The Conscience of the Rich (21 page)

I mentioned that I had never seen one. Katherine was just going to show me theirs, but Francis said: ‘I think Mr L would be shocked – even though it’s Lewis.’

‘You mean you’d be shocked yourself,’ said Katherine, but slipped the papers into the envelope again.

It was nearly midnight, and Margaret rose to go.

As she said goodbye, she noticed that I was staying. Her bright eyes looked keenly, uncomfortably round, worried because there was something wrong, self-conscious because she had been in the way.

We heard the butler taking her across the hall.

‘What’s the matter?’ said Charles, the moment the door clanged. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Is anything wrong with Sheila?’ said Katherine.

‘It’s nothing like that,’ I said. I told the story.

Katherine cried: ‘Will he bring it out in the next three weeks? Before we’re married?’

‘No one knows,’ I said. ‘In any case, we may all be taking it too seriously–’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Charles. ‘Herbert Getliffe is right, it’s the sort of affair the family wouldn’t like. You mustn’t worry,’ he said to Katherine. ‘It ought to be possible to stop Porson yet.’

‘That must be tried,’ said Francis. ‘There’s plenty to do. We’ll break the jobs down in a minute.’

Suddenly he had taken charge. He had the decision, the capacity for action, of a highly strung man who had been able to master his nerves. It was easy at that instant to understand the influence he had had on Charles when they were undergraduates, with Francis two years older.

He spoke straight to Katherine as though they were alone.

‘The first thing is, we must prepare for the worst. We’ve got to assume that he’ll act on it. It’s better to assume that right away. If he does, we shan’t let the family make any difference.’

‘That’s easier said than done,’ said Katherine. ‘But – no, we shan’t.’

‘Good work,’ said Francis, and took her hand. ‘Now let’s get down to it. Lewis, tell us the practical steps Porson can take. If he wants to make as much fuss as possible. We want all the details you can give us.’

Sharply he asked me: could Porson start anything more damaging than a parliamentary question? How long did it take to get a parliamentary question asked? Could it be delayed? Could we find out the moment it began to pass through the department?

Francis arranged that on the next day I should try to see Porson. Charles would see Albert Hart, who might have an acquaintance in the department. Francis himself would speak to his brother.

That settled, Francis looked at Katherine, and said with a smile, tart and yet distressed:

‘I’m sorry that my brother should be responsible for this. It isn’t altogether his fault. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been listening to his latest manoeuvre. He’s got too much energy for one man. That’s what has made him a success.’

He had just surprised me by being more effective than any of us. Now he surprised me again – by showing something he had never shown before, his true relation to his half-brother.

Occasionally he had not been able to disguise his shame and anger at one of Herbert’s tricks: but he had usually spoken of him very much as Charles used to speak, with amusement at his exploits, with indifference, with humorous disapproval. His apology to Katherine had torn that cover aside. Now we saw the affection, the indulgent, irritated, and above all admiring affection, which a man like Herbert Getliffe so often inspires in his nearest circle; so that Herbert’s children, for example, would come to worship him and make his extravaganzas into a romance. That was true even of Francis, so responsible and upright.

Francis soon controlled his smile, so that the distress was no longer visible. His expression became commanding and active.

‘It’s clear what must be done,’ he said. ‘I think it’s all set. You’ll do what you can with Porson, Lewis? I don’t like to involve you in this business, but if it can be stopped it would be convenient.’

‘It probably can be stopped,’ said Charles. He was trying to reassure Katherine on a different plane from Francis’. ‘I’ll see Ann first thing tomorrow. She may know more about Porson. And there is something I might be able to say to the family myself.’

From the night of Getliffe’s warning, there were nineteen days before the wedding. On the first of them I could not find Ronald Porson, but within forty-eight hours of the news from Getliffe I had managed to have a long talk with him. I was able to assure Katherine that there did not seem much to fear.

