The Masters (20 page)

‘I’m compelled to discuss it if he wishes to,’ said Jago. ‘I can’t decently do less than that.’

‘But go carefully whatever you do. Examine any proposal he puts forward. It may seem harmless, but it’s wiser not to commit yourself at once. Whatever you do, don’t say yes on the spot.’ Brown was settling down to an exhaustive, enjoyable warning: then his expression became more brooding.

‘There’s something else you ought to guard against.’ He hesitated. Jago did not speak, and sat with his head averted. Brown went on, speaking slowly and with difficulty: ‘We shouldn’t be reliable supporters or friends unless we asked you to guard against something which might damage your prospects irretrievably. Put it another way: it has helped to lose us Nightingale, and unless you stop, it might do you more harm than that.’

Jago still did not speak.

Brown continued: ‘I know we didn’t manage Nightingale very cleverly, any of us. We’ve made him angry between us. And one mistake we fell into that infuriated him was – I gave you a hint before – he thought some of us were acting as though you had the Mastership in your pocket. That’s bound to be dangerous. I don’t like doing it, but I’m compelled to warn you again.’ He hesitated for some moments, then said: ‘There seem to have been some women talking over the teacups.’

Brown was embarrassed but determined and intent. He looked at Jago, whose head had stayed bent down. Brown remembered that morning when, at a hint far slighter than this, Jago had drawn himself aloof and answered with a hostile snub. It had taken all Brown’s stubborn affection to try again – and to try on this night, when Jago had suffered a bitter disappointment, had lost his self-respect, had condemned himself.

‘I am grateful for your friendship,’ said Jago without looking up. ‘I will accept your advice so far as I can.’

Suddenly he glanced at Brown, his eyes lit up.

‘I want to ask one thing of my friends,’ he said quietly. ‘I trust you to take care that not a sign of these strictures reaches my wife. She would be more distressed than I could bear.’

‘Will you have a word with her yourself?’ Brown persisted.

I thought Jago was not going to reply. At last he said: ‘If I can do it without hurting her.’

As we heard him, we seemed within touching distance of a deep experience. We were all quiet. None of us, not even Brown, dared to say more. Not even Brown could speak to him in this way again.

Soon afterwards, Mrs Jago came in from the concert, with Roy Calvert attending her. Ironically, she was happier than I had ever seen her. She had been exalted by the music, she had been mixing with fashionable Cambridge and people had talked to her kindly, she had been seen in the company of one of the most sought-after young men in the town.

She flirted with Roy, looking up at him as he stood by her chair with his heels on the fender.

‘Think of all the young women you might have taken out tonight.’

‘Women are boring when they’re too young,’ said Roy.

‘We should all like to believe that was true,’ she said.

‘You all know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Confess.’

His tone was playful, half-kind, half-gallant, and, just for a moment, she was basking in confidence. She neither asserted herself nor shrieked out apologies. A quality, vivacious, naive, delicate, scintillated in her, as though it were there by nature. Perhaps it was the quality which Jago saw when she was a girl.

It was a strange spectacle, her sitting happily near to Roy. Her black evening dress made her look no slighter, and her solid shoulders loomed out of her chair: while Roy stood beside her, his shoulders pressed against the mantelpiece, his toes on the carpet, his figure cleanly arched.

She smiled at her husband.

‘I’m positive you haven’t had such a perfect evening,’ she said.

‘Not quite,’ said Jago, smiling fondly back.

Since Lady Muriel broke the news, the Master had wished to see none of his friends, except Roy. But towards the end of term, he began to ask us one by one to visit him. The curious thing was, he was asking us to visit him not for his own sake, but for ours. ‘I don’t think,’ Roy said sadly, ‘he wants to see anyone at all. He’s just asking out of consideration for our feelings. He’s becoming very kind.’ He knew that we should be hurt if he seemed indifferent to our company. So he put up with it. It was a sign of the supreme consideration which filled him as his life was ending.

It was strange to go into his bedroom, and meet the selflessness of this dying man. It was stranger still to leave him, and return into the rancour of the college.

For Nightingale had already become a focus of hate, and had started a campaign against Jago. It was a campaign of propaganda, concentrated with all his animosity and force. He was devoting himself to finding usable facts; and each night, unless one of Jago’s active friends was near, he would grind them out.

