Charles Snow: Homecomings

To her mother, it seemed unnatural; but in fact Sheila believed he was making a fool of himself, and hated it. Valetudinarian: self-dramatizing: he had been so since her childhood, though not on such a grandiose scale as now, and she did not credit that there was anything wrong with him. In her heart she wanted to respect him, she thought he had wasted his ability because he was so proud and vain. All he had done was marry money: for it was not the pug-faced, coarse-fibred Mrs Knight who had climbed through marriage, but her husband, the self-indulgent and hyper-acute. Sheila could not throw off the last shreds of her respect for him, and at the sight of his performances her insight, her realism, even her humour failed her.

When we were sitting round the dining-room table, she could not make much pretence of conversation. I was on edge because of her, and Mr Knight, with eyes astute and sly, was surreptitiously inspecting us both. He had time to do so, for Mrs Knight would not let him eat more than a slice of cold ham. It was an effort for him to obey, for he was greedy about his food. But there was something genuine in his hypochondria: he would give up even food, if it lessened his fear of death. Disconsolately, he ate his scrap of ham, his eyes under their heavy lids lurking towards his daughter or me, whenever he thought he was unobserved.

Of the four of us, the only person who came carefree from the meal was Mrs Knight. We rested in the drawing-room, looking down the garden towards the river, and Mrs Knight was satisfied. She was displeased with her daughter’s mood, not upset by it, and she was used to being displeased and could ignore it. For the rest she was happy because her husband had revived. She had put away a good meal; she was satisfied at least with her daughter’s kitchen and the bright smart house. In fact, she was jollying me by being prepared to concede that Sheila might have made a worse marriage.

‘I always knew you’d have a success,’ said Mrs Knight. Her memory could not have been more fallacious. When as a poor young man I was first taken by Sheila to the vicarage, Mrs Knight had thought me undesirable in the highest degree, but in our comfortable dining-room she was certain that she was speaking the truth.

Complacently, Mrs Knight called over the names of other men Sheila might have married, none of whom, in her mother’s view, had gone as far as I had. For an instant I looked at Sheila, who recognized my glance but did not smile. Then came Mr Knight’s modulated voice: ‘Is he, is our friend Lewis, content with how far he’s gone?’

‘I should think so,’ said Mrs Knight sturdily.

‘Is he? I never have been, but of course I’ve done nothing that the world can see. I know our friend Lewis has been out there in the arena, but I should like to be certain that he is content?’

What was he getting at? No one had a sharper appraisal of worldly success than Mr Knight.

‘Of course I’m not,’ I said.

‘I rather fancied you might feel that.’ Circuitous, not looking at me, he went on: ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, I am a child in these matters, but I vaguely imagined that between the two activities you’ve chosen, you don’t expect the highest position in either? I suppose there couldn’t be anything in that impression?’

‘It is absolutely true,’ I said.

‘Of course,’ Mr Knight reflected, ‘if one were of that unfortunate temperament, which some of us are spared, that doesn’t feel on terms with life unless it collects the highest prizes, your present course would mean a certain deprivation.’

‘Yes, it would,’ I said.

He was talking at me, painfully near the bone. He knew it: so did Sheila, so did I. But not so Mrs Knight.

‘Most men would be glad to change with Lewis, I know that,’ she said. She called out to Sheila, who was sitting on a pouf in the shadow: ‘Isn’t that true, Sheila?’

‘You’ve just said it.’

‘It’s your fault if it’s not true, you know.’

Mrs Knight gave a loud laugh. But she could see Sheila’s face, pale with the mechanical smile, fixed in the shadow; and Mrs Knight was irritated that she should not look more hearty. Healthy and happy herself, Mrs Knight could see no reason why everyone round her should not be the same.

‘It’s time you two counted your blessings,’ she said.

Mr Knight, uneasy, was rousing himself, but she continued: ‘I’m speaking to you, Sheila. You’re luckier than most women, and I hope you realize it.’

Sheila did not move.

‘You’ve got a husband who’s well thought of,’ said Mrs Knight, undeterred, ‘you’ve got a fine house because your parents were able to make a contribution, you’ve got enough money for anything in reason. What I can’t understand is—’

Mr Knight tried to divert her, but for once she was not attending to him.

‘What I can’t understand is,’ said Mrs Knight, ‘why you don’t set to work and have a child.’

As I listened, the words first of all meant nothing, just badinage, uncomprehending, said in good nature. Then they went in. They were hard enough for me to take; but my wound was nothing to Sheila’s wound. I gazed at her, appalled, searching for an excuse to take her out and be with her alone.

Her father was gazing at her too, glossing it over, beginning some preamble.

To our astonishment Sheila began to laugh. Not hysterically, but matily, almost coarsely. That classical piece of tactlessness had, for the moment, pleased her. Just for an instant, she could feel ordinary among the ordinary. To be thought a woman who, because she wished to be free to travel or because she did not like to count the pounds, had refused to have a child — that made her feel at one with her mother, as hearty, as matter-of-fact.

Meanwhile Mrs Knight had noticed nothing out of the common, and went on about the dangers of leaving it too late. Sheila’s laugh had dried; and yet she seemed ready to talk back to her mother, and to agree to go out with her for an afternoon’s shopping.

As they walked down the path in the sunshine, Sheila’s stride flowing beneath a light green dress, our eyes followed them, and then, in the warm room, all windows still closed to guard Mr Knight’s health, he turned his glance slowly upon me.

‘There they go,’ he said. His eyes were self-indulgent, shrewd, and sad: when I offered him a cigarette, he closed them in reproof.

‘I dare not. I dare not.’

As though in slow motion, his lids raised themselves, and, not looking at me, he scrutinized the garden outside the window. His interest seemed irrelevant, so did his first remark, and yet I was waiting, as in so many of his circumlocutions, for the thrust to come. He began: ‘I suppose that, if this international situation develops as, between ourselves, I believe it must, we shall all have too much on our minds… Even those of us who are compelled to be spectators. It is a curious fate, my dear Lewis, for one to sit by in one’s retreat and watch happen a good deal that one has, without any special prescience, miserably foretold.’

He continued, weaving his thoughts in and out, staying off the point but nevertheless leaving me in apprehension of the point to come. In his fashion, he was speaking with a kind of intimacy, an intimacy expressed in code. As he described his labyrinthine patterns he inserted some good sense about the world politics of that year, and what we had to look forward to; he always had a streak of cool detachment, startling in a selfish, timid man. With no emphasis he said: ‘I suppose that, if things come to the worst, and it’s a morbid consolation for a backwoodsman like myself to find that someone like you, right in the middle of things, agree that it is only the worst they can come to — I suppose that to some it may take their minds, though it seems a frivolous way of putting delicate matters, it may take their minds off their own distress.’