AFTER another day of meetings, which had again been adjourned, without giving Luke and me what we were asking for, I went in the evening to Martin’s rooms. Earlier in the day I had telephoned him, telling him what Crawford had said. The lights in the high eighteenth-century windows, late additions to the court, did not dominate it as they would when it was full dark: they just stood welcoming. I expected Martin to be waiting for me with the result.
What I did not expect was to enter the room and find not Martin, but Howard and his wife waiting there. Howard, who was reading an evening paper, looked up and said hallo. Laura said good-evening, addressing me in full, politely, formally, brightly.
“Martin let us know that the verdict was coming through tonight,” she explained.
“Nothing yet?”
“Not yet.” She remarked that Martin had gone out to see if he could “pick up anything”. Both she and Howard seemed quite undisturbed.
Their nerves were steadier than mine, I thought. If I had been in their place, I couldn’t have endured to plant myself in the college waiting, however certain I had been of what I was going to hear. In fact, the more certain I had been, the more I should have been impelled, by a streak of superstitious touching-wood, which they would both have despised, to make it a bit hard for the good news to catch up with me. In their place, I should have gone for a walk, away from telephones or messengers, and then returned home, hoping the news was there, still wishing that the envelope could stay unopened.
Not so these two. They were so brave that they seemed impervious. Howard had found in the paper something about an English soldier being killed on what he called “one of your colonial adventures”. He would have liked to make me argue about politics. The curious thing was that, as he talked, protruding the Marxist labels, making them sound aggressive, he was also cross because the platoon had walked into an ambush. A cousin of his was serving with that brigade, and Howard suddenly slipped into a concern that I might have heard at Pratt’s, irritated, paternal, patrician. One felt that, change his temperament by an inch, he would have made a good regimental officer.
There was a sound of footsteps on the staircase outside. I knew them for Martin’s, though they might have sounded like a heavier man’s. I stopped talking. Howard was looking towards the door.
Martin came in. He had a piece of paper in his hand. His eyes were so bright that, just for an instant, I thought that all was well. We were sitting round the chimney-piece, and he did not speak until he had reached the rug in front of us.
“I am sorry to be the one to tell you this,” he said to them in a hard voice. “It’s bad.”
Without another word he gave the note to Howard, who read it with an expression open and washed clean. He did not speak, passed the note to his wife, and once more picked up the evening paper. In a moment Laura, her colour dark, a single furrow running across her forehead, gave me the note. It carried the address of the college Lodge, and read:
The Court of Seniors, at the request of the College, have reconsidered the case of Dr D J Howard, formerly a Fellow. They have concluded that there is no sufficient reason for them to amend their previous decision.
R T A Crawford.
Master of the College.
In a tone so quiet that it became a whisper, as though we were in a sick-room or a church, Martin told me that the notice had not yet gone round: it was just being duplicated in the college office, and he had collected a copy there. As he sat down, without saying any more, he looked at me, as if for once he did not know the etiquette, as if he was lost about what to say to these two or do for them. I hadn’t any help to give. He and I sat there in silence, watching Laura gaze with protective love at Howard. He was holding the newspaper low, so as to catch the light from the reading-lamp. The only movement he made, the only movement in the whole room, was that of his eyes as they went down the page.
He did not turn over. I could not tell whether he had stopped reading, or whether he was reading at all.
All of a sudden he let the paper drop. As it fell, the front page drifted loose and we could see the headlines, bold and meaningless, upon the rug.
“I hope they’re satisfied now,” he shouted. He began to swear, and the curses came out high and grating. “Oh, yes,” he cried, “I hope they’re satisfied!” He went on shouting and cursing, as though Martin and I were not there. At last he sat up straight, looked at Martin, and said with a curious sneering politeness: “If it comes to that, I hope you’re satisfied too.”
“Don’t speak like that to me!” Martin broke out. Then, getting back his usual tone, he said: “Look, this isn’t going to get us anywhere–”
“What I want to know is, why wasn’t I asked to talk to that Court again, after they said they’d probably want me? I want to know, who stopped that? I suppose you’re all pleased by the masterly way you’ve handled things. It’s not important to be fair, all that matters is that everything should look fair.”
Howard did not seem to have noticed the flash of Martin’s temper. For him, everyone was an enemy, everyone was a part of “them”, most of all those who had pretended to be working on his side. His voice changed. “I’m positive, if I could explain how I wrote that paper, if I could explain quietly and sensibly and not get panicked, then the Court would see the point.” He was looking ingenuous and hopeful, as though the issue were still in the future and the Court could still be influenced. He was caught up by one of those moments of hope that come in the middle of disasters, when time gets jangled in the mind and it seems that one still has a chance and that with good management one is going to emerge scot-free and happy.
