Full Term, page 3
A few days later I had a short – and curious – conversation with Watershute. We had bumped into each other in a small room, not much bigger than a cupboard, used for the temporary storage of newspapers and periodicals. It was thus a markedly cheek by jowl encounter, such as might be judged favourable for picking up the vibrations of an interlocutor. It certainly favoured a close study of the physical man. I found myself, even while judging it an indecent thing to do, looking for the saggy mouth of Graile’s description. I couldn’t be certain that I’d succeeded. Watershute suggested less the saggy or soggy than the shagged – a word from my schooldays designed to indicate less the physically unkempt than the fatigued or strained in some not readily definable way. One was shagged when, for one reason or another, one had come close to shooting one’s bolt. Watershute’s otherwise unremarkable features did run to dark rings under the eyes. He might be a dissipated man. Equally, he might be a man working to the point of exhaustion on some difficult frontier of the finite human mind.
‘Giles and I have become neighbours in Surrey,’ I said. ‘We’ve been swopping a certain amount of information about our careers.’
‘I didn’t know he’d had one. But I’m sure you have. You’re the playwright, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘What on earth has persuaded you to come and teach? Hard times behind the footlights?’
‘Not exactly. But the question puzzled Giles too. I had to leave him unsatisfied on the point. But no doubt we’ll discuss it again. He’s a conversable boy.’
‘So he is. But do you like chatting up undergraduates? Don’t let him be a bore.’
‘I see no danger of that. And young people do interest me. I was rather short of their acquaintance until I turned up here again.’
‘Where you were an undergraduate yourself?’
‘Yes – and it can have been only a shade after your time. We may even have overlapped.’
‘Perhaps. I don’t suppose I’d remember you.’
This might have been discouraging, but I didn’t find myself taking it that way. When I write a play there is a stage at which the characters start fumbling round for their roles. Or it feels like that – as if they are doing the job themselves, without much help from me. It is a process that has at least made me aware of a similar activity as sometimes going on in real life, and I now had a sense of Watershute as being up to something of the sort. I wondered whether he had decided really to quit the college, and had decided to have the fun of being variously outrageous in the process.
‘As for young people,’ he now went on, ‘I suppose they have charm and all that, if you want to put in time with that sort of thing. But as undergraduates they’re certainly a dead loss- at least when they require teaching. In more spacious days one simply sent them out to the hacks. And perhaps took them on in their final year for a week or so. It was a privilege they looked forward to.’
‘That must have been a good deal before our era.’ I wondered what the serious Bedworth would make of such doctrine. It certainly represented a flourish of theatrical panache in a man already chargeable with grave neglect of duty. ‘Would you like Giles’s tutor,’ I asked, ‘to feel that attending to him was a sheer waste of time?’
‘Oh, that sort of chap has nothing more serious to bother about, has he? The pleasures of literature and so forth. A load of old rubbish! Saving your presence, Pattullo.’
‘Don’t mind me.’ Into my head there flitted the extravagant notion that Watershute was mildly mad, and then the yet more extravagant one that- like Hamlet – he was disposed to feign such a disorder in pursuance of a further escape from irksome commitments. He was certainly inventive. ‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘that the pleasures of literature are something I’d suspect you of being rather fond of?’
‘Perfectly correct. I do read all the world’s greatest bores until my brains turn to train-oil.’ Watershute had moved to the door and I had followed him – so on this entirely absurd remark we both reached open air. ‘I say,’ he said cheerfully, ‘they’ve been talking to you about me, haven’t they? I can see it in your eye. Well, good luck to them!’ Clutching a bunch of papers in one hand, he offered a rapid gesture of farewell with the other. ‘Do have another word with Giles from time to time,’ he called back to me as he walked away. ‘He’s not a bad fellow. Not a bad fellow at all.’
These, it seemed to me, were the first untheatrical words this curious character had spoken.
