In Their Wisdom Read online

  Another man stood behind their table. It was James Ryle, but, before Clare could introduce him, there were shouts of ‘Division’, scraping of chairs as people rose, shrilling of bells. Ryle, whom Jenny might have talked to without this interruption, said that he had better go and vote. There was an amendment to a government bill in the committee stage, and Clare, a Conservative devotee, went off automatically to do his duty.

  Left alone with Swaffield in the window corner, Jenny looked at him expectantly. Now was the time. Instead, Swaffield returned her look with tantalising, impudent or leering cheerfulness, and said that he wished he could buy her another drink – but he had discovered that as a guest he couldn’t.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he observed. Once more she thought, this might be the time.

  ‘Yes, Mr Swaffield?’ No one had ever made it so difficult for her to keep still.

  ‘I don’t think much of the hereditary peerage. It’s a load of nonsense.’

  After his purring over Lord Clare, he was, with his usual energy, having it both ways. This outburst was sincere enough: the curious thing was, the purring might be sincere too. That was hard for Jenny to accept, thinking him constantly coolheaded, the cynical operator. And yet, side by side with that, there could co-exist another quality, which was that he believed in what he was doing while he was doing it, though sometimes not for long.

  He stared round the room, places left vacant at the tables, women chattering, here and there a solitary male.

  ‘Why in God’s name should they be here?’ said Swaffield with a disapproving grin, as though addressing the vacant seats or proposing a cantankerous health to absent friends. He went on:

  ‘What good do they think they’re doing here? You tell me that.’

  Just then – they had been away only three or four minutes – Clare and an acquaintance re-entered the room, followed by others. The acquaintance was Lord Lorimer, as lonely and out of place as when he had seated himself beside Hillmorton weeks before. Ryle had not returned, but Clare began collecting chairs and assembling them round their corner. Swaffield was known by sight to people who looked at photographs in the financial columns: a Jewish peer, Azik Schiff, maybe even richer than Swaffield, joined the party, together with his wife and step-daughter. As well as Lorimer, several men, including a newly elevated bishop, began to listen on the fringes of the group. Jenny couldn’t help but realise, as had happened to her before, on visits to Hill Street, the magnetic attraction of great wealth: the rich might not be different from us, except that the most unlikely men gathered round them. People seemed to like being courtiers, even at the oddest of courts.

  In a moment, she realised something else. When Swaffield suddenly accosted her, in a tone jeering and protective:

  ‘Well, Jenny, my girl, I have a message for you,’ she knew that he had been waiting for an audience. He had done this to her once before, out of the blue questioning her about her father and the will, at a large dinner party in his own house.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ she muttered, blood flooding up, defenceless. She had been prepared for much, not for this. Even he couldn’t discuss her private business before a group of strangers, in a place where he didn’t belong. She still had something to learn.

  ‘Not on. You’ll have to make up your mind. Anyway Edward will be interested, he ought to hear.’ Swaffield was speaking to the group at large. ‘Edward’s going to be one of my vice-presidents, you see, and this is one of my girls.’ Expansively Swaffield explained that he was talking of his society for old people: it wasn’t his only charity, he said, but it was his favourite one: ‘We shall all come to it soon, you’d better face it, we shall all know what it’s like to be old.’ His eyes flashed round among the men, with his matey taunting defiance, as though inquisitive as to whether they were still virile or had ever been. Then he gazed at the women with similar interrogations about their husbands. As it happened, Lady Schiff and her daughter were about as likely to be out-faced or discomfited on such a matter as he was himself.

  He reverted to being cordial. After the challenges and the salacious eye, there were emollient listener-magnifying words returning, warming the moment. Yes, how good it was that Edward Clare was going to help him.

  ‘Very good, very good,’ said Bishop Boltwood, not over-fond of rich men, liking them better if they showed a tinge of human feeling.

  ‘Of course,’ said Swaffield, ‘Edward has been helping me with some of my business games. He’s been a great help, I don’t mind telling you.’

  Murmurs of assent. Clare sat, pale-eyed and not self-concerned, unselfconscious with the placidity of one who was used to being praised from childhood, not minding if Swaffield went on claiming what friends they were. Then Swaffield broke off. He said, startling and also embarrassing Jenny once again:

  ‘This girl has been a great help too. We couldn’t run the charity without people like her. And she’s about the best I’ve got.’

  ‘Very good,’ said the Bishop, a small bright-eyed figure, giving Jenny something like a wink of encouragement. She was distracted, chips on shoulders leaping up at being patronised: and yet, it wasn’t all patronage, some of it was kindness, he had cut off sucking up to peers, stopped his manoeuvres on his own account – as though he were momentarily contemptuous of these people round him – and concentrated on her.

  ‘It’s something to do,’ she said in a muted tone to the Bishop, who was sitting closest to her.

  ‘It’s more than that, I know, I know,’ the Bishop replied, hearty and north-country but also quiet, getting his hands free from the clutter of official garments. A connoisseur of English nomenclature might have observed that, while red tape turned out not to be red, lawn sleeves were certainly lawn. No one else had been listening to them, but Swaffield seemed to have directional hearing, however many people his eyes were flickering round or were being kept under his dominion. In his loudest attention-compelling voice he said: ‘There’s something else for you to do, dear. You’ll have to make up your mind.’ Yes, he had compelled attention. Glances were fixed on her, sympathetic, curious, or amused.

