Chapter Two
Sidney Braithwaite had suffered his fair share of hangovers over a toilet bowl, but never with a plunger in hand.
He blinked at the mass of loo roll swirling inside the porcelain and willed his stomach not to worsen the situation.
He knew better than to drink with his brother till the wee hours, but Felix got under his skin as no one else could.
Five years ago, you could drink me under the table, Sid. Has Oxford softened thee that much?
But five years ago, Sidney had been easing back into life after the war, and liquor kept him from wallowing in memories.
Now he avoided the stuff as much as possible, and lapsing with Felix reminded him why.
Forgetting his cares for a little while was never worth the next morning’s price.
And now he had a clogged toilet to compound his penance.
Gingerly, Sidney inserted the plunger and gave it a half-hearted shove, but the slosh of fetid water made his stomach heave in unison.
He straightened and leaned against the wall, turning his clammy forehead into his shoulder.
Other custodial jobs assigned to him around Swithun College had been easy enough: tighten a doorknob, replace a window latch, empty some bins.
He should have known an evening call for help would only bring misery.
There was a dull pounding on the door. “Are you done yet?”
Sidney’s stomach gave a decisive lurch in the affirmative, and he opened the door. “You need a proper plumber.”
A red-faced young waiter in stiff black glared up at him. “I’ve got a full house about to swarm out of the debate hall. There must be something you can do.”
Sidney drew the dripping plunger out of the bowl, offering the handle, and the man leaped back. “I can call you that plumber.”
The waiter retreated, huffing under his breath, and Sidney closed the door.
He turned to the sink, scrubbing his hands until the skin tingled, and splashed water on his face.
Sidney grimaced at his reflection. He felt too tired to be only twenty-six, especially compared to Felix, who’d hummed all evening with energy about his new job in London at BBC Radio.
He was glad his brother had been too young to fight, that combat hadn’t scraped away his enthusiasm for life.
But Felix’s loquacious ease sometimes cast Sidney’s shortcomings in sharp relief.
When his stomach again protested the stench, Sidney dried his face on his sleeve and exited, locking the door behind him.
Rising voices from the debate hall signaled the event’s end, and he strode quickly down the corridor to reach the exit before they swarmed upon him.
In his haste, he nearly bowled over an elderly gentleman who veered down the hall with equal urgency.
“Sorry,” Sidney said, catching the man’s elbows to steady them both. “The WC is out of order.”
The man clicked his tongue. “Pity.” He looked over his shoulder at the crowd spilling into the reception hall, then scrutinized Sidney. “You’re a nice, tall lad. Would you stand there for a moment?”
Without waiting for an answer, he stepped around Sidney and stood in his shadow, staring at the wall of distinguished Swithun graduates’ portraits opposite.
“Are you hiding from someone?” Sidney asked, bemused.
“You’d be surprised how touchy some people become after you reprimand them in a library.” The man smiled, his expression so mild it was hard to imagine anyone resenting him. “Braithwaite, isn’t it? Classics?” He tipped his hat. “Tolliver, inquiry desk at the Old Bod.”
The kindly face came into focus in Sidney’s memory. “You helped me find that misplaced Loeb of Caesar’s The Gallic War last term.”
“First-years are dreadfully careless.” Mr. Tolliver rose on tiptoe, peeking over Sidney’s shoulder, and dropped back down. “As are librarians sometimes, I’m afraid.” He cast another appraising glance at Sidney. “Are you a postgraduate student?”
“Undergraduate. I started two years ago but took a year off. Only just returned.” Packing up his parents’ lives in Cumberland had taken so much longer than Sidney had anticipated, and masking his eagerness to return to Oxford had been difficult.
His mother meant well, she really did, but the hovering and clucking had made the year back home as strained as a taut washing line.
Mr. Tolliver patted Sidney’s shoulder. “No shame in that, my boy. The war upended everyone’s lives. I find older students balance the frivolity of some of our younger gentlemen—”
“There you are, Mr. Tolliver.” The same waiter who’d dodged Sidney’s offer of the plunger came down the hall. “I think this is yours.” He held out a round silver box with initials engraved in the top.
Mr. Tolliver startled, patting at his pockets in disbelief. “Good heavens, I didn’t realize it had slipped out. Thank you, lad.”
