Old_Love

The Principal and the Bursar stood waiting by the side of their illustrious academic colleague but they already knew what the doctor was going to say.

“She’s dead,” he confirmed. “It must have been very sudden and with the minimum of pain.” He checked his watch; the time was nine-forty-seven.

He covered his patient with a blanket and called for an ambulance. He had taken care of Dame Philippa for over thirty years and he had told her so often to slow down that he might as well have made a gramophone record of it for all the notice she took.

“Who will tell Sir William?” asked the Principal. The three of them looked at each other.

“I will,” said the doctor.

It’s a short walk from Little Jericho to Radcliffe Square. It was a long walk from Little Jericho to Radcliffe Square for the doctor that day. He never relished telling anyone of the death of a spouse but this one was going to be the unhappiest of his career.

When he knocked on the professor’s door, Sir William bade him enter. The great man was sitting at his desk poring over the Oxford Dictionary, humming to himself.

“I told her, but she wouldn’t listen, the silly woman,” he was saying to himself and then he turned and saw the doctor standing silently in the doorway.

“Doctor, you must be my guest at Somerville’s Gaudy

next Thursday week where Dame Philippa will be eating humble pie. It will be nothing less than game, set, match and championship for me. A vindication of thirty years’ scholarship.”

The doctor did not smile, nor did he stir. Sir William walked over to him and gazed at his old friend intently. No words were necessary. The doctor said only, “I’m more sorry than I am able to express,” and he left Sir William to his private grief.

Sir William’s colleagues all knew within the hour. College lunch that day was spent in a silence broken only by the Senior Tutor inquiring of the M aster if some food should be taken up to the M erton professor.

“I think not,” said the M aster. Nothing more was said.

Professors, Fellows and students alike crossed the front quadrangle in silence and when they gathered for dinner that evening still no one felt like conversation. At the end of the meal the Senior Tutor suggested once again that something should be taken up to Sir William. This time the M aster nodded his agreement and a light meal was prepared by the college chef. The M aster and the Senior Tutor climbed the worn stone steps to Sir William’s room and while one held the tray the other gently knocked on the door. There was no reply, so the M aster, used to William’s ways, pushed the door ajar and looked in.

The old man lay motionless on the wooden floor in a pool of blood, a small pistol by his side. The two men walked in and stared down. In his right hand, William was holding the Collected Works of John Skelton. The book was opened at The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng, and the word “whym-wham” was

underlined.

“... After the Sarasyns gyse, With a whym wham, Knyt with a trym tram, Vpon her brayne pan,..”

Sir William, in his neat hand, had written a note in the margin: “Forgive me, but I had to let her know.”

“Know what, I wonder?” said the M aster softly to himself as he attempted to remove the book from Sir William’s hand, but the fingers were already stiff and cold around it.

Legend has it that they were never apart for more than a few hours.

The End