Crampton Hodnet (17 page)

‘Come down,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

She climbed down and followed him into the Tower Room. They leaned on the bookcase, which contained dictionaries and encyclopaedias, and he took out a volume which they pretended to be studying. Opposite them sat a blind man and his companion, who was reading aloud extracts from the
Cambridge History of English Literature
in a flat, monotonous voice.

‘Barbara,’ said Francis, hesitating a little, ‘I want to speak to you. I’ve been thinking things over and I don’t see—‘

Here he had stopped abruptly and Barbara had heard the sound of footsteps and the peevish voice of Mr. Killigrew and the booming tones of Dr. Adder, the Librarian, coming towards them from the Upper Reading Room.

‘I can’t stay now,’ said Francis abruptly, and he hurried, almost ran, out of the library, leaving Barbara hunched over the encyclopaedia, wondering what he had been going to say. She looked down and saw that it was open at an article on Poland, a vast, desolate country, which had forests and peasants and Chopin and Paderewski. Sad nocturnes came into her head and her eyes filled with tears. She felt hopeless and frustrated and there was a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach, which she did not recognise as a craving for her lunch.

But when she got back to College and helped herself to a great fish with its tail in its mouth, she found that she could hardly eat any of it.

That had been yesterday. Now, sitting listening to Francis talking about the political significance of Dryden’s
Absalom and Achitophel
, she felt more hopeful and confident. Her dear Francis. He loved her and she loved him. She looked round at the lecture audience. Those who had stayed the course consisted mostly of women, with a sprinkling of Indians and one or two plain-looking men.

The desire to shout out her secret came over her. She looked up at the ceiling and gazed at the figures of animals and birds which decorated it. There were two peacocks with their necks entwined and Barbara concentrated on them until the end of the lecture, while all around her conscientious women and Indians tried to take down all that Mr. Cleveland said, which was not always easy. He seemed to be hurrying today, not bothering to make any jokes, and sometimes even turning his back on his audience, so that it was almost impossible to hear what he said.

At ten minutes to one he stopped rather abruptly and came striding down the room to where Barbara and her friends were sitting in the back row.

‘Oh, Miss Bird,’ he said in his lecture voice, i just wanted to ask you about those
Mac Flecknoe
notes… .’

‘I felt I had to talk to you after leaving you so suddenly yesterday,’ said Francis, as they left the lecture room. ‘May I walk back with you?’

‘Yes, do,’ said Barbara doubtfully. ‘But I don’t very well see how we can talk here.’

‘Oh, well, we needn’t talk about anything special,’ he said evasively. ‘What does it matter what we talk about as long as we’re together?’ he added.

‘Oh, Francis,’ said Barbara fervently. ‘I feel that too. Nothing matters as long as we’re together. Do you remember the first time we ever walked over Magdalen Bridge?’ she asked, smiling at him.

They continued to enlarge on this theme. Francis Cleveland was considered by many to be quite an authority on the seventeenth century and Barbara Bird was the Senior Scholar of her year, yet there was nothing in their conversation which would have led one to suspect this. It was not even enriched with suitable quotations from the great treasury of seventeenth-century love lyrics. It was quite remarkable how like Simon and Anthea they sounded as they walked into the college garden, arranging to meet later in the afternoon on Shotover Hill.

‘There’s Mr. Cleveland again,’ said Miss Borage, the Bursar, looking out of the Senior Common Room window. ‘Smiling fondly at Miss Bird.’

‘Oh, that man!’ complained Miss Gurney, the English tutor, a tall, gaunt woman with grey bobbed hair. She turned and faced Miss Borage and the other occupants of the room, Miss Rideout, the Principal, and Miss Kingley, the Classics tutor. ‘Men are the ruination of women,’ she declared. ‘The only girl who seems likely to get a First, and now look what’s happening.’

‘I can’t say that I see anything very much happening,’ observed Miss Rideout in a dry, good-humoured tone. ‘We allow men to walk in the garden.’

‘I often used to walk in the garden with my tutor,’ said Miss Kingley sadly. ‘Arnold Penge, you know… .’

‘Oh, we’ve all heard about him,’ said Miss Gurney roughly. ‘Miss Kingley walked in the garden with her tutor, but nothing came of it.’

‘No, nothing came of it,’ agreed Miss Kingley in a tone of melancholy resignation.

‘I wonder if anything will come of this,’ said Miss Borage, looking out at Francis and Barbara, who were still talking.

