Whitsuntide Bank Holiday was producing its seasonal invasion of Hampstead Heath, and among the ascending swarm were two who meant to make money in the morning and spend it in the afternoon.
Tony Bicket, with balloons and wife, embarked early on the Hampstead Tube.
“You’ll see,” he said, “I’ll sell the bloomin’ lot by twelve o’clock, and we’ll go on the bust.”
Squeezing his arm, Victorine fingered, through her dress, a slight swelling just above her right knee. It was caused by fifty-four pounds fastened in the top of her stocking. She had little feeling, now, against balloons. They afforded temporary nourishment, till she had the few more pounds needful for their passage-money. Tony still believed he was going to screw salvation out of his blessed balloons: he was ‘that hopeful—Tony,’ though their heads were only just above water on his takings. And she smiled. With her secret she could afford to be indifferent now to the stigma of gutter hawking. She had her story pat. From the evening paper, and from communion on ‘buses with those interested in the national pastime, she had acquired the necessary information about racing. She even talked of it with Tony, who had street-corner knowledge. Already she had prepared chapter and verse of two imaginary coups; a sovereign made out of stitching imaginary blouses, invested on the winner of the Two Thousand Guineas, and the result on the dead-heater for the Jubilee at nice odds; this with a third winner, still to be selected, would bring her imaginary winnings up to the needed sixty pounds odd she would so soon have saved now out of ‘the altogether.’ This tale she would pitch to Tony in a week or two, reeling off by heart the wonderful luck she had kept from him until she had the whole of the money. She would slip her forehead against his eyes if he looked at her too hard, and kiss his lips till his head was no longer clear. And in the morning they would wake up and take their passages. Such was the plan of Victorine, with five ten-pound and four one-pound notes in her stocking, attached to the pink silk stays.
‘Afternoon of a Dryad’ had long been finished, and was on exhibition at the Dumetrius Gallery, with other works of Aubrey Greene. Victorine had paid a shilling to see it; had stood some furtive minutes gazing at that white body glimmering from among grass and spikey flowers, at the face, turned as if saying: “I know a secret!”
“Bit of a genius, Aubrey Greene—that face is jolly good!” Scared, and hiding the face, Victorine had slipped away.
From the very day when she had stood shivering outside the studio of Aubrey Greene she had been in full work. He had painted her three times—always nice, always polite, quite the gentleman! And he had given her introductions. Some had painted her in clothes, some half-draped, some in that ‘altogether,’ which no longer troubled her, with the money swelling her stocking and Tony without suspicion. Not every one had been ‘nice’; advances had been made to her, but she had nipped them in the bud. It would have meant the money quicker, but—Tony! In a fortnight now she could snap her fingers at it all. And often on the way home she stood by that plate-glass window, before the fruits, and the corn, and the blue butterflies…
In the packed railway carriage they sat side by side, Bicket, with tray on knee, debating where he had best stand.
“I fyvour the mokes,” he said at last, “up by the pond. People’ll have more money than when they get down among the swings and cocoanuts; and you can go and sit in a chair by the pond, like the seaside—I don’t want you with me not till I’ve sold out.”
Victorine pressed his arm.
Along the top and over on to the heath to north and south the holiday swarms surged, in perfect humour, carrying paper bags. Round the pond children, with thin, grey-white, spindly legs, were paddling and shrilly chattering, too content to smile. Elderly couples crawled slowly by, with jutting stomachs, and faces discoloured by the unaccustomed climb. Girls and young men were few, for they were dispersed already on the heath, in search of a madder merriment. On benches, in chairs of green canvas or painted wood, hundreds were sitting, contemplating their feet, as if imagining the waves of the sea. Now and again three donkeys would start, urged from behind, and slowly tittup their burdens along the pond’s margin. Hawkers cried goods. Fat dark women told fortunes. Policemen stood cynically near them. A man talked and talked and took his hat round.
Tony Bicket unslung his tray. His cockney voice, wheedling and a little husky, offered his coloured airs without intermission. This was something like! It was brisk! And now and again he gazed through the throng away across the pond, to where Victorine would be seated in a canvas chair, looking different from every one—he knew.
“Fine balloons—fine balloons! Six for a bob! Big one, Madam? Only sixpence. See the size! Buy, buy! Tyke one for the little boy!”
No ‘aldermen’ up here, but plenty in the mood to spend their money on a bit of brightness!
At five minutes before noon he snapped his tray to—not a bally balloon left! With six Bank Holidays a week he would make his fortune! Tray under arm, he began to tour the pond. The kiddies were all right, but—good Lord—how thin and pale! If he and Vic had a kid—but not they—not till they got out there! A fat brown kid, chysin’ blue butterflies, and the sun oozin’ out of him! Rounding the end of the pond, he walked slowly along the chairs. Lying back, elegant, with legs crossed, in brown stockings showing to the knees, and neat brown shoes with the flaps over—My! she looked a treat—in a world of her own, like that! Something caught Bicket by the throat. Gosh! He wanted things for her!
“Well, Vic! Penny!”
“I was thinkin’ of Australia.”
“Ah! It’s a gaudy long wait. Never mind—I’ve sold the bally lot. Which shall we do, go down among the trees, or get to the swings, at once?”
“The swings,” said Victorine.
The Vale of Health was in rhapsodic mood. The crowd flowed here in a slow, speechless stream, to the cries of the booth-keepers, and the owners of swings and cocoanuts. “Roll—bowl—or pitch! Now for the milky ones! Penny a shy!… Who’s for the swings?… Ices… Ices… Fine bananas!”
On the giant merry-go-round under its vast umbrella the thirty chain-hung seats were filled with girls and men. Round to the music—slowly—faster—whirling out to the full extent of the chain, bodies bent back, legs stuck forward, laughter and speech dying, faces solemn, a little lost, hands gripping the chains hard. Faster, faster; slowing, slowing to a standstill, and the music silent.
“My word!” murmured Victorine. “Come on, Tony!”
They entered the enclosure and took their seats. Victorine, on the outside, locked her feet, instinctively, one over the other, and tightening her clasp on the chains, curved her body to the motion. Her lips parted:
“Lor, Tony!”
Faster, faster—every nerve and sense given to that motion! O-o-h! It WAS a feeling—flying round like that above the world! Faster—faster! Slower—slow, and the descent to earth.
“Tony—it’s ‘eaven!”
“Queer feelin’ in yer inside, when you’re swung right out!”
“I’d like it level with the top. Let’s go once more!”
“Right-o!”
Twice more they went—half his profit on balloons! But who cared? He liked to see her face. After that, six shies at the milky ones without a hit, an ice apiece: then arm-inarm to find a place to eat their lunch. That was the time Bicket enjoyed most, after the ginger-beer and sandwiches; smoking his fag, with his head on her lap, and the sky blue. A long time like that; till at last she stirred.
“Let’s go and see the dancin’!”
In the grass enclosure ringed by the running path, some two dozen couples were jigging to a band.
Victorine pulled at his arm. “I WOULD love a turn!”
“Well, let’s ‘ave a go,” said Bicket. “This one-legged bloke’ll ‘old my tray.”
They entered the ring.
“Hold me tighter, Tony!”
Bicket obeyed. Nothing he liked better; and slowly their feet moved—to this side and that. They made little way, revolving, keeping time, oblivious of appearances.
“You dance all right, Tony.”
“YOU dance a treat!” gasped Bicket.
In the intervals, panting, they watched over the one-legged man; then to it again, till the band ceased for good.
“My word!” said Victorine. “They dance on board ship, Tony!”
Bicket squeezed her waist.
“I’ll do the trick yet, if I ‘ave to rob the Bank. There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you, Vic.”
But Victorine smiled. She had done the trick already.
The crowd with parti-coloured faces, tired, good-humoured, frowsily scented, strolled over a battlefield thick-strewn with paper bags, banana peel, and newspapers.
“Let’s ‘ave our tea, and one more swing,” said Bicket; “then we’ll get over on the other side among the trees.”
Away over on the far side were many couples. The sun went very slowly down. Those two sat under a bush and watched it go. A faint breeze swung and rustled the birch leaves. There was little human sound out here. All seemed to have come for silence, to be waiting for darkness in the hush. Now and then some stealthy spy would pass and scrutinise.
“Foxes!” said Bicket. “Gawd! I’d like to rub their noses in it!”
Victorine sighed, pressing closer to him.
Some one was playing on a banjo now; a voice singing. It grew dusk, but a moon was somewhere rising, for little shadows stole out along the ground.
They spoke in whispers. It seemed wrong to raise the voice, as though the grove were under a spell. Even their whisperings were scarce. Dew fell, but they paid no heed to it. With hands locked, and cheeks together, they sat very still. Bicket had a thought. This was poetry—this was! Darkness now, with a sort of faint and silvery glow, a sound of drunken singing on the Spaniard’s Road, the whirr of belated cars returning from the north—and suddenly an owl hooted.
“My!” murmured Victorine, shivering: “An owl! Fancy! I used to hear one at Norbiton. I ‘ope it’s not bad luck!”
Bicket rose and stretched himself,
“Come on!” he said: “we’ve ‘ad a dy. Don’t you go catchin’ cold!”
Arm-inarm, slowly, through the darkness of the birch-grove, they made their way upwards—glad of the lamps, and the street, and the crowded station, as though they had taken an overdose of solitude.
Huddled in their carriage on the Tube, Bicket idly turned the pages of a derelict paper. But Victorine sat thinking of so much, that it was as if she thought of nothing. The swings and the grove in the darkness, and the money in her stocking. She wondered Tony hadn’t noticed when it crackled—there wasn’t a safe place to keep it in! What was he looking at, with his eyes so fixed? She peered, and read: “‘Afternoon of a Dryad.’ The striking picture by Aubrey Greene, on exhibition at the Dumetrius Gallery.”
Her heart stopped beating.
“Cripes!” said Bicket. “Ain’t that like you?”
“Like me? No!”
Bicket held the paper closer. “It IS. It’s like you all over. I’ll cut that out. I’d like to see that picture.”
The colour came up in her cheeks, released from a heart beating too fast now.
“‘Tisn’t decent,” she said.
“Dunno about that; but it’s awful like you. It’s even got your smile.”
Folding the paper, he began to tear the sheet. Victorine’s little finger pressed the notes beneath her stocking.
“Funny,” she said, slowly, “to think there’s people in the world so like each other.”
“I never thought there could be one like you. Charin’ Cross; we gotta change.”
Hurrying along the rat-runs of the Tube, she slipped her hand into his pocket, and soon some scraps of torn paper fluttered down behind her following him in the crush. If only he didn’t remember where the picture was!
Awake in the night, she thought:
‘I don’t care; I’m going to get the rest of the money—that’s all about it.’
But her heart moved queerly within her, like that of one whose feet have trodden suddenly the quaking edge of a bog.
Michael sat correcting the proofs of ‘Counterfeits’—the book left by Wilfrid behind him.
“Can you see Butterfield, sir?”
“I can.”
In Michael the word Butterfield excited an uneasy pride. The young man fulfilled with increasing success the function for which he had been engaged, on trial, four months ago. The head traveller had even called him “a find.” Next to ‘Copper Coin’ he was the finest feather in Michael’s cap. The Trade were not buying, yet Butterfield was selling books, or so it was reported; he appeared to have a natural gift of inspiring confidence where it was not justified. Danby and Winter had even entrusted to him the private marketing of that vellum-bound ‘Limited’ of ‘A Duet,’ by which they were hoping to recoup their losses on the ordinary edition. He was now engaged in working through a list of names considered likely to patronise the little masterpiece. This method of private approach had been suggested by himself.
“You see, sir,” he had said to Michael: “I know a bit about Coue. Well, you can’t work that on the Trade—they’ve got no capacity for faith. What can you expect? Every day they buy all sorts of stuff, always basing themselves on past sales. You can’t find one in twenty that’ll back the future. But with private gentlemen, and especially private ladies, you can leave a thought with them like Coue does—put it into them again and again that day by day in every way the author’s gettin’ better and better; and ten to one when you go round next, it’s got into their subconscious, especially if you take ’em just after lunch or dinner, when they’re a bit drowsy. Let me take my own time, sir, and I’ll put that edition over for you.”
“Well, Michael had answered, “if you can inspire confidence in the future of my governor, Butterfield, you’ll deserve more than your ten per cent.”
“I can do it, sir; it’s just a question of faith.”
“But you haven’t any, have you?”
“Well, not, so to speak, in the author—but I’ve got faith that I can give THEM faith in him; that’s the real point.”
“I see—the three-card stunt; inspire the faith you haven’t got, that the card is there, and they’ll take it. Well, the disillusion is not immediate—you’ll probably always get out of the room in time. Go ahead, then!”
The young man Butterfield had smiled…
The uneasy part of the pride inspired in Michael now by the name was due to old Forsyte’s continually saying to him that he didn’t know—he couldn’t tell—there was that young man and his story about Elderson, and they got no further…
“Good morning, sir. Can you spare me five minutes?”
“Come in, Butterfield. Bunkered with ‘Duet’?”
“No, sir. I’ve placed forty already. It’s another matter.” Glancing at the shut door, the young man came closer.
“I’m working my list alphabetically. Yesterday I was in the E’s.” His voice dropped. “Mr. Elderson.”
“Phew!” said Michael. “You can give HIM the go-by.”
“As a fact, sir, I haven’t.”
“What! Been over the top?”
“Yes, sir. Last night.”
“Good for you, Butterfield! What happened?”
“I didn’t send my name in, sir—just the firm’s card.”
Michael was conscious of a very human malice in the young man’s voice and face.
“Well?”
“Mr. Elderson, sir, was at his wine. I’d thought it out, and I began as if I’d never seen him before. What struck me was—he took my cue!”
“Didn’t kick you out?”
“Far from it, sir. He said at once: ‘Put my name down for two copies.’”
Michael grinned. “You both had a nerve.”
“No, sir; that’s just it. Mr. Elderson got it between wind and water. He didn’t like it a little bit.”
“I don’t twig,” said Michael.
“My being in this firm’s employ, sir. He knows you’re a partner here, and Mr. Forsyte’s son-inlaw, doesn’t he?”
“He does.”
“Well, sir, you see the connection—two directors believing me—not HIM. That’s why I didn’t miss him out. I fancied it’d shake him up. I happened to see his face in the sideboard glass as I went out. HE’S got the wind up all right.”
Michael bit his forefinger, conscious of a twinge of sympathy with Elderson, as for a fly with the first strand of cob-web round his hind leg.
“Thank you, Butterfield,” he said.
When the young man was gone, he sat stabbing his blotting-paper with a paper-knife. What curious ‘class’ sensation was this? Or was it merely fellow-feeling with the hunted, a tremor at the way things found one out? For, surely, this was real evidence, and he would have to pass it on to his father, and ‘Old Forsyte.’ Elderson’s nerve must have gone phut, or he’d have said: “You impudent young scoundrel—get out of here!” That, clearly, was the only right greeting from an innocent, and the only advisable greeting from a guilty man. Well! Nerve did fail sometimes—even the best. Witness the very proof-sheet he had just corrected:
Good old Wilfrid!
“Yes, Miss Perren?”
“The letter to Sir James Foggart, Mr. Mont; you told me to remind you. And will you see Miss Manuelli?”
“Miss Manu—Oh! Ah! Yes.”
Bicket’s girl wife, whose face they had used on Storbert’s novel, the model for Aubrey Greene’s—! Michael rose, for the girl was in the room already.
‘I remember that dress!’ he thought: ‘Fleur never liked it.’
“What can I do for you, Mrs. Bicket? How’s Bicket, by the way?”
“Fairly, sir, thank you.”
“Still in balloons?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we all are, Mrs. Bicket.”
“Beg pardon?”
“In the air—don’t you think? But you didn’t come to tell me that?”
“No, sir.”
A slight flush in those sallow cheeks, fingers concerned with the tips of the worn gloves, lips uncertain; but the eyes steady—really an uncommon girl!
“You remember givin’ me a note to Mr. Greene, sir?”
“I do; and I’ve seen the result; it’s topping, Mrs. Bicket.”
“Yes. But it’s got into the papers—my husband saw it there last night; and of course, he doesn’t know about me.”
Phew! For what had he let this girl in?
“I’ve made a lot of money at it, sir—almost enough for our passage to Australia; but now I’m frightened. ‘Isn’t it like you?’ he said to me. I tore the paper up, but suppose he remembers the name of the Gallery and goes to see the picture! That’s even much more like me! He might go on to Mr. Greene. So would you mind, sir, speaking to Mr. Greene, and beggin’ him to say it was some one else, in case Tony did go?”
“Not a bit,” said Michael. “But do you think Bicket would mind so very much, considering what it’s done for you? It can be quite a respectable profession.”
Victorine’s hands moved up to her breast.
“Yes,” she said, simply. “I have been quite respectable. And I only did it because we do so want to get away, and I couldn’t bear seein’ him standin’ in the gutter there sellin’ those balloons in the fogs. But I’m ever so scared, sir, now.”
Michael stared.
“My God!” he said; “money’s an evil thing!”
Victorine smiled faintly. “The want of it is, I know.”
“How much more do you need, Mrs. Bicket?”
“Only another ten pound, about, sir.”
“I can let you have that.”
“Oh! thank you; but it’s not that—I can easy earn it—I’ve got used to it; a few more days don’t matter.”
“But how are you going to account for having the money?”
“Say I won it bettin’.”
“THIN!” said Michael. “Look here! Say you came to me and I advanced it. If Bicket repays it from Australia, I can always put it to your credit again at a bank out there. I’ve got you into a hole, in a way, and I’d like to get you out of it.”
“Oh! no, sir; you did me a service. I don’t want to put you about, telling falsehoods for me.”
“It won’t worry me a bit, Mrs. Bicket. I can lie to the umteenth when there’s no harm in it. The great thing for you is to get away sharp. Are there many other pictures of you?”
“Oh! yes, a lot—not that you’d recognise them, I think, they’re so square and funny.”
“Ah! well—Aubrey Greene has got you to the life!”
“Yes; it’s like me all over, Tony says.”
