Christopher Urquhart, Professor of Humanity, who taught some of the less Christian Latin with marked glee, despised Senate disputes with a showy carelessness that alarmed Professor Shaw. There were few, however high their station, about whom Urquhart would not make his feelings quite clear, even if it was only by a twitch of his eyebrows or a flickering gesture from those long, white fingers.
A few others, not strictly on the Senate, had attended the meeting, but of those only one or two had had the nerve, or the level of desperation to impress, to remain. One of course was Lord Scoggie, an honoured guest, whom the tactful Chancellor had drawn away from Professor Keith and the Principal.
‘Discussing the portraits of old principals, I see,’ remarked Urquhart, a little too loudly in his thinly sliced voice. ‘I hope the Chancellor is not expecting him to be impressed: they are without exception despicable.’
Professor Shaw smiled nervously and swallowed too large a mouthful of tea. He continued to look around the room. Peter Keith, the Professor’s son, had left immediately after the meeting – one of his quarrels with his father again, Shaw supposed. He was an edgy young man. Allan Bonar was still here: as assistant to Professor Keith and as his elected successor he had the confidence to remain and circulate with the others. How much longer that would be the case was anyone’s guess. Professor Keith had hinted, during the course of the meeting, that the only way of persuading him to let to the University the lands it wanted would be to relieve him of Allan Bonar altogether. Shaw was privately astonished that the pair had worked together for as long as they had: Bonar was a pale young man with lank dark hair and the kind of eyes that saw clearly past what you were saying. Professor Shaw was sure that Allan Bonar considered him a complete fraud: a country minister here as a professor! But how his strong personality had not previously clashed with Keith’s own arrogance was beyond Shaw to understand.
‘I hope this is a nice, peaceful corner,’ came a voice, and Shaw turned with pleasure to find Mungo Dalzell standing nearby.
‘I hope so, too,’ he agreed heartily, ‘but in any case you are very welcome to it.’
‘Aye, if you can bear to stay in the same room at all,’ added Urquhart, though he showed no signs of leaving it himself. Mungo smiled politely, and stepped forward to form a little circle with them, fortifying them against the rest of the room. He checked to see that everyone had enough tea. He was of slightly less than the middle height, with a calm, almost self-satisfied appearance, a smooth face, and a neatness of clothing which Professor Shaw rather envied. Though he strictly abstained from alcoholic liquor, he was a frequent appreciator of Mrs. Shaw’s cooking and would sit contentedly in their little house long into the night in friendly debate of scholarship or politics, and Professor Shaw found him more comfortable company than any of his other colleagues.
‘And how are matters Hebraical?’ asked Professor Urquhart languidly, his gaze flickering between Mungo Dalzell, the Chancellor and Lord Scoggie, and the Principal and Professor Keith.
‘They’re no too bad, thank you, Professor,’ Mungo Dalzell replied with a smile. There was currently no Professor of Hebrew: the work but not the honour had devolved upon Mungo, who had accepted it without rancour. Such was the way of things that he would probably find he was still doing it at his death. ‘There has been a little more interest in the modern languages, too: I find I have a number of enthusiastic students for German and Italian.’
Professor Urquhart looked down his thin nose, his mouth twitching expressively.
‘Modern, indeed,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how you can thole it, when you have Hebrew and Latin to compare them with.’
Mungo Dalzell smiled.
‘To love the parents is often to love the children, I find. Don’t you?’
Urquhart’s reply, which would no doubt have had something witty to do with barrenness or celibacy, was cut short by the arrival, in his well-mannered circulation, of Allan Bonar, Assistant in Natural Philosophy.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ said Bonar. His voice was thin and low, and Professor Shaw always had difficulty in hearing him. He wondered how his students ever managed to follow his lectures.
‘Good afternoon, Bonar,’ said Mungo Dalzell with a welcoming smile, and Professor Urquhart nodded, pausing for a moment in his study of the room to take in Allan Bonar’s long black form and considered movements. Bonar’s sharp gaze met his and Urquhart looked away quickly. Shaw wondered what to say, his mind entirely taken up now with Professor Keith’s unfriendly efforts to rid himself of this ambitious assistant. He knew that he would find himself broaching the subject, however much he did not wish to, and therefore found himself reluctant to open his mouth at all. He forced his lips into a friendly, harmless smile, and tried to forget all about it, then found himself spilling his tea as he tried to smile and sip at the same time.
