The food was very good. Mr March began talking to me about Herbert Getliffe and the Bar; he already knew something of my career.
‘My nephew Robert used to be extremely miserable when he was in your position,’ said Mr March. ‘My brother-in-law warned him he’d got to wait for his briefs, but Robert always was impatient, and I used to see him being disgorged from theatres every time I took my wife out for a spree. One night I met him on the steps of the St James’s—’
‘What’s going to theatres got to do with his being impatient, Mr L?’ Katherine was beginning to laugh.
Mr March, getting into his stride, charged into a kind of anecdote that I was not ready for. I had read descriptions of total recalclass="underline" Mr March got nearer to it than anyone I had heard. Each incident that he remembered seemed as important as any other incident (this meeting with his nephew Robert was completely casual and happened over twenty years before): and he remembered them all with extravagant vividness. Time did not matter; something which happened fifty years ago suggested something which happened yesterday.
I was not ready for that kind of anecdote, but his children were. They set him after false hares, they interrupted, sometimes all three were talking at once. I found myself infected with Mr March’s excitement, even anxious in case he should not get back to his starting-point.
Listening to the three of them for the first time, I felt dazed. Mr March’s anecdotes were packed with references to his relatives and members of their large inter-married families. Occasionally these were explained, but usually taken for granted. He and his children had naturally loud voices, and in each other’s presence they became louder still. Between Mr March and Charles I could feel a current of strain; perhaps between Mr March and Katherine also, I did not know; but the relations of all three were very close.
I kept looking from one to another of the clever, energetic, mobile faces. I knew that Charles had regretted inviting me; that, as we waited for his father to come in, he wished the evening were already over; yet now he was more alive than I had ever seen him.
‘Yes, what was going to theatres to do with Robert being impatient?’ asked Charles.
‘If he hadn’t been impatient, he wouldn’t have gone to theatres,’ said Mr March. ‘You know he doesn’t go now. And if his uncle Philip hadn’t been so impatient, he wouldn’t have made such a frightful ass of himself last Tuesday. That’s my eldest brother, Philip’ — he suddenly turned to me — ‘I’ve never known him make such a frightful ass of himself since that night in 1899. The key was lost—’
‘When, Mr L? In 1899?’ asked Katherine.
‘What key?’
‘Last Tuesday, of course. The key of my confounded case. I didn’t possess a case in 1899. I used the bag that Hannah gave me. She never liked me passing it on to my then butler. So I told Philip the key was lost when I saw him in my club. They’d just made us trustees of this so-called charity, though why they want to add to my labours and give me enormous worry and shorten my life, I’ve never been able to understand.’ (At that time Mr March was nearly sixty-three. He had retired thirty years before, when the family bank was sold.) ‘Philip ought to expect it. They used to call him the longest-headed man on the Stock Exchange. Though since he levelled up on those Brazilian Railways, I have always doubted it.’
‘Didn’t you level up yourself, Mr L?’ said Katherine. ‘Wasn’t that the excuse you gave for not buying a car when they first came out?’
‘While really he’s always been terrified of them. You’ve never bought a car yet, have you?’ said Charles.
‘It depends what you mean by buying,’ Mr March said hurriedly.
‘That’s trying to hedge,’ said Charles. ‘He can’t escape, though. He’s always hired them from year to year—’ he explained to me. ‘It must have cost ten times as much, but he felt that if he never really committed himself, he might find some excuse to stop. Incidentally, Mr L, it’s exactly your idea of economy.’
‘No! No!’ Mr March was roaring with laughter, shouting, pointing his finger. ‘I refuse to accept responsibility for moving vehicles, that’s all. I also told Philip that I refused to accept responsibility if he took action before we considered the documents—’
‘The documents in the case?’
‘He stood me some tea — extremely bad teas they’ve taken to giving you in the club: they didn’t even provide my special buns that afternoon — and I said we ought to consider the documents and then call at the banks. “When are you going to meet me at these various banks?” I said. He said I was worrying unnecessarily. My married daughter said exactly the same thing before her children went down with chicken-pox. So I told Philip that if he took action without sleeping on it, I refused to be a party to any foolishness that might ensue. I splashed off negotiations.’
‘What did you do?’ said Katherine.
‘I splashed off negotiations,’ said Mr March, as though it was the obvious, indeed the only word.
‘Did Uncle Philip mind?’
‘He was enormously relieved. Wasn’t he enormously relieved?’ Charles asked.
Mr March went on: ‘Apart from his initial madheadedness, he took it very well. So I departed from the club. Owing to all these controversies, I was five minutes later than usual passing the clock at the corner; or it may have been fast, you can’t trust the authorities to keep them properly. Then I got engaged in another controversy with the newsboy under the clock. I took a paper and he insisted I’d paid, but I told him I hadn’t. I thought he was a stupid fellow. He must have mixed me up with a parson who was buying a paper at the same time. I tossed him double or quits, and I unfortunately lost. Then I arrived outside the house, and, just as I was thinking of a letter to Philip dissociating myself from his impulsive methods — I saw a light on in my dressing-room. So I ascended the stairs and found no one present in the room. John — that is my butler,’ he remarked to me — ‘came with me and I asked for an explanation. No one could offer anything satisfactory. We went into my bedroom and I asked the footman. Not that I’ve ever known him explain anything. He was under the window on all fours—’
‘Oh God, Mr L,’ Katherine broke out. ‘I’ve lost my grip. Why was the footman on all fours?’
‘Looking for the key, of course,’ Mr March shouted victoriously. ‘It was still lost. John discovered it late that night—’
Mr March sailed into port by describing how the documents were read and showed Philip to have assumed one erroneous datum. But, as Mr March admitted, the datum was quite irrelevant to their transaction, and it was only in method that he had scored a decisive point of judgement.
We went back to the drawing-room for coffee. Mr March sat by the fire, radiant, bursting out into another piece of total recall. Nothing prevented him — I was thinking — from saying what he felt impelled to say; the only decorum he obeyed seemed to rest in purely formal things; he was an uncontrollably natural man, and yet when the coffee was two minutes late he felt a pang, as though something improper had happened.
We had not been sitting long in the drawing-room before Mr March was arranging a time-table for the next day. He visited his chauffeur first thing each morning, with written instructions of the times he and Katherine wanted the car; he felt the next day slipping out of his control unless he could compile the list the previous night.
‘I suppose you’re really going to the dance at last?’ he said to Katherine.