The Light and the Dark

by C. P. Snow

  It was a convincing exposition. He was putting forward a purely military case. He was passionately engrossed in the war. He was out to win at any cost. He would not have minded bombing Germans, if it helped us to win. He would not have minded losing any number of aircrews, if we gained an advantage from their loss.

  For me, his words struck cold. Roy would be back in this country by August. He would be flying in operations before the new year.

  I had to fend off the chill. Someone had just admitted that their defences were a “pretty bit of work”. I listened to the fierce argument in the smoky air; I was in attendance on the minister, and could not take part myself. The minister did his best, but his own stock was going down. As was inevitable, Francis Getliffe lost: he could not even get a few equipments diverted to the submarine war.

  We went away together to have a drink.

  “I’m on the way out,” said Francis Getliffe grimly. “This is the best test of judgment there’s ever been. Anyone who believes in this bloody nonsense will believe anything.”

  From that day, the department in which I worked had to accept the decision. We did other things: but about a fifth of our time was spent on the bombing campaign. I found it irksome.

  All that spring I was imprisoned in work, living in committee rooms, under the artificial light. I saw less still of my friends. I had an occasional lunch with Joan, and letters came from Boscastle. When I dined with Lady Muriel, she pronounced that the course of the pregnancy was satisfactory.

  The child was born at midsummer. It was a girl, and was christened Muriel. That fact moved Lady Boscastle to write to me, at her most characteristic. I chuckled, but thought it wise to burn the letter.

  During those months, I heard a few times from Roy. He was not being a great success on his pilot’s course. He was having to struggle to be allowed through; it irritated him, who liked to do things expertly, and I could not help smiling at that touch of vanity. He thought he would have done better ten years earlier; at thirty-two one did not learn so easily. In the end, he managed to pass, and landed in England in September.

  After a week with Rosalind, he spent a night in my flat. He was sunburned and healthy; in uniform, his figure was less deceptive, one could have guessed that he was strong; at last his face was carrying the first lines, but he looked very tranquil. He was so tranquil that it was delightful to be with him. His spirits were not so intoxicatingly high as in his days of exaltation, but he laughed at me, talked about our friends, mimicked them with his features plastic, so that one saw a shadow of Lord Boscastle, of Arthur Brown, of Houston Eggar. We were happy. Since he had to return next day, we sat up most of the night. He seemed no longer driven.

  He did not say much of his future – except that he would now be sent to his training in heavy aircraft. There was not much for either of us to say. But he talked of his daughter with extreme pleasure.

  “It’s good to have a child,” he said. “It’s a shame you haven’t some, old boy. You’d like it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “You must soon. It’s very important.”

  His pleasure was simple, natural, radiant.

  “She’ll be pretty,” he said happily. “Very pretty. Excellent.”

  A month later, I received an unexpected telephone call from his wife. I knew she was coming to London, for Lady Muriel had announced that her godchild was staying with her for a weekend and had invited me to dine; it was only during the course of the invitation that Lady Muriel reluctantly mentioned “Roy’s wife”. Rosalind’s voice always sounded faint, falling-away, on the telephone, but that morning she seemed worried and urgent. “I must see you at lunch time. No, it can’t wait till tonight. I can’t tell you in front of Lady Battleship.”

  I put off an appointment and met her for lunch.

  “I want you to help me, Lewis,” she said. “Roy mustn’t hear a word about it.”

  She was dressed in the height of style, her shoulders padded, her hat tilted over one eye; but her expression was neither gamine nor mock-decorous, but tired, strained, intent. I jumped to a conclusion.

  “What is wrong with him?”

  “Nothing,” said Rosalind impatiently, as though I did not understand. “He’s very well and very happy. Didn’t you think I should make him happy? The old thing has never been so comfortable in his life. He’s got a bit of peace.”

  She stared at me with hurt brown eyes, pleading and determined.

  “Lewis, I want you to help me get him out of flying.”

  “Does he want it?”

