Part 3 (2/2)

'Opposite from where?' Annie said, pouting.

'Well, from here, of course.'

'But in which direction?'

'You ask a lot of questions for one who is only four and a half foot high,' I said. 'I've half a mind to make you sit down and answer an examination paper on all the questions you don't know the answer to, while Daisy and I go a-walking on our own.'

'But I won't know the answers!' She looked alarmed.

'Ah,' I said. 'Maybe there are no answers. I find there are far more questions in the world than answers, don't you think? Otherwise school wouldn't be the bother it is.'

They both laughed, and Annie being thus satisfied, we set off in good spirits as the clock in the tower chimed three.

'Do you teach all the young gentlemen in the college?' asked Daisy, eyeing a group of undergraduates who were reading on the gra.s.s and looked up as we trod by in our threesome.

'By no means. It is hard enough to teach the ones I do. They are so very deaf.'

'Oh, poor things!' cried Daisy, instantly sympathetic. 'But how can they learn when they are deaf?'

'With difficulty,' I said. 'When I ask a question, I often have to ask it twice. But that may be on account of the distance.'

She looked up. 'The distance?'

'Well, they will insist on taking their lessons on the kitchen staircase, and I have to call out my questions aloud from my room and Benson has to scurry down and pa.s.s them on, and due to his imperfect knowledge of mathematics and their imperfect hearing, equation becomes ”evasion”, and theorem becomes ”peer at 'em” and we have to start all over again.'

'Is that really true?' asked Daisy with a sideways look.

'Well, not altogether,' I answered. 'I made up the bit about Benson. And the students are not actually deaf.'

She laughed. And my heart s.h.i.+vered into many delicious pieces.

We left the college buildings and set off across the Meadow. As we walked along the path I was able to point out various b.u.t.terflies and day-flying moths, and give them their proper Latin names, which the little girls attempted to learn by heart. Once by the river there was quite a congestion of rowing boats and punts and even the odd hopeful fisherman. 'We might see people catching crabs later,' I said.

'Oh, you don't get crabs in the Cherwell,' said Annie confidently. 'You only get them at the seaside.'

'That's what you think,' I said. 'I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't half a dozen people catching crabs at this very moment, down by Folly Bridge.'

'It means when you miss your stroke, doesn't it?' said Daisy. 'And wave your oar around in the air? That's what Papa says.'

'And your papa knows everything about rowing that there is to know,' I said. 'So you are right, Daisy.' At which she blushed and looked pleased.

And I was pleased too, to be walking along with two such pretty children, as if I were their father or, even better, their uncle. We chattered away about this and that, and picked up the b.a.l.l.s that rowdy schoolboys let run towards us, and answered innumerable requests for the 'right time' from all manner of people who only have to see that you have a watch about your person to think that you are obliged to keep them informed about the progress of the planet. However, the little girls were only too delighted to take out my pocket watch and read the hour and minute hands on my behalf, and supply the questioners with their answers. There were a number of people I knew by sight to whom I tipped my hat, and who acknowledged me similarly before pa.s.sing on. However, one person hove into view whom I did not wish to encounter. It was Smith-Jephcott, strolling about in that purposeless way of his. I attempted to usher the girls off the path in an effort to evade him, but when he saw us, he came over. 'Ah,' he said, doffing his hat. 'Two of your little fairies, I believe? Won't you introduce me?'

And I was obliged to do so, even though I was very loath. When I said Daisy's full name, he raised his eyebrows and said, 'Any relation to Daniel Baxter, the renowned Christian Athlete of St Cyprian's?'

'Her father,' I said shortly.

'Indeed? And so the charming lady in the picture was her mother?'

'Mr Jameson photographed us all,' added Daisy, with a sweet eagerness to impart information that I could have dispensed with on that occasion.

He bent towards her. 'And I was privileged to have, as it were, an advance view of the pictures. They were very good. Very good. What a lovely family you all are.' Then he raised himself and addressed me sotto voce: 'I had no idea when you showed me the pictures that it was Baxter's family you were so intimate with.'

'I a.s.sume you don't know him, then?'

'Only by reputation. But that's enough.' He laughed unpleasantly. 'But look here, Jameson, why don't we all have tea together? I was just about to turn back, and could do with a little livening up.'

'No,' I said. 'I have other plans.'

'You? What plans?' He laughed again. 'Are you going to introduce them to Dinah and play slapjack around the table for half an hour?'

'What's that to you?' I replied, incensed.

'Nothing at all. I just thought these two young ladies might rather see the musical box I have just purchased. It has a singing bird.'

'Oh, may we, please?' said Annie, her wide face made even wider with pleasure.

Daisy looked at me, and I think she could see the consternation on my face. But at the same time she was eager to see the toy. 'May we?' she asked quietly. 'Just for five minutes?'

'There you are!' said Smith-Jephcott. 'And while you are looking at it, I'll get Benson to give us tea.'

'But I have tea arranged in my own room. I have already p-purchased walnut cake,' I faltered, my tongue tight in my mouth.

'Then bring it down! I have some Bourbon biscuits, and Benson can see to the teapot and the bread-and-b.u.t.ter. The girls can know what it's like to have proper college hospitality!'

I looked at their s.h.i.+ning eyes: Annie's bright and bold, Daisy's softer but no less eager. I could not deny them. 'Very well,' I said. But I was terribly put out by this alteration to my plan.

Daisy must have sensed my disappointment because she reached out her little hand and touched me on the arm. It was as if her touch had melted right through the black worsted, and I could feel her fingers on my very flesh. 'Do you mind very much, Mr Jameson?' she said.

At that moment I loved her so much for her kindness and sympathy that I almost felt grat.i.tude to Smith-Jephcott for being the cause of it. 'Not if it makes you happy,' I replied, daring to squeeze her gloved fingers.

And so we repaired back to college and Benson was obliged to bring down to Smith-Jephcott's rooms the walnut cake and the bread-and-b.u.t.ter that he had already laid out upstairs. Smith-Jephcott, in spite of his boast, made no attempt to provide proper hospitality, or even a table, and put the plates down w.i.l.l.y-nilly all over his desk and sideboard, mingling the cake with his bottles of port wine and muddling the bread-and-b.u.t.ter with his books.

The girls, meanwhile, were enchanted by the musical box, and in between forays to the cake and tea, they wound the handle over and over again while the bird moved back and forth and opened and shut its beak in time to the fluting music. Smith-Jephcott told them he had bought it for one of his nieces, who was ten years old in a week's time. Annie said how lucky that little girl was and expressed the wish that she could have one like it. 'Did you buy it in the High?' she asked.

'I got it in the Burlington Arcade. Do you know it?'

They both shook their heads.

'Ah, maybe you are not acquainted with London?'

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