But her mind was at rest; her messenger had brought back word that Miss Ferrar would be in at four o’clock. She would have had the note by now; but would she come? How little one knew of other people, even when they were enemies!
He was drowsing, white and strengthless, when she heard the ‘bell-boy’s’ knock. Passing into the lobby, she closed the door softly behind her, and opened the outer door. So she HAD come!
If this meeting of two declared enemies had in it something dramatic, neither perceived it at the moment. It was just intensely unpleasant to them both. They stood for a moment looking at each other’s chins. Then Fleur said:
“He’s extremely weak. Will you sit down while I tell him you’re here?”
Having seen her settled where Francis Wilmot put his clothes out to be valeted in days when he had worn them, Fleur passed back into the bedroom, and again closed the door.
“Francis,” she said, “some one is waiting to see you.”
Francis Wilmot did not stir, but his eyes opened and cleared strangely. To Fleur they seemed suddenly the eyes she had known; as if all these days they had been ‘out,’ and some one had again put a match to them.
“You understand what I mean?”
The words came clear and feeble: “Yes; but if I wasn’t good enough for her before, I surely am not now. Tell her I’m through with that fool business.”
A lump rose in Fleur’s throat.
“Thank her for coming!” said Francis Wilmot, and closed his eyes again.
Fleur went back into the lobby. Marjorie Ferrar was standing against the wall with an unlighted cigarette between her lips.
“He thanks you for coming; but he doesn’t want to see you. I’m sorry I brought you down.”
Marjorie Ferrar took out the cigarette. Fleur could see her lips quivering. “Will he get well?”
“I don’t know. I think so–now. He says he’s ‘through with that fool business.’”
Marjorie Ferrar’s lips tightened. She opened the outer door, turned suddenly, and said:
“Will you make it up?”
“No,” said Fleur.
There was a moment of complete stillness; then Marjorie Ferrar gave a little laugh, and slipped out.
Fleur went back. He was asleep. Next day he was stronger. Three days later Fleur ceased her visits; he was on the road to recovery. She had become conscious, moreover, that she had a little lamb which, wherever Mary went, was sure to go. She was being shadowed! How amusing! And what a bore that she couldn’t tell Michael; because she had not yet begun again to tell him anything.
On the day that she ceased her visits he came in while she was dressing for dinner, with ‘a weekly’ in his hand.
“Listen to this,” he said:
‘When to God’s fondouk the donkeys are taken–
Donkeys of Africa, Sicily, Spain–
If peradventure the Deity waken,
He shall not easily slumber again.
Where in the sweet of God’s straw they have laid them,
Broken and dead of their burdens and sores,
He, for a change, shall remember He made them–
One of the best of His numerous chores–
Order from some one a sigh of repentance–
Donkeys of Araby, Syria, Greece–
Over the fondouk distemper the sentence:
“God’s own forsaken–the stable of Peace.’”
“Who’s that by?”
“It sounds like Wilfrid.”
“It is by Wilfrid,” said Michael, and did not look at her. “I met him at the ‘Hotch–Potch.’”
“And how is he?”
“Very fit.”
“Have you asked him here?”
“No. He’s going East again soon.”
Was he fishing? Did he know that she had seen him? And she said:
“I’m going down to father’s, Michael. He’s written twice.”
Michael put her hand to his lips.
“All right, darling.”
Fleur reddened; her strangled confidences seemed knotted in her throat. She went next day with Kit and Dandie. The ‘little lamb’ would hardly follow to ‘The Shelter.’
Annette had gone with her mother to Cannes for a month; and Soames was alone with the English winter. He was paying little attention to it, for the ‘case’ was in the list, and might be reached in a few weeks’ time. Deprived of French influence, he was again wavering towards compromise. The announcement of Marjorie Ferrar’s engagement to McGown had materially changed the complexion of affairs. In the eyes of a British Jury, the character of a fast young lady, and the character of the same young lady publicly engaged to a Member of Parliament, with wealth and a handle to his name, would not be at all the same thing. They were now virtually dealing with Lady MacGown, and nothing, Soames knew, was so fierce as a man about to be married. To libel his betrothed was like approaching a mad dog.
He looked very grave when Fleur told him of her ‘little lamb.’ It was precisely the retaliation he had feared; nor could he tell her that he had ‘told her so,’ because he hadn’t. He had certainly urged her to come down to him, but delicacy had forbidden him to give her the reason. So far as he could tell through catechism, there had been nothing ‘suspect’ in her movements since Lippinghall, except those visits to the Cosmopolis Hotel. But they were bad enough. Who was going to believe that she went to this sick man out of pure kindness? Such a motive was not current in a Court of Law. He was staggered when she told him that Michael didn’t know of them. Why not?
“I didn’t feel like telling him.”
“Feel? Don’t you see what a position you’ve put yourself in? Here you are, running to a young man’s bedside, without your husband’s knowledge.”
“Yes, darling; but he was terribly ill.”
“I dare say,” said Soames; “so are lots of people.”
“Besides, he was over head and ears in love with HER.”
“D’you think he’s going to admit that, even if we could call him?”
Fleur was silent, thinking of Francis Wilmot’s face.
“Oh! I don’t know,” she said at last. “How horrid it all is!”
“Of course it’s horrid,” said Soames. “Have you had a quarrel with Michael?”
“No; not a quarrel. Only he doesn’t tell ME things.”
“What things?”
“How should I know, dear?”
Soames grunted. “Would he have minded your going?”
“Of course not. He’d have minded if I hadn’t. He likes that boy.”
“Well, then,” said Soames, “either you or he, or both, will have to tell a lie, and say that he did know. I shall go up and talk to him. Thank goodness we can prove the illness. If I catch anybody coming down here after you–!”
He went up the following afternoon. Parliament being in recess, he sought the ‘Hotch–Potch’ Club. He did not like a place always connected in his mind with his dead cousin, that fellow young Jolyon, and said to Michael at once: “Can we go somewhere else?”
“Yes, sir; where would you like?”
“To your place, if you can put me up for the night. I want to have a talk with you.”
Michael looked at him askance.
“Now,” said Soames, after dinner, “what’s this about Fleur–she says you don’t tell her things?”
Michael gazed into his glass of port.
“Well, sir,” he said slowly, “I’d be only too glad to, of course, but I don’t think they really interest her. She doesn’t feel that public things matter.”
