The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(224)
‘Good-morning.’
From the door Soames took a stealthy glance. The figure was perfectly motionless, the legs still crossed, and above the litle red book the pale forehead was poised under the smooth grizzling hair. Nothing to be made of that I But the fellow had it, he was sure.
He went out and down to the Green Park with a most peculiar feeling. Sneak thief! A gentleman to come to that! The Elderson affair had been bad, but somehow not pitiful like this. The whitened seams of the excellent suit, the traversing creases in the once admirable shoes, the faded tie exactly tied, were evidence of form preserved, day by day, from hand to mouth. They afflicted Soames. That languid figure! What did a chap do when he had no money and couldn’t exert himself to save his life? Incapable of shame – that was dear! He must talk to Winifred again. And, turning on his heel, Soames walked back towards Green Street. Debouching from the Park, he saw on the opposite side of Piccadilly the languid figure. It, too, was moving in the direction of Green Street. Phew! He crossed over and followed. The chap had an air. He was walking like someone who had come into the world from another age – an age which set all its store on ‘form’. He felt that ‘this chap’ would sooner part with life itself than exhibit interest in anything. Form! Could you carry contempt for emotion to such a pitch that you could no longer feel emotion? Could the lifted eyebrow become more important to you than all the movements of the heart and brain? Threadbare peacock’s feathers walking, with no peacock inside! To show feeling was perhaps the only thing of which that chap would be ashamed. And, a little astonished at his own powers of diagnosis, Soames followed round corner after corner, till he was actually in Green Street By George! The chap was going to Winifred’s ‘I’ll astonish his weak nerves!’ thought Soames. And, suddenly hastening, he said, rather breathlessly, on his sister’s very doorstep:
‘Ah! Mr Stainford! Come to return the snuff-box?’
With a sigh, and a slight stiffening of his cane on the pavement, the figure turned. Soames felt a sudden compunction – as of one who has jumped out at a child in the dark. The face, unmoved, with eyebrows still raised and lids still lowered, was greenishly pale, like that of a man whose heart is affected; a faint smile struggled on his lips. There was fully half a minute’s silence, then the pale lips spoke.
‘Depends. How much?’
What little breath was in Soames’ body left him. The impudence! And again the lips moved.
‘You can have it for ten pounds.’
‘I can have it for nothing,’ said Soames, ‘by asking a policeman to step here.’
‘The smile returned. ‘You won’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Not done.’
‘Not done!’ repeated Soames. ‘Why on earth not? Most barefaced thing I ever knew.’
‘Ten pounds,’ said the lips. ‘I want them badly.’
Soames stood and stared. The thing was so sublime; the fellow as easy as if asking for a match; not a flicker on a face which looked as if it might pass into death at any moment. Great art! He perceived that it was not the slightest use to indulge in moral utterance. The choice was between giving him the ten pounds or calling a policeman. He looked up and down the street.
‘No – there isn’t one in sight. I have the box here – ten pounds.’
Soames began to stammer. The fellow was exercising on him a sort of fascination. And suddenly the whole thing tickled him. It was rich!
‘Well!’ he said, taking out two five-pound notes. ‘For brass – !’.
A thin hand removed a slight protuberance from a side pocket.
‘Thanks very much. Here it is! Good-morning!’
The fellow was moving away. He moved with the same incomparable languor; he didn’t look back. Soames stood with the snuff-box in his hand, staring after him.
‘Well,’ he said aloud, ‘that’s a specimen they can’t produce now,’ and he rang Winifred’s bell.
Chapter Seven
MICHAEL HAS QUALMS
DURING the eight days of the General Strike, Michael’s somewhat hectic existence was relieved only by the hours spent in a House of Commons so occupied in meditating on what it could do, that it could do nothing. He had formed his own opinion of how to settle the matter, but as no one else had formed it, the result was inconspicuous. He watched, however, with a very deep satisfaction the stock of British character daily quoted higher at home and abroad; and with a certain uneasiness the stock of British intelligence becoming almost unsaleable. Mr Blythe’s continual remark: ‘What the bee aitch are they all about?’ met with no small response in his soul. What were they about? He had one conversation with his father-in-law on the subject.