Beside the fire in his sitting-room, he went on telling of the Master and Lady Muriel, and he spoke with the special insight of grief. Theirs had not been a joyous marriage. The Master might have brought happiness to many women, Roy said, but somehow he had never set her free. As for her, there was a terrible story that, when the Master was engaged to her, an aunt of hers said to him: ‘I warn you, she has no tenderness.’ That showed what her facade was like, and yet, Roy had told me and I believed him, it was the opposite of the truth. Perhaps few husbands could have called her tenderness to the surface, and that the Master had never done. She had given him children, they had struggled on for twenty-five years. ‘She’s never had any idea what he’s really like,’ said Roy. ‘Poor dear, she’s always been puzzled by his jokes.’
Yet they had trusted each other; and so, that afternoon, it was her task to tell him that he was going to die. Roy was certain that she had screwed herself up and gone straight to the point. ‘She’s always known that she’s failed him. Now she felt she was failing him worst of all. Because anyone else would have known what to say, and she’s never been able to put one word in front of another.’
Occasionally we had imagined that the Master saw through the deception, but it was not true. The news came as a total shock. He did not reproach her. She could not remember what he said, but it was very little.
‘It’s hard to think without a future.’ That was the only remark she could recall.
But the hardest blow for her was that, in looking towards his death, he seemed to have forgotten her. ‘I was less use than ever,’ Lady Muriel had cried to Roy.
It was that cry which had seared Roy with the spectacle of human egotism and loneliness. They had lived their lives together. She had to tell him this news. She saw him thinking only of his death — and she could not reach him. It did not matter whether she was there or not.
After she had gone out, and Joan had visited him for a few minutes, he had asked to be left to himself.
Roy said: ‘We’re all alone, aren’t we? Each one of us. Quite alone.’
Later, he asked: ‘If she was miserable and lonely today, what was it like to be him? Can anyone imagine what it’s like to know your death is fixed?’
18: Result of an Anxiety
After his demand on Jago, Nightingale seemed to be satisfied or to have lost interest. Brown’s explanation was that he was enough open to reason to realize that he could go no further; for his own practical ends, it was sensible to stop. Brown did not let us forget Nightingale’s practical ends: ‘He may be unbalanced,’ said Brown, ‘he may be driven by impulses which I am sure you understand better than I do, but somehow he manages to give them a direction. And that concerns me most. He wants some very practical things, and he’s going to be a confounded nuisance.’
That was entirely true. I learned a lot about men in action, I learned something of when to control a psychological imagination, from Arthur Brown. But it was also true that Nightingale was right in the middle of one of those states of anxiety which is like a vacuum in the mind: it fills itself with one worry, such as the tutorship; that is worried round, examined, explored, acted upon, for the time being satisfied: the vacuum is left, and fills immediately with a new worry. In this case it was the March recommendations of the council of the Royal Society: would he get in at last? would his deepest hope come off?
This anxiety came to Nightingale each spring. It was the most painful of all. And it seemed sharper because, unlike his worry over the tutorship, there was nothing he could do to satisfy himself. He could only wait.
Crawford had just been put on the council of the Royal Society for the second time, owing to someone dying. Crawford told us this news himself, with his usual imperturbability. Nightingale heard him with his forehead corrugated, but he could not resist asking: ‘Do you know when the results will be out?’ Crawford looked at his pocket-book.
‘The council will make its recommendations on Thursday, March—’ He told Nightingale the date. ‘Of course, they’re not public for a couple of months after. Is there anyone you’re interested in?’
‘Yes.’
The intense answer got through even to Crawford.
‘You’re not up yourself, are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t realize it,’ said Crawford, making an unconcerned apology. ‘Of course your subject is a long way from mine. I don’t think I’ve heard anything about the chemists’ list. If I did, I’m afraid I paid no attention. If I knew anything definite, I should be tempted to tell you. I’m not a believer in unnecessary secrecy.’
Francis Getliffe had been listening to the conversation, and we went out of the room together. As the door closed behind us, he said: ‘I wish someone would put Nightingale out of his misery.’
‘Do you know the result?’
‘I’ve heard the lists. He’s not in, of course. But the point is, he’s never even thought of. He never will get in,’ said Francis.
‘I doubt if anyone could tell him,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Francis.
‘When are you going to get in, by the way?’ I asked, forgetting our opposition, as though our ease had returned.
‘I shan’t let myself be put up until I stand a good chance. I mean, until I’m certain of getting in within three or four years. I’m not inclined to go up on the off chance.’
‘Does that mean the first shot next year?’
‘I’d hoped so. I’d hoped that, if I was put up next year, I was bound to be elected by 1940. But things haven’t gone as fast as they should,’ he said with painful honesty.
‘You’ve been unlucky, haven’t you?’
‘A bit,’ said Francis. ‘I might have got a shade more notice. But that isn’t the whole truth. I haven’t done as much as I ought.’
‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said.
‘There’s got to be time,’ said Francis.
None of us, I thought, was as just as he was, or made such demands on his will.
About three weeks later, as I went into the porter’s lodge one day after lunch, I heard Nightingale giving instructions. A special note in his tone caught my attention: it occurred to me that it must be the day of the Royal results. ‘If a telegram comes for me this afternoon,’ he repeated, ‘I want the boy sent to my rooms without a minute’s delay. I shall be in till hall. Have you got that? I don’t want a minute’s delay.’
The afternoon was harshly cold; the false spring of February had disappeared, and before teatime it was dark, the sky overhung with inky clouds. I stayed by my fire reading, and then sent for tea before a pupil arrived. As I waited for the kitchen porter, I stood looking out of the window into the court. A few flakes of snow were falling. Some undergraduates came clanking through in football boots, their knees a livid purple, their breath steaming in the bitter air. Then I saw Nightingale walking towards the porter’s lodge. The young men were shouting heartily: Nightingale went past them as though they did not exist.
In a moment, he was on his way back. He had found no telegram. He was walking quite slowly: the cold did not touch him.
In hall that night his face was dead white and so strained that the lines seemed rigid, part of the structure of his brow. Every few seconds he put a hand to the back of his head, and the tic began to fascinate Luke, who was sitting next to him. Several times Luke looked at the pale, grim, harassed face, started to speak, and then thought better of it. At last his curiosity was too strong, and he said: ‘Are you all right, Nightingale?’
‘What do you mean, all right?’ Nightingale replied. ‘Of course I’m all right. What do you think you’re talking about?’