‘I like my guests to feel at home, Mark,’ said Sillery, recovering himself immediately, and playfully pinching the nape of Members’s neck between his finger and thumb, so that Members hunched his shoulders and squeaked shrilly. ‘And you, Quiggin, are you happy?’ Sillery asked.
Quiggin shook his head at the rock-buns, held out towards him once more; and, apparently taking the question to have a more general application than as a mere enquiry as to whether or not he wanted another cup of tea, or was comfortable sitting, as he was, at the springless end of the sofa, said in reply: ‘No, I’m not.’
Sillery was enchanted with this answer.
‘Not happy?’ he said, as if he could not believe his ears.
‘Never seem to get enough peace to get any work done,’ said Quiggin. ‘Always somebody or other butting in.’
Sillery beamed, proffering the plate once more round the room, though without success. Quiggin, as if something had been released within him, now began to enlarge on the matter of his own exasperation. He said: ‘All anyone here seems interested in is in messing about with some game or other, or joining some society or club, or sitting up all night drinking too much. I thought people came to the university to study, not to booze and gas all the time.’
‘Very good, Quiggin, very good,’ said Sillery. ‘You find we all fall woefully short of your own exacting standards—formed, no doubt, in a more austere tradition.’
He smiled and rubbed his hands, entranced. It even seemed that he might have been waiting for some such outburst on Quiggin’s part: and Quiggin himself somehow gave the air of having made the same speech on other occasions.
‘What an extraordinary person,’ said Members, under his breath, a remark probably audible only to myself, owing to the fact that the extreme lowness of the armchair in which I was sitting brought my ear almost level with Members’s mouth, as he rested with his elbow on the floor. Sillery said: ‘What do you think, Mark? Do you find that we are too frivolous?’
Members began to say: ‘My dear Sillers——’ but, before he could speak the phrase, Sillery cut him short by adding: ‘I thought you might be in agreement with Quiggin as your homes are so close, Mark.’
After he had said this, Sillery stood back a bit, as if to watch the effect of his words, still holding the plate of rock-buns in his hand. If he had hoped to strike dismay into the hearts of his listeners, he could hardly have expected a more successful result so far as Quiggin and Members were concerned. Members, thoroughly put out, went pink in the face; Quiggin’s expression became distinctly sourer than before, though he did not change colour. ‘I had a suspicion that neither of you was aware of this,’ said Sillery. ‘But you must live practically in the same street.’
He nodded his head several times, and changed the subject; or, at least, varied it by asking if I had ever read Jude the Obscure. I realised, without achieving any true comprehension of what Sillery was about, that the object of revealing publicly that Members and Quiggin lived close to each other during the vacation was intended in some manner to bring both to heel: in any case I did not know enough of either at the time to appreciate that each might prefer that any details regarding his home life should be doled out by himself alone.
Sillery abandoned the subject after this demonstration of strength on his part, so that the rest of his guests were left in ignorance even of the name of the town Members and Quiggin inhabited. The American and the Finn slipped away soon after this, on the plea that they must work; in spite of protests from Sillery that no one could, or should, work on Sunday evening. As they were leaving, another visitor could be heard coming up the stairs. He must have stood aside for them to pass him, because a moment later, speaking in a resonant, musical voice, like an actor’s or practised after-dinner speaker’s, he said, as he came through the door: ‘Hullo, Sillers, I hoped I might catch you at home.’
