Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

‘I want to ask you,’ said Mr March, ‘why my son is contemplating a completely unsuitable career.’

‘I want to ask you,’ said Mr March, ‘why my son is contemplating a completely unsuitable career.’

The firelight glowed on Ann’s face. She did not show any change of expression. Politely she answered:

‘I really don’t know why you’re asking me that.’

‘I’m asking you,’ said Mr March, ‘because there is no one else qualified to give an opinion.’

‘There is only one person who can give an opinion, you know,’ said Ann.

‘Who may that be?’

‘Why, Charles himself.’ She answered once more in a deferential tone, but Mr March’s voice was growing harsh as he said:

‘I do not consider that my son is responsible for his actions in this respect.’

‘I wish you’d believe that he’s entirely responsible.’

‘I acknowledge your remark,’ Mr March shot out furiously. ‘I repeat that he is not responsible for this preposterous nonsense. You regard me as being considerably blinder than I am. From the moment I heard of it, I knew that he was committing it at your instigation. You have forced him into it for reasons of your own.’

‘I assure you that isn’t true,’ said Ann. Mr March burst out again, but she went on, her manner still respectful, but with firmness and anger underneath: ‘Charles has discussed his future with me, I won’t pretend he hasn’t. I won’t pretend that I haven’t told him what I think. As a matter of fact I do believe that becoming a doctor is absolutely right for him. But the idea was entirely his own. Neither I nor anyone else has any influence over him when it comes to deciding his actions. As far as I’m concerned, I shouldn’t choose to have it otherwise.’

She was sitting back in her chair, and the flickering of the bright fire threw shadows on her checks and heightened the moulding of the bones. As she replied, Mr March’s frown had darkened. He was maddened at not being able to upset her. Then he said: ‘You are much too modest. You are aware that you are an exceedingly attractive woman. I have no doubt that you have tested your power of twisting men round your little finger. I have no doubt that you are testing it on my son now. I can imagine that he is enough in your power to be willing to throw away all I had hoped for him.’

‘I can’t think you know him,’ said Ann.

‘I know,’ said Mr March, looking at her with an intense and bitter stare, ‘that many men would do the same. They would do any nonsense you might want them to.’

‘I shouldn’t have any use for a man who did what I told him,’ she said.

‘Then you have no use for my son?’ shouted Mr March, in a tone that was suddenly triumphant and full of hope.

‘He would never do what I told him.’

‘What is your attitude towards him?’

‘I love him,’ she said.

Mr March groaned.

Ann had spoken straight out, almost roughly, as though it was something that had to be settled once for all. Perhaps she was provoked, because she could feel him torn by a double jealousy.

She was taking away his son, destroying all his hopes: this was the loss which kept biting into his thoughts. But there was another. He was jealous of his son for winning Ann. He too had been attracted by her. That had been evident under the gallantry he showed her at Haslingfield. There was nothing strange about it. Mr March was still a vigorous man. He could imagine by instinct exactly what his son felt for her, down to the deep level where passion and emotion are one. He could imagine it because, with the slightest turn of opportunity, he could have felt it so himself.

So Mr March groaned, as though it were a physical shock.

‘If that is true,’ he said, bringing himself back to the other loss, ‘I find it even more astonishing that you express approval of his absurd intention. Even though you refuse to accept responsibility for it, from what you have just said, I am more certain than ever that the responsibility is yours, and yours alone.’

‘I was glad when he decided to become a doctor, of course I was. He knew I should be glad. That is all,’ she said.

‘Glad? Glad? What justification have you for feeling glad except that you are responsible for it yourself? Are you incapable of realizing that he is ruining any reasonable prospects he might have had? Even if he goes through with this absurd intention—’

‘He will go through with it.’ For the first time she interrupted him.

‘What then? You think my son ought to be satisfied to be a mediocre practitioner?’

‘He’ll be happier about himself,’ said Ann.

There was a silence. A lull came over them. Katherine and I said a few words: Ann even talked of the music she had heard. Then Mr March began to start on his accusations again. A few minutes later, we heard a noise in the hall. As we listened, the clock on the mantelpiece struck midnight. The door opened, and Charles came into the room.

‘I was given no warning to expect you back,’ said Mr March.

‘I only decided to come a couple of hours ago,’ said Charles.

He looked at Katherine, and I guessed that she had let him know, as soon as she realized what her gaffe had meant.

Charles drew up a chair by the side of Ann’s.

Mr March’s expression was harsh, sombre, and guilty. He said: ‘I met your friend Ann Simon being escorted by Lewis Eliot to the Queen’s Hall. A remarkably undistinguished evening the performers entertained us with, by the way. So I invited them here for refreshments, before they went to their respective homes.’

‘I see,’ said Charles.

Mr March paused, then said: ‘I have taken the opportunity to give Ann Simon my views on your present intentions. I have also asked her for an explanation as to why you have conceived such a ridiculous project.’

‘I should have preferred you to do that in front of me,’ said Charles.

‘I refuse to listen to criticisms from my son upon my behaviour in my own house,’ said Mr March.

‘I shall make them,’ said Charles, ‘if you insist on intruding on my privacy. Don’t you see that this is an intolerable intrusion, don’t you see that?’

‘Your privacy? Do you expect me to accept that your ruining your life is simply a private concern of your own?’

‘Yes,’ said Charles.

‘I refuse to tolerate it in any circumstances,’ Mr March said. ‘Particularly when you’re not acting as a free agent, and are simply letting this young woman gratify some of her misguided tastes.’

‘You must leave her out of it.’

‘I’ve told Mr March,’ said Ann, ‘that I’m very glad about your decision. But I’ve told him that I had nothing to do with your making it, and couldn’t have had.’

‘I shall leave her out of this matter when I have any reason to believe that she’s not the source and origin of it all. If she enjoys wearing the trousers, she’s got to be prepared to answer for the results.’

Up to that instant, Charles’ manner had been stern without relief, and his voice hard and constrained. Suddenly he broke for a second into a singular smile. It was a smile partly sarcastic, partly amused: it was edged by the nearness of Ann, by his sense of the absurd, as though, after Mr March’s last remark, nothing could be so absurd again. Then the argument went on.

With their usual repetitiveness they went over the practical reasons time and time again: underneath one heard the assertion of Mr March’s power, the claims of his affection, the anguish of his jealousies, the passion of his hopes, and in Charles, his claustrophobic desire to be free, his longing for release in love with Ann, his search for the good, his untameable impulse to find his own way, whatever its cost to others and himself. At least twice Charles was on the point of an outburst, such as he had struggled against. He did not let it come to light; he had mastered himself enough for that.