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.‘Look.’ He lifted up his foot to show the sole of his shoe.‘What a terrible thing,’ murmured Miss Doggett.‘Terrible … I feel quite shaken.’‘Shall I get you some brandy?’ said Edward, springing up.‘No, thank you.I don’t need a stimulant, but I should like some more tea.Miss Morrow, pass my cup to Mrs.Killigrew.I am an old woman and this dreadful news has been a great shock to me,’ she explained.‘I am sure that it must have been,’ said Mrs.Killigrew in a satisfied tone.‘But you have not said anything, Dr.Fremantle.What is your opinion?’They all turned to look at him, standing by the window, his hand absently burrowing in his beard.‘Well, I think it is really nothing,’ he said surprisingly, ‘or, at least, nothing very much.’‘You mean that you think there is nothing in it?’ asked Edward incredulously.‘I do not say that,’ said Dr.Fremantle.‘There may well be something in it, but I do not believe it is as much as you think.After all, Cleveland is a handsome man in the prime of life.What could be more natural than for him to have a little affair of the heart? Man is by nature polygamous,’ he declared.‘We all know that.’Olive Fremantle shot a timid glance at her husband.Herbert polygamous! All these years of marriage, more than forty years now.She remembered one spring in Florence and an American woman who had afterwards appeared in Oxford in the long vacation.It did not do to enquire too closely.If Herbert said that man is by nature polygamous—well, all one could do was to leave it at that and hope for the best.At least he was still her husband, which was something.He was an old man, too, over seventy now.Perhaps that was even more.‘But, Dr.Fremantle, the disgrace of it, it can’t possibly be hushed up now,’ protested Miss Doggett.He smiled, but nobody saw the smile under his bush of beard.‘There will be no disgrace,’ he said calmly.‘Nothing need come of it,’ he added, with a warning glance at his hearers, ‘and I prophesy that nothing will.You mark my words.There was something of the kind in the eighties—old Dr.Baldwin—but he was in Orders, which made it rather a scandalous affair.But, of course, we mustn’t forget that a man’s a man however he wears his collar, must we?’Miss Doggett looked as if she were about to protest that the wearing of a collar back to front was not the only thing that distinguished a clergyman from a layman, but Dr.Fremantle stopped her with a peremptory wave of the hand.‘We don’t want to make more fuss about this than is necessary,’ went on Dr.Fremantle.‘As you said, Charlotte, we are not gossips.We do not talk about these things for our own amusement,’ he added, with a touch of malice in his tone.‘I cannot see that we shall do any good by meddling with things which do not at present concern us.I am sure that we all wish to do good, don’t we? There is not really much else we can do now, at our age.’ He laughed a rumbling laugh into his beard.‘But surely, Dr.Fremantle, it is your duty to speak to my nephew about it?’ persisted Miss Doggett.‘Think of the honour of the college.’ She made a vague, sweeping movement with her hand.‘If as time goes on it appears to be my duty to say something, you can be sure that I shall say it,’ Dr.Fremantle reassured her, ‘but in the meantime I do not see how the honour of Randolph College is going to be seriously affected by a declaration of love made in the British Museum.’It certainly sounded very ridiculous put like that, thought Miss Morrow, but then perhaps all love had something of the ridiculous about it, and the realisation did not necessarily mean that Mr.Cleveland’s affair was not to be taken seriously.‘You know it’s been going on for some time,’ said Edward Killigrew, who was afraid that after what Dr.Fremantle had just said his news might appear less important than it had done at first.‘I found him waiting for her to come out of the library one evening as long ago as last Christmas.’‘And he had tea with her in Fuller’s before Christmas,’ put in Miss Doggett.‘Miss Morrow and I saw them with our own eyes.’‘And then there was another time, in March, I think, when we had that nice weather,’ said Edward.‘I met him coming out of a flower shop.I didn’t think anything of it at the time.But now … ‘ He paused significantly.‘Perhaps he was sending flowers to an invalid or ordering a wreath for a funeral,’ suggested Miss Morrow timidly.‘That’s what I thought at the time,’ said Edward.‘Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Morrow,’ said Miss Doggett sharply.‘He has no invalids among his acquaintance, and if a relative had died I should certainly have been among the first to know.’‘Yes, I suppose so,’ agreed Miss Morrow reluctantly, for Miss Doggett delighted in deaths and funerals.‘Well, we all come to it, you know,’ said Dr.Fremantle indulgently.‘ “They are not long, the weeping and the laughter”,’ he quoted from a favourite poet of his youth.‘Come, Olive,’ he called in a commanding voice, ‘it’s time we went.’‘Yes, Charlotte, I’m afraid we must be going,’ said Mrs.Fremantle regretfully.‘We have to go out to dinner tonight.It has been so delightful seeing you.You are looking splendid,’ she quavered, putting a thin, spidery hand into Mrs.Killigrew’s firm white one.‘Yes, we have heard an interesting piece of news,’ said Dr.Fremantle, as if acknowledging the main purpose of the tea party.‘Mind you, I don’t think it is quite as important as you seem to imagine, but one never knows,’ he added, throwing them a fragment of consolation.A few words of advice from a man of the world, that was what Cleveland needed.He ought to have been more discreet about this little affair.It was surprising that a good-looking man like that hadn’t had more practice.But of course Cleveland was lazy; he might drift into something without realising the consequences.Dr.Fremantle flattered himself that he had ordered his own life a little more skilfully.‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses…’ but he had certainly enjoyed them where he could.He chuckled, remembering some past episode.‘You mark my words, it will all blow over,’ was his parting shot.‘I wish we could all take such an optimistic view of the matter as Dr.Fremantle appears to,’ said Miss Doggett in a gloomy tone, which yet seemed to be deeply satisfied.‘I am afraid there is going to be a great deal more in this than he thinks.’‘Yes, we felt we could not keep such a piece of news to ourselves,’ said Mrs.Killigrew.‘It would have been wrong to conceal it.’And selfish too, thought Miss Morrow, as she walked home with Miss Doggett, on whom the news appeared to have acted like a tonic.Her step was more sprightly than when they had started out, and her voice had a new, firm quality about it.‘I blame myself for this,’ she said.‘I ought to have acted sooner.I only hope it may not be too late.’‘Too late?’ said Miss Morrow.‘Oh, I don’t see how it could be too late.’‘Miss Morrow, you know nothing about such matters,’ said Miss Doggett sharply.‘It may very well be too late.I would go into the house and tackle him with it now,’ she added, as they passed the Clevelands’ gate, ‘but I feel that I must have time to think it over.This matter requires very careful handling,’ she added obscurely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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