‘Mr. Cleveland is a married man,’ said Miss Rideout, with an air of putting an end to the conversation.

‘So was Arnold Penge.’ Miss Gurney cackled. ‘Where there’s life there’s hope, isn’t that so, Miss Kingley?’

‘Nothing came of it,’ repeated Miss Kingley patiently.

‘There’s the bell for lunch,’ said Miss Borage.

‘Mr. Cleveland will be late for lunch,’ said Miss Gurney triumphantly. ‘He’ll have to make an excuse to his wife. I wonder if he will tell her the truth.’

But there was no need for Francis to say anything. When he got home he found Margaret already carving the cold lamb, and he took his place at the table almost unnoticed while she speculated as to whether it would last another day.

‘I shall want the car after lunch,’ he said, but nobody seemed to care whether he took it or not. As he drove to meet Barbara he felt somehow cheated. He had been full of defiance, ready to tell his family to go to the devil, and all they had spoken of was cold lamb. And so it was really a direct result of their indifference that, as soon as he and Barbara had stumbled over the rough grass on the hill and found a secluded spot under a tree, he should take her in his arms and kiss her.

‘I’ve got Schools next week,’ said Barbara. ‘I shan’t be able to see you at all then.’

‘No, I suppose you won’t,’ he said. ‘But you must stay up for a bit after the end of term, and then we can be together all the time.’

‘
All
the time?’ said Barbara in a surprised voice.

‘Well, quite a lot of the time,’ said Francis rather lamely. ‘Oh, Barbara, I love you so much,’ he said with sudden fervour, as he thought of the indifference of his family. ‘I’m going to kiss you again,’ he said, ‘and then a thousand times more to make up for all the time I’ve wasted.’

While Francis was making up for his wasted time, Mrs. Cleveland and Anthea were dragging round the shops on a hot afternoon, trying to choose materials for summer dresses.

‘The whole afternoon wasted,’ said Anthea peevishly, ‘and all because I forgot to bring a bit of the stuff with me. I can’t buy the check unless I’m sure it’s going to match my blue coat.’

‘What blue coat, dear?’ said her mother.

‘Oh, you
know
,’ said Anthea crossly.

‘What’s the matter with you this afternoon?’ asked Mrs. Cleveland wearily. ‘You’re so impatient with me all the time.’

‘Oh, it’s so hot, and we’re tired,’ said Anthea hastily. ‘Let’s go and have a cup of tea in Elliston’s.’

They went up to the cafe and found it already quite full of dons’ wives, North Oxford spinsters and clergymen, with a sprinkling of undergraduates. The atmosphere, which was thick with smoke in the mornings, was quite clear now, and the place had an air of provincial respectability.

Anthea sat and brooded, while her mother ordered the tea. She did not want her to guess the reason for her bad temper. It was so silly to think that she should be feeling like this just because Simon had asked a young woman from Somerville to lunch. It was unintelligent, so boring, to be jealous, even if one knew that the woman was attractive, red-haired and clever. Anthea craned her neck out of the cafe window, but although she could just see the front of Randolph, Simon’s rooms were farther along, and she could only wonder if the lunch party had taken its usual course and ended up on the sofa among the coral-coloured cushions and, as likely as not, a few bits of one of the essays that Simon always seemed to be in the middle of writing. But it was a quarter past four now. Surely she wouldn’t
still
be there?

‘What are we going to have?’ asked Mrs. Cleveland, pushing her hat back to an almost rakish angle because the band was a little tight and her head was aching from an afternoon’s unsuccessful shopping.

‘Oh, just tea,’ said Anthea wearily. Her thoughts went on following the same desolate course. Simon was the sort of person who was sweet to everyone. It came naturally to him. The compliments flowed so easily from his lips. He had a way of suddenly taking hold of your hand when you were eating, and kissing your fingers or saying something so sweet that you went on chasing the food aimlessly round your plate because you couldn’t do anything or even think when his eyes were on you. Oh, the lovely food that had been wasted in Randolph when two people in love had lunch together! A detached on-looker would have seen the funny side of those intimate meals—the abandoned fish, with the spiky bones peeping forlornly through the uneaten flesh, the wings of chicken lying desolate and untouched in their cold gravy, the chocolate mousse, the peaches, the expensive cigarettes thrown into the fire before they were half smoked.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Cleveland,’ said Miss Gurney, who was passing their table.

‘Oh, good afternoon, Miss Gurney.’

