Джон Голсуорси - The Silver Spoon

The loom of Slough faded. One was in rank country now, and he ground the handle of the window to get a little fresh air. A smell of trees and grass came in. Boys out of England! They had funny accents in those great places overseas. Well, they had funny accents here, too. The accent had been all right at Slough—if it wasn’t a boy got lammed. He remembered the first time his father and mother—James and Emily—came down; very genteel (before the word was flyblown), all whiskers and crinoline; the beastly boys had made personal remarks which had hurt him! Get ’em out of England! But in those days there had been nowhere for boys to go. He took a long breath of the wayside air. They said England was changed, spoiled, some even said ‘done for.’ Bosh! It still smelt the same! His great uncle ‘Superior Dosset’s’ brother Simon had gone as a boy to Bermuda at the beginning of the last century, and had he been heard of since? Not he. Young Jon Forsyte and his mother—his own first, unfaithful, still not quite forgotten wife—had gone to the States—would they be heard of again? He hoped not. England! Some day, when he had time and the car was free, he would go and poke round on the border of Dorset and Devon where the Forsytes came from. There was nothing there—he understood, and he wouldn’t care to let anybody know of his going; but the earth must be some sort of colour, and there would be a graveyard, and—ha! Maidenhead! These sprawling villas and hotels and gramophones spoiled the river. Funny that Fleur had never been very fond of the river; too slow and wet, perhaps—everything was quick and dry now, like America. But had they such a river as the Thames anywhere out of England? Not they! Nothing that ran green and clear and weedy, where you could sit in a punt and watch the cows, and those big elms, and the poplars. Nothing that was safe and quiet, where you called your soul your own and thought of Constable and Mason and Walker.

His car bumped something slightly, and came to a stand. That fellow Riggs was always bumping something! He looked out. The chauffeur had got down and was examining his mudguard.

“What was that?” said Soames.

“I think it was a pig, sir.”

“Where?”

“Shall I drive on, or see?”

Soames looked round. There seemed no habitations in sight.

“Better see.”

The chauffeur disappeared behind the car. Soames remained seated. He had never had any pigs. They said the pig was a clean animal. People didn’t treat pigs properly. It was very quiet! No cars on the road; in the silence the wind was talking a little in the hedgerow. He noticed some stars.

“It is a pig, sir; he’s breathing.”

“Oh!” said Soames. If a cat had nine, how many lives had a pig? He remembered his father James’ only riddle: “If a herring and a half cost three-a’pence, what’s the price of a gridiron?” When still very small, he had perceived that it was unanswerable.

“Where is he?” he said.

“In the ditch, sir.”

A pig was property, but if in the ditch, nobody would notice it till after he was home. “Drive on,” he said: “No! Wait.’” And, opening the near door, he got out. After all, the pig was in distress. “Show me,” he said, and moved in the tail-light of his car to where the chauffeur stood pointing. There, in the shallow ditch, was a dark object emitting cavernous low sounds, as of a man asleep in a Club chair.

“It must belong to one of them cottages we passed a bit back,” said the chauffeur.

Soames looked at the pig.

“Anything broken?”

“No, sir; the mudguard’s all right. I fancy it copped him pretty fair.”

“In the pig, I meant.”

The chauffeur touched the pig with his boot. It squealed, and Soames quivered. Some one would hear! Just like that fellow, drawing attention to it—no gumption whatever! But how, without touching, did you find out whether anything was broken in the pig? He moved a step and saw the pig’s eyes; and a sort of fellow-feeling stirred in him. What if it had a broken leg! Again the chauffeur touched it with his foot. The pig uttered a lamentable noise, and, upheaving its bulk, squealing and grunting, trotted off. Soames hastily resumed his seat. “Drive on!” he said. Pigs! They never thought of anything but themselves; and cottagers were just as bad—very unpleasant about cars. And he wasn’t sure they weren’t right—tearing great things! The pig’s eye seemed looking at him again from where his feet were resting. Should he keep some, now that he had those meadows on the other side of the river? Eat one’s own bacon, cure one’s own hams! After all, there was something in it—clean pigs, properly fed! That book of old Foggart said one must grow more food in England, and be independent if there were another war. He sniffed. Smell of baking—Reading, already! They still grew biscuits in England! Foreign countries growing his food—something unpleasant about living on sufferance like that! After all, English meat and English wheat—as for a potato, you couldn’t get one fit to eat in Italy, or France. And now they wanted to trade with Russia again! Those Bolshevists hated England. Eat their wheat and eggs, use their tallow and skins? Infra dig, he called it! The car swerved and he was jerked against the side cushions. The village church! – that fellow Riggs was always shying at something. Pretty little old affair, too, with its squat spire and its lichen—couldn’t see that out of England—graves, old names, yew-trees. And that reminded him: One would have to be buried, some day. Here, perhaps. Nothing flowery! Just his name, ‘Soames Forsyte,’ standing out on rough stone, like that grave he had sat on at Highgate; no need to put ‘Here lies’—of course he’d lie! As to a cross, he didn’t know. Probably they’d put one, whatever he wished. He’d like to be in a corner, though, away from people—with an apple-tree or something, over him. The less they remembered him, the better. Except Fleur—and she would have other things to think of!

The car turned down the last low hill to the level of the river. He caught a glimpse of it flowing dark between the poplars, like the soul of England, running hidden. The car rolled into the drive, and stopped before the door. He shouldn’t tell Annette yet about this case coming into Court—she wouldn’t feel as he did—she had no nerves!

Marjorie Ferrar’s marriage was fixed for the day of the Easter Recess; her honeymoon to Lugano; her trousseau with Clothilde; her residence in Eaton Square; her pin-money at two thousand a year; and her affections on nobody. When she received a telephone message: Would she come to breakfast at Shropshire House? she was surprised. What could be the matter with the old boy?

At five minutes past nine, however, on the following day she entered the ancestral precincts, having left almost all powder and pigment on her dressing-table. Was he going to disapprove of her marriage? Or to give her some of her grandmother’s lace, which was only fit to be in a museum?

The marquess was reading the paper in front of an electric fire. He bent on her his bright, shrewd glance.

“Well, Marjorie? Shall we sit down, or do you like to breakfast standing? There’s porridge, scrambled eggs, fish—ah! and grapefruit—very considerate of them! Pour out the coffee, will you?”

“What’ll you have, Grandfather?”

“Thank you, I’ll roam about and peck a bit. So you’re going to be married. Is that fortunate?”

“People say so.”

“He’s in Parliament, I see. Do you think you could interest him in this Electricity Bill of Parsham’s?”

“Oh! yes. He’s dead keen on electricity.”

“Sensible man. He’s got Works, I suppose. Are they electrified?”