The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2

by John Galsworthy

  ‘Gosh!’ thought Michael, as she wrung his hand. ‘She is swept and garnished. No basement in her soul!’

  ‘It was good of you to come, Mr Mont. Let me take you over the house. This is the play-room.’

  Michael entered a room of spotless character, which had evidently been formed from several knocked into one. Six small children dressed in blue linen were seated on the floor, playing games. They embraced the knees of Norah Curfew when she came within reach. With the exception of one little girl Michael thought them rather ugly.

  ‘These are our residents. The others only come out of school hours. We have to limit them to fifty, and that’s a pretty good squeeze. We want funds to take the next two houses.’

  ‘How many of you are working here?’

  ‘Six. Two of us do the cooking; one the accounts; and the rest washing, mending, games, singing, dancing and general chores. Two of us live in.’

  ‘I don’t see your harps and crowns.’

  Norah Curfew smiled.

  ‘Pawned,’ she said.

  ‘What do you do about religion?’ asked Michael, thinking of the eleventh baronet’s future.

  ‘Well, on the whole we don’t. You see, they’re none of them more than twelve; and the religious age, when it begins at all, begins with sex about fourteen. We just try to teach kindness and cheerfulness. I had my brother down the other day. He’s always laughed at me; but he’s going to do a matinée for us, and give us the proceeds.’

  ‘What play?’

  ‘I think it’s called “The Plain Dealer”. He says he’s always wanted to do it for a good object.’

  Michael stared. ‘Do you know “The Plain Dealer”?’

  ‘No; it’s by one of the Restoration people, isn’t it?’

  ‘Wycherley.’

  ‘Oh! yes! ’ Her eyes remaining clearer than the dawn, Michael thought: ‘Poor dear! It’s not my business to queer the pitch of her money-getting; but Master Bertie likes his little joke!’

  ‘I must bring my wife down here,’ he said; ‘she’d love your walls and curtains. And I wanted to ask you. You haven’t room, have you, for two more little girls, if we pay for them? Their father’s down and out, and I’m starting him in the country – no mother.’

  Norah Curfew wrinkled her straight brows, and on her face came the look Michael always connected with haloes, an anxious longing to stretch good-will beyond power and pocket.

  ‘Oh; we must!’ she said. ‘I’ll manage somehow. What are their names?’

  ‘Boddick – Christian, I don’t know. I call them by their ages – Four and Five.’

  ‘Give me the address. I’ll go and see them myself; if they haven’t got anything catching, they shall come.’

  ‘You really are an angel,’ said Michael simply.

  Norah Curfew coloured, and opened a door. ‘That’s silly,’ she said, still more simply. ‘This is our mess-room.’

  It was not large, and contained a girl working a typewriter, who stopped with her hands on the keys and looked round; another girl beating up eggs in a bowl, who stopped reading a book of poetry; and a third, who seemed practising a physical exercise, and stopped with her arms extended.

  ‘This is Mr Mont,’ said Norah Curfew, ‘who made that splendid speech in the House. Miss Betts, Miss La Fontaine, Miss Beeston.’

  The girls bowed, and the one who continued to beat the eggs, said: ‘It was bully.’

  Michael also bowed. ‘Beating the air, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh! but, Mr Mont, it must have an effect. It said what so many people are really thinking.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Michael, ‘but their thoughts are so deep, you know.’

  ‘Do sit down.’

  Michael sat on the end of a peacock-blue divan.

  ‘I was born in South Africa,’ said the egg-beater, ‘and I know what’s waiting.’

  ‘My father was in the House,’ said the girl, whose arms had come down to her splendid sides. ‘He was very much struck. Anyway, we’re jolly grateful.’

  Michael looked from one to the other.

  ‘I suppose if you didn’t all believe in things, you wouldn’t be doing this? You don’t think the shutters are up in England, anyway?’

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ said the girl at the typewriter; ‘you’ve only to live among the poor to know that.’

  ‘The poor haven’t got every virtue, and the rich haven’t got every vice – that’s nonsense!’ broke in the physical exerciser.

  Michael murmured soothingly.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I was wondering whether something doesn’t hang over our heads too much?’

  ‘D’you mean poison-gas?’

  ‘Partly; and town blight, and a feeling that Progress had been found out.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ replied the egg-beater, who was dark and pretty. ‘I used to think so in the war. But Europe isn’t the world. Europe isn’t even very important, really. The sun hardly shines there, anyway.’

  Michael nodded. ‘After all, if the Millennium comes and we do blot each other out in Europe, it’ll only mean another desert about the size of the Sahara, and the loss of a lot of people obviously too ill-conditioned to be fit to live. It’d be a jolly good lesson to the rest of the world, wouldn’t it? Luckily the other continents are far off each other.’

  ‘Cheerful!’ exclaimed Norah Curfew.

  Michael grinned.

  ‘Well, one can’t help catching the atmosphere of this place. I admire you all frightfully, you know, giving up everything, to come and do this.’

  ‘That’s tosh,’ said the girl at the typewriter. ‘What is there to give up – bunny-hugging? One got used to doing things in the war.’

  ‘If it comes to that,’ said the egg-beater, ‘we admire you much more for not giving up Parliament.’

  Again Michael grinned.

  ‘Miss La Fontaine – wanted in the kitchen!’

  The egg-beater went towards the door.

  ‘Can you beat eggs? D’you mind – shan’t be a minute.’ Handing Michael the bowl and fork, she vanished.

  ‘What a shame!’ said Norah Curfew. ‘Let me!’

  ‘No,’ said Michael; ‘I can beat eggs with anybody. What do you all feel about cutting children adrift at fifteen?’

  ‘Well, of course, it’ll be bitterly opposed,’ said the girl at the typewriter. ‘They’ll call it inhuman, and all that. It’s much more inhuman really to keep them here.’

  ‘The real trouble,’ said Norah Curfew, ‘apart from the shillings earned, is the class-interference idea. Besides, Imperialism isn’t popular.’

  ‘I should jolly well think it isn’t,’ muttered the physical exerciser.

  ‘Ah!’ said the typist, ‘but this isn’t Imperialism, is it, Mr Mont? It’s all on the lines of making the Dominions the equal of the Mother Country.’

  Michael nodded. ‘Commonwealth.’

  ‘That won’t prevent their camouflaging their objection to losing the children’s wages,’ said the physical exerciser.

  A close discussion ensued between the three young women as to the exact effect of children’s wages on the working-class budget. Michael beat his eggs and listened. It was, he knew, a point of the utmost importance. The general conclusion seemed to be that children earned on the whole rather more than their keep, but that it was ‘very shortsighted in the long run’, because it fostered surplus population and unemployment, and a ‘great shame’ to spoil the children’s chances for the sake of the parents.

  The re-entrance of the egg-beater put a stop to it.

  ‘They’re beginning to come in, Norah.’

  The physical exerciser slipped out, and Norah Curfew said:

  ‘Now, Mr Mont, would you like to see them?’

  Michael followed her. He was thinking: ‘I wish Fleur had come!’ These girls seemed really to believe in things.

  Downstairs the children were trickling in from school. He stood and watched them. They seemed a queer blend of anaemia and vitality, of
effervescence and obedience. Unselfconscious as puppies, but old beyond their years; and yet, looking as if they never thought ahead. Each movement, each action was as if it were their last. They were very quick. Most of them carried something to eat in a paper bag or a bit of grease-paper. They chattered, and didn’t laugh. Their accent struck Michael as deplorable. Six or seven at most were nice to look at; but nearly all looked good-tempered, and none seemed to be selfish. Their movements were jerky. They mobbed Norah Curfew and the physical exerciser; obeyed without question, ate without appetite, and grabbed at the house cat. Michael was fascinated.

  With them came four or five mothers, who had questions to ask, or bottles to fill. They too were on perfect terms with the young women. Class did not exist in this house; only personality was present. He noticed that the children responded to his grin, that the women didn’t, though they smiled at Norah Curfew and the physical exerciser; he wondered if they would give him a bit of their minds if they knew of his speech.

  Norah Curfew accompanied him to the door.

  ‘Aren’t they ducks?’

