The Forsyte Saga 4: The White Monkey

by John Galsworthy

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

It's 1922 and Fleur Forsyte is now married to Michael Mont. Fleur throws herself into the roaring 20s with the rest of London, taking life as it comes. But the marriage is haunted by the ghost of a past love affair, and however vibrant Fleur appears, those closest to her sense her unhappiness. Michael, devoted to Fleur but not blind to her faults, is determined to stand by her through anything. He also finds himself caught up in the tragic and poignant story of a young couple struggling for survival in an age of unemployment and extreme poverty.

Release date: August 4, 2011

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 336

Sample

John Galsworthy was born on August 14, 1867, at Kingston Hill in Surrey, the son of John and Blanche Galsworthy and the second
of four children. John Galsworthy senior, whose family came from Devon, was a successful solicitor in London and a man of
‘new money’, determined to provide privilege and security for his family. They idolised him. By contrast, their mother Blanche
was a more difficult woman, strict and distant. Galsworthy commented, ‘My father really predominated in me from the start … I was so truly and deeply fond of him that I seemed not to have a fair share of love left to give my mother’.


Young Johnny enjoyed the happy, secure childhood of a Victorian, upper-middle-class family. Educated at Harrow, he was popular
at school and a good sportsman. Holidays were spent with family and friends, moving between their country houses. After finishing
school, John went up to New College, Oxford to read law. There he enjoyed the carefree life of a privileged student, not working
particularly hard, gambling and becoming known as ‘the best dressed man in College’. But he could also be quiet and serious,
a contemporary describing how ‘He moved among us somewhat withdrawn … a sensitive, amused, somewhat cynical spectator of the
human scene’.


The period after university was one of indecision for Galsworthy. Although his father wanted him to become a barrister, the
law held little appeal. So he decided to get away from it all and travel. It was on a voyage in the South Seas in 1893 that
he met Joseph Conrad, and the two became close friends. It was a crucial friendship in Galsworthy’s life. Conrad encouraged
his love of writing, but Galsworthy attributes his final inspiration to the woman he was falling in love with: Ada.


Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper married Major Arthur Galsworthy, John’s cousin, in 1891. But the marriage was a tragic mistake.
Embraced by the entire family, Ada became close friends with John’s beloved sisters, Lilian and Mabel, and through them John
heard of her increasing misery, fixing in his imagination the pain of an unhappy marriage. Thrown together more and more,
John and Ada eventually became lovers in September 1895. They were unafraid of declaring their relationship and facing the
consequences, but the only person they couldn’t bear to hurt was John’s adored father, with his traditional values. And so
they endured ten years of secrecy until Galsworthy’s father died in December 1904. By September 1905 Ada’s divorce had come through and
they were finally able to marry.


It was around this time, in 1906, that Galsworthy’s writing career flourished. During the previous decade he had been a man
‘in chains’, emotionally and professionally, having finally abandoned law in 1894. He struggled to establish himself as an
author. But after many false starts and battling a lifelong insecurity about his writing, Galsworthy turned an affectionately
satirical eye on the world he knew best and created the indomitable Forsytes, a mirror image of his own relations – old Jolyon:
his father; Irene: his beloved Ada, to name but a few. On reading the manuscript, his sister Lilian was alarmed that he could
so expose their private lives, but John dismissed her fears saying only herself, Mabel and their mother, ‘who perhaps had
better not read the book’, knew enough to draw comparisons. The Man of Property, the first book in The Forsyte Saga, was published to instant acclaim; Galsworthy’s fame as an author was now sealed.


By the time the first Forsyte trilogy had been completed, with In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921), sales of The Forsyte Saga had reached one million on both sides of the Atlantic. With the public clambering for more, Galsworthy followed these with
six more Forsyte novels, the last of which, Over The River, was completed just before his death in 1933. And their appeal endures, immortalised on screen in much-loved adaptations
such as the film That Forsyte Woman (1949), starring Errol Flynn. The celebrated BBC drama in 1967 with Kenneth Moore and Eric Porter was a phenomenal success,
emptying the pubs and churches of Britain on a Sunday evening, and reaching an estimated worldwide audience of 160 million.
The recent popular 2002 production starred Damien Lewis, Rupert Graves and Ioan Gruffudd and won a Bafta TV award.


