Memorial Service

by J. I. M. Stewart

  Not having heard of this evidence from the law courts, I asked for details. Pentecost produced them at once. He had got the whole thing up – I imagine without the slightest effort – and now gave me the benefit of that not inconsiderable aid to intellectual eminence which consists in the humble endowment of a photographic memory. This lasted us well through the dinner, and the attention Pentecost exacted from me made me slow to take stock of the company. I was the only man from my college, although one old member of it was present in the perplexing person of Lord Marchpayne. I say ‘perplexing’ because I was at first at a loss as to why Tony should have turned up – presumably as a guest, like myself – at such an unassuming academic jollification. Ministers of the Crown, I believed, were very busy people. And Tony’s presence could scarcely be part of his campaign to have Ivo retained in residence – a matter with which none of the dons present could have any connection or concern. Then I remembered recently reading that the government was judged likely soon to undergo one of those ‘shuffles’ that English political mythology declares to be periodically essential for prolonging the tenure of administrations. Being in the Lords must make Tony’s political life particularly tricky, and if his present job was wanted for somebody else it mightn’t be easy to find him another Cabinet post which could reasonably be held by a peer. Perhaps – I didn’t at all know – the Ministry of Education was one capable of being so regarded, in which case Tony might well be accepting a round of engagements designed to assert his keen interest in pedagogy at its every level. This would have been so like him that I was presently taking it for granted that I had found the key to the riddle.

  So far, I’d had no more from him than a wink across the room, and had myself given more attention to something else. Entirely to my surprise, the host of the evening had turned out to be Christopher Cressy. This made me, in a formal sense, his guest at one remove, and I rather thought it also meant that he was paying for my dinner. I couldn’t, indeed, be certain that this was the set-up, but the structure of the thing had that feel. Dining clubs like this one were a survival from more spacious days. With due permission asked, a man might bring along another man and there would be no thought of splitting bills. Cressy – so chilly at our first encounter – had welcomed me benignly on my arrival; had made a few remarks which, although conventionally polite, contrived an amusing turn of phrase; and had actually managed to keep his eyes on me in an interested way for twenty seconds on end. I tried to feel this as a gratifying promotion in his esteem. It seemed paltry to be speculating on whether he was paying for my entertainment or not.

  ‘Cressy must have given thought to this meal,’ the man on my other hand said when I had disengaged myself momentarily from Pentecost. ‘It’s what must be called serious dining, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Decidedly. And the company owns a certain gravity as well.’

  ‘Indeed we do. This club is seldom gamesome. My name’s Corlett. How do you do.’

  ‘How do you do. My name’s Pattullo. I’m Pentecost’s guest.’

  ‘So I see. And yes – gravity in every sense. We get up weightier than when we sat down. Vino gravis too, of course, although not to any point of indecorum. Do you like getting to bed early?’

  ‘Moderately.’

  ‘A pity. A sustained discussion ensued, and the club dispersed after midnight.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s what an enthusiastic secretary minuted of some meeting round about 1910. Nobody has ever ventured to drop the formula since.’

  ‘Or to disperse until the small hours?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Occasionally a bold spirit will wait for eleven o’clock, cry “Aha! The witching hour of twelve has struck”, and reach for his muffler and galoshes.’

  ‘What is sustainedly discussed?’

  ‘A paper. Somebody reads a paper. Sometimes it’s the host and sometimes not. About fish-names in mediaeval Spain, or recent developments in biblical exegesis in Holland, or the Yamato-E tradition of narrative scrolls in twelfth century Japan.’

  ‘I see. Can one do a bit of homework? Is one told of the subject in advance?’

  ‘Oh, no. Everybody’s likely to know something, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ I hope I looked round with respect at a company so erudite as this must be. ‘What’s your own subject?’ I asked at a venture.

  ‘International liquidity,’ the man called Corlett said. ‘I’m an economist.’

