by C. P. Snow
The judge said: ‘I tried to give you instructions about the law under which they are charged. Perhaps I did not make myself sufficiently clear.’ Again he explained. His kindness held a shade of patronage. Two of them could be guilty of conspiracy without a third. It was possible for any of them to be guilty of conspiracy and not guilty of obtaining money by false pretences. (If the jury considered that any of them had not, in fact, profited after joining in a conspiracy.) If they were not guilty of conspiracy, in the circumstances they could not be guilty of obtaining money under false pretences. Unless the jury considered only one person to be responsible – in which case there was no conspiracy, but one person alone could be found guilty of obtaining money by false pretences.
‘You are certain you understand?’ the judge went on. ‘Perhaps you had better write it down. Yes, it would remove any uncertainties if you wrote it down and showed it to me.’
Many found this interruption the most intolerable moment of the trial. Someone said the most sinister – meaning perhaps the confusion, the sudden flash of other lives, of human puzzlement and incompetence.
Through the hour of waiting which still remained, it shot new fragments of thought to many of our minds. Whom did they mean? What were they disagreeing on? But none of us could go on thinking for long: we were wrapped in the emptiness of waiting. The apprehension engrossed us like an illness of the body.
The message came. The jury were coming back. The three were brought up, and took their seats in the dock again. George’s arms were folded on his chest. His face was curiously expressionless: but his hands were as livid as though he had been hours in the cold.
The jury came in. Automatically I looked at the clock; it was after half-past four. Their walk was an interminable, drumming sound. The clerk read out the first charge – conspiracy over the agency – with a meaningless emphasis on the name of the town. ‘Do you find them guilty or not guilty?’
The foreman said quickly and in a low voice, ‘Not guilty.’
Then the second charge – conspiracy over the farm. Again the name of the town started out.
‘Guilty or not guilty?’ There was a pause. In the silence someone coughed. Suddenly – ‘Not guilty.’
Then the individual charges of obtaining money by false pretences. There was a string of ‘Not guilty’ for Jack and Olive, and finally the charges against George were read out for the last time; the foreman replied ‘Not guilty’ twice again, in a manner by this time repetitive and without hesitation.
The judge pressed his lips together, and spoke to them with a stiff formal smile: ‘You are free to go now.’
44: Walk into the Town
THE court seethed with whispers. The three were surrounded by friends and walked to the door. I waited, with Porson and Getliffe, until we could leave ourselves, watching Mr Passant come out of the crowd and take George’s hand. Gossip was already in the air. ‘They didn’t expect–’ someone said as I went out with Getliffe. People were laughing with excitement, face after face suddenly leapt to the eyes, vivid and alive.
Getliffe talked in the robing-room until Eden fetched him.
‘It’s been nice to be together again.’ And then: ‘Well, one’s pulled it off for your people. It was a good case to win.’ He smiled. We’ll have a crack about it in the train tonight. I’ve learned from it, L S, I’ve learned from it.’
When he had shaken hands with Porson and followed Eden out, we heard his voice, cheerful and a little strident, down the corridor. I went across the room to say goodbye to Porson myself. His eyes were narrow with unhappiness.
‘I ought not to say it to you, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but it’s incredible these clods of juries should–’ then he stopped and laughed. ‘Still, goodbye, my boy. We’ll run together again one of these days. I hope the job goes well. Let me know if I can be of any use, I expect I can.’
On the pavement outside the court, George and the others were being congratulated by a large party. Olive and Jack had their arms round each other’s waists. Soon I was shaking Mr Passant’s hand, listening to Olive and Jack and their friends, being invited to visit them later, saying goodbye. In the crowd, someone had put an arm through mine, our voices were raised, there was a great deal of laughter; simply by being together, we were filled with intimacy and excitement. We were careless with the relief, greater and unmixed because others were there to share it. It was only for a few minutes: then Olive took Jack to her car, and Daphne followed after making a sign to George.
The others scattered. I was leaving the town that night, and George told his mother that he would join them in an hour. Roy took the Passants home, and George and I walked up the street alone. The fog had cleared but the sky was low and heavy. Lights were shining in the windows. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes, and then George said: ‘This mustn’t prevent me doing the essential things.’ His voice was sad and defiant. ‘I’ve not lost everything. Whatever they did, I couldn’t have lost everything.’
We walked on; he began to talk of his plans for the future, the practical necessities of making a living.
‘I shall have to stay with Eden for a few months, of course,’ he said. ‘Unless they’re going through with their persecution. After that–’ He became cheerful as he invented schemes for the years afterward: how he would leave Eden’s, and get a job at some similar firm where he could work his way through to a partnership. ‘I’m ready to leave this place,’ he said. ‘You used to try to persuade me against my will. I’m prepared to go anywhere. You won’t find me so enthusiastic to spend myself without any return.’
It was strange to hear how he enjoyed developing the details of these plans, and the gusto with which he worked them out.
