Cucumber Sandwiches

by J. I. M. Stewart

  But that was nonsense. The Jarvie, pausing before the architectural monstrosity of the O.U.B.C., gazed across the Isis and towards its Green Bank in an introspection so deep as to make him oblivious even of the labouring torsos in a Balliol boat just jerking by. He realised that he knew one clear fact about Miles Honeybeare. Miles organised people. Miles had organised him, the Jarvie, during this current term.

  He turned and walked on. He would go as far as Long Bridges. And he would face up to a fact which he had been cravenly dodging. He was an outmoded old person, and the young life in which he was interested was not interested in him. For weeks those crumpets had departed untouched! And then Miles had organised something: a kind of Good Deed of the Day.

  A cold wind blew up the river. And as there was plenty of water going down (the Jarvie tried to fix his mind on oarsmanship) choppy conditions were making it not too simple for the crews. Miles had set going a free-and-easy frequentation of the Jarvie’s rooms, but only because he had spotted the promise of their retired and isolated character. Having gained the run of them with his guileless friends, he could intermittently, during their owner’s regular absences, use them for his more private purposes – in fact for ‘having’ (revolting phrase) his Paphian girls. And his exposure (a grim pun lurked in the word) having somehow leaked out, his associates had made a guilty withdrawal in his wake.

  Having arrived thus so near to, yet far from, the truth of his situation, the Jarvie turned round and at a slow pact directed his steps back to college.

  His rooms had the convenience of being (as he sometime expressed it to the men) amphisbaenic in character. On one side they faced into a quadrangle, and on the other outward upon a secluded thoroughfare called St Botolph’s Lane. There was nothing out of the common in this. But as well as having windows upon the lane, he had a staircase and outer doorway giving on that quarter as well, and in fact 27 St Botolph’s Lane was a valid address for him if he cared to use it. Technically, there was even some doubt whether his tenement was to be regarded as part of the college proper, or rather as an instance of what, in the learned language of the place, were known as aedes annexae. The point seemed without significance, but the actual topography involved made possible the perplexing appearance which now greeted him as he approached the college.

  He seldom used the front door on the lane, preferring to come and go by the main gate of the college. Nowadays he found the staircase from the quad easier on his legs, and moreover he enjoyed having a word with the porter in his lodge. So the St Botolph’s door often remained unopened for a month on end. But it was open now. And not only was this so. From the shadowed area within a pair of eyes were regarding him fixedly as he approached. They were oddly near the ground, and he was just conjecturing the presence of an impertinent child when the eyes thrust themselves forward by some inches and he saw that they belonged to a large dog. In considerable indignation, and raising his walking-stick in a conventionally threatening manner, he advanced with the intention of driving the intrusive creature away. The dog vanished with an abruptness suggesting a summons or a tug from within. And, again from within, the door was firmly shut.

  The Jarvie was astonished. He also found himself agitated. For two or three years he had been aware of a liability to something of the sort upon quite trivial occasions, and he had marked the thing down as one of the hazards of old age. Here was another instance. A small untoward circumstance had presented itself, and he was foolishly perturbed.

  But now another strange fact appeared. Whoever had shut the door more or less in his face had let its lock operate as well. It so happened that the Jarvie was without a key. Whether he wanted to or not, he must go round the other way. He did so, and found that the further petty outrage, whatever its occasion, had in fact steadied him. He held his accustomed conversation with the porter, an elderly man like himself, who had known many of the men’s fathers. Then he went briskly on, refraining even from his customary pause on the half-landing where the wretched Crumble had had his pantry. So he was a little breathless when he entered his sitting-room.

  There were two dogs. One of them, which he judged to be his late acquaintance, was sitting on its haunches and with its tongue out – stupidly goggling at the portrait of James Graham, Fifth Earl and First Marquess of Montrose. The second – more sagaciously, as was presently to appear – was snuffling and pawing at the shelves containing the Jarvie’s handsomely bound, if not very frequently consulted, run of the Journal of Hellenic Studies. There were also two men, of respectable appearance. As the Jarvie came into the room they had exchanged glances, in the manner of competent professional persons when confronted with a situation some shades trickier than usual.

