The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(144)

‘We can’t all have divine sympathy, Michael.’

Michael looked at her fixedly. He decided against malicious intent and went on: ‘I never know where understanding and tolerance ought to end.’

‘That’s where men are inferior to us. We wait for the mark to fix itself; we trust our nerves. Men don’t, poor things. Luckily you’ve a streak of woman in you, Michael. Give me a kiss. Mind Coaker, he’s very sudden. It’s decided, then: Kit goes to Harrow.’

‘If there’s a Harrow to go to by the time he’s of age.’

‘Don’t be foolish. No constellations are more fixed than the public schools. Look at the way they flourished on the war.’

‘They won’t flourish on the next war.’

‘There mustn’t be one, then.’

‘Under “pukka sahibism” it couldn’t be avoided.’

‘My dear, you don’t suppose that keeping our word and all that was not just varnish? We simply feared German preponderance.’

Michael rumpled his hair.

‘It was a good instance, anyway, of what I said about there being more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of by the “pukka sahib”; yes, and of many situations that he’s not adequate to handle.’

Fleur yawned.

‘We badly want a new dinner service, Michael.’





Chapter Ten




AFTER dinner Michael set forth, without saying where he was going. Since the death of his father-in-law, and the disclosure then made to him about Fleur and John Forsyte, his relations with her had been the same, with a slight but deep difference. He was no longer a tied but a free agent in his own house. Not a word had ever been spoken between them on a matter now nearly four years old, nor had there been in his mind any doubt about her since; the infidelity was scotched and buried. But, though outwardly the same, he was inwardly emancipated, and she knew it. In this matter of Wilfrid, for instance, his father’s warning had not been needed. He would not have told her of it, anyway. Not because he did not trust her discretion – he could always trust that – but because he secretly felt that in a matter such as this he would not get any real help from her.

He walked. ‘Wilfrid’s in love,’ he thought, ‘so he ought to be in by ten, unless he’s got an attack of verse; but even then you can’t write poetry in this traffic or in a club, the atmosphere stops the flow.’ He crossed Pall Mall and threaded the maze of narrow streets dedicated to unattached manhood till he came to Piccadilly, quiet before its storm of after-theatre traffic. Passing up a side street devoted to those male ministering angels – tailors, bookmakers and moneylenders – he rounded into Cork Street. It was ten o’clock exactly when he paused before the well-remembered house. Opposite was the gallery where he had first met Fleur, and he stood for a moment almost dizzy from past feelings. For three years, before Wilfrid’s queer infatuation for Fleur had broken it all up, he had been Wilfrid’s fidus Achates. ‘Regular David and Jonathan stunt,’ he thought and all his old feelings came welling up as he ascended the stairs.

The monastic visage of the henchman Stack relaxed at sight of him.

‘Mr Mont? Pleasure to see you, sir.’

‘And how are you, Stack?’

‘A little older, sir; otherwise in fine shape, thank you. Mr Desert is in.’

Michael resigned his hat, and entered.

Wilfrid, lying on the divan in a dark dressing-gown, sat up.

‘Hallo!’

‘How are you, Wilfrid?’

‘Stack! Drinks!’

‘Congratulations, old man!’

‘I met her first at your wedding, you know.’

‘Ten years ago, nearly. You’ve plucked the flower of our family, Wilfrid; we’re all in love with Dinny.’

‘I won’t talk about her, but I think the more.’

‘Any verse, old man?’

‘Yes, a booklet going in tomorrow, same publisher. Remember the first?’

‘Don’t I? My only scoop.’

‘This is better. There’s one that is a poem.’

Stack re-entered with a tray.

‘Help yourself, Michael.’

Michael poured out a little brandy and diluted it but slightly. Then with a cigarette he sat down.

‘When’s it to be?’

‘Registrar’s, as soon as possible.’

‘Oh! And then?’

‘Dinny wants to show me England. While there’s any sun I suppose we shall hang around.’

‘Going back to Syria?’

Desert wriggled on his cushions.

‘I don’t know: further afield, perhaps – she’ll say.’

Michael looked at his feet, beside which on the Persian rug some cigarette ash had fallen.