The Masters (22 page)

I knew that the envelopes reached the porters’ lodge by a quarter to nine, so I did not wait for Bidwell’s ritual awakening. I walked through the court in the cloudless morning, and found a large packet addressed to me. I was opening it when Brown entered the lodge, panting a little, still wearing trouser clips after cycling in from his house.

‘I hope we haven’t had too many disasters,’ he said. He opened his own envelope, spread the sheets on the counter.

‘Thank God for that!’ he exclaimed in a moment. ‘Thank God for that!’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Young Timberlake’s got through. They’ve given him a third. Which between you and me, is probably slightly more than abstract justice required. Still, I think Sir Horace will be satisfied. If the young man had crashed, it might have been the most expensive failure in the history of the college. I’m breathing a great deal more freely, I can tell you.’

His cleverest pupil had been given a starred first. ‘I always said he was our next real flyer,’ said Brown triumphantly.

He turned back, pencil in hand, to tick off the names on the history sheet. In a moment he gave a shrill whistle.

‘I can’t find Dick Winslow’s name. He seems to have failed absolutely. They don’t seem even to have allowed him the ordinary degree. They don’t seem to have made him any allowance at all. It’s scarcely credible. I think I’d better ring up the examiners straightaway. I did once find a name left off a list by mistake.’

He put through his call, and came back shaking his head.

‘Absolutely hopeless,’ he said. ‘They say they just couldn’t find any signs of intelligence at all. Well, I knew he was dense, but I shouldn’t have believed that he was as dense as that.’

The meeting was called for half-past eleven. As the room filled up, one kept hearing whispers about young Winslow. In the midst of the bustle, men asked each other if they had heard. Some were speaking in malice, some in good nature, some in a mixture of the two. At last Winslow himself entered, heavy-footed, carrying his cap but not swinging it in his normal fashion. He was looking down, and went straight to his place.

‘Ah, good morning, Winslow,’ cried Gay, who had not grasped the news.

‘Good morning to you,’ said Winslow. His voice was deadened. He was immersed in his wretchedness.

Despard-Smith was just opening the meeting when Gay said: ‘I have a small presentation to make, before we begin our discussion on these excellent agenda. I wish to present to the society, for inclusion in the library, this copy of my latest publication. I hope and expect that most fellows have already bought it. I hope you’ve bought yours, Brown? I hope you have, Crawford?’

He rose precariously to his feet, and laid a copy in front of Despard-Smith.

‘As a matter of fact, I haven’t yet,’ said Crawford. ‘I’ve noticed one or two reviews.’

‘Ah. Reviews,’ said Gay. ‘Those first reviews have a lukewarm tendency that I don’t like to see.’

Suddenly, distracted from Winslow, I saw how nervous the old man was about his book’s reception. Gay, the least diffident of men, had never lost that nervousness. It did not die with age: perhaps it became sharper.

The meeting began at last. There was only two minutes’ business over livings, but under finance there were several items down. Despard-Smith asked the Bursar if he would ‘take us through’ his business.

Winslow’s head was sunk down.

‘I don’t think it’s necessary,’ he muttered. He did not raise his eyes. Everyone was looking at him.

Then it came to Jago to describe the examination results. He passed from subject to subject in the traditional Cambridge order, mathematics, classics, natural sciences… Most people at the meeting knew only a handful of the young men he was talking about; but his interest in each was so sharp that he kept a hold upon the meeting. He came to history. The table was very quiet. ‘One brilliant and altogether deserved success,’ he said in his thick voice. ‘Some of us know the struggle that young man had to come here at all. I’m prepared to bet, Mr Deputy, that he’s going to write his name in the story of this college.’ Then with a grin, he said how much the society ought to congratulate Brown on squeezing Timberlake through. Jago then studied his papers, and paused. ‘I think there’s nothing else to report about the historians.’ Very quickly, he turned to the next subject.

It was intended as chivalry, perhaps as more. I could not tell how Winslow received it. He still sat with his head sunk down. There was no sign that he had heard anything of the meeting. He did not speak himself: even for a formal vote, he had to be asked.

