Charles Snow - The Masters

They were drawn close in their rivalry. Even as they said they would not vote for the other, they felt an inexplicable intimacy. They found real elation in making a statement together; they enjoyed setting themselves apart from the rest of us. It was not the first time I had noticed the electric attraction of rivalry: rivals, whether competing for a job, opposing each other in politics, struggling for the same woman, are for mysterious moments closer than any friends.

As we left the meeting, Chrystal and Brown drew me aside.

‘Jago is amusing ,’ said Chrystal angrily. ‘How can he expect us to get him in if he plays this sort of game without warning?’

‘I don’t suppose he had any option,’ said Brown in a soothing tone. ‘It looks pretty certain on the face of it that Crawford just sat smugly down and said nothing on earth would make him vote for Jago, I’m satisfied Jago did the best thing in the circumstances by giving no change himself.’

‘We ought to have been told. It’s lamentable,’ said Chrystal. ‘It looks as though we shall never get a majority for either. They’ve just presented us with a stalemate. There are times when I feel inclined to wash my hands of the whole business.’

‘I can’t follow you there.’ Brown was for once short with his friend. ‘This looks like a tight thing, I give you that. But there’s one advantage. I don’t see how Crawford can possibly get a majority now.’

‘What use is that? If we can’t get a majority ourselves.’

‘If we’re certain of avoiding the worst, I shall be happier. And we haven’t started serious persuasion yet,’ said Brown firmly. ‘The first thing is to close our own ranks.’

Chrystal agreed, a little shamefacedly, but left it to Brown to spend an hour with Pilbrow that night. For a fortnight, ever since Nightingale’s defection, Brown had been trying to arrange a talk with Pilbrow. But Pilbrow’s round of concerts and parties did not allow him much free time; and he was bored with college politics, and was not above dissimulating to avoid them. This day, at the college meeting, Brown had pinned him down.

I rather wished I had accompanied Brown myself, for I was Pilbrow’s favourite among the younger fellows. He was attracted by Roy Calvert, but could not understand his political ambivalence; he could not understand how anyone so good-hearted could have friends of influence in the third Reich. Whereas the old man knew that I was on the left of centre, and stayed there.

I wished decidedly that I had gone, when Brown told me what Pilbrow had said. I knew at once that Brown was not quite at ease.

‘I think he’ll come up to scratch,’ Brown said. ‘But I must say he’s getting crankier as he grows older. Would you believe it, but he wanted me to sign a letter about the confounded Spanish war? I know you support that gang of cut-throats too, Eliot. I’ve never been able to understand why you lose your judgement when it comes to politics.

‘Well,’ he went on. ‘I hope he didn’t take it amiss when I turned him down. I’ve never known Eustace Pilbrow to bear a grudge. And he made just the same kind of promise as he made at our caucus. He’s still for Jago, just because he’s rather fond of him.’ He told me, word for word, what Pilbrow had said. It was, as Brown admitted, ‘on the target’ for an old man. He had replied in the same terms to the other side, telling them that he preferred Jago for personal reasons. It seemed satisfactory.

Yet Brown was wearing a stubborn frown. ‘He’s further away from this election than any of us,’ he said. ‘I wish we could bring him more into the swim of things.’

He added: ‘Still I don’t see how he can help coming up to scratch.’ He reflected. ‘One thing I’m sure of. The other side aren’t going to humbug the old man against his will. I’ve never realized before how obstinate he is. And that takes a load off my mind.’

Then something happened which none of us had reckoned on. The course of the Master’s disease seemed to have slowed down. Just after the Easter vacation, we began to suspect that the election might not be held that summer. Sitting in the combination room, the smell of wisteria drifting through the open window, we heard Crawford expound: in his judgement, the Master would not die until the early autumn. He had been just as positive in forecasting a quick end, I remembered, but he commented on the new situation without humbug. ‘Speaking as a friend of Royce’s, I take it one should be glad. He’s only in discomfort, he’s not in pain, and I get the impression that he’s still interested in living. I expect he’d prefer to go on even as he is than have anyone accelerate the process. Speaking as a fellow, it upsets our arrangements, which is a nuisance and I’m not going to pretend otherwise,’ said Crawford. ‘I had hoped we should have made all our dispositions by next academic year, and it doesn’t look like that now.’

Imperturbably, Crawford gave us a physiological explanation of the slowing-down of the disease.

After that news, the air was laden with emotion. Each time I passed the wisteria in the court, I thought of the Master, who, Roy said, was amused at his reprieve: that odour was reaching him for the last time in his life. The college smelt of flowers all through the early summer: I thought of Joan, eating her heart out with love, and Roy, so saddened that I was constantly afraid.

As the news went round that the Master would live months longer, the college became more tense. Some people, such as Chrystal, were glad to forget the election altogether. Chrystal’s interest passed entirely to the negotiations with Sir Horace, which had not gone much further since the night of the feast; Sir Horace wrote frequently to Brown, but the letters were filled with questions about his nephew’s chances in the Tripos; occasionally he asked for a piece of information about the college, but Brown saw no hope of ‘bringing him to the boil’ until the boy’s examination was over. Brown himself was coaching him several hours a week during that term. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘whether Sir Horace is ever going to turn up trumps. But I do know that our prospects vanish, presuming they exist at all, if our young friend has to go down without a degree.’

But Chrystal, along with Pilbrow, was an exception in shelving the Mastership. With most men, the antagonism became sharper just because of the delay. Nerves were on edge, there was no release in any kind of action, there seemed no end to this waiting. Nightingale’s gossip about Roy went inexorably on. It infected even Winslow, who normally showed a liking for Roy. Winslow was heard to say, ‘I used to think that my colleagues were more distinguished for character than for the more superficial gifts of intelligence. The Senior Tutor appears to have chosen supporters who seem determined to remove part of that impression.’

The gossip came round to Roy, though we tried to shield him. His spirits had been darker since the day he comforted Lady Muriel, and now, as he heard how he was being traduced, there were nights when he sank into despondency. Usually he would have cared less than most men what others said, but just then the sky had gone black for him. His was a despondency which others either did not notice or passed over; it would have struck no one as specially frightening, except him and me. Often we walked round the streets at night. The whole town smelt of gilliflower and lilac. The skies were luminous, windows were thrown open in the hot May evenings. I tried to lift Roy from sadness, if only for a minute: almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.

Nightingale was making other attacks, not only those on Roy. One night towards the end of May, Luke asked if he could talk to me. I took him up to my room, and he burst out: ‘I’ve had about as much as I can stand of this man Nightingale. I’m beginning to think I’ve been quiet in this college for almost long enough. One of these days I shall do the talking, and by God they’ll get a surprise.’