”
“Far from it, Marquess. We just want your help in a public work on behalf of the humble. It’s a slum proposition, as the Yanks say.”
The Marquess shook his head.
“I don’t like interfering with the humble; the humbler people are, the more one ought to consider their feelings.”
“We’re absolutely with you there, sir; but let my son explain.”
“Sit down, then.” And the Marquess rose, placed his foot on his chair, and leaning his elbow on his knee, inclined his head to one side. For the second time that evening Michael plunged into explanation.
“Bentworth?” said the Marquess. “His shorthorns are good; a solid fellow, but behind the times.”
“That’s why we want you, Marquess.”
“My dear young Mont, I’m too old.”
“It’s precisely because you’re so young that we came to you.”
“Frankly, sir,” said Michael, “we thought you’d like to be on the committee of appeal, because in my uncle’s policy there’s electrification of the kitchens; we must have someone who’s an authority on that and can keep it to the fore.”
“Ah!” said the Marquess. “Hilary Charwell–I once heard him preach in St. Paul’s–most amusing! What do the slum-dwellers say to electrification?”
“Nothing till it’s done, of course, but once it’s done, it’s everything to them, sir.”
“H’m!” said the Marquess. “H’m! It would appear that there are no flies on your uncle.”
“We hope,” pursued Michael, “that, with electrification, there will soon be no flies on anything else.”
The Marquess nodded. “It’s the right end of the stick. I’ll think of it. My trouble is that I’ve no money; and I don’t like appealing to others without putting down something substantial myself.”
The two Monts looked at each other; the excuse was patent, and they had not foreseen it.
“I suppose,” went on the Marquess, “you don’t know anyone who would buy some lace–point de Venise, the real stuff? Or,” he added, “I’ve a Morland–”
“Have you, sir?” cried Michael. “My father-inlaw was saying only the other day that he wanted a Morland.”
“Has he a good home for it?” said the Marquess, rather wistfully. “It’s a white pony.”
“Oh, yes, sir; he’s a real collector.”
“Any chance of its going to the nation, in time?”
“Quite a good chance, I think.”
“Well, perhaps he’d come and look at it. It’s never changed hands so far. If he would give me the market price, whatever that may be, it might solve the problem.”
“That’s frightfully good of you, sir.”
“Not at all,” said the Marquess. “I believe in electricity, and I detest smoke; this seems a movement in the right direction. It’s a Mr. Forsyte, I think. There was a case–my granddaughter; but that’s a past matter. I trust you’re friends again?”
“Yes, sir; I saw her about a fortnight ago, and it was quite O.K.”
“Nothing lasts with you modern young people,” said the Marquess; “the younger generation seems to have forgotten the war already. Is that good, I wonder? What do YOU say, Mont?”
“‘Tout casse, tout passe,’ Marquess.”
“Oh! I don’t complain,” said the Marquess; “rather the contrary. By the way–on this committee you’ll want a new man with plenty of money.”
“Can you suggest one, sir?”
“My next-door neighbour–a man called Montross–I think his real name is shorter–might possibly serve. He’s made millions, I believe, out of the elastic band–had some patent for making them last only just long enough. I see him sometimes gazing longingly at me–I don’t use them, you know. Perhaps if you mention my name. He has a wife, and no title at present. I should imagine he might be looking for a public work.”
“He sounds,” said Sir Lawrence, “the very man. Do you think we might venture now?”
“Try!” said the Marquess, “try. A domestic character, I’m told. It’s no use doing things by halves; an immense amount of money will be wanted if we are to electrify any considerable number of kitchens. A man who would help substantially towards that would earn his knighthood much better than most people.”
“I agree,” said Sir Lawrence; “a real public service. I suppose we mustn’t dangle the knighthood?”
The Marquess shook the head that was resting on his hand.
“In these days–no,” he said. “Just the names of his colleagues. We can hardly hope that he’ll take an interest in the thing for itself.”
“Well, thank you ever so much, sir. We’ll let you know whether Wilfred Bentworth will take the chair, and how we progress generally.”
The Marquess took his foot down and inclined his head at Michael.
