The Masters (16 page)

‘Oysters? Excellent. You never did relish oysters, did you, Despard? Waiter, bring me Mr Despard-Smith’s oysters. Capital. I remember having some particularly succulent oysters in Oxford one night when they happened to be giving me an honorary degree. Do you know, those oysters slipped down just as though they were taking part in the celebration.’

He did not follow our modern fashion in wines. Champagne was served at feasts, but it had become the habit to pass it by and drink the hocks and moselles instead. Not so Gay. ‘There’s nothing like a glass of champagne on a cold winter night. I’ve always felt better for a glass of champagne. Ah. Let me see, I’ve been coming to these feasts now for getting on for sixty years. I’m happy to say I’ve never missed a feast through illness, and I’ve always enjoyed my glass of champagne.’

He kept having his glass filled, and addressed not only the end of his own table, but also ours.

‘My saga-men never had a meal like this. Grand old Njal never had such a meal. My saga-men never had a glass of champagne. It was a very hard, dark, strenuous life those men lived, and they weren’t afraid to meet their fates. Grand chaps they were. I’m glad I’ve been responsible for making thousands of people realize what grand chaps they were. Why, when I came on the scene, they were almost unknown in this country. And now, if a cultivated man does not know as much about them as he knows about the heroes of the
Iliad
, he’s an ignoramus. You hear that, Despard? You hear that, Eustace? I repeat, he’s an ignoramus.’

We sat a long time over the port and claret, the fruit and coffee and cigars. There were no speeches at all. At last – it was nearly half-past ten – we moved into the combination room again. Roy Calvert was starting some concealed badinage at the expense of Crawford and Despard-Smith. Like everyone else, he was rosy, bright-eyed, and full of well-being. Like everyone except Nightingale, that is: Nightingale had brought no guest, was indifferent to food, and always hated drinking or seeing others drink. He stood in the crush of the combination room, looking strained in the midst of the elation. Winslow came up to Gay, who was making his way slowly – the press of men parted in front of him – to his special chair.

‘Ah, Winslow. What a magnificent feast this has been!’

‘Are you going to congratulate me on it?’ asked Winslow.

‘Certainly not,’ said Gay. ‘You gave up being Steward a great number of years ago. I shall congratulate the man responsible for this excellent feast. Getliffe is our present Steward. That’s the man. Where is Getliffe? I congratulate him. Splendid work these young scientists do, splendid.’

Chrystal and Brown did not mean to stay long in the combination room: it was time to get down to business. They caught Jago’s eye and mine. We said goodbye to our guests, and followed the others and Sir Horace up to Brown’s rooms.

‘I wonder,’ said Brown, after he had established Sir Horace in a chair by the fire, ‘if anyone would like a little brandy? I always find it rather settling after a feast.’

When each of us had accepted our drink, Sir Horace began to talk: but he was a long time, a deliberately long time, in getting to the point. First of all, he discussed his ‘nephew’, as he called young Timberlake, who was actually his second cousin.

‘I want to thank all you gentlemen, and particularly Mr Brown, for what you’ve done for the boy. I’m very grateful for all your care. I know he’s not first class academically, and there was a time when it worried me, but now I’ve realized that he’s got other qualities, you know what I mean?’

‘I don’t think you need worry about him,’ said Brown.

‘He’s an extremely good lad,’ said Jago, overdoing it a little. ‘Everyone likes him. It’s a miracle that he’s not hopelessly spoiled.’

‘I’m interested to hear you say that,’ said Sir Horace. ‘I haven’t got the slightest worry on that account. I’ve always been certain about his character. I saw that his mother took all the trouble she could about his education in that respect.’

‘I’m sure that we all regard him as doing you the greatest credit,’ said Brown.

‘And speaking with due respect as a stupid sort of person in front of first-class minds, character does count, don’t you agree with me?’

‘There are times, Sir Horace,’ Jago broke out, ‘when I think young men like your nephew are our most valuable products. The first-class man can look after himself. But the man of personality who isn’t much interested in learning – believe me, they’re often the salt of the earth.’

‘I’m glad to hear you say that, Dr Jago.’

So it went on. Sir Horace pursued the subjects of his nephew, education, character versus intelligence, the advantages of the late developer, the necessity of a good home background, enthusiastically and exhaustively. Jago was his chief conversational partner, though Brown now and then put in a bland, emollient word. Chrystal tried once or twice to make the conversation more practical.

