The Cambridge Plot

by Suzette A. Hill

  Aldous Phipps closed his eyes and gave a groan of displeasure. ‘It’s Gloria,’ he murmured, ‘one must take evasive action.’ He lowered his head, and without further utterance moved with surprising speed to a far corner.

  Rosy couldn’t help noticing that Anthea Dick, standing a few yards away, was looking distinctly put out – presumably piqued at the officious authority shown by Biggs-Brookby’s daughter. She sympathised. After all, if it was your party, did you want some raucous woman thrusting herself forward and cursing the staff like that?

  However, practised in such upsets, Lady Dick was quick to soothe both flustered waiter and tiresome guest – the latter achieved at Rosy’s expense. Deftly, she took the new arrival’s arm, and propelling her towards where Rosy was standing, made hasty introductions.

  ‘Miss Gilchrist is a big friend of one of our project’s sponsors,’ she explained with some exaggeration, ‘and was up at Cambridge after the war. But do you know this is the very first time she has been back. We must give her a really warm welcome!’ Smiling and with manoeuvre accomplished, she wafted away to talk to John Smithers, leaving the two women eyeing each other politely. (Or at least Rosy looked polite, Gloria mildly bellicose.)

  ‘Ah,’ the latter brayed, grasping Rosy’s hand with assertive grip, ‘I’ve heard a bit about you from Betty Withers. You were up with her after the war reading history at Newnham, I gather, and are now at the British Museum under the frightful Stanley.’

  For a moment Rosy was flummoxed, not sure whether to be offended by the term ‘under’ or ‘frightful’. Neither seemed entirely accurate, but since the latter was the more disparaging she chose that.

  ‘Well, he’s not all that bad,’ she said stoutly, ‘quite nice, really; but yes, he can get a bit ratty.’ (A bit? The B-B woman was right. He could be dreadful! But she certainly wasn’t going to admit that to an outsider, least of all to this woman. Not for the first time Rosy felt herself being defensive of her formidable boss.)

  ‘Oh well.’ Gloria sighed. ‘I suppose it takes all sorts, but personally from what I’ve heard I certainly wouldn’t choose to work with him.’

  Nor he you, Rosy thought acidly, eyeing the woman’s florid cheeks and truculent expression. She took a sustaining sip of her champagne.

  In turn the other supped her gin and tonic, and proceeded to interrogate Rosy about her work at the British Museum and what precisely were her duties. (Precisely? Rosy wondered. Nothing was especially precise except ministering to Stanley’s whims and calming the troubled waters that he had invariably stirred.) Her interrogator then enquired who her tutors had been as an undergraduate. At the mention of one name, the older woman drew in her breath: ‘Good Lord, do you mean Prissy Prendergast? Not one of Cambridge’s more inspiring scholars, or so my friends tell me.’

  ‘Actually, she was fascinating,’ Rosy replied, wondering who on earth Gloria’s friends could be.

  Unperturbed by Rosy’s coolness – or oblivious – Gloria started to rattle on about her eminent father and the current proposals for his memorial. ‘It’s not before time,’ she said tartly, ‘at least Richard Dick has got that right.’ She cast a disapproving look to where the Master was chatting with Dr Maycock. ‘He is typical of that brand of academic,’ she said darkly, ‘set in his ways, stubborn as a mule and with a mind closed to artistic invention.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Rosy exclaimed, ‘that’s quite an indictment.’ She gave a light laugh. ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ the other replied grimly, ‘and that goes for most of the others on that Plot and Monument Committee. Conventional and undiscerning, that’s what! They are determined to commission that dreary Winston Reid – not the most savoury of people, and given his alcohol intake I am surprised he can even see the bronze, let alone sculpt it. My choice is a much brighter spark. You may have heard of him: Monty Finglestone, a young man of excellent promise, charming manners and keen ambition. That’s who Daddy would approve, someone fresh and dynamic. Now he would do him justice. Yes, I can tell you, Miss Gilchrist, Finglestone is the one for the job – and if I have anything to do with it, he’ll get it!’ With a gesture of resolute purpose she downed the dregs of her gin in one fell gulp.

