‘I was certain you’d see it that way, Winslow,’ said Chrystal, with relief, with excessive heartiness. I was watching Roy Calvert, half-expecting him to say more: but he gave a twitch of a smile, and let it slide. It was too forlorn a hope even for him.
Chrystal proceeded down the list.
‘Crawford. Jago. Already dealt with. Brown. The next senior is Brown,’ he said. ‘Brown. I’m asking you to think carefully about him. Isn’t he the man for a compromise candidate?’
Winslow looked up for a second.
‘That’s a very remarkable suggestion, Dean,’ he said with savage sarcasm, with a flicker of his old spirit.
‘Isn’t he much too young? I don’t see how the college could possibly consider anyone so junior,’ said Despard-Smith.
‘He’s forty-seven,’ said Chrystal.
‘It’s dangerous to have young men in these positions,’ said Despard-Smith. ‘One never knows how they’ll turn out.’
‘Brown won’t alter till he dies,’ I said. It seemed strange that anyone, even Despard-Smith, should think of Brown as young.
‘I don’t think his age is a reason against him,’ said Francis Getliffe. ‘But—’
‘I know everything you’re going to say,’ said Chrystal. ‘I know all about Brown. I know him better than any one of you. He’s been my best friend since we were up together. He’s not brilliant. He’ll never set the Thames on fire. People would think it was a dim election. But there are things in Brown that you don’t see until you’ve known him for years. He’d pull the place together.’
‘My dear Dean,’ said Winslow, ‘it would mean twenty years of stodge.’
‘I should have considered,’ said Despard-Smith, ‘that if we were to take the serious step of looking at such junior fellows, we should want to consider you yourself long before Brown.’
‘I couldn’t look at it,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’m not up to it. I know my limitations. I’m not fit to be Master. Brown is. I’d serve under him and think myself lucky.’
He spoke with absolute humility and honesty. It was not put on, there was none of the stately mannered mock-modesty of college proceedings. This was the humility and honesty of his heart. It was so patent that no one challenged it.
He pressed on about Brown. I said that I would prefer him to any other compromise candidate. Less warmly, Roy said that, if the first vote in chapel did not give Jago a majority, he would not mind transferring to Brown on the second turn. Francis Getliffe said that, if the first vote were a stalemate, he would consider doing the same as Roy. With that kind of backing, such as it was, Chrystal argued with the other two into the early morning: he was not touchy, he did not give way to pique, he just sat there and argued as the quarters went on chiming away the night; he sat there, strong in his physical prepotence, persuading, browbeating, exclaiming with violence, wooing and bursting into temper.
Everyone in the room but himself knew that he must fail. Winslow was mostly silent, but every word he spoke was edged with unhappy contempt. Despard-Smith was solemnly obstinate. Everyone knew but Chrystal that neither would ever consent to vote for Brown. The last hope of compromise had gone. Yet Chrystal seemed undiscouraged. By midnight the rest of us would have given it up as useless but he kept us there till after two o’clock.
At the last he won one concession through the others’ sheer fatigue. He got them to admit that Brown was the only possible third candidate.
‘It’s obvious,’ he said. ‘Several of us here have said they might come round to him. Do you quarrel with that, Despard?’
Despard-Smith wearily shook his head.
‘That’s good enough for me,’ said Chrystal. ‘It means that Brown must be asked whether he’ll stand. It may come to it. We can’t leave it in the air. I’ll speak to him in the morning.’
His face was fresh, he was smiling, he was obscurely satisfied. He looked at his clock on the mantelpiece.
‘I shan’t have to wait long,’ he said. ‘It is the morning already.’
40: ‘I Have Had a Disappointing Life’
Chrystal had kept us up so late that I slept until the middle of the morning. It was December 17th, a dark and stormy day: the wind was howling again, for the westerly gales had returned; it was not cold, but the heavy clouds hung over the roofs, and in the afternoon Roy and I built up the fire in my sitting-room for the sake of the blaze. We compared impressions of Chrystal’s tactics and manner on the night before. Why had he persisted against all rational sense? Why had he gone away so pleased? Was it because he wanted to prove to Brown that, whatever he did in this election, he was still completely affectionate and loyal? That was part of it, we felt sure: but we did not believe it was the end.
As we were talking across the fire, a double and deliberate knock sounded on the door. ‘Uncle Arthur in person,’ said Roy, and we both smiled as Brown came in. But Brown’s smile in return was only formal.
He sat down, looked into the fire, and said in a constrained tone: ‘I wanted to see you both. I am told that, without my consent, I was mentioned as a candidate last night. Did you have anything to do with this?’
He was grimly indignant. We told him what we had each promised. ‘I was glad to do it,’ I said. ‘I should enjoy voting for you. It would be admirable to see you in the Lodge.’
He did not respond. After a time he said: ‘I suppose you all intended it kindly.’
‘I don’t know about kindly,’ I said. ‘It was intended to show what we feel about you.’
‘I hope you all intended it kindly,’ said Brown.
‘Chrystal wanted the chance to say you ought to be Master,’ said Roy.
‘So he told me.’
‘It’s quite true.’
‘It should have been obvious to him that I could not conceivably be a candidate in these circumstances,’ said Brown. ‘The only result of my name being mentioned is to stand in Jago’s light. It can only mean dissensions in Jago’s party and no responsible man can see it otherwise. I am very sorry that Chrystal should have seen fit to use my name for that purpose. And I am obliged to tell you that I am sorry you two associated yourselves with it.’
‘You ought to believe that we mean what we say,’ I replied.
‘I realize you didn’t mind paying me a compliment,’ said Brown, as though making an effort to be fair. ‘What I can’t make out is how anyone as astute as you can have lost your head and behaved in this irresponsible fashion. Surely you can see that nothing is gained by paying useless compliments when things are as delicate as they are now, three days away from the event. It is nothing more nor less than playing into the hands of the other side. It looks as though I was being made a tool of.’
‘Have you told Chrystal?’
‘I have. I’m not prepared to have people think that I’m being made a tool of.’
I had never seen him so completely shaken out of reason and tolerance and charity — not even when Pilbrow defected. His whole picture of ‘decent behaviour’ had been thrown aside. He liked to think of himself as the manager of the college, the power behind the meetings; but, as I had often noticed, as for instance in the first approach to Luke, he was always scrupulous in keeping within the rules; he was not easy unless he was well thought of and in good repute. It upset him to imagine that people were not thinking that he had planned an intrigue with his friend, so as to get in as a last-minute compromise. It upset him equally if they thought he was just a cats-paw. In the end, he had an overwhelmingly strong sense of his own proper dignity and of the behaviour he wanted the world to see.
He was also, of course, the most realistic of men: he saw the position with clear eyes, and it made him angrier still with Chrystal. He knew very well that he was not being offered even a remote chance: he felt he was just being asked to save Chrystal’s conscience. And that was the most maddening of his thoughts: that was the one which made him come and reproach Roy and me as though he could not forgive us. For Brown could see — no one more sharply — the conflict, vacillation, temptation, and gathering purpose of his friend. He could not control him now; for the first time in twenty years he found his own will being crossed by Chrystal. Chrystal might do more yet: in moments of foresight Brown could see the worst of ends. When Chrystal came to him with this gesture, Brown felt that he had lost.