Gaudy Night Read Free Page A

summery brains that flower early and run to seed. Here she is—my intimate friend—talking to me with a painful kind of admiring politeness about my books. And I am talking with a painful kind of admiring politeness about her children. We ought not to have met again. It’s awful.”
    Dorothy Collins broke in upon her thoughts by asking her a question about publishers’ contracts, and the reply to this tided them over till they emerged into the quad. A brisk figure came bustling along the path, and stopped with a cry of welcome.
    “Why, it’s Miss Vane! How nice to see you after all this long time.”
    Harriet thankfully allowed herself to be scooped up by the Dean, for whom she had always had a very great affection, and who had written kindly to her in the days when a cheerful kindliness had been the most helpful thing on earth. The other three, mindful of reverence toward authority, passed on; they had paid their respects to the Dean earlier in the afternoon.
    “It was splendid that you were able to come.”
    “Rather brave of me, don’t you think?” said Harriet.
    “Oh, nonsense!” said the Dean. She put her head on one side and fixed Harriet with a bright and birdlike eye. “You mustn’t think about all that. Nobody bothers about it at all. We’re not nearly such dried-up mummies as you think. After all, it’s the work you are doing that really counts, isn’t it? By the way, the Warden is longing to see you. She simply loved The Sands of Crime. Let’s see if we can catch her before the Vice-Chancellor arrives... How did you think Stokes was looking—Attwood, I mean? I never can remember all their married names.”
    “Pretty rotten, I’m afraid,” said Harriet. “I came here to see her, really, you know—but I’m afraid it’s not going to be much of a success.”
    “Ah!” said the Dean. “She’s stopped growing, I expect. She was a friend of yours—but I always thought she had a head like a day-old chick, very precocious, but no staying power. However, I hope they’ll put her right... Bother this wind—I can’t keep my cap down. You manage yours remarkably well; how do you do it? And I notice that we are both decently sub-fusc. Have you seen Trimmer in that frightful frock like a canary lampshade?”
    “That was Trimmer, was it? What’s she doing?”
    “Oh, lord! my dear, she’s gone in for mental healing. Brightness and love and all that.... Ah! I thought we should find the Warden here.”
    Shrewsbury College had been fortunate in its wardens. In the early days, it had been dignified by a woman of position; in the difficult period when it fought for Women’s degrees it had been guided by a diplomat; and now that it was received into the University, its behaviour was made acceptable by a personality. Dr. Margaret Baring wore her scarlet and French grey with an air. She was a magnificent figurehead on all public occasions, and she could soothe with tact the wounded breasts of crusty and affronted male dons. She greeted Harriet graciously, and asked what she thought of the new Library Wing, which would complete the North side of the Old Quad. Harriet duly admired what could be seen of its proportions, said it would be a great improvement, and asked when it would be finished.
    “By Easter, we hope. Perhaps we shall see you at the Opening.”
    Harriet said politely that she should look forward to it, and, seeing the Vice-Chancellor’s gown flutter into sight in the distance, drifted tactfully away to join the main throng of old students.
    Gowns, gowns, gowns. It was difficult sometimes to recognise people after ten years or more. That in the blue-and-rabbit-skin hood must be Sylvia Drake—she had taken that B.Litt. at last, then. Miss Drake’s B.Litt. had been the joke of the college; it had taken her so long; she was continually rewriting her thesis and despairing over it. She would hardly remember Harriet, who was so much her junior, but Harriet remembered her well—always popping in