The Masters

1: News after a Medical Examination

The snow had only just stopped, and in the court below my rooms all sounds were dulled. There were few sounds to hear, for it was early in January, and the college was empty and quiet; I could just make out the footsteps of the porter, as he passed beneath the window on his last round of the night. Now and again his keys clinked, and the clink reached me after the pad of his footsteps had been lost in the snow.

I had drawn my curtains early that evening and not moved out. The kitchens had sent up a meal, and I had eaten it as I read by the fire. The fire had been kept high and bright all day; though it was nearly ten o’clock now, I stoked it again, shovelling coal up the back of the chimney, throwing it on so it would burn for hours. It was scorchingly hot in front of the fire, and warm, cosy, shielded, in the zone of the two armchairs and the sofa which formed an island of comfort round the fireplace. Outside that zone, as one went towards the walls of the lofty medieval room, the draughts were bitter. In a blaze of firelight, which shone into the sombre corners, the panelling on the walls glowed softly, almost rosily, but no warmth reached as far. So that, on a night like this, one came to treat most of the room as the open air, and hurried back to the cosy island in front of the fireplace, the pool of light from the reading lamp on the mantelpiece, the radiance which was more pleasant because of the cold air which one had just escaped.

I was comfortable in my armchair, relaxed and content. There was no need to move. I was reading so intently that I did not notice the steps on the staircase, until there came a quick repeated knock on my door, and Jago came in.

‘Thank the Lord I’ve found you,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re in!’

Outside, on the landing, he kicked the snow from his shoes and then came back to the armchair opposite mine. He was still wearing his gown, and I guessed that they had sat a long time in the combination room. He apologized for disturbing me. He apologized too much, for a man who was often so easy.

But sometimes he found the first moments of a meeting difficult; that was true with everyone he met, certainly with me, though we liked each other. I had got used to his excessive apologies and his over-cordial greetings. He made them that night, though he was excited, though he was grave and tense with his news.

He was a man of fifty, and some, seeing that he had gone both bald and grey, thought he looked older. But the first physical impression was deceptive. He was tall and thick about the body, with something of a paunch, but he was also small-boned, active, light on his feet. In the same way, his head was massive, his forehead high and broad between the fringes of fair hair; but no one’s face changed its expression quicker, and his smile was brilliant. Behind the thick lenses, his eyes were small and intensely bright, the eyes of a young and lively man. At a first glance, people might think he looked a senator. It did not take them long to discover how mercurial he was. His temper was as quick as his smile; in everything he did his nerves seemed on the surface. In fact, people forgot all about the senator and began to complain that his sympathy and emotion flowed too easily. Many of them disliked his love of display. Yet they were affected by the depth of his feeling. Nearly everyone recognized that, though it took some insight to perceive that he was not only a man of deep feeling, but also one of passionate pride.

At this time — it was 1937 — he had been Senior Tutor of the college for ten years. I had met him three years before, in 1934, when Francis Getliffe, knowing that I wished to spend most of my time in academic law, proposed to the college that they should give me a fellowship. Jago had supported me (with his quick imagination, he guessed the reason that led me to change my career when I was nearly thirty), and ever since had borne me the special grateful affection that one feels towards a protégé.

‘I’m relieved to find you in, Eliot,’ he said, looking at me across the fireplace. ‘I had to see you tonight. I shouldn’t have rested if I’d had to wait until the morning.’

‘What has happened?’

‘You know,’ said Jago, ‘that they were examining the Master today?’

I nodded. ‘I was going to ask at the Lodge tomorrow morning.’

‘I can tell you,’ said Jago. ‘I wish I couldn’t!’

He paused, and went on: ‘He went into hospital last night. They put a tube down him this morning and sent him home. The results came through just before dinner. It is utterly hopeless. At the very most — they give him six months.’

‘What is it?’

‘Cancer. Absolutely inoperable.’ Jago’s face was dark with pain. He said: ‘I hope that when my time comes it will come in a kinder way.’

We sat silent. I thought of the Master, with his confidential sarcasms, his spare and sophisticated taste, his simple religion. I thought of the quarrels he and Jago had had for so many years.

Though I had not spoken, Jago said: ‘It’s intolerable to me, Eliot, to think of Vernon Royce going like this. I can’t pretend that everything has always been easy between us. You know that, don’t you?’

I nodded.

‘Yet he went out of his way to help me last term,’ said Jago. ‘You know, my wife was ill, and I was utterly distracted. I couldn’t help her, I was useless, I was a burden to everyone and to myself. Then one afternoon the Master asked me if I would like to go a walk with him. And he’d asked me for a very definite reason. He wanted to tell me how anxious he was about my wife and how much he thought of her. He must have known that I’ve always felt she wasn’t appreciated enough here. It’s been a grief to me. He said all he’d set out to say in a couple of dozen words on the way to Waterbeach, and it touched me very much. Somehow one’s dreadfully vulnerable through those one loves.’ Suddenly he smiled at me with great kindness. ‘You know that as well as anyone alive, Eliot. I felt it when you let me meet your wife. When she’s better, you must ask me to Chelsea again. You know how much I enjoyed it. She’s gone through too much, hasn’t she?’ He went on: ‘That afternoon made a difference to all I felt for Royce. Do you wonder that it’s intolerable for me to hear this news tonight?’

He burst out: ‘And do you know? I went for another walk with him exactly a month ago. I was under the weather, and he jogged along as he always used to, and I was very tired. I should have said, I believe anyone would have said, that he was the healthier man.’

He paused, and added: ‘Tonight we’ve heard his sentence.’

He was moved by a feeling for the dying man powerful, quick, imaginative, and deep. At the same time he was immersed in the drama, showing the frankness which embarrassed so many. No man afraid of expressing emotion could have been so frank.

‘Yes, we’ve heard his sentence,’ said Jago. ‘But there is one last thing which seems to me more ghastly than the rest. For there is someone who has not heard it.’

He paused. Then he said: ‘That is the man himself. They are not going to tell him yet.’

I exclaimed.

‘For some reason that seems utterly inhuman,’ said Jago, ‘these doctors have not told him. He’s been given to understand that in two or three months he will be perfectly well. When any of us see him, we are not to let him know any different.’

He looked into my eyes, and then into the fire. For a moment I left him, opened my door, went out into the glacial air, turned into the gyp room, collected together a bottle of whisky, a syphon, a jug of water. The night had gone colder; the jug felt as though the water inside had been iced. As I brought the tray back to the fireside, I found Jago standing up. He was standing up, with his elbows on the mantelpiece and his head bent. He did not move while I put the tray on the little table by my chair. Then he straightened himself and said, looking down at me: ‘This news has shaken me, Eliot. I can’t think of everything it means.’ He sat down. His cheeks were tinged by the fire. His expression was set and brooding. A weight of anxiety hung on each of those last words.

I poured out the whisky. After he took his glass, he held it for an instant to the firelight, and through the liquid watched the image of the flames.

‘This news has shaken me,’ he repeated. ‘I can’t think of everything it means. Can you,’ he asked me suddenly, ‘think of everything it means?’

I shook my head. ‘It has come as a shock,’ I said.

‘You haven’t thought of any consequences at all?’ He gazed at me intently. In his eyes there was a question, almost an appeal.

‘Not yet.’

He waited. Then he said: ‘I had to break the news to one or two of our colleagues in hall tonight. I hadn’t thought of it myself; but they pointed out there was a consequence we couldn’t put aside.’

He waited again, then said quickly: ‘In a few weeks, in a few months at most, the college will have to elect a new Master.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘When the time arrives, we shall have to do it in a hurry,’ said Jago. ‘I suppose before then we shall have made up our minds whom we are going to elect.’

I had known, for minutes past, that this was coming: I had not wanted to talk of it that night. Jago was longing for me to say that he ought to be the next Master, that my own mind was made up, that I should vote for him. He had longed for me to say it without prompting; he had not wanted even to mention the election. It was anguish to him to make the faintest hint without response. Yet he was impelled to go on, he could not stop. It harassed me to see this proud man humiliating himself.

Yet that night I could not do as he wanted. A few years before I should have said yes on the spot. I liked him, he had captured my imagination, he was a deeper man than his rivals. But my spontaneity had become masked by now; I had been too much knocked about, I had grown to be guarded.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘we’ve got a certain amount of time.’

‘This business in the Lodge may go quicker even than they threaten,’ said Jago. ‘And it would be intolerable to have to make a rush election with the college utterly divided as to what it wants.’

‘I don’t see,’ I said slowly, ‘why we should be so much divided.’

‘We often are,’ said Jago with a sudden smile. ‘If fourteen men are divided about most things, they’re not specially likely to agree about choosing a new Master.’

‘They’re not,’ I agreed. I added: ‘I’m afraid the fourteen will have become thirteen.’

Jago inclined his head. A little later, in a sharp staccato manner, he said: ‘I should like you to know something, Eliot. It was suggested to me tonight that I must make a personal decision. I must decide whether I can let my own name be considered.’

‘I’ve always taken it for granted,’ I said, ‘that whenever the Mastership fell vacant you’d be asked that.’

‘It’s extraordinarily friendly of you to say so,’ he burst out, ‘but, do you know, before tonight I’ve scarcely thought of it for a single moment.’

Sometimes he was quite naked to life, I thought; sometimes he concealed himself from his own eyes.

Soon after, he looked straight at me and said: ‘I suppose it’s too early to ask whether you’ve any idea whom you prefer yourself?’

Slowly, I raised my eyes to meet his.

‘Tonight is a bit too early. I will come and tell you as soon as I am certain.’

‘I understand.’ Jago’s smile was hurt, but warm and friendly. ‘I understand. I shall trust you to tell me, whoever you prefer.’

After that we talked casually and easily; it was not till the college clock struck midnight that Jago left. As he went down the stairs, I walked across to my window and pulled the curtains. The sky had cleared, the moon was shining on the snow. The lines of the building opposite stood out simple and clear; on the steep roofs the snow was brilliant. All the windows were dark under the moon, except for the great bedroom of the Lodge, where the Master lay. There a light glowed, warm, tawny, against the stark brightness of the night.

The last chimes of twelve were still falling on the court. On the ground the snow was scarcely marked. Across it Jago was walking fast towards the gate. His gown blew behind him as he moved with light steps through the bitter cold.

2: The Master Talks of the Future

When I woke next morning, the bedroom seemed puzzlingly bright. Round the edges of the blind a white sheen gleamed. Then, half-awake, I felt the chill against my face, remembered the snow, drew the bedclothes higher. Like a pain returning after sleep, the heavy thought came back that that morning I was obliged to call at the Lodge.

The quarters chimed, first from a distance away, then from Great St Mary’s, then from the college clock, then from a college close by. The last whirr and clang were not long over when, soft-footedly, Bidwell came in. The blind flew up, the room was all a-glare; Bidwell studied his own watch, peered at the college clock, uttered his sacramental phrase: ‘That’s nine o’clock, sir.’

I muttered. From beneath the bedclothes I could see his rubicund cunning peasant face, open and yet sly. He said: ‘It’s a sharp old morning, sir. Do you lie warm enough in bed?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It was true. That bedroom, niche-like and narrow as a monastic cell, had not been dried or heated in 500 years. When I returned to it from some of our food and wine, it seemed a curious example of the mixture of luxury and bizarre discomfort in which the college lived. Yet, in time, one missed the contrast between the warmth in bed and the frigid air one breathed, and it was not so easy to sleep elsewhere.

I put off ringing up the Lodge until the middle of the morning, but at last I did so. I asked for Lady Muriel (the Master came from a Scottish professional family; in middle age he married the daughter of an earl), and soon heard her voice. It was firm and loud. ‘We shall be glad to see you, Mr Eliot. And I know my husband will be.’

I walked across the court to the Lodge, and in the drawing-room found Joan, the Royces’ daughter. She interrupted me, as I tried to sympathize. She said: ‘The worst thing is this make-believe. Why don’t they tell him the truth?’

She was nearly twenty. In girlhood her face had been sullen; she was strong and clever, and longed only to be pretty, But now she was just at the age when the heaviness was lifting, and all but she could see that her good looks would soon show through.

That morning she was frowning in her distress. She was so direct that it was harder to comfort her.

Her mother entered; the thick upright figure bore towards us over the deep carpet, past the Chinese screens, past the Queen Anne chairs, past the lavish bric-a-brac of the long and ornate drawing-room.

‘Good morning, Mr Eliot. I know that we all wish this were a happier occasion.’

Her manner was authoritative and composed, her eyes looked steadily into mine. They were tawny, full and bold; in their boldness lay a curious innocence.

‘I only learned late last night,’ I said. ‘I did not want to bother you then.’

‘We only learned ourselves before dinner,’ said Lady Muriel. ‘We had not expected anything so drastic. There was a great deal to decide in a short time.’

‘I cannot think of anything I can do,’ I said. ‘But if there is—’

‘You are very kind, Mr Eliot. The college is being most kind. There may be matters connected with my husband’s manuscripts where Roy Calvert could help us. In the meantime, you can do one great service. I hope you’ve already been told that my husband does not realize the true position. He believes that the doctors have overhauled him and found him pretty sound. He has been told that he has the trace of an ulcer, and he believes he will soon be well. I ask you to think before every word, so that you leave him with the same conviction.’

‘It won’t be easy, Lady Muriel,’ I said. ‘But I’ll try.’

‘You will understand that I am already acting as I ask you to act. It is not easy for me.’

There was grandeur in her ramrod back. She did not give an inch. ‘I am positive,’ she said, ‘that we are doing right. It is the last comfort we can give him. He can have a month or two in peace.’

‘I completely disagree,’ Joan cried. ‘Do you think comfort is all he wants? Do you think he would take comfort at that price?’

‘My dear Joan. I have listened to your views—’

‘Then for God’s sake don’t go on with this farce.’ The girl was torn with feeling, the cry welled out of her. ‘Give him his dignity back.’

‘His dignity is safe,’ said Lady Muriel. She got up. ‘I must apologize to you, Mr Eliot, for forcing a family disagreement upon you. You will not wish to hear more of it. Perhaps you would care to see the Master now.’

As I followed Lady Muriel upstairs, I thought about her; how she was strong and unperceptive, snobbish and coarse-fibred, downright and brave. Beneath the brassy front there lingered still an inarticulate desire for affection. But she had not the insight to see why, even in her own family, she threw it away.

She went before me into the bedroom, which was as wide, and nearly as long, as the drawing-room below. Her words rang loudly in the great room. ‘Mr Eliot has come to pay you a visit. I’ll leave you together.’

‘This is nice of you,’ came the Master’s voice from the bed. It sounded exactly as I had last heard it, before his illness — brisk, cheerful, intimate. It sounded like the voice of a gay and healthy man.

‘I’ve told Mr Eliot that you ought to be back at college meetings by the end of term. But he mustn’t tire you this morning.’ Lady Muriel spoke in the same tone to me. ‘I shall leave you with the Master for half an hour.’

She left us. ‘Do come and sit down,’ said the Master, and I brought a chair by the bedside. He was lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling, where there was embossed a gigantic coloured bas-relief of the college arms. He looked a little thinner, but the cheeks were still full; his dark hair was only just turning grey over the ears, his comely face was little lined, his lips were fresh. He was sixty-two, but that morning he looked much younger. He was in extraordinarily high spirits.

‘It is a relief, you know,’ he said. ‘I’d imagined this might be something with an unpleasant end. I may have told you that I don’t think much of doctors — but I distinctly enjoyed their conversation last night.’

He smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, I feel a little more tired than you’d imagine. But I take it that’s natural, after those people have been rummaging about. And I suppose this ulcer has been tiring me and taking away my appetite. I’ve got to lie here while it heals. I expect to get a little stronger every day.’

‘You may get some intermissions.’ From my chair I could see over the high bed rail, out of the single window; from the bed there was no view but the cloudless sky, but I could see most of the court under snow. My eyes stayed there. ‘You mustn’t worry too much if you have setbacks.’

‘I shan’t worry for a long time,’ he said. ‘You know, when I was nervous about the end of this, I was surprised to find how inquisitive one is. I did so much want to know whether the college would ever make up its mind about the beehives in the garden. And I did want to know whether our old friend Gay’s son would really get the job at Edinburgh. It will be remarkable if he does. It will reflect the greatest credit on Mrs Gay. Between you and me’ — he passed into his familiar, intimate whisper — ‘it’s an error to think that eminent scholars are very likely to be clever men.’

He chuckled boyishly. ‘I shouldn’t have liked not to know the answers. And I shouldn’t have liked not to finish that little book on the early heresies.’

The Master had spent much of his life working on comparative religion. Oddly, it seemed to have made not the slightest difference to his faith, which had stayed unchanged, as it were in a separate compartment, since he first learned it as a child.

‘How long will it take you?’

‘Only a couple of years. I shall ask Roy Calvert to write some of the chapters.’

He chuckled again. ‘And I should have hated not to see that young man’s magnum opus come out next year. Do you remember the trouble we had to get him elected, Eliot? Some of our friends show a singular instinct for preferring mediocrity. Like elects like, of course. Or, between you and me,’ he whispered, ‘dull men elect dull men. I’m looking forward to Roy Calvert’s book. Since the Germans dined here, our friends have an uncomfortable suspicion that he’s out of the ordinary. But when his book appears, they will be told that he’s the most remarkable scholar this society has contained for fifty years. Will they be grateful to you and me and good old Arthur Brown for backing him. Will they be grateful, Eliot?’

His laugh was mischievous, but his voice was becoming weaker.

As I got up to go, he said: ‘I hope you’ll stay longer next time. I told you, I expect to get a little stronger every day.’

After I had said goodbye to Lady Muriel and Joan, I let myself out of the Lodge into the sunny winter morning. I felt worn out.

In the court I saw Chrystal coming towards me. He was a very big man, both tall and strongly muscled. He walked soft-footed and well-balanced.

‘So you’ve seen him this morning?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘What do you think of it?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry myself,’ said Chrystal. He was crisp and brusque, and people often thought him hectoring. This morning he was at his sharpest. From his face alone one would have known that he found it easy to give orders. His nose was beak-like, his gaze did not flicker.

‘I’m sorry myself,’ he repeated. I knew that he was moved. ‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘I shall have to do the same.’ He looked at me with his commanding stare.

‘He’s very tired,’ I said.

‘I shouldn’t think of staying.’

We walked a few steps back towards the Lodge. Chrystal burst out: ‘It’s lamentable. Well, we shall have to find a successor, I suppose. I can’t imagine anyone succeeding Royce. Still, we’ve got to have someone. Jago came to see me this morning.’

He gave me a sharp glance. Then he said fiercely: ‘It’s lamentable. Well, it’s no use our standing here.’

