Some people, it is said, fall in love at first sight but that was not what happened to William Hatchard and Philippa Jameson. They hated each other from the moment they met. This mutual loathing commenced at the first tutorial of their freshmen terms. Both had come up in the early thirties with major scholarships to read English language and literature, William to Merton, Philippa to Somerville. Each had been reliably assured by their schoolteachers that they would be the star pupil of their year.
Their tutor, Simon Jakes of New College, was both bemused and amused by the ferocious competition that so quickly developed between his two brightest pupils, and he used their enmity skillfully to bring out the best in both of them without ever allowing either to indulge in outright abuse. Philippa, an attractive, slim red-head with a rather high-pitched voice, was the same height as William so she conducted as many of her arguments as possible standing in newly acquired high-heeled shoes, while William, whose deep voice had an air of authority, would always try to expound his opinions from a sitting position. The more intense their rivalry became the harder the one tried to outdo the other. By the end of their first year they were far ahead of their contemporaries while remaining neck and neck with each other. Simon Jakes told the Merton Professor of Anglo-Saxon Studies that he had never had a brighter pair up in the same year and that it wouldn't be long before they were holding their own with him.
During the long vacation both worked to a gruelling time table, always imagining the other would be doing a little more. They stripped bare Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and only went to bed with Keats.
When they returned for the second year, they found that absence had made the heart grow even more hostile; and when they were both awarded alpha plus for their essays on Beowulf, it didn't help. Simon Jakes remarked at New College high table one night that if Philippa Jameson had been born a boy some of his tutorials would undoubtedly have ended in blows.
Occasionally the adversaries would seek his adjudication as to who was ahead of whom, and so confident was each of being the favoured pupil that one would always ask in the other's hearing. Jakes was far too canny to be drawn; instead he would remind them that the examiners would be the final arbiters. So they began their own subterfuge by referring to each other, just in earshot, as "that silly woman", and "that arrogant man". By the end of their second year they were almost unable to remain in the same room together.
while Philippa flirted with the Charleston and a young naval lieutenant from Dartmouth. But when term started in earnest these interludes were never admitted and soon forgotten.
Nevertheless no one was willing to venture an opinion as to who the victor would be. The New College porter, an expert in these matters, opening his usual book for the Charles Oldham, made them both evens, ten to one the rest of the field.
Before the prize essay submission date was due, they both had to sit their final degree examinations. Philippa and William confronted the examination papers every morning and afternoon for two weeks with an appetite that bordered on the vulgar. It came as no surprise to anyone that they both achieved first class degrees in the final honors school. Rumor spread around the University that the two rivals had been awarded alphas in every one of their nine papers.
With only three weeks left before the prize essay had to be handed in they both worked twelve hours a day, falling asleep over open text books, dreaming that the other was still beavering away. When the appointed hour came they met in the marble-floored entrance hall of the Examination Schools, sombre in subfusc
"Good morning, William, I do hope your efforts will manage to secure a place in the first six." "Thank you, Philippa. If they don't I shall look for the names C. S. Lewis, Nichol Smith, Nevil Coghill, Edmund Blunden, R. W. Chambers and H. W. Garrard ahead of me. There's certainly no one else in the field to worry about."
"I am only pleased," said Philippa, as if she had not heard his reply, "that you were not seated next to me when I wrote my essay, thus ensuring for the first time in three years that you weren't able to crib from my notes."
On Monday night after a resplendent dinner with the Master of Merton, he decided to take a walk along the banks of the Cherwell to clear his head before going to bed. The May evening was still light as he made his way down through the narrow confines of Merton Wall, across the meadows to the banks of the Cherwell. As he strolled along the winding path, he thought he spied his rival ahead of him under a tree reading. He considered turning back but decided she might already have spotted him, so he kept on walking.
He had not seen Philippa for three days although she had rarely been out of his thoughts: once he had won the Charles Oldham, the silly woman would have to climb down from that high horse of hers. He smiled at the thought and decided to walk nonchalantly past her. As he drew nearer, he lifted his eyes from the path in front of him to steal a quick glance in her direction, and could feel himself reddening in anticipation of her inevitable well-timed insult. Nothing happened so he looked more carefully, only to discover on closer inspection that she was not reading: her head was bowed in her hands and she appeared to be sobbing quietly. He slowed his progress to observe, not the formidable rival who had for three years dogged his every step, but a forlorn and lonely creature who looked somewhat helpless.
