The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1
Page 172She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers had
reached her that things were not all right between her nephew and his
fiancee. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked Phil
to dinner many times; his invariable answer had been 'Too busy.'
Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of this
excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte; in young
Jolyon's sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege, and merits
description as such.
She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said was
beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be
found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her
name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with
the Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars--and she never lent her name
She believed, as she often said, in putting things on a commercial
basis; the proper function of the Church, of charity, indeed, of
everything, was to strengthen the fabric of 'Society.' Individual
action, therefore, she considered immoral. Organization was the only
thing, for by organization alone could you feel sure that you were
getting a return for your money. Organization--and again, organization!
And there is no doubt that she was what old Jolyon called her--"a 'dab'
at that"--he went further, he called her "a humbug."
The enterprises to which she lent her name were organized so admirably
that by the time the takings were handed over, they were indeed skim
milk divested of all cream of human kindness. But as she often justly
remarked, sentiment was to be deprecated. She was, in fact, a little
This great and good woman, so highly thought of in ecclesiastical
circles, was one of the principal priestesses in the temple of
Forsyteism, keeping alive day and night a sacred flame to the God of
Property, whose altar is inscribed with those inspiring words: 'Nothing
for nothing, and really remarkably little for sixpence.'
When she entered a room it was felt that something substantial had come
in, which was probably the reason of her popularity as a patroness.
People liked something substantial when they had paid money for it; and
they would look at her--surrounded by her staff in charity ballrooms,
with her high nose and her broad, square figure, attired in an uniform
covered with sequins--as though she were a general.
The only thing against her was that she had not a double name. She was a
all intersecting on the common battlefield of charity functions, and
on that battlefield brushing skirts so pleasantly with the skirts
of Society with the capital 'S.' She was a power in society with the
smaller 's,' that larger, more significant, and more powerful body,
where the commercially Christian institutions, maxims, and 'principle,'
which Mrs. Baynes embodied, were real life-blood, circulating freely,
real business currency, not merely the sterilized imitation that flowed
in the veins of smaller Society with the larger 'S.' People who knew her
felt her to be sound--a sound woman, who never gave herself away, nor
anything else, if she could possibly help it.