“I like to see young politicians interesting themselves in the future of England, because, in fact, no amount of politics will prevent her having one. By the way, have you had your own kitchen electrified?”
“My wife and I are thinking of it, sir.”
“Don’t think!” said the Marquess. “Have it done!”
“We certainly shall, now.”
“We must strike while the strike is on,” said the Marquess. “If there is anything shorter than the public’s memory, I am not aware of it.”
“Phew!” said Sir Lawrence, on the next doorstep; “the old boy’s spryer than ever. I take it we may assume that the name here was originally Moss. If so, the question is: ‘Have we the wits for this job?’”
And, in some doubt, they scrutinised the mansion before them.
“We had better be perfectly straightforward,” said Michael. “Dwell on the slums, mention the names we hope to get, and leave the rest to him.”
“I think,” said his father, “we had better say ‘got,’ not ‘hope to get.’”
“The moment we mention the names, Dad, he’ll know we’re after his dibs.”
“He’ll know that in any case, my boy.”
“I suppose there’s no doubt about the dibs?”
“Montross, Ltd.! They’re not confined to elastic bands.”
“I should like to make a perfectly plain appeal to his generosity, Dad. There’s a lot of generosity in that blood, you know.”
“We can’t stand just here, Michael, discussing the make-up of the chosen. Ring the bell!”
Michael rang.
“Mr. Montross at home? Thank you. Will you give him these cards, and ask if we might see him for a moment?”
The room into which they were ushered was evidently accustomed to this sort of thing, for, while there was nothing that anyone could take away, there were chairs in which it was possible to be quite comfortable, and some valuable but large pictures and busts.
Sir Lawrence was examining a bust, and Michael a picture, when the door was opened, and a voice said: “Yes, gentlemen?”
Mr. Montross was of short stature, and somewhat like a thin walrus who had once been dark but had gone grey; his features were slightly aquiline, he had melancholy brown eyes, and big drooping grizzly moustaches and eyebrows.
“We were advised to come to you, sir,” began Michael at once, “by your neighbour, the Marquess of Shropshire. We’re trying to form a committee to issue an appeal for a national fund to convert the slums.” And for the third time he plunged into detail.
“And why do you come to ME, gentlemen?” said Mr. Montross, when he had finished.
Michael subdued a stammer.
“Because of your wealth, sir,” he said, simply.
“Good!” said Mr. Montross. “You see, I began in the slums, Mr. Mont–is it? – yes, Mr. Mont–I began there–I know a lot about those people, you know. I thought perhaps you came to me because of that.”
“Splendid, sir,” said Michael, “but of course we hadn’t an idea.”
“Well, those people are born without a future.”
“That’s just what we’re out to rectify, sir.”
“Take them away from their streets and put them in a new country, then–perhaps; but leave them to their streets–” Mr. Montross shook his head. “I know them, you see, Mr. Mont; if these people thought about the future, they could not go on living. And if you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.”
“How about yourself?” said Sir Lawrence. Mr. Montross turned his gaze from Michael to the cards in his hand, then raised his melancholy eyes.
“Sir Lawrence Mont, isn’t it? – I am a Jew–that is different. A Jew will rise from any beginnings, if he is a real Jew. The reason the Polish and the Russian Jews do not rise so easily you can see from their faces–they have too much Slav or Mongol blood. The pure Jew like me rises.”
Sir Lawrence and Michael exchanged a glance. “We like this fellow,” it seemed to say.
“I was a poor boy in a bad slum,” went on Mr. Montross, intercepting the glance, “and I am now–well, a millionaire; but I have not become that, you know, by throwing away my money. I like to help people that will help themselves.”
“Then,” said Michael, with a sigh, “there’s nothing in this scheme that appeals to you, sir?”
“I will ask my wife,” answered Mr. Montross, also with a sigh. “Good-night, gentlemen. Let me write to you.”
The two Monts moved slowly towards Mount Street in the last of the twilight.
“Well?” said Michael.
Sir Lawrence cocked his eyebrow.
“An honest man,” he said; “it’s fortunate for us he has a wife.”
“You mean–?”
