The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 (28 page)

‘Well, Vic! Penny!'

‘I was thinkin' of Australia.'

‘Ah! It's a gaudy long wait. Never mind – I've sold the bally lot. Which shall we do, go down among the trees, or get to the swings, at once?'

‘The swings,' said Victorine.

The Vale of Health was in rhapsodic mood. The crowd flowed here in a slow, speechless stream, to the cries of the booth-keepers, and the owners of swings and coconuts. ‘Roll – bowl – or pitch! Now for the milky ones! Penny a shy!… Who's for the swings?… Ices… Ices… Fine bananas!'

On the giant merry-go-round under its vast umbrella the thirty chain-hung seats were filled with girls and men. Round to the music – slowly – faster – whirling out to the full extent of the chain, bodies bent back, legs stuck forward, laughter and speech dying, faces solemn, a little lost, hands gripping the chains hard. Faster, faster; slowing, slowing to a standstill, and the music silent.

‘My word!' murmured Victorine. ‘Come on, Tony!'

They entered the enclosure and took their seats. Victorine, on the outside, locked her feet, instinctively, one over the other, and tightening her clasp on the chains, curved her body to the motion. Her lips parted:

‘Lor, Tony!'

Faster, faster – every nerve and sense given to that motion! O-o-h! It
was
a feeling – flying round like that above the world! Faster – faster! Slower – slow, and the descent to earth.

‘Tony, it's ‘eaven!'

‘Queer feelin' in yer inside, when you're swung right out!'

‘I'd like it level with the top. Let's go once more!'

‘Right-o!'

Twice more they went – half his profit on balloons! But who cared? He liked to see her face. After that, six shies at the milky ones without a hit, an ice apiece: then arm-in-arm to find a place to eat their lunch. That was the time Bicket enjoyed most, after the ginger-beer and sandwiches; smoking his fag, with his
head on her lap, and the sky blue. A long time like that; till at last she stirred.

‘Let's go and see the dancin'!'

In the grass enclosure ringed by the running path, some two dozen couples were jigging to a band.

Victorine pulled at his arm. ‘I
would
love a turn!'

‘Well, let's ‘ave a go,' said Bicket. ‘This one-legged bloke'll ‘old my tray.'

They entered the ring.

‘Hold me tighter, Tony!'

Bicket obeyed. Nothing he liked better; and slowly their feet moved – to this side and that. They made little way, revolving, keeping time, oblivious of appearances.

‘You dance all right, Tony.'

‘You
dance a treat!' gasped Bicket.

In the intervals, panting, they watched ever the one-legged man; then to it again, till the band ceased for good.

‘My word!' said Victorine. ‘They dance on board ship, Tony!'

Bicket squeezed her waist.

‘ I'll do the trick yet, if I‘ave to rob the Bank. There's nothin' I wouldn't do for you, Vic.'

But Victorine smiled. She had done the trick already.

The crowd with parti-coloured faces, tired, good-humoured, frowsily scented, strolled over a battlefield thick-strewn with paper bags, banana peel, and newspapers.

‘Let's ‘ave tea, and one more swing,' said Bicket; ‘then we'll get over on the other side among the trees.'

Away over on the far side were many couples. The sun went very slowly down. Those two sat under a bush and watched it go. A faint breeze swung and rustled the birch leaves. There was little human sound out here. All seemed to have come for silence, to be waiting for darkness in the hush. Now and then some stealthy spy would pass and scrutinize.

‘Foxes!' said Bicket. ‘Gawd! I'd like to rub their noses in it!'

Victorine sighed, pressing closer to him.

Someone was playing on a banjo now; a voice singing. It grew dusk, but a moon was somewhere rising, for little shadows stole out along the ground.

They spoke in whispers. It seemed wrong to raise the voice, as though the grove were under a spell. Even their whisperings were scarce. Dew fell, but they paid no heed to it. With hands locked, and cheeks together, they sat very still. Bicket had a thought. This was poetry – this was! Darkness now, with a sort of faint and silvery glow, a sound of drunken singing on the Spaniard's Road, the whirr of belated cars returning from the north – and suddenly an owl hooted.

‘My!' murmured Victorine, shivering. ‘An owl! Fancy! I used to hear one at Norbiton. I ‘ope it's not bad luck!'

Bicket rose and stretched himself.

‘Come on!' he said: ‘we've ‘ad a dy. Don't you go catchin' cold!'

Arm-in-arm, slowly, through the darkness of the birch-grove, they made their way upwards – glad of the lamps, and the street, and the crowded station, as though they had taken an overdose of solitude.

Huddled in their carriage on the Tube, Bicket idly turned the pages of a derelict paper. But Victorine sat thinking of so much, that it was as if she thought of nothing. The swings and the grove in the darkness, and the money in her stocking. She wondered Tony hadn't noticed when it crackled – there wasn't a safe place to keep it in! What was he looking at, with his eyes so fixed? She peered, and read: ‘
Afternoon of a Dryad
. The striking picture by Aubrey Greene, on exhibition at the Dumetrius Gallery.'

Her heart stopped beating.

‘Cripes!' said Bicket. ‘Ain't that like you?'

‘Like me? No!'

Bicket held the paper closer. ‘It
is
. It's like you all over. I'll cut that out. I'd like to see that picture.'

The colour came up in her cheeks, released from a heart beating too fast now.

‘'Tisn't decent,' she said.

‘Dunno about that; but it's awful like you. It's even got your smile.'

Folding the paper, he began to tear the sheet. Victorine's little finger pressed the notes beneath her stocking.

‘Funny,' she said slowly, ‘to think there's people in the world so like each other.'

‘I never thought there could be one like you. Charin' Cross; we gotta change.'

