by Unknown
Getliffe agreed in a word; he felt the suspense in the court, tightened by this unexpected delay. But Porson argued for some minutes, and said that he could not offer to omit essential questions. In fact, George's evidence took up the whole afternoon.
Throughout the hours in the box George was nervous in a way which altered very little, whether it was Getliffe who questioned him or Porson. Yet he was, in many ways, the best witness the trial had seen. His hands strained at the lapels of his coat and his voice kept breaking out in anger; but even here, the rapidity and coherence of his mind, the ease with which his thoughts formed themselves into words, made the answers come clear, definite and undelayed.
In the examination, George gave a more elaborate account of their businesses, and one far more self-consistent and complete, than either of the others or Getliffe himself in the opening speech. The answers explained that he and Jack heard of Martineau's leaving the town and wanting to sell the agency. He, as an old friend, undertook the task of asking Martineau about it, in particular whether it was an investment they would be justified in inviting others to join. Martineau told him the agency was in a particularly healthy state--and that the Arrow had a circulation of about five thousand. His memory was absolutely precise. There were no vague impressions. He had not thought of any misrepresentation ("It would have been fantastic," George broke out, "to inquire further"). Jack and Olive had approached Attock and the others; the firm was bought; it had brought in a reasonable profit, not as large as they expected. He had been puzzled for some months at the small circulation of the Arrow after they took it over. They had not been able to repay more than a fraction of the loan, but had regularly raised the interest. The disorganization of industry in the town during the economic crisis had also diminished the business, just as it was becoming established. But still, they had maintained some profit and paid the interest regularly. The agency would still have been flourishing, if, in George's words, "I had not been attacked."
After the steady results of the agency, they had thought of other ventures. The Farm, which he knew through visits with his friends from the School, struck him as a possibility, and he examined its finances together with Jack. They decided that, running it with one or two smaller hostels, and finally a chain, they could make it give profits on a scale different from their first attempt with the agency. They were anxious to make money, George said vehemently, in answer to Getliffe's question: it was also a convenience to manage the Farm, as he and a group of friends spent much of their time there. Essentially, however, it was a business step. He gave a precise account of the meeting with Miss Geary and others.
In the middle of the afternoon, when the windows were already becoming dark, Porson rose for the last cross-examination of the trial. He wrapped his fingers in his gown and waited a moment. Then he said: "In your professional career, haven't you done a good deal of work on financial transactions, Mr. Passant?"
"Yes."
"You would consider yourself less likely than most to make a mistake through ignorance--or vagueness--or any incompetence that a man can fall into out of inexperience?"
"I should."
"Thank you for admitting that. I don't want to take up the court's time questioning you about the financial cases--very much more complicated than the ones you engaged in yourself--which you handled for Mr. Eden during the last five or six years. So, with your knowledge of financial matters, what was your first impression when Mr. Martineau described the state of the agency?"
"I accepted it as the truth."
"You didn't think it remarkable that an agency of that kind--at that time--should be flourishing so excessively?"
"I was interested that it should be doing well."
"With your experience and knowledge, it didn't occur to you that it might be said to be doing too well?"
"I was told it on the best of authority."
"I suggest to you, Mr. Passant, that if you had been told anything so remarkable, even by Mr. Martineau, you would naturally, as a result of your knowledge of these matters, immediately have investigated the facts?"
"I might have done if I hadn't known Mr. Martineau well."
Porson continued with questions on George's knowledge of the agency. He kept emphasizing George's competence; several times he seemed deliberately to invite one of the methodi cal and lucid explanations. Many, however, were now noticing the contrast between the words and the defensive, bitter note in George's voice.
"Obviously, Mr. Passant," Porson said, "you would never have believed such a story. Whoever told it to you. I put it to you that this tale of Mr. Martineau telling you the circulation as a large figure--actually never took place?"
"You've no grounds for suggesting that."
At last, as George's tired and angry answer was still echoing in the court, Porson left the agency and said: "Well, I'll put that aside for the present. Now about your other speculation. You gave some explanation of why you embarked on that. Will you repeat it?"
"I wanted money. This looked a safe and convenient method."
"That's what you said. You also admitted it had some connection with your work at the Technical College and School of Art"--he gave the full title, and then added--"the institution that seems to be referred to as the School? You admitted this speculation had some connection with your work there?"
"It had."
"Let us see what your work at the School really amounted to. You are not a regular member of the staff, of course?"
"I've been a part-time lecturer-----"
"For the last nine years your status, such as it is, hasn't altered? You've given occasional classes in law which amount to two a week?" By chance, he exactly repeated the Principal's phrase of over seven years ago.
"That is true."
"That is, you've just been a casual visitor at the School. Now can you explain your statement that one reason for buying the Farm was this--itinerant connection?"