  We went into another room for coffee and whatever further drinks we had a mind to. The lighting was dim, and there was a spread of sofas and chairs of the capacious leathery sort – the rich relations of Mrs Lusby’s three-piece suite. The dominant suggestion was of comfortable repose. Several members of the club, happily provided with brandy and cigars, closed their eyes and sank back into obscurity with the deep sighs of men relaxing after toil. A very old man, making use of spectacles tethered to him by a broad silk ribbon, contrived some inaudible dealings with a minute book; he was presumably reminding his fellow-members that at their last meeting a sustained discussion had taken place.

  At this point there was a short break, occasioned by Cressy’s need to make additionally sure of the comfort of his guests. He made a circuit of the room, and it was again curious to remark how, although endowed by nature with that vagrant eye and features of a notably immobile cast, he could radiate mild charitableness at will. This ambiguous regard now fell upon me, and he appeared to become aware that I had not been introduced to the man next to whom I had sat down.

  ‘Clark,’ he said in a clear and penetrating voice, ‘do you know Duncan Pattullo? He is the author of that dazzling series of purified bedroom comedies.’

  I didn’t think it necessary to seem amused. Tony, near-by, struck a match with a gesture sufficiently large to attract attention, and in the resulting spurt of flame was to be observed as directing raised eyebrows upon our host. I felt grateful to him. Cressy’s joke had been what used to be called a start of wit: an improvisation floating free of the facts of the case. He may have guessed that I hadn’t taken to him at our previous meeting, and been prompted to this mild slap in consequence. Or it was possible – I told myself – that he was one of those habitually malicious men whose victims can comfort themselves with the Freudian thought that their impulse to self-destruction must be very strong. But it seemed uncharitable to credit our host with being in the grip of Thanatos, and I gave my attention – or tried to give my attention – to the next stage in the evening’s proceedings.

  It was a paper, as Corlett had promised, and read by another man noticeably stricken in years. Strangely enough, I recalled his voice at once, although not his name; he must have delivered one of the half dozen or so lectures that I had thought fit to attend during my three years of undergraduate residence. His present theme was the order in which Shakespeare’s sonnets must be rearranged if the poet’s original intentions are to be disclosed. There are 154 sonnets, many of them enormously famous, and it was at least reasonable to rely upon most of us being more familiar with them than with the Yamato-E tradition in ancient Japan. This venerable scholar, however, owned a faith in us more robust than that, and proceeded on the assumption that he had only to give the number of an individual sonnet to recall it in toto to our minds. The postulate conduced to mental fatigue and, I am afraid, inattention. I found myself recalling the only fact in this field of investigation to have stuck in my head. An American inquirer of sceptical habit had computed that the number of possible rearrangements of these 154 poems considerably exceeded the number of electrons credited by Arthur Edding- ton as being in the universe. The universe, of course, had been a more primitive affair in Eddington’s time than it now was in Alexander Pentecost’s. But the computation probably remained sufficiently valid to be discouraging. The witching hour of twelve would certainly have struck before the possibilities of the subject were exhausted.

  The club, however, didn’t fidget, and those of its members who had fal
len asleep had the good manners not to snore. The paper came to a close on whatever its just conclusion was. There was a long silence. It didn’t appear to be the convention that somebody was required to say ‘Thank you very much’. Such of the members as I could at all clearly see had opened their eyes and assumed thoughtful expressions, as if here had been much to perpend. Then somebody shrouded in darkness spoke.

  ‘Each changing place with that which goes before,

  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.’

  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore . . . that was the sonnet the lines must come from, and the quotation had been notably pat. It didn’t, however, sound like a beginning to discussion, and I wondered what could follow. But the man who had read the minutes, pouring himself a little more brandy, said something over his shoulder about the Dark Lady – a disreputable person who has always held a strong attraction for the academic world. Amid various long pauses for consideration, half a dozen people made remarks about her. One or two others framed questions, and to these the man who had read the paper gave judicious answers. General talk went on for some time. It wasn’t exactly animated, but I found it quite impressive, all the same. Here were a dozen people representing a wide diversity of learned and scientific interests, all perfectly capable of keeping this rather specialised ball rolling.

  They didn’t do it, however, until midnight. By imperceptible stages the talk ceased to be general, and equally imperceptibly Shakespeare and his sonnets faded out of it. Once dropped, I don’t think they were referred to again. The man who had read the paper stuffed it unobtrusively into the pocket of his dinner-jacket, and was among the first to talk contentedly to his neighbour about other things. The evening had turned into one of the common gossiping sort.

  People had begun, moreover, to drift around, and I was about to cross the room to join Tony when Cressy came up to me, a decanter in either hand. Very properly, he was again making the round of his guests in this way – pausing, I think, to talk punctiliously to anybody insufficiently thus favoured earlier in the evening. He had left me to the last, and now he put the decanters on a small table beside me and sat down.

  ‘We are so delighted,’ he said, ‘that you have been able to dine with us. Lintot read a most worthy paper, didn’t you think? But I found myself wishing that it had been you on the job. We might have heard something as distinguished as your Shakespeare’s Use of Song.’

  I expect I was foolishly taken aback by this reference to something of mine which was at least a far cry from bedroom comedy. The remark didn’t strike me as in the nature of a palinode. What Cressy’s manner seemed to suggest – if he felt, indeed, that any suggesting was necessary – was the untroubled assumption between us that a man says now this and now that. I had an impulse to thank him for having referred to me so kindly earlier in the evening, but managed to refrain.

  He continued to talk, and he talked uncommonly well. I had heard about this endowment of Christopher Cressy’s, and here it was. There was nothing excessive about it. He didn’t propose himself as out of charm. He was tentative, thoughtful, considered; he listened; when he looked away it was in quest of his theme and not of more exalted society. His manner at first had a little reminded me of the Provost’s. Edward Pococke could have said just that about Shakespeare’s Use of Song. But Cressy had a wit which the Provost either didn’t command or judged inapposite to his station. Cressy in his talk could be as brilliantly wicked as he chose to be. He had perfect command, as it were, of the tap labelled ‘malice’, and could let just as much of this quality percolate into the stream of his talk as was appropriate or permissible in its context. I wouldn’t describe myself as captivated. But I’d have been a poor wooer of the Comic Spirit if I hadn’t listened with respect and kept my end up as I could.

  ‘By the way,’ Cressy said, after consulting his tumbler at leisure, ‘have you ever chanced to hear about the famous letter-book?’

  ‘To hear about it?’ I experienced the feeling of coming awake with a jerk. ‘I was there.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ There was the effect of a sudden glare in the cold eyes Cressy had turned on me.

  ‘At the fons et origo of the entire affair. I happened to be standing beside Lord Mountclandon when you approached him with your interesting discovery.’

  ‘My dear Pattullo, how excessively odd!’ As Cressy said this I felt confident that he was really surprised. Our present conversation wasn’t a consequence of his having got wind of the facts of the case. ‘You must forgive me,’ he went on. ‘Your presence has left no mark on my memory.’

  ‘I was an undergraduate, and only at that dinner-party because my father was staying in the Lodging. You may just possibly remember him. His name was Lachlan Pattullo.’

  ‘My dear man!’ As he uttered this exclamation softly, Christopher Cressy actually laid a hand – equally softly – on my arm. He was indicating that one wouldn’t readily forget meeting a person of my father’s eminence. I am delighted,’ he said. ‘Quite delighted.’

  ‘You have reason to be. I can’t say I make much of this letter-book affair. Its longevity seems incommensurate with its consequence. But I must tell you, Cressy, that my recollection of the precipitating occasion is substantially yours – in the matter of words actually spoken, that is.’

