by C. P. Snow
That aspect of George, he shared with many men of characters as powerful as his own. The underlying uneasiness and the cloak of some shame, class shame, race shame, even the shame of deformity, whatever you like – they are a combination which consoles anyone like George to himself. For it is curiously difficult for any human being to recognise that he possesses natural limitations. We all tend to think there is some fundamental ‘I’ which could do anything, which could get on with all people, which would never meet an obstacle – ‘if only I had had the chance’. It was next to impossible – except in this rare moment of insight – for George to admit that his fundamental ‘I’ was innately diffident and ill-at-ease with other men. The excuse was more natural, and more comforting – ‘if only I had been born in gentler circumstances.’
George stood up, plucked his knife out of the tree and handed the poster to Jack.
‘Thank you for taking that trouble about Martineau,’ he said. ‘I know you did it on my account. You’ll let me know the minute you discover anything fresh, of course. We’ve got to help one another to keep him from some absolutely irretrievable piece of foolishness.’
14: The Last ‘Friday Night’
FOR some time we heard no further news. Friday nights went on in their usual pattern. But one day in November, when I was having tea with George, I found him heavy and preoccupied. I tried to amuse him. Once or twice he smiled, but in a mechanical and distracted way. Then I asked: ‘Is there a case? Can I help?’
‘There’s nothing on,’ said George. He picked up the evening paper and began to read. Abruptly he said, a moment later: ‘Martineau’s letting his mania run away with him.’
‘Has anything happened?’
‘I found out yesterday,’ George said, ‘that he was asking someone to value his share in the firm.’
‘You actually think he’s going to sell?’ I said.
‘I shouldn’t think even Martineau would get it valued for sheer enjoyment,’ said George. ‘Unless he’s madder than we think.’
His optimism had vanished now.
‘I thought he was a bit more settled,’ I said. ‘After he was headed off the plays.’
‘You can’t tell with him,’ said George.
‘Whatever can he be thinking of doing?’
‘God knows what he’s thinking of.’
‘There may be enough to live on,’ I suggested. ‘He might retire and go in for his plays and things – on a grandiose scale. Or he might take another job.’
‘It’s demoralising for the firm,’ George broke out. ‘I never know where I’m going to stand for two days together.’
‘You’ve got to forgive him a lot,’ I said.
‘I do.’
‘After all, he’s in a queer state.’
‘It’s absolute and utter irresponsibility,’ said George. ‘The man’s got a duty towards his friends.’
George’s temper was near the surface. He went to the next Friday night at Martineau’s; and sat uncomfortably silent while Martineau talked as gaily as ever, without any sign of care. Then, as for a moment Martineau left the room, George came over to Morcom and myself and whispered: ‘I’m going to tackle him afterwards. I’m going to ask for an explanation on the spot.’
When, at eleven, the others had gone, George said rapidly: ‘I wonder if you could spare us a few minutes, Mr Martineau?’
‘George?’ Martineau laughed at the stiffness of George’s tone. He had been standing up, according to his habit, behind the sofa: now he dropped into an armchair and clasped his fingers round his knee.
‘We simply want to be reassured on one or two matters,’ George said. ‘Sometimes you are an anxiety to your friends, you know.’ For a second, a smile, frank and affectionate, broke up the heaviness on George’s face. ‘Will you allow me to put our questions?’
‘If I can answer,’ Martineau murmured. ‘If I can answer.’
‘Well then, do you intend to give up your present position?’
‘My position!’ said Martineau. ‘Do you mean my position in thought? I’ve had so many,’ he smiled, ‘that some day I shall have to give some of them up, George.’
‘I meant, do you intend to give up your position in the firm?’
‘Ah,’ said Martineau. Morcom leant forward, half-smiling at the curiously naïve attempt to hedge. ‘It’d be easier if you hadn’t asked–’
‘Can you say no?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t – not a No like yours, George.’ He got up from the chair and began his walk by the window. ‘I’ve asked that question to myself, don’t you see, and I can’t answer it properly. I can’t be sure I’ve made up my mind for certain. But, perhaps I can tell you, I sometimes don’t feel I have any right to remain inside the firm.’
I had a sense of certainty that the hesitation was not there: I felt that he was speaking from an unequivocal heart. Whether he knew it or not. I wondered if he knew it.
‘Right,’ said George. ‘Of course you have a right. According to law and conventional ethics and any conceivable ethics of your own. Why shouldn’t you stay?’
‘It isn’t as straightforward,’ Martineau shook his head with a smile. ‘We touched on this before, George. I’ve thought of it so often since. You see, I can’t forget I’ve got some obligations which aren’t to the firm at all. I may be wrong, but they come before the firm if one has to choose.’
‘So have I,’ said George. ‘But the choice doesn’t arise.’
‘I’m afraid it does a little,’ Martineau replied. ‘I told you, I shouldn’t be able to stop the things that I feel I’m called for most. I can’t possibly stop them.’
‘No one wants you to,’ said George.
Martineau rested his hands on the sofa.
