‘That’s possible, certainly. I must say, Miss Vane, that your evidence to-day has made matters very complicated. I would rather suspect the scouts than the S.C.R., I admit; but when these hasty accusations are made by the last person known to have been in the same room with the manuscript, I can only say that – well, that it appears to me injudicious.’
Harriet said nothing to this. The Bursar, apparently feeling that she had gone a little too far, added:
‘I have no suspicions of anybody. All I say is, that statements ought not to be made without proof.’
Harriet agreed, and, after marking off the relevant names upon the Bursar’s list, went to find the Treasurer.
Miss Allison produced a plan of the College, and showed the positions of the rooms occupied by various people.
‘I hope this means,’ she said, ‘that you intend to undertake the investigation yourself. Not, I suppose, that we ought to ask you to spare the time for any such thing. But I do most strongly feel that the presence of paid detectives in this college would be most unpleasant, however discreet they might be. I have served the College for a considerable number of years and I have its interests very much at heart. You know how undesirable it is that any outsider should be brought into a matter of this kind.’
‘It is; very,’ said Harriet. ‘All the same, a spiteful or mentally deficient servant is a misfortune that might occur anywhere. Surely the important thing is to get to the bottom of the mystery as quickly as possible; and a trained detective or two would be very much more efficient than I should be.’
Miss Allison looked thoughtfully at her, and swayed her glasses to and fro slowly on their gold chain.
‘I see you incline to the most comfortable theory. Probably we all do. But there is the other possibility. Mind you, I quite see that from your own point of view, you would not wish to take part in an exposure of a member of the Senior Common Room. But if it came to the point, I would put more faith in your tact than in that of an outside professional detective. And you start with a knowledge of the workings of the collegiate system, which is a great advantage.’
Harriet said that she thought she would know better what to suggest when she had made a preliminary review of all the circumstances.
‘If,’ said Miss Allison, ‘you do undertake an inquiry, it is probably only fair to warn you that you may meet with some opposition. It has already been said – but perhaps I ought not to tell you this.’
‘That is for you to judge.’
‘It has already been said that the narrowing-down of the suspects within the limits mentioned at to-day’s meeting rests only upon your assertion. I refer, of course, to the two papers you found at the Gaudy.’
‘I see. Am I supposed to have invented those?’
‘I don’t think anybody would go as far as that. But you have said that you sometimes received similar letters on your own account. And the suggestion is that—’
‘That if I found anything of the sort I must have brought it with me? That would be quite likely, only that the style of the things was so like the style of these others. However, I admit you have only my word for that.’
‘I’m not doubting it for a moment. What is being said is that your experience in these affairs is – if anything – a disadvantage. Forgive me. That is not what I say.’
‘That is the thing that made me very unwilling to have anything to do with the inquiry. It is absolutely true. I haven’t lived a perfectly blameless life, and you can’t get over it.’
‘If you ask me,’ said Miss Allison, ‘some people’s blameless lives are to blame for a good deal. I am not a fool, Miss Vane. No doubt my own life has been blameless as far as the more generous sins are concerned. But there are points upon which I should expect you to hold more balanced opinions than certain people here. I don’t think I need say more than that, need I?’
Harriet’s next visit was to Miss Lydgate; her excuse being to inquire what she should do with the mutilated proofs in her possession. She found the English Tutor patiently correcting a small pile of students’ essays.
‘Come in, come in,’ said Miss Lydgate,, cheerfully. ‘I have nearly done with these. Oh, about my poor proofs? I’m afraid they’re not much use to me. They’re really quite undecipherable. I’m afraid the only thing is to do the whole thing again. The printers will be tearing their hair, poor souls. I shan’t have very much difficulty with the greater part of it, I hope. And I have the rough notes of the Introduction, so it isn’t as bad as it might have been. The worst loss is a number of manuscript footnotes and two manuscript appendices that I had to put in at the last moment to refute what seemed to me some very ill-considered statements in Mr. Elkbottom’s new book on Modern Verse-Forms. I stupidly wrote those in on the blank pages of the proofs and they are quite irrecoverable. I shall have to verify all the references again in Elk-bottom. It’s so tiresome, especially as one is always so busy towards the end of term. But it’s all my own fault for not keeping a proper record of everything.’
