Charles Snow - The Masters

‘Yes! Yes!’ cried Pilbrow, his eyes gleaming like buttons. He joined in Crawford’s reflections, as the decanters were put away one by one. He talked about the ‘mess’; he was off to the Balkans in three weeks to see for himself. At the age of seventy-four, he was as excited as a boy about his expedition. Brown had had a moment’s anxiety when he saw how Pilbrow was vigorously applauding Crawford. But now the old man was safely talking of his travels and Brown was rubicund; though Roy was silent, Winslow subdued, Brown felt that this party had been a success.

After the party, Roy and I walked in the garden. The breeze had dropped, and on the great beeches no leaf stirred. The full moon hung like a lantern, and the scent of acacia pierced the air. Roy was very quiet, and we walked round in silence. Then he said, as though it were a consolation: ‘I shall sleep tonight.’

When he was in a phase of depression, I had known him insomniac for four or five nights together. He would lie open-eyed through the minutes of a night, and then another, having to face his own thoughts. Until, his control broken, he would come to my room and wake me up: should we drive over to George Passant and make a night of it? Or to our friends in London? Or should we go for a walk all night?

The melancholy, the melancholy shot through with sinister gaiety, had been creeping upon him during the past few weeks. He could not throw it off, any more than a disease. When it seized him, he felt that it would never go.

We walked round, not talking, in a night so warm that the air seemed palpable. I thought that we had been lucky to escape that party scot-free. I did not know how to stop him damaging himself.

I thought that, so long as I lived, I should be mocked by the scents of that summer. They might have come along with peace of mind, the wisteria, the gilliflower, the lilac, the acacia.

I had expected an outbreak from Roy at the claret party, but, when it did come, I was not prepared.

It was a fortnight later, a Saturday morning, and I woke early. There was a college meeting that day to consider examination results. Some were already published, sent round to tutors, stuck in the tailors’ windows; most did not come out till this Saturday.

I knew that the envelopes reached the porters’ lodge by a quarter to nine, so I did not wait for Bidwell’s ritual awakening. I walked through the court in the cloudless morning, and found a large packet addressed to me. I was opening it when Brown entered the lodge, panting a little, still wearing trouser clips after cycling in from his house.

‘I hope we haven’t had too many disasters,’ he said. He opened his own envelope, spread the sheets on the counter.

‘Thank God for that!’ he exclaimed in a moment. ‘Thank God for that!’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Young Timberlake’s got through. They’ve given him a third. Which between you and me, is probably slightly more than abstract justice required. Still, I think Sir Horace will be satisfied. If the young man had crashed, it might have been the most expensive failure in the history of the college. I’m breathing a great deal more freely, I can tell you.’

His cleverest pupil had been given a starred first. ‘I always said he was our next real flyer,’ said Brown triumphantly.

He turned back, pencil in hand, to tick off the names on the history sheet. In a moment he gave a shrill whistle.

‘I can’t find Dick Winslow’s name. He seems to have failed absolutely. They don’t seem even to have allowed him the ordinary degree. They don’t seem to have made him any allowance at all. It’s scarcely credible. I think I’d better ring up the examiners straightaway. I did once find a name left off a list by mistake.’

He put through his call, and came back shaking his head.

‘Absolutely hopeless,’ he said. ‘They say they just couldn’t find any signs of intelligence at all. Well, I knew he was dense, but I shouldn’t have believed that he was as dense as that.’

The meeting was called for half-past eleven. As the room filled up, one kept hearing whispers about young Winslow. In the midst of the bustle, men asked each other if they had heard. Some were speaking in malice, some in good nature, some in a mixture of the two. At last Winslow himself entered, heavy-footed, carrying his cap but not swinging it in his normal fashion. He was looking down, and went straight to his place.

‘Ah, good morning, Winslow,’ cried Gay, who had not grasped the news.

‘Good morning to you,’ said Winslow. His voice was deadened. He was immersed in his wretchedness.

Despard-Smith was just opening the meeting when Gay said: ‘I have a small presentation to make, before we begin our discussion on these excellent agenda. I wish to present to the society, for inclusion in the library, this copy of my latest publication. I hope and expect that most fellows have already bought it. I hope you’ve bought yours, Brown? I hope you have, Crawford?’

He rose precariously to his feet, and laid a copy in front of Despard-Smith.

‘As a matter of fact, I haven’t yet,’ said Crawford. ‘I’ve noticed one or two reviews.’

‘Ah. Reviews,’ said Gay. ‘Those first reviews have a lukewarm tendency that I don’t like to see.’

Suddenly, distracted from Winslow, I saw how nervous the old man was about his book’s reception. Gay, the least diffident of men, had never lost that nervousness. It did not die with age: perhaps it became sharper.

The meeting began at last. There was only two minutes’ business over livings, but under finance there were several items down. Despard-Smith asked the Bursar if he would ‘take us through’ his business.

Winslow’s head was sunk down.

‘I don’t think it’s necessary,’ he muttered. He did not raise his eyes. Everyone was looking at him.

Then it came to Jago to describe the examination results. He passed from subject to subject in the traditional Cambridge order, mathematics, classics, natural sciences… Most people at the meeting knew only a handful of the young men he was talking about; but his interest in each was so sharp that he kept a hold upon the meeting. He came to history. The table was very quiet. ‘One brilliant and altogether deserved success,’ he said in his thick voice. ‘Some of us know the struggle that young man had to come here at all. I’m prepared to bet, Mr Deputy, that he’s going to write his name in the story of this college.’ Then with a grin, he said how much the society ought to congratulate Brown on squeezing Timberlake through. Jago then studied his papers, and paused. ‘I think there’s nothing else to report about the historians.’ Very quickly, he turned to the next subject.

It was intended as chivalry, perhaps as more. I could not tell how Winslow received it. He still sat with his head sunk down. There was no sign that he had heard anything of the meeting. He did not speak himself: even for a formal vote, he had to be asked.

We broke off at one o’clock for a cold lunch, and most people ate with zest. Winslow stood apart, with his back to the room. I saw Roy’s eyes upon him, glinting with wild pity. Since the party, his depression had grown heavier still, and he had kept himself alone. I was at once anxious as I saw him watching Winslow, but then someone offered him a decanter of wine and he refused. I thought that he was taking care, and I had no sense of danger.

When we resumed the meeting, Jago dealt with the results of the preliminary examinations. There were enquiries, one or two rotund criticisms, some congratulations.

‘Of course,’ said Despard-Smith, summing up, ‘for a scholar of the college only to get a third class in a university examination is nothing short of s-scandalous. But I think the general feeling of the college is that, taking the rough with the smooth, we can be reasonably satisfied with the achievements of the men. I gather that is your opinion, Senior Tutor?’