Tutors' Lane, Page 3

  III

  Mrs. Norris was about to force Tom down upon the Bosom when her eye wascaught by the cheque-book on the table. "Oh, land," she exclaimed, "whydidn't I give Henry his cheque! I've owed him for those German Socialistbooks he got me for I don't know how long, and here I've forgotten togive it to him. I must send Susan after him with it right away," andgoing over to a bell by the fireplace, she pushed it until Susanappeared. Then, looking at Tom, with her sweetest smile she asked, inher quietest voice, "Why don't you like Henry?"

  "Why, I don't mind Henry."

  "Oh, come now, Tommy." She moved over to "her" chair under the yellowlamp and, picking up the knitting immediately set the needles flying andclicking over one another. "You know you can't bear him. He is a littlecut and dried--that's the trouble with him, I think--but then, as far asI can make out, you people in the classics and literatures are just asbad."

  "Oh, Mrs. Norris."

  "You are too. You are perfectly dreadful. Why, I can remember as well asanything, old Professor Packard standing up before that fireplace andsaying, 'Helen,' says he, 'no gentleman is worthy the name who doesn'tknow his Horace.' 'Stuff,' says I, 'that's utter nonsense. You might aswell say a gentlemen is not worthy of the name unless he knows hisFrench for "fiddle-dee-dee"----like the Red Queen,'" and still knittingbusily, she rocked with laughter.

  Tom dropped into a chair beside her, threw one leg over the arm, and,pipe in hand, gazed at her affectionately. She was about the age his ownmother would have been, he thought, in the immediate neighbourhood ofsixty. But his own mother, who he knew had become reconciled to the lifeof Ephesus, could never have arrived at sixty with the imperiousdisregard for convention that was so perfectly Mrs. Norris's. Upon herface at present, as she looked down at her knitting, was a smilingbenignity that would have recommended itself to the Virgin at Chartres;and at the same time her hair--what modest growth there was left--wasuncurling itself from behind and threatening to pull down the wholestructure after it. It was perfect, Tom told himself, and were he asculptor commissioned to make her bust, he would do her just like that.

  "Nancy, I sometimes think, is the worst person in the world to lookafter Henry. It's bad for her and bad for him. What he ought to do is togo out and get another wife and leave Nancy alone to do as she pleases.I have a good mind to take her with me to Athens next winter myself.What with Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee taking her to California thiswinter and my taking her to Athens next, Henry will have to getmarried."

  There had been rumours abroad lately that Henry had about arrived at thesame conclusion himself and that Mary Norris was receiving seriousconsideration as a candidate, but there was nothing in Mrs. Norris'smanner that suggested a knowledge of it, and Tom correctly concludedthat it was just another of those idle rumours that live their luxuriousday in Faculty Row.

  "Oh, my no," said Tom, "that wouldn't do at all. Why, another marriagewould completely upset Henry's System that he's always talking so muchabout. It's almost certain she couldn't stand it, you know, and thenwhere would Henry be? Suppose, for example, that she forgot to have hissenna tea for him at night or didn't care about playing cribbage forthree-quarters of an hour after dinner? Now Nancy, apparently, givesperfect satisfaction. She adores little Henry and she manages the houseso well that there isn't a single thing to bother big Henry. But theysay--"

  "Stop it, Tommy. You've been listening again to that horrid old Mrs.Conover. Her husband was a perfect old Scrooge, and now that she's ridof him, poor dear, she feels that she's got to expand and make up forlost time----" Her voice, which had become more and more drowsy, as ifbored with what it had to say, trailed off and died. Then, with renewedinterest, she exclaimed, "I wonder what they are going to do aboutPoland?"

  Tom had learned that an answer to these startling questions and commentsof Mrs. Norris was not required. There was no harm, however, in sayingthe first thing that came into one's head, as in a psychological test,and he accordingly now answered, "Paderewski."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Norris quietly. Then brightening up: "How is your workgoing, Tommy?"

  "Why, it's going pretty well."

  "They get rather difficult about this time of year, don't they?"

  "They do! Oh my, I've had an awful time with them lately. I've muffedCarlyle and Transcendentalism completely."

  "Oh, no! Why that's Emerson and all those Concord people. Still, Isuppose Louisa Alcott is getting a little old-fashioned."

  "You should have seen the set of papers I got back today. There it was,all that I had given them, in great heavy undigested lumps--"

  "Like footballs," suggested Mrs. Norris.

  "Once I was funny with them," went on Tom, "and I may say that I wasproperly punished. They put it all down in their notebooks and thenmixed it up with everything they shouldn't have mixed it up with--and Ishall never be funny again."

  "I shall give you _at least_ two grains----"

  "Then there are the young men who get off all the stale old facts andexpect an A. One of them came to me yesterday, when I had given him a C,and whined around my desk until I finally told him I did not considerhis performance remarkable in a young man of eighteen, however much soit might be in a poll parrot of the same age."

  "Now that was wrong. Were there other boys around?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, you simply must not go do that kind of thing. They'll hate it."

  "I know it was wrong, but I am rather amused by it. As a matter of fact,I can stand anything but the ones who think they can fool me with a lotof embroidery and gas. They're insulting----"

  "Why, Tommy, you were doing the same thing yourself only three or fouryears ago. You mustn't get so snufty so soon."

