The Masters

39: A Group Talks Till the Morning

‘I wanted to bring it to a head,’ Chrystal said again. ‘I should like to find another man altogether. This is the time. We might get somewhere tonight.’

He leaned forward over the table, with an eager, alert, dominating smile.

There was a shuffle of feet, a cough, the squeak of someone’s finger on the table top. Some moments passed, and then Pilbrow got to his feet.

‘I don’t think it’s any good my staying, Despard,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to find another man, which I suppose you are, I don’t want to run away, but… I know I’ve wobbled disgracefully, but I don’t feel like changing again. I’m content as I am.’

He had not left the room when Nightingale began talking. He was so excited that he had no politeness left.

‘I always said it would happen. I always knew that that precious clique wouldn’t let well alone. They were bound to put up one of themselves in the long run.’

‘Are you going to stay, Nightingale?’ said Despard-Smith bleakly. ‘If you stay, you will hear what names are being discussed.’

‘Stay!’ Nightingale smiled. ‘Do you think I want to hear the names? I could tell you them now.’

As he closed the door, Roy commented: ‘I’ll bet anyone that he rings up Crawford within five minutes.’ Solidly, heavily, Brown stood by the table, looking down on those of us still there.

‘I can’t see my way to remaining in this discussion,’ he said to Despard-Smith. ‘I’ve gone as far as I can to turn you all from it. In my judgement, it is completely ill-considered, and I should have nothing useful to add if I stayed with you.’

He gave Chrystal one glance, angry, troubled, unwavering, yet steady and still intimate: he walked out, and we heard his deliberate tread down the stairs.

Chrystal was frowning — but he shrugged his shoulders and said, with confidence and zest: ‘It’s time to get down to it.’

There were only six of us now sitting round the table, Chrystal himself, Despard-Smith, Winslow, Francis Getliffe, Roy Calvert and I. It was not a good beginning for Chrystal: even if he could persuade us all, he still needed another for a majority. But his confidence was extreme, his energy flowed out just as when he had made us coerce the candidates in October. When someone mentioned that we were not much of a cave, Chrystal said: ‘I don’t mind that. We can bring others in. There’s Luke. There’s even Crawford. And the others — they may not want to stay out in the cold.’

Promptly he brought out his first candidate.

‘I’m not going to be coy,’ he said. ‘I have someone in mind. In my view the time has come to look outside the college. I want you to think of Lyon.’

Most of us knew Lyon; he was a Reader, a fellow of another college, a man of good academic standing and a bit of a university politician. In a few minutes it was apparent that he would get no support. We all gave reasons for half-heartedness — but the reasons were a matter of courtesy, a way of saying we were not disposed to fall in.

Chrystal, still undeterred, canvassed another name, also from outside the college, and then another. Different reasons were brought against them, but there was never a chance that either would be looked at: at the sound of each name, everyone there was saying no. It was not that we had anything special against them; simply, we did not want to find them suitable. By now I was sure that Chrystal would get nowhere. I had seen him in October carry us, by sheer force of will, into dragooning the candidates to vote for each other. But then we had all been ready to be convinced, and now the reverse was true. He was exuding just as much will, and few men had more than Chrystal. But in our hearts we were not persuadable; and in all the moves of politics, dexterity is meaningless, even will itself does not avail, unless there is some spot in one’s opponent ready to be convinced. ‘Most reluctantly,’ said Despard-Smith, after we had discussed the third name, ‘I am coming to the conclusion, Dean, that it is too late in the day to look outside the college.’

‘I accept that for the moment, Despard,’ said Chrystal, still brisk and good-tempered. ‘But we’ve not finished. In that case we must look inside.’

It was late at night, the room was hot, smoke was spinning slowly under the light: the older men were sleepy, and once Winslow’s eyes had closed. But, at the sound of that last remark, they were awake, vigilant, ready once more for the long cautious guarded talk. Winslow lit his pipe again; as the match flared, a trick of the shadows smoothed out the nutcracker lines of nose and chin, and his eyes gleamed, deep, bright — and anxious. Yes, anxious. Was there still a remnant of hope? ‘We must look inside,’ said Chrystal.

‘Of course,’ said Despard-Smith, ‘all of us gave serious thought to the possibilities when we heard the disastrous news last spring. Or if we didn’t we were very seriously negligent.’

‘Never mind,’ said Chrystal. ‘I want to go over them once more. We shan’t get the chance again. It’s no use having second thoughts after Thursday.’

‘Some of us,’ said Despard-Smith, ‘are always coming to bolt the stable door after the horse has f-flown.’

‘They won’t this time,’ said Chrystal. He stared round at us all. ‘Well, we’ve got to look inside. I’m going down the fellows in order of seniority. Gay. Pilbrow. You, Despard. The statutes won’t let us have you.’

‘I supported the new statute about the retiring age,’ said Despard-Smith solemnly. ‘I’ve often asked myself whether I did right. Some men of seventy are still competent to hold any position of responsibility—’

‘You would be,’ interrupted Chrystal. In his brusque way he was placating the old man. And he was looking two moves ahead: I thought I guessed his intention now. ‘You would be. No one doubts it. But it can’t happen.’ He paused. ‘Going on down the list.’ He added in a tone which he kept casual and matter of fact: ‘Winslow. Winslow, you’re the next.’

‘Curiously enough,’ said Winslow, also trying to be casual, ‘I was aware of that.’

‘Do you think,’ said Despard-Smith in a hurry, ‘that you’d feel satisfied to take on such an office for a very short time? I doubt whether it is fair to ask a man to take an office with only five years to run.’

‘I should actually have seven years. I was sixty-three in October,’ said Winslow.

‘You’d just learn the job. Then you’d have to go. I agree with Despard,’ said Chrystal, looking at Winslow with a bold, embarrassed smile.

‘I seriously doubt,’ said Despard-Smith, ‘whether it would be fair to ask you.’

‘When is it fair to ask anyone?’ said Roy Calvert. His eyes were glinting with mockery: he was moved for Winslow.

Before he could say more, Francis Getliffe put in: ‘On general principles, there is something to be said for a younger man. We ought to have someone with at least ten years to go. I know you’d take that view yourself, wouldn’t you?’ He spoke to Winslow directly.

Francis had got on better with Winslow than most of the college, and the question was kind. But it did not soften the fact. Winslow’s eyelids had drooped, he was staring at the table.

He said at last: ‘No doubt you’re right.’

‘I was certain you’d see it that way, Winslow,’ said Chrystal, with relief, with excessive heartiness. I was watching Roy Calvert, half-expecting him to say more: but he gave a twitch of a smile, and let it slide. It was too forlorn a hope even for him.

Chrystal proceeded down the list.

‘Crawford. Jago. Already dealt with. Brown. The next senior is Brown,’ he said. ‘Brown. I’m asking you to think carefully about him. Isn’t he the man for a compromise candidate?’

Winslow looked up for a second.

‘That’s a very remarkable suggestion, Dean,’ he said with savage sarcasm, with a flicker of his old spirit.

‘Isn’t he much too young? I don’t see how the college could possibly consider anyone so junior,’ said Despard-Smith.

‘He’s forty-seven,’ said Chrystal.

‘It’s dangerous to have young men in these positions,’ said Despard-Smith. ‘One never knows how they’ll turn out.’

‘Brown won’t alter till he dies,’ I said. It seemed strange that anyone, even Despard-Smith, should think of Brown as young.

‘I don’t think his age is a reason against him,’ said Francis Getliffe. ‘But—’

‘I know everything you’re going to say,’ said Chrystal. ‘I know all about Brown. I know him better than any one of you. He’s been my best friend since we were up together. He’s not brilliant. He’ll never set the Thames on fire. People would think it was a dim election. But there are things in Brown that you don’t see until you’ve known him for years. He’d pull the place together.’

‘My dear Dean,’ said Winslow, ‘it would mean twenty years of stodge.’

‘I should have considered,’ said Despard-Smith, ‘that if we were to take the serious step of looking at such junior fellows, we should want to consider you yourself long before Brown.’

‘I couldn’t look at it,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’m not up to it. I know my limitations. I’m not fit to be Master. Brown is. I’d serve under him and think myself lucky.’

He spoke with absolute humility and honesty. It was not put on, there was none of the stately mannered mock-modesty of college proceedings. This was the humility and honesty of his heart. It was so patent that no one challenged it.

He pressed on about Brown. I said that I would prefer him to any other compromise candidate. Less warmly, Roy said that, if the first vote in chapel did not give Jago a majority, he would not mind transferring to Brown on the second turn. Francis Getliffe said that, if the first vote were a stalemate, he would consider doing the same as Roy. With that kind of backing, such as it was, Chrystal argued with the other two into the early morning: he was not touchy, he did not give way to pique, he just sat there and argued as the quarters went on chiming away the night; he sat there, strong in his physical prepotence, persuading, browbeating, exclaiming with violence, wooing and bursting into temper.

Everyone in the room but himself knew that he must fail. Winslow was mostly silent, but every word he spoke was edged with unhappy contempt. Despard-Smith was solemnly obstinate. Everyone knew but Chrystal that neither would ever consent to vote for Brown. The last hope of compromise had gone. Yet Chrystal seemed undiscouraged. By midnight the rest of us would have given it up as useless but he kept us there till after two o’clock.

At the last he won one concession through the others’ sheer fatigue. He got them to admit that Brown was the only possible third candidate.

‘It’s obvious,’ he said. ‘Several of us here have said they might come round to him. Do you quarrel with that, Despard?’

Despard-Smith wearily shook his head.

‘That’s good enough for me,’ said Chrystal. ‘It means that Brown must be asked whether he’ll stand. It may come to it. We can’t leave it in the air. I’ll speak to him in the morning.’

His face was fresh, he was smiling, he was obscurely satisfied. He looked at his clock on the mantelpiece.

‘I shan’t have to wait long,’ he said. ‘It is the morning already.’

