Dorothy Sayers - Gaudy Night

“Only,” said Harriet, “that I gathered the other day from an article in the Morning Star that ‘undergraduettes,’ in the journalist’s disgusting phrase, lived entirely on cocoa.”

“Journalists,” said Miss Millbanks, condescendingly, “are always thirty years behind the times. Have you ever seen cocoa in College, Miss Fowler?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Fowler. She was a dark, thick-set Third Year, dressed in a very grubby sweater which, as she had previously explained, she had not had time to change, having been afflicted with an essay up to the moment of attending Harriet’s talk. “Yes, I’ve seen it in dons’ rooms. Occasionally. But I always looked on that as a kind of infantilism.”

“Isn’t it a re-living of the heroic past?” suggested Miss Millbanks. “O les beaux jours que ce siècle de fer. And so on.”

“Groupists drink cocoa,” added another Third Year. She was thin, with an eager, scornful face, and made no apology for her sweater, apparently thinking such matters beneath her notice.

“But they are oh! so tender to the failings of others,” said Miss Millbanks. “Miss Layton was ‘changed’ once, but she has now changed back. It was good while it lasted.”

Miss Layton, curled on a pouffe by the fire, lifted a wicked little heart-shaped face alight with mischief.

“I did enjoy telling people what I thought of them. Too rapturous. Especially confessing in public the evil, evil thoughts I had had about that woman Flaxman.”

“Bother Flaxman,” said the dark girl, shortly. Her name was Haydock and she was, as Harriet presently discovered, considered to be a safe History First. “She’s setting the whole Second Year by the ears. I don’t like her influence at all. And if you ask me, there’s something very wrong with Cattermole. Goodness knows, I don’t want any of this business of being my brother’s keeper-we had quite enough of that at school-but it’ll be awkward if Cattermole is driven into doing something drastic. As Senior Student, Lilian, don’t you think you could do something about it?”

“My dear,” protested Miss Millbanks, “what can anybody do? I can’t forbid Flaxman to make people’s lives a burden to them. If I could I wouldn’t. You don’t surely expect me to exercise authority? It’s bad enough hounding people to College Meetings. The S.C.R. don’t understand our sad lack of enthusiasm.”

“In their day,” said Harriet, “I think people had a passion for meetings and organization.”

“There are plenty of inter-collegiate meetings,” said Miss Layton. “We discuss things a great deal, and are indignant about the Proctorial Rules for Mixed Parties. But our enthusiasm for internal affairs is more restrained.”

“Well, I think,” said Miss Haydock bluntly, “we sometimes overdo the laisser-aller side of it. If there’s a big blow-up, it won’t pay anybody.”

“Do you mean about Flaxman’s cutting-out expeditions? Or about the ragging affair? By the way, Miss Vane, I suppose you have heard about the College Mystery.”

“I’ve heard something,” replied Harriet, cautiously. “It seems to be all very tiresome.”

“It will be extremely tiresome if it isn’t stopped,” said Miss Haydock. “I say we ought to do a spot of private investigation ourselves. The S.C.R. don’t seem to be making much progress.”

“Well, the last effort at investigation wasn’t very satisfactory,” said Miss Millbanks.

“Meaning Cattermole? I don’t believe it’s Cattermole. She’s too obvious. And she hasn’t the guts. She could and does make an ass of herself, but she wouldn’t go about it so secretively.”

“There’s nothing against Cattermole,” said Miss Fowler, “except that somebody wrote Flaxman an offensive letter on the occasion of her swiping Cattermole’s young man. Cattermole was the obvious suspect then, but why should she do all these other things?”

“Surely,” Miss Layton appealed to Harriet, “surely the obvious suspect is always innocent.”

Harriet laughed; and Miss Millbanks said:

“Yes; but I do think Cattermole is getting to the stage when she’d do almost anything to attract attention.”

“Well, I don’t believe it’s Cattermole,” said Miss Haydock. “Why should she write letters to me?”

“Did you have one?”

“Yes; but it was only a kind of wish that I should plough in Schools, the usual silly thing made of pasted-up letters. I burnt it, and took Cattermole in to dinner on the strength of it.”

“Good for you,” said Miss Fowler.

“I had one too,” said Miss Layton. “A beauty-about there being a reward hell for women who went my way. So, acting on the suggestion given, I forwarded it to my future address by way of the fireplace.”

“All the same, said Miss Millbanks, ”it is rather disgusting. I don’t mind the letters so much. It’s the rags, and the writing on the wall. If any snoopy person from outside happened to get hold of it there’d be a public stink, and that would be a bore. I don’t pretend to much public spirit, but I admit to some. We don’t want to get the whole College gated by way of reprisals. And I’d rather not have it said that we were living in a madhouse.”

“Too shame-making,” agreed Miss Layton; “though of course, you may get an isolated queer specimen anywhere.”

“There are some oddities in the First Year all right,” said Miss Fowler. “Why is it that every year seems to get shriller and scrubbier than the last?”

“They always did,” said Harriet.

“Yes,” said Miss Haydock, “I expect the Third Year said the same about us when we first came up. But it’s a fact that we had none of this trouble before we had this bunch of freshers in.”

Harriet did not contradict this, not wishing to focus suspicion on either the S.C.R. or on the unfortunate Cattermole who (as everybody would remember) was up during the Gaudy, waging simultaneous war against despised love and Responsions. She did ask, however, whether any suspicion had fallen upon other students besides Miss Cattermole.

“Not definitely, no,” replied Miss Millbanks. “There’s Hudson, of course-she came up from school with a bit of a reputation for ragging, but in my opinion she’s quite sound. I should call the whole of our year pretty sound. And Cattermole really has only herself to thank. I mean, she’s asking for trouble.”

“How?” asked Harriet.

“Various ways,” said Miss Millbanks, with a caution which suggested that Harriet was too much in the confidence of the S.C.R. to be trusted with details. “She is rather inclined to break rules for the sake of it-which is all right if you get a kick out of it; but she doesn’t.”

“Cattermole’s going in off the deep end,” said Miss Haydock. “Wants to show young what’s-his-name-Farringdon-he isn’t the only pebble on the beach. All very well. But she’s being a bit blatant. She’s simply pursuing that lad Pomfret.”

“That fair-faced goop at Queen’s?” said Miss Fowler. “Well, she’s going to be unlucky again, because Flaxman is steadily hauling him off.”

“Curse Flaxman!” said Miss Haydock. “Can’t she leave other people’s men alone? She’s bagged Farringdon; I do think she might leave Pomfret for Cattermole.”

“She hates to leave anybody anything,” said Miss Layton.

“I hope,” said Miss Millbanks, “she has not been trying to collect your Geoffrey.”

“I’m not giving her the opportunity,” said Miss Layton, with an impish grin. “Geoffrey’s sound-yes, darlings, definitely sound-but I’m taking no chances. Last time we had him to tea in the J.C.R., Flaxman came undulating in. So sorry, she had no idea anybody was there, and she’d left a book behind. With the Engaged Label on the door as large as life. I did not introduce Geoffrey.”