by C. P. Snow
I was very fond of her, and flattered because she was fond of me. Yet I knew that in a sense she was vainer than Sheila, more grasping than myself. I think I liked her more because she needed applause for her tender actions. In my eyes, she was warm, tenacious, tough in her appetite for life, and deep down surprisingly self-centred. It was her lively, self-centred strength that I drew most refreshment from; that and her feeling for me. There was no war inside her, her body and soul were fused and would in the end find fulfilment and happiness. As a result, her company often brought me peace.
She brought me peace that evening (in the lanes I had once walked wet through) in a cool twilight when, behind the lacework of the trees, the sky shone a translucent apple-green. There I confided to her, far more than I had to anyone, of what had happened between me and Sheila. I was too secretive to reveal the depth of my ecstasy, torments, and hope; some of it I wrapped up in mockery and sarcasm; but I gave her a history which, so far as it went, was true. She received it with an interest that was affectionate, greedy, and matter-of-fact. Perversely, so it seemed to me, she did not regard Sheila’s behaviour as particularly out of the ordinary. She domesticated it with a curious, quasi-physical freemasonry, as though she or any other woman might have done the same. She did not consider Sheila either excessively beautiful or strange, just a young woman who was ‘not quite certain what she wanted’. Marion’s concern was directly for me, ‘Yes, it was a pity you ran across her,’ she said. ‘Mind you, I expect you puzzled her as much as she did you – that is, if I know anything about you.’
I was wondering.
‘Still, it’s better for you that it’s over. I’m glad.’
We had turned towards home. The green of the sky was darkening to purple.
‘So you sent her away?’ she said.
‘Yes, I sent her away.’
‘I don’t expect she liked that. But I believe it was right for you.’
In the half-dark I put my arm round her waist. She leaned back, warm and solid, against me. Then, with a recoil of energy, she sprang away.
‘No, my lad. Not yet. Not yet.’ She was laughing.
I protested.
‘Oh no,’ said Marion. ‘I’ve got something to say first. Are you free of Sheila?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you. I’ve parted from her.’
‘That’s not the same,’ said Marion. ‘My dear, I’m serious. You ought to know I’m not a capricious girl. And’, she said, firmly, confidently, reproachfully, ‘you must think of me for once. I’ve given you no reason to treat me badly.’
‘Less than anyone,’ I said.
‘So I want you to be honest. Answer my question again. Are you free of Sheila?’
The first stars were coming out. I saw Marion’s eyes, bright, not sad but vigilant.
I wanted to know her love. But she forced me not to lie. I thought of how I had gone, as though hypnotized, to Tom Devitt, because his life was linked to Sheila’s; I thought of my memories, and of waking at nights from dreams that taunted me. I said ‘Perhaps not quite. But I shall be soon.’
‘That’s honest, anyway,’ Marion said, with anger in her voice. Then she laughed again. ‘Don’t be too long. Then take me out. I’m not risking you on the rebound.’
Decorously, she slipped an arm through mine.
‘We’re going to be late for supper, my lad. Let’s move. We’ll talk of something sensible – like your exam.’
In the late spring, in April and early May, even the harsh red brick of the town seemed softened, The chestnuts flowered along the road to Eden’s house, the lilacs in the gardens outside Martineau’s. I was near the end of my reading, George’s calculations had not been fallible, and I had only two more authorities to master. In the mild spring days I used to take my books to the park, and work there.
But there were times when, sitting on a bench with my notebook, I was distracted. On the breeze, the odour of the blossoms reached me; I ached with longing; I was full of restlessness, of an unnamed hope. Those were the days when I went into the town in the afternoon; I looked into shop windows, stood in bookshops, went up and down the streets, searched among the faces in the crowd; I never visited our usual café, for she did not go there alone, but I had tea in turn in all those where I had known her meet her mother. I did not see her, neither there, nor at the station (I remembered her trains as I did my last page of notes). Was it just chance? Was she deliberately staying at home? Was she helping me to see her no more? I told myself that it was better. In the spring sunshine, I told myself that it was better.
