They all pondered this for a moment.
‘How much of it do you propose doing? Some of these went on for hours, even days,’ objected Agatha WoodTurner.
‘About an hour would suffice, I think,’ replied Harry. ‘Just to show people that even five years of war can’t abolish academic scholarship.’
‘And to impress the Dean of the Faculty with his genius!’ murmured Peter Partridge under his breath.
The pages that Drabble had copied out from the journal in Oxford were passed around and after a quick scan, no one could think of any valid objection, if the boss was really set on this idea. The Open Day was an annual event as inescapable as Christmas, and something had to fill in the time to divert the few dozen people who felt obliged to attend. A discussion developed and, with it, mild enthusiasm for the project.
‘It looks as if three of these short sections would fill the hour,’ suggested Agatha. “The Creation”, “The Fall of Lucifer” and “Cain and Abel” seem most suitable.’
‘Great!’ said Loftus with relief. ‘That means I don’t have to make another damned Ark.’
Hieronymus leaned back in his chair, put his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll get this typed up and make half a dozen stencilled copies for you all. We can get some of the post-graduate students to help with scenery and take a few of the parts.’
‘Where are we going to do it?’ asked Maltravers. ‘Not on the back of a cart again, I hope.’
The last attempt at medieval authenticity several years earlier had been a disaster due to a sudden thunderstorm soaking the outdoor audience, making them run for cover just as Noah had announced the start of the Deluge.
There was a discussion about the best venue and eventually all agreed that the Large Lecture Theatre would be most suitable. Though as with the SCR, the title suggested serried ranks of polished benches climbing a curved auditorium, it was actually a First World War military hut that had been erected in 1917 when Waverley House had been commandeered on a previous occasion. A rectangular wooden structure similar to a small parish hall, it stood in the yard at the back of the main college building, whose red brick formed a U-shaped embrace around the hut. It had a raised platform at one end, ten rows of chairs and very little else.
‘Who’s going to organise the casting?’ asked Blanche Fitzwilliam.
With no sign of embarrassment, Hieronymus produced a sheet of paper. ‘I took the liberty of drawing up the dramatis personae. I thought Mr Partridge, being in the prime of life, could play Adam, and also portray Cain, alongside Doctor Maltravers as Abel.’
‘So who will be Eve?’ demanded Agatha, clipping on her pince-nez to glare at Drabble.
‘Perhaps Miss Ullswater would oblige,’ said Drabble in his most oily voice. ‘It would be more consistent with the age of Adam.’
‘And who’s going to be God?’ wondered Peter aloud, silently adding, As if I didn’t know!
‘I think that part would best suit me,’ said Hieronymus brazenly. After some more wrangling, they agreed that Agatha Wood-Turner, Christina and Blanche would make suitable angels.
Hieronymus made some notes on a pad as they went on with their plans.
‘Dr Maltravers, would you dragoon a few senior students to fill the other roles? We need the Devil, the Serpent and few extras to stand around and look either sinister or beatific.’
Loftus also grudgingly agreed to knock together some simple scenery, pointing out that the materials were almost impossible to obtain in these hard times. The meeting broke up after half an hour and the members drifted away. Peter Partridge and Maltravers went back to the Common Room to put the kettle on, and by the time they had brewed another pot and started an argument about Christopher Marlowe’s death, Christina had arrived.
As they sat drinking their rationed tea, she handed them each a chocolate biscuit, with ‘US Army’ printed on the wrapper. The blonde offered no explanation, but the treat was accepted graciously. But she did have something to say about the meeting they had just left.
‘I’m sure I’ve read something about this play somewhere, not all that long ago.’
‘Harry said it was in the Q. J. Hist,’ said Peter. ‘We all read that; perhaps what you saw was in there?’