I did not mind his rudeness. For, of all the college, he was the one most affected by the news of the Master. It was not that he was an intimate friend; in the past year, apart from the formal dinners at the Lodge, they had not once been in each other’s houses; it was a long time, back in the days when Chrystal was Royce’s pupil, since they spent an evening together. But Chrystal had hero-worshipped the older man in those days, and still did. It was strange to feel, but this bustling, dominating, successful man had a great capacity for hero-worship. He was a power in the college, and would have been in any society. He had force, decision, the liking for action; he revelled in command. He was nearly fifty now, successful, within the modest limits he set himself, in all he undertook. In the college he was Dean (a lay official of standing, though by this time the functions were dying away); in the university he was well known, sat on the Council of the Senate, was always being appointed to committees and syndicates. He made a more than usually comfortable academic income. He had three grown-up daughters, and had married each of them well. He adored his wife. But he was still capable of losing himself in hero-worship, and the generous, humble impulse often took the oddest forms. Sometimes he fixed on a business magnate, or an eminent soldier, or a politician; he was drawn to success and power on the grand scale — to success and power, which, in his own sphere, he knew so well how to get.

But the oldest and strongest of his worships was for Royce. That was why he was uncontrollably curt to me in the court that morning.

‘I must get on,’ he said. ‘We shall have to find a successor. I shall have to think out who I want. I’ll have a word with Brown. And I should like five minutes with you.’

As we parted, he said: ‘There’s something else Brown and I want to talk to you about. The way I see it, it’s more important than the next Master.’

3: A Small Party in the Combination Room

The combination room glowed warm when I entered it that evening. No one had yet come in, and the lights were out; but the fire flared in the open grate, threw shadows on to the curtains, picked out the glasses on the oval table, already set for the after-dinner wine. I took a glass of sherry and an evening paper, and settled myself in an armchair by the fire. A decanter of claret, I noticed, was standing at the head of the table; there were only six places laid, and a great stretch of the mahogany shone polished and empty.

Jago and Winslow came in nearly together. Winslow threw his square into one armchair and sat in another himself; he gave me his mordant, not unfriendly grin.

‘May I pour you some sherry, Bursar?’ said Jago, not at ease with him.

‘If you please. If you please.’

‘I’m dreadfully afraid I’ve spilt most of it,’ said Jago, beginning to apologize.

‘It’s so good of you to bring it,’ said Winslow.

Just then the butler entered with the dining-list and presented it to Winslow.

‘We are a very small party tonight,’ he said. ‘Ourselves, the worthy Brown and Chrystal, and young Luke.’ He glanced at the decanter on the table. He added: ‘We are a small party, but I gather that one of us is presenting a bottle. I am prepared to bet another bottle that we owe this to the worthy Brown. I wonder what remarkable event he is celebrating now.’

Jago shook his head. ‘Will you have more sherry, Bursar?’

‘If you please, my dear boy. If you please.’

I watched him as he drank. His profile was jagged, with his long nose and nutcracker jaw. His eyes were hooded with heavy lids, and there were hollows in his cheeks and temples that brought back to me, by contrast, the smooth full face of the Master — who was two or three years younger. But Winslow’s skin was ruddy, and his long, gangling body moved as willingly as in his prime.

His manners were more formal than ours, even when his bitter humour had broken loose. He was wealthy, and it was in his style to say that he was the grandson of a draper; but the draper was a younger son of a county family. Lady Muriel was intensely snobbish and Winslow had never got on with the Master — nevertheless, he was the only one of the older fellows whom she occasionally, as a gesture of social acceptance, managed to call by his Christian name.

He had a savage temper and a rude tongue, and was on bad terms with most of his colleagues. The Master had quarrelled with him long before — there were several versions of the occasion. Between him and Jago there was an absolute incompatibility. Chrystal disliked him unforgivingly. He had little to his credit. He had been a fine classic in his youth and had published nothing. As Bursar he was conscientious, but had no flair. Yet all the college felt that he was a man of stature, and responded despite themselves if he cared to notice them.

He was finishing his second glass of sherry. Jago, who was trying to placate him, said deferentially: ‘Did you get my note on the closed exhibitions?’

‘Thank you, yes.’

‘I hope it had everything you wanted.’

Winslow glanced at him under his heavy lids. For a moment he paused. Then he said: ‘It may very well have done. It may very well have done.’ He paused again. ‘I should be so grateful if you’d explain it to me some time.’

‘I struggled extremely hard to make it clear,’ said Jago, laughing so as not to be provoked.

‘I have a feeling that clarity usually comes when one struggles a little less and reflects a little more.’

At that Jago’s hot temper flared up.

‘No one has ever accused me of not being able to make myself understood—’

‘It must be my extreme stupidity,’ said Winslow. ‘But, do you know, when I read your notes — a fog descends.’

Jago burst out: ‘There are times, Bursar, when you make me feel as though I were being sent up to the headmaster for bad work.’

‘There are times, my dear Senior Tutor, when that is precisely the impression I wish to make.’

Angrily, Jago snatched up a paper, but as he did so Brown and Chrystal came through the door. Brown’s eyes were alert at once behind their spectacles; the spectacles sat on a broad high-coloured face, his body was cushioned and comfortable; his eyes looked from Jago to Winslow, eyes that were sharp, peering, kindly, and always on the watch. He knew at once that words had passed.

‘Good evening to you,’ said Winslow, unperturbed.

Chrystal nodded and went over to Jago; Brown talked placidly to Winslow and me; the bell began to ring for hall. Just as the butler threw open the door, and announced to Winslow that dinner was served, Luke came rapidly in, and joined our file out of the combination room, on to the dais. The hall struck cold, and we waited impatiently for the long grace to end. The hall struck more than ever cold, when one looked down it, and saw only half a dozen undergraduates at the far end; for it was still the depth of the vacation, and there were only a few scholars up, just as there were only the six of us at the high table.

Winslow took his seat at the head, and others manoeuvred for position; Jago did not want to sit by him after their fracas, so that I found myself on Winslow’s right hand. Jago sat by me, and Luke on the same side: opposite was Brown and then his friend Chrystal, who had also avoided being Winslow’s neighbour.

Brown smiled surreptitiously at me, his good-natured face a little pained, for though he could master these embarrassments he was a man who liked his friends to be at ease: then he began to talk to Winslow about the college silver. My attention strayed, I found myself studying one of the portraits on the linenfold. Then I heard Jago’s voice, unrecognizably different from when he replied to Winslow, talking to young Luke.

‘You look as though things are going well in the laboratory. I believe you’ve struck oil.’

I looked past Jago as Luke replied: ‘I hope so. I had an idea over Christmas.’ He had been elected a fellow only a few months before, and was twenty-four. Intelligence shone from his face, which was fresh, boyish, not yet quite a man’s; as he talked of his work, the words tripped over themselves, the west-country burr got stronger, a deep blush suffused his cheeks. He was said to be one of the most promising of nuclear physicists.

‘Can you explain it to a very ignorant layman?’

‘I can give you some sort of notion. But I’ve only just started on this idea.’ He blushed again cheerfully. ‘I’m afraid to say too much about it just yet.’

He began expounding his subject to Jago. Chrystal made an aside to Brown, and asked across the table if I was free next morning. Winslow heard the question, and turned his sardonic glance on to Chrystal.

‘The college is becoming quite a hive of activity,’ he said.

‘Term starts next week,’ said Chrystal. ‘I can’t leave things till then.’

‘But surely,’ said Winslow, ‘the appearance of the young gentlemen oughtn’t to obstruct the really serious purposes of our society? Such as rolling a log in the right direction?’

‘I’m sure,’ Brown intervened, quickly but blandly, ‘that the Dean would never roll a log across the table. We’ve learned from our seniors to choose a quieter place.’

We were waiting for the savoury, and someone chuckled.

‘By the way,’ Winslow looked down the table, ‘I noticed that a bottle of claret has been ordered in the combination room. May I enquire whom we are indebted to?’

‘I’m afraid I’m responsible.’ Brown’s voice was soothing. ‘I ought to have asked permission to present a bottle, but I rather anticipated that. And I ought to have asked whether people would have preferred port, but I found out from the kitchens who were dining, and I thought I knew everyone’s taste. I believe you always prefer claret nowadays?’ he said to Winslow.

‘If you please. If you please.’ He asked, the caustic note just on the edge of his voice: ‘And what remarkable event do you wish to celebrate?’

‘Why, the remarkable event I wish to celebrate,’ said Brown, ‘is the appearance of Mr R S Winslow in the Trial Eights. I don’t think anyone has got in before me. And I know we should all feel that when the Bursar has a son at the college, and the young man distinguishes himself, we want the pleasure of marking the occasion.’

Winslow was taken right aback. He looked down at the table, and gave a curiously shy, diffident smile.

‘I must say this is handsome of you, Brown,’ he said.

‘It’s a privilege,’ said Brown.

We returned to the combination room, and took our places for wine. The table could hold twenty, and we occupied only one end of it; but the room was intimate, the glasses sparkled in the warm light, the silver shone, the reflection of the decanter was clear as it passed over the polished table. Luke filled our glasses, and, since Winslow’s health was to be drunk, it was the duty of Jago, as the next senior, to propose it. He did it with warmth, his face alight. He was full of grace and friendliness, Brown’s steady cordiality had infected him, he was at ease within this group at the table as he never could be with Winslow alone. ‘The Bursar and his son,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Senior Tutor. Thank you all. Thank you.’ Winslow lifted his glass to Brown. As we drank Brown’s health, I caught his dark, vigilant eye. He had tamed Winslow for the moment: he was showing Jago at his best, which he very much wanted to do: he had brought peace to the table. He was content, and sipped his claret with pleasure. He loved good fellowship. He loved the arts of management. He did not mind if no one else noticed his skill. He was a very shrewd and far-sighted man.

He was used to being thought of as just a nice old buffer. ‘Good old Brown’, the Master called him. ‘The worthy Brown’, said Winslow, with caustic dismissal: ‘Uncle Arthur’ was his nickname among the younger fellows. Yet he was actually the youngest of the powerful middle-aged block in the college. Jago was just over fifty; Chrystal, Brown’s constant friend and ally, was forty-eight, while Brown himself, though he had been elected a fellow before Chrystal, was still not quite forty-six. He was a historian by subject, and was Jago’s junior colleague as the second tutor.

Winslow was talking, with a veneer of indifference, about his son. ‘He’ll never get into the boat,’ he said. ‘He’s thought to be lucky to have gone as far as this. It would be pleasant for his sake if they made another mistake in his favour. Poor boy, it’s the only notoriety he’s ever likely to have. He’s rather a stupid child.’

His tone was intended to stay caustic — it turned indulgent, sad, anxiously fond. Brown said: ‘I’m not prepared to agree. One might say that he doesn’t find examinations very congenial.’

Winslow smiled.

‘Mind you, Tutor,’ he said with asperity, ‘it’s important for the child that he gets through his wretched tripos this June. He’s thought to stand a chance of the colonial service if he can scrape a third. Of course, I’m totally ignorant of these matters, but I can’t see why our colonies should need third-class men with some capacity for organized sports. However, one can forgive the child for not taking that view. It’s important for his sake that he shouldn’t disgrace himself in June.’

‘I hope we’ll get him through,’ said Brown. ‘I think we’ll just about manage it.’

‘We’ll get him through,’ said Jago.

‘I’m sorry that my family should be such a preposterous nuisance,’ said Winslow.

The wine went round again. As he put down his glass, Winslow asked: ‘Is there any news of the Master tonight?’

‘There can’t be any,’ said Chrystal.

Winslow raised his eyebrows.

‘There can’t be any,’ Chrystal repeated, ‘until he dies. It’s no use. We’ve got to get used to it.’

The words were so curt and harsh that we were silent. In a moment Chrystal spoke again: ‘We’ve got to get used to him dying up there. That is the fact.’

‘And him thinking he will soon be well,’ Jago said. ‘I saw him this evening, and I tell you, I found it very hard to sit by.’

Chrystal said: ‘Yes. I’ve seen him myself.’

‘He’s quite certain he’ll soon be well,’ Jago said. ‘That is the most appalling thing.’

‘You would have told him?’

‘Without the shadow of a doubt.’

‘I’m surprised that you’re so convinced,’ said Winslow, ready to disagree.

‘I am utterly convinced.’

‘I don’t like to suggest it, but I’m inclined to think that Dr Jago may be wrong.’ Winslow glanced round the table. ‘If I’d had to make Lady Muriel’s decision, I think I might have done the same. I should have thought: this will mean for him a few days or weeks of happiness. It’s the last happiness he’ll get — he ought to have it if it’s in my power. Do any of you share my view?’ Winslow’s eyes fell on Chrystal, who did not reply: then on Brown, who said: ‘I haven’t thought it out.’

‘No,’ said Jago. ‘You’re presuming where no one has a right to presume.’ His tone was deep and simple, no trace of awkwardness left. ‘There are a few things no one should dare to decide for another man. There are not many serious things in a man’s life — but one of them is how he shall meet his death. You can’t be tactful about death: all you can do is leave a man alone.’

We were all watching him.

‘Winslow,’ Jago went on, ‘you and I do not often see things with the same eyes. Neither you nor I have been friendly with Royce through most of our lives. We know that, and this is not a good time to pretend. But there is one thing we should never have disagreed about. We had a respect for him. We should have admitted that he always faced the truth, even when it was grim. We should have said that he was the last man among us to be drugged by lies when he was coming near his death.’

Winslow was staring at his empty glass. Chrystal broke the silence: ‘You’ve said things I should like to have said myself.’

Silence came to the table again. This time Brown spoke: ‘How long will it be before they have to tell him?’

‘Three or four months,’ I said. ‘It may be sooner. They say it’s certain to be over in six months.’

‘I can’t help thinking of his wife,’ said Brown, ‘when she has to break the news.’

‘I’m thinking of the Master,’ said Chrystal, ‘the day he hears.’

The coffee was brought in. As Winslow lit a cigar, Brown took the chance of bringing them to earth.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that the position about the Master will have to be reported to the next college meeting?’

‘I’m clear that it must,’ said Chrystal.

‘We have one, of course,’ said Brown, ‘on the first Monday of full term. I feel that we’re bound to discuss the Mastership. It’s very painful and delicate, but the college has got to face the situation.’

‘We can’t elect while the Master is alive. But the college will have to make up its mind in advance,’ said Chrystal.

Winslow’s temper was not smoothed. He was irritated by Jago’s effect on the party, he was irritated by the competence with which Chrystal and Brown were taking charge. He said deliberately: ‘There’s a good deal to be said for discussing the wretched business this term. We can bring it to a point in some directions.’ His eyes flickered at Jago, then he turned to Brown as though thinking aloud. ‘There are one or two obvious questions we ought to be able to decide. Are we going outside for a Master, or are we going to choose one of ourselves?’ He paused, and said in his most courteous tone: ‘I think several of the society will agree that there are good reasons for going outside this time.’

I caught sight of Luke leaning forward, his face aglow with excitement. He was a sanguine and discreet young man, he had scarcely spoken at the table that night, he was not going to intervene now of all times, when Winslow was deliberately, with satisfaction, undermining Jago’s hopes. But I thought that little had escaped young Luke: as acutely as anyone there, he was feeling the antagonism that crackled through the comfort-laden room.

‘I didn’t mean,’ said Brown, roundly but with a trace of hurry, ‘that the college could go nearly as far as that at the present time. In fact I’m very dubious whether it would be proper for a college meeting to do more than hear the facts about the Master’s condition. That gives us a chance to talk the matter over privately. I’m afraid I should deprecate doing more.’

‘I agree with Brown,’ said Chrystal. ‘I shall propose that we take steps accordingly.’

‘You believe in private enterprise, Dean?’ Winslow asked.

‘I think the Dean and I believe,’ said Brown, ‘that with a little private discussion, the college may be able to reach a very substantial measure of agreement.’

‘I must say that that is a beautiful prospect,’ said Winslow. He looked at Jago, who was sitting back in his chair, his lips set, his face furrowed and proud.

Winslow rose from the head of the table, picked up his cap, made off in his long loose stride towards the door. ‘Goodnight to you,’ he said.

4: A Piece of Serious Business

I called at Brown’s rooms, as we had arranged with Chrystal, at eleven o’clock next morning. They were on the next staircase to mine, and not such a handsome set; but Brown, though he went out each night to his house in the West Road, had made them much more desirable to live in. That day he stood hands in pockets in front of the fire, warming his plump buttocks, his coat-tails hitched up over his arms. His bright peering eyes were gazing appreciatively over his deep sofas, his ample armchairs, his two half-hidden electric fires, out to the window and the snowy morning. Round the walls there was growing a set of English watercolours, which he was collecting with taste, patience, and a kind of modest expertness. On the table a bottle of madeira was waiting for us.

‘I hope you like this in the morning,’ he said. ‘Chrystal and I are rather given to it.’

Chrystal followed soon after me, gave his crisp military good morning, and began at once: ‘Winslow gave a lamentable exhibition last night. He makes the place a perfect beargarden.’

It seemed to me a curious description of the combination room.

‘He’s not an easy man,’ said Brown. ‘And he doesn’t seem to be mellowing.’

‘He won’t mellow if he lives to be a hundred,’ said Chrystal. ‘Anyway, it’s precisely because of him that we want to talk to you, Eliot.’

We sat down to our glasses of madeira.

‘Perhaps I’d better begin,’ said Brown. ‘By pure chance, the affair started in my direction. Put it another way — if I hadn’t been tutor, we mightn’t have got on to it at all.’

‘Yes, you begin,’ said Chrystal. ‘But Eliot ought to realize all this is within these four walls. Not a word must leak outside.’

I said yes.

‘First of all,’ Brown asked me, sitting back with his hands folded on his waistcoat, ‘do you happen to know my pupil Timberlake?’

I was puzzled.

‘I’ve spoken to him once or twice,’ I said. ‘Isn’t he a connection of Sir Horace’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know the old man slightly,’ I said. ‘I met him over a case, two or three years ago.’

Brown chuckled.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I was almost sure I remembered you saying so. That may be very useful.

‘Well,’ he went on, ‘he sent young Timberlake to the college — he’s a son of Sir Horace’s cousin, but his parents died and Sir Horace took responsibility for him. The boy is in his third year, taking Part II in June. I hope to God he gets through. It will shatter everything if he doesn’t. He’s a perfectly decent lad, but a bit dense. I think he’s just a shade less stupid than young Winslow — but it’s a very very near thing.’

‘It’s not a near thing between their seniors,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’ll trade Winslow for Sir Horace any day.’

‘I was very much taken with Sir Horace when I met him.’ Brown liked agreeing with his friend. ‘You see, Eliot, Sir Horace came up for a night just about three weeks ago. He seemed to be pleased with what we were doing for the boy. And he specially asked to meet one or two people who were concerned with the policy of the college. So I gave a little dinner party. The Master was ill, of course, which, to tell you the truth, for this particular occasion was a relief. I decided it was only prudent to leave out Winslow. I had to ask Jago, but I dropped him a hint that this wasn’t the kind of business he’s really interested in. Naturally, I asked the Dean.’ He gave Chrystal his broad, shrewd, good-natured smile. ‘I think the rest of the story’s yours. I left everything else to you.’

‘Sir Horace came up,’ said Chrystal, ‘and Brown did him well. There were only the three of us. I should have enjoyed just meeting him. When you think what that man’s done — he controls an industry with a turnover of £20,000,000 a year. It makes you think, Eliot, it makes you think. But there was more to it than meeting him. I won’t make a secret of it. There’s a chance of a benefaction.’