This new arrival I recognised as Bill Truscott, who had gone down two or three years before. I had never previously met him, but I had seen him and knew his name well, because he was one of those persons who, from their earliest years, are marked down to do great things; and who so often remain a legend at school, or university, for a period of time after leaving the one or the other: sometimes long after any hope remains, among the world at large, that promise of earlier years will be fulfilled. Sillery was known to be deeply attached to Bill Truscott, though to what extent he inwardly accepted the claims put forward for Truscott’s brilliant future, it was not easy to say. Outwardly, of course, he was a strong promoter of these claims; and, in some respects, Truscott could be described as the most characteristic specimen available of what Sillery liked his friends to be; that is to say he was not only successful and ambitious, but was also quite well off for a bachelor (a state he showed no sign of relinquishing), as his father, a Harley Street specialist, recently deceased, had left him a respectable capital. He had gained a good degree, though only by the skin of his teeth, it was rumoured, and, since academical honours represented a good deal of his stock-in-trade, this close shave regarding his ‘first’ was sometimes spoken of as an ominous sign. However, the chief question seemed still to be how best his brilliance should be employed. To say that he could not make up his mind whether to become in due course Prime Minister, or a great poet, might sound exaggerated (though Short had so described Truscott’s dilemma), but in general he was at any rate sufficiently highly regarded in the university, by those who had heard of him, to make him appear a fascinating, and almost alarming, figure.
After sitting down beside Sillery, Truscott at first hardly spoke at all; but at the same time his amused smile acted as a sort of charm on the rest of the company, so that no one could possibly have accused him, on the grounds of this silence, of behaving in an ungracious manner. He was tall and dark, with regular features, caught rather too close together, and the most complete self-assurance that can be imagined. His clothes and hair, even his face, seemed to give out a kind of glossiness, and sense of prosperity, rather like Monsieur Lundquist’s. He was already going a little grey, and this added to his air of distinction, preventing him from looking too young and inexperienced. I addressed a remark to him which he acknowledged simply by closing and opening his eyes, making me feel that, the next time I spoke, I ought to make an attempt to find something a trifle less banal to say: though his smile at the same time absolved me from the slightest blame in falling so patently short of his accustomed standards. I was not conscious of being at all offended by this demeanour: on the contrary, Truscott’s comportment seemed a kind of spur to encourage all who came to win his esteem; although—and perhaps because—he was obviously prepared to offer nothing in return.
If Bill Truscott’s arrival in the room made a fairly notable impression on myself, chiefly on account of the glowing picture Short had drawn of his charm and brilliance, the rest of Sillery’s party treated Truscott, if possible, with even closer attention. Members moved unobtrusively from the floor to a chair, and Quiggin, one of the legs of whose trousers had rucked up, revealing long hirsute pants of grey material, pulled the end of his trouser down towards a black sock, and sat more upright on the sofa. Both he and Members evidently felt that the opportunity had now arrived for Sillery’s disclosure regarding the adjacency of their respective homes to be forgotten in discussion of more important matters. Stringham turned out to know Truscott already. He said: ‘Hullo, Bill,’ and for a minute or two they spoke of some party in London where they had met a month or two before.
‘You must tell us about the polite world, Bill,” said Sillery, perching on the side of Truscott’s chair and slipping an arm round his shoulder. ‘Fancy the hostesses allowing you to steal away from their clutches and drop in to visit us here.’
Sillery made this remark gently, through his teeth, so that it was not easy to say whether he intended a compliment, an enquiry, or even an expression of disparagement of the fact that Truscott could spare time for dons and undergraduates at this stage of the Season; when a
career had still to be carved out. Truscott certainly accepted the words as tribute to his popularity, and he threw his head back with a hearty laugh to express how great a relief it was for him to escape, even for a short period, from the world of hostesses thus somewhat terrifyingly pictured by Sillery: though he was, at the same time, no doubt aware that a more detailed explanation was required of him to show conclusively that his appearance in the university was due to nothing so ominous as lacking something better to do.
‘I have really come on business, Sillers,’ he said.
‘Indeed?’
‘I saw no reason why I should not combine business with pleasure, Eillers. As you know, Pleasure before Business has always been my motto.’
‘Pleasure can be so exhausting,’ put in Members, fixing Truscott with a winning smile, and thrusting his face forward a little.
However, he seemed a little uncertain, apart from his smile, how best to captivate someone of Truscott’s eminence; though clearly determined to make an impression before the opportunity was past. Truscott, for his part, glanced attentively at Members: an appraisal that seemed to result in the decision that, although outwardly Members had not much to offer that was to Truscott’s taste, there might be elements not to be despised intellectually. Sillery watched their impact with evident interest. He said: ‘I expect you read Iron Aspidistra, Bill.’
Truscott nodded; but without producing any keen sense of conviction.
‘Mark’s poem,’ said Sillery. ‘It received quite a favourable reception.’
‘Surrounded as usual by a brilliant circle of young men, Sillers,’ said Truscott, laughing loudly again. ‘To tell you the truth, Sillers, I have come up to look for a young man myself.’
Sillery chuckled, pricking up his ears. Truscott stretched out his legs languidly. There was a pause, and muted laughter from the rest of the guests. Truscott looked round, archly.
‘For my boss as a matter of fact,’ he said.
He laughed quietly to himself this time, as if that were a good joke. Quiggin, who had been silent all the while, though not unattentive, spoke unexpectedly in his grating voice: ‘Who is “your boss”?’ he asked.
I could not help admiring the cool way in which Truscott turned slowly towards Quiggin, and said, without the slightest suggestion of protest at Quiggin’s tone: ‘He is called Sir Magnus Donners.’
‘The M.P.?’
‘I fear that, at the moment, he cannot be so described.’
‘But you work for him?’ insisted Quiggin.
‘Sir Magnus is kind enough to remunerate me as if I worked for him,’ said Truscott. ‘But you know, really, I scarcely like to describe myself as doing anything that suggests such violent exertions undertaken on his behalf. He is, in any case, the kindest of masters.’
He cocked an eyebrow at Quiggin, apparently not at all displeased by this rather aggressive inquisition. As Truscott had not witnessed Quiggin’s arrival and earlier behaviour at the tea-party, I decided that he must find him less odd than he appeared to the rest of us: the thought that perhaps he classed all undergraduate opinion together, as inchoate substance, not to be handled too closely, occurring to me only several years later, after I had come down from the university. Sillery said: ‘I don’t expect “your master”, as you call him, would have much difficulty in returning to the House at any by-election, would he, Bill?”
‘His industrial interests take up so much time these days,’ said Truscott. ‘And really one must admit that ability of his sort is rather wasted in the House of Commons.’
‘Isn’t he going to get a peerage?’ said Stringham, unexpectedly.
Truscott smiled.
‘Always a possibility,’ he said; and Sillery grinned widely, rubbing his hands together, and nodding quickly several times.
‘It’s a mortal shame that a big concern like his should be in the hands of a private individual,’ said Quiggin, increasing the volume of his North Country accent, and speaking as if he were delivering the opening words of a sermon or address.
‘Do you think so?’ said Truscott. ‘Some people do. Of course, Sir Magnus himself has very progressive ideas, you know.’
‘I think you would be surprised, Quiggin, if you ever met Sir Magnus,’ said Sillery. ‘He has even surprised me at times.’
Quiggin looked as if there was nothing he would like better than to have an opportunity to meet Sir Magnus; but Sillery, who probably feared that conversation might decline from the handling of practical matters, like the disposal of jobs, to one of those nebulous discussions of economic right and wrong, of which he approved in general but obviously considered inopportune at that moment, brought back the subject of Truscott’s opening statement by saying: ‘And so Sir Magnus wants a man, does he?’
However, Truscott was not disposed to say more of that for the time being. He may even have thought that he had already given away too much. His manner became perceptibly less frivolous, and he said: ‘I’ll tell you about it later, Sillers.’
Sillery concurred. It was probable that he, too, would prefer the details to be given in private. However, he evidently regarded the acquisition of further information on this matter to be of prime importance; because a minute or two later his impatience got the better of him, and, rising from the arm of Truscott’s chair, he announced: ‘Bill and I are a pair of very old friends who haven’t seen each other for many a long day, so that now I am going to drive you all out into the wind and rain in order that Bill and I can have a chat about matters that would no doubt appear to you all as very tedious.’
