An Oxford Tragedy

by Norman Russell

  Steadman had come to St Michael’s in 1869, when Sir Benjamin Green was still Warden. Podmore, the man standing beside him, was an old alumnus of St Michael’s, and had been a member of the Senior Common Room since 1865. When Sir Benjamin retired, Steadman found that he had a little cartel of supporters, as had Podmore. But the Crown had evidently decided that a new broom was needed, and Montague Fowler had been lured away from St Barnabas’ College as the most eligible ‘outsider.’

  Well, it was time now for those with high ambitions to exert themselves, and when it came to ambition, William Podmore, the man standing beside him, had more than enough for the whole college.

  Look at him! Or rather, don’t look at him. If you do, he’ll think you’re admiring him. He was looking unusually gaunt and pale, but maybe that was because his lantern jaws were as innocent of hirsute adornment as those of a newborn baby. Some of the undergraduates declared that William Podmore had never shaved, and that he had not developed physically in other directions. Perhaps they were right.

  The nurse approached the bed, and wiped Sir Montague Fowler’s forehead with a swab of linen. She glanced at the two doctors, who were standing in the shade of the bed-curtains, and Steadman saw them both shake their heads. Podmore uttered a little sigh, but his cold, incurious eyes remained fixed on the dying man in the bed.

  Podmore was Vice-Warden, Tutor in Mathematics, and Consultant Statistician to the Exchequer. He claimed to be a tee-totaller, forever bleating about the virtues of pure spring water, but Haynes, the scout on his staircase, had been seen removing empty gin bottles from his room.

  Steadman had never liked Billy Podmore, the stiff and stilted sipper of mineral water. Podmore had beaten him in securing the coveted post of Vice-Warden, which Steadman had always secretly thought should have been his, a sort of consolation prize for having been passed over for the Wardenship. Steadman believed that Podmore’s success had come about through undue influence brought to bear by some faceless people in Whitehall.

  Now, no doubt, a few more strings would be pulled, and Billy Podmore would become Warden, as soon as Monty was consigned decently to the grave and forgotten. That was why Podmore was here in the sickroom. He had come to wait for poor Monty to die, and was, no doubt, already making plans for the initial months of his coming Wardenship.

  It was time to go. He glanced at Podmore, and the two men quietly left the room. Outside, on the matted landing, two other dons were waiting their turn to pay their last respects. Stanley Fitzmaurice, the Senior Tutor, looked suitably grave. Young Gerald Templar, Junior Dean, bearded in the fashion affected by young men, and wearing a gown that was too large for his slender frame, seemed to Steadman to be mastering a kind of tremor of fearful expectation. What on earth was he expecting to see?

  In the ancient hall of St Michael’s College, the few dons who had elected to dine that June night in 1894 dallied with their port at the high table, where, according to custom, the cloths had been drawn and the decanters set out on their silver tray. All six men contrived not to look at the great carved chair set beneath the portrait of the Marquess of Dorset, the founder of the college, because the chair was empty, and had been so for the past ten anxious days. So powerful had the Warden’s personality been that his absence seemed to reduce them all to a rather pathetic collection of individuals rather than part of the coherent body of scholars who constituted the Senior College.

  So Dr Joseph Steadman thought, as he sipped his port, and automatically nodded his approbation. They still kept a good cellar at St Michael’s, despite Billy Podmore’s bleatings about the virtues of pure spring-water. Occasionally, the Warden would treat them to one of the bottles of rare vintages that he had amassed in his own spacious cellar beneath the Lodgings.

  They had had clear soup, which, in the way of such things, was stronger on clarity than flavour. The cutlets had been tolerable, though the cook had never mastered the art of boiling potatoes. No amount of parsley sprinkled promiscuously like confetti could atone for potatoes with hearts of stone.

  Steadman had made a point of recalling the dinner menus for the last three weeks. The cook had rung his usual changes on their standard fare of beef, lamb and pork, roast, braised or boiled; two curries had signalled to them that some joints of meat were about to go on the turn. Could it have been one of those curries? They had had curried beef on the night before the Warden had left for a visit to friends in the country.