“Public! I meant private.”
“There aren’t any private things. Do you mean that she thinks there are?”
Soames dropped his scrutiny.
“I don’t know–she said ‘things.’”
“Well, you can put that out of your head, and hers.”
“H’m! Anyway, the result’s been that she’s been visiting that young American with pneumonia at the Cosmopolis Hotel, without letting you know. It’s a mercy she hasn’t picked it up.”
“Francis Wilmot?”
“Yes. He’s out of the wood, now. That’s not the point. She’s been shadowed.”
“Good God!” said Michael.
“Exactly! This is what comes of not talking to your wife. Wives are funny–they don’t like it.”
Michael grinned.
“Put yourself in my place, sir. It’s my profession, now, to fuss about the state of the Country, and all that; and you know how it is–one gets keen. But to Fleur, it’s all a stunt. I quite understand that; but, you see, the keener I get, the more I’m afraid of boring her, and the less I feel I can talk to her about it. In a sort of way she’s jealous.”
Soames rubbed his chin. The state of the Country was a curious kind of co-respondent. He himself was often worried by the state of the Country, but as a source of division between husband and wife it seemed to him cold-blooded; he had known other sources in his time!
“Well, you mustn’t let it go on,” he said. “It’s trivial.”
Michael got up.
“Trivial! Well, sir, I don’t know, but it seems to me very much the sort of thing that happened when the war came. Men had to leave their wives then.”
“Wives put up with that,” said Soames, “the Country was in danger.”
“Isn’t it in danger now?”
With his inveterate distrust of words, it seemed to Soames almost indecent for a young man to talk like that. Michael was a politician, of course; but politicians were there to keep the Country quiet, not to go raising scares and talking through their hats.
“When you’ve lived a little longer,” he said, “you’ll know that there’s always something to fuss about if you like to fuss. There’s nothing in it really; the pound’s going up. Besides, it doesn’t matter what you tell Fleur, so long as you tell her something.”
“She’s intelligent, sir,” said Michael.
Soames was taken aback. He could not deny the fact, and answered:
“Well, national affairs are too remote; you can’t expect a woman to be interested in them.”
“Quite a lot of women are.”
“Blue-stockings.”
“No, sir; they nearly all wear ‘nude.’”
“H’m! Those! As to interest in national affairs–put a tax on stockings, and see what happens!”
Michael grinned.
“I’ll suggest it, sir.”
“If you expect,” said Soames, “that people–women or not–are going to put themselves out of the way for any scheme like this–this Foggartism of yours, you’ll be very much disappointed.”
“So everybody tells me. It’s just because I don’t like cold water at home as well as abroad, that I’ve given up worrying Fleur.”
“Well, if you take my advice, you’ll take up something practical–the state of the traffic, or penny postage. Drop pessimism; people who talk at large like that, never get trusted in this country. In any case you’ll have to say you knew about her visits to that young man.”
“Certainly, sir, wife and husband are one. But you don’t really mean to let them make a circus of it in Court?”
Soames was silent. He did not MEAN them to; but what if they did?
“I can’t tell,” he said, at last. “The fellow’s a Scotchman. What did you go hitting him on the nose for?”
“He gave me a thick ear first. I know it was an excellent opportunity for turning the other cheek, but I didn’t think of it in time.”
“You must have called him something.”
“Only a dirty dog. As you know, he suggested a low motive for my speech.”
Soames stared. In his opinion this young man was taking himself much too seriously.
“Your speech! You’ve got to get it out of your mind,” he said, “that anything you can say or do will make any difference.”
“Then what’s the good of my being in Parliament?”
“Well, you’re in the same boat with everybody else. The Country’s like a tree; you can keep it in order, but you can’t go taking it up by the roots to look at them.”
Michael looked at him, impressed.
“In public matters,” said Soames, “the thing is to keep a level head, and do no more than you’re obliged.”
“And what’s to govern one’s view of necessity?”
“Common-sense. One can’t have everything.”
And rising, he began scrutinising the Goya.
“Are you going to buy another Goya, sir?”
“No; if I buy any more pictures, I shall go back to the English School.”
“Patriotism?”
Soames gave him a sharp look.
“There’s no patriotism,” he said, “in fussing. And another thing you’ve got to remember is that foreigners like to hear that we’ve got troubles. It doesn’t do to discuss our affairs out loud.”
Michael took these sayings to bed with him. He remembered, when he came out of the war, thinking: ‘If there’s another war, nothing will induce me to go.’ But now, if one were to come, he knew he WOULD be going again. So Old Forsyte thought he was just ‘fussing’! Was he? Was Foggartism a phlizz? Ought he to come to heel, and take up the state of the traffic? Was everything unreal? Surely not his love for Fleur? Anyway he felt hungry for her lying there. And Wilfrid back, too! To risk his happiness with her for the sake of–what? Punch had taken a snap at him this week, grinning and groping at a surrounding fog. Old England, like Old Forsyte, had no use for theories. Self-conscious national efforts were just pomposity. Pompous! He? The thought was terribly disturbing. He got out of bed and went to the window. Foggy! In fog all were shadows; and he the merest shadow of them all, an unpractical politician, taking things to heart! One! Two! Big Ben! How many hearts had he turned to water! How many dreams spoiled, with his measured resonance! Line up with the top-dressers, and leave the Country to suck its silver spoon!
PART III
Chapter I.
‘CIRCUSES’
In his early boyhood Soames had been given to the circus. He had outgrown it; ‘Circuses’ were now to him little short of an abomination. Jubilees and Pageants, that recurrent decimal, the Lord Mayor, Earl’s Court, Olympia, Wembley–he disliked them all. He could not stand a lot of people with their mouths open. Dressing up was to him a symptom of weak-mindedness, and the collective excitement of a crowd an extravagance which offended his reticent individualism. Though not deeply versed in history, he had an idea, too, that nations who went in for ‘circuses’ were decadent. Queen Victoria’s funeral, indeed, had impressed him–there had been a feeling in the air that day; but ever since, things had gone from bad to worse. They made everything into a ‘circus’ now! A man couldn’t commit a murder without the whole paper-reading population–himself included–looking over each other’s shoulders; and as to these football-matches, and rodeos–they interfered with the traffic and the normal course of conversation; people were so crazy about them!
