The Conscience of the Rich Read online

  ‘I’d prefer it to none at all.’

  ‘That’s over-simple,’ said Charles. ‘Or else I’m making excuses in advance. Do you mean that?’

  ‘How much are you looking forward to your first case?’ I said.

  ‘Not very much,’ said Charles. ‘Not in your fashion. I don’t know. I may be glad when it comes.’

  Within a month of that conversation, his first case came. Something different, that is, from the guinea visits to the police courts, which we had both made: instead, a breach of contract, legally interesting although the amounts involved were small, arrived in Hart’s chambers. The plaintiff knew one of Charles’ uncles, and Hart himself; Hart, who had married Charles’ cousin, suggested that young March was the most brilliant of the family and only needed some encouragement. So the case came to Charles. There was nothing sensational about it; it was a chance for which, that winter, I would have given an ear.

  Charles could see the depth, the rancour, of my envy. One of the nights we studied the papers together, he looked at me with eyes dark and hard.

  ‘I’m just realizing how true it is,’ he said, ‘that it’s not so easy to forgive someone, when you’re taking a monstrously unfair advantage over him.’ Trying to compensate for my envy, I spent evenings with him over the case. He was so restless, so anxious, that it was uncomfortable to be near: to begin with, I envied him even that. To have a real event to be anxious about! Then I suspected that this was not just ordinary anxiety.

  He worked hard, but he was tense all the time, getting out of bed at night to make sure he had written a point down. If and when my first case came, I thought, I should do the same. But I should still be in high spirits – while one had only to listen to Charles’ voice to hear something inexplicably harsh, not only anxious but abnormally strained.

  As the hearing drew nearer (it was fixed for the middle of January) he seemed to find a little relief in violent, trivial worries about the case: ‘I shall put up the dimmest opening,’ he said, ‘that’s ever been heard in a court of law. Can’t you imagine the heights of dimness that I shall manage to reach?’

  Several times, as I heard him reiterate these anxieties, I thought how they would have deceived me only a short time before. Charles was the most restrained of his family; but, like Mr March and Katherine, he did not try to be stoical in little things. Many acquaintances felt that their worries (over, for instance, this opening speech, or catching a train, or whether someone had overheard an indiscreet remark) could only be indulged in by weak and unavailing people. It was tempting to regard them as part of the sapping process of luxury. It was tempting: it seemed sociologically just: but in fact, when affliction came, not petty worry, each of the three Marches was stoical in the end.

  Katherine knew this, although on those nights at Bryanston Square, while Charles was waiting for his case to come on, she watched him with pain. I wondered if she understood better than I why he was so tense. Whether she understood or not, her own nerves were strung up. But she could still tease him about the symptoms of fuss; as she did so one evening, she repeated in my presence the latest story of Mr March’s fussing, which was only a few months old.

  As I knew, Mr March always expressed gloomy concern if one of his children had a sore throat: he would enquire after it repeatedly, with the most lugubrious expression:

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I sent for a practitioner? Not that I pretend to have much faith in any of them. Wouldn’t it be better if I sent for one tonight?’ In the same way, he profoundly doubted anyone’s ability to get to the correct station in time to catch an appropriate train: travelling could only be achieved by a kind of battle against the railways, in which he sat like a general surrounded by maps and time-tables, drawing up days before any journey an elaborate chart of possible contingencies.

  In the past summer, he had spent himself prodigiously over a journey of Katherine’s. She had never been away alone up to this time; even now, it was scarcely alone in any but Mr March’s sense of the word, as she was going on a cruise down the Adriatic, in a party organized by her young women’s club. Mr March opposed on principle; and, when she got her way, occupied a good part of a night in making certain what would happen if she missed the party at Victoria on the first morning.

  Three days after the party started, Mr March received a telegram. It reached him half an hour after breakfast and read: Regret Katherine ill in – hospital Venice food poisoning suspected urgent you should join her. It was signed by the secretary of the club. Mr March said in a business-like tone to Charles: ‘Your sister’s ill. I may be away some time’, and caught the eleven o’clock boat train.