‘I’ve still got time to bring it off. I mustn’t leave anything to chance. I can work it out beforehand.’
It reminded me curiously of some of Martineau’s happiness as he gave up his career, except that George’s hopes were not wild, but modest and within his powers. He was inventive and happy, walking under a sky which seemed darker now we were in the middle of the town. He was in the mood, full of the future, and yet not anxious, which I had not seen since the nights when we first walked in these streets; years before, when he was delighted with the idea of his group of friends, luxuriously thinking of their lives to come and the minor, vaguer, pleasant plans for success in his own life.
After one bitter remark, when we were first alone, everything he said was hopeful and full of zest; several times he laughed, hilariously and without resentment. Just as we were passing a shop, a bicycle, which had been propped up by its pedal against the kerb, toppled over on to the pavement. At the same moment, we happened to notice a man with an unconcealed, satisfied, and cunning smile.
‘I wonder,’ said George, ‘if he’s smiling because that bicycle fell over?’ Then he broke into a shout of laughter. ‘No, it’s not that, of course it isn’t. He’s smiling with relief because there was no one on it.’
We ended the walk at the café near the station, where we held our first conference over Jack. But the café had been respectabilised since then. There were now two floors, and neat waitresses. We went upstairs and sat by the window. We looked down the hill, over the roofs below, out to the grey, even sky.
George elaborated his plans, laughed, drank cup after cup of tea. Then, when I spoke to him, I found his face grown preoccupied. He replied absently several times. At last he said: ‘I’ve got to show them that I’ve not lost everything. They’ve got to realise that I’ve not lost anything. Not anything that I put a value on. They mustn’t think they’ve dispensed with me as easily as that. I shall keep the essentials. Whatever happened, I couldn’t be myself without them. I mean, one way or another. I’m going to work for the things I believe in. I still believe that most people are good, if they’re given the chance. No one can stop me helping them, if I think another scheme out carefully a
nd then put my energies into it again. I haven’t finished. You’ve got to remember I’m not middle-aged yet. I believe in other people. I believe in goodness. I believe in my own intelligence and will. You don’t mean to tell me that I’m bound to acquiesce in crippling myself?’
His expression was strained and haggard, the opposite of his words. By contrast to the trial, when often he looked young with fear, now his face was older than I had ever seen it.
‘I don’t deny that I’ve made mistakes. I gave too much opportunity for jealousy. It’s natural they should be jealous, of course. But I shan’t leave so many loopholes this time. I didn’t make enough concessions. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have confined myself to a few people. That was bound to make my enemies hate me more. Whatever I do, it won’t have the same completeness this has had for me. But we’ve got to accept that this is finished. I’m willing to make some concessions now. The main thing is, I shall be keeping on. Everyone would like me to live as they do – shut up in their blasted homes. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction.’
He had not said a word about the substance of the case; he seemed to have dismissed the transactions and charges from his mind.
After a time, feeling he had spoken himself out, I asked about Daphne. As he replied, his voice was quieter.
‘I hope she’ll marry me,’ he said. He smiled in a friendly, almost bantering way. ‘It’s a pity I didn’t find her when you found Sheila.’ (He didn’t know it, he hadn’t guessed it, but that night, as we talked, I was thinking how I could break my marriage.) ‘I didn’t expect to find everything I wanted in one person then, did I? Still, I ought to have married someone by now, I ought to have made myself.’
‘As a result of this trouble–’
George broke out again: ‘They’ve tried to insinuate that everything I’ve done was because I was sex-crazy. They’ve tried to explain away the best years of my life – by saying I spent them doing nothing but plot to get a few minutes of pleasure. I ought to have known they would do it. I trusted them too much. It’s senseless letting your faith in goodness run away with you. It would have been easy to shape things differently. I shall profit by it now. Marriage with Daphne will leave me free. As it was, I shan’t blame myself. It was bad luck things went the way they did. It wasn’t my fault – but when they did, well, they were all round me, I’m not a celibate, my taste is pretty wide. And so I gave them the chance to destroy everything I’d spent all these years in building.’
He paused, then said, in a flat voice, with all the bitterness gone: ‘That’s why, you see, I’ve got to show them that it hasn’t affected me. I’ve got to show them for certain that I’m keeping on.’
I could not help but feel that he meant something different and more tormenting. It was himself in whose sight he needed to be seen unchanged. In his heart a voice was saying: ‘You can’t devote yourself again. You never have. Your enemies are right. You’ve deceived yourself all this time. And now you know it, you can’t begin deceiving yourself again.’
There were to be times – I felt at this moment – when he would want to give up struggling against that voice. There were to be times, darker than now, when he would have to see himself and ask what was to become of him. Yet, in those dark moments, would he – as he was now – be drawing a new strength from his own self-searching, even from his own self-distrust?
After his last remark, both he and I were still eager for what life would bring him. He could still warm himself and everyone round him with his own hope.