Undoubtedly The Forsyte Saga is Galsworthy’s most distinguished work, but he was well known, if not more successful in his time, as a dramatist. His inherent
compassion meant Galsworthy was always involved in one cause or another, from women’s suffrage to a ban on ponies in mines,
and his plays very much focus on the social injustices of his day. The Silver Box (1906) was his first major success, but Justice (1910), a stark depiction of prison life, had an even bigger impact. Winston Churchill was so impressed by it that he immediately arranged for prison reform, reducing the hours of solitary
confinement. The Skin Game (1920) was another big hit and later adapted into a film, under the same title, by Alfred Hitchcock.


Despite Galsworthy’s literary success, his personal life was still troubled. Although he and Ada were deeply in love, the
years of uncertainty had taken their toll. They never had children and their marriage reached a crisis in 1910 when Galsworthy
formed a close friendship with a young dancer called Margaret Morris while working on one of his plays with her. But John,
confused and tortured by the thought of betraying Ada, broke off all contact with Margaret in 1912 and went abroad with his
wife. The rest of their lives were spent constantly on the move; travelling in America, Europe, or at home in London, Dartmoor
and later Sussex. Numerous trips were made in connection with PEN, the international writers club, after Galsworthy was elected
its first president in 1921. Many people have seen the constant travelling as unsettling for Galsworthy and destructive to
his writing, but being with Ada was all that mattered to him: ‘This is what comes of giving yourself to a woman body and soul.
A. paralyses and has always paralysed me. I have never been able to face the idea of being cut off from her.’


By the end of his life, Galsworthy, the man who had railed against poverty and injustice, had become an established, reputable
figure in privileged society. Having earlier refused a knighthood, he was presented with an Order of Merit in 1929. And in
1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Although it was fashionable for younger writers to mock the traditional
Edwardian authors, Virginia Woolf dismissing Galsworthy as a ‘stuffed shirt’, J.M. Barrie perceived his contradictory nature:
‘A queer fish, like the rest of us. So sincerely weighed down by the out-of-jointness of things socially … but outwardly a
man-about-town, so neat, so correct – he would go to the stake for his opinions but he would go courteously raising his hat.’


John Galsworthy died on January 31, 1933, at the age of sixty-five, at Grove Lodge in Hampstead, with Ada by his side. At
his request, his ashes were scattered over Bury Hill in Sussex. The Times hailed him as the ‘mouthpiece’ of his age, ‘the interpreter in drama, and in fiction of a definite phase in English social
history’.


Coming down the steps of ‘Snooks’ Club, so nicknamed by George Forsyte in the late eighties, on that momentous mid-October
afternoon of 1922, Sir Lawrence Mont, ninth baronet, set his fine nose towards the east wind, and moved his thin legs with
speed. Political by birth rather than by nature, he reviewed the revolution which had restored his Party to power with a detachment
not devoid of humour. Passing the Remove Club, he thought: ‘Some sweating into shoes, there! No more confectioned dishes.
A woodcock – without trimmings, for a change!’