  Rosy smiled compliantly, while at the same time casting a hasty eye around the room for means of escape. However, Gloria was approaching full throttle. ‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘the worst of the bunch is that Senior Tutor Maycock. I can’t think why, but Dick seems peculiarly impressed by him. Pah! In my view, a windy fuddy-duddy, stuck in the past and a blot on the present. Should have been put out to grass years ago!’

  The last two observations were delivered far from sotto voce and, somewhat embarrassed, Rosy glanced round hoping the comments had not reached the ears of their subject. Judging from the sharp flush that had appeared on Maycock’s cheeks she suspected they probably had.

  Racking her brains for a means of retreat, she was just about to make polite excuses, when Gloria’s lowering features brightened. ‘My dear,’ she whispered, gripping Rosy’s arm, ‘Anthea said you were a friend of Professor Dillworthy, one of the major sponsors. Perhaps you could say something in Finglestone’s favour, persuade him of the young man’s talents. The more sponsors are interested the better his chances with the committee. Would you do that?’

  At last Rosy had her escape route. ‘Oh, but it would be much better coming from you. Look, he’s over there by the window. I am sure he would welcome your views.’ (Rosy was far from sure, but spoke with firm conviction.)

  ‘Ah, so that’s him, is it? Yes, indeed, I’ll nobble him myself.’ With jaw firmly set she started to make a beeline for the unsuspecting target, while Rosy finished her drink in peace, amused at the prospect of Cedric being ‘nobbled’. Gloria would have a tough task on her hands.

  ‘I like your red shoes,’ a voice suddenly said in her ear, ‘very fetching.’ She looked up to be confronted by the bluff face of one whom she later discovered to be Lord Bantry. But before she could acknowledge the compliment, he muttered, ‘I should watch that one if I were you: off her rocker and nasty with it. Oh yes, take my word. Dangerous.’ He put a finger to the side of his nose, winked and moved on.

  Slightly taken aback, Rosy scanned the room seeking the safe harbour of one without axe or bias. Her glance fell on Dame Margery in conversation with another guest who looked reassuringly normal. In some relief she made her way towards them.

  By the window, and unaware of what was looming from the Gloria direction, Cedric was chatting about undergraduate days with his old friend Basil Leason.

  ‘Yes, there are changes, of course,’ Leason was saying, ‘but not too radical, and in my view mainly for the better.’

  Cedric agreed, but remarked that one thing was constant: the Cambridge weather. ‘It’s always pretty blustery, especially in the outskirts. Doesn’t E. M. Forster say something about the east wind blowing forever and the mist never lifting off the mud?’

  ‘Yes, I think he does. But if memory serves me right, in the same essay he also makes a woeful reference to governesses.’

  ‘Governesses? You mean in Cambridge?’

  ‘Yes. He talks of them lugubriously holding court in its suburbs … a terrifying picture, don’t you think?’ They laughed.

  ‘Fortunately we were spared that spectacle,’ Cedric said, ‘or at least I was! Ah yes, good old Forster: so gently mordant, if that’s not too contradictory.’

  The other agreed. And leaving the subject of mists and governesses, they turned to survey the room and their fellow guests. Cedric was just about to make an approving comment about Dame Margery – her charm and cool competence – when they were joined by Felix. He had clearly managed to requisition a good ration of champagne and his normally sallow cheeks were looking quite pink. ‘So who’s that geezer over there?’ he asked, nodding towards the slightly stooped figure of Geoffrey Hinchcliffe. ‘Is he among your old cronies or is he one of the college bods?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say a c
rony, exactly,’ Cedric replied, ‘but yes, he was here when I was … You remember him, don’t you, Basil? I think he was on your staircase. Perfectly innocuous.’

  The other nodded. ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘So what was he studying?’ Felix asked. ‘He looks like a bank manager.’

  The two colleagues exchanged quizzical glances and shrugged. ‘Not sure,’ Cedric mused, and then smiled: ‘For all one knows it could have been astrology! Anyway, it was something like that – intangible and other-worldly, theology perhaps; although Eastern philosophy was popular at the time, maybe that was it.’ He paused and added, ‘But actually, I have an idea he had a relation who was a bishop – so yes, perhaps it was theology. We never really saw much of him, but when he did emerge he was always perfectly polite – genial, in a sober sort of way.’

  ‘Hmm. There’s no change there,’ Basil Leason remarked, watching Hinchcliffe toying with a modest sherry and nodding dutifully at whatever it was Aldous Phipps was expounding.