  He arrived at the hospital the following midday; he interviewed the doctors, decided it was nothing grave, and then began to grumble at the heat. He was wearing his black coat and striped trousers, and he had arrived in a Venetian July.

  He saw Katherine, said: ‘I refuse to believe there’s anything wrong’, and walked off to find an English doctor. He had all his life expressed distrust of ‘those foreign practitioners’. When he talked to an English one, however, he decided that he was probably incompetent and that the Italians ‘seemed level-headed fellows’. So Mr March accepted the position; he could do nothing more; he retired to his hotel and sat in his shirt sleeves looking at the Grand Canal.

  In a couple of days Mr March and the Italian doctors agreed that Katherine could be safely moved to the hotel. Mr March arranged everything with competence; as soon as Katherine began to walk about, he said, with an air of conviction and scorn:

  ‘I knew there was never anything wrong.’

  They stayed in Venice for a fortnight. From the moment of his arrival, he had behaved with equanimity. When she recovered, however, the air of sensible friendliness suddenly broke: and it broke in a characteristic way. Katherine slept in the room next to Mr March’s: like his, its windows gave on to the Canal: to Mr March’s horror, she wanted to leave them open all night. Mr March angrily protested. Katherine pointed out that no gondolier could get in without climbing from the balcony beneath: and that, in any case, her jewellery had been deposited in the manager’s safe and there was nothing valuable to steal.

  Mr March stamped up and down the room. ‘My dear girl,’ he shouted, ‘it’s not your valuables I’m thinking of, it’s your virtue.’ Katherine stuck to her point. An hour later, when they were both in bed, she heard his voice come loudly through the wall:

  ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth…’ The last words sounded, at first hearing, as though they were an invention of her own. But like most of the March stories, this was discussed in Mr March’s presence: he protested, chuckled, added to it, and it must have been substantially true. In fact, if Mr March felt like King Lear, he acted upon it, even if the occasion seemed to others inadequate.

  The story must have been true, except for what they each left out. They left out what none of us would find it necessary to tell in a family story: the fact that there was deep feeling in the quarrel, though the occasion was so absurd: that Katherine, arguing with her father, felt more overawed and frightened than she could admit: that Mr March felt a moment of anxiety, such as we all know as we see someone beginning to slip from the power of our possessive love.

  5: Confession

  Charles’ case lasted for a day and a half. From the beginning, lawyers thought it impossible that anyone could win it: at times, particularly on the second morning, I found my judgement wavering – was he going to prove us wrong after all? His manner was restless, sometimes diffident, sometimes sharp and ruthless: I knew – it was not an unqualified pleasure for me to know – that I did not often hear a case argued with such drive and clarity.

  Mr March sat through every word. As he watched his son, his face lost its expression of lively, fluid interest, and became tightened into one that was nervous, preoccupied, and rigid. He took me out to lunch on the first day; his mood was quieter than usual, and he was glad to have someone to talk to.

  ‘My da
ughter Katherine has mysteriously refused to put in an appearance,’ he said. ‘She did not account for her actions, but the reason is, of course, that she couldn’t bear to watch my son making a frightful ass of himself in public. I must say that I can sympathize with her attitude. When he contrived to get himself into the team at school, I used to feel that propriety demanded that I should be represented in person: but invariably I wished that I could take a long walk behind the pavilion when he came out to bat.’

  Mr March went on: ‘I also considered today that propriety demanded that I should be present in person. Even though it might entail seeing my son make a frightful ass of himself upon an important occasion. So far as I can gather with my ignorance of your profession, however, he appears to have avoided disaster so far. Hannah might not think so, but I fail to see why she is specially competent to judge.’

  I told him how well Charles had done; Mr March gave a delighted and curiously humble smile.

  ‘I’m extremely glad to have your opinion,’ he said. ‘This is the first time that I’ve been able to consider the prospect of any of my family emerging into the public eye.’ He added, in a matter-of-fact tone: ‘I could never have cut anything of a dash myself. My son may conceivably find it easier.’

