The Conscience of the Rich (20 page)

‘She had furnished herself with an absurd ear-trumpet,’ said Mr March. ‘It was bad enough being obliged to divulge my family’s disgrace without having to bawl it into this contraption of hers. Your mother made the same mistake when she bought a fur in Paris on the ridiculous assumption that it was cheaper than in London–’

‘Sorry, Mr L,’ said Charles. ‘What mistake?’

‘Of not being able to resist articles in foreign shops, of course. My sister Caroline succumbed to the temptation when she was in Vienna recently. She caught sight of this apparatus in one of the latest shops. Women are unstable in these matters.’

‘You are being a bit hard,’ said Katherine. ‘She probably gets on better–’

‘Nonsense,’ said Mr March. ‘She found it exactly as difficult to comprehend what I was trying to say. Then she was polite enough to remark that I ought not to hold myself entirely to blame, and that these disappointments were bound to occur in the family, and that they’d all come round to it in time.’

Actually Caroline, just by being as tactless as usual, cheered him up; in his heart, he had expected a far more violent outcry. He was so much relieved that he indulged in louder complaints.

‘I can’t dissociate myself from the responsibility according to her advice. I remember that she regarded it as my responsibility when she suggested that fishing trip for you at her house. Not that I ever had the slightest faith in her averting the disaster. I suppose I must have brought it on myself. Though I can’t decide where I went wrong with my family. If I’d made you’ – he said to Katherine – ‘take your proper place at dances and other entertainments, I doubt whether it would have served any useful purpose.’

‘I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘Mr L, you mustn’t blame yourself because your family is unsatisfactory. It’s just original sin.’

‘Everyone else’s children have managed to avoid being a reproach. Except Justin’s daughter who did what you’re doing in even more disastrous circumstances. The less said of her the better. I suppose I’m bound to accept responsibility for what you call original sin. Even though my wishes have never had the slightest effect on your lamentable progress.’

The next day, he told the news to Philip, who received it both robustly and sadly; that night, with great commotion and expressions of anger, Mr March drew up the announcement for
The Times
. He sat in his study with the door open, shouting, ‘Go away, don’t you see I’m busy!’ when Charles approached. ‘I’m busy with an extremely distasteful operation.’ Then, a moment afterwards, Mr March rushed into the drawing-room. ‘Well, how does the fellow want to appear? I suppose he possesses some first names…’ Several times Mr March dashed into the drawing-room again: at last, standing by the open door, he read out his composition – ‘“A marriage has been arranged…”’

‘That’s done,’ said Mr March, and, instead of leaving the letter for the butler to collect, he took it to the post himself.

Katherine was thinking of getting up the next morning, when Mr March flung open the door.

‘It’s not my fault this has happened,’ he said. ‘It’s your mother’s fault. I never wanted another child. She made me.’

From the morning of the announcement, Mr March was immersed in letters, notes, conversations, and telephone calls. Since he had feared more than the worst, he became cheerful as he answered ‘what they are civil enough to term “congratulations”’. Most of the March family wrote in a friendly way, though there were rumours that one cousin had threatened not to attend the wedding. Hannah was reported to have said: ‘I never thought she’d find anyone at all. Even someone ineligible. Mind you, she’s not married him yet.’

For several days Mr March did not receive any setback; Katherine thought she had been lucky.

Then Herbert Getliffe spoke to me one evening, in chambers, just before I went off to dine at Bryanston Square. He entered the room I worked in looking worried and abashed, and said: ‘There’s something I want to say to you, L S.’

Recently he had taken to calling me by my initials, though no one else did; as a rule, I was amused, but not that night, following him into his own room, for his alarm had already reached me. He sat at his desk: the smoke from his pipe whirled above the reading lamp; his face was ominous, and the smell of the tobacco became ominous too.

‘I want a bit of help, L S,’ he said. ‘They’re getting at me. You’ve got to come along and clear up the mess. I may as well tell you at once that it can turn out badly for your friends.’

His misery was as immediate as a child’s. It was hard to resist him when he asked for comfort.

