Charles Snow - The Affair

Martin shook his head.

“He had the brass to tell me that he didn’t feel very much like helping to form that majority.”

“Who was this?”

“That man Orbell.”

Irene yelped with surprise, Margaret caught my eye. Martin was saying, at his most disciplined, without any sign of irritation: “I can’t help wishing you hadn’t jumped the gun. You know, it might have been better to tackle Orbell later—”

“It couldn’t have been worse,” said Skeffington. “I’m sorry. False move.”

“By the way,” Martin went on, “you spoke to Nightingale the night before, so I heard. I thought we were going to leave that until we’d thought it over?”

“Yes, I spoke to him. I’m not sorry about that. He’s the other man on the committee. After I saw you, I decided I was under an obligation to tell him. It was the straightforward thing to do.”

“I suppose it was the straightforward thing to do.” Martin’s voice was neutral. Just for an instant I saw in his face the temper of the night before. But he knew when to cut his losses. He had realised that it was profitless to scold Skeffington. It was done now. Martin contented himself by saying: “You’re not making it any easier for yourself, you know.”

“That can’t be helped.”

“You understand that it isn’t going to be easy, don’t you?”

“I hadn’t thought much about it. But it’s not going to be a pushover, I see that.”

“Doesn’t Orbell’s reaction show you something?”

“It was a bit of a facer, yes.” Skeffington threw back his head, and his expression was puzzled, irritated, sulky.

“It’s a good deal more than that.” Martin leaned forward into the fireplace, picked up a spill from the holder, twisted it into a knot. Then he looked across at Skeffington and began to speak easily, naturally, and in earnest. “Look, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. I want you to be absolutely clear what the position is. I wouldn’t like you to do any more, I really didn’t want you to do anything at all, before you realise what you’re running yourself in for.”

“I think I know the form,” said Skeffington.

“Do you?” Martin was watching him. “I intend to make sure you do. That’s the whole object of this exercise.”

Skeffington had begun to ask me a question but Martin interrupted: “No, I really want to say this. There are just two courses you can take, it seems to me. Now this evidence has come along, and taking the view of it you do—”

“And you do too,” Margaret broke in.

“Taking that view of it, you’re bound to do something. If you wrote a statement and sent it to the Master saying, for the sake of argument, that some new technical data made it seem to you extremely unlikely that Howard had been responsible for any fraud — that’s all that reasonable men could expect you to do. I think you’re obliged to do that. I’m the last man to run into unnecessary trouble, but if I were you I’m afraid I should have to do that.”

“I should think you damned well would,” said Skeffington.

“And I shouldn’t expect it to have any effect,” said Martin with a grin that was calculating, caustic, and uncharacteristically kind. “You see, the evidence isn’t quite clinching enough to convince anyone who desperately doesn’t want to be convinced. There are quite a number of our friends who desperately don’t want to be convinced. I suppose you have realised that?”

“They’ve got to be, that’s all,” said Skeffington.

“Well, that is the second course. Which means you set yourself, first, to get the case re-opened and then, which I might remind you isn’t the same thing, make the Seniors go back on their decision about Howard. I don’t say it’s impossible—”

“That’s something,” Skeffington said.

“—but it’s going to be very difficult. Some of the steps you’ve taken already have made it slightly more difficult. It’s going to need a certain number of qualities I am not sure you possess.”

Martin said it simply. Skeffington blushed. His haughtiness had left him for an instant: he wasn’t used, as Martin and I and our friends were, to direct personal examination.

“Come clean. What does it need?”

“Obstinacy,” said Martin. “We’re all prepared to credit you with that.”

Irene laughed as though glad of the excuse, just to break the tension.

“Patience,” said Martin. “How do you fancy yourself in that respect?”

Skeffington gave a sheepish smile.

“Persuasive power,” said Martin. “There you might be better than you think. And, I’m afraid this is going to be necessary, considerable command of tactics. I mean, political tactics. I don’t think you’ll like it, I don’t think Margaret will, but it’s going to need a good deal of politics to put Howard in the clear.”

“Perhaps you know more about that than I do—”

“I do, Julian.”

Martin was still explaining carefully. “This business is going to split the college from top to bottom. Anyone who’s seen anything of this kind of society would know that. Lewis knows it as well as I do. It will make the place unlivable in and do some of us a certain amount of harm into the bargain. And this is the last thing I want to say to you. I wouldn’t feel quite easy until I’d said it in so many words, before you plunge in. If you do plunge in, you’ve got to be ready for certain consequences to yourself. You’re bound to make yourself conspicuous. You’re bound to say things which people don’t want to hear. The odds are that it will damage your chances. Look, let me be brutal. I know you want your Fellowship renewed when it runs out. I know you’d like to be a fixture. I’d like you to be, too. But if you make too much of a nuisance of yourself, there’s going to be a cloud round the name of Skeffington. I don’t mean that they’d do anything flagrantly unjust, or which they thought was unjust. If you were Rutherford or Blackett or Rabi or G I Taylor, they would keep you as a Fellow even if you insulted the Master every night of your life. But most of us aren’t all that good. With most of us there is a perfectly genuine area of doubt about whether we’re really any better than the next man. And then , if there’s a cloud round your name, they’re liable to think, and it’s very hard to blame them, that perhaps they might let your Fellowship run out, and give someone else a go. Just as they might think, perfectly reasonably, that half a dozen people would do the Senior Tutorship as well or better than I should. So, if they have anything against us, the net result is liable to be that Skeffington is out, and M F Eliot doesn’t get promotion.”

“What does all that add up to?” said Skeffington.

“I just wanted you to know. If I’m going to take a risk myself, I like to reckon out the chances beforehand.”

“Do you seriously think any of that is going to keep me quiet?” Skeffington had flushed again, and he looked at Martin as though he despised him.

“No, I didn’t think so.”

“So you are going in up to the neck, are you?” Irene asked Skeffington.

“What else do you expect me to do?”

Suddenly she turned to her husband, and said: “What about you?”

Martin answered straight away: “Oh, there’s nothing for it. I shall have to help him as much as I can.”

“I knew you would! I knew you would!” Irene cried out, half in reproach, half in pleasure, still youthful, that he should do something dashing.

Of us all, Skeffington was the only one totally surprised. He sat with his mouth slightly open; I wondered if Martin remembered that our mother used a word for just that expression — “flabbergasted”. Just for an instant, Skeffington did not seem pleased to have a comrade; he had an expression of resentment, as if Martin had made a fool of him. He liked Martin, and he expected people he liked to behave like himself, simply and honourably. He had been led astray by Martin’s deviousness, his habit, growing on him as he became older, of giving nothing away.