Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [13]
“It is simple enough. Sometime around the Flood, my colleague Corkring wrote a rather derivative booklet on Coleridge and so considers that author as a private property I am intruding upon. I suppose that the abduction of this student is for him a form of revenge.”
Gibiser seemed to find the explanation plausible but did not want let Gabriel see that, and adopted instead a diffident, disapproving, whatever-it-is-I’m-against-it expression that came as part of the package along with the panoply of Dean.
“If I read correctly between the lines, his allegations are, however, of another nature.”
“I don’t like to wallow in another’s man mud,” muttered Gabriel, barely unclenching his jaws to say it.
Gibiser nodded pensively.
“We are coming to a situation where it is his word against yours, then.”
“It’s my word against his oink, you mean.”
The Dean pretended he had not heard.
“And I regret to say that in such a situation, his word is mightier than yours. First, he is a full-fledged fellow and you are not. Then, Mr. d’Allier, you are, if I may say so, a man with a past. I am speaking, of course, of previous involvements with students.”
Gabriel wanted to protest, in the name of the largely mythical nature of the said involvements, but he was silenced by a gesture from Gibiser, who did not want to discuss further such an unsavoury matter.
“And at last, and this may be even more crucial, Professor Corkring is, as you may know, Special Councillor of Studies for the Council of Seven. And—I am speaking honestly to you here—his defeat for the office of Vice-Regent of the College has made him, shall we say, a bit nervous and dangerous to contradict. I would not want him to carry these matters higher than they should go, which he is wont to do, if he is not given satisfaction.”
“Which, if I may read between the lines, means I cannot count on your support?” asked Gabriel, who, as soon as he had heard the words Council of Seven knew not only that his case was hopeless but also that the noose would only get tighter if he struggled.
“Since when do you need support from anyone, Mr. d’Allier? You are a loner,” said Gibiser, as if that settled the matter. The French half of Gabriel’s brain heard l’honneur and almost felt flattered, while the other half remained a cold blank. He got up and walked out without a word.
He went back to his office, holding his anger in himself as in a cup about to spill. Rage in Gabriel never burst out in fits but got ice-cold and crystallized into unforgettable, unforgiving grudges. Fuelled up by the snowcaine, he paced up and down, from door to desk and from sofa to bookshelves, sometimes whispering atrocities to a phantom Corkring, sometimes devising various plans for public humiliations, sometimes refusing to stoop so low as to acknowledge both the miserable scheme and the pitiful existence of his colleague. He almost did not hear the soft knock on the door, but eventually he opened it with an aggressive swiftness, only to find himself face to face with none other than Phoebe O’Farrell.
“Yes?” he asked, dark-eyed and frowning.
“Can I have a word with you, sir?” asked the girl, who looked ill at ease.
“It depends on what you have to say.”
“I feel I must explain something to you.”
“I feel that, too,” he said, leaving the door ajar and seating himself behind his desk.
Phoebe O’Farrell closed the door and sat down. She was a petite pale girl, with light brown eyes and long, flowing, curly hair of a subdued red, always dressed in a slightly quaint, Pre-Raphaelite way, and even to the objective eye she was cute as a red-alert button. But she was a wee tad affected, and from the little that Gabriel had read or heard from her, she had an Ophelian streak of potential craziness that he had, since day