George Passant (11 page)

Then tired over the case, vexed by this secret worry, he was repeatedly badgered by the crisis in Jack’s business. For a time Jack had taken Morcom’s advice, and managed to put off an urgent creditor. He did not confide the extent of the danger to George until a promise fell through and he was being threatened. George was hot with anger at being told so late.

‘Why am I the last person who hears? I should have assumed I ought to be the first.’

‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

‘I suppose you don’t think it’s worrying me to tell me now in the middle of as many difficulties as anyone ever had?’

‘I couldn’t keep it back any longer,’ said Jack.

‘If you’d come before, I should have stopped you getting into this absurd position.’

‘I’m there now, said Jack. ‘It’s not much comfort holding inquests.’

Several nights in the middle of the case, George switched off to study the figures of the business. They were not over-complicated, but it was a distraction he wanted to be spared: particularly as it soon became clear that Jack was expecting money to ‘set it straight’. George discovered that Morcom had heard of this misfortune a week before; he exploded into an outburst that lasted a whole night. ‘Do you think I’m the sort of man you can ignore till you can’t find anyone else? Why don’t you let other people finish up the business? There’s no need to come to me at all.’ He was half-mollified, however, to be told that Morcom’s advice had only delayed the crisis, and that he had volunteered no further help.

Affronted as he was, George did not attempt to throw off the responsibility. To me in private, he said with a trace of irritated triumph: ‘If I’d asserted myself in the first place, he’d have been settling down to the law by now.’ But he took it for granted that he was bound to set Jack going again. He went through the figures.

‘You guaranteed this man–?’

‘Yes.’

‘What backing did you have?’

‘It hasn’t come off.’

In the end George worked out that a minimum of fifty pounds had to be provided within a month. ‘That will avoid the worst. We want three times as much to consolidate the thing. I don’t know how we shall even manage the fifty,’ George said. As we knew, he was short of money himself; Mrs Passant was making more demands, his sister was going to a different school; he still lived frugally, and then frittered pounds away on a night’s jaunt.

It surprised me how during this transaction Jack’s manner towards George became casual and brusque. Towards anyone else Jack would have shown more of his finesse, as well as his mobile good nature. But I felt in him a streak of ruthlessness whenever he was intent on his own way: as he talked to George, it came almost to the surface.

I mentioned this strange relation of theirs to Morcom, the evening before I went to London for my examination: but he drove it out of my head by telling me he was himself worried over Martineau.

There was no time for him to say more. But in the train, returning to the town after the examination, I was seized by the loneliness, the enormous feeling of calamity, which seems lurking for us – or at any rate, all through my life it often did so for me – when we arrive home at the end of a journey. I went straight round to George’s. He was not in, although it was already evening. His landlady told me that he was working late in the office; there I found him, in his room on the same floor as those which carried on their doors the neat white letters ‘Mr Eden,’ ‘Mr Martineau’. George’s room was smaller than the others, and in it one could hear trams grinding below, through the centre of the town.

‘How did you get on?’ George said. Though I felt he was wishing the inquiries over so that he could pass on to something urgent, he insisted on working through my examination paper.

‘Ah,’ George breathed heavily, for he had been talking fast, ‘you must have done well. And now we’ve got a bit of news for you.’

‘What is it? Has anything gone wrong?’ I was full of an inexplicable impatience.

‘I’ve got the case absolutely cut and dried,’ said George enthusiastically. I heard his explanation, which would have been interesting in itself. When he had finished, I asked: ‘Anything new about Martineau?’

‘Nothing definite.’ George’s tone was uncomfortable, as though the question should not have been put. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘Morcom rang up to ask if he could come in tonight and talk something over. I believe it’s the same subject.’

‘When?’ I said. ‘When is he coming?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, quite soon.’

‘Do you mind if I stay?’ I said.

‘There’s a slight difficulty,’ said George. He added: ‘You see, we’ve got to consider Morcom. He’s inclined to be discreet–’

‘He’s already spoken to me about it,’ I said, but George was unwilling until I offered to meet Morcom on his way.

