The Masters (3 page)

‘It is a relief, you know,’ he said. ‘I’d imagined this might be something with an unpleasant end. I may have told you that I don’t think much of doctors – but I distinctly enjoyed their conversation last night.’

He smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, I feel a little more tired than you’d imagine. But I take it that’s natural, after those people have been rummaging about. And I suppose this ulcer has been tiring me and taking away my appetite. I’ve got to lie here while it heals. I expect to get a little stronger every day.’

‘You may get some intermissions.’ From my chair I could see over the high bed rail, out of the single window; from the bed there was no view but the cloudless sky, but I could see most of the court under snow. My eyes stayed there. ‘You mustn’t worry too much if you have setbacks.’

‘I shan’t worry for a long time,’ he said. ‘You know, when I was nervous about the end of this, I was surprised to find how inquisitive one is. I did so much want to know whether the college would ever make up its mind about the beehives in the garden. And I did want to know whether our old friend Gay’s son would really get the job at Edinburgh. It will be remarkable if he does. It will reflect the greatest credit on Mrs Gay. Between you and me’ – he passed into his familiar, intimate whisper – ‘it’s an error to think that eminent scholars are very likely to be clever men.’

He chuckled boyishly. ‘I shouldn’t have liked not to know the answers. And I shouldn’t have liked not to finish that little book on the early heresies.’

The Master had spent much of his life working on comparative religion. Oddly, it seemed to have made not the slightest difference to his faith, which had stayed unchanged, as it were in a separate compartment, since he first learned it as a child.

‘How long will it take you?’

‘Only a couple of years. I shall ask Roy Calvert to write some of the chapters.’

He chuckled again. ‘And I should have hated not to see that young man’s
magnum opus
come out next year. Do you remember the trouble we had to get him elected, Eliot? Some of our friends show a singular instinct for preferring mediocrity. Like elects like, of course. Or, between you and me,’ he whispered, ‘dull men elect dull men. I’m looking forward to Roy Calvert’s book. Since the Germans dined here, our friends have an uncomfortable suspicion that he’s out of the ordinary. But when his book appears, they will be told that he’s the most remarkable scholar this society has contained for fifty years. Will they be grateful to you and me and good old Arthur Brown for backing him. Will they be grateful, Eliot?’

His laugh was mischievous, but his voice was becoming weaker.

As I got up to go, he said: ‘I hope you’ll stay longer next time. I told you, I expect to get a little stronger every day.’

After I had said goodbye to Lady Muriel and Joan, I let myself out of the Lodge into the sunny winter morning. I felt worn out.

In the court I saw Chrystal coming towards me. He was a very big man, both tall and strongly muscled. He walked soft-footed and well-balanced.

‘So you’ve seen him this morning?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘What do you think of it?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry myself,’ said Chrystal. He was crisp and brusque, and people often thought him hectoring. This morning he was at his sharpest. From his face alone one would have known that he found it easy to give orders. His nose was beak-like, his gaze did not flicker.

‘I’m sorry myself,’ he repeated. I knew that he was moved. ‘Did you talk to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘I shall have to do the same.’ He looked at me with his commanding stare.

‘He’s very tired,’ I said.

‘I shouldn’t think of staying.’

We walked a few steps back towards the Lodge. Chrystal burst out: ‘It’s lamentable. Well, we shall have to find a successor, I suppose. I can’t imagine anyone succeeding Royce. Still, we’ve got to have someone. Jago came to see me this morning.’

He gave me a sharp glance. Then he said fiercely: ‘It’s lamentable. Well, it’s no use our standing here.’

