CHAPTER XXIX
DINNER
"I am sorry I'm late," said the Warden quietly, and he looked at bothhis guests. "I have been with Lady Dashwood. I must apologise, Bingham,for her absence. I expect Mrs. Dashwood has already told you that she isnot well."
The bow with which the Warden offered his arm to May was one whichincluded more than the mere formal invitation to go down to dinner, itmeant a greeting after absence and an acknowledgment that she was actingas his hostess. It was one of those ceremonial bows which men are rarelyable to make without looking pompous. He had the reputation, in Oxford,of being one of the very few men who, in his tutorial days, couldpresent men for degrees with academic grace.
"I'm sorry, Bingham," he said; "I have only just returned, or I mighthave secured a fourth to dinner--yes, even in war time."
May went downstairs, wondering. Wondering how it was that the worst wasso soon over, and that, after all, instead of feeling a painful pity forthe man whose arm held hers in a light grasp, she felt strangelytimorous of him.
She was profoundly thankful for the presence of Bingham, who wasfollowing behind, cheerful and chatty, having put aside, apparently, allrecollection of the conversation of the evening before. Yes, whateverhis secret thoughts might have been, Bingham appeared to have forgottenthat there were any moonlight nights in the streets of Oxford. For this,May blessed him.
They entered the long dining-room and, sitting at the Warden's end ofthe table, formed a bright living space of light and movement. Outsidethat bright space the room gradually sombred to the dark panelled walls.The Warden, in his high-backed chair, looked the very impersonation ofOxford. This was what struck Bingham as he glanced at his host, and thethought suggested that hater of Oxford, the Warden's relative, BernardBoreham.
"I have just got your friend Boreham to undertake a job of work," saidBingham. "It'll do him a world of good to have work, a library tocatalogue for the use of our prisoners. He wanted to shove off the jobto some chaplain. I was to procure the chaplain, just as if all menweren't scarce, even chaplains!"
Composed as the Warden was, he looked at Bingham with something of eagerattention on his face, as if relying on him for support andconversation.
"Poor old Boreham, he is a connection of mine by marriage," he said, andas the words fell from his lips, he, in his present sensitive mood,recoiled from them, for they implied that Boreham was not a friend. Whywas he posing as one who was too superior to choose Boreham as a friend?
"Talking of chaplains," said Bingham, who knew nothing of what was goingon in the Warden's mind, and thought this sudden stop came from dislikeof any reference to Boreham--"talking of parsons, why not release allparsons in West End churches for the war?"
A smile came into May's face at the extreme sweetness of Bingham'svoice; a warning that he was about to say something biting.
"Release all parsons who have smart congregations," continued Bingham,in honied tones; "parsons with congregations of jolly, well-dressedwomen, women who enjoy having their naughtiness slanged from the pulpitjust as they enjoy having their photographs in the picture papers. Theirspiritual necessities would be more than adequately provided for if theywere given a dummy priest and a gramophone."
May's smile seemed to stimulate Bingham's imagination.
"To waste on them a real parson with a soul and a rudimentaryintellect," he went on, "is like giving a glass of Moselle to anagricultural labourer when he would be happy with a mug of beer. But theChurch wastes its energies even in this time of heartbreakings."
"I should like to see you, Bingham," said the Warden, smiling too, andturning his narrow eyes, in his slow deliberate manner, towards hisguest, "as chairman to a committee of English bishops, on theReconstruction of the Church."
"I've no quarrel with our bishops," said Bingham; "I don't want them toextol every new point of view as they pass along. I don't expect them tobehave like young men. Nor do I expect them to be like the Absolute,without 'body, parts or passions.' My indictment is not even againstthat mere drop in the ocean, 'good Christian souls,' but againsthumanity and human nature!" Bingham looked from one to the other of hislisteners. "Until now, the only people we have taken quite seriously arethe very well dressed and the--well, the undressed. The two classesoverlap continually. But now we've got to take everybody seriously; weare going to have a Democracy. Human nature has got a new tool, and thetool is Democracy. The new tool is to be put into the same foolish oldhands, and we shall very soon discover what we shall call 'the sins ofDemocracy.' What is fundamentally wrong with us is what apparently wecan't help: it's that we are ourselves, that we are human beings."Bingham smiled into his plate. "We adopt Christianity, and because weare human beings we make it intellectually rigid and morally sloppy. Weare patronising Democracy, and we shall make it intellectually rigid andmorally sloppy too--if we don't take care. Everything we handle becomesintellectually rigid and morally sloppy. And yet we still fancy that, ifonly we could get hold of the right tools, our hands would do the rightwork."
