by C. P. Snow
It struck her, how sharp the longing was. She felt she didn’t know herself. She didn’t like herself. She couldn’t repress it. She was retracing snatches of Swaffield’s conversation. He had told her not to worry about next week, but when she said that they weren’t counting on success, he had replied that they had better not. He couldn’t have any inside knowledge not given to her? No, that was impossible, worry running away with her. Was it a guess or a forecast? More likely, just a dig at random. Swaffield indulged himself as a kind of emotional thermostat. If one was up, as she was on her wedding day, one ought to be brought down. If she had been down, Swaffield would have aimed to haul her up. Well, that was all about her money. She tried to stiffen herself and get back to enjoying the morning. Her spirits were so high, she could throw off thoughts which kept nagging into her mind – but they didn’t leave her quite at rest.
For a while, during the reception, they revived, but in a fashion which seemed natural. The same whip who had been giving pleasure to Miss Smith had walked through a knot of guests, looking the reverse of purposeful, but actually in search of Jenny. She was still standing beneath the window, and the whip noticed her, with one of the chandeliers reflected snugly against the murk outside.
He said to Jenny: ‘I know it’s not a very suitable time, Lady L. But I’d like to drop a word in your ear.’
‘Right.’ She had a soft spot for this smooth pink man, who might be as pink as he looked, but wasn’t as smooth.
‘It’s this. We’d like to bring Jervis into things more now. But you’ll have to prod him, you know.’
The plan was amiable, as produced by an experienced school master to an inexperienced parent. Jervis wouldn’t be likely to become very easy on his feet (i.e. as a speaker): but he ought somehow to make his maiden speech, it didn’t matter whether he read every word, the House would take anything from a maiden speaker, particularly someone they cared for (gentle, avuncular, this man could have been Jervis’ own son). Then another speech or two, an occasional question. Once he had done the barest minimum in the Chamber, there were all kinds of jobs round the place where a man like Jervis would be useful. They could put him on committees. They were always looking for men who weren’t politicians searching for office, but who could devote a certain amount of time.
Jenny suspected that this smooth pink man didn’t deserve the highest marks for candour – but this plan was well-meant, there couldn’t be anything but goodwill behind it. It would be fine for Jervis. But it presupposed that he didn’t need to earn money. Any such work in the House was done for love: unlike the whip’s own job, which was part of the Government and paid. The whip, who didn’t often get things wrong, must imagine that she had means. Of course, if she won next week – then the reservoir of worry began filling again, drip by drip. But it didn’t fret her. This man was exuding well-being just because there was a bit of personal management to do. No harm to anyone, conceivably a little good. Part of the unexacting stream.
If Ryle had been present, and had heard that conversation (he had refused an invitation, not for Clare-like motives, but because he had a board meeting that morning, incidentally being prevented again from meeting Jenny), he might have had more of his forebodings. People of ability, energy, spirit, were playing round in the unexacting stream. There was no drug like habit. Or continuity. Even this cheerful morning, marriage, party, all safe in the bright weather-bound room, made them content that all was as it had been and was going to be. Human beings didn’t look forward very far.
Yet Ryle would have had to allow for his own pessimism. Possibly he was no more objective than these people living in the moment. Jenny had lived an unself-seeking life, by most standards. The whip was full of well-being, trying to do a good turn to an unavailing man. They were doing no harm, except, as inimical critics would have said, by the sheer fact of their existence, or that of their country and their enclave within it.
Ryle would have been one of the first to remark, not many people had ever been persuaded to abdicate by the sheer fact of their existence. Those two standing by the window, were too healthy and happy to do so. They dealt with what came close to hand, and they didn’t feel guilty because they did no more.
