An Oxford Tragedy Read online

  Fitzmaurice’s face grew suddenly grave, and he put down his coffee cup on the floor beside his chair. Templar watched him. Were his words going to have the effect that he had desired?

  ‘It made you wonder, did it?’ said Fitzmaurice. ‘Well, to tell you the truth, my own thoughts have wandered along the same sinister path. I’m not a scientist, and I know nothing of poisons and suchlike, but you are, and you will know what mischief can be wrought with the tools of your trade. But it’s only a professional interest on your part, Templar. Don’t let your imagination run away with you.’

  ‘A little while after we’d all left the room,’ said Templar, ‘I went back, and managed to have a few words with that younger doctor. He seemed to think that I was a member of the family, and I didn’t undeceive him. I asked him about the nature of Sir Montague’s illness. He told me that he was suffering from severe gastroenteritis, with the expected diarrhoea, and bleeding from the stomach and bowels. They had applied white of eggs, as is customary, apparently, but with little beneficial effect. He told me that the Warden would succumb to fatal nephritis and circulatory collapse. Nothing more could be done.’

  ‘You seem very au fait with the terminology.’

  ‘I am. My father was a doctor.’

  Templar looked at his friend, whose returning glance confirmed for him what had so far remained unspoken.

  ‘So he is dying of a condition caused, probably, by eating meat which was on the turn, or rotten shellfish,’ said Fitzmaurice, thoughtfully, ‘or some other food that had become unfit to eat. He’s suffering from gastroenteritis.’

  ‘He is,’ Templar replied. ‘Or maybe someone has given him white arsenic, or even mercuric chloride. But as you say, this is a purely academic exercise on our part. Or is it? Do you know, I can’t bear the thought of his leaving us.’

  ‘I didn’t think you cared much for him,’ said Fitzmaurice. ‘After all, he put paid to your dreams of a chemical laboratory here in college.’

  ‘I care for him a great deal. He knew that I had neither money nor influence when I applied for the tutorship in chemistry – his foundation, incidentally. My mother died when I was a child, and my father perished in a cholera epidemic at Salford. I had no expectations, and the only references I could bring him were a letter of commendation from a vicar, and a report from the Headmaster of St Paul’s – I was a scholarship boy there.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Fitzmaurice. ‘All honour to you that you proved the best candidate for the post. What happened about the proposed laboratory? You’ve never spoken about the matter since the project fell through.’

  ‘As soon as I was appointed, and made Junior Dean, I looked around for somewhere to site a working laboratory for my undergraduates. As you know, the university has its own chemical laboratory, a sort of octagon behind the Natural History Museum in Parks Road, where Professor Oddling is based. But a teaching laboratory in a constituent college of the university would have been a first, and would have drawn attention to St Michael’s as a college in the forefront of the development of science teaching here in Oxford.’

  ‘And where would you have sited this laboratory? Really, Templar, I think I’ve caught some of your enthusiasm for the project! What did the Warden say?’

  ‘You know that there are four empty storerooms on the first floor of staircase XVIII in the third quad? Well, that was the place I had in mind. The Warden and Podmore came up there to survey the rooms, and Sir Montague was quite enthusiastic. “It’s an exciting thought, Templar,” he said, “and I agree in principle. I’ll need to consult the Bursar, and the Vice-Warden first, of course, but – yes, I’m excited at the idea.”’

  Gerard Templar banged his first on the arm of his chair. His face flushed with anger.

  ‘And that was the end of it, Fitzmaurice! Joe – the Bursar, I mean – saw no impediment, but it was Podmore who scuppered the project. He’s an obscurantist, one of those men who can’t stand the idea of progress. The natural sciences were anathema to him. I’d already made contact with Marlborough and Wellington, hinting that within a year their brightest boys of a scientific bent could be properly accommodated here at St Michael’s.

  ‘And then Podmore vetoed the idea, and the Warden gave in to him. Podmore dislikes me, and the feeling’s mutual. I lost credibility with the schools I’d approached, but more serious was the fact that Podmore went out to Parks Road and told Professor Oddling about it. I gathered later, from what Oddling hinted, that Podmore had suggested the idea for a college laboratory had come from the Warden, and that it was I who had blown cold on the project. I’ve no proof that that was so, but I’d put nothing past Podmore. I could tell you something else very nasty about our revered Vice-Warden… .’

