The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2

by John Galsworthy

  ‘What’s the matter, Michael?’

  His hand came down on her knee at once.

  ‘Sorry, old thing! Only, really – when you think of it – eh?’

  ‘Of what? You were quite a li – object of interest.’

  ‘The whole thing’s a game. Anything for novelty!’

  ‘The Princess was very nice about you.’

  ‘Ah! Poor thing! But I suppose you get used to anything!’

  Fleur laughed. Michael went on:

  ‘Any new idea gets seized and talked out of existence. It never gets farther than the brain, and the brain gets bored; and there it is, already a back number!’

  ‘That can’t be true, Michael. What about Free Trade, or Woman Suffrage?’

  Michael squeezed her knee. ‘All the women say to me: “But how interesting, Mr Mont; I think it’s most thrilling!” And the men say: “Good stunt, Mont!’ But not practical politics, of course.” And I’ve only one answer: “Things as big got done in the war.” By George, it’s foggy!’

  They were going, indeed, at a snail’s pace, and through the windows could see nothing but the faint glow of the street lamps emerging slowly, high up, one by one. Michael let down a window and leaned out.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Gawd knows, sir.’

  Michael coughed, put up the window again, and resumed his clutch of Fleur.

  ‘By the way, Wastwater asked me if I’d read Canthar. He says there’s a snorting cut-up of it in The Protagonist. It’ll have the usual effect – sends sales up.’

  ‘They say it’s very clever.’

  ‘Horribly out of drawing – not fit for children, and tells adults nothing they don’t know. I don’t see how it can be justified.’

  ‘Genius, my dear. If it’s attacked, it’ll be defended.’

  ‘Sib Swan won’t have it – he says it’s muck.’

  ‘Oh! yes; but Sib’s getting a back number.’

  ‘That’s very true,’ said Michael, thoughtfully. ‘By Jove! how fast things move, except in politics, and fog.’

  Their cab had come to a standstill. Michael let down the window again.

  ‘I’m fair lost, sir,’ said the driver’s hoarse voice. ‘Ought to be near the Embankment, but for the life of me I can’t find the turning.’ Michael buttoned his coat, put up the window again, and got out on the near side.

  The night was smothered, alive only with the continual hootings of creeping cars. The black vapour, acrid and cold, surged into Michael’s lungs.

  ‘I’ll walk beside you; we’re against the kerb; creep on till we strike the river, or a bobby.’

  The cab crept on, and Michael walked beside it, feeling with his foot for the kerb.

  The refined voice of an invisible man said: ‘This is sanguinary!’

  ‘It is,’ said Michael. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In the twentieth century, and the heart of civilization.’

  Michael laughed, and regretted it; the fog tasted of filth.

  ‘Think of the police!’ said the voice, ‘having to be out in this all night!’

  ‘Splendid force, the police!’ replied Michael. ‘Where are you, sir?’

  ‘Here, sir. Where are you?’

  It was the exact position. The blurred moon of a lamp glowed suddenly above Michael’s head. The cab ceased to move.

  ‘If I could only smell the ’Ouses of Parliament,’ said the cabman. ‘They’ll be ’avin’ supper there be now.’

  ‘Listen!’ said Michael – Big Ben was striking. ‘That was to our left.’

  ‘At our back,’ said the cabman.

  ‘Can’t be, or we should be in the river; unless you’ve turned right round!’

  ‘Gawd knows where I’ve turned,’ said the cabman, sneezing. ‘Never saw such a night!’

  ‘There’s only one thing for it – drive on until we hit something. Gently does it.’

  The cabman started the cab, and Michael, with his hand on it, continued to feel for the kerb with his foot.

  ‘Steady!’ he said, suddenly. ‘Car in front.’ There was a slight bump.

  ‘Nah then!’ said a voice. ‘Where yer comin’? Cawn’t yer see?’

  Michael moved up alongside of what seemed to be another taxi.

  ‘Comin’ along at that pice!’ said its driver; ‘and fool moon, too!’

  ‘Awfully sorry,’ said Michael. ‘No harm done. You got any sense of direction left?’

  ‘The pubs are all closed – worse luck! There’s a bloomin’ car in front o’ me that I’ve hit three times. Can’t make any impression on it. The driver’s dead, I think. Would yer go and look, Guv’nor?’

  Michael moved towards the loom in front. But at that moment it gave way to the more universal blackness. He ran four steps to hail the driver, stumbled off the kerb, fell, picked himself up and spun round. He moved along the kerb to his right, felt he was going wrong, stopped and called: ‘Hallo!’ A faint ‘Hallo!’ replied from – where? He moved what he thought was back, and called again. No answer! Fleur would be frightened. He shouted. Half a dozen faint hallos replied to him; and someone at his elbow said: ‘Don’t cher know where y’are?’

  ‘No; do you?’

  ‘What do you think? Lost anything?’

  ‘Yes; my cab.’

  ‘Left anything in it?’

  ‘My wife.’

  ‘Lawd! You won’t get ’er back tonight.’ A hoarse laugh, ghostly and obscene, floated by. A bit of darkness loomed for a moment, and faded out. Michael stood still. ‘Keep your head!’ he thought. ‘Here’s the kerb – either they’re in front, or they’re behind; or else I’ve turned a corner.’ He stepped forward along the kerb. Nothing! He stepped back. Nothing! ‘What the blazes have I done?’ he muttered: ‘or have they moved on!’ Sweat poured down him in spite of the cold. Fleur would be really scared! And the words of his election address sprang from his lips: ‘Chiefly by the elimination of smoke!’

  ‘Ah!’ said a voice, ‘got a cigarette, Guv’nor?’

  ‘I’ll give you all I’ve got and half a crown, if you’ll find a cab close by with a lady in it. What street’s this?’

  ‘Don’t arst me! The streets ’ave gone mad, I think.’

  ‘Listen!’ said Michael sharply.

  ‘That’s right, “Someone callin’ so sweet.”’

  ‘Hallo!’ cried Michael. ‘Fleur!’

  ‘Here! Here!’

  It sounded to his right, to his left, behind him, in front. Then came the steady blowing of a cab’s horn.

  ‘Now we’ve got ’em,’ said the bit of darkness. ‘This way, Guv’nor, step slow, and mind my corns!’

  Michael yielded to a tugging at his coat.

  ‘It’s like no-man’s-land in a smoke barrage!’ said his guide.

  ‘You’re right. Hallo! Coming!’

  The horn sounded a yard off. A voice said: ‘Oh! Michael!’

  His face touched Fleur’s in the window of the cab.

  ‘Just a second, darling. There you are, my friend, and thanks awfully! Hope you’ll get home!’

  ‘I’ve ’ad worse nights out than this. Thank you, Captain! Wish you and the lady luck.’ There was a sound of shuffling on, and the fog sighed out: ‘So long!’

  ‘All right, sir,’ said the hoarse voice of Michael’s cabman. ‘I know where I am now. First on the left, second on the right. I’ll bump the kerb till I get there. Thought you was swallered up, sir!’

  Michael got into the cab, and clasped Fleur close. She uttered a long sigh, and sat quite still.

  ‘Nothing more scaring than a fog!’ he said.

  ‘I thought you’d been run over!’

  Michael was profoundly touched.

  ‘Awfully sorry, darling. And you’ve got all that beastly fog down your throat. We’ll drown it out when we get in. That poor chap was an ex-service man. Wonderful the way the English keep their humour and don’t lose their heads.’

  ‘I lost mine!’

  ‘Well, you’ve got it ba
ck,’ 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!’

  Chapter Eight

  COLLECTING EVIDENCE

  THE 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.

  SIR,

  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.