A Proctor's Wooing

Front matter

A PROCTOR'S WOOING a zA Proctor s JVooing BY ALAN ST AUBYN Author of K— 'A Fellow of Trinity,' ' The junior Dean,' 'A Tragic Honeymoon,' ' To Step Aside is Human,' Etc. L.ONDON F. V. WHITE & CO. 14 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. — 'A Young Man's Fancy' .... i II. — Theo Lee 13 III. — King's College Chapel .... 22 IV. — A Woman's College 32 V. — A Bunch of Violets 39 VI. — The Flower Shop in St Peter's Passage 48 VII. — The Dean of St Crispin's. ... 61 VIII. — Over the Tea Cups 79 IX. — 'Yellow Queen' 90 X. — Beer! Beer! Glorious Beer! . . . 103 XI. — 'Proggins!' 113 XII. — A Pretty Kettle of Fish . . . 123 XIII. — Pistols for Two 135 XIV.— 'Aunt! Aunt!' 147 XV. — The Bedmaker's Help . . . . 159 XVI. — A Congregation of the Senate . . 171 XVII.— Tammy kicks up a Shindy ... 182 XVIII.— Wearing the Willow .... 199 XIX. — Two Lucky Sixpences .... 213 XX. — A Matter of Opinion ....

VI CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XXI. — A Trying Interview 239 XXII. — The Woman in Grey 250 XXIII.— Geraldine's Decision 262 XXIV. — 'Cambridge College' 270 XXV.— Reading the Lists 278 XXVI.— Going Down 288 XXVII. — A Ladder of Ropes

Chapter I

'A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY' In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.' Walter Severne was not unlike other men. He was moved by the season. His pulses were stirred ' with the fulness of the spring.' He was in love. He had no right to be in love ; he was only an undergraduate with very modest expectations. He had his career in the world to carve out for himself; he had no one to give him a helping hand. It was as much as the two fond foolish women who ruled — or strove to rule — his destiny could do to give him the equipment of a Uni versity education. A splendid equipment for the battle of life, if the silly fellow had the wisdom to use it aright. It was the last day of the vacation, and his portmanteau was packed, or nearly packed. His mother was pausing for a moment before she drew over the straps of the little compartment A where his shirts and socks were neatly stowed away.

It looked like a woman's packing ; the neat even pile of shirts, and the rows of socks. She paused with a sock in her hand, which she was regarding with a meditative eye. ' Is Theo Lee going up to Cambridge with you to-morrow, Walter ? ' She asked the question abruptly, and the young man she addressed changed colour. He was packing his books in a bag, and his back was turned to his mother; she did not see the flush her words had called up. ' Not that I am aware of, mother — at least — she has not told me — that — she is going.' Walter Severne did not usually stammer, but could not keep a tremor out of his voice when he spoke of Theo Lee. ' If she goes to-morrow, you will travel together, of course ; there is no other train,' she said sharply. ' No; there is no other train,' her son admitted. ' I was thinking, if you travel with Theo, you ought to wear your new tweed suit, not the grey.

It's on the top, luckily, so I can easily take it out.' ' The grey will do very well, mother,' Walter Severne said, turning a deeper red than before. ' Theo has seen me often enough in the grey.' ' If you travel with her, you ought not to look shabby. I'm sure your dear father, when he was courting, always wore his best clothes — ' ' But I'm not courting, mother ; I can't think what put such a thing in your head ! ' he said interrupting her with quite unnecessary warmth. His mother smiled, and shook her head. ' Oh, you silly boy ! As if it hadn't been plain to everybody ! Put it into my head, indeed, when all the village is talking about it ! ' ' I wish people would mind their own business,' he said savagely, stuffing the books he was pack ing, into the bag. ' They seem to know more about my concerns than I know myself.' Then he stopped in the middle of his packing, and looked across the table at his mother, who had still got that red sock in her hand. ' You don't believe this nonsense, mother, do you ?

There's no truth in it.' His eyes were troubled and defiant, and his cheeks were flaming like a poppy. He was such a transparent fellow, he could not hide his feelings. If his mother had not believed the 'nonsense' before, she believed it now. She could not reject the evidence of her own eyes. She dropped the red sock she had been examin ing. She did not put it back into the bag, she threw it aside with a sigh ; it was not worth packing. Perhaps she was thinking of the sock when she sighed. 'She is a very nice girl, Walter; I don't think you could do better — ' ' I don't think I could, mother ; but it is out of the question. Theo has been very kind to me — kinder than I deserve— but she looks higher ; she has a right to look higher.' ' I don't know about that,' Mrs Severne said, pausing in her packing, and looking across the table at her son, who was stuffing the books into the bag in a hurried, nervous fashion. ' I don't know about that.' Her eyes grew soft as she looked at him across the shabby old portmanteau, and her mind went back over twenty years, and the father, not the son, stood before her.

