Crampton Hodnet (26 page)

‘I’ve never been in this part of Randolph before,’ said Anthea, making conversation.

‘These are my new rooms,’ said Christopher. ‘Rather nicer than my others, don’t you think?’

Anthea, who had noticed very little difference, made some polite comment. Have I got to eat my lunch with this enormous photograph of Simon facing me? she wondered. It was one she particularly disliked. His charming, usually rather childish face had assumed for the occasion an expression which had in it something of Napoleon and something of Sir Oswald Mosley and almost nothing of Simon Beddoes.

Christopher saw her looking and cursed his tactlessness. He ought to have put it away. Simon would never have made a faux pas like that. That was why he had always got everything he wanted.

‘You look marvellous,’ he began and was just going to pay her a pretty compliment when his elderly scout came creaking into the room with lunch.

‘I hope you’ll like what I’ve ordered,’ he said anxiously. It occurred to him that as she must have had so many meals in Randolph it would perhaps have been better to take her to the George. This luncheon party wasn’t going to be a success, he thought unhappily.

But somehow it was. It seemed that Anthea liked chicken better than anything else in the world, that she adored Liebfraumilch above all wines, that the chocolate mousse was the most marvellous she had ever tasted. And when the old, creaking and, one felt, rather disapproving scout had cleared away the things, it seemed perfectly right and natural that Christopher should kiss her.

‘Did you know, that
I
loved you too?’ he said earnestly. ‘But Simon always had everything.’

Anthea felt she wanted to giggle. He kissed just like Simon. He might have
been
Simon, except that he was slightly taller and had fair hair. She felt curiously comforted as she laid her head against his rough tweed shoulder.

‘You’ve always got me, darling,’ he said.

Yes, thought Anthea philosophically, and if I hadn’t got you I’d have Freddie or Patrick or somebody else. Everything went on just the same in Oxford from year to year. It was only the people who might be different. The pattern never varied.

When she got home just before teatime she found her father talking about a class of eight young women he had promised to take for Donne and Dryden.

‘It’s nice that term has begun,’ said Mrs. Cleveland. ‘The long vac. always seems so
very
long doesn’t it?’

After two months, it was difficult to realise that there had ever been such a person as Barbara Bird. Even Edward Killigrew seemed to have forgotten all about it and was now full of a new and very exciting scandal about an old clergyman who had been reading in the library during the long vacation.

Mrs. Cleveland was sometimes inclined to congratulate herself on her handling of what might have been a very awkward situation. She had managed things very cunningly, she thought. And then she would remember that really she could hardly be said to have managed things at all.

This year, she thought, there will be
eight
young women to deal with, but everyone knew that eight were less dangerous than one.

‘Who shall we have to tea on Sunday?’ she asked. ‘We must get going straight away.’

Anthea groaned. ‘Oh, dear, on it goes! All these hopeful young men coming up every year, and I suppose it will never change. There will always be North Oxford tea parties as long as there’s any University left.’

‘I shall get some large,
solid
cakes,’ said Mrs. Cleveland thoughtfully. ‘After all, people don’t really notice what they eat.’

‘No, they come to see us,’ said Anthea quite happily. ‘I shall wear my new red dress.’

The life of Oxford went on in so much the same way that she would hardly be surprised to see Simon coming to tea on Sunday as he had come on that first Sunday of term a year ago. And if he did not come, surely there would be somebody among their guests who looked and talked like him and who would fall in love with her. It was a melancholy thought, she decided, glad that one can never live the past over again.

‘Let’s have Christopher,Lshe suggested rather self-consciously. ‘He said he was free this Sunday.’

Mrs. Cleveland smiled but made no comment. ‘And we’d better ask the good old steadies like Henry and Jock and Edgar Cherry, and perhaps Michael and Gabriel. Or will Aunt Maude be wanting them? I always feel that they’re more hers than ours.’

‘Michael and Gabriel of course,’ said Miss Doggett. ‘They would be so disappointed not to be asked.’

‘And you said something about Canon Teep’s nephew,’ said Miss Morrow, who was making a neat list.

‘Oh, yes, and we might ask Mr. Bompas too. I’ve always been meaning to ask him about his aunt.
And
‘ — Miss Doggett paused impressively — ‘Viscount St. Pancras. I have discovered that I was at school with a relative of his. He is coming up to Randolph this term. I believe he did
brilliantly
at Eton. They have a delightful town residence in
Belgrave
Square. I thought he might be a nice friend for Anthea,’ said Miss Doggett, putting her intentions rather mildly.

