Death In The Common Room (1) Death in the Common Room Chapter One Spats Moncrieff and Brandy Brinkley When I was eighteen, I went to England. It was the first time I had ever travelled abroad; my family had little money, and my father struggled endlessly to support my mother and myself, his only son. I came to Britain to be educated in the hope that a degree at a famous Old World university would help me in attaining a well paid job; a job which would eventually help make my parents comfortable. My father ran a building business that was on the verge of bankruptcy. They could survive for the next few years while I studied; after that, I was to become their only hope. Naturally, this situation was not an ideal one for me; but still the thought of studying, as I loved to do, and being able to do it in another country, was sufficiently exciting to prevent me from resentment. I desired only to succeed and make my parents proud of me; I studied law as seeming the most potentially lucrative and secure professional occupation available to one of my particular talents, which were firmly unimaginative. In the last days of September 1955, therefore, I arrived at Salisbury College, Oxford, to begin my law degree. I expected to make few friends, for although I was sociable, my life had been unutterably different from that of my fellow students. I was poor, untidy, and American; I had not the sparkling wit and knowledge of wine that I suspected would be the forte of my colleagues. Thus it was with trepidation that, having met my tutors, been shown briefly around the college, etc. I peered through the open door of a large, airy common room overlooking the lovely grounds of the campus, which lay somewhat outside the town itself. "Excuse me? Uh...." Crippled with shyness, I hovered outside the door, my gaze resting awkwardly on a tall, gangly figure sprawled in a thick armchair and engrossed in a book. Under the instructions of the dean I was to be escorted to my room and generally looked after by a student already well established in the college, one Richard Moncrieff. Since the gangly youth was the only individual currently in the common room I could only assume him to be my escort; but I was hampered in self-introduction by the fact that Moncrieff, if such he was, seemed the very epitome of what I had believed to be a well-off Englishman. It seemed perfectly natural that he should be wide-eyed and chinless with a smooth face, dapper grey suit, and white ivory cane; I even accepted as a matter of course that he wore a monocle. When he spoke - or rather, brayed - a greeting, it seemed nothing short of given that his voice would bear a resemblance to the whinny of a horse, that his accent should be clipped, that he should ejaculate vigorously phrases such as "What ho!" which, indeed, he did. "Well then, you must be the new boy, what? Welcome to Oxford, old thing! Yank, aren't you?" "I....I'm sorry?" "Don't be, laddie. Boring old world if we were all the same, I suppose." "Um...yeah. Yeah!" I said more forcefully, reminding myself that this was exactly what I had expected. How could I be intimidated by a stereotype? Everything I had read, seen, and heard about the English corresponded to the bizarrely dressed creature that now stood in front of me, waving his cane and laughing at his own wit as though he were Oscar Wilde. With a vague grin, I mustered up some courage and replied as brightly as possible - in a sort of helpless croak - "I'm Danforth Watson. From America. I came here to study....er....are you Mr. Moncrieff?" "Good Lord, old thing, drop the "Mister" why don't you. I'm not a tutor, you know. Now, why don't we take you around and introduce you, what? Haven't met anyone yet, I suppose?" I shook my head, shy once more, the great effort having been made. Without further ado my new companion took my arm and led me through a bewildering labyrinth of corridors, culminating in a larger, wider one with several closed doors and a few open ones. Moncrieff led me to one of these, and ushered me inside. "This is your room, laddie. Hope you like it. Not palatial, but adequate, one supposes. Mine's just across the corridor," he pointed, "so if you need anything, old thing, just give me a knock." I thanked him, and sitting upon the bed, which was surprisingly soft, I waited patiently for him to go away. He didn't. "Well, buck up then! Throw your stuff into the wardrobe and we can get going." "Going? But I've only just arrived!" A bray of laughter greeted this rather foolish statement. "I mean, old crumpet, that we can introduce you to some of the figures of the college." I was bemused. By figures, did he mean professors? Or students? Or founders, even? Was he going to conduct me on an historical tour of the place? The thought disturbed me; I was far too tired to take anything in, and yet I didn't want to make a fool of myself by not even knowing who had founded the college in which I was to spend three years of my life. "We'll go around a few study rooms," Moncrieff