“I suppose you’re sure that fellow took it?”
“Quite. I’d had it out to polish only a quarter of an hour before. After he went, I came back into the room at once, to put it away, and it was gone. Val had been in the room the whole time.”
Soames dwelled for a moment, then rejected a doubt about his nephew, for, though connected by blood with that precious father of his, Montague Dartie, and a racing man to boot, he was half a Forsyte after all.
“Well,” he said, “shall I send you this man–his name’s Becroft–always looks as if he’d over-shaved himself, but he’s got a certain amount of nous. I should suggest his getting in touch with that fellow’s club.”
“Suppose he’s already sold the box?” said Winifred.
“Yesterday afternoon? Should doubt that; but it wants immediate handling. I’ll see Becroft as I go away. Fleur’s overdoing it, with this canteen of hers.”
“They say she’s running it very well. I do think all these young women are so smart.”
“Quick enough,” grumbled Soames, “but steady does it in the long run.”
At that phrase–a maxim never far away from the lips of the old Forsytes in her youthful days–Winifred blinked her rather too light eyelashes.
“That was always rather a bore, you know, Soames. And in these days, if you’re not quick, things move past you, so.”
Soames gathered his hat. “That snuffbox will, if we don’t look sharp.”
“Well, thank you, dear boy. I do hope we get it back. The dear Pater was so proud of it, and when he died it wasn’t worth half what it is now.”
“Not a quarter,” said Soames, and the thought bored into him as he walked away. What was the use of having judgment, if anybody could come along and pocket the results! People sneered at property nowadays; but property was a proof of good judgment–it was one’s amour propre half the time. And he thought of the amour propre Bosinney had stolen from him in those far-off days of trouble. Yes, even marriage–was an exercise of judgment–a pitting of yourself against other people. You ‘spotted a winner,’ as they called it, or you didn’t–Irene hadn’t been ‘a winner’–not exactly! Ah! And he had forgotten to ask Winifred about that young Jon Forsyte who had suddenly come back into the wind. But about this snuffbox! The Brummell Club was some sort of betting place, he had heard; full of gamblers, and people who did and sold things on commission, he shouldn’t wonder. That was the vice of the day; that and the dole. Work? No! Sell things on commission–motor-cars, for choice. Brummell Club! Yes! This was the place! It had a window–he remembered. No harm, anyway, in asking if the fellow really belonged there! And entering, he enquired:
“Mr. Stainford a member here?”
“Yes. Don’t know if he’s in. Mr. Stainford been in, Bob?”
“Just come in.”
“Oh!” said Soames, rather taken aback.
“Gentleman to see him, Bob.”
A rather sinking sensation occurred within Soames.
“Come with me, sir.”
Soames took a deep breath, and his legs moved. In an alcove off the entrance–somewhat shabby and constricted–he could see a man lolling in an old armchair, smoking a cigarette through a holder. He had a little red book in one hand and a small pencil in the other, and held them as still as if he were about to jot down a conviction that he had not got. He wore a dark suit with little lines; his legs were crossed, and Soames noted that one foot in a worn brown shoe, treed and polished against age to the point of pathos, was slowly moving in a circle.
“Gemman to see you, sir.”
Soames now saw the face. Its eyebrows were lifted in a V reversed, its eyelids nearly covered its eyes. Together with the figure, it gave an impression of really remarkable languor. Thin to a degree, oval and pale, it seemed all shadow and slightly aquiline feature. The foot had become still, the whole affair still. Soames had the curious feeling of being in the presence of something arrogantly dead. Without time for thought, he began:
“Mr. Stainford, I think? Don’t disturb yourself. My name is Forsyte. You called at my sister’s in Green Street yesterday afternoon.”
A slight contraction of the lines round that small mouth was followed by the words:
“Will you sit down?”
The eyes had opened now, and must once have been beautiful. They narrowed again, so that Soames could not help feeling that their owner had outlived everything except himself. He swallowed a qualm and resumed:
“I just wanted to ask you a question. During your call, did you by any chance happen to notice a Louis Quinze snuffbox on the table? It’s–er–disappeared, and we want to fix the time of its loss.”
As a ghost might have smiled, so did the man in the chair; his eyes disappeared still further.
“Afraid not.”
With the thought, ‘He’s got it!’ Soames went on:
“I’m sorry–the thing had virtue as an heirloom. It has obviously been stolen. I wanted to narrow down the issue. If you’d noticed it, we could have fixed the exact hour–on the little table just where you were sitting–blue enamel.”
