by Angus Wilson
Robin did not exactly compare his own marital behaviour to his father's, but in avoiding the comparison he sought refuge in a broad-minded determination not to judge him too harshly. After all, it was natural that he should get on with his father, he was essentially a man's man, not like John, a mother's darling. Robin had been very impressed by the views of an Oxford don who had been brought to one of Marie Hélène's parties recently. It seemed that his father was really a very eminent historian, even if he had not quite fulfilled his original promise. When Robin heard this, he remembered with pleasure how interested his father always was in what he said, how he deferred to his opinion on politics or economics. His father's respect for him seemed somehow doubly gratifying now that he knew how eminent he was in his own field. He decided that he would take Gerald out and give him a really good lunch.
Perhaps if Gerald had been a poorer man, had needed the good lunch a bit more, Robin would have looked forward to the occasion even more. Even as it was, he was in very good spirits. He had lunched with Pelican a few days earlier and suggested that, if things went wrong, it was possible that Middleton and Company could do something about it. Would Pelican think it over and let him know what he felt about the idea? And now Pelican had written. Reading between the lines, it was obvious the poor chap was desperately anxious about the future. Robin's handsome, fleshy face was gathered in lines of pleasure. He loved helping people. He read the letter over again, '...in these circumstances, and in view of all the publicity that has been given to the incident, I suspect that the Minister will be driven to take what is called disciplinary action. If so, it is more than likely that I may find myself sent to one of the branch offices. Apart from the general disinclination that anyone in middle age feels for such changes, the situation would be peculiarly unfortunate in my case. My two boys are at St Paul's. It would be a serious dislocation to their education to move them to another school at this stage, even if this were possible, which I very much doubt. My wife, too, sets great store on the boys being at home. She is a great opponent of boarding schools. So that if the blow does fall, I fear it will be a choice between a number of very uncomfortable evils. I confess that I am dearly tempted, in any case, after all this, to resign from the Service, but to give up my pension at forty-five with a family to consider would be an impossible luxury. If, on the other hand, there were an opening…'
Robin rang for his secretary. 'Miss Rodmell,' he said, 'take a letter, will you, to Pelican? You'd better not send it to the Ministry. Send it to his home address. He lives somewhere out Elstree way. "Dear Pelican,"' he began, when the door half opened and Donald's long white face, so like an intelligent sheep's, peered round it.
Miss Rodmell looked horrified at this sacrilege. Robin said sharply, 'Yes?'
'There are one or two points ...' Donald began.
'I'm busy now,' Robin said: 'Put them in writing.'
Donald came into the room. 'Oh, I should hardly care to elevate them into the importance of a written memorandum,' he declared primly. Robin sat back in fury. Donald took his silence for permission to proceed. 'I'm not entirely happy about the hour appointed for my next lecture,' he announced. 'I've been talking to Mr Ferguson down at the Works, and it's quite apparent to me that Grant here has rather unfortunately only considered the clerical staff in fixing ...'
Robin suddenly shot forward in his seat. 'Look!' he cried. 'I think I told you that I was busy. What is more I seem to remember that this very situation has occurred far too often. Perfectly good machinery exists for making appointments to see me. Please use them, Donald.' It was all he could do to soften his speech by the use of his brother-in-law's Christian name.
The result was unfortunate. Donald's success so far with the staff of Middleton's, due to factors of which he had no comprehension - desire by some to curry favour with Robin, determination by others to let him have a rope and hang himself - had removed his doubts about his ability to deal with people. It was only the academic world, he had decided, that from jealousy disliked him. All his natural conceit had been released. Robin's use of his Christian name reminded him of their family relationship and of Inge's assurance that, when her eldest son was angry, he could always be teased out of it. Donald had somewhat vague ideas of the nature of teasing, but he set out nevertheless to tease. 'I find it so difficult,' he said, his watery eyes gleaming with a pale, flickering light of humour, 'to remember the various cabbalic passwords and devices with which I should approach the Holy of Holies, Robin. You should devise something more simple, like "Open Sesame".'
