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Title: Swan Song
(Third Book in the Trilogy "A Modern Comedy")
(Second part of the Forsyte Chronicles)
Author: John Galsworthy
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0200751h.html
Language: English
Date first posted: October 2002
Date most recently updated: October 2002
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CONTENTS
INTERLUDE
BOOK III
SWAN SONG
PART I
PART II
PART III
In Washington, District of Columbia, the "Fall" sun shone, and all that was not evergreen or stone in Rock Creek Cemetery was glowing. Before the Saint Gaudens statue Soames Forsyte sat on his overcoat, with the marble screen to his back, enjoying the seclusion and a streak of sunlight passaging between the cypresses.
With his daughter and her husband he had been up here already, the afternoon before, and had taken a fancy to the place. Apart from the general attraction of a cemetery, this statue awakened the connoisseur within him. Though not a thing you could acquire, it was undoubtedly a work of art, and produced a very marked effect. He did not remember a statue that made him feel so thoroughly at home. That great greenish bronze figure of seated woman within the hooding folds of her ample cloak seemed to carry him down to the bottom of his own soul. Yesterday, in the presence of Fleur, Michael, and other people, all gaping like himself, he had not so much noted the mood of the thing as its technical excellence, but now, alone, he could enjoy the luxury of his own sensations. Some called it "Grief," some "The Adams Memorial." He didn't know, but in any case there it was, the best thing he had come across in America, the one that gave him the most pleasure, in spite of all the water he had seen at Niagara and those skyscrapers in New York. Three times he had changed his position on that crescent marble seat, varying his sensations every time. From his present position the woman had passed beyond grief. She sat in a frozen acceptance deeper than death itself, very remarkable! There was something about death! He remembered his own father, James, a quarter of an hour after death, as if--as if he had been told at last!
A red-oak leaf fell on to his lapel, another on to his knee; Soames did not brush them off. Easy to sit still in front of that thing! They ought to make America sit there once a week!
He rose, crossed towards the statue, and gingerly touched a fold in the green bronze, as if questioning the possibility of everlasting nothingness.
"Got a sister living in Dallas--married a railroad man down there as a young girl. Why! Texas is a wonderful State. I know my sister laughs at the idea that the climate of Texas isn't about right."
Soames withdrew his hand from the bronze, and returned to his seat. Two tall thin elderly figures were entering the sanctuary. They moved into the middle and stood silent. Presently one said "Well!" and they moved out again at the other end. A little stir of wind fluttered some fallen leaves at the base of the statue. Soames shifted along to the extreme left. From there the statue was once more woman--very noble! And he sat motionless in his attitude of a thinker, the lower part of his face buried in his hand.
Considerably browned and distinctly healthy-looking, he was accustomed to regard himself as worn out by his long travel, which, after encircling the world, would end, the day after tomorrow, by embarkation on the Adelphic. This three-day run to Washington was the last straw, and he was supporting it very well. The city was pleasing; it had some fine buildings and a great many trees with the tints on; there wasn't the rush of New York, and plenty of houses that people could live in, he should think. Of course the place was full of Americans, but that was unavoidable. He was happy about Fleur too; she had quite got over that unpleasant Ferrar business, seemed on excellent terms with young Michael, and was looking forward to her home and her baby again. There was, indeed, in Soames a sense of culmination and of peace--a feeling of virtue having been its own reward, and beyond all, the thought that he would soon be smelling English grass and seeing again the river flowing past his cows. Annette, even, might be glad to see him--he had bought her a really nice emerald bracelet in New York. To such general satisfaction this statue of "Grief" was putting the finishing touch.
"Here we are, Anne."
An English voice, and two young people at the far end--going to chatter, he supposed! He was preparing to rise when he heard the girl say, in a voice American, indeed, but soft and curiously private:
"John, it's terribly great. It makes me sink here." From the gesture of her hand, Soames saw that it was where the thing had made him sink, too.
"Everlasting stillness. It makes me sad, John."
As the young man's arm slid under hers his face came into view. Quick as thought, half of Soames's face disappeared again into his hand. "John?" "Jon" was what she had meant to say. Young Jon Forsyte--not a doubt of it! And this girl, his wife, sister--as he had heard--of that young American Francis Wilmot! What a mischance! He remembered the boy's face perfectly, though he had only seen it in that Gallery off Cork Street, and the pastrycook's after, and once on that grim afternoon when he had gone down to Robin Hill to beg his own divorced first wife to let her son marry his daughter! Never had he been more pleased to be refused! Never had the fitness of things been better confirmed; and yet, the pain of telling Fleur of that refusal remained in his memory like a still-live ember, red and prickly under the ashes of time. Behind his shadowing hat and screening hand Soames made sure. The young man was standing bare-headed, as if in reverence to the statue. A Forsyte look about him, in spite of too much hair. A poet--he had heard! The face wasn't a bad one; it had what they called charm; the eyes were deep-set, like his grandfather's, old Jolyon's, and the same colour, dark grey; the touch of brightness on his head came from his mother, no doubt; but the chin was a Forsyte's chin. Soames looked at the girl. A fair height, brownish pale, brown hair, dark eyes; pretty trick of the neck, nice way of standing too; very straight, an attractive figure! But how could the young man have taken to her after Fleur? Still, for an American, she looked very natural; a little bit like a nymph, with a kind of privacy about her.
Nothing in America had struck Soames so much as the lack of privacy. If you wanted to be private you had to disconnect your telephone and get into a bath--otherwise they rang you up just as you were going to sleep, to ask if you were Mr. and Mrs. Newberg. The houses, too, were not divided from each other, nor even from the roads. In the hotels the rooms all ran into each other, and as likely as not there'd be a drove of bankers in the hall. Dinner too--nothing private about that; even if you went out to dinner, it was always the same: lobster-cocktails, shad, turkey, asparagus, salad, and ice cream; very good dishes, no doubt, and you put on weight, but nothing private about them.
Those two were talking; he remembered the young man's voice.
"It's the greatest man-made thing in America, Anne. We haven't anything so good at home. It makes me hungry--we'll have to go to Egypt."
"Your mother would just love that, Jon; and so would I."
"Come and see it from the other side."
Soames rose abruptly and left the alcove. Though not recognised, he was flustered. A ridiculous, even a dangerous encounter. He had travelled for six months to restore Fleur's peace of mind, and now that she was tranquil, he would not for the world have her suddenly upset again by a sight of her first love. He remembered only too well how a sight of Irene used to upset himself. Yes--and as likely as not Irene was here too! Well, Washington was a big place. Not much danger! They were going to Mount Vernon in the afternoon, and to-morrow morning early were off again! At the top of the cemetery his taxicab was waiting. One of those other cars must belong to those two young people; and he glanced at them sidelong. Did there rise in him some fear, some hope, that in one of them he would see her whom, in another life, he had seen, day by day, night by night, waiting for what--it seemed--he could not give her. No! only the drivers and their voices, their "Yeahs!" and their "Yeps!" Americans no longer said "Yes," it seemed. And getting into his taxi, he said:
"Hotel Pótomac."
"Hotel Potómac?"
"If you prefer it."
The driver grinned and shut Soames in. . . . The Veterans' Home! They said the veterans had pretty well died off. Still, they'd have plenty coming on from this last war. Besides, what was space and money to America? They had so much they didn't know what to do with it. Well, he didn't mind that, now that he was leaving. He didn't mind anything. Indeed, he had invited quite a number of Americans to come and see his pictures if they came to England. They had been very kind, very hospitable; he had seen a great many fine pictures too, including some Chinese; and a great many high buildings, and the air was very stimulating. It wouldn't suit him to live here, but it was all very much alive, and a good tonic, for a bit. 'I can't see her living here!' he thought suddenly. 'There never was anyone more private.' The cars streamed past him, or stood parked in rows. America was all cars and newspapers! And a sudden thought disturbed him. They put everything into the newspapers over here; what if his name were among the arrivals?
Reaching his hotel, he went at once towards the kiosk in the hall where you could buy newspapers, tooth-paste, "candy" to pull your teeth out--teeth to replace them, he shouldn't be surprised. List of arrivals? Here it was: "Hotel Potomac: Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus K. McGunn; the Misses Errick; Mr. H. Yellam Roof; Mr. Semmes Forsyth; Mr. and Mrs. Munt." As large as life, but, fortunately, only half as natural! Forsyth! Munt! They never could get anything right in the papers. "Semmes!" Unrecognisable, he should hope. And going over to the bureau, he turned the register towards him. Yes! he had written the names quite clearly. Lucky, too, or they'd have got 'em right, by mistake. And then, turning the leaf, he read: "Mr. and Mrs. Jolyon Forsyte." Here! At this hotel--those two! A day before them; yes, and at the very top, dated some days ago: "Mrs. Irene Forsyte." His mind travelled with incredible swiftness. He must deal with this at once. Where were Fleur and Michael? They had seen the Freer Gallery with him yesterday, and a beautiful little Gallery it was, he had never seen anything better, and the Lincoln Memorial, and that great tower thing which he had refused to go up. This morning they had said they should go to the Corcoran Gallery, where there was a Centenary Exhibition. He had known what that meant. He had seen English centenaries in his time. All the fashionable painters of their day--and the result too melancholy for words! And to the clerk he said:
"Is there a restaurant here where I can get a good lunch?"
"Sure; they cook fine at Filler's."
"Good! If my daughter and her husband come in, kindly tell them to meet me at Filler's at one o'clock."
And, going back to the kiosk, he bought some tickets for the opera, so that they should be out in the evening, and in ten minutes was on his way to the Corcoran Gallery. From Filler's they would go straight off to Mount Vernon; they would dine at another hotel before the opera, and to-morrow be off by the first train--he would take no chances. If only he could catch them at the Corcoran!
Arriving, he mechanically bought a catalogue and walked up-stairs. The rooms opened off the gallery and he began at the end room. Ah! there they were, in front of a picture of the setting sun! Sure of them now, but not sure of himself--Fleur was so sharp--Soames glanced at the pictures. Modern stuff, trailing behind those French extravagances Dumetrius had shown him six months ago in London. As he had thought, too, a wholesale lot; might all have been painted by the same hand. He saw Fleur touch Michael's arm and laugh. How pretty she looked! A thousand pities to have her applecart upset again! He came up behind them. What? That setting sun was a man's face, was it? Well, you never knew nowadays.
And he said: "I thought I'd have a look in. We're lunching at Filler's; they tell me it's better than the hotel; and we can go straight on from there to Mount Vernon. I've got some seats for the opera, to-night, too."
And, conscious of Fleur's scrutiny, he stared at the picture. He did not feel too comfortable.
"Are the older pictures better?" he asked.
"Well, sir, Fleur was just saying--how can anyone go on painting in these days?"
"How do you mean?"
"If you walk through, you'll say the same. Here's a hundred years of it."
"The best pictures never get into these shows," said Soames; "they just take anything they can get. Ryder, Innes, Whistler, Sargent--the Americans have had some great painters."
"Of course," said Fleur. "But do you really want to go round, Dad? I'm frightfully hungry."
"No," said Soames; "after that Saint Gaudens thing I don't feel like it. Let's go and lunch."
Mount Vernon! The situation was remarkable! With all that colour on the trees, the grassy cliff, and below it the broad blue Potomac, which, even Soames confessed, was more imposing than the Thames. And the low white house up here, dignified and private, indeed, except for the trippers, almost English, giving him a feeling he had not had since he left home. He could imagine that fellow George Washington being very fond of it. One could have taken to the place oneself. Lord John Russell's old house on the hill at Richmond was something like this, except, of course, for the breadth of river, and the feeling you always had in America and Canada, so far as he had seen, that they were trying to fill the country and not succeeding--such a terrific lot of space, and apparently no time. Fleur was in raptures, and young Michael had remarked that it was "absolutely topping." The sun fell warmly on his cheek while he took his last look from the wide porch, before entering the house itself. He should remember this--America had not all been run up yesterday! He passed into the hall and proceeded, mousing, through the lower rooms. Really! They had done it extraordinarily well. Nothing but the good old original stuff, from a century and a half ago, reminding Soames of half-hours spent in the antique shops of Taunton and Tunbridge Wells. Too much "George Washington" of course! George Washington's mug, George Washington's foot-bath, and his letter to so-and-so, and the lace on his collar, and his sword and his gun and everything that was his! Still, that was unavoidable! Detached from the throng, detached even from his daughter, Soames moved--covered, as in a cloak, by his collector's habit of silent appraisement; he so disliked his judgments to be confused by uncritical imbecilities. He had reached the bedroom up-stairs where George Washington had died, and was gazing through the grille, when he heard sounds which almost froze his blood; the very voices he had listened to that morning before the Saint Gaudens statue, and with those voices Michael's voice conjoined! Was Fleur there too? A backward glance relieved him. No! the three were standing at the head of the main stairs exchanging the remarks of strangers casually interested in the same thing. He heard Michael say, "Jolly good taste in those days." And Jon Forsyte answering, "All hand-made, you see."