The captains and the kings had departed from ‘Snooks’ before he entered it, for he was not of ‘that catch-penny crew, now
paid off, no sir; fellows who turned their tails on the land the moment the war was over. Pah!’ But for an hour he had listened
to echoes, and his lively twisting mind, embedded in deposits of the past, sceptical of the present and of all political protestations
and pronouncements, had recorded with amusement the confusion of patriotism and personalities left behind by the fateful gathering.
Like most landowners, he distrusted doctrine. If he had a political belief, it was a tax on wheat; and so far as he could
see, he was now alone in it – but then he was not seeking election; in other words, his principle was not in danger of extinction
from the votes of those who had to pay for bread. Principles – he mused – au fond were pocket; and he wished the deuce people wouldn’t pretend they weren’t! Pocket, in the deep sense of that word, of course, self-interest as member of a definite community.
And how the devil was this definite community, the English nation, to exist, when all its land was going out of cultivation,
and all its ships and docks in danger of destruction by aeroplanes? He had listened that hour past for a single mention of
the land. Not one! It was not practical politics! Confound the fellows! They had to wear their breeches out – keeping seats
or getting them. No connection between posteriors and posterity! No, by George! Thus reminded of posterity, it occurred to
him rather suddenly that his son’s wife showed no signs as yet. Two years! Time they were thinking about children. It was
dangerous to get into the habit of not having them, when a title and estate depended. A smile twisted his lips and eyebrows
which resembled spinneys of dark pothooks. A pretty young creature, most taking; and knew it, too! Whom was she not getting
to know? Lions and tigers, monkeys and cats – her house was becoming quite a menagerie of more or less celebrities. There
was a certain unreality about that sort of thing! And opposite a British lion in Trafalgar Square Sir Lawrence thought: ‘She’ll
be getting these to her house next! She’s got the collecting habit. Michael must look out – in a collector’s house there’s
always a lumber room for old junk, and husbands are liable to get into it. That reminds me: I promised her a Chinese Minister.
Well, she must wait now till after the General Election.’


Down Whitehall, under the grey easterly sky, the towers of Westminster came for a second into view. ‘A certain unreality in
that, too,’ he thought. ‘Michael and his fads! Well, it’s the fashion – Socialistic principles and a rich wife. Sacrifice
with safety! Peace with plenty! Nostrums – ten a penny!’


Passing the newspaper hubbub of Charing Cross, frenzied by the political crisis, he turned up to the left towards Danby and
Winter, publishers, where his son was junior partner. A new theme for a book had just begun to bend a mind which had already
produced a Life of Montrose, Far Cathay, that work of Eastern travel, and a fanciful conversation between the shades of Gladstone and Disraeli – entitled A Duet. With every step taken, from ‘Snooks’ eastward, his erect thin figure in Astrakhan-collared coat, his thin grey-moustached
face, and tortoise-shell rimmed monocle under the lively dark eyebrow, had seemed more rare. It became almost a phenomenon
in this dingy back street, where carts stuck like winter flies, and persons went by with books under their arms, as if educated.


He had nearly reached the door of Danby’s when he encountered two young men. One of them was clearly his son, better dressed
since his marriage, and smoking a cigar – thank goodness – instead of those eternal cigarettes; the other – ah! yes – Michael’s
sucking poet and best man, head in air, rather a sleek head under a velour hat! He said:


‘Ha, Michael!’

‘Hallo, Bart! You know my governor, Wilfrid? Wilfrid Desert. Copper Coin – some poet, Bart, I tell you. You must read him. We’re going home. Come along!’


Sir Lawrence went along.

‘What happened at “Snooks”?’

‘Le roi est mort. Labour can start lying, Michael – election next month.’


‘Bart was brought up, Wilfrid, in days that knew not Demos.’

‘Well, Mr Desert, do you find reality in politics now?’


‘Do you find reality in anything, sir?’

‘In income tax, perhaps.’

Michael grinned.

‘Above knighthood,’ he said, ‘there’s no such thing as simple faith.’

‘Suppose your friends came into power, Michael – in some ways not a bad thing, help ’em to grow up – what could they do, eh?
Could they raise national taste? Abolish the cinema? Teach English people to cook? Prevent other countries from threatening
war? Make us grow our own food? Stop the increase of town life? Would they hang dabblers in poison gas? Could they prevent
flying in war-time? Could they weaken the possessive instinct – anywhere? Or do anything, in fact, but alter the incidence of possession a little? All party politics
are top dressing. We’re ruled by the inventors, and human nature; and we live in Queer Street, Mr Desert.’


‘Much my sentiments, sir.’

Michael flourished his cigar.

‘Bad old men, you two!’

And removing their hats, they passed the Cenotaph.

‘Curiously symptomatic – that thing,’ said Sir Lawrence; ‘monument to the dread of swank – most characteristic. And the dread
of swank—’


‘Go on, Bart,’ said Michael.

‘The fine, the large, the florid – all off! No far-sighted views, no big schemes, no great principles, no great religion,
or great art – aestheticism in cliques and backwaters, small men in small hats.’


