The Masters (30 page)

‘I should think that it’s extraordinarily unlikely.’

‘I should like to know,’ said Chrystal, ‘whether their thoughts have turned to a third candidate again.’

Brown was flushed.

‘It’s possible they may have,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t be a very profitable speculation. It couldn’t get anywhere unless we were foolish enough to meet them halfway.’

‘I shouldn’t like to dismiss it,’ said Chrystal.

‘I’m sorry to hear you say so,’ said Brown.

‘We should have to feel our way. We shouldn’t have to give away a point. But I should like a chance to explore it.’

‘Have they made any approaches?’ I asked.

‘Not to me,’ said Chrystal.

‘Do
you
intend to?’

He looked truculent.

‘Only if I see an opening,’ he said.

‘I very much hope you won’t,’ said Brown sternly and with great weight.

‘It’s only as a last resort. If we can’t get our man in.’ All the time Chrystal was trying to placate Brown, trying to persuade him all was well: he was working to get rid of the heavy, anxious, formidable frown that had stayed on Brown’s face. ‘After all,’ said Chrystal, with his trace of the gamin, ‘you didn’t like our last effort. But it came off.’

‘We were luckier than we deserved.’

‘We need a bit of luck.’

‘Nothing will reconcile me,’ said Brown, ‘to any more approaches from our side. They can only give the others one impression. And that is, without putting too fine a point on it, that we’ve lost faith in our man.’

He looked at Chrystal.

‘I realize you’ve always had your misgivings,’ he went on. ‘But that’s all the more reason why you shouldn’t have any dealings with the other side. This isn’t the time to give them any inkling that you’re not a whole-hogger. The only safe course is to leave them in their ignorance.’

‘If they make a move?’

‘We ought to cross that bridge when we come to it.’ Then Brown relaxed. ‘I’m sorry Jago let his tongue run away with him this afternoon.’

‘That didn’t affect me one way or the other,’ Chrystal said curtly. ‘It doesn’t alter the situation.’

‘We’d better all sleep on it,’ said Brown. ‘I expect you’ll agree tomorrow that we’ve got to sit tight. It’s the only statesmanlike thing to do.’

‘I should let you know,’ said Chrystal, ‘before I spoke to anyone.’

The next day, December 12th, began for me with a letter which took my mind right away from the college. When I dined in hall that night, my private preoccupation had so affected me that I felt I was a visitor from outside. The college was full of rumours, hushed conversation, tête-à-têtes; in the combination room Francis Getliffe and Winslow spent several minutes talking in a corner. The chief rumours that night were that an informal meeting of the whole college was to be held to discuss the deadlock: and that Nightingale was just on the point of sending round another flysheet.

I had three impressions of extreme sharpness. The first was that Brown was deeply troubled, even more than he had been during the talk with Chrystal the previous night. Chrystal was not dining, and Brown slipped away by himself immediately after hall. I did not get the chance of a word with him. My second impression was that Nightingale behaved as though he had something up his sleeve. And the third, and much the strongest, was that Jago felt that night assured that he was in.

Perhaps, I thought, it was one of those intermissions that come in any period of anxiety: one is waiting for an answer, one goes to bed anxious, wakes up for no reason suffused with hope, suffused with hope so strong that it seems the answer has already come.

Anyway, Jago was quite relaxed, his voice easy; he did not have to clown; he did not make a remark which drew attention to himself. He spoke to Crawford with such friendliness, such quiet warmth, such subdued but natural confidence, that Crawford seemed out of his depth. He had never seen his rival like this before, he had never felt the less comfortable of the two.

I walked away from the combination room with Jago. He had promised to show me a small comet which had become visible a night or two before, and we climbed to the top of a staircase in the second court. There, looking over the garden to the east, he made me see a blur of light close to the faintest star of the Great Bear. He had been an amateur astronomer since childhood, and from the stars he gained, despite his unbelief, something close to a religious emotion.

The silence of the infinite spaces did not terrify him. He felt at one with the heavens; it was through them that he knew a sense of the unseen. But he only spoke of what he could observe. That night, he told me where the comet would have reached by the same time next day: how fast it was travelling: the size of its orbit: how long it would be before man saw it again.

