David Ritchie - The New Warden

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 room in a grey dressing-gown, looking very restless, and with her hair down.

"You didn't come down again," said May; "you were tired?"

"I wasn't tired!" Here Lady Dashwood paused. "May, I have, by pure accident, come upon a letter – from Belinda to Gwen. I don't know how it came among my own letters, but there it was, opened. I don't know if I opened it by mistake, but anyhow there it was opened; I began reading the nauseous rubbish, and then realised that I was reading Belinda. Now the question is, what to do with the letter? It contains advice. May, Gwen is to secure the Warden! It seems odd to see it written down in black and white."

Lady Dashwood stared hard at her niece – who stood before her, thoughtful and silent.

"Shall I give it to Gwen – or what?" she asked.

"Well," began May, and then she stopped.

"Of course, I blame myself for being such a fool as to have taken in Belinda," said Lady Dashwood (for the hundredth time). "But the question now is – what to do with the letter? It isn't fit for a nice girl to read; but, no doubt, she's read scores of letters like it. The girl is being hawked round to see who will have her – and she knows it! She probably isn't nice! Girls who are exhibited, or who exhibit themselves on a tray ain't nice. Jim knows this; he knows it. Oh, May! as if he didn't know it. You understand!"

May Dashwood stood looking straight into her aunt's face, revolving thoughts in her own mind.

"Some people, May," said Lady Dashwood, "who want to be unkind and only succeed in being stupid, say that I am a matchmaker. I have always conscientiously tried to be a matchmaker, but I have rarely succeeded. I have been so happy with my dear old husband that I want other people to be happy too, and I am always bringing young people together – who were just made for each other. But they won't have it, May! I introduce a sweet girl full of womanly sense and affection to some nice man, and he won't have her at any price. He prefers some cheeky little brat who after marriage treats him rudely and decorates herself for other men. I introduce a really good man to a really nice girl and she won't have him, she 'loves,' if you please, a man whom decent men would like to kick, and she finds herself spending the rest of her life trying hard to make her life bearable. I dare say your scientists would say – Nature likes to keep things even, bad and good mixed together. Well, I'm against Nature. My under-housemaid develops scarlet fever, and dear old Nature wants her to pass it on to the other maids, and if possible to the cook. Well, I circumvent Nature."