‘If it comes off,’ Brown said, cautiously but contentedly, ‘it will be one of the biggest the college has ever had.’

‘Sir Horace wanted to know what our plans for the future were. I told him as much as I could. He seemed pleased with us. I was struck with the questions he asked,’ said Chrystal, ready to make a hero of Sir Horace. ‘You could see that he was used to getting to the bottom of things. After he’d been into it for a couple of hours, I’d back his judgement of the college against half our fellows. When he’d learned what he came down to find out, he asked me a direct question. He asked straight out: “What’s the most useful help any of us could provide for the college?” There was only one answer to that — and when there’s only one answer, I’ve found it a good rule to say it quick. So I told him: “Money. As much money as you could give us. And with as few conditions as you could possibly make.” And that’s where we stand.’

‘You handled him splendidly,’ said Brown. ‘He wasn’t quite happy about no conditions—’

‘He said he’d have to think about that,’ said Chrystal. ‘But I thought it would save trouble later if I got in first.’

‘I’m not ready to shout till we’ve got the money in the bank,’ Brown said, ‘but it’s a wonderful chance.’

‘We ought to get it — unless we make fools of ourselves,’ said Chrystal, ‘I know that by rights Winslow should handle this business now. It’s his job. But if he does, it’s a pound to a penny that he’ll put Sir Horace off.’

I thought of Sir Horace, imaginative, thin-skinned despite all his success in action.

‘He certainly would,’ I said. ‘Just one of Winslow’s little jokes, and we’d have Sir H endowing an Oxford college on a very lavish scale.’

‘I’m glad you confirm that,’ said Chrystal. ‘We can’t afford to handle this wrong.’

‘We mustn’t miss it,’ said Brown. ‘It would be sinful to miss it now.’

These two were the solid core of the college, I thought. Year by year they added to their influence; it was greater now than when I first came three years before. It had surprised me then that they should be so influential; now that I had lived with them, seen them at work, I understood it better.

They were both genuinely humble men. They were profoundly different, at the roots of their natures, but neither thought that he was anything out of the ordinary. They knew that others round them were creative, as they were not; Chrystal had once been a competent classic, was still a first-rate teacher, but had done nothing original — Brown wrote an intricate account of the diplomatic origins of the Crimean war soon after he graduated, and then stopped. They did not even think that they were unusual as men. Either would say that the Master or Jago or one or two others were the striking figures in the college. All they might add was that those striking figures did not always have the soundest judgement, were not the most useful at ‘running things’.

For, though they were the least conceited of men, they had complete confidence in their capacity to ‘run things’. Between them, they knew all the craft of government. They knew how men in a college behaved, and the different places in which each man was weak, ignorant, indifferent, obstinate, or strong. They never overplayed their hand; they knew just how to take the opinion of the college after they had settled a question in private. They knew how to give way. By this time, little of importance happened in the college which they did not support.

They asked very little more for themselves. They were neither of them ambitious; they thought they had done pretty well. They were comfortable and happy. They accepted the world round them, they believed it was good the college should exist, they had no doubt they were being useful in the parts they played. As they piloted their candidate through a fellowship election, or worked to secure this benefaction from Sir Horace, they gained the thrill that men feel at a purpose outside themselves.

They were both ‘sound’ conservatives in politics, and in religion conforming and unenthusiastic churchmen. But in the college they formed the active, if sometimes invisible, part of a progressive government. (College politics often cut right across national ones: thus Winslow, an upper-class radical, became in the college extremely reactionary, and Francis Getliffe and I, both men of the left, found ourselves in the college supporting the ‘government’ — the Master, Jago, Chrystal, Brown — with whom we disagreed on most things outside.) To that they devoted their attention, their will, their cunning, and their experience. They had been practising it for twenty years, and by now they knew what could be done inside the college to an inch.

I had never seen a pair of men more fitted for their chosen job. They were loyal to each other in public and in private. If they brought off a success for the college, they each had a habit of attributing it to the other. Actually most men thought that, of the two, Chrystal was the dominating spirit. He had a streak of fierceness, and the manifest virility which attracts respect — and at the same time resentment — from other men. He also possessed the knack of losing his temper at the right moment, which made him more effective in committee. He was urgent and impatient and quick to take offence. He gave an immediate impression of will, and many of the college used to say: ‘Oh, Chrystal will bring Brown along with him.’

I did not believe it. Each was shrewd, but Brown had the deeper insight. I had seen enough of both to be sure that, in doubt or trouble, it was Chrystal who relied on the stubborn fortitude of his friend.

‘How much is it likely to be?’ I asked. They glanced at each other. They thought I knew something about men, but was altogether too unceremonious in the way I talked of money.

‘Sir Horace hinted,’ said Chrystal, with a suspicion of hush in his voice, ‘at £100,000. I take it he could sign a cheque for that himself and not miss it.’

‘He must be a very hot man,’ said Brown, who was inclined to discuss wealth in terms of temperature.

‘I wonder if he is?’ I said. ‘He must be quite well off, of course. But he’s an industrial executive, you know, not a financier. Isn’t it the financiers who make the really big fortunes? People like Sir H don’t juggle with money and don’t collect so much.’

‘You put him lower than I do,’ said Chrystal, somewhat damped. ‘You’re underrating him, Eliot.’

‘I’m not letting myself expect too much,’ said Brown. ‘But if Sir Horace decided to raise £50,000 for us, I dare say he could.’

‘I dare say he could,’ I said.

They had asked me to join them that morning in order to plan the next move. They had heard nothing from Sir Horace since his visit. What could we do? Could we reach him again? Were any of my London acquaintances any use?

I thought them over, and shook my head.

‘Is it a good idea anyway to approach him from the outside?’ I asked. ‘I should have thought that it was very risky.’

‘I’ve felt that all along,’ said Brown.

‘You may be right,’ said Chrystal sharply, irritated but ready to think again. ‘What do we do? Do we just wait?’

‘We’ve got to rely on ourselves,’ said Brown.

‘What does that mean?’ said Chrystal.

‘We’ve got to get him down again,’ said Brown. ‘And let him see us as we really are. Put it another way — we must make him feel that he’s inside the picture. I don’t say we wouldn’t make things decent for the occasion. But we ought to let him realize the difficulty about Winslow. The more we take him into our confidence, within reason, the more likely he is to turn up trumps.’

I helped him persuade Chrystal. Chrystal was brusque, he liked his own ideas to prevail, he liked to have thought of a plan first; but I noticed the underlying sense which brought him round. He could have been a moody man; his temper was never equable; but he wanted results so much that he had been forced to control his moods.

They agreed to try to attract Sir Horace to the feast in February. Brown was as realistic as usual. ‘I don’t suppose for a moment that anything we can do will make a pennyworth of difference, once he’s made up his mind. But it can’t do any harm. If he’s forgetting us, it might turn out useful to remind him that we’re glad to see him here.’

He filled our glasses again. Chrystal gave a satisfied sigh. He said: ‘Well, we can’t do any more this morning. We’ve not wasted our time. I told you, Eliot, I regard this as more important than the Mastership. Masters come and Masters go, and whoever we elect, everyone will have forgotten about it in fifty years. Whereas a benefaction like this will affect the college for ever. Do you realize that the sum I’ve got in my mind is over ten per cent of our capital endowment?’

‘It would be a pity to miss it,’ said Brown.

‘I wish we hadn’t got this Mastership hanging over us,’ said Chrystal. ‘One thing is quite clear. There’s no reason to go outside. That’s just a piece of Winslow’s spite. We can find a Master inside the college easily enough. Jago would do. I was impressed with the way he spoke last night. He’s got some of the qualities I want in a Master.’

‘I agree,’ said Brown.

‘Other names will have to be considered, of course. I expect some people will want Crawford. I don’t know about him.’

‘I agree,’ said Brown. ‘I’m not keen on him. I don’t know whether Eliot is—’

‘No,’ I said.

‘He’ll certainly be run. I don’t know whether anyone will mention Winslow. You haven’t seen a Master elected, have you, Eliot? You’ll find some people are mad enough for anything. I’m depressed,’ said Chrystal, ‘at the whole prospect.’

Soon afterwards he left us. Brown gave a sympathetic smile. ‘He’s upset about poor Royce,’ he said.

‘Yes, I thought that.’

‘You’re very observant, aren’t you?’

Brown added: ‘I think Chrystal will get more interested when things are warming up a bit. I think he will.’ He smiled again. ‘You know, I don’t see how this can possibly be an easy election. Chrystal says that there may be support for Crawford, and I suppose there’s bound to be. But I should regard him as a disaster. He wouldn’t lift a finger for any of us. I don’t know what you feel, but I shall be inclined to stick in my heels about him.’

‘He wouldn’t do it well,’ I said.

‘I’m glad we’re thinking alike. I wonder whether you’ve come down definitely for anyone yet?’

His eyes were fixed on me, and I hesitated. Easily he went on: ‘I should value it if you would keep me in touch, when you do know where you’re coming down. My present feeling, for what it’s worth, is that we ought to think seriously about Jago. I know people criticize him; I’m quite prepared to admit that he’s not ideal; but my feeling is that we can’t go far wrong with him.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you agree, really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Might you consider supporting him?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think I shall.’

His glance had stayed on me. Now he looked away, and said: ‘I very much wanted to know how you would respond to his name. I’m not committed to him myself, of course. I’ve been held up a little by a personal matter which you’ll probably think a trifle far-fetched.’

‘Whatever’s that?’

‘Well,’ said Brown, ‘if Jago were to be elected Master, the college would need a new Senior Tutor. And it seems to me possible that some people would want me to follow him in the job.’

‘It’s a complete and utter certainty,’ I said. That was the truth.

‘It’s nice of you to say so, but I don’t believe it’s as certain as that. There are plenty who don’t think much of me,’ Brown chuckled. ‘But I can’t pretend it’s not a possibility. Well then, you see the problem. Am I justified in trying to get Jago in as Master, when I may provide myself with a better job out of it?’

‘There’s no doubt of the answer—’

‘Yes,’ said Brown. ‘I’ve arrived there myself after thinking it over. If one always stopped supporting people whose election could bring one the slightest advantage, it would be remarkably silly. Put it another way — only a crank could really be stopped by such scruples.’ He burst into his wholehearted, fat man’s laughter.

‘So I’m quite easy in my conscience about supporting Jago,’ he finished up. ‘But I’m still not ready to commit myself. He’d be a good Master, in my judgement. I’d put it a bit stronger, and say that he’s the best Master in view. We don’t want to run him, though, unless he’s got plenty of support. It would do no good to anyone.’

‘Well,’ he said, with a smile good-natured, cunning and wise, ‘that’s what I’ve been thinking. That’s as far as I’ve got.’

5: Success and Envy

Jago came to see me that afternoon. He made no reference to our first talk, or to the conversation about the Mastership the night before; but he had manufactured an excuse to call on me. He had thought up some questions about my law pupils; neither he nor I was interested in the answers.

He had been driven to see me — so that, if I had anything to say, he would know at once. His delicacy revolted, but he could not prevent himself from spinning out the visit. Was I going to Ireland again? He talked, with unaccustomed flatness, about his native town of Dublin. Not that he showed the vestigial trace of an Irish accent. He was born in the Ascendancy, his stock was as English as any of ours: he had — surprisingly, until one knew his origin — the militant conservatism of the Anglo-Irish. His father had been a fellow of Trinity, Dublin, and Jago was the only one of the present college who had been born into the academic life.

He went on talking, still tied to my room, unable to recognize that I could say nothing that day. I thought that no one else in his position would have kept his dignity so well; whatever his excesses, that remained. Before he went away, he had to ask: ‘Did I hear that you and Chrystal and Brown were colloguing this morning?’

‘Yes. It was just a financial matter. They wanted a legal opinion.’

He smiled off his disappointment.

‘You three work much too hard,’ he said.

The college was slowly filling up. I heard that Nightingale and Pilbrow were back from vacation, though I had not yet seen them. And the next evening, a few minutes before hall, I heard a familiar step on my staircase, and Roy Calvert came in.

He had been working for three months in Berlin. With relief I saw that he was looking well, composed and gay. He was the most gifted man the college had produced for years; as the Master said, he had already won an international reputation as an Orientalist. Yet he was sometimes a responsibility. He was the victim of attacks of melancholy so intense that no one could answer for his actions, and there had been times when he could scarcely bear the thought of living on.

That night, though, I knew at a glance that he was rested. He was more as I first knew him, cheerful, lively, disrespectful, and kind. He was my closest friend in Cambridge, and the closest I ever had. Thinking of the life he had led, the work he had got through, one found it hard to remember that he was not yet twenty-seven; yet in a gay mood, his eyes sparkling with malicious fun, he still looked very young.

We arrived a little late in the combination room, just in time to see Gay, with slow, shuffling steps, leading the file into hall. He was wearing an overcoat under his gown, so as to meet the draughty hall, and under the long coat there was something tortoise-like about his feet; but, when one looked at his face, there was nothing pathetic about him. His cheeks were red, his beard white, trimmed and sailor- like, his white hair silky and abundant; he carried his handsome head with arrogance and panache. He was nearly eighty, and the oldest fellow.

As he sat at the head of the table, tucking with good appetite into his food, Brown was trying to explain to him the news about the Master. Gay had not heard, or had forgotten: his memory was beginning to flicker and fade, he forgot quickly about the weeks and months just past. Brown was having some trouble in making it clear which Master he meant; Gay seemed to be thinking about the last Master but one.

‘Ah. Indeed,’ said Gay. ‘Very sad. But I have some recollection that he had to live on one floor some little time ago.’

‘That wasn’t the present Master,’ said Brown patiently. ‘I mean Royce.’

‘Indeed. Royce. You didn’t make that clear,’ Gay reproved him. ‘He’s surely a very young man. We only elected him recently. So he’s going, is he? Ah well, it will be a sad break with the past.’

He showed the triumph of the very old, when they hear of the death of a younger man. He felt half his age. Suddenly he noticed Roy Calvert, and his memory cleared.

‘Ah. Do I see Calvert? Haven’t you been deserting us?’

‘I got back to England this morning.’

‘Let me see. Let me see. Haven’t you been in Germany?’

‘Yes,’ said Roy Calvert.

‘I hadn’t forgotten you,’ said Gay victoriously. ‘And where in Germany, may I ask?’

‘Berlin.’

‘Ah. Berlin. A fine city. A fine university. I was once given an honorary degree of the university of Berlin. I remember it to this day. I remember being met at the Zoo station by one of their scholars — fine scholars they have in that country — and his first words were: “Professor M H L Gay, I think. The great authority on the sagas.” Ah. What do you think of that, Calvert? What do you think of that, Brown? The great authority on the sagas. They were absolutely the first words I heard when I arrived at the station. I had to demur to the word “great” of course.’ He gave a hearty laugh. ‘I said: “You can call me the authority on the sagas, if you like. The authority, without the great”.’

Brown and Chrystal chuckled. On Chrystal’s left, Nightingale looked polite but strained. Roy Calvert’s eyes shone: solemn and self-important persons were usually fair game to him, but Gay was too old. And his gusto was hard to resist.

‘That reminds me,’ Gay went on, ‘about honorary degrees. Do you know that I’ve now absolutely collected fourteen of them? What do you think of that, Calvert? What do you think of that, Chrystal?’

‘I call it pretty good,’ said Chrystal, smiling but impressed.

‘Fourteen honorary degrees. Not bad, eh? From every civilized country except France. The French have never been willing to recognize merit outside their own country. Still, fourteen isn’t so bad. And there’s still time for one or two more.’

‘I should think there is,’ said Chrystal. ‘I should think there is. And I shall want to present a bottle in honour of every one of them, Gay.’

Gay said the final grace in a ringing voice, and led us slowly back to the room. On the table, a bottle of port was ready for him; though the rest of us preferred claret, it was a rule that the college should drink port on any night when he came in to dine. As Chrystal helped him off with his overcoat, Gay’s eye glittered at the sight of walnuts in a silver dish.

‘Ah. Nuts and wine,’ he said. ‘Splendid. Nuts and wine. Is the Steward here? Congratulate him for me.’

He rolled the port on his tongue and cracked nut after nut. His teeth were as sound as in youth, and he concentrated vigorously on his pleasure. Then he wiped his lips and said: ‘That reminds me. Are any of us publishing a book this year?’

‘I may be,’ said Roy. ‘If they can finish cutting the type for—’

‘I congratulate you,’ said Gay. ‘I congratulate you. I have a little work of my own coming out in the summer. I should not absolutely rank it among my major productions, but I’m quite pleased with it as a tour de force. I shall be interested to see the reception it obtains. I sometimes think one doesn’t receive such a fair hearing when one is getting on in years.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought you need worry,’ said Brown.

‘I like to insist on a fair hearing,’ Gay said. ‘I’m not vain, I don’t mind what they say against me, but I like to be absolutely assured that they’re being fair. That’s all I’ve asked for all along, ever since my first book.

‘Ah. My first book.’ He looked down the table. His eyes had been a bright china blue, but were fading now. ‘That was a great occasion, to be sure. When the Press told me the book was out, I went round to the bookshops to see for myself. Then I walked out to Grantchester to visit my brother-in-law Dr Ernest Fazackerley — my wife was his youngest sister, you know. And when I told him the great news, do you know that cat of his — ah, that was a cat and a half — he put up his two paws, and I could imagine for all the world that he was applauding me.’

In a few minutes the butler brought a message that the Professor’s taxi was waiting at the porter’s lodge. This was part of the ritual each Thursday and Sunday night, for on those nights, in any weather, he left his house in the Madingley Road, and was driven down to the college for dinner. There was more of the ritual to come: Chrystal helped him into his overcoat again, he replaced his gown on top of it, and said goodnight to each of us one by one. Goodnights kept coming back to us in his sonorous voice, as he shuffled out of the room, with Roy Calvert to help him over the frozen snow.

‘Those old chaps were different from us,’ said Chrystal, after they had gone. ‘We shan’t do as much as that generation did.’

‘I’m not quite convinced that they were so wonderful,’ said Nightingale. There was a curious carefulness about his manner, as though he were concealing some pain in order not to embarrass the party. About his face also there was a set expression: he seemed to be disciplining himself to behave well. His lips were not often relaxed, and lines of strain etched the fine skin. He had a mane of fair wavy hair, brushed across his brow. His face was drawn, but not weak, and when he was pleased there was charm in his looks.

‘No one has ever explained to me,’ said Nightingale, ‘what there is original about Gay’s work.’

‘I’ll take you up on that, Nightingale,’ Chrystal said. ‘He’s better known outside the college than anyone we’ve got. It will be time enough for us to talk when we’ve done as much.’

‘I agree,’ said Brown.

‘If anyone sat down to his sagas for four hours a day for sixty years, I should have thought they were bound to get somewhere,’ said Nightingale.

‘I wish I could feel sure there is one man among us,’ Chrystal retorted, ‘who’ll have as much to his credit — if he lives to be Gay’s age.’

