The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(113)

‘Some thought!’ said Michael. ‘Only – what Government will think it? Can I take those maps?… By the way,’ he said at the door, ‘there are Societies, you know, for sending out children.’

Mr Blythe grunted. ‘Yes. Excellent little affairs! A few hundred children doing well – concrete example of what might be. Multiply it a hundredfold, and you’ve got a beginning. You can’t fill pails with a teaspoon. Good-bye!’

Out on the Embankment Michael wondered if one could love one’s country with a passion for getting people to leave it. But this over-bloated town condition, with its blight and smoky ugliness; the children without a chance from birth; these swarms of poor devils without work, who dragged about and hadn’t an earthly, and never would, on present lines; this unbalanced, hand-to-mouth, dependent state of things – surely that wasn’t to be for ever the state of the country one loved! He stared at the towers of Westminster, with the setting sun behind them. And there started up before him the thousand familiars of his past – trees, fields and streams, towers, churches, bridges; the English breeds of beasts, the singing birds, the owls, the jays and rooks at Lippinghall, the little differences from foreign sorts in shrub, flower, lichen, and winged life; the English scents, the English haze, the English grass; the eggs and bacon; the slow good humour, the moderation and the pluck; the smell of rain; the apple-blossom, the heather, and the sea. His country, and his breed – unspoilable at heart! He passed the Clock Tower. The House looked lacey and imposing, more beautiful than fashion granted. Did they spin the web of England’s future in that House? Or were they painting camouflage – a screen over old England?

A familiar voice said: ‘This is a monstrous great thing!’

And Michael saw his father-in-law staring up at the Lincoln statue. ‘What did they want to put it here for?’ said Soames. ‘It’s not English.’ He walked along at Michael’s side. ‘Fleur well?’

‘Splendid. Italy suited her like everything.’

Soames sniffed. ‘They’re a theatrical lot,’ he said. ‘Did you see Milan Cathedral?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s about the only thing we didn’t take to.’

‘H’m! Their cooking gave me the collywobbles in ‘82.I dare say it’s better now. How’s the boy?’

‘AI, sir.’

Soames made a sound of gratification, and they turned the corner into South Square.

‘What’s this?’ said Soames.

Outside the front door were two battered-looking trunks, a young man, grasping a bag, and ringing the bell, and a taxi-cab turning away.

‘I can’t tell you, sir,’ murmured Michael. ‘Unless it’s the angel Gabriel.’

‘He’s got the wrong house,’ said Soames, moving forward.

But just then the young man disappeared within.

Soames walked up to the trunks. ‘Francis Wilmot,’ he read out. ‘“S.S. Amphibian.” There’s some mistake!’





Chapter Four



MERE CONVERSATION



WHEN they came in, Fleur was returning downstairs from showing the young man to his room. Already fully dressed for the evening, she had but little on, and her hair was shingled.…

‘My dear girl,’ Michael had said, when shingling came in, ‘to please me, don’t! Your nuque will be too bristly for kisses.’

‘My dear boy,’ she had answered, ‘as if one could help it! You’re always the same with any new fashion!’

She had been one of the first twelve to shingle, and was just feeling that without care she would miss being one of the first twelve to grow some hair again. Marjorie Ferrar, ‘the Pet of the Panjoys’, as Michael called her, already had more than an inch. Somehow, one hated being distanced by Marjorie Ferrar.…

Advancing to her father, she said:

‘I’ve asked a young American to stay, Dad; Jon Forsyte has married his sister, out there. You’re quite brown, darling. How’s mother?’

Soames only gazed at her.

And Fleur passed through one of those shamed moments, when the dumb quality of his love for her seemed accusing the glib quality of her love for him. It was not fair – she felt – that he should look at her like that; as if she had not suffered in that old business with Jon more than he; if she could take it lightly now, surely he could! As for Michael – not a word! – not even a joke! She bit her lips, shook her shingled head, and passed into the ‘bimetallic parlour’.

Dinner began with soup and Soames deprecating his own cows for not being Herefords. He supposed that in America they had plenty of Herefords?