We broke off at one o’clock for a cold lunch, and most people ate with zest. Winslow stood apart, with his back to the room. I saw Roy’s eyes upon him, glinting with wild pity. Since the party, his depression had grown heavier still, and he had kept himself alone. I was at once anxious as I saw him watching Winslow, but then someone offered him a decanter of wine and he refused. I thought that he was taking care, and I had no sense of danger.

When we resumed the meeting, Jago dealt with the results of the preliminary examinations. There were enquiries, one or two rotund criticisms, some congratulations.

‘Of course,’ said Despard-Smith, summing up, ‘for a scholar of the college only to get a third class in a university examination is nothing short of s-scandalous. But I think the general feeling of the college is that, taking the rough with the smooth, we can be reasonably satisfied with the achievements of the men. I gather that is your opinion, Senior Tutor?’

‘I should go further. We ought to be proud of them.’

‘You don’t dissent, Tutor?’ Despard-Smith asked Brown.

‘I agree with my senior colleague,’ said Brown. ‘And I should like to draw the college’s attention to the remarkable results that the Dean has once more secured.’

Before the meeting ended, which was not long after, I was set thinking of Despard-Smith’s use of the phrase ‘the men’. That habit went back to the ‘90s: most of us at this table would say ‘the young men’ or ‘the undergraduates’. But at this time, the late 1930s, the undergraduates themselves would usually say ‘the boys’. It was interesting to hear so many strata of speech round one table. Old Gay, for example, used ‘absolutely’, not only in places where the younger of us might quite naturally still, but also in the sense of ‘actually’ or even ‘naturally’ – exactly as though he were speaking in the 1870s. Pilbrow, always up to the times, used an idiom entirely modern, but Despard-Smith still brought out slang that was fresh at the end of the century – ‘crab’, and ‘josser’, and ‘by Jove’. Crawford said ‘man of science’, keeping to the Edwardian usage which we had abandoned. So, with more patience it would have been possible to construct a whole geological record of idioms, simply by listening word by word to a series of college meetings.

This one closed. The fellows filed out, and I waited for Roy. Winslow was still sitting at the table, with the order-book and files in front of him; he seemed not to have the spirit to move. The three of us were left alone in the room. Roy did not glance at me or say a word: he went straight to Winslow, and sat down by his side.

‘I am dreadfully sorry about Dick,’ he said.

‘That’s nice of you.’

‘And I am dreadfully sorry you’ve had to sit here today. When one’s unhappy, it’s intolerable to have people talking about one. It’s intolerable to be watched.’

His tone was full of pain, and Winslow looked up from the table.

‘You don’t care what they say,’ Roy cried, ‘but you want them to leave you alone. But none of us are capable of that much decency. I haven’t much use for human beings. Have you, Winslow, have you? You know what people are feeling now, don’t you? They’re feeling that you’ve been taken down a peg or two. They’re remembering the times you’ve snubbed them. They’re saying how arrogant and rude you’ve been. But they don’t matter. None of us matter.’

His voice was very clear, throbbing with a terrible elation. Winslow stared at him.

‘There is something in what they say, young man,’ he said.

‘Of course there is. There’s something in most things that they say about anyone.’ Roy laughed.

I went round the table to stop him. Roy was talking about the slanders on himself. I had him by the shoulder, but he shook me off. He told Winslow there was something in what Nightingale said.

‘Would you like to know how much there is in it?’ he cried. ‘We’re both miserable. It may relieve you just a bit.’

Winslow raised his voice: ‘Don’t trouble yourself, Calvert. It’s no concern of mine.’

‘That’s why I shall do it.’ There was a sheet of blank paper in front of Winslow. Roy seized it, and began to write quickly. I took hold of his arm, and jogged his pen. He cursed. ‘Go away, Lewis. I’m giving Winslow a little evidence.’ His face was wild with pure elation. ‘This is only for Winslow and me.’ He wrote more, then signed the page. He gave it to Winslow with a smile.

‘This has been a frightful day for you,’ Roy cried. ‘Keep this to remind you that people don’t matter.’

He said good afternoon, and went out of the room.

‘This is distressing,’ said Winslow.

‘He’ll calm down soon.’

‘I never had any idea that Calvert was capable of making an exhibition of himself. Is this the first time it has happened?’

I had two tasks. I had to safeguard Roy as much as I could. And I had to think of politics. I told some of the truth, and some lies. I had never seen Roy lose control until this afternoon, I said. It was a shock to me. Roy was upset over the Master: it had worn his nerves to breaking point to see such suffering.