“The potential Lady Montross will bring him in. There was no other reason why he should ask her. That makes four, and Sir Timothy’s a ‘sitter’; slum landlords are his betes noires. We only want three more. A bishop one can always get, but I’ve forgotten which it is for the moment; we MUST have a big doctor, and we ought to have a banker, but perhaps your uncle, Lionel Charwell, will do; he knows all about the shady side of finance in the courts, and we could make Alison work for us. And now, my dear, good-night! I don’t know when I’ve felt more tired.”
They parted at the corner, and Michael walked towards Westminster. He passed under the spikes of Buckingham Palace Gardens, and along the stables leading to Victoria Street. All this part had some very nice slums, though of late he knew the authorities had been ‘going for them.’ He passed an area where they had ‘gone’ for them to the extent of pulling down a congery of old houses. Michael stared up at the remnants of walls mosaicked by the unstripped wall papers. What had happened to the tribe outdriven from these ruins; whereto had they taken the tragic lives of which they made such cheerful comedy? He came to the broad river of Victoria Street and crossed it, and, taking a route that he knew was to be avoided, he was soon where women encrusted with age sat on doorsteps for a breath of air, and little alleys led off to unplumbed depths. Michael plumbed them in fancy, not in fact. He stood quite a while at the end of one, trying to imagine what it must be like to live there. Not succeeding, he walked briskly on, and turned into his own square, and to his own habitat with its bay-treed tubs, its Danish roof, and almost hopeless cleanliness. And he suffered from the feeling which besets those who are sensitive about their luck.
‘Fleur would say,’ he thought, perching on the coat-sarcophagus, for he, too, was tired, ‘that those people having no aesthetic sense and no tradition to wash up to, are at least as happy as we are. She’d say that they get as much pleasure out of living from hand to mouth (and not too much mouth), as we do from baths, jazz, poetry and cocktails; and she’s generally right.’ Only, what a confession of defeat! If that were really so, to what end were they all dancing? If life with bugs and flies were as good as life without bugs and flies, why Keating’s powder and all the other aspirations of the poets? Blake’s New Jerusalem was, surely, based on Keating, and Keating was based on a sensitive skin.
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“Far from it, Marquess. We just want your help in a public work on behalf of the humble. It’s a slum proposition, as the Yanks say.”
The Marquess shook his head.
“I don’t like interfering with the humble; the humbler people are, the more one ought to consider their feelings.”
“We’re absolutely with you there, sir; but let my son explain.”
“Sit down, then.” And the Marquess rose, placed his foot on his chair, and leaning his elbow on his knee, inclined his head to one side. For the second time that evening Michael plunged into explanation.
“Bentworth?” said the Marquess. “His shorthorns are good; a solid fellow, but behind the times.”
“That’s why we want you, Marquess.”
“My dear young Mont, I’m too old.”
“It’s precisely because you’re so young that we came to you.”
“Frankly, sir,” said Michael, “we thought you’d like to be on the committee of appeal, because in my uncle’s policy there’s electrification of the kitchens; we must have someone who’s an authority on that and can keep it to the fore.”
“Ah!” said the Marquess. “Hilary Charwell–I once heard him preach in St. Paul’s–most amusing! What do the slum-dwellers say to electrification?”
“Nothing till it’s done, of course, but once it’s done, it’s everything to them, sir.”
“H’m!” said the Marquess. “H’m! It would appear that there are no flies on your uncle.”
“We hope,” pursued Michael, “that, with electrification, there will soon be no flies on anything else.”
The Marquess nodded. “It’s the right end of the stick. I’ll think of it. My trouble is that I’ve no money; and I don’t like appealing to others without putting down something substantial myself.”
The two Monts looked at each other; the excuse was patent, and they had not foreseen it.
“I suppose,” went on the Marquess, “you don’t know anyone who would buy some lace–point de Venise, the real stuff? Or,” he added, “I’ve a Morland–”
“Have you, sir?” cried Michael. “My father-inlaw was saying only the other day that he wanted a Morland.”
“Has he a good home for it?” said the Marquess, rather wistfully. “It’s a white pony.”
“Oh, yes, sir; he’s a real collector.”
“Any chance of its going to the nation, in time?”
“Quite a good chance, I think.”
“Well, perhaps he’d come and look at it. It’s never changed hands so far. If he would give me the market price, whatever that may be, it might solve the problem.”
“That’s frightfully good of you, sir.”
“Not at all,” said the Marquess. “I believe in electricity, and I detest smoke; this seems a movement in the right direction. It’s a Mr. Forsyte, I think. There was a case–my granddaughter; but that’s a past matter. I trust you’re friends again?”
“Yes, sir; I saw her about a fortnight ago, and it was quite O.K.”
“Nothing lasts with you modern young people,” said the Marquess; “the younger generation seems to have forgotten the war already. Is that good, I wonder? What do YOU say, Mont?”
“‘Tout casse, tout passe,’ Marquess.”
“Oh! I don’t complain,” said the Marquess; “rather the contrary. By the way–on this committee you’ll want a new man with plenty of money.”
“Can you suggest one, sir?”
“My next-door neighbour–a man called Montross–I think his real name is shorter–might possibly serve. He’s made millions, I believe, out of the elastic band–had some patent for making them last only just long enough. I see him sometimes gazing longingly at me–I don’t use them, you know. Perhaps if you mention my name. He has a wife, and no title at present. I should imagine he might be looking for a public work.”
“He sounds,” said Sir Lawrence, “the very man. Do you think we might venture now?”
“Try!” said the Marquess, “try. A domestic character, I’m told. It’s no use doing things by halves; an immense amount of money will be wanted if we are to electrify any considerable number of kitchens. A man who would help substantially towards that would earn his knighthood much better than most people.”
“I agree,” said Sir Lawrence; “a real public service. I suppose we mustn’t dangle the knighthood?”
The Marquess shook the head that was resting on his hand.
“In these days–no,” he said. “Just the names of his colleagues. We can hardly hope that he’ll take an interest in the thing for itself.”
“Well, thank you ever so much, sir. We’ll let you know whether Wilfred Bentworth will take the chair, and how we progress generally.”
The Marquess took his foot down and inclined his head at Michael.
“I like to see young politicians interesting themselves in the future of England, because, in fact, no amount of politics will prevent her having one. By the way, have you had your own kitchen electrified?”
“My wife and I are thinking of it, sir.”
“Don’t think!” said the Marquess. “Have it done!”
“We certainly shall, now.”
“We must strike while the strike is on,” said the Marquess. “If there is anything shorter than the public’s memory, I am not aware of it.”
“Phew!” said Sir Lawrence, on the next doorstep; “the old boy’s spryer than ever. I take it we may assume that the name here was originally Moss. If so, the question is: ‘Have we the wits for this job?’”
And, in some doubt, they scrutinised the mansion before them.
“We had better be perfectly straightforward,” said Michael. “Dwell on the slums, mention the names we hope to get, and leave the rest to him.”
“I think,” said his father, “we had better say ‘got,’ not ‘hope to get.’”
“The moment we mention the names, Dad, he’ll know we’re after his dibs.”
“He’ll know that in any case, my boy.”
“I suppose there’s no doubt about the dibs?”
“Montross, Ltd.! They’re not confined to elastic bands.”
“I should like to make a perfectly plain appeal to his generosity, Dad. There’s a lot of generosity in that blood, you know.”
“We can’t stand just here, Michael, discussing the make-up of the chosen. Ring the bell!”
Michael rang.
“Mr. Montross at home? Thank you. Will you give him these cards, and ask if we might see him for a moment?”
The room into which they were ushered was evidently accustomed to this sort of thing, for, while there was nothing that anyone could take away, there were chairs in which it was possible to be quite comfortable, and some valuable but large pictures and busts.
Sir Lawrence was examining a bust, and Michael a picture, when the door was opened, and a voice said: “Yes, gentlemen?”
Mr. Montross was of short stature, and somewhat like a thin walrus who had once been dark but had gone grey; his features were slightly aquiline, he had melancholy brown eyes, and big drooping grizzly moustaches and eyebrows.
“We were advised to come to you, sir,” began Michael at once, “by your neighbour, the Marquess of Shropshire. We’re trying to form a committee to issue an appeal for a national fund to convert the slums.” And for the third time he plunged into detail.
