One side of Morcom’s mouth was drawn in.
‘Or that you discouraged Jack Cotery and Eliot from everything I believed and wanted to do? You did it very subtly and carefully. The great George joke, the silly amiable old ass, with his fatuous causes, just preaching nonsense that might have been fresh fifty years ago, and then cuddling one of the girls on the quiet. Fortunately they had too much independence to believe you altogether — but still it left its mark—’
‘Of course not—’ I said.
‘I can give you plenty of proof of that. Principally from Jack’s behaviour.’ George turned on me, then back to Morcom. ‘And when you’d finished on my friends you tried to stop my career. You encouraged Martineau in his madness, you didn’t stop him when he might have been stopped. You let him go ahead with the little plays, blast them to hell. You made suggestions about them as though they were useful. You let him think it was right to allow the firm to go to Eden, and you carefully kept him away from thinking of giving it over to me. Then you made really certain by this business with Eden. I’ll admit you’ve been thorough. That’s about all I will admit for you. It’s the meanest deliberate attempt to sin against the human decencies that I’ve come across so far.’
George stopped suddenly: the shout seemed to leave a noise in the ears when his lips were already still.
‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ said Morcom. ‘It isn’t any good telling you that quite a lot of things happen in the world without any reference to yourself. It’s possible to talk to someone like Martineau about his life without thinking of you for a single instant. But you’re pathologically incapable of realising that. It’s out of your control—’
‘In that case, the sooner we stop pretending to have human intercourse the better. I don’t much like being victimised; I dislike even more being victimised by someone who pretends that I’m not sane.’
‘The only thing I should like to know,’ Morcom said, ‘is why you thought I should flatter you — by all these exertions.’
‘Because we’ve always stood for different things,’ George cried. ‘And you’ve known it all the time. Because I stand for the hopeful things, and you for their opposite. You’ve never forgiven me for that. I’m doing something to create the world I believe in — you’re sterile and you know it. I believe in human nature. You — despise it because you think all human nature is as twisted as your own. I believe in progress, I believe that human happiness ought to be attained and that we are attaining it. You’re bitter because you couldn’t believe in any of those things. The world I want will come and you know it — as for yours, it will be inhabited by people as perverted as yourself.’
Morcom sat with his eyes never leaving George’s, his arms limp at his sides.
‘Good God above, do I wonder you hate me?’ George shouted on. ‘You’ve got everything that I needed to make me any use. You could have done everything — if only you could bear to see someone else’s happiness. As it is, you can only use your gifts against those who show you what you’ve missed. You try to get your satisfaction by injuring people who make you feel ashamed. Well, I hope you’re satisfied now. Until you find another victim.’
20: Two Progresses
THE winter passed. George spent less time with me than formerly; partly because I was working intensively for my final examination in the summer — but also it was now Jack who had become his most confidential friend.
As soon as Eden’s decision was made, George had thrown himself into the interests of the group. Several young men and women from the School had been added to it; George talked of them all more glowingly than ever. On the few occasions I went out to the farm that winter, I felt the change from the group which George first devoted himself to. George and Jack, I know, formed parties there each weekend.
George never visited Eden’s house again, after the Sunday night when we walked back in the rain. I scarcely heard him mention Eden or the firm; and at Eden’s the entire episode of Martineau and George was merely the subject of comfortable reflections.
It was Eden, however, who told me in the early spring that Martineau was making another move, was giving up the agency. He had found some eccentric brotherhood, not attached to any sect, whose members walked over the country preaching and begging their keep. This he was off to join.
‘Ah well,’ said Eden, ‘religion is a terrible thing.’
We heard that Martineau was due to leave early one Saturday morning. I went along to his house that day and outside met George, who said, with a shamefaced smile: ‘I couldn’t very well let him go without saying goodbye.’
We had to ring the bell. Since the house had been transformed, we did not know where Martineau would be sleeping. The bell sounded, emptily, far away; it brought a desolation. At last his housekeeper came, her face was hostile, for she blamed us for the catastrophe.
‘You’ll find him in his old drawing-room,’ she said. ‘And if things had been right you’d never have had cause to look for him at all.’
He had been sleeping in the drawing-room, in one corner. A rough screen where the sofa used to be; in the bend of the room, between the fireplace and the window, where we used to sit on the more intimate Friday nights, a bed protruded, and there was an alarm clock on the chair beside it. The Ingres had been taken down, the walls were bare, there was a close and musty smell.
Martineau was standing by the bed, packing a rucksack.
‘Hallo,’ he cried, ‘so glad you’ve come to see the last appearance. It’s specially nice that you managed to find time, George.’
His laugh was wholehearted and full of enjoyment, utterly free from any sort of sad remembrance of the past. He was wearing an old brown shirt and the grey coat and trousers in which I had last seen him; he had no tie, and he had not shaved for days.
‘Could I possibly help you to pack that?’ said George.
‘I’ve always been better with my hands than with my head,’ said Martineau. ‘But still, George, you have a shot.’
George studied the articles on the bed. There were a few books, an old flannel suit, a sponge bag and a mackintosh.
‘I think the suit obviously goes in first,’ said George, and bent over the bed.
‘This is a change from the old days in the firm,’ said Martineau. ‘You used to do the brainwork, and I tried on the quiet to clean up the scripts you’d been selecting as ashtrays.’
George laughed. He could forget everything except their liking: and so (it surprised me more) could Martineau.
‘How is the firm, by the way?’ asked Martineau.
‘As tolerable as one can reasonably expect,’ said George.
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Martineau indifferently, and went off to talk gaily of his own plans. He was going to walk fifteen miles today, he said, down the road towards London, to meet the others coming from the east.
‘Will there be any chance of seeing you here? On your travels?’ said George.
‘Some time,’ Martineau smiled. ‘You’ll see me when you don’t expect me. I shall pass through some time.’
He went to the door, called ‘Eliz-a-beth,’ as he used to when he wanted more coffee on a Friday night. He ran down the stairs and his voice came to us lilting and cheerfuclass="underline" we heard her sobbing. He returned with a buttonhole in his shirt. When we had left the garden and turned the corner, out of sight of the house, he smiled at us and tossed the buttonhole away.