‘Oh, dear,’ he ventured, looking down at the drips on his gown. Urquhart offered him a handkerchief with a flourish, and Mungo Dalzell, taking it discreetly when Shaw seemed not to notice it, dabbed the drips away before they soaked in. Allan Bonar looked away.
Order was soon established, and Mungo Dalzell had cheerfully refilled Professor Shaw’s teacup – politely not noticing the small form of Sybie inadequately concealed behind a door curtain next to Ramsay Rickarton and his tea urn. Allan Bonar had started a quiet little conversation with Urquhart concerning the inarguable merits of Latin. If Professor Shaw had been a little less innocent himself, he might have assumed that Allan Bonar was trying to reinforce his friendships: since he had been elected by the Senate as Professor Keith’s assistant and successor, it would be difficult for Keith to be rid of him, particularly if Bonar had plenty of supporters amongst the Senate members. Unfortunately, he was only halfway into his efforts when there was a billowing of gowns, like the Devil arriving in a fairy tale, and in a flash Professor Keith was amongst them. Professor Shaw almost fancied he could smell the brimstone.
‘Professor Shaw!’ Keith greeted him specifically, and Shaw’s heart sank.
‘Y – yes, Professor Keith?’
‘We must have a word. I have already mentioned the subject to Mungo Dalzell here. It is a question which affects two students we both teach: a question of plagiarism.’
‘Oh.’ The others had gone quiet: Professor Shaw felt almost as if he were under accusation himself.
‘The pair were set to do a short dissertation, in written form. A paragraph in the middle of the piece was almost identical in each one. Worse still, they had each copied it from a similar dissertation submitted by another boy, who doubtless allowed them to borrow his work for the purpose.’
‘Collusion and plagiarism – oh, dear, oh, dear,’ said Professor Shaw nervously.
‘Moreover, they had not even copied it accurately,’ Professor Keith went on, building himself up grandly. ‘They had failed to include a crucial negative, which, when omitted, rendered the whole paragraph senseless.’
‘Collusion, plagiarism and stupidity,’ commented Christopher Urquhart. ‘My, oh my. Are we sure that was all? No fire-setting on University property, for example?’ He smiled sweetly, even in the face of Professor Keith’s awful frown.
‘I should not be in the least surprised,’ he growled. ‘We are talking about Skene, Irving and Fisher.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Professor Shaw in bewilderment. ‘Oh, dear.’
‘Boxie, Picket and Rab,’ added Mungo Dalzell quickly, seeing that Professor Shaw had no idea who these mere surnames were. Professor Shaw smiled his gratitude, but not for long.
‘You call these boys by their pet names?’ Professor Keith sneered.
‘I like to get to know them,’ said Professor Shaw, very quietly indeed.
‘Get to know them?’ Keith was a good deal louder, and the Principal and Lord Scoggie had turned to look. ‘No wonder there is no discipline in the place! Plagiarism? I should be grateful not to have been murdered in my bed!’
‘Yet,’ added Professor Urquhart i
rresistibly, but covered it with a cough.
‘How anyone,’ Professor Keith went on oblivious, eyes only on Professor Shaw’s beetroot face, ‘could imagine that a country minister would find himself qualified to teach in a University is only slightly more surprising than that the minister himself should think such an elevation either reasonable or suitable.’
At this, Professor Shaw bolted, but found himself held by long, strong hands.
‘No, Professor Shaw,’ said Urquhart firmly, ‘I feel quite strongly that if anyone is to leave our happy little circle, it should really be Professor Keith here. After all, at least Professor Shaw manages to deter his students from plagiarising.’
Professor Shaw struggled a little, not looking up, through hot, embarrassed tears, at the basilisk match going on above his head. He had had many painful moments in his life, but he had a strong feeling that even in retrospect this one would stand out.
‘Ah, Professor Urquhart,’ Keith was saying now, a nasty little smile on his face. ‘Perhaps more qualified to be here in the first place, teaching your naughty Latin books, eh? But how much longer would you be allowed to teach the darling lads, eh? If their parents knew – oh, if their fathers knew the half of it! In fact, now I come to think of it,’ he added, studying Urquhart’s white face with pleasure, ‘I’m surprised you don’t prefer a little Greek ...’
