The Light and the Dark (4 page)

After port, as soon as I got inside the drawing-room, Lady Boscastle called out: “Mr Eliot! I want you to talk to me, please.” I sat with her in a corner by the fire, and she examined me about my hopes and prospects; she was very shrewd, used to having her own way, accustomed to find pleasure in men’s confidences. We should have gone on, if it had not been that Lord Boscastle, on the largest sofa a few feet away, was asking Roy to describe his work. It was a perfectly serious question, and Roy treated it so. He explained how he had to begin unravelling a language which was two-thirds unknown. Then he passed on to manuscripts in that language – manuscripts battered, often with half the page missing, so faded that much could not be read at all, sometimes copied by incompetent and careless hands. Out of all this medley he was trying to restore the text.

“Tell me, how long will it take you?” said Lord Boscastle.

“Eight years,” said Roy at once.

Lord Boscastle reflected.

“I can imagine starting it,” he said. “I can see it must be rather fun. But I really can’t imagine myself having the patience to go through with it.”

“I think you might,” said Roy simply. “I think you might have enjoyed having something definite to do.”

“Do you think I could have managed it?”

“I’m sure,” said Roy.

“Perhaps I might,” said Lord Boscastle with a trace of regret.

The drawing-room was left with no one speaking. Then Lady Muriel firmly suggested that her brother ought to see Roy’s manuscripts. It was arranged (Lady Muriel pushing from behind) that the Boscastles should lunch with Roy next day.

A few minutes later, though it was only half-past ten, Roy made his apologies to Lady Muriel and left. She watched him walk the length of the room: then we heard his feet running down the stairs.

“He was a little naughty with you at dinner, Hugh,” she said to her brother, “but you must admit that he has real style.”

“Young men ought to get up to monkey tricks,” said Lord Boscastle. “One grows old soon enough. Yes, he’s an agreeable young fellow.”

He paused, drank some whisky, enquired as though compelled to: “Who is his father?”

“A man called Calvert,” said the Master.

“I know that,” said Lord Boscastle irritably.

“He’s distinctly rich and lives in the midlands.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.”

“No, you wouldn’t have, Hugh,” said the Master, with a fresh smile.

“But I must say,” Lord Boscastle went on, “that if I’d met Calvert anywhere I should really have expected to know who he was.”

This implied, I thought, a curious back-handed social acceptance. But it was not necessary, for the Master said: “He’s got everything in front of him. He’s going to be one of the great orientalists of the day. Between ourselves, I believe that’s putting it mildly.”

“I can believe you,” said Lord Boscastle. “I hope he enjoys himself. We must keep an eye on him.”

That meant definite acceptance. It was not, I thought, that Roy had “real style”, had been to Lord Boscastle’s school, could pass as a gentleman through any tests except Lord Boscastle’s own; it was not only that Roy had struck a human want in him, by making him think of how he might have spent his life. He might have received Roy even if he had liked him less: for Lord Boscastle had a genuine, respectful, straightforward tenderness for learning and the arts. His snobbery was a passion, more devouring as he got older, more triumphant as he found reasons for proving that almost no one came inside his own preserve, could truly be regarded as a gentleman; nevertheless, he continued to have a special entrance which let in his brother-in-law, which let in Roy, which let in some of the rest of us; and he welcomed us more as his snobbery outside grew more colossal and baroque.

Lady Boscastle was trying to resume our conversation, but the others were still talking of Roy. Mrs Seymour was rapt with vague enthusiasm.

“He’s so handsome,” she said.

“Interesting-looking, I think I should say,” commented Lady Boscastle, a shade impatiently.

“He’s not handsome at all,” said Joan. “His nose is much too long.”

“Don’t you like him?” cried Mrs Seymour.

“I can never get him to talk seriously,” the girl replied.

“He’s very lucky.” Mrs Seymour’s enthusiasm grew. “It must be wonderful to be A1 at everything.”

No one could be freer from irony than Mrs Seymour; and yet, even on that night, those words rang through me with a harsh ironic note.

The Master was saying: “One thing is certain. We must elect the young man to a fellowship here before long.”

“I should have thought you would jump at him,” said Lord Boscastle.