When I brought him back, Morcom began: ‘It’s rather dull, what I’ve come to you about.’ Then he said, after a question to me: ‘But you know a good deal about Martineau, George. And you’re better than I am at figures.’

George smiled, gratified: ‘If that’s what you want, Lewis is your man.’

‘All the better,’ said Morcom. ‘You can both tell me what you think. The position is this. You know that Martineau is my landlord. Well, he says he can’t afford to let me keep on my flat. It seemed to me nonsense. So I asked for an account of what he spends on the house. I’ve got it here. I’ve also made a note of what I pay. That’s in pencil; the rest are Martineau’s figures. I want to know what you think of them.’

George was sitting at the table. I got up and stood behind him, and we both gazed for some minutes at the sheet of notepaper. I heard George’s breathing.

‘Well?’ said Morcom.

‘It’s not very – careful, is it?’ said George, after a long hesitation.

‘What do you say?’ Morcom said to me.

‘I should go further,’ I said. ‘It’s either so negligent that one can hardly believe it – or else–’ I paused, then hurried on: ‘something like dishonesty.’

‘That’s sheer fatuity,’ George said. ‘He’s one of the most honest people alive. As you both ought to know. You can’t go flinging about accusations frivolously against a man like Martineau.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, if one didn’t know him and saw that account–’

‘It’s a pity,’ said George, ‘that you didn’t say that.’

‘How do you explain the figures?’ Morcom asked.

‘I reject the idea of dishonesty,’ George said. ‘Right from the beginning; and if you don’t, I’m afraid I can’t continue with the discussion.’

‘I shouldn’t believe it. Unless there turned out nothing else to believe,’ Morcom said.

George went on: ‘I grant it might have been dishonest if Lewis or I had produced an account like that. But we shouldn’t have done it with such extraordinary clumsiness. Anyone could see through it at a glance. He’s put all sorts of expenses down on the debit side that have got as much to do with his house as they have with me.’

‘I saw that,’ said Morcom.

‘That proves it wasn’t dishonesty,’ George was suddenly smiling broadly. ‘Because, as I say, a competent man couldn’t have done it without being dishonest. But on the other hand a competent man wouldn’t have done it so egregiously. So the person who did it was probably incompetent and honest. Being Martineau.’

‘But is he incompetent?’

‘He’s not bad at his job,’ George admitted slowly. ‘Or used to be when he took the trouble. He used to be pretty good at financial things–’

Morcom and I leapt at the same words.

‘Took the trouble?’ said Morcom. ‘When has he stopped? What do you mean?’

‘I didn’t want to say anything about this.’ George looked upset. ‘You’ll have to regard it as in absolute confidence. But he’s been slacking off gradually for a long time. The last month or two I’ve not been able to get him to show any kind of recognition. I tried to make some real demands on him about the case. He just said there were more important things. He’s become careless–’

‘That was what you were quarrelling about,’ I cried out. ‘That Friday night – do you remember? I found the two of you alone.’

‘Yes,’ said George, with a shy grin. ‘I did try to make one or two points clear to him.’

‘I heard him,’ I said to Morcom, ‘before I left the gardens.’

Morcom smiled.

‘I don’t know what is possessing him,’ said George. ‘Though, as I told him the night we had our disagreement, I can’t imagine working under anyone else.’

‘It’s a pity for his sake,’ I said, ‘but the most important thing is – what does it mean to you?’

‘Yes,’ said Morcom. ‘We haven’t much to go on yet.’

‘You’ll tell me if you get any news,’ said George.

‘Of course.’

They were enjoying this co-operation. They each found that pleasure we all have in being on the same side with someone we have regularly opposed.

George walked to the window. It was almost nine, and the summer night had scarcely begun to darken. George looked over the roofs. The buildings fell away in shadow, the roofs shone in the clear light.

‘I’m glad you came round,’ said George. ‘I’ve been letting it get on my nerves. It doesn’t matter to you so much. But it just possibly might upset all the arrangements I have built up for myself. I’ve always counted on his being perfectly dependable. He is part of the scheme of things. If he’s going to play fast-and-loose – it might be the most serious thing that has happened since I came here.’