‘Now you tell your husband to keep away from my Miss Bird,’ said Miss Gurney in her harsh, penetrating voice. ‘I can’t have him gadding about with her now; he must wait until the end of term. Schools begin on Thursday, and if she doesn’t get a First I shall go into a nunnery!’

Anthea smiled.

‘Well, I shouldn’t look any worse than Sister Angelina/ retorted Miss Gurney, referring to a very plain-looking nun who frecuently attended her lectures. ‘I believe I might even look a little better.’

‘I’ll tell Francis to leave her alone,’ said Mrs. Cleveland soothingly. ‘He’s always very conscientious about his pupils, and I know he’s very anxious for Miss Bird to get a First.’

‘Well, he mustn’t go tiring her out walking on Shotover then,’ said Miss Gurney, moving off. ‘And there’s poor Miss Kingley, looking like a lost soul in the cake department. I’m coming,’ she shrieked, causing a few people to look up from their tea in surprise.

‘She’s very blunt, isn’t she?’ Anthea giggled. ‘If one didn’t know her, one might imagine that Father was having a romance with Barbara Bird.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Mrs. Cleveland, speaking more sharply than she had meant to.

Anthea raised her eyebrows and seemed about to make a remark, but what she had been thinking was hardly the sort of thing one could say to one’s mother, and so she said nothing.

‘Don’t mention what Miss Gurney said to Aunt Maude,’ said Mrs. Cleveland casually. ‘You know how she is.’

‘Yes, she’d probably think the worst,’ agreed Anthea lightly.

They got up and went out of the cafe. How nice it must be when one is safely married, thought Anthea. Nothing to worry about except the lunch and easy domestic problems which needn’t matter at all unless one wanted them to. But would being married to Simon be like that? She had a sudden depressing vision of their married life together, he so young and gay and ambitious and she trying desperately to Keep His Love, as they said in magazines. She glanced hopefully up at his windows as they passed Randolph and wondered if the woman was still there.

It was rather odd of Francis to go out with Barbara without saying anything about it, thought Mrs. Cleveland when they were on the bus. Although, as Anthea had said, Miss Gurney was very blunt, one didn’t like to think that people might be talking about them. Things like this could be so misunderstood and twisted round that they might seem to be something quite different. She would ask him about it casually sometime. It was much better to have things out rather than to brood on them.

She found an opportunity after supper when she and Francis were by themselves in the drawing-room.

‘Miss Gurney says you’re to keep away from her star pupil and not tire her out walking on Shotover,’ she said lightly.

Francis looked a little startled, she thought, as if he had been found out in something.

‘Oh, yes, I took her up on Shotover this afternoon,’ he said, seeing that he could not very well conceal it. ‘She looked as if she needed fresh air,’ he added naively.

‘You like her very much, don’t you?’ said Margaret placidly.

‘Of course I like her. She’s a very nice girl, very intelligent,’ he said impatiently. ‘I can’t think why everyone’s making such a fuss.’

‘Old Mrs. Killigrew coming
here
?’ Mrs. Cleveland raised her head from her book in sudden agitation.

It was a wet afternoon in July, and she and Anthea were sitting by the fire in the drawing-room.

‘Yes, old Mrs. Killigrew,’ Anthea, who was looking out the window, repeated. ‘By herself, too.’

‘But she never goes out,’ said Mrs. Cleveland in bewilderment, ‘and it’s such a wet day. Is there any cake in the house?’ she asked frantically. ‘I suppose we shall have to offer her tea.’

‘There may be something,’ said Anthea. ‘I’ll go and warn Ellen.’

‘Oh, dear, oh,
dear
, she’s so difficult to talk to,’ wailed Mrs. Cleveland.

‘Mrs. Killigrew,’ said Ellen, standing in the doorway.

‘How do you do?’ said Mrs. Cleveland, advancing towards her rather uncertainly.

‘Thank you, I am quite well.’ Mrs. Killigrew remained standing in the middle of the room, her sharp eyes taking in the faded loose-covers, the flowers that ought to have been changed and the general untidiness, Mrs. Cleveland felt.

‘Do sit down,’ she said. ‘It’s so nice of you to come.’

‘I do not know if it is nice,’ said Mrs. Killigrew, with a sudden sardonic grin. ‘That is a matter of opinion, perhaps.’

Mrs. Cleveland felt snubbed. ‘Isn’t it cold?’ she said brightly. ‘We have had a fire today,’ she added, feeling that she ought to give some explanation of the fact that the grate was not filled by a vase of leaves or an embroidered fire-screen.