Chapter One
Will Cloris cast her Sun-bright Eye upon so mean a Swain as I?
“She didn’t even notice me,” mourned Mr. Miles Midgecomb upon entering the senior common room.
His gloomy fits of amorous attachment being too frequent to elicit sympathy, however, few dons glanced up from their newspapers or backgammon or drinking to respond.
Only his two closest friends grinned at him, one of them pushing an armchair his way with a booted foot.
Midgecomb threw himself into it, heedless of crumpling his gown.
“Tilson. Hearne.” He nodded at each. “I attended that blasted lecture by her father on the evils of drink, and though there were only a handful of people there under the age of ninety, she did not look over once.”
“Bad luck, Midge,” said the one he’d called Tilson, a stocky young man with light brown hair and pleasant, if unmemorable, features. “I can sympathize with you, if Hearne cannot. Hearne, who has never been ignored by any woman.”
Hearne was Adam Hearne, who had already returned his attention to whatever he was writing. “Who didn’t look over at you?” he asked, dipping his steel pen in ink.
“Miss Eveleigh, of course. Daughter of the provost of Oriel. The divine Miss Jane Eveleigh. Was there ever so beautiful a name? The young lady I dream of one day calling my own, if God wills it.”
“Need God will it?” returned his friend. “Why don’t you ‘gird up now thy loins like a man’ and go and ask her to be yours?”
“How can I, when I do not believe she would recognize me if she passed me in the street?” demanded Midgecomb, his brow darkening like a thundercloud.
“You would not be so nonchalant if you knew her. Everyone declares her perfect. Hair like flax. Eyes like—like crystals! And so delicate in stature that she makes a man feel downright heroic. She is Beauty personified.”
“If you wanted us to appreciate this paragon, you might have invited us to the lecture,” suggested Adam.
“Never!” Midge retorted. “On no condition may any potential sweetheart of mine be allowed to see you first. Tilson, fine, but you, no. Had you been there, with your cursed handsome physiognomy and cursed wit, I daresay she would not have been so indifferent. Had you been there, she would have looked over constantly.”
“Exactly,” agreed Tilson, not taking the least offense at this slighting estimation of his looks. “Perhaps you might go again, Midge, this time dangling Adam as bait.”
Midge slashed the air with his hand. “I have learned all too well that if I am fool enough to present him to any young lady, I become invisible on the instant! It’s ridiculous. As if I weren’t wealthier than you, Adam, and the grandson of an earl!”
“At least Hearne vows he’ll never marry,” Tilson laughed, “so there’s always the chance they will turn to you, Midge, in their heartbreak.”
“The mamas at the lecture surely noticed you,” rejoined Adam, ignoring Tilson, “even if Miss Eveleigh did not. Noticed your wealth and lineage and all. You must keep at it.” Taking up a ruler, he began to mark columns on his page.
“It so happens, I thought of that myself,” Midgecomb declared, straightening in his chair. “Mrs. Eveleigh, the angel’s mama, happens to be a distant cousin of my uncle’s wife, a fact of which I took care to inform her, after praising her dull husband’s dullness.”
“And what did the mother say to that?”
“That she knew it! And she said furthermore that we share another mutual cousin, young George Denver.”
“Who?” said the others in unison.
“Oh, you know. That junior soph of Queen’s who is always falling down staircases and wandering about, his mind on other things.”
“Ah, yes. Curious youth,” Adam chuckled. “At least the mother does not mention him as a potential rival to you, unless that young lady prefers clumsy infants.”
“Perhaps I will rival you, Midge,” said Tilson drolly, looking up from the Racing Calendar. “I may take even longer than you to make an impression on the fair sex, but I am gifted with my angelic temperament, and will be richer than either of you, after racing season.”
“Or poorer than either of us, as you were after last year’s season,” noted Hearne.
“And nothing could be less angelic than your temperament if there’s anything at hand to be wagered upon or won.
At the betting post or the card table you’re a downright fiend.
But at present your path is clear, Midge.
Denver is too young, Tilson too preoccupied with horses, and I too unknown to steal your beloved’s heart. ”
This might be an accurate accounting, but Midgecomb regarded Adam Hearne unhappily.
The latter was famous for saying he would never marry, after the disastrous turn his parents’ union had taken, but didn’t everyone say such things until they gave way?
And as for remaining unknown to Miss Eveleigh, that seemed equally precarious.
