Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

He bowed to the chair, and went out alone.

The meeting broke up, and the Master took me off to tea at the Athenaeum. On the way down St James’s Street, the windows of the clubs glowing comfortably warm through the deepening fog, the Master said: “Roy Calvert seems a little upset, Eliot. I suppose it’s a phase we all go through.”

“Yes.”

“He’s been overstrained, of course. Between you and me, our judicious colleagues have something to answer for. It was imbecile to make him wait so long for his fellowship.”

For once the Master was in a thoroughly bad temper. Over the toasted teacakes in the long club morning room, he broke out: “It’s nothing to worry about, Eliot. I did silly things when I was a young man. I suppose he hasn’t got his feet on the earth quite as firmly as I had, but he’s not so different as all that. We must just make sure that all turns out well.”

In his irritation, he let me see something of what he felt for Roy. The Master believed that Roy was far more gifted than himself; he knew that Roy was capable of the scholarly success he could never have managed — for Roy had the devotion, the almost obsessed devotion, which a scholar needs, as well as the touch of supreme confidence. The Master, who found it easier to go about from meeting to meeting using his quick wits, who in his heart felt diffident and uncreative, admired those gifts which he had never had. But also he felt an attraction of like for like. Roy’s elegance and style — with those the Master could compete. Often among his colleagues he had the illusion that he was just playing at being an ordinary man. At times, in daydreams, he had seen himself like Roy.

I noticed too that, as though by instinct, he pretended that nothing much was wrong. Often it seemed to him wiser to soften the truth. The worst did not always happen. Before I left, he said, almost in his cheerful whisper: “I don’t think our colleagues need to be worried by any news of this afternoon’s entertainment, do you, Eliot? We know how easily worried they are, and I shouldn’t like to feel that the Bursar was losing sleep because one of the younger fellows has been overworking.”

The club was filling with men who had been present at the meeting, and the Master went across to them, pleasant-mannered, fresh-faced, not over-troubled.

I went to see Roy, but found Rosalind alone in the flat. She said he had gone out to buy some wine; they were to dine at home that night.

“It will be very nice, having the old thing to myself for once,” she said, and I could not help smiling, though this was not the most suitable time for her brand of realism.

She had seen him since the meeting. “He’s nice and relaxed,” she said. “He’s sweet when there’s nothing on his mind. I wish he weren’t so elusive sometimes.” She added: “I don’t know what’s taken the weight off his mind. He did say that he’d made a frightful ass of himself somewhere.”

The phrase meant nothing to her, but it was a private joke of his and mine, borrowed from an elderly friend.

I saw Roy for an instant just before I went away. One glance reassured me. He was himself, composed, gentle, at ease.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Very much all right,” he said.

As I walked into the foggy street, I heard his voice call cheerfully from the window: “Shan’t be in Cambridge till next week. Come back before then. Need to talk to you.”

In college I was watching for any sign of the story coming through: I was ready to laugh it off, to explain Roy’s action in terms designed to make it seem matter-of-fact, uninteresting, a mixture of a joke and an academic controversy. It was only to Arthur Brown that I confided there had been a scene; and even with him, stout-hearted, utterly dependable, capable of accepting anything in his friends, I was not quite frank — for by that time in my life I was already broken in to keeping secrets, often more so than was good for me or others. I paled down both Roy’s despondency and his outburst. Arthur Brown said: “We shall have to be very careful about our young friend.” Then, the politician never far away, he wondered what effect the news would have upon the college, and how we could conceal it.

Curiously enough, very little news arrived, and that we were able to smother. Colonel Foulkes came to Cambridge for a meeting of electors, and I discovered that he thought nothing specially unusual had happened. Whether this was because Roy could do no wrong in his eyes, or because he really did not like Lyall, or because he was abnormally blank to human atmosphere, I could not decide. He said: “Very interesting point, Calvert’s. Perhaps not the best time to bring it up. These scholars aren’t men of the world, you know. They don’t learn tact. Don’t have the corners rubbed off as you do in the army.”

He was so simple that I was completely at a loss, but I took him into hall, and he talked casually about the Lyall celebratory meeting and enthusiastically about Roy. The most subtle acting would not have been so effective. Some rumour about Roy had reached Despard-Smith, and he began to produce it, with solemn gratification, the next night: but Winslow, fresh from hearing Foulkes, endowed with nothing like the persistence in rancour that vitalised the old clergyman, said: “If you please, Despard. Shall we wait until the young man starts throwing knives about in hall? In point of fact, he seems to have pleasant table manners, which I must say is more than one is accustomed to expect.”

Within three days of the meeting, the Master was able to forget his first impression and to treat the whole affair as though it had been a mischievous, high-spirited trick, like teasing the doctor after the feast. I seemed the only person who could not domesticate it so.

Even Roy, when I saw him at his flat the following week, was free from any cloud, full of fun.

“What have you been doing these days in Cambridge?” he asked.

“Nothing much.”

“Covering up tracks?”

“A little.”

He gave me a curiously protective smile.

“When you took me on, old boy,” he said, “you took all this on yourself.”

“How are you now?” I said, but there was no need for me to ask. He was entirely tranquil.

“Better than I’ve been for weeks and months,” he said, with ringing joy.

He added: “How are you? You’re looking worse than I did. Too much worry. Too much drink. Above all,” his eyes flashed with the purest mischief, “above all, not enough sleep.”

I grinned. It was hard to resist his spirits, it was hard to retain my fears.

“We’ll get you better at ‘Monty’.” Roy, precise in his speech, isolated the word to remind me of Lady Muriel; for she and Lord Boscastle, after calling the family mansion “Bossy”, took to nicknames of places with the utmost naturalness.

“Meanwhile,” said Roy, “I need to give you some fresh air. I need to take you for a walk in the park.”

We left the flat empty, for Rosalind had returned home: Roy was going to Cambridge next day. We entered the park by the Albion gate. A gusty wind was blowing from the west, the trees soughed, the last leaves were spinning under the lamps in the street. The clouds were low, it was dark early; through the trees one could see the lights of the tall houses in Bayswater Road. The wind blew in our faces as we walked down to the Serpentine. It was fresh as a night by the sea.

“It’s wonderful not to be wretched,” cried Roy. “It’s all gone! It’s wonderful to be free!”

He looked at me in the twilight.

“You’re glum, Lewis. You’ve been pitying me for being wretched, haven’t you? You can pity me for the gloom. That was frightful. Don’t pity me for the time when I broke out. It was very exciting. For a few minutes I was let out of prison. Everything was rosy-edged.”