William's first reaction was to think that the winner of the prize essay competition had been leaked to her and that he had indeed achieved his victory. On rejection, he realised that could not be the case: the examiners would only have received the essays that morning and as all the assessors read each submission the results could not possibly be forthcoming until at least the end of the week. Philippa did not look up when he reached her side - he was even unsure whether she was aware of his presence. As he stopped to gaze at his adversary William could not help noticing how her long red hair curled just as it touched the shoulder. He sat down beside her but still she did not stir.
She raised her head, revealing a face flushed from crying.
William put his arm tentatively on Philippa's shoulder.
"Don't be absurd. When you win the prize, they'll pronounce you the star pupil of the decade. After all, you will have had to beat me to achieve the distinction."
"How did he die?"
"Cancer, only he never let me know."
He asked me not to go home before the summer term as he felt the break might interfere with my finals and the Charles Oldham. While all the time he must have been keeping me away because he knew if I saw the state he was in that would have been the end of my completing any serious work."
"My father presented me with an old MG when I was awarded a first. I have been longing to find some excuse to show the damn thing off to you. It has a press button start, you know."
"Obviously he didn't want to risk waiting to give you the car on the Charles Oldham results." William laughed more heartily than the little dig merited.
"Sorry," she said. "Put it down to habit. I shall look forward to seeing if you drive as appallingly as you write, in which case the journey may never come to any conclusion. I'll be ready for you at ten."
On the journey down to Hampshire, Philippa talked about her father's work as a parish priest and inquired after William's family. They stopped for lunch at a pub in Winchester. Rabbit stew and mashed potatoes.
Philippa cooked William dinner, which they ate by a fire he had made up in the front room. Although hardly a word passed between them for three hours, neither was bored. Philippa began to notice the way William's untidy fair hair fell over his forehead and thought how distinguished he would look in old age.
The next morning, she walked into the church on William's arm and stood bravely through the funeral. When the service was over William took her back to the vicarage, crowded with the many friends the parson had made.
"You mustn't think ill of us," said Mr. Crump, the vicar's warden, to Philippa. "You were everything to your father and we were all under strict instructions not to let you know about his illness in case it should interfere with the Charles Oldham. That is the name of the prize, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Philippa. "But that all seems so unimportant now."
"But I haven't even had time to unpack the things I brought back from Brockenhurst."
"Just do as you are told for once - I'll give you fifteen minutes."
The porter's eyebrows nudged the edge of his cap but he remained silent, in deference to Miss Jameson's recent bereavement. Again it surprised William to think that he had never been to Philippa's room during their three years. He had climbed the walls of all the women's colleges to be with a variety of girls of varying stupidity but never with Philippa. He sat down on the end of the bed.
Fifteen minutes later she came out of the bathroom in a yellow flowered dress with a neat white collar and matching cuffs. William thought she might even be wearing a touch of make-up.
"It will do our reputations no good to be seen together," she said.
"Yes, this year I'm supporting distressed orphans."
Philippa signed out of college until midnight and the two scholars travelled down to Stratford, stopping off at Broadway for lunch. In the afternoon they rowed on the River Avon. William warned Philippa of his last disastrous outing in a punt. She admitted that she had already heard of the exhibition he had made of himself, but they arrived safely back at the shore: perhaps because Philippa took over the rowing.
"Then you'll have to carry me. I am far too fragile to walk."
Philippa clambered into the back seat and did not speak to him again before falling asleep. William donned his hat, scarf and gloves, crossed his arms for warmth, and touched the tangled red mane of Philippa's hair as she slept. He then took off his coat and placed it so that it covered her.
Philippa woke first, a little after six, and groaned as she tried to stretch her aching limbs. She then shook William awake to ask him why his father hadn't been considerate enough to buy him a car with a comfortable back seat.
"But it isn't going, and won't without petrol," she replied getting out of the car to stretch her legs.
"What do you think I'm doing, you silly woman. I am going to ask you to marry me."
"An invitation I am happy to decline, William. If I accepted such a proposal I might end up spending the rest of my life stranded on the road between Oxford and Stratford."
Now do get off your knee, William, before someone mistakes you for a straying stork."
"No, I did not. I don't mind our contemporaries thinking I'm promiscuous, but I have strong objections to their believing that I have no taste. Now kindly go away, as I am contemplating the horror of your winning the Charles Oldham and my having to spend the rest of my life with you."
