Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow Read Free Page B

select faculty, as one might say. Edgar Stone is something of an authority on an author called John Ford. Very rum fellow, Ford, and exactly right for Edgar—his plays are full of women driven mad by sadistic men,” he finished bitterly.
    “I knew Peter’s specialty was Elizabethan authors,” I said as we swung onto the four-lane road that led to Far Wychwood. “He sent me copies of the reviews for that book he published last year, from the Times Literary Supplement and half a dozen other illustrious places. I got the impression it made quite a splash.”
    “Oh, absolutely! The Heroic Villain was the book of the year in academic circles. It’s the reason Peter is sure to get that full professorship tonight. He’s the only one of our faculty who’s published anything at all noteworthy in the past decade. Apart from myself and Gemma, who are really still apprentices, in a manner of speaking, the rest of our little group are in the sere, the yellow leaf, as the Other Fellow says—middle-aged, I mean,” he amended with another little expiatory laugh.
    “ ‘The Other Fellow?’ ”
    “Oh, that’s our name for Will Shakespeare. Bit of a joke, you know.”
    “And though Peter’s made such a name for himself, he’s still considered a sort of employee of this Edgar Stone fellow?”
    “Well, I shouldn’t put it quite like that. Makes us sound a bit like tradesmen,” he said with guileless snobbery. “You see, in order of Oxford rank, we junior fellows, who are not yet through our course of studies, are hoping for eventual promotion to lecturer, a permanent teaching position. Eventually a lecturer can become a reader, with less teaching to do and more chance to concentrate on one’s own research. That’s the highest position most dons achieve. Only the most accomplished are appointed full professor.”
    “But Peter can become head of the department without being a full professor first?”
    “Oh, quite. It’s up to the current chair to make that decision. At present, Peter is a lecturer, so he, as well as Gemma and I, are rather expected to help one of the readers like Stone with research and the like. The other two readers on our faculty are pretty somnolent, haven’t published for years, while Peter’s already made a name for himself. Well, Edgar Stone is involved in this long-term project trying to prove that his chum Ford had a hand in the Other Fellow’s Titus Andronicus . But between you and me, the rest of us think it’s what I believe you Americans call a ‘boondoggle’—just a way for Edgar to claim he’s still working!”
    We were turning off the main road, onto the two-lane that led through Far Wychwood. I felt a surge of happiness every time I came home to my village. I had lived in New York City for over thirty years and loved it, but I had never had the sense of belonging on its streets that I had among these ancient cottages of golden stone and gray tile, the dark forest of giant beeches and oaks that gave the place its name, the fields stretching out on all sides in countless shades of spring green, and the little group of friends gathered in front of my gate with anxious faces as Tom’s car drew up.
    “Ah, your friends have turned out,” he said with a smile. “And there’s my father coming to join them.”
    Beyond the little group of women I saw a lean, white-haired man hurrying along the road from Church Lane, his black cassock fluttering in the breeze.
    “Your father—oh, of course, Ivey!” I exclaimed. “Talk about not making connections—you’re the new vicar’s son!”
    “Yes, that’s why I was here this afternoon—filial visit, you know.”
    He waved to the old man as I got out of the car, then drove off toward the Oxford road as my friends gathered around me with questions about Archie’s condition. I hadn’t seen anyone around when the accident had happened, but by now I knew the mysterious way news travels in a small village.
    “He seems all right,” I told