34
On the Wednesday following Jenny’s marriage, which was the day before the appeal, Dr Pemberton (he intended to keep that name on his doctor’s plate) was sitting on the Government backbenches in the House of Lords. This was the second afternoon he had attended, and he was viewing proceedings with a not unfamiliar blend of grievance and inspissated scorn. Grievance because he had expected the previous day, when he took his seat, to be something of a show, with himself on stage. Not a bit of it. He had signed the book at the table, walked up to the Woolsack, presented the writ which, with office efficiency and without comment, had duly arrived, and shaken hands. No one had noticed. No one appeared to enquire who was the very large man, black haired, pale faced, who had gone to sit beside complete strangers while a peer proceeded to ask the first question of the afternoon.
This next day, he was giving the place another chance. The only record of his entry was inscribed on a leaf of green paper which he had picked up in the lobby. Minutes of the day before. Date in Latin. Die Martis 5e Decembris 1972. Mummery, thought Pemberton. Prayers read by the Bishop of Chichester. Next line – The Earl of Hillmorton Sat First in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.
That was all it said.
As it happened, there was something of a show this afternoon, which Pemberton, now Hillmorton, had to witness. A newly created life peer was being introduced. More mummery, thought Pemberton, with increasing scorn. This was one of the English ceremonies, and the English were still good at ceremonies. Pemberton did not approve of them. Garter King of Arms in heraldic dress leading a procession: three peers in baronial robes (hired for the occasion, Pemberton judged), the new one in the middle, walking solemnly down the aisle, up to the Lord Chancellor, presenting the writ of summons – which Pemberton had done the day before, without all this fuss, as he now thought. The monarch’s statement of the new creation, oath of allegiance taken in the name of God. Further solemn walking, taking off and putting on of hats, stiff-necked bows. Final walk to the Lord Chancellor, hand shaking, disappearance among loud hear hears.
In Pemberton, thoughts about mummery continued to rankle. This didn’t happen when one succeeded to a peerage which already existed. They needn’t have let him just slink in. Still, ceremonies were fatuous, he had no use for them, nothing of the sort would have appeased him. Human beings had a passion for putting on fancy dress. It showed they had nothing better to do.
Most men, even against their will or convictions, were impressed by forms, style, collective mana. All Adam Sedgwick’s forebears and friends had with lucid rationality dismissed the idea of the Upper House. When he arrived there, in rational possession of his faculties, he had felt rather like an unbeliever going into church, with the kind of shiver that an unbelieving serious Larkin man couldn’t shrug off. Not so Dr Pemberton. He thought it was singularly silly.
He surveyed the faces round him and the serried faces opposite. Middle-aged faces, elderly faces. A doctor was used to looking at faces. A few were bright, some – Pemberton was under no temptation to give the benefit of the doubt – not so bright. Ordinary faces. In a moderately prosperous practice you could have picked them up off the street. One was breathing heavily not far away. Pemberton would have taken precautions if that had been a patient. And with one or two others he could see. Too much weight around. Pemberton had once sat in the gallery of the Commons. Still more weight there, still more signs of strain. To Pemberton’s eye, politicians often looked bad lives.
Pemberton thought even less of politicians than he did of most people. To him, they didn’t appear suitable persons to run a country. He didn’t consider it necessary to think of anything better. He wasn’t a Ryle, historically minded, trying to imagine the future. He didn’t care so much and had nothing like Ryle’s f
oreboding. Pemberton was neither a far-sighted nor a pessimistic man. He didn’t often indulge in what he would have written off as profitless speculation. True, he hadn’t much use for his countrymen, any more than he had for the rest of humankind, perhaps less. They were an idle lot. The workers didn’t work, and the managers didn’t manage. Nevertheless he took it for granted that things would go on. He didn’t believe there would be much change. If there were, whatever happened, he was safe: a decent doctor wouldn’t starve.
The new peer had just entered, unrobed, one more ordinary-looking man, thought Pemberton, and took a modest place on the cross-benches. Questions, which to Pemberton sounded like parliamentary ping pong, and, if it had been possible to make his estimate of the place sink lower, would have done so. Half an hour of questions. Waste of time.
