Nothing So Strange. James Hilton
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need.”
“Shoes,” I corrected. “And I don’t know anything about geology, but I’d like to.”
I thought he might be relieved to feel there was always a topic in reserve.
* * * *
We went to Cambridge by an early train because he had to call at the Cavendish Laboratory there to leave some papers. It was the first time I had been to the university town and I wouldn’t have minded sightseeing, but apparently this was not part of his program; we ignored the colleges and began a brisk walk along the riverbank. After what Mathews had said, I was quite prepared to cover the miles without comment or complaint, but as a great concession, doubtless, we picked up a bus at some outlying village and the bus happened to be going to Ely. The way I’m telling this sounds as if I were having fun at his expense all the time; and so, in a quiet way, I was, because people who are too serious always make me feel ribald inside. Not that he was as serious as I had expected. We didn’t discuss geology once—perhaps because there isn’t much geology between Cambridge and Ely. There were just large expanses of mud everywhere, and especially by the river, for heavy rain had fallen and the sky was full of clouds threatening more. Ely was like a steel engraving, but inside the Cathedral the octagon window had the look of stored-up sunshine from a summer day. I said it would be strange if some of the medieval stained-glass experts had actually discovered how to do this, and he assured me gravely that they couldn’t have, it was scientifically impossible. I then gave him a short lecture on English Perpendicular, to which he listened as if he thought me clever though what I was saying relatively unimportant. “But of course you’re only interested in scientific things,” I ended up.
“No, that’s not true. Your mother played some Mozart to me the other evening—it was the first time I really liked classical music.”
“She loves Mozart.”
“Of course when she was younger she had time and opportunity to cultivate a sense of beauty—that’s hard for the average American.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s Americans who do cultivate things, as a rule.”
“Then she just has them—was born with them, perhaps. Generations of aristocratic background.”
“My mother’s people wouldn’t like you to call them aristocrats. They’re a fairly well-known Yorkshire family—commoners, but we can trace ourselves back for a few centuries without much trouble.”
“She happened to mention a sister—Lady Somebody, I forget the name.”
“That’s nothing. Titles don’t mean aristocracy. All my aunt did was to marry a man who got knighted—that can happen to anyone.”
“You sound rather cynical about it.”
“I’m not. But it’s amusing, sometimes, the way Americans make mistakes. My aunt and uncle were once visiting us in Florida and the local paper called them English blue bloods. They’re no more blue-blooded than you are.”
“Speaking scientifically?”
“No, speaking snobbishly. If you want the snob angle, at least get it right. Of course I don’t mean you, I mean the Florida paper. Personally I don’t think much of titles.”
“Because you come of a family that’s proud of its age rather than rank?”
“I guess you’re right. It’s probably an inverted snobbery. We certainly think we’re superior to a lot of these businessmen baronets.”
“You say ‘we.’ Does that mean you feel yourself more English than American?”
“When I’m talking to you I do. When I’m talking to an Englishman I feel I want to chew gum. It’s the perverse streak in me.”
“Does that mean you feel American when you’re with your mother?”
“Sometimes…. Though she’s not so terribly English. I’ve met Russians and Irish that are more like her. She’s more true to herself than to any nationality. Not that I mean she doesn’t act, sometimes. But when she does, she doesn’t really mind if you see through it. And you can act back. She doesn’t mind that either.”
“I’m afraid I’m not much good at acting.”
“I wasn’t meaning you personally.”
“I’m sorry. I thought—perhaps—well—”
“I was just talking generally. I’m sorry if you—”
“How did we get onto this argument, anyway?”
“I forget.”
He thought for a moment, then said: “We were discussing beauty—the sense of beauty—”
“Were we?”
“Mozart, it started with….”
“Oh yes, you said you were beginning to like classical music.”
“I think I could like it, if I heard more. It’s strange how—if you’re in a certain mood—the awareness of beauty comes over you—”
“It comes over me in any mood. I mean, it can put me in the mood. When we were in the Cathedral just now, for instance…”
“Yes—but it didn’t get me as much as Mozart.”
“Maybe we should have asked the organist to play some Mozart.”
“I’ll ask your mother when I’m next up at the house.”
“Yes, do…. You come up quite often now, don’t you? While I’ve been away… I’m so glad.”
We returned to Cambridge by bus and he called at the Cavendish again to pick up something—“results,” he said, that he had left there in the morning for a check. When he glanced over them later in the train I tried to tell from his face whether everything had been satisfactory, but he looked neither pleased nor displeased—only preoccupied. Presently, as he put the papers away, he said: “Well, that’s that.”
“What is?”
“A month’s work and it turns out to be wrong.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s not an emotional matter.”
“But a whole month! Couldn’t you have found out you were wrong sooner?”
“Perhaps not—though the Cavendish does have better facilities. Might save time in the future if I had access to them more often.”
“Couldn’t you work there?”
He smiled. “You don’t know how lucky I am to be able to work anywhere. You should have known me the last time I went inside a cathedral.”
“Where was that?”
“St. Patrick’s, New York.”
“Are you a Catholic?”
“No. I used to go in for warmth and rest when I was looking for a job. That was in 1931.”
“You’ve come a long way in five years.”
“It’s not how far you come that counts—it’s the direction you take and whether you ever find the right track.”
“Do you think you’ve found it?”
“I think I know where to look for it. And a few wrong answers won’t put me off.”
There was a sort of grittiness in his voice that made me think he was fighting down disappointment over his wasted month. He added almost ferociously: “The trouble is, I don’t know enough. I’m trying to build too high without scaffolding….”
* * * *
After that day at Cambridge I thought I