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.”
I guessed that she had been diffident, had not taken much part. But it was not as bad as she feared, and with her indomitable resolve she would try again. Roy was smiling at her, amused, stirred to tenderness because she made such heavy weather of what would, at any age, have been his own native air.
He said to me: “By the way, old boy, you’ve made a great hit with Lady B. I’m extremely jealous.”
“She wanted to know all about you,” said Rosalind.
“I think she likes very weighty men.” Roy chuckled. “Old Lewis is remarkably good at persuading them that he’s extremely weighty.”
He went on to tease Rosalind about Lord Boscastle’s compliments. I noticed that Roy and Rosalind were very easy with each other, light with the innocence that may visit a happy physical love.
The telephone bell rang: it was for Roy, and as he answered he exclaimed with enthusiasm – “excellent”, “of course”, “I’m sure he would”, “I’ll answer for him”, “come straight up”.
“You see, you’ve got to be civil now,” said Roy. “It’s Ralph Udal. He’s just back from Italy. It’s time you met him.”
Roy added, with a secret smile: “Now, I wonder what he wants.”
Udal himself came in as Roy finished speaking. I had found out something about him since the episode of the bookshops: now I saw him in the flesh, I was surprised. I had not expected that he should have such natural and pleasant manners. For the stories I had heard were somewhat odd. He was an exact contemporary of Roy’s at the college, and they had known each other well, though they were never intimate friends. Udal came from a professional family, but he was a poor man, and he and Roy moved in different circles. They had known each other as academic rivals, for Udal had had a brilliant undergraduate career. Then his life became very strange. He spent a year among the seedy figures of Soho – not to indulge himself, not to do good works, but just to “let the wind of God blow through him”. Then he had served another year in a church settlement in Poplar. Afterwards, he had, passively so it seemed, become ordained. But he had not taken a curacy or any kind of job; he had written his little book on Heppenstall, and had gone off to Italy for six months.
He was a big man, tall, loose-framed, dark-haired, and dark-skinned. He looked older than his age; his face was mature, adult and decided. As he greeted us, there was great warmth in his large, dark, handsome eyes. He was dressed in old flannels and a thin calico coat, but he talked to Rosalind as though he also had been to a smart lunch, and he settled down between her and me without any sign that this was a first meeting.
“How’s the book going?” asked Roy.
“It’s very gratifying,” said Udal. “There doesn’t seem to be a copy left in Cambridge.”
“Excellent,” said Roy, without blinking, without a quiver on his solemn face.
Udal had arrived back from Italy the day before.
“Didn’t you adore Italy? Were the women lovely? What were you doing there?” asked Rosalind.
“Looking at churches,” said Udal amiably. Rosalind had just remembered that he was a clergyman. She looked uncomfortable, but Udal was prepared to talk about anything she wanted. He thought the women were beautiful in Venetia and Friulia, but not in the South. He suggested that one required a dash of nordic blood to produce anything more than youthful comeliness. He had gone about with his eyes open, and spoke without inhibition. Rosalind was discomfited.
She was discomfited again when, with the same ease, he began talking of his practical requirements.
“Roy,” he said, “it’s time I found a job.”
“Just so,” said Roy.
“You don’t mind me talking about myself?” Udal said affably to Rosalind and me. “But I wanted to see Roy about my best moves. I’m not much good at these things.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said to Roy. “A country living would suit me down to the ground. I can make do on three hundred a year. And it would mean plenty of leisure. I shouldn’t get so much leisure in any other way.”
“That’s true,” said Roy.
“How do I set about getting one?”
“Difficult,” said Roy. “I don’t think you can straightaway.”
They talked about tactics. Udal knew exactly what he wanted; but he was oddly unrealistic about the means. He seemed to think it would be easy to persuade the college to give him a living. Roy, on the other hand, was completely practical. He scolded Udal for indulging in make-believe, and told him what to do; he must take some other job at once, presumably a curacy; then he must “nurse” the college livings committee, he must become popular with them, he must unobtrusively keep his existence before them. He must also cultivate any bishop either he or Roy could get to know.
Udal took it well. He was not proud; he accepted the fact that Roy was more worldly and acute.
“I’ll talk to people. I’ll spy out the land,” said Roy. He smiled. “I may even make old Lewis get himself put on the livings committee.”
“Do what you can,” said Udal.
Rosalind was upset. She could not understand. She could not help asking Udal: “Doesn’t it worry you?”
“Doesn’t what worry me?”
“Having – to work it all out,” she said.
“I manage to bear it. Would it worry you?”
“No, of course not. But I thought someone in your position–”
“You mean that I’m supposed to be a religious man,” said Udal. “But religious people are still ordinary humans, you know.”
“Does it seem all right to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said.
“I’m afraid I still think it’s peculiar.” She appealed to Roy. “Roy, don’t you think so?”
“No,” he said. “Not in the least.”
His tone was clear and final. Suddenly I realised she was making a mistake in pressing Udal. She was exposing a rift between herself and Roy. In other things she would have felt him getting further away: but here she was obtuse.
“I’m not able to speak from the inside,” said Roy. “But I believe religion can include anything. It can even include,” his face, which had been grave, suddenly broke into a brilliant, malicious smile, “the fact that Ralph hasn’t just called on me – for valuable advice.”
“That’s not fair,” said Udal. For a moment he was put out.
“You need someone to unbelt. I’m sure you do.”
“I am short of money,” said Udal.
“Just so,” said Roy.
Roy’s gibe had been intimate and piercing, but Udal had recovered his composure. He turned to Rosalind.
“You expect too much of us, you know. You expect us to be perfect – and then you think the rest of the world just go about sleeping with each other.”
Rosalind blushed. Earthy as she was, she liked a decent veil: while he had the casual matter-of-fact touch that one sometimes finds in those who have not gone into the world, or have withdrawn from it.
“You’re not correct either way, if you’ll forgive me,” Udal went on. “Roy here wouldn’t let me call him a religious man yet: but do you think he’s done nothing so far but chase his pleasures? He’s already done much odder things than that, you know. And I’m inclined to think he will again. I’m just waiting.”
He spoke lightly, but with immense confidence. Then he smiled to himself.
“This is the right life for me, anyway,” he said. “It will give me all I want.”
“Will it?” said Rosalind sharply.
He was relaxed, strong in his passiveness.
But she opposed her own strength, that of someone who had gone into the world and could imagine no other life. It was not a strength to be despised. Udal looked at her, and his face was no more settled than hers.
Roy watched them with a glance that was penetrating, acute, and, it suddenly seemed to me, envious of each of them.