Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

“I think I could promise that,” said Udal with a cheerful smile.

“I’m rather relieved to hear you say so,” Brown replied. “I shouldn’t like to interfere between any man and his religion. Some of the Catholics we’ve had here are as good chaps as you’re ever likely to meet. But I do take the view rather strongly that the public services of the college ought to keep a steady middle course. I shouldn’t like to see them moving too near the Holy Joes.”

“Someone once said,” Roy put in, “that the truth lies at both extremes. But never in the middle. You don’t believe that, Brown, do you?”

“I do not,” said Brown comfortably. “I should consider it was a very cranky and absurd remark.”

At last Udal said that he thought he could soon give a reply. Brown stopped him short.

“I’m not prepared to listen to a word tonight,” he said. “I’m not prepared to listen until you’ve slept on it. I’ve always regretted the occasions when I’ve spoken too soon. I don’t presume to offer advice to people like Eliot and Calvert here, but I’ve even sometimes suggested to them that they ought to sleep on it.”

Brown departed for his home in the town, and the rest of us went from his room to mine. It was dark, bare, inhospitable after Brown’s; we drew the armchairs round the fire.

Roy said to Udal: “You’re not taking this job, are you?”

“No,” said Udal. “I don’t think I shall.”

“Less money. Much more work.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that,” said Udal, slightly nettled.

“No?” Roy’s smile was bright.

“No,” said Udal. “I don’t specialise in bogus reasons, as you know. But there are genuine ones why I should like to come. It would be pleasant” — he said with easy affection — “to be near you.”

“What for?” said Roy sharply.

“It doesn’t need much explanation.”

“It may,” said Roy. “You used to hope that you’d catch me for your faith. Isn’t that true?”

“I did hope so,” said Udal.

“If you were here, you think it might be more likely. Isn’t that true as well?”

“It had crossed my mind,” said Udal.

“You can forget it,” said Roy. “It will never happen now. It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late,” said Udal impassively.

“Listen, Ralph. I know now. I’ve known for some time.” Roy was speaking with absolute finality. I was reminded of that scene with Bidwell. It was as though he were driven restlessly on, cutting ties which had once been precious. Bidwell’s was a minor one; now he was marking the end of something from which he had hoped so much. He was excited, sad but excited. He had to make this dismissal to go on. He said clearly: “I shall not come your way now. I shall not believe. It’s not for me.”

Udal could not mistake the tone. He did not dissent. He said, with compassion and warmth: “I’m more sorry than I can say.”

For the first time, I saw Udal uncertain of himself, guilty, hesitating. He added: “I can’t help feeling some of this is my fault. I feel that I’ve failed you.”

Roy did not speak.

“Have I failed you?” said Udal.

Roy’s eyes, acutely bright, pierced him. Roy could have answered yes. For a second, I thought he was going to. It was at Boscastle that Roy knew without the slightest particle of doubt that Udal was no use to him — when he heard him plan his days, allow one day’s exercises for the integral knowledge of God. It was a little thing, but to Roy it meant much. It turned him away without hope from Udal’s experience, that seemed now so revoltingly “hygienic”, so facile and easy. He had once thought that Udal, never mind his frailties, had discovered how to throw away the chains of self. Now it seemed to Roy that he was unbelievably self-absorbed, content to be self-absorbed.

Roy answered gently: “No one could have made any difference. I should never have found it.”

“I hope you’re speaking the truth,” said Udal simply.

“I think I am,” said Roy.

“I haven’t failed you,” said Udal, “because of Rosalind?”

“Of course not.” Roy was utterly surprised: had she been on Udal’s mind all the time?

“You see,” Udal went on, “I’m thinking of marrying her.”

“Good luck to you,” said Roy. He was taken aback, he gave a bewildered smile, full of amusement, memory, chagrin and shock. “Give her my love.”

“It isn’t certain,” said Udal.

Udal was lying back in his chair, and I watched his face, heavy featured and tranquil. It was a complete surprise to me. I wondered if he could be as confident as he seemed. I wondered about Rosalind, and why she had done it.

Then Roy leaned forward, so that his eyes gleamed in the firelight. He did not speak again about Rosalind. Instead, he said, very quietly: “Could there be a world, Ralph, in which God existed — but with some people in it who were never allowed to believe?”

“It would be a tragic world,” said Udal.

“Why shouldn’t it be tragic?” Roy cried. “Why shouldn’t there be some who are rejected by God from the beginning?”

“It isn’t my picture of the world,” said Udal.

Suddenly Roy’s face, which had been sombre, set and haunted, lit up in his most lively and impish smile.

“No,” he said, “yours is really a very nice domestic place, isn’t it? Tragic things don’t happen, do they? You’re an optimistic old creature in the long run, aren’t you?”

Udal could not cope with that lightning change of mood. Roy baited him, as though everything that night had passed in fun. It was in the same light, teasing tone that Roy said a last word to Udal before we went to bed.

“I expect you think I ought to have tried harder to believe, don’t you? If one tries hard enough, things happen, if you’re an optimistic old creature, don’t they? I did try a bit, Ralph. I even pretended to myself that I did believe. It didn’t come off, you know. I could have gone on pretending, of course, I could have pretended well enough to take you in. I’ve done that before now. I could even have taken old Lewis in. I could have taken everyone in — except myself and God. And there wouldn’t have been much point in that, would there?”

We walked with Udal through the courts towards the guestroom. On the way back, I stumbled over a grass verge: there was no moon, the lamps in the court had been put out at midnight, and I could not see in the thick darkness. Roy took my arm, so that he could steer me.

“I shouldn’t like to lose you just yet,” he said.

I knew that he was smiling. I also knew that he was within an inch of confiding. There had been horror behind what he had said a few minutes before — and yet there was still hope. It was not easy just at that moment to reject our intimacy.

The moment passed. He took me to the foot of my staircase.

“Good night, old boy. Sleep well.”

“Shall you?” I said.

There I could see him smile.

“I might,” he said. “You never know. I did, last Tuesday.”

Roy went back to Berlin just after Christmas. I did not hear from him, but one morning in February I received a letter with the Boscastle crest. It was from Joan, saying that she urgently wanted to talk to me about Roy — “don’t misunderstand me,” she wrote with her bleak and painful honesty. “There is nothing to say about him and me. I want your advice on something much more important, which concerns him alone.”

She suggested that she should give me dinner at her London club. I nearly let her, for I was far less considerate than Roy in the way I behaved to my women friends. Part of this was due to my taste for the company of beautiful women — for beautiful women needed, of course, much less attention, could be entertained much more casually, since one’s bad manners did not touch their self-respect. It was this taste of mine which drew me to Lady Boscastle; I should no doubt have fallen in love with her, if we had been born in the same generation. Roy did not share at all the taste for beauty, and some people found the difference between us the opposite of what they had expected.