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  In Their Wisdom

  First published in 1974

  © Philip Snow; House of Stratus 1974-2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of C.P. Snow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2011 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 0755120124 EAN 9780755120123

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  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Charles Percy Snow was born in Leicester, on 15 October 1905. He was educated from age eleven at Alderman Newton’s School for boys where he excelled in most subjects, enjoying a reputation for an astounding memory and also developed a lifelong love of cricket. In 1923 he became an external student in science of London University, as the local college he attended in Leicester had no science department. At the same time he read widely and gained practical experience by working as a laboratory assistant at Newton’s to gain the necessary practical experience needed.

  Having achieved a first class degree, followed by a Master of Science he won a studentship in 1928 which he used to research at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. There, he went on to become a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1930 where he also served as a tutor, but his position became increasingly titular as he branched into other areas of activity. In 1934, he began to publish scientific articles in Nature, and then The Spectator before becoming editor of the journal Discovery in 1937. However, he was also writing fiction during this period, with his first novel Death Under Sail published in 1932, and in 1940 ‘Strangers and Brothers’ was published. This was the first of eleven novels in the series and was later renamed ‘George Passant’ when ‘Strangers and Brothers’ was used to denote the series itself.

  Discovery became a casualty of the war, closing in 1940. However, by this time Snow was already involved with the Royal Society, who had organised a group to specifically use British scientific talent operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. He served as the Ministry’s technical director from 1940 to 1944. After the war, he became a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists to work for the government. He also returned to writing, continuing the Strangers and Brothers series of novels. ‘The Light and the Dark’ was published in 1947, followed by ‘Time of Hope’ in 1949, and perhaps the most famous and popular of them all, ‘The Masters’, in 1951. He planned to finish the cycle within five years, but the final novel ‘Last Things’ wasn’t published until 1970.

  He married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950 and they had one son, Philip, in 1952. Snow was knighted in 1957 and became a life peer in 1964, taking the title Baron Snow of the City Leicester. He also joined Harold Wilson’s first government as Parliamentary Secretary to the new Minister of Technology. When the department ceased to exist in 1966 he became a vociferous back-bencher in the House of Lords.

  After finishing the Strangers and Brothers series, Snow continued writing both fiction and non-fiction. His last work of fiction was ‘A Coat of Vanish’, published in 1978. His non-fiction included a short life of Trollope published in 1974 and another, published posthumously in 1981, ‘The Physicists: a Generation that Changed the World’. He was also inundated with lecturing requests and offers of honorary doctorates. In 1961, he became Rector of St. Andrews University and for ten years also wrote influential weekly reviews for the Financial Times.

  In these later years, Snow suffered from poor health although he continued to travel and lecture. He also remained active as a writer and critic until hospitalized on 1 July 1980. He died later that day of a perforated ulcer.

  ‘Mr Snow has established himself, on his own chosen ground, in an eminent and conspicuous position among contemporary English novelists’ - New Statesman

  Dedication

  To My Friend:

  David Sofaer

  Author’s Note

  I wish to record several different kinds of indebtedness to Dr Irving S Cooper of St Barnabas Hospital, NYC. He has taught me a great deal, directly and in other ways. Without him and his own writings, one theme in this book would not have been written.

  CPS

  Part One

  1

  Mr Skelding was doing what some men would have found more difficult. He was announcing, with an air of Adamic surprise, as though he alone among men had been granted this revelation, news which at least two of his audience knew as well as he did. And which revelation, since Mrs Underwood was to execute the will along with himself, he couldn’t help knowing that they knew.

  Still, there was well-being in some places round the room. Mrs Underwood listened without expression, sepia gaze concentrated on Mr Skelding, facial muscles firm, handsome, confident and commanding in her middle sixties, looking as though she should have been accompanied by a lady-in-waiting carrying her purse. Her son Julian was also well-preserved, seemed much less than forty, as he peered, with eyes wide open, enquiring, as though he too were startled by the Adamic surprise. But it was not from those two that well-being wafted back to Mr Skelding, echoing his own. Apart from the Underwoods there were six others whom Mr Skelding had asked to call on him that afternoon. Some were sitting on the window seats, others backed against the white painted panelling; the office was suitable for subdued legal interviews, not for a party this size. That, however, did not inhibit Mr Skelding. He enjoyed telling people that they were due to receive money they did not expect. He also enjoyed issuing warnings about obstacles in the jungly path before money could be taken as certain. For once, that afternoon the business was simple, his good nature was genuine and he could let it flow.

  It was a warm day in October, one of the sash windows was open, through it, in the gaps between Mr Skelding’s modulated, rounded, deliberate lawyer’s phrases, one could hear a muted background noise, which those who knew the geography would have identified as the sough of traffic in the Strand, getting on for half a mile away. In the court below the sun was shining. For an instant Julian Underwood, in the midst of his reckonings, caught a smell from the outside air, or thought he did. There wasn’t a tree in the Old Court, but it might have been the smell
of burning leaves. Whether he was imagining it or not, it brought back to Julian, who wasn’t a nostalgic man, days, or perhaps a solitary day, when he was a student and had returned after travelling, back to England in time for term, with the autumn weather as benign and br99ight as this.

  Mr Skelding proceeded. His colouring was high, puce cheeks making small shrewd eyes sink deeper in. His lips were as fresh as a child’s, and would have looked just as much at home sucking on a straw: which was the one respect in which Julian Underwood resembled him, for he too in his pale over-youthful face had childish lips, over-innocent they had sometimes been called, though others got the opposite impression.

  Although Mr Skelding was enjoying himself, he preserved a decent steadiness of tone and pace. After all, the old gentleman had been buried only a couple of days before. No doubt people in this room would be gratified by their legacies, but some, Mr Skelding thought, might have had an affection for him. He hadn’t been an easy man. Yet Mrs Underwood, for one, had for years been devoting most of her life to him. Like a very good secretary. He had treated her like that, though Mrs Underwood was what Mr Skelding in his old-fashioned way would have called good county family, not outfaced anywhere. A secretary might have been forced to put up with it, but Mrs Underwood had money of her own. Of course there had been sound reasons. Mr Skelding wasn’t given to passing judgements upon his fellow men, or at least if he did so he managed to conceal them from himself.

  Gazing round the room he exuded a proper, subdued excitement as he broke morsels of news. He beamed, gleamed, and shone. The late Mr Massie, he was saying, hadn’t wished his will to be read at the funeral reception. That had never been a good custom. But he had given instructions for certain messages to institutions to be made known. These were included in his final will, which Mr Skelding had drawn up. He had been present, when it was signed and witnessed a month before Mr Massie’s death.

  ‘I don’t think it’s necessary to burden you with all the minor bequests. There are a number of objects mentioned which he had acquired over a long lifetime. Mrs Underwood and I thought it would meet his wishes if I disclosed his statements about certain institutions to which I shall shortly be obliged to write.’

  Mr Skelding pushed back his spectacles and drew the paper nearer.

  ‘In effect,’ he said, ‘he required his school and college to be informed that he had at one period, a considerable number of years ago, contemplated making testamentary dispositions for their benefit, and had entered into preliminary conversations with them on this subject. However, their lack of resistance to the stupidities of the present time “–he insisted on that form–” added to the irritation of living through his ninth decade. So he had decided to cease his connection with them, in particular to cease his connection with the Anglican Church he was brought up in. He repudiated any thought of providing benefactions for them or any other institutions, and he expected those of similar opinions to himself to do the same.’

  Mr Skelding gave this report without emphasis. He had trained himself to suppress his own opinions. That wasn’t much of a sacrifice, if it meant his clients trusted him more. He glanced towards Mrs Underwood, who was sitting near his desk.

  ‘I think that is a reasonable summary?’

  She nodded, and said also without emphasis:

  ‘Of course, you will send them the whole passage verbatim, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mr Skelding. They spoke as though the recipients would resent being deprived of a single word.

  ‘Well now,’ Mr Skelding remarked comfortably, ‘we come into smooth water.’ He began to read from the second page: ‘I wish to express my gratitude and give a token of recognition to those persons who have attempted to protect me from the stupidities and irritations of recent years.’ Attention in the room sharpened: this was getting warm. Some were thinking, the old man had sounded acerb, cross-grained to the last. No mention of his family. There were rumours that his daughter hadn’t come near him. He had complained, someone had heard at second-hand, of how she had treated him. She had been no use to him. None of them knew her, they had only become acquaintances of Mr Massie in the last few years. A woman had been present at the funeral, pale, middle-aged, solitary. That might have been her.

  ‘Well then,’ Mr Skelding beamed at a large beak-nosed man. ‘To my doctor–’ name in full, qualifications, address – ‘who has saved me from some unnecessary discomforts, I bequeath the sum of £5,000.’ The doctor did not beam in return but inclined his head.

  ‘To my accountant–’ a similar rubric – ‘who has dealt with incompetent officials, I bequeath the sum of £3,000.’ Four other legacies, one to his housekeeper, who had been with him only three years, also £3,000, one to his chiropodist, of £500. All six received their tips, like well-trained hall porters at a grand hotel, with decorum and radiating satisfaction under the skin: except for the chiropodist, who couldn’t hold back a large protuberant grin.

  ‘To conclude,’ said Mr Skelding, and returned to the text, ‘I wish above all to pay a debt of gratitude which I cannot properly express to my friend Mrs Katharine Underwood for sympathy, support and kindness beyond measure during my last years. At her request I do not bequeath her any sum of money. She has consented to act as executrix of this my last will and testament. The residue of my estate, all preceding legacies having been discharged, I leave to her son Julian Stourton Underwood, Apartment D, 22 Phillimore Gardens, London, W8.’

  Mr Skelding had maintained to the last his aura of beatific astonishment, as though the final disposition was dazzlingly fresh, not only to the Underwoods but to himself. Neither mother nor son stirred but Julian gave a blink, leaving his eyes, if that were possible, wider open still. There was a faint susurration somewhere in the room.

  Mr Skelding said: ‘I think that is almost all, then – unless anyone has any questions? I do hope you don’t feel that we have wasted your time.’ This was uttered earnestly, without any edge at all, the tone of one who had long ago ceased to obtrude himself upon apprehensive clients.

  ‘Not in the least,’ murmured the doctor, like the chairman of a deputation moving a vote of thanks.

  ‘Well – well–’ Mr Skelding said it restfully, a restful encouragement for them to leave.

  The doctor took his cue and got up, and went over to shake hands. The others followed his lead as a social arbiter. Soon the Underwoods were left alone with Mr Skelding.

  ‘How much? How much will it be?’ said Julian, while footsteps were still sounding down the stairs.

  Mr Skelding looked at Julian’s mother, beaky of profile, eyes bird-like and brilliant. That was the one thing she didn’t know; a solicitor whom Mr Skelding had replaced still handled the old man’s investments. She must have made her guess. She understood money as well as a professional. Caution intervened.

  ‘It’s early days to give any sort of figure,’ said Mr Skelding. ‘And much of the estate is in equities, and of course the market is going down. I don’t think we should be wise to give a figure.’

  ‘Don’t let’s be wise,’ said Julian with a sudden hooting laugh. ‘Just let’s have an idea.’

  ‘We can do that, can’t we?’ said Mrs Underwood.

  ‘It’s distinctly premature–’

  ‘Not for working purposes,’ she said.

  ‘If you press me–’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then. Very roughly, though you mustn’t hold me to this, the total estate may perhaps work out at a little over £400,000. The residual estate, when the other legacies are paid, might come to something slightly under.’

  ‘Much under?’ Julian interjected.

  ‘With good fortune, not so much under.’

  Julian made an acquiescent noise.

  ‘But here’s the body blow.’ Mr Skelding, who relished speaking of large sums, also relished checking signs of undue grandeur.

  ‘The realty isn’t substantial, so the death duties are certain to be high. It would be safe to assume
that they will swallow up half the final figure. We oughtn’t to make calculations at having anything over £200,000, and it would be prudent to think more in terms of twenty or thirty thousand less than that.’

  Julian sat, lips parted, eyes wide. Mrs Underwood went in for some brisk exchanges with the lawyer. Estimate of death duties? No, he couldn’t get any nearer for the moment. Fall in value of the investments? Yes, it was important to get probate granted in quick time. Some of the portfolio ought to have been sold long before. They must be disposed of. The capital value had gone down by ten per cent over the past year. Mrs Underwood nodded. She had realised that, or suspected it.

  The only sensible step was to rush the probate through. Mr Skelding would keep in touch. With that agreed, the Underwoods walked through the court in the amiable October air. Until they got into a taxi in Chancery Lane, Julian did not speak. Then he said: ‘Sinful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ But she had been expecting this. She was on the defensive already.

  ‘Those death duties.’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me they would be as high as this.’

  ‘That I didn’t know. I’m sorry, darling.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have known?’

  ‘It really was rather difficult, don’t you see? I couldn’t find out everything–’

  His face was averted, staring ahead at traffic lights in the Strand.

  ‘What’s the use of a man making money? If they take it all away? Why do people sit down under it?’

  ‘It’s been going on for a long time, you know.’ She was trying to placate him, like a wife in a quarrel with her husband, hoping to bring out a smile.