Soames dived for the back stairs, jostled a stout lady, recoiled, stammering, and hurried on down. If Fleur was not with Michael it meant that she had got hold of the curator. Take her away, while those three were still up-stairs! That was the thought in his mind. Two young Englishmen were not likely to exchange names or anything else, and, if they did, he must get hold of Michael quickly. But how to get Fleur away? Yes, there she was--talking to the curator in front of George Washington's flute laid down on George Washington's harpsichord in the music-room! And Soames suffered. Revolting to seem unwell, still more revolting to pretend to seem! And yet--what else? He could not go up to her and say: "I've had enough. Let's go to the car!" Swallowing violently, he put his hand to his head and went towards the harpsichord.
"Fleur!" he said, and without pausing to let her take him in, went on: "I'm not feeling the thing. I must go to the car."
The words no doubt were startling, coming from one so undramatic.
"Dad! What is it?"
"I don't know," said Soames; "giddy. Give me your arm."
Really dreadful to him--the whole thing! On the way to the car, parked at the entrance, her concern was so embarrassing that he very nearly abandoned his ruse. But he managed to murmur:
"I've been doing too much, I expect; or else it's that cookery. I'll just sit quiet in the car."
To his great relief she sat down with him, got out her smelling-bottle, and sent the chauffeur to tell Michael. Soames was touched, though incommoded by having to sniff the salts, which were very strong.
"Great fuss about nothing," he muttered.
"We'd better get home, dear, at once, so that you can lie down."
In a few minutes Michael came hurrying. He too expressed what seemed to Soames a genuine concern, and the car was started. Soames sat back with his hand in Fleur's, and his mouth and eyes tight closed, feeling perhaps better than he'd ever felt in his life. Before they reached Alexandria he opened his lips to say that he had spoiled their trip for them; they must go home by way of Arlington, and he would stay in the car while they had a look at it. Fleur was for going straight on, but he insisted. Arrived, however, at this other white house, also desirably situated on the slope above the river, he almost had a fit while waiting for them in the car. What if the same idea had occurred to Jon Forsyte and he were suddenly to drive up? It was an intense relief when they came out again, saying that it was nice but not a patch on Mount Vernon: the porch columns were too thick. When the car was again traversing the bright woods Soames opened his eyes for good.
"I'm all right again, now. It was liver, I expect."
"You ought to have some brandy, Dad. We can get some on a doctor's prescription."
"Doctor? Nonsense. We'll dine up-stairs and I'll get over the waiter; they must have something in the house."
Dine up-stairs! That was a happy thought!
In their sitting-room he lay down on the sofa, touched and gratified, for Fleur was plopping up his cushions, shading the light, looking over the top of her book to see how he was. He did not remember when he had felt so definitely that she really did care about him. He even thought: 'I ought to be ill a little, every now and then!' And yet, if he ever complained of feeling ill at home, Annette at once complained of feeling worse!
Close by, in the little salon opposite the stairs, a piano was being played.
"Does that music worry you, dear?"
Into Soames' mind flashed the thought 'Irene!' If it were, and Fleur were to go out to stop it, then, indeed, would fat be in the fire!
"No; I rather like it," he said, hastily.
"It's a very good touch."
Irene's touch! He remembered how June used to praise her touch; remembered how he had caught that fellow Bosinney listening to her, in the little drawing-room in Montpellier Square, with the wild-cat look on his face, the fellow had; remembered how she used to stop playing when he himself came in--from consideration, or the feeling that it was wasted on him--which? He had never known. He had never known anything! Well--another life! He closed his eyes, and instantly saw Irene in her emerald-green dinner-gown, standing in the Park Lane hall, first feast after their honeymoon, waiting to be cloaked! Why did such pictures come back before closed eyes--pictures without rhyme or reason? Irene brushing her hair--grey now, of course! As he was seventy, she must be nearly sixty-two! How time went! Hair feuille morte--old Aunt Juley used to call it with a certain pride in having picked up the expression--and eyes so velvet dark! Ah! but handsome was as handsome did! Still--who could say! Perhaps, if he had known how to express his feelings! If he had understood music! If she hadn't so excited his senses! Perhaps--oh, perhaps your grandmother! No riddling that out! And here--of all places. A tricksy business! Was one never to forget?
Fleur went to pack and dress. Dinner came up. Michael spoke of having met a refreshing young couple at Mount Vernon, "an Englishman; he said Mount Vernon made him awfully homesick."
"What was his name, Michael?"
"Name? I didn't ask. Why?"
"Oh! I don't know. I thought you might have."
Soames breathed again. He had seen her prick her ears. Give it a chance, and her feeling for that boy of Irene's would flare up again. It was in the blood!
"Bright Markland," said Michael, "has been gassing over the future of America--he's very happy about it because there are so many farmers still, and people on the land; but he's also been gassing over the future of England--he's very happy about it, and there's hardly anybody on the land."
"Who's Bright Markland?" muttered Soames.
"Editor of our Scrutator, sir. Never was a better example of optimism, or the science of having things both ways."
"I'd hoped," said Soames heavily, "that seeing these new countries would have made you feel there's something in an old one, after all."
Michael laughed. "No need to persuade me of that, sir. But you see I belong to what is called the fortunate class, and so, I believe, do you."
Soames stared. This young man was getting sarcastic!
"Well," he said, "I shall be glad to be home. Are you packed?"
They were; and presently he telephoned for a cab to take them to the opera. So that they might not hang about in the hall, he went down, himself, to see them into it. The incident passed without let or hindrance; and with a deep sigh of relief he resumed his place in the lift, and was restored to his room.
He stood there at the window, looking out at the tall houses, the lights, the cars moving below and the clear starry sky. He was really tired now; another day of this, and he would not need to simulate indisposition. A narrow squeak, indeed--a series of them! He wished he were safe home. To be under the same roof with that woman--how very queer! He had not passed a night under the same roof with her since that dreadful day in November '87, when he walked round and round Montpellier Square in such mortal agony, and came to his front door to find young Jolyon there. One lover dead, and the other already on his threshold! That night she had stolen away from his house; never again till this night had the same roof covered them. That music again--soft and teasing! Was it she playing? To get away from it, he went into his bedroom and put his things together. He was not long about that, for he had only a suitcase with him. Should he go to bed? To bed, and lie awake? This thing had upset him. If it were she, sitting at that piano, a few yards away, what did she look like now? Seven times--no, eight--he had seen her since that long ago November night. Twice in her Chelsea flat; then by that fountain in the Bois de Boulogne; at Robin Hill when he delivered his ultimatum to her and young Jolyon; at Queen Victoria's funeral; at Lord's Cricket ground; again at Robin Hill when he went to beg for Fleur; and in the Goupenor Gallery just before she came out here. Each meeting he could remember in every detail, down to the lifting of her gloved hand at the last--the faint smiling of her lips.
And Soames shivered. Too hot--these American rooms! He went back into the sitting-room; they had cleared away and brought him the evening paper; no good in that! He could never find anything in the papers over here. At this distance from the past, all this space and all this time--what did he feel about her? Hate? The word was too strong. One didn't hate those who weren't near one. Besides, he had never hated her! Not even when he first knew she was unfaithful. Contempt? No. She had made him ache too much for that. He didn't know what he felt. And he began walking up and down, and once or twice stood at the door and listened, as might a prisoner in his cell. Undignified! And going to the sofa he stretched himself out on it. He would think about his travels. Had he enjoyed them? One long whirl of things, and--water. And yet, all had gone according to programme, except China, to which they had given as wide a berth as possible, owing to its state. The Sphinx and the Taj Mahal, Vancouver Harbour, and the Rocky Mountains, they played a sort of hide-and-seek within him; and now--that strumming; was it She? Strange! You had, it seemed, only just one season of real heat. Everything else that happened to you was in a way tepid, and perhaps it was as well, or the boiler would burst. His emotions in the years when he first knew her--would he go through them again? Not for the world. And yet! Soames got up. That music was going on and on; but when it stopped, the player--She or not She!--would be no longer visible. Why not walk past that little salon--just walk past, and--and take a glimpse? If it were She, well, probably she'd lost her looks--the beauty that had played such havoc with him? He had noticed the position of the piano; yes--the player would be in profile to him. He opened the door; the music swelled, and he stole forth.
The breadth of Fleur's room, only, separated him from that little open salon opposite the stairs. No one was in the corridor, not even a bell boy. Very likely some American woman after all, possibly that girl--Jon's wife! Yet no--there was something--something in the sound! And holding up the evening paper before him, he moved along. Three pillars, with spaces between them, divided the salon from the corridor, avoiding what Soames so missed in America--the fourth wall. At the first of these pillars he came to a stand. A tall lamp with an orange shade stood by the keyboard, and the light from it fell on the music, on the keys, on the cheek and hair of the player. She! Though he had supposed her grey by now, the sight of that hair without a thread in it of the old gold affected him strangely. Curved, soft, shining, it covered her like a silver casque. She was in evening dress, and he could see that her shoulders, neck, and arms were still rounded and beautiful. All her body from the waist was moving lightly to the rhythm of her playing. Her frock was of a greyish heliotrope. Soames stood behind his pillar gazing, his hand over his face, lest she should turn her head. He did not exactly feel--the film of remembrance was unrolled too quickly. From the first sight of her in a Bournemouth drawing-room to the last sight of her in the Goupenor Gallery--the long sequence passed him by in its heat and its frost and its bitterness; the long struggle of sense, the long failure of spirit; the long aching passion, and its long schooling into numbness and indifference. The last thing he wanted, standing there, was to speak with her, and yet he could not take his eyes away. Suddenly she stopped playing; bending forward she closed the music and reached to turn out the lamp. Her face came round in the light, and, cowering back, Soames saw it, still beautiful, perhaps more beautiful, a little worn, so that the eyes looked even darker than of old, larger, softer under the still-dark eyebrows. And once more he had that feeling: "There sits a woman I have never known." With a sort of anger he craned back till he could see no longer. Ah! she had had many faults, but the worst of her faults had always been, was still, her infernal mystery! And, stepping silently like a cat, he regained his room.
He felt tired to death now, and, going into his bedroom, undressed hurriedly and got into bed. He wished with all his heart that he were on board, under the British flag. 'I'm old,' he thought suddenly, 'old.' This America was too young for him, so full of energy, bustling about to ends he could not see. Those Eastern places had been different. And yet, after all, he was a mere seventy. His father had lived to be ninety--old Jolyon eighty-five, Timothy a hundred, and so with all the old Forsytes. At seventy they weren't playing golf; and yet they were younger, younger anyway than he felt to-night. The sight of that woman had--had--! Old!
'I'm not going back to be old,' he thought. 'If I feel like this again I shall consult someone.' They had some monkey thing nowadays they could inject. He shouldn't try that. Monkeys indeed! Why not pigs or tigers? Hold on somehow another ten or fifteen years! By that time they would have found out where they were in England. That precious capital levy would have been exploded. He would know what he had to leave to Fleur; would see her baby grow into a boy and go to school--public school--even! Eton? No--young Jolyon had been there. Winchester, the Monts' school? Not there either, if he could help it. Harrow was handy; or his own old school--Marlborough? Perhaps he would see him play at Lord's. Another fifteen years before Kit could play at Lord's! Well--something to look forward to, something to hold on for. If you hadn't that, you felt old, and if you felt old, you were old, and the end soon came. How well that woman had worn! She--! There were his pictures too; take them up more seriously. That Freer Gallery! Leave them to the nation, and your name lived--much comfort in that! She! She would never die!
A crack of light on the wall close to the door.
"Asleep, Dad?"
So Fleur had remembered to come and have a look at him!
"How are you now, dear?"
"All right; tired. How was the opera?"
