George Passant Read online

  ‘People like me don’t strike them as quite so important,’ said Jack.

  ‘You will before long. Good God alive, in ten years’ time you will have made them realise that they’ve been standing in the road of their betters.’ There was a silence, in which George looked at Jack. Then, with an effort, George said: ‘I expect some of your relations are ready to deal with your present situation. But in case you don’t want to call on them, I wonder–’

  ‘George, as far as help goes just now,’ Jack replied, ‘I can’t call on a soul in the world.’

  ‘If you feel like that,’ said George, ‘I wonder if you’d mind letting me see what I can do? I know that I’m not a very suitable person for the present circumstances,’ he went on quickly. ‘I haven’t any influence, of course. And Arthur Morcom and Lewis here always say that I’m not specially tactful in dealing with these people. I think perhaps they exaggerate that: anyway, I should try to surmount it in a good cause. But if you can find anyone else more adequate, you obviously ought to rule me out and let them take it up.’

  As George stumbled through this awkward speech, Jack was moved; and at the end he looked chastened, almost ashamed of himself.

  ‘I only came for advice, George,’ he said.

  ‘I might not be able to do anything effective,’ said George. ‘I don’t pretend it’s easy. But if you feel like letting me–’

  ‘Well, as long as you don’t waste too much effort–’

  ‘If I do it,’ said George, returning to his loud, cheerful tone, ‘I shall do it in my own style. All settled?’

  ‘Thank you, George.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said George, ‘excellent.’

  He refilled our glasses, drank off his own, settled again in his chair, and said: ‘I’m very glad you two came round tonight.’

  ‘It was Lewis’ idea,’ said Jack.

  ‘You were waiting for me to suggest it,’ I said.

  ‘No, no,’ said Jack. ‘I tell you, I never have useful ideas about myself. Perhaps that’s the trouble with me. I don’t possess a project. All you others manage to get projects; and if you don’t George provides one for you. As with you, Lewis, and your examinations. While I’m the only one left–’ he was passing off my gibe, and had got his own back: but even so, he brought off his mock pathos so well that he disarmed me – ‘I’m the only one left, singing in the cold.’

  ‘We may have to consider that, too.’ George was chuckling at Jack; then the chuckles began to bubble again inside him, at a thought of his own. ‘Yes, I was a year younger than you, and I hadn’t got a project either,’ he said. ‘I had just been articled to my first firm, the one at Wickham. And one morning the junior partner decided to curse me for my manner of life. He kept saying firmly: if ever you want to become a solicitor, you’ve got to behave like one beforehand. At that age, I was always prepared to consider reasonable suggestions from people with inside knowledge: I was pleased that he’d given me something to aim at. Though I wasn’t very clear how a solicitor ought to behave. However, I gave up playing snooker at the pub, and I gave up going in to Ipswich on Saturday nights to inspect the local talent. I put on my best dark suit and I bought a bowler hat and a briefcase. There it is–’ George pointed to the hearth. Tears were being forced to his eyes by inner laughter; he wiped them, and went on: ‘Unfortunately, though I didn’t realise it then, these manoeuvres seem to have irritated the senior partner. He stood it for a fortnight, then one day he walked behind me to the office. I was just hanging up my hat when he started to curse me. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he said. “It will be time enough to behave like a solicitor if ever you manage to become one.”’

  George roared with laughter. It was midnight, and soon afterwards we left. Standing in the door, George said, as Jack began to walk down the dark street: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night. I shall have thought over your business by then.’

  2: Conference at Night

  THE next night George was lecturing at the School. I attended, and we went out of the room together; Jack was waiting in the corridor.

  ‘We go straight to see Olive,’ said George, bustling kindly to the point. ‘I’ve told her to bring news of the Calverts.’

  Jack’s face lit up: he seemed more uneasy than the night before.

  We went to a café which stayed open all night, chiefly for lorry drivers working between London and the North; it was lit by gas mantles without shades, and smelt of gas, paraffin and the steam of tea. The window was opaque with steam, and we could not see Olive until we got inside: but she was there, sitting with Rachel in the corner of the room, behind a table with a linoleum cover.

  ‘I’m sorry you’re being got at, Jack,’ Olive said.

  ‘I expect I shall get used to it,’ said Jack, with the mischievous, ardent smile that was first nature to him when he spoke to a pretty woman.

  ‘I expect you will,’ said Olive.

  ‘Come on,’ said George. ‘I want to hear your report about your family. I oughtn’t to raise false hopes’ – he turned to Jack – ‘I can only think of one way of intervening for you. And the only chance of that depends on whether the Calverts have committed themselves.’

  We were close together, round the table. George sat at the end; though he was immersed in the struggle, his hearty appetite went mechanically on; and, while he was speaking intently to Jack, he munched a thick sandwich from which the ham stuck out, and stirred a great cup of tea with a lead spoon.

  ‘Well then,’ George asked Olive, ‘how is your uncle taking it?’