  ‘What the devil,’ the Jarvie asked, ‘is the meaning of this?’

  ‘Mr Strathalan-Jerviswoode?’ One of the men had stepped forward. ‘I am a police officer, sir, and here is my warrant-card.’

  ‘Does it entitle you’—the Jarvie glanced stonily at the object exhibited to him—’to come barging into my rooms with those damned dogs?’

  ‘No, sir, in itself it does not. But here is a further warrant. It has been issued by a magistrate, and authorises a named officer, myself, to enter and search these premises under provisions contained in the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965. And that, sir, is what we are doing now.’

  ‘I see. And who has told you that you are likely to find drugs here?’

  ‘That, Mr Strathalan-Jerviswoode, I am not at liberty to say. But it is public knowledge that the police are sometimes constrained to act upon information—’

  ‘Anonymously received.’ A sharp bark of laughter from the Jarvie appeared to startle the contemplative dog. ‘Then you had better continue your rummaging. But could you prevent that second dog from slavering over my books? Norden’s Die Antike Kunstprosa is a volume of which I happen to be fond.’

  Even as the Jarvie spoke, however, the second policeman had pulled away the dog, removed Norden from the shelf, and peered into the space thus revealed.

  ‘Good for Tinker!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s sniffed out another lot here, all right.’

  ‘I knew the old man wasn’t safe,’ Gifford said. He spoke as one in decent distress, as he probably believed himself to be. ‘Provost, you must recall that I gave you warning.’

  ‘My dear William, nothing has happened that either you or any of the rest of us had the faintest prevision of. This is a bolt from the blue.’ Finch was pacing his study restlessly. ‘I am bound to say I feel some notice ought to have been given me by the police of what was proposed. To enter the college—’

  ‘Not quite the college, Provost. 27 St Botolph’s Lane. That mitigates the disastrousness of the precedent. Perhaps we may also be able to exploit it in toning down the scandal, it may be maintained that this has not happened within the curtilage of the college.’

  ‘Fiddle-faddle!’ This very brusque retort was an index of Finch’s dismay. Not unreasonably, it offended Gifford.

  ‘He will have to go, you know,’ Gifford said. ‘Purchase, don’t you agree?’

  Charles Purchase – who, although young, held a college office requiring him to be present at this emergency discussion – made no reply. He liked the Jarvie, although the Jarvie had plainly been a tiresome sort of tyrant in his time. He didn’t like Wog Gifford a bit. He was resolved to keep silent until he had these irrelevant considerations under control.

  ‘To go?’ The Provost distinguishably feigned an astonishment he didn’t feel. ‘You don’t suppose he’s done anything discreditable himself, do you? These young blackguards have simply fooled him in the most conscienceless way.’

  ‘Smoked the stuff under his nose,’ Gifford said. ‘Literally under his nose. And cached it in his room. And one of them actually used the place to lure a young woman into this pernicious habit, seemingly with the object of achieving a virtually criminal seduction. All out of a hare-brained notion that they had ingeniously found the most inviolate spot in Oxford for their wickedness.’
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  ‘Which was certainly pretty daft,’ Purchase said gloomily. ‘They’d have been more secure in a score of places. I suppose they thought it dare-devil, fantasticated, amusing. I call it perverse and bloody-minded.’

  ‘It was absurd. But so far gone in senility is the unfortunate—’

  ‘Exactly!’ The Provost pounced on this. ‘The Jarvie hadn’t a glimmer of the truth. That’s my point.’

  ‘I doubt whether it would be the beak’s point,’ Purchase said. ‘The position could be a damned dodgy one. If your premises have been used for this purpose, you may be held culpable in law, even if you knew nothing about it. It’s assimple as that. In addition to which, if one didn’t know the Jarvie, his unawareness would strain credulity. It’s a mess.

