Often on the point of saying ‘Wait until I’m married’, the look on his face had always deterred her. He was primitive; would never understand her ideal: Perfection, as wife, mistress, and mother, all at once. She kept him only by dangling the hope that she would throw MacGown over; taking care to have him present when MacGown was absent, and absent when MacGown was present. She had failed to keep them apart on two occasions, painful and productive of more lying than she was at all accustomed to. For she was really taken with this young man; he was a new flavour. She ‘loved’ his dark ‘slinky’ eyes, his grace, the way his ‘back-chat’ grew, dark and fine, on his slim comely neck. She ‘loved’ his voice and his old-fashioned way of talking. And, rather oddly, she ‘loved’ his loyalty. Twice she had urged him to find out whether Fleur wasn’t going to ‘climb down’ and ‘pay up’. Twice he had refused, saying: ‘They were mighty nice to me; and I’d never tell you what they said, even if I did go and find out.’
She was painting his portrait, so that a prepared canvas with a little paint on it chaperoned their almost daily interviews,. which took place between three and four when the light had already failed. It was an hour devoted by MacGown to duty in the House. A low and open collar suited Francis Wilmot’s looks. She liked him to sit lissom on a divan with his eyes following her; she liked to come close to him, and see the tremor of his fingers touching her skirt or sleeve, the glow in his eyes, the change in his face when she moved away. His faith in her was inconvenient. P’s and Q’s were letters she despised. And yet, to have to mind them before him gave her a sort of pleasure, made her feel good. One did not shock children!
That day, since she expected MacGown at five, she had become uneasy, before the young man came in saying:
‘I met Michael Mont; his cuff was bloody. Guess whose blood!’
‘Not Alec’s?’
Francis Wilmot dropped her hands.
‘Don’t call that man “Alec” to me.’
‘My dear child, you’re too sensitive. I thought they’d have a row – I read their speeches. Hadn’t Michael a black eye? No? Tt – tt! Al – er – “that man” will be awfully upset. Was the blood fresh?’
‘Yes,’ said Francis Wilmot, grimly.
‘Then he won’t come. Sit down, and let’s do some serious work for once.’
But throwing himself on his knees, he clasped his hands be hind her waist.
‘Marjorie, Marjorie!’
Disciple of Joy, in the forefront of modern mockery, she was yet conscious of pity, for him and for herself. It was hard not to be able to tell him to run out, get licence and ring, or whatever he set store by, and have done with it! Not even that she was ready to have done with it without ring or licence! For one must keep one’s head. She had watched one lover growing tired, kept her head, and dismissed him before he knew it; grown tired of another, kept her head, and gone on till he was tired too. She had watched favourites she had backed go down, kept her head and backed one that didn’t; had seen cards turn against her, and left off playing before her pile was gone. Time and again she had earned the good mark of Modernity.
So she kissed the top of his head, unclasped his hands, and told him to be good; and, in murmuring it, felt that she had passed her prime.
‘Amuse me while I paint,’ she said. ‘I feel rotten.’
And Francis Wilmot, like a dark ghost, amused her.
Some believe that a nose from which blood has been drawn by a blow swells less in the first hour than it does later. This was why Sir Alexander MacGown arrived at half-past four to say that he could not come at five. He had driven straight from the House with a little bag of ice held to it. Having been led to understand that the young American was ‘now in Paris’, he stood stock still, staring at one whose tie was off and whose collar was unbuttoned. Francis Wilmot rose from the divan, no less silent. Marjorie Ferrar put a touch on the canvas.
‘Come and look, Alec; it’s only just begun.’
‘No, thanks,’ said MacGown.
Crumpling his tie into his pocket, Francis Wilmot bowed and moved towards the door.
‘Won’t you stay for tea, Mr Wilmot?’
‘I believe not, thank you.’
When he was gone Marjorie Ferrar fixed her eyes on the nose of her betrothed. Strong and hard, it was, as yet, little differentiated from the normal.
‘Now,’ said MacGown, ‘why did you lie about that young blighter? You said he was in Paris. Are you playing fast and loose with, Marjorie?’