‘From what the German professors have written,’ Brown put in, ‘I don’t think there’s any reasonable doubt that Calvert will make as big a name before he’s done.’

Nightingale looked more strained. ‘These gentlemen are lucky in their subjects,’ he said. ‘It must be very nice not to need an original idea.’

‘You don’t know anything about their subjects,’ said Chrystal. He said it sharply but amicably enough, for he had a hidden liking for Nightingale. Another thought was, however, troubling him. ‘I don’t like to hear old Gay criticized. I’ve got as great a respect for him as anyone in the college. But it is lamentable to think that we shall soon have to elect a Master, and the old chap will have his vote. How can you expect a college to do its business, when you’ve got people who have lost their memories but are only too willing to take a hand?’

‘I’ve always thought they should be disfranchised,’ said Nightingale.

‘No,’ said Brown. ‘If we cut them off at sixty-five or seventy, and didn’t let them vote after that, we should lose more than we gained.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think I mean this: a college is a society of men, and we have to take the rough with the smooth.’

‘If you try to make it too efficient,’ I said, ‘you’ll suddenly find that you haven’t a college at all.’

‘I thought you were a man of advanced opinions,’ said Nightingale.

‘Sometimes I am,’ I said.

‘I don’t know where I come down,’ said Chrystal. He was torn, torn as he often was, torn as he would have hated anyone to perceive. His passion to domineer, his taste for clean efficiency, all his impulses as a party boss with the college to run, made him want to sweep the old men ruthlessly away — take away their votes, there would be so much less dead wood, they impeded all he wanted to do. Yet there was the other side, the soft romantic heart which felt Gay as larger than life-size, which was full of pious regard for the old, which shrank from reminding them that they were spent. ‘But I don’t mind telling you that there are times when I consider the college isn’t a fit body to be entrusted with its money. Do you really mean to tell me that the college is fit to handle a capital endowment of a million pounds?’

‘I’ll give you an answer,’ said Brown cheerfully, ‘when I see how we manage about electing a Master.’

‘Is anything being done about that?’ Nightingale asked.

‘Nothing can be done yet, of course,’ said Brown. ‘I suppose people are beginning to mention names. I’ve heard one or two already.’ As he talked blandly on, he was watching Nightingale. He was usually an opponent, he was likely to be so now, and Brown was feeling his way. ‘I think that Winslow may rather fancy the idea of Crawford. I wonder how you’d regard him?’

There was a pause.

‘I’m not specially enthusiastic,’ said Nightingale.

‘I’m interested to hear you say that,’ said Brown. His eyes were bright. ‘I thought it would be natural if you went for someone like Crawford on the scientific side.’

Suddenly Nightingale’s careful manner broke.

‘I might if it weren’t Crawford,’ he said. His voice was bitter: ‘There’s not been a day pass in the last three years when he hasn’t reminded me that he is a Fellow of the Royal, and that I am not.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Brown consolingly. ‘He’s got a good many years’ start, hasn’t he?’

‘He reminds me that I’ve been up for election six times, and this year is my seventh.’

Nightingale’s voice was harsh with envy, with sheer pain. Chrystal left all the talk to Brown.

‘Well, I might as well say that at present I don’t feel much like going for Crawford myself,’ said Brown. ‘I’m beginning to doubt whether he’s really the right man. I haven’t thought much about it so far, but I have heard one or two people speak strongly for someone else. How do you regard the idea of Jago?’

‘Jago. I’ve got nothing against him,’ said Nightingale.

‘People will feel there are certain objections,’ Brown reflected.

‘Some people will object to anyone.’

Brown smiled.

‘They’ll say that Jago isn’t so distinguished academically as — for instance, Crawford. And that’s a valid point. The only consideration is just how much weight you give to it. Put it another way — we’re unlikely to get everything we want in one man. Do you prefer Jago, who’s respectable on the academic side but not a flyer — but who seems admirably equipped in every other way? Or do you prefer Crawford, who’s got other limitations that you’ve made me realize very clearly? Wouldn’t those limitations be unfortunate in a Master?’

‘I’m ready to support Jago,’ said Nightingale.

‘I should sleep on it if I were you,’ said Brown. ‘But I value your opinion—’

‘So do I,’ said Chrystal. ‘It’ll help me form my own.’

He and Brown went off together, and Nightingale and I were left alone.

‘Come up to my rooms,’ said Nightingale.

I was surprised. He was the one man in the college whom I actively disliked, and he disliked me at least as strongly. There was no reason for it; we had not one value or thought in common, but that was true with others whom I warmly liked; this was just an antipathy as specific as love. Anywhere but in the college we should have avoided each other. As it was, we met most nights at dinner, talked across the table, even spent, by the force of social custom, a little time together. It was one of the odd features of a college, I sometimes thought, that one lived in social intimacy with men one disliked: and, more than that, there were times when a fraction of one’s future lay in their hands. For these societies were always making elections from their own members, they filled all their jobs from among themselves, and in those elections one’s enemies took part — for example, Jago disliked Winslow far more intensely than I Nightingale, and at that moment he knew that, until the election was over, he was partially in Winslow’s power.

We climbed a staircase in the third court to Nightingale’s rooms. He was a teetotaller, the only one in the college, and he had no drink to offer, but he gave me a cigarette. He asked a few uninterested questions about my holidays. But though he tried, he could not keep to his polite behaviour. Suddenly he broke out: ‘What are Chrystal and Brown up to about the Mastership?’

‘I thought Brown had been telling us — at some length.’

‘I know all about that. What I want to hear is, has one of those two got his eye on it for himself?’

‘I shouldn’t think so for a minute,’ I said.

‘We’re not going to be rushed into that, are we?’ he asked. ‘I wouldn’t put it past them to try.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said. He was irritating me. ‘They made it clear enough — they’ll run Jago.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it. I’ve never noticed them exert themselves much for anyone else. I’ve not forgotten how they squeezed Brown into the tutorship. I was two or three years junior, but there’s no doubt I had the better claim.’

Suddenly he snapped out the question: ‘What are you going to do?’

I did not reply at once.

‘Are you going to propose Chrystal as a bright idea at the last moment?’

He was intensely suspicious, certain that there was a web of plans from which he would lose and others gain. If I had told him I, too, was thinking of Jago, he would have seen meanings behind that choice, and it might have turned him from Jago himself. As it was, Jago’s seemed the one name that did not arouse his suspicion and envy that night.

I looked round his sitting-room. It was without feature, it was the room of a man concentrated into himself, so that he had nothing to spend outside; it showed nothing of the rich, solid comfort which Brown had given to his, or the eccentric picturesqueness of Roy Calvert’s. Nightingale was a man drawn into himself. Suspicion and envy lived in him. They always would have done, however life had treated him; they were part of his nature. But he had been unlucky, he had been frustrated in his most cherished hope, and now envy never left him alone.

He was forty-three, and a bachelor. Why he had not married, I did not know: there was nothing unmasculine about him. That was not, however, his abiding disappointment. He had once possessed great promise. He had known what it was to hold creative dreams: and they had not come off. That was his bitterness. As a very young man he had shown a spark of real talent. He was one of the earliest theoretical chemists. By twenty-three he had written two good papers on molecular structure. He had, so I was told, anticipated Heitler-London and the orbital theory; he was ten years ahead of his time. The college had elected him, everything seemed easy. But the spark burnt out. The years passed. Often he had new conceptions; but the power to execute them had escaped from him.

It would have been bitter to the most generous heart. In Nightingale’s, it made him fester with envy. He longed in compensation for every job within reach, in reason, and out of reason. It was morbid that he should have fancied his chances of the tutorship before Brown, his senior and a man made for the job; but it rankled in him after a dozen years. Each job in the college for which he was passed over, he saw with intense suspicion as a sign of the conspiracy directed against him.

His reputation in his subject was already gone. He would not get into the Royal Society now. But, as March came round each year, he waited for the announcement of the Royal elections in expectation, in anguish, in bitter suspiciousness, at moments in the knowledge of what he might have been.

6: Streets in the Thaw

It began to thaw that night, and by morning the walls of my bedroom carried dank streaks like the tracks of a snail. Lying in bed, I could hear the patter of drops against the window ledge. ‘Dirty old day underfoot, sir,’ Bidwell greeted me. ‘Mr Calvert sends his compliments, and says he’d send his galoshes too, if he could persuade you to wear them.’

I had scarcely seen Roy Calvert alone since he returned; he called in for a few minutes after breakfast on his way to pay visits round the town. ‘They’d better know I am alive.’ He grinned. ‘Or else Jago will be sending out a letter.’ It was one of Jago’s customs to ‘send out a letter’ whenever a member of the college died; it was part of the intimate formality which, to Roy Calvert, was comic without end. He went out through the slush to pay his visits; he had a great range of acquaintances in Cambridge, and he arranged to visit them in an order shaped partly by kindness, partly by caprice. The unhappy, the dim, the old and passed over, even those whom anyone else found tedious and ordinary, could count on his company; while the important, the weighty, the established — sometimes, I thought in irritation, anyone who could be the slightest use to him — had to wait their turn.

Before he went out, he arranged for us both to have tea in the Lodge, where he was a favourite. He would go himself earlier in the afternoon, to talk to the Master. So at teatime I went over alone, and waited in the empty drawing-room. The afternoon was leaden, the snow still lay on the court, with a few pockmarks at the edges; the fire deep in the room behind me was reflected in the heavy twilight. Roy Calvert joined me there.

It had been worse than he imagined, and he was subdued. The Master had been talking happily of how they would collaborate — the ‘little book on the heresies’. This was a project of the Master’s which Roy had been trying to avoid for years. Now he said that he would do it as a memorial.

When Lady Muriel came in, she began with her inflexible greetings, as though nothing were wrong in the house. But Roy took her hand, and his first words were: ‘I’ve been talking to the Master, you know. It’s dreadful to have to pretend, isn’t it? I wish you could have been spared that decision, Lady Mu. No one could have known what to do.’

She was taken aback, and yet relieved so that the tears came. No one else would have spoken to her as though she were a woman who wanted someone to guide her. I wished that I had been as straightforward.

She was already crying, she said that it was not easy.

‘No one could help you,’ said Roy. ‘And you’d have liked help, wouldn’t you? Everyone would.’

He took care of her until Joan joined us, and then they began to argue about the regime in Germany. ‘Just so,’ said Roy, to each of Joan’s positive statements. Both women knew that he had no liking for disputation; both laughed at the precise affirmative, which had once been affected but now was second nature.

Joan’s tenderness for Roy was already near to open love, and her mother indulged him like a son. She must have known something of his reputation, the ‘vine leaves in his hair’ (as the Master once quoted), the women who pursued him. But she never said to Joan, as she had said about any other man whom her daughter brought to the Lodge, ‘My dear Joan, I can’t imagine what you can possibly see in him.’

I talked about Joan as we walked out of the Lodge into the dark, rainy night.

‘That girl,’ I said, ‘is falling more in love with you.’

He frowned. Like many of those who attract passionate love, there were times when he wanted to forget it altogether. And that night, despite his sadness over the Master, he felt innocent and free of the shadows.

‘Come and help me do some shopping,’ he said. ‘I need to buy some presents at once.’

We walked along Sidney Street in the steady rain. Water was swirling, chuckling, gurgling in the gutters; except by the walls, the pavements were clear of snow by now, and they mirrored the lights from the lamps and shopfronts on both sides of the narrow street.

‘We shall get much wetter.’ He smiled. ‘You always looked remarkable in the rain. I need to get these presents off tonight.’

We went from shop to shop, up Sidney Street, down John’s Street, Trinity Street, into the market place. He wanted the presents for his disreputable, unlucky Berlin acquaintances who lived above his flat in the Knesebeckstrasse, and he took great care about choosing them.

‘That might do for the little dancer.’ I had heard of ‘the little dancer’, by the same title before. ‘She weighs 35 kilos,’ Roy commented. ‘Light. Considerably lighter than Arthur Brown.’

In one shop, he suddenly asked, quietly, with complete intimacy, about Sheila, my wife. He knew the whole story of my marriage, and what I had to expect when I went each Tuesday to the Chelsea house. I was glad to talk. In the street, he looked at me with a smile full of affectionate sharp-edged pity. ‘Yet you go on among those comfortable blokes — as though nothing was the matter,’ he said. ‘I wish I could bear as much.’

Without speaking, we walked past Great St Mary’s into the market place. He could say no more, and, with the same intimacy, asked: ‘About those comfortable blokes, old boy. Who are we going to have for Master?’

We were loaded with parcels, our coats were heavy with the damp, rain dripped from our faces.

‘I think I want Jago,’ I said.

‘I suppose there’s a move for Crawford.’

‘I’m against that,’ I said.

‘Crawford is too — stuffed,’ said Roy Calvert. ‘He’ll just assume the job is due to him by right. He’s complacent. I’d never vote for a man who was complacent.’

I agreed.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘old Winslow is the most unusual man among that lot. He bites their heads off, he’s a bit of a bully, he’s frightfully ill-adjusted. But no one on earth could call him tug. They wouldn’t have him at any price.’

‘No one on earth could call Jago tug,’ I said. ‘He’s the least commonplace of men.’

‘There are plenty of things in favour of Jago,’ said Roy. ‘But they’re not the things we’re going to hear.’

‘He stands a fair chance,’ I said.

‘He’s not a commonplace man, is he?’ said Roy. ‘Won’t he be kept cut because of that? They’ll never really think he’s “sound”.’

‘Arthur Brown is for him.’

‘Uncle Arthur loves odd fish.’

‘And Chrystal,’ I said, ‘thinks he can manage him. By the way, I’m very doubtful whether he’s right.’

‘It will be extremely funny if he isn’t.’

We turned down into Petty Cury, and Roy said: ‘The ones who don’t want Jago won’t take it quietly. They’ll have a good deal to say about distinguished scholars — and others not so distinguished.’

‘I know more about that than they do,’ he added. I smiled at the touch of arrogance, unusual in him, I saw his face, clear in the light from a shop. He shook his head to get rid of some raindrops, he smiled back, but he was in dead earnest. He went on quietly: ‘Why won’t they see what matters? I want a man who knows something about himself. And is appalled. And has to forgive himself to get along.’

7: Decision to Call on Jago

Roy Calvert and I kept coming back to the Mastership, as we talked late into the night. Before we went to bed, we agreed to tell Brown next day that we were ready to support Jago. ‘Sleep on it, sleep on it,’ said Roy, mimicking Brown’s comfortable tones. The next morning Bidwell, after announcing the time and commenting on the weather, said: ‘Mr Calvert’s compliments, sir, and he says he’s slept on it and hasn’t changed his mind.’

At five that afternoon, we found Brown in his rooms. His tea was pushed aside, he was working on some lists: but, continuously busy, he was always able to seem at leisure. ‘It’s a bit early for sherry,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you feel like a glass of chablis? I opened it at lunchtime, and we thought it was rather special.’

He brought out some glasses, and we sat in his armchairs, Brown in the middle. His eyes looked from one of us to the other. He knew we had come for a purpose, but he was prepared to sit there all evening, drinking his wine with enjoyment, and leave the first move to us.

‘You asked me,’ I said, ‘to let you know, when I’d decided about the next Master.’

‘Why, so I did,’ said Brown.

‘I have now,’ I said. ‘I shall vote for Jago.’

‘I shall also,’ said Roy Calvert.

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Brown said. He smiled at me: ‘I had a feeling you might come round to it. And Roy—’

‘It’s all in order,’ said Roy, ‘I’ve slept on it.’

‘That’s just as well,’ said Brown. ‘Because if not I should certainly have advised you to do so.’

I chuckled. In his unhurried, ponderous fashion he was very good at coping with Roy Calvert.

‘Well,’ said Brown, sitting back contentedly, ‘this is all very interesting. As a matter of fact, I can tell you something myself. Chrystal and I had a little talk recently, and we felt inclined to put Jago’s name forward.’

‘Without committing yourselves, of course?’ Roy enquired.

‘Committing ourselves as much as it’s reasonable to do at this stage,’ said Brown.

‘There’s one other thing I think I’m at liberty to tell you,’ he added. ‘Nightingale told me definitely this morning that he was of the same way of thinking. So at any rate we’ve got the nucleus of a nice little party.’

How capably he had managed it, I thought. He had not pressed Jago on any one of us. Chrystal had been undecided, but patiently Brown drew him in. With Chrystal, with me, with Nightingale, he had waited, talking placidly and sensibly, often rotundly and platitudinously, while our likes and dislikes shaped themselves. Only when it was needed had he thrown in a remark to stir one of our weaknesses, or warm our affection. He had given no sign of his own unshakeable resolve to get the Mastership for Jago. He had shown no enthusiasm, he had talked with his usual fair-mindedness. But the resolve had been taken, his mind had been made up, the instant he heard that the Master was dying.

Why was he so resolved? Partly through policy and calculation, partly through active dislike of Crawford, partly through a completely uncalculating surrender to affection; and, as in all personal politics, the motives mixed with one another.

Most of all, Brown was moved by a regard for Jago, affectionate, indulgent, and admiring; and Brown’s affections were warm and strong. He was a politician by nature; since he was set on supporting Jago he could not help but do it with all the craft he knew — but there was nothing politic about his feeling for the man. Jago might indulge his emotions, act with a fervour that Brown thought excessive and in bad taste, ‘let his heart run away with his head’, show nothing like the solid rational decorum which was Brown’s face to the world. Brown’s affection did not budge. In the depth of his heart he loved Jago’s wilder outbursts, and wished that he could have gone that way himself. Had he sacrificed too much in reaching his own robust harmony? Had he become too dull a dog? For Brown’s harmony had not arrived in a minute. People saw that fat contented man, rested on his steady strength, and thought he had never known their conflicts. They were blind. He was utterly tolerant, just because he had known the frets that drove men off the rails, in particular the frets of sensual love. It was in his nature to live them down, to embed them deep, not to let them lead him away from his future as a college worthy, from his amiable wife and son. But he was too realistic, too humble, too genuine a man ever to forget them. ‘Uncle Arthur loves odd fish’, said Roy Calvert, whom he had helped through more than one folly. In middle age ‘Uncle Arthur’ was four square in himself, without a crack or flaw, rooted in his solid, warm, wise, and cautious nature. But he loved odd fish, for he knew, better than anyone, the odd desires that he had left behind.

‘We’ve got the nucleus of a nice little party,’ said Brown. ‘I think the time may almost have come to ask Jago whether he’ll give us permission to canvass his name.’

‘You don’t think that’s premature?’ said Roy, anxiously solemn.

‘He may find certain difficulties,’ said Brown, refusing to be put out of his stride. ‘He may not be able to afford it. Put it another way — he’d certainly drop a bit over the exchange. With his university lectureship and his college teaching work, as Senior Tutor, he must make all of £1,800 a year, and the house rent free. As Master he’ll have to give up most of the other things, and the stipend of the Master is only £1,500. I’ve always thought it was disgracefully low, it’s scarcely decent. Of course, he gets the Lodge free, but the upkeep will run him into a lot more than the Tutor’s house. I really don’t know how he’s going to manage it.’