  We walked back to the court, Mr March still nervous and proud. For the first time I had seen how much he was living again in his son.

  In the last hours of the case, Charles’ cross-examination of an expert witness secured most attention. Several people later commented on how formidable a cross-examiner he would become. Actually, his own strain gave him an added edge; but still, he enjoyed those minutes. He loved argument: he was sometimes ashamed of the harshness that leapt to his tongue, but when he let himself go, argument made him fierce, cheerful, quite spontaneous and self-forgetful. The court had just admired him in one of those moods.

  In the end, Charles lost the case, but the judge paid a compliment to ‘the able manner, if I may say so, in which the case has been handled by the plaintiff’s counsel.’

  As we left the court, men collected round Charles, congratulating him. I joined them and did the same, before I went back to chambers.

  ‘I want to see you rather specially. I’ll come round tomorrow night,’ said Charles. ‘Can you manage to stay in?’

  On my way to the Inn, I wondered what he was coming for. He had looked flushed and smiling: perhaps his success – my envy kept gnawing, as sharp, as dominating as neuralgia – had settled him at last. I walked along the back streets down from the Strand; it was a grey afternoon, and a mizzle of rain was greasing the pavement. I thought about Charles’ future compared with mine. In natural gifts there was not much in it. He was at least as clever, and had a better legal mind; perhaps I was the more speculative. In strength of character we were about the same. In everything but natural gifts, he had so much start that I was left at the post.

  I had one advantage, though. Neither of us was the kind of man whom his career would completely satisfy. Charles had read for the Bar because he could not find a vocation; I had always known that, in the very long run, I wanted other things. The difference was, I had to behave as though the doubt did not exist. To earn a living, I had to work as though I was single-minded. Until I made some money and some sort of name, I could not even let myself look round. Charles often envied that simplification, that compulsory simplification, which being poor imposed upon my life.

  Nevertheless, anyone in his senses would put his money on Charles, I told myself that afternoon. As Herbert Getliffe remarked when I arrived and told him of the result: ‘Mark my words, Eliot, that young friend of ours will go a long way.’ He went on: ‘He was lucky to get the job, of course. The boys on the Jewish upper deck are doing a bit of pulling together. Don’t you wish you were in that racket, Eliot?’

  He looked harassed, responsible, sincere.

  ‘I must see if I can find you a snippet for yourself one of these days. The trouble is, one owes a duty to one’s clients. One can’t forget that, much as one would like to–’

  The next night, I waited in my room for Charles. It was a room which bore only a remote resemblance to Mr March’s drawing-room. The satin was wearing through on the two arm-chairs; the room was unheated all day, and even by the fire at night it struck empty and chill, with the vestige of a smell of hair-lotion drifting up from the barber’s shop down below. Charles was late: at last I heard his car draw up below, and his footsteps on the stairs. As soon as he entered, I was struck by the expression on his face. The strain had left him. He apologized for keeping me; I knew that he was tired, relaxed, and content.

  He sat in the other chair, at the opposite side of the fireplace. Nothing had been said except for his apologies. He stretched himself in the chair, and smiled. He said: ‘Lewis, I shan’t go on with the Bar.’

  I exclaimed. After a moment, I said: ‘You’ve not settled anything, have you?’

  ‘What do you think?’ He was still smiling.

  ‘You know you’d do well at it,’ I began. ‘Better than any of us–’

  ‘I’m sure that’s nonsense,’ he said. ‘But in any case, it isn’t the point. You know it isn’t the point, don’t you?’

  He had not come for advice. His mind was made up. There was no anxiety or hesitation left in his manner. He was speaking more calmly, with more strength and authority, than I had ever heard him speak.

  ‘I was very glad that I didn’t disgrace myself yesterday,’ he said. ‘Because one of the reasons for giving up the law wasn’t exactly pleasing to one’s self-respect. I knew it all along: I wanted to escape because I was frightened. I was frightened that I shouldn’t succeed.’

