The Light and the Dark (7 page)

I said that I did.

Brown shook his head.

“It’s no use trying to rush things, Eliot. You can’t take these places by storm. I expect you’re inclined to think that it could have been better handled. I’m not prepared to go as far as that. The Master’s in a very difficult situation, running a candidate in what people regard as his own subject. No, I don’t think we should be right to feel impatient.” He gave a jovial smile. “But I think we should be perfectly justified, and we can’t do any harm, if we push a little from our side.”

“I’m ready to do anything,” I said. “But I’m so relatively new to the college, I didn’t think it was wise to take much part.”

“That shows very good judgment,” said Brown approvingly. “Put it another way: it’ll be a year or two before you’ll carry as much weight here as some of us would like. But I believe you can dig in an oar about Calvert, if we set about it in the right way. Mind you, we’ve got to feel our steps. It may be prudent to draw back before we’ve gone too far.”

Brown filled our glasses again.

“I’m inclined to think, Eliot,” he went on, “that our young friend could have been elected last term if there weren’t some rather unfortunate personal considerations in the background. He’s done quite enough to satisfy anyone, even if they don’t believe he’s as good as the Master says. They’d have taken him if they’d wanted to, but somehow or other they don’t like the idea. There’s a good deal of personal animosity somehow. These things shouldn’t happen, of course, but men are as God made them.”

“Some of them dislike the Master, of course,” I said.

“I’m afraid that’s so,” said Brown. “And some of them dislike what they’ve heard of our young friend Calvert.”

“Yes.”

“Has that come your way?” His glance was very sharp.

“A little.”

“It would probably be more likely to come to me. Why, Chrystal–” (the Dean, usually Brown’s inseparable comrade in college politics) – isn’t completely happy about what he hears. Of course,” said Brown steadily, “Calvert doesn’t make things too easy for his friends. But once again men are as God made them, and it would be a damned scandal if the college didn’t take him. I’m a mild man, but I should feel inclined to speak out.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I’ve been turning it over in my mind,” said Brown. “I can’t help feeling this might be an occasion to take the bull by the horns. It occurs to me that some of our friends won’t be very easy about their reasons for trying to keeping him out. It might be useful to force them into the open. I have known that kind of method take the edge off certain persons’ opposition in a very surprising way. And I think you can be very useful there. You’re not so committed to the Master’s personal way of looking at things as some of us are supposed to be – and also you know Getliffe better than any of us.”

Under his stately, unhurried deliberations Brown had been getting down to detail – as he would say himself, he had been “counting heads”.

“I suggest those might be our tactics for the time being,” said Brown. “We can wait for a convenient night, when some of the others who don’t see eye to eye with us are dining. Then we’ll have a bottle of wine and see just how unreasonable they’re prepared to be. We shall have to be careful about tackling them. I think it would be safer if you let me make the pace.”

Brown smiled: “I fancy there’s a decent chance we shall get the young man in, Eliot.” Then he warned me, as was his habit at the faintest sign of optimism: “Mind you, I shan’t feel justified in cheering until we hear the Master reading out the statute of admission.”

Brown studied the dining list each day, but had to wait, with imperturbable patience, some weeks before the right set of people were dining. At last the names turned up – Despard-Smith, Winslow, Getliffe, and no others. Brown put himself down to dine, and told the kitchen that I should be doing the same.

It was a Saturday night towards the end of term. As we sat in hall, nothing significant was said: from the head of the table, Despard-Smith let fall some solemn comments on the fortunes of the college boats in the Lent races. He was a clergyman of nearly seventy, but he had never left the college since he came up as an undergraduate. He had been Bursar for thirty years, Winslow’s predecessor in the office. His face was mournful, harassed and depressed, and across his bald head were trained a few grey hairs. He was limited, competent, absolutely certain of his judgment, solemn, self-important and self-assured. He could make any platitude sound like a moral condemnation. And, when we went into the combination room after hall, he won a battle of wills upon whether we should drink claret or port that night.

Brown had been at his most emollient in hall, and had not given any hint of his intention. As soon as we arrived in the combination room, he asked permission to present a bottle, “port or claret, according to the wishes of the company”.

