Watersprings by Arthur Christopher Benson (read more books txt) 📕

in the dim room, in the faint light; and how fearless and frank she had been! He was conscious only of something adorable, which raised, as beautiful things did, a sense of something unapproachable, some yearning which could not be satisfied. How far away, how faded and dusty his ordinary contented Cambridge life now seemed to him!

He breakfasted alone, read a few letters which had been forwarded to him, and went to the library. A few minutes later Miss Merry tapped at the door, and came in.

"Mrs. Graves asked me to say--she was sorry she forgot to mention it--that if you care for shooting or fishing, the keeper will come in and take your orders. She thinks you might like to ask Jack to luncheon and go out with him; she sends you her love, and wants you to do what you like."

"Thank you very much!" said Howard, "I rather expect Jack will be round here and I will ask him. I know he would like it, and I should too--if you are sure Mrs. Graves approves."

"Oh, yes," said Miss Merry, smiling, "she always approves of people doing what they like."

Miss Merry still hesitated at the door. "May I ask you another question, Mr. Kennedy--I hope I am not troublesome--I wonder if you could suggest some books for us to read? I read a good deal to Mrs. Graves, and I am afraid we get rather into a groove. We ought to read some of the new books; we want to know what people are saying and thinking--we don't want to get behind."

"Why, of course," said Howard, "I shall be delighted--but I am afraid I am not likely to be of much use; I don't read as much as I ought; but if you will tell me the sort of things you care about, and what you have been reading, we will try to make out a list. Won't you sit down and see what we can do?"

"Oh, I don't like to interrupt you," said Miss Merry. "But if you would be so kind."

She sat down at the far end of the table, and Howard was dimly and amusedly conscious that this tete-a-tete was of the nature of a romantic adventure to the little lady. He was surprised, when they came to talk, to find how much they appeared to have read of a solid kind. He asked if they had any plan.

"No, indeed," said Miss Merry, "we just wander on; one thing suggests another. Mrs. Graves likes LONG books; she says she likes to get at a subject quietly--that there ought not to be too many good things in books; she likes them slow and spacious."

"I am afraid one has to go back a good way for that!" said Howard. "People can't afford now to know more than a manual of a couple of hundred pages can tell them about a subject. I can tell you some good historical books, and some books of literary criticism and biography. I can't do much about poetry or novels; and philosophy, science, and theology I am no use at all for. But I could get you some advice if you like. That's the best of Cambridge, there are so many people about who are able to tell what to read."

While they were making out a list, Jack arrived breathlessly, and Miss Merry shamefacedly withdrew. Howard said: "Perhaps that will do to go on with--we will have another talk to-morrow. I begin to see the sort of thing you want."

Jack was in a state of high excitement.

"What on earth were you doing," he said, as the door closed, "with that sedate spinster?"

"We were making out a list of books!"

"Ah," said Jack with a profound air, "books are dangerous things--that's the intellectual way of making love! You must be a great excitement here, with all your ideas!--but now," he went on, "here I am--I hurried back the moment breakfast was over. I have been horribly bored--a lawn-tennis party yesterday, the females much to the fore--it's no good that, it's not the game; at least it's not lawn-tennis; it's a game all right, but I much suspect it has to do with love-making rather than exercise."

"You seem very suspicious this morning," said Howard; "you accuse me of flirting to begin with, and now you suspect lawn-tennis."

Jack shook his head. "I do hate love-making!" he said, "it spoils everything--it gets in the way, and makes fools of people; the longer I live, the more I see that most of the things that people do are excuses for doing something else! But never mind that! I said I had got to get back to be coached; I said that one of our dons was staying in the village and had his eye on me. What I want to know is whether you have made any arrangements about shooting or fishing? You said you would if you could."

"The keeper is coming in," said Howard, "and we will have a talk to him; but mind, on one condition--work in the morning, exercise in the afternoon; and you are to stop to lunch."

"Cousin Anne is bursting into hospitality," said Jack, "because Maud is coming in for the afternoon. I haven't had time to pump Maud yet about you, but, by George, I'm going to pump you about her and father. Did you have a very thick time last night? I could see father was rather licking his lips."

"Now, no more chatter," said Howard; "you go and get some books, and we will set to work at once." Jack nodded and fled.