40: ‘I Have Had a Disappointing Life’

Chrystal had kept us up so late that I slept until the middle of the morning. It was December 17th, a dark and stormy day: the wind was howling again, for the westerly gales had returned; it was not cold, but the heavy clouds hung over the roofs, and in the afternoon Roy and I built up the fire in my sitting-room for the sake of the blaze. We compared impressions of Chrystal’s tactics and manner on the night before. Why had he persisted against all rational sense? Why had he gone away so pleased? Was it because he wanted to prove to Brown that, whatever he did in this election, he was still completely affectionate and loyal? That was part of it, we felt sure: but we did not believe it was the end.

As we were talking across the fire, a double and deliberate knock sounded on the door. ‘Uncle Arthur in person,’ said Roy, and we both smiled as Brown came in. But Brown’s smile in return was only formal.

He sat down, looked into the fire, and said in a constrained tone: ‘I wanted to see you both. I am told that, without my consent, I was mentioned as a candidate last night. Did you have anything to do with this?’

He was grimly indignant. We told him what we had each promised. ‘I was glad to do it,’ I said. ‘I should enjoy voting for you. It would be admirable to see you in the Lodge.’

He did not respond. After a time he said: ‘I suppose you all intended it kindly.’

‘I don’t know about kindly,’ I said. ‘It was intended to show what we feel about you.’

‘I hope you all intended it kindly,’ said Brown.

‘Chrystal wanted the chance to say you ought to be Master,’ said Roy.

‘So he told me.’

‘It’s quite true.’

‘It should have been obvious to him that I could not conceivably be a candidate in these circumstances,’ said Brown. ‘The only result of my name being mentioned is to stand in Jago’s light. It can only mean dissensions in Jago’s party and no responsible man can see it otherwise. I am very sorry that Chrystal should have seen fit to use my name for that purpose. And I am obliged to tell you that I am sorry you two associated yourselves with it.’

‘You ought to believe that we mean what we say,’ I replied.

‘I realize you didn’t mind paying me a compliment,’ said Brown, as though making an effort to be fair. ‘What I can’t make out is how anyone as astute as you can have lost your head and behaved in this irresponsible fashion. Surely you can see that nothing is gained by paying useless compliments when things are as delicate as they are now, three days away from the event. It is nothing more nor less than playing into the hands of the other side. It looks as though I was being made a tool of.’

‘Have you told Chrystal?’

‘I have. I’m not prepared to have people think that I’m being made a tool of.’

I had never seen him so completely shaken out of reason and tolerance and charity — not even when Pilbrow defected. His whole picture of ‘decent behaviour’ had been thrown aside. He liked to think of himself as the manager of the college, the power behind the meetings; but, as I had often noticed, as for instance in the first approach to Luke, he was always scrupulous in keeping within the rules; he was not easy unless he was well thought of and in good repute. It upset him to imagine that people were not thinking that he had planned an intrigue with his friend, so as to get in as a last-minute compromise. It upset him equally if they thought he was just a cats-paw. In the end, he had an overwhelmingly strong sense of his own proper dignity and of the behaviour he wanted the world to see.

He was also, of course, the most realistic of men: he saw the position with clear eyes, and it made him angrier still with Chrystal. He knew very well that he was not being offered even a remote chance: he felt he was just being asked to save Chrystal’s conscience. And that was the most maddening of his thoughts: that was the one which made him come and reproach Roy and me as though he could not forgive us. For Brown could see — no one more sharply — the conflict, vacillation, temptation, and gathering purpose of his friend. He could not control him now; for the first time in twenty years he found his own will being crossed by Chrystal. Chrystal might do more yet: in moments of foresight Brown could see the worst of ends. When Chrystal came to him with this gesture, Brown felt that he had lost.

He went away without any softening towards Roy or me, telling us that he must write round to each fellow, in order to say that in no circumstances would he let his name be considered. I suspected that he had shown his anger more nakedly to us than to Chrystal. He had controlled himself with Chrystal — then had to come and take it out of us.

As soon as he had gone, Roy looked at me.

‘Old boy,’ he said, ‘I fancy Jago’s dished.’

‘Yes.’

‘We need to do what we can. If we can entice someone over, we might save it.’

We decided to try Despard-Smith and Pilbrow that same day, and went together to Pilbrow’s rooms after tea. We had no success at all. Roy used all his blandishments, the blandishments which came to him by nature, but which he could also use by art. He was as lively and varied as he was to women, in turns teasing, serious, attentive, flattering, mocking. He invited Pilbrow to visit him in Berlin in the spring. Pilbrow enjoyed the performance, he liked handsome young men, but he did not give a foot: it seemed to him impossible now to vote for anyone but Crawford. I took up the political argument, Roy lapped the old man with all his tricks of charm. But we got nowhere, except that he pressed us both to dine with an exiled writer in London, the night after the election.

We walked through the court. Roy was grinning at his own expense.

‘I’ve lost face,’ he said.

‘You’re getting old,’ I said.

‘You’d better try Despard by yourself,’ said Roy. ‘If I can’t get off with old Eustace, I’m damned if I can with Despard.’

It was a fact that Despard-Smith looked on him with mystified suspicion, and so after hall I went alone. Despard-Smith’s rooms were in the third court, on the next staircase to Nightingale’s and near Jago’s house. He had not been to hall that night, and on the chest outside the door lay the dishes of a meal sent up from the kitchen. His outer door was not closed, but there was no one in his main room, and the fire had gone out. I tapped on the inside door: there was a gruff shout ‘who’s there?’ When I answered, no reply came for some while: then there were movements inside, and a key turned in the lock. Despard-Smith looked out at me with bloodshot, angry eyes.

‘I’m very busy. I’m very busy, Eliot.’

‘I only want to keep you five minutes.’

‘You don’t realize how busy I am. People here have never shown me the slightest consideration.’

His breath smelt of liquor; instead of being solemn, grave, minatory, he was just angry.

‘I should like a word about the election,’ I said. He glared at me. ‘You’d better come in for two minutes,’ he said in a grating tone.

His inner room was dark, over-furnished by the standards of the twentieth century, packed with cupboards, tables, glass-fronted cases full of collections of pottery. Photographs, many of them of the undergraduates of his youth, in boaters and wearing large moustaches, hung all over the walls. By his old armchair, which had projecting headrests, stood a table covered with green baize, and on the table were a book and an empty tumbler. Bleakly he said: ‘Can I offer you a n-nightcap?’ and opened a cupboard by the fireplace. I had a glimpse of a great array of empty whisky bottles; he brought out one half-full and another glass.

He poured me a small whisky and himself a very large one, and he took a long gulp while we were still standing up.

He was not drunk but he was inflamed by drink. There had been rumours for years that he drank heavily in private, but he had no friends in college, his life was lonely, no one knew for certain how he lived it. Gossip had a knack of not touching him closely; perhaps he was too spare and harsh a figure to be talked about much. His natural authority seemed to protect him, even in his absence.

‘I wondered if you were happy about the election,’ I said.

‘Certainly not,’ said Despard-Smith. ‘I take an extremely grave view of the future of this college.’

‘It isn’t too late—’ I began.

‘It has been too late for many years,’ said Despard-Smith ominously.

I said something about Crawford and Jago, and for a moment my hopes sprang up at his reply.

‘Jago has sacrificed himself for the college, Eliot. Just as every college officer has to. Whereas Crawford has not sacrificed himself, he has become a distinguished man of science. On academic grounds his election will do us good in the outside world. I needn’t say that I’ve always been seriously disturbed at the prospect of electing a bolshevik.’

I had not time to be amused by that term for Crawford, the sturdy middle-class scientific liberal: I had seized on the gleam of hope, was forcing the comparison between the two, when Despard-Smith brushed my question aside, and stared at me with fierce bloodshot eyes.

‘The college has brought it upon itself,’ he said. ‘They’ve chosen not to pay attention to my warnings, and they can only expect disastrous consequences. They did it with their eyes open when they chose Royce. That was the f-first step down the slippery slope.’ He put a finger inside his dog collar and then took it out with a click. He said in a grating, accusing tone: ‘They ought to have asked me to take on the burden. They said I wasn’t known outside the college. That was the thanks I got for sacrificing myself for thirty years.’

I said a word or two, but he emptied his glass and faced me with greater anger still.

‘I’ve had a disappointing life, Eliot,’ he said. ‘It’s not been a happy life. I’ve not been given the recognition I had a right to expect. It’s a scandalous story. It would not be to the credit of this college if I let everyone know how I’d been treated. I’m looking back on my life now, and I tell you that it’s been one long disappointment. And I lay it all to the blame of the people here.’

From another man, the cry might have been softened by pathos. But there was nothing soft about Despard-Smith at seventy, drinking in secret, attacking me with his disappointment. ‘I’ve had a disappointing life’: he did not say it with the sad warmth of self-pity, but aggressively, certain that he was in the right.

‘You’re going to let them elect Crawford now?’ I said.

‘They ought to have asked me to take on the burden ten years ago. I tell you, this college would have been a different place.’

‘Wouldn’t Jago be more likely to take your line?’

‘He’s done better as Tutor than I bargained for,’ said Despard-Smith. ‘But he’s got no head for affairs.’

‘That needn’t rule him out—’

‘Royce had no head for affairs, and they chose him,’ said Despard-Smith.

‘I’m still surprised you should vote for Crawford.’

‘He’s made a name for himself. That’s good enough for a Master. They wouldn’t choose me because I wasn’t known outside the college. Crawford will do. No one can deny that he will do. And if people don’t like him when they’ve got him,’ he said, ‘well, they’ll have to l-lump it for the next fifteen years.’

He fetched out the bottle again and poured himself another drink. This time he did not offer me any. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Eliot, that I’ve got a soft spot for Jago. If I were voting on personal grounds, I would choose him before the other man. But the other man has made his name. And Jago hasn’t. He’s sacrificed himself for the college. If a man takes a college office, he makes a disastrous choice. He can’t expect people to recognize him. Jago ought to be prepared to face the consequences of his sacrifice. He ought to know what happened to me.’

My hope had faded. At last I understood something of why he had stuck to Crawford from the beginning — Crawford, the ‘bolshevik’. Despard-Smith had loved power so much in his austere fashion: it thickened the blood in his veins. He had loved his years as bursar, he had done what pleased him most, even though he believed that he was ‘sacrificing himself’. But it rankled still that they had not made him Master. It seemed to have struck him as a surprise, as a physical shock. I wondered whether it was from those days, ten years ago, that he started his solitary evenings with the whisky bottle.

