The Masters (18 page)

After his demand on Jago, Nightingale seemed to be satisfied or to have lost interest. Brown’s explanation was that he was enough open to reason to realize that he could go no further; for his own practical ends, it was sensible to stop. Brown did not let us forget Nightingale’s practical ends: ‘He may be unbalanced,’ said Brown, ‘he may be driven by impulses which I am sure you understand better than I do, but somehow he manages to give them a direction. And that concerns me most. He wants some very practical things, and he’s going to be a confounded nuisance.’

That was entirely true. I learned a lot about men in action, I learned something of when to control a psychological imagination, from Arthur Brown. But it was also true that Nightingale was right in the middle of one of those states of anxiety which is like a vacuum in the mind: it fills itself with one worry, such as the tutorship; that is worried round, examined, explored, acted upon, for the time being satisfied: the vacuum is left, and fills immediately with a new worry. In this case it was the March recommendations of the council of the Royal Society: would he get in at last? would his deepest hope come off?

This anxiety came to Nightingale each spring. It was the most painful of all. And it seemed sharper because, unlike his worry over the tutorship, there was nothing he could do to satisfy himself. He could only wait.

Crawford had just been put on the council of the Royal Society for the second time, owing to someone dying. Crawford told us this news himself, with his usual imperturbability. Nightingale heard him with his forehead corrugated, but he could not resist asking: ‘Do you know when the results will be out?’ Crawford looked at his pocket-book.

‘The council will make its recommendations on Thursday, March–’ He told Nightingale the date. ‘Of course, they’re not public for a couple of months after. Is there anyone you’re interested in?’

‘Yes.’

The intense answer got through even to Crawford.

‘You’re not up yourself, are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t realize it,’ said Crawford, making an unconcerned apology. ‘Of course your subject is a long way from mine. I don’t think I’ve heard anything about the chemists’ list. If I did, I’m afraid I paid no attention. If I knew anything definite, I should be tempted to tell you. I’m not a believer in unnecessary secrecy.’

Francis Getliffe had been listening to the conversation, and we went out of the room together. As the door closed behind us, he said: ‘I wish someone would put Nightingale out of his misery.’

‘Do you know the result?’

‘I’ve heard the lists. He’s not in, of course. But the point is, he’s never even thought of. He never will get in,’ said Francis.

‘I doubt if anyone could tell him,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Francis.

‘When are you going to get in, by the way?’ I asked, forgetting our opposition, as though our ease had returned.

‘I shan’t let myself be put up until I stand a good chance. I mean, until I’m certain of getting in within three or four years. I’m not inclined to go up on the off chance.’

‘Does that mean the first shot next year?’

‘I’d hoped so. I’d hoped that, if I was put up next year, I was bound to be elected by 1940. But things haven’t gone as fast as they should,’ he said with painful honesty.

‘You’ve been unlucky, haven’t you?’

‘A bit,’ said Francis. ‘I might have got a shade more notice. But that isn’t the whole truth. I haven’t done as much as I ought.’

‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said.

‘There’s got to be time,’ said Francis.

None of us, I thought, was as just as he was, or made such demands on his will.

About three weeks later, as I went into the porter’s lodge one day after lunch, I heard Nightingale giving instructions. A special note in his tone caught my attention: it occurred to me that it must be the day of the Royal results. ‘If a telegram comes for me this afternoon,’ he repeated, ‘I want the boy sent to my rooms without a minute’s delay. I shall be in till hall. Have you got that? I don’t want a minute’s delay.’

The afternoon was harshly cold; the false spring of February had disappeared, and before teatime it was dark, the sky overhung with inky clouds. I stayed by my fire reading, and then sent for tea before a pupil arrived. As I waited for the kitchen porter, I stood looking out of the window into the court. A few flakes of snow were falling. Some undergraduates came clanking through in football boots, their knees a livid purple, their breath steaming in the bitter air. Then I saw Nightingale walking towards the porter’s lodge. The young men were shouting heartily: Nightingale went past them as though they did not exist.

In a moment, he was on his way back. He had found no telegram. He was walking quite slowly: the cold did not touch him.

