George Passant (12 page)

She went on: ‘I admire him,’ she said. ‘We shall all go on admiring him. It’s easy to see it now I’m on the shelf. But he’s getting less from us – than we’ve all got from him. We’ve just given him an excuse for the things he wanted to do. We’ve made it pleasant for him to loll about and fancy he’s doing good. If he hadn’t come across such a crowd, he’d have done something big. I know he’s been happy. But don’t you think he has his doubts? Don’t you think he might like the chance to throw himself into the firm?’

Even at that age, Olive had no use for the great libertarian dreams. Perhaps her suspicions jarred on Rachel, who was, like me, concerned to find something politic that George might do. We suggested that it would do no harm to increase Eden’s goodwill. ‘Just as an insurance,’ Rachel said. We meant nothing subtle or elaborate; but there were one or two obvious steps, such as getting Eden personally interested in the case and asking his advice now and then – and taking part in some of the Edens’ social life, attending the parties which Mrs Eden held each month and which George avoided from his first winter in the town.

George was angry at the suggestions. ‘He wants me to do his work for him. He doesn’t want to see me anywhere else–’ and then, as a second line of defence: ‘I’m sorry. I don’t see why I should make myself uncomfortable without any better reasons than you’re able to give. I am no good at social flummery. As I think I proved, the last time you persuaded me to make a fool of myself. I should have thought I’d knocked over enough cups for everyone’s amusement. I tell you I’m no good at social flummery. You can’t expect me to be, starting where I did.’

Dinner at the Edens’ was an ordeal in which the right dress, the right fork, the proper tone of conversation, presented moments of shame too acute to be faced without an overmastering temptation. As he grew older he was making less effort to conquer these moments.

‘You can’t expect me to, starting where I did.’ That was one motive – I knew – why he built up a group where he was utterly at ease, never going out into the uncomfortable and superior world.

None of us could move George to cultivate Eden’s favour. We pressed him several times after he returned from vague but disturbing conversations with Martineau. He said: ‘I’d rather do something more useful – which meant engross himself in the case. Through the uncertainty, it had come to assume a transcendental importance in his mind. Sensibly, Eden was letting him argue it in the court.

Throughout June and July, George worked at it with extraordinary stamina and concentration. I saw him work till the dawn six nights running, and although I made up sleep in the mornings and he went to the office, he was fresher than I each evening and more ready for the night’s work to come.

UNTIL just before the final hearing of the case, George was searching for money to salvage Jack’s business. It was a continual vexation; he did not endure it quietly. ‘This is intolerable,’ he shouted, as his work was interrupted. ‘Intolerable!’

I had, in fact, used it as an argument for getting Eden’s interest. Even in the Calvert trouble, Eden had shown a liking for Jack; and it would have been easy, I argued – if George were on friendly terms with Eden – to explain the position and secure an advance of salary for Jack’s sake.

Instead, George was harassed by petty expedients. He borrowed a few pounds from Morcom and Rachel, pawned his only valuable possession, a gold medal won at school, increased his overdraft by ten pounds, up to the limit allowed by his bank.

George managed to raise nearly sixty pounds in all, a few days before Jack’s grace expired.

‘Well, here it is,’ he said to Jack. He was sitting in his room for one of his last nights’ work on the case. ‘You can thank heaven you didn’t need any more. I don’t know how I could have scraped another penny.’

‘Thank you, George,’ Jack said. ‘Saved again. It won’t happen any more, though.’

‘I warn you I’m just helpless now,’ George said.

‘I’ll pay it back by the end of the year. I expect you think that I shan’t,’ Jack said. ‘But, you wouldn’t believe it, but I’m more confident after this collapse than I was at the start.’

George stared down at his papers.

‘There is one other thing.’

‘Yes, George?’

‘I don’t know whether you realise how near you have been to – considerable danger.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean something definite. Your methods of getting hold of some of that stock were just on the fringe of the law. You didn’t know, I expect, but if you hadn’t met your bills and they had sued – you stood an even chance of being prosecuted afterwards.’

