The September Society

CHAPTER FIVE

They were ten miles outside of Oxford and Lady Payson had fallen asleep, perhaps unburdened to have told her story. Through the window on his side of the coach, Lenox was looking out at the farmland of Oxfordshire; herds of sheep grazed in the golden swales where dawn was swelling. They reminded him of the trips he had taken to and from Oxford during vacations from term.

For Lenox himself was an Oxonian. He had been at Balliol. It had been, oh, five years since he had returned to Broad Street and walked through the college’s gate. This would be the first case to bring him back to Oxford, and even as he ran over Lady Payson’s story from half a dozen angles in his mind, the carriage knocking down the road, he was thinking about having a pint at the Bear and going through the low arches into the Bodleian courtyard.

Before he had left London he had hastily written two notes. One was to Jane, telling her that he would be gone for a day or two. The other was to Thomas McConnell, who had by now settled into the firm role of medical examiner on Lenox’s cases. To McConnell Lenox had written, Not sure what there is for you to do (beyond examining a dead cat), but if you want to see a real university -McConnell had been at Cambridge- come to Oxford at your convenience. You’ll find me at the Bath Place Hotel above the Turf Tavern, or else they can direct you on .

It was now morning, about eight o’clock, and they were a short way outside of Oxford. The carriage was approaching from the south; the Cherwell River wound in and out of view to their left. A number of long, shallow punts were covered and locked on the banks of the river, past their season until spring, and the famous willow trees had begun to scatter their leaves across the water. The yellowish light of morning appeared over the dreaming spires that Lenox knew so well-Tom Tower at Christ Church, the shining dome of the Radcliffe Camera, the ridged flutes rising from the towers of All Souls. It would only be a moment until Magdalen Bridge.

A dead cat! Well, but who knew.

Lady Payson stirred. “You’ve no idea how lovely it was to shut my eyes. Do please excuse me, though.”

“I’m happy you could rest.”

“Do you have children, Mr. Lenox? I don’t think you do.”

“No, I don’t-not yet.”

There was a haunted pause, and then she steeled herself. “Where do you plan to stay?” she asked.

“I thought I might look in at the Turf, actually. I probably ought to stay somewhere else, but I can’t help my sentimentality. I spent a number of undergraduate nights there, you see. And you? Shall you return to your brother’s house?”

She laughed humorlessly. “I certainly couldn’t leave Oxford. I’ll be at the Randolph Hotel.”

“Sound choice, from all I hear.”

“My usual one. It opened just before George came up to Oxford.”

The Randolph was the best hotel in Oxford, and despite being new looked like one of the ancient colleges, made as it was of the same golden stone, covered with the same red and green ivy. It faced the Ashmolean Museum (one of Lenox’s favorite places in the world, full of beautiful paintings, Roman sculpture, and old, strange British treasures) on Beaumont Street.

Both Lenox and Lady Annabelle were silent. Oxford is a quiet and gentle river town, interrupted at its center by a cluster of buildings that happen to be among the most beautiful mankind has ever produced. They were reaching that center now, passing the botanical gardens and Queen’s College into the very heart of town. Lenox took his satchel from the empty seat opposite and put it on his lap.

“Shall we meet in an hour, Lady Payson?”

She seemed more determined and imperial, less wholly fretful, than she had a few hours before in Hampden Lane. “May I ask why we should delay, Mr. Lenox?”

He smiled gently. “I’m afraid I need a few moments to collect myself, perhaps tackle a cup of tea and a bite of something.”

“The Turf, as I understand it-never having been, myself-is on Holywell Street? Yes? Well, then, it’s only a few steps from Lincoln. Shall we meet at the college gates in three-quarters of an hour?

Lenox nodded. “As you please,” he said agreeably. It was a bother. Still, he didn’t envy her the position she was in. “Oh-I say, you can let me out here, driver.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Lenox?” asked Lady Annabelle.

“Oh, yes,” he said. They were just by Hertford College. “I’ll go in by the back way.”

One could reach the Turf by Holywell, or else by a wending little cobblestone alley, probably not wider than an average man’s shoulders. The alley was darkly lit, and even at this hour Lenox had to turn his back to the wall and make way for a thin stream of students. Many of them were wearing the undergraduate subfusc, in various states of dishevelment. Perhaps they had finished their second-year examinations the day before. Passing by the used brown kegs as he approached the door, a smile he couldn’t wipe away on his face, Lenox went inside.

It was a low-ceilinged place that dated to the 1300s. (Still leaving it a few hundred years shy of being the city’s oldest continuous drinking establishment.) Once it had been a strong-cider bar, and then briefly a pub called the Spotted Cow, but even to the oldest gents at the stile it had always been and would always be the Turf, hidden away from all but those who really knew Oxford. The wood on the walls was darkened by smoke and time, though the beams holding the roof up were freshly painted white. There was a bar in the front room-above it was the famous first menu of the Turf, a wooden plank with DUCK OR GROUSE written on it-and another in the back room, just by a staircase leading to the rooms above. It was by the staircase that Lenox found himself confronted by a lad of perhaps twelve. He was plump with fiery red hair and a freckly face.

“Go on, sir,” he said, rather rudely.

“Hello there-I was hoping I might have a room?”

“Full up, compliments.”

“No rooms at all?”

“How about a beer instead?”

Lenox laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Tom Tate, what d’you reckon you’re doing!” A strong, very short woman emerged from the front bar, looking at the boy. Lenox smiled at her in recognition.

Her eyes focused on him after she had dealt the lad a cuff and told him to see to the tables in front. “Is that… is that Mr. Lenox, there?” she said. “Not Edmund, but Charles?”

“Too right, Mrs. Tate.”

“Mr. Lenox!” She called back Tom, who was in high dudgeon with the world at having been cuffed, and told him to look out for Lenox’s bag.

“You do have a room, then, Mrs. Tate?”

“Have a room! Bless you, of course we have a room!”

She led him up the staircase, behind her disgruntled employee and son. “Breakfast, then?” she said, looking back.

“That might do me well, thanks.”

She led him down to the end of the hallway-to his old room. Clearing Tom out and promising that breakfast would arrive soon, she left, saying only, “Excellent to see you, Mr. Lenox! You must excuse me, we’re busier than bees at the moment!” on her way out. Her brusqueness put Lenox in an affectionate mood; it meant nothing had changed.

It was a room small in proportions but comfortably arranged. There were two windows with a lovely view of New College, a large bed in one corner, a nicked and blackened desk that had seen many first letters to home, and by the window a round, rickety table with a comfortable armchair alongside it and a fireplace behind it in the corner. There would have been a better turned-out (and perhaps even more comfortable) room in one of the nice hotels on Beaumont Street or the High, but he wouldn’t have been happy at either, knowing his room above the kitchen at the Turf was still available. He had spent so many nights here just before term started-that first, nervous night of his fresher year, in fact, waiting for his brother, Edmund, a third-year, to come fetch him for supper. Edmund-he would have understood. He would have stayed here too, as their father had, and his father, and his father.

A moment later the chastised Tom staggered in under a tray about as big as him. Lenox slipped him a sixpence and smiled conspiratorially. “Not a word to Mum, eh?” he said.

Then he slipped the window open to feel the breeze and poured himself a cup of coffee. There was a plate loaded down with toast, eggs, kippers, rashers, fried tomatoes, baked beans, and sausages on the tray, and he tucked into them with his mind on anything but a dead cat, smiling.