‘As panteth the heart after Byron, Wilberforce, and the Nelson Monument. My poor old Bart! What about it, Wilfrid?’

‘Yes, Mr Desert – what about it?’

Desert’s dark face contracted.

‘It’s an age of paradox,’ he said. ‘We all kick up for freedom, and the only institutions gaining strength are Socialism and
the Roman Catholic Church. We’re frightfully self-conscious about art – and the only art development is the cinema. We’re
nuts on peace – and all we’re doing about it is to perfect poison gas.’


Sir Lawrence glanced sideways at a young man so bitter.

‘And how’s publishing, Michael?’

‘Well, Copper Coin is selling like hot cakes; and there’s quite a movement in A Duet. What about this for a new ad.: “A Duet, by Sir Lawrence Mont, Bart. The most distinguished Conversation ever held between
the Dead.” That ought to get the psychic. Wilfrid suggested “G.O.M. and Dizzy – broadcasted from Hell.” Which do you like
best?’


They had come, however, to a policeman holding up his hand against the nose of a van horse, so that everything marked time. The engines of the cars whirred idly, their drivers’ faces set towards the space withheld from them; a girl on a bicycle
looked vacantly about her, grasping the back of the van, where a youth sat sideways with his legs stretched out towards her.
Sir Lawrence glanced again at young Desert. A thin, pale-dark face, good-looking, but a hitch in it, as if not properly timed;
nothing outré in dress or manner, and yet socially at large; less vivacious than that lively rascal, his own son, but as anchorless, and
more sceptical – might feel things pretty deeply, though! The policeman lowered his arm.


‘You were in the war, Mr Desert?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Air service?’

‘And line. Bit of both.’

‘Hard on a poet.’

‘Not at all. Poetry’s only possible when you may be blown up at any moment, or when you live in Putney.’

Sir Lawrence’s eyebrow rose. ‘Yes?’

‘Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth, Swinburne – they could turn it out; ils vivaient, mais si peu.’


‘Is there not a third condition favourable?’

‘And that, sir?’

‘How shall I express it – a certain cerebral agitation in connection with women?’

Desert’s face twitched, and seemed to darken.

Michael put his latchkey into the lock of his front door.

The house in South Square, Westminster, to which the young Monts had come after their Spanish honeymoon two years before, might
have been called ‘emancipated’. It was the work of an architect whose dream was a new house perfectly old, and an old house
perfectly new. It followed, therefore, no recognised style or tradition, and was devoid of structural prejudice; but it soaked
up the smuts of the metropolis with such special rapidity that its stone already respectably resembled that of Wren. Its windows
and doors had gently rounded tops. The high-sloping roof, of a fine sooty pink, was almost Danish, and two ‘ducky little windows’
looked out of it, giving an impression that very tall servants lived up there. There were rooms on each side of the front
door, which was wide and set off by bay trees in black and gold bindings. The house was thick through, and the staircase,
of a broad chastity, began at the far end of a hall which had room for quite a number of hats and coats and cards. There were
four bathrooms; and not even a cellar underneath. The Forsyte instinct for a house had co-operated in its acquisition. Soames
had picked it up for his daughter, undecorated, at that psychological moment when the bubble of inflation was pricked, and
the air escaping from the balloon of the world’s trade. Fleur, however, had established immediate contact with the architect
– an element which Soames himself had never quite got over – and decided not to have more than three styles in her house:
Chinese, Spanish, and her own. The room to the left of the front door, running the breadth of the house, was Chinese, with ivory panels,
a copper floor, central heating, and cut glass lustres. It contained four pictures – all Chinese – the only school in which
her father had not yet dabbled. The fireplace, wide and open, had Chinese dogs with Chinese tiles for them to stand on. The
silk was chiefly of jade green. There were two wonderful old black tea-chests, picked up with Soames’s money at Jobson’s –
not a bargain. There was no piano, partly because pianos were too uncompromisingly occidental, and partly because it would
have taken up much room. Fleur aimed at space-collecting people rather than furniture or bibelots. The light, admitted by windows at both ends, was unfortunately not Chinese. She would stand sometimes in the centre of this
room, thinking – how to ‘bunch’ her guests, how to make her room more Chinese without making it uncomfortable; how to seem
to know all about literature and politics; how to accept everything her father gave her, without making him aware that his
taste had no sense of the future; how to keep hold of Sibley Swan, the new literary star, and to get hold of Gurdon Minho,
the old; of how Wilfrid Desert was getting too fond of her; of what was really her style in dress; of why Michael had such
funny ears; and sometimes she stood not thinking at all – just aching a little.


