Charles Snow - Last Things

Katherine had, however, shaken Brown’s hand, and the Getliffe family were clustering round him. All seemed pleased, and without qualms. In the crowd, Margaret was talking to an old acquaintance, the Getliffes were being joined by colleagues of Francis, and I hung about waiting for a chance to speak with Arthur Brown.

When we were able to move off, the two of us, out of the ruck, I said: ‘Well done.’

‘I hope Francis would have liked it.’

‘I’m sure he would.’ Francis wouldn’t have been above thinking that, if G S Clark and Nightingale were affronted, not only as personal enemies, but also as religious devotees, so much the better. I didn’t say that to Arthur, who was a latitudinarian member of the Church of England: disapproving of ‘enthusiasm’, though, very much as his nineteenth-century predecessors had done.

‘Old friend,’ said Arthur, ‘he’ll leave a gap here, you know. We’re dropping off one by one.’

He was speaking with regret, or nostalgia, but not like an old man. He went on: ‘I wish you hadn’t gone away from us, Lewis. Oh, I know you couldn’t have done what you had to do if you’d stayed. But still – this isn’t quite the place it was.’

I said, with the whole university expanding, it couldn’t be –

‘I dare say it’s better, but it isn’t quite the same. It’s not very loyal to criticise, because the college has been enormously kind to me, it has given me so much more than I deserved.’ That was not mock modesty, but the real thing: Arthur had never had much opinion of himself.

‘But I can’t get used to changes. I’ve reached the stage when I don’t really enjoy a person’s company unless I’ve known him for a long time.’

I said: ‘I’ve found young Charles’ friends a bit refreshing–’

‘Ah. That reminds me.’ Suddenly Arthur had brightened up. ‘I did want to have a word with you about that young man. Just for your ear alone. He’s done perfectly splendidly, of course. It did occur to me that we might manage to construct a vacancy for him here. Mind you, I can’t promise anything. I couldn’t think of guaranteeing anything until I’d found out how the land was lying. There are some people who mightn’t be entirely favourable. But there might be a chance that we should turn out too strong for them–’

With a touch of his old zest, with more than a touch of his old labyrinthine pertinacity, Arthur proceeded to examine how the college might be induced to elect Charles to a fellowship before ‘others get in first’. The college had to poach nowadays, especially in subjects like Charles’ which were becoming short of first-class talent. Someone had mentioned another Trinity man called Bestwick, but Arthur didn’t at present feel ‘so keen about him’.

‘Of course,’ Arthur reiterated, ‘this is entirely between ourselves. I can’t possibly promise anything. It might be better if you regarded this conversation as not having happened, at any rate for the time being–’

Then Arthur went up to his rooms, after an affectionate goodbye, still dubious about my discretion and inclined to treat me, as he had always done, as a man of promise not yet old enough or experienced enough to be entirely trustworthy in serious affairs.

Now the court had emptied, Margaret and Martin taking a porter with them to fetch our bags: Charles alone remained, who had earlier transported his own to the porter’s lodge. He came and joined me, at the foot of the staircase which I used to climb.

‘I expect you’re glad that’s all over,’ he said in a quiet and sympathetic tone, indicating the chapel. I nodded.

He hesitated. We had scarcely been alone together since Francis’ death.

‘I didn’t know him well,’ he said. ‘But it was a comfort to feel that he was there.’

That was an epitaph of which Francis might have been glad. Charles went on to mention the memorial address. Didn’t it deserve very high marks for ruffling dovecotes, and putting cats among pigeons? Wouldn’t it be mildly fun to be dining at high table that night? Charles didn’t need telling that this had been the most uncharacteristic gesture – almost the only gesture – of old Arthur’s peace-loving college life.

He did need telling, though, of something which wasn’t at all uncharacteristic, Arthur’s desire to manipulate the college machine on a move, this time on behalf of Charles himself. Charles said: ‘He’s a sweet old man.’

Not always so sweet, when he was in action, I said. Charles was smiling. He gave no indication of whether the offer meant anything to him. Yes or no: or even whether he would, in Arthur’s own old phrase, sleep on it.

On the other hand, he was disturbed that Arthur seemed to have ruled Gordon Bestwick out.

‘What the hell is the matter? If you don’t mind me saying it, this isn’t a great college. By God, they won’t get a chap like Leonard once in ten years–’

Somebody else would take him, I said, but Charles was not appeased.

Couldn’t I use my influence with Arthur to get him to think again? I said, neither I nor anyone else had any influence with Arthur. Once his mind was set, he was as obstinate as a mule.

Charles, not satisfied, was wondering about other approaches. It hadn’t occurred to him, apparently, that Gordon’s reputation as an activist would not be an overpowering inducement to Arthur Brown. Perhaps because Charles did not find his own getting in his way: but then he had been more discreet, and would in any case be forgiven a great deal by Arthur. Anyway, I was relieved that Charles was for once less than acute. I didn’t wish to quarrel about politics that day; nor more did he. He was being easy and friendly, ready either to amuse or soothe or just stay at my side.

We walked, very slowly, clockwise round the court. Looking at the lodge and Hall, lines clear, stone honey-coloured in the sun, I told him what I thought to myself that October evening nearly three years before. When I first saw those buildings, they were grey with the soot of years, and covered with creeper. Now, the theory was, we saw them as when they were built – except that the windows would have been entirely different, the facade of another kind of stone, and the roof of the Hall feet lower. Charles, not specially modernist in visual taste, said: ‘I expect it always looked pretty pleasant, though.’

He added: ‘It’s very handsome, in a quiet way, isn’t it?’

He might have said that to please me, but it was true. He might have said also, but that wouldn’t have come so easy to him – that it was very English. At least, I had never seen anything like it out of England.

In the bedroom of the lodge, a light had been left on, pale and unavailing in the sunshine.

‘You must have walked round here a good few times,’ he said.

‘Yes, quite a few,’

He smiled. ‘In various assorted moods, if I know you.’

‘Yes, that too.’

He couldn’t have divined it, but without any justification at all, since Martin was there to be visited, I had had a feeling, hard-cut, dismissive, that I was seeing the place for the last time.

IT was a domestic scene such as we had once been used to, and were no longer. Our drawing-room: lights already on, though the time was only nine o’clock, a few days after midsummer. Outside, a cool cloudy evening, for, since the day of Francis’ memorial service, the weather had returned to form. Present, along with me, Margaret and her two sons. It was a family evening which, a few years before, we should have taken for granted and thought nothing of.

As it was, Maurice had come to the flat because his wife had gone into hospital. The baby was a few days overdue, and both he and Margaret were conscious of the telephone beside the door. It was the first time I had seen Maurice show the effects of suspense, or of waiting. In the periods when he had taken examinations, he had, with maddening acceptance, not been anxious about the results, assuming them to be bad: he hadn’t ever appeared worried about someone turning up for an assignation, as the rest of us had been, watching the clock on the restaurant wall, making excuses for the non-arrival, with pique, anger, and with longing.