"I realise that it has become fashionable to sleep with just anyone nowadays, William, but if this is to be my last weekend of freedom I intend to savour it, especially as I may have to consider committing suicide."
On the stroke of ten the chairman of the examiners, in full academic dress, walking at tortoise-like pace, arrived in the great hall and with a considerable presence at indifference pinned a notice to the board. All the undergraduates who had entered for the prize rushed forward except for William and Philippa who stood alone, aware that it was now too late to influence a result they were both dreading.
"Second place is not worthy of praise," said William disdainfully.
And to the delight of their peers and the amazement of the retreating don, they embraced under the notice board.
The marriage took place a month later in Philippa's family church at Brockenhurst. "Well, when you think about it," said William's room-mate, "who else could she have married?" The contentious couple started their honeymoon in Athens arguing about the relative significance of Doric and Ionic architecture of which neither knew any more than they had covertly conned from a half-crown tourist guide. They sailed on to Istanbul, where William prostrated himself at the front of every mosque he could find while Philippa stood on her own at the back fuming at the Turks' treatment of women.
"The Turks are a shrewd race," declared William, "so quick to appreciate real worth."
"Then why don't you embrace the Moslim religion, William, and I need only be in your presence once a year."
She bought herself a spinet and took to playing Dowland and Gibbons in the evening.
"For Christ's sake," said William, exasperated by the tinny sound, "you won't deduce their religious convictions from their key signatures."
"More informative than ifs and ends, my dear," she said, imperturbably, "and at night so much more relaxing than pots and pans."
Three years later, with well-received D. Phils, they moved on, inexorably in tandem, to college teaching fellowships. As the long shadow of fascism fell across Europe, they read, wrote, criticised and coached by quiet firesides in unchanging quadrangles.
"A rather dull Schools year for me," said William, "but I still managed five firsts from a field of eleven."
"I hear a rumor, Philippa, that the college doesn't feel able to renew your fellowship at the end of the year?"
"I fear you speak the truth, William," she replied. "They decided they couldn't renew mine at the same time as offering me yours."
"Because when they did invite me, I informed the President that I would prefer to wait to be elected at the same time as my wife."
Some non-University guests sitting in high table for the first time took their verbal battles seriously; others could only be envious of such love.
"Dr. Hatchard will be delivering half these lectures," Philippa announced at the start of the Michaelmas Term of their joint lecture course on Arthurian legend. "But I can assure you it will not be the better half. You would be wise always to check which Dr. Hatchard is lecturing."
The only sadness in their lives was that Philippa could bear William no children, but if anything it drew the two closer together. Philippa lavished quasi-maternal affection on her tutorial pupils and allowed herself only the wry comment that she was spared the probability of producing a child with William's looks and William's brains.
"Do you realize that I can complete The Times crossword puzzle in half the time my husband can?"
The anonymous man was only thankful that he wasn't chained to Philippa. He drafted them both to the Admiralty section to deal with enciphered wireless messages to and from German submarines. The German signal manual was a four-letter code book and each message was reciphered, the substitution table changing daily. William taught Philippa how to evaluate letter frequencies and she applied her new knowledge to modern German texts, coming up with a frequency analysis that was soon used by every code-breaking department in the Commonwealth. Even so breaking the ciphers and building up the master signal book was a colossal task which took them the best part of two years.
"Because, I consider the dot is redundant and I hope to be responsible for removing it from the English language."
"Is that to be your major contribution to the scholarship, William, if so I am bound to ask how anyone reading the work of most of our undergraduates' essays would be able to tell the difference between an I and an i."
"If Council invite you to take the chair," said William, putting his hand through his graying hair, "it will be because they are going to make me Vice-Chancellor."
The General Board, after several hours' discussion of the problem, offered two chairs and appointed William and Philippa full professors on the same day.
When the Vice-Chancellor was asked why precedent had been broken he replied: "Simple; if I hadn't given them both a chair, one of them would have been after my job."
That night, after a celebration dinner when they were walking home together along the banks of the Isis across Christ Church Meadows, in the midst of a particularly heated argument about the quality of the last volume of Proust's monumental works, a policeman, noticing the affray, ran over to them and asked:
The chairman of the BBC wrote to William a few weeks later inviting him to join the Board of Governors.
"Are you to replace 'Hancock's Half Hour' or 'Dick Barton, Special Agent'?" Philippa inquired.
"Genius."
