“Did Jukes retire? He wasn’t very old, was he?”
“Poor Jukes,” said Miss Lydgate, her kind face clouding. “He got into sad trouble and we were obliged to dismiss him. He turned out to be not quite honest, I am sorry to say. But we found him work as a jobbing gardener,‘ she went on more cheerfully, ”where he wouldn’t be exposed to so much temptation in the matter of parcels and so on. He was a most hardworking man, but he would put money on horse-races, and so, naturally, he found himself in difficulties. It was so unfortunate for his wife.”
“She was a good soul,” agreed Harriet.
“She was terribly upset about it all,” went on Miss Lydgate. “And so, to do him justice, was Jukes. He quite broke down, and there was a sad scene with the Bursar when she told him he must go.”
“Ye-es”‘ said Harriet. “Jukes always had a pretty glib tongue.”
“Oh, but I’m sure he was really very sorry for what he’d done. He explained how he’d slipped into it, and one thing led to another. We were all very much distressed about it. Except, perhaps, the Dean-but then she never did like Jukes very much. However, we made a small loan to his wife, to pay on his debts, and they certainly repaid it most honestly, a few shillings each week. Now that he’s put straight I feel sure he will keep straight. But of course, it was impossible to keep him on here. One could never feel absolutely easy, and we must have entire confidence in the porter. The present man, Padgett, is most reliable and a very amusing character. You must get the Dean to tell you some of Padgett’s quaint sayings.”
“He looks a monument of integrity,” said Harriet. “He may be less popular, on that account. Jukes took bribes, you know-if one came in late, and that sort of thing.”
“We were afraid he did,” said Miss Lydgate. “Of course, it’s a responsible post for a man who isn’t of very strong character. He’ll do much better where he is.”
“You’ve lost Agnes, too, I see.”
“Yes-she was Head-Scout in your time; yes, she has left. She began to find the work too much for her and had to retire. I’m glad to say we were able to squeeze out a tiny pension for her-only a trifle, but as you know, our income has to be stretched very carefully to cover everything. And we arranged a little scheme by which she takes in odd jobs of mending and so on for the students and attends to the College linen. It all helps; and she’s especially glad because that crippled sister of hers can do part of the work and contribute something to their small income. Agnes says the poor soul is so much happier now that she need not feel herself a burden.”
Harriet marvelled, not for the first time, at the untiring conscientiousness of administrative women. Nobody’s interests ever seemed to be overlooked or forgotten, and an endless goodwill made up for a perennial scarcity of funds.
After a little more talk about the doings of past dons and students, the conversation turned upon the new Library. The books had long outgrown their old home in Tudor Building, and were at last to be adequately housed. “And when that is finished,” said Miss Lydgate, “we shall feel that our College Buildings are substantially complete. It does seem rather wonderful to those of us who remember the early days when we only had the one funny-old house with ten students, and were chaperoned to lectures in a donkey carriage. I must say we rather wept to see the dear old place pulled down to make way for the Library. It held so many memories.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Harriet, sympathetically. She supposed that there was no moment of the past upon which this experienced and yet innocent soul could not dwell with unaffected pleasure. The entrance of another old pupil cut short her interview with Miss Lydgate, and she went out, vaguely envious, to encounter the persistent Miss Mollison, primed with every remorseless detail of the clock incident. It gave her pleasure to inform Miss Mollison that Mr. A. E. W. Mason had hit on the same idea earlier. Unquenchable, Miss Mollison proceeded to question her victim eagerly about Lord Peter Wimsey, his manners, customs and appearance; and when Miss Mollison was driven away by Miss Schuster-Slatt, the irritation was little relieved, for Harriet was subjected to a long harangue about the sterilization of the unfit, to which (it appeared) a campaign to encourage the marriage of the fit was a necessary corollary. Harriet agreed that intellectual women should marry and reproduce their kind; but she pointed out that the English husband had something to say in the matter and that, very often, he did not care for an intellectual wife.
Miss Schuster-Slatt said she thought English husbands were lovely, and that she was preparing a questionnaire to be circulated to the young men of the United Kingdom, with a view to finding out their matrimonial preferences.
“But English people won’t fill up questionnaires,” said Harriet.
“Won’t fill up questionnaires?” cried Miss Schuster-Slatt, taken aback.
“No,” said Harriet, “they won’t. As a nation we are not questionnaire-conscious.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” said Miss Schuster-Slatt. “But I do hope you will join the British Branch of our League for the Encouragement of Matrimonial Fitness. Our President, Mrs. J. Poppelhinken, is a wonderful woman. You would so much like to meet her. She will be coming to Europe next year. In the meantime I am here to do propaganda and study the whole question from the angle of British mentality.”
“I’m afraid you will find it a very difficult job. I wonder,” added Harriet (for she felt she owed Miss Schuster-Slatt a riposte for her unfortunate observations of the night before), “whether your intentions are as disinterested as you make out. Perhaps you are thinking of investigating the loveliness of English husbands in a personal and practical way.”
“Now you’re making fun of me,” said Miss Schuster-Slatt with perfect good-humour. “No. I’m just the little worker-bee, gathering honey for the queens to eat.”
“How all occasions do inform against me!” muttered Harriet to herself. One would have thought that Oxford at least would offer a respite from Peter Wimsey and the marriage question. But although she herself was a notoriety, if not precisely a celebrity, it was an annoying fact that Peter was a still more spectacular celebrity, and that, of the two, people would rather know about him than about her. As regards marriage-well, here one certainly had a chance to find out whether it worked or not. Was it worse to be a Mary Attwood (nee Stokes) or a Miss Schuster-Slatt? Was it better to be a Phoebe Bancroft (nee Tucker) or a Miss Lydgate? And would all these people have turned out exactly the same, married or single?
She wandered into the J.C.R., which was empty, but for one drab and ill-dressed woman who sat desolately reading an illustrated paper. As Harriet passed, this woman looked up and said, rather tentatively, “Hullo! it’s Miss Vane, isn’t it?”
Harriet racked her memory hastily. This was obviously someone very much senior to herself-she looked nearer fifty than forty. Who on earth?
“I don’t suppose you remember me,” said the other. “Catherine Freemantle.”
(Catherine Freemantle, good God! But she had been only two years senior to Harriet. Very brilliant, very smart, very lively and the outstanding scholar of her year. What in Heaven’s name had happened to her?)
“Of course I remember you,” said Harriet, but I’m always so stupid about names. What have you been doing?”
Catherine Freemantle, it seemed, had married a farmer, and everything had gone wrong. Slumps and sickness and tithe and taxes and the Milk Board and the Marketing Board, and working one’s fingers to the bone for a bare living and trying to bring up children-Harriet had read and heard enough about agricultural depression to know that the story was a common one enough. She was ashamed of being and looking so prosperous. She felt she would rather be tried for life over again than walk the daily treadmill o1 Catherine’s life. It was a saga, in its way, but it was preposterous. She broke in rather abruptly upon a complaint against the hardheartedness of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.