I
On his way up the wide staircase Mark caught sight of himself and his companion in a mirror. Feverstone looked as always master of his clothes, his face, and of the whole situation. The blob of cotton wool on Mark’s upper lip had been blown awry during the journey, so that it looked like one half of a fiercely upturned false moustache and revealed a patch of blackened blood beneath it. A moment later he found himself in a big-windowed room with a blazing fire, being introduced to Mr. John Wither, Deputy Director of the N.I.C.E.
Wither was a white-haired old man with a courtly manner. His face was clean shaven and very large indeed, with watery blue eyes and something rather vague and chaotic about it. He did not appear to be giving them his whole attention, and this impression must, I think, have, been due to the eyes, for his actual words and gestures were polite to the point of effusiveness. He said it was a great, a very great pleasure, to welcome Mr. Studdock among them. It added to the deep obligations under which Lord Feverstone had already laid him. He hoped they had had an agreeable journey. Mr. Wither appeared to be under the impression that they had come by air and, when this was corrected, that they had come from London by train. Then he began enquiring whether Mr. Studdock found his quarters perfectly comfortable and had to be reminded that they had only that moment arrived. “I suppose,” thought Mark, “the old chap is trying to put me at my ease. In fact, Mr. Wither’s conversation was having precisely the opposite effect. Mark wished he would offer him a cigarette. His growing conviction that this man really knew nothing about him, and even that all the well-knit schemes and promises of Feverstone were at this moment dissolving into some sort of mist, was extremely uncomfortable. At last he took his courage in both hands and endeavoured to bring Mr. Wither to the point by saying that he was still not quite clear in what capacity he would be able to assist the Institute.
“I assure you, Mr. Studdock,” said the Deputy Director with an unusually far-away look in his eye, “that you needn’t anticipate the slightest . . . er . . . the slightest difficulty on that point. There was never any idea of circumscribing your activities and your general influence on policy, much less your relations with your colleagues and what I might call in general the terms of reference under which you would be collaborating with us, without the fullest possible consideration of your own views and, indeed, your own advice. You will find us, Mr. Studdock, if I might express myself in that way, a very happy family.”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me, sir,” said Mark. “I didn’t mean that at all. I only meant that I felt I should like some sort of idea of what exactly I should be doing if I came to you.”
“Well now, when you speak of coming to us,” said the Deputy Director, “that raises a point on which I hope there is no misunderstanding. I think we all agreed that no question of residence need be raised-I mean, at this stage. We thought, we all thought, that you should be left entirely free to carry on your work wherever you pleased. If you cared to live in London or Cambridge . . .”
“Edgestow,” prompted Lord Feverstone.
“Ah yes, Edgestow,” here the Deputy Director turned round and addressed Feverstone. “I was just explaining to Mr . . . er . . . Studdock, and I feel sure you will fully agree with me, that nothing was further from the mind of the committee than to dictate in any way, or even to advise, where Mr. where your friend should live. Of course, wherever he lives we should naturally place air transport and road transport at his disposal. I dare say, Lord Feverstone, you have already explained to him that he will find that all questions of that sort will adjust themselves without the smallest difficulty.”
“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 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 N.I.C.E. 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 that 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 strait-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 N.I.C.E. 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 L200. 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?