Truth be told, fond as he was of his friend, Midge would have been a great deal fonder had Adam Hearne been a spotty, plain pudding of a person.
The same good fun, of course, and possessing the same wit and generosity, only—uglier.
Had Adam been just a little loathsome, or even nondescript as Tilson was, what an ideal comrade he would have made!
But these were not new thoughts, and Midgecomb put them away with a sigh. Slumping down again in the armchair, he demanded, “What are you at there, anyway?” in a tone which implied, What can possibly be more interesting than my concerns?
“I am making a chart of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” answered Hearne absently. “To see which characters appear in which scenes, and which of those speak lines, and so forth.”
“Whatever for? Did Dromedary ask for it?” (“Dromedary” being the epithet those of Christ Church gave Mr. Alan Drummond, another senior fellow with an unfortunately prominent jaw and sleepy eyes.)
“No. It’s to satisfy my own curiosity. I want to work out the minimum cast size required, that the House might have its own little production this long vacation.
There are perhaps ten or twelve who would participate, and I count on you, Midge, for a few lines.
John here has already agreed to play Peter Quince. ” (Indicating Tilson.)
Scowling, Midgecomb wavered. When he and his friends had been undergraduates, the junior common room often got up delightful spectacles, complete with song, dance, and spoken pieces, and even Romeo and Juliet one year, to the amusement of all.
But Midge had assumed that once they became dons of Christ Church they must put their frolicsome days behind them.
Would Jackson the dean approve of a production by the senior common room?
“I’m not fit for much at present,” he grumbled, but in a tone which hinted that he could be persuaded.
“Now, now. Suppose I promised you never to steal your Miss Eveleigh, even if she begged me, fasting?” coaxed Hearne. “Then would you play Oberon? He is perfect for your dour demeanor and your noble blade of a nose.”
Midge brightened. “Would you make me such a promise, Adam? Word of honor?”
“What other sort of word is there, among gentlemen?” asked Hearne dryly.
“But yes—should the need arise, I will not only refrain from pursuing her, but I will go so far as to repel her by any means necessary. As I have said a thousand times, including one minute ago, I haven’t the least wish in the world to marry. Now what do you say?”
“I say I will do my part, then,” announced Midge, greatly comforted. “And at least you do not ask me to play Titania.”
“Titania? Nonsense. What did I just say about your blade of a nose? The fairy queen will doubtless be Pendergast, with his lovely locks and delicate frame. Now hush and let me finish this.”
It fell out to Miles Midgecomb that his next two encounters with the celestial Miss Eveleigh took place without Hearne present, but the results were mixed.
When he passed her and her companion walking in the opposite direction at the Carfax, she returned his bow, half smiling.
(His spirits soared!) But when he attended another of her father’s lectures on temperance, approaching her where she stood beside her parents afterward, Miss Eveleigh looked straight through him, not even appearing to recognize him. (Despair!)
But it was the third meeting which sealed his fate, for on that occasion Midgecomb, flanked by Hearne and Tilson, emerged from a coffee house one showery afternoon in May to find a trio of three women admiring merchandise in a shop window across the High Street.
“Great thunder!” gasped Midge, hand to his breast. “It is Miss Eveleigh and her mother!” (It was not that he did not notice the third lady’s presence, but, as at the Carfax, she failed to make an impression, eclipsed as she was by the Greater Light.) “Should I accost them?”
“Better not,” said Adam, “if you’re going to gulp and gawp like that.”
“But I must speak with her,” Midge gulped and gawped. “It is not every day I have the opportunity. You two hang back, however. Or at least Adam must.”
“That’s right,” said Tilson. “Can’t have Hearne muddying the matrimonial waters. Oop! Too late. I think we have been seen. You can’t fling us off now.”
“Of all the confounded luck!” Midge groaned, even as he raised a hand in greeting and pinned a smile to his face. “Come along then, the both of you. But Adam, I adjure you: remember your solemn vow!”
Mrs. Eveleigh drew herself up at their approach, her demeanor calm. Her daughter’s face, through imitation or indifference, was equally serene, but the third lady fidgeted and suppressed a giggle.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Evey—er—Eveleigh, rather, and Miss E. That is, Miss Eveleigh,” stammered Midge, making his bow. “What a pleasure. I hope I find you in good health.”
“You do, sir,” answered the mother.