“Quite. Well, I’ll speak to Aubrey, I shall be seeing him at lunch. Here’s the ten pounds! That’s agreed, then? You came to me today—see? Say you had a brain wave. I quite understand the whole thing. You’d do a lot for him; and he’d do a lot for you. It’s all right—don’t cry!”
Victorine swallowed violently. Her hand in the worn glove returned his squeeze.
“I’d tell him to-night, if I were you,” said Michael, “and I’ll get ready.”
When she had gone he thought: ‘Hope Bicket won’t think I received value for that sixty pounds!’ And, pressing his bell, he resumed the stabbing of his blotting-paper.
“Yes, Mr. Mont?”
“Now let’s get on with it, Miss Perren.”
“‘DEAR SIR JAMES FOGGART, – We have given the utmost consideration to your very interesting—er—production. While we are of opinion that the views so well expressed on the present condition of Britain in relation to the rest of the world are of great value to all—er—thinking persons, we do not feel that there are enough—er—thinking persons to make it possible to publish the book, except at a loss. The—er—thesis that Britain should now look for salvation through adjustment of markets, population, supply and demand, within the Empire, put with such exceedingly plain speech, will, we are afraid, get the goat of all the political parties; nor do we feel that your plan of emigrating boys and girls in large quantities before they are spoiled by British town life, can do otherwise than irritate a working-class which knows nothing of conditions outside its own country, and is notably averse to giving its children a chance in any other.’”
“Am I to put that, Mr. Mont?”
“Yes; but tone it in a bit. Er—”
“‘Finally, your view that the land should be used to grow food is so very unusual in these days, that we feel your book would have a hostile Press except from the Old Guard and the Die-hard, and a few folk with vision.’”
“Yes, Mr. Mont?”
“‘In a period of veering—er—transitions’—keep that, Miss Perren—‘and the airy unreality of hopes that have long gone up the spout’—almost keep that—‘any scheme that looks forward and defers harvest for twenty years, must be extraordinarily unpopular. For all these reasons you will see how necessary it is for you to—er—seek another publisher. In short, we are not taking any.
“‘With—er—’ what you like—‘dear Sir James Foggart,
“‘We are your obedient servants,
‘“DANBY AND WINTER.’”
“When you’ve translated that, Miss Perren, bring it in, and I’ll sign it.”
“Yes. Only, Mr. Mont—I thought you were a Socialist. This almost seems—forgive my asking?”
“Miss Perren, it’s struck me lately that labels are ‘off.’ How can a man be anything at a time when everything’s in the air? Look at the Liberals. They can’t see the situation whole because of Free Trade; nor can the Labour Party because of their Capital levy; nor can the Tories because of Protection; they’re all hag-ridden by catchwords! Old Sir James Foggart’s jolly well right, but nobody’s going to listen to him. His book will be waste paper if anybody ever publishes it. The world’s unreal just now, Miss Perren; and of all countries we’re the most unreal.”
“Why, Mr. Mont?”
“Why? Because with the most stickfast of all the national temperaments, we’re holding on to what’s gone more bust for us than for any other country. Anyway, Mr. Danby shouldn’t have left the letter to me, if he didn’t mean me to enjoy myself. Oh! and while we’re about it—I’ve got to refuse Harold Master’s new book. It’s a mistake, but they won’t have it.”
“Why not, Mr. Mont? ‘The Sobbing Turtle’ was such a success!”
“Well, in this new thing Master’s got hold of an idea which absolutely forces him to say something. Winter says those who hailed ‘The Sobbing Turtle’ as such a work of art, are certain to be down on this for that; and Mr. Danby calls the book an outrage on human nature. So there’s nothing for it. Let’s have a shot:
“‘MY DEAR MASTER, – In the exhilaration of your subject it has obviously not occurred to you that you’ve bust up the show. In ‘The Sobbing Turtle’ you were absolutely in tune with half the orchestra, and that—er—the noisiest half. You were charmingly archaic, and securely cold-blooded. But now, what have you gone and done? Taken the last Marquesan islander for your hero and put him down in London town! The thing’s a searching satire, a real criticism of life. I’m sure you didn’t mean to be contemporary, or want to burrow into reality; but your subject has run off with you. Cold acid and cold blood are very different things, you know, to say nothing of your having had to drop the archaic. Personally, of course, I think this new thing miles better than ‘The Sobbing Turtle,’ which was a nice little affair, but nothing to make a song about. But I’m not the public, and I’m not the critics. The young and thin will be aggrieved by your lack of modernity, they’ll say you’re moralising; the old and fat will call you bitter and destructive; and the ordinary public will take your Marquesan seriously, and resent your making him superior to themselves. The prospects, you see, are not gaudy. How d’you think we’re going to ‘get away’ with such a book? Well, we’re not! Such is the fiat of the firm. I don’t agree with it. I’d publish it tomorrow; but needs must when Danby and Winter drive. So, with every personal regret, I return what is really a masterpiece.
“‘Always yours,
“‘MICHAEL MONT.’”
“D’you know, Miss Perren, I don’t think you need translate that?”
“I’m afraid it would be difficult.”
“Right-o, then; but do the other, please. I’m going to take my wife out to see a picture; back by four. Oh! and if a little chap called Bicket, that we used to have here, calls any time and asks to see me, he’s to come up; but I want warning first. Will you let them know downstairs?”
“Yes, Mr. Mont. Oh! didn’t—wasn’t that Miss Manuelli the model for the wrapper on Mr. Storbert’s novel?”
“She was, Miss Perren; alone I found her.”
“She’s very interesting-looking, isn’t she?”
“She’s unique, I’m afraid.”
“She needn’t mind that, I should think.”
“That depends,” said Michael; and stabbed his blotting-paper.
Fleur was still gracefully concealing most of what Michael called ‘the eleventh baronet,’ now due in about two months’ time. She seemed to be adapting herself, in mind and body, to the quiet and persistent collection of the heir. Michael knew that, from the first, following the instructions of her mother, she had been influencing his sex, repeating to herself, every evening before falling asleep, and every morning on waking the words: “Day by day, in every way, he is getting more and more male,” to infect the subconscious which, everybody now said, controlled the course of events; and that she was abstaining from the words: “I WILL have a boy,” for this, setting up a reaction, everybody said, was liable to produce a girl. Michael noted that she turned more and more to her mother, as if the French, or more naturalistic, side of her, had taken charge of a process which had to do with the body. She was frequently at Mapledurham, going down in Soames’ car, and her mother was frequently in South Square. Annette’s handsome presence, with its tendency to black lace was always pleasing to Michael, who had never forgotten her espousal of his suit in days when it was a forlorn hope. Though he still felt only on the threshold of Fleur’s heart, and was preparing to play second fiddle to ‘the eleventh baronet,’ he was infinitely easier in mind since Wilfrid had been gone. And he watched, with a sort of amused adoration, the way in which she focussed her collecting powers on an object that had no epoch, a process that did not date.
Personally conducted by Aubrey Greene, the expedition to view his show at the Dumetrius Gallery left South Square after an early lunch.
“Your Dryad came to me this morning, Aubrey,” said Michael in the cab. “She wanted me to ask you to put up a barrage if by any chance her husband blows round to accuse you of painting his wife. It seems he’s seen a reproduction of the picture.”
“Umm!” murmured the painter: “Shall I, Fleur?”
“Of course you must, Aubrey!”
Aubrey Greene’s smile slid from her to Michael.
“Well, what’s his name?”
“Bicket.”
Aubrey Greene fixed his eyes on space, and murmured slowly:
“Oh! Aubrey!”
“Chuck it!” said Michael, “I’m serious. She’s a most plucky little creature. She’s made the money they wanted, and remained respectable.”
“So far as I’m concerned, certainly.”
“Well, I should think so.”
“Why, Fleur?”
“You’re not a vamp, Aubrey!”
“As a matter of fact, she excited my aesthetic sense.”
“Much that’d save her from some aesthetes!” muttered Michael.
“Also, she comes from Putney.”
“There you have a real reason. Then, you WILL put up a barrage if Bicket blows in?”
Aubrey Greene laid his hand on his heart. “And here we are!”
For the convenience of the eleventh baronet Michael had chosen the hour when the proper patrons of Aubrey Greene would still be lunching. A shock-headed young man and three pale-green girls alone wandered among the pictures. The painter led the way at once to his masterpiece; and for some minutes they stood before it in a suitable paralysis. To speak too soon in praise would never do; to speak too late would be equally tactless; to speak too fulsomely would jar; to mutter coldly: “Very nice—very nice indeed!” would blight. To say bluntly: “Well, old man, to tell you the truth, I don’t like it a little bit!” would get his goat.
At last Michael pinched Fleur gently, and she said:
“It really is charming, Aubrey; and awfully like—at least—”
“So far as one can tell. But really, old man, you’ve done it in once. I’m afraid Bicket will think so, anyway.”
“Dash that!” muttered the painter. “How do you find the colour values?”
“Jolly fine; especially the flesh; don’t you think so, Fleur?”
“Yes; only I should have liked that shadow down the side a little deeper.”
“Yes?” murmured the painter: “Perhaps!”
“You’ve caught the spirit,” said Michael. “But I tell you what, old man, you’re for it—the thing’s got meaning. I don’t know what the critics will do to you.”
Aubrey Greene smiled. “That was the worst of her. She led me on. To get an idea’s fatal.”
“Personally, I don’t agree to that; do you, Fleur?”
“Of course not; only one doesn’t say so.”
“Time we did, instead of kow-towing to the Cafe C’rillon. I say, the hair’s all right, and so are the toes—they curl as you look at ’em.”
“And it IS a relief not to get legs painted in streaky cubes. The asphodels rather remind one of the flowers in Leonardo’s ‘Virgin of the Rocks,’ Aubrey.”
“The whole thing’s just a bit Leonardoish, old man. You’ll have to live that down.”
“Oh! Aubrey, my father’s seen it. I believe he’s biting. Something you said impressed him—about our white monkey, d’you remember?”
Aubrey Greene threw up his hands. “Ah! That white monkey—to have painted that! Eat the fruit and chuck the rinds around, and ask with your eyes what it’s all about.”
“A moral!” said Michael: “Take care, old man! Well! Our taxi’s running up. Come along, Fleur; we’ll leave Aubrey to his conscience.”
Once more in the cab, he took her arm. “That poor little snipe, Bicket! Suppose I’d come on YOU as he’ll come on his wife!”
“I shouldn’t have looked so nice.”
“Oh! yes; much nicer; though she looks nice enough, I must say.”
“Then why should Bicket mind, in these days of emancipation?”
“Why? Good Lord, ducky! You don’t suppose Bicket—! I mean, we emancipated people have got into the habit of thinking we’re the world—well! we aren’t; we’re an excrescence, small, and noisy. We talk as if all the old values and prejudices had gone; but they’ve no more gone, really, you know, than the rows of villas and little grey houses.”
“Why this outburst, Michael?”
“Well, darling, I’m a bit fed-up with the attitude of our crowd. If emancipation were true, one could stick it; but it’s not. There isn’t ten per cent. difference between now and thirty years ago.”
“How do you know? You weren’t alive.”
“No; but I read the papers, and talk to the man in the street, and look at people’s faces. Our lot think they’re the tablecloth, but they’re only the fringe. D’you know, only one hundred and fifty thousand people in this country have ever heard a Beethoven Symphony? How many, do you suppose, think old B. a back number? Five thousand, perhaps, out of forty-two millions. How’s that for emancipation?”
He stopped, observing that her eyelids had drooped.
“I was thinking, Michael, that I should like to change my bedroom curtains to blue. I saw the exact colour yesterday at Harton’s. They say blue has an effect on the mind—the present curtains really are too jazzy.”
The eleventh baronet!
“Anything you like, darling. Have a blue ceiling if it helps.”
“Oh, no! But I think I’ll change the carpet, too; there’s a lovely powder blue at Harton’s.”
“Then get it. Would you like to go there now? I can take the Tube back to the office.”
“Yes, I think I’d better. I might miss it.”
Michael put his head out of the window. “Harton’s, please!” And, replacing his hat, he looked at her. Emancipated! Phew!
Just about that moment Bicket re-entered his sitting-room and deposited his tray. All the morning under the shadow of St. Paul’s he had re-lived Bank Holiday. Exceptionally tired in feet and legs, he was also itching mentally. He had promised himself a refreshing look from time to time at what was almost like a photo of Vic herself. And he had lost the picture! Yet he had taken nothing out of his pockets—just hung his coat up. Had it joggled out in the crush at the station, or had he missed his pocket opening and dropped it in the carriage? And he had wanted to see the original, too. He remembered that the Gallery began with a ‘D,’ and at lunch-time squandered a penny-halfpenny to look up the names. Foreign, he was sure—the picture being naked. ‘Dumetrius?’ Ah!
Back at his post, he had a bit of luck. ‘That alderman,’ whom he had not seen for months, came by. Intuition made him say at once: “Hope I see you well sir. Never forgotten your kindness.”
The ‘alderman,’ who had been staring up as if he saw a magpie on the dome of St. Paul’s, stopped as though attacked by cramp.
“Kindness?” he said; “what kindness? Oh! balloons! They were no good to me!”
“No, sir, I’m sure,” said Bicket humbly.
“Well, here you are!” muttered the ‘alderman’; “don’t expect it again.”
Half-a-crown! A whole half-crown! Bicket’s eyes pursued the hastening form. “Good-luck!” he said softly to himself, and began putting up his tray. “I’ll go home and rest my feet, and tyke Vic to see that picture. It’ll be funny lookin’ at it together.”
But she was not in. He sat down and smoked a fag. He felt aggrieved that she was out, this the first afternoon he had taken off. Of course she couldn’t stay in all day!
Still—! He waited twenty minutes, then put on Michael’s suit and shoes.
‘I’ll go and see it alone,’ he thought. ‘It’ll cost half as much. They charge you sixpence, I expect.’
They charged him a shilling—a shilling! One fourth of his day’s earnings, to see a picture! He entered bashfully. There were ladies who smelled of scent and had drawling voices but not a patch on Vic for looks. One of them, behind him, said:
“See! There’s Aubrey Greene himself! And that’s the picture they’re talking of—‘Afternoon of a Dryad.’”
They passed him and moved on. Bicket followed. At the end of the room, between their draperies and catalogues, he glimpsed the picture. A slight sweat broke out on his forehead. Almost life-size, among the flowers and spiky grasses, the face smiled round at him—very image of Vic! Could some one in the world be as like her as all that? The thought offended him, as a collector is offended finding the duplicate of an unique possession.
“It’s a wonderful picture, Mr. Greene. What a type!”
A young man without hat, and fair hair sliding back, answered:
“A find, wasn’t she?”
“Oh! perfect! the very spirit of a wood nymph; so mysterious!”
The word that belonged to Vic! It was unholy. There she lay for all to look at, just because some beastly woman was made like her! A kind of rage invaded Bicket’s throat, caused his checks to burn; and with it came a queer physical jealousy. That painter! What business had he to paint a woman so like Vic as that—a woman that didn’t mind lyin’ like that! They and their talk about cahryscuro and paganism, and a bloke called Leneardo! Blast their drawling and their tricks! He tried to move away, and could not, fascinated by that effigy, so uncannily resembling what he had thought belonged to himself alone. Silly to feel so bad over a ‘coincidence,’ but he felt like smashing the glass and cutting the body up into little bits. The ladies and the painter passed on, leaving him alone before the picture. Alone, he did not mind so much. The face was mournful-like, and lonely, and—and teasing, with its smile. It sort of haunted you—it did! ‘Well!’ thought Bicket, ‘I’ll get home to Vic. Glad I didn’t bring her, after all, to see herself-like. If I was an alderman, I’d buy the blinkin’ thing, and burn it!’
And there, in the entrance-lobby, talking to a ‘dago,’ stood—his very own ‘alderman!’ Bicket paused in sheer amazement.
“It’s a rithing name, Mr. Forthyte,” he heard the Dago say: “hith prithes are going up.”
“That’s all very well, Dumetrius, but it’s not everybody’s money in these days—too highly-finished, altogether!”
“Well, Mr. Forthyte, to YOU I take off ten per thent.”
“Take off twenty and I’ll buy it.”
That Dago’s shoulders mounted above his hairy ears—they did; and what a smile!
“Mithter Forthyte! Fifteen, thir!”
“Well, you’re doing me; but send it round to my daughter’s in South Square—you know the number. When do you close?”
“Day after tomorrow, thir.”
So! The counterfeit of Vic had gone to that ‘alderman,’ had it? Bicket uttered a savage little sound, and slunk out.
He walked with a queer feeling. Had he got unnecessary wind up? After all, it wasn’t her. But to know that another woman could smile that way, have frizzy-ended short black hair, and be all curved the same! And at every woman’s passing face he looked—so different, so utterly unlike Vic’s!
When he reached home she was standing in the middle of the room, with her lips to a balloon. All around her, on the floor, chairs, table, mantelpiece, were the blown-out shapes of his stock; one by one they had floated from her lips and selected their own resting-places: puce, green, orange, purple, blue, enlivening with their colour the dingy little space. All his balloons blown up! And there, in her best clothes, she stood, smiling, queer, excited.
“What in thunder!” said Bicket.
Raising her dress, she took some crackling notes from the top of her stocking, and held them out to him.
“See! Sixty-four pounds, Tony! I’ve got it all. We can go.”
“WHAT!”
“I had a brain wave—went to that Mr. Mont who gave us the clothes, and he’s advanced it. We can pay it back, some day. Isn’t it a marvel?”
Bicket’s eyes, startled like a rabbit’s, took in her smile, her excited flush, and a strange feeling shot through all his body, as if THEY were taking HIM in! She wasn’t like Vic! No! Suddenly he felt her arms round him, felt her moist lips on his. She clung so tight, he could not move. His head went round.
“At last! At last! Isn’t it fine? Kiss me, Tony!”
