The Conscience of the Rich (12 page)

‘Are you sure that you ought to be doing this?’ called Charles.

‘It’s all right.’ She was panting.

‘Are you sure that you’re quite fit?’

‘Not perfectly. But I want to go on.’

‘We’d better stop,’ said Katherine.

‘If you do, I shall claim the game.’ She was still short of breath, but her face was set in an obstinate, headstrong smile.

She served. They played another game. Charles was watching her with a frown. At the end of the set he went on to the court. She was giddy, and clutched his arm; he took her to her chair. Soon she was moving her head from side to side, as though making sure that the giddiness had passed. She smiled at Charles. He said in relief: ‘Why didn’t you behave reasonably?’

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Ann.

He scolded her: ‘Why did you insist on playing on after you’d tired yourself out?’

‘I was ill in the spring, you see.’ She was explaining her collapse.

‘Would it upset you,’ said Charles, ‘if I sent for a doctor?’

‘I’d ask you to if I needed one, I promise you I would.’

‘Just to relieve my own mind?’

‘I’d ask you to, if there was the slightest need.’

‘There really isn’t any?’

‘You’ll only irritate one if you fetch him.’

‘I don’t mind that–’

‘You haven’t had a doctor as a father, have you?’

‘You really don’t think there’s any need? You know enough about yourself to be sure?’ Charles reiterated.

Their sparring had vanished. They were speaking with confidence in each other.

‘You see,’ said Ann, ‘I used to have these bouts before. They’re passing off now.’

Just then Mr March walked down after his afternoon sleep. Before he reached us, he was watching Ann and his son. Then he looked only at Ann, and his manner to her, from the moment Katherine introduced them, impressed us all.

‘I am delighted to have you adorning my house,’ said Mr March. ‘It isn’t often that my house has been so charmingly adorned.’

It was a speech of deliberate gallantry. It was so emphatic that Ann became flustered; she smiled back, but she could not make much of a reply.

Mr March went on: ‘I hope my son has not been excessively negligent in entertaining you until I arrived.’

‘Not at all,’ said Ann, still at a loss.

‘I am relieved to hear it,’ said Mr March.

‘But I didn’t give Katherine much of a game at tennis,’ she said over-brightly, casting round for words.

‘You shouldn’t let them inveigle you into action too soon after your arrival. I might remark that you’re paler than you ought to be, no doubt as a result of their lack of consideration.’

‘I’ve been looked after very nicely, Mr March–’

‘It’s extremely polite of you to say so,’ he said.

‘Really I have.’ She was getting over the first impact, and she answered without constraint, smiling both at him and Charles.

Soon afterwards Francis arrived, and I watched Katherine’s eyes as his plunging stride brought him through the drawing-room, over the terrace, down to the lawn. Tea was brought out to us, and we ate raspberries and cream in the sunshine.

After tea we played tennis; then, when Mr March went in to dress, Katherine took Francis for a walk round the rose garden, and I left the other two together. I strolled down the drive before going to my room; the stocks were beginning to smell, now the heat of the day was passing, and the scent came to me as though to heighten, and at the same time to touch with languor, the emotions I had been living among that afternoon.

When I left Ann and Charles, their faces had been softened and glowing. No one would say that either was in love, but each was in the state when they knew at least that love was possible. They were still safe; they need not meet again; he could still choose not to ask her, she could still refuse; and yet, while they did not know each other, while they were still free, there was a promise of joy.

It seemed a long time since I had known that state, I thought, as the smell of the stocks set me indulging my own mood. It had gone too soon, and I had discovered other meanings in love. I wondered how long it would last for them.

Evening was falling, and as I turned back towards the house its upper windows shone like blazing shields in the last of the sunlight. Looking up, I felt a trace of worry about Francis and Katherine; I felt a trace of self-pity because Charles and Ann might be lucky; but really, walking back to the house through the warm air, I was enjoying being a spectator, I was excited about it all.

At dinner Mr March was not subdued and acceptant, as he had been at that table a few hours before. Instead, he intervened in each conversation and produced some of his more unpredictable retorts. So far as I could notice, his glance did not stay too long on Katherine, whose face was fresh with happiness as she talked to Francis. He interrupted her, but only as he interrupted the rest of us, in order to stay the centre of attention. It was hard to be sure whether his high spirits were genuine or not.

