Charles Snow - George Passant

‘We want to see it happen,’ said Olive. Her eyes were bright and penetrating while she thought only of George. Now they clouded.

‘George,’ she said, ‘I want you to give me some advice.’

‘Yes.’

‘You heard what I said to Jack. Things at home aren’t getting any easier. Possibly I ought to give up the next two or three years to my father. But you know all about it. I just want an answer to this question — ought I to clear out at any price?’

‘This is a bit complicated,’ said George. ‘You know I don’t approve of your parents. We’ll take that for granted. If you could bring yourself to get away, I think you would be happier. What exactly are you thinking of doing?’

‘I might get a better job,’ she said, ‘and live away from home. Or I might get married soon.’

George stayed silent for a moment. A good-natured smile had settled on his face. He said: ‘Getting a job to make yourself really independent wouldn’t be as easy as you imagine. Everyone knows what I think of your capabilities, but the fact is, girls of your class aren’t trained to be much use in the world.’

‘You’re right,’ said Olive.

‘You’re given less chance than anybody. It’s a scandal, but it’s true. To be honest, I don’t think it would happen if women weren’t in the main destined for their biological purpose. I dare say you could live on your present job. But living in abject poverty isn’t much fun. Anyone who’s ever tried would have to tell you that. I’m afraid you might begin to be willing — to get wrapped in your family again.’

Everyone was struck by the caution and the moderate tone of his advice: in fact, George, who could take up any other free idea under heaven, never had an illusion about the position of women. Olive inclined her head.

‘I’m glad you’re speaking out,’ she said. ‘And marriage?’

George said slowly: ‘Escaping even from a family like yours is no reason for marriage. The only reason for marriage is that you are certain that you’re completely in love.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said Olive, ‘perhaps so. I don’t know.’ She sat silently for an instant. Then she smiled at him. ‘Anyway, it’s more important for you to get established,’ she said, as though there was a link between them.

George did not reply, and Olive fell into silence. The windows rattled in the wind. Rachel sighed opulently, and said: ‘We’ve never had a night here quite like this. George, don’t you think we ought to remember this Saturday? We ought to make it a festival, and come over here to keep it in October every year.’

The sentiment welled from her; and she gave the rest of us an excuse to be sentimental.

A few moments later I said: ‘Some of us are starting. Where we shall have got to, after a few of Rachel’s festivals—’

‘Good God alive,’ George burst into triumphant laughter, ‘you don’t expect me to choose this day of all days to lose faith in the future, do you?’

The next night, after supper, George and I were alone in the room. The others had gone into the town by the last bus: George was staying another night in order to call at the Melton office in the morning, and I could stretch myself in my new liberty.

We made another pot of tea. ‘There’s something I should like to show you,’ George said suddenly, with a friendly but secret smile. ‘I want you to inspect my exhibit. Just to round off the weekend. It is exactly the right night for that.’

He put a small suitcase on the table. This he unlocked and produced a dozen thick folios, held together in a clip-back case.

‘You’ve heard me mention this,’ he said. ‘I’m going to let you read a few entries about Jack Cotery’s affairs. I assume you’ll keep them to yourself, naturally.’

It was his diary, which he had kept for years.

He searched through one of the folios, detached pages and handed them to me. At another, more important, moment in George’s life, I was to read much of the diary. The appearance of the pages, years later, altered little from when he began it at eighteen. They were all in his clerkly and legible hand; in a wide left-hand margin he printed in capitals (sometimes after the entries were made, usually when a folio was completed) a sort of sectional heading, and another at the top of the page.

Thus:

COMFORT WITH THE GROUP

FRIDAY, AUG. 23

PLEASURES OF ONE DAY

I could not let today pass by without writing. It was a day of hard work in the office; Eden listened to my summary and is well and truly launched on the co-operative case. I screwed myself up to spend a couple of hours at Martineau’s this evening; it is not long since I left him and, as so often, felt stronger by his influence. But, above all, I passed a memorable evening with my friends…

‘That entry is just to acclimatise you,’ said George. In fact, there were pages of rhapsody over the group; rhapsody in a florid, elaborate and youthful style, which nevertheless could not keep one from believing his enthusiasm; and mixed with the rhapsody, more self-reproach and doubt than his friends would have expected then.

At first sight much of it seemed unfamiliar; for it was bringing home (what at that age I hadn’t seen directly) some of the ways in which he appeared to himself. I read:

For I feel these people (these protégés of mine, if they will let me call them that) are gradually renewing their grip on my affections, my thought, my visions, although I have only visited them occasionally. The last weekend was full of drunken nights, of decrepit nights. I went to Nottingham, finding money drip away as usual… I was still on the hunt and finished at Connie’s, as in duty bound. Then I realised once again that no other girl of the past year is fit to take her place. I just had time for a huzzlecoo; then I went back on the last train. It left me in a mood of headache and despair…

And another day:

THEY ARE REMOTE

I felt very depressed this evening. I arrived at one of those moods when the world seemed useless — when effort seemed in vain; the impossibility of moving mountains had overwhelmed me with my little faith. A chance remark by Olive on the purposelessness of the group had suddenly awakened me to their lack of response, to the lack of response of all of them; to their utter remoteness from me…

Then there was another entry over which I thought a good deal in the next few months.

MORCOM AND MY WORLD

TUESDAY, SEP. 3

MORCOM RAISES A PROFOUND QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD THE GROUP MEAN?

Today Morcom entertained me to lunch. He was charming and considerate — the perfect host. He has so much that I fear I shall never acquire, taste and polish and

savoir faire

, while I am still uncultivated except in my one or two narrow special regions. If only he would abandon his negative attitude and join my attempts! He and I would be the natural alliance, and there is no limit to what we could achieve among the Philistines in this town. He with his strength and command and certainty. I with my burning hopes. When he went out of his way to be pleasant today and issued this invitation, I could scarcely contain my hopes that he was about to throw in his weight on my side. Yet apparently, if ever he possessed it, he withdrew from any such intention, and, indeed, he dropped one or two hints which made me examine myself anew, distressed me profoundly, and caused me, as before, to distrust his influence on some of my closest friends.

Morcom had criticised, sensibly and much as Olive did later, George’s devotion to our group. He had said, in short, that it was not close enough to the earth to satisfy a man of power for long. On paper George answered the criticisms, so elaborately that he showed his own misgivings: and finished: