"Aren't you free after tea, or thereabouts?"
Miss Nash looked amused. "Oh, no. There is afternoon clinic from four o'clock till six; outside patients, you know. Everything from flat feet to broken thighs. And from half-past six to eight there is dancing. Ballet, not folk. We have folk in the morning; it ranks as exercise not art. And supper doesn't finish much before half-past eight, so we are very sleepy before we begin our prep. and it is usually a fight between our sleepiness and our ignorance."
As they turned into the long corridor leading to the stairs, they overtook a small scuttling figure clutching under one arm the head and thorax of a skeleton and the pelvis and legs under the other arm.
"What are you doing with George, Morris?" asked Miss Nash as they drew level.
"Oh, please don't stop me, Beau," panted the startled Junior, hitching her grotesque burden more firmly on to her right hip and continuing to scuttle in front of them, "and please forget that you saw me. I mean that you saw George. I meant to waken early and put him back in the lecture-room before the half-past five bell went, but I just slept."
"Have you been up all night with George?"
"No, only till about two. I-"
"And how did you manage about lights?"
"I pinned my travelling rug over the window, of course," said the Junior, in the testy tones of one explaining the obvious.
"A nice atmosphere on a June evening!"
"It was hellish," said Miss Morris, simply. "But it really is the only way I can swot up my insertions, so please, Beau, just forget that you saw me. I'll get him back before the Staff come down to breakfast."
"You'll never do it, you know. You're bound to meet someone or other."
"Oh, please don't discourage me. I'm terrified enough now. And I really don't know if I can remember how to hook up his middle." She preceded them down the stairs, and disappeared into the front of the house.
"Positively Through-the-Looking-Glass," commented Miss Pym, watching her go. "I always thought insertion was something to do with needlework."
"Insertions? They're the exact place on a bone where a muscle is attached to it. It's much easier to do it with the skeleton in front of you, than with just a book. That is why Morris abducted George." She expelled a breath of indulgent laughter. "Very enterprising of her. I stole odd bones from the drawers in the lecture-room when I was a Junior, but I never thought of taking George. It's the dreadful cloud that hangs over a Junior's life, you know. Final Anatomy. It really is a Final. You're supposed to know all about the body before you begin practising on it, so Final Anatomy is a Junior exam, not a Senior one like the other finals. The bathrooms are along here. When I was a Junior the long grass at the edge of the cricket field was simply stiff on Sundays with hidden Juniors hugging their Gray. It is strictly forbidden to take books out of College, and on Sundays we are supposed to go all social and go out to tea, or to church, or to the country. But no Junior in the summer term ever did anything on a Sunday except find a quiet spot for herself and Gray. It was quite a business getting Gray out of College. Do you know Gray? About the size of those old family Bibles that rested on the parlour table. There was actually a rumour once that half the girls at Leys were pregnant, but it turned out that it was only the odd silhouette that everyone made with Gray stuffed up the front of their Sunday bests."
Miss Nash stooped to the taps and sent a roar of water rushing into the bath. "When everyone in College bathes three or four times a day, in the matter of minutes, you have to have a Niagara of a tap," she explained above the row. "I'm afraid you are going to be very late for breakfast." And as Miss Pym looked dismayed and oddly small-girlish at the prospect: "Let me bring up something for you on a tray. No, it won't be any trouble, I'd love to do it. There isn't any need for a guest to appear at eight o'clock breakfast, anyhow. You'd much better have it in peace in your room." She paused with her hand on the door. "And do change your mind about staying. It really would give us pleasure. More pleasure than you can imagine."
She smiled and was gone.
Lucy lay in the warm soft water and thought happily of her breakfast. How pleasant not to have to make conversation among all those chattering voices. How imaginative and kind of that charming girl to carry a tray to her. Perhaps after all it would be nice to spend a day or two among these young-
She nearly leaped from her bath as a bell began its maniacal yelling not a dozen yards from where she lay. That settled it. She sat up and soaped herself. Not a minute later than the 2.41 from Larborough, not one minute later.
As the bell-presumably a five-minute warning before the gong at eight o'clock-died into silence, there was a wild rush in the corridor, the two doors to her left were flung open, and as the water cascaded into the baths a high familiar voice was heard shrieking: "Oh, darling, I'm going to be so late for breakfast, but I'm in a muck sweat, my dear. I know I should have sat down quietly and done the composition of plasma, of which I know absolutely noth-ing, my dear, and Final Phys. is on Tuesday. But it is such a lovely morning-Now what have I done with my soap?"
Lucy's jaw slowly dropped as it was borne in upon her that in a community which began the day at half-past five and ended it at eight in the evening, there were still individuals who had the vitality to work themselves into a muck sweat when they need not.
"Oh, Donnie, darling, I've left my soap behind. Do throw me over yours!"
"You'll have to wait till I've soaped myself," said a placid voice that was in marked contrast to Dakers' high emphasis.
"Well, my angel, do be quick. I've been late twice this week, and Miss Hodge looked distinctly odd the last time. I say, Donnie, you couldn't by any chance take my 'adipose' patient at twelve o'clock clinic, could you?"
"No, I couldn't."
"She really isn't so heavy as she looks, you know. You have only to-"
"I have a patient of my own."
"Yes, but only the little boy with the ankle. Lucas could take him along with her 'tortis colli' girl-"
"No."
"No, I was afraid you wouldn't. Oh, dear, I don't know when I'm going to do that plasma. As for the coats of the stomach, they simply baffle me, my dear. I don't really believe there are four, anyhow. It's just a conspiracy. Miss Lux says look at tripe, but I don't see that tripe proves anything."
"Soap coming up."
"Oh, thank you, darling. You've saved my life. What a nice smell, my dear. Very expensive." In the momentary silence of soaping she became aware that the bath on her right was occupied.
"Who is next door, Donnie?"
"Don't know. Gage, probably."
"Is that you, Greengage?"
"No," said Lucy, startled, "it's Miss Pym." And hoped it wasn't as prim as it sounded.
"No, but really, who is it?"
"Miss Pym."
"It's a very good imitation, whoever you are."
"It's Littlejohn," suggested the placid voice. "She does imitations."
Miss Pym fell back on a defeated silence.
There was the hurr-oosh of a body lifted suddenly from the water, the spat of a wet foot placed firmly on the edge of the bath, eight wet finger-tips appeared on the edge of the partition, and a face peered over it. It was a long pale face, like an amiable pony's, with the straight fair hair above it screwed up into a knob with a hasty hairpin. An oddly endearing face. Even in that crowded moment, Lucy understood suddenly how Dakers had managed to reach her final term at Leys without being knocked on the head by exasperated colleagues.