The Light and the Dark (33 page)

Actually Roy had begun with excessive formality to explain that his subject was of great intricacy, and he found it necessary to use his own language, which of course they would understand. His esteemed master and colleague, his esteemed professor Ammatter, had said that the lecture would describe recent advances in Manichaean studies. “I think that would be
much
too broad a subject to attempt in one afternoon. It would be extremely rash to make such an attempt,” said Roy solemnly, and uncomprehending heads began to shake in sympathy. “I should regard it as coming dangerously near
journalism
to offer my learned colleagues a kind of popular précis. So with your permission I have chosen a topic where I can be definite enough not to offend you. I hope to examine to your satisfaction five points in Soghdian lexicography.”

He lectured for an hour and twenty minutes. His face was imperturbably solemn throughout – except that twice he made a grotesque donnish pun, and gave a shy smile. At that sign, the whole room rocked with laughter, as though he had revealed a ray of humour of the most divine subtlety. When he frowned, they shook their heads. When he sounded triumphant, they nodded in unison.

Even those who could understand his English must have been very little the wiser. For he was analysing some esoteric problems about words that he had just discovered; they were in a dialect of Soghdian which he was the only man in the world to have unravelled. To add a final touch of fantasy, he quoted long passages of Soghdian: so that much of the lecture seemed to be taking place in Soghdian itself.

He would recite from memory sentence after sentence in this language, completely incomprehensible to anyone but himself. The strange sounds finished up as though he had asked a question. Roy proceeded to answer it himself.

“Just so,” he said firmly, and then went on in Soghdian to what appeared to be the negative view. That passage came to an end, and Roy at once commented on it in a stern tone. “Not a bit of it,” he said.

I was sitting with a handkerchief pressed to my mouth. It was the most elaborate, the most ludicrous, the most recherché, of all his tricks: it was pure “old-brandy”, to use a private phrase. He knew that, if one had an air of solemn certainty and a mesmerising eye, they would never dare to say that it was too difficult for them. None of these learned men would dare to say that he had not understood a word.

An hour went by. I wondered when he was going to end. But he had set himself five words to discuss, and even when he arrived at the fifth he was not going to leave his linguistic speculations unsaid. He finished strongly in a wave of Soghdian, swelled by remarks in the later forms of the language, with illustrations from all over the Middle East. Then he said, very modestly and unassumingly: “I expect you may think that I have been too bold and slapdash in some of my conclusions. I have not had time to give you all the evidence, but I think I can present it. I very much hope that if any of my colleagues can show me where I have been too superficial, he will please do so now.”

Roy slid quietly into his seat. There was a little stupefied applause, which became louder and clearer. The clapping went on.

Ammatter got up and asked for contributions and questions. There was a long stupefied silence. Then someone rose. He was an eminent philologist, possibly the only person present who had profited by the lecture. He spoke in halting, correct English: “These pieces of analysis are most deep and convincing, if I may say so. I have one thing to suggest about your word–”

He made his suggestion which was complex and technical, and sounded very ingenious. At once Roy jumped up to reply – and replied at length in German. In fluent, easy, racy German. Then I heard the one complaint of the afternoon. Two faces in the row in front of me turned to each other. One asked why he had not lectured in German. The other could not understand.

Roy’s discussion with the philologist went on. It was not a controversy; they were agreeing over a new possibility, which Roy promised to investigate (it appeared later as a paragraph in one of his books). The Rector made a speech to thank Roy for his lecture. Ammatter supported him. There was more applause, and Roy thanked the meeting in a few demure and solemn words.

Before we departed from the lecture theatre, Ammatter went up to Roy in order to shake hands before parting for the day. He was smiling knowingly, but as he gazed at Roy I caught an expression of sheer, bemused, complete bewilderment.

Roy and I went out into the Linden. It was late afternoon.

“Well,” said Roy, “I thought the house was a bit cold towards the middle. But I got a good hand at the end, didn’t I?”

I had nothing to say. I took him to the nearest café and stood him a drink.

That afternoon brought back the past. I hoped that it might buoy him up, but soon he was quiet again and stayed so till we said goodbye at the railway station.