Brown himself had a taste in claret, and only drank port to be clubbable. Francis Getliffe and I preferred claret, but were ready to drink port. But none of the three of us had any say.

We had sat ourselves at the end of the long, polished, oval table; glasses were already laid, sparkling in the light, reflected in the polished surface of the wood; the fire was high.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Despard-Smith solemnly, “our c-colleague has kindly offered to present a bottle. I suppose it had better be a bottle of port.”

“Port?” said Winslow. “Correct me if I am wrong, Mr President, but I’m not entirely certain that is the general feeling.”

His mouth had sunk in over his nutcracker jaw, and his nose came down near his upper lip. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his face was hollowed with ill-temper and strain; but his skin was healthy, his long body free and active for a man of nearly sixty. There was a sarcastic twitch to his lips as he spoke: as usual he was caustically polite, even when his rude savage humour was in charge. His manners were formal, he had his own perverse sense of style.

Most of the college disliked him, yet all felt he had a kind of personal distinction. He had done nothing, had not published a book, was not even such a good Bursar as Despard-Smith had been, though he worked long hours in his office. He was a very clever man who had wasted his gifts. Yet everyone in the college was flattered if by any chance they drew a word of praise from him, instead of a polite bitter snub.

“I’ve always considered,” said Despard-Smith, “that claret is not strong enough for a dessert wine.”

“That’s very remarkable,” said Winslow. “I’ve always considered that port is too sweet for any purpose whatsoever.”

“You would s-seriously choose claret, Bursar?”

“If you please, Mr President. If you please.”

Despard-Smith looked round the table lugubriously.

“I suppose no one else follows the Bursar in pressing for claret. No. I think–” he said triumphantly to the butler – “we must have a bottle of port.”

Francis Getliffe grinned at me, the pleasant grim smile which creased his sunburned face. He was two years older than I, and a friend of mine since we met in a large London house years before. It was through him that, as I explained earlier, I came to the college at all. We were not intimates, but we thought alike in most arguments and usually found ourselves at one, without any need to talk it over, over any college question. He was a physicist, with an important series of researches on the upper atmosphere already published: he was a just, thin-skinned, strong-willed, and strenuously ambitious man.

The port went round, Despard-Smith gravely proposed Brown’s health; Brown himself asked one or two quiet, encouraging questions about Winslow’s son – for Winslow was a devoted father, and his son, who had entered the college the previous October, roused in him extravagant hopes: hopes that seemed pathetically extravagant, when one heard his blistering disparagement of others.

Then Brown, methodically twirling his wineglass, went on to ask: “I suppose none of you happen to have thought any more about the matter of electing R C E Calvert, have you? We shall have to decide one way or the other some time. It isn’t fair to the man to leave him hanging in mid-air for ever.”

Winslow looked at him under hooded eyes.

“I take it you’ve gathered, my dear Tutor, that the proposal isn’t greeted with unqualified enthusiasm?”

“I did feel,” said Brown, “that one or two people weren’t altogether convinced. And I’ve been trying to imagine why. On general grounds, I should have expected you to find him a very desirable candidate. Myself, I rather fancy him.”

“I had the impression you were not altogether opposed,” said Winslow.

Brown smiled, completely good-natured, completely undisturbed. “Winslow, I should like to take a point with you. I think you’ll admit that everything we’ve had on paper about Calvert is in his favour. Put it another way: he’s been as well spoken of as anyone can be at that age. What do you feel is the case against him?”

“A great deal of the speaking in his favour,” said Winslow, “has been done by our respected Master. I have considerable faith in the Master as an after-dinner speaker, but distinctly less in his judgment of men. I still remember his foisting O’Brien on us–” It was thirty years since Royce supported O’Brien, and there had been two Masters in between; but O’Brien had been a continual nuisance, and colleges had long memories. I felt all Winslow’s opposition to Roy lived in his antagonism to the Master. He scarcely gave a thought to Roy as a human being, he was just a counter in the game.

