Chapter XXII: Reading the Lists

It was the oddest state of things that can be imagined at Newnham all through that next week. The order of everything was reversed. It had been all work--real, desperate work--now it was all play.

It was hard work enough to get through the days. The exams. were all over. There was nothing for the girls to do but to wait with what patience Heaven had given them for the lists to be out. Some of them were already quite indifferent to the lists, and when the strain was over had gone to bed, like Pamela, and turned their faces to the wall. Others had locked their doors and gone through their papers over and over again, and had made up their minds exactly where they should be placed when the lists came out. Some, more wise than the rest, had put their papers in the fire, and relieved their overburdened minds with large doses of fiction.

There was not a book opened in Newnham through all that week but yellow-backs. Annabel Crewe declared that she had read eleven before the week was half out, and a Natural Science girl had discovered that an infallible method for distracting one's thoughts from 'ologies' was to keep three sensational novels going at once.

One by one the Tripos lists came out, and the girls who had gone to bed for good thought better of it, and got up again, and came down to be congratulated, and admired, and made much of. The foolish virgins who had burnt their papers, and behaved with corresponding frivolity through all their University career, received the due reward of their folly, and were snubbed and condoled with in the most approved fashion. If one is down one must expect to be sat upon, or what would be the advantage of success?

The women's colleges had nothing to complain of. They had more than one first-class in every Tripos. They had beaten the men on their own ground; they had not only kept their place, but they were coming more and more to the front every year. They will win their degrees soon. Already the opinion of the Senate is equally divided; very soon the balance will be in their favour, and then all things will be possible.

The list of the Mathematical Tripos is read out last of all. It is not read until May Week has well begun, when the boat-races are half over, and the college concerts are in full swing, and picnics on the river and luncheons in college rooms are the order of the day.

The list is read out inside the Senate House, as befits the dignity of the occasion; but this particular year it was rumoured that the lists would be read out from the steps. Some distinguished visitors were expected at noon, and the Senate, in their zeal for the encouragement of learning and other virtues, were about to confer upon them Degrees of Honour, and the Senate House was full of carpenters preparing for the auspicious occasion.

Half an hour before the appointed time for reading the list the girls of Girton and Newnham and the men from every college in Cambridge assembled on the clean-shaven lawn before the south door of the Senate House. It was a glorious June morning, and the crowd could afford to wait. Having waited so long, they could wait a few minutes longer. To some those few minutes were a boon; the delay enabled them to pull themselves together, and bear with what courage and resignation they could call to their aid the fateful verdict they would presently hear read out.

The girls were more impatient than the men. They had reached the spot a quarter of an hour earlier, and had secured all the front places. They crowded the steps of the Senate House to the very doors, and they filled the broad path beneath the windows. A cool, compact, delightful crowd--a bevy, one might almost say--a bit of bright refreshing colour amid the rusty gowns and limp, disreputable caps of the undergraduates.

But the lists were not read out from the steps, and the girls crowded round the Senate House doors in vain. When it wanted a few minutes to the hour a window was opened just above the heads of the girls on the path, and a man looked out. He wore an M.A. hood, and there was a Proctor hiding away behind him in a white tie. The men sent up a shout and a howl--a shout for the examiner and a howl for the Proctor, who happened to be unpopular. The faces of the girls who had crowded up the steps and round the doors fell. They had expected to be in the very best place, and they were quite out of it. They could look on the eager faces of the men below them and the girls in the crowd, if this was any compensation. They could see how vainly the men strove to hide their anxiety beneath a veil of indifference or careless hilarity, and how the girls made no pretence at all of concealing their feelings, but looked as if they would like to tear that bland little examiner at the window limb from limb.

Among the girls who thirsted for his blood was Maria Stubbs. She had come quite early--one of the first--and she had settled herself on the top step just outside the Senate House door, and she awaited with devouring anxiety the reading of the list. It was not her list; it was Pamela Gwatkin's list. She had left her at Newnham in bed, with the curtains drawn to keep out the daylight, and she had taken away her watch, that the dreaded hour should not disturb her, and she had gone in at the last moment, and found her broad awake, with her weary eyes watching the door. She need not have troubled herself to take away the watch. Pamela knew the time to a second. She had been counting the hours all the night, and now she was counting the minutes.

'You are going to the Senate House?' she said, looking up. 'You needn't hurry back. I know exactly where I am.'

'We all know where you ought to be,' Maria said, hanging her head. 'The men would have been nowhere if it hadn't been for my wicked neglect!'

She was so angry with Lucy for being the innocent cause of her preoccupation that she wouldn't let her walk with her to the Senate House. She would hardly let her stand on the steps beside her, but Lucy wasn't to be pushed aside. She had as much interest in the list that was about to be read as Miss Stubbs.

There were a great many mothers and fathers and sisters and cousins there of the men whose names would presently be read out, and there might have been some sweethearts present; but there was not a single girl in all that crowd of sweet young English womanhood that did not envy Lucy.

'Time, sir, time!' the men shouted, and the examiner smiled benignly down on the crowd beneath.

'Time! time!'

How eager the men were! They couldn't all be Senior Wranglers!

