Charles Snow - The Masters

‘Who do you mean?’ I was infuriated.

‘I mean your friend Calvert, for one.’

‘Anything you say about him is worthless,’ I said.

‘There are one or two others,’ said Nightingale, ‘who live apart from their wives. It’s not for me to say whether they want to keep their liberty of action—’

‘Stop that,’ said Chrystal, before I could reply. ‘You’re going too far. I won’t have any more of it, do you hear?’

Nightingale sank back, white-faced. ‘I’m glad I’ve explained to you my reasons for changing,’ he said.

What were his true motives, I thought, as I stared at him through my own anger. He was possessed by envy and frustration. Crawford talking unconcernedly of the ‘Royal’, making it sound like a club to which one belonged as a matter of course, turned the knife in the wound as if he were jealous in love and had just heard his rival’s name. So did Chrystal and Brown, looking happy and prosperous in their jobs, going about to run the college. So did the sound of Mrs Jago’s voice, asking the number of bedrooms in the Lodge or the kind of entertainment that undergraduates preferred. So did the sight of Roy Calvert with a girl. And Nightingale suffered. He did not suffer with nobility, he did not accept it in the grand manner, which, though it does not soften suffering, helps to make the thought of it endurable when the victim is having a respite from pain. Nightingale suffered meanly, struggling like a rat, determined to wound as well as be wounded. There was no detachment from his pain, not a glimmer of irony. He bared his teeth, and felt release through planning a revenge against someone who ‘persecuted’ him. He never felt for a day together serene, free, and confident.

I could understand his suffering. One could not miss it, for it was written in his face. I was not moved by it, for I was cut off by dislike. And I could understand how he struggled with all his force, and went into action, as he was doing now, with the intensity of a single-minded drive. He had the canalized strength of the obsessed.

But I could not begin to know why his envy had driven him first away from Crawford, now back to him. Had he, that night of the Royal results, found in Crawford’s assurance some sort of rest? Was Crawford the kind of man he would, in his heart, have liked to be?

I could not see so far. But I was sure that, as Arthur Brown would remind me, there was a kind of practical veneer on his actions now. When he thought of what he was doing, he gave practical self-seeking reasons to himself. He probably imagined that Crawford would help get him into the Royal next year. He had certainly decided that Jago would not give him the tutorship, would do nothing for him. His calculation about Crawford was, of course, quite ridiculous. Crawford, impersonal even to his friends, would be the last man to think of helping, even if help were possible. Nevertheless, Nightingale was certain that he was being shrewd.

Chrystal was saying: ‘You ought to have told us you were going over.’

‘Ought I?’

‘You owed it to us to tell us first,’ said Chrystal.

‘I don’t see why.’

‘I take you up on that, Nightingale. You can’t pledge yourself to one candidate and then promise to vote for another. It’s not the way things are done.’

‘If I stick to the etiquette, no one else does. I’m not going to penalize myself any more,’ said Nightingale.

‘It’s not the way to do business.’

‘I leave business to your clique,’ Nightingale replied. He rose and, without saying goodnight, went towards the door. This time he did not turn back.

‘That’s that,’ said Chrystal. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to Nightingale.’

‘Well, there it is,’ said Brown.

‘Shall we get him back?’ Chrystal asked.

‘Not a hope in hell,’ I said.

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘I must say,’ said Brown, ‘that I’m inclined to take Eliot’s view. It’s much safer to regard the worst as inevitable, because then it won’t do us any harm if we turn out to be wrong. But that apart, I confess I shall be surprised if we see Nightingale back again.’

‘You may be right,’ said Chrystal.

‘I haven’t a doubt,’ I said.

‘Have you summed him up right?’ asked Chrystal, still wanting to disbelieve.

‘I’m ready to rely on Eliot’s judgement,’ said Brown.

‘In that case,’ said Chrystal, changing round briskly, ‘we ought to see Jago at once.’

‘Do you want to?’ For once Brown shrank from a task.

‘No. But we can’t leave him in the dark.’

‘I suppose it would be rather tempting providence—’

‘If we don’t tell him tonight,’ said Chrystal, ‘some kind friend will do him the service tomorrow or next day. It’s lamentable, but it will come better from us.’

‘I must say that it’s going to be abominably unpleasant.’

‘I’ll go by myself,’ said Chrystal. ‘If you prefer that.’

‘Thank you.’ Brown smiled at his friend, and hesitated. ‘No, it will be better for him if we all go. It will let him realize that he’s still got most of his party intact.’

Brown and I wanted an excuse for delaying, even if only for ten more minutes, in the combination room. It was Chrystal, buoyed up by action, never despondent when he could get on the move, who forced us out.

As we already knew, Jago was alone. We found him in his study reading. His eyes flashed as soon as he saw us; every nerve was alert; he welcomed us with over-abundant warmth. Chrystal cut him short by saying: ‘We’ve got some bad news for you.’

His face was open in front of us.

‘You must be prepared for changes to happen both ways,’ said Brown, trying to cushion the blow. ‘This isn’t the last disturbance we shall get.’

‘What is it?’ Jago cried. ‘What is it?’

‘Nightingale has gone over,’ said Chrystal.

‘I see.’

‘You mustn’t let it depress you too much,’ Brown said. ‘It was always a surprise to me that you ever attracted Nightingale at all. Put it another way: you can regard Nightingale as being in his natural place now, and you can think of the sides being lined up very much as we might have expected beforehand.’

Jago did not seem to hear the attempt to comfort him.

‘I suppose he’s done it because I didn’t promise him the tutorship. I couldn’t. It was a wretched position to be flung into. It was utterly impossible. I suppose it’s too late to mend matters now. It’s difficult to make a move—’

Brown was looking at him with an anxious glance.

‘Forget Nightingale,’ Brown broke in very quickly. ‘Count him out.’

‘If I’d offered him the tutorship it would have held him.’ There was a passionate appeal in Jago’s voice.

‘I doubt it very much,’ I said.

‘If I could only have made something like a promise.’

‘Jago,’ said Chrystal, ‘if you had promised that man the tutorship, you might have gained one vote — but you would have lost six others. So you can rest easy.’

‘Are we letting him go without an effort?’ cried Jago. ‘Is it utterly impossible to persuade him back?’

‘We think so,’ said Chrystal.

Jago’s whole expression was racked.

‘ Shall I see him? ’ he said.

‘No,’ said Chrystal.

‘I don’t think it would help much.’ Brown’s tone was as firm as Chrystal’s, though he went on with a friendly explanation: ‘He’s an obstinate man. It might only carry things from bad to worse. There’s no one so bitter as a turncoat, you know. I think it’s very much safer to regard him as an enemy from now on.’

‘If you don’t,’ said Chrystal, ‘I can’t answer for the consequences.’ He and Brown looked solid, earthy men of flesh and bone against Jago, at that moment. Jago’s face seemed only a film in front of the tortured nerves. Yet they were telling him, as each of us in the room perfectly understood without a definite word being spoken, that he must make no attempt — by any suggestion of a promise — to bring Nightingale back.