Unlike Martineau, he made a definite offer. If I wanted to serve my articles as a solicitor, he would accept me on the usual footing, I paying my fee of two hundred and fifty guineas. It was entirely fair: it was exactly as he had treated any other of the articled clerks who had gone through the firm. He explained that he was not making any concessions to partiality or to the fact that I was so poor. ‘If we started that, young man, we should never know when to stop. Pay your way like everyone else, and we shall all be better friends,’ said Eden, with the broad judgement-exuding smile that lapped up the corners of his mouth. But he knew that, when I had paid the fee, I should not have enough to live on. So he was prepared to allow me thirty shillings a week while I served my time. With his usual temperateness he warned me that, before I took articles in the firm, I ought to be reminded that there was not likely to be a future for me there ‘when you become qualified, all being well’. For George Passant was not, so far as Eden knew, likely to move, and the firm did not need another qualified assistant.
I thanked him with triumph, with relief. I said that I ought to think it over, and Eden approved. He had no doubt that I was going to accept. I said that I might have other problems to raise, and Eden again approved. He still had no doubt that I was going to accept.
How much doubt had I myself, that day in Eden’s room? Or back at my desk, under Mr Vesey’s enormous and persecuted eyes, on those spring afternoons, waiting for the day’s release at half past five? There is no doubt that, on the days after Eden’s offer, I often steadied myself with the thought that I need not stand it. I had a safe escape now. I could end the servitude tomorrow. If I did not, it was of my own volition.
I assuaged each morning’s heaviness with the prospect of that escape. Yet I had a subterranean knowledge that I should never take it. The nerves flutter and dither, and make us delay recognizing a choice to ourselves; we honour that process by the title of ‘making up our minds’. But the will knows.
I had rejected George’s proposition the minute it was uttered — and before I set out to work for Martineau’s and for Eden’s help. I wanted that help, but for another reason. I was going — there was at bottom no residue of doubt, however much I might waver on the surface — to choose the wilder gamble, and read for the Bar.
I had not yet admitted the intention to the naked light, even in secret; but it was forcing its way through, flooding me with a sense of champagne-like risk and power. It was hard to defend, which I knew better than all those I should have to argue with, for I felt the prickle of anxiety even before I admitted the intention to myself. If all went perfectly, I should have spent my ‘basic sum’ by the time I took Bar Finals. There was no living to look forward to immediately, nor probably for several years; it meant borrowing money or winning a studentship. It left no margin for any kind of illness or failure. I should have to spend two thirds of the three hundred pounds on becoming admitted to an Inn. If anything went wrong, I had lost that stake altogether, and so had no second chance.
I did not even escape the office. For I should leave myself so little money, after the fees were paid, that my office wages would be needed to pay for food and board. Instead of crossing Bowling Green Street and working alongside of George, I should have to discipline myself to endure the tedium, the hours without end of clerking, Mr Vesey. All my study for the Bar examinations I should have to do at night; and on those examinations my whole future rested.
In favour of the gamble, there was just one thing to say. If my luck held at every point and I came through, there were rewards, not only money, though I wanted that. It gave me a chance, so I thought then, of the paraphernalia of success, luxury and a name and, yes, the admiration of women.
There was nothing more lofty about my ambition at that time, nothing at all. It had none of the complexity or aspiration of a mature man’s ambition — and also none of the moral vanity. Ten years later, and I could not have felt so simply. Yet I made my calculations, I reckoned the odds, I knew they were against me, almost as clear-sightedly as if I had been grown-up.
When I knew, with full lucidity, that the decision was irrevocably taken, I still cherished it to myself for days and weeks.
I was intensely happy, in that spring and summer of my nineteenth year. The days were wet; rain streamed down the office window; I was full of well-being, of a joyful expectancy, now that I knew what I had to do. I was anxious and had some of my first sleepless nights. But it was a happy sleeplessness, so that I looked with expectation on the first light of a summer dawn. Once I got up with the sun and walked the streets that were so familiar to George and me at the beginning of the night. Now in the dawn the road was pallid, the houses smaller, all blank and washed after the enchantment of the dark. I thought of what lay just ahead. There would be some trouble with Eden, which I must surmount, for it was imperative to keep his backing. Perhaps George might not be altogether pleased. I should have to persuade them. That would be the first step.
It was in those happy days that, attuned so that my imagination stirred to the sound of a girl’s name, I first heard the name of Sheila Knight. I was attuned so that an unknown name invited me, as I had never been invited before, attuned because of my own gamble and the well-being which made the blood course through my veins, attuned too because of the amorous climate which lapped round our whole group on those summer evenings. For George’s pleasures could not be long concealed from us at our age, thinking of love, talking of love, swept off our feet by imagined joys. In Jack’s soft voice there came stories of delight, his conquests and adventures and the whispered words of girls. We were at an age when we were deafened by the pounding of our blood. We began to flirt, and that was the first fashion. Jack’s voice murmured the names of girls, girls he had known or whom he was pursuing. I flirted a little with Marion, but it was the unknown that invited me. Sheila’s name was not the first nor only one that plucked at my imagination. But each word about her gave her name a clearer note.
‘She goes about by herself, looking exceedingly glum,’ said Jack. ‘She’s rather beautiful, in a chiselled, soulful way,’ said Jack. ‘She’d be too much trouble for me. It isn’t the pretty ones who are most fun,’ said Jack. ‘I advise you to keep off. She’ll only make you miserable,’ said Jack.
None of the group knew her, though Jack claimed to have spoken to her at the School. It was said that she lived in the country, and came to an art class one night a week.
One warm and cloudy midsummer evening, I had met Jack out of the newspaper office, and we were walking slowly up the London Road. A car drove by close to the pavement, and I had a moment’s sight, blurred and confused, of a young woman’s face, a smile, a wave. The car passed us, and I turned my head, but could see no more. Jack was smiling. He said: ‘Sheila Knight.’
For weeks no one knew that, instead of taking articles, I was determined to try reading for the Bar. I delayed breaking the news longer than was decent, even to George, most of all to George. I was apprehensive of his criticisms; I did not want my resolution shaken too early. The facts were harsh: I could face them realistically in secret, but it was different to hear them from another. Also I was uneasy. Could I still keep Eden’s goodwill? Could I secure my own way without loss? I screwed myself up to breaking the news one afternoon in September. I thought I would get it over quickly, tell them all within an hour.
I took the half-day off, incidentally raising Mr Vesey’s suspicions to fever point. I went into the reference library, so as to pass the time before Eden returned from lunch. I meant to tell George first, but not to give myself long. The library was cool, aquarium-like after the bright day outside. Instead of bringing calm, the chill, the smell of books, the familiar smell of that room only made me more uneasy, and I wished more than ever that I had this afternoon behind me.