Porterhouse Blue

Chapter 1

It was a fine Feast. No one, not even the Praelector who was so old he could remember the Feast of ’09, could recall its equal – and Porterhouse is famous for its food. There was Caviar and Soupe a l’Oignon, Turbot au Champagne, Swan stuffed with Widgeon, and finally, in memory of the Founder, Beefsteak from an ox roasted whole in the great fireplace of the College Hall. Each course had a different wine and each place was laid with five glasses. There was Pouilly Fumé with the fish, champagne with the game and the finest burgundy from the College cellars with the beef. For two hours the silver dishes came, announced by the swish of the doors in the Screens as the waiters scurried to and fro, bowed down by the weight of the food and their sense of occasion. For two hours the members of Porterhouse were lost to the world, immersed in an ancient ritual that spanned the centuries. The clatter of knives and forks, the clink of glasses, the rustle of napkins and the shuffling feet of the College servants dimmed the present. Outside the Hall the winter wind swept through the streets of Cambridge. Inside all was warmth and conviviality. Along the tables a hundred candles ensconced in silver candelabra cast elongated shadows of the crouching waiters across the portraits of past Masters that lined the walls. Severe or genial, scholars or politicians, the portraits had one thing in common: they were all rubicund and plump. Porterhouse’s kitchen was long established. Only the new Master differed from his predecessors. Seated at the High Table, Sir Godber Evans picked at his swan with a delicate hesitancy that was in marked contrast to the frank enjoyment of the Fellows. A fixed dyspeptic smile lent a grim animation to Sir Godber’s pale features as if his mind found relief from the present discomforts of the flesh in some remote and wholly intellectual joke.

“An evening to remember, Master,” said the Senior Tutor sebaceously.

“Indeed, Senior Tutor, indeed,” murmured the Master, his private joke enhanced by this unsought prediction.

“This swan is excellent,” said the Dean. “A fine bird and the widgeon gives it a certain gamin flavour.”

“So good of Her Majesty to give Her permission for us to have swan,” the Bursar said. “It’s a privilege very rarely granted, you know.”

“Very rare,” the Chaplain agreed.

“Indeed, Chaplain, indeed,” murmured the Master and crossed his knife and fork. “I think I’ll wait for the beefsteak.” He sat back and studied the faces of the Fellows with fresh distaste. They were, he thought once again, an atavistic lot, and never more so than now with their napkins tucked into their collars, an age-old tradition of the College, and their foreheads greasy with perspiration and their mouths interminably full. How little things had changed since his own days as an undergraduate in Porterhouse. Even the College servants were the same, or so it seemed. The same shuffling gait, the adenoidal open mouths and tremulous lower lips, the same servility that had so offended his sense of social justice as a young man. And still offended it. For forty years Sir Godber had marched beneath the banner of social justice, or at least paraded, and if he had achieved anything (some cynics doubted even that) it was due to the fine sensibility that had been developed by the social chasm that yawned between the College servants and the young gentlemen of Porterhouse. His subsequent career in politics had been marked by the highest aspirations and the least effectuality, some said, since Asquith, and he had piloted through Parliament a series of bills whose aim, to assist the low-paid in one way or another, had resulted in that middle-class subsidy known as the development grant. His “Every Home a Bathroom” campaign had led to the sobriquet Soapy and a knighthood, while his period as Minister of Technological Development had been rewarded by an early retirement and the Mastership of Porterhouse. It was one of the ironies of his appointment that he owed it to the very institution for which he professed most abhorrence. Royal Patronage, and it was perhaps this knowledge that had led him to the decision to end his career as an initiator of social change by a real alteration in the social character and traditions of his old College. That and the awareness that his appointment had met with the adamant opposition of almost all the Fellows. Only the Chaplain had welcomed him, and that was in all likelihood due to his deafness and a mistaken apprehension of Sir Godber’s full name. No, he was Master by default even of his own convictions and by the failure of the Fellows to agree among themselves and choose a new Master by election. Nor had the late Master with his dying breath named his successor, thus exercising the prerogative Porterhouse tradition allows; failing these two expedients it had been left to the Prime Minister, himself in the death throes of an administration, to rid himself of a liability by appointing Sir Godber. In Parliamentary circles, if not in academic ones, the appointment had been greeted with relief. “Something to get your teeth into at last,” one of his Cabinet colleagues had said to the new Master, a reference less to the excellence of the College cuisine than to the intractable conservatism of Porterhouse. In this respect the College is unique. No other Cambridge college can equal Porterhouse in its adherence to the old traditions and to this day Porterhouse men are distinguished (sic) by the cut of their coats and hair and by their steadfast allegiance to gowns. “County come to Town,” and “The Squire to School,” the other colleges used to sneer in the good old days, and the gibe has an element of truth about it still. A sturdy self-reliance except in scholarship is the mark of the Porterhouse man, and it is an exceptional year when Porterhouse is not Head of the River. And yet the College is not rich. Unlike nearly all the other colleges. Porterhouse has few assets to fall back on. A few terraces of dilapidated houses, some farms in Radnorshire, a modicum of shares in run-down industries. Porterhouse is poor. Its annual income amounts to less than £50,000 per annum and to this impecuniosity it owes its enduring reputation as the most socially exclusive college in Cambridge. If Porterhouse is poor, its undergraduates are rich. Where other colleges seek academic excellence in their freshmen. Porterhouse more democratically ignores the inequalities of intellect and concentrates upon the evidence of wealth. Dives In Omnia, reads the college motto, and the Fellows take it literally when examining the candidates. And in return the College offers social cachet and an enviable diet. True, a few scholarships and exhibitions exist which must be filled by men whose talents do not run to means, but those who last soon acquire the hallmarks of a Porterhouse man.

To the Master the memory of his own days as an undergraduate still had the power to send a shudder through him. A scholar in his day, Sir Godber, then plain G. Evans, had come to Porterhouse from a grammar school in Brierley. The experience had affected him profoundly. From his arrival had dated the sense of social inferiority which more than natural gifts had been the driving force of his ambition and which had spurred him on through failures that would have daunted a more talented man. After Porterhouse, he would remind himself on these occasions, a man has nothing left to fear. And certainly the College had left him socially resilient. To Porterhouse he owed his nerve, the nerve a few years later, while still a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Transport, to propose to Mary Lacey, the only daughter of the Liberal Peer, the Earl of Sanderstead: the nerve to repeat the the proposal yearly and to accept her annual refusal with a gracelessness that had gradually convinced her of the depth of his feelings. Yes, looking back over his long career Sir Godber could attribute much to Porterhouse and nothing more so than his determination to change once and for all the character of the college that had made him what he was. Looking down the hall at the faces florid in the candlelight and listening to the loud assertions that passed for conversation, he was strengthened in his resolve. The beefsteak and the burgundy came and went, the brandy trifle and the stilton followed, and finally the port decanter made the rounds. Sir Godber observed and abstained. Only when the ritual of wiping one’s forehead with a napkin dipped in a silver bowl had been performed did he make his move. Rapping his knife handle on the table for silence, the new Master of Porterhouse rose to his feet.

In the Musicians’ Gallery Skullion watched the Feast. Behind him in the darkness the lesser College servants clustered backwardly and gaped at the brilliant scene below them, their pale faces gleaming dankly in the reflected glory of the occasion. As each new dish appeared a muted sigh went up. Their eyes glittered momentarily and glazed again. Only Skullion, the Head Porter, sat surveying the setting with an air of critical propriety. There was no envy in his eyes, only approval at the fitness of the arrangements and the occasional unexpressed rebuke when a waiter spilled the gravy or failed to notice an empty glass waiting to be refilled. It was all as it should be, as it had been since Skullion first came to the College as an under-porter so many years ago. Forty-five Feasts there had been since then and at each Skullion had watched from the Musicians’ Gallery just as his ancestors had watched since the college began. “Skullion eh? That’s an interesting name, Skullion,” old Lord Wurford had said when he first stopped by the lodge in 1928 and saw the new porter there. “A very interesting name. Skullion. A no nonsense damn-my-soul name. There’ve been skullions at Porterhouse since the Founder. You take that from me, there have. It’s in the first accounts. A farthing to the skullion. You be proud of it.” And Skullion had been proud of it as though he had been newly christened by the old Master. Yes those were the days and those were the men. Old Lord Wurford, a no nonsense damn-my-soul master. He’d have enjoyed a feast like this. He wouldn’t have sat up there fiddling with his fork and sipping his wine. He’d have spilt it down his front like he always used to and he’d have guzzled that swan like it was a chicken and thrown the bones over his shoulder. But he’d been a gentleman and a rowing man and he’d stuck to the old Boat Club traditions.

“A bone for the eight in front,” they used to shout.

“What eight? There ain’t no eight in front.”

“A bone for the fish in front.” And over their shoulders the bones would go and if it was a good evening there was meat on them still and damned glad we was to get it. And it was true too. There was no eight in front in those days. Only the fish. In the darkness of the Musicians’ Gallery Skullion smiled at his memories of his youth. All different now. The young gentlemen weren’t the same. The spirit had gone out of them since the war. They got grants now. They worked. Who had ever heard of a Porterhouse man working in the old days? They were too busy drinking and racing. How many of this lot took a cab to Newmarket these days and came back five hundred to the bad and didn’t turn a hair? The Honourable Mr Newland had in ’33. Lived on Q staircase and got himself killed at Boulogne by the Germans. Skullion could remember a score or more like him. Gentlemen they were. No nonsense damn-my-soul gentlemen.