The thin shoulders wriggled slightly, as though resenting this attempt to place responsibility on them.
“Sorry I can’t help you; I noticed nothing but some rather good marqueterie.”
‘Coolest card I ever saw,’ thought Soames. ‘Wonder if it’s in his pocket.’
“The thing’s unique,” he said slowly. “The police won’t have much difficulty. Well, thanks very much. I apologise for troubling you. You knew my nephew at college, I believe. Good-morning.”
“Good-morning.”
From the door Soames took a stealthy glance. The figure was perfectly motionless, the legs still crossed, and above the little red book the pale forehead was poised under the smooth grizzling hair. Nothing to be made of that! 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 evidences 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 clear! 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 snuffbox?”
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 the 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 snuffbox 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 VII.
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-inlaw on the subject.
Over his egg Soames had said:
“Well, the Budget’s dished.”
Over his marmalade Michael answered:
“Used you to have this sort of thing in your young days, sir?”
“No,” said Soames; “no Trade Unionism then, to speak of.”
“People are saying this’ll be the end of it. What’s your opinion of the strike as a weapon, sir?”
“For the purposes of suicide, perfect. It’s a wonder they haven’t found that out long ago.”
“I rather agree, but what’s the alternative?”
“Well,” said Soames, “they’ve got the vote.”
“Yes, that’s always said. But somehow Parliament seems to matter less and less; there’s a directive sense in the country now, which really settles things before we get down to them in Parliament. Look at this strike, for instance; we can do nothing about it.”
“There must be government,” said Soames.
“Administration–of course. But all we seem able to do in Parliament is to discuss administration afterwards without much effect. The fact is, things swoop around too quick for us nowadays.”
“Well,” said Soames, “you know your own business best. Parliament always was a talking shop.” And with that unconscious quotation from Carlyle–an extravagant writer whom he curiously connected with revolution–he looked up at the Goya, and added: “I shouldn’t like to see Parliament done away with, though. Ever heard any more of that red-haired young woman?”
“Marjorie Ferrar? Oddly enough, I saw her yesterday in Whitehall. She told me she was driving for Downing Street.”
“She spoke to you?”
“Oh, yes. No ill-feeling.”
“H’m!” said Soames. “I don’t understand this generation. Is she married?”
“No.”
“That chap MacGown had a lucky escape–not that he deserved it. Fleur doesn’t miss her evenings?”
Michael did not answer. He did not know. Fleur and he were on such perfect terms that they had no real knowledge of each other’s thoughts. Then, feeling his father-inlaw’s grey eye gimletting into him, he said hastily:
“Fleur’s all right, sir.”
Soames nodded. “Don’t let her overdo this canteen.”
“She’s thoroughly enjoying it–gives her head a chance.”
“Yes,” said Soames, “she’s got a good little head, when she doesn’t lose it.” He seemed again to consult the Goya, and added:
“By the way, that young Jon Forsyte is over here–they tell me–staying at Green Street, and stoking an engine or something. A boy-and-girl affair; but I thought you ought to know.”
“Oh!” said Michael, “thanks. I hadn’t heard he was back.”
“I don’t suppose she’s heard, either,” said Soames guardedly; “I told them not to tell her. D’you remember, in America, up at Mount Vernon, when I was taken ill?”
“Yes, sir; very well.”
“Well, I wasn’t. Fact is, I saw that young man and his wife talking to you on the stairs. Thought it better that Fleur shouldn’t run up against them. These things are very silly, but you never can tell.”
“No,” said Michael, drily; “you never can tell. I remember liking the look of him a good deal.”
“H’m!” muttered Soames: “He’s the son of his father, I expect.”
And, from the expression on his face, Michael formed the notion that this was a doubtful advantage.
