CHAPTER XXII
MR. BOREHAM'S PROPOSAL
Boreham's purpose had been thwarted for the moment. But there was stilltime for him to make another effort, and this time it was to be asuccessful effort.
A letter to May would have been the easiest way in which to achieve hispurpose, but Boreham shrank from leaving to posterity a written proposalof marriage, because there always was just the chance that such a lettermight not be answered in the right spirit, and in that case the letterwould appear to future readers of Boreham's biography as an unsolicitedtestimonial in favour of marriage--as an institution. So Boreham decidedto continue "feeling" his way!
After all, there was not very much time in which to feel the way, forMay was leaving Oxford on Monday. To-day was Friday, and Boreham knewthe King's party were going to chapel at Magdalen. If he went, too, itwould be possible for him to get May to himself on the way back to theLodgings (in the dark).
So to Magdalen he went, hurrying along on that Friday afternoon, and thenearer he got to Magdalen the more sure he was that only fools lived inthe country; the more convinced he was that Chartcote had become, evenin three months, a hateful place.
Boreham was nearly late, he stumbled into the ante-chapel just as theywere closing the doors with solemn insistence. He uncovered his head ashe entered, and his nostrils were struck with a peculiar odour of stoneand mortar; a sense of space around him and height above him; also withthe warmth of some indefinable sense of community of purpose thatannoyed him. He was, indeed, already warm enough physically with hishaste in coming; he was also spiritually in a glow with theconsciousness of his own magnanimity and toleration. Here was theenlightened Boreham entering a temple where they repeated "Creedsoutworn." Here he was entering it without any exhibition of violenthostility or even of contempt. He was entering it decorously, though notwithout some speed. He was warm and did not wish to be made warmer.
What he had not anticipated, and what disappointed him, was that fromthe ante-chapel he could not see whether the Dashwoods were in theChapel or not. The screen and organ loft were in the way, they blockedhis vision, and not having any "permit" for the Chapel, he had to remainin the ante-chapel, and just hope for the best. He seated himself asnear to the door as he could, on the end of the back bench, alreadycrowded. There he disposed of his hat and prepared himself to go throughwith the service.
Boreham did not, of course, follow the prayers or make any responses; hemerely uttered a humming noise with the object of showing his mentalaloofness, and yet impressing the fact of his presence on the devoutaround him.
Many a man who has a conscientious objection to prayer, likes to hearhimself sing. But Boreham's singing voice was not altogether under hisown control. It was as if the machinery that produced song was mislaidsomewhere down among his digestive organs and had got rusted, parts ofit being actually impaired.
It had been, in his younger days, a source of regret to Boreham that hecould never hope to charm the world by song as well as by words. As hegrew older that regret faded, and was now negligible.
Is there any religious service in the world more perfect than evensongat Magdalen? Just now, in the twilight of the ante-chapel, a twilightfaintly lit above at the spring of the groined roof, the voices of thechoir rose and fell in absolute unison, with a thrill of subduedcomplaint; a complaint uttered by a Hebrew poet dead and gone these manyyears, a complaint to the God of his fathers, the only true God.
Boreham marked time (slightly out of time) muttering--
"Tum/tum tum/ti: Tum/tum tum/tum ti/tum?"
loud enough to escape the humiliation of being confounded with thoseweak-minded strangers who are carried away (in spite of their reason) bythe charm of sacerdotal blandishments.
He stood there among the ordinary church-goers, conscious that he was afree spirit. He was happy. At least not so much happy as agreeablyexcited by the contrast he made with those around him, and excited, too,at what was going to happen in about half an hour. That is, if MayDashwood was actually behind that heavy absurd screen in the Chapel. Hewent on "tum-ing" as if she was there and all was well.
And within the chapel, in one of those deep embrasures against thewalls, was May Dashwood. But she was alone. Lady Dashwood had been tootired to come with her, and Gwendolen had been hurried off to Potten Endimmediately after lunch, strangely reluctant to go. So May had come tothe Chapel alone, and, not knowing that Boreham was in the ante-chapelwaiting for her, she had some comfort in the seclusion and remoteness ofthat sacred place. Not that the tragedy of the world was shut out andforgotten, as it is in those busy market-places where men make money andlisten too greedily to the chink of coin to hear any far-off sounds fromthe plain of Armageddon. May got comfort, not because she had forgottenthe tragedy of the world and was soothed by soft sounds, but becausethat tragedy was remembered in this hour of prayer; because she waslistening to the cry of the Hebrew poet, uttered so long ago and echoednow by distressful souls who feel just as he felt the desperate problemof human suffering and the desire for peace.
