by Angus Wilson
'I think,' said Professor Clun, 'that John Middleton was one of the few valuable figures in public life today. It's a terrible thing when a man like that is crippled. We can only trust that he'll be able to resume his public career. I was astonished at the tone of the ill-natured remarks made in the papers. Pure jealousy, of course.'
It was perfectly true. Arthur Clun had been upset by John's accident as he had seldom been in his life before. Sir Edgar, who had heard one or two more-sophisticated rumours, said nothing. He was amazed that Clun should think of anything but Melpham at such a time.
'As you know,' Clun went on, 'I've not been at all happy at Middleton being chosen as editor of the History. Indeed, I've been unwilling to commit myself to contributing. However, the matter now seems settled and I've decided to tell him that I'll write what he's asked for. After all, the History must be as good as we can make it. Middleton's had as much to put up with as any man could. I'm not given to strong personal feelings. But to have a son like John Middleton and then see him crippled is a shock that would upset the best of us. I have to admit,' he said, and he coughed self-importantly, 'that for once a decision has been inspired in me in some degree by a sentimental association. But we have so few men of real individuality in this country that one can't help being affected.'
Sir Edgar thought, he's thought better of being left out of the History and he's invented all this nonsense about John Middleton to save his face. For once Sir Edgar was wrong.
'You've read the short statement on Melpham which I circulated for the meeting?' he asked.
'Oh, yes,' said Professor Clun. 'But it doesn't surprise me. I've never believed in the thing. Stokesay was always a charlatan, and, as for Portway, all these local parsons ought to be stopped by their bishops from meddling in things they don't understand.'
'I hope there'll be no name-calling at the meeting,' Sir Edgar said gravely as the others came in, and, when Clun did not reply, he added, 'The essential thing is to keep it away from the newspapers.'
'Quite impossible,' Clun declared. 'The thing's a perfect scoop for the journalists. It's a judgement on Stokesay in my opinion for treating history as a sort of journalism. No hope of keeping it out of the papers, is there, Lavenham?' he asked the priest.
Father Lavenham sighed. 'I'm afraid not. We'll have to use every resource to play it down. The whole thing's so sadly un-English.'
'Nonsense,' said Clun. 'There are fools and scoundrels in every country.'
'But in England,' Professor Pforzheim laughed, 'they specialize in Piltdowns.' It was clear from the silence that he had over-estimated the Englishman's love of a joke against himself.
'Well, Cuspatt, I suppose you're changing your labels,' said Professor Clun.
'It's the devil,' Mr Cuspatt replied. "The idol is of primary importance, of course, as the sole one found on English soil. If it was.'
'We have only Gilbert Stokesay's word to me for that,' Gerald said. His voice was at its most drawling. 'Not the best evidence, I'm afraid, Cuspatt. Like so many truths, this is one that'll be discredited with all the lies. Everyone will call it a fake.'
'Hardly, I think,' Cuspatt said. 'The geiger evidence is conclusive.'
'For scholars, perhaps. But not to the popular mind,' Gerald replied.
'I really can't see what it's got to do with anyone but scholars,' Sir Edgar remarked angrily. 'The seventh century is hardly a popular subject.'
'It will be when the newspapers have finished with it.' Gerald felt the urge to transfer some of the misery he had suffered to the others.
'Oh,' Jasper remarked grandly, 'I think we can trust the more respectable papers to behave well over it. I'll have a word with the people I know on the weeklies.'
Nobody at that moment cared to hear of Jasper's smart connexions. 'The weeklies!' Clun said sharply. He moved over to Gerald. 'I trust your son's going along all right,' he said.
'Thank you,' Gerald answered. 'It'll be a slow process.'
'It was a terrible tragedy. Terrible,' Clun said. 'By the way, I've decided to give you the articles for the History. You can count on me.' Gerald smiled vaguely. He noticed with anxiety that Rose Lorimer alone had not arrived.
Sir Edgar had noticed the same thing. 'I fancy Dr Lorimer isn't coming,' he said, 'so we might begin. Perhaps you'd give us the report in detail, Middleton. I've had Portway's letter bound in that little folder. Will you read it, Clun, and pass it round, please?'
