Less Than Angels (7 page)

‘Look, there’s a light next door,’ she said, as they approached her house. ‘I wonder what Mr. Lydgate’s doing?’

‘Having a sundowner?’ Bernard suggested, for he did not know much about colonial administrators and his ideas about what they might be doing were limited and conventional.

‘Oh,
no,
he’s performing some ghastly rite to propitiate his ancestors,’ said Deirdre wildly.

‘Good heavens! Do you see that?’ Bernard pointed to the lighted window where a grotesque silhouette appeared, lingered for a moment, and then moved away.

‘It looks as if he’s wearing an African mask,’ said Deirdre. ‘It seems a strange thing to be doing at this time of night—probably the neighbours will complain.’

She said good-night to Bernard and crept quietly up the stairs, but both her mother and her aunt were awake, and her mother called out ‘Is that you, dear?’ as she always did.

Deirdre reassured her and then went to her own room and stood in front of the looking-glass, contemplating herself in the bony-bosomed dress from all angles. Then she took off the dress, flung it carelessly over the back of a chair and knelt by the bookcase in her petticoat. She had remembered a poem, cherished by many schoolgirls for many different kinds of love, the sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, beginning,
When do I see thee most
,
beloved one?
She read it through and then got ready for bed.
African Political Systems
, her current bedside book, was unopened that night.

The
ugly black marble clock on the mantelpiece in Alaric Lydgate’s study struck one. It had been his father’s, a present from his colleagues at the Mission. It had kept good time for over forty years under the most difficult conditions, being shaken about by his carriers bearing his loads over rough country, and later, when Alaric had inherited it, ticking its way through the hot steamy days and nights of Africa.

At the thought of Africa the expression on Alaric’s face might have been seen to soften, had his face been visible, but it was concealed under a mask of red beans and palm fibre, giving him the alarming appearance which had starded Bernard and Deirdre. He often sat like this in the evenings, withdrawing himself from the world, feeling in the stuffy darkness of the mask that he was back again in his native-built house, listening to the rain falling outside. He often thought what a good thing it would be if the wearing of masks or animals’ heads could become customary for persons over a certain age. How restful social intercourse would be if the face did not have to assume any expression—the strained look of interest, the simulated delight or surprise, the anxious concern one didn’t really feel. Alaric often avoided looking into people’s eyes when he spoke to them, fearful of what he might see there, for life was very terrible whatever sort of front we might put on it, and only the eyes of fche very young or the very old and wise could look out on it with a clear untroubled gaze.

Alaric Lydgate regarded himself as a failure. He had been invalided out of the Colonial Service, where he had not been awarded the promotion he felt he had earned. He had achieved nothing in the fields of anthropology or linguistics, and the trunks of notes up in his attic, which he had never even sorted out, were a constant reproach to him. He felt also that he was disliked by most of his acquaintances because he found himself unable to make small talk or even to bring out the pleasant harmless little insincerities which help everyday life to run smoothly.

In one field, however, Alaric had achieved a mild though limited fame. He was well-known as a writer of sarcastic reviews, and he was engaged this night in completing one for a learned journal. The fact that he had not been able to produce an original work himself was perhaps responsible for his harsh treatment of those who had.

He had been pacing about the room, seeking fresh inspiration, but now he flung off his mask and returned to his desk.

‘It is a pity,’ he wrote, ‘that the author did not take the trouble to inform himself of some of the elementary facts underlying the social structure of these peoples. He would then have been less likely to perpetrate such howlers as “the clan-head” (when there are, in fact, no clans), “the part played by the mother’s brother in marriage transactions” (when it is the
father’s
brother who plays the chief role here) …’ He searched the pages of the book to find more howlers, incensed at the idea of ‘these anthropologists’-he gave the words heavy scornful quotation marks in his own mind—thinking they could study a tribe in three weeks when his own eleven years of life and work among them had produced nothing more than a few articles on such minor aspects of their culture as incised calabashes and enigmatic iron objects.