When those three came in she was sitting before a red lacquer tea-table, finishing a very good tea. She always had tea brought
in rather early, so that she could have a good quiet preliminary ‘tuck-in’ all by herself, because she was not quite twenty-one,
and this was her hour for remembering her youth. By her side Ting-a-ling was standing on his hind feet, his tawny forepaws
on a Chinese footstool, his snubbed black and tawny muzzle turned up towards the fruits of his philosophy.


‘That’ll do, Ting. No more, ducky! No more!’


The expression of Ting-a-ling answered:

‘Well, then, stop, too! Don’t subject me to torture!’

A year and three months old, he had been bought by Michael out of a Bond Street shop window on Fleur’s twentieth birthday, eleven months ago.


Two years of married life had not lengthened her short dark chestnut hair; had added a little more decision to her quick lips,
a little more allurement to her white-lidded, dark-lashed hazel eyes, a little more poise and swing to her carriage, a little
more chest and hip measurement; had taken a little from waist and calf measurement, a little colour from cheeks a little less
round, and a little sweetness from a voice a little more caressing.


She stood up behind the tray, holding out her white round arm without a word. She avoided unnecessary greetings or farewells.
She would have had to say them so often, and their purpose was better served by look, pressure, and slight inclination of
head to one side.


With circular movement of her squeezed hand, she said:

‘Draw up. Cream, sir? Sugar, Wilfrid? Ting has had too much – don’t feed him! Hand things, Michael. I’ve heard all about the
meeting at “Snooks”. You’re not going to canvass for Labour, Michael – canvassing’s so silly. If any one canvassed me, I should
vote the other way at once.’


‘Yes, darling; but you’re not the average elector.’

Fleur looked at him. Very sweetly put! Conscious of Wilfrid biting his lips, of Sir Lawrence taking that in, of the amount
of silk leg she was showing, of her black and cream teacups, she adjusted these matters. A flutter of her white lids – Desert
ceased to bite his lips; a movement of her silk legs – Sir Lawrence ceased to look at him. Holding out her cups, she said:


‘I suppose I’m not modern enough?’

Desert, moving a bright little spoon round in his magpie cup, said without looking up:

‘As much more modern than the moderns, as you are more ancient.’

‘’Ware poetry!’ said Michael.

But when he had taken his father to see the new cartoons by Aubrey Greene, she said:

‘Kindly tell me what you meant, Wilfrid.’

Desert’s voice seemed to leap from restraint.

‘What does it matter? I don’t want to waste time with that.’

‘But I want to know. It sounded like a sneer.’

‘A sneer? From me? Fleur!’

‘Then tell me.’

‘I meant that you have all their restlessness and practical get-thereness; but you have what they haven’t, Fleur – power to
turn one’s head. And mine is turned. You know it.’


‘How would Michael like that – from you, his best man?’


Desert moved quickly to the windows.

Fleur took Ting-a-ling on her lap. Such things had been said to her before; but from Wilfrid it was serious. Nice to think
she had his heart, of course! Only, where on earth could she put it, where it wouldn’t be seen except by her? He was incalculable
– did strange things! She was a little afraid – not of him, but of that quality in him. He came back to the hearth, and said:


‘Ugly, isn’t it? Put that dam’ dog down, Fleur; I can’t see your face. If you were really fond of Michael – I swear I wouldn’t;
but you’re not, you know.’


Fleur said coldly:

‘You know very little; I am fond of Michael.’


Desert gave his little jerky laugh.

‘Oh yes; not the sort that counts.’

Fleur looked up.