Coming down the stairs, he was full of happiness. He was not even much excited when he saw Pilbrow’s door open and his servant lighting a fire. I went in and asked the reason, and was told that Pilbrow had sent a telegram from London, saying that he was returning by the last train.

Jago heard the servant’s answers from the landing, and I did not need to tell him that Pilbrow was coming back. ‘He’s a wonderful old boy,’ said Jago. He did not say it with emphasis; for him, the news just completed the well-being of an evening. He said a contented good-night, and walked at a leisurely pace along the path to his house. I had not seen him walk so slowly since that afternoon of our first party meeting, when he felt the Mastership lay in his hands.

Once at least he lifted his eyes to the stars.

It was well past one o’clock next morning, and I was writing by my fire, when I heard the clang of the great gate’s bell: gently once or twice, then a long impatient ring, then another. At last the porter must have woken up. I heard the opening of a door, and finally the rattle and clash as the gate was unlocked.

There were steps through the court. I wondered who had come in late, and turned back to my writing. A few minutes later, the steps sounded on my own staircase. It was Pilbrow.

‘I saw your light on my way past. I had to tidy up after the trip. I specially wanted to see you before you went to bed.’

He had burst in, looking ten years younger than his age. He was ruddily sunburned, and there were one or two patches on the top of his bald head from which the skin had peeled.

‘I had lunch in Split thirty-six hours ago. Split! Split! I like the Slavs – Absurd names. Much more absurd than the Italian names.’ He pronounced the name several times aloud, chuckling to himself. ‘Astonishing number of beautiful people. You sit in the market place and watch them… Also extremely prudish. Why do people get steadily more beautiful as you go south-east from the Brenner? The Tyrolese are lovely. The Dalmatians are better still. They also get more prudish as they get more beautiful. The Tyrolese are moderately prudish. The Dalmatians extremely… I suppose it’s a law of nature. A very stupid one too.’

I could scarcely get in a word. He had been flown most of the way home. He had been travelling for two days: his cheeks shone, he did not seem in the least tired.

Soon he said, earnestly and without introduction: ‘Eliot, things are worse in Europe than they have been in my time.’

‘You mean politically?’

‘All our friends are in danger. Everything you and I believe in is going… Our people are just sitting by and watching. And dining in the best houses. Bloody fools. Snobs. Snobbery will make this country commit suicide. These bloody snobs can’t see who their enemies are. Or who are their friends. When a country is blinding itself to that, it’s in a bad way.’

He told me of some of his doings. He had somehow managed to visit his friends in a concentration camp. He was a very brave old man. He was also an acute one, underneath the champagne-like gaiety.

‘I came to tell you,’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s why I was glad to see your light. I wanted to tell you before anyone else. I can’t vote for Jago. I can’t vote for someone who won’t throw his weight in on our side. It’s your side as well as mine. That’s why I came to tell you first…’

I was taken aback. I should not have been so surprised at the outset. I knew it had worried him, but I thought he had come to terms and satisfied himself. It would not have astonished me if he had found some reasonable excuse and stayed away. But I was not prepared for his journey home, his ebullient entry, and then this. I had not recovered myself when I asked flatly: ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Vote for the other man,’ said Pilbrow without a pause. ‘He’s on the right side. He’s always been on the right side. We can trust him in that way.’

I tried to shake off the shock, and do my best. I retraced the arguments I had had with Francis Getliffe. I searched for anything that might influence him: I told him that the three youngest fellows in the college were all supporting Jago – it was not like Pilbrow, I reproached him, to leave the side of youth. But he was obdurate – sometimes a little flustered in speech, but quite unshaken.

I tried once more.

‘You know I feel about the world as strongly as you,’ I said. ‘If that’s possible.’

Pilbrow smiled, pleased by the remark.

‘You do know, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Pilbrow replied. ‘Of course. More than any of those…’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not more than Getliffe or young Luke. But as much. Anyway, I take an even blacker view than you. I’m beginning to feel it like a personal sorrow.’

