On Forsyte ‘Change

“The Germans have invaded Belgium, Sir.”

Soames put down his glass.

“Who told you that?”

“It’s on the tape, Sir.”

Soames emitted a sound that might have come from his very boots—so deep it was. He must think. But you couldn’t tell what you were thinking in this place.

“My bill,” he said.

When it came, he gave the waiter a shilling against club rules and the habit of a lifetime; for he had an obscure feeling that the fellow had done something unique to him. Then with a sudden homing instinct, he took a cab to Paddington, and all the way in the train read the evening paper, or sat staring out of the carriage window.

He said nothing when he got home—nothing whatever to anybody of what he had heard—the whole of him absorbed in a sort of silent and awful adjustment. That fellow Grey—a steady chap, best of the bunch—must be making his speech to the House by now. What was he saying? And how were they taking it? He got into his punt and sat there listening to the wood-pigeons, in the leafy peace of the bright day. He didn’t want a soul near him. England! They said the fleet was ready. His mind didn’t seem able to get further than that. To be on water gave him queer consolation, as if his faith in the fleet would glide with that water down to the sea whereon the pride and the protection of England lay. He put his hand down and the water flowed green-tinged through his opened fingers. By George! There went that kingfisher—hadn’t seen him for weeks—flash of blue among the reeds. He wouldn’t be that fellow Grey for something. They said he was a fisherman and liked birds. What was he saying to them in there under Big Ben? The chap had always been a gentleman, could he say anything but that England would stand by her word? And for the second time Soames uttered a sound which seemed to travel up from the very tips of his toes. He didn’t see what was to be done except agree with that. And what then? All this green peace, every home throughout the land, and stocks and shares—falling, falling! And old Uncle Timothy—ninety-four! He would have to see that they kept it from the old chap. Luckily no newspaper had come into the “Nook” since Aunt Hester died; reading about the House of Lords in 1910 had so upset Timothy, that he had given up taking even The Times.

‘And my pictures!’ thought Soames. Yes, and Fleur’s governess—a German, Fleur having always spoken French with her mother. A

The mothers of the boys going off to the war out there; young chaps—conscripts—Russia and Austria, Germany and France—and not one knowing or caring a dump about it. A pretty how-de-do! There’d be a lot of volunteering here—if—if—! Only he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell what use England could be except at sea.

He got out of the punt and walked slowly up past the house to his front gate. Heat was over, light paling, stars peering through, the air smelled a little of dust. Soames stood like some pelican awaiting it knew not what. A motor-cycle came sputtering from the direction of Reading. The rider, in dusty overalls, flung words at him:

“Pawlyment! We’re goin’ in!” and sputtered past. Soames stretched out a hand. So might a blind man have moved.

Going in? With little food inside and the stars above him, all the imaginative power, which as a rule he starved, turned active, clutched and groped. Scattered, scuttling images of war came flying across the screen of his consciousness like so many wild geese over the sand, over the sea, out of the darkness into the darkness of a layman’s mind; a layman who had thought in terms of peace all his days, and his days many. What a thing to happen to one at sixty! They might have waited till he was like old Timothy. Anxiety! That was it, anxiety. Kitchener was over from Egypt, they said. That was something. A grim-looking chap, with his eyes fixed beyond you like a lion’s at the Zoo; but he’d always come through. Soames remembered, suddenly, his sensations during the black week of the Boer war—potty little affair, compared with this. And there was old Roberts—too old, he supposed.

‘But perhaps,’ he thought, ‘we shan’t have to fight on land.’ Besides, who knew? The Germans might come to their senses yet, when they heard England was going in. There was Russia, she had more millions than all the rest put together—Steam-roller, they called her; but had she the steam? Japan had beaten her.

‘Well!’ and the thought gave him the queerest feeling, proud and miserable: ‘If we begin, we shall hold on.’ There was something at once terrible to him and deeply satisfying about that instinctive knowledge. They’d be singing “Rule Brita

The stars burned through a sky growing blue-dark. All over Europe men and guns moving—all over the seas ships tearing along. And this silence—this hush before the storm. That couldn’t last. No; there they were already—singing back there along the road—drunk, he should say. Tune—words—he didn’t know them—vulgar stuff:

What had that to do with it—he should like to know? They were cheering now. Some beanfeast or other had got the news—common people! But—common or not, tonight all was England, England! Well, he must go indoors.

Silence, as of one stricken by decision, come to instinctively rather than by will, weighed on Soames that night and all next day. He read ‘that chap Grey’s’ speech and, in conspiracy with his country, waited for what he felt would never come: an answer to the ultimatum sent. The Germans had tasted of force, and would never go back on their invasion of Belgium.

In the afternoon he could neither bear his own gloom nor the excitement of A