  ‘It’s getting late,’ said Fitzmaurice, abruptly. ‘Finish your coffee, and get away to your bed. Perhaps the light of day will banish these morbid thoughts, and these lingering resentments of yours. And in any case, the Warden’s not dead yet!’

  Sir Montague Fowler died in the Lodgings at seven minutes to eleven on the morning of Sunday, 3 June, 1894. His passing was accompanied by the cacophony of chapel bells summoning the members of St Michael’s and adjacent colleges to morning prayer. The chaplain, the Reverend and Honourable Theodore Waynefleet, had been consulted about what to do if the Warden did indeed expire on Sunday morning, and had asserted that the worship of God must come first. And so Sir Montague Fowler passed away to the sound of bells, but with no clergyman to speed him on his way to the next world.

  The physicians had washed out the Warden’s stomach with bicarbonate of soda as a last medical gesture two hours previously. The family had said their brief farewells, and had retired to the dim parlour on the ground floor. Of the Fellows of the College, Joseph Steadman, the Bursar, together with the Vice-Warden, Dr Podmore, had been present. When the two dons left the bedroom, Podmore plucked Steadman by the sleeve, and drew him into a window embrasure that looked out on to Sparrow Lane.

  ‘By virtue of the college statutes,’ Podmore said, ‘I assume the office of Acting Warden immediately. I shall need you, Bursar, to act in tandem with me to govern the college until a new Warden is appointed.’

  ‘I knew Monty since we were little boys at school,’ Steadman replied, his eyes brimming with unheeded tears. ‘I can’t believe that he’s gone. Where did he catch that vile infection? He was only sixty-two.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Podmore, looking away in embarrassment. ‘We’re all diminished by his passing. Come to me in my room, will you, in half an hour’s time. There’s a lot for us to discuss.’

  The Vice-Warden hurried down the stairs, and presently Joseph Steadman heard the front door of the Lodgings closed with a purposeful thud. I shouldn’t be surprised, he thought, to find that Billy Podmore’s completely unaffected by poor Monty’s vile death. His mind’s already preoccupied with his successor. And now, no doubt, with the help of his friends at the Exchequer, Podmore will become Warden.

  It was at that moment, as he stood on the landing listening to the murmurs of the doctors behind the closed door of Sir Montague’s bedroom, that Steadman’s dislike of Podmore turned to something more sinister.

  The nurse had composed the body, drawn the sheet up over the face, and left the room. Old Dr Hope and young Dr Chambers stood at a table on which an inkpot and a tray of steel-nibbed pens had been placed.

  ‘We are agreed, I think,’ said Dr Hope, ‘that Sir Montague Fowler died from circulatory collapse consequent upon a fatal nephritis?’ His words were couched in the form of a question, but had been composed in the formal wording required by the death certificate. He took up one of the pens, dipped it in ink, carefully signed the legal document lying on the table, and then handed the pen to his young colleague.

  Dr Chambers seemed to hesitate. He glanced briefly at the bed, and then said in low tones: ‘I have never seen so violent an attack of gastroenteritis. It can only have come from contaminated food, but no one else in the college has
been affected. But there is a separate kitchen here, in the Lodgings… .’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that he was poisoned, are you?’ asked Dr Hope dryly. ‘What do you think it was? Corrosive sublimate? Arsenious acid?’

  Dr Chambers blushed at his colleague’s dry mockery, stooped down, and rapidly added his signature to the death certificate.

  ‘Of course not, Dr Hope,’ he said. ‘It’s clear enough what caused Sir Montague’s death. But it’s been a tragic and horrible case, and the severity of the illness leaves me with an uneasy feeling… . Just a feeling, you know, nothing more.’

  The old doctor sighed, and shook his head.

  ‘I’ve seen things like this before, Chambers,’ he said. ‘Violent infections in the young; sudden collapses where no sinister lesions had ever been detected; an untreated scythe-wound in a man’s foot that led to septic insanity – no two people are ever alike, which is why diagnosis is more a skill than a science… .