Of course, ‘circuses’ had their use. They kept the people quiet. Violence by proxy, for instance, was obviously a political principle of some value. It was difficult to gape and shed blood at the same time; the more people stood in rows by day to see others being hurt, the less trouble would they take to hurt others themselves, and the sounder Soames could sleep by night. Still, sensation-hunting had become a disease, in his opinion, and no one was being inoculated for it, so far as he could see!
As the weeks went on and the cases before it in the List went off, the ‘circus’ they were proposing to make of his daughter appeared to him more and more monstrous. He had an instinctive distrust of Scotchmen–they called themselves Scotsmen nowadays, as if it helped their character! – they never let go, and he could not approve in other people a quality native to himself. Besides, ‘Scotchmen’ were so–so exuberant–always either dour or else hearty–extravagant chaps! Towards the middle of March, with the case in the list for the following week, he took an extreme step and entered the Lobby of the House of Commons. He had spoken to no one of his determination to make this last effort, for it seemed to him that all–Annette, Michael, Fleur herself–had done their best to spoil the chance of settlement.
Having sent in his card, he waited a long while in that lofty purlieu. ‘Lobbying,’ he knew the phrase, but had never realised the waste of time involved in it. The statues consoled him somewhat. Sir Stafford Northcote–a steady chap; at old Forsyte dinner-parties in the eighties his character had been as much a standby as the saddle of mutton. He found even ‘that fellow Gladstone’ bearable in stucco, or whatever it was up there. You might dislike, but you couldn’t sneeze at him, as at some of these modern chaps. He was sunk in coma before Lord Granville when at last he heard the words:
“Sir Alexander MacGown,” and saw a square man with a ruddy face, stiff black hair, and clipped moustache, coming between the railings, with a card in his hand.
“Mr. Forsyte?”
“Yes. Can we go anywhere that’s not quite so public?”
The ‘Scotchman’ nodded, and led him down a corridor to a small room.
“Well?”
Soames smoothed his hat. “This affair,” he said, “can’t be any more agreable to you than it is to me.”
“Are you the individual who was good enough to apply the word ‘traitress’ to the lady I’m engaged to?”
“That is so.”
“Then I don’t see how you have the impudence to come and speak to me.”
Soames bit his lips.
“I spoke under the provocation of hearing your fiancee call my daughter a snob, in her own house. Do you want this petty affair made public?”
“If you think that you and your daughter can get away with calling the lady I’m going to marry ‘a snake,’ ‘a traitress,’ ‘an immoral person,’ you’re more mistaken that you ever were in your life. An unqualified apology that her Counsel can announce in Court is your only way out.”
“That you won’t get; mutual regret is another thing. As to the question of damages–”
“Damn the damages!” said MacGown violently. And there was that in Soames which applauded.
“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry for you and her.”
“What the devil do you mean, sir?”
“You will know by the end of next week, unless you revise your views in between. If it comes into Court, we shall justify.”
The ‘Scotchman’ went so red that for a moment Soames was really afraid he would have an apoplectic fit.
“You’d better look out what you say in Court.”
“We pay no attention to bullies in Court.”
MacGown clenched his fists.
“Yes,” said Soames, “it’s a pity I’m not your age. Good evening!”
He passed the fellow and went out. He had noted his way in this ‘rabbit warren,’ and was soon back among the passionless statues. Well! He had turned the last stone and could do no more, except make that overbearing fellow and his young woman sorry they’d ever been born. He came out into the chilly mist of Westminster. Pride and temper! Sooner than admit themselves in the wrong, people would turn themselves into an expensive ‘circus’ for the gaping and the sneers, the japing and the jeers of half the town! To vindicate her ‘honour,’ that ‘Scotchman’ would have his young woman’s past dragged out! And fairly faced by the question whether to drag it out or not, Soames stood still. If he didn’t, she might get a verdict; if he did, and didn’t convince the jury, the damages would be shockingly increased. They might run into thousands. He felt the need of definite decision. One had been drifting in the belief that the thing wouldn’t come into Court! Four o’clock! Not too late, perhaps, to see Sir James Foskisson. He would telephone to very young Nicholas to arrange a conference at once, and if Michael was at South Square, he would take him down to it…
In his study, Michael had been staring with lugubrious relish at Aubrey Greene’s cartoon of himself in a Society paper. On one leg, like Guy–or was it Slingsby? – in the Edward Lear ‘Nonsense’ book, he was depicted crying in a wilderness where a sardonic smile was rising on the horizon. Out of his mouth the word ‘Foggartism’ wreathed like the smoke of a cigar. Above a hole in the middle distance, a meercat’s body supported the upturned face and applauding forepaws of Mr. Blythe. The thing was devastating in treatment and design–not unkind, merely killing. Michael’s face had been endowed with a sort of after-dinner rapture, as if he were enjoying the sound of his own voice. Ridicule! Not even a personal friend, an artist, could see that the wilderness was at least as deserving of ridicule as the pelican! The cartoon seemed to write the word futility large across his page. It recalled to him Fleur’s words at the outset: “And by the time the Tories go out you’ll have your licence.” She was a born realist! From the first she had foreseen for him the position of an eccentric, picturesquely beating a little private drum! A dashed good cartoon! And no one could appreciate it so deeply as its victim. But why did every one smile at Foggartism? Why? Because among a people who naturally walked, it leaped like a grasshopper; to a nation that felt its way in fog, it seemed a will-o’-the-wisp. Yes, he was a fool for his pains! And–just then, Soames arrived.
“I’ve been to see that Scotchman,” he said. “He means to take it into Court.”
“Oh! Not really, sir! I always thought you’d keep it out.”
“Only an unqualified apology will do that. Fleur can’t give it; she’s in the right. Can you come down with me now and see Sir James Foskisson?”
They set out in a taxi for the Temple.
The chambers of very young Nicholas Forsyte were in Paper Buildings. Chinny, mild and nearly forty, he succeeded within ten minutes in presenting to them every possible doubt.
“He seems to enjoy the prospect of getting tonked,” murmured Michael while they were going over to Sir James.
“A poor thing,” Soames responded; “but careful. Foskisson must attend to the case himself.”