In hall that night his face was dead white and so strained that the lines seemed rigid, part of the structure of his brow. Every few seconds he put a hand to the back of his head, and the tic began to fascinate Luke, who was sitting next to him. Several times Luke looked at the pale, grim, harassed face, started to speak, and then thought better of it. At last his curiosity was too strong, and he said: ‘Are you all right, Nightingale?’

‘What do you mean, all right?’ Nightingale replied. ‘Of course I’m all right. What do you think you’re talking about?’

Luke blushed, but would not be shouted down.

‘I thought you might have been overworking. You were looking pretty tired–’

‘Overworking,’ Nightingale said. ‘I suppose you think that’s the worst thing that can happen.’

Luke shrugged his shoulders, muttered a curse under his breath and caught my eye. He had a rueful, self-mocking sense of humour; his work was in a hopeful phase, and he lived at the laboratory from nine in the morning until it closed at night. It was hard to have his head bitten off for laziness.

We were already through the soup and fish when Crawford came into hall. He slipped into the seat next mine, but before he sat down called up the table to Winslow: ‘My apologies for being late. I’ve had to attend the council of the Royal. And this weather wasn’t very good for the train.’

He ate his way methodically through the first courses and had caught us up at the sweet. All the time Nightingale’s eyes were fixed on him with a last desperate question of anxiety. But Crawford was untroubled, and, having levelled up in eating, talked reflectively to me. It was like him that his conversation did not alter with the person he was addressing; if there was anything he wanted to deliver, I served to receive it as well as Francis Getliffe.

‘Selecting people for honorific purposes is a very interesting job. But it’s not as easy as you might suppose. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of the choice of Fellows of the Royal – which I happen just to have been concerned with. Speaking as a man of science, I should be happier if there were sharper criteria to help us make the choice. I’m not meaning the choice is made unfairly: no, I should say that on the conscious level they’re as fair as human choices can be. But the criteria are not sharp, and it’s no use pretending they can be. “Original work of distinction” – how can you compare one man with a new theory on the interior of the stars with someone else who has painstakingly measured the movements of a fish?’

The rest had finished the meal, Winslow was waiting to say grace, but Crawford finished saying what he had to say. On our way into the combination room, he suddenly noticed Nightingale, and called out: ‘Oh, Nightingale. Just a minute.’

We passed on, leaving the two of them together. But we heard Crawford’s audible, impersonally friendly voice saying clearly: ‘No luck for you this time.’

They followed us at once. Most of those dining went away without sitting down to wine, but Crawford said that he had had a busy day and needed a glass of port. So Winslow and I shared a bottle with him, and listened to his views on the organization of science, the place of the Royal Society, the revolution in scientific technology. Nightingale hung on to every word.

Crawford enjoyed talking; some were put off by his manner and could not bear to listen, but they lost something. He had not the acute penetrating intellect of Roy Calvert; in an intelligence test he would not have come out as high as, say, the Master or Winslow; and he had no human insight at all. But he had a broad, strong, powerful mind, not specially apt for entertaining but made to wear.

Nightingale sat outside the little circle of three round which the bottle passed. Since he learned the news, his expression was still taut with strain, but his eyes had become bright and fierce. There was nothing crushed about him; his whole manner was active, harsh, and determined as he listened to Crawford. He listened without speaking. He did not once give his envious smile. But, once as I watched him, his eyes left Crawford for an instant and stared inimically at mine. They were feverishly bright.

When I went away, the three of them were still at the table, and Crawford and Winslow were emptying the bottle.

The next evening, half an hour before dinner, I heard Francis Getliffe’s firm, plunging, heavy step on the stairs. He used to call in often on his way to hall; but he had not done so since our quarrel.

‘Busy?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Good work.’ He sat in the armchair across the fire, took a cigarette, cleared his throat. He was uncomfortable and constrained, but he was looking at me with mastery.

‘Look, Lewis, I think it’s better for me to tell you,’ he said. ‘Your majority for Jago has been broken.’

He was triumphant, he enjoyed telling me – yet he felt a streak of friendly pity.

