The New Warden. Ritchie David George
as if I were treacherous in talking about it – and yet I must talk about it – because you have to help me. A really learned man is so – "
"Do you mean that he knows all about Julius Cæsar," said May, "and nothing about himself?"
"I shouldn't mind that so much," said the elder lady, grasping eagerly at this introduction to an analysis of the learned man. "I had better blurt it all out, May. Well – he knows nothing about women – " Lady Dashwood spoke with angry emphasis, but in a whisper.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Dashwood, and now she stared deeply at one particular block of wood that was spitting quietly at the attacking flames. She raised her arm and laid her hand on her aunt Lena's shoulder. Then she squeezed the shoulder slightly as if to gently squeeze out a little more information.
"Jim is – I'm not sure – but I'm suspicious – on the verge of getting into a mess," said her aunt still in a low voice.
"Ah!" said May again. "With some woman?"
"All perfectly proper," said Lady Dashwood, "but – oh, May – it's so unspeakably dreary and desolating."
"Much older than he is?" asked May softly, with an emphasis on "much."
"Very much younger," said Lady Dashwood. "Only eighteen!"
"Not nice then?" asked May again softly.
"Not anything – except pretty – and" – here Lady Dashwood had a strident bitterness in her voice – "and – she has a mother."
"Ah!" said May.
"You know Lady Belinda Scott?" asked Lady Dashwood.
May Dashwood moved her head in assent. "Not having enough money for everything one wants is the root of all evil?" she said imitating somebody.
"Belinda exactly! And all that you and I believe worth having in life – is no more to her – than to – to a monkey up a tree!"
Mrs. Dashwood spoke thoughtfully. "We've come from monkeys and Lady Belinda thinks a great deal of her ancestry."
"Then you understand why I'm anxious? You can imagine – "
May moved her head in response, and then she suddenly turned her face towards her aunt and said in the same voice in which she had imitated Belinda before —
"If dull people like to be dull, it's no credit to 'em!"
Lady Dashwood laughed, but it was a hard bitter laugh.
"Oh, May, you understand. Well, for the twenty-four hours that Belinda was here, she was on her best behaviour. You see, she had plans! You know her habit of sponging for weeks on people – she finds herself appreciated by the 'Nouveaux Riches.' Her title appeals to them. Well, Belinda has never made a home for her one child – not she!"
Mrs. Dashwood's lips moved. "Poor child!" she said softly, and there was something in her voice that made Lady Dashwood aware of what she had momentarily forgotten in her excitement, that the arm resting on her shoulder was the arm of a woman not yet thirty, whose home had suddenly vanished. It had been riddled with bullets and left to die at the retreat from Mons.
Lady Dashwood fell into a sudden silence.
"Go on, dear Aunt Lena," said May Dashwood.
"Well, dear," said Lady Dashwood, drawing in a deep breath, "Linda got wind of my coming here to put Jim straight and she pounced down upon me like a vulture, with Gwen, asked herself for one night, and then talked of 'old days, etc.,' and how she longed for Gwen to see something of our 'old-world city.' So she simply made me keep the child for 'a couple of days,' then 'a week,' and then 'ten days' – and how could I turn the child out of doors? And so – I gave in – like a fool!" Then, after a pause, Lady Dashwood exclaimed – "Imagine Belinda as Jim's mother-in-law!"
"But why should she be?" asked May.
"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 passionate 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 anticipated 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