The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(260)

‘But isn’t he stupid?’

‘There speaks your modern ! Rather broad in the beam, and looking a little like a butler with a moustache, but – stupid? No. Refused a peerage three times. Think of the effect of that on the public!’

‘Wilfred Bentworth? I should never have thought of him – always looked on him as the professional honest man,’ murmured Michael.

‘But he is honest!’

‘Yes, but when he speaks, he always alludes to it.’

‘That’s true,’ said Sir Lawrence, ‘but one must have a defect. He’s got twenty thousand acres, and knows all about fatting stock. He’s on a railway board; he’s the figurehead of his county’s cricket, and chairman of a big hospital. Everybody knows him. He has Royalty to shoot; goes back to Saxon times; and is the nearest thing to John Bull left. In any other country he’d frighten the life out of any scheme, but in England – well, if you can get him, Michael, your job’s half done.’

Michael looked quizzically at his parent. Did Bart quite understand the England of to-day? His mind roved hurriedly over the fields of public life. By George! He did!

‘How shall I approach him, Dad? Will you come on the committee yourself? You know him; and we could go together.’

‘If you’d really like to have me,’ said Sir Lawrence, almost wistfully, ‘I will. It’s time I did some work again.’

‘Splendid! I think I see your point about Bentworth. Beyond suspicion – has too much already to have anything to gain, and isn’t clever enough to take in anyone if he wanted to.’

Sir Lawrence nodded. ‘Add his appearance; that counts tremendously in a people that have given up the land as a bad job. We still love to think of beef. It accounts for a good many of our modern leaderships. A people that’s got away from its base, and is drifting after it knows not what, wants beam, beef, beer – or at least port – in its leaders. There’s something pathetic about that, Michael. What’s to-day – Thursday? This’ll be Bentworth’s board day. Shall we strike while the iron’s hot? We’ll very likely catch him at Burton’s.’

‘Good!’ said Michael, and they set forth.

‘This club,’ murmured Sir Lawrence, as they were going up the steps of Burton’s Club, ‘is confined to travellers, and I don’t suppose Bentworth’s ever travelled a yard. That shows how respected he is. No, I’m wronging him. I remember he commanded his yeomanry in the Boer War. “The Squire” in the club, Smileman?’

‘Yes, Sir Lawrence; just come in.’

The ‘last of the squires’ was, indeed, in front of the tape. His rosy face, with clipped white moustache, and hard, little, white whiskers, was held as if the news had come to him, not he to the news. Banks might inflate and Governments fall, wars break out and strikes collapse, but there would be no bending of that considerable waist, no flickering in the steady blue stare from under eyebrows a little raised at their outer ends. Rather bald, and clipped in what hair was left, never did man look more perfectly shaved and the moustache ending exactly where the lips ended, gave an extreme firmness to the general good humour of an open-air face.

Looking from him to his own father – thin, quick, twisting, dark, as full of whims as a bog is of snipe – Michael was impressed. A whim, to Wilfred Bentworth, would be strange fowl indeed! ‘How ever he’s managed to keep out of politics,’ thought Michael, ‘I can’t conceive.’

‘ “Squire” – my son – a sucking statesman. We’ve come to ask you to lead a forlorn hope. Don’t smile! You’re “for it”, as they say in this Bonzoid age. We propose to shelter ourselves behind you in the breach.’

‘Eh! What? Sit down! What’s all this?’

‘It’s a matter of the slums, “if you know what I mean,” as the lady said. But go ahead, Michael!’

Michael went ahead. Having developed his uncle’s thesis and cited certain figures, he embroidered them with as much picturesque detail as he could remember, feeling rather like a fly attacking the flanks of an ox and watching his tail.

‘When you drive a nail into the walls, sir,’ he ended, ‘things come out.’

‘Good God!’ said the squire suddenly. ‘Good God!’

‘One doubts the “good”, there,’ put in Sir Lawrence.

The squire stared.

‘Irreverent beggar,’ he said. ‘I don’t know Charwell, they say he’s cracked.’

‘Hardly that,’ murmured Sir Lawrence; ‘merely unusual, like most members of really old families.’