Another splinter of mood: he began to shout again. “By God, they wanted to get me! I should like to have heard what they’ve been saying this last fortnight. I should like to know whether it’s just a coincidence that you happened to be here,” he said to me, with the same jeering courtesy that he had used to Martin. “But I don’t suppose they wanted any extra help. They were determined to get me, and one’s got to hand it to them, they’ve made a nice job of it.”
“It isn’t finished yet,” said Laura. She had gone near to him; she was speaking with impatience and passion.
“They’ve made a very pretty job of it, I think they deserve to be congratulated,” cried Howard.
“For God’s sake,” said Laura, “you’re not giving up like that!”
“I should like to know–”
“You’re not giving up,” she said. “We’ve got to start again, that’s all.”
“You know nothing about it.”
He spoke to her roughly – but there was none of the suspiciousness with which he would have spoken to anyone else that night. Between them there flared up – so ardent as to make it out of place to watch – a bond of sensual warmth, of consolatory warmth.
“It’s not finished yet, is it?” she appealed to Martin.
“No,” he said. He spoke to Howard. “Laura’s right. I suggest we cut the inquests and see about the next step.”
Martin’s manner was business-like but neither enthusiastic nor friendly. He was no saint. He had none of the self-effacingness of those who, in the presence of another’s disaster, don’t mind some of the sufferings being taken out on themselves. He didn’t like being accused of treachery. He would gladly have got Howard out of sight and never seen him again. Martin had himself taken a rebuff, more than a rebuff, in the Seniors’ verdict that night.
“You’ve got a formal method of appeal,” said Martin. “You can appeal to the Visitor, of course.”
“Oh, that’s pretty helpful,” said Howard. “That’s your best idea yet. Do you really think a bishop is going out of his way to do any good to me? And when I think of that particular bishop – Well, that ought to be the quickest way of finishing me off for good and all.” He said it with his paranoid sneer.
A bite in his voice, Martin replied: “I said that it was the formal method. I mentioned it for one reason and one reason only. You’re probably obliged to go through the whole formal machine before you bring an action for wrongful dismissal. I still hope we can get this straight for you without your bringing an action.”
“Do you?”
Martin’s tone kept its edge, although he went on without being provoked: “But after what’s happened, I couldn’t blame you if you went straight ahead. I don’t think any of us could.”
Howard looked startled. He was startled enough to go in for a practical discussion: did Martin really advise him to see a solicitor straight away? No, Martin replied patiently, but it was only fair to say that most men would think it justified. How did one start going about an appeal to the Visitor? Howard went on, beginning to look tired, confused, and absent-minded, his eyes straying to his wife, as though it was she only that he wanted.
Martin continued to reply, ready to bat on about procedure. It was Howard who said that he wasn’t going “to do anything in a hurry”, that he had “had enough for one night”. He left the room with his arm round Laura, and once more the two of us, watching them, felt like voyeurs.
After the door had closed behind them, Martin sat gazing into the grate. At last I said: “Were you prepared for this–?” I pointed to the slip of paper with the Seniors’ verdict.
“I wish I could say yes.”
He answered honestly, but also in a rage. Despite his caution and his warnings – or perhaps because of them – he had been totally surprised, as surprised as any of us. He was furious with himself for being so, and with the men who caused it.
“There’ll have to be a spot of trouble now,” he said, able, since the Howards went, to let the anger show. People often thought that those who “handled” others, “managers” of Martin’s kind, were passionless. They would have been no good at their job if they were. No, what made them effective was that they were capable of being infuriated on the one hand, and managerial on the other.
Vexed as he was, Martin did not lose his competence. There were two tasks in front of him straight away, first to prevent any of his party doing anything silly, second to keep them together. Without wasting time, he said that we had better walk round and see Skeffington; he had heard him say that he was going to dine at home.
When we got to the bottom of the staircase, Martin looked across the court. The chapel door was open wide, a band of light poured on to the lawn; a few young men, gowns pulled round them, were hurrying away from evensong.
“It isn’t anything special in the way of festivals, is it?” said Martin, nodding towards the chapel.
We paused for an instant. There was no sign of Skeffington coming round the path; there was only the chaplain, shutting the door behind him.
Not there, said Martin. We went through the screens, bustling and jostling with young men, some pushing early into the hall, some swinging off with beer-bottles. In the second court there were lights in old Winslow’s rooms.
“I wonder what he thinks he’s doing,” I said.
