The Forsyte Saga 7: Maid in Waiting

by John Galsworthy

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

This sweeping family saga now moves to the lives and loves of the Cherrells in the early 30s, cousins by marriage to the Forsytes. An old English family, their one constant in an age of change and uncertainty is their ancestral home, Condaford Grange. It is especially precious to young Elizabeth Cherrell, or 'Dinny', whose family is everything to her. And when her brother faces extradition to South America, falsely accused of murder, and her cousin is threatened by her mentally unstable husband, Dinny does everything she can to shield them from harm.

Release date: April 26, 2012

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 326

Sample

John Galsworthy was born on 14 August 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 that ‘My father really predomin ated 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a contemporary describing how ‘He moved among us somewhat withdrawn .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 clamouring 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’.


The Bishop of Porthminster was sinking fast; they had sent for his four nephews, his two nieces and their one husband. It was
not thought that he would last the night.


He who had been ‘Cuffs’ Cherrell (for so the name Charwell is pronounced) to his cronies at Harrow and Cambridge in the ’sixties,
the Reverend Cuthbert Cherrell in his two London parishes, Canon Cherrell in the days of his efflorescence as a preacher,
and Cuthbert Porthminster for the last eighteen years, had never married. For eighty-two years he had lived and for fifty-five,
having been ordained rather late, had represented God upon certain portions of the earth. This and the control of his normal
instincts since the age of twenty-six had given to his face a repressed dignity which the approach of death did not disturb.
He awaited it almost quizzically, judging from the twist of his eyebrow and the tone in which he said so faintly to his nurse:


‘You will get a good sleep tomorrow, nurse. I shall be punctual, no robes to put on.’

The best wearer of robes in the whole episcopacy, the most distinguished in face and figure, maintaining to the end the dandyism
which had procured him the nickname ‘Cuffs’, lay quite still, his grey hair brushed and his face like ivory. He had been a
bishop so long that no one knew now what he thought about death, or indeed about anything, except the prayer book, any change
in which he had deprecated with determination. In one never remarkable for expressing his feelings the ceremony of life had overlaid the natural reticence, as embroidery
and jewels will disguise the foundation stuff of vestment.


He lay in a room with mullion windows, an ascetic room in a sixteenth-century house, close to the Cathedral, whose scent of
age was tempered but imperfectly by the September air coming in. Some zinnias in an old vase on the window-sill made the only
splash of colour, and it was noticed by the nurse that his eyes scarcely left it, except to close from time to time. About
six o’clock they informed him that all the family of his long-dead elder brother had arrived.


‘Ah! See that they are comfortable. I should like to see Adrian.’

When an hour later he opened his eyes again, they fell on his nephew Adrian seated at the foot of the bed. For some minutes
he contemplated the lean and wrinkled brownness of a thin bearded face, topped with grizzling hair, with a sort of faint astonishment,
as though finding his nephew older than he had expected. Then, with lifted eyebrows and the same just quizzical tone in his
faint voice, he said:


‘My dear Adrian! Good of you! Would you mind coming closer? Ah! I haven’t much strength, but what I have I wanted you to have
the benefit of; or perhaps, as you may think, the reverse. I must speak to the point or not at all. You are not a Churchman,
so what I have to say I will put in the words of a man of the world, which once I was myself, perhaps have always been. I
have heard that you have an affection, or may I say infatuation, for a lady who is not in a position to marry you – is that
so?’


The face of his nephew, kindly and wrinkled, was gentle with an expression of concern.

‘It is, Uncle Cuthbert. I am sorry if it troubles you.’

‘A mutual affection?’

His nephew shrugged.

‘My dear Adrian, the world has changed in its judgments since my young days, but there is still a halo around marriage. That,
however, is a matter for your conscience and is not my point. Give me a little water.’


When he had drunk from the glass held out, he went on more feebly:

‘Since your father died I have been somewhat in loco parentis to you all, and the chief repository, I suppose, of such traditions as attach to our name. I wanted to say to you that our
name goes back very far and very honourably. A certain inherited sense of duty is all that is left to old families now; what
is sometimes excused to a young man is not excused to those of mature age and a certain position like your own. I should be
sorry to be leaving this life knowing that our name was likely to be taken in vain by the Press, or bandied about. Forgive
me for intruding on your privacy, and let me now say good-bye to you all. It will be less painful if you will give the others
my blessing for what it is worth – very little, I’m afraid. Good-bye, my dear Adrian, good-bye!’


The voice dropped to a whisper. The speaker closed his eyes, and Adrian, after standing a minute looking down at the carved
waxen face, stole, tall and a little stooping, to the door, opened it gently and was gone.


