However, when the Council met at Grandborough, the county town, to come to a decision, it was found that the Bishop had canvassed strongly and that lay and clerical forces were exactly evenly divided. The Chairman of the Council, a man of moderate views, disliked clerical domination but was also averse from the appointment of an Old Chilternian; so he declined to give a casting vote in favour of either candidate. Neither side would budge an inch, and the contention grew sharp between them. Twice Mr. Guthridge and Dr. Lawrence were called separately from the dingy room in which, together with Mr. Flaggon, they were awaiting their fate, and submitted to a lengthy cross-examination, in the hope that one or other of them would say something to turn the evenly balanced scales. But neither succeeded in detaching the necessary vote.
At length the Chairman, who had a train to catch and a dinner depending on the train, looked at his watch and hinted at an alternative solution. Had the Council sufficiently considered the claims of the third candidate, a man of great promise with very influential backing?
Compromise is an essential feature of the English character, and long hours of enervating discussion, in a stuffy room on a July afternoon, are favourable to its rapid growth. The Council was exhausted, and Mr. Flaggon had some striking testimonials. His orders were a sop to the Bishop, and his reputed unorthodoxy appealed to the lay party. So, at the eleventh hour, Mr. Flaggon was called into the Council Chamber. His appearance was satisfactory, and his answers to a few questions that were put to him by the Chairman and the Bishop gave no offence. He seemed a providential way out of an impossible situation, and withdrew, at the end of the interview, amidst encouraging smiles. Five minutes later, to the chagrin of his rivals and his own surprise, he was invited once more into the Council Chamber and informed that he was headmaster elect of Chiltern. After which the Chairman left hurriedly to catch his train.
At Chiltern the triumph of Guthridge was awaited with quiet confidence. Nobody, except Dr. Gussy, believed that the Council would dare to disregard the explicit wishes of the masters and the personal claims of the only Old Chilternian who was standing—the one man, in fact, who was qualified to carry on, intact, the great Lanchester tradition. So, when the astonishing news came through that Flaggon, and not Guthridge, was the man, it was received at first with blank incredulity, followed immediately afterwards by a burst of passionate resentment. Who was Flaggon, what was Flaggon, who had ever heard or dreamed of Flaggon? The masters were seen talking and gesticulating in excited groups in the great quadrangle.
“It’s an insult,” cried Mr. Pounderly, shaking his clenched fist, “a deliberate insult, aimed at the whole staff. I say a deliberate insult!”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Bent the cynic (every staff possesses a cynic), “it’s merely another instance of the ironic humour for which the Council is famous.” Mr. Cox, the Nestor of Chiltern, shook his head sadly from side to side with a far-away look in his eyes; Mr. Black, the senior mathematician, was for petitioning the Council, at once, to revoke its decision; and when Mr. Chase, the moderate man (every staff possesses at least one moderate who reads the Spectator), expressed a timid hope that the newcomer would be given a fair chance, he was within an ace of being lynched. Even the school porter, a man of solemn demeanour and grave reticence, expressed the opinion that the choice was “hominous.”
As for Dr. Gussy, who, without committing himself publicly, had worked hard for Dr. Lawrence in private, he was completely prostrated by the blow. Scarcely could he bring himself to make the official announcement to the school in the Great Hall; and, when he did so, it was with the voice and gestures of the Roman prætor announcing after Thrasymene, “We have lost a great battle.” For several days he affected to regard himself as superseded, set aside, and sulked like Achilles in his tent.
CHAPTER II
MR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT
The election of Mr. Flaggon was followed immediately by the resignation of Mr. Cox. Mr. Cox was in the habit of resigning whenever his proposals were voted down or his advice neglected. Dr. Gussy had, at various times, received twelve such communications from him and, on each occasion, had found no difficulty in persuading Mr. Cox to reconsider his decision. There is every reason to suppose that Mr. Cox expected a similar issue to his thirteenth act of protest. But he had chosen his time badly. Dr. Gussy merely said, “I no longer count,” and forwarded the letter to the headmaster elect. And the headmaster elect, unfamiliar with Mr. Cox’s idiosyncrasies and much impressed by his age, which was seventy-five, accepted the resignation in a courteous and gracious spirit.
Mr. Cox had so long regarded himself as an integral and necessary part of Chiltern and the Lanchester tradition that he was mortified to find how calmly his departure was taken. His colleagues, indeed, were most sympathetic, and said that his going would be a terrible break with the past, and that they would miss him increasingly. But they added that they thought he had acted very wisely in choosing this particular moment to leave them; and this was not the sort of consolation that Mr. Cox expected or desired. It is said that he still regards himself as the first and most notable victim of the new régime, and speaks contemptuously of “poor old Gussy, who couldn’t play a winning hand even when he held all the trumps.” How exactly the hand should have been played is not clear; but the implication is that Mr. Cox’s resignation was the ace of trumps, and that, rightly used, it would have brought the Council to its senses and prevented untold calamities.