‘I wonder,’ said Harriet, ‘if I could be of any help to you in getting the proofs put together. I’d gladly stay up for a week or so if it would do any good, I’m quite used to juggling with proof-sheets, and I think I can remember enough of my Schools work to be reasonably intelligent about the Anglo-Saxon and Early English.’
‘That would be a tremendous help!’ exclaimed Miss Lydgate, her face lighting up. ‘But wouldn’t it be trespassing far too much on your time?’
Harriet said, No; she was well ahead with her own work and would enjoy putting in a little time on English Prosody. It was in her mind that if she really meant to pursue inquiries at Shrewsbury, Miss Lydgate’s proofs would offer a convenient excuse for her presence in College.
The suggestion was left there for the moment. As regards the author of the outrages, Miss Lydgate could make no suggestions; except that, whoever it was, the poor creature must be mentally afflicted.
As she left Miss Lydgate’s room, Harriet encountered Miss Hillyard, who was descending the staircase from her own abode.
‘Well,’ said Miss Hillyard, ‘how is the investigation progressing? But I ought not to ask that. You have contrived to cast the Apple of Discord among us with a vengeance. However, as you are so well accustomed to the receipt of anonymous communications, you are no doubt the fittest person to handle the situation.’
‘In my case,’ said Harriet, ‘I only got what was to some extent deserved. But this is a very different matter. It’s not the same problem at all. Miss Lydgate’s book could offend nobody.’
‘Except some of the men whose theories she has attacked,’ replied Miss Hillyard. ‘However, circumstances seem to exclude the male sex from the scope of the inquiry. Otherwise, this mass-attack on a woman’s college would suggest to me the usual masculine spite against educated women. But you, of course, would consider that ridiculous.’
‘Not in the least. Plenty of men are very spiteful. But surely there are no men running about the college at night.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ said Miss Hillyard, smiling sarcastically. ‘It is quite ridiculous for the Bursar to talk about locked gates. What is to prevent a man from concealing himself about the grounds before the gates are locked and escaping again when they are opened in the morning? Or climbing the walls, if it comes to that?’
Harriet thought the theory far-fetched; but it interested her, as evidence of the speaker’s prejudice, which amounted almost to obsession.
‘The thing that in my opinion points to a man,’ went on Miss Hillyard, ‘is the destruction of Miss Barton’s book, which is strongly pro-feminist. I don’t suppose you have read it; probably it would not interest you. But why else should that book be picked out?’
Harriet parted from Miss Hillyard at the corner of the quad and went over to Tudor Building. She had not very much doubt who it was that was likely to offer opposition to her inquiries. If one was looking for a twisted mind, Miss Hillyard’s was certainly a little war
ped. And, when one came to think of it, there was no evidence whatever that Miss Lydgate’s proofs had ever been taken to the Library or ever left Miss Hillyard’s hands at all. Also, she had undoubtedly been seen on the threshold of the S.C.R. before Chapel on the Monday morning. If Miss Hillyard was sufficiently demented to inflict a blow of this kind on Miss Lydgate, then she was fit for a lunatic asylum. But, indeed, this would apply to whoever it was.
She went into Tudor and tapped on Miss Barton’s door, asking, when she was admitted, whether she might borrow a copy of Woman’s Place in the Modern State.
‘The sleuth at work?’ said Miss Barton. ‘Well, Miss Vane, here it is. By the way, I should like to apologise to you for some of the things I said when you were here last. I shall be very glad to see you handle this most unpleasant business, which can scarcely be an agreeable thing for you. I admire exceedingly anyone who can subordinate her own feelings to the common advantage. The case is obviously pathological – as all anti-social behaviour is, in my opinion. But here there is no question of legal proceedings, I imagine. At least, I hope not. I feel extremely anxious that it should not be brought into court; and on that account I am against hiring detectives of any kind. If you are able to get to the bottom of it, I am ready to give you any help I can.’
Harriet thanked the Fellow for her good opinion and for the book.
‘You are probably the best psychologist here,’ said Harriet. ‘What do you think of it?’