Bicket kissed; his vertigo was real, but behind it, for the moment stifled, what sense of unreality!…
Was it before night, or in the night, that the doubt first came—ghostly, tapping, fluttering, haunting—then, in the dawn, jabbing through his soul, turning him rigid. The money—the picture—the lost paper—that sense of unreality! This story she had told him! Were such things possible? Why should Mr. Mont advance that money? She had seen him—that was certain; the room, the secretary—you couldn’t mistake her description of that Miss Perren. Why, then, feel this jabbing doubt? The money—such a lot of money! Not with Mr. Mont—never—he was a gent! Oh! Swine that he was, to have a thought like that—of Vic! He turned his back to her and tried to sleep. But once you got a thought like that—sleep? No! Her face among the balloons, the way she had smothered his eyes and turned his head—so that he couldn’t think, couldn’t go into it and ask her questions! A prey to dim doubts, achings, uncertainty, thrills of hope, and visions of ‘Austrylia,’ Bicket arose haggard.
“Well,” he said, over their cocoa and margarined bread: “I must see Mr. Mont, that’s certain.” And suddenly he added: “Vic?” looking straight into her face.
She answered his look—straight, yes, straight. Oh! he was a proper swine!…
When he had left the house Victorine stood quite still, with hands pressed against her chest. She had slept less than he. Still as a mouse, she had turned and turned the thought: ‘Did I take him in? Did I?’ And if not—what? She took out the notes which had bought—or sold? – their happiness, and counted them once more. And the sense of injustice burned within her. Had she wanted to stand like that before men? Hadn’t she been properly through it about that? Why, she could have had the sixty pounds three months ago from that sculptor, who was wild about her; or—so he said! But she had stuck it; yes, she had. Tony had nothing against her really—even if he knew it all. She had done it for him—Well! mostly—for him selling those balloons day after day in all weathers! But for her, they would still be stuck, and another winter coming, and unemployment—so they said in the paper—to be worse and worse! Stuck in the fogs and the cold, again! Ugh! Her chest was still funny sometimes; and he always hoarse. And this poky little room, and the bed so small that she couldn’t stir without waking him. Why should Tony doubt her? For he did—she had felt it, heard it in his “Vic?” Would Mr. Mont convince him? Tony was sharp! Her head drooped. The unfairness of it all! Some had everything to their hand, like that pretty wife of Mr. Mont’s! And if one tried to find a way and get out to a new chance—then—then—this! She flung her hair back. Tony MUST believe—he should! If he wouldn’t, let him look out. She had done nothing to be ashamed of! No, indeed! And with the longing to go in front and lead her happiness along, she got out her old tin trunk, and began with careful method to put things into it.
Michael still sat, correcting the proofs of ‘Counterfeits.’ Save ‘Jericho,’ there had been no address to send them to. The East was wide, and Wilfrid had made no sign. Did Fleur ever think of Wilfrid now? He had the impression that she did not. And Wilfrid—well, probably he was forgetting her already. Even passion required a little sustenance.
“A Mr. Forsyte to see you, sir.”
Apparition in bookland!
“Ah—Show him in.”
Soames entered with an air of suspicion.
“This your place?” he said. “I’ve looked in to tell you that I’ve bought that picture of young Greene’s. Have you anywhere to hang it?”
“I should think we had,” said Michael. “Jolly good, sir, isn’t it?”
“Well,” muttered Soames, “for these days, yes. He’ll make a name.”
“He’s an intense admirer of that White Monkey you gave us.”
“Ah! I’ve been looking into the Chinese. If I go on buying—” Soames paused.
“They ARE a bit of an antidote, aren’t they, sir? That ‘Earthly Paradise!’ And those geese—they don’t seem to mind your counting their feathers, do they?”
Soames made no reply; he was evidently thinking: ‘How on earth I missed those things when they first came on the market!’ Then, raising his umbrella, and pointing it as if at the book trade, he asked:
“Young Butterfield—how’s he doing?”
“Ah! I was going to let you know, sir. He came in yesterday and told me that he saw Elderson two days ago. He went to sell him a copy of my father’s ‘Limited’; Elderson said nothing and bought two.”
“The deuce he did!”
“Butterfield got the impression that his visit put the wind up him. Elderson knows, of course, that I’m in this firm, and your son-inlaw.”
Soames frowned. “I’m not sure,” he said, “that sleeping dogs—! Well, I’m on my way there now.”
“Mention the book, sir, and see how Elderson takes it. Would you like one yourself? You’re on the list. E, F—Butterfield should be reaching you today. It’ll save you a refusal. Here it is—nice get-up. One guinea.”
“‘A Duet,’” read Soames. “What’s it about? Musical?”
“Not precisely. A sort of cat-calling between the ghosts of the G. O. M. and Dizzy!”
“I’m not a reader,” said Soames. He pulled out a note. “Why didn’t you make it a pound? Here’s the shilling.”
“Thanks awfully, sir; I’m sure my father’ll be frightfully bucked to think you’ve got one.”
“Will he?” said Soames, with a faint smile. “D’you ever do any WORK here?”
“Well, we try to turn a doubtful penny.”
“What d’you make at it?”
“Personally, about five hundred a year.”
“That all?”
“Yes, but I doubt if I’m worth more than three.”
“H’m! I thought you’d got over your Socialism.”
“I fancy I have, sir. It didn’t seem to go with my position.”
“No,” said Soames. “Fleur seems well.”
“Yes, she’s splendid. She does the Coue stunt, you know.”
Soames stared. “That’s her mother,” he said; “I can’t tell. Good-bye! Oh! I want to know; what’s the meaning of that expression ‘got his goat?’”
“‘Got his goat?’ Oh, raised his dander, if you know what that means, it was before my time.”
“I see,” said Soames; “I had it right, then. Well!” He turned. His back was very neat and real. It vanished through the doorway, and with it seemed to go the sense of definition.
Michael took up the proofs, and read two poems. Bitter as quinine! The unrest in them—the yearning behind the words! Nothing Chinese there! After all, the ancients—like Old Forsyte, and his father in a very different way—had an anchor down. ‘What is it?’ thought Michael. ‘What’s wrong with us? We’re quick, and clever, cocksure, and dissatisfied. If only something would enthuse us, or get OUR goats! We’ve chucked religion, tradition, property, pity; and in their place we put—what? Beauty? Gosh! See Walter Nazing, and the Cafe C’rillon! And yet—we must be after something! Better world? Doesn’t look like it. Future life? Suppose I ought to “look into” spiritualism, as Old Forsyte would say. But—half in this world, half in that—deuced odd if spirits are less restive than we are!’
To what—to what, then, was it all moving? ‘Dash it!’ thought Michael, getting up, ‘I’ll try dictating an advertisement!’
“Will you come in, please, Miss Perren? For the new Desert volume—Trade Journals: ‘Danby and Winter will shortly issue ‘Counterfeits,’ by the author of ‘Copper Coin,’ the outstanding success of the last publishing season. I wonder how many publishers have claimed that, Miss Perren, for how many books this year? ‘These poems show all the brilliancy of mood, and more than the technical accomplishment of the young author’s first volume.’ How’s that?”
“Brilliancy of mood, Mr. Mont? Do you think?”
“No. But what am I to say? ‘All the pangs and pessimism?’”
“Oh, no! But possibly: ‘All the brilliancy of diction, the strangeness and variety of mood.’”
“Good. But it’ll cost more. Say: ‘All the brilliant strangeness’; that’ll ring their bells in once. We’re nuts on ‘the strange,’ but we’re not getting it—the outre, yes, but not the strange.”
“Surely Mr. Desert gets—”
“Yes, sometimes; but hardly any one else. To be strange, you’ve got to have guts, if you’ll excuse the phrase, Miss Perren.”
“Certainly, Mr. Mont. That young man Bicket is waiting to see you.”
“He is, is he?” said Michael, taking out a cigarette. “Give me time to tighten my belt, Miss Perren, and ask him up.”
‘The lie benevolent,’ he thought; ‘now for it!’
The entrance of Bicket into a room where his last appearance had been so painful, was accomplished with a certain stolidity. Michael stood, back to the hearth, smoking; Bicket, back to a pile of modern novels, with the words “This great new novel” on it. Michael nodded.
“Hallo, Bicket!”
Bicket nodded.
“Hope you’re keeping well, sir?”
“Frightfully well, thank you.” And there was silence.
“Well,” said Michael, at last, “I suppose you’ve come about that little advance to your wife. It’s quite all right; no hurry whatever.”
While saying this he had become conscious that the ‘little snipe’ was dreadfully disturbed. His eyes had a most peculiar look, those large, shrimp-like eyes which seemed, as it were, in advance of the rest of him. He hastened on:
“I believe in Australia myself. I think you’re perfectly right, Bicket, and the sooner you go, the better. She doesn’t look too strong.”
Bicket swallowed.
“Sir,” he said, “you’ve been a gent to me, and it’s hard to say things.”
“Then don’t.”
Bicket’s cheeks became suffused with blood: queer effect in that pale, haggard face.
“It isn’t what you think,” he said: “I’ve come to ask you to tell me the truth.” Suddenly he whipped from his pocket what Michael perceived to be a crumpled novel-wrapper.
“I took this from a book on the counter as I came by, downstairs. There! Is that my wife?” He stretched it out.
Michael beheld with consternation the wrapper of Storbert’s novel. One thing to tell the lie benevolent already determined on—quite another to deny this!
Bicket gave him little time.
“I see it is, from your fyce,” he said. “What’s it all mean? I want the truth—I must ‘ave it! I’m gettin’ wild over all this. If that’s ‘er fyce there, then that’s ‘er body in the Gallery—Aubrey Greene; it’s the syme nyme. What’s it all mean?” His face had become almost formidable; his cockney accent very broad. “What gyme ‘as she been plyin’? You gotta tell me before I go aht of ’ere.”
Michael’s heels came together. He said quietly.
“Steady, Bicket.”
“Steady! You’d be steady if YOUR wife—! All that money! YOU never advanced it—you never give it ‘er—never! Don’t tell me you did!”
Michael had taken his line. No lies!
“I lent her ten pounds to make a round sum of it—that’s all; the rest she earned—honourably; and you ought to be proud of her.”
Bicket’s mouth fell open.
“Proud? And how’s she earned it? Proud! My Gawd!”
Michael said coldly:
“As a model. I myself gave her the introduction to my friend, Mr. Greene, the day you had lunch with me. You’ve heard of models, I suppose?”
Bicket’s hands tore the wrapper, and the pieces fell to the floor. “Models!” he said: “Pynters—yes, I’ve ‘eard of ’em—Swines!”
“No more swine than you are, Bicket. Be kind enough not to insult my friend. Pull yourself together, man, and take a cigarette.”
Bicket dashed the proffered case aside.
“I—I—was stuck on her,” he said passionately, “and she’s put this up on me!” A sort of sob came out of his lungs.
“You were stuck on her,” said Michael; his voice had sting in it. “And when she does her best for you, you turn her down—is that it? Do you suppose she liked it?”
Bicket covered his face suddenly.
“What should I know?” he muttered from behind his hands.
A wave of pity flooded up in Michael. Pity! Blurb!
He said drily: “When you’ve quite done, Bicket. D’you happen to remember what YOU did for HER?”
Bicket uncovered his face and stared wildly.
“You’ve never told her that?”
“No; but I jolly well will if you don’t pull yourself together.”
“What do I care if you do, now—lyin’ like that, for all the men in the world! Sixty pound! Honourably! D’you think I believe that?” His voice had desolation in it.
“Ah!” said Michael. “You don’t believe simply because you’re ignorant, as ignorant as the swine you talk of. A girl can do what she did and be perfectly honest, as I haven’t the faintest doubt she is. You’ve only to look at her, and hear the way she speaks of it. She did it because she couldn’t bear to see you selling those balloons. She did it to get you out of the gutter, and give you both a chance. And now you’ve got the chance, you kick up like this. Dash it all, Bicket, be a sport! Suppose I tell her what you did for her—d’you think she’s going to squirm and squeal? Not she! It was damned human of you, and it was damned human of her; and don’t you forget it!”
Bicket swallowed violently again.
“It’s all very well,” he said, sullenly; “it ‘asn’t ‘appened to you.”
Michael was afflicted at once. No! It hadn’t happened to him! And all his doubts of Fleur in the days of Wilfrid came hitting him.
“Look here, Bicket,” he said, “do you doubt your wife’s affection? The whole thing is there. I’ve only seen her twice, but I don’t see how you can. If she weren’t fond of you, why should she want to go to Australia, when she knows she can make good money here, and enjoy herself if she wants? I can vouch for my friend Greene. He’s dashed decent, and I KNOW he’s played cricket.”
But, searching Bicket’s face, he wondered: Were all the others she had sat to as dashed decent?
“Look here, Bicket! We all get up against it sometimes; and that’s the test of us. You’ve just GOT to believe in her; there’s nothing else to it.”
“To myke a show of herself for all the world to see!” The words seemed to struggle from the skinny throat. “I saw that picture bought yesterday by a ruddy alderman.”
Michael could not conceal a grin at this description of ‘Old Forsyte.’
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “it was bought by my own father-inlaw as a present to us, to hang in our house. And, mind you, Bicket, it’s a fine thing.”
“Ah!” cried Bicket, “it IS a fine thing! Money! It’s money bought her. Money’ll buy anything. It’ll buy the ’eart out of your chest.”
And Michael thought: ‘I can’t get away with it a bit! What price emancipation? He’s never heard of the Greeks! And if he had, they’d seem to him a lot of loose-living foreigners. I must quit.’ And, suddenly, he saw tears come out of those shrimp’s eyes, and trickle down the hollowed cheeks.
Very disturbed, he said hastily:
“When you get out there, you’ll never think of it again. Hang it all, Bicket, be a man! She did it for the best. If I were you, I’d never let on to her that I knew. That’s what she’d do if I told her how you snooped those ‘Copper Coins.’”
Bicket clenched his fists—the action went curiously with the tears; then, without a word, he turned and shuffled out.
‘Well,’ thought Michael, ‘giving advice is clearly not my stunt! Poor little snipe!’
Bicket stumbled, half-blind, along the Strand. Naturally good-tempered, such a nerve-storm made him feel ill, and bruised in the brain. Sunlight and motion slowly restored some power of thought. He had got the truth. But was it the whole and nothing but the truth? Could she have made all that money without—? If he could believe that, then, perhaps—out of this country where people could see her naked for a shilling—he might forget. But—all that money! And even if all earned ‘honourable,’ as Mr. Mont had put it, in how many days, exposed to the eyes of how many men? He groaned aloud in the street. The thought of going home to her—of a scene, of what he might learn if there WERE a scene, was just about unbearable. And yet—must do it, he supposed. He could have borne it better under St. Paul’s, standing in the gutter, offering his balloons. A man of leisure for the first time in his life, a blooming ‘alderman’ with nothing to do but step in and take a ticket to the ruddy butterflies! And he owed that leisure to what a man with nothing to take his thoughts off simply could not bear! He would rather have snaffled the money out of a shop till. Better that on his soul, than the jab of this dark fiendish sexual jealousy. ‘Be a man!’ Easy said! ‘Pull yourself together! She did it for you!’ He would a hundred times rather she had not. Blackfriars Bridge! A dive, and an end in the mud down there? But you had to rise three times; they would fish you out alive, and run you in for it—and nothing gained—not even the pleasure of thinking that Vic would see what she had done, when she came to identify the body. Dead was dead, anyway, and he would never know what she felt post-mortem! He trudged across the bridge, keeping his eyes before him. Little Ditch Street—how he used to scuttle down it, back to her, when she had pneumonia! Would he never feel like that again? He strode past the window, and went in.
Victorine was still bending over the brown tin trunk. She straightened herself, and on her face came a cold, tired look.
“Well,” she said, “I see you know.”
Bicket had but two steps to take in that small room. He took them, and put his hands on her shoulders. His face was close, his eyes, so large and strained, searched hers.
“I know you’ve myde a show of yerself for all London to see; what I want to know is—the rest!”
Victorine stared back at him.
“The rest!” she said—it was not a question, just a repetition, in a voice that seemed to mean nothing.
“Ah!” said Bicket hoarsely; “The rest—Well?”
“If you think there’s a ‘rest,’ that’s enough.”
Bicket jerked his hands away.
“Aoh! for the land’s sake, daon’t be mysterious. I’m ‘alf orf me nut!”
“I see that,” said Victorine; “and I see this: You aren’t what I thought you. D’you think I liked doing it?” She raised her dress and took out the notes. “There you are! You can go to Australia without me.”
Bicket cried hoarsely: “And leave you to the blasted pynters?”
“And leave me to meself. Take them!”
But Bicket recoiled against the door, staring at the notes with horror. “Not me!”
“Well, I can’t keep ’em. I earned them to get you out of this.”
There was a long silence, while the notes lay between them on the table, still crisp if a little greasy—the long-desired, the dreamed-of means of release, of happiness together in the sunshine. There they lay; neither would take them! What then?
“Vic,” said Bicket at last, in a hoarse whisper, “swear you never let ’em touch you!”
“Yes, I can swear that.”
And she could smile, too, saying it—that smile of hers! How believe her—living all these months, keeping it from him, telling him a lie about it in the end! He sank into a chair by the table and laid his head on his arms.
Victorine turned and began pulling an old cord round the trunk. He raised his head at the tiny sound. Then she really meant to go away! He saw his life devastated, empty as a cocoanut on Hampstead Heath; and all defence ran melted out of his cockney spirit. Tears rolled from his eyes.
“When you were ill,” he said, “I stole for you. I got the sack for it.”
She spun round. “Tony—you never told me! What did you steal?”
“Books. All your extra feedin’ was books.”
For a long minute she stood looking at him, then stretched out her hands without a word. Bicket seized them.
“I don’t care about anything,” he gasped, “so ‘elp me, so long as you’re fond of me, Vic!”
“And I don’t neither. Oh! let’s get out of this, Tony! this awful little room, this awful country. Let’s get out of it all!”
“Yes,” said Bicket; and put her hands to his eyes.
Soames had left Danby and Winter divided in thought between Elderson and the White Monkey. As Fleur surmised, he had never forgotten Aubrey Greene’s words concerning that bit of salvage from the wreck of George Forsyte. “Eat the fruits of life, scatter the rinds, and get copped doing it.” His application of them tended towards the field of business.