  “Do you think he’d ever say so? Men never dare to confess that they’re frightened. God’s truth, I’ve got no patience with you all.”

  She was desperately moved. I said: “My dear, I think it would be impossible.”

  “You’d rather let things happen than try,” she flared out like a cat.

  “No. Remember he left an important job. He made a nuisance of himself to get out. It would be very hard to persuade the Air Ministry to leave go now.”

  “Wouldn’t he be more useful on the ground? How many people in the world speak all the languages he speaks?”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  “Then we must get to work.”

  “I’m afraid”, I said, “that they won’t leave go of a single man. They’ve been given complete priority.”

  “Why are they so keen to keep them?” she cried. “Because they’re going to lose so many?”

  “Yes.”

  “They won’t throw him away if I can help it.” Her face was dark and twisted, as if she were in physical pain. “Let me tell you something. The other night I got him to talk a bit. I know he doesn’t talk to me as he does to you. He says you’re the only person who knows everything about him. But I got him to talk. It was in the middle of the night. He hasn’t been sleeping too well this last week. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but I know that he’s been lying awake. Somehow I can’t sleep if I think he’s lying there with his eyes open.”

  She paused. She was crying out with the intimacy of the flesh. “The other night I knew he was awake. I hadn’t been to sleep either. In the middle of the night I asked him if anything was the matter. He said no. I asked him if he was happy with me. He said yes. Then I got into his bed and cried till he promised to talk to me. He said it was a long story and that no one understood it all but you. You know how he speaks when he’s being serious, Lewis? As though he was laughing and didn’t give a damn. It makes my blasted heart turn over. Anyway he said that he’d been miserable for years. It was worse than being mad, he said. He hoped he’d get out of it. He’d struggled like a rat in a trap. But he couldn’t escape. So he couldn’t see any point in things. He might as well be eliminated. That was why he chose to fly.”

  She stared at me.

  “Then he kissed me, and laughed a bit. He said that nowadays it didn’t always seem such a good idea. He was caught again. But he needn’t worry this time, because there was nothing to do.”

  I exclaimed.

  “You know, Lewis,” Rosalind went on, “he must have got it all worked out when he decided to fly. He said that he was looking round for the easiest way to disappear. He didn’t want to give too much trouble. So he found out from someone reliable what was the most dangerous thing to do.”

  She cried out sharply: “What’s the matter, Lewis? Why are you looking so terrible?”

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to speak in an even tone. “I just thought of something else.”

  Rosalind watched me.

  “I hope you’re all right,” she said. “I want you to help me today.”

  36: The End of a Reproach

  Rosalind had two lines of attack ready planned. She was cunning, she had not been successful at her business for nothing; she knew it was worse than useless for a move to come from Roy’s friends. The only hope was to get hold of people of influence. She wanted two different kinds of plea: first, by the leading orientalists, to say that as a
scholar he was irreplaceable; second, by officials, to say that he was needed for a special job in an office. She was cunning but she did not know her way about this world; she needed me to tell her where to try.

  She had no luck that afternoon. I sent her to old Foulkes, who was back in uniform again, a brigadier at the War Office. He had worked there seven days a week since the beginning of the war. I took her to the door in the side street, and waited on the pavement. It was an hour before she came out. She was angry and downcast. “I don’t believe the old idiot has ever seen a woman before. Oh, I suppose he’s rather sweet, but it’s just my luck to find someone who’s not susceptible.” Foulkes had told her that her husband had a European reputation. “Tell anyone so. Often do. Only man to keep our end up.” Rosalind parodied Foulkes ill-temperedly. But Foulkes would not say a word that would stand in the way of a man who wanted to fight. He had heard his colleagues wonder why Calvert had thrown up a safe job. “I’ve told them,” Foulkes had said, with his usual vigour. “No mystery. No mystery at all. He just wants to fight for his country. Proud of him. So ought you to be,” he had finished at great speed.