"The Reconstruction of Human Nature is what you are demanding," said theWarden.
"Yes, that's what we want," sighed Bingham. "When we have got rid of theHuns, we must begin to think about it."
"If you saw the children I have seen, Mr. Bingham," said May, quietly,"you would want to begin at once, and I think you would be hopeful."
There was on the Warden's face a sudden passionate assent that Binghamdetected.
"All men," said Bingham, leaning back in his chair and regarding his twolisteners with veiled attention--"all men like to hear a woman saysweet, tender, hopeful things, even if they don't believe them. As formyself, Mrs. Dashwood, I admit that your 'higher optimism' haunts me tooat times; at rare times when, for instance, the weather in Oxford is dryand bright and bracing."
If he had for a moment doubted it since the afternoon at the Hardings',Bingham was now sure, as sure as a man can be of what is unconfessed inwords, that between this man and woman sitting at the table with him wassome secret sensitive interest that was not friendship.
How did this conviction affect Bingham and Bingham's spirits? Itcertainly did not put a stop to his flow of talk. Rather, he talked themore; he was even more sweetly cynical and amiably scintillating thanusual. If his heart was wounded, and he himself was not sure whether itwas or not, he hid that heart successfully in a sheath of his ownsparks.
A pause came when Robinson put out the light over the carving-table andwithdrew with Robinson Junior. The dining-room was silent. Bingham dranksome wine, the Warden mused, and May Dashwood sat with her eyes on aglass of water by her, looking at it as if she could see some vision inits transparency. The fire was glowing a deep red in the great stonechimney-piece at the further end of the room. A coal fell forward uponthe hearth with a strangely solitary sound. Bingham glanced towards thefire and then round the room, and then at his host, and lastly at MayDashwood.
"I heard a rumour," he said, and he took a sip of his claret, "that yourcollege ghost had made an appearance!"
There came another silence in the room.
"One doesn't know how such rumours come about," continued Bingham;"perhaps you hadn't even heard of this one?" He looked across at May andround at the Warden. Neither of them seemed to be aware that a questionwas being asked.
"I didn't know King's even claimed a ghost," said Bingham again. "I'veheard of the ghost of Shelley in the High," he added, smiling. "A ghostfor the tourist who comes to see the Shelley Memorial."
May looked down rather closely at the table.
The Warden moved stiffly. "I don't believe Shelley would want to come,"he said. "He always despised his Alma Mater."
"He was a bit of an _enfant terrible_," said Bingham, "from the tutor'spoint of view."
May raised her eyes with relief; the Warden had parried the question ofthe ghost with skill.
"And I don't believe," said the Warden, "that any one returns who hasmerely roystered within our walls," and he smiled.
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nbsp; Bingham was now looking very attentively at the Warden out of his darkeyes.
"Jeremy Bentham," he said, "seems to have been afraid of ghosts, when hewas an undergraduate here. He was afraid of barging against them on darkcollege staircases. It's a fear I can't grasp. I would much rather comeinto collision with any ghost than with the Stroke of the 'VarsityEight, whether the staircase was dark or not."
"If there are ghosts," said the Warden, pensively, "I should expect tosee Cranmer, on some wild night, wandering near the places where heendured his passion and his death. Or I should expect to see Laud pacingthe streets, amazed at the order and discipline of modern Oxford. Ifpersonal attachment could bring a man from the grave," he went on,meeting Bingham's eyes with a smile, "why shouldn't that least ghostlyof all scholars, your old master, Jowett--why shouldn't he walk at nightwhen Balliol is asleep?"
"Then there was nothing in the rumour," said Bingham, "that your King'sghost has turned up?"
"The Warden doesn't believe in ghosts," said May, looking across thetable eagerly. She remembered how he had stood by the bedside ofGwendolen that night. She recalled the room vividly, the gloom of theroom and he alone standing in the light thrown upon him by the lamp. Shecould recall every tone of his voice as he said: "You thought you sawsomething. You made a mistake. You saw nothing, you imagined that yousaw--there was nothing," and how his voice convinced _her_, as she stoodby the fire and listened. How long ago was that--only three days--itseemed like a month.