‘Yes! Yes!’ cried Pilbrow. ‘Things outside have got to be very bad before they make one feel like that. But they are–’

‘Even so,’ I said, ‘I can’t believe that it ought to affect us here. We’re choosing from two human beings.’ I waited, in the hope it would sink in. ‘You’ve always liked Jago, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Pilbrow at once. ‘He’s warm. He’s got a great gift of warmth.’

‘You don’t care for Crawford?’

‘I’m neutral to him,’ said Pilbrow.

‘He’s on the right side in politics,’ I said, ‘but you know very well that most of your kind of civilization he doesn’t begin to touch. If the books you’ve devoted your life to disappeared tomorrow, he wouldn’t notice the difference.’

‘No. But–’ Pilbrow’s bright brown eyes were troubled.

‘You’ve always set a value on human beings. Surely you’re not going to pass over the difference between those two? You’re saying that you’ll just vote for a programme. Are you really ready to forget what human beings mean?’

‘We’ve got to sacrifice something.’ Pilbrow had found his tongue, and spoke with vigour. ‘If we don’t sacrifice something, there’ll be nothing left at all.’

I made a last attempt.

‘You know what it means for Jago,’ I said.

‘Disappointing…’

‘You know it will be far worse than that.’

‘Yes.’

‘For you it wouldn’t have mattered much – at any time. Would it? You’re not such a diffident man as Paul Jago, you know. You couldn’t pin your self-esteem on to a job. You’ve never given a damn whether people elected you to masterships or presidencies of buffaloes’ clubs. It’s not people like you who are ambitious for positions, Eustace. It is people like Jago – who need some support from outside. And he needs it
intolerably
. If he doesn’t get the Mastership, it will hurt him more than anyone imagines. It won’t be just disappointing. It will break his heart.’

I added: ‘Don’t you agree?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Doesn’t it affect you?’

‘It’s a pity,’ said Pilbrow. ‘He’ll recover in time. They always…’ He broke off. His tone was almost light-hearted, and I knew it was no good. Then he said, with extraordinary vigour, his eyes shining like brown beads, his whole body clenched with energy: ‘I can’t bear to have anyone say that I helped the wrong side. I can’t do as much as I should like, but I shall throw in my weight wherever I can. I hope I have a few years left to do it.’

I knew it was no good. There was nothing to be done. No one could move Pilbrow now. He would vote for Crawford to the end.

And I felt something else. His vigour was marvellous and enviable: I wished I could imagine being so radiant at seventy-four; and yet, for the first time, I saw him overtaken by age.

A few years before he would not have said of Jago, as though human feelings were tiresome, ‘he’ll recover in time’. But in fact he had come to the point where human feelings were tiresome – no, not tiresome so much as remote, trivial, a little comic. That was the sign of age. Pilbrow had been a man of strong affections. But those affections died off, except the strongest of all; as he became old, he could only feel moved by the great themes of his life; all else cooled down, although he struck no one as old, certainly not himself. And where he did not feel himself, he lost his sympathy for others’ feelings. They did not seem important. Very little seemed important. Just as a mature man dismisses calf love with a smile, because he can no longer feel it (though it may once have caused him the sharpest pain), so Pilbrow, that vigorous old man, smiled indifferently at the triumphs and sufferings of the middle-aged. Suddenly one encountered blankness at a point where one expected sympathy and response. He looked just as he had looked ten years before; he could still feel passionately about his deepest concerns; but those concerns were narrowing, and one knew at last that he was growing old.

At times he knew it. At times he could not help but know it. So be clung more ardently to that which moved him still. It was that which died last. For Pilbrow, who had befriended so many, who had spent a lifetime in good causes, who had fought with body and mind, it was the picture of himself still ‘throwing in his weight’ on the side of light. That rang out of his last words. In them one heard the essence of the man: he was stripped by age of all that did not matter: and age revealed his vital core. In a sense, he was self-centred – more so than many men whose lives were selfish by the side of his. He was sweet-dispositioned, he was the most generous of men, but nothing could make him forget his picture of himself. That night I was too much upset to care, but later on it made me feel more brotherlike towards him. I did not see in him the goodness that some did; but I felt the comradeship of common flesh, as well as great tenderness, for the gallant, lubricious, indomitable, and generous old man, with the sturdy self-regard that nothing on earth could move.