It was the Provost’s habit to lunch in common room once or twice a week, and at the end of the meal to prevail upon one of those present to join him on the sort of rural walk that is still just possible round about Oxford. ‘Prevail upon’ was his own invariable expression; he would direct it indifferently upon the most eminent savant and the humblest junior lecturer. I imagine he employed it, and backed it up with similar courtesies, even vis-a-vis his oldest friends. I had ceased to feel critical of this sort of behaviour on the part of the head of our college. It was one way of coping with what couldn’t be an easy job.
‘My dear Duncan, can I prevail on you to take a turn with me as far as Iffley Lock? If your occasions, that is, enable you to indulge me so handsomely.’
My thus being singled out occurred for the first time, as it happened, on the afternoon of the day of my encounter with the senior Watershute. I accepted the proposal and we set out at once. The towpath bordering the Isis wasn’t thronged, and we strode briskly forward. I thought of the perambulations upon which, as an undergraduate, I had frequently been taken by Albert Talbert. Talbert had been disposed to long and pregnant silences as he walked, nor had his dog Boanerges at all lived up to his name. In Talbert’s case, indeed, one was always conscious that something was cooking, or that there was slowly concretising in the depths of his mind a pronouncement which would surface (unnaturally, indeed) only when it had achieved a weight and density not of the common sort. Talbert would then say something like ‘I am urging our librarian to remove Gosse’s rubbish from his shelves’ or ‘The inn at Nuneham Courtenay is kept by an Ethiopian’. And silence would succeed for the following couple of miles.
Edward Pococke, contrastingly, believed in sustained rational conversation, so that one had the feeling of taking exercise at a peripatetic dinner table. His talk, if on the consciously polished side, was always interesting, and the more arresting because you could never be sure what he was about. He was not a man who favoured relaxation (unless on a tennis court or golf course) of an idle kind. More often than not he was winding his way into something impossible to foresee. This kept you on your toes, and was enjoyable in its fashion.
‘You must be in process of forming clear views, Duncan, on the role of a university in society today. It can only be a changing role, since the times are so notably changing around us. Yet some of the older views – older controversies, one might say – would still appear to me as holding their relevance for us. Not, indeed, on theological matters. All that, whether happily or unhappily, is much in abeyance. We no longer spy on our John Henry Newmans to see whether they have got significantly into flannel trousers.’ The Provost paused on this, perhaps to make sure that an ancient piece of Oxford folklore was not lost on me.
‘I doubt,’ I said, ‘whether there are many John Henry Newmans around.’
‘Quite so – and the more’s the pity. But consider how applicable today is an anatomy of Oxford in terms still of Benjamin Jowett and Mark Pattison. Balliol and Lincoln. Rival camps! Pattison saw the function of the university through what have been aspersed as Germanophil eyes. As a place of learning and scholarship, at some remove from the world of affairs. Jowett, although himself so considerable a scholar, viewed it as an indispensable nursery of rulers and administrators. It was something of a Platonic approach, but allowing a good deal to the social conditions of the age. The young men of superior privilege were to be groomed and civilised as legislators. The others, if they didn’t simply enter the church, were to be the backbone of the higher civil service.’
‘And of the Empire, I suppose.’
‘Indeed, yes. And something of these contrasting views – learning on the one hand and public leadership and activity on the other – still obtains with us today.’
‘Yes.’ I wasn’t managing much more than monosyllabic replies to the Provost – perhaps having a sense that, were I to pipe up on my own, it would be in the character of the troublesome sort of student who breaks in with questions at a lecture. We had reached Long Bridges, and had stopped to watch a nursling torpid making a splashy progress up-stream.
‘Bow is late,’ the Provost said. ‘Slow in coming forward to the stretcher.’
I had no doubt that this was so. We walked on.
‘But nowadays,’ the Provost resumed, ‘there is the complication of all the scientific and technological things. Many of our men are involved with these outside the university as well as within. It must be difficult for them, now and then. It is even conceivable that something like a conflict of loyalties may occasionally result.’
‘Yes.’
‘And this may produce situations in which it is necessary to move delicately and without precipitation.’
It is possible that at this point I had a glimpse of what lay ahead. It wasn’t simply Iffley Lock and Iffley Church. And if I had any doubts about this they were quickly resolved.
