Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

As Seymour told Ann that she could ruin the paper next day, I watched her glance at Charles. Their faces were set, but their eyes met with recognition, with understanding.

They left soon after. I stayed behind, so that they could talk alone the minute they got outside.

Seymour did not say another word about them, or the paper. He had the knack of turning off his attention with a click, as though he had pressed a switch. He did not make a comment. Instead, cheerful and unflagging, he insisted on driving me to White’s for a night-cap. There, just for once, his cocksureness let him down. A member whom I faintly knew brought in a guest of distinguished appearance. I asked Seymour who he was.

‘Oh, that’s Lord Kilmainham,’ he said, with supreme confidence.

It was not. Enquiring a little later in the lavatory, I found that the guest was an income-tax accountant.

Since the first instalment in the Note , Charles and Mr March had not met nor spoken to each other. Charles had, however, telephoned to Katherine after the visit to Seymour. He had told her, so I gathered, that Ann had done her best to call the paper off. Whether either Katherine or Mr March believed this, I had no means of judging. But they knew I had been present. Within a few days I received a letter from Mr March, telling me that he needed my ‘friendly assistance’: would I lunch with him at his club, so that we could go together to Sir Philip’s office afterwards.

The club servants were surprised to see Mr March there in the month of August, having got used to the clockwork regularity of his life; he had not left Haslingfield during his summer stay for twenty years. Just as, though he went to the club for tea each day he was in London, he had not lunched there since Charles was a child. He did not know where or how to write his order, and had to be helped by the servants. They teased him for it: he, usually so uncondescending, was gruff with them.

He said little at the meal. We had a table to ourselves, but those round us were soon filled. I saw one or two faces I knew, all of civil servants from the departments close by. I felt that Mr March, unable to talk of the bitter anxiety in his mind, was also depressed because he recognized so few. There were only two men he nodded to, and they were very old.

In Pall Mall, on our way to Sir Philip’s ministry, he tried to rouse himself from his gloom. We turned into St James’s Park towards Whitehall, and Mr March looked over the trees at the dome of the India Office, the roofs and towers, all soft and opal grey in the moist sunlight.

‘I must say,’ he remarked, ‘that it looks comparatively presentable. But I have never been able to understand the fascination which makes my brother Philip and others wish to spend their entire lives in this neighbourhood. I once said as much to Hannah, and she replied that it was sour grapes on my part. No doubt I was envious on account of my failure to cut any kind of figure in the world. Nevertheless, Lewis, if I hadn’t been a failure, and had been given my choice of where to have a reasonable success, I should not have chosen this particular neighbourhood.’

His face darkened in a scowl of misery and anger. ‘But my brother Philip did. I cannot endure the thought that, because of these happenings, he may find it harder to continue here.’

In the ministry we were led down the corridors to the office of Sir Philip’s secretary, who was a youngish man called Williams, smooth-faced, spectacled, dressed for his job in black coat and striped trousers, and full of self-importance in it. ‘I will go and find out when the Parliamentary Secretary will be free,’ he said, enjoying the chance to bring out his master’s appellation. He came back promptly and announced: ‘The Parliamentary Secretary will be glad to see you at once.’

We went through the inside door, and Sir Philip came across his room to meet us. He shook hands with Mr March, then said ‘How do you do?’ to me with his stiff, furrowed smile. As he sat down at his desk by the window which overlooked the park, I saw that his skin had taken on a yellowness, a matt texture, such as one sometimes sees in ageing men. He was seventy-three, only three years older than Mr March, but in the bright summer light the difference looked much greater.

‘I expect you’re dying of drought as usual at Haslingfield,’ Sir Philip began their ritual of brotherly baiting. ‘The country is under water everywhere else.’

‘I regard the rainfall as having been reasonable for once,’ said Mr March. ‘And I am pleased to report that I have sufficient water for my requirements.’

These exchanges went on for a few moments. They had made them for so many years, and Sir Philip at least could not let go of them now: Mr March’s replies were forced and mechanical. Sir Philip was, as the afternoon began, by far the less perturbed of the two. Soon he said: ‘I suppose we must get down to business. I should like to say, Eliot, that I am obliged to you for giving me your time. I should be glad to regard it as a professional service, of course, but my brother informs me that you are certain to prefer it otherwise. I appreciate your feelings and, as I say, I am obliged to you. I think you know some of the facts of this affair. In May there was some gossip about myself and some of my colleagues. We were alleged to have used our official knowledge during the past twelve months to buy holdings in companies where government contracts were soon going to be laid. This gossip also included some names outside the government, one of them being that fellow Getliffe. It has now been published, or at least a first instalment has. I believe you’ve seen it?’

I nodded.

‘I can answer for myself and my colleagues,’ Sir Philip went on. ‘So far as we are concerned, there’s not a word of truth in it. When I came back into the Government last year, I decided to spend the rest of my life being as useful to the country as I could, if they wanted me. It was a sacrifice, but I believe that some of us have got to accept responsibility. These aren’t easy years to hold responsibility: I needn’t tell you that.’

Even Sir Philip, I was thinking, could not avoid the expressions of convention, talked about ‘sacrifice’, perhaps used the word to himself — even Sir Philip, who was not a humbug but a hard and realistic man, who loved office and power and knew that he loved it.

‘I was prepared to make the sacrifice,’ Sir Philip went on. ‘I had to resign my directorships when I became a minister, naturally. I also decided to finish with all speculation. I’ve already told Leonard this.’ He glanced at Mr March.

‘I acknowledged your assurance,’ said Mr March, ‘on hearing it at your bedside during your period of incapacity owing to gout.’

‘I finished with it,’ said Sir Philip. ‘I am not a rich man, of course, but I can get along. I have not taken part in any single transaction since I entered the government last November. I cannot make such a categorical statement for my colleagues whose names have been bandied about, but I’m completely satisfied that they are clear.’

‘You mentioned people outside the government,’ I broke in. ‘I’m also satisfied in the same way about Getliffe.’

‘You mean he’s bought nothing in the last twelve months?’

‘Nothing that could be thought suspicious.’

‘What evidence are you going on?’

‘Nothing as definite as yours,’ I said. ‘But I’ve talked to him on this actual point, and I know him well.’

‘I reported Lewis Eliot’s observations on this matter,’ said Mr March.

Sir Philip’s eyes were bright and alert. ‘You’re convinced about this fellow Getliffe?’