‘I’ve sometimes thought,’ said Eden, ‘that the greatest single difference between our generation and theirs is the way we look at money. It doesn’t mean anything like the same as it did when we were starting. You can’t altogether blame them, when you look at the world that’s coming.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said, ‘of two of them at least. George Passant always had strict views about financial honesty, though he throws his own money about. And Olive — she would be perfectly sensible and orthodox about it.’
‘I’ve generally found that people who are loose morally — are loose the other way too,’ said Eden.
‘You’re meaning Cotery was the centre of the piece?’ Getliffe said to me.
‘I’ve always rather taken to him,’ Eden put in. ‘He’s a bit weak, that’s all. He’s the sort of man who’d have done well in different company. Somehow I can’t see him just sweeping the other two along.’
‘Can you, L S?’ Getliffe said.
‘As for Passant,’ Eden went on, ‘you’ve always had too high an opinion of him, you know. As you get older, you’ll lose your illusions about human nature. I dare say he did have strict views about financial honesty — when people he disliked were making the money.’
‘I believe,’ I said, ‘that he’s been as ashamed of the money part as you would have been yourself.’
‘I must say,’ said Getliffe, ‘that it makes more sense if you take our host’s line. It looks as though Passant went in up to the neck right at the beginning. He had no sooner talked to this man Martineau than he was ready to cook his figures. It doesn’t leave you much to stand on, L S.’
I told him, as I had done before, that I believed George’s own account; somehow Martineau had let him take away the idea of a large circulation. We had already arranged for him to press this story of George’s when Martineau gave evidence. At first Getliffe had welcomed it as a glimmer of hope: tonight he did not pretend to accept it.
‘There’s only one chance of excusing them that I’ve been able to believe in,’ said Eden. ‘That is, Martineau may have been vague when Passant approached him. You must remember he was slightly eccentric at the time. You’ll see for yourself soon. You’ll find him a very likeable fellow, of course. But, you know, I’ve been trying to keep that doubt in their favour — and, between ourselves, I can’t credit it for a minute. Martineau was always a bit queer — but he was the sharpest man on money matters I ever knew. It’s very peculiar, but there — there’s nowt as odd as fowk. I don’t believe he had it in him not to know exactly what the paper was doing — even if he was going to give it away.’
‘And if he was vague — you can’t really console yourself with that,’ said Getliffe. ‘There’s too much difference altogether. Passant would have to misunderstand on purpose.’
For a time they talked about the farm. ‘If I’d been Porson, I should have given us more of that little business. Just our friends raising money, that’s all,’ said Getliffe.
Just before ten, I went up to my room. I heard Martineau being received below a few minutes afterwards. Getliffe had told me to be ready to join the interview; nearly an hour passed, but they did not send for me. At last footsteps sounded on the stairs. I opened my door, and from below heard Eden saying: ‘Goodbye, Howard. We shall see you tomorrow, then.’
I went back into my room, and walked up and down, unable to keep still. On his way to bed, Getliffe looked in.
‘It wasn’t worthwhile bringing you down. I didn’t get anywhere,’ he said. He looked jaded and downcast.
‘What happened?’
‘I couldn’t get anything out of him.’
‘Did you tell him Passant’s story? Did you let him see that some of us believe it?’
‘I went as far as anyone could,’ said Getliffe.
‘Shall I see him?’
‘I told him you’d satisfied yourself about Passant’s version. I tried to make him believe I had too. But’ — Getliffe’s voice was tired — ‘he simply didn’t seem interested. He didn’t remember it very well. It was all hazy. He couldn’t have told Passant anything but the real figures. Even though he didn’t have any recollection of it now.’
‘You mean, he’s going to deny Passant’s story?’
‘As near as makes no matter,’ said Getliffe. ‘All I can do is try to make him say that he’s forgotten.’ He added: ‘I never thought Passant’s side of it would hold water for a minute.’
35: The Park Revisited
AFTER Getliffe left me, I tried to read. Then I heard the front door bell ring below: it was just before midnight. There was a long delay: the bell rang again. A maid scampered down the stairs. In a moment a heavy tread ascended towards my door. George came in.
‘Has Martineau been?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘I didn’t meet him.’
‘Why not?’
‘He saw Getliffe,’ I said. ‘Getliffe couldn’t get anything out of him. It seems — unpromising.’
‘I must see him tonight,’ said George. ‘I should like you to come too.’
It was the first time George had visited me since the inquiries began. For weeks before the trial he had scarcely left his lodgings. Now his angry questions seemed like life stirring in him again — but a frightening, persecuted life. As we walked from Eden’s house into the town, he said twice: ‘I tell you I must see him tonight.’ He said it with an intensity such as I had never heard from him before.
Since the preliminary inquiries he had shown only rare moments of anything like open fear. Instead, he had been sunk into the apathetic despair which many of us had noticed. For much of the time, he was shut away from any other person. He had been living with his own thoughts; often with reveries of the past, the meetings of the group at the farm; ‘justifications’ still came to his mind, and even sensual memories. In his thoughts he sometimes did not escape quite trivial shames, of ‘looking a fool’ to himself.
But tonight he could no longer look inwards. His thoughts had broken open, and exposed him to nothing but fear.
George made for Martineau’s old house. There was a light in what used to be the drawing-room: the housekeeper opened the door.
‘I want to see Mr Martineau,’ said George.
‘He’s not in yet. I’m waiting up for him,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid that it’s essential for us to see him tonight,’ said George. ‘I shall have to wait.’
Then she recognised him. She had not seen him since the morning we came to bid Martineau goodbye.
‘It’s you,’ she said. ‘When I heard of your goings-on, I said that I always knew you’d driven him away.’
‘I shall have to wait,’ said George.
She kept her hand on the latch. She would not ask him into the drawing-room. ‘I’m alone,’ she said, ‘and until he tells me, I can please myself who I let in—’
We argued; I tried to calm her, but she had brooded on losing Martineau all these years; she took her farcical revenge, and we had to wait outside in the raw night.
We walked up and down the end of the New Walk. From the park we could see the gate of Martineau’s and the light in the drawing-room, just as we had done that night of Jack’s confession.
George, his eyes never leaving the path to the house, began to talk. He had heard, not many minutes after Eden, of the intention to dismiss him from the School. It had leaked out through an acquaintance on the staff; his friends at the School already knew. Then I told him what Eden had said about his position in the firm. He hardly listened.
‘You might as well see something. Another sheet of paper,’ he said.
I had to light a match to read it. As the flame smoked, I thought of the other sheet of paper, the bill of the little plays which Jack had produced beside these trees. But he did not mean that. He meant the sheet of paper on which he had written down his statement on the circulation — the sheet of paper which lay before the court.