The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [11]
“You know I’m bound to win, so why don’t you come live with me now?”
“I realize that it has become fashionable to sleep with just anyone nowadays, William, but if this is to be my last weekend of freedom I intend to savor it, especially since I may have to consider committing suicide.”
“I love you.”
“For the last time, William, go away. And if you haven’t won the Charles Oldham don’t ever show your face in Somerville again.”
William left, desperate to know the result of the prize essay competition. Had he realized how much Philippa wanted him to win, he might have slept that night.
On Monday morning they both arrived early in the Examination Schools and stood waiting impatiently without speaking to each other, jostled by the other undergraduates of their year who had also been entered for the prize. On the stroke of ten the chairman of the examiners, in full academic dress, walking at a tortoiselike pace, arrived in the great hall and with a considerable pretense of indifference pinned a notice to the board. All the undergraduates who had entered for the prize rushed forward except for William and Philippa, who stood alone, aware that it was now too late to influence a result they were both dreading.
A girl shot out from the melee around the bulletin board and ran over to Philippa.
“Well done, Phil. You’ve won.”
Tears came to Philippa’s eyes as she turned toward William.
“May I add my congratulations,” he said quickly. “You obviously deserved the prize.”
“I wanted to say something to you on Saturday.”
“You did. You said if I lost I must never show my face in Somerville again.”
“No. I wanted to say: ‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you; is not that strange?’”
He looked at her silently for a long moment. It was impossible to improve upon Beatrice’s reply: “‘As strange as the thing I know not,’” he said softly.
A college friend slapped him on the shoulder, took his hand, and shook it vigorously. Proxime accessit was obviously impressive in some people’s eyes, if not in William’s.
“Well done, William.”
“Second place is not worthy of praise,” said William disdainfully.
“But you won, Billy boy.”
Philippa and William stared at each other.
“What do you mean?” said William.
“Exactly what I said. You’ve won the Charles Oldham.”
Philippa and William ran to the board and studied the notice:
CHARLES OLDHAM MEMORIAL PRIZE
THE EXAMINERS FELT UNABLE ON THIS OCCASION TO
AWARD THE PRIZE TO ONE PERSON AND HAVE THEREFORE
DECIDED THAT IT SHOULD BE SHARED BY …
They gazed at the bulletin board in silence for some moments. Finally, Philippa bit her lip and said in a small voice: “Well, you didn’t do too badly, considering the competition. I’m prepared to honor my undertaking, ‘but, by this light, I take thee for pity.’”
William needed no prompting. “‘I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, … for I was told you were in a consumption.’”
And to the delight of their peers and the amazement of the retreating don, they embraced under the bulletin board.
Rumor had it that from that moment on they were never apart for more than a few hours.
The marriage took place a month later in Philippa’s family church at Brockenhurst. “Well, when you think about it,” said William’s roommate, “who else could she have married?” The contentious couple started their honeymoon in Athens arguing about the relative significance of Doric and Ionic architecture, of which neither knew any more than they had covertly read, in a cheap tourist guidebook. They sailed on to Istanbul, where William prostrated himself at the front of every mosque he could find while Philippa stood on her own at the back fuming at the Turks’ treatment of women.
“The Turks are a shrewd race,” declared William. “So quick to appreciate real worth.”
“Then why don’t you embrace the Muslim religion, William, and I need only be in your presence once a year?”
“The misfortune of birth, a misplaced loyalty, and the signing of an unfortunate contract dictate that