Charles Snow - Time of Hope

‘I’m rather full up this week—’

‘It can’t be left,’ I said.

‘Oh, if you want,’ he gave way, with a trace of petulance. Before we parted, we arranged to meet. He was shy of the place and time, but I made him promise — my flat, not tomorrow but the evening after.

The fire was out when I returned to my room. I did not think of sleep, and I did not notice the cold. Still in my overcoat, I sat on the head of the sofa, smoking.

I stayed without moving for many minutes. My thoughts were clear. They had never seemed so clear. I believed that this man was right for her. Or at least with him she might get an unexacting happiness. Knowing her with the insight of passionate love, I believed that I saw the truth. He was lightweight, but somehow his presence made her innocent and free. Her best chance was to marry him.

Would he marry her? He was wavering. He could be forced either way. He was selfish, but this time he did not know exactly what he wanted for himself. He had made love to her, but was not physically bound. She had little hold on him; yet he was thinking of her as his wife. He was irresolute. He was waiting to be told what to do.

Thinking back on that night, as I did so often afterwards, I had to remember one thing. It was easy to forget, but in fact many of my thoughts were still protective. Her best chance was to marry him. I thought of how I could persuade him, the arguments to use, the feelings to play on. Did he know that she would one day be rich? Would he not be flattered by my desire to have her at any price, would not my competition raise her value? I imagined her married to him, light and playful as she had been that night. It was a sacrificial, tender thought.

If I played it right, my passion to marry her would spur him on.

Yes. Her best chance was to marry him. I believed that I could decide it. I could bring it off — or destroy it.

With the cruellest sense of power I had ever known, I thought that I could destroy it.

I had two days to wait. Throughout that time, wherever I was, to whomever I was speaking, I had my mind fixed, my whole spirit and body, bone and flesh and brain, on the hour to come. The sense of power ran through my bloodstream. As I prepared for the scene, my thoughts stayed clear. Underneath the thoughts, I was exultant. Each memory of the past, each hope and resolve remaining — they were at one. All that I was, fused into the cruel exultation.

I went into Chambers each of those mornings, but only for an hour. I conferred with Percy. On Thursday we were to hear judgement in an adjourned case: that would be the morning after Hugh’s visit, I thought, as Percy and I methodically arranged my timetable. February would be a busy month.

‘They’re coming in nicely,’ said Percy.

Those two days were cold and wet, but I did not stay long in Chambers or in my room. I was not impatient, but I was active. It was a pleasure to jostle in the crowds. My mind was planning, and at the same time I breathed in the wet reek of Covent Garden, the whispers of a couple behind me at the cinema, the grotesque play of an enraged and pompous woman’s face.

I did not hurry over my tea on the second day. He was due at half past six; I had to buy a bottle of whisky on the way home, but there was time enough. I had been sitting about in cafés most of that afternoon, drinking tea and reading the evening papers. Before I set off for home, I bought the latest edition and read it through. As people came into the café their coats were heavy with the rain, and at the door men poured trickles of water from their hat-brims.

When I reached my door the rain had slackened, but I was very wet. I had to change; and as I did so I thought with sarcastic tenderness of the first occasion that I arrived at Sheila’s house. In the mirror I saw myself smiling. Then I got ready for Hugh’s visit. I made up the fire. I had not yet drawn the blinds, and the reflections of the flames began to dance behind the window panes. I put the bottle of whisky and a jug of water and glasses on the table, and opened a box of cigarettes. Then at last I pulled down the blinds and shut the room in.

He should be here in ten minutes. I was feeling exalted, braced, active with physical well-being; there was a tremor in my hands.

Hugh was a quarter of an hour late. I was standing up as he came in. He gave his bright, flickering smile. I said that it was a nasty night, and asked if he were soaked. He replied that he had found a taxi, but that his trousers were damp below the knees. Could he dry them by the fire? He sat in a chair with his feet in the fireplace. He remarked, sulkily, that he had to take care of his chest.

I invited him to have a drink. First he said no, then he changed his mind, then he stopped me and asked for a very small one. He sat there with glass in hand while I stood on the other side of the hearth. Steam was rising from his trousers, and he pushed his feet nearer to the grate.

‘I’m sorry to have brought you out on a night like this,’ I said.

‘Oh well, I’m here.’ His manner, when he was not defending himself, was easy and gentle.

‘If you had to turn out tonight,’ I said, ‘it’s a pity that I’ve got to tell you unpleasant things.’

He was looking at me, alert for the next words. His face was open.

I said casually: ‘I wonder if you’d rather we went out and ate first. If so, I won’t begin talking seriously until we come back. I must have you alone for what I’ve got to say. I don’t know what the weather’s like now.’

I left the fireplace, went to the window, and lifted the bottom of the blind. The rain was tapping steadily. Now that our eyes were not meeting, he raised his voice sharply ‘It can’t possibly take long, can it? I haven’t the faintest idea what it’s all about—’

I turned back.

‘You’d rather I spoke now?’ I said,

‘I suppose so.’

I sat down opposite to him. The steam was still wafted by the draught, and there was a smell of moist clothes. His eyes flickered away, and then were drawn back. He did not know what to expect.

‘Sheila wants to marry you,’ I said. ‘She wants to marry you more than you want to marry her.’

His eyelids blinked. He looked half-surprised that I should begin so.

‘Perhaps that’s true,’ he said.

‘You’re quite undecided,’ I said.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’

‘You’re absolutely undecided,’ I said. ‘You can’t make up your mind. It’s very natural that you shouldn’t be able to.’

‘I shall make it up.’

‘You’re not happy about it. You’ve got a feeling that there’s something wrong. That’s why you’re so undecided.’

‘How do you know that I feel there’s something wrong?’

‘By the same instinct that is warning you,’ I said. ‘You feel that there are reasons why you shouldn’t marry her. You can’t place them, but you feel that they exist.’

‘Well?’

‘If you knew her better’, I said, ‘you would know what those reasons are.’

He was leaning back in the chair with his shoulders huddled.

‘Of course, you’re not unprejudiced,’ he said.

‘I’m not unprejudiced,’ I said. ‘But I’m speaking the truth, and you believe that I’m speaking the truth.’

‘I’m very fond of her,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what you tell me. I shall make up my mind for myself.’

I waited, I let his eyes dart towards me, before I spoke again.

‘Have you any idea’, I said, ‘what marriage with her would mean?’

‘Of course I’ve an idea.’

‘Let me tell you. She has little physical love for you — or any man.’

‘More for me than for anyone.’ He had a moment of certainty.