by C. P. Snow
‘Well, young man,’ said Eden with a stiff, courteous but not over-amiable smile, ‘what can I do for you?’ I replied that above all things I needed the guidance of a man of judgement. And I continued in that vein.
My brashness and spasms of pride with George were not much like me, or at least not like the self that in years to come got on easily with various kinds of men and women. Even in the months between my meetings with George and Eden, I was learning. In casual human contacts, I was already more practised than George, who stayed all his life something like most of us at eighteen. I was much more confident than George that I should get along with Eden or with anyone that I met; and that confidence made me more ready to please, more unashamed about pleasing.
Eden became much less suspicious. He went out of his way to be affable. He did not make up his mind quickly about people, but he was very genial, pleased with himself for being so impartial, satisfied that one of Passant’s friends could – unlike that man Passant – make so favourable an impression. Eden liked being fair. Passant made it so difficult to be fair – it was one of his major sins.
Eden did not promise anything on the spot, as Martineau had done. He told me indulgently enough that I should have to ‘sober down’, whatever career I took up. In a local paper he had noticed a few violent words from a speech of mine. The identical words would have damned George in Eden’s mind, but did not damn me. At first sight he felt he could advise me, as he could never have advised George. ‘Ah well! Young men can’t help making nuisances of themselves,’ he said amiably. ‘As long as you know where to draw the line.’
It would have offended Eden’s sense of decorum to form an impression in haste, or to make a promise without weighing it. He believed in taking his time, in gathering other people’s opinions, in distrusting impulse and first impressions, and in ruminating over his own preliminary judgement. He spoke, so I heard, to Darby and the director. He had a word with my old headmaster. It was a fortnight or more before he sent across to the education office a note asking me if I would make it convenient to call on him.
When I did so, he still took his time. He sat solidly back in his chair. He was satisfied now that the investigation was complete and the ceremony of forming a judgement properly performed. He was satisfied to have me there, on tenterhooks, waiting on his words. ‘I don’t believe in jumping to conclusions, Eliot,’ he said. ‘I’m not clever enough to hurry. But I’ve thought round your position long enough now to feel at home.’ Methodically he filled his pipe. At last he came to the point.
‘Do you know, young man,’ said Eden, ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t make a job of it.’
Unlike Martineau, he made a definite offer. If I wanted to serve my articles as a solicitor, he would accept me on the usual footing, I paying my fee of two hundred and fifty guineas. It was entirely fair: it was exactly as he had treated any other of the articled clerks who had gone through the firm. He explained that he was not making any concessions to partiality or to the fact that I was so poor. ‘If we started that, young man, we should never know when to stop. Pay your way like everyone else, and we shall all be better friends,’ said Eden, with the broad judgement-exuding smile that lapped up the corners of his mouth. But he knew that, when I had paid the fee, I should not have enough to live on. So he was prepared to allow me thirty shillings a week while I served my time. With his usual temperateness he warned me that, before I took articles in the firm, I ought to be reminded that there was not likely to be a future for me there ‘when you become qualified, all being well’. For George Passant was not, so far as Eden knew, likely to move, and the firm did not need another qualified assistant.
I thanked him with triumph, with relief. I said that I ought to think it over, and Eden approved. He had no doubt that I was going to accept. I said that I might have other problems to raise, and Eden again approved. He still had no doubt that I was going to accept.
How much doubt had I myself, that day in Eden’s room? Or back at my desk, under Mr Vesey’s enormous and persecuted eyes, on those spring afternoons, waiting for the day’s release at half past five? There is no doubt that, on the days after Eden’s offer, I often steadied myself with the thought that I need not stand it. I had a safe escape now. I could end the servitude tomorrow. If I did not, it was of my own volition.
I assuaged each morning’s heaviness with the prospect of that escape. Yet I had a subterranean knowledge that I should never take it. The nerves flutter and dither, and make us delay recognizing a choice to ourselves; we honour that process by the title of ‘making up our minds’. But the will knows.
