The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2

by John Galsworthy

  The chief partner’s room was on the first floor, and the chief partner standing where chief partners stand.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Forsyte? I’ve not met you since “Bobbin against the L. & S.W.” That must have been 1900!’

  ‘1899,’ said Soames. ‘You were for the Company.’

  Mr Settlewhite pointed to a chair.

  Soames sat down and glanced up at the figure before the fire. H’m! a long-lipped, long-eyelashed, long-chinned face; a man of his own calibre, education, and probity! He need not beat about the bush.

  ‘This action,’ he said, ‘is a very petty business. What can we do about it?’

  Mr Settlewhite frowned.

  ‘That depends, Mr Forsyte, on what you have to propose? My client has been very grossly libelled.’

  Soames smiled sourly.

  ‘She began it. And what is she relying on – private letters to personal friends of my daughter’s, written in very natural anger! I’m surprised that a firm of your standing–’

  Mr Settlewhite smiled.

  ‘Don’t trouble to compliment my firm! I’m surprised myself that you are acting for your daughter. You can hardly see all round the matter. Have you come to offer an apology?’

  ‘That!’ said Soames. ‘I should have thought it was for your client to apologize.’

  ‘If such is your view, I’m afraid it’s no use continuing this discussion.’

  Soames regarded him fixedly.

  ‘How do you think you’re going to prove damage? She belongs to the fast set.’

  Mr Settlewhite continued to smile.

  ‘I understand she’s going to marry Sir Alexander MacGown,’ said Soames.

  Mr Settlewhite’s lips tightened.

  ‘Really, Mr Forsyte, if you have come to offer an apology and a substantial sum in settlement, we can talk. Otherwise –’

  ‘As a sensible man,’ said Soames, ‘you know that these Society scandals are always dead sea fruit – nothing but costs and vexations, and a feast for all the gossips about town. I’m prepared to offer you a thousand pounds to settle the whole thing, but an apology I can’t look at. A mutual expression of regret – perhaps; but an apology’s out of the question.’

  ‘Fifteen hundred I might accept – the insults have had wide currency. But an apology is essential.’

  Soames sat silent, chewing the injustice of it all. Fifteen hundred! Monstrous! Still he would pay even that to keep Fleur out of Court. But humble-pie! She wouldn’t eat it, and he couldn’t make her, and he didn’t know that he wanted to. He got up.

  ‘Look here, Mr Settlewhite, if you take this into Court, you will find yourself up against more than you think. But the whole thing is so offensive to me, that I’m prepared to meet you over the money, though I tell you frankly I don’t believe a jury would award a penny piece. As to an apology, a “formula” could be found perhaps’ – why the deuce was the fellow smiling? – ‘Something like this: “We regret that we have said hasty things about each other”, to be signed by both parties.’

  Mr Settlewhite caressed his chin.

  ‘Well, I’ll put your proposition before my client. I join with you in wishing to see the matter settled, not because I’m afraid of the result’ – ‘Oh, no!’ thought Soames – ‘but because these cases, as you say, are not edifying.’ He held out his hand.

  Soames gave it a cold touch.

  ‘You understand that this is entirely “without prejudice”,’ he said, and went out. ‘She’ll take it!’ he thought. Fifteen hundred pounds of his money thrown away on that baggage, just because for once she had been labelled what she was; and all his trouble to get evidence wasted! For a moment he resented his devotion to Fleur. Really it was fatuous to be so fond as that! Then his heart rebounded. Thank God! He had settled it.

  Christmas was at hand. It did not alarm him, therefore, that he received no answering communication. Fleur and Michael were at Lippinghall with the ninth and eleventh baronets. He and Annette had Winifred and the Cardigans down at ‘The Shelter’. Not till the 6th of January did he receive a letter from Messrs Settlewhite and Stark.

  DEAR SIB,

  In reference to your call of the 17th ultimo, your proposition was duly placed before our client, and we are instructed to say that she will accept the sum of £1,500 – fifteen hundred pounds – and an apology, duly signed by your client, copy of which we enclose.