On the day before I left for London and the examination, George, to whom formal occasions were sacred, had insisted that there must be a drinking party to wish me success. I had to go, it would have wounded George not to; but I, more superstitious and less formal, did not like celebrations before an event. So I was grateful when Marion gave me an excuse to cut the party short.
‘I’ll cook you a meal first,’ she said. ‘I’d like to be certain that you have one square meal before your first paper.’
I ate supper in her lodgings before I joined George at our public house. Marion was an excellent cook in the hearty English country style, the style of the small farmers and poor-to-middling yeomen stock from which she came. She gave me roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, an apple pie with cheese, a great Welsh rarebit. Eating as I did in snacks and pieces, being at my landlady’s mercy for breakfast, and having to count the pennies even for my snacks, I had not tasted such a meal for long enough.
‘Lewis,’ said Marion, ‘you’re hungry.’ She added: ‘I’m glad I thought of it. Cooking’s a bore, whatever anyone tells you, so I nearly didn’t. Shall I tell you why I decided to feed you?’
Comfortably, I nodded my head.
‘It’s just laying a bait for large returns to come. When you’re getting rich and successful, I shall come to London and expect the best dinners that money can buy.’
‘You shall have them.’ I was touched: this meal had been her method of encouraging me, practical, energetic, half-humorous.
‘You see, Lewis, I think you’re a pretty good bet.’ Soon after, she said: ‘You’ve not told me. Have you seen Sheila again?’
‘No.’
‘How much have you thought about her?’
I wished that she would not disturb the well-being in the room. Again I had to force myself to answer truly.
I said: ‘Now and then – I see ghosts.’
She frowned and laughed.
‘You are tiresome, aren’t you? No, I mustn’t be cross with you. I asked for it.’ Her eyes were flashing. ‘Go and polish off this exam. Then you must have a holiday. And then – ghosts don’t live for ever.’
She smiled luxuriously, as though the smile spread over her whole skin.
‘I’m afraid’, she said, ‘that I was meant to be moist and jealous and adoring.’
I smiled back. It was not an invitation at that moment. We sat and smoked in silence, in a thunderous comfort, until it was time for my parting drink with George.
30: The Examination
Just as George, on the subject of how to prepare for an examination, advised me as though he were one of nature’s burgesses, so I behaved like one. I went to London two days before the first paper; I obeyed the maxims that were impressed upon all students, and I slammed the last notebook shut with a night and a day to spare. Slammed it so that I could hear the noise in the poky, varnish-smelling bedroom at Mrs Reed’s. Now I was ready. One way or the other, I thought, challenging the luck, I should not have to stay in that house again.
I spent a whole day at the Oval, with all my worries shut away but one. I did not think about the papers, but I was anxious lest, at the last moment, I might be knocked out by another turn of sickness. I had been feeling better in the past weeks, and I was well enough as I lolled on the benches for a day, and as I meandered back to Judd Street in the evening. I walked part of the way, over Vauxhall Bridge and along the river, slowly and wit
h an illusion of calm. I stopped to gaze at a mirage-like sight of St Paul’s and the city roofs mounted above the evening mist. Confidence seeped through me in the calm – except that, even now, I might be ill.
I slept that night, but I slept lightly. I had half woken many times, and it was early when I knew that it was impossible to sleep longer. I looked at the watch I had borrowed for the examination: it was not yet half past six. This was the day. I lay in bed, having wakened with the fear of the night before. Should I get up and test it? If I were going to be wrecked by giddiness that day, I might as well know now. Carefully I rose, trying not to move my head. I took three steps to the window, and threw up the blind, In streamed the morning sunlight. I was steady enough. Recklessly, I exclaimed aloud. I was steady enough.
