Charles Snow - The Light and the Dark

I broke my silence about my own feelings in order to get Arthur Brown’s help. He saw the point; he saw also that I was desperately moved, and exerted himself for my sake as well as Roy’s. The chief obituaries finally appeared as curiously technical, bare, and devoid of human touches; they puzzled and disappointed many people.

Perhaps because I was silent about Roy’s death, I did not receive much sympathy myself. One or two near to me were able to intrude — and I was grateful. Otherwise, I would rather have things as they were, and hear nothing.

Lady Boscastle wrote to me delicately and gracefully. And, to my astonishment, I had a note from her husband. It was short:

“My dear Eliot, They tell me that Roy Calvert is dead too. When last I saw you, those young men were alive. I had my son, and you your friend. I have no comfort to offer you. It is only left for us to throw away the fooleries of consolation, and curse into the silly face of fate until our own time comes.

B.”

I was given one other unexpected sign of feeling. One night I was sitting in my office; the memorial service was taking place next morning, and I was just about to leave for Cambridge. The attendant opened the door, and Francis Getliffe came in.

“I’m very sorry about Calvert,” he said without any introduction, curtly and with embarrassment.

“Thank you, Francis,” I said.

“The memorial service is tomorrow, isn’t it?”

I was surprised at the question, for Francis was rigid in never going inside the chapel. He and Winslow were the only unbelievers in the college who made it a matter of principle.

“Yes.”

“I’d come,” he said. “But I’ve got this meeting. I daren’t leave it.”

Francis had been found unimportant jobs, had been kept off committees, since he opposed the bombing campaign. He was just forcing his way back.

“No, you mustn’t,” I said. “It’s good of you to tell me, though.”

“I didn’t understand him,” said Francis. “I’m sorry we didn’t get on.”

He looked at me with a frown of distress.

“He must have been a very brave man,” he went on. He added, with difficult, friendly concern: “I’m sorry for you personally, Lewis.”

I was lying awake the next morning when Bidwell pulled up the blind. The room filled with the bright May sunlight; above the college roofs, the sky was a milky blue.

“It’s a sad old day, sir,” said Bidwell.

I muttered.

“I wish I was bringing you his compliments, sir, and one of his messages.”

Bidwell came to the side of the bed, and gazed down at me. His small cunning eyes were round and open with trouble.

“Why did he do it, sir? I know you’ve got ways of thinking it out that we haven’t. But I’ve been thinking it out my own way, and I don’t feel right about it now. He’d got everything he could wish for, hadn’t he, sir? He wasn’t what you’d call properly happy, though he’d always got a joke for any of us. I don’t see why he did it. There’s something wrong about it. I don’t claim to know where. It won’t be the same place for me now, sir. Though he did give me a lot of trouble sometimes. He was a very particular gentleman, was Mr Calvert. But I should feel a bit easy if I knew why he did it.”

When I went out into the court, the smell of wistaria — with pitiless intensity — brought back other mornings in May. The servants were walking about with brushes and pans; one or two young men were sitting in their windows. For a second, I felt it incredible that Roy should be dead; it was so incredible that I felt a mirage-like relief; he was so full of life, he would soon be there.

Then in reaction I was gripped by savage resentment — resentment that these people were walking heedlessly through the court, resentment that all was going on as before. Their lives were unchanged, they carried no mark, they were calling casually to each other. I felt, with a sudden chill, the irrevocability of death.

The bell began to toll at a quarter to eleven. Soon the paths in the court were busy with groups of people moving to the chapel. From my window, I saw the senior fellow, Gay, who was eighty-six, hobbling his way there with minute steps. Lady Muriel and Joan followed him, both in black; as at the old Master’s funeral, they walked with their backs stiff and their mouths firm.

I took my place in the fellows’ stall. The chapel was full, as full as it had been for the funeral of Vernon Royce. Roy had been a figure in the town, and there were many visitors from other colleges. There was also Foulkes, in uniform, and a knot of other orientalists, sitting together. All the fellows had come except Getliffe, Luke (who was in Canada) — and old Winslow. Stubborn to the last, he had decided he would not set foot in the chapel — even to honour the memory of a young man he liked. It was like his old proud, cross-grained self.

There were many women in the chapel. Rosalind was given a stall by the Master’s; she was veiled and weeping. Lady Muriel and Joan sat just under her. Mrs Seymour was placed near the undergraduates. There were other, younger women, some of whom I knew slightly or had heard of from Roy. One or two I did not know at all — one struck me in particular, for she was beautiful.

“There seem to be several widows,” I heard someone in front of me whisper. He came from another college. I did not mind. I was ready for them to know him as he was.

For days past there had been a hidden bitter dispute in the college about who should officiate at the service. By all tradition, convention, and precedent, Despard-Smith had an unshakable claim. He was the only fellow in orders; he had taken every memorial service for the last thirty years; he assumed that as of right he would preside at this one, as he had done at the old Master’s.

But Arthur Brown did not like it. He had heard that last conflict between the old man and Roy. He knew, and so did most of the fellows, that Despard-Smith had been an enemy of Roy’s, throughout his time there. Brown also knew that Despard-Smith was one of the few people alive who did not come within Roy’s charity.

Brown was the last man in the college to make an unnecessary disturbance; he was willing to put up with a great many nuisances for the sake of a decent and clubbable life; and no one had more respect for precedent. But he could not let this pass. It was not fitting for Despard-Smith to speak in memory of Roy. Brown used all his expertness, all his experience of managing awkward situations, all his ability to get hints dropped and friendly representations made: but nothing came of it. Despard-Smith took it for granted that he would celebrate the service. Brown caused it to be suggested by other fellows that Calvert had intimate friends, such as Udal, in the church. It would give great pleasure if one of those officiated. Despard-Smith said that it would be reprehensible on his part to forsake his duty.

At last Brown fell back on the extreme obstinacy which he always held in reserve. He decided to “have it out” with the old man. For Brown, who disliked any unpleasant scene, it was an ordeal. But I had no doubt that he spoke his mind with absolute firmness. Even then Despard-Smith would not give way. He could not abrogate his moral responsibility, he said. If his taking the service gave too much offence, then there should be no service at all.

All that Brown could secure was a compromise about the actual oration. Despard-Smith was willing to be guided by Calvert’s friends upon what should be said. He would not pledge himself to use any specific form of words. But, if Brown gave him the notes for an address, he would use them so far as he felt justified.

So that morning Despard-Smith took the service. He looked younger than usual, buoyed up like other old men when a young one died — as though full of triumph that he was living on.