‘Probably the usual thing: a morbid desire to attract attention and create a public uproar. The adolescent and the middle-aged are the most likely suspects. I should very much doubt whether there is much more to it than that. Beyond, I mean, that the incidental obscenities point to some kind of sexual disturbance. But that is a common-place in cases of this kind. But whether you ought to look for a man-hater or a man-trap,’ added Miss Barton, with the first glimmer of humour Harriet had ever seen in her, ‘I can’t tell you.’
Having put away her various acquisitions in her own room, Harriet thought it was time to go and see the Dean. She found Miss Burrows with her, very tired and dusty after coping with the Library, and being refreshed with a glass of hot milk, to which Miss Martin insisted on adding just a dash of whisky to induce slumber.
‘What new light one gets on the habits of the S.C.R. when one’s an old student,’ said Harriet. ‘I always imagined that there was only one bottle of ardent spirits in the college, kept under lock and key by the Bursar for life-and-death emergencies.’
‘It used to be so,’ said the Dean, ‘but I’m getting frivolous in my old age. Even Miss Lydgate cherishes a small stock of cherry brandy, for high-days and holidays. The Bursar is even thinking of laying down a little port for the College.’
‘Great Scott!’ said Harriet.
‘The students are not supposed to imbibe alcohol,’ said the Dean, ‘but I shouldn’t like to go bail for the contents of all the cupboards in College.’
‘After all,’ said Miss Burrows, ‘their tiresome parents bring them up to have cocktails and things at home, so it probably seems ridiculous to them that they shouldn’t do the same things here.’
‘And what can one do about it? Make a police search through their belongings? Well, I flatly refuse. We can’t keep the place like a gaol.’
‘The trouble is,’ said the Librarian, ‘that everybody sneers at restrictions and demands freedom, till something annoying happens; then they demand angrily what has become of the discipline.’
‘You can’t exercise the old kind of discipline in these days,’ said the Dean; ‘it’s too bitterly resented.’
‘The modern idea is that young people should discipline themselves,’ said the Librarian. ‘But do they?’
‘No; they won’t. Responsibility bores ’em. Before the War they passionately had College Meetings about everything. Now, they won’t be bothered. Half the old institutions like the College debates and the Third-Year Play, are dead or moribund. They don’t want responsibility.’
‘They’re all taken up with their young men,’ said Miss Burrows.
‘Drat their young men,’ said the Dean. ‘In my day, we simply thirsted for responsibility. We’d all been sat on at school for the good of our souls, and came up bursting to show how brilliantly we could organise things when we were put in charge.’
‘If you ask me,’ said Harriet, ‘it’s the fault of the schools. Free discipline and so on. Children are sick to death of running things and doing prefect duty; and when they get up to Oxford they’re tired out and only want to sit back and let somebody else run the show. Even in my time, the people from the up-to-date republican schools were shy of taking office, poor brutes.’
‘It’s all very different,’ said Miss Burrows with a yawn. ‘However, I did get my Library volunteers to do a job of work to-day. We’ve got most of the shelves decently filled, and the pictures hung and the curtains up. It looks very well. I hope the Chancellor will be impressed. They haven’t finished painting the radiators downstairs, but I’ve bundled the paint-pots and things into a cupboard and hoped for the best. And I borrowed a squad of scouts to clean up, so as not to leave anything to be done to-morrow.’
‘What time does the Chancellor arrive?’ asked Harriet.
‘Twelve o’clock; reception in the S.C.R. and show him round the College. Then lunch in Hall, and I hope he enjoys it. Ceremony at 2.30. And then push him off to catch the 3.45. Delightful man; but I am getting fed up with Openings. We’ve opened the New Quad, the Chapel (with choral service), the S.C.R. Dining-Room (with lunch to Former Tutors and Fellows), the Tudor Annexe (with Old Students’ Tea), the Kitchens and Scouts’ Wing (with Royalty), the Sanatorium (with address by the Lister Professor of Medicine), the Council-Chamber and the Warden’s Lodgings, and we’ve unveiled the late Warden’s Portrait, the Willettt Memorial Sundial and the New Clock. And now it’s the Library. Padgett said to me last term, when we were making those alterations in Queen Elizabeth, “Excuse me, madam Dean, miss, but could you tell me, miss, the date of the Opening?” “What Opening, Padgett?” said I. “We aren’t opening anything this term. What is there to open?” “Well, miss,” says Padgett, “I was thinking of these here new lavatories, if you’ll excuse me, madam Dean, miss. We’ve opened everything there was to open up to the present, miss, and if there was to be a Ceremony, miss, it would be convenient if I was to know in good time, on account of arranging for taxis and parking accommodation.” ’
‘Dear Padgett!’ said Miss Burrows. ‘He’s the brightest spot in this academy.’ She yawned again. ‘I’m dead.’