continued, "and you can meet the others. Then we'll have dinner. How does that sound?" I told him politely that it sounded very good, but that I was rather tired and would prefer to stay in. This with greeted with another bray of laughter, and my companion firmly took my arm once more and led me down the corridor to the first bedroom. That first afternoon, despite my weariness, stays forever in my mind for a particularly special reason. It was the day on which I met the two men who would become my greatest friends, and with whom I would experience a number of bizarre and fascinating events. The first of these was to come shortly; but for now, and with no desire to do anything other than collapse into bed, I was conducted swiftly to each of the occupied rooms in that part of the college where I would reside for my first year. I met almost thirty students that first day (some had not yet arrived for the beginning of term, others were engaged in discussions with friends and lecturers, or re-acquainting themselves with the town) including the charming, handsome Michael Braithwaite, a young man who, despite a severe limp, moved with a strange, compelling grace. I would hear his tragic story much later; Michael had been a dancer, and a good one; he and his fianc�e and partner Mary had danced in and won dozens of local and international competitions, and were marked as champions of the future. That glittering future had come to a sad end, however, as the result of a hideous car accident that had killed the beautiful Mary and left Michael partially crippled. I had read of such traumas in novels, and the newspapers; it was the first time I would encounter a real-life human tragedy. At Oxford and after I was to encounter many more, of course - but that is, for the moment, irrelevant. Moncrieff also introduced me to Bernard Terrance Johnley, a mildly snobbish student with an interest in British history and rather little else; the small, shy James Waterford; a tall, untidy student with a shock of mousy hair who was introduced to me only as "Boffin", and whom, I was to learn later, was by way of being the mad scientist of the college, a friendly but very distracted loner who had two passions in life: science, and his fianc�e Margaret Race, a philosophy student at one of the women's colleges. We also met a few tutors, including professor Fotheringay ("Fungus"), a tall, spare, tweedy man with a vague, amicable manner and a worried smile; a great friend of Boffin's. It was not until just before dinner, however, that Moncrieff led me to the room of one of the college's most popular individuals, a man who was apparently the friend of every student and professor therein, and who was profoundly well thought of by all. He was the son of a Lord, the first real contact with nobility I had experienced, and his name was Brinkley. As we wove our way through the twist of corridors I felt a rising trepidation at the thought of meeting such a grand person; doubtless this Brinkley would be imperious and superior, in that way which comes with being stinking rich. What would he think of me, an American pauper whose family could barely manage to keep him at university at all? As Moncrieff pushed open Brinkley's door - without bothering to knock - my heart sank. Despite my murmured protests - it's late, we should be going to dinner shouldn't we, perhaps we'd better not disturb him - Moncrieff bounced into the room, with me nervously lurking in the doorway. Classical music - Beethoven, if I remember correctly - drifted across to us from a second, inner room, with its door closed. Unperturbed, my companion stalked over and threw it open. I watched him disappear inside, and a few seconds later heard his distinctively English voice yelling, "Brandy!" I heard no responding sound from the ether; a few more moments passed and then the voice again, "Turn off that dashed racket, old thing, won't you?" I fancied I heard a sigh, and then Beethoven was gone. "Now," Moncrieff continued, "I'd like you to meet...dash it all, where is the blighter? Dan!" Timidly, and rather abashed, I crept forward, ceased my lurking in the outer doorway and came to lurk in the inner one instead. Moncrieff beamed at me as I tried ineffectually to hide behind him from the extraordinary figure standing before me. Brinkley had to be at least six-four in height, and he was strongly built without appearing bulky. In general he gave the impression of some large, lithe animal - a panther, perhaps, or, as Moncrieff inevitably described him, a Great Dane. There was something noble about him that both attracted and intimidated me. His eyes, however, were quiet and friendly, a deep blue-grey, like pebbles at the bottom of a river. "Now, Brandy old strumpet, this is Danforth Watson, the American cove old Fungus told us about. He's just arrived this morning." "And I suppose you haven't left him alone since then?" The voice matched the figure; pleasant and deep without being rough, melodious, and I discovered later that Brandy had a very