Snow, C.P. - George Passant (aka Strangers and Brothers).txt Read online

  C. P. Snow

  George Passant

  First published as "Strangers and Brothers" in 1940

  I

  THE TRIUMPH OF GEORGE PASSANT

  ONE

  FIRELIGHT ON A SILVER CIGARETTE CASE

  The fire in our habitual public-house spurted and fell. It was a comfortable fire of early autumn, and I basked beside it, not caring how long I waited. At last Jack came in, bustled by the other tables, sat down at mine, and said: "I'm in trouble, Lewis."

  For an instant I thought he was acting; as he went on, I believed him.

  "I'm finished as far as Calvert goes," he said. "And I can't see my way out."

  "What have you done?"

  "I've done nothing," said Jack. "But this morning I re ceived a gift----"

  "Who from? Who from?"

  "From young Roy."

  I had heard Roy's name often in the past two months. He was a boy of fifteen, the son of the Calvert whom Jack had just mentioned and who owned the local evening paper; Jack worked as a clerk in the newspaper office, and during the school holidays, which had not yet ended, the boy had con trived to get to know him. Jack, in his easy-natured fashion, had lent him books, been ready to talk; and had not dis covered until the last few days that the boy was letting him self be carried in a dream, a romantic dream.

  With a quick gesture Jack felt in his coat pocket and held a cigarette case in front of the fire. "Here we are," he said.

  The firelight shone on the new, polished silver. I held out my hand, took the case, looked at the initials J. C. ( Jack Cotery) in elaborate Gothic letters, felt the solid weight.

  Though Jack and I were each five years older than the boy who had given it, it had cost three times as much as we had ever earned in a week.

  "I wonder how he managed to buy it," I said.

  "His father treats him lavishly," said Jack. "But he must have thrown away every penny----"

  He was holding the case again, watching the reflected beam of firelight with a worried smile. I looked at him: of all our friends, he was the one to whom these things happened. I had noticed often enough how women's eyes followed him. He was ready to return their interest, it is true; yet sometimes He captured it, from women as from Roy, without taking a step himself. He was not handsome; he was not even specially good-looking, in a man's eyes; he was ruddy-faced, with smooth black hair, shortish and powerfully built. His face, his eyes, his whole expression, changed like quicksilver when ever he talked.

  "You haven't seen all," said Jack, and turned the case over.

  On this side there was enamelled a brilliant crest, in gold, red, blue and green; the only quarter I could make out con tained a pattern of azure waves. "He put a chart inside the case to prove these were the arms of the Coterys," Jack went on, and showed me a piece of foolscap, covered with writing in a neat, firm, boyish hand. One paragraph explained that the azure waves "are a punning device, Côte for Cotery, used by a family of Dorset Coterys when given arms in 1607 by James I." I was surprised at the detail, the thoroughness, the genealogical references, the devotion to heraldry as well as to Jack; it must have taken weeks of research.

  "It's quite possibly genuine," said Jack. "The family must have come down in the world, you know. There's still my father's brother, the Chiswick one----"

  I laughed, and he let the fancy drop. He glanced at the chart, folded it, put it carefully away; then he rubbed mist from the case and studied the arms, his eyes harassed and half smiling. "Poor devil!" said Jack. "Poor devil!"

  "You'd better send it back tonight," I said.

  "It's too late," said Jack. "Didn't you hear what I said-- that I'm finished as far as old Calvert goes?"

  "Does he know that Roy's given you a present?"

  "He knows more than that. He happened to get hold of a letter that was coming with it."

  It was not till then that I realized Calvert had already spoken to Jack.

  "What did the letter say?"

  "I don't know. He's never written before. But you can guess, Lewis, you can guess. It horrified Calvert, clearly. And there doesn't seem anything I can do."

  "Did you manage to tell him," I said, "that it was an ab solute surprise to you, that you knew nothing about it?"

