Charles Snow - George Passant

George had flushed. Morcom was looking at Martineau.

‘So I told Harry Eden on Monday afternoon,’ Martineau went on. ‘He said he’d like to see my brother. That’s why I arranged for them to meet.’

‘You’d arranged that a week ago. So you’d made up your mind then,’ George burst out.

‘Not quite made up.’ For a moment Martineau looked a little distraught. ‘And in any case I felt I should like to have his advice, whether I had decided or not, you see. And Eden thought he’d feel easier if he could talk to one of my relatives, naturally.’

‘I was brought in,’ Morcom said, ‘because Martineau hasn’t any close friends of his own age in the town. You were ruled out because you were in the firm yourself, George. So Eden asked me in.’

To me, it was natural enough. Morcom at twenty-eight was a man who seemed made for responsibility; and most people thought of him as older.

‘I suppose it’s understandable,’ George said. ‘But if you’ve made up your mind’ — he looked at Martineau — ‘however fantastic it seems to everyone else, why should Eden become so officious all of a sudden? It’s simply a matter of selling your share. I should have thought even Eden could have done that without family conferences.’

There was a pause. Martineau said, his voice trailing off: ‘There is one matter that isn’t quite—’

‘It’s this,’ said Morcom. ‘Martineau doesn’t want to sell his share. He insists on giving it up to Eden.’

We sat in silence.

‘It’s raving lunacy,’ George cried out.

‘George! You won’t be the last to call it that kind of name.’ Martineau laughed.

‘I’m sorry,’ said George, heavily. ‘And yet — what else can you call it?’

‘I should like to call it something else.’ Martineau was still laughing. ‘I should like to call it: part of an attempt to live as I think I ought. It’s time, George, it’s time, after fifty years.’

‘ Why do you think you ought?’

‘The religion I try to believe in—’

‘You know you’re doubtful whether you can call yourself a Christian.’

‘This world of affairs of yours, George,’ Martineau was following another thought — ‘why, my chief happiness in your socialism is that one ought to give up all one has to the common good. It’s always been a little of a puzzle how one can fail to do that in practice and keep the faith.’

George was flaring out, when I said: ‘“Give it up to the common good” — but you’re not doing that. You’re giving it to Eden.’

‘Ah, Lewis!’ Martineau smiled. ‘You think at least I ought to dispose of it myself?’

‘I should have thought so.’

‘Don’t you see,’ he said, ‘that I can’t do that? If I admit I have the power to dispose of it, why then I haven’t got rid of the chains. I’ve got to let it slide. I mustn’t allow myself the satisfaction of giving it to a friend’ — he looked at George — ‘or selling it and giving the money to charity. I’m compelled to forgo even that. I must just stand by as humbly as I can and be glad I haven’t got the power.’

I looked at Morcom and George. We were all quiet. It was in a flat, level voice that George said: ‘No doubt Eden hasn’t raised any objections.’

‘That’s not fair,’ said Morcom. ‘He’s behaved very well.’

Martineau looked cheerfully at George. He still enjoyed a thrust at his partner’s expense.

‘He’s a good fellow,’ he said lightly.

‘I prefer to hold to my own opinion.’

‘He’s behaved well,’ said Morcom again. ‘Better than you could reasonably expect. He refused to do anything at all until he’d seen Martineau’s brother. He said today that he doesn’t like it and that he won’t sign any transfer for three months. If anything happens to make Martineau change his mind during that time, then Eden wants the firm to go on as before. And if it doesn’t, well, he said he was a businessman and not a philanthropist, and so he wasn’t going to make gestures. He’ll just take the offer. He’s very fond of Martineau, he’s as sorry as anyone else that this has happened—’

‘I wish,’ Martineau chuckled, ‘everyone wouldn’t refer to me as though I were either insane or dead.’ We all laughed, George very loudly.

‘It’s good of him,’ said Martineau. ‘But I’m afraid he might as well save the time. I consider that it isn’t mine any longer, you see. For — it isn’t decided by a form of law—’

Soon afterwards Martineau left. When I heard the door click outside, I said: ‘Whatever’s going to become of him?’

On George’s face injury struggled with concern: he shook his head. Morcom said: ‘God knows.’ But, at that time, even our most fantastic prophecies would not have approached the truth.

‘The first thing,’ said George, ‘is to satisfy ourselves that he can find a living. We can’t take any other steps until we’re sure of that.’

‘Apparently he told his brother he was going to earn enough by various methods. Which he wouldn’t give any details of,’ said Morcom. ‘I simply don’t know what he means.’

‘Though how he reconciles giving up his share,’ said George with an impatient laugh, ‘and earning a living in any other way, is just beyond me. I suppose consistency isn’t his strong point. Oh God!’ he broke out, ‘don’t you find it hard to realise that this has happened ?’

‘Of course he won’t starve,’ Morcom said. ‘That’s one comfort. There is plenty of money in the family. In fact, that’s one of his brother’s chief anxieties. That they’ll have to support him. The Canon’s a hard man, by the way. I don’t think I like him much.’

‘Not so much as you like Eden, I suppose,’ George said.

Morcom paused slightly: ‘Nothing like,’ he said.

The strain between them was showing in every word. I said hastily: ‘What’s he going to do with the house? Does he own it or not?’

‘He’s got some scheme for turning it into a boarding house,’ said Morcom. ‘With his housekeeper in charge.’

‘That means we’ve had the last “Friday night”,’ I said. ‘I shall miss them,’ I added.

‘You have to realise,’ said Morcom deliberately, ‘that he’s cutting himself away from his present life. That means cutting himself away from us as much as from the firm. You have to understand that. He doesn’t want to see much of us again.’

Suddenly George burst into gusts of laughter. I found myself grow tense, watching him shake, seeing the tears that came so easily.

‘I’ve just thought,’ he wiped his eyes, then began to laugh again as helplessly. ‘I’ve just thought,’ he said at last in a weak voice: ‘Martineau’s position is exactly this. He thinks a man couldn’t hold his share in the firm if he’s either a Christian or a socialist. So he gives it up, being neither a Christian nor a socialist.’

It was a typical George joke, in its symmetry, in the incongruity that would strike no one else. But he had been laughing more for relief than at the joke. Soon he was saying, quite soberly: ‘We’ve been assuming all the time that everything’s settled. We haven’t given ourselves a chance to do anything in the matter.’

‘Of course we can’t do anything,’ said Morcom.

‘I don’t know whether I accept that completely,’ said George. ‘But if so we shall have to set to work in another direction.’

I did not know what those words foreshadowed; I was easier in mind than I had been that afternoon, to see his spirits enlivened again.

AFTER he went away from George’s, none of us saw Martineau for weeks. There were some rumours about him; he was said to have bought a share of a small advertising agency, and also to have been seen in a poor neighbourhood visiting from house to house. Several times at Eden’s we talked of him and speculated over his next move. The whole episode often seemed remote, as we sat in the comfortable room, hung with a collection of Chinese prints, and heard Eden say: ‘These things will happen.’ He said it frequently, with a tolerant and good-humoured smile.