"Why art thou so vexed, O my soul; And why art thou so disquieted within me?"
And then the answer; an answer which to some is meaningless, but which,to the seeker after the "things that are invisible," is the onlyanswer--the answer that the soul makes to itself--
"O put thy trust in God!"
* * * * *
May observed no one in the Chapel; she saw nothing but the written wordsin the massive Prayer-book on the desk before her; and when at last theservice was over, she came out looking neither to right nor left, andwas startled to find herself emerging into the fresh air with Boreham byher side, claiming her company back to the Lodgings.
It was just dusk and the moon was rising in the east. Though it couldnot be seen, its presence was visible in the thin vaporous lightness ofthe sky. The college buildings stood out dimly, as if seen by a palliddawn.
"You leave Oxford on Monday?" began Boreham, as they went through theentrance porch out into the High and turned to the right.
"Yes," said May, and a sigh escaped her. That Boreham noticed.
"I don't deny the attractions of Oxford," he said. "All I object to isits pretensions."
"You don't like originality," murmured May.
She was thinking of the slums of London where she worked. What acontrast with this noble street! Why should men be allowed to build densand hovels for other men to live in? Why should men make ugliness andendure squalor?
"I thought you knew me better," said Boreham, reproachfully, "than tosay that."
"If you do approve of originality," said May, "then why not let Oxfordwork out its own evolution, in its own way?"
"It needs entire reconstruction," said Boreham, stubbornly.
"You would like to pass everything through a mill and turn it out to apattern," said May. "But that's not the way the world progresses. Entirereconstruction would spoil Oxford. What it wants is what we allwant--the pruning of our vices and the development of our virtues. Wedon't want to be shorn of all that makes up our personality."
Boreham said, "That is a different matter; but why should we argue?"
"To leave Oxford and speak of ourselves, of you and me," said May,persisting. "You don't want to be made like me; but we both want to havethe selfishness squeezed out of us. There! I warn you that, having oncestarted, I shall probably go on lamenting like the prophet Jeremiahuntil I reach the Lodgings! So if you want to escape, do find somepressing engagement. I shan't be offended in the very least."
How she longed for him to go! But was he capable of discovering thiseven when it was broadly hinted?
Boreham's beard moved irritably. The word "selfish" stung him. There wasno such thing as being "unselfish"--one man wanted one thing, anotherman wanted another--and there you are!
"Human nature is selfish," he retorted. "Saints are selfish. They wantto have a good time in the next world. Each man always wants to pleasehimself, only t
astes differ."
Boreham spoke in emphatic tones. If May was thinking of her husband,then this piece of truth must be put before her without delay. Warwidows had the habit of speaking of their husbands as heroes, when allthey had done was to have got themselves blown to pieces while they weretrying to blow other people to pieces.
"You make questions of taste very important," said May, looking down themisty street. "Some men have a taste for virtue and generosity, andothers have taste for vice and meanness."
Boreham looked at her features closely in the dim light.
"Are you angry with me?" he asked.
"Not at all," said May. "We are arguing about words. You object to theuse of the word 'selfish,' so I adopt your term 'taste.'"
"There's no reason why we should argue just now," said Boreham. "Notthat argument affects friendship! Friendship goes behind all that,doesn't it?" He asked this anxiously.
"I don't expect my friends to agree with me in all points," said May,smiling. "That would be very selfish!" She laughed. "I beg your pardon.I mean that my taste in friends is pretty catholic," and here Borehamdetected a sudden coldness in her voice.
"Friendship--I will say more than that--love--has nothing to do with'points of view,'" he began hastily. "A man may fall in love with awoman as she passes his window, though he may never exchange a word withher. Such things have happened."
"And it is just possible," suggested May, "that a protractedconversation with the lady might have had the effect of destroying theromance."