Robin glowered at him. 'If you don't mind,' he said, 'this is not an occasion for misplaced facetiousness.' He had decided that he must strike heavily and put an end to these intrusions for good and all. 'If you wish to see me, you should telephone Miss Rodmell, or in her absence my other secretary, and state your business. They will no doubt be competent to decide whether it requires my attention. I would remind you, though, that they are both very busy people. Please don't bother them with petty questions that can perfectly well be decided by reference to someone else, if, that is, you feel incompetent to decide them yourself. As I said many times before you joined us, we are on a business not a family footing here.'
Donald was both alarmed and angry at the failure of his jocular approach. 'Certainly,' he said, 'I shall have no occasion to forget an order made in those terms. I may add, however, that I have hardly been tempted to recall any family relationship. I have received the greatest help in work from everyone in this place except you.'
Robin looked at him for a moment, then he said wearily, 'Please sit down, Donald.' He turned to Miss Rodmell. 'I'll let you know when I'm ready for that letter,' he said.
He was beginning to fear that his brother-in-law might turn out a bad investment, but he felt that he might be able to swing the market if he took the right steps at once.
'Now, Donald,' he said. He found it difficult - as indeed it was - to look neither stern nor amiable. 'I think we must get a few things straight. I'm appreciative of the success you made of your first lecture. The whole idea of these lectures was a pet one of mine carried through in the teeth of a good deal of opposition, so that I'm naturally grateful for the good start you've given them. But that doesn't mean that I think them other than a small luxury to the firm, a little up-to-date sideline.' He smiled at the possibility of Donald's supposing them to be more. 'In any case, you must not think of your job here as anything but a stop-gap. Your proper sphere is the university world, where I have no doubt you'll have great success. But I would like to say something to you that may be of general help. Wherever you work and whatever you're doing, you'll need to have a more realistic assessment of people. You've been very pleased with the praises here for your lecture, the praises of Kennedy and Hollett and Jim Straker. I've no doubt they were pleased, but there are a hundred other reasons why they should have chosen to make a fuss of you. You simply must not take these things at their face value. For example, every time you come in here - and we won't go into the undesirability of that again - you retail a bit of gossip. First of all, let's get this clear, I never listen to it. But neither should you. If you're going to be elated or depressed by every chance remark or mood of the people you work with either here or elsewhere, you'll never get anywhere, which would be a pity, because I'm quite sure you could have a fine career ahead of you.' He sat back in his chair and smiled.
Donald got up and walked to the door, then he turned and said, 'I think it would be much better for everyone if you ceased to think of these lectures as your peculiar possession, particularly as you did not see fit to come to the first one.'
Robin smacked the arm of his chair. 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' he cried. 'Surely you saw that I stayed away so that everyone should have a free hand.'
Donald's thin lips compressed. 'If that really is so,' he said, 'you might consider how far your present attitude is due to a dislike of your protégé acquiring wider loyalties to the firm.'
As he went through th
e secretary's room, his white face was suffused with pink. He did not trust Miss Rodmell to be discreet, the story would be all over the office by tonight and common talk at the works tomorrow.
Robin looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly the time of his appointment with Gerald. He rang. 'Miss Rodmell,' he said, 'I'm expecting my father at any moment - write to Pelican for me. Tell him that I anticipate no opposition, perhaps we'd better say no serious opposition here, to my proposal for his joining us in a situation satisfactory to him. And add that I look forward to making him an official proposal in the event of his wishing to leave his present work.'
They lunched at the Savoy Grill. Gerald chose a Châteaubriant and a Mâcon, because Robin remembered that this was his favourite lunch, though he did not share the memory. He was a little uneasy at having so much fuss made of him, although it pleased him. Robin talked at great length of John's misconduct in the Pelican affair and of the surprise his brother would get when Pelican was made a director of Middleton's. 'I have some connexions with the newspaper world,' he said. 'Not John's ghastly rag, of course, but the more reputable papers. I shall see that it gets into print and not only in the financial column.' He saw that his father was a little bored with the topic. 'I shall be glad when it's ail over,' he added; 'it's getting to be rather an idée fixe with me, and a boring one for other people.' He laughed self-deprecatingly.