  "Do you think that was easy?" said Jack. "Actually, he didn't give me much of a chance. He couldn't keep still for nerves, as a matter of fact. He just said that he'd discovered his son writing me an--indiscreet letter. And he was forced to ask me not to reply and not to see the boy. I didn't mind promising that. But he didn't want to listen to anything I said about Roy. He dashed on to my future in the firm. He said that he'd always expected there would be a good vacancy for me on the production side. Now he realized that promotions had gone too fast, and he would be compelled to slow down.

  So that, though I could stay in my present boy's job for ever, he would advise me in my own interests to be looking round for some other place."

  Jack's face was downcast; we were both sunk in the cul de-sac hopelessness of our age.

  "And to make it clear," Jack added, "he feels obliged to cut off paying my fees at the School."

  The School was our name for the combined Technical Col lege and School of Art which gave at that time, 1925, the only kind of higher education in the town. There Jack had been sent by Calvert to learn printing, and there each week I at tended a couple of lectures on law: lectures given by George Passant, whom I kept thinking of as soon as I knew Jack's trouble to be real.

  "There's nothing immediate to fear," I said. "He can't get rid of you altogether--it would bring too much attention to his son."

  "Who'll worry about me?" said Jack.

  "He can't do it," I insisted. "But what are we to do?"

  "I am lost, Lewis," said Jack.

  Then I mentioned George Passant's name. At once Jack was on his feet. "I ought to have gone round hours ago," he said.

  We walked up the London Road, crossed by the station, took a short cut down an alley towards the noisy street. Fish and chip shops glared and smelt: tramcars rattled past. Jack was more talkative now that he was set on a definite course.

  "What shall I become if Calvert doesn't let me print?" he said. "I used to have some ideas, I used to be a young man of spirit. But when they threaten to stop you, being a printer seems the only possible job in the whole wide world. What else could I become, Lewis?" He saw a policeman shining his lantern into a dark shop window. "Yes," said Jack, "I should like to be a policeman. But then I'm not tall enough. They say you can increase your height if you walk like this----" he held both arms vertically above his head, like Moses on the hill in Rephidim, and walked by my side down the street saying: "I want to be a policeman."

  He stopped short, and looked at me with a rueful, embar rassed smile. I smiled too: more even than he, I was used to the hope and hopelessness, the hopes of twenty, desolately cold half an hour ago, now burning hot. I was used to living on hope. And I too was excited: the Cotery arms on the silver case ceased to be so pathetic, began to go to one's head; the story drifted like wood-smoke through the September eve ning. It was with expectancy, with elation, that, as we turned down a side street, I saw the light of George Passant's sitting room shining through an orange blind.

  We had not known George long. He was an assistant so licitor in the most solid firm in the town: as such, he was a qualified clerk, not a member of the firm, and had taken the extra job of giving evening lectures at the School. There I met him, and then Jack: he soon formed a group round him self. In my own case, he had already exerted himself on my behalf more than anyone I knew.

  Thi
s was the only house in the town open to us at any hour of night. Jack knocked: George came to the door himself.

  "I'm sorry we're bothering you, George," said Jack. "But something's happened----"

  "Come in," said George, "come in."

  His voice was loud and emphatic. He stood just over mid dle height, an inch or two taller than Jack; his shoulders were heavy, he was becoming a little fat, though he was only twenty-six. But it was his head that captured one's attention, his massive forehead and the powerful structure of chin and cheekbone under his full flesh.

  He led the way into his sitting-room. He said: "Wouldn't you like a cup of tea? I can easily make a cup of tea. Perhaps you'd prefer a glass of beer? I'm sure there's some beer some where."

  The invitation was affable and diffident. He began to call us Cotery and Eliot, then corrected himself and used our Christian names. He went clumsily round the room, peering into cupboards, dishevelling his fair hair in surprise when he found nothing. The room was littered with papers; papers on the table and on the floor, a brief-case on the hearth, a pile of books beside an arm-chair. An empty tea-cup stood on a sheet of paper on the mantelpiece, and had left a trail of dark, moist rings. And yet, apart from his débris of work, George had not touched the room; the furniture was all his land lady's; on one wall there remained a text "The Lord God Watcheth Us," and over the mantelpiece a picture of the Relief of Ladysmith.