Once or twice Mr March waited for a response from Ann, who sat, dressed all in black except for an aquamarine brooch on her breast, at his right hand. She was quiet, she was deferential, she laughed at his stories, but it was not until after dinner that Mr March forced her into an argument.

We had moved into the drawing-room, and Mr March sent for the footman to open more windows. There we sat, the lights on, the curtains undrawn and the windows open, while Mr March proceeded by way of the day’s temperature to talk to Francis, who was going to Corsica for a month’s holiday before the October term.

‘I hope you will insist on ignoring any salad they may be misguided enough to offer you. My daughter last year failed to show competent discretion in that respect. Caroline made a similar frightful ass of herself just before the earthquake at Messina. The disaster might have been avoided if she had possessed the gumption to keep sufficiently suspicious of all foreigners–’

‘If you mean me, Mr L,’ Katherine said, ‘I’ve proved to you that being ill in Venice can’t have had anything to do with what I ate abroad.’

‘I refuse to accept your assurances,’ said Mr March. ‘I hope you too will refuse to accept my daughter’s assurances,’ he said to Francis. In each remark he made to Francis, Katherine was listening for an undertone: but she heard none, and protested loudly because she was relieved. Mr March shouted her down, and went on talking to Francis: ‘I should be sorry if my daughter’s example lured you into risks that would probably be fatal to your health.’

‘As I’ve spent an hour before dinner trying to persuade him not to climb mountains without a guide,’ said Katherine, ‘I call that rather hard.’

‘She definitely disapproves of the trip,’ said Francis. ‘She can’t be blamed for not discouraging me enough.’

‘I should advise you to ignore any of her suggestions for your welfare,’ said Mr March.

It sounded no more than genial back-chat. Katherine kept showing her concern for Francis. She could not resist showing it: to do so was a delight. Yet Mr March gave no sign that he saw him as a menace.

Mr March left off talking to Francis, and addressed us all: ‘My experience is that foreigners can always tempt one to abandon any sensible habit. I have never been able to understand why it is considered necessary to intrude oneself among them on the pretext of obtaining pleasure. Hannah always said that she came to life abroad, but I don’t believe that she was competent to judge. Since I married my wife I have preferred to live in my own houses where foreigners are unlikely to penetrate. The more I am compelled to hear of foreign countries, the less I like them. I am sure that my charming guest will agree with me,’ he said confidentially to Ann.

Ann was embarrassed. ‘I don’t think I should go quite as far as that, Mr March,’ she said.

‘You’ll come to it in time, you’ll come to it in time,’ cried Mr March. ‘Why, you must be too young to remember the catastrophe foreigners involved us in fifteen years ago.’

‘I was nine,’ she said.

‘I am surprised to hear that you weren’t even more of an infant. I should be prepared to guarantee that you will keep your present youth and beauty until you are superannuated. But still you can’t conceivably remember the origins of that unfortunate catastrophe. You can’t remember how we were bamboozled by foreigners and entangled in continental concerns that were no affair of ours–’

Mr March went on to develop a commentary, jingoistic and reactionary, on the circumstances of the 1914–18 war. He had the habit of pretending to be at the extreme limit of reaction, just because he knew that Charles’ friends were nearly all of them on the left. But we did not argue with him; when politics came up among the senior Marches, we usually avoided trouble and kept our mouths shut,

As she listened, Ann was frowning. She glanced at Charles, then at me, as though expecting us to contradict. When Mr March paused for a breathing space, she hesitated; she started to talk and checked herself. But the next time he stopped, she did not hesitate. In a tone timid, gentle but determined, she said: ‘I’m sorry, Mr March, but I’m afraid I can’t believe it.’

‘I should be glad to be enlightened on what you do believe,’ said Mr March, preserving his gallant manner.

Still quietly and uneasily, Ann told him, without any covering up, that she did not accept any of his views about the war, or nations, or the causes of politics.

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me next that we can’t understand anything unless we take account of what those people call the class struggle.’