  ‘Drug orgies held in Oxford tutor’s rooms.’ Gifford produced this much as if he were actually reading from newspaper. ‘I must not disguise my belief, Finch, that this will prove your first big test as our Provost. You have my sympathy.’ Gifford paused, and appeared to feel that something further had to be said. ‘And support, I need scarcely add.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Restlessly pacing again, Finch swung round on his colleagues. ‘Do you realise how Oxford means everything to the man?’

  ‘Not really Oxford,’ Purchase said. ‘Not an Oxford that any objective observer would recognise today. Only an Oxford inside his own head.’

  ‘And hasn’t that always been the only kind of Oxford worth bothering about, Charles?’ The Provost, as he rather surprisingly asked this, sat down heavily at his desk. ‘But you know very well what I mean. No family, no close relations – even precious few of what he calls intimates. And no maintained interest in the scholarship of his subject either, so far as I know. Just what he believes to be the spirit of this place. So don’t let us mistake or minimise the issue. There might be a chance—’ The Provost paused as his butler came into the room. ‘Yes, Brown?’

  ‘By hand and for immediate delivery, sir.’ With due solemnity (for the whole college had at least some dim apprehension of crisis) the man presented a letter on a salver and withdrew.

  ‘It’s from the Jarvie.’ The Provost had glanced at the envelope, and now he hesitated before opening it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’d better see.’ There was a full minute’s silence while he read. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said with formality, ‘Mr Strathalan-Jerviswoode writes to inform me that he resigns his Fellowship.’

  ‘Resigns his Fellowship!’ There was at once incredulity and lively indignation in Gifford’s voice. ‘Why, his Fellowship determined years ago! He has nothing to resign except . . . except some sort of status as a lodger. He is the mere tenant of a set of rooms.’

  ‘I suppose that is so.’ The Provost stared at Gifford. ‘But in great distress of spirit such a formal slip or misconception is natural enough. I think I can receive and transmit the Jarvie’s resignation as it comes.’

  ‘Perfectly absurd! How can the Governing Body of the college affect to receive and accept the resignation of a person who has nothing to resign? As one of its senior members, I must—’

  ‘And now,’ the Provost said with unusual firmness, ‘if you will both excuse me, I must write to the Jarvie at once.’

  So Charles Purchase and Gifford left the praeposital Lodging together.

  ‘A bad business,’ Gifford said. ‘A thoroughly bad business. I deplore it very m’Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Where shall we be heading for, Purchase, with a Provost who is prepared to play fast and loose with the proper forms?’

  ‘Oh God, Wog!’ Charles Purchase said. ‘Oh God! Oh Montreal!’ he said, obscurely and rather rudely. And he walked away.

  Cucumber Sandwiches

  1

  ‘I’ve discovered,’ Charles Shand said suddenly, ‘that Corderoy had an illegitimate son.’

  It was a small night. Most of the men dining had gone off after Hall, leaving only half a dozen to move into common room for dessert. And since Shand had addressed nobody in particular, it became incumbent upon everybody to listen to him. Two independent conversations were broken off, and the result was a silence. Shand’s announcement was, no doubt, an arresting one, since Walter Corderoy had been the last of the great Victorian novelists. But the only person present who had much interest in literary matters was Hilliard, a brooding and withdrawn mathematician who seldom spoke. He felt it civil to speak now.

  ‘And you are interested?’ he asked. ‘It’s significant? At least such investigations are fashionable. I’ve read a book claiming that Thomas Hardy had an illegitimate son. Incidentally, I suppose Corderoy was of much the same generation.’

  ‘He was ten years younger.’

  ‘Remote enough to have become fair game for biographical curiosity. Are you going to write a book, Charles?’

  ‘Of course not. But the question of writing something is another matter. Briefly, of course. Say a letter to The Times Literary Supplement or a note in The Review of English Studies.’

  ‘Is there really an affair called The Review of English Studies?’ a young physicist called Coverdale asked. People teased Charles Shand from time to time. But not very much. Shand could occasionally be felt a shade obtuse, or at least as not quite aware of what was developing in front of him. And this could make a joke turn awkward, which was something nobody liked. At the moment, Shand was unheeding.