"Middling."
"I've told them to call us at seven. We'll breakfast on the train."
Her lips touched his forehead. If--if that woman--but never--never once--never of her own accord--!
"Good night," he said. "Sleep well!"
The light on the wall narrowed and was gone! Well! He was drowsy now. But, in this house--Shapes--Shapes! Past--present--at the piano--at his bedside--passing--passing by--and there, behind them, the great bronze-hooded woman, with the closed eyes, deep sunk in everlasting--profound--pro--! And from Soames a gentle snore escaped.
"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
--The Tempest,
TO F. N. DOUBLEDAY
In modern Society, one thing after another, this spice on that, ensures a kind of memoristic vacuum, and Fleur Mont's passage of arms with Marjorie Ferrar was, by the spring of 1926, well-nigh forgotten. Moreover, she gave Society's memory no encouragement, for, after her tour round the world, she was interested in the Empire--a bent so out of fashion as to have all the flavour and excitement of novelty with a sort of impersonality guaranteed.
Colonials, Americans, and Indian students, people whom nobody could suspect of being lions, now encountered each other in the 'bimetallic parlour,' and were found by Fleur 'very interesting,' especially the Indian students, so supple and enigmatic, that she could never tell whether she were 'using' them or they were 'using' her.
Perceiving the extraordinarily uphill nature of Foggartism, she had been looking for a second string to Michael's Parliamentary bow, and, with her knowledge of India, where she had spent six weeks of her tour, she believed that she had found it in the idea of free entrance for the Indians into Kenya. In her talks with these Indian students, she learned that it was impossible to walk in a direction unless you knew what it was. These young men might be complicated and unpractical, meditative and secret, but at least they appeared to be convinced that the molecules in an organism mattered less than the organism itself--that they, in fact, mattered less than India. Fleur, it seemed, had encountered faith--a new and "intriguing" experience. She mentioned the fact to Michael.
"It's all very well," he answered, "but our Indian friends didn't live for four years in the trenches, or the fear thereof, for the sake of their faith. If they had, they couldn't possibly have the feeling that it matters as much as they think it does. They might want to, but their feelers would be blunted. That's what the war really did to all of us in Europe who were in the war."
"That doesn't make 'faith' any less interesting," said Fleur, drily.
"Well, my dear, the prophets abuse us for being at loose ends, but can you have faith in a life force so darned extravagant that it makes mince-meat of you by the million? Take it from me, Victorian times fostered a lot of very cheap and easy faith, and our Indian friends are in the same case--their India has lain doggo since the Mutiny, and that was only a surface upheaval. So you needn't take 'em too seriously."
"I don't; but I like the way they believe they're serving India."
And at his smile she frowned, seeing that he thought she was only increasing her collection.
Her father-in-law, who had really made some study of orientalism, lifted his eyebrow over these new acquaintances.
"My oldest friend," he said, on the first of May, "is a judge in India. He's been there forty years. When he'd been there two, he wrote to me that he was beginning to know something about the Indians. When he'd been there ten, he wrote that he knew all about them. I had a letter from him yesterday, and he says that after forty years he knows nothing about them. And they know as little about us. East and West--the circulation of the blood is different."
"Hasn't forty years altered the circulation of your friend's blood?"
"Not a jot," replied Sir Lawrence. "It takes forty generations. Give me another cup of your nice Turkish coffee, my dear. What does Michael say about the general strike?"
"That the Government won't budge unless the T. U. C. withdraw the notice unreservedly."
"Exactly! And but for the circulation of English blood there'd be 'a pretty mess,' as old Forsyte would say."
"Michael's sympathies are with the miners."
"So are mine, young lady. Excellent fellow, the miner--but unfortunately cursed with leaders. The mine-owners are in the same case. Those precious leaders are going to grind the country's nose before they've done. Inconvenient product--coal; it's blackened our faces, and now it's going to black our eyes. Not a merry old soul! Well, good-bye! My love to Kit, and tell Michael to keep his head."
This was precisely what Michael was trying to do. When 'the Great War' broke out, though just old enough to fight, he had been too young to appreciate the fatalism which creeps over human nature with the approach of crisis. He was appreciating it now before 'the Great Strike,' together with the peculiar value which the human being attaches to saving face. He noticed that both sides had expressed the intention of meeting the other side in every way, without, of course, making any concessions whatever; that the slogans, 'Longer hours, less wages,' 'Not a minute more, not a bob off,' curtsied, and got more and more distant as they neared each other. And now, with the ill-disguised impatience of his somewhat mercurial nature, Michael was watching the sober and tentative approaches of the typical Britons in whose hands any chance of mediation lay. When, on that memorable Monday, not merely the faces of the gentlemen with slogans, but the very faces of the typical Britons, were suddenly confronted with the need for being saved, he knew that all was up; and, returning from the House of Commons at midnight, he looked at his sleeping wife. Should he wake Fleur and tell her that the country was "for it," or should he not? Why spoil her beauty sleep? She would know soon enough. Besides, she wouldn't take it seriously. Passing into his dressing-room, he stood looking out of the window at the dark square below. A general strike at twelve hours' notice! 'Some' test of the British character! The British character? Suspicion had been dawning on Michael for years that its appearances were deceptive; that members of Parliament, theatre-goers, trotty little ladies with dresses tight blown about trotty little figures, plethoric generals in armchairs, pettish and petted poets, parsons in pulpits, posters in the street--above all, the Press, were not representative of the national disposition. If the papers were not to come out, one would at least get a chance of feeling and seeing British character; owing to the papers, one never had seen or felt it clearly during the war, at least not in England. In the trenches, of course, one had--there, sentiment and hate, advertisement and moonshine, had been 'taboo,' and with a grim humour the Briton had just 'carried on,' unornamental and sublime, in the mud and the blood, the stink and the racket, and the endless nightmare of being pitchforked into fire without rhyme or reason! The Briton's defiant humour that grew better as things grew worse, would--he felt--get its chance again now. And, turning from the window, he undressed and went back into the bedroom.
Fleur was awake.
"Well, Michael?"
"The strike's on."
"What a bore!"
"Yes; we shall have to exert ourselves."
"What did they appoint that Commission for, and pay all that subsidy, if not to avoid this?"
"My clear girl, that's mere common-sense--no good at all."
"Why can't they come to an agreement?"
"Because they've got to save face. Saving face is the strongest motive in the world."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, it caused the war; it's causing the strike now; without 'saving face' there'd probably be no life on the earth at all by this time."
"Don't be absurd!"
Michael kissed her.
"I suppose you'll have to do something," she said, sleepily. "There won't be much to talk about in the House while this is on."
"No; we shall sit and glower at each other, and use the word 'formula' at stated intervals."
"I wish we had a Mussolini."
"I don't. You pay for him in the long run. Look at Diaz and Mexico; or Lenin and Russia; or Napoleon and France; or Cromwell and England, for the matter of that."
"Charles the Second," murmured Fleur into her pillow, "was rather a dear."
Michael stayed awake a little, disturbed by the kiss, slept a little, woke again. To save face! No one would make a move because of their faces. For nearly an hour he lay trying to think out a way of saving them all, then fell asleep. He woke at seven with the feeling that he had wasted his time. Under the appearance of concern for the country, and professions of anxiety to find a 'formula,' too many personal feelings, motives, and prejudices were at work. As before the war, there was a profound longing for the humiliation and dejection of the adversary; each wished his face saved at the expense of the other fellow's!
He went out directly after breakfast.
People and cars were streaming in over Westminster Bridge, no 'buses ran, no trams; but motor lorries, full or empty, rumbled past. Some 'specials' were out already, and emaciated men were selling an emaciated print called The British Gazette. Everybody wore an air of defiant jollity. Michael moved on towards Hyde Park. Over night had sprung up this amazing ordered mish-mash of lorries and cans and tents! In the midst of all the mental and imaginative lethargy which had produced this national crisis--what a wonderful display of practical and departmental energy! 'They say we can't organise!' thought Michael; 'can't we just--after the event!'
He went on to a big railway station. It was picketed, but they were running trains already, with volunteer labour. Poking round, he talked here and there among the volunteers. 'By George!' he thought, 'these fellows'll want feeding! What about a canteen?' And he returned post haste to South Square.
Fleur was in.
"Will you help me run a railway canteen for volunteers?" He saw the expression, 'Is that a good stunt?' rise on her face, and hurried on:
"It'll mean frightfully hard work; and getting anybody we can to help. I daresay I could rope in Norah Curfew and her gang from Bethnal Green for a start. But it's your quick head that's wanted, and your way with men."
Fleur smiled. "All right," she said.
They took the car--a present from Soames on their return from round the world--and went about, picking people up and dropping them again. They recruited Norah Curfew and 'her gang' in Bethnal Green; and during this first meeting of Fleur with one whom she had been inclined to suspect as something of a rival, Michael noted how, within five minutes, she had accepted Norah Curfew as too 'good' to be dangerous. He left them at South Square in conference over culinary details, and set forth to sap the natural opposition of officialdom. It was like cutting barbed wire on a dark night before an 'operation.' He cut a good deal, and went down to the 'House.' Humming with unformulated 'formulas,' it was, on the whole, the least cheerful place he had been in that day. Everyone was talking of the 'menace to the Constitution.' The Government's long face was longer than ever, and nothing--they said--could be done until it had been saved. The expressions 'Freedom of the Press' and 'At the pistol's mouth,' were being used to the point of tautology! He ran across Mr. Blythe brooding in the Lobby on the temporary decease of his beloved Weekly, and took him over to South Square 'for a bite' at nine o'clock. Fleur had come in for the same purpose. According to Mr. Blythe, the solution was to 'form a group' of right-thinking opinion.
"Exactly, Blythe! But what is right-thinking, at 'the present time of speaking'?"
"It all comes back to Foggartism," said Mr. Blythe.
"Oh!" said Fleur, "I do wish you'd both drop that. Nobody will have anything to say to it. You might as well ask the people of to-day to live like St. Francis d'Assisi."
"My dear young lady, suppose St. Francis d'Assisi had said that, we shouldn't be hearing to-day of St. Francis."
"Well, what real effect has he had? He's just a curiosity. All those great spiritual figures are curiosities. Look at Tolstoi now, or Christ, for that matter!"
"Fleur's rather right, Blythe."
"Blasphemy!" said Mr. Blythe.
"I don't know, Blythe; I've been looking at the gutters lately, and I've come to the conclusion that they put a stopper on Foggartism. Watch the children there, and you'll see how attractive gutters are! So long as a child can have a gutter, he'll never leave it. And, mind you, gutters are a great civilising influence. We have more gutters here than any other country and more children brought up in them; and we're the most civilised people in the world. This strike's going to prove that. There'll be less bloodshed and more good humour than there could be anywhere else; all due to the gutter."
"Renegade!" said Mr. Blythe.
"Well," said Michael, "Foggartism, like all religions, is the over-expression of a home truth. We've been too wholesale, Blythe. What converts have we made?"
"None," said Mr. Blythe. "But if we can't take children from the gutter, Foggartism is no more."
Michael wriggled; and Fleur said promptly: "What never was can't be no more. Are you coming with me to see the kitchens, Michael--they've been left in a filthy state. How does one deal with beetles on a large scale?"
"Get a beetle-man--sort of pied piper, who lures them to their fate."
Arrived on the premises of the canteen-to-be, they were joined by Ruth La Fontaine, of Norah Curfew's 'gang,' and descended to the dark and odorous kitchen. Michael struck a match, and found the switch. Gosh! In the light, surprised, a brown-black scuttling swarm covered the floor, the walls, the tables. Michael had just sufficient control of his nerves to take in the faces of those three--Fleur's shuddering frown, Mr. Blythe's open mouth, the dark and pretty Ruth La Fontaine's nervous smile. He felt Fleur clutch his arm.
"How disgusting!"
The disturbed creatures were finding their holes or had ceased to scuttle; here and there, a large one, isolated, seemed to watch them.
"Imagine!" cried Fleur. "And food's been cooked here all these years! Ugh!"
"After all," said Ruth La Fontaine, with a shivery giggle, "they're not so b-bad as b-bugs."
Mr. Blythe puffed hard at his cigar. Fleur muttered:
"What's to be done, Michael?"
