Charles Snow - George Passant

‘A return to Nottingham, drinks and a woman,’ George said. ‘I kept to Connie’s crowd for a long time, and it always used to cost the same.’

I laughed.

‘I remember you used to spend twice as much on drinks round the club.’

‘I suppose I did,’ said George. ‘I forgot to put those down.’

Then he said: ‘It was years before I could imagine that I might find something better.’

‘And now?’

‘It may surprise you to know that I’ve been happier with Daphne than I’ve ever been in my life. I am more in love with her than I was with Katherine: I’m not a man who can worship the unattainable for long. This happens to be love for both of us, and it’s the first time I’ve known it. When I realised it properly, I thought it was worth waiting thirty-three years for this.’

His voice became once more angry and defensive. ‘After all that I’ve thought it necessary to show you,’ he said pointing to the pocket-book, ‘I expect you to laugh at what I say — but I can’t believe that I shall know it again. And I’m compelled to think of the position I shall be in when these inquiries are over. I may not be able to inflict myself on her—’

‘I don’t think she’d leave you,’ I said.

‘Perhaps not,’ said George, and fell into silence. At last he said: ‘Just before you arrived, I told my father exactly what I’ve told you.’

‘Why in God’s name?’

‘It might have come out in public. I considered that it was better I should tell him myself.’

‘When I used the same argument about letting Eden know yesterday—’

‘I don’t recognise a connection with Eden,’ said George. ‘This was utterly different. I felt obliged to tell my father two things. He had a right to know that I might be providing malevolent people with a handle against him. I said I found that was the thing I could tolerate least of all.’

‘What else did you say?’

‘I had to say that, apart from the intolerable effect on him, I wasn’t ashamed of anything I’d done. He naturally didn’t believe that I had swindled: but he was hurt about my life with women. I had to tell him that I saw no reason to repent for any of my actions.’

A case, down for the next Tuesday, sent me back to London on Sunday night. For some days I heard nothing from the town; I rang up each night, but there was no news; and then, one morning in chambers, a telegram arrived from Hotchkinson, the solicitor who was managing the case for Eden: ‘Three clients arrested applying for bail this morning.’ It was now the middle of the month. I was not appearing in a London court until January; I decided to stay at Eden’s until the first hearing was over.

When I arrived in the town, I was told they had been arrested late the night before. The warrant was issued on information sworn by someone called Iris Ward. The name meant nothing to me; but it added to Rachel’s misery as soon as she heard it. ‘It will seem to George—’ she said. ‘You see, she was once a member of the group.’

They had spent the night in prison. That morning they had come before a magistrate: the charges were conspiracy to defraud against the three of them on two counts, the agency and the hostels; and also individual charges of obtaining money by false pretences against each on the two counts again. Nothing had been done except hear evidence of arrest and grant bail. The amount was fixed at £250 for each, and independent sureties of £250. This we had provided for in advance. Eden had arranged for two of his friends to transmit money raised by Morcom, Rachel, Roy Calvert and myself. For George and Jack, we had also been compelled to provide their personal surety; for Olive, a friend of her uncle’s had been willing to stand. The next hearing was fixed for 29 December.

I knew it would be good professional judgment to hold our hand in the police court on the twenty-ninth and let the case go for trial. I wanted to persuade them of this course at once; so I arranged to meet them at George’s that same night.

When I got there, George was alone. I was shocked by his manner. He was apathetic and numbed; he stared at the fire with his unseeing, in-turned gaze. I could not stir him into interest over the tactics.

He was in a state that I could not reach. As he stared at the fire I waited for the others to come. I had scarcely noticed anything in the room but his accounts, the last evening I spent there; now I saw that, while everyone else was living more luxuriously, this sitting-room had scarcely altered since I first set foot in it.

Then Olive came in.

She said: ‘I told you not to worry. You see how right I was.’

‘It might have been better if you had told me the truth—’ I was seeing her for the first time since the inquiries, but I was immediately at ease with her.

‘I didn’t know—’ Then she realised that George was sunk into himself, and she tried to restore his defiance.

‘It’s nasty finding a traitor, George.’ With her usual directness, she went straight into his suffering. ‘But a man like you is bound to collect envy. The wonder is, there’s not been more.’

She used also a bullying candour.

‘We may have weeks of this. We mustn’t let each other forget it.’

I felt she had done this before. And, as George was fighting against the despair, her instinct led her to another move.

She said: ‘It’s not going to be pleasant, is it? The twenty-ninth. You know, I simply couldn’t realise what it would be like. Being ashamed and afraid in public. Until this morning. Yet sometimes it seemed perfectly ordinary. I felt that, last night in jail. Of course, it hasn’t properly begun to happen yet. I only hope I get through it when it really comes.’

‘You’ll be better than any of us,’ George said.

‘I hope I shan’t let you down,’ she said. ‘You see’ — she suddenly turned to me—’you can’t believe how childish you find yourself in times like this. This is true, it happened this morning. I could face the thought that the worst might come to the worst. We might get twelve months. Then I felt a lump in my throat. I hadn’t been near crying before, since it all began. Do you know why I was now? It had just occurred to me they might have had the decency to put it off until Christmas was over.’

She achieved her purpose; for George, with the curious rough comradeship that he had always shown towards her, made an effort to encourage her.

As soon as Jack entered, I was able to discuss the tactics. I argued that we must keep our defence back: there was no chance of getting the case dismissed in the police court: we should only give our points away.

In fact there was really no alternative: as a lawyer as able as George would have been the first to see. But tonight George broke out: ‘You’ve got to defend it in the police court. It’s essential to get it dismissed out of hand.’

Several times he made these outbursts, damning the prosecution as ‘ludicrous’, attacking it from all angles — as he had done since the alarm began. Some of his attacks were good law, and I had learned from them in my preparation of our case; some were fantastically unreal, the voices of his persecuted imagination. Tonight, however, there seemed another reason in the heart of his violence.

Jack detected the reason before I did. He interrupted George brusquely; I felt, not knowing whether I was right, that some of their meetings had gone like that, when the three of them were actually conducting their business.

Jack asked a few masterful, businesslike questions: ‘You think there’s no option? We’ve clearly got to let it go for trial?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s no possible way of arranging it now?’