Mr March’s voice had become loud; his face was heavy with anger.

Ann’s tone was more subdued, but she continued without hesitation: ‘I’m afraid I should have to say just that.’

‘Economic poppycock,’ Mr March burst out.

‘It’s a tenable theory, Mr L,’ Charles interrupted. ‘You can’t dispose of it by clamour.’

‘My guest can’t dispose of it by claptrap,’ said Mr March. Then he suppressed his temper, and spoke to Ann in his most friendly and simple way: ‘Obviously we take different views of the world. I presume that you think it will improve?’

‘Yes,’ said Ann.

‘You are optimistic, as you should be at your age. I am inclined to consider that it will continue to get worse. I console myself that it will last my time.’

‘Yes,’ Mr March added, as he glanced round the bright room, ‘it will last my time.’

He had spoken in a tone matter-of-fact and yet elegiac. He did not want to argue with Ann any more. But then I saw that Ann was not ready to let it go. Her eyes were bright. For all her shyness, she was not prepared to be discreet, as I was. Perhaps she was contemptuous of that kind of discretion. I had an impression that she was gambling.

‘I’m sure it won’t last mine,’ she said.

Mr March was taken aback, and she added: ‘I’m also sure that it oughtn’t to.’

‘You anticipate that there will be a violent change within your lifetime?’ said Mr March.

‘Of course,’ said Ann, with absolute conviction.

She had spoken with such force that we were all silent for an instant. Then Mr March said: ‘You’ve no right to anticipate it.’

‘Of course she has,’ Charles broke in. ‘She wants a good world. This is the only way in which she can see it happening.’ He smiled at her. ‘The only doubt is whether the world afterwards would be worth it.’

‘I’m sure of that,’ she said.

‘You’ve no right to be sure,’ said Mr March.

‘Why don’t you think I have?’ she asked quietly.

‘Because women would be better advised not to concern themselves with these matters.’

Mr March had spoken with acute irritability, but Ann broke suddenly into laughter. It was laughter so spontaneous, so unresentfully accepting the joke against herself, that Mr March was first taken at a loss and then reassured. He watched her eyes screw up, her self-control dissolve, as she abandoned herself to laughter. She looked very young.

Charles took the chance to smooth the party down. He acted as impresario for Mr March and led him on to his best stories. At first Mr March was still disturbed: but he was melted by his son’s care, and by the warmth and well being we could all feel that night in Charles.

Katherine joined in. Between them they poured all their attention on to Mr March, as though making up for the exhilaration of the last few hours.

They succeeded in getting Mr March on to the subject of Ann’s family. He told her: ‘Of course, you’re not one of the real Simons,’ and she proved that she was a distant cousin of the Florence Simon whom I had met at the family dinner at Bryanston Square and who even Mr March had to admit was ‘real’. From then till 10.40 Mr March explored in what remote degree he and Ann were related; stories of fourth and fifth cousins ‘making frightful asses of themselves’ forty years ago became immersed in the timeless continuum in which Mr March, more extravagantly than on a normal night, let himself go.

When Mr March had rattled each door in the hall and gone upstairs, Katherine said to Ann:

‘Well, I hope you’re not too bothered after all that.’ Ann shook her head.

‘Did you want me to keep out?’ she said to Charles. Charles was smiling.

Francis asked: ‘What would your own father have said if a strange young woman had started talking about the revolution?’

‘Didn’t you agree with me?’ she said, quite sharply. She knew that Francis was on her side: he was as radical as his fellow scientists. Deferential as she often sounded, she was not to be browbeaten. Then she smiled too.

‘I won’t do it again,’ she said. ‘But tonight was a special occasion.’

Again I had the impression that she had been gambling. Whatever the gamble had been, it was over now, and she was relaxed.

Making it up with Francis, she said to him: ‘As for my father, he wouldn’t have had the spirit to argue. Even when I was growing up, he’d managed to tire himself out.’

Although she seemed to be speaking to Francis, she was really speaking to Charles. One could guess from her tone that she loved him. One could guess too that she was not often relaxed enough to talk like this. She smiled again, almost as though her upper lip was twitching, and said: