Free The Conscience of the Rich by C. P. Snow Page B

depth of anger he had not reached that night. He clutched at the arm of his chair as he leant forward; in doing so, he swept off an ashtray from the little table. The rug was shot with cigarette-stubs and match-ends. Charles bent to clear them.
    ‘Don’t pick them up,’ Mr March shouted. Charles replaced the ashtray, and put one or two stubs in it.
    ‘Don’t pick them up, I tell you,’ Mr March cried with such an increase of rage that Charles hesitated.
    ‘I refuse to have you perform duties for my sake. I refuse to listen to you expressing polite regrets for my sake. You appear to consider yourself completely separate from me in all respects. I am not prepared to tolerate that attitude.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Charles’ voice had become angry and hard.
    ‘I am not prepared to tolerate your attitude that you can dissociate yourself from me in all your concerns. Even if I survive criticism from the family on your account, that isn’t to admit that you’ve separated yourself from me.’
    ‘I come to you for advice,’ said Charles.
    ‘Advice! You can go to the family lawyer for advice. Though I never knew why we’ve stood a fellow so long-winded as Morris for so long,’ cried Mr March. ‘I’m not prepared to be treated as a minor variety of family lawyer by my son. I shall have to consider taking actions that will make that clear.’
    Charles broke out: ‘Do you imagine for a moment that you can coerce me back to the law?’
    Mr March said: ‘I do not propose to let you abandon yourself to your own devices.’
    Everyone was surprised by the calm, ambiguous answer and by Mr March’s expression. As Charles’ face darkened, Mr March looked almost placid. He seemed something like triumphant, from the instant he evoked an outburst as angry as his own. He went on quietly:
    ‘I want something for you. I wish I could know that you’ll get something that I’ve always wanted for you.’ He checked himself. Abruptly he broke off; be looked round at us as though there had been no disagreement whatever, and began an anecdote about a Friday night years before.

 
     
     
     
Part Two
    Father and Son
     

 
8:  The Cost of Help
     
    For some time after the quarrel I did not get a clear account of Mr March’s behaviour. According to Katherine, he was so depressed that he stopped grumbling; he listened to criticisms from his brothers and sisters, but even these he did not pass on. Weeks went by before he began to greet Charles at meals with: ‘If you’re determined to persist in your misguided notions, what alternative proposal have you to offer?’ One afternoon, when I was in the drawing-room, Mr March burst in after his daily visit to the club and cried: ‘I’m being persecuted on account of my son’s fandango.’ That was all I heard directly. When I dined with them, there were times when he seemed melancholy, but his level of spirits was so high that I could not be sure. One day Charles mentioned to me that he thought Mr March had begun to worry about Katherine. I fancied that I could recall the signs.
    As for Charles himself, none of his family had any idea what he was intending, or whether he was intending anything at all. He put on a front of cheerfulness and good temper in his father’s presence. His days had become as lazy as Katherine’s. He stayed in bed till midday, talked to her most afternoons, went dancing at night. Many of his acquaintances thought, just as he had predicted, that he was settling down to the life of a rich and idle young man.
    They should have watched his manner as he set me going on my career.
    By the early summer I still had had nothing like a serious case, and I was getting worn down with anxiety. Then Charles took charge of my affairs. He handled them with astuteness and nerve. He risked snubs, which he could not have done on his own behalf, and got me invited to the famous June party at the Holfords’. At the same time he approached Albert Hart and through him met the