The country was still living on its capital. With the collapse of the carrying trade and European markets, they were importing food they couldn’t afford to pay for. In his opinion they would get copped doing it, and that before long. British credit was all very well, the wonder of the world and that, but you couldn’t live indefinitely on wonder. With shipping idle, concerns making a loss all over the place, and the unemployed in swarms, it was a pretty pair of shoes! Even insurance must suffer before long. Perhaps that chap Elderson had foreseen this already, and was simply feathering his nest in time. If one was to be copped in any case, why bother to be honest? This was cynicism so patent, that all the Forsyte in Soames rejected it; and yet it would keep coming back. In a general bankruptcy, why trouble with thrift, far-sightedness, integrity? Even the Conservatives were refusing to call themselves Conservatives again, as if there were something ridiculous about the word, and they knew there was really nothing left to conserve. “Eat the fruit, scatter the rinds, and get copped doing it.” That young painter had said a clever thing—yes, and his picture was clever, though Dumetrius had done one over the price—as usual! Where would Fleur hang it? In the hall, he shouldn’t be surprised—good light there; and the sort of people they knew wouldn’t jib at the nude. Curious—where all the nudes went to! You never saw a nude—no more than you saw the proverbial dead donkey! Soames had a momentary vision of dying donkeys laden with pictures of the nude, stepping off the edge of the world. Refusing its extravagance, he raised his eyes, just in time to see St. Paul’s, as large as life. That little beggar with his balloons wasn’t there today! Well—he’d nothing for him! At a tangent his thoughts turned towards the object of his pilgrimage—the P. P. R. S. and its half-year’s accounts. At his suggestion, they were writing off that German business wholesale—a dead loss of two hundred and thirty thousand pounds. There would be no interim dividend, and even then they would be carrying forward a debit towards the next half-year. Well! better have a rotten tooth out at once and done with; the shareholders would have six months to get used to the gap before the general meeting. He himself had got used to it already, and so would they in time. Shareholders were seldom nasty unless startled—a long-suffering lot!
In the board room the old clerk was still filling his inkpots from the magnum.
“Manager in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say I’m here, will you?”
The old clerk withdrew. Soames looked at the clock. Twelve! A little shaft of sunlight slanted down the wainscotting and floor. There was nothing else alive in the room save a bluebottle and the tick of the clock; not even a daily paper. Soames watched the bluebottle. He remembered how, as a boy, he had preferred bluebottles and green-bottles to the ordinary fly, because of their bright colour. It was a lesson. The showy things, the brilliant people, were the dangerous. Witness the Kaiser, and that precious Italian poet—what was his name! And this Jack-o’-lantern of their own! He shouldn’t be surprised if Elderson were brilliant in private life. Why didn’t the chap come? Was that encounter with young Butterfield giving him pause? The bluebottle crawled up the pane, buzzed down, crawled up again; the sunlight stole inward along the floor. All was vacuous in the board room, as though embodying the principle of insurance: “Keep things as they are.”
‘Can’t kick my heels here for ever,’ thought Soames, and moved to the window. In that wide street leading to the river, sunshine illumined a few pedestrians and a brewer’s dray, but along the main artery at the end the traffic streamed and rattled. London! A monstrous place! And all insured! ‘What’ll it be like thirty years hence?’ he thought. To think that there would be London, without himself to see it! He felt sorry for the place, sorry for himself. Even old Gradman would be gone. He supposed the insurance societies would look after it, but he didn’t know. And suddenly he became aware of Elderson. The fellow looked quite jaunty, in a suit of dittoes and a carnation.
“Contemplating the future, Mr. Forsyte?”
“No,” said Soames. How had the fellow guessed his thoughts?
“I’m glad you’ve come in. It gives me a chance to say how grateful I am for the interest you take in the concern. It’s rare. A manager has a lonely job.”
Was he mocking? He seemed altogether very spry and uppish. Light-heartedness always made Soames suspicious—there was generally some reason for it.
“If every director were as conscientious as you, one would sleep in one’s bed. I don’t mind telling you that the amount of help I got from the Board before you came on it was—well—negligible.”
Flattery! The fellow must be leading up to something!
Elderson went on:
“I can say to you what I couldn’t say to any of the others: I’m not at all happy about business, Mr. Forsyte. England is just about to discover the state she’s really in.”
Faced with this startling confirmation of his own thoughts, Soames reacted.
“No good crying out before we’re hurt,” he said; “the pound’s still high. We’re good stayers.”
“In the soup, I’m afraid. If something drastic isn’t done—we SHALL stay there. And anything drastic, as you know, means disorganisation and lean years before you reap reward.”
How could the fellow talk like this, and look as bright and pink as a new penny? It confirmed the theory that he didn’t care what happened. And, suddenly, Soames resolved to try a shot.
“Talking of lean years—I came in to say that I think we must call a meeting of the shareholders over this dead loss of the German business.” He said it to the floor, and looked quickly up. The result was disappointing. The manager’s light-grey eyes met his without a blink.
“I’ve been expecting that from you,” he said.
‘The deuce you have!’ thought Soames, for it had but that moment come into his mind.
“By all means call one,” went on the manager; “but I’m afraid the Board won’t like it.”
Soames refrained from saying: ‘Nor do I.’
“Nor the shareholders, Mr. Forsyte. In a long experience I’ve found that the less you rub their noses in anything unpleasant, the better for every one.”
“That may be,” said Soames, stiffening in contrariety; “but it’s all a part of the vice of not facing things.”
“I don’t think, Mr. Forsyte, that you will accuse ME of not facing things, in the time to come.”
Time to come! Now, what on earth did the fellow mean by that?
“Well, I shall moot it at the next Board,” he said.
“Quite!” said the manager. “Nothing like bringing things to a head, is there?”
Again that indefinable mockery, as if he had something up his sleeve. Soames looked mechanically at the fellow’s cuffs—beautifully laundered, with a blue stripe; at his holland waistcoat, and his bird’s-eye tie—a regular dandy. He would give him a second barrel!
“By the way,” he said, “Mont’s written a book. I’ve taken a copy.”
Not a blink! A little more show of teeth, perhaps—false, no doubt!
“I’ve taken two—poor, dear Mont!”
Soames had a sense of defeat. This chap was armoured like a crab, varnished like a Spanish table.
“Well,” he said, “I must go.”
The manager held out his hand.
“Good-bye, Mr. Forsyte. I’m so grateful to you.”
The fellow was actually squeezing his hand. Soames went out confused. To have his hand squeezed was so rare! It undermined him. And yet, it might be the crown of a consummate bit of acting. He couldn’t tell. He had, however, less intention even than before of moving for a meeting of the shareholders. No, no! That had just been a shot to get a rise; and it had failed. But the Butterfield shot had gone home, surely! If innocent, Elderson must certainly have alluded to the impudence of the young man’s call. And yet such a cool card was capable of failing to rise, just to tease you! No! Nothing doing—as they said nowadays. He was as far as ever from a proof of guilt; and to speak truth, glad of it. Such a scandal could serve no purpose save that of blackening the whole concern, directors and all. People were so careless, they never stopped to think, or apportion blame where it was due. Keep a sharp eye open, and go on as they were! No good stirring hornets’ nests! He had got so far in thought and progress, when a voice said:
“Well met, Forsyte! Are you going my way?”
“Old Mont,” coming down the steps of ‘Snooks’!
“I don’t know,” said Soames.
“I’m off to the Aeroplane for lunch.”
“That new-fangled place?”
“Rising, you know, Forsyte—rising.”
“I’ve just been seeing Elderson. He’s bought two copies of your book.”
“Dear me! Poor fellow!”
Soames smiled faintly. “That’s what he said of you! And who d’you think sold them to him? Young Butterfield.”
“Is he still alive?”
“He was, this morning.”
Sir Lawrence’s face took on a twist:
“I’ve been thinking, Forsyte. They tell me Elderson keeps two women.”
Soames stared. The idea was attractive; would account for everything.
“My wife says it’s one too many, Forsyte. What do you say?”
“I?” said Soames. “I only know the chap’s as cool as a cucumber. I’m going in here. Good-bye!”
One could get no help from that baronet fellow; he couldn’t take anything seriously. Two women! At Elderson’s age! What a life! There were always men like that, not content with one thing at a time—living dangerously. It was mysterious to him. You might look and look into chaps like that, and see nothing. And yet, there they were! He crossed the hall, and went into the room where connoisseurs were lunching. Taking down the menu at the service table, he ordered himself a dozen oysters; but, suddenly remembering that the month contained no “r,” changed them to a fried sole.
“No, dear heart, Nature’s ‘off’!”
“How d’you mean, Michael?”
“Well, look at the Nature novels we get. Sedulous stuff pitched on Cornish cliffs or Yorkshire moors—ever been on a Yorkshire moor? – it comes off on you; and the Dartmoor brand. Gosh! Dartmoor, where the passions come from—ever been on Dartmoor? Well, they don’t, you know. And the South Sea bunch! Oh, la, la! And the poets, the splash-and-splutter school don’t get within miles of Nature. The village idiot school is a bit better, certainly. After all, old Wordsworth made Nature, and she’s a bromide. Of course, there’s raw nature with the small ‘n’; but if you come up against that, it takes you all your time to keep alive—the Nature we gas about is licensed, nicely blended and bottled. She’s not modern enough for contemporary style.”
“Oh! well, let’s go on the river, anyway, Michael. We can have tea at ‘The Shelter.’”
They were just reaching what Michael always called ‘this desirable residence,’ when Fleur leaned forward, and, touching his knee, said:
“I’m not half as nice to you as you deserve, Michael.”
“Good Lord, darling! I thought you were.”
“I know I’m selfish; especially just now.”
“It’s only the eleventh baronet.”
“Yes; it’s a great responsibility. I only hope he’ll be like you.”
Michael slid in to the landing-stage, shipped his sculls, and sat down beside her.
“If he’s like me, I shall disown him. But sons take after their mothers.”
“I meant in character. I want him frightfully to be cheerful and not restless, and have the feeling that life’s worth while.”
Michael stared at her lips—they were quivering; at her cheek, slightly browned by the afternoon’s sunning; and, bending sideways, he put his own against it.
“He’ll be a sunny little cuss, I’m certain.”
Fleur shook her head.
“I don’t want him greedy and self-centred; it’s in my blood, you know. I can see it’s ugly, but I can’t help it. How do you manage not to be?”
Michael ruffled his hair with his free hand.
“The sun isn’t too hot for you, is it, ducky?”
“No. Seriously, Michael—how?”
“But I AM. Look at the way I want you. Nothing will cure me of that.”
A slight pressure of her cheek on his own was heartening, and he said:
“Do you remember coming down the garden one night, and finding me in a boat just here? When you’d gone, I stood on my head, to cool it. I was on my uppers; I didn’t think I’d got an earthly—” He stopped. No! He would not remind her, but that was the night when she said: “Come again when I know I can’t get my wish!” The unknown cousin!
Fleur said quietly:
“I was a pig to you, Michael, but I was awfully unhappy. That’s gone. It’s gone at last; there’s nothing wrong now, except my own nature.”
Conscious that his feelings betrayed the period, Michael said:
“Oh! if that’s all! What price tea?”
They went up the lawn arm-inarm. Nobody was at home—Soames in London, Annette at a garden party. “We’ll have tea on the verandah, please,” said Fleur. Sitting there, happier than he ever remembered being, Michael conceded a certain value to Nature, to the sunshine stealing down, the scent of pinks and roses, the sighing in the aspens. Annette’s pet doves were cooing; and, beyond the quietly-flowing river, the spires of poplar trees rose along the further bank. But, after all, he was only enjoying them because of the girl beside him, whom he loved to touch and look at, and because, for the first time, he felt as if she did not want to get up and flutter off to some one or something else. Curious that there could be, outside oneself, a being who completely robbed the world of its importance, ‘snooped,’ as it were, the whole ‘bag of tricks’—and she one’s own wife! Very curious, considering what one was! He heard her say:
“Of course, mother’s a Catholic; only, living with father down here, she left off practising. She didn’t even bother me much. I’ve been thinking, Michael—what shall we do about HIM?”
“Let him rip.”
“I don’t know. He must be taught something, because of going to school. The Catholics, you know, really do get things out of their religion.”
“Yes; they go it blind; it’s the only logical way now.”
“I think having no religion makes one feel that nothing matters.”
Michael suppressed the words: ‘We could bring him up as a sun-worshipper,’ and said, instead:
“It seems to me that whatever he’s taught will only last till he can think for himself; then he’ll settle down to what suits him.”
“But what do YOU think about things, Michael? You’re as good as any one I know.”
“Gosh!” murmured Michael, strangely flattered: “Is that so?”
“What DO you think? Be serious!”
“Well, darling, doctrinally nothing—which means, of course, that I haven’t got religion. I believe one has to play the game—but that’s ethics.”
“But surely it’s a handicap not to be able to rely on anything but oneself? If there’s something to be had out of any form of belief, one might as well have it.”
Michael smiled, but not on the surface.
“You’re going to do just as you like about the eleventh baronet, and I’m going to abet you. But considering his breeding—I fancy he’ll be a bit of a sceptic.”
“But I don’t WANT him to be. I’d rather he were snug, and convinced and all that. Scepticism only makes one restless.”
“No white monkey in him? Ah! I wonder! It’s in the air, I guess. The only thing will be to teach him a sense of other people, as young as possible, with a slipper, if necessary.”
Fleur gave him a clear look, and laughed.
“Yes,” she said: “Mother used to try, but father wouldn’t let her.”
They did not reach home till past eight o’clock.
“Either your father’s here, or mine,” said Michael, in the hall; “there’s a prehistoric hat.”
“It’s Dad’s. His is grey inside. Bart’s is buff.”
In the Chinese room Soames indeed was discovered, with an opened letter, and Ting-a-ling at his feet. He held the letter out to Michael, without a word.
There was no date, and no address; Michael read:
“DEAR MR. FORSYTE. – Perhaps you will be good enough to tell the Board at the meeting on Tuesday that I am on my way to immunity from the consequences of any peccadillo I may have been guilty of. By the time you receive this, I shall be there. I have always held that the secret of life, no less than that of business, is to know when not to stop. It will be no use to proceed against me, for my person will not be attachable, as I believe you call it in the law, and I have left no property behind. If your object was to corner me, I cannot congratulate you on your tactics. If, on the other hand, you inspired that young man’s visit as a warning that you were still pursuing the matter, I should like to add new thanks to those which I expressed when I saw you a few days ago.
“Believe me, dear Mr. Forsyte,
“Faithfully yours,
“ROBERT ELDERSON.”
Michael said cheerfully:
“Happy release! Now you’ll feel safer, sir.”
Soames passed his hand over his face, evidently wiping off its expression. “We’ll discuss it later,” he said. “This dog’s been keeping me company.”
Michael admired him at that moment. He was obviously swallowing his ‘grief,’ to save Fleur.
“Fleur’s a bit tired,” he said. “We’ve been on the river, and had tea at ‘The Shelter’; Madame wasn’t in. Let’s have dinner at once, Fleur.”
Fleur had picked up Ting-a-ling, and was holding her face out of reach of his avid tongue.
“Sorry you’ve had to wait, Dad,” she murmured, behind the yellow fur; “I’m just going to wash; shan’t change.”
When she had gone, Soames reached for the letter.
“A pretty kettle of fish!” he muttered. “Where it’ll end, I can’t tell!”
“But isn’t this the end, sir?”
Soames stared. These young people! Here he was, faced with a public scandal, which might lead to he didn’t know what—the loss of his name in the city, the loss of his fortune, perhaps; and they took it as if—! They had no sense of responsibility—none! All his father’s power of seeing the worst, all James’ nervous pessimism, had come to the fore in him during the hour since, at the Connoisseur’s Club, he had been handed that letter. Only the extra ‘form’ of the generation that succeeded James saved him, now that Fleur was out of the room, from making an exhibition of his fears.
“Your father in town?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Good!” Not that he felt relief. That baronet chap was just as irresponsible—getting him to go on that Board! It all came of mixing with people brought up in a sort of incurable levity, with no real feeling for money.
“Now that Elderson’s levanted,” he said, “the whole thing must come out. Here’s his confession in my hand—”
“Why not tear it up, sir, and say Elderson has developed consumption?”
The impossibility of getting anything serious from this young man afflicted Soames like the eating of heavy pudding.
“You think that would be honourable?” he said grimly.
“Sorry, sir!” said Michael, sobered. “Can I help at all?”
“Yes; by dropping your levity, and taking care to keep wind of this matter away from Fleur.”
“I will,” said Michael, earnestly: “I promise you. I’ll Dutch-oyster the whole thing. What’s your line going to be?”
“We shall have to call the shareholders together and explain this dicky-dealing. They’ll very likely take it in bad part.”
“I can’t see why they should. How could you have helped it?”
Soames sniffed.
“There’s no connection in life between reward and your deserts. If the war hasn’t taught you that, nothing will.”
“Well,” said Michael, “Fleur will be down directly. If you’ll excuse me a minute; we’ll continue it in our next.”
Their next did not occur till Fleur had gone to bed.
“Now, sir,” said Michael, “I expect my governor’s at the Aeroplane. He goes there and meditates on the end of the world. Would you like me to ring him up, if your Board meeting’s tomorrow?”
Soames nodded. He himself would not sleep a wink—why should ‘Old Mont’?
Michael went to the Chinese tea chest.
“Bart? This is Michael. Old For—my father-inlaw is here; he’s had a pill… No; Elderson. Could you blow in by any chance and hear?… He’s coming, sir. Shall we stay down, or go up to my study?”
“Down,” muttered Soames, whose eyes were fixed on the white monkey. “I don’t know what we’re all coming to,” he added, suddenly.
“If we did, sir, we should die of boredom.”
“Speak for yourself. All this unreliability! I can’t tell where it’s leading.”
“Perhaps there’s somewhere, sir, that’s neither heaven nor hell.”
“A man of HIS age!”
“Same age as my dad; it was a bad vintage, I expect. If you’d been in the war, sir, it would have cheered you up no end.”
“Indeed!” said Soames.
“It took the linch-pins out of the cart—admitted; but, my Lord! it did give you an idea of the grit there is about, when it comes to being up against it.”
Soames stared. Was this young fellow reading him a lesson against pessimism?