  He could recall the very day. It was a Friday, the eighteenth of May, a lovely early summer day: warm, but with a light breeze seeking its way through the main gate of the college from Swallow Lane. He, Podmore and the Warden had stood talking for a while in the coffered vestibule of the lodge, waiting for the cab that would take Sir Montague to the station.

  ‘It’s just for a few days, gentlemen,’ the Warden had said. ‘As you know, it’s the time of year when I like to hide myself away in the country for a little while, staying with some old friends from earlier days. Podmore, will you receive the land-agent on Monday? And Steadman, when you send the battels bills out, will you enclose a note suggesting prompt payment? Our young gentlemen are getting rather lax over paying their way!’

  Monty had been dressed for the country in a rather racy tweed suit, and with one of the new soft felt hats sitting atop his mane of red hair. His eyes had held a twinkling anticipation of pleasures to come. How well he had looked! His booming voice – he’d never been able to whisper – had brought one of the porter’s out of the lodge to see if anything was amiss.

  And then he had gone, clambering delicately through the wicket gate and on to the pavement in Swallow Lane where his cab had drawn up. It was like contemplating a vanished world.

  It had been one of Monty’s little foibles that he would never tell them what friends he was going to visit. He would smile, and wag an admonitory finger, usually adding words to the effect that if he told them, they’d bother him with telegrams bidding him return to put something right that they were more than capable of fixing themselves!

  When they saw him next, he was like an animated corpse, pale and gaunt, and scarcely able to speak. It was distressingly clear that he could not possibly survive the week.

  How Steadman loved this place! He was a bachelor, so that he lived in college in his own set of rooms in a corner of the second quad, conveniently adjacent to the Senior Common Room. He was part of the fabric of St Michael’s. At 58, he knew that no further promotion could be his, and was more than content with his lot.

  He glanced around the hall, and as always was thrilled with its antique beauty. It dated from 1480, one year after Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, stepson of Edward IV, had established the college as ‘a place of abode for twelve poor scholars, learned in Latin, and in the mathematical arts’. It was panelled throughout in ancient oak, upon which hung numerous portraits, and was lighted by a fine window, full of writhing Gothic mullion-work, its leaded glass adorned with the dim shields and achievements of long-extinct noble families who had provided the college’s early benefactors.

  Above the high table, and the long oak tables running the length of the hall, at which the undergraduates were dining off rougher fare than their elders, the magnificent hammer-beam roof could be dimly discerned in what light reached it from the flickering candles set in silver candelabra on the tables.

  ‘You seem unusually pensive tonight, Bursar,’ said Podmore. ‘Won’t you share your thoughts with the rest of us?’ Evidently Billy had broken the gloomy silence because it was becoming intolerable. Well, thought Steadman, better play the game.

  ‘I was musing on the folly of this sort of life,’ said Joseph Steadman, mendaciously. ‘I am fifty-eight years old, and have sat at this table for twenty-five years. Not like you, Fitzmaurice, who used to be a dashing soldier, serving the Queen “in lands afar remote”. Did I make that up, or is it a quotation?’

  ‘It’s from Henry IV,’ observed Gerald Templar, from his seat at the end of the table.

  �
�Oh, is it? How did you know that? You’re a chemist.’

  ‘We did it at school, Bursar,’ said the Junior Dean. ‘They were rather keen on Shakespeare at St Paul’s. Fortunately for me, they were rather keen on chemistry, too!’

  ‘You may not know this,’ said Steadman, ‘but I myself was very tempted to pursue a military career in my youth. Someone told me the other day that I’d have been a major-general by now if I hadn’t abandoned the idea, and holed myself up here with poor Monty in this benighted backwater.’

  Steadman saw his audience shift uncomfortably at this unexpected familiarity, and he hastily corrected himself.

  ‘“Monty” was my name for the Warden when we were boys. I meant no disrespect to Sir Montague Fowler, when I spoke of him by that name. Well, he went far, and I went nowhere… .’