THE firm of Eden & Martineau had been established, under the name of G J Eden, Solicitor, by Eden’s father in the eighties. It was a good time for the town, despite shadows of depression outside; by the pure geographical chance of being just outside the great coal- and iron-fields, it was beginning to collect several light industries instead of a single heavy one. And it was still a country market and a centre for litigious farmers. The elder Eden got together a comfortable business almost from the beginning.

His son became junior partner in 1896; Martineau joined when the father died, ten years later. Through the next twenty years, down to the time when George was employed, the firm maintained a solid standing. It never obtained any unusual success in making money: a lack of drive in the Edens seemed to have prevented that. The firm, though well thought of in the town, was not among the most prosperous solicitors’. It is doubtful whether Harry Eden ever touched £3,000 a year.

From the moment he entered it, George bore a deep respect for the firm, and still, nearly three years after, would say how grateful he was to Martineau for ‘having somehow got past the opposition and wangled me the job’. His pride in the firm should not have surprised us, though it sometimes did. It seemed strange to notice George identifying himself with a solid firm of solicitors in a provincial town – but of course it is not the Georges, the rebels of the world, who are indifferent to authority and institutions. The Georges cannot be indifferent easily; if they are in an institution, it may have to be changed, but it becomes part of themselves. George in the firm was, on a minor scale, something like George in his family; vehement, fighting for his rights, yet proud to be there and excessively attached.

In the same way, his gratitude to Martineau and his sense of good luck at ever having been appointed both showed how little he could take himself and the firm for granted. As a matter of fact, there was no mystery, almost no manoeuvring, and no luck; they appointed him with a couple of minutes’ consideration.

The only basis for the story of Martineau’s manoeuvres seemed to be that Eden said: ‘He’s not quite a gentleman, of course, Howard. Not that I think he’s any the worse for that, necessarily,’ and Martineau replied: ‘I liked him very much. There’s something fresh and honest about him, don’t you feel?’

At any rate, George, who was drawn to Martineau at sight, went to the firm with the unshakeable conviction that there was his patron and protector.

Eden, George respected and disliked, more than he admitted to himself. It was dislike without reason. It was an antipathy such as one finds in any firm – or in any body of people brought together by accident and not by mutual liking, as I found later in colleges and government departments.

About the relations of Eden and Martineau themselves, George speculated very little. Their professional capacity, however, he decided early. Martineau was quite good while he was at all interested. Eden was incompetent at any kind of detailed work (George undervalued his judgment and broad sense). Between them, they left a good deal of the firm’s work to George, and there is no doubt that, after he had been with them a couple of years, he carried most of their cases at the salary of a solicitor’s clerk, £250 a year.

With Martineau to look after his interests George felt secure and happy, and enjoyed the work. He did not want to leave; the group at the School weighed with him most perhaps, but also his comfort in the firm. He was not actively ambitious. He had decided, with his usual certain optimism – by interpreting some remark of Martineau’s, and also because he thought it just – that he would fairly soon be taken into partnership. Martineau would ‘work it’ – George had complete faith. Meanwhile, he was content.

And so the first signs of Martineau’s instability menaced everything he counted on.

It was the first time we had seen him anxious for his own sake. We were worried. We tried to see what practical ill could happen. I asked George whether he feared that Martineau would sell his partnership; this he indignantly denied. But I was not reassured, and I could not help wishing that his disagreement with Eden last autumn, the whole episode of the committee, was further behind him.

I talked it over several nights that summer with Morcom and Jack; and also with Rachel who, for all her deep-throated sighs, had as shrewd a judgment as any of us. We occupied ourselves with actions, practical prudent actions, that George might be induced to take. But Olive, her insight sharpened by the lull in her own life, had something else to say.

‘Do you remember that night in the café – when we were trying to stop him from interfering about Jack?’ she said. ‘I had a feeling then that he was unlucky ever to come near us. He’d have done more if he’d have gone somewhere that kept him on the rails. Perhaps that’s why the firm is beginning to seem important to him now.’