EATING a crust, butter sliding on to his fingers, Jago listened to me. Although the sun shone outside, in the room it was cool twilight, and the diffused light gave delicacy and sharpness to his face. He did not criticise or doubt. Once or twice he asked for an explication. He nodded. Suddenly he broke out: “Say no if I’m imposing myself–”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you mind if I come with you to see Brown?”
It was a surprise and not a surprise. He was immersed in the drama. I had known that he was wanting to take a part. Was it just good-nature? He was a man of charm: maybe he still, just for an evening out, so to speak, liked proving that the charm wasn’t lost. Or was it remorse, having turned me down before? Remorse, and the self-satisfaction that things would have gone better if the college had been in his hands?
“I’ve got a feeling,” said Jago, “that Arthur Brown might pay some attention to me. We were close, once.”
On the stroke of nine, we walked together over the cobbles at the foot of Brown’s staircase. After the week’s heat, the smell from the wallflowers beneath the ground-floor windows was dusty and dry. When we had climbed the stairs, I went first into the room. Brown’s greeting was friendly, but not open. When he saw Jago behind me, he grimaced with astonishment.
“My dear Paul!” he cried. He crossed the room and shook hands with Jago. “How ever long is it since you’ve been in here?”
“Longer than I like to think,” said Jago lightly. “And I mustn’t come in now on false pretences, must I?”
“What’s this?” But Brown had known as soon as he saw Jago.
“I’m afraid I’ve come to add my representations to Eliot’s, you know.”
“Is that fair?” asked Brown.
“Don’t you think it is?” said Jago, without self-consciousness.
“Anyway,” said Brown, “it’s very good to have you here, whatever you’ve come for.”
Brown’s affection and pleasure were genuine. Tactically, he was on his guard. He did not need teaching that Jago would try to work on him; nor that, without a purpose, Jago would not have come. It was he who warmed to the reconciliation, if that was what it was, not Jago. And yet Brown had watched Jago let himself slip; he had watched him contract out of all human obligations, except one. To Brown, whatever his luck, any indulgence like that was outside his nature. He was a stoic to the bones; whatever tragedy came his way, the King’s government, the college, his relations with his friends, had to be carried on. He disapproved of Jago’s abandonments; he scarcely understood them and in a sense he despised them. (Perhaps he also envied someone who could so totally let his emotions rip?) Further, he knew, no one better, that Jago had turned against him. But none of this, though it might have tinged Brown’s affection for him, had uprooted it. Brown’s affections, in spite of – or more truly, because of – their being so realistic, were more tenacious than any of ours. He could not change them as he did a suit of clothes or a set of tactics. It was a handicap to him, I used to think, as a politician: perhaps the only handicap he had.
Brown went through the ritual of drink-offering without hastening his pace.
“I’ve got a little white Burgundy waiting for you,” he said to me. “I had an idea it might be rather restful after the work you’ve had to put in. Paul, unless my memory escapes me, you never cared much for it, did you?”
Brown’s memory did not escape him. Jago asked for a sip of whisky.
“I don’t think that’s very difficult,” Brown replied, going out to his gyp-room and bringing back whisky bottle, siphon and jug of water to put by Jago’s side.
“There we all are!” said Brown, settling into his chair. He told Jago that he was looking well. He asked after his garden. He was ready, just as though he were an American businessman, for an indefinite exchange of cordialities before getting to the point. Whoever first came to the point, it would not be he. But it was not really a battle of patience. Jago would have lost it anyway, but he was not playing. Very soon he gave a smile and said: “I’ve been hearing a good deal about this case tonight.”
“Have you, Paul?”
“And about what’s happened in the Court – of course, I don’t question what Eliot’s told me–”
“I’m sure,” said Brown, “that you’re right not to.”
All of a sudden, Jago’s tone sharpened.
“Am I right, Arthur,” he leaned forward, “that you’ve seen this case all along in terms of people? In terms of your judgment of the people concerned?”
Brown’s stonewall response did not come quite so pat. He said: “That may be fair comment.”
“You have always seen everything that way.”
Jago spoke affectionately, but with weight of knowledge, as though drawing on their associations of the past and on history each could remember, as though he still possessed the moral initiative he had had when they were both young men. If I had used the same words to Brown, they would not have meant the same.
“I shouldn’t regard that,” said Brown, “as entirely unjust.”
“But for once, in this case, it may have made you entirely unjust.”
“You can’t expect me to accept that, Paul.”
“I put it to you,” all Jago’s reserves of force were coming out of him, together with a sadic spirt, “that you’ve never been vain about much except your judgment of people?”
“I shouldn’t have thought that I claim much for myself in that respect.”
“Don’t you?”
“I hope not,” said Brown.
“More than you think, Arthur, more than you think.”
“Only a fool,” said Brown, “claims that he knows much about people.”
“Only a fool,” Jago darted in, “claims it in the open. But I’ve known wise men, including you, who claim it to themselves.”
“I can only say again, I hope that isn’t true.”
“Haven’t you assumed all along that young Howard couldn’t be innocent?”