  We looked at her; she smiled. She was wearing a brilliant green dress that gleamed incongruously against the peeling wall. Just by her clothes a stranger could have judged that she was the only one of us born in a secure middle-class home. Secure in money, that is: for her father lived on notoriously bad terms with his brother, Jack’s employer; and Olive herself had half-broken away from her own family.

  She had taken her hat off, and her fair hair shone against the green. Watching her as she smiled at George’s question, I felt for an instant that there was something assertive in her frank, handsome face.

  ‘How are they taking it?’ George asked.

  ‘It’s fluttered the dovecotes,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised. Father heard about it this morning from one of my aunts. They’ve all done a good deal of talking to Uncle Frank since then.’

  ‘What’s he doing?’ said George.

  ‘He’s dithering,’ said Olive. ‘He can’t make up his mind what he ought to do next. All day he’s been saying that it’s a pity the holidays last another week – otherwise the best thing would be to send the boy straight back to school.’

  ‘Good God alive,’ said George. ‘That’s a singularly penetrating observation.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Olive, ‘the rest of the family seem to have worn him down. He’d made a decision of sorts just before I came along here. He’s sending a wire to Roy’s housemaster to ask if he can look after the boy–’

  ‘Has that wire been sent?’ George interrupted.

  ‘It must have been, by now,’ Olive replied.

  ‘Don’t you realise how vital that is?’ cried George, impatient that anyone should miss a point in tactics.

  Olive did not answer, and went on: ‘That’s all he’s plucked up his courage to do. They couldn’t bully him into anything stronger. He tries to talk as though Roy was just a bit overworked and only needed a change of air. If I’d performed any of these antics at his age, I should have been in for the biggest hiding of my life. But his father never could control a daughter, let alone a son.’

  George was preoccupied with her news; but at her last remark he roused himself.

  ‘You know it’s no use pretending to believe in that sadistic nonsense here.’

  ‘I never have pretended to believe in all your bea
utiful dreams, have I?’ she said.

  ‘You can’t take sides with those sunkets against me,’ said George.

  His voice had risen. We were used to the odd Suffolk words as his temper flamed up. Olive was flushed, her face still apart from her full, excitable mouth. Yet, hot-tempered as they both were, they never quarrelled for long: she understood him by instinct, better than any of us at this time. And George was far more easy with her than with Rachel, who stored away every word he spoke and who said at this moment: ‘I agree, oh! of course I agree, George. We must help people to fulfil themselves–’

  She was the oldest of us there, a year or more older than George: Olive was the same age as Jack and me. When Rachel gushed, it was disconcerting to notice that, in her plump, moon face, her eyes were bright, twinkling, and shrewd.

  ‘In any case,’ George said to Olive, ‘there’s no time tonight to resurrect matters that I’ve settled with you long ago. We’ve got more important things to do: as you’d see yourself, if you realised the meaning of your own words.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve given us a chance,’ said George. ‘Don’t you see, your sunket of an uncle has taken two steps? He’s penalised Jack: in the present state of things he can do that with impunity. But he’s also sent messages to a schoolmaster about his son. The coincidence ought to put him in a distinctly less invulnerable position.’

  ‘He’s taking it out of Jack,’ she said. ‘But how can anyone stop him?’

  ‘It’s not impossible,’ said George. ‘It’s no use trying to persuade Calvert, of course: none of us have any standing to protest direct to him. But remember that part of his manoeuvre was to cut off Jack’s fees at the School–’ he reminded us that this step would, as a matter of routine, come before the committee which governed the affairs of students at the School – a committee on which Calvert served, as the originator of the scheme of ‘bursaries’. By this scheme, employers picked out bright young men as Calvert had picked out Jack, and contributed half their fees. The School remitted the rest.

  ‘It’s a piece of luck, his being on the damned committee,’ said George. ‘We’ve only got to present our version of the coincidence. He can’t let it be known that he’s victimising Jack. And the others on the committee would fight very shy of lending a hand.’

  ‘Would they all mind so much about injustice?’ said Rachel.

  ‘They mind being suspected of injustice,’ said George, ‘if it’s pointed out to them. So does any body of men.’

  ‘It can’t be pointed out,’ said Jack.

  ‘It can,’ said George. ‘Canon Martineau happens to be on the committee. Though he’s not a deeply religious man like his brother,’ George burst into laughter. ‘I can see that he’s supplied with the truth. Our Martineau will make him listen.’ (‘Our Martineau’ was the brother of the Canon and a partner in the firm of Eden & Martineau, where George worked.) ‘And also–’

  ‘And also what?’ said Olive.

  ‘I’ve a complete right to appear in front of the committee myself. Owing to my position at the School. It would be better if someone else put them right about Jack. But if necessary, I can do it.’

  We were confused. My eyes met Olive’s; like me, she was caught up in the struggle now; the excitement had got hold of us, we wanted to see it through. At the same instant, I knew that she too felt sharply nervous for George himself.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Olive broke out. ‘You might pull off something for Jack. It sounds convincing: but then you’re too good at arguing for me.’