  ‘Hardly nowhere, Bursar,’ said the Vice-Warden. ‘As well as Bursar, you’re Reader in Hebrew, Aramaic and Coptic, and author of that book on the decipherment of Akkadian …’

  ‘Yes, yes, Vice-Warden, but don’t you see that it was all an intellectual waste! No one will ever read my book, or my academic papers. I’ve had no undergraduates for years, for no self-respecting young fellow would waste his time on what I offer. You see, in reality I’m the college plumber and gardener – no, don’t laugh, gentlemen, because it’s true! I’m commended by all for making the flowerbeds in the quadrangles my special remit.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll grant you gardener. But plumber?’

  ‘If a washer comes off a tap in the night, I’ll find myself summoned to a frightful overflow by a quaking undergraduate. That’s one of the penalties of being a bachelor, and living in college. Those young men know that they can rely on “old Joe”, as they call me, to put things right. Gardener and plumber.’

  ‘“Old Joe?” Surely they are not so disrespectful?’ said the Vice-Warden. He had refused the port decanter, and was sipping from a glass of spring-water.

  Dr Joseph Steadman threw back his head and laughed, and the sound of his restored sense of humour banished the tension that had been building up during dinner.

  ‘Anyway, Bursar,’ said Stanley Fitzmaurice, ‘I for one deny all this talk of gardening and plumbing. Everyone in the university regards you as a supreme master in your field. But if a washer fails on my sink, I’ll know where to come!’

  Good old Stanley! He was a man Steadman could talk to without feeling like a blithering old fool. Captain Stanley Fitzmaurice – alert, bright-eyed, and just turned forty – was Senior Tutor, college lecturer in Russian, and University Professor of Slavonic Languages. A normal, no nonsense, utterly decent and fiendishly learned man.

  ‘Time to adjourn to the common-room, gentlemen,’ said Dr William Podmore, the Vice-Warden. He banged on the table with a small gavel, and there came a scraping of boots as the undergraduate body rose untidily to hear the recessional grace.

  2

  Another Death in the Lodgings

  When they left the hall, Stanley Fitzmaurice walked through the second quadrangle in company with the Junior Dean. Ever since the young chemist had arrived at St Michael’s, just over a year earlier, Fitzmaurice had appointed himself a kind of unofficial mentor to the younger man.

  What a wild fellow he looked! He wore one of the new artfully untidy beards that many modern young men favoured, and regarded the world warily through glittering gold pince-nez. His evening clothes were baggy and a bit threadbare, and his academic gown, green and rusty, and too large, was quite obviously second-hand.

  Templar’s gait, he saw, was ever so slightly unsteady: no doubt he was grateful for the cool breeze of the June night, which would rapidly banish the fumes of vintage port from his befuddled head. Templar had evidently not yet grown accustomed to the extravagant libations of wine and spirits that accompanied every college dinner.

  The two men could hear the desultory conversation of the other dons, who had preceded them, their boots crunching on the shale paths. As they rounded the corner that would take them to the Senior Common Room, several rather mournful sets of chimes from various quarters of the town announced that it was nine o’clock.

  ‘You’re very quiet this evening, Templar,’ said Captain Fitzmaurice, glancing at his young friend. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘No … no,’ the younger man replied. ‘But my mind’s full of that harrowing visit we made to the Lodgings this afternoon. I fancy myself as an observer of men – and women, too – and I studied the faces of the family and the physicians as they stood around the bed, looking down at that – that ruin of a once-great man… .’

  ‘Ah! I thought it might be that. Give the Common Room a miss tonight, Templar, and come and smoke a cigar in my rooms. I’ve a little spirit stove there, and I’ll warm up some coffee. Then you can tell me what you saw in those faces.’

  A low fire was still burning in the grate of Fitzmaurice’s sitting room, and the two men made themselves comfortable in well-used leather armchairs flanking the ancient stone fireplace. Fitzmaurice lit the candles, and then busied himself for a while preparing coffee. Presently, he and his guest were smoking the thin cheroots that Fitzmaurice favoured.

  ‘So you studied the faces of the family and the physicians, Templar,’ Fitzmaurice said, sipping his coffee. ‘What did you read there?’

  ‘I looked at the elder of the two sons, first – at least, I assume he was the elder: a well set up, pleasant-looking man in his thirties. He was dressed very formally, but didn’t look a formal sort of man, if you understand me. He looked worried. More worried than sad.’

  ‘That was indeed the elder son, John Fowler. He’s a businessman, a commodity broker in the City. I think he’s a partner in an old-established firm. Doing very well, by all accounts.’

  ‘Well,’ Templar continued, ‘Mr John Fowler seemed to be genuinely distressed, unable even to glance at that awful bed. And yet the only time I saw him do so, his face showed not sorrow but vexation – not anger, you know, just vexation about something. And twice he slipped his watch from his pocket, as though he was anxious for the whole business to end. Nothing sinister there, you understand, but odd. Yes, decidedly odd… .’

  ‘And what did you see in Timothy’s face – he’s the younger son, the clergyman.’

  ‘He seemed very calm to me, very accepting of the situation, which I suppose you’d expect from a man of the cloth.’

  ‘He’s a nice chap by all accounts,’ said Fitzmaurice. ‘He’s curate to a decrepit old buffer out in the country somewhere. He married a girl of eighteen, just before he was ordained. Timothy, I mean, not the old buffer. John’s married, too. He and his wife have two young children.’

  ‘And then I looked at the daughter… .’

  ‘Ah, yes, the interesting Frances. And what did you see in her countenance? She’s still in her twenties, and very attractive, as you no doubt saw. Nobody likes her, by all accounts. The ice-maiden, they call her.’ Fitzmaurice laughed.

  ‘I thought she was a commanding, haughty young woman,’ said Gerald Templar. ‘Very elegant, but rather forbidding. I had a few words with the sons, but I never ventured to speak to her. What does she do?’

  ‘She’s a headmistress, believe it or not! She graduated from London University, where she went with her father’s permission, and at the tender age of twenty-three, just two years ago, she founded a school for young ladies with pretentions, out near Port Meadow, somewhere.’

  ‘A girls’ school? That’s a brave thing for a young woman to do. What’s it called?’

  ‘Makin House. Apparently, Makin was some kind of bluestocking who lived in the seventeenth century. So that’s Frances for you. She’s not married, of course.’

  ‘Why “of course”?’

  ‘Well, those women have to choose between domesticity or academe. It seems that they can’t do both. Rather like nuns, I suppose. The Warden’s very keen on her marrying some eligible young man, as a means of curing her of her desire to be a schoolmarm. He’s trailed a few hopeful fello
ws past her, and gave her a rather splendid coming-out dance in London, when she was still at the university, but he’s had no success so far. And what did you read in the fair Fanny’s face?’

  ‘Anger’, said Templar. ‘Pent-up anger and resentment. She looked as though she’d like to have murdered poor Sir Montague, and was vexed that nature or Providence was about to deny her that dubious pleasure. I saw… . Well, never mind what I saw.’

  ‘Whatever it was, it won’t go beyond these four walls. Come on, man, what did you see?’

  ‘I was watching the nurse, who was doing something with bottles at the bedside. She chanced to look up from her work, and I saw her eyes widen with some kind of shock. She was looking at someone in the room, and when I glanced round, I realized that she had caught a dreadful expression of despair on Frances’s face. It was gone almost immediately, but both the nurse and I saw it.’

  ‘What do you think it meant?’

  ‘It was nothing to do with her father, of that I’m convinced. It was some private thing – some memory or recollection. I’ve never seen despair so forcefully caught by a woman’s expression. It was as though she had just had a glimpse of Hell.’

  Captain Stanley Fitzmaurice looked thoughtfully at his friend.

  ‘You haven’t fallen for her, have you, Templar? Are you going to chance your arm with her?’

  Templar seemed not to have heard his friend’s half-bantering remarks.

  ‘That look of despair shocked me,’ he said, ‘but it was the first expression, the anger, that I didn’t like. There was some festering resentment there that was out of place at what is, in fact, a death-bed. That’s why I fell to studying the faces of those two physicians. The older one had obviously accepted the situation at face value, and was preparing for the last ministrations. The younger man – the stout little fellow – seemed uneasy to me. It made me wonder… .’