  ‘I’m afraid if I saw much of them, I should give up Foggartism.’

  ‘Oh! but why?’

  ‘Well, you see, it designs to make them men and women of property.’

  ‘You mean that would spoil them?’

  Michael grinned. ‘There’s something dangerous about silver spoons. Here’s my initiation fee.’ He handed her all his money.

  ‘Oh! Mr Mont, we didn’t – !’

  ‘Well, give me back sixpence, otherwise I shall have to walk home.’

  ‘It’s frightfully kind of you. Do come again; and please don’t give up Foggartism.’

  He walked to the train thinking of her eyes; and, on reaching home, said to Fleur:

  ‘You absolutely must come and see that place. It’s quite clean, and the spirit’s topping. It’s bucked me up like anything. Norah Curfew’s perfectly splendid.’

  Fleur looked at him between her lashes.

  ‘Oh!’she said. ‘I will.’

  Chapter Seven

  CONTRASTS

  THE land beyond the coppice at Lippinghall was a ten-acre bit of poor grass, chalk and gravel, fenced round, to show that it was property. Except for one experiment with goats, abandoned because nobody would drink their milk in a country that did not demean itself by growing food, nothing had been done with it. By December this poor relation of Sir Lawrence Mont’s estate was being actively exploited. Close to the coppice the hut had been erected, and at least an acre converted into a sea of mud. The coppice itself presented an incised and draggled appearance, owing to the ravages of Henry Boddick and another man, who had cut and stacked a quantity of timber, which a contractor was gradually rejecting for the fowl-house and granary. The incubator-house was at present in the nature of a prophecy. Progress, in fact, was somewhat slow, but it was hoped that fowls might be asked to begin their operations soon after the New Year. In the meantime Michael had decided that the colony had better get the worst over and go into residence. Scraping the Manor House for furniture, and sending in a store of groceries, oil-lamps, and soap, he installed Boddick on the left, earmarked the centre for the Bergfelds, and the right hand for Swain. He was present when the Manor car brought them from the station. The murky day was turning cold, the trees dripped, the car-wheels splashed up the surface water. From the doorway of the hut Michael watched them get out, and thought he had never seen three more untimely creatures. Bergfeld came first; having only one suit, he had put it on, and looked what he was – an actor out of a job. Mrs Bergfeld came second, and having no outdoor coat, looked what she was – nearly frozen. Swain came last. On his shadowy face was nothing quite so spirited as a sneer; but he gazed about him, and seemed to say: ‘My hat!’

  Boddick, with a sort of prescience, was absent in the coppice. ‘He,’ thought Michael, ‘is my only joy!’

  Taking them into the kitchen mess-room of the hut, he deployed a thermos of hot coffee, a cake, and a bottle of rum.

  ‘Awfully sorry things look so dishevelled; but I think the hut’s dry, and there are plenty of blankets. These oil-lamps smell rather. You were in the war, Mr Swain; you’ll feel at home in no time. Mrs Bergfeld, you look so cold, do put some rum into your coffee; we always do when we go over the top.’

  They all put rum into their coffee, which had a marked effect. Mrs Bergfeld’s cheeks grew pink, and her eyes darkened. Swain remarked that the hut was a ‘bit of all right’; Bergfeld began making a speech. Michael checked him. ‘Boddick knows all the ropes. I’m afraid I’ve got to catch a train; I’ve only just time to show you round.’

  While whirling back to town afterwards he felt that he had, indeed, abandoned his platoon just as it was going over the top. That night he would be dining in Society; there would be light and warmth, jewels and pictures, wine and talk; the dinner would cost the board of his ‘down and outs’ for a quarter at least; and nobody would give them and their like a thought. If he ventured to draw Fleur’s attention to the contrast, she would say:

  ‘My dear boy, that’s like a book by Gurdon Minho; you’re getting sentimental.’ And he would feel a fool. Or would he? Would he not, perhaps, look at her small distinguished head and think: ‘Too easy a way out, my dear; those who take it have little heads!’ And, then, his eyes, straying father down to that white throat and all the dainty loveliness below, would convey a warmth to his blood and a warning to his brain not to give way to blasphemy, lest it end by disturbing bliss. For what with Foggartism, poultry, and the rest of it, Michael had serious thoughts sometimes that Fleur had none; and with wisdom born of love, he knew that if she hadn’t, she never would have, and he must get used to it. She was what she was, and could be converted only in popular fiction. Excellent business for the self-centred heroine to turn from interest in her own belongings to interest in people who had no belongings; but in life it wasn’t done. Fleur at least camouflaged her self-concentration gracefully; and with Kit –! Ah! but Kit was herself!

