Kathleen

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Kathleen

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Title: Kathleen
Author: Christopher Morley

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KATHLEEN
BY
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
TO THE REAL KATHLEEN With Apologies

KATHLEEN

I
The Scorpions were to meet at eight o'clock and before that hour
Kenneth Forbes had to finish the first chapter of a serial story. The
literary society, named in accordance with the grotesque whim of
Oxford undergraduates, consisted of eight members, and it was
proposed that each one should contribute a chapter. Forbes was of a

fertile wit, and he had been nominated the first operator. He had been
allowed the whole Christmas vacation to prepare his opening chapter;
which was why on this first Sunday of term while the rest of Merton
College was at dinner in hall, he sat at his desk desperately driving his
pen across the paper.
Forbes's room in Fellows' Quad was one of those that had housed
Queen Henrietta Maria in 1643, and though Forbes's own tastes were
nondescript the chamber still had something of an air. The dark wood
panelling might well have done honour to a royal lodger, and a
motion-picture producer would have coveted it as a background for
Mary Pickford. It was unspoiled by pictures: two or three political
maps of Europe, sketchily drawn with coloured crayons, were pinned
up here and there. The room was a typical Oxford apartment: dark, a
little faded, but redeemed by the grate of glowing coals. Behind the
chimney two recessed seats looked out over the college gardens; long
red curtains were drawn to shut out the winter draughts. It was the true
English January-- driving squalls of rain, dampness, and devastating
chill. The east wind brought the booming toll from Magdalen tower
very distinctly to the ear, closely followed by the tinny chime in
Fellows' Quad. It was half past seven.
Forbes laid down his pen, looked quizzically at the last illegible lines
slanting up the paper, and realized that he was hungry. His untasted tea
and anchovy toast still stood in the fender where the scout had put them
three hours before.
He switched on the electric light over the dining table in the centre of
the room, and, dropping on the sofa before the fire, prodded the huge
lumps of soft coal into a blaze. The triangular slices of anchovy toast
were cold but still very good, and he devoured them with appetite. He
lit a cigarette with a sigh of content, and reflected that he had not
crossed his name off hall. Therefore he must pay eighteen pence for
dinner, even though he had not eaten it. Also there lay somewhat
heavily on his mind the fact that at ten the next morning he must read
to his tutor an essay on "Danton and Robespierre," an essay as yet
unwritten. That would mean a very early rising and an uncomfortable

chilly session in the college library, a dismal place in the forenoon.
Never mind, first came a jolly evening with the Scorpions. The
meetings were always fun, and this one, coming after the separation of
a six-weeks' vacation, promised special sport. Carter was down for a
paper on Rabelais; King would have some of his amusing ballades and
rondeaus; and above all there would be the first chapter of the serial,
from which the members promised themselves much diversion. It was
too late now to attempt anything on Danton and Robespierre; he picked
up a volume of Belloc and sat cosily by