In his search he came upon a native word wrongly spelt. His pen gathered speed. ‘ It is a pitv,’ he went on, ‘ that the proofs were not read by somebody with even a slight knowledge of the language, so that the consistent misspellings of vernacular terms in everyday use might have been avoided.’

In unfavourable reviews it is sometimes customary for the reviewer to relent towards the end, to throw some crumb of consolation to the author, but this was not Alaric Lydgate’s practice. His last paragraph was no less harsh. ‘ It is a pity,’ he concluded, ‘that such a reputable institution should have allowed a work of this nature to appear under its auspices. Its reputation will certainly not be enhanced by unscholarly rubbish of this kind, and it can hardly be gratified to learn that its funds, which are known to be limited, have been squandered to no purpose.’

He drew a heavy line on the paper, folded the sheets and put them into an envelope. In a day or two the editor of the journal, who was a gentle patient man, would set to work to improve the English and tone it down a little. ‘It is a pitv,’ he would say to himself, ‘to have three consecutive paragraphs beginning “It is a pity”.’ He might even remember that Alaric Lydgate had once been refused a grant from the reputable institution whose limited funds had been squandered to no purpose. He might then go on to ask himself whether funds can be
squandered
to no purpose, whether indeed ihey can be squandered to
any
purpose. Certainly, as editor, he would feel none of the exhilaration which Alaric felt on finishing his review.

He leapt up from his desk and hurried from the room. His housekeeper Mrs. Skinner, who was a light sleeper, woke suddenly and turned on her bedside lamp. Then she realized that it was only Mr. Lydgate going up to the attic, and although this seemed an odd thing to be doing in the middle of the night, she was used to him by now and composed herself for sleep again.

Alaric pushed open the door and turned on the light. The room was filled with tea-chests, containing masks and pottery and other relics of his life in Africa; there were also several black tin trunks and wooden boxes, filled with his tropical kit and the accumulation of eleven years’ note-taking. He pulled at the lock of one of the tin trunks. It was rusty and came away in his hand. The hinges too were eaten away writh rust and it was not difficult to open the box. Inside were piles of note-books and loose papers which gave off a dank musty smell. He picked up a wad of foolscap; the corners had been eaten away. Mice or white ants had been more diligent than he had. One day, he thought, I’ll get somebody to type all this stuff and then it will be manageable. But now it was nearly two o’clock. The exhilaration he had felt on finishing his review had given way to an intense weariness. He went rather sadly to bed and, although there was no particular reason for it, set his alarm clock for six o’clock.

‘Do you know,’ said Rhoda at breakfast next morning, ‘I almost thought I heard Mr. Lydgate’s alarm clock going off this morning. About six o’clock, it must have been. I had been awake some time.’

‘Did you have a good evening with Bernard, dear?’ Mabel asked Deirdre.

‘Oh, not bad. He’s rather a dull old thing but I enjoyed the play.’

‘Well, I’m glad about that,’ said Mabel, ‘though when I was your age I think I should have felt embarrassed at going to see that kind of play with a man. It doesn’t sound at all nice. Still perhaps it’s a good thing really, being able to see plays like that, I mean.’

But why was it a good thing? she wondered, unable to answer her own question. People did not seem to be any better or happier now than they had ever been, nor were the relations between men and women any more satisfactory. Of course in the early nineteen-twenties, when she had been Deirdre’s age, there had been some very daring plays but she had not known the kind of young men who would have taken her to see them. Gregory Swan had liked
Rose Marie
and
No, No, Nanette
, and in her circle it was the men who formed the women’s tastes. Now, perhaps, it was the other way round.

‘I suppose Bernard would have preferred a musical, like that thing at Drury Lane,’ went on Deirdre, answering her mother’s question, ‘hut musicals are so boring. I doubt if I could sit through it,’

‘The Dulkes enjoyed it very much,’ said Rhoda, ‘and Malcolm is going to take Phyllis for her birthday,’

‘There you are,’ said Deirdre, ‘it just isn’t my kind of thing, I’m afraid.’

‘I should think Bernard is a high-principled young man,’ said Mabel, continuing in her own line of thought.