‘Of course! Why not?’
MacGown advanced to within reach of her.
‘Put down that brush.’
Marjorie Ferrar raised it; and suddenly it hit the wall opposite.
‘You’ll stop that picture, and you’ll not see that fellow again; he’s in love with you.’
He had taken her wrists.
Her face, quite as angry as his own, was reined back.
‘Let go! I don’t know if you call yourself a gentleman?’
‘No, a plain man.’
‘Strong and silent – out of a dull novel. Sit down, and don’t be unpleasant.’
The duel of their eyes, brown and burning, blue and icy, endured for quite a minute. Then he did let go.
‘Pick up that brush and give it to me.’
‘I’m damned if I will!’
‘Then our engagement is off. If you’re old-fashioned, I’m not. You want a young woman who’ll give you a whip for a wedding present.’
MacGown put his hands up to his head.
‘I want you too badly to be sane.’
‘Then pick up the brush.’
MacGown picked it up.
‘What have you done to your nose?’
MacGown put his hand to it.
‘Ran it against a door.’
Marjorie Ferrar laughed. ‘Poor door!’
MacGown gazed at her in genuine astonishment.
‘You’re the hardest woman I ever came across; and why I love you, I don’t know.’
‘It hasn’t improved your looks or your temper, my dear. You were rash to come here today.’
MacGown uttered a sort of groan. ‘I can’t keep away, and you know it.’
Marjorie Ferrar turned the canvas face to the wall, and leaned there beside it.
‘I don’t know what you think of the prospects of our happiness, Alec; but I think they’re pretty poor. Will you have a whisky and soda? It’s in that cupboard. Tea, then? Nothing? We’d better understand each other. If I marry you, which is very doubtful, I’m not going into purdah, I shall have what friends I choose. And until I marry you, I shall even see them. If you don’t like it, you can leave it.’
She watched his clenched hands, and her wrists tingled. To be perfect wife to him would ‘take a bit of doing!’ If only she knew of a real ‘good thing’ instead, and had a ‘shirt to put on it!’ If only Francis Wilmot had money and did not live where the cotton came from and darkies crooned in the fields; where rivers ran red, Florida moss festooned the swamps and the sun shone; where grapefruit grew – or didn’t? – and mocking-birds sang sweeter than the nightingale. South Carolina, described to her with such enthusiasm by Francis Wilmot! A world that was not her world stared straight into the eyes of Marjorie Ferrar. South Carolina! Impossible! It was like being asked to be ancient!
MacGown came up to her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, Marjorie.’
On her shrugging shoulders he put his hands, kissed her lips, and went away.
And she sat down in her favourite chair, listless, swinging her foot. The sand had run out of her dolly – life was a bore! It was like driving tandem, when the leader would keep turning round, or the croquet party in Alice in Wonderland, read in the buttercup-fields at High Marshes not twenty years ago that felt like twenty centuries!
What did she want? Just a rest from men and bills? Or that fluffy something called ‘real love’? Whatever it was, she hadn’t got it! And so! Dress, and go out, and dance; and later dress again, and go out and
dine; and the dresses not paid for!
Well, nothing like an egg-nog for ‘the hump’!
Ringing for the ingredients, she made one with plenty of brandy, capped it with nutmeg, and drank it down.
Chapter Four
‘FONS ET ORIGO’
TWO mornings later Michael received two letters. The first, which bore an Australian post-mark, ran thus:
DEAR SIR,
I hope you are well and the lady. I thought perhaps you’d like to know how we are. Well, Sir, we’re not much to speak of out here after a year and a half. I consider there’s too much gilt on the gingerbread as regards Australia. The climate’s all right when it isn’t too dry or too wet – it suits my wife fine, but Sir when they talk about making your fortune all I can say is tell it to the marines. The people here are a funny lot they don’t seem to have any use for us and I don’t seem to have any use for them. They call us Pommies and treat us as if we’d took a liberty in coming to their blooming country. You’d say they wanted a few more out here, but they don’t seem to think so. I often wish I was back in the old Country. My wife says we’re better off here, but I don’t know. Anyway they tell a lot of lies as regards emigration.
