Jill (3 page)

“Would you care for a sandwich, my boy?”

The beat of the train obliterated some of her words, but her gesture was eloquent.

“Er—no, thank you—it’s very kind of you—
no
, thank you—I——”

He could not explain that he had thrown his own lunch out of the lavatory window, and she continued to hold the bag out, shaking it determinedly:

“Go on, my boy … plenty … you’ll be hungry …”

She wore a cream blouse under her beige travelling-coat and a steel brooch set in the collar. As John continued to show by signs and words that it was very kind of her, but he really wouldn’t, she withdrew the sandwiches and unsnapped her handbag.

“You’re not feeling ill, are you?” One chubby hand fumbled inside the bag, among letters, keys, a lavender-scented handkerchief and a bottle of tablets. “I have some smelling-salts, if you’ve a headache … lie down.…”

But by this time he had taken a sandwich, for anything would be better than being dabbed with eau-de-Cologne, or made to sit by an open window. The beautiful girl was staring at him amusedly as she licked the tips of her fingers, and even the clergyman, paring a russet apple with a silver penknife, paused to gaze at him cheerfully. In the end he was forced to accept not only three sandwiches from the ladies, but a piece of cake from the girl and a quarter of the clergyman’s apple. He kept his eyes fixed on the dirty floor as he chewed, utterly humiliated.

So now, four hours later, he was hungry, but so near the end of the journey his restlessness prevented him from wanting to eat. And as if the train knew his destination was near it seemed to quicken speed, plunging on with a regular pattern of beats. He looked from the window and saw a man with a gun entering a field, two horses by a gate, and presently the railway line was joined by a canal, and rows of houses appeared. He got to his feet and stared at the approaching city across allotments, back-gardens and piles of coal covered with fallen leaves. Red brick walls glowed with a dull warmth that he would have admired at another time. Now he was too nervous. The train clattered by iron bridges, cabbages and a factory painted with huge white letters he did not bother to read; smoke dirtied the sky; the train swung violently over set after set of points. A
signal-box. Their speed seemed to increase, as they swept towards the station round a long curve of line through much rolling-stock, among which John noticed a wagon from near his home. Then the eaves of the platform, hollow shouting, the faces slowing down as he dragged down his heavy suitcase from the rack, the shuddering halt and escape of steam.

“Oxford,” cried a porter, “Oxford,” walking the length of the platform because all the nameplates had been removed in time of war. John got out.

He did not hurry through the ticket barrier, and when he walked out of the station all the taxis had been taken. He stood on the pavement, not sorry to be delayed a little, for he was coming to reside at the University for the first time and was so afraid that even now, if he had had the chance, he would have turned and fled back into his previous life. The fact that he had worked for years for this moment made no difference: if he could not run back home, he at least would prefer to loiter about, getting nearer by degrees only to the college on whose books he was enrolled as a scholar.

During this last hesitation he stared down towards the town, aware that behind him a young man was arguing with a porter about a lost bag of golf-clubs. What he could see did not look very remarkable; there were hoardings advertising beans and the ATS, people pushing towards a red bus, a glazed-brick public-house. A pony and cart creaked down the road, the man holding the slack reins, a bowed figure in the faint dusk. John looked about for colleges and old buildings, but could only see distantly a spire or two, and watched a woman buying some sprouts at a greengrocer’s fifty yards away. His bag stood beside him on the kerb.

It was because he had crammed everything he had into that bag that it was so heavy and forced him to take a taxi, a thing he had never done before. Only his china had gone before him in a little crate: everything else had been packed in his case, which was like a small trunk with a handle. He could hardly carry it twenty yards, it was so heavy.

Anxiously he waited. The driver of the first taxicab back
grinned and switched off his engine as John gave him the address of his college.

“Sorry, sir, I’m goin’ to ’ave my tea.”

“Oh.”

He went back to the kerb again. The second driver was willing, and after a short, blurred ride, set John down at his gates for two shillings. John gave him half a crown, and, afraid that the man would try to give him sixpence change, stepped quickly through the gate into the college porch. He heard the taxi drive away.

Already the sound of traffic receded a little. He recognized the quadrangle (for he had been there once before) and looked about him.

