Charles Snow - The Masters

Jago replied, his tone over-friendly, upset, over-considerate: ‘I’m extremely sorry. I’m up to the ears with work. I’m completely booked for tonight.’ He paused, and I heard him go on unwillingly: ‘Perhaps we could fix something for tomorrow?’

The wall lights in the hall were turned off for the feast, and the tables were lit by candles. The candlelight shone on silver salts, candlesticks, great ornamental tankards, and on gold cups and plates, all arranged down the middle of the tables. Silver and gold shone under the flickering light; as one looked above the candlesticks, the linen fold was half in darkness and the roof was lost.

In order to seat Sir Horace as Chrystal insisted, Winslow had been brought down from the high table, and so had Pilbrow and Pilbrow’s French writer. I sat opposite Winslow and started to talk across the table to the Frenchman. He was, as it turned out, very disappointing.

I recalled the excitement with which I heard Pilbrow was bringing him, and the cultural snobbery with which we had piqued Chrystal and dismissed Sir Horace. How wrong we were. An evening by Sir Horace’s side would have been far more rewarding.

The Frenchman sat stolidly while Pilbrow had a conversational fling. ‘Pornograms,’ Pilbrow burst out. ‘An absolutely essential word — Two meanings. Something written, as in telegram. Something drawn, as in diagram.’ The Frenchman was not amused, and went on talking like a passage from his own books.

But, if he did not enjoy himself others made up for it. All through the feast we heard a commentary from Gay, who sat at the end of the high table, not far away from us.

‘Oysters? Excellent. You never did relish oysters, did you, Despard? Waiter, bring me Mr Despard-Smith’s oysters. Capital. I remember having some particularly succulent oysters in Oxford one night when they happened to be giving me an honorary degree. Do you know, those oysters slipped down just as though they were taking part in the celebration.’

He did not follow our modern fashion in wines. Champagne was served at feasts, but it had become the habit to pass it by and drink the hocks and moselles instead. Not so Gay. ‘There’s nothing like a glass of champagne on a cold winter night. I’ve always felt better for a glass of champagne. Ah. Let me see, I’ve been coming to these feasts now for getting on for sixty years. I’m happy to say I’ve never missed a feast through illness, and I’ve always enjoyed my glass of champagne.’

He kept having his glass filled, and addressed not only the end of his own table, but also ours.

‘My saga-men never had a meal like this. Grand old Njal never had such a meal. My saga-men never had a glass of champagne. It was a very hard, dark, strenuous life those men lived, and they weren’t afraid to meet their fates. Grand chaps they were. I’m glad I’ve been responsible for making thousands of people realize what grand chaps they were. Why, when I came on the scene, they were almost unknown in this country. And now, if a cultivated man does not know as much about them as he knows about the heroes of the Iliad , he’s an ignoramus. You hear that, Despard? You hear that, Eustace? I repeat, he’s an ignoramus.’

We sat a long time over the port and claret, the fruit and coffee and cigars. There were no speeches at all. At last — it was nearly half-past ten — we moved into the combination room again. Roy Calvert was starting some concealed badinage at the expense of Crawford and Despard-Smith. Like everyone else, he was rosy, bright-eyed, and full of well-being. Like everyone except Nightingale, that is: Nightingale had brought no guest, was indifferent to food, and always hated drinking or seeing others drink. He stood in the crush of the combination room, looking strained in the midst of the elation. Winslow came up to Gay, who was making his way slowly — the press of men parted in front of him — to his special chair.

‘Ah, Winslow. What a magnificent feast this has been!’

‘Are you going to congratulate me on it?’ asked Winslow.

‘Certainly not,’ said Gay. ‘You gave up being Steward a great number of years ago. I shall congratulate the man responsible for this excellent feast. Getliffe is our present Steward. That’s the man. Where is Getliffe? I congratulate him. Splendid work these young scientists do, splendid.’

Chrystal and Brown did not mean to stay long in the combination room: it was time to get down to business. They caught Jago’s eye and mine. We said goodbye to our guests, and followed the others and Sir Horace up to Brown’s rooms.

‘I wonder,’ said Brown, after he had established Sir Horace in a chair by the fire, ‘if anyone would like a little brandy? I always find it rather settling after a feast.’

When each of us had accepted our drink, Sir Horace began to talk: but he was a long time, a deliberately long time, in getting to the point. First of all, he discussed his ‘nephew’, as he called young Timberlake, who was actually his second cousin.

‘I want to thank all you gentlemen, and particularly Mr Brown, for what you’ve done for the boy. I’m very grateful for all your care. I know he’s not first class academically, and there was a time when it worried me, but now I’ve realized that he’s got other qualities, you know what I mean?’

‘I don’t think you need worry about him,’ said Brown.

‘He’s an extremely good lad,’ said Jago, overdoing it a little. ‘Everyone likes him. It’s a miracle that he’s not hopelessly spoiled.’

‘I’m interested to hear you say that,’ said Sir Horace. ‘I haven’t got the slightest worry on that account. I’ve always been certain about his character. I saw that his mother took all the trouble she could about his education in that respect.’

‘I’m sure that we all regard him as doing you the greatest credit,’ said Brown.

‘And speaking with due respect as a stupid sort of person in front of first-class minds, character does count, don’t you agree with me?’

‘There are times, Sir Horace,’ Jago broke out, ‘when I think young men like your nephew are our most valuable products. The first-class man can look after himself. But the man of personality who isn’t much interested in learning — believe me, they’re often the salt of the earth.’

‘I’m glad to hear you say that, Dr Jago.’

So it went on. Sir Horace pursued the subjects of his nephew, education, character versus intelligence, the advantages of the late developer, the necessity of a good home background, enthusiastically and exhaustively. Jago was his chief conversational partner, though Brown now and then put in a bland, emollient word. Chrystal tried once or twice to make the conversation more practical.

‘I must apologize for the old chap I introduced to you,’ said Chrystal.

‘Mr Winslow?’ said Sir Horace, who did not forget names.

‘Yes. He’s one of our liabilities. He’s impossible. By the way, he’s the Bursar, and if he weren’t so impossible we should have asked him to meet you. In case we had a chance of continuing where we left off last time.’

‘Every organization has its difficult men, you know,’ Sir Horace replied. ‘It’s just the same in my own organization. And that’s why’ — he turned to Jago — ‘I do attach the greatest importance to these universities turning out—’ Indefatigably he continued to exhaust the subject of education. I wanted to see Brown and Chrystal successful, wanted to go to bed, but I was also amused. Sir Horace was showing no effects of wine; he was tireless and oblivious of time. He was as much a master of tactics as Brown and Chrystal, and he was used to men trying to pump him for money. It was like him to cloud his manoeuvres behind a smokescreen of words, and when he was using this technique he did not much mind what he said. He called it ‘thinking aloud’. Often, as was the case that night, he talked a lot of humbug. He was genuinely fond of his nephew, and was himself diffident in societies like the college which he did not know. But his own sons had real ability, and that was what Sir Horace valued. The idea that he had a veneration for stupid men of high character, or thought himself to be anything but intelligent, was absurd — and alone, in cold blood, he knew it was absurd.