The Masters Read Online Free PDF Page B

scarcely spoken at the table that night, he was not going to intervene now of all times, when Winslow was deliberately, with satisfaction, undermining Jago’s hopes. But I thought that little had escaped young Luke: as acutely as anyone there, he was feeling the antagonism that crackled through the comfort-laden room.
    ‘I didn’t mean,’ said Brown, roundly but with a trace of hurry, ‘that the college could go nearly as far as that at the present time. In fact I’m very dubious whether it would be proper for a college meeting to do more than hear the facts about the Master’s condition. That gives us a chance to talk the matter over privately. I’m afraid I should deprecate doing more.’
    ‘I agree with Brown,’ said Chrystal. ‘I shall propose that we take steps accordingly.’
    ‘You believe in private enterprise, Dean?’ Winslow asked.
    ‘I think the Dean and I believe,’ said Brown, ‘that with a little private discussion, the college may be able to reach a very substantial measure of agreement.’
    ‘I must say that that is a beautiful prospect,’ said Winslow. He looked at Jago, who was sitting back in his chair, his lips set, his face furrowed and proud.
    Winslow rose from the head of the table, picked up his cap, made off in his long loose stride towards the door. ‘Goodnight to you,’ he said.

 
4:  A Piece of Serious Business
     
    I called at Brown’s rooms, as we had arranged with Chrystal, at eleven o’clock next morning. They were on the next staircase to mine, and not such a handsome set; but Brown, though he went out each night to his house in the West Road, had made them much more desirable to live in. That day he stood hands in pockets in front of the fire, warming his plump buttocks, his coat-tails hitched up over his arms. His bright peering eyes were gazing appreciatively over his deep sofas, his ample armchairs, his two half-hidden electric fires, out to the window and the snowy morning. Round the walls there was growing a set of English watercolours, which he was collecting with taste, patience, and a kind of modest expertness. On the table a bottle of madeira was waiting for us.
    ‘I hope you like this in the morning,’ he said. ‘Chrystal and I are rather given to it.’
    Chrystal followed soon after me, gave his crisp military good morning, and began at once: ‘Winslow gave a lamentable exhibition last night. He makes the place a perfect beargarden.’
    It seemed to me a curious description of the combination room.
    ‘He’s not an easy man,’ said Brown. ‘And he doesn’t seem to be mellowing.’
    ‘He won’t mellow if he lives to be a hundred,’ said Chrystal. ‘Anyway, it’s precisely because of him that we want to talk to you, Eliot.’
    We sat down to our glasses of madeira.
    ‘Perhaps I’d better begin,’ said Brown. ‘By pure chance, the affair started in my direction. Put it another way – if I hadn’t been tutor, we mightn’t have got on to it at all.’
    ‘Yes, you begin,’ said Chrystal. ‘But Eliot ought to realize all this is within these four walls. Not a word must leak outside.’
    I said yes.
    ‘First of all,’ Brown asked me, sitting back with his hands folded on his waistcoat, ‘do you happen to know my pupil Timberlake?’
    I was puzzled.
    ‘I’ve spoken to him once or twice,’ I said. ‘Isn’t he a connection of Sir Horace’s?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I know the old man slightly,’ I said. ‘I met him over a case, two or three years ago.’
    Brown chuckled.
    ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I was almost sure I remembered you saying so. That may be very useful.
    ‘Well,’ he went on, ‘he sent young Timberlake to the college – he’s a son of Sir Horace’s cousin, but his parents died and Sir Horace took responsibility for him. The boy is in his third year, taking Part II in June. I hope to God he gets through. It will shatter everything if he doesn’t. He’s a perfectly decent lad, but a bit dense. I think he’s just a shade