  ‘How very interesting.’ Cressy didn’t in fact sound interested, but I felt he was perhaps weighing the qualified character of my statement. ‘The whole thing probably strikes you as a rather tediously sustained academic joke. It may be the best way to look at it. Of course Tommy Penwarden takes a serious view. But then Tommy, although a dear man, is almost pervasively absurd.’ Cressy paused as if soliciting some reaction to this sudden impropriety. Not getting it, he proceeded as smoothly as before. ‘Nobody else can really be much concerned. Your Provost for example. I have a small collection of his wonderful letters on the subject. But they render, to my mind, an impression of solemn shadow-boxing. He isn’t honestly exercised.’

  ‘You’re quite wrong there.’ I hadn’t uttered these words before acknowledging to myself that I had perhaps been deftly led into a trap. But I was a little impatient of the whole thing, and decided to go ahead. ‘The Provost, as a matter of fact, has been taking almost dramatic steps in the matter quite recently. And once more – strange as it must sound – I was there.’

  ‘Really? Dear Edward! Whatever can be in his head?’ I saw that Cressy wasn’t going to seek any elucidation of these gnomic utterances of mine. ‘Why should he be interested in a lot of mid-Victorian kitchen accounts?’Kitchen accounts?’

  ‘Ah! Perhaps you don’t know. That’s the peculiarity of that particular letter-book – it’s having considerable concern with Blunderville domestic affairs. Social history, you might say. The relations of masters and servants, for example, in that curious age. One could get an interesting little paper out of it on that. I wonder, by the way, whether any of Tommy’s colleagues – still around, perhaps – had glanced through it before dear old Blobs so kindly presented me with it? The whole subject is very boring, Pattullo – very boring indeed. But the more I turn the matter over in my mind, the more inclined I am to judge it may be wise and charitable in me to continue holding on to the thing. Won’t you have a little more brandy?”

  ‘No – I’m very happy, thank you.’ This conventional response wasn’t true. I had become uneasy, and for two reasons. It was clear to me that I was being fed through the bars with intriguingly mysterious gobbets which I was then to run around with among the other animals. And I had a feeling that the evening had treated me to what the musical comedy people call a reprise. Just as when he had produced his flight of fancy about my plays, Cressy had been beginning to fabricate something suddenly perceived as susceptible of exploitation in pursuit of the ludicrous. The victim now appeared to be the Provost. If I disliked this it was no doubt because I myself had a weakness that way. Hadn’t I often, for instance, built up Albert Talbert as a figure of fun? And I was fond of
Talbert, whereas I didn’t imagine Cressy cared twopence for Edward Pococke. So it wasn’t for me to be censorious. Not, therefore, having anything to say, I was relieved to observe a couple of men hovering with the evident intention of thanking their host for their dinner and taking their leave. I got to my feet, and fairly promptly ceased wondering what all this had been about. I had myself two hosts to thank and extricate myself from. I set about this at once.

  Tony and I left together, emerging into the darkness of an alien quad. It was our first chance to talk.

  ‘Damned cheek, that fellow’s crack at you,’ Tony said. ‘Bedroom comedy, indeed! Not that your plays mightn’t be more entertaining, Dunkie, if they sometimes inclined a little that way.’

  ‘Thank you, Tony, You’re a true friend.’

  ‘That’s right – plain words by thy true-telling friend. And what were you nattering to the man about, anyway?’

  ‘Heaven knows.’ I had become clear that I wasn’t reporting Cressy’s obscure remarks to anybody. ‘But he’s a notably entertaining talker.’

  ‘Just another confounded usher a damned sight too pleased with himself, he seemed to me.’

  ‘Still down on the dons, Tony?’

  ‘Blast the dons.’ Tony was silent for a moment, and I saw that this had prompted another train of thought in him. He came to a halt half-way to the college gate. ‘I say! Have you heard that Ivo is starting a magazine?’

  ‘Yes. He told me about it himself. He did come to lunch with me, you know.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it. Ivo’s grandfather is putting up some money, it seems. It might be quite a good thing, don’t you think? Blameless literary activity earns him a mark or two.’