Charles Snow - The Affair

The case was not referred to. What was referred to, was a string of names, as though everyone were playing a specifically English kind of Happy Families. Someone mentioned an acquaintance in the Brigade: Mrs Skeffington trumped that by having known the last Colonel. County names, titled names, token names, they all chanted them as though the charmed circle were tiny and as though one kept within it by chanting in unison. And yet those who were chanting the loudest needn’t have done so. There was nothing bogus about the Skeffingtons’ social roots: Tom was the son of an Archdeacon, Irene the daughter of a soldier. I discovered that Mrs Ince, whom I rather liked, had been to a smart school. That I shouldn’t have guessed. She wore spectacles, like her husband she had adopted a mid-Atlantic accent, she was cheerful, ugly, frog-faced, and looked as if she enjoyed a good time in bed.

The only person not chanting was Mrs Nightingale. With unfailing accuracy Mrs Skeffington asked if she knew –

“Oh, no,” said Mrs Nightingale, impassive, exophthalmic.

Had she known — or—?

“Of course not,” said Mrs Nightingale with complete good temper. “We were living in Clapham Junction at the time.”

“Were you, now?” Mrs Skeffington could not help speaking as though a junction were a place that one passed through. She brightened. “Then you may have known the — s when they had one of those nice Georgian places over in the Old Town?”

“Oh, no, my father could never have lived there. That was before the big money started to come in.”

Tom guffawed. Soon afterwards he slipped out. When he found that I had followed him and caught him up on the cobbles outside, he said, in a defiant tone: “Hullo, Lewis, I didn’t know you were coming.”

I had just been quick enough to prevent him letting himself into the college by a side gate, to which I did not have a key. Instead we walked round by the wall. Under a lamp, I caught sight of his eyes, blue, flat and mutinous. I said: “What were you doing this afternoon?”

“What do you mean, what was I doing?”

“I came up to your rooms. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, I was working very hard. I did some really good work. I was extremely pleased with it for once.”

“I’m glad of that—”

“Hanna’s always bullying me to produce more, you know she is. But you know, Lewis, I’m really producing quite as much as anyone of my age—”

He was steering the conversation into a comparison of the academic output of young historians. I interrupted: “You know what I wanted to talk about, don’t you?”

“Don’t you think I’ve had enough of that?”

“Who from?”

“Hanna, of course. She says that I’m behaving like a beast.”

I had not realised till then that she was taking such an open part. That remark was right in her style. I wondered, did she think he was weaker than he really was? He seemed — it might have crystallised by now — in love with her. It would be like Hanna to assume that he was easy to persuade. But in fact, though he was so labile, he was also intensely obstinate. When one dug deeper into him, he became both less amiable and less weak.

“I don’t think you’re behaving up to your usual standard.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’ve always thought you tried to be detached, when it came to a personal issue,” I said.

“I’m sorry we don’t agree on this. I mean that very sincerely.” He was speaking with hostility.

“Look here, won’t you talk this over on the plane of reason? Preferably with Martin—?”

“I haven’t the slightest desire to talk to Martin. I shall only hear what you’ve just said and what Hanna says, ten times worse.”

We had come round to the front of the college. Tom caught sight of a bus slowing down before the stop. “As a matter of fact,” he said, moving towards it, “I’ve got to go off to see a pupil. He’s not well and I said I’d supervise him in his rooms. Perhaps I shall see you in hall. Is that all right?”

I did not expect to see Tom return from his putative visit, and I did not expect to see him in hall. In fact, there were only six names on the list when I arrived in the combination room, and one was that of an old member of the college up for the weekend. Of the four Fellows dining, three were young men whom Martin had already made sure of. The other was old Winslow. He had a bout of sciatica and was in a temper that made ordinary civil conversation hard enough. The six of us sat chastened at the end of the high table; Winslow was scarcely speaking, the young men were over-awed. As for the old member making a pious return to the college, it seemed to be a sad Saturday night.

Down in the body of the hall the undergraduates were making a hubbub. Winslow roused himself.

“To what do we owe this curious display?” he asked.

Someone thought the college Fifteen had won a cup-tie.

“I’ve never been able to see why we should encourage dolts. They would be far happier at some decent manual work.” Winslow regarded the old member. “I apologise if you’ve ever been concerned with this pastime. Have you?”

The old member had to say yes. Winslow made no further comment.

Back in the combination room after dinner, Winslow announced that his complaint made wine seem like poison. “ Poison ,” he said. “But don’t let that deter the rest of you.”

It did. Lugubriously we sat, Winslow’s chin sunk down as though he were studying the reflection of his coffee-cup in the rosewood, two of the young Fellows talking in low voices.

Leaving the room in that devastated hush, I reached Martin’s house so early that he thought I must have news. I said that I had never spent such a useless day. As I described it, Martin grinned with brotherly malice.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve got one last treat for you. We’re going next door to see G S.”

I cursed, and asked to be let off.

“He says we can have some music.”

“That doesn’t add to the attractions.”

Martin smiled. He knew that I was tone-deaf.

“No,” he said, “we must go.”

He was too realistic to think there was a chance of winning Clark over. But he was acting on rule-of-thumb experience. In this kind of struggle — neither of us needed to tell the other — the first maxim was: forget you’re proud, forget you’re tired. Never be too proud to be present .

Between their half of the house and the Clarks’, they had kept a communicating door and Irene unlocked it and came with us. As soon as we crossed into the Clarks’, it was like going from Italy into Switzerland. The Clarks’ passage, even, was immaculate and bright: the drawing-room shone and glistened, with the spotlessness of a house without children. Clark struggled to his feet to greet us, but there was pain tucking up his mouth as he stood in his brace, and soon Hanna helped him back into his chair.

Coffee and Austrian cakes were waiting for us. When we all three refused drinks, it was a relief to them both. Clark was a hospitable man, he liked displaying the bottles on the sideboard, but he had never forsaken his Band of Hope piety. While as for Hanna, she could not, after twenty years in England, eradicate her belief in both Anglo-Saxon phlegm and Anglo-Saxon alcoholism.

“Delicious,” said Irene, munching a cake, glancing at Hanna. She sounded mischievous: was she deliberately mimicking Tom Orbell?

“Before we start to enjoy ourselves,” said Clark gently, “I think we’d better put one thing behind us, hadn’t we?”

He was looking at Martin, then at me, with his beautiful afflicted eyes.

“If you like,” said Martin.

“Well, I’ve thought over this démarche of Getliffe’s. I don’t think I ought to make any bones about it to you two. I’m very much afraid that my answer has to be no.”