‘I was afraid you were worrying over those figures,’ said Jack. ‘You’re seeing more than is really there, you know.’

‘I don’t propose to say another word,’ George said. ‘The whole thing is over. I want you to know that I don’t retract anything I’ve said about expecting you to make a tremendous success. You were unlucky over this affair. You might just as easily have been gigantically lucky. It was probably a bigger risk than you were justified in taking. Perhaps it’s wiser not to attempt long-range prophecies. They’re obviously the interesting things in business; but then, you see, I’m still convinced that successful business is devastatingly uninteresting. But if you don’t reach quite as far, you’ll simply outclass all those bloated stupid competitors of yours. It’s unthinkable that you won’t. I refuse to waste time considering it.’ His eyes left Jack, and he began studying one of his tables of notes. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to neglect you now. I’ve got to make certain of smashing them on Thursday.’

The last hearing of George’s case took up a July afternoon. I sat in the old Assize Hall, where the Quarter Sessions had been transferred this year. The hall was small, intimate, and oppressive in the summer heat. Thunder rolled intermittently as George made his last speech, aggressive, closely packed with an overwhelming argument. He was more nervous than in his attack on the School committee.

The judge had been a little short with him, provoked by his manner. Eden, who allowed George complete charge in the later stages, sat with his lips in a permanent but uneasy smile. When George was given the case, in words slightly peremptory and uncordial, Eden shook his hand: ‘That was an able piece of work, Passant. I must say you’ve done very well.’ Then Martineau, who had not attended a hearing throughout the case, entered, was told the news, and laughed. ‘You’ll go from strength to strength, won’t you, George? You’ll be ashamed of being seen with your old friends–’

When they had gone, I stayed alone with George while he packed his papers: he bent his head over the desk and made a neat tick on the final page; he was smiling to himself. We went together to a café by the river; when we sat down at the little table by the window, he said, with an exultant sigh: ‘Well, we’ve pulled that off.’ A happy smile spread over his face. ‘This is one of the best occasions there have ever been,’ he said.

‘I’ve never seen anyone look quite so jubilant,’ I said, ‘as when you got the verdict.’

George shook with laughter.

‘I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t look pleased,’ he said, ‘when you damned well know you’ve done something in a different class from the people round you.’ His voice calmed down. ‘Not that I ever had any serious doubts about it.’

‘Not last week?’ I said. ‘Walking round the park?’

‘You can’t expect me not to have bad moments,’ George said. ‘I didn’t get a reasonable chance to have any faith in myself until – not long ago. Being as shy as I am in any respectable society doesn’t help. I’ve never got over my social handicaps. And you realise that I went through my childhood without anyone impressing on me that I had ability – considerable ability, in fact.’ He chuckled. ‘So you can’t expect me not to have bad moments. But they’re not very serious. Fortunately, I’ve managed to convince myself–’

‘What of?’

‘That I’m capable of doing something useful in the world and that I’ve found the way of doing it.’

Contentedly he leaned back against the wall, and looked beyond me through the window. It was a cloudy evening, but the sky was bright towards the west; so that in the stream that ran by the café garden the clouds were reflected, dark and sharply cut.

‘It was extremely important that I should be a success in the firm,’ George went on. ‘I regard that as settled now. They couldn’t do without me.’

‘Do they realise that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you sure?’

George flushed. ‘Of course I am. I’m not dealing with cretins. You heard yourself what Martineau said an hour ago.’

‘You can’t rely on Martineau.’

‘Why not?’

‘In his present state, he might do anything. Sell his partnership and go into the Church,’ I smiled, stretching my invention for something more fantastic than the future could possibly hold.

‘Nonsense,’ said George. ‘He’s a bit unsettled. People of imagination often have these bouts. But he’s perfectly stable, of course.’

‘You’ve forgotten what Morcom said the other night?’

‘I’ve got it in its right proportion.’

‘You were desperately anxious about him. A few days ago. You were more anxious than I’ve seen you about anything else.’

‘You can exaggerate that.’

‘So you expect everything to be always the same?’

‘As far as the progress of my affairs goes,’ said George, ‘yes.’