  "Of course, at times when I've had a good recitation I wouldn't tradeplaces with anyone. It's a kind of ecstasy. It's like all sorts ofrushing, exciting things--like a high tide, or a close race, or a fire;really it is. Then you go to the other extreme and you ask yourself whaton earth is the use of so futile a business, and what right has a youngman with anything to him whatever to waste his time with it. Better goand make bird cages or hair nets or--or--hot water bags, and make somemoney. When I feel that way I sometimes go out along the ridge, just atdusk, you know, or into the woods--"

  "You do? Why, I think that's awfully romantic of you; likeChateaubriand, you know." Then, dreamily, "He used to go out and lean ona pedestal and let the moon shine down on him through the trees. Ithink Nancy is a little that way herself."

  There was a pause, during which the young educator's difficulties werebrushed aside.

  "Do you realize that I haven't seen Nancy since leaving college?"

  "Why, that's strange."

  "No: you see she had left for the west before college opened in thefall, and I hadn't been back between then and the time I graduated. As amatter of fact, the last time I saw her was in this house. It was thenight of our Senior Prom. I took Mary, you know, and Teddy Roberts tookNancy, and when it was over we came in here and had a cooky contest inthe kitchen. Nancy could put a whole one of those gingersnaps you alwayshave into her mouth without breaking it."

  "Oh dear. I'm afraid she has the Billings mouth."

  "We then got to talking about growing moustaches, and Nancy bet Teddyshe could grow one before he could."

  "How disgusting! That's what comes of all this emancipation. MarcusAurelius has a lot to say about it. I must look that up. Did she win?"

  "As I remember it, she was in a fair way to, but the war came along, andwe left before it could be settled."

  Mrs. Norris stopped knitting and looked at Tom with amused curiositythrough her tortoise-shell spectacles, which had slid rather fartherdown her nose than usual. "I forget. Didn't you use to see a good dealof Nancy at one time?" she asked.

  "Only just here," he replied.

  "Oh," said Mrs. Norris, and went on with her work.

  At this point the Dean entered, dressed for dinner.

  "Oh dear, I'm not ready at all," cried Mrs. Norris, jumping up; and
herknitting, worsted, and bag spilled out upon the floor. "Tommy, tellNorah to put on a plate for you."

  "I can't really, Mrs. Norris. This is Thursday night, you see, and I'mgoing around to the Club." Then as his hostess disappeared up thestairs, he hurried into his overcoat and, indulging in only a smallfraction of his usual recessional with the Dean, he was gone.

  Outside, walking down the long driveway that led to Tutors' Lane, Tomslowed his pace. Overhead, Betelgeuse was making the most of its recentpublicity, unobstructed by vagrant clouds. Tom gazed up at it with acertain air of proprietorship. He had known Betelgeuse years ago andpersonally had always preferred its neighbour Rigel, which had receivedno publicity at all. As a small boy some one had given him a Handbook ofthe Stars, with diagrams of the constellations on one page and chattynotes about them opposite. He had lain on his back out in the fields,with opera glasses to sweep the heavens and a flashlight to sweep thediagrams until he had reconciled the two. This had been in the summer,and although his observations had extended to the autumn stars, thewinter constellations had suffered. Still, he knew the great ones and,weather permitting, he would gaze upon them and their neighbours withawe, the greater, perhaps, for his unfamiliarity with their diagrams.

  Tom occasionally gave parlour lessons in astronomy, and he had given oneto Nancy on the night of his Senior Prom, the night of the cookycontest. He had looked out and seen that the summer stars were up, andhad spoken of it, to the boredom of Mary and Teddy Roberts. But Nancywanted Scorpio pointed out, and from Scorpio they naturally progressedto the others until Nancy sneezed and the kitchen window had to be shut.Then, as it was getting light anyway and the waffles were ready, theystopped the lesson. Tom, however, with the true teacher's instinct, hadsent her a copy of his Handbook of the Stars, and at his Training Camphe had received a note of thanks. It was the only note he had everreceived from her, and he found it remarkable. She had thanked himwithout the barrage of gratitude usual among young ladies on suchoccasions. There had been something masculine in the directness of it,and yet there was no doubt that she had been pleased. In closing, shelooked forward to seeing him back at Woodbridge when the war was over.There had been no fine writing about his Going to the Flag. Tom had beenimpressed by the amount left unsaid, and he had saved the letter until,in moving about, it had been lost. He was annoyed when he missed it, buton second thought he wondered if it were not just as well. For, onlater inspection, it might not have proved so remarkable, after all.

  Well, the war was now over, and he was back at Woodbridge. It would bevery pleasant indeed if she had gone ahead as she gave promise of doing;and why in the world shouldn't she? When he was in college Nancy hadbeen admittedly the first of Woodbridge young ladies. To take her to adance was to have the ultimate in good times, there was no need to worryabout her getting "stuck," and in addition to the thrill of taking apopular girl one could enjoy all the advantages of a stag. One couldflit from flower to flower until surfeited with beauty and then retirefor a smoke or other innocent diversion without the haunting fear thatpossibly Dick or Bill was circling around and around in ever-deepeninggloom with one's elected for the night. Nancy had permanently impressedherself upon the imagination of discerning Woodbridge youth, and it washardly extravagant that Tom should look forward to her return.

  Let it, therefore, without further evasion, be stated at once that hedid look forward to her return.