“Of course, Mr. T.” The young man leaned warily away from Sidney as though afraid of contamination and retreated toward the reception hall. “I’d best be going.”
“As should I.” Mr. Tolliver sighed and flipped up the small box’s lid.
Politely, he first extended the grayish-brown snuff to Sidney, who declined, then took a delicate pinch in each nostril.
Sidney had been surprised by the enduring popularity of snuff at the university, for he associated it with the coal miners at home who couldn’t smoke on the job.
His father kept it in a little bottle in his shirt pocket for easy access, nothing so fine as Tolliver’s silver case.
The old man returned the snuffbox to his coat and clasped Sidney’s forearm. “I suppose I can’t hide behind you all night, lad. But you’ve done me a great service, and I thank you.”
At a brisk clip, Mr. Tolliver strode into the great hall, beelining through the crowd toward the opposite side of the room, and soon disappeared from view.
Sidney, however, followed at a more reluctant pace, for his path toward the exit was now hampered.
Dons and students milled about the room, all shiny and polished and dressed in respectable academic attire.
Sidney, on the other hand, was hungover, half-damp, and still wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothes.
He wished to pull the greatest disappearing act since Houdini and rematerialize beyond the building’s four walls.
It was a doomed wish from the moment he slunk into the room.
“Sid!” Harold Webb’s shout floated above the chatter as he squeezed through the crowd. He stopped before Sidney and mopped his brow on his sleeve, his dark hair gleaming with pomade and perspiration. “I thought you told me you couldn’t make it, old boy. What’s coaxed the bear from its den?”
Sidney tried to peel backward before Harold caught any whiff of the toilet about him. “Even bears get restless sometimes.”
“Well, I heard you impressed Foster today. We should celebrate.” Harold leaned closer for an exaggerated sniff and laughed. “Though you smell as if you have been celebrating.”
Sidney forced a smile, fervently hoping the late night with Felix was the only aroma Harold detected.
“Foster was fine.” In truth, Sidney’s response to his tutor’s grilling questions was nothing short of miraculous considering he’d bolted there straight from the bench where he slept rather than crawl over Swithun’s walls.
Afterward, he’d fallen into bed until someone had roused him with the desperate bursar’s phone call about the loo.
“No need to be modest,” Harold said. “I’m glad someone showed up that old windbag.
He told me I was going to be sent down if I didn’t put in a modicum of effort next term, and I told him that sounded like a jolly vacation after what he’s put me through.
I thought he was going to obliterate me on the spot. ”
Sidney made a sympathetic grunt, but the truth was Harold’s father was the most lucrative biscuit manufacturer in Great Britain and gifted library wings like fruitcakes.
Harold stood no danger of being sent down.
A coal miner’s son on an ex-serviceman’s grant, however, wasn’t shown the same lenience.
Sidney eased a few steps back, hands in his pockets as he pretended to stifle a yawn. “Foster wore me out more than I realized. I think I’ll turn in early.”
“I should probably emulate your responsible nature—” Harold gasped, grabbing Sidney’s arm. “Good God, there’s Don Craddock. I’ve been angling for an invitation into the Damocles Club all year. Do you think I should go over? Is that bad form?”
The Damocles Club was one of Oxford’s many drinking societies—fashionable, exclusive clubs for those with the right connections and thick pocketbooks. While some put their social clout to work for charity, others favored fashionable notoriety. Damocles was firmly in the second camp.
Sidney’s jaw tightened. Personally, he thought the Damocles Club was better off disbanded, but such groups meant a lot to some people. “I don’t think it matters much either way.”
“Oh, hell it does!” Harold insisted. “Look, you’re loads better at reading people than I am. Tell me what I am to do.”
Observational skills had served Sidney well on the front when he had been asked to discreetly dispatch messages or observe enemy troop movement disguised as a civilian.
But it didn’t require much prowess to take the measure of Craddock.
He was a towering, spare fellow who resembled a blond giraffe.
Sidney had heard rumblings at every pub in town over the unpaid tabs that followed the young lord and his cronies, as well as the collection of hapless spendthrifts who wanted into the club.
If Damocles’s leadership was interested in Harold, it was no doubt because of his family’s money.
Sidney grunted. “I think you leave him be. Don’t be too keen…”