The Conscience of the Rich (36 page)

‘You must agree with that,’ said Katherine. Her voice was angry and menacing: unlike Francis, she was making no attempt to conciliate Charles. ‘Anyone in their senses must agree with that.’

‘I agree with you politically much more than I do with Ann,’ said Charles to Francis. ‘In fact, I’ve always been less committed than you, don’t you realize that?’

It was true. Of us in that room, Francis was the furthest to the left. ‘I’m much more sceptical than you, I suspect,’ said Charles, ‘about what Ann and her friends can possibly achieve. You think this paper of theirs has some value. I must say I doubt it. It’s different for her. She doesn’t doubt it in the slightest. If you’re going to lead that kind of life, you must believe from the start that every little action is important–’

Katherine was frowning, but Francis nodded his head.

‘For myself,’ said Charles, ‘I don’t think any of that matters.’

‘What does matter?’ said Katherine.

‘Simply that this is something Ann believes in. The suggestion is that I should force her to betray it.’

‘You must be mad,’ said Katherine. ‘You can’t give us a better reason than that for getting Uncle Philip into the newspapers?’

‘What reason would you like me to give?’

‘It’s not good enough,’ said Francis.

‘It won’t do her any harm to be forced,’ said Katherine. ‘If you’d done more of it earlier, this would never have happened. Don’t you see that you’ve been wrong since the day you met her?’

‘No,’ said Charles. ‘I don’t see that.’

‘We mustn’t criticize your marriage,’ said Francis.

Katherine interrupted him: ‘If your marriage is worth anything at all, this can’t make any difference. Don’t you see that you can’t afford to be too considerate? And we can’t afford to let you be. Could anyone in the world think the reason you’ve given is enough excuse for ruining Mr L’s peace of mind for the rest of his life?’

Charles said: ‘There was a time when you were prepared to take a risk like that.’ Katherine looked at him. Her bitter indignation lessened, for he had spoken, for the first time that afternoon, with sadness.

‘There was a time,’ he repeated, ‘when you were prepared to take a risk like that. And that time I was on your side, you know.’

‘It was the easy side for you.’ Her tone was stern and accusing again.

‘I should have taken your side whether it was easy or hard,’ said Charles. ‘I’ve always loved you, don’t you know that?’

Katherine was near to tears. He had spoken with a warmth and freedom such as she had scarcely heard. She said: ‘I can’t take your side now. I can’t take your side.’

She burst out: ‘Don’t you see that I can’t? Do you think that I don’t know you at all? You’ve never forgiven Mr L for being in power over you. You’ve never forgiven him for trying to stop your marriage. And he was absolutely right. Since you married this woman, you’ve never cared for the rest of us. You’ve been ready to destroy everything in the family because of her. You’re not sorry now, are you? You’re not sorry for anything you’ve done? I believe you’re glad.’

Charles had stood up. He leant by the fireplace and spoke with a fierce release of energy:

‘I repeat, you were ready to do all these things to marry Francis. I would have done anything on earth to help you. I would still.’

‘You won’t say this one word which would cost you nothing,’ Katherine cried furiously. ‘You won’t stop your wife finishing off a piece of wickedness she should never have thought of. I know you won’t think twice about what this means for Mr L. You’ve always been capable of being cruel. But is it possible for you to think twice of what it means to us?’

‘Yes,’ said Francis. ‘Can you bring yourself to do that?’

Charles replied: ‘You have said some hard things of me. Many of them are true. You have said hard things of Ann. Those you should have kept to yourselves. I won’t trouble to tell you how untrue they are. Are you sure that in all this concern of yours you’re not thinking of your own convenience? Are you sure that your motives are as pure as you seem to think? It will be a nuisance for you to have a scandal in the family. Aren’t you both so comfortable that you’d like to prevent that – whatever else is lost in the process?’

Francis and Katherine sat silent, looking up at him as he stood. Francis, who in much of the quarrel had shown sympathy, was dark with anger, the vein prominent in his forehead. Katherine said, as a last resort: ‘You won’t trust us. Perhaps you’ll trust Lewis. He’s got nothing at stake. Lewis, will you tell him what you think?’

They all waited for me.

