Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

I talked about myself, on the chance of drawing a confidence from him. But he was mute. He was mute by intention, I knew. He was keeping from me some inner resolve and a vestige of hope. He was secretive, hard, and restless.

I thought for the first time that the years were touching him. His smile was still brilliant, and made him look very young. But the dark nights had at last begun to leave their mark. The skin under his eyes was prematurely rough and stained, and the corners of his mouth were tight. His face was lined less than most men’s at twenty-eight — but it showed the wear of sadness. If one met him now as a stranger, one would have guessed that he had been unhappy. The mould was shaped for the rest of his life.

There was another change which, as I noticed with amusement, sometimes ruffled him. It ruffled him the morning of our discoveries about Bidwell.

Roy had come back to the college in November and was working in Cambridge until the new year. One December morning, Bidwell woke me in the grey twilight with his invariable phrase: “That’s nine o’clock, sir.” He pattered soft-footed about my bedroom and said, in his quiet soothing bedside voice: “Mr Calvert sends his compliments, sir. And he wonders if you would be kind enough to step up after breakfast. He says he has something to show you, sir.”

The message brought back more joyous days, when Roy “sent his compliments” two or three mornings a week — usually with some invitation or piece of advice attached, which Bidwell delivered, as honest-faced, as solemn, as sly-eyed, as a French mayor presiding over a wedding.

I went up to Roy’s rooms immediately after breakfast. His sitting-room was empty: the desks glinted pink and green and terra cotta in the crepuscular morning light. Roy called from his bedroom: “Bidwell is a devil. We need to stop him.”

He was standing in front of his mirror, brushing his hair. It was then I noticed that he was taking some care about it. His hair was going back quickly at the temples, more quickly than I had realised, since he managed to disguise it.

“Still vain,” I jeered. “Aren’t you getting too old for vanity?” I was oddly comforted to see him at it. The face in the mirror was sad and grave; yet somehow it brought him to earth, took the edge from my forebodings, to watch him seriously preoccupied about going bald.

“Nothing will stop it,” said Roy. “The women will soon be saying — ‘Roy, you’re bald.’ And I shall have to point a bit lower down and tell them — ‘Yes, but don’t you realise that I’ve got nice intelligent eyes?’”

Then he turned round.

“But it’s Bidwell we need to talk about. He’s a devil.”

Roy had now been back in his rooms for a fortnight. During that time, he had made a list of objects which, so far as he remembered, had disappeared during his months abroad. The list was long and variegated. It included two gowns, several bottles of spirits, a pair of silver candlesticks, most of his handkerchiefs and several of his smartest ties.

I was amused. Our relations with Bidwell had been curious for a long while past. We had known that he was mildly dishonest. There was a narrow line between what a college servant could regard by tradition as his perquisites and what his fingers should not touch. We had known for years that Bidwell crossed that line. Any food left over from parties, half-empty bottles — those were legitimate “perks”. But Bidwell did not content himself with them. He took a kind of tithe on most of the food and drink we ordered. Neither of us had minded much. I shut my eyes to it through sheer negligence and disinclination to be bothered: Roy was nothing like so careless, and had made one sharp protest. But we were neither of us made to persist in continuous nagging.

We happened to be very fond of Bidwell. He was a character, sly, peasant-wise, aphoristic. He had a vivid picture of himself as a confidential gentlemen’s servant, and acted up to it with us. He loved putting on his dress suit and waiting at our big dinner parties. He loved waking us up with extreme care after he had found the glasses of a heavy night. He loved being discreet and concealing our movements. “I hope I haven’t done wrong, sir,” he used to say with a knowing look. We did not mind his being lazy, we were prepared to put up with some mild dishonesty: we felt he liked us too much to go beyond a decent friendly limit.

Roy worked him harder than I did, but we were both indulgent and tipped him lavishly. Each of us had a suppressed belief that he was Bidwell’s favourite. Our guests at dinner parties, seeing that wise, rubicund, officiating face, told us how much they envied our luck in Bidwell. All in all, we thought ourselves that we were lucky.

I was half-shocked, half-amused, to hear of his depredations at Roy’s expense. I was still confident that he would not treat me anything like as badly: we had always been on specially amiable terms.

“You haven’t much for him to pinch,” said Roy. “He doesn’t seem to like books.”

Then suddenly a thought occurred to Roy.

“Do you look at your buttery bills?” he said.

“I just cast an eye over them,” I said guiltily.

“Untrue,” said Roy. “I bet you don’t. I once caught the old scoundrel monkeying with a bill. Lewis, I want to look at yours.”

I had not kept any, but Roy found copies in the steward’s office. Soon he glanced at me.

“You drink too much,” he said. “Alone, I suppose. I never knew.”

He made me study the bills. I used to order in writing one bottle of whisky a fortnight; on my account, time after time, I was put down for four bottles. I asked for the latest order, which, like the rest, had been taken to the office by Bidwell. The figure 1 had been neatly changed into a 4. As I looked at other items, I saw some other unpleasant facts. I felt peculiarly silly, angry and ill-used.

“He must have cost you quite a bit,” said Roy, who was doing sums on a piece of paper. “Haven’t you let him ‘bring things away’ from your tailor’s?”

“I’ll bring it away from the shop” was a favourite phrase of Bidwell’s.

“Yes,” I said helplessly.

“You’re dished, old boy,” said Roy. “We’re both dished, but you’re absolutely done.” He added: “I think we need to speak to Bidwell.”

Neither of us wanted to, but Roy took the lead. He sent another servant to find Bidwell, and we waited for him in Roy’s room.

Bidwell came in and stood just inside the door, his face benign and attentive.

“They said you were asking for me, sir?”

“Yes, Bidwell,” said Roy. “Too many things have gone from these rooms.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, sir.”

“Where have they gone?”

“What might the old things be, sir?” Bidwell was wary, deferential, impassive. In the past he had diverted Roy by his use of the word “old”, but now Roy had fixed him with a hard and piercing glance. He did not wilt, his manner was perfectly possessed.

Roy ran through the list.

“That’s a terrible lot to lose, I must say.” Bidwell frowned. “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I never did like the steward using this as a guest room when you were away. We had men up for examinations” — Bidwell shook his head — “and I know I’m doing wrong in speaking, sir, but it’s the class of men we have here nowadays. It’s the class of men we get here today. Things aren’t what they used to be.”

Bidwell was not an ordinary man in any company, but he ran true to his trade in being a snob, open, nostalgic and unashamed.

Roy looked at me. I said: “I’ve been going through my buttery bills, Bidwell.”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’ve never ordered four bottles of whisky at a go since I came here.”