The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(278)

‘Look here, sir!’ And Soames saw a fellow who looked like a general in a story-book, leaning towards him: ‘D’you mean to say we can’t use a mild word like “execration”, when we know they ought to be shot?’

Soames gave a pale smile: if there was a thing he couldn’t stand, it was militarism.

‘You can use it if you like,’ he said, ‘but not with me or any other man of judgement on the committee.’

At his words at least four members of the committee burst into speech. Had he said anything too strong?

‘We’ll pass that without those words, then,’ said the chairman. ‘Now for your clause about the kitchens, Shropshire. That’s important.’

The Marquess began reading; Soames looked at him almost with benevolence. They had hit it off very well over the Morland. No one objected to the addition, and it was adopted.

‘That’s that, then. I don’t think there’s anything more. I want to get off.’

‘A minute, Mr Chairman.’ Soames saw that the words were issuing from behind a walrus-like moustache. ‘I know more of these people than any of you here. I started life in the slums, and I want to tell you something. Suppose you get some money, suppose you convert some streets, will you convert those people? No, gentlemen; you won’t.’

‘Their children, Mr Montross, their children,’ said a man whom Soames recognized as one of those who had married Michael to his daughter.

‘I’m not against the appeal, Mr Charwell, but I’m a self-made man and a realist, and I know what we’re up against. I’m going to put some money into this, gentlemen, but I want you to know that I do so with my eyes open.’

Soames saw the eyes, melancholy and brown, fixed on himself, and had a longing to say: ‘You bet!’ But, looking at Sir Lawrence, he saw that ‘Old Mont’ had the longing too, and closed his lips firmly.

‘Capital!’ said the chairman. ‘Well, Mr Forsyte, are you joining us?’

Soames looked round the table.

‘I’ll go into the matter,’ he said, ‘and let you know.’

Almost instantly the committee broke towards their hats, and he was left opposite the Goya with the Marquess.

‘A Goya, Mr Forsyte, I think, and a good one. Am I mistaken, or didn’t it once belong to Burlingford?’

‘Yes,’ said Soames, astonished. ‘I bought it when Lord Burlingford sold his pictures in 1910.’

‘I thought so. Poor Burlingford! He got very rattled, I remember, over the House of Lords. But, you see, they’ve done nothing since. How English it all was!’

‘They’re a dilatory lot,’ murmured Soames, whose political recollections were of the vaguest.

‘Fortunately, perhaps,’ said the Marquess; ‘there is so much leisure for repentance.’

‘I can show you another picture or two, here, if you care for them,’ said Soames.

‘Do,’ said the Marquess; and Soames led him across the hall, now evacuated by the hats.

‘Watteau, Fragonard, Pater, Chardin,’ said Soames.

The Marquess was gazing from picture to picture with his head a little on one side.

‘Delightful!’ he said. ‘What a pleasant, and what a worthless age that was! After all, the French are the only people that can make vice attractive, except perhaps the Japanese, before they were spoiled. Tell me, Mr. Forsyte, do you know any Englishman who has done it?’

Soames, who had never studied the question and was hampered by not knowing whether he wanted an Englishman to do it, was hesitating when the Marquess added:

‘And yet no such domestic people as the French.’

‘My wife’s French,’ said Soames, looking round his nose.

‘Indeed!’ said the Marquess; ‘How pleasant!’

Soames was again about to answer, when the Marquess continued:

‘To see them go out on Sundays – the whole family, with their bread and cheese, their sausage and wine! A truly remarkable people!’

‘I prefer ourselves,’ said Soames, bluntly. ‘Less ornamental, perhaps, but –’ he stopped short of his country’s virtues.

‘The first of my family, Mr Forsyte, was undoubtedly a Frenchman – not even a Norman Frenchman. There’s a tradition that he was engaged to keep William Rufus’s hair red, when it was on the turn. They gave him lands, so he must have been successful. We’ve had a red streak in the family ever since. My granddaughter –’ He regarded Soames with a bird-like eye – ‘But she and your daughter hardly got on, I remember.’

‘No,’ said Soames, grimly, ‘they hardly got on.’