The Forsyte Saga 6: Swan Song
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Synopsis
Jon Forsyte is back. After years living in America with his mother Irene, he is excited to be home and can't wait to show off his roots to his new bride. When Fleur Forsyte, now Fleur Mont, his first love, hears of his arrival, she doesn't know what to feel. She's married too, though, with a little boy so there's no reason why they all can't meet as friends. But feelings so strong are not easily contained. And when their passion is rekindled, no one can halt the devastating events that follow - the secret culmination of an old, old story...
Release date: April 26, 2012
Publisher: Headline
Print pages: 332
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The Forsyte Saga 6: Swan Song
John Galsworthy
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a contemporary describing how ‘He moved among us somewhat withdrawn .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 More 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 31 January, 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’.
In modern Society, one thing after another, this spice on that, ensures a kind of memoristic vacuum, and Fleur Mont’s passage
of arms with Marjorie Ferrar was, by the spring of 1926, well-nigh forgotten. Moreover, she gave Society’s memory no encouragement,
for, after her tour round the world, she was interested in the Empire – a bent so out of fashion as to have all the flavour
and excitement of novelty with a sort of impersonality guaranteed.
Colonials, Americans, and Indian students, people whom nobody could suspect of being lions, now encountered each other in
the ‘bimetallic parlour’, and were found by Fleur ‘very interesting’, especially the Indian students, so supple and enigmatic,
that she could never tell whether she were ‘using’ them or they were ‘using’ her.
Perceiving the extraordinarily uphill nature of Foggartism, she had been looking for a second string to Michael’s Parliamentary
bow, and, with her knowledge of India, where she had spent six weeks of her tour, she believed that she had found it in the
idea of free entrance for the Indians into Kenya. In her talks with these Indian students, she learned that it was impossible
to walk in a direction unless you knew what it was. These young men might be complicated and unpractical, meditative and secret,
but at least they appeared to be convinced that the molecules in an organism mattered less than the organism itself – that
they, in fact, mattered less than India. Fleur, it seemed, had encountered faith – a new and ‘intriguing’ experience. She
mentioned the fact to Michael.
‘It’s all very well,’ he answered, ‘but our Indian friends didn’t live for four years in the trenches, or the fear thereof, for the sake of their faith. If they had, they couldn’t possibly have
the feeling that it matters as much as they think it does. They might want to, but their feelers would be blunted. That’s
what the war really did to all of us in Europe who were in the war.’
‘That doesn’t make “faith” any less interesting,’ said Fleur, drily.
‘Well, my dear, the prophets abuse us for being at loose ends, but can you have faith in a life force so darned extravagant
that it makes mince-meat of you by the million? Take it from me, Victorian times fostered a lot of very cheap and easy faith,
and our Indian friends are in the same case – their India has lain doggo since the Mutiny, and that was only a surface upheaval.
So you needn’t take ’em too seriously.’
‘I don’t; but I like the way they believe they’re serving India.’
And at his smile she frowned, seeing that he thought she was only increasing her collection.
Her father-in-law, who had really made some study of orientalism, lifted his eyebrow over these new acquaintances.
‘My oldest friend,’ he said, on the first of May, ‘is a judge in India. He’s been there forty years. When he’d been there
two, he wrote to me that he was beginning to know something about the Indians. When he’d been there ten, he wrote that he
knew all about them. I had a letter from him yesterday, and he says that after forty years he knows nothing about them. And
they know as little about us. East and West – the circulation of the blood is different.’
‘Hasn’t forty years altered the circulation of your friend’s blood?’
‘Not a jot,’ replied Sir Lawrence. ‘It takes forty generations. Give me another cup of your nice Turkish coffee, my dear.
What does Michael say about the general strike?’
‘That the Government won’t budge unless the T.U.C. withdraw the notice unreservedly.’
‘Exactly! And but for the circulation of English blood there’d be “a pretty mess”, as old Forsyte would say.’
‘Michael’s sympathies are with the miners.’
‘So are mine, young lady. Excellent fellow, the miner – but unfortunately cursed with leaders. The mine-owners are in the
same case. Those precious leaders are going to grind the country’s nose before they’ve done. Inconvenient product – coal; it’s
blackened our faces, and now it’s going to black our eyes. Not a merry old soul! Well, good-bye! My love to Kit, and tell
Michael to keep his head.’