When he came back the keeper was waiting, a friendly old man, who seemed delighted at the idea of some sport. Jack said, "Look here, I have arranged it all. Shooting to-day, and you can have father's gun; he hardly ever uses it, and I have my own. Fishing to-morrow, and so on alternately. There are heaps of rabbits up the valley--the place crawls with them."

Howard taught Jack for an hour, as clearly and briskly as he could, making him take notes. He found him quick and apt, and at the end, Jack said, "Now if I could only do this every day at Cambridge, I should soon get on. My word, you do do it well! It makes me shudder to think of all the practice you must have had."

Howard set Jack down to prepare some further work by himself, and attacked his own papers; and very soon it was time for lunch.

Mrs. Graves greeted Jack with much affectionateness, and asked what they had arranged for the afternoon. Howard told her, and added that he hoped she did not object to shooting.

"No, not at all," said Mrs. Graves, "if YOU can do it conscientiously--I couldn't! As usual I am hopelessly inconsistent. I couldn't kill things myself, but as long as I eat meat, I can't object. It's no good arguing about these things. If one begins to argue about destroying life, there are such excellent reasons for not eating anything, or wearing anything, or even crossing the lawn! I have long believed that plants are conscious, but we have got to exist somehow at each other's expense. Instinct is the only guide for women; if they begin to reason, they get run away with by reason; that is what makes fanatics. I won't go so far as to wish you good sport, but you may as well get all the rabbits you can; I'll send them round the village, and try to salve my conscience so."

They talked a little about the books Howard had been recommending, but Mrs. Graves was bent on making much of Jack.

"I don't get you here often by yourself," she said. "I daren't ask a modern young man to come and see two old frumps--one old frump, I mean! But I gather that you have views of your own, Jack, and some day I shall try to get at them. I suppose that in a small place like this we all know a great deal more about each other than we suspect each other of knowing. What a comfort that we have tongues that we can hold! It wouldn't be possible to live, if we knew that all the absurdities we pride ourselves on concealing were all perfectly well known and canvassed by all our friends. However, as long as we only enjoy each other's faults, and don't go in for correcting them, we can get on. I hope you don't DISAPPROVE of people, Jack! That's the hopeless attitude."

"Well, I hate some people," said Jack, "but I hate them so much that it is quite a pleasure to meet them and to think how infernal they are; and when it's like that, I should be sorry if they improved."

"I won't go as far as that," said Howard. "The most I do is to be thankful that their lack of improvement can still entertain me. One can never be thankful enough for really grotesque people. But I confess I don't enjoy seeing people spiteful and mean and vicious. I want to obliterate all that."

"I want it to be obliterated," said Mrs. Graves; "but I don't feel equal to doing it. Oh, well, we mustn't get solemn over it; that's the mischief! But I mustn't keep you gentlemen from more serious pursuits--'real things,' I believe, Jack?"

"Mr. Kennedy has been sneaking on me," said Jack. "I don't like to see people mean and spiteful. It gives me pain. I want all that obliterated."

"This is what happens to my pupils," said Howard. "Come on, Jack, you shall not expose my methods like this."

They went off with the old keeper, who carried a bag of writhing ferrets, and was accompanied by a boy with a spade and a line and a bag of cartridges. As they went on, Jack catechised Howard closely.

"Did my family behave themselves?" he said. "Did you want them obliterated? I expect you had a good pull at the Governor, but don't forget he is a good chap. He is so dreadfully interested, but you come to plenty of sense last of all. I admit it is last, but it's there. It's no joke facing him if there's a row! he doesn't say much then, and that makes it awful. He has a way of looking out of the window, if I cheek him, for about five minutes, which turns me sick. Up on the top he is a bit frothy--but there's no harm in that, and he keeps things going."

"Yes," said Howard, "I felt that, and I may tell you plainly I liked him very much, and thought him a thoroughly good sort."

"Well, what about Maud?" said Jack.

Howard felt a tremor. He did not want to talk about Maud, and he did not want Jack to talk about her. It seemed like laying hands on something sacred and secluded. So he said, "Really, I don't know as yet--I only had one talk with her. I can't tell. I thought her delightful; like you with your impudence left out."

"The little cat!" said Jack; "she is as impudent as they make them. I'll be bound she has taken the length of your foot. What did she talk about? stars and flowers? That's one of her dodges."

"I decline to answer," said Howard; "and I won't have you spoiling my impressions. Just leave me alone to make up my mind, will you?"

Jack looked at him,--he had spoken sharply--nodded, and said, "All right! I won't give her away. I see you