‘I must apologize for the old chap I introduced to you,’ said Chrystal.

‘Mr Winslow?’ said Sir Horace, who did not forget names.

‘Yes. He’s one of our liabilities. He’s impossible. By the way, he’s the Bursar, and if he weren’t so impossible we should have asked him to meet you. In case we had a chance of continuing where we left off last time.’

‘Every organization has its difficult men, you know,’ Sir Horace replied. ‘It’s just the same in my own organization. And that’s why’ – he turned to Jago – ‘I do attach the greatest importance to these universities turning out–’ Indefatigably he continued to exhaust the subject of education. I wanted to see Brown and Chrystal successful, wanted to go to bed, but I was also amused. Sir Horace was showing no effects of wine; he was tireless and oblivious of time. He was as much a master of tactics as Brown and Chrystal, and he was used to men trying to pump him for money. It was like him to cloud his manoeuvres behind a smokescreen of words, and when he was using this technique he did not much mind what he said. He called it ‘thinking aloud’. Often, as was the case that night, he talked a lot of humbug. He was genuinely fond of his nephew, and was himself diffident in societies like the college which he did not know. But his own sons had real ability, and that was what Sir Horace valued. The idea that he had a veneration for stupid men of high character, or thought himself to be anything but intelligent, was absurd – and alone, in cold blood, he knew it was absurd.

Even Jago’s vitality was flagging. Brown’s eyes were not as bright as usual, Chrystal had fallen silent. The midnight chimes had sounded some time before. In the short lulls between Sir Horace’s disquisitions, one heard the rain tapping on the windows. Sir Horace had worn us all down, and went on uninterrupted. Suddenly he asked, quite casually: ‘Have you thought any more of expanding your activities?’

‘Certainly we have,’ said Chrystal, coming alertly to life.

‘I think someone suggested – correct me if I’m wrong – that for certain lines of development you might need a little help. I think you suggested that, Mr Chrystal.’

‘I did.’

‘We can’t do anything substantial placed as we are,’ said Brown. ‘We can only keep going quietly on.’

‘I see that,’ Sir Horace reflected. ‘If your college is going to make a bigger contribution, it will need some financial help.’

‘Exactly,’ said Chrystal.

‘I think you said, Mr Chrystal, that you needed financial help with no conditions attached to it. So that you could develop along your own lines. Well, I’ve been turning that over in my mind. I dare say you’ve thought about it more deeply than I have, but I can’t help feeling that some people wouldn’t be prepared to exert themselves for you on those terms. You know what I mean? Some people might be inclined to see if financial help could be forthcoming, but would be put off at just making it over to you for general purposes. Do you agree with me or don’t you?’

Brown got in first: ‘I’m sure I should be speaking for the college in saying that it would be foolish – it would be worse than that, it would be presumptuous – only to accept money for general purposes. But you see, Sir Horace, we have suffered quite an amount from benefactions which are tied down so much that we can’t really use them. We’ve got the income on £20,000 for scholarships for the sons of Protestant clergymen in Galway. And that’s really rather tantalizing, you know.’

‘I see that,’ said Sir Horace again. ‘But let me put a point of view some people might take. Some people – and I think I include myself among them – might fancy that institutions like this are always tempted to put too much capital into bricks and mortar, do you know what I mean? We might feel that you didn’t need to put up a new building, for instance.’

‘It’s the go-ahead colleges who are building,’ said Chrystal. ‘Take some examples. There are two colleges whose reputation is going up while we stay flat–’

Chrystal showed great deference to Sir Horace, a genuine humble deference, but he argued crisply. Just as Sir Horace’s tactics formed behind a cloud of vague words, Chrystal’s and Brown’s were hidden in detail. Sharp, precise, confusing details were their chosen weapon. Complete confidence in the value of the college: their ability to treat Sir Horace as the far more gifted man, but at the same time to rely on the absolute self-confidence of the college as a society: their practice at handling detail so that any course but their own became impossible: those were the means they opposed to Sir Horace’s obstinate imagination.

The argument became lively, and we all took a hand. Sir Horace shook his head: ‘I’m sorry, Mr Chrystal. For once I don’t agree with you.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ said Chrystal, with a tough, pleasant, almost filial smile.

