The House of Hardie (16 page)

Fleetingly, as she spoke, she remembered the conversation she had had with Archie on this subject a year earlier. Her views, imperceptibly, had changed. Then she had expected to train future governesses in order that girls from good families might in future be better taught at home. Now she planned to bring such girls directly under her own influence and help them qualify to study at Oxford or Cambridge. Perhaps in time the present barriers of masculine prejudice would crumble beneath the weight of numbers.

Comparing this conversation with the earlier one, she recognized that a second ingredient was also different. Archie had been offered the best education that money could buy, and Midge suspected that it had left him with a feeling of contempt for the ‘beaks' who were so obviously his social inferiors. Her ambitions must have seemed second-rate to him, so that he could discuss them
only as a joke. Mr Witney, in contrast, had wasted his own chance of elementary schooling, such as it was. But he had made up for it since then, discovering what he needed to know and applying himself in his limited free time to making good the deficiencies in his knowledge. He, like herself, must recognize that it was education which could offer an escape from the handicaps of birth. He would understand, with such a background, why she thought her work could be important. As he refilled her glass, she felt her spirits bubbling as lightly as the champagne.

‘I hope you'll choose to work in Oxford,' he said. ‘The High School –'

Midge interrupted the suggestion with a shake of her head. ‘I wouldn't want to work as a colleague with teachers who still think of me as a pupil,' she said. ‘I shall apply to the Ladies' College at Cheltenham as soon as I hear my examination results. But, of course, I'm not the one who will do the choosing.'

‘You'll be at home at least for the vacation, I hope. These past few weeks – you've been working so hard – I've been looking forward to the chance to get better acquainted now that you have more time to relax.'

‘I hope to be in Oxford in three weeks' time for the
viva voce
examination,' Midge told him. ‘Until then, I'm going to stay with a friend of mine. Her family owns a holiday home in the Lake District. We shall be able to walk the fells. After all this time at my books, I need to take some exercise.'

She smiled with all the pleasure of anticipation at the thought of striding out freely in the mountain air. But there was a different expression in the eyes of Mr Witney, who made no attempt to conceal his disappointment. As though … Once before, in the middle of a conversation
with a young man, she had seen such a look. Archie Yates, grovelling on the ground in mock apology, had acted a part, laughing; and then without warning had looked at her as though for the first time – and seemed to like what he saw.

Was she allowing her imagination to be ruled by conceit in believing that Mr Witney was making the same kind of silent appeal? If so, she must pretend, for his sake, not to notice. She drained her glass and stood up, thanking him for the kindness of his thought in meeting and cheering her. The words were sincere, but meant no more than she said. She had burned her fingers once by allowing a young man's entreaties to melt her heart. The consequences, fortunately, had been no more than a short period of extreme anxiety lest she should find herself pregnant, followed by the humiliation and unhappiness which Archie's letter had inflicted on her. It had been a lesson to teach her how quickly an infatuation could rage out of hand like a forest fire. She did not propose to make the same mistake again.

‘Congratulations!' exclaimed Gordon. The examination results were out: Midge had been placed in the Second Class. Her smile of pleasure seemed genuine enough; it was impossible for him to tell whether she had secretly expected a First.

‘We should celebrate,' he decided. ‘A day on the river. We'll take a picnic and I'll row you to Godstow.' Now that all the undergraduates had gone down for the Long Vacation there would be no difficulty in hiring a boat.

‘I may not have to work, but surely
you
must,' said Midge.

Gordon laughed. ‘Business is always slow in August,' he reminded her. ‘And I can't persuade Will – Mr Witney – to let me do a full day's work. He's been so quick to pick up his new responsibilities that I've been able to leave him in charge while I searched for patrons; and now that I'm back in Oxford and prepared to pull my weight for a few more weeks, I find that there's no room for me. He's a sound chap, to be sure. I shall be able to travel with an easy conscience, knowing that the Oxford shop is in good hands. So, the river?'

Midge smiled in agreement and went off to discuss a picnic hamper with the cook, leaving Gordon to wonder how best to introduce the subject which had nagged at his mind for several weeks. Now that Midge need neither work nor worry, his questions would not distract her – but they might be hurtful unless he could express them tactfully.

While he was rowing, he wasted no breath on conversation, for the distance was a long one with no one to share the work against the current. Only when he had moored the boat and helped his sister to spread out a cloth in a low-lying meadow, did he open the conversation with a casual comment.

‘This is something you've missed this summer. Last year, I remember, you spent a good deal of time on the river.'

‘Last year I was a second-year student. Quite a different person from the harassed third-year approaching Finals.'

‘And has it been the same with dances?'

‘Even less possible,' said Midge briefly. ‘A ball may last for only five or six hours. But there's all the distraction of choosing clothes. And resting beforehand and recovering afterwards. A whole week's work can disappear into the programme of a single ball. I told myself at the beginning of the year that there would be other summers, other chances of social distraction. It's been no great sacrifice to devote just these few months to my studies. Shall I cut you a piece of pie, or will you serve yourself?'

‘A small piece, thank you.' But Gordon did not allow himself to be distracted by the change of subject. ‘I would have thought, though, that you might have allowed yourself an occasional short break. To celebrate Mr Yates's coming-of-age, for example, since you and he are friends.'

‘We
were
friends.' Midge's colour rose as she made the correction. ‘The friendship has come to an end. If that's what you were trying to discover, you could have asked more directly.'

‘I've no right to intrude into your private affairs. Though I must say, I think you've been wise –'

‘Oh, it wasn't I who was wise. If we're going to discuss this tedious subject, you might as well hear the truth of it.
I was the fool you always thought me. And Mr Yates behaved precisely as you anticipated. I award you a First Class for intelligent prophecy.'