I was smiling: with Roy present, I found it harder to take part in these stately minuets. ‘Somehow I think he’ll find a way,’ I said. ‘Look, Brown, you know perfectly well that he’s chafing to be asked.’

‘I think we might be able to persuade him,’ Brown said. ‘But we mustn’t be in too much of a hurry. You don’t get round difficulties by ignoring them. Still, I think we’ve got far enough to approach Jago now.’

‘The first step, of course,’ he added, ‘is to get Chrystal. He may think we’re anticipating things a bit.’

He telephoned to Chrystal, who was at home but left at once for the college. When he arrived, he was short-tempered because we had talked so much without him. He was counter-suggestible, moved to say no instead of yes, anxious to find reasons why we should not go at once to Jago. Brown used his automatic tact; and, as usual, Chrystal was forming sensible decisions underneath his short pique-ridden temper (he had the kind of pique which one calls ‘childish’ — though in fact it is shown most clearly by grave and adult men). Suddenly he said: ‘I’m in favour of seeing Jago at once.’

‘Shall I fix a time tomorrow?’ said Brown.

‘I’m against waiting. There’s bound to be talk, I want to get our feet in first. I’m in favour of going tonight.’

‘He may be busy.’

‘He won’t be too busy for what we’re coming to say,’ said Chrystal, with a tough, pleasant, ironic smile.

‘I’ll ring up and see how he’s placed,’ said Brown. ‘But we mustn’t forget Nightingale. It would be nice to take him round as well.’ He rang up at once, on the internal exchange through the porter’s lodge: there was no answer. He asked for a porter to go to Nightingale’s rooms: the report came that his rooms were shut.

‘This is awkward,’ said Brown.

‘We’ll go without him,’ said Chrystal impatiently.

‘I don’t like it much.’ Brown had a slight frown. ‘It would be nice to bring everyone in. It’s important for everyone to feel they’re in the picture. I attach some value to taking Nightingale round.’

‘I’ll explain it to Nightingale. I want to get started before the other side.’

Reluctantly, Brown rang up the Tutor’s house. He was sure it was an error of judgement not to wait for Nightingale — whom he wanted to bind to the party. On the other hand, he had had trouble bringing Chrystal ‘up to the boil’. He did not choose to risk putting him off now. He rang up, his voice orotund, confidential, cordial; from his replies, one could guess that Jago was welcoming us round without a second’s delay.

‘Yes, he’d like to see us now,’ said Brown, as he hung the receiver up.

‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ said Chrystal, rising to go out.

‘Wait just a minute,’ said Brown. ‘The least I can do is send a note to Nightingale, explaining that we tried to find him.’

He sat down to write.

‘It might help if I took the note round to Nightingale,’ said Roy Calvert. ‘I’ll drop the word that I’m going to vote for Jago, but haven’t gone round on the deputation.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ said Brown.

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Roy. ‘I very much doubt whether the next but one junior fellow ought to be included in such a deputation as this.’

Chrystal did not know whether he was being serious or not. ‘I don’t know about that, Calvert, I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘Still, we can tell Jago you’re one of us, can we?’

‘Just so,’ said Roy. ‘Just so.’

The Tutor’s house lay on the other side of the college, and Brown, Chrystal and I began walking through the courts. Chrystal made a remark about Roy Calvert: ‘Sometimes I don’t know where I am with that young man.’

‘He’ll be a very useful acquisition to our side,’ said Brown.

8: Three Kinds of Power

In Jago’s house we were shown, not into his study, but into the drawing-room. There Mrs Jago received us, with an air of grande dame borrowed from Lady Muriel.

‘Do sit down, Dean,’ she said to Chrystal. ‘Do sit down, Tutor,’ she said to Brown. ‘A parent has just chosen this time to call on my husband, which I feel is very inconsiderate.’

But Mrs Jago’s imitation of Lady Muriel was not exact. Lady Muriel, stiff as she was, would never have called men by their college titles. Lady Muriel would never have picked on the youngest there and said: ‘Mr Eliot, please help me with the sherry. You know it’s your duty, and you ought to like doing your duty.’

For Mrs Jago wanted to be a great lady, wanted also the attention of men, and was never certain of herself, for an instant. She was a big, broad-shouldered woman, running to fat, physically graceless apart from her smile. It was a smile one seldom saw, but when it came it was brilliant, open, defenceless, like an adoring girl’s. Otherwise she was plain.

That night, she could not keep up her grand manner. Suddenly she broke out: ‘I’m afraid you will all have to put up with my presence till Paul struggles free.’

‘That’s very nice for us all,’ said Arthur Brown.

‘Thank you, Tutor,’ said Mrs Jago, back for a second on her pedestal again.

She had embarrassed Jago’s friends ever since he married her. She became assertive in any conversation. She was determined not to be overlooked. She seized on insults, tracked them down, recounted them with a masochistic gusto that never flagged. She had cost her husband great suffering.

She had cost him great suffering, but not in the way one might expect. He was a man who gained much admiration from women. With his quick sympathy, his emotional power, he could have commanded all kinds of love. He liked the compliment, but he wanted none of them. He had loved his wife for twenty-five years. They had had no children. He loved her still. He could still be jealous of that woman, who, to everyone outside, seemed so grotesque. I had seen her play on that jealousy and give him pain.

But that was not his deepest suffering about her. They had married when he was a young don, and she his pupil. That relation, which can always so easily fill itself with emotion, had never died. He wanted people to recognize her quality, how gifted she was, how much held back by her crippling sensitiveness. He wanted us to see that she was gallant, and misjudged; he was burning to explain that she went through acuter pain than anyone, when the temperament she could not control drove his friends away. His love remained love, and added pity: and the sight of her in a mood which others dismissed as grotesque still had the power to take and rend his heart.

He suffered for her, and for himself. He loathed having to make apologies for his wife. He loathed all his imagination could invent of the words that were spoken behind his back — ‘poor Jago…’ But even those wounds to his pride he could have endured, if she had been happier. He would still, after twenty-five years, have humbled himself for her as for no one else — just to see her content. As he told me on the night we first knew the Master was dying, ‘one is dreadfully vulnerable through those one loves’.

When Jago came in, his first words were to his wife.

‘I’m desperately sorry I’ve been kept so long. I know you wanted to get back to your book—’

‘It doesn’t matter at all, Paul,’ she said with lofty dignity, and then cried out: ‘It only means that the Dean and the Tutor and Mr Eliot have had to make conversation to me for half an hour.’

‘If they don’t get a greater infliction than that this term,’ he said, ‘they’ll be very lucky men.’

‘It’s wretched for them that because of parents who haven’t the slightest consideration—’

Gently Jago tried to steer her off, and show her at her best. Had she talked to us about the book from which we had drawn her? Why hadn’t she mentioned what she told him at teatime?

Then Chrystal said: ‘You’ll excuse us if we take the Senior Tutor away, won’t you, Mrs Jago? We have a piece of business that can’t wait.’

‘Please do not think of considering me,’ she retorted.

This was a masculine society, and none of us would have considered discussing college business in front of our wives, not even in front of Lady Muriel herself. But, as we went out to Jago’s study, I caught sight of his wife’s face, and I knew she had embraced another insult. Jago would hear her cry ‘they took the opportunity to say I wasn’t wanted’.

Once in Jago’s study, with Jago sitting behind his big tutorial desk, crowded with letters, folders, dossiers, Reporters, copies of the Ordinances, Chrystal cleared his throat.

‘We’ve come to ask you one question, Jago,’ he said. ‘Are you prepared to be a candidate for the Mastership?’

Jago sighed.

‘The first thing I want to say,’ he replied, ‘is how grateful I am to you for coming to speak to me. It’s an honour to be thought of by such colleagues as you. I’m deeply touched.’

He smiled at us all.

‘I’m specially touched, if I may say so, to see Eliot with you. You two are old friends — we’ve grown up together. It isn’t so much a surprise to find you’re indulgent towards me. But you don’t know how flattering it is,’ he said to me, ‘to be approved of by someone who’s come here from a different life altogether. I’m so grateful, Eliot.’

He was the more pleased, I thought, because I had hesitated, because I had not been easy to convince; it is not the whole-hogging enthusiasts for one’s cause to whom one feels most gratitude.

‘We shouldn’t ask you,’ said Chrystal briskly, ‘unless we could promise you a caucus.’

‘I think it’s only fair to tell you, before you give us your answer, that we haven’t made any attempt to discover the opinion of the college,’ said Brown. ‘But I don’t think we’re going beyond our commission in speaking for one or two others besides ourselves. Calvert specially asked us to tell you that he will give you his vote, and, though I’m not entitled to bring a categorical promise from Nightingale, I regard him as having pledged his support.’

‘There’s no doubt of that,’ said Chrystal.

‘Roy Calvert, that’s nice of him!’ cried Jago. ‘But Nightingale — I’m astonished, Brown, I really am astonished.’

‘Yes, we were a bit surprised ourselves.’ Brown went on steadily: ‘There are thirteen of us, not counting the present Master. If we leave you out, and assume that another member of the society will be the other candidate, that gives eleven people with a free vote. It wants seven votes to get a clear majority of the society, and a Master can’t be elected without, of course. Personally, I should regard five as a satisfactory caucus to start with. Anyway, it’s all we’re entitled to promise tonight, and if you think it’s not enough we shall perfectly understand.’

Jago rested his elbows on the desk, and leant forward towards us.

‘I believe I’ve told each one of you separately that this possibility came to me as an utter shock. I still feel that my feet aren’t quite firm under me. But since it did seem to become a possibility I’ve thought it over until I’m tired. I had serious doubts as to whether I ought to do it, whether I wanted to do it, whether I could do it. I’ve had several sleepless nights this week, trying to answer those questions. And there’s one thing I’ve become convinced of, even in the small hours — you know, when one’s whole life seems absolutely pointless. I’m going to tell you without modesty, between friends. I believe I can do it. I believe I can do it better than anyone within reach. So, if you want me, I’ve got no choice.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, Jago,’ said Chrystal.

‘Splendid,’ said Brown.

‘As for the campaign,’ said Jago with a brilliant smile, ‘I put myself at your disposal, and no one could be in better hands.’

Chrystal took charge. ‘There’ll be opposition,’ he said.

‘You don’t think I mind that, do you?’ said Jago.

‘You don’t mind, but we do,’ said Chrystal sharply. ‘We’re bound to, as we’re taking the responsibility of running you. The opposition will be serious. It will come from an influential part of the college. They’re the people I call the obstructors.’

‘Who are they, when it comes to the point?’ said Jago, still exhilarated.

‘I haven’t started counting heads,’ said Chrystal. ‘But there’s Winslow, for certain. There’s old Despard—’

‘Crawford, if he isn’t a candidate,’ Brown put in.

‘I don’t believe he’s in a particularly good position to be impartial,’ said Jago. ‘And as for the other two, I’m not depressed by their opposition. They’re just two embittered old men.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Chrystal. ‘But they’re also two influential old men. They get round, they won’t let you in by default. I didn’t mean to say we shan’t work it. I think we’ve got a very good chance. But I wanted to warn you, this isn’t going to be a walkover.’

‘Thank you, Dean, thank you. Don’t let me run away with myself.’ Jago was friendly, gracious, full of joy. ‘But I’m glad that we’ve got the younger men on our side. I wouldn’t exchange those two old warriors for Calvert and Eliot here. If we can call on the young men, Dean, we can do something with the college. It’s time we took our rightful place. We can make it a great college.’

‘We shall need money,’ said Chrystal, but his own imagination was stirred. ‘We’re not rich enough yet to cut much of a dash. Perhaps we can get money. Yes—’

‘It’s inspiring to listen to you,’ Brown said to Jago. ‘But, if I were you, I shouldn’t talk too much in public about your plans. People might think you were too ambitious. We don’t want to put their backs up. I’m anxious that nothing you say in the next few months shall give them a handle against you.’

I watched their heads, grouped round the desk, their faces glowing with their purpose — Brown’s purple-pink, rubicund, keen-eyed, Chrystal’s beaky, domineering, Jago’s pale, worn with the excesses of emotion, his eyes intensely lit. Each of these three was seeking power, I thought — but the power each wanted was as different as they were themselves. Brown’s was one which no one need know but himself; he wanted to handle, coax, guide, contrive, so that men found themselves in the places he had designed; he did not want an office or title to underline his power, it was good enough to sit back amiably and see it work.

Chrystal wanted to be no more than Dean, but he wanted the Dean, in this little empire of the college, to be known as a man of power. Less subtle, less reflective, more immediate than his friend, he needed the moment-by-moment sensation of power. He needed to feel that he was listened to, that he was commanding here and now, that his word was obeyed. Brown would be content to get Jago elected and influence him afterwards, no one but himself knowing how much he had done. That was too impalpable a satisfaction for Chrystal. Chrystal was impelled to have his own part recognized, by Jago, by Brown, and the college. As we spoke that evening, it was essential for Chrystal that he should see his effect on Jago himself. He wanted nothing more than that, he was no more ambitious than Brown — but irresistibly he needed to see and feel his power.

Jago enjoyed the dramatic impact of power, like Chrystal: but he was seeking for other things besides. He was an ambitious man, as neither Brown nor Chrystal were. In any society, he would have longed to be first; and he would have longed for it because of everything that marked him out as different from the rest. He longed for all the trappings, titles, ornaments, and show of power. He would love to hear himself called Master; he would love to begin a formal act at a college meeting ‘I, Paul Jago, Master of the college…’ He wanted the grandeur of the Lodge, he wanted to be styled among the heads of houses. He enjoyed the prospect of an entry in the college history — ‘Dr P Jago, 41st Master’. For him, in every word that separated the Master from his fellows, in every ornament of the Lodge, in every act of formal duty, there was a gleam of magic.

There was something else. He had just said to Chrystal ‘we can make it a great college’. Like most ambitious men, he believed that there were things that only he could do. Money did not move him in the slightest; the joys of office moved him a great deal; but there was a quality pure, almost naive, in his ambition. He had dreams of what he could do with his power. These dreams left him sometimes, he became crudely avid for the job, but they returned. With all his fervent imagination, he thought of a college peaceful, harmonious, gifted, creative, throbbing with joy and luminous with grace. In his dreams, he did not altogether know how to attain it. He had nothing of the certainty with which, in humility, accepting their limitations, Chrystal and Brown went about their aims, securing a benefaction from Sir Horace, arranging an extra tutorship, making sure that Luke got a grant for his research. He had nothing of their certainty, nor their humility: he was more extravagant than they, and loved display far more; in his ambition he could be cruder and more predatory; but perhaps he had intimations which they could not begin to hear.

9: Quarrel with a Friend

When I arrived in the combination room that evening, Winslow, Nightingale and Francis Getliffe were standing together. They had been talking, but as they saw me at the door there was a hush. Winslow said: ‘Good evening to you. I hear you’ve been holding your adoption meeting, Eliot?’

Nightingale asked: ‘Did you all get the reception you wanted?’

‘It was very pleasant. I’m sorry you weren’t there,’ I said. It was from him, of course, that they had heard the news. There was constraint in the air, and I knew that Francis Getliffe was angry. He had returned from Switzerland that day, deeply sunburned; his strong fine-drawn face — I thought all of a sudden, seeing him stand there unsmiling — became more El Greco-like as the years passed.

‘Aren’t you even going to see your candidate?’ I asked Winslow. ‘Do you prefer to do it all by correspondence?’ Sometimes he liked to be teased, and he knew I was not frightened of him. He gave an indulgent grin.

‘Any candidate I approved of would be fairly succinct on paper,’ he said. ‘Your candidate, if I may say so, would not be so satisfactory in that respect.’

‘We are appointing a Master, you know, not a clerk,’ I said.

‘If the college is misguided enough to elect Dr Jago,’ said Winslow ‘I shall beg to be excused when I sometimes fail to remember the distinction.’

Nightingale gave a smile — as always when he heard a malicious joke. He said: ‘My view is, he will save us from worse. I don’t object to him — unless someone better turns up.’

‘It should not be beyond the wit of men to discover someone better,’ said Winslow. Though he had talked once of ‘going outside’, Brown assumed that he would ‘come round’ to Crawford; but he had not so much as mentioned the name yet.

‘I don’t see this college doing it. It always likes to keep jobs in the family. That being so, I’m not displeased with Jago,’ said Nightingale.

I heard the door open, and Chrystal walked up to shake hands with Francis Getliffe, who had not spoken since I came in.

‘Good evening to you, Dean,’ said Winslow. I said, in deliberate candour: ‘We were just having an argument about Jago. Two for, and two against.’

‘That’s lamentable,’ Chrystal stared at Getliffe. ‘We shall have to banish the Mastership as a topic in the combination room. Otherwise the place won’t be worth living in.’

‘You know what the result of that would be, my dear Dean?’ said Winslow. ‘You would have two or three knots of people, energetically whispering in corners. Not but what,’ he added, ‘we shall certainly come to that before we’re finished.’

‘It’s lamentable,’ said Chrystal, ‘that the college can’t settle its business without getting into a state.’

‘That’s a remarkable thought,’ said Winslow. As Chrystal was replying tartly, the butler announced dinner: on the way in, Francis Getliffe gave me a curt word: ‘I want a talk with you. I’ll come to your rooms after hall.’

We were sitting down after grace when Luke hurried in, followed by Pilbrow, late as he had been so often in his fifty years as a fellow. He rushed in breathlessly, his bald head gleaming as though it had been polished. His eyes were brown and sparkling, his words tumbled over each other as he apologized: he was a man of seventy-four, with the spontaneity, the brilliance, the hopes of a youth.

Chrystal had not been able to avoid Winslow’s side, but he talked diagonally across the table to Francis Getliffe.

‘Have we fixed the date of the next feast, Getliffe?’ he asked.

‘You should have written it down in your pocketbook, my dear Dean,’ said Winslow. Chrystal frowned. Actually, he knew the date perfectly well. He was asking because he had something to follow.

‘February the 12th. A month tomorrow,’ said Francis Getliffe, who had during the previous summer become Steward.

‘I hope you’ll make it a good one,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’m asking you for a special reason. I happen to have a most important guest coming.’

‘Good work,’ said Francis Getliffe mechanically, preoccupied with other thoughts. ‘Who is he?’

‘Sir Horace Timberlake,’ Chrystal announced. He looked round the table, ‘I expect everyone’s heard of him.’

‘I am, of course, very ignorant of these matters,’ said Winslow. ‘But I’ve seen his name occasionally in the financial journals.’

‘He’s one of the most successful men of the day,’ said Chrystal. ‘He controls a major industry. He’s the chairman of Howard and Haslehurst.’

From the other side of the table, Francis Getliffe caught my eye. The name of that company had entered his wife’s life, and I knew the story. In the midst of his annoyance, he gave a grim, intimate smile of recognition.

Nightingale smiled.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘he might be called one of these business knights.’

‘He’s none the worse for that,’ retorted Chrystal.