After those necessary minutes during which the celebrated K. C. was regathering from very young Nicholas what it was all about, they were ushered into the presence of one with a large head garnished by small grey whiskers, and really obvious brains. Since selecting him, Soames had been keeping his eye on the great advocate; had watched him veiling his appeals to a jury with an air of scrupulous equity; very few–he was convinced–and those not on juries, could see Sir James Foskisson coming round a corner. Soames had specially remarked his success in cases concerned with morals or nationality–no one so apt at getting a co-respondent, a German, a Russian, or anybody at all bad, non-suited! At close quarters his whiskers seemed to give him an intensive respectability–difficult to imagine him dancing, gambling, or in bed. In spite of his practice, too, he enjoyed the reputation of being thorough; he might be relied on to know more than half the facts of any case by the time he went into Court, and to pick up the rest as he went along–or at least not to show that he hadn’t. Very young Nicholas, knowing all the facts, had seemed quite unable to see what line could possibly be taken. Sir James, on the other hand, appeared to know only just enough. Sliding his light eyes from Soames to Michael, he retailed them, and said: “Eminently a case for an amicable settlement.”
“Indeed!” said Soames.
Something in his voice seemed to bring Sir James to attention.
“Have you attempted that?”
“I have gone to the limit.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Forsyte, but what do you regard as the limit?”
“Fifteen hundred pounds, and a mutual expression of regret. They’d accept the money, but they ask for an unqualified apology.”
The great lawyer rested his chin. “Have you tried the unqualified apology without the money?”
“No.”
“I would almost be inclined. MacGown is a very rich man. The shadow and the substance, eh? The expressions in the letters are strong. What do you say, Mr. Mont?”
“Not so strong as those she used of my wife.”
Sir James Foskisson looked at very young Nicholas.
“Let me see,” he said, “those were–?”
“Lion-huntress, and snob,” said Michael, curtly.
Sir James wagged his head precisely as if it were a pair of scales.
“Immoral, snake, traitress, without charm–you think those weaker?”
“They don’t make you snigger, sir, the others do. In Society it’s the snigger that counts.”
Sir James smiled.
“The jury won’t be in Society, Mr. Mont.”
“My wife doesn’t feel like making an apology, anyway, unless there’s an expression of regret on the other side; and I don’t see why she should.”
Sir James Foskisson seemed to breathe more freely.
“In that case,” he said, “we have to consider whether to use the detective’s evidence or not. If we do, we shall need to subpoena the hall porter and the servants at Mr–er–Curfew’s flat.”
“Exactly,” said Soames; “that’s what we’re here to decide.” It was as if he had said: ‘The conference is now opened.’
Sir James perused the detective’s evidence for five silent minutes.
“If this is confirmed, even partially,” he said, at last, “we win.”
Michael had gone to the window. The trees in the garden had tiny buds; some pigeons were strutting on the grass below. He heard Soames say:
“I ought to tell you that they’ve been shadowing my daughter. There’s nothing, of course, except some visits to a young American dangerously ill of pneumonia at his hotel.”
“Of which I knew and approved,” said Michael, without turning round.
“Could we call him?”
“I believe he’s still at Bournemouth. But he was in love with Miss Ferrar.”
Sir James turned to Soames.
“If there’s no question of a settlement, we’d better go for the gloves. Merely to cross-examine as to books and play and clubs, is very inconclusive.”
“Have you read the dark scene in ‘The Plain Dealer’?” asked Soames; “and that novel, ‘Canthar’?”
“All very well, Mr. Forsyte, but impossible to say what a jury would make of impersonal evidence like that.”
Michael had come back to his seat.
“I’ve a horror,” he said, “of dragging in Miss Ferrar’s private life.”
“No doubt. But do you want me to win the case?”
“Not that way. Can’t we go into Court, say nothing, and pay up?”
Sir James Foskisson smiled and looked at Soames. ‘Really,’ he seemed to say, ‘why did you bring me this young man?’
Soames, however, had been pursuing his own thoughts.
“There’s too much risk about that flat; if we failed there, it might be a matter of twenty thousand pounds. Besides, they would certainly call my daughter. I want to prevent that at all costs. I thought you could turn the whole thing into an indictment of modern morality.”
Sir James Foskisson moved in his chair, and the pupils of his light-blue eyes became as pinpoints. He nodded almost imperceptibly three times, precisely as if he had seen the Holy Ghost.
“When shall we be reached?” he said to very young Nicholas.
“Probably next Thursday–Mr. Justice Brane.”
“Very well. I’ll see you again on Monday. Good evening.” And he sank back into an immobility, which neither Soames nor Michael felt equal to disturbing.
They went away silent–very young Nicholas tarrying in conversation with Sir James’ devil.
Turning at the Temple station, Michael murmured:
“It was just as if he’d said: ‘Some stunt!’ wasn’t it? I’m looking in at The Outpost, sir. If you’re going back to Fleur, will you tell her?”
Soames nodded. There it was! He had to do everything that was painful.
Chapter II.
“NOT GOING TO HAVE IT”
In the office of The Outpost Mr. Blythe had just been in conversation with one of those great business men who make such deep impression on all to whom they voice their views in strict confidence. If Sir Thomas Lockit did not precisely monopolise the control of manufacture in Great Britain, he, like others, caused almost any one to think so–his knowledge was so positive and his emphasis so cold. In his view the Country must resume the position held before the Great War. It all hinged on coal–a question of this seven hours a day; and they were “not going to have it.” A shilling, perhaps two shillings, off the cost of coal. They were “not going to have” Europe doing without British produce. Very few people knew Sir Thomas Lockit’s mind; but nearly all who did were extraordinarily gratified.
Mr. Blythe, however, was biting his finger, and spitting out the result.
“Who was that fellow with the grey moustache?” asked Michael.
“Lockit. He’s ‘not going to have it.’”
“Oh!” said Michael, in some surprise.
“One sees more and more, Mont, that the really dangerous people are not the politicians, who want things with public passion–that is, mildly, slowly; but the big business men, who want things with private passion, strenuously, quickly. They know their own minds; and if we don’t look out they’ll wreck the country.”
“What are they up to now?” said Michael.
“Nothing for the moment; but it’s brewing. One sees in Lockit the futility of will-power. He’s not going to have what it’s entirely out of his power to prevent. He’d like to break Labour and make it work like a nigger from sheer necessity. Before that we shall be having civil war. Some of the Labour people, of course, are just as bad–they want to break everybody. It’s a bee nuisance. If we’re all to be plunged into industrial struggles again, how are we to get on with Foggartism?”
