The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 (50 page)

Soames looked at him. He was too cheery!

‘You think so?' he said dryly. ‘May I ask if you would like to have your daughter alluded to as an enterprising little lady?'

‘Why not? It's quite a pleasant word. Besides, there's no name mentioned.'

‘Do you put things in,' asked Soames shrewdly, ‘in order that they may be Greek to all your readers?'

The cheery man laughed: ‘Well,' he said, ‘hardly. But really, sir, aren't you rather thin-skinned?'

This was an aspect of the affair that Soames had not foreseen. Before he could ask this editor chap not to repeat his offence, he had apparently to convince him that it
was
an offence; but to do that he must expose the real meaning of the paragraph.

‘Well,' he said, ‘if you can't see that the tone of the thing's unpleasant, I can't make you. But I beg you won't let any more such paragraphs appear. I happen to know that your corre-spondent is actuated by malevolence.'

The cheery man again ran his eye over the cutting.

‘I shouldn't have judged that. People in politics are taking and giving knocks all the time – they're not mealy-mouthed. This seems perfectly innocuous as gossip goes.'

Thus back-handed by the words ‘thin-skinned' and ‘mealy-mouthed', Soames said testily:

‘The whole thing's extremely petty.'

‘Well, sir, you know, I rather agree. Good-morning!' and the cheery man blandly returned to his file.

The fellow was like an india-rubber ball! Soames clenched his top-hat. Now or never he must make him bound.

‘If your correspondent thinks she can vent her spleen in print with impunity, she will find herself very much mistaken.' He waited for the effect. There was absolutely none. ‘Good-morning!” he said, and turned on his heel.

Somehow it had not been so friendly as he had expected. Michael's words ‘The Press is a sensitive plant' came into his mind. He shouldn't mention his visit.

Two days later, picking up the
Evening Sun
at The Connoisseurs, he saw the word ‘Foggartism'. H'm! A leader!

‘Of the panaceas rife among the young hopefuls in politics, perhaps the most absurd is one which goes by the name of Foggartism. We are in a position to explain the nature of this patent remedy for what is supposed to be the national ill-health before it has been put on the market. Based on Sir James Foggart's book,
The Parlous State of England
, the main article of faith in this crazy creed would appear to be the depletion of British man-power. According to its prophets, we are to dispatch to the ends of the Empire hundreds of thousands of our boys and girls as soon as they leave school. Quite apart from the rank impossibility of absorbing them into the life of the slowly developing Dominions, we are to lose this vital stream of labour and defensive material, in order that twenty years hence the demand from our Dominions may equal the supplying power of Great Britain. A crazier proposition was never conceived in woolly brains. Well does the word Foggartism characterize such a proposition. Alongside this emigration ‘stunt' – for there is no other term which suits its sensational character – rises a feeble back-to-the-land
propaganda. The keystone of the whole professes to be the doctrine that the standard of British wages and living now preclude us from any attempt to rival German production, or to recover our trade with Europe. Such a turning of the tail on our industrial supremacy has probably never before been mooted in this country. The sooner these cheap-jack gerrymanders of British policy realize that the British voter will have nothing to do with so crack-brained a scheme, the sooner it will come to the still birth which is its inevitable fate.'

Whatever attention Soames had given to
The Parlous State of England
, he could not be accused of anything so rash as a faith in Foggartism. If Foggartism were killed to-morrow, he, with his inherent distrust of theories and ideas, his truly English pragmatism, could not help feeling that Michael would be well rid of a white elephant. What disquieted him, however, was the suspicion that he himself had inspired this article. Was this that too-cheery fellow's retort?

Decidedly, he should not mention his visit when he dined in South Square that evening.

The presence of a strange hat on the sarcophagus warned him of a fourth party. Mr Blythe, in fact, with a cocktail in his hand and an olive in his mouth, was talking to Fleur, who was curled up on a cushion by the fire.

‘You know Mr Blythe, Dad?'

Another editor! Soames extended his hand with caution.

Mr Blythe swallowed the olive. ‘It's of no importance,' he said.

‘Well,' said Fleur,
‘I
think you ought to put it all off, and let them feel they've made fools of themselves.'

‘Does Michael think that, Mrs Mont?'

‘No; Michael's got his shirt out!' And they all looked round at Michael, who was coming in.

He certainly had a somewhat headstrong air.

According to Michael, they must take it by the short hairs and give as good as they got, or they might as well put up the shutters. They were sent to Parliament to hold their own opinions, not those stuck into them by Fleet Street. If they genuinely
believed the Foggart policy to be the only way to cure unemployment, and stem the steady drain into the towns, they must say so, and not be stampeded by every little newspaper attack that came along. Common sense was on their side, and common sense, if you aired it enough, won through in the end. The opposition to Foggartism was really based on an intention to force lower wages and longer hours on Labour, only they daren't say so in so many words. Let the papers jump through their hoops as much as they liked. He would bet that when Foggartism had been six months before the public, they would be eating half their words with an air of eating someone else's! And suddenly he turned to Soames:

‘I suppose, sir, you didn't go down about that paragraph?'

Soames, privately, and as a business man, had always so conducted himself that, if cornered, he need never tell a direct untruth. Lies were not English, not even good form. Looking down his nose, he said slowly:

‘Well, i let them know that I knew that woman's name.'

Fleur frowned; Mr Blythe reached out and took some salted almonds.

‘What did I tell you, sir?' said Michael. ‘They always get back on you. The Press has a tremendous sense of dignity; and corns on both feet; eh, Mr Blythe?'

Mr Blythe said weightily: ‘It's a very human institution, young man. It prefers to criticize rather than to be criticized.'

‘I thought,' said Fleur icily, ‘that I was to be left to my own cudgels.'

The discussion broke back to Foggartism, but Soames sat brooding. He would never again interfere in what didn't concern himself. Then, like all who love, he perceived the bitterness of his fate. He had only meddled with what
did
concern himself – her name, her happiness; and she resented it. Basket in which were all his eggs, to the end of his days he must go on walking gingerly, balancing her so that she was not upset, spilling his only treasure.

She left them over the wine that only Mr Blythe was drinking. Soames heard an odd word now and then, gathered that
this great frog-chap was going to burst next week in
The Out-post
, gathered that Michael was to get on to his hind legs in the House at the first opportunity. It was all a muzz of words to him. When they rose, he said to Michael:

‘I'll take myself off.'

‘We're going down to the House, sir: won't you stay with Fleur?'

‘No,' said Soames; ‘I must be getting back.'

Michael looked at him closely.

‘I'll just tell her you're going.'

Soames had wrapped himself into his coat, and was opening the door when he smelled violet soap. A bare arm had come round his neck. He felt soft pressure against his back. ‘Sorry, Dad, for being such a pig.'

Soames shook' his head.

‘No,' said her voice; ‘you're not going like that.'

She slipped between him and the door. Her clear eye looked into his; her teeth gleamed, very white. ‘Say you forgive me!'

‘There's no end to it,' said Soames.

She thrust her lips against his nose. ‘There! Good-night, ducky! I know I'm spoiled!'

Soames gave her body a convulsive little squeeze, opened the door and went out without a word.

Under Big Ben boys were calling – political news, he supposed. Those Labour chaps were going to fall – some editor had got them into trouble. He would! Well – one down, t'other come on! It was all remote to him. She alone – she alone mattered.

MICHAEL MUSES

M
ICHAEL
and Mr Blythe sought the Mother of Parliaments and found her in commotion. Liberalism had refused, and' Labour was falling from its back. A considerable number of people were in Parliament Square contemplating Big Ben and hoping for sensation.

‘I'm not going in,' said Michael. ‘There won't be a division tonight. General Election's a foregone conclusion, now. I want to think.'

‘One will go up for a bit,' said. Mr Blythe; and they parted, Michael returning to the streets. The night was clear, and he had a longing to hear the voice of his country. But – where? For his countrymen would be discussing this pro and that con, would be mentioning each his personal ‘grief' – here the Income Tax, there the dole, the names of leaders, the word Communism. Nowhere would he catch the echo of the uneasiness in the hearts of all. The Tories – as Fleur had predicted – would come in now. The country would catch at the anodyne of ‘strong stable government'. But could strong stable government remove the inherent canker, the lack of balance in the top-heavy realm? Could it still the gnawing ache which everybody felt, and nobody would express?

‘Spoiled,' thought Michael, ‘by our past prosperity. We shall never admit it,' he thought, ‘never! And yet in our bones we feel it!'

England with the silver spoon in her mouth and no longer the teeth to hold it there, or the will to part with it! And her very qualities – the latent ‘grit', the power to take things smiling, the lack of nerves and imagination! Almost vices, now, perpetuating the rash belief that England could still ‘muddle through' without special effort, although with every year there
was less chance of recovering from shock, less time in which to exercise the British ‘virtues'. ‘Slow in the uptak',' thought Michael, ‘it's a ghastly fault in 1924.'

Thus musing, he turned East. Mid-theatre-hour, and the ‘Great Parasite' – as Sir James Foggart called it – was lying inert and bright. He walked the length of wakeful Fleet Street into the City so delirious by day, so dead by night. Here England's wealth was snoozing off the day's debauch. Here were all the frame and filaments of English credit And based on – what? On food and raw material from which England, undefended in the air, might be cut off by a fresh war; on Labour, too big for European boots. And yet that credit stood high still, soothing all with its ‘panache' – save, perhaps, receivers of the dole. With her promise to pay, England could still purchase any-thing, except a quiet heart.

And Michael walked on – through Whitechapel, busy still and coloured – into Mile End. The houses had become low, as if to give the dwellers a better view of stars they couldn't reach. He had crossed a frontier. Here was a different race almost; another England, but as happy-go-lucky and as hand-to-mouth as the England of Fleet Street and the City. Aye, and more! For the England in Mile End knew that whatever she felt could have no effect on policy. Mile on mile, without an end, the low grey streets stretched towards the ultimate deserted grass. Michael did not follow them, but coming to a cinema, turned in.

The show was far advanced. Bound and seated in front of the bad cowboy on a bronco, the heroine was crossing what Michael shrewdly suspected to be the film company's pet paddock. Every ten seconds she gave way to John T. Bronson, manager of the Tucsonville Copper Mine, devouring the road in his 60-h.p. Packard, to cut her off before she reached the Pima river. Michael contemplated his fellow gazers. Lapping it up! Strong stable government – not much! This was their anodyne and they could not have enough of it. He saw the bronco fall, dropped by a shot from John T. Bronson, and the screen disclose the words: ‘Hairy Pete grows desperate.… ' ‘You shall not have her, Bronson.' Quite! He was throwing her into the river
instead, to the words: ‘John T. Bronson dives.' There he goes! He has her by her flowing hair! But Hairy Pete is kneeling on the bank. The bullets chip the water. Through the heroine's fair perforated shoulder the landscape is almost visible. What is that sound? Yes! John T. Bronson is setting his teeth! He lands, he drags her out. From his cap he takes his automatic. Still dry – thank God!

‘Look to yourself, Hairy Pete!' A puff of smoke. Pete squirms and bites the sand – he seems almost to absorb the desert. ‘Hairy Pete gets it for keeps!' Slow music, slower! John T. Bronson raises the reviving form. Upon the bank of the Pima river they stand embraced, and the sun sets. ‘At last, my dinky love!'