g.

VI

From a long vacation spent with the historians and philosophers and
from the clash and challenge of autumnal moors Martin came back to
rooms in Holywell and the school of Literae Humaniores. From clean
winds and open skies he came back to a gentle greyness or to smudgy
days when the rain settled upon the river valley with cruel insistence
and on parting left floods and vapours and steamy streets. From
working at his ease he came back to work with distaste.

To begin with, he was afraid. The future was big with exams. In eight
months his Oxford finals would be upon him, in ten months he would be
attempting to satisfy the Civil Service Commissioners. The torture of
it! It was all very well for Lawrence, whom a wealthy uncle would make
into a chartered accountant, for Rendell, who was to be an amateur
barrister and a professional Lib-Lab-Soc, for Chard, with his assured
career and Front-bench-in-a-year-or-two prospects; well enough too for
Davenant, who had money enough to maintain an adequate, even a
graceful, existence while he wrote about the things of art. But for
Martin there was only the midnight oil and the wondering about marks.

And he felt helpless. He didn't want to be a Civil Servant, even at
home. And as for India or the Straits! He wanted to be in London with
the rest of them, keeping up the old ideas and intimacies and
enthusiasms. If he had only felt that such a life was absolutely
impossible, he would have taken his fate more graciously. But it
seemed that with an effort, with daring, he might get out of it all and
find a job that would keep him in London without starvation: but he
hadn't the pluck to look for the job, and he was content to drift on
the wave of chance. Circumstance was moulding his life, whereas he
ought to be moulding circumstance. Why couldn't he be strong and do
things? He despised his puny helplessness and cowardly drifting: the
more he gazed into himself the less did he see to admire. Naturally
this did not improve his work.

He lived with Rendell and Lawrence and Chard in a good house in
Holywell: Davenant had gone down. Chard shared a sitting-room with
Rendell, and they both worked with vigour, being men of sense and
ambition. Upstairs in a great low-raftered room Martin dwelled with
Lawrence. He began by labouring with a fond frenzy, but he soon fell
into his companion's easier ways and sat by the window watching the
passers-by. Holywell is a