‘You will have heard,’ the Provost said with a sudden clarity of intent, ‘of the trouble over William Watershute. A brilliant man. We must hold on to that.’
‘I’ve heard only a few words,’ I said, ‘and they came to me casually and by mere chance. They were to the effect that, as a tutor, Watershute has been judged to be rather cutting his corners. Incidentally, I’ve barely encountered the man himself. I feel I’ve got to know his son better. He’s on my staircase.’
‘Is he, indeed?’ The Provost appeared to take a moment to reflect on this before going on. ‘The situation, I can only say, has the ingredients of a scandal. There is something unstable in Watershute, or at least problematical. I have very little sense of where we may presently find ourselves.’
This uncharacteristic avowal on the Provost’s part was arresting. And in fact we had both come to a halt. Before us Isis – perhaps in this reach to be called Thames once more – flowed doggedly on from Oxford’s calm to London’s turbulence. I wondered whether Dr Pococke was envisaging a scandal which might carry that far.
‘The natural thing to suppose,’ the Provost pursued, ‘is that Watershute has been finding his research so absorbing that he has rather broken down on the tutorial side. There would be nothing too scandalous in that. It is, as you may imagine, something that happens from time to time. A solution of the difficulty can commonly be found. Particularly in such an instance as Watershute would afford, where there is no question but that a fuller concentration on his own work would be gready to the advantage of his subject. The genuine advancement of knowledge comes first, after all. Of course some element of material sacrifice is sometimes involved.’
‘He’d lose out on the pay packet?’
‘Just so. And this, as I have said, is the natural and proper assumption for us to make, in the first instance, in Watershute’s case.’
‘But he has never come forward with any inquiry as to whether something might be done?’
‘Not, certainly, to my knowledge. And it is the circumstance that makes me uneasy, I confess. It may almost be said that he could have a straight research post in the university for the asking. Or so I believe – although with scientists, indeed, one never quite knows.’
‘Then what other explanation may there be?’
‘Money difficulties. Let us remember, Duncan, that dons are extremely badly paid. If a man is careless or improvident, he can quickly get into a serious scrape. And when he glances out at the community at large, he regularly sees men of no higher calibre than himself earning in industry or commerce four or five times his own salary.’
‘He can get out, I suppose, and join the happy crew.’
‘Indeed he can. But he may choose to compromise – and in a manner taking us far from that conflict of reputable interests which I have touched upon. He may retain his academic appointment, while at the same time taking on all sorts of remunerative jobs in a hush-hush way on the side. I recall a distressing instance in one of the provincial universities only a few years ago. The professor of chemistry was found to be devoting almost his entire time to the routine supervision of the manufacture of useless – it may well have been harmful – patent medicines.’
‘How very dismal! You must know Watershute, Edward, much better than I do. Can you see him doing something like that?’
‘It would depend on the degree of his need. Say, in a general way, that behaviour of that kind - indecisive and temporising behaviour, among other things – must depend on the pressures at work on a man. If, for example, he were in those financial straits as the consequence of disreputable courses not readily to be avowed, then his judgement and sense of responsibility might suffer - shall we say, disorganisation? And something like Watershute’s picture might result.’
‘David Graile – who is the man who fired the problem at me – seemed to hint at something of the kind. He called Watershute a loose fish.’ It was a certain impatience that made me come out with this. ‘For my own part, I just can’t speculate on the thing. Scientists are a closed book to me. They come into college to do some old-fashioned teaching – listening to essays, I suppose, although heaven knows what an essay on molecular physics can be like - and then they go back to some lab or other and get on with their job. What has been happening in the Science Area so far as the wandering Watershute is concerned? I’d imagine they’d have more of an eye on him there.’
‘We certainly don’t require the punching of a time-clock. As for the scientists in their enclaves, they prove to be somewhat uncommunicative at times. And about Watershute it might be inexpedient too frankly to inquire.’
‘But if he vanishes from our own ken for long periods on end, it should surely be possible to discover whether he takes himself out of Oxford altogether.’
