The Conscience of the Rich (27 page)

Porson had given me an address in Notting Hill. When I reached it, I was met by his landlady, who said that he had been called away that morning: he had left a message that he would write again and fix another rendezvous. The house was decrepit, the landlady was suspicious of me, on guard for Porson; he was living in a flat up the third flight of shabby stairs.

I called on friends who might have heard the gossip – radical journalists, civil servants, barristers who knew Getliffe. Several of them had picked up the rumours, but no one told me anything new. Some were excited because there was scandal in the air. Even when one man said: ‘I don’t like the idea of a Dreyfus case started by the left,’ his eyes were bright and glowing.

Then I told Mr March what I had found out. The rumours, I said, all referred to a leakage within the past year. I told him that Herbert Getliffe seemed not to be in any way responsible this time. If even one of these rumours was brought into the open, it looked entirely safe to sue straight away. But I also told Mr March that, though I could not see the bearing, he ought to hear Getliffe’s story about Sir Philip.

Mr March listened in silence. At the end he said: ‘I am deeply obliged to you for your friendly services.’ His expression was not relieved, but he said: ‘I may inform you that my brother Philip yesterday appeared to think that the affair was blowing over. I have always found that persons in public life become liable to a quite unwarranted optimism.’ Mr March himself showed no optimism.

I waited three weeks before I heard from Porson. Then a note came in his tall fluent hand, which said: ‘I expect you have guessed what chase has kept me away from London. I will tell you about her when I meet you. I insist on going to the University match, and shall return in time for the first day. Do you feel like joining me, even though your respectable friends may see us there and count it against you?’

I found him on the first morning, sitting on the top of the stand at the Nursery end. I had not seen him for two years, and I was shocked by the change. Under his eyes, screwed up in the sunlight, the pouches were embossed, heavy, purplish-brown. His colour was higher and more plethoric than ever, and the twitch convulsed his face every time he spoke. His suit was old, shiny at the cuffs, but he was wearing a carnation in his buttonhole and an Authentic tie. He welcomed me with a hearty aggressive show of pleasure. ‘Ah well, my boy, I’m glad you haven’t boycotted me. I need some company, the way these people are patting about.’ His face twitched as he looked irascibly out to the pitch. ‘It’s going to be bloody dull. I hope it won’t mean your being crossed off many visiting lists if some of your friends notice you’re here with me. Anyway, it’s bloody good to see you.’

We sat there in the sun most of that day. In his loud, resonant, angry voice Porson told me of his misfortunes. Three years before, he had lost a case in which Herbert Getliffe was leading for the other side. He had never worked up a steady practice. But he persuaded himself that, until that time, he was just on the point of success. Even now he could not admit that he had mismanaged the case. It was intolerable for him to remember that he had been outmanoeuvred by Getliffe, on the one occasion they had been on opposite sides in court. But he could not help admitting that for three years past the solicitors had fought shy of him. He went out of his way to admit it, pressing on the aching tooth, in a loud, rancorous tone that rang round the top of the stand at Lord’s.

Often his discontent vented itself on the batsmen. A young man was playing a useful, elegant innings. It was pretty cricket, but Porson was not appeased. ‘What does he think he’s playing at?’ he demanded. ‘What does he think he’s doing? I insist these boys ought to be taught to hit the bloody ball.’

At the close of play we walked down to Baker Street, and Porson became quieter in the hot, calm evening, in the light which softened the faces in the streets. He confided the reason he had been away from London. A girl half his age had fallen in love with him, and they had been staying together by the sea. ‘The way it began was the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me,’ he said. ‘She was old —’s secretary, and I used to borrow her sometimes. Not that I need a secretary nowadays. Ah well, she came in one morning, and I hadn’t the least idea, my boy. She just threw her arms round my neck and said she loved me. I couldn’t believe it, I told her that she wanted a nice young man who’d make her a decent husband. She said she wanted me. She thought that I was so clever and so masterful and so kind. And she was sure I ought to have been happy if some woman hadn’t treated me badly. She thought she could make it up for me.’ He looked at me with an expression humble, bewildered, incredulous. ‘I tell you, my boy, I do believe she loved me a little. I’ve chased a few women, but I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before. I’ve been glad if they’ve liked me. I’ve been prepared to pay for my fun and when they got tired I’ve sent them away with a bit of jewellery and a smack on the behind.’