He put his head a little on one side. Neither Members nor Quiggin seemed very satisfied by this pronouncement: not at all convinced that they would find any such conversation tedious. Members tried to make some sort of protest by saying: ‘Now, Sillers, that is really too bad of you, because you promised that you were going to show me your Gerard Manley Hopkins letter the next time I came to see you.’
‘And I wanted to borrow Fabian Essays, if it wasn’t troubling you,’ said Quiggin, very sulky.
‘Another time, Mark, another time,’ said Sillery. ‘And you will find your book in that shelf, Quiggin, with the other Webbs. Take great care of it, because it’s a first edition with an inscription.’
Sillery was not at all discomposed, indeed he seemed rather flattered, by these efforts on the part of Members and Quiggin to stay and make themselves better known to Truscott; but he was none the less determined that they should not stand between him and the particulars of why Sir Magnus Donners wanted a young man; and what sort of a young man Sir Magnus Donners wanted. He made a sweeping movement with his hands, as if driving chickens before him in a farmyard, at the same time remarking to Stringham: ‘You must come here again soon. There are things I should like to discuss interesting to ourselves.’
He turned quickly, to prevent Quiggin from taking too many of his books, and, at the same time, to say something to the depressed undergraduate called Paul. Stringham and I went down the stairs, followed by Mark Members, who, having failed to prolong his visit, seemed now chiefly interested in escaping from Sillery’s without having the company of Quiggin thrust upon him. All three of us left the college through an arched doorway that led to the street. Rain had been falling while we were at tea, but the pavements were now drying under a woolly sky.
‘What very Monet weather it has been lately,’ said Members, almost to himself. ‘I think I must hurry ahead now as I am meeting a friend.’
He disappeared into a side street, his yellow tie caught up over his shoulder, his hands in his pockets and elbows pressed to his sides. In a moment he was lost to sight.
‘That must be a lie,’ said Stringham. ‘He couldn’t possibly have a friend.’
‘What was Truscott after?’
‘He is rather a hanger-on of my mother’s,’ said Stringham. ‘Said to be very bright. He certainly gets about.’
‘And Sir Magnus Donners?’
‘He was in the Government during the
war.’
‘What else?’
‘He is always trying to get in with my mother, too.’
I had the impression that Stringham was himself quite interested in Bill Truscott, who certainly suggested the existence of an exciting world from which one was at present excluded. We strolled on through the empty streets towards Stringham’s college. The air was damp and warm. At the top of the stairs, the sound of voices came from the sitting-room. Stringham paused at the door.
‘Somebody has got in,’ he said. ‘I hope it is not the Boys’ Club man again.’
He stood for a moment and listened; then he opened the door. There was a general impression of very light grey flannel suits and striped ties, which resolved itself into three figures, sitting smoking, one of whom was Peter Templer.
‘Peter.’
‘Bob Duport and Jimmy Brent,’ said Peter, nodding towards the other two. ‘We thought we would pay a call, to see how your education was getting along.’
He was looking well: perhaps a shade fatter in the face than when I had last seen him; and, having now reached the age for which Nature had, as it were, intended him, he was beginning to lose the look of a schoolboy dressed as a grown man. I should have known Duport and Brent anywhere as acquaintances of Peter’s. They had that indefinable air of being up to no good that always characterised Peter himself. Both were a few years older than he; and I vaguely remembered some story of Duport having been involved in a motor accident, notorious for some reason or other. That affair, whatever it was, had taken place soon after he had left school: during my own first year there. He was built on similar lines to Peter, thin and tall, with sandy hair, dressed in the same uncompromising manner, though on the whole less successfully. Brent was big and fat, with spectacles that seemed to have been made with abnormally small circles of glass. Both, it turned out, were business friends, working in the City. They accepted some of Stringham’s sherry, and Brent, whose manners seemed on the whole better than Duport’s, said: ‘What do they rush you for this poison?’