Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

Since we met at the coming-out dance, I had got on well with Porson. He was boastful, violent, uncontrolled; but he had the wild generosity one often finds in misfit lives, and I was the only one of his new circle who was still struggling. With me he could advise, help, and patronize to his heart’s content. And with me he could stick a flower in his buttonhole, swing his stick, and lead the way to a shop girl who had taken his fancy: he was a man at ease only with women beneath him in the social scale.

Ann had punctured his sexual vanity, as was so easy to do. He had talked to me about her with violent resentment and with love. He was more easily given to warm hate than anyone I knew.

So I did not dare ask him to call off his attack on Getliffe in order not to risk disturbing Katherine’s marriage. He was capable of such inordinate good nature that he might have agreed on the spot, even for a girl he scarcely knew; but on the other hand, because she was connected with Charles and Ann, he might have burst out against them all. Instead I felt it was safe to talk only of Herbert Getliffe and of what Porson was now planning.

To my surprise he was very little interested: he seemed to have given up the idea of a parliamentary question, if he had ever entertained it. He mentioned Ann affectionately, and I suspected she had gone to see him the day before. He was full of his scheme for going on to the midland circuit.

For some reason or other his anger had burned itself out. So I told Katherine, and Charles agreed that there seemed no danger from him. He had heard something more about Ronald, also reassuring, from Ann, though exactly what I did not learn.

For a day or two there seemed nothing to worry over. Katherine had to show Francis off to some of her relations, and recaptured the fun of being engaged, which, since Mr March first came round, she had been revelling in.

Then, though Ronald Porson made no move, rumours spread through the Marches. One reached Charles; Katherine heard others hinted at. It was known that the Getliffe brothers had been discussed on the past Friday night, when Mr March happened to be away. No one was sure how the rumours started; but it became clear that Sir Philip knew more about Herbert Getliffe than anyone in the family did, and had described him with caustic contempt.

Both Charles and Katherine accepted that without question. Philip had his code of integrity. It was a worldly code, but a strict one. He did not forgive an offence against it. He was indignant that Herbert Getliffe should have laid himself open to suspicion, whether the suspicion was justified or not.

All the family were impressed by his indignation. Charles and Katherine were told by several of their cousins to expect him to visit Mr March. Katherine waited in anxiety. Night after night she could not get to sleep, and Charles played billiards with her at Bryanston Square. For three mornings running, Mr March grumbled at them; then he suddenly stopped, the day after Philip’s visit.

Philip called at Bryanston Square on a Tuesday afternoon: the wedding was fixed for ten days ahead. He went into Mr March’s study, and they were there alone for a couple of hours. On his way out, Philip looked into the drawing-room, said good afternoon to Charles and Katherine, but would not stay for tea and did not refer once to seeing her at her wedding.

When Philip left, they waited for Mr March; they expected him to break out immediately about what he proposed to do. But he did not come near them all the evening: the butler said that he was still in the study: at dinner he spoke little to them, though he made one remark about ‘a visit from my brother about your regrettable connections’.

When Katherine tried to use the opening, he said bad temperedly: ‘I have been persecuted enough for one day. It is typical of my family that when they wish to make representations to me, they select the only relative whom I have ever respected.’

By the time I arrived for tea the next day, Charles had already heard, from various members of the family, versions of the scene between Mr March and Philip; the versions differed a good deal, but contained a similar core. They all agreed that Mr March had put up a resistance so strong that it surprised the family. He had made no attempt to challenge the facts about Herbert Getliffe, but protested, with extreme irritability, that ‘though I refuse to defend my daughter’s unfortunate choice, I have no intention of penalizing the man because of the sharp practice of his half-brother’. According to one account, he had expressed his own liking and trust for Francis; and certainly, with his accustomed practicality, he had said that it was far too late to intervene now. ‘If you had wanted me to refuse to recognize the marriage, you should have communicated your opinion in decent time.’

It sounded final. Charles, piecing together the stories, was relieved, but he was not quite reassured: even less so was Katherine. Mr March had brazened matters out, as though he were ready to defy the family. But his mood since had been sombre, not defiant; and they knew he was hurt, more than by the family’s disapproval which Philip represented, by his feeling for Philip himself.

They knew the depth of his feeling. Warm-hearted as he was, yet with no intimate friends outside the family, this was the strongest of his human bonds, after his love for his children. When he had spoken the night before of ‘the only relative whom I have ever respected’, he was trying to mask, and at the same time relieve, his sadness. He made it sound like an outburst of ill-temper, an exaggerated phrase; but it was really a cry of pain.

So Charles and Katherine kept coming back to Philip’s effect on Mr March. It was not till after tea that Charles said: ‘It’s possible that I may be able to help with Uncle Philip.’ He asked me to take Katherine out for the evening: he would see Mr March, and persuade him to invite Philip for dinner.

Katherine looked puzzled as he made these plans. Charles said: ‘It may help you. You see, Ann has promised to marry me. I think I ought to tell them at once.’

‘Did you expect to be able to tell them this?’ Katherine burst out. ‘You said something — you remember — the night Lewis brought the news?’

Charles did not reply, but said: ‘It may smooth things over with Uncle Philip.’

‘Of course it will,’ said Katherine, suddenly full of hope. ‘It will put Mr L right with the family. Your making a perfectly respectable marriage. And he ought to be glad about it himself.’

Charles looked across at me.

‘Of course, he ought to be glad about it,’ Katherine went on. ‘I know he thinks she’s got too much influence over you. But she’s everything he could possibly wish, isn’t she? He likes her, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘Yes. In any case, he ought to be told at once.’

Then he got up from his chair, and added in a tone now vigorous and eager: ‘I want to tell him tonight.’

Charles had become impatient. He scarcely had time to listen to our congratulations. He asked me again to take Katherine away for the evening, and before we were out of the house he had entered Mr March’s study.

It was pouring with rain, and we went by taxi to our restaurant, and even then got wet as we crossed the pavement. But Katherine, without taking off her coat, went straight to the telephone to ring up Francis at Cambridge. In a few minutes she returned, her eyes shining, her hair still damp.

She was anxious, but her capacity for enjoyment was so great that it carried both of us along. In her bizarrely sheltered life, she had never dined out with a man alone, except Francis. She was interested in everything, the decoration of the restaurant, the relations between the pairs of people dining, my choice of food. It was her own sort of first-hand interest, as though no one had ever been out to dinner before.