Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

Mr March, having delayed for so many days in seeing his son at all, received him with a storm of accusations. He insisted that Charles had deliberately dissimulated, had professed ignorance, had given lying reassurances, whenever Mr March had asked. Charles was outraged. He had gone to see his father with a feeling of guilt: he was in one of those situations where one is half-guilty and half-innocent, or rather guilty at one level and innocent at another. He deserved reproaches, he was forming them against himself — but he was maddened at being accused of behaviour he could never have committed.

Katherine believed that there had been the bitterest words about Ann. It seemed, very strangely, that Mr March had spoken of her as though she were just a slave of Charles’, not an independent human being. What had really been said no one knew but themselves.

They parted in anger, Mr March’s wildly possessing him, Charles’ hard and strained. But as he went without a goodbye, Charles, still not knowing where to turn in spite of his harsh replies, offered to see Mr March again when he returned to Bryanston Square. It was an attempt to keep a card of re-entry, such as one makes when one is not prepared to face an end. Violently and ungraciously, Mr March accepted it.

The second reference in the Note was published before the end of August. It went just as Seymour had told me; in itself, it was innocuous. It produced no more facts, hinted at Hawtin as the chief figure in the case, contained nothing which pointed specifically at Sir Philip, and ended by promising to produce the whole story in ‘three — four weeks’.

There were no consequences, at any rate none in the open. I heard some gossip, went to a political dinner party and listened to the hostess moving pieces about the chessboard. Did this mean that Alex Hawtin would soon have a brilliant future behind him? Would there be a reshuffle in the government before long? Would they take the opportunity to put one or two men ‘out’? But I was used to that kind of gossip, in which reputations rose and fell in a week: however informed the gossips were, however shrewd, their judgements had a knack of reversing themselves when one was not looking, and next month they would, with equal excitement, malice, and human gusto, be deciding that Alex Hawtin was safely ‘in’ and that someone else had ‘blotted his copybook’.

In the March family, nothing happened for some days: except that Mr March closed Haslingfield and, breaking his seasonal ritual by a fortnight, which had not happened since he took the house forty years before, was back in Bryanston Square by the first week in September. It was known that he had seen the second article, but he said nothing and made no attempt to have another private talk with Charles. In fact, the only action he took as soon as he returned to Bryanston Square was a singular one: he invited Charles and Ann, his niece Margaret March, and several others, including me, to dine with him, on the pretext that he wished to celebrate the birth of Katherine’s child.

The child, her second son, had been born a week before Mr March moved back to London. With all his physical exuberance he rejoiced in a birth. He was pleased that Katherine should have called the child after him. But no one believed that this was the true reason for his invitation. Margaret March, who knew most of the facts, thought he was making the opportunity for a scene with Ann: she was nervous at having to be a spectator, although her sympathies were mainly with Mr March.

Others of his relations believed much the same. They knew that a disaster hung over Mr March and Charles, and they felt that Mr March could not endure it any longer. Several of them were apprehensive enough to make excuses not to go. Most of them had learned something of the situation, pitied Mr March, and took his side; this was the case even with the younger generation. They did not begin to understand Charles’ position, though he attracted a kind of baffled sympathy from some, simply because he was liked and respected. Ann got no sympathy at all.

Ann herself had no doubt of the reason behind Mr March’s invitation. I called at Antrobus Street on my way home one night, just after we had all received the letters asking us to dine; I found Ann alone. For the first time in the years I had known her, her courage would not answer her. She was trying to screw up her will, but she was frightened.

I tried to hearten her. I said that it was possible Mr March had invited us for a much simpler reason. He might want to prove that he had not yet broken with his son. When Charles left Haslingfield, he had shown his card of re-entry and now perhaps Mr March was playing to it.

It did not sound likely. When Charles came in, I saw that she was not only frightened, but torn, just as Charles himself was torn. With her he was tender and protective. It was clear that he had not made her choice for her, and that he was not prepared to.

Nevertheless, that night I believed that, however much he kept from forcing her, however much he respected her choice, she would do as he wanted. I believed it more positively when she mentioned Mr March’s invitation, and said that she did not want to go.

‘When did it arrive?’ said Charles quietly.

‘This morning. It’s too much of an ordeal, and it couldn’t do any good. Even if I did go, it couldn’t do any good.’

Charles paused and said: ‘I’m afraid that I want you to.’

‘Why do you?’ Her face was open, but hurt and clouded.

‘You must see why. He’s made an approach, and I can’t refuse him. I’m afraid that I want you to go.’

‘Must I?’ said Ann.

‘Yes,’ said Charles.

Ann asked me to call for her on the night of Mr March’s dinner party. She had been away from home for some nights, and had not seen Charles since she got back; he had an engagement at his old hospital, and would have to go to Bryanston Square direct.

As soon as I caught sight of her I was troubled. She was dressed for the party, as though she had determined to look her best that night. But it was not her dress that took my eye. Her cheeks were flushed; on her forehead there was a frown of strain. At first I took it for granted that these were signs of anxiety because of the evening ahead; then I asked if she were well.

‘I’ve got a cold, I think,’ said Ann. ‘I felt it coming on a day or two ago. It’s nothing much.’

‘Any temperature?’

‘Perhaps a little,’ said Ann.

‘Does Charles know?’

‘No. I told you, I’ve not seen him since I went away.’

‘Wouldn’t it be wiser if you didn’t come?’

‘Do you think,’ Ann said, ‘that I could possibly not come now? I’ve told Mr March that I shall be there, haven’t I?’

Suddenly I was reminded of her making herself play on at tennis, her first afternoon at Haslingfield.

‘I must make sure that no one takes any notice, though,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if anything can be done about it.’ She went upstairs, and was some time away. At last she came into the room, halted in front of me, and said: ‘How will that do?’

She had gone over her make-up, hiding the flush on her cheeks, overpainting her lips. One thing alone she could not wipe away, and that was the constricted, strained expression round her eyes.

‘You look very pretty,’ I said. In our long, comradely acquaintanceship, I had scarcely paid her a compliment before.

She smiled with pleasure. She was vainer than one thought, she distrusted her looks more. She studied herself in the looking-glass over the fireplace. She gave another smile, faint, approving, edged with self-regard.

‘I think it will do,’ she said.

Again I tried to make her stay at home, but she would not listen.