“Look at young Butterfield, the other day,” Michael went on, “going over the top, to Elderson! Look at the girl who sat for ‘the altogether’ in that picture you bought us! She’s the wife of a packer we had, who got hoofed for snooping books. She made quite a lot of money by standing for the nude, and never lost her wicket. They’re going to Australia on it. Yes, and look at that little snooper himself; he snooped to keep her alive after pneumonia, and came down to selling balloons.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Soames.
“Only grit, sir. You said you didn’t know what we were coming to. Well, look at the unemployed! Is there a country in the world where they stick it as they do here? I get awfully bucked at being English every now and then. Don’t you?”
The words stirred something deep in Soames; but, far from giving it away, he continued to gaze at the white monkey. The restless, inhuman, and yet so human, angry sadness of the creature’s eyes! ‘No whites to them!’ thought Soames: ‘that’s what does it, I expect!’ And George had liked that picture to hang opposite his bed! Well, George had grit—joked with his last breath: very English, George! Very English, all the Forsytes! Old Uncle Jolyon, and his way with shareholders; Swithin, upright, puffy, huge in a too little arm-chair at Timothy’s: ‘All these small fry!’ he seemed to hear the words again; and Uncle Nicholas, whom that chap Elderson reproduced as it were unworthily, spry and all-there, and pretty sensual, but quite above suspicion of dishonesty. And old Roger, with his crankiness, and German mutton! And his own father, James—how he had hung on, long and frail as a reed, hung on and on! And Timothy, preserved in Consols, dying at a hundred! Grit and body in those old English boys, in spite of their funny ways. And there stirred in Soames a sort of atavistic will-power. He would see, and they would see—and that was all about it!
The grinding of a taxi’s wheels brought him back from reverie. Here came ‘Old Mont,’ tittuppy, and light in the head as ever, no doubt. And, instead of his hand, Soames held out Elderson’s letter.
“Your precious schoolfellow’s levanted,” he said.
Sir Lawrence read it through, and whistled.
“What do you think, Forsyte—Constantinople?”
“More likely Monte Carlo,” said Soames gloomily. “Secret commission—it’s not an extraditable offence.”
The odd contortions of that baronet’s face were giving him some pleasure—the fellow seemed to be feeling it, after all.
“I should think he’s really gone to escape his women, Forsyte.”
The chap was incorrigible! Soames shrugged his shoulders almost violently.
“You’d better realise,” he said, “that the fat is in the fire.”
“But surely, my dear Forsyte, it’s been there ever since the French occupied the Ruhr. Elderson has cut his lucky; we appoint some one else. What more is there to it?”
Soames had the peculiar feeling of having overdone his own honesty. If an honourable man, a ninth baronet, couldn’t see the implications of Elderson’s confession, were they really there? Was any fuss and scandal necessary? Goodness knew, HE didn’t want it! He said heavily:
“We now have conclusive evidence of a fraud; we KNOW Elderson was illegally paid for putting through business by which the shareholders have suffered a dead loss. How can we keep this knowledge from them?”
“But the mischief’s done, Forsyte. How will the knowledge help them?”
Soames frowned.
“We’re in a fiduciary position. I’m not prepared to run the risks of concealment. If we conceal, we’re accessory after the fact. The thing might come out at any time.” If that was caution, not honesty, he couldn’t help it.
“I should be glad to spare Elderson’s name. We were at—”
“I’m aware of that,” said Soames, drily.
“But what risk is there of its coming out, Forsyte? Elderson won’t mention it; nor young Butterfield, if you tell him not to. Those who paid the commission certainly won’t. And beyond us three here, no one else knows. It’s not as if we profited in any way.”
Soames was silent. The argument was specious. Entirely unjust, of course, that he should be penalised for what Elderson had done!
“No,” he said, suddenly, “it won’t do. Depart from the law, and you can’t tell where it’ll end. The shareholders have suffered this loss, and they have the right to all the facts within the directors’ knowledge. There might be some means of restitution they could avail themselves of. We can’t judge. It may be they’ve a remedy against ourselves.”
“If that’s so, Forsyte, I’m with you.”
Soames felt disgust. Mont had no business to put it with a sort of gallantry that didn’t count the cost; when the cost, if cost there were, would fall, not on Mont, whose land was heavily mortgaged, but on himself, whose property was singularly realisable.
“Well,” he said, coldly, “remember that tomorrow. I’m going to bed.”
At his open window upstairs he felt no sense of virtue, but he enjoyed a sort of peace. He had taken his line, and there it was!
During the month following the receipt of Elderson’s letter, Soames aged more than thirty days. He had forced his policy of disclosure on a doubting Board, the special meeting had been called, and, just as, twenty-three years ago, pursuing divorce from Irene, he had to face the public eye, so now he suffered day and night in dread of that undiscriminating optic. The French had a proverb: “Les absents ont toujours tort!” but Soames had grave doubts about it. Elderson would be absent from that meeting of the shareholders, but—unless he was much mistaken—he himself, who would be present, would come in for the blame. The French were not to be relied on. What with his anxiety about Fleur, and his misgiving about the public eye, he was sleeping badly, eating little, and feeling below par. Annette had recommended him to see a doctor. That was probably why he did not. Soames had faith in doctors for other people; but they had never—he would say—done anything for HIM, possibly because, so far, there had not been anything to do.
Failing in her suggestion, and finding him every day less sociable, Annette had given him a book on Coue. After running it through, he had meant to leave it in the train, but the theory, however extravagant, had somehow clung to him. After all, Fleur was doing it; and the thing cost you nothing: there might be something in it! There was. After telling himself that night twenty-five times that he was getting better and better, he slept so soundly that Annette, in the next room, hardly slept at all.
“Do you know, my friend,” she said at breakfast, “you were snoring last night so that I could not hear the cock crow.”
“Why should you want to?” said Soames.
“Well, never mind—if you had a good night. Was it my little Coue who gave you that nice dream?”
Partly from fear of encouraging Coue, and partly from fear of encouraging her, Soames avoided a reply; but he had a curious sense of power, as if he did not care what people said of him.
‘I’ll do it again to-night,’ he thought.
“You know,” Annette went on, “you are just the temperament for Coue, Soames. When you cure yourself of worrying, you will get quite fat.”
“Fat!” said Soames, looking at her curves. “I’d as soon grow a beard.”
Fatness and beards were associated with the French. He would have to keep an eye on himself if he went on with this—er—what was one to call it? Tomfoolery was hardly the word to conciliate the process, even if it did require you to tie twenty-five knots in a bit of string: very French, that, like telling your beads! He himself had merely counted on his fingers. The sense of power lasted all the way up to London; he had the conviction that he could sit in a draught if he wanted to, that Fleur would have her boy all right; and as to the P. P. R. S. – ten to one he wouldn’t be mentioned by name in any report of the proceedings.
After an early lunch and twenty-five more assurances over his coffee, he set out for the city.
This Board, held just a week before the special meeting of the shareholders, was in the nature of a dress rehearsal. The details of confrontation had to be arranged, and Soames was chiefly concerned with seeing that a certain impersonality should be preserved. He was entirely against disclosure of the fact that young Butterfield’s story and Elderson’s letter had been confided to himself. The phrase to be used should be a “member of the Board.” He saw no need for anything further. As for explanations, they would fall, of course, to the chairman and the senior director, Lord Fontenoy. He found, however, that the Board thought he himself was the right person to bring the matter forward. No one else—they said—could supply the personal touch, the necessary conviction; the chairman should introduce the matter briefly, then call on Soames to give the evidence within his knowledge. Lord Fontenoy was emphatic.
“It’s up to you, Mr. Forsyte. If it hadn’t been for you, Elderson would be sitting there today. From beginning to end you put the wind up him; and I wish the deuce you hadn’t. The whole thing’s a confounded nuisance. He was a very clever fellow, and we shall miss him. Our new man isn’t a patch on him. If he did take a few thou. under the rose, he took ’em off the Huns.”
Old guinea-pig! Soames replied, acidly:
“And the quarter of a million he’s lost the shareholders, for the sake of those few thou.? Bagatelle, I suppose?”
“Well, it might have turned out a winner; for the first year it did. We all back losers sometimes.”
Soames looked from face to face. They did not support this blatant attitude, but in them all, except perhaps ‘Old Mont’s,’ he felt a grudge against himself. Their expressions seemed to say: ‘Nothing of this sort ever happened till you came on the Board.’ He had disturbed their comfort, and they disliked him for it. They were an unjust lot! He said doggedly:
“You leave it to me, do you? Very well!”
What he meant to convey—or whether he meant to convey anything, he did not know; but even that ‘old guinea-pig’ was more civil afterwards. He came away from the Board, however, without any sense of power at all. There he would be on Tuesday next, bang in the public eye.
After calling to enquire after Fleur, who was lying down rather poorly, he returned home with a feeling of having been betrayed. It seemed that he could not rely, after all, on this fellow with his twenty-five knots. However much better he might become, his daughter, his reputation, and possibly his fortune, were not apparently at the disposition of his subconscious self. He was silent at dinner, and went up afterwards to his picture gallery, to think things over. For half an hour he stood at the open window, alone with the summer evening; and the longer he stood there, the more clearly he perceived that the three were really one. Except for his daughter’s sake, what did he care for his reputation or his fortune? His reputation! Lot of fools—if they couldn’t see that he was careful and honest so far as had lain within his reach—so much the worse for them! His fortune—well, he had better make another settlement on Fleur and her child at once, in case of accidents; another fifty thousand. Ah! if she were only through her trouble! It was time Annette went up to her for good; and there was a thing they called twilight sleep. To have her suffering was not to be thought of!
The evening lingered out; the sun went down behind familiar trees; Soames’ hands, grasping the window-ledge, felt damp with dew; sweetness of grass and river stole up into his nostrils. The sky had paled, and now began to darken; a scatter of stars came out. He had lived here a long time, through all Fleur’s childhood—best years of his life; still, it wouldn’t break his heart to sell. His heart was up in London. Sell? That was to run before the hounds with a vengeance. No—no! – it wouldn’t come to THAT! He left the window and, turning up the lights, began the thousand and first tour of his pictures. He had made some good purchases since Fleur’s marriage, and without wasting his money on fashionable favourites. He had made some good sales, too. The pictures in this gallery, if he didn’t mistake, were worth from seventy to a hundred thousand pounds; and, with the profits on his sales from time to time, they stood him in at no more than five-and-twenty thousand—not a bad result from a life’s hobby, to say nothing of the pleasure! Of course, he might have taken up something else—butterflies, photography, archaeology, or first editions; some other sport in which you backed your judgment against the field, and collected the results; but he had never regretted choosing pictures. Not he! More to show for your money, more kudos, more profit, and more risk! The thought startled him a little; had he really taken to pictures because of the risk? A risk had never appealed to him; at least, he hadn’t realised it, so far. Had his ‘subconscious’ some part in the matter? He suddenly sat down and closed his eyes. Try the thing once more; very pleasant feeling, that morning, of not “giving a damn”; he never remembered having it before! He had always felt it necessary to worry—kind of insurance against the worst; but worry was wearing, no doubt about it, wearing. Turn out the light! They said in that book, you had to relax. In the now dim and shadowy room, with the starlight, through many windows, dusted over its reality, Soames, in his easy chair, sat very still. A faint drone rose on the words: “fatter and fatter” through his moving lips. ‘No, no,’ he thought: ‘that’s wrong!’ And he began the drone again. The tips of his fingers ticked it off; on and on—he would give it a good chance. If only one needn’t worry! On and on—“better and better!” If only—! His lips stopped moving; his grey head fell forward into the subconscious. And the stealing starlight dusted over him, too, a little unreality.
Michael knew nothing of the City; and, in the spirit of the old cartographers: “Where you know nothing, place terrors,” made his way through the purlieus of the Poultry, towards that holy of holies, the offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte. His mood was attuned to meditation, for he had been lunching with Sibley Swan at the Cafe C’rillon. He had known all the guests—seven chaps even more modern than old Sib—save only a Russian so modern that he knew no French and nobody could talk to him. Michael had watched them demolish everything, and the Russian closing his eyes, like a sick baby, at mention of any living name… ‘Carry on!’ he thought, several of his favourites having gone down in the melee. ‘Stab and bludge! Importance awaits you at the end of the alley.’ But he had restrained his irreverence till the moment of departure.
“Sib,” he said, rising, “all these chaps here are dead—ought they to be about in this hot weather?”
“What’s that?” ejaculated Sibley Swan, amidst the almost painful silence of the chaps.
“I mean—they’re alive—so they MUST be damned!” And avoiding a thrown chocolate which hit the Russian, he sought the door.
Outside, he mused: ‘Good chaps, really! Not half so darned superior as they think they are. Quite a human touch—getting that Russian on the boko. Phew! It’s hot!’
On that first day of the Eton and Harrow match all the forfeited heat of a chilly summer had gathered and shimmered over Michael, on the top of his Bank ‘bus; shimmered over straw hats, and pale, perspiring faces, over endless other ‘buses, business men, policemen, shopmen at their doors, sellers of newspapers, laces, jumping toys, endless carts and cabs, letterings and wires, all the confusion of the greatest conglomeration in the world—adjusted almost to a hair’s-breadth, by an unseen instinct. Michael stared and doubted. Was it possible that, with everyone pursuing his own business, absorbed in his own job, the thing could work out? An ant-heap was not busier, or more seemingly confused. Live wires crossed and crossed and crossed—inextricable entanglement, you’d say; and yet, life, the order needful to life, somehow surviving! ‘No slouch of a miracle!’ he thought, ‘modern town life!’ And suddenly it seemed to cease, as if demolished by the ruthless dispensation of some super Sibley Swan; for he was staring down a cul-de-sac. On both sides, flat houses, recently re-buffed, extraordinarily alike; at the end, a flat buff house, even more alike, and down to it, grey virgin pavement, unstained by horse or petrol; no cars, cats, carts, policemen, hawkers, flies, or bees. No sign of human life, except the names of legal firms to right and left of each open doorway.
“‘Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte, Commissioners for Oaths: First Floor.’”
‘Rule Britannia!’ thought Michael, ascending wide stone steps.
Entering the room to which he had been ushered, he saw an old and pug-faced fellow with a round grizzled beard, a black alpaca coat, and a roomy holland waistcoat round his roomy middle, who rose from a swivel chair.
“Aoh!” he said, “Mr. Michael Mont, I think. I’ve been expecting you. We shan’t be long about it, after Mr. Forsyte comes. He’s just stepped round the corner. Mrs. Michael well, I hope?”
“Thanks; as well as—”
“Ye-es: it makes you anxious. Take a seat. Perhaps you’d like to read the draft?”
Thus prescribed for, Michael took some foolscap from a pudgy hand, and sat down opposite. With one eye on the old fellow, and the other on the foolscap, he read steadily.
“It seems to mean something,” he said at last.
He saw a gape, as of a frog at a fly, settle in the beard; and hastened to repair his error.
“Calculating what’s going to happen if something else doesn’t, must be rather like being a bookmaker.”
He felt at once that he had not succeeded. There was a grumpy mutter:
“We don’t waste our time, ’ere. Excuse me, I’m busy.”
Michael sat, compunctious, watching him tick down a long page of entries. He was like one of those old dogs which lie outside front doors, keeping people off the premises, and notifying their fleas. After less than five minutes of that perfect silence Soames came in.
“You’re here, then?” he said.
“Yes, sir; I thought it best to come at the time you mentioned. What a nice cool room!”
“Have you read this?” asked Soames, pointing to the draft.
Michael nodded.
“Did you understand it?”
“Up to a point, I think.”
“The interest on THIS fifty thousand,” said Soames, “is Fleur’s until her eldest child, if it’s a boy, attains the age of twenty-one, when the capital becomes his absolutely. If it’s a girl, Fleur retains half the income for life, the rest of the income becomes payable to the girl when she attains the age of twenty-one or marries, and the capital of that half goes to her child or children lawfully begotten, at majority or marriage, in equal shares. The other half of the capital falls into Fleur’s estate, and is disposable by her will, or follows the laws of intestacy.”
“You make it wonderfully clear,” said Michael
“Wait!” said Soames. “If Fleur has no children—”
Michael started.
“Anything is possible,” said Soames gravely, “and my experience is that the contingencies not provided for are those which happen. In such a case the income of the whole is hers for life, and the capital hers at death to do as she likes with. Failing that, it goes to the next of kin. There are provisions against anticipation and so forth.”
“Ought she to make a fresh will?” asked Michael, conscious of sweat on his forehead.
“Not unless she likes. Her present will covers it.”
“Have I to do anything?”
“No. I wanted you to understand the purport before I sign; that’s all. Give me the deed, Gradman, and get Wickson in, will you?”
Michael saw the old chap produce from a drawer a fine piece of parchment covered with copper-plate writing and seals, look at it lovingly, and place it before Soames. When he had left the room, Soames said in a low voice:
“This meeting on Tuesday—I can’t tell! But, whatever happens, so far as I can see, this ought to stand.”
“It’s awfully good of you, sir.”
Soames nodded, testing a pen.
“I’m afraid I’ve got wrong with your old clerk,” said Michael; “I like the look of him frightfully, but I accidentally compared him to a bookmaker.”
Soames smiled. “Gradman,” he said, “is a ‘character.’ There aren’t many, nowadays.”
Michael was wondering: Could one be a ‘character’ under the age of sixty? – when the ‘character’ returned, with a pale man in dark clothes.
Lifting his nose sideways, Soames said at once:
“This is a post-nuptial settlement on my daughter. I deliver this as my act and deed.”
He wrote his name, and got up.
The pale person and Gradman wrote theirs, and the former left the room. There was a silence as of repletion.
“Do you want me any more?” asked Michael.
“Yes. I want you to see me deposit it at the bank with the marriage settlement. Shan’t come back, Gradman!”
“Good-bye, Mr. Gradman.”
Michael heard the old fellow mutter through his beard half buried in a drawer to which he was returning the draft, and followed Soames out.
“Here’s where I used to be,” said Soames as they went along the Poultry; “and my father before me.”
“More genial, perhaps,” said Michael.
“The trustees are meeting us at the bank; you remember them?”
“Cousins of Fleur’s, weren’t they, sir?”