Of course it had been a terrible tragedy for Anthea, losing Simon—as far as Miss Doggett was concerned he might just as well have been dead and buried—but perhaps God
was
all-wise after all, she thought reverently. One knew that He moved in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. Might it not be that what had happened was part of some Divine Plan to set Anthea free for even Higher Things than the son of a sometime British Ambassador in Warsaw? Chester Square was very desirable, but Belgrave Square … Miss Doggett’s imagination stopped short, as it might have done in trying to form a picture of Heaven.

‘It is a good thing that Anthea likes young men,’ she said aloud, ‘because he is only eighteen.’
Oswald William Robert FitzAuber, Viscount St. Pancras. b. 1919
. That had been a little disappointing, Miss Doggett felt, regretting that undergraduates had to get younger every year. Still, it could not be helped, and where there was life there was hope, so to speak.

Miss Morrow tried to look intelligent, but she found it all too confusing. ‘We shall miss Mr. Latimer when he’s married,’ she remarked.

‘Yes, indeed we shall.’ Miss Doggett sighed heavily. ‘I dare say he will get a living soon.’

Crampton Hodnet would be nice, thought Miss Morrow. Such a pretty village.

‘And that will mean another curate,’ said Miss Doggett, as if this consoling truth had just dawned on her.

‘Why, yes,’ said Miss Morrow brightly, ‘so it will.’

Miss Doggett would get another Mr. Latimer, and Anthea would get another Simon. There was really nothing in this world that could not be replaced. If I were suddenly taken,

Miss Morrow thought, a substitute could easily be found. A dim, obedient woman, who would wind Miss Doggett’s wool and put the buns into the Balmoral tin, as I shall be putting them on Saturday.

The days of the week slipped by, and at last it was Sunday. Viscount St. Pancras had written to say that he would be delighted to come to tea, and so Maggie had been told to make some rather more elaborate cakes than were usually given to the undergraduates.

After lunch Miss Doggett went up for her rest as usual and, as Mr. Latimer was staying with Pamela’s people, who, to Miss Morrow’s secret disappointment, did not live in Pimlico at all but in Kensington, Miss Morrow was by herself.

She sat gazing meditatively at the vase of coloured teasels which filled the fireless dining-room grate. Yesterday had been warm, but today was cold and raining. And yet it was somehow right that it should be so, she felt. It had been just like this at the beginning of the last academic year, which had brought so many new people into their lives: Mr. Latimer, Simon Beddoes, Barbara Bird … they had come and some of them had gone as if they had never been.

Miss Morrow began to hum aimlessly without knowing what she hummed, but after a while she recognised the tune as that of a hymn which used to fascinate her as a child.

Within the churchyard, side by side,

Are many long low graves:

And some have stones set over them

On some the green grass waves… .

Well, we all came to it sooner or later, whether in Bayswater or Belgravia, in North Oxford or Crampton Hodnet. She looked at the drooping branches of the monkey-puzzle. It will be here when we are all gone, she thought.

And then she remembered that there was really no need to sit in a North Oxford dining-room at ten past three on a wet Sunday afternoon thinking about death and graves unless one wanted to. A simple movement could fill the room with rich, unsuitable music from Radio Luxembourg. She switched on the wireless, and the sound of it poured out into the room. Except for a slight scratchiness of the records it might have been the very same music that she had listened to this time a year ago, for modern dance tunes sounded very much alike to Miss Morrow’s unworldly ear.

After twenty minutes of music Miss Morrow went upstairs to change her dress, and shortly afterwards the rustle of mackintoshes was heard in the hall.

In they came, a great herd of them all at once, Michael and Gabriel, Mr. Bompas, Willie Teep, Miss Jennings and Miss Matador from Somerville, and, at the end, a thin, nervous young man with spectacles, who did not look as if he would be at all equal to the rich cakes which had been made in his honour—Viscount St. Pancras.

‘Oh, Miss Doggett, isn’t it
frightful
, we’re in our third year,’ said Michael and Gabriel, rushing to greet her. ‘Change and decay in all around we see, but not
here
.’

‘No, I do not think you will find any change and decay in Leamington Lodge,’ said Miss Doggett, smiling.

And Miss Morrow was inclined to agree with her.

THE END