“And why do you come to ME, gentlemen?” said Mr. Montross, when he had finished.
Michael subdued a stammer.
“Because of your wealth, sir,” he said, simply.
“Good!” said Mr. Montross. “You see, I began in the slums, Mr. Mont–is it? – yes, Mr. Mont–I began there–I know a lot about those people, you know. I thought perhaps you came to me because of that.”
“Splendid, sir,” said Michael, “but of course we hadn’t an idea.”
“Well, those people are born without a future.”
“That’s just what we’re out to rectify, sir.”
“Take them away from their streets and put them in a new country, then–perhaps; but leave them to their streets–” Mr. Montross shook his head. “I know them, you see, Mr. Mont; if these people thought about the future, they could not go on living. And if you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.”
“How about yourself?” said Sir Lawrence. Mr. Montross turned his gaze from Michael to the cards in his hand, then raised his melancholy eyes.
“Sir Lawrence Mont, isn’t it? – I am a Jew–that is different. A Jew will rise from any beginnings, if he is a real Jew. The reason the Polish and the Russian Jews do not rise so easily you can see from their faces–they have too much Slav or Mongol blood. The pure Jew like me rises.”
Sir Lawrence and Michael exchanged a glance. “We like this fellow,” it seemed to say.
“I was a poor boy in a bad slum,” went on Mr. Montross, intercepting the glance, “and I am now–well, a millionaire; but I have not become that, you know, by throwing away my money. I like to help people that will help themselves.”
“Then,” said Michael, with a sigh, “there’s nothing in this scheme that appeals to you, sir?”
“I will ask my wife,” answered Mr. Montross, also with a sigh. “Good-night, gentlemen. Let me write to you.”
The two Monts moved slowly towards Mount Street in the last of the twilight.
“Well?” said Michael.
Sir Lawrence cocked his eyebrow.
“An honest man,” he said; “it’s fortunate for us he has a wife.”
“You mean–?”
“The potential Lady Montross will bring him in. There was no other reason why he should ask her. That makes four, and Sir Timothy’s a ‘sitter’; slum landlords are his betes noires. We only want three more. A bishop one can always get, but I’ve forgotten which it is for the moment; we MUST have a big doctor, and we ought to have a banker, but perhaps your uncle, Lionel Charwell, will do; he knows all about the shady side of finance in the courts, and we could make Alison work for us. And now, my dear, good-night! I don’t know when I’ve felt more tired.”
They parted at the corner, and Michael walked towards Westminster. He passed under the spikes of Buckingham Palace Gardens, and along the stables leading to Victoria Street. All this part had some very nice slums, though of late he knew the authorities had been ‘going for them.’ He passed an area where they had ‘gone’ for them to the extent of pulling down a congery of old houses. Michael stared up at the remnants of walls mosaicked by the unstripped wall papers. What had happened to the tribe outdriven from these ruins; whereto had they taken the tragic lives of which they made such cheerful comedy? He came to the broad river of Victoria Street and crossed it, and, taking a route that he knew was to be avoided, he was soon where women encrusted with age sat on doorsteps for a breath of air, and little alleys led off to unplumbed depths. Michael plumbed them in fancy, not in fact. He stood quite a while at the end of one, trying to imagine what it must be like to live there. Not succeeding, he walked briskly on, and turned into his own square, and to his own habitat with its bay-treed tubs, its Danish roof, and almost hopeless cleanliness. And he suffered from the feeling which besets those who are sensitive about their luck.
‘Fleur would say,’ he thought, perching on the coat-sarcophagus, for he, too, was tired, ‘that those people having no aesthetic sense and no tradition to wash up to, are at least as happy as we are. She’d say that they get as much pleasure out of living from hand to mouth (and not too much mouth), as we do from baths, jazz, poetry and cocktails; and she’s generally right.’ Only, what a confession of defeat! If that were really so, to what end were they all dancing? If life with bugs and flies were as good as life without bugs and flies, why Keating’s powder and all the other aspirations of the poets? Blake’s New Jerusalem was, surely, based on Keating, and Keating was based on a sensitive skin.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50