I had rejected George’s proposition the minute it was uttered – and before I set out to work for Martineau’s and for Eden’s help. I wanted that help, but for another reason. I was going – there was at bottom no residue of doubt, however much I might waver on the surface – to choose the wilder gamble, and read for the Bar.
I had not yet admitted the intention to the naked light, even in secret; but it was forcing its way through, flooding me with a sense of champagne-like risk and power. It was hard to defend, which I knew better than all those I should have to argue with, for I felt the prickle of anxiety even before I admitted the intention to myself. If all went perfectly, I should have spent my ‘basic sum’ by the time I took Bar Finals. There was no living to look forward to immediately, nor probably for several years; it meant borrowing money or winning a studentship. It left no margin for any kind of illness or failure. I should have to spend two thirds of the three hundred pounds on becoming admitted to an Inn. If anything went wrong, I had lost that stake altogether, and so had no second chance.
I did not even escape the office. For I should leave myself so little money, after the fees were paid, that my office wages would be needed to pay for food and board. Instead of crossing Bowling Green Street and working alongside of George, I should have to discipline myself to endure the tedium, the hours without end of clerking, Mr Vesey. All my study for the Bar examinations I should have to do at night; and on those examinations my whole future rested.
In favour of the gamble, there was just one thing to say. If my luck held at every point and I came through, there were rewards, not only money, though I wanted that. It gave me a chance, so I thought then, of the paraphernalia of success, luxury and a name and, yes, the admiration of women.
There was nothing more lofty about my ambition at that time, nothing at all. It had none of the complexity or aspiration of a mature man’s ambition – and also none of the moral vanity. Ten years later, and I could not have felt so simply. Yet I made my calculations, I reckoned the odds, I knew they were against me, almost as clear-sightedly as if I had been grown-up.
When I knew, with full lucidity, that the decision was irrevocably taken, I still cherished it to myself for days and weeks.
I was intensely happy, in that spring and summer of my nineteenth year. The days were wet; rain streamed down the office window; I was full of well-being, of a joyful expectancy, now that I knew what I had to do. I was anxious and had some of my first sleepless nights. But it was a happy sleeplessness, so that I looked with expectation on the first light of a summer dawn. Once I got up with the sun and walked the streets that were so familiar to George and me at the beginning of the night. Now in the dawn the road was pallid, the houses smaller, all blank and washed after the enchantment of the dark. I thought of what lay just ahead. There would be some trouble with Eden, which I must surmount, for it was imperative to keep his backing. Perhaps George might not be altogether pleased. I should have to persuade them. That would be the first step.
It was in those happy days that, attuned so that my imagination stirred to the sound of a girl’s name, I first heard the name of Sheila Knight. I was attuned so that an unknown name invited me, as I had never been invited before, attuned because of my own gamble and the well-being which made the blood course through my veins, attuned too because of the amorous climate which lapped round our whole group on those s
ummer evenings. For George’s pleasures could not be long concealed from us at our age, thinking of love, talking of love, swept off our feet by imagined joys. In Jack’s soft voice there came stories of delight, his conquests and adventures and the whispered words of girls. We were at an age when we were deafened by the pounding of our blood. We began to flirt, and that was the first fashion. Jack’s voice murmured the names of girls, girls he had known or whom he was pursuing. I flirted a little with Marion, but it was the unknown that invited me. Sheila’s name was not the first nor only one that plucked at my imagination. But each word about her gave her name a clearer note.
‘She goes about by herself, looking exceedingly glum,’ said Jack. ‘She’s rather beautiful, in a chiselled, soulful way,’ said Jack. ‘She’d be too much trouble for me. It isn’t the pretty ones who are most fun,’ said Jack. ‘I advise you to keep off. She’ll only make you miserable,’ said Jack.
None of the group knew her, though Jack claimed to have spoken to her at the School. It was said that she lived in the country, and came to an art class one night a week.