fine baritone singing voice. The deep eyes turned to me with interest, and I was uncertain whether to cringe or draw myself up when Moncrieff went on with the second half of his introduction: "Dan, this is the Honourable Brinkley, but you just call him Brandy, like everyone else." The tall man smiled wryly at that, and offered a strong hand to be shaken. I shook; his grip was surprisingly gentle, mine embarrassingly limp. "Well, Dan, how do you like Oxford?" I squeaked, "It's...it's, um, nice, real pretty, very English, all the grass and trees and old buildings, you know?" Realising I was babbling I cut my answer short and made a superhuman effort to appear cool and collected. Brandy, unperturbed, merely continued to smile and nod pleasantly, as though I had said something of great intellectual moment. "It is a charming town, isn't it? Where are you from in the States, by the way?" This simple question-and-answer session, far from seeming banal, put me greatly at my ease - I realised later of course that that was his intention. "I was brought up in New York." There was a sudden yelp from Moncrieff, who had been gazing vaguely about him while Brinkley and I exchanged pleasantries. "Ah, New York! The brave New World!" He beamed upon me. "And do you have a flat there?" "A...flat? You mean an apartment, right? Well no, my family and I have a little house outside the main city." Moncrieff looked strangely disappointed for a moment, then shrugged philosophically. "Pity. I'd have liked to visit, I've always wanted to go to New York, you know. Ah, the call of the ocean, the Panama hat, the mighty dollar, what? A land of great opportunity, I hear. Wouldn't want to live there, though, eh?" I was utterly confused, so bewildered in fact that I completely missed this gentle insult to my country. Brandy, seeing my distress, rescued me with a grin. "Pay no attention to Spats, Dan. He's quite harmless, if a little barmy. He thinks he's Bertie Wooster." "Who...Spats? What? Oh." I gathered that the mysterious "Spats" was in fact Moncrieff, but the allusion to Wooster was lost on me. "You didn't think all English people act like him, did you?" The notion seemed to amuse my new friend. Since that was precisely what I had thought, his question was embarrassing. To cover my bemusement I asked uncertainly, "Who's Bertie Wooster?" And at this, with a derisive cry like the snort of an indignant donkey, Spats Moncrieff flounced from the room. Chapter Two Margaret, and Professor Fotheringay Thus my days as a student in England began. As weeks passed, I became less painfully shy and more used to the various comings and goings of Salisbury college. I made a few friends, including the quiet, crushed spirit of Michael Braithwaite, for whom I felt a great sympathy, and Boffin Bassington's fianc�e Margaret, who was great fun and far more outgoing than her other half. Despite Boffin's lack of sociability he was amiable and good-humoured, without the air of superiority one might expect from such a great brain. I became fond of him, although, like most people, I really knew him hardly at all. My two closest companions, of course, were Spats and Brandy. Having had Spats' eccentric fixation on the 20s and 30s explained to me - which also, of course, explained the bizarre dress sense and language I had taken as quite normal when I first arrived - I found myself liking him more and more. "The thing about Spats," Brandy told me once, shortly after our friend's huffy exit on my first evening in England, "is that, although he likes to behave like an upper-class twit, he's actually quite shrewd. It's all an act with him, you know, and once he lets down the defences you'll get quite a surprise." Brandy was exactly right, as usual. Spats turned out to be quite a remarkable person, and in a very different way to how I expected. One of the things that amazed me most about university life was that there seemed to be so much free time. I worked hard, but still there seemed to be endless hours of nothingness to fill - and there, of course, my new friends were eager to help me out. Boffin and Brandy, who didn't need to work, and Spats, who just never seemed to do any, were always available whenever I was at a loose end, in the first days to show my every inch of the college and tell me a lot of useful things about its past and inhabitants, and later, when I'd settled in, to take me around the town. Thus it was that we found ourselves lying on the grass in the beautiful Meadow behind the huge and imposing Christ Church College, as students do, as though they have all the time in the world. To us, of course, it felt as though we did. That feeling, as I remember it so many years later, makes me sad; so often we take advantage of the eternity of time, and of each other's presence, never truly appreciating either until one, or both, is gone. On that afternoon, though, we had no reason to feel anything but pleasure. It was a Sunday, there were no lectures or tutorials. The weather was warm, sunlight pouring over