Unluckily for Jago, the old man saw in him his own misfortune re-created. He did like Jago; he was starved of affection, he was not without the power to enjoy friendship, though he could not take the first steps himself. But seeing that Jago might retrace his old distress, Despard-Smith wished simply and starkly that it should happen so. He wished it more because he liked the man. It was right that Jago should sacrifice himself. He thought of his own ‘disappointing life’. He thought of Jago, treated as he had been. And he felt a tinge of sadistic warmth.

41: Two Cigars in the Combination Room

There was nothing to do but wait. Both Roy and I had a sense of the end now, but we were tantalized by a fluctuating hope. On paper (if Gay did not fail us) we could still count a majority for Jago. If it were to be broken, we must get news at any hour. It could not be long. What was Chrystal doing, now that even he had to abandon the notion of a third candidate? He had to face the struggle of Jago and Crawford again. No news seemed good news. Throughout the morning of December 18th, forty-eight hours from the election, throughout that whole day, we heard nothing. I did not see either Chrystal or Brown, although Brown’s letter arrived. It was much more mellifluous and stately than his outburst in the flesh, and said that ‘though any member of the college ought to be honoured even to have his name mentioned as a possible candidate for the Mastership, I must after prolonged consideration and with many expressions of thanks ask my friends and colleagues to permit me to withdraw.’

That was all the news that day. It seemed that bargainings and confidential talks had ceased.

In the evening Jago came to my room.

‘Have you heard anything fresh?’ His tone was jaunty, but under his eyes the skin was stained and dry.

‘Nothing at all.’

‘I want you to tell me anything you know. The very moment it happens,’ he said, menacing me with the force of his anxiety. ‘This is a bad enough business without having to wonder whether one’s friends are keeping anything back.’

‘I’ll keep nothing back,’ I promised.

‘I must be an unendurable nuisance to you.’ He smiled. ‘So there really isn’t any news? When I lay awake last night, I thought of all the absolutely inexplicable things I had watched the college do—’

‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘Never mind,’ said Jago. ‘I shall sleep in a couple of nights. So good old Arthur Brown wasn’t prepared to be made a convenience of. That takes us back where we started. They really have got to make the bizarre choice between me and my opponent. And nothing has happened to upset the balance, so far as you know?’

His moods were not stable, he was strained and expectant, fervent and hostile, at odd moments sarcastically detached, all in the same excitement of the nerves. Above all, his optimism had not left him. To his wife I was certain he maintained that he would get in. Some men would have defended themselves by saying that they expected the worst. Jago in his proud and reckless spirit was not able to protect himself by such a dodge. There was something nakedly defenceless about his optimism. He seemed quite without the armour, the thickening of the skin, that most men take on insensibly as the years pass.

I wanted to guard him, but he resisted the slightest word of doubt. He listened and thanked me, but his eyes were flashing with an excitement that I could not touch. He knew very little about what had happened at the meeting in Chrystal’s room, and even less about the cumulative disagreement between Brown and Chrystal. He did not want to know of it. That evening he still had hope, and as he lay sleepless through the long night to come it would steady his heart.

We went in the combination room together before hall; there were several men already waiting, but no one spoke. The constraint took hold of us like a field of force. Despard-Smith was there, Francis Getliffe, Nightingale, Roy Calvert. It was not that they had been talking of Jago, and were embarrassed to see him. It was not the constraint of a conversation left in the air — but simply the paralysing weight that comes upon men at a late stage of their struggle. Even Roy’s sparkle was borne down under it. When we took our places in hall, there was still almost no word spoken. Despard-Smith sat at our head, solemnly asking for toast, muted and grave by contrast to the inflamed old man of the night before.

Then Luke bustled in late. He hurled himself into the seat next Roy Calvert’s, and swallowed a plate of soup at an enormous pace. He looked up and smiled round at us indiscriminately — at me, at Francis, at Nightingale. I had never seen a face more radiant with joy. One did not notice the pleasant youthful features: all one saw was this absolute, certain and effulgent happiness, and it warmed one to the bottom of the heart.

‘Well?’ I could not resist smiling broadly back.

‘I’ve got it out! I know for sure I’ve got it out!’

‘Which part of it?’ said Francis Getliffe.

‘The whole damned caboodle. The whole bloody beautiful bag of tricks. I’ve got the answer to the slow neutron business, Getliffe. It’s all just come tumbling out.’

‘Are you certain?’ asked Francis, unwilling to believe it.

‘Of course I’m certain. Do you think I’d stick my neck out like this if I weren’t certain It’s as plain as the palm of my hand.’

Francis cross-questioned him, and for minutes the technical words rapped across the table — ‘neutrons’, ‘collision’, ‘stopping power’, ‘alphas’. Francis was frowning, envious despite himself, more eager to find a hole than to be convinced that Luke was right. But Luke was unperturbed, all faces were friendly on this day of certain joy; he gave his explanations at a great speed, fired in his homely figures of speech, was too exalted to keep back his cheerful swear words; yet even a layman came to feel how clear and masterful he was in everything he said. Gradually, as though reluctantly, Francis’ frown left his face, and there came instead his deep, creased smile. He was seeing something that compelled his admiration. His own talent was strong enough to make him respond; this was a major work, and for a moment he was disinterested, keen with admiration, smiling an experienced and applauding smile.

‘Good work!’ he cried. ‘Lord, it’s nice work. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard for a long time.’

‘It’s pretty good,’ said Luke, unashamed, with no pretence of modesty though his cheeks were flushing scarlet.

‘I believe it’s wonderful,’ said Jago, who had been listening with intent interest, as though he could drown his anxieties in this young man’s joy. ‘Not that I understand most of your detestable words. But you do tell us that he has done something remarkable, don’t you, Getliffe?’

‘It’s beautiful work,’ said Francis with great authority.

‘I’m more glad than I can say,’ said Jago to Luke. Nightingale had turned his head away and was looking down the hall.

‘When did you know you’d made a discovery?’ cried Jago.

‘I thought a week ago the wretched thing was coming out,’ said Luke, who used a different set of terms. ‘But I’ve thought so before a dozen bloody times. This time though I had a hunch that it was different. I’ve been pretty well living and feeding at the lab ever since. That was why I didn’t come to the meeting on Monday,’ he added affably to Despard-Smith, who gave a bleak nod.

‘The little powwow,’ Roy said to Despard-Smith, by way of explanation.

‘I could almost have sworn it was right that night. But I’ve been bitten by false bloody dawns too many times. I’ve not been to bed since. I wasn’t going to leave off until I knew the answer one way or the other.

‘It’s wonderful,’ he burst out in a voice that carried up and down the table, ‘when you’ve got a problem that is really coming out. It’s like making love — suddenly your unconscious takes control. And nothing can stop you. You know that you’re making old Mother Nature sit up and beg. And you say to her “I’ve got you, you old bitch.” You’ve got her just where you want her. Then to show there’s no ill-feeling, you give her an affectionate pinch on the bottom.’

He leaned back, exhausted, resplendent, cheerful beyond all expression. Getliffe grinned at him with friendly understanding, Jago laughed aloud. Roy Calvert gave me half a wink (for young Luke’s discretion had vanished in one colossal sweep) and took it upon himself to divert Despard-Smith’s attention.

In the combination room, Jago presented a bottle to mark ‘a notable discovery completed this day by the junior fellow’, as he announced for the formal toast. Hearing what was to happen, Nightingale rushed away before the health was drunk. Despard-Smith, who had his own kind of solemn formal courtesy, congratulated Luke and then settled down to the port. Luke took one of the largest cigars and smoked it over his glass, drowsy at last, his head humming with whirling blessedness. And Jago, with a gentle and paternal smile, did what I had never seen him do, and took a cigar himself. The two sat together, the square ruddy boy, happy as he might never be again, and the man whose face bore so much suffering. As each listened to the other, the tip of his cigar glowed. They were talking about the stars. It was thirty-six hours before the election.

Francis Getliffe and I left them together, and walked to the gate. I hesitated about asking him up to my rooms, and then did not.

‘That’s very pretty work of young Luke’s,’ he said.

‘I gathered as much from what you said.’

‘I doubt if you know how good it is,’ he said. He paused. ‘It’s better than anything I’ve done yet. Much better.’

He was so quixotic, so upright, so passionately ambitious: all I could do was pretend to be ironic.

‘It’s time we two had a bit of luck,’ I said. ‘These boys are running off with all the prizes. Look at Roy Calvert’s work by the side of mine. I may catch up if I outlive him twenty years.’

Francis smiled absently, and we stopped under the lantern.

‘I ought to say something else, Lewis.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I thought Jago showed up very well tonight. There’s more in him than I allowed for.’

‘It isn’t too late,’ I said very quickly. ‘If you vote for him—’

Francis shook his head.

‘No, I shouldn’t begin to think of altering my vote,’ he said. ‘I know I’m right.’

42: The Last Night

The day before the election, December 19th, passed with dragging slowness. Throughout the morning there was no news: only Roy visited me, and as we chatted we were waiting for the next chime of the clock: time stretched itself silently out between the quarters. It was not raining, but the clouds were a level dun. Before lunch we walked through the streets and Roy bought some more presents; afterwards he left me alone in my room.

There Brown joined me in the middle of the afternoon. It was a relief to see him, rather than go on trying to read. But there was something ominous in his first deliberate question.

‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘whether you had Chrystal with you.’

‘I’ve not seen him since the meeting,’ I said.

‘I’ve not seen him,’ said Brown, ‘since he approached me afterwards in the sense that I’ve already given you my opinion of. But I thought it might not be unwise if I got into touch with him today. I’ve called round at his house, but they said that they thought he’d gone for a walk early this morning.’

I looked at the darkening window, against which the rain had begun to lash.

‘It seems an odd day to choose,’ I said.

‘I’ve tried his rooms,’ said Brown. ‘But it looks as though they had been empty all day.’

‘What is he doing?’

Brown shook his head.

‘I’m afraid that he’s in great distress of mind,’ he said.