She remembered the time — it seemed only yester day, looking back — when she had given up every thing, everything for his father. She might have looked much higher ; she was an Angerstein, and she had run away with a country apothecary. He had remained a country apothecary to the end of the chapter ; and her father had never forgiven her. He had closed his doors upon her, and struck her name out of his will ; but she had never regretted her choice. If Walter Severne were like his father, she had some excuse for her folly. A fair, frank, fresh-coloured young man, standing over six feet in his shoes ; a strong, broad shouldered fellow, with the fair, keen face that distinguishes an Englishman all over the world, and clear, grey eyes, rather a dark shade of grey, and light brown hair, that curled all over his head in crisp, short curls, for the very strength of it.

Walter Severne was an athlete as well as a scholar ; he had given up a great deal of his time at Cambridge to athletics, hence the strength of limb, and the width of shoulder, and the manly frame that his mother's eyes dwelt upon with so much pride. She could not understand a girl looking higher. Theo Lee was the eldest daughter of the Rector of Silverton, and she was going up to Cambridge, to a woman's college. Walter had been coaching her during the vacation ; he had been helping her to get up the subjects for the ' Little-go.' He was her tutor, in fact. There was no reason why he should not take her up to Cambridge ; why, as they would travel by the same train, he should not be her escort to the end of her journey. He might give her some ' tips ' by the way. If the gossips of Silverton had not got up that absurd rumour, had not put that ridiculous con struction upon his frequent visits to the Rectory, Walter would have desired nothing better than to have taken his pupil up to Newnham, to have de livered her up at the gates of that august seat of learning.

Now the silly fellow hesitated and held back, and proposed to put off his journey another day. He did not know what people would say if Theo and he went away together. He was thinking of Theo, not of himself. His mother had no patience with him. She could not understand his hesitation. His father would not have hesitated in his place. The journey was not put off after all. The portmanteau was packed and strapped. The new tweed suit, which was to be the piece de resistance of the summer term, took up so much room that half the things his mother wanted to get into the portmanteau had to be left out. It was his father's old portmanteau, and there was no other ; there was only a shabby old leather hat-box of an ancient shape, that looked, Walter remarked, as if it had come out of the Ark, to take the rest of his things.

They were all got in at last, and the packing was done ; everything was ready to start in the morning. It was a pity to put off the journey for a whim. ' You'll say good-bye to your Aunt Susan be fore you go, Walter,' Mrs Severne said to her son when the last straps were buckled or refused to be buckled. ' You had better go over to-night ; you won't have time in the morning.' She was afraid he would still change his mind; he was a foolish, quixotic fellow. He had such a ridiculous sense of honour, there was no saying what he would do. He was unlike his father, who always knew what he wanted, and who generally got it. Perhaps he inherited his absurd quixotism from his mother. ' Of course I shall say good-bye to Aunt Susan,' ' 7 he said, with a laugh ; ' I'm not likely to go away without ! ' Aunt Susan was an elderly maiden aunt, his father's sister, who paid for his education at the University.

Mrs Severne, with her slender means, could not have sent her boy to college without Aunt Susan's help. He would have had to go into a bank, or a merchant's office, or get an appointment in the civil service, as thousands of better men are doing every day. A stool in an office or a counting-house is good enough for the son of a village apothecary, but Aunt Susan looked higher. She had set her heart on her boy going into the Church. It had been the aim of her life. She did not do much for the children her elder brother had left behind him. She singled out Walter for the distinction she had set her heart on. ' Is my aunt up, Withers ? ' Walter asked the elderly domestic who opened the door of Miss Severne's house in the High Street on the even ing of the day when the portmanteau had been packed.