The Clerk of Parliament had pronounced ‘The Lord–’ and the debate began. This was a Wednesday afternoon debate such as Ryle had been listening to almost exactly a year before, the afternoon when he had first questioned Hillmorton about his limp. The subject didn’t sound entrancing: the world’s energy supply. Quite soon Pemberton, not without let-down, found himself feeling less dismissive. Pemberton gained internal warmth from general superiority to all round him, as had reinforced him so far that day: but he was honest, it was no good pretending superiority when others were doing better than one could oneself.
This man knew his stuff. He was also a practised speaker. Pemberton hadn’t made a debating speech in his life, nothing nearer than delivering papers in front of medical societies. This was different. It might be more difficult. Leather-red benches, shining gilt, mummery, old men clutching their hearing aids, mummery. No, Pemberton was forced to attend to the accurate professional voice. This man wasn’t a nobody. Nor was the one who followed: not so professional, slightly more futurist. If one was going to make any impact in this place, one would have to learn their techniques. These men seemed able to think on their feet. All Pemberton knew was medicine. He might learn to make a speech on a medical topic. He became thoughtful.
He recovered his superiority when he left the chamber to master the building. A competent man, entering a new hospital, identified the lavatories and the place where one ate. Pemberton was a competent man. He didn’t think much of the architecture of the Palace of Westminster. Grandiose decoration was not for him. Crimson carpets, too many shades of red, tapestries, pictures of long forgotten peers – nothing to distinguish one corridor from another, the building was a functional frustration. Pemberton didn’t think much of the mixture of luxury and frustration. He would have liked to design the place himself.
He walked into the library, no medical books, not much use to him. Into the guest room and bars, not much use to him, being a non-drinker. Might help with visitors. Visitors might be impressed by the place. He was going to make it work for him, for what that was worth. Pemberton wasn’t as assured as he would have liked to be, walking as a stranger in a domain where everyone seemed to know everyone else. One felt the opposite of snugness, when everyone around was snug. It impelled Pemberton to think of past injuries. Some he could begin to pay off. He would call in at the Appeal Court (he had kept informed about the date) some time next day. Hillmorton’s daughter and the rest of that family might as well face his existence now.
The big man walked along the corridor. Walked soft footed, like an old games player, thinking again that he had better give the place a second chance. He had actually formed that phrase, and in his mental ear it didn’t seem a singular one. If he had considered, he would have thought it well-chosen. Not long afterwards, he admitted to himself that at least the place had its value as a source of news. He had already discovered the tea room, and made his way there. More pictures of Lord Chancellors – more, although Pemberton didn’t know it, of the Prince Consort’s taste in mural ornament. Good taste of its kind, as usual, but then Pemberton would not have been interested in the Prince Consort or competent to make a significant statement about him. Pemberton saw a long table in the inner room, where, as at the more convivial clubs, one seemed to sit down at the nearest vacant place, not choosing one’s neighbour. There were a dozen men, a couple of women, comfortably engaged over their tea, possibly not the most enthusiastic of debate aficionados. Pemberton sat next to an elderly beaming man, bald head so polished that remarks appeared to rebound off his forehead. He had beaming friendly manners and wasn’t inhibited about asking questions. Shortly, he was saying:
‘Excuse me, but I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.’
‘You couldn’t have very well.’
‘You must have come here recently, then?’
‘Yesterday,’ said Pemberton.
‘Ah. Really.’
Cogitations were going on.
‘Would you mind telling me who you are?’ Pemberton’s interlocutor introduced himself, and Pemberton said, as to the officials the day before, that he was Hillmorton.
‘Ah. Now I get it. Let me see. Hallio wasn’t your father, was he, he didn’t have a son. Anyway – your uncle. Of course, I knew him very well indeed. I was at school with him, I knew him all my life. Hallio. I don’t need to tell you he was one of the kindest men who ever lived. He couldn’t bear to see anyone in trouble. He would go to any lengths to do anything he could. Even when he was working himself to the bone in office.’
For once, Pemberton had lost his assertion. He made a nondescript noise. He was not to know that his neighbour had made a study, almost a profession, of saying the best about everyone. There were bleak persons who commented that by now he had come to believe some of it.