I did not mind his rudeness. For, of all the college, he was the one most affected by the news of the Master. It was not that he was an intimate friend; in the past year, apart from the formal dinners at the Lodge, they had not once been in each other’s houses; it was a long time, back in the days when Chrystal was Royce’s pupil, since they spent an evening together. But Chrystal had hero-worshipped the older man in those days, and still did. It was strange to feel, but this bustling, dominating, successful man had a great capacity for hero-worship. He was a power in the college, and would have been in any society. He had force, decision, the liking for action; he revelled in command. He was nearly fifty now, successful, within the modest limits he set himself, in all he undertook. In the college he was Dean (a lay official of standing, though by this time the functions were dying away); in the university he was well known, sat on the Council of the Senate, was always being appointed to committees and syndicates. He made a more than usually comfortable academic income. He had three grown-up daughters, and had married each of them well. He adored his wife. But he was still capable of losing himself in hero-worship, and the generous, humble impulse often took the oddest forms. Sometimes he fixed on a business magnate, or an eminent soldier, or a politician; he was drawn to success and power on the grand scale – to success and power, which, in his own sphere, he knew so well how to get.

But the oldest and strongest of his worships was for Royce. That was why he was uncontrollably curt to me in the court that morning.

‘I must get on,’ he said. ‘We shall have to find a successor. I shall have to think out who I want. I’ll have a word with Brown. And I should like five minutes with you.’

As we parted, he said: ‘There’s something else Brown and I want to talk to you about. The way I see it, it’s more important than the next Master.’

The combination room glowed warm when I entered it that evening. No one had yet come in, and the lights were out; but the fire flared in the open grate, threw shadows on to the curtains, picked out the glasses on the oval table, already set for the after-dinner wine. I took a glass of sherry and an evening paper, and settled myself in an armchair by the fire. A decanter of claret, I noticed, was standing at the head of the table; there were only six places laid, and a great stretch of the mahogany shone polished and empty.

Jago and Winslow came in nearly together. Winslow threw his square into one armchair and sat in another himself; he gave me his mordant, not unfriendly grin.

‘May I pour you some sherry, Bursar?’ said Jago, not at ease with him.

‘
If
you please.
If
you please.’

‘I’m dreadfully afraid I’ve spilt most of it,’ said Jago, beginning to apologize.

‘It’s so good of you to bring it,’ said Winslow.

Just then the butler entered with the dining-list and presented it to Winslow.

‘We are a very small party tonight,’ he said. ‘Ourselves, the worthy Brown and Chrystal, and young Luke.’ He glanced at the decanter on the table. He added: ‘We are a small party, but I gather that one of us is presenting a bottle. I am prepared to bet another bottle that we owe this to the worthy Brown. I wonder what remarkable event he is celebrating now.’

Jago shook his head. ‘Will you have more sherry, Bursar?’

‘If you please, my dear boy.
If
you please.’

I watched him as he drank. His profile was jagged, with his long nose and nutcracker jaw. His eyes were hooded with heavy lids, and there were hollows in his cheeks and temples that brought back to me, by contrast, the smooth full face of the Master – who was two or three years younger. But Winslow’s skin was ruddy, and his long, gangling body moved as willingly as in his prime.

His manners were more formal than ours, even when his bitter humour had broken loose. He was wealthy, and it was in his style to say that he was the grandson of a draper; but the draper was a younger son of a county family. Lady Muriel was intensely snobbish and Winslow had never got on with the Master – nevertheless, he was the only one of the older fellows whom she occasionally, as a gesture of social acceptance, managed to call by his Christian name.

He had a savage temper and a rude tongue, and was on bad terms with most of his colleagues. The Master had quarrelled with him long before – there were several versions of the occasion. Between him and Jago there was an absolute incompatibility. Chrystal disliked him unforgivingly. He had little to his credit. He had been a fine classic in his youth and had published nothing. As Bursar he was conscientious, but had no flair. Yet all the college felt that he was a man of stature, and responded despite themselves if he cared to notice them.

He was finishing his second glass of sherry. Jago, who was trying to placate him, said deferentially: ‘Did you get my note on the closed exhibitions?’

‘Thank you, yes.’

‘I hope it had everything you wanted.’

Winslow glanced at him under his heavy lids. For a moment he paused. Then he said: ‘It may very well have done. It may very well have done.’ He paused again. ‘I should be so grateful if you’d explain it to me some time.’

‘I struggled extremely hard to make it clear,’ said Jago, laughing so as not to be provoked.

‘I have a feeling that clarity usually comes when one struggles a little less and reflects a little more.’

At that Jago’s hot temper flared up.

