Gaudy Night Read Online Free PDF

to Pendennis —so out of date of them! But their idea of being modern is to imitate what male undergraduates were like half a century ago.”
    “Some of us old students aren’t much to write home about,” said Harriet. “Look at Gubbins for instance.”
    “Oh, my dear! That crashing bore. And all held together with safety-pins. And I wish she’d wash her neck.”
    “I think,” said Miss de Vine, with painstaking readiness to set the facts in a just light, “that the colour is natural to her skin.”
    “Then she should eat carrots and clear her system,” retorted the Dean, snatching Harriet’s gown from her. “No, don’t you bother. It won’t take me a minute to chuck them through the S.C.R. window. And don’t you dare to run away, or I shall never find you again.”
    “Is my hair tidy?” inquired Miss de Vine, becoming suddenly human and hesitating with the loss of her cap and gown.
    “Well,” said Harriet, surveying the thick, iron-grey coils from which a quantity of overworked hair-pins stood out like croquet-hoops, “it’s coming down just a trifle.”
    “It always does,” said Miss de Vine, making vague dabs at the pins. “I think I shall have it cut it short. It must be much less trouble that way.”
    “I like it as it is. That big coil suits you. Let me have a go at it, shall I?”
    “I wish you would,” said the historian, thankfully submitting to having the pins thrust into place. “I am very stupid with my fingers. I do possess a hat somewhere,” she added, with an irresolute glance round the quad, as though expected to see the hat growing on a tree, “but the Dean said we’d better stay here. Oh, thank you. That feels much better—a marvellous sense of security. Ah! here’s Miss Martin. Miss Vane has kindly been acting as hair-dresser to the White Queen—but oughtn’t I to put on a hat?”
    “Not now,” said Miss Martin emphatically. “I’m going to have some over tea, and so are you. I’m ravenous. I’ve been tagging after old Professor Boniface who’s ninety-seven and practically gaga, and screaming in his deaf ear till I’m almost dead. What’s the time? Well, I’m like Marjory Fleming’s turkey—I do not give a single damn for the Old Students’ Meeting; I simply must eat and drink. Let’s swoop down upon the table before Miss Shaw and Miss Stevens collar the last ices.”
     
    Note
    [1] For the purposes of this book, Mansfield Lane is deemed to run from Mansfield Road to St. Cross Road, behind Shrewsbury College and somewhere about the junction between the Balliol and Merton Cricket grounds as they stand at present.

Chapter 2
    Tis proper to all melancholy men, saith Mercurialis, what conceit they have once entertained, to be most intent, violent and continually about it. Invitis occurrit, do what they may, they cannot be rid of it, against their wills they must think of it a thousand times over, perpetuo molestantur, nec oblivisci possunt, they are continually troubled with it, in company, out of company; at meat, at exercise, at all times and places, non desinunt ea, quae minime volunt, cogitare; if it be offensive especially, they cannot forget it.
    —ROBERT BURTON
    So far, so good, thought Harriet, changing for dinner. There had been baddish moments, like trying to renew contact with Mary Stokes. There had also been a brief encounter with Miss Hillyard, the History tutor, who had never liked her, and who had said, with wry mouth and acidulated tongue, “Well, Miss Vane, you have had some very varied experiences since we saw you last.” But there had been good moments too, carrying with them the promise of permanence in a Heracleitean universe. She felt it might be possible to survive the Gaudy Dinner, though Mary Stokes had dutifully bagged for her a place next herself, which was trying. Fortunately, she had contrived to get Phoebe Tucker on her other side. (In these surroundings, she thought of them still as Stokes and Tucker.)
    The first thing to strike