Hurrying along the rat-runs of the Tube, she slipped her hand into his pocket, and soon some scraps of torn paper fluttered down behind her following him in the crush. If only he didn't remember where the picture was!

Awake in the night, she thought:

‘I don't care; I'm going to get the rest of the money – that's all about it.'

But her heart moved queerly within her, like that of one whose feet have trodden suddenly the quaking edge of a bog.

OFFICE WORK

M
ICHAEL
sat correcting the proofs of
Counterfeits
– the book left by Wilfrid behind him.

‘Can you see Butterfield, sir?'

‘I can.'

In Michael the word Butterfield excited an uneasy pride. The young man fulfilled with increasing success the function for which he had been engaged, on trial, four months ago. The head traveller had even called him ‘a find'. Next to
Copper Coin
he was the finest feather in Michael's cap. The Trade were not buying, yet Butterfield was selling books, or so it was reported; he appeared to have a natural gift of inspiring confidence
where it was not justified. Danby and Winter had even entrusted to him the private marketing of the vellum-bound ‘Limited' of
A Duet
, by which they were hoping to recoup their losses on the ordinary edition. He was now engaged in working through a list of names considered likely to patronize the little masterpiece. This method of private approach had been suggested by himself.

‘You see, sir,' he had said to Michael: ‘I know a bit about Coué. Well, you can't work that on the Trade – they've got no capacity for faith. What can you expect? Every day they buy all sorts of stuff, always basing themselves on past sales. You can't find one in twenty that'll back the future. But with private gentlemen, and especially private ladies, you can leave a thought with them like Coué does – put it into them again and again that day by day in every way the author's gettin' better and better; and ten to one when you go round next, it's got into their subconscious, especially if you take ‘em just after lunch or dinner, when they're a bit drowsy. Let me take my own time, sir, and I'll put that edition over for you.'

‘Well,' Michael had answered, ‘if you can inspire confidence in the future of my governor, Butterfield, you'll deserve more than your ten per cent.'

‘I can do it, sir; it's just a question of faith.'

‘But you haven't any, have you?'

‘Well, not, so to speak, in the author – but I've got faith that I can give
them
faith in him; that's the real point.'

‘I see – the three-card stunt; inspire the faith you haven't got, that the card is there, and they'll take it. Well, the disillusion is not immediate – you'll probably always get out of the room in time. Go ahead, then!'

The young man Butterfield had smiled.…

The uneasy part of the pride inspired in Michael now by the name was due to old Forsyte's continually saying to him that he didn't know – he couldn't tell – there was that young man and his story about Elderson, and they got no further.…

‘Good morning, sir. Can you spare me five minutes?'

‘Come in, Butterfield. Bunkered with
Duet
?'

‘No, sir. I've placed forty already. It's another matter.' Glancing at the shut door, the young man came closer.

‘I'm working my list alphabetically. Yesterday I was in the E's.' His Voice dropped. ‘Mr Elderson.'

‘Phew!' said Michael. ‘You can give
him
the go-by.'

‘As a fact, sir, I haven't.'

‘What! Been over the top?'

‘Yes, sir. Last night.'

‘Good for you, Butterfield! What happened?'

‘I didn't send my name in, sir – just the firm's card.'

Michael was conscious of a very human malice in the young man's voice and face.

‘Well?'

‘Mr Elderson, sir, was at his wine. I'd thought it out, and I began as if I'd never seen him before. What struck me was – he took my cue!'

‘Didn't kick you out?'

‘Far from it, sir. He said at once: “Put my name down for two copies.”'

Michael grinned. ‘You both had a nerve.'

‘No, sir; that's just it. Mr Elderson got it between wind and water. He didn't like it a little bit.'

‘I don't twig,' said Michael.

‘My being in this firm's employ, sir. He knows you're a partner here, and Mr Forsyte's son-in-law, doesn't he?'

‘He does.'

‘Well, sir, you see the connexion – two directors believing me – not
him
. That's why I didn't miss him out. I fancied it'd shake him up. I happened to see his face in the sideboard glass as I went out.
He's
got the wind up all right.'

Michael bit his forefinger, conscious of a twinge of sympathy with Elderson, as for a fly with the first strand of cobweb round his hind leg.

‘Thank you, Butterfield,' he said.

When the young man was gone, he sat stabbing his blotting-paper with a paper-knife. What curious ‘class' sensation was this? Or was it merely fellow-feeling with the hunted, a tremor
at the way things found one out? For, surely, this was real evidence, and he would have to pass it on to his father, and ‘Old Forsyte'. Elderson's nerve must have gone phut, or he'd have said: ‘You impudent young scoundrel – get out of here!' That, clearly, was the only right greeting from an innocent, and the only advisable greeting from a guilty man. Well! Nerve did fail sometimes – even the best. Witness the very proof-sheet he had just corrected:

T
HE
C
OURT
M
ARTIAL

‘See 'ere! I'm myde o' nerves and blood

The syme as you, not meant to be

Froze stiff up to me ribs in mud.

You try it, like I 'ave, an' see!

‘Aye, you snug beauty brass hat, when

You stick what I stuck out that d'y,

An' keep yer ruddy ‘earts up – then

You'll learn, maybe, the right to s'y:

‘Take aht an' shoot ‘im in the snow,

Shoot ‘im for cowardice! 'E who serves

His King and Country's got to know

There's no such bloody thing as nerves.'

Good old Wilfrid!

‘Yes, Miss Perren?'

‘The letter to Sir James Foggart, Mr Mont; you told me to remind you. And will you see Miss Manuelli?'

‘Miss Manu – Oh! Ah! Yes.'

Bicket's girl wife, whose face they had used on Storbert's novel, the model for Aubrey Greene's – Michael rose, for the girl was in the room already.

‘I remember that dress!' he thought: ‘Fleur never liked it.'