The Conscience of the Rich (25 page)

‘In former days,’ he complained, ‘there wasn’t this congestion of owner-drivers from the suburbs. Owner-drivers are making the town intolerable for genuine inhabitants. A genuine inhabitant used to be able to reckon on returning to his house within a quarter of an hour of being disgorged from any suitable place of entertainment.’

The cars did not arrive: Mr March borrowed an umbrella from the commissionaire and went out into the middle of the road. The lights of taxis, golden bars on the wet asphalt, lit him up as he looked furiously round. Drivers honked at him as he stamped in front of them back to the theatre steps.

‘It’s intolerable,’ he cried. ‘They’re taking my night’s rest away from me now. They’re changing everything under my feet, and I’m too old to change my ways. I suppose my existence has been prolonged unnecessarily already. Though Lionel Hart didn’t think so, when he had a blood transfusion on his seventy-eighth birthday. They’re changing everything under my feet.’ He thudded the umbrella point against the pavement. ‘I remarked at dinner-time, when I was under the illusion that I had completed seventy years without disaster, about not wanting to be reminded of the unpleasant circumstances which afflicted me when I was young. But when you’re young you don’t lose your sleep at night on account of your attachments. When you begin to do that, it makes you realize that you have lived too long.’

The morning after his birthday party, Mr March rang me up: would I be good enough to spare him an hour of my time, as soon as I could arrange it without prejudice to my duties? I went round to Bryanston Square immediately, and was taken into Mr March’s study. I had not entered that room since the night he interrogated Ann.

‘I appreciate your courtesy in visiting me without delay,’ said Mr March. His eyes were bloodshot and the skin under them had darkened in the last few hours. ‘I have to apologize, of course, for trespassing on your valuable time, but you are the only person whose opinion is of any appreciable value to me in the present regrettable circumstances. Owing to your acquaintance with the fellow Getliffe, and other factors which I need not specify.’

He had already been out to see Philip that morning; Philip was in bed and in pain, and had not been able to present all the facts. One thing, however, was clear to Mr March. Philip had now become certain about the nature of Herbert Getliffe’s transactions, some time before Katherine’s wedding. There was no doubt in Philip’s mind that Getliffe had, while giving legal advice to a ministry, acquired knowledge in advance of a government contract. Getliffe had known that the contract was going to the firm of Howard & Hazlehurst; his relations had duly bought large holdings. That had happened. On the main points Porson had been right, though he had muddled some of the details.

That story would not by itself have worried Mr March. It was a piece of sharp practice by a rising barrister, but it was seven years old. By this time the Marches had completely accepted Francis Getliffe. There were, however, other stories which worried Mr March much more.

The first was that ‘obnoxious propagandists’, as Mr March kept referring to them, were passing the word round that a similar leakage had just occurred, and that Getliffe and his friends were again involved. According to Sir Philip, this news was going round the lobbies and clubs; it was still secret but there was a threat that it would soon break.

The second story was that not only Getliffe and his friends were involved, but so were several junior ministers. Philip had been taken back into the government three years before, into the same parliamentary secretaryship he had held for a few months in 1929. On Friday nights he had loved gossiping like a man in office, mentioning his colleagues’ names. The ‘obnoxious propagandists’ were now mentioning some of those names, including that of Hawtin, one of the ablest youngish men in the government. They were being brought into the scandal. ‘It’s like another Marconi case,’ said Mr March, harking back to a time when he felt more at home.

Philip had told him that among the names being mentioned was Philip’s own.

Mr March was puzzled and distressed, more lost than angry. He would have liked to explode into rage, and dismiss the scandal as ‘mischievious nonsense invented by agitators for their own purposes’. He had begun so, that morning: but stopped suddenly when he found Sir Philip fretted and impatient.

‘I have never seen my brother Philip so much affected by any incident in his public life,’ said Mr March. ‘I was inclined at first to attribute his depressed state to his disease, but I was forced to realize that he is sick in mind apart from his physical discomfort. I had never realized that he was capable of being sick in mind. From the earliest time I can remember, I always envied him as not being vulnerable to the weaknesses that afflicted me.’

