Charles Snow: Time of Hope

I tried to think of any tactic that would save him. Back in London I sat over the papers night after night. Sheila was in her worst mood, but I could do little for her, and made nothing of an attempt. I could not drag myself to her room, if it only meant the usual routine. For once I prayed for someone who would give me strength, instead of bleeding away such as I had.

For some days Hotchkinson, the solicitor to whom Eden had deputed the case, sent me no news. I had a fugitive hope that the police had found the case too thin. Then a telegram arrived in Chambers to say ‘clients arrested applying for bail’. It was the middle of December, and term would soon be over. After that morning, the next hearing in the magistrates’ court was fixed for 29 December. I had no case in London till January; I thought I could be more use if I lived in the town for the next fortnight.

I went home to Chelsea to tell Sheila so. I wondered if she would perceive the true reason — that only away from her could I be free enough to work for them all out. I could suffer no distraction now.

She was quiet and sensible that morning, when I told her of the arrests.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s been worrying you.’

I smiled a little.

‘I did my best to warn you,’ I said.

‘I’ve been a bit — caged in.’ It was the word she often used; she was ruthless in talking of herself, but sometimes she wanted to domesticate her own behaviour.

I said that I ought to stay at Eden’s until the New Year.

‘Why?’

‘I must win this case.’

‘Will it help you? Going away like that?’ She was staring at me.

‘It’s rather a tangled case. Remember, they’ll tell me everything they can—’

‘Is it more tangled than all the others? You’ve never been away before.’

She said nothing more, except that she would go to her parents for Christmas Day. ‘If you think that my father won’t find out that you’re staying at Eden’s,’ she said with her old sarcastic grin, ‘you’re very much mistaken. I’m not going to make your excuses for you. You’d better come over at Christmas and have a shot yourself.’

In the next fortnight I spent much of my time with George, and I saw Jack whenever he wanted me. Step by step they came to feel secure, as though I were still among them. George learned to believe that I had not altered, and both then and always was on his side. So far as I had altered, in fact, it was in a direction that brought me nearer to him in his trouble. When I was younger and he had known me best, I was struggling, but failure was an experience that I neither knew nor admitted as possible for myself. I believed with a hard, whole, confident heart that success was to be my fortune. I had the opaqueness of the successful, and the impatience of the successful with those so feeble and divided that they fell away. Since then, in my weeks of illness, I had acknowledged absolute surrender — and that I could not forget. I had known the depth of failure, and from that time I was bound to anyone who started with gifts and hope, and then felt his nature break him; I was bound not by compassion or detached sympathy, but because I could have been his like, and might still be. So, in those threatening days, I came near to George.

And yet, as I walked from Eden’s to George’s through the harsh familiar streets, I was often hurt by the changes in his life — not the fraud, but the transformation of his ideal society into a Venusberg. I wished that it had not happened. I was hurt out of proportion, considering the world in which I lived. Did I, who thought I could take the truth about any human being, wish to shut my eyes to half of George? Or was I trying to preserve the days of my young manhood, when George was spinning his innocent, altruistic, Utopian plans, and I was happy and expectant because of the delights to come?

It was that pain, added to George’s, which led me into an error in legal tactics. I knew quite well that the prosecution’s case was likely to be so strong that we had no chance of getting it dismissed in the police court on the 29th. The only sane course was to hold our defence and let it go to the assizes; on the other hand, if the lucky chance came off, and we defended and won in the police court, we might keep most of the scandal hidden. It was a false hope, and I was wrong to have permitted it. But George’s violence and suffering over-persuaded me: if the prosecution in the police court was weaker than we feared, I might risk going for an acquittal there.

It did no positive harm to hold out such a hope. But I had to explain it to Eden and Hotchkinson. They were cool-headed men, and they strongly disagreed. It was much wiser, they said, to make up our minds at once. The case was bound to go to the assizes. Surely I must see that? Eden was troubled. I was young, but I had a reputation for good legal judgement. Both he and Hotchkinson thought I had been a more brilliant success at the Bar than was the fact. They treated me with an uneasy respect. Nevertheless, they were sound, sensible solicitors. They believed that I was wrong in considering such tactics for a moment; they believed that I was wrong, said so with weight, and firmly advised me against it.

That discussion took place on Christmas Eve. During my stay so far, I had not felt like visiting my relations and acquaintances in the town, and after the disagreement I felt less so than ever. But I wanted to avoid attending Eden’s party, and so I went off to call on Aunt Milly and my father. I had to tell them about the case, which had already been mentioned in the local papers. Aunt Milly, very loyal when once she had given her approval, was indignant about George. She was sure that he was innocent, and could only have been involved through unscrupulous persons who had presumed on his good nature and what she called his ‘softness’. Aunt Milly was now in the sixties, but still capable of vigorous and noisy indignation. ‘My word!’ said my father, full of simple wonder that I should be appearing in public in the town. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ He was just about to slink out of Aunt Milly’s house for a jocular Christmas Eve going round singing with the waits. Getting me alone for two minutes, he at once asked me to join the party. ‘Some of these houses do you proud,’ said my father, with an extremely knowing look. ‘I know where there’s a bottle or two in the kitchen—’

I spent next day at the Knights’. It was the most silent time I had known inside that house. The four of us were alone. I was hag-ridden by the case.

When I looked at Sheila, I saw only an inward gaze. She had not made a single inquiry throughout the day. We walked for a few minutes in the rose garden. She said that she would have liked to talk to me. Not one word about the case. I was angry with her, angry and tired. I could not rouse myself to say that soon I should have time, soon I should be home refreshed and ready to console her.

All that day I wanted to get her out of my sight.

Mrs Knight was unusually quiet. She knew that something was wrong with our marriage, and, though she blamed me, it was out of her depth. As for Mr Knight, he would scarcely speak to me. Not because his daughter was miserable. Not because I was so beset that my voice was dead. No, Mr Knight would not speak to me for the simple reason that he was huffed. And he was huffed because I had chosen to live in Eden’s house and not in his.

No explanation was any good — that I must see George and the others night and day, that I could not drive in and out from the country, that, whatever happened, even if we got them off, Eden was George’s employer and it was imperative for me to keep his good will. No explanation appeased Mr Knight. And, to tell the truth, I was too far gone to make many.