The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 (96 page)

‘How will you repay the Bonds in twenty years?'

‘Oh! Like the Government – by issuing more.'

‘But,' said Michael, ‘the local authorities have very wide powers, and much more chance of getting the money.'

Hilary shook his head.

‘Wide powers, yes; but they're slow, Michael – the snail is a fast animal compared with them; besides, they only displace, because the rents they charge are too high. Also it's not in the English character, my dear. Somehow we don't like being “done for” by officials, or being answerable to them. There's lots of room, of course, for slum area treatment by Borough Councils, and they do lots of good work, but by themselves, they'll never scotch the evil. You want the human touch; you want a sense of humour, and faith; and that's a matter for private effort in every town where there are slums.'

‘And who's going to start this general fund?' asked Michael, gazing at his aunt's eyebrows, which had begun to twitch.

‘Well,' said Hilary, twinkling, ‘I thought that might be where you came in. That's why I asked you down to-day, in fact.'

‘The deuce! ' said Michael almost leaping above the Irish stew on his plate.

‘Exactly!' said his uncle; ‘but couldn't you get together a committee of both Houses to issue an appeal? From the work we've done James can give you exact figures. They could see for themselves what's happened here. Surely, Michael, there must be ten just men who could be got to move in a matter like this –'

‘“Ten Apostles,”' said Michael faintly.

‘Well, but there's no real need to bring Christ in – nothing remote or sentimental; you could approach them from any angle. Old Sir Timothy Fanfield, for example, would love to have a “go” at slum landlordism. Then we've electrified all the kitchens so far, and mean to go on doing it – so you could get old Shropshire on that. Besides, there's no need to confine the committee to the two Houses – Sir Thomas Morsell, or, I should think, any of the big doctors, would come in; you could pinch a brace of bankers with Quaker blood in them; and there are always plenty of retired governor generals with their tongues out. Then if you could rope in a member of the Royal Family to head it – the trick would be done.'

‘Poor Michael!' said his aunt's soft voice: ‘Let him finish his stew, Hilary'

But Michael had dropped his fork for good; he saw another kind of stew before him.

‘The General Slum Conversion Fund,' went on Hilary, ‘affiliating every Slum Conversion Society in being or to be, so long as it conforms to the principle of not displacing the present inhabitant. Don't you see what a pull that gives over the inhabitants? – we start them straight, and we jolly well see that they don't let their houses down again.'

‘But can you?' said Michael.

‘Ah! you've heard stories of baths being used for coal and vegetables, and all that. Take it from me, they're exaggerated, Michael. Anyway, that's where we private workers come in with a big advantage over municipal authorities. They have to drive, we try to lead.'

‘Let me hot up your stew, dear?' said his aunt.

Michael refused. He perceived that it would need no hotting up! Another crusade! His Uncle Hilary had always fascinated him with his crusading blood – at the time of the Crusades the name had been Kéroual, and now spelt Charwell, was pronounced Cherwell, in accordance with the sound English custom of worrying foreigners.

‘I'm not approaching you, Michael, with the inducement that you should make your name at this, because, after all, you're a gent!'

‘Thank you!' murmured Michael; ‘always glad of a kind word.'

‘No. I'm suggesting that you ought to do something, considering your luck in life.'

‘I quite agree,' said Michael humbly. ‘The question seems to be: Is this the something?'

‘It is, undoubtedly,' said his uncle, waving a salt-spoon on which was engraved the Charwell crest. ‘What else can it be?'

‘Did you ever hear of Foggartism, Uncle Hilary?'

‘No; what's that?'

‘My aunt!' said Michael.

‘Some blanc-mange, dear?'

‘Not you, Aunt May! But did you really never hear of it, Uncle Hilary?'

‘Foggartism? Is it that fog-abating scheme one reads about?'

‘It is not,' said Michael. ‘Of course, you're sunk in misery and sin here. Still, it's almost too thick. You've heard of it, Aunt May?'

His aunt's eyebrows became intricate again.

‘I think,' she said, ‘I do remember hearing someone say it was balderdash!'

Michael groaned: ‘And you, Mr James?'

‘It's to do with the currency, isn't it?'

‘And here,' said Michael, ‘we have three intelligent, public-spirited persons, who've never heard of Foggartism – and I've heard of nothing else for over a year.'

‘Well,' said Hilary, ‘had you heard of my slum-conversion scheme?'

‘Certainly not.'

‘I think,' said his aunt, ‘it would be an excellent thing if you'd smoke while I make the coffee. Now I do remember, Michael: your mother did say to me that she wished you would get over it. I'd forgotten the name. It had to do with taking town children away from their parents.'

‘Partly,' said Michael, with gloom.

‘You have to remember, dear, that the poorer people are, the more they cling to their children.'

‘Vicarious joy in life,' put in Hilary.

‘And the poorer children are, the more they cling to their gutters, as I was telling you.'

Michael buried his hands in his pockets.

‘There is no good in me,' he said stonily. ‘You've pitched on a stumer, Uncle Hilary.'

Both Hilary and his wife got up very quickly, and each put a hand on his shoulder.

‘My dear boy!' said his aunt.

‘God bless you!' said Hilary. ‘Have a “gasper”.'

‘All right,' said Michael, grinning, ‘it's wholesome.'

Whether or not it was the ‘gasper' that was wholesome, he took and lighted it from his uncle's.

‘What is the most pitiable sight in the world, Aunt May – I mean, next to seeing two people dance the Charleston?'

‘The most pitiable sight?' said his aunt dreamily.

‘Oh! I think – a rich man listening to a bad gramophone.'

‘Wrong!' said Michael. ‘The most pitiable sight in the world is a politician barking up the right tree. Behold him!'