One warm and cloudy midsummer evening, I had met Jack out of the newspaper office, and we were walking slowly up the London Road. A car drove by close to the pavement, and I had a moment’s sight, blurred and confused, of a young woman’s face, a smile, a wave. The car passed us, and I turned my head, but could see no more. Jack was smiling. He said: ‘Sheila Knight.’
16: Denunciation
For weeks no one knew that, instead of taking articles, I was determined to try reading for the Bar. I delayed breaking the news longer than was decent, even to George, most of all to George. I was apprehensive of his criticisms; I did not want my resolution shaken too early. The facts were harsh: I could face them realistically in secret, but it was different to hear them from another. Also I was uneasy. Could I still keep Eden’s goodwill? Could I secure my own way without loss? I screwed myself up to breaking the news one afternoon in September. I thought I would get it over quickly, tell them all within an hour.
I took the half-day off, incidentally raising Mr Vesey’s suspicions to fever point. I went into the reference library, so as to pass the time before Eden returned from lunch. I meant to tell George first, but not to give myself long. The library was cool, aquarium-like after the bright day outside. Instead of bringing calm, the chill, the smell of books, the familiar smell of that room only made me more uneasy, and I wished more than ever that I had this afternoon behind me.
Just before my appointment with Eden I looked into George’s office and told him what I was going to say. I saw his face become heavy. He said nothing. There was no time for either of us to argue, for we could hear Eden’s deliberate footsteps outside the open door.
Eden settled himself in his armchair. Now that the hesitation was over, now that I was actually in the room to make the best of it, I plunged into placating him. I told him how his support had stimulated and encouraged me. If I was attempting too much, I said with the mixture of deference and cheek that I knew would please him, it was really his fault – for giving me too much support. I liked him more, because I was seeing him with all my nerves alive with excitement – with the excitement that, when plunged into it, I really loved. I saw him with great clarity, from the pleased, reluctant, admonishing smile to the peel of sunburn on the top of his bald head.
He was pleased. There was no doubt about that. But he was too solid a man to have his judgements shaken, to give way all at once, just because he was pleased. He was severe, reflective, minatory, shocked, and yet touched with a sneaking respect. ‘These things will happen,’ he said, putting his fingertips together. ‘Young men will take the bit between their teeth. But I shouldn’t be doing my duty, Eliot, if I didn’t tell you that you were being extremely foolish. I thought you were a bit more level-headed. I’m afraid you’ve been listening to some of your rackety friends.’
I told him that it was my own free choice. He shook his head. He had obstinately decided that it must be Passant’s fault, and the more I protested, the more obstinate he became.
‘Remember that some of your friends have got through their own examinations,’ he said. ‘They may not be the best company for you, even if they seem about the same age. Still, you’ve got to make your own mistakes. I know how you feel about things, Eliot. We’ve all been young once, you know. I can remember when I wanted to throw my cap over the windmill. Nothing venture, nothing win, that’s how you feel, isn’t it? We’ve all felt it, Eliot, we’ve all felt it. But you’ve got to have a bit of sense.’
He was certain that I must have made up my mind in a hurry, and he asked me to promise that I would do nothing irrevocable without thinking it over for another fortnight. If I did not consent to that delay, he would not be prepared to introduce me to an acquaintance at the Bar, whose signature I needed to support me in some of the formalities of getting admitted to an Inn.
‘I’m not sure, young man,’ said Eden, ‘that I oughtn’t to refuse straight out – in your own best interests. In your own best interests, perhaps I should put a spoke in your wheel. But I expect you’ll think better of it anyway, after you’ve cooled your heels for another fortnight.’