‘You disgust me, Keith,’ Urquhart spat. ‘What would you know about the boys? You wouldn’t sully your fine gowns with being in the same room as them! Here, you have an assistant, forsooth! Who did you ever hear needed an assistant, unless he was sick or decrepit? But the boys are better off without you, anyway – after all, look at how your own son has turned out!’
Just at that moment, there was a crash at the door. They all turned, half-expecting to see Peter Keith stride into the room. Instead, tripping over his own gown-tails, was a rough-looking student in the scarlet of an undergraduate.
‘It’s Thomas Seaton,’ said Mungo Dalzell in surprise. ‘What on earth is he doing here?’
Allan Bonar glanced quickly at Professor Keith, but the professor did not meet his eye. Instead he was looking, lips curling in amusement, at Thomas, whose patched and shiny clothes looked worse than usual beneath the bright, fresh wool of his gown – except that he had managed to trail the over-long gown in the mud and it was starting to look more like his own.
‘More to the point, where on earth did that peasant find a new gown?’ asked Keith, at his usual volume. ‘He’s one of yours, isn’t he, Professor Shaw?’
The little professor sniffed hard and wiped his eyes on his cuff, then nodded. He liked Thomas: the boy reminded him of himself at the same age, though a little more grumpy. He wished him a peaceful parish, with a moderate stipend, and would probably draw him aside one day to warn him against accepting tempting offers from his old University. Greeks bearing gifts, something like that, he would say – then he thought of the quarrel between Keith and Urquhart, and sobbed again suddenly.
Meanwhile, Thomas was standing where he had stopped, a few feet from the door, and was looking about him, frowning with determination. In a second, he had caught sight of Professor Keith, and was heading towards their group, head down and neck out as though he would have to fight his way through the hosts of Midian with his bare fists. Keith’s smile turned to a frown of annoyance, and his hands twitched at the edges of his gown as if he were preparing to make a grand exit. But Thomas, red and solid, blocked any path he might have thought of taking.
‘Sir,’ he said, without preamble, ‘you offered to present me to my Lord Scoggie. I should be very grateful if you would do that now.’
It was clearly rehearsed: Professor Shaw, whose gaze was still mostly directed downwards, saw that Thomas’ boots were sandy, and had a sudden vision of him pacing the sands beneath the Castle, choosing and practising his words – and biting his nails, too, if Shaw was any judge.
‘You would be grateful if I were to present you to Lord Scoggie, would you?’ asked Professor Keith, his tone dangerously mild.
‘Yes, sir. You offered, sir.’
‘And you have the effrontery to remind me, have you?’ asked Keith, still calm. Thomas was slow to take this in: his neck was still belligerent with purpose.
‘You offered, sir,’ he repeated.
‘And if I had the courtesy to offer,’ said Professor Keith, his voice growing effortlessly louder, like an approaching river-wave, ‘perhaps I had the right to expect you to have the courtesy to arrive at the appointed time?’
Thomas stopped: hit by the wave, he lost his breath and gasped for a second.
‘But sir,’ he went on again,’ with a bravery that shocked Professor Shaw, ‘I was here. I was here on time – I waited for half an hour before. The – the janitors would not let me in.’
‘And is that any wonder,’ said Professor Keith, ‘when you arrive looking like that? Like a pleuchie in his rich master’s hand-me-downs? Look at yourself, man: you’re a disgrace!’
‘They said –‘ began Thomas, but Professor Keith had had enough of this easy target. He started to move off, Thomas turning to run alongside him. ‘They said you didn’t want me, that Peter – oh!’
There was a sudden tumble of scarlet wool, and a devastating crash. Professor Keith drew quickly back, holding his gown tails away from the heap on the floor, while Professor Shaw and Mungo Dalzell hurried forward in concern. Thomas, in his rush, had finally tripped over his borrowed gown and had fallen, bringing the colossal silver tea urn down on to the tray of cups and saucers on his way.
‘I cannot imagine,’ said Professor Keith, enunciating into the silence with extreme distaste, ‘what earthly use you think you could be to my Lord Scoggie. You’re a shabby, shoddy, useless lump of earth. And just remember, lad: I did not invite you to make this disgrace of yourself.’