  ‘What about, Mr Swaffield?’ Her own voice had become harder. She wasn’t going to be beaten down.

  ‘I heard from old Symington (Symington was a partner in the firm of Robinson and Wigmore, the solicitors he had found for her) this afternoon. That’s why I brought you here.’ He paused, staring at her with hot ungentle fixity which might have been – though she knew with her it wasn’t – a stare of lust. Then he said, suddenly casual and off-hand: ‘The other people are trying to buy you off. You’ll have to make up your mind.’

  He addressed the group sitting round the table with utter equanimity, as though it were entirely natural for them to hear about a stranger’s affairs: ‘She’s being done down over her father’s will. I thought it was time someone got things right.’

  He went on: ‘Well, Jenny, they’ve offered £10,000. That’s net, they’ll pay all the costs.’

  She had been told to expect some move like this, but still wasn’t prepared.

  ‘Old Symington,’ said Swaffield, ‘thinks we might jack them up a thousand or two. Not a lot. This is about what they think it’s worth to keep you quiet. You’ll have to make up your mind.’

  Sometimes she trusted him. Was he being ambivalent now? She asked, as if she depended on him:

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s not a win for us. It’d mean they’re getting away with it very cheap. They’re getting away with murder. I’d like to see some of that crowd begging in the street.’

  That was too violent for his audience. He sensed it, he was letting too much of his aboriginal fury break through. With a quick-change act, he became once more a benevolent, protective and indulgent benefactor.

  ‘Still, you know, we can’t have everything, sometimes you have to sit by and see a set of crooks making a meal of it.’

  Someone asked a question about the legislation. Swaffield didn’t answer, but spoke
without emphasis to Jenny:

  ‘You’ll have to make up your mind about the offer. I advise you to take it.’

  She had a strong feeling that he didn’t want her to. He might be trying to influence her by contraries, he was fluid enough for that, she had seen him bring it off. Yet somehow – she trusted him more than she let herself think – she believed that he was being responsible. At least he was making an effort to be responsible. After all, he knew the difference this money would make to her. She had been reckoning that it would increase her income by fifty per cent.

  ‘I advise you to take it,’ Swaffield repeated. In a moment he spoke to Azik Schiff: ‘Isn’t that what she had better do?’ Lord Schiff shook his large Judaic head, as melon-mouthed as Swaffield’s own:

  ‘No, I don’t know anything about the circumstances.’ He smiled amiably at Jenny, ‘I’m sure she will be perfectly sensible, whatever she decides.’ Azik Schiff liked the look of Jenny and wished her good luck: but in fact his faith in other people’s sense about money was minimal, and he had a mild unemotional desire to get her out of Swaffield’s control. He had to admit that Swaffield had made a large fortune, but Azik Schiff thought he was a philistine and that his operations, though presumably legal, ought not to be so. Sometimes there was a freemasonry among successes, even financial successes: but not with Azik Schiff, who in secret admired only intellectual men, preferably scholars, such as he might have been.

  Shouts of ‘Division’ again and insistent bells. ‘Must be Clause Stand Part’, someone said knowledgeably, but not in the language in which Shakespeare wrote. Clare and Lorimer departed to vote for the Government: the Bishop departed to vote against. Azik Schiff, detached about all governments and used to giving sceptical advice to any, did not vote at all. Instead, now that the room was partially cleared, he caught a waitress’ attention and ordered more drinks, but, once more standing outside, did not drink himself. On the other hand, when he managed to acquire a plate of sandwiches he ate his share.

  Apparently, Jenny speculated, that was all any of them would eat till late that night. How long was the debate going to last? ‘Arrangement to stop at one a.m.’, said the knowledgeable person. No dinner laid on, why not? The knowledgeable person, who like Azik was not voting, had an explanation. To Jenny it all seemed singularly ascetic.

  For a while Swaffield was leaving Jenny alone. The Schiffs beamed at her with good nature but didn’t refer again to her decision. Partly out of delicacy. Azik Schiff was a better mannered man than Swaffield, which wouldn’t in itself have made him a Lord Chesterfield: but, by loftier standards, his nerves were fine and he had refined his wife’s. They wanted this peculiar exhibitionistic scene not to start again. But they had another reason for wanting that.

  They both knew what it was like to be poor. Azik had arrived in London in the thirties with a hundred and fifty pounds: Rosalind Schiff came from the back streets of a provincial town. She had married one wealthy man and later Schiff, after he had become very rich: she was the best dressed woman in the guest room: that didn’t prevent her studying Jenny’s clothes with the costing eye of forty years before. As for Azik, it came as easy to him as walking – that is, to reckon what this money meant to her. Reaching the same conclusion, they both made the same response, wishing to hear no more and have no responsibility. It was a withdrawal unexpansive, coming out of prudence and memory of self-preservation. It was an unexpansive withdrawal which happened naturally to a good many who had once had to think about petty sums.

