Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (9780063021440)

‘Here you are.’ She opened her fingers, revealing a key. ‘That’s his spare. He’s so scatterbrained – they asked me to keep one on hand for when he loses his. You poor things.’

‘Thank you,’ Robin said, stunned by their good fortune. Then a memory struck him, and he took a wild guess. ‘You’re Mrs Clemens, aren’t you?’

She beamed. ‘I certainly am!’

‘Right, that’s right – he said to ask you if we couldn’t find the key. Only we couldn’t figure out what house you were in.’

‘A good thing I was watching the rain, then.’ She had a broad, friendly smile; any suspicion, if it ever was there, had disappeared from her face. ‘I like to face the outside when I play my pianoforte. The world informs my music.’

‘Right,’ he said again, too giddy with relief to process this statement. ‘Well, thanks very much.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Call if you need anything.’ She nodded first to Robin, and then to Letty – she seemed not to even see Ramy or Victoire, for which Robin supposed they could only be grateful – and headed back across the street.

‘How on earth did you know?’ Victoire muttered.

‘Mrs Piper wrote about her,’ said Robin as he dragged his trunk up through the front garden. ‘Said a new family’s moved in, and that the wife is a lonely and eccentric type. I think she comes here most afternoons for tea when the professor is here.’

‘Well, thank God you write to your housekeeper,’ said Letty.

‘Truly,’ said Robin, and unlocked the door.

Robin had not been back to the house in Hampstead since he’d left for Oxford, and it seemed greatly changed in his absence. It was a good deal smaller than he’d remembered, or perhaps he’d just grown taller. The staircase was not such an endless spiral, and the high ceilings did not induce such a heavy sense of solitude. It was very dim inside; all the curtains were drawn, and sheets pulled over the furniture to protect it from dust. They groped around in the dark for a bit – Mrs Piper had always lit the lamps and candles, and Robin hadn’t a clue where she kept the matches. At last Victoire found some flint and candlesticks in the parlour, and from there they managed to light the fireplace.

‘Say, Birdie,’ said Ramy. ‘What’s all this . . . stuff?’

He meant the chinoiserie. Robin glanced around. The parlour was filled with painted fans, hanging scrolls, and porcelain vases, sculptures, and teapots. The effect was a garish re-creation of a Canton teahouse juxtaposed upon a base of English furniture. Had these always been there? Robin didn’t know how he had failed to notice as a child. Perhaps, fresh from Canton, he had not found the separation of two worlds so obvious; perhaps it was only now, after a full immersion in the most English of universities, that he’d developed a sharper sense of the foreign and the exotic.

‘I suppose he was a collector,’ said Robin. ‘Oh, I do remember now – he loved telling his guests about his acquisitions, where they’d come from and their particular histories. He was quite proud.’

‘How strange,’ said Ramy. ‘To love the stuff and the language, but to hate the country.’

‘Not as odd as you’d think,’ said Victoire. ‘There are people, after all, and then there are things.’

An expedition to the kitchens turned up nothing to eat. Mrs Piper wouldn’t have stocked provisions while she was still at the Oxford house. The Hampstead house had a persistent rat problem, Robin recalled, never resolved because Professor Lovell abhorred cats, and Mrs Piper hated leaving perishables at their mercy. Ramy found a tin of ground coffee and a jar of salt, but no sugar. They made and drank the coffee anyway. It only sharpened their hunger, but at least it kept them alert.

They had just washed and dried their empty mugs – Robin didn’t know why they were cleaning up when the owner of this place would never come home, but it still felt wrong to leave a mess – when they heard a sharp knock at the door. They all jumped. The knocker paused, then rapped again firmly, thrice in succession.

Ramy sprang up and reached for the fire poker.

‘What are you doing?’ Letty hissed.

‘Well, assuming they come in—’

‘Just don’t open the door, we’ll pretend no one’s here—’

‘But all the lights are on, you dolt—’

‘Then look out the window first—’

‘No, then they’ll see us—’

‘Hello?’ The knocker called through the door. ‘Can you hear me?’

They sagged with relief. It was only Mrs Clemens.

‘I’ll get it.’ Robin stood and shot Ramy a glare. ‘Put that away.’

Their kindly neighbour stood sopping wet on the doorstep, carrying a flimsy, ineffective umbrella in one hand and a covered basket in the other. ‘I noticed you hadn’t brought provisions. He always leaves the pantry empty when he’s gone – rat problem.’

‘I . . . I see.’ Mrs Clemens was very chatty. Robin hoped she did not want to come in.