‘Of course he’s none the worse for that,’ Pilbrow burst out from the lower end of the table. ‘I’ve never been much addicted to business-men, but really it’s ridiculous to put on airs because they become genteel. How else do you think anyone ever got a title? Think of the Master’s wife. What else were the Bevills but a set of sharp Elizabethan business men? It would be wonderful to tell her so.’ He exploded into joyful laughter. Then he talked rapidly again, this time to Winslow, several places away at the head of the table. ‘The trouble with your ancestors and mine, Godfrey, isn’t that they made money, but that they didn’t make quite enough. Otherwise we should have found ourselves with titles and coronets. It seems to me a pity whenever I order things in a shop. Or whenever I hear pompous persons talking nonsense about politics. I should have liked to be a red Lord.’

‘Of course,’ he said, following his process of free association, ‘snobbery is the national vice. Much more than other things which foreigners give us credit for.’ He often talked so fast that the words got lost, but phrases out of Havelock Ellis bubbled out — ‘le vice anglaise’, I heard.

Pilbrow was delighted with the comparison. When he had quietened down, he said: ‘By the way, I’ve hooked an interesting guest for the feast too, Getliffe.’

‘Yes, Eustace, who is it?’

Pilbrow produced the name of a French writer of great distinction. He was triumphant.

In matters of art, the college’s culture was insular and not well informed. The name meant nothing to most men there. But nevertheless they wanted to give Pilbrow the full flavour of his triumph. All except Chrystal and Nightingale. Chrystal was piqued because this seemed to be stealing Sir Horace’s thunder; Sir Horace had been jeered at by Nightingale that night, and Chrystal was sensitive for his heroes; he also liked solid success, and a French writer, not even one he had heard of, not even a famous one, was flimsy by the side of Sir Horace. He was huffed to notice that I took this Frenchman seriously, and told Pilbrow how much I wanted to meet him.

Nightingale did what seemed impossible, and detested Pilbrow. He was full of envy at Pilbrow’s ease, gaiety, acquaintance with all the cultivated world. He knew nothing of Pilbrow’s artistic friends, but hated them. When Pilbrow announced the French writer’s name, Nightingale just smiled.

The rest of us loved Pilbrow. Even Winslow said: ‘As you know, Eustace, I understand these things very little — but it will be extremely nice to see your genius. I stipulate, however, that I am not expected to converse in any language but my own.’

‘Would you really like him next to you, Godfrey?’

‘If you please. If you please.’

Pilbrow beamed. All of us, even the youngest, called him by his Christian name. He had been a unique figure in the college for very long. He would, as he said, have made a good red Lord. And, though he came from the upper middle classes, was comfortably off without being rich (his father had been the headmaster of a public school), many people in Europe thought of him in just that way. He was eccentric, an amateur, a connoisseur; he spent much of his time abroad, but he was intensely English, he could not have been anything else but English. He belonged to the fine flower of the peaceful nineteenth century. A great war had not shattered his feeling, gentlemanly and unselfconscious, that one went where one wanted and did what one liked.

If nostalgia ever swept over him, he thrust it back. I had never known an old man who talked less of the past. Long ago he had written books on the Latin novelists, and the one on Petronius, where he found a subject which exactly fitted him, was the best of its kind; all his books were written in a beautifully lucid style, oddly unlike his cheerful, incoherent speech. But he did not wish to talk of them. He was far more spirited describing some Central European he had just discovered, who would be a great writer in ten years.

He went round Europe, often losing his head over a gleam of talent. One of his eccentricities was that be refused to dress for dinner in a country under a totalitarian regime, and he took extreme delight in arriving at a party and explaining why. Since he was old, known in most of the salons and academies of Europe, and well connected, he set embassies some intricate problems. He did not make things easier for them by bringing persecuted artists to England, and spending most of his income upon them. He would try to bring over anyone a friend recommended — ‘everything’s got to be done through nepotism’, he said happily. ‘A pretty face may get too good a deal — but a pretty face is better than a committee, if it comes to bed.’

He had never married, but he did not seem lonely. I believed that there were days of depression, but if so he went through them in private. In public he was irrepressible, an enfant terrible of seventy-four. But it was not the exuberant side of him that I most admired; it was not that no one could think of him as old; it was that he, like other people who do good, was at heart as tough as leather, healthily self-centred at the core.

Chrystal came back to the feast.

‘There’s one thing we can’t overlook. I’ve already warned my guest. I don’t know how others feel, but I can’t bring myself to like having a feast here with the Master dying in the Lodge. Still, we’ve got no option. If we cancel it, it gives the show away. But, if they’ve told the Master the truth before the time of the feast, we should have to cancel it. Even at an hour’s notice. I shouldn’t have much patience with anyone who didn’t agree.’

‘I think we should all agree,’ said Winslow. ‘Which is a very surprising and gratifying event, don’t you think so, Dean?’

He spoke with his usual caustic courtesy, and was surprised to find Chrystal suddenly rude. He had not realized, he still did not, that Chrystal had spoken with deep feeling and was shocked by the sarcastic reply. In turn, Winslow became increasingly caustic, and Nightingale joined in.

I noticed young Luke, the observant and discreet, watching this display of conflicts, and missing nothing.

There was no wine that night. Pilbrow left for a party immediately after hall; cultivated Cambridge parties were not complete without him, he had been attending them for over fifty years. Between the rest of us there was too much tension for a comfortable bottle. Winslow gave his ‘Goodnight to you’, and sauntered out, swinging the cap, which, in his formal style, he was the only one of us to bring into the room. I followed, and Francis Getliffe came after me.

He said, the moment we were inside my sitting-room: ‘Look, I’m worried about this talk of Jago.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s bloody foolish. We can’t have him as Master. I don’t know what you can be thinking about.’

We were still standing up. A vein, always visible when he was angry, stood out in the middle of Francis’ forehead. His sunburn made him look well, on the surface; but under the eyes the skin was darkened and pouched by strain. He had been doing two men’s work for months — his own research, on the nature of the ionosphere, and his secret experiments for the Air Ministry. The secret was well kept, neither I nor anyone in the college knew any details until three years later, but he was actually busy with the origins of radar. He was tired, and overloaded with responsibility. His fundamental work had not received the attention that he looked for, and his reputation was not yet as brilliant as we had all prophesied. He was seeing some of his juniors overtake him; it was hard to bear.

Now he was throwing every effort into a new research. It had not yet started smoothly. It was an intolerable nuisance for him to come back to this trouble over the Mastership. He did not want to think about it, he was overtaxed already with the anxieties of air defence and the gnawing doubt that his new thoughts about the propagation of waves would not quite work out. Plunged into the middle of this human struggle he felt nothing but goaded irritation and impatience.

We had been friends since we first met, nearly ten years before — not intimate friends, but between us there was respect and confidence. We were about the same age: he was now thirty-four and I thirty-two. We had much the same views, and a good deal of experience in common. He had brought me to the college when I decided that I did not want to go on competing all out at the Bar. In my three years in the college, we had been allies, trusting each other, automatically on the same side in any question that mattered. This was the first time we had disagreed.

‘I don’t know what you can be thinking about,’ said Francis.

‘He’d be a goodish Master,’ I said.

‘Nonsense. Sheer bloody nonsense,’ said Francis. ‘What has he done?’

It was a harsh question, and difficult to answer. Jago was an English scholar, and had published articles on the first writings produced by the Puritan settlers in New England. The articles were sound enough: he was interesting on William Bradford’s dialogue; but it was no use pretending to Francis Getliffe.

‘I know as well as you that he’s not a specially distinguished scholar,’ I said.

‘The Master of the college must be a distinguished scholar,’ said Francis.

‘I don’t mind that as much as you,’ I said, ‘I’m not a perfectionist.’

‘What has he done?’ said Francis. ‘We can’t have a man who’s done nothing.’

‘It’s not so much what he’s done as what he is,’ I said. ‘As a human being there’s a great deal in him.’

‘I don’t see it.’

He had lost his temper, I was trying to keep mine. But I heard an edge coming into my voice.

‘I can’t begin to explain the colour red,’ I said, ‘to a man who’s colour blind. You’d better take my word for it—’

‘You get more fun out of human beings than I do,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to choose someone who gives you the maximum amount of fun. I just want a decent Master of this college.’

‘If you’re trying to secure that by cutting out all human judgement,’ I said, ‘you’ll make the most unforgivable mistake.’

Francis walked three strides, three of his long, plunging strides, to the fire and back. His steps fell heavy in the quiet room.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘how much are you committed?’

‘Completely.’

‘It’s sheer utter irresponsibility. It’s the first time I’ve seen you lose your balance. You must have gone quite mad.’

‘When I say completely,’ I said, ‘I could get out of it if there were a reason. But there won’t be one. Jago satisfies what I want better than anyone we shall find.’

‘Have you given a second’s thought to the fact that he’s an absurd conservative? Do you think this is a good time to elect conservative figureheads, when we might get a reasonable one?’

‘I don’t like that any more than you—’

‘I wish you showed more sign of not liking it in practice,’ Francis said.

‘For this particular job,’ I said, ‘I can’t believe it’s vitally important.’

‘It’s vitally important for every job where men can get into the public eye,’ said Francis. ‘You oughtn’t to need me to tell you. Things are balanced so fine that we can’t give away a point. These conservative fools are sticking out their chests and trying to behave like solid responsible men. I tell you, they’ll either let us drift lock, stock, and barrel to the Fascists; or they’ll get us into a war which we shall be bloody lucky not to lose.’

Francis spoke with a weariness of anger. He was radical, like many scientists of his generation. As he spoke, he was heavy with the responsibility that, in two or three years at most, he and his kind would have to bear. He looked so tired that, for a second, I was melted.

‘You needn’t tell me that, you know, Francis,’ I said. ‘I may be voting for Jago, but I haven’t changed altogether since we last met.’

His sudden creased smile lit up his face, and then left him stern again.

‘Whom do you want?’ I asked.

‘The obvious man. Crawford.’

‘He’s conceited. He’s shallow. He’s a third-rate man.’

‘He’s a very good scientist. That’s understating the case.’

I had never heard a contrary opinion. Some people said that Crawford was one of the best biologists alive.

Francis went on: ‘He’s got the right opinions. He isn’t afraid to utter them.’

‘He’s inconceivably self-satisfied—’

‘There aren’t many men of his standing with radical views. Anything he says, he says with authority behind him. Can’t you see that it might be useful to have a Master of a college who is willing to speak out like that?’

‘It might be very useful,’ I said. The quarrel had died down a little; I was listening to his argument. ‘It might be very useful. But that isn’t all we want him for. Think what Crawford would be like inside the college.’

I added: ‘He’d have no feeling. And no glow. And not a scrap of imagination.’

‘You claim all those things for Jago?’

‘Yes.’

‘One can’t have everything,’ said Francis.

I asked: ‘Will Crawford be a candidate?’

‘If I have anything to do with it.’

‘Have you spoken to Winslow yet?’

‘No. I count him in for Crawford. He’s got no option,’ said Francis.

Yes, I thought. Winslow had talked vaguely of going outside, he had ostentatiously mentioned no name. Those were the symptoms of one who hoped against hope that he would be asked himself: even Winslow, who knew how much he was disliked, who had been rejected flatly at the last election, still had that much hope. But everyone knew that he must run Crawford in the end.

‘I don’t see any other serious candidate,’ said Francis. He asked, suddenly and sternly: ‘Lewis, which side are you on?’

It was painful to quarrel. There was a silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t manage Crawford at any price. I see your case. But I still think this is a job where human things come first. So far as those go, I’m happy with Jago.’

Francis flushed, the vein was prominent.

‘It’s utterly irresponsible. That’s the kindest word I can find for it.’

‘We’ve got to differ,’ I said, suppressing the first words that came.

‘I can’t for the life of me understand why you didn’t wait before you decided. I should have expected you to discuss it with me.’

‘If you’d been here, I should have done,’ I said.

‘No doubt you’ve talked to other people.’

‘Of course.’

‘It will be hard,’ he said, ‘for me to think you reliable again.’

‘We’d better leave it,’ I said. ‘I’ve stood as much as I feel like standing—’

‘You’re going on with this nonsense?’ he shouted.

‘Of course I’m going on with it.’

‘If I can find a way to stop it,’ he said, ‘I promise you I shall.’

10: First College Meeting of Term

Trunks piled up in the college gateway, young men shouted to each other across the court, the porters’ trucks groaned, ground, and rumbled on their way round the stone paths. The benches in hall were filled, there was a surge of noise before and after grace; feet ran up and down stairs, all evening long. At night the scratchings behind the walls were less insistent; the kitchens were full of food now, and the rats, driven out to forage in the depth of the vacation, were going back. A notice came round, summoning a college meeting for a Monday, the first Monday of full term.

The meeting was called for 4.30, the customary time, just as each alternate Monday was the customary day; the bell pealed, again according to custom, at four o’clock, and Brown came down his staircase, Francis Getliffe and Chrystal walked through the gate, I looked round for my gown, all of us on our way to the combination room. The room itself looked transformed from when it was laid for wine at night; a blotter, a neat pile of scribbling paper, an inkwell, pens and pencils, stood in each place instead of glasses; covered with paper, the table shone white, orderly, bleak; the curtains were not drawn, though the wall lights were switched on, and through the windows came the cold evening light. The room seemed larger, and its shape was changed.

Its shape was changed partly because another table, almost as long as the main one, was brought in specially for these occasions. This table was covered with a most substantial tea — great silver teapots and jugs, shining under the windows, plates of bread and butter, white, brown, wholemeal, bread with currants in it, bread with raisins in it, gigantic college cakes, black with fruit and already sliced, tarts, pastries, toasted teacakes under massive silver covers. It was for this tea that the bell pealed half an hour before the meeting; and it was for this tea that we came punctually when we heard the bell.

Old Gay was already there. He seemed to have been there a considerable time. The rest of us stood round the table, holding our cups, munching a teacake, reaching out for a tart; but Gay had drawn up a chair against the table, and was making a hearty meal.

‘Ah. How are you getting on, Chrystal?’ he said, looking up for a moment from his plate. ‘Have you had one of these lemon curd tarts?’

‘I have,’ said Chrystal.

‘I congratulate you,’ said Gay promptly.

In a moment he looked up again.

‘Ah, I’m glad to see you, Calvert. I thought you’d left us. Have you had any of this excellent stickjaw cake?’

‘I was wondering whether it was too heavy for me,’ said Roy Calvert.

‘I must congratulate the Steward. Winslow, I congratulate you on the remarkably fine tea you’ve given us.’

‘My dear Professor,’ said Winslow, ‘I was a most uninspired Steward: and I gave up being so five-and-twenty years ago.’

‘Then congratulate the new Steward for me,’ said Gay, quite unabashed, picking out a chocolate eclair. ‘Tell him from me that he’s doing splendid work.’

We stood round, occupied with tea. Everyone was in the room except Crawford; snatches of conversation kept reaching me and fading away. Chrystal and Brown had a quiet word, and then Chrystal moved to the side of the Master’s Deputy, Despard-Smith, who was listening with a solemn, puzzled expression to Roy Calvert. Chrystal plucked the sleeve of his gown, and they backed into the window: I heard a few words in Chrystal’s brisk whisper — ‘Master…announce the position…most inadvisable to discuss it…dangerous…some of us would think it improper.’ As in all the whispered colloquies before meetings, the s’s hissed across the room.

The half hour struck. Despard-Smith said, in his solemn voice — ‘It is more than time we started,’ and we took our places in order of seniority, one to the right, and one to the left of the chair. Round the table clockwise from Despard-Smith’s left hand, the order became — Pilbrow, Crawford (whose place was still empty), Brown, Nightingale, myself, Luke, Calvert, Getliffe, Chrystal, Jago, Winslow, Gay.

There was one feature of this curious system of seating: it happened at that time to bring side by side the bitterest antipathies in the college, Jago and Winslow, Crawford and Brown, Nightingale and myself.

Despard-Smith looked round the table for silence. His face looked grey, lined, mournful above his clerical collar, grey above his black coat. He was seventy, and the only fellow then in orders, but he had never held a living; in fact, he had lived continuously in college since he entered it as a freshman fifty-one years before. He had been second wrangler in the days of the old mathematical tripos, and had been elected immediately after, as was often the practice then. He did no more mathematics, but became bursar at thirty and did not leave go of the office until he was over sixty. He was a narrow, competent man who had saved money for the college like a French peasant, and at any attempts to spend, predicted the gravest catastrophe. He had the knack of investing any cliché with solemn weight. At seventy he still kept a curious brittle, stiff authority. He prided himself on his sense of humour: and, since he was also solemn and self-assured, he accordingly became liable to some of Roy Calvert’s more eccentric enquiries.

It lay in the Master’s power to name his own deputy: and Despard-Smith had been appointed by the Master under seal in December, at the beginning of his illness — probably because the Master, like all the older fellows, could not struggle free from the long years in which Despard-Smith as bursar had held the college down.

‘I shall now ask for the minutes,’ he said. He stuttered on the ‘m’: he sometimes stuttered slightly on the operative word: it added to his gravity and weight.

Everyone there was anxious to come to the question of the Mastership. Some were more than anxious: but we could not do it. Custom ordained a rigid order of business, first college livings and then finance. The custom was unbreakable. And so we settled down to a desultory discussion about who should be offered a country living worth £325 a year. It carried with it a rectory with fourteen bedrooms. In the eighteenth century it had been worth exactly the same figure, and then it had been a prize for which the fellows struggled. Now it was going to be hard to fill. Despard-Smith considered that a contemporary of his might listen to the call; Roy Calvert wanted it for a young Anglo-Catholic friend.

The college was inclined to think that Despard-Smith’s contemporary might be a trifle old. As for Roy’s nominee, he never stood a chance, though Roy pressed him obstinately. Roy never got the ear of a college meeting. He became too ingenious and elaborate; tête-à-tête with any of these men, he was perceptive, but when they were gathered together he became strangely maladroit. But Arthur Brown himself could not have manoeuvred a job for an Anglo-Catholic. At the bare mention, Jago, who was in fact an eloquent agnostic, invariably remembered that he had been brought up an Irish protestant. And all the other unbelievers would follow him in a stampede and become obdurate low churchmen.

So it happened that afternoon. The college would not take either of the names.

At that point, Crawford came in, and slipped quietly but noticeably into his place. He moved sleekly, like a powerful man who has put on weight.

‘My apologies, Mr Deputy,’ he said. ‘As I informed you, I had to put in an appearance at the faculty board.’

Despard-Smith gloomily, competently, recapitulated the arguments: it appeared to be ‘the sense of the meeting’ that neither of these men should be offered the living, and the question would have to be deferred until next meeting: it was, of course, deplorable: had Dr Crawford any advice to give?

‘No, Mr Deputy, I have no observations to make,’ said Crawford. He had a full, smooth voice, and a slight Scottish accent. He assumed that he would be listened to, and he had the trick of catching the attention without an effort. His expression stayed impassive: his features were small in a smooth, round face, and his eyes were round and unblinking. His hair was smoothed down, cut very short over the ears; he had lost none of it, and it was still a glossy black, though he was fifty-six. As he spoke to the Deputy, he wore an impersonal smile.

