‘Were you out on the spree last night, Mr Morcom?’
Then, as he took me into his office, his expression changed.
‘Were you with them last night?’
I nodded.
‘What do they think?’
‘They’ve a good idea what the chances are.’
‘Has George?’ asked Morcom.
‘Yes.’
‘You talked of Jack escaping, the first night this began. Why don’t you suggest it to George?’
I hesitated.
‘It wouldn’t be easy,’ I said.
‘Easy! You of all people talk of it not being easy — when you know what the alternative is.’
‘I know—’
‘But you won’t go to George.’
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘It’s his fault,’ said Morcom. ‘It’s that madman’s fault.’
‘It’s no use blaming anyone now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s too late to talk about George’s fault. Or yours. Or mine for not stopping it,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Morcom.
‘If you had gone back that night and taken care of them, this might never have happened. That night you warned me, and I begged you to go back. If you had only been able to forget your self-respect,’ I said.
My voice had gone harsh like his; he heard me say what he was continually thinking; he was relieved. His face became softened. He said, in a casual, almost light-hearted tone: ‘That wouldn’t have been so easy, either.’ He paused, then said: ‘The only thing is, what’s to be done? There’s still some time.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything you can do,’ I said. ‘They will have to wait for the trial.’
‘You’ll be busy with the case?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re lucky.’ Then he said: ‘I’ve not asked you before. But are you as likely to get them off — as anyone we could find?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘If we could afford to pay.’
‘I ought to have been told that. I’ll give the money—’
‘I’ve thought it out — as dispassionately as I can,’ I said. ‘I don’t think the difference is worth the money. For one reason. Money may be more important afterwards. If we’ve spent every penny—’
‘You mean, if they’re convicted—’
‘We’ve got to be ready,’ I said.
That afternoon, when I was sitting alone in the drawing-room at Eden’s, Daphne visited me. She talked of the previous night.
‘It was rather an orgy, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Of course, you didn’t see it after it really began—’ She mentioned a common acquaintance, and said: ‘Of course, it would have sent her away for good, wouldn’t it? But then she’s “upright”. I can’t help respecting her, you know, when I’m not relapsing like last night.’ Then she said: ‘But I’m being silly, wasting your time. In the middle of this horror. It’s as bad as going mad last night. But that happened because we were in this mess, didn’t it?’
The shrewdness shot through the prattle of her talk, and her eyes, often flirtatious, were steady and sensible. ‘That’s just why I’ve come up to see you now. I’m getting a bit worked up.’
‘Go on.’
‘You’re easy to talk to, aren’t you?’ she said (coquettishness returned for a second; her upper lip puckered). ‘I shan’t be terribly helpful, you know. It’s just to get it off my chest. But anyway, it’s like this. When George first thought of making passes at me he wanted me to know the awful secrets of his life. He was certain that I should be shocked,’ she went on. ‘I oughtn’t to laugh at him, poor dear. He was serious about it. It must have been a struggle. When he decided it was the right thing to do, he went ahead — though he fancied he was taking a risk. He really believed he might lose me.’ She smiled.
‘Well, do you know what he did?’ she said. ‘He insisted on giving me his diary. It’s a staggering document. I expect I enjoyed the pieces he thought I’d mind. But there are some I can’t always laugh away. I’ve brought it along.’ (She had placed a small despatch case on the floor.) ‘I want you to look at it for me—’ She sat on the arm of my chair; the arrangement of the first page, as her finger pointed out an entry, seemed identical with those George himself showed me years ago.
First she made me read a series of passages about the agency; quite soon after they bought it, it seemed that George was troubled about the circulation of the Arrow — ‘it cannot conceivably have reached the figure that Martineau gave me in good faith’. The set of entries went on for several pages: neither of us spoke as I read it.
‘That’s all about that business,’ said Daphne. ‘I don’t know what it means. But I couldn’t rest till you’d seen it. I thought you might need it for the case—’ then she broke off. ‘Will you read some more? While I’m here?’
There was little else directly bearing on the case in the entries Daphne selected. I saw only a few perfunctory references to his job at Eden’s, and little more about the ‘enterprises’ with Jack and Olive. On the whole, I was surprised that they had seemed to matter so little.
Daphne, in fact, had not brought the diary only to ask about the case. I was not even certain what she inferred from the first entries she had pointed out. Sensibly, she had determined to reveal them to me as his lawyer. Whether she thought George guilty, I did not know. But she was obviously affected by other parts of his confessions.
She was deeply fond of him, and in a youthful, shrewd and managing way she was trying to plan their future life. She felt lost, as she read some passages which a more completely experienced woman might have found alien. Actually Daphne, though lively and sensual, was also sentimental and full of conventional dreams. In imagination, she was contriving a happy marriage with George.
I hesitated. Then I thought she had enough natural insight to stand something of the truth. I tried to explain some of the contradictions in his life as honestly as I could. I regretted it, for I hurt her; and she said goodbye, still convinced that she knew him better than I.
She left the entire diary with me, from 1922 to the month before the preliminary inquiries. I went on reading it for hours. To any intimate of George’s, who accepted by habit the strange appearance of his life, it would have been moving. To me, it carried the irretrievability of the past, along with a life close to one’s own in affection and pity — and so far away that it brought a desolation of loneliness.
I looked back for the first reference to the group, and read again the early ‘justification’ which he had shown me that night at the farm, in 1925. There was much more about the School and his friends in that tone, for years afterwards. In 1927, soon after his disappointment in the firm, he was writing:
The family have at last partially got rid of their conception of me as selfish — and he in particular appreciates my care and devotion, in his eagerness to give the world its due. Olive has gone, Mona has just become engaged, many of them have gone: but there are others, there are some closer to me than there have ever been. I find I have been writing of them all this holiday. If anything can be inferred from these expressions of my feelings, I have been useful to these people at the School. There are signs that freedom is life. And three years ago I was groaning inwardly at my distance from my friends. I was watching them from afar.
Then, still explaining to himself the divisions of his emotional life, he returned to the town, and for several weekends in Nottingham and London passed an ‘equinox’ of sensuality.
This randy fit is going on too long. Last night I could not resist taking the train to London. I was inflamed by the vision of one of our prettiest s — f—s, I found my little girl of 1921, older and more dilapidated, but with the same touching curve of the lips.