Collected Short Stories Page 3

  On the journey down to Hampshire, Philippa talked about her father’s work as a parish priest and inquired after William’s family. They stopped for lunch at a pub in Winchester—rabbit stew and mashed potatoes.

  “The first meal we’ve had together,” said William.

  No sardonic reply came flying back; Philippa simply smiled.

  After lunch they traveled on to the village of Brockenhurst. William brought his car to an uncertain halt on the gravel outside the vicarage. An elderly maid, dressed in black, answered the door, surprised to see Miss Philippa with a man. Philippa introduced Annie to William and asked her to make up the spare room.

  “I’m so glad you’ve found yourself such a nice young man,” remarked Annie later. “Have you known him long?”

  Philippa smiled. “No, we met for the first time yesterday.”

  Philippa cooked William dinner, which they ate by a fire he had laid in the front room. Although hardly a word passed between them for three hours, neither was bored. Philippa began to notice the way William’s untidy fair hair fell over his forehead and thought how distinguished he would look in old age.

  The next morning, she walked into the church on William’s arm and stood bravely through the funeral. When the service was over William took her back to the vicarage, crowded with the many friends the parson had made.

  “You mustn’t think ill of us,” said Mr. Crump, the vicar’s warden, to Philippa. “You were everything to your father, and we were all under strict instructions not to let you know about his illness in case it should interfere with the Charles Oldham. That is the name of the prize, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Philippa. “But that all seems so unimportant now.”

  “She will win the prize in her father’s memory,” said William.

  Philippa turned and looked at him, realizing for the first time that he actually wanted her to win the Charles Oldham.

  They stayed that night at the vicarage and drove back to Oxford on the Thursday. On the Friday morning at ten o’clock William returned to Philippa’s college and asked the porter if he could speak to Miss Jameson.

  “Would you be kind enough to wait in the Horsebox, sir,” said the porter as he showed William into a little room at the back of the lodge and then scurried off to find Miss Jameson. They returned together a few minutes later.

  “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Come to take you to Stratford.”

  “But I haven’t even had time to unpack the things I brought back from Brockenhurst.” .

  “Just do as you are told for once; I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Who am I to disobey the next winner of the Charles Oldham? I shall even allow you to come up to my room for one minute and help me unpack.”

  The porter’s eyebrows nudged the edge of his cap, but he remained silent, in deference to Miss Jameson’s recent bereavement. Again it surprised William to think that he had never been to Philippa’s room during their three years. He had climbed the walls of all the women’s colleges to be with a variety of girls of varying stupidity but never with Philippa. He sat down on the end of the bed.

  “Not there, you thoughtless creature. The maid has only just made it. Men are all the same, you never sit in chairs.”

  “I shall one day,” said William. “The chair of English Language and Literature.”

  “Not as long as I’m at this university, you won’t,” she said, as she disappeared into the bathroom.

  “Good intentions are one thing but talent is quite another,” he shouted at her retreating back, privately pleased that her competitive streak seemed to be returning.

  Fifteen minutes later she came out of the bathroom in a yellow flowered dress with a neat white collar and matching cuffs. William thought she might even be wearing a touch of makeup.

  “It will do our reputations no good to be seen together,” she said.

  “I’ve thought about that,” said William. “If asked, I shall say you’re my charity.”

  “Your charity?”

  “Yes. This year I’m supporting distressed orphans.”

  Philippa signed out of college until midnight, and the two scholars traveled down to Stratford, stopping off at Broadway for lunch. In the afternoon they rowed on the River Avon. William warned Philippa about his last disastrous outing in a punt. She admitted that she had already heard of the exhibition he had made of himself, but they arrived safely back at the shore: perhaps because Philippa took over the rowing. They went to see John Gielgud playing Romeo and dined at the Dirty Duck. Philippa was even quite rude to William during the meal.

  They started their journey home just after eleven, and Philippa fell into a half sleep since they could hardly hear each other above the noise of the car engine. It must have been about twenty-five miles outside Oxford that the MG came to a halt.

  “I thought,” said William, “that when the gas gauge showed empty there was at least another gallon left in the tank.”

  “You’re obviously wrong, and not for the first time, and because of such foresight you’ll have to walk to the nearest garage all by yourself—you needn’t imagine that I’m going to keep you company. I intend to stay put, right here in the warmth.”

  “But there isn’t a garage between here and Oxford,” protested William.

  “Then you’ll have to carry me. I am far too fragile to walk.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to manage fifty yards after that sumptuous dinner and all that wine.”

  “It is no small mystery to me, William, how you could have managed a first-class honors degree in English when you can’t even read a gas gauge.”

  “There’s only one thing to do,” said William. “We’ll have to wait for the first bus in the morning.”

  Philippa clambered into the back seat and did not speak to him again before falling asleep. William donned his hat, scarf, and gloves, crossed his arms for warmth, and touched the tangled red mane of Philippa’s hair as she slept. He then took off his coat and placed it so that it covered her.

