In good time, I caught a bus down to the Strand. Russell Square and Southampton Row and Kingsway shimmered in the clean morning light. My breath caught, in something between anticipation and fear, between pleasure and pain. Streams of people were crossing the streets towards their offices; the women were wearing summer dresses, for the sky was cloudless, there were all the signs of a lovely day.
The examination was to be held in the dining hall of an Inn. I was one of the first to arrive outside the doors, although there was already a small knot of candidates, mainly Indians. There I waited by myself, watching a gardener cut the lawn, smelling the new-mown grass. Now the nervousness was needle-sharp. I could not resist stealing glances at my watch, though it was only two minutes since I had last looked. A quarter of an hour to go. It was intolerably long, it was a no man’s land of time, neither mine nor inimical fate’s. Charles March came up with a couple of acquaintances, discussing, in his carrying voice, in his first-hand, candid, concentrated fashion, why he should be ‘in a state’ before an examination which mattered nothing and which even he, despite his idleness, presumably would manage to scrape through. I smiled. Later I explained to him why I smiled. As the doors creaked open, he wished me good luck.
I said: ‘I shall need it.’
The odour of the hall struck me as I went quickly in. It made my heart jump in this intense expectancy, in this final moment. I found my place, at the end of a gangway. The question paper rested, white, shining, undisturbed, in the middle of the desk. I was reading it, tearing my way through it, before others had sat down.
At first I felt I had never seen these words before. It was like opening an innings, when one is conscious of the paint on the crease, of the bowler rubbing the ball, as though it were all unprecedented, happening for the first time. The rubrics to the questions themselves seemed sinister in their unfamiliarity: ‘Give reasons why…’, ‘Justify the opinion that…’ Although I had read such formulas in each examination paper for years past, the words stared out, dazzling, black on the white sheet, as if they were shapes unknown.
That horror, that blank in my faculties, lasted only a moment. I wiped the sweat from my temples; it seemed that a switch had been touched. The first question might have been designed for me, if George had been setting the paper. I read on. I had been lucky — astonishingly lucky I thought later, but in the hall I was simply filled by a throbbing, combative zest. There was no question I could not touch. It was a paper without options, and eight out of ten I had waiting in my head, ready to be set down. The other two I should have to dig back for and contrive.
I took off my wristwatch and put it at the top of the desk, within sight as I wrote. I had at my fingers’ end the devices which made an answer easy to read. My memory was working with something like the precision of George’s. I had a trick, when going so fast, of leaving out occasional words: I must leave five minutes, prosaically I reminded myself, to read over what I had written. Several times, as though I had a photograph in front of me, I remembered in visual detail, in the position they occupied in a textbook, some lines that I had studied. In they went to my answer, with a little lead-up and gloss. I was hot, I had scarcely lifted my eyes, obscurely I knew that Charles March was farther up the hall, on the other side of the gangway. This was the chance to try everything I possessed: and I gloried in it.
The luck remained with me throughout. Of all the past papers I had worked over, none had suited me as well as the set this year. Nearly all the specialized knowledge I had acquired from George came in useful (not the academic law he had taught me, but the actual cases that went through a provincial solicitor’s hands). On the afternoon of the first day I was half-incredulous when I saw my opportunities. Then I forgot everything, fatigue, the beating of my heart, the sweat on my face, as for three hours I made the most of them.
I was jubilant that first night. Jubilant but still guarded and in training, telling myself that it was too early to shout. In the warm May evening, though, I walked at leisure down Park Lane and through the great squares. Some of the houses were brilliant with lights, and through the open doors I saw staircases curving down to the wide halls. Cars drove up, and women swept past me on the pavement into those halls, leaving their perfume on the hot still air. In my youth, in my covetousness and pride and excitement, I thought that my time would come and that I too should entertain in such a house.
The last afternoon arrived, and the last paper. The spell had not broken. It suited me as well as the first. Except that by now I was tired, I had spun out my energies so that I was near the end of my tether. I wrote on, noticing my tiredness not much more than the extreme heat. But my timing was less automatic; I had finished the paper, read it through, and still had five minutes to spare.
Ah well, I was thinking, it has been pretty good. Each paper up to the standard of the first, and one distinctly better. One better than I could have hoped. Then the room went round, sickeningly round, and I clutched the desk. It was not a long attack; when I opened my eyes, the hall stood hazily there. I smiled to myself, a little uneasily. That was too close a call to relish.
I was still sick and giddy as Charles March came down the aisle; but he joined me, we left the hall together, and after the civilities of inquiring about each other’s performances we went to get some tea. I was glad of the chance. I had often wished to talk to him alone. We sat in a tea shop and did post mortems on the papers.
He was an active, rangily built young man with hair as fair as mine and excessively intelligent, inquiring eyes. At a glance, one could tell that he was a man of force and brains. He was also argumentative, which was in George’s style rather than mine, and had a talent for telling one home truths with the greatest possible edge. But he was capable of a most concentrated sympathy. Somehow he had divined that this examination was of cardinal importance to me. That afternoon at tea, seeing me delighted with what I had done, yet still strained and limp, he asked me to tell him. Why did it matter seriously? I had obviously done far better than he had, or than any sane person would consider necessary. Why did it matter? Did I feel like telling him?
Yes, I felt like it. In the clammy tea shop, with the papers spread on the table, I explained my position, under Charles March’s keen, hard, and appreciative eyes. It was out of my hands now, and I talked realistically and recklessly, frankly and with bravado. Until the result came out, I should have no idea what was to become of me.
‘Yes,’ said Charles March. ‘It’s too much to invest in one chance. Of course it is. You’ve done pretty well, of course.’ He pointed to the papers. ‘Whether you’ve done well enough — I don’t see that anyone can say.’
He was understanding. He knew that I could not have stood extravagant rosy prophecies just then.
Charles had refrained from any kind of roseate encouragement; and he was right, for I could not have received it. Yet, in the theatre that night, listening to the orchestra, I was all of a sudden carried on a wave of joy, certain that all I wanted was not a phantom in the future but already in my hands. I was not musical, but in the melody I possessed all I craved for. A name was mine; I was transferred from an unknown, struggling, apprehensive young man; a name was mine. Riches were mine; all the jewels of the imagination glittered for me, the houses, the Mediterranean, Venice, all I had pictured in my attic, looking down to the red brick houses and the slate; I was one of the lords of this world.