He was quiet even at Romantowski’s party. This happened the night before I left, and many people in the house were invited, as well as friends from outside. Romantowski and his patron lived in two rooms at the top of the house, just under the little dancer’s attic. It was getting late, the party was noisy, when Roy and I climbed up.

The rooms were poor, there was linoleum on the floor, the guests were drinking out of cups. Somehow Romantowski’s patron had managed to buy several bottles of spirits. How he had afforded it, Roy could not guess. Presumably he was being madly extravagant in order to please the young man. Poor devil, I said to Roy. For it looked as though Romantowski had demanded the party in order to hook a different fish. There were several youngish men round him, randy and perverted.

I asked what Schäder and his colleagues would think of this sight. “Schäder would be shocked,” said Roy. “He’s a bit of a prude. But he needn’t mind. Most of these people will fight – they’ll fight better than respectable men.”

That reminded him of war, and his face darkened. We were standing by the window over the street: we looked inwards to the shouting, hilarious, rackety crowd.

“If there is a war,” said Roy, “what can I do?”

He was seared by the thought. Living in others, he was seared by his affections in England, his affections here. He said : “There doesn’t seem to be a place for me, does there?”

The little dancer joined us, lapping up her drink, cheerful, lively, bright-eyed.

“How are you, Ursula?” said Roy.

“I think I am better,” she said, with her unquenchable hope. “Soon it will be good weather.”

“Really better?” said Roy. He had still not contrived a plan for sending her to the mountains: he did not dare talk to her direct.

“In the summer I shall be well.”

She laughed at him, she laughed at both of us, she had a bright cheeky wit. I thought again, how gallant-hearted she was.

Then Romantowski came mincing up. He offered me a cigarette, but I said I did not smoke. “Poor you!” said Willy Romantowski, using his only English phrase, picked up heaven knows how. He spoke to Roy in his brisk Berlin twang, of which I could scarcely make out a word. I noticed Roy mimic him as he replied. Romantowski gave a pert grin. Again he asked something. Roy nodded, and the young man went away.

“Roy, you should not!” cried Ursula. “You should not give him money! He treats poor Hans” (Hans was the clerk, the “black avised”) “so badly. He is cruel to poor Hans. He will take your money and buy clothes – so as to interest these little gentlemen.” She nodded scornfully, tolerantly, towards the knot in the middle of the room. “It is not sensible to give him money.”

“Too old to be sensible.” Roy smiled at her. “Ursula, if I don’t give him money, he will take it from poor Hans. Poor Hans will have to find it from somewhere. He is spending too much money. I’m frightened that we shall have Hans in trouble.”

“It is so,” said Ursula.

Roy went on to say that we could not save Willy for Hans, but we might still save Hans from another disaster. Both Roy and the little dancer were afraid that he was embezzling money, to squander it on Willy. Ursula sighed.

“It is bad,” she said, “to have to buy love.”

“It can be frightful,” said Roy.

“It is bad to have to run after love.”

“Have you seen him today?” said Roy, gently, clearly, directly.

“No. He was too busy.” “He” was an elderly producer in a ramshackle theatre. Ursula’s eyes were full of tears.

“I’m sorry, my dear.”

“Perhaps I shall see him tomorrow. Perhaps he will be free.”

She smiled, lips quivering, at Roy, and he took her hand.

“I wish I could help,” he said.

“You do help. You are so kind and gentle.” Suddenly she gazed at him. “Roy, why are you unhappy? When you have so many who love you. Have you not all of us who love you?”

He kissed her. It was entirely innocent. Theirs was a strange tenderness. The little dancer wiped her eyes, plucked up her hope and courage, and went off to find another drink.

The air was whirling with smoke, and was growing hot. Roy flung open the window, and leaned out into the cold air. Over the houses at the bottom of the road there hung a livid greenish haze: it was light diffused from the mercury-vapour lamps of the Berlin streets.

“I like those lamps,” said Roy quietly.

He added: “I’ve walked under them so often in the winter. I felt I was absolutely – anonymous. I don’t think I’ve ever been so free. I used to put up my coat collar and walk through the streets under those lamps, and I was sure that no one knew me.”

