Jill Read Online Free Page A

a taxi, a thing he had never done before. Only his china had gone before him in a little crate: everything else had been packed in his case, which was like a small trunk with a handle. He could hardly carry it twenty yards, it was so heavy.
    Anxiously he waited. The driver of the first taxicab backgrinned and switched off his engine as John gave him the address of his college.
    “Sorry, sir, I’m goin’ to ’ave my tea.”
    “Oh.”
    He went back to the kerb again. The second driver was willing, and after a short, blurred ride, set John down at his gates for two shillings. John gave him half a crown, and, afraid that the man would try to give him sixpence change, stepped quickly through the gate into the college porch. He heard the taxi drive away.
    Already the sound of traffic receded a little. He recognized the quadrangle (for he had been there once before) and looked about him.
    I must ask the porter where my room is, he told himself to quell his rising bewilderment, that is the first thing to do.
    So he left his bag stand and turned into the doorway of the set of rooms at the gates that was given over to the porter as a lodge. Here the post was laid out and a few tattered railway time-tables and telephone-directories hung for the use of the students along one wall. John remembered the porter, a fierce little man with ginger whiskers and a regimental tie, and saw him leaning against the inner door talking to two young men. He was better dressed than John himself.
    “Don’t tell me that. Don’t tell me . That’s what I was saying all last term.”
    “Anyway, no one’ll bother to do it,” said one young man languidly. “No one in their senses, that is.”
    “I’ll tell you what it is,” the porter began in an even crosser voice, but broke off when he saw John. “Yes, sir?”
    John swallowed, and the two young men turned to look at him.
    “Er—I’ve just arrived—er—can you—er—my rooms——”
    “What, sir?” snapped the little man, bending an ear nearer. “What d’you say?” John was speechless. “A fresher, are you?”
    “Yes——”
    “What name?”
    “Er—Kemp—er——”
    “Kent?”
    The porter picked up a list and ran his thumbnail down it: the two young men continued to look at John as if he held no particular significance for them. It seemed hours before the porter exclaimed:
    “ Kemp! Kemp, are you? Yes, room two, staircase fourteen. With Mr. Warner. That’s you, sir,” he repeated as John did not move. “Fourteen, two.”
    “Er—where?——”
    “Founder’s Quad—second arch on the left. Staircase fourteen’s on the righthand side. You can’t miss it.”
    John backed out, murmuring thanks.
    Who was Mr. Warner?
    This was something he had dreaded, though not very intensely because there were other more immediate things to shrink from.
    He had thought that once he had found his rooms, he would always have a refuge, a place to retreat to and hide in. This was apparently not so.
    Who was Mr. Warner? Perhaps he would be quiet and studious.
    The news upset him so much that he forgot to ask the porter if his crate of china had arrived, and instead, picked up his case and set off in the direction indicated. The quadrangle was gravelled and surrounded by sets of rooms on three sides, with the Chapel and Hall on the fourth side. The windows were dark and hollow: archways, with arms and scrolled stone, led off into other parts of the college, and one or two pigeons flew down from high ledges from among the rich crimson ivy. John, panting under the weight of the bag, passed through one of the arches where a tablet commemorated the previous war, and found himself in a set of cloisters with the statue of the Founder in the middle, surrounded by iron railings. His footsteps echoed on the stone, and he walked on tip-toe, unaware that the sound would become casually familiar to him in a very few days. In this inner quadrangle silence was almost complete, only broken by the sound of