Chapter XVIII: Capability Stubbs

It was clearly Lucy's duty not to go back to Newnham, whatever Maria Stubbs' hurry might be, until she had told her Cousin Mary what had passed between her and Wyatt Edgell in the gallery.

It is not usual, even at Cambridge, where there have been so many social revolutions of late, for young women to receive the visits of gentlemen, and exchange the privileged amenities of engaged persons, without acquainting the elders of their household.

There was no one to acquaint at the lodge but Cousin Mary. It was no use telling the Master, he would confuse it with Dick's courtship that had been over sixty years ago, and he would be telling Nurse Brannan that Lucy's mother first met her lover in a dancing-booth at a fair. The Master's wife was almost past telling; she had been growing weaker day by day ever since that accident; the world had been slipping away from her ever since. She had ceased to take any interest in anything that was going on around her. She seldom spoke now; sight and strength and speech were all failing. When she did speak, she had only one question to ask: 'How is the Master?'

But Lucy would not admit that she had any engagement yet to tell anybody about. She had only told Wyatt Edgell that he might go back to work, and she had further told him that he might think of her at certain times.

This was all; no promise, no real engagement. Of course he ought not to have taken her into his arms until he was properly engaged. He had been premature, but Lucy had no one but herself to blame for it.

This is how Lucy reasoned as she walked back to Newnham with Miss Stubbs. She went straight back without seeing the Master's wife or Cousin Mary; she positively crept out of the lodge as if she had done some shameful thing, and was afraid of being found out. She was very nice to Maria on the way. She called her dear, which is quite an unheard-of thing among the Stoics of Newnham, but Miss Stubbs was not to be taken in.

'It's pretty far gone,' she observed with a sniff, when Lucy made a timid little allusion to Edgell's visit to the gallery.

'Oh dear no, not at all!' Lucy said sweetly.

Miss Stubbs raised her red eyebrows. It was those dreadful red eyebrows and red eyelashes that made her so--so unlovely.

'Oh,' she remarked in her unpleasant way, 'I thought I heard--ahem!--some--some kissing. I may have been mistaken; perhaps it was the wind.'

'The wind was very rough this afternoon, dear; it was rattling the shaky old lattice dreadfully.'

Miss Stubbs smiled scornfully. There hadn't been a breath of air all the day.

'I suppose it's a settled thing?' she said presently.

'Settled? Oh no; not at all!'

'Then it ought to be!' Maria said sharply. 'You've given him encouragement enough. He's been hanging about the lane every morning this week. It's known all over the place that he's waiting for you.'

'But I haven't met him!' Lucy said stoutly. She wasn't going to be sat upon by Maria.

'No; oh no! you haven't met him this week; we should all have known it if you had, because we've all been on the look-out since that day when you were caught kissing in the lane. I shouldn't have mentioned it--though it's not good form in a woman's college--if it hadn't occurred again to-day. It's all right, I suppose, if you are engaged.'

'But I am not engaged!' said Lucy impatiently.

She was not going to be lectured by Maria. Nobody would ever think of kissing Maria in the lane.

'Then I don't understand it,' Miss Stubbs said stiffly.

'Oh, you poor creature!' Lucy said with a weak attempt at a laugh, and her cheeks scarlet. 'I am only encouraging him for his own good. I have only told him he may work; he is sure to take a high place, but he would not do anything if I did not encourage him. Think: all his life depends upon it. You would do the same if you were in my place.'

Miss Stubbs did not say she wouldn't, but she blushed beneath her freckles, and her eyes softened beneath the red lashes. There were depths in her eyes that Lucy had never seen in them before, and she was looking at Maria sharply--unfathomed depths, for nobody had tested the depths and height of Maria's love. Perhaps a brave man, who does not look on the outward appearance, or who prefers red hair, may some day, and he will have no cause for regret.

'And what will happen when--when the work is done, and he has won the high place?' Maria asked softly.

She was thinking how she would love above all things to fire a man who loved her with ambitions. She would fill him with the noblest ambitions, and when he had climbed the ladder, when he had realized all his dreams, she would not cheat him of his reward.

'And what then?' she repeated, when she found Lucy did not answer.

'Oh, I don't know. I have not made up my mind. Whatever happened, it would be a great thing for him to have done the work--to have taken his degree, that could never be recalled. I am sure I have done right--in--in encouraging him, as you term it.'

'I think it would be base--and mean--and unworthy--an unwomanly thing to throw him over in the end!' Maria said, with a little catch in her voice. She couldn't find adjectives strong enough, and she had to pause between each.

Wyatt Edgell went back to his rooms across the court with great swinging strides, and he climbed the stairs three at a time. He met the Senior Tutor coming out of his rooms at the top of the stairs, and the little snatch of a love-song he was singing died on his lips. Still, his lips were smiling, and his eyes were shining, and his face was earnest and set. It was the face of a man who was going to do something--who was going to win.

'How have you done?' the Tutor asked, stopping him. He asked it with a smile; he hadn't any doubt about how he had done.

'Not so well as I could have wished, sir. I shall do better in the next part.'

There are two 'parts' in the Mathematical Tripos. If a man gets through