He still stood in his mackintosh in front of the fire. He could not force himself to go out.
‘You’d better come with me, Eliot,’ he broke out. ‘Brown’s got to be told. He’ll want to talk to you.’
I refused.
‘There’s nothing for me to say,’ I told him. I was too downcast: why should I help spare his feelings?
‘Brown’s got to be told. I shan’t take long about it,’ said Chrystal, standing still.
‘It’s late already — to tell him what you’re going to.’
‘I accept that,’ said Chrystal. ‘Well, I’ll do it. You’d better join us in a few minutes, Eliot. You see eye to eye with Brown on this. He’d like to have you there. I shall have to go. As soon as I’ve told him. I’ve got plenty to do tonight.’
As he spoke he started out of the room. Half an hour later I followed him. Brown was sitting deep in his habitual armchair; his face was sombre. Chrystal, his mackintosh unbuttoned, stood with his back to the fire, and his mouth was drawn down into lines unhappy and ill-treated. When I entered, it seemed as though neither had spoken for minutes past; and it was a time before Brown spoke.
‘I gather that you have an inkling of this change in the situation,’ he said to me.
I said yes.
A moment later, there were light and very rapid footsteps on the stairs. In burst Jago, his eyes blazing.
‘I’m extremely sorry,’ he said to Brown. His tone was wild, and he turned on Chrystal with a naked intensity. His skin was grey, and yet the grimace of his lips was for all the world as though he smiled. ‘It was you I wanted to find,’ he said. ‘It is necessary for me to see you. This note you’ve been good enough to send me — I should like to be quite certain what you mean.’
‘I had not realized,’ said Brown in a quiet, measured voice, ‘that you had informed Jago already. I rather got the impression that you were speaking to me first.’
Chrystal’s chin was sunk into his chest.
‘I wrote before I came,’ he said.
43: Each is Alone
For an instant — was it an illusion — they seemed quite motionless. In that tableau, Brown was sitting with his fingers interlaced on his waistcoat, his eyes fixedly watching the other two: Chrystal’s head was bent, he was staring at the carpet, his forehead shone under the light, his chin rested on his chest: Jago stood a yard away, and there was still a grimace on his lips that looked like a smile.
‘I must have got hold of the wrong impression,’ said Brown.
‘Many of us,’ Jago flared out, ‘have got hold of wrong impressions. It would have been extraordinary if we hadn’t. I’ve seen some remarkable behaviour from time to time—’
Chrystal raised his head and faced Jago with a bold assertive gaze. What had passed between him and Brown I did not know; but I felt that he had said little, he had not tried to explain himself, he had stood there in silence.
‘I’m not taking those strictures from you, Jago,’ he said.
‘At last I can say what I think,’ said Jago.
‘We can all say what we think,’ said Chrystal.
‘This isn’t very profitable,’ said Brown.
At the sound of that steady, monitory voice, Jago frowned. Then quite suddenly he began to talk to Chrystal in an urgent, reasonable seeming, almost friendly manner.
‘I think we’ve always understood each other,’ Jago said to Chrystal. ‘You’ve never made any pretence that you wanted me as Master on my own merits, such as they are. You were presented with two distinctly unpleasing candidates, and you decided that I was slightly the less unpleasing of the two. You mustn’t think it was a specially grateful position for me to be placed in — but at any rate there was no pretence about it. We both knew where we stood and made the best of it. Isn’t that true?’
‘There’s something in it,’ said Chrystal. ‘But—’
‘There’s everything in it,’ cried Jago. ‘We’ve had a working understanding that wasn’t very flattering to me. We both of us knew that we had very little in common. But we managed to adjust ourselves to this practical arrangement. You disliked the idea of my opponent more than you did me — and we took that as our common ground. It’s lasted us all these months until tonight. And it seems to me sheer abject folly that it shouldn’t last us a few hours longer.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This will all be over tomorrow morning. Why have you suddenly let your patience get the better of you? I know only too clearly that you’re not very pleased at the idea of me as Master. We’ve both known that all along. Chrystal, I know we don’t get on at heart. I’m not going to pretend: I know we never shall. But we’ve made shift for long enough now. It’s too serious for us to indulge our likes and dislikes at the last minute. I’m ready now to talk over all the practical arrangements that we can conceivably make for the future. I’m asking you to think again.’
‘There’s no point in that.’
‘I’m asking you to think again,’ said Jago, with feverish energy. ‘We can make a working plan. I’m prepared to leave certain things in the college to you. It won’t remove the misunderstanding between us — but it will save us from the things we want most of all to avoid.’
‘What do I want most of all to avoid?’ asked Chrystal.
‘Having my opponent inflicted on you.’
‘You’re wrong, Jago.’ Chrystal shook his head.
‘How am I wrong?’
‘I don’t mind Crawford being Master. I did once. It was my mistake. He’ll make a good Master.’
Jago heard but seemed not to understand. His expression remained strained to the limit of the nerves, angry and yet lit by his nervous hope. It remained so, just as when one reads a letter and the words spell out bad news, one’s smile takes some time to go. Jago had not yet realized in his heart what Chrystal had said.
‘You know as well as I do,’ said Jago, ‘that seeing him elected is the last thing any of us want.’
‘I take you up on that.’
‘Do you seriously deny it?’
‘I do,’ said Chrystal.
‘I’m very much afraid that you’re—’
‘I’m sorry, Jago,’ said Chrystal. ‘I’d better make it clear. Crawford will be a good Master. You’ve got the advantage over him in some respects. I’ve always said that, and I stick to it.’
He paused. He kept his gaze on Jago: it was firm, satisfied, and curiously kindly.
‘That’s not the whole story,’ he went on. ‘I don’t like saying this, Jago, but I’ve got to. You’ve got the advantage over him in some respects — but by and large he will make a better Master than you would have done.’
Jago gasped. It seemed that that was the moment when he began to know and suffer.
‘Don’t worry too much,’ said Chrystal, with his curt, genuine, almost physical concern. ‘It isn’t everyone who’s suitable to be a Master. It isn’t always the best—’
‘Now you want to patronize me,’ said Jago, very quietly.
A faint flush tinged the thick-skinned pallor of Chrystal’s cheeks.