“I’ve been thinking about the Country,” said Michael.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
He was drowsing, white and strengthless, when she heard the ‘bell-boy’s’ knock. Passing into the lobby, she closed the door softly behind her, and opened the outer door. So she HAD come!
If this meeting of two declared enemies had in it something dramatic, neither perceived it at the moment. It was just intensely unpleasant to them both. They stood for a moment looking at each other’s chins. Then Fleur said:
“He’s extremely weak. Will you sit down while I tell him you’re here?”
Having seen her settled where Francis Wilmot put his clothes out to be valeted in days when he had worn them, Fleur passed back into the bedroom, and again closed the door.
“Francis,” she said, “some one is waiting to see you.”
Francis Wilmot did not stir, but his eyes opened and cleared strangely. To Fleur they seemed suddenly the eyes she had known; as if all these days they had been ‘out,’ and some one had again put a match to them.
“You understand what I mean?”
The words came clear and feeble: “Yes; but if I wasn’t good enough for her before, I surely am not now. Tell her I’m through with that fool business.”
A lump rose in Fleur’s throat.
“Thank her for coming!” said Francis Wilmot, and closed his eyes again.
Fleur went back into the lobby. Marjorie Ferrar was standing against the wall with an unlighted cigarette between her lips.
“He thanks you for coming; but he doesn’t want to see you. I’m sorry I brought you down.”
Marjorie Ferrar took out the cigarette. Fleur could see her lips quivering. “Will he get well?”
“I don’t know. I think so–now. He says he’s ‘through with that fool business.’”
Marjorie Ferrar’s lips tightened. She opened the outer door, turned suddenly, and said:
“Will you make it up?”
“No,” said Fleur.
There was a moment of complete stillness; then Marjorie Ferrar gave a little laugh, and slipped out.
Fleur went back. He was asleep. Next day he was stronger. Three days later Fleur ceased her visits; he was on the road to recovery. She had become conscious, moreover, that she had a little lamb which, wherever Mary went, was sure to go. She was being shadowed! How amusing! And what a bore that she couldn’t tell Michael; because she had not yet begun again to tell him anything.
On the day that she ceased her visits he came in while she was dressing for dinner, with ‘a weekly’ in his hand.
“Listen to this,” he said:
‘When to God’s fondouk the donkeys are taken–
Donkeys of Africa, Sicily, Spain–
If peradventure the Deity waken,
He shall not easily slumber again.
Where in the sweet of God’s straw they have laid them,
Broken and dead of their burdens and sores,
He, for a change, shall remember He made them–
One of the best of His numerous chores–
Order from some one a sigh of repentance–
Donkeys of Araby, Syria, Greece–
Over the fondouk distemper the sentence:
“God’s own forsaken–the stable of Peace.’”
“Who’s that by?”
“It sounds like Wilfrid.”
“It is by Wilfrid,” said Michael, and did not look at her. “I met him at the ‘Hotch–Potch.’”
“And how is he?”
“Very fit.”
“Have you asked him here?”
“No. He’s going East again soon.”
Was he fishing? Did he know that she had seen him? And she said:
“I’m going down to father’s, Michael. He’s written twice.”
Michael put her hand to his lips.
“All right, darling.”
Fleur reddened; her strangled confidences seemed knotted in her throat. She went next day with Kit and Dandie. The ‘little lamb’ would hardly follow to ‘The Shelter.’
Annette had gone with her mother to Cannes for a month; and Soames was alone with the English winter. He was paying little attention to it, for the ‘case’ was in the list, and might be reached in a few weeks’ time. Deprived of French influence, he was again wavering towards compromise. The announcement of Marjorie Ferrar’s engagement to McGown had materially changed the complexion of affairs. In the eyes of a British Jury, the character of a fast young lady, and the character of the same young lady publicly engaged to a Member of Parliament, with wealth and a handle to his name, would not be at all the same thing. They were now virtually dealing with Lady MacGown, and nothing, Soames knew, was so fierce as a man about to be married. To libel his betrothed was like approaching a mad dog.
He looked very grave when Fleur told him of her ‘little lamb.’ It was precisely the retaliation he had feared; nor could he tell her that he had ‘told her so,’ because he hadn’t. He had certainly urged her to come down to him, but delicacy had forbidden him to give her the reason. So far as he could tell through catechism, there had been nothing ‘suspect’ in her movements since Lippinghall, except those visits to the Cosmopolis Hotel. But they were bad enough. Who was going to believe that she went to this sick man out of pure kindness? Such a motive was not current in a Court of Law. He was staggered when she told him that Michael didn’t know of them. Why not?
“I didn’t feel like telling him.”
“Feel? Don’t you see what a position you’ve put yourself in? Here you are, running to a young man’s bedside, without your husband’s knowledge.”
“Yes, darling; but he was terribly ill.”
“I dare say,” said Soames; “so are lots of people.”
“Besides, he was over head and ears in love with HER.”
“D’you think he’s going to admit that, even if we could call him?”
Fleur was silent, thinking of Francis Wilmot’s face.
“Oh! I don’t know,” she said at last. “How horrid it all is!”
“Of course it’s horrid,” said Soames. “Have you had a quarrel with Michael?”
“No; not a quarrel. Only he doesn’t tell ME things.”
“What things?”
“How should I know, dear?”
Soames grunted. “Would he have minded your going?”
“Of course not. He’d have minded if I hadn’t. He likes that boy.”
“Well, then,” said Soames, “either you or he, or both, will have to tell a lie, and say that he did know. I shall go up and talk to him. Thank goodness we can prove the illness. If I catch anybody coming down here after you–!”
He went up the following afternoon. Parliament being in recess, he sought the ‘Hotch–Potch’ Club. He did not like a place always connected in his mind with his dead cousin, that fellow young Jolyon, and said to Michael at once: “Can we go somewhere else?”
“Yes, sir; where would you like?”
“To your place, if you can put me up for the night. I want to have a talk with you.”
Michael looked at him askance.
“Now,” said Soames, after dinner, “what’s this about Fleur–she says you don’t tell her things?”
Michael gazed into his glass of port.
“Well, sir,” he said slowly, “I’d be only too glad to, of course, but I don’t think they really interest her. She doesn’t feel that public things matter.”
“Public! I meant private.”
“There aren’t any private things. Do you mean that she thinks there are?”