‘But I haven’t been able to see a way to keep on with those – and stay in the firm.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I oughtn’t to be part of a firm and doing it harm at the same time, surely you agree, George? And these other attempts of mine – that I can’t give up, they’re damaging it, of course.’
‘You mean to say the firm’s worse off because of your–’ George shouted, stopped and said, ‘activities?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘What’s the evidence?’
‘One or two people have said things.’ Martineau stared at the ceiling.
‘Have they said, plainly and definitely, that they think the firm’s worse off than it was a couple of years ago?’
‘They haven’t said it in quite so many words, but–’
‘They’ve implied it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who are they?’
‘I forget their names, except–’
‘Except who?’
‘Harry Eden said something not long ago.’
‘Then Eden’s a fool and a liar and I shall have pleasure in telling him so to his face,’ George was shouting again. ‘He wants to get rid of you and is trying a method that oughtn’t to take in a child. It’s simply nonsense. This is a straightforward matter of fact. The amount of business we did in the last nine months is bigger than in any other twelve months since I came. And we did more last month than during any similar time. It’s only natural, of course. Anyone but Eden would realise that. And even he would if he hadn’t a purpose of his own to serve. We’re bound to have more cases, considering the success we had not long ago.’
‘What do you mean?’ Martineau, who had been frowning, inquired.
‘It’s only reasonable to imagine,’ George said in a subdued voice, ‘that the case in the summer had something to do with it.’
‘Oh yes,’ Martineau became passive again.
Morcom said: ‘Do you think George is wrong, Howard? Do you really think the firm is suffering?’
Hi
s voice sounded cold and clear after the others.
‘I think perhaps we’re talking of different things,’ said Martineau. ‘I’m sure George’s figures are right. I wasn’t thinking of it quite in that way. I mean, I believe, I’m doing – what shall I say? – a kind of impalpable harm – just as the work I’m trying to do outside the firm is impalpable work. Which doesn’t prevent it’ – he smiled – ‘being the most practical in the world, in my opinion.’
‘I want to know,’ George’s voice was raised, ‘what do you mean by impalpable harm to the firm?’
They argued again: Martineau became more evasive, and once he showed something like a flash of anger.
‘I’m trying to do the best thing,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry you seem so eager to prevent me.’
‘That’s quite unfair.’
‘I hoped my friends at any rate would give me credit for what I’m trying.’ Then he recovered his light temper. ‘Ah well, George, when you do something you feel is right, you’ll know just what to expect.’
‘Have you definitely made up your mind’, said Morcom, ‘to sell your share in the firm?’
‘I can’t say that,’ said Martineau. ‘Just now. I will tell you soon.’
‘When?’
‘It can’t be long, it can’t possibly be long,’ Martineau replied.
‘Next Friday?’ I asked.
‘No, not then. I shan’t be in that night.’
Since any of us knew him, he had never missed being at home on Friday night. He announced it quite casually.
‘I’ll see you soon, though,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell George when we can arrange one of our chats. It’s so friendly of you to be worried. I value that, you don’t know how I value that.’
In the street there was a mist which encircled the lamps. For a moment we stood outside the park gate; I felt a shiver of chill, and an anxious tension became mixed with the night’s cold. Morcom said: ‘We’d better go and have a coffee. We ought to talk this out.’
We walked down the road towards the station, chatting perfunctorily, our footsteps ringing heavily in the dank air. We went – there was nowhere else in this part of the town at night – to the café where we held the first conference about Jack.
‘Can we do anything?’ Morcom asked, as soon as we sat down. ‘Have either of you any ideas?’
‘He must be stopped,’ said George.
‘That’s easy to say.’
‘If only he could be made to recognise the facts,’ George said.
‘That doesn’t help.’
‘Of course it would help. The man’s simply been misled. By the way,’ George added with an elaborately indifferent smile, ‘I thought you might have taken the opportunity to enlighten him. About the importance of the work I’ve done for them. Particularly the case.’
I saw a light, a narrowed concentration, in Morcom’s eyes; I was on edge. I expected him to be provoked by the insistence and say something like, ‘I could have explained, George, how important the case seems to you.’ Morcom hesitated, and said: ‘I would. But it wouldn’t have been useful to you – or to him.’
‘That’s absurd,’ George burst out. ‘If he could really see.’
‘It wouldn’t make the slightest difference.’
‘I refuse to accept that.’
‘Don’t you see,’ Morcom leaned forward, ‘that he’s bound to leave?’
I knew it too. Yet George sat without replying. He seemed blind: he was a man himself more passionate and uncontrolled than any of us, but now he was not able to see past his own barricade of reasons, he was not able to perceive the passions of another.
‘You must recognise that,’ Morcom was saying. ‘You don’t think all these arguments matter to him? Except to bolster up a choice he’s already been forced to make. That’s all. I expect it pleases him’ – he smiled – ‘to be told how much he’s giving up, and how unnecessary it is. It’s just a luxury. As for affecting him, one might as well sing choruses from The Gondoliers. He’s already made the decision in his mind.’ He smiled again. ‘As far as that goes,’ he added, ‘he may already have made it in fact.’
