Charles Snow - Time of Hope

It was not the reason, but it was a very good shot. We talked for a few minutes about legal careers. He was proud of his ability to ‘place’ people and he was now observing me with attention. Sometimes he asked a question edged with malice. And I was learning something about him.

He and his wife were each snobbish, but in quite different fashions. Mrs Knight had been born into the comfortable moneyed middle class; she was a robust woman without much perception, and accepted those who seemed to arrive at the same level; just as uncritically, she patronized those who did not. Mr Knight’s interest was far more subtle and pervading. To begin with, he was no more gently born than I was. I could hear the remains of a northern dialect in that faint and modulated voice. Mr Knight had met his wife, and captured her for good, when he was a young curate. She had brought him money, he had moved through the social scene, he had dined in the places he had longed for as a young man — in the heart of the county families and the dignitaries of the Church. The odd thing was, that having arrived there, he still retained his romantic regard for those very places. All his shrewdness and suspicion went to examine the channels by which others got there. On that subject he was accurate, penetrating, and merciless.

He was a most interesting man. The time was getting on; I was wondering whether I ought to leave, when I witnessed another scene which, though I did not know it, was a regular feature of the vicarage Saturday teas. Mrs Knight looked busily, lovingly, at her husband.

‘Please, darling, would you mind giving us the sermon?’ she said.

‘I can’t do it, darling. I can’t do it. I’m too exhausted.’

‘Please. Just give us the beginning. You know Sheila always likes to hear the sermon. I’m sure you’d like to hear the sermon.’ Mrs Knight rallied me. ‘It will give you something to think over on the way home. I’m sure you want to hear it.’

I said that I did.

‘I believe he’s a heathen,’ said Mr Knight maliciously, but his fingers were playing with the manuscript.

‘You heard what he said, darling,’ urged Mrs Knight. ‘He’ll be disappointed if you don’t give us a good long piece.’

‘Oh well.’ Mr Knight sighed. ‘If you insist, If you insist.’

Mrs Knight began to alter the position of the reading lamp. She made her husband impatient. He was eager to get to it.

The faintness disappeared from his voice on the instant. It filled the room more effortlessly than Mrs Knight’s. He read magnificently. I had never heard such command of tone, such control, such loving articulation. And I had never seen anyone enjoy more his own reading; occasionally he peered over the page to make sure that we were not neglecting to enjoy it too. I was so much impressed with the whole performance that I could not spare much notice for the argument.

He gave us a good long piece. In fact, he gave us the whole sermon, twenty-four minutes by the clock. At the end, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Mrs Knight broke into enthusiastic, worshipping praise. I added my bit.

‘Water, please, darling,’ said Mr Knight very faintly, without opening his eyes. ‘I should like a glass of water. Just water.’

As I changed into my own clothes in the bathroom, I was wondering how I could say goodbye to Sheila alone. In the general haze of excitement, I was thinking also of her father. He was vain, preposterously and superlatively vain, and yet astute; at the same time theatrical and shrewd; malicious, hypochondriac, and subtle; easy to laugh at, and yet exuding, through it all, a formidable power. He was a man whom no one would feel negligible. I believed that it was not impossible I could get on with him. I should have to suffer his malice, he would be a more effective enemy than his wife. But I felt one thing for certain, while I hummed tunelessly in the bathroom: he was worried about Sheila, and not because she had brought me there that afternoon; he was worried about her, as she sat silently by the fire; and there had been a spark, not of liking, but of sympathy, between him and me.

On my way downstairs I heard Mrs Knight’s voice raised in indignation.

‘It’s much too wet to think of such a thing,’ came through the drawing-room door. When I opened it, Mrs Knight was continuing: ‘It’s just asking to get yourself laid up. I don’t know when you’ll begin to have a scrap of sense. And even if it were a nice night—’

‘I’m walking back with you,’ said Sheila to me.

‘I want you to tell her that it’s quite out of the question. It’s utterly absurd,’ said Mrs Knight.

‘I don’t know what it’s like outside,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘It does sound rather wild.’

The wind had been howling round the house.

‘If it doesn’t hurt you, it won’t hurt me,’ said Sheila.

Mr Knight was still lying back with his eyes closed.

‘She oughtn’t to do it,’ a whisper came across the room. ‘She oughtn’t to do it.’

‘Are you ready?’ said Sheila.

Her will was too strong for them. It suddenly flashed across my mind, as she put on a mackintosh in the hall, that I had no idea, no idea in the world, how she felt towards either of them.

The wind blew stormily in our faces; Sheila laughed aloud. It was not raining hard, for the gale was too strong, but one could taste the driven rain. Down the village street we were quiet; I felt rapturously at ease, she had never been so near. As we turned down a lane, our fingers laced, and hers were pressing mine.

We had not spoken since we left the house. Her first words were accusatory, but her tone was soft ‘Why did you play my mother’s game?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Pretending to be better off than you are.’

‘All I said was true.’

‘You gave her a wrong impression,’ she said. ‘You know you did.’

‘I thought it was called for.’ I was smiling.

‘Stupid of you,’ she said. ‘I’d rather you said you were a clerk.’

‘It would have shocked her.’

‘It would have been good for her,’ said Sheila.

The gale was howling, the trees dashed overhead, and we walked on in silence, in silence deep with joy.

‘Lewis,’ she said at last. ‘I want to ask you something.’

‘Darling?’

‘Weren’t you terribly embarrassed—?’

‘Whatever at?’

‘At coming in wet. And meeting strangers for the first time in that fancy dress.’

She laughed.

‘You did look a bit absurd,’ she added.

‘I didn’t think about it,’ I said.

‘Didn’t you really mind?’

‘No.’

‘I can’t understand you,’ she said. ‘I should have curled up inside.’ Then she said: ‘You are rather wonderful.’

I laughed at her. I said that, if she were going to admire me for anything, she might choose something more sensible to admire. But she was utterly serious. To her self-conscious nerves, it was incredible that anyone should be able to master such a farce.

‘I curled up a bit myself this afternoon,’ she said, a little later.

‘When?’

‘When they were making fools of themselves in front of you.’

‘Good God, girl,’ I said roughly, lovingly, ‘they’re human.’

She tightened her grip on my hand.

At the end of a lane we came in sight of the farm. There was one more field to cross, and the lights blazed out in the windy darkness. I asked her to come in.

‘I couldn’t,’ she said. I had an arm round her shoulders as we stood. Suddenly she hid her face against my coat. I asked her again.

‘I must go,’ she said. She looked up at me, and for the first time I kissed her, while the wind and my own blood sang and pounded in my ears. She drew away, then threw her arms round my neck, and I felt her mouth on mine.