Page 24 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘It’s in the main lecture hall in the Chemistry School at ten,’ the woman said briskly, pointing. ‘The building opposite. Very simple to find.’
Simple if you know, Nancy thought, thanking her and going on her way.
The Scottish girl was waiting for her out in the corridor. ‘Hello. I don’t understand where we go now, do you?’
‘Apparently it’s straightforward. Let’s look.’ They went to a window and gazed down on the quad. The crowds ofstudents were now swarming like ants up the broad steps to the grand portico of a white-stone building on the far side of the quad. Nancy sighed. ‘Chemistry looks a much more splendid building than Zoology, doesn’t it?’
‘My dad says Chemistry is an older subject and more important,’ the girl said solemnly as they moved off, ‘but it’s harder to get a place and even if I’d wanted to do it, which I didn’t, my marks weren’t good enough. I’m Peggy Harman, by the way.’
‘Nancy Foster.’ They grinned at one another.
‘I say, it’s dreadful being new, isn’t it? I don’t know a soul.’
‘Nor do I.’ Nancy warmed to Peggy straight away. Her clear green eyes danced with fun in her small pointed face.
They descended the stairs together, exchanging vital details. Peggy’s family were originally from Edinburgh, Nancy learned, but were now settled in Aldershot, where her father was a military doctor. Peggy was an only child and her parents were ambitious for her.
Nancy told Peggy in return that her mother hadn’t wanted her to go to university at all, let alone to study science. ‘She thinks it’s unfeminine.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t mind about being feminine, do you?’
‘My mum says all the marrying stuff will happen when the time is right. And that if you’ve a good brain, you should use it.’
‘She sounds sensible, your mother,’ Nancy sighed as they walked across the quad. ‘You’re not living at home, are you? Aldershot’s a good way to come.’
‘No, I’m in one of the hostels across the road. Moved inlast night. It’s not bad, a bit noisy, but at least I have a room of my own. I’ve never had to share, you see. I mean, suppose the other girl snored?’ She giggled.
‘I’m still living at home.’ Nancy thought a hostel sounded fun. Aunt Rhoda had been willing to stump up for her niece to live independently, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. There had been quite an argument at home. Nancy’s father had been sympathetic, but her mother had tried to make it sound an unfair expense on Rhoda.
Nancy guessed the truth, which was that her mother was keen to keep an eye on her headstrong youngest. Helen, through a contact of Rhoda’s, was now working as a secretary to a buyer at Peter Jones in Sloane Square in London, and was being courted by a Bobby Norris, one of the younger managers. She was still living at home and very much under her mother’s thumb. Why should Nancy be treated differently? To Nancy, this was infuriating. Helen always did what she was told. Sometimes Nancy wished her sister would do something terribly rebellious and draw attention away from her, but she never did.
She and Peggy climbed the steps to the Chemistry building and followed the chattering crowd across an airy, marble-pillared atrium, along a broad corridor and into a large, high-ceilinged lecture theatre filled with tiered seating. Here they nabbed two seats together.
Nancy, gazing around the noisy hall, was heartened to spot a couple of dozen girls among the hundreds of male freshers. There were also a few dark faces; Africans, Indians and Chinese, she guessed. Of the men in the room, most wereno more than boys of her own age, fresh from school, but she was curious to see some who were older. They’d have been in the forces, she imagined. That would also explain their air of having seen the world.
‘I wonder how many are Zoology students like us?’ she asked Peggy, but before her new friend could answer, a bell clanged urgently and the chatter of voices subsided to a murmur.
Footsteps echoed and heads turned to see a burly man in a black academic gown stride to the front. He took his place at a lectern and stared round at the assembled students, his face like a storm cloud, waiting until silence fell. Then he began to speak in a ponderous voice that reminded Nancy of Mr Churchill. ‘My name is Sir Hugh Desmond. I’m the Master here.’ He rambled on for twenty minutes about how fortunate they all were to attend Prince’s College with its eminent alumni – though the famous names he listed were all male – and commended them to work hard. The star of the show, however, was a persistent wasp, which Sir Hugh stopped from time to time to swipe at, drawing snorts of mirth from the audience.
‘I thought I’d die laughing,’ Peggy whispered, after he’d finished.
‘I was sure it would sting him. They’re very cross and sleepy this late in the season.’
As they filed out, Nancy caught the eye of the dark-haired moody young man she’d seen at registration. He raised one eyebrow at her, then moved quickly ahead. As she and Peggy walked back to the Zoology building, where they wereto assemble next, she found herself searching for his tall, black-coated figure in the crowd.
The next venue on the day’s timetable turned out to be a modest lecture room in the Zoology department, rather gloomy, with a blackboard on the front wall above a table for the lecturer. Its cream-painted side walls were studded with posters of insects and fish. Nancy and Peggy joined a dozen other students idling quietly on the chairs as they waited for the head of department to appear. Some were taking the opportunity to silently eye up the others. Others looked at the floor or the posters. Most were too shy to make small talk.
There were fifteen, all told. Nancy was surprised that seven of them were girls, a high proportion compared to the gathering they’d just left. Two of the men were several years older. She listened with half an ear as they chatted desultorily – something about the difficulties one had getting digs. They wore an air of sophistication, as though they’d seen a bit of life, and Nancy felt a little in awe of them.
Meanwhile, the dark-haired young man sat by himself, staring morosely at a leaflet about the Christian Union that someone had left on a desk. Nancy was just gathering the courage to speak to a girl sitting behind her when she heard jocular male voices and everyone looked round expectantly. A couple of youngish men in tweed suits entered the room. One wore a jovial expression and puffed affectedly on a pipe, the other had thick-lensed spectacles and dramatically receding hair. They nodded at the waiting students. ‘I expect theprof will be along in a moment,’ the smoker remarked before they returned to their conversation.
‘Are they our lecturers?’ Peggy whispered with distaste and Nancy said she supposed so.
After a few minutes, the stout, bearded professor whom Nancy remembered from her interview stomped in and walked quickly to the front. The lecturers immediately quietened and at his gesture everyone sat down. Professor Briggs dumped his briefcase on the floor at the front, planted meaty palms on the table and leaned to stare round fiercely at the assembled students, iron-grey hair falling across his forehead.
‘Apologies,’ he said in a gruff voice. ‘Some damn fool drove into the back of my car. Now.’ He sat down behind the table and everyone watched as he ferreted in his briefcase and brought out a hardback notebook. As he called out names, Nancy’s fellow students began to assume identities.
The older men were both ahead of her in the register, Michael Carlton and Edmund Buckland. Michael answered brightly, but Edmund’s cultured ‘Here’ was oddly hesitant, inspiring Nancy to say a confident ‘Yes’ when her own turn came. Among the others were two Annes, Anne Durban and Anne Southgate; a Welsh girl, Angharad; a willowy upper-class girl named Diana; and a slender Indian man whose long name the professor stumbled over, but who asked in a friendly manner to be called Raj. Nancy instantly warmed to his good nature. The scowling dark boy was last on the list. He answered ‘Over here’ in a low but definite tone to his name, which was James West.
‘Right.’ Professor Briggs screwed the top onto his pen and frowned at them all. His eyes rested on the men near the door. ‘Ah. Before I begin, may I introduce Dr Lansdale over there with the noxious pipe, and Dr Mills.’ Both men murmured greetings, Dr Lansdale brandishing his pipe in theatrical fashion. ‘You’ll be meeting the other members of the department in due course. We like to think of ourselves as a friendly team and I’m sure you’ll settle in quickly.’
