By the time we left we had only a few hours before our journey. We stole the morning papers and milk for tea from the delivery van waiting outside Sainsbury’s. We staggered back to Michael’s rooms on Bridge Street. The birds were singing, and I was happy.

5

WHEN I ARRIVED in Great Court at six-forty-five in the morning, it was clear that Francis had forgotten to tell Jessica that he had invited me. She was waiting on the broad stone steps by the entrance to the chapel, and waved to me and smiled as if at a chance meeting. She told me where she was going for the day. When she asked me what my plans were, I was mortified. I mumbled that Francis had asked me to tag along, as a thank you for rescuing Michael. I could feel this slender excuse fraying: it had held my weight for only a few hours in their company, and I knew it would soon break. Jessica was less disposed to hide her surprise than Francis had been the previous night. She arched her fine eyebrows, and then shrugged, as if to say, ‘Then he can take care of you.’ I had clearly exhausted my free trial period, and would get no further indulgence from her. Her beauty made her difficult to talk to. It was something that had to be got used to, like the coldness of water. She had at her feet a canvas bag which, I was soon to discover, contained her riding boots, hat and jodhpurs. Before her family had lost their money her parents had had a mania for activities, and at fourteen Jessica had been a champion tennis player, skier, rider and ice skater. The development of all these skills had been arrested at the same time as her father and, without Francis, she lacked the means to indulge them. Unlike the rest of her body, her feet had not grown since her early teens, and the riding boots were a legacy of better times, nursed in a storage cupboard until she came up to Cambridge. The hat was a gift from Francis.

I again felt embarrassed, since it was clear that Jessica had been invited to participate, whereas I would be a mere spectator. It made the previous night’s mistake even more gross, and Francis’s willingness to make good his offer all the more generous. I would spend the day relying on the good grace of people I had never met to ferry me around, explain what was going on and make conversation. I had only slept two or three hours, and my hangover was nagging at me. Jessica, who had not been drinking, seemed in perfect form. Only the thought of the happiness I had glimpsed at the club allowed me to keep my nerve, and prevented me from making some excuse and leaving.

Francis himself arrived a few minutes later to tell us that his driver was waiting for us in Old Court. He seemed every bit as fresh as Jessica, though his eye, still swollen from the battle, gave him the air of a conquering hero. He looked at my face, and I must have been visibly suffering, for he immediately apologized for the early start. ‘This early in the season, you have to go out in the twilight, when the frost’s still on the ground, because then it holds the fox’s scent,’ he explained.