Джон Голсуорси - The Silver Spoon

Sir James Foskisson seemed to breathe more freely.

“In that case,” he said, “we have to consider whether to use the detective’s evidence or not. If we do, we shall need to subpoena the hall porter and the servants at Mr—er—Curfew’s flat.”

“Exactly,” said Soames; “that’s what we’re here to decide.” It was as if he had said: ‘The conference is now opened.’

Sir James perused the detective’s evidence for five silent minutes.

“If this is confirmed, even partially,” he said, at last, “we win.”

Michael had gone to the window. The trees in the garden had tiny buds; some pigeons were strutting on the grass below. He heard Soames say:

“I ought to tell you that they’ve been shadowing my daughter. There’s nothing, of course, except some visits to a young American dangerously ill of pneumonia at his hotel.”

“Of which I knew and approved,” said Michael, without turning round.

“Could we call him?”

“I believe he’s still at Bournemouth. But he was in love with Miss Ferrar.”

Sir James turned to Soames.

“If there’s no question of a settlement, we’d better go for the gloves. Merely to cross-examine as to books and play and clubs, is very inconclusive.”

“Have you read the dark scene in ‘The Plain Dealer’?” asked Soames; “and that novel, ‘Canthar’?”

“All very well, Mr. Forsyte, but impossible to say what a jury would make of impersonal evidence like that.”

Michael had come back to his seat.

“I’ve a horror,” he said, “of dragging in Miss Ferrar’s private life.”

“No doubt. But do you want me to win the case?”

“Not that way. Can’t we go into Court, say nothing, and pay up?”

Sir James Foskisson smiled and looked at Soames. ‘Really,’ he seemed to say, ‘why did you bring me this young man?’

Soames, however, had been pursuing his own thoughts.

“There’s too much risk about that flat; if we failed there, it might be a matter of twenty thousand pounds. Besides, they would certainly call my daughter. I want to prevent that at all costs. I thought you could turn the whole thing into an indictment of modern morality.”

Sir James Foskisson moved in his chair, and the pupils of his light-blue eyes became as pinpoints. He nodded almost imperceptibly three times, precisely as if he had seen the Holy Ghost.

“When shall we be reached?” he said to very young Nicholas.

“Probably next Thursday—Mr. Justice Brane.”

“Very well. I’ll see you again on Monday. Good evening.” And he sank back into an immobility, which neither Soames nor Michael felt equal to disturbing.

They went away silent—very young Nicholas tarrying in conversation with Sir James’ devil.

Turning at the Temple station, Michael murmured:

“It was just as if he’d said: ‘Some stunt!’ wasn’t it? I’m looking in at The Outpost, sir. If you’re going back to Fleur, will you tell her?”

Soames nodded. There it was! He had to do everything that was painful.

In the office of The Outpost Mr. Blythe had just been in conversation with one of those great business men who make such deep impression on all to whom they voice their views in strict confidence. If Sir Thomas Lockit did not precisely monopolise the control of manufacture in Great Britain, he, like others, caused almost any one to think so—his knowledge was so positive and his emphasis so cold. In his view the Country must resume the position held before the Great War. It all hinged on coal—a question of this seven hours a day; and they were “not going to have it.” A shilling, perhaps two shillings, off the cost of coal. They were “not going to have” Europe doing without British produce. Very few people knew Sir Thomas Lockit’s mind; but nearly all who did were extraordinarily gratified.

Mr. Blythe, however, was biting his finger, and spitting out the result.

“Who was that fellow with the grey moustache?” asked Michael.

“Lockit. He’s ‘not going to have it.’”

“Oh!” said Michael, in some surprise.

“One sees more and more, Mont, that the really dangerous people are not the politicians, who want things with public passion—that is, mildly, slowly; but the big business men, who want things with private passion, strenuously, quickly. They know their own minds; and if we don’t look out they’ll wreck the country.”

“What are they up to now?” said Michael.

“Nothing for the moment; but it’s brewing. One sees in Lockit the futility of will-power. He’s not going to have what it’s entirely out of his power to prevent. He’d like to break Labour and make it work like a nigger from sheer necessity. Before that we shall be having civil war. Some of the Labour people, of course, are just as bad—they want to break everybody. It’s a bee nuisance. If we’re all to be plunged into industrial struggles again, how are we to get on with Foggartism?”

“I’ve been thinking about the Country,” said Michael. “Aren’t we beating the air, Blythe? Is it any good telling a man who’s lost a lung, that what he wants is a new one?”

Mr. Blythe puffed out one cheek.

“Yes,” he said, “the Country had a hundred very settled years—Waterloo to the War—to get into its present state; it’s got its line of life so fixed and its habits so settled that nobody—neither editors, politicians, nor business men—can think except in terms of its bloated town industrialism. The Country’s got beyond the point of balance in that hundred settled years, and it’ll want fifty settled years to get back to that point again. The real trouble is that we’re not going to get fifty settled years. Some bee thing or other—war with Turkey or Russia, trouble in India, civil ructions, to say nothing of another general flare-up—may knock the bottom out of any settled plans any time. We’ve struck a disturbed patch of history, and we know it in our bones, and live from hand to mouth, according.”

“Well, then!” said Michael, glumly, thinking of what the Minister had said to him at Lippinghall.

Mr. Blythe puffed out the other cheek.

“No backsliding, young man! In Foggartism we have the best goods we can see before us, and we must bee well deliver them, as best we can. We’ve outgrown all the old hats.”

“Have you seen Aubrey Greene’s cartoon?”

“I have.”

“Good—isn’t it? But what I realty came in to tell you, is that this beastly libel case of ours will be on next week.”

Mr. Blythe’s ears moved.

“I’m sorry for that. Win or lose—nothing’s worse for public life than private ructions. You’re not going to have it, are you?”

“We can’t help it. But our defence is to be confined to an attack on the new morality.”

“One can’t attack what isn’t,” said Mr. Blythe.

“D’you mean to say,” said Michael, grinning, “that you haven’t noticed the new morality?”

“Certainly not. Formulate it if you can.”

“‘Don’t be stupid, don’t be dull.’”

Mr. Blythe grunted. “The old morality used to be: ‘Behave like a gentleman.’”

“Yes! But in modern thought there ain’t no sich an animal.”

“There are fragments lying about; they reconstructed Neanderthal man from half a skull.”

“A word that’s laughed at can’t be used, Blythe.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Blythe. “The chief failings of your generation, young Mont, are sensitiveness to ridicule, and terror of being behind the times. It’s bee weakminded.”

Michael grinned.

“I know it. Come down to the House. Parsham’s Electrification Bill is due. We may get some lights on Unemployment.”