He put through his call, and came back shaking his head.
‘Absolutely hopeless,’ he said. ‘They say they just couldn’t find any signs of intelligence at all. Well, I knew he was dense, but I shouldn’t have believed that he was as dense as that.’
The meeting was called for half-past eleven. As the room filled up, one kept hearing whispers about young Winslow. In the midst of the bustle, men asked each other if they had heard. Some were speaking in malice, some in good nature, some in a mixture of the two. At last Winslow himself entered, heavy-footed, carrying his cap but not swinging it in his normal fashion. He was looking down, and went straight to his place.
‘Ah, good morning, Winslow,’ cried Gay, who had not grasped the news.
‘Good morning to you,’ said Winslow. His voice was deadened. He was immersed in his wretchedness.
Despard-Smith was just opening the meeting when Gay said: ‘I have a small presentation to make, before we begin our discussion on these excellent agenda. I wish to present to the society, for inclusion in the library, this copy of my latest publication. I hope and expect that most fellows have already bought it. I hope you’ve bought yours, Brown? I hope you have, Crawford?’
He rose precariously to his feet, and laid a copy in front of Despard-Smith.
‘As a matter of fact, I haven’t yet,’ said Crawford. ‘I’ve noticed one or two reviews.’
‘Ah. Reviews,’ said Gay. ‘Those first reviews have a lukewarm tendency that I don’t like to see.’
Suddenly, distracted from Winslow, I saw how nervous the old man was about his book’s reception. Gay, the least diffident of men, had never lost that nervousness. It did not die with age: perhaps it became sharper.
The meeting began at last. There was only two minutes’ business over livings, but under finance there were several items down. Despard-Smith asked the Bursar if he would ‘take us through’ his business.
Winslow’s head was sunk down.
‘I don’t think it’s necessary,’ he muttered. He did not raise his eyes. Everyone was looking at him.
Then it came to Jago to describe the examination results. He passed from subject to subject in the traditional Cambridge order, mathematics, classics, natural sciences… Most people at the meeting knew only a handful of the young men he was talking about; but his interest in each was so sharp that he kept a hold upon the meeting. He came to history. The table was very quiet. ‘One brilliant and altogether deserved success,’ he said in his thick voice. ‘Some of us know the struggle that young man had to come here at all. I’m prepared to bet, Mr Deputy, that he’s going to write his name in the story of this college.’ Then with a grin, he said how much the society ought to congratulate Brown on squeezing Timberlake through. Jago then studied his papers, and paused. ‘I think there’s nothing else to report about the historians.’ Very quickly, he turned to the next subject.
It was intended as chivalry, perhaps as more. I could not tell how Winslow received it. He still sat with his head sunk down. There was no sign that he had heard anything of the meeting. He did not speak himself: even for a formal vote, he had to be asked.
We broke off at one o’clock for a cold lunch, and most people ate with zest. Winslow stood apart, with his back to the room. I saw Roy’s eyes upon him, glinting with wild pity. Since the party, his depression had grown heavier still, and he had kept himself alone. I was at once anxious as I saw him watching Winslow, but then someone offered him a decanter of wine and he refused. I thought that he was taking care, and I had no sense of danger.
When we resumed the meeting, Jago dealt with the results of the preliminary examinations. There were enquiries, one or two rotund criticisms, some congratulations.
‘Of course,’ said Despard-Smith, summing up, ‘for a scholar of the college only to get a third class in a university examination is nothing short of s-scandalous. But I think the general feeling of the college is that, taking the rough with the smooth, we can be reasonably satisfied with the achievements of the men. I gather that is your opinion, Senior Tutor?’
‘I should go further. We ought to be proud of them.’
‘You don’t dissent, Tutor?’ Despard-Smith asked Brown.
‘I agree with my senior colleague,’ said Brown. ‘And I should like to draw the college’s attention to the remarkable results that the Dean has once more secured.’
Before the meeting ended, which was not long after, I was set thinking of Despard-Smith’s use of the phrase ‘the men’. That habit went back to the ‘90s: most of us at this table would say ‘the young men’ or ‘the undergraduates’. But at this time, the late 1930s, the undergraduates themselves would usually say ‘the boys’. It was interesting to hear so many strata of speech round one table. Old Gay, for example, used ‘absolutely’, not only in places where the younger of us might quite naturally still, but also in the sense of ‘actually’ or even ‘naturally’ — exactly as though he were speaking in the 1870s. Pilbrow, always up to the times, used an idiom entirely modern, but Despard-Smith still brought out slang that was fresh at the end of the century — ‘crab’, and ‘josser’, and ‘by Jove’. Crawford said ‘man of science’, keeping to the Edwardian usage which we had abandoned. So, with more patience it would have been possible to construct a whole geological record of idioms, simply by listening word by word to a series of college meetings.
This one closed. The fellows filed out, and I waited for Roy. Winslow was still sitting at the table, with the order-book and files in front of him; he seemed not to have the spirit to move. The three of us were left alone in the room. Roy did not glance at me or say a word: he went straight to Winslow, and sat down by his side.
‘I am dreadfully sorry about Dick,’ he said.
‘That’s nice of you.’
‘And I am dreadfully sorry you’ve had to sit here today. When one’s unhappy, it’s intolerable to have people talking about one. It’s intolerable to be watched.’
His tone was full of pain, and Winslow looked up from the table.
‘You don’t care what they say,’ Roy cried, ‘but you want them to leave you alone. But none of us are capable of that much decency. I haven’t much use for human beings. Have you, Winslow, have you? You know what people are feeling now, don’t you? They’re feeling that you’ve been taken down a peg or two. They’re remembering the times you’ve snubbed them. They’re saying how arrogant and rude you’ve been. But they don’t matter. None of us matter.’
His voice was very clear, throbbing with a terrible elation. Winslow stared at him.
‘There is something in what they say, young man,’ he said.
‘Of course there is. There’s something in most things that they say about anyone.’ Roy laughed.
I went round the table to stop him. Roy was talking about the slanders on himself. I had him by the shoulder, but he shook me off. He told Winslow there was something in what Nightingale said.
‘Would you like to know how much there is in it?’ he cried. ‘We’re both miserable. It may relieve you just a bit.’
Winslow raised his voice: ‘Don’t trouble yourself, Calvert. It’s no concern of mine.’
‘That’s why I shall do it.’ There was a sheet of blank paper in front of Winslow. Roy seized it, and began to write quickly. I took hold of his arm, and jogged his pen. He cursed. ‘Go away, Lewis. I’m giving Winslow a little evidence.’ His face was wild with pure elation. ‘This is only for Winslow and me.’ He wrote more, then signed the page. He gave it to Winslow with a smile.
‘This has been a frightful day for you,’ Roy cried. ‘Keep this to remind you that people don’t matter.’