No one was less willing, less able, to stay clamped within the bonds of self. Often he wished that he could: he cried out in envy of the comfortable. But he was driven. He was driven to his work by the same kind of compulsion that drives an artist. It gave him the obsessed, the morbid concentration that none of the ordinary healthy ambitious scholars could achieve; it did not give him the peace he hoped, although he knew he would be lost without it; above all it did not give him the matter-of-fact ambition that everyone round him took for granted. In his place, they would all have longed to be distinguished savants, men of weight, Fellows of the British Academy, recipients of honorary degrees — and in time they would have got there. Yet, at the prospect Roy felt caught, maimed, chained to the self he was trying to leave behind. At the prospect he was driven once more, driven to fly into obscurity.
Perhaps it had been wrong of Arthur Brown and me to see that he became a fellow. He seemed to want it — but perhaps even then we were reading our desires into him. Was his outburst a shriek of protest against being caught? Was it a wild flight as he saw a new door closing?
Yet I had my own minor amusement. Roy’s enemies in the college had heard the Master prophesy an overwhelming triumph; the book came out, and with gratification Despard-Smith and others slowly sensed that there was an absence of acclaim.
Despard-Smith said one night: “I have always been compelled to doubt whether Calvert’s work will s-stand the test of time. I wish I could believe otherwise. But it will be a scandal for the college if his work turns out to be a flash in the pan.”
Roy was not dining, but I told him afterwards. He was no more consistent than other men, and he became extremely angry.
“What does he know about it?” said Roy furiously, while I laughed at him. “He’s never written a line in his life, except asking some wretched farmer to pay the rent. Why should some tenth-rate mathematician be allowed to speak about my work? I need to talk to him.”
Roy spoke to Despard-Smith the next night.
“I hear that you’ve become an oriental scholar, Despard?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Calvert.”
“I hear that you doubt the soundness of my edition. I suppose that you needed to study it first?”
Roy was still angry, and his subtle, mystifying, hypnotic approach had deserted him. Despard-Smith felt at home, and a gleam of triumph shone in his eye.
“No, Calvert, that wasn’t necessary. I relied on my judgment from what I picked up round me. Exactly as one has to do — in electing a fellow. One has to rely on one’s judgment. I don’t pretend to be clever, Calvert, but I do congratulate myself on my judgment. I might tell you that some people never acquire it.”
Roy had no reply. I was very much amused, but it was a joke that he did not see.
It was not long before the Master and Arthur Brown were able to score a success for Roy within the college. Roy’s reputation had been high with German scholars since he brought out his grammar, and the liturgy was praised at once, more immediately and vociferously than in England. The Professor of Oriental Religions at Berlin and a colleague came to London for a conference in October, and wrote to the Master asking if he could present them to Roy. They stayed in the Lodge for a weekend and met Roy at dinner. The Professor was a stocky roundfaced roguish-looking man called Ammatter. When Roy was introduced to him, he clowned and pretended not to believe it.
The Master translated his remark with lively, victorious zest. “Professor Ammatter says,” the Master addressed himself to Despard-Smith, “that it is impossible anyone so young should have done such work. He says that we must be foisting an impostor upon them.”
Despard-Smith made a creaking acknowledgment, and sat as far down the table as he could. The Master and Roy each spoke excellent German; Ammatter was tricky, fluid, entertaining, comic and ecstatic; the wine went round fast in the combination room, the Master drinking glass for glass with Ammatter and Roy. Old Despard-Smith glowered as they laughed at jokes he did not understand. The Master, cheerful, familiar, dignified though a little drunk, broke off their conversation several times in order to translate; he chose each occasion when they were paying a compliment to Roy. The Master spoke a little more loudly than usual, so that the compliments carried all over the room. It was one of his happiest evenings, and before the end Roy had arranged to spend the next three months in Berlin.
15: Tea in the Drawing-Room
I received some high-spirited letters from Germany, in which there were references to acquaintances all over Berlin, from high party officials to the outcasts and those in danger; but I did not see Roy again until early January, after we had heard bad news.
The Master had been taken ill just before Christmas; he had not been in his briskest form all through the autumn, but in his spare, unpampered fashion he thought little of it. He got worse over Christmas, vomited often and could not eat. In the first week of January he was taken to hospital and examined. They gave him a gastroscopy, and sent him back to the Lodge the same night. They had found the answer. He had an inoperable cancer. There was no hope at all. He would die within a few months.
The day after the examination, all the college knew, but the doctors and Lady Muriel agreed that the Master should not be told. They assured him that nothing was seriously the matter, only a trivial duodenal ulcer. He was to lie still, and would recover in a few weeks. I was allowed to see him very soon after they had talked to him; I knew the truth, and heard him talk cheerfully of what he would do in two years’ time, of how he was looking forward to Roy’s complete edition. He looked almost as fresh, young and smooth-faced as the year before in the hills above Monte Carlo. He was cordial, sharp-tongued and indiscreet. His anxiety had been taken away, and so powerful was the psychological effect that he felt well. He spoke of Roy with intimacy and affection.
“He always did insist on behaving like a gilded dilettante. I wonder if he’ll ever get over it. Why will he insist on going about with vineleaves in his hair?”
He looked up at the ceiling of the great bedroom, and said quietly: “I think I know the answer to that question.”
“What do you think?”
“I think you know it too. He’s not a trifler.” He paused. He did not know that he was exhausted.
He said simply: “No, he’s searching for God.”
I was too much distressed to find what he knew of Roy’s search. Did he really understand, or was it just a phrase?
Most people in the college thought it was a mistake to lie to the Master. Round the table in the combination room there were arguments whether he should or should not have been told the truth. The day I went to the Lodge, I heard Joan disagree violently with her mother.
But Lady Muriel, even if all thought her wrong, had taken her decision and stood her ground. When he was demonstrably worse, when he could no longer think he would get better, he would have to be told. Meanwhile he would get a few weeks of hope and peace. It would be the last comfort he would enjoy while he was alive. Whatever they said, she would give it to him. Her daughter passionately protested. If he could choose, cried Joan, there was no doubt what he would say.
“I am positive that we are doing right,” said Lady Muriel. Her voice was firm and unyielding. There was grandeur in her bold eyes, her erect head, her stiff back.
Roy returned from Berlin a couple of days later. He had heard the news before he ran up my stairs, but he was looking well and composed. It was too late to see the Master that night, but he arranged to visit him the next afternoon, and for us both to have tea with Lady Muriel.