Marjory

Marjory is a university administrator who helps William Henry Devereaux, Jr. navigate the dean’s office and the turmoil surrounding his position. Her significance lies less in formal power, which the narrative does not define, than in her command of the institution’s daily machinery and her ability to recognize what its political maneuvering means for the people caught in it. She is at once a scheduler, a discreet source of information, and a perceptive colleague whose own retirement plans mark a change of direction beyond the university.

Role and Work

Marjory acts as an intermediary between William Henry Devereaux, Jr. and the dean. When he calls seeking an appointment, she tells him the dean wants to speak with him immediately; later, when he calls back, she reports that the dean is angry with him. Her concise updates give him access to the mood and urgency behind an administrative encounter before he reaches the office. The text does not specify her official title, but these exchanges show her handling communications and appointments with familiarity and confidence.

Her competence is also evident in the orderliness of her office. She keeps a large blotter calendar, turning its page from April to May to show William Henry Devereaux, Jr. that the fifteenth is circled and the following day carries a note anticipating happier times. The calendar makes her departure concrete: it records not only a date but the transition she has chosen to make. In a workplace where consequential decisions often arrive through meetings, votes, and personnel changes, her calendar is a small instrument of control over time.

Relationship with William Henry Devereaux, Jr.

Marjory and William Henry Devereaux, Jr. share an easy, teasing manner that survives even when he is under strain. When she observes that he looks worse each time she sees him, he answers with a joke about visiting more often so that his decline will seem less abrupt. Their exchange is personal without becoming sentimental: she can remark on his condition, and he can answer with self-mockery rather than defensiveness.

Their familiarity becomes more consequential when he seeks an appointment during a period when he fears dismissal. Instead of offering false reassurance, Marjory gives him the practical information she has: the dean wants to see him now, and the dean is angry. She also listens as William Henry Devereaux, Jr. tells her a joke about a priest and an organist. When he asks her to guess the old woman’s reply, Marjory supplies the punchline, showing that she follows both his humor and the point he is making about trying one’s best. The exchange briefly turns a difficult morning into shared amusement, while her readiness to engage suggests that she knows him well enough to meet his wit on its own terms.

That rapport does not make her unaware of his vulnerability. After Jacob Rose confronts him in her office, Marjory notices his distress and recognizes that he may be unwell. William Henry Devereaux, Jr. asks her to get Jacob Rose away from him; Marjory responds sharply to Jacob and states her concern. The moment shows her moving beyond the quiet work of scheduling: she attends to the immediate human situation and is willing to intervene when a conversation has become too much for him.

Knowledge of the Crisis

Marjory’s apparent discretion has limits that become clear when William Henry Devereaux, Jr. asks how long she has known about the situation affecting him. Her guilty expression precedes her admission that she has known since the previous fall, when Jacob Rose was fired. The narrative does not specify everything included in her knowledge, so her admission does not establish that she knew every detail of the later decisions. It does establish that she had been aware of the developing circumstances for months while continuing to work alongside him.

Her past consideration of returning to the English department is connected to that earlier period. William Henry Devereaux, Jr. infers that her thought of returning came after Jacob Rose’s dismissal; Marjory replies that the early-retirement golf package is even better. The exchange suggests a practical calculus rather than a dramatic break: she has weighed a possible return to academic work against the terms now available and has chosen the retirement offer. Her humor keeps the conversation light, but the timing places her decision within the same institutional upheaval that threatens his position.

Retirement and Narrative Significance

Marjory plans to retire with resolve. Jacob Rose has helped secure her a favorable offer, and she and Harold are looking at condominiums in the Chapel Hill area. She describes the package as an attractive reason to leave, making clear that retirement is not merely an approaching date on her calendar but a future she is actively arranging. Her plans give her a destination beyond the university at a moment when William Henry Devereaux, Jr. is unsure what the institution will do to him.

The contrast between their circumstances sharpens her narrative role. William Henry Devereaux, Jr. approaches the dean’s office expecting a consequential verdict; Marjory has already translated institutional change into a decision about her own next stage of life. She knows more than she initially says, yet she remains present in the ordinary details—appointments, a calendar, a joke, a moment of concern. Through her, university politics are shown not only as public conflict but as a sequence of private calculations about work, timing, and when to leave. Her departure is therefore both personal and structural: a capable administrator takes an offered route out while the people around her confront consequences they cannot schedule away.