Charles Snow - Time of Hope

‘He’s doing it because he wants to do it,’ said Sheila. From the lights of the hall behind, I could see her face. She was lined, harassed, concentrated, and rapt. Her beauty was haggard; she was speaking with absolute certainty. ‘All people are selfish, Though they make a better show of it than I do. He’ll go about humbly helping his fellow men because it makes him feel good to do it.’

Looking into the dark stretches of the park, she said: ‘What do you believe?’

I gripped her arm, but she said, in the same tone: ‘I don’t want to hear anything nice. What do you believe?’

I told her — and anything I said seemed flat after the rapt question — that I had no faith in any of the faiths. For me, there was something which took their place; I wanted to find some of the truths about human beings.

‘Yes,’ said Sheila. In a moment, she said: ‘I believe in something.’

‘What?’

She said: ‘I believe in joy.’

We did not speak again before we returned to the Knights’ table. The dance that we had left was not yet ended, and Mrs Knight looked gratified that we had come back so soon. Mr Knight reclined heavily in his chair, spreading himself in the company of his womenfolk. I had just heard an affirmation which sounded in my mind throughout Sheila’s life and after, as clear, as thrilling, as vulnerable, and as full of hope, as when she stared over the park and spoke into the darkness. Yet that evening it vanished as quickly as a childhood dread. Just then it seemed only a remark, past and already half-forgotten, as, tired and subdued, she took her place by her father. Mr Knight’s splendid voice rose, and we all listened to him.

There were nights when it was a pleasure to lie awake. Outside, a train would rattle and roar over the bridge (I remembered, in the Zeppelin raids, my mother saying: ‘The trains are our friends. When you can hear them, you feel that everything is going on all right.’). I had finished another textbook, and lay there, with a triumphant surge of mastery, because I knew it inside out; I would ask myself a question, answer it as though I were already in the examination hall, and then switch on the light to see if I had any detail wrong.

And, night after night, I did not want to sleep until I had re-cherished, like a collector going over his prints, each moment and each word of that absurd scene in the Knights’ drawing-room, with Sheila snuffling her m’s and n’s, and saying ‘I wadt you to cub to the ball.’

As I thought of her so, my prayers were cut in two, and my longings contradicted each other. On the one side, I begged: let me stay here, having known that comical delight, having known loving peace; let me stay cherishing it, for that afternoon was so delicate that it would perish at a touch. On the other, I wanted all, not just the tantalizing promise: I wanted to be sure of her, to fight my way Past the jealousies, to rely on such afternoons for the staple of my life, to risk any kind of pain until I had her for my own.

The first time we met after the ball, neither of us said a word that was not trivial. I was happy; it was an hour in a private world, in which we lived inside a crystal shell, so fragile that either of us could speak and shatter it.

At our next meeting, she did speak. Although she was ‘trying to behave’, she had to let slip, for the first time since our reconciliation, that a new admirer was trying to rush her. After one dinner he was demanding some fixture for each day of the next week.

‘Shall you go?’

‘I shall go once,’ Sheila said.

‘Shall you go more than once?’

‘It depends on how much I like him.’ She was getting restive, and there was a harsh glint in her eyes.

There and then I knew I must settle it. I could not go on in this suspense. Even though, before we parted, Sheila said awkwardly: ‘He’s probably not a very useful young man.’

I must settle it, I thought. I decided how I must talk to her. We had arranged our next assignation in the usual place. I copied her action when she had her cold, and wrote to say that I was laid up. I could borrow some crockery from my landlady — would Sheila come and make some tea for me?

The March afternoon was cloudy; I turned the gas fire full on, and it snored away, brilliant in the dark room. I had tried to work, but gave it up, and was sitting on the bed, listening, for each footstep on the stairs.

At last I heard her. At last, but it was only a minute past the hour. The nerves at my elbows seemed stretched like piano strings. Sheila entered, statuesque in the light from the gas fire.

‘You needn’t have asked me to make tea,’ she began without any preliminary. ‘I should have done it without asking.’

We kissed. I hoped that she did not notice that my hands were shaking. She patted my shoulder.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing much,’ I said. ‘I’m a bit strung up, that’s all.’

She switched on the light.

‘I shall never have a bedside manner,’ she said. ‘Look, if you’re worried, you ought to see poor Tom Devitt. He was a sensible doctor.’

I thought it was not meant to be cruel. In her innocence, that was over long ago.

‘You rest,’ she said. ‘I’ll make the tea. You needn’t have asked me.’

She had brought some cakes, though she never ate them, some books, and, eccentrically, a tie. There was something random about her kindness: it was like a child trying to be kind. She was gay, putting the kettle on the gas ring, making tea, giving me my cup. She switched off the light again, and sat on the other side of the fire, upright on the hard chair. She talked on, light and friendly. The suspense was raging inside me. I answered absently, sometimes after a delay, sometimes not at all. She looked inquiringly ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

I was quivering, so that I took hold of the bedrail.

She asked another question, about some book or person, which I did not hear. The blood was throbbing in my neck, and I could wait no longer.

‘Sheila,’ I said. ‘Marry me.’

She gazed at me, and did not speak. The seconds spread themselves so that I could not tell how long a time had passed; I could hear the fire, whose noise was a roar in my ears, and my own heart.

‘How ever would you manage’, she asked, ‘to keep us both?’

I had anticipated any response but that. I was so much astonished that I smiled. My hands were steadier, and for the first time that day I felt a respite.

‘We might have to wait,’ I said. ‘Or I’d find a way.’

‘I suppose you could. Yes, you’ve got plenty of resource.’

‘But it’s not important,’ I cried. ‘With you—’

‘It might be important,’ said Sheila. ‘You never give me credit for any common sense.’

‘It’s not the point,’ I said. ‘And you know it’s not.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said, as though reluctantly.

‘If you’ll marry me,’ I said, ‘I’ll find a way.’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘Do you think I’m playing?’

‘No.’ She was frowning. ‘You know me better than anyone else does, don’t you?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Yes, you do,’ she said, ‘That’s why I came back. And you still want to marry me?’

‘More than anything that I shall ever want.’

‘Lewis, if I married you I should like to be a good wife. But I couldn’t help it — I should injure you. I might injure you appallingly.’

‘That is for me to face,’ I said. ‘I want you to marry me.’

‘Oh,’ she cried. She stood up, rested an elbow on the mantelpiece, arched her back, and warmed her calves in front of the fire. I watched the glow upon her stockings; she was silent, looking not at me but straight down the room. Then she spoke: ‘If I marry, I shall hope to be in love.’