‘It counts quite enough to make one safe.’

‘A flower that I can’t pick.’

Fleur nodded.

‘Quite sure, Fleur? Quite, quite sure?’

Fleur stared; her eyes softened a little, her eyelids, so excessively white, drooped over them; she nodded. Desert said slowly:

‘The moment I believe that, I shall go East.’

‘East?’

‘Not so stale as going West, but much the same – you don’t come back.’

Fleur thought: ‘The East? I should love to know the East! Pity one can’t manage that, too. Pity!’

‘You won’t keep me in your Zoo, my dear. I shan’t hang around and feed on crumbs. You know what I feel – it means a smash
of some sort.’


‘It hasn’t been my fault, has it?’

‘Yes; you’ve collected me, as you collect everybody that comes near you.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Desert bent down, and dragged her hand to his lips.

‘Don’t be riled with me; I’m too unhappy.’

Fleur let her hand stay against his hot lips.

‘Sorry, Wilfrid.’

‘All right, dear. I’ll go.’

‘But you’re coming to dinner tomorrow?’

Desert said violently:

‘Tomorrow? Good God – no! What d’you think I’m made of?’


He flung her hand away.

‘I don’t like violence, Wilfrid.’

‘Well, good-bye; I’d better go.’

The words ‘And you’d better not come again’ trembled up to her lips, but were not spoken. Part from Wilfrid – life would lose
a little warmth! She waved her hand. He was gone. She heard the door closing. Poor Wilfrid! – nice to think of a flame at
which to warm her hands! Nice but rather dreadful! And suddenly, dropping Ting-a-ling, she got up and began to walk about
the room. Tomorrow! Second anniversary of her wedding-day! Still an ache when she thought of what it had not been. But there
was little time to think – and she made less. What good in thinking? Only one life, full of people, of things to do and have,
of things wanted – a life only void of – one thing, and that – well, if people had it, they never had it long! On her lids
two tears, which had gathered, dried without falling. Sentimentalism! No! The last thing in the world – the unforgivable offence!
Whom should she put next whom tomorrow? And whom should she get in place of Wilfrid, if Wilfrid wouldn’t come – silly boy! One day – one night – what difference?
Who should sit on her right, and who on her left? Was Aubrey Greene more distinguished, or Sibley Swan? Were they either as
distinguished as Walter Nazing or Charles Upshire? Dinner of twelve, exclusively literary and artistic, except for Michael
and Alison Charwell. Ah! Could Alison get her Gurdon Minho – just one writer of the old school, one glass of old wine to mellow
effervescence? He didn’t publish with Danby and Winter; but he fed out of Alison’s hand. She went quickly to one of the old
tea-chests, and opened it. Inside was a telephone.


‘Can I speak to Lady Alison – Mrs Michael Mont … Yes … That you, Alison? … Fleur speaking. Wilfrid has fallen through tomorrow
night … Is there any chance of your bringing Gurdon Minho? I don’t know him, of course; but he might be interested. You’ll
try? … That’ll be ever so delightful. Isn’t the “Snooks” Club meeting rather exciting? Bart says they’ll eat each other now
they’ve split … About Mr Minho. Could you let me know tonight? Thanks – thanks awfully! … Goodbye!’


Failing Minho, whom? Her mind hovered over the names in her address book. At so late a minute it must be someone who didn’t
stand on ceremony; but except Alison, none of Michael’s relations would be safe from Sibley Swan or Nesta Gorse, and their
subversive shafts; as to the Forsytes – out of the question; they had their own sub-acid humour (some of them), but they were
not modern, not really modern. Besides, she saw as little of them as she could – they dated, belonged to the dramatic period,
had no sense of life without beginning or end. No! If Gurdon Minho was a frost, it would have to be a musician, whose works
were hieroglyphical with a dash of surgery; or, better, perhaps, a psycho-analyst. Her fingers turned the pages till she came
to those two categories. Hugo Solstis? A possibility; but suppose he wanted to play them something recent? There was only
Michael’s upright Grand, and that would mean going to his study. Better Gerald Hanks – he and Nesta Gorse would get off together on dre. . .