Charles Snow - George Passant

George said: ‘I don’t propose to discuss the matter with Eden.’ He added: ‘You can tell him yourself if you’re so anxious.’

‘You give me permission?’ I said.

‘I suppose so.’

When Roy rejoined us, I left them talking and telephoned Eden. He said he would expect me before eleven, and pressed me to stay in the ‘usual room’.

George showed no curiosity when I said that I should not see him again until the morning.

Sitting in Eden’s drawing-room, stretching my hands to the fire, I told him the events of the afternoon. He had begun by saying amiably: ‘We had another conference about some of your friends here before.’

Eden nodded his head, his lips together, as I told him of their speculations. I finished by saying: ‘It may not come to it, I don’t know. But we ought to be prepared for a charge.’

‘These things will happen,’ he said. ‘Ah well! these things will happen.’

‘What do you think?’ I said.

‘You’re right, of course we’ve got to be prepared,’ he was speaking without heat, with a slight irritability. ‘I must say they’ve been very foolish. They’ve been foolish whatever they’ve been doing. They oughtn’t to try these things without experience. It’s the sort of foolishness that Passant would go in for. I’ve told you that before—’

‘He’s one of the biggest men I’ve met. That still holds after meeting a few more. He’s also one of the ablest,’ I said in the only harsh words that had passed between Eden and myself, making a protest wrung from me years too late.

His deliberation broken for a moment, Eden said: ‘We won’t argue about that. It isn’t the time to argue now. I must consider what ought to be done.’ He laughed without any warmth. ‘I can’t instruct you myself,’ he said slowly, going back to a leisurely professional manner. ‘But I can arrange with someone else to act for Passant. And I shall give instructions that you’re to be used from the beginning. That is, if this business develops as we all hope it won’t—’

The phrase rolled off smooth with use, as he addressed me with the practised cordiality — different from his ordinary familiar manner — into which the disagreement had driven him. It was not until I spoke of visiting Jack Cotery before I went to bed, that he became fully at ease again.

‘I’m sorry he’s mixed up in this,’ Eden said. ‘He ought to have gone a long way. I haven’t seen much of him the last few years.’ He was genuinely distressed. He went on: ‘And you want to find out what’s been happening to him? I expect you do.’ He gave me a latchkey. ‘You can keep it until this is all over. You’ll have to be down here pretty frequently, you know.’ Then I said goodnight and he smiled. ‘Mind you don’t wear yourself out before it properly begins.’

The streets were clearer, but still dank with fog. A tram-car came down the lonely road, going on its last journey to the centre of the town; its light was reddened in the mist. What had happened? Through these stories and suspicions, what had happened? If George was lying (I could not be certain. He might be bound to the others — he might be masking some private guilt) how had he found himself in that kind of dishonesty? — which of all of us, careless as he was of money, self-deceiving as he could be in thought, I should have considered him the least likely to commit. And as well as these doubts, there was a sense, not flickering in questions in the mind, of conflict and fatality; of these lives, the people I had once known best, going as they had to go, each life alone, as it were, walking the dark streets. So, in loneliness, they had come to this.

For a time I could not find the street in which Jack lived. He had given up his flat, George said; he had returned to his parents’ house. I had never been there in the past. When I first knew him, it was one of his mysteries to mention that he could not invite us to his house — and then, after his self-revelation that night in the park years ago, I had not expected to be asked.

Now, when at last I discovered it, I smiled, in spite of my errand. For the street, as I made my way down the faces of the houses, peering at the numbers in the diffused lamplight, seemed the perfect jumping-off place for daydreams of magniloquence: and, on the rebound, when he repented of those, just as good a place to let him imagine himself among the oppressed and squalid.

The houses were a neat row from the beginning of the century. Their front doors gave onto the street and the paint on most smelt fresh as I went close; it was a row of houses such as artisans lived in by thousands throughout the town; it was a frontier line of society, the representative street of the highest of the working class and the lowest of the middle. Few windows were lighted at this time of night.

I came to Jack’s number. There was a light in the window, shining thin slats of gold between the Venetian blinds. I knocked softly on the door; a movement came from inside. The door opened slowly. A voice, light, querulous, said: ‘Who’s there?’

I answered, and he flung the door open.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve come to worry you,’ I said. ‘I expect you’ve had enough for one day.’

‘I was just going to bed.’

‘I’m sorry, Jack. I’d better come in.’

Then my eyes, dazzled after the darkness, gradually took in a room full of furniture. A tablecloth, carrying some used plates and a dish, lay half over the table. A saucepan of milk was boiling on the hob.

‘I have to live here occasionally. It gives them a bit of pleasure.’ Jack pointed upstairs. He was wearing a new, well-cut suit. His eyes were excessively bright. I nodded, then threw my overcoat on a chair, and sat down by the fire.

‘And so you’re after my blood as well.’ A smile, mischievous and wistful, shot through his sullenness. As I replied, telling him I had been with George, it was replaced by an injured frown.

‘He must have told you everything,’ said Jack. ‘It’s no use me going over it all again.’

‘It may be the greatest use.’

‘Then you’ll have to wait. I’m tired to death.’ He poured out the boiling milk into a tumbler. This, ignoring me, he placed on the hearth. I remembered once laughing at him at the farm, when he went through this ritual of drinking milk last thing at night; he had produced pseudoscientific reasons for it. He had always shown intense concern for his health. It was strange to see it now.

I pressed him to talk, but for a long time he was obstinate. I told him that I should be George’s lawyer, if it came to a trial — and his, if he would have me. He accepted that, but still would not describe his interview in the afternoon. I said once again: ‘Look, Jack. I tell you we’ve got to be ready.’

‘There’s plenty of time.’

‘As I say, they’ll be making inquiries while we do nothing.’

Suddenly he looked up.

‘Will they have gone to Olive yet?’

‘Probably,’ I said.

‘She was visiting a cousin. She won’t get back to the town today. I suppose I ought to see her before they do. Clearly,’ said Jack.

Then, for the first time, he was willing to talk of their businesses. He did it sketchily, without George’s command. He finished up: ‘I can’t imagine why they expect to find anything shady. It’s — it’s quite unreasonable.’ Then he said: ‘Incidentally, I told the chap this afternoon, and I don’t mind telling you, that if you search any business you’ll find something that’s perfectly legal but doesn’t look too sweet. He took the point.’ Jack looked at me. ‘I’ll show you what I mean, sometime, Lewis. It’s all legal, but you’d expect me to try a piece of sharp practice occasionally, wouldn’t you? I’ve never been able to resist it, you know. And it’s never worth the trouble. One’s always jumpy when one’s doing it, and it never comes to anything worthwhile.’