It was only after Gerald had been speaking for five minutes that Rose arrived. She seemed vast and dishevelled, like a huge, ill-packed parcel that had been battered and broken open in the post; every crevice seemed to have burst open, every undergarment seemed to have poked its way to the surface. She smiled vaguely around the room and sat quietly in the vacant seat at the table.
When Gerald had finished, they spoke one by one. Sir Edgar thanked him for the clarity of his account. He considered that a short article on the subject should appear in the next number of the Proceedings, and he agreed to write it himself. Father Lavenham suggested that among all the regrets, the distaste they must feel, they would inevitably be glad to know that Eorpwald, that saintly man, had been cleared of this absurd slur on his faith. He seemed to imply, too, that an Englishman had been cleared of very un-English behaviour. Clun said that, while they must do everything they could to protect scholarship from ridicule, they must not allow sentiment to lead them into foolish attempts to palliate the cowardly behaviour of Stokesay and Portway. Cuspatt announced that he would have to report to the Trustees of the Museum, but he assured them all that those notable gentlemen could be counted upon to act with all the discretion they could require. Pforzheim let everyone feel that Continental scholars would have more regard for the integrity of English historians in scrupulously pursuing the fraud than for any slur that might fall upon individual English scholars. He would simply moderate further his Heligoland report, he said. Stringwell-Anderson felt that the response of younger historians would simply be satisfaction that expert modern archaeological methods made such disasters impossible nowadays. Rose Lorimer said nothing.
There was something, however, which they none of them said. They implied by their reserve that Gerald should have acted on his suspicions earlier; perhaps, in so doing, they revealed their secret wish that he had never acted at all.
At last, when a discreet yet efficient programme had been agreed upon, Gerald rose to his feet again. 'There is one other matter which Sir Edgar has given me permission to raise,' he said. His drawl almost sounded insolent. 'I'm afraid it doesn't concern you, Pforzheim, or Cuspatt. Except perhaps indirectly . Nevertheless, I shall value your views too. So you'll have to forgive me. For the rest, I think all the members of this committee are interested in one way or another. It is in some degree a personal matter, and I shall not want you to think I held it in any measure to be of comparable importance to the sad business we've just dealt with. But the two things are connected. The truth is that though I long searched my conscience before I undertook the investigation of the Melpham burial, I think it may be in the minds of many people that I should have acted earlier. I could explain at length the many motives that made me postpone my action, but it will suffice to say that they were personal. It may well be, however, that many will think that a man who failed to act earher has showed a lack of calibre, seriousness, or what you will, that makes him unfitted to edit the History. I say unequivocally that I do not feel that' - Sir Edgar looked up at the extraordinarily buoyant note in Gerald's voice as he said this - 'but I should like your opinion on this. I do not have to ask such old colleagues to be quite frank with me. There may be some opposition on the Syndic. If you agree with me, I shall fight it. If you do not, then I shall anticipate any such opposition by tendering my resignation now. Sir Edgar's view I have. May I ask the rest of you to give me your views?'
There was silence for a moment, and Gerald, looking at their faces, saw how distasteful the whole Melpham business was to them, and therefore, to some
extent, he with it. It was Professor Clun who broke it.
'I hardly think, Middleton,' he said, 'that you need indulge these personal scruples. They are, if I may say so, rather on a par with those that have delayed your action so long over this Melpham business. I don't pretend to think you're the best man for editor, but for various reasons, which I've explained to Sir Edgar, I've already waived my objections. As I told you earlier, I propose now to give you the contributions you asked from me. I was perfectly aware of the points you've just raised when I made that decision. I really think that settled the question. '
He looked round at the other historians as though defying them not to follow his lead. It had cost him not a little to change his attitude as a result of his emotions over John Middleton's accident; he was not going to have any nonsensical scruples overset that moral triumph. To Sir Edgar it confirmed his view that in the Divine Order every vice - even Clun's arrogance - had its virtuous purpose.
Gerald bowed his head slightly to Professor Clun. 'Thank you,' he said.
After Clun's declaration, it was impossible for any of the others - Gerald's friends - not to agree wholeheartedly.
'Sir Edgar, I am glad to say,' Gerald announced, 'is of your opinion.'
Only Rose Lorimer did not speak. 'Rose,' Gerald said. It was a moment he and Sir Edgar both dreaded, 'what do you feel?'
