Brown went through the ritual of drink-offering without hastening his pace.
“I’ve got a little white Burgundy waiting for you,” he said to me. “I had an idea it might be rather restful after the work you’ve had to put in. Paul, unless my memory escapes me, you never cared much for it, did you?”
Brown’s memory did not escape him. Jago asked for a sip of whisky.
“I don’t think that’s very difficult,” Brown replied, going out to his gyp-room and bringing back whisky bottle, siphon and jug of water to put by Jago’s side.
“There we all are!” said Brown, settling into his chair. He told Jago that he was looking well. He asked after his garden. He was ready, just as though he were an American businessman, for an indefinite exchange of cordialities before getting to the point. Whoever first came to the point, it would not be he. But it was not really a battle of patience. Jago would have lost it anyway, but he was not playing. Very soon he gave a smile and said: “I’ve been hearing a good deal about this case tonight.”
“Have you, Paul?”
“And about what’s happened in the Court — of course, I don’t question what Eliot’s told me—”
“I’m sure,” said Brown, “that you’re right not to.”
All of a sudden, Jago’s tone sharpened.
“Am I right, Arthur,” he leaned forward, “that you’ve seen this case all along in terms of people? In terms of your judgment of the people concerned?”
Brown’s stonewall response did not come quite so pat. He said: “That may be fair comment.”
“You have always seen everything that way.”
Jago spoke affectionately, but with weight of knowledge, as though drawing on their associations of the past and on history each could remember, as though he still possessed the moral initiative he had had when they were both young men. If I had used the same words to Brown, they would not have meant the same.
“I shouldn’t regard that,” said Brown, “as entirely unjust.”
“But for once, in this case, it may have made you entirely unjust.”
“You can’t expect me to accept that, Paul.”
“I put it to you,” all Jago’s reserves of force were coming out of him, together with a sadic spirt, “that you’ve never been vain about much except your judgment of people?”
“I shouldn’t have thought that I claim much for myself in that respect.”
“Don’t you?”
“I hope not,” said Brown.
“More than you think, Arthur, more than you think.”
“Only a fool,” said Brown, “claims that he knows much about people.”
“Only a fool,” Jago darted in, “claims it in the open. But I’ve known wise men, including you, who claim it to themselves.”
“I can only say again, I hope that isn’t true.”
“Haven’t you assumed all along that young Howard couldn’t be innocent?”
“That’s not quite fair,” said Brown steadily, “but I don’t want to shilly-shally. Put it another way: everything I know about the man makes me think that he could possibly be guilty.”
Jago had an intent, sharp smile.
“As for Nightingale. Haven’t you assumed all along that Nightingale was above reproach? Haven’t you closed your mind to what Getliffe said? Haven’t you refused to believe it?”
“I should find it very hard to believe.”
“Why do you find it hard?”
Brown’s high colour went higher still. He started in a burst of anger, his first that night.
“I regard it as abominably far-fetched.”
“Were you always so convinced that Nightingale was above reproach?” Jago spoke quietly, but again with weight and knowledge. When Brown had been his closest friend and had run him for the Mastership, it had been Nightingale, so they thought then, who had done them down.
After a pause Brown replied: “You have good reason not to like him, Paul.” He paused again. “But we should never, even then, have thought him capable of this—”
“I should have thought him capable of anything,” said Jago. “And I still do.”
“No.” Brown had recovered his confidence and obstinacy. “I can’t see him like that.”
“You’re being blinder than you used to be—”
“You mustn’t think that I’m specially fond of him. I don’t mind telling you, we haven’t got much in common. But it sticks in my gullet not to do one’s best for the chap with a record like his.”
A military record, Brown meant. Was this one of the reasons, I suddenly thought, for what had baffled me all along — Brown’s loyalty to Nightingale and the origin of it? Brown, who on medical grounds missed the first war, had the veneration for physical courage of those who doubted their own. But, more than that, he had a kind of veneration for the military life. Tory, intensely patriotic, he believed, almost as simply as he might have done as a child, that, while he was sitting in his college rooms during two wars, men like Nightingale had kept him safe. He was one of those rare men who liked recognising their debts. Most of us were disposed to deny our gratitude. Arthur Brown was singular because he actually liked not denying his.
“I feel,” Brown said, “a man like that deserves a bit of looking after.”
“You mean, that you won’t let yourself see him as straight as you let yourself see anyone else?”
“I mean,” Brown replied, unmoved, “that when I sit next to him in hall I am prepared to make a few allowances.”
“Arthur,” said Jago, “do you realise how much you’re evading me?”
“He’s not an easy man. And I like an easy man,” said Brown, with impenetrable obstinacy. “But I feel he’s entitled to a bit of protection.”
“You mean, you won’t let yourself entertain any suspicion of him, however reasonable?”
“I do not admit for a second that this is reasonable.”
“You won’t even admit the possibility, not even the possibility, that he did this?” Jago said with violence.
“As I think I’ve told you, I should find it very hard to admit that.”
It was then I thought Jago had come to the end, and so had we all.
Jago switched again.
“I should like to tell you something about myself, Arthur.”
He had spoken intimately. Brown, still on guard, said yes.
“I should like to tell you something about my wife. I’ve never said it to anyone, and I never thought I should.”
“How is she, Paul?” asked Brown. He said it with warmth.
“You never liked her much, did you? No” — Jago was smiling brilliantly — “none of my friends did. It’s too late to pretend now. Oh, I can understand how you feel about her. And I hope you understand that I’ve loved her all my life and that she is the only woman I have ever loved.”
“I think I knew that,” Brown said.
“Then perhaps you’ll know why I detest speaking of her to people who don’t like her,” Jago flashed out, not only with love for his wife, but with intense pride. “Perhaps you’ll know why I detest speaking of her in the way I’ve got to this very moment.”
“Yes, I think I do.” Now Brown was speaking intimately.
“I’ve never spoken to you or anyone else about the last election. I suppose I’ve got to now.”
“It’s better to let it lie,” said Brown.
“No. I suppose everyone still remembers that this man Nightingale sent round a note with a reference to my wife?”
“I hope that’s all long forgotten,” said Brown, as though to him it really was a distant memory, one pushed for good sense’s sake deep down.
“I can’t believe that!” cried Jago.
“People don’t remember these things as you think they do,” said Brown.
“Do you imagine I don’t remember it? Do you think that many days have passed when I haven’t had to remember every intolerable thing that happened to me at that time?”
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