‘Would you like a confirmatory copy?’ shrilled the telephone.
‘Yes, please. When will it arrive?’ asked Jonathan eagerly.
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘Mummy! Mummy!’ shouted Jonathan, racing towards the stairs and falling into this childhood’s mode of address in his excitement.
‘What is it? What is the matter?’ cried Jennifer, coming quickly out of old Mrs Morcar’s room with a look of alarm.
‘I’ve got a telegram.’
‘A telegram?’ said Jennifer. She turned pale. (A telegram had brought the news of David’s death, all those years ago.)
‘Yes. I’ve got a place, I’ve got a place. A telegram from Merton. I’m offered a place, I’ve got a place. In fact, I’ve got a Postmastership.’
‘Oh, how splendid, Jonathan, how splendid! I’m so delighted,’ cried Jennifer.
Colour flooded her face, she ran downstairs, seized her son in a loving hug, and kissed him.
‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ said Jonathan, excited out of his customary reserve. ‘It’s more than a place, it’s more than an exhibition even, it’s a Postmastership! I hardly hoped for that. It doesn’t make any financial difference nowadays, of course, but it’s a Postmastership. The confirmatory copy will come tomorrow morning. I wish it were here now,’ he added wistfully.
All his noble dreams for the future, his ardent respect for the work of the scholar, his vision of a university as a place of light, liberty, and learning, glowed in his face.
‘Come and tell Mrs Morcar,’ urged Jennifer. Jonathan bounded up the stairs. ‘Here’s a postmaster of Merton come to see you, Mrs Morcar.’
‘My dear boy! Congratulations!’ said Mrs Morcar, stretching out her arms.
The two women made much of him. But Jonathan felt restless; he wanted to be out in the open air, where he could express his excitement in swift steps, he wanted to be alone, where he could triumph in his success, gloat over it, without showing himself conceited or unmannerly.
‘I think I’ll walk down to Syke Mills and tell Uncle Harry,’ he said
‘Do, dear,’ agreed Jennifer.
Jonathan went off down the Ire Valley at a cracking pace, and burst into Syke Mills bright-cheeked and happy. Miss Mellor followed him into the inner office with Morcar’s morning coffee.
Morcar had just returned from making his statement to the police. On his desk lay the north-country newspapers, large headlines proclaiming DEATH OF A HUDLEY MANUFACTURER AND FATAL ACCIDENT TO MR J. L. HARDAKER, while smaller print made the ominous announcement that two men had been at the Annotsfield Police Station all night, ‘helping the police\ Morcar looked cross, sallow, and even a little untidy; he had caught cold the night before, sitting in his den without a fire, and felt uneasy in the grip of its incubation.
‘I’ ve got a scholarship to Merton, Uncle Harry!’ cried Jonathan, suiting his word to Morcar’s inexperience.
‘Good. I congratulate you,’ said Morcar drily. ‘Have a cup of coffee, eh?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Jonathan, to whom anything so mundane as coffee seemed vulgar sacrilege upon this moment of glory. ,.
‘Well. Your mother pleased?’ said Morcar.
‘Yes, very.’
At this moment Nathan came in, his ingenuous brow wrinkled with worry, as usual, a letter with a small cutting of cloth pinned to it in his hand.
‘Well, I won’t interrupt your work, Uncle Harry,’ said Jonathan hastily. ‘I just thought you’d like to know.’
‘Yes. Thank you. Congratulations again,’ said Morcar, turning to Nathan.
Jonathan rushed out. The cold wintry air seemed marvellously fresh and bracing after the atmosphere of the Syke Mills office and the slight wet-woolly smell which in Jonathan’s opinion always haunted textile establishments.
Really, it’s a bit too bad, thought Jonathan. He doesn’t care a button. Here I’ve achieved the great ambition of my life, and he doesn’t say a word. Well, he did utter congratulations twice, as a matter of fact, admitted Jonathan, who prided himself on a scholar’s truthfulness and accuracy. But in what a tone! His old bits of cloth are far more to him than my entrance to Oxford. Oxford! thought Jonathan, and winged away again into his radiant dream world.