‘Really, Sir,’ said Mark, ‘I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I haven’t–I mean I shouldn’t have the smallest objection to living anywhere: I only–’
The Deputy Director interrupted him, if anything so gentle as Wither’s voice can be called an interruption. ‘But I assure you, Mr–er–I assure you, Sir, that there is not the smallest objection to your residing wherever you may find it convenient. There was never, at any stage, the slightest suggestion–’ But here Mark, almost in desperation, ventured to interrupt himself.
‘It is the exact nature of the work,’ he said, ‘and of my qualifications for it that I wanted to get clear.’
‘My dear friend,’ said the Deputy Director, ‘you need not have the slightest uneasiness in that direction. As I said before, you will find us a very happy family, and may feel perfectly satisfied that no questions as to your entire suitability have been agitating anyone’s mind in the least. I should not be offering you a position among us if there were the slightest danger of your not being completely welcome to all, or the least suspicion that your very valuable qualities were not fully appreciated. You are–you are among friends here, Mr Studdock. I should be the last person to advise you to connect yourself with any organisation where you ran the risk of being exposed–er–to disagreeable personal contacts.’
Mark did not ask again in so many words what the NICE wanted him to do; partly because he began to be afraid that he was supposed to know this already, and partly because a perfectly direct question would have sounded a crudity in that room–a crudity which might suddenly exclude him from the warm and almost drugged atmosphere of vague, yet heavily important, confidence in which he was gradually being enfolded.
‘You are very kind,’ he said. ‘The only thing I should like to get just a little clearer is the exact–well, the exact scope of the appointment.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Wither in a voice so low and rich that it was almost a sigh, ‘I am very glad you have raised this issue now in a quite informal way. Obviously neither you nor I would wish to commit ourselves, in this room, in any sense which was at all injurious to the powers of the Committee. I quite understand your motives and–er–respect them. We are not, of course, speaking of an Appointment in the quasi-technical sense of the term; it would be improper for both of us (though, you may well remind me, in different ways) to do so–or at least it might lead to certain inconveniences. But I think I can most definitely assure you that nobody wants to force you into any kind of straight waistcoat or bed of Procrustes. We do not really think, among ourselves, in terms of strictly demarcated functions, of course. I take it that men like you and me are–well, to put it frankly, hardly in the habit of using concepts of that type. Everyone in the Institute feels that his own work is not so much a departmental contribution to an end already defined as a moment or grade in the progressive self-definition of an organic whole.’
And Mark said–God forgive him, for he was young and shy and vain and timid, all in one–‘I do think that is so important. The elasticity of your organisation is one of the things that attracts me.’ After that, he had no further chance of bringing the Director to the point and whenever the slow, gentle voice ceased he found himself answering it in its own style, and apparently helpless to do otherwise despite the torturing recurrence of the question, ‘What are we both talking about?’ At the very end of the interview there came one moment of clarity. Mr Wither supposed that he, Mark, would find it convenient to join the NICE club: even for the next few days he would be freer as a member than as someone’s guest. Mark agreed and then flushed crimson like a small boy on learning that the easiest course was to become a life member at the cost of £200. He had not that amount in the bank. Of course if he had got the new job with its fifteen hundred a year, all would be well. But had he got it? Was there a job at all?
‘How silly,’ he said aloud, ‘I haven’t got my cheque book with me.’
A moment later he found himself on the stairs with Feverstone.
‘Well?’ asked Mark eagerly. Feverstone did not seem to hear him.
‘Well?’ repeated Mark. ‘When shall I know my fate? I mean, have I got the job?’
‘Hullo Guy!’ bawled Feverstone suddenly to a man in the hall beneath. Next moment he had trotted down to the foot of the stairs, grasped his friend warmly by the hand, and disappeared. Mark, following him more slowly, found himself in the hall, silent, alone, and self-conscious, among the groups and pairs of chattering men, who were all crossing it towards the big folding doors on his left.
It seemed to last long, this standing, this wondering what to do, this effort to look natural and not to catch the eyes of strangers. The noise and the agreeable smells which came from the folding doors made it obvious that people were going to lunch. Mark hesitated, uncertain of his own status. In the end, he decided that he couldn’t stand there looking like a fool any longer, and went in.
He had hoped that there would be several small tables at one of which he could have sat alone. But there was only a single long table, already so nearly filled that, after looking in vain for Feverstone, he had to sit down beside a stranger. ‘I suppose one sits where one likes?’ he murmured as he did so; but the stranger apparently did not hear. He was a bustling sort of man who was eating very quickly and talking at the same time to his neighbour on the other side.
‘That’s just it,’ he was saying. ‘As I told him, it makes no difference to me which way they settle it. I’ve no objection to the IJP people taking over the whole thing if that’s what the DD wants but what I dislike is one man being responsible for it when half the work is being done by someone else. As I said to him, you’ve now got three HD’s all tumbling over one another about some job that could really be done by a clerk. It’s becoming ridiculous. Look at what happened this morning.’ Conversation on these lines continued throughout the meal.
Although the food and the drinks were excellent, it was a relief to Mark when people began getting up from table. Following the general movement, he recrossed the hall and came into a large room furnished as a lounge where coffee was being served. Here at last he saw Feverstone. Indeed, it would have been difficult not to notice him for he was the centre of a group and laughing prodigiously. Mark wished to approach him, if only to find out whether he were expected to stay the night and, if so, whether a room had been assigned to him. But the knot of men round Feverstone was of that confidential kind which it is difficult to join. He moved towards one of the many tables and began turning over the glossy pages of an illustrated weekly. Every few seconds he looked up to see if there were any chance of getting a word with Feverstone alone. The fifth time he did so, he found himself looking into the face of one of his own colleagues, a Fellow of Bracton called William Hingest. The Progressive Element called him, though not to his face, Bill the Blizzard.
Hingest had not, as Curry anticipated, been present at the College Meeting and was hardly on speaking terms with Lord Feverstone. Mark realised with a certain awe that here was a man directly in touch with the NICE–one who started, so to speak, at a point beyond Feverstone. Hingest, who was a physical chemist, was one of the two scientists at Bracton who had a reputation outside England. I hope the reader has not been misled into supposing that the Fellows of Bracton were a specially distinguished body. It was certainly not the intention of the Progressive Element to elect mediocrities to fellowships, but their determination to elect ‘sound men’ cruelly limited their field of choice and, as Busby had once said, ‘You can’t have everything.’ Bill the Blizzard had an old-fashioned curly moustache in which white had almost, but not completely, triumphed over yellow, a large beak-like nose, and a bald head.
‘This is an unexpected pleasure,’ said Mark with a hint of formality. He was always a little afraid of Hingest.
‘Huh?’ grunted Bill. ‘Eh? Oh, it’s you, Studdock? Didn’t know they’d secured your services here.’
‘I was sorry not to see you at the College Meeting yesterday,’ said Mark.
This