He had not gone until late ; he had put off going until the last moment. Perhaps he had not quite made up his mind. ' She'd 'most given you up ; she's been looking for you all the evening ; I've not known how to quiet her for the last two hours. It's been, "Do you think he'll come, Withers ? Is that his knock ? " every five minutes. I'm glad you've come at last ; she wouldn't have had a wink of sleep this blessed night for worritin' about you,' the old woman grumbled, as she lighted Walter up the stairs. ' I'm very sorry, Withers,' the object of so much solicitude said humbly, as he followed his aunt's attendant up the stairs, ' I did not know that she expected me to-night' ' She's been expecting you all day,' the old woman said sharply; 'she's got nothing else to think of. When I took in her breakfast this morning, she was sitting up ready waiting for it.

" My boy'll be coming presently, Withers," she said, " you must have a good fire burning ; he likes a good fire." She have kept up a fire all day expecting you.' This was meant reproachfully ; Miss Susan was known to be careful of coals and of lights. She was never wasteful of either. ' We must be careful, Withers,' she used to say to her attendant ; ' there's that boy at Cambridge College to be thought of. There's no knowing what he may want' Miss Susan was still ' up ' when her nephew was ushered into the room ; she had not gone to bed. A bedroom candle was lighted on the table, and a Bible, with her spectacles on it, was lying open before her. ' So you've come at last ; I thought you'd for gotten your old aunt,' she said sharply, when Walter came in. 'That's not at all likely, aunt,' he said good humouredly, kissing her soft old cheek, and sitting down on the couch by her side. ' I didn't know you were expecting me, or I would have come before.

I had not made up my mind about going to-morrow.' ' Not made up your mind ! I read it myself on the college bill, " All undergraduates are expected to be in residence on the 15th." It is the 15th to-morrow ; Withers looked at the almanac — ' 'You wouldn't trust me to look; you looked yourself,' Withers said, in an injured voice. ' I should think so ; when you were looking at last year's almanac, and standing me out it fell on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday.' ' A day doesn't make much difference,' said the old woman, who would always have the last word. ' It's Wednesday right enough, aunt, only there's no hurry ; there's always a day or two's grace allowed,' said her nephew, coming between Miss Susan and her attendant, who were falling out and falling in all day. Mistress and maid had grown like each other in their ways from living together so many years.

Miss Susan was stout and ruddy, and Withers was lean and ruddy ; a wholesome looking old woman, ruddy and brown and wrinkled like an autumn pear, with smooth bands of grey hair neatly tucked beneath the lace frills of her white cap. Withers was a servant of the old school, and wore a cap that was worth calling a cap, with snowy-plaited frills, and that tied beneath her chin. She had a little grey shawl over her chest, fastened by an old fashioned agate brooch of vast dimensions. Walter never remembered to have seen Withers without the brooch. He did not know that it was a gage d 'amour ; that this hard-featured old woman had had a romance in her life. There was a lock of hair — there were two locks of hair, light and dark — twined into a true lover's knot at the back of this commonplace old brooch.

The romance had faded long ago, but the true lover's knot still re posed upon Withers' faithful bosom. Miss Severne was only a few years her attendant's senior, but she was not so well preserved. A portly, florid old woman, with a fine temper of her own, which wore her out before her time. A spinster of mature age, with no ties and no cares to speak of, and no other occupation in life but to say her prayers and live in peace and goodwill with her neighbours, or quarrel with them, as the case might be. She said her prayers : no one, not even her dearest foe, could accuse Miss Severne of neglect ing her daily devotions, and her regular attendance at church was an example to the whole village ; but she lived in perpetual strife with her neighbours. She fell out with her friends periodically — and she fell in with them again.

Her quarrels were not of long duration, but they were bitter while they lasted. There was one quarrel that had lasted longer than the rest, that had lasted over twenty years, that was not made up yet. Susannah Severne had never forgiven Maria Angerstein running away with her brother. ' It had ruined his life,' she declared. ' He might have done something in the world if he had married a woman in his own station.' She refused, at first, to receive her sister-in-law, refused to consider her marriage legal. She had been married, of course, without her parents' consent, and without the formal publicity that Susannah's strict code of morality demanded. When she did receive her, she made poor Maria's life a burden to her. Perhaps jealousy was at the bottom of her grievance. She was a jealous, cantankerous old woman ; she could not bear anyone to be preferred before her.

When her brother died, in his last sickness Susannah relented ; she could not do enough for him. She promised him to look after the boy, to make his education her care. She had kept her promise. She transferred to Walter the love she bore his father — the love and the jealousy. ' You are in no hurry to go away and leave your mother, I expect ; you were always tied to your mother's apron-strings,' Miss Susan said with fine scorn when the young man explained that he had yet two or three days' grace. ' I couldn't be tied to any better, unless they were your apron-strings, could I, aunt?' he said, with a laugh. ' No, I suppose not,' the old woman admitted ungraciously. ' You'll be breaking loose some day; no apron-strings will be strong enough to hold you. When your turn is served, mother and aunt may go to the wall.

