Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

With the same zest, she kept returning to the news Charles was at that moment telling Mr March. ‘Lewis, when did he propose? It must have been what he hinted at that night, don’t you agree? That was a week ago — don’t you admit he’s had it up his sleeve ever since?’

She chuckled fondly. Then she asked me: ‘Lewis, do you think she’ll make him happy?’

I told her what I thought: they would be happier together than either with anyone else. She was not satisfied. Did that mean I had my doubts? I said that Charles had been luckier than he ever expected. Katherine asked if Ann was not too complicated. I said that I guessed that in love she was quite simple.

Katherine broke out: ‘If she makes him happy then everything is perfect. Lewis, you’ve just said that he never expected to be so lucky. What I am positive about is that he never expected a wife who would please the family. Don’t you agree that’s the astonishing part of it? That’s why I’m fantastically hopeful tonight. I don’t pretend that Mr L and Uncle Philip will think she’s a tremendous catch. She doesn’t come from our group of families, and she’s only moderately rich. But they’ll have to admit that she passes. After all, most of Mr L’s nephews have done worse for themselves. And I don’t think it will be counted against her that she’s very pretty. She’s been admired in the family already.’

I took her to a theatre, so that we should get back to Bryanston Square late enough for Charles to be waiting for us. On the way back her anxiety recurred, but Charles met us in the hall and his smile dispelled it.

‘I’m pretty certain that all is well,’ he said in a low voice. She kissed him. He stopped her talking there, and we went into the drawing-room.

‘I’m pretty certain all is well,’ he repeated. ‘You mustn’t think it’s due to me. It would have come all right anyhow — don’t you really believe that yourself?’

When she questioned him, he admitted that Philip had been pleased with the news. There had been considerable talk about the Getliffes and Porson. Mr March and Philip had parted on good terms.

We both noticed that Katherine suddenly looked very tired. Charles told her so; she was too much excited to deny it, and went obediently, first to the telephone and then to bed.

Charles’ smile, as we heard the final tinkle of the call, and then her step upstairs, was tender towards her. His whole expression was open and happy: yet, despite the tender smile, it was not gentle. It was open and fiercely happy. He jumped up and went to the window. His movements were full of energy.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I think it has cleared up now. I’d very much like a stroll. Do you think you could bear it?’

It was just such a night as that on which we walked home after the coming-out dance. The rain had stopped: there was a smell of wet leaves from the garden in the square. The smell recalled to Charles the excitement, the misgivings, the promise of that night, as well as the essence of other nights, forgotten now. In an instant he was overcome by past emotion, and did not want to speak.

It was some time before I broke the silence.

‘So you think Katherine is safe?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘It’s quite true what I told her. I think the wedding would have come off without any more trouble — any more trouble in the open, anyway. But I’m glad I talked to them. Uncle Philip did seem to be placated. He was completely surprised about Ann. He said that I’d never been seen with her in public. He couldn’t remember hearing anyone in the family couple our names together.’

Charles smiled. He broke off: ‘By the way, he is very angry about this Getliffe business. I suppose he’s sufficiently patriarchal to feel that all attachments to the family ought to come up to his standard of propriety. That must be the reason, don’t you agree? It pleased him more than you’d think, when I said that Porson had probably got tired of his own indignation.’

Charles went on: ‘And Uncle Philip was genuinely delighted about Ann. He decided that she would be a credit to us. He also said’ — Charles laughed — ‘that he did hear she was a bit of a crank, but he didn’t take that seriously.’

‘And Mr L?’

Charles hesitated.

‘He was not so pleased. Did you expect him to be?’

‘What did he say?’

‘Something rather strange. Something like — “I always knew it was inevitable. I have no objections to raise”.’

In a moment, he said: ‘Of course he was extremely glad that Uncle Philip is coming round. That is going to be the most important thing for him.’

Then Charles broke into his good-natured, malicious grin: ‘It struck me as pleasing that I should be soothing the family. It struck me as even more pleasing that I should be doing it by announcing that I intended to marry in as orthodox a manner as my father did.’ The malicious smile still flickered. ‘There is also a certain beauty,’ he reflected, ‘in the fact that, after all the fuss I’ve made from time to time, I should be eager to tell my father so.’

‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘it’s settled. It is superb to have it settled.’

Just as when he saw Ann at Haslingfield he smiled because he had first met her at the Jewish dance — so tonight he was amused that he of all men, who had once winced at the word ‘Jew’, should now be parading his engagement to a Jewess, should be insisting to his father that he was conforming as a Jewish son. It was a sarcastic touch of fate completely in his style; but it was more than that.

All of a sudden I realized why he had been so fiercely happy that day, why he had gained a release of energy, why as he walked with me he felt that his life was in his own hands. To him the day had been a special one — though all the rest of us had had our attention fixed on Katherine and her father, and had forgotten Charles except as a tactful influence in the background.

In Charles’ own mind, the day marked the end of the obsession which had preyed on him since he was a child. It marked the death of a shame. He felt absolutely free. Everything seemed open to him. He felt his whole nature to be fresh, simple, and at one.

We walked across Bayswater Road and into the Park. His stride was long and full of spring. He was talking eagerly, of his future with Ann, of what he hoped to do. He was more spontaneous, frank, and trustful than I had ever known him. He had forgotten, or put aside for the night, any thought of his conflict with his father over Ann.

In the darkness I listened to his voice, lively, resonant, happy. I thought of this shame which had occupied so much of his conscious life. It had gone, so it seemed to him, because he had fallen in love with Ann, and thus that evening could tell his father, with unqualified happiness, that he was going to marry her — and, more than that, could use the fact that he was marrying a Jewess in order to ease the way for Katherine.

So Charles was talking with boyish spontaneity, completely off his guard, his secrecies thrown away. I felt a great affection for him. Perhaps the affection was greater because I did not see his state that night quite as he did himself. For me there was something unprotected about his openness and confidence.

I remembered his confession when he gave up the law. I had felt two things then, and I felt them more acutely now: that this shame had tormented him, and that at the same time he had used it as an excuse. Charles would always, I thought, have been prouder and more self-distrustful, harsher and more vulnerable to shame, than most of us. In his youth, he would in any case have gone through his torments. But even he, for all his insight, wanted to mollify and excuse them. Even he found it difficult to recognize his sadic harshness, his self-distrust, above all his vulnerability, as part of his essential ‘I’.