The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 (61 page)

‘I lost mine!'

‘Well, you've got it back,' said Michael, pressing it against his own to hide the emotion he was feeling. ‘Fog's our sheet-anchor, after all. So long as we have fog, England will survive.' He felt Fleur's lips against his.

He belonged to her, and she couldn't afford to have him straying about in fogs or Foggartism! Was that the – ? And then, he yielded to the thrill.

The cabman was standing by the opened door. ‘Now, sir, I'm in your Square. P'r'aps you know your own ‘ouse.'

Wrenched from the kiss, Michael stammered: ‘Righto!' The fog was thinner here; he could consult the shape of trees. ‘On and to your right, third house.'

There it was – desirable – with its bay trees in its tubs and its fanlight shining. He put his latch-key in the door.

‘A drink?' he said.

The cabman coughed: ‘I won't say no, sir.'

Michael brought the drink.

‘Far to go?'

‘Near Putney Bridge. Your 'ealth, sir!'

Michael watched his pinched face drinking.

‘Sorry you've got to plough into that again!'

The cabman handed back the glass.

‘Thank'ee, sir; I shall be all right now; keep along the river, and down the Fulham Road. Thought they couldn't lose me in London. Where I went wrong was trying for a short cut instead of takin' the straight road round. ‘Ope the young lady's none the worse, sir. She was properly scared while you was out there in the dark. These fogs ain't fit for ‘uman bein's. They ought to do somethin' about 'em in Parliament.'

‘They ought!' said Michael, handing him a pound note. ‘Good-night, and good luck!'

‘It's an ill wind!' said the cabman, starting his cab. ‘Goodnight, sir, and thank you kindly.'

‘Thank
you
!' said Michael.

The cab ground slowly away, and was lost to sight.

Michael went into the Spanish room. Fleur, beneath the Goya, was boiling a silver kettle, and burning pastilles. What a contrast to the world outside – its black malodorous cold reek, its risk and fear! In this pretty glowing room, with this pretty glowing woman, why think of its tangle, lost shapes, and straying cries?

Lighting his cigarette, he took his drink from her by its silver handle, and put it to his lips.

‘I really think we ought to have a car, Michael!'

COLLECTING EVIDENCE

T
HE
editor of
The Protagonist
had so evidently enjoyed himself that he caused a number of other people to do the same.

‘There's no more popular sight in the East, Forsyte,' said Sir
Lawrence, ‘than a boy being spanked; and the only difference between East and West is that in the East the boy at once offers himself again at so much a spank. I don't see Mr Perceval Calvin doing that.'

‘If he defends himself,' said Soames, gloomily, ‘other people won't.'

They waited, reading daily denunciations signed: ‘A mother of Three'; ‘Roger: Northampton'; ‘Victorian'; ‘Alys St Maurice'; ‘Plus Fours'; ‘Arthur Whiffkin'; ‘Sportsman if not Gentleman'; and ‘Pro Patria'; which practically all contained the words: ‘I cannot say that I have read the book through, but I have read enough to –'

It was five days before the defence fired a shot. But first came a letter above the signature: ‘Swishing Block', which, after commenting on the fact that a whole school of so-called literature had been indicted by the editor of
The Protagonist
in his able letter of the 14th inst, noted with satisfaction that the said school had grace enough to take its swishing without a murmur. Not even an anonymous squeak had been heard from the whole apostolic body.

‘Forsyte,' said Sir Lawrence, handing it to Soames, ‘That's my very own mite, and if it doesn't draw them – nothing will!'

But it did. The next issue of the interested journal in which the correspondence was appearing contained a letter from the greater novelist L.S.D. which restored everyone to his place. This book might or might not be Art, he hadn't read it; but the editor of
The Protagonist
wrote like a pedagogue, and there was an end of him. As to the claim that literature must always wear a flannel petticoat, it was ‘piffle', and that was that. From under the skirts of this letter the defence, to what of exultation Soames ever permitted himself, moved out in force. Among the defenders were as many as four of the selected ten associates to whom young Butterfield had purveyed copies. They wrote over their own names that
Canthar
was distinctly
LITERATURE
; they were sorry for people who thought in these days that
LITERATURE
had any business with morals. The work must be approached aesthetically or not at all.
ART
was
ART
, and
morality was morality, and never the twain could, would, or should meet. It was monstrous that a work of this sort should have to appear with a foreign imprint. When would England recognize genius when she saw it?

Soames cut the letters out one after the other, and pasted them in a book. He had got what he wanted, and the rest of the discussion interested him no more. He had received, too, a communication from young Butterfield.

S
IR
,

I called on the lady last Monday, and was fortunately able to see her in person. She seemed rather annoyed when I offered her the book. ‘That book,' she said: ‘I read it weeks ago.' ‘It's exciting a great deal of interest, Madam,' I said. ‘I know,' she said. ‘Then you won't take a copy; the price is rising steadily, it'll be very valuable in time?' ‘I've got one,' she said. That's what you told me to find out, sir; so I didn't pursue the matter. I hope I have done what you wanted. But if there is anything more, I shall be most happy. I consider that I owe my present position entirely to you.

Soames didn't know about that, but as to his future position – he might have to put the young man into the box. The question of a play remained. He consulted Michael.

‘Does that young woman still act in the advanced theatre place you gave me the name of?'

Michael winced. ‘I don't know, sir; but I could find out.'

Inquiry revealed that she was cast for the part of Olivia in Bertie Curfew's matinée of ‘The Plain Dealer'.

‘“The Plain Dealer”?' said Soames. ‘Is that an advanced play?'

‘Yes, sir, two hundred and fifty years old.'