Soames dropped his scrutiny.
“I don’t know–she said ‘things.’”
“Well, you can put that out of your head, and hers.”
“H’m! Anyway, the result’s been that she’s been visiting that young American with pneumonia at the Cosmopolis Hotel, without letting you know. It’s a mercy she hasn’t picked it up.”
“Francis Wilmot?”
“Yes. He’s out of the wood, now. That’s not the point. She’s been shadowed.”
“Good God!” said Michael.
“Exactly! This is what comes of not talking to your wife. Wives are funny–they don’t like it.”
Michael grinned.
“Put yourself in my place, sir. It’s my profession, now, to fuss about the state of the Country, and all that; and you know how it is–one gets keen. But to Fleur, it’s all a stunt. I quite understand that; but, you see, the keener I get, the more I’m afraid of boring her, and the less I feel I can talk to her about it. In a sort of way she’s jealous.”
Soames rubbed his chin. The state of the Country was a curious kind of co-respondent. He himself was often worried by the state of the Country, but as a source of division between husband and wife it seemed to him cold-blooded; he had known other sources in his time!
“Well, you mustn’t let it go on,” he said. “It’s trivial.”
Michael got up.
“Trivial! Well, sir, I don’t know, but it seems to me very much the sort of thing that happened when the war came. Men had to leave their wives then.”
“Wives put up with that,” said Soames, “the Country was in danger.”
“Isn’t it in danger now?”
With his inveterate distrust of words, it seemed to Soames almost indecent for a young man to talk like that. Michael was a politician, of course; but politicians were there to keep the Country quiet, not to go raising scares and talking through their hats.
“When you’ve lived a little longer,” he said, “you’ll know that there’s always something to fuss about if you like to fuss. There’s nothing in it really; the pound’s going up. Besides, it doesn’t matter what you tell Fleur, so long as you tell her something.”
“She’s intelligent, sir,” said Michael.
Soames was taken aback. He could not deny the fact, and answered:
“Well, national affairs are too remote; you can’t expect a woman to be interested in them.”
“Quite a lot of women are.”
“Blue-stockings.”
“No, sir; they nearly all wear ‘nude.’”
“H’m! Those! As to interest in national affairs–put a tax on stockings, and see what happens!”
Michael grinned.
“I’ll suggest it, sir.”
“If you expect,” said Soames, “that people–women or not–are going to put themselves out of the way for any scheme like this–this Foggartism of yours, you’ll be very much disappointed.”
“So everybody tells me. It’s just because I don’t like cold water at home as well as abroad, that I’ve given up worrying Fleur.”
“Well, if you take my advice, you’ll take up something practical–the state of the traffic, or penny postage. Drop pessimism; people who talk at large like that, never get trusted in this country. In any case you’ll have to say you knew about her visits to that young man.”
“Certainly, sir, wife and husband are one. But you don’t really mean to let them make a circus of it in Court?”
Soames was silent. He did not MEAN them to; but what if they did?
“I can’t tell,” he said, at last. “The fellow’s a Scotchman. What did you go hitting him on the nose for?”
“He gave me a thick ear first. I know it was an excellent opportunity for turning the other cheek, but I didn’t think of it in time.”
“You must have called him something.”
“Only a dirty dog. As you know, he suggested a low motive for my speech.”
Soames stared. In his opinion this young man was taking himself much too seriously.
“Your speech! You’ve got to get it out of your mind,” he said, “that anything you can say or do will make any difference.”
“Then what’s the good of my being in Parliament?”
“Well, you’re in the same boat with everybody else. The Country’s like a tree; you can keep it in order, but you can’t go taking it up by the roots to look at them.”
Michael looked at him, impressed.
“In public matters,” said Soames, “the thing is to keep a level head, and do no more than you’re obliged.”
“And what’s to govern one’s view of necessity?”
“Common-sense. One can’t have everything.”
And rising, he began scrutinising the Goya.
“Are you going to buy another Goya, sir?”
“No; if I buy any more pictures, I shall go back to the English School.”
“Patriotism?”
Soames gave him a sharp look.
“There’s no patriotism,” he said, “in fussing. And another thing you’ve got to remember is that foreigners like to hear that we’ve got troubles. It doesn’t do to discuss our affairs out loud.”
Michael took these sayings to bed with him. He remembered, when he came out of the war, thinking: ‘If there’s another war, nothing will induce me to go.’ But now, if one were to come, he knew he WOULD be going again. So Old Forsyte thought he was just ‘fussing’! Was he? Was Foggartism a phlizz? Ought he to come to heel, and take up the state of the traffic? Was everything unreal? Surely not his love for Fleur? Anyway he felt hungry for her lying there. And Wilfrid back, too! To risk his happiness with her for the sake of–what? Punch had taken a snap at him this week, grinning and groping at a surrounding fog. Old England, like Old Forsyte, had no use for theories. Self-conscious national efforts were just pomposity. Pompous! He? The thought was terribly disturbing. He got out of bed and went to the window. Foggy! In fog all were shadows; and he the merest shadow of them all, an unpractical politician, taking things to heart! One! Two! Big Ben! How many hearts had he turned to water! How many dreams spoiled, with his measured resonance! Line up with the top-dressers, and leave the Country to suck its silver spoon!
PART III
Chapter I.
‘CIRCUSES’
In his early boyhood Soames had been given to the circus. He had outgrown it; ‘Circuses’ were now to him little short of an abomination. Jubilees and Pageants, that recurrent decimal, the Lord Mayor, Earl’s Court, Olympia, Wembley–he disliked them all. He could not stand a lot of people with their mouths open. Dressing up was to him a symptom of weak-mindedness, and the collective excitement of a crowd an extravagance which offended his reticent individualism. Though not deeply versed in history, he had an idea, too, that nations who went in for ‘circuses’ were decadent. Queen Victoria’s funeral, indeed, had impressed him–there had been a feeling in the air that day; but ever since, things had gone from bad to worse. They made everything into a ‘circus’ now! A man couldn’t commit a murder without the whole paper-reading population–himself included–looking over each other’s shoulders; and as to these football-matches, and rodeos–they interfered with the traffic and the normal course of conversation; people were so crazy about them!