The nurse came back. The Bishop’s lips moved and his eyebrows twitched now and then, but he spoke only once:

‘I shall be glad if you will kindly see that my neck is straight, and my teeth in place. Forgive these details, but I do not
wish to offend the sight . . .’


Adrian went down to the long panelled room where the family was waiting.

‘Sinking. He sent his blessing to you all.’

Sir Conway cleared his throat. Hilary pressed Adrian’s arm. Lionel went to the window. Emily Mont took out a tiny handkerchief
and passed her other hand into Sir Lawrence’s. Wilmet alone spoke:


‘How does he look, Adrian?’

‘Like the ghost of a warrior on his shield.’

Again Sir Conway cleared his throat.


‘Fine old boy!’ said Sir Lawrence, softly.

‘Ah!’ said Adrian.

They remained, silently sitting and standing in the compulsory discomfort of a house where death is visiting. Tea was brought
in, but, as if by tacit agreement, no one touched it. And, suddenly, the bell tolled. The seven in that room looked up. At
one blank spot in the air their glances met and crossed, as though fixed on something there and yet not there.


A voice from the doorway said:

‘Now please, if you wish to see him.’

Sir Conway, the eldest, followed the bishop’s chaplain; the others followed Sir Conway.

In his narrow bed jutting from the centre of the wall opposite the mullion windows the bishop lay, white and straight and
narrow, with just the added dignity of death. He graced his last state even more than he had graced existence. None of those
present, not even his chaplain, who made the eighth spectator, knew whether Cuthbert Porthminster had really had faith, except
in that temporal dignity of the Church which he had so faithfully served. They looked at him now with all the different feelings
death produces in varying temperaments, and with only one feeling in common, aesthetic pleasure at the sight of such memorable
dignity.


Conway – General Sir Conway Cherrell – had seen much death. He stood with his hands crossed before him, as if once more at
Sandhurst in the old-time attitude of ‘stand at ease’. His face was thin-templed and ascetic, for a soldier’s; the darkened
furrowed cheeks ran from wide cheek-bones to the point of a firm chin, the dark eyes were steady, the nose and lips thin;
he wore a little close grizzly dark moustache – his face was perhaps the stillest of the eight faces, the face of the taller
Adrian beside him, the least still. Sir Lawrence Mont had his arm through that of Emily his wife, the expression on his thin
twisting countenance was as of one saying: ‘A very beautiful performance – don’t cry, my dear.’


The faces of Hilary and Lionel, one on each side of Wilmet, a seamed face and a smooth face, both long and thin and decisive,
wore a sort of sorry scepticism, as if expecting those eyes to open. Wilmet had flushed deep pink; her lips were pursed. She
was a tall thin woman. The chaplain stood with bent head, moving his lips as though telling over internal beads. They stayed
thus perhaps three minutes, then as it were with a single indrawn breath filed to the door. They went each to the room assigned.


They met again at dinner, thinking and speaking once more in terms of life. Uncle Cuthbert, except as a family figure-head,
had never been very near to any one of them. The question whether he was to be buried with his fathers at Condaford or here
in the Cathedral was debated. Probably his will would decide. All but the General and Lionel, who were the executors, returned
to London the same evening.


The two brothers, having read through the will, which was short, for there was nothing much to leave, sat on in the library,
silent, till the General said:


‘I want to consult you, Lionel. It’s about my boy, Hubert. Did you read that attack made on him in the House before it rose?’

Lionel, sparing of words, and now on the eve of a Judgeship, nodded.

‘I saw there was a question asked, but I don’t know Hubert’s version of the affair.’

‘I can give it you. The whole thing is damnable. The boy’s got a temper, of course, but he’s straight as a die. What he says
you can rely on. And all I can say is that if I’d been in his place, I should probably have done the same.’