‘Ah!' said Soames; ‘they were a coarse lot in those days. How is it she goes on there if she and the young man have split?

‘Oh! well, they're very cool hands. I do hope you're going to keep things out of Court, sir?'

‘I can't tell. When's this performance?'

‘January the seventh.'

Soames went to his club library and took down ‘Wycherley'. He was disappointed with the early portions of ‘The Plain
Dealer', but it improved as it went on, and he spent some time making a list of what George Forsyte would have called the ‘nubbly bits'. He understood that at that theatre they did not bowdlerize. Excellent! There were passages that would raise hair on any British jury. Between
Canthar
and this play, he felt as if he had a complete answer to any claim by the young woman and her set to having ‘morals about them'. Old professional instincts were rising within him. He had retained Sir James Foskisson, K.C., not because he admired him personally, but because if he didn't, the other side might. As junior he was employing very young Nicholas Forsyte; he had no great opinion of him, but it was as well to keep the matter in the family, especially if it wasn't to come into Court.

A conversation with Fleur that evening contributed to his intention that it should not.

‘What's happened to that young American?' he said.

Fleur smiled acidly. ‘Francis Wilmot? Oh! he's “fallen for” Marjorie Ferrar.'

‘ “Fallen for her”?' said Soames. ‘What an expression!'

‘Yes, dear; it's American.'

‘“For” her? It means nothing, so far as I can see.'

‘Let's hope not, for his sake! She's going to marry Sir Alexander MacGown, I'm told.'

‘Oh!'

‘Did Michael tell you that he hit him on the nose?'

‘Which – who?' said Soames testily. ‘Whose nose?'

‘MacGown's, dear; and it bled like anything.'

‘Why on earth did he do that?'

‘Didn't you read his speech about Michael?'

‘Oh!' said Soames. ‘Parliamentary fuss – that's nothing. They're always behaving like schoolboys, there. And so she's going to marry him. Has he been putting her up to all this?'

‘No;
she's
been putting him.'

Soames discounted the information with a sniff; he scented the hostility of woman for woman. Still, chicken and egg – political feeling and social feeling, who could say which first promoted which? In any case, this made a difference. Going to
be married – was she? He debated the matter for some time, and then decided that he would go and see Settlewhite and Stark. If they had been a firm of poor repute or the kind always employed in
‘causes célèbres'
, he wouldn't have dreamed of it; but, as a fact, they stood high, were solid family people, with an aristocratic connexion and all that.

He did not write, but took his hat and went over from ‘The Connoisseurs' to their offices in King Street, St James's. The journey recalled old days – to how many such negotiatory meetings had he not gone or caused his adversaries to come! He had never cared to take things into Court if they could be settled out of it. And always he had approached negotiation with the impersonality of one passionless about to meet another of the same kidney – two calculating machines, making their livings out of human nature. He did not feel like that today; and, aware of this handicap, stopped to stare into the print and picture shop next door. Ah! There were those first proofs of the Roussel engravings of the Prince Consort Exhibition of '51, that Old Mont had spoken of – he had an eye for an engraving, Old Mont. Ah! and there was a Fred Walker, quite a good one! Mason, and Walker – they weren't done for yet by any means. And the sensation that a man feels hearing a blackbird sing on a tree just coming into blossom, stirred beneath Soames's ribs. Long – long since he had bought a picture! Let him but get this confounded case out of the way, and he could enjoy himself again. Riving his glance from the window, he took a long breath, and walked into Settlewhite and Stark's.

The chief partner's room was on the first floor, and the chief partner standing where chief partners stand.

‘How do you do, Mr Forsyte? I've not met you since “Bobbin against the L. & S.W.” That must have been 1900!'

‘1899,' said Soames. ‘You were for the Company.'

Mr Settlewhite pointed to a chair.

Soames sat down and glanced up at the figure before the fire. H'm! a long-lipped, long-eyelashed, long-chinned face; a man of his own calibre, education, and probity! He need not beat about the bush.

‘This action,' he said, ‘is a very petty business. What can we do about it?'

Mr Settlewhite frowned.

‘That depends, Mr Forsyte, on what you have to propose? My client has been very grossly libelled.'

Soames smiled sourly.

‘She began it. And what is she relying on – private letters to personal friends of my daughter's, written in very natural anger! I'm surprised that a firm of your standing–'

Mr Settlewhite smiled.

‘Don't trouble to compliment my firm! I'm surprised myself that you are acting for your daughter. You can hardly see all round the matter. Have you come to offer an apology?'

‘That!' said Soames. ‘I should have thought it was for your client to apologize.'

‘If such is your view, I'm afraid it's no use continuing this discussion.'

Soames regarded him fixedly.

‘How do you think you're going to prove damage? She belongs to the fast set.'

Mr Settlewhite continued to smile.

‘I understand she's going to marry Sir Alexander MacGown,' said Soames.

Mr Settlewhite's lips tightened.

‘Really, Mr Forsyte, if you have come to offer an apology and a substantial sum in settlement, we can talk. Otherwise –'

‘As a sensible man,' said Soames, ‘you know that these Society scandals are always dead sea fruit – nothing but costs and vexations, and a feast for all the gossips about town. I'm prepared to offer you a thousand pounds to settle the whole thing, but an apology I can't look at. A mutual expression of regret – perhaps; but an apology's out of the question.'

‘Fifteen hundred I might accept – the insults have had wide currency. But an apology is essential.'

Soames sat silent, chewing the injustice of it all. Fifteen hundred! Monstrous! Still he would pay even that to keep Fleur out of Court. But humble-pie! She wouldn't eat it, and he couldn't
make her, and he didn't know that he wanted to. He got up.