“That’s not quite fair,” said Brown steadily, “but I don’t want to shilly-shally. Put it another way: everything I know about the man makes me think that he could possibly be guilty.”
Jago had an intent, sharp smile.
“As for Nightingale. Haven’t you assumed all along that Nightingale was above reproach? Haven’t you closed your mind to what Getliffe said? Haven’t you refused to believe it?”
“I should find it very hard to believe.”
“Why do you find it hard?”
Brown’s high colour went higher still. He started in a burst of anger, his first that night.
“I regard it as abominably far-fetched.”
“Were you always so convinced that Nightingale was above reproach?” Jago spoke quietly, but again with weight and knowledge. When Brown had been his closest friend and had run him for the Mastership, it had been Nightingale, so they thought then, who had done them down.
After a pause Brown replied: “You have good reason not to like him, Paul.” He paused again. “But we should never, even then, have thought him capable of this–”
“I should have thought him capable of anything,” said Jago. “And I still do.”
“No.” Brown had recovered his confidence and obstinacy. “I can’t see him like that.”
“You’re being blinder than you used to be–”
“You mustn’t think that I’m specially fond of him. I don’t mind telling you, we haven’t got much in common. But it sticks in my gullet not to do one’s best for the chap with a record like his.”
A military record, Brown meant. Was this one of the reasons, I suddenly thought, for what had baffled me all along – Brown’s loyalty to Nightingale and the origin of it? Brown, who on medical grounds missed the first war, had the veneration for physical courage of those who doubted their own. But, more than that, he had a kind of veneration for the military life. Tory, intensely patriotic, he believed, almost as simply as he might have done as a child, that, while he was sitting in his college rooms during two wars, men like Nightingale had kept him safe. He was one of those rare men who liked recognising their debts. Most of us were disposed to deny our gratitude. Arthur Brown was singular because he actually liked not denying his.
“I feel,” Brown said, “a man like that deserves a bit of looking after.”
“You mean, that you won’t let yourself see him as straight as you let yourself see anyone else?”
“I mean,” Brown replied, unmoved, “that when I sit next to him in hall I am prepared to make a few allowances.”
“Arthur,” said Jago, “do you realise how much you’re evading me?”
“He’s not an easy man. And I like an easy man,” said Brown, with impenetrable obstinacy. “But I feel he’s entitled to a bit of protection.”
“You mean, you won’t let yourself entertain any suspicion of him, however reasonable?”
“I do not admit for a second that this is reasonable.”
“You won’t even admit the possibility, not even the possibility, that he did this?” Jago said with violence.
“As I think I’ve told you, I should find it very hard to admit that.”
It was then I thought Jago had come to the end, and so had we all.
Jago switched again.
“I should like to tell you something about myself, Arthur.”
He had spoken intimately. Brown, still on guard, said yes.
“I should like to tell you something about my wife. I’ve never said it to anyone, and I never thought I should.”
“How is she, Paul?” asked Brown. He said it with warmth.
“You never liked her much, did you? No” – Jago was smiling brilliantly – “none of my friends did. It’s too late to pretend now. Oh, I can understand how you feel about her. And I hope you understand that I’ve loved her all my life and that she is the only woman I have ever loved.”
“I think I knew that,” Brown said.
“Then perhaps you’ll know why I detest speaking of her to people who don’t like her,” Jago flashed out, not only with love for his wife, but with intense pride. “Perhaps you’ll know why I detest speaking of her in the way I’ve got to this very moment.”
“Yes, I think I do.” Now Brown was speaking intimately.
“I’ve never spoken to you or anyone else about the last election. I suppose I’ve got to now.”
“It’s better to let it lie,” said Brown.
“No. I suppose everyone still remembers that this man Nightingale sent round a note with a reference to my wife?”
“I hope that’s all long forgotten,” said Brown, as though to him it really was a distant memory, one pushed for good sense’s sake deep down.
“I can’t believe that!” cried Jago.
“People don’t remember these things as you think they do,” said Brown.
“Do you imagine I don’t remember it? Do you think that many days have passed when I haven’t had to remember every intolerable thing that happened to me at that time?”
“It’s no use saying so, but I’ve always wished you wouldn’t dwell on it.”
“It’s no use saying so. Don’t you think my wife remembers everything that happened? Most of all, the note that this man Nightingale sent round?”
Brown nodded.
“If it hadn’t been for what Nightingale did then, she believed then and she still believes things might have gone the other way. So she thinks she ruined me.”
“Looking back,” said Brown, “for any comfort it may be worth, I don’t believe it made a decisive difference–”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Jago, brilliant, set free. “My wife does. She did so at the time. That is what I have to tell you. Do you know what she did, three months after the election was over?”
“I’m afraid I can guess,” said Brown.
“Yes, she tried to take her life. I found her one night with her bottle of sleeping-pills empty beside her. And a note. You can imagine what the note said.”
“I can.”
After an instant’s pause, Jago glanced straight at Brown and said: “And so I feel entitled to ask you not to rule out the possibility, the bare possibility, that this man Nightingale may have done something else. I admit there’s no connection. So far as I know, he may have been spotless ever since. But still I feel entitled to ask you not to rule the possibility out.”