  ‘And you’re always too optimistic,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe that the Canon is going to make himself unpleasant for a young man he’s never met. Even if you persuaded his brother, and I don’t think that’s likely either.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said George. ‘In any case, that doesn’t cripple us. The essential point is that I can appear myself.’

  ‘And how are you going to come out of it?’ Olive cried.

  ‘Are you certain that it won’t rebound on you, personally?’ asked Jack. He had turned away from Olive, angry that she made him speak against his own interest.

  ‘I don’t see how it could,’ said George.

  From his inside pocket he took out a sheet of notepaper and smoothed it on the table. Olive watched him anxiously.

  ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘you oughtn’t to be satisfied with looking after your protégés much longer. We’re not important enough for you to waste all your time on us. You’ve got to look after yourself instead. That means you’ll have to persuade Eden and Martineau to make you a partner. And they just won’t do it if you’ve deliberately made a nuisance of yourself with important people. Don’t you see,’ she added, with a sudden violence, ‘that you may soon curse yourself for ever having been satisfied with looking after us?’

  George had begun to write on the sheet of paper. He looked up and said: ‘I’m extremely content as I am. I want you to realise that I’d rather spend my time with people I value than balance teacups with the local bellwethers.’

  ‘That’s because you’re shy with them,’ said Olive. ‘Why, you’ve even given up going to Martineau’s Friday nights.’

  ‘I intend to go this Friday.’ George had coloured. He looked abashed for the first time that night. ‘And by the way, if I ever do want to become a partner, I don’t think there should be any tremendous difficulty. Whatever happens, I can always count on Martineau’s support.’ He turned back to writing his letter.

  ‘That’s true, clearly. I’ve heard Martineau talk about George,’ said Jack.

  ‘You’re not impartial,’ said Olive. ‘George, is that a letter to the committee?’

  ‘It isn’t final. I was just letting the Principal know that I might conceivably have a piece of business to bring before them.’

  ‘I still don’t like it. You’re–’

  Just then Arthur Morcom entered the café and walked across to Olive’s side. He had recently started practice as a dentist in the town, and only met our group because he was a friend of Olive’s. I knew that he was in love with her. Tonight he had called to take her home; looking at her, he felt at once the disagreement and excitement in the air.

  Olive asked George: ‘Do you mind if we tell Arthur?’

  ‘Not as far as I am concerned,’ said George, a little awkwardly.

  Morcom had already heard the story of the boy’s gift. I was set to explain what George was planning. I did it rapidly. Morcom’s keen blue eyes were bright with interest, and he said ‘Yes! yes!’ urging me on through the last hour’s conference; I watched his thin, fine-featured face, on which an extra crease, engraved far out on each cheek, gave a special dryness and sympathy to his smile. When I had finished, he said: ‘I am rather worried, George. I can’t help feeling that Olive is right.’ He turned to Jack and apologised for coming down in the opposing camp. Jack smiled. When Olive had been trying to persuade George, Jack had been hurt and angry: but, now Morcom did the same thing, Jack said quite spontaneously: ‘I bear no malice, Arthur. I dare say you’re right.’

  Morcom raised both the arguments that Olive and I had tried: would George’s intervention really help Jack? and, more strongly, wasn’t it an indiscreet, a dangerous move for George himself? Morcom pressed them with more authority than we had been able to. He and George were not close friends; neither was quite at ease with the other; but Morcom was George’s own age, and George had a respect for his competence and sense. So George listened, showed flashes of his temper, and defended himself with his elaborate reasonableness.

  At last Morcom said: ‘I know you want to stop your friends being kept under. But you won’t have the power to do it till you’re firmly established yourself. Isn’t it worthwhile to wait till then?’

  ‘No,’ said George.
‘I’ve seen too much of that sort of waiting. If you wait till then, you forget that anyone is being kept under: or else you decide that he deserves it.’

  Morcom was not only a more worldly man than George, he was usually wiser. But later on, I thought of George’s statement as an example of when it was the unworldly who were wise.

  ‘I shall soon begin to think,’ said Morcom, ‘that you’re anxious to attack the bellwethers, George.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ George replied, ‘I am a very timid man.’

  There was a burst of laughter: but Olive, watching him, did not join in. A moment after, she said: ‘He’s made up his mind.’

  ‘Is it any use my saying any more?’ said Morcom.

  ‘Well,’ said George, with a shy smile, ‘I’m still convinced that we can put them into an impossible position…’

  3: View Over the Gardens

  OUR meeting in the café took place on a Wednesday; two days later, on the Friday afternoon, Olive rang me up at the office. ‘Roy has found something out from his father. George ought to know at once, but I can’t get hold of him. It’s his day at Melton, isn’t it?’ (The firm of Eden & Martineau had branches in several market towns: and George regularly spent a day a week in the country.) ‘He must know before he goes to Martineau’s tonight.’

  Her voice sounded brusque but anxious; she wanted someone to see Roy, to examine the news. Jack was the obvious person, but him Roy was forbidden to meet. She asked me to go along to Morcom’s as soon as I was free; she would take Roy there.