The Nonesuch

For himself, Sir Waldo was resigned to an evening’s boredom, denied even the amusement of pursuing his acquaintance with the lady who disapproved of him. He had looked in vain for her, and was conscious of disappointment. He could not recall her name, but he did remember that he had been attracted by her air of cool distinction, and the smile which leaped so suddenly into her eyes. She was intelligent, too, and had a sense of humour: a rare thing, he thought, amongst females. He would have liked to have known her better, and had looked forward to meeting her again. But she was not present, and he was provided instead with a number of middle-aged persons, as dull as they were worthy, and with a sprinkling of boys and girls. Amongst the girls, he awarded the palm to Miss Chartley, with whom he exchanged a few words. He liked, as much as the sweetness of her expression, the unaffected manners which, in spite of a not unbecoming shyness, enabled her to respond to his greeting without blushing, nervously giggling, or assuming a worldly air to impress him. As for the boys, he would have had to be extremely dull-witted not to have realized, within a very few moments of entering the room, that most of them were taking in every detail of his dress, and, while too bashful to put themselves forward, were hoping that before the evening was out they would be able to boast of having talked to the Nonesuch. He was well-accustomed to being the object of any aspiring young sportsman’s hero-worship, but he neither sought nor valued such adulation. Mr Underhill, Mr Arthur Mickleby, Mr Jack Banningham, and Mr Gregory Ash, bowing deeply, and uttering reverently Sir! and Honoured!,would have been stunned to know that the only young gentleman to engage Sir Waldo’s amused interest was Humphrey Colebatch, a redheaded youth (like his sister), afflicted with an appalling stutter. Presented by his fond father somewhat dauntingly as this silly chub of mine,and further stigmatized by the rider: not of your cut, I’m sorry to say! he had disclosed, in the explosive manner of those suffering an impediment of speech, that he was not interested in sport.

“He’s bookish,” explained Sir Ralph, torn between pride in his son’s scholastic attainments and the horrid fear that he had fathered a miscreature. “Worst seat in the county! But there! No accounting for tastes, eh? Take my daughter, Lizzie! Never opened a book in her life, but rides with a light hand and an easy bit, and handles the reins in form.”

“Does she?” Sir Waldo said politely. He smiled encouragingly at Humphrey. “Oxford?”

“Cam-Cam-Cambridge!” He added, after a brief struggle: “M-Magdalene. J-just d-down. Th-third year.”

“Magdalene! So was I—Magdalen, Oxford, though. What do you mean to do next?”

“G-go up for a fourth year!” replied Humphrey doggedly, and with a challenging look at his father.

“Fellowship?”

“Yes, sir. I hope!”

But at this point Sir Ralph intervened, testily adjuring him not to keep boring on about his affairs; so he bowed awkwardly to Sir Waldo, and walked away. Upon which Sir Ralph said that scholarship was all very well in its way, but that if he had guessed that his heir was going to run mad after it he would never have let him go up to Cambridge at all. He showed a disposition to become even more confidential, asking to be told what Sir Waldo would do in such a case; but as Sir Waldo did not feel himself to be qualified to advise harassed parents, and was too little interested to bend his mind to the problem, he speedily extricated himself from this tête-à-tête. It spoke volumes for his social address that he contrived to do it without in any way offending Sir Ralph.

Meanwhile, those of Humphrey’s contemporaries who had jealously observed his encounter with the Nonesuch pounced upon him, demanding to be told what Sir Waldo had said to him.

“W-wouldn’t interest you!” responded Humphrey, with odious loftiness. “N-nothing about sport! We talked ab-about Cam-Cambridge.”

This disclosure stunned his audience. Mr Banningham was the first to recover his power of speech; he expressed the sentiments of his boon companions by saying: “He must have thought you a slow-top!”

“N-not at all!” retorted Humphrey, curling his lip. “W-what’s m-more, he’s not such a c-c-cod’s head as you l-led me to think him!”

At any other time so insufferable a speech must have goaded his childhood’s playmates into punitive action. A sense of propriety, however, restrained them, and enabled Humphrey to saunter away, not only unmolested, but filled with the comfortable conviction of having, in a few heaven-sent moments, paid off all the scores of a short lifetime.