‘Your friend Mr Porson is trying to raise the dust,’ said Getliffe. ‘You know something about him, don’t you? He was called at the same time as I was. But he didn’t find this wicked city needed his services enough to keep him in liquor, so he went off to lay down the law in the colonies. Well, he’s suddenly taken it into his head that I’ve been making more money than is good for me. He’s decided that I’ve used some confidential knowledge to make a packet on the side. You remember the Whitehall people asked me for an opinion last year? You gave me a hand yourself. Remind me to settle up with you about that. The labourer is worthy of his hire. Well, Master Porson is trying to bully them into an enquiry about some of my investments. Involving me and other people who are too busy to want to go down to Whitehall to answer pointless questions. But I don’t like it, L S. I can’t prevent these things worrying me. I ought to tell you that Porson is a man who can’t forgive one for being successful. You’ll find them yourself as you go up the ladder. But you’ll also find that more people than not will lend half an ear to Porson and company when they start throwing darts. That’s the world, and it’s no use pretending it isn’t. That’s why I want you to help me out.’

He wanted support from someone. He quite forgot, he made me forget, that he was the older man.

He gave me his own version of what Porson had discovered. It was not altogether easy to follow. Getliffe gave as much trouble as any of the evasive clients about whom he had ever grumbled. All I learned for sure that night was that he had been asked an opinion by a government department eighteen months before; while giving it, he had guessed (Porson said he had been told as an official secret) a Cabinet decision about a new government contract; two of his brothers-in-law had bought large holdings in the firm of Howard & Hazlehurst; they had done well out of it.

After telling me this story, Getliffe said: ‘Well, Mr Porson has just broken out in a new place. I’ve been told that he’s trying to persuade some pundit to ask a question in the House. Porson’s had the face to tell me so in as many words.

‘I warn you,’ Getliffe went on, ‘it’s possible he may bring it off, LS. I can talk to you frankly now you’re going up the hill a bit. Of course, I don’t worry much for myself. It may be a little difficult even for me, but it’s a mistake to worry too much about the doings of people who would like to step into one’s goloshes. I want you to believe that I’m thinking entirely of the effect on some of your friends. And particularly on my young brother. It’s for their sakes that I want everyone to use their influence to calm Porson down.’

He knew that I had met Porson occasionally since the coming-out dance.

‘If I can get the chance,’ I said, ‘I’ll talk to him. Though it won’t be easy. I don’t know him well.’

‘You mustn’t get the impression that I’m exaggerating. Porson could make things awkward for your friends. You see, my name couldn’t help but be brought in, whatever he did. That wouldn’t be good for my brother. The Chosen People don’t like public appearances. There are one or two members of the March family who would specially dislike this one. I give you fair warning. It’s uncomfortable for all of us.’

He was speaking with a severe expression, almost as though I was responsible for the danger. When he wanted your help, he sometimes appealed, sometimes threatened you with his own anxiety: anything to get the weight from his shoulders to yours. Then he said: ‘I can’t make out why Porson has got into this state. I always thought he was unbalanced. I don’t like to believe that he’s trying to bring the place down on our heads simply because he hates me. After all, I’ve managed to get on with most of my fellow men. I don’t like being hated, L S. Even by that madman. It’s a nasty sensation, and when people say they don’t mind being hated they’re just whistling to keep their spirits up. So I prefer to think something else may be moving Mr Porson. I shouldn’t be altogether surprised. Didn’t the young woman Ann Simon turn him down pretty flat not long ago? You may find that’s got something to do with it.’

He warned me again not to think that he was exaggerating the trouble. In fact, I was uneasy. He was shrewd, despite (or partly because of) his excessively labile nature. He was not a man over-inclined to anxiety. I had often seen him badgered, I had often seen him inducing others to extricate him from troubles – but the troubles were real, the consequences of living his mercurial, tricky life.

When I left him, it was nearly eight o’clock, and I had to go to Bryanston Square by taxi. As I waited while the Regent Street lights jostled by, rain throbbing against the windows, I was listening for the strike of eight. There was no chance of a word with Charles before dinner: I was greeted with genial shouts by Mr March: ‘You’ve made a frightful ass of yourself. You’re three minutes late. Anyone knows that you must allow five minutes extra on nights of this appalling nature.’