  ‘Well, he’s not like his namesake – or almost his namesake – that’s for certain,’ Felix observed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.’

  ‘But you’ve never read Wuthering Heights,’ Cedric protested.

  ‘No, but I’ve seen the film with Olivier in the role – that’s all that’s needed.’ Felix leered happily.

  He also stepped backwards; and in so doing his foot became entangled with another’s – or rather compressed by a heavy shoe. Felix emitted a squeak of pain.

  ‘So sorry,’ said Gloria Biggs-Brookby impatiently, ‘but I really must speak with Professor Dillworthy, it is most essential!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Following the strenuous evening at the Master’s Lodge, the next day Felix felt a mite fragile and had elected to skip breakfast. However, he had assured Cedric, he would be perfectly fit by midday, and to assuage pangs of hunger could manage to meet him at Fitzbillies. Cedric had taken him there on their first afternoon and he had a hankering to return.

  And so as predicted, later that morning he had indeed succeeded in reaching Trumpington Street, eager for gossip, strong coffee and rich pastries. Thus, on entering the cafe he was none too pleased to find his friend absent. ‘He was supposed to have bagged that corner table,’ he grumbled to himself, glaring at its current occupants.

  He settled for a suitable alternative and consulted the menu, his eye running down a particularly lush list of cream buns … Hmm, if he were to sample one of those, perhaps he should line his stomach with a Welsh rarebit first? They did look rather good! He cogitated, expecting to see Cedric arrive at any moment. The latter’s failure to do so prompted his decision: ‘I’ll have a buck rarebit to begin with,’ he told the waitress, ‘an egg on top blends so exquisitely with the cheese, don’t you think?’ He beamed. The girl nodded cheerfully and scurried off. Given Cedric’s lateness he felt fully justified in starting before him.

  Five minutes later Cedric appeared. ‘Well, you took your time,’ Felix protested, ‘I have been here for ages.’ (An assertion not entirely accurate.)

  ‘I was talking to George Rawlings,’ Cedric explained. ‘He’s not a happy man; distinctly windy.’

  ‘Really? What has Rawlings got to be windy about? From what I saw of him last night at dinner he seems the soul of complacency.’

  ‘Yes, that is his normal condition, but not at the moment. He is worried that the press will get on to Sir Percival’s proclivities and stir up trouble. It could jeopardise the whole project and alienate the benefactors, or some of them at any rate.’

  Felix was intrigued. ‘Proclivities? You never mentioned those before. What sort?’

  ‘Oh, the usual kind,’ Cedric replied carelessly.

  ‘Boys?’

  ‘No, or at least not often. It was girls: tarts mainly, masses of them; fed his ego and his appetites. In fact’ – he paused, giving a sly smile – ‘it is quietly rumoured that the bumptious daughter is what might be termed a blunder, i.e. not the product of the pristine wife, but the offspring of an itinerant female acrobat. Personally, I rather doubt that – the lady’s physique is not exactly consonant with the litheness of a circus artiste, itinerant or otherwise.’

  Felix nodded, visualising the girth and lumbering gait of the person in question. ‘No,’ he agreed, wincing at the memory of a heavy foot being planted on his polished shoe, ‘not the most agile of ladies, I agree. Still, it’s a good story.’

  ‘Not for our purposes it isn’t,’ replied Cedric. ‘Rawlings is right. In such circumstances prurient gossip can only damage our cause. The less said about such things the better.’

  Not sharing an affinity with the ‘cause’, Felix pursued the matter. ‘But did you know of these “proclivities” when you were his student?’ he asked.

  ‘Certainly not. I kept my distance; a most obnoxious chap.’

  ‘And yet you want to be associated with his monument and its surrounding garden?’

  His friend gave an impatient sigh. ‘As I have already told you, tribute is not to be confused with taste. Biggs-Brookby did much for Cambridge and our college, and I for one would like this marked in appropriate fashion.’ He sniffed and added, ‘Now, since you have chosen to begin without me, it would be courteous if you were to procure a waitress and order me some coffee and toast – with jam.’

  Felix smiled inwardly, and with the prominent plaque of distinguished benefactors in mind, rose to go to the counter. ‘The professor over there has an insatiable craving for toast and jam,’ he said to the girl. And winked.