In one’s ‘own best interests’ – this was the first time I heard that ominous phrase, which later I heard roll sonorously and self-righteously round college meetings, round committees in Whitehall, round the most eminent of boards, and which meant inevitably that some unfortunate person was to be dished. But Eden had not said it with full conviction. Underneath his admonishing tone, he was still pleased. He felt for me a warm and comfortable patronage, which was not going to be weakened. I left his room, gay, relieved, with my spirits at their highest.
Then, along the corridor, I saw George standing outside his own room, waiting for me.
‘You’d better come out for a cup of tea,’ he said in a tone full of rage and hurt.
The rage I could stand, and in the picture-house café I was denounced as a fool, an incompetent, a half-baked dilettante, an airy-fairy muddler who was too arrogant to keep his feet on the ground. But I was used to his temper, and could let it slide by. That afternoon I was prepared for some hot words, for I had behaved without manners and without consideration, in not disclosing my plans to him until so late.
I had imagined vividly enough for myself what he was shouting in the café, oblivious of the customers sitting by, shouting with the rage I had bargained on and a distress which I had not for a minute expected. The figures of ‘this egregious nonsense’ went exploding all over the café, as George became more outraged. He extracted them from me by angry questions and then crashed them out in his tremendous voice. Two hundred and eight pounds down! At the best, even if I stayed at that ‘wretched boy’s job’ (cried George, rubbing it in brutally), which was ridiculous if I were to stand any chance in the whole insane venture – even if nothing unexpected happened and my luck was perfect, I should be left with eighty pounds. ‘What about your fees as a pupil? In this blasted gentlemanly profession in which you’re so anxious to be a hanger-on, isn’t it obligatory to be rooked and go and sit in some nitwit’s Chambers and pay some sunket a handsome packet for the privilege?’ George, as usual, had his facts right. I wanted another hundred pounds for my pupil’s fees, and support for whatever time it was, a time which would certainly be measured in years, before I began earning. Against that I had my contemptible eighty pounds, and any money I could win in studentships. ‘Which you can’t count on, if you retain any shred of sanity at all, which I’m beginning to doubt. What other possible source of money have you got in the whole wide world?’
‘Only what I can borrow.’
‘How in God’s name do you expect anyone to lend you money? For a piece of sheer fantastic criminal lunacy–’
He and Aunt Milly were, in fact, the only living persons from whom I had any serious hope of borrowing money. When he was first persuading me to become articled as a solicitor, George had, of course, specifically offered to
be my ‘banker’. How he thought of managing it, I could not imagine; for his total income, as I now knew, was under three hundred pounds a year, he had no capital at all, and made an allowance to his parents. Yet he had promised to find a hundred pounds for me and, even that afternoon, he was conscience-stricken at having to take the offer back, As well as being a generous man, George had the strictest regard for his word. That afternoon he was abandoned to anger and distress. He washed his hands of my future, as though he were dismissing it once for all. But even then he felt obliged to say ‘I am sorry that any promise of mine may have helped to encourage you in this piece of lunacy. I took it for granted that you’d realize it was only intended for purposes within the confines of reason. I’m sorry.’
He went away from the café abruptly. I sat alone, troubled, guilty, anxious. I needed someone to confide in. There was a pall of trouble between me and the faces in the streets, as I walked up the London Road, my steps leading me, almost like a sleepwalker, to Marion. I sometimes talked to her about my plans, and she scolded me for not telling her more. Now I found myself walking towards her lodgings. I was voraciously anxious for myself; and mixed with the anxiety (how could I set it right?) I felt sheer guilt – guilt at causing George a disappointment I could not comprehend. I had been to blame; I had been secretive, my secrecy seemed like a denial of friendship and affection. But secrecy could not have wounded George so bitterly.
His emotion had been far more violent than disappointment, it had been furious distress, coming from a depth that I found bafflingly hard to understand. Very few people, it did not need George’s response to teach me, could give one absolutely selfless help. They were obliged to help on their own terms, and were pained when one struggled free. That was the pattern, the eternally unsatisfactory pattern, of help and gratitude. But George’s distress was far more mysterious than that.