I must ask the porter where my room is, he told himself to quell his rising bewilderment, that is the first thing to do.

So he left his bag stand and turned into the doorway of the set of rooms at the gates that was given over to the porter as a lodge. Here the post was laid out and a few tattered railway time-tables and telephone-directories hung for the use of the students along one wall. John remembered the porter, a fierce little man with ginger whiskers and a regimental tie, and saw him leaning against the inner door talking to two young men. He was better dressed than John himself.

“Don’t tell
me
that. Don’t tell
me
. That’s what I was saying all last term.”

“Anyway, no one’ll bother to do it,” said one young man languidly. “No one in their senses, that is.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” the porter began in an even crosser voice, but broke off when he saw John. “Yes, sir?”

John swallowed, and the two young men turned to look at him.

“Er—I’ve just arrived—er—can you—er—my rooms——”

“What, sir?” snapped the little man, bending an ear nearer. “What d’you say?” John was speechless. “A fresher, are you?”

“Yes——”

“What name?”

“Er—Kemp—er——”

“Kent?”

The porter picked up a list and ran his thumbnail down it: the two young men continued to look at John as if he held no particular significance for them. It seemed hours before the porter exclaimed:

“
Kemp!
Kemp, are you? Yes, room two, staircase fourteen. With Mr. Warner. That’s you, sir,” he repeated as John did not move. “Fourteen, two.”

“Er—where?——”

“Founder’s Quad—second arch on the left. Staircase fourteen’s on the righthand side. You can’t miss it.”

John backed out, murmuring thanks.

Who was Mr. Warner?

This was something he had dreaded, though not very intensely because there were other more immediate things to shrink from.

He had thought that once he had found his rooms, he would always have a refuge, a place to retreat to and hide in. This was apparently not so.

Who was Mr. Warner? Perhaps he would be quiet and studious.

The news upset him so much that he forgot to ask the porter if his crate of china had arrived, and instead, picked up his case and set off in the direction indicated. The quadrangle was gravelled and surrounded by sets of rooms on three sides, with the Chapel and Hall on the fourth side. The windows were dark and hollow: archways, with arms and scrolled stone, led off into other parts of the college, and one or two pigeons flew down from high ledges from among the rich crimson ivy. John, panting under the weight of the bag, passed through one of the arches where a tablet commemorated the previous war, and found himself in a set of cloisters with the statue of the Founder in the middle, surrounded by iron railings. His footsteps echoed on the stone, and he walked on tip-toe, unaware that the sound would become casually familiar to him in a very few days. In this inner quadrangle silence was almost complete, only broken by the sound of a gramophone playing distantly. He wondered who the Founder was and who Mr. Warner was—perhaps he was a poor scholar, like himself.

There were three staircases on the right-hand side of the quadrangle, and the last one was number 14: the numbers had been newly painted. New also were the names of the occupants painted in a list at the bottom of each stair: he read them apprehensively, Stephenson, Hackett and Cromwell, the Hon. S. A. A. Ransom.

The next was 14. Kemp and Warner.

What alarmed him was not so much the sight of the door (room number 2 was on the ground floor), but the fact that he could hear laughter and the sound of teacups coming from it. There were people there! He listened, first at one door, then at another, but it was undoubtedly coming from his own room: cautiously he put his suitcase down, and was just preparing to creep away—for he would as soon have intruded as rung the doorbell of a strange house—when the door suddenly opened and a young man came out holding a kettle.

John retreated. “Er—I——”

“Hallo, did you want me?”

The young man was taller and stronger than John, with dark dry hair brushed back from his forehead, and a square, stubbly jaw. His nose was thick and his shoulders broad; John felt a twinge of distrust. He wore a dark grey lounge suit and dark blue shirt and on his right hand was a square-faced gold ring. There was a swagger in his bearing, he held himself well upright.

“Er …” John made a taut, inexpressive gesture. “That is, I think this is—my name’s Kemp.”

“Oh, you’re Kemp? How d’you do? I’m Warner—Chris Warner.”

They shook hands.

“We’re just having tea: there’s rather a crowd inside, I’m afraid I’ve sort of taken possession.” He began filling the kettle from the tap. “Come from Town?”

“From Huddlesford,” said John, not knowing that Town meant London.