It's the way of the world.' ' It isn't my way, aunt. I shall never forget what you have done for me,' he said warmly. There was something in his kind, boyish voice, in his honest eyes, that touched the old woman, and softened her ill-humour. She didn't believe in many people, but she believed in her nephew ; it was her jealous love for him that made her complain and grumble. ' What is that I hear about Theodora Lee going to Cambridge with you to-morrow ? I hope you are not going to follow your father's example,' she said to him when he was coming away. 'It was for her sake, aunt, I — I was thinking of waiting another day,' he said awkwardly. ' Theo wouldn't like to be talked about ; and — and there's nothing in it.' ' I should hope not ! ' said Aunt Susan, with some asperity. ' I should hope you'd look higher.

With your education and your good looks — you needn't blush, Walter, the Severnes were always noted for their good looks — you may choose where you will.' The young man went away with the fond, foolish old woman's words in his ears, and a new crisp Bank of England note in his pocket. He held his head high, and he whistled a tune as he went down the village street with that note in his pocket, and his head full of all sorts of foolish fancies. His life was full of such bright colours, his step could not help being buoyant; he could not help whistling.

Chapter II Theo Lee

The Rector of Silverton drove his daughter to the station the next morning. Everybody in Silverton knew that Theo Lee was going away. There were vague reports about the object of her journey. She was going to college — to ' Cam bridge College,' as the village folk expressed it ; she was going to learn things never learnt by women before. She would teach no more in the Sunday school, or visit the bedridden old men and women of the parish ; she would dress no more dolls for Christmas trees, and her voice would be heard no longer in the village choir. Everybody understood this ; what the going away meant. Theo Lee was a favourite in her father's parish ; she could not help being a favourite any where. She had lived in Silverton all her life, and the people gave her up unwillingly. If she had been going to be married it would have been different ; it would not have been so hard to give her up.

The fame of the women's colleges had not reached Silverton. College life had hitherto been only associated in the simple minds of west country rustics with men. No one in Silverton had ever heard of a woman going to college. People shook their heads doubtfully. A girl's place, they said, was home. Home, with husband and children, was her proper sphere. No good ever came of going against Providence. The people who had known Theo from her childhood came out to their doors to see her pass, and waved her a tearful farewell. They could not understand the Rector giving her up. It would not have been much good his mind ing, for Theo had taken the matter into her own hands. There were three younger girls to provide for at the Rectory, and two boys, and the provision for them in the future was but slender.

Theo at twenty was more practical than her father. She looked forward to the time when the family would be dependent upon her. Whatever provision the Rector could make for those he left behind him would be barely sufficient for the education of the boys. There would be nothing left for the rest. Theo was not going out into the world to do any great thing. She was only getting an equipment — a slender equipment — for the battle she would have to fight by-and-by. ' You are sure you don't mind my going, father ? ' she said to him, as they drove past the last house in the village, and left the old familiar street be hind them. She was letting small silent tears drop on the flowers in her lap — a bunch of flowers from the Rectory garden. The farewells, the kind familiar faces looking after her, had broken her down ; she would have turned back at the last moment. ' I am sure I can trust my dear daughter to do what she thinks right,' the Rector said, in rather an unsteady voice — not in his preaching voice. ' If — if all is not as she expects, if she changes her mind, she has a home to come back to.' ' I shall not change my mind,' Theo said quickly. ' I was only thinking of you, father.

I would not go against your wish. I don't mind how hard the work is; I'm not frightened of work. If I can get a degree, it will repay me for everything.' They had reached the station, and the porters had come out to carry off her box ; it was too late to talk about going back. Walter Severne was on the platform waiting for the train to come up, and his mother was hanging on his arm — a small, slender, shabby little woman. She did not look at all like an Angerstein. The Rector greeted her kindly. ' We are both here on the same errand,' he said. ' I am glad your son is going up to-day ; he will look after Theo.' Theo laughed and blushed. ' I shall have to learn to look after myself,' she said gaily ; ' the students of women's colleges are not supposed to want looking after.' Nevertheless she let Walter put her things up on the rack, and take charge of her numerous packages.