Here Boreham felt a wave of fear and hope and necessity surge throughhis whole being. The moment had arrived!
"Not if you were the lady," he said in a convinced tone.
May still gazed down the street, etherealised beyond its usual beauty inthis thin pale light.
"I don't think any man, however magnanimous, could stand a woman long ifshe made protracted lamentations after the manner of Jeremiah," shesaid.
"You are purposely speaking ill of yourself," said Boreham. "Yet,whatever you do or say makes a man fall in love with you." He wasfinding words now without having to think.
"I was not aware of it," said May, rather coldly.
"It is true," he persisted. "You are different from other women; you arethe only woman I have ever met whom I wanted to marry."
It was out! Not as well put as he would have liked, but it was out. Herewas a proposal of marriage by word of mouth. Here was the orthodoxwoman's definite opportunity. May would see the seriousness of it now.
"As a personal friend of yours," said May, and her tone was not asserious as he had feverishly hoped, "I do not think you are consultingyour own interests at this moment, Mr. Boreham."
"No!" began Boreham. "Not mine exclusively----"
"Your remark was hasty--ill considered," she said, interrupting him."You don't really want to marry. You would find it an irksome bondage,probably dull as well as irksome."
"Not with you!" exclaimed Boreham, and he touched her arm.
May's arm became miraculously hard and unsympathetic.
"Marriage is a great responsibility," she said.
"I have thought that all out," said Boreham. "There may be----"
"Then you know," she replied, "that it means----"
"I have calculated the cost," he said. "I am willing----"
"You have not only to save your own soul but to help some one else tosave theirs," she went on. "You have to exercise justice and mercy. Youhave to forgive every day of your life, and"--she added--"to beforgiven. Wouldn't that bore you?"
Boreham's heart thumped with consternation. It might take months to makeher take a reasonable view of marriage. She was more difficult than hehad anticipated.
"Marriage is a dreary business," continued May, "unless you go into itwith much prayer and fasting--Jeremiah again."
Into Boreham's consternation broke a sudden anger.
"That is why," continued May, "Herod ordered Mariamne to be beheaded,and why the young woman who married the 'beloved disciple' said shecouldn't realise her true self and went off with Judas Iscariot." Mayturned round and looked at him as she spoke.
"I was serious!" burst out Boreham.
"Not more serious than I am," said May; "I am serious enough to treatthe subject you have introduced with the fearless criticism you considerright to apply to all important subjects. You ought to approve!"
And yet she smiled just a little at the corners of her mouth, becauseshe knew that, when Boreham demanded the right of every man to criticisefearlessly--what he really had in his mind was the vision of himself,Boreham, criticising fearlessly. He thought of himself, for instance, astrying to shame the British public for saying slimily: "Let's pretendto be monogamous!" He thought of himself calling out pluckily: "Here,you self-satisfied humbugs, I'm going to say straight out--we ain'tmonogamous----"
He never contemplated May Dashwood coming and saying to him: "And are_you_ not a self-satisfied humbug, pretending that there is no courage,no endurance, no moral effort superior to your own?" It was this thatmade May smile a little.
"The fact remains," he said, feeling his way hotly, blindly, "that a mancan, and does, make a woman happy, if he loves her. All I ask," he wenton, "is to be allowed the chance of doing this, and you gibe."
"I don't gibe," said May, "I'm preaching. And, after all, I ought not topreach, because marriage does not concern me--directly. I shall notmarry again, Mr. Boreham."
Boreham stared hard at her and his eyebrows worked. All she had justbeen saying provoked his anger; it disagreed with him, made him dismal,and yet, at least, he had no rival! She hadn't got hold of any so-calledsaint as a future husband. Middleton hadn't been meddling, nor Bingham,and there was no shadowy third anywhere in town. She was heart free!That was something!
There was the dead husband, of course, but his memory would fade as timewent on. "Just now, people who are dead or dying, are in the swim,"thought Boreham; "but just wait till the war is over!" He swiftlyimagined publishers and editors of journals refusing anything thatreferred to the war or to any dismal subject connected with it. TheBritish public would have no use for the dead when the war was over. TheBritish public would be occupied with the future; how to make money, howto spend it. Stories about love and hate among the living would bewanted, or pleasant discourses about the consolations of religion andblessed hopes of immortality for those who were making the money andspending it!
