Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

I caught Lady Boscastle’s eye. She must have seen a glint of satisfaction in mine, for she shrugged her shoulders and her mouth twitched. She had too much humour, too much sense of style, not to be amused. Yet she was stubborn in the arguments which followed.

“She’s a very personable young woman,” said Lord Boscastle, approvingly. “We’d better have them over here, Helen.”

“I don’t think that would be at all suitable,” said Lady Muriel.

“Why not? I remember meeting her. Young Calvert’s got an eye for a pretty woman.”

“She is rather untravelled perhaps for tonight, my dear Hugh,” said Lady Boscastle.

“Have you just discovered that? I got on perfectly well with her,” said Lord Boscastle. He was annoyed. “And I regard Calvert as someone I know.”

Lady Boscastle, with heavy support from Lady Muriel, maintained her opposition. Lord Boscastle became nettled. One could feel the crystalline strength of Lady Boscastle’s will. In that marriage, I thought, she had had the upper hand all the way through. He had been jealous, she had gone her own way, she had never sacrificed that unscratchable diamond-hard will. Yet Lord Boscastle was accustomed to being the social arbiter. In the long run, even Lady Muriel deferred to his judgment on what could and could not be done. That night he was unusually persistent. Mainly because he did not mean to be deprived of a pretty girl’s company — but also he had a masculine sympathy with Roy’s enjoyments.

In the end, they agreed on a compromise rather in his favour. Roy and Rosalind were to be left to have dinner alone, but were to be invited to visit our table afterwards. Lady Boscastle wrote a note: it was like her that it should be delicately phrased. “My dear Roy, It is so nice, and such a pleasant surprise, to see you here tonight. Will you give us the pleasure of bringing your friend Miss Wykes to this table when you have finished your dinner? We are all anxious to wish you a happy new year.”

They came. Rosalind was overawed until she was monopolised for half-an-hour by Lord Boscastle. Afterwards I heard her talking clothes with Mrs Seymour. As the night went on, her eyes became brighter, more victorious, more resolved. She talked to everyone but Lady Muriel. She did not want the glorious night to end.

Roy did not show, perhaps he did not feel, a glimmer of triumph. He exerted himself to be his most gentle, teasing and affectionate with the other women, particularly with Lady Muriel.

Within a few hours of the party, I heard the rumour that Roy and Rosalind were engaged. It came first from Mrs Seymour, who had been driven in alone and marked me down across the square.

“I think it’s perfectly certain,” she said.

“Why do you think so?”

“I seem to remember something,” she said vaguely. “I seem to remember that young woman giving me to understand—”

Joan came in with her father later that morning, and asked me point-blank if I knew anything.

“Nothing at all,” I said.

“Are you being honest?” she said. She was suspicious, and yet as soon as I answered her face was lightened with relief.

“Yes.”

“Do you think it’s likely?”

“I should have thought not.”

She looked at me with a troubled and hopeful smile.

Another member of the New Year’s party found it necessary to talk to me that morning, but on quite a different subject. Houston Eggar took me for a walk in the gardens, and there in the bright sunlight told me of an embarrassment about that day’s honours list. “You won’t have seen it yet, of course,” he said. “But they happen to have given me a little recognition. If these things come, they come.” But what had come, he felt, needed some knowledgeable explanation. Before he was appointed to Rome, he had been seconded for two years to another ministry. He considered, as an aside, that this had temporarily slowed down his promotion in the Foreign Office, but he assured me that it ought to pay in the long run. As a reward for this work, he was now being given a CBE: whereas anyone of his seniority in the Foreign Office would expect, in the ordinary course of things, to be getting near a CMG — “which has more cachet, needless to say,” said Houston Eggar. “You see, Eliot,” he went on earnestly, “to anyone who doesn’t know the background, this C of mine might seem like a slap in the face. Instead of being a nice little compliment. I’d be very much obliged if you’d explain the situation to the Boscastles. Don’t go out of your way, but if you get a chance you might just remove any misconceptions. I’ll do the same for you some day.”

Several more rumours about the engagement reached me during the next twenty-four hours, and I knew that Roy had heard what was bubbling round him. But I scarcely saw him; he did not eat a meal in our hotel; it was from someone else I learned that Rosalind had been invited out to the villa on January 3rd — but only for tea, apparently as another compromise between Lord and Lady Boscastle.

It was the day before, January 2nd, when Lady Muriel announced that she would make “tactful enquiries” of Roy himself. “I shall not embarrass him,” she said. “I shall merely use a little finesse.”

Lady Boscastle raised her lorgnette, but said nothing. We had met for tea at our usual place in the window of the Café de Paris; we were a little early, and Roy was expected. The Times of the day before had been delivered after lunch; Lady Muriel had studied it and made comments on the honours list, which Mrs Seymour was now reading through.

“Muriel,” she cried excitedly, “did you see that Houston has got a CBE?”

“No, Doris,” said Lady Muriel with finality. “I never read as low in the list as that.”

Roy joined us and made a hearty tea.

“I must say, Roy,” said Lady Muriel in due course, with heavy-footed casualness, “that you’re looking very well.”

It happened to be true. Roy smiled at her.

“So are you, Lady Mu,” he said demurely.

“Am I?” Lady Muriel was thrown out of her stride.

“I have never seen you look better,” Roy assured her. “Coming back to the scene of your conquests, isn’t it?”

“You’re a very naughty young man.” Lady Muriel gave her crowing laugh. Then she remembered her duty, and stiffened. “You’re looking very well, Roy,” she began again. “Have you by chance had any good news?”

“Any good news, Lady Mu?”

“Anything really exciting?”

Roy reflected.

“One of my investments has gone up three points since Christmas,” he said. “I wonder if it could be that?”

Lady Muriel plunged desperately.

“I suppose none of our friends are getting engaged just now, are they?”

“I expect they are,” said Roy. “But I haven’t seen The Times . There’s always a batch on New Year’s Day, isn’t there? I wonder why? Could I borrow The Times , Mrs Seymour?”

Under Lady Muriel’s baffled eyes, Roy worked down a column and a half of engagements. He took his time over it. There were nearly fifty couples in the paper; and the party at tea knew at least a third of them by name, and half-a-dozen personally.

“There you are, Lady Mu,”said Roy at last. “I’ve put a cross against two or three. Those are the ones you need to write to.”

Lady Muriel gave up.

“By the way,” Roy asked, “is anyone going to the ballet tonight?”

We all said no.

“I think we will go,” said Roy. “I think I should take Rosalind.”

Roy did not, however, find it pleasant to fend off the Master. Lady Muriel made her “tactful enquiries” on the Saturday afternoon; next morning, the Master, Roy and I went for a walk along the hill road. The Master used no finesse; he asked no questions with a double meaning: he walked briskly between us, upright and active as a young man, breathing confidential whispers about Cambridge acquaintances, but he let it be seen that he felt Roy’s silence was a denial of affection.