Since we met at the coming-out dance, I had got on well with Porson. He was boastful, violent, uncontrolled; but he had the wild generosity one often finds in misfit lives, and I was the only one of his new circle who was still struggling. With me he could advise, help, and patronize to his heart’s content. And with me he could stick a flower in his buttonhole, swing his stick, and lead the way to a shop girl who had taken his fancy: he was a man at ease only with women beneath him in the social scale.

Ann had punctured his sexual vanity, as was so easy to do. He had talked to me about her with violent resentment and with love. He was more easily given to warm hate than anyone I knew.

So I did not dare ask him to call off his attack on Getliffe in order not to risk disturbing Katherine’s marriage. He was capable of such inordinate good nature that he might have agreed on the spot, even for a girl he scarcely knew; but on the other hand, because she was connected with Charles and Ann, he might have burst out against them all. Instead I felt it was safe to talk only of Herbert Getliffe and of what Porson was now planning.

To my surprise he was very little interested: he seemed to have given up the idea of a parliamentary question, if he had ever entertained it. He mentioned Ann affectionately, and I suspected she had gone to see him the day before. He was full of his scheme for going on to the midland circuit.

For some reason or other his anger had burned itself out. So I told Katherine, and Charles agreed that there seemed no danger from him. He had heard something more about Ronald, also reassuring, from Ann, though exactly what I did not learn.

For a day or two there seemed nothing to worry over. Katherine had to show Francis off to some of her relations, and recaptured the fun of being engaged, which, since Mr March first came round, she had been revelling in.

Then, though Ronald Porson made no move, rumours spread through the Marches. One reached Charles; Katherine heard others hinted at. It was known that the Getliffe brothers had been discussed on the past Friday night, when Mr March happened to be away. No one was sure how the rumours started; but it became clear that Sir Philip knew more about Herbert Getliffe than anyone in the family did, and had described him with caustic contempt.

Both Charles and Katherine accepted that without question. Philip had his code of integrity. It was a worldly code, but a strict one. He did not forgive an offence against it. He was indignant that Herbert Getliffe should have laid himself open to suspicion, whether the suspicion was justified or not.

All the family were impressed by his indignation. Charles and Katherine were told by several of their cousins to expect him to visit Mr March. Katherine waited in anxiety. Night after night she could not get to sleep, and Charles played billiards with her at Bryanston Square. For three mornings running, Mr March grumbled at them; then he suddenly stopped, the day after Philip’s visit.

Philip called at Bryanston Square on a Tuesday afternoon: the wedding was fixed for ten days ahead. He went into Mr March’s study, and they were there alone for a couple of hours. On his way out, Philip looked into the drawing-room, said good afternoon to Charles and Katherine, but would not stay for tea and did not refer once to seeing her at her wedding.

When Philip left, they waited for Mr March; they expected him to break out immediately about what he proposed to do. But he did not come near them all the evening: the butler said that he was still in the study: at dinner he spoke little to them, though he made one remark about ‘a visit from my brother about your regrettable connections’.

When Katherine tried to use the opening, he said bad temperedly: ‘I have been persecuted enough for one day. It is typical of my family that when they wish to make representations to me, they select the only relative whom I have ever respected.’

By the time I arrived for tea the next day, Charles had already heard, from various members of the family, versions of the scene between Mr March and Philip; the versions differed a good deal, but contained a similar core. They all agreed that Mr March had put up a resistance so strong that it surprised the family. He had made no attempt to challenge the facts about Herbert Getliffe, but protested, with extreme irritability, that ‘though I refuse to defend my daughter’s unfortunate choice, I have no intention of penalizing the man because of the sharp practice of his half-brother’. According to one account, he had expressed his own liking and trust for Francis; and certainly, with his accustomed practicality, he had said that it was far too late to intervene now. ‘If you had wanted me to refuse to recognize the marriage, you should have communicated your opinion in decent time.’

It sounded final. Charles, piecing together the stories, was relieved, but he was not quite reassured: even less so was Katherine. Mr March had brazened matters out, as though he were ready to defy the family. But his mood since had been sombre, not defiant; and they knew he was hurt, more than by the family’s disapproval which Philip represented, by his feeling for Philip himself.