‘No one has ever accused me of not being able to make myself understood–’

‘It must be my extreme stupidity,’ said Winslow. ‘But, do you know, when I read your notes – a fog descends.’

Jago burst out: ‘There are times, Bursar, when you make me feel as though I were being sent up to the headmaster for bad work.’

‘There are times, my dear Senior Tutor, when that is precisely the impression I wish to make.’

Angrily, Jago snatched up a paper, but as he did so Brown and Chrystal came through the door. Brown’s eyes were alert at once behind their spectacles; the spectacles sat on a broad high-coloured face, his body was cushioned and comfortable; his eyes looked from Jago to Winslow, eyes that were sharp, peering, kindly, and always on the watch. He knew at once that words had passed.

‘Good evening to you,’ said Winslow, unperturbed.

Chrystal nodded and went over to Jago; Brown talked placidly to Winslow and me; the bell began to ring for hall. Just as the butler threw open the door, and announced to Winslow that dinner was served, Luke came rapidly in, and joined our file out of the combination room, on to the dais. The hall struck cold, and we waited impatiently for the long grace to end. The hall struck more than ever cold, when one looked down it, and saw only half a dozen undergraduates at the far end; for it was still the depth of the vacation, and there were only a few scholars up, just as there were only the six of us at the high table.

Winslow took his seat at the head, and others manoeuvred for position; Jago did not want to sit by him after their fracas, so that I found myself on Winslow’s right hand. Jago sat by me, and Luke on the same side: opposite was Brown and then his friend Chrystal, who had also avoided being Winslow’s neighbour.

Brown smiled surreptitiously at me, his good-natured face a little pained, for though he could master these embarrassments he was a man who liked his friends to be at ease: then he began to talk to Winslow about the college silver. My attention strayed, I found myself studying one of the portraits on the linenfold. Then I heard Jago’s voice, unrecognizably different from when he replied to Winslow, talking to young Luke.

‘You look as though things are going well in the laboratory. I believe you’ve struck oil.’

I looked past Jago as Luke replied: ‘I hope so. I had an idea over Christmas.’ He had been elected a fellow only a few months before, and was twenty-four. Intelligence shone from his face, which was fresh, boyish, not yet quite a man’s; as he talked of his work, the words tripped over themselves, the west-country burr got stronger, a deep blush suffused his cheeks. He was said to be one of the most promising of nuclear physicists.

‘Can you explain it to a very ignorant layman?’

‘I can give you some sort of notion. But I’ve only just started on this idea.’ He blushed again cheerfully. ‘I’m afraid to say too much about it just yet.’

He began expounding his subject to Jago. Chrystal made an aside to Brown, and asked across the table if I was free next morning. Winslow heard the question, and turned his sardonic glance on to Chrystal.

‘The college is becoming quite a hive of activity,’ he said.

‘Term starts next week,’ said Chrystal. ‘I can’t leave things till then.’

‘But surely,’ said Winslow, ‘the appearance of the young gentlemen oughtn’t to obstruct the really serious purposes of our society? Such as rolling a log in the right direction?’

‘I’m sure,’ Brown intervened, quickly but blandly, ‘that the Dean would never roll a log across the table. We’ve learned from our seniors to choose a quieter place.’

We were waiting for the savoury, and someone chuckled.

‘By the way,’ Winslow looked down the table, ‘I noticed that a bottle of claret has been ordered in the combination room. May I enquire whom we are indebted to?’

‘I’m afraid I’m responsible.’ Brown’s voice was soothing. ‘I ought to have asked permission to present a bottle, but I rather anticipated that. And I ought to have asked whether people would have preferred port, but I found out from the kitchens who were dining, and I thought I knew everyone’s taste. I believe you always prefer claret nowadays?’ he said to Winslow.

‘If you please. If you please.’ He asked, the caustic note just on the edge of his voice: ‘And what remarkable event do you wish to celebrate?’

‘Why, the remarkable event I wish to celebrate,’ said Brown, ‘is the appearance of Mr R S Winslow in the Trial Eights. I don’t think anyone has got in before me. And I know we should all feel that when the Bursar has a son at the college, and the young man distinguishes himself, we want the pleasure of marking the occasion.’