Mr. Pembroke was nearly twenty years older than his sister, and had never been as handsome. But he was not at all the person to knock into a gutter, for though not in orders, he had the air of being on the verge of them, and his features, as well as his clothes, had the clerical cut. In his presence conversation became pure and colourless and full of understatements, and—just as if he was a real clergyman—neither men nor boys ever forgot that he was there. He had observed this, and it pleased him very much. His conscience permitted him to enter the Church whenever his profession, which was the scholastic, should demand it.
"No gutter in the world's as wet as this," said Agnes, who had peeled off her brother's sock, and was now toasting it at the embers on a pair of tongs.
"Surely you know the running water by the edge of the Trumpington road? It's turned on occasionally to clear away the refuse—a most primitive idea. When I was up we had a joke about it, and called it the 'Pem.'"
"How complimentary!"
"You foolish girl,—not after me, of course. We called it the 'Pem' because it is close to Pembroke College. I remember—" He smiled a little, and twiddled his toes. Then he remembered the bedmaker, and said, "My sock is now dry. My sock, please."
"Your sock is sopping. No, you don't!" She twitched the tongs away from him. Mrs. Aberdeen, without speaking, fetched a pair of Rickie's socks and a pair of Rickie's shoes.
"Thank you; ah, thank you. I am sure Mr. Elliot would allow it."
Then he said in French to his sister, "Has there been the slightest sign of Frederick?"
"Now, do call him Rickie, and talk English. I found him here. He had forgotten about us, and was very sorry. Now he's gone to get some dinner, and I can't think why he isn't back."
Mrs. Aberdeen left them.
"He wants pulling up sharply. There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous. However can I wear such deformities?" For he had been madly trying to cram a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe.
"Don't!" said Agnes hastily. "Don't touch the poor fellow's things." The sight of the smart, stubby patent leather made her almost feel faint. She had known Rickie for many years, but it seemed so dreadful and so different now that he was a man. It was her first great contact with the abnormal, and unknown fibres of her being rose in revolt against it. She frowned when she heard his uneven tread upon the stairs.
"Agnes—before he arrives—you ought never to have left me and gone to his rooms alone. A most elementary transgression. Imagine the unpleasantness if you had found him with friends. If Gerald—"
Rickie by now had got into a fluster. At the kitchens he had lost his head, and when his turn came—he had had to wait—he had yielded his place to those behind, saying that he didn't matter. And he had wasted more precious time buying bananas, though he knew that the Pembrokes were not partial to fruit. Amid much tardy and chaotic hospitality the meal got under way. All the spoons and forks were anyhow, for Mrs. Aberdeen's virtues were not practical. The fish seemed never to have been alive, the meat had no kick, and the cork of the college claret slid forth silently, as if ashamed of the contents. Agnes was particularly pleasant. But her brother could not recover himself. He still remembered their desolate arrival, and he could feel the waters of the Pem eating into his instep.
"Rickie," cried the lady, "are you aware that you haven't congratulated me on my engagement?"
Rickie laughed nervously, and said, "Why no! No more I have."
"Say something pretty, then."
"I hope you'll be very happy," he mumbled. "But I don't know anything about marriage."
"Oh, you awful boy! Herbert, isn't he just the same? But you do know something about Gerald, so don't be so chilly and cautious. I've just realized, looking at those groups, that you must have been at school together. Did you come much across him?"
"Very little," he answered, and sounded shy. He got up hastily, and began to muddle with the coffee.
"But he was in the same house. Surely that's a house group?"
"He was a prefect." He made his coffee on the simple system. One had a brown pot, into which the boiling stuff was poured. Just before serving one put in a drop of cold water, and the idea was that the grounds fell to the bottom.
"Wasn't he a kind of athletic marvel? Couldn't he knock any boy or master down?"
"Yes."
"If he had wanted to," said Mr. Pembroke, who had not spoken for some time.
"If he had wanted to," echoed Rickie. "I do hope, Agnes, you'll be most awfully happy. I don't know anything about the army, but I should think it must be most awfully interesting."
Mr. Pembroke laughed faintly.
"Yes, Rickie. The army is a most interesting profession,—the profession of Wellington and Marlborough and Lord Roberts; a most interesting profession, as you observe. A profession that may mean death—death, rather than dishonour."
"That's nice," said Rickie, speaking to himself. "Any profession may mean dishonour, but one isn't allowed to die instead. The army's different. If a soldier makes a mess, it's thought rather decent of him, isn't it, if he blows out his brains? In the other professions it somehow seems cowardly."
"I am not competent to pronounce," said Mr. Pembroke, who was not accustomed to have his schoolroom satire commented on. "I merely know that the army is the finest profession in the world. Which reminds me, Rickie—have you been thinking about yours?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"No."
"Now, Herbert, don't bother him. Have another meringue."
"But, Rickie, my dear boy, you're twenty. It's time you thought. The Tripos is the beginning of life, not the end. In less than two years you will have got your B.A. What are you going to do with it?"
"I don't know."
"You're M.A., aren't you?" asked Agnes; but her brother proceeded—
"I have seen so many promising, brilliant lives wrecked simply on account of this—not settling soon enough. My dear boy, you must think. Consult your tastes if possible—but think. You have not a moment to lose. The Bar, like your father?"
"Oh, I wouldn't like that at all."
"I don't mention the Church."
"Oh, Rickie, do be a clergyman!" said Miss Pembroke. "You'd be simply killing in a wide-awake."
He looked at his guests hopelessly. Their kindness and competence overwhelmed him. "I wish I could talk to them as I talk to myself," he thought. "I'm not such an ass when I talk to myself. I don't believe, for instance, that quite all I thought about the cow was rot." Aloud he said, "I've sometimes wondered about writing."
"Writing?" said Mr. Pembroke, with the tone of one who gives everything its trial. "Well, what about writing? What kind of writing?"
"I rather like,"—he suppressed something in his throat,—"I rather like trying to write little stories."
"Why, I made sure it was poetry!" said Agnes. "You're just the boy for poetry."
"I had no idea you wrote. Would you let me see something? Then I could judge."
The author shook his head. "I don't show it to any one. It isn't anything. I just try because it amuses me."
"What is it about?"
"Silly nonsense."
"Are you ever going to show it to any one?"
"I don't think so."
Mr. Pembroke did not reply, firstly, because the meringue he was eating was, after all, Rickie's; secondly, because it was gluey and stuck his jaws together. Agnes observed that the writing was really a very good idea: there was Rickie's aunt,—she could push him.
"Aunt Emily never pushes any one; she says they always rebound and crush her."