the meadow as we sprawled in the shade of a huge maple tree, talking, eating, dozing, listening to the chirp of crickets and the murmur of conversation carried over on a slight breeze from out nearest neighbours, across the other side of the grass. It was perfect. I've known a lot of happiness as well as sadness since that day, but somehow it always stays in my memory as the very epitome of the best of student life - and of youth. Recalling those endless days again reminds me of Longfellow's words: "A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." That was how it seemed; blissful, safe, and endless, with nothing ahead but days of companionship and peace, and, in the far-off distance, a glitteringly bright future, planned and secure, inevitable. If only we had known, on that last sun-drenched day, how soon it would come to an end, for a long time, and for some of us, forever. If we had known, if we had felt that sense of coming evil which people experience in all good suspense novels, perhaps we might have appreciated it more. As it is, that day became a memory, frozen in time, of what life was like in the innocence of youth, when we were somehow safe and distant from the evils of the read world. But to return to the current, and happier times. It was, as I said, an incredibly hot day for England, but with a light breeze that cooled, and soothed. The remains of a light picnic - it was way too hot to eat much - lay slowly congealing in the wicker basket, while Brandy, also slowly congealing, lay next to it, half asleep. Spats was sprawled with his back against the tree, engrossed in one of his beloved Wodehouse novels. Boffin simply sat, his eyes glassy and a vague frown on his face. I knew him well enough by now to recognise that he was cogitating some complex scientific problem, and that he would return to us once he had it figured out. Margaret, long- haired and lovely, lay next to him, occasionally tickling his nose with a blade of grass, a mild form of torture of which he seemed not in the least aware. Eventually, with a delightful pout, she gave up and turned to me. "So Danny...are you used to our English eccentricities now?" I smiled faintly at the odd, but relevant, question. My only contact with the English so far had been these people, who, without exception, were...well, exceptional. Spats with his strange, Old World quaintness. Boffin and his Mad Scientist reputation and dazedly amicable manner. Brandy's peculiar brilliance, his remarkable humility. And Margaret, probably the most conventional of all of us, had she been a man - and yet not so, in her femininity, her resolve and conviction that in a man's world she was still capable of achieving, and achieving highly. None of us doubted it; she was not simply on the fringe of our little clique of oddballs as Boffin's girl, she was an integral part of it, and we all loved her, in one way or another. Musing on this, I was ready to answer her question. "Margie, I think that the English have the most interesting eccentricities in the world, and after having been here only a few weeks, already I'd be lost without them." She gave her earth-shattering smile, and ran her slender fingers absently through her hair. "I'm glad you said that, Dan, because as you can see we're all a lot of loonies here." I glanced around me, at Spats looking up with a bemused and hunted expression, Boffin's glazed stare, and Brandy, apparently asleep on the grass. I grinned back. "I guess I'll fit in well, then!" Margie opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she might have said was cut off by the appearance of Professor Martin Fotheringay, ambling waveringly across the meadow with his familiar vague expression. He wandered over to us without appearing to realise where he was going, and when I greeted him, looked surprised to see us there. "Oh! Ah - good afternoon, gentlemen, Miss Race. Well, well, well." He didn't say "nice weather we're having", although I think he probably meant to, because he gazed around him smilingly and seemed surprised when we did not reply to his unspoken thought. Brandy, sitting up, rescued him politely. "It's lovely weather, professor." "Oh, yes, right. It is that, Brandy, it is indeed." No one, not even the most dignified and formal of professors, ever called our friend by anything but his nickname. It just seemed appropriate somehow. "Hello, Bassington." Fotheringay continued. Boffin, coming out of his self-induced trance, glanced up and offered a rare smile. "Professor! Good morning." "It's after twelve, silly!" Margaret exclaimed, poking him. "Oh? Oh, well, good afternoon then." "Yes." Fotheringay agreed, and I exchanged an amused look with Brandy. Those two were so alike they could have been father and son. "Well, do you young people mind if I join you? Although I quite understand if you don't want an old fogy like me intruding on your leisure time." He beamed, and we all smiled politely, except for Spats, who was still absorbed in his book, or at least pretending to