It was for one reason alone that he was searching for Chrystal: he might still be able to influence him: using all the pressure of their friendship, he might still be able to keep him to Jago. On that last day, Brown had no room for other thoughts. He knew as well as I did where Chrystal had been tending. But Brown was enough of a politician never to lose all hope until the end, even though it was forlorn. One could not be a politician without that kind of resilient hope. When Chrystal asked him to be a candidate, Brown had felt for a time it was all lost. But now he had got back into action again. Chrystal was undecided, Chrystal was walking about in ‘distress of mind’ — Brown was ready to throw in all his years of understanding of his friend, there was still a chance of forcing him to vote for Jago next morning.

‘I am rather anxious to see him before tonight,’ said Brown, looking at me with his acute peering glance.

‘If I see him,’ I said, ‘I’ll let you know.’

‘I should be very much obliged if you would,’ said Brown. ‘Of course, I can always catch him at his house late tonight.’

His manner was deliberately prosaic and comfortable. He was showing less outward sign of strain than any of us; when he was frayed inside, he slowed down his always measured speech, brought out the steady commonplaces like an armour, reduced all he could to the matter-of-fact.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think I’d better be off to my rooms soon. I’ve still got some letters to write about the scholarships. Oh, there’s just one thing. I suppose you don’t happen to have talked to Jago today?’

I said that I had seen Jago in hall the night before.

‘How did you think he was?’

‘Hopeful. So hopeful that it frightened me.’

‘I know what you mean. I had an hour with him this morning. He was just the same. I tried to give him a little warning, but I couldn’t make any impression at all.’

‘If he doesn’t get in? — ’ I said.

‘If he doesn’t get in,’ said Brown steadily, ‘I don’t believe he’ll ever be the same man again.’

He frowned and said: ‘It’s annoying to think that, if we were certain Chrystal was going to be sensible, we should have a decent prospect of tomorrow turning out all right. It’s a tantalizing thought.’

Then he left me, and I went to have tea with Roy. I returned to my rooms through rain which had set in for the night, and I settled by the fire, not wanting to move until dinner time. But I had not been there half an hour when the door opened.

‘Good evening, Eliot,’ said Chrystal in his sharpest parade ground voice. He was wearing a mackintosh, but it was only slightly damp at the shoulders, and his shoes were clean. He had not been walking much that day.

‘I want a word with you.’

I asked him to sit down, but he would not even take off his coat.

‘I’m busy. I’ve got to have a word with Brown.’ He was brusquer than I had ever heard him.

‘He’s in his rooms,’ I said.

‘I’ll go in three minutes. I shan’t take long with either of you. I shan’t stay long with Brown.’

He stared at me with bold, assertive, defiant eyes. ‘I’ve decided to vote for Crawford,’ he said. ‘He’s the better man.’

Like all news that one has feared hearing, it sounded flat.

‘It has been a lamentable exhibition,’ said Chrystal. ‘I tell you, Eliot, we’ve only just missed making a serious mistake. I saw it in time. We nearly passed Crawford over. I never liked it. He’s the right man.’

I began to argue, but Chrystal cut me short: ‘I haven’t time to discuss it. I’m satisfied with Crawford. I went round to see him this morning. I’ve been with him all day. I’ve heard his views on the college. I like them. It’s been a satisfactory day.’

‘I remember you saying—’

‘I’m sorry, Eliot. I haven’t time to discuss it. I’ve never been happy about this election. It’s been lamentable. I oughtn’t to have left it so late.’

‘It’s very hard to leave our party at this notice,’ I said angrily.

‘I joined it against my better judgement,’ he snapped.

‘That doesn’t affect it. You’re contracted to Jago. Have you told Brown?’

‘I didn’t want to write to Jago until I’d told Brown. I owe Brown an explanation. We’ve never had to explain anything to each other before. I’m sorry about that. It can’t be helped.’ He looked at me.

‘You don’t think I mind sending a note to Jago, do you? He would never have done. Not in a hundred years. I’m saving us all from a calamity. You don’t see it now, but you’ll thank me later on.’

He kept his coat on, he would not sit down, but he stood talking for some time. He did not wish to face Brown, he longed for the next hour to be past, he was putting off the struggle: not through direct fear, the fear that some men are seized with when they cross their wills against a stronger one, but because he was too soft-hearted to carry bad news, too uncertain of his own part to display it before intimate eyes.

He did not like the part he had insensibly slipped into. Just as Jago hated the path of ambition which, once he had begun it, led him from step to step, each one springing naturally from the last, until he was tempted to humiliate himself in front of Nightingale — in the same way Chrystal hated the path of compromise, which, step by step, each one plausible, enjoyable, almost inevitable, had brought him now to quarrel with his friend and break his contract. It was all so natural. Angrily he justified himself to me, said ‘you’ll all thank me later on’. He had been torn one way and the other, he had drifted into the compromise. He had never been master of the events round him. It was that which he could not forgive.

He had never been fond of Jago, had never liked to think of him as Master, had only joined in to please Arthur Brown. Then, liking the feel of power, he had tried to find ways out. He had revelled in making the candidates vote for each other. Yet even so he had not struggled free from his indecisions. Was he too much under Brown’s influence? His affection was hearty and simple; but his longing to be masterful was intense. Was he right in sacrificing his judgement, just to please Brown? Even here, where he felt each day that Brown had made a mistake?

For Chrystal had come to feel that electing Jago would be a mistake; it would hinder all that Chrystal wanted, for himself and for the college. With Jago, there would be no chance of the college gaining in riches and reputation among solid men.

As the months went on, Chrystal found he could endure the thought of Jago less and less. He felt free in the conferences with the other side: in the pacts with them, the search for a third candidate, he could assert himself. Every time he was with the other side he felt that the whole election lay in his hands. In those meetings, in the hours at night with Jago’s opponents, he came into his own again.

And how much, I wondered, was due to hurt vanity — urgent in all men, and as much so in Chrystal as in most? Had he been piqued so intolerably when Jago defended Winslow and laughed at Sir Horace and the benefaction — had he been piqued so intolerably that it turned the balance? Envy and pique and vanity, all the passions of self-regard: you could not live long in a society of men and not see them often weigh down the rest. How much of my own objection to Crawford was because he once spoke of me as a barrister manqué?

I did not know, perhaps I never should know, on what day Chrystal faced himself and saw that he would not vote for Jago. Certainly not in the first steps which, without his realizing, had started him towards this afternoon. When he began the move to make the candidates vote for each other, his first move to a coalition with the other side, he could still have said to himself, and believed it, that he was pledged to Jago. He did not make any pretence of enthusiasm to Brown or me, and to himself his reluctance, his sheer distaste, kept coming into mind. Yet he would have said to himself that he was going to vote for Jago. He would still have said it when in search of a third candidate — he was going to vote for Jago unless we found another man. On December 17th, when he approached Brown, he would have gone on saying it to himself. He would have said it to himself: but I thought that there are things one says to oneself in all sincerity, statements of intention, which one knows without admitting it that one will never do. I believed it had been like that with Chrystal since the funeral. He believed he would vote for Jago, unless he brought off a coup: in some hidden and inadmissible way, he knew he never would.

Yet it was probably less than forty-eight hours before this afternoon when at last he saw with explicit certainty that he would not vote for Jago. He had tried Brown as a third candidate, to give himself an excuse for throwing away his vote. Brown had turned him down. There would be no third candidate. It must be Jago against Crawford to the end. Chrystal was caught. There was nothing for it now. So, within the last forty-eight hours, it had come to him. Everything became clear at one flash. With relief, with release, with extreme satisfaction, he knew that he would vote for Crawford. It was what he had wanted to do for months.

It was astonishingly like some of the moves in high politics, I thought afterwards when I had a chance of watching personal struggles upon a grander scale. I saw men as tough and dominating as Chrystal, entangled in compromise and in time hypnotized by their own technique: believing that they were being sensible and realistic, taking their steps for coherent practical reasons, while in fact they were moved by vacillations which they did not begin to understand. I saw men enjoying forming coalitions, just as Chrystal did, and revelling in the contact with their opponents. I saw the same impulse to change sides, to resent one’s leader and become fascinated by one’s chief opponent. The more certain men are that they are chasing their own concrete and ‘realistic’ ends, so it often seemed to me, the more nakedly do you see all the strands they could never give a reason for.

Such natures as Chrystal’s are more mixed in action than the man himself would ever admit — more mixed, I sometimes thought, than those of stranger men such as Jago and Roy Calvert. Chrystal thought he was realistic in all he did: you had only to watch him, to hear his curt inarticulate outbursts as he delayed breaking the news to Brown, to know how many other motives were at work: yet it was naive to think he was not being realistic at the same time.

In a sense, he was being just as realistic as he thought. He had his own sensible policy for the college: that was safer with Crawford than with Jago. He wanted to keep his own busy humble power, he wanted his share in running the place. For months, every sign had told Chrystal that with Jago it would not be so easy. His temper and pride over Nightingale, his fury at having his hand forced over his vote, the moods in which he despised riches and rich men — Chrystal had noticed them all. He noticed them more acutely because of his other motives for rejecting Jago: but he also saw them as a politician. He had come to think that, if Jago became Master, his own policy and power would dwindle to nothing within the next five years. And he was absolutely right.

He still stood in his mackintosh in front of the fire. He could not force himself to go out.

‘You’d better come with me, Eliot,’ he broke out. ‘Brown’s got to be told. He’ll want to talk to you.’

I refused.

‘There’s nothing for me to say,’ I told him. I was too downcast: why should I help spare his feelings?

‘Brown’s got to be told. I shan’t take long about it,’ said Chrystal, standing still.

‘It’s late already — to tell him what you’re going to.’

‘I accept that,’ said Chrystal. ‘Well, I’ll do it. You’d better join us in a few minutes, Eliot. You see eye to eye with Brown on this. He’d like to have you there. I shall have to go. As soon as I’ve told him. I’ve got plenty to do tonight.’

As he spoke he started out of the room. Half an hour later I followed him. Brown was sitting deep in his habitual armchair; his face was sombre. Chrystal, his mackintosh unbuttoned, stood with his back to the fire, and his mouth was drawn down into lines unhappy and ill-treated. When I entered, it seemed as though neither had spoken for minutes past; and it was a time before Brown spoke.

‘I gather that you have an inkling of this change in the situation,’ he said to me.

