Charles Snow - George Passant

Materially, he was not much better off. Eden paid him £325 a year now; he still lectured at the School. But there was one surprising change — so surprising to me that I disbelieved it long after I ought to have been convinced. He had joined, as a concealed partner, in some of Jack’s money-making schemes.

They had actually bought the agency and the advertising paper from Martineau and his partner Exell, a year or so after Martineau joined his brotherhood. When Olive returned, the three of them had invented more ambitious plans, and in 1931 raised money to buy the farm and run it as a youth hostel.

These stories were true enough, I found: and they appeared to be making some money. As Olive wrote: ‘Of course, with Jack and me, we’re just keen on the money for its own sake. But I still don’t think anyone can say that of George. He gets some fun out of working up the schemes — but really all he wants money for is to leave him freer with his group.’

George had come, more thoroughly as each year passed, to live entirely within his group of protégés. He still carried young people off their feet; he still gave them faith in themselves; he was still eager with cheerful, abundant help, thoughtless of the effect on himself. Jack was only one out of many who would still have been clerks if they had not come under his influence. And there were others whom he could not help practically, but who were grateful. Olive quoted Rachel as saying: ‘Whatever they say, he showed us what it’s like to be alive.’

That went on: but there was a change. This was a change, though, that did not surprise me. It had been foreshadowed by Jack years ago, that night of our celebration in Nottingham. When I heard of it, I knew that it had always been likely; and I was curiously sad.

I heard of it, as it happened, from Roy Calvert, whom I met at a dinner-party in Cambridge. He was then twenty-one, polished and elegantly dressed. He talked of his cousin Olive. He was acute, he already knew his way about the world, he had become fond of women and attractive to them. He mentioned that George was attracting some gossip. George was, in fact, believed to be making love to girls within the group.

Roy had no doubt. Nor had I. As I say, it made me curiously sad. For I knew what, in earlier days, it would have meant to George.

I thought of him often after that piece of news. I had no premonition of danger; that did not reach me until a year later, until Morcom’s call in the summer of 1932. But I often wished that George’s life had taken a different curve.

During one case which regularly kept me late in chambers, so that I walked home through a succession of moonlit nights, those thoughts of George would not leave me alone. He was a man of more power than any of us: he seemed, as he used to seem, built on the lines of a great man. So I thought with regret, almost with remorse, walking in London under the moon.

I wished that I had been nearer his own age: I might have been more use to him: or that I had met him for the first time now.

Time and time again, I thought of him as I had first known him.

IT was one of the last days of the Trinity term of 1932 when Morcom visited me. I had just arrived in my chambers, after an afternoon in court.

‘I was passing through on my way back,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d call—’

He had been sailing, he was tanned from the sea; but his face was thinner, and a suspense seemed to tighten his voice.

We had dinner, and then I asked if anything was wrong.

‘Nothing much,’ said Morcom. He paused. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I’m worried about the people at—’ He used the name of the town.

‘Is there any news?’ I asked.

‘No news,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been away from them. I’ve been able to think. They’ll finish themselves with a scandal,’ he said, ‘unless something is done.’

‘What sort of scandal?’

‘Money,’ he said. ‘At least, that seems to be the dangerous part.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘Rumours have been going round for months,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help hearing them. As well as — private knowledge. When I got away, I realised what they meant.’

‘Well?’

‘There’s no doubt they’ve been working up some frauds. I’ve known that for some time. At least I knew they were pretty near the wind. I’ve only just begun to think that they’ve gone outside the law.’ He paused again. ‘That’s why I came in tonight.’

‘Tell me what you’re going on.’

‘I don’t think I’m wrong,’ said Morcom. ‘It’s all sordid. They’ve been spending money. They’ve invented one or two schemes and persuaded people to invest in them. On a smallish scale, I expect. Nothing very brilliant or impressive. They’ve done the usual tricks — falsified their expectations and got their capital from a few fools in the town.’

I was invaded by a strange ‘professional’ anxiety; for, although exact knowledge of a danger removes some fears, it can also sharpen others. A doctor will laugh, when another young man comes to him fearing heart disease — but the same doctor takes an excessive care over the milk his children drink. So I remembered other frauds: quickly I pressed Morcom for the facts.

What had happened? What were their schemes? What had been falsified? What was his evidence? Some of his answers were vague, vague perhaps through lack of knowledge, but I could not be sure. At times he spoke with certainty.

He told me, what I had already heard from Olive, of the purchase of Martineau’s advertising agency, and the organisation of the farm and another hostel. But he knew much more; for instance, that Miss Geary — who had taken George’s part in the committee meeting years ago — was one of the people who had advanced money.

‘You may still be wrong,’ I said, as I thought over his news. ‘Stupidity’s commoner than dishonesty. The number of ways people choose to lose their money is remarkable — when everyone’s behaving with perfect honesty.’

Morcom hesitated.

‘I can’t tell you why I’m certain. But I am certain that they have not behaved with perfect honesty.’

‘If you’re right — does anyone else know this?’

‘Not for certain. As far as I know.’ He added: ‘You may have gathered that I see very little of any of them — nowadays.’

His manner throughout had been full of insistence and conviction; but it was something else which impressed me. He was angry, scornful, and distressed; that I should have expected: but, more disquieting even than his story, was the extraordinary strain which he could not conceal. At moments — more obvious in him than anyone, because of his usual control — he had been talking with hysterical intensity. At other moments he became placid, serene, even humorous. I felt that state was equally aberrant.

‘You haven’t told me,’ I said, ‘who “they” are? Who is mixed up in this?’

‘Jack,’ he began. I smiled, not in amusement but in recognition, for about the whole story there was a flavour of Jack Cotery — ‘and George,’ Morcom went on.

I said: ‘That’s very difficult to believe. I can imagine George being drawn to a good many things — but fraud’s about the last of them.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Morcom indifferently. ‘He may have wanted the money more than usually himself—’

‘He’s a man of conscience,’ I said.

‘He’s also loose and self-indulgent,’ said Morcom.

I began to protest, that we were both using labels, that we knew George and it was useless to argue as though he could be defined in three words; but then I saw Morcom ready to speak again.

‘And there’s Olive Calvert,’ said Morcom.