Charles Snow - The Masters

Roy Calvert was scribbling on a piece of paper. He passed it to me along the table: it read ‘ Winslow will never recover from this .’

‘Naturally we shouldn’t consider ourselves competent,’ said Brown. ‘No one’s got a greater respect for the Dean’s financial acumen than I have — but, if either of us had had the remotest idea that Sir Horace was going to make a definite proposition without giving us time to look round our first thought would have been to go straight to the Bursar.’

‘That doesn’t need saying,’ Chrystal joined in.

‘I recall very vividly,’ said Brown, ‘one evening when the Dean asked me what I thought was the point of Sir Horace’s questions. “I suppose it can’t mean money,” he said. “If I had the slightest hope it might” — I think I’m remembering him properly — “our first step would be to bring the Bursar in”.’

‘I’m very much affected by that reminiscence,’ said Winslow, ‘I’m also very much affected by the thought of the Dean expending “countless time and trouble” without dreaming for a moment that there would be any question of money.’

‘I’m sure I’m speaking for the Dean as well as myself,’ said Brown, ‘when I say that nothing would distress us more than that the Bursar should feel in the slightest degree left out. It’s only the peculiar circumstances—’

‘I’ve never had much opinion of myself as Bursar,’ said Winslow. ‘It’s interesting to find others taking the same view. It looks at any rate as though my judgement remains unimpaired. Which will be a slight consolation to me in my retirement.’

Despard-Smith said: ‘I hope you’re not suggesting—’

‘I’m not suggesting, I’m resigning,’ said Winslow. ‘I’m obviously useless when the college goes in for money seriously. It’s time the college had someone who can cope with these problems. I should have a great deal more faith in the Dean or Mr Brown as Bursar than they can reasonably have in me.’

‘I couldn’t consider it,’ said Chrystal, and Brown murmured in support.

‘This is disastrous,’ said Despard-Smith.

There were the usual exclamations of regret, incredulity, desire that Winslow should think again, that followed any resignation in the college. They were a shade more hurried than usual, they were more obviously mingled with relief. Despard-Smith remembered that no resignation could be offered or accepted while the college was without a Master. ‘In that case,’ said Winslow, ‘the new Master will have a pleasant duty for his first.’ His grim sarcasm was more repelling than ever now, and there was no warmth in the attempts to persuade him back. No one dared to be sorry for him. Then suddenly Jago burst out: ‘This is a wretched exchange.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ said Crawford.

‘I mean,’ Jago cried, ‘that we’re exchanging a fine Bursar for a rich man’s charity. And I don’t like it.’

‘It’s not our fault,’ said Chrystal sharply.

‘That doesn’t make it any more palatable.’ Jago turned to his old enemy and his eyes were blazing. ‘Winslow, I want you to believe that we’re more distressed than we can say. If this choice had lain with us, you mustn’t be in any doubt what we should have chosen. Sir Horace would have had to find another use for his money. We can’t forget what you’ve done for us. In one office or another, you’ve guided this college all your life. And in your ten years as Bursar the college has never been so rich.’

Winslow’s caustic smile had left him, and he looked abashed and downcast.

‘That’s no thanks to me,’ he said.

‘Won’t you reconsider it?’ cried Jago.

Winslow shook his head.

The meeting broke up soon after, and Roy Calvert and I went for a stroll in the garden. A thick mist was gathering in the early evening, and the trees stood out as though in a Japanese print. We talked over the afternoon. Roy had enough trace of malice to feel triumphant; he imitated the look on some of their faces, as they heard of the bequest to him. ‘Sir Timberlake’s a bit of a humorist,’ he said. ‘Oh dear, I shall have to become respectable and stuffed. They’ve got me at last.’

We walked into the ‘wilderness’, and I mentioned Winslow. Roy frowned. We were both uncomfortable; we shared a perverse affection for him, we had not liked to watch his fall, we had admired Jago’s piece of bravura at the end. But we were uneasy. Somehow we felt that he had been reckless and indiscreet; we wished he would be quiet until the election. Roy showed an unusual irritation. ‘He will overdo things,’ he said. ‘He never will learn sense. All this enthusiasm about Winslow’s work as Bursar. Absurd. Winslow’s been dim as a Bursar. Chrystal would be much better. I should be an extremely good Bursar myself. They’d never let me be. They wouldn’t think I was sound.’

It seemed odd, but all he said was true.

Then we saw Winslow himself walking through the mist, his long heavy-footed stride noiseless on the sodden grass.

‘Hullo, Winslow,’ said Roy. ‘We were talking about you.’

‘Were you?’ said Winslow. ‘Is there much to say?’

‘Quite a lot,’ said Roy.

‘What shall you do, now you’ve got some leisure?’ I asked.

‘Nothing. I can’t start anything new.’

‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said.

‘I’ve never lacked for time,’ he said. ‘Somehow, I’ve never had the gift of bringing things off. I don’t know why. I used to think I wasn’t a fool. Sometimes, by the side of our colleagues, I thought I was a remarkably intelligent man. But everything I’ve touched has come to nothing.’

Roy and I looked at each other, and knew it was worse to speak than to stay silent. It would not have consoled him if we spoke. It was better to watch him, stoically facing the truth.

Together the three of us walked in silence through the foggy twilight. Bushes and trees loomed at us, as we took another turn at the bottom of the garden. We had covered the whole length twice before Roy spoke again, to ask a question about Dick Winslow. He had just got engaged, said Winslow. ‘We scarcely know the girl,’ he added. ‘I only hope it’s all right.’

His tone was warm and unguarded. His son had been the bitterest of his disappointments, but his love glowed on. And that afternoon the thought of the marriage refreshed him and gave him pleasure.

While we were walking round the garden, Roy Calvert asked Winslow to go with him to the pictures. Winslow was puzzled by the invitation, grumbled that he had not been for years, and yet was touched. In the end, they went off together and I was left in search of Brown.

I wanted to talk to him alone, for I still thought it might be worth while for me to go round to Gay’s. But, when I arrived, Chrystal was just sitting down. He was smoking a pipe, and his expression was not as elated as it had been that morning. Even when Brown produced a bottle of madeira — ‘it needs something rather out of the ordinary to drink Sir Horace’s health’ — Chrystal responded with a smile that was a little twisted, a little wan. He was dispirited because his triumph, like all triumphs, had not been as intoxicating as he had imagined it.

He emptied his glass absently, and smoked away. He interrupted a conversation with a sharp question: ‘What was your impression of this afternoon?’

‘My impression was,’ said Brown, who sensed that his friend needed heartening, ‘that everyone realizes you’ve done the best day’s work for the college that anyone has ever done.’

‘Not they. They just take it for granted,’ said Chrystal.

‘Everyone was full of it,’ said Brown.