The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 (2 page)

This is really the fundamental difference between the present and the past generations. People will not provide against that which they cannot see ahead.

All this, of course, refers only to that tenth or so of the population whose eyes are above the property line; below that line there are no Forsytes, and therefore no need for this preface to dip. What average Englishman, moreover, with less than three hundred a year ever took thought for the future, even in Early Victorian days?

This Modern Comedy, then, is staged against a background of that more or less fixed quantity, Soames, and his co-father-in-law, light weight and ninth baronet, Sir Lawrence Mont, with such subsidiary neo-Victorians as the self-righteous Mr Danby,
Elderson, Mr Blythe, Sir James Foskisson, Wilfred Bentworth, and Hilary Charwell. Pooling their idiosyncrasies, qualities, and mental attitudes, one gets a fairly comprehensive and steady past against which to limn the features of the present – Fleur and Michael, Wilfrid Desert, Aubrey Greene, Marjorie Ferrar, Norah Curfew, Jon, the Rafaelite, and other minor characters. The multiple types and activities of today – even above the Plimsoll line of property – would escape the confines of twenty novels, so that this Modern Comedy is bound to be a gross understatement of the present generation, but not perhaps a libel on it. Symbolism is boring, so let us hope that a certain, resemblance between the case of Fleur and that of her generation chasing the serenity of which it has been defrauded may escape notice. The fact remains that for the moment, at least, youth is balancing, twirling on the tiptoes of uncertainty. What is to come? Will contentment yet be caught? How will it all settle down? Will things ever again settle down – who knows? Are there to come fresh wars, and fresh inventions hot-foot on those not yet mastered and digested? Or will Fate decree another pause, like that of Victorian times, during which revaluated life will crystallize, and give property and its brood of definite beliefs a further innings?

But, however much or little ‘A Modern Comedy' may be deemed to reflect the spirit of an Age, it continues in the main to relate the tale of life which sprang from the meeting of Soames and Irene in a Bournemouth drawing-room in 1881, a tale which could but end when its spine snapped, and Soames ‘took the ferry' forty-five years later.

The chronicler, catechized (as he often is) concerning Soames, knows not precisely what he stands for. Taking him for all in all he was honest, anyway. He lived and moved and had his peculiar being, and now he sleeps. His creator may be pardoned for thinking there was something fitting about his end, for, however far we have travelled from Greek culture and philosophy, there is still truth in the old Greek proverb: ‘That which a man most loves shall in the end destroy him.'

JOHN GALSWORTHY

‘No retreat, no retreat
They must conquer or die
Who have no retreat!'

Mr Gay

PROMENADE

C
OMING
down the steps of ‘Snooks' Club, so nicknamed by George Forsyte in the late eighties, on that momentous mid-October afternoon of 1922, Sir Lawrence Mont, ninth baronet, set his fine nose towards the east wind, and moved his thin legs with speed. Political by birth rather than by nature, he reviewed the revolution which had restored his Party to power with a detachment not devoid of humour. Passing the Remove Club, he thought: ‘Some sweating into shoes, there! No more confectioned dishes. A woodcock – without trimmings, for a change!'

The captains and the kings had departed from ‘Snooks' before he entered it, for he was not of ‘that catch-penny crew, now paid off, no sir; fellows who turned their tails on the land the moment the war was over. Pah!' But for an hour he had listened to echoes, and his lively twisting mind, embedded in deposits of the past, sceptical of the present and of all political protestations and pronouncements, had recorded with amusement the confusion of patriotism and personalities left behind by the fateful gathering. Like most landowners, he distrusted doctrine. If he had a political belief, it was a tax on wheat; and so far as he could see, he was now alone in it – but then he was not seeking election; in other words, his principle was not in danger of extinction from the votes of those who had to pay for bread. Principles – he mused –
au fond
were pocket; and he wished the deuce people wouldn't pretend they weren't! Pocket, in the deep sense of that word, of course, self-interest as member of a definite community. And how the devil was this definite community, the English nation, to exist, when all its land was going out of cultivation, and all its ships and docks in danger of
destruction by aeroplanes? He had listened that hour past for a single mention of the land. Not one! It was not practical politics! Confound the fellows! They had to wear their breeches out – keeping seats or getting them. No connexion between posteriors and posterity! No, by George! Thus reminded of posterity, it occurred to him rather suddenly that his son's wife showed no signs as yet. Two years! Time they were thinking about children. It was dangerous to get into the habit of not having them, when a title and estate depended. A smile twisted his lips and eyebrows which resembled spinneys of dark pothooks. A pretty young creature, most taking; and knew it, too! Whom was she not getting to know? Lions and tigers, monkeys and cats – her house was becoming quite a menagerie of more or less celebrities. There was a certain unreality about that sort of thing! And opposite a British lion in Trafalgar Square Sir Lawrence thought: ‘She'll be getting these to her house next! She's got the collecting habit. Michael must look out – in a collector's house there's always a lumber-room for old junk, and husbands are liable to get into it. That reminds me: I promised her a Chinese Minister. Well, she must wait now till after the General Election.'

