Charles Snow - George Passant

Dinner at the Edens’ was an ordeal in which the right dress, the right fork, the proper tone of conversation, presented moments of shame too acute to be faced without an overmastering temptation. As he grew older he was making less effort to conquer these moments.

‘You can’t expect me to, starting where I did.’ That was one motive — I knew — why he built up a group where he was utterly at ease, never going out into the uncomfortable and superior world.

None of us could move George to cultivate Eden’s favour. We pressed him several times after he returned from vague but disturbing conversations with Martineau. He said: ‘I’d rather do something more useful — which meant engross himself in the case. Through the uncertainty, it had come to assume a transcendental importance in his mind. Sensibly, Eden was letting him argue it in the court.

Throughout June and July, George worked at it with extraordinary stamina and concentration. I saw him work till the dawn six nights running, and although I made up sleep in the mornings and he went to the office, he was fresher than I each evening and more ready for the night’s work to come.

UNTIL just before the final hearing of the case, George was searching for money to salvage Jack’s business. It was a continual vexation; he did not endure it quietly. ‘This is intolerable,’ he shouted, as his work was interrupted. ‘Intolerable!’

I had, in fact, used it as an argument for getting Eden’s interest. Even in the Calvert trouble, Eden had shown a liking for Jack; and it would have been easy, I argued — if George were on friendly terms with Eden — to explain the position and secure an advance of salary for Jack’s sake.

Instead, George was harassed by petty expedients. He borrowed a few pounds from Morcom and Rachel, pawned his only valuable possession, a gold medal won at school, increased his overdraft by ten pounds, up to the limit allowed by his bank.

George managed to raise nearly sixty pounds in all, a few days before Jack’s grace expired.

‘Well, here it is,’ he said to Jack. He was sitting in his room for one of his last nights’ work on the case. ‘You can thank heaven you didn’t need any more. I don’t know how I could have scraped another penny.’

‘Thank you, George,’ Jack said. ‘Saved again. It won’t happen any more, though.’

‘I warn you I’m just helpless now,’ George said.

‘I’ll pay it back by the end of the year. I expect you think that I shan’t,’ Jack said. ‘But, you wouldn’t believe it, but I’m more confident after this collapse than I was at the start.’

George stared down at his papers.

‘There is one other thing.’

‘Yes, George?’

‘I don’t know whether you realise how near you have been to — considerable danger.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean something definite. Your methods of getting hold of some of that stock were just on the fringe of the law. You didn’t know, I expect, but if you hadn’t met your bills and they had sued — you stood an even chance of being prosecuted afterwards.’

‘I was afraid you were worrying over those figures,’ said Jack. ‘You’re seeing more than is really there, you know.’

‘I don’t propose to say another word,’ George said. ‘The whole thing is over. I want you to know that I don’t retract anything I’ve said about expecting you to make a tremendous success. You were unlucky over this affair. You might just as easily have been gigantically lucky. It was probably a bigger risk than you were justified in taking. Perhaps it’s wiser not to attempt long-range prophecies. They’re obviously the interesting things in business; but then, you see, I’m still convinced that successful business is devastatingly uninteresting. But if you don’t reach quite as far, you’ll simply outclass all those bloated stupid competitors of yours. It’s unthinkable that you won’t. I refuse to waste time considering it.’ His eyes left Jack, and he began studying one of his tables of notes. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to neglect you now. I’ve got to make certain of smashing them on Thursday.’

The last hearing of George’s case took up a July afternoon. I sat in the old Assize Hall, where the Quarter Sessions had been transferred this year. The hall was small, intimate, and oppressive in the summer heat. Thunder rolled intermittently as George made his last speech, aggressive, closely packed with an overwhelming argument. He was more nervous than in his attack on the School committee.

The judge had been a little short with him, provoked by his manner. Eden, who allowed George complete charge in the later stages, sat with his lips in a permanent but uneasy smile. When George was given the case, in words slightly peremptory and uncordial, Eden shook his hand: ‘That was an able piece of work, Passant. I must say you’ve done very well.’ Then Martineau, who had not attended a hearing throughout the case, entered, was told the news, and laughed. ‘You’ll go from strength to strength, won’t you, George? You’ll be ashamed of being seen with your old friends—’

When they had gone, I stayed alone with George while he packed his papers: he bent his head over the desk and made a neat tick on the final page; he was smiling to himself. We went together to a café by the river; when we sat down at the little table by the window, he said, with an exultant sigh: ‘Well, we’ve pulled that off.’ A happy smile spread over his face. ‘This is one of the best occasions there have ever been,’ he said.

‘I’ve never seen anyone look quite so jubilant,’ I said, ‘as when you got the verdict.’

George shook with laughter.

‘I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t look pleased,’ he said, ‘when you damned well know you’ve done something in a different class from the people round you.’ His voice calmed down. ‘Not that I ever had any serious doubts about it.’

‘Not last week?’ I said. ‘Walking round the park?’

‘You can’t expect me not to have bad moments,’ George said. ‘I didn’t get a reasonable chance to have any faith in myself until — not long ago. Being as shy as I am in any respectable society doesn’t help. I’ve never got over my social handicaps. And you realise that I went through my childhood without anyone impressing on me that I had ability — considerable ability, in fact.’ He chuckled. ‘So you can’t expect me not to have bad moments. But they’re not very serious. Fortunately, I’ve managed to convince myself—’

‘What of?’

‘That I’m capable of doing something useful in the world and that I’ve found the way of doing it.’

Contentedly he leaned back against the wall, and looked beyond me through the window. It was a cloudy evening, but the sky was bright towards the west; so that in the stream that ran by the café garden the clouds were reflected, dark and sharply cut.

‘It was extremely important that I should be a success in the firm,’ George went on. ‘I regard that as settled now. They couldn’t do without me.’

‘Do they realise that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you sure?’

George flushed. ‘Of course I am. I’m not dealing with cretins. You heard yourself what Martineau said an hour ago.’

‘You can’t rely on Martineau.’

‘Why not?’

‘In his present state, he might do anything. Sell his partnership and go into the Church,’ I smiled, stretching my invention for something more fantastic than the future could possibly hold.

‘Nonsense,’ said George. ‘He’s a bit unsettled. People of imagination often have these bouts. But he’s perfectly stable, of course.’

‘You’ve forgotten what Morcom said the other night?’