Boreham sneered as he thought this, and yet he himself desired intenselythat men, and especially women, should forget the dead, and, above all,that May should forget her dead and occupy herself in being a pretty andattractive person of the female sex.
"I will wait," said Boreham, eagerly; "I won't ask you for an answernow."
"Now you know my position, you will not put any question to me!" saidMay, very quietly.
There came a moment's oppressive silence.
"I may continue to be your friend," he demanded; "you won't punish me?"and his voice was urgent.
"Of course not," she said.
"I may come and see you?" he urged again.
"Any friends of mine may come and see me, if they care to," she said;"but I am very much occupied during the day--and tired in the evenings."
"Sundays?" he interrupted.
"My Sundays I spend with friends in Surrey."
Boreham jerked his head nervously. "I shall be living in Town almostimmediately," he said; "I will come and see what times would beconvenient."
"I am very stupid when my day's work is done," said May.
"Stupid!" Boreham laughed harshly. "But your work is too hard and mostunsuitable. Any woman can attend to babies."
"I flatter myself," said May, "that I can wash a baby without forgettingto dry it."
"Why do you hide yourself?" he exclaimed. "Why do you throw yourselfaway?" He felt that, with her beside him, he could dictate to the worldlike a god. "Why don't you organise?"
"Do you mean run about and talk," asked May, "and leave the work toothe
r people? Don't you think that we are beginning to hate people whorun about and talk?"
"Because the wrong people do it," said Boreham.
"The people who do it are usually the wrong people," corrected May; "theright people are generally occupied with skilled work--technical orintellectual. That clears the way for the unskilled to run about andtalk, and so the world goes round, infinite labour and talent quietlybuilding up the Empire, and idleness talking about it and interruptingit."
Boreham stared at her with petulant admiration. "You could do anything,"he said bluntly.
"I shall put an advertisement into the _Times_," said May. "'Agentlewoman of independent means, unable to do any work properly, butanxious to organise.'"
They had now turned into a narrow lane and were almost at the gates ofthe Lodgings. May did not want Boreham to come into the Court with her,she wanted to dismiss him now. She had a queer feeling of dislike thathe should tread upon the gravel of the Court, and perhaps come actuallyto the front door of the Lodgings. She stopped and held out her hand.
"I have your promise," he said, "I can come and see you?" He lookedthwarted and miserable.
"If you happen to be in town," she said.
"But I mean to live there," he said. This insinuation on her part, thatshe had not accepted the fact that he was going to live in town, wasunsympathetic of her. "I can't stand the loneliness of Chartcote, it hasbecome intolerable."
The word "loneliness" melted May. She knew what loneliness meant. Afterall, how could he help being the man he was? Was it his fault that hehad been born with his share of the Boreham heredity? Was he able tocontrol his irritability, to suppress his exaggerated self-esteem; bothof them, perhaps, symptoms of some obscure form of neurosis?
May felt a pang of pity for him. His face showed signs of pain anddiscontent and restlessness.
"I shall leave Chartcote any day, immediately. London draws me back toit. I can think there. I can't at Chartcote, the atmosphere is sodden atChartcote, my neighbours are clods."
May looked at him anxiously. "It is dull for you," she said.
Encouraged by this he went on rapidly. "Art, literature is nothing tothem. They are centaurs. They ought to eat grass. They don't know asunset from a swede. They don't know the name of a bird, except gamebirds; they are ignorant fools, they are damned----" Boreham's breathingwas loud and rapid.
"And yet you hate Oxford," murmured May, as she held out her hand. Shestill did not mean Boreham to come inside the Court, her hand was adismissal.
"Because Oxford is so smug," said Boreham. "And the country is smug.England is the land that begets effeteness and smuggishness. Yes, Ishould be pretty desperate," he added, and he held her hand with somepressure--"I should be pretty desperate, only you have promised to letme come and see you."
May withdrew her hand. "As a friend," she said. "Yes, come as a friend."