They knew the depth of his feeling. Warm-hearted as he was, yet with no intimate friends outside the family, this was the strongest of his human bonds, after his love for his children. When he had spoken the night before of ‘the only relative whom I have ever respected’, he was trying to mask, and at the same time relieve, his sadness. He made it sound like an outburst of ill-temper, an exaggerated phrase; but it was really a cry of pain.

So Charles and Katherine kept coming back to Philip’s effect on Mr March. It was not till after tea that Charles said: ‘It’s possible that I may be able to help with Uncle Philip.’ He asked me to take Katherine out for the evening: he would see Mr March, and persuade him to invite Philip for dinner.

Katherine looked puzzled as he made these plans. Charles said: ‘It may help you. You see, Ann has promised to marry me. I think I ought to tell them at once.’

‘Did you expect to be able to tell them this?’ Katherine burst out. ‘You said something – you remember – the night Lewis brought the news?’

Charles did not reply, but said: ‘It may smooth things over with Uncle Philip.’

‘Of course it will,’ said Katherine, suddenly full of hope. ‘It will put Mr L right with the family. Your making a perfectly respectable marriage. And he ought to be glad about it himself.’

Charles looked across at me.

‘Of course, he ought to be glad about it,’ Katherine went on. ‘I know he thinks she’s got too much influence over you. But she’s everything he could possibly wish, isn’t she? He likes her, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘Yes. In any case, he ought to be told at once.’

Then he got up from his chair, and added in a tone now vigorous and eager: ‘I want to tell him tonight.’

Charles had become impatient. He scarcely had time to listen to our congratulations. He asked me again to take Katherine away for the evening, and before we were out of the house he had entered Mr March’s study.

It was pouring with rain, and we went by taxi to our restaurant, and even then got wet as we crossed the pavement. But Katherine, without taking off her coat, went straight to the telephone to ring up Francis at Cambridge. In a few minutes she returned, her eyes shining, her hair still damp.

She was anxious, but her capacity for enjoyment was so great that it carried both of us along. In her bizarrely sheltered life, she had never dined out with a man alone, except Francis. She was interested in everything, the decoration of the restaurant, the relations between the pairs of people dining, my choice of food. It was her own sort of first-hand interest, as though no one had ever been out to dinner before.

With the same zest, she kept returning to the news Charles was at that moment telling Mr March. ‘Lewis, when did he propose? It must have been what he hinted at that night, don’t you agree? That was a week ago – don’t you admit he’s had it up his sleeve ever since?’

She chuckled fondly. Then she asked me: ‘Lewis, do you think she’ll make him happy?’

I told her what I thought: they would be happier together than either with anyone else. She was not satisfied. Did that mean I had my doubts? I said that Charles had been luckier than he ever expected. Katherine asked if Ann was not too complicated. I said that I guessed that in love she was quite simple.

Katherine broke out: ‘If she makes him happy then everything is perfect. Lewis, you’ve just said that he never expected to be so lucky. What I am positive about is that he never expected a wife who would please the family. Don’t you agree that’s the astonishing part of it? That’s why I’m fantastically hopeful tonight. I don’t pretend that Mr L and Uncle Philip will think she’s a tremendous catch. She doesn’t come from our group of families, and she’s only moderately rich. But they’ll have to admit that she passes. After all, most of Mr L’s nephews have done worse for themselves. And I don’t think it will be counted against her that she’s very pretty. She’s been admired in the family already.’

I took her to a theatre, so that we should get back to Bryanston Square late enough for Charles to be waiting for us. On the way back her anxiety recurred, but Charles met us in the hall and his smile dispelled it.

‘I’m pretty certain that all is well,’ he said in a low voice. She kissed him. He stopped her talking there, and we went into the drawing-room.

‘I’m pretty certain all is well,’ he repeated. ‘You mustn’t think it’s due to me. It would have come all right anyhow – don’t you really believe that yourself?’

When she questioned him, he admitted that Philip had been pleased with the news. There had been considerable talk about the Getliffes and Porson. Mr March and Philip had parted on good terms.