellucid.

"I say, I ordered a car to meet us," said Lonsdale. "I thought we should buzz along quicker."

"What you really thought," said Michael, "was that you would have to drive my sister in a hansom."

"Oh, no, I say, really," protested Lonsdale.

"I'm much more frightened of you than you could ever be of me," Stella declared.

"Oh no, I say, really, are you? But I'm an awful a.s.s, Miss Fane," said Lonsdale encouragingly. "Hallo, here's the jolly old car."

As they drove past the castle, Lonsdale informed Stella it was the county gaol, and when they reached the gaol he told her it was probably Worcester College, or more familiarly Wuggins.

"You'll only have to tell her that All Souls is the County Asylum and that Queens is a marmalade factory, and she'll have a pretty good notion of the main points of interest in the neighborhood," said Michael.

"He always rags me," explained Lonsdale, smiling confidentially round at the visitors. "I say, isn't Alan Merivale your nephew?" he asked Mrs.

Ross. "He's playing for the Varsity against Surrey. Sent down some very hot stuff yesterday. We ought to buzz round to the Parks after lunch and watch the game for a bit."