be. The professor settled himself down among us, sitting cross-legged, which impressed us since it seemed such an awkward thing to do in tweeds. Peering over my shoulder, he noticed Spats for the first time. "Well, Moncrieff, hello. What's that you're reading? Something instructive, I hope." "Oh, yes, sir," Spats agreed, emerging reluctantly after a brief pause to mark his place. "P.G. Wodehouse." "Oh, ah?" Fotheringay was bemused. "How...er, interesting." Twitching his lips slightly, he turned his attention to Margie. "Now, young lady! And how are your studies going? One approves, you know, of having women at Oxford. Quite unfair that the men should do all the work. Could do with a few female mathematicians, or philosophers, I dare say. You're reading philosophy aren't you?" "Yes, sir. Plato is my favourite of the Greeks, we're studying him at the moment." "Good, good! One must always have a pet philosopher. What's yours, Brandy?" He poked the dozing Brinkley with a long, slim finger. His hands were really quite beautiful, pale and slim, almost feminine. "Hmm? Well, I suppose it would be Godwin, sir." "Hey? What's that? Godwin?" "I know him!" Spats exclaimed, entering triumphantly into the conversation for the first time. "Mary Shelley's father. I read her biography last term. Rather a radical thinker, what? But then, Brandy's an anarchist, aren't you, old thing?" Fotheringay looked alarmed. "Now, really, Moncrieff, you shouldn't throw accusations about like that. Not cricket, you know, not at all." Spats smirked to himself, and Brandy simply looked amused. "I'm not exactly an anarchist, sir, but I do have some sympathy with Godwin's views. He was a most progressive thinker for his age. So, of course, was his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft." Margie, ever the feminist, was nodding vigorously. "Of course, the radical feminist thinker. One of the great minds of our time, and a woman! Trust you to think of her, Brandy." She smiled benevolently upon him. Fotheringay, the scientist, was clearly beginning to wish he'd never started this discussion. He turned to Boffin for solace. "Well, Bassington, do you like philosophers?" Boffin roused himself. "Not really, professor. I prefer scientific theory, which can be tried and tested, to all that vague stuff." I caught a brief look of annoyance on Margaret's face, but she masked it quickly and squeezed her fianc�'s arm. "That's why we work so well together - opposites attract, you know." "Hum, yes, well, quite." Fotheringay looked taken aback, as though he knew nothing of such things and had spent his life avoiding them. "I too prefer science," he went on meaningfully, "which I why I never became a philosophy teacher. Which reminds me, Bassington. That project you've been working on, have you moved along with it?" He referred to Boffin's famous experiments, which everyone knew about. Our friend was, as I have said, the most brilliant science student at the university, and he was currently developing his own original research project, which he hoped to complete before graduating. Papers and perhaps even a book were in the offing, and Fotheringay, as an active and innovative scientist himself, was very interested in the work. He was also the only person on campus to know what it was about; Boffin kept it quiet for fear that his idea might be stolen. Only with his friend the professor did he share details on the progression of his project; even Margaret knew next to nothing about it. All we knew was that it was important, groundbreaking research, remarkable for one so young. It led to Boffin being occasionally nicknamed "Victor Frankenstein" by some of the most brilliant science students, jealous of their colleague's success. The lesser students simply stood in awe of him, accepting that they would never make such achievements in their entire careers, much less before leaving university. Clearly eager to discuss his progress with someone who understood, however, Boffin became quite animated, and began to outline at length some experiment he had recently completed. It was double-Dutch to us, all Arts students except for myself, and I knew next to nothing about the pure sciences. Spats was the ultimate English lit. student, and he thought of little else. Brandy was a psychology student, doing medical history on the side. Margaret of course had her philosophy, and I my law, which was starting to become exceptionally interesting. It would also come a great deal in useful, later, and not just for bringing in the spondulics. We tuned out as Boffin chattered on, gathering pace, with Fotheringay looking fascinated. Eventually the two of them got up and headed for Fotheringay's own extensive basement laboratory, to which Boffin had unrestricted access, for the student to demonstrate his experiment to the professor. It was with some relief that we watched them go, although Margie looked slightly piqued. "Boffin spends more time with old Fungus than he does with me."
Copyright © 2000 Hildebrande K Reynolds |