Of course, ‘circuses’ had their use. They kept the people quiet. Violence by proxy, for instance, was obviously a political principle of some value. It was difficult to gape and shed blood at the same time; the more people stood in rows by day to see others being hurt, the less trouble would they take to hurt others themselves, and the sounder Soames could sleep by night. Still, sensation-hunting had become a disease, in his opinion, and no one was being inoculated for it, so far as he could see!
As the weeks went on and the cases before it in the List went off, the ‘circus’ they were proposing to make of his daughter appeared to him more and more monstrous. He had an instinctive distrust of Scotchmen–they called themselves Scotsmen nowadays, as if it helped their character! – they never let go, and he could not approve in other people a quality native to himself. Besides, ‘Scotchmen’ were so–so exuberant–always either dour or else hearty–extravagant chaps! Towards the middle of March, with the case in the list for the following week, he took an extreme step and entered the Lobby of the House of Commons. He had spoken to no one of his determination to make this last effort, for it seemed to him that all–Annette, Michael, Fleur herself–had done their best to spoil the chance of settlement.
Having sent in his card, he waited a long while in that lofty purlieu. ‘Lobbying,’ he knew the phrase, but had never realised the waste of time involved in it. The statues consoled him somewhat. Sir Stafford Northcote–a steady chap; at old Forsyte dinner-parties in the eighties his character had been as much a standby as the saddle of mutton. He found even ‘that fellow Gladstone’ bearable in stucco, or whatever it was up there. You might dislike, but you couldn’t sneeze at him, as at some of these modern chaps. He was sunk in coma before Lord Granville when at last he heard the words:
“Sir Alexander MacGown,” and saw a square man with a ruddy face, stiff black hair, and clipped moustache, coming between the railings, with a card in his hand.
“Mr. Forsyte?”
“Yes. Can we go anywhere that’s not quite so public?”
The ‘Scotchman’ nodded, and led him down a corridor to a small room.
“Well?”
Soames smoothed his hat. “This affair,” he said, “can’t be any more agreable to you than it is to me.”
“Are you the individual who was good enough to apply the word ‘traitress’ to the lady I’m engaged to?”
“That is so.”
“Then I don’t see how you have the impudence to come and speak to me.”
Soames bit his lips.
“I spoke under the provocation of hearing your fiancee call my daughter a snob, in her own house. Do you want this petty affair made public?”
“If you think that you and your daughter can get away with calling the lady I’m going to marry ‘a snake,’ ‘a traitress,’ ‘an immoral person,’ you’re more mistaken that you ever were in your life. An unqualified apology that her Counsel can announce in Court is your only way out.”
“That you won’t get; mutual regret is another thing. As to the question of damages–”
“Damn the damages!” said MacGown violently. And there was that in Soames which applauded.
“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry for you and her.”
“What the devil do you mean, sir?”
“You will know by the end of next week, unless you revise your views in between. If it comes into Court, we shall justify.”
The ‘Scotchman’ went so red that for a moment Soames was really afraid he would have an apoplectic fit.
“You’d better look out what you say in Court.”
“We pay no attention to bullies in Court.”
MacGown clenched his fists.
“Yes,” said Soames, “it’s a pity I’m not your age. Good evening!”
He passed the fellow and went out. He had noted his way in this ‘rabbit warren,’ and was soon back among the passionless statues. Well! He had turned the last stone and could do no more, except make that overbearing fellow and his young woman sorry they’d ever been born. He came out into the chilly mist of Westminster. Pride and temper! Sooner than admit themselves in the wrong, people would turn themselves into an expensive ‘circus’ for the gaping and the sneers, the japing and the jeers of half the town! To vindicate her ‘honour,’ that ‘Scotchman’ would have his young woman’s past dragged out! And fairly faced by the question whether to drag it out or not, Soames stood still. If he didn’t, she might get a verdict; if he did, and didn’t convince the jury, the damages would be shockingly increased. They might run into thousands. He felt the need of definite decision. One had been drifting in the belief that the thing wouldn’t come into Court! Four o’clock! Not too late, perhaps, to see Sir James Foskisson. He would telephone to very young Nicholas to arrange a conference at once, and if Michael was at South Square, he would take him down to it…
In his study, Michael had been staring with lugubrious relish at Aubrey Greene’s cartoon of himself in a Society paper. On one leg, like Guy–or was it Slingsby? – in the Edward Lear ‘Nonsense’ book, he was depicted crying in a wilderness where a sardonic smile was rising on the horizon. Out of his mouth the word ‘Foggartism’ wreathed like the smoke of a cigar. Above a hole in the middle distance, a meercat’s body supported the upturned face and applauding forepaws of Mr. Blythe. The thing was devastating in treatment and design–not unkind, merely killing. Michael’s face had been endowed with a sort of after-dinner rapture, as if he were enjoying the sound of his own voice. Ridicule! Not even a personal friend, an artist, could see that the wilderness was at least as deserving of ridicule as the pelican! The cartoon seemed to write the word futility large across his page. It recalled to him Fleur’s words at the outset: “And by the time the Tories go out you’ll have your licence.” She was a born realist! From the first she had foreseen for him the position of an eccentric, picturesquely beating a little private drum! A dashed good cartoon! And no one could appreciate it so deeply as its victim. But why did every one smile at Foggartism? Why? Because among a people who naturally walked, it leaped like a grasshopper; to a nation that felt its way in fog, it seemed a will-o’-the-wisp. Yes, he was a fool for his pains! And–just then, Soames arrived.
“I’ve been to see that Scotchman,” he said. “He means to take it into Court.”
“Oh! Not really, sir! I always thought you’d keep it out.”
“Only an unqualified apology will do that. Fleur can’t give it; she’s in the right. Can you come down with me now and see Sir James Foskisson?”
They set out in a taxi for the Temple.
The chambers of very young Nicholas Forsyte were in Paper Buildings. Chinny, mild and nearly forty, he succeeded within ten minutes in presenting to them every possible doubt.
“He seems to enjoy the prospect of getting tonked,” murmured Michael while they were going over to Sir James.
“A poor thing,” Soames responded; “but careful. Foskisson must attend to the case himself.”