I said: ‘I’ve already said what I think – to Ann.’

‘What did you say?’ cried Katherine.

‘I said she ought to go to Charles and tell him she wanted to call it off.’

I spoke directly to Charles: ‘I should like to ask you something. Will you and Ann talk the whole matter over for the last time?’

He smiled at me and said, without hesitation: ‘No, Lewis.’ He added, for my benefit alone: ‘She did that through you.’

Katherine and Francis exchanged a glance. Francis said: ‘There it is. It’s no use going on. But we must say this. If Ann doesn’t stop this business, we shan’t be able to meet her. Obviously, we shan’t want to create any embarrassment. If we meet socially, we shall put a decent face on it. But we shall not be able to meet her in private.’

‘You know that must include me,’ said Charles.

‘I was afraid you would take it that way,’ said Francis.

Charles said: ‘There’s no other way to take it.’

‘No,’ said Francis.

‘I think you are being just,’ Charles said in a level and passionless voice. ‘All I can say is this: from you both I hoped for something different from justice. Once, if I had been in your place, I should have done as you are doing. I think perhaps I shouldn’t now.’

He added: ‘It is hard to lose you. It always will be.’

His energy had ebbed away for a moment.

He sat down. We made some kind of conversation. Ten minutes passed before Mr March came in.

‘I should be obliged,’ he said, ‘if I could have a word with my daughter.’

‘I’m afraid that I’ve given her my answer,’ said Charles.

‘I assumed that you knew what she was asking me,’ said Charles. ‘I’m afraid that I’ve given her my answer.’

He had risen as Mr March came in, and they stood face to face by the window, away from the fireplace and the small tea-table, round which the rest of us were still sitting. They stood face to face, Charles some inches taller than his father, his hair catching the sunlight as it had done years before in the examination hall. Against him his father stood, his head less erect, his whole bearing in some way unprepared.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said Mr March.

‘You’ll hear it from Katherine as soon as I’ve gone. Don’t you admit that you will? Isn’t it better for me to tell you myself?’

‘I refuse to hear anything further until your wife has completely recovered,’ said Mr March. ‘I don’t regard you as in a fit state to make a decision.’

‘I should make the same decision whether she’s ill or well,’ said Charles. ‘I shan’t change my mind.’

‘What is it?’ said Mr March, in despair.

‘You don’t want me to say much, do you? Katherine has heard it all. All I need say is that, now she’s heard it, she and Francis don’t wish to meet me again.’

‘I knew it,’ said Mr March. They looked at each other.

‘You can endure being lonely?’ Mr March said at last, still in a subdued voice.

‘I can endure that kind of loneliness.’

‘Then it’s useless to ask you to consider mine.’

Charles did not reply at once, and Mr March for the first time raised his voice.

‘It’s useless to ask you to consider my loneliness. I suppose I had better be prepared to take the only steps which are open to me.’

‘I’m afraid that is for you to decide.’

‘You know,’ cried Mr March, ‘I’m not telling you anything original. You know the position you are placing me in. You’re forcing me to deprive myself of my son.’

We each knew that this quarrel was different from those in the past. Always before, Mr March had a power over his son. Now it had gone. Mr March knew: he could not admit it, and his anger rose at random, wildly, without aim.

‘You’re forcing me,’ he shouted, ‘to deprive myself of my son. If this outrage happens’ – he was clinging to a last vestige of hope – ‘if this outrage happens, I shall be compelled to take a step which you will recognize.’

‘It won’t matter to me, don’t you realize that?’

‘Nothing that I possess will come to you. You will be compelled to recognize what you’ve done after my death,’ said Mr March.

‘I’m sorry, but that doesn’t matter.’

Suddenly Katherine cried out: ‘Father, why ever didn’t you make him independent? When he wanted to marry? I told you at the time it wouldn’t be the same between you. Do you remember?’

Mr March turned towards the fireplace, and rounded on her with fury: ‘I only consider it necessary to remind you of what my Uncle Justin said to his daughter.’ For a second all his anger was diverted to her. ‘I reproach myself that I allowed you to make representations between myself and my son.’

‘She did her best,’ said Charles. ‘She tried to bring us together. She tried her best to keep me in your will.’

