Charles Snow - The Masters

The Jagos kept open house for fellows at Sunday teatime, but when we arrived they were still alone. Mrs Jago welcomed us with a greater assumption of state than ever: she had been telling herself that no one wished to see her, that Jago’s house was deserted because of her. In return, she mounted to great heights of patronage towards Joan and me.

Jago was patiently chaffing her — he was too patient, I thought — as he handed us our cups. The tea, like all the amenities which Mrs Jago chose, was the best in college; her taste was as fine as Brown’s, though not as rich. Joan, who was not domesticated but enjoyed her food, asked her about some shortbread. Mrs Jago was feeling too umbraged to take the question as a compliment. But then, by luck, Joan admired the china.

‘Ah, that was one of our wedding-presents,’ said Mrs Jago.

‘I suppose,’ said Joan thoughtfully, ‘there are some arguments in favour of a formal wedding.’

Mrs Jago forgot her complaint, and said with businesslike vigour: ‘Of course there are. You must never think of anything else.’

‘She means,’ said Jago, ‘that you’ll miss the presents.’

Mrs Jago laughed out loud, quite happily: ‘Well, they were very useful to us, and you can’t deny it.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Joan, ‘I was thinking the same myself.’ Jago’s eyes were glinting with sadistic relish.

‘You two!’ he said. ‘You pretend to like books. But you can’t get away from your sex, neither of you. How dreadfully realistic women are.’

They both liked it. They liked being bracketed together, the ageing malcontent and the direct, fierce girl. They were both melted by him; his wife, for all her shrewishness, still could not resist him, and Joan smiled as she did for Roy.

Then the two women smiled at each other with a curious tenderness, and Mrs Jago asked gently and naturally about the Master’s state.

‘Is he in any pain?’

‘No, none at all. Nothing more than discomfort sometimes.’

‘I’m relieved to hear that,’ said Mrs Jago.

Joan said: ‘He’s losing weight each day. And he’s getting a little weaker. My mother knows that the truth oughtn’t to be kept from him any longer.’

‘When will she tell him?’

‘Almost at once.’

Jago and I exchanged a glance. We did not know, could not ask, whether that meant before Tuesday.

‘It must be a terrible thing to do,’ said Mrs Jago.

‘It’s worse for them both now,’ said Joan, ‘than if she had told him that first night. I’m sure she should have done. I’m sure one should not hold back anything vital — we’re not wise enough to know.’

‘That’s a curious remark,’ said Jago, ‘for a girl your age. When I was twenty, I was certain I knew everything—’

‘You’re a man,’ said Joan, biting back after his gibe. ‘Men grow up very late.’

‘Very late,’ said Jago. He smiled at her. ‘But I’ve grown up enough now to know how completely right you are about — your mother’s mistake. She should have told him then.’

‘I hope I shouldn’t have shirked telling you, Paul,’ said Mrs Jago, ‘if it had happened to you.’

‘I should be surer of your courage,’ said Jago, ‘than I should of my own.’

She smiled, simply and winningly. ‘I hope I should be all right,’ she said.

Perhaps she would always rise, I wondered, to the great crises of their life. I wondered it still, after Joan left suddenly to go to a party and Mrs Jago was once more affronted. When Joan had gone out, Jago said: ‘There’s fine stuff in that young woman. I wish she didn’t look so sulky. But there’s wonderfully fine stuff in her.’

‘I dare say there is,’ said Mrs Jago. ‘But she must learn not to show that she’s so bored with her entertainment.’

‘It’s ten to one that she’s going to this party on the off-chance that Roy Calvert will be there,’ I said.

‘I hope she gets him,’ said Jago. ‘She would supply everything he lacks.’

‘No woman ought to get him,’ cried Mrs Jago. ‘He’s too attractive to be tamed.’

Jago frowned, and for a second she was pleased. Then she began to nag. She had been cherishing snubs all afternoon, and now she let them out. Lady Muriel, cried Mrs Jago, was too much a snob, was too much above the wives of the fellows, for anyone like herself to know the inside of the Lodge.

She could not very well ask Joan: but how did Jago expect her to make plans for furnishing it ready for them to move in?

It was then I wondered again how she would rise to the great moments.

‘I can’t think, Paul,’ she was saying, ‘how you can expect me to have the Lodge fit to live in for six months after we move. I shall be a burden on you in the Lodge anyway, but I want a fair chance to get the place in order. That’s the least I can do for you.’

It would be awkward if she spoke in that vein to others, I thought as I walked back to my rooms. Nothing would give more offence, nothing was more against the rules of that society: I decided Brown, as manager of Jago’s caucus, must know at once. As I was telling him, he flushed. ‘That woman’s a confounded nuisance,’ he said. For once he showed real irritation. Jago would have to be warned, but of all subjects it was the one where Jago was least approachable. ‘I’m extremely vexed,’ said Brown.

His composure had returned when he and Chrystal called on me after hall.

‘It’s nothing to do with the Mastership,’ he said affably. ‘We just want to make sure that we’ve got everything comfortable for Sir Horace.’

‘Can you give us a line on his tastes?’ said Chrystal.

‘We noticed last time that he took an intelligent interest in his dinner,’ said Brown. ‘We thought you might have picked up some points that we missed.’

They were competent and thorough. They took as much trouble over putting up Sir Horace as over the campaign for the Mastership. No detail was too trivial for them to attend to. I could not help at all: anything I could have told them they had docketed and acted on already. Chrystal asked me to have Sir Horace to breakfast on the Wednesday morning.

‘He’ll have got tired of our faces by then,’ he said. ‘I want him to feel he’s moving about without us following him.’ He gave his tough smile. ‘But I don’t intend him to get into the wrong hands.’

‘Winslow was asking,’ said Brown, ‘whether Sir Horace was down for any particular purpose. And if not why we should upset the seating arrangements for the feast. He wondered whether we had mistaken Sir Horace for a person of distinction.’

‘Winslow is amusing ,’ said Chrystal. He made the word sound sinister. ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘things are pretty well tied up for Sir Horace now.’

‘If we get him down, that is,’ said Brown. ‘There are forty-eight hours before Tuesday, and the last I heard from the Lodge wasn’t very reassuring.’

I told them what Joan had said that afternoon.

‘I’m not ready to say we’ve got Sir Horace down here,’ said Brown, ‘until I see the feast begin and him sitting at table.’

‘It’s lamentable,’ said Chrystal.

There was a rap on the door. With surprise I saw Nightingale come in. He was looking harassed, pale and intent. In a strained effort to keep the proprieties, he said good night to me, and asked if I minded him intruding. Then he addressed himself to Brown.

‘I looked in your rooms last night and tonight. You weren’t there, so I had to try your friends.’

‘Ah well,’ said Brown, ‘you’ve found me now.’

‘Is it anything private?’ I said. ‘We can easily leave you together.’

‘It may be private,’ said Nightingale. ‘But it’s nothing that Chrystal and you won’t know.’