Philippa flicked through the Radio Times. "I see that 'Genius' is to be viewed at two o'clock on a Sunday morning, which is understandable, as it's when you are at your most brilliant."
As the years passed many anecdotes, only some of which were apocryphal, passed into the Oxford fabric. Everyone in the English school knew the stories about the "fighting Hatchards". How they spent their first night together. How they jointly won the Charles Oldham. How Phil would complete The Times crossword before Bill had finished shaving. How they were both appointed to professorial chairs on the same day, and worked longer hours than any of their contemporaries as if they still had something to prove, if only to each other. It seemed almost required by the laws of symmetry that they should always be judged equals. Until it was announced in the New Year's Honours that Philippa had been made a Dame of the British Empire.
"Our dear Queen," said William, selecting the Madeira, "knows only too well how little competition there is in the women's colleges: sometimes one must encourage weaker candidates in the hope that it might inspire some real talent lower down."
After that, whenever they attended a public function together, Philippa would have the M.C. announce them as Professor William and Dame Philippa Hatchard. She looked forward to many happy years of starting every official occasion one up on her husband, but her triumph lasted for only six months as William received a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Philippa feigned surprise at the dear Queen's uncharacteristic lapse of judgment and forthwith insisted on their being introduced in public as Sir William and Dame Philippa Hatchard.
"It's no wonder," said Philippa, "that your poor pupils can't make up their minds whether you're homosexual or you simply have a mother fixation. Be thankful that I did not accept Girton's invitation: then you would have been married to a mistress."
As the years passed, they never let up their pretended belief in the other's mental feebleness. Philippa's books, "works of considerable distinction" she insisted, were published by Oxford University Press while William's "works of monumental significance" he declared, were printed at the presses of Cambridge University.
In the early sixties they conducted a battle of letters in the T.L.S. on the works of Philip Sidney without ever discussing the subject in each other's presence. In the end the editor said the correspondence must stop and adjudicated a draw. They both declared him an idiot.
If there was one act that annoyed William in old age about Philippa, it was her continued determination each morning to complete The Times crossword before he arrived at the breakfast table. For a time, William ordered two copies of the paper until Philippa filled them both in while explaining to him it was a waste of money.
One particular morning in June at the end of their final academic year before retirement, William came down to breakfast to find only one space in the crossword left for him to complete. He studied the clue: "Skelton reported that this landed in the soup." He immediately filled in the eight little boxes.
"My dear Dame Philippa," said William, as if he were addressing a particularly stupid pupil, "you surely cannot imagine because you are old and your hair has become very white that you are a sage. You must understand that the Shorter Oxford Dictionary was cobbled together for simpletons whose command of the English language stretches to no more than one hundred thousand words. When I go to college this morning I shall confirm the existence of the word in the O.E.D. on my desk. Need I remind you that the O.E.D. is a serious work which, with over five hundred thousand words, was designed for scholars like myself?"
"And you, my dear, will read the Collected Works of John Skelton and eat humble pie as your first course."
"You did, my dear. It was in the days when it wasn't fashionable to admit a woman had won anything."
The Principal and the Bursar stood waiting by the side of their illustrious academic colleague but they already knew what the doctor was going to say.
"Doctor, you must be my guest at Somerville's Gaudy next Thursday week where Dame Philippa will be eating humble pie. It will be nothing less than game, set, match and championship for me. A vindication of thirty years' scholarship."
Sir William's colleagues all knew within the hour. College lunch that day was spent in a silence broken only by the Senior Tutor inquiring of the Master if some food should be taken up to the Merton professor.
"I think not," said the Master. Nothing more was said.
Professors, Fellows and students alike crossed the front quadrangle in silence and when they gathered for dinner that evening still no one felt like conversation. At the end of the meal the Senior Tutor suggested once again that something should be taken up to Sir William. This time the Master nodded his agreement and a light meal was prepared by the college chef. The Master and the
Senior Tutor climbed the worn stone steps to Sir William's room and while one held the tray the other gently knocked on the door. There was no reply, so the Master, used to William's ways, pushed the door ajar and looked in.
The old man lay motionless on the wooden floor in a pool of blood, a small pistol by his side. The two men walked in and stared down. In his right hand, William was holding the Collected Works of John Skelton. The book was opened at The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyug, and the word "whym- wham" was underlined.
"Know what, I wonder?" said the Master softly to himself as he attempted to remove the book from Sir William's hand, but the fingers were already stiff and cold around it.
Legend has it that they were never apart for more than a few hours.