The financial business did not take long. The college was selling one of its antique copyholds at twenty years’ purchase; the college owned property in all the conceivable fashions of five hundred years; some early gifts had, by their legal form, kept their original money value and so were now more trouble than they were worth. When it came to property, the college showed a complete lack of antiquarian sentimentality.

‘If that is all,’ said Despard-Smith with solemn irritation, ‘perhaps we can get on. We have not yet dealt with our most serious piece of business. I cannot exaggerate the catastrophic consequences of what I have to say.’

He stared severely round from right to left. Luke, for one moment free from scribbling notes for minutes, had been whispering to Roy Calvert. He blushed down to his neck: he, and the whole room, became silent.

Despard-Smith cleared his throat.

‘The college will be partly prepared for the announcement which it is my painful duty to make. When the Master asked me to act as his deputy less than two months ago, I fully expected that before this term was over he would be back in the s-saddle again. I little imagined that it would fall to me to announce from this chair the most disastrous news that I have been informed of in my long association with the college.’ He paused. ‘I am told,’ he went on, ‘upon authority which cannot be denied that the Master will shortly be taken from us.’

He paused again, and said: ‘I am not qualified to express an opinion whether there is the f-faintest hope that the medical experts may be proved wrong in the event.’

Crawford said: ‘May I have permission to make a statement, Mr Deputy?’

‘Dr Crawford.’

‘Speaking now not as a fellow but as one who was once trained as a medical man, I must warn the society that there is no chance at all of a happy issue,’ Crawford said. He sat impassively, while others looked at him. I saw Jago’s eyes flash at the other end of the table.

‘You confirm what we have been told, Dr Crawford, that the Master’s days on earth are n-numbered?’

‘I must confirm that,’ said Crawford. He was a physiologist, best known for his work on the structure of the brain. His fingers were short and thick, and it was surprising to be told that he was an experimenter of the most delicate manual skill.

‘We are all bound to be impressed by Dr Crawford’s statement,’ said Despard-Smith.

‘I must add a word to it,’ said Crawford. ‘The end cannot be long. The college must be prepared to have lost its head by the end of the Easter term.’

‘Thank you for telling us the worst.’

‘I considered it my duty to tell the college all I knew myself,’ said Crawford.

He had said nothing novel to most of us; yet his immobile certainty, Despard-Smith’s bleak and solemn weight, the ritual of the meeting itself, brought a tension that sprang from man to man like an electric charge.

After a silence, Winslow said: ‘Dr Crawford’s statement brings the whole matter to a point. I take it that with your permission, Mr Deputy, the college will wish to discuss the vacancy we shall soon be faced with.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Chrystal at his sharpest.

‘I thought I made myself fairly clear,’ said Winslow.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Chrystal. This kind of obstinate pretence of incomprehension was one of his favourite techniques at a meeting. ‘I should like us to be reminded of the statute governing the election of a Master.’

‘I wonder,’ said Brown, ‘if you would be good enough to read it, Mr Deputy?’

‘I’m in the hands of the m-meeting,’ said Despard-Smith.

‘Why are we wasting time?’ said Francis Getliffe.

‘I should like the statute read,’ snapped Chrystal.

Winslow and Crawford exchanged glances, but Despard-Smith opened his copy of the statutes, which lay in front of him on the table, and began to read, half-intoning in a nasal voice: ‘When a vacancy in the office of Master shall become known to that fellow first in order of precedence he shall summon within forty-eight hours a meeting of the fellows. If the fellow first in order of precedence be not resident in Cambridge, or otherwise incapable of presiding, the duty shall pass to the next senior, and so on. When the fellows are duly assembled the fellow first in order of precedence attending shall announce to them the vacancy, and shall before midnight on the same day authorize a notice of the vacancy and of the time hereby regulated for the election of the new Master, and cause this notice to be placed in full sight on the chapel door. The time regulated for the election shall be ten o’clock on the morning on the fifteenth day from the date of the notice if the vacancy occur in term, or on the thirtieth day if it occur out of term.’

When he had finished, Gay said sonorously: ‘Ah. Indeed. Very interesting. Very remarkable. Fine piece of draughtsmanship, that statute.’

‘It makes my point,’ said Chrystal. ‘The college as a college can’t take any action till the Mastership is vacant. There’s no question before us. I move the next business.’

‘This is formalism carried to extreme limits,’ said Winslow angrily. ‘I’ve never known the Dean be so scrupulous on a matter of etiquette before—’

‘It’s completely obvious the matter must be discussed,’ said Francis Getliffe.

‘I’m sure the Dean never intended to suggest anything else, Mr Deputy,’ said Brown with a bland and open smile. ‘If I may take the words out of his mouth, I know the Dean hopes — as I feel certain we all do — that we shall discuss every possible element in the whole position, so that we finally do secure the true opinion and desire of the college. The little difference of opinion between us amounts to nothing more than whether our discussion should be done in a formal college meeting or outside.’

‘Or, to those of us who haven’t the gift for softening differences possessed by Mr Brown, whether we shall dissolve immediately into cabals,’ said Winslow with a savage, caustic grin, ‘or talk it out in the open.’

‘Speaking now as a fellow and not as a former medical man,’ said Crawford, ‘I consider that the college would be grossly imprudent not to use the next few months to resolve on the dispositions it must make.’

‘But that’s agreed by everybody,’ I put in. ‘The only question is, whether a formal college meeting is the most suitable place.’

‘Cabals versus the open air,’ said Winslow, and Nightingale smiled. Despard-Smith was not prepared for the waves of temper that were sweeping up.

‘I cannot remember any p-precedent in my long association with the college,’ he said.

Suddenly Pilbrow began speaking with great speed and earnestness: ‘The college can’t possibly have a meeting about a new Master… When the man who ought to be presiding is condemned… I’ve never known such an extraordinary lack of feeling.’

He finished, after his various starts, with complete lucidity. But the college had a habit of ignoring Pilbrow’s interventions, and Chrystal and Winslow had both begun to speak at once when Jago quietened them. His voice was not an orator’s: it was plummy, thick, produced far back in his throat. Yet, whenever he spoke, men’s glances turned to him. He had his spectacles in hand, and his eyes, for once unveiled, were hard.

‘I have no doubt,’ he said, ‘that we have just listened to the decisive word. This is not the first time that Mr Pilbrow has represented to some of us the claims of decent feeling. Mr Deputy, the Master of this college is now lying in his Lodge, and he has asked you to preside in his place. We know that we must settle on someone to succeed him, however difficult it is. But we can do that in our own way, without utterly offending the taste of some of us by insisting on doing it in this room — in a meeting of which he is still the head.’ When he sat back the room stayed uncomfortably still.

‘That settles it,’ said Roy Calvert in a clear voice.

‘I moved the next business ten minutes ago,’ said Chrystal, staring domineeringly at Despard-Smith. ‘I believe Mr Brown seconded it. Is it time to vote on my motion? I’m ready to wait all evening.’

The motion was carried by seven votes to four. For: Pilbrow, Jago, Brown, Chrystal, myself, Calvert, Luke. Against: Winslow, Crawford, Nightingale, Getliffe.

Neither Despard-Smith nor Gay voted.

11: View from Roy Calvert’s Window

At hall after the meeting, Winslow was grumbling about Jago’s last speech — ‘high-minded persons have a remarkable gift for discovering that the requirements of decent feeling fit in exactly with what they want to do’. I thought about how we had voted. The sides were sorting themselves out. Nightingale had voted with the opposition: was that merely a gesture of suspiciousness against Chrystal and Brown? He was the most uncomfortable of bedfellows. Despard-Smith would presumably vote for Crawford. What about old Gay? He might do anything. I fancied Pilbrow would decide for Jago. It looked encouraging.

Two days afterwards, a note came round: ‘Those who are not disposed to vote for the Senior Tutor may like to discuss candidates for the Mastership. I suggest a meeting in my rooms at 2.30 on Friday, Jan. 18. G H W.’

Winslow had had his note duplicated in the bursary, and sent it to each fellow. There was a good deal of comment. ‘The man’s got no manners,’ said Chrystal. ‘He’s always doing his best to make the place a beargarden.’ Brown said: ‘I’ve got a feeling that the college won’t be a very happy family for the next few months.’ Jago said: ‘I shall manage to hold my tongue — but he’s being needlessly offensive.’

Although Roy Calvert and I were waited on by the same servant, his rooms were to be found not in the first court proper, but in a turret over the kitchen. His sitting-room commanded a view of the second court and the staircase up which Winslow’s visitors must go. I arrived there after lunch on the Friday afternoon; Roy was standing at his upright desk, reading a manuscript against a lighted opalescent screen.

‘I’ve kept an eye across the way,’ he said. ‘No one has declared himself yet.

‘I need to finish this,’ he went on, looking back at the screen. ‘There’s a new martyr in this psalm.’

He read for a few minutes, and then joined me by the window. We looked across, through the mist of the raw January afternoon, to the separate building which contained the sets not only of Winslow, but also of Pilbrow and Chrystal. It was a building of palladian harmony; Eustace Pilbrow had lived in it for fifty years, and said that it was still as tranquil to look at as when he saw it for the first time.

It was twenty-five past two.

‘High time the enemy appeared,’ said Roy.

Just then Winslow came lounging along the path from the first court. He wore no overcoat, but, as usual when in college on business, a black coat and striped trousers. As he lounged along, his feet came down heavily at each step; one could guess from his gait that he had unusually big feet.

‘He’s declared himself, anyway,’ said Roy. ‘He’d be sold if no one else turned up.’

Roy was on edge in his own fashion, though he was not given to anxiety. Waiting for critical news of his own, he felt instead of anxiety a tingle of excitement. He felt it now, watching for news of Jago’s chances.

We saw Winslow disappear in the mouth of his staircase.

‘He’s extremely tiresome.’ Roy smiled. ‘But I like the old stick. So do you.’

A moment later, Despard-Smith, in clerical hat and overcoat, walked across the front of the building from the third court.

‘That was only to be expected,’ I said.

‘If he weren’t able to express his view,’ said Roy, ‘it would be nothing short of catastrophic.’

Francis Getliffe came quickly the way Winslow had come, in his long plunging strides.

‘Now he ought to know better,’ said Roy.

‘He’s got some good reasons.’

‘He’s getting stuffier as he gets older.’

The half-hour struck. Very slowly, along the same path, came Gay. One foot shuffled slowly in front of the other; he was muffled up to the throat, but his cheeks shone very red, his beard very white.

‘How in God’s name did he decide?’ I cried in disappointment.

He took minutes to make his way across the court. He was almost there when we saw Nightingale come along from the third court and join him.

‘Judas?’ said Roy.

They talked for a moment; we saw Nightingale shake his head and walk away in our direction.

‘Apparently not,’ I said.

Then, from the first court, Crawford walked smoothly into view. He was late, he was moving fast, but he gave no appearance of hurry. Roy whistled ‘Here comes the bride’ until he slipped up Winslow’s staircase.

‘I wonder,’ said Roy suddenly, ‘if old Winslow is still hoping. I wonder if he expects to be asked to stand this afternoon.’

‘People hope on,’ I said, ‘long after they admit it to themselves.’

‘Just so,’ said Roy. ‘In this case until they’re seventy.’ (Under the statutes, seventy was the retiring age for the Master.)

No one else came. The court was empty.

‘Is that the whole party?’ said Roy. ‘I believe it is.’

We waited, and heard the quarters chime. We waited again. ‘If this is all, old boy,’ cried Roy, ‘it’s in the bag.’ We still stood there, looking over the court. The mist was deepening. An undergraduate brought in a girl, and they passed out of sight towards the third court. All of a sudden a light shone from Winslow’s room. It made the court seem emptier, the afternoon more raw.

‘They’ve only collected five,’ said Roy. ‘Not many. They’ve lost face.’

Crawford came out again into the court. Again quickly but without hurry, he walked towards the first court. We could see down on to his face as he approached. He looked utterly impassive.

‘Asked to retire,’ I said.

‘I wonder what he thinks his chances are,’ said Roy. He added: ‘One thing — Winslow knows the worst now. His last chance has gone.’

‘I’m sorry for some of our friends,’ I said, ‘if they sit next to him tonight.’

‘I’d better get there early,’ said Roy. ‘I can look after myself.’ I smiled. We gazed, as the afternoon darkened, at the one window lighted in the quiet building. At last Roy turned away. ‘That is that,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty remarkable, old boy. We seem to be home.’

‘I think I’d better tell Arthur Brown,’ I said. Roy’s telephone stood by his bedside, and I went there and talked to Brown. ‘How do you know how many turned up?’ I heard Brown saying, cautious and inquisitive as ever. ‘How can you possibly have found out?’

I explained that we had been watching from Roy Calvert’s window. Brown was satisfied, and asked for the names again. ‘Our party seems to be hanging together,’ he said. ‘But I think, to be on the safe side, I’ll give a little luncheon soon. I say, Eliot, I’m sorry about old Gay. I should like to know who got at him. We’ve let them steal a march on us there.’

‘But it’s pretty good,’ I said.

‘I must say it looks perfectly splendid.’ For a second Brown had let himself go. Then the voice turned minatory again: ‘Of course, you’ll remember it’s much too early to throw your hats in the air. We haven’t even got a paper majority for Paul Jago yet. We must go carefully. You mustn’t let people feel that we think it’s safe. It would be a wise precaution if you and Calvert didn’t let on that you know who turned up this afternoon.’

I told Roy, who gave a malicious chuckle.

‘Good old Uncle Arthur,’ he said. ‘He must be the only person on this earth who regards you as an irresponsible schoolboy. It gives me great pleasure.’

He rang down to the kitchens for tea and crumpets, and we ate them by the fire. When we had finished and I was sitting back with my last cup of tea, Roy glanced at me with a secretive grin. From a drawer he produced, as though furtively, a child’s box of bricks. ‘I bought these yesterday,’ he said. ‘I thought they might come in useful. They won’t be necessary unless Winslow shows us a new trick or two. But I may as well set them out.’

He always had a love for the concrete, though his whole professional life was spent with words. Another man would have written down the fellows’ names, but Roy liked selecting fourteen identical bricks, and printing on them the names from Royce to Luke. The brick marked Royce he put by itself without a word. His expression lightened as he placed the two bricks Jago and Crawford together. Then he picked out Gay, Despard-Smith, Winslow, and Getliffe, and arranged them in a row. He left the other seven in a huddle — ‘until everyone’s in the open. It ought to be a clear majority.’

I had to give two supervisions from five to seven, and when the second was over went straight to the combination room. There Crawford was sitting by the fire alone, reading the local paper. He nodded, impersonally cordial, as I went over to the sherry table. When I came back, glass in hand, to the armchairs, Crawford looked at me over the top of his paper. ‘I don’t like the look of the war, Eliot,’ he said. ‘The war’ was the civil war in Spain.

‘Nor do I,’ I said.

‘Our people are getting us into a ridiculous mess. Every Thursday when I go up to the Royal I try to call on someone or other who is supposed to be running our affairs. I try to make a different call each week and persuade them to see a little military sense. It’s the least one can do, but I never come away feeling reassured. Speaking as one liberal to another, Eliot, and without prejudice to your subject, I should feel happier if we had a few men of science in the House and the Foreign Office.’

For a few minutes he talked about the winter campaign in Spain. He had made a hobby of military history, and his judgement was calm and steady. Everything he said was devastatingly sensible.

Then Jago entered. He started as he saw Crawford, then greeted him with effusiveness. He was more uncomfortable than I had ever seen him — more uncomfortable, I suddenly realized, because he had heard the good news of the afternoon. He felt guilty in the presence of the less lucky one.

Crawford was unperturbed.

‘I think we’d better abandon our military researches for tonight, Eliot,’ he said. ‘I believe the Senior Tutor isn’t specially interested in war. And certainly doesn’t share our sympathies about the present one. He’ll realize we were right in time.’

He got up from his chair, and stood facing Jago. He was several inches shorter, but he had the physical presence that comes through being able to keep still.

‘But I am glad of the chance of a word with you, Jago,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of sending you a note. That won’t be necessary if we can have three minutes. I understand that Eliot is committed to support you, and so I can speak in his presence.’

‘By all means,’ said Jago. ‘I am in your hands. Go ahead, my dear man, go ahead.’

‘This afternoon,’ said Crawford, ‘I was asked to let myself be a candidate for the Mastership. Those who asked me did not constitute a numerical majority of the college, but they represent a sound body of opinion. I saw no reason to hesitate. I don’t approve of people who have to be persuaded to play, like the young woman who just happens to have brought her music. I told them I was ready to let my name go forward.’

He was confident, impervious, conceited, self-assured. On the afternoon’s showing he was left without a chance, but he seemed in control of the situation.

‘I’m very grateful to you for telling me,’ said Jago.

‘It was the least I could do,’ said Crawford. ‘We are bound to be the only serious candidates.’

‘I wish both the candidates,’ said Jago, with a sudden smile, ‘reached the standard of distinction set by one of them.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Crawford replied. ‘There will be one question for us two to decide together. That is, what to do with our own personal votes. We ought to reach a working agreement on that. It is conceivable that the question may become important.’

Then he said that he was dining in another college, and left us with a cordial, impersonal goodnight.

Jago sighed and smiled.

‘I’d give a good deal for that assurance, Eliot!’

‘If you had it,’ I said, ‘you’d lose something else.’

‘I wonder,’ Jago cried, ‘if he’s ever imagined that he could possibly be wrong? Has he ever thought for a minute that he might possibly disgrace himself and fail?’

Not in this world of professional success, power, ambition, influence among men, I thought. Of his mastery in this world Crawford was absolutely and impenetrably confident. Nothing had ever shaken him, or could now.

But I guessed that in his nature there was one rift of diffidence. He had a quiet, comely wife and a couple of children — while Jago would go home after dinner to his tormented shrew. Yet I guessed that, in time past, Crawford had been envious of Jago’s charm for women. Jago had never been frightened that he might not win love: he had always known, with the unconscious certainty of an attractive man, that it would come his way. It was an irony that it came in such a form; but he stayed confident with women, he was confident of love; in fact, it was that confidence which helped him to devote such tenderness and such loving patience upon his wife. Whereas Crawford as a young man had wondered in anguish whether any woman would ever love him. For all his contented marriage — on the surface so much more enviable than Jago’s — he had never lost that diffidence, and there were still times when he envied such men as Jago from the bottom of his heart.

12: Jago Walks Round the Court

The evening after Winslow’s caucus, Brown asked me to join him and Chrystal, and when I went into Brown’s room, they were busy talking. Brown said to me: ‘I suggested we should meet here because it’s a bit more private than the combination room. And I happen to have a glass of manzanilla waiting for you. We think it’s rather helpful to a bit of business.’

Brown gave me my glass, settled himself, and went on: ‘I regard it as desirable to strike while the iron’s hot. I can’t forgive myself for letting them snatch old Gay from in front of our noses. We must have our little lunch before we lose anyone else.’

‘I’m with you,’ said Chrystal.

‘I think they’ve shown more enterprise than we have,’ said Brown, ‘and we’ve got out of it better than we deserved.’

‘If I were Crawford, I shouldn’t thank Winslow much,’ said Chrystal. ‘He’s just run amok. He’s done them more harm than good. If Crawford had us to look after him, there’d be no need to have an election.’

