The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [12]
Back at Oxford, with junior research fellowships at their respective colleges, they settled down to serious creative work. William embarked upon a massive study of word usage in Marlowe and, in his spare moments, taught himself statistics to assist his findings. Philippa chose as her subject the influence of the Reformation on seventeenth-century English writers and was soon drawn beyond literature into art and music. She bought herself a spinet and took to playing Dowland and Gibbons in the evening.
“For Christ’s sake,” said William, exasperated by the tinny sound. “You won’t deduce their religious convictions from their key signatures.”
“More informative than ifs and ands, my dear,” she said, imperturbably, “and at night so much more relaxing than pots and pans.”
Three years later, with well-received Ph.D.’s, they moved on, inexorably in tandem, to college teaching fellowships. As the long shadow of fascism fell across Europe, they read, wrote, criticized, and coached by quiet firesides in unchanging quadrangles.
“A rather dull Schools year for me,” said William, “but I still managed five firsts from a field of eleven.”
“An even duller one for me,” said Philippa, “but somehow I squeezed three firsts out of six, and you won’t have to invoke the binomial theorem, William, to work out that it’s an arithmetical victory for me.”
“The chairman of the examiners tells me,” said William, “that a greater part of what your pupils say is no more than a recitation from memory.”
“He told me,” she retorted, “that yours have to make it up as they go along.”
When they dined together in college, the guest list was always quickly filled, and as soon as grace had been said, the sharpness of their dialogue would flash across the candelabra.
“I hear a rumor, Philippa, that the college doesn’t feel able to renew your fellowship at the end of the year?”
“I fear you speak the truth, William,” she replied. “They decided they couldn’t renew mine at the same time as offering me yours.”
“Do you think they will ever make you a fellow of the British Academy, William?”
“I must say, with some considerable disappointment, never.”
“I am sorry to hear that. Why not?”
“Because when they did invite me, I informed the president that I would prefer to wait to be elected at the same time as my wife.”
Some nonuniversity guests sitting at high table for the first time took their verbal battles seriously; others could only be envious of such love.
One fellow uncharitably suggested they rehearsed their lines before coming to dinner for fear it might be thought they were getting on well together. During their early years as young dons, they became acknowledged as the leaders in their respective fields. Like magnets, they attracted the brightest undergraduates while apparently remaining poles apart themselves.
“Dr. Hatchard will be delivering half these lectures,” Philippa announced at the start of the Michaelmas term of their joint lecture course on Arthurian legend. “But I can assure you it will not be the better half. You would be wise always to check which Dr. Hatchard is lecturing.”
When Philippa was invited to give a series of lectures at Yale, William took a sabbatical so that he could be with her.
On the ship crossing the Atlantic, Philippa said, “Let’s at least be thankful the journey is by sea, my dear, so we can’t run out of gas.”
“Rather let us thank God,” replied William, “that the ship has an engine, because you would even take the wind out of Cunard’s sails.”
The only sadness in their lives was that Philippa could bear William no children, but if anything it drew the two closer together. Philippa lavished quasi-maternal affection on her tutorial pupils and allowed herself only the wry comment that she was spared the probability of producing a child with William’s looks and William’s brains.
At the outbreak of war William’s expertise with handling words made a move into code-breaking inevitable. He was recruited by an anonymous gentleman who visited them at home with a briefcase chained