Dr Lorimer rose to her feet. With hat, hair, safety-pins, shawl, and everything else askew, she looked more than ever like a mountainous White Queen. She smiled sweetly and mysteriously at them, too, like the White Queen when she told Alice of her ability to read words of one letter. Her little-girl's voice seemed higher than ever as she spoke, almost a squeak.
'I hope no one thinks,' she said, 'for one minute that I am taking any notice of all this ridiculous nonsense. I'm not surprised that this story has been concocted. Ever since Professor Pforzheim's wonderful discovery I've been expecting it. I've been far too long familiar with the forces at work. I know their evil strength, their ruthless power far too well. What, I confess, I had not quite expected was the means they would use to pursue their determined aim of suppressing the truth.' She turned towards Gerald and, leaning across the table, she addressed him in a loud whisper. 'You damned traitor,' she said. Then, pulling all her falling clothes around as if they were one huge bath-wrap, she sailed out of the room with the same vague smile on her face.
Gerald was about to go after her, but Sir Edgar motioned to him to stay where he was. 'There's nothing we can do,' he said.
Professor Clun blew his nose noisily. 'Well,' he said, 'there's a good deal come out this afternoon one way and another which should have been revealed some time ago.' He was about to say more, but the faces around him were not encouraging. He got up to go, but before he left, he crossed over to Gerald. 'When you see the great John Middleton,' he said, 'be good enough to tell him that Professor and Mrs Clun are eagerly awaiting his return to the public platform.'
Gerald made excuses to the others and left as soon as Clun was well out of the way. He was eager to return to Montpelier Square, for by this time Dollie should be back from her shopping.
She was sitting by the fire when he returned. She had put on a short black silk dress with a string of pearls for the evening. He imagined that a younger person, with an eye for such things would find her a very 'period' figure. She still crossed her legs so that one knee showed; she still wore horn-rimmed spectacles to read the evening paper, but the lenses were thicker.
'How was it?' she asked.
'Hell,' he replied, 'but all right. It's all over, anyway.' He paused. 'I'll probably be bothered by the newspapers. We shall try to keep it out, but if some chap with bright ideas gets hold of it, he can make a wonderful story of it. They may get on to you too as the only surviving Stokesay.'
'Oh Lor!' she cried. 'That's not in my line at all. What do I do?'
'Say nothing charmingly, as I'm sure you can,' Gerald said.
Dollie looked up at him frowning. 'You still say those rude things intended for compliments,' she said. 'You always had a jolly odd idea of teasing.'
She stared into the fire. 'It's awfully pretty, the flat,' she said. 'I suppose all these drawings are all frightfully good. I can't appreciate them. I only like pictures with colours. All the same, you're one of the men who without being cissy can make a house look nice.' She's picked up one or two new words since the old days, he thought.
'That's what your neighbour Clarissa Crane said,' Gerald observed.
'Oh dear!' Dollie cried. 'I'm sorry I said it. It's so awful to think you only got news of me through her. She's a dreadful, pushing kind of woman. She always snubs me because I'm only a Philistine, but I'm sure she's a fool. She's always going on about woman's feelings and intuitions as though she was the last word in women. So she is in a sort of way. No man would look at her. She's much too eager.' To Gerald's delight she went on reading the paper as though she took the sufficiency of their intimacy for granted.
'I never thought of myself as the last of the Stokesays at all.'
'Well, you are one only by marriage.'
'Yes, and that's such a long time ago. Don't bother about me if you want a drink,' she said.
As Gerald was pouring himself out a whisky, the bell rang and Mrs Salad was shown in. Gerald looked at Dollie to see the effect of his surprise. Dollie jumped up from her chair and took the old woman's hands. 'Mrs Salad!' she cried. 'How very nice.' All the same, Gerald couldn't be sure of her reaction.
The old woman was dressed as usual, but though her movements were more shaky, her make-up seemed less profuse and less erratic. 'Ah! you look lovely, Miss Dollie,' she croaked. 'Not changed at all. Or hardly much.'
'That sounds more truthful, Mrs Salad. But you look very well too. How is your rheumatism?' Dollie asked.
'Arthritis, dear,' Mrs Salad corrected. 'It's only the dregs that has the rheumatism.'
'Well, arthritis, then?' Dollie said. Gerald was not quite sure if her tone was sharper.