‘Look out, May! Your machine's boiling. She makes very good coffee, Michael – nothing like it for the grumps. Have some, and then James and I will show you the houses we've converted. James – come with me a moment.'

‘Noted for his pertinacity,' muttered Michael, as they disappeared.

‘Not only noted, Michael – dreaded.'

‘Well, I would rather be Uncle Hilary than anybody I know.'

‘He
is
rather a dear,' murmured his aunt. ‘Coffee?'

‘What does he really believe, Aunt May?'

‘Well, he hardly has time for that.'

‘Ah! that's the new hope of the Church. All the rest is just as much an attempt to improve on mathematics as Einstein's theory. Orthodox religion was devised for the cloister, Aunt May, and there aren't any cloisters left.'

‘Religion,' said his aunt dreamily, ‘used to burn a good many people, Michael, not in cloisters.'

‘Quite so, when it emerged from cloisters, religion used to be red-hot politics, then it became caste feeling, and now it's a crossword puzzle – You don't solve
them
with your emotions.'

His aunt smiled.

‘You have a dreadful way of putting things, my dear.'

‘In our “suckles”, Aunt May, we do nothing but put things – it destroys all motive power. But about this slum business: do you really advise me to have “a go”?'

‘Not if you want a quiet life.'

‘I don't know that I do. I did after the war; but not now. But, you see, I've tried Foggartism and everybody's too sane to look at it. I really can't afford to back another loser. Do you think there's a chance of getting a national move on?'

‘Only a sporting chance, dear.'

‘Would you take it up then, if you were me?'

‘My dear, I'm prejudiced – Hilary's heart is so set on it; but it does seem to me that there's no other cause I'd so gladly fail in. Well, not exactly; but there really is nothing so important as giving our town dwellers decent living conditions.'

‘It's rather like going over to the enemy,' muttered Michael. ‘Our future oughtn't to be so bound up in the towns.'

‘It
will
be, whatever's done. “A bird in the hand”, and such a big bird, Michael. Ah! Here's Hilary!'

Hilary and his architect took Michael forth again into ‘The Meads'. The afternoon had turned drizzly, and the dismal character of that flowerless quarter was more than ever apparent. Up street, down street, Hilary extolled the virtues of his parishioners. They drank, but not nearly so much as was natural in the circumstances; they were dirty, but he would be dirtier
under their conditions. They didn't come to church – who on earth would expect them to? They assaulted their wives to an almost negligible extent; were extraordinarily good, and extremely unwise, to their children. They had the most marvellous faculty for living on what was not a living wage. They helped each other far better those who could afford to; never saved a bean, having no beans to save, and took no thought for a morrow which might be worse than to-day. Institutions they abominated. They were no more moral than was natural in their overcrowded state. Of philosophy they had plenty, of religion none that he could speak of. Their amusements were cinemas, streets, gaspers, public houses, and Sunday papers. They liked a tune, and would dance if afforded a chance. They had their own brand of honesty which required special study. Unhappy? Not precisely, having given up a future state in this life or in that – realist to their encrusted finger-nails. English? Well, nearly all, and mostly London-born. A few country folk had come in young, and would never go out old.

‘You'd like them, Michael; nobody who really knows them can help liking them. And now, my dear fellow, good-bye, and think it over. The hope of England lies in you young men. God bless you!'

And with these words in his ears, Michael went home, to find his little son sickening for measles.

MEASLES

T
HE
diagnosis of Kit's malady was soon verified, and Fleur went into purdah.

Soames's efforts to distract his grandson arrived almost every day. One had the ears of a rabbit, with the expression of a dog, another the tail of a mule detachable from the body of a lion, the third made a noise like many bees; the fourth, though
designed for a waistcoat, could be pulled out tall. The procuring of these rarities, together with the choicest mandarine oranges, muscatel grapes, and honey that was not merely ‘warranted' pure, occupied his mornings in town. He was staying at Green Street, whereto the news, judiciously wired, had brought Annette. Soames, who was not yet entirely resigned to a spiritual life, was genuinely glad to see her. But after one night, he felt he could spare her to Fleur. It would be a relief to feel that she had her mother with her. Perhaps by the end of her seclusion that young fellow would be out of her reach again. A domestic crisis like this might even put him out of her head. Soames was not philosopher enough to gauge in-round the significance of his daughter's yearnings. To one born in 1855 love was a purely individual passion, or if it wasn't it ought to be. It did not occur to him that Fleur's longing for Jon might also symbolize the craving in her blood for life, the whole of life, and nothing but life; that Jon had represented her first serious defeat in the struggle for the fullness of perfection; a defeat that might yet be wiped out. The modern soul, in the intricate turmoil of its sophistication, was to Soames a book which, if not sealed, had its pages still uncut. ‘Crying for the moon' had become a principle when he was already much too old for principles. Recognition of the limits of human life and happiness was in his blood, and had certainly been fostered by his experience. Without, exactly, defining existence as ‘making the best of a bad job', he would have contended that though, when you had almost everything, you had better ask for more, you must not fash yourself if you did not get it. The virus of a time-worn religion which had made the really irreligious old Forsytes say their prayers to the death, in a muddled belief that they would get something for them after death, still worked inhibitively in the blood of their prayerless offspring, Soames, so that, although fairly certain that he would get nothing after death, he still believed that he would not get everything before death. He lagged, in fact, behind the beliefs of a new century in whose ‘makeup' resignation played no part – a century which either believed, with spiritualism, that there were plenty of chances to get things
after death, or that, since one died for good and all, one must see to it that one had everything before death. Resignation! Soames would have denied, of course, that he believed in any such thing; and certainly he thought nothing too good for his daughter! And yet, somehow, he felt in his bones that there
was
a limit, and Fleur did not – this little distinction, established by the difference in their epochs, accounted for his inability to follow so much of her restive search.