Over their affairs with money, however, they possessed nothing like these justifications. Even superficially, they had not been accustomed to reason away the conventions. In particular, Olive had been brought up to a strict moral code in money matters — in a circle where openly confessing one’s income was improper and brought a hush into the room. As I told Eden and Getliffe, George, though himself prodigal, had always ‘recognised obligations over money’, and felt a genuine and simple contempt for dishonesty. I remembered in the past hearing him say, after looking through one of Eden’s cases: ‘Bellwethers on the make again! And I’m supposed to see they do it safely.’ Once or twice, years ago, he was shocked and angry when the waitress came up after tea in a café and asked: ‘How many cakes?’ — and Jack looked at her and deliberately undercounted.
And so, as they went on borrowing money on Martineau’s statement, there were times when they winced at their own thoughts.
However, the agency was bought and Jack worked hard to make it a success. It was the best continuous work of his life, and Olive said: ‘It shows what he could have done if he had had the chance. Or a scrap of luck.’ In a small way, it was a remarkable achievement, only possible to a man of unusual personal gifts. He was glad to be doing ‘something solid at last’, Olive said. ‘He kept telling me that.’
George and Olive were overcome with relief as they watched the interest steadily paid off. They were reminded less and less often of what had happened. It had still never been mentioned between the three of them.
After their first perfunctory affair, Olive saw little of Jack. Yet her attitude to him was changing during the months she lived with Arthur. From Arthur she had expected more than their relation ever gave her. If he had been described without her knowing him, she would have thought ‘that’s the man who’ll give me everything I’ve longed for’. While actually she found herself half-pitying and half-despising him, and her imagination began to fill itself with Jack again. It was not, as one might have thought, Jack the adept lover that she missed. As a matter of fact, she was excitable in love, and, perhaps as a consequence, she did not feel for either Jack or Arthur the kind of exclusive passion which can overwhelm less nervous temperaments. She missed something different. For now she realised or imagined that in Jack she had found what she would never have believed: someone who satisfied two needs of her nature: someone who made her feel utterly submissive and dependent, and yet whom — she thought this less consciously, but it helped to fill her with a glow of anticipation — she could control. She had seen what he could do; she was quite realistic about his character. And yet, he was the only man she had ever known who could imbue her with passionate respect.
In the end she went to Jack. For a long time he would not ‘accept her terms’, as they both told me. It was on this point that Jack had been provoked to his outburst today. She had tried, not once but several times, to make him live on her. He had to defend himself there: his romantic attitude represented his one streak of aspiration, his one ‘spiritual attempt’, and was precious in his own eyes on that account.
Meanwhile, George had given way to Jack’s influence and had become engrossed in Daphne; in the autumn of 1930 they all wanted to buy the farm. The ‘scares’ deeply affected George, and the scene recounted by Iris Ward took place; but, although at that gathering Jack spoke as if frightened of a scandal himself, he probably only acted the part to play on George’s fears. Himself, he wanted the farm as another business venture, and this was a way to bring George in. He was also exercising his power over George for its own sake.
When George said that he did not propose to get on the wrong side of the law, he was referring to the agency and half-excusing the way it had developed. But the remark bore for himself, and Jack and Olive, a deeper significance. He meant that, if they adopted Jack’s suggestions, they would be acting with full knowledge from the beginning. Each would be going into fraud with his eyes open and knowing the others were aware of it.
From the moment that remark was made, they all three knew this business could not be done like the other. Iris Ward’s evidence suggested that they decided to proceed the same night. That must have been a mistaken impression. George said the words when she remembered, but she did not realise how violently he would retract them the next day.
For weeks Jack kept the fear of scandal in front of him — and all the time suggested that he knew George’s objections were sham fighting. He said that he knew George wanted the farm for his own pleasures. He assumed in Olive’s presence that George felt no deeper objections than he felt himself. He often took the line that they were in complete agreement.
Olive said: ‘I made myself argue for George. But I began to see him just as he looked this afternoon.’ (She meant, when he answered Porson’s question on why he was willing to give up the group.) ‘I knew Jack was the better man. I knew I should always think that.’
This was the time when she tried most strenuously to finance and marry Jack. She found him obstinate. From her account, she went through a mood of complete mistrustfulness of her own intentions. ‘I knew there had been sharp practice over the agency, so I told myself I was saving him from trying some more. But it wasn’t that. If he had been trying the most creditable object in the world, I should have wanted to buy him out just then. I didn’t want him to get on top of the world — and then marry me on his own terms.’ Uncertain of herself, she withdrew her opposition to the farm scheme. Then George gave way.
That night, George said, apathetically after the bitter arguments: ‘We may as well follow your plan, I suppose.’ As soon as he spoke, they were all three plunged for hours into an extraordinary sense of intimacy. They felt exhausted, relieved, and full of complete understanding. They made schemes for Jack to bring in the ‘victims’. They discussed the methods by which they could alter the farm’s record of visitors. They laughed, ‘as though it were an old joke’, about the way they had borrowed money for the agency. ‘I never felt three people so close together — before or since,’ said Olive. ‘We forgot we were separate people.’
The mood of that night did not visit them again. They went ahead with the plans, but for days and months their relations were shifting and suspicious. At times, in those days, Olive was overtaken by ‘morbid waves’ of dislike for Jack. She repeated to herself that she had always admired George, and that he was now not much to blame. George did not once try to withdraw from the arrangement; but he broke into violent personal quarrels with Jack. ‘I insist on being treated with respect,’ he complained to Olive one night. He needed that she herself should behave towards him as she had done in earlier days.
They did not take long to gather in their money. Jack found most of the investors, but he never settled down to manage the farm. He treated it differently from the agency. He did not make the same effort towards an honest business: he was thinking of extending their hostels into a chain and raising more capital. With a mixture of triumph and pity, he used to talk to George of the ‘bigger schemes ahead’.
Now — with the admitted fraud behind them — their relations advanced to the state which I had noticed during the trial. George felt himself undermined and despised, half with his own consent. He obtained moments of more complete naturalness in Jack’s company than anywhere else. But much of his nature was driven to protest. As in his cross-examination, he broke out in private and claimed his predominance. It seemed possible that he would be able to cut away from Jack in the future. Since there was no affection left on George’s side, I could imagine that after the trial he might suddenly put Jack out of his mind.