Her face was pale; she was drawing little shuddering breaths; and Michael was thinking: 'It's too bad; I must get her out of this!' when suddenly she seized a broom and rushed at a large beetle on the wall. In a minute they were all at it--swabbing and sweeping, and flinging open doors and windows.
Winifred Dartie had not received her Morning Post. Now in her sixty-eighth year, she had not followed too closely the progress of events which led up to the general strike--they were always saying things in the papers, and you never knew what was true; those Trades Union people, too, were so interfering, that really one had no patience. Besides, the Government always did something in the end. Acting, however, on the advice of her brother Soames, she had filled her cellars with coal and her cupboards with groceries, and by ten o'clock on the second morning of the strike, was seated comfortably at the telephone.
"Is that you, Imogen? Are you and Jack coming for me this evening?"
"No, Mother. Jack's sworn in, of course. He has to be on duty at five. Besides, they say the theatres will close. We'll go later. 'Dat Lubly Lady's' sure to run."
"Very well, dear. But what a fuss it all is! How are the boys?"
"Awfully fit. They're both going to be little 'specials.' I've made them tiny badges. D'you think the child's department at Harridge's would have toy truncheons?"
"Sure to, if it goes on. I shall be there today; I'll suggest it. They'd look too sweet, wouldn't they? Are you all right for coal?"
"Oh, yes. Jack says we mustn't hoard. He's fearfully patriotic."
"Well, good-bye, dear! My love to the boys!"
She had just begun to consider whom she should call up next when the telephone bell rang.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Val Dartie living there?"
"No. Who is it speaking?"
"My name is Stainford. I'm an old college friend of his. Could you give me his address, please?"
Stainford? It conveyed nothing.
"I'm his mother. My son is not in town; but I dare say he will be before long. Can I give him any message?"
"Well, thanks! I want to see him. I'll ring up again; or take my chance later. Thanks!"
Winifred replaced the receiver.
Stainford! The voice was distinguished. She hoped it had nothing to do with money. Odd, how often distinction was connected with money! Or, rather, with the lack of it. In the old Park Lane days they had known so many fashionables who had ended in the bankruptcy or divorce courts. Emily--her mother--had never been able to resist distinction. That had been the beginning of Monty--he had worn such perfect waistcoats and gardenias, and had known so much about all that was fast--impossible not to be impressed by him. Ah, well! She did not regret him now. Without him she would never have had Val, or Imogen's two boys, or Benedict (almost a colonel), though she never saw him now, living, as he did, in Guernsey, to grow cucumbers, away from the income tax. They might say what they liked about the age, but could it really be more up-to-date than it was in the 'nineties and the early years of the century, when income tax was at a shilling, and that considered high! People now just ran about and talked, to disguise the fact that they were not so 'chic' and up-to-date as they used to be.
Again the telephone bell rang. "Will you take a trunk call from Wansdon? . . ."
"Hallo! That you, Mother?"
"Oh, Val, how nice! Isn't this strike absurd?"
"Silly asses! I say: we're coming up."
"Really, dear. But why? You'll be so much more comfortable in the country."
"Holly says we've got to do things. Who d'you think turned up last night?--her brother--young Jon Forsyte. Left his wife and mother in Paris--said he'd missed the war and couldn't afford to miss this. Been travelling all the winter--Egypt, Italy, and that--chucked America, I gather. Says he wants to do something dirty--going to stoke an engine. We're driving up to the Bristol this afternoon."
"Oh, but why not come to me, dear, I've got plenty of everything?"
"Well, there's young Jon--I don't think--"
"But he's a nice boy, isn't he?"
"Uncle Soames isn't with you, is he?"
"No, dear. He's at Mapledurham. Oh, and by the way, Val, someone has just rung up for you--a Mr. Stainford."
"Stainford? What! Aubrey Stainford--I haven't seen him since Oxford."
"He said he would ring up again or take his chance of finding you here."
"Oh, I'd love to see old Stainford again. Well, if you don't mind putting us up, Mother. Can't leave young Jon out, you know--he and Holly are very thick after six years; but I expect he'll be out all the time."
"Oh, that'll be quite all right, dear; and how is Holly?"
"Topping."
"And the horses?"
"All right. I've got a snorting two-year-old, rather backward. Shan't run him till Goodwood, but he ought to win then."
"That'll be delightful. Well, dear boy, I'll expect you. But you won't be doing anything rash, with your leg?"
"No; just drive a 'bus, perhaps. Won't last, you know. The Government's all ready. Pretty hot stuff. We've got 'em this time."
"I'm so glad. It'll be such a good thing to have it over; it's dreadfully bad for the season. Your uncle will be very upset."
An indistinguishable sound; then Val's voice again:
"I say, Holly says she'll want a job--you might ask young Mont. He's in with people. See you soon, then--good-bye!"
Replacing the receiver, Winifred had scarcely risen from the satinwood chair on which she had been seated, when the bell rang again.
"Mrs. Dartie? . . . That you, Winifred? Soames speaking. What did I tell you?"
"Yes; it's very annoying, dear. But Val says it'll soon be over."
"What's he know about it?"
"He's very shrewd."
"Shrewd? H'm! I'm coming up to Fleur's."
"But, why, Soames? I should have thought--"
"Must be on the spot, in case of--accidents. Besides, the car'll be eating its head off down here--may as well be useful. Do that fellow Riggs good to be sworn in. This thing may lead to anything."
"Oh! Do you think--"
"Think? It's no joke. Comes of playing about with subsidies."
"But you told me last summer--"
"They don't look ahead. They've got no more nous than a tom-cat. Annette wants to go to her mother's in France. I shan't stop her. She can't gad about while this is on. I shall take her to Dover with the car to-day, and come up tomorrow."
"Ought one to sell anything, Soames?"
"Certainly not."
"People seem dreadfully busy about it all. Val's going to drive a 'bus. Oh! and, Soames--that young Jon Forsyte is back. He's left his wife and mother in Paris, and come over to be a stoker."
A deep sound, and then:
"What's he want to do that for? Much better keep out of England."
"Ye-es. I suppose Fleur--"
"Don't you go putting things into her head!"
"Of course not, Soames. So I shall see you? Good-bye."
Dear Soames was always so fussy about Fleur! Young Jon Forsyte and she--of course--but that was ages ago! Calf love! And Winifred smiled, sitting very still. This strike was really most 'intriguing.' So long as they didn't break any windows--because, of course, the milk supply would be all right, the Government always saw to that; and as to the newspapers--well, after all, they were a luxury! It would be very nice to have Val and Holly. The strike was really something to talk about; there had been nothing so exciting since the war. And, obeying an obscure instinct to do something about it, Winifred again took up the receiver. "Give me Westminster 0000. . . . Is that Mrs. Michael Mont's? Fleur? Aunt Winifred speaking. How are you, dear?"
The voice which answered had that quick little way of shaping words that was so amusing to Winifred, who in her youth had perfected a drawl, which effectually dominated both speed and emotion. All the young women in Society nowadays spoke like Fleur, as if they had found the old way of speaking English slow and flat, and were gingering it with little pinches.
"Perfectly all right, thanks. Anything I can do for you, Auntie?"
"Yes, my dear--your cousin Val and Holly are coming up to me about this strike. And Holly--I think it's very unnecessary, but she wants to do something. She thought perhaps Michael would know--"
"Oh, well, of course there are lots of things. We've started a canteen for railway workers; perhaps she'd like to help in that."
"My dear, that would be awfully nice."
"It won't, Aunt Winifred; it's pretty strenuous."
"It can't last, dear, of course. Parliament are bound to do something about it. It must be a great comfort to you to have all the news at first-hand. Then, may I send Holly to you?"
"But of course. She'll be very useful. At her age she'd better do supplies, I think, instead of standing about, serving. I get on with her all right. The great thing is to have people that get on together, and don't fuss. Have you heard from Father?"
"Yes; he's coming up to you to-morrow."
"Oh! But why?"
"He says he must be on the spot, in case of--"
"That's so silly. Never mind. It'll make two cars."
"Holly will have hers, too. Val's going to drive a 'bus, he says--and--er--young--well, dear, that's all! My love to Kit. There are a tremendous lot of milk-cans in the Park already, Smither says. She went out this morning into Park Lane to have a look. It's all rather thrilling, don't you think?"
"At the House they say it'll mean another shilling on the income tax before it's over."
"Oh, dear!"
At this moment a voice said: "Have they answered?" And, replacing the receiver, Winifred again sat, placid. Park Lane! From the old house there--home of her youth--one would have had a splendid view of everything--quite the headquarters! But how dreadfully the poor old Pater would have felt it! James! She seemed to see him again with his plaid over his shoulders, and his nose glued to a window-pane, trying to cure with the evidence of his old grey eyes the fatal habit they all had of not telling him anything. She still had some of his wine. And Warmson, their old butler, still kept 'The Pouter Pigeon,' on the river at Moulsbridge. He always sent her a Stilton cheese at Christmas, with a memorandum of the exact amount of the old Park Lane port she was to pour into it. His last letter had ended thus:
"I often think of the master, and how fond he was of going down the cellar right up to the end. As regards wine, ma'am, I'm afraid the days are not what they were. My duty to Mr. Soames and all. Dear me, it seems a long time since I first came to Park Lane.
"Your obedient servant,
"GEORGE WARMSON.
"P. S.--I had a pound or two on that colt Mr. Val bred, please to tell him--and came in useful."
The old sort of servant! And now she had Smither, from Timothy's, Cook having died--so mysteriously, or, as Smither put it: "Of hornwee, ma'am, I verily believe, missing Mr. Timothy as we did"--Smither as a sort of supercargo--didn't they call it, on ships?--and really very capable, considering she was sixty, if a day, and the way her corsets creaked. After all, to be with the family again was a great comfort to the poor old soul--eight years younger than Winifred, who, like a true Forsyte, looked down on the age of others from the platform of perennial youth. And a comfort, too, to have about the house one who remembered Monty in his prime--Montague Dartie, so long dead now, that he had a halo as yellow as his gills had so often been. Poor, dear Monty! Was it really forty-seven years since she married him, and came to live in Green Street? How well those satinwood chairs with the floral green design on their top rails, had worn--furniture of times before this seven-hour day and all the rest of it! People thought about their work then, and not about the cinema! And Winifred, who had never had any work to think about, sighed. It had all been great fun--and, if they could only get this little fuss over, the coming season would be most enjoyable. She had seats already for almost everything. Her hand slipped down to what she was sitting on. Yes, she had only had those chairs re-covered twice in all her forty-seven years in Green Street, and, really, they were quite respectable still. True! no one ever sat on them now, because they were straight up without arms; and in these days, of course, everybody sprawled, so restless, too, that no chair could stand it. She rose to judge the degree of respectability beneath her, tilting the satinwood chair forward. The year Monty died they had been re-covered last--1913, just before the war. Really that had been a marvellous piece of grey-green silk!
Jon Forsyte's sensations on landing at Newhaven, by the last possible boat, after five and a half years' absence, had been most peculiar. All the way by car to Wansdon under the Sussex Downs he was in a sort of excited dream. England! What wonderful chalk, what wonderful green! What an air of having been there for ever! The sudden dips into villages, the old bridges, the sheep, the beech clumps! And the cuckoo--not heard for six years! A poet, somewhat dormant of late, stirred within this young man. Delicious old country! Anne would be crazy about this countryside--it was so beautifully finished. When the general strike was over she could come along, and he would show her everything. In the meantime she would be all right with his mother in Paris, and he would be free for any job he could get. He remembered this bit, and Chanctonbury Ring up there, and his walk over from Worthing. He remembered very well. Fleur! His brother-in-law, Francis Wilmot, had come back from England with much to say about Fleur; she was very modern now, and attractive, and had a boy. How deeply one could be in love; and how completely get over it! Considering what his old feelings down here had been, it was strange but pleasant to be just simply eager to see Holly and 'old Val.'
Beyond a telegram from Dieppe he had made no announcement of his coming; but they would surely be here because of the horses. He would like to have a look at Val's racing stable, and get a ride, perhaps, on the Downs before taking on a strike job. If only Anne were with him, and they could have that ride together! And Jon thought of his first ride with Anne in the South Carolinian woods--that ride from which they had neither of them recovered. There it was! The jolly old house! And here at the door--Holly herself! And at sight of his half-sister, slim and dark-haired in a lilac dress, Jon was visited by a stabbing memory of their father as he had looked that dreadful afternoon, lying dead in the old armchair at Robin Hill. Dad--always lovable--and so good to him!
