Christina gave a big smile to the others and dropped into another mismatched armchair. Though technically not on the teaching staff, the exigencies of war allowed her to use the SCR, as out of term time the students’ meagre facilities were closed down.
‘Hear the sirens earlier on?’ she asked brightly. ‘Less often now than last month, thank heaven. Why they bother with sirens, I can’t imagine. When the motor stops, we’ve got only half a minute left, so what’s the point?’
Listening to doodlebug engines was now a serious pastime. If the noise continued when directly overhead, you were safe, but if it cut out before it reached you, you could well expect half a ton of high explosive to be dropped at your feet.
Agatha Wood-Turner preferred not to dwell on instruments of violent death, unless they were medieval tortures portrayed in stained-glass windows.
‘I suppose you’ll be cast as the Virgin, and I’ll get Noah’s wife, as usual,’ she said bitterly.
The blonde batted her long eyelashes at the speaker in a parody of puzzlement.
‘What on earth do you mean, Agatha?’
‘Haven’t you heard yet on the college grapevine? Our lord and master wants to put on a Miracle Play for the Open Day.’
Christina shrugged philosophically. ‘Oh well, it beats having to listen to Harry making more speeches about how studying art history furthers the war effort!’
She groped in her own document case and pulled out a shapely bottle of orange Tizer and a glass. Filling it and raising it to the others, she proposed a toast.
‘Here’s to Adam and Eve, then. On with the motley, the paint and the powder!’
‘I thought we needed something essentially British in these dangerous times,’ said Hieronymus Drabble, doing his best to sound Churchillian. ‘Something from our glorious past, like a medieval play from the Old Testament.’
‘That would be essentially Hebrew, not British,’ muttered Partridge, but Drabble ignored him. He was a fat man with a bald head and a double chin, having a passing resemblance to the Prime Minister, which he cultivated. Approaching sixty, he saw his coveted professorship slipping beyond his grasp, and this soured his whole nature.
‘Are you talking about another bit of the York or Chester Cycle?’ demanded Agatha, referring to a couple of the well-known collections of religious plays from the Middle Ages. ‘We’ve done a few of those over the years, even going back before the war,’ she pointed out, to emphasise her seniority in years of service.
Drabble shook his head, his jowls flapping above his spotted bow tie.
‘No, no! I came across something new quite recently.’
He reached across his paper-strewn desk and picked up a few pages of foolscap, pinned together in one corner. ‘I was in Oxford the other day, as an external examiner for a dissertation, and took the opportunity to call into the Bodleian to look up a few references.’
He looked at the fifth member of his captive audience, who were all seated on hard chairs around the other side of his desk. This was Blanche Fitzwilliam, the assistant librarian, a short, dumpy lady with a pleasant manner.
‘As you know only too well, our own library is woefully short of many historical journals,’ he said heavily.
Blanche was a war widow, having lost her RAF husband in the Battle of Britain, and was not going to be brow-beaten by the likes of Harry Drabble
‘And it will remain woefully short until the war is over!’ she said spiritedly. ‘We lost half our stock when that incendiary bomb came through the roof three years ago.’
The Reader raised a hand in surrender. ‘Of course, dear lady! I’m not blaming anyone, apart from Adolf Hitler – just stating a fact. Anyway, I found one of the papers I was looking for in an 1894 volume of the Quarterly Journal of Historical Research, but serendipitously noticed another title on the Contents Page that was of even more interest!’
He waited for an excited reaction, but there was a sullen silence.
‘It was a translation and a commentary by Austin Dudley Price of something he found in the London Library archives the previous year. An Early Middle English script – the twelfth-century original and a Jacobean translation of The Play of Adam.’
This time, Loftus Maltravers showed some reaction, albeit negative.
‘The Play of Adam? Never heard of it. Not in any of the well-known Cycles, is it?’
Christina chipped in, ‘Couldn’t be, it’s too early. Where did it come from originally?’
‘Oseney Abbey, according to Dudley Price,’ said Drabble. ‘It’s got the usual subjects in it – the Creation, the Fall of Lucifer, Cain and Abel, the Flood.’
They all pondered this for a moment.
‘How much of it do you propose doing? Some of these went on for hours, even days,’ objected Agatha WoodTurner.
‘About an hour would suffice, I think,’ replied Harry. ‘Just to show people that even five years of war can’t abolish academic scholarship.’
‘And to impress the Dean of the Faculty with his genius!’ murmured Peter Partridge under his breath.
The pages that Drabble had copied out from the journal in Oxford were passed around and after a quick scan, no one could think of any valid objection, if the boss was really set on this idea. The Open Day was an annual event as inescapable as Christmas, and something had to fill in the time to divert the few dozen people who felt obliged to attend. A discussion developed and, with it, mild enthusiasm for the project.
‘It looks as if three of these short sections would fill the hour,’ suggested Agatha. “The Creation”, “The Fall of Lucifer” and “Cain and Abel” seem most suitable.’
‘Great!’ said Loftus with relief. ‘That means I don’t have to make another damned Ark.’
Hieronymus leaned back in his chair, put his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll get this typed up and make half a dozen stencilled copies for you all. We can get some of the post-graduate students to help with scenery and take a few of the parts.’
‘Where are we going to do it?’ asked Maltravers. ‘Not on the back of a cart again, I hope.’
The last attempt at medieval authenticity several years earlier had been a disaster due to a sudden thunderstorm soaking the outdoor audience, making them run for cover just as Noah had announced the start of the Deluge.
There was a discussion about the best venue and eventually all agreed that the Large Lecture Theatre would be most suitable. Though as with the SCR, the title suggested serried ranks of polished benches climbing a curved auditorium, it was actually a First World War military hut that had been erected in 1917 when Waverley House had been commandeered on a previous occasion. A rectangular wooden structure similar to a small parish hall, it stood in the yard at the back of the main college building, whose red brick formed a U-shaped embrace around the hut. It had a raised platform at one end, ten rows of chairs and very little else.
‘Who’s going to organise the casting?’ asked Blanche Fitzwilliam.
With no sign of embarrassment, Hieronymus produced a sheet of paper. ‘I took the liberty of drawing up the dramatis personae. I thought Mr Partridge, being in the prime of life, could play Adam, and also portray Cain, alongside Doctor Maltravers as Abel.’
‘So who will be Eve?’ demanded Agatha, clipping on her pince-nez to glare at Drabble.
‘Perhaps Miss Ullswater would oblige,’ said Drabble in his most oily voice. ‘It would be more consistent with the age of Adam.’
‘And who’s going to be God?’ wondered Peter aloud, silently adding, As if I didn’t know!