I said yes.

A moment later, there were light and very rapid footsteps on the stairs. In burst Jago, his eyes blazing.

‘I’m extremely sorry,’ he said to Brown. His tone was wild, and he turned on Chrystal with a naked intensity. His skin was grey, and yet the grimace of his lips was for all the world as though he smiled. ‘It was you I wanted to find,’ he said. ‘It is necessary for me to see you. This note you’ve been good enough to send me — I should like to be quite certain what you mean.’

‘I had not realized,’ said Brown in a quiet, measured voice, ‘that you had informed Jago already. I rather got the impression that you were speaking to me first.’

Chrystal’s chin was sunk into his chest.

‘I wrote before I came,’ he said.

43: Each is Alone

For an instant — was it an illusion — they seemed quite motionless. In that tableau, Brown was sitting with his fingers interlaced on his waistcoat, his eyes fixedly watching the other two: Chrystal’s head was bent, he was staring at the carpet, his forehead shone under the light, his chin rested on his chest: Jago stood a yard away, and there was still a grimace on his lips that looked like a smile.

‘I must have got hold of the wrong impression,’ said Brown.

‘Many of us,’ Jago flared out, ‘have got hold of wrong impressions. It would have been extraordinary if we hadn’t. I’ve seen some remarkable behaviour from time to time—’

Chrystal raised his head and faced Jago with a bold assertive gaze. What had passed between him and Brown I did not know; but I felt that he had said little, he had not tried to explain himself, he had stood there in silence.

‘I’m not taking those strictures from you, Jago,’ he said.

‘At last I can say what I think,’ said Jago.

‘We can all say what we think,’ said Chrystal.

‘This isn’t very profitable,’ said Brown.

At the sound of that steady, monitory voice, Jago frowned. Then quite suddenly he began to talk to Chrystal in an urgent, reasonable seeming, almost friendly manner.

‘I think we’ve always understood each other,’ Jago said to Chrystal. ‘You’ve never made any pretence that you wanted me as Master on my own merits, such as they are. You were presented with two distinctly unpleasing candidates, and you decided that I was slightly the less unpleasing of the two. You mustn’t think it was a specially grateful position for me to be placed in — but at any rate there was no pretence about it. We both knew where we stood and made the best of it. Isn’t that true?’

‘There’s something in it,’ said Chrystal. ‘But—’

‘There’s everything in it,’ cried Jago. ‘We’ve had a working understanding that wasn’t very flattering to me. We both of us knew that we had very little in common. But we managed to adjust ourselves to this practical arrangement. You disliked the idea of my opponent more than you did me — and we took that as our common ground. It’s lasted us all these months until tonight. And it seems to me sheer abject folly that it shouldn’t last us a few hours longer.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This will all be over tomorrow morning. Why have you suddenly let your patience get the better of you? I know only too clearly that you’re not very pleased at the idea of me as Master. We’ve both known that all along. Chrystal, I know we don’t get on at heart. I’m not going to pretend: I know we never shall. But we’ve made shift for long enough now. It’s too serious for us to indulge our likes and dislikes at the last minute. I’m ready now to talk over all the practical arrangements that we can conceivably make for the future. I’m asking you to think again.’

‘There’s no point in that.’

‘I’m asking you to think again,’ said Jago, with feverish energy. ‘We can make a working plan. I’m prepared to leave certain things in the college to you. It won’t remove the misunderstanding between us — but it will save us from the things we want most of all to avoid.’

‘What do I want most of all to avoid?’ asked Chrystal.

‘Having my opponent inflicted on you.’

‘You’re wrong, Jago.’ Chrystal shook his head.

‘How am I wrong?’

‘I don’t mind Crawford being Master. I did once. It was my mistake. He’ll make a good Master.’

Jago heard but seemed not to understand. His expression remained strained to the limit of the nerves, angry and yet lit by his nervous hope. It remained so, just as when one reads a letter and the words spell out bad news, one’s smile takes some time to go. Jago had not yet realized in his heart what Chrystal had said.

‘You know as well as I do,’ said Jago, ‘that seeing him elected is the last thing any of us want.’

‘I take you up on that.’

‘Do you seriously deny it?’

‘I do,’ said Chrystal.

‘I’m very much afraid that you’re—’

‘I’m sorry, Jago,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’d better make it clear. Crawford will be a good Master. You’ve got the advantage over him in some respects. I’ve always said that, and I stick to it.’

He paused. He kept his gaze on Jago: it was firm, satisfied, and curiously kindly.

‘That’s not the whole story,’ he went on. ‘I don’t like saying this, Jago, but I’ve got to. You’ve got the advantage over him in some respects — but by and large he will make a better Master than you would have done.’

Jago gasped. It seemed that that was the moment when he began to know and suffer.

‘Don’t worry too much,’ said Chrystal, with his curt, genuine, almost physical concern. ‘It isn’t everyone who’s suitable to be a Master. It isn’t always the best—’

‘Now you want to patronize me,’ said Jago, very quietly.

A faint flush tinged the thick-skinned pallor of Chrystal’s cheeks.

It was only then, when Jago was defeated, beginning to feel the first empty pang, knowing that the shame and suffering would grow, that he succeeded in touching Chrystal.

‘You never give anyone credit for decent intentions,’ snapped Chrystal. ‘If you had done, you might have more support.’

‘I regard it as useless,’ Brown intervened, ‘for either of you to say more.’

The two confronted each other. For an instant it felt as though they would clash with accusations of all they found alien in each other. They were on the point of denouncing what they hated because they could not share.

But those words were not spoken. Perhaps Brown had just managed to stop them. They confronted each other: Chrystal’s face was fierce and sullen, Jago’s ravaged by the encroaching pain: it was Chrystal who turned away.

‘I’m going into hall,’ he said

‘I rather think they’re expecting me at home,’ said Brown.

‘I shall see you in chapel then. Tomorrow morning,’ said Chrystal.

Brown inclined his head. Chrystal gave a short goodnight, and went out.

Jago threw himself, as though both restless and exhausted, on to the sofa.

‘So this is the end,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid it is, Paul,’ said Brown steadily. ‘Unless something very unexpected turns up to help us — and I couldn’t let you hope anything from that.’

‘I’ve got no hope left,’ said Jago.

‘I’m afraid we must resign ourselves,’ said Brown. ‘I don’t need to tell you what your friends are feeling.’

‘It’s bitter,’ I said.

‘Thank you both,’ said Jago, but his tone was far away. Suddenly he cried, as from a new depth of pain: ‘How can I inflict this on my wife? How can I face seeing her being so much hurt?’

Neither Brown nor I replied. Jago twisted on the sofa, drew up his knees and turned again. The bell began to ring for hall.

‘I can’t dine with them,’ said Jago. ‘It would be intolerable to let them see me.’

‘I know,’ said Brown.

‘I do not see,’ said Jago quietly, ‘how I am going to stay here. I shall be reminded of this for the rest of my life.’

‘It sounds trite,’ said Brown, ‘but these wounds heal in time.’

‘I’ve got no money,’ said Jago. ‘I am too old to move. Every time they see me, I shall be ashamed.’

He added: ‘I shall have to watch another man in the place I should have filled. I shall have to call him Master.’

It was not a conversation. For minutes together he lay silent: then came a broken outburst. It was painful to hear the spurs of defeat wound him in one place, then another. Will the other side know tonight? Are they celebrating in hall at this very moment? When will the news go round the university? Has it got outside the college yet? Who would be the first of his enemies to laugh? Why had he allowed himself to be a candidate?

His grief became so wild that he rounded on Brown.

‘Why did you expose me to this danger? No one has ever done me so much harm before.’

‘I misjudged the situation,’ said Brown. ‘I regard myself as very much to blame for lack of judgement.’

‘You oughtn’t to take risks with your friends’ happiness.’

‘I shall always be sorry, Paul,’ said Brown with affectionate remorse, showing no sign that he resented being blamed.

After an interval of quiet Jago suddenly sat up and faced us.

‘I want to ask you something. Is it quite certain that this man will get a majority tomorrow?’

‘I’m afraid it is. So far as it’s given to us to be certain.’

‘Is it?’ cried Jago. ‘Why should I vote for him? Why should I make up his majority? I was coerced into it by Chrystal. Why should I do it now?’

‘I think you’re bound by your promise,’ said Brown. ‘I never liked it, but I think you’re bound.’

‘That is for me to say,’ said Jago.

‘Yes, it is for you to say,’ said Brown in the same even tone. ‘But there is another reason why I hope you won’t break your promise. If you do, people will say that Crawford would never have done so in similar circumstances. And that this was the best proof that they had been right all the time.’

‘Do you think now that they have been right all the time?’

‘I am as sure they are wrong as I’ve ever been.’

‘Even though I’ve shown you that I’m prepared to break my promise?’

‘I know,’ said Brown, ‘that you feel temptations that I’m lucky enough to escape. But I also know that you don’t give way to them.’

‘You’re a good friend, Arthur,’ said Jago. It was his first familiar touch that night.

He stared at us with his eyes distraught, and said: ‘So I’m asked to sign my own rejection tomorrow morning. That’s something else I have to thank Chrystal for — I know he’s been your friend, Arthur. But he’s more detestable than any of the others.’

‘It’s natural for you to say so,’ said Brown. ‘But it isn’t true.’

‘Are you going to trust him again?’

Brown gave a sad, ironic, firm-hearted smile: I thought it meant that he would trust Chrystal as much or as little as he had trusted him before. For Brown loved his friends, and knew they were only men. Since they were only men, they could be treacherous — and then next time loyal beyond belief. One took them as they were. That gave Brown his unfailing strength, and also a tinge, deep under the comfortable flesh, of ironic sadness.

‘How are you going to live in this college?’ said Jago.

‘Paul,’ said Arthur Brown, ‘I’ve failed in the thing I’ve most wanted to bring off here. You’re right to blame me, but perhaps you will remember that it isn’t going to be pleasant even for me yet awhile. I don’t welcome having this difference with Chrystal. And I abominate the thought of Crawford as Master more than anyone in the college. After you, I believe I’m more affected than any of our friends.’

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I said.

