George Passant (3 page)

‘Has that wire been sent?’ George interrupted.

‘It must have been, by now,’ Olive replied.

‘Don’t you realise how vital that is?’ cried George, impatient that anyone should miss a point in tactics.

Olive did not answer, and went on: ‘That’s all he’s plucked up his courage to do. They couldn’t bully him into anything stronger. He tries to talk as though Roy was just a bit overworked and only needed a change of air. If I’d performed any of these antics at his age, I should have been in for the biggest hiding of my life. But his father never could control a daughter, let alone a son.’

George was preoccupied with her news; but at her last remark he roused himself.

‘You know it’s no use pretending to believe in that sadistic nonsense here.’

‘I never have pretended to believe in all your beautiful dreams, have I?’ she said.

‘You can’t take sides with those sunkets against me,’ said George.

His voice had risen. We were used to the odd Suffolk words as his temper flamed up. Olive was flushed, her face still apart from her full, excitable mouth. Yet, hot-tempered as they both were, they never quarrelled for long: she understood him by instinct, better than any of us at this time. And George was far more easy with her than with Rachel, who stored away every word he spoke and who said at this moment: ‘I agree, oh! of course I agree, George. We must help people to fulfil themselves–’

She was the oldest of us there, a year or more older than George: Olive was the same age as Jack and me. When Rachel gushed, it was disconcerting to notice that, in her plump, moon face, her eyes were bright, twinkling, and shrewd.

‘In any case,’ George said to Olive, ‘there’s no time tonight to resurrect matters that I’ve settled with you long ago. We’ve got more important things to do: as you’d see yourself, if you realised the meaning of your own words.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve given us a chance,’ said George. ‘Don’t you see, your sunket of an uncle has taken two steps? He’s penalised Jack: in the present state of things he can do that with impunity. But he’s
also
sent messages to a schoolmaster about his son. The coincidence ought to put him in a distinctly less invulnerable position.’

‘He’s taking it out of Jack,’ she said. ‘But how can anyone stop him?’

‘It’s not impossible,’ said George. ‘It’s no use trying to persuade Calvert, of course: none of us have any standing to protest direct to him. But remember that part of his manoeuvre was to cut off Jack’s fees at the School–’ he reminded us that this step would, as a matter of routine, come before the committee which governed the affairs of students at the School – a committee on which Calvert served, as the originator of the scheme of ‘bursaries’. By this scheme, employers picked out bright young men as Calvert had picked out Jack, and contributed half their fees. The School remitted the rest.

‘It’s a piece of luck, his being on the damned committee,’ said George. ‘We’ve only got to present our version of the coincidence. He can’t let it be known that he’s victimising Jack. And the others on the committee would fight very shy of lending a hand.’

‘Would they all mind so much about injustice?’ said Rachel.

‘They mind being suspected of injustice,’ said George, ‘if it’s pointed out to them. So does any body of men.’

‘It can’t be pointed out,’ said Jack.

‘It can,’ said George. ‘Canon Martineau happens to be on the committee. Though he’s not a deeply religious man like his brother,’ George burst into laughter. ‘I can see that he’s supplied with the truth. Our Martineau will make him listen.’ (‘Our Martineau’ was the brother of the Canon and a partner in the firm of Eden & Martineau, where George worked.) ‘And also–’

‘And also what?’ said Olive.

‘I’ve a complete right to appear in front of the committee myself. Owing to my position at the School. It would be better if someone else put them right about Jack. But if necessary, I can do it.’

We were confused. My eyes met Olive’s; like me, she was caught up in the struggle now; the excitement had got hold of us, we wanted to see it through. At the same instant, I knew that she too felt sharply nervous for George himself.

There was a moment’s silence.

‘I don’t like it,’ Olive broke out. ‘You might pull off something for Jack. It sounds convincing: but then you’re too good at arguing for me.’

‘And you’re always too optimistic,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe that the Canon is going to make himself unpleasant for a young man he’s never met. Even if you persuaded his brother, and I don’t think that’s likely either.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said George. ‘In any case, that doesn’t cripple us. The essential point is that I can appear myself.’

‘And how are
you
going to come out of it?’ Olive cried.

