“It would be a good thing to write to him, I should have thought,” I said. “So long as you make it clear you’re only speaking for yourself.”
I was thinking, Skeffington was a brave and honourable man. He had not had an instant’s hesitation, once he believed that Howard was innocent. He was set on rushing in. Personal relations did not matter, his own convenience did not matter, nor how people thought of him. Both by nature and by training, he was single-minded: the man had his rights, one had to make sure that justice was done. Yet, inside that feeling, there was no kindness towards Howard. There was no trace of a brotherly emotion at all. The only residue of feeling he had for Howard was contempt. Contempt not because he and Skeffington had not an idea in common, but just because he was an object of justice. I had seen the same in other upright men: one was grateful for their passion to be just, but its warmth was all inside themselves. They were not feeling as equals: it was de haut en bas: and, not only towards those who had perpetrated the injustice, but also, and often more coldly, towards the victim, there was directed this component of contempt.
“The chief thing is, isn’t it,” I said, “that you mustn’t raise false hopes?”
“I think it would be much better,” said Martin, “if you didn’t write at all until we’ve talked it over. Won’t that give you a clearer idea of just what you can and cannot say?”
Part Two
Why Should One Act?
8: Ambiguousness and Temper
THROUGH the wet and windy Boxing Day, Martin played in the big drawing-room with the children — played just as I remembered him in our own childhood, concentrated and anxious to win. Irene and Margaret were laughing at us when he and I had a game together. He had invented a kind of ping-pong, played sitting down with rulers at a low table, and complicated by a set of bisques.
Though our wives knew what was on Martin’s mind, for we had told them last thing the night before, no one would have guessed it. He was out to win, within the rules, but just within the rules. His son, Lewis, watched with the same bright eyes, the same concentration, as his father’s: so did my son. When we had finished, Martin coached them both, patiently showing them how to cut the ball, repeating the stroke while the minutes passed, as though going through his head there was no thought of Skeffington’s conversion, no thought of anything except the cut-stroke at ping-pong. Outside, through the long windows, one could see the trees lashing and the grass dazzling in the rain.
Just before tea, the children went of to put records on their gramophone. Martin said to me: “I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you?”
For years we had talked like acquaintances. But we could still get on without explanation: we caught the tone of each other’s voice.
I replied: “I wish I understood the scientific evidence better. I suppose understanding that does make it a bit easier, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it might,” said Martin, with a tucked-in smile. He did not say any more that day. At the same time the following afternoon, when again we were having a respite from the children, we were sitting with Irene and Margaret. The rain was slashing the windows and the room had turned dark except for a diffused gleam, reflected from the garden, of green and subaqueous light.
“This is a wretched business,” said Martin at large, not with worry so much as annoyance. Again I knew he had not been thinking of much else.
“Tomorrow morning I shall have to have this talk with Skeffington,” he said to me.
“Can’t you put him off?” said Irene.
“What are you going to tell him?” I said.
He shook his head.
Margaret said: “I can’t help hoping you’ll be able to agree with him.”
“Why do you hope that?” Irene broke out.
“If Skeffington’s right, it must have been pretty shattering for Howard, mustn’t it? And I should have thought it was even worse for her,” said Margaret.
“What are you going to say tomorrow?” I came back at Martin.
Margaret asked: “Is Skeffington right?”
Martin looked straight at her. He had a respect for her. He knew that, of all of us, she would be the hardest to refuse an answer to.
He said: “It makes some sort of sense.”
She said: “Do you really think he could be right?” Her tone was even, almost casuaclass="underline" she did not seem to be pressing him. Yet she was.
“It seems to make more sense,” said Martin, “than any other explanation. But still, it’s very hard to take.”
“Do you believe he’s right?”
Martin replied: “Possibly.”
Unexpectedly, Margaret burst into laughter, laughter spontaneous and happy. “Have you thought,” she cried, “what awful fools we should all look?”
Martin said: “Yes, I’ve thought of that.”
“All of us thinking how much we know about people!”
For once Irene did not see any sort of joke. Frowning, she said to Martin: “Look here, have you got to get yourself involved too much with all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose Skeffington goes ahead. There’s going to be a row, isn’t there?”
Martin glanced at me. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Well, have you got to get into it? I mean, have you got to start it? It isn’t your business, is it?”
“Not specially, no.”
“Whose is it?” Margaret asked.
He told her that constitutionally it would be for the sub-committee — Nightingale and Skeffington — to take the first steps.
“Well then,” said Irene, “do you need to do much yourself?”
“No, I don’t need to,” said Martin. He added: “In fact, if I don’t want to quarrel with half the society, I can keep out of it more or less.”
“Can you?” said Margaret. She had flushed. She said passionately to Irene, “Do you really want him to sit by?”
Almost as though by reflection, Irene had flushed also. Surprisingly, she and Margaret got on well. Neither then nor at any time could Irene bear to have her sister-in-law disapprove of her, much less to think her crude and selfish. For Irene, despite, or to some extent because of, her worldliness, had both a humble and generous heart.
“Oh,” she said, “someone will put it right if there’s anything to put right. If old Martin were the only chap who could, I suppose he’d have to. But let Julian S do the dirty work, that’s what he’s made for. Those two won’t mind getting in bad with everyone here. All I meant was, we’re settling down nicely now, we haven’t got any enemies for the first time in our lives.”
“Isn’t there a danger — you’re frightened that if Martin makes a fuss over this — it might stand in his way?”
Irene replied, shamefaced with defiance: “If you want the honest truth, yes, I’m frightened of that too.”
Margaret shook her head. Even now, after marrying me, and meeting my colleagues, and getting a spectator’s view of the snakes and ladders of power, she could not quite credit it. Her grandfather and great-uncle had resigned Fellowships over the Thirty-Nine Articles. I sometimes teased her, did she realise how much difference it had meant to them and even to her, that they had both been men of independent means? Yet she stayed as pure as they had been. She did not think that Martin or I were bad men: because she loved me, she thought that in some ways I was a good one: but she could not sympathise with the shifts, the calculations, the self-seekingness of men making their way.