This was precisely what Michael was trying to do. When ‘the Great War’ broke out, though just old enough to fight, he had
been too young to appreciate the fatalism which creeps over human nature with the approach of crisis. He was appreciating
it now before ‘the Great Strike’, together with the peculiar value which the human being attaches to saving face. He noticed
that both sides had expressed the intention of meeting the other side in every way, without, of course, making any concessions
whatever; that the slogans, ‘Longer hours, less wages’, ‘Not a minute more, not a bob off’, curtsied, and got more and more
distant as they neared each other. And now, with the ill-disguised impatience of his somewhat mercurial nature, Michael was
watching the sober and tentative approaches of the typical Britons in whose hands any chance of mediation lay. When, on that
memorable Monday, not merely the faces of the gentlemen with slogans, but the very faces of the typical Britons, were suddenly
confronted with the need for being saved, he knew that all was up; and, returning from the House of Commons at midnight, he
looked at his sleeping wife. Should he wake Fleur and tell her that the country was ‘for it’, or should he not? Why spoil
her beauty sleep? She would know soon enough. Besides, she wouldn’t take it seriously. Passing into his dressing room, he
stood looking out of the window at the dark square below. A general strike at a few hours’ notice! ‘Some’ test of the British
character! The British character? Suspicion had been dawning on Michael for years that its appearances were deceptive; that
Members of Parliament, theatre-goers, trotty little ladies with dresses tight blown about trotty little figures, plethoric
generals in armchairs, pettish and petted poets, parsons in pulpits, posters in the street – above all, the Press, were not
representative of the national disposition. If the papers were not to come out, one would at least get a chance of feeling
and seeing British character; owing to the papers, one never had seen or felt it clearly during the war, at least not in England. In the trenches, of course, one had – there, sentiment
and hate, advertisement and moonshine, had been ‘taboo’, and with a grim humour the Briton had just ‘carried on’, unornamental
and sublime, in the mud and the blood, the stink and the racket, and the endless nightmare of being pitchforked into fire
without rhyme or reason! The Briton’s defiant humour that grew better as things grew worse, would – he felt – get its chance
again now. And, turning from the window, he undressed and went back into the bedroom.
Fleur was awake.
‘Well, Michael?’
‘The strike’s on.’
‘What a bore!’
‘Yes; we shall have to exert ourselves.’
‘What did they appoint that Commission for, and pay all that subsidy, if not to avoid this?’
‘My dear girl, that’s mere common-sense – no good at all.’
‘Why can’t they come to an agreement?’
‘Because they’ve got to save face. Saving face is the strongest motive in the world.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, it caused the war; it’s causing the strike now; without “saving face” there’d probably be no life on the earth at all
by this time.’
Michael kissed her.
‘I suppose you’ll have to do something,’ she said, sleepily. ‘There won’t be much to talk about in the House while this is
on.’
‘No; we shall sit and glower at each other, and use the word “formula” at stated intervals.’
‘I wish we had a Mussolini.’
‘I don’t. You pay for him in the long run. Look at Diaz and Mexico; or Lenin and Russia; or Napoleon and France; or Cromwell
and England, for the matter of that.’
‘Charles the Second,’ murmured Fleur into her pillow, ‘was rather a dear.’
Michael stayed awake a little, disturbed by the kiss, slept a little, woke again. To save face! No one would make a move because of their faces. For nearly an hour he lay trying to think out a
way of saving them all, then fell asleep. He woke at seven with the feeling that he had wasted his time. Under the appearance
of concern for the country, and professions of anxiety to find a ‘formula’, too many personal feelings, motives, and prejudices
were at work. As before the war, there was a profound longing for the humiliation and dejection of the adversary; each wished
his face saved at the expense of the other fellow’s!
He went out directly after breakfast.
People and cars were streaming in over Westminster Bridge, no buses ran, no trams; but motor-lorries, full or empty, rumbled
past. Some ‘specials’ were out already, and everybody had a look as if they were going to a tea party, cloaked in a kind of
defiant jollity. Michael moved on towards Hyde Park. Over night had sprung up this amazing ordered mish-mash of lorries and
cans and tents! In the midst of all the mental and imaginative lethargy which had produced this national crisis – what a wonderful
display of practical and departmental energy! ‘They say we can’t organise!’ thought Michael; ‘can’t we just – after the event!’
He went on to a big railway station. It was picketed, but they were running trains already, with volunteer labour. Poking
round, he talked here and there among the volunteers. ‘By George!’ he thought, ‘these fellows’ll want feeding! What about
a canteen?’ And he returned post haste to South Square.
Fleur was in.
‘Will you help me run a railway canteen for volunteers?’ He saw the expression, ‘Is that a good stunt?’ rise on her face,
and hurried on:
‘It’ll mean frightfully hard work; and getting anybody we can to help. I daresay I could rope in Norah Curfew and her gang
from Bethnal Green for a start. But it’s your quick head that’s wanted, and your way with men.’
Fleur smiled. ‘All right,’ she said.