"Jon! How wonderful to see you!"
Her kiss, he remembered, had always lighted on his eyebrow--she hadn't changed a bit. A half-sister was nicer than a full-sister, after all. With full-sisters you were almost bound to fight a little.
"What a pity you couldn't bring Anne and your mother! But perhaps it's just as well, till this is over. You look quite English still, Jon; and your mouth's as nice and wide as ever. Why do Americans and naval men have such small mouths?"
"Sense of duty, I think. How's Val?"
"Oh, Val's all right. You haven't lost your smile. D'you remember your old room?"
"Rather. And how are you, Holly?"
"So-so. I've become a writer, Jon."
"Splendid!"
"Not at all. Hard labour and no reward."
"Oh!"
"The first book was born too still for anything. A sort of 'African Farm,' without the spiritual frills--if you remember it."
"Rather! But I always left the frills out."
"Yes, we get our objection to frills from the Dad, Jon. He said to me once, 'It'll end in our calling all matter spirit or all spirit matter--I don't know which.'"
"It won't," said Jon; "people love to divide things up. I say, I remember every stick in this room. How are the horses? Can I have a look at them and a ride to-morrow?"
"We'll go forth early and see them at exercise. We've only got three two-year-olds, but one of them's most promising."
"Fine! After that I must go up and get a good, dirty job. I should like to stoke an engine. I've always wanted to know how stokers feel."
"We'll all go. We can stay with Val's mother. It is so lovely to see you, Jon. Dinner's in half an hour."
Jon lingered five minutes at his window. That orchard in full bloom--not mathematically planted, like his just-sold North Carolinian peach-trees--was as lovely as on that long-ago night when he chased Fleur therein. That was the beauty of England--nothing was planned! How home-sick he had been over there; yes, and his mother, too! He would never go back! How wonderful that sea of apple blossom! Cuckoo again! . . . That alone was worth coming home for. He would find a place and grow fruit, down in the West, Worcestershire or Somerset, or near here--they grew a lot of figs and things at Worthing, he remembered. Turning out his suit-case, he began to dress. Just where he was sitting now, pulling on his American socks, had he sat when Fleur was showing him her Goya dress. Who would have believed then that, six years later, he would want Anne, not Fleur, beside him on this bed! The gong! Dabbing at his hair, bright and stivery, he straightened his tie and ran down.
Val's views on the strike, Val's views on everything, shrewd and narrow as his horseman's face! Those Labour johnnies were up against it this time with a vengeance; they'd have to heel up before it was over. How had Jon liked the Yanks? Had he seen 'Man of War'? No? Good Lord! The thing best worth seeing in America! Was the grass in Kentucky really blue? Only from the distance? Oh! What were they going to abolish over there next? Wasn't there a place down South where you were only allowed to cohabit under the eyes of the town watch? Parliament here were going to put a tax on betting; why not introduce the 'Tote' and have done with it? Personally he didn't care, he'd given up betting! And he glanced at Holly. Jon, too, glanced at her lifted brows and slightly parted lips--a charming face--ironical and tolerant! She drove Val with silken reins!
Val went on: Good job Jon had given up America; if he must farm out of England, why not South Africa, under the poor old British flag; though the Dutch weren't done with yet! A tough lot! They had gone out there, of course, so bright and early that they were real settlers--none of your adventurers, failures-at-home, remittancemen. He didn't like the beggars, but they were stout fellows, all the same. Going to stay in England? Good! What about coming in with them and breeding racing stock?
After an awkward little silence, Holly said slyly:
"Jon doesn't think that's quite a man's job, Val."
"Why not?"
"Luxury trade."
"Blood stock--where would horses be without it?"
"Very tempting," said Jon. "I'd like an interest in it. But I'd want to grow fruit and things for a main line."
"All right, my son; you can grow the apples they eat on Sundays."
"You see, Jon," said Holly, "nobody believes in growing anything in England. We talk about it more and more, and do it less and less. Do you see any change in Jon, Val?"
The cousins exchanged a stare.
"A bit more solid; nothing American, anyway."
Holly murmured thoughtfully: "Why can one always tell an American?"
"Why can one always tell an Englishman?" said Jon.
"Something guarded, my dear. But a national look's the most difficult thing in the world to define. Still, you can't mistake the American expression."
"I don't believe you'll take Anne for one."
"Describe her, Jon."
"No. Wait till you see her."
When, after dinner, Val was going his last round of the stables, Jon said:
"Do you ever see Fleur, Holly?"
"I haven't for eighteen months, I should think. I like her husband; he's an awfully good sort. You were well out of that, Jon. She isn't your kind--not that she isn't charming; but she has to be plumb centre of the stage. I suppose you knew that, really."
Jon looked at her and did not answer. "Of course," murmured Holly, "when one's in love, one doesn't know much."
Up in his room again, the house began to be haunted. Into it seemed to troop all his memories, of Fleur, of Robin Hill--old trees of his boyhood, his father's cigars, his mother's flowers and music; the nursery of his games, Holly's nursery before him, with its window looking out over the clock tower above the stables, the room where latterly he had struggled with rhyme. In through his open bedroom window came the sweet-scented air--England's self--from the loom of the Downs in the moon-scattered dusk, this first night of home for more than two thousand nights. With Robin Hill sold, this was the nearest he had to home in England now. But they must make one of their own--he and Anne. Home! On the English liner he had wanted to embrace the stewards and stewardesses just because they spoke an English accent. It was, still, as music to his ears. Anne would pick it up faster now--she was very receptive! He had liked the Americans, but he was glad Val had said there was nothing American about him. An owl hooted. What a shadow that barn cast--how soft and old its angle! He got into bed. Sleep--if he wanted to be up to see the horses exercised! Once before, here, he had got up early--for another purpose! And soon he slept; and a form--was it Anne's, was it Fleur's,--wandered in the corridors of his dreams.
Having seen his wife off from Dover on the Wednesday, Soames Forsyte motored towards town. On the way he decided to make a considerable detour and enter London over Hammersmith, the furthest westerly bridge in reason. There was for him a fixed connection between unpleasantness and the East End, in times of industrial disturbance. And feeling that, if he encountered a threatening proletariat, he would insist on going through with it, he acted in accordance with the other side of a Forsyte's temperament, and looked ahead. Thus it was that he found his car held up in Hammersmith Broadway by the only threatening conduct of the afternoon. A number of persons had collected to interfere with a traffic of which they did not seem to approve. After sitting forward, to say to his chauffeur, "You'd better go round, Riggs," Soames did nothing but sit back. The afternoon was fine, and the car--a landaulette--open, so that he had a good view of the total impossibility of "going round." Just like that fellow Riggs to have run bang into this! A terrific pack of cars crammed with people trying to run out of town; a few cars like his own, half empty, trying to creep past them into town; a motor-omnibus, not overturned precisely, but with every window broken, standing half across the road; and a number of blank-looking people eddying and shifting before a handful of constables! Such were the phenomena which Soames felt the authorities ought to be handling better.
The words, "Look at the blighted plutocrat!" assailed his ears; and in attempting to see the plutocrat in question, he became aware that it was himself. The epithets were unjust! He was modestly attired in a brown overcoat and soft felt hat; that fellow Riggs was plain enough in all conscience, and the car was an ordinary blue. True, he was alone in it, and all the other cars seemed full of people; but he did not see how he was to get over that, short of carrying into London persons desirous of going in the opposite direction. To shut the car, at all events, would look too pointed--so there was nothing for it but to sit still and take no notice! For this occupation no one could have been better framed by Nature than Soames, with his air of slightly despising creation. He sat, taking in little but his own nose, with the sun shining on his neck behind, and the crowd eddying round the police. Such violence as had been necessary to break the windows of the 'bus had ceased, and the block was rather what might have been caused by the Prince of Wales. With every appearance of not encouraging it by seeming to take notice, Soames was observing the crowd. And a vacant-looking lot they were, in his opinion; neither their eyes nor their hands had any of that close attention to business which alone made revolutionary conduct formidable. Youths, for the most part, with cigarettes drooping from their lips--they might have been looking at a fallen horse.
People were born gaping nowadays. And a good thing, too! Cinemas, fags, and football matches--there would be no real revolution while they were on hand; and as there seemed to be more and more on hand every year, he was just feeling that the prospect was not too bleak, when a young woman put her head over the window of his car.
"Could you take me in to town?"
Soames automatically consulted his watch. The hands pointing to seven o'clock gave him extraordinarily little help. Rather a smartly-dressed young woman, with a slight cockney accent and powder on her nose! That fellow Riggs would never have done grinning. And yet he had read in the British Gazette that everybody was doing it. Rather gruffly he said:
"I suppose so. Where do you want to go?"
"Oh, Leicester Square would do me all right."
Great Scott!
The young woman seemed to sense his emotion. "You see," she said, "I got to get something to eat before my show."
Moreover, she was getting in! Soames nearly got out. Restraining himself, he gave her a sidelong look; actress or something--young--round face, made up, naturally--nose a little snub--eyes grey, rather goggly--'mouth--h'm, pretty mouth, slightly common! Shingled--of course.
"It's awfly kind of you!"
"Not at all!" said Soames; and the car moved.
"Think it's going to last, the strike?"
Soames leaned forward.
"Go on, Riggs," he said; "and put this young lady down in--er--Coventry Street."
"It's frightf'ly awk for us, all this," said the young lady. "I should never've got there in time. You seen our show, 'Dat Lubly Lady'?"
"No."
"It's rather good."
"Oh!"
"We shall have to close, though, if this lasts."
"Ah!"
The young lady was silent, seeming to recognise that she was not in the presence of a conversationalist.
Soames re-crossed his legs. It was so long since he had spoken to a strange young woman, that he had almost forgotten how it was done. He did not want to encourage her, and yet was conscious that it was his car.
"Comfortable?" he said, suddenly.
The young lady smiled.
"What d'you think?" she said. "It's a lovely car."
"I don't like it," said Soames.
The young lady's mouth opened.
"Why?"
Soames shrugged his shoulders; he had only been carrying on the conversation.
"I think it's rather fun, don't you?" said the young lady. "Carrying on--you know, like we're all doing."
The car was now going at speed, and Soames began to calculate the minutes necessary to put an end to this juxtaposition.
The Albert Memorial, already; he felt almost an affection for it--so guiltless of the times!
"You must come and see our show," said the young lady.
Soames made an effort and looked into her face.
"What do you do in it?" he said.
"Sing and dance."
"I see."
"I've rather a good bit in the third act, where we're all in our nighties."
Soames smiled faintly.
"You've got no one like Kate Vaughan now," he said.
"Kate Vaughan? Who was she?"
"Who was Kate Vaughan?" repeated Soames; "greatest dancer that was ever in burlesque. Dancing was graceful in those days; now it's all throwing your legs about. The faster you can move your legs, the more you think you're dancing." And, disconcerted by an outburst that was bound to lead to something, he averted his eyes.
"You don't like jazz?" queried the young lady.
"I do not," said Soames.
"Well, I don't either--not reely; it's getting old-fashioned, too."
Hyde Park Corner already! And the car going a good twenty!
"My word! Look at the lorries; it's marvellous, isn't it?"
Soames emitted a confirmatory grunt. The young lady was powdering her nose now, and touching up her lips, with an almost staggering frankness. 'Suppose anyone sees me?' thought Soames. And he would never know whether anyone had or not. Turning up the high collar of his overcoat, he said:
"Draughty things, these cars! Shall I put you down at Scott's?"
"Oh, no. Lyons, please; I've only time f'r a snack; got to be on the stage at eight. It's been awf'ly kind of you. I only hope somebody'll take me home!" Her eyes rolled suddenly, and she added: "If you know what I mean."
"Quite!" said Soames, with a certain delicacy of perception. "Here you are. Stop--Riggs!"
The car stopped, and the young lady extended her hand to Soames.
"Good-bye, and thank you!"
"Good-bye!" said Soames. Nodding and smiling, she got out.
"Go on, Riggs, sharp! South Square."
The car moved on. Soames did not look back; in his mind the thought formed like a bubble on the surface of water: 'In the old days anyone who looked and talked like that would have left me her address.' And she hadn't! He could not decide whether or no this marked an advance.