Well, Sir, I’ve not forgotten your kindness. My wife says please to remember her to you and the lady.
Yours faithfully,
ANTHONY BICKET.
With that letter in his hand, Michael, like some psychometric medium, could see again the writer, his thin face, prominent eyes, large ears, a shadowy figure of the London streets behind his coloured balloons. Poor little snipe – square peg in round hole wherever he might be; and all those other pegs – thousands upon thousands, that would never fit in. Pommies! Well! He wasn’t recommending emigration for them; he was recommending it for those who could be shaped before their wood had set. Surely they wouldn’t put that stigma on to children! He opened the other letter.
Roll Manor,
Nr. Huntingdon.
MY DEAR SIR,
The disappointment I have felt since the appearance of my book was somewhat mitigated by your kind allusions to it in Parliament, and your championship of its thesis. I am an old man, and do not come to London now, but it would give me pleasure to meet you. If you are ever in this neighbourhood, I should be happy if you would lunch with me, or stay the night, as suits you best.
With kind regards.
Faithfully yours,
JAS: FOGGART.
He showed it to Fleur.
‘If you go, my dear, you’ll be bored to tears.’
‘I must go,’ said Michael; ‘Fons et Origo!’
He wrote that he would come to lunch the following day.
He was met at the station by a horse drawing a vehicle of a shape he had never before beheld. The green-liveried than to whose side he climbed introduced it with the words: ‘Sir James thought, sir, you’d like to see about you; so ‘e sent the T cart.’
It was one of those grey late autumn days, very still, when the few leaves that are left hang listless, waiting to be windswept. The puddled road smelled of rain, rooks rose from the stubbles as if in surprise at the sound of horses’ hoofs; and the turned earth of ploughed fields had the sheen that betokened clay. To the flat landscape poplars gave a certain spirituality; and the russet-tiled farmhouse roofs a certain homeliness.
‘That’s the manor, sir,’ said the driver, pointing with his whip. Between an orchard and a group of elms, where was obviously a rookery, Michael saw a long low house of deeply weathered brick covered by Virginia creeper whose leaves had fallen. At a little distance were barns, out-houses, and the wall of a kitchen-garden. The T cart turned into an avenue of limes and came suddenly on the house unprotected by a gate. Michael pulled an old iron bell. Its lingering clang produced a lingering man, who, puckering his face, said: ‘Mr Mont? Sir James is expecting you. This way, sir.’
Through an old low hall smelling pleasantly of wood-smoke, Michael reached a door which the puckered man closed in his face.
Sir James Foggart! Some gaitered old countryman with little grey whiskers, neat, weathered and firm-featured; or one of those short-necked John Bulls, still extant, square and weighty, with a flat top to his head, and a flat white topper on it?
The puckered man reopened the door, and said:
‘Sir James will see you, sir.’
Before the fire in a large room with a large hearth and many books was a huge old man, grey-bearded and grey-locked, like a superannuated British lion, in an old velvet coat with whitened seams.
He appeared to be trying to rise.
‘Please don’t, sir,’ said Michael.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I won’t. Pleasant journey?’
‘Very.’
‘Sit down. Much touched by your speech. First speech, I think?’
Michael bowed.
‘Not the last, I hope.’
The voice was deep and booming; the eyes looked up keenly, as if out of thickets, so bushy were the eyebrows, and the beard grew so high on the cheeks. The thick grey hair waved across the forehead and fell on to the coat collar. A primeval old man in a high state of cultivation. Michael was deeply impressed.
‘I’ve looked forward to this honour, sir,’ he said, ‘ever since we published your book.’
‘I’m a recluse – never get out now. Tell you the truth, don’t want to – see too many things I dislike. I write, and smoke my pipe. Ring the bell, and we’ll have lunch. Who’s this Sir Alexander MacGown? His head wants punching!’
‘No longer, sir,’ said Michael.
