Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

“I don’t know what you mean, Calvert.”

“I hear that you doubt the soundness of my edition. I suppose that you needed to study it first?”

Roy was still angry, and his subtle, mystifying, hypnotic approach had deserted him. Despard-Smith felt at home, and a gleam of triumph shone in his eye.

“No, Calvert, that wasn’t necessary. I relied on my judgment from what I picked up round me. Exactly as one has to do — in electing a fellow. One has to rely on one’s judgment. I don’t pretend to be clever, Calvert, but I do congratulate myself on my judgment. I might tell you that some people never acquire it.”

Roy had no reply. I was very much amused, but it was a joke that he did not see.

It was not long before the Master and Arthur Brown were able to score a success for Roy within the college. Roy’s reputation had been high with German scholars since he brought out his grammar, and the liturgy was praised at once, more immediately and vociferously than in England. The Professor of Oriental Religions at Berlin and a colleague came to London for a conference in October, and wrote to the Master asking if he could present them to Roy. They stayed in the Lodge for a weekend and met Roy at dinner. The Professor was a stocky roundfaced roguish-looking man called Ammatter. When Roy was introduced to him, he clowned and pretended not to believe it.

The Master translated his remark with lively, victorious zest. “Professor Ammatter says,” the Master addressed himself to Despard-Smith, “that it is impossible anyone so young should have done such work. He says that we must be foisting an impostor upon them.”

Despard-Smith made a creaking acknowledgment, and sat as far down the table as he could. The Master and Roy each spoke excellent German; Ammatter was tricky, fluid, entertaining, comic and ecstatic; the wine went round fast in the combination room, the Master drinking glass for glass with Ammatter and Roy. Old Despard-Smith glowered as they laughed at jokes he did not understand. The Master, cheerful, familiar, dignified though a little drunk, broke off their conversation several times in order to translate; he chose each occasion when they were paying a compliment to Roy. The Master spoke a little more loudly than usual, so that the compliments carried all over the room. It was one of his happiest evenings, and before the end Roy had arranged to spend the next three months in Berlin.

I received some high-spirited letters from Germany, in which there were references to acquaintances all over Berlin, from high party officials to the outcasts and those in danger; but I did not see Roy again until early January, after we had heard bad news.

The Master had been taken ill just before Christmas; he had not been in his briskest form all through the autumn, but in his spare, unpampered fashion he thought little of it. He got worse over Christmas, vomited often and could not eat. In the first week of January he was taken to hospital and examined. They gave him a gastroscopy, and sent him back to the Lodge the same night. They had found the answer. He had an inoperable cancer. There was no hope at all. He would die within a few months.

The day after the examination, all the college knew, but the doctors and Lady Muriel agreed that the Master should not be told. They assured him that nothing was seriously the matter, only a trivial duodenal ulcer. He was to lie still, and would recover in a few weeks. I was allowed to see him very soon after they had talked to him; I knew the truth, and heard him talk cheerfully of what he would do in two years’ time, of how he was looking forward to Roy’s complete edition. He looked almost as fresh, young and smooth-faced as the year before in the hills above Monte Carlo. He was cordial, sharp-tongued and indiscreet. His anxiety had been taken away, and so powerful was the psychological effect that he felt well. He spoke of Roy with intimacy and affection.

“He always did insist on behaving like a gilded dilettante. I wonder if he’ll ever get over it. Why will he insist on going about with vineleaves in his hair?”

He looked up at the ceiling of the great bedroom, and said quietly: “I think I know the answer to that question.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you know it too. He’s not a trifler.” He paused. He did not know that he was exhausted.

He said simply: “No, he’s searching for God.”

I was too much distressed to find what he knew of Roy’s search. Did he really understand, or was it just a phrase?

Most people in the college thought it was a mistake to lie to the Master. Round the table in the combination room there were arguments whether he should or should not have been told the truth. The day I went to the Lodge, I heard Joan disagree violently with her mother.

But Lady Muriel, even if all thought her wrong, had taken her decision and stood her ground. When he was demonstrably worse, when he could no longer think he would get better, he would have to be told. Meanwhile he would get a few weeks of hope and peace. It would be the last comfort he would enjoy while he was alive. Whatever they said, she would give it to him. Her daughter passionately protested. If he could choose, cried Joan, there was no doubt what he would say.

“I am positive that we are doing right,” said Lady Muriel. Her voice was firm and unyielding. There was grandeur in her bold eyes, her erect head, her stiff back.

Roy returned from Berlin a couple of days later. He had heard the news before he ran up my stairs, but he was looking well and composed. It was too late to see the Master that night, but he arranged to visit him the next afternoon, and for us both to have tea with Lady Muriel.

So next day I went over to the Lodge alone, and was shown into the empty drawing-room. I stood by the window. Snow had lain on the court for days, and, though it was thawing, the ground still gleamed white against the sombre dusk. The sky was heavy with dense grey clouds. The court was empty, it was still the depth of the vacation, no lights shone from the windows. In the drawing-room there was no light yet except the roaring fire.

Roy joined me there. His face was stricken. “This is dreadful,” he said.

“What did he talk about?”

“The little book on the heresies which we’re to work at in a year or two. After my liturgy is safely out.”

“I know,” I said.

“There was a time,” said Roy, “when I should have jumped at any excuse for getting out of that little book.”

“You invented several good reasons.”

“Just so. Now I shall do it in memory of him.”

I doubted whether I should ever be able to dissuade him. He would do it very well, but not superbly; it would not suit him; as a scholar his gifts were, as the mathematicians say, deep, sharp, and narrow; this kind of broad commentary was not at all in his line. People would suspect that he was losing his scholar’s judgment.

“I’d expected a good deal,” said Roy. “But it is dreadful. Much worse than anyone could guess.”

Lady Muriel threw open the door and switched on the lights. “Good afternoon, Roy,” she said. “I’m very glad you’ve come to see us. It’s so long since you were here. Good afternoon, Mr Eliot.”

Roy went to her, took her hand in his. “I’ve been talking to the Master, you know,” he said. “It’s dreadful to have to pretend, isn’t it? I wish you’d been spared that decision, Lady Mu. No one could have known what to do.”

He alone could have spoken to her so. He alone would take it for granted that she was puzzled and dismayed.

“It was not easy, but—”

“No one could help you. And you’d have liked help, wouldn’t you? Everyone would.”