‘He’s a considerable scholar, from all they say,’ said Winslow. ‘I had my doubts about him once, but I’ve always found him an engaging young man.’

‘There’s nothing whatever to worry about.’

‘You know him well,’ said Winslow. ‘I expect you’re right. I think you should persuade him to take a good long holiday.’

Winslow was studying the sheet of paper. At last he said: ‘So there is something in the stories that have been going round?’

‘I don’t know what he has written there,’ I said. ‘I’ve no doubt that the stories are more highly painted than the facts. Remember they’ve been told you by people who envy him.’

‘Maybe,’ said Winslow. ‘Maybe. If those people have this ammunition, I don’t see how Master Calvert is going to continue in this college. The place will be too hot to hold him.’

‘Do you want to see that happen?’

‘I’m comparatively indifferent about the young man. He can be amusing, and he’s a scholar, which is more than can be said for several of our colleagues.’ Winslow stared at me. ‘I’m comparatively indifferent, as I say. But I’m not indifferent about the possibility of your candidate becoming Master.’

‘You mean,’ I said, ‘that if you let other people see Calvert’s note, you could make a difference to Jago’s chances?’

‘I did mean that,’ said Winslow.

‘You can’t do it,’ I said.

‘Why not?’

‘You can’t do it. You know some of the reasons that brought Calvert to the state he was in this afternoon. They’re enough to stop you absolutely, by themselves.’

‘If you’d bring it to a point–’

‘I’ll bring it to a point. We both know that Calvert has lost control of himself. He got into a state pretty near despair. And he wouldn’t have got into that state unless he’d seen that you were unhappy and others were pleased at your expense. Who else had any feeling for you?’

‘It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,’ said Winslow.

Then I asked: ‘Who else had any feeling for your son Dick: You knew that Calvert was upset about him. Who else had any feeling for your son?’

I was taking advantage of his misery. Winslow looked as though he had no strength left. He stared down at the table, and was silent for a long time. At last, in a flat, exhausted mutter, he said: ‘What shall I do with this?’ He pointed to the sheet of paper.

‘I don’t mind,’ I said.

‘Perhaps you’d better have it.’

Winslow did not so much as look when I burnt the paper in the grate.

I went straight from Winslow to Roy’s room. Roy was lying on his sofa, peaceful and relaxed.

‘Have I dished everything?’ he asked.

He was
happy
. I had seen the course of his affliction often enough to know it by heart. It was, in fact, curiously mechanical. There was first the phase of darkness, the monotonous depression which might last for weeks or months: then that phase passed into another, where the darkness was lit up by flashes of ‘gaiety’ – gaiety which nearly overcame him at Brown’s party, and which we both dreaded so much. The phase of gaiety never lasted very long, and nearly always broke into one frantic act, such as he had just committed. Then he felt a complete release.

For months, perhaps for longer, he knew that he was safe. When I first knew him well, in his early twenties, the melancholy had taken hold of him more often. But for two or three years past the calm and beautiful intervals had been winning over the despair. That afternoon he knew that he would be tranquil for months to come.

I was tired and weighed down. Sometimes I felt that the burden on me was unfair, that I got the worst of it. I told him that I should not always be there to pick up the pieces.

He was anxious to make amends. Soon he asked: ‘I haven’t dished Jago, have I?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘How did you work it? You’re pretty competent, aren’t you?’

I shook my head.

‘It didn’t need much working,’ I said. ‘Winslow may like to think of himself as stark, but he isn’t.’

‘Just so,’ said Roy.

‘I had to hit below the belt, and it wasn’t pretty,’ I said. ‘He hates Jago. But it isn’t the sort of hate that takes up much of one’s life. All his real emotions go into his son.’

‘Just so,’ said Roy again. ‘I think I’m lucky.’

‘You are.’

‘I couldn’t have borne putting paid to Jago’s chances.’ said Roy. ‘I’ll do what I can to make up for it, old boy. I shall be all right now.’

That evening in hall Roy presented a bottle in order to drink Jago’s health. When he was asked the occasion, so that Luke could enter it in the wine book, Roy smiled and said precisely: ‘In order to atone for nearly doing him a disservice.’