“Oh, yes. Good journey?”

“Yes——”

He was acutely aware that the conversation in the room had
stopped and that the unseen tea-party was listening to the colloquy outside.

“Well, come in and have some tea, if there’s anything left.” John followed him in. “Friends, my better half has arrived, Mr. Kemp. These are Elizabeth Dowling, Eddy Makepeace, Patrick Dowling and Hugh Stanning-Smith.”

He smiled blindly from face to face. They looked at him, and smiled too.

The room was large and airy, and in a terrible mess. Tea was laid on the hearthrug and dirty cups and plates were littered about, while the table was covered with wrapping paper, crumbs from a half-loaf, a pot of jam, a pile of books, and other things recently unpacked from the trunk that stood open under the window. A fire burned brightly in the grate. The room was bigger than any in his own house.

He looked at Elizabeth Dowling first, because she was a girl and because hers was the only name he had caught. She was broad-shouldered, with a regular face, and sat in one corner of the sofa. She was powdered carefully, had a reddened mouth, and her golden hair was brushed fiercely up from the sides of her head, so that it formed a stiff ornament, like a curious helmet. Her right hand lay quiescently holding a burning cigarette, and she wore a check tweed costume.

Then he looked at Eddy Makepeace, who wore a yellow silk tie with horseshoes on it. He had a youthful, spotty face, that expressed great confidence and stupidity, and his eyes bulged.

Patrick Dowling lounged foxily, with a faint resemblance to Elizabeth that showed they were related, and stared back at John with unpleasant candour: Hugh Stanning-Smith was quiet-voiced and white-fingered.

“Chris, you are impossible,” said Elizabeth fretfully. “Filling it so full.… It’ll take
hours
to boil. Simply
hours
. And I’m
dying
for another cup.”

John stared at her, never having heard before this self-parodying southern coo, and a sense of his alien surroundings came over him. “I think …” he muttered, casting about for an excuse to go. “I think.…”

“Here, have some cake.” Christopher roughly whacked a
large slab on to a plate and held it out. “Come on, take your things off and sit down,” he added kindly. “Pat, get up and give the gentleman a seat.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said John hurriedly, who would have liked to sit down. “I’ve been sitting all day.”

“
So
has Pat,” cooed Elizabeth. “But he’s
lazy
.”

“And he’s going to sit all night, too.” Patrick gave a sudden disconcerting roar of laughter, then stuffed cake into his mouth. As no one showed any signs of rising, John took off his coat and leant against the wall.

“Have you come a long way?” Elizabeth pronounced each word very clearly, as if speaking to a foreigner, and looked up at him. Staring down at her lips, he perceived that they were actually much thinner than they were painted.

“From Huddlesford.”

“M’m. Quite a distance.”

As John did not say anything else, the conversation turned away from him again and became general. “What were you saying about Julian, Chris?” inquired Eddy, moving irritably in his chair. “Did you say he’d volunteered?”

“That’s right. In the Signals.”

“Oh, I see. I thought there was something in it.”

“You bet.”

“Aren’t the Signals dangerous, then?” Elizabeth asked, with an air of intelligence, tapping ash into the saucer of her cup. “Is that what you mean?”

“Can’t be if Julian——”

“Is that the person we met in Town, Chris?” Elizabeth turned to Christopher Warner, who was carelessly shuffling plates together, the meal being more or less done. He nodded. “At the Cinderella, after the theatre? I didn’t think he was very clever.”

“What Lizzie means”, said Patrick sarcastically, “is that he——”

“
Shut
up!” Elizabeth made as if to throw a cushion at him, and pouted instead. “You’re just a swine.” For a second her eye caught John’s, and she looked down at her lap. Otherwise the atmosphere of the room was almost the same as before he had entered it.

He had finished his cake, and dare not ask for more, so he gave his attention to the room. It was large, impressively conceived, though the details were shabby: windows on one side of the room looked out on to the Founder’s Quad (he could see the statue), and on the other on to what he later discovered was the Master’s Garden. Long curtains hung by them to the floor. The walls were panelled and painted cream: on each side of the fireplace was a set of shelves in the wall, and the furniture consisted of a table, a desk, two armchairs and a sofa.