Gerald asked after Donald's progress, but Robin was short in his answer. 'He's got a very bad manner sometimes,' he announced judicially, 'but I think he's learning.' Recalling the Oxford don's praise, he asked his father after his work.
For a moment Gerald was quite nonplussed, he did not remember his family ever showing an interest in his studies. However, in his new happiness, he soon warmed to the subject and told Robin about the new history. 'It's a very large affair really,' he said; 'four or five volumes. Heaven knows if I shall live to see it finished!'
'My dear father, it's just the thing to give you a long life. I'm frightfully pleased. But, of course, you're the obvious man for it. Everyone says you're right at the top of your tree.'
Gerald wondered who 'everyone' could be, but instead he said, 'I'm very grateful to your girl-friend for bringing us together, Robin.'
'Oh! trust Elvira to do the right thing. She likes you very much, Father.'
'I like her.' He paused and chose a little colloquialism which he remembered hearing somewhere: 'She's got it very badly over you, Robin.' The phrase sounded strangely on his lips.
Robin said, 'I hope so. I'm in the same boat.'
'Not quite, I should think,' Gerald commented.
'Oh! you mean her little outburst the other evening.' Robin shrugged it off. 'She's very highly strung, you know, and then the crowd she goes about with never go to bed as far as I can see. At least not to sleep.' He was very impressed with the easy promiscuity of Elvira's friends.
Gerald tried another tack. 'Do you remember Dollie at all?' he asked.
'Dollie Stokesay?' Robin blushed involuntarily; he had not expected quite this degree of intimacy, but he determined to cope with his new role. 'Yes, of course,' he remarked with what he hoped was a casual air. 'I was fourteen or fifteen when you cut loose from her.'
'I didn't,' Gerald said firmly, 'she cut loose from me. I've never ceased to regret it. Oh, don't think I'm going to say anything that is critical of your mother. I'm fully conscious of the fact that I'm entirely to blame for the whole thing. I don't know that I should ever have married Inge. I did so, you see, on what they used to call the rebound. From Dollie's refusal of me, to be exact.' Robin was more and more appalled. He gave himself grimly to breaking up his rings of rum-soaked pineapple - 'But having met Dollie again, we both knew that everything else was unimportant. I believe romanticism of that sort is unfashionable. Indeed, it was not very sophisticated in the twenties. We tried to be much more sensible, and Inge tried too. In fact, everybody tried. Your mother and Dollie used to meet. Well, you remember how she was Auntie Dollie in your childhood. It worked at first because we were so much in love that we didn't notice how impossible it was. It went on working for some years because Dollie disguised from me how much she hated it. In the end neither she nor Inge could keep it up. I lost Dollie. She became a "dipso", you know. And I lost all the respect and affection of my family too, and any right to it. I'm very much against being sensible in these things; as a result I don't think one has any right to impose that strain on anyone one loves.' He had told the story so badly, indeed he wished that he had never told it.
Robin wished this too. He said, 'My case is a little different, you know. Marie Hélène can't give me a divorce, she's a Roman Catholic.'
Gerald quickly said, 'Yes, yes, I know. You'd have to work it out in your own terms. I only wanted to warn you against putting too much strain on Elvira.'
'Thank you,' said Robin. 'I think we'll manage all right.'
There was a pause in their conversation as they were given coffee.
Offering Gerald a cigar, Robin said, 'Don't take this in the wrong way, Father, but ours is a very new acquaintance. I think we ought to take it slowly, you know.'
Gerald had determined that he would pay no regard to the various rumours that reached him of the Heligoland excavations. He admired Pforzheim and he would wait for the congress at Verona to hear his report. The spring weather at the end of March brought May too often into his mind, but, on the whole, he was so absorbed by his current work that he suffered no more than momentary anxieties. After all, even if the Heligoland burial proved similar to that at Melpham, the two things were not one. Certainly, at this stage, he had no right to influence Pforzheim's views with what were only suspicions - and suspicions in no sense based on historical scholarship. He had allowed the incident with Gilbert far too much influence in his life as it was; he could do far more for his chosen profession in getting on with the job in hand, than by interfering in the detailed scholarship of a period that was not his own. If Pforzheim expressed any misgivings himself about Melpham, then he would report what he knew - but privately, in a way that would take the decision out of his hands. But the decision was put firmly back into his hands before May or the congress had arrived.