He was profoundly shaken at having to console Philip – Philip, whom throughout their lives he had thought self-sufficient. He went on: ‘I do not profess to understand why he should take this criminal nonsense so much to heart. I did not need to be assured by my eldest brother that he had not taken advantage of his official position. But he was sufficiently overwrought to insist on assuring me that he had completely given up any transactions of any kind whatsoever since he re-entered the government and that he had not made a single purchase of stock for the last twelve months.’

Philip had said that he did not know whether the stories of Herbert Getliffe’s recent coups were true or not. Mr March was mystified by these stories, and so was I. Was there anything in them?

It was in both our minds how Philip had taken action against Getliffe at the time of Katherine’s marriage.

I promised Mr March that I would try to find out what Getliffe had been up to. It was not such an easy job for me as it would have been once. Since my marriage four years before, I had left Getliffe’s chambers; I had given up legal practice and spent half my time teaching law at Francis Getliffe’s college and the other half in London as a consultant to a big firm.

I promised also that I would try to find out who was spreading the gossip, and why.

I began to realize that, of all Mr March’s anxieties, that was the deepest. From all he had picked up, the gossip had originated with people who were familiar with Getliffe and his circle. Perhaps they were familiar with Sir Philip and his colleagues too: that did not seem so clear. It sounded like Ronald Porson: yet the scandal had, according to Philip, been started by the extreme left. It was not just malicious gossip, it was no more nor less than a piece of politics, he said. From what Mr March had heard of Porson, that ruled him out.

Mr March concealed his thoughts from me: but after a time I had no doubt – he was dark with a suspiciousness that seemed quite unrealistic, with a fear that seemed on the edge of paranoia – that he was thinking of Ann.

It was this fear, I was sure next day, that drove him to see Charles.

I had promised to make enquiries about Getliffe within twenty-four hours and return to Bryanston Square for dinner on the night following; when I arrived, I found Mr March and Charles alone in the drawing-room. There was a silence as though neither had spoken for some minutes. Mr March roused himself, and said: ‘I asked my son to join us for dinner. As you see, he has found it possible to do so.’

Charles said: ‘It happens to be a good night for me, Mr L. My partner is always at home on Wednesdays.’

Mr March did not reply. Charles looked at me with a frown, enquiring and concerned. It was clear that Mr March had not yet spoken.

We went into the dining-room with little conversation. Charles made an effort to get Mr March talking, and himself told a story of Katherine: Mr March sat absently at the head of the table.

Suddenly, Mr March said: ‘Lewis, I should like to learn the results of your investigations.’

‘I’m afraid they haven’t got anywhere yet,’ I said. ‘Herbert Getliffe is out of London. He’ll be back early next week, and I’ve arranged to see him then. I’m also trying to see Porson on the same day.’

Mr March inclined his head.

‘I know that in the circumstances you will not permit any unnecessary delay.’ He turned to Charles. ‘You realize what I am referring to?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said Charles.

‘It is desirable that I should enlighten you,’ said Mr March. ‘My brother Philip is being attacked by scurrilous gossip from various sources. This attack appears to be aimed at his personal honour and his public position. It is connected, in some way about which I am not in a position to give you precise details, with the speculations of my son-in-law Francis Getliffe’s brother. Anyone in my family will recollect a previous occasion on which that subject exercised a certain importance. My brother is being attacked for similar mispractices, though in his case they would be more reprehensible, since they would imply that he took advantage of his official position for these purposes.’

Mr March stopped, then asked in a loud harsh voice: ‘I wish to ask you, what do you know of these attacks?’

‘Nothing. Nothing whatever,’ said Charles. His tone was unresentful, almost amused, and utterly candid. ‘They sound very improbable.’

Mr March’s relief was manifest and radiant. Then his face darkened again.

‘I take it, your wife is still active politically?’

Charles looked surprised; it was years since they had argued over Ann’s beliefs: in those days, Mr March had spoken as though her politics were academic. Nevertheless Charles replied at once: ‘Yes, she is.’

‘I am very sorry to hear it.’

Mr March was looking absent and sombre again.

Charles said, in a considerate, respectful, but unyielding tone: ‘I ought to say that I think she’s doing good most of the time.’

By that year, men like Charles and Francis Getliffe and me had not much doubt about what was in store. It seemed to us that there was no choice except war with Hitler – or rather that any other choice was going to be worse than the war. That conviction was separating us from our elders, even those we liked, such as Mr March and Sir Philip.

In the struggle, which was growing bitter, we felt that Ann and her party were on our side. While Sir Philip went confidently about Whitehall and talked to the family on Friday nights as though their world were invulnerable, placid, and permanent. Both he and Mr March were men of judgement: they were more detached and realistic than most of their class: they were Jews. But they could not believe what was coming. To us, they seemed often not to care.

Mr March did not reply to Charles, but asked abruptly: ‘What does your wife know of these attacks?’

‘I should think as little as I do.’ Charles’ tone was once more open and candid, so candid that Mr March was entirely reassured.

Charles asked for the full story, and Mr March told it him: as he spoke, Mr March’s manner had become animated, but he finished: ‘I must impress on you, that my brother Philip takes this with the utmost seriousness. My first inclination was not to give it serious attention. But my brother’s demeanour made me adopt a different attitude.’

‘I don’t understand him,’ said Charles. ‘It wouldn’t be hard to make up a good many kinds of attack on Uncle Philip: but, if I’d been thinking of something improbable, I couldn’t have invented anything as improbable as this.’ He was speaking light-heartedly. He asked more questions about Getliffe, some of them sarcastic, so that Mr March chuckled. He went on: ‘About Uncle Philip – aren’t all people in public life absurdly sensitive to the slightest breath of criticism? Isn’t that the explanation? Don’t you really think that Uncle Philip sticks his Press cuttings into an album every morning before he gets up? If you are as interested as that in your public personality, it must be uncomfortable when people are blackguarding you – even on singularly fantastic grounds. It’s that kind of discomfort he’s frightened of, don’t you admit it?’

Mr March broke into laughter. He had become carefree in a way that made his black anxiety of a quarter of an hour before difficult to bring back to mind. He was, in fact, carefree as I had not seen him in his son’s presence for years past. The last few minutes – after Charles showed his ignorance of the attacks – had seemed like the first days I saw them together. Mr March’s cares were dispelled; he grinned at his son’s teasing, he paid it back with teasing of his own. It was like old days. As we said good night, Mr March remarked cheerfully to Charles: ‘You’re making a frightful ass of yourself, living in your unsalubrious abode by the river, I refuse to accept any responsibility for the effects on your health. But I’m always glad to see you in my house.’

It was a fine, warm night, and Charles and I decided to walk home. I had a house in Chelsea by this time, and so we could go the same way. As we crossed over to the park, Charles said: ‘You’d heard all this commotion about Uncle Philip before?’

I told him that it had begun at the birthday party. ‘It’s a curious story,’ he said.

He was not actively interested. He was sorry that Philip should be disturbed, but he did not feel himself involved. I thought of asking him to mention it to Ann, and considered that it was wiser not to. Soon he changed the subject.

The night air was soft, the park was spotted with couples lying mouth-to-mouth. We walked slowly, tired and comfortably relaxed. With the pleasure of an old intimacy, we talked as we had not done for years. Of our marriages, so different in all that had happened to us and yet both childless. ‘Yes,’ said Charles, with comradeship, ‘it will be sad if neither of us leaves a son to follow him.’

We talked of our careers, and for the first time Charles told me how he felt about being a doctor. We had just left the park, and were waiting to cross the road at the end of Piccadilly. Cars were hooting by, and Charles had to pause until he could make himself heard.

‘Often I’ve disliked it strongly, of course,’ he said. ‘More often I’ve found it extremely dull. You’d expect so, wouldn’t you? There’s a fair amount of human interest, of course, but one’s got to be patient to get even that. A GP isn’t dealing continually with crises of life and death, you know. Nine-tenths of his time he’s seeing people with colds and nerves and indigestion and rheumatism. That’s the basis of the job, and if you’re looking for human interest, people exhibit slightly less of it when they’ve a bad cold than when they haven’t.’