Kathleen

Excerpt

KATHLEEN

I

The Scorpions were to meet at eight o'clock and before that hour Kenneth Forbes had to finish the first chapter of a serial story. The literary society, named in accordance with the grotesque whim of Oxford undergraduates, consisted of eight members, and it was proposed that each one should contribute a chapter. Forbes was of a fertile wit, and he had been nominated the first operator. He had been allowed the whole Christmas vacation to prepare his opening chapter; which was why on this first Sunday of term while the rest of Merton College was at dinner in hall, he sat at his desk desperately driving his pen across the paper.

Forbes's room in Fellows' Quad was one of those that had housed Queen Henrietta Maria in 1643, and though Forbes's own tastes were nondescript the chamber still had something of an air. The dark wood panelling might well have done honour to a royal lodger, and a motion-picture producer would have coveted it as a background for Mary Pickford. It was unspoiled by pictures: two or three political maps of Europe, sketchily drawn with coloured crayons, were pinned up here and there. The room was a typical Oxford apartment: dark, a little faded, but redeemed by the grate of glowing coals. Behind the chimney two recessed seats looked out over the college gardens; long red curtains were drawn to shut out the winter draughts. It was the true English January— driving squalls of rain, dampness, and devastating chill. The east wind brought the booming toll from Magdalen tower very distinctly to the ear, closely followed by the tinny chime in Fellows' Quad. It was half past seven.

Forbes laid down his pen, looked quizzically at the last illegible lines slanting up the paper, and realized that he was hungry. His untasted tea and anchovy toast still stood in the fender where the scout had put them three hours before.

He switched on the electric light over the dining table in the centre of the room, and, dropping on the sofa before the fire, prodded the huge lumps of soft coal into a blaze. The triangular slices of anchovy toast were cold but still very good, and he devoured them with appetite. He lit a cigarette with a sigh of content, and reflected that he had not crossed his name off hall. Therefore he must pay eighteen pence for dinner, even though he had not eaten it. Also there lay somewhat heavily on his mind the fact that at ten the next morning he must read to his tutor an essay on "Danton and Robespierre," an essay as yet unwritten. That would mean a very early rising and an uncomfortable chilly session in the college library, a dismal place in the forenoon. Never mind, first came a jolly evening with the Scorpions. The meetings were always fun, and this one, coming after the separation of a six-weeks' vacation, promised special sport. Carter was down for a paper on Rabelais; King would have some of his amusing ballades and rondeaus; and above all there would be the first chapter of the serial, from which the members promised themselves much diversion....