Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

“On the shelf,” said Roy.

The bell began to clang. Roy mentioned, as we went towards the combination room, that he had not dined in college since he returned. I asked him why not; he was frequently in Cambridge and still, of course, a fellow.

“Too much changed,” said Roy.

“It’s not much changed,” I said.

“Of course it’s not,” said Roy. “I have, though.”

Sherry in the combination room: dinner in hall: they happened as they used to. It was a small party. Arthur Brown had discovered that Roy and I were dining, had put himself down at short notice, and had asked Winslow to come in. Otherwise there was only Despard-Smith, gloomily presiding.

Much of the college was unchanged. Francis Getliffe, Roy and I were away, as well as the new Master and the two most junior fellows; the others were all in residence. There had been a few of the secular changes which everyone reckoned on, as college officers came to the end of their span; Arthur Brown, for instance, was now Senior Tutor. Some of the old men were visibly older, and one noticed the process more acutely if one saw them, as I did, at longish intervals. Winslow was not yet seventy, but he was ageing fast. His mouth had sunken deeply since I last met him the year before; his polished rudeness was going also, and he was gentler, more subdued, altogether less conspicuous. His son had inflicted another disappointment on him, though not a dramatic one. Dick Winslow had not been able to get through his officer’s training course, and had been returned to his unit; he was now a corporal in the Ordnance Corps, completely safe for the rest of the war. I should have liked a crack or two of old Winslow’s blistering sarcasm. It was hard to see him resigned and defeated at last.

Despard-Smith showed no effects of time at all. He was seventy-six now, still spare, solemn, completely self-confident, self-righteous, expecting to get his own way by moral right. He was actually more certain of his command than we remembered him. Partly because it was harder to get spirits, which at one time he drank heavily, alone in his dark rooms: partly because the young men had gone away, and there was a good deal of executive work about the college for anyone who volunteered, Despard-Smith had taken on some of the steward’s work, which Francis Getliffe had left. It was a new lease of power. The servants were grumbling but the old man issued pernickety instructions, went into nagging detail, just as in his prime: he was able to complain with a croaking, gloating satisfaction, that he had “to bear the heat and burden of the day”.

He greeted Roy and me with his usual bleak courtesy. Winslow’s face lit up as he shook hands with Roy: “Good evening to you, young man. May I sit next to you?”

Not much had changed, except through the passage of time. But the conversation in hall was distinctly odd. Arthur Brown, the good-natured, kind and clubbable, had developed a passion for military detail. In his solid conservative fashion, he was as engrossed in the war as Francis Getliffe. He believed — with a passion that surprised those who took him at his face value — in “killing Germans”. With bellicose interest, he wanted to hear about Roy’s training.

Roy was going through his first practice flights at night. He said simply that he hated it.

“Why?” said Arthur Brown.

“It’s dreadful, flying at night. Dark. Cold. Lonely. And you lose your way.”

It was the last phrase which made Arthur Brown frown. He interrupted Roy. He just could not believe it. Hadn’t our aeroplanes got to learn to attack individual factories? Roy replied, that up to six months ago they had done well to get to the right country. Brown was angry: what was all this he had heard about factories going up in sheets of flame? And all this about pin-pointing targets? He regarded all those reports as too well established to doubt. I joined in on Roy’s side. Arthur Brown was discomfited, out of humour with both of us, still not convinced. For a man so shrewd in his own world, he was curiously credulous about official news. (I remembered Schäder’s remarks on how propaganda convinced everybody in time.) Here were Roy and I, his protégés and close friends: he loved us and trusted us: he realised that we both knew the facts, Roy in the flesh, I on paper: yet he found it hard to believe us, against the official news of The Times and the BBC.

But he smiled again, benignly, enjoying the treat he had prepared for us, as soon as we got back into the combination room. Two decanters stood ready on the table, one of port, one of claret. In front of them was a basket of silver wicker work, full of walnuts.

“They’re a bit special,” said Arthur Brown, as he confided in a discreet whisper what the two wines were. “I’m going to ask for the pleasure of presenting them. I thought they’d be rather bracing on a foggy night. It’s splendid to have the two of you back at once.”

We filled our glasses. The crack of the nuts was a cheerful noise. It was a night in that room such as we had often known in other autumns. There were wisps of mist in the courts, and the leaves were falling from the walls. Here it was warm; the rich curtains glowed placidly, the glasses gleamed; even though one liked claret better than port, perhaps one could do no better than drink port with the nuts.

Arthur Brown smiled at Roy. Despard-Smith expressed thanks in a grating voice, cracked more nuts than any of us, rang the bell and asked why salt had not been served. He finished his first glass of port before the decanter had come round to him again.

We talked as we had talked in other autumns. The Master of another college had died suddenly, whom would they elect? We produced some names in turn. Despard-Smith rejected all of ours solemnly and disapprovingly. One: “I have heard things against him.” Another: “That would be catastrophic, Eliot. The man’s no better than a bolshevik.” A third (whose wife had deserted him twenty years before): “I should not think his college would be easy about his private life. They ought not to take the risk of electing someone unstable. It might bring the place down round their ears.”

Then he made his own suggestion.

“Isn’t he extremely stuffed?” said Roy lightly.

Despard-Smith looked puzzled, deaf, and condemnatory.

“ Stuffed ,” Roy repeated.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Calvert. He’s a very sound man. He’s not a showman, but he’s sacrificed himself for his college.”

Once, I thought, Roy would have followed up with mystifying questions. But he sat back, smiled, drank his wine, and played no trick. By now Despard-Smith had got into his stride. He was, in the Master’s absence, acting as chairman of the livings committee. It happened that the college’s best living was still vacant. The last incumbent had gone off to become an archdeacon. The committee, which for the moment meant Despard-Smith, could not make up its mind. In reality, the old man could not bear to bestow so desirable a prize. Most of the college livings were worth four or five hundred a year, since they had not risen as the value of money fell; but this one was nearly two thousand. In the nineteenth century it had meant riches, and there had been some resolute jockeying on the part of fellows to secure it in time for their marriage. It was then, and still remained, one of the richer livings of the Church of England. Even now, it would give some clergyman a comfortable middle-class life.

“It’s a heavy responsibility,” said Despard-Smith. He began to run through all the old members of the college who were in orders. He disapproved of all of them, except one or two who, for different reasons, could not be offered this living. One man had the month before taken one at three hundred and fifty a year. “It would be no kindness to him,” said Despard-Smith, “to go so far as mention this vacancy. He is a man of conscience, and he would not want to leave a charge he has just undertaken.”