Crampton Hodnet (16 page)

The whole of Edward’s story, even the last part, had been received with gasps of horror and astonishment.

‘Lyons’ Corner House!’ whispered Mrs. Fremantle in such tones of shocked amazement that Miss Morrow wondered if she really knew what that great institution was.

‘Did you actually creep up behind them and listen to their conversation?’ asked Miss Morrow, whose mind was still occupied with unsuitable thoughts. ‘How did you manage it?’

‘Miss Morrow, I think that is hardly the point,’ said Miss Doggett sharply.

‘I was wearing crepe rubber soles,’ said Edward proudly, glad that he was being given some credit for his part in the affair. ‘Look.’ He lifted up his foot to show the sole of his shoe.

‘What a terrible thing,’ murmured Miss Doggett. ‘Terrible … I feel quite shaken.’

‘Shall I get you some brandy?’ said Edward, springing up.

‘No, thank you. I don’t need a stimulant, but I should like some more tea. Miss Morrow, pass my cup to Mrs. Killigrew. I am an old woman and this dreadful news has been a great shock to me,’ she explained.

‘I am sure that it must have been,’ said Mrs. Killigrew in a satisfied tone. ‘But you have not said anything, Dr. Fremantle. What is your opinion?’

They all turned to look at him, standing by the window, his hand absently burrowing in his beard.

‘Well, I think it is really nothing,’ he said surprisingly, ‘or, at least, nothing very much.’

‘You mean that you think there is nothing in it?’ asked Edward incredulously.

‘I do not say that,’ said Dr. Fremantle. ‘There may well be
something
in it, but I do not believe it is as much as you think. After all, Cleveland is a handsome man in the prime of life. What could be more natural than for him to have a little affair of the heart? Man is by nature polygamous,’ he declared. ‘We all know that.’

Olive Fremantle shot a timid glance at her husband. Herbert polygamous! All these years of marriage, more than forty years now. She remembered one spring in Florence and an American woman who had afterwards appeared in Oxford in the long vacation. It did not do to enquire too closely. If Herbert said that man is by nature polygamous—well, all one could do was to leave it at that and hope for the best. At least he was still her husband, which was something. He was an old man, too, over seventy now. Perhaps that was even more.

‘But, Dr. Fremantle, the
disgrace
of it, it can’t possibly be hushed up now,’ protested Miss Doggett.

He smiled, but nobody saw the smile under his bush of beard. ‘There will be no disgrace,’ he said calmly. ‘Nothing
need
come of it,’ he added, with a warning glance at his hearers, ‘and I prophesy that nothing will. You mark my words. There was something of the kind in the eighties—old Dr. Baldwin—but he was in Orders, which made it rather a scandalous affair. But, of course, we mustn’t forget that a man’s a man however he wears his collar, must we?’

Miss Doggett looked as if she were about to protest that the wearing of a collar back to front was not the only thing that distinguished a clergyman from a layman, but Dr. Fremantle stopped her with a peremptory wave of the hand.

‘We don’t want to make more fuss about this than is necessary,’ went on Dr. Fremantle. ‘As you said, Charlotte, we are not gossips. We do not talk about these things for our own amusement,’ he added, with a touch of malice in his tone. ‘I cannot see that we shall do any good by meddling with things which do not at present concern us. I am sure that we all wish to do good, don’t we? There is not really much else we can do now, at our age.’ He laughed a rumbling laugh into his beard.

‘But surely, Dr. Fremantle, it is your duty to speak to my nephew about it?’ persisted Miss Doggett. ‘Think of the honour of the college.’ She made a vague, sweeping movement with her hand.

‘If as time goes on it appears to be my duty to say something, you can be sure that I shall say it,’ Dr. Fremantle reassured her, ‘but in the meantime I do not see how the honour of Randolph College is going to be seriously affected by a declaration of love made in the British Museum.’

It certainly sounded very ridiculous put like that, thought Miss Morrow, but then perhaps all love had something of the ridiculous about it, and the realisation did not necessarily mean that Mr. Cleveland’s affair was not to be taken seriously.

‘You know it’s been going on for some time,’ said Edward Killigrew, who was afraid that after what Dr. Fremantle had just said his news might appear less important than it had done at first. ‘I found him waiting for her to come out of the library one evening as long ago as last Christmas.’

