Charles Snow - The Affair

This would mean another two months’ wasting time, Skeffington burst out.

“I’m sure we all regret that,” said Brown, steady but not cordial. “But I hope we should all agree that it would be a mistake to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar.”

“I don’t know that I can take it.”

“You’ve got to take it,” Francis Getliffe said. “Brown has gone a long way to meet us. It’s a fair offer, and we’ve got to make it work.” Francis said it with authority. Skeffington acquiesced with meekness because, as well as having an overweening sense of his duty, he had also a capacity for respect. He had a simple respect for eminence: to him, Francis was near the peak of eminence, and he both listened to him and was a little afraid of him.

Suddenly, however, Skeffington drew support from someone who had little respect for eminence and was afraid of no one. G S Clark, with his gentle, petulant smile, broke in: “I must say, with due respect, I’ve got a lot of sympathy for Julian’s view. I couldn’t disagree with him more over the merits of this case, but heavens above, I think he’s right to push on with it.”

“No,” said Nightingale, “we’ve got to get the right answer.”

“You’re preaching to the converted,” Clark replied. “I’m sure we’ve already got the right answer, and we’re going to get it again.”

“We’ll see what happens,” Nightingale answered, with a smile open and confident.

“I’m sorry, I still support Julian on the time-table,” said Clark. “I don’t feel like accepting delay.”

“Then you’d better feel like it. Because that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Nightingale said it amiably enough, and, like Francis, with authority — though Francis’ came from himself and Nightingale’s from his office.

“The general opinion does appear to be against you, G S,” said Brown. Winslow roused himself and muttered, “Hear, hear.”

Clark smiled across Winslow at Skeffington.

“We seem to be in a minority of two. If it were a meeting, we could have our names written in the minutes.”

There was a curious accord between them. They stood at the two extremes, both utterly recalcitrant. As often with extremists, they felt linked. They had a kinship, much more than with their own sides, the safe and sensible people in the middle.

Well then, said Brown, we were agreed. He was just putting a last question, when I slipped in one of my own. I had been thinking to myself over the chance of having Jago on the Court. Would Brown mind if I took a hand in persuading him to act? Brown, anxious to concede us any inessential point, agreed at once and went on with his question.

“I should like to ask everyone round the table, presuming that the Seniors reach a decision according to the methods we’ve agreed on tonight, whether they could see their way to pledge themselves to regard that as the finish. I’m not asking anyone to answer here and now. I expect you’ll want to sleep on it. But I suggest to you that it wouldn’t be unreasonable, if we’re to get this place back on an even keel.”

“Content,” said Winslow, suddenly revivified.

“I am very happy,” said Nightingale.

“I’m not fond of hypothetical pledges,” said Francis, “but, yes, I think it’s reasonable.”

“I agree, this must be all or nothing,” said Martin.

Brown looked at Clark.

“What is your present feeling, G S?”

“Oh, it’s bound to turn out right,” said Clark.

“And you?” Brown said to Skeffington.

“I shall try to accept what the Seniors decide,” Skeffington replied, after a long pause, his head high, staring at the wall. “But I’m not making any promises tonight. And I don’t see how I shall ever be able to.”

NEXT morning, the clock on the Catholic church was striking eleven as I walked along by Fenner’s to the Jagos’ house. The trees were dense with blossom; the smell of blossom weighed down the air, the sky was heavy. I was coming unannounced, and I had no idea what reception I should get. All I knew was that Brown, wishing to clinch the bargain of the night before, had seen to it that the Master sent a letter to Jago by messenger.

In the dark morning the petals shone luminescent, the red brick houses glowed. Jago’s was at the corner of a side street. I had not been there before, as, when I knew him, they had been living in the Tutor’s residence: but he had owned this house for forty years, since the time when, as a young don, he had married one of his pupils. They had lived there in the first years of the marriage, and when he retired they had gone back. It was ugly and cosy from the outside, late nineteenth-century decorated, with attic gables, and, through a patch of garden, a crazy pavement leading to the front door.

After I rang, the door was opened by Mrs Jago. She stood there massive, pallid, and anxious. She looked at me as though she did not know whether to recognise me or not.

“Good morning, Alice,” I said.

At her stateliest, she replied in form.

I said that I was sorry to appear without warning, but could I have a quarter of an hour with Paul?

“I’m afraid my husband is much too busy to see visitors,” she said.

I said: “It’s fairly important—”

“On matters of business, I’m afraid my husband has nothing to say to anyone.”

“I should like you to tell him that I’m here.”

Once she had disliked me less than she had disliked most of Paul’s colleagues. She stared at me. I did not know whether I should get the door slammed in my face.

“Please be good enough to come in,” she said.

Preceding me down a passage, she was apologising for the state of the house — “not fit for visitors ”, she cried. In fact, it was burnished and spotless, and had a delicious smell. That, too, she had worked at, for it came from bowls of pot-pourri chosen to complement the smell of wood-fires. For anyone with a sharp nose, it was the most welcoming of houses. Not in other respects, however. When Alice Jago opened the study door and cried out that I had come to see him, Jago’s voice did not express pleasure.

“This is unexpected,” he said to me.

“I shan’t take much of your time.”

As he stood up to shake hands, he was watching me with eyes shrewd and restless in the fleshy face.

“Perhaps I have an idea what brings you here,” he said.

“Perhaps you have,” I replied.

“Ah well, sit you down,” said Jago. His natural kindness was fighting against irritability. He might have been a man essentially careless and good-natured, intolerably pressed by his job, not knowing what it was to have five minutes free, driven mad by the latest distraction.

The study could not have been more peaceful. Out of the French windows one saw the garden, with blossoming trees spread-eagled against the wall. The room was as light, as bright, as washed free from anxiety, as though it looked out to sea. They used it together. There was one chair and table and rack of books for him, the same for her, and another rack between them. Jago saw me examining the third rack. Realising that I was puzzled, quick to catch a feeling, he said: “Ah, those are the books we’re reading to each other just now. That was a good custom your generation didn’t keep up, wasn’t it?”

He was saying that one of them read to the other for an hour each evening, taking it in turns. That winter they had been “going through” Mrs Gaskell. It all seemed serene. Perhaps, in spite of her neurosis, his pride, the damage she had done him and the sacrifice he had made for her, they truly were at peace together, more than most couples in retirement, provided that they were left alone.