  Rosalind’s daughter – not by Schiff – was braver. Pretty but not out-going, divorced at twenty-two, still under thirty, living by herself on an independent income, she had been inspecting Jenny with cool curiosity. Taking advantage of a conversational flux among the others, she asked, in a quiet clear tone, intended only for Jenny and herself:

  ‘I take it this offer they’re making you – it’s not much of a share?’

  ‘Not very much.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ The young woman nodded.

  She said: ‘Say you turn them down and go ahead. Couldn’t you get someone to invest in you, and take a cut if you scoop the pool?’

  ‘I shouldn’t like that.’ Jenny didn’t like the young woman either, too ornamental, self-possessed, remote.

  ‘It might be worth thinking of.’

  Jenny didn’t like her, bridled at any more intervention, but was becoming excited, something between happy and exuberant now that the company seemed to be simmering round her. The room was suddenly full again after the division. The loudspeaker announced the result, which wasn’t a source of surprise.

  Soon afterwards, as though without realising that she was making an announcement or a choice, Jenny said:

  ‘Mr Swaffield, I’m not playing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I shall say no. I’m going to refuse.’

  Jenny noticed a glint in Muriel Calvert’s (the young woman’s) eyes and was for an instant chagrined. Was she conceited enough to think her comment had anything to do with this? But Jenny was buoyed up by the surge of hope and exuberance which infused one who had taken a decision.

  ‘I advise you against it,’ said Swaffield. He gave her a smile, his expression difficult to read.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m going to refuse.’

  ‘I advise you against it. So will old Symington. You’ll have to talk to him tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m quite certain,’ said Jenny, voice loud, authoritative, heart-and-soul at home. ‘It doesn’t matter what he says.’

  ‘Mrs Rastall,’ said the Bishop warmly, ‘you can’t decide anything on the spot, you really can’t.’

  ‘No,’ said Lorimer. It was almost the only word he had uttered, since he joined the party.

  ‘I can, you know.’

  ‘Well, you can’t say she doesn’t have spirit,’ said Swaffield, with what sounded like proprietorial pride.

  ‘You’ll have to listen to your lawyer,’ said Azik Schiff, trying to put the discussion to one side.

  ‘Oh, I’ll listen. But that doesn’t make much difference as a rule, does it, Lord Schiff?’

  That reply was bright, half-cheeky, but he respected her. It wasn’t to be his concern, but he was vestigially uneasy. Others had been uncomfortable at Swaffield’s behaviour, but Azik Schiff alone had, along with Jenny, wondered whether there was a purpose behind it.

  ‘I’ve known it do so now and then.’ It was not to be his concern, and that was all he permitted himself to say.

  In his polite style, Clare raised his glass to her, and remarked: ‘Good luck to you, whatever you do.’

  Lorimer muttered a shy ‘Hear, hear.’

  The interest in Jenny’s news was fading, contentedly, not dramatically. For some of them, it had been an interlude, mildly diverting, soon submerged in the long night’s stretch, anything welcome which helped pass the time. The Bishop, who had spoken on several clauses, felt for conscience sake obliged to stay until the end. So did those who were obeying the whip. A new speaker was announced by the address system. The Bishop, peering at the list of amendments, said that he wanted to listen to the next but one.

  Lord Clare, for once unceremonious, said that he could endure staying outside the Chamber until B–– ‘had a go’. Jenny had a half-thought that that sounded a peculiar expression, as of people leaving all their utterances to blind chance. Clare was continuing, in an aside to Swaffield, that it was going to be a long haul: he’d be glad of a little support, if Swaffield could bear it. Swaffield could bear it.

  He was cheerful at the prospect, basking there. So Jenny saw him, not knowing whether to resent or admire him for not being tired, for not caring whether he ate or slept. He was getting old, but he was no different now, pursuing a desire, from what he must have been as a young man. He was going to make some more acquaintances that night, meet more associates of Clare’s.

  Men came in, more congratulations on speeches. Noise, wafts of laughter, more drinks, people bringi
ng up chairs and then away again. Jenny began to find the talk vaguer and the lights brighter: she couldn’t think when it was time for her to leave. At last she said – it came out as unprepared as her declaration to Swaffield – that she must go. No one paid much attention. Swaffield gave a proprietorial nod, kissed her cheek, recollected himself and reminded her to speak to the lawyers in the morning.

  Lorimer said that he would show her the way downstairs. He was obstinate when she tried to put him off: no, it was a confusing building, anyway he wanted a few minutes’ breather.

  They went through the corridors, over the carpets, crimson, thick, shut off from the outside world as in a womb, or Jonah’s whale, or this particular piece of Westminster: past, though Jenny didn’t notice, a door with a small notice Peers’ Bar, which was the official name for the Bishops’ Bar. There Ryle was at that moment sitting, though not with Hillmorton, who was in his place in the Chamber and shortly to make a speech.

  Jenny, spirits still high, excitement bearing her up, was conscious that Lorimer was a nice, gauche man, diffident in spite of his grimmish soldier’s face, but she felt in herself a blankness in his company, a kind of disappointment that he didn’t attract her.