‘Who’s gone over?’ I said, but I did not need to ask.

‘Nightingale. He told Crawford himself last night. Winslow was there too.’

I blamed myself for having left them together with Nightingale in that condition. Then I thought that was not realistic: it could have made no difference. And I did not want to show concern in front of Francis Getliffe.

‘If it weren’t for the vote, which is a nuisance,’ I said, ‘I should wish you joy of him.’

Francis gave a grim smile.

‘That makes it 6–5. Neither side has a clear majority. I hadn’t reckoned on that. I don’t know whether you had.’

As soon as Francis Getliffe left me, I rang up Brown. He said that he was kept by a pupil, but would get rid of him and come. The moment he entered, I told him the news.

‘So that’s it,’ said Brown. He accepted it at once.

‘Things happen as they must,’ he added in a round, matter-of-fact tone. ‘They’ve gone pretty smoothly for us so far. We’ve got to be ready for our setbacks. I don’t say this isn’t a confounded nuisance, because it obviously is. Still, repining won’t get us anywhere, and there’s plenty to do if we’re going to retrieve the position.’

‘I shall be astonished,’ I said, ‘if Nightingale changes sides again.’

‘I expect you’re right,’ said Brown. ‘But we’ve got other people to look after, too, you know. Mind you,’ he went on, with a trace of irritation, ‘I always thought we handled Nightingale badly. We ought to have taken him round to Jago’s that first afternoon. It would have been well worth waiting for him. I was wrong not to stick in my heels.’

But Brown did not spend much time blaming Chrystal or himself. He was thinking realistically of what it meant. 6–5 now. For Crawford – Winslow, Despard-Smith, Getliffe, Gay, and Nightingale. For Jago – Brown, Chrystal, Calvert, Eliot, Pilbrow, and Luke. ‘It’s bad to lose a clear majority. It affects your own party,’ Brown reflected. ‘Just at the moment, I should guess they’re more confident than we are. We must take care that a rot doesn’t set in.’

‘Shall you do anything tonight?’

‘No,’ said Brown. ‘We’ve got to wait. We needn’t tell Jago yet. There’s no point in worrying him unnecessarily. You see, we’ve only learned this from the other side. It explains a dig Winslow gave Chrystal today, by the way. But we shall be well advised not to take any action until we hear from Nightingale himself. Remember, he’s always tried to do the proper thing, and he’s bound to let Jago know. A decent man couldn’t just cross over without sending some sort of explanation. And there’s always the bare chance that he may think better of it.’

For once, Brown’s patience guided him wrong. Gossip was going round the college that night and next morning; apparently Nightingale had already spoken with venom against Jago and ‘his clique’. Jago had heard nothing of it, but I received accounts from several sources, differing a good deal from one another. Brown spoke to Chrystal, went back on his tactics laid down the previous night, and decided it was time to ‘have it out’. They were planning to get Nightingale alone after hall, as though by chance. As it happened, Saturday, that very night, was made for their purpose. The number of men dining varied regularly with the days of the week; Sunday was always a full night – ‘married men escaping the cold supper at home’, old Despard-Smith used to complain. Saturday, on the other hand, was a sparse one, usually only attended by bachelors living in college. That particular Saturday happened to be specially sparse, for Despard-Smith had a cold, and there was a concert in the town which removed Pilbrow and also Roy Calvert, who was escorting Mrs Jago. Chrystal and Brown put their names down to dine that night, and there arrived in hall only the three of us, Nightingale and Luke.

Nightingale was silent during dinner. Brown kept up a stream of comfortable, unexacting conversation, but all the time, through the amiable remarks on college games, his glance was constantly coming back to Nightingale’s defensive mask.

‘How long is it since you saw the Lent races, Nightingale?’ Chrystal asked directly.

‘I haven’t time for anything like that,’ said Nightingale. They were his first words since we sat down.

‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ said Chrystal, with genuine sympathy. ‘Come on the towpath with me next week. It will do you good.’

‘I can look after myself’ said Nightingale. Up to that night, he had held on to his politeness, but now it slipped away.