  At last George shouted, and carried three bottles of beer to the table.

  "Now," said George, sitting back in his arm-chair, "we can get down to it. What is this problem?"

  Jack told the story of Roy and the present. As he had done to me, he kept back this morning's interview with Calvert.

  He put more colour into the story now that he was telling it to George, though: "This boy is Olive's cousin, you realize, George. And that whole family seems to live on its nerves."

  "I don't accept that completely about Olive," said George.

  She was one of our group.

  "Still, I'm very much to blame," said Jack. "I ought to have seen what was happening. It's serious for Roy too, that I didn't. I was very blind."

  Then Jack laid the cigarette case on the table.

  George smiled, but did not examine it, nor pick it up.

  "Well, I'm sorry for the boy," he said. "But he doesn't come inside my province, so there's no action I can take. It would give me considerable pleasure, however, to tell his father that, if he sends a son to one of those curious institu tions called public schools, he has no right to be surprised at the consequences. I should also like to add that people get on best when they're given freedom--particularly freedom from their damned homes, and their damned parents, and their damned lives."

  He simmered down, and spoke to Jack with a warmth that was transparently genuine, open, and curiously shy. "I can't tell him most of the things I should like to. But no one can stop me from telling him a few remarks about you."

  "I didn't intend to involve you, George," said Jack.

  "I don't think you could prevent me," said George, "if it seemed necessary. But it can't be necessary, of course."

  With his usual active optimism, George seized on the sav ing point: it was the point that had puzzled me: Calvert would only raise whispers about his son if he penalized Jack.

  "Unfortunately," said Jack, "he doesn't seem to work that way."

  "What do you mean?"

  Jack described his conversation with Calvert that morning.

  George, flushed and angry, still kept interrupting with his shrewd, lawyer's questions: "It's incredible that he could take that line. Don't you see that he couldn't let this letter get mixed up with your position in the firm?"

  At last Jack complained: "I'm not inventing it for fun, George."

  "I'm sorry," said George. "Well, what did the sunket tell you in the end?"

  George just heard him out: no future in the firm, permis sion to stay in his present job on sufferance, the School course cut off: then George swore. He swore as though the words were fresh, as though the brute physical facts lay in front of his eyes. It takes a great religion to produce one great oath, in the mouths of most men: but not in George's, once in flamed to indignation. When the outburst had spent itself, he said: "It's monstrous. It's so monstrous that even these bell-wethers can't get away with it. I refuse to believe that they can amuse themselves with being unjust and stupid at the same time--and at the expense of people like you."

  "People like me don't strike them as quite so important," said Jack.

  "You will before long. Good God alive, in ten years' time you will have made them realize that they've been standing in the road of their betters." There was a silence, in which George looked at Jack. Then, with an effort, George said: "I expect some of your relations are ready to deal with your pres ent situation. But in case you don't want to call on them, I wonder----"

  "George, as far as help goes just now," Jack replied, "I can't call on a soul in the world."

  "If you feel like that," said George, "I wonder if you'd mind letting me see what I can do? I know that I'm not a very suitable person for the circumstances," he went on quickly.

  "I haven't any influence, of course. And Arthur Morcom and Lewis here always say that I'm not specially tactful in dealing with these people. I think perhaps they exaggerate that: any way, I should try to surmount it in a good cause. But if you can find anyone else more adequate, you obviously ought to rule me out and let them take it up."

  As George stumbled through this awkward speech, Jack was moved; and at the end he looked chastened, almost ashamed of himself.

  "I only came for advice, George," he said.

  "I might not be able to do anything effective," said George.

