Eva Ibbotson - The Morning Gift

‘Well, you’re not going to help by getting mixed up in that sort of rubbish,’ said Quin. ‘Now tell me about your parents — how are they getting on and how is life in Belsize Park?’

Though she was clearly offended by Quin’s rejection of her plan, Ruth accepted the change of subject, nor did her hurt feelings prevent her from eating a second jam tart and a chocolate eclair, and by the time they left the restaurant, she was able to turn to Quin and make him a promise with her customary panache.

‘I know you don’t like to be thanked, but for tea everybody gets thanked and I want to tell you that from now on I will never again try to be alone with you, I will be completely anonymous; I will,’ said Ruth with fervour, ‘be nonexistent.’

Quin stood looking down at her, an odd expression on his face. Ruth’s eyes glowed with the ardour of those who swear mighty oaths, her tumbled hair glowed in the light of the chandeliers. A young man, passing with a friend, had turned to stare at her and bumped into the doorman.

‘That would interest me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, your nonexistence would interest me very much.’

Ruth was as good as her word. She sat at the back of the lecture theatre (though no longer in a raincoat); she flattened herself against the wall when the Professor passed; her voice was never heard in his seminars.

This did not mean that she failed to ask questions. As Quin’s lectures opened more and more doors in her mind, she trained her friends to ask questions on her behalf, and to hear Pilly stumbling through sentences which had Ruth’s hallmark in every phrase, gave Quin an exquisite pleasure.

Nevertheless, Nature had not shaped Ruth for nonexistence, a point made by Sam and Janet who said they thought she was overdoing it. ‘Just because you knew him in Vienna, you don’t have to fall over backwards to keep out of his way,’ said Sam. ‘Anyway it’s a complete waste of time — one can see your hair halfway across the quad — I bet he knows exactly where you are.’

This, unfortunately, was true. Ruth leaning over the parapet to feed the ducks was not nonexistent, nor encountered in the library behind a pile of books, a piece of grass between her teeth. She was not nonexistent as she sat under the walnut tree coaching Pilly, nor emerging, drunk with music, from rehearsals of the choir. In general, Quin, without conceit, would have said he was a man with excellent nerves, but a week of Ruth’s anonymity was definitely taking its toll.

If Ruth was trying to keep out of the Professor’s way, Verena Plackett was not. She emerged each morning from the Lodge, punctual as an alderman, bearing her crocodile skin briefcase and carrying over her arm a spotless white lab coat, one of three, which her mother’s maids removed, laundered, starched and replaced each day. Verena continued to thank the staff on her parents’ behalf at the end of every lecture; she accepted only the sycophantic Kenneth Easton as her partner in practical; the liver fluke, seeing her coming, flattened itself obediently between glass slides. But it was in Professor Somerville’s seminars that Verena shone particularly. She sat in the chair next to the Professor’s, her legs neatly crossed at the ankle, and asked intelligent questions using complete sentences and making it clear that she had read not only the books he had recommended, but a great many others.

‘I wonder what you think about Ashley-Cunningham’s views on bone atrophy as expressed in chapter five of his Palaeohistology ?’ was the kind of thing the other students had to endure from Verena. ‘It wasn’t on our reading list, I know, but I happened to find it in the London Library.’

That Ruth might be a serious rival academically had not, at the beginning, occurred to Verena. A fey girl who conversed with sheep was hardly to be taken seriously. It was something of a shock, therefore, when the first essays were returned and she found that Ruth, like herself, was getting alphas and spoken of as someone likely to get a First. Verena set her jaw and decided to work even harder — and so did Ruth. Ruth, however, blamed herself, she felt besmirched , and at night when Hilda slept, she sat up in bed and spoke seriously to God.

‘Please, God,’ Ruth would pray, ‘don’t let me be competitive. Let me realize what a privilege it is to study. Let me remember that knowledge must be pursued for its own sake and please, please stop me wanting to beat Verena Plackett in the exams.’

She prayed hard and she meant what she said. But God was busy that autumn as the International Brigade came back, defeated, from Spain, Hitler’s bestialities increased, and sparrows everywhere continued to fall. And Ruth, her prayers completed, would spoil everything and get out of bed and take her lecture notes to the bathroom, the only place at Number 27 where, late at night, one could study undisturbed.

As term advanced, the talk turned increasingly to the field course to be held at the end of the month. Of this break in the routine of lectures, the research students who had been to Bowmont spoke with extreme enthusiasm.

‘You go out in boats and there are bonfires and cook-ups and on Sunday you go up to the Professor’s house for a whopping lunch.’

Ruth was prepared to believe all this, but she was adamant about not going.

‘I can’t possibly afford the fare, let alone all those Wellington boots and oilskins,’ she said. ‘And anyway, I have to prepare for Heini. I don’t mind, honestly.’

Pilly, however, did mind and said so at length, and so did Ruth’s other friends.

And Dr Felton minded. He did more than mind. He was absolutely determined to get Ruth to Bowmont.

For there was a Hardship Fund. It existed to help students in difficulties and it was under the management of the Finance Committee on which Roger sat, as he sat on most of the committees that came the department’s way since Quin had made it clear from the start that he was not prepared to waste his time in overheated rooms and repetitive babble.

The committee was due to meet on a Saturday morning just two weeks before the beginning of the course. Felton had already canvassed members from other departments and found only goodwill. The fund was healthily in credit, and everyone who knew Ruth Berger (and a surprising number of people did) thought it an excellent idea that it should be used to send her to Northumberland. It was thus with confidence and hope that Roger walked into the meeting.

He had reckoned without the new Vice Chancellor. Lord Charlefont had steered committees along at a spanking pace. Sir Desmond, whose degree was in Economics, thrived on detail: every test tube to be purchased, every box of chalk came under his scrutiny and at one o’clock, before the question of the Hardship Fund could be fully discussed, the committee was adjourned for lunch.

‘Do you really have to go back?’ asked Lady Plackett, who had hoped to persuade her husband to attend a private view.

‘Yes, I do. Felton from the Zoology Department is trying to get one of the students on to Somerville’s field course. He wants to use the Hardship Fund for that. It’s a very moot point, it seems to me — there’s a precedent involved. To what extent can not going on a field trip be classed as hardship? We shall have to debate this very carefully.’

‘It’s not the Austrian girl he wants the money for? Miss Berger?’

Sir Desmond reached for the agenda. ‘It doesn’t say so, but it seems possible. Why?’

‘If so, I would regard it as most inadvisable. As you know, Professor Somerville wanted to send her away — there was some connection with her family in Vienna. He was obviously aware of the danger of favouritism. And Dr Felton has been paying her special attention ever since, so Verena tells me.’