  Philippa woke first, a little after six, and groaned as she tried to stretch her aching limbs. She then shook William awake to ask him why his father hadn’t been considerate enough to buy him a car with a comfortable back seat.

  “But this is the niftiest thing going,” said William, gingerly kneading his neck muscles before putting his coat back on.

  “But it isn’t going, and won’t without gas,” she replied, getting out of the car to stretch her legs.

  “But I only let it run out for one reason,” said William following her to the front of the car.

  Philippa waited for a feeble punch line and was not disappointed.

  “My father told me if I spent the night with a barmaid then I should simply order an extra pint of beer, but if I spent the night with the vicar’s daughter, I would have to. marry her.”

  Philippa laughed. William, tired, unshaven, and encumbered by his heavy coat, struggled to get down on one knee.

  “What are you doing, William?”

  “What do you think I’m doing, you silly woman? I am going to ask you to marry me.”

  “An invitation I am happy to decline, William. If I accepted such a proposal I might end up spending the rest of my life stranded on the road between Oxford and Stratford.”

  “Will you marry me if I win the Charles Oldham?”

  “As there is absolutely no fear of that happening I can safely say yes. Now do get off your knee, William, before someone mistakes you for a straying stork.”

  The first bus arrived at 7:05 that Saturday morning and took Philippa and William back to Oxford. Philippa went to her rooms for a long hot bath while William filled a gas can and returned to his deserted MG. Having completed the task, he drove straight to Somerville and once again asked if he could see Miss Jameson. She came down a few minutes later.

  “What! You again?” she said. “Am I not in enough trouble already?”

  �
��Why so?”

  “Because I was out after midnight, unaccompanied.”

  “You were accompanied.”

  “Yes, and that’s what’s worrying them.”

  “Did you tell them we spent the night together?”

  “No, I did not. I don’t mind our contemporaries thinking I’m promiscuous, but I have strong objections to their believing that I have no taste. Now kindly go away, as I am contemplating the horror of your winning the Charles Oldham and my having to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “You know I’m bound to win, so why don’t you come live with me now?”

  “I realize that it has become fashionable to sleep with just anyone nowadays, William, but if this is to be my last weekend of freedom I intend to savor it, especially since I may have to consider committing suicide.”

  “I love you.”

  “For the last time, William, go away. And if you haven’t won the Charles Oldham don’t ever show your face in Somerville again.”

  William left, desperate to know the result of the prize essay competition. Had he realized how much Philippa wanted him to win, he might have slept that night.

  On Monday morning they both arrived early in the Examination Schools and stood waiting impatiently without speaking to each other, jostled by the other undergraduates of their year who had also been entered for the prize. On the stroke of ten the chairman of the examiners, in full academic dress, walking at a tortoiselike pace, arrived in the great hall and with a considerable pretense of indifference pinned a notice to the board. All the undergraduates who had entered for the prize rushed forward except for William and Philippa, who stood alone, aware that it was now too late to influence a result they were both dreading.

  A girl shot out from the melee around the bulletin board and ran over to Philippa.

  “Well done, Phil. You’ve won.”

  Tears came to Philippa’s eyes as she turned toward William.

  “May I add my congratulations,” he said quickly. “You obviously deserved the prize.”

  “I wanted to say something to you on Saturday.”

  “You did. You said if I lost I must never show my face in Somerville again.”

  “No. I wanted to say: ‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you; is not that strange?’”

  He looked at her silently for a long moment. It was impossible to improve upon Beatrice’s reply: “‘As strange as the thing I know not,’” he said softly.

  A college friend slapped him on the shoulder, took his hand, and shook it vigorously. Proxime accessit was obviously impressive in some people’s eyes, if not in William’s.

  “Well done, William.”

  “Second place is not worthy of praise,” said William disdainfully.

  “But you won, Billy boy.”

  Philippa and William stared at each other.

  “What do you mean?” said William.

  “Exactly what I said. You’ve won the Charles Oldham.”

  Philippa and William ran to the board and studied the notice:

  CHARLES OLDHAM MEMORIAL PRIZE

  THE EXAMINERS FELT UNABLE ON THIS OCCASION TO

  AWARD THE PRIZE TO ONE PERSON AND HAVE THEREFORE

  DECIDED THAT IT SHOULD BE SHARED BY …

  They gazed at the bulletin board in silence for some moments. Finally, Philippa bit her lip and said in a small voice: “Well, you didn’t do too badly, considering the competition. I’m prepared to honor my undertaking, ‘but, by this light, I take thee for pity.’”

  William needed no prompting. “‘I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, … for I was told you were in a consumption.’”

  And to the delight of their peers and the amazement of the retreating don, they embraced under the bulletin board.

  Rumor had it that from that moment on they were never apart for more than a few hours.

