“Exactly what I said. You’ve won the Charles Oldham.”
Philippa and William ran to the board and studied the notice.
Charles Oldham Memorial Prize
The examiners felt unable on this occasion to award
the prize to one person and have therefore decided
that it should be shared by
They gazed at the notice board in silence for some moments. Finally, Philippa bit her lip and said in a small voice:
“Well, you didn’t do too badly, considering the competition. I’m prepared to honor my undertaking but by this light I take thee for pity.”
William needed no prompting. “I would not deny you, but by this good day I yield upon great persuasion, for I was told you were in a consumption.”
And to the delight of their peers and the amazement of the retreating don, they embraced under the notice board.
Rumor had it that from that moment on they were never apart for more than a few hours.
* * *
The marriage took place a month later in Philippa’s family church at Brockenhurst. “Well, when you think about it,” said William’s roommate, “who else could she have married?” The contentious couple started their honeymoon in Athens arguing about the relative significance of Doric and Ionic architecture, of which neither knew any more than they had covertly conned from a half-crown tourist guide. They sailed on to Istanbul, where William prostrated himself at the front of every mosque he could find while Philippa stood on her own at the back fuming at the Turks’ treatment of women.
“The Turks are a shrewd race,” declared William, “so quick to understand real values.”
“Then why don’t you embrace the Moslem religion, William, and I need be in your presence only once a year.”
“The misfortune of birth, a misplaced loyalty and the signing of an unfortunate contract dictate that I spend the rest of my life with you.”
Back at Oxford, with junior research fellowships at their respective colleges, they settled down to serious creative work. William embarked upon a massive study of word usage in Marlowe and, in his spare moments, taught himself statistics to assist his findings. Philippa chose as her subject the influence of the Reformation on seventeenth-century English writers and was soon drawn beyond literature into art and music. She bought herself a spinet and took to playing Dowland and Gibbons in the evening.
“For Christ’s sake,” said William, exasperated by the tinny sound, “you won’t deduce their religious convictions from their key signatures.”
“More informative than ifs and ands, my dear,” she said, imperturbably, “and at night so much more relaxing than pots and pans.”
Three years later, with well-received D. Phils, they moved on, inexorably in tandem, to college teaching fellowships. As the long shadow of fascism fell across Europe, they read, wrote, criticized and coached by quiet firesides in unchanging quadrangles.
“A rather dull Schools year for me,” said William, “but I still managed five firsts from a field of eleven.”
“An even duller one for me,” said Philippa, “but somehow I squeezed three firsts out of six, and you won’t have to invoke the binomial theorem, William, to work out that it’s an arithmetical victory for me.”
“The chairman of the examiners tells me,” said William, “that a greater part of what your pupils say is no more than a recitation from memory.”
“He told me,” she retorted, “that yours have to make it up as they go along.”
When they dined together in college the guest list was always quickly filled, and as soon as grace had been said, the sharpness of their dialogue would flash across the candelabra.
“I hear a rumor, Philippa, that the college doesn’t feel able to renew your fellowship at the end of the year?”
“I fear you speak the truth, William,” she replied. “They decided they couldn’t renew mine at the same time as offering me yours.”
“Do you think they will ever make you a Fellow of the British Academy, William?”
“I must say, with some considerable disappointment, never.”
“I am sorry to hear that; why not?”