It was in April, on a morning when Gerald had noted the first primroses in the Park, that Jasper rang him up. He was in England for a short interval, he said, to check some facts at the B.M. He proposed to go to Verona and then to spend the rest of the summer in Italy finishing his book. He would like to discuss the articles for the History that Gerald wanted from him while he was here and to tell him of the very fascinating time he had had in Germany. He could come round whenever Gerald chose. He would like a little relief from early medieval Church and State.
He came two days later to tea, suave and a little vulgarly elegant as always. Gerald was somewhat perfunctory in his expressions of interest about Germany and insisted on getting down to business at once. However, even his protracted discussion of the editorial rules and his minute discussion of the nature of the articles he had requested had to come to an end.
Jasper had, indeed, become a little restive. 'You promise to be as great a tyrant as Clun in your editorial supervision,' he said, laughing.
'I suspect we've avoided King Stork to be landed with King Stork. Oh, no,' he protested, waving a well-manicured, somewhat thick hand, 'I'm delighted, Gerald, delighted. I haven't seen you so animated for a long time. I look forward to your reactions to what I have to tell you of Pforzheim's work.' He fitted a cigarette into his holder and lit it. 'Is it too soon after tea for a drink?' he asked. 'Just the Vermouth, no gin.'
Making himself comfortable, he began his story. 'Pforzheim's work was a revelation to me,' he cried, 'the neatness, the clarity. I doubt if any English historian or archaeologist could turn technique into art in that way. But he's rewarded. It's Aldwine's tomb without a doubt. The remains of the coffin are fragmentary, but they're enough. By a miracle a part of the inscription came to light at a slightly deeper level; it must ha
ve been broken off and sunk in a softer part of the peat. What's held up the report, of course, has been the idol. Pforzheim spent a long time with Cuspatt and Fish at the Museum and they've been over there. It's very worn down and fragmentary, but it builds up well to fit all the Baltic and North Sea coast idols that have been found. Of course, that wouldn't have been enough to admit it as such in such a place, but for Melpham. It's really a fantasy how something which seemed so much a fascinating oddity should suddenly become so important. That's why the Museum people here were in such a pother. It appears, believe it or not, that Cuspatt insisted on subjecting the Melpham idol to Geiger laboratory tests. Of course, it's a bit recent to respond to most of these things, they can only answer fot such enormous periods of time. It was utterly unlikely anyway, as Pforzheim said, that the thing could have been a fake. Apart from Stokesay's reputation, it would have been so utterly pointless to fake such a thing at that date. Anyhow, there's no doubt now on that score. Actually I think even he was a bit worried at one point. He'd been through all the reports of the Melpham excavation, including some unpublished papers of Stokesay's and of Portway's, which Cuspatt had, and apparently the whole thing was wildly haphazard. Of course, we didn't think that a 1912 excavation would have stood up to modern tests, but even so, I think, Pforzheim was a bit shocked considering Stokesay's reputation. However, the less said about that the better, especially if Rose Lorimer is anywhere about, she'd get into such a state if criticism were made of Stokesay.'
He smiled. 'We must be considerate of our Rose now. After all, there's a certain reason in her madness. She sees the pagan hidden hand in every Christian action, and even those of us who are good old-time agnostics would not care to go that far. Nor do I think many people will follow her in her back-to-Iona movement.' He smiled and finished his drink. He was so interested in what he was saying that he hardly thanked Gerald when his glass was filled again. 'All the same, this dual cult wasn't simply a personal roguery of Eorpwald's. Cuspatt and Pforzheim are both very keen to start other excavations that might throw up the same thing, though it's a very long shot, of course. We're all wondering how Lavenham and the Roman Catholics are going to react.' He gave the nearest to a chuckle that elegance would permit. 'By the way,' he said, 'Pforzheim tried hard to get in touch with you but you'd gone off on some jaunt to Vienna. He wanted any first-hand impressions you had of Melpham. I told him you could only have been in long clothes or whatever they put babies into in 1912, but apparently you were there. You look so distinguished, Gerald, one can't tell what age you are.'