Perhaps there were not many expectant Senior Wranglers there. It is not often that a man whose name is on every lip has the courage to face the ordeal. There is always a chance of disappointment. Wyatt Edgell was not among the crowd. Lucy must have seen him from her elevated place on the steps as she looked down at the upturned faces of the men, had he been there. Eric Gwatkin was close beneath the window among a crowd of St. Benedict's men, but Edgell was not among them.

'Time! time!' the men shouted, but the examiner only smiled and looked at his watch.

The minute-hand of the clock of great St. Mary's had travelled round to within a few seconds of the hour. A Proctor who was standing near the examiner, with the list in his hand, looked down at the crowd of undergraduates beneath with an eye to business, and took down the names of the men who were making a row.

It was the unpopular Proctor, and at the sight of his unwelcome face at the window the crowd beneath set up a groan, and in the midst of the groan the clock of the University church struck nine.

'Time!'

It was time indeed. The examiner opened the list, and held up his hand for silence. The men were still groaning as he read out the first name on the list:

'Senior Wrangler--Wyatt Edgell, St. Benedict's.'

The St. Benedict's men set up a great shout, and Eric Gwatkin waved his cap in a ridiculous manner. Lucy would have liked to wave her hat, too, she was so absurdly elated. She hadn't thought what a great thing it was to be Senior Wrangler until she saw how the crowd applauded. She quite flushed with triumph; it was her victory--hers! If it had not been for her, her lover would not have thought the prize worth winning. He had won it for her sake!

She was so proud and happy she did not hear another name in the list. What did the disappointment of others matter to her? Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were dancing with triumph. Oh, it was a proud thing to have a lover a Senior Wrangler!

Pamela Gwatkin was only equal to fifth--fifth Wrangler--and when Maria Stubbs went down the steps of the Senate House Lucy saw she had tears in her eyes. Of course, she was crying for Pamela's defeat. As if Pamela could have had any chance against her lover!

Lucy ran nearly all the way back to St. Benedict's. She wanted to be the first to congratulate her lover. Fast as she ran, Eric Gwatkin was there before her.

There was a strange hush in the outer court as she entered the college gate. There was no shouting like she had heard in the street and in the Senate House yard. There was a strange, ominous silence. The men were standing about the court in knots, and the porter was talking to a little group of men at the gate.

Lucy's heart sank within her. Had anything happened to the Master or Mrs. Rae? She thought the men looked at her with a strange kind of pity as she passed through the court, and they took off their caps as she passed. It was quite an ovation. Her lover was Senior Wrangler. She was quite in a flutter of pride and expectation; still, her heart sank within her.

Eric Gwatkin met her in the cloister; he was hurrying across to the lodge. She thought he was coming to tell her. What else should he come to the lodge for? The Master was past telling.

'Oh!' she cried, running to meet him, 'how does he bear it? You have told him----'

She paused, and her voice faltered with the question on her lips. Eric's face was white and anxious, and he was not smiling. He was not the least like the man who was waving his cap under the window of the Senate House.

'You have not heard----' he said.

'Heard what?' she cried impatiently. 'Is the Master----'

'No--no,' he interrupted; 'it is not that--it is not the Master.'

'It is Mrs. Rae?' she said, with a chill feeling at her heart. She was sure something had happened.

'No, it is not Mrs. Rae. Oh, Miss Lucy! how can I tell you?'

'It is _he_!' she said in a stricken voice, and with that dreadful feeling at her heart. 'Oh! what has he done?'

She was standing wringing her hands in the middle of the cloisters, and the men were passing through, and everyone could see her.

'Hush!' Eric said almost harshly; 'he has not done anything--at least, he has only done what others do at this time. There was a bump supper last night, and--and Wyatt was there; and when Mr. Colville went in this morning to tell him of his great success, he was on the floor in one of his old attacks. It is all over the college, and everybody is dreadfully shocked--that is all!'

'All!' Lucy said bitterly. 'You speak as if the shame and exposure were nothing. Oh, I shall never be able to face it!' She only thought of herself.

Eric Gwatkin was very sorry for her. He would have spared her if he could. It was better for her to hear it from his lips than from others.

'He has done great things,' he said. 'It was enough to turn anybody's head. He will go down in a day or two, and the temptation will not occur again. You do not know--how should you?--how great the temptation is--what a supreme moment this is in a man's life!'

'No,' Lucy said, with a shiver, 'I do not know.'

They had reached the door of the lodge while they were talking together, and Eric had rung the bell.

'Why do you ring?' she said sharply.

He hung his head.

'I came over to see if Nurse Brannan can be spared for a few minutes,' he said guiltily.

'Is he so bad as that?' Lucy asked; but she did not offer to go to him.

'Ye--es; he is very bad. Mr. Colville is with him, and he thought that the nurse ought to be with him until the doctor comes.'

'You have sent for a doctor?'

'Yes; the Tutor has sent for a doctor, and--and he has noticed that scar.'

'And you have told him?'

'Yes; I have told him. How could I help it?'

Lucy went into the lodge covered with shame and humiliation. She was so proud and happy when she entered the college gate. She had made up her mind to tell Cousin Mary all about her engagement. She was going to her to be congratulated--to be envied and congratulated by everybody in Cambridge. Now she wouldn't have owned it for the world. How lucky she hadn't told Mary!