“No society of men is very fond of brilliance, Hugh,” said the Master. “We needs must choose the dullest when we see it. However, I hope this time my colleagues will agree with me without undue pressure.”

He smiled confidentially at me.

“Between ourselves, Eliot,” he went on, “when I reflect on the modest accomplishments of some of our colleagues, I think perhaps even undue pressure might not be out of place.”

I woke because of a soft voice above my bed – “beg pardon, sir, beg pardon, sir, beg pardon, sir”. In the half-light I could see Bidwell’s face, round, ruddy, simultaneously deferential and good fellow-like, wide open and cunning.

“I don’t know whether I’m doing right, sir. I know I oughtn’t to disturb you, and” – he inclined his head in the direction of the college clock – “that’s got twenty minutes to go to nine o’clock. But it’s a young lady. I think it’s a young lady of Mr Calvert’s, sir. She seemed what you might call anxious to see you.”

I let him pull up the blind, and the narrow cell-like room seemed bleaker than ever in the bright cold morning sunlight. I had drunk enough at the Lodge the night before to prefer to get up slowly. As I washed in warmish water from a jug, I was too moiled and irritated to wonder much who this visitor might be.

I recognised her, though, as soon as I saw her sitting in an armchair by my sitting-room fire. I had met her once or twice before; she was a young woman of Roy’s own age, and her name was Rosalind Wykes. She came across the room to meet me, and looked up contritely with clear brown eyes.

“I’m frightfully sorry to disturb you,” she said. “I know it’s very wicked of me. But I thought you might be going out to give a lecture. Sit down and I’ll get your breakfast for you.”

Breakfast was strewn about the hearth, in plates with metal covers on top. Rosalind took off the covers, dusted the rim of the plates, dusted a cup, poured out my tea.

“I must say they don’t look after you too well,” she said. “Get on with your breakfast. You won’t feel so much like wringing my neck then, will you?”

She was nervous; there was a dying fall in her voice which sometimes made her seem pathetic. She had an oval face, a longish nose, a big humorous mouth with down just visible on her upper lip. She was dressed in the mode, and it showed how slender she was, though she was wider across the hips than one observed at a first glance. She was often nervous: sometimes she seemed restless and reckless: yet underneath one felt she was tough and healthy and made for a happy physical life. Her hair was dark, and she had done it up from the back, which was unusual at that time: with her oval face, brown eyes, small head, that tier of hair made her seem like a portrait of the First Empire – and in fact to me she frequently brought a flavour of that period, modish, parvenu, proper outside and raffish within, materialistic and yet touching.

I drank two cups of tea. “Better,” I said.

“You look a bit morning afterish, I must say,” said Rosalind. At that time she was very prim in speech, much more so than most of the people among whom she moved: yet she had a singular gift for investing the most harmless remark with an amorous aura. My state that breakfast-time was due, of course, to nothing more disreputable than a number of glasses of claret at dinner and some whiskies afterwards with the Master and Lord Boscastle; but, when Rosalind mentioned it, it might have been incurred through an exhausting night of love.

I began eating some breakfast, and said: “Well, I shall revive soon. What did you get me out of bed for, Rosalind?”

She shook her head. “Nothing very special. I only arrived yesterday and I’m going back tonight, and I shouldn’t have liked to miss you altogether.”

I looked at her. The clear eyes were guileless. She glanced round the room.

“I wish you’d let me do this place up for you,” she said. “It would look lovely with just a bit of care. I could make you so comfortable you wouldn’t credit it, you know.”

I was prepared to believe that she was right. The bedroom was a monk’s cell, but this sitting-room was a large and splendid medieval chamber. I knew that, given a week and a chequebook, she would transform it. She was kind and active, she took pleasure from making one comfortable. But I did not think that she had come that morning to tell me so.

While I went on eating, she stood by the wall and examined the panelling. She asked how old it was, and I told her sixteenth century. Then, over her shoulder, she said: “Did you notice that Roy left the dinner party early last night?”

I said yes.

“Did you know what for?”

I said no.

Still over her shoulder, in a tone with a dying fall, she said: “I’m afraid it was to come and see me.”