"I have made many friends among pupils there. I wanted to be useful to them. It was an advantage to have a place to entertain them--entirely at my disposal."
"Surely that isn't a very important advantage?"
"It's a considerable one."
"I suggest there were others a good deal more urgent, Mr. Passant. Wasn't it more important to keep the activities of your friends secret at this time?"
"It was not important in the sense you appear to be insinuating."
"Do you deny," Porson asked, "after all that's been said -that you wanted to keep your activities secret?"
"I saw no reason to welcome intrusion."
"Exactly. That is, you admit you had a particularly urgent reason for buying the Farm at this time?"
"It was no more urgent than--since I really became interested in a group of people from the School."
"You know--you've just admitted that you were afraid of intrusion?"
"I knew that if strangers got inside the group, then I should run a risk of being attacked. That was also true since the first days that I began to take them up."
"You are trying to maintain that that was the same several years ago as in the summer when you bought the Farm?"
"Naturally."
"There is no 'naturally', Mr. Passant. Haven't you heard something of these scares among your friends--the fear of a scandal just at the psychological moment?"
"I've heard it. Of course. I believe they've all missed something essential out of the idea of that danger."
Porson laughed.
"So you admit there was a danger, do you?"
"I never had any intention of pretending there wasn't."
"But you're pretending it was no greater the summer when you wanted very urgently to buy the Farm than it was years before?"
"It was very little greater."
"Mr. Passant: the jury has already heard something of the scandals your friends were afraid of when you were buying the Farm. What do you expect us to believe, when you say there was no greater danger then?"
Geo
rge cried loudly: "I said the danger was very little greater. And the reason for it was that the scandals were only the excuse to destroy everything I had tried to do. Some excuse could easily have been found at any time." His outburst seemed for a moment to exhaust and satisfy him. He was left spent and listless, while Porson asked his next question.
"I shall have to ask you to explain what you mean by that.
Do you really believe anyone threatened your safety for any length of time?"
"I should have thought that events have left little doubt of that."
"No. You had good and sufficient reasons for fear at the time you wanted to buy the Farm. What could you have had before?"
"I was doing something which most people would disapprove of. I didn't deceive myself that I should escape the consequences if ever I gave an excuse. And I wasn't fool enough to think that there were no excuses during a number of years. I was vulnerable through other people long before Mr. Martineau himself acquired the agency."
"You say you were doing something most people would disapprove of. That"--Porson said--"is apparent at the time I am bringing you to. The time the scandals among your friends were finding their way out. But what were you doing before, what are you referring to?"
"I mean that I was helping a number of people to freedom in their lives."
"You'd better explain what you mean by helping people to 'freedom in their lives'."
"I don't hope for it to be understood. But I believe that while people are young they have a chance to become themselves only if they're preserved from all the conspiracy that crushes them down."
Porson interrupted, but George did not stop.
"They're crushed into thinking and feeling just as the world outside wants them to think and feel. I was trying to make a society where they would have the chance of being free."
"But you're asking us to regard that--as the work which would bring you into disrepute? That was the work you seemed to consider important?"
"I consider it more important than any work I could possibly have done."
"We're not concerned with your own estimate, you know. We want to see how you could possibly think your work a danger--until it had developed into something which people outside your somewhat unimportant group would notice?"
"Work of that kind can't be completely ignored."
"I suggest to you that it would have remained completely unknown--if it hadn't just one external result. That is, this series of scandals."
"I do not admit those as results. But there are others which people would have been compelled to notice."
"Now, Mr. Passant, what could you imagine those to be?"
"The lives and successes of some of my friends."
"Do you pretend you ever thought that those would be very easy to show?"
"Perhaps," George cried loudly again, "I never credited completely enough how blind people can be. Except when they have a chance to destroy something."
"That's more like it. You're beginning to admit that you couldn't possibly have attracted any attention, either favourable or unfavourable? Until something was really wrong-----"
"I've admited nothing of the kind."
"I'll leave it to the jury. In any case, there was no serious scandal threatened until somewhere about the time you considered buying the Farm? For several years you had been giving them the chance of what you choose to call 'freedom in their lives'--but nothing had resulted until about the time you all got alarmed?"
"There were plenty of admirable results."
"The more obvious ones, however, were that a good many of your friends began to have immoral relations?"
"You've heard the evidence."
"Most of them had immoral relations?"
George stood silent.
"You don't deny it?"
George shook his head.
"Your group became, in fact, a haunt of promiscuity?"
George was silent again.
Porson said: "You admit, I suppose, that this was the main result of your effort to give them 'freedom in their lives'?"
"I knew from the beginning that it was a possibility I had to face. The important thing was to secure the real gains."