After those necessary minutes during which the celebrated K. C. was regathering from very young Nicholas what it was all about, they were ushered into the presence of one with a large head garnished by small grey whiskers, and really obvious brains. Since selecting him, Soames had been keeping his eye on the great advocate; had watched him veiling his appeals to a jury with an air of scrupulous equity; very few–he was convinced–and those not on juries, could see Sir James Foskisson coming round a corner. Soames had specially remarked his success in cases concerned with morals or nationality–no one so apt at getting a co-respondent, a German, a Russian, or anybody at all bad, non-suited! At close quarters his whiskers seemed to give him an intensive respectability–difficult to imagine him dancing, gambling, or in bed. In spite of his practice, too, he enjoyed the reputation of being thorough; he might be relied on to know more than half the facts of any case by the time he went into Court, and to pick up the rest as he went along–or at least not to show that he hadn’t. Very young Nicholas, knowing all the facts, had seemed quite unable to see what line could possibly be taken. Sir James, on the other hand, appeared to know only just enough. Sliding his light eyes from Soames to Michael, he retailed them, and said: “Eminently a case for an amicable settlement.”
“Indeed!” said Soames.
Something in his voice seemed to bring Sir James to attention.
“Have you attempted that?”
“I have gone to the limit.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Forsyte, but what do you regard as the limit?”
“Fifteen hundred pounds, and a mutual expression of regret. They’d accept the money, but they ask for an unqualified apology.”
The great lawyer rested his chin. “Have you tried the unqualified apology without the money?”
“No.”
“I would almost be inclined. MacGown is a very rich man. The shadow and the substance, eh? The expressions in the letters are strong. What do you say, Mr. Mont?”
“Not so strong as those she used of my wife.”
Sir James Foskisson looked at very young Nicholas.
“Let me see,” he said, “those were–?”
“Lion-huntress, and snob,” said Michael, curtly.
Sir James wagged his head precisely as if it were a pair of scales.
“Immoral, snake, traitress, without charm–you think those weaker?”
“They don’t make you snigger, sir, the others do. In Society it’s the snigger that counts.”
Sir James smiled.
“The jury won’t be in Society, Mr. Mont.”
“My wife doesn’t feel like making an apology, anyway, unless there’s an expression of regret on the other side; and I don’t see why she should.”
Sir James Foskisson seemed to breathe more freely.
“In that case,” he said, “we have to consider whether to use the detective’s evidence or not. If we do, we shall need to subpoena the hall porter and the servants at Mr–er–Curfew’s flat.”
“Exactly,” said Soames; “that’s what we’re here to decide.” It was as if he had said: ‘The conference is now opened.’
Sir James perused the detective’s evidence for five silent minutes.
“If this is confirmed, even partially,” he said, at last, “we win.”
Michael had gone to the window. The trees in the garden had tiny buds; some pigeons were strutting on the grass below. He heard Soames say:
“I ought to tell you that they’ve been shadowing my daughter. There’s nothing, of course, except some visits to a young American dangerously ill of pneumonia at his hotel.”
“Of which I knew and approved,” said Michael, without turning round.
“Could we call him?”
“I believe he’s still at Bournemouth. But he was in love with Miss Ferrar.”
Sir James turned to Soames.
“If there’s no question of a settlement, we’d better go for the gloves. Merely to cross-examine as to books and play and clubs, is very inconclusive.”
“Have you read the dark scene in ‘The Plain Dealer’?” asked Soames; “and that novel, ‘Canthar’?”
“All very well, Mr. Forsyte, but impossible to say what a jury would make of impersonal evidence like that.”
Michael had come back to his seat.
“I’ve a horror,” he said, “of dragging in Miss Ferrar’s private life.”
“No doubt. But do you want me to win the case?”
“Not that way. Can’t we go into Court, say nothing, and pay up?”
Sir James Foskisson smiled and looked at Soames. ‘Really,’ he seemed to say, ‘why did you bring me this young man?’
Soames, however, had been pursuing his own thoughts.
“There’s too much risk about that flat; if we failed there, it might be a matter of twenty thousand pounds. Besides, they would certainly call my daughter. I want to prevent that at all costs. I thought you could turn the whole thing into an indictment of modern morality.”
Sir James Foskisson moved in his chair, and the pupils of his light-blue eyes became as pinpoints. He nodded almost imperceptibly three times, precisely as if he had seen the Holy Ghost.
“When shall we be reached?” he said to very young Nicholas.
“Probably next Thursday–Mr. Justice Brane.”
“Very well. I’ll see you again on Monday. Good evening.” And he sank back into an immobility, which neither Soames nor Michael felt equal to disturbing.
They went away silent–very young Nicholas tarrying in conversation with Sir James’ devil.
Turning at the Temple station, Michael murmured:
“It was just as if he’d said: ‘Some stunt!’ wasn’t it? I’m looking in at The Outpost, sir. If you’re going back to Fleur, will you tell her?”
Soames nodded. There it was! He had to do everything that was painful.
Chapter II.
“NOT GOING TO HAVE IT”
In the office of The Outpost Mr. Blythe had just been in conversation with one of those great business men who make such deep impression on all to whom they voice their views in strict confidence. If Sir Thomas Lockit did not precisely monopolise the control of manufacture in Great Britain, he, like others, caused almost any one to think so–his knowledge was so positive and his emphasis so cold. In his view the Country must resume the position held before the Great War. It all hinged on coal–a question of this seven hours a day; and they were “not going to have it.” A shilling, perhaps two shillings, off the cost of coal. They were “not going to have” Europe doing without British produce. Very few people knew Sir Thomas Lockit’s mind; but nearly all who did were extraordinarily gratified.
Mr. Blythe, however, was biting his finger, and spitting out the result.
“Who was that fellow with the grey moustache?” asked Michael.
“Lockit. He’s ‘not going to have it.’”
“Oh!” said Michael, in some surprise.
“One sees more and more, Mont, that the really dangerous people are not the politicians, who want things with public passion–that is, mildly, slowly; but the big business men, who want things with private passion, strenuously, quickly. They know their own minds; and if we don’t look out they’ll wreck the country.”
“What are they up to now?” said Michael.
“Nothing for the moment; but it’s brewing. One sees in Lockit the futility of will-power. He’s not going to have what it’s entirely out of his power to prevent. He’d like to break Labour and make it work like a nigger from sheer necessity. Before that we shall be having civil war. Some of the Labour people, of course, are just as bad–they want to break everybody. It’s a bee nuisance. If we’re all to be plunged into industrial struggles again, how are we to get on with Foggartism?”
“I’ve been thinking about the Country,” said Michael.
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