“March 7, abusive letter by post to Miss de Vine,”
“March 11, do. to Miss Hillyard and Miss Layton,”
“April 29, Harpy drawing to Miss Flaxman,” of which she had now quite a formidable list.
So the Summer Term set in, sun-flecked and lovely, a departing April whirled on wind-spurred feet towards a splendour of May. Tulips danced in the Fellows’ Garden; a fringe of golden green shimmered and deepened upon the secular beeches; the boats put out upon the Cher between the budding banks, and the wide reaches of the Isis were strenuous with practising eights. Black gowns and summer frocks fluttered up and down the streets of the city and through the College gates, making a careless heraldry with the green of smooth turf and the silver-sable of ancient stone; motorcar and bicycle raced perilously side by side through narrow turnings and the wail of gramophones made hideous the water-ways from Magdalen Bridge to far above the new By-pass. Sunbathers and untidy tea-parties desecrated Shrewsbury Old Quad, newly-whitened tennis-shoes broke out like strange, unwholesome flowers along plinth and window-ledge, and the Dean was forced to issue a ukase in the matter of the bathing-dresses which flapped and fluttered, flag-fashion, from every coign of vantage. Solicitous tutors began cluck and brood tenderly over such ripening eggs of scholarship as were destined to hatch out damply in the Examination Schools after their three years incubation; candidates, realizing with a pang that they had now fewer than eight weeks in which to make up for cut lectures and misspent working hours, went flashing from Bodley to lecture-room and from Camera to coaching; and the thin trickle of abuse from the Poison-Pen was swamped and well-nigh forgotten in that stream of genial commination always poured out from the lips of examinees elect upon examining bodies. Nor, in the onset of Schools Fever, was a lighter note lacking to the general delirium. The draw for the Schools Sweep was made in the Senior Common Room, and Harriet found herself furnished with the names of two “horses,” one of whom, a Miss Newland, was said to be well fancied. Harriet asked who she was, having never to her knowledge seen or heard of her.
“I don’t suppose you have,” said the Dean. “She’s a shy child. But Miss Shaw thinks she’s pretty safe for a First.”
“She isn’t looking well this term, though,” said the Bursar. “I hope she isn’t going to have a break-down or anything. I told her the other day she ought not to cut Hall so often.”
“They will do it,” said the Dean. “It’s all very well to say they can’t be bothered to change when they come off the river and prefer pyjamas and an egg in their rooms; but I’m sure a boiled egg and a sardine aren’t sustaining enough to do Schools on.”
“And the mess it all makes for the scouts to clear up,” grumbled the Bursar. “It’s almost impossible to get the rooms done by eleven when they’re crammed with filthy crockery.”
“It isn’t being out on the river that’s the matter with Newland,” said the Dean. “That child works.”
“All the worse,” said the Bursar. “I distrust the candidate who swots in her last term. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if your horse scratched, Miss Vane. She looks nervy to me.”
“That’s very depressing,” said Harriet. “Perhaps I’d better sell half my ticket while the price is good. I agree with Edgar Wallace, ‘Give me a good stupid horse who will eat his oats.’ Any offers for Newland?”
“What’s that about Newland?” demanded Miss Shaw, coming up to them. They were having coffee in the Fellows’ Garden at the time. “By the way, Dean, couldn’t you put up a notice about sitting on the grass in the New Quad? I have had to chase two parties off. We cannot have the place looking like Margate Beach.”
“Certainly not. They know quite well it isn’t allowed. Why are women undergraduates so sloppy?”
“They’re always exceedingly anxious to be like the men,” said Miss Hillyard, sarcastically, “but I notice the likeness doesn’t extend to showing respect for the College grounds.”
“Even you must admit that men have some virtues,” said Miss Shaw.
“More tradition and discipline, that’s all,” said Miss Hillyard.
“I don’t know,” said Miss Edwards. “I think women are messier by nature. They are naturally picnic-minded.”
“It’s nice to sit out in the open air in this lovely weather,” suggested Miss Chilperic, almost apologetically (for her student days were not far behind her), “and they don’t think how awful it looks.”
“In hot weather,” said Harriet, moving her chair back into the shade, men have the common sense to stay indoors, where it’s cooler.”
“Men,” said Miss Hillyard, “have a passion for frowst.”
“Yes,” said Miss Shaw, “but what were you saying about Miss Newland? You weren’t offering to sell your chance. Miss Vane, were you? Because, take it from me, she’s a hot favourite. She’s the Latymer Scholar, and her work is brilliant.”
“Somebody suggested she was off her feed and likely to be a nonstarter.”
“That’s very unkind,” said Miss Shaw, with indignation. “Nobody’s any right to say such things.”
“I think she looks harassed and on edge,” said the Bursar. “She’s too hard-working and conscientious. She hasn’t got the wind-up about Schools, has she?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her work,” said Miss Shaw. “She does look a little pale, but I expect it’s the sudden heat.”
“Possibly she’s worried about things at home,” suggested Mrs. Goodwin. She had returned to College on the May 9th, her boy having taken a fortunate turn for the better, though he was still not out of the wood. She looked anxious and sympathetic.
“She’d have told me if she had been,” said Miss Shaw. “I encourage my students to confide in me. Of course she’s a very reserved girl, but I have done my best to draw her out, and I feel sure I should have heard if there was anything on her mind.”
“Welt,” said Harriet, “I must see this horse of mine before I decide what to do about my sweep-stake ticket. Somebody must point her out.”
“She’s up in the Library at this moment, I fancy ” said the Dean; “I saw her stewing away there just before dinner-cutting Hall as usual. I nearly spoke to her. Come and stroll through. Miss Vane. If she’s there, we’ll chase her out for the good of her soul. I want to look up a reference, anyhow.”
Harriet got up, laughing, and accompanied the Dean.
“I sometimes think,” said Miss Martin, “that Miss Shaw would get more real confidence from her pupils if she wasn’t always probing into their little insides. She likes people to be fond of her, which I think is rather a mistake. Be kind, but leave ’em alone, is my motto. The shy ones shrink into their shells when they’re poked, and the egotistical ones talk a lot of rubbish to attract attention. However, we all have our methods.”
She pushed open the Library door, halted in the end bay to consult a book and verify a quotation, and then led the way through the long room. At a table near the centre, a thin, fair girl was working amid a pile of reference books. The Dean stopped.
“You still here, Miss Newland? Haven’t you had any dinner?”
“I’ll have some later, Miss Martin. It was so hot, and I want to get this language paper done.”
The girt looked startled and uneasy. She pushed the damp hair back from her forehead. The whites of her eyes showed like those of a fidgety horse.
“Don’t you be a little juggins, said the Dean. ”All work and no play is simply silly in your Schools term. If you go on like this, we’ll have to send you away for a rest-cure and forbid work altogether for a week or so. Have you got a headache? You look as if you had.”