Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

We both laughed. After the argument, we were glad to feel comradely again. She asked me (I thought it was a relief to her to be straightforward) whether I had suspected she was a member.

‘No,’ I said, and then suddenly a thought crossed my mind.

‘You’re pretty good at keeping your mouth shut, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘But that first night at Haslingfield — why did you give everyone such a hint?’

Her reply did not come at once. At last she said: ‘I think I knew already that Charles was going to be important to me.’

‘And so—’

‘And so I couldn’t let them take me in on entirely false pretences, could I?’

I was pleased to think that, at the time, I had been somewhere near the truth. There was a streak of the gambler in her. She did not like being careful; even though she had to be, it seemed to her, more than to most of us, cowardly, impure, dishonourable. It was really part of her to tell the truth. That night at Haslingfield, a cardinal night for her, she had believed she could tell the truth and get away with it.

But there was no one outside the party, apart from Charles and me, who knew that she was in it — so she told me as we finished our last drinks at the Ritz. She had made clear to Charles exactly what she did, before their affair began. That I should have expected from her: what interested me was that she had made no attempt to invite him in. She had not tried to persuade him, even to the extent she had tried with me. It seemed that she did not want to influence him. She had taken care that he knew the exact truth about her. That done, she longed just to make him happy.

Katherine put off breaking the news to her father. It was the second week in October before she told him. The family were together at Bryanston Square, and Mr March, having written his usual hundred letters for the Jewish New Year, had been grumbling because others’ greetings were so late. Katherine waited until the festival had passed by.

I had tea at Bryanston Square the day she finally brought herself to the pitch. We were alone. Francis had not long left for Cambridge, after staying the weekend in the house. She told me that she meant to face Mr March that night.

‘I’m extremely embarrassed,’ she said. ‘No, I’m more than embarrassed, I’m definitely frightened. It’s absurd to feel oneself being as frightened as this.’

She added: ‘I can’t shake off an absurd fear that when I do try to tell him, I shall find myself go absolutely dumb. I’ve been rehearsing some kind of an opening all day. To tell you the honest truth, I’ve been rehearsing it ever since Francis proposed. I never thought I should put it off as long.’

The next evening she and Charles came round to my rooms. She said at once: ‘I’ve got it over. I think it’s all right. But—’

‘It’s all right so far,’ said Charles.

Mr March had been at moments extravagantly himself, and Katherine could laugh at some of his remarks: yet she was still shaken.

Immediately after dinner she had said to Mr March, falling back on the sentence she had rehearsed:

‘I’m sorry, Mr L, but I’ve something to tell you that I’m afraid will make you rather unhappy.’

Mr March replied:

‘I hope it isn’t what I suppose it must be.’

They went into his study, and Katherine heard her own information sound blunt and cut-and-dried. It took only a minute or two, and then she said: ‘Naturally, I’m tremendously happy about it myself. I’m not going to try and hide that from you, Mr L. I’m only sorry that it’s going to make you slightly miserable.’

Mr March said: ‘Of course, I wish you’d never been born.’

Katherine felt that he was saying simply and sincerely what he meant. She felt it again, when he said:

‘My children have brought me nothing but disgrace.’

‘I know I’ve given you a lot of trouble,’ said Katherine.

‘Nothing you’ve done matters by the side of what you are informing me of now.’

‘I was afraid of that.’

‘Afraid? Afraid? You knew that you were proposing something that I should never get over. You never gave a moment’s thought to the fact that you’d make me a reproach for the rest of my life.’

‘I’ve thought of nothing else for weeks, Mr L,’ she said.

‘And you are determined to persevere?’ he shouted.

‘I can’t do anything else.’

Mr March spoke in a calmer tone: ‘I suppose I can’t stop it. He can presumably maintain you in some sort of squalor. Not that I have any objection to his profession. It’s all very well for men who are prepared to sacrifice all their material requirements. Though I can’t understand how they venture to support their wives. How much does this fellow earn?’

‘About eight hundred a year.’

‘Twopence a week,’ said Mr March. ‘It’s enough for you to contemplate existing on, unfortunately. I suppose I can’t stop it. It was exactly the same when your Aunt Hetty insisted on marrying the painter. He took to drink before they’d been married three years.’

He broke off: ‘I’m obliged to say, though I couldn’t disapprove more strongly, that I’ve no particular objection to this fellow on personal grounds. He seems quiet, and he’s surprisingly level-headed, apart from whatever proficiency he may have at his academic pursuits. I realize that he exercises himself on mountains, but he doesn’t look particularly strong.’

‘He’s as tough as I am,’ said Katherine.

‘The doctors said you were delicate when you were young,’ said Mr March. ‘They said the same about me in ’79. If they had been right in either case, I might have been spared this intolerable state of affairs you’re bringing on me. I say, I haven’t any strong personal objection to the fellow. I could put up with his poverty, since he’s pursuing a career which isn’t discreditable. I should be willing to give you my approval apart from the fact that makes it impossible, as you must have known all along. It would be different if he were a member of our religion.’

‘I realize that,’ she said.

‘What’s the use of realizing it?’ said Mr March. ‘When you come and tell me that you are determined to marry him. What’s the use of realizing it? When you’re determined to do the thing that I shall never get over.’

Then he said: ‘I know it’s not so easy for a woman to refuse. If he’d satisfied the essential condition, I shouldn’t have blamed you for accepting him on the spot. After all, you mightn’t get a second chance.’

It was strange, Katherine felt as though she were noticing it for the first time, to see his distress suddenly streaked with domestic realism. Rather excessively so in this case, she grumbled to Charles and me, since she was not quite twenty-one, ‘and not so completely repulsive as Mr L seems to assume’. In the same realistic way, he appeared to be convinced that there was nothing for him to do. He cut the interview short, and neither Charles nor Katherine saw him again that night; Katherine took Charles off to the billiard-room, and they played for hours.

In the morning they arranged to come down to breakfast at the same time. As soon as they had sat down, Mr March came in, banging the door behind him.

‘You never show the slightest consideration,’ he said. ‘You announce your intentions at night just before I’m going to bed. You might have known that it would keep me awake.’

Charles was reassured when he heard that first outburst. He tried to speak casually:

‘What is the proper time to upset you, Mr L? We should like an accurate answer for future reference.’

Mr March gave a reluctant chuckle.

‘After dinner is the worst time of all,’ said Mr March. ‘If I must have an ungrateful family, the best thing they can do is not to interfere with my health. It was exactly the same when Evelyn contracted her lamentable marriage. She was thoughtless enough to tell me at half past ten at night. So that I actually got to bed late in addition to finding it impossible to sleep.’