“Second cousins; young Roger’s eldest, and young Nicholas’. I chose them youngish. Very young Roger was wounded in the war—he does nothing. Very young Nicholas is at the Bar.”
Michael’s ears stood up. “What about the next lot, sir? Very very young Roger would be almost insulting, wouldn’t it?”
“There won’t be one,” said Soames, “with taxation where it is. He can’t afford it; he’s a steady chap. What are you going to call your boy, if it IS one?”
“We think Christopher, because of St. Paul’s and Columbus. Fleur wants him solid, and I want him enquiring.”
“H’m! And if it’s a girl?”
“Oh! – if it’s a girl—Anne.”
“Yes,” said Soames: “Very neat. Here they are!”
They had reached the bank, and in the entrance Michael saw two Forsytes between thirty and forty, whose chinny faces he dimly remembered. Escorted by a man with bright buttons down his front, they all went to a room, where a man without buttons produced a japanned box. One of the Forsytes opened it with a key; Soames muttered an incantation, and deposited the deed. When he and the chinnier Forsyte had exchanged a few remarks with the manager on the question of the bank rate, they all went back to the lobby and parted with the words: “Well, good-bye.”
“Now,” said Soames, in the din and hustle of the street, “he’s provided for, so far as I can see. When exactly do you expect it?”
“It should be just a fortnight.”
“Do you believe in this—this twilight sleep?”
“I should like to,” said Michael, conscious again of sweat on his forehead. “Fleur’s wonderfully calm; she does Coue night and morning.”
“That!” said Soames. He did not mention that he himself was doing it, thus giving away the state of his nerves. “If you’re going home, I’ll come, too.”
“Good!”
He found Fleur lying down with Ting-a-ling on the foot of the sofa.
“Your father’s here, darling. He’s been anointing the future with another fifty thou. I expect he’d like to tell you all about it.”
Fleur moved restlessly.
“Presently. If it’s going on as hot as this, it’ll be rather a bore, Michael.”
“Oh! but it won’t, ducky. Three days and a thunderstorm.”
Taking Ting-a-ling by the chin, he turned his face up.
“And how on earth is your nose going to be put out of joint, old man? There’s no joint to put.”
“He knows there’s something up.”
“He’s a wise little brute, aren’t you, old son?”
Ting-a-ling sniffed.
“Michael!”
“Yes, darling?”
“I don’t seem to care about anything now—it’s a funny feeling.”
“That’s the heat.”
“No. I think it’s because the whole business is too long. Everything’s ready, and now it all seems rather stupid. One more person in the world or one more out of it—what does it matter?”
“Don’t! It matters frightfully!”
“One more gnat to dance, one more ant to run about!”
Anguished, Michael said again:
“Don’t, Fleur! That’s just a mood.”
“Is Wilfrid’s book out?”
“It comes out tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry I gave you such a bad time, there. I only didn’t want to lose him.”
Michael took her hand.
“Nor did I—goodness knows!” he said.
“He’s never written, I suppose?”
“No.”
“Well, I expect he’s all right by now. Nothing lasts.”
Michael put her hand to his cheek.
“I do, I’m afraid,” he said.
The hand slipped round over his lips.
“Give Dad my love, and tell him I’ll be down to tea. Oh! I’m so hot!”
Michael hovered a moment, and went out. Damn the heat, upsetting her like this!
He found Soames standing in front of the white monkey.
“I should take this down, if I were you,” he muttered, “until it’s over.”
“Why, sir?” asked Michael, in surprise.
Soames frowned.
“Those eyes!”
Michael went up to the picture. Yes! He was a haunting kind of brute!
“But it’s such top-hole work, sir.”
Soames nodded.
“Artistically, yes. But at such times you can’t be too careful what she sees.”
“I believe you’re right. Let’s have him down.”
“I’ll hold him,” said Soames, taking hold of the bottom of the picture.
“Got him tight? Right-o. Now!”
“You can say I wanted an opinion on his period,” said Soames, when the picture had been lowered to the floor.
“There can hardly be a doubt of that, sir—the present!”
Soames stared. “What? Oh! You mean—? Ah! H’m! Don’t let her know he’s in the house.”
“No. I’ll lock him up.” Michael lifted the picture. “D’you mind opening the door, sir?”
“I’ll come back at tea-time,” said Soames. “That’ll look as if I’d taken him off. You can hang him again, later.”
“Yes. Poor brute!” said Michael, bearing the monkey off to limbo.
On the night of the Monday following, after Fleur had gone to bed, Michael and Soames sat listening to the mutter of London coming through the windows of the Chinese room opened to the brooding heat.
“They say the war killed sentiment,” said Soames suddenly: “Is that true?”
“In a way, yes, sir. We had so much reality that we don’t want any more.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I meant that only reality really makes you feel. So if you pretend there IS no reality, you don’t have to feel. It answers awfully well, up to a point.”
“Ah!” said Soames. “Her mother comes up tomorrow morning, to stay. This P. P. R. S. meeting of mine is at half-past two. Good-night!”
Michael, at the window, watched the heat gathered black over the Square. A few tepid drops fell on his outstretched hand. A cat stole by under a lamp-post, and vanished into shadow so thick that it seemed uncivilised.
Queer question of ‘Old Forsyte’s’ about sentiment; odd that he should ask it! ‘Up to a point! But don’t we all get past that point?’ he thought. Look at Wilfrid, and himself—after the war they had deemed it blasphemous to admit that anything mattered except eating and drinking, for tomorrow they died; even fellows like Nazing, and Master, who were never in the war, had felt like that ever since. Well, Wilfrid had got it in the neck; and he himself had got it in the wind; and he would bet that—barring one here and there whose blood was made of ink—they would all get it in the neck or wind soon or late. Why, he would cheerfully bear Fleur’s pain and risk, instead of her! But if nothing mattered, why should he feel like that?
Turning from the window, he leaned against the lacquered back of the jade-green settee, and stared at the wall space between the Chinese tea-chests. Jolly thoughtful of the ‘old man’ to have that white monkey down! The brute was potent—symbolic of the world’s mood: beliefs cancelled, faiths withdrawn! And, dash it! not only the young—but the old—were in that temper! ‘Old Forsyte,’ or he would never have been scared by that monkey’s eyes; yes, and his own governor, and Elderson, and all the rest. Young and old—no real belief in anything! And yet—revolt sprang up in Michael, with a whirr, like a covey of partridges. It DID matter that some person or some principle outside oneself should be more precious than oneself—it dashed well did! Sentiment, then, wasn’t dead—nor faith, nor belief, which were the same things. They were only shedding shell, working through chrysalis, into—butterflies, perhaps. Faith, sentiment, belief, had gone underground, possibly, but they were there, even in ‘Old Forsyte’ and himself. He had a good mind to put the monkey up again. No use exaggerating his importance!… By George! Some flare! A jagged streak of vivid light had stripped darkness off the night. Michael crossed, to close the windows. A shattering peal of thunder blundered overhead; and down came the rain, slashing and sluicing. He saw a man running, black, like a shadow across a dark blue screen; saw him by the light of another flash, suddenly made lurid and full of small meaning, with face of cheerful anxiety, as if he were saying: “Hang it, I’m getting wet!” Another frantic crash!
‘Fleur!’ thought Michael; and clanging the last window down, he ran upstairs.
She was sitting up in bed, with a face all round, and young, and startled.
‘Brutes!’ he thought—guns and the heavens confounded in his mind: ‘They’ve waked her up!’
“It’s all right, darling! Just another little summer kick-up! Were you asleep?”
“I was dreaming!” He felt her hand clutching within his own, saw a sudden pinched look on her face, with a sort of rage. What infernal luck!
“Where’s Ting?”
No dog was in the corner.
“Under the bed—you bet! Would you like him up?”
“No. Let him stay; he hates it.”
She put her head against his arm, and Michael curled his hand round her other ear.
“I never liked thunder much!” said Fleur,” and now it—it hurts!”
High above her hair Michael’s face underwent the contortions of an overwhelming tenderness. One of those crashes which seem just overhead sent her face burrowing against his chest, and, sitting on the bed, he gathered her in, close.
“I wish it were over,” came, smothered, from her lips.
“It will be directly, darling; it came on so suddenly!” But he knew she didn’t mean the storm.
“If I come through, I’m going to be quite different to you, Michael.”
Anxiety was the natural accompaniment of such events, but the words, “If I come through” turned Michael’s heart right over. Incredible that one so young and pretty should be in even the remotest danger of extinction; incredibly painful that she should be in fear of it! He hadn’t realised. She had been so calm, so matter-of-fact about it all.
“Don’t!” he mumbled; “of course you’ll come through.”
“I’m afraid.”
The sound was small and smothered, but the words hurt horribly. Nature, with the small ‘n,’ forcing fear into this girl he loved so awfully! Nature kicking up this godless din above her poor little head!
“Ducky, you’ll have twilight sleep and know nothing about it; and be as right as rain in no time.”
Fleur freed her hand.
“Not if it’s not good for him. Is it?”
“I expect so, sweetheart; I’ll find out. What makes you think—?”
“Only that it’s not natural. I want to do it properly. Hold my hand hard, Michael. I—I’m not going to be a fool. Oh! Some one’s knocking—go and see.”
Michael opened the door a crack. Soames was there—unnatural—in a blue dressing gown and scarlet slippers!
“Is she all right?” he whispered.
“Yes, yes.”
“In this bobbery she oughtn’t to be left.”
“No, sir, of course not. I shall sleep on the sofa.”
“Call me, if anything’s wanted.”
“I will.”
Soames’ eyes slid past, peering into the room. A string worked in his throat, as if he had things to say which did not emerge. He shook his head, and turned. His slim figure, longer than usual, in its gown, receded down the corridor, past the Japanese prints which he had given them. Closing the door again, Michael stood looking at the bed. Fleur had settled down; her eyes were closed, her lips moving. He stole back on tiptoe. The thunder, travelling away south, blundered and growled as if regretfully. Michael saw her eyelids quiver, her lips stop, then move again. ‘Coue!’ he thought.
He lay down on the sofa at the foot of the bed, whence, without sound, he could raise himself and see her. Many times he raised himself. She had dropped off, was breathing quietly. The thunder was faint now, the flashes imperceptible. Michael closed his eyes.
A faint last mutter roused him to look at her once more, high on her pillows by the carefully shaded light. Young—young! Colourless, like a flower in wax! No scheme in her brain, no dread—peaceful! If only she could stay like that and wake up with it all over! He looked away. And there she was at the far end, dim, reflected in a glass; and there to the right, again. She lay, as it were, all round him in the pretty room, the inhabiting spirit—of his heart.
It was quite still now. Through a chink in those powder-blue curtains he could see some stars. Big Ben chimed one.
He had slept, perhaps, dozed at least, dreamed a little. A small sound woke him. A very little dog, tail down, yellow, low and unimportant, was passing down the room, trailing across it to the far corner. ‘Ah!’ thought Michael, closing his eyes again: ‘You!’
Repairing, next day, to the Aeroplane Club, where, notably spruce, Sir Lawrence was waiting in the lounge, Michael thought: ‘Good old Bart! he’s got himself up for the guillotine all right!’
“That white piping will show the blood!” he said. “Old Forsyte’s neat this morning, but not so gaudy.”
“Ah! How is ‘Old Forsyte’? In good heart?”
“One doesn’t ask him, sir. How do you feel yourself?”
“Exactly as I used to before the Eton and Winchester match. I think I shall have shandy-gaff at lunch.”
When they had taken their seats, Sir Lawrence went on:
“I remember seeing a man tried for murder in Colombo; the poor fellow was positively blue. I think my favourite moment in the past, Michael, is Walter Raleigh asking for a second shirt. By the way, it’s never been properly settled yet whether the courtiers of that day were lousy. What are you going to have, my dear fellow?”
“Cold beef, pickled walnuts, and gooseberry tart.”
“Excellent for the character. I shall have curry; they give you a very good Bombay duck here. I rather fancy we shall be fired, Michael. ‘Nous sommes trahis!’ used to be the prerogative of the French, but I’m afraid we’re getting the attitude, too. The Yellow Press has made a difference.”
Michael shook his head.
“We say it, but we don’t act on it; the climate’s too uncertain.”
“That sounds deep. This looks very good curry—will you change your mind? Old Fontenoy sometimes comes in here; he has no inside. It’ll be serious for him if we’re shown the door.”
“Deuced rum,” said Michael suddenly, “how titles still go down. There can’t be any belief in their business capacity.”
“Character, my dear fellow—the good old English gentleman. After all, there’s something in it.”
“I fancy, sir, it’s more a case of complex in the shareholders. Their parents show them a lord when they’re young.”
“Shareholders,” said Sir Lawrence; “the word is comprehensive. Who are they, what are they, when are they?”
“This afternoon,” said Michael, “and I shall have a good look at them.”
“They won’t let you in, my dear.”
“No?”
“Certainly not.”
Michael frowned.
“What paper,” he said, “is sure not to be represented?”
Sir Lawrence gave his whinnying laugh.
“The Field,” he said; “The Horse and Hound; The Gardener’s Weekly.”
“I’ll slide in on them.”
“You’ll see us die game, I hope,” said Sir Lawrence, with sudden gravity.
They took a cab together to the meeting, but separated before reaching the door of the hotel.
Michael had thought better of the Press, and took up a position in the passage, whence he could watch for a chance. Stout men, in dark suits, with a palpable look of having lunched off turbot, joints, and cheese, kept passing him. He noticed that each handed the janitor a paper. ‘I’ll hand him a paper, too,’ he thought, ‘and scoot in.’ Watching for some even stouter men, he took cover between two of them, and approached the door, with an announcement of ‘Counterfeits’ in his left hand. Handing it across a neighbouring importance, he was quickly into a seat. He saw the janitor’s face poked round the door. ‘No, my friend,’ thought Michael, ‘if you could tell duds from shareholders, you wouldn’t be in that job!’
He found a report before him, and holding it up, looked at other things. The room seemed to him to have been got by a concert-hall out of a station waiting-room. It had a platform with a long table, behind which were seven empty chairs, and seven inkpots, with seven quill pens upright in them. ‘Quills!’ thought Michael; ‘symbolic, I suppose—they’ll all use fountain-pens!’
Back-centre of the platform was a door, and in front, below it, a table, where four men were sitting, fiddling with notebooks. ‘Orchestra,’ thought Michael. He turned his attention to the eight or ten rows of shareholders. They looked what they were, but he could not tell why. Their faces were cast in an infinity of moulds, but all had the air of waiting for something they knew they would not get. What sort of lives did they lead, or did their lives lead them? Nearly all wore moustaches. His neighbours to right and left were the same stout shareholders between whom he had slipped in; they both had thick lobes to their ears, and necks even broader than the straight broad backs of their heads. He was a good deal impressed. Dotted here and there he noticed a woman, or a parson. There was practically no conversation, from which he surmised that no one knew his neighbour. He had a feeling that a dog somewhere would have humanised the occasion. He was musing on the colour scheme of green picked out with chocolate and chased with gold, when the door behind the platform was thrown open, and seven men in black coats filed in, and with little bows took their seats behind the quills. They reminded him of people getting up on horses, or about to play the piano—full of small adjustments. That—on the Chairman’s right—would be old Fontenoy, with a face entirely composed of features. Michael had an odd conceit: a little thing in a white top-hat sat inside the brain, driving the features eight-inhand. Then came a face straight from a picture of Her Majesty’s Government in 1850, round and pink, with a high nose, a small mouth, and little white whiskers; while at the end on the right was a countenance whose jaw and eyes seemed boring into a conundrum beyond the wall at Michael’s back. ‘Legal!’ he thought. His scrutiny passed back to the Chairman. Chosen? Was he—or was he not? A bearded man, a little behind on the Chairman’s left, was already reading from a book, in a rapid monotonous voice. That must be the secretary letting off his minute guns. And in front of him was clearly the new manager, on whose left Michael observed his own father. The dark pothooks over Sir Lawrence’s right eye were slightly raised, and his mouth was puckered under the cut line of his small moustache. He looked almost Oriental, quick but still. His left hand held his tortoiseshell-rimmed monocle between thumb and finger. ‘Not quite in the scene!’ thought Michael; ‘poor old Bart!’ He had come now to the last of the row. ‘Old Forsyte’ was sitting precisely as if alone in the world; with one corner of his mouth just drawn down, and one nostril just drawn up, he seemed to Michael quite fascinatingly detached; and yet not out of the picture. Within that still neat figure, whereof only one patent-leather boot seemed with a slight movement to be living, was intense concentration, entire respect for the proceedings, and yet, a queer contempt for them; he was like a statue of reality, by one who had seen that there was precious little reality in it. ‘He chills my soup,’ thought Michael, ‘but—dash it! – I can’t help half admiring him!’
The Chairman had now risen. ‘He IS’—thought Michael; ‘no, he isn’t—yes—no—I can’t tell!’ He could hardly attend to what the Chairman said, for wondering whether he was chosen or not, though well aware that it did not matter at all. The Chairman kept steadily on. Distracted, Michael caught words and words: “European situation—misguided policy—French—totally unexpected—position disclosed—manager—unfortunate circumstances shortly to be explained to you—future of this great concern—no reason to doubt—”
‘Oil,’ thought Michael, ‘he is—and yet—!’
“I will now ask one of your directors, Mr. Forsyte, to give you at first hand an account of this painful matter.”
Michael saw Soames, pale and deliberate, take a piece of paper from his breast-pocket, and rise. Was it to the occasion?
“I will give you the facts shortly,” he said in a voice which reminded Michael of a dry, made-up wine. “On the eleventh of January last I was visited by a clerk in the employ of the Society—”
Familiar with these details, Michael paid them little attention, watching the shareholders for signs of reaction. He saw none, and it was suddenly borne in on him why they wore moustaches: They could not trust their mouths! Character was in the mouth. Moustaches had come in when people no longer went about, like the old Duke, saying: “Think what you damned well like of my character!” Mouths had tried to come in again, of course, before the war; but what with majors, shareholders, and the working classes, they now had little or no chance! He heard Soames say: “In these circumstances we came to the conclusion that there was nothing for it but to wait and see.” Michael saw a sudden quiver pass over the moustaches, as might wind over grass.