At South Square, on discovering that Michael and Fleur were out, he did not dress for dinner, but went to the nursery. His grandson, now nearly three years old, was still awake, and said: "Hallo!"
"Hallo!" replied Soames, producing a toy watchman's rattle. There followed five minutes of silent and complete absorption, broken fitfully by guttural sounds from the rattle. Then his grandson lay back in his cot, fixed his blue eyes on Soames, and said, "Hallo!"
"Hallo!" replied Soames.
"Ta, ta!" said his grandson.
"Ta, ta!" said Soames, backing to the door, and nearly falling over the silver dog. The interview then terminated, and Soames went downstairs. Fleur had telephoned to say he was not to wait dinner.
Opposite the Goya he sat down. No good saying he remembered the Chartist riots of '48, because he had been born in '55; but he knew his uncle Swithin had been a 'special' at the time. This general strike was probably the most serious internal disturbance that had happened since; and, sitting over his soup, he bored further and further into its possibilities. Bolshevism round the corner--that was the trouble! That and the fixed nature of ideas in England. Because a thing like coal had once been profitable, they thought it must always be profitable. Political leaders, Trades Unionists, newspaper chaps--they never looked an inch before their noses! They'd had since last August to do something about it, and what had they done? Drawn up a report that nobody would look at!
"White wine, sir, or claret?"
"Anything that's open." To have said that in the 'eighties, or even the 'nineties, would have given his father a fit! The idea of drinking claret already opened was then almost equivalent to atheism. Another sign of the slump in ideals.
"What do you think about this strike, Coaker?"
The almost hairless man lowered the Sauterne.
"Got no body in it, sir, if you ask me."
"What makes you say that?"
"If it had any body in it, sir, they'd have had the railings of Hyde Park up by now."
Soames poised a bit of his sole. "Shouldn't be surprised if you were right," he said, with a certain approval.
"They make a lot of fuss, but no--there's nothing to it. The dole--that was a clever dodge, sir. Pannus et circesses, as Mr. Mont says, sir."
"Ha! Have you seen this canteen they're running?"
"No, sir; I believe they've got the beetle man in this evening. I'm told there's a proper lot of beetles."
"Ugh!"
"Yes, sir; it's a nahsty insect."
Having finished dinner, Soames lighted the second of his two daily cigars, and took up the earpieces of the wireless. He had resisted this invention as long as he could--but in times like these! "London calling!" Yes, and the British Isles listening! Trouble in Glasgow? There would be--lot of Irish there! More 'specials' wanted? There'd soon be plenty of those. He must tell that fellow Riggs to enlist. This butler chap, too, could well be spared. Trains! They seemed to be running a lot of trains already. After listening with some attention to the Home Secretary, Soames put the earpieces down and took up The British Gazette. It was his first sustained look at this tenuous production, and he hoped it would be his last. The paper and printing were deplorable. Still, he supposed it was something to have got it out at all. Tampering with the freedom of the Press! Those fellows were not finding it so easy as they thought. They had tampered, and the result was a Press much more definitely against them than the Press they had suppressed. Burned their fingers there! And quite unnecessary--old-fashioned notion now--influence of the Press. The war had killed it. Without confidence in truth there was no influence. Politicians or the Press--if you couldn't believe them, they didn't count! Perhaps they would re-discover that some day. In the meantime the papers were like cocktails--tittilators mostly of the appetite and the nerves. How sleepy he was! He hoped Fleur wouldn't be very late coming in. Mad thing, this strike, making everybody do things they weren't accustomed to, just as Industry, too, was beginning--or at least pretending--to recover. But that was it! With every year, in these times, it was more difficult to do what you said you would. Always something or other turning up! The world seemed to live from hand to mouth, and at such a pace, too! Sitting back in the Spanish chair, Soames covered his eyes from the light, and the surge of sleep mounted to his brain; strike or no strike, the soft, inexorable tide washed over him.
A tickling, and over his hand, thin and rather brown, the fringe of a shawl came dangling. Why! With an effort he climbed out of an abyss of dreams. Fleur was standing beside him. Pretty, bright, her eyes shining, speaking quickly, excitedly, it seemed to him.
"Here you are, then, Dad!" Her lips felt hot and soft on his forehead, and her eyes--What was the matter with her? She looked so young--she looked so--how express it?
"So you're in!" he said. "Kit's getting talkative. Had anything to eat?"
"Heaps!"
"This canteen--"
She flung off her shawl.
"I'm enjoying it frightfully."
Soames noted with surprise the rise and fall of her breast, as if she had been running. Her cheeks, too, were very pink.
"You haven't caught anything, have you--in that place?"
Fleur laughed. A sound--delicious and unwarranted.
"How funny you are, Dad! I hope the strike lasts!"
"Don't be foolish!" said Soames. "Where's Michael?"
"Gone up. He called for me, after the House. Nothing doing there, he says."
"What's the time?"
"Past twelve, dear. You must have had a real good sleep."
"Just nodding."
"We saw a tank pass, on the Embankment--going East. It looked awfully queer. Didn't you hear it?"
"No," said Soames.
"Well, don't be alarmed if you hear another. They're on their way to the docks, Michael says."
"Glad to hear it--shows the Government means business. But you must go up. You're overtired."
She gazed at him over the Spanish shawl on her arm--whistling some tune.
"Good-night!" he said. "I shall be coming up in a minute."
She blew him a kiss, twirled round, and went.
"I don't like it," murmured Soames to himself; "I don't know why, but I don't like it."
She had looked too young. Had the strike gone to her head? He rose to squirt some soda-water into a glass--that nap had left a taste in his mouth.
Um--dum--bom--um--dum--bom--um--dum--bom! A grunching noise! Another of those tanks? He would like to see one of those great things! For the idea that they were going down to the docks gave him a feeling almost of exhilaration. With them on the spot the country was safe enough. Putting on his motoring coat and hat, he went out, crossed the empty Square, and stood in the street, whence he could see the Embankment. There it came! Like a great primeval monster in the lamplit darkness, growling and gruntling along, a huge, fantastic tortoise--like an embodiment of inexorable power. 'That'll astonish their weak nerves!' thought Soames, as the tank crawled, grunching, out of sight. He could hear another coming; but with a sudden feeling that it would be too much of a good thing, he turned on his heel. A sort of extravagance about them, when he remembered the blank-looking crowd around his car that afternoon, not a weapon among the lot, nor even a revolutionary look in their eyes!
"No body in the strike!" These great crawling monsters! Were the Government trying to pretend that there was? Playing the strong man! Something in Soames revolted slightly. Hang it! This was England, not Russia, or Italy! They might be right, but he didn't like it! Too--too military! He put his latchkey into the keyhole. Um--dum--bom--um--dum--bom! Well, not many people would see or hear them--this time of night! He supposed they had got here from the country somewhere--he wouldn't care to meet them wandering about in the old lanes and places. Father and mother and baby tanks--like--like a family of mastodons, m--m? No sense of proportion in things like that! And no sense of humour! He stood on the stairs listening. It was to be hoped they wouldn't wake the baby!
When, looking down the row of faces at her canteen table, Fleur saw Jon Forsyte's, it was within her heart as if, in winter, she had met with honeysuckle. Recovering from that faint intoxication, she noted his appearance from further off. He was sitting seemingly indifferent to food; and on his face, which was smudged with coal-dust and sweat, was such a smile as men wear after going up a mountain or at the end of a long run--tired, charming, and as if they have been through something worth while. His lashes--long and dark as in her memory--concealed his eyes, and quarrelled with his brighter hair, touzled to the limit of its shortness.
Continuing to issue her instructions to Ruth La Fontaine, Fleur thought rapidly. Jon! Dropped from the skies into her canteen, stronger-looking, better knit; with more jaw, and deeper set eyes, but frightfully like Jon! What was to be done about it? If only she could turn out the lights, steal up behind, lean over and kiss him on that smudge above his left eye! Yes! And then--what? Silly! And now, suppose he came out of his far-away smile and saw her! As likely as not he would never come into her canteen again. She remembered his conscience! And she took a swift decision. Not to-night! Holly would know where he was staying. At her chosen time, on her chosen ground, if--on second thoughts, she wanted to play with fire. And, giving a mandate to Ruth La Fontaine concerning buns, she looked back over her shoulder at Jon's absorbed and smiling face, and passed out into her little office.
And second thoughts began. Michael, Kit, her father; the solid security of virtue and possessions; the peace of mind into which she had passed of late! All jeopardised for the sake of a smile, and a scent of honeysuckle! No! That account was closed. To reopen it was to tempt Providence. And if to tempt Providence was the practice of Modernity, she wasn't sure whether she was modern. Besides, who knew whether she could reopen that account? And she was seized by a gust of curiosity to see that wife of his--that substitute for herself. Was she in England? Was she dark, like her brother Francis? Fleur took up her list of purchases for the morrow. With so much to do, it was idiotic even to think about such things! The telephone! All day its bell had been ringing; since nine o'clock that morning she had been dancing to its pipe.
"Yes. . . ? Mrs. Mont speaking. What? But I've ordered them. . . . Oh! But really I must give them bacon and eggs in the morning. They can't start on cocoa only. . . . How? The Company can't afford? . . . Well! Do you want an effective service or not? . . . Come round to see you about it? I really haven't time. . . . Yes, yes . . . now please do be nice to me and tell the manager that they simply must be properly fed. They look so tired. He'll understand. . . . Yes. . . . Thank you ever so!" She hung up the receiver. "Damn!"
Someone laughed. "Oh! It's you, Holly! Cheese-paring and red tape as usual! This is the fourth time to-day. Well, I don't care--I'm going ahead. Look! Here's Harridge's list for to-morrow. It's terrific, but it's got to be. Buy it all; I'll take the risk, if I have to go round and slobber on him." And beyond the ironic sympathy on Holly's face she seemed to see Jon's smile. He should be properly fed--all of them should! And, without looking at her cousin, she said:
"I saw Jon in there. Where has he dropped from?"
"Paris. He's putting up with us in Green Street."
Fleur stuck her chin forward, and gave a little laugh.
"Quaint to see him again, all smudgy like that! His wife with him?"
"Not yet," said Holly; "she's in Paris still, with his mother."
"Oh! It'd be fun to see him some time!"
"He's stoking an engine on the local service--goes out at six, and doesn't get in till about midnight."
"Of course; I meant after, if the strike ever ends."
Holly nodded. "His wife wants to come over and help; would you like her in the canteen?"
"If she's the right sort."
"Jon says: Very much so."
"I don't see why an American should worry herself. Are they going to live in England?"
"Yes."
"Oh! Well, we're both over the measles."
"If you get them again grown-up, Fleur, they're pretty bad."
Fleur laughed. "No fear!" And her eyes, hazel, clear, glancing, met her cousin's eyes, deep, steady, grey.
"Michael's waiting for you with the car," said Holly.
"All right! Can you carry on till they've finished? Norah Curfew's on duty at five tomorrow morning. I shall be round at nine, before you start for Harridge's. If you think of anything else, stick it on the list--I'll make them stump up somehow. Good-night, Holly."
"Good-night, my dear."
Was there a gleam of pity in those grey eyes? Pity, indeed!
"Give Jon my love. I do wonder how he likes stoking! We must get some more washbasins in."
Sitting beside Michael, who was driving their car, she saw again, as it were, Jon's smile in the glass of the wind-screen, and in the dark her lips pouted as if reaching for it. Measles--they spotted you, and raised your temperature! How empty the streets were, now that the taxis were on strike! Michael looked round at her.
"Well, how's it going?"
"The beetle man was a caution, Michael. He had a face like a ravaged wedge, a wave of black hair, and the eyes of a lost soul; but he was frightfully efficient."
"Look! There's a tank; I was told of them. They're going down to the docks. Rather provocative! Just as well there are no papers for them to get into."
Fleur laughed.
"Father'll be at home. He's come up to protect me. If there really was shooting, I wonder what he'd do--take his umbrella?"
"Instinct. How about you and Kit? It's the same thing."