  ‘I don’t believe much in that,’ I said.

  ‘You mustn’t minimize it.’ He smiled at me. ‘Remember, I’m a much more diffident person than you are. As well as being much more spiritually arrogant. I hate competing unless I’m certain that I’m going to win. The pastime I really enjoy most is dominoes, right hand against left. So I wanted to slip out: but I should have felt cheap doing it.’

  I nodded.

  ‘What would have happened if you hadn’t done so well yesterday?’

  ‘Do you think I’ve enough character to go on until I’d satisfied myself?’ He chuckled. ‘I wonder if I or anyone else could really have stuck on doggedly at the Bar until they felt sufficiently justified. It would have been rather heroic: but it would also have been slightly mad. Don’t you agree it would have been mad? No, I’m sure I should have given it up whatever had happened. But if I’d been a complete failure yesterday, I should have felt pretty inferior because I was escaping. Now I don’t, at any rate to the same extent.’ He went on: ‘Of course, you know what I think about the law.’

  He meant the law as an occupation: for a time we went over our past arguments: I knew as well as he did how he found the law sterile, how he could not feel value in such a life. Then Charles said:

  ‘Well, those were two reasons I’ve thought about for months. You can’t dismiss them altogether. I shall always have a slight suspicion that I ran away. But, like all the other reasons one thinks about for months, they had just about as much effect on my actions as Mr L’s patent medicines have on his superb health. It was something quite different – that I didn’t need or want to think about – that made it certain I should have to break away.’

  He looked straight at me.

  ‘I think you’ve realized it for long enough,’ he said. ‘You remember the first time I talked to you about Katherine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I was afraid afterwards that you must have noticed something,’ he said, with a grim smile. ‘It was the first time you came to our house, of course. I was very much upset because she was being sent to that dance against her will. I was pretending to be concerned only about her welfare. I was talking about her, and trying to believe that was being detached and dispassionate. You’ve done the same thing yourself, haven’t you? It was the sort of occasion when one sits with a fu
rrowed brow trying to work out someone else’s salvation – and knows all the time that one’s talking about oneself.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Probably you understand,’ said Charles, ‘without my saying any more. But I want to explain myself. It’s curiously difficult to speak, still. Even tonight, when I’m extremely happy, I’m still not quite free.’

  He said, slowly: ‘The Bar represented part of an environment that I can’t accept for myself. You see, I can’t say it simply. If I stayed at the Bar, I should be admitting that I belonged to the world’ – he hesitated – ‘of rich and influential Jews. That is the world in which most people want to keep me. Most people, both inside it and outside. If I stayed at the Bar, I should get cases from Jewish solicitors, I should become one of the gang. And people outside would dismiss me, not that they need so much excuse, as another bright young Jew. Do you think it’s tolerable to be set aside like that?’

  There was a silence. He went on: ‘I haven’t enjoyed being a Jew. Since I was a child, I haven’t been allowed to forget – that other people see me through different eyes. They label me with a difference that I can’t accept. I know that I sometimes make myself feel a stranger, I know that very well. But still, other people have made me feel a stranger far more often than I have myself. It isn’t their fault. It’s simply a fact. But it’s a fact that interferes with your spirits and nags at you. Sometimes it torments you – particularly when you’re young. I went to Cambridge desperately anxious to make friends who would be so intimate that I could forget it. I was aching for that kind of personal success – to be liked for the person I believed myself to be. I thought, if I couldn’t be liked in that way, there was nothing for it: I might as well go straight back to the ghetto.’

  He stopped suddenly, and smiled. He looked very tired, but full of relief.

  As I listened, I was swept on by his feeling, and at the same time surprised. I had noticed something, but nothing like all he had credited me with. I had seen him wince before, but took it to be the kind of wound I had known in myself through being born poor; I too had sometimes been looking out for snubs. In me, that was not much of a wound, though: it had never triggered off a passion. Now I was swept along by his, moved and yet with a tinge of astonishment or doubt.