"You don't regret that you brought it about? You don't feel any responsibility for what you have done to your--protégés?"
"I accept complete responsibility."
"Despite all this scandal."
"I believe it's the final example of the stupid hostility I'd taught them to expect and to dismiss."
"You have no regrets for these scandals?"
"They are an inconvenience. They should not have happened."
"But--the happenings themselves?"
"I'm not ashamed of them," George shouted. "If there's to be any freedom in men's lives, they have got to work out their behaviour for themselves."
"So your only objection to this promiscuity was when it became a danger? The danger that suddenly became acute at the time you said, in Mrs. Ward's hearing: 'If we don't get secrecy soon, we shall lose everything.' "
"I should feel justified if much more had happened."
"You also felt justified in practising what you preach?"
George did not answer. Porson referred to Iris Ward's evidence, the hints over Daphne and other girls. There was a soft, jeering laugh from the court.
George said: "There's no point in denying those stories."
"And so all this," Porson said, "is the work of which you were so proud? Which you told us you considered the most important activity you could perform?"
There was another laugh. With a flushed face, the judge ordered silence. "You needn't answer that if you don't want," he said to George, a kindly curious look in his eyes.
"I prefer to answer it," said George. "I've already described what I've tried to do. I can't be expected to give much significance to these incidents you are bringing up--when you compare them with the real meaning. They mattered very little one way or the other."
Porson drank some water. When he spoke again, his voice was a little husky, but still full of energy and assertion.
"You've told us, Mr. Passant, that work with your group of friends was a very important thing in your life?"
"Yes."
"And you always realized it might involve you in a certain danger? Shall we say in a social disapproval?"
"Yes."
"You still repeat, however, that the danger at the time of these alarms--just before you considered buying the Farm -seemed to you little greater than in previous years?"
"It was an excuse presented to anyone wishing to be hostile. Before, they would have been compelled to invent one. That was all the difference."
"I'm asking you again. You still deny that the danger really was desperate enough to affect your actions? To force you to make an attempt to buy the Farm at all costs?"
"I deny it, naturally."
Porson paused.
"How then do you explain that you were willing--just about that time--to give up your group of friends altogether? To have nothing more to do with work that you've told us was the most important thing in your life?"
"It's not true."
"I can recall a witness to prove you said these words also at the Farm."
There was a silence. George began speaking fast.
"In a sense I grant it. It was the only course left for me to take. I'd finished as much as I could do. I'd tried to help a fair number of my friends from the School. I'd given them as much chance of freedom as I could. Doing it again with other people would merely mean repeating the same process. I was willing to do that--but if it was going to involve me in continual hostility with everyone round me, I wasn't prepared to feel it a duty to go on. I'd done the pioneer work. I was satisfied to let it go at that."
As he spoke, George had a helpless and suffering look. This last answer scarcely anyone understood, even those of us who knew something of his language, and the barrier between his appetite for living and his picture of his own soul. H
e was alone, more than at any time in the trial--more than he had ever been.
For a moment, I found myself angry with him. Despite the situation, I was swept with anger; I was without understanding, as though I were suddenly much younger, as though I were taken back to the night of his triumph years before. For all his eagerness for life--I felt in a moment so powerful that no shame could obscure it--for all the warmth of his heart and his "vision of God," he was less honest than his attackers, than the Beddows, Camerons, and Canon Martineaus, the Porsons, Edens and Iris Wards. He was less honest than those who saw in his aspirations only the devices of a carnally obsessed and self-indulgent man. He was corrupt within himself. So at the time when the scandal first hung over him, he was afraid, and already dissatisfied, tired of the "little world." But this answer which he made to Porson was the manner in which he explained it to himself.
At that moment, he suddenly seemed as alien to me, who had been intimate with him for all those years, as to those who laughed in court the instant before. I was blinded to the fire and devotion which accompanied this struggle with himself; through that struggle, he had deceived himself; yet it had also at moments given him intimations such as the rest of us might never know.
Even our indignations and ideals tend to be made in our own image. For me, to whom a kind of frankness with myself came more naturally than to George, it was a temptation to make that insight and "honesty" a test by which to judge everyone else--just as an examiner, setting his papers and marking his questions, is always searching to give marks to minds built on the same pattern as his own.
I was blinded also to something as true and more simple. His words sounded less certain to him than to any of his listeners; they were more than anything an attempt to reason away his own misgivings. I ought to have known that he, too, had lain awake at night, seeing his aspirations fallen, bitterly aware of his own fear and guilt, full of the reproach of failure, remorse and the loss of hope. He too had "wept at night," in a suffering harsher than Getliffe would ever feel, with all excuse seeming useless and remote; he had felt only degrading fear and the downfall of everything he had tried to do.