Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less

“We all hope you have a safe journey back to the States and will remember us as warmly as we shall remember you,” added Jean-Pierre.

Harvey moved toward the door.

“I will take my leave of you now, sir,” shouted James. “It will take me twenty minutes to get down those damned steps. You are a fine man and you have been most generous.”

“It was nothing,” said Harvey expansively.

True enough, thought James, nothing to you.

Stephen, Robin and Jean-Pierre accompanied Harvey from the Clarendon to the waiting Rolls.

“Professor,” said Harvey, “I didn’t quite understand everything the old guy was saying.” As he spoke he shifted the weight of his heavy robes on his shoulders self-consciously.

“Well, he’s very deaf and very old, but his heart’s in the right place. He wanted you to know that this has to be an anonymous donation as far as the university is concerned, though, of course, the Oxford hierarchy will be informed of the truth. If it were to be made public all sorts of undesirables who have never done anything for education in the past would come trooping along on the day of Encaenia wanting to buy an honorary degree.”

“Of course, of course. I understand. That’s fine by me,” said Harvey. “I want to thank you for a swell day, Rod, and I wish you all the luck for the future. What a shame our friend Wiley Barker wasn’t here to share it all.”

Robin blushed.

Harvey climbed into the Rolls Royce and waved enthusiastically to the three of them as they watched the car start effortlessly on its journey back to London.

Three down and one to go.

“James was brilliant,” said Jean-Pierre. “When he first came in I didn’t know who the hell it was.”

“I agree,” said Robin. “Let’s go and rescue him—he’s truly the hero of the day.”

They all three ran up the steps, forgetting that they looked somewhere between the ages of fifty and sixty, and rushed back into the Vice-Chancellor’s room to congratulate James, who lay silent in the middle of the flo

or. He had passed out.

In Magdalen an hour later, with the help of Robin and two large whiskeys, James was back to his normal health.

“You were fantastic,” said Stephen, “just at the point when I was beginning to lose my nerve.”

“You would have received an Academy Award if we could have put it on screen,” said Robin. “Your father will have to let you go on the stage after that performance.”

James basked in his first moment of glory for three months. He could not wait to tell Anne.

“Anne.” He quickly looked at his watch. “6:30. Oh hell, I must leave at once. I’m meant to be meeting Anne at eight. See you all next Monday in Stephen’s rooms for dinner. By then I’ll try to have my plan ready.”

James rushed out of the room.

“James.”

His face reappeared around the door. They all said in chorus: “Fantastic.”

He grinned, ran down the stairs and leaped into his Alfa Romeo, which he now felt they might allow him to keep, and headed toward London at top speed.

It took him 59 minutes from Oxford to the King’s Road. The new motorway had made a considerable difference since his undergraduate days. Then the journey had taken anything from an hour and a half to two hours through High Wycombe or Henley.

The reason for his haste was that the meeting with Anne was most important and under no circumstances must he be late; tonight he was due to meet her father. All James knew about him was that he was a senior member of the Diplomatic Corps in Washington. Diplomats always expect you to be on time. He was determined to make a good impression on her father, particularly after Anne’s successful weekend at Tathwell Hall. The old man had taken to her at once and never left her side. They had even managed to agree on a wedding date, subject, of course, to the approval of Anne’s parents.

James had a quick cold shower and removed all his makeup, losing some sixty years in the process. He had arranged to meet Anne for a drink at Les Ambassadeurs in Mayfair before dinner, and as he put on his dinner jacket he wondered if he could make it from the King’s Road to Hyde Park Corner in 12 minutes: it would require another Monte Carlo. He leaped into his car, revving it quickly through the gears, shot along to Sloane Square, through Eaton Square, up past St. George’s Hospital, around Hyde Park Corner into Park Lane, and arrived at 7:58 P.M.

“Good evening, my lord,” said Mr. Mills, the club owner.

“Good evening. I’m dining with Miss Summerton and I’ve had to leave my car double-parked. Can you take care of it?” said James, dropping the keys and a pound note into the doorman’s white-gloved hand.