‘Still,’ said Brown, ‘I’m not prepared to become a hermit because we’ve lost. We’ve shown some bad management and we’ve had some bad luck, and I don’t forgive myself for what it’s going to mean to you. But it has happened, and we’ve got to make the best of it. We’re not children, and we must go on living decently in this place.’

‘For myself,’ he added, ‘I propose to try and make the college as friendly as possible. We ought to be able to heal some of these rifts. I admit that it will take time. It will be a few years before we stop being more divided than I should like.’

Jago looked at the most devoted of his supporters. Each of them took calamity according to his nature. To Jago, those last words were meaningless, were nothing but a noise that sounded outside his distress. He felt inescapably alone.

Brown saw Jago look more than ever harrowed, and yet could not begin to console him again. He had done all he could. He said to me: ‘I always insisted that it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. I expect you remember me giving you occasional warnings. I’m afraid they’ve turned out more than justified.’

He was moved for Jago to the bottom of his heart; he was defeated on his own account; and yet, I was all but sure, there came a spark of comfort as he thought how far-sighted he had been.

The telephone rang. It was Brown’s wife, asking why he was half an hour late for dinner. Brown said that he did not like to leave us, but I offered to take Jago into my rooms and find him food.

44: Deeper Than Shame

Jago sat down by my fire. The flames, flaring and falling, illumined his face, left it in shadow, at times smoothed out the lines of pain. He gazed into the fire, taking no notice of me. I smoked a cigarette, and then another. At last I went quietly, as though he were asleep, to see what I could give him to eat.

There was not much in my gyproom. Bidwell had seen to that. But there was a loaf of bread, cheese, and butter, and, very surprisingly, a little jar of caviar (a present from a pupil), which Bidwell happened not to like. I put them on the little table between us, in front of the fire. I went out again to fetch some whisky and glasses. When I returned, Jago had already begun to eat.

He ate with extreme hunger, with the same concentration that a man shows when he has been starved for days. He did not talk, except to thank me when I filled his glass or passed a knife. He finished half the loaf and a great wedge of cheese. At the end he gave a smile, a youthful and innocent smile.

‘I was glad of that,’ he said.

He smiled again.

‘Until tonight,’ he said, ‘I intended to give a celebration for my friends. Of course it would have been necessary to keep it secret from the rest. They mustn’t — it would have been fatal to let them feel there were still two parties in the college. But we should have had a celebration to ourselves.’

He spoke very simply and freshly, as though he had put the suffering on one side and was able to rest. I was certain that he was still hoping. In his heart, this celebration was still going to take place. I knew well enough how slow the heart is to catch up with the brute facts. One looks forward to a joy: it is snatched away at the last minute: and, hours later, there are darts of illusory delight when one still feels that it is to come. Such moments cheat one and pass sickeningly away. So, a little later, the innocence ebbed from Jago’s face. ‘There will be no celebration for my friends,’ he said. ‘I shall not even know how to meet them. I don’t know who they are.’

It was worse for him than for a humbler man, I thought. A humbler man could have cursed and moaned among his friends and thrown himself without thinking upon their love. Jago could not lower himself, could not give himself away, could not take pity and affection such as soften fate for more pedestrian men. It was the fault of his pride, of course — and yet, one can be held back by one’s nature and at the same time long passionately for what one cannot take. Jago could bring sympathy to young Luke or me or Joan Royce or twenty others; but he could not accept it himself. With him, intimacy could only flow one way. When he revealed himself, it was in the theatre of this world, not by the fireside to a friend and equal. He was so made that he could not bear the equality of the heart. People blamed him for it; I wondered if they thought it enviable to be born with such pride?

‘Do you think for a moment,’ I said, ‘that it will make a difference to any of us?’

‘Thank you for saying that,’ said Jago, but none of us was close enough. We were allies, young men to be helped, protégés whom it was a pleasure to struggle for: we could not come closer. That was true of us all. Brown had a strong, protective affection for Jago — but I had just seen how Jago could not receive it. To him, Brown was another ally, the most useful and dependable of all. He was never easy with Brown. So far as he found ease with men at all, it was with his protégés.

‘Do you think,’ I persisted, ‘we value men according to their office? Do you think it matters a damn to Roy Calvert or me whether you’re called Master or not?’

‘I wanted to hear it,’ said Jago nakedly. His imagination turned a knife in his bowels. He could not keep it from running after all the humiliations to come. They passed before his eyes with the sharpness of a film. He could not shut away the shames of his disgrace. He was drawn towards them by a morbid attraction. He had to imagine Crawford in his place.

His place: he had counted on it with such defenceless hope. He had heard himself being called Master: now he would hear us all call Crawford so. Among the wounds, that rankled and returned. He saw — as clearly as though it were before his eyes — Crawford presiding in hall, taking the chair at a college meeting. He could not stand it. He could not go to dinner, with that reproach before him in the flesh.

He thought of meeting his acquaintances in the streets. The news would rush round Cambridge in a week: people would say to him, with kindness, with a cruel twinkle ‘I was surprised. I’d always hoped you’d be elected yourself’. Others would see the announcement in The Times. Had he kept his hope strictly to himself? He had dropped words here and there. The stories would go round; and they would gain colour as time passed, they would not be accurate, but they would keep the frailty and the bite of human life. Crawford’s election — that was the time when Jago thought he had it in his pocket, he had actually ordered the furniture for the Lodge — Chrystal changed his mind on the way to the chapel, and said it was the wisest decision he ever made in his life.

They were the ways in which Jago would be remembered. Perhaps the only ways, for there would be nothing that did not die with the flesh; he would never get high place now, there was no memorial in words, there was no child.

The evening went on, as Jago sat by my fire: the chimes clanged out, quarter by quarter, hour by hour: the shames bit into him. They pierced him like the shames of youth, before one’s skin has thickened. Jago’s skin had never thickened, and he was at their mercy.

Shames are more acute than sorrows, I thought as I sat by him, unable even to soften that intolerable night. The wounds of self-consciousness touch one’s nerves more poignantly than the deepest agonies of the heart. But it is the deep agonies that cut at the roots of one’s nature. It is there that one suffers, when vanity and self-consciousness have gone. And Jago suffered there.

It was not only that he winced at the thought of seeing his acquaintances in the streets. That wound would mend in time. He had also lost something in himself, and I did not see how he could get it back. He was a man diffident among his fellows in the ordinary rub and wear of life: it was hard for him to be a man among ordinary men; he was profoundly diffident about his power among men. That diffidence came no one knew from where, had governed so many of his actions, had prevented him from reaching the fame and glory which he believed was his by right. Very slowly he had built up a little store of confidence. Somehow men had come to respect him — he nearly believed it at the age of fifty. This Mastership was a sign for him. That explained, as I had already thought, the obsessive strength of his ambition. The Mastership meant that men esteemed him; they thought of him as one of themselves, as better than themselves. Listening to Brown and Chrystal when they asked him to stand, Jago had felt that he could have had any kind of success, he felt infused by confidence such as he had never known, It was one of the triumphant moments of his life.

He had become obsessed by the ambition: he had hated the path along which it had led him; the disappointments, the anxieties, the inhibitions, the humiliations — they corroded him because they brought back his diffidence again. But always he was buoyed up when he thought of his party and the place they would win for him. Above all, he was buoyed up by the support of Brown and Chrystal. He did not like Chrystal; they were as different as men could be; but that antipathy made Chrystal’s support more precious. He resented Chrystal’s management, he thought Chrystal was a coarse-minded party boss — but even when he wanted to quarrel, he thought with wonder and delight ‘this man believes in me! this man is competent, down-to-earth — and he’s ready to make me Master! If such a man believes in me, I can believe in myself!’

That night Chrystal had drained away the little store of confidence. Would it ever be refilled? It would be harder now than when Jago first became ambitious, first wished to prove himself among men.

It was eleven o’clock, the clock was just striking, when he began to speak about his wife. She had been his first thought in Brown’s room. He had not brought himself to mention her since.

‘She will be waiting up for me,’ he said. ‘I shall hurt her beyond bearing when I see her. I’ve tried hard all my life not to hurt her. Now I can’t see a way out.’

‘Won’t she guess there’s something wrong?’

‘That won’t make it easier — when she hears it’s true.’

‘She’ll bear it,’ I said, ‘because it comes from you.’

‘That makes it a hundred times worse.’

‘For you. But not for her.’

‘If I brought bad news from outside,’ said Jago, ‘I should not be afraid for a single instant. She is very brave in every way in which a human being can be brave. If this place shut down and we’d lost every penny, I’d tell her the news and she’d start getting ready to work the next minute. But this is horribly different.’

I did not question him.

‘Don’t you see,’ he cried, ‘that she will accuse herself?’

He added quietly: ‘She will be certain to think it is her fault.’

‘We must tell her it isn’t,’ I said. ‘Roy and I must explain exactly what has happened.’

‘She will never believe you. She’ll never believe any of you.’ He paused. ‘I’m very much afraid that she will not believe me.’

‘Is it no use our trying?’

‘I’m afraid that nothing will reassure her,’ said Jago. ‘I think she trusts me — yet she can’t believe me when it concerns herself. I’ve not brought her peace of mind. If she’d married another man, she might have found it. I don’t know. I hoped I could make her happy, and I haven’t done.’

‘I know what you feel,’ I said.

‘So you do,’ said Jago — a smile, evanescent but brotherly, shone for an instant through his pain.

‘I don’t believe anyone else could have made her as happy.’

‘I’ve seen her in the worst hours,’ said Jago. He went on in despair: ‘Yet I’ve never done anything to hurt her until now. If I’d been the cruellest of men, I couldn’t have found a way to hurt as much as this. I cannot bear to see her face when I tell her. She will be utterly beside herself — and I shall be no good to her.’

With his chin in his hands, he looked into the fire. For many minutes he was silent. At last he spoke as though there had been no pause.

‘I think I could endure it all,’ he said, ‘if it were not for her.’

45: The Election

On the morning of the election, I woke while it was still dark. There were knocks at the great gate, the rattle of the door opening, the clink of keys, voices in the court; it was six o’clock, and the servants were coming in to work. Although I had been late to bed, telling Roy the final news, I could not get to sleep again. The court quietened, and the first light of the winter dawn crept round the edges of the blind. As the grey morning twilight became visible in the dark room, I lay awake as I had done in other troubles and heard the chimes ring out over the town with indifferent cheerfulness. I was full of worry, though there was nothing left to worry about.