They took the car – a present from Soames on their return from round the world – and went about, picking people up and dropping
them again. They recruited Norah Curfew and ‘her gang’ in Bethnal Green; and during this first meeting of Fleur with one whom
she had been inclined to suspect as something of a rival, Michael noted how, within five minutes, she had accepted Norah Curfew
as too ‘good’ to be dangerous. He left them at South Square in conference over culinary details, and set forth to sap the
natural opposition of officialdom. It was like cutting barbed wire on a dark night before an ‘operation’. He cut a good deal,
and went down to the ‘House’. Humming with unformulated ‘formulas’, it was, on the whole, the least cheerful place he had
been in that day. Everyone was talking of the ‘menace to the Constitution’. The Government’s long face was longer than ever,
and nothing – they said – could be done until it had been saved. The expressions ‘Freedom of the Press’ and ‘At the pistol’s
mouth’, were being used to the point of tautology! He ran across Mr Blythe brooding in the Lobby on the temporary decease
of his beloved weekly, and took him over to South Square ‘for a bite’ at nine o’clock. Fleur had come in for the same purpose.
According to Mr Blythe, the solution was to ‘form a group’ of right-thinking opinion.
‘Exactly, Blythe! But what is right-thinking, at “the present time of speaking”?’
‘It all comes back to Foggartism,’ said Mr Blythe.
‘Oh!’ said Fleur, ‘I do wish you’d both drop that. Nobody will have anything to say to it. You might as well ask the people
of today to live like St Francis d’Assisi.’
‘My dear young lady, suppose St Francis d’Assisi had said that, we shouldn’t be hearing today of St Francis.’
‘Well, what real effect has he had? He’s just a curiosity. All those great spiritual figures are curiosities. Look at Tolstoi
now, or Christ, for that matter!’
‘Fleur’s rather right, Blythe.’
‘Blasphemy!’ said Mr Blythe.
‘I don’t know, Blythe; I’ve been looking at the gutters lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they put a stopper on
Foggartism. Watch the children there, and you’ll see how attractive gutters are! So long as a child can have a gutter, he’ll
never leave it. And, mind you, gutters are a great civilising influence. We have more gutters here than any other country and more children brought
up in them; and we’re the most civilised people in the world. This strike’s going to prove that. There’ll be less bloodshed
and more good humour than there could be anywhere else; all due to the gutter.’
‘Renegade!’ said Mr Blythe.
‘Well,’ said Michael, ‘Foggartism, like all religions, is the over-expression of a home truth. We’ve been too wholesale, Blythe.
What converts have we made?’
‘None,’ said Mr Blythe. ‘But if we can’t take children from the gutter, Foggartism is no more.’
Michael wriggled; and Fleur said promptly: ‘What never was can’t be no more. Are you coming with me to see the kitchens, Michael
– they’ve been left in a filthy state. How does one deal with beetles on a large scale?’
‘Get a beetle-man – sort of pied piper, who lures them to their fate.’
Arrived on the premises of the canteen-to-be, they were joined by Ruth La Fontaine, of Norah Curfew’s ‘gang’, and descended
to the dark and odorous kitchen. Michael struck a match, and found the switch. Gosh! In the light, surprised, a brown-black
scuttling swarm covered the floor, the walls, the tables. Michael had just sufficient control of his nerves to take in the
faces of those three – Fleur’s shuddering frown, Mr Blythe’s open mouth, the dark and pretty Ruth La Fontaine’s nervous smile.
He felt Fleur clutch his arm.
‘How disgusting!’
The disturbed creatures were finding their holes or had ceased to scuttle; here and there, a large one, isolated, seemed to
watch them.
‘Imagine!’ cried Fleur. ‘And food’s been cooked here all these years! Ugh!’
‘After all,’ said Ruth La Fontaine, with a shivery giggle, ‘they’re not so b-bad as b-bugs.’
Mr Blythe puffed hard at his cigar. Fleur muttered:
‘What’s to be done, Michael?’
Her face was pale; she was drawing little shuddering breaths; and Michael was thinking: ‘It’s too bad; I must get her out of this!’ when suddenly she seized a broom and rushed at a large beetle
on the wall. In a minute they were all at it – swabbing and sweeping, and flinging open doors and windows.
Winifred Dartie had not received her Morning Post. Now in her sixty-eighth year, she had not followed too closely the progress of events which led up to the general strike
– they were always saying things in the papers, and you never knew what was true; those Trades Union people, too, were so
interfering, that really one had no patience. Besides, the Government always did something in the end. Acting, however, on
the advice of her brother Soames, she had filled her cellars with coal and her cupboards with groceries, and by ten o’clock
on the second morning of the strike, was seated comfortably at the telephone.
‘Is that you, Imogen? Are you and Jack coming for me this evening?’
‘No, Mother. Jack’s sworn in, of course. He has to be on duty at five. Besides, they say the theatres will close. We’ll go
later. Dat Lubly Lady’s sure to run.’
‘Very well, dear. But what a fuss it all is! How are the boys?’
