The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2

by John Galsworthy

  Sir Lawrence, who had also been coming to South Square almost daily during Kit’s illness, focused the problem with his eye-glass, and said nothing for quite two minutes.

  ‘What do you mean by magnetism, Michael? The rays of a setting or of a rising sun?’

  ‘Both, if possible, Dad.’

  ‘Difficult,’ said his progenitor, ‘difficult. One thing’s certain – you can’t afford cleverness.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The public have suffered from it too much. Besides, we don’t really like it in this country, Michael. Character, my dear, character!’

  Michael groaned.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Sir Lawrence, ‘awfully out of date with you young folk.’ Then raising his loose eyebrow abruptly so that his eye-glass fell on to the problem, he added: ‘Eureka! Wilfred Bentworth! The very man – last of the squires – reforming the slums. It’s what you’d call a stunt.’

  ‘Old Bentworth?’ repeated Michael dubiously.

  ‘He’s only my age – sixty-eight, and got nothing to do with politics.’

  ‘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.’

  The early English specimen in the chair before him twinkled.

  ‘The Charwells, you know,’ went on Sir Lawrence, ‘were hoary when that rascally lawyer, the first Mont, founded us under James the First.’

  ‘Oh!’ said the squire. ‘Are you one of his precious creations? I didn’t know.’

  ‘You’re not familiar with the slums, sir?’ said Michael, feeling that they must not wander in the mazes of descent.

  ‘What! No. Ought to be, I suppose. Poor devils!’

  ‘It’s not so much,’ said Michael, cunningly, ‘the humanitarian side, as the deterioration of stock, which is so serious.’

  ‘M’m?’ said the squire. ‘Do you know anything about stock-breeding?’

  Michael shook his head.

  ‘Well, you can take it from me that it’s nearly all heredity. You could fat a slum population, but you can’t change their character!’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything very wrong with their character,’ said Michael. ‘The children are predominantly fair, which means, I suppose that they’ve still got the Anglo-Saxon qualities.’

  He saw his father cock an eye. ‘Quite the diplomat!’ he seemed saying.

  ‘Whom have you got in mind for this committee?’ asked the squire, abruptly.

  ‘My father,’ said Michael; ‘and we’d thought of the Marquess of Shropshire –’

  ‘Very long in the tooth.’

  ‘But very spry,’ said Sir Lawrence. ‘Still game to electrify the world.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Sir Timothy Fanfield –’

  ‘That fire-eating old buffer! Yes?’

  ‘Sir Thomas Morsell –’

  ‘M’m!’

  Michael hurried on: ‘Or any other medical man you thought better of, sir.’

  ‘There are none. Are you sure about the bugs?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘Well, I should have to see Charwell. I’m told he can gammon the hind-leg off a donkey.’

  ‘Hilary’s a good fellow,’ put in Sir Lawrence; ‘a really good fellow, “squire”.’

  ‘Well, Mont, if I take to him, I’ll come in. I don’t like vermin.’

  ‘A great national movement, sir,’ began Michael, ‘and nobody–’

  The squire shook his head.

  ‘Don’t make any mistake,’ he said. ‘May get a few pounds, perhaps – get rid of a few bugs; but national movements – no such things in this country.’…

/>   ‘Stout fellow,’ said Sir Lawrence when they were going down the steps again; ‘never been enthusiastic in his life. He’ll make a splendid chairman. I think we’ve got him, Michael. You played your bugs well. We’d better try the Marquess next. Even a duke will serve under Bentworth, they know he’s of older family then themselves, and there’s something about him.’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Well, he isn’t thinking about himself; he never gets into the air; and he doesn’t give a damn for anyone or anything.’

  ‘There must be something more than that,’ said Michael.

  ‘Well, there is. The fact is, he thinks as England really thinks, and not as it thinks it thinks.’

  ‘By Jove!’ said Michael. ‘ “Some” diagnosis! Shall we dine, sir?’

  ‘Yes, let’s go to the Parthenaeum! When they made me a member there, I used to think I should never go in, but d’you know, I use it quite a lot. It’s more like the East than anything else in London. A Yogi could ask for nothing better. I go in and I sit in a trance until it’s time for me to come out again. There’s no vulgar material comfort. The prevailing colour is that of the Ganges. And there’s more inaccessible wisdom in the place than you could find anywhere else in the West. We’ll have the club dinner. It’s calculated to moderate all transports. Lunch, of course, you can’t get if you’ve a friend with you. One must draw the line somewhere at hospitality.’

  ‘Now,’ he resumed, when they had finished moderating their transports, ‘let’s go and see the Marquess! I haven’t set eyes on the old boy since that Marjorie Ferrar affair. We’ll hope he hasn’t got gout…’

  In Curzon Street, they found that the Marquess had finished dinner and gone back to his study.

  ‘Don’t wake him if he’s asleep,’ said Sir Lawrence.

  ‘His lordship is never asleep, Sir Lawrence.’

  He was writing when they were ushered in, and stopped to peer at them round the corner of his bureau.

  ‘Ah, young Mont!’ he said. ‘How pleasant!’ Then paused rather abruptly. ‘Nothing to do with my granddaughter, I trust?’

  ‘Far from it, Marquess. We just want your help in a public work on behalf of the humble. It’s a slum proposition, as the Yanks say.’

  The Marquess shook his head.

  ‘I don’t like interfering with the humble; the humbler people are, the more one ought to consider their feelings.’

  ‘We’re absolutely with you there, sir; but let my son explain.’

  ‘Sit down, then.’ And the Marquess rose, placed his foot on his chair, and, leaning his elbow on his knee, inclined his head to one side. For the second time that evening Michael plunged into explanation.

  ’Bentworth?’ said the Marquess. ‘His shorthorns are good; a solid fellow, but behind the times.’

  ‘That’s why we want you, Marquess.’

  ‘My dear young Mont, I’m too old.’

  ‘It’s precisely because you’re so young that we came to you.’

  ‘Frankly, sir,’ said Michael, ‘we thought you’d like to be on the committee of appeal, because in my uncle’s policy there’s electrification of the kitchens; we must have someone who’s an authority on that and keep it to the fore.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the Marquess. ‘Hilary Charwell – I once heard him preach in St Paul’s – most amusing! What do the slum-dwellers say to electrification?’

  ‘Nothing till it’s done, of course, but once it’s done, it’s everything to them.’

  ‘H’m!’ said the Marquess. ‘H’m! It would appear that there are no flies on your uncle.’

  ‘We hope’ pursued Michael, ‘that, with electrification, there will soon be no flies on anything else.’

  The Marquess nodded. ‘It’s the right end of the stick. I’ll think of it. My trouble is that I’ve no money; and I don’t like appealing to others without putting down something substantial myself.’

  The two Monts looked at each other; the excuse was patent, and they had not foreseen it.

  ‘I suppose,’ went on the Marquess, ‘you don’t know anyone who would buy some lace – point de Venise, the real stuff? Or,’ he added, ‘I’ve a Morland –’

  ‘Have you?’ cried Michael. ‘My father-in-law was saying only the other day that he wanted a Morland.’

  ‘Has he a good home for it?’ said the Marquess, rather wistfully. ‘It’s a white pony.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir; he’s a real collector.’

  ‘Any chance of its going to the nation, in time?’

  ‘Quite a good chance, I think.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he’d come and look at it. It’s never changed hands so far. If he would give me the market price, whatever that may be, it might solve the problem.’

  ‘That’s frightfully good of you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the Marquess. ‘I believe in electricity, and I detest smoke; this seems a movement in the right direction. It’s a Mr Forsyte, I think. There was a case – my granddaughter; but that’s a past matter. I trust you’re friends again?’

  ‘Yes, sir; I saw her about a fortnight ago, and it was quite O.K.’

  ‘Nothing lasts with you modern young people,’ said the Marquess; ‘the younger generation seems to have forgotten the war already. Is that good, I wonder? What do you say, Mont?’

  ‘ “Tout casse, tout passe,” Marquess.’

  ‘Oh! I don’t complain,’ said the Marquess; ‘rather the contrary. By the way – on this committee you’ll want a new man with plenty of money.’

