Olive had already shown a similar change of feeling towards George. Or rather, her cold and contemptuous words tonight indicated openly something which had been latent for long. She already felt it that orgiastic night after they had been committed for triaclass="underline" when, with a gesture that was disturbing to watch, she went to his side as he lay drunk on the sofa. She was thrusting her loyal comradeship in our faces — insisting on it, as one insists on a state which has irrecoverably passed. Just as George himself had most insisted on his devotion to his protégés when, in its true form, it was already dead.
During the first days of the fraud, when Olive felt repelled by Jack, she tried to restore her former admiration and half-dependence on George. But that had gone; and when she could not help still loving and respecting Jack, she transferred to George a good deal of hate and blame. He should have stopped it all. If he had been equal to his responsibilities, this would never have happened. He had made great pretensions to guide her life and Jack’s, and he had proved himself to be unavailing and rotten. When she compared him with Jack, frank and spontaneous despite all they were doing, she felt that the one quality which she once admired in George now seemed only a sham. The aspirations which he still talked of appeared to her, as they did to Jack, simply a piece of self-deceit. She had no more use for him.
While Getliffe prepared his speech in his room close by, I defended George against her. This night of all nights, I had to defend him, who had lost the most, against those who had helped to bring him where he was. She was not moved by his fall. At last I said, angry and desolated, ‘Whatever happens, Jack won’t be much harmed. But George — he will never be able to endure looking back to what he once was. Do you remember telling Roy one afternoon years ago — “he is worth twenty Jack Coterys”? Even if this was inevitable, I believe what you said then. Do you think that such a man will forget this afternoon?’
‘You’re being sentimental,’ she said, and was not even interested. She now thought only of her future with Jack. She realised that, if they got off, he would not be much scarred. If they could move to another town, he would soon put it all behind him. She knew he would become restless with ideas again. Left to himself, he might in time break the law in some similar fashion. She would keep him from that, now.
He would have to marry her. His gratitude and immediate respect for her — they would soon disappear. She talked about the prospect, forcing herself to sound matter-of-fact. She knew that she desired it. In a way, she believed that the life she wanted was only just beginning.
41: Getliffe’s Speech
GETLIFFE’S final speech, which lasted for two hours on Saturday morning, surprised us all. It was in his usual style, spasmodic, still bearing the appearance of nervousness, interjected with jerky asides, ill at ease and yet familiar; he was showing all the touch which made men comfortable with him. He was showing also the fresh enjoyment which seldom left him when he was on his feet in court.
But there was another note which made many of us feel that he was deeply moved. For those, like Eden and myself, who had been close to him through the week, there could be no doubt that something had affected him personally; and as we heard him reiterate a phrase — ‘the way in which Mr Passant’s freedom has worked out’ — we knew at last what it was. He kept using these words, slurring them in his quick voice. Last night, we had heard him promise ‘to pull something out of the bag’. We knew that he had chosen this line to divert the jury’s prejudice. Yet — I was certain — it was not only as an advocate he was speaking. I had never seen him so possessed by seriousness in court.
He began, in his simple, emphatic, salesman’s way, hammering home the division of the case to the jury. The three of them were being tried for a financial offence, and, on the other hand, their manner of life was being used against them. ‘First of all,’ said Getliffe, ‘I’m going to put the financial business out of our way.’ He went over the transactions again, quickly, full of impatient liveliness, once or twice forgetting a figure; he described the agency and came to George’s buying it from Martineau. ‘A lot of this is dull stuff to you and me,’ Getliffe smiled at the jury, ‘but about that incident we had what I at any rate found an unforgettable experience. I mean, the evidence of Mr Martineau. Now we have all knocked about the world. We know that there are reasons why we’re all capable of telling lies and even giving false evidence in a court of law. We all know that, though sometimes we pretend we don’t. I’m going to admit to you now that some of the witnesses for the defence, in this case, have had reasons which would explain their telling lies. You would know that even if I hadn’t told you. You’re able to judge for yourselves. But in Mr Martineau we had someone — I think more than any witness I’ve ever had the privilege of calling — who is completely removed from all the pettiness that we are ashamed of and that we never manage to sweep out of our lives. You can’t imagine Mr Martineau lying to us. You heard all about his story, didn’t you? He’s done something that most of us, if we are ordinary, decent, sinful men’ — he laughed again — ‘with one foot in the mud and one eye on the stars — have thought of at least once in our lives. That is, just cutting away from it all and trying to live the things we think we believe. Of course, we never manage it, you and I. It isn’t our line of business. I’m not sure it would be a good thing for the world if we could. But that isn’t to prevent us recognising something beyond us when we do see it — in a life like Mr Martineau’s, for instance. I don’t mind saying — whatever you think of me — that there’s something saintly about a life like his. Renouncing, deliberately renouncing, all the things you and I worry about from the time we are young men until we die. I’m not going to persuade you that his evidence is true. It would be insulting you and me and all we hope for if it wasn’t true.’
Some thought that this was an example of the craft, apparently naïve but really subtle, which made him, for all his deficiencies, a success at his profession. But they had not heard his confidence on the night of Martineau’s examination. If this was subtle, it was all instinctive. He believed what he was saying; he did not need to persuade himself.
He spent a long time over the details of the agency and the farm. Martineau’s evidence, he repeated again and again, acquitted them on the first. On the second — this was far vaguer than the agency; if it had not been for ‘that curious definite figure of the circulation’, then the second charge could never have been brought. He dealt with the figures of the farm, sometimes wrapping them round and complicating them.
All this, both the complication and the air of authority, was not much different from an ordinary defence. It was done with greater life and was less well ordered than most speeches at the end of such a case; but, if he had finished at that point, he would have done all that was expected of him. Instead, he began his last appeal, and for a quarter of an hour we listened in astonishment.
‘I submit that you would never think of convicting these three on the evidence that has been put forward, neither you nor I would think they were guilty for a moment — if it were not for something else we have all had in our minds this week. I mean, the way Mr Passant’s freedom has worked out. That is, you’ve heard of some people who have been breaking a good many of the laws that are important to decent men. I don’t mean the laws of this country, I mean the laws which lie behind our ordinary family way of life. I won’t try to conceal it from you. They haven’t shown any shame. I don’t know whether it’s to their credit that they haven’t. They have been living what some would call “a free life”. Well, that’s bound to prejudice them in your eyes, in the eyes of anyone older who doesn’t believe a thing is good just because it is new. I don’t mind confessing that it upset me when I discovered the pleasures they took for granted — as though there was nothing else for them to do. I think — I’m positive we think alike — that they are all three people of gifts. But chiefly I want to say something about Mr Passant, because I think we all realise that he has been the leader. He is the one who set off with this idea of freedom. It’s his influence that I’m going to try to explain.