‘Awfully fit. They’re both going to be little “specials”. I’ve made them tiny badges. D’you think the child’s department at
Harridge’s would have toy truncheons?’
‘Sure to, if it goes on. I shall be there today; I’ll suggest it. They’d look too sweet, wouldn’t they? Are you all right
for coal?’
‘Oh, yes. Jack says we mustn’t hoard. He’s fearfully patriotic.’
‘Well, good-bye, dear! My love to the boys!’
She had just begun to consider whom she should call up next when the telephone bell rang.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Val Dartie living there?’
‘No. Who is it speaking?’
‘My name is Stainford. I’m an old college friend of his. Could you give me his address, please?’
Stainford? It conveyed nothing.
‘I’m his mother. My son is not in town; but I dare say he will be before long. Can I give him any message?’
‘Well, thanks! I want to see him. I’ll ring up again; or take my chance later. Thanks!’
Winifred replaced the receiver.
Stainford! The voice was distinguished. She hoped it had nothing to do with money. Odd, how often distinction was connected
with money! Or, rather, with the lack of it. In the old Park Lane days they had known so many fashionables who had ended in
the bankruptcy or divorce courts. Emily – her mother – had never been able to resist distinction. That had been the beginning
of Monty – he had worn such perfect waistcoats and gardenias, and had known so much about all that was fast – impossible not
to be impressed by him. Ah, well! She did not regret him now. Without him she would never have had Val, or Imogen’s two boys,
or Benedict (almost a colonel), though she never saw him now, living, as he did, in Guernsey, to grow cucumbers, away from
the income tax. They might say what they liked about the age, but could it really be more up-to-date than it was in the nineties
and the early years of the century, when income tax was at a shilling, and that considered high! People now just ran about
and talked, to disguise the fact that they were not so ‘chic’ and upto-date as they used to be.
Again the telephone bell rang. ‘Will you take a trunk call from Wansdon? . . .’
‘Hallo! That you, Mother?’
‘Oh, Val, how nice! Isn’t this strike absurd?’
‘Silly asses! I say: we’re coming up.’
‘Really, dear. But why? You’ll be so much more comfortable in the country.’
‘Holly says we’ve got to do things. Who d’you think turned up last night? – her brother – young Jon Forsyte. Left his wife
and mother in Paris – said he’d missed the war and couldn’t afford to miss this. Been travelling all the winter – Egypt, Italy, and that
– chucked America, I gather. Says he wants to do something dirty – going to stoke an engine. We’re driving up to the “Bristol”
this afternoon.’
‘Oh, but why not come to me, dear, I’ve got plenty of everything?’
‘Well, there’s young Jon – I don’t think—’
‘But he’s a nice boy, isn’t he?’
‘Uncle Soames isn’t with you, is he?’
‘No, dear. He’s at Mapledurham. Oh, and by the way, Val, someone has just rung up for you – a Mr Stainford.’
‘Stainford? What! Aubrey Stainford – I haven’t seen him since Oxford.’
‘He said he would ring up again or take his chance of finding you here.’
‘Oh, I’d love to see old Stainford again. Well, if you don’t mind putting us up, Mother. Can’t leave young Jon out, you know
– he and Holly are very thick after six years; but I expect he’ll be out all the time.’
‘Oh, that’ll be quite all right, dear; and how is Holly?’
‘Topping.’
‘And the horses?’
‘All right. I’ve got a snorting two-year-old, rather backward. Shan’t run him till Goodwood, but he ought to win then.’
‘That’ll be delightful. Well, dear boy, I’ll expect you. But you won’t be doing anything rash, with your leg?’
‘No; just drive a bus, perhaps. Won’t last, you know. The Government’s all ready. Pretty hot stuff. We’ve got ’em this time.’
‘I’m so glad. It’ll be such a good thing to have it over; it’s dreadfully bad for the season. Your uncle will be very upset.’
An indistinguishable sound; then Val’s voice again:
‘I say, Holly says she’ll want a job – you might ask young Mont. He’s in with people. See you soon, then – good-bye!’
Replacing the receiver, Winifred had scarcely risen from the satinwood chair on which she had been seated, when the bell rang
again.
‘Mrs Dartie? . . . That you, Winifred? Soames speaking. What did I tell you?’
‘Yes; it’s very annoying, dear. But Val says it’ll soon be over.’
‘What’s he know about it?’
‘He’s very shrewd.’
‘Shrewd? H’m! I’m coming up to Fleur’s.’
‘But, why, Soames? I should have thought—’
‘Must be on the spot, in case of – accidents. Besides, the car’ll be eating its head off down here – may as well be useful.
Do that fellow Riggs good to be sworn in. This thing may lead to anything.’
‘Oh! Do you think—’
‘Think? It’s no joke. Comes of playing about with subsidies.’
‘But you told me last summer—’
‘They d
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