  We are, dear Sir,

  Faithfully yours,

  SETTLE WHITE AND STARK

  Soames turned to the enclosure. It ran thus:

  I, Mrs Michael Mont, withdraw the words concerning Miss Marjorie Ferrar contained in my letters to Mrs Ralph Ppynrryn and Mrs Edward Maltese of October 4th last, and hereby tender a full and free apology for having written them.

  (SIGNED)

  Pushing back the breakfast-table, so violently that it groaned, Soames got up.

  ‘What is it, Soames?’ said Annette. ‘Have you broken your plate again? You should not bite so hard.’

  ‘Read that!’

  Annette read.

  ‘You would give that woman fifteen hundred pounds? I think you are mad, Soames. I would not give her fifteen hundred pence! Pay this woman, and she tells her friends. That is fifteen hundred apologies in all their minds. Really, Soames – I am surprised. A man of business, a clever man! Do you not know the world better than that? With every pound you pay, Fleur eats her words!’

  Soames flushed. It was so French, and yet somehow it was so true. He walked to the window. The French – they had no sense of compromise, and every sense of money!

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that ends it anyway. She won’t sign. And I shall withdraw my offer.’

  ‘I should hope so. Fleur has a good head. She will look very pretty in Court. I think that woman will be sorry she ever lived! Why don’t you have her what you call shadowed? It is no good to be delicate with women like that.’

  In a weak moment he had told Annette about the book and the play; for, unable to speak of them to Fleur and Michael, he had really had to tell someone; indeed, he had shown her Cantkar, with the words: ‘I don’t advise you to read it, it’s very French.’

  Annette had returned it to him two days later, saying: ‘It is not French at all; it is disgusting. You English are so coarse. It has no wit. It is only nasty. A serious nasty book – that is the limit. You are so old-fashioned, Soames. Why do you say this book is French?’

  Soames, who really didn’t know why, had muttered:

  ‘Well, they can’t get it printed in England.’ And with the words: ‘Bruxelles, Bruxelles, you call Bruxelles –’ buzzing about his ears, had left the room. He had never known any people so touchy as the French!

  Her remark about ‘shadowing’, however, was not easily forgotten. Why be squeamish, when all depended on frightening this woman? And on arriving in London he visited an office that was not Mr Polteed’s, and gave instructions for the shadowing of Marjorie Ferrar’s past, present, and future.

  His answer to Settlewhite and Stark, too, was brief, determined, and written on the paper of his own firm.

  Jan. 6th, 1925

  DEAR SIRS,

  I have your letter of yesterday’s date, and note that your client has rejected my proposition, which, as you know, was made entirely without prejudice, and is now withdrawn in toto.

  Yours faithfully,

  SOAMES FORSYTE

  If he did not mistake, they would be sorry. And he gazed at the words ‘in toto’; somehow they looked funny. In toto! And now for ‘The Plain Dealer’!

  The theatre of the ‘Ne Plus Ultra’ Play-Producing Society had a dingy exterior, a death-mask of Congreve in the hall, a peculiar smell, and an apron stage. There was no music. They hit something three times before the curtain went up. There were no footlights. The scenery was peculiar – Soames could not take his eyes off it till, in the first Entr’acte, its principle was revealed to him by the conversation of two people sitting just behind.

  ‘The point of
the scenery here is that no one need look at it, you see. They go farther than anything yet done.’

  ‘They’ve gone father in Moscow.’

  ‘I believe not. Curfew went over there. He came back raving about the way they speak their lines.’

  ‘Does he know Russian?’

  ‘No. You don’t need to. It’s the timbre. I think he’s doing pretty well here with that. You couldn’t give a play like this if you took the words in.’

  Soames, who had been trying to take the words in – it was, indeed, what he had come for – squinted round at the speakers. They were pale and young and went on with a strange unconcern.

  ‘Curfew’s doing great work. He’s shaking them up.’

  ‘I see they’ve got Marjorie Ferrar as Olivia.’

  ‘Don’t know why he keeps on an amateur like that.’

  ‘Box office, dear boy; she brings the smart people. She’s painful, I think.’

  ‘She did one good thing – the dumb girl in that Russian play. But she can’t speak for nuts; you’re following the sense of her words all the time. She doesn’t rhythmatize you a little bit.’

