The New Warden. Ritchie David George
– blew from his bugle strangely ardent, compelling notes. It was simple, monotonous music, but there came from the bugler's own soul a magnificent courage and buoyancy; and the trampling feet responded – responded to the light springing notes, the high ardour and gay fearlessness of youth. There was such hope, such joy in the call of duty! No thought of danger, no thought of suffering! All hearts leapt to the sounds! And the bugler passed and the trampling feet! I could hear the swift, high, passionate notes die in the distance; and I knew that the flower of our youth was marching to its doom."
The Warden got up from his chair, and walked away, and there was silence in the room.
Then he came up to where May sat and looked down at her.
"The High Gods," she said, quietly quoting his own phrase, "wanted them."
He moved away again. "I have no argument for my faith," he said. "The question for us is no longer 'I must believe,' but 'Dare I believe?' The old days of certainty have gone. Inquisitions, Solemn Leagues and Covenants have gone – never to return. All the clamour of men who claim 'to know' has died down."
And as he gazed at her with eyes that demanded an answer she said simply: "I am content with the silence of God."
He made no answer and leaned heavily on the back of his chair. A moment later he began to walk again. "I don't think I can believe that the heroic sacrifice of youth, their bitter suffering, will be mixed up indistinguishably with the cunning meanness of pleasure-seekers, with the sordid humbug of money-makers – in one vast forgotten grave. No, I can't believe that – because the world we know is a rational world."
May glanced round at him as he moved about. The great dimly-lit room was full of shadows, and Middleton's face was dark, full of shadows too, shadows of mental suffering. She looked back at her work and sighed.
"Even if we straighten the crooked ways of life, so that there are no more starving children, no men and women broken with the struggle of life: even if we are able, by self-restraint, by greater scientific knowledge to rid the earth of those diseases that mean martyrdom to its victims; even if hate is turned to love, and vice and moral misery are banished: even if the Kingdom of Heaven does come upon this earth – even then! That will not be a Kingdom of Heaven that is Eternal! This Earth will, in time, die. This Earth will die, that we know; and with it must vanish for ever even the memory of a million years of human effort. Shall we be content with that? I fail to conceive it as rational, and therefore I cling to the hope of some sort of life beyond the grave – Eternal Life. But," and here he spoke out emphatically, "I have no argument for my belief."
He came and stood close beside her now, and looked down at her. "I have no argument for my belief," he repeated.
"And you are content with the silence of God," he added. Then he spoke very slowly: "I must be content."
If he had stretched out his hand to touch hers, it would not have meant any more than did the prolonged gaze of his eyes.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked – its voice alone striking into the silence. It seemed to tick sometimes more loudly, sometimes more softly.
The Warden appeared to force himself away from his own thoughts. With his hands still grasping the back of his chair, he raised his head and stood upright. The tick of the clock fell upon his ear; a monotonous and mechanical sound – indifferent to human life and yet weighted with importance to human life; marking the moments as they passed; moments never to be recalled; steps that are leading irretrievably the human race to their far-off destiny.
As the Warden's eyes watched the hands of the clock, they pointed to five minutes to eleven. A thought came to him.
"All the bells are silent now," he said, "except in the safe daylight."
May looked up at him.
"Even 'Tom' is silent. The Clusius is not tolled now."
He got up and walked along the room to the open window. There he held the curtain well aside and looked back at her. Why it was, May did not know, but it seemed imperative to her to come to him. She put her work aside and came through into the broad embrasure of the bay. Then he let the curtain fall and they stood together in the darkness. The Warden pushed out the latticed frame wider into the dark night. The air was scarcely stirring, it came in warm and damp against their faces.
The quadrangle below them was dimly visible. Eastwards the sky was heavy with a great blank pale space stretching over the battlemented roof and full of the light of a moon that had just risen, but overhead a heavy cloud slowly moved westwards.
They both leaned out and breathed the night air.
"It will rain in a moment," said the Warden.
"In the old days," he said, "there would have been sounds coming from these windows. There would have been men coming light-heartedly from these staircases and crossing to one another. Now all is under military rule: the poor remnant left of undergraduate life – poor mentally and physically – this poor remnant counts for nothing. All that is best has gone, gone voluntarily, eagerly, and the men who fill their places are training for the Great Sacrifice. It's the most glorious and the most terrible thing imaginable!"
May leaned down lower and the silence of the night seemed oppressive when the Warden ceased speaking.
After a moment he said, "In the old days you would have heard some far-off clock strike the hour, probably a thin, cracked voice, and then it would have been followed by other voices. You would have heard them jangle together, and then into their discordance you would have heard the deep voice of 'Tom' breaking."
"But he is at his best," went on the Warden, "when he tolls the Clusius. It is his right to toll it, and his alone. He speaks one hundred and one times, slowly, solemnly and with authority, and then all the gates in Oxford are closed."
Drops of rain fell lightly in at them, and May drew in her head.
"Oxford has become a city of memories to me," said the Warden, and he put out his arm to draw in the window.
"That is only when you are sad," said May.
"Yes," said the Warden slowly, "it is only when I give way to gloom. After all, this is a great time, it can be made a great time. If only all men and women realised that it might be the beginning of the 'Second Coming.' As it is, the chance may slip."
He pulled the window further in and secured it.
May pushed aside the curtain and went back into the glow and warmth of the room.
She gathered up her knitting and thrust it into the bag.
"Are you going?" asked the Warden. He was standing now in the middle of the room watching her.
"I'm going," said May.
"I've driven you away," he said, "by my dismal talk."
"Driven me away!" she repeated. "Oh no!" Her voice expressed a great reproach, the reproach of one who has suffered too, and who has "dreamed dreams." Surely he knew that she could understand!
"Forgive me!" he said, and held out his hand impulsively. At least it seemed strangely impulsive in this self-contained man.
She put hers into it, withdrew it, and together they went to the door. For the first time in her life May felt the sting of a strange new pain. The open door led away from warmth and a world that was full and satisfying – at least it would have led away from such a world – a world new to her – only that she was saying "Good night" and not "Good-bye." Later on she would have to say "Good-bye." How many days were there before that – five whole days? She walked up the steps, and went into the corridor. Louise was there, just coming towards her.
"Madame desires me to say good night," said Louise, giving May's face a quick searching glance.
"I'll come and say good night to her," said May, "if it's not too late."
No, it was not too late. Louise led the way, marvelling at the callous self-assurance of English people.
Louise opened her mistress's door, and though consumed with raging curiosity, left Mrs. Dashwood to enter alone.
"Oh, May!" cried Lady Dashwood. She was moving about the