Sir James Foggart leaned back and laughed. His laugh was long, deep, slightly hollow, like a laugh in a trombone.
‘Capital! And how did those fellows take your speech? Used to know a lot of ‘em at one time – fathers of these fellows, grandfathers, perhaps.’
‘How do you know so well what England wants, sir,’ said Michael, suavely, ‘now that you never leave home?’
Sir James Foggart pointed with a large thin hand covered with hair to a table piled with books and magazines.
‘Read,’ he said; ‘read everything – eyes as good as ever – seen a good deal in my day.’ And he was silent, as if seeing it again.
‘Are you following your book up?’
‘M’m. Something for ‘em to read when I’m gone. Eighty-four, you know.’
‘I wonder,’ said Michael, ‘that you haven’t had the Press down.’
‘Have – had ‘ em yesterday; three by different trains; very polite young men; but I could see they couldn’t make head or tail of the old creature – too far gone, eh?’
At this moment the door was opened, and the puckered man came in, followed by a maid and three cats. They put a tray on Sir James’s knees and another on a small table before Michael. On each tray was a partridge with chipped potatoes, spinach and bread sauce. The puckered man filled Sir James’s glass with barley-water, Michael’s with claret, and retired. The three cats, all tortoise-shells, began rubbing themselves against Sir James’s trousers, purring loudly.
‘Don’t mind cats, I hope? No fish today, pussies!’
Michael was hungry and finished his bird. Sir James gave most of his to the cats. They were then served with fruit salad, cheese, coffee and cigars, and everything removed except the cats, who lay replete before the fire curled up in a triangle.
Michael gazed through the smoke of two cigars at the fount and origin, eager, but in doubt whether it would stand pumping – it seemed so very old! Well! anyway, he must have a shot!
‘You know Blythe, sir, of The Outpost? He’s your great supporter; I’m only a mouthpiece.’
‘Know his paper – best of the weeklies; but too clever by half.’
‘Now that I’ve got the chance,’ said Michael, ‘would you mind if I asked you one or two questions?’
Sir James Foggart looked at the lighted end of his cigar. ‘Fire ahead.’
‘Well, sir, can England really stand apart from Europe?’
‘Can sh
e stand with Europe? Alliances based on promise of assistance that won’t be forthcoming – worse than useless.’
‘But suppose Belgium were invaded again, or Holland?’
‘The one case, perhaps. Let that be understood. Knowledge in Europe, young man, of what England will or will not do in given cases is most important. And they’ve never had it. Perfide Albion! Heh! We always wait till the last moment to declare our policy. Great mistake. Gives the impression that we serve Time – which, with our democratic system, by the way, we generally do.’
‘I like that, sir,’ said Michael, who did not. ‘About wheat? How would you stabilize the price so as to encourage our growth of it?’
‘Ha! My pet lamb. We want a wheat loan, Mr Mont, and Government control. Every year the Government should buy in advance all the surplus we need and store it; then fix a price for the home farmers that gives them a good profit; and sell to the public at the average between the two prices. You’d soon see plenty of wheat grown here, and a general revival of agriculture.’
‘But wouldn’t it raise the price of bread, sir?’
‘Not it.’
‘And need an army of officials?’
‘No. Use the present machinery properly organized.’
‘State trading, sir?’ said Michael, with diffidence.
Sir James Foggart’s voice boomed out. ‘Exceptional case – basic case – why not?’
‘I quite agree,’ said Michael, hastily. ‘I never thought of it, but why not?… Now as to the opposition to child emigration in this country. Do you think it comes from the affection of parents for their children?’
‘More from dislike of losing the children’s wages.’
‘Still, you know,’ murmured Michael, ‘one might well kick against losing one’s children for good at fifteen!’
‘One might; human nature’s selfish, young man. Hang on to ‘em and see ’em rot before one’s eyes, or grow up to worse chances than one’s own – as you say, that’s human nature.’
Michael who had not said it, felt somewhat stunned.
‘The child emigration scheme will want an awful lot of money, and organization.’
The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 Page 41