The light increased; there were footsteps, not only servants’, passing through the court; I recognized Chrystal’s quick and athletic tread. Why was he in college so early? It was a solace when Bidwell tiptoed in. After his morning greeting, he said: ‘So the great old day has arrived at last, sir.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He stood beside the bed with his deferential roguish smile.

‘I know it’s wrong of us to talk among ourselves, sir, but we’ve had a good many words about who is to be the next Master.’

‘Have you?’

‘They’re two very nice gentlemen,’ said Bidwell. ‘A very popular gentleman Dr Jago is. I shouldn’t say there was a servant in the college who had ever heard a word against him.’ He was watching me with sharp eyes out of his composed, deliberately bland and guileless face.

‘Of course,’ he said when I did not reply, ‘Dr Crawford is a very popular gentleman too.’ He hurried a little, determined not to be on the wrong side. ‘Between ourselves, sir, I should say they were equally popular. We shall drink their health all right, whoever you put in.’

I got up and shaved and put on my darkest suit. It was curious, I thought, how strongly ritual held one, even though one was not given to it. Out of the window, the court looked sombre in the bleak morning, and one of the last leaves of autumn had drifted on to the sill. Bidwell had switched on the light in my sitting-room, and for once the fire was blazing strongly in time for breakfast, though the air still struck cold.

I ate some breakfast without much appetite and read the morning paper: the news from the Spanish war seemed a little better. Roy ran up the stairs and walked about the room for a few moments.

‘Hurry up, old boy,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t miss the show.’

He was dressed with more than his usual elegance, and was wearing a black silk tie. When I asked him why, he said it was a sign of loss. He was less disturbed, more excited and far gayer than I was. He told me that he had met Chrystal in the court, and commiserated with him for being cursed with this temperamental indecision.

‘“It must be a grave handicap,” I said.’ Roy’s face became impassive. ‘“It must make active life an impossible strain,” I said.’

I grinned. ‘How did he take it?’

‘He looked rather puzzled.’

‘It wasn’t very wise.’

‘Just so,’ said Roy. ‘But it was remarkably pleasing.’

He left to send a telegram before he went into chapel: he was off to Italy next day.

I stood by the window, and set my watch by the clock across the court. It was just ten minutes to ten. The chapel door stood open, and the head porter, his top hat gleaming in the grey morning, was waiting to give the signal for the bell to peal. But he had not done so when, through the great gate, appeared old Gay. He was wearing mortar board and gown, as he always did when he came to college; he was wrapped up in a new, heavy coat and padded thick with scarves; his beard looked as though it had been cut that morning. Step by step, foot and a half by foot and a half, he progressed towards the chapel. Two under porters walked behind him; I thought he must have commanded them, for they seemed mystified and had nothing to do. Before he was halfway round the court, the bell began to ring. At the first sound, Gay looked up at the tower and gave an approving and olympian nod.

As the old man drew near, Brown emerged from the chapel door. His face glowed pink, and I guessed that he had been bustling about seeing that all was in order. Gay beckoned him, and he went along the path. Before they met, Gay called out a resounding good morning that I could hear even across the court and through my windows; when they came close enough, Gay enthusiastically shook hands.

At that moment, Chrystal and Despard-Smith were approaching from the second court, and Winslow came through the gate. The bell rang out insistently. It was time for me to go.

When I went into the chapel there was complete silence, though most of the college were already sitting there. A long table had been placed in the nave; it was covered with a thick rich crimson tablecloth I had never seen before; and there, with Gay at the head, Pilbrow on his right hand, Despard-Smith on his left, the others in order down its length, the fellows sat. The bell clanged outside: in each pause between the peals, there was complete silence. The chapel was solemn to some by faith; but others, who did not believe, who knew what the result of this morning must be, to whom it was just a form, were nevertheless gripped by the ritual magic.

The lights shone down on the red cloth. In the silence, one noticed more than ever the smell of the chapel — earthy, odorous from wood, wax, fusty books. Along with that smell, which never varied, came a new concomitant, a faint but persistent tincture of pomade. It must have been due, I thought, to old Gay’s barber.

The bell still clanged. Ten o’clock had not yet struck. There were three empty places at the table. One was on my left, where Luke had not yet come. There was another between Despard-Smith and Brown, and a third between Winslow and Chrystal. Then Jago walked in, slowly, not looking at any of us. He stared at the table, took in the empty places. He saw where his must be. He took the chair between Winslow and Chrystal. No words were spoken, he made no indication of a greeting: but Brown, opposite to him, gave a slight kind smile.

Luke came to his place, and we were still quiet. The bell gave its last peal: the chimes often were quivering above the chapel: Crawford moved, swiftly but without heat or fuss, to the last seat.

‘I apologize if I’m late, Senior Fellow,’ he said equably. They were the first words spoken since I went in.

The last stroke often had sounded, and there was no whisper in the chapel. Gay sat upright, looking down the table; Pilbrow and Despard-Smith faced each other: Winslow and Crawford: Jago and Brown: Chrystal and Nightingale: Getliffe and me: Roy Calvert and Luke. In front of each of us, on the crimson cloth, was a copy of the statutes, a slip of paper, and a pen. Down the middle of the table ran a series of four silver inkstands — one for Gay alone, one for each group of four.

Gay climbed to his feet.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I propose to carry out the duties conferred on me by our statutes.’ He began at once to read from his leather-covered copy. “At ten o’clock in the morning of the appointed day the Fellows shall assemble in the chapel, and of the fellows then present that one who is first in order of precedence shall preside. He shall first read aloud—”’ Gay looked up from the book. ‘This is the appointed day, there’s no doubt about that. And I am the fellow first in order of precedence. Now is the time to do my duty.’

In his strong and sonorous voice he read on. The words echoed in the chapel; everyone sat still while the seconds ticked past; I kept my eyes from Jago’s face. The quarter struck, and Gay was still reading.

At last he finished.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s well done. Now I call upon you to stand and make your declarations.’

Gay vigorously recited: ‘I, Maurice Harvey Laurence Gay, do hereby declare that I have full knowledge of the statutes just read and will solemnly observe them. I do also hereby declare that without thought of gain or loss or worldly considerations whatsoever I will now choose as Master that man who in my belief will best maintain and increase the well-being and glory of the college. I vow this in sincerity and truth.’

In the ordinary elections, of a scholar or a fellow, it was the practice for each of us to repeat in turn the seven words of the promise. But now we heard Eustace Pilbrow go through the whole declaration, and Despard-Smith after him.

Despard-Smith’s voice died away.

Winslow thrust out his underlip, and said: ‘I vow this in sincerity and truth.’

Despard-Smith immediately whispered in Gay’s ear. Gay said: ‘The senior fellows consider that everyone should read the whole declaration.’

‘Am I bound by the decision of the senior fellows?’ said Winslow.

‘We mustn’t leave anything to doubt. No indeed,’ said Gay. ‘I have to ask you to comply. Then everyone else, right down the line. That’s the proper way.’

‘I do it under protest, Senior Fellow,’ said Winslow sullenly, and read the declaration in a fast monotone.

When it came to Jago’s turn, I felt the strain tighten among us as we stood. His voice was muffled but controlled. When he ended his promise, he threw back his head. His shoulder was almost touching Chrystal’s.

The declarations passed across the table, came to the young men. At last Luke had completed his: we all stayed on our feet.

‘Is that everyone?’ said Gay. ‘I want to be assured that everyone has made his declaration according to the statutes. That’s well done again. Now we may sit down and write our votes.’

For some minutes — perhaps it was not so long — there was only the sound of the scratch of pens on paper. I noticed Chrystal, who was using his fountain pen, push towards Jago the inkstand that stood for them both to use. Someone higher up the table was crossing out a word. I finished and looked at Francis Getliffe, directly opposite: he gave me a grim smile. Several people were still staring down at their slips. Gay was writing away.

He was the last to look up. ‘Ah. All ready? Pray read over your votes,’ he said.

Then he called out: ‘I will now request the junior fellow to collect your votes and deliver them to me. I shall then read them aloud, as prescribed in the statutes. I request the two next senior fellows to make a record of the votes as I announce them. Yes, that’s the work for them to do.’

Pilbrow and Despard-Smith sat with paper in front of them. Young Luke walked down the nave, arranging the votes in order, so that they could be read from the juniors upwards.

‘Well done,’ said Gay, when Luke placed the little pile in his hand. ‘Well done.’

He waited until Luke was once more in his seat.

‘Now is the time to read the votes,’ Gay announced. Once more he clutched the table and got to his feet. He held the slips at arm’s length, in order to focus his faded, long-sighted eyes. He recited, in the clearest and most robust of tones: ‘Here they are.’

‘“I, Walter John Luke, vote for Dr Paul Jago.”

‘“I, Roy Clement Edward Calvert, elect Paul Jago.”

My vote for Jago. There was no fixed form of voting, though Roy’s was supposed to be the most correct. It struck me irrelevantly how one heard Christian names that one had scarcely known.

‘“I, Francis Ernest Getliffe, elect Redvers Thomas Arbuthnot Crawford.”

‘“Ronald Edmund Nightingale votes for Dr Crawford.”

‘“Charles Percy Chrystal elects Dr Thomas Crawford.”’

As Gay’s voice rang out with Chrystal’s vote, there was a quiver at the table. There may have been some, I thought, to whom it was a shock. Had the news reached everyone by ten o’clock?

‘“I, Arthur Brown, elect Paul Jago.”

I waited anxiously for the next.

‘“I, Paul Jago, elect Thomas Crawford.”

‘“Redvers Thomas Arbuthnot Crawford chooses Paul Jago.”

‘“Mr Winslow elects Dr Crawford, and signs his name as Godfrey Harold Winslow.”

‘“Albert Theophilus Despard-Smith elects Redvers Thomas Arbuthnot Crawford.”

‘“I, Eustace Pilbrow, elect Redvers Thomas Arbuthnot Crawford.”’

Someone said: ‘That’s a majority.’

There was still Gay’s own vote to come.