She shook her golden curls. ‘I’ve never looked at any issues from half a century ago. He said it was in the 1890s. No, I’ve read a much shorter piece somewhere else. I think it was a commentary on medieval writings that had some stigma attached. I’m sure there was a reference to The Play of Adam. The name stuck in my memory.’
Loftus shrugged. ‘As Blanche said, half our library was destroyed, so it would be a devil of a job to follow that up.’
Christina agreed. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway, but I was just curious. Next time I go up to town, I’ll call in at the London Library to have a root around.’
‘Take your tin hat and gas mask, then,’ advised Peter. ‘Though these days, it’s probably more dangerous down here than in the City!’
The following week, the attractive Miss Ullswater took the train up to Waterloo. Looking through the carriage windows at the hundreds of bombed-out buildings on the way through South London, she could only be thankful that the History, Language and Theology Departments had been evacuated early in the war to Waverley, even if the old Victorian mansion was gloomy and inconvenient.
After her business at the surviving part of the mother college in Lambeth was done, she went across to St James’s Square in the heart of the West End, to what was left of the venerable London Library, for which she had a personal subscription at four guineas a year. Founded as an independent institution in 1841, it had been bombed earlier that year and much of the most precious material had been evacuated to safety deep in the countryside. However, many of the periodicals from recent years were still there and as her speciality was quite circumscribed, she knew which journals she would have been combing for her thesis in the past eighteen months. Going down into the dank subterranean chambers that held the stacks of past issues, too deep for even the air-raid sirens to penetrate, she scanned the shelves for her familiar old favourites.
Thankfully, these half-dozen regular academic publications had annual index lists, which indicated the titles and authors of each new paper published during that year. In her document case she had her own draft thesis with all the references she had culled from the journals and now she systematically revisited each one in the indices. Though the article she sought was nothing to do with her own particular field of expertise, she recalled that it had immediately followed one of them, and that it had caught her eye and she had read it out of curiosity.
It took her forty-five minutes to find it again, but her methodical mind was used to such literary dredging exercises and with a quiet whoop of triumph, she moved along the stacks to find the correct book, the 1936 volume of the Transactions of the British Society for Medieval Studies. Taking it to a nearby table, Christina sat down and read the article again. Then she took a pad from her case and started making some notes.
‘Now then, Hieronymus,’ she murmured to herself, ‘let’s see if I can put the wind up you with this message from the past!’
The next meeting of ‘The Play of Adam Steering Committee’, as the pompous Dr Drabble insisted on calling it, was held a few days before the performance. They quickly went over the relatively straightforward arrangements, as everyone claimed that they were already word-perfect in their short parts. The costumes were simple, mostly cloak-like drapes made from odd lengths of fabric, Peter Partridge’s stock of blackout curtain material being prominent. Loftus’s scenery was primitive in the extreme, but he claimed this was quite authentic: a few cardboard trees straight out of the Bayeux Tapestry, as well as a plywood mountain and part of a castle left over from a pantomime put on for local children the previous year. After they had hammered out the few glitches with only a mild degree of the bickering traditionally associated with all academic committees, Harry Drabble shuffled hi
s papers together as a signal that he had had enough.
‘I think I can safely say that I have guided us all to a satisfactory conclusion on all matters that will ensure our venture is a success,’ he said, in his best Winstonian impression.
‘All he needs now is a bloody cigar,’ muttered Peter to Blanche, who was sitting next to him before the magisterial desk. As Harry began to rise in his seat, Christina Ullswater put up a finger and smiled sweetly at him.
‘Excuse me, Dr Drabble, but before we break up, I think there is one matter that should be brought to your attention.’
Hieronymus sank back into his chair and stared suspiciously at her.
‘And what might that be, Miss Ullswater?’ he grunted.
‘Did you know that The Play of Adam is alleged by some to be cursed?’
‘Nonsense! Where on earth did you get that idea?’ rumbled Harry.
‘From the Transactions of the BSMS. It discusses, amongst other plays, this one you found in the Bodleian.’