‘How did it come about?' It was easy to tell that Midge was angry, but her anger seemed to be with herself rather than with Gordon's prying.

‘He wrote to me at the beginning of the Easter vacation. His tutors' report on his work had been unfavourable. The Dean himself had opinions to be expressed on the subject. There was a strong suggestion that Mr Yates was allowing himself too many distractions. The Marquess of Ross, I gather, expressed some displeasure on reading these opinions. Since it was not to be expected that Mr Yates should abandon his rowing or his games or his dining companions, it was clear that I was the distraction most easily surrendered.'

‘Did the marquess know of your friendship?'

‘I gathered that he knew and disapproved. Not necessarily of myself as an individual. My impression was that any entanglement with a female person would be frowned on at least until Mr Yates had taken his degree. But an exception might, I suppose, have been made for an heiress. It's of no consequence.'

‘I think it's of great consequence.' Gordon, thoroughly indignant on his sister's behalf, would have continued, but she put up a hand to stop him.

‘I've had time to think about it, Gordon. I was upset for a day or two, certainly, but since then … I asked myself why I'd decided to study at the university. It wasn't because I propose to spend the rest of my life trying to discover something that no one has ever known before. I'm not a true scholar in that sense. The reason I chose to take a degree – or, at least, to pass the examinations – was because there was a job I wanted to do, and still want
to. Now then; if I get married, my husband will not allow me to work.'

She paused for her brother's agreement to this statement, and he nodded his head. No husband could allow it to be thought that he was unable to support his wife.

‘So I must choose between work and marriage. I've always known this. It's just that because neither a post nor a husband has been immediately on offer in the past, it proved too tempting when the first one came along – or seemed to. I was swept off my feet. Now that I can think about it reasonably, I see that Mr Yates has done me a very good turn. If my first suitor had been a gentleman who was in all respects suitable, someone I loved and continued to love, someone who was steadfast in his wish to marry me – well, I might still have been swept off my feet, but this time with no safety barrier to hold me back while I considered deeply what was best for me.'

‘You can't be sure that marriage isn't the right thing. A loving husband, children, your own establishment – are you wise to turn your back on all this without having sampled it?'

‘Once I move into that world, there's no turning back,' Midge pointed out. ‘It's only if I start work and find it unsatisfying that I might perhaps hope for a second chance. You're going to explore an unknown country, Gordon, and you're excited about it even though you have little idea what you'll find there. You could look at it this way: that I shall be exploring too. The life of the spinster-by-choice is an uncharted one. Like you, I shall be taking a risk. But you must allow that I too can be excited.'

Gordon hardly knew what to say. Was Midge simply making the best of a bad job? Did she realize that in her sort of exploration, as in his own, there were bound to be
moments of fear and loneliness, as well as the excitement she hoped for? He found it hard to decide whether to admire or to feel sorry for her. She seemed to sense his doubts, because the carefree merriment which until recently he had always been accustomed to see in her eyes returned as she laughed.

‘First love is a notoriously dangerous condition, Gordon. I've learned from my experience, and it will save me from making the same mistake again. If I'm ever tempted in the future, I shall remember what I've just said – and what you said to me a year ago – and pause to consider more seriously where my affections may be leading me. I ought to be grateful to Mr Yates for taking this practical side of my education in hand.'

‘Mr Yates is a bounder.' Gordon could read through his sister's apparently careless tone of voice to guess that she had been hurt. But there seemed no pretence as she shook her head to disagree with his comment.

‘Mr Yates is a year younger than myself, and perhaps in some respects just as unsophisticated. You mustn't think of him as some wicked schemer, Gordon. I'm sure that his affection for me was genuine enough. It was foolish of him to put it into words, perhaps, just as it was foolish of me to allow him to become too familiar. But –'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘Oh heavens, Gordon, don't jump down my throat. I mean nothing at all by it. I may have been a little humiliated, but I haven't been disgraced. A lack of decorum, perhaps, nothing more.'

‘Those words of Mr Yates that you referred to –' At the beginning of the conversation Gordon had been curious, and prepared to feel some indignation on his sister's account. But now it was his own anger which rose to thicken his voice and rob him of appetite. ‘Did he
speak of marriage? Were there other occasions, after the one I know of, when you were alone together? Did he lead you into that lack of decorum you mentioned by allowing you to think of him as a fiancé – on the basis of some understanding, perhaps, which would be confirmed when he came of age and was his own master?'

For a second time in their conversation Midge flushed, making the answers to his questions clear enough. But then she took a grip of herself. Picking up a knife, she brandished it threateningly in his direction, while the familiar twinkle returned to her eyes.

‘I understood that I'd been invited for a light-hearted picnic,' she said. ‘To mark the end of my student slavery and a return to normal social life. I'm not prepared to spoil the day by devoting any more time and attention to a young gentleman whose part in my life is over. He and I won't meet again, and there's no point at all in discussing the past. The only business on our agenda is that of Mrs Tavory's closed apple tart. Can you eat half of it?'

‘I've no appetite,' said Gordon.

‘Then the ducks are in luck.' Midge began to break off small pieces of the crust and toss them into the water. A flotilla of mallards made towards them like an arrowhead from the far side of the river. ‘Mrs Tavory would never forgive us if we returned it to her unappreciated.'

‘Oh well,' said Gordon. ‘I suppose I need to keep up my strength if I'm to row you back to Oxford. Yes, I could manage half.'

Just for one moment longer Midge looked at him seriously.

‘If you should happen to meet Mr Yates in the course of business before you leave for China,' she said, ‘I should take it very poorly if you were to mention my name. I accepted my
congé
with dignity, I hope, and for the sake
of my self-respect the matter is to be regarded as closed. Agreed?'

Gordon bit into the crumbling pastry and did not care that he was speaking with his mouth full. ‘Agreed,' he said.