‘Are you certain that it won’t rebound on you, personally?’ asked Jack. He had turned away from Olive, angry that she made him speak against his own interest.

‘I don’t see how it could,’ said George.

From his inside pocket he took out a sheet of notepaper and smoothed it on the table. Olive watched him anxiously.

‘Look here,’ she said, ‘you oughtn’t to be satisfied with looking after your protégés much longer. We’re not important enough for you to waste all your time on us. You’ve got to look after yourself instead. That means you’ll have to persuade Eden and Martineau to make you a partner. And they just won’t do it if you’ve deliberately made a nuisance of yourself with important people. Don’t you see,’ she added, with a sudden violence, ‘that you may soon curse yourself for ever having been satisfied with looking after us?’

George had begun to write on the sheet of paper. He looked up and said: ‘I’m extremely content as I am. I want you to realise that I’d rather spend my time with people I value than balance teacups with the local bellwethers.’

‘That’s because you’re shy with them,’ said Olive. ‘Why, you’ve even given up going to Martineau’s Friday nights.’

‘I intend to go this Friday.’ George had coloured. He looked abashed for the first time that night. ‘And by the way, if I ever do want to become a partner, I don’t think there should be any tremendous difficulty. Whatever happens, I can always count on Martineau’s support.’ He turned back to writing his letter.

‘That’s true, clearly. I’ve heard Martineau talk about George,’ said Jack.

‘You’re not impartial,’ said Olive. ‘George, is that a letter to the committee?’

‘It isn’t final. I was just letting the Principal know that I might conceivably have a piece of business to bring before them.’

‘I still don’t like it. You’re–’

Just then Arthur Morcom entered the café and walked across to Olive’s side. He had recently started practice as a dentist in the town, and only met our group because he was a friend of Olive’s. I knew that he was in love with her. Tonight he had called to take her home; looking at her, he felt at once the disagreement and excitement in the air.

Olive asked George: ‘Do you mind if we tell Arthur?’

‘Not as far as I am concerned,’ said George, a little awkwardly.

Morcom had already heard the story of the boy’s gift. I was set to explain what George was planning. I did it rapidly. Morcom’s keen blue eyes were bright with interest, and he said ‘Yes! yes!’ urging me on through the last hour’s conference; I watched his thin, fine-featured face, on which an extra crease, engraved far out on each cheek, gave a special dryness and sympathy to his smile. When I had finished, he said: ‘I am rather worried, George. I can’t help feeling that Olive is right.’ He turned to Jack and apologised for coming down in the opposing camp. Jack smiled. When Olive had been trying to persuade George, Jack had been hurt and angry: but, now Morcom did the same thing, Jack said quite spontaneously: ‘I bear no malice, Arthur. I dare say you’re right.’

Morcom raised both the arguments that Olive and I had tried: would George’s intervention really help Jack? and, more strongly, wasn’t it an indiscreet, a dangerous move for George himself? Morcom pressed them with more authority than we had been able to. He and George were not close friends; neither was quite at ease with the other; but Morcom was George’s own age, and George had a respect for his competence and sense. So George listened, showed flashes of his temper, and defended himself with his elaborate reasonableness.

At last Morcom said: ‘I know you want to stop your friends being kept under. But you won’t have the power to do it till you’re firmly established yourself. Isn’t it worthwhile to wait till then?’

‘No,’ said George. ‘I’ve seen too much of that sort of waiting. If you wait till then, you forget that anyone is being kept under: or else you decide that he deserves it.’

Morcom was not only a more worldly man than George, he was usually wiser. But later on, I thought of George’s statement as an example of when it was the unworldly who were wise.

‘I shall soon begin to think,’ said Morcom, ‘that you’re anxious to attack the bellwethers, George.’

‘On the contrary,’ George replied, ‘I am a very timid man.’

There was a burst of laughter: but Olive, watching him, did not join in. A moment after, she said: ‘He’s made up his mind.’

‘Is it any use my saying any more?’ said Morcom.