‘You mean he’s actually sold his share?’ George said.
‘I don’t know,’ said Morcom. ‘It’s possible.’
‘To some bastard,’ said George, ‘who happens to have enough money to make a nuisance of himself to other people. Who’ll disapprove of everything I do. Who’ll make life intolerable for me.’
15: Martineau’s Intention
I walked past Martineau’s, the following Friday night. The drawing room window was dark: Martineau, so George thought, was visiting his brother, the Canon. Next day, when I was having supper with Morcom, George sent a message by Jack: Martineau wanted to see us tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon: we were to meet at George’s.
‘Martineau’s getting more fun out of all this than anyone else,’ said Jack. ‘Like your girl’ – he said to Morcom – ‘when she decided to sacrifice herself. Blast them both.’ He could speak directly to Morcom about Olive, as no one else could; and he went out of his way to ease Morcom’s jealousy. ‘How is she, by the way? No one else ever hears a word but you.’
‘She seems fairly cheerful,’ said Morcom.
‘Blast her and Martineau as well. Send them off together,’ said Jack. ‘They deserve each other. That’d put them right if anything could.’ His face melted into a mischievous, kindly grin. I had heard him say the same, with even more mischief, about Sheila.
When I arrived at George’s the next day, he was smoking after the midday meal. His shout of greeting had a formal cheerfulness, but I could hear no heart behind it.
‘You’re the first,’ he said.
‘Martineau is coming?’
‘I imagine so,’ said George. ‘Even Martineau couldn’t get us all together and then not turn up himself.’
We sat by the window, looking out into the street. The knocker on the door opposite glistened in the sun.
Soon there were footsteps down the pavement. Martineau looked in and waved his hand. George went to let him in.
‘Come in,’ I heard George saying, and then, ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’
Martineau sat down in an armchair opposite the window; his face, lit by the clear light from the street, looked tranquil and happy. George pushed the table back against the wall, and placed two chairs in front of the fire.
‘Have you seen Morcom lately?’ he said to Martineau. ‘I sent him word.’
‘He may be just a little late,’ Martineau said. ‘He is having lunch with’ – he smiled at George – ‘my brother.’
‘Why’s that?’ George’s question shot out.
‘To talk over my little affair, I’m afraid,’ Martineau answered. ‘I’ve never made such a nuisance of myself before–’ his laugh was full of pleasure.
‘What does your brother think of it?’
‘Very much the same as you do, George. He rather took the line that I owe an obligation to my relatives.’ Martineau stared at the ceiling. ‘I tried to put it to him as a Christian minister. I pointed out that he ought to sympathise with our placing certain duties higher than our duties to relatives. But he didn’t seem to agree with my point of view.’
‘Nor would any man of any sense,’ said George.
‘But is sense the most important thing?’ Martineau asked ‘For myself–’
‘I refuse to be bullied by all these attacks on reason. I’m sorry, Mr Martineau,’ said George, ‘but I spend a great deal of my own time, as you know perfectly well, in activities that don’t give me any personal profit whatever; but I’m prepared to justify them by reason, and if I couldn’t I should give them up. That isn’t true of what you propose to do, and so if you’ve got any respect for your intellectual honesty you’ve got no option but to abandon it.
’
‘I’m afraid I don’t see it like that.’ Martineau moved restlessly; his eyes met mine and then looked into the fire.
‘There is no other way of seeing it,’ said George.
(Many years later, near the end of George’s life, I had to recall that justification of his.)
Through the uproar of George’s voice I thought I had heard a knock at the door; it came again, now. I got up, and brought Morcom in. He spoke directly to Martineau.
‘Eden’s made a suggestion–’
‘Where have you been?’ George interrupted.
‘Having lunch with Eden and Howard’s brother.’
‘I’m afraid,’ Martineau broke in, ‘I’ve been rather guilty this afternoon. I was trying to break it gently, you see, George. You must forgive me!’
‘I’d better be told now.’
‘Well, I spent all the early part of last week thinking over everything that had been said,’ Martineau began. ‘It was very difficult with so many friends that I really respect – you must believe that I respect your opinion, George – with so many friends – disapproving so much. But in the end I felt that I had to let them disapprove. The way I’d come to did really seem to be the only way.’ He smiled. ‘It does still.’
George had flushed. Morcom was looking at Martineau.
‘So I told Harry Eden on Monday afternoon,’ Martineau went on. ‘He said he’d like to see my brother. That’s why I arranged for them to meet.’
‘You’d arranged that a week ago. So you’d made up your mind then,’ George burst out.
‘Not quite made up.’ For a moment Martineau looked a little distraught. ‘And in any case I felt I should like to have his advice, whether I had decided or not, you see. And Eden thought he’d feel easier if he could talk to one of my relatives, naturally.’
‘I was brought in,’ Morcom said, ‘because Martineau hasn’t any close friends of his own age in the town. You were ruled out because you were in the firm yourself, George. So Eden asked me in.’