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Authors: C. P. Snow
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the fall in the value of money, were to seem tiny within thirty years.) Of that I allow £55 to my father and mother. I’m also insured in their interest. I think if I decreased the £55 a bit, and added to the insurance, they oughtn’t to be much upset. And then I could probably raise a fair sum from the bank on the policy – but I warn you, it’s a matter of pure business. There may be difficulties.’
Neither Jack nor I fully understood the strange nature of George’s ‘finances’. But Jack was moved so that he did not recover his ready, flattering tongue until we got up to catch our train. Then he said: ‘George, I thought we set out tonight to celebrate a triumph.’
‘It was a triumph,’ said George. ‘I shall always insist that we won at that meeting.’
7: Argument Under the Gaslight
IT took some days for Jack to settle what he wanted to do (from that night at Nottingham, he never doubted that George would find the money): and it took a little longer to persuade George of it.
Those were still the days of the small-scale wireless business. An acquaintance of ours had just started one; Jack had his imagination caught. He expounded what he could make of it – and I thought how much he liked the touch of anything modern. He would have been a contemporary man in any age. But he was inventive, he was shrewd, he had a flair for advertisement; he persuaded us all except George.
George did not like it. He would have preferred to try to article Jack to Eden & Martineau. He asked Morcom and me for our opinions. We gave practically the same answer. Making Jack a solicitor would mean a crippling expense for George; and we could not see Jack settling down to a profession if he started unwillingly. His choice was far more likely to come off.
At last George gave way. Then, though Jack, as I say, never doubted that the money would be found, George faced a last obstacle; he had to tell his father and mother that he was lessening his immediate help to them.
For many men, it would have been easy. He could have equivocated; after all, the insurance provided for their future, and he had been making an extravagantly large contribution. But he never thought of evading the truth. He dreaded telling it, for he knew how it would be taken; their family relations were passionately close. But tell it he did, without any cover, three days after our visit to Nottingham.
A week later, when he took me to supper with them, they were still not reconciled to it. It was only Mr Passant’s natural courtesy, his anxiety to make me feel at home, that kept them from an argument the moment we arrived.
Actually, I was not a stranger in their house. Until two years before, Mr Passant had been assistant postmaster at Wickham; then, when George got his job at Eden & Martineau’s, Mr Passant transferred to the general post office in the town. For fear of their family ties George insisted on going into lodgings, while they lived in this little house, one of a row of identical little houses, each with a tiny front garden and iron railings, on the other side of the town. But George visited them two or three times every week; he took his friends to spend whole evenings with them; tonight we arrived early and George and his mother kissed each other with an affection open and yet suddenly released. She was a stocky, big-breasted woman, wearing an apron over a greyish dress.
‘It’s half the week since I saw you, old George,’ she said: it was the overtones of her racy Suffolk accent that we noticed in George’s speech.
She wanted to talk at once about the question of money. Mr Passant managed to stop her, however, his face lined with concern. In a huff, as hot-tempered as George, she went into the back kitchen, though supper would not be ready for an hour.
Mr Passant sat with us round the table in the kitchen. It was hot from a heaped-up fire, and gave out the rich smell of small living-rooms. Under the gaslight, Mr Passant
Neither Jack nor I fully understood the strange nature of George’s ‘finances’. But Jack was moved so that he did not recover his ready, flattering tongue until we got up to catch our train. Then he said: ‘George, I thought we set out tonight to celebrate a triumph.’
‘It was a triumph,’ said George. ‘I shall always insist that we won at that meeting.’
7: Argument Under the Gaslight
IT took some days for Jack to settle what he wanted to do (from that night at Nottingham, he never doubted that George would find the money): and it took a little longer to persuade George of it.
Those were still the days of the small-scale wireless business. An acquaintance of ours had just started one; Jack had his imagination caught. He expounded what he could make of it – and I thought how much he liked the touch of anything modern. He would have been a contemporary man in any age. But he was inventive, he was shrewd, he had a flair for advertisement; he persuaded us all except George.
George did not like it. He would have preferred to try to article Jack to Eden & Martineau. He asked Morcom and me for our opinions. We gave practically the same answer. Making Jack a solicitor would mean a crippling expense for George; and we could not see Jack settling down to a profession if he started unwillingly. His choice was far more likely to come off.
At last George gave way. Then, though Jack, as I say, never doubted that the money would be found, George faced a last obstacle; he had to tell his father and mother that he was lessening his immediate help to them.
For many men, it would have been easy. He could have equivocated; after all, the insurance provided for their future, and he had been making an extravagantly large contribution. But he never thought of evading the truth. He dreaded telling it, for he knew how it would be taken; their family relations were passionately close. But tell it he did, without any cover, three days after our visit to Nottingham.
A week later, when he took me to supper with them, they were still not reconciled to it. It was only Mr Passant’s natural courtesy, his anxiety to make me feel at home, that kept them from an argument the moment we arrived.
Actually, I was not a stranger in their house. Until two years before, Mr Passant had been assistant postmaster at Wickham; then, when George got his job at Eden & Martineau’s, Mr Passant transferred to the general post office in the town. For fear of their family ties George insisted on going into lodgings, while they lived in this little house, one of a row of identical little houses, each with a tiny front garden and iron railings, on the other side of the town. But George visited them two or three times every week; he took his friends to spend whole evenings with them; tonight we arrived early and George and his mother kissed each other with an affection open and yet suddenly released. She was a stocky, big-breasted woman, wearing an apron over a greyish dress.
‘It’s half the week since I saw you, old George,’ she said: it was the overtones of her racy Suffolk accent that we noticed in George’s speech.
She wanted to talk at once about the question of money. Mr Passant managed to stop her, however, his face lined with concern. In a huff, as hot-tempered as George, she went into the back kitchen, though supper would not be ready for an hour.
Mr Passant sat with us round the table in the kitchen. It was hot from a heaped-up fire, and gave out the rich smell of small living-rooms. Under the gaslight, Mr Passant
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