LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 2

      There is yet another fault often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage.

      SIR FRANCIS BACON

      Op. Cit.

      Conversation stopped for a moment when Fallowfield came into the Common Room. He moved swiftly to the coffee-table and waited till Miss Disney had poured herself a cup. A smile played around his lips as she replaced the coffee-pot firmly on the table and moved away without a glance at him.

      He poured a cup and made a bit of business out of taking a couple of sips while he surveyed the constitution of the various groups scattered around the room.

      Grouping tended to be by departments for morning coffee. The geographers sat huddled together as though plotting some government’s overthrow. The English Department lay back easily in their chairs, not speaking, but with faint smiles on their faces as though someone had said, or was just about to say, something elegantly witty. Three mathematicians looked gloomily at each other like unwilling companions on a long train journey. At the far end of the room, the historians were quarrelling again, just before the stage where objective social discussion became personal infighting. Henry Saltecombe, their departmental head, almost recumbent in the deep armchair which was his own, surveyed them benignly over his swelling paunch. Glancing round, he caught Fallowfield’s eye and made a pouring motion with his hand.

      Fallowfield picked up the coffee-pot and went across to join him.

      ‘Hello, Sam,’ said Henry cordially. ‘Pour us a cup, there’s a love. You’re a silly fellow to be here when you could still be pigging it in bed.’

      ‘There are things to do,’ said Fallowfield non-committally. He sat down and refilled his own coffee-cup.

      ‘Anyway,’ he added, melting a little to Henry’s cordiality, ‘it’s a rare experience to be able to feel like Lord Byron after the scandal. Though nobody actually got up and left!’

      ‘Not quite,’ muttered Arthur Halfdane, one of the young historians at the table, jerking his head so that his long hair tossed like a girl’s.

      Fallowfield followed his gesture and saw the slight angular figure of Jane Scotby, the Senior Tutor, wriggle out from under the menacing overhangs and promontories of Edith Disney and move across the room towards him.

      ‘Mr Fallowfield,’ she said in her high precise voice. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you?’

      Fallowfield stared thoughtfully into her small brown wrinkled face whose bright blue eyes stared back as unflinchingly at his round, rather solemn features.

      ‘Of course, Miss Scotby,’ he said. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

      ‘I would prefer that we were private,’ she said.

      ‘I find that hard at the moment,’ said Fallowfield equably.

      ‘Very well,’ said Miss Scotby. ‘It has been suggested to me …’

      ‘By Miss Disney?’

      ‘… that your suspension from duty makes it improper for you to be present in the Senior Common Room or indeed in the College.’

      ‘This is outrageous,’ spluttered Henry. The younger historians, constitutionalists to a man, sat forward in their chairs, eager to offer an opinion at the drop of an amendment.

      ‘I am unable to pronounce authoritatively on the legality of this,’ Miss Scotby went on inexorably, ‘but on other grounds I can see good reason why it might be better if you weren’t here.’

      She halted, just a little breathless. Fallowfield suspected that beneath the brown parchment skin a flush might be struggling to break out.

      ‘Miss Scotby,’ he said kindly, ‘I have merely been temporarily suspended from my teaching duties here. I certainly do not intend trying to teach anything except perhaps a few lessons in corporate feeling and loyalty.’

      He raised his voice slightly and glanced round the room.

      ‘I am suspended. I haven’t caught leprosy. So I won’t wear a bell. And I shall continue to use this room as of right until I am shown why in law I should not.’

      ‘And if that happens, you shall be my guest,’ added Henry Saltecombe, his jowls shaking in emphasis.

      The historians glanced at each other and raised their eyebrows in wry humour. Miss Scotby nodded as though she had expected nothing else. Which was probably true, thought Arthur Halfdane. Or at least she had the art of always giving the impression that whatever happened was expected.

      A pretty young woman with a determined chin, Eleanor Soper of the Social Science department, came across in pursuit of the coffee-pot, apparently unconscious of the tension. Halfdane smiled at her and pulled up another chair beside his own. She sat down.

      Miss Scotby nodded again as if this, too, were expected, turned on her heel and, avoiding Miss Disney’s imperious beckonings, walked smoothly out of the room.

      ‘Nicely timed,’ said Halfdane to Eleanor.

      ‘Why?’ she said. ‘What’s up with Scotby?’

      ‘Gone to earth,’ said Henry with a chuckle. ‘Walt’s furious.’

      He was the only person in the college who actually addressed Miss Disney as ‘Walt’ to her face.

      ‘Now, Sam,’ he said, ‘what’s the latest? If it’s not sub judice or something.’

      He rubbed his podgy hands in mock-enthusiastic expectation.

      How mock is it? wondered Halfdane.

      ‘There’s nothing new. I’ve agreed to go before the governors to make a statement, but not while the student governors are present. They’re still trying to sort out the legalities.’

      ‘Well,’ said Henry dubiously. ‘The students are after all legally elected members of the governing body. In any case, I’m surprised that you are bothering, Sam. Points of order and matters constitutional have always bored you to tears in the past.’

      A general movement towards the doors prevented any reply from Fallowfield.

      ‘What’s on?’ asked Halfdane.

      ‘By Christ!’ said Henry, pushing his fifteen stones breathily out of the chair. ‘They’re going to shift Hippolyta, her of the golden tits, begging your pardon,

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