With that, Keith turned and stalked off to where the Principal was standing still talking to Lord Scoggie. Ramsay Rickarton shook himself out of the shock he had had, and pulled the tea urn and its stand back up out of the wreckage, inspecting it for dents. Mungo Dalzell and Professor Shaw helped Thomas into a sitting position, plucking broken crockery from his hair and clothes, trying to hold one scalding tea-soaked sleeve of his gown away from his arm. Thomas’ face was dripping with blood and milk, a pale pink mixture that was starting to congeal about his collar. He seemed to be mumbling something, but general conversation had resumed and they could not hear.
‘What is it, lad?’ asked Mungo kindly. ‘Have you broken anything? Any bones, I mean,’ he added quickly, looking round at all the smashed cups and saucers. Thomas shook his head, which seemed to cause him some pain. ‘Then what is it?’
‘I can’t ...’ Thomas tried, though his lip was split, ‘can’t afford ...’ He waved a hand vaguely around him. ‘I can’t.’
‘I know that well,’ said Professor Shaw gently. ‘We’ll sort something out later. It was just an accident, you know.’
Thomas frowned, and put a hand to his cut face, wincing.
‘He’ll go to hell, you know,’ he said indistinctly, nodding at the distant figure of Professor Keith. Mungo looked awkward, and said nothing.
‘Can you stand?’ Professor Shaw asked. ‘I think we should take you back to your bunk and find some water for those cuts.’
‘No, I can manage,’ said Thomas, then added ungraciously. ‘Thank you, sir.’ He rose out of the crockery heap like a cow from a ditch, and fragments dropped off round him with little clicks and chinks. He bent carefully to remove a cup handle from the laces of his boot, then straightened again and walked unsteadily from the Senate room alone, as he had arrived. His gown, soaked with tea and splashes of milk, trailed dejectedly after him as he vanished from sight.
Ramsay Rickarton had left and returned with cloths and a sack, and was kneeling resignedly to pick up all the broken pieces and rescue what could be saved, though Thomas’ weight had ground some of the pieces too small to be anything but brushed up. For a momen
t, a little face, full of girlish shock at the scene, appeared from behind the door curtain, then vanished again. The brief appearance, however, brought a smile to Ramsay’s face, even as he frowned his disapproval at her, and he set to his task faster than before.
Professor Shaw and Mungo Dalzell returned to stand with Allan Bonar and Professor Urquhart, who had been holding their teacups for them.
‘The man is no longer human: he’s a beast,’ Urquhart said, with more venom than usual.
‘He certainly grows worse and worse,’ agreed Bonar, staring at his superior’s back as Keith laid down some more personal law with the Principal and Lord Scoggie.
‘I quite like animals,’ Professor Shaw said. ‘And Francis of Assissi, though a Romish –‘
‘All right, all right,’ snapped Urquhart. ‘A monster, then.’
‘Sorry,’ said Professor Shaw. Urquhart grunted acknowledgement.
‘It’s true, though,’ said Mungo Dalzell, ‘he has very little to do with the students at all.’
‘Unless one is from a rich or noble family,’ Urquhart added.
‘But even then,’ said Bonar. ‘Picket Irving is as rich as Croesus, or will be when he comes of age and his guardian hands it over.’
‘As he never tires of pointing out,’ Urquhart interjected again.
‘Aye,’ Bonar agreed. Shaw studied him for a moment, wondering. Bonar said all the right things, and sounded friendly, but that look in his eyes was so alien to Shaw that it frightened him a little. It was a very cold ambition. What must it be like, he wondered, to rely for one’s advancement on the retirement – or death – of someone so universally disliked?
Something caught his eye, and he looked round. Sybie, overcoming her shyness and doubtless her grandfather’s strictures, had crept out from behind the door curtain and was crouching beside her grandfather, helping him, her little fingers solemnly picking the crockery fragments out of the threadbare carpet.
She had caught the eye of one or two others, and several, thinking fondly perhaps of their own daughters or granddaughters, were watching indulgently, smiles playing on more than a few faces. For a few minutes, all was peace and tranquillity.
Death in a Scarlet Gown (Murray of Letho Book 1) Page 5