I did not return to bed, but read until breakfast time, a novel I had borrowed from Marion; and at breakfast I was not put off either by Mrs Reed’s abominable food or the threat of her abominable postcards. ‘I’ve got one ready for you to take away,’ she told me, with her ferocious bonhomie. ‘I’ll send you a bouquet,’ I said jauntily, for the only way to cope with her was not to give an inch. I sometimes wondered if she had a nerve in her body; if she knew young men were nervous at examinations; if she had ever been nervous herself, and how she had borne it.
In good time, I caught a bus down to the Strand. Russell Square and Southampton Row and Kingsway shimmered in the clean morning light. My breath caught, in something between anticipation and fear, between pleasure and pain. Streams of people were crossing the streets towards their offices; the women were wearing summer dresses, for the sky was cloudless, there were all the signs of a lovely day.
The examination was to be held in the dining hall of an Inn. I was one of the first to arrive outside the doors, although there was already a small knot of candidates, mainly Indians. There I waited by myself, watching a gardener cut the lawn, smelling the new-mown grass. Now the nervousness was needle-sharp. I could not resist stealing glances at my watch, though it was only two minutes since I had last looked. A quarter of an hour to go. It was intolerably long, it was a no man’s land of time, neither mine nor inimical fate’s. Charles March came up with a couple of acquaintances, discussing, in his carrying voice, in his first-hand, candid, concentrated fashion, why he should be ‘in a state’ before an examination which mattered nothing and which even he, despite his idleness, presumably would manage to scrape through. I smiled. Later I explained to him why I smiled. As the doors creaked open, he wished me good luck.
I said: ‘I shall need it.’
The odour of the hall struck me as I went quickly in. It made my heart jump in this intense expectancy, in this final moment. I found my place, at the end of a gangway. The question paper rested, white, shining, undisturbed, in the middle of the desk. I was reading it, tearing my way through it, before others had sat down.
At first I felt I had never seen these words before. It was like opening an innings, when one is conscious of the paint on the crease, of the bowler rubbing the ball, as though it were all unprecedented, happening for the first time. The rubrics to the questions themselves seemed sinister in their unfamiliarity: ‘Give reasons why…’, ‘Justify the opinion that…’ Although I had read such formulas in each examination paper for years past, the words stared out, dazzling, black on the white sheet, as if they were shapes unknown.
That horror, that blank in my faculties, lasted only a moment. I wiped the sweat from my temples; it seemed that a switch had been touched. The first question might have been designed for me, if George had been setting the paper. I read on. I had been lucky – astonishingly lucky I thought later, but in the hall I was simply filled by a throbbing, combative zest. There was no question I could not touch. It was a paper without options, and eight out of ten I had waiting in my head, ready to be set down. The other two I should have to dig back for and contrive.
I took off my wristwatch and put it at the top of the desk, within sight as I wrote. I had at my fingers’ end the devices which made an answer easy to read. My memory was working with something like the precision of George’s. I had a trick, when going so fast, of leaving out occasional words: I must leave five minutes, prosaically I reminded myself, to read over what I had written. Several times, as though I had a photograph in front of me, I remembered in visual detail, in the position they occupied in a textbook, some lines that I had studied. In they went to my answer, with a little lead-up and gloss. I was hot, I had scarcely lifted my eyes, obscurely I knew that Charles March was farther up the hall, on the other side of the gangway. This was the chance to try everything I possessed: and I gloried in it.
The luck remained with me throughout. Of all the past papers I had worked over, none had suited me as well as the set this year. Nearly all the specialized knowledge I had acquired from George came in useful (not the academic law he had taught me, but the actual cases that went through a provincial solicitor’s hands). On the afternoon of the first day I was half-incredulous when I saw my opportunities. Then I forgot everything, fatigue, the beating of my heart, the sweat on my face, as for three hours I made the most of them.
