Charles Snow - The Conscience of the Rich

‘I will make those representations,’ said Mr March. ‘But I cannot answer for the consequences.’

‘If you prefer it,’ said Sir Philip, ‘I am quite prepared to speak to Charles.’

‘No, Philip,’ Mr March said. ‘I must do it myself.’

Sir Philip stared at him, and then said: ‘I’m not willing to leave anything to chance. I expect Charles to act immediately.’

He looked at his brother for agreement, but Mr March barely moved his head in acquiescence.

‘I shouldn’t like to go out under a cloud,’ said Sir Philip. ‘Of course, we’ve all got to go some time, but no one likes being forced out.’ Suddenly his tone altered, and he said quickly: ‘Mind you, I’m not ready to admit that my usefulness is over yet. I’ve some pieces of work in this department I want to carry through, and after that—’

Inexplicably his mood had changed, and he began to talk of his expectations. He hoped to keep his office for six months, until there was a reshuffle in the government; he speculated on the reshuffle name by name, knowing this kind of politics just as he knew the March family. If one combination came off, he might still get a minor ministry for himself. For that he was hoping.

It was strange to hear him that afternoon. It was stranger still to hear Mr March, after a time, join in. Preoccupied, with occasional silences, he nevertheless joined in, and they forecast the chances of Sir Philip’s acquaintances, among them Holford’s son. Lord Holford — to whose party Charles had taken me years before — had a son whom he was trying to manoeuvre into a political success. Both Sir Philip and Mr March were anxious to secure that he did not get so much as a parliamentary private secretaryship.

It was strange to listen to them. No one, it seemed to me, had the power continuously to feel old. There were moments, many of them, when a man as realistic as Mr March was menaced by the grave — as in the club that afternoon, when he saw that his contemporaries were decrepit men. But those moments did not last. There were others, as now, when Sir Philip and Mr March could fear, could hope, just as they would have feared and hoped thirty years before. They were making plans at that moment: Sir Philip at seventy-three was still hoping for a ministry. There was no incongruity to himself: he hoped for it exactly as a young man would. The griefs and hopes of Mr March or Sir Philip might seem to an outsider softened and pathetic, because of the man’s age: but to the man himself, age did not matter, they were simply the griefs and hopes of his own timeless self.

March, old city hand, held on longer.