Charles Snow - George Passant

Morcom smiled.

‘I don’t know what is possessing him,’ said George. ‘Though, as I told him the night we had our disagreement, I can’t imagine working under anyone else.’

‘It’s a pity for his sake,’ I said, ‘but the most important thing is — what does it mean to you?’

‘Yes,’ said Morcom. ‘We haven’t much to go on yet.’

‘You’ll tell me if you get any news,’ said George.

‘Of course.’

They were enjoying this co-operation. They each found that pleasure we all have in being on the same side with someone we have regularly opposed.

George walked to the window. It was almost nine, and the summer night had scarcely begun to darken. George looked over the roofs. The buildings fell away in shadow, the roofs shone in the clear light.

‘I’m glad you came round,’ said George. ‘I’ve been letting it get on my nerves. It doesn’t matter to you so much. But it just possibly might upset all the arrangements I have built up for myself. I’ve always counted on his being perfectly dependable. He is part of the scheme of things. If he’s going to play fast-and-loose — it might be the most serious thing that has happened since I came here.’

THE firm of Eden & Martineau had been established, under the name of G J Eden, Solicitor, by Eden’s father in the eighties. It was a good time for the town, despite shadows of depression outside; by the pure geographical chance of being just outside the great coal- and iron-fields, it was beginning to collect several light industries instead of a single heavy one. And it was still a country market and a centre for litigious farmers. The elder Eden got together a comfortable business almost from the beginning.

His son became junior partner in 1896; Martineau joined when the father died, ten years later. Through the next twenty years, down to the time when George was employed, the firm maintained a solid standing. It never obtained any unusual success in making money: a lack of drive in the Edens seemed to have prevented that. The firm, though well thought of in the town, was not among the most prosperous solicitors’. It is doubtful whether Harry Eden ever touched £3,000 a year.

From the moment he entered it, George bore a deep respect for the firm, and still, nearly three years after, would say how grateful he was to Martineau for ‘having somehow got past the opposition and wangled me the job’. His pride in the firm should not have surprised us, though it sometimes did. It seemed strange to notice George identifying himself with a solid firm of solicitors in a provincial town — but of course it is not the Georges, the rebels of the world, who are indifferent to authority and institutions. The Georges cannot be indifferent easily; if they are in an institution, it may have to be changed, but it becomes part of themselves. George in the firm was, on a minor scale, something like George in his family; vehement, fighting for his rights, yet proud to be there and excessively attached.

In the same way, his gratitude to Martineau and his sense of good luck at ever having been appointed both showed how little he could take himself and the firm for granted. As a matter of fact, there was no mystery, almost no manoeuvring, and no luck; they appointed him with a couple of minutes’ consideration.

The only basis for the story of Martineau’s manoeuvres seemed to be that Eden said: ‘He’s not quite a gentleman, of course, Howard. Not that I think he’s any the worse for that, necessarily,’ and Martineau replied: ‘I liked him very much. There’s something fresh and honest about him, don’t you feel?’

At any rate, George, who was drawn to Martineau at sight, went to the firm with the unshakeable conviction that there was his patron and protector.

Eden, George respected and disliked, more than he admitted to himself. It was dislike without reason. It was an antipathy such as one finds in any firm — or in any body of people brought together by accident and not by mutual liking, as I found later in colleges and government departments.

About the relations of Eden and Martineau themselves, George speculated very little. Their professional capacity, however, he decided early. Martineau was quite good while he was at all interested. Eden was incompetent at any kind of detailed work (George undervalued his judgment and broad sense). Between them, they left a good deal of the firm’s work to George, and there is no doubt that, after he had been with them a couple of years, he carried most of their cases at the salary of a solicitor’s clerk, £250 a year.

With Martineau to look after his interests George felt secure and happy, and enjoyed the work. He did not want to leave; the group at the School weighed with him most perhaps, but also his comfort in the firm. He was not actively ambitious. He had decided, with his usual certain optimism — by interpreting some remark of Martineau’s, and also because he thought it just — that he would fairly soon be taken into partnership. Martineau would ‘work it’ — George had complete faith. Meanwhile, he was content.

And so the first signs of Martineau’s instability menaced everything he counted on.

It was the first time we had seen him anxious for his own sake. We were worried. We tried to see what practical ill could happen. I asked George whether he feared that Martineau would sell his partnership; this he indignantly denied. But I was not reassured, and I could not help wishing that his disagreement with Eden last autumn, the whole episode of the committee, was further behind him.

I talked it over several nights that summer with Morcom and Jack; and also with Rachel who, for all her deep-throated sighs, had as shrewd a judgment as any of us. We occupied ourselves with actions, practical prudent actions, that George might be induced to take. But Olive, her insight sharpened by the lull in her own life, had something else to say.

‘Do you remember that night in the café — when we were trying to stop him from interfering about Jack?’ she said. ‘I had a feeling then that he was unlucky ever to come near us. He’d have done more if he’d have gone somewhere that kept him on the rails. Perhaps that’s why the firm is beginning to seem important to him now.’

She went on: ‘I admire him,’ she said. ‘We shall all go on admiring him. It’s easy to see it now I’m on the shelf. But he’s getting less from us — than we’ve all got from him. We’ve just given him an excuse for the things he wanted to do. We’ve made it pleasant for him to loll about and fancy he’s doing good. If he hadn’t come across such a crowd, he’d have done something big. I know he’s been happy. But don’t you think he has his doubts? Don’t you think he might like the chance to throw himself into the firm?’

Even at that age, Olive had no use for the great libertarian dreams. Perhaps her suspicions jarred on Rachel, who was, like me, concerned to find something politic that George might do. We suggested that it would do no harm to increase Eden’s goodwill. ‘Just as an insurance,’ Rachel said. We meant nothing subtle or elaborate; but there were one or two obvious steps, such as getting Eden personally interested in the case and asking his advice now and then — and taking part in some of the Edens’ social life, attending the parties which Mrs Eden held each month and which George avoided from his first winter in the town.

George was angry at the suggestions. ‘He wants me to do his work for him. He doesn’t want to see me anywhere else—’ and then, as a second line of defence: ‘I’m sorry. I don’t see why I should make myself uncomfortable without any better reasons than you’re able to give. I am no good at social flummery. As I think I proved, the last time you persuaded me to make a fool of myself. I should have thought I’d knocked over enough cups for everyone’s amusement. I tell you I’m no good at social flummery. You can’t expect me to be, starting where I did.’