Presently when the main courses were finished and the stilton had made its appearance, the Chef climbed the stairs from the kitchen and took his seat next to Skullion.

“Ah, Chef, a fine Feast. As good as any I can remember,” Skullion told him.

“It’s good of you to say so, Mr Skullion,” said the Chef.

“Better than they deserve,” said Skullion.

“Someone has to keep up the old traditions, Mr Skullion.”

“True, Chef, very true,” Skullion nodded. They sat in silence watching the waiters clearing the dishes and the port moving ritually round.

“And what is your opinion of the new Master, Mr Skullion?” the Chef asked.

Skullion raised his eyes to the painted timbers of the ceiling and shook his head sadly.

“A sad day for the College, Chef, a sad day,” he sighed.

“Not a very popular gentleman?” the Chef hazarded.

“Not a gentleman,” Skullion pronounced.

“Ah,” said the Chef. Sentence on the new Master had been passed. In the kitchen he would ever be the victim of social obloquy. “Not a gentleman, eh? And him with his knighthood too.”

Skullion looked at him sternly. “Gentlemen don’t depend on knighthoods, Cheffy. Gentlemen is gentlemen,” Skullion told him, and the Chef, suitably rebuked, nodded. Mr Skullion wasn’t somebody you argued with, not about matters of social etiquette, not in Porterhouse. Not if you knew what was good for you. Mr Skullion was a power in the College.

They sat silently mourning the passing of the old Master and the debasement of college life which the coming of a new Master, who was not a gentleman, brought with it.

“Still,” said Skullion finally, “it was a fine Feast. I can’t remember a better.” He said it half-grudgingly, out of respect for the past, and was about to go downstairs when the Master rapped on the High Table for silence and stood up. In the Musicians’ Gallery Skullion and the Chef stared in horror at the spectacle. A speech at the Feast? No. Never. The precedence of five hundred and thirty-two Feasts forbade it.

Sir Godber stared down at the heads turned towards him so incredulously. He was satisfied. The stunned silence, the stares of disbelief, the tension were what he had wanted. And not a single snigger. Sir Godber smiled.

“Fellows of Porterhouse, members of College,” he began with the practised urbanity of a politician, “as your new Master I feel that this is a suitable occasion to put before you some new thoughts about the role of institutions such as this in the modern world.” Calculated, every insult delicately, calculated. Porterhouse an institution, new, modern, role. The words, the clichés denied the atmosphere. Sir Godber smiled. His sense of grievance was striking home. “After such a meal,” (in the gallery the Chef shied) “it is surely not inappropriate to consider the future and the changes that must surely be made if we are to play our part in the contemporary world…”

The platitudes rolled out effortlessly, meaninglessly but with effect. Nobody in the hall listened to the words. Sir Godber could have announced the Second Coming without demur. It was enough that he was there, defying tradition and consciously defiling his trust. Porterhouse could remember nothing to equal this. Not even sacrilege but utter blasphemy. And awed by the spectacle, Porterhouse sat in silence.

“And so let me end with this promise,” Sir Godber wound up his appalling peroration, “Porterhouse will expand. Porterhouse will become what it once was – a house of learning. Porterhouse will change.” He stopped and for the last time smiled and then, before the tension broke, turned on his heel and swept out into the Combination Room. Behind him with a sudden expiration of breath the Feast broke up. Someone laughed nervously, the short bark of the Porterhouse laugh, and then the benches were pushed back and they flooded out of the hall, their voices flowing out before them into the Court, into the cold night air. It had begun to snow. On the Fellows’ lawn Sir Godber Evans increased his pace. He had heard that bark and the sounds of the benches and the nervous energy he had expended had left him weak. He had challenged the College deliberately. He had said what he wanted to say. He had asserted himself. There was nothing they could do now. He had risked the stamping feet and the hisses and they had not come but now, with the snow falling round him on the Fellows’ lawn, he was suddenly afraid. He hurried on and closed the door of the Master’s Lodge with a sigh of relief.

As the hall emptied and as even the Fellows drifted through the door of the Combination Room, the Chaplain rose to say Grace. Deaf to the world and the blasphemies of Sir Godber, the Chaplain gave thanks. Only Skullion, standing alone in the Musicians’ Gallery, heard him and his face was dark with anger.