The other four members, whom Christina had briefed beforehand, sat back to enjoy Drabble’s discomfiture.
‘There was nothing about this in the article I showed you,’ he said dismissively.
‘No, but that was only based on a copy of the seventeenth-century translation.’ Christina handed across a short transcript she had typed up from her study of the article in the London Library. ‘The original parchment still exists and that has a postscript by the author that warns of the perils of performing the play.’
Drabble put his half-glasses back on his nose and scanned the brief extract, before handing it back.
‘Very interesting, Miss Ullswater. You are to be complimented on digging up such an obscure gloss on the Oseney play,’ he said patronisingly. ‘In fact, I might mention it to the audience in my introduction before the actual performance, just to lighten the proceedings.’
‘Do we know what sort of ill fortune followed exhibitions of this drama?’ asked Agatha Wood-Turner, being deliberately provocative.
When Christina admitted that there was no information on this point, Harry Drabble snorted his derision. ‘Interesting, of course – but a lot of nonsense! Like the old chestnut about it being unlucky to mention Macbeth, and having to call it “The Scottish Play” instead.’
‘I never understood the origin of that,’ ventured Blanche Fitzwilliam. ‘But I know several actors who are very serious about sticking to the tradition.’
‘No mystery about it,’ advised Loftus. ‘When a lousy play nose-dived at first night or was pulled after a short run, it was common for the theatre management to rustle up a quick Macbeth to fill in, as every actor worth his salt knew it off by heart, so to mention the play when something else was running was held to be a bad omen.’
Peter Partridge immediately contradicted Loftus with a rival Macbeth theory and their difference of opinion was soon in danger of becoming quite acrimonious, until Drabble loudly declared the meeting over and cleared them from his room.
As Christina Ullswater and Dr Wood-Turner walked together to the bus stop opposite the college gates, the younger woman sought to delve into Agatha’s long-standing knowledge of their colleagues.
‘Why do Peter and Loftus always seem to be at each other’s throats?’ she asked, turning her innocent blue eyes on the older woman. ‘They never seem to be easy in each other’s company. Sometimes it gets a little embarrassing to be with them, when they are busy putting each other down.’
They reached the bus stop, alongside which was a red postbox, its top painted dull green, which Christina knew would allegedly change colour if poison gas was around. Ignoring the reminder that they were permanently in a war zone, Agatha’s sharp face turned to look quizzically at the blonde.
‘I think you’re rather taken by young Peter, my girl! Yes, there is some friction between them, but it’s not that serious. All I can tell you is that Peter feels resentful that he was beholden to Loftus Maltravers over a matter some years in the past. I can’t say more, as it would be betraying a trust.’
With that, Christina had to be satisfied, as the single-decker bus came towards them, looking oddly blind with its headlights blanked off by slitted metal masks, which at night reduced their illumination to a point where the poor driver would have been better off leaning out of his cab with a white stick!
As the two women climbed aboard, the kindly young academic decided that she would somehow find a way of trying to heal the breach between the two men. But perhaps Fate already had the same idea.
The morning of the Open Day started bright and sunny, and remained so as the dozen visitors from the parent establishment in Lambeth arrived on the 11.37 train. Much to Dr Drabble’s contentment, this year these included the vice principal, the dean of the Arts Faculty and the bursar, all influential people when it came to bucking for a Chair. As Waverley College also housed the Theology and the Language Departments, History had to share the glory of displaying the talents available in deepest Surrey. By noon, spectator numbers were swollen to about thirty by families, non-teaching staff, some curious local residents and a few waif-like students who had projects to complete or examinations to resit during the summer.
The academic staff went through the ritual of parading the visitors through each department to show them the mediocre facilities worsened by the privations of wartime. Unlike Faculties of Engineering, Science or Medicine, there was little of visual interest to show visitors and it was with relief that they adjourned at one thirty to the lecture theatre, where some meagre refreshments were laid out on two trestle tables.