In Cambridge that May, the days were cold and bright. Roy played cricket for the first time since the old Master’s death; I watched him one afternoon, and was surprised to see that his eye was in. His beautiful off-drive curled through the covers, he was hooking anything short with seconds to spare, he played a shot of his own, off the back foot past point; yet I knew, though he did not wake me nowadays, that his nights were haunted. He was working as he used in the blackest times; I believed he was drinking alone, and once or twice I had heard in his voice the undertone of frantic gaiety. Usually he sat grave and silent in hall, though he still bestirred himself to cheer up a visitor whom everyone else was ignoring. Several nights, he scandalised some of our friends by his remarks on Germany.

Towards the end of May, he had a letter from Rosalind, in which she said that she would soon be announcing her engagement to Ralph Udal. When he told me, I wondered for an instant whether she was playing a last card. Had she put Roy right out of her mind? Or did she allow herself a vestige of hope that he would swoop down and stop the marriage?

He smiled at the news. Yet I thought he was not quite indifferent. He had been wretched when the letter came, and he smiled with a kind of scathing, humorous fondness. But Rosalind had been able to rouse his jealousy, as no other woman could. In their time together, she had often behaved like a bitch and he like a frail and ordinary lover. Even now, in the midst of the most frightening griefs, he was sharply moved by the thought of losing her for good. He wrote to Ralph and to her. Somehow, the fact that she should have chosen Ralph added to Roy’s feeling of loss and loneliness, added to an entirely unheroic pique. He said that he had told Rosalind to call on him some time. “I expect she’ll come with her husband,” said Roy with irritated sadness. “It will be extremely awkward for everyone. I’ve never talked to her politely. It’s absurd.”

The announcement was duly published in
The Times
. Roy read it in the combination room, and Arthur Brown asked him inquisitively: “I see your friend Udal is getting married, Roy. I rather fancied that I remembered the name of the young woman. Isn’t it someone you introduced me to in your rooms quite a while ago?”

“Just so,” said Roy.

“From what I remember of her,” said Brown, “of course it was only a glimpse, I shouldn’t have regarded her as particularly anxious to settle down as a parson’s wife in a nice quiet country living.”

“No?” said Roy blankly. He did not like the sight of their names in print: he was not going to be drawn.

But, annoyed though he was at the news, he could not help chuckling with laughter at a letter from Lady Muriel. It was the only time in those dark weeks that I saw him utterly unshadowed. He had written several times to Lady Muriel about that time; for the Boscastles were visiting Cambridge in June, to mark the end of Humphrey’s last term at Magdalene, and Roy had been persuading Lady Muriel to come with them. So far as I knew, he had not asked Joan – I was not certain what had happened between them, but I was afraid that it was the final, irreparable break.

Roy showed me Lady Muriel’s letter. She was delighted that he was pressing her to come to Cambridge; since she left the Lodge, she had been curiously diffident about appearing in the town. Perhaps it was because, after domineering in the Lodge, she could not bear taking a dimmer place. But she was willing to accompany the Boscastles, now that Roy had invited her. She went on: “You will have seen this extraordinary action on the part of our vicar. I am compelled to take very strong exception to it. Unfortunate is too mild a word. I know this young woman used to be a friend of yours, but that was a different matter. You may sometimes have thought I was old-fashioned, but I realise men have their temptations. That cannot however be regarded as any excuse for a clergyman. He is in a special position, and I have never for a single moment contemplated such an outrage from any vicar of our own church. I do not know what explanations to give to our tenants, and I find Helen no help in this, and very remiss in performing her proper duties. I have found it necessary to remind her of her obligations (though naturally I am always very careful about keeping myself in the background). I consider our vicar has put me in an impossible position. I do not see how I can receive this woman in our house. Hugh says it is your fault for bullying him into giving the living to our present vicar – but I defend you, and tell him that it takes a woman to understand women, and that I knew this woman was a designing hussy from the first moment I set eyes on her. Men are defenceless against such creatures. I have noticed it all my life, or certainly since Hugh got married. I shall be most surprised,” Lady Muriel finished in magnificent rage, “if this woman does not turn out to be
barren
.”