you, Calvert. I thought you’d left us. Have you had any of this excellent stickjaw cake?’
‘I was wondering whether it was too heavy for me,’ said Roy Calvert.
‘I must congratulate the Steward. Winslow, I congratulate you on the remarkably fine tea you’ve given us.’
‘My dear Professor,’ said Winslow, ‘I was a most uninspired Steward: and I gave up being so five-and-twenty years ago.’
‘Then congratulate the new Steward for me,’ said Gay, quite unabashed, picking out a chocolate eclair. ‘Tell him from me that he’s doing splendid work.’
We stood round, occupied with tea. Everyone was in the room except Crawford; snatches of conversation kept reaching me and fading away. Chrystal and Brown had a quiet word, and then Chrystal moved to the side of the Master’s Deputy, Despard-Smith, who was listening with a solemn, puzzled expression to Roy Calvert. Chrystal plucked the sleeve of his gown, and they backed into the window: I heard a few words in Chrystal’s brisk whisper – ‘Master…announce the position…most inadvisable to discuss it…dangerous…some of us would think it improper.’ As in all the whispered colloquies before meetings, the s’s hissed across the room.
The half hour struck. Despard-Smith said, in his solemn voice – ‘It is more than time we started,’ and we took our places in order of seniority, one to the right, and one to the left of the chair. Round the table clockwise from Despard-Smith’s left hand, the order became – Pilbrow, Crawford (whose place was still empty), Brown, Nightingale, myself, Luke, Calvert, Getliffe, Chrystal, Jago, Winslow, Gay.
There was one feature of this curious system of seating: it happened at that time to bring side by side the bitterest antipathies in the college, Jago and Winslow, Crawford and Brown, Nightingale and myself.
Despard-Smith looked round the table for silence. His face looked grey, lined, mournful above his clerical collar, grey above his black coat. He was seventy, and the only fellow then in orders, but he had never held a living; in fact, he had lived continuously in college since he entered it as a freshman fifty-one years before. He had been second wrangler in the days of the old mathematical tripos, and had been elected immediately after, as was often the practice then. He did no more mathematics, but became bursar at thirty and did not leave go of the office until he was over sixty. He was a narrow, competent man who had saved money for the college like a French peasant, and at any attempts to spend, predicted the gravest catastrophe. He had the knack of investing any cliché with solemn weight. At seventy he still kept a curious brittle, stiff authority. He prided himself on his sense of humour: and, since he was also solemn and self-assured, he accordingly became liable to some of Roy Calvert’s more eccentric enquiries.
It lay in the Master’s power to name his own deputy: and Despard-Smith had been appointed by the Master under seal in December, at the beginning of his illness – probably because the Master, like all the older fellows, could not struggle free from the long years in which Despard-Smith as bursar had held the college down.
‘I shall now ask for the minutes,’ he said. He stuttered on the ‘m’: he sometimes stuttered slightly on the operative word: it added to his gravity and weight.
Everyone there was anxious to come to the question of the Mastership. Some were more than anxious: but we could not do it. Custom ordained a rigid order of business, first college livings and then finance. The custom was unbreakable. And so we settled down to a desultory discussion about who should be offered a country living worth £325 a year. It carried with it a rectory with fourteen bedrooms. In the eighteenth century it had been worth exactly the same figure, and then it had been a prize for which the fellows struggled. Now it was going to be hard to fill. Despard-Smith considered that a
‘I was wondering whether it was too heavy for me,’ said Roy Calvert.
‘I must congratulate the Steward. Winslow, I congratulate you on the remarkably fine tea you’ve given us.’
‘My dear Professor,’ said Winslow, ‘I was a most uninspired Steward: and I gave up being so five-and-twenty years ago.’
‘Then congratulate the new Steward for me,’ said Gay, quite unabashed, picking out a chocolate eclair. ‘Tell him from me that he’s doing splendid work.’
We stood round, occupied with tea. Everyone was in the room except Crawford; snatches of conversation kept reaching me and fading away. Chrystal and Brown had a quiet word, and then Chrystal moved to the side of the Master’s Deputy, Despard-Smith, who was listening with a solemn, puzzled expression to Roy Calvert. Chrystal plucked the sleeve of his gown, and they backed into the window: I heard a few words in Chrystal’s brisk whisper – ‘Master…announce the position…most inadvisable to discuss it…dangerous…some of us would think it improper.’ As in all the whispered colloquies before meetings, the s’s hissed across the room.
The half hour struck. Despard-Smith said, in his solemn voice – ‘It is more than time we started,’ and we took our places in order of seniority, one to the right, and one to the left of the chair. Round the table clockwise from Despard-Smith’s left hand, the order became – Pilbrow, Crawford (whose place was still empty), Brown, Nightingale, myself, Luke, Calvert, Getliffe, Chrystal, Jago, Winslow, Gay.
There was one feature of this curious system of seating: it happened at that time to bring side by side the bitterest antipathies in the college, Jago and Winslow, Crawford and Brown, Nightingale and myself.
Despard-Smith looked round the table for silence. His face looked grey, lined, mournful above his clerical collar, grey above his black coat. He was seventy, and the only fellow then in orders, but he had never held a living; in fact, he had lived continuously in college since he entered it as a freshman fifty-one years before. He had been second wrangler in the days of the old mathematical tripos, and had been elected immediately after, as was often the practice then. He did no more mathematics, but became bursar at thirty and did not leave go of the office until he was over sixty. He was a narrow, competent man who had saved money for the college like a French peasant, and at any attempts to spend, predicted the gravest catastrophe. He had the knack of investing any cliché with solemn weight. At seventy he still kept a curious brittle, stiff authority. He prided himself on his sense of humour: and, since he was also solemn and self-assured, he accordingly became liable to some of Roy Calvert’s more eccentric enquiries.
It lay in the Master’s power to name his own deputy: and Despard-Smith had been appointed by the Master under seal in December, at the beginning of his illness – probably because the Master, like all the older fellows, could not struggle free from the long years in which Despard-Smith as bursar had held the college down.
‘I shall now ask for the minutes,’ he said. He stuttered on the ‘m’: he sometimes stuttered slightly on the operative word: it added to his gravity and weight.
Everyone there was anxious to come to the question of the Mastership. Some were more than anxious: but we could not do it. Custom ordained a rigid order of business, first college livings and then finance. The custom was unbreakable. And so we settled down to a desultory discussion about who should be offered a country living worth £325 a year. It carried with it a rectory with fourteen bedrooms. In the eighteenth century it had been worth exactly the same figure, and then it had been a prize for which the fellows struggled. Now it was going to be hard to fill. Despard-Smith considered that a
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