Читать книгу That Hideous Strength - C. S. Lewis - Страница 7

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Mark himself, meanwhile, was walking down to Bracton College, and thinking of a very different matter. He did not notice at all the morning beauty of the little street that led him from the sandy hillside suburb where he and Jane lived down into the central and academic part of Edgestow.

Though I am Oxford bred and very fond of Cambridge, I think that Edgestow is more beautiful than either. For one thing it is so small. No maker of cars or sausages or marmalades has yet come to industrialise the country town which is the setting of the university, and the university 14 itself is tiny. Apart from Bracton and from the nineteenth-century women’s college beyond the railway, there are only two colleges; Northumberland which stands below Bracton on the river Wynd, and Duke’s opposite the Abbey. Bracton takes no undergraduates. It was founded in 1300 for the support of ten learned men whose duties were to pray for the soul of Henry de Bracton and to study the laws of England. The number of Fellows has gradually increased to forty, of whom only six (apart from the Bacon Professor) now study Law and of whom none, perhaps, prays for the soul of Bracton. Mark Studdock was himself a Sociologist and had been elected to a fellowship in that subject five years ago. He was beginning to find his feet. If he had felt any doubt on that point (which he did not) it would have been laid to rest when he found himself meeting Curry just outside the post office, and seen how natural Curry found it that they should walk to College together and discuss the agenda for the meeting. Curry was the sub-warden of Bracton.

“Yes,” said Curry. “It will take the hell of a time. Probably go on after dinner. We shall have all the obstructionists wasting time as hard as they can. But luckily that’s the worst they can do.”

You would never have guessed from the tone of Studdock’s reply what intense pleasure he derived from Curry’s use of the pronoun “we.” So very recently he had been an outsider, watching the proceedings of what he then called “Curry and his gang” with awe and with little understanding, and making at College meetings short, nervous speeches which never influenced the course of events. Now he was inside, and “Curry and his gang” had become “we” or “the progressive element in College.” It had all happened quite suddenly and was still sweet in the mouth.

“You think it’ll go through, then?” said Studdock.

“Sure to,” said Curry. “We’ve got the Warden, and 15 the Bursar, and all the chemical and bio-chemical people for a start. I’ve tackled Pelham and Ted and they’re sound. I’ve made Sancho believe that he sees the point and that he’s in favour of it. Bill the Blizzard will probably do something pretty devastating, but he’s bound to side with us if it comes to a vote. Besides: I haven’t yet told you. Dick’s going to be there. He came up in time for dinner last night and got busy at once.”

Studdock’s mind darted hither and thither in search of some safe way to conceal the fact that he did not know who Dick was. In the nick of time he remembered a very obscure colleague whose Christian name was Richard.

“Telford?” said Studdock in a puzzled voice. He knew very well that Telford could not be the Dick that Curry meant, and therefore threw a slightly whimsical and ironical tone into his question.

“Good Lord! Telford!” said Curry with a laugh. “No. I mean Lord Feverstone—Dick Devine as he used to be.”

“I was a little baffled by the idea of Telford,” said Studdock, joining in the laugh. “I’m glad Feverstone is coming. I’ve never met him you know.”

“Oh, but you must,” said Curry. “Look here, come and dine in my rooms to-night. I’ve asked him.”

“I should like to very much,” said Studdock quite truly. And then, after a pause, “By the way, I suppose Feverstone’s own position is quite secure?”

“How do you mean?” asked Curry.

“Well, there was some talk, if you remember, as to whether someone who was away quite so much could go on holding a fellowship.”

“Oh, you mean Glossop and all that ramp. Nothing will come of that. Didn’t you think it absolute blah?”

“As between ourselves, yes. But I confess if I were put up to explain in public exactly why a man who is nearly 16 always in London should go on being a Fellow of Bracton, I shouldn’t find it altogether easy. The real reasons are the sort that Watson would call imponderables.”

“I don’t agree. I shouldn’t have the least objection to explaining the real reasons in public. Isn’t it important for a college like this to have influential connections with the outer world? It’s not in the least impossible that Dick will be in the next Cabinet. Even already Dick in London has been a damn sight more use to the College than Glossop and half a dozen others of that sort have been by sitting here all their lives.”

“Yes. Of course that’s the real point. It would be a little difficult to put in that form at a College meeting, though!”

“There’s one thing,” said Curry in a slightly less intimate tone, “that perhaps you ought to know about Dick.”

“What’s that?”

“He got you your Fellowship.”

Mark was silent. He did not like things which reminded him that he had once been not only outside the progressive element but even outside the College. He did not always like Curry either. His pleasure in being with him was not that sort of pleasure.

“Yes,” said Curry. “Denniston was your chief rival. Between ourselves, a good many people liked his papers better than yours. It was Dick who insisted all through that you were the sort of man we really wanted. He went round to Duke’s and ferreted out all about you. He took the line that the one thing to consider is the type of man we need, and be damned to paper qualifications. And I must say he turned out to be right.”

“Very kind of you,” said Studdock with a little mock bow. He was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. It was an old rule at Bracton, as presumably in most colleges, that one never mentioned in the presence of a 17 man the circumstances of his own election, and Studdock had not realised till now that this also was one of the traditions the Progressive Element was prepared to scrap. It had also never occurred to him that his own election had depended on anything but the excellence of his work in the fellowship examination: still less that it had been so narrow a thing. He was so accustomed to his position by now that this thought gave him the same curious sensation which a man has when he discovers that his father once very nearly married a different woman.

“Yes,” continued Curry, pursuing another train of thought. “One sees now that Denniston would never have done. Most emphatically not. A brilliant man at that time, of course, but he seems to have gone quite off the rails since then with all his Distributivism and what not. They tell me he’s likely to end up in a monastery.”

“He’s no fool, all the same,” said Studdock.

“I’m glad you’re going to meet Dick,” said Curry. “We haven’t time now, but there’s one thing about him I wanted to discuss with you.”

Studdock looked enquiringly at him.

“James and I and one or two others,” said Curry in a somewhat lower voice, “have been thinking he ought to be the new warden. But here we are.”

“It’s not yet twelve,” said Studdock. “What about popping into the Bristol for a drink?”

Into the Bristol they accordingly went. It would not have been easy to preserve the atmosphere in which the Progressive Element operated without a good many of these little courtesies. This weighed harder on Studdock than on Curry who was unmarried and had a sub-warden’s stipend. But the Bristol was a very pleasant place. Studdock bought a double whisky for his companion and half a pint of beer for himself.