It was prim, it was suggestive, shameless and boasting. I burst into laughter, and she turned and looked at me with a lurking, satisfied, triumphant smile.

In a moment Bidwell came in, quiet footed, to clear up. When he had left again, she said: “Your servant has got a very sweet face, hasn’t he?”

“I’m rather fond of him.”

“I’m sure you are.” Her eyes were shrewd. “I must say, I wish you and Roy didn’t leave so much to him. I hope you don’t let him do your ordering.”

I did not mind Bidwell taking a percentage, I said, if it avoided fuss. She frowned, she did not want to let it pass: but there was still something on her mind. It was not only to confess or boast that she had come to see me.

“Did you know,” she said, “that Roy is having Lord and Lady Boscastle to lunch?”

“I heard him invite them.”

“I’m making him have me too. I’m terrified. Are they dreadfully frightening?”

“What did Roy say about that?”

“He said Lord Boscastle’s bark was worse than his bite. And that Lady Boscastle was the stronger of the two.”

“I think that’s true,” I said.

“But what am I going to say to them?” she said. She was genuinely nervous. “I’ve never met people like this before. I haven’t any idea what to say.”

“Don’t worry. And make love to Lord B. as lavishly as you like,” I said.

It was sound advice, for Lord Boscastle’s social standards were drastically reduced in the presence of attractive young women who seemed to enjoy his company.

She smiled absently for a second, then cried again: “I don’t know anything about people like this. I don’t even know what to call an earl. Lewis, what do I call them?”

I told her. I believed this was a reason for her visit. She would rather ask that question of me than of Roy.

“I’m glad I remembered to ask you,” she said disingenuously, her eyes open and clear. “That’s a relief. But I am terrified,” she added.

“Why did you work it then?” I said.

“I was dreadfully silly,” she said. “I thought I should like to see a bit of high life.”

That may have been true, but I was sure there was a wise intuitive purpose behind it. With her recklessness, with the earthy realism that lived behind the prudish speech, she could live as though each day were sufficient to itself: so she had thrown herself at Roy, took what she could get, put up with what she called his “moods”, went to bed with him when she could, schemed no more than a month or two ahead.

But, deep in her fibres, there was another realism, another wisdom, another purpose. Her whole nature was set on marrying him. It did not need thought or calculation, it just took all of herself – though on the way to her end she would think and calculate with every scrap of wits she had. She was nervous, kind, sensitive in her fashion, tender with the good nature of one who is happy with instinctive life: she was also hard, ruthless, determined, singleminded and unscrupulous: or rather she could act as though scruples did not exist. She meant to marry him.

So she knew that she must get on with the Boscastles. Roy was not a snob, no man was less so: but he gave himself to everyone who took his fancy, whether they came from the ill-fated and lost, or from the lucky. Usually they were the world’s derelicts, for I often grumbled that he treated badly any acquaintance who might be of practical use: but if by chance he liked someone eminent, then he was theirs as deeply as though they were humble. He felt no barriers except what his affections told him. Rosalind knew this, and knew that she must acquire the same ease. Hence she had driven herself, despite her diffidence, into this luncheon party.

Hence too, I was nearly certain, she decided she must know me well. So far as anyone had influence over Roy, I had. She must make me into an ally if she could. She must charm me, she must see that I was friendly, she must take a part in my life, even if it only meant decorating my rooms. She had come that morning to ask me how to address an earl: but she would have found another reason, if that had not existed. I strongly suspected that she had bribed Bidwell to wake me up before my time.

Roy brought Rosalind back to my rooms after lunch.

“I hear you met this morning,” said Roy.

“Can you bear the sight of me again?” Rosalind said.

“He’ll pretend to,” said Roy. “He’s famous for his self-control.”

She made a face at him, half-plaintive, half-comic, and said: “I couldn’t stay and see Roy’s tables all littered with plates. I should want to do something about it.” She was talkative and elated, like someone released from strain.

“How did it go?” I said.

“I tried to find a corner to hide in. But it’s not very easy when there are only four.”

“You got a small prize,” Roy said to her. “Not the first prize. Only the second. You did very nicely.”