  There was no other scholar in reach that day; and the officials who might be useful had all gone home for the weekend. Rosalind was frustrated, aching for something to do; but I persuaded her there was nothing, at least for the moment, and she returned to Curzon Street for tea. When I saw her next, as I arrived there for dinner that same night, I noticed at once that she was more restless. She was savage in her concern.

  I was surprised to see the table laid for four. I had expected that Joan would spare herself; but she had decided with tough, masochistic endurance, to stick it out, and meet Roy’s wife and child. Both Joan and Lady Muriel agreed that it was a beautiful baby. I watched Joan nurse it with an envious satisfaction, a satisfaction that to my astonishment seemed stronger than envy. Her voice, like her mother’s, was warm and loving when she spoke to it.

  At dinner she was far more at her ease than Rosalind, who sat silent, dark-faced, going over her plans. Joan tried to cheer her up. I was not prepared for such magnanimity. And I was not prepared to hear Rosalind suddenly tell them that she intended to go to any lengths to get Roy out.

  “Behind his back?” Lady Muriel enquired.

  “It’s the only way,” said Rosalind.

  “I should consider that quite unsuitable, Mrs Calvert,” said Lady Muriel.

  “You can’t, Rosalind,” cried Joan. “You can’t do such a thing.”

  “I may want you to introduce me to people,” said Rosalind to Lady Muriel.

  “I couldn’t think of it without Roy’s permission,” said Lady Muriel, outraged, shocked to the core. “I know he would not consider giving it. It would be unforgivable to go behind his back.”

  Rosalind had not expected such opposition. She had wanted Lady Muriel as an ally. Now she was dejected, angry, hostile.

  “If you were his wife,” she said, “you wouldn’t be so ready to do nothing.”

  Joan put in: “I know how you feel.” Her face was heavy: she spoke with deep emotion. “We should all feel like that. It’s awful to do nothing. But you’ve got to think of him.”

  “I’m thinking of nothing else–”

  “I mean in another way. He has made his choice, Rosalind. It wasn’t an easy choice, surely you must know. It came out of all he’s gone through. He hasn’t had an easy life. You must leave him free. You can’t presume to interfere with him. There are some parts of anyone’s life – however much you love them – that you have to force yourself to leave alone.”

  She was consumed with feeling. She leaned forward and asked Rosalind, in a quiet low tone: “Do you deny for a moment that Roy would say the same?”

  “Of course he’d say the same,” said Rosalind. “He’d have to. He’s too proud to do anything else. But–”

  “He’s not proud,” cried Joan. “No one could possibly be less proud. This is so much deeper, it’s part of him, surely you must see.” She hesitated, and then spoke sternly, almost harshly: “Perhaps this will make you understand. You know that I loved him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would go to him now if he called me. Well, if he had been mine – I should have done what I’m telling you to do. It would have been agony – it is agony enough now, don’t you see? – but I should have left him alone.”

  For a moment Rosalind was overawed by the passionate force of the other woman. Then Rosalind said: “I’ve got to keep him alive.”

  They looked at each other with dislike and misunderstanding. They would never understand each other. They knew him quite differently, I thought. Joan knew the struggle of his spirit, his melancholy, his tragic experience, better than any woman. Rosalind did not seem to know those at all. She paid no attention to the features which distinguished him among men. She knew him where he was like all other men – she took it for granted that, like all other men, he was frail, frightened, a liar to himself and her. She took him for granted as a creature of flesh and bone; whatever he said, whatever the dark moods, he longed to live.

  Was that why he had married her? Had she given him a hope of the fibres, a hope of the press of life itself stronger than any despair?

  I caught sight of Lady Muriel, stiff-necked, troubled, heavy-footedly leading the conversation away. She was horrified. Perhaps until that moment she had not let herself recognise her daughter’s love for Roy. Now it had been proclaimed in public: that was the final horror. Her sense of propriety was ravaged. It plucked away the screen behind which she had been trained to live. She gazed at her daughter with dismay, indignation – and an inarticulate pity.