“He’s never had any judgment,” said Martin. “He took you all in, but he never had much sense.”
I was thinking, as Martin unlocked the side door, how I had seen Winslow in his full power, a formidable man: and how the stock exchange of college reputations went up and down, so that Martin, nine years younger, saw him only as a failure. On that stock exchange, Brown’s reputation had kept steady since my time, Crawford’s had climbed a bit, Nightingale’s had rocketed – while men whose personalities filled the college when I was there, Winslow, Jago, had already been written off long before their deaths.
We crossed to the row of cottages and Martin pulled at the hand bell of Skeffington’s. There was no answer, although from the living-room, faintly lit, came a sound of voices. Martin pulled again. Suddenly lights sprang up behind the curtains, and substantial steps came to the door. It was Mrs Skeffington. As she opened the door, her face was reddened, her manner flustered. She said: “Oh, it’s you two, is it? I’m afraid you’ve caught me on the wrong foot.”
Martin asked if Julian was there.
No, she was alone, he had gone off for a meal at a pub.
Could we come in, since Martin wanted to leave a message for him?
“You’ve caught me on the wrong foot,” Mrs Skeffington repeated, as we sat there in the living-room. I thought I knew why she was so embarrassed. It wasn’t, or at least not immediately, because Julian had gone off alone. She had lived a long time with a marriage which had worn dry, so that she had forgotten how to conceal it, if indeed she had ever tried. No, it was something much sillier. She had been sitting by herself in that little parlour, with a tray in front of her, scrambled eggs on toast and a good stiff whisky: and the sound of voices which we had heard in the lane outside came from the television set. It was now safely turned off, but Mrs Skeffington looked like a great, chapped-cheeked schoolgirl caught in the act: her hearty, brickdropping, county assurance had dropped from her quite. She couldn’t believe that men like Martin and me would have spent such an evening. She had an impression, which filled her with both ridicule and awe, that her husband’s colleagues spent their entire existence at their books. She was certain that if we saw what she had been enjoying, we should despise her. With dazzled relief, she realised that we were not going to question her or comment. She poured out whiskies for us both, drank her own and helped herself to another. She drank, it seemed to me, exactly as her brothers would have done after a day’s hunting.
Martin was set on getting her to understand his news. “Look, Dora, this is important.” Next morning, by the first delivery, Julian would get the Court’s decision. Martin told her the form of words.
“That’s a slap in the eye for some of you, isn’t it?” she said. “They’re as good as saying that old Uncle Cecil wasn’t up to any monkey-business, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they’re certainly saying that.”
“Well,” said Dora Skeffington, “I must say I’m rather glad. None of my family ever thought much of Cecil. My mother used to say that he was a bit common, though I never understood how she made that out. But still, he did more than some of them and he was always decent to me when I was a little girl.”
She sat back, basking in the comfort of family piety and several drinks. But she was neither stupid nor, except when she felt it was due to herself, obtuse. She felt the absence of response. She said: “What’s the matter? Don’t you believe the old man’s all right?”
“Not for a minute. Nor will Julian. That’s why I don’t want him to fly off the handle–”
Martin told her that this meant that the affair had only got worse. None of the revisionists could accept this verdict, neither Julian, nor he, nor Francis, nor any of their followers. All it meant was that they were back where they started, with passions higher. The danger was, Julian might make things worse, if he insisted on behaving like a “wild man”. Martin’s plan was to call a meeting of the majority by the end of the week. Would she tell Julian to keep out of action until then?
“I’ll tell him,” said Dora. “Mind you, I don’t know what good it’ll do.”
She sounded both sad and jocular. Sad because it was a disappointment that old Palairet wasn’t going to be left in peace, and sad too because she couldn’t answer for her husband and spoke of him as one might speak of a not-very-close friend. And at the same time amused, because somehow she thought of her husband, not only as someone worth a certain kind of admiration, but also as a bit of an ass. Superb, handsome, high-minded, priggish, high-principled, extravagantly brave – that was how others saw him, but not she. Yet she was utterly loyal. Loyal partly because it was both her nature and training to be so: but also, oddly, just because their marriage had worn so thin and dry. Somehow that strengthened their knockabout, not-very-close friendship, instead of weakening it. They had become allies, neither of them humorous, each of them priding themselves on “seeing the joke” in the other. It meant that, when she had to choose between Palairet’s good name and her husband’s principles, or even her husband’s whims, there was no choice for her. She would make higher sacrifices than that for him. With her own kind of clumsy devotion, she was with him whatever he wanted to do. Others might admire him more, other women might long for the chance of admiring him, but she happened to be married to him.