Brown said: “You’re not making this easy for either of us, are you?”
“Do you think,” cried Jago, “that it’s been easy for me to tell you this?”
Brown did not reply at once. I heard the hiss and tinkle as Jago refilled his glass.
Then suddenly Jago, as though in a flash he had seen Brown’s trouble, made another switch.
“You won’t admit the possibility, not even the possibility, that in any circumstances Howard might be innocent?”
For an instant Brown’s face lightened, as though he welcomed Jago’s question, put that way round.
He said: “Will you repeat what you’ve just asked me?”
When Jago had done so, Brown sat without expression. Then he said, slowly and deliberately: “No, I can’t be as positive as that.”
“Then you do admit the possibility that the man’s innocent?” Jago threw back his head in triumph.
“The bare possibility. I think I shouldn’t be comfortable with myself unless I do.”
I lit a cigarette. I felt the anticlimax of relief.
“Well, what action are you going to take?” Jago pressed him.
“Oh, that’s going much too far. I shan’t even have my own mind clear until tomorrow.”
With friendly roughness Jago went on: “Never mind the formalities. There’s some action you must take.”
“I’ve still not decided what it is.”
“Then it’s pretty near time you did.”
Jago drank some whisky, laughing, exhilarated because he had got home.
“An old dog can’t change his tricks. I’m not as quick as some of you,” said Brown, domesticating the situation. “You mustn’t expect too much. Remember, both of you, I’ve only admitted the bare possibility. I’m not prepared to see other people blackguarded for the sake of that. And that’s as far as I’m able to go tonight. Even that means eating more of my words than I like doing. I don’t mind it with you, Paul, but it isn’t so congenial elsewhere. Still, I’ve got this far. I think I shouldn’t be entirely easy if we didn’t make some accommodation for Howard.”
Brown did not like saying he had been wrong. He liked it less than vainer men: for, genuinely humble as he was, believing without flummery that many men were more gifted, he nevertheless had two sources of pride. One was, as Jago had told him, in his summing-up of people: the other was in what he himself would have called his judgment. He believed that half his colleagues were cleverer than he was, but he didn’t doubt he had more sense. Now, for once, that modest conceit was deflated. And yet he seemed, not only resentful, but relieved. For days, I suspected, maybe for weeks, his stubbornness – which, as he grew older, was becoming something more than tenacity, something more like an obsession – had been fighting both with his realism and his conscience. Brown had had his doubts about the Howard case. Perhaps, as with many characters of exceptional firmness, he had them and did not have them. He didn’t mind, in secret he half-welcomed, the call Jago had made on his affections. For Brown had been able to use it as an excuse. Just as Jago was not above working his charm, his intensity, for his own purposes (was this half-revenge, I had been thinking? had he exaggerated the story he had just told?), so Brown was not above working the strength of his own affections. He was really looking for an excuse inside himself for changing. The habit of stubbornness was becoming too strong for him. He was getting hypnotised by the technique of his nature. He was glad of an excuse to break out. His affection for Jago gave him precisely that. It allowed him, as a visit from me alone almost certainly would not have done, to set his conscience free.
There was another reason, though, not so lofty, why Brown welcomed an excuse to change. His own stubbornness, his own loyalties, had been getting in the way of his political sense. He knew as well as anyone that during the affair he had mismanaged the college. If he “stuck in his heels”, he would go on mismanaging it. In the end, since much of Brown’s power depended on a special kind of trust, it would take his power away.
It had been astonishing to me, throughout the affair, how far stubbornness could take him. He was a supreme political manager. Nevertheless, his instincts had ridden him; they had ridden him right away from political wisdom; for the only time in his career as a college boss, he had not been sensible.
But now at last, triggered by that night, his conscience and his sense of management, which pulled in the same direction, were too strong.
In euphoria, Jago was talking about the college, rather as though he were visiting it, from the loftiest position in the great world outside, after a lapse of years. He mentioned Tom Orbell, who had been his last bright pupil. Brown was unbuttoned enough to say: “Between ourselves, Paul, I hope that young man gets a very good job elsewhere.” None of us needed an explanation of that sinister old college phrase. It meant that a man, even though a permanency as Tom was, would be under moral pressure to apply for other posts. It was getting late, and Jago and I stood up to say goodbye.
“Don’t let it be so long before you come in again,” said Brown to Jago.
“It shan’t be long!” Jago cried.
I wondered how long it would be.
“It shan’t be long!” Jago hallooed back up the stairs.
When we got into the court, I realised that he was unsteady on his feet, on feet abnormally small and light for such a heavy man. I had not paid attention, but he had been drinking hard since we arrived. I should have liked to know how much he drank with his wife at home. Cheerfully he weaved his way at my side to the side gate.
The fine spell had broken. The sky was overcast, a bleak wind blew into our faces, but Jago did not notice.
“Beautiful night!” he cried. “Beautiful night!”
He fumbled his key in the lock, until I took it from him and let him out.
“Shall you be all right?” I asked.
“Of course I shall be all right,” he said. “It’s a nice walk home. It’s a beautiful walk home.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Go and sleep well,” he said.