A Quiver Full of Arrows (23 page)

“I am only pleased,” said Philippa, as if
she had not heard his reply, 8“that you were not seated next to me when I wrote
my essay, thus ensuring for the first time in three years that you weren’t able
to crib from my notes.”

“The only item I have ever cribbed from you,
Philippa, was the Oxford to London timetable, and that I discovered later to be
out-of-date, which was in keeping with the rest of your efforts.”

They both handed in their twenty-five
thousand word essays to the collector’s office in the Examination Schools and
left without a further word, returning to their respective colleges impatiently
to await the result.

William tried to relax the weekend after
submitting his essay, and for the first time in three years he played some
tennis, against a girl from St.

Anne’s, failing to win a game, let alone a
set. He nearly sank when he went swimming, and actually did so when punting. He
was only relieved that Philippa had not been witness to any of his feeble
physical efforts.

On Monday night after a resplendent dinner
with the Master of Merton, he decided to take a walk along the banks of the
Cherwell to clear his head before going to bed. The May evening was still light
as he made his way down through the narrow confines of Merton Wall, across the
meadows to the banks of the Cherwell. As he strolled along the winding path, he
thought he spied his rival ahead of him under a tree reading. He considered
turning back but decided she might already have spotted him, so he kept on
walking.

He had not seen Philippa for three days
although she had rarely been out of his thoughts: once he had won the Charles
Oldham, the silly woman would have to climb down from that high horse of hers.
He smiled at the thought and decided to walk nonchalantly past her.

As he drew nearer, he lifted his eyes from
the path in front of him to steal a quick glance in her direction, and could
feel himself reddening in anticipation of her inevitable well-timed insult.
Nothing happened so he looked more carefully, only to discover on closer
inspection that she was not reading: her head was bowed in her hands and she
appeared to be sobbing quietly. He slowed his progress to observe, not the
formidable rival who had for three years dogged his every step, but a forlorn
and lonely creature who looked somewhat helpless.

William’s first reaction was to think that
the winner of the prize essay competition had been leaked to her and that he
had indeed achieved his victory. On rejection, he realised that could not be
the case: the examiners would only have received the essays that morning and as
all.the assessors read each submission the results could not possibly be
forthcoming until at least the end of the week. Philippa did not look up when
he reached her side -

he was even unsure whether she was aware of
his presence. As he stopped to gaze at his adversary William could not help noticing
how her long red hair curled just as it touched the shoulder.

He sat down beside her but still she did not
stir.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is there
anything I can do?”

She raised her head, revealing a face Bushed
from crying.

“No, nothing William, except leave me alone.
You depot rive me of solitude without affording me company.”

William was pleased that he immediately
recognised the little literary allusion. “What’s the matter, Madame de
Sevigne?” he asked, more out of curiosity than concern, torn between sympathy
and catching her with her guard down.

It seemed a long time before she replied.

“My father died this morning,” she said
finally, as if speaking to herself.

It struck William as strange that after
three years of seeing Philippa almost every day he knew nothing about her home
life.

“And your mother?” he said.

“She died when I was three. I don’t even
remember her. My father is-.” She paused. “Was a parish priest and brought me
up, sacrificing everything he had to get me to Oxford, even the family silver.
I wanted so much to win the Charles Oldham for him.”

William put his arm tentatively on
Philippa’s shoulder.

“Don’t be absurd. When you win the prize,
they’ll pronounce you the star pupil of the decade. After all, you will have
had to beat me to achieve the distinction.”

She tried to laugh. “Of course I wanted to
beat you, William, but only for my father.”

“How did he die?”

“Cancer, only he never let me know.

He asked me not to go home before the summer
term as he felt the break might interfere with my finals and the Charles
Oldham. While all the time he must have been keeping me away because he knew if
I saw the state he was in that would have been the end of my completing any
serious work.”

“Where do you live?” asked William, again
surprised that he did not know.

“Brockenhurst. In Hampshire. I’m going back
there tomorrow morning. The funeral’s on Wednesday.”

“May I take you?” asked William.

Philippa looked up and was aware of a
softness in her adversary’s eyes that she had not seen before. “That would be
kind, William.”

“Come on then, you silly woman,” he said.
“I’ll walk you back to your college.”

“Last time you called me ‘silly woman’ you
meant it.”

William found it natural that they should
hold hands as Old Low they walked along the river bank.

Neither spoke until they reached Somerville.

“What time shall I pick you up?” he asked,
not letting go of her hand.

“I didn’t know you had a car.”

“My father presented me with an old MG when
I was awarded a first. I have been longing to End some excuse to show the damn
thing off to you. It has a press button start, you know.”

“Obviously he didn’t want to risk waiting to
give you the car on the Charles Oldham results.” William laughed more heartily
than the little dig merited.

“Sorry,” she said. “Put it down to habit. I
shall look forward to seeing if you drive as appallingly as you write, in which
case the journey may never come to any conclusion. I’ll be ready for you at
ten.”

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 travelled 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 made up 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, realising
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 Old Low 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 make-up.

“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 travelled down to Stratford, stopping off at
Broadway for lunch. In the afternoon they rowed on the River Avon. William
warned Philippa of 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 as they could hardly hear each other
above the noise of the car engine. It must have been about twenty-five miles
outside of Oxford that the MG came to a halt.

“I thought,” said William, “that when the
petrol 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 honours degree in English when you can’t
even read a petrol gauge.”

“There’s only one thing for it,” 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
petrol,” 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.