‘Wrong phrase,’ he thought; ‘we all do it, but we can’t bear being reminded of it.’
“Six weeks ago, however,” he heard Soames intone, “an accidental incident seems to have warned your late manager that Sir Lawrence and I still entertained suspicions, for I received a letter from him practically admitting that he had taken this secret commission on the German business, and asking me to inform the Board that he had gone abroad and left no property behind him. This statement we have been at pains to verify. In these circumstances we had no alternative but to call you together, and lay the facts before you.”
The voice, which had not varied an iota, ceased its recital; and Michael saw his father-inlaw return to his detachment—stork on one leg, about to apply beak to parasite, could have inspired no greater sense of loneliness. ‘Too like the first account of the battle of Jutland!’ he thought: ‘He mentioned all the losses, and never once struck the human note.’
A pause ensued, such as occurs before an awkward fence, till somebody has found a gate. Michael rapidly reviewed the faces of the Board. Only one showed any animation. It was concealed in a handkerchief. The sound of the blown nose broke the spell. Two shareholders rose to their feet at once—one of them Michael’s neighbour on the right.
“Mr. Sawdry,” said the Chairman, and the other shareholder sat down.
With a sonorous clearing of the throat, Michael’s neighbour turned his blunt red face towards Soames.
“I wish to ask you, sir, why you didn’t inform the Board when you first ‘eard of this?”
Soames rose slightly.
“You are aware, I presume, that such an accusation, unless it can be fully substantiated, is a matter for criminal proceedings?”
“No; it would ha’ been privileged.”
“As between members of the Board, perhaps; but any leakage would have rendered us liable. It was a mere case of word against word.”
“Perhaps Sir Lawrence Mont will give us ‘is view of that?”
Michael’s heart began to beat. There was an air of sprightliness about his father’s standing figure.
“You must remember, sir,” he said, “that Mr. Elderson had enjoyed our complete confidence for many years; he was a gentleman, and, speaking for myself, an old schoolfellow of his, I preferred, in common loyalty, to give his word preference, while—er—keeping the matter in mind.”
“Oh!” said Michael’s neighbour: “What’s the Chairman got to say about bein’ kept in the dark?”
“We are all perfectly satisfied, sir, with the attitude of our co-directors, in a very delicate situation. You will kindly note that the mischief was already done over this unfortunate assurance, so that there was no need for undue haste.”
Michael saw his neighbour’s neck grow redder.
“I don’t agree,” he said. “‘Wait and see’—We might have ‘ad that commission out of him, if he’d been tackled promptly.” And he sat down.
He had not reached mahogany before the thwarted shareholder had started up.
“Mr. Botterill,” said the Chairman.
Michael saw a lean and narrow head, with two hollows in a hairy neck, above a back slightly bent forward, as of a doctor listening to a chest.
“I take it from you, then, sir,” he said, “that these two directors represent the general attitude of the Board, and that the Board were content to allow a suspected person to remain manager. The gentleman on your extreme left—Mr. Forsyte, I think—spoke of an accidental incident. But for that, apparently, we should still be in the hands of an unscrupulous individual. The symptoms in this case are very disquieting. There appears to have been gross over-confidence; a recent instance of the sort must be in all our minds. The policy of assuring foreign business was evidently initiated by the manager for his own ends. We have made a severe loss by it. And the question for us shareholders would seem to be whether a Board who placed confidence in such a person, and continued it after their suspicions were aroused, are the right people to direct this important concern.”
Throughout this speech Michael had grown very hot. ‘“Old Forsyte” was right,’ he thought; ‘they’re on their uppers after all.’
There was a sudden creak from his neighbour on the left.
“Mr. Tolby,” said the Chairman.
“It’s a seerious matter, this, gentlemen. I propose that the Board withdraw, an’ leave us to discuss it.”
“I second that,” said Michael’s neighbour on the right.
Searching the vista of the Board, Michael saw recognition gleam for a second in the lonely face at the end, and grinned a greeting.
The Chairman was speaking.
“If that is your wish, gentlemen, we shall be happy to comply with it. Will those who favour the motion hold up their hands?”
All hands were held up, with the exception of Michael’s, of two women whose eager colloquy had not permitted them to hear the request, and of one shareholder, just in front of Michael, so motionless that he seemed to be dead.
“Carried,” said the Chairman, and rose from his seat.
Michael saw his father smiling, and speaking to ‘Old Forsyte’ as they both stood up. They all filed out, and the door was closed.
‘Whatever happens,’ Michael thought, ‘I’ve got to keep my head shut, or I shall be dropping a brick.’
“Perhaps the Press will kindly withdraw, too,” he heard some one say.
With a general chinny movement, as if enquiring their rights of no one in particular, the four Pressmen could be seen to clasp their notebooks. When their pale reluctance had vanished, there was a stir among the shareholders, like that of ducks when a dog comes up behind. Michael saw why, at once. They had their backs to each other. A shareholder said:
“Perhaps Mr. Tolby, who proposed the withdrawal, will act as Chairman.”
Michael’s left-hand neighbour began breathing heavily.
“Right-o!” he said. “Any one who wants to speak, kindly ketch my eye.”
Everyone now began talking to his neighbour, as though to get at once a quiet sense of proportion, before speaking. Mr. Tolby was breathing so heavily that Michael felt a positive draught.
“‘Ere, gentlemen,” he said suddenly, “this won’t do! We don’t want to be too formal, but we must preserve some order. I’ll open the discussion myself. Now, I didn’t want to ‘urt the feelin’s of the Board by plain speakin’ in their presence. But, as Mr. What’s-‘is-name there, said: The public ‘as got to protect itself against sharpers, and against slackness. We all know what ‘appened the other day, and what’ll ‘appen again in other concerns, unless we shareholders look after ourselves. In the first place, then, what I say is: They ought never to ‘ave touched anything to do with the ‘Uns. In the second place, I say they showed bad judgment. And in the third place I say they were too thick together. In my opinion, we should propose a vote of no confidence.”
Cries of: “Hear, hear!” mixed with indeterminate sounds, were broken sharply by a loud: “No!” from the shareholder who had seemed dead. Michael’s heart went out to him, the more so as he still seemed dead. The negative was followed by the rising of a thin, polished-looking shareholder, with a small grey moustache.
“If you’ll forgive my saying so, sir,” he began, “your proposal seems to me very rough-and-ready justice. I should be interested to know how you would have handled such a situation if you had been on the Board. It is extremely easy to condemn other people!”
“Hear, hear!” said Michael, astonished at his own voice.
“It is all very well,” the polished shareholder went on, “when any thing of this sort happens, to blame a directorate, but, speaking as a director myself, I should be glad to know whom one is to trust, if not one’s manager. As to the policy of foreign insurance, it has been before us at two general meetings; and we have pocketed the profit from it for nearly two years. Have we raised a voice against it?”
The dead shareholder uttered a “No!” so loud that Michael almost patted his head.
The shareholder, whose neck and back were like a doctor’s, rose to answer.
“I differ from the last speaker in his diagnosis of the case. Let us admit all he says, and look at the thing more widely. The proof of pudding is in the eating. When a Government makes a bad mistake of judgment, the electorate turns against it as soon as it feels the effects. This is a very sound check on administration; it may be rough and ready, but it is the less of two evils. A Board backs its judgment; when it loses, it should pay. I think, perhaps, Mr. Tolby, being our informal Chairman, was out of order in proposing a vote of no confidence; if that be so, I should be happy to do so, myself.”
The dead shareholder’s “No!” was so resounding this time that there was a pause for him to speak; he remained, however, without motion. Both of Michael’s neighbours were on their feet. They bobbed at each other over Michael’s head, and Mr. Tolby sat down.
“Mr. Sawdry,” he said.
“Look ’ere, gentlemen,” said Mr. Sawdry, “and ladies, this seems to me a case for compromise. The Directors that knew about the manager ought to go; but we might stop at that. The gentleman in front of me keeps on saying ‘No.’ Let ’im give us ‘is views.”
“No,” said the dead shareholder, but less loudly.
“If a man can’t give ‘is views,” went on Mr. Sawdry, nearly sitting down on Michael, “‘c shouldn’t interrupt, in my opinion.”
A shareholder in the front row now turned completely round so that he faced the meeting.
“I think,” he said, “that to prolong this discussion is to waste time; we are evidently in two, if not three, minds. The whole of the business of this country is now conducted on a system of delegated trust; it may be good, it may be bad—but there it is. You’ve got to trust somebody. Now, as to this particular case, we’ve had no reason to distrust the Board, so far; and, as I take it, the Board had no previous reason to distrust the late manager. I think it’s going too far, at present, to propose anything definite like a vote of no confidence; it seems to me that we should call the Board in and hear what assurances they have to give us against a repetition of anything of the sort in the future.”
The sounds which greeted this moderate speech were so inextricable that Michael could not get the sense of them. Not so with the speech which followed. It came from a shareholder on the right, with reddish hair, light eyelashes, a clipped moustache, and a scraped colour.
“I have no objection whatever to having the Board in,” he said in a rather jeering voice, “and passing a vote of no confidence in their presence. There is a question, which no one has touched on, of how far, if we turn them out, we could make them liable for this loss. The matter is not clear, but there is a good sporting chance, if we like to take it. Whereas, if we don’t turn them out, it’s obvious we can’t take it, even if we wish.”
The impression made by this speech was of quite a different order from any of the others. It was followed by a hush, as though something important had been said at last. Michael stared at Mr. Tolby. The stout man’s round, light, rather prominent eye was extraordinarily reflective. ‘Trout must look like that,’ thought Michael, ‘when they see a mayfly.’ Mr. Tolby suddenly stood up.
“All right,” he said, “‘ave ’em in!”
“Yes,” said the dead shareholder. There was no dissent. Michael saw some one rise and ascend the platform.
“Let the Press know!” said Mr. Tolby.
When the door had closed behind the departing directors, Soames sought a window as far as possible from the lunch eaten before the meeting.
“Funeral baked meats, eh, Forsyte?” said a voice in his ear. “Our number’s up, I think. Poor old Mothergill’s looking very blue. I think he ought to ask for a second shirt!”
Soames’ tenacity began wriggling within him.
“The thing wants tackling,” he grumbled; “the Chairman’s not the man for the job!” Shades of old Uncle Jolyon! He would have made short work of this! It wanted a masterful hand.
“Warning to us all, Forsyte, against loyalty! It’s not in the period. Ah! Fontenoy!”
Soames became conscious of features rather above the level of his own.
“Well, Mr. Forsyte, hope you’re satisfied? A pretty damned mess! If I’d been the Chairman, I’d never have withdrawn. Always keep hounds under your eye, Mont. Take it off, and they’ll go for you! Wish I could get among ’em with a whip; I’d give it those two heavy pug-faced chaps—they mean business! Unless you’ve got something up your sleeve, Mr. Forsyte, we’re dished.”
“What should I have up my sleeve?” said Soames coldly.
“Damn it, sir, you put the chestnuts in the fire; it’s up to you to pull ’em out. I can’t afford to lose these fees!”
Soames heard Sir Lawrence murmur: “Crude, my dear Fontenoy!” and said with malice:
“You may lose more than your fees!”
“Can’t! They may have Eaglescourt tomorrow, and take a loss off my hands.” A gleam of feeling burned up suddenly in the old eyes: “The country drives you to the wall, skins you to the bone, and expects you to give ’em public service gratis. Can’t be done, Mont—can’t be done!”
Soames turned away; he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing before an open grave, watching a coffin slowly lowered. Here was his infallibility going—going! He had no illusions. It would all be in the papers, and his reputation for sound judgment gone for ever! Bitter! No more would the Forsytes say: “Soames says—” No more would old Gradman follow him with eyes like an old dog’s, grudging sometimes, but ever submitting to infallibility. It would be a nasty jar for the old fellow. His business acquaintances—after all, they were not many, now! – would no longer stare with envious respect. He wondered if the reverberations would reach Dumetrius, and the picture market! The sole comfort was: Fleur needn’t know. Fleur! Ah! If only her business were safely over! For a moment his mind became empty of all else. Then with a rush the present filled it up again. Why were they all talking as if there were a corpse in the room? Well! There was—the corpse of his infallibility! As for monetary loss—that seemed secondary, remote, incredible—like a future life. Mont had said something about loyalty. He didn’t know what loyalty had to do with it! But if they thought he was going to show any white feather, they were extremely mistaken. Acid courage welled up into his brain. Shareholders, directors—they might howl and shake their fists; he was not going to be dictated to. He heard a voice say:
“Will you come in, please, gentlemen?”
Taking his seat again before his unused quill, he noticed the silence—shareholders waiting for directors, directors for shareholders. “Wish I could get among ’em with a whip!” Extravagant words of that ‘old guinea-pig’s,’ but expressive, somehow!
At last the Chairman, whose voice always reminded Soames of a raw salad with oil poured over it, said ironically:
“Well, gentlemen, we await your pleasure.”
That stout, red-faced fellow, next to Michael, stood up, opening his pug’s mouth.
“To put it shortly, Mr. Chairman, we’re not at all satisfied; but before we take any resolution, we want to ‘ear what you’ve got to say.”
Just below Soames, some one jumped up and added: “We’d like to know, sir, what assurances you can offer us against anything of this sort in the future.”
Soames saw the Chairman smile—no real backbone in that fellow!
“In the nature of things, sir,” he said, “none whatever! You can hardly suppose that if we had known our manager was not worthy of our confidence, we should have continued him in the post for a moment!”
Soames thought: ‘That won’t do—he’s gone back on himself!’ Yes, and that other pug-faced chap had seen it!
“That’s just the point, sir,” he was saying: “Two of you DID know, and yet, there the fellow was for months afterwards, playin’ ‘is own ‘and, cheatin’ the Society for all he was worth, I shouldn’t wonder.”
One after another, they were yelping now:
“What about your own words?”
“You admitted collective responsibility.”
“You said you were perfectly satisfied with the attitude of your co-directors in the matter.” Regular pack!
Soames saw the Chairman incline his head as if he wanted to shake it; old Fontenoy muttering, old Mothergill blowing his nose, Meyricke shrugging his sharp shoulders. Suddenly he was cut off from view of them—Sir Lawrence was standing up between.
“Allow me a word! Speaking for myself, I find it impossible to accept the generous attempt of the Chairman to shoulder a responsibility which clearly rests on me. If I made a mistake of judgment in not disclosing our suspicions, I must pay the penalty; and I think it will clear the—er—situation if I tender my resignation to the meeting.”
Soames saw him give a little bow, place his monocle in his eye, and sit down.
A murmur greeted the words—approval, surprise, deprecation, admiration? It had been gallantly done. Soames distrusted gallantry—there was always a dash of the peacock about it. He felt curiously savage.
“I, apparently,” he said, rising, “am the other incriminated director. Very good! I am not conscious of having done anything but my duty from beginning to end of this affair. I am confident that I made no mistake of judgment. And I consider it entirely unjust that I should be penalised. I have had worry and anxiety enough, without being made a scapegoat by shareholders who accepted this policy without a murmur, before ever I came on the Board, and are now angry because they have lost by it. You owe it to me that the policy has been dropped: You owe it to me that you have no longer a fraudulent person for a manager. And you owe it to me that you were called together today to pass judgment on the matter. I have no intention whatever of singing small. But there is another aspect to this affair. I am not prepared to go on giving my services to people who don’t value them. I have no patience with the attitude displayed this afternoon. If any one here thinks he has a grievance against me, let him bring an action. I shall be happy to carry it to the House of Lords, if necessary. I have been familiar with the City all my life, and I have not been in the habit of meeting with suspicions and ingratitude. If this is an instance of present manners, I have been familiar with the City long enough. I do not tender my resignation to the meeting; I resign.”
Bowing to the Chairman, and pushing back his chair, he walked doggedly to the door, opened it and passed through.
He sought his hat. He had not the slightest doubt but that he had astonished their weak nerves! Those pug-faced fellows had their mouths open! He would have liked to see what he had left behind, but it was hardly consistent with dignity to open the door again. He took a sandwich instead, and began to eat it with his back to the door and his hat on. He felt better than he had for months. A voice said:
“‘And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more!’ I’d no idea, Forsyte, you were such an orator! You gave it ’em between the eyes! Never saw a meeting so knocked out! Well, you’ve saved the Board by focussing their resentment entirely on yourself. It was very gallant, Forsyte!”
Soames growled through his sandwich:
“Nothing of the sort! Are you out, too?”
“Yes. I pressed my resignation. That red-faced fellow was proposing a vote of confidence in the Board when I left—and they’ll pass it, Forsyte—they’ll pass it! Something was said about financial liability, by the way!”
“Was there?” said Soames, with a grim smile: “That cock won’t fight. Their only chance was to claim against the Board for initiating foreign assurance ultra vires; if they’re re-affirming the Board, after the question’s been raised in open meeting, they’re dished. Nothing’ll lie against you and me, for not disclosing our suspicions—that’s certain.”
“A relief, I confess,” said Sir Lawrence, with a sigh. “It was the speech of your life, Forsyte!”
Perfectly well aware of that, Soames shook his head. Apart from the horror of seeing himself in print, he was beginning to feel that he had been extravagant. It was always a mistake to lose your temper! A bitter little smile came on his lips. Nobody, not even Mont, would see how unjustly he had been treated.
“Well,” he said, “I shall go.”
“I think I shall wait, Forsyte, and hear the upshot.”
“Upshot? They’ll appoint two other fools, and slaver over each other. Shareholders! Good-bye!” He moved to the door.
Passing the Bank of England, he had a feeling of walking away from his own life. His acumen, his judgment, his manner of dealing with affairs—aspersed! They didn’t like it; well—he would leave it! Catch him meddling, in future! It was all of a piece with the modern state of things. Hand to mouth, and the steady men pushed to the wall! The men to whom a pound was a pound, and not a mess of chance and paper. The men who knew that the good of the country was the strict, straight conduct of their own affairs. They were not wanted. One by one, they would get the go-by—as he had got it—in favour of Jack-o’-lanterns, revolutionaries, restless chaps, or clever, unscrupulous fellows, like Elderson. It was in the air. No amount of eating your cake and wanting to have it could take the place of common honesty.
