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'Thatcher, actually, Miss Loftus - Gavin Thatcher.' The ruined cheeks creased into a shy grin.
'But no relation to our other Sovereign Lady,' said the old man. 'That splendid woman!'
'Wimpy - you're a trouble-maker.' The young man looked at Audley. 'And you're the godson, sir? He's told me about you.'
'Oh, yes?' Audley pretended to know an ally when he saw one as he extended his hand.
'And you're from the Cambridge Science Park?'
'Watch yourself, Gavin!' snapped Mr Willis. 'He's tricky.'
Elizabeth stirred herself to intervene while she was still in credit. 'Mr Thatcher - '
' Doctor Thatcher,' Mr Willis corrected her. 'And she's tricky too, Gavin. The female of the species, in fact.'
For a moment the young man didn't know what to say, but could only blink at her. 'Is that your car out there, Miss Loftus? The green Morgan?' He touched Audley with another look, but rejected him on the grounds of age and size. 'How long did you have to wait for it?'
'I bought it second-hand.' What was he after?
He frowned. 'This year's model - the registration?'
'I bought it from an American serviceman, Dr Thatcher.'
'With a right-hand drive?'
He was damnably observant, for a very young Jaguar driver. 'He was posted unexpectedly to a place where there are no cars - left or right.' She smiled at him. 'I was lucky.' She didn't want to antagonize him, but the old man had left her little to lose. 'Were you one of Dr Thomas's pupils, Dr Gavin?'
Mr Willis sighed theatrically, and then circled round them to pick up the tray on which Audley had brought the drinks. 'Hock or beer, Gavin?'
'Nothing, thank you.' Dr Thatcher stared at her. 'Why do you want to know, Miss Loftus?'
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Mr Willis straightened up. 'Gavin was the top classical scholar of his year. And a double-first thereafter… Compared with him you are an historical plumber, David - a hewer-of-wood and drawer-of-water, intellectually speaking. His involvement with the so-called high technology of the computer age stems purely from the Haddock's advice, allied to his latent skills. It seems that some classicists are quite surprisingly competent in computer skills - rather the same way some mathematicians are allegedly muscial, if you scratch them sufficiently. Is that not all common knowledge in high places?' He looked questioningly at Audley.
Gavin Thatcher shook his head. That's rubbish, of course, Dr Audley.'
'Rubbish that the Haddock didn't steer you to Business School after Cambridge?' Mr Willis's voice was almost old-maidish. 'Rubbish that he didn't then tell you about - who's that young fellow you introduced me to, your partner-in-crime - ? The ex-IBM Old Walthamite who had the idea for those esoteric devices you are presently selling to the Americans?'
Gavin Thatcher shook his head again. 'Who exactly do you work for, Dr Audley? May one ask?'
'Does it matter?' Audley jerked his head towards the old man. 'If we're vouched for, does it matter?'
That wasn't the way to handle the top classical scholar of his year, decided Elizabeth. 'We work for the Government, Dr Thatcher. In an indirect sort of way, which we can't explain.
But we're also working for you. And I hope we're working for Dr Thomas most of all, as it happens.' She risked a glance at Mr Willis. 'True, Mr Willis?'
'Good God, young woman - don't ask me!' Put on the spot, Mr Willis squirmed uncomfortably. 'I'm just a silly old bugger!'
'Oh?' It wasn't what she'd hoped for. But she still had something in the bank with this young man. 'But you summoned Dr Thatcher to talk to us - about Dr Thomas, surely?' She looked at the young man.
'Somewhat equivocally, Miss Loftus. If not mysteriously.' Because she was plain he didn't want to be cruel to her. 'I was planning to return to Cambridge this evening. But he insisted that I must delay my departure, because of an urgent matter involving Dr Thomas.
What do you want to know?'
'Dr Thomas was the Second Master?' What did she want to know, that he could tell her?
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'Yes.' Doubt began to overlay his surrender.
'I've never met him, you see.' She must not give him time to think. 'What's he like?'
'Like?' He seemed momentarily astonished at her ignorance, to the extent that he flicked a glance at Mr Willis. 'Well… tall, thin, eloquent and short-sighted - you mean, what's he like
- ?'
'He played rugger rather well when he was young,' murmured Mr Willis.
'Not in my time. He just taught the theory of the game.'
'And the classics,' murmured Audley, in a tone matching Mr Willis's.
'Yes - ' Gavin Thatcher could sell his esoteric devices to the Americans, but he couldn't play Audley and Mr Willis and Miss Loftus simultaneously.
'Yes?' Elizabeth gave him the rest of her capital. 'Greek and Latin? Tell me about that.'
'Yes.' He relaxed perceptibly: whatever doubts he still had, he couldn't relate them to Virgil's verse or Caesar's prose. ' " Gallia est omnis divisa in partes Ires' - or " Hell! said the duchess" - that's as near as damn-it what he said, in his first lesson, on my second day at Waltham. And he said all the best Latin was exact, and compact, and elegant, and Caesar's was as good as any, so we'd begin with him. And all we had to remember was that the Gallic Wars were like Cowboys and Indians - "How the West was won".'
He stopped, and Elizabeth hoped against hope that neither Audley nor Mr Willis, who both liked to hear the sound of their own voices, would say anything. They didn't say anything.
Gavin Thatcher drew a deep breath. 'I remember… " Thus with the years seasons return, but not to me returns day or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn" - with the emphasis on day… and
" Me only cruel immortality preserves" - emphasis on me only because the order of words is one of the glories of Latin verse, of course. Although Latin isn't in the same class as Greek.'
Elizabeth didn't dare look at either of them: Gavin Thatcher was already out of her class, in that other world of gold, at which lesser mortals might just guess, but in which they could never travel.
'I remember quoting Catullus at him - " Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus advenio"
- which we hadn't been told to read… And he gave me hell after that: he damn well concentrated on me!'
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He wasn't trying to be arrogant, Elizabeth cautioned herself: he was only treating them as equals, after Mr Willis had dismissed Audley as a mere historical plumber - and David in his time had been a scholar!
This time there was no danger of them speaking. 'In Greek we read Xenophon - " The Sea!
The Sea!" - and the Gospel according to St Mark, and the Odyssey. Greek was the real thing, of course - the big thing. Not just the language, which is more fun than Latin - more intricate - but the ideas, do you see?' He paused.
'The Gospel according to Haddock,' Audley whispered to himself.
'The Gospel according to anyone worth his salt,' murmured Mr Willis. 'All the rest of history is a postscript, a mere postscript.' He smiled at Audley. 'You were wasting your time, dear boy. I told you so all those years ago, but you wouldn't listen.' Then he sighed.
'But the greatest wonder of all, to me, was that they actually paid me for teaching this glorious stuff!'
She didn't want them arguing again. 'He taught you philosophy?'
'Not as such.' Gavin Thatcher shook his head. 'But that was pretty much what it was all about, somehow. The languages were ends in themselves, but also means to greater ends.
Or an end - know thyself." Make what you can of that", Haddock used to say. "Some people have learned a great deal from it."' He frowned at her, suddenly embarrassed again. 'Is this really what you want? What else do you want me to tell you?'