Brown gave me my glass, settled himself, and went on: ‘I regard it as desirable to strike while the iron’s hot. I can’t forgive myself for letting them snatch old Gay from in front of our noses. We must have our little lunch before we lose anyone else.’
‘I’m with you,’ said Chrystal.
‘I think they’ve shown more enterprise than we have,’ said Brown, ‘and we’ve got out of it better than we deserved.’
‘If I were Crawford, I shouldn’t thank Winslow much,’ said Chrystal. ‘He’s just run amok. He’s done them more harm than good. If Crawford had us to look after him, there’d be no need to have an election.’
‘Well,’ said Brown, ‘I shall be happier when we’ve got our party round a lunch table.’
‘We must make them speak,’ said Chrystal.
‘You’ll preside,’ said Brown, ‘and you can make everyone say that he’s supporting Jago.’
‘Why should I preside?’
‘That’s your job. I regard you as the chairman of our party.’ Brown smiled. ‘And we ought to have this lunch on Sunday. The only remaining point is whom do we ask. I was telling the Dean’ — he said to me — ‘that I haven’t been entirely idle. I haven’t let the other side get away with everything. I think I’ve got Eustace Pilbrow. We certainly ought to ask him to the lunch. He’s never been specially interested in these things, and he’s not enormously enthusiastic, but I think I’ve got him. Put it another way: if Jago were a bit of a crank politically — saving your presence, Eliot — I believe Eustace would support him up to the hilt. As it is, I’m quite optimistic.’
‘That only leaves young Luke,’ said Chrystal. ‘Everyone else has got tabs on them. So I reckon at present.’
‘Obviously we invite the other three, Pilbrow, Nightingale, and Roy Calvert,’ said Brown. ‘The question is, Eliot, whether we invite young Luke. I must say that I’m rather against it.’
‘He only needs a bit of persuasion,’ Chrystal said sharply. ‘Either side could get him for the asking. He’s a child.’
In the months since Luke became a fellow, I had not got to know him, except as an observant, intelligent, discreet, and sanguine face at hall and college meetings. Once I had walked round the garden with him for half an hour.
‘I wonder whether you’re right,’ I said to Chrystal. ‘It may not be as easy as you think.’
‘Dead easy for us. Dead easy for Winslow,’ said Chrystal.
‘I agree,’ said Brown. ‘I believe the Dean’s right.
‘That’s why,’ he went on, ‘I’m against inviting him.’ His face was flushed, but stubborn and resolute. ‘I want to say where I stand on this. I won’t be a party to over-persuading Luke. He’s a young man, he’s not a permanency here yet, he’s got his way to make, and it would be a damned shame to hamper him. At the very best it won’t be easy for the college to keep him when his six years are up: we’ve got one physicist in Getliffe, and it will be hard to make a case for another as a fixture.’ (Roy Calvert and Luke were research fellows appointed for six years: when that period ended, the college could keep them or let them go. It was already taken for granted that a special place must be found for Roy Calvert.) ‘It stands to reason that Luke has got to look to Crawford and Getliffe. They’re the scientists, they’re the people who can help him, they’re the people who’ve got to make a case if the college is ever going to keep him. You can’t blame him if he doesn’t want to offend them. If I’d started as the son of a dockyard hand, as that boy did, though no one would ever think it, I shouldn’t feel like taking the slightest risk. I’m certainly not going to persuade him to take it. Whichever side he comes down on, I say that it isn’t for us to interfere.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘Francis Getliffe is a very fair-minded man—’
‘I give you that,’ said Brown. ‘I’m not saying that voting for Jago would necessarily make a scrap of difference to Luke’s future. But he may feel that he’s making an enemy. If he does, I for one wouldn’t feel easy about talking him round.’
‘You’ve got a point there,’ said Chrystal.
‘The furthest I feel inclined to go,’ said Brown, ‘is to send him a note saying that some of us have now decided to support Jago. I’ll tell him we’re meeting on Sunday to discuss ways and means, but we’re not inviting people who still want time to make up their minds.’
‘I’m sorry to say,’ said Chrystal, ‘that I think you’re right.’
There we left it for the evening. It was easier to understand their hold on the college, I thought, when one saw their considerate good nature, right in the middle of their politics. No one could run such a society for long without a degree of trust. That trust most of the college had come to place in them. They were politicians, they loved power, at many points they played the game only just within the rules. But they set themselves limits and did not cross them. They kept their word. And in human things, particularly with the young, they were uneasy unless they behaved in a fashion that was scrupulous and just. People were ready to believe this of Brown, but found it harder to be convinced that it was also true of his friend. They saw clearly enough that Chrystal was the more ruthless: they did not see that he was the more tender-hearted.
In this particular instance, as it happened, they did not evoke the response that they deserved. Luke sat next to me in hall that night. For a couple of nights past he had been less sanguine and bright-eyed than usuaclass="underline" I asked about his work.
‘It seems to be describing a sine curve,’ he said. I had to recollect that a sine curve went up and down.
He went on: ‘Sometimes I think it’s all set. Sometimes I think it’s as useless as the Great Pyramid. I’m in the second phase just now. I’m beginning to wonder if I shall ever get the wretched thing out.’
He was depressed and irritable, and just then happened to hear Brown quietly inviting Roy Calvert to lunch in order ‘to give Jago’s campaign a proper start’.
‘What is all this?’ Luke asked me. ‘Is this the reply to Winslow’s meeting?’
‘Roughly,’ I said.
‘Am I being asked?’
‘I think,’ I said, ‘that Brown felt you hadn’t yet made up your mind.’
‘He hasn’t taken much trouble to find out,’ said Luke. ‘I’ll have it out with him afterwards.’
Passing round the wine in the combination room, he was quiet and deferential to the old men, as he always was. I was beginning to realize the check he imposed on his temper. An hour later, as Brown and I left the room and went into the court, Luke came rapidly behind us.
‘Brown, why haven’t I been invited to this bloody caucus?’
‘It isn’t quite a caucus, Luke. I was just going to write to explain—’
‘It’s a meeting of Jago’s supporters, isn’t it?’
‘One or two of us,’ said Brown, ‘have come to the conclusion that he’s the right man. And—’
‘So have I. Why hasn’t someone spoken to me about it? Why haven’t I been told?’
It was raining, and we had hurried through the court into the gateway, for Brown was on his way home. We stood under the great lantern.
‘Why, to tell you the truth, Luke, we thought you might naturally want to vote for Crawford. And we didn’t want to put any pressure on you.’
‘I’m buggered if I vote for Crawford,’ cried Luke. ‘You might have given me credit for more sense. Jago would make one of the best Masters this college has ever had.’
So Luke appeared for the Sunday lunch in Brown’s rooms, once more effacing himself into discretion again, dressed with a subfusc taste more cultivated than that of anyone there except Roy Calvert. Unobtrusively he inhaled the bouquet of his glass of Montrachet.