Fleur did not answer. And when, after seeing her father, she went up-stairs, she stood at the nursery door. The tune that had excited Soames' surprise made a whiffling sound in the empty passage. "L'amour est enfant de Bohême; il n'a jamais jamais connu de loi; si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime, et si je t'aime, prends garde à toil!" Spain, and the heartache of her honeymoon! "Voice in the night crying!" Close the shutters, muffle the ears--keep it out! She entered her bedroom and turned up the lights. It had never seemed to her so pretty, with its many mirrors, its lilac and green, its shining silver. She stood looking at her face, into which had come two patches of red, one in each cheek. Why wasn't she Norah Curfew--dutiful, uncomplicated, selfless, who would give Jon eggs and bacon at half-past five to-morrow morning--Jon with a clean face! Quickly she undressed. Was that wife of his her equal undressed? To which would he award the golden apple if she stood side by side with Anne? And the red spots deepened in her cheeks. Overtired--she knew that feeling! She would not sleep! But the sheets were cool. Yes, she preferred the old smooth Irish linen to that new rough French grass-bleached stuff. Ah! Here was Michael coming in, coming up to her! Well! No use to be unkind to him--poor old Michael! And in his arms, she saw--Jon's smile.
* * * * *
That first day spent in stoking an engine had been enough to make anyone smile. An engine-driver almost as youthful, but in private life partner in his own engineering works, had put Jon 'wise' to the mystery of getting level combustion. "A tricky job, and very tiring!" Their passengers had behaved well. One had even come up and thanked them. The engine-driver had winked at Jon. There had been some hectic moments. Supping pea soup, Jon thought of them with pleasure. It had been great sport, but his hands and arms felt wrenched. "Oil them tonight," the engine-driver had said.
A young woman was handing him 'jacket' potatoes. She had marvellously clear, brown eyes, something like Anne's--only Anne's were like a water nymph's. He took a potato, thanked her, and returned to a stoker's dreams. Extraordinary pleasure in being up against it--being in England again, doing something for England! One had to leave one's country to become conscious of it. Anne had telegraphed that she wanted to come over and join him. If he wired back "No," she would come all the same. He knew that much after nearly two years of marriage. Well, she would see England at its best. Americans didn't really know what England was. Her brother had seen nothing but London; he had spoken bitterly--a girl, Jon supposed, though nothing had been said of her. In Francis Wilmot's history of England the gap accounted for the rest. But everybody ran down England, because she didn't slop over, or blow her own trumpet.
"Butter?"
"Thanks, awfully. These potatoes are frightfully good."
"So glad."
"Who runs this canteen?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Michael Mont mostly; he's a member of Parliament."
Jon dropped his potato.
"Mrs. Mont? Gracious! She's a cousin of mine. Is she here?"
"Was. Just gone, I think."
Jon's far-sighted eyes travelled round the large and dingy room. Fleur! How amazing!
"Treacle pudding?"
"No, thanks. Nothing more."
"There'll be coffee, tea, or cocoa, and eggs and bacon, to-morrow at 5.45."
"Splendid! I think it's wonderful."
"It is, rather, in the time."
"Thank you awfully. Good-night!"
Jon sought his coat. Outside were Val and Holly in their car.
"Hallo, young Jon! You're a nice object."
"What job have you caught, Val?"
"Motor lorry--begin to-morrow."
"Fine!"
"This'll knock out racing for a bit."
"But not England."
"England? Lord--no! What did you think?"
"Abroad they were saying so."
"Abroad!" growled Val. "They would!"
And there was silence at thirty miles an hour.
From his bedroom door Jon said to his sister:
"They say Fleur runs that canteen. Is she really so old now?"
"Fleur has a very clear head, my dear. She saw you there. No second go of measles, Jon."
Jon laughed.
"Aunt Winifred," said Holly, "will be delighted to have Anne here on Friday, she told me to tell you."
"Splendid! That's awfully good of her."
"Well, good-night; bless you. There's still hot water in the bathroom."
In his bath Jon lay luxuriously still. Sixty hours away from his young wife, he was already looking forward with impatience to her appearance on Friday. And so Fleur ran that canteen! A fashionable young woman with a clear and, no doubt, shingled head--he felt a great curiosity to see her again, but nothing more. Second go of measles! Not much! He had suffered too severely from the first. Besides, he was too glad to be back--result of long, half-acknowledged homesickness. His mother had been home-sick for Europe; but he had felt no assuagement in Italy and France. It was England he had wanted. Something in the way people walked and talked; in the smell and the look of everything; some good-humoured, slow, ironic essence in the air, after the tension of America, the shrillness of Italy, the clarity of Paris. For the first time in five years his nerves felt coated. Even those features of his native land which offended the aesthetic soul, were comforting. The approaches to London, the countless awful little houses of brick and slate which his own great-grandfather, 'Superior Dosset' Forsyte, had helped, so his father had once told him, to build; the many little new houses, rather better, but still bent on compromise; the total absence of symmetry or plan; the ugly railway stations; the cockney voices, the lack of colour, taste, or pride in people's dress--all seemed comfortable, a guarantee that England would always be England.
And so Fleur was running that canteen! He would be seeing her! He would like to see her! Oh, yes!
In the next room Val was saying to Holly:
"Had a chap I knew at college to see me to-day. Wanted me to lend him money. I once did, when I was jolly hard up myself, and never got it back. He used to impress me frightfully--such an awfully good-looking, languid beggar. I thought him top notch as a 'blood.' You should see him now!"
"I did. I was coming in as he was going out; I wondered who he was. I never saw a more bitterly contemptuous expression on a face. Did you lend him money?"
"Only a fiver."
"Well, don't lend him any more."
"Hardly. D'you know what he's done? Gone off with that Louis Quinze snuffbox of Mother's that's worth about two hundred. There's been nobody else in that room."
"Good heavens!"
"Yes, it's pretty thick. He had the reputation of being the fastest man up at the 'Varsity in my time--in with the gambling set. Since I went out to the Boer war I've never heard of him."
"Isn't your mother very annoyed, Val?"
"She wants to prosecute--it belonged to my granddad. But how can we--a college pal! . . . Besides, we shouldn't get the box back."
Holly ceased to brush her hair.
"It's rather a comfort to me--this," she said.
"What is?"
"Why, everybody says the standard of honesty's gone down. It's nice to find someone belonging to our generation that had it even less."
"Rum comfort!"
"Human nature doesn't alter, Val. I believe in the young generation. We don't understand them--brought up in too settled times."
"That may be. My own dad wasn't too particular. But what am I to do about this?"
"Do you know his address?"
"He said the Brummell Club would find him--pretty queer haunt, if I remember. To come to sneaking things like that! It's upset me fright-fully."
Holly looked at him lying on his back in bed. Catching her eyes on him, he said:
"But for you, old girl, I might have gone a holy mucker myself."
"Oh, no, Val! You're too open-air. It's the indoor people who go really wrong."
Val grinned.
"Something in that--the only exercise I ever saw that fellow take was in a punt. He used to bet like anything, but he didn't know a horse from a hedge-hog. Well, Mother must put up with it, I can't do anything."
Holly came up to his bed.
"Turn over, and I'll tuck you up."
Getting into bed herself, she lay awake, thinking of the man who had gone a holy mucker, and the contempt on his face--lined, dark, well-featured, with prematurely greying hair, and prematurely faded rings round the irises of the eyes; of his clothes, too, so preternaturally preserved, and the worn, careful school tie. She felt she knew him. No moral sense, and ingrained contempt for those who had. Poor Val! He hadn't so much moral sense that he need be despised for it! And yet--! With a good many risky male instincts, Val had been a loyal comrade all these years. If in philosophic reach or aesthetic taste he was not advanced, if he knew more of horses than of poetry, was he any the worse? She sometimes thought he was the better. The horse didn't change shape or colour every five years and start reviling its predecessor. The horse was a constant, kept you from going too fast, and had a nose to stroke--more than you could say of a poet. They had, indeed, only one thing in common--a liking for sugar. Since the publication of her novel Holly had become member of the 1930 Club. Fleur had put her up, and whenever she came to town, she studied modernity there. Modernity was nothing but speed! People who blamed it might as well blame telephone, wireless, flying machine, and quick lunch counter. Beneath that top-dressing of speed, modernity was old. Women had worn fewer clothes when Jane Austen began to write. Drawers--the historians said--were only nineteenth-century productions. And take modern talk! After South Africa the speed of it certainly took one's wind away; but the thoughts expressed were much her own thoughts as a girl, cut into breathless lengths, by car and telephone bell. Take modern courtships! They resulted in the same thing as under George the Second, but took longer to reach it, owing to the motor-cycle and the standing lunch. Take modern philosophy! People had no less real philosophy than Martin Tupper or Izaak Walton; only, unlike those celebrated ancients, they had no time to formulate it. As to a future life--modernity lived in hope, and not too much of that, as everyone had, from immemorial time. In fact, as a novelist naturally would, Holly jumped to conclusions. Scratch--she thought--the best of modern youth, and you would find Charles James Fox and Perdita in golf sweaters! A steady sound retrieved her thoughts. Val was asleep. How long and dark his eyelashes still were, but his mouth was open!
"Val," she said, very softly; "Val! Don't snore, dear!" . . .
* * * * *
A snuffbox may be precious, not so much for its enamel, its period, and its little brilliants, as because it has belonged to one's father. Winifred, though her sense of property had been well proved by her retention of Montague Dartie 'for poorer,' throughout so many years, did not possess her brother Soames' collecting instinct, nor, indeed, his taste in objects which George Forsyte had been the first to call 'of bigotry and virtue.' But the further Time removed her father James--a quarter of a century by now--the more she revered his memory. As some ancient general or philosopher, secured by age from competition, is acclaimed year by year a greater genius, so with James! His objection to change, his perfect domesticity, his power of saving money for his children, and his dread of not being told anything, were haloed for her more and more with every year that he spent underground. Her fashionable aspirations waning with the increase of adipose, the past waxed and became a very constellation of shining memories. The removal of this snuffbox--so tangible a reminder of James and Emily--tried her considerable equanimity more than anything that had happened to her for years. The thought that she had succumbed to the distinction of a voice on the telephone, caused her positive discomfort. With all her experience of distinction, she ought to have known better! She was, however, one of those women who, when a thing is done, admit the fact with a view to having it undone as soon as possible; and, having failed with Val, who merely said, "Awfully sorry, Mother, but there it is--jolly bad luck!" she summoned her brother.
Soames was little less than appalled. He remembered seeing James buy the box at Jobson's for hardly more than one-tenth of what it would fetch now. Everything seemed futile if, in such a way, one could lose what had been nursed for forty years into so really magnificent a state of unearned increment. And the fellow who had taken it was of quite good family, or so his nephew said! Whether the honesty of the old Forsytes, in the atmosphere of which he had been brought up and turned out into the world, had been inherited or acquired--derived from their blood or their Banks--he had never considered. It had been in their systems just as the proverb "Honesty is the best policy" was in that of the private banking which then obtained. A slight reverie on banking was no uncommon affection of the mind in one who could recall the repercussion of "Understart and Darnett's" failure, and the disappearance one by one of all the little, old Banks with legendary names. These great modern affairs were good for credit and bad for novelists--run on a Bank--there had been no better reading! Such monster concerns couldn't 'go broke,' no matter what their clients did; but whether they made for honesty in the individual, Soames couldn't tell. The snuffbox was gone, however; and if Winifred didn't take care, she wouldn't get it back. How, precisely, she was to take care he could not at present see; but he should advise her to put it into the hands of somebody at once.
"But whose, Soames?"
"There's Scotland Yard," answered Soames, gloomily. "I believe they're very little good, except to make a fuss. There's that fellow I employed in the Ferrar case. He charges very high."
"I shouldn't care so much," said Winifred, "if it hadn't belonged to the dear Dad."
"Ruffians like that," muttered Soames, "oughtn't to be at large."
"And to think," said Winifred, "that it was especially to see him that Val came to stay here."
"Was it?" said Soames, gloomily. "I suppose you're sure that fellow took it?"
"Quite. I'd had it out to polish only a quarter of an hour before. After he went, I came back into the room at once, to put it away, and it was gone. Val had been in the room the whole time."
Soames dwelled for a moment, then rejected a doubt about his nephew, for, though connected by blood with that precious father of his, Montague Dartie, and a racing man to boot, he was half a Forsyte after all.
"Well," he said, "shall I send you this man--his name's Becroft--always looks as if he'd over-shaved himself, but he's got a certain amount of nous. I should suggest his getting in touch with that fellow's club."
"Suppose he's already sold the box?" said Winifred.
"Yesterday afternoon? Should doubt that; but it wants immediate handling. I'll see Becroft as I go away. Fleur's overdoing it, with this canteen of hers."