'Very bad,' said Mrs Salad. 'Mr Rammage says to put the onions on the 'ands. But I don't do it. It's kind of 'im to make the suggestion, but 'e doesn't reckernize that those 'ands 'ave been kissed by more than peers.'
To Gerald's surprise there seemed to be no smile on Dollie's face, she simply said, 'Well, I don't really think onions would do much good. I suppose it prevents you sewing much.'
'Oh no!' Mrs Salad said, accepting a second glass of brown sherry. 'Nobody's doin' the birds and flowers now. It's all the contemporarery. My grandson Vin and Mr Rammage, they showed me. 'Igh colours it is - the reds and the yellers - and the circles and squares. I brought a 'andkerchief I done for you, Miss Dollie.' As she handed it over, she repeated with a superior smile, 'Ah yes, the birds and the flowers 'ave 'ad their day.'
The handkerchief was decorated in scarlet and daffodil yellow, but the forms were significant probably only to Mrs Salad herself.
'Your skin's very white, dear,' she said, peering at Dollie's neck. 'They're not doin' that now. It's all the buffs and the 'igh yellers.' Her eyes took on a distant reminiscent look. 'Funny, the changes,' she said. 'My brother Len married a mulatter. Smooth her skin was but all a light brown. We didn't reckon to like it. My white coffee, 'e called 'er, but 'e couldn't sweeten 'er temper. Ah well!' she sighed. 'Other days, other stays, they say. But you'd not remember the whalebone, dear.'
Mrs Salad rambled on, and every so often she tried by looks or innuendoes to imply the old relationship between Gerald and Dollie, but somehow Dollie appeared not to notice Gerald while Mrs Salad was there. At last Gerald plucked up courage to say, 'Well for me Miss Dollie hasn't changed at all, Mrs Salad.'
'Ah!' the old woman said. 'You'd need to say that, for you took what there was.'
It was the only time that Dollie laughed out loud. 'Good heavens, Mrs Salad,' she cried, 'what an old moralizer you are. You're worse than me.'
Shortly afterwards the bell rang. 'That'd be my grandson come to fetch me.'
&nbs
p; Vin was dressed in the perfection of quiet black and oyster-grey silk tie. His hair seemed to have been arranged rather higher than usual. It only required a stuffed bird or a model ship to be the height of fashion at the court of Marie Antoinette.
'This is Vin, Miss Dollie. 'E's a lovely boy. This is Miss Dollie, Vin. You've heard me talk of'er.'
Perhaps Vin was nervous, for he turned to Dollie and said, 'I'm sure you look quite marvellous.'
Dollie was quite put out. 'Your grandmother looks well,' she said.
Vin swayed his hips a little as he stood in front of Dollie. 'Oh yes, Granny keeps marvellously,' he said, then in a confiding whisper, he added, 'I try to keep the slap down a bit, you know. I wish I could get rid of that filthy old eye-veil.'
Before the Salads departed, Vin said to Gerald rather petulantly, 'Well, I must say you didn't take much notice of my advice about that Larrie Rourke. We were all very sorry to hear about Mr John Middleton, of course.'
'Thank you,' said Gerald. 'Yes, I owe you an apology and gratitude for trying to warn me.'
Vin was still somewhat reserved. 'It was only what duty demanded, I'm sure,' he said.
As they were leaving, Gerald felt very warm towards them both. 'Let me know how you get on. And keep out of trouble.' He turned to Vin. 'And that means both of you,' he said.
Vin smiled. 'I'm sure we try to,' he said. 'We're more the domestic nowadays really.'
When they went into dinner, Dollie said, 'Gosh! I've got an appetite. I feel as though I'd been playing Mrs Dale for an hour. You are a terrible snob, Gerrie,' she added. During dinner she asked, 'Was that Vin one of those pansy boys?'
Gerald blushed slightly. 'I rather fancy so,' he replied.
'Funny,' she commented, 'I've never associated Mrs Salad with them. Of course, it's just what she needs really.'
As they drank their coffee, she asked, 'If I put on my hat and coat, could we go to the cinema? I don't fancy the evening round the fire. I so seldom get to London.' And as they were driving up to the West End, she suddenly remarked, 'I've grown into a terrific prig. I hope you realize that, Gerrie.'