After five years of rationing, the days of buffet lunches on Open Day were a distant memory, but the staff had scraped together enough from their weekly allowances to provide the makings of a few fat- and sugar-free sponge cakes, sandwiches of home-made jam, tomato or tuna, and a fruit salad culled from the produce of their own gardens. Agatha Wood-Turner had contributed wafer-thin margarine sandwiches containing either cucumber or reconstituted egg powder, and Blanche had made patties of mashed potato and corned beef. Christina’s bowl of chocolate biscuits, the American Army wrappers diplomatically removed, was emptied in a flash. All these victuals were washed down with either tea, instant coffee or ‘pop’, while the visitors and staff gossiped, recalled better days in the past and looked forward to better ones in the future.
Some looked curiously at the large black structure occupying much of the dais at the front of the hall. Loftus Maltravers had simulated the medieval stage which had been built either in a town square or outside a priory gate – or on the back of a hay wagon. He had erected what resembled a room-sized four-poster and surrounded it with long curtains, again borrowed after some wrangling from Peter Partridge’s blackout stores. At half-past two, Dr Hieronymus Drabble mounted the two steps to the platform and stood importantly centre stage, in front of the Black Box. After coughing himself hoarse to call the audience to order, he began a tedious monologue of welcome, then extolled the virtues and academic excellence of Waverley College, emphasising the pre-eminent position that the History Department occupied. Before the muttering objections of the other departmental staff became too obvious, he shifted to the high spot of the day’s entertainment, as he called it.
‘You may wonder why we have not provided you with chairs, Vice Principal, ladies and gentlemen, but we always strive for authenticity. Imagine yourselves back when this Play of Adam was first performed in the twelfth century. Then you, as the audience, would have stood in the street, perhaps in front of a crude ox cart or a makeshift stage such as this.’
He swept a hand dramatically at Peter’s black out material behind him, then launched into a reasonable account of mystery and miracle plays and the part that the religious establishment and then the guilds played in the evolution of the theatre.
‘One of my gifted postgraduates, who you will see onstage in a moment, discovered an interesting legend, in that the author of this play, the prior of Oseney Priory in Oxford, added a writ
ten warning on the original script that performing this play could lead to some unspecified disaster. So perhaps we should have done it two years ago, when some of you will recall having a soaking when we suffered a cloudburst in the middle of an outdoor performance of part of the York Cycle – appropriately when Noah announced the start of the Deluge!’
He waited for a titter of amusement, but there was only stony silence. Having rounded off his speech with some further platitudes, he bowed himself offstage to put on his robe as narrator, the other members of the cast having already assembled inside the box, through a door at back of the platform.
When the front curtain of the box was hauled up by strings, the Creation was displayed and, with Hieronymus now downstage left in a voluminous cowled cloak, the drama penned eight hundred years earlier began, with Harry filling in the gaps between the actors’ dialogue with a sonorous Latin narration. It went without a hitch. Then Drabble could not resist giving a summary in English of his Latin commentary. The next pastiche was ‘The Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man’, with Christina tempting Peter Partridge with a large Cox’s Orange Pippin.
The format was as before and appeared to be well-received by the audience, other than the small son of the lecturer in Spanish, who in a strident voice, demanded to know when the Demon King was going to pop up through a hole in the floor. The final act was ‘Cain and Abel’, performed with enthusiasm by Peter and Loftus, who after their initial lukewarm acceptance of Harry’s dictat to put the play on, seemed to have vied with each other to inject life and drama into the ancient words. Each was essentially a frustrated actor, turned aside by circumstances into the academic study of the theatre, as an alternative career to treading the boards. With Loftus traditionally in a white robe as the good innocent brother, and the evil Peter swathed in one of his own blackout curtains, they pranced about the stage declaiming the Jacobean translation, while Hieronymus spewed out streams of Latin at one side.
The First Murder Page 34