We went straight in to dinner. I was enough of a favourite of his not to be allowed to forget that I was late. Meanwhile I saw Charles several times, and Katherine once, looking in my direction: Charles at least knew that something was on my mind.

As luck would have it, Mr March was in more expansive form than for weeks past. Margaret March, whom I had met at my first Friday night, was there as well as Francis. After disposing temporarily of the topic of my incompetence, Mr March spent most of the night talking to Francis about buying a house.

The two of them were happy discussing plans and prices. Mr March occasionally burst out into accounts of his own struggles with Haslingfield and Bryanston Square. ‘One trouble you won’t have,’ he said, ‘since you are camping out in your Bohemian fashion, is that you won’t surround yourself with a mass of ponderable material that you’ll never extricate yourself from.’ The internal furniture of Bryanston Square had been valued years before at £15,000; but Mr March was lamenting that he could not sell it for as many shillings.

Houses of this size were relics of another age, now that people ‘camped out in a Bohemian fashion’, as Mr March insisted on referring to the style in which Katherine and Francis proposed to live. So the solid furniture of the March houses had become almost worthless, and Mr March and his brothers spent considerable ingenuity in persuading one another to accept the bulky articles that they unwillingly received as legacies, as their older relations died off. Several of Mr March’s stories on this night, told mainly for Francis to appreciate, finished up with the formula: ‘I pointed out it was far more use to him than it was to me. And so I was willing to sacrifice it, provided he paid the cost of transport.’

When Mr March went to bed, Margaret settled down in her armchair. She was older than the rest of us, but still not married; she had a similar handsomeness to Charles’, and a similar hard, ruthless mind. Yet underneath, at the thought of any of our marriages, she was full of feeling. That night, she noticed the constraint in the air. Naturally she put it down to Mr March. So she said to Katherine: ‘I’m sure he has come round now. I’m positive you haven’t got anything to fear.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Katherine.

Margaret had spoken warmly and protectively. She was surprised, a little put out, to feel us all still in suspense. She turned for confirmation to Charles: ‘Don’t you agree that she’s safe enough?’

‘She ought to be,’ said Charles.

‘I wouldn’t have believed that Mr L could come round so quickly.’ Like her cousins, Margaret was not above plucking away at the same nerve. ‘He’s now drawn up your settlement good and proper, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he’s gone as far as that,’ Katherine replied.

Charles kept watching me, knowing I was not going to speak while Margaret was there. But Katherine was not so much on edge. At the mention of the settlement, she began to smile. ‘I’ve actually got it here,’ she said to Margaret.

She went to the writing-desk and brought out a sealed envelope. She broke the seal and looked over the document inside. It was printed, and ran into several pages.

‘I still think this is extremely funny,’ she said.

‘You don’t know what I shall become as I get older,’ Francis said, and they laughed at each other.

‘The point is,’ Katherine went on, ‘that really Mr L has the greatest possible confidence in Francis. Apart from his not being a Jew. Actually, Francis would have been a far more suitable child for Mr L than Charles. He wouldn’t have rebelled anything like as much.’

‘I should have managed,’ said Francis. His cheeks were creased by a smile, but he meant it. He would have found his way to his science somehow; he would have been radical, but he would have kept quiet. That night his quixotic, fine-drawn expression was less evident than it used to be; he looked composed and well.

‘Well,’ said Katherine, ‘it’s obvious that Mr L approves of the man. But as soon as he drew up my settlement’ – she pointed to the sheet in front of her – ‘he at once acted on the assumption that I was an imbecile and Francis was a crook. He’s taken every possible precaution to see that Francis never touches a penny. The settlement never gives him a chance. When I die, the money goes straight to our children. If Francis outlives me, he receives a small tip for watching his sons inherit their slice of their grandfather’s estate.’

All the marriage settlements in the family followed the same pattern; no one but a March should handle March money. Katherine and Charles had been amused, but nevertheless they took for granted the whole apparatus as an ordinary part of a marriage: while in the property-less world into which I had been born, no one would have known what a marriage settlement was.