“That’s very depressing,” said Harriet. “Perhaps I’d better sell half my ticket while the price is good. I agree with Edgar Wallace, ‘Give me a good stupid horse who will eat his oats.’ Any offers for Newland?”
“What’s that about Newland?” demanded Miss Shaw, coming up to them. They were having coffee in the Fellows’ Garden at the time. “By the way, Dean, couldn’t you put up a notice about sitting on the grass in the New Quad? I have had to chase two parties off. We cannot have the place looking like Margate Beach.”
“Certainly not. They know quite well it isn’t allowed. Why are women undergraduates so sloppy?”
“They’re always exceedingly anxious to be like the men,” said Miss Hillyard, sarcastically, “but I notice the likeness doesn’t extend to showing respect for the College grounds.”
“Even you must admit that men have some virtues,” said Miss Shaw.
“More tradition and discipline, that’s all,” said Miss Hillyard.
“I don’t know,” said Miss Edwards. “I think women are messier by nature. They are naturally picnic-minded.”
“It’s nice to sit out in the open air in this lovely weather,” suggested Miss Chilperic, almost apologetically (for her student days were not far behind her), “and they don’t think how awful it looks.”
“In hot weather,” said Harriet, moving her chair back into the shade, men have the common sense to stay indoors, where it’s cooler.”
“Men,” said Miss Hillyard, “have a passion for frowst.”
“Yes,” said Miss Shaw, “but what were you saying about Miss Newland? You weren’t offering to sell your chance. Miss Vane, were you? Because, take it from me, she’s a hot favourite. She’s the Latymer Scholar, and her work is brilliant.”
“Somebody suggested she was off her feed and likely to be a nonstarter.”
“That’s very unkind,” said Miss Shaw, with indignation. “Nobody’s any right to say such things.”
“I think she looks harassed and on edge,” said the Bursar. “She’s too hard-working and conscientious. She hasn’t got the wind-up about Schools, has she?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her work,” said Miss Shaw. “She does look a little pale, but I expect it’s the sudden heat.”
“Possibly she’s worried about things at home,” suggested Mrs. Goodwin. She had returned to College on the May 9th, her boy having taken a fortunate turn for the better, though he was still not out of the wood. She looked anxious and sympathetic.
“She’d have told me if she had been,” said Miss Shaw. “I encourage my students to confide in me. Of course she’s a very reserved girl, but I have done my best to draw her out, and I feel sure I should have heard if there was anything on her mind.”
“Welt,” said Harriet, “I must see this horse of mine before I decide what to do about my sweep-stake ticket. Somebody must point her out.”
“She’s up in the Library at this moment, I fancy ” said the Dean; “I saw her stewing away there just before dinner-cutting Hall as usual. I nearly spoke to her. Come and stroll through. Miss Vane. If she’s there, we’ll chase her out for the good of her soul. I want to look up a reference, anyhow.”
Harriet got up, laughing, and accompanied the Dean.
“I sometimes think,” said Miss Martin, “that Miss Shaw would get more real confidence from her pupils if she wasn’t always probing into their little insides. She likes people to be fond of her, which I think is rather a mistake. Be kind, but leave ’em alone, is my motto. The shy ones shrink into their shells when they’re poked, and the egotistical ones talk a lot of rubbish to attract attention. However, we all have our methods.”
She pushed open the Library door, halted in the end bay to consult a book and verify a quotation, and then led the way through the long room. At a table near the centre, a thin, fair girl was working amid a pile of reference books. The Dean stopped.
“You still here, Miss Newland? Haven’t you had any dinner?”
“I’ll have some later, Miss Martin. It was so hot, and I want to get this language paper done.”
The girt looked startled and uneasy. She pushed the damp hair back from her forehead. The whites of her eyes showed like those of a fidgety horse.
“Don’t you be a little juggins, said the Dean. ”All work and no play is simply silly in your Schools term. If you go on like this, we’ll have to send you away for a rest-cure and forbid work altogether for a week or so. Have you got a headache? You look as if you had.”
“Not very much, Miss Martin.”
“For goodness’ sake,” said the Dean, “chuck that perishing old Ducange and Meyer-Lübke or whoever it is and go away and play. I’m always having to chase the Schools people off to the river and into the country,” she added, turning to Harriet. “I wish they’d all be like Miss Camperdown-she was after your time. She frightened Miss Pyke by dividing the whole of her Schools term between the river and the tennis courts, and she ended up with a First in Greats.”
Miss Newland looked more alarmed than ever. “I don’t seem able to think,” she confessed. “I forget things and go blank.”
“Of course you do,” said the Dean, briskly. “Sure sign you’re doing too much. Stop it at once. Get up now and get yourself some food and then take a nice novel or something, or find somebody to have a knock-up with you.”
“Please don’t bother. Miss Martin. I’d rather go on with this. I don’t feel like eating and I don’t care about tennis-I wish you wouldn’t bother!” she finished, rather hysterically.
“All right,” said the Dean; “bless you, I don’t want to fuss. But do be sensible.”
“I will, really. Miss Martin. I’ll just finish this paper. I couldn’t feel comfortable if I hadn’t. I’ll have something to eat then and go to bed. I promise I will.”
“That’s a good girl.” The Dean passed on, out of the Library, and said to Harriet:
“I don’t like to see them getting into that state. What do you think of your horse’s chance?”
“Not much,” said Harriet. “I do know her. That is, I’ve seen her before. I saw her last on Magdalen Tower.”
“What?” said the Dean. “Oh, lord!”
Of Lord Saint-George, Harriet had not seen very much during that first fortnight of term. His arm was out of a sling; but a remaining weakness in it had curbed his sporting activities, and when she did see him, he informed her that he was working. The matter of the telegraph pole and the insurance had been safely adjusted and the parental wrath avoided. “Uncle Peter,” to be sure, had had something to say about it, but Uncle Peter, though scathing, was as safe as houses. Harriet encouraged the young gentleman to persevere with his work and refused an invitation to dine and meet “his people.” She had no particular wish to meet the Denvers, and had hitherto successfully avoided doing so.
Mr. Pomfret had been assiduously polite. He and Mr. Rogers had taken her on the river, and had included Miss Cattermole in the party. They had all been on their best behaviour, and a pleasant time had been enjoyed by all, the mention of previous encounters having, by common consent, been avoided. Harriet was pleased with Miss Cattermole; she seemed to have made an effort to throw off the blight that had settled upon her, and Miss Hillyard’s report had been encouraging. Mr. Pomfret had also asked Harriet to lunch and to play tennis; on the former occasion she had truthfully pleaded a previous engagement and, on the second, had said, with rather less truth, that she had not played for years, was out of form and was not really keen. After all, one had one’s work to do (Le Fanu, ‘Twixt Wind and Water, and the History of Prosody among them made up a fairly full programme), and one could not spend all one’s time idling with undergraduates. On the evening after her formal introduction to Miss Newland, however, Harriet encountered Mr. Pomfret accidentally. She had been to see an old Shrewsburian who was attached to the Somerville Senior Common Room, and was crossing St. Giles on her way back, shortly before midnight, when she was aware of a group of young men in evening dress, standing about one of the trees which adorn that famous thoroughfare. Being naturally inquisitive, Harriet went to see what was up. The street was practically deserted, except for through traffic of the ordinary kind. The upper branches of the tree were violently agitated, and Harriet, standing on the outskirts of the little group beneath, learned from their remarks that Mr. Somebody-or-the-other had undertaken, in consequence of an after-dinner bet, to climb every tree in St. Giles without interference from the Proctor. As the number of trees was large and the place public, Harriet felt the wager to be rather optimistic. She was just turning away to cross the street in the direction of the Lamb and Flag when another youth, who had evidently been occupying an observation-post, arrived, breathless, to announce that the Proggins was just coming into view round the corner of Broad Street. The climber came down rather hastily, and the group promptly scattered in all directions-some running past her, some making their way down side-streets, and a few bold spirits fleeing towards the small enclosure known as the Fender, within which (since it belongs not to the Town but to St. John’s) they could play at tig with the Proctor to their hearts’ content. One of the young gentlemen darting in this general direction passed Harriet close, stopped with an exclamation, and brought up beside her.