  So he did not mention his ‘down and outs’ on their way to dinner in Eaton Square. He took instead a lesson in the royal Personage named on their invitation card, and marvelled at Fleur’s knowledge. ‘She’s interested in social matters. And do remember, Michael, not to sit down till she asks you to, and not to go away before her, and to say “ma’am”.’

  Michael grinned. ‘I suppose they’ll all be nobs, or sn – er – why the deuce did they ask us?’

  But Fleur was silent, thinking of her curtsey.

  Royalty was affable, the dinner short but superb, served and eaten off gold plate, at a rate which suited the impression that there really wasn’t a moment to spare. Fleur took a mental note of this new necessity. She knew personally five of the twenty-four diners, and the rest as in an illustrated paper, darkly. She had seen them all there at one time or another, stepping hideously in paddocks, photographed with their offspring or their dogs, about to reply for the Colonies, or ‘taking a lunar’ at a flying grouse. Her quick instinct apprehended almost at once the reason why she and Michael had been invited. His speech! Like some new specimen at the Zoo, he was an object of curiosity, a stunt. She saw people nodding in the direction of him, seated opposite her between two ladies covered with flesh and pearls. Excited and very pretty, she flirted with the Admiral on her right, and defended Michael with spirit from the Under-Secretary on her left. The Admiral grew warm, the Under-Secretary, too young for emotion, cold.

  ‘A little knowledge, Mrs Mont,’ he said at the end of his short second innings, ‘is a dangerous thing.’

  ‘Now where have I heard that?’ said Fleur. ‘Is it in the Bible?’

  The Under-Secretary tilted his chin.

  ‘We who have to work departments know too much, perhaps; but your husband certainly doesn’t know enough. Foggartism is an amusing idea, but there it stops.’

  ‘We shall see!’ said Fleur. ‘What do you say, Admiral?’

  ‘Foggartism! What’s that – new kind
of death ray? I saw a fellow yesterday, Mrs Mont – give you my word! – who’s got a ray that goes through three bullocks, a nine-inch brick wall, and gives a shock to a donkey on the other side; and only at quarter strength.’

  Fleur flashed a look round towards the Under-Secretary, who had turned his shoulder, and, leaning towards the Admiral, murmured:

  ‘I wish you’d give a shock to the donkey on my other side; he wants it, and I’m not nine inches thick.’

  But before the Admiral could shoot his death ray, Royalty had risen.

  In the apartment to which Fleur was withdrawn, she had been saying little for some minutes, and noticing much, when her hostess came up and said:

  ‘My dear, Her Royal Highness –’

  Fleur followed, retaining every wit.

  A frank and simple hand patted the sofa beside her. Fleur sat down. A frank and simple voice said:

  ‘What an interesting speech your husband made! It was so refreshing, I thought.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Fleur; ‘but there it will stop, I am told.’

  A faint smile curled lips guiltless of colouring matter.

  ‘Well, perhaps. Has he been long in Parliament?’

  ‘Only a year.’

  ‘Ah! I liked his taking up the cudgels for the children.’

  ‘Some people think he’s proposing a new kind of child slavery.’

  ‘Oh! really! Have you any children?’

  ‘One,’ said Fleur, and added honestly: ‘And I must say I wouldn’t part with him at fourteen.’

  ‘Ah! And have you been long married?’

  ‘Four years.’

  At this moment the royal lady saw someone else she wished to speak to, and was compelled to break off the conversation, which she did very graciously, leaving Fleur with the feeling that she had been disappointed with the rate of production.

  In the cab trailing its way home through the foggy night, she felt warm and excited, and as if Michael wasn’t.