  ‘Can you suggest one?’

  ‘My next-door neighbour – a man called Montross – I think his real name is shorter – might possibly serve. He’s made millions, I believe, out of the elastic band – has some patent for making them last only just long enough. I see him sometimes gazing longingly at the – I don’t use them, you know. Perhaps if you mention my name. He has a wife, and no title at present I should imagine he might be looking for a public work.’

  ‘He sounds,’ said Sir Lawrence, ‘the very man. Do you think we might venture now?’

  ‘Try!’ said the Marquess, ‘try. A domestic character, I’m told. It’s no use doing things by halves; an immense amount of money will be wanted if we are to electrify any considerable number of kitchens. A man who would help substantially towards that would earn his knighthood much better than most people.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Sir Lawrence; ‘a real public service. I suppose we mustn’t dangle the knighthood?’

  The Marquess shook the head that was resting on his hand.

  ‘In these days – no,’ he said. ‘Just the names of his colleagues. We can hardly hope that he’ll take an interest in the thing for itself.’

  ‘Well, thank you ever so much. We’ll let you know whether Wilfred Bentworth will take the chair, and how we progress generally.’

  The Marquess took his foot down and inclined his head at Michael.

  ‘I like to see young politicians interesting themselves in the future of England, because, in fact, no amount of politics will prevent her having one. By the way, have you had your own kitchen electrified?’

  ‘My wife and I are thinking of it, sir.’

  ‘Don’t think!’ said the Marquess. ‘Have it done!’

  ‘We certainly shall, now.’

  ‘We must strike while the strike is on,’ said the Marquess. ‘If there is anything shorter than the public’s memory, I am not aware of it.’

  ‘Phew!’ said Sir Lawrence, on the next doorstep; ‘the old boy’s spryer than ever. I take it we may assume that the name here was originally Moss. If so, the question is: “Have we the wits for this job?” ’

  And, in some doubt, they scrutinized the mansion before them.

  ‘We had better be perfectly straightforward,’ said Michael ‘Dwell on the slums, mention the names we hope to get, and leave the rest to him.’

  ‘I think,’ said his father, ‘we had better say “got”, not “hope to get”.’

  ‘The moment we mention
the names, Dad, he’ll know we’re after his dibs.’

  ‘He’ll know that in any case, my boy.’

  ‘I suppose there’s no doubt about the dibs?’

  ‘ “Montross, Ltd I” They’re not confined to elastic bands.’

  ‘I should like to make a perfectly plain appeal to his generosity, Dad. There’s a lot of generosity in that blood, you know.’

  ‘We can’t stand just here, Michael, discussing the make-up of the chosen. Ring the bell!’

  Michael rang.

  ‘Mr Montross at home? Thank you. Will you give him these cards, and ask if we might see him for a moment?’

  The room into which they were ushered was evidently accustomed to that sort of thing, for, while there was nothing that anyone could take away, there were chairs in which it was possible to be quite comfortable, and some valuable but large pictures and busts.

  Sir Lawrence was examining a bust, and Michael a picture, when the door was opened, and a voice said: ‘Yes, gentlemen?’

  Mr Montross was of short stature, and somewhat like a thin walrus who had once been dark but had gone grey; his features were slightly aquiline, he had melancholy brown eyes, and big drooping grizzly moustaches and eyebrows.

  ‘We were advised to come to you, sir,’ began Michael at once, ‘by your neighbour, the Marquess of Shropshire. We’re trying to form a committee to issue an appeal for a national fund to convert the slums.’ And for the third time he plunged into detail.

  ‘And why do you come to me, gendcmenr?” said Mr Montross, when he had finished.

  Michael subdued a stammer.

  ‘Because of your wealth, sir,’ he said, simply.

  ‘Good!’ said Mr Montross. ‘You see, I began in the slums, Mr Mont – is it? – yes, Mr Mont – I began there – I know a lot about those people, you know. I thought perhaps you came to me because of that.’

  ‘Splendid, sir,’ said Michael, ‘but of course we hadn’t an idea.’