As the Crow Flies

“The best untrained eye in the business, Mother always says. And as he’s selected every picture that hangs in this house, who’s to argue with her?”

“Your mother chose none of them?”

“Certainly not. My mother’s by nature a seller, while my father’s a buyer, a combination unequaled since Duveen and Bernstein cornered the art market.”

“These two should have ended up in jail,” said Cathy.

“Whereas,” said Daniel, “I suspect my father will end up in the same place as Duveen.” Cathy laughed. “And now I think we ought to go back downstairs and grab some food before it all disappears.”

Once they entered the dining room Cathy watched as Daniel walked over to a table on the far side of the room and switched round two of the placecards.

“Well, I’ll be blowed, Miss Ross,” Daniel said, pulling back a chair for her as other guests searched for their places. “After all that unnecessary banter, I find we’re sitting next to each other.”

Cathy smiled as she sat down beside him and watched a rather shy looking girl circle the table desperately hunting for her placecard. Soon Daniel was answering all her questions about Cambridge while he in turn wanted to know everything about Melbourne, a city he had never visited, he told her. Inevitably the question arose, “And what do your parents do?” Cathy replied without hesitation, “I don’t know. I’m an orphan.”

Daniel smiled. “Then we’re made for each other.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m the son of a fruit and veg man and a baker’s daughter from Whitechapel. An orphan from Melbourne, you say? You’ll certainly be a step up the social ladder for me, that’s for sure.”

Cathy laughed as Daniel recalled his parents’ early careers, and as the evening went on she even began to feel this might be the first man she would be willing to talk to about her somewhat unexplained and unexplainable background.

When the last course had been cleared away and they sat lingering over their coffee, Cathy noticed that the shy girl was now standing immediately behind her chair. Daniel rose to introduce her to Marjorie Carpenter, a mathematics don from Girton. It became obvious that she was Daniel’s guest for the evening and had been surprised if not a little disappointed to find that she had not been seated next to him at dinner.

The three of them chatted about life at Cambridge until the Marchioness of Wiltshire banged a spoon on the table, to attract everyone’s attention, then made a seemingly impromptu speech. When she finally called for a toast they all stood and raised their glasses to Trumper’s. The marchioness then presented Sir Charles with a silver cigar case in the form of a scale model of Trumper’s and from the expression on his face it obviously brought their host considerable delight. After a witty, and Cathy suspected not impromptu, speech, Sir Charles resumed his place.

“I ought to be going,” Cathy said a few minutes later. “I have an early start in the morning. It was nice to have met you, Daniel,” she added, sounding suddenly formal. They shook hands like strangers.

“Talk to you soon,” he said as Cathy went over to thank her hosts for what she told them had been a memorable evening. She left on her own, but not before she had checked that Simon was deep in conversation with a fair-haired young man who had recently come to work in rugs and carpets.

She walked slowly back from Eaton Square to Chelsea Terrace, savoring every moment of the evening, and was upstairs in her little flat above Number 135 a few minutes after midnight, feeling not unlike Cinderella.

As she began to undress, Cathy mused over how much she had enjoyed the party, especially Daniel’s company and the joy of seeing so many of her favorite artists. She wondered if…Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing.

As the time was now well past midnight she picked up the receiver assuming the caller must have dialed a wrong number.

“Said I’d talk to you soon,” said a voice.

“Go to bed, you chump.”

“I’m already in bed. Talk to you again in the morning,” he added. She heard a click.

Daniel telephoned a little after eight the following morning.

“I’ve only just got out of the bath,” she told him.

“Then you must be looking like Michelle. I’d better come over and select a towel for you.”

“I already have a towel safely wrapped round me, thank you.”

“Pity,” said Daniel. “I’m rather good at drying up. But failing that,” he added before she could reply, “would you join me at Trinity on Saturday? They’re holding a college feast. We only have a couple a term, so if you turn the invitation down there’s no hope of seeing me again for another three months.”

“In which case I’ll accept. But only because I haven’t had a feast since I left school.”

The following Friday Cathy traveled up to Cambridge by train to find Daniel standing on the platform waiting for her. Although Trinity High Table has been known to intimidate the most confident of guests, Cathy felt quite at ease as she sat among the dons. Nevertheless she couldn’t help wondering how so many survived to old age if they ate and drank like this regularly.

“Man cannot live by bread alone,” was Daniel’s only explanation during the seven-course meal. She imagined that the orgy must have ended when they were invited back to the master’s lodge only to find she was being offered even more savories, accompanied by a port decanter that circled endlessly and never seemed to settle or empty. She eventually escaped, but not before the clock on Trinity tower had struck midnight. Daniel escorted her to a guest room on the far side of the Great Court and suggested that they might attend matins at King’s the following morning.