  ‘She’s got looks.’

  ‘M’yes.’

  At this moment the curtain went up again. Since Marjorie Ferrar had not yet appeared, Soames was obliged to keep awake; indeed, whether because she couldn’t ‘speak for nuts’, or merely from duty, he was always awake while she was on the stage, and whenever she had anything outrageous to say he noted it carefully; otherwise he passed an excellent afternoon, and went away much rested. In his cab he mentally rehearsed Sir James Foskisson in the part of cross-examiner:

  ‘I think, madam, you played Olivia in a production of ‘The Plain Dealer’ by the ‘Ne Plus Ultra’ Play-Producing Society?… Would it be correct to say that the part was that of a modest woman?… Precisely. And did it contain the following lines (Quotation of nubbly bits.)… Did that convey anything to your mind, madam?… I suppose that you would not say it was an immoral passage?… No? Nor calculated to offend the ears and debase the morals of a decent-minded audience?… No. In fact, you don’t take the same view of morality that I, or, I venture to think, the jury do?… No. The dark scene – you did not remonstrate with the producer for not omitting that scene?… Quite. Mr Curfew, I think was the producer? Yes. Are you on such terms with that gentleman as would have made a remonstrance easy?… Ah! Now, madam, I put it to you that throughout 1923 you were seeing this gentleman nearly every day…. Well, say three or four times a week. And yet you say that you were not on such terms as would have made it possible for you to represent to him that no modest young woman should be asked to play a scene like that…. Indeed! The jury will form their own opinion of your answer. You are not a professional actress, dependent for your living on doing what you are told to do?… No. And yet you have the face to come here and ask for substantial damages because of the allegation in a private letter that you haven’t a moral about you?… Have you?…’ And so on, and so on. Oh! no. Damages! She wouldn’t get a farthing.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘VOLTE FACE’

  KEEPING Sir Alexander MacGown and Francis Wilmot in the air, fulfilling her week-end and other engagements, playing much bridge in the hope of making her daily expenses, getting a day’s hunting when she could, and rehearsing the part of Olivia, Marjorie Ferrar had almost forgotten the action, when the offer of fifteen hundred pounds and the formula were put before her by Messrs Settlewhite and Stark. She almost jumped at it. The money would wipe out her more pressing debts; she would be able to breathe, and reconsider her future.

  She received their letter on the Friday before Christmas, just as she was about to go down to her father’s, near Newmarket, and wrote hastily to say she would call at their office on her way home on Monday. The following evening she consulted her father. Lord Charles was of opinion that if this attorney fellow would go as far as fifteen hundred, he must be dead keen on settling, and she had only to press for the apology to get it. Anyway, she should let them stew in their juice for a bit. On Monday he wanted to show her his yearlings. She did not, therefore, return to Town till the 23rd, and found the office closed for Christmas. It had never occurred to her that solicitors had holidays. On Christmas Eve she herself went away for ten days; so that it was January the 4th before she was again able to call. Mr Settlewhite was still in the South of France, but Mr Stark would see her. Mr Stark knew little about the matter, but thought Lord Charles’s advice probably sound; he proposed to write accepting the fifteen hundred pounds if a formal apology were tendered; they could fall back on the formula if necessary, but it was always wise to get as much as you could. With some misgiving Marjorie Ferrar agreed.

  Returning from the matinée on January 7th, tired and elated by applause, by Bertie Curfew’s words: ‘You did quite well, darling,’ and almost the old look on his face, she got into a hot bath, and was just out when her maid announced Mr Wilmot.

  ‘Keep him, Fanny; say I’ll be with him in twenty minutes.’

  Feverish and soft, as if approaching a crisis, she dressed hastily, put essence of orange-blossom on her neck and hands, and went to the studio. She entered without noise. The young man, back to the door, in the centre of the room, evidently did not hear her. Approaching within a few feet, she waited for the effect on him of orange-blossom. He was standing like some Eastern donkey, that with drooped ears patiently awaits the fresh burdening of a sore back. And suddenly he spoke: ‘I’m all in.’

  ‘Francis!’