Gay read with doubled richness: ‘“I, Maurice Harvey Laurence Gay, Senior Fellow of the college and emeritus professor in the university, after having performed my duties as Senior Fellow in accordance with the statutes and heard the declarations of the fellows duly assembled in chapel, do hereby cast my vote for Paul Jago as Master of the college.”’

There was a movement, either of relaxation or surprise. I caught Roy Calvert’s eye.

‘There we are,’ said Gay. ‘There are the votes. Have you counted them?’

‘Yes,’ said Despard-Smith.

‘Mind you count them carefully,’ said Gay. ‘We mustn’t make a mistake at the last.’

‘Seven votes for Dr Crawford,’ said Despard-Smith bleakly, ‘Six for Dr Jago. Seven votes make a clear majority of the college, and Dr Crawford is elected.’

‘Ah. Indeed. Remarkable. Dr Crawford. I understand — You’re certain of your records, my dear chap?’

‘Certainly.’ Despard-Smith was frowning.

‘I think I must scrutinize them. I ought to make sure.’ Still standing, the old man held the list of votes two feet from his eyes, and checked each one beside the written slips.

‘I agree with you,’ he said genially to Despard-Smith. ‘Well done. Seven votes for Dr Crawford. I must declare him elected.’

For the last time, a hush fell in the chapel. Gay stood alone, smiling, serene and handsome.

‘Dr Redvers Thomas Arbuthnot Crawford,’ he called. Crawford rose.

‘Senior Fellow,’ he said.

‘I declare you elected this day Master of the college,’ said Gay.

He added, with a superb and natural air: ‘And now I give the college into your charge.’

‘I thank you, Senior Fellow,’ said Crawford imperturbably. ‘I thank the college.’

Without a word, Jago leaned across the table, shook Crawford’s hand, and walked out of the chapel. Everyone watched him go. It was not until the outer door swung to that chairs were pushed back and men surrounded Crawford. We all congratulated him. Nightingale smiled at him, admiringly. Chrystal said: ‘I’m very glad, Crawford.’ Brown shook him by the hand with a polite, formal smile. Crawford was good-humoured and self-assured as ever while people talked to him. It was strange to hear him for the first time called Master.

46: The Master Presides

I went away from the chapel with Roy Calvert, and we stood in the great gate, watching women bustle by to their morning shopping: the streets were full, the buses gleamed a brilliant red under the slaty sky.

‘Dished,’ said Roy. ‘Old boy, one never feels the worst until it happens. I’m deflated.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why does one mind so much about things which don’t matter? This doesn’t matter to us.’

‘It matters to Jago,’ I said.

‘Ought we to see him? I should be frightened to, you know. Did you see how he looked?’

‘I did.’

‘I should be frightened while he’s so wretched. It’s more in your line, Lewis.’ He smiled, mocking both me and himself.

Soon he left me to get some money for his journey, and I turned back into the court. There was a knot of people at the chapel door, and I went toward them. Gay, Brown, Despard-Smith, and Winslow were standing together, with the head porter a yard away: I. saw that they had been pinning a notice to the door.

‘What do you think of that, Nightingale?’ Gay greeted me.

‘Not Nightingale,’ said Brown.

‘What do you think of that?’ said Gay. ‘There’s a notice and a half for you. There’s no doubt about that. If they want to see who’s been elected, they’ve only got to come and read. And they can see my signature at the bottom. I like a good, bold signature. I like a man who’s not ashamed of the sight of his own name. Well, my friends, it’s all gone like clockwork. You couldn’t have a better election than that. I congratulate you.’

‘I’ve taken part in four elections,’ said Despard-Smith. ‘I don’t expect to see another.’

‘Come, come,’ said Gay. ‘Why, there is plenty of time for one or two more for all of us. I hope to do my duty at another one or two myself.’

He waved a jocular finger at Winslow.

‘And there’ll be no slackness, Winslow, my dear chap. Declarations in full, mind. I can see I shall have to keep you up to the mark.’

Winslow smiled caustically.

‘I still maintain I was right,’ he said. ‘I want it discussed. I’ve never believed in multiplying mummery—’

He flanked Gay on one side, Despard-Smith on the other, and they kept pace with his shuffle as they moved off arguing. ‘Good morning to you,’ said Winslow to Brown and me. ‘Good morning, my dear chaps,’ Gay shouted to us behind him.

I remained with Brown, and asked him what Roy had asked me: ought one of us to look after Jago? Would he go round himself?

‘I should be useless to him,’ said Arthur Brown. ‘I’m very much afraid that I shouldn’t be acceptable. I must reconcile myself to the fact that my company will distress him for a long time to come. He won’t want to be reminded of our disaster.’

Brown spoke evenly, with resignation but with deep feeling. His concern would not flag, would not be snubbed away: his was not a nature to forget. Yet it was like him to have stayed behind with Gay to make sure that the formalities were properly complied with. No one else of Jago’s party would have cared whether or not the notice was affixed: Brown could not help scrutinizing the ceremony to the end: even though Crawford was elected, the ceremonies must be performed, the college must be carried on. And now, standing by the chapel door, he said: ‘I suppose everyone will want to drink some healths tonight. I’d better see that they’re not forgetting to have a few bottles ready.’

For the rest of the day, until dinner, I heard only one more comment. It was from Chrystal, whom I met as he was walking out of college after lunch.

He looked at me with bold eyes, and gave his brisk good afternoon. ‘I tell you what, Eliot,’ he said sharply, ‘I didn’t like Jago’s behaviour this morning. He oughtn’t to have gone off like that.’

‘He’s had something to put up with.’

‘I know what he feels. I shouldn’t like it myself. But one’s got to put a face on things.’

It was true, I thought: he did not know what it was like to be wounded.

‘It makes me feel justified in the line I took,’ said Chrystal. ‘I know you disagree with me. I wasn’t happy about it myself. But he’s not dependable enough. He’s a likeable man. But he wouldn’t have done.’

I did not want to carry on the argument.

Before we parted, he said: ‘You’ll come and thank me in time, Eliot. I shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t turn up tonight. That won’t be so good.’

By custom, all fellows came in to drink the new Master’s health on the night of his election; it was to provide for this occasion that Brown had gone to the cellars.

Roy was busy packing and getting ready his notebooks for the Vatican library, so I spent the afternoon alone. I went out for tea in the town, and on my way ran straight into Mrs Jago. I began to tell her how distressed I was. She cut me dead.

In my rooms that evening, I kept thinking of that strange incident. It was easy to see it as a joke — but I had come to feel fond of her, and it was no joke at all. What state must she be in. How completely was she possessed? I tried to write her a note, but thought of the meanings she would read behind each word. I was more upset than I should have confessed even to Roy.

I went into the combination room some time before dinner, and found Crawford, Getliffe, and Nightingale already there. Nightingale had accepted a glass of sherry from Crawford, and was as coy with it as a girl over her first drink. He had not touched a drop, he was saying, since Flanders. Crawford asked me to have a drink with impartial cordiality, and spoke to us all: ‘Speaking now as Master,’ he said, ‘I expect one will have to exercise considerable selection over the meetings one addresses. I don’t want to parade opinions which part of the college vehemently objects to but, speaking as a responsible citizen, I can’t remain entirely quiescent in times like these.’

The room was filling rapidly. Despard-Smith, Chrystal, Brown, and Winslow joined the group round Crawford. Francis Getliffe took me aside.

‘Well, it’s over,’ he said.

‘It’s over.’

‘I’m sorry if you’re too disappointed, Lewis.’

‘I don’t pretend to be overjoyed,’ I said.

‘It will shake down.’ He smiled. ‘Look, I need your advice. Come out and see us tomorrow night.’

I said yes as spontaneously as I could.

‘Good work,’ said Francis.

Nearly all the fellows had arrived. Each time the door opened, we looked for Jago. But first it was Pilbrow, sparkling with delight because he had received an invitation to go to Prague in the spring — then Gay, although he was breaking the routine of his nights. ‘Ah, Crawford, my dear chap,’ he said. ‘I thought you would feel the gilt was off the gingerbread unless I put in an appearance. Master I must call you now. I congratulate you.’

We were still waiting for Jago when the butler announced to Crawford that dinner was served.

‘Well,’ said Crawford, ‘this seems to be the whole party. Gay, will you take my right hand? Eustace, will you come in on my left?’

He sat at the head of the table in hall, looking slightly magnified, as men do when placed in the chief seat. His face was smooth and buddha-like as he listened to old Gay through dinner. Down the table, I caught some whispers about Jago, and a triumphant smile from Nightingale. None of Jago’s friends referred to him. We could not explain why he had not come. We said nothing: Luke looked at me and Brown, hurt that no one could put up a defence.

When we returned to the combination room, there were several decanters on the table, the glass glittering, the silver shining. Near them stood a pile of peaches in a great silver dish, which was reflected clear in the polished wood. Gay’s eyes glistened at the sight. As he was congratulating the steward, Crawford started to arrange us in our seats.

‘I think we must have a change,’ said Crawford. ‘Gay, you must take my right hand again. That goes without saying. Chrystal, I should like you up here.’

Just as we were seated and Crawford had filled Gay’s glass and his own and was pushing the first decanter on, the door opened and Jago came into the room. He was pale as though with an illness. All eyes were on him. The room was quiet.

‘Jago,’ said Crawford. ‘Come and sit by me.’

Chrystal moved down one, we rearranged ourselves, and Jago walked to the place on Crawford’s left.

‘I am so very sorry,’ he said, ‘to have missed your first dinner in hall. I had something to discuss with my wife. I thought I might still be in time to drink your health.’

The decanter was still going round. As glasses were being filled, Jago said, in a voice to which all listened: ‘I think I can claim one privilege. That is what my wife and I have been discussing. We feel you should be our guest before you go to anyone else. Will you dine with us tomorrow’ — Jago paused, and then brought out the word — ‘Master?’

He had got through it. He scarcely listened to Crawford’s reply. He raised his glass as Gay proposed the health of ‘our new Master’. Jago did not speak again. He went out early, and I followed him, but he did not wish to say a word or hear one. He did not even wish for silent company along the path. In the blustering night, under the college lamps, he walked away. I watched him walk alone, back to his house.