Sir Horace had guessed completely right. If the college secured a benefaction, Chrystal and Brown were eager to put up a building: they were eager to see the college of their time –
their
college – leave its irremovable mark.

At the beginning Brown had, as he used to say, ‘flown a kite’ for compromise, and now Chrystal joined him. Clearly, any college would welcome thankfully a benefaction for a special purpose – provided it could be fitted into the general frame. Sir Horace was assenting cordially, his eyes at their most open and naive. All of a sudden, he looked at Chrystal, and his eyes were not in the least naive. ‘I also shouldn’t be very happy about thinking of financial help which might be used to release your ordinary funds for building,’ he said in his indefatigable, sustained, rich-sounding, affable voice. ‘I can imagine other people taking the same line. They might be able to think out ways of preventing it, don’t you agree with me? If people of my way of thinking got together some financial help, I’m inclined to believe it would be for men. This country is short of first-class men.’

‘What had you in mind?’ asked Brown.

‘I’m only thinking aloud, you know what I mean. But it seems to an outsider that you haven’t anything like your proper number of fellowships. Particularly on what I might call the side of the future. You haven’t anything like enough fellowships for scientists and engineers. And this country is dead unless your kind of institutions can bring out the first-rate men. I should like to see you have many more young scientific fellows. I don’t mind much what happens to them so long as they have their chance. They can stay in the university, or we shall be glad to take them in industry. But they are the people you want – I hope you agree with me.’

‘That’s most interesting,’ said Jago.

‘I’m afraid you’re doubtful, Dr Jago.’

‘I’m a little uncertain how much you want to alter us.’ Jago was becoming more reserved. ‘If you swamped us with scientific fellows – you see, Sir Horace, I’m at a disadvantage. I haven’t the faintest idea of the scale of benefaction you think we need.’

‘I was only thinking aloud,’ said Sir Horace. In all his negotiations, as Chrystal and Brown perfectly understood, an exact figure was the last thing to be mentioned. Sums of money were, so to speak, hidden away behind the talk: partly as though they were improper, partly as though they were magic. ‘Imagine though,’ Sir Horace went on, ‘people of my way of thinking were trying to help the college with – a fairly considerable sum. Do you see what I mean?’

‘A fellowship,’ said Chrystal briskly, ‘costs £20,000.’

‘What was that, Mr Chrystal?’

‘It needs a capital endowment of £20,000 to pay for a fellowship. If you add on all the perquisites.’

‘I fancied that must be about the figure,’ said Sir Horace vaguely. ‘Imagine that a few people could see their way to providing a few of those units–’ His voice trailed off. There was a pause.

‘If they were giving them for fellowships in general,’ said Chrystal at last, ‘it would be perfect. There are no two ways about that. If the fellowships were restricted to science–’

‘I am interested to hear what you think, Mr Chrystal.’

‘If they were, it might raise difficulties.’

‘I don’t quite see them.’

‘Put it another way,’ said Brown. ‘On the book, today, Sir Horace, we’ve got four scientific fellows out of thirteen. I wouldn’t maintain that was the right proportion, we should all agree it wasn’t enough. But if we changed it drastically at a single stroke, it would alter the place overnight. I should be surprised if you regarded that as statesmanlike.’

‘Even the possibility of a benefaction is exciting,’ said Jago. ‘But I do agree with my colleagues. If the fellowships were limited to one subject, it would change the character of our society.’

‘You will have to change the character of your society in twenty years,’ said Sir Horace, with a sudden dart of energy and fire. ‘History will make you. Life will make you. You won’t be able to stop it, Dr Jago, you know what I mean?’

He had heard from the others that Jago was likely to be the next Master, and all the evening had treated him with respect. Sir Horace was charmed, Jago had for him the fascination of the unfamiliar, he wanted to be sure of Jago’s unqualified approval. Brown and Chrystal he was more used to, he got on well with them, but they were not foreign, exciting, ‘up in the air’.

All of us were waiting for a concrete bargain. Sir Horace, however, was willing to let a talk like this fade inconclusively away. He said: ‘Well, I can’t tell you how valuable I’ve found it to have all your opinions. It’s most stimulating, I hope you agree with me? It gives us all plenty to think about.’