  The young man turned.

  ‘Oh! Marjorie!’ he said, ‘I never heard.’ And taking her hands, he buried his face in them.

  She was hampered at that moment. To convert his mouth from despairing kissing of her hands to triumphal flame upon her lips would have been so easy if he had been modern, if his old-fashioned love had not complimented her so subtly; if, too, she were not feeling for him something more – or was it less? – than passion. Was she to know at last the sensations of the simple – a young girl’s idyll – something she had missed? She led him to the divan, sat down by his side, and looked into his eyes. Fabled sweetness, as of a spring morning – Francis and she, children in the wood, with the world well lost! She surrendered to the innocence of it; deliberately grasped something delicious, new. Poor boy! How delightful to feel him happy at last – to promise marriage and mean to perform it! When? Oh! when he liked – Soon, quite soon; the sooner the better! Almost unconscious that she was ‘playing’ a young girl, she was carried away by his amazement and his joy. He was on fire, on air; yet he remained delicate – he was wonderful! For an hour they sat – a fragrant hour for memory to sniff – before she remembered that she was dining out at half-past eight. She put her lips to his, and closed her eyes. And thought ran riot. Should she spoil it, and make sure of him in modern fashion? What was his image of her but a phlizz, but a fraud? She saw his eyes grow troubled, felt his hands grow fevered. Something seemed drowning before her eyes. She stood up.

  ‘Now, my darling, you must fly!’

  When he had flown, she threw off her dress and brushed out her hair that in the mirror seemed to have more gold than red…. Some letters on her dressing-table caught her eye. The first was a bill, the second a bill; the third ran thus:

  DEAR MADAM,

  We regret to say that Cuthcott Kingson & Forsyte have refused to give the apology we asked for, and withdrawn their verbal offer in toto. We presume, therefore, that the action must go forward. We have every hope, however, that they may reconsider the matter before it comes into Court.

  Your obedient servants,

  SETTLE WHITE & STARK.

  She dropped it and sat very still, staring at a little hard line on the right side of her mouth and a little hard line on the left.…

  Francis Wilmot, flying, thought of steamship lines and state-rooms, of registrars and rings. An hour ago he had despaired; now it seemed he had always known she was ‘too fine not to give up this fellow whom she didn’t love’. He w
ould make her the queen of South Carolina – he surely would! But if she didn’t like it out there, he would sell the ‘old home’, and they would go and live where she wished – in Venice; he had heard her say Venice was wonderful; or New York, or Sicily; with her he wouldn’t care! And London in the cold dry wind seemed beautiful, no longer a grey maze of unreality and shadows, but a city where you could buy rings and steamship passages. The wind cut him like a knife and he did not feel it. That poor devil MacGown! He hated the sight, the thought of him, and yet felt sorry, thinking of him with the cup dashed from his lips. And all the days, weeks, months himself had spent circling round the flame, his wings scorched and drooping, seemed now but the natural progress of the soul towards Paradise. Twenty-four – his age and hers; an eternity of bliss before them! He pictured her on the porch at home. Horses! A better car than the old Ford! The darkies would adore her – kind of grand, and so white! To walk with her among the azaleas in the spring, that he could smell already; no – it was his hands where he had touched her! He shivered, and resumed his flight under the bare trees, well-nigh alone in the east wind; the stars of a bitter night shining.

  A card was handed to him as he entered his hotel.

  ‘Mr Wilmot, a gentleman to see you.’

  Sir Alexander was seated in a corner of the lounge, with a crush hat in his hand. He rose and came towards Francis Wilmot, grim and square.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call on you for some time, Mr Wilmot.’

  ‘Yes sir. May I offer you a cocktail, or a glass of sherry?’

  ‘No, thank you. You are aware of my engagement to Miss Ferrar?’

  ‘I was, sir.’

  This red aggressive face, with its stiff moustache and burning eyes, revived his hatred; so that he no longer felt sorry.

  ‘You know that I very much object to your constant visits to that young lady. In this country it is not the part of a gentleman to pursue an engaged young woman.’

  ‘That,’ said Francis Wilmot coolly, ‘is for Miss Ferrar herself to say.’