  "I don't pretend it's easy. But if you feel like letting me 1----"

  "Well, as long as you don't waste too much effort----"

  "If I do it," said George, returning to his loud, cheerful tone, "I shall do it in my own style. All settled?"

  "Thank you, George."

  "Excellent," said George, "excellent."

  He refilled our glasses, drank off his own, settled again in his chair, and said: "I'm very glad you two came round tonight."

  "It was Lewis's idea," said Jack.

  "You were waiting for me to suggest it," I said.

  "'No, no," said Jack. "I tell you, I never have useful ideas about myself. Perhaps that's the trouble with me. I don't possess a Project. All you others manage to get Projects; and if you don't George provides one for you. As with you, Lewis, and your examinations. While I'm the only one left----" he was passing off my gibe, and had got his own back: but even so, he brought off his mock pathos so well that he dis armed me----" I'm the only one left, singing in the cold."

  "We may have to consider that, too." George was chuckling at Jack; then the chuckles began to bubble again inside him, at a thought of his own. "Yes, I was a year younger than you, and I hadn't got a Project either," he said. "I had just been articled to my first firm, the one at Wickham. And one morn ing the junior partner decided to curse me for my manner of life. He kept saying firmly: If ever you want to become a solicitor, you've got to behave like one beforehand. At that age, I was always prepared to consider reasonable suggestions from people with inside knowledge: I was pleased that he'd given me something to aim at. Though I wasn't very clear how a solicitor ought to behave. However, I gave up playing snooker at the pub, and I gave up going in to Ipswich on Saturday nights to inspect the local talent. I put on my best dark suit and I bought a bowler hat and a brief-case. There it is----" George pointed to the hearth. Tears were being forced to his eyes by inner laughter; he wiped them, and went on: "Unfortunately, though I didn't realize it then, these manœuvres seem to have irritated the senior partner. He stood it for a fortnight, then one day he walked behind me to the office. I was just hanging up my hat when he started to curse me. 'I don't know what you're playing at,' he said.

  'It will be time enough to behave like a
solicitor if ever you manage to become one.'"

  George roared with laughter. It was midnight, and soon afterwards we left. Standing in the door, George said, as Jack began to walk down the dark street: "I'll see you to-morrow night. I shall have thought over your business by then."

  TWO

  CONFERENCE AT NIGHT

  The next night George was lecturing at the School. I at tended, and we went out of the room together; Jack was wait ing in the corridor.

  "We go straight to see Olive," said George, bustling kindly to the point. "I've told her to bring news of the Calverts."

  Jack's face lit up: he seemed more uneasy than the night before.

  We went to a café close by the School, on a narrow street off the main London road; this café stayed open all night, chiefly for lorry drivers working between London and the north; it was lit by gas mantles without shades, and smelt of gas, par affin and the steam of tea. The window was opaque with steam, and we could not see Olive until we got inside: but she was there, sitting with Rachel in the corner of the room, behind a table with a linoleum cover.

  "I'm sorry you're being damaged, Jack," Olive said.

  "I expect I shall get used to it," said Jack, with the mis chievous, ardent smile that was first nature to him when he spoke to a pretty woman.

  "I expect you will," said Olive.

  "Come on," said George. "I want to hear your report about your family. I oughtn't to raise false hopes"--he turned to Jack--"I can only think of one way of intervening for you.

  And the only chance of that depends on whether the Calverts have committed themselves."

  We were close together, round the table. George sat at the end; though he was immersed in the struggle, his hearty ap petite went mechanically on; and, while he was speaking intently to Jack, he munched a thick sandwich from which the ham stuck out, and stirred a great cup of tea with a lead spoon.

  "Well then," George asked Olive, "how is your uncle taking it?"

  We looked at her; she smiled. She was wearing a brilliant green dress that gleamed incongruously against the peeling wall. Just by her clothes a stranger could have judged that she was the only one of us born in a secure middle-class home. Secure in money, that is: for her father lived on notoriously bad terms with his brother, Jack's employer; and Olive herself had half-broken away from her own family.