"No," said the Warden, "I don't believe in ghosts. At least, I don'tbelieve that our dead"--and he pronounced the last word reverently--"aresuch that they can return to us in human form, or through theintervention of some hired medium. But if there are ghosts in Oxford,"he went on, and now he turned to Bingham, as if he were answering hisquestion--"if there are ghosts in Oxford they will be the ghosts ofthose who were, in life, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. I amthinking of those men who lived and died in Oxford, recluses who knew noother world, and of whom the world knew nothing--men who used to flitlike shadows from their solitary rooms to the Lecture hall and to Hightable and to the Common room. Those men were monks in all but name;celibates, solitaries--men to whom the laughter of youth was maddeningpain."
May's eyes dropped! What the Warden was saying stabbed her, not merelybecause of the words he said, but because his voice conveyed the senseof that poignant pain.
"Such men as I speak of," he went on, "Oxford must always havepossessed, even in the boisterous days when you fellows of All Souls,"he said, addressing Bingham, "used to pull your doors off their hingesto make bonfires in honour of the mallard. There always have been thesemen, students shy and sensitive, shrinking from the rougher side of theordinary man, shrinking from ordinary social life; men who are onlycourageous in their devotion to learning and to truth; men who arelonely with that awful loneliness of those who live in the world ofthoughts. I knew one such man myself. Those who believe in ghosts maycome upon the shades of these men in the passages and in the cloistersat night, or hiding in the dark recesses of our college windows. Why, Ican feel them everywhere--and yet I don't believe in ghosts." The Wardenplaced his elbows upon the table and rested his chin upon his hands, andlooked down at the table-cloth.
May said nothing; she was listening, her face bent but expressive evento her eyebrows.
"Neither do I," said Bingham, in an altered voice. "I don't believe inghosts, and yet, what do we know of this world? We talk of it glibly.But what do we know of the forces which make up the phantasmagoria thatwe call the World? What do we know of this vast universe? We perceivesomething of it by touch, by sight, sound and smell. These are the doorsthrough which its forces penetrate the brain of man. These doors are ourway of 'being aware' of life. The psychology of man is in its infancy.And remember"--here Bingham leaned over the table and rested his eyes onMay--"it is man studying himself! That makes the difficulty!" Binghamwas serious now, and he had slipped from slang into the academic form inwhich his thoughts really moved.
"And we don't even know whether our ways of perceiving are the onlyways," said the Warden.
"Anyhow," said Bingham, turning to him, "the ghosts you 'feel,' andwhich you and I don't believe in, belong to the old Oxford, the Oxfordwhich is gone."
There came a sudden silence in the long room, and May felt that sheought to make a move. She looked at the Warden.
"That Oxford," continued Bingham, "is gone for ever. It began to go whenmen hedged it round with red brick, and went to live under red-tiledroofs with wives and children."
"Yes, it has gone," said the Warden. "Must you leave us!" he asked,rising, as May looked at him and made a movement to rise.
Bingham rose to his feet, but he stood with his hand holding the footof his glass and gazing into its crimson depths.
"Pardon, Middleton! Mrs. Dashwood, one moment," he said, and he raisedhis glass solemnly till it was almost on a level with his dark face."Will you pledge me?" he asked. "To the old Oxford that is past andgone!"
The Warden and May were both drinking water. They raised their glassesand touched Bingham's wine which glowed in the light from above, almostsuggesting something sacramental. And Bingham himself looked like asmooth, swarthy priest of mediaeval story, half-serious and half-gay,disguised in modern dress.
"To the Oxford of sacred memory," he said.
They drank.
May was thinking deeply and as she was about to place her glass backupon the table, the thought that was struggling for expression came toher. She lifted her glass: "To the Oxford that is to be," she saidgently. She glanced first at Bingham, and then her eyes rested for amoment upon the Warden.
Bingham watched her keenly. He could see that at that moment she had nothought of herself. Her thoughts were of Oxford alone, and, Binghamguessed, with the man with whom she identified Oxford.
Bingham hesitated to raise his glass. Was it a flash of jealousy thatwent through him? A jealousy of the new Oxford and all that it mightmean to the two human beings beside him? If it was jealousy it died outas swiftly as it had come.
He raised his glass.
"To the Oxford of the Future," said the Warden.
"Ad multos annos," said Bingham.
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