"They say she's running it very well. I do think all these young women are so smart."
"Quick enough," grumbled Soames, "but steady does it in the long run."
At that phrase--a maxim never far away from the lips of the old Forsytes in her youthful days--Winifred blinked her rather too light eyelashes.
"That was always rather a bore, you know, Soames. And in these days, if you're not quick, things move past you, so."
Soames gathered his hat. "That snuffbox will, if we don't look sharp."
"Well, thank you, dear boy. I do hope we get it back. The dear Pater was so proud of it, and when he died it wasn't worth half what it is now."
"Not a quarter," said Soames, and the thought bored into him as he walked away. What was the use of having judgment, if anybody could come along and pocket the results! People sneered at property nowadays; but property was a proof of good judgment--it was one's amour propre half the time. And he thought of the amour propre Bosinney had stolen from him in those far-off days of trouble. Yes, even marriage--was an exercise of judgment--a pitting of yourself against other people. You 'spotted a winner,' as they called it, or you didn't--Irene hadn't been 'a winner'--not exactly! Ah! And he had forgotten to ask Winifred about that young Jon Forsyte who had suddenly come back into the wind. But about this snuffbox! The Brummell Club was some sort of betting place, he had heard; full of gamblers, and people who did and sold things on commission, he shouldn't wonder. That was the vice of the day; that and the dole. Work? No! Sell things on commission--motor-cars, for choice. Brummell Club! Yes! This was the place! It had a window--he remembered. No harm, anyway, in asking if the fellow really belonged there! And entering, he enquired:
"Mr. Stainford a member here?"
"Yes. Don't know if he's in. Mr. Stainford been in, Bob?"
"Just come in."
"Oh!" said Soames, rather taken aback.
"Gentleman to see him, Bob."
A rather sinking sensation occurred within Soames.
"Come with me, sir."
Soames took a deep breath, and his legs moved. In an alcove off the entrance--somewhat shabby and constricted--he could see a man lolling in an old armchair, smoking a cigarette through a holder. He had a little red book in one hand and a small pencil in the other, and held them as still as if he were about to jot down a conviction that he had not got. He wore a dark suit with little lines; his legs were crossed, and Soames noted that one foot in a worn brown shoe, treed and polished against age to the point of pathos, was slowly moving in a circle.
"Gemman to see you, sir."
Soames now saw the face. Its eyebrows were lifted in a V reversed, its eyelids nearly covered its eyes. Together with the figure, it gave an impression of really remarkable languor. Thin to a degree, oval and pale, it seemed all shadow and slightly aquiline feature. The foot had become still, the whole affair still. Soames had the curious feeling of being in the presence of something arrogantly dead. Without time for thought, he began:
"Mr. Stainford, I think? Don't disturb yourself. My name is Forsyte. You called at my sister's in Green Street yesterday afternoon."
A slight contraction of the lines round that small mouth was followed by the words:
"Will you sit down?"
The eyes had opened now, and must once have been beautiful. They narrowed again, so that Soames could not help feeling that their owner had outlived everything except himself. He swallowed a qualm and resumed:
"I just wanted to ask you a question. During your call, did you by any chance happen to notice a Louis Quinze snuffbox on the table? It's--er--disappeared, and we want to fix the time of its loss."
As a ghost might have smiled, so did the man in the chair; his eyes disappeared still further.
"Afraid not."
With the thought, 'He's got it!' Soames went on:
"I'm sorry--the thing had virtue as an heirloom. It has obviously been stolen. I wanted to narrow down the issue. If you'd noticed it, we could have fixed the exact hour--on the little table just where you were sitting--blue enamel."
The thin shoulders wriggled slightly, as though resenting this attempt to place responsibility on them.
"Sorry I can't help you; I noticed nothing but some rather good marqueterie."
'Coolest card I ever saw,' thought Soames. 'Wonder if it's in his pocket.'
"The thing's unique," he said slowly. "The police won't have much difficulty. Well, thanks very much. I apologise for troubling you. You knew my nephew at college, I believe. Good-morning."
"Good-morning."
From the door Soames took a stealthy glance. The figure was perfectly motionless, the legs still crossed, and above the little red book the pale forehead was poised under the smooth grizzling hair. Nothing to be made of that! But the fellow had it, he was sure.
He went out and down to the Green Park with a most peculiar feeling. Sneak thief! A gentleman to come to that! The Elderson affair had been bad, but somehow not pitiful like this. The whitened seams of the excellent suit, the traversing creases in the once admirable shoes, the faded tie exactly tied, were evidences of form preserved, day by day, from hand to mouth. They afflicted Soames. That languid figure! What did a chap do when he had no money and couldn't exert himself to save his life? Incapable of shame--that was clear! He must talk to Winifred again. And, turning on his heel, Soames walked back towards Green Street. Debouching from the Park, he saw on the opposite side of Piccadilly the languid figure. It, too, was moving in the direction of Green Street. Phew! He crossed over and followed. The chap had an air. He was walking like someone who had come into the world from another age--an age which set all its store on 'form.' He felt that 'this chap' would sooner part with life itself than exhibit interest in anything. Form! Could you carry contempt for emotion to such a pitch that you could no longer feel emotion? Could the lifted eyebrow become more important to you than all the movements of the heart and brain? Threadbare peacock's feathers walking, with no peacock inside! To show feeling was perhaps the only thing of which that chap would be ashamed. And, a little astonished at his own powers of diagnosis, Soames followed round corner after corner, till he was actually in Green Street. By George! The chap was going to Winifred's! 'I'll astonish his weak nerves!' thought Soames. And, suddenly hastening, he said, rather breathlessly, on his sister's very doorstep:
"Ah! Mr. Stainford! Come to return the snuffbox?"
With a sigh, and a slight stiffening of his cane on the pavement, the figure turned. Soames felt a sudden compunction--as of one who has jumped out at a child in the dark. The face, unmoved, with eyebrows still raised and lids still lowered, was greenishly pale, like that of a man whose heart is affected; a faint smile struggled on the lips. There was fully half a minute's silence, then the pale lips spoke.
"Depends. How much?"
What little breath was in Soames' body left him. The impudence! And again the lips moved.
"You can have it for ten pounds."
"I can have it for nothing," said Soames, "by asking a policeman to step here."
The smile returned. "You won't do that."
"Why not?"
"Not done."
"Not done!" repeated Soames. "Why on earth not? Most barefaced thing I ever knew."
"Ten pounds," said the lips. "I want them badly."
Soames stood and stared. The thing was so sublime; the fellow as easy as if asking for a match; not a flicker on a face which looked as if it might pass into death at any moment. Great art! He perceived that it was not the slightest use to indulge in moral utterance. The choice was between giving him the ten pounds or calling a policeman. He looked up and down the street.
"No--there isn't one in sight. I have the box here--ten pounds."
Soames began to stammer. The fellow was exercising on him a sort of fascination. And suddenly the whole thing tickled him. It was rich!
"Well!" he said, taking out two five-pound notes. "For brass--!"
A thin hand removed a slight protuberance from a side pocket.
"Thanks very much. Here it is! Good-morning!"
The fellow was moving away. He moved with the same incomparable languor; he didn't look back. Soames stood with the snuffbox in his hand, staring after him.
"Well," he said, aloud, "that's a specimen they can't produce now," and he rang Winifred's bell.
During the eight days of the General Strike Michael's somewhat hectic existence was relieved only by the hours spent in a House of Commons so occupied in meditating on what it could do, that it could do nothing. He had formed his own opinion of how to settle the matter, but as no one else had formed it, the result was inconspicuous. He watched, however, with a very deep satisfaction the stock of British character daily quoted higher at home and abroad; and with a certain uneasiness the stock of British intelligence becoming almost unsaleable. Mr. Blythe's continual remark: "What the bee aitch are they all about?" met with no small response in his soul. What were they about? He had one conversation with his father-in-law on the subject.
Over his egg Soames had said:
"Well, the Budget's dished."
Over his marmalade Michael answered:
"Used you to have this sort of thing in your young days, sir?"
"No," said Soames; "no Trade Unionism then, to speak of."
"People are saying this'll be the end of it. What's your opinion of the strike as a weapon, sir?"
"For the purposes of suicide, perfect. It's a wonder they haven't found that out long ago."
"I rather agree, but what's the alternative?"
"Well," said Soames, "they've got the vote."
"Yes, that's always said. But somehow Parliament seems to matter less and less; there's a directive sense in the country now, which really settles things before we get down to them in Parliament. Look at this strike, for instance; we can do nothing about it."
"There must be government," said Soames.
"Administration--of course. But all we seem able to do in Parliament is to discuss administration afterwards without much effect. The fact is, things swoop around too quick for us nowadays."
"Well," said Soames, "you know your own business best. Parliament always was a talking shop." And with that unconscious quotation from Carlyle--an extravagant writer whom he curiously connected with revolution--he looked up at the Goya, and added: "I shouldn't like to see Parliament done away with, though. Ever heard any more of that red-haired young woman?"
"Marjorie Ferrar? Oddly enough, I saw her yesterday in Whitehall. She told me she was driving for Downing Street."
"She spoke to you?"
"Oh, yes. No ill-feeling."
"H'm!" said Soames. "I don't understand this generation. Is she married?"
"No."
"That chap MacGown had a lucky escape--not that he deserved it. Fleur doesn't miss her evenings?"
Michael did not answer. He did not know. Fleur and he were on such perfect terms that they had no real knowledge of each other's thoughts. Then, feeling his father-in-law's grey eye gimletting into him, he said hastily:
"Fleur's all right, sir."
Soames nodded. "Don't let her overdo this canteen."
"She's thoroughly enjoying it--gives her head a chance."
"Yes," said Soames, "she's got a good little head, when she doesn't lose it." He seemed again to consult the Goya, and added:
"By the way, that young Jon Forsyte is over here--they tell me--staying at Green Street, and stoking an engine or something. A boy-and-girl affair; but I thought you ought to know."
"Oh!" said Michael, "thanks. I hadn't heard he was back."
"I don't suppose she's heard, either," said Soames guardedly; "I told them not to tell her. D'you remember, in America, up at Mount Vernon, when I was taken ill?"
"Yes, sir; very well."
"Well, I wasn't. Fact is, I saw that young man and his wife talking to you on the stairs. Thought it better that Fleur shouldn't run up against them. These things are very silly, but you never can tell."
"No," said Michael, drily; "you never can tell. I remember liking the look of him a good deal."
"H'm!" muttered Soames: "He's the son of his father, I expect."
And, from the expression on his face, Michael formed the notion that this was a doubtful advantage.
No more was said, because of Soames' lifelong conviction that one did not say any more than one need say; and of Michael's prejudice against discussing Fleur seriously, even with her father. She had seemed to him quite happy lately. After five-and-a-half years of marriage, he was sure that mentally Fleur liked him, that physically she had no objection to him, and that a man was not sensible if he expected much more. She consistently declined, of course, to duplicate Kit, but only because she did not want to be put out of action again for months at a time. The more active, the happier she was--over this canteen for instance, she was in her glory. If, indeed, he had realised that Jon Forsyte was being fed there, Michael would have been troubled; as it was, the news of the young man's reappearance in England made no great impression. The Country held the field of one's attention those strenuous days. The multiple evidence of patriotism exhilarated him--undergraduates at the docks, young women driving cars, shopfolk walking cheerfully to their work, the swarm of 'specials,' the general 'carrying-on.' Even the strikers were good-humoured. A secret conviction of his own concerning England was being reinforced day by day, in refutation of the pessimists. And there was no place so un-English at the moment, he felt, as the House of Commons, where people had nothing to do but pull long faces and talk over 'the situation.'
The news of the General Strike's collapse caught him as he was going home after driving Fleur to the canteen. A fizz and bustle in the streets, and the words: "Strike Over" scrawled extempore at street corners, preceded the "End of the Strike--Official" of the hurrying news-vendors. Michael stopped his car against the curb and bought a news-sheet. There it was! For a minute he sat motionless with a choky feeling, such as he had felt when the news of the Armistice came through. A sword lifted from over the head of England! A source of pleasure to her enemies dried up! People passed and passed him, each with a news-sheet, or a look in the eye. They were taking it almost as soberly as they had taken the strike itself. 'Good old England! We're a great people when we're up against it!' he thought, driving his car slo