with iron filings. ‘Where is the bloody woman?’
He heard the front door shut again. ‘There you are, Josephine. Where the devil had you got to?’
She looked alarmed as he hurried downstairs into the narrow hall. ‘I was only posting a letter. I wanted to catch the late collection from the box outside St Swithin’s.’
‘How did I manage to miss you? I’ve just come from the hospital.’ The dean led her into the front room on the ground floor. The walls of their sitting-room were half-covered with bookcases, there was a painting of St Swithin’s in the eighteenth century on one wall and an etching of the dean’s Cambridge college on the other, at the far end a glass case with the silver cups he had won for running as a student. He threw himself on to a comfortable shabby sofa of flowered chintz, head on a green satin cushion extruding its feathers, feet stretched towards an occasional table with a pink cyclamen. ‘Something terrible has happened.’
‘It’s the students – they’ve put the matron’s car on the roof again?’
‘No, no…though I’ll never object in future to a little bit of harmless, innocent clean fun like that. Do sit down, Josephine. You’re irritating me, striding about.’
She sat in a velvet-covered armchair and folded her hands expectantly.
‘I met Frankie Humble for lunch.’
‘Was she as pressingly charming as ever?’
‘She offered me a job. Vice-chancellor of a new university.’
Josephine jumped up. ‘But how absolutely thrilling!’
‘Of Hampton Wick University.’
‘Oh!’ She sat down again.
‘It’s been founded…how long? Barely five years. And it’s got through ten vice-chancellors.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Each of them appointed for life.’
‘Poor Bill Smeed was always in delicate health, remember.’
‘Oh, yes. But not so delicate that he had to go on a world cruise to recover after only three months, I suppose they should never have exposed a meek little civil servant to those terrible students. He was followed by the clerical fellow, Canon Grimes. As far as I know, he’s still in that mental home. The next was the Australian, who simply packed his bags after a couple of nights and went back to Melbourne. Wise fellow. Then Professor Dancer–’
‘Dear man! I grew quite fond of him, visiting him in the wards at St Swithin’s before he died.’
‘And the final outrage on the economist fellow, Dumble–’
‘Perhaps the newspapers played it up, dear. They always do.’
The dean snorted. ‘At Hampton Wick, they don’t need to exaggerate. I suppose it’s fair game for the students, occupying the vice-chancellor’s private house for six weeks, But making him wait on them hand and foot, cleaning out the lavatories–’
‘Better than being tarred and feathered four Saturdays running, like the Canon.’
‘They don’t need a vice-chancellor. They need a particularly conscientious commandant from a Siberian salt mine.’
‘But the students there might like you, dear.’
‘How? Fried, I suppose. That almost happened to Bill Smeed. They set the place on fire, then chopped the firemen’s hoses with axes and drove the engines to London for an evening out.’
‘I admit, Lionel, the undergraduates sound something of a problem.’
‘They’re the most undisciplined bunch of roughnecks in the country – in the entire world, I should imagine. Academic Mafia. They actually revel in their awful reputation. All those well-meaning people who have accepted invitations to speak at Hampton Wick…’ The dean shuddered. ‘The Thames must be silted up with their motorcars by now.’
Josephine persisted grimly in seeing the bright side. ‘But just think, the university’s all beautifully modern, and we’ll have a delightful free house – if they can ever evict the sitting-in students, of course.’
‘I won’t do it. I refuse to preside over a non-stop carnival of promiscuity, psychopathy, pregnancy, and pot.’
‘So you
He heard the front door shut again. ‘There you are, Josephine. Where the devil had you got to?’
She looked alarmed as he hurried downstairs into the narrow hall. ‘I was only posting a letter. I wanted to catch the late collection from the box outside St Swithin’s.’
‘How did I manage to miss you? I’ve just come from the hospital.’ The dean led her into the front room on the ground floor. The walls of their sitting-room were half-covered with bookcases, there was a painting of St Swithin’s in the eighteenth century on one wall and an etching of the dean’s Cambridge college on the other, at the far end a glass case with the silver cups he had won for running as a student. He threw himself on to a comfortable shabby sofa of flowered chintz, head on a green satin cushion extruding its feathers, feet stretched towards an occasional table with a pink cyclamen. ‘Something terrible has happened.’
‘It’s the students – they’ve put the matron’s car on the roof again?’
‘No, no…though I’ll never object in future to a little bit of harmless, innocent clean fun like that. Do sit down, Josephine. You’re irritating me, striding about.’
She sat in a velvet-covered armchair and folded her hands expectantly.
‘I met Frankie Humble for lunch.’
‘Was she as pressingly charming as ever?’
‘She offered me a job. Vice-chancellor of a new university.’
Josephine jumped up. ‘But how absolutely thrilling!’
‘Of Hampton Wick University.’
‘Oh!’ She sat down again.
‘It’s been founded…how long? Barely five years. And it’s got through ten vice-chancellors.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Each of them appointed for life.’
‘Poor Bill Smeed was always in delicate health, remember.’
‘Oh, yes. But not so delicate that he had to go on a world cruise to recover after only three months, I suppose they should never have exposed a meek little civil servant to those terrible students. He was followed by the clerical fellow, Canon Grimes. As far as I know, he’s still in that mental home. The next was the Australian, who simply packed his bags after a couple of nights and went back to Melbourne. Wise fellow. Then Professor Dancer–’
‘Dear man! I grew quite fond of him, visiting him in the wards at St Swithin’s before he died.’
‘And the final outrage on the economist fellow, Dumble–’
‘Perhaps the newspapers played it up, dear. They always do.’
The dean snorted. ‘At Hampton Wick, they don’t need to exaggerate. I suppose it’s fair game for the students, occupying the vice-chancellor’s private house for six weeks, But making him wait on them hand and foot, cleaning out the lavatories–’
‘Better than being tarred and feathered four Saturdays running, like the Canon.’
‘They don’t need a vice-chancellor. They need a particularly conscientious commandant from a Siberian salt mine.’
‘But the students there might like you, dear.’
‘How? Fried, I suppose. That almost happened to Bill Smeed. They set the place on fire, then chopped the firemen’s hoses with axes and drove the engines to London for an evening out.’
‘I admit, Lionel, the undergraduates sound something of a problem.’
‘They’re the most undisciplined bunch of roughnecks in the country – in the entire world, I should imagine. Academic Mafia. They actually revel in their awful reputation. All those well-meaning people who have accepted invitations to speak at Hampton Wick…’ The dean shuddered. ‘The Thames must be silted up with their motorcars by now.’
Josephine persisted grimly in seeing the bright side. ‘But just think, the university’s all beautifully modern, and we’ll have a delightful free house – if they can ever evict the sitting-in students, of course.’
‘I won’t do it. I refuse to preside over a non-stop carnival of promiscuity, psychopathy, pregnancy, and pot.’
‘So you
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