The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(120)

‘You were good enough, madam, to call my daughter a snob in her own house.’

Michael saw the de-shingled neck turn and rear, the hard blue eyes stare with a sort of outraged impudence; he heard her laugh, then Soames saying:

‘You are a traitresss; be so kind as to withdraw.’

Of the half-dozen people round, not a soul was missing it! Oh, hell! And he the master of the house! Stepping forward, he put his arm through that of Soames:

‘That’ll do, sir,’ he said, quietly; ‘this is not a Peace Conference.’

There was a horrid hush; and in all the group only the soft man’s white hands, washing each other, moved.

Marjorie Ferrar took a step towards the door.

‘I don’t know who this person is,’ she said; ‘but he’s a liar.’

‘I reckon not.’

At the edge of the little group was a dark young man. His eyes were fixed on Marjorie Ferrar’s, whose eyes in turn were fixed on his.

And suddenly, Michael saw Fleur, very pale, standing just behind him. She must have heard it all! She smiled, waved her hand, and said:

‘Madame Carelli’s going to play.’

Marjorie Ferrar walked on towards the door, and the soft man followed her, still washing those hands, as if trying to rid them of the incident. Soames, like a slow dog making sure, walked after them; Michael walked after him. The words ‘How amusing!’ floated back, and a soft echoing snigger. Slam ! Both outer door and incident were closed.

Michael wiped his forehead. One half of the brain behind admired his father-in-law; the other thought: ‘Well, the old man has gone and done it !’ He went back into the drawing-room. Fleur was standing near the clavichord, as if nothing had happened. But Michael could see her fingers crisping at her dress; and his heart felt sore. He waited, quivering, for the last chord.

Soames had gone upstairs. Before ‘The White Monkey’ in Michael’s study, he reviewed his own conduct. He regretted nothing. Red-headed cat! ‘Born snob!’ ‘Money? Not very much.’ Ha! ‘A nobody like her!’ Granddaughter of a marquess, was she? Well, he had shown the insolent baggage the door. All that was sturdy in his fibre, all that was acrid in his blood, all that resented patronage and privilege, the inherited spirit of his forefathers, moved within him. Who were the aristocracy, to give themselves airs? Jackanapes! Half of ’em descendants of those who had got what they had by robbery or jobbery! That one should call his daughter, his daughter, a snob! He wouldn’t lift a finger, wouldn’t cross a road, to meet the Duke of Seven Dials himself! If Fleur liked to amuse herself by having people round her, why shouldn’t she? His blood ran suddenly a little cold. Would she say that he had spoiled her ‘salon’? Well! He couldn’t help it if she did; better to have had the thing out, and got rid of that cat, and know where they all were. ‘I shan’t wait up for her,’ he thought. ‘Storm in a tea-cup!’

The thin strumming of the clavichord came up to him out on the landing, waiting to climb to his room. He wondered if these evenings woke the baby. A gruff sound at his feet made him jump. That dog lying outside the baby’s door! He wished the little beggar had been downstairs just now – he would have known how to put his teeth through that red-haired cat’s nude stockings. He passed’ on up, looking at Francis Wilmot’s door, which was opposite his own.

That young American chap must have overheard something too; but he shouldn’t allude to the matter with him; not dignified. And, shutting his door on the strumming of the clavichord, Soames closed his eyes again as best he could.





Chapter Seven



SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT



MICHAEL had never heard Fleur cry, and to see her, flung down across the bed, smothering her sobs in the quilt, gave him a feeling akin to panic. She stopped at his touch on her hair, and lay still.

‘Buck up, darling!’ he said bendy. ‘If you aren’t one, what does it matter?’

She struggled up, and sat cross-legged, her flushed face smudged with tears, her hair disordered.

‘Who cares what one is? It’s what one’s labelled.’

‘Well, we’ve labelled her “Traitress”.’

‘As if that made it better! We all talk behind people’s backs. Who minds that? But how can I go on when everybody is sniggering and thinking me a lion-hunting snob? She’ll cry it all over London in revenge. How can I have any more evenings?’

Was it for her career, or his, that she was sorrowing? Michael went round to the other side of the bed and put his arms about her from behind.

‘Never mind what people think, my child. Sooner or later one’s got to face that, anyway.’