Lionel nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Well, as you know, he went straight from Harrow into the War, and had one year in the R.A.F. under age, got wounded, went
back and stayed on in the army after the war. He was out in Mespot, then went on to Egypt and India. He got malaria badly,
and last October had a year’s sick leave given him, which will be up on October first. He was recommended for a long voyage. He got leave for it and went out through the Panama Canal to Lima. There he met that American professor, Hallorsen,
who came over here some time ago and gave some lectures, it appears, about some queer remains in Bolivia; he was going to
take an expedition there. This expedition was just starting when Hubert got to Lima, and Hallorsen wanted a transport officer.
Hubert was fit enough after his voyage and jumped at the chance. He can’t bear idleness. Hallorsen took him on; that was in
December last. After a bit Hallorsen left him in charge of his base camp with a lot of half-caste Indian mule men. Hubert
was the only white man, and he got fever badly. Some of those half-caste Indian fellows are devils, according to his account;
no sense of discipline and perfect brutes with animals. Hubert got wrong with them – he’s a hot-tempered chap, as I told you,
and, as it happens, particularly fond of animals. The half-castes got more and more out of hand, till finally one of them,
whom he’d had to have flogged for ill-treating mules and who was stirring up mutiny, attacked him with a knife. Luckily Hubert
had his revolver handy and shot him dead. And on that the whole blessed lot of them, except three, cleared out, taking the
mules with them. Mind you, he’d been left there alone for nearly three months without support or news of any kind from Hallorsen.
Well, he hung on somehow, half dead, with his remaining men. At last Hallorsen came back, and instead of trying to understand
his difficulties, pitched into him. Hubert wouldn’t stand for it; gave him as good as he got, and left. He came straight home,
and is down with us at Condaford. He’s lost the fever, luckily, but he’s pretty well worn out, even now. And now that fellow
Hallorsen has attacked him in his book; practically thrown the blame of failure on him, implies he was tyrannical and no good
at handling men, calls him a hot-tempered aristocrat – all that bunkum that goes down these days. Well, some Service member
got hold of this and asked that question about it in Parliament. One expects Socialists to make themselves unpleasant, but
when it comes to a Service member alluding to conduct unbecoming to a British officer, it’s another matter altogether. Hallorsen’s in the States. There’s nobody to bring an action against: besides, Hubert
could get no witnesses. It looks to me as if the thing has cut right across his career.’


Lionel Cherrell’s long face lengthened.

‘Has he tried Headquarters?’

‘Yes, he went up on Wednesday. They were chilly. Any popular gup about high-handedness scares them nowadays. I daresay they’d
come round if no more were said, but how’s that possible? He’s been publicly criticised in that book, and practically accused
in Parliament of violent conduct unbecoming to an officer and gentleman. He can’t sit down under that; and yet – what can
he do?’


Lionel drew deeply at his pipe.

‘D’you know,’ he said, ‘I think he’d better take no notice.’

The General clenched his fist. ‘Damn it, Lionel, I don’t see that!’

‘But he admits the shooting and the flogging. The public has no imagination, Con – they’ll never see his side of the thing.
All they’ll swallow is that on a civilian expedition he shot one man and flogged others. You can’t expect them to understand
the conditions or the pressure there was.’


‘Then you seriously advise him to take it lying down?’

‘As a man, no; as a man of the world, yes.’

‘Good Lord! What’s England coming to? I wonder what old Uncle Cuffs would have said? He thought a lot of our name.’

‘So do I. But how is Hubert to get even with them?’

The General was silent for a little while and then said:

‘This charge is a slur on the Service, and yet his hands seem tied. If he handed in his Commission he could stand up to it,
but his whole heart’s in the Army. It’s a bad business. By the way, Lawrence has been talking to me about Adrian. Diana Ferse
was Diana Montjoy, wasn’t she?’


‘Yes, second cousin to Lawrence – very pretty woman, Con. Ever see her?’

‘As a girl, yes. What’s her position now, then?’


‘Married widow – two children, and a husband in a Mental Home.’

‘That’s lively. Incurable?’

Lionel nodded. ‘They say so. But of course, you never know.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘That’s just about it. She’s poor and Adrian’s poorer; it’s a very old affection on Adrian’s part, dates from before her marriage.
If he does anything foolish, he’ll lose his curatorship.’


‘Go off with her, you mean? Why, he must be fifty!’

‘No fool like an— She’s an attractive creature. Those Montjoys are celebrated for their charm. Would he listen to you, Con?’

The General shook his head.

‘More likely to Hilary.’

‘Poor old Adrian – one of the best men on earth. I’ll talk to Hilary, but his hands are always full.’

The General rose. ‘I’m going to bed. We don’t smell of age at the Grange like this place – though the Grange is older.’

‘Too much original wood here. Good-night, old man.’

The brothers shook hands, and, grasping each a candle, sought their rooms.

Condaford Grange had passed from the de Campforts (whence its name) into possession of the Cherrells in 1217, when their name
was spelt Kerwell and still at times Keroual, as the spirit moved the scribe. The story of its passing was romantic, for the
Kerwell who got it by marrying a de Campfort had got the de Campfort by rescuing her from a wild boar. He had been a landless
wight whose father, a Frenchman from Guienne, had come to England after Richard’s crusade; and she had been the heiress of
the landed de Campforts. The boar was incorporated on the family ‘shield’, and some doubted whether the boar on the shield
did not give rise to the story, rather than the story to the boar. In any case parts of the house were certified by expert
masons to go back to the twelfth century. It had undoubtedly been moated; but under Queen Anne a restorative Cherrell, convinced
of the millennium perhaps, and possibly inconvenienced by insects, had drained off the water, and there was now little sign
that a moat had ever been.


