The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 (68 page)

‘I've been thinking about the country,' said Michael. ‘Aren't we beating the air, Blythe? Is it any good telling a man who's lost a lung that what he wants is a new one?'

Mr Blythe puffed out one cheek.

‘Yes,' he said, ‘the country had a hundred very settled years – Waterloo to the War – to get into its present state; it's got its line of life so fixed and its habits so settled that nobody – neither editors, politicians nor business men – can think except in terms of its bloated town industrialism. The country's got beyond the point of balance in that hundred settled years, and it'll want fifty settled years to get back to that point again. The real trouble is that we're not going to get fifty settled years. Some bee thing or other – war with Turkey or Russia, trouble in India, civil ructions, to say nothing of another general flare-up – may knock the bottom out of any settled plans at any time. We've struck a disturbed patch of history, and we know it in our bones, and live from hand to mouth, according.'

‘Well, then!' said Michael glumly, thinking of what the Minister had said to him at Lippinghall.

Mr Blythe puffed out the other cheek.

‘No backsliding, young man! In Foggartism we have the best goods we can see before us, and we must bee well deliver them, as best we can. We've outgrown all the old hats.'

‘Have you seen Aubrey Greene's cartoon?'

‘I have.'

‘Good – isn't it? But what I really came in to tell you is that this beastly libel case of ours will be on next week.'

Mr Blythe's ears moved.

‘I'm sorry for that. Win or lose – nothing's worse for public life than private ructions. You're not going to have it, are you?'

‘We can't help it. But our defence is to be confined to an attack on the new morality.'

‘One can't attack what isn't,' said Mr Blythe.

‘D'you mean to say,' said Michael, grinning, ‘that you haven't noticed the new morality?'

‘Certainly not. Formulate it if you can.'

‘“Don't be stupid, don't be dull.”'

Mr Blythe grunted. ‘The old morality used to be: “Behave like a gentleman.”'

‘Yes! But in modern thought there ain't no sich an animal.'

‘There are fragments lying about; they reconstructed Neanderthal man from half a skull.'

‘A word that's laughed at can't be used, Blythe.'

‘Ah! said Mr Blythe. ‘The chief failings of your generation, young Mont, are sensitiveness to ridicule and terror of being behind the times. It's bee weak-minded.'

Michael grinned.

‘I know it. Come down to the House. Parsham's Electrification Bill is due. We may get some lights on Unemployment.'

Having parted from Mr Blythe in the Lobby, Michael came on his father walking down a corridor with a short bright old man in a trim grey beard.

‘Ah! Michael, we've been seeking you. Marquess, my hopeful son! The marquess wants to interest you in electricity.'

Michael removed his hat.

‘Will you come to the reading-room, my lord?'

This, as he knew, was Marjorie Ferrar's grandfather, and might be useful. In a remote corner of a room lighted so that nobody could see anyone else reading, they sat down in triangular formation.

‘You know about electricity, Mr Mont?' said the marquess.

‘No, sir, except that more of it would be desirable in this room.'

‘Everywhere, Mr Mont. I've read about your Foggartism; if you'll allow me to say so, it's quite possibly the policy of the future; but nothing will be done with it till you've electrified the country. I should like you to start by supporting this Bill of Parsham's.'

And, with an engaging distinction of syllable, the old peer proceeded to darken Michael's mind.

‘I see, sir,' said Michael at last. ‘This Bill ought to add considerably to Unemployment.'

‘Temporarily.'

‘I wonder if I ought to take on any more temporary trouble. I'm finding it difficult enough to interest people in the future as it is – they seem to think the present so important.'

Sir Lawrence whinnied.

‘You must give him time and pamphlets, Marquess. But, my dear fellow, while your Foggartism is confined to the stable, you'll want a second horse.'

‘I've been advised already to take up the state of the traffic or penny postage. And, by the way, sir, that case of ours
is
coming into Court next week.'

Sir Lawrence's loose eyebrow shot up:

‘Oh!' he said. ‘Do you remember, Marquess – your granddaughter and my daughter-in-law? I came to you about it.'

‘Something to do with lions? A libel, was it?' said the old peer. ‘My aunt –'

While Michael was trying to decide whether this was an ejaculation or the beginning of a reminiscence, his father broke in:

‘Ah! yes, an interesting case that, Marquess – it's all in Betty Montecourt's Memoirs.'

‘Libels,' resumed the marquess, ‘had flavour in those days. The words complained of were: “Her crinoline covers her considerable obliquity.”'

‘If anything's to be done to save scandal,' muttered Michael, ‘it must be done now. We're at a deadlock.'

‘Could
you
put in a word, sir?' said Sir Lawrence.

The marquess's beard quivered.

‘I see from the papers that my granddaughter is marrying a man called MacGown, a Member of this House. Is he about?'

‘Probably,' said Michael. ‘But I had a row with him. I think, sir, there would be more chance with her.'

The marquess rose. ‘I'll ask her to breakfast. I dislike publicity. Well, I hope you'll vote for this Bill, Mr Mont, and think over the question of electrifying the country. We want young men interested. I'm going to the Peers' Gallery now. Good-bye!'

When briskly he had gone, Michael said to his father: ‘If he's not going to have it, I wish he'd ask Fleur to breakfast, too. There are two parties to this quarrel.'

SOAMES DRIVES HOME

S
OAMES
in the meantime was seated with one of those parties in her ‘parlour'. She had listened in silence, but with a stubborn and resentful face. What did he know of the loneliness and frustration she had been feeling? Could he tell that the thrown stone had started her mirrored image of herself; that the words ‘snob' and ‘lion-huntress' had entered her very soul? He could not understand the spiritual injury she had received, the sudden deprivation of that self-importance, and hope of rising, necessary to all. Concerned by the expression on her face, preoccupied with the practical aspects of the ‘circus' before them, and desperately involved in thoughts of how to keep her out of it as much as possible, Soames was reduced to the closeness of a fish.

