David Ritchie - The New Warden

May Dashwood's face slowly smiled.

"But I did not bring Gwendolen Scott to this house – she was forced upon me – and I was weak enough to give in. Now, I should very much like to say something when I give the letter to Gwen. But I shall have to say nothing. Yes, nothing," repeated Lady Dashwood, "except that I must tell her that I have, by mistake, read the first few lines."

"Yes," said May Dashwood.

"After all, what else could I say?" exclaimed Lady Dashwood. "You can't exactly tell a daughter that you think her mother is a shameless hussy, even if you may think that she ought to know it."

"Poor Gwen and poor Lady Belinda!" said May Dashwood sighing, and moving to go, and trying hard to feel real pity in her heart.

"No," said Lady Dashwood, raising her voice, "I don't say 'poor Belinda.' I don't feel a bit sorry for the old reprobate, I feel more angry with her. Don't you see yourself – now you know Jim," continued Lady Dashwood, throwing out her words at her niece's retreating figure – "don't you see that Jim deserves something better than Belinda and Co.? Now, would you like to see him saddled for life with Gwendolen Scott?"

May Dashwood did not reply immediately; she seemed to be much occupied in walking very slowly to the door and then in slowly turning the handle of the door. Surely Gwendolen and her mother were pitiable objects – unsuccessful as they were?

"Now, would you?" demanded Lady Dashwood. "Would you?"

"I should trust him not to do that," said May, as she opened the door. She looked back at the tall erect figure in the grey silk dressing-gown. "Good night, dear aunt." And she went out. "You see, I am running away, and I order you to go to bed. You are tired." She spoke through the small open space she had left, and then she closed the door.

"Trust him! Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood, in a loud voice.

But she was not altogether displeased with the word "trust" in May Dashwood's mouth. "She seems pretty confident that Jim isn't going to make a martyr of himself," she said to herself happily.

The door opened and Louise entered with an enigmatical look on her face. Louise had been listening outside for the tempestuous sounds that in her country would have issued from any two normal women under the same circumstances.

But no such sounds had reached her attentive ears, and here was Lady Dashwood moving about with a serene countenance. She was even smiling. Oh, what a country, what people!

The next morning it was still raining. It was a typical Oxford day, a day of which there are so many in the year that those who have best known Oxford think of her fondly in terms of damp sandstone.

They remember her gabled roofs, narrow pavements, winding alleys humid and shining from recent rain; her mullioned windows looking out on high-walled gardens where the over-hanging trees drip and drip in chastened melancholy. They remember her floating spires piercing the lowering sodden sky, her grey courts and solemn doorways, her echoing cloisters; all her incomparable monastic glory soaked through and through with heavy languorous moisture, and slowly darkening in a misty twilight.

It is this sobering atmosphere that has brought to birth and has bred the "Oxford tone;" the remorseless, if somewhat playful handling of ideas.

Gwendolen Scott was no more aware of the existence of an "Oxford tone," bred (as all organic life has been) in the damp, than was the maidservant who brought her tea in the morning; but she perceived the damp. She could see through the latticed windows of the breakfast-room that it rained, rained and rained, and the question was what she should do to make the time pass till they must start for Chartcote? No letter had yet come from her mother – and the old letter was still lost.

The best Gwen could hope for was that it had been picked up and thrown into the paper basket and destroyed.

Meanwhile what should she do? Lady Dashwood was always occupied during the mornings. Mrs. Dashwood did not seem to be at her disposal. What was she to do? Should she practise the "Reverie"? No, she didn't want to "fag" at that. She had asked the housemaid to mend a pair of stockings, and she found these returned to her room – boggled! How maddening – what idiots servants were! She found another pair that wanted mending. She hadn't the courage to ask Louise to mend it. If she tried to mend it herself she would only make a mess of it – besides she hadn't any lisle thread or needles.

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