‘Well,’ said George, with a shy smile, ‘I’m still convinced that we can put them into an impossible position…’

OUR meeting in the café took place on a Wednesday; two days later, on the Friday afternoon, Olive rang me up at the office. ‘Roy has found something out from his father. George ought to know at once, but I can’t get hold of him. It’s his day at Melton, isn’t it?’ (The firm of Eden & Martineau had branches in several market towns: and George regularly spent a day a week in the country.) ‘He must know before he goes to Martineau’s tonight.’

Her voice sounded brusque but anxious; she wanted someone to see Roy, to examine the news. Jack was the obvious person, but him Roy was forbidden to meet. She asked me to go along to Morcom’s as soon as I was free; she would take Roy there.

I walked to Morcom’s flat in the early evening. The way led from the centre of the town, and suddenly took one between box hedges and five-storey, gabled, Victorian houses, whose red brick flared in the sunset with a grotesque and Gothic cosiness. But the cosiness vanished, when one saw their dark windows: once, when the town was smaller, they had been real houses: now they were offices, shut for the night. Only Martineau’s, at the end of the New Walk, remained a solid private house. The one next door, which he also owned, had been turned into flats: and there Morcom lived, on the top floor.

When I went into his sitting room, Olive and Roy had just arrived. Olive had brought Morcom a great bunch of deep red dahlias, and she was arranging them on a table by the window. The red blazed as one looked down over the park, where the New Walk came to an end.

Olive put a flower into place: then, turning away from the bowl, she asked Morcom, ‘Will they do?’

Morcom smiled at her. And he, the secretive and restrained, could not prevent the smile giving him completely away – more than a smile by Jack would ever do.

As though recovering himself, Morcom turned to Roy, who had stood quietly by, watching the interplay over the flowers. Morcom at once got him into conversation.

Happy because of Olive, Morcom was more than ever careful and considerate. They talked about books, and Roy’s future; he was just beginning to specialise at school. They got on very well. As it happened, Morcom need not have been so careful; for Roy surprised us both by being entirely self-possessed, and himself opened the real topic.

‘I’m sorry to give you all so much trouble, Mr Morcom,’ he said. ‘But I did think someone should know what they’re doing about Mr Passant.’

He spoke politely, formally, in a light, musical voice: so politely that sometimes there sounded a ripple of mischief. His face was good-looking, highly-strung, and very sad for a boy’s: but sad, I felt, as much by nature as by his present trouble. Once or twice he broke into a gay, charming smile.

‘I’ve told Olive already – but last night someone visited my father unexpectedly. I got Mother to tell me about it this morning. It was the Principal of – what Jack used to call the School. He had come to tell Father that a Mr Passant might be trying to make a fuss. Mother didn’t mention it, of course, but I guessed it was about Jack. And it was all connected with a committee, which I didn’t understand at the time. But Olive explained it this afternoon.’

‘I had to tell him what George decided to do on Wednesday,’ said Olive.

‘I shan’t let it out,’ said Roy. ‘I shouldn’t have told Olive what I found out this morning – if these things weren’t happening because of me.’

I tried to reassure him, but he shook his head.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t have been talking about Mr Passant last night if it hadn’t been for me.’

‘Do you know anything they said?’ I asked.

‘I think the Principal offered to deal with Mr Passant himself. He was sure that he could be stopped from going any further.’

‘How.’

‘By dropping a hint to Mr Eden and Mr Martineau,’ said Roy.

I looked at Morcom: we were both disturbed.

‘You think that will soon happen?’ I said.

‘Mother expected the Principal to see them this morning. You see,’ said Roy, ‘they all seem more angry with Mr Passant than they were with Jack.’

He saw that our expressions had become grave.

‘Is this very serious?’ he said.

‘It might be a little uncomfortable, that’s all,’ said Morcom lightly, to ease Roy’s mind. But he was still watching us, and said: ‘Do you mind if I ask another question, Mr Morcom?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Are you thinking that it has ruined Jack’s chances for good?’

‘This can’t affect them,’ I said quickly, and Morcom agreed.

‘You mustn’t worry about that, Roy,’ Olive said.

Roy half-believed her; her tone was kind, she cared for him more than she had admitted on Wednesday night. He was still doubtful, however, until she added: ‘If you want to know, we were thinking whether they can do any harm to George Passant.’