“Other ramps,” said Michael, gently.
“One will glide, deprecate Protection till there is more Protection than Free Trade, then deprecate Free Trade. Foggartism is an end, not a means; Free Trade and Protection are means, not the ends politicians have made them.”
Roused by the word politician, Michael got off the table; he was coming to have a certain sympathy with those poor devils. They were supposed to have no feeling for the country, and to be wise only after the event. But, really, who could tell what was good for the country, among the mists of talk? Not even old Foggart, Michael sometimes thought.
“You know, Blythe,” he said, “that we politicians don’t think ahead, simply because we know it’s no earthly. Every elector thinks his own immediate good is the good of the country. Only their own shoes pinching will change electors’ views. If Foggartism means adding to the price of living now, and taking wage-earning children away from workmen’s families for the sake of benefit—ten or twenty years hence—who’s going to stand for it?”
“My dear young man,” said Mr. Blythe, “conversion is our job. At present our trade-unionists despise the outside world. They’ve never seen it. Their philosophy is bounded by their smoky little streets. But five million pounds spent on the organised travel of a hundred thousand working men would do the trick in five years. It would infect the working class with a feverish desire for a place in the sun. The world is their children’s for the taking. But who can blame them, when they know nothing of it?”
“Some thought!” said Michaeclass="underline" “Only—what Government will think it? Can I take those maps?… By the way,” he said at the door, “there are Societies, you know, for sending out children.”
Mr. Blythe grunted. “Yes. Excellent little affairs! A few hundred children doing well—concrete example of what might be. Multiply it a hundredfold, and you’ve got a beginning. You can’t fill pails with a teaspoon. Good-bye!”
Out on the Embankment Michael wondered if one could love one’s country with a passion for getting people to leave it. But this over-bloated town condition, with its blight and smoky ugliness; the children without a chance from birth; these swarms of poor devils without work, who dragged about and hadn’t an earthly, and never would, on present lines; this unbalanced, hand-to-mouth, dependent state of things—surely that wasn’t to be for ever the state of the country one loved! He stared at the towers of Westminster, with the setting sun behind them. And there started up before him the thousand familiars of his past—trees, fields and streams, towers, churches, bridges; the English breeds of beasts, the singing birds, the owls, the jays and rooks at Lippinghall, the little differences from foreign sorts in shrub, flower, lichen, and winged life; the English scents, the English haze, the English grass; the eggs and bacon; the slow good humour, the moderation and the pluck; the smell of rain; the apple-blossom, the heather, and the sea. His country, and his breed—unspoilable at heart! He passed the Clock Tower. The House looked lacy and imposing, more beautiful than fashion granted. Did they spin the web of England’s future in that House? Or were they painting camouflage—a screen, over old England?
A familiar voice said: “This is a monstrous great thing!”
And Michael saw his father-inlaw staring up at the Lincoln statue. “What did they want to put it here for?” said Soames. “It’s not English.” He walked along at Michael’s side. “Fleur well?”
“Splendid. Italy suited her like everything.”
Soames sniffed. “They’re a theatrical lot,” he said. “Did you see Milan cathedral!”
“Yes, sir. It’s about the only thing we didn’t take to.”
“H’m! Their cooking gave me the collywobbles in ‘79. I dare say it’s better now. How’s the boy?”
“A1, sir.”
Soames made a sound of gratification, and they turned the corner into South Square.
“What’s this?” said Soames.
Outside the front door were two battered-looking trunks, a young man, grasping a bag, and ringing the bell, and a taxicab turning away.
“I can’t tell you, sir,” murmured Michael. “Unless it’s the angel Gabriel.”
“He’s got the wrong house,” said Soames, moving forward.
But just then the young man disappeared within.
Soames walked up to the trunks. “Francis Wilmot,” he read out. “‘S. S. Amphibian.’ There’s some mistake!”
Chapter IV.
MERE CONVERSATION
When they came in, Fleur was returning down-stairs from showing the young man to his room. Already fully dressed for the evening, she had but little on, and her hair was shingled…
“My dear girl,” Michael had said, when shingling came in, “to please me, don’t! Your nuque will be too bristly for kisses.”
“My dear boy,” she had answered, “as if one could help it! You’re always the same with any new fashion!”
She had been one of the first twelve to shingle, and was just feeling that without care she would miss being one of the first twelve to grow some hair again. Marjorie Ferrar, ‘the Pet of the Panjoys,’ as Michael called her, already had more than an inch. Somehow, one hated being distanced by Marjorie Ferrar…
Advancing to her father, she said:
“I’ve asked a young American to stay, Dad; Jon Forsyte has married his sister, out there. You’re quite brown, darling. How’s mother?”
Soames only gazed at her.
And Fleur passed through one of those shamed moments, when the dumb quality of his love for her seemed accusing the glib quality of her love for him. It was not fair—she felt—that he should look at her like that; as if she had not suffered in that old business with Jon more than he; if she could take it lightly now, surely he could! As for Michael—not a word!—not even a joke! She bit her lips, shook her shingled head, and passed into the ‘bimetallic parlour.’
Dinner began with soup and Soames deprecating his own cows for not being Herefords. He supposed that in America they had plenty of Herefords?
Francis Wilmot believed that they were going in for Holsteins now.
“Holsteins!” repeated Soames. “They’re new since my young days. What’s their colour?”
“Parti-coloured,” said Francis Wilmot. “The English grass is just wonderful.”
“Too damp, with us,” said Soames. “We’re on the river.”
“The river Thames? What size will that be, where it hasn’t a tide?”
“Just there—not more than a hundred yards.”
“Will it have fish?”
“Plenty.”
“And it’ll run clear—not red; our Southern rivers have a red colour. And your trees will be willows, and poplars, and elms.”
Soames was a good deal puzzled. He had never been in America. The inhabitants were human, of course, but peculiar and all alike, with more face than feature, heads fastened upright on their backs, and shoulders too square to be real. Their voices clanged in their mouths; they pronounced the words ‘very’ and ‘America’ in a way that he had tried to imitate without success; their dollar was too high, and they all had motor-cars; they despised Europe, came over in great quantities, and took back all they could; they talked all the time, and were not allowed to drink. This young man cut across all these preconceptions. He drank sherry and only spoke when he was spoken to. His shoulders looked natural; he had more feature than face; and his voice was soft. Perhaps, at least, he despised Europe.
“I suppose,” he said, “you find England very small.”
“No, sir. I find London very large; and you certainly have the loveliest kind of a countryside.”
Soames looked down one side of his nose. “Pretty enough!” he said.
Then came turbot and a silence, broken, low down, behind his chair.
“That dog!” said Soames, impaling a morsel of fish he had set aside as uneatable.
“No, no, Dad! He just wants to know you’ve seen him!”
Soames stretched down a finger, and the Dandie fell on his side.
“He never eats,” said Fleur; “but he has to be noticed.”
A small covey of partridges came in, cooked.
“Is there any particular thing you want to see over here, Mr. Wilmot?” said Michael. “There’s nothing very unAmerican left. You’re just too late for Regent Street.”