“Several other people have written nearly as highly of Calvert,” said Brown. “I know that in a rather obscure subject it’s difficult to amass quite as much opinion as we should all like–”

“That’s just it, Brown,” said Francis Getliffe. “He’s clearly pretty good. But he’s in a field which no one knows about. How can you compare him with a lad like Luke, who’s competing against some of the ablest men in the world? I’m not certain we ought to take anyone in these eccentric lines unless they’re really extraordinarily good.”

“I should go a long way towards agreeing with you,” said Brown. “Before I came down in favour of Calvert, I satisfied myself that he was extraordinarily good.”

“I’m not convinced by the evidence,” said Francis Getliffe.

Despard-Smith intervened, in a tone solemn, authoritative and damning: “I can’t be satisfied that it’s in the man’s own best interests to be elected here. I can’t be satisfied that he’s suited to collegiate life.”

“I don’t quite understand, Despard,” said Brown. “He’d be an asset to any society. He was extremely popular as an undergraduate.”

“That only makes it worse,” said Despard-Smith. “I can’t consider that our fellowships ought to be f-filled by young men of fashion. I’m by no means happy about Calvert’s influence on the undergraduates, if we took the very serious risk of electing him to our society.”

“I can’t possibly take that view,” said Brown. “I believe he’d be like a breath of fresh air.”

“You can’t take Despard’s view, can you?” I asked Francis Getliffe across the table.

“I shouldn’t mind what he was like, within reason,” said Francis, “so long as he was good enough at his stuff.”

“But you’ve met him several times,” I said. “What did you think of him?”

“Oh, he’s good company. But I should like to know what he really values. Or what he really wants to do.”

I realised with a shock, what I should have seen before, that there was no understanding or contact between them. There was an impatient dismissal in Francis’ tone: but suddenly, as though by a deliberate effort of fair-mindedness and responsibility, he turned to Despard-Smith.

“I ought to say,” he remarked sharply, “that I should think it wrong to vote against him on personal grounds. If he’s good enough, we ought to take him. But I want that proved.”

“I cannot think that he’d be an acquisition,” said Despard-Smith. “When he was an undergraduate, I soon decided that he had no sense of humour. He used to come up to me and ask most extraordinary questions. Quite recently he sent me a ridiculous book by an unsatisfactory young man called Udal.”

“I expect he was just showing his respect,” said Brown.

“In that case,” said Despard-Smith, “he should do it in a more sensible fashion. No, I think he would have a l-lamentable effect on the undergraduates. It’s impossible to have a fellow who might attract undesirable notice. He still has women to visit him in his rooms. I can’t think that it would be in his own interests to elect him.”

This was sheer intuitive hostility. Some obscure sense warned the old clergyman that Roy was dangerous. Nothing we could say would touch him: he would stay implacably hostile to the end. Brown, always realistic and never willing to argue without a purpose, gave him up at once.

“Well, Despard,” he said, “we must agree to differ. But I should like to take a point or two with you others.”

“If you please, my dear Tutor,” said Winslow. “I find it more congenial hearing it from you than from our respected Master. Even though you spend a little longer over it.”

Patiently, steadily, never ruffled, Brown went over the ground with them. Neither had shifted by the end of the evening: afterwards, Brown and I agreed that Winslow could only be moved if Roy ceased to be the Master’s protégé, but that Francis Getliffe was fighting a prejudice and was not irretrievably opposed. We also agreed that it was going to be a very tight thing: we needed seven votes, we could see our way to five or six, but it was not certain where the others were coming from.

Through most of the Easter term, Arthur Brown was busy with talks, deliberate arguments, discussions on tactics, and bargains. It became clear that he could count on five votes for certain (the Master, Brown and myself; the senior fellow, who was a very old man; and the Senior Tutor, Jago). Another elderly fellow could almost certainly be relied upon, but he would be abroad all the summer, and votes had to be given in person. In order to get a majority at all, Brown needed either his friend Chrystal or mine, Getliffe; in order to force an issue during the summer, he needed both. There were talks in all our rooms, late into summer nights. Chrystal might come in, reluctantly and ill-temperedly, as a sign of personal and party loyalty: I could not use those ties with Francis Getliffe, who prided himself on his fairness and required to be convinced.