Chapter Twenty-One
O ye spires of Oxford! Domes and towers!
Gardens and groves! Your presence overpowers
The soberness of reason
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ‘Oxford, May 30, 1820’
Their return to Oxford the next morning quickly spiralled into a comedy of errors, much of which could have been avoided if they hadn’t been too exhausted or hungry or irritated with each other to communicate. Their purses were running low, so they spent an hour arguing over whether it was prudent to borrow Mrs Clemens’s carriage to Paddington Station until they gave up and forked over the fare for cabs. But cabs in Hampstead were hard to come by on Sunday mornings, which meant they didn’t reach the station until ten minutes after the Oxford train had departed. The next train was fully booked, and the one after that was delayed by a cow that had wandered onto the tracks, which meant they would not arrive at Oxford until after midnight.
A whole day, wasted.
They whiled away the hours in London, migrating from coffeehouse to coffeehouse so as not to attract suspicion, growing ever more twitchy and paranoid from the absurd amounts of coffee and sweets they bought to justify keeping their tables. Every now and then one of them would bring up Professor Lovell, or Hermes, only to be shushed viciously by the others; they didn’t know who could be listening, and the whole of London felt full of hostile eavesdroppers. It felt bad to be shushed, but no one had the heart for lighter conversation, and so none of them were speaking to each other by the time they dragged their trunks onto the crowded late train.
They passed the ride in resentful silence. They were ten minutes out from Oxford Station when Letty suddenly sat up and began hyperventilating.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God—’
She was attracting looks. Letty grabbed at Ramy’s shoulder in some appeal for comfort, but Ramy, impatient, jerked his arm from her grasp. ‘Letty, shut up.’
That was cruel, but Robin sympathized. Letty was wearing on him as well; she’d spent most of the day in hysterics, and he was sick of it. All of their nerves were shot, he thought nastily, and Letty should just chin up and keep it together like the rest of them.
Astounded, Letty fell silent.
At last, their train creaked into Oxford Station. Yawning and shivering, they lugged their trunks over bumpy cobblestones for the twenty minutes it took to walk back to the college – the girls would come to the porter’s lodge first to call a cab, they’d decided; it was too dark to walk so far up north alone. At last the austere stone face of University College emerged from the dark, and Robin felt a sharp pang of nostalgia at the sight of this magical and tainted place which, despite everything, still felt like home.
‘Hey there!’ It was the head porter, Billings, swinging a lantern before him. He looked them up and down and, upon recognition, cast them a broad smile. ‘Back from the Orient at last, are you?’
Robin wondered how they looked under the lamplight – panicked, ragged, and sweaty in yesterday’s clothes. Their exhaustion must have been obvious, for Billings’s expression changed to one of pity. ‘Oh, you poor dears.’ He turned and waved for them to follow. ‘Come with me.’
Fifteen minutes later they were seated around a table in the hall, huddled over cups of strong black tea while Billings fussed around in the kitchen. They’d protested they didn’t want to put him out of the way, but he’d insisted on cooking them a proper fry-up. Soon he emerged with plates of sizzling eggs, sausages, potatoes, and toast.
‘And something to lift the spirits.’ Billings set four mugs down in front of them. ‘Just some brandy and water. You’re not the first Babblers I’ve seen back from abroad. That’s always done the trick.’
The smell of food reminded them they were ravenous. They fell on the spread like wolves, chewing in frantic silence as Billings sat watching them, amused.
‘So,’ he said, ‘tell me about this exciting voyage, eh? Canton and Mauritius, was it? Did they feed you anything funny? See any local ceremonies?’
They glanced at each other, unsure of what to say. Letty began to cry.
‘Oh, come now.’ Billings nudged the mug of brandy closer to her. ‘It can’t have been that bad.’
Letty shook her head. She bit her lip, but a whining noise burst out. It was not a mere sniffle but a stormy, full-body cry. She clamped her hands over her face and sobbed heartily, shoulders quaking, incoherent words leaking through her fingers.
‘She was homesick,’ Victoire said lamely. ‘She was, ah, quite homesick.’
Billings reached out to pat Letty’s shoulder. ‘All’s well, child. You’re back home, you’re safe.’
He went out to wake the driver. Ten minutes later a cab pulled up to the hall, and the girls were off to their lodgings. Robin and Ramy dragged their trunks down to Magpie Lane and said their goodnights. Robin felt a fleeting anxiety when Ramy disappeared through the door into his room – he had grown used to Ramy’s company during all those nights on the voyage, and he was scared of being on his own for the first time in weeks, with no other voice to soften the dark.
But when he closed his own door behind him, he was surprised by how normal everything felt. His desk, bed, and bookshelves were exactly as he’d left them. Nothing had changed in his absence. The translation of the Shanhaijing he’d been working on for Professor Chakravarti still sat on his desk, half-finished in the middle of a sentence. The scout must have been in recently, because there wasn’t a speck of dust in sight. As he sat down on his lumpy mattress and breathed in the familiar, comforting scent of old books and mildew, Robin felt that if he only lay back and closed his eyes, he could get up in the morning and head to class like nothing had ever happened.
He woke to the sight of Ramy looming above him. ‘Good God.’ He bolted upright, breathing hard. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘You really should start locking your door.’ Ramy handed him a cup. ‘Now that we’re – you know. Tea?’
‘Thanks.’ He took the cup in both hands and sipped. It was their favourite blend of Assam, dark and heady and strong. For just a blissful moment there, sunlight streaming through the window and birds chirping softly outside, all that had transpired in Canton seemed like a terrible dream before cold, twisting memory sank in. He sighed. ‘What’s going on?’