  The marriage took place a month later in Philippa’s family church at Brockenhurst. “Well, when you think about it,” said William’s roommate, “who else could she have married?” The contentious couple started their honeymoon in Athens arguing about the relative significance of Doric and Ionic architecture, of which neither knew any more than they had covertly read, in a cheap tourist guidebook. They sailed on to Istanbul, where William prostrated himself at the front of every mosque he could find while Philippa stood on her own at the back fuming at the Turks’ treatment of women.

  “The Turks are a shrewd race,” declared William. “So quick to appreciate real worth.”

  “Then why don’t you embrace the Muslim religion, William, and I need only be in your presence once a year?”

  “The misfortune of birth, a misplaced loyalty, and the signing of an unfortunate contract dictate that I spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Back at Oxford, with junior research fellowships at their respective colleges, they settled down to serious creative work. William embarked upon a massive study of word usage in Marlowe and, in his spare moments, taught himself statistics to assist his findings. Philippa chose as her subject the influence of the Reformation on seventeenth-century English writers and was soon drawn beyond literature into art and music. She bought herself a spinet and took to playing Dowland and Gibbons in the evening.

  “For Christ’s sake,” said William, exasperated by the tinny sound. “You won’t deduce their religious convictions from their key signatures.”

  “More informative than ifs and ands, my dear,” she said, imperturbably, “and at night so much more relaxing than pots and pans.”

  Three years later, with well-received Ph.D.’s, they moved on, inexorably in tandem, to college teaching fellowships. As the long shadow of fascism fell across Europe, they read, wrote, criticized, and coached by quiet firesides in unchanging quadrangles.

  “A rather dull Schools year for me,” said William, “but I still managed five firsts from a field of eleven.”

  “An even duller one for me,” said Philippa, “but somehow I squeezed three firsts out of six, and you won’t have to invoke the binomial theorem, William, to work out that it’s an arithmetical victory for me.”

  “The chairman of the examiners tells me,” said William, “that a greater part of what your pupils say is no more than a recitation from memory.”

  “He told me,” she retorted, “that yours have to make it up as they go along.”

  When they dined together in college, the guest list was always quickly filled, and as soon as grace had been said, the sharpness of their dialogue would flash across the candelabra.

  “I hear a rumor, Philippa, that the college doesn’t feel able to renew your fellowship at the end of the year?”

  “I fear you speak the truth, William,” she replied. “They decided they couldn’t renew mine at the same time as offering me yours.”

  “Do you think they will ever make you a fellow of the British Academy, William?”

  “I must say, with some considerable disappointment, never.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. Why not?”

  “Because when they did invite me, I informed the president that I would prefer to wait to be elected at the same time as my wife.”

  Some nonuniversity guests sitting at high table for the first time took their verbal battles seriously; others could only be envious of such love.

  One fellow uncharitably suggested they rehearsed their lines before coming to dinner for fear it might be thought they were getting on well together. During their early years as young dons, they became acknowledged as the leaders in their respective fields. Like magnets, they attracted the brightest undergraduates while apparently remaining poles apart themselves.

  “Dr. Hatchard will be delivering half these lectures,” Philippa announced at the start of the Michaelmas term of their joint lecture course on Arthurian legend. “But I can assure you it will not be the better half. You would be wise always to check which Dr. Hatchard is lecturing.”

  When Philippa was invited to
give a series of lectures at Yale, William took a sabbatical so that he could be with her.

  On the ship crossing the Atlantic, Philippa said, “Let’s at least be thankful the journey is by sea, my dear, so we can’t run out of gas.”

  “Rather let us thank God,” replied William, “that the ship has an engine, because you would even take the wind out of Cunard’s sails.”

  The only sadness in their lives was that Philippa could bear William no children, but if anything it drew the two closer together. Philippa lavished quasi-maternal affection on her tutorial pupils and allowed herself only the wry comment that she was spared the probability of producing a child with William’s looks and William’s brains.

  At the outbreak of war William’s expertise with handling words made a move into code-breaking inevitable. He was recruited by an anonymous gentleman who visited them at home with a briefcase chained to his wrist. Philippa listened shamelessly at the keyhole while they discussed the problems they had come up against and burst into the room and demanded to be recruited as well.

  “Do you realize that I can complete the Times crossword puzzle in half the time my husband can?”

  The anonymous man was only thankful that he wasn’t chained to Philippa. He drafted them both to the Admiralty section to deal with encrypted wireless messages to and from German submarines.

  The German signal manual was a four-letter codebook, and each message was recrypted, the substitution table changing daily. William taught Philippa how to evaluate letter frequencies, and she applied her new knowledge to modern German texts, coming up with a frequency analysis that was soon used by every code-breaking department in the Commonwealth.

  Even so, breaking the ciphers and building up the master signal book was a colossal task, which took them the best part of two years.

  “I never knew your ifs and ands could be so informative,” she said admiringly of her own work.

  When the Allies invaded Europe, husband and wife could together often break ciphers with no more than half a dozen lines of encrypted text to go on.