He turned into the Poultry before he knew why he had come there. Well, he might as well tell Gradman at once that he must exercise his own judgment in the future. At the mouth of the backwater he paused for a second, as if to print its buffness on his brain. He would resign his trusts, private and all! He had no notion of being sneered at in the family. But a sudden wave of remembrance almost washed his heart into his boots. What a tale of trust deeds executed, leases renewed, houses sold, investments decided on—in that back room up there; what a mint of quiet satisfaction in estates well managed! Ah! well! He would continue to manage his own. As for the others, they must look out for themselves, now. And a precious time they’d have of it, in face of the spirit there was about!
He mounted the stone steps slowly.
In the repository of Forsyte affairs, he was faced by the unusual—not Gradman, but, on the large ripe table, a large ripe melon alongside a straw bag. Soames sniffed. The thing smelled delicious. He held it to the light. Its greeny yellow tinge, its network of threads—quite Chinese! Was old Gradman going to throw its rind about, like that white monkey?
He was still holding it when a voice said:
“Aoh! I wasn’t expecting you today, Mr. Soames. I was going early; my wife’s got a little party.”
“So I see!” said Soames, restoring the melon to the table. “There’s nothing for you to do at the moment, but I came in to tell you to draw my resignations from the Forsyte trusts.”
The old chap’s face was such a study that he could not help a smile.
“You can keep me in Timothy’s; but the rest must go. Young Roger can attend to them. He’s got nothing to do.”
A gruff and deprecating: “Dear me! They won’t like it!” irritated Soames.
“Then they must lump it! I want a rest.”
He did not mean to enter into the reason—Gradman could read it for himself in the Financial News, or whatever he took in.
“Then I shan’t be seeing you so often, Mr. Soames; there’s never anything in Mr. Timothy’s. Dear me! I’m quite upset. Won’t you keep your sister’s?”
Soames looked at the old fellow, and compunction stirred within him—as ever, at any sign that he was appreciated.
“Well,” he said, “keep me in hers; I shall be in about my own affairs, of course. Good afternoon, Gradman. That’s a fine melon.”
He waited for no more words. The old chap! HE couldn’t last much longer, anyway, sturdy as he looked! Well, they would find it hard to match him!
On reaching the Poultry, he decided to go to Green Street and see Winifred—queerly and suddenly homesick for the proximity of Park Lane, for the old secure days, the efflorescent privacy of his youth under the wings of James and Emily. Winifred alone represented for him now, the past; her solid nature never varied, however much she kept up with the fashions.
He found her, a little youthful in costume, drinking China tea, which she did not like—but what could one do, other teas were ‘common!’ She had taken to a parrot. Parrots were coming in again. The bird made a dreadful noise. Whether under its influence or that of the China tea—which, made in the English way, of a brand the Chinese grew for foreign stomachs, always upset him—he was soon telling her the whole story.
When he had finished, Winifred said comfortably:
“Well, Soames, I think you did splendidly; it serves them right!”
Conscious that his narrative must have presented the truth as it would not appear to the public, Soames muttered:
“That’s all very well; you’ll find a very different version in the financial papers.”
“Oh! but nobody reads them. I shouldn’t worry. Do you do Coue? Such a comfortable little man, Soames; I went to hear him. It’s rather a bore sometimes, but it’s quite the latest thing.”
Soames became inaudible—he never confessed a weakness.
“And how,” asked Winifred, “is Fleur’s little affair?”
“‘Little affair!’” echoed a voice above his head. That bird! It was clinging to the brocade curtains, moving its neck up and down.
“Polly!” said Winifred: “don’t be naughty!”
“Soames!” said the bird.
“I’ve taught him that. Isn’t he rather sweet?”
“No,” said Soames. “I should shut him up; he’ll spoil your curtains.”
The vexation of the afternoon had revived within him suddenly. What was life, but parrotry? What did people see of the real truth? They just repeated each other, like a lot of shareholders, or got their precious sentiments out of The Daily Liar. For one person who took a line, a hundred followed on, like sheep!
“You’ll stay and dine, dear boy!” said Winifred.
Yes! he would dine. Had she a melon, by any chance? He’d no inclination to go and sit opposite his wife at South Square. Ten to one Fleur would not be down. And as to young Michael—the fellow had been there that afternoon and witnessed the whole thing; he’d no wish to go over it again.
He was washing his hands for dinner, when a maid, outside, said:
“You’re wanted on the ‘phone, sir.”
Michael’s voice came over the wire, strained and husky:
“That you, sir?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Fleur. It began this afternoon at three. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“What?” cried Soames. “How? Quick!”
“They say it’s all normal. But it’s so awful. They say quite soon, now.” The voice broke off.
“My God!” said Soames. “My hat!”
By the front door the maid was asking: “Shall you be back to dinner, sir?”
“Dinner!” muttered Soames, and was gone.
He hurried along, almost running, his eyes searching for a cab. None to be had, of course! None to be had! Opposite the ‘Iseeum’ Club he got one, open in the fine weather after last night’s storm. That storm! He might have known. Ten days before her time. Why on earth hadn’t he gone straight back, or at least telephoned where he would be? All that he had been through that afternoon was gone like smoke. Poor child! Poor little thing! And what about twilight sleep? Why hadn’t he been there? He might have—nature! Damn it! Nature—as if it couldn’t leave even her alone!
“Get on!” he said, leaning out: “Double fare!”
Past the Connoisseurs, and the Palace, and Whitehall; past all preserves whence nature was excluded, deep in the waters of primitive emotion Soames sat, grey, breathless. Past Big Ben—eight o’clock! Five hours! Five hours of it!
“Let it be over!” he muttered aloud: “Let it be over, God!”
When his father-inlaw bowed to the Chairman and withdrew, Michael had restrained a strong desire to shout: “Bravo!” Who’d have thought the ‘old man’ could let fly like that? He had ‘got their goats’ with a vengeance. Quite an interval of fine mixed vociferation followed, before his neighbour, Mr. Sawdry, made himself heard at last.
“Now that the director implicated has resigned, I shall ‘ave pleasure in proposing a vote of confidence in the rest of the Board.”
Michael saw his father rise, a little finicky and smiling, and bow to the Chairman. “I take my resignation as accepted also; if you permit me, I will join Mr. Forsyte in retirement.”
Some one was saying:
“I shall be glad to second that vote of confidence.”
And brushing past the knees of Mr. Sawdry, Michael sought the door. From there he could see that nearly every hand was raised in favour of the vote of confidence; and with the thought: ‘Thrown to the shareholders!’ he made his way out of the hotel. Delicacy prevented him from seeking out those two. They had saved their dignity; but the dogs had had the rest.
Hurrying west, he reflected on the rough ways of justice. The shareholders had a grievance, of course; and some one had to get it in the neck to satisfy their sense of equity. They had pitched on Old Forsyte, who, of all, was least to blame; for if Bart had only held his tongue, they would certainly have lumped him into the vote of confidence. All very natural and illogical; and four o’clock already!
‘Counterfeits!’ The old feeling for Wilfrid was strong in him this day of publication. One must do everything one could for his book—poor old son! There simply must not be a frost.
After calling in at two big booksellers, he made for his club, and closeted himself in the telephone booth. In old days they ‘took cabs and went about.’ Ringing-up was quicker—was it? With endless vexations, he tracked down Sibley, Nazing, Upshire, Master, and half-a-dozen others of the elect. He struck a considered note likely to move them. The book—he said—was bound to ‘get the goat of the old guard and the duds generally’; it would want a bit of drum-beating from the cognoscenti. To each of them he appealed as the only one whose praise really mattered. “If you haven’t reviewed the book, old chap, will you? It’s you who count, of course.” And to each he added: “I don’t care two straws whether it sells, but I do want old Wilfrid to get his due.” And he meant it. The publisher in Michael was dead during that hour in the telephone booth, the friend alive and kicking hard. He came out with sweat running down his forehead, quite exhausted; and it was half-past five.
‘Cup of tea—and home!’ he thought. He reached his door at six. Ting-a-ling, absolutely unimportant, was cowering in the far corner of the hall.
“What’s the matter, old man?”
A sound from above, which made his blood run cold, answered—a long, low moaning.
“Oh, God!” he gasped, and ran upstairs.
Annette met him at the door. He was conscious of her speaking in French, of being called “mon cher,” of the words “vers trois heures… The doctor says one must not worry—all goes for the best.” Again that moan, and the door shut in his face; she was gone. Michael remained standing on the rug with perfectly cold sweat oozing from him, and his nails dug deep into his palms.
‘This is how one becomes a father!’ he thought: ‘This is how I became a son!’ That moaning! He could not bear to stay there, and he could not bear to go away. It might be hours, yet! He kept repeating to himself: “One must not worry—must not worry!” How easily said! How meaningless! His brain, his heart, ranging for relief, lighted on the strangest relief which could possibly have come to him. Suppose this child being born, had not been his—had been—been Wilfrid’s; how would he have been feeling, here, outside this door? It might—it might so easily have been—since nothing was sacred, now! Nothing except—yes, just that which was dearer than oneself—just that which was in there, moaning. He could not bear it on the rug, and went downstairs. Across and across the copper floor, a cigar in his mouth, he strode in vague, rebellious agony. Why should birth be like this? And the answer was: It isn’t—not in China! To have the creed that nothing mattered—and then run into it like this! Something born at such a cost, must matter, should matter. One must see to that! Speculation ceased in Michael’s brain; he stood, listening terribly. Nothing! He could not bear it down there, and went up again. No sound at first, and then another moan! This time he fled into his study, and ranged round the room, looking at the cartoons of Aubrey Greene. He did not see a single one, and suddenly bethought him of ‘Old Forsyte.’ He ought to be told!
He rang up the ‘Connoisseurs,’ the ‘Remove,’ and his own father’s clubs, in case they might have gone there together after the meeting. He drew blank everywhere. It was half-past seven. How much longer was this going on? He went back to the bedroom door; could hear nothing. Then down again to the hall. Ting-a-ling was lying by the front door, now. ‘Fed-up!’ thought Michael, stroking his back, and mechanically clearing the letter-box. Just one letter—Wilfrid’s writing! He took it to the foot of the stairs and read it with half his brain, the other half wondering—wandering up there.
“DEAR MONT, – I start tomorrow to try and cross Arabia. I thought you might like a line in case Arabia crosses me. I have recovered my senses. The air here is too clear for sentiment of any kind; and passion in exile soon becomes sickly. I am sorry I made you so much disturbance. It was a mistake for me to go back to England after the war, and hang about writing drivel for smart young women and inky folk to read. Poor old England—she’s in for a bad time. Give her my love; the same to yourselves.
“Yours ever,
“WILFRID DESERT.
“P. S. – If you’ve published the things I left behind, send any royalties to me care of my governor. – W. D.”
Half Michael’s brain thought: ‘Well, that’s that! And the book coming out today!’ Queer! Was Wilfrid right—was it all a blooming gaff—the inky stream? Was one just helping on England’s sickness? Ought they all to get on camels and ride the sun down? And yet, in books were comfort and diversion; and they were wanted! England had to go on—go on! ‘No retreat, no retreat, they must conquer or die who have no retreat!’… God! There it was again! Back he flew upstairs, with his ears covered and his eyes wild. The sounds ceased; Annette came out to him.
“Her father, mon cher; try to find her father!”
“I have—I can’t!” gasped Michael.
“Try Green Street—Mrs. Dartie. Courage! All is normal—it will be quite sewn, now.”
When he had rung up Green Street and been answered at last, he sat with the door of his study open, waiting for ‘Old Forsyte’ to come. Half his sight remarked a round hole burnt in his trouser leg—he hadn’t even noticed the smell; hadn’t even realised that he had been smoking. He must pull himself together for the ‘old man.’ He heard the bell ring, and ran down to open.
“Well?” said Soames.
“Not yet, sir. Come up to my study. It’s nearer.”
They went up side by side. That trim grey head, with the deep furrow between the eyes, and those eyes staring as if at pain behind them, steadied Michael. Poor old chap! He was ‘for it,’ too! They were both on ‘their uppers!’
“Have a peg, sir? I’ve got brandy here.”
“Yes,” said Soames. “Anything.”
With the brandies in their hands, half-raised, they listened—jerked their hands up, drank. They were automatic, like two doll figures worked by the same string.
“Cigarette, sir?” said Michael.
Soames nodded.
With the lighted cigarettes just not in their mouths, they listened, put them in, took them out, puffed smoke. Michael had his right arm tight across his chest. Soames his left. They formed a pattern, thus, side by side.
“Bad to stick, sir. Sorry!”
Soames nodded. His teeth were clenched. Suddenly his hand relaxed.
“Listen!” he said. Sounds—different—confused!
Michael’s hand seized something, gripped it hard; it was cold, thin—the hand of Soames. They sat thus, hand in hand, staring at the doorway, for how long neither knew.
Suddenly that doorway darkened; a figure in grey stood there—Annette!
“It is all r-right! A son!”
On waking from deep sleep next morning, Michael’s first thought was: ‘Fleur is back!’ He then remembered.
To his: “O. K.?” whispered at her door, he received an emphatic nod from the nurse.
In the midst of excited expectation he retained enough modernity to think: ‘No more blurb! Go and eat your breakfast quietly!’
In the dining-room Soames was despising the broken egg before him. He looked up as Michael entered, and buried his face in his cup. Michael understood perfectly; they had sat hand in hand! He saw, too, that the journal opened by his plate was of a financial nature.
“Anything about the meeting, sir? Your speech must read like one o’clock!”
With a queer little sound Soames held out the paper. The headlines ran: “Stormy meeting—resignation of two directors—a vote of confidence.” Michael skimmed down till he came to:
“Mr. Forsyte, the director involved, in a speech of some length, said he had no intention of singing small. He deprecated the behaviour of the shareholders; he had not been accustomed to meet with suspicions. He tendered his resignation.”
Michael dropped the sheet.
“By Jove!” he said—“‘Involved—suspicions.’ They’ve given it a turn, as though—!”
“The papers!” said Soames, and resumed his egg.
Michael sat down, and stripped the skin off a banana. ‘“Nothing became him like his death,”’ he thought: ‘Poor old boy!’
“Well, sir,” he said, “I was there, and all I can say is: You and my father were the only two people who excited my respect.”
“That!” said Soames, putting down his spoon.
Michael perceived that he wished to be alone, and swallowing the banana, went to his study. Waiting for his summons, he rang up his father.
“None the worse for yesterday, sir?”
Sir Lawrence’s voice came clear and thin, rather high.
“Poorer and wiser. What’s the bulletin?”
“Top-hole.”
“Our love to both. Your mother wants to know if he has any hair?”
“Haven’t seen him yet. I’m just going.”
Annette, indeed, was beckoning him from the doorway.
“She wants you to bring the little dog, mon cher.”
With Ting-a-ling under his arm, and treading on tiptoe, Michael entered. The eleventh baronet! He did not seem to amount to much, beneath her head bent over him. And surely her hair was darker! He walked up to the bed, and touched it reverently.
Fleur raised her head, and revealed the baby sucking vigorously at her little finger. “Isn’t he a monkey?” said her faint voice.
Michael nodded. A monkey clearly—but whether white—that was the question!
“And you, sweetheart?”
“All right now, but it was—” She drew her breath in, and her eyes darkened: “Ting, look!”
The Chinese dog, with nostrils delicately moving, drew backward under Michael’s arm. His whole demeanour displayed a knowing criticism. “Puppies,” he seemed to say, “we do it in China. Judgment reserved!”
“What eyes!” said Michael: “We needn’t tell HIM that this was brought from Chelsea by the doctor.”
Fleur gave the tiniest laugh.
“Put him down, Michael.”
Michael put him down, and he went to his corner.
“I mustn’t talk,” said Fleur, “but I want to, frightfully; as if I’d been dumb for months.”
‘Just as I felt,’ thought Michael, ‘she’s been away, away somewhere, utterly away.’
“It was like being held down, Michael. Months of not being yourself.”
Michael said softly: “Yes! the process IS behind the times! Has he got any hair? My mother wants to know.”
Fleur revealed the head of the eleventh baronet, covered with dark down.
“Like my grandmother’s; but it’ll get lighter. His eyes are going to be grey. Oh! and, Michael, about godparents? Alison, of course—but men?”
Michael dwelled a little before answering:
“I had a letter from Wilfrid yesterday. Would you like him? He’s still out there, but I could hold the sponge for him in church.”
“Is he all right again?”
“He says so.”
He could not read the expression of her eyes, but her lips were pouted slightly.
“Yes,” she said: “and I think one’s enough, don’t you? Mine never gave me anything.”
“One of mine gave me a bible, and the other gave me a wigging. Wilfrid, then.” And he bent over her.
Her eyes seemed to make him a little ironic apology. He kissed her hair, and moved hurriedly away.
By the door Soames was standing, awaiting his turn.
“Just a minute only, sir,” the nurse was saying.
Soames walked up to the bedside, and stood looking at his daughter.
“Dad, dear!” Michael heard her say.
Soames just touched her hand, nodded, as if implying approval of the baby, and came walking back, but, in a mirror, Michael saw his lips quivering.
On the ground floor once more, he had the most intense desire to sing. It would not do; and, entering the Chinese room, he stood staring out into the sunlit square. Gosh! It was good to be alive! Say what you liked, you couldn’t beat it! They might turn their noses up at life, and look down them at it; they might bolster up the future and the past, but—give him the present!
‘I’ll have that white monkey up again!’ he thought. ‘I’ll see the brute further before he shall depress me!’
He went out to a closet under the stairs, and, from beneath four pairs of curtains done up in moth-preserver and brown paper, took out the picture. He held it away from him in the dim light. The creature’s eyes! It was all in those eyes!
“Never mind, old son!” he said: “Up you go!” And he carried it into the Chinese room.
Soames was there.
“I’m going to put him up again, sir.”
Soames nodded.
“Would you hold him, while I hook the wire?”
Soames held the picture.
Returning to the copper floor, Michael said:
“All right, sir!” and stood back.
Soames joined him. Side by side they contemplated the white monkey.
“He won’t be happy till he gets it,” said Michael at last: “The only thing is, you see, he doesn’t know what IT is.”