  Returning to the table he gave Cedric a fulsome account of his conversation with Lord Bantry, whom he had cornered while the other was being hectored by Gloria. ‘The noble lord and I got on extremely well,’ he said airily. ‘I considered him most civil, very nice, in fact. He likes flowers.’

  ‘Oh, bound to be nice, then,’ Cedric agreed, and smiled. ‘And so, have you invited him to your shop?’

  Felix replied that the chance had not arisen, while also crisply reminding his friend that what he owned was not so much a shop as a floral emporium.

  Duly corrected, Cedric busied himself with his toast and coffee. And then to offset the solecism, he said, ‘But in the course of your pleasant conversation, I don’t suppose he said anything about the Biggs-Brookby woman, did he? I mean, wasn’t it Turner who said they were daggers drawn?’

  ‘Well, now you mention it, yes, he did; and it wasn’t a compliment, either,’ Felix replied with some relish. ‘I noticed him glancing over to Gloria a couple of times while she was talking to you, and then he apologised for being distracted and muttered something to the effect that it would be better for all of us if certain people were dropped off this planet … I assumed he wasn’t referring to you.’ Felix broke off and spluttered into his napkin.

  ‘Let us hope not … But do you think he was being serious or simply making a passing jest?’

  ‘Well, I’ve never seen a jester look quite as grim as that. I can tell you, the noble lord was not amused.’

  ‘That being the case, Finglestone will have lost Bantry’s vote should it ever get that far. If he can’t stand her, he’s hardly likely to favour her candidate.’

  ‘I suppose not. So how did she fare with you? By the look of things, she was going hell for leather.’

  ‘I listened attentively to what she told me of the young man’s qualities, nodded, smiled and was my usual amiable self.’

  ‘Huh! Which means she achieved nothing.’

  ‘Precisely – although she may think she did.’

  They strolled back to the city centre with Cedric once more assuming his role as guide and mentor.

  En route through Peas Hill, Felix had been particularly struck by the ancient and ochre charm of St Edward’s Church, tucked away in its ‘secret’ square. He had not realised that it was a subject so dear to Cedric’s heart. In fact, there was little that the professor did not know about its history and architecture –
or was not eager to impart. He spoke at length and untiringly. And appreciative though he was, Felix began to feel one could have too much of a good thing.

  ‘I shall have to come back tomorrow and absorb it all quietly,’ he murmured. ‘As a matter of fact I am still feeling a teeny bit fatigued after last night’s revels. I think perhaps I shall take a seat in Great St Mary’s and be soothed by the organ practice. Not sure if I shall be up to the hurly-burly of the Combination Room this evening, but once you have finished there we might amble over to The Eagle for a late snack and snifter. Anyway I’ll see you later and we can discuss plans.’

  Cedric was a trifle surprised, not so much by his friend’s fatigue (a not unusual condition) as by his partiality for the organ – an instrument, which in all their years of friendship, Felix had never once mentioned. He smelt a rat. Mad keen to buy some new shirts, I’ll be bound!

  They agreed to meet back at Cedric’s room in the early evening. And thus leaving Felix to his music and deciding to skip lunch, Cedric continued on his way back to the college debating his afternoon’s programme: a session in the library, he decided, and then a little snooze. What could be better? As he entered the Market Place a station taxi trundled towards him. It slowed further to negotiate a cyclist, and as it did so he caught a glimpse of its occupants. Unmistakeable … or at least Gloria Biggs-Brookby was. Her companion was unknown, but from what she had gabbled at the party, he could hazard a guess. A young man, with ‘strong, handsome features and remarkably curly dark hair’ (yes, those had been the gushing words) sat next to her, the focus of her smiling attention … Presumably it was the idolised Finglestone come to stay.

  Some hours later and quietly ensconced in his room, it was now Cedric’s turn to consult his watch. Where was Felix? Dawdling as usual, he presumed. What had kept him – some slick undergraduate who had stopped to enquire the time and whose enquiry had been answered in fulsome detail? Or (most likely) seduction by an Ede & Ravenscroft tailor’s dummy equipped with the latest slit cuffs and thin lapels … Ah well, doubtless the dear boy would turn up in his own good time. And in the meanwhile, he could begin the pleasure of rereading Orwell’s Coming Up for Air. Cedric removed the book from his briefcase and settled comfortably.