The Morning Gift

‘Yes . . . well, damn it, you run the course, you know it’s the best in the country. But I wanted her to see the coast. I owe her . . .’

‘You what?’

Roger shrugged. ‘I know you think we make a pet of her – Elke and Humphrey and I . . . but she gives it all back and –’

‘Gives what back?’

Roger shook his head. ‘It’s difficult to explain. You prepare a practical . . . good heavens, you know what it’s like. You’re here half the night trying to find decent specimens and then the technician’s got flu and there aren’t enough Petri dishes . . . And then she comes and stares down the microscope as though this is the first ever water flea, and suddenly you remember what it was all about – why you started in this game in the beginning. If her work was sloppy it would be different, but it isn’t. She deserved more than you gave her for that last test.’

‘I gave her eighty-two.’

‘Yes. And Verena Plackett eighty-four. Not that it’s my business. Well, I reckon nothing can be done, not with you falling over backwards not to favour her because she sat on your knee in nappies.’

‘I do nothing of the sort, but you must see that I can’t interfere – it would only do Ruth harm.’ And as his deputy still stood there, looking disconsolate: ‘How are things at home? How is Lillian?’

Roger sighed. ‘No baby yet. And she won’t adopt. If only I hadn’t asked Humphrey to supper!’ Dr Fitzsimmons had meant well when he had told Roger’s wife about the drop in temperature a woman could expect before her fertile period, but he didn’t have to watch Lillian come out of the bathroom bristling with thermometers and refusing him his marital rights until the crucial time. ‘I shall be glad to go north for a while, I can tell you.’

‘I shall be glad to have you there.’

Ruth was not disappointed in the findings of the Finance Committee because she did not know of Dr Felton’s efforts on her behalf. But if she held firm over her decision to stay behind, she was perfectly ready to join in the speculations about Verena Plackett’s pyjamas.

For Verena, of course, was going to Northumberland, and what she would wear in bed in the dormitory above the boathouse occupied much of her fellow students’ thoughts. Janet thought she would turn into her wooden bunk in see-through black lace.

‘In case the Professor comes up the ladder at midnight with a cranial cast.’

Pilly thought a pair of striped pyjamas was more likely, with a long cord which she would instruct Kenneth Easton to tie into a double knot before retiring. Ruth, on the other hand, slightly obsessed by Verena’s pristine lab coat which she deeply envied, suggested gathered calico, heavily starched.

‘So you will hear her crackle in the night,’ she said.

But in fact none of them were destined to see Verena’s pyjamas, for the Vice Chancellor’s daughter had other plans.

If Leonie each night looked eagerly to Ruth for her account of the day, and Mrs Weiss’s dreaded ‘Vell?’ began her interrogation in the Willow Tea Rooms, Lady Plackett waited with more self-control, but no less avidity, for Verena’s news.

Verena reported with restraint about the staff, but where the students were concerned, she permitted herself to speak freely. Thus Lady Plackett learnt about the unsuitable – not to say lewd – behaviour of Janet Carter in the back of motor cars, the dangerously radical views of Sam Marsh, and the ludicrous gaffes made by Priscilla Yarrowby who had confused the jaw bone of a mammoth with that of a mastodon.

‘And Ruth Berger persists in helping her, of which one cannot approve,’ said Verena. ‘It is no kindness to inadequate students to push them on. They should be weeded out for their own sake and find their proper level.’

Lady Plackett agreed with this, as all thinking people must. ‘She seems to be a very disruptive influence, the foreign girl,’ she said.

She had not been pleased when Professor Somerville had reinstated Ruth. There was something . . . excessive . . . about Ruth Berger. Even the way she smelled the roses in the quadrangle was . . . unnecessary, thought Lady Plackett, who had watched her out of the window. But on one point Verena was able to set her mother’s mind at rest. Ruth was not liked by the Professor; he seemed to avoid her; she never spoke in seminars.

‘And she is definitely not coming to Bowmont,’ said Verena, who was unaware of her mother’s interference in the matter of the Hardship Fund.

‘Ah, yes, Bowmont,’ said Lady Plackett thoughtfully. ‘You know, Verena, I find that I cannot be happy about you cohabiting in a dormitory with girls who do . . . things . . . in the backs of motor cars.’

‘I confess I have been worrying about that,’ said Verena. ‘Of course, one wants to be democratic.’

‘One does,’ agreed Lady Plackett. ‘But there are limits.’ She paused, then laid a soothing hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I have had an idea.’

Verena lifted her head. ‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if it is the same as mine.’

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