Endnotes
[1] This seems to have been quite baseless.
[2] There was no previous reference in the diary to this ‘difficulty’.
Strangers & Brothers Series
Series in broad chronological ‘story’ order (see Synopses below for ‘Series order’)
Dates given refer to first publication dates
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels
1. Time of Hope 1949
2. George Passant (Originally entitled ‘Strangers & Brothers’) 1940
3. The Conscience of the Rich 1958
4. The Light and the Dark 1947
5. The Masters 1951
6. The New Men 1954
7. Homecomings 1956
8. The Affair 1960
9. Corridors of Power 1964
10. The Sleep of Reason 1968
11. Last Things 1970
Synopses (Both Series & ‘Stand-alone’ Titles)
Published by House of Stratus
A. Strangers and Brothers Series (series order)
These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as stand-alone novels
George Passant
In the first of the Strangers and Brothers series Lewis Eliot tells the story of George Passant, a Midland solicitor’s managing clerk and idealist who tries to bring freedom to a group of people in the years 1925 to 1933.
The Light & The Dark
The Light and the Dark is the second in the Strangers and Brothers series. The story is set in Cambridge, but the plot also moves to Monte Carlo, Berlin and Switzerland. Lewis Eliot narrates the career of a childhood friend. Roy Calvert is a brilliant but controversial linguist who is about to be elected to a fellowship.
Time of Hope
The third in the Strangers and Brothers series (although the first in chronological order) and tells the story of Lewis Eliot’s early life. As a child he is faced with his father’s bankruptcy. As a young man, he finds his career at the Bar hindered by a neurotic wife. Separation from her is impossible however.
The Masters
The fourth in the Strangers and Brothers series begins with the dying Master of a Cambridge college. His imminent demise causes intense rivalry and jealousy amongst the other fellows. Former friends become enemies as the election looms.
The New Men
It is the onset of World War II in the fifth in the Strangers and Brothers series. A group of Cambridge scientists are working on atomic fission. But there are consequences for the men who are affected by it. Hiroshima also causes mixed personal reactions.
Homecomings
Homecomings is the sixth in the Strangers and Brothers series and sequel to Time of Hope. This complete story in its own right follows Lewis Eliot’s life through World War II. After his first wife’s death his work at the Ministry assumes a larger role. It is not until his second marriage that Eliot is able to commit himself emotionally.
The Conscience of the Rich
Seventh in the Strangers and Brothers series, this is a novel of conflict exploring the world of the great Anglo-Jewish banking families between the two World Wars. Charles March is heir to one of these families and is beginning to make a name for himself at the Bar. When he wishes to change his way of life and do something useful he is forced into a quarrel with his father, his family and his religion.
The Affair
In the eighth in the Strangers and Brothers series Donald Howard, a young science Fellow is charged with scientific fraud and dismissed from his college. This novel, which became a successful West End play, describes a miscarriage of justice in the same Cambridge college which served as a setting for ‘The Masters’
The Corridors of Power
The corridors and committee rooms of Whitehall are the setting for the ninth in the Strangers and Brothers series. They are also home to the manipulation of political power. Roger Quaife wages his ban-the-bomb campaign from his seat in the Cabinet and his office at the Ministry. The stakes are high as he employs his persuasiveness.
The Sleep Of Reason
The penultimate novel in the Strangers and Brothers series takes Goya‘s theme of monsters that appear in our sleep. The sleep of reason here is embodied in the ghastly murders of children that involve torture and sadism.
Last Things
The last in the Strangers and Brothers series has Sir Lewis Eliot’s heart stop briefly during an operation
. During recovery he passes judgement on his achievements and dreams. Concerns fall from him leaving only ironic tolerance. His son Charles takes up his father’s burdens and like his father, he is involved in the struggles of class and wealth, but he challenges the Establishment, risking his future in political activities.
B. Other Novels
A Coat of Varnish
Humphrey Leigh, retired resident of Belgravia, pays a social visit to an old friend, Lady Ashbrook. She is waiting for her test results, fearing cancer. When Lady Ashbrook gets the all clear she has ten days to enjoy her new lease of life. And then she is found murdered.
Death Under Sail
Roger Mills, a Harley Street specialist, is taking a sailing holiday on the Norfolk Broads. When his six guests find him at the tiller of his yacht with a smile on his face and a gunshot through his heart, all six fall under suspicion in this, C P Snow’s first novel.
In Their Wisdom
Economic storm clouds gather as bad political weather is forecast for the nation. Three elderly peers look on from the sidelines of the House of Lords andwonder if it will mean the end of a certain way of life. Against this background is set a court struggle over a disputed will that escalates into an almighty battle.
The Malcontents
Thomas Freer is a prosperous solicitor who is also the Registrar, responsible for his cathedral’s legal business. His son Stephen is one of a secret group of young men and women known as the core. When Stephen’s group ctivities land them in terrible trouble, no one guesses that the consequences will lead to a death and more.