Chapter Nine 1892 #3
He was working his way through past papers of the final examination, which he would sit for real in one month’s time.
There was none of the panic and anxiety of the early days any more.
He knew he would pass; in fact, he knew he’d take a first. But he wanted the ten-pound prize for Classics, and possibly the one for Hellenistic Greek as well, since they’d be the last of all the exhibitions he might win.
He sometimes worried that studying had become less about knowledge and more about winning. But then again, so what if it had?
At a quarter to twelve he shrugged on his gown – black, with a white-lined hood – clapped his mortarboard on to his head and legged it along the North Bailey towards Elvet Bridge.
The only time that academic dress was not required of students was during the afternoon, and off university or church premises.
But the afternoon didn’t start until one o’clock, and it ended again at dusk, so Toby hardly ever risked it.
Since the near disaster on the castle roof, he’d stuck tight to the rules he’d promised to obey at matriculation.
He was only allowing himself to go to an inn that day because Womersley’s parents were staying there, and because he’d got written permission from the censor.
That was the real him, he told himself: the one who studied, and won prizes; who kept to the rules and didn’t smuggle wine or sherry into his room, or fool about with the local girls.
The part of him that needed to hit things – to hit people – was an aberration.
Something to be crushed. He was older now – a man – and determined to crush it.
The Dun Cow was on Old Elvet, a wide street of Georgian houses across the river. Toby arrived, out of breath but on time, just as Tom Womersley came out to look for him – wearing a jaunty blue waistcoat rather than his gown.
‘Nick of time, Meriwether,’ he said with a smile, pocketing his watch as the church bells began to strike noon.
‘When have I ever been late?’
‘Ha! Come on – everyone’s already in.’
‘Everyone?’
Womersley only raised his eyebrows in reply, so Toby guessed who’d come to join them.
They wound their way through the fuggy warmth to the table where Tom’s parents were waiting.
Mr Womersley, with greying whiskers and lively eyes beneath heavy black brows, and Mrs Womersley, dumpling-shaped, cheery and vague.
And, as Toby had expected, there with them was Tom’s sister, Lily.
Had he merely expected, or had he hoped?
It was hard to say. Her parents were good people, and Toby valued Tom’s friendship more than anything.
Instinct told him the situation was delicate.
Lily wore her fair hair parted in the middle and smoothed into a shiny knot at the back of her head. She had dark-brown eyes in a heart-shaped face, and an ironical tilt to her lips. Everything about her was soft and gently rounded.
‘On the stroke of noon, naturally,’ Tom said, as they sat down.
‘Mr Womersley, Mrs Womersley,’ Toby said. ‘How do you do? And Miss Womersley. What a pleasant surprise.’
He shook her hand, and she gripped his firmly.
‘Am I a pleasant surprise? Well, that is good,’ she said, gently mocking, as she often was.
Lily was also a student at the university, in the first year of a degree in Physical Sciences.
The Womersleys were local. They had a large house near Bishop’s Auckland, and during term time Lily boarded with several of Durham’s thirty female students in private lodgings with a beady-eyed landlady.
Of course, they won’t actually award me a degree, she’d told Toby when they first met.
Apparently, my aptitude for the subject is too amply concealed by my skirt.
‘Of course you are,’ Toby said, his attempt at gallantry spoiled by having to look down and fiddle with his gown as he said it.
‘Wearing the colours with pride, I see,’ she said.
‘For the next hour, at least,’ Toby said. ‘We aren’t all as dash-it-all as your brother.’
‘What will you do after graduation, without all these rules to follow? Perhaps you’ll fly apart.’
Mrs Womersley tapped her daughter’s hand. ‘Don’t tease poor Toby. I think it’s commendable, the way you keep to the letter of the law,’ she told him.
‘Men do so love a law,’ Lily said.
‘Lily,’ Mr Womersley said, ‘shall we at least raise a glass to the boys, before we descend into political debate?’
‘Oh, very well, Father.’ Lily waved her hand, suppressing a smile.
Mr Womersley poured Toby a glass of wine, then raised his own.
‘To Toby and Tom. Two finer young men I have never known, about to be launched upon the world. We wish you every good fortune. May the wind be ever in your sails . . .’
‘May barnacles never grow upon your—’
‘Lily!’ Mrs Womersley cried. She leaned towards her son, eyes shining. ‘We’re so very proud of you, Tom.’
‘And you, Toby – isn’t it your birthday in a couple of weeks?’ Mr Womersley asked. ‘Will your parents be travelling up to see you?’
Tom shot a glance at Toby. He was still the only person who knew about Toby’s family.