‘I like to think of him, Hallio that is, your uncle,’ said the happy-looking man, ‘helping his friend Sedgwick with his cigarette. That’s Sedgwick the scientist, you know. One of the most distinguished members of this House, of course. But he has this nervous trouble and Hallio used to go to infinite pains about him. I am sure if Hallio was still with us he’d be helping Sedgwick through his operation. Of course he’d do that for anyone, not only a special friend.’
Pemberton had not been disposed to attend to this old dodderer or do-gooder or bald-headed man of glee (Pemberton might have considered any of those descriptions appropriate) bumbling away about the supreme benevolence of his predecessor. But, at the mention of Sedgwick, he did attend. He knew about Sedgwick as a scientist. Despite his abnormal lack of capacity for respect, Pemberton respected eminent scientists. He became polite. He put on his own kind of charm. He wanted to find out what was happening medically to Sedgwick.
To Pemberton’s surprise, the old dodderer, even if he were also a dispenser of Christian charity, which made him still less congenial to Pemberton, turned out to have a talent for precise information. Men were curious about each other’s illnesses when they became old enough, Pemberton didn’t need telling: but this one was good at it. He knew the diagnosis. He knew the name of the surgeon who was to operate on Sedgwick. He knew the hospital. All he was uncertain about was the date of the operation, but he believed that it would be right at the end of the year.
‘Very interesting,’ said Pemberton. He explained that he was a doctor. ‘I’ll see if I can be some use.’
He said it with massive prepotence. He hadn’t enjoyed feeling alien, or out-classed by those smooth operators talking in the Chamber as he couldn’t talk. Now he was making his own terms. He stared with slightly mollified scorn at the faces round the table, though he was clinically impatient because they were eating too many cream cakes. Never mind what he thought about this place. He could, and would, take advantage of it to get in touch with Sedgwick. That, at any rate, would be rational, if nothing else was.
35
The Law Courts were not old, but they could strike so. Jenny and Liz were not old, but up there, in the Appeal Court number two, they were waiting to hear a decision about themselves in a fashion which was about as old as law. For both of them, it was the only decision, or piece of official news, that might make a difference to them: and
it was coming as it would have done generations before, face to face with the deciders, without any mechanical aids, by word of mouth.
On the dais sat three Lord Justices, Fowke, Shingler, and Gimson, bewigged, Fowke presiding, looking somewhat like an incisive long-headed Arab, interventions courteous but subliminally irritable. Shingler was heavier, more considerate and gentle. Gimson was a small plump man, who appeared to relax into dormouse reverie. (Their title of Lord Justices might have been invented to baffle foreigners: they weren’t lords, though the job carried a knighthood. They were less elevated than Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, who sounded humbler but actually were made lords, and sat in a committee room in the House.) The Appeal Court number two was broader than long, rather like Sedgwick’s college rooms magnified and equipped with a gothic glass-windowed roof: panelled walls, bookcases with sets of shining volumes, a chandelier dominating the centre of the court, six wall-lights behind the dais. Unlike the lower court in which Bosanquet had sat, this contained only three rows of benches for spectators: which didn’t matter, since (lawyers, Liz, Mrs Underwood, Julian, Jenny and Lorimer aside) there were no spectators at all. Except for Ryle who came in after half an hour on the Thursday morning, and sat behind Liz.
It wouldn’t have occurred to her that this kind of personal decision was quite different from anything in his experience, or her father’s. But it was curiously true. Of course they had waited for news, about careers, jobs. But that news had arrived impersonally, cables, telex, over the telephone wire: good news travelled fast, at the speed of electrical impulses. Liz’s father had received telephone calls from Number Ten. That meant he was in. (Once, in 1935, he had waited by the telephone expecting a call which didn’t come: that meant he was out.) Ryle’s prosperity had been announced in business calls from New York. As for Adam Sedgwick, the only chancy event in his smooth career had been a call from Stockholm, a Swedish journalist telling him he had just been awarded the Nobel. Very early in the morning, too early to go to the laboratory and have a celebration. It was the public men who lived at the modern speed.