No more was said, because of Soames’ lifelong conviction that one did not say any more than one need say; and of Michael’s prejudice against discussing Fleur seriously, even with her father. She had seemed to him quite happy lately. After five-and-a-half years of marriage, he was sure that mentally Fleur liked him, that physically she had no objection to him, and that a man was not sensible if he expected much more. She consistently declined, of course, to duplicate Kit, but only because she did not want to be put out of action again for months at a time. The more active, the happier she was–over this canteen for instance, she was in her glory. If, indeed, he had realised that Jon Forsyte was being fed there, Michael would have been troubled; as it was, the news of the young man’s reappearance in England made no great impression. The Country held the field of one’s attention those strenuous days. The multiple evidence of patriotism exhilarated him–undergraduates at the docks, young women driving cars, shopfolk walking cheerfully to their work, the swarm of ‘specials,’ the general ‘carrying-on.’ Even the strikers were good-humoured. A secret conviction of his own concerning England was being reinforced day by day, in refutation of the pessimists. And there was no place so unEnglish at the moment, he felt, as the House of Commons, where people had nothing to do but pull long faces and talk over ‘the situation.’
The news of the General Strike’s collapse caught him as he was going home after driving Fleur to the canteen. A fizz and bustle in the streets, and the words: “Strike Over” scrawled extempore at street corners, preceded the “End of the Strike–Official” of the hurrying news-vendors. Michael stopped his car against the curb and bought a news-sheet. There it was! For a minute he sat motionless with a choky feeling, such as he had felt when the news of the Armistice came through. A sword lifted from over the head of England! A source of pleasure to her enemies dried up! People passed and passed him, each with a news-sheet, or a look in the eye. They were taking it almost as soberly as they had taken the strike itself. ‘Good old England! We’re a great people when we’re up against it!’ he thought, driving his car slowly on into Trafalgar Square. A group of men, who had obviously been strikers, stood leaning against the parapet. He tried to read their faces. Glad, sorry, ashamed, resentful, relieved? For the life of him he could not tell. Some defensive joke seemed going the round of them.
‘No wonder we’re a puzzle to foreigners!’ thought Michael: ‘The least understood people in the world!’
He moved on slowly round the square, into Whitehall. Here were some slight evidences of feeling. The block was thick around the Cenotaph and the entrance to Downing Street; and little cheers kept breaking out. A ‘special’ was escorting a lame man across the street. As he came back, Michael saw his face. Why, it was Uncle Hilary! His mother’s youngest brother, Hilary Charwell, Vicar of St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads.
“Hallo, Michael!”
“You a ‘special,’ Uncle Hilary? Where’s your cloth?”
“My dear! Are you one of those who think the Church debarred from mundane pleasure? You’re not getting old-fashioned, Michael?”
Michael grinned. He had a real affection for Uncle Hilary, based on admiration for his thin, long face, so creased and humorous, on boyish recollection of a jolly uncle, on a suspicion that in Hilary Charwell had been lost a Polar explorer, or other sort of first-rate adventurer.
“That reminds me, Michael; when are you coming round to see us? I’ve got a topping scheme for airing ‘The Meads’.”
“Ah!” said Michael; “overcrowding’s at the bottom of everything, even this strike.”
“Right you are, my son. Come along, then, as soon as you can. You fellows in Parliament ought always to see things at first hand. You suffer from auto-intoxication in that House. And now pass on, young man, you’re impeding the traffic.”
Michael passed on, grinning. Good old Uncle Hilary! Humanising religion, and living dangerously–had climbed all the worst peaks in Europe; no sense of his own importance and a real sense of humour. Quite the best type of Englishman! They had tried to make him a dignitary, but he had jibbed at the gaiters and hat-ropes. He was what they called a ‘live wire’ and often committed the most dreadful indiscretions; but everybody liked him, even his own wife. Michael dwelt for a moment on his Aunt May. Forty–he supposed–with three children and fourteen hundred things to attend to every day; shingled, and cheerful as a sandboy. Nice-looking woman, Aunt May!
Having garaged his car, he remembered that he had not lunched. It was three o’clock. Munching a biscuit, he drank a glass of sherry, and walked over to the House of Commons. He found it humming in anticipation of a statement. Sitting back, with his legs stretched out, he had qualms. What things had been done in here! The abolitions of Slavery and of Child Labour, the Married Woman’s Property Act, Repeal of the Corn Laws; but could they be done nowadays? And if not–was it a life? He had said to Fleur that you couldn’t change your vocation twice and survive. But did he want to survive? Failing Foggartism–and Foggartism hadn’t failed only because it hadn’t started–what did he really care about?