‘You'll be sitting in front, next to me,' he said. ‘I shouldn't wear anything too bright. Would you like your mother there, too?'

Fleur shrugged her shoulders.

‘Just so,' said Soames. ‘But if she wants to come, she'd better, perhaps. Brane is not a joking judge, thank goodness. Have you ever been in a Court?'

‘No.'

‘The great thing is to keep still and pay no attention to anything. They'll all be behind you, except the jury – and there's nothing in them, really. If you look at them, don't smile!'

‘Why? Aren't they safe, Dad?'

Soames put the levity aside.

‘I should wear a small hat. Michael must sit on your left. Have you got over that – er – not telling each other things?'

‘Yes.'

‘I shouldn't begin it again. He's very fond of you.'

Fleur nodded.

‘Is there anything you want to tell
me
? You know I – I worry about you.'

Fleur got up and sat on the arm of his chair; he had at once a feeling of assuagement

‘I really don't care now. The harm's done. I only hope
she'll
have a bad time.'

Soames, who had the same hope, was somewhat shocked by its expression.

He took leave of her soon after and got into his car for the dark drive back to Mapledurham. The spring evening was cold and he had the window up. At first he thought of very little; and then of still less. He had passed a tiring afternoon, and was glad of the slight smell of stephanotis provided by Annette. The road was too familiar to rouse his thoughts, beyond wonder at the lot of people there always seemed to be in the world between six and seven. He dozed his way into the new cut, woke, and dozed again. What was this – Slough? Before going to Marlborough he had been at school there with young Nicholas and St John Heyman, and after his time, some other young Forsytes. Nearly sixty years ago! He remembered his first day – a brand-new little boy in a brand-new little top-hat, with a play-box stored by his mother with things to eat, and blessed with the words: ‘There, Summy dear, that'll make you popular.' He had
reckoned on having command of that corruption for some weeks; but no sooner had he produced a bit of it than they had taken the box, and suggested to him that it would be a good thing to eat the lot. In twenty-two minutes twenty-two boys had materially increased their weight, and he himself, in handing out the contents, had been obliged to eat less than a twenty-third. They had left him one packet of biscuits, and those had caraway seeds, for which he had constitutionally no passion whatever. Afterwards, three other new boys had complained that he was a fool for having it all eaten up like that, instead of saving it for them, and he had been obliged to sit on their heads one by one. His popularity had lasted twenty-two minutes, and, so far as he knew, had never come back. He had been against Communism ever since.

Bounding a little on the cushioned seat, he remembered poignantly his own cousin St John Heyman pushing him into a gorse-bush and holding him there for an appreciable minute. Horrid little brutes, boys! For a moment he felt quite grateful to Michael for trying to get them out of England. And yet –! He had some pleasant memories even of boys. There was his collection of butterflies – he had sold two Red Admirals in poor condition to a boy for one-and-threepence. To be a boy again – h'm – and shoot peas at passengers in a train that couldn't stop, and drink cherry brandy going home, and win a prize by reciting two hundred lines of ‘The Lady of the Lake' better than ‘Cherry-Tart' Burroughes – Um? What had become of ‘Cherry-Tart' Burroughes, who had so much money at school that his father went bankrupt! ‘Cherry-Tart' Burroughes!

The loom of Slough faded. One was in rank country now, and he ground the handle of the window to get a little fresh air. A smell of trees and grass came in. Get boys out of England! They had funny accents in those great places overseas. Well, they had funny accents here, too. The accent had been all right at Slough – for if it wasn't a boy got lammed. He remembered the first time his father and mother – James and Emily – came down; very genteel (before the word was fly-blown), all whiskers and crinoline; the beastly boys had made personal remarks
which had hurt him! Get 'em out of England! But in those days there had been nowhere for boys to go. He took a long breath of the wayside air. They said England was changed, spoiled, some even said ‘done for'. Bosh! It still smelt the same! His great-uncle, one of ‘Superior Dosset's' brothers, had gone as a boy to Bermuda at the beginning of the last century, and had he been heard of since? Not he. Young Jon Forsyte and his mother – his own first, unfaithful, still not quite forgotten wife – had gone to the States – would they be heard of again? He hoped not. England! Some day, when he had time and the car was free, he would go and poke round on the border of Dorset and Devon where the Forsytes came from. There was nothing there – he understood, and he wouldn't care to let anybody know of his going; but the earth must be some sort of colour, and there would be a graveyard, and – ha! Maidenhead! These sprawling villas and hotels and gramophones spoiled the river. Funny that Fleur had never been very fond of the river; too slow and wet, perhaps – everything was quick and dry now, like America. But had they such a river as the Thames anywhere out of England? Not they! Nothing that ran green and clear and weedy, where you could sit in a punt and watch the cows, and those big elms, and the poplars. Nothing that was safe and quiet, where you called your soul your own and thought of Constable and Mason and Walker.

His car bumped something slightly, and came to a stand. That fellow Riggs was always bumping something! He looked out. The chauffeur had got down and was examining his mudguard.

‘What was that?' said Soames.

‘I think it was a pig, sir.'

‘Where?'

‘Shall I drive on, or see?'

Soames looked round. There seemed no inhabitants in sight.

‘Better see.'

The chauffeur disappeared behind the car. Soames remained seated. He had never had any pigs. They said the pig was a clean animal. People didn't treat pigs properly. It was very
quiet! No cars on the road; in the silence the wind was talking a little in the hedgerow. He noticed some stars.