In the Council Chamber a momentary silence followed the Master’s announcement. Then the Senior Tutor spoke.
“This is outrageous,” he shouted. “The statutes are out of date. The position of the Master is a purely formal one.”
“I admire your consistency,” snapped the Master. “As the upholder of outmoded traditions you should be the first to congratulate me for reassuming powers that are a legacy of the past.”
“I am not prepared to stand by and see College traditions flouted,” shouted the Dean.
“They are not being flouted. Dean,” said Sir Godber, “they are being applied. As to your standing by, if by that you mean that you wish to resign your fellowship, I shall be happy to accept your resignation.”
“I did not say anything…” stuttered the Dean.
“Didn’t you?” interrupted the Master, “I thought you did. Am I to understand that you withdraw your -”
“He never made it,” the Senior Tutor was on his feet now. “I find your behaviour quite unwarranted. We, sir, are not some pack of schoolboys that you can dictate to -”
“If you behave like schoolboys, you may expect to be treated like schoolboys. In any case the analogy was yours not mine. Now if you would be so good as to resume your seat the meeting may continue.” The Master looked icily at the Fellows and the Senior Tutor sat down.
“I shall take this opportunity, gentlemen,” said Sir Godber after a long pause, “to enlighten you on my views about the function of the College in the modern world. I must confess that I am astonished to find that you seem unaware of the changes that have taken place in recent years. Your attitude suggests that you regard the College as part of a private domain of which you are custodians. Let me disabuse you of that notion. You are part of the public realm, with public duties, public obligations and public functions. The fact that you choose to ignore them and to conduct the affairs of the College as though they are your personal property indicates to me that you are acting in abuse of your powers. Either we live in a society that is free, open and wholly equalitarian or we do not. As Master of this College I am determined that we shall extend the benefits of education to those who merit it by virtue of ability, irrespective of class, sex, financial standing or race. The days of rotten boroughs are over.” Sir Godber’s voice was strident with idealism and threat. Not since the days of the Protectorate had the Council Chamber of Porterhouse known such vehemence, and the Fellows sat staring at the Master as at some strange animal that had assumed the shape of a man. By the time he had exhausted his theme he had left them in no doubt as to his intentions. Porterhouse would never be the same again. To the long catalogue of changes he had proposed at earlier meetings, he had now added the creation of a student council, with executive powers to decide College appointments and policy. He left the Council Chamber emotionally depleted but satisfied that he had made his point. Behind him the Fellows sat aghast at the crisis they had precipitated. It was a long time before anyone spoke.
“I don’t understand,” said the Dean pathetically, “I simply don’t understand what these people want.” It was clear that in his mind Sir Godber’s eloquence had elevated or possibly debased him from an individual to a class.
“Their own way,” said the Senior Tutor bitterly.
“The Kingdom of Heaven,” shouted the Chaplain.
The Bursar said nothing. His multiple allegiances left him speechless.
Lunch was a mournful occasion. It was the end of term and the Fellows at High Table ate in a silence made all the more noticeable by the lack of conversation from the empty tables below them. To make matters worse, the soup was cold and there was cottage pie. But it was the knowledge of their own dispensability that cast gloom over them. For five hundred years they and their predecessors had ordained at least some portion of the elite that had ruled the nation. It had been through the sieve of their indulgent bigotry that young men had squeezed to become judges and lawyers, politicians and soldiers, men of affairs, all of them imbued with a corporate complacency and an intellectual scepticism that desiccated change. They were the guardians of political inertia and their role was done. They had succumbed at last to the least effectual of politicians.
“A student council to run the College. It’s monstrous,” said the Senior Tutor, but there was no hope in his protest. Despite his cultivated mediocrity of mind, the Senior Tutor had seen change coming. He blamed the sciences for re-establishing the mirage of truth, and still more the pseudomorph subjects like anthropology and economics whose adepts substituted inapplicable statistics for the ineptness of their insights. And finally there was sociology with its absurd maxim. The Proper Study of Mankind is Man, which typically it took from a man the Senior Tutor would have rejected as unfit to cox the rugger boat. And now with Sir Godber triumphant, and the Senior Tutor, at least privately, admitted the Master’s victory. Porterhouse would lose even the semblance of the College he had loved. Sickly unisex would replace the healthy cheerful louts who had helped to preserve the inane innocence and the athleticism that were his only safeguards against the terrors of thought.
“There must be something we can do,” said the Dean.
“Short of murder I can think of nothing,” the Senior Tutor answered.
“Is he really entitled by statute to take over admissions?” The Senior Tutor nodded. “Tradition has it so,” he answered mournfully.
“There’s only one thing they can do now,” said Sir Godber to Lady Mary over coffee.
“And what is that, dear?”
“Surrender,” said the Master. Lady Mary looked up. “How very martial you do sound, Godber,” she said, invoking the ancient spirit of Sir Godber’s pacifism. The Master resisted the call.
“I sounded a good deal more belligerent in the Council,” he said.
“I’m sure you did, dear,” Lady Mary parried.
“I should have thought you would have approved,” Sir Godber said. “After all, if they had their way the College would continue to sell degrees, and exclude women.”
“Oh, don’t think for a moment I am criticizing you,” said Lady Mary. “It’s just that power changes one.”
“It has been said before,” Sir Godber replied wearily. His wife’s insatiable dissatisfaction subdued him. Looking into her earnest face he sometimes wondered what she saw in him. It must be something pretty harrowing, he thought. They’d been happily married for twenty-eight years.
“I’ll leave you to your little victory,” Lady Mary said, getting up and putting her cup on the tray. “I shan’t be in this evening for dinner. It’s my night as a Samaritan.” She went out and Sir Godber poked the fire lethargically. He felt depressed. As usual there had been something in what his wife had said. Power did change one, even the power to dominate a group of elderly Fellows in a fourth-rate college. And it was a little victory after all. Sir Godber’s humanity prevailed. It wasn’t their fault that they opposed the changes that he wanted. They were creatures of habit, comfortable and indulgent habits. Bachelors too – he was thinking of the Dean and the Senior Tutor – without the goad of an empty marriage to spur them to attainment. Good-hearted in their way. Even their personal animosities and petty jealousies sprang from a too constant companionship. When he examined his own motives he found them rooted in inadequacy and personal pique. He would go and speak to the Senior Tutor again and try to establish a more rational ground for disagreement. He got up and carried the coffee cups through to the kitchen and washed up. It was the au pair’s day off. Then he put on his coat and went out into the spring sunshine.