She had been accustomed to be looked after all her life. Walter kissed his mother hurriedly. He was sorry she had come to the station ; he did not like to see her standing on the platform wiping her eyes. She need not make such a fuss about his going away. Theo was smiling bravely, and kissing her hand to her father as the train steamed out of the station. She was glad that Walter was there ; it kept her from breaking down. It was much better she should go away happy and smiling than dissolved in tears. Women have more philosophy than men. Walter was angry with her, and with himself, and with his mother, who stood on the platform, looking after the departing train, waving her tearful farewells. He could not keep a mist from coming before his eyes, blotting out the bright face of his companion.

He was sure Theo saw it, and he hated himself for it. He was angry that a girl should be able to control her feelings, should have more self command than he had. He did not see — she did not let him see — that she was crying behind her Saturday Review when they had got out of sight of the platform, and the eyes that were straining after them. She had bought a Saturday Review to read on the way : it was the right thing for a girl to read who was going up to Newnham. The students ofthe women's colleges may be known on a railway journey by the literature they affect. They do not read anything below the level of the Fortnightly ; but they have a leaning sor the Saturday ; it is their special journal. The Saturday Review was not so engrossing that Theo Lee could not spare a word now and then for her companion, when she could trust her self to speak without any foolish tears coming into her eyes.

They were very sweet eyes, blue and bright, and the tears only made them brighter. A slender little creature, with soft, pink cheeks, and clear blue eyes that had a direct look in them that was almost defiant. Theo had brushed her hair tightly back, as befitted a Newnham girl ; she had not the least suspicion of a fringe. It was dark hair, and curled in little soft, dark rings about her forehead ; she could not brush the curl out of it if she would. Her eyelashes were dark, like her hair, so dark that they threw a shadow on her cheek, and made her blue eyes look darker than they were. It had been Theo's aim, since she had set before herself the great purpose of winning a degree at a woman's college, to nip all her small girlish vanities in the bud. She brushed back her hair, and tightened her red lips, and puckered her pretty, smooth sorehead.

But it would not do. She could not make her mouth look ' firm ; ' tighten her lips as she would, she could not keep the quiver out of them ; and her nose had a provoking inclina tion upward that made all her attempts to look serious — very serious — a lamentable failure. But her greatest trial was a dimple, a distracting dimple, that defied all her efforts to cover it up. B A woman who proposes to get her living in any of the learned professions — Law, Medicine, Divinity — is handicapped by a dimple. It is a long day's railway journey from Silverton to Cambridge, but it was not nearly long enough for Walter Severne. It had always seemed to him a long journey before, but to-day the hours seemed to fly. They were rosy hours and love lit ; the long, dull, tiresome journey was over before the foolish fellow had realised that it had begun.

Before he had said half the things to Theo he was going to say, they were steaming into Cambridge station. He was not clear whether it was his duty to take her up to the gates of Newnham. If he drove up with her to the gate, he would have time to say what he had left unsaid ; he might not have another chance. While he was still debating in his mind, Fate took the matter out of his hands. ' If you are going to Newnham, we may as well share a cab,' said a young woman with a strident voice, bearing down upon poor little Theo when the train stopped, and carrying her off before his eyes. She had heard him instructing a porter to get Theo a cab, and she pounced upon her, and bore her off before he had time to expostulate. ' I suppose I shall see something of you some times,' he said awkwardly, as he stood at the door of the cab when he had put in all her parcels. ' Oh, yes ; I will let you know how I am getting j on—' The cab drove away as Theo was speaking, and left Walter on the kerb looking after it. ' Hullo !

Severne, are you up ? By Jove ! what a pretty girl ; is that your sister ? ' A man clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned round blushing guiltily. ' I'm only just up,' he said ; ' I came by this train.' ' And brought your sister with you. Is she going to Newnham ? ' ' She is going to Newnham, but unfortunately she is not my sister.' ' Ah ! that is unfortunate ; I'm sorry, I'm awfully sorry ! ' Severne laughed and reddened. ' You didn't say who the lady was — the lady, who hadn't the privilege of being your sister,' the undergraduate remarked casually, as they drove up to St Crispin's in a hansom. ' She — er — is a young lady who comes from my place — the daughter of — the — er — Rector.' The hansom was jolting so dreadfully over the stones in Trumpington Street that Walter could only jerk out his words a syllable at a time; at least he put it down to the hansom. ' Got a name ? ' ' Oh, yes, she's got a name, Miss Theo — dora — Lee.' 'An uncommonly pretty name, too.