‘And he had tea with her in Fuller’s before Christmas,’ put in Miss Doggett. ‘Miss Morrow and I saw them with our own eyes.’

‘And then there was another time, in March, I think, when we had that nice weather,’ said Edward. ‘I met him coming out of a flower shop. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But now … ‘ He paused significantly.

‘Perhaps he was sending flowers to an invalid or ordering a wreath for a funeral,’ suggested Miss Morrow timidly.

‘That’s what
I
 
thought at the time
,’
said Edward.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Miss Morrow,’ said Miss Doggett sharply. ‘He has no invalids among his acquaintance, and if a relative had died I should certainly have been among the first to know.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ agreed Miss Morrow reluctantly, for Miss Doggett delighted in deaths and funerals.

‘Well, we all come to it, you know,’ said Dr. Fremantle indulgently. ‘ “They are not long, the weeping and the laughter”,’ he quoted from a favourite poet of his youth. ‘Come, Olive,’ he called in a commanding voice, ‘it’s time we went.’

‘Yes, Charlotte, I’m afraid we must be going,’ said Mrs. Fremantle regretfully. ‘We have to go out to dinner tonight. It has been so delightful seeing you. You are looking
splendid
,’ she quavered, putting a thin, spidery hand into Mrs. Killigrew’s firm white one.

‘Yes, we have heard an interesting piece of news,’ said Dr. Fremantle, as if acknowledging the main purpose of the tea party. ‘Mind you, I don’t think it is quite as important as you seem to imagine, but one never knows,’ he added, throwing them a fragment of consolation. A few words of advice from a man of the world, that was what Cleveland needed. He ought to have been more discreet about this little affair. It was surprising that a good-looking man like that hadn’t had more practice. But of course Cleveland was lazy; he might drift into something without realising the consequences. Dr. Fremantle flattered himself that he had ordered his own life a little more skilfully. ‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses…’ but he had certainly enjoyed them where he could. He chuckled, remembering some past episode. ‘You mark my words, it will all blow over,’ was his parting shot.

‘I wish we could all take such an optimistic view of the matter as Dr. Fremantle appears to,’ said Miss Doggett in a gloomy tone, which yet seemed to be deeply satisfied. ‘I am afraid there is going to be a great deal more in this than he thinks.’

‘Yes, we felt we could not keep such a piece of news to ourselves,’ said Mrs. Killigrew. ‘It would have been wrong to conceal it.’

And selfish too, thought Miss Morrow, as she walked home with Miss Doggett, on whom the news appeared to have acted like a tonic. Her step was more sprightly than when they had started out, and her voice had a new, firm quality about it.

‘I blame myself for this,’ she said. ‘I ought to have acted sooner. I only hope it may not be too late.’

‘Too late?’ said Miss Morrow. ‘Oh, I don’t see how it could be too late.’

‘Miss Morrow, you know nothing about such matters,’ said Miss Doggett sharply. ‘It may very well be too late. I would go into the house and tackle him with it now,’ she added, as they passed the Clevelands’ gate, ‘but I feel that I must have time to think it over. This matter requires very careful handling,’ she added obscurely.

As they sat having their supper, Miss Morrow listened in silence to the fascinating story of intrigue which was being unfolded before her. It was as good as one of the sixpenny novels old Maggie read, she decided. The middle-aged, handsome don, tired of a wife who made no effort to keep his love; the clever, sympathetic young woman, who was at the same time pretty; the reading of sentimental poetry together—this appeared to be Miss Doggett’s idea of a tutorial—chance meetings followed by planned assignations, the Dawn of Love, an elopement, a divorce … in short, the breaking up of Francis Cleveland’s home and the ruination of his academic career.

‘But there must be so many middle-aged men who sometimes feel bored with their wives,’ protested Miss Morrow, ‘and just as many of them must sometimes meet attractive young women without anything very dreadful happening.’

‘Miss Morrow, you do not know the world as I do,’ said Miss Doggett in a warning tone. ‘You look around you here and see upright men keeping their marriage vows.’

Miss Morrow agreed, but a little doubtfully, for at the moment she found it difficult to think of any married couples except the vicar and his wife, and she did not feel that she could make an observation which might only be frivolous.

