The Rebel Angels

"Call it what you like," said Arthur. "I just think there's a difference between a statue and somebody I know personally."

"And Vive la différence?" said Urky.

Hollier was breathing audibly and I wondered what Urky knew – because if Urky knew anything at all, it was a certainty that the whole world would know it very soon, and in a form imposed on it by Urky's disagreeable mind. But I did not see how, under the circumstances, Urky could know anything whatever about Hollier's involvement with Maria. Nor did I see why I should care, but plainly I did care. I thought the time had come to change the subject. The secretary from Arthur's office was looking unhappy; she sniffed a troublesome situation she did not understand.

"I have a suggestion to make," I said. "Our old friend Francis Cornish's will says that his executors are to have something to remember him by, and we have been going on the assumption that he meant the three of us. But isn't Arthur an executor? You mentioned a picture that took your eye the first day we met here, Arthur; it was a little sketch by Varley."

"It was named for the Provincial Gallery," said Urky. "Sorry, it's spoken for."

"Yes, I knew that," I said. There was no reason why Urky should be the only one to know best. "But I've been told you're a music enthusiast, Arthur. A collector of musical manuscripts, indeed. There are one or two things not spoken for that might interest you."

Arthur was flattered, as rich people often are when somebody remembers that they, too, are human and that not everything lies within their grasp. I fished out the envelope I had put handy, and his eyes gleamed when he saw a delicate and elegant four-page holograph of a song by Ravel, and a scrap of six or eight bars in the unmistakable strong hand of Schoenberg.

"I'll take these with the greatest pleasure," he said. "And thanks very much for thinking of me. It had crossed my mind that I might choose something, but after my experience with the Varley I didn't want to push."

Yes, but we knew him and liked him much better than when he cast longing eyes at the Varley. Arthur improved with knowing.

"If that finishes our business, I'd like to get along," I said. "We're expecting you at Ploughwright at six, and as I'm Vice-Warden I have some things to attend to."

I took up my Beerbohms, Hollier tucked two big volumes of Gesner under each arm, and McVarish, whose prize was heavy, asked the secretary to call him a taxi. To be charged, I had no doubt, to the Cornish estate.

I left Cornish's spreading complex of apartments, where I had often cursed the work he had imposed on me, with regret. Emptying Aladdin's Cave had been an adventure.

2

Being Vice-Warden was not heavy work, and I accepted it gladly because it ensured me a good set of rooms in the College; Ploughwright was for graduate students, a quiet and pleasant oasis in a busy University. On Guest Nights it was my job to see that things went well, guests properly looked after, and the food and wine as good as the College could manage. They cost us something, these Guest Nights, but they perpetuated a tradition modern universities sometimes appear to have forgotten, the old tradition of scholarly hospitality. This was not food and drink provided so that people might meet to haggle and drive bargains, not the indigestive squalor of the "working lunch", not the tedium of a "symposium" with a single topic of conversation, but a dinner held once a fortnight when the Fellows of the College asked some guests to eat and drink and make good cheer for no other reason than that this is one of civilization's triumphs over barbarism, of humane feeling over dusty scholasticism, an assertion that the scholar's life is a good life. Ozy Froats had typed me as a man fond of ceremonies, and he was right; our Guest Nights were ceremonies, and I made it my special care to ensure that they were ceremonies in the best sense; that is to say, that people took part in them because they were irresistible, rather than merely inevitable.

Our guests on this November Friday night were Mrs. Skeldergate, who was a member of the Provincial Legislature at the head of a committee considering the financing of universities, and I had arranged that the others should be Hollier and Arthur Cornish – which meant the inclusion also of McVarish – as a small celebration of our completion of the work on the Cornish bequests. Arthur might well have asked us to dinner for this purpose, but I thought I would get in ahead of him; I dislike the idea that the richest person in a group must always pay the bill.