Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

The person who enjoyed it all most was undoubtedly Bidwell. He took it upon himself to announce the guests; the first we knew of this new act was when Bidwell threw open the door, decorous and rubicund, the perfect servant, and proclaimed with quiet but ringing satisfaction: “Lady Muriel Royce!”

And then, slightly less vigorously (for Bidwell needed a title to move him to his most sonorous): “Mrs Seymour!”

“Mrs Houston Eggar!”

Since Lady Muriel left the Lodge, I had escaped my old dinner-long conversations with Mrs Seymour; in the midst of despondency, Roy had been able to think out that joke; it was time to see that she pestered me again. Before they came in, he had been talking to me with his fierce, frightening excitement. As he greeted her, he was enough himself to give me a glance, sidelong and mocking.

I attached myself to Mrs Eggar, whom I had only met once before. Eggar had sent her back from Berlin with her baby, and she was staying with Mrs Seymour for the summer. She was a pretty young woman with a beautiful skin and eyes easily amused, but a thin, tight, pinched-in mouth. She had considerable poise, and often seemed to be laughing to herself. I found her rather attractive, somewhat to my annoyance, for she was obstinate, self-satisfied, vain and narrow, far less amiable than her pushing, humble, masterful husband.

Bidwell came to the door again and got our attention. Then he called out in triumph: “The Earl and Countess of Boscastle!”

It was a moment for Bidwell to cherish.

His next call, and the last, was an anticlimax. It was simply: “Mr Winslow!”

I was surprised; I had not known till then who was making up the party. It seemed a curious choice. Roy had not been seeing much of the old man. He was not even active in the college any longer, for he had resigned the bursarship in pride and rage over a year before. Yet in one way he was well-fitted for the party. He had been an enemy of the old Master’s, Lady Muriel had never liked him — but still he had been the only fellow whom she treated as some approximation to a social equal. Winslow was fond of saying that he owed his comfortable fortune to the drapery trade, and in fact his grandfather had owned a large shop in St Paul’s Churchyard; but his grandfather nevertheless had been a younger son of an old county family, a family which had remained in a curiously static position for several hundred years. They had been solid and fairly prosperous country gentlemen in the seventeenth century: in the twentieth, they were still solid country gentlemen, slightly more prosperous. Winslow referred to his ancestors with acid sarcasm, but it did not occur to Lady Muriel, nor apparently to Lord Boscastle, to enquire who they were.

With Roy in the state I knew, I was on edge for the evening to end. (I was strung up enough to suspect that he might have invited Winslow through a self-destructive impulse. Winslow had watched one outburst, and might as well have the chance to see another.) In any other condition, I should have revelled in it. To begin with, Winslow was patently very happy to be there, and there was something affecting about his pleasure. He was, as we knew, cross-grained, rude, bitter with himself and others for being such a failure; yet his pleasure at being asked to dinner was simple and fresh. I had the impression that it was years since he went into society. He did not produce any of the devastating snubs he used on guests in hall; but he was not at all overborne by Lord Boscastle, either socially or as a man. They got on pretty well. Soon they were exchanging memories of Italy (meanwhile Mrs Seymour, who was, of course, seated next to me, confided her latest enthusiasm in an ecstatic breathless whisper. It was for Hitler — which did not make it easier to be patient. “It must be wonderful,” she said raptly, “to know that everyone is obliged to listen to you. Imagine seeing all those faces down below… And no one can tell you to stop.”)

The dinner was elaborate and grand. Roy had set out to beat the apolaustic at their own game. And he had contrived that each person there should take special delight in at least one course — there were oysters for Lady Muriel, whitebait for me, quails for Lady Boscastle. Most of the party, even Lady Boscastle, ate with gusto. I should have been as enthusiastic as any of them, but I was only anxious that the courses should follow more quickly, that we could see the party break up in peace. Roy was not eating and drinking much; I told myself that he had a ball to attend when this was over. But I should have been more reassured to see him drink. His eyes were brighter and fuller than normal, and his voice had changed. It was louder, and without the inflections, the variety, the shades of different tone as he turned from one person to another. Usually his voice played round one. That night it was forced out, and had a brazen hardness.

He spoke little. He attended to his guests. He mimicked one or two people for Winslow’s benefit: it affected me that the imitations were nothing like as exact as usual. The courses dragged by; at last there was a chocolate mousse, to be followed by an ice. Both Lord Boscastle and Winslow, who had strongly masculine tastes, refused the sweet. Lady Muriel felt they should not be left unreproved.

“I am sorry to see that you’re missing this excellent pudding, Hugh,” she said.

“You ought to know by now, Muriel,” said Lord Boscastle, defensively, tiredly, “that I’m not much good at puddings.”

“It has always been considered a college speciality,” said Lady Muriel, clinching the argument. “I remember telling the Master that it should become recognised as the regular sweet at the Audit feast.”

“I’m very forgetful of these matters,” said Winslow, “but I should be slightly surprised if that happened, Lady Muriel. To the best of my belief, this admirable concoction has never appeared at a feast at all.”

He could not resist the gibe: for it was not a function of the Master to prescribe the menus for feasts, much less of Lady Muriel.

“Indeed,” said Lady Muriel. “I am astonished to hear it, Mr Winslow. I think you must be wrong. Let me see, when is the next audit?”

“November.”

“I hope you will pay particular attention.”

“If you please, Lady Muriel. If you please.”

“I think you will find I am right.”

They went on discussing feasts and college celebrations as though they were certain to happen, as though nothing could disturb them. There was a major college anniversary in 1941, two years ahead.

“I hope the college will begin its preparations in good time,” said Lady Muriel. “Two years is not long. You must be ready in two years’ time.”

Suddenly Roy laughed. They were all silent. They had heard that laugh. They did not understand it, but it was discomforting, like the sight of someone maimed. “Two years’ time,” he cried. He laughed again.

The laugh struck into the quiet air. Across the table, across the sumptuous dinner, Lady Boscastle looked at me; I was just going to try. But it was Lady Muriel who awkwardly, hesitatingly, did not shirk her duty.

“I know what you are feeling, Roy,” she said. “We all feel exactly as you do. But it is no use anticipating. One has to go on and trust that things will get better.”

Roy smiled at her.

“Just so, Lady Mu,” he said.

Perhaps it was best that she had spoken. Her very ineptness had gone through him. He became calmer, though his eyes remained fiercely bright.

With ineffable relief, even though it meant only a postponement, I saw the port go round, the sky darken through the open windows. We heard the faint sound of music from the college ball.

Mrs Eggar had to leave early because of her child. Roy escorted her and Mrs Seymour to their taxi and then came back. He was master of himself quite enough to seem unhurried; no one would have thought that he was waiting to go to a young woman. It was between eleven and twelve. Lord Boscastle and Winslow decided to stroll together in the direction of Winslow’s home; Lady Boscastle wished to stop in my rooms for a little; so Roy was free to take Lady Muriel to the hotel.