‘Take her away to bed, Miss Vane,’ said the Dean, ‘and we’ll call it a day.’
6
Often when they were gone to Bed, the inner doors were flung open, as also the Doors of a Cupboard which stood in the Hall; and this with a great deal of Violence and Noise. And one Night the Chairs, which when they went to Bed stood all in the Chimney-corner, were all removed and placed in the middle of the Room in very good order, and a Meal-sieve hung upon one cut full of Holes, and a Key of an inner Door upon another. And in the Day-time, as they sate in the House spinning, they could see the Barn-doors often flung open, but not by whom. Once, as Alice sate spinning the Rock or Distaff leapt several times out of the Wheel into the middle of the room . . . with much more such ridiculous stuff as this is, which would be tedious to relate.
WILLIAM TURNER
‘Peter,’ said Harriet. And with the sound of her own voice she came drowsing and floating up out of the strong circle of his arms, through a green sea of sun-dappled beech-leaves into darkness.
‘Oh, damn,’ said Harriet softly to herself. ‘Oh, damn. And I didn’t want to wake up.’
The clock in the New Quad struck three musically.
‘This won’t do,’ said Harriet. ‘This really will not do. My sub-conscious has a most treacherous imagination.’ She groped for the switch of her bedside lamp. ‘It’s disquieting to reflect that one’s dreams never symbolise one’s real
wishes, but always something Much Worse.’ She turned the light on and sat up.
‘If I really wanted to be passionately embraced by Peter, I should dream of something like dentists or gardening. I wonder what are the unthinkable depths of awfulness that can only be expressed by the polite symbol of Peter’s embraces. Damn Peter! I wonder what he would do about a case like this.’
This brought her mind back to the evening in the Egotists’ Club and the anonymous letter; and thence back to his absurd fury with the sticking-plaster.
‘. . . but my mind being momentarily on my job . . .’
You’d think he was quite bird-witted, sometimes, she thought. But he does keep his mind on the job, when he’s doing it. One’s mind on the job. Yes. What am I doing, letting my mind stray all over the place. Is this a job, or isn’t it? . . . Suppose the Poison-Pen is on its rounds now, dropping letters at people’s doors . . . Whose door, though? One can’t watch all the doors . . . I ought to be sitting up at the window, keeping an eye open for creeping figures in the quad . . . Somebody ought to do it – but who’s to be trusted? Besides, dons have their jobs to do; they can’t sit up all night and work all day . . . The job . . . keeping one’s mind on the job . . .
She was out of bed now and pulling the window-curtains aside. There was no moon, and nothing at all to be seen. Not even a late essay-writer seemed to be burning the midnight lamp.
Anybody could go anywhere on a dark night like this, she thought to herself. She could scarcely see even the outline of the roofs of Tudor on her right, or the dark bulk of the New Library jutting out on her left from behind the Annexe.
The Library; with not a soul in it.
She put on a dressing-gown and opened her door softly. It was bitterly cold. She found the wall-switch and went down the central corridor of the Annexe, past a row of doors behind which students were sleeping and dreaming of goodness knew what – examinations, sports, undergraduates, parties, all the queer jumble of things that are summed up as ‘activities.’ Outside their doors lay little heaps of soiled crockery for the scouts to collect and wash. Also shoes. On the doors were cards, bearing their names: Miss H. Brown, Miss Jones, Miss Colburn, Miss Szleposky, Miss Isaacson – so many unknown quantities. So many destined wives and mothers of the race; or, alternatively, so many potential historians, scientists, school-teachers, doctors, lawyers; as you liked to think one thing of more importance than the other. At the end of the passage was a large window, hygienically open at top and bottom. Harriet gently pushed up the bottom sash and looked out, shivering.