An Advancement of Learning

‘Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,’ he began quietly, ‘my client has been following a bipartite course at the College and the main ground of the Academic Board’s decision to instruct her to withdraw was failure in one part of the course, that concerned with biology. The main evidence to this effect was given by Dr Fallowfield, Senior Lecturer in that subject and Miss Sewell’s principal tutor.’

The girl stirred slightly at the name and with an almost unconscious movement of her left hand brushed the hair back from her face. She was very attractive.

Pearl paused for effect. Captain Jessup made a moue of distaste at even this slight bit of dramatic business and Pearl was glad he had tried no more.

‘Today her appeal comes before you,’ he went on flatly, avoiding any undue stress, ‘and it is based on two things. A piece of information and an allegation. The information requires no comment from this body, I feel. We live in a modern era. It is this: for the past two years, until last term in fact, Miss Sewell was the mistress of Dr Fallowfield, the lecturer I have just mentioned. It is with reluctance that my client reveals this. It is with greater reluctance that she asserts that Dr Fallowfield has deliberately falsified her assessment grades to bring about her apparent failure.’

The man on the ladder rested his elbow unselfconsciously on the shining brown breast.

‘We could saw her off at the ankles,’ he said reasonably. ‘That’d be easiest. Otherwise she’s likely to come apart almost anywhere.’

One of his mates guffawed. The man on the ladder shot him a disapproving glance.

Marion Cargo ignored him and concentrated all her attention on the eight-foot-high bronze nude which towered before her. She (Marion, not the bronze) was in her late twenties, as slim as the nude was Rubenesque, dressed in black slacks and a loose grey sweater, her only concession to the fact that she lectured in Art at the college being her ear-rings, two crystals dangling at the end of long silver chains.

‘There’s a solid block of concrete down there as a foundation, you see, miss,’ explained the man. ‘This thing’s set in it. Pretty solid too, I’d say, otherwise it’d have keeled over long since.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Marion. ‘But I’d rather the legs weren’t cut.’

‘No one’d know,’ assured the man. ‘We’ll dig the base out separate and they can be stuck back together later somehow if the thing’s not going for scrap. She might lose half an inch or so, but she can spare it, eh?’

He slapped the nude affectionately.

‘Like I say, who’d notice? No one, except the joker who made it, perhaps, wherever he is.’

He laughed.

‘That was me,’ said Marion calmly. ‘But it’s not just that. We’ll have to think of a way. I don’t want her cut. There are other reasons.’

She bent down and looked at the inscribed plaque set into the shallow platform on which the statue rested.

TO THE MEMORY OF

ALISON GIRLING

1916–1966

Her memorial is around you.

She was conscious of the overalled men regarding her with semi-amused eyes, but she made no attempt to brush the tears from her eyes before standing upright again.

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t want her cut. There must be a way.’

Chapter 2 (#ulink_ce687054-bdd6-51a8-8b14-c5c33a190b8b)

There is yet another fault often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage.

SIR FRANCIS BACON

Op. Cit.

Conversation stopped for a moment when Fallowfield came into the Common Room. He moved swiftly to the coffee-table and waited till Miss Disney had poured herself a cup. A smile played around his lips as she replaced the coffee-pot firmly on the table and moved away without a glance at him.

He poured a cup and made a bit of business out of taking a couple of sips while he surveyed the constitution of the various groups scattered around the room.

Grouping tended to be by departments for morning coffee. The geographers sat huddled together as though plotting some government’s overthrow. The English Department lay back easily in their chairs, not speaking, but with faint smiles on their faces as though someone had said, or was just about to say, something elegantly witty. Three mathematicians looked gloomily at each other like unwilling companions on a long train journey. At the far end of the room, the historians were quarrelling again, just before the stage where objective social discussion became personal infighting. Henry Saltecombe, their departmental head, almost recumbent in the deep armchair which was his own, surveyed them benignly over his swelling paunch. Glancing round, he caught Fallowfield’s eye and made a pouring motion with his hand.

Fallowfield picked up the coffee-pot and went across to join him.

‘Hello, Sam,’ said Henry cordially. ‘Pour us a cup, there’s a love. You’re a silly fellow to be here when you could still be pigging it in bed.’

‘There are things to do,’ said Fallowfield non-committally. He sat down and refilled his own coffee-cup.

‘Anyway,’ he added, melting a little to Henry’s cordiality, ‘it’s a rare experience to be able to feel like Lord Byron after the scandal. Though nobody actually got up and left!’

‘Not quite,’ muttered Arthur Halfdane, one of the young historians at the table, jerking his head so that his long hair tossed like a girl’s.

Fallowfield followed his gesture and saw the slight angular figure of Jane Scotby, the Senior Tutor, wriggle out from under the menacing overhangs and promontories of Edith Disney and move across the room towards him.

‘Mr Fallowfield,’ she said in her high precise voice. ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you?’

Fallowfield stared thoughtfully into her small brown wrinkled face whose bright blue eyes stared back as unflinchingly at his round, rather solemn features.

‘Of course, Miss Scotby,’ he said. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

‘I would prefer that we were private,’ she said.

‘I find that hard at the moment,’ said Fallowfield equably.

‘Very well,’ said Miss Scotby. ‘It has been suggested to me …’

‘By Miss Disney?’

‘… that your suspension from duty makes it improper for you to be present in the Senior Common Room or indeed in the College.’

‘This is outrageous,’ spluttered Henry. The younger historians, constitutionalists to a man, sat forward in their chairs, eager to offer an opinion at the drop of an amendment.

‘I am unable to pronounce authoritatively on the legality of this,’ Miss Scotby went on inexorably, ‘but on other grounds I can see good reason why it might be better if you weren’t here.’

She halted, just a little breathless. Fallowfield suspected that beneath the brown parchment skin a flush might be struggling to break out.

‘Miss Scotby,’ he said kindly, ‘I have merely been temporarily suspended from my teaching duties here. I certainly do not intend trying to teach anything except perhaps a few lessons in corporate feeling and loyalty.’

He raised his voice slightly and glanced round the room.

‘I am suspended. I haven’t caught leprosy. So I won’t wear a bell. And I shall continue to use this room as of right until I am shown why in law I should not.’

‘And if that happens, you shall be my guest,’ added Henry Saltecombe, his jowls shaking in emphasis.