‘Well,’ said Brown, ‘I shall be happier when we’ve got our party round a lunch table.’

‘We must make them speak,’ said Chrystal.

‘You’ll preside,’ said Brown, ‘and you can make everyone say that he’s supporting Jago.’

‘Why should I preside?’

‘That’s your job. I regard you as the chairman of our party.’ Brown smiled. ‘And we ought to have this lunch on Sunday. The only remaining point is whom do we ask. I was telling the Dean’ — he said to me — ‘that I haven’t been entirely idle. I haven’t let the other side get away with everything. I think I’ve got Eustace Pilbrow. We certainly ought to ask him to the lunch. He’s never been specially interested in these things, and he’s not enormously enthusiastic, but I think I’ve got him. Put it another way: if Jago were a bit of a crank politically — saving your presence, Eliot — I believe Eustace would support him up to the hilt. As it is, I’m quite optimistic.’

‘That only leaves young Luke,’ said Chrystal. ‘Everyone else has got tabs on them. So I reckon at present.’

‘Obviously we invite the other three, Pilbrow, Nightingale, and Roy Calvert,’ said Brown. ‘The question is, Eliot, whether we invite young Luke. I must say that I’m rather against it.’

‘He only needs a bit of persuasion,’ Chrystal said sharply. ‘Either side could get him for the asking. He’s a child.’

In the months since Luke became a fellow, I had not got to know him, except as an observant, intelligent, discreet, and sanguine face at hall and college meetings. Once I had walked round the garden with him for half an hour.

‘I wonder whether you’re right,’ I said to Chrystal. ‘It may not be as easy as you think.’

‘Dead easy for us. Dead easy for Winslow,’ said Chrystal.

‘I agree,’ said Brown. ‘I believe the Dean’s right.

‘That’s why,’ he went on, ‘I’m against inviting him.’ His face was flushed, but stubborn and resolute. ‘I want to say where I stand on this. I won’t be a party to over-persuading Luke. He’s a young man, he’s not a permanency here yet, he’s got his way to make, and it would be a damned shame to hamper him. At the very best it won’t be easy for the college to keep him when his six years are up: we’ve got one physicist in Getliffe, and it will be hard to make a case for another as a fixture.’ (Roy Calvert and Luke were research fellows appointed for six years: when that period ended, the college could keep them or let them go. It was already taken for granted that a special place must be found for Roy Calvert.) ‘It stands to reason that Luke has got to look to Crawford and Getliffe. They’re the scientists, they’re the people who can help him, they’re the people who’ve got to make a case if the college is ever going to keep him. You can’t blame him if he doesn’t want to offend them. If I’d started as the son of a dockyard hand, as that boy did, though no one would ever think it, I shouldn’t feel like taking the slightest risk. I’m certainly not going to persuade him to take it. Whichever side he comes down on, I say that it isn’t for us to interfere.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘Francis Getliffe is a very fair-minded man—’

‘I give you that,’ said Brown. ‘I’m not saying that voting for Jago would necessarily make a scrap of difference to Luke’s future. But he may feel that he’s making an enemy. If he does, I for one wouldn’t feel easy about talking him round.’

‘You’ve got a point there,’ said Chrystal.

‘The furthest I feel inclined to go,’ said Brown, ‘is to send him a note saying that some of us have now decided to support Jago. I’ll tell him we’re meeting on Sunday to discuss ways and means, but we’re not inviting people who still want time to make up their minds.’

‘I’m sorry to say,’ said Chrystal, ‘that I think you’re right.’

There we left it for the evening. It was easier to understand their hold on the college, I thought, when one saw their considerate good nature, right in the middle of their politics. No one could run such a society for long without a degree of trust. That trust most of the college had come to place in them. They were politicians, they loved power, at many points they played the game only just within the rules. But they set themselves limits and did not cross them. They kept their word. And in human things, particularly with the young, they were uneasy unless they behaved in a fashion that was scrupulous and just. People were ready to believe this of Brown, but found it harder to be convinced that it was also true of his friend. They saw clearly enough that Chrystal was the more ruthless: they did not see that he was the more tender-hearted.

In this particular instance, as it happened, they did not evoke the response that they deserved. Luke sat next to me in hall that night. For a couple of nights past he had been less sanguine and bright-eyed than usual: I asked about his work.

‘It seems to be describing a sine curve,’ he said. I had to recollect that a sine curve went up and down.

He went on: ‘Sometimes I think it’s all set. Sometimes I think it’s as useless as the Great Pyramid. I’m in the second phase just now. I’m beginning to wonder if I shall ever get the wretched thing out.’

He was depressed and irritable, and just then happened to hear Brown quietly inviting Roy Calvert to lunch in order ‘to give Jago’s campaign a proper start’.

‘What is all this?’ Luke asked me. ‘Is this the reply to Winslow’s meeting?’

‘Roughly,’ I said.

‘Am I being asked?’

‘I think,’ I said, ‘that Brown felt you hadn’t yet made up your mind.’

‘He hasn’t taken much trouble to find out,’ said Luke. ‘I’ll have it out with him afterwards.’

Passing round the wine in the combination room, he was quiet and deferential to the old men, as he always was. I was beginning to realize the check he imposed on his temper. An hour later, as Brown and I left the room and went into the court, Luke came rapidly behind us.

‘Brown, why haven’t I been invited to this bloody caucus?’

‘It isn’t quite a caucus, Luke. I was just going to write to explain—’

‘It’s a meeting of Jago’s supporters, isn’t it?’

‘One or two of us,’ said Brown, ‘have come to the conclusion that he’s the right man. And—’

‘So have I. Why hasn’t someone spoken to me about it? Why haven’t I been told?’

It was raining, and we had hurried through the court into the gateway, for Brown was on his way home. We stood under the great lantern.

‘Why, to tell you the truth, Luke, we thought you might naturally want to vote for Crawford. And we didn’t want to put any pressure on you.’

‘I’m buggered if I vote for Crawford,’ cried Luke. ‘You might have given me credit for more sense. Jago would make one of the best Masters this college has ever had.’

So Luke appeared for the Sunday lunch in Brown’s rooms, once more effacing himself into discretion again, dressed with a subfusc taste more cultivated than that of anyone there except Roy Calvert. Unobtrusively he inhaled the bouquet of his glass of Montrachet.

Brown had placed Chrystal at one end of the table, and took the other himself. After we had sipped the wine, Brown said contentedly: ‘I’m glad most of you seem to like it. I thought it was rather suitable. After all, we don’t meet for this purpose very frequently.’

Brown’s parties were always modest. One had a couple of glasses of a classical wine, and that was all — except once a year, when his friends who had a taste in wine were gathered together for an evening. This Sunday there was nothing with lunch but the Montrachet, but afterwards he circulated a bottle of claret. ‘I thought we needed something rather fortifying,’ said Brown, ‘before we started our little discussion.’

We were content after our lunch. Pilbrow was a gourmet, young Luke had the sensuous gusto to become one; Chrystal and Roy Calvert and I enjoyed our food and drink. Pilbrow was chuckling to himself.

‘Much better than the poor old Achaeans—’ I distinguished among the chuckles. We asked what it was all about, and Pilbrow became lucid: ‘I was reading the Iliad — Book XI — again in bed — Pramnian wine sprinkled with grated goat’s cheese — Pramnian wine sprinkled with grated goat’s cheese — Oh, can anyone imagine how horrible that must have been?’

Six of us went on enjoying our wine. Meanwhile Nightingale sat over a cup of coffee, envying us for our pleasure, trying to be polite and join in the party.

In time Brown asked Chrystal whether we ought not to make a start with the discussion. There was the customary exchange of compliments between them: Chrystal wondered why he should act as chairman, when Brown himself was there: Brown felt the sense of the meeting required the Dean. At last, the courtesies over, Chrystal turned sharply to business. He wished us each to define our attitude to the Mastership, in order of seniority; he would wind up himself. So, sitting round the littered table after lunch, we each made a speech.

Pilbrow opened, as usual over-rapidly. But his intention was clear and simple. He was sorry that Jago had some reactionary opinions: but he was friendly, he took great trouble about human beings, and Pilbrow would vote for him against Crawford. It was a notable speech for a man of seventy-four; listening with concentration, I was surprised how little he was attended to. Chrystal was spinning the stem of a glass between his fingers; even Brown was not peering with acute interest.

Brown was listened to by everyone. For the first time, he spoke his whole mind about Jago, and he spoke it with an authority, a conviction, a round integrity, that drew us all together. Jago would make an outstandingly good Master, and his election would be a fine day’s work for the college. Put it another way: if the college was misguided enough to elect Crawford, we should be down twice: once by getting a bad Master, once by losing a first-class one. And the second point was the one for us to give our minds to.

Nightingale made a circuitous attack on Crawford, in the course of which he threw doubts, the first time I had heard him or anyone else suggest them, on Crawford’s real distinction as a scientist. ‘His work may be discredited in ten years, any work of his sort may be, and then the college would be in an awkward situation.’ The others round the table became puzzled and hushed, while Nightingale smiled.

I developed Pilbrow’s point, and asked them what human qualities they thought they wanted in a Master. For myself, I answered: a disinterested interest in other people: magnanimity: a dash of romantic imagination. No one could doubt Jago had his share of the last, I said, and got a laugh. I said that in my view he was more magnanimous than most men, and more interested in others.

Roy Calvert took the same line, at greater length, more fancifully. He finished with a sparkle of mischief: ‘Lewis Eliot and I are trying to say that Jago is distinguished as a man. If anyone asks us to prove it, there’s only one answer — just spend an hour with him. If that isn’t convincing it isn’t our fault — or Jago’s.’

Luke said no more than he was sure Jago would be a splendid Master, and that he would vote for him in any circumstances.

Chrystal had made a note on the back of an envelope after each speech. Now he summed up, brusque, giving his usual hint of impatience or ill-temper, competent and powerful. He had wanted to be certain how far the party were prepared to commit themselves. Unless he had misunderstood the statements, Brown, Nightingale, and Luke were prepared to vote for Jago without qualifications; Eliot and Calvert would support him against any candidate so far mentioned; Pilbrow promised to support him against Crawford. ‘Have I got anyone wrong?’ he asked sharply.

Brown and I were each watching Nightingale. No one spoke. One by one, we nodded.

‘That’s very satisfactory as far as it goes,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’m not going to waste your time with a speech. I can go at least as far as Pilbrow, and I think I find myself with Eliot and Calvert. I’m for Jago against Crawford and any other names I’ve heard. I’m not prepared to go the whole way with Brown just yet. I don’t think Jago is an ideal candidate. He’s not well enough known outside. But he’ll do.’

He looked across the table at Brown.

‘There’s a majority for Jago in this room,’ he said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more to do this afternoon.’

We were all stimulated, there was a glow of success and conspirators’ excitement round the table. Brown and Chrystal told of the moves which had gone on before the present Master was elected. I learned for the first time that Jago had tried, in that election, to get together a party for Winslow. I asked whether they were remembering right. ‘Oh yes,’ said Brown, ‘they hadn’t got across each other so badly then. I shouldn’t have said they were ever specially friendly, though, should you?’ he asked Chrystal.

The talk kept to elections of past Masters. Pilbrow began to laugh. ‘I’ve just thought—’ then he added with complete clarity: ‘In my almost infinite period as a fellow, I’ve never even been mentioned as a possible candidate. And I’ve never taken the slightest useful part in getting one elected. That’s a long-distance record no one can ever beat.’ He went on laughing. He did not care. He was known, admired, loved all over Europe; he had great influence in letters; but nothing could make him effective at a college meeting. It was strange — and I thought again of Roy Calvert at the last meeting — that those two, both very natural men, should not be able to project themselves into a committee. Perhaps they were too natural. Perhaps, for influence in the affairs of solid men, one had to be able to send, as the Master said, the ‘old familiar phrases reverberating round’. Neither Pilbrow nor Roy Calvert could do that without laughing. To be an influence in any society, in fact, one can be a little different, but only a little; a little above one’s neighbours, but not too much. Pilbrow did much good, Roy Calvert was often selfless; but neither of them was humble enough to learn the language of more ordinary men.

But, even if they had tried their hardest, neither of them could ever have been the power that Brown or Chrystal was. Groups of men, even small groups, act strangely differently from individuals. They have less humour and simpler humour, are more easy to frighten, more difficult to charm, distrust the mysterious more, and enjoy firm, flat, competent expositions which a man by himself would find inexcusably dull. Perhaps no group would ever let itself be guided by Roy Calvert.

In the same way, the seven of us sitting at the table through the winter afternoon became more enthusiastic for Jago than any of us taken alone: our pleasure was simple, our exhilaration intense. Even Nightingale caught it. We were together, and for an hour everyone surrendered to the excitement; Jago would win, we wanted Jago, and all seemed bright.

The kitchen porters brought in tea at four o’clock. The excitement broke; we split into twos and threes; muffin in hand, Chrystal talked quietly to me about Sir Horace’s visit a month hence. Then, as had been arranged, Jago came into the room.

‘Good afternoon, Dean. Good afternoon, Brown. You mustn’t let me interrupt. I expect you haven’t finished your business. I should be so sorry to interrupt.’

He was restless with anxiety, and at his worst. Chrystal stood up, stiff and dominating. If Jago was to be Master, he wanted it clear between them that he had brought it about. His expression was hard, almost threatening.

‘We’ve finished, Jago,’ he said. ‘I can tell you that we’ve had a satisfactory meeting.’

‘Just so,’ said Roy Calvert, trying to soothe Jago’s nerves.

‘I mustn’t ask about your secrets,’ said Jago. His smile was vivid but uneasy. There was a lull, and then Pilbrow asked about some old member in the Foreign Office. Would he help about a refugee? Was he approachable? What was he like?

‘You’ll find his general attitude utterly unsatisfactory according to your views,’ said Jago. ‘He’s what the Dean and Brown and I would consider sound.’

‘Sound,’ Pilbrow said. ‘You’ll lose the bloody empire and everything else, between you. Sound.’

‘I was going to say, however much we’re on different sides, we’re none of us above doing a job for a friend. I should be very much upset if—’

He promised to write that night about Pilbrow’s refugee, and Pilbrow, mollified, asked about others at the Foreign Office. Jago was still on edge, eager to say yes, eager to keep the conversation alive. Did he know H—? A little. Sir P — J—? Reluctantly, Jago said no. Did he know P—?

‘Do I know P—?’ cried Jago. ‘Do I know P—, my dear Eustace? I should think I do. The first time I met him, he asked my advice about a minister’s private life!’

He stayed in that vein, at his most flamboyant, until the party broke up. Roy Calvert and Brown knew the reason, and Roy, as though in fun, actually in kindness, laughed at him as if it were a casual tea party and gave Jago the chance to score off him in reply. Jago took it, and amused us, especially Nightingale, with his jokes at Roy’s expense. But the anxiety returned, and with it his flow of extravagance. Chrystal did not respond much, and went away early; then Pilbrow and Luke. Nightingale seemed to be enjoying himself, and I began to listen to the quarters, each time they chimed outside. So long as he stayed, Jago could not ask.

At last he went. The door closed behind him, and Jago turned to Arthur Brown with a ravaged look. ‘Well?’

‘Well,’ said Brown comfortably, ‘if the election had been this afternoon, you would have got in nicely.’

‘Did everyone here—’

‘Everyone you’ve seen said that, as things stood at present, they were ready to vote for you.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ Jago’s face lit up the room. ‘That’s wonderful.’

His smile was still radiant, but became gentler as he added: ‘I’m touched to think of dear old Eustace Pilbrow throwing away his prejudices and being ready to support me. I don’t suppose we’ve agreed on a single public issue since I became a fellow. We’ve disagreed on everything two men could disagree on. Yet he is willing to do this for me.’

‘You ought to be touched about young Luke,’ said Brown. ‘He’s the most enthusiastic supporter you’ve got. And he’s acting against his own interests.’

‘Ah, I think I’m better with young men than with people my own age.’ He added with a flash of extraordinary directness and simplicity: ‘I don’t have to show off to them, you see.’ Roy caught my eye. His smile was sharp.

Then Brown spoke: ‘I don’t want to be a skeleton at the feast, because I’ve been feeling very gratified myself, but I think it would be remiss not to remind you that the thing’s still open.’ Brown settled himself to give a caution. ‘You oughtn’t to let yourself think that we’re completely home. If the election had come off today, as I told you, you would be Master. But you realize that these people can’t give a formal pledge, and one or two actually made qualifications. I don’t think they were important qualifications, but you mustn’t think it’s absolutely cut-and-dried. The picture might just conceivably alter — I don’t think it’s at all likely, but it might — before things happen to the present Master as they must.’

‘But you’re satisfied?’ said Jago. ‘Are you satisfied? Will you tell me that?’

Brown paused, and said deliberately: ‘Assuming that the college was bound to be rather split, I consider things couldn’t look much healthier than they do today.’

‘That’s quite good enough for me.’ Jago sighed in peace, and stretched his arms like a man yawning. He smiled at the three of us. ‘I’m very grateful. I needn’t tell my friends that, I think.’

He left us, and we stood up and walked towards the window. It was a clear winter evening, the sky still bright in the west. The lamps of the court were already lit, but they seemed dim in that lucid twilight. The light in the Master’s bedroom was already shining.

‘I hope I didn’t say too much,’ said Brown to Roy Calvert and me. ‘I think it’s all right. But I’m not prepared to cheer until I hear the votes in the chapel. Some of us know,’ he said to me, with his wise, inquisitive smile, ‘that you’ve got astonishing judgement of men. But, if you’ll believe anyone like me, there are things you can only learn through having actually been through them. I’ve seen elections look more certain than this one does today, and then come unstuck.’

I was beginning to watch Jago walk slowly round the court.

‘You see,’ said Brown, ‘we haven’t much weight in our party. Pilbrow doesn’t count for very much, and you’re too young, Roy, and Eliot hasn’t been here long enough. I suppose Chrystal and I are all right, but we could do with a bit more solid weight. Put it another way: suppose another candidate crops up. Someone who was acceptable to the influential people on the other side. I think it’s just imaginable that Chrystal would feel we hadn’t enough weight to stand out against that. He might feel obliged to transfer. You noticed that he covered himself in case that might happen. I don’t say it’s likely, but it’s just as well to keep an eye open for the worst.’

Jago was walking very slowly round the court, past the door of the Lodge, past the combination room window, past the hall, back under Brown’s window. He walked slowly, luxuriously, with no sign of his usual active, jerky step. He began to walk round again, and as he turned we saw his face. It was brilliant with joy. He looked at the grass as though he were feeling: ‘my grass’. He trod on the path, and then strayed, for the love of it, on the cobbles; ‘my path, my cobbles’. He stood for a long moment in the middle of the court, and gazed round him in exaltation: ‘my college’.

He glanced at the lighted window in the Lodge, and quickly turned his head away.

‘He looks happy, doesn’t he?’ said Arthur Brown, in a steady, affectionate, protective tone. ‘He takes everything so much to heart. I only hope we manage to get him in.’