Thank you to everyone who nominated and voted for this story in the Awards. I hope you enjoy reading about what I've got in store for Con this term.
I'm afraid updating will be somewhat erratic, as I'm going to be away on and off over the summer. But I have got quite a lot written, and I think I've resolved a couple of plot difficulties I had, so I hope I won't get stuck at any point.
Parts I and II, for anyone who missed them, are available in the Sally Denny Library, or can be found here in St Therese.
The first few days back at Oxford were much like the beginning of a new term at school. Unpacking, catching up with friends, visiting tutors and getting reading lists, checking notice boards for lecture and tutorial timetables and choir practices.
The weather was a mix of snow, sunshine and fog; Judy came back talking of roads in Yorkshire blocked by drifts. It was a long time since Con had experienced an English winter; the last winter before their move to Switzerland the Maynards had spent in Canada. It was of course nowhere near so cold as the weather Con was accustomed to on the Platz. She found the fog and wet, slushy snow unpleasant, but of course university students could not stay indoors for days because of a little bad weather.
Di and Judy said they had had good holidays, but seemed pleased to be back at College.
‘It was a bit awkward at home, sometimes,’ said Di. ‘I’m the first in my family ever to go to university. My aunties kept asking if I enjoy my lessons and like my teachers.’
Con did not mention the various episodes of friction between herself and her parents. She knew of girls who were on bad terms with their parents. Ted Grantley was not close to her mother, and Ricki Fry had been at odds with her father when she had first come to school, although they had been reconciled before the end of that term. Other girls at school spoke of disagreements with their parents over clothes or bedtime or pocket money.
To Con, unaccustomed to family quarrels, beyond the occasional spat with Len or Margot, it had been difficult to comprehend. Now she wondered if these family conflicts were more normal than she had supposed, and the Maynards had been unusual in their lack of them.
She received a charming letter from Mrs Harding, thanking her for her help in finding the boys, apologising for not having spoken to her at the time, and hoping that they might meet one day.
Alan asks me to repeat what he said - and I’ll say it for myself, too - if ever there’s anything we can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Yours very sincerely,
Lorna Harding
Con replied appropriately, then largely forgot the whole affair, as Oxford life and study took over again. Her subjects that term were to be the Romantic poets, with Dr Powell, and an introductory course on linguistics, with a Mr Markham, whom she had not met before. She had studied the Romantic poets at school, but linguistics was entirely new to her.
‘It doesn’t look at all like my sort of subject,’ Con said, when they all met up in the Clarendon, the folk music pub, one evening. ‘I went to the library today to make a start on the reading, and was completely lost among all the jargon.’
‘You’ve studied languages, haven’t you?’ said Judy. 'Won't that help?'
‘We didn’t do anything like this at school. I don't even knew what some of the words mean.’
‘I think it’s interesting how languages are related to each other, and how they’ve evolved in different ways,‘ said Jon. ‘In Welsh, for example - ‘
‘Let’s not talk abut work,’ said Peter, returning from the bar with a tray of drinks and handing them round. Con accepted her glass of cider resolving to make it last the whole evening.
The young man with whom Con had argued about music on her previous visit to the pub was sitting nearby. Jon and Peter greeted him, and Con learned that his name was Will. She did not know what subject he was reading, or which college he belonged to. This evening he was accompanied by a young woman, tall with blonde hair that fell nearly to her waist.
When the stage was thrown open to amateur performers, and Will went to take his turn to sing, the young woman - Con heard her addressed as Christine - joined him on the stage. She had a strong mezzo-soprano, but Con thought her voice had a slightly harsh, metallic note. Will’s voice had a roughness which Con thought proper training would eliminate, but it was well suited to the songs the two of them sang, about fishergirls, fishermen and the sea.
Con’s first linguistics lecture did nothing to change her opinion of the subject. She did not take to Mr Markham. He was a small man with dark hair brushed straight back from his forehead. He had a nasal voice and a habit of looking down at his notes while talking, which made him difficult to hear. Con could not help comparing his voice to the booming tones of Professor Harrison, or to Miss Annersley’s voice, which she could effortlessly project to every corner of a room. For the first time at Oxford, she found her attention wandering during a lecture.
‘I think I understood about one word in three - it was all phonemes - morphemes - lexemes. I feel like I used to feel in Maths, that term we had Miss Slater, after we came back from Canada,’ she said to Len, when the two of them were having tea in Len‘s room that afternoon.
‘I think we have linguistics next year,’ said Len, apprehensively.
‘At least you won’t have Mr Markham,’ Con said.
‘Well, you’ll like the Romantics, won’t you?’
‘Some of them,’ Con agreed. ‘I like Keats. Ode to Autumn has always been one of my favourites. Dr Powell says there’s a new edition of his letters, and we should at least read his letters to Fanny Brawne, the girl he wanted to marry, to get a better understanding of him and his work.’
‘We’re doing the German Romantics this term,’ Len said. ‘Dr Thorne has given us a massively long list of reading, in English and German, on German culture and nationalism in the early nineteenth century, as background. It’s going to take me all the term to get through, never mind anything else I have to do.’
Their talk was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mary Lou. She breezed into the room in her usual insouciant manner, full of the latest news of Verity and her small son, and of the old school friends she had seen over the vacation.
Because of the way they had parted before Christmas, Con had been a little uncomfortable at the prospect of seeing Mary Lou again. She was relieved when Mary Lou treated her the same as ever, and made no reference to the events of the previous term. She was so much a part of the Maynard family, it would not do to be on bad terms with her.
But as Con sat back and half-listened to Mary Lou talking about Julie’s home, and Vi’s design course, and Clem’s hopes of persuading a gallery in St Ives to display some of her work in the summer, she realised that she now saw Mary Lou differently. No longer was she the older girl, the Head Girl, someone to look up to, whose judgment could always be relied on. She was just another girl, as likely to be right or wrong as Con herself.
.