‘But unfortunately Francis is not an upright man,’ went on Miss Doggett. ‘He is not a churchman and he spends all his time studying the literature of a period when morals were lax and society was decadent. As a young man he was not steady, and his father, who married my eldest sister, was an unfaithful husband. It is hardly to be wondered at that Francis is what he is. We know that he has been deceiving his wife. I only hope that he may not have been doing even
worse
than that.’

Miss Morrow, feeling herself to be very much the unmarried lady who knew nothing of life, was silent.

‘I have hinted to Margaret that there is something between him and Miss Bird,’ continued Miss Doggett, ‘but she was quite rude about it and as good as told me to mind my own business. I think it is time somebody spoke to Francis himself. I had thought of asking the vicar to do it, but I think Mr. Latimer would be better. He is more of a gentleman and has stricter principles. And of course he believes in the celibacy of the clergy,’ she added with a note of warning in her tone.

Miss Morrow could not help letting out an exclamation of surprise. Perhaps this accounted for the lukewarmness of his proposal, she thought, though she really could not see that it had much to do with the matter in hand.

‘Mr. Latimer is a very high-principled young man,’ said Miss Doggett impressively. ‘He has a fine character.’

Miss Morrow said nothing. Somehow, she felt that she did not admire Mr. Latimer quite as much as other people did. Perhaps it was because she knew him too well. After all, he had nearly been her husband, and that surely presumed a degree of acquaintance which did not allow of excessive and unquestioning admiration. For, although she was in many ways a romantic, Miss Morrow could not help thinking that one usually married people in spite of faults rather than because of virtues.

Poor Mrs. Cleveland, she thought, pondering over what they had heard that afternoon, what will she think when she hears about it? Will she mind? Perhaps one’s feelings were mercifully blunted after twenty years or so of marriage. Twenty years was such a long time, long enough for a husband to change into many different kinds of people. Here Miss Morrow began to get rather involved with husbands, vipers in bosoms and wolves in sheep’s clothing. But Mr. Cleveland was always so mild; it was impossible to imagine him as either a viper or a wolf. Edward Killigrew had probably made the whole thing up. It must be dull working in the library in this lovely weather, and Miss Morrow had often noticed that clever people were inclined to be fond of spiteful gossip and intrigue.

‘It’s Mr. Cleveland’s last lecture,’ said Sarah Penrose at breakfast one morning. ‘I think we shall have to go, don’t you, Birdy?’

‘I don’t think I can spare the time,’ said Barbara evasively. ‘I ought to be getting on with my revision.’

‘But it would do you good to have a little relaxation,’ said Sarah in a motherly tone.

‘It will give us back our youth,’ sighed an intense, untidy-looking woman who answered to the name of Fraser. ‘We shall remember the first time we went to one of his lectures and how wonderful we thought he was and how we took down every word he said. We didn’t have much to worry us in those days, did we?’

‘“
Alas! regardless of their doom, the little victims play”,’ quoted Sarah heavily. ‘You must come, Birdy. You can’t go on doing revision all the time.’

Barbara had woken up the morning after the visit to the British Museum feeling that she had been making a great fuss about nothing. After all, it was not so very unusual for intelligent people to be in love with each other, even if one of them was married. History and Literature were full of examples; indeed, it seemed almost essential that in a Great Love one of the parties should be married. There was no need to be melodramatic and never see Francis any more. There was no need even for their beautiful friendship to be turned into a sordid intrigue, for Barbara’s ideas of love were very noble, and she had had no experience of any but completely abstract passions. Her ideas of how she and Francis were going to go on, now that they were two intelligent people admittedly in love with each other, were conveniently vague. She only knew that she was ready for whatever might be in store for her, and that she would welcome what came as an enrichment to a life which had so far been lacking in those experiences without which, if one was to believe all that one heard and read, no life could be really complete.

She had gone about in this state of mind for several days, waiting for an opportunity to see Francis and tell him, only in less prosaic words, of course, that everything was going to be all right. But her first meeting with him was under such different circumstances from what she had planned that it did not at all come up to her expectations. To begin with, the place had been unsuitable. They had come across each other in the Bodleian. She had been standing at the top of a ladder, searching for a pamphlet, feeling tired and dishevelled after a morning’s work, and with an uncomfortable suspicion that her petticoat was showing, when he had come to the shelf below her to get a book.