Charles Snow: George Passant

Morcom raised both the arguments that Olive and I had tried: would George’s intervention really help Jack? and, more strongly, wasn’t it an indiscreet, a dangerous move for George himself? Morcom pressed them with more authority than we had been able to. He and George were not close friends; neither was quite at ease with the other; but Morcom was George’s own age, and George had a respect for his competence and sense. So George listened, showed flashes of his temper, and defended himself with his elaborate reasonableness.

At last Morcom said: ‘I know you want to stop your friends being kept under. But you won’t have the power to do it till you’re firmly established yourself. Isn’t it worthwhile to wait till then?’

‘No,’ said George. ‘I’ve seen too much of that sort of waiting. If you wait till then, you forget that anyone is being kept under: or else you decide that he deserves it.’

Morcom was not only a more worldly man than George, he was usually wiser. But later on, I thought of George’s statement as an example of when it was the unworldly who were wise.

‘I shall soon begin to think,’ said Morcom, ‘that you’re anxious to attack the bellwethers, George.’

‘On the contrary,’ George replied, ‘I am a very timid man.’

There was a burst of laughter: but Olive, watching him, did not join in. A moment after, she said: ‘He’s made up his mind.’

‘Is it any use my saying any more?’ said Morcom.

‘Well,’ said George, with a shy smile, ‘I’m still convinced that we can put them into an impossible position…’

OUR meeting in the café took place on a Wednesday; two days later, on the Friday afternoon, Olive rang me up at the office. ‘Roy has found something out from his father. George ought to know at once, but I can’t get hold of him. It’s his day at Melton, isn’t it?’ (The firm of Eden & Martineau had branches in several market towns: and George regularly spent a day a week in the country.) ‘He must know before he goes to Martineau’s tonight.’

Her voice sounded brusque but anxious; she wanted someone to see Roy, to examine the news. Jack was the obvious person, but him Roy was forbidden to meet. She asked me to go along to Morcom’s as soon as I was free; she would take Roy there.

I walked to Morcom’s flat in the early evening. The way led from the centre of the town, and suddenly took one between box hedges and five-storey, gabled, Victorian houses, whose red brick flared in the sunset with a grotesque and Gothic cosiness. But the cosiness vanished, when one saw their dark windows: once, when the town was smaller, they had been real houses: now they were offices, shut for the night. Only Martineau’s, at the end of the New Walk, remained a solid private house. The one next door, which he also owned, had been turned into flats: and there Morcom lived, on the top floor.

When I went into his sitting room, Olive and Roy had just arrived. Olive had brought Morcom a great bunch of deep red dahlias, and she was arranging them on a table by the window. The red blazed as one looked down over the park, where the New Walk came to an end.

Olive put a flower into place: then, turning away from the bowl, she asked Morcom, ‘Will they do?’

Morcom smiled at her. And he, the secretive and restrained, could not prevent the smile giving him completely away — more than a smile by Jack would ever do.

As though recovering himself, Morcom turned to Roy, who had stood quietly by, watching the interplay over the flowers. Morcom at once got him into conversation.

Happy because of Olive, Morcom was more than ever careful and considerate. They talked about books, and Roy’s future; he was just beginning to specialise at school. They got on very well. As it happened, Morcom need not have been so careful; for Roy surprised us both by being entirely self-possessed, and himself opened the real topic.

‘I’m sorry to give you all so much trouble, Mr Morcom,’ he said. ‘But I did think someone should know what they’re doing about Mr Passant.’

He spoke politely, formally, in a light, musical voice: so politely that sometimes there sounded a ripple of mischief. His face was good-looking, highly-strung, and very sad for a boy’s: but sad, I felt, as much by nature as by his present trouble. Once or twice he broke into a gay, charming smile.

‘I’ve told Olive already — but last night someone visited my father unexpectedly. I got Mother to tell me about it this morning. It was the Principal of — what Jack used to call the School. He had come to tell Father that a Mr Passant might be trying to make a fuss. Mother didn’t mention it, of course, but I guessed it was about Jack. And it was all connected with a committee, which I didn’t understand at the time. But Olive explained it this afternoon.’

‘I had to tell him what George decided to do on Wednesday,’ said Olive.

‘I shan’t let it out,’ said Roy. ‘I shouldn’t have told Olive what I found out this morning — if these things weren’t happening because of me.’

I tried to reassure him, but he shook his head.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t have been talking about Mr Passant last night if it hadn’t been for me.’

‘Do you know anything they said?’ I asked.

‘I think the Principal offered to deal with Mr Passant himself. He was sure that he could be stopped from going any further.’

‘How.’

‘By dropping a hint to Mr Eden and Mr Martineau,’ said Roy.

I looked at Morcom: we were both disturbed.

‘You think that will soon happen?’ I said.

‘Mother expected the Principal to see them this morning. You see,’ said Roy, ‘they all seem more angry with Mr Passant than they were with Jack.’

He saw that our expressions had become grave.

‘Is this very serious?’ he said.

‘It might be a little uncomfortable, that’s all,’ said Morcom lightly, to ease Roy’s mind. But he was still watching us, and said: ‘Do you mind if I ask another question, Mr Morcom?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Are you thinking that it has ruined Jack’s chances for good?’

‘This can’t affect them,’ I said quickly, and Morcom agreed.

‘You mustn’t worry about that, Roy,’ Olive said.

Roy half-believed her; her tone was kind, she cared for him more than she had admitted on Wednesday night. He was still doubtful, however, until she added: ‘If you want to know, we were thinking whether they can do any harm to George Passant.’

The boy’s fears lifted; for a few moments his precocity seemed to leave him, and he teased Olive as though the other three of us were not still harassed.

‘Are you fond of Mr Passant, Olive?’ he asked, with his lively smile.

‘In a way,’ she said.

‘Are you sweet on him?’

‘Not in the least,’ she replied. She paused, then said vehemently: ‘But I can tell you this: he’s worth twenty Jack Coterys.’

A little later, they went away. Before they left, Roy shook hands with us both; and, as Morcom and Olive were talking together, Roy said quietly to me: ‘I’m being whisked off tomorrow. I don’t suppose I shall see you again for a long time, Mr Eliot. But could you spare a minute to send me word how things turn out?’

From the window, Morcom and I watched them walk across the gardens.

‘I wonder what sort of life he’ll have,’ said Morcom. But he was thinking, hopefully that night, of himself and Olive.

We stayed by the window, eating bread and cheese from his pantry, and keeping a watch on the road below; for we had to warn George before he arrived next door, on his visit to Martineau’s at home.