The New Warden Part 51

CHAPTER XXVIII

ALMA MATER

The Warden went to the door and turned the key. Why, he did not know. He simply did it instinctively. Then he finished reading the letter; and having read it through, read it again a second time. He was a free man, and he had obtained his freedom through a circ.u.mstance that was pitifully silly, a circ.u.mstance almost incredibly sordid and futile.

Her humiliation was his humiliation, for had he not chosen her to be his companion for life? Had he not at this time, when the full responsibility of manhood was placed on every man, had he not chosen as the mother of his children, a moral weakling?

He locked the letter up in his desk and paced the length of the room once or twice. Then he threw himself into a chair and, clasping his head in his hands, remained there motionless. Could he be the same man who had a few days ago, of his own free will, without any compulsion, without any kind of necessity, offered himself for life to a girl of whom he knew absolutely nothing, except that she had had a miserable upbringing and an heredity that he could not respect? Was it her slender beauty, her girlishness, that had made him so pa.s.sionately pitiful?

From an ordinary man this action would have been folly, but from him it was an offence! A very great offence, now, in these times. On the desk lay some pages of notes--notes of a course of public lectures he was about to give, lectures on the responsibility of citizenship, in which he was going to make a strong appeal to his audience for a more conscious philosophy of life. He was going to urge the necessity for greater reverence for education. He was going to speak not only of the burden of Empire, but of the new burden, the burden of Democracy, a Democracy that is young, independent, and feeling its way. He was going to speak of the true meaning of a free Democracy, no chaotic meaningless freedom, but the sane and ordered freedom of educated men, Democracy open-eyed and training itself, like a strong man, to run a race for some far-off, some desired goal to which "all creation moves."

He was in these lectures going to pose not only as a practical man but as a preacher, one of those who "point the way"; and meanwhile he had bound himself to a girl who not only would be unable to grasp the meaning of any strenuous moral effort, but who would have to be herself guarded from every petty temptation that came in her way. He was (so he said to himself, as he groaned in his spirit) one of those many preachers who, in all ages, have talked of moral progress, and who have missed the road that they themselves have pointed out!

He was fiercely angry with himself because he had called the emotion that he had felt for Gwendolen in her mischance a "pa.s.sionate pity." It was a very different emotion from that which wrung him when his old pupils, one by one, gave up their youth and hope in the service of their country. That indeed was a pa.s.sionate pity, a pity full of remorseful grat.i.tude, full of great pride in their high purpose and their n.o.ble self-sacrifice. On his mantelpiece, within arm's length of him, lay an open book. It was a book of poems, and there were verses that the Warden had read more than once.

"City of hope and golden dreaming."

A farewell to Oxford. It was the farewell of youth in its heyday to

"All the things we hoped to do."

And then followed the lines that pierced him now with poignant sadness as he thought of them--

"Dreams that will never be clothed in being, Mother, your sons have left with you."

The Warden groaned within himself. He was part of that Alma Mater; that city left behind in charge of that sacred gift!

He loathed himself, and this deep self-humiliation of a scrupulous gentleman was what his sister had shrunk from witnessing. It was this deep humiliation that May Dashwood fled from when she hid herself in her room that afternoon.

The Warden was not a man who spent much time in introspection. He had no subtlety of self-a.n.a.lysis, but what insight he had was spent in condemning himself, not in justifying himself. But now he added this to his self-accusations, that if May Dashwood had not suddenly stepped across his path and revealed to him true womanhood, gilded--yes, he used that term sardonically--gilded by beauty, he might not have seen the whole depth of his offence until now, when the crude truth about Gwendolen was forced upon him by her letter.

The Warden sat on, crushed by the weight of his humiliation. And he had been forgiven, he had been rescued from his own folly. His mistake had been wiped out, his offence pardoned.

And what about Gwendolen herself? What about this poor solitary foolish girl? What was to be her future? Swiftly she had come into his life and swiftly gone! What, indeed, was to become of her and her life?

And so the Warden sat on till the dressing-bell rang, and then he got up from his chair blindly.

He had been forgiven and rescued too easily. He did not deserve it. How was it that he had dared to quote to May Dashwood those solemn, awful words--

"And the glory of the Lord is all in all!"

It must have seemed to her a piece of arrogant self-righteousness.

And she had said: "What is the glory of the Lord?" and had answered the question herself. Her answer had condemned him; the glory of the Lord was not merely self-restraint, stoical resignation, it was something more, it was "Love" that "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

"For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love G.o.d whom he hath not seen?"

The Warden dressed, moving about automatically, not thinking of what he was doing. When he left his bedroom he pa.s.sed the head of the staircase.

There were letters lying on the table, just as letters had lain waiting for him on that evening, on that Monday evening, when he found Gwendolen reading the letter from her mother and crying over it. Within those few short days he had risked the happiness and the usefulness of his whole life, and--G.o.d had forgiven him.

He pa.s.sed the table and went on. Lena must have been waiting for him, expecting him! Perhaps she had been worrying. The thought made him walk rapidly along the corridor.

He knocked at her door. Louise opened it.

"Entrez, Monsieur," she said, in the tone and manner of one who mounts guard and whose permission must be obtained.

She stood aside to let him pa.s.s, and then went out and pulled the door to after her.

The Warden walked up to the bed.

Lady Dashwood's face was averted from him. "Jim," she said wistfully, and she put her hand over her eyes and waited for the sound of his voice.

She was there, waiting for him to show her what sort of sympathy he needed. He did not speak. He came round to the side of the bed where she was lying, by the windows. There he stood for a moment looking down upon her. She did not look up. She looked, indeed, like a culprit, like one humbled, who longed for pardon but did not like to ask for it. And it was this profound humble sympathy that smote his heart through and through. What if anything had happened to this dear sister of his? What if her unhappiness had been too great a strain upon her?

He knelt down by the bed and laid his face on her shoulder, just as he used to do when he was a child. Neither of them spoke. She moved her hand and clasped his arm that he placed over her, and they remained like this for some minutes, while a great peace enclosed them. In those few minutes it seemed as if years dropped away from them and they were young again. She the motherly young woman, and he the motherless boy to whom she stood as mother. All the interval was forgotten and there they were still, mother and son.

When at last he raised himself he found that her eyes were dim with tears. As to himself, he felt strangely quieted and composed. He pulled a chair to the bedside and sat down, not facing her, but sideways, and he rested his elbow on the edge of her pillow his other hand resting on hers.

"Did you get through all you wanted to, in Town?" she asked, smiling through her tears.

"Lena!" he said in a low voice, "you want to spare me. You always do."

His voice overwhelmed her. His humility pierced her like a sword.

"It was all my fault, dear," she began; "entirely my fault."

"No," he said, in a low emphatic voice.

"It was." She reiterated this with almost a sullen persistence.

"How could it possibly be your fault?" he said, with deep self-reproach.

"It was," she said, "though I cannot make you understand it. Jim, you must forget it all, for my sake. You must forget it at once, you have things to do."

"I have things to do," he said. "I seemed in danger of forgetting those things," he said huskily. "As to forgetting, that is a difficult matter."

"You must put it aside," she said, and now she raised herself on her pillows and stared anxiously into his face. "You made a mistake such as the best man _would_ make," she argued pa.s.sionately. "How can a strong man suspect weakness in others? You know how it is, we suspect in others virtues and vices that we have ourselves. You know what I mean, dear. A drunkard always suspects other men of wanting to drink!" and she laughed a little, and her voice trembled with an excitement she found it difficult to suppress. "Thieves always suspect others of thieving. An amorous man sees s.e.x motives in everything. Do you suppose an honourable man doesn't also suspect others of honourable intentions?"

He made no reply.

"Besides, you have always been eager to think the best of women. You've credited them, even with mental gifts that they haven't got! You have been over-loyal to them all your life! And now"--here Lady Dashwood put out her hand and laid it on his arm as if to compel him to agree--"and now you are suffering for it, or rather you have suffered. You thought you were doing your duty, that you ought to marry. You were right; you ought to marry, and I, just at that moment, thrust somebody forward who looked innocent and helpless. And how could you tell? Of course you couldn't tell," and now her voice dropped a little and she seemed suddenly to have become tired out, and she sank back on her pillows.

The Warden leant over her. Her special pleading for him was so familiar to him. She had corrected his faults, admonished him when necessary, but had always upheld his self-respect, even in small matters. She was fighting now for the preservation of his sense of honour.

"Anyhow, darling," she said, "you must forget!"

"You are exhausted," he said, "in trying to make black white. I ought not to have come in and let you talk. Lena, what has happened this week has knocked you up. I know it, and even now you are worrying because of me. I will forget it, dear, if you will pick up again and get strong."