Down Whitehall, under the grey easterly sky, the towers of Westminster came for a second into view. ‘A certain unreality in that, too,' he thought. ‘Michael and his fads! Well, it's the fashion – Socialistic principles and a rich wife. Sacrifice with safety! Peace with plenty! Nostrums – ten a penny!'

Passing the newspaper hubbub of Charing Cross, frenzied by the political crisis, he turned up to the left towards Danby and Winter, publishers, where his son was junior partner. A new theme for a book had just begun to bend a mind which had already produced a
Life of Montrose, Far Cathay
, that work of Eastern travel, and a fanciful conversation between the shades of Gladstone, and Disraeli – entitled
A Duet
. With every step taken, from ‘Snooks' eastward, his erect thin figure in Astrakhan-collared coat, his thin grey-moustached face, and tortoise-shell rimmed monocle under the lively dark eyebrow, had seemed more rare. It became almost a phenomenon in this
dingy back street, where carts stuck like winter flies, and persons went by with books under their arms, as if educated.

He had nearly reached the door of Danby's when he encountered two young men. One of them was clearly his son, better dressed since his marriage, and smoking a cigar – thank goodness – instead of those eternal cigarettes; the other – ah! yes – Michael's sucking poet and best man, head in air, rather a sleek head under a velour hat! He said:

‘Ha, Michael!'

‘Hallo
, Bart! You know my governor, Wilfrid? Wilfrid Desert.
Copper Coin
– some poet, Bart, I tell you. You must read him. We're going home. Come along!'

Sir Lawrence went along.

‘What happened at “Snooks”?'

‘Le roi est mort
. Labour can start lying, Michael – election next month.'

‘Bart was brought up, Wilfrid, in days that knew not Demos.'

‘Well, Mr Desert, do
you
find reality in politics now?'

‘Do you find reality in anything, sir?'

‘In income tax, perhaps.'

Michael grinned.

‘Above knighthood,' he said, ‘there's no such thing as simple faith.'

‘Suppose your friends came into power, Michael – in some ways not a bad thing, help 'em to grow up – what could they do, eh? Could they raise national taste? Abolish the cinema? Teach English people to cook? Prevent other countries from threatening war? Make us grow our own food? Stop the increase of town life? Would they hang dabblers in poison gas? Could they prevent flying in war-time? Could they weaken the possessive instinct – anywhere? Or do anything, in fact, but alter the incidence of possession a little? All party politics are top dressing. We're ruled by the inventors, and human nature; and we live in Queer Street, Mr Desert.'

‘Much my sentiments, sir.'

Michael flourished his cigar.

‘Bad old men, you two!'

And removing their hats, they passed the Cenotaph.

‘Curiously symptomatic – that thing,' said Sir Lawrence; ‘monument to the dread of swank – most characteristic. And the dread of swank –'

‘Go on, Bart,' said Michael.

‘The fine, the large, the florid – all off! No far-sighted views, no big schemes, no great principles, no great religion, or great art – aestheticism in cliques and backwaters, small men in small hats.'

‘As panteth the heart after Byron, Wilberforce, and the Nelson Monument. My poor old Bart! What about it, Wilfrid?'

‘Yes, Mr Desert – what about it?'

Desert's dark face contracted.