  ‘But there’s a question of taste,’ he said, ‘which is also a question of policy. One of Corderoy’s children is still alive.’

  ‘Not the illegitimate one?’ Rupert Fenton asked with interest. Fenton was the college’s Law Tutor. ‘You might have to watch your step over that.’

  ‘No, no. He died – one might say suddenly – a long time ago. It’s a daughter, Lavinia, who married a landowner called Verity and has been a widow for many years. She probably knows nothing about her illegitimate half-brother. She mightn’t like it, at all. And she’d have reason.’

  ‘You’re going to take tea with her,’ Fenton asked, ‘and let her know?’

  ‘Perhaps something like that.’ Shand spoke with caution, as if he really had something sizable on his mind. ‘I’ve met her on a number of occasions. She controls all Corderoy’s copyrights and papers. One could scarcely continue to work on him if one fell out of favour with her. And she inclines to be cagey about family matters.’

  ‘What a very odd world you inhabit, Charles!’ Coverdale said cheerfully. He paused to push a decanter of port down the table. ‘And why is she cagey? Are there other family skeletons as well?’

  ‘Hardly that.’ Shand paused again, and from somewhere across Oxford a big bell began to tumble its dumb nocturna syllables into the room. ‘Mrs Verity’s attitude is something inherited from Corderoy himself. And his own reticence wasn’t, I imagine, a matter of protecting any settled irregularity of conduct. It sprang originally from his grandfather’s having been somebody’s butler. The Victorians were very sensitive about that sort of thing.’

  ‘Dickens,’ Hilliard said. ‘But if the old lady possesses valuable papers and so forth, why risk upsetting her with this quite trivial discovery?’

  ‘It isn’t quite trivial. That’s the point.’

  ‘Less trivial than grandpapa being a butler?’ Coverdale threw this out challengingly as he reached for the madeira. ‘It all sounds pretty average backstairs nonsense to me.’

  ‘The ancestral butler first popped his whiskers out of his pantry less than a dozen years ago.’ Shand, constitutionally an earnest man, sometimes made a grab at this lightness of air. ‘Corderoy himself had been dead for twenty years. The family was upset, all the same.’

  ‘Upset, I suppose,’ Fenton said, ‘at being detected in having long concealed a circumstance not in any decent sense dishonourable. We are a queer race. But I haven’t discovered why the unearthing of the love-child has any great interest.’

  ‘It’s because he wasn’t quite nobody.’ Shand hesitated, as if afraid of telling his story in the wrong way. ‘Of course he didn’t call him
self Corderoy—’

  ‘He should have called himself FitzCorderoy,’ Coverdale said. ‘It would have served the snobbish old scribbler right.’

  ‘But he didn’t.’ Shand had flushed with annoyance. ‘He called himself Mainprize, which was the name of his mother. It has been my clue in getting at the truth, as a matter of fact. Just how, I may tell you later.’

  ‘Mainprize,’ Fenton said, and stared at the tip of his cigar.

  ‘I suppose,’ Coverdale asked, ‘that this Miss Mainprize wasn’t of the same class to which the Corderoys had so happily attained?’

  ‘She was a servant-girl.’

  ‘She would be. But doesn’t that lighten the scandal, according to the ghastly morals of these people? And I really don’t see why your precious Mrs Verity should be all that upset now.’

  ‘There are two reasons – and the first of them is ugly and the second horrible. Martha Mainprize was a kitchen-maid, or the like, in Walter Corderoy’s house, and he got her with child within a couple of months of his marriage. We needn’t suppose he was a blackguard. Say the girl had caught his eye, and that by chance one day—’ Shand broke off. ‘He would have enjoyed the poor benefit of a bewildering minute. And be feeling ashamed of himself a quarter of an hour later.’

  The common-room door had opened. They were bringing in the coffee, and in the pause this produced people seemed to rearrange their thoughts.

  ‘I do see,’ Coverdale said in more subdued tones than he had used before, ‘that it was a bit steep, with his young bride in the house. The kind of nastiness that might lead to something.’