I was jubilant that first night. Jubilant but still guarded and in training, telling myself that it was too early to shout. In the warm May evening, though, I walked at leisure down Park Lane and through the great squares. Some of the houses were brilliant with lights, and through the open doors I saw staircases curving down to the wide halls. Cars drove up, and women swept past me on the pavement into those halls, leaving their perfume on the hot still air. In my youth, in my covetousness and pride and excitement, I thought that my time would come and that I too should entertain in such a house.
The last afternoon arrived, and the last paper. The spell had not broken. It suited me as well as the first. Except that by now I was tired, I had spun out my energies so that I was near the end of my tether. I wrote on, noticing my tiredness not much more than the extreme heat. But my timing was less automatic; I had finished the paper, read it through, and still had five minutes to spare.
Ah well, I was thinking, it has been pretty good. Each paper up to the standard of the first, and one distinctly better. One better than I could have hoped. Then the room went round, sickeningly round, and I clutched the desk. It was not a long attack; when I opened my eyes, the hall stood hazily there. I smiled to myself, a little uneasily. That was too close a call to relish.
I was still sick and giddy as Charles March came down the aisle; but he joined me, we left the hall together, and after the civilities of inquiring about each other’s performances we went to get some tea. I was glad of the chance. I had often wished to talk to him alone. We sat in a tea shop and did post mortems on the papers.
He was an active, rangily built young man with hair as fair as mine and excessively intelligent, inquiring eyes. At a glance, one could tell that he was a man of force and brains. He was also argumentative, which was in George’s style rather than mine, and had a talent for telling one home truths with the greatest possible edge. But he was capable of a most concentrated sympathy. Somehow he had divined that this examination was of cardinal importance to me. That afternoon at tea, seeing me delighted with what I had done, yet still strained and limp, he asked me to tell him. Why did it matter seriously? I had obviously done far better than he had, or than any sane person would consider necessary. Why did it matter? Did I feel like telling him?
Yes, I felt like it. In the clammy tea shop, with the papers spread on the table, I explained my position, under Charles March’s keen, hard, and appreciative eyes. It was out of my hands now, and I talked realistically and recklessly, frankly and with bravado. Until the result came out, I should have no idea what was to become of me.
‘Yes,’ said Charles March. ‘It’s too much to invest in one chance. Of course it is. You’ve done pretty well, of course.’ He pointed to the papers. ‘Whether you’ve done well enough – I don’t see that anyone can say.’
He was understanding. He knew that
I could not have stood extravagant rosy prophecies just then.
Charles had refrained from any kind of roseate encouragement; and he was right, for I could not have received it. Yet, in the theatre that night, listening to the orchestra, I was all of a sudden carried on a wave of joy, certain that all I wanted was not a phantom in the future but already in my hands. I was not musical, but in the melody I possessed all I craved for. A name was mine; I was transferred from an unknown, struggling, apprehensive young man; a name was mine. Riches were mine; all the jewels of the imagination glittered for me, the houses, the Mediterranean, Venice, all I had pictured in my attic, looking down to the red brick houses and the slate; I was one of the lords of this world.
Yes, and love was mine. In the music, I remembered the serene hours with Sheila, her beautiful face, her sarcastic humour, the times when her spirit made mine lighter than a mortal’s, the circle of her arms round me and her skin close to.
I had not to struggle for her love. It was mine. I had the certainty of never-ending bliss. As I listened to the music, her love was mine.
31: Triumph and Surrender
When I returned to the town I had four weeks to wait for the result. And I hid from everyone I knew. I paid my duty call on George, to show him the papers and be cross-questioned about my answers: he, less perceptive than Charles March, shouted in all his insatiable optimism that I must have done superbly well. Then I hid, to get out of sight, out of reach of any question.
I was half-tempted to visit Marion. But our understanding was clear – and also, and this kept me away for certain, I was not fit to be watched by affectionate, shrewd eyes. I did not want to be seen by anyone who knew me at all, much less one who, like my mother, would claim the right of affection to know me well. Just as I had never shared my troubles with my mother, so I could not share this suspense now.