‘He hasn’t had much opportunity to be anything else as far as I’m concerned,’ said Deirdre rather pertly.

‘No, dear, but he is a good type,’ said Mabel. One of the minor public schools, then he had done well in the army and now had a very safe position with his father’s firm … ‘I mean, he always sees you home and in good time.’

‘Oh, yes, and only the mildest of good-night kisses. He’s not so bad really. I must go now.’ Deirdre stood up. ‘All this talk about Bernard’s high principles has delayed me.’

‘Have you many lectures today?’ asked Rhoda.

‘Not till the afternoon. I thought I’d spend the morning at Felix’s Folly.’ And perhaps she might see Mark and Digby there and they might be able to tell her something about Tom Mallow. She hardly dared to hope that she might see Tom himself.

On the bus she wondered whether Tom had high principles, like Bernard. She was sure, somehow, that he had a delightful lack of them.

When she arrived at the research centre she found nobody there and setded down rather grimly with a pile of books. She had been working for about an hour when the door opened and Professor Mainwaring came in.

‘Miss Clovis not here?’ he asked of nobody in particular.

‘Ah, then she has hidden herself away in her sanctum, far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.’

Deirdre, who was sitting alone at a table, while one of the library assistants worked at a card index, thought the implication a little unfair, but she did not think any answer was required from her and she certainly would not have felt capable of providing one.

‘I hope I may have arrived in time for a cup of tea?’ continued Professor Mainwaring, addressing the library assistant.

She assured him that it was just made. He then went to Miss Clovis’s room, where a young woman presented him with a cup.

‘Ah, a fair tea-maker I ‘ he exclaimed. ‘Wasn’t it De Quincey who described her thus?’ He plucked at his beard and glanced at her quizzically, making her giggle and leave the room hastily.

‘Young men nowadays cannot afford to take opium,’ said Miss Clovis briskly, perhaps anxious not to dwell on the subject of tea, which had once nearly proved disastrous for her.

‘No, even the Foresight grants will hardly be generous enough for that,’ laughed Professor Mainwaring. ‘Have you received many applications yet?’ Miss Clovis was acting as secretary to the selection committee and enjoyed the work which was congenial to her natural curiosity about people and her desire to arrange their lives for them. The revelations of age, background and education were sometimes most surprising. Who would ever have thought, for instance … she smiled at some reminiscence.

‘They are coming in,’ she said. ‘Have the committee decided yet when they will hold the interviews?’

Professor Mainwaring tweaked at his beard with an almost pizzicato gesture. ‘Ah,
that\
I have a new plan this year and one which I think Fairfax and Vere should approve. I will reveal it to you in due course,’

‘It seems difficult to introduce any novelty into the ways of selecting holders for the grants. Are the young people to be made to sing for their supper, or entertain the board in some unacademic way?’ suggested Miss Clovis, hoping to draw out some details.

But the Professor would not give anything away, and soon afterwards he left her, brooding among her collection of offprints which she was sorting out.

These single articles, detached from the learned journals in which they have appeared, have a peculiar significance in the academic world. Indeed, the giving and receiving of an offprint can often bring about a special relationship between the parties concerned in the transaction. The young author, bewildered and delighted at being presented with perhaps twenty-five copies of his article, may at first waste them on his aunts and girl friends, but when he is older and wiser he realizes that a more carefully planned distribution may bring him definite advantages. It was thought by many to be ‘good policy’ to send an offprint to Esther Clovis, though it was not always known exactly why this should be. In most cases she had done nothing more than express a polite interest in the author’s work, but in others the gift was prompted by a sort of undefined fear, as a primitive tribesman might leave propitiatory gifts of food before a deity or ancestral shrine in the hope of receiving some benefit.

Most of the offprints bore inscriptions of some kind- ‘with best wishes’, grateful thanks’, ‘cordial greetings’, ‘warmest regards’—every degree of respect and esteem short of the highest emotion was represented. Love itself had not been inspired; perhaps it was hardly likely that it would have been or that the author would have thought it fitting to express it even if it had. Some of the inscriptions were in foreign languages and one even had a photograph of its African author pinned to it.