PART III

Chapter I.

‘CIRCUSES’

In his early boyhood Soames had been given to the circus. He had outgrown it; ‘Circuses’ were now to him little short of an abomination. Jubilees and Pageants, that recurrent decimal, the Lord Mayor, Earl’s Court, Olympia, Wembley—he disliked them all. He could not stand a lot of people with their mouths open. Dressing up was to him a symptom of weak-mindedness, and the collective excitement of a crowd an extravagance which offended his reticent individualism. Though not deeply versed in history, he had an idea, too, that nations who went in for ‘circuses’ were decadent. Queen Victoria’s funeral, indeed, had impressed him—there had been a feeling in the air that day; but ever since, things had gone from bad to worse. They made everything into a ‘circus’ now! A man couldn’t commit a murder without the whole paper-reading population—himself included—looking over each other’s shoulders; and as to these football-matches, and rodeos—they interfered with the traffic and the normal course of conversation; people were so crazy about them!

Of course, ‘circuses’ had their use. They kept the people quiet. Violence by proxy, for instance, was obviously a political principle of some value. It was difficult to gape and shed blood at the same time; the more people stood in rows by day to see others being hurt, the less trouble would they take to hurt others themselves, and the sounder Soames could sleep by night. Still, sensation-hunting had become a disease, in his opinion, and no one was being inoculated for it, so far as he could see!

As the weeks went on and the cases before it in the List went off, the ‘circus’ they were proposing to make of his daughter appeared to him more and more monstrous. He had an instinctive distrust of Scotchmen—they called themselves Scotsmen nowadays, as if it helped their character!—they never let go, and he could not approve in other people a quality native to himself. Besides, ‘Scotchmen’ were so—so exuberant—always either dour or else hearty—extravagant chaps! Towards the middle of March, with the case in the list for the following week, he took an extreme step and entered the Lobby of the House of Commons. He had spoken to no one of his determination to make this last effort, for it seemed to him that all—Annette, Michael, Fleur herself—had done their best to spoil the chance of settlement.

Having sent in his card, he waited a long while in that lofty purlieu. ‘Lobbying,’ he knew the phrase, but had never realised the waste of time involved in it. The statues consoled him somewhat. Sir Stafford Northcote—a steady chap; at old Forsyte dinner-parties in the eighties his character had been as much a standby as the saddle of mutton. He found even ‘that fellow Gladstone’ bearable in stucco, or whatever it was up there. You might dislike, but you couldn’t sneeze at him, as at some of these modern chaps. He was sunk in coma before Lord Granville when at last he heard the words:

“Sir Alexander MacGown,” and saw a square man with a ruddy face, stiff black hair, and clipped moustache, coming between the railings, with a card in his hand.

“Mr. Forsyte?”

“Yes. Can we go anywhere that’s not quite so public?”

The ‘Scotchman’ nodded, and led him down a corridor to a small room.

“Well?”

Soames smoothed his hat. “This affair,” he said, “can’t be any more agreable to you than it is to me.”

“Are you the individual who was good enough to apply the word ‘traitress’ to the lady I’m engaged to?”

“That is so.”

“Then I don’t see how you have the impudence to come and speak to me.”

Soames bit his lips.

“I spoke under the provocation of hearing your fiancee call my daughter a snob, in her own house. Do you want this petty affair made public?”

“If you think that you and your daughter can get away with calling the lady I’m going to marry ‘a snake,’ ‘a traitress,’ ‘an immoral person,’ you’re more mistaken that you ever were in your life. An unqualified apology that her Counsel can announce in Court is your only way out.”

“That you won’t get; mutual regret is another thing. As to the question of damages—”

“Damn the damages!” said MacGown violently. And there was that in Soames which applauded.

“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry for you and her.”

“What the devil do you mean, sir?”

“You will know by the end of next week, unless you revise your views in between. If it comes into Court, we shall justify.”

The ‘Scotchman’ went so red that for a moment Soames was really afraid he would have an apoplectic fit.

“You’d better look out what you say in Court.”

“We pay no attention to bullies in Court.”

MacGown clenched his fists.

“Yes,” said Soames, “it’s a pity I’m not your age. Good evening!”

He passed the fellow and went out. He had noted his way in this ‘rabbit warren,’ and was soon back among the passionless statues. Well! He had turned the last stone and could do no more, except make that overbearing fellow and his young woman sorry they’d ever been born. He came out into the chilly mist of Westminster. Pride and temper! Sooner than admit themselves in the wrong, people would turn themselves into an expensive ‘circus’ for the gaping and the sneers, the japing and the jeers of half the town! To vindicate her ‘honour,’ that ‘Scotchman’ would have his young woman’s past dragged out! And fairly faced by the question whether to drag it out or not, Soames stood still. If he didn’t, she might get a verdict; if he did, and didn’t convince the jury, the damages would be shockingly increased. They might run into thousands. He felt the need of definite decision. One had been drifting in the belief that the thing wouldn’t come into Court! Four o’clock! Not too late, perhaps, to see Sir James Foskisson. He would telephone to very young Nicholas to arrange a conference at once, and if Michael was at South Square, he would take him down to it…

In his study, Michael had been staring with lugubrious relish at Aubrey Greene’s cartoon of himself in a Society paper. On one leg, like Guy—or was it Slingsby?—in the Edward Lear ‘Nonsense’ book, he was depicted crying in a wilderness where a sardonic smile was rising on the horizon. Out of his mouth the word ‘Foggartism’ wreathed like the smoke of a cigar. Above a hole in the middle distance, a meercat’s body supported the upturned face and applauding forepaws of Mr. Blythe. The thing was devastating in treatment and design—not unkind, merely killing. Michael’s face had been endowed with a sort of after-dinner rapture, as if he were enjoying the sound of his own voice. Ridicule! Not even a personal friend, an artist, could see that the wilderness was at least as deserving of ridicule as the pelican! The cartoon seemed to write the word futility large across his page. It recalled to him Fleur’s words at the outset: “And by the time the Tories go out you’ll have your licence.” She was a born realist! From the first she had foreseen for him the position of an eccentric, picturesquely beating a little private drum! A dashed good cartoon! And no one could appreciate it so deeply as its victim. But why did every one smile at Foggartism? Why? Because among a people who naturally walked, it leaped like a grasshopper; to a nation that felt its way in fog, it seemed a will-o’-the-wisp. Yes, he was a fool for his pains! And—just then, Soames arrived.

“I’ve been to see that Scotchman,” he said. “He means to take it into Court.”

“Oh! Not really, sir! I always thought you’d keep it out.”

“Only an unqualified apology will do that. Fleur can’t give it; she’s in the right. Can you come down with me now and see Sir James Foskisson?”

They set out in a taxi for the Temple.

The chambers of very young Nicholas Forsyte were in Paper Buildings. Chinny, mild and nearly forty, he succeeded within ten minutes in presenting to them every possible doubt.