‘Charles!’ Katherine cried. He had spoken with indifference: but she cried out as though he had been brutal. Mr March ignored her, and returned to face Charles.

‘I should never have spoken of money,’ he said, ‘if I could have relied on your affection.’

For the first time, as they stood there, Charles’ face softened.

‘My affection was greater than you were ever ready to admit,’ he said. ‘Did you hear me speak to you, the night Ann was taken ill? That was true.’

Mr March’s voice rang in our ears: ‘There’s only one thing you can say that I’m prepared to hear.’

Charles had not recovered himself. He said: ‘That’s impossible for me.’

‘Do you consider it more impossible than destroying my family? And showing your utter ingratitude as a son? And condemning yourself to squalor now and after I am dead? And leaving me with nothing to live for in the last years of my life?’

Charles did not answer. Mr March went on: ‘Do you consider it is more impossible than what you’re bringing about?’

‘I’m afraid it is,’ said Charles.

The tone of that reply affected Mr March. Since he appealed to Charles’ affection, he had reached his son. As though interpreting Charles’ reply, which was loaded with remorse, Mr March spoke of Ann.

‘If you hadn’t married your wife,’ Mr March said, ‘you would have given a different answer. She is responsible for your unnatural attitude.’

Immediately Charles’ manner reverted to that in which he had begun; he became hard again, passionate, almost gay.

‘I am responsible for everything I’ve done,’ he said. ‘You know that. Don’t you know that?’

‘I refuse to accept your assurance.’

‘You know that it’s true,’ said Charles.

‘If she hadn’t begun this outrage, you would never have believed it possible,’ Mr March exclaimed. ‘If she had desisted, you would have been relieved and–’

‘If she had died, you mean. If she had died.’ The word crashed out. ‘That’s what you mean.’

Mr March’s head was sunk down.

‘You were wrong. You’ve never been so wrong,’ said Charles. ‘I tell you this. If she had died, I wouldn’t have raised a finger to save you trouble. I should have let it happen.’

The sound died away. The room rested in silence. Charles turned from his father, and glanced indifferently, slackly, across the room, as though he were exhausted by his outburst, as though it had left him without anger or interest.

As Charles turned away, Mr March walked from the window towards us by the fireplace. His face looked suddenly without feeling or expression.

He settled in an armchair; as he did so, his foot touched the tea-table, and I noticed the Tinker-Bell reflections, set dancing on the far wall.

Mr March said, in a low voice: ‘Why was it necessary to act as you have done? You seem to have been compelled to break every connection with the family.’

Charles, still standing by the window, did not move or speak.

‘You seem to have been compelled to break off at my expense. It was different with Herbert and my father. But you’ve had to cut yourself off through me.’

Mr March was speaking as though the pain was too recent to feel; he did not know all that had happened to him, he was light-headed with bereavement and defeat. He spoke like a man baffled, in doubt, still unaware of what he was going to feel, groping and mystified. He forgot Ann, and asked Charles why this conflict must come between them, just because they were themselves. A little time before, he had spoken as though he believed that, without Ann, he and his son would have been at peace. It was inconsistent in terms of logic, but it carried the sense of a father’s excessive love, of a love which, in the phrase that the old Japanese used to describe the love of parents for their children, was a darkness of the heart.

‘Yes,’ said Mr March, ‘you found it necessary to act against me. I never expected to have my son needing to act against me. I never contemplated living without my son.’

‘Believe what I said to you at that last party,’ said Charles quietly. ‘I want you to believe that. As well as what I’ve said today.’

Mr March asked, not angrily, but as though he could not believe what had happened: ‘You’ve counted the cost of this intention of yours? You’ve asked people what it’s like to be penniless?’

‘Yes,’ said Charles.

‘You’re ready to put yourself in the shameful position of living on your wife’s money?’

Charles had been answering listlessly. He gave a faint smile.

‘I may even earn a little myself.’

‘Pocket-money. I disregard that,’ said Mr March. ‘You’re prepared to live on your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not deterred by my disgrace in seeing you in such a position?’

‘No,’ said Charles.

‘You’re not deterred by the disgrace your wife’s action will inflict upon my brother and my family?’