Nightingale was silent during dinner. Brown kept up a stream of comfortable, unexacting conversation, but all the time, through the amiable remarks on college games, his glance was constantly coming back to Nightingale’s defensive mask.
‘How long is it since you saw the Lent races, Nightingale?’ Chrystal asked directly.
‘I haven’t time for anything like that,’ said Nightingale. They were his first words since we sat down.
‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ said Chrystal, with genuine sympathy. ‘Come on the towpath with me next week. It will do you good.’
‘I can look after myself’ said Nightingale. Up to that night, he had held on to his politeness, but now it slipped away.
‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Chrystal. ‘Listen to me for once.’
Nightingale’s eyes were blank, as he sat there, exposed to Chrystal’s crisp voice and Brown’s rich, placid one: he knew what to expect.
Luke left immediately after hall. His work was occupying him more than ever, and he said that he had to work out some results. Whether or not it was because of his precocious tact I did not know. Brown said: ‘Well, that does make us a nice little party.’
He ordered a bottle of claret and took his place at the head of the table. Nightingale was still standing up. He started to move towards the door. He was leaving, without saying goodnight. We were exchanging glances: suddenly he looked back at us. He turned round, retraced his steps, sat down defiantly at Brown’s right hand. There was something formidable about him at that moment.
The decanter went round, and Brown warmed his glass in his hands.
‘Has Jago been dining recently? I haven’t seen him all the week,’ Brown asked casually.
‘He’s not been here any of the nights I have,’ I said.
‘I’ve only dined once this week,’ said Chrystal. ‘He wasn’t here.’
Nightingale stirred his coffee, and did not reply.
‘Has he coincided with you, Nightingale?’ Brown asked.
‘No.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Brown in the same conversational tone. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time. How are you feeling about the Mastership now?’
‘How are you?’ Nightingale retorted.
‘I’m still exactly where I was,’ said Brown. ‘I’m quite happy to go on supporting Jago.’
‘Are you?’ Nightingale asked.
‘Why,’ said Brown, ‘I hope you haven’t had any second thoughts. At least, not enough to upset your commitments—’
‘Commitments!’ Nightingale broke out. ‘I’m not going to be bound because I made a fool of myself. I can tell you, here and now, I’ve thought better of it.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear it,’ said Brown. ‘But perhaps we—’
‘And I can tell you I’ve good reasons to think better of it. I’m glad I had my eyes opened before I’d done the damage. Do you think I’m going to vote for a man who’s taking it for granted that he’s been elected and is behaving like the Master before the present one is dead? And whose wife is putting on airs about it already?’ He stopped, and asked more virulently: ‘Do you think I’m going to put up with a Master who’s backed by people who are getting the college a bad name —?’
‘Who do you mean?’ I was infuriated.
‘I mean your friend Calvert, for one.’
‘Anything you say about him is worthless,’ I said.
‘There are one or two others,’ said Nightingale, ‘who live apart from their wives. It’s not for me to say whether they want to keep their liberty of action—’
‘Stop that,’ said Chrystal, before I could reply. ‘You’re going too far. I won’t have any more of it, do you hear?’
Nightingale sank back, white-faced. ‘I’m glad I’ve explained to you my reasons for changing,’ he said.
What were his true motives, I thought, as I stared at him through my own anger. He was possessed by envy and frustration. Crawford talking unconcernedly of the ‘Royal’, making it sound like a club to which one belonged as a matter of course, turned the knife in the wound as if he were jealous in love and had just heard his rival’s name. So did Chrystal and Brown, looking happy and prosperous in their jobs, going about to run the college. So did the sound of Mrs Jago’s voice, asking the number of bedrooms in the Lodge or the kind of entertainment that undergraduates preferred. So did the sight of Roy Calvert with a girl. And Nightingale suffered. He did not suffer with nobility, he did not accept it in the grand manner, which, though it does not soften suffering, helps to make the thought of it endurable when the victim is having a respite from pain. Nightingale suffered meanly, struggling like a rat, determined to wound as well as be wounded. There was no detachment from his pain, not a glimmer of irony. He bared his teeth, and felt release through planning a revenge against someone who ‘persecuted’ him. He never felt for a day together serene, free, and confident.
I could understand his suffering. One could not miss it, for it was written in his face. I was not moved by it, for I was cut off by dislike. And I could understand how he struggled with all his force, and went into action, as he was doing now, with the intensity of a single-minded drive. He had the canalized strength of the obsessed.
But I could not begin to know why his envy had driven him first away from Crawford, now back to him. Had he, that night of the Royal results, found in Crawford’s assurance some sort of rest? Was Crawford the kind of man he would, in his heart, have liked to be?
I could not see so far. But I was sure that, as Arthur Brown would remind me, there was a kind of practical veneer on his actions now. When he thought of what he was doing, he gave practical self-seeking reasons to himself. He probably imagined that Crawford would help get him into the Royal next year. He had certainly decided that Jago would not give him the tutorship, would do nothing for him. His calculation about Crawford was, of course, quite ridiculous. Crawford, impersonal even to his friends, would be the last man to think of helping, even if help were possible. Nevertheless, Nightingale was certain that he was being shrewd.
Chrystal was saying: ‘You ought to have told us you were going over.’
‘Ought I?’
‘You owed it to us to tell us first,’ said Chrystal.
‘I don’t see why.’
‘I take you up on that, Nightingale. You can’t pledge yourself to one candidate and then promise to vote for another. It’s not the way things are done.’
‘If I stick to the etiquette, no one else does. I’m not going to penalize myself any more,’ said Nightingale.
‘It’s not the way to do business.’
‘I leave business to your clique,’ Nightingale replied. He rose and, without saying goodnight, went towards the door. This time he did not turn back.
‘That’s that,’ said Chrystal. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to Nightingale.’
‘Well, there it is,’ said Brown.
‘Shall we get him back?’ Chrystal asked.
‘Not a hope in hell,’ I said.
‘Why are you so sure?’
‘I must say,’ said Brown, ‘that I’m inclined to take Eliot’s view. It’s much safer to regard the worst as inevitable, because then it won’t do us any harm if we turn out to be wrong. But that apart, I confess I shall be surprised if we see Nightingale back again.’