The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(256)

Michael groaned: ‘And you, Mr James?’

‘It’s to do with the currency, isn’t it?’

‘And here,’ said Michael, ‘we have three intelligent, public-spirited persons, who’ve never heard of Foggartism – and I’ve heard of nothing else for over a year.’

‘Well,’ said Hilary, ‘had you heard of my slum-conversion scheme?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘I think,’ said his aunt, ‘it would be an excellent thing if you’d smoke while I make the coffee. Now I do remember, Michael: your mother did say to me that she wished you would get over it. I’d forgotten the name. It had to do with taking town children away from their parents.’

‘Partly,’ said Michael, with gloom.

‘You have to remember, dear, that the poorer people are, the more they cling to their children.’

‘Vicarious joy in life,’ put in Hilary.

‘And the poorer children are, the more they cling to their gutters, as I was telling you.’

Michael buried his hands in his pockets.

‘There is no good in me,’ he said stonily. ‘You’ve pitched on a stumer, Uncle Hilary.’

Both Hilary and his wife got up very quickly, and each put a hand on his shoulder.

‘My dear boy!’ said his aunt.

‘God bless you!’ said Hilary. ‘Have a “gasper”.’

‘All right,’ said Michael, grinning, ‘it’s wholesome.’

Whether or not it was the ‘gasper’ that was wholesome, he took and lighted it from his uncle’s.

‘What is the most pitiable sight in the world, Aunt May – I mean, next to seeing two people dance the Charleston?’

‘The most pitiable sight?’ said his aunt dreamily.

‘Oh! I think – a rich man listening to a bad gramophone.’

‘Wrong!’ said Michael. ‘The most pitiable sight in the world is a politician barking up the right tree. Behold him!’

‘Look out, May! Your machine’s boiling. She makes very good coffee, Michael – nothing like it for the grumps. Have some, and then James and I will show you the houses we’ve converted. James – come with me a moment.’

‘Noted for his pertinacity,’ muttered Michael, as they disappeared.

‘Not only noted, Michael – dreaded.’

‘Well, I would rather be Uncle Hilary than anybody I know.’

‘He is rather a dear,’ murmured his aunt. ‘Coffee?’

‘What does he really believe, Aunt May?’

‘Well, he hardly has time for that.’

‘Ah! that’s the new hope of the Church. All the rest is just as much an attempt to improve on mathematics as Einstein’s theory. Orthodox religion was devised for the cloister, Aunt May, and there aren’t any cloisters left.’

‘Religion,’ said his aunt dreamily, ‘used to burn a good many people, Michael, not in cloisters.’

‘Quite so, when it emerged from cloisters, religion used to be red-hot politics, then it became caste feeling, and now it’s a crossword puzzle – You don’t solve them with your emotions.’

His aunt smiled.

‘You have a dreadful way of putting things, my dear.’

‘In our “suckles”, Aunt May, we do nothing but put things – it destroys all motive power. But about this slum business: do you really advise me to have “a go”?’

‘Not if you want a quiet life.’

‘I don’t know that I do. I did after the war; but not now. But, you see, I’ve tried Foggartism and everybody’s too sane to look at it. I really can’t afford to back another loser. Do you think there’s a chance of getting a national move on?’

‘Only a sporting chance, dear.’

‘Would you take it up then, if you were me?’

‘My dear, I’m prejudiced – Hilary’s heart is so set on it; but it does seem to me that there’s no other cause I’d so gladly fail in. Well, not exactly; but there really is nothing so important as giving our town dwellers decent living conditions.’

‘It’s rather like going over to the enemy,’ muttered Michael. ‘Our future oughtn’t to be so bound up in the towns.’

‘It will be, whatever’s done. “A bird in the hand”, and such a big bird, Michael. Ah! Here’s Hilary!’

Hilary and his architect took Michael forth again into ‘The Meads’. The afternoon had turned drizzly, and the dismal character of that flowerless quarter was more than ever apparent. Up street, down street, Hilary extolled the virtues of his parishioners. They drank, but not nearly so much as was natural in the circumstances; they were dirty, but he would be dirtier under their conditions. They didn’t come to church – who on earth would expect them to? They assaulted their wives to an almost negligible extent; were extraordinarily good, and extremely unwise, to their children. They had the most marvellous faculty for living on what was not a living wage. They helped each other far better those who could afford to; never saved a bean, having no beans to save, and took no thought for a morrow which might be worse than to-day. Institutions they abominated. They were no more moral than was natural in their overcrowded state. Of philosophy they had plenty, of religion none that he could speak of. Their amusements were cinemas, streets, gaspers, public houses, and Sunday papers. They liked a tune, and would dance if afforded a chance. They had their own brand of honesty which required special study. Unhappy? Not precisely, having given up a future state in this life or in that – realist to their encrusted finger-nails. English? Well, nearly all, and mostly London-born. A few country folk had come in young, and would never go out old.