On the Tuesday after the Government had fallen Michael went up to town and summoned a meeting of his ‘down and outs’. They came at three the following day, and he placed them in chairs round the dining-table. Standing under the Goya, like a general about to detail a plan of attack which others would have to execute, he developed his proposal. The three faces expressed little, and that without conviction. Only Bergfeld had known anything of it, before, and his face was the most doubting.
‘I don’t know in the least,’ went on Michael, ‘what you think of it; but you all want jobs – two of you out of doors, and you, Boddick, don’t mind what it is, I think.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Boddick, ‘I’m on.’
Michael instantly put him down as the best man of the three.
The other two were silent till Bergfeld said:
‘If I had my savings –’
Michael interrupted quickly:
‘I’m putting in the capital; you three put in the brains and labour. It’s probably not more than a bare living, but I hope it’ll be a healthy one. What do you say, Mr Swain?’
The hairdresser, more shadow-stricken than ever, in the glow of Fleur’s Spanish room, smiled.
‘I’m sure it’s very kind of you. I don’t mind havin’ a try – only, who’s goin’ to boss the show?’
‘Co-operation, Mr Swain.’
‘Ah!’ said the hairdresser; ‘thought so. But I’ve seen a lot of tries at that, and it always ends in one bloke swallerin’ the rest.’
‘Very well,’ said Michael, suddenly, ‘I’ll boss it. But if any of you crane at the job, say so at once, and have done with it. Otherwise I’ll get that hut delivered and set up. and we’ll start this day month.’
Boddick got up, and said: ‘Right, sir. What about my children?’
‘How old, Boddick?’
‘Two little girls, four and five.’
‘Oh! yes!’ Michael had forgotten this item. ‘We must see about that.’
Boddick touched his forelock, shook Michael’s hand, went out. The other two remained standing.
‘Good-bye, Mr Bergfeld; good-bye, Mr Swain!’
‘If I might –’
‘Could I speak to you for a minute?’
‘Anything you have to say,’ said Michael, astutely, ‘had better be said in each other’s presence.’
‘I’ve always been used to hair.’
‘Pity,’ though Michael, ‘that Life didn’t drop that “h” for him – poor beggar!’ ‘Well, we’ll get you a breed of birds that can be shingled,’ he said. The hairdresser smiled down one side of his face. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ he remarked.
‘I wished to ask you,’ said Bergfeld, ‘what system we shall adopt?’
‘That’s got to be worked out. Here are two books on poultry-keeping; you’d better read one each, and swop.’
He noted that Bergfeld took both without remonstrance on the part of Swain.
Seeing them out into the Square, he thought: ‘Rum team! It won’t work, but they’ve got their chance.’
A young man who had been standing on the pavement came forward.
‘Mr Michael Mont, M.P.?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Michael Mont at home?’
‘I think so. What do you want?’
‘I must see her personally, please.’
‘Who are you from?’
‘Messrs Settlewhite and Stark – a suit.’
‘Dressmakers?’
The young man smiled.
‘Come in,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll see if she’s at home.’
Fleur was in the ‘parlour’.
‘A young man from some dressmaker’s for you, dear.’
‘Mrs Michael Mont? In the suit of Ferrar against Mont – libel. Good-day, madam.’
Between those hours of four and eight, when Soames arrived from Mapledurham, Michael suffered more than Fleur. To sit and see a legal operation performed on her with all the scientific skill of the British Bar, it was an appalling prospect; and there would be no satisfaction in Marjorie Ferrar’s also being on the table, with her inside exposed to the gaze of all! He was only disconcerted, therefore, when Fleur said:
‘All right; if she wants to be opened up, she shall be. I know she flew to Paris with Walter Nazing last November; and I’ve always been told she was Bertie Curfew’s mistress for a year.’
A Society case – cream for all the cats in Society, muck for all the blowflies in the streets – and Fleur the hub of it! He waited for Soames with impatience. Though ‘Old Forsyte’s’ indignation had started this, Michael turned to him now, as to an anchor let go off a lee shore. The ‘old man’ had experience, judgement and a chin; he would know what, except bearing it with a grin, could be done. Gazing at a square foot of study wall which had escaped a framed caricature, he reflected on the underlying savagery of life. He would be eating a lobster tonight that had been slowly boiled alive! This study had been cleaned out by a charwoman whose mother was dying of cancer, whose son had lost a leg in the war, and who looked so jolly tired that he felt quite bad whenever he thought of her. The Bergfelds, Swains and Boddicks of the world – the Camden Towns, and Mile Ends – the devastated regions of France, the rock villages of Italy! Over it all what a thin crust of gentility! Members of Parliament and ladies of fashion, like himself and Fleur, simpering and sucking silver spoons, and now and then dropping spoons and simper, and going for each other like Kilkenny cats!