‘One would suppose so.’
For perhaps fifty yards we walked on in silence. If the Provost was indisposed to further communication, I wasn’t going to make any bid for it. But then why had he started in on Watershute at all? The answer came with what he must have judged to be a prudent absence of excessive concern.
‘The fact is, Duncan, that I sense a good deal of criticism of the situation among, in particular, some of our younger men. They see a gross abuse on Watershute’s part of his secure position as a fellow. But it would be unwise of us to overreact. Open scandal in a college, even if it be rationally shown to concern only one man, tends to rub off on those around him. And even on the whole place.’
‘Then just where do we go?’
‘I have it in mind that we should have a small committee. Not a committee of the Governing Body. That would simply be the road to a maximum of publicity. Something quite informal. If it were known that a representative group of responsible people were collectively addressing their minds to the matter, that might at least mute anxiety for a time. And I should much hope to prevail on you to be one of us.’
‘Edward, I can hardly think of anybody less suitable.’
‘You are mistaken.’ The Provost glanced at me with some severity. ‘You are the most senior person to have thrown in his lot with us for some time, so that you command both mature views and a fresh mind. Your presence would serve to mitigate any impression the younger men might form that what they call the dark old cabal was at work.’
‘So that the thing can be quietly sat on in the hope that it blows over?’
I must have been distinctly rattled to produce this odd mix-up of images. I didn’t at all like the picture of myself it served to create.
‘But yet a more important consideration is in my mind.’ The Provost had ignored my question. ‘You were of the greatest service to us, Duncan, in handling that perplexed and ill-starred affair of the Blunderville Trust. It gave me the highest opinion of your discretion. Please forgive me for being so impertinent.’
This might have been called the full treatment, and I had to cast round for some further line of defence.
‘You are very kind, Provost. But that was entirely a matter of my connection with the people concerned. Of course I had to try to help. But with Watershute I have no connection whatever.’
‘At least you are on a basis of neighbourly accord with his son.’
It was a moment before I realised that this was other than a jocular remark. Then I saw that the Provost had been perfectly serious – judging that even some slight link with William Watershute on the family and domestic side might be useful in coping with him as a professional problem. This time, I was even more displeased with the role seemingly envisaged for me. Nevertheless, I couldn’t blankly turn the Provost down.
‘Of course,’ I said, ‘I’ll join in any discussion to which you invite me. I wouldn’t think of doing anything else.’
‘Thank you, my dear Duncan. I shall give thought to what can be arranged. Shall we cross over by the lock, and refresh ourselves with a glance at that singularly beautiful little church?’
Romanesque architecture was our main topic of conversation when we came to walk back to Oxford. I was left reflecting that I knew little more about Watershute than when we had set out. Were his absences from college due to a devotion to abstruse research, or had they a hinterland in purely private and personal matters? If the Provost possessed either positive information or a pronounced opinion here he was in no haste to come out with it. But in this he was only running true to form.
III
In these first weeks of my second year as a senior member of the college I gained a lively impression of the transitory character of undergraduate life. Many of the young men now surrounding me were new arrivals. Of those among whom I had been domesticated a term before, some had gone down, nearly a third had moved out of college into lodgings either near-by or remote, many of those remaining had flitted from one quad to another. Over this moving pageant, time itself could be seen flowing. Although no longer schoolboys, these young men could frequently be distinguished as having added to their inches during a long vacation. It is possible that they had also matured in mind and manners and assumptions, taking on greater self-confidence as a result. Certainly they themselves believed this. With no more than three or four years between the oldest and youngest, they were more aware of seniority and juniority among themselves than were my colleagues, although these ranged in age from the early twenties to the late sixties. This feeling among undergraduates must have been a hang-over from their schooldays, when each had lived at a stiff remove from either slightly younger or slightly older boys. The barrier, at this recent period of which I write, appeared at least as pronounced as any barrier of class. Nicolas Junkin of Cokeville permitted himself in that regard an entire freedom with the Sheldrake twins, products of a major public school, while at the same time maintaining in relation to them the reserve proper in a third-year man.
