Джон Голсуорси - The Silver Spoon

Michael got up.

“I know you don’t think there’s anything to my job. But there is, Fleur, and I’ve put my hand to it. Oh! don’t look like that. Dash it! This is dreadful!”

“I suppose I could go by myself. That would be more thrilling.”

“Absurd! Of course you couldn’t! You’re seeing blue to-night, old thing. It’ll all seem different tomorrow.”

“To-morrow and tomorrow! No, Michael, mortification has set in, my funeral can take place any day you like!”

Michael’s hands went up. She meant what she was saying! To realise, he must remember how much store she had set on her powers as hostess; how she had worked for her collection and shone among it! Her house of cards all pulled about her ears! Cruel! But would going round the world help her? Yes! Her instinct was quite right. He had been round the world himself, nothing else would change her values in quite that way; nothing else would so guarantee oblivion in others and herself! Lippinghall, her father’s, the sea for the five months till vacation came—they wouldn’t meet her case! She needed what would give her back importance. And yet, how could he go until the vacation? Foggartism—that lean and lonely plant—unwatered and without its only gardener, would wither to its roots, if, indeed, it had any. There was some movement in it now, interest here and there—this Member and that was pecking at it. Private efforts in the same direction were gathering way. And time was going on—Big Ben had called no truce; unemployment swelling, trade dawdling, industrial trouble brewing—brewing, hope losing patience! And what would old Blythe say to his desertion now?

“Give me a week,” he muttered. “It’s not easy. I must think it over.”

When MacGown came up to her, Marjorie Ferrar thought: ‘Does he know about Bertie?’ Fresh from her triumph over ‘that little snob,’ fluttered by the sudden appearance of her past, and confronted with her present, she was not in complete possession of her head. When they had moved away into an empty side room, she faced him.

“Well, Alec, nothing’s changed. I still have a past as lurid as it was yesterday. I’m extremely sorry I ever kept it from you. But I did practically tell you, several times; only you wouldn’t take it.”

“Because it was hell to me. Tell me everything, Marjorie!”

“You want to revel in it?”

“Tell me everything, and I’ll marry you still.”

She shook her head. “Marry! Oh! no! I don’t go out of my depth any more. It was absurd anyway. I never loved you, Alec.”

“Then you loved that—you still—”

“My dear Alec, enough!”

He put his hands to his head, and swayed. And she was touched by genuine compassion.

“I’m awfully sorry, I really am. You’ve got to cut me out; that’s all.”

She had turned to leave him, but the misery in his face stopped her. She had not quite realised.

He was burnt up! He was—! And she said quickly:

“Marry you I won’t; but I’d like to pay up, if I could—”

He looked at her.

Quivering all over from that look, she shrugged her shoulders, and walked away. Men of an old fashion! Her own fault for stepping outside the charmed circle that took nothing too seriously. She walked over the shining floor, conscious of many eyes, slipped past her hostess, and soon was in a cab.

She lay awake, thinking. Even without announcement, the return of presents would set London by the ears and bring on her again an avalanche of bills. Five thousand pounds! She got up and rummaged out the list, duplicate of that which Alec had. He might still want to pay them! After all, it was he who had spilled the ink by making her go into Court! But then his eyes came haunting her. Out of the question! And, shivering a little, she got back into bed. Perhaps she would have a brain-wave in the morning. She had so many in the night, that she could not sleep. Moscow with Bertie Curfew? The stage? America and the ‘movies’? All three? She slept at last, and woke languid and pale. With her letters was one from Shropshire House.

“DEAR MARJORIE,

“If you’ve nothing better to do, I should like to see you this morning.

“Affectionately,

“SHROPSHIRE.”

What now? She looked at herself in the glass, and decided that she MUST make up a little. At eleven o’clock she was at Shropshire House. The marquess was in his workroom at the top, among a small forest of contraptions. With coat off, he was peering through a magnifying-glass at what looked like nothing.

“Sit down, Marjorie,” he said; “I’ll have done in a minute.”

Except the floor, there seemed nowhere to sit, so she remained standing.

“I thought so,” said the marquess; “the Italians are wrong.”

He put the spy-glass down, ran his hand through his silvery hair, and drew his ruffled beard into a peak. Then, taking an eyebrow between finger and thumb, he gave it an upward twist, and scratched himself behind one ear.

“They’re wrong; there’s no reaction whatever.”

Turning towards his granddaughter, he screwed up his eyes till they were bright as pins. “You’ve never been up here before. Sit in the window.”

She seated herself on a broad window-ledge covering some sort of battery, with her back to the light.

“So you brought that case, Marjorie?”

“I had to.”

“Now, why?” He was standing with his head a little to one side, his cheeks very pink, and his eyes very shrewd. And she thought: ‘After all, I’m his granddaughter. I’ll plunge.’

“Common honesty, if you want to know.”

The marquess pouted, as if trying to understand the words.

“I read your evidence,” he said, “if you mean that.”

“No. I meant that I wanted to find out where I stood.”

“And did you?”

“Very much so.”

“Are you still going to be married?”

Really, he was a spry old boy!

“No.”

“Whose doing? Yours or his?”

“He still says he’ll marry me if I tell him everything. But I don’t choose to.”

The marquess moved two steps, placed his foot on a box, and assumed his favourite attitude. He had a red silk tie this morning which floated loose; his tweed trousers were of a blue-green, his shirt of a green-blue. He looked wonderfully bright.

“Is there much to tell?”

“A good deal.”

“Well, Marjorie, you know what I said to you.”

“Yes, Grandfather, but I don’t quite see it. I don’t want to stand for anything.”

“Ah! you’re an exception in our class—luckily! But it’s the exceptions that do the harm.”

“If people took one as any better than themselves, perhaps. But they don’t nowadays.”

“Not quite honest, that,” interrupted the marquess; “what about the feeling in your bones?”

She smiled.

“It’s good to mortify oneself, Grandfather.”

“By having a better time than you ought, um? So your marriage is off?”

“Very much so.”

“Are you in debt?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you owe?”

Marjorie Ferrar hesitated. Should she compromise, or blurt it out?

“No heel-taps, Marjorie.”

“Well, then, five thousand about.”

The old peer screwed up his lips, and a melancholy little whistle escaped.

“A good deal of it, of course, is due to my engagement.”

“Your father won a race the other day, I see.”

The old boy knew everything!

“Yes; but I believe it’s all gone.”

“It would be,” said the marquess. “What are you going to do now?”

She had a strong desire to answer: “What are you?” but restrained it, and said: