The Dawn of Reckoning Read Online Free PDF Page B

struggled on as best he could, and in the same way struggled
through the hard gruelling of a week-long examination. To his own surprise,
he did not collapse. Nor did he do quite so badly as he expected.
    At nine o’clock on a warm June morning he stood with Ward amongst the
waiting crowd by the flank of the Senate House. Through the windows he could
see the dons moving about like slow, mysterious shadows in the dark interior;
St. Mary’s Church across the road chimed the hour, and then, whilst they were
still waiting, the quarter-past. For Philip, at any rate, the seconds crawled
like minutes and the minutes like hours; and meanwhile the sun rose languidly
and the stone wall with the notice-boards began to glare fiercely in the
gathering heat.
    There had been evidently some delay, for the official time for posting the
results was nine o’clock, and already it was nearly half-past. As the clang
of the half-hour sounded across the road Philip’s excitement, till then
carefully controlled, began to escape a little. “I’ll tell you what, Ward,”
he said, in sharp gusts of speech, in which his inward perturbation gave him
a slight stammer, “If—if I’ve got through—I’ll have a p-party,
and get my mother and Stella to come up for it.”
    “Who’s Stella? I didn’t know you had a sister.”
    He told him. They had both been reticent about their private affairs, and
indeed, had known each other for over a year without having more than a vague
idea of each other’s families. Now, in the curiously tense atmosphere of
waiting for the lists to be posted, it was almost a relief to give and accept
confidences. Philip told of his visit three years before to the Balkans and
Hungary, of the trip up the Danube, and of the girl who had tried to drown
herself on the way to Buda. “She’s nearly nineteen now,” he said in
conclusion, “and speaks p-perfect English.”
    “I should like to meet her,” said Ward quietly.
    A uniformed figure appeared at the door of the Senate House, carrying an
array of printed sheets, and a simultaneous burst of cheers went up and
continued as he picked his way through the throng to the notice-boards.
“Y-you go and see,” said Philip, puffing nervously at a cigarette. “I think
I’d rather wait here than f-face that crowd.”
    “All right,” answered the other, laughing. He strolled over to the excited
jostling group, stood on tiptoe, and tried to read down the lists as they
were put up. His whole attitude was as if he were no more than casually
interested in them.
    Three minutes later he returned.
    “We shall have that party, Monsell,” he said.
    “ What! ”
    “You got through all right…And so have I. Let’s go and send some wires.
Then perhaps we might knock off for the day and go on the river…”
    He was like a boy in his excitement.
    “Have I just got a p-pass?” inquired Philip nervously.
    “Oh, yes, you’re through, you needn’t worry. Jolly good, I call it.
Considering how you’ve been ill.”
    “Yes…” He agreed limply. “By the way, what did you get?”
    “Oh, a first—much better than I expected.”
    Philip held out his hand. “Yes,” he said, smiling bravely. “We will have that p-party. In your honour if not in m-mine.”
    “Oh, nonsense, man. You’re through—that’s the main thing.”
    Was it? He looked at the blue sky over the Market Square and suddenly the
very sunlight seemed to grow dark and dim before his eyes.
IV
    The week that intervened between the announcement of the
result and Philip’s party was an anti climax. There seemed to be nothing at
all to do. Each outgoing train left Cambridge emptier, and in a few days the
place had all the forlorn air of a ball room from which all but the last
revellers have departed. It was all right for Ward; he had his plans cut and
dried for the future—two years at a London hospital, and then, perhaps,
a year or so of specialisation, and finally a