  Rosalind left London next day, and she did not confide her plan to me again. However, she sent me a note, saying that Roy had discovered what she was up to, and had stopped her. It was probably true, I thought, that he had found out. But I very much doubted whether it would stop her: she would merely take more care about her secrecy. For of us all she was the most single-minded. When she was set on a purpose, it was with every scrap of her body, cunning and will.

  Yet she did not bring it off. I was certain that she was not deterred by Roy’s order. Probably she was only stopped by a more remote, abstract obstacle: it was next door to impossible to extract a trained pilot. I talked the whole affair over with the minister. He was the most adept of men at knowing when a door would give. He shook his head, and said it was too late.

  After listening to Rosalind, I had to speak to Roy alone. He had borrowed a house in Cambridge for her and the baby; he was training on an East Anglian airfield, and it was long odds that he would be stationed on one the following spring; he could get back to Cambridge often. I wrote that I must see him; I would take an evening off: could he arrange to dine in hall one night?

  When I arrived at the college, it was just before dinner time. Roy was waiting for me at the porter’s lodge. He was wearing one of his old elegant suits, and had a gown thrown over his shoulder.

  “My dear old boy,” he said.

  We walked through the court. It was half-past seven on an October night, and already dark. The lights at the foot of the staircases were very dim, and one could scarcely see the list of names. Mine was still there, the white paint very faded; when we passed Roy’s old staircase, we saw a new name where his had been.

  “On the shelf,” said Roy.

  The bell began to clang. Roy mentioned, as we went towards the combination room, that he had not dined in college since he returned. I asked him why not; he was frequently in Cambridge and still, of course, a fellow.

  “Too much changed,” said Roy.

  “It’s not much changed,” I said.

  “Of course it’s not,” said Roy. “I have, though.”

  Sherry in the combination room: dinner in hall: they happened as they used to. It was a small party. Arthur Brown had discovered that Roy and I were dining, had put himself down at short notice, and had asked Winslow to come in. Otherwise there was only Despard-Smith, gloomi
ly presiding.

  Much of the college was unchanged. Francis Getliffe, Roy and I were away, as well as the new Master and the two most junior fellows; the others were all in residence. There had been a few of the secular changes which everyone reckoned on, as college officers came to the end of their span; Arthur Brown, for instance, was now Senior Tutor. Some of the old men were visibly older, and one noticed the process more acutely if one saw them, as I did, at longish intervals. Winslow was not yet seventy, but he was ageing fast. His mouth had sunken deeply since I last met him the year before; his polished rudeness was going also, and he was gentler, more subdued, altogether less conspicuous. His son had inflicted another disappointment on him, though not a dramatic one. Dick Winslow had not been able to get through his officer’s training course, and had been returned to his unit; he was now a corporal in the Ordnance Corps, completely safe for the rest of the war. I should have liked a crack or two of old Winslow’s blistering sarcasm. It was hard to see him resigned and defeated at last.

  Despard-Smith showed no effects of time at all. He was seventy-six now, still spare, solemn, completely self-confident, self-righteous, expecting to get his own way by moral right. He was actually more certain of his command than we remembered him. Partly because it was harder to get spirits, which at one time he drank heavily, alone in his dark rooms: partly because the young men had gone away, and there was a good deal of executive work about the college for anyone who volunteered, Despard-Smith had taken on some of the steward’s work, which Francis Getliffe had left. It was a new lease of power. The servants were grumbling but the old man issued pernickety instructions, went into nagging detail, just as in his prime: he was able to complain with a croaking, gloating satisfaction, that he had “to bear the heat and burden of the day”.

  He greeted Roy and me with his usual bleak courtesy. Winslow’s face lit up as he shook hands with Roy: “Good evening to you, young man. May I sit next to you?”

  Not much had changed, except through the passage of time. But the conversation in hall was distinctly odd. Arthur Brown, the good-natured, kind and clubbable, had developed a passion for military detail. In his solid conservative fashion, he was as engrossed in the war as Francis Getliffe. He believed – with a passion that surprised those who took him at his face value – in “killing Germans”. With bellicose interest, he wanted to hear about Roy’s training.