The late Sir Conway, elder brother of the bishop, knighted in 1901 on his appointment to Spain, had been in the diplomatic
service. He had therefore let the place down badly. He had died in 1904, at his post, and the letting-down process had been
continued by his eldest son, the present Sir Conway, who, continually on Service, had enjoyed only spasmodic chances of living
at Condaford till after the Great War. Now that he did live there, the knowledge that folk of his blood had been encamped there practically since the Conquest had spurred him to do his best
to put it in order, so that it was by now unpretentiously trim without and comfortable within, and he was almost too poor
to live in it. The estate contained too much covert to be profitable, and, though unencumbered, brought in but a few hundreds
a year of net revenue. The pension of a General and the slender income of his wife (by birth the Honourable Elizabeth Frensham)
enabled the General to incur a very small amount of supertax, to keep two hunters, and live quietly on the extreme edge of
his means. His wife was one of those Englishwomen who seem to count for little, but for that very reason count for a good
deal. She was unobtrusive, gentle, and always busy. In a word, she was background; and her pale face, reposeful, sensitive,
a little timid, was a continual reminder that culture depends but slightly on wealth or intellect. Her husband and her three
children had implicit confidence in her coherent sympathy. They were all of more vivid nature, more strongly coloured, and
she was a relief.


She had not accompanied the General to Porthminster and was therefore awaiting his return. The furniture was about to come
out of chintz, and she was standing in the tea room wondering whether that chintz would last another season, when a Scotch
terrier came in, followed by her eldest daughter Elizabeth – better known as ‘Dinny’. Dinny was slight and rather tall; she
had hair the colour of chestnuts, an imperfect nose, a Botticellian mouth, eyes cornflower blue and widely set, and a look
rather of a flower on a long stalk that might easily be broken off, but never was. Her expression suggested that she went
through life trying not to see it as a joke. She was, in fact, like one of those natural wells, or springs, whence one cannot
procure water without bubbles: ‘Dinny’s bubble and squeak’, her uncle Sir Lawrence Mont called it. She was by now twenty-four.


‘Mother, do we have to go into black edging for Uncle Cuffs?’

‘I don’t think so, Dinny; or very slight.’

‘Is he to be planted here?’

‘I expect in the Cathedral, but Father will know.’


‘Tea, darling? Scaramouch, up you come, and don’t bob your nose into the Gentleman’s Relish.’

‘Dinny, I’m so worried about Hubert.’

‘So am I, dear; he isn’t Hubert at all, he’s like a sketch of himself by Thom the painter, all on one side. He ought never
to have gone on that ghastly expedition, Mother. There’s a limit to hitting it off with Americans, and Hubert reaches it sooner
than almost anybody I know. He never could get on with them. Besides, I don’t believe civilians ever ought to have soldiers
with them.’


‘Why, Dinny?’

‘Well, soldiers have the static mind. They know God from Mammon. Haven’t you noticed it, dear?’

Lady Cherrell had. She smiled timidly, and asked:

‘Where is Hubert? Father will be home directly.’

‘He went out with Don, to get a leash of partridges for dinner. Ten to one he’ll forget to shoot them, and anyway they’ll
be too fresh. He’s in that state of mind into which it has pleased God to call him; except that for God read the devil. He
broods over that business, Mother. Only one thing would do him good, and that’s to fall in love. Can’t we find the perfect
girl for him? Shall I ring for tea?’


‘Yes, dear. And this room wants fresh flowers.’

‘I’ll get them. Come along, Scaramouch!’

Passing out into September sunshine, Dinny noted a green woodpecker on the lower lawn, and thought: ‘If seven birds with seven
beaks should peck for half a term, do you suppose, the lady thought, that they could find a worm?’ It was dry! All the same the zinnias were gorgeous this year; and she proceeded to pick some. They ran the gamut in her hand from
deepest red through pink to lemon-yellow – handsome blossoms, but not endearing. ‘Pity,’ she thought, ‘we can’t go to some
bed of modern maids and pick one for Hubert.’ She seldom showed her feelings, but she had two deep feelings not for show –
one for her brother, the other for Condaford, and they were radically entwined. All the coherence of her life belonged to Condaford; she had a passion for the place which no one would have suspected
from her way of talking of it, and she had a deep and jealous desire to bind her only brother to the same devotion. After
all, she had been born there while it was shabby and run-down, and had survived into the period of renovation. To Hubert it
had only been a holiday and leave-time perch. Dinny, though the last person in the world to talk of her roots, or to take
them seriously in public, had a private faith in the Cherrells, their belongings and their works, which nothing could shake.
Every Condaford beast, bird and tr