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

by Unknown

  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 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."

  FORTY-FOUR

  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 at 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 good-bye 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, good-bye, 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 good-bye. 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 them 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 try his hand 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 the 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 respectabilized 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 realize 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 and 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 and 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 then 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 Lave 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 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 transaction 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. I didn't expect to find everything I wanted in one person then, did I? Still, I should have married now without that; you can understand that I should 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 a sensualist. 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, he would again--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.

  The End