‘It's an age of paradox,' he said. ‘We all kick up for freedom, and the only institutions gaining strength are Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church. We're frightfully self-conscious about art – and the only art development is the cinema. We're nuts on peace – and all we're doing about it is to perfect poison gas.'

Sir Lawrence glanced sideways at a young man so bitter.

‘And how's publishing, Michael?'

‘Well,
Copper Coin
is selling like hot cakes; and there's quite a movement in
A Duet
. What about this for a new ad.: “A Duet, by Sir Lawrence Mont, Bart. The most distinguished Conversation ever held between the Dead.” That ought to get the psychic. Wilfrid suggested “G.O.M. and Dizzy – broadcasted from Hell.” Which do you like best?'

They had come, however, to a policeman holding up his hand against the nose of a van horse, so that everything marked time. The engines of the cars whirred idly, their drivers' faces set towards the space withheld from them; a girl on a bicycle looked vacantly about her, grasping the back of the van, where a youth sat sideways with his legs stretched out towards her. Sir Lawrence glanced again at young Desert. A thin, pale-dark face, good-looking, but a hitch in it, as if not properly timed; nothing
outré
in dress or manner, and yet socially at large; less vivacious than that lively rascal, his own son, but as anchorless, and more
sceptical – might feel things pretty deeply, though! The policeman lowered his arm.

‘You were in the war, Mr Desert?'

‘Oh, yes.'

‘Air service?'

‘And line. Bit of both.'

‘Hard on a poet.'

‘Not at all. Poetry's only possible when you may be blown up at any moment, or when you live in Putney.'

Sir Lawrence's eyebrow rose. ‘Yes?'

‘Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth, Swinburne – they could turn it out;
ils vivaient, mais si peu.'

‘Is there not a third condition favourable?'

‘And that, sir?'

‘How shall I express it – a certain cerebral agitation in connexion with women?'

Desert's face twitched, and seemed to darken.

Michael put his latchkey into the lock of his front door.

HOME

T
HE
house in South Square, Westminster, to which the young Monts had come after their Spanish honeymoon two years before, might have been called ‘emancipated'. It was the work of an architect whose dream was a new house perfectly old, and an old house perfectly new. It followed therefore, no recognized style or tradition, and was devoid of structural prejudice; but it soaked up the smuts of the metropolis with such special rapidity that its stone already respectably resembled that of Wren. Its windows and doors had gently rounded tops. The high-sloping roof, of a fine sooty pink, was almost Danish, and two ‘ducky little windows' looked out of it, giving an impression that very
tall servants lived up there. There were rooms on each side of the front door, which was wide and set off by bay trees in black and gold bindings. The house was thick through, and the staircase, of a broad chastity, began at the far end of a hall which had room for quite a number of hats and coats and cards. There were four bathrooms; and not even a cellar underneath. The Forsyte instinct for a house had co-operated in its acquisition. Soames had picked it up for his daughter, undecorated, at that psychological moment when the bubble of inflation was pricked, and the air escaping from the balloon of the world's trade. Fleur, however, had established immediate contact with the architect – an element which Soames himself had never quite got over – and decided not to have more than three styles in her house: Chinese, Spanish, and her own. The room to the left of the front door, running the breadth of the house, was Chinese, with ivory panels, a copper floor, central heating, and cut-glass lustres. It contained four pictures – all Chinese – the only school in which her father had not yet dabbled. The fireplace, wide and open, had Chinese dogs with Chinese tiles for them to stand on. The silk was chiefly of jade green. There were two wonderful old black tea-chests, picked up with Soames's money at Jobson's – not a bargain. There was no piano, partly because pianos were too uncompromisingly occidental, and partly because it would have taken up much room. Fleur aimed at space – collecting people rather than furniture or
bibelots
. The light, admitted by windows at both ends, was unfortunately not Chinese. She would stand sometimes in the centre of this room, thinking – how to ‘bunch' her guests, how to make her room more Chinese without making it uncomfortable; how to seem to know all about literature and politics; how to accept everything her father gave her, without making him aware that his taste had no sense of the future; how to keep hold of Sibley Swan, the new literary star, and to get hold of Gurdon Minho, the old; or how Wilfrid Desert was getting too fond of her; of what was really her style in dress; of why Michael had such funny ears; and sometimes she stood not thinking at all – just aching a little.