The sneers did not aim at Jago himself, but at those round him. First his wife. Nightingale brought out, night after night, stories of her assuming that the Lodge was already hers: how she had enquired after eighteenth-century furniture, to suit the drawing-room: how she had called for pity because she did not know where they were going to find more servants. He jeered at her accent and her social origin: ‘the suburbs of Birmingham will be a comedown after Lady Muriel’.

That particular gibe made Brown very angry, but probably, both he and I agreed, did little harm.

Others were more insidious. Nightingale harped away about her absurd flirtations. It was true. They had been common in the past. They were the flirtations of a woman with not a shred of confidence in her attractions, trying to prove them – so much more innocent, yet sometimes more unbalanced, than the flirtations which spring up through desire.

After Mrs Jago, Nightingale’s next point of attack was Jago’s supporters and friends, and most of all Roy Calvert. I came in for a share of obloquy, but the resentment he felt for me seemed to become transferred to Roy. Roy’s love affairs – for the first time they were discussed across the combination room table. Joan’s name was mentioned. Someone said she would soon be engaged to Roy. Engaged? Nightingale smiled.

This gossip went seething round. Despard-Smith said one night in my hearing: ‘Extraordinary young man Calvert is. I’m worried about him. I saw him in the court this afternoon and, after what I’ve heard recently, I asked if he was thinking of marriage. He made a most extraordinary reply. He said: “The Calverts are not the marrying kind. My father was, of course, but he was an exception.” I’m worried about the young man. I’m beginning to be afraid he has no sense of humour.’ Despard-Smith frowned. ‘And I’m beginning to wonder whether, in his own best interests, he oughtn’t to be advised to apply for a post in the British Museum.’

The propaganda began to endow Jago’s side with a colour of raffishness. It was a curious result, when one thought of Brown and Chrystal, the leaders of the party and the solidest people in the college. Nevertheless, that was the result, and we in Jago’s party were ourselves affected by it. In a short time, Nightingale had driven the two sides further apart. By the end of term, high table was often uncomfortable to dine at. Men formed the habit of looking at the names of those down for dinner, and crossing off their own if there were too many opponents present. It became less a custom to stay for wine after hall.

Among the gossip and faction, there was one man who stayed impervious. Crawford was not sensitive to atmosphere. He sat down self-assuredly to dinner with a party consisting entirely of Jago’s supporters; he talked to me with sober, complacent sense about the state of Europe; he offered Roy Calvert a glass of sherry in the combination room, and gave his opinions of Germany. Either Crawford did not hear Nightingale’s slanders or he took no notice of them. Once I heard Nightingale speak to him in a low voice in hall.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Crawford, cordially, loudly, but without interest, ‘that I’m very stupid when it comes to personalia.’

After the last college meeting of the term, which had been dull but cantankerous, Crawford said, as we were stirring to go: ‘Mr Deputy, may I be allowed to make an unusual suggestion?’

‘Dr Crawford.’

‘I should like your permission to retire with the Senior Tutor for five minutes. We shall then possibly be in a position to make a joint statement.’

Jago and Crawford left the room, and the rest of us talked, smoked, or doodled. On my right hand Nightingale turned ostentatiously away, and I chatted to Luke about his research. He had been chasing a red herring, he said: the last month’s work was useless; it was like a ‘blasted game of snakes and ladders’; he had just struck a gigantic snake. Then Jago and Crawford returned. They were talking as they entered, Jago excited, his eyes smiling, Crawford self-contained, his expression quite unmoved. None of us, after the Saturday night at Jago’s, had heard whether Crawford’s invitation had come to anything. Chrystal was annoyed, Brown concerned that Jago might commit a tactical mistake.

Crawford slid into his seat.

‘Mr Deputy.’

‘Dr Crawford.’

‘Speaking as a fellow, I assume that I’m out of order in referring to the impending vacancy,’ said Crawford. ‘But if we dissolve ourselves into an informal committee, I suggest that difficulty can be overcome. Perhaps I can take the transformation as completed.’ He gave a broad smile, enjoying the forms of business, as he always did. ‘Speaking then as a member of this informal committee, I can go on to suggest that it may be useful if the Senior Tutor and I make a statement of intention.’

He stared impassively at Despard-Smith.