  ‘By the by, when are you leaving for Surinam? I must say that I admire your spirit of adventure – but rather you than me!’

  The young man laughed.

  ‘I leave this coming Wednesday, the sixth, on board the Pacific Trader, sailing out of Tilbury. Being a ship’s doctor will be a welcome change from this kind of melancholy practice.’ He nodded towards the bed. ‘We call in at many South American ports before we dock in Dutch Guiana. Can’t I persuade you to accompany me?’

  The old physician smiled, but said nothing. He picked up his bag from the table, and turned towards the door.

  ‘Disease is much the same anywhere,’ he said, ‘whether at land or on the sea. But I wish you well. As for me, I’ve handed my North Oxford practice over to Henshall. I’m well over seventy now, and I’m going to live with my widowed sister in Dorset. I’m glad there’s to be no inquest in this case of Sir Montague Fowler. I’m leaving for Dorset on Friday. But come, Chambers, I’ll celebrate my retirement by buying you dinner at the Mitre. Our work here is done. It is now the turn of the funeral furnishers.’

  3

  Family Affairs

  A bright fire burning in the wide fireplace added some cheer to the dim ground-floor parlour of the Lodgings. The butler had brought in a tray on which reposed some wine glasses and a decanter of port, together with a plate of sweet biscuits.

  ‘Well,’ said John Fowler, warming his coat tails in front of the fire, ‘it has been a terrible ordeal for us all, and we must be thankful that Father is now at peace. Yes, at peace after a trying affliction bravely borne.’

  ‘Really, John,’ said his sister Frances, ‘you are a pompous ass! “Bravely borne”, indeed! Father had no other option but to put up with it until his time came to shuffle off this mortal coil.’ She turned her attention to the younger of her brothers. ‘You’re very quiet, Tim. Are you afraid of breaking out into clichés?’

  ‘That’s enough, Fanny,’ said the Reverend Timothy Fowler, sharply. ‘You’ve no right to speak to John like that. Father is in the hands of God, if I may say that without fear of being called trite.’

  Frances Fowler felt herself blushing. She was accustomed to teasing her elder brother, who was quietly tolerant of her outbursts, but rebukes from Timothy always subdued her. He was only four years her senior, but he had been endowed since childhood with a gravitas and a quiet determination that had always left her in awe of him.

  John was turning into a hypocrite. He had never been close to Father, and knew perfectly well what a blight he had been to all their hopes and ambitions. As far as she knew, John was a highly successful businessman, but when she had met him at Oxford Station, she had been startled at how gaunt and wild-eyed he had looked. Surely he could not have been so drastically affected by Father’s illness? He seemed much better now, more his old self, unassuming, but quietly confident.

  Now that Father was gone, maybe all three of them could throw off the shackles with which their parent had weighed them down all their lives. Tim knew all that, and prudently referred their father to the mercies of God… . What was John saying now?

  ‘Father will be buried with Mother at Forest Park. We’ll arrange a family service at St Mary’s church. Margaret will come down with me for form’s sake, and the children can stay with their grandmother till we return. Tim, will you take the service?’

  ‘I will assist the vicar down there,’ Timothy Fowler replied. ‘I think that would be the right thing to do. But the committal is the vicar’s prerogative. Kate will remain at home. She is too delicate to make the long train journey.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said John. ‘I expect there’ll be a memorial service for Father here in Oxford, and one or other of us can put in an appearance for form’s sake. Fanny, as you’re here on the spot, as it were… .’

  ‘It would look very bad, John, if you were not present,’ said Frances. ‘People might begin to talk.’ She treated her brother to a rather unpleasant smile.

  ‘Well, maybe so. Now, as to Father’s Will – I had better ask Ballard where it is lodged. It’s not with the family solicitors, I know, so it will most likely be held by a legal man here in Oxford. It would be judicious to hear the Will read before the funeral. Are you content to let me take the matter in hand?’

  Brother and sister nodded their agreement. Frances Fowler added a few words.

