Charles Snow - The Masters

He had wanted us to encourage him by a hint: he had been appealing for a piece of machiavellian advice ‘you oughtn’t to make Nightingale a promise: but there’s no harm in his thinking you have done so: he’ll be disappointed later, that’s all’. If we had given him the most concealed of hints, he would have rushed to Nightingale, used every charm of which he was capable, safeguarded himself verbally perhaps but in no other way. If he could have made a bargain with Nightingale, whatever it meant letting Nightingale think he had been promised, he would have made it that night. It needed Chrystal’s threat to stop him at last.

Just as he had been more angry than the others at Nightingale’s first approach, now he was tempted to stoop lower than they would ever do. In the garden, on the February morning when Nightingale asked for the tutorship, he thought with disgusted pride — was this how ambition soils one? But that was when his ambition seemed still in his hands. Now it was in danger of being taken away: ashamed, beside himself, tormented, he was tempted to cheat, steal, and lie.

He heard Chrystal’s threat. He looked at the firm, uncompromising face. Then at mine. Then, for a longer time, at Arthur Brown’s, distressed, kindly, but unwavering.

Suddenly Jago’s own face changed. He was thinking of himself without mercy. He was sickened by the temptation.

‘Shall I withdraw from the election?’ he asked with a kind of broken dignity.

Brown smiled in affectionate relief, and showed the depth of his relief by an outburst of scolding.

‘You mustn’t swing from one extreme to the other. We’ve still got an excellent chance. We’ve lost your most unreliable supporter, that’s all. You’re still in the lead. You must keep a sense of proportion.’

‘I agree with Brown,’ said Chrystal. His tone was not so warm as Brown’s, but toughly reassuring. Jago smiled at us, a smile without defence.

‘We shall have to reconsider some of our dispositions,’ said Brown, more contentedly than he had spoken that night. ‘You needn’t worry, you can leave the staff work to us. The other side have got weak spots too, Eliot and Calvert have wanted to tap them, but I think Eliot agrees that it’s still premature. The great thing at present is to take good care not to have any more confounded defections. I don’t know whether you others agree with me, but I should say there was just one more vulnerable spot in our party.’

‘I take it you mean old Eustace Pilbrow,’ said Jago.

‘He’s a weak spot,’ said Chrystal. ‘He’s always being got at by some crank or other.’

‘He turned Winslow and Getliffe down when they spread themselves to persuade him,’ Brown said. ‘I believe we can keep him steady. He’s very fond of you, providentially.’

‘I can never quite believe it,’ Jago replied. ‘But—’

Chrystal broke in: ‘When I look round, he seems to me the only weak spot. The rest are safe.’

Jago said: ‘I believe you three are safe because you know the worst about me. If any of you left me now, I shouldn’t only lose the Mastership. I should lose the confidence you’ve given me.’

Chrystal repeated: ‘The rest are safe. There’s no other weak spot. They’ll never break five of your votes. You can bank on them.’

Jago smiled.

‘Well,’ said Brown, ‘the essential thing for the present is to make sure of Pilbrow. If we hold him, we can’t lose. Six votes for you means that they can’t get a majority, since Crawford is fortunately debarred from voting for himself. Though I confess I feel uncharitable enough to think that he would consider it a reasonable action. And that reminds me that you and Crawford will soon have to settle how you’re going to dispose of your own votes. They may be significant.’

‘They’re certain to be, now,’ said Chrystal.

‘Crawford sent a note this very day suggesting a talk. I was mystified—’

‘The other side have got on to it too. They must have realized how much his vote and yours mean’ — Brown was bright-eyed with vigilance — ‘as soon as this confounded man told them he was ratting.’

‘I’m compelled to discuss it if he wishes to,’ said Jago. ‘I can’t decently do less than that.’

‘But go carefully whatever you do. Examine any proposal he puts forward. It may seem harmless, but it’s wiser not to commit yourself at once. Whatever you do, don’t say yes on the spot.’ Brown was settling down to an exhaustive, enjoyable warning: then his expression became more brooding.

‘There’s something else you ought to guard against.’ He hesitated. Jago did not speak, and sat with his head averted. Brown went on, speaking slowly and with difficulty: ‘We shouldn’t be reliable supporters or friends unless we asked you to guard against something which might damage your prospects irretrievably. Put it another way: it has helped to lose us Nightingale, and unless you stop, it might do you more harm than that.’

Jago still did not speak.

Brown continued: ‘I know we didn’t manage Nightingale very cleverly, any of us. We’ve made him angry between us. And one mistake we fell into that infuriated him was — I gave you a hint before — he thought some of us were acting as though you had the Mastership in your pocket. That’s bound to be dangerous. I don’t like doing it, but I’m compelled to warn you again.’ He hesitated for some moments, then said: ‘There seem to have been some women talking over the teacups.’

Brown was embarrassed but determined and intent. He looked at Jago, whose head had stayed bent down. Brown remembered that morning when, at a hint far slighter than this, Jago had drawn himself aloof and answered with a hostile snub. It had taken all Brown’s stubborn affection to try again — and to try on this night, when Jago had suffered a bitter disappointment, had lost his self-respect, had condemned himself.

‘I am grateful for your friendship,’ said Jago without looking up. ‘I will accept your advice so far as I can.’

Suddenly he glanced at Brown, his eyes lit up.

‘I want to ask one thing of my friends,’ he said quietly. ‘I trust you to take care that not a sign of these strictures reaches my wife. She would be more distressed than I could bear.’

‘Will you have a word with her yourself?’ Brown persisted.

I thought Jago was not going to reply. At last he said: ‘If I can do it without hurting her.’

As we heard him, we seemed within touching distance of a deep experience. We were all quiet. None of us, not even Brown, dared to say more. Not even Brown could speak to him in this way again.

Soon afterwards, Mrs Jago came in from the concert, with Roy Calvert attending her. Ironically, she was happier than I had ever seen her. She had been exalted by the music, she had been mixing with fashionable Cambridge and people had talked to her kindly, she had been seen in the company of one of the most sought-after young men in the town.

She flirted with Roy, looking up at him as he stood by her chair with his heels on the fender.

‘Think of all the young women you might have taken out tonight.’

‘Women are boring when they’re too young,’ said Roy.

‘We should all like to believe that was true,’ she said.

‘You all know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Confess.’

His tone was playful, half-kind, half-gallant, and, just for a moment, she was basking in confidence. She neither asserted herself nor shrieked out apologies. A quality, vivacious, naive, delicate, scintillated in her, as though it were there by nature. Perhaps it was the quality which Jago saw when she was a girl.

It was a strange spectacle, her sitting happily near to Roy. Her black evening dress made her look no slighter, and her solid shoulders loomed out of her chair: while Roy stood beside her, his shoulders pressed against the mantelpiece, his toes on the carpet, his figure cleanly arched.