‘They’re certain to be, now,’ said Chrystal.
‘Crawford sent a note this very day suggesting a talk. I was mystified—’
‘The other side have got on to it too. They must have realized how much his vote and yours mean’ — Brown was bright-eyed with vigilance — ‘as soon as this confounded man told them he was ratting.’
‘I’m compelled to discuss it if he wishes to,’ said Jago. ‘I can’t decently do less than that.’
‘But go carefully whatever you do. Examine any proposal he puts forward. It may seem harmless, but it’s wiser not to commit yourself at once. Whatever you do, don’t say yes on the spot.’ Brown was settling down to an exhaustive, enjoyable warning: then his expression became more brooding.
‘There’s something else you ought to guard against.’ He hesitated. Jago did not speak, and sat with his head averted. Brown went on, speaking slowly and with difficulty: ‘We shouldn’t be reliable supporters or friends unless we asked you to guard against something which might damage your prospects irretrievably. Put it another way: it has helped to lose us Nightingale, and unless you stop, it might do you more harm than that.’
Jago still did not speak.
Brown continued: ‘I know we didn’t manage Nightingale very cleverly, any of us. We’ve made him angry between us. And one mistake we fell into that infuriated him was — I gave you a hint before — he thought some of us were acting as though you had the Mastership in your pocket. That’s bound to be dangerous. I don’t like doing it, but I’m compelled to warn you again.’ He hesitated for some moments, then said: ‘There seem to have been some women talking over the teacups.’
Brown was embarrassed but determined and intent. He looked at Jago, whose head had stayed bent down. Brown remembered that morning when, at a hint far slighter than this, Jago had drawn himself aloof and answered with a hostile snub. It had taken all Brown’s stubborn affection to try again — and to try on this night, when Jago had suffered a bitter disappointment, had lost his self-respect, had condemned himself.
‘I am grateful for your friendship,’ said Jago without looking up. ‘I will accept your advice so far as I can.’
Suddenly he glanced at Brown, his eyes lit up.
‘I want to ask one thing of my friends,’ he said quietly. ‘I trust you to take care that not a sign of these strictures reaches my wife. She would be more distressed than I could bear.’
‘Will you have a word with her yourself?’ Brown persisted.
I thought Jago was not going to reply. At last he said: ‘If I can do it without hurting her.’
As we heard him, we seemed within touching distance of a deep experience. We were all quiet. None of us, not even Brown, dared to say more. Not even Brown could speak to him in this way again.
Soon afterwards, Mrs Jago came in from the concert, with Roy Calvert attending her. Ironically, she was happier than I had ever seen her. She had been exalted by the music, she had been mixing with fashionable Cambridge and people had talked to her kindly, she had been seen in the company of one of the most sought-after young men in the town.
She flirted with Roy, looking up at him as he stood by her chair with his heels on the fender.
‘Think of all the young women you might have taken out tonight.’
‘Women are boring when they’re too young,’ said Roy.
‘We should all like to believe that was true,’ she said.
‘You all know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Confess.’
His tone was playful, half-kind, half-gallant, and, just for a moment, she was basking in confidence. She neither asserted herself nor shrieked out apologies. A quality, vivacious, naive, delicate, scintillated in her, as though it were there by nature. Perhaps it was the quality which Jago saw when she was a girl.
It was a strange spectacle, her sitting happily near to Roy. Her black evening dress made her look no slighter, and her solid shoulders loomed out of her chair: while Roy stood beside her, his shoulders pressed against the mantelpiece, his toes on the carpet, his figure cleanly arched.
She smiled at her husband.
‘I’m positive you haven’t had such a perfect evening,’ she said.
‘Not quite,’ said Jago, smiling fondly back.
21: Propaganda
Since Lady Muriel broke the news, the Master had wished to see none of his friends, except Roy. But towards the end of term, he began to ask us one by one to visit him. The curious thing was, he was asking us to visit him not for his own sake, but for ours. ‘I don’t think,’ Roy said sadly, ‘he wants to see anyone at all. He’s just asking out of consideration for our feelings. He’s becoming very kind.’ He knew that we should be hurt if he seemed indifferent to our company. So he put up with it. It was a sign of the supreme consideration which filled him as his life was ending.
It was strange to go into his bedroom, and meet the selflessness of this dying man. It was stranger still to leave him, and return into the rancour of the college.
For Nightingale had already become a focus of hate, and had started a campaign against Jago. It was a campaign of propaganda, concentrated with all his animosity and force. He was devoting himself to finding usable facts; and each night, unless one of Jago’s active friends was near, he would grind them out.
The sneers did not aim at Jago himself, but at those round him. First his wife. Nightingale brought out, night after night, stories of her assuming that the Lodge was already hers: how she had enquired after eighteenth-century furniture, to suit the drawing-room: how she had called for pity because she did not know where they were going to find more servants. He jeered at her accent and her social origin: ‘the suburbs of Birmingham will be a comedown after Lady Muriel’.
That particular gibe made Brown very angry, but probably, both he and I agreed, did little harm.
Others were more insidious. Nightingale harped away about her absurd flirtations. It was true. They had been common in the past. They were the flirtations of a woman with not a shred of confidence in her attractions, trying to prove them — so much more innocent, yet sometimes more unbalanced, than the flirtations which spring up through desire.
After Mrs Jago, Nightingale’s next point of attack was Jago’s supporters and friends, and most of all Roy Calvert. I came in for a share of obloquy, but the resentment he felt for me seemed to become transferred to Roy. Roy’s love affairs — for the first time they were discussed across the combination room table. Joan’s name was mentioned. Someone said she would soon be engaged to Roy. Engaged? Nightingale smiled.
This gossip went seething round. Despard-Smith said one night in my hearing: ‘Extraordinary young man Calvert is. I’m worried about him. I saw him in the court this afternoon and, after what I’ve heard recently, I asked if he was thinking of marriage. He made a most extraordinary reply. He said: “The Calverts are not the marrying kind. My father was, of course, but he was an exception.” I’m worried about the young man. I’m beginning to be afraid he has no sense of humour.’ Despard-Smith frowned. ‘And I’m beginning to wonder whether, in his own best interests, he oughtn’t to be advised to apply for a post in the British Museum.’
The propaganda began to endow Jago’s side with a colour of raffishness. It was a curious result, when one thought of Brown and Chrystal, the leaders of the party and the solidest people in the college. Nevertheless, that was the result, and we in Jago’s party were ourselves affected by it. In a short time, Nightingale had driven the two sides further apart. By the end of term, high table was often uncomfortable to dine at. Men formed the habit of looking at the names of those down for dinner, and crossing off their own if there were too many opponents present. It became less a custom to stay for wine after hall.