The Masters (10 page)

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

‘He’d be a goodish Master,’ I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I don’t see it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Completely.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Whom do you want?’ I asked.

‘The obvious man. Crawford.’

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

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

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

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

‘He’s inconceivably self-satisfied–’

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

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

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

‘You claim all those things for Jago?’

‘Yes.’

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

I asked: ‘Will Crawford be a candidate?’

‘If I have anything to do with it.’

‘Have you spoken to Winslow yet?’

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

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

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

It was painful to quarrel. There was a silence.

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

Francis flushed, the vein was prominent.

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

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

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

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

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

‘Of course.’

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

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

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

‘Of course I’m going on with it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I have,’ said Chrystal.

‘I congratulate you,’ said Gay promptly.

In a moment he looked up again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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