mustn’t suppose, Mr. Studdock, that when I mention fifteen hundred I am at all excluding the possibility of some higher figure. I don’t think any of us here would allow a disagreement on that point . . .”
“I should be perfectly satisfied with fifteen hundred,” said Mark. “I wasn’t thinking of that at all. But—but—” the Deputy Director’s expression became more and more courtly and confidential as Mark stammered, so that when he finally blurted out, “I suppose there’d be a contract or something of the kind,” he felt he had committed an unutterable vulgarity.
“Well,” said the Deputy Director, fixing his eyes on the ceiling and sinking his voice to a whisper as though he too were profoundly embarrassed, “that is not exactly the sort of procedure . . . it would, no doubt, be possible . . .”
“And that isn’t the main point, sir,” said Mark reddening. “There’s the question of my status. Am I to work under Mr. Steele?”
“I have here a form,” said Wither, opening a drawer, “which has not, I believe, been ever actually used but which was designed for such agreements. You might care to study it at your leisure and if you are satisfied we could sign it at any time.”
“But about Mr. Steele?”
At that moment a secretary entered and placed some letters on the Deputy Director’s table.
“Ah! The post at last!” said Wither. “Perhaps, Mr. Studdock, er—you will have letters of your own to attend to. You are, I believe, married?” A smile of fatherly indulgence overspread his face as he said these words.
“I’m sorry to delay you, sir,” said Mark, “but about Mr. Steele? There is no good my looking at the form of agreement until that question is settled. I should feel compelled to refuse any position which involved working under Mr. Steele.”
“That opens up a very interesting question about which I should like to have a quite informal and confidential chat with you on some future occasion,” said Wither. “For the moment, Mr. Studdock, I shall not regard anything you have said as final. If you care to call on me to-morrow . . .” He became absorbed in the letter he had opened, and Mark, feeling that he had achieved enough for one interview, left the room. Apparently they did really want him at the N.I.C.E. and were prepared to pay a high price for him. He would fight it out about Steele later; meanwhile he would study the form of agreement.
He came downstairs again and found the following letter waiting for him.
Bracton College,
Edgestow,
Oct. 20th, 19—
“My dear Mark,—We were all sorry to hear from Dick that you are resigning your Fellowship, but feel quite certain you’ve made the right decision as far as your own career is concerned. Once the N.I.C.E. is settled in here I shall expect to see almost as much of you as before. If you have not yet sent a formal resignation to N.O., I shouldn’t be in any hurry to do so. If you wrote early next term the vacancy would come up at the February meeting and we should have time to get ready a suitable candidate as your successor. Have you any ideas on the subject yourself? I was talking to James and Dick the other night about David Laird (James hadn’t heard of him before). No doubt you know his work: could you let me have a line about it, and about his more general qualifications? I may see him next week when I’m running over to Cambridge to dine with the Prime Minister and one or two others, and I think Dick might be induced to ask Laird as well. You’ll have heard that we had rather a shindy here the other night. There was apparently some sort of fracas between the new workmen and the local inhabitants. The N.I.C.E. police, who seem to be a nervy lot, made the mistake of firing a few rounds over the head of the crowd. We had the Henrietta Maria window smashed and several stones came into Common Room. Glossop lost his head and wanted to go out and harangue the mob, but I managed to quiet him down. This is in strict confidence. There are lots of people ready to make capital out of it here and to get up a hue and cry against us for selling the Wood. In haste—I must run off and make arrangements about Hingest’s funeral.—Yours, G. C. Curry.”
At the first words of this letter a stab of fear ran through Mark. He tried to reassure himself. An explanation of the misunderstanding—which he would write and post immediately—would be bound to put everything right. They couldn’t shove a man out of his Fellowship simply on a chance word spoken by Lord Feverstone in Common Room. It came back to him with miserable insight that what he was now calling “a chance word” was exactly what he had learned, in the Progressive Element, to describe as “settling real business in private” or “cutting out the Red Tape,” but he tried to thrust this out of his mind. It came back to him that poor Conington had actually lost his job in a way very similar to this, but he explained to himself that the circumstances had been quite different. Conington had been an outsider; he was inside, even more inside than Curry himself. But was he? If he were not “inside” at Belbury (and it began to look as if he were not) was he still in Feverstone’s confidence? If he had to go back to Bracton would he find that he retained even his old status there? Could he go to Bracton? Yes, of course. He must write a letter at once explaining that he had not resigned, and would not resign, his Fellowship. He sat down at a table in the writing-room and took out his pen. Then another thought struck him. A letter to Curry, saying plainly that he meant to stay at Bracton, would be shown to Feverstone. Feverstone would tell Wither. Such a letter could be regarded as a refusal of any post at Belbury. Well—let it be! He would give up this short-lived dream and fall back on his Fellowship. But how if that were impossible? The whole thing might have been arranged simply to let him fall between the two stools—kicked out of Belbury because he was retaining the Bracton Fellowship and kicked out of Bracton because he was supposed to be taking a job at Belbury . . . then he and Jane left to sink or swim with not a sou between them . . . perhaps with Feverstone’s influence against him when he tried to get another job. And where was Feverstone?
Obviously, he must play his cards very carefully. He rang the bell and ordered a large whisky. At home he would not have drunk till twelve and even then would have drunk only beer. But now . . . and anyway, he felt curiously chilly. There was no point in catching a cold on top of all his other troubles.
He decided that he must write a very careful and rather elusive letter. His first draught was, he thought, not vague enough: it could be used as a proof that he had abandoned all idea of a job at Belbury. He must make it vaguer. But then, if it were too vague, it would do no good. Oh damn, damn, damn the whole thing. The two hundred pounds entrance fee, the bill for his first week, and snatches of imagined attempts to make Jane see the whole episode in the proper light, kept coming between him and his task. In the end, with the aid of the whisky and of a great many cigarettes, he produced the following letter:
“The National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments,
Belbury.
Oct. 21st, 19—.
My dear Curry,—Feverstone must have got me wrong. I never made the slightest suggestion of resigning my Fellowship and don’t in the least wish to do so. As a matter of fact, I have almost made up my mind not to take a full-time job with the N.I.C.E. and hope to be back in College in a day or two. For one thing, I am rather worried about my wife’s health, and don’t like to commit myself to being much away at present. In the second place, though everyone here has been extremely flattering and all press me to stay, the kind of job they want me for is more on the administrative and publicity side and less scientific than I had expected. So be sure and contradict it if you hear anyone saying I am thinking of leaving Edgestow. I hope you’ll enjoy your jaunt to Cambridge: what circles you do move in!—Yours, Mark G. Studdock.
P.S.—Laird