I burst out: ‘I must say it seems to me optimism gone mad.’

But actually, when George was shelving or assimilating the past, or doing what was in effect the same, comfortably forecasting his own future, I was profoundly moved by a difference of temperament: far more than by a disinterested anxiety. At that age, to be honest, I resented George being self-sufficient, as it seemed to me, able to soften any facts into his own optimistic world. He seemed to have a shield, an unfair shield, against the realities and anxieties that I already felt.

Also, for weeks I had been working with him, sympathising with his strain during the case, arguing against the qualms which oddly seemed to afflict him more than they would a less hopeful man. It had been easier to encourage him over the doubtful nights than to sit isolated from him by this acceptance of success, so blandly complete that the case might have been over a year ago and not that afternoon. And so, guiltily aware of the relief it gave me, I heard my voice grow rancorous. ‘You’re making a dream of it,’ I said, ‘just to indulge yourself. Like too many of your plans. Do you really think it’s obvious that Martineau will stay here for the rest of his life?’

‘I don’t see what else he’s going to do,’ said George, smiling. But I could detect, as often when he was argued against, a change in tone. ‘In any case,’ he said, with his elaborate reasonableness, ‘I don’t propose to worry about that. He’s done almost everything I required of him. He’s stayed in the firm long enough for me to establish my position. He’s given me the chance, and I’ve taken advantage of it. It doesn’t matter particularly what happens now.’

George’s face suddenly became eager and happy.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘I have the right to stay here now. I could always have stayed before. Even Eden would never have seriously tried to get rid of me, whether Martineau was there or not. But I couldn’t really be entirely satisfied until I’d established to myself the right to go on as I am. I’ve never had much confidence, and I knew it would take a triumph to prove to myself that I’ve a right to do as I please. That’s why this is so splendid. I’m perfectly justified in staying, now.’

In my resentful state, I nearly pretended to be mystified. But I thought of Olive’s premonition; and I was captured by his pleasure in his own picture of himself. One could not resist his fresh and ebullient happiness.

‘The people at the School?’ I said.

‘Obviously,’ said George. ‘What would happen to everyone if I went away?’

I replied, as he wanted: ‘One or two of us you’ve affected permanently,’ I said. ‘But the others – in time they’d become what they would have been – if you’d never come.’

‘I won’t have it,’ said George. ‘Good God above, I won’t have it.’ He laughed wholeheartedly. ‘Do you think I’m going to waste my time like that? You’re right, it’s exactly what would happen. And it’s simply inconceivable that it should. I refuse to contemplate it,’ he said. ‘We must go on as we are. God knows, there isn’t much freedom in the world, and I’m damned if we lose what little there is. I’ve started here, and now after this I can go on. I tell you, that’s why this mattered so much to me.’

I looked across the table; his eyes were shining in the twilight, and I was startled by the passionate exultation in his voice. ‘You’ve understood before, I’ve found the only people to whom my existence is important. How can you expect anything else to count beside that fact?’

His voice quietened, he was smiling; the evening light falling from the window at my back showed his face glowing and at rest.

WITH the success behind him, George remarked more often about a partnership ‘being not too far away’. For the first time, he showed some impatience about his own future: but he was no longer worried over Martineau. Both Morcom and I began to think he was right; during July and August, I almost abandoned my fear that Martineau might leave and so endanger George’s prospects in the firm.

Martineau’s behaviour seemed no more eccentric than we were used to. He was still doing everything we wanted of him; we went to Friday nights, we saw him walking backwards and forwards between the sofa and the window, his shadow leaping jerkily into the summer darkness. It was all as it had been last year; just as with any present reality, it was hard to imagine that it would ever cease.

We smiled as we heard him use a mysterious phrase – ‘the little plays’.

‘Of course, the man’s religion is at the bottom of it all,’ said George, back into boisterous spirits which were not damped even when Olive had to leave the town; her father’s health had worsened, and she took him to live by the sea. George compensated himself for that gap by his enormous pride in Jack’s and my performances; for my examination result was a good one, and Jack at last had achieved a business coup.