Leaving the world better than he found it? Sitting there, he couldn’t help perceiving a certain vagueness about such an aspiration, even when confined to England. It was the aspiration of the House of Commons; but in the ebb and flow of Party, it didn’t seem to make much progress. Better to fix on some definite bit of administrative work, stick to it, and get something done. Fleur wanted him to concentrate on Kenya for the Indians. Again rather remote, and having little to do with England. What definite work was most needed in connection with England? Education? Bunkered again! How tell what was the best direction into which to turn education? When they brought in State Education, for instance, they had thought the question settled. Now people were saying that State education had ruined the State. Emigration? Attractive, but negative. Revival of agriculture? Well, the two combined were Foggartism, and he knew by now that nothing but bitter hardship would teach those lessons; you might talk till you were blue in the face without convincing anyone but yourself.
What then?
“I’ve got a topping scheme for airing ‘The Meads’.” The Meads was one of the worst slum parishes in London. ‘Clear the slums!’ thought Michael; ‘that’s practical anyway!’ You could smell the slums, and feel them. They stank and bit and bred corruption. And yet the dwellers therein loved them; or at least preferred them to slums they knew not of! And slum-dwellers were such good sorts! Too bad to play at shuttlecock with them! He must have a talk with Uncle Hilary. Lots of vitality in England still–numbers of red-haired children! But the vitality got sooted as it grew up–like plants in a back garden. Slum clearance, smoke abolition, industrial peace, emigration, agriculture, and safety in the air! ‘Them’s my sentiments!’ thought Michael. ‘And if that isn’t a large enough policy for any man, I’m–!’
He turned his face towards the Statement, and thought of his uncle’s words about this ‘House.’ Were they all really in a state of auto-intoxication here–continual slow poisoning of the tissues? All these chaps around him thought they were doing things. And he looked at the chaps. He knew most of them, and had great respect for many, but collectively he could not deny that they looked a bit dazed. His neighbour to the right was showing his front teeth in an asphyxiated smile. ‘Really,’ he thought; ‘it’s heroic how we all keep awake day after day!’
Chapter VIII.
SECRET
It would not have been natural that Fleur should rejoice in the collapse of the General Strike. A national outlook over such a matter was hardly in her character. Her canteen was completing the re-establishment in her of the social confidence which the Marjorie Ferrar affair had so severely shaken; and to be thoroughly busy with practical matters suited her. Recruited by Norah Curfew, by herself, Michael, and his Aunt Lady Alison Charwell, she had a first-rate crew of helpers of all ages, most of them in Society. They worked in the manner popularly attributed to negroes; they craned at nothing–not even beetles. They got up at, or stayed up to, all hours. They were never cross and always cheery. In a word, they seemed inspired. The difference they had made in the appearance of the railway’s culinary premises was startling to the Company. Fleur herself was ‘on the bridge’ all the time. On her devolved the greasing of the official wheels, the snipping off of red tape in numberless telephonic duels, and the bearding of the managerial face. She had even opened her father’s pocket to supplement the shortcomings she encountered. The volunteers were fed to repletion, and–on Michael’s inspiration–she had undermined the pickets with surreptitious coffee dashed with rum, at odd hours of their wearisome vigils. Her provisioning car, entrusted to Holly, ran the blockade, by leaving and arriving, as though Harridge’s, whence she drew her supplies, were the last place in its thoughts.
“Let us give the strikers,” said Michael, “every possible excuse to wink the other eye.”
The canteen, in fact, was an unqualified success. She had not seen Jon again, but she lived in that peculiar mixture of fear and hope which signifies a real interest in life. On the Friday Holly announced to her that Jon’s wife had arrived–might she bring her down next morning?
“Oh! yes,” said Fleur: “What is she like?”
“Attractive–with eyes like a water-nymph’s or so Jon thinks; but it’s quite the best type of water-nymph.”
“M-m!” said Fleur.
She was checking a list on the telephone next day when Holly brought Anne. About Fleur’s own height, straight and slim, darker in the hair, browner in complexion, browner in the eye (Fleur could see what Holly had meant by “water-nymph”) her nose a little too sudden, her chin pointed and her teeth very white, her successor stood. Did she know that Jon and she–?
And stretching out her free hand, Fleur said:
“I think it’s awfully sporting of you as an American. How’s your brother Francis?”
The hand she squeezed was brown, dry, warm; the voice she heard only faintly American, as if Jon had been at it.
“You were just too good to Francis. He always talks of you. If it hadn’t been for you–”
“That’s nothing. Excuse me… Ye-es?… No! If the Princess comes, ask her to be good enough to come when they’re feeding. Yes–yes–thank you! To-morrow? Certainly… Did you have a good crossing?
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