  ‘Speaking of Ballard,’ she said, ‘where is he at this moment? I thought he might have wanted to join us, here.’

  ‘Ballard is upstairs, paying his last respects to Father. I told him that it would be quite in order for him to do so.’

  ‘Well,’ said Francis, ‘when he finally appears, John, make him tell you where Father’s Will is lodged. If Father had any money left at all,’ she observed, ‘he has probably bequeathed it all to found yet another grandiose institute. You may be sure that his children will have been considered last of all. If only poor Mother had lived! She was the only person, apparently, who could restrain him.’

  Her elder brother John, who was still standing in front of the fire, frowned, but it was not a frown of anger.

  ‘I heard something in the City last week,’ he said, ‘something about a “very generous benefaction” for the establishment of some damned institute here. You’re right, Fanny: there would have been precious little left for us if these latest schemes of his had been allowed to come to fruition.’

  ‘It’s providential, in a way,’ said Sir Montague’s daughter. ‘It’s almost as if… .’

  ‘That’s enough, Fanny,’ said her brother, the Reverend Timothy Fowler. ‘You go too far in linking Providence with Father’s death. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”’

  Frances blushed again. Really! It would be a blessing when the two of them had taken themselves off, and left her to her own devices. She managed a faint smile.

  ‘Dear Timothy,’ she said, ‘you are so unworldly!’

  ‘Perhaps that is a virtue in a clergyman, Fanny,’ said Timothy austerely. ‘If you two will excuse me, I’ll go up to Father again. He died with no clergyman present, and I intend to say some valedictory prayers.’

  Later, after John and Fanny had quitted the parlour, the butler returned, and took away the untouched tray of port wine and sweet biscuits.

  The premises of Vane, Paulet and Groom, solicitors and commissioners for oaths, lay in New Inn Hall Street, a quiet thoroughfare that could not make up its mind whether to throw in its lot with the ancient university city, or to hold itself aloof as the beginning of a suburb. Mr Arthur Groom, the junior partner, sat in a big winged chair behind his leather-topped desk, and scrutinized the offspring of the late Sir Montague Fowler as they entered the room. It was Tuesday, 5 June, two days after the passing of the Warden of St Michael’s College.

  John Fowler had arrived promptly, just as the clocks were striking eleven. Really, he looked a very pleasant man, his face, now set gravely for the business in hand, still revealing in the lines of humour about his eyes and mouth an inclination to smile whenever
possible. Or was it weakness? A desire to ingratiate? Perhaps he had cultivated this as a way of disarming his clients. He was, so Arthur Groom had been given to understand, a prosperous discount broker, with offices in the City.

  Ah! Here was the Reverend Timothy Fowler, just a minute beyond the appointed time. How old was he? It was hard to tell. Not much over thirty, but his severe clerical garb made him look older. A serious young man, who was reputed to be an excellent pastor, he still gave the impression that any opportunity for advancement would be seized immediately if it came his way. Groom had heard that Timothy Fowler, on the eve of his ordination, had married a very young but penniless lady; so in matters of the heart, the good parson had put love first. Or so it would seem.

  Now, here came the spinster sister, Frances, who had been able to combine beauty with academic distinction, but at the cost of forming any kind of romantic attachment. Women of that sort never married.

  Sir Montague Fowler’s secretary, a self-effacing man called Henry Ballard, had called upon him earlier, and now joined the family from an adjacent room. All three bowed stiffly to him, and he returned the frigid compliment in kind. Arthur Groom cleared his throat, and began to address his now seated audience. How tense the offspring looked! He would enjoy tormenting them for a few minutes before relieving them of all anxiety in the matter of their late father’s dispositions.

  ‘Madam, and gentlemen,’ said Groom, ‘we have assembled here with the intention of hearing the terms of the Will of your late father, Sir Montague Fowler. I have here on the desk, a form of Will drawn up by me on his behalf on Monday, the twenty-second of October last, in which, after various small bequests to servants, and a legacy to his secretary, Mr Henry Ballard, he left the sum of £360,000 free of duty and imposts for the establishment of a School of Medical Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford, a project which had been close to his heart for a number of years. The residue of his estate was to be divided equally among his three children.’