‘Well, my child, I’ve chucked publishing. With old Danby always in the right – it isn’t a career.’
‘Oh! Michael, you’ll be bored to death.’
‘I’ll go into Parliament. It’s quite usual, and about the same screw.’
He had spoken in jest. Six days later it became apparent that she had listened in earnest.
‘You were absolutely right, Michael. It’s the very thing for you. You’ve got ideas.’
‘Other people’s.’
‘And the gift of the gab. We’re frightfully handy for the House, here.’
‘It costs money, Fleur.’
‘Yes, I’ve spoken to Father. It was rather funny – there’s never been a Forsyte, you know, anywhere near Parliament. But he thinks it’ll be good for me; and that it’s all baronets are fit for.’
‘One has to have a Seat, unfortunately.’
‘Well, I’ve sounded your father, too. He’ll speak to people. They want young men.’
‘Ah! And what are my politics?’
‘My dear boy, you must know – at thirty.’
‘I’m not a Liberal. But am I Labour or Tory?’
‘You can think it out before the next election!’
Next day, while he was shaving, and she was in her bath, he cut himself slightly and said:
‘The land and this unemployment is what I really care about. I’m a Foggartist.’
‘What?’
‘Old Sir James Foggart’s book. You read it.’
‘No.’
‘Well, you said so.’
‘So did others.’
‘Never mind – his eyes are fixed on 1944, and his policy’s according. Safety in the Air, the Land, and Child Emigration; adjustment of Supply and Demand within the Empire; cut our losses in Europe; and endure a worse Present for the sake of a better Future. Everything, in fact, that’s unpopular, and said to be impossible.’
‘Well, you could keep all that to yourself till you get in. You’ll have to stand as a Tory.’
‘How lovely you look!’
‘If you get in, you can disagree with everybody. That’ll give you a position from the start.’
‘Some scheme!’ murmured Michael.
‘You can initiate this – this Foggartism. He isn’t mad, is he?’
‘No, only too sane, which is much the same thing, of course. You see we’ve got a higher wage-scale than any other country except America and the Dominions; and it isn’t coming down again; we really group in with the new countries. He’s for growing as much of our food as we can, and pumping British town children, before they’re spoiled, into the Colonies, till Colonial demand for goods equals our supply. It’s no earthly, of course, without wholehearted co-operation between the Governments within the Empire.’
‘It sounds very sensible.’
‘We published him, you know, but at his own expense. It’s a “faith and the mountain” stunt. He’s got the faith all right, but the mountain shows no signs of moving.’
Fleur stood up. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s settled. Your father says he can get you a nomination as a Tory, and you can keep your own views to yourself. You’ll get in on the human touch, Michael.’
‘Thank you, ducky. Can I help dry you?’…
Before redecorating her Chinese room, however, Fleur had waited till after Michael was comfortably seated for a division which professed to be interested in agriculture. She chose a blend between Adam and Louis Quinze. Michael called it the ‘bimetallic parlour’; and carried off ‘The White Monkey’ to his study. The creature’s pessimism was not, he felt, suited to political life.
Fleur had initiated her ‘salon’ with a gathering in February. The soul of society had passed away since the Liberal débâcle and Lady Alison’s politico-legal coterie no longer counted. Plainer people were in the ascendant. Her Wednesday evenings were youthful, with age represented by her father-in-law, two minor ambassadors, and Pevensey Blythe, editor of The Outpost. So unlike his literary style that he was usually mistaken for a Colonial Prime Minister, Blythe was a tall man with a beard, and grey bloodshot eyes, who expressed knowledge in paragraphs that few could really understand. ‘What Blythe thinks today, the Conservative Party will not think tomorrow,’ was said of him. He spoke in a small voice, and constantly used the impersonal pronoun.
‘One is walking in one’s sleep,’ he would say of the political situation, ‘and will wake up without any clothes on.’
A warm supporter of Sir James Foggart’s book, characterizing it as ‘the masterpiece of a blind archangel’, he had a passion for listening to the clavichord, and was invaluable in Fleur’s ‘salon’.