“Here’s the inn where I dig,” he said presently. “Would you like tea?”
“Not wise, my dear. When I’ve seen the boxes and paddocks, we’ll get out of here to where you’re not known.”
“I must just show you the river.”
Through its poplars and willow trees the white way of the river gleamed, faintly goldened by the sunken sun. They got out to look. The lamb’s tails on the hazels were very forward.
Clare twisted off a spray.
“False spring. There’s a lot to come before the real spring yet.”
A current of chilly air came stealing down the river, and mist could be seen rising on the meadows beyond.
“Only a ferry here, then, Tony?”
“Yes, and a short cut into Oxford the other side, about five miles. I’ve walked it once or twice: rather nice.”
“When the blossom and meadow flowers come, it’ll be jolly. Come along! Just show me where the paddocks lie, and we’ll get on to Oxford.”
They got back into the car.
“Won’t you see the boxes?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll wait till the mares are here. There’s a subtle distinction between your bringing me to look at boxes and my coming to look at mares. Are they really from Nejd?”
“So Muskham swears. I shall believe or not when I’ve seen the syces in charge of them.”
“What colour?”
“Two bays and a chestnut.”
The three paddocks sloped slightly towards the river and were sheltered by a long spinney.
“Ideal drainage and all the sun there is. The boxes are round that corner under the spinney. There’s a good deal to do still; we’re putting in a heater.”
“It’s very quiet here.”
“Practically no cars on this road; motor cycles now and then—there’s one now.”
A cycle came sputtering towards them, stopped, wrenched round, and went sputtering back.
“Noisy brutes!” murmured young Croom. “However, the mares will have had their baptism by the time they get here.”
“What a change for them, poor dears!”
“They’re all to be golden something: Golden Sand, Golden Houri, and Golden Hind, these three.”
“I didn’t know Jack Muskham was a poet.”
“It stops at horses, I think.”
“Really marvellous, the stillness, Tony!”
“Past five. The men have stopped work on my cottages—they’re converting.”
“How many rooms?”
“Four. Bedroom, sitting-room, kitchen, bathroom. But one could build on.”
He looked at her intently. But her face was averted.
“Well,” he said abruptly, “all aboard. We’ll get to Oxford before dark.”
Oxford—between lights, like all towns, at its worst—seemed to say: “Doomed to villadom, cars, and modernity, I am beyond your aid.”
To those two, hungry and connected with Cambridge, it offered little attraction till they were seated in the Mitre before anchovy sandwiches, boiled eggs, toast, muffins, scones, jam, and a large pot of tea. With every mouthful the romance of Oxford became apparent. This old inn, where they alone were eating, the shining fire, red curtains being drawn, the unexpected cosy solitude, prepared them to find it ‘marvellous’ when they should set forth. A motor cyclist in leather overalls looked in and went away. Three undergraduates chirped in the doorway, selected a table for dinner, and passed on. Now and again a waitress renewed their toast or fiddled at some table. They were deliciously alone. Not till past seven did they rise.
“Let’s scout,” said Clare. “We’ve lots of time.”
The Oxford world was dining, and the streets were almost empty. They wandered at random, choosing the narrower ways and coming suddenly on colleges and long old walls. Nothing seemed modern now. The Past had them by the throat. Dark towers, and old half-lit stone-work; winding, built in, glimpsy passages; the sudden spacious half-lighted gloom of a chanced-on quadrangle; chiming of clocks, and the feeling of a dark and old and empty town that was yet brimming with hidden modern life and light, kept them almost speechless; and, since they had never known their way, they were at once lost.
Young Croom had entwined her arm in his, and kept his step in time to hers. Neither of them was romantic, but both just then had a feeling as if they had wandered into the maze of history.
“I rather wish,” said Clare, “that I’d been up here or at Cambridge.”
“One never got a nooky feeling like this at Cambridge. In the dark this is much more mediæval. There the colleges are together in a line. The ‘backs’ lay over anything they’ve got here, but the old atmosphere here is far stronger.”
“I believe I could have enjoyed the past. Palfreys and buff jerkins. You’d have looked divine, Tony, in a buff jerkin, and one of those caps with a long green feather.”
“The present with you is good enough for me. This is the longest time we’ve ever spent together without a break.”
“Don’t get soppy. We’re here to look at Oxford. Which way shall we go now?”
“All the same to me,” said his remote voice.
“Hurt? That’s a big college! Let’s go in.”
“They’ll be coming out of hall. Past eight; we’d better stick to the streets.”
They wandered up the Cornmarket to the Broad, stood before the statues on the right, then turned into a dim square with a circular building in the centre, a church at the end, and colleges for its side walls.
“This must be the heart,” said Clare. “Oxford certainly has its points. Whatever they do to the outside, I don’t see how they can spoil all this.”
With mysterious suddenness the town had come to life; youths were passing with short gowns over their arms, flapping free, or wound round their necks. Of one of them young Croom asked where they were.
“That’s the Radcliffe. This is Brasenose, and the High’s down there.”
“And the Mitre?”
“To your right.”
“Thanks.”
“Not at all.”
He bent his uncapped head towards Clare and flapped on.
“Well, Tony?”
“Let’s go in and have cocktails.”
A motorist, well capped and leathered, standing by his cycle, looked after them intently as they went into the hotel.
After cocktails and biscuits, they came out feeling, as young Croom said: “Bright and early. We’ll go back over Magdalen Bridge, through Benson, Dorchester, and Henley.”
“Stop on the bridge, Tony. I want to see my name-sake.”
The bridge lights threw splashes on the Cherwell’s inky stream, the loom of Magdalen lay solid on the dark, and away towards the Christchurch meadows, a few lamps shone. Whence they had come the broad, half-lighted strip of street ran between glimpsed grey frontages and doorways. And the little river over which they were at a standstill seemed to flow with secrecy.
“The ‘Char’ they call it, don’t they?”
“In the summer I shall have a punt, Clare. The upper river’s even better than this.”
“Will you teach me to punt?”
“Won’t I!”
“Nearly ten! Well, I’ve enjoyed that, Tony.”
He gave her a long side-glance and started the engine. It seemed as if he must always be ‘moving on’ with her. Would there never be a long and perfect stop?
“Sleepy, Clare?”
“Not really. That was a mighty strong cocktail. If you’re tired I could drive.”
“Tired? Gracious, no! I was only thinking that every mile takes me that much away from you.”
In the dark a road seems longer than by day, and so different. A hundred unremembered things appear—hedges, stacks, trees, houses, turnings. Even the villages seem different. In Dorchester they stopped to make sure of the right turning; a motor cyclist passed them, and young Croom called out: “To Henley?”
“Straight on!”
They came to another village.
“This,” said young Croom, “must be Nettlebed. Nothing till Henley now, and then it’s thirty-five miles. We shall be up by twelve.”
“Poor dear, and you’ve got to do all this back again.”
“I shall drive like Jehu. It’s a good anodyne.”
Clare touched his coat cuff, and there was another silence.
They had reached a wood when he slackened suddenly. “My lights have gone!”
A motor cyclist skidded past, calling: “Your lights are out, sir!”
Young Croom stopped the engine.
“That’s torn it. The battery must be used up.”