Revisiting that time – even now, three years on – only fanned the flames of Toby’s anger, a feeling so corrosive he thought it best to smother it.
Tom hadn’t mentioned it at all since Toby’s drunken confession, and Toby had no fear that the story would go any further – the look Tom had given him now, at the mention of his parents visiting, was the most indiscreet he’d ever been.
‘It’s difficult for them to travel this far,’ Toby said. ‘My father has a crippled leg – an old war wound, from the Crimea.’
‘Oh, the poor, brave man!’ Mrs Womersley said.
‘A long journey by train would not suit him.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘But I shall travel to visit them after the exams.’
‘Now, you cannot spend your twenty-first birthday at your books!’
‘It’s just another day, when you think about it,’ Toby said. ‘Just another birthday.’
The Womersleys exchanged a look.
‘Then that’s settled,’ Mrs Womersley said. ‘You will come to us at Fairton Hall, all three of you – and anyone else you care to invite. We’ll play tennis, and charades, and eat too much and have a simply splendid time.’
‘Really, you’re too kind. I couldn’t possibly impose—’
‘Better not argue, Mr Meriwether,’ Lily said. ‘There’s no point. Mama will not be put off if there’s the chance of a party.’
‘I won’t, you know,’ her mother agreed.
‘There. That’s settled.’ Mr Womersley topped up their glasses. ‘Be sure to get permission to be out overnight, the pair of you. And if it transpires, after all, that your parents feel equal to the journey, then the more the merrier.’
After lunch they strolled along the river, and Toby tried not to chafe to get back to his revision.
Tom walked ahead, with his mother on his arm, leaving Toby and Lily to follow behind, keeping a seemly twelve inches between them.
Sunlight came dappled through the trees above.
Lily stopped by the weir, where two skinny boys were fishing with home-made rods.
‘What do you hope to catch?’ she called to them, and they turned to squint at her.
‘Trout, miss,’ one said. ‘Salmon if oo’r luck’s in.’
‘Salmon? Goodness me!’
There followed a brief discussion on the sizes of fish, and when they walked on Toby wondered if Lily had engineered the conversation to allow the gap between them and her family to widen. She smiled at him, unabashed.
‘We should go out in a punt one day. You could pole me about while I drape myself over the seat in a diaphanous dress, reading a novel.’
Toby wasn’t sure how to reply.
‘I saw a punt go over the weir last year,’ he said. ‘The current took it. There was a lot of yelping, and several ruined hats.’
‘Well, we’ll wait until summer, then, when the river’s low.’ She sounded faintly exasperated. ‘It’d be more restful than rowing by yourself like a metronome, as you normally do. And a lot more sociable.’
‘Sculling,’ Toby corrected her, with a smile.
‘All right, sculling.’ She sighed. ‘Why don’t you row for the university? Tom says you’re very good.’
‘I did for a while. But I just . . . like doing it. I’m not bothered about winning.’
‘That’s not what I hear.’
‘Well, I’m not bothered about winning at sculling, in any case,’ he conceded. ‘I find it . . . very soothing.’
He didn’t want to say too much about it; didn’t want her to ask what inner commotion he needed to soothe.
‘It’s a pity your parents can’t come up for your birthday,’ she said. ‘But we’ll have fun at Fairton, I promise. My mother will spoil you rotten – she adores having guests.’
‘She’s very kind. They both are.’
‘I wonder . . . do you not get along with your family, Mr Meriwether?’ Lily asked.
Toby kept his eyes to the front. The dry mud of the path; a pair of magpies tearing up tufts of moss.
‘I love them very much, in fact,’ he said, as neutrally as he could.
‘Are you their only child?’
‘No. That is, yes. I had a brother. We . . . lost him.’
Lily laid her fingers on his arm for a moment. ‘I’m so very sorry. Forgive me.’
‘For what?’
‘When Father asked about them, during lunch, I thought I sensed some difficulty about the subject . . .’
She trailed off, but there was nothing he wanted to say about it; not then, not there, and not to her.
But she wasn’t embarrassed by his reaction; like her brother, she had no social diffidence, and there was nothing scheming about her.
She only wanted to know him better, and he felt bad for being cagey.
They’d reached Prebends Bridge, a stately trio of half-moon arches spanning the river, wide enough for carriages to use. Toby turned on to it.
‘Come on,’ he said, when Lily hesitated.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Just to the middle,’ he said. ‘There was a footbridge here before, did you know? Very old. It was washed away in a flood in 1771, and this one was built to replace it, but further upstream than before, so there’d be a better view of the cathedral.’
‘Is that true?’