‘I take it,’ Crawford went on, ‘that we are not going beyond reasonable common knowledge in regarding ourselves as candidates when the vacancy in the mastership occurs. Further, I take it, from such expressions of current feeling as reach me, that we are justified in regarding ourselves as the most likely candidates. Finally, I take it that it is also reasonably common knowledge that a clear majority has not yet found itself to express the will of the college. In the circumstances, the votes which the Senior Tutor and I dispose, by virtue of being fellows, may be relevant. We have discussed whether we can reach agreement between ourselves on the use we make of them. The greatest measure of agreement we can reach is this: we do not feel it incumbent upon us to intervene in the college’s choice. We do not consider ourselves justified in voting for one another. As matters stand at present, we shall abstain from voting.’

There was a silence.

‘Ah. Indeed,’ said Gay. ‘Very well spoken, Crawford. I congratulate you.’

Jago said: ‘I should like to add a word to my colleague’s admirable précis. I am sure we should both choose to be frank with the society.’

Crawford gave a cordial assent.

‘We both feel uncomfortably certain,’ said Jago, with a malicious smile, ‘that the other would not be our natural first choice. I know my colleague will correct me if I am misrepresenting him. We don’t feel that it’s reasonable for us to give our votes to each other, against our own natural judgement, just because we appear to be the only candidates.’

‘Exactly,’ said Crawford.

They were drawn close in their rivalry. Even as they said they would not vote for the other, they felt an inexplicable intimacy. They found real elation in making a statement together; they enjoyed setting themselves apart from the rest of us. It was not the first time I had noticed the electric attraction of rivalry: rivals, whether competing for a job, opposing each other in politics, struggling for the same woman, are for mysterious moments closer than any friends.

As we left the meeting, Chrystal and Brown drew me aside.

‘Jago is
amusing
,’ said Chrystal angrily. ‘How can he expect us to get him in if he plays this sort of game without warning?’

‘I don’t suppose he had any option,’ said Brown in a soothing tone. ‘It looks pretty certain on the face of it that Crawford just sat smugly down and said nothing on earth would make him vote for Jago, I’m satisfied Jago did the best thing in the circumstances by giving no change himself.’

‘We ought to have been told. It’s lamentable,’ said Chrystal. ‘It looks as though we shall never get a majority for either. They’ve just presented us with a stalemate. There are times when I feel inclined to wash my hands of the whole business.’

‘I can’t follow you there.’ Brown was for once short with his friend. ‘This looks like a tight thing, I give you that. But there’s one advantage. I don’t see how Crawford can possibly get a majority now.’

‘What use is that? If we can’t get a majority ourselves.’

‘If we’re certain of avoiding the worst, I shall be happier. And we haven’t started serious persuasion yet,’ said Brown firmly. ‘The first thing is to close our own ranks.’

Chrystal agreed, a little shamefacedly, but left it to Brown to spend an hour with Pilbrow that night. For a fortnight, ever since Nightingale’s defection, Brown had been trying to arrange a talk with Pilbrow. But Pilbrow’s round of concerts and parties did not allow him much free time; and he was bored with college politics, and was not above dissimulating to avoid them. This day, at the college meeting, Brown had pinned him down.

I rather wished I had accompanied Brown myself, for I was Pilbrow’s favourite among the younger fellows. He was attracted by Roy Calvert, but could not understand his political ambivalence; he could not understand how anyone so good-hearted could have friends of influence in the third Reich. Whereas the old man knew that I was on the left of centre, and stayed there.

I wished decidedly that I had gone, when Brown told me what Pilbrow had said. I knew at once that Brown was not quite at ease.

‘I think he’ll come up to scratch,’ Brown said. ‘But I must say he’s getting crankier as he grows older. Would you believe it, but he wanted me to sign a letter about the confounded Spanish war? I know you support that gang of cut-throats too, Eliot. I’ve never been able to understand why you lose your judgement when it comes to politics.

‘Well,’ he went on. ‘I hope he didn’t take it amiss when I turned him down. I’ve never known Eustace Pilbrow to bear a grudge. And he made just the same kind of promise as he made at our caucus. He’s still for Jago, just because he’s rather fond of him.’ He told me, word for word, what Pilbrow had said. It was, as Brown admitted, ‘on the target’ for an old man. He had replied in the same terms to the other side, telling them that he preferred Jago for personal reasons. It seemed satisfactory.