We walked on a few steps. He said: ‘I hope I haven’t done the girl any harm. She wasn’t really my cup of tea. Ah well, she’s not losing much. It can’t matter much to anyone, losing me.’

He insisted on taking me to the Savoy and giving me a lavish dinner. I could not refuse, for fear of reminding him that now I was comfortably off and that he was living on his capital. He exulted in being generous; it gave him an overbearing pleasure to press food and drink on me. ‘You can use another drink,’ he kept on saying. ‘And so can I. By God, we’ll have another bottle of champagne.’

Soon he became drunk, vehemently drunk. He abandoned himself to hates and wishes. He boasted of the things he could still do; there was still time to gain triumphs at the Bar and, he said, ‘show them how wrong they are. Show them just where their bloody intrigues and prejudices have led them. Just because I’m not a pansy or a Jew they’ve preferred to ignore me. I tell you, my lad, you’ve got to be a pansy or a Jew to get a chance in this bloody country.’ Drunkenly he saw lurid, romantic conspiracies directed at himself; drunkenly he talked politics. It was the crudest kind of reactionary politics, inflamed by drink, hate, and failure. He talked of women: he boasted of his conquests now, instead of speaking as he had done on the way to Baker Street. Boastfully he talked of nights in the past. Yet his tongue was far less coarse than when he talked politics, less coarse than most men’s when talking sex. He was a man whom people disliked for being aggressive, boastful, rancorous, and vulgar; he was all those things; but, when he thought of women, he became delicate, diffident, and naïf.

Throughout the day, I had not mentioned why I had written to him. Partly because I had an affection for him, and wanted him to feel I was with him for his own sake: partly because I thought it was not safe to talk while he was in a resentful mood. At last I risked asking when he had last seen Ann. He answered, gently enough, in the spring: he remembered the exact date. I went on to ask whether he knew what she was doing politically nowadays.

He stared at me with an over-intent, over-steady gaze, as though if I moved my head he might fall down. He said: ‘If you want to talk about her, you’d better come to my blasted flat. It’s only a temporary place, of course. I shall insist on somewhere better soon.’

As we got into the taxi, he repeated, with drunken fury: ‘I shall insist on somewhere better soon. It’s not the sort of place most of your friends are living in.’ He went on: ‘I can’t talk about her until I’ve cooled down.’

After he had climbed the shabby stairs of the house in Notting Hill, I looked at his little sitting-room. It was crowded with furniture. There was a glass-fronted bookcase, another glass-fronted case full of china, two tables, a desk, a divan. Yet each piece was dusted and shining: I suddenly realized that he must be obsessively tidy. It might have been the room of a finicky old maid.

On the table by the divan stood a photograph of Ann. She did not photograph well. Her face looked flat, undistinguished, lifeless; there was no sign of the moulding of her cheekbones. Anyone who only knew her from her photograph would not have thought her so much as good-looking. As I turned away, I saw Porson’s face. He was still looking at the picture with eyes clouded and bloodshot with drink, and his expression was rapt.

‘You loved her very much, didn’t you?’ I said.

He did not reply immediately. Then he said: ‘I still do.’

He added: ‘I think I always shall.’

A little later, he said: ‘I should like to tell you something. It may sound incredible to you, but I should like to tell you. I believe she’ll come to me some day. She can’t be happy with her husband. She’s loyal, she’s told me that she is happy, but I’ve never credited it. Anyway, she knows that I’m waiting for her if ever she wants to come. She knows that I’d do anything for her. By God, she knows that will always be true.’

He wanted us both to start drinking again, but I dissuaded him.

We sat on the divan and I led him back to my question about Ann’s political actions. His face became sullen and pained.

‘I never liked them, of course. But I attribute them entirely to her blasted husband. If she were really happy with him, she would have given them up. It stands to reason. If she had married me, I believe I should have made her happy, and these things wouldn’t have interested her any more. I insist on attributing them to that blasted March.’ He told me many facts about her, most of which I knew.

Then he told me something which I did not know – that she was one of the group that produced the
Note
. The
Note
was a private news-sheet, cyclostyled like an old-fashioned school magazine, distributed through the post, on the model of one or two others of that time. It was run by an acquaintance of mine called Humphrey Seymour; he was a communist, but he had been born into the ruling world and still moved within it. In fact, the charm of the
Note
(it was subscribed to by many who had no idea of its politics) was that its news seemed to come from right inside the ruling world. Some of the news, so Porson told me, was provided by Ann.

‘Of course she can go anywhere,’ he said. ‘She was brought up in the right places, and she’s got the entrée wherever she wants. And I don’t put that down to the Jews, I might tell you. It’s just because she makes herself liked wherever she goes.’

Ronald Porson was still doing the detective work of love; he followed her track from dinner-party to dinner-party; often he could see where she had picked up a piece of information for use in the
Note
.

‘That’s why I had to refuse her something for the first time in my life,’ he said.

‘Why?’ It did not seem likely to be interesting: the heavy drunken sentiment was wearing me down.

‘She’s an honourable person, isn’t she?’

I nodded, but he came back at me fiercely.

‘I don’t want to be humoured,’ he shouted. ‘Despite her blasted politics, isn’t she the soul of honour, yes or no?’

I thought, and gave a serious answer.

‘Yes.’

‘And I am too, aren’t I? Damn you, am I an honourable man, yes or no?’

‘Yes.’ Again, in a curious sense, it was dead true.

‘Well then. The last time I saw her, I told you it was in the spring, she wanted to see me at short notice. That’s what she’ll do when she comes back to me. And she reminded me that I once found out some pretty stories about that shyster Getliffe – found out how he’d played the markets and laughed at decent people who respect positions of trust and got away with the whole blasted shoot. Well, Ann wanted all the details. She told me – that’s where her honour comes in, that’s where she’d never think of going behind my back – is that true, yes or no?’

After I had answered, his voice quietened, and he said: ‘She asked me for the details. She told me that she might want to use them.’

He was by this time speaking in a throbbing whisper, but it seemed loud.

‘I couldn’t give her them,’ said Ronald Porson. He wiped trickles of sweat from his cheeks. ‘I’ve not refused her anything before, but I couldn’t do that. I didn’t like refusing, but it stuck in my gullet to help that blasted group of reds. I insist they’ve got at her, of course. She’s always had a good heart and they’ve taken advantage of it. I insist on putting the blame on to them and her blasted husband. And I refuse to help them impose on her. I’ve never said no to anything she’s asked me before, but I couldn’t stomach helping those reds in their blasted games. I’ve no use for Getliffe, he’s a bloody charlatan and a bloody crook, and the sooner he’s exposed the better. But I insist that the reds aren’t the people to do it.’ He paused. ‘I was tempted when she asked me. I don’t want to say no to her again. Ah well! I expect she understands.’

The next morning I rang up Ann and asked if I could see her at once. The same evening I arrived at Antrobus Street at half past six, in the middle of Charles’ surgery hour. She was waiting for me in her drawing-room; outside the house was dingy, but the room struck bright. It was her own taste, I thought, as I glanced at the Dufys on the cream-papered walls. She herself looked both calm and pretty. Her first words were: ‘We know what you’ve come for, don’t we?’ She gazed at me with steady blue eyes, without expression. I said: ‘Do you? It will be easier if you do.’

‘It can’t be very easy, can it?’

‘How in God’s name,’ I said, ‘did you come to get into this mess?’

‘No.’ She sounded more equable and business-like than I did; she was not going to begin on those terms. ‘It isn’t as simple as that.’

I settled myself to wait for her.

‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘you haven’t decided what to do?’

‘We’re not certain yet.’

She was saying ‘we’ again. Business-like as she sounded, she was making it clear that Charles knew everything. She was glad to bring him in. It was the only sign of emotion she had shown so far.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you’ve come about the Getliffe affair?’

I nodded.

‘I knew it.’

‘You’ve been mixed up in that, haven’t you?’ I asked.