Boreham gave a curious toss to his head. "I am under your orders," hesaid, "I obey. You don't wish me to come with you to the door--I obey!"
"Thank you," said May, simply. "And if you are lonely, well, so am I.There are many lonely people in this world just now, and many, manylonely women!" She turned away and left him.
Boreham raced rather than walked away from the Lodgings towards thestables where he had put up his horse. He hardly knew what his thoughtswere. He was more strangely moved than he had ever thought he could be.And how solitary he was! What permanent joy is there in the world, afterall? There _is_ nothing permanent in life! It takes years to find thatout--years--if you are well in health and full of vanity! But you dofind it out--at last.
As he went headlong he came suddenly against an obstacle. Somebodycaught him by the arm and slowed him down.
"Hullo, Boreham!" said Bingham. "Stop a moment!"
Boreham allowed himself to be fastened upon, and suffered Bingham's armto rest on his, but he puffed with irritation. He felt like a poet whohas been interrupted in a fit of inspiration.
"I thought this was one of your War Office days," he said bluntly.
"It is," replied Bingham, in his sweetest curate tones. "But there isspecial College business to-day, and I'm putting in an extra day nextweek instead. Look here, do you want a job of work?"
No, of course, Boreham didn't.
"I'm leaving Chartcote," he said, and was glad to think it was true.
"This week?" asked Bingham.
"No," said Boreham, suddenly wild with indignation, "but any time--nextweek, perhaps."
"This job will only take four or five days," said Bingham.
"What job?" demanded Boreham.
"There's a small library just been given us by the widow of a General."
"Didn't know soldiers ever read books," said Boreham.
"I don't know if he read them," said Bingham, "but there they are. Wewant some one to look through them--put aside the sort suitable forhospitals, and make a _catalogue raisonne_ of the others for the campsin Germany."
Boreham wanted to say, "Be damned with your _raisonne_," but he limitedhimself to saying: "Can't you get some college chaplain, or some blokeof the sort to do it?"
"All are thick busy," said Bingham--"those that are left."
"It must be a new experience for them," said Boreham.
"There are plenty of new experiences going," said Bingham.
"And you won't deny," said Boreham, smiling the smile ofself-righteousness, as he tried to assume a calm bantering tone, "thatexperience--of life, I mean--is a bit lacking in Oxford?"
"It depends on what you mean," said Bingham, sweetly. "We haven't theexperience of making money here. Also Oxford Dons are expected to goabout with the motto 'Pereunt et imputantur' written upon our brows (seethe sundial in my college), 'The hours pass and we must give an accountof them.'"
Bingham always translated his Latin, however simple, for Boreham'sbenefit. Just now this angered Boreham.
"This motto," continued Bingham, "isn't for ornament but for an example.In short, my dear man, we avoid what I might call, for want of a morecomprehensive term, the Pot-house Experience of life."
Boreham threw back his head.
"Well, you'll take the job, will you?" and Bingham released his arm.
"Can't you get one of those elderly ladies who frequent lectures duringtheir lifetime to do the job?"
"We may be reduced to that," said Bingham, "but even they are busy. It'sa nice job," he added enticingly.
"I know what it will be like," grunted Boreham, and he hesitated. If MayDashwood had been staying on in Oxford it would have been different, butshe was going away. So Boreham hesitated.
"Telephone me this evening, will you?" said Bingham.
"Very well," said Boreham. "I'll see what I have got on hand, and if Ihave time----" and so the two men parted.
Boreham got into his gig with a heavy heart and drove back to Chartcote.How he hated the avenue that cut him off from the world outside. How hehated the clean smell of the country that came into his windows. How hehated to see the moon, when it glinted at him from between the tops oftrees. He longed for streets, for the odour of dirt and of petrol and ofstale-cooked food.
The noise of London soothed him, the jostling of men and women; hehungered for it. And yet he did not love those human beings. He knewtheir weaknesses, their superstitions, their follies, their unreason!Boreham remembered a much over-rated Hebrew (possibly only a mythicalfigure) who once said to His followers that when they prayed they shouldsay: "Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespassagainst us."
He got out of his gig slowly. "I don't forgive them," he said, and,unconscious of his own sins, he walked up the steps into his lonelyhouse.