The New Warden Part 3

"That's the point. Belinda would prefer an American Wall Street man as a son-in-law or a Scotch Whisky Merchant, but they're not so easily got--it's a case of get what you can. So Jim is to be sacrificed."

"But why?" persisted May quietly.

"Why, because--although Jim has seen Belinda and heard her hard false voice, he doesn't see what she is. He is too responsible to imagine Belindas and too clever to imagine Gwens. Gwen is very pretty!"

May looked again into the fire.

"Now do you see what a weak fool I've been?" asked Lady Dashwood fiercely.

"Lady Belinda will bleed him," said May.

"When Belinda is Jim's mother-in-law, he'll have to pay for everything--even for her funeral!"

"Wouldn't her funeral expenses be cheap at any price?" asked May.

"They would," said Lady Dashwood. "How are we to kill her off? She'll live--for ever!"

Then Mrs. Dashwood seemed to meditate briefly but very deeply, and at the end of her short silence she asked--

"And where do I come in, Aunt Lena? What can I do for you?"

Lady Dashwood looked a little startled.

What May had actually got to do was: well, not to do anything but just to be sweet and amusing as she always was. She had got to show the Warden what a charming woman was like. And the rest, he had to do. He had to be fascinated! Lady Dashwood could see a vision of Gwen and her boxes going safely away from Oxford--even the name of Scott disappearing altogether from the Warden's recollection.

But after that, what would happen? May too would have to go away. She was still mourning for her husband--still dreaming at night of that awful sudden news from France. May would, of course, go back to her work and leave the Warden to--well--anything in the wide world was better than "Belinda and Co." And it was this certainty that anything was better than Belinda and Co., this pa.s.sionate conviction, that had filled Lady Dashwood's mind--to the exclusion of all other things.

It had not occurred to her that May would ask the definite question, "What am I to do?" It was an awkward question.

"What I want you to do," said Lady Dashwood, speaking slowly, while she swiftly sought in her mind for an answer that would be truthful and yet--inoffensive. "Why, May, I want you to give me your moral support."

May looked away from the fire and contemplated the point of her boot, and then she looked at the point of Lady Dashwood's shoe--they were both on the fender rim side by side--May's right boot, Lady Dashwood's left shoe.

"Your moral support," repeated Lady Dashwood. "Well, then you stay a week. Many, many thanks. To-night I shall sleep well."

Lady Dashwood was conscious that "moral support" did not quite serve the purpose she wanted, she had not quite got hold of the right words.

May's profile was absolutely in repose, but Lady Dashwood could feel that she was pondering over that expression "moral support." So Lady Dashwood was driven to repeat it once more. "Moral support," she said very firmly. "Your moral support is what I want, dear May."

They had not heard the drawing-room door open, but they heard it close although it was done softly, and both ladies turned away from the fire.

Gwendolen Scott had come in and was walking towards them, dressed in white and looking very self-conscious and pretty.

"But you haven't told me," said Mrs. Dashwood tactfully, as if merely continuing their talk, "who that portrait represents?"

"Oh, an old Warden," replied Lady Dashwood indifferently. "Moral support" or not--the compact had been made. May was pledged for the week. All was well! Lady Dashwood could look at Gwen now with an easy, even an affectionate smile. "Gwen, let me introduce you to Mrs. Jack Dashwood," she said.

Gwen had expected Mrs. Dashwood to be an elderly relative of the family who would not introduce any new element into the Warden's little household. She had not for a moment antic.i.p.ated _this_! It was disconcerting. Gwen was very much afraid of clever women, they moved and looked and spoke as if they had been given a key "to the situation,"

though what that key was and what that situation exactly was Gwen did not quite grasp.

Even the way in which Mrs. Dashwood put her hand out for a scarf she had thrown on to a chair; the way she moved her feet, moved her head; the way her plain black dress and the long plain coat hung about her, her manner of looking at Gwen and accepting her as a person whom she was about to know, all this mysterious "cachet" of her personality--made Gwen uneasy. Besides this elegant woman was not exactly elderly--about twenty-eight perhaps. Gwen was very much disconcerted at this unexpected complication at the Lodgings--her life had been for the last few months since she left school in July, crowded with difficulties.

"I don't think I want that man to speak," said Mrs. Dashwood, turning her head to look back at the portrait.

"What a funny thing to say!" thought Gwen, about a mere portrait, and she sniggled a little. "He's got a ghost," she said aloud. "Hasn't he, Lady Dashwood?"

"No," said Lady Dashwood briefly. "He hasn't got a ghost. The college has got a ghost----"

"Oh, yes," said Gwen, "I mean that, of course."

"If the ghost is--all that remains of the gentleman over the fireplace,"

said Mrs. Dashwood, "I hope he doesn't appear often." She was still glancing back at the portrait.

"Isn't it exciting?" said Gwen. "The ghost appears whenever anything is going to happen----"

"My dear Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, "in that case the ghost might as well bring his bag and baggage and remain here."

"What sort of ghost?" asked Mrs. Dashwood.

"Oh, only an eighteenth-century ghost--the ghost of the college barber,"

said Lady Dashwood. "When that man was Warden, the college barber went and cut his throat in the Warden's Library."

"What for?" asked Mrs. Dashwood simply.

"Because the Warden insisted on his doing the Fellows' hair in the new elaborate style of the period--on his old wages."

Mrs. Dashwood pondered, still looking at the portrait.

"I should have cut the Warden's throat--not my own," she said, "if I had, on my old wages, to curl and crimp instead of merely putting a bowl on the gentlemen's heads and snipping round."

"But he had his revenge," said Gwen eagerly, "he comes and shows himself in the Library when a Warden dies."

Lady Dashwood had not during these last few minutes been really thinking of the Warden or of the college barber, nor of his ghost. She was thinking that it was characteristic of Gwen to be excited by and interested in a silly ghost story--and it was equally characteristic of her to be unable to tell the story correctly.

"He is supposed to appear in the Library when anything disastrous is going to happen to a Warden," she said, and no sooner were the words out of her mouth than she paused and began thinking of what she was saying. "Anything disastrous to a Warden!" She had not thought of the matter before--Jim was now Warden! Anything disastrous! A marriage may be a disaster. Death is not so disastrous as utter disappointment with life and the pain of an empty heart!

"Come along, May," she said, trying to suppress a shiver that went through her frame. "Come along, May. Goodness gracious, it's nearly eight o'clock and we are going to dine at eight fifteen!"

"I can dress in two shakes," said May Dashwood.

"I've asked Mr. Boreham," said Lady Dashwood, pushing her niece gently before her towards the door and blessing her--in her under-thoughts ("Bless you, May, dear dear May!"). "He talked so much about you the other day," she went on aloud, "that when I got your wire--I felt bound to ask him--I hope you don't mind."

"n.o.body does mind Mr. Boreham," said May. "I haven't seen him--for years."

"You know his aunt left him Chartcote, so he has taken to haunting Oxford for the last three months. Talk of ghosts----"

Then the door closed behind the two ladies and Gwen was left alone in the drawing-room. She went up to the clock. It was striking eight.

Fifteen minutes and nothing to do! She would go and see if there were any letters. She went outside. Letters by the first post and by the last post were all placed on a table at the head of the staircase. Gwen went and looked at the table. Letters there were, all for the Warden! No!

there was one for her, from her mother. She opened it nervously. Was it a scolding about losing that umbrella? Gwen began to read: