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Title: The Forsyte Saga, Complete
Author: John Galsworthy
Release Date: January 23, 2002 [EBook #4397]
[Most recently updated: May 26, 2020]
Language: English
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FORSYTE SAGA
Complete
By John Galsworthy
Contents
PREFACE:
THE MAN OF PROPERTY
PART I
CHAPTER I—“AT HOME” AT OLD JOLYON’S
CHAPTER II—OLD JOLYON GOES TO THE OPERA
CHAPTER III—DINNER AT SWITHIN’S
CHAPTER IV—PROJECTION OF THE HOUSE
CHAPTER V—A FORSYTE MÉNAGE
CHAPTER VI—JAMES AT LARGE
CHAPTER VII—OLD JOLYON’S PECCADILLO
CHAPTER VIII—PLANS OF THE HOUSE
CHAPTER IX—DEATH OF AUNT ANN
PART II
CHAPTER I—PROGRESS OF THE HOUSE
CHAPTER II—JUNE’S TREAT
CHAPTER III—DRIVE WITH SWITHIN
CHAPTER IV—JAMES GOES TO SEE FOR HIMSELF
CHAPTER V—SOAMES AND BOSINNEY CORRESPOND
CHAPTER VI—OLD JOLYON AT THE ZOO
CHAPTER VII—AFTERNOON AT TIMOTHY’S
CHAPTER VIII—DANCE AT ROGER'S
CHAPTER IX—EVENING AT RICHMOND
CHAPTER X—DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE
CHAPTER XI—BOSINNEY ON PAROLE
CHAPTER XII—JUNE PAYS SOME CALLS
CHAPTER XIII—PERFECTION OF THE HOUSE
CHAPTER XIV—SOAMES SITS ON THE STAIRS
PART III
CHAPTER I—MRS. MACANDER’S EVIDENCE
CHAPTER II—NIGHT IN THE PARK
CHAPTER III—MEETING AT THE BOTANICAL
CHAPTER IV—VOYAGE INTO THE INFERNO
CHAPTER V—THE TRIAL
CHAPTER VI—SOAMES BREAKS THE NEWS
CHAPTER VII—JUNE’S VICTORY
CHAPTER VIII—BOSINNEY’S DEPARTURE
CHAPTER IX—IRENE’S RETURN
THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME II
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE
I
II
III
IV
V
IN CHANCERY
PART 1
CHAPTER I—AT TIMOTHY’S
CHAPTER II—EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER III—SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS
CHAPTER IV—SOHO
CHAPTER V—JAMES SEES VISIONS
CHAPTER VI—NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME
CHAPTER VII—THE COLT AND THE FILLY
CHAPTER VIII—JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP
CHAPTER IX—VAL HEARS THE NEWS
CHAPTER X—SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE
CHAPTER XI—AND VISITS THE PAST
CHAPTER XII—ON FORSYTE ’CHANGE
CHAPTER XIII—JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS
CHAPTER XIV—SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS
PART II
CHAPTER I—THE THIRD GENERATION
CHAPTER II—SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH
CHAPTER III—VISIT TO IRENE
CHAPTER IV—WHERE FORSYTES FEAR TO TREAD
CHAPTER V—JOLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT
CHAPTER VI—JOLYON IN TWO MINDS
CHAPTER VII—DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE
CHAPTER VIII—THE CHALLENGE
CHAPTER IX—DINNER AT JAMES’
CHAPTER X—DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR
CHAPTER XI—TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT
CHAPTER XII—PROGRESS OF THE CHASE
CHAPTER XIII—“HERE WE ARE AGAIN!”
CHAPTER XIV—OUTLANDISH NIGHT
PART III
CHAPTER I—SOAMES IN PARIS
CHAPTER II—IN THE WEB
CHAPTER III—RICHMOND PARK
CHAPTER IV—OVER THE RIVER
CHAPTER V—SOAMES ACTS
CHAPTER VI—A SUMMER DAY
CHAPTER VII—A SUMMER NIGHT
CHAPTER VIII—JAMES IN WAITING
CHAPTER IX—OUT OF THE WEB
CHAPTER X—PASSING OF AN AGE
CHAPTER XI—SUSPENDED ANIMATION
CHAPTER XII—BIRTH OF A FORSYTE
CHAPTER XIII—JAMES IS TOLD
CHAPTER XIV—HIS
AWAKENING
TO LET
PART I
I.—ENCOUNTER
II.—FINE FLEUR FORSYTE
III.—AT ROBIN HILL
IV.—THE MAUSOLEUM
V.—THE NATIVE HEATH
VI.—JON
VII.—FLEUR
VIII.—IDYLL ON GRASS
IX. GOYA
X.—TRIO
XI.—DUET
XII.—CAPRICE
PART II
I.—MOTHER AND SON
II.—FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
III.—MEETINGS
IV.—IN GREEN STREET
V.—PURELY FORSYTE AFFAIRS
VI.—SOAMES’ PRIVATE LIFE
VII.—JUNE TAKES A HAND
VIII.—THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH
IX.—THE FAT IN THE FIRE
X.—DECISION
XI.—TIMOTHY PROPHESIES
PART III
I.—OLD JOLYON WALKS
II.—CONFESSION
III.—IRENE
IV.—SOAMES COGITATES
V.—THE FIXED IDEA
VI.—DESPERATE
VII.—EMBASSY
VIII.—THE DARK TUNE
IX.—UNDER THE OAK-TREE
X.—FLEUR’S WEDDING
XI.—THE LAST OF THE OLD FORSYTES
Volumes
Volume 1. The Man of Property
Volume 2. Indian Summer of a Forsyte, and In Chancery
Volume 3. Awakening, and To Let
THE MAN OF PROPERTY
TO MY WIFE:
I DEDICATE THE FORSYTE SAGA IN ITS ENTIRETY,
BELIEVING IT TO BE OF ALL MY WORKS THE LEAST UNWORTHY OF ONE WITHOUT
WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT, SYMPATHY AND CRITICISM I COULD NEVER HAVE BECOME
EVEN SUCH A WRITER AS I AM.
PREFACE:
“The Forsyte Saga” was the title originally destined for that
part of it which is called “The Man of Property”; and to adopt it
for the collected chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged
the Forsytean tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga might
be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that
there is little heroism in these pages. But it is used with a
suitable irony; and, after all, this long tale, though it may
deal with folk in frock coats, furbelows, and a gilt-edged
period, is not devoid of the essential heat of conflict.
Discounting for the gigantic stature and blood-thirstiness of old
days, as they have come down to us in fairy-tale and legend, the
folk of the old Sagas were Forsytes, assuredly, in their
possessive instincts, and as little proof against the inroads of
beauty and passion as Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon. And
if heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle out
from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a Forsyte of the
Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then
the prime force, and that “family” and the sense of home and
property counted as they do to this day, for all the recent
efforts to “talk them out.”
So many people have written and claimed that their families were
the originals of the Forsytes that one has been almost encouraged
to believe in the typicality of an imagined species. Manners
change and modes evolve, and “Timothy’s on the Bayswater Road”
becomes a nest of the unbelievable in all except essentials; we
shall not look upon its like again, nor perhaps on such a one as
James or Old Jolyon. And yet the figures of Insurance Societies
and the utterances of Judges reassure us daily that our earthly
paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild raiders, Beauty
and Passion, come stealing in, filching security from beneath our
noses. As surely as a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the
essential Soames in human nature ever rise up uneasily against
the dissolution which hovers round the folds of ownership.
“Let the dead Past bury its dead” would be a better saying if the
Past ever died. The persistence of the Past is one of those
tragi-comic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure
on to the stage to mouth its claim to a perfect novelty.
But no Age is so new as that! Human Nature, under its changing
pretensions and clothes, is and ever will be very much of a
Forsyte, and might, after all, be a much worse animal.
Looking back on the Victorian era, whose ripeness, decline, and
“fall-of” is in some sort pictured in “The Forsyte Saga,” we see
now that we have but jumped out of a frying-pan into a fire. It
would be difficult to substantiate a claim that the case of
England was better in 1913 than it was in 1886, when the Forsytes
assembled at Old Jolyon’s to celebrate the engagement of June to
Philip Bosinney. And in 1920, when again the clan gathered to
bless the marriage of Fleur with Michael Mont, the state of
England is as surely too molten and bankrupt as in the eighties
it was too congealed and low-percented. If these chronicles had
been a really scientific study of transition one would have dwelt
probably on such factors as the invention of bicycle, motor-car,
and flying-machine; the arrival of a cheap Press; the decline of
country life and increase of the towns; the birth of the Cinema.
Men are, in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions;
they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those
inventions create.
But this long tale is no scientific study of a period; it is
rather an intimate incarnation of the disturbance that Beauty
effects in the lives of men.
The figure of Irene, never, as the reader may possibly have
observed, present, except through the senses of other characters,
is a concretion of disturbing Beauty impinging on a possessive
world.
One has noticed that readers, as they wade on through the salt
waters of the Saga, are inclined more and more to pity Soames,
and to think that in doing so they are in revolt against the mood
of his creator. Far from it! He, too, pities Soames, the tragedy
of whose life is the very simple, uncontrollable tragedy of being
unlovable, without quite a thick enough skin to be thoroughly
unconscious of the fact. Not even Fleur loves Soames as he feels
he ought to be loved. But in pitying Soames, readers incline,
perhaps, to animus against Irene: After all, they think, he
wasn’t a bad fellow, it wasn’t his fault; she ought to have
forgiven him, and so on!
And, taking sides, they lose perception of the simple truth,
which underlies the whole story, that where sex attraction is
utterly and definitely lacking in one partner to a union, no
amount of pity, or reason, or duty, or what not, can overcome a
repulsion implicit in Nature. Whether it ought to, or no, is
beside the point; because in fact it never does. And where Irene
seems hard and cruel, as in the Bois de Boulogne, or the Goupenor
Gallery, she is but wisely realistic—knowing that the least
concession is the inch which precedes the impossible, the
repulsive ell.
A criticism one might pass on the last phase of the Saga is the
complaint that Irene and Jolyon those rebels against
property—claim spiritual property in their son Jon. But it would
be hypercriticism, as the tale is told. No father and mother
could have let the boy marry Fleur without knowledge of the
facts; and the facts determine Jon, not the persuasion of his
parents. Moreover, Jolyon’s persuasion is not on his own account,
but on Irene’s, and Irene’s persuasion becomes a reiterated:
“Don’t think of me, think of yourself!” That Jon, knowing the
facts, can realise his mother’s feelings, will hardly with
justice be held proof that she is, after all, a Forsyte.
But though the impingement of Beauty and the claims of Freedom on
a possessive world are the main prepossessions of the Forsyte
Saga, it cannot be absolved from the charge of embalming the
upper-middle class. As the old Egyptians placed around their
mummies the necessaries of a future existence, so I have
endeavoured to lay beside the figures of Aunts Ann and Juley and
Hester, of Timothy and Swithin, of Old Jolyon and James, and of
their sons, that which shall guarantee them a little life
here-after, a little balm in the hurried Gilead of a dissolving
“Progress.”
If the upper-middle class, with other classes, is destined to
“move on” into amorphism, here, pickled in these pages, it lies
under glass for strollers in the wide and ill-arranged museum of
Letters. Here it rests, preserved in its own juice: The Sense of
Property. 1922.
THE MAN OF PROPERTY
by JOHN GALSWORTHY
“........You will answer The slaves are
ours.....”
—Merchant of Venice.
TO EDWARD GARNETT
PART I
CHAPTER I “AT HOME” AT OLD JOLYON’S
Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the
Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight—an upper
middle-class family in full plumage. But whosoever of these
favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis
(a talent without monetary value and properly ignored by the
Forsytes), has witnessed a spectacle, not only delightful in
itself, but illustrative of an obscure human problem. In plainer
words, he has gleaned from a gathering of this family—no branch
of which had a liking for the other, between no three members of
whom existed anything worthy of the name of sympathy—evidence of
that mysterious concrete tenacity which renders a family so
formidable a unit of society, so clear a reproduction of society
in miniature. He has been admitted to a vision of the dim roads
of social progress, has understood something of patriarchal life,
of the swarmings of savage hordes, of the rise and fall of
nations. He is like one who, having watched a tree grow from its
planting—a paragon of tenacity, insulation, and success, amidst
the deaths of a hundred other plants less fibrous, sappy, and
persistent—one day will see it flourishing with bland, full
foliage, in an almost repugnant prosperity, at the summit of its
efflorescence.
On June 15, eighteen eighty-six, about four of the afternoon, the
observer who chanced to be present at the house of old Jolyon
Forsyte in Stanhope Gate, might have seen the highest
efflorescence of the Forsytes.
This was the occasion of an “at home” to celebrate the engagement
of Miss June Forsyte, old Jolyon’s granddaughter, to Mr. Philip
Bosinney. In the bravery of light gloves, buff waistcoats,
feathers and frocks, the family were present, even Aunt Ann, who
now but seldom left the corner of her brother Timothy’s green
drawing-room, where, under the aegis of a plume of dyed pampas
grass in a light blue vase, she sat all day reading and knitting,
surrounded by the effigies of three generations of Forsytes. Even
Aunt Ann was there; her inflexible back, and the dignity of her
calm old face personifying the rigid possessiveness of the family
idea.
When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were
present; when a Forsyte died—but no Forsyte had as yet died; they
did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took
precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly
vitalized persons who resent encroachments on their property.
About the Forsytes mingling that day with the crowd of other
guests, there was a more than ordinarily groomed look, an alert,
inquisitive assurance, a brilliant respectability, as though they
were attired in defiance of something. The habitual sniff on the
face of Soames Forsyte had spread through their ranks; they were
on their guard.
The subconscious offensiveness of their attitude has constituted
old Jolyon’s “home” the psychological moment of the family
history, made it the prelude of their drama.
The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually, but
as a family; this resentment expressed itself in an added
perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an
exaggeration of family importance, and—the sniff. Danger—so
indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any
society, group, or individual—was what the Forsytes scented; the
premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour. For the
first time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct of
being in contact, with some strange and unsafe thing.
Over against the piano a man of bulk and stature was wearing two
waistcoats on his wide chest, two waistcoats and a ruby pin,
instead of the single satin waistcoat and diamond pin of more
usual occasions, and his shaven, square, old face, the colour of
pale leather, with pale eyes, had its most dignified look, above
his satin stock. This was Swithin Forsyte. Close to the window,
where he could get more than his fair share of fresh air, the
other twin, James—the fat and the lean of it, old Jolyon called
these brothers—like the bulky Swithin, over six feet in height,
but very lean, as though destined from his birth to strike a
balance and maintain an average, brooded over the scene with his
permanent stoop; his grey eyes had an air of fixed absorption in
some secret worry, broken at intervals by a rapid, shifting
scrutiny of surrounding facts; his cheeks, thinned by two
parallel folds, and a long, clean-shaven upper lip, were framed
within Dundreary whiskers. In his hands he turned and turned a
piece of china. Not far off, listening to a lady in brown, his
only son Soames, pale and well-shaved, dark-haired, rather bald,
had poked his chin up sideways, carrying his nose with that
aforesaid appearance of “sniff,” as though despising an egg which
he knew he could not digest. Behind him his cousin, the tall
George, son of the fifth Forsyte, Roger, had a Quilpish look on
his fleshy face, pondering one of his sardonic jests. Something
inherent to the occasion had affected them all.
Seated in a row close to one another were three ladies—Aunts Ann,
Hester (the two Forsyte maids), and Juley (short for Julia), who
not in first youth had so far forgotten herself as to marry
Septimus Small, a man of poor constitution. She had survived him
for many years. With her elder and younger sister she lived now
in the house of Timothy, her sixth and youngest brother, on the
Bayswater Road. Each of these ladies held fans in their hands,
and each with some touch of colour, some emphatic feather or
brooch, testified to the solemnity of the opportunity.
In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a
host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon himself. Eighty
years of age, with his fine, white hair, his dome-like forehead,
his little, dark grey eyes, and an immense white moustache, which
drooped and spread below the level of his strong jaw, he had a
patriarchal look, and in spite of lean cheeks and hollows at his
temples, seemed master of perennial youth. He held himself
extremely upright, and his shrewd, steady eyes had lost none of
their clear shining. Thus he gave an impression of superiority to
the doubts and dislikes of smaller men. Having had his own way
for innumerable years, he had earned a prescriptive right to it.
It would never have occurred to old Jolyon that it was necessary
to wear a look of doubt or of defiance.
Between him and the four other brothers who were present, James,
Swithin, Nicholas, and Roger, there was much difference, much
similarity. In turn, each of these four brothers was very
different from the other, yet they, too, were alike.
Through the varying features and expression of those five faces
could be marked a certain steadfastness of chin, underlying
surface distinctions, marking a racial stamp, too prehistoric to
trace, too remote and permanent to discuss—the very hall-mark and
guarantee of the family fortunes.
Among the younger generation, in the tall, bull-like George, in
pallid strenuous Archibald, in young Nicholas with his sweet and
tentative obstinacy, in the grave and foppishly determined
Eustace, there was this same stamp—less meaningful perhaps, but
unmistakable—a sign of something ineradicable in the family soul.
At one time or another during the afternoon, all these faces, so
dissimilar and so alike, had worn an expression of distrust, the
object of which was undoubtedly the man whose acquaintance they
were thus assembled to make. Philip Bosinney was known to be a
young man without fortune, but Forsyte girls had become engaged
to such before, and had actually married them. It was not
altogether for this reason, therefore, that the minds of the
Forsytes misgave them. They could not have explained the origin
of a misgiving obscured by the mist of family gossip. A story was
undoubtedly told that he had paid his duty call to Aunts Ann,
Juley, and Hester, in a soft grey hat—a soft grey hat, not even a
new one—a dusty thing with a shapeless crown. “So, extraordinary,
my dear—so odd,” Aunt Hester, passing through the little, dark
hall (she was rather short-sighted), had tried to “shoo” it off a
chair, taking it for a strange, disreputable cat—Tommy had such
disgraceful friends! She was disturbed when it did not move.
Like an artist for ever seeking to discover the significant
trifle which embodies the whole character of a scene, or place,
or person, so those unconscious artists—the Forsytes had fastened
by intuition on this hat; it was their significant trifle, the
detail in which was embedded the meaning of the whole matter; for
each had asked himself: “Come, now, should _I_ have paid that
visit in that hat?” and each had answered “No!” and some, with
more imagination than others, had added: “It would never have
come into my head!”
George, on hearing the story, grinned. The hat had obviously been
worn as a practical joke! He himself was a connoisseur of such.
“Very haughty!” he said, “the wild Buccaneer.”
And this mot, the “Buccaneer,” was bandied from mouth to mouth,
till it became the favourite mode of alluding to Bosinney.
Her aunts reproached June afterwards about the hat.
“We don’t think you ought to let him, dear!” they had said.
June had answered in her imperious brisk way, like the little
embodiment of will she was: “Oh! what does it matter? Phil never
knows what he’s got on!”
No one had credited an answer so outrageous. A man not to know
what he had on? No, no! What indeed was this young man, who, in
becoming engaged to June, old Jolyon’s acknowledged heiress, had
done so well for himself? He was an architect, not in itself a
sufficient reason for wearing such a hat. None of the Forsytes
happened to be architects, but one of them knew two architects
who would never have worn such a hat upon a call of ceremony in
the London season.
Dangerous—ah, dangerous! June, of course, had not seen this, but,
though not yet nineteen, she was notorious. Had she not said to
Mrs. Soames—who was always so beautifully dressed—that feathers
were vulgar? Mrs. Soames had actually given up wearing feathers,
so dreadfully downright was dear June!
These misgivings, this disapproval, and perfectly genuine
distrust, did not prevent the Forsytes from gathering to old
Jolyon’s invitation. An “At Home” at Stanhope Gate was a great
rarity; none had been held for twelve years, not indeed, since
old Mrs. Jolyon had died.
Never had there been so full an assembly, for, mysteriously
united in spite of all their differences, they had taken arms
against a common peril. Like cattle when a dog comes into the
field, they stood head to head and shoulder to shoulder, prepared
to run upon and trample the invader to death. They had come, too,
no doubt, to get some notion of what sort of presents they would
ultimately be expected to give; for though the question of
wedding gifts was usually graduated in this way: “What are _you_
givin’. Nicholas is givin’ spoons!”—so very much depended on the
bridegroom. If he were sleek, well-brushed, prosperous-looking,
it was more necessary to give him nice things; he would expect
them. In the end each gave exactly what was right and proper, by
a species of family adjustment arrived at as prices are arrived
at on the Stock Exchange—the exact niceties being regulated at
Timothy’s commodious, red-brick residence in Bayswater,
overlooking the Park, where dwelt Aunts Ann, Juley, and Hester.
The uneasiness of the Forsyte family has been justified by the
simple mention of the hat. How impossible and wrong would it have
been for any family, with the regard for appearances which should
ever characterize the great upper middle-class, to feel otherwise
than uneasy!
The author of the uneasiness stood talking to June by the further
door; his curly hair had a rumpled appearance, as though he found
what was going on around him unusual. He had an air, too, of
having a joke all to himself. George, speaking aside to his
brother, Eustace, said:
“Looks as if he might make a bolt of it—the dashing Buccaneer!”
This “very singular-looking man,” as Mrs. Small afterwards called
him, was of medium height and strong build, with a pale, brown
face, a dust-coloured moustache, very prominent cheek-bones, and
hollow checks. His forehead sloped back towards the crown of his
head, and bulged out in bumps over the eyes, like foreheads seen
in the Lion-house at the Zoo. He had sherry-coloured eyes,
disconcertingly inattentive at times. Old Jolyon’s coachman,
after driving June and Bosinney to the theatre, had remarked to
the butler:
“I dunno what to make of ’im. Looks to me for all the world like
an ’alf-tame leopard.” And every now and then a Forsyte would
come up, sidle round, and take a look at him.
June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity—a little bit
of a thing, as somebody once said, “all hair and spirit,” with
fearless blue eyes, a firm jaw, and a bright colour, whose face
and body seemed too slender for her crown of red-gold hair.
A tall woman, with a beautiful figure, which some member of the
family had once compared to a heathen goddess, stood looking at
these two with a shadowy smile.
Her hands, gloved in French grey, were crossed one over the
other, her grave, charming face held to one side, and the eyes of
all men near were fastened on it. Her figure swayed, so balanced
that the very air seemed to set it moving. There was warmth, but
little colour, in her cheeks; her large, dark eyes were soft.
But it was at her lips—asking a question, giving an answer, with
that shadowy smile—that men looked; they were sensitive lips,
sensuous and sweet, and through them seemed to come warmth and
perfume like the warmth and perfume of a flower.
The engaged couple thus scrutinized were unconscious of this
passive goddess. It was Bosinney who first noticed her, and asked
her name.
June took her lover up to the woman with the beautiful figure.
“Irene is my greatest chum,” she said: “Please be good friends,
you two!”
At the little lady’s command they all three smiled; and while
they were smiling, Soames Forsyte, silently appearing from behind
the woman with the beautiful figure, who was his wife, said:
“Ah! introduce me too!”
He was seldom, indeed, far from Irene’s side at public functions,
and even when separated by the exigencies of social intercourse,
could be seen following her about with his eyes, in which were
strange expressions of watchfulness and longing.
At the window his father, James, was still scrutinizing the marks
on the piece of china.
“I wonder at Jolyon’s allowing this engagement,” he said to Aunt
Ann. “They tell me there’s no chance of their getting married for
years. This young Bosinney” (he made the word a dactyl in
opposition to general usage of a short o) “has got nothing. When
Winifred married Dartie, I made him bring every penny into
settlement—lucky thing, too—they’d ha’ had nothing by this time!”
Aunt Ann looked up from her velvet chair. Grey curls banded her
forehead, curls that, unchanged for decades, had extinguished in
the family all sense of time. She made no reply, for she rarely
spoke, husbanding her aged voice; but to James, uneasy of
conscience, her look was as good as an answer.
“Well,” he said, “I couldn’t help Irene’s having no money. Soames
was in such a hurry; he got quite thin dancing attendance on
her.”
Putting the bowl pettishly down on the piano, he let his eyes
wander to the group by the door.
“It’s my opinion,” he said unexpectedly, “that it’s just as well
as it is.”
Aunt Ann did not ask him to explain this strange utterance. She
knew what he was thinking. If Irene had no money she would not be
so foolish as to do anything wrong; for they said—they said—she
had been asking for a separate room; but, of course, Soames had
not....
James interrupted her reverie:
“But where,” he asked, “was Timothy? Hadn’t he come with them?”
Through Aunt Ann’s compressed lips a tender smile forced its way:
“No, he didn’t think it wise, with so much of this diphtheria
about; and he so liable to take things.”
James answered:
“Well, _he_ takes good care of himself. I can’t afford to take
the care of myself that he does.”
Nor was it easy to say which, of admiration, envy, or contempt,
was dominant in that remark.
Timothy, indeed, was seldom seen. The baby of the family, a
publisher by profession, he had some years before, when business
was at full tide, scented out the stagnation which, indeed, had
not yet come, but which ultimately, as all agreed, was bound to
set in, and, selling his share in a firm engaged mainly in the
production of religious books, had invested the quite conspicuous
proceeds in three per cent. consols. By this act he had at once
assumed an isolated position, no other Forsyte being content with
less than four per cent. for his money; and this isolation had
slowly and surely undermined a spirit perhaps better than
commonly endowed with caution. He had become almost a myth—a kind
of incarnation of security haunting the background of the Forsyte
universe. He had never committed the imprudence of marrying, or
encumbering himself in any way with children.
James resumed, tapping the piece of china:
“This isn’t real old Worcester. I s’pose Jolyon’s told you
something about the young man. From all _I_ can learn, he’s got
no business, no income, and no connection worth speaking of; but
then, I know nothing—nobody tells me anything.”
Aunt Ann shook her head. Over her square-chinned, aquiline old
face a trembling passed; the spidery fingers of her hands pressed
against each other and interlaced, as though she were subtly
recharging her will.
The eldest by some years of all the Forsytes, she held a peculiar
position amongst them. Opportunists and egotists one and
all—though not, indeed, more so than their neighbours—they
quailed before her incorruptible figure, and, when opportunities
were too strong, what could they do but avoid her!
Twisting his long, thin legs, James went on:
“Jolyon, he will have his own way. He’s got no children”—and
stopped, recollecting the continued existence of old Jolyon’s
son, young Jolyon, Jun’s father, who had made such a mess of it,
and done for himself by deserting his wife and child and running
away with that foreign governess. “Well,” he resumed hastily, “if
he likes to do these things, I s’pose he can afford to. Now,
what’s he going to give her? I s’pose he’ll give her a thousand a
year; he’s got nobody else to leave his money to.”
He stretched out his hand to meet that of a dapper, clean-shaven
man, with hardly a hair on his head, a long, broken nose, full
lips, and cold grey eyes under rectangular brows.
“Well, Nick,” he muttered, “how are you?”
Nicholas Forsyte, with his bird-like rapidity and the look of a
preternaturally sage schoolboy (he had made a large fortune,
quite legitimately, out of the companies of which he was a
director), placed within that cold palm the tips of his still
colder fingers and hastily withdrew them.
“I’m bad,” he said, pouting—“been bad all the week; don’t sleep
at night. The doctor can’t tell why. He’s a clever fellow, or I
shouldn’t have him, but I get nothing out of him but bills.”
“Doctors!” said James, coming down sharp on his words: “_I’ve_
had all the doctors in London for one or another of us. There’s
no satisfaction to be got out of _them;_ they’ll tell you
anything. There’s Swithin, now. What good have they done him?
There he is; he’s bigger than ever; he’s enormous; they can’t get
his weight down. Look at him!”
Swithin Forsyte, tall, square, and broad, with a chest like a
pouter pigeon’s in its plumage of bright waistcoats, came
strutting towards them.
“Er—how are you?” he said in his dandified way, aspirating the
“h” strongly (this difficult letter was almost absolutely safe in
his keeping)—“how are you?”
Each brother wore an air of aggravation as he looked at the other
two, knowing by experience that they would try to eclipse his
ailments.
“We were just saying,” said James, “that you don’t get any
thinner.”
Swithin protruded his pale round eyes with the effort of hearing.
“Thinner? I’m in good case,” he said, leaning a little forward,
“not one of your thread-papers like you!”
But, afraid of losing the expansion of his chest, he leaned back
again into a state of immobility, for he prized nothing so highly
as a distinguished appearance.
Aunt Ann turned her old eyes from one to the other. Indulgent and
severe was her look. In turn the three brothers looked at Ann.
She was getting shaky. Wonderful woman! Eighty-six if a day;
might live another ten years, and had never been strong. Swithin
and James, the twins, were only seventy-five, Nicholas a mere
baby of seventy or so. All were strong, and the inference was
comforting. Of all forms of property their respective healths
naturally concerned them most.
“I’m very well in myself,” proceeded James, “but my nerves are
out of order. The least thing worries me to death. I shall have
to go to Bath.”
“Bath!” said Nicholas. “I’ve tried Harrogate. _That’s_ no good.
What I want is sea air. There’s nothing like Yarmouth. Now, when
I go there I sleep....”
“My liver’s very bad,” interrupted Swithin slowly. “Dreadful pain
here;” and he placed his hand on his right side.
“Want of exercise,” muttered James, his eyes on the china. He
quickly added: “I get a pain there, too.”
Swithin reddened, a resemblance to a turkey-cock coming upon his
old face.
“Exercise!” he said. “I take plenty: I never use the lift at the
Club.”
“I didn’t know,” James hurried out. “I know nothing about
anybody; nobody tells me anything....”
Swithin fixed him with a stare:
“What do you do for a pain there?”
James brightened.
“I take a compound....”
“How are you, uncle?”
June stood before him, her resolute small face raised from her
little height to his great height, and her hand outheld.
The brightness faded from James’s visage.
“How are you?” he said, brooding over her. “So you’re going to
Wales to-morrow to visit your young man’s aunts? You’ll have a
lot of rain there. This isn’t real old Worcester.” He tapped the
bowl. “Now, that set I gave your mother when she married was the
genuine thing.”
June shook hands one by one with her three great-uncles, and
turned to Aunt Ann. A very sweet look had come into the old
lady’s face, she kissed the girl’s check with trembling fervour.
“Well, my dear,” she said, “and so you’re going for a whole
month!”
The girl passed on, and Aunt Ann looked after her slim little
figure. The old lady’s round, steel grey eyes, over which a film
like a bird’s was beginning to come, followed her wistfully
amongst the bustling crowd, for people were beginning to say
good-bye; and her finger-tips, pressing and pressing against each
other, were busy again with the recharging of her will against
that inevitable ultimate departure of her own.
“Yes,” she thought, “everybody’s been most kind; quite a lot of
people come to congratulate her. She ought to be very happy.”
Amongst the throng of people by the door, the well-dressed throng
drawn from the families of lawyers and doctors, from the Stock
Exchange, and all the innumerable avocations of the upper-middle
class—there were only some twenty percent of Forsytes; but to
Aunt Ann they seemed all Forsytes—and certainly there was not
much difference—she saw only her own flesh and blood. It was her
world, this family, and she knew no other, had never perhaps
known any other. All their little secrets, illnesses,
engagements, and marriages, how they were getting on, and whether
they were making money—all this was her property, her delight,
her life; beyond this only a vague, shadowy mist of facts and
persons of no real significance. This it was that she would have
to lay down when it came to her turn to die; this which gave to
her that importance, that secret self-importance, without which
none of us can bear to live; and to this she clung wistfully,
with a greed that grew each day! If life were slipping away from
her, _this_ she would retain to the end.
She thought of Jun’s father, young Jolyon, who had run away with
that foreign girl. And what a sad blow to his father and to them
all. Such a promising young fellow! A sad blow, though there had
been no public scandal, most fortunately, Jo’s wife seeking for
no divorce! A long time ago! And when Jun’s mother died, six
years ago, Jo had married that woman, and they had two children
now, so she had heard. Still, he had forfeited his right to be
there, had cheated her of the complete fulfilment of her family
pride, deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing and
kissing him of whom she had been so proud, such a promising young
fellow! The thought rankled with the bitterness of a
long-inflicted injury in her tenacious old heart. A little water
stood in her eyes. With a handkerchief of the finest lawn she
wiped them stealthily.
“Well, Aunt Ann?” said a voice behind.
Soames Forsyte, flat-shouldered, clean-shaven, flat-cheeked,
flat-waisted, yet with something round and secret about his whole
appearance, looked downwards and aslant at Aunt Ann, as though
trying to see through the side of his own nose.
“And what do you think of the engagement?” he asked.
Aunt Ann’s eyes rested on him proudly; of all the nephews since
young Jolyon’s departure from the family nest, he was now her
favourite, for she recognised in him a sure trustee of the family
soul that must so soon slip beyond her keeping.
“Very nice for the young man,” she said; “and he’s a good-looking
young fellow; but I doubt if he’s quite the right lover for dear
June.”
Soames touched the edge of a gold-lacquered lustre.
“She’ll tame him,” he said, stealthily wetting his finger and
rubbing it on the knobby bulbs. “That’s genuine old lacquer; you
can’t get it nowadays. It’d do well in a sale at Jobson’s.” He
spoke with relish, as though he felt that he was cheering up his
old aunt. It was seldom he was so confidential. “I wouldn’t mind
having it myself,” he added; “you can always get your price for
old lacquer.”
“You’re so clever with all those things,” said Aunt Ann. “And how
is dear Irene?”
Soames’s smile died.
“Pretty well,” he said. “Complains she can’t sleep; she sleeps a
great deal better than I do,” and he looked at his wife, who was
talking to Bosinney by the door.
Aunt Ann sighed.
“Perhaps,” she said, “it will be just as well for her not to see
so much of June. She’s such a decided character, dear June!”
Soames flushed; his flushes passed rapidly over his flat cheeks
and centered between his eyes, where they remained, the stamp of
disturbing thoughts.
“I don’t know what she sees in that little flibbertigibbet,” he
burst out, but noticing that they were no longer alone, he turned
and again began examining the lustre.
“They tell me Jolyon’s bought another house,” said his father’s
voice close by; “he must have a lot of money—he must have more
money than he knows what to do with! Montpellier Square, they
say; close to Soames! They never told me, Irene never tells me
anything!”
“Capital position, not two minutes from me,” said the voice of
Swithin, “and from my rooms I can drive to the Club in eight.”
The position of their houses was of vital importance to the
Forsytes, nor was this remarkable, since the whole spirit of
their success was embodied therein.
Their father, of farming stock, had come from Dorsetshire near
the beginning of the century.
“Superior Dosset Forsyte,” as he was called by his intimates, had
been a stonemason by trade, and risen to the position of a
master-builder.
Towards the end of his life he moved to London, where, building
on until he died, he was buried at Highgate. He left over thirty
thousand pounds between his ten children. Old Jolyon alluded to
him, if at all, as “A hard, thick sort of man; not much
refinement about him.” The second generation of Forsytes felt
indeed that he was not greatly to their credit. The only
aristocratic trait they could find in his character was a habit
of drinking Madeira.
Aunt Hester, an authority on family history, described him thus:
“I don’t recollect that he ever did anything; at least, not in my
time. He was er—an owner of houses, my dear. His hair about your
Uncle Swithin’s colour; rather a square build. Tall? No—not very
tall” (he had been five feet five, with a mottled face); “a
fresh-coloured man. I remember he used to drink Madeira; but ask
your Aunt Ann. What was _his_ father? He—er—had to do with the
land down in Dorsetshire, by the sea.”
James once went down to see for himself what sort of place this
was that they had come from. He found two old farms, with a cart
track rutted into the pink earth, leading down to a mill by the
beach; a little grey church with a buttressed outer wall, and a
smaller and greyer chapel. The stream which worked the mill came
bubbling down in a dozen rivulets, and pigs were hunting round
that estuary. A haze hovered over the prospect. Down this hollow,
with their feet deep in the mud and their faces towards the sea,
it appeared that the primeval Forsytes had been content to walk
Sunday after Sunday for hundreds of years.
Whether or no James had cherished hopes of an inheritance, or of
something rather distinguished to be found down there, he came
back to town in a poor way, and went about with a pathetic
attempt at making the best of a bad job.
“There’s very little to be had out of that,” he said; “regular
country little place, old as the hills....”
Its age was felt to be a comfort. Old Jolyon, in whom a desperate
honesty welled up at times, would allude to his ancestors as:
“Yeomen—I suppose very small beer.” Yet he would repeat the word
“yeomen” as if it afforded him consolation.
They had all done so well for themselves, these Forsytes, that
they were all what is called “of a certain position.” They had
shares in all sorts of things, not as yet—with the exception of
Timothy—in consols, for they had no dread in life like that of 3
per cent. for their money. They collected pictures, too, and were
supporters of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial
to their sick domestics. From their father, the builder, they
inherited a talent for bricks and mortar. Originally, perhaps,
members of some primitive sect, they were now in the natural
course of things members of the Church of England, and caused
their wives and children to attend with some regularity the more
fashionable churches of the Metropolis. To have doubted their
Christianity would have caused them both pain and surprise. Some
of them paid for pews, thus expressing in the most practical form
their sympathy with the teachings of Christ.
Their residences, placed at stated intervals round the park,
watched like sentinels, lest the fair heart of this London, where
their desires were fixed, should slip from their clutches, and
leave them lower in their own estimations.
There was old Jolyon in Stanhope Place; the Jameses in Park Lane;
Swithin in the lonely glory of orange and blue chambers in Hyde
Park Mansions—he had never married, not he—the Soamses in their
nest off Knightsbridge; the Rogers in Prince’s Gardens (Roger was
that remarkable Forsyte who had conceived and carried out the
notion of bringing up his four sons to a new profession. “Collect
house property, nothing like it,” he would say; “_I_ never did
anything else”).
The Haymans again—Mrs. Hayman was the one married Forsyte
sister—in a house high up on Campden Hill, shaped like a giraffe,
and so tall that it gave the observer a crick in the neck; the
Nicholases in Ladbroke Grove, a spacious abode and a great
bargain; and last, but not least, Timothy’s on the Bayswater
Road, where Ann, and Juley, and Hester, lived under his
protection.
But all this time James was musing, and now he inquired of his
host and brother what he had given for that house in Montpellier
Square. He himself had had his eye on a house there for the last
two years, but they wanted such a price.
Old Jolyon recounted the details of his purchase.
“Twenty-two years to run?” repeated James; “The very house I was
after—you’ve given too much for it!”
Old Jolyon frowned.
“It’s not that I want it,” said James hastily; “it wouldn’t suit
my purpose at that price. Soames knows the house, well—he’ll tell
you it’s too dear—his opinion’s worth having.”
“I don’t,” said old Jolyon, “care a fig for his opinion.”
“Well,” murmured James, “you _will_ have your own way—it’s a good
opinion. Good-bye! We’re going to drive down to Hurlingham. They
tell me Jun’s going to Wales. You’ll be lonely tomorrow. What’ll
you do with yourself? You’d better come and dine with us!”
Old Jolyon refused. He went down to the front door and saw them
into their barouche, and twinkled at them, having already
forgotten his spleen—Mrs. James facing the horses, tall and
majestic with auburn hair; on her left, Irene—the two husbands,
father and son, sitting forward, as though they expected
something, opposite their wives. Bobbing and bounding upon the
spring cushions, silent, swaying to each motion of their chariot,
old Jolyon watched them drive away under the sunlight.
During the drive the silence was broken by Mrs. James.
“Did you ever see such a collection of rumty-too people?”
Soames, glancing at her beneath his eyelids, nodded, and he saw
Irene steal at him one of her unfathomable looks. It is likely
enough that each branch of the Forsyte family made that remark as
they drove away from old Jolyon’s “At Home!”
Amongst the last of the departing guests the fourth and fifth
brothers, Nicholas and Roger, walked away together, directing
their steps alongside Hyde Park towards the Praed Street Station
of the Underground. Like all other Forsytes of a certain age they
kept carriages of their own, and never took cabs if by any means
they could avoid it.
The day was bright, the trees of the Park in the full beauty of
mid-June foliage; the brothers did not seem to notice phenomena,
which contributed, nevertheless, to the jauntiness of promenade
and conversation.
“Yes,” said Roger, “she’s a good-lookin’ woman, that wife of
Soames’. I’m told they don’t get on.”
This brother had a high forehead, and the freshest colour of any
of the Forsytes; his light grey eyes measured the street frontage
of the houses by the way, and now and then he would level his,
umbrella and take a “lunar,” as he expressed it, of the varying
heights.
“She’d no money,” replied Nicholas.
He himself had married a good deal of money, of which, it being
then the golden age before the Married Women’s Property Act, he
had mercifully been enabled to make a successful use.
“What was her father?”
“Heron was his name, a Professor, so they tell me.”
Roger shook his head.
“There’s no money in that,” he said.
“They say her mother’s father was cement.”
Roger’s face brightened.
“But he went bankrupt,” went on Nicholas.
“Ah!” exclaimed Roger, “Soames will have trouble with her; you
mark my words, he’ll have trouble—she’s got a foreign look.”
Nicholas licked his lips.
“She’s a pretty woman,” and he waved aside a crossing-sweeper.
“How did he get hold of her?” asked Roger presently. “She must
cost him a pretty penny in dress!”
“Ann tells me,” replied Nicholas, “he was half-cracked about her.
She refused him five times. James, he’s nervous about it, I can
see.”
“Ah!” said Roger again; “I’m sorry for James; he had trouble with
Dartie.” His pleasant colour was heightened by exercise, he swung
his umbrella to the level of his eye more frequently than ever.
Nicholas’s face also wore a pleasant look.
“Too pale for me,” he said, “but her figures capital!”
Roger made no reply.
“I call her distinguished-looking,” he said at last—it was the
highest praise in the Forsyte vocabulary. “That young Bosinney
will never do any good for himself. They say at Burkitt’s he’s
one of these artistic chaps—got an idea of improving English
architecture; there’s no money in that! I should like to hear
what Timothy would say to it.”
They entered the station.
“What class are you going? I go second.”
“No second for me,” said Nicholas;—“you never know what you may
catch.”
He took a first-class ticket to Notting Hill Gate; Roger a second
to South Kensington. The train coming in a minute later, the two
brothers parted and entered their respective compartments. Each
felt aggrieved that the other had not modified his habits to
secure his society a little longer; but as Roger voiced it in his
thoughts:
“Always a stubborn beggar, Nick!”
And as Nicholas expressed it to himself:
“Cantankerous chap Roger—always was!”
There was little sentimentality about the Forsytes. In that great
London, which they had conquered and become merged in, what time
had they to be sentimental?
CHAPTER II OLD JOLYON GOES TO THE OPERA
At five o’clock the following day old Jolyon sat alone, a cigar
between his lips, and on a table by his side a cup of tea. He was
tired, and before he had finished his cigar he fell asleep. A fly
settled on his hair, his breathing sounded heavy in the drowsy
silence, his upper lip under the white moustache puffed in and
out. From between the fingers of his veined and wrinkled hand the
cigar, dropping on the empty hearth, burned itself out.
The gloomy little study, with windows of stained glass to exclude
the view, was full of dark green velvet and heavily-carved
mahogany—a suite of which old Jolyon was wont to say: “Shouldn’t
wonder if it made a big price some day!”
It was pleasant to think that in the after life he could get more
for things than he had given.
In the rich brown atmosphere peculiar to back rooms in the
mansion of a Forsyte, the Rembrandtesque effect of his great
head, with its white hair, against the cushion of his high-backed
seat, was spoiled by the moustache, which imparted a somewhat
military look to his face. An old clock that had been with him
since before his marriage forty years ago kept with its ticking a
jealous record of the seconds slipping away forever from its old
master.
He had never cared for this room, hardly going into it from one
year’s end to another, except to take cigars from the Japanese
cabinet in the corner, and the room now had its revenge.
His temples, curving like thatches over the hollows beneath, his
cheek-bones and chin, all were sharpened in his sleep, and there
had come upon his face the confession that he was an old man.
He woke. June had gone! James had said he would be lonely. James
had always been a poor thing. He recollected with satisfaction
that he had bought that house over James’s head.
Serve him right for sticking at the price; the only thing the
fellow thought of was money. Had he given too much, though? It
wanted a lot of doing to—He dared say he would want all his money
before he had done with this affair of Jun’s. He ought never to
have allowed the engagement. She had met this Bosinney at the
house of Baynes, Baynes and Bildeboy, the architects. He believed
that Baynes, whom he knew—a bit of an old woman—was the young
man’s uncle by marriage. After that she’d been always running
after him; and when she took a thing into her head there was no
stopping her. She was continually taking up with “lame ducks” of
one sort or another. This fellow had no money, but she must needs
become engaged to him—a harumscarum, unpractical chap, who would
get himself into no end of difficulties.
She had come to him one day in her slap-dash way and told him;
and, as if it were any consolation, she had added:
“He’s so splendid; he’s often lived on cocoa for a week!”
“And he wants you to live on cocoa too?”
“Oh no; he is getting into the swim now.”
Old Jolyon had taken his cigar from under his white moustaches,
stained by coffee at the edge, and looked at her, that little
slip of a thing who had got such a grip of his heart. He knew
more about “swims” than his granddaughter. But she, having
clasped her hands on his knees, rubbed her chin against him,
making a sound like a purring cat. And, knocking the ash off his
cigar, he had exploded in nervous desperation:
“You’re all alike: you won’t be satisfied till you’ve got what
you want. If you must come to grief, you must; _I_ wash my hands
of it.”
So, he had washed his hands of it, making the condition that they
should not marry until Bosinney had at least four hundred a year.
“_I_ shan’t be able to give you very much,” he had said, a
formula to which June was not unaccustomed. “Perhaps this
What’s-his-name will provide the cocoa.”
He had hardly seen anything of her since it began. A bad
business! He had no notion of giving her a lot of money to enable
a fellow he knew nothing about to live on in idleness. He had
seen that sort of thing before; no good ever came of it. Worst of
all, he had no hope of shaking her resolution; she was as
obstinate as a mule, always had been from a child. He didn’t see
where it was to end. They must cut their coat according to their
cloth. He would not give way till he saw young Bosinney with an
income of his own. That June would have trouble with the fellow
was as plain as a pikestaff; he had no more idea of money than a
cow. As to this rushing down to Wales to visit the young man’s
aunts, he fully expected they were old cats.
And, motionless, old Jolyon stared at the wall; but for his open
eyes, he might have been asleep.... The idea of supposing that
young cub Soames could give him advice! He had always been a cub,
with his nose in the air! He would be setting up as a man of
property next, with a place in the country! A man of property!
H’mph! Like his father, he was always nosing out bargains, a
cold-blooded young beggar!
He rose, and, going to the cabinet, began methodically stocking
his cigar-case from a bundle fresh in. They were not bad at the
price, but you couldn’t get a good cigar, nowadays, nothing to
hold a candle to those old Superfinos of Hanson and Bridger’s.
_That_ was a cigar!
The thought, like some stealing perfume, carried him back to
those wonderful nights at Richmond when after dinner he sat
smoking on the terrace of the Crown and Sceptre with Nicholas
Treffry and Traquair and Jack Herring and Anthony Thornworthy.
How good his cigars were then! Poor old Nick!—dead, and Jack
Herring—dead, and Traquair—dead of that wife of his, and
Thornworthy—awfully shaky (no wonder, with his appetite).
Of all the company of those days he himself alone seemed left,
except Swithin, of course, and he so outrageously big there was
no doing anything with him.
Difficult to believe it was so long ago; he felt young still! Of
all his thoughts, as he stood there counting his cigars, this was
the most poignant, the most bitter. With his white head and his
loneliness he had remained young and green at heart. And those
Sunday afternoons on Hampstead Heath, when young Jolyon and he
went for a stretch along the Spaniard’s Road to Highgate, to
Child’s Hill, and back over the Heath again to dine at Jack
Straw’s Castle—how delicious his cigars were then! And such
weather! There was no weather now.
When June was a toddler of five, and every other Sunday he took
her to the Zoo, away from the society of those two good women,
her mother and her grandmother, and at the top of the bear den
baited his umbrella with buns for her favourite bears, how sweet
his cigars were then!
Cigars! He had not even succeeded in out-living his palate—the
famous palate that in the fifties men swore by, and speaking of
him, said: “Forsyte’s the best palate in London!” The palate that
in a sense had made his fortune—the fortune of the celebrated tea
men, Forsyte and Treffry, whose tea, like no other man’s tea, had
a romantic aroma, the charm of a quite singular genuineness.
About the house of Forsyte and Treffry in the City had clung an
air of enterprise and mystery, of special dealings in special
ships, at special ports, with special Orientals.
He had worked at that business! Men did work in those days! these
young pups hardly knew the meaning of the word. He had gone into
every detail, known everything that went on, sometimes sat up all
night over it. And he had always chosen his agents himself,
prided himself on it. His eye for men, he used to say, had been
the secret of his success, and the exercise of this masterful
power of selection had been the only part of it all that he had
really liked. Not a career for a man of his ability. Even now,
when the business had been turned into a Limited Liability
Company, and was declining (he had got out of his shares long
ago), he felt a sharp chagrin in thinking of that time. How much
better he might have done! He would have succeeded splendidly at
the Bar! He had even thought of standing for Parliament. How
often had not Nicholas Treffry said to him:
“You could do anything, Jo, if you weren’t so d-damned careful of
yourself!” Dear old Nick! Such a good fellow, but a racketty
chap! The notorious Treffry! _He_ had never taken any care of
himself. So he was dead. Old Jolyon counted his cigars with a
steady hand, and it came into his mind to wonder if perhaps he
had been _too_ careful of himself.
He put the cigar-case in the breast of his coat, buttoned it in,
and walked up the long flights to his bedroom, leaning on one
foot and the other, and helping himself by the bannister. The
house was too big. After June was married, if she ever did marry
this fellow, as he supposed she would, he would let it and go
into rooms. What was the use of keeping half a dozen servants
eating their heads off?
The butler came to the ring of his bell—a large man with a beard,
a soft tread, and a peculiar capacity for silence. Old Jolyon
told him to put his dress clothes out; he was going to dine at
the Club.
How long had the carriage been back from taking Miss June to the
station? Since two? Then let him come round at half-past six!
The Club which old Jolyon entered on the stroke of seven was one
of those political institutions of the upper middle class which
have seen better days. In spite of being talked about, perhaps in
consequence of being talked about, it betrayed a disappointing
vitality. People had grown tired of saying that the “Disunion”
was on its last legs. Old Jolyon would say it, too, yet
disregarded the fact in a manner truly irritating to
well-constituted Clubmen.
“Why do you keep your name on?” Swithin often asked him with
profound vexation. “Why don’t you join the ‘Polyglot’. You can’t
get a wine like our Heidsieck under twenty shillin’ a bottle
anywhere in London;” and, dropping his voice, he added: “There’s
only five hundred dozen left. I drink it every night of my life.”
“I’ll think of it,” old Jolyon would answer; but when he did
think of it there was always the question of fifty guineas
entrance fee, and it would take him four or five years to get in.
He continued to think of it.
He was too old to be a Liberal, had long ceased to believe in the
political doctrines of his Club, had even been known to allude to
them as “wretched stuff,” and it afforded him pleasure to
continue a member in the teeth of principles so opposed to his
own. He had always had a contempt for the place, having joined it
many years ago when they refused to have him at the “Hotch Potch”
owing to his being “in trade.” As if he were not as good as any
of them! He naturally despised the Club that _did_ take him. The
members were a poor lot, many of them in the City—stockbrokers,
solicitors, auctioneers—what not! Like most men of strong
character but not too much originality, old Jolyon set small
store by the class to which he belonged. Faithfully he followed
their customs, social and otherwise, and secretly he thought them
“a common lot.”
Years and philosophy, of which he had his share, had dimmed the
recollection of his defeat at the “Hotch Potch”. and now in his
thoughts it was enshrined as the Queen of Clubs. He would have
been a member all these years himself, but, owing to the slipshod
way his proposer, Jack Herring, had gone to work, they had not
known what they were doing in keeping him out. Why! they had
taken his son Jo at once, and he believed the boy was still a
member; he had received a letter dated from there eight years
ago.
He had not been near the “Disunion” for months, and the house had
undergone the piebald decoration which people bestow on old
houses and old ships when anxious to sell them.
“Beastly colour, the smoking-room!” he thought. “The dining-room
is good!”
Its gloomy chocolate, picked out with light green, took his
fancy.
He ordered dinner, and sat down in the very corner, at the very
table perhaps! (things did not progress much at the “Disunion,” a
Club of almost Radical principles) at which he and young Jolyon
used to sit twenty-five years ago, when he was taking the latter
to Drury Lane, during his holidays.
The boy had loved the theatre, and old Jolyon recalled how he
used to sit opposite, concealing his excitement under a careful
but transparent nonchalance.
He ordered himself, too, the very dinner the boy had always
chosen—soup, whitebait, cutlets, and a tart. Ah! if he were only
opposite now!
The two had not met for fourteen years. And not for the first
time during those fourteen years old Jolyon wondered whether he
had been a little to blame in the matter of his son. An
unfortunate love-affair with that precious flirt Danae
Thornworthy (now Danae Pellew), Anthony Thornworthy’s daughter,
had thrown him on the rebound into the arms of Jun’s mother. He
ought perhaps to have put a spoke in the wheel of their marriage;
they were too young; but after that experience of Jo’s
susceptibility he had been only too anxious to see him married.
And in four years the crash had come! To have approved his son’s
conduct in that crash was, of course, impossible; reason and
training—that combination of potent factors which stood for his
principles—told him of this impossibility, and his heart cried
out. The grim remorselessness of that business had no pity for
hearts. There was June, the atom with flaming hair, who had
climbed all over him, twined and twisted herself about him—about
his heart that was made to be the plaything and beloved resort of
tiny, helpless things. With characteristic insight he saw he must
part with one or with the other; no half-measures could serve in
such a situation. In that lay its tragedy. And the tiny, helpless
thing prevailed. He would not run with the hare and hunt with the
hounds, and so to his son he said good-bye.
That good-bye had lasted until now.
He had proposed to continue a reduced allowance to young Jolyon,
but this had been refused, and perhaps that refusal had hurt him
more than anything, for with it had gone the last outlet of his
penned-in affection; and there had come such tangible and solid
proof of rupture as only a transaction in property, a bestowal or
refusal of such, could supply.
His dinner tasted flat. His pint of champagne was dry and bitter
stuff, not like the Veuve Clicquots of old days.
Over his cup of coffee, he bethought him that he would go to the
opera. In the _Times_, therefore—he had a distrust of other
papers—he read the announcement for the evening. It was
“Fidelio.”
Mercifully not one of those new-fangled German pantomimes by that
fellow Wagner.
Putting on his ancient opera hat, which, with its brim flattened
by use, and huge capacity, looked like an emblem of greater days,
and, pulling out an old pair of very thin lavender kid gloves
smelling strongly of Russia leather, from habitual proximity to
the cigar-case in the pocket of his overcoat, he stepped into a
hansom.
The cab rattled gaily along the streets, and old Jolyon was
struck by their unwonted animation.
“The hotels must be doing a tremendous business,” he thought. A
few years ago there had been none of these big hotels. He made a
satisfactory reflection on some property he had in the
neighbourhood. It must be going up in value by leaps and bounds!
What traffic!
But from that he began indulging in one of those strange
impersonal speculations, so uncharacteristic of a Forsyte,
wherein lay, in part, the secret of his supremacy amongst them.
What atoms men were, and what a lot of them! And what would
become of them all?
He stumbled as he got out of the cab, gave the man his exact
fare, walked up to the ticket office to take his stall, and stood
there with his purse in his hand—he always carried his money in a
purse, never having approved of that habit of carrying it loosely
in the pockets, as so many young men did nowadays. The official
leaned out, like an old dog from a kennel.
“Why,” he said in a surprised voice, “it’s Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! So
it is! Haven’t seen you, sir, for years. Dear me! Times aren’t
what they were. Why! you and your brother, and that
auctioneer—Mr. Traquair, and Mr. Nicholas Treffry—you used to
have six or seven stalls here regular every season. And how are
you, sir? We don’t get younger!”
The colour in old Jolyon’s eyes deepened; he paid his guinea.
They had not forgotten him. He marched in, to the sounds of the
overture, like an old war-horse to battle.
Folding his opera hat, he sat down, drew out his lavender gloves
in the old way, and took up his glasses for a long look round the
house. Dropping them at last on his folded hat, he fixed his eyes
on the curtain. More poignantly than ever he felt that it was all
over and done with him. Where were all the women, the pretty
women, the house used to be so full of? Where was that old
feeling in the heart as he waited for one of those great singers?
Where that sensation of the intoxication of life and of his own
power to enjoy it all?
The greatest opera-goer of his day! There was no opera now! That
fellow Wagner had ruined everything; no melody left, nor any
voices to sing it. Ah! the wonderful singers! Gone! He sat
watching the old scenes acted, a numb feeling at his heart.
From the curl of silver over his ear to the pose of his foot in
its elastic-sided patent boot, there was nothing clumsy or weak
about old Jolyon. He was as upright—very nearly—as in those old
times when he came every night; his sight was as good—almost as
good. But what a feeling of weariness and disillusion!
He had been in the habit all his life of enjoying things, even
imperfect things—and there had been many imperfect things—he had
enjoyed them all with moderation, so as to keep himself young.
But now he was deserted by his power of enjoyment, by his
philosophy, and left with this dreadful feeling that it was all
done with. Not even the Prisoners’ Chorus, nor Florian’s Song,
had the power to dispel the gloom of his loneliness.
If Jo were only with him! The boy must be forty by now. He had
wasted fourteen years out of the life of his only son. And Jo was
no longer a social pariah. He was married. Old Jolyon had been
unable to refrain from marking his appreciation of the action by
enclosing his son a cheque for £500. The cheque had been returned
in a letter from the “Hotch Potch,” couched in these words.
“MY DEAREST FATHER,
“Your generous gift was welcome as a sign that you might
think worse of me. I return it, but should you think fit to
invest it for the benefit of the little chap (we call him
Jolly), who bears our Christian and, by courtesy, our
surname, I shall be very glad.
“I hope with all my heart that your health is as good as
ever.
“Your loving son,
“JO.”
The letter was like the boy. He had always been an amiable chap.
Old Jolyon had sent this reply:
“MY DEAR JO,
“The sum (£500) stands in my books for the benefit of your
boy, under the name of Jolyon Forsyte, and will be
duly-credited with interest at 5 per cent. I hope that you
are doing well. My health remains good at present.
“With love, I am,
“Your affectionate Father,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”
And every year on the 1st of January he had added a hundred and
the interest. The sum was mounting up—next New Year’s Day it
would be fifteen hundred and odd pounds! And it is difficult to
say how much satisfaction he had got out of that yearly
transaction. But the correspondence had ended.
In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct, partly
constitutional, partly the result, as in thousands of his class,
of the continual handling and watching of affairs, prompting him
to judge conduct by results rather than by principle, there was
at the bottom of his heart a sort of uneasiness. His son ought,
under the circumstances, to have gone to the dogs; that law was
laid down in all the novels, sermons, and plays he had ever read,
heard, or witnessed.
After receiving the cheque back there seemed to him to be
something wrong somewhere. Why had his son not gone to the dogs?
But, then, who could tell?
He had heard, of course—in fact, he had made it his business to
find out—that Jo lived in St. John’s Wood, that he had a little
house in Wistaria Avenue with a garden, and took his wife about
with him into society—a queer sort of society, no doubt—and that
they had two children—the little chap they called Jolly
(considering the circumstances the name struck him as cynical,
and old Jolyon both feared and disliked cynicism), and a girl
called Holly, born since the marriage. Who could tell what his
son’s circumstances really were? He had capitalized the income he
had inherited from his mother’s father and joined Lloyd’s as an
underwriter; he painted pictures, too—water-colours. Old Jolyon
knew this, for he had surreptitiously bought them from time to
time, after chancing to see his son’s name signed at the bottom
of a representation of the river Thames in a dealer’s window. He
thought them bad, and did not hang them because of the signature;
he kept them locked up in a drawer.
In the great opera-house a terrible yearning came on him to see
his son. He remembered the days when he had been wont to slide
him, in a brown holland suit, to and fro under the arch of his
legs; the times when he ran beside the boy’s pony, teaching him
to ride; the day he first took him to school. He had been a
loving, lovable little chap! After he went to Eton he had
acquired, perhaps, a little too much of that desirable manner
which old Jolyon knew was only to be obtained at such places and
at great expense; but he had always been companionable. Always a
companion, even after Cambridge—a little far off, perhaps, owing
to the advantages he had received. Old Jolyon’s feeling towards
our public schools and ’Varsities never wavered, and he retained
touchingly his attitude of admiration and mistrust towards a
system appropriate to the highest in the land, of which he had
not himself been privileged to partake.... Now that June had gone
and left, or as good as left him, it would have been a comfort to
see his son again. Guilty of this treason to his family, his
principles, his class, old Jolyon fixed his eyes on the singer. A
poor thing—a wretched poor thing! And the Florian a perfect
stick!
It was over. They were easily pleased nowadays!
In the crowded street he snapped up a cab under the very nose of
a stout and much younger gentleman, who had already assumed it to
be his own. His route lay through Pall Mall, and at the corner,
instead of going through the Green Park, the cabman turned to
drive up St. James’s Street. Old Jolyon put his hand through the
trap (he could not bear being taken out of his way); in turning,
however, he found himself opposite the “Hotch Potch,” and the
yearning that had been secretly with him the whole evening
prevailed. He called to the driver to stop. He would go in and
ask if Jo still belonged there.
He went in. The hall looked exactly as it did when he used to
dine there with Jack Herring, and they had the best cook in
London; and he looked round with the shrewd, straight glance that
had caused him all his life to be better served than most men.
“Mr. Jolyon Forsyte still a member here?”
“Yes, sir; in the Club now, sir. What name?”
Old Jolyon was taken aback.
“His father,” he said.
And having spoken, he took his stand, back to the fireplace.
Young Jolyon, on the point of leaving the Club, had put on his
hat, and was in the act of crossing the hall, as the porter met
him. He was no longer young, with hair going grey, and face—a
narrower replica of his father’s, with the same large drooping
moustache—decidedly worn. He turned pale. This meeting was
terrible after all those years, for nothing in the world was so
terrible as a scene. They met and crossed hands without a word.
Then, with a quaver in his voice, the father said:
“How are you, my boy?”
The son answered:
“How are you, Dad?”
Old Jolyon’s hand trembled in its thin lavender glove.
“If you’re going my way,” he said, “I can give you a lift.”
And as though in the habit of taking each other home every night
they went out and stepped into the cab.
To old Jolyon it seemed that his son had grown. “More of a man
altogether,” was his comment. Over the natural amiability of that
son’s face had come a rather sardonic mask, as though he had
found in the circumstances of his life the necessity for armour.
The features were certainly those of a Forsyte, but the
expression was more the introspective look of a student or
philosopher. He had no doubt been obliged to look into himself a
good deal in the course of those fifteen years.
To young Jolyon the first sight of his father was undoubtedly a
shock—he looked so worn and old. But in the cab he seemed hardly
to have changed, still having the calm look so well remembered,
still being upright and keen-eyed.
“You look well, Dad.”
“Middling,” old Jolyon answered.
He was the prey of an anxiety that he found he must put into
words. Having got his son back like this, he felt he must know
what was his financial position.
“Jo,” he said, “I should like to hear what sort of water you’re
in. I suppose you’re in debt?”
He put it this way that his son might find it easier to confess.
Young Jolyon answered in his ironical voice:
“No! I’m not in debt!”
Old Jolyon saw that he was angry, and touched his hand. He had
run a risk. It was worth it, however, and Jo had never been sulky
with him. They drove on, without speaking again, to Stanhope
Gate. Old Jolyon invited him in, but young Jolyon shook his head.
“Jun’s not here,” said his father hastily: “went off to-day on a
visit. I suppose you know that she’s engaged to be married?”
“Already?” murmured young Jolyon’.
Old Jolyon stepped out, and, in paying the cab fare, for the
first time in his life gave the driver a sovereign in mistake for
a shilling.
Placing the coin in his mouth, the cabman whipped his horse
secretly on the underneath and hurried away.
Old Jolyon turned the key softly in the lock, pushed open the
door, and beckoned. His son saw him gravely hanging up his coat,
with an expression on his face like that of a boy who intends to
steal cherries.
The door of the dining-room was open, the gas turned low; a
spirit-urn hissed on a tea-tray, and close to it a cynical
looking cat had fallen asleep on the dining-table. Old Jolyon
“shoo’d” her off at once. The incident was a relief to his
feelings; he rattled his opera hat behind the animal.
“She’s got fleas,” he said, following her out of the room.
Through the door in the hall leading to the basement he called
“Hssst!” several times, as though assisting the cat’s departure,
till by some strange coincidence the butler appeared below.
“You can go to bed, Parfitt,” said old Jolyon. “I will lock up
and put out.”
When he again entered the dining-room the cat unfortunately
preceded him, with her tail in the air, proclaiming that she had
seen through this manouevre for suppressing the butler from the
first....
A fatality had dogged old Jolyon’s domestic stratagems all his
life.
Young Jolyon could not help smiling. He was very well versed in
irony, and everything that evening seemed to him ironical. The
episode of the cat; the announcement of his own daughter’s
engagement. So he had no more part or parcel in her than he had
in the Puss! And the poetical justice of this appealed to him.
“What is June like now?” he asked.
“She’s a little thing,” returned old Jolyon; “they say she’s like
me, but that’s their folly. She’s more like your mother—the same
eyes and hair.”
“Ah! and she is pretty?”
Old Jolyon was too much of a Forsyte to praise anything freely;
especially anything for which he had a genuine admiration.
“Not bad looking—a regular Forsyte chin. It’ll be lonely here
when she’s gone, Jo.”
The look on his face again gave young Jolyon the shock he had
felt on first seeing his father.
“What will you do with yourself, Dad? I suppose she’s wrapped up
in him?”
“Do with myself?” repeated old Jolyon with an angry break in his
voice. “It’ll be miserable work living here alone. I don’t know
how it’s to end. I wish to goodness....” He checked himself, and
added: “The question is, what had I better do with this house?”
Young Jolyon looked round the room. It was peculiarly vast and
dreary, decorated with the enormous pictures of still life that
he remembered as a boy—sleeping dogs with their noses resting on
bunches of carrots, together with onions and grapes lying side by
side in mild surprise. The house was a white elephant, but he
could not conceive of his father living in a smaller place; and
all the more did it all seem ironical.
In his great chair with the book-rest sat old Jolyon, the
figurehead of his family and class and creed, with his white head
and dome-like forehead, the representative of moderation, and
order, and love of property. As lonely an old man as there was in
London.
There he sat in the gloomy comfort of the room, a puppet in the
power of great forces that cared nothing for family or class or
creed, but moved, machine-like, with dread processes to
inscrutable ends. This was how it struck young Jolyon, who had
the impersonal eye.
The poor old Dad! So this was the end, the purpose to which he
had lived with such magnificent moderation! To be lonely, and
grow older and older, yearning for a soul to speak to!
In his turn old Jolyon looked back at his son. He wanted to talk
about many things that he had been unable to talk about all these
years. It had been impossible to seriously confide in June his
conviction that property in the Soho quarter would go up in
value; his uneasiness about that tremendous silence of Pippin,
the superintendent of the New Colliery Company, of which he had
so long been chairman; his disgust at the steady fall in American
Golgothas, or even to discuss how, by some sort of settlement, he
could best avoid the payment of those death duties which would
follow his decease. Under the influence, however, of a cup of
tea, which he seemed to stir indefinitely, he began to speak at
last. A new vista of life was thus opened up, a promised land of
talk, where he could find a harbour against the waves of
anticipation and regret; where he could soothe his soul with the
opium of devising how to round off his property and make eternal
the only part of him that was to remain alive.
Young Jolyon was a good listener; it was his great quality. He
kept his eyes fixed on his father’s face, putting a question now
and then.
The clock struck one before old Jolyon had finished, and at the
sound of its striking his principles came back. He took out his
watch with a look of surprise:
“I must go to bed, Jo,” he said.
Young Jolyon rose and held out his hand to help his father up.
The old face looked worn and hollow again; the eyes were steadily
averted.
“Good-bye, my boy; take care of yourself.”
A moment passed, and young Jolyon, turning on his heel, marched
out at the door. He could hardly see; his smile quavered. Never
in all the fifteen years since he had first found out that life
was no simple business, had he found it so singularly
complicated.
CHAPTER III DINNER AT SWITHIN’S
In Swithin’s orange and light-blue dining-room, facing the Park,
the round table was laid for twelve.
A cut-glass chandelier filled with lighted candles hung like a
giant stalactite above its centre, radiating over large
gilt-framed mirrors, slabs of marble on the tops of side-tables,
and heavy gold chairs with crewel worked seats. Everything
betokened that love of beauty so deeply implanted in each family
which has had its own way to make into Society, out of the more
vulgar heart of Nature. Swithin had indeed an impatience of
simplicity, a love of ormolu, which had always stamped him
amongst his associates as a man of great, if somewhat luxurious
taste; and out of the knowledge that no one could possibly enter
his rooms without perceiving him to be a man of wealth, he had
derived a solid and prolonged happiness such as perhaps no other
circumstance in life had afforded him.
Since his retirement from land agency, a profession deplorable in
his estimation, especially as to its auctioneering department, he
had abandoned himself to naturally aristocratic tastes.
The perfect luxury of his latter days had embedded him like a fly
in sugar; and his mind, where very little took place from morning
till night, was the junction of two curiously opposite emotions,
a lingering and sturdy satisfaction that he had made his own way
and his own fortune, and a sense that a man of his distinction
should never have been allowed to soil his mind with work.
He stood at the sideboard in a white waistcoat with large gold
and onyx buttons, watching his valet screw the necks of three
champagne bottles deeper into ice-pails. Between the points of
his stand-up collar, which—though it hurt him to move—he would on
no account have had altered, the pale flesh of his under chin
remained immovable. His eyes roved from bottle to bottle. He was
debating, and he argued like this: Jolyon drinks a glass, perhaps
two, he’s so careful of himself. James, he can’t take his wine
nowadays. Nicholas—Fanny and he would swill water he shouldn’t
wonder! Soames didn’t count; these young nephews—Soames was
thirty-one—couldn’t drink! But Bosinney?
Encountering in the name of this stranger something outside the
range of his philosophy, Swithin paused. A misgiving arose within
him! It was impossible to tell! June was only a girl, in love
too! Emily (Mrs. James) liked a good glass of champagne. It was
too dry for Juley, poor old soul, she had no palate. As to Hatty
Chessman! The thought of this old friend caused a cloud of
thought to obscure the perfect glassiness of his eyes: He
shouldn’t wonder if she drank half a bottle!
But in thinking of his remaining guest, an expression like that
of a cat who is just going to purr stole over his old face: Mrs.
Soames! She mightn’t take much, but she would appreciate what she
drank; it was a pleasure to give her good wine! A pretty
woman—and sympathetic to him!
The thought of her was like champagne itself! A pleasure to give
a good wine to a young woman who looked so well, who knew how to
dress, with charming manners, quite distinguished—a pleasure to
entertain her. Between the points of his collar he gave his head
the first small, painful oscillation of the evening.
“Adolf!” he said. “Put in another bottle.”
He himself might drink a good deal, for, thanks to that
prescription of Blight’s, he found himself extremely well, and he
had been careful to take no lunch. He had not felt so well for
weeks. Puffing out his lower lip, he gave his last instructions:
“Adolf, the least touch of the West India when you come to the
ham.”
Passing into the anteroom, he sat down on the edge of a chair,
with his knees apart; and his tall, bulky form was wrapped at
once in an expectant, strange, primeval immobility. He was ready
to rise at a moment’s notice. He had not given a dinner-party for
months. This dinner in honour of Jun’s engagement had seemed a
bore at first (among Forsytes the custom of solemnizing
engagements by feasts was religiously observed), but the labours
of sending invitations and ordering the repast over, he felt
pleasantly stimulated.
And thus sitting, a watch in his hand, fat, and smooth, and
golden, like a flattened globe of butter, he thought of nothing.
A long man, with side whiskers, who had once been in Swithin’s
service, but was now a greengrocer, entered and proclaimed:
“Mrs. Chessman, Mrs. Septimus Small!”
Two ladies advanced. The one in front, habited entirely in red,
had large, settled patches of the same colour in her cheeks, and
a hard, dashing eye. She walked at Swithin, holding out a hand
cased in a long, primrose-coloured glove:
“Well! Swithin,” she said, “I haven’t seen you for ages. How are
you? Why, my dear boy, how stout you’re getting!”
The fixity of Swithin’s eye alone betrayed emotion. A dumb and
grumbling anger swelled his bosom. It was vulgar to be stout, to
talk of being stout; he had a chest, nothing more. Turning to his
sister, he grasped her hand, and said in a tone of command:
“Well, Juley.”
Mrs. Septimus Small was the tallest of the four sisters; her
good, round old face had gone a little sour; an innumerable pout
clung all over it, as if it had been encased in an iron wire mask
up to that evening, which, being suddenly removed, left little
rolls of mutinous flesh all over her countenance. Even her eyes
were pouting. It was thus that she recorded her permanent
resentment at the loss of Septimus Small.
She had quite a reputation for saying the wrong thing, and,
tenacious like all her breed, she would hold to it when she had
said it, and add to it another wrong thing, and so on. With the
decease of her husband the family tenacity, the family
matter-of-factness, had gone sterile within her. A great talker,
when allowed, she would converse without the faintest animation
for hours together, relating, with epic monotony, the innumerable
occasions on which Fortune had misused her; nor did she ever
perceive that her hearers sympathized with Fortune, for her heart
was kind.
Having sat, poor soul, long by the bedside of Small (a man of
poor constitution), she had acquired the habit, and there were
countless subsequent occasions when she had sat immense periods
of time to amuse sick people, children, and other helpless
persons, and she could never divest herself of the feeling that
the world was the most ungrateful place anybody could live in.
Sunday after Sunday she sat at the feet of that extremely witty
preacher, the Rev. Thomas Scoles, who exercised a great influence
over her; but she succeeded in convincing everybody that even
this was a misfortune. She had passed into a proverb in the
family, and when anybody was observed to be peculiarly
distressing, he was known as a regular “Juley.” The habit of her
mind would have killed anybody but a Forsyte at forty; but she
was seventy-two, and had never looked better. And one felt that
there were capacities for enjoyment about her which might yet
come out. She owned three canaries, the cat Tommy, and half a
parrot—in common with her sister Hester;—and these poor creatures
(kept carefully out of Timothy’s way—he was nervous about
animals), unlike human beings, recognising that she could not
help being blighted, attached themselves to her passionately.
She was sombrely magnificent this evening in black bombazine,
with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a
black velvet ribbon round the base of her thin throat; black and
mauve for evening wear was esteemed very chaste by nearly every
Forsyte.
Pouting at Swithin, she said:
“Ann has been asking for you. You haven’t been near us for an
age!”
Swithin put his thumbs within the armholes of his waistcoat, and
replied:
“Ann’s getting very shaky; she ought to have a doctor!”
“Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Forsyte!”
Nicholas Forsyte, cocking his rectangular eyebrows, wore a smile.
He had succeeded during the day in bringing to fruition a scheme
for the employment of a tribe from Upper India in the gold-mines
of Ceylon. A pet plan, carried at last in the teeth of great
difficulties—he was justly pleased. It would double the output of
his mines, and, as he had often forcibly argued, all experience
tended to show that a man must die; and whether he died of a
miserable old age in his own country, or prematurely of damp in
the bottom of a foreign mine, was surely of little consequence,
provided that by a change in his mode of life he benefited the
British Empire.
His ability was undoubted. Raising his broken nose towards his
listener, he would add:
“For want of a few hundred of these fellows we haven’t paid a
dividend for years, and look at the price of the shares. I can’t
get ten shillings for them.”
He had been at Yarmouth, too, and had come back feeling that he
had added at least ten years to his own life. He grasped
Swithin’s hand, exclaiming in a jocular voice:
“Well, so here we are again!”
Mrs. Nicholas, an effete woman, smiled a smile of frightened
jollity behind his back.
“Mr. and Mrs. James Forsyte! Mr. and Mrs. Soames Forsyte!”
Swithin drew his heels together, his deportment ever admirable.
“Well, James, well Emily! How are you, Soames? How do you _do?_”
His hand enclosed Irene’s, and his eyes swelled. She was a pretty
woman—a little too pale, but her figure, her eyes, her teeth! Too
good for that chap Soames!
The gods had given Irene dark brown eyes and golden hair, that
strange combination, provocative of men’s glances, which is said
to be the mark of a weak character. And the full, soft pallor of
her neck and shoulders, above a gold-coloured frock, gave to her
personality an alluring strangeness.
Soames stood behind, his eyes fastened on his wife’s neck. The
hands of Swithin’s watch, which he still held open in his hand,
had left eight behind; it was half an hour beyond his
dinner-time—he had had no lunch—and a strange primeval impatience
surged up within him.
“It’s not like Jolyon to be late!” he said to Irene, with
uncontrollable vexation. “I suppose it’ll be June keeping him!”
“People in love are always late,” she answered.
Swithin stared at her; a dusky orange dyed his cheeks.
“They’ve no business to be. Some fashionable nonsense!”
And behind this outburst the inarticulate violence of primitive
generations seemed to mutter and grumble.
“Tell me what you think of my new star, Uncle Swithin,” said
Irene softly.
Among the lace in the bosom of her dress was shining a
five-pointed star, made of eleven diamonds. Swithin looked at the
star. He had a pretty taste in stones; no question could have
been more sympathetically devised to distract his attention.
“Who gave you that?” he asked.
“Soames.”
There was no change in her face, but Swithin’s pale eyes bulged
as though he might suddenly have been afflicted with insight.
“I dare say you’re dull at home,” he said. “Any day you like to
come and dine with me, I’ll give you as good a bottle of wine as
you’ll get in London.”
“Miss June Forsyte—Mr. Jolyon Forsyte!... Mr. Boswainey!...”
Swithin moved his arm, and said in a rumbling voice:
“Dinner, now—dinner!”
He took in Irene, on the ground that he had not entertained her
since she was a bride. June was the portion of Bosinney, who was
placed between Irene and his fiancée. On the other side of June
was James with Mrs. Nicholas, then old Jolyon with Mrs. James,
Nicholas with Hatty Chessman, Soames with Mrs. Small, completing,
the circle to Swithin again.
Family dinners of the Forsytes observe certain traditions. There
are, for instance, no _hors d’œuvres_. The reason for this is
unknown. Theory among the younger members traces it to the
disgraceful price of oysters; it is more probably due to a desire
to come to the point, to a good practical sense deciding at once
that _hors d’œuvres_ are but poor things. The Jameses alone,
unable to withstand a custom almost universal in Park Lane, are
now and then unfaithful.
A silent, almost morose, inattention to each other succeeds to
the subsidence into their seats, lasting till well into the first
entree, but interspersed with remarks such as, “Tom’s bad again;
I can’t tell what’s the matter with him!” “I suppose Ann doesn’t
come down in the mornings?”—“What’s the name of your doctor,
Fanny?” “Stubbs?” “He’s a quack!”—“Winifred? She’s got too many
children. Four, isn’t it? She’s as thin as a lath!”—“What d’you
give for this sherry, Swithin? Too dry for me!”
With the second glass of champagne, a kind of hum makes itself
heard, which, when divested of casual accessories and resolved
into its primal element, is found to be James telling a story,
and this goes on for a long time, encroaching sometimes even upon
what must universally be recognised as the crowning point of a
Forsyte feast—“the saddle of mutton.”
No Forsyte has given a dinner without providing a saddle of
mutton. There is something in its succulent solidity which makes
it suitable to people “of a certain position.” It is nourishing
and tasty; the sort of thing a man remembers eating. It has a
past and a future, like a deposit paid into a bank; and it is
something that can be argued about.
Each branch of the family tenaciously held to a particular
locality—old Jolyon swearing by Dartmoor, James by Welsh, Swithin
by Southdown, Nicholas maintaining that people might sneer, but
there was nothing like New Zealand! As for Roger, the “original”
of the brothers, he had been obliged to invent a locality of his
own, and with an ingenuity worthy of a man who had devised a new
profession for his sons, he had discovered a shop where they sold
German; on being remonstrated with, he had proved his point by
producing a butcher’s bill, which showed that he paid more than
any of the others. It was on this occasion that old Jolyon,
turning to June, had said in one of his bursts of philosophy:
“You may depend upon it, they’re a cranky lot, the Forsytes—and
you’ll find it out, as you grow older!”
Timothy alone held apart, for though he ate saddle of mutton
heartily, he was, he said, afraid of it.
To anyone interested psychologically in Forsytes, this great
saddle-of-mutton trait is of prime importance; not only does it
illustrate their tenacity, both collectively and as individuals,
but it marks them as belonging in fibre and instincts to that
great class which believes in nourishment and flavour, and yields
to no sentimental craving for beauty.
Younger members of the family indeed would have done without a
joint altogether, preferring guinea-fowl, or lobster
salad—something which appealed to the imagination, and had less
nourishment—but these were females; or, if not, had been
corrupted by their wives, or by mothers, who having been forced
to eat saddle of mutton throughout their married lives, had
passed a secret hostility towards it into the fibre of their
sons.
The great saddle-of-mutton controversy at an end, a Tewkesbury
ham commenced, together with the least touch of West
Indian—Swithin was so long over this course that he caused a
block in the progress of the dinner. To devote himself to it with
better heart, he paused in his conversation.
From his seat by Mrs. Septimus Small Soames was watching. He had
a reason of his own connected with a pet building scheme, for
observing Bosinney. The architect might do for his purpose; he
looked clever, as he sat leaning back in his chair, moodily
making little ramparts with bread-crumbs. Soames noted his dress
clothes to be well cut, but too small, as though made many years
ago.
He saw him turn to Irene and say something and her face sparkle
as he often saw it sparkle at other people—never at himself. He
tried to catch what they were saying, but Aunt Juley was
speaking.
Hadn’t that always seemed very extraordinary to Soames? Only last
Sunday dear Mr. Scoles, had been so witty in his sermon, so
sarcastic, “For what,” he had said, “shall it profit a man if he
gain his own soul, but lose all his property?” That, he had said,
was the motto of the middle-class; now, what _had_ he meant by
that? Of course, it might be what middle-class people
believed—she didn’t know; what did Soames think?
He answered abstractedly: “How should I know? Scoles is a humbug,
though, isn’t he?” For Bosinney was looking round the table, as
if pointing out the peculiarities of the guests, and Soames
wondered what he was saying. By her smile Irene was evidently
agreeing with his remarks. She seemed always to agree with other
people.
Her eyes were turned on himself; Soames dropped his glance at
once. The smile had died off her lips.
A humbug? But what did Soames mean? If Mr. Scoles was a humbug, a
clergyman—then anybody might be—it was frightful!
“Well, and so they are!” said Soames.
During Aunt Juley’s momentary and horrified silence he caught
some words of Irene’s that sounded like: “Abandon hope, all ye
who enter here!”
But Swithin had finished his ham.
“Where do you go for your mushrooms?” he was saying to Irene in a
voice like a courtier’s; “you ought to go to Smileybob’s—he’ll
give ’em you fresh. These _little_ men, they won’t take the
trouble!”
Irene turned to answer him, and Soames saw Bosinney watching her
and smiling to himself. A curious smile the fellow had. A
half-simple arrangement, like a child who smiles when he is
pleased. As for George’s nickname—“The Buccaneer”—he did not
think much of that. And, seeing Bosinney turn to June, Soames
smiled too, but sardonically—he did not like June, who was not
looking too pleased.
This was not surprising, for she had just held the following
conversation with James:
“I stayed on the river on my way home, Uncle James, and saw a
beautiful site for a house.”
James, a slow and thorough eater, stopped the process of
mastication.
“Eh?” he said. “Now, where was that?”
“Close to Pangbourne.”
James placed a piece of ham in his mouth, and June waited.
“I suppose you wouldn’t know whether the land about there was
freehold?” he asked at last. “_You_ wouldn’t know anything about
the price of land about there?”
“Yes,” said June; “I made inquiries.” Her little resolute face
under its copper crown was suspiciously eager and aglow.
James regarded her with the air of an inquisitor.
“What? You’re not thinking of buying land!” he ejaculated,
dropping his fork.
June was greatly encouraged by his interest. It had long been her
pet plan that her uncles should benefit themselves and Bosinney
by building country-houses.
“Of course not,” she said. “I thought it would be such a splendid
place for—you or—someone to build a country-house!”
James looked at her sideways, and placed a second piece of ham in
his mouth....
“Land ought to be very dear about there,” he said.
What June had taken for personal interest was only the impersonal
excitement of every Forsyte who hears of something eligible in
danger of passing into other hands. But she refused to see the
disappearance of her chance, and continued to press her point.
“You ought to go into the country, Uncle James. I wish I had a
lot of money, I wouldn’t live another day in London.”
James was stirred to the depths of his long thin figure; he had
no idea his niece held such downright views.
“Why don’t you go into the country?” repeated June; “it would do
you a lot of good.”
“Why?” began James in a fluster. “Buying land—what good d’you
suppose I can do buying land, building houses?—I couldn’t get
four per cent. for my money!”
“What does that matter? You’d get fresh air.”
“Fresh air!” exclaimed James; “what should I do with fresh air,”
“I should have thought anybody liked to have fresh air,” said
June scornfully.
James wiped his napkin all over his mouth.
“You don’t know the value of money,” he said, avoiding her eye.
“No! and I hope I never shall!” and, biting her lip with
inexpressible mortification, poor June was silent.
Why were her own relations so rich, and Phil never knew where the
money was coming from for to-morrow’s tobacco. Why couldn’t they
do something for him? But they were so selfish. Why couldn’t they
build country-houses? She had all that naive dogmatism which is
so pathetic, and sometimes achieves such great results. Bosinney,
to whom she turned in her discomfiture, was talking to Irene, and
a chill fell on Jun’s spirit. Her eyes grew steady with anger,
like old Jolyon’s when his will was crossed.
James, too, was much disturbed. He felt as though someone had
threatened his right to invest his money at five per cent. Jolyon
had spoiled her. None of _his_ girls would have said such a
thing. James had always been exceedingly liberal to his children,
and the consciousness of this made him feel it all the more
deeply. He trifled moodily with his strawberries, then, deluging
them with cream, he ate them quickly; they, at all events, should
not escape him.
No wonder he was upset. Engaged for fifty-four years (he had been
admitted a solicitor on the earliest day sanctioned by the law)
in arranging mortgages, preserving investments at a dead level of
high and safe interest, conducting negotiations on the principle
of securing the utmost possible out of other people compatible
with safety to his clients and himself, in calculations as to the
exact pecuniary possibilities of all the relations of life, he
had come at last to think purely in terms of money. Money was now
his light, his medium for seeing, that without which he was
really unable to see, really not cognisant of phenomena; and to
have this thing, “I hope I shall never know the value of money!”
said to his face, saddened and exasperated him. He knew it to be
nonsense, or it would have frightened him. What was the world
coming to! Suddenly recollecting the story of young Jolyon,
however, he felt a little comforted, for what could you expect
with a father like that! This turned his thoughts into a channel
still less pleasant. What was all this talk about Soames and
Irene?
As in all self-respecting families, an emporium had been
established where family secrets were bartered, and family stock
priced. It was known on Forsyte ’Change that Irene regretted her
marriage. Her regret was disapproved of. She ought to have known
her own mind; no dependable woman made these mistakes.
James reflected sourly that they had a nice house (rather small)
in an excellent position, no children, and no money troubles.
Soames was reserved about his affairs, but he must be getting a
very warm man. He had a capital income from the business—for
Soames, like his father, was a member of that well-known firm of
solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte—and had always been very
careful. He had done quite unusually well with some mortgages he
had taken up, too—a little timely foreclosure—most lucky hits!
There was no reason why Irene should not be happy, yet they said
she’d been asking for a separate room. He knew where that ended.
It wasn’t as if Soames drank.
James looked at his daughter-in-law. That unseen glance of his
was cold and dubious. Appeal and fear were in it, and a sense of
personal grievance. Why should he be worried like this? It was
very likely all nonsense; women were funny things! They
exaggerated so, you didn’t know what to believe; and then, nobody
told him anything, he had to find out everything for himself.
Again he looked furtively at Irene, and across from her to
Soames. The latter, listening to Aunt Juley, was looking up,
under his brows in the direction of Bosinney.
“He’s fond of her, I know,” thought James. “Look at the way he’s
always giving her things.”
And the extraordinary unreasonableness of her disaffection struck
him with increased force. It was a pity, too, she was a taking
little thing, and he, James, would be really quite fond of her if
she’d only let him. She had taken up lately with June; _that_ was
doing her no good, that was certainly doing her no good. She was
getting to have opinions of her own. He didn’t know what she
wanted with anything of the sort. She’d a good home, and
everything she could wish for. He felt that her friends ought to
be chosen for her. To go on like this was dangerous.
June, indeed, with her habit of championing the unfortunate, had
dragged from Irene a confession, and, in return, had preached the
necessity of facing the evil, by separation, if need be. But in
the face of these exhortations, Irene had kept a brooding
silence, as though she found terrible the thought of this
struggle carried through in cold blood. He would never give her
up, she had said to June.
“Who cares?” June cried; “let him do what he likes—you’ve only to
stick to it!” And she had not scrupled to say something of this
sort at Timothy’s; James, when he heard of it, had felt a natural
indignation and horror.
What if Irene were to take it into her head to—he could hardly
frame the thought—to leave Soames? But he felt this thought so
unbearable that he at once put it away; the shady visions it
conjured up, the sound of family tongues buzzing in his ears, the
horror of the conspicuous happening so close to him, to one of
his own children! Luckily, she had no money—a beggarly fifty
pound a year! And he thought of the deceased Heron, who had had
nothing to leave her, with contempt. Brooding over his glass, his
long legs twisted under the table, he quite omitted to rise when
the ladies left the room. He would have to speak to Soames—would
have to put him on his guard; they could not go on like this, now
that such a contingency had occurred to him. And he noticed with
sour disfavour that June had left her wine-glasses full of wine.
“That little, thing’s at the bottom of it all,” he mused;
“Irene’d never have thought of it herself.” James was a man of
imagination.
The voice of Swithin roused him from his reverie.
“I gave four hundred pounds for it,” he was saying. “Of course
it’s a regular work of art.”
“Four hundred! H’m! that’s a lot of money!” chimed in Nicholas.
The object alluded to was an elaborate group of statuary in
Italian marble, which, placed upon a lofty stand (also of
marble), diffused an atmosphere of culture throughout the room.
The subsidiary figures, of which there were six, female, nude,
and of highly ornate workmanship, were all pointing towards the
central figure, also nude, and female, who was pointing at
herself; and all this gave the observer a very pleasant sense of
her extreme value. Aunt Juley, nearly opposite, had had the
greatest difficulty in not looking at it all the evening.
Old Jolyon spoke; it was he who had started the discussion.
“Four hundred fiddlesticks! Don’t tell me you gave four hundred
for _that?_”
Between the points of his collar Swithin’s chin made the second
painful oscillatory movement of the evening.
“Four-hundred-pounds, of English money; not a farthing less. I
don’t regret it. It’s not common English—it’s genuine modern
Italian!”
Soames raised the corner of his lip in a smile, and looked across
at Bosinney. The architect was grinning behind the fumes of his
cigarette. Now, indeed, he looked more like a buccaneer.
“There’s a lot of work about it,” remarked James hastily, who was
really moved by the size of the group. “It’d sell well at
Jobson’s.”
“The poor foreign dey-vil that made it,” went on Swithin, “asked
me five hundred—I gave him four. It’s worth eight. Looked
half-starved, poor dey-vil!”
“Ah!” chimed in Nicholas suddenly, “poor, seedy-lookin’ chaps,
these artists; it’s a wonder to me how they live. Now, there’s
young Flageoletti, that Fanny and the girls are always hav’in’
in, to play the fiddle; if he makes a hundred a year it’s as much
as ever he does!”
James shook his head. “Ah!” he said, “_I_ don’t know how they
live!”
Old Jolyon had risen, and, cigar in mouth, went to inspect the
group at close quarters.
“Wouldn’t have given two for it!” he pronounced at last.
Soames saw his father and Nicholas glance at each other
anxiously; and, on the other side of Swithin, Bosinney, still
shrouded in smoke.
“I wonder what _he_ thinks of it?” thought Soames, who knew well
enough that this group was hopelessly _vieux jeu;_ hopelessly of
the last generation. There was no longer any sale at Jobson’s for
such works of art.
Swithin’s answer came at last. “You never knew anything about a
statue. You’ve got your pictures, and that’s all!”
Old Jolyon walked back to his seat, puffing his cigar. It was not
likely that he was going to be drawn into an argument with an
obstinate beggar like Swithin, pig-headed as a mule, who had
never known a statue from a—-straw hat.
“Stucco!” was all he said.
It had long been physically impossible for Swithin to start; his
fist came down on the table.
“Stucco! I should like to see anything you’ve got in your house
half as good!”
And behind his speech seemed to sound again that rumbling
violence of primitive generations.
It was James who saved the situation.
“Now, what do you say, Mr. Bosinney? You’re an architect; you
ought to know all about statues and things!”
Every eye was turned upon Bosinney; all waited with a strange,
suspicious look for his answer.
And Soames, speaking for the first time, asked:
“Yes, Bosinney, what do you say?”
Bosinney replied coolly:
“The work is a remarkable one.”
His words were addressed to Swithin, his eyes smiled slyly at old
Jolyon; only Soames remained unsatisfied.
“Remarkable for what?”
“For its naiveté.”
The answer was followed by an impressive silence; Swithin alone
was not sure whether a compliment was intended.
CHAPTER IV PROJECTION OF THE HOUSE
Soames Forsyte walked out of his green-painted front door three
days after the dinner at Swithin’s, and looking back from across
the Square, confirmed his impression that the house wanted
painting.
He had left his wife sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room, her
hands crossed in her lap, manifestly waiting for him to go out.
This was not unusual. It happened, in fact, every day.
He could not understand what she found wrong with him. It was not
as if he drank! Did he run into debt, or gamble, or swear; was he
violent; were his friends rackety; did he stay out at night? On
the contrary.
The profound, subdued aversion which he felt in his wife was a
mystery to him, and a source of the most terrible irritation.
That she had made a mistake, and did not love him, had tried to
love him and could not love him, was obviously no reason.
He that could imagine so outlandish a cause for his wife’s not
getting on with him was certainly no Forsyte.
Soames was forced, therefore, to set the blame entirely down to
his wife. He had never met a woman so capable of inspiring
affection. They could not go anywhere without his seeing how all
the men were attracted by her; their looks, manners, voices,
betrayed it; her behaviour under this attention had been beyond
reproach. That she was one of those women—not too common in the
Anglo-Saxon race—born to be loved and to love, who when not
loving are not living, had certainly never even occurred to him.
Her power of attraction, he regarded as part of her value as his
property; but it made him, indeed, suspect that she could give as
well as receive; and she gave him nothing! “Then why did she
marry me?” was his continual thought. He had forgotten his
courtship; that year and a half when he had besieged and lain in
wait for her, devising schemes for her entertainment, giving her
presents, proposing to her periodically, and keeping her other
admirers away with his perpetual presence. He had forgotten the
day when, adroitly taking advantage of an acute phase of her
dislike to her home surroundings, he crowned his labours with
success. If he remembered anything, it was the dainty
capriciousness with which the gold-haired, dark-eyed girl had
treated him. He certainly did not remember the look on her
face—strange, passive, appealing—when suddenly one day she had
yielded, and said that she would marry him.
It had been one of those real devoted wooings which books and
people praise, when the lover is at length rewarded for hammering
the iron till it is malleable, and all must be happy ever after
as the wedding bells.
Soames walked eastwards, mousing doggedly along on the shady
side.
The house wanted doing, up, unless he decided to move into the
country, and build.
For the hundredth time that month he turned over this problem.
There was no use in rushing into things! He was very comfortably
off, with an increasing income getting on for three thousand a
year; but his invested capital was not perhaps so large as his
father believed—James had a tendency to expect that his children
should be better off than they were. “I can manage eight thousand
easily enough,” he thought, “without calling in either
Robertson’s or Nicholl’s.”
He had stopped to look in at a picture shop, for Soames was an
“amateur” of pictures, and had a little-room in No. 62,
Montpellier Square, full of canvases, stacked against the wall,
which he had no room to hang. He brought them home with him on
his way back from the City, generally after dark, and would enter
this room on Sunday afternoons, to spend hours turning the
pictures to the light, examining the marks on their backs, and
occasionally making notes.
They were nearly all landscapes with figures in the foreground, a
sign of some mysterious revolt against London, its tall houses,
its interminable streets, where his life and the lives of his
breed and class were passed. Every now and then he would take one
or two pictures away with him in a cab, and stop at Jobson’s on
his way into the City.
He rarely showed them to anyone; Irene, whose opinion he secretly
respected and perhaps for that reason never solicited, had only
been into the room on rare occasions, in discharge of some wifely
duty. She was not asked to look at the pictures, and she never
did. To Soames this was another grievance. He hated that pride of
hers, and secretly dreaded it.
In the plate-glass window of the picture shop his image stood and
looked at him.
His sleek hair under the brim of the tall hat had a sheen like
the hat itself; his cheeks, pale and flat, the line of his
clean-shaven lips, his firm chin with its greyish shaven tinge,
and the buttoned strictness of his black cut-away coat, conveyed
an appearance of reserve and secrecy, of imperturbable, enforced
composure; but his eyes, cold,—grey, strained—looking, with a
line in the brow between them, examined him wistfully, as if they
knew of a secret weakness.
He noted the subjects of the pictures, the names of the painters,
made a calculation of their values, but without the satisfaction
he usually derived from this inward appraisement, and walked on.
No. 62 would do well enough for another year, if he decided to
build! The times were good for building, money had not been so
dear for years; and the site he had seen at Robin Hill, when he
had gone down there in the spring to inspect the Nicholl
mortgage—what could be better! Within twelve miles of Hyde Park
Corner, the value of the land certain to go up, would always
fetch more than he gave for it; so that a house, if built in
really good style, was a first-class investment.
The notion of being the one member of his family with a country
house weighed but little with him; for to a true Forsyte,
sentiment, even the sentiment of social position, was a luxury
only to be indulged in after his appetite for more material
pleasure had been satisfied.
To get Irene out of London, away from opportunities of going
about and seeing people, away from her friends and those who put
ideas into her head! That was the thing! She was too thick with
June! June disliked him. He returned the sentiment. They were of
the same blood.
It would be everything to get Irene out of town. The house would
please her, she would enjoy messing about with the decoration,
she was very artistic!
The house must be in good style, something that would always be
certain to command a price, something unique, like that last
house of Parkes, which had a tower; but Parkes had himself said
that his architect was ruinous. You never knew where you were
with those fellows; if they had a name they ran you into no end
of expense and were conceited into the bargain.
And a common architect was no good—the memory of Parkes’ tower
precluded the employment of a common architect:
This was why he had thought of Bosinney. Since the dinner at
Swithin’s he had made enquiries, the result of which had been
meagre, but encouraging: “One of the new school.”
“Clever?”
“As clever as you like—a bit—a bit up in the air!”
He had not been able to discover what houses Bosinney had built,
nor what his charges were. The impression he gathered was that he
would be able to make his own terms. The more he reflected on the
idea, the more he liked it. It would be keeping the thing in the
family, with Forsytes almost an instinct; and he would be able to
get “favoured-nation,” if not nominal terms—only fair,
considering the chance to Bosinney of displaying his talents, for
this house must be no common edifice.
Soames reflected complacently on the work it would be sure to
bring the young man; for, like every Forsyte, he could be a
thorough optimist when there was anything to be had out of it.
Bosinney’s office was in Sloane Street, close at, hand, so that
he would be able to keep his eye continually on the plans.
Again, Irene would not be to likely to object to leave London if
her greatest friend’s lover were given the job. Jun’s marriage
might depend on it. Irene could not decently stand in the way of
Jun’s marriage; she would never do that, he knew her too well.
And June would be pleased; of this he saw the advantage.
Bosinney looked clever, but he had also—and—it was one of his
great attractions—an air as if he did not quite know on which
side his bread were buttered; he should be easy to deal with in
money matters. Soames made this reflection in no defrauding
spirit; it was the natural attitude of his mind—of the mind of
any good business man—of all those thousands of good business men
through whom he was threading his way up Ludgate Hill.
Thus he fulfilled the inscrutable laws of his great class—of
human nature itself—when he reflected, with a sense of comfort,
that Bosinney would be easy to deal with in money matters.
While he elbowed his way on, his eyes, which he usually kept
fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted upwards by
the dome of St. Paul’s. It had a peculiar fascination for him,
that old dome, and not once, but twice or three times a week,
would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop
in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the
names and epitaphs on the monuments. The attraction for him of
this great church was inexplicable, unless it enabled him to
concentrate his thoughts on the business of the day. If any
affair of particular moment, or demanding peculiar acuteness, was
weighing on his mind, he invariably went in, to wander with
mouse-like attention from epitaph to epitaph. Then retiring in
the same noiseless way, he would hold steadily on up Cheapside, a
thought more of dogged purpose in his gait, as though he had seen
something which he had made up his mind to buy.
He went in this morning, but, instead of stealing from monument
to monument, turned his eyes upwards to the columns and spacings
of the walls, and remained motionless.
His uplifted face, with the awed and wistful look which faces
take on themselves in church, was whitened to a chalky hue in the
vast building. His gloved hands were clasped in front over the
handle of his umbrella. He lifted them. Some sacred inspiration
perhaps had come to him.
“Yes,” he thought, “I must have room to hang my pictures.”
That evening, on his return from the City, he called at
Bosinney’s office. He found the architect in his shirt-sleeves,
smoking a pipe, and ruling off lines on a plan. Soames refused a
drink, and came at once to the point.
“If you’ve nothing better to do on Sunday, come down with me to
Robin Hill, and give me your opinion on a building site.”
“Are you going to build?”
“Perhaps,” said Soames; “but don’t speak of it. I just want your
opinion.”
“Quite so,” said the architect.
Soames peered about the room.
“You’re rather high up here,” he remarked.
Any information he could gather about the nature and scope of
Bosinney’s business would be all to the good.
“It does well enough for me so far,” answered the architect.
“You’re accustomed to the swells.”
He knocked out his pipe, but replaced it empty between his teeth;
it assisted him perhaps to carry on the conversation. Soames
noted a hollow in each cheek, made as it were by suction.
“What do you pay for an office like this?” said he.
“Fifty too much,” replied Bosinney.
This answer impressed Soames favourably.
“I suppose it _is_ dear,” he said. “I’ll call for you—on Sunday
about eleven.”
The following Sunday therefore he called for Bosinney in a
hansom, and drove him to the station. On arriving at Robin Hill,
they found no cab, and started to walk the mile and a half to the
site.
It was the 1st of August—a perfect day, with a burning sun and
cloudless sky—and in the straight, narrow road leading up the
hill their feet kicked up a yellow dust.
“Gravel soil,” remarked Soames, and sideways he glanced at the
coat Bosinney wore. Into the side-pockets of this coat were
thrust bundles of papers, and under one arm was carried a
queer-looking stick. Soames noted these and other peculiarities.
No one but a clever man, or, indeed, a buccaneer, would have
taken such liberties with his appearance; and though these
eccentricities were revolting to Soames, he derived a certain
satisfaction from them, as evidence of qualities by which he must
inevitably profit. If the fellow could build houses, what did his
clothes matter?
“I told you,” he said, “that I want this house to be a surprise,
so don’t say anything about it. I never talk of my affairs until
they’re carried through.”
Bosinney nodded.
“Let women into your plans,” pursued Soames, “and you never know
where it’ll end.”
“Ah!” Said Bosinney, “women are the devil!”
This feeling had long been at the bottom of Soames’s heart; he
had never, however, put it into words.
“Oh!” he muttered, “so you’re beginning to....” He stopped, but
added, with an uncontrollable burst of spite: “Jun’s got a temper
of her own—always had.”
“A temper’s not a bad thing in an angel.”
Soames had never called Irene an angel. He could not so have
violated his best instincts, letting other people into the secret
of her value, and giving himself away. He made no reply.
They had struck into a half-made road across a warren. A
cart-track led at right-angles to a gravel pit, beyond which the
chimneys of a cottage rose amongst a clump of trees at the border
of a thick wood. Tussocks of feathery grass covered the rough
surface of the ground, and out of these the larks soared into the
haze of sunshine. On the far horizon, over a countless succession
of fields and hedges, rose a line of downs.
Soames led till they had crossed to the far side, and there he
stopped. It was the chosen site; but now that he was about to
divulge the spot to another he had become uneasy.
“The agent lives in that cottage,” he said; “he’ll give us some
lunch—we’d better have lunch before we go into this matter.”
He again took the lead to the cottage, where the agent, a tall
man named Oliver, with a heavy face and grizzled beard, welcomed
them. During lunch, which Soames hardly touched, he kept looking
at Bosinney, and once or twice passed his silk handkerchief
stealthily over his forehead. The meal came to an end at last,
and Bosinney rose.
“I dare say you’ve got business to talk over,” he said; “I’ll
just go and nose about a bit.” Without waiting for a reply he
strolled out.
Soames was solicitor to this estate, and he spent nearly an hour
in the agent’s company, looking at ground-plans and discussing
the Nicholl and other mortgages; it was as it were by an
afterthought that he brought up the question of the building
site.
“Your people,” he said, “ought to come down in their price to me,
considering that I shall be the first to build.”
Oliver shook his head.
The site you’ve fixed on, Sir, he said, “is the cheapest we’ve
got. Sites at the top of the slope are dearer by a good bit.”
“Mind,” said Soames, “I’ve not decided; it’s quite possible I
shan’t build at all. The ground rent’s very high.”
“Well, Mr. Forsyte, I shall be sorry if you go off, and I think
you’ll make a mistake, Sir. There’s not a bit of land near London
with such a view as this, nor one that’s cheaper, all things
considered; we’ve only to advertise, to get a mob of people after
it.”
They looked at each other. Their faces said very plainly: “I
respect you as a man of business; and you can’t expect me to
believe a word you say.”
Well, repeated Soames, “I haven’t made up my mind; the thing will
very likely go off!” With these words, taking up his umbrella, he
put his chilly hand into the agent’s, withdrew it without the
faintest pressure, and went out into the sun.
He walked slowly back towards the site in deep thought. His
instinct told him that what the agent had said was true. A cheap
site. And the beauty of it was, that he knew the agent did not
really think it cheap; so that his own intuitive knowledge was a
victory over the agent’s.
“Cheap or not, I mean to have it,” he thought.
The larks sprang up in front of his feet, the air was full of
butterflies, a sweet fragrance rose from the wild grasses. The
sappy scent of the bracken stole forth from the wood, where,
hidden in the depths, pigeons were cooing, and from afar on the
warm breeze, came the rhythmic chiming of church bells.
Soames walked with his eyes on the ground, his lips opening and
closing as though in anticipation of a delicious morsel. But when
he arrived at the site, Bosinney was nowhere to be seen. After
waiting some little time, he crossed the warren in the direction
of the slope. He would have shouted, but dreaded the sound of his
voice.
The warren was as lonely as a prairie, its silence only broken by
the rustle of rabbits bolting to their holes, and the song of the
larks.
Soames, the pioneer-leader of the great Forsyte army advancing to
the civilization of this wilderness, felt his spirit daunted by
the loneliness, by the invisible singing, and the hot, sweet air.
He had begun to retrace his steps when he at last caught sight of
Bosinney.
The architect was sprawling under a large oak tree, whose trunk,
with a huge spread of bough and foliage, ragged with age, stood
on the verge of the rise.
Soames had to touch him on the shoulder before he looked up.
“Hallo! Forsyte,” he said, “I’ve found the very place for your
house! Look here!”
Soames stood and looked, then he said, coldly:
“You may be very clever, but this site will cost me half as much
again.”
“Hang the cost, man. Look at the view!”
Almost from their feet stretched ripe corn, dipping to a small
dark copse beyond. A plain of fields and hedges spread to the
distant grey-bluedowns. In a silver streak to the right could be
seen the line of the river.
The sky was so blue, and the sun so bright, that an eternal
summer seemed to reign over this prospect. Thistledown floated
round them, enraptured by the serenity, of the ether. The heat
danced over the corn, and, pervading all, was a soft, insensible
hum, like the murmur of bright minutes holding revel between
earth and heaven.
Soames looked. In spite of himself, something swelled in his
breast. To live here in sight of all this, to be able to point it
out to his friends, to talk of it, to possess it! His cheeks
flushed. The warmth, the radiance, the glow, were sinking into
his senses as, four years before, Irene’s beauty had sunk into
his senses and made him long for her. He stole a glance at
Bosinney, whose eyes, the eyes of the coachman’s “half-tame
leopard,” seemed running wild over the landscape. The sunlight
had caught the promontories of the fellow’s face, the bumpy
cheekbones, the point of his chin, the vertical ridges above his
brow; and Soames watched this rugged, enthusiastic, careless face
with an unpleasant feeling.
A long, soft ripple of wind flowed over the corn, and brought a
puff of warm air into their faces.
“I could build you a teaser here,” said Bosinney, breaking the
silence at last.
“I dare say,” replied Soames, drily. “You haven’t got to pay for
it.”
“For about eight thousand I could build you a palace.”
Soames had become very pale—a struggle was going on within him.
He dropped his eyes, and said stubbornly:
“I can’t afford it.”
And slowly, with his mousing walk, he led the way back to the
first site.
They spent some time there going into particulars of the
projected house, and then Soames returned to the agent’s cottage.
He came out in about half an hour, and, joining Bosinney, started
for the station.
“Well,” he said, hardly opening his lips, “I’ve taken that site
of yours, after all.”
And again he was silent, confusedly debating how it was that this
fellow, whom by habit he despised, should have overborne his own
decision.
CHAPTER V A FORSYTE MÉNAGE
Like the enlightened thousands of his class and generation in
this great city of London, who no longer believe in red velvet
chairs, and know that groups of modern Italian marble are “_vieux
jeu_,” Soames Forsyte inhabited a house which did what it could.
It owned a copper door knocker of individual design, windows
which had been altered to open outwards, hanging flower boxes
filled with fuchsias, and at the back (a great feature) a little
court tiled with jade-green tiles, and surrounded by pink
hydrangeas in peacock-blue tubs. Here, under a parchment-coloured
Japanese sunshade covering the whole end, inhabitants or visitors
could be screened from the eyes of the curious while they drank
tea and examined at their leisure the latest of Soames’s little
silver boxes.
The inner decoration favoured the First Empire and William
Morris. For its size, the house was commodious; there were
countless nooks resembling birds’ nests, and little things made
of silver were deposited like eggs.
In this general perfection two kinds of fastidiousness were at
war. There lived here a mistress who would have dwelt daintily on
a desert island; a master whose daintiness was, as it were, an
investment, cultivated by the owner for his advancement, in
accordance with the laws of competition. This competitive
daintiness had caused Soames in his Marlborough days to be the
first boy into white waistcoats in summer, and corduroy
waistcoats in winter, had prevented him from ever appearing in
public with his tie climbing up his collar, and induced him to
dust his patent leather boots before a great multitude assembled
on Speech Day to hear him recite Molière.
Skin-like immaculateness had grown over Soames, as over many
Londoners; impossible to conceive of him with a hair out of
place, a tie deviating one-eighth of an inch from the
perpendicular, a collar unglossed! He would not have gone without
a bath for worlds—it was the fashion to take baths; and how
bitter was his scorn of people who omitted them!
But Irene could be imagined, like some nymph, bathing in wayside
streams, for the joy of the freshness and of seeing her own fair
body.
In this conflict throughout the house the woman had gone to the
wall. As in the struggle between Saxon and Celt still going on
within the nation, the more impressionable and receptive
temperament had had forced on it a conventional superstructure.
Thus the house had acquired a close resemblance to hundreds of
other houses with the same high aspirations, having become: “That
very charming little house of the Soames Forsytes, quite
individual, my dear—really elegant.”
For Soames Forsyte—read James Peabody, Thomas Atkins, or Emmanuel
Spagnoletti, the name in fact of any upper-middle class
Englishman in London with any pretensions to taste; and though
the decoration be different, the phrase is just.
On the evening of August 8, a week after the expedition to Robin
Hill, in the dining-room of this house—“quite individual, my
dear—really elegant”—Soames and Irene were seated at dinner. A
hot dinner on Sundays was a little distinguishing elegance common
to this house and many others. Early in married life Soames had
laid down the rule: “The servants must give us hot dinner on
Sundays—they’ve nothing to do but play the concertina.”
The custom had produced no revolution. For—to Soames a rather
deplorable sign—servants were devoted to Irene, who, in defiance
of all safe tradition, appeared to recognise their right to a
share in the weaknesses of human nature.
The happy pair were seated, not opposite each other, but
rectangularly, at the handsome rosewood table; they dined without
a cloth—a distinguishing elegance—and so far had not spoken a
word.
Soames liked to talk during dinner about business, or what he had
been buying, and so long as he talked Irene’s silence did not
distress him. This evening he had found it impossible to talk.
The decision to build had been weighing on his mind all the week,
and he had made up his mind to tell her.
His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him profoundly;
she had no business to make him feel like that—a wife and a
husband being one person. She had not looked at him once since
they sat down; and he wondered what on earth she had been
thinking about all the time. It was hard, when a man worked as he
did, making money for her—yes, and with an ache in his heart—that
she should sit there, looking—looking as if she saw the walls of
the room closing in. It was enough to make a man get up and leave
the table.
The light from the rose-shaded lamp fell on her neck and
arms—Soames liked her to dine in a low dress, it gave him an
inexpressible feeling of superiority to the majority of his
acquaintance, whose wives were contented with their best high
frocks or with tea-gowns, when they dined at home. Under that
rosy light her amber-coloured hair and fair skin made strange
contrast with her dark brown eyes.
Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its
deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured
glass, and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything
prettier than the woman who sat at it? Gratitude was no virtue
among Forsytes, who, competitive, and full of common-sense, had
no occasion for it; and Soames only experienced a sense of
exasperation amounting to pain, that he did not own her as it was
his right to own her, that he could not, as by stretching out his
hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very secrets of her
heart.
Out of his other property, out of all the things he had
collected, his silver, his pictures, his houses, his investments,
he got a secret and intimate feeling; out of her he got none.
In this house of his there was writing on every wall. His
business-like temperament protested against a mysterious warning
that she was not made for him. He had married this woman,
conquered her, made her his own, and it seemed to him contrary to
the most fundamental of all laws, the law of possession, that he
could do no more than own her body—if indeed he could do that,
which he was beginning to doubt. If any one had asked him if he
wanted to own her soul, the question would have seemed to him
both ridiculous and sentimental. But he did so want, and the
writing said he never would.
She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse; as though
terrified lest by word, motion, or sign she might lead him to
believe that she was fond of him; and he asked himself: Must I
always go on like this?
Like most novel readers of his generation (and Soames was a great
novel reader), literature coloured his view of life; and he had
imbibed the belief that it was only a question of time.
In the end the husband always gained the affection of his wife.
Even in those cases—a class of book he was not very fond of—which
ended in tragedy, the wife always died with poignant regrets on
her lips, or if it were the husband who died—unpleasant
thought—threw herself on his body in an agony of remorse.
He often took Irene to the theatre, instinctively choosing the
modern Society Plays with the modern Society conjugal problem, so
fortunately different from any conjugal problem in real life. He
found that they too always ended in the same way, even when there
was a lover in the case. While he was watching the play Soames
often sympathized with the lover; but before he reached home
again, driving with Irene in a hansom, he saw that this would not
do, and he was glad the play had ended as it had. There was one
class of husband that had just then come into fashion, the
strong, rather rough, but extremely sound man, who was peculiarly
successful at the end of the play; with this person Soames was
really not in sympathy, and had it not been for his own position,
would have expressed his disgust with the fellow. But he was so
conscious of how vital to himself was the necessity for being a
successful, even a “strong,” husband, that he never spoke of a
distaste born perhaps by the perverse processes of Nature out of
a secret fund of brutality in himself.
But Irene’s silence this evening was exceptional. He had never
before seen such an expression on her face. And since it is
always the unusual which alarms, Soames was alarmed. He ate his
savoury, and hurried the maid as she swept off the crumbs with
the silver sweeper. When she had left the room, he filled his
glass with wine and said:
“Anybody been here this afternoon?”
“June.”
“What did _she_ want?” It was an axiom with the Forsytes that
people did not go anywhere unless they wanted something. “Came to
talk about her lover, I suppose?”
Irene made no reply.
“It looks to me,” continued Soames, “as if she were sweeter on
him than he is on her. She’s always following him about.”
Irene’s eyes made him feel uncomfortable.
“You’ve no business to say such a thing!” she exclaimed.
“Why not? Anybody can see it.”
“They cannot. And if they could, it’s disgraceful to say so.”
Soames’s composure gave way.
“You’re a pretty wife!” he said. But secretly he wondered at the
heat of her reply; it was unlike her. “You’re cracked about June!
I can tell you one thing: now that she has the Buccaneer in tow,
she doesn’t care twopence about you, and, you’ll find it out. But
you won’t see so much of her in future; we’re going to live in
the country.”
He had been glad to get his news out under cover of this burst of
irritation. He had expected a cry of dismay; the silence with
which his pronouncement was received alarmed him.
“You don’t seem interested,” he was obliged to add.
“I knew it already.”
He looked at her sharply.
“Who told you?”
“June.”
“How did she know?”
Irene did not answer. Baffled and uncomfortable, he said:
“It’s a fine thing for Bosinney, it’ll be the making of him. I
suppose she’s told you all about it?”
“Yes.”
There was another pause, and then Soames said:
“I suppose you don’t want to, go?”
Irene made no reply.
“Well, I can’t tell what you want. You never seem contented
here.”
“Have my wishes anything to do with it?”
She took the vase of roses and left the room. Soames remained
seated. Was it for this that he had signed that contract? Was it
for this that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds?
Bosinney’s phrase came back to him: “Women are the devil!”
But presently he grew calmer. It might have been worse. She might
have flared up. He had expected something more than this. It was
lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him. She must
have wormed it out of Bosinney; he might have known she would.
He lighted his cigarette. After all, Irene had not made a scene!
She would come round—that was the best of her; she was cold, but
not sulky. And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a lady-bird on the
shining table, he plunged into a reverie about the house. It was
no good worrying; he would go and make it up presently. She would
be sitting out there in the dark, under the Japanese sunshade,
knitting. A beautiful, warm night....
In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining eyes, and
the words: “Soames is a brick! It’s splendid for Phil—the very
thing for him!”
Irene’s face remaining dark and puzzled, she went on:
“Your new house at Robin Hill, of course. What? Don’t you know?”
Irene did not know.
“Oh! then, I suppose I oughtn’t to have told you!” Looking
impatiently at her friend, she cried: “You look as if you didn’t
care. Don’t you see, it’s what I’ve been praying for—the very
chance he’s been wanting all this time. Now you’ll see what he
can do;” and thereupon she poured out the whole story.
Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested in
her friend’s position; the hours she spent with Irene were given
to confidences of her own; and at times, for all her affectionate
pity, it was impossible to keep out of her smile a trace of
compassionate contempt for the woman who had made such a mistake
in her life—such a vast, ridiculous mistake.
“He’s to have all the decorations as well—a free hand. It’s
perfect—” June broke into laughter, her little figure quivered
gleefully; she raised her hand, and struck a blow at a muslin
curtain. “Do you, know I even asked Uncle James....” But, with a
sudden dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped; and
presently, finding her friend so unresponsive, went away. She
looked back from the pavement, and Irene was still standing in
the doorway. In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her hand
to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door....
Soames went to the drawing-room presently, and peered at her
through the window.
Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade she was sitting very
still, the lace on her white shoulders stirring with the soft
rise and fall of her bosom.
But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless, in
the dark, there seemed a warmth, a hidden fervour of feeling, as
if the whole of her being had been stirred, and some change were
taking place in its very depths.
He stole back to the dining-room unnoticed.
CHAPTER VI JAMES AT LARGE
It was not long before Soames’s determination to build went the
round of the family, and created the flutter that any decision
connected with property should make among Forsytes.
It was not his fault, for he had been determined that no one
should know. June, in the fulness of her heart, had told Mrs.
Small, giving her leave only to tell Aunt Ann—she thought it
would cheer her, the poor old sweet! for Aunt Ann had kept her
room now for many days.
Mrs. Small told Aunt Ann at once, who, smiling as she lay back on
her pillows, said in her distinct, trembling old voice:
“It’s very nice for dear June; but I hope they will be
careful—it’s rather dangerous!”
When she was left alone again, a frown, like a cloud presaging a
rainy morrow, crossed her face.
While she was lying there so many days the process of recharging
her will went on all the time; it spread to her face, too, and
tightening movements were always in action at the corners of her
lips.
The maid Smither, who had been in her service since girlhood, and
was spoken of as “Smither—a good girl—but so slow!”—the maid
Smither performed every morning with extreme punctiliousness the
crowning ceremony of that ancient toilet. Taking from the
recesses of their pure white band-box those flat, grey curls, the
insignia of personal dignity, she placed them securely in her
mistress’s hands, and turned her back.
And every day Aunts Juley and Hester were required to come and
report on Timothy; what news there was of Nicholas; whether dear
June had succeeded in getting Jolyon to shorten the engagement,
now that Mr. Bosinney was building Soames a house; whether young
Roger’s wife was really—expecting; how the operation on Archie
had succeeded; and what Swithin had done about that empty house
in Wigmore Street, where the tenant had lost all his money and
treated him so badly; above all, about Soames; was Irene
still—still asking for a separate room? And every morning Smither
was told: “I shall be coming down this afternoon, Smither, about
two o’clock. I shall want your arm, after all these days in bed!”
After telling Aunt Ann, Mrs. Small had spoken of the house in the
strictest confidence to Mrs. Nicholas, who in her turn had asked
Winifred Dartie for confirmation, supposing, of course, that,
being Soames’s sister, she would know all about it. Through her
it had in due course come round to the ears of James. He had been
a good deal agitated.
“Nobody,” he said, “told him anything.” And, rather than go
direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he
took his umbrella and went round to Timothy’s.
He found Mrs. Septimus and Hester (who had been told—she was so
safe, she found it tiring to talk) ready, and indeed eager, to
discuss the news. It was very good of dear Soames, they thought,
to employ Mr. Bosinney, but rather risky. What had George named
him? “The Buccaneer!” How droll! But George was always droll!
However, it would be all in the family they supposed they must
really look upon Mr. Bosinney as belonging to the family, though
it seemed strange.
James here broke in:
“Nobody knows anything about him. I don’t see what Soames wants
with a young man like that. I shouldn’t be surprised if Irene had
put her oar in. I shall speak to....”
“Soames,” interposed Aunt Juley, “told Mr. Bosinney that he
didn’t wish it mentioned. He wouldn’t like it to be talked about,
I’m sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed, I....”
James put his hand behind his ear:
“What?” he said. “I’m getting very deaf. I suppose I don’t hear
people. Emily’s got a bad toe. We shan’t be able to start for
Wales till the end of the month. There’s always something!” And,
having got what he wanted, he took his hat and went away.
It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the Park towards
Soames’s, where he intended to dine, for Emily’s toe kept her in
bed, and Rachel and Cicely were on a visit to the country. He
took the slanting path from the Bayswater side of the Row to the
Knightsbridge Gate, across a pasture of short, burnt grass,
dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with seated couples and
strange waifs; lying prone on their faces, like corpses on a
field over which the wave of battle has rolled.
He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to right nor
left. The appearance of this park, the centre of his own
battle-field, where he had all his life been fighting, excited no
thought or speculation in his mind. These corpses flung down,
there, from out the press and turmoil of the struggle, these
pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of idle Elysium
snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no
fancies in his mind; he had outlived that kind of imagination;
his nose, like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures
on which he browsed.
One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition to be
behind-hand in his rent, and it had become a grave question
whether he had not better turn him out at once, and so run the
risk of not re-letting before Christmas. Swithin had just been
let in very badly, but it had served him right—he had held on too
long.
He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his umbrella
carefully by the wood, just below the crook of the handle, so as
to keep the ferule off the ground, and not fray the silk in the
middle. And, with his thin, high shoulders stooped, his long legs
moving with swift mechanical precision, this passage through the
Park, where the sun shone with a clear flame on so much
idleness—on so many human evidences of the remorseless battle of
Property, raging beyond its ring—was like the flight of some land
bird across the sea.
He felt a touch on the arm as he came out at Albert Gate.
It was Soames, who, crossing from the shady side of Piccadilly,
where he had been walking home from the office, had suddenly
appeared alongside.
“Your mother’s in bed,” said James; “I was just coming to you,
but I suppose I shall be in the way.”
The outward relations between James and his son were marked by a
lack of sentiment peculiarly Forsytean, but for all that the two
were by no means unattached. Perhaps they regarded one another as
an investment; certainly they were solicitous of each other’s
welfare, glad of each other’s company. They had never exchanged
two words upon the more intimate problems of life, or revealed in
each other’s presence the existence of any deep feeling.
Something beyond the power of word-analysis bound them together,
something hidden deep in the fibre of nations and families—for
blood, they say, is thicker than water—and neither of them was a
cold-blooded man. Indeed, in James love of his children was now
the prime motive of his existence. To have creatures who were
parts of himself, to whom he might transmit the money he saved,
was at the root of his saving; and, at seventy-five, what was
left that could give him pleasure, but—saving? The kernel of life
was in this saving for his children.
Than James Forsyte, notwithstanding all his “Jonah-isms,” there
was no saner man (if the leading symptom of sanity, as we are
told, is self-preservation, though without doubt Timothy went too
far) in all this London, of which he owned so much, and loved
with such a dumb love, as the centre of his opportunities. He had
the marvellous instinctive sanity of the middle class. In
him—more than in Jolyon, with his masterful will and his moments
of tenderness and philosophy—more than in Swithin, the martyr to
crankiness—Nicholas, the sufferer from ability—and Roger, the
victim of enterprise—beat the true pulse of compromise; of all
the brothers he was least remarkable in mind and person, and for
that reason more likely to live for ever.
To James, more than to any of the others, was “the family”
significant and dear. There had always been something primitive
and cosy in his attitude towards life; he loved the family
hearth, he loved gossip, and he loved grumbling. All his
decisions were formed of a cream which he skimmed off the family
mind; and, through that family, off the minds of thousands of
other families of similar fibre. Year after year, week after
week, he went to Timothy’s, and in his brother’s front
drawing-room—his legs twisted, his long white whiskers framing
his clean-shaven mouth—would sit watching the family pot simmer,
the cream rising to the top; and he would go away sheltered,
refreshed, comforted, with an indefinable sense of comfort.
Beneath the adamant of his self-preserving instinct there was
much real softness in James; a visit to Timothy’s was like an
hour spent in the lap of a mother; and the deep craving he
himself had for the protection of the family wing reacted in turn
on his feelings towards his own children; it was a nightmare to
him to think of them exposed to the treatment of the world, in
money, health, or reputation. When his old friend John Street’s
son volunteered for special service, he shook his head
querulously, and wondered what John Street was about to allow it;
and when young Street was assagaied, he took it so much to heart
that he made a point of calling everywhere with the special
object of saying: He knew how it would be—he’d no patience with
them!
When his son-in-law Dartie had that financial crisis, due to
speculation in Oil Shares, James made himself ill worrying over
it; the knell of all prosperity seemed to have sounded. It took
him three months and a visit to Baden-Baden to get better; there
was something terrible in the idea that but for his, James’s,
money, Dartie’s name might have appeared in the Bankruptcy List.
Composed of a physiological mixture so sound that if he had an
earache he thought he was dying, he regarded the occasional
ailments of his wife and children as in the nature of personal
grievances, special interventions of Providence for the purpose
of destroying his peace of mind; but he did not believe at all in
the ailments of people outside his own immediate family,
affirming them in every case to be due to neglected liver.
His universal comment was: “What can they expect? I have it
myself, if I’m not careful!”
When he went to Soames’s that evening he felt that life was hard
on him: There was Emily with a bad toe, and Rachel gadding about
in the country; he got no sympathy from anybody; and Ann, she was
ill—he did not believe she would last through the summer; he had
called there three times now without her being able to see him!
And this idea of Soames’s, building a house, _that_ would have to
be looked into. As to the trouble with Irene, he didn’t know what
was to come of that—anything might come of it!
He entered 62, Montpellier Square with the fullest intentions of
being miserable.
It was already half-past seven, and Irene, dressed for dinner,
was seated in the drawing-room. She was wearing her gold-coloured
frock—for, having been displayed at a dinner-party, a soirée, and
a dance, it was now to be worn at home—and she had adorned the
bosom with a cascade of lace, on which James’s eyes riveted
themselves at once.
“Where do you get your things?” he said in an aggravated voice.
“I never see Rachel and Cicely looking half so well. That
rose-point, now—that’s not real!”
Irene came close, to prove to him that he was in error.
And, in spite of himself, James felt the influence of her
deference, of the faint seductive perfume exhaling from her. No
self-respecting Forsyte surrendered at a blow; so he merely said:
He didn’t know—he expected she was spending a pretty penny on
dress.
The gong sounded, and, putting her white arm within his, Irene
took him into the dining-room. She seated him in Soames’s usual
place, round the corner on her left. The light fell softly there,
so that he would not be worried by the gradual dying of the day;
and she began to talk to him about himself.
Presently, over James came a change, like the mellowing that
steals upon a fruit in the sun; a sense of being caressed, and
praised, and petted, and all without the bestowal of a single
caress or word of praise. He felt that what he was eating was
agreeing with him; he could not get that feeling at home; he did
not know when he had enjoyed a glass of champagne so much, and,
on inquiring the brand and price, was surprised to find that it
was one of which he had a large stock himself, but could never
drink; he instantly formed the resolution to let his wine
merchant know that he had been swindled.
Looking up from his food, he remarked:
“You’ve a lot of nice things about the place. Now, what did you
give for that sugar-sifter? Shouldn’t wonder if it was worth
money!”
He was particularly pleased with the appearance of a picture, on
the wall opposite, which he himself had given them:
“I’d no idea it was so good!” he said.
They rose to go into the drawing-room, and James followed Irene
closely.
“That’s what I call a capital little dinner,” he murmured,
breathing pleasantly down on her shoulder; “nothing heavy—and not
too Frenchified. But _I_ can’t get it at home. I pay my cook
sixty pounds a year, but _she_ can’t give me a dinner like that!”
He had as yet made no allusion to the building of the house, nor
did he when Soames, pleading the excuse of business, betook
himself to the room at the top, where he kept his pictures.
James was left alone with his daughter-in-law. The glow of the
wine, and of an excellent liqueur, was still within him. He felt
quite warm towards her. She was really a taking little thing; she
listened to you, and seemed to understand what you were saying;
and, while talking, he kept examining her figure, from her
bronze-coloured shoes to the waved gold of her hair. She was
leaning back in an Empire chair, her shoulders poised against the
top—her body, flexibly straight and unsupported from the hips,
swaying when she moved, as though giving to the arms of a lover.
Her lips were smiling, her eyes half-closed.
It may have been a recognition of danger in the very charm of her
attitude, or a twang of digestion, that caused a sudden dumbness
to fall on James. He did not remember ever having been quite
alone with Irene before. And, as he looked at her, an odd feeling
crept over him, as though he had come across something strange
and foreign.
Now what was she thinking about—sitting back like that?
Thus when he spoke it was in a sharper voice, as if he had been
awakened from a pleasant dream.
“What d’you do with yourself all day?” he said. “You never come
round to Park Lane!”
She seemed to be making very lame excuses, and James did not look
at her. He did not want to believe that she was really avoiding
them—it would mean too much.
“I expect the fact is, you haven’t time,” he said; “You’re always
about with June. I expect you’re useful to her with her young
man, chaperoning, and one thing and another. They tell me she’s
never at home now; your Uncle Jolyon he doesn’t like it, I fancy,
being left so much alone as he is. They tell me she’s always
hanging about for this young Bosinney; I suppose he comes here
every day. Now, what do you think of him? D’you think he knows
his own mind? He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the grey
mare was the better horse!”
The colour deepened in Irene’s face; and James watched her
suspiciously.
“Perhaps you don’t quite understand Mr. Bosinney,” she said.
“Don’t understand him!” James hummed out: “Why not?—you can see
he’s one of these artistic chaps. They say he’s clever—they all
think they’re clever. You know more about him than I do,” he
added; and again his suspicious glance rested on her.
“He is designing a house for Soames,” she said softly, evidently
trying to smooth things over.
“That brings me to what I was going to say,” continued James; “I
don’t know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why
doesn’t he go to a first-rate man?”
“Perhaps Mr. Bosinney is first-rate!”
James rose, and took a turn with bent head.
“That’s it’,” he said, “you young people, you all stick together;
you all think you know best!”
Halting his tall, lank figure before her, he raised a finger, and
levelled it at her bosom, as though bringing an indictment
against her beauty:
“All I can say is, these artistic people, or whatever they call
themselves, they’re as unreliable as they can be; and my advice
to you is, don’t you have too much to do with him!”
Irene smiled; and in the curve of her lips was a strange
provocation. She seemed to have lost her deference. Her breast
rose and fell as though with secret anger; she drew her hands
inwards from their rest on the arms of her chair until the tips
of her fingers met, and her dark eyes looked unfathomably at
James.
The latter gloomily scrutinized the floor.
“I tell you my opinion,” he said, “it’s a pity you haven’t got a
child to think about, and occupy you!”
A brooding look came instantly on Irene’s face, and even James
became conscious of the rigidity that took possession of her
whole figure beneath the softness of its silk and lace clothing.
He was frightened by the effect he had produced, and like most
men with but little courage, he sought at once to justify himself
by bullying.
“You don’t seem to care about going about. Why don’t you drive
down to Hurlingham with us? And go to the theatre now and then.
At your time of life you ought to take an interest in things.
You’re a young woman!”
The brooding look darkened on her face; he grew nervous.
“Well, I know nothing about it,” he said; “nobody tells me
anything. Soames ought to be able to take care of himself. If he
can’t take care of himself he mustn’t look to me—that’s all.”
Biting the corner of his forefinger he stole a cold, sharp look
at his daughter-in-law.
He encountered her eyes fixed on his own, so dark and deep, that
he stopped, and broke into a gentle perspiration.
“Well, I must be going,” he said after a short pause, and a
minute later rose, with a slight appearance of surprise, as
though he had expected to be asked to stop. Giving his hand to
Irene, he allowed himself to be conducted to the door, and let
out into the street. He would not have a cab, he would walk,
Irene was to say good-night to Soames for him, and if she wanted
a little gaiety, well, he would drive her down to Richmond any
day.
He walked home, and going upstairs, woke Emily out of the first
sleep she had had for four and twenty hours, to tell her that it
was his impression things were in a bad way at Soames’s; on this
theme he descanted for half an hour, until at last, saying that
he would not sleep a wink, he turned on his side and instantly
began to snore.
In Montpellier Square Soames, who had come from the picture room,
stood invisible at the top of the stairs, watching Irene sort the
letters brought by the last post. She turned back into the
drawing-room; but in a minute came out, and stood as if
listening. Then she came stealing up the stairs, with a kitten in
her arms. He could see her face bent over the little beast, which
was purring against her neck. Why couldn’t she look at him like
that?
Suddenly she saw him, and her face changed.
“Any letters for me?” he said.
“Three.”
He stood aside, and without another word she passed on into the
bedroom.
CHAPTER VII OLD JOLYON’S PECCADILLO
Old Jolyon came out of Lord’s cricket ground that same afternoon
with the intention of going home. He had not reached Hamilton
Terrace before he changed his mind, and hailing a cab, gave the
driver an address in Wistaria Avenue. He had taken a resolution.
June had hardly been at home at all that week; she had given him
nothing of her company for a long time past, not, in fact, since
she had become engaged to Bosinney. He never asked her for her
company. It was not his habit to ask people for things! She had
just that one idea now—Bosinney and his affairs—and she left him
stranded in his great house, with a parcel of servants, and not a
soul to speak to from morning to night. His Club was closed for
cleaning; his Boards in recess; there was nothing, therefore, to
take him into the City. June had wanted him to go away; she would
not go herself, because Bosinney was in London.
But where was he to go by himself? He could not go abroad alone;
the sea upset his liver; he hated hotels. Roger went to a
hydropathic—he was not going to begin that at his time of life,
those new-fangled places were all humbug!
With such formulas he clothed to himself the desolation of his
spirit; the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day
looking forth with the melancholy which sat so strangely on a
face wont to be strong and serene.
And so that afternoon he took this journey through St. John’s
Wood, in the golden-light that sprinkled the rounded green bushes
of the acacia’s before the little houses, in the summer sunshine
that seemed holding a revel over the little gardens; and he
looked about him with interest; for this was a district which no
Forsyte entered without open disapproval and secret curiosity.
His cab stopped in front of a small house of that peculiar buff
colour which implies a long immunity from paint. It had an outer
gate, and a rustic approach.
He stepped out, his bearing extremely composed; his massive head,
with its drooping moustache and wings of white hair, very
upright, under an excessively large top hat; his glance firm, a
little angry. He had been driven into this!
“Mrs. Jolyon Forsyte at home?”
“Oh, yes sir!—what name shall I say, if you please, sir?”
Old Jolyon could not help twinkling at the little maid as he gave
his name. She seemed to him such a funny little toad!
And he followed her through the dark hall, into a small double,
drawing-room, where the furniture was covered in chintz, and the
little maid placed him in a chair.
“They’re all in the garden, sir; if you’ll kindly take a seat,
I’ll tell them.”
Old Jolyon sat down in the chintz-covered chair, and looked
around him. The whole place seemed to him, as he would have
expressed it, pokey; there was a certain—he could not tell
exactly what—air of shabbiness, or rather of making two ends
meet, about everything. As far as he could see, not a single
piece of furniture was worth a five-pound note. The walls,
distempered rather a long time ago, were decorated with
water-colour sketches; across the ceiling meandered a long crack.
These little houses were all old, second-rate concerns; he should
hope the rent was under a hundred a year; it hurt him more than
he could have said, to think of a Forsyte—his own son living in
such a place.
The little maid came back. Would he please to go down into the
garden?
Old Jolyon marched out through the French windows. In descending
the steps he noticed that they wanted painting.
Young Jolyon, his wife, his two children, and his dog Balthasar,
were all out there under a pear-tree.
This walk towards them was the most courageous act of old
Jolyon’s life; but no muscle of his face moved, no nervous
gesture betrayed him. He kept his deep-set eyes steadily on the
enemy.
In those two minutes he demonstrated to perfection all that
unconscious soundness, balance, and vitality of fibre that made,
of him and so many others of his class the core of the nation. In
the unostentatious conduct of their own affairs, to the neglect
of everything else, they typified the essential individualism,
born in the Briton from the natural isolation of his country’s
life.
The dog Balthasar sniffed round the edges of his trousers; this
friendly and cynical mongrel—offspring of a liaison between a
Russian poodle and a fox-terrier—had a nose for the unusual.
The strange greetings over, old Jolyon seated himself in a wicker
chair, and his two grandchildren, one on each side of his knees,
looked at him silently, never having seen so old a man.
They were unlike, as though recognising the difference set
between them by the circumstances of their births. Jolly, the
child of sin, pudgy-faced, with his tow-coloured hair brushed off
his forehead, and a dimple in his chin, had an air of stubborn
amiability, and the eyes of a Forsyte; little Holly, the child of
wedlock, was a dark-skinned, solemn soul, with her mother’s grey
and wistful eyes.
The dog Balthasar, having walked round the three small
flower-beds, to show his extreme contempt for things at large,
had also taken a seat in front of old Jolyon, and, oscillating a
tail curled by Nature tightly over his back, was staring up with
eyes that did not blink.
Even in the garden, that sense of things being pokey haunted old
Jolyon; the wicker chair creaked under his weight; the
garden-beds looked “daverdy”. On the far side, under the
smut-stained wall, cats had made a path.
While he and his grandchildren thus regarded each other with the
peculiar scrutiny, curious yet trustful, that passes between the
very young and the very old, young Jolyon watched his wife.
The colour had deepened in her thin, oval face, with its straight
brows, and large, grey eyes. Her hair, brushed in fine, high
curves back from her forehead, was going grey, like his own, and
this greyness made the sudden vivid colour in her cheeks
painfully pathetic.
The look on her face, such as he had never seen there before,
such as she had always hidden from him, was full of secret
resentments, and longings, and fears. Her eyes, under their
twitching brows, stared painfully. And she was silent.
Jolly alone sustained the conversation; he had many possessions,
and was anxious that his unknown friend with extremely large
moustaches, and hands all covered with blue veins, who sat with
legs crossed like his own father (a habit he was himself trying
to acquire), should know it; but being a Forsyte, though not yet
quite eight years old, he made no mention of the thing at the
moment dearest to his heart—a camp of soldiers in a shop-window,
which his father had promised to buy. No doubt it seemed to him
too precious; a tempting of Providence to mention it yet.
And the sunlight played through the leaves on that little party
of the three generations grouped tranquilly under the pear-tree,
which had long borne no fruit.
Old Jolyon’s furrowed face was reddening patchily, as old men’s
faces redden in the sun. He took one of Jolly’s hands in his own;
the boy climbed on to his knee; and little Holly, mesmerized by
this sight, crept up to them; the sound of the dog Balthasar’s
scratching arose rhythmically.
Suddenly young Mrs. Jolyon got up and hurried indoors. A minute
later her husband muttered an excuse, and followed. Old Jolyon
was left alone with his grandchildren.
And Nature with her quaint irony began working in him one of her
strange revolutions, following her cyclic laws into the depths of
his heart. And that tenderness for little children, that passion
for the beginnings of life which had once made him forsake his
son and follow June, now worked in him to forsake June and follow
these littler things. Youth, like a flame, burned ever in his
breast, and to youth he turned, to the round little limbs, so
reckless, that wanted care, to the small round faces so
unreasonably solemn or bright, to the treble tongues, and the
shrill, chuckling laughter, to the insistent tugging hands, and
the feel of small bodies against his legs, to all that was young
and young, and once more young. And his eyes grew soft, his
voice, and thin-veined hands soft, and soft his heart within him.
And to those small creatures he became at once a place of
pleasure, a place where they were secure, and could talk and
laugh and play; till, like sunshine, there radiated from old
Jolyon’s wicker chair the perfect gaiety of three hearts.
But with young Jolyon following to his wife’s room it was
different.
He found her seated on a chair before her dressing-glass, with
her hands before her face.
Her shoulders were shaking with sobs. This passion of hers for
suffering was mysterious to him. He had been through a hundred of
these moods; how he had survived them he never knew, for he could
never believe they _were_ moods, and that the last hour of his
partnership had not struck.
In the night she would be sure to throw her arms round his neck
and say: “Oh! Jo, how I make you suffer!” as she had done a
hundred times before.
He reached out his hand, and, unseen, slipped his razor-case into
his pocket. “I cannot stay here,” he thought, “I must go down!”
Without a word he left the room, and went back to the lawn.
Old Jolyon had little Holly on his knee; she had taken possession
of his watch; Jolly, very red in the face, was trying to show
that he could stand on his head. The dog Balthasar, as close as
he might be to the tea-table, had fixed his eyes on the cake.
Young Jolyon felt a malicious desire to cut their enjoyment
short.
What business had his father to come and upset his wife like
this? It was a shock, after all these years! He ought to have
known; he ought to have given them warning; but when did a
Forsyte ever imagine that his conduct could upset anybody! And in
his thoughts he did old Jolyon wrong.
He spoke sharply to the children, and told them to go in to their
tea. Greatly surprised, for they had never heard their father
speak sharply before, they went off, hand in hand, little Holly
looking back over her shoulder.
Young Jolyon poured out the tea.
“My wife’s not the thing today,” he said, but he knew well enough
that his father had penetrated the cause of that sudden
withdrawal, and almost hated the old man for sitting there so
calmly.
“You’ve got a nice little house here,” said old Jolyon with a
shrewd look; “I suppose you’ve taken a lease of it!”
Young Jolyon nodded.
“I don’t like the neighbourhood,” said old Jolyon; “a ramshackle
lot.”
Young Jolyon replied: “Yes, we’re a ramshackle lot.”
The silence was now only broken by the sound of the dog
Balthasar’s scratching.
Old Jolyon said simply: “I suppose I oughtn’t to have come here,
Jo; but I get so lonely!”
At these words young Jolyon got up and put his hand on his
father’s shoulder.
In the next house someone was playing over and over again: “La
Donna è mobile” on an untuned piano; and the little garden had
fallen into shade, the sun now only reached the wall at the end,
whereon basked a crouching cat, her yellow eyes turned sleepily
down on the dog Balthasar. There was a drowsy hum of very distant
traffic; the creepered trellis round the garden shut out
everything but sky, and house, and pear-tree, with its top
branches still gilded by the sun.
For some time they sat there, talking but little. Then old Jolyon
rose to go, and not a word was said about his coming again.
He walked away very sadly. What a poor miserable place; and he
thought of the great, empty house in Stanhope Gate, fit residence
for a Forsyte, with its huge billiard-room and drawing-room that
no one entered from one week’s end to another.
That woman, whose face he had rather liked, was too thin-skinned
by half; she gave Jo a bad time he knew! And those sweet
children! Ah! what a piece of awful folly!
He walked towards the Edgware Road, between rows of little
houses, all suggesting to him (erroneously no doubt, but the
prejudices of a Forsyte are sacred) shady histories of some sort
or kind.
Society, forsooth, the chattering hags and jackanapes—had set
themselves up to pass judgment on _his_ flesh and blood! A parcel
of old women! He stumped his umbrella on the ground, as though to
drive it into the heart of that unfortunate body, which had dared
to ostracize his son and his son’s son, in whom he could have
lived again!
He stumped his umbrella fiercely; yet he himself had followed
Society’s behaviour for fifteen years—had only today been false
to it!
He thought of June, and her dead mother, and the whole story,
with all his old bitterness. A wretched business!
He was a long time reaching Stanhope Gate, for, with native
perversity, being extremely tired, he walked the whole way.
After washing his hands in the lavatory downstairs, he went to
the dining-room to wait for dinner, the only room he used when
June was out—it was less lonely so. The evening paper had not yet
come; he had finished the Times, there was therefore nothing to
do.
The room faced the backwater of traffic, and was very silent. He
disliked dogs, but a dog even would have been company. His gaze,
travelling round the walls, rested on a picture entitled: “Group
of Dutch fishing boats at sunset”; the _chef d’œuvre_ of his
collection. It gave him no pleasure. He closed his eyes. He was
lonely! He oughtn’t to complain, he knew, but he couldn’t help
it: He was a poor thing—had always been a poor thing—no pluck!
Such was his thought.
The butler came to lay the table for dinner, and seeing his
master apparently asleep, exercised extreme caution in his
movements. This bearded man also wore a moustache, which had
given rise to grave doubts in the minds of many members—of the
family—, especially those who, like Soames, had been to public
schools, and were accustomed to niceness in such matters. Could
he really be considered a butler? Playful spirits alluded to him
as: “Uncle Jolyon’s Nonconformist”. George, the acknowledged wag,
had named him: “Sankey.”
He moved to and fro between the great polished sideboard and the
great polished table inimitably sleek and soft.
Old Jolyon watched him, feigning sleep. The fellow was a sneak—he
had always thought so—who cared about nothing but rattling
through his work, and getting out to his betting or his woman or
goodness knew what! A slug! Fat too! And didn’t care a pin about
his master!
But then against his will, came one of those moments of
philosophy which made old Jolyon different from other Forsytes:
After all why should the man care? He wasn’t paid to care, and
why expect it? In this world people couldn’t look for affection
unless they paid for it. It might be different in the next—he
didn’t know—couldn’t tell! And again he shut his eyes.
Relentless and stealthy, the butler pursued his labours, taking
things from the various compartments of the sideboard. His back
seemed always turned to old Jolyon; thus, he robbed his
operations of the unseemliness of being carried on in his
master’s presence; now and then he furtively breathed on the
silver, and wiped it with a piece of chamois leather. He appeared
to pore over the quantities of wine in the decanters, which he
carried carefully and rather high, letting his head droop over
them protectingly. When he had finished, he stood for over a
minute watching his master, and in his greenish eyes there was a
look of contempt:
After all, this master of his was an old buffer, who hadn’t much
left in him!
Soft as a tom-cat, he crossed the room to press the bell. His
orders were “dinner at seven.” What if his master were asleep; he
would soon have him out of that; there was the night to sleep in!
He had himself to think of, for he was due at his Club at
half-past eight!
In answer to the ring, appeared a page boy with a silver soup
tureen. The butler took it from his hands and placed it on the
table, then, standing by the open door, as though about to usher
company into the room, he said in a solemn voice:
“Dinner is on the table, sir!”
Slowly old Jolyon got up out of his chair, and sat down at the
table to eat his dinner.
CHAPTER VIII PLANS OF THE HOUSE
Forsytes, as is generally admitted, have shells, like that
extremely useful little animal which is made into Turkish
delight, in other words, they are never seen, or if seen would
not be recognised, without habitats, composed of circumstance,
property, acquaintances, and wives, which seem to move along with
them in their passage through a world composed of thousands of
other Forsytes with their habitats. Without a habitat a Forsyte
is inconceivable—he would be like a novel without a plot, which
is well-known to be an anomaly.
To Forsyte eyes Bosinney appeared to have no habitat, he seemed
one of those rare and unfortunate men who go through life
surrounded by circumstance, property, acquaintances, and wives
that do not belong to them.
His rooms in Sloane Street, on the top floor, outside which, on a
plate, was his name, “Philip Baynes Bosinney, Architect,” were
not those of a Forsyte. He had no sitting-room apart from his
office, but a large recess had been screened off to conceal the
necessaries of life—a couch, an easy chair, his pipes, spirit
case, novels and slippers. The business part of the room had the
usual furniture; an open cupboard with pigeon-holes, a round oak
table, a folding wash-stand, some hard chairs, a standing desk of
large dimensions covered with drawings and designs. June had
twice been to tea there under the chaperonage of his aunt.
He was believed to have a bedroom at the back.
As far as the family had been able to ascertain his income, it
consisted of two consulting appointments at twenty pounds a year,
together with an odd fee once in a way, and—more worthy item—a
private annuity under his father’s will of one hundred and fifty
pounds a year.
What had transpired concerning that father was not so reassuring.
It appeared that he had been a Lincolnshire country doctor of
Cornish extraction, striking appearance, and Byronic tendencies—a
well-known figure, in fact, in his county. Bosinney’s uncle by
marriage, Baynes, of Baynes and Bildeboy, a Forsyte in instincts
if not in name, had but little that was worthy to relate of his
brother-in-law.
“An odd fellow!” he would say: “always spoke of his three eldest
boys as ‘good creatures, but so dull’; they’re all doing
capitally in the Indian Civil! Philip was the only one _he_
liked. I’ve heard him talk in the queerest way; he once said to
me: ‘My dear fellow, never let your poor wife know what you’re
thinking of!’ But I didn’t follow his advice; not I! An eccentric
man! He would say to Phil: ‘Whether you live like a gentleman or
not, my boy, be sure you die like one!’ and he had himself
embalmed in a frock coat suit, with a satin cravat and a diamond
pin. Oh, quite an original, I can assure you!”
Of Bosinney himself Baynes would speak warmly, with a certain
compassion: “He’s got a streak of his father’s Byronism. Why,
look at the way he threw up his chances when he left my office;
going off like that for six months with a knapsack, and all for
what?—to study foreign architecture—foreign! What could he
expect? And there he is—a clever young fellow—doesn’t make his
hundred a year! Now this engagement is the best thing that could
have happened—keep him steady; he’s one of those that go to bed
all day and stay up all night, simply because they’ve no method;
but no vice about him—not an ounce of vice. Old Forsyte’s a rich
man!”
Mr. Baynes made himself extremely pleasant to June, who
frequently visited his house in Lowndes Square at this period.
“This house of your cousin’s—what a capital man of business—is
the very thing for Philip,” he would say to her; “you mustn’t
expect to see too much of him just now, my dear young lady. The
good cause—the good cause! The young man must make his way. When
I was his age I was at work day and night. My dear wife used to
say to me, ‘Bobby, don’t work too hard, think of your health’;
but I never spared myself!”
June had complained that her lover found no time to come to
Stanhope Gate.
The first time he came again they had not been together a quarter
of an hour before, by one of those coincidences of which she was
a mistress, Mrs. Septimus Small arrived. Thereon Bosinney rose
and hid himself, according to previous arrangement, in the little
study, to wait for her departure.
“My dear,” said Aunt Juley, “how thin he is! I’ve often noticed
it with engaged people; but you mustn’t let it get worse. There’s
Barlow’s extract of veal; it did your Uncle Swithin a lot of
good.”
June, her little figure erect before the hearth, her small face
quivering grimly, for she regarded her aunt’s untimely visit in
the light of a personal injury, replied with scorn:
“It’s because he’s busy; people who can do anything worth doing
are never fat!”
Aunt Juley pouted; she herself had always been thin, but the only
pleasure she derived from the fact was the opportunity of longing
to be stouter.
“I don’t think,” she said mournfully, “that you ought to let them
call him ‘The Buccaneer’; people might think it odd, now that
he’s going to build a house for Soames. I do hope he will be
careful; it’s so important for him. Soames has such good taste!”
“Taste!” cried June, flaring up at once; “wouldn’t give that for
his taste, or any of the family’s!”
Mrs. Small was taken aback.
“Your Uncle Swithin,” she said, “always had beautiful taste! And
Soames’s little house is lovely; you don’t mean to say you don’t
think so!”
“H’mph!” said June, “that’s only because Irene’s there!”
Aunt Juley tried to say something pleasant:
“And how will dear Irene like living in the country?”
June gazed at her intently, with a look in her eyes as if her
conscience had suddenly leaped up into them; it passed; and an
even more intent look took its place, as if she had stared that
conscience out of countenance. She replied imperiously:
“Of course she’ll like it; why shouldn’t she?”
Mrs. Small grew nervous.
“I didn’t know,” she said; “I thought she mightn’t like to leave
her friends. Your Uncle James says she doesn’t take enough
interest in life. _We_ think—I mean Timothy thinks—she ought to
go out more. I expect you’ll miss her very much!”
June clasped her hands behind her neck.
“I do wish,” she cried, “Uncle Timothy wouldn’t talk about what
doesn’t concern him!”
Aunt Juley rose to the full height of her tall figure.
“He never talks about what doesn’t concern him,” she said.
June was instantly compunctious; she ran to her aunt and kissed
her.
“I’m very sorry, auntie; but I wish they’d let Irene alone.”
Aunt Juley, unable to think of anything further on the subject
that would be suitable, was silent; she prepared for departure,
hooking her black silk cape across her chest, and, taking up her
green reticule:
“And how is your dear grandfather?” she asked in the hall, “I
expect he’s very lonely now that all your time is taken up with
Mr. Bosinney.”
She bent and kissed her niece hungrily, and with little, mincing
steps passed away.
The tears sprang up in Jun’s eyes; running into the little study,
where Bosinney was sitting at the table drawing birds on the back
of an envelope, she sank down by his side and cried:
“Oh, Phil! it’s all so horrid!” Her heart was as warm as the
colour of her hair.
On the following Sunday morning, while Soames was shaving, a
message was brought him to the effect that Mr. Bosinney was
below, and would be glad to see him. Opening the door into his
wife’s room, he said:
“Bosinney’s downstairs. Just go and entertain him while I finish
shaving. I’ll be down in a minute. It’s about the plans, I
expect.”
Irene looked at him, without reply, put the finishing touch to
her dress and went downstairs. He could not make her out about
this house. She had said nothing against it, and, as far as
Bosinney was concerned, seemed friendly enough.
From the window of his dressing-room he could see them talking
together in the little court below. He hurried on with his
shaving, cutting his chin twice. He heard them laugh, and thought
to himself: “Well, they get on all right, anyway!”
As he expected, Bosinney had come round to fetch him to look at
the plans.
He took his hat and went over.
The plans were spread on the oak table in the architect’s room;
and pale, imperturbable, inquiring, Soames bent over them for a
long time without speaking.
He said at last in a puzzled voice:
“It’s an odd sort of house!”
A rectangular house of two stories was designed in a quadrangle
round a covered-in court. This court, encircled by a gallery on
the upper floor, was roofed with a glass roof, supported by eight
columns running up from the ground.
It was indeed, to Forsyte eyes, an odd house.
“There’s a lot of room cut to waste,” pursued Soames.
Bosinney began to walk about, and Soames did not like the
expression on his face.
“The principle of this house,” said the architect, “was that you
should have room to breathe—like a gentleman!”
Soames extended his finger and thumb, as if measuring the extent
of the distinction he should acquire; and replied:
“Oh! yes; I see.”
The peculiar look came into Bosinney’s face which marked all his
enthusiasms.
“I’ve tried to plan you a house here with some self-respect of
its own. If you don’t like it, you’d better say so. It’s
certainly the last thing to be considered—who wants self-respect
in a house, when you can squeeze in an extra lavatory?” He put
his finger suddenly down on the left division of the centre
oblong: “You can swing a cat here. This is for your pictures,
divided from this court by curtains; draw them back and you’ll
have a space of fifty-one by twenty-three six. This double-faced
stove in the centre, here, looks one way towards the court, one
way towards the picture room; this end wall is all window; you’ve
a southeast light from that, a north light from the court. The
rest of your pictures you can hang round the gallery upstairs, or
in the other rooms.” “In architecture,” he went on—and though
looking at Soames he did not seem to see him, which gave Soames
an unpleasant feeling—“as in life, you’ll get no self-respect
without regularity. Fellows tell you that’s old fashioned. It
appears to be peculiar any way; it never occurs to us to embody
the main principle of life in our buildings; we load our houses
with decoration, gimcracks, corners, anything to distract the
eye. On the contrary the eye should rest; get your effects with a
few strong lines. The whole thing is regularity—there’s no
self-respect without it.”
Soames, the unconscious ironist, fixed his gaze on Bosinney’s
tie, which was far from being in the perpendicular; he was
unshaven too, and his dress not remarkable for order.
Architecture appeared to have exhausted his regularity.
“Won’t it look like a barrack?” he inquired.
He did not at once receive a reply.
“I can see what it is,” said Bosinney, “you want one of
Littlemaster’s houses—one of the pretty and commodious sort,
where the servants will live in garrets, and the front door be
sunk so that you may come up again. By all means try
Littlemaster, you’ll find him a capital fellow, I’ve known him
all my life!”
Soames was alarmed. He had really been struck by the plans, and
the concealment of his satisfaction had been merely instinctive.
It was difficult for him to pay a compliment. He despised people
who were lavish with their praises.
He found himself now in the embarrassing position of one who must
pay a compliment or run the risk of losing a good thing. Bosinney
was just the fellow who might tear up the plans and refuse to act
for him; a kind of grown-up child!
This grown-up childishness, to which he felt so superior,
exercised a peculiar and almost mesmeric effect on Soames, for he
had never felt anything like it in himself.
“Well,” he stammered at last, “it’s—it’s, certainly original.”
He had such a private distrust and even dislike of the word
“original” that he felt he had not really given himself away by
this remark.
Bosinney seemed pleased. It was the sort of thing that would
please a fellow like that! And his success encouraged Soames.
“It’s—a big place,” he said.
“Space, air, light,” he heard Bosinney murmur, “you can’t live
like a gentleman in one of Littlemaster’s—he builds for
manufacturers.”
Soames made a deprecating movement; he had been identified with a
gentleman; not for a good deal of money now would he be classed
with manufacturers. But his innate distrust of general principles
revived. What the deuce was the good of talking about regularity
and self-respect? It looked to him as if the house would be cold.
“Irene can’t stand the cold!” he said.
“Ah!” said Bosinney sarcastically. “Your wife? She doesn’t like
the cold? I’ll see to that; she shan’t be cold. Look here!” he
pointed, to four marks at regular intervals on the walls of the
court. “I’ve given you hot-water pipes in aluminium casings; you
can get them with very good designs.”
Soames looked suspiciously at these marks.
“It’s all very well, all this,” he said, “but what’s it going to
cost?”
The architect took a sheet of paper from his pocket:
“The house, of course, should be built entirely of stone, but, as
I thought you wouldn’t stand that, I’ve compromised for a facing.
It ought to have a copper roof, but I’ve made it green slate. As
it is, including metal work, it’ll cost you eight thousand five
hundred.”
“Eight thousand five hundred?” said Soames. “Why, I gave you an
outside limit of eight!”
“Can’t be done for a penny less,” replied Bosinney coolly.
“You must take it or leave it!”
It was the only way, probably, that such a proposition could have
been made to Soames. He was nonplussed. Conscience told him to
throw the whole thing up. But the design was good, and he knew
it—there was completeness about it, and dignity; the servants’
apartments were excellent too. He would gain credit by living in
a house like that—with such individual features, yet perfectly
well-arranged.
He continued poring over the plans, while Bosinney went into his
bedroom to shave and dress.
The two walked back to Montpellier Square in silence, Soames
watching him out of the corner of his eye.
The Buccaneer was rather a good-looking fellow—so he thought—when
he was properly got up.
Irene was bending over her flowers when the two men came in.
She spoke of sending across the Park to fetch June.
“No, no,” said Soames, “we’ve still got business to talk over!”
At lunch he was almost cordial, and kept pressing Bosinney to
eat. He was pleased to see the architect in such high spirits,
and left him to spend the afternoon with Irene, while he stole
off to his pictures, after his Sunday habit. At tea-time he came
down to the drawing-room, and found them talking, as he expressed
it, nineteen to the dozen.
Unobserved in the doorway, he congratulated himself that things
were taking the right turn. It was lucky she and Bosinney got on;
she seemed to be falling into line with the idea of the new
house.
Quiet meditation among his pictures had decided him to spring the
five hundred if necessary; but he hoped that the afternoon might
have softened Bosinney’s estimates. It was so purely a matter
which Bosinney could remedy if he liked; there must be a dozen
ways in which he could cheapen the production of a house without
spoiling the effect.
He awaited, therefore, his opportunity till Irene was handing the
architect his first cup of tea. A chink of sunshine through the
lace of the blinds warmed her cheek, shone in the gold of her
hair, and in her soft eyes. Possibly the same gleam deepened
Bosinney’s colour, gave the rather startled look to his face.
Soames hated sunshine, and he at once got up, to draw the blind.
Then he took his own cup of tea from his wife, and said, more
coldly than he had intended:
“Can’t you see your way to do it for eight thousand after all?
There must be a lot of little things you could alter.”
Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his cup, and
answered:
“Not one!”
Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible
point of personal vanity.
“Well,” he agreed, with sulky resignation; “you must have it your
own way, I suppose.”
A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames rose too, to
see him off the premises. The architect seemed in absurdly high
spirits. After watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames
returned moodily to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting
away the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm of
curiosity, he asked:
“Well, what do you think of ‘The Buccaneer’?”
He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer, and he had
to wait some time.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.
“Do you think he’s good-looking?”
Irene smiled. And it seemed to Soames that she was mocking him.
“Yes,” she answered; “very.”
CHAPTER IX DEATH OF AUNT ANN
There came a morning at the end of September when Aunt Ann was
unable to take from Smither’s hands the insignia of personal
dignity. After one look at the old face, the doctor, hurriedly
sent for, announced that Miss Forsyte had passed away in her
sleep.
Aunts Juley and Hester were overwhelmed by the shock. They had
never imagined such an ending. Indeed, it is doubtful whether
they had ever realized that an ending was bound to come. Secretly
they felt it unreasonable of Ann to have left them like this
without a word, without even a struggle. It was unlike her.
Perhaps what really affected them so profoundly was the thought
that a Forsyte should have let go her grasp on life. If one, then
why not all!
It was a full hour before they could make up their minds to tell
Timothy. If only it could be kept from him! If only it could be
broken to him by degrees!
And long they stood outside his door whispering together. And
when it was over they whispered together again.
He would feel it more, they were afraid, as time went on. Still,
he had taken it better than could have been expected. He would
keep his bed, of course!
They separated, crying quietly.
Aunt Juley stayed in her room, prostrated by the blow. Her face,
discoloured by tears, was divided into compartments by the little
ridges of pouting flesh which had swollen with emotion. It was
impossible to conceive of life without Ann, who had lived with
her for seventy-three years, broken only by the short interregnum
of her married life, which seemed now so unreal. At fixed
intervals she went to her drawer, and took from beneath the
lavender bags a fresh pocket-handkerchief. Her warm heart could
not bear the thought that Ann was lying there so cold.
Aunt Hester, the silent, the patient, that backwater of the
family energy, sat in the drawing-room, where the blinds were
drawn; and she, too, had wept at first, but quietly, without
visible effect. Her guiding principle, the conservation of
energy, did not abandon her in sorrow. She sat, slim, motionless,
studying the grate, her hands idle in the lap of her black silk
dress. They would want to rouse her into doing something, no
doubt. As if there were any good in that! Doing something would
not bring back Ann! Why worry her?
Five o’clock brought three of the brothers, Jolyon and James and
Swithin; Nicholas was at Yarmouth, and Roger had a bad attack of
gout. Mrs. Hayman had been by herself earlier in the day, and,
after seeing Ann, had gone away, leaving a message for
Timothy—which was kept from him—that she ought to have been told
sooner. In fact, there was a feeling amongst them all that they
ought to have been told sooner, as though they had missed
something; and James said:
“I knew how it’d be; I told you she wouldn’t last through the
summer.”
Aunt Hester made no reply; it was nearly October, but what was
the good of arguing; some people were never satisfied.
She sent up to tell her sister that the brothers were there. Mrs.
Small came down at once. She had bathed her face, which was still
swollen, and though she looked severely at Swithin’s trousers,
for they were of light blue—he had come straight from the club,
where the news had reached him—she wore a more cheerful
expression than usual, the instinct for doing the wrong thing
being even now too strong for her.
Presently all five went up to look at the body. Under the pure
white sheet a quilted counter-pane had been placed, for now, more
than ever, Aunt Ann had need of warmth; and, the pillows removed,
her spine and head rested flat, with the semblance of their
life-long inflexibility; the coif banding the top of her brow was
drawn on either side to the level of the ears, and between it and
the sheet her face, almost as white, was turned with closed eyes
to the faces of her brothers and sisters. In its extraordinary
peace the face was stronger than ever, nearly all bone now under
the scarce-wrinkled parchment of skin—square jaw and chin,
cheekbones, forehead with hollow temples, chiselled nose—the
fortress of an unconquerable spirit that had yielded to death,
and in its upward sightlessness seemed trying to regain that
spirit, to regain the guardianship it had just laid down.
Swithin took but one look at the face, and left the room; the
sight, he said afterwards, made him very queer. He went
downstairs shaking the whole house, and, seizing his hat,
clambered into his brougham, without giving any directions to the
coachman. He was driven home, and all the evening sat in his
chair without moving.
He could take nothing for dinner but a partridge, with an
imperial pint of champagne....
Old Jolyon stood at the bottom of the bed, his hands folded in
front of him. He alone of those in the room remembered the death
of his mother, and though he looked at Ann, it was of that he was
thinking. Ann was an old woman, but death had come to her at
last—death came to all! His face did not move, his gaze seemed
travelling from very far.
Aunt Hester stood beside him. She did not cry now, tears were
exhausted—her nature refused to permit a further escape of force;
she twisted her hands, looking not at Ann, but from side to side,
seeking some way of escaping the effort of realization.
Of all the brothers and sisters James manifested the most
emotion. Tears rolled down the parallel furrows of his thin face;
where he should go now to tell his troubles he did not know;
Juley was no good, Hester worse than useless! He felt Ann’s death
more than he had ever thought he should; this would upset him for
weeks!
Presently Aunt Hester stole out, and Aunt Juley began moving
about, doing “what was necessary,” so that twice she knocked
against something. Old Jolyon, roused from his reverie, that
reverie of the long, long past, looked sternly at her, and went
away. James alone was left by the bedside; glancing stealthily
round, to see that he was not observed, he twisted his long body
down, placed a kiss on the dead forehead, then he, too, hastily
left the room. Encountering Smither in the hall, he began to ask
her about the funeral, and, finding that she knew nothing,
complained bitterly that, if they didn’t take care, everything
would go wrong. She had better send for Mr. Soames—he knew all
about that sort of thing; her master was very much upset, he
supposed—he would want looking after; as for her mistresses, they
were no good—they had no gumption! They would be ill too, he
shouldn’t wonder. She had better send for the doctor; it was best
to take things in time. He didn’t think his sister Ann had had
the best opinion; if she’d had Blank she would have been alive
now. Smither might send to Park Lane any time she wanted advice.
Of course, his carriage was at their service for the funeral. He
supposed she hadn’t such a thing as a glass of claret and a
biscuit—he had had no lunch!
The days before the funeral passed quietly. It had long been
known, of course, that Aunt Ann had left her little property to
Timothy. There was, therefore, no reason for the slightest
agitation. Soames, who was sole executor, took charge of all
arrangements, and in due course sent out the following invitation
to every male member of the family:
_“To——
“Your presence is requested at the funeral of Miss Ann
Forsyte, in Highgate Cemetery, at noon of Oct. 1st. Carriages
will meet at ‘The Bower,’ Bayswater Road, at 10.45. No
flowers by request.
“R.S.V.P.”_
The morning came, cold, with a high, grey, London sky, and at
half-past ten the first carriage, that of James, drove up. It
contained James and his son-in-law Dartie, a fine man, with a
square chest, buttoned very tightly into a frock coat, and a
sallow, fattish face adorned with dark, well-curled moustaches,
and that incorrigible commencement of whisker which, eluding the
strictest attempts at shaving, seems the mark of something deeply
ingrained in the personality of the shaver, being especially
noticeable in men who speculate.
Soames, in his capacity of executor, received the guests, for
Timothy still kept his bed; he would get up after the funeral;
and Aunts Juley and Hester would not be coming down till all was
over, when it was understood there would be lunch for anyone who
cared to come back. The next to arrive was Roger, still limping
from the gout, and encircled by three of his sons—young Roger,
Eustace, and Thomas. George, the remaining son, arrived almost
immediately afterwards in a hansom, and paused in the hall to ask
Soames how he found undertaking pay.
They disliked each other.
Then came two Haymans—Giles and Jesse perfectly silent, and very
well dressed, with special creases down their evening trousers.
Then old Jolyon alone. Next, Nicholas, with a healthy colour in
his face, and a carefully veiled sprightliness in every movement
of his head and body. One of his sons followed him, meek and
subdued. Swithin Forsyte, and Bosinney arrived at the same
moment,—and stood—bowing precedence to each other,—but on the
door opening they tried to enter together; they renewed their
apologies in the hall, and, Swithin, settling his stock, which
had become disarranged in the struggle, very slowly mounted the
stairs. The other Hayman; two married sons of Nicholas, together
with Tweetyman, Spender, and Warry, the husbands of married
Forsyte and Hayman daughters. The company was then complete,
twenty-one in all, not a male member of the family being absent
but Timothy and young Jolyon.
Entering the scarlet and green drawing-room, whose apparel made
so vivid a setting for their unaccustomed costumes, each tried
nervously to find a seat, desirous of hiding the emphatic
blackness of his trousers. There seemed a sort of indecency in
that blackness and in the colour of their gloves—a sort of
exaggeration of the feelings; and many cast shocked looks of
secret envy at “the Buccaneer,” who had no gloves, and was
wearing grey trousers. A subdued hum of conversation rose, no one
speaking of the departed, but each asking after the other, as
though thereby casting an indirect libation to this event, which
they had come to honour.
And presently James said:
“Well, I think we ought to be starting.”
They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had been told off
in strict precedence, mounted the carriages.
The hearse started at a foot’s pace; the carriages moved slowly
after. In the first went old Jolyon with Nicholas; in the second,
the twins, Swithin and James; in the third, Roger and young
Roger; Soames, young Nicholas, George, and Bosinney followed in
the fourth. Each of the other carriages, eight in all, held three
or four of the family; behind them came the doctor’s brougham;
then, at a decent interval, cabs containing family clerks and
servants; and at the very end, one containing nobody at all, but
bringing the total cortege up to the number of thirteen.
So long as the procession kept to the highway of the Bayswater
Road, it retained the foot’s-pace, but, turning into less
important thorough-fares, it soon broke into a trot, and so
proceeded, with intervals of walking in the more fashionable
streets, until it arrived. In the first carriage old Jolyon and
Nicholas were talking of their wills. In the second the twins,
after a single attempt, had lapsed into complete silence; both
were rather deaf, and the exertion of making themselves heard was
too great. Only once James broke this silence:
“I shall have to be looking about for some ground somewhere. What
arrangements have you made, Swithin?”
And Swithin, fixing him with a dreadful stare, answered:
“Don’t talk to me about such things!”
In the third carriage a disjointed conversation was carried on in
the intervals of looking out to see how far they had got, George
remarking, “Well, it was really time that the poor old lady
went.” He didn’t believe in people living beyond seventy, Young
Nicholas replied mildly that the rule didn’t seem to apply to the
Forsytes. George said he himself intended to commit suicide at
sixty. Young Nicholas, smiling and stroking a long chin, didn’t
think _his_ father would like that theory; he had made a lot of
money since he was sixty. Well, seventy was the outside limit; it
was then time, George said, for them to go and leave their money
to their children. Soames, hitherto silent, here joined in; he
had not forgotten the remark about the “undertaking,” and,
lifting his eyelids almost imperceptibly, said it was all very
well for people who never made money to talk. He himself intended
to live as long as he could. This was a hit at George, who was
notoriously hard up. Bosinney muttered abstractedly “Hear, hear!”
and, George yawning, the conversation dropped.
Upon arriving, the coffin was borne into the chapel, and, two by
two, the mourners filed in behind it. This guard of men, all
attached to the dead by the bond of kinship, was an impressive
and singular sight in the great city of London, with its
overwhelming diversity of life, its innumerable vocations,
pleasures, duties, its terrible hardness, its terrible call to
individualism.
The family had gathered to triumph over all this, to give a show
of tenacious unity, to illustrate gloriously that law of property
underlying the growth of their tree, by which it had thriven and
spread, trunk and branches, the sap flowing through all, the full
growth reached at the appointed time. The spirit of the old woman
lying in her last sleep had called them to this demonstration. It
was her final appeal to that unity which had been their
strength—it was her final triumph that she had died while the
tree was yet whole.
She was spared the watching of the branches jut out beyond the
point of balance. She could not look into the hearts of her
followers. The same law that had worked in her, bringing her up
from a tall, straight-backed slip of a girl to a woman strong and
grown, from a woman grown to a woman old, angular, feeble, almost
witchlike, with individuality all sharpened and sharpened, as all
rounding from the world’s contact fell off from her—that same law
would work, was working, in the family she had watched like a
mother.
She had seen it young, and growing, she had seen it strong and
grown, and before her old eyes had time or strength to see any
more, she died. She would have tried, and who knows but she might
have kept it young and strong, with her old fingers, her
trembling kisses—a little longer; alas! not even Aunt Ann could
fight with Nature.
“Pride comes before a fall!” In accordance with this, the
greatest of Nature’s ironies, the Forsyte family had gathered for
a last proud pageant before they fell. Their faces to right and
left, in single lines, were turned for the most part impassively
toward the ground, guardians of their thoughts; but here and
there, one looking upward, with a line between his brows,
searched to see some sight on the chapel walls too much for him,
to be listening to something that appalled. And the responses,
low-muttered, in voices through which rose the same tone, the
same unseizable family ring, sounded weird, as though murmured in
hurried duplication by a single person.
The service in the chapel over, the mourners filed up again to
guard the body to the tomb. The vault stood open, and, round it,
men in black were waiting.
From that high and sacred field, where thousands of the upper
middle class lay in their last sleep, the eyes of the Forsytes
travelled down across the flocks of graves. There—spreading to
the distance, lay London, with no sun over it, mourning the loss
of its daughter, mourning with this family, so dear, the loss of
her who was mother and guardian. A hundred thousand spires and
houses, blurred in the great grey web of property, lay there like
prostrate worshippers before the grave of this, the oldest
Forsyte of them all.
A few words, a sprinkle of earth, the thrusting of the coffin
home, and Aunt Ann had passed to her last rest.
Round the vault, trustees of that passing, the five brothers
stood, with white heads bowed; they would see that Ann was
comfortable where she was going. Her little property must stay
behind, but otherwise, all that could be should be done....
Then severally, each stood aside, and putting on his hat, turned
back to inspect the new inscription on the marble of the family
vault:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
ANN FORSYTE,
THE DAUGHTER OF THE ABOVE
JOLYON AND ANN FORSYTE,
WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 27TH DAY OF
SEPTEMBER, 1886,
AGED EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS AND FOUR DAYS.
Soon perhaps, someone else would be wanting an inscription. It
was strange and intolerable, for they had not thought somehow,
that Forsytes could die. And one and all they had a longing to
get away from this painfulness, this ceremony which had reminded
them of things they could not bear to think about—to get away
quickly and go about their business and forget.
It was cold, too; the wind, like some slow, disintegrating force,
blowing up the hill over the graves, struck them with its chilly
breath; they began to split into groups, and as quickly as
possible to fill the waiting carriages.
Swithin said he should go back to lunch at Timothy’s, and he
offered to take anybody with him in his brougham. It was
considered a doubtful privilege to drive with Swithin in his
brougham, which was not a large one; nobody accepted, and he went
off alone. James and Roger followed immediately after; they also
would drop in to lunch. The others gradually melted away, Old
Jolyon taking three nephews to fill up his carriage; he had a
want of those young faces.
Soames, who had to arrange some details in the cemetery office,
walked away with Bosinney. He had much to talk over with him,
and, having finished his business, they strolled to Hampstead,
lunched together at the Spaniard’s Inn, and spent a long time in
going into practical details connected with the building of the
house; they then proceeded to the tram-line, and came as far as
the Marble Arch, where Bosinney went off to Stanhope Gate to see
June.
Soames felt in excellent spirits when he arrived home, and
confided to Irene at dinner that he had had a good talk with
Bosinney, who really seemed a sensible fellow; they had had a
capital walk too, which had done his liver good—he had been short
of exercise for a long time—and altogether a very satisfactory
day. If only it hadn’t been for poor Aunt Ann, he would have
taken her to the theatre; as it was, they must make the best of
an evening at home.
“The Buccaneer asked after you more than once,” he said suddenly.
And moved by some inexplicable desire to assert his
proprietorship, he rose from his chair and planted a kiss on his
wife’s shoulder.
PART II
CHAPTER I PROGRESS OF THE HOUSE
The winter had been an open one. Things in the trade were slack;
and as Soames had reflected before making up his mind, it had
been a good time for building. The shell of the house at Robin
Hill was thus completed by the end of April.
Now that there was something to be seen for his money, he had
been coming down once, twice, even three times a week, and would
mouse about among the debris for hours, careful never to soil his
clothes, moving silently through the unfinished brickwork of
doorways, or circling round the columns in the central court.
And he would stand before them for minutes together, as though
peering into the real quality of their substance.
On April 30 he had an appointment with Bosinney to go over the
accounts, and five minutes before the proper time he entered the
tent which the architect had pitched for himself close to the old
oak tree.
The accounts were already prepared on a folding table, and with a
nod Soames sat down to study them. It was some time before he
raised his head.
“I can’t make them out,” he said at last; “they come to nearly
seven hundred more than they ought.”
After a glance at Bosinney’s face he went on quickly:
“If you only make a firm stand against these builder chaps you’ll
get them down. They stick you with everything if you don’t look
sharp.... Take ten per cent. off all round. I shan’t mind it’s
coming out a hundred or so over the mark!”
Bosinney shook his head:
“I’ve taken off every farthing I can!”
Soames pushed back the table with a movement of anger, which sent
the account sheets fluttering to the ground.
“Then all I can say is,” he flustered out, “you’ve made a pretty
mess of it!”
“I’ve told you a dozen times,” Bosinney answered sharply, “that
there’d be extras. I’ve pointed them out to you over and over
again!”
“I know that,” growled Soames: “I shouldn’t have objected to a
ten pound note here and there. How was I to know that by ‘extras’
you meant seven hundred pounds?”
The qualities of both men had contributed to this
not-inconsiderable discrepancy. On the one hand, the architect’s
devotion to his idea, to the image of a house which he had
created and believed in—had made him nervous of being stopped, or
forced to the use of makeshifts; on the other, Soames’s not less
true and wholehearted devotion to the very best article that
could be obtained for the money, had rendered him averse to
believing that things worth thirteen shillings could not be
bought with twelve.
“I wish I’d never undertaken your house,” said Bosinney suddenly.
“You come down here worrying me out of my life. You want double
the value for your money anybody else would, and now that you’ve
got a house that for its size is not to be beaten in the county,
you don’t want to pay for it. If you’re anxious to be off your
bargain, I daresay I can find the balance above the estimates
myself, but I’m d——d if I do another stroke of work for you!”
Soames regained his composure. Knowing that Bosinney had no
capital, he regarded this as a wild suggestion. He saw, too, that
he would be kept indefinitely out of this house on which he had
set his heart, and just at the crucial point when the architect’s
personal care made all the difference. In the meantime there was
Irene to be thought of! She had been very queer lately. He really
believed it was only because she had taken to Bosinney that she
tolerated the idea of the house at all. It would not do to make
an open breach with her.
“You needn’t get into a rage,” he said. “If I’m willing to put up
with it, I suppose you needn’t cry out. All I meant was that when
you tell me a thing is going to cost so much, I like to—well, in
fact, I—like to know where I am.”
“Look here!” said Bosinney, and Soames was both annoyed and
surprised by the shrewdness of his glance. “You’ve got my
services dirt cheap. For the kind of work I’ve put into this
house, and the amount of time I’ve given to it, you’d have had to
pay Littlemaster or some other fool four times as much. What you
want, in fact, is a first-rate man for a fourth-rate fee, and
that’s exactly what you’ve got!”
Soames saw that he really meant what he said, and, angry though
he was, the consequences of a row rose before him too vividly. He
saw his house unfinished, his wife rebellious, himself a
laughingstock.
“Let’s go over it,” he said sulkily, “and see how the money’s
gone.”
“Very well,” assented Bosinney. “But we’ll hurry up, if you don’t
mind. I have to get back in time to take June to the theatre.”
Soames cast a stealthy look at him, and said: “Coming to our
place, I suppose to meet her?” He was always coming to their
place!
There had been rain the night before—a spring rain, and the earth
smelt of sap and wild grasses. The warm, soft breeze swung the
leaves and the golden buds of the old oak tree, and in the
sunshine the blackbirds were whistling their hearts out.
It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable
yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand
motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his
arms to embrace he knows not what. The earth gave forth a
fainting warmth, stealing up through the chilly garment in which
winter had wrapped her. It was her long caress of invitation, to
draw men down to lie within her arms, to roll their bodies on
her, and put their lips to her breast.
On just such a day as this Soames had got from Irene the promise
he had asked her for so often. Seated on the fallen trunk of a
tree, he had promised for the twentieth time that if their
marriage were not a success, she should be as free as if she had
never married him!
“Do you swear it?” she had said. A few days back she had reminded
him of that oath. He had answered: “Nonsense! I couldn’t have
sworn any such thing!” By some awkward fatality he remembered it
now. What queer things men would swear for the sake of women! He
would have sworn it at any time to gain her! He would swear it
now, if thereby he could touch her—but nobody could touch her,
she was cold-hearted!
And memories crowded on him with the fresh, sweet savour of the
spring wind—memories of his courtship.
In the spring of the year 1881 he was visiting his old
school-fellow and client, George Liversedge, of Branksome, who,
with the view of developing his pine-woods in the neighbourhood
of Bournemouth, had placed the formation of the company necessary
to the scheme in Soames’s hands. Mrs. Liversedge, with a sense of
the fitness of things, had given a musical tea in his honour.
Later in the course of this function, which Soames, no musician,
had regarded as an unmitigated bore, his eye had been caught by
the face of a girl dressed in mourning, standing by herself. The
lines of her tall, as yet rather thin figure, showed through the
wispy, clinging stuff of her black dress, her black-gloved hands
were crossed in front of her, her lips slightly parted, and her
large, dark eyes wandered from face to face. Her hair, done low
on her neck, seemed to gleam above her black collar like coils of
shining metal. And as Soames stood looking at her, the sensation
that most men have felt at one time or another went stealing
through him—a peculiar satisfaction of the senses, a peculiar
certainty, which novelists and old ladies call love at first
sight. Still stealthily watching her, he at once made his way to
his hostess, and stood doggedly waiting for the music to cease.
“Who is that girl with yellow hair and dark eyes?” he asked.
“That—oh! Irene Heron. Her father, Professor Heron, died this
year. She lives with her stepmother. She’s a nice girl, a pretty
girl, but no money!”
“Introduce me, please,” said Soames.
It was very little that he found to say, nor did he find her
responsive to that little. But he went away with the resolution
to see her again. He effected his object by chance, meeting her
on the pier with her stepmother, who had the habit of walking
there from twelve to one of a forenoon. Soames made this lady’s
acquaintance with alacrity, nor was it long before he perceived
in her the ally he was looking for. His keen scent for the
commercial side of family life soon told him that Irene cost her
stepmother more than the fifty pounds a year she brought her; it
also told him that Mrs. Heron, a woman yet in the prime of life,
desired to be married again. The strange ripening beauty of her
stepdaughter stood in the way of this desirable consummation. And
Soames, in his stealthy tenacity, laid his plans.
He left Bournemouth without having given himself away, but in a
month’s time came back, and this time he spoke, not to the girl,
but to her stepmother. He had made up his mind, he said; he would
wait any time. And he had long to wait, watching Irene bloom, the
lines of her young figure softening, the stronger blood deepening
the gleam of her eyes, and warming her face to a creamy glow; and
at each visit he proposed to her, and when that visit was at an
end, took her refusal away with him, back to London, sore at
heart, but steadfast and silent as the grave. He tried to come at
the secret springs of her resistance; only once had he a gleam of
light. It was at one of those assembly dances, which afford the
only outlet to the passions of the population of seaside
watering-places. He was sitting with her in an embrasure, his
senses tingling with the contact of the waltz. She had looked at
him over her slowly waving fan; and he had lost his head. Seizing
that moving wrist, he pressed his lips to the flesh of her arm.
And she had shuddered—to this day he had not forgotten that
shudder—nor the look so passionately averse she had given him.
A year after that she had yielded. What had made her yield he
could never make out; and from Mrs. Heron, a woman of some
diplomatic talent, he learnt nothing. Once after they were
married he asked her, “What made you refuse me so often?” She had
answered by a strange silence. An enigma to him from the day that
he first saw her, she was an enigma to him still....
Bosinney was waiting for him at the door; and on his rugged,
good-looking, face was a queer, yearning, yet happy look, as
though he too saw a promise of bliss in the spring sky, sniffed a
coming happiness in the spring air. Soames looked at him waiting
there. What was the matter with the fellow that he looked so
happy? What was he waiting for with that smile on his lips and in
his eyes? Soames could not see that for which Bosinney was
waiting as he stood there drinking in the flower-scented wind.
And once more he felt baffled in the presence of this man whom by
habit he despised. He hastened on to the house.
“The only colour for those tiles,” he heard Bosinney say, “is
ruby with a grey tint in the stuff, to give a transparent effect.
I should like Irene’s opinion. I’m ordering the purple leather
curtains for the doorway of this court; and if you distemper the
drawing-room ivory cream over paper, you’ll get an illusive look.
You want to aim all through the decorations at what I call
charm.”
Soames said: “You mean that my wife has charm!”
Bosinney evaded the question.
“You should have a clump of iris plants in the centre of that
court.”
Soames smiled superciliously.
“I’ll look into Beech’s some time,” he said, “and see what’s
appropriate!”
They found little else to say to each other, but on the way to
the Station Soames asked:
“I suppose you find Irene very artistic.”
“Yes.” The abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying: “If
you want to discuss her you can do it with someone else!”
And the slow, sulky anger Soames had felt all the afternoon
burned the brighter within him.
Neither spoke again till they were close to the Station, then
Soames asked:
“When do you expect to have finished?”
“By the end of June, if you really wish me to decorate as well.”
Soames nodded. “But you quite understand,” he said, “that the
house is costing me a lot beyond what I contemplated. I may as
well tell you that I should have thrown it up, only I’m not in
the habit of giving up what I’ve set my mind on.”
Bosinney made no reply. And Soames gave him askance a look of
dogged dislike—for in spite of his fastidious air and that
supercilious, dandified taciturnity, Soames, with his set lips
and squared chin, was not unlike a bulldog....
When, at seven o’clock that evening, June arrived at 62,
Montpellier Square, the maid Bilson told her that Mr. Bosinney
was in the drawing-room; the mistress—she said—was dressing, and
would be down in a minute. She would tell her that Miss June was
here.
June stopped her at once.
“All right, Bilson,” she said, “I’ll just go in. You, needn’t
hurry Mrs. Soames.”
She took off her cloak, and Bilson, with an understanding look,
did not even open the drawing-room door for her, but ran
downstairs.
June paused for a moment to look at herself in the little
old-fashioned silver mirror above the oaken rug chest—a slim,
imperious young figure, with a small resolute face, in a white
frock, cut moon-shaped at the base of a neck too slender for her
crown of twisted red-gold hair.
She opened the drawing-room door softly, meaning to take him by
surprise. The room was filled with a sweet hot scent of flowering
azaleas.
She took a long breath of the perfume, and heard Bosinney’s
voice, not in the room, but quite close, saying.
“Ah! there were such heaps of things I wanted to talk about, and
now we shan’t have time!”
Irene’s voice answered: “Why not at dinner?”
“How can one talk....”
Jun’s first thought was to go away, but instead she crossed to
the long window opening on the little court. It was from there
that the scent of the azaleas came, and, standing with their
backs to her, their faces buried in the golden-pink blossoms,
stood her lover and Irene.
Silent but unashamed, with flaming cheeks and angry eyes, the
girl watched.
“Come on Sunday by yourself—We can go over the house together.”
June saw Irene look up at him through her screen of blossoms. It
was not the look of a coquette, but—far worse to the watching
girl—of a woman fearful lest that look should say too much.
“I’ve promised to go for a drive with Uncle....”
“The big one! Make him bring you; it’s only ten miles—the very
thing for his horses.”
“Poor old Uncle Swithin!”
A wave of the azalea scent drifted into Jun’s face; she felt sick
and dizzy.
“Do! ah! do!”
“But why?”
“I must see you there—I thought you’d like to help me....”
The answer seemed to the girl to come softly with a tremble from
amongst the blossoms: “So I do!”
And she stepped into the open space of the window.
“How stuffy it is here!” she said; “I can’t bear this scent!”
Her eyes, so angry and direct, swept both their faces.
“Were you talking about the house? _I_ haven’t seen it yet, you
know—shall we all go on Sunday?”
From Irene’s face the colour had flown.
“I am going for a drive that day with Uncle Swithin,” she
answered.
“Uncle Swithin! What does he matter? You can throw him over!”
“I am not in the habit of throwing people over!”
There was a sound of footsteps and June saw Soames standing just
behind her.
“Well! if you are all ready,” said Irene, looking from one to the
other with a strange smile, “dinner is too!”
CHAPTER II JUNE’S TREAT
Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another, and the
men.
In silence the soup was finished—excellent, if a little thick;
and fish was brought. In silence it was handed.
Bosinney ventured: “It’s the first spring day.”
Irene echoed softly: “Yes—the first spring day.”
“Spring!” said June: “there isn’t a breath of air!” No one
replied.
The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover. And Bilson
brought champagne, a bottle swathed around the neck with
white....
Soames said: “You’ll find it dry.”
Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs. They were
refused by June, and silence fell.
Soames said: “You’d better take a cutlet, June; there’s nothing
coming.”
But June again refused, so they were borne away. And then Irene
asked: “Phil, have you heard my blackbird?”
Bosinney answered: “Rather—he’s got a hunting-song. As I came
round I heard him in the Square.”
“He’s such a darling!”
“Salad, sir?” Spring chicken was removed.
But Soames was speaking: “The asparagus is very poor. Bosinney,
glass of sherry with your sweet? June, you’re drinking nothing!”
June said: “You know I never do. Wine’s such horrid stuff!”
An apple charlotte came upon a silver dish, and smilingly Irene
said: “The azaleas are so wonderful this year!”
To this Bosinney murmured: “Wonderful! The scent’s
extraordinary!”
June said: “How can you like the scent? Sugar, please, Bilson.”
Sugar was handed her, and Soames remarked: “This charlotte’s
good!”
The charlotte was removed. Long silence followed. Irene,
beckoning, said: “Take out the azalea, Bilson. Miss June can’t
bear the scent.”
“No; let it stay,” said June.
Olives from France, with Russian caviare, were placed on little
plates. And Soames remarked: “Why can’t we have the Spanish?” But
no one answered.
The olives were removed. Lifting her tumbler June demanded: “Give
me some water, please.” Water was given her. A silver tray was
brought, with German plums. There was a lengthy pause. In perfect
harmony all were eating them.
Bosinney counted up the stones: “This year—next year—some time.”
Irene finished softly: “Never! There was such a glorious sunset.
The sky’s all ruby still—so beautiful!”
He answered: “Underneath the dark.”
Their eyes had met, and June cried scornfully: “A London sunset!”
Egyptian cigarettes were handed in a silver box. Soames, taking
one, remarked: “What time’s your play begin?”
No one replied, and Turkish coffee followed in enamelled cups.
Irene, smiling quietly, said: “If only....”
“Only what?” said June.
“If only it could always be the spring!”
Brandy was handed; it was pale and old.
Soames said: “Bosinney, better take some brandy.”
Bosinney took a glass; they all arose.
“You want a cab?” asked Soames.
June answered: “No! My cloaks please, Bilson.” Her cloak was
brought.
Irene, from the window, murmured: “Such a lovely night! The stars
are coming out!”
Soames added: “Well, I hope you’ll both enjoy yourselves.”
From the door June answered: “Thanks. Come, Phil.”
Bosinney cried: “I’m coming.”
Soames smiled a sneering smile, and said: “I wish you luck!”
And at the door Irene watched them go.
Bosinney called: “Good night!”
“Good night!” she answered softly....
June made her lover take her on the top of a ’bus, saying she
wanted air, and there sat silent, with her face to the breeze.
The driver turned once or twice, with the intention of venturing
a remark, but thought better of it. They were a lively couple!
The spring had got into his blood, too; he felt the need for
letting steam escape, and clucked his tongue, flourishing his
whip, wheeling his horses, and even they, poor things, had
smelled the spring, and for a brief half-hour spurned the
pavement with happy hoofs.
The whole town was alive; the boughs, curled upward with their
decking of young leaves, awaited some gift the breeze could
bring. New-lighted lamps were gaining mastery, and the faces of
the crowd showed pale under that glare, while on high the great
white clouds slid swiftly, softly, over the purple sky.
Men in evening dress had thrown back overcoats, stepping jauntily
up the steps of Clubs; working folk loitered; and women—those
women who at that time of night are solitary—solitary and moving
eastward in a stream—swung slowly along, with expectation in
their gait, dreaming of good wine and a good supper, or, for an
unwonted minute, of kisses given for love.
Those countless figures, going their ways under the lamps and the
moving sky, had one and all received some restless blessing from
the stir of spring. And one and all, like those clubmen with
their opened coats, had shed something of caste, and creed, and
custom, and by the cock of their hats, the pace of their walk,
their laughter, or their silence, revealed their common kinship
under the passionate heavens.
Bosinney and June entered the theatre in silence, and mounted to
their seats in the upper boxes. The piece had just begun, and the
half-darkened house, with its rows of creatures peering all one
way, resembled a great garden of flowers turning their faces to
the sun.
June had never before been in the upper boxes. From the age of
fifteen she had habitually accompanied her grandfather to the
stalls, and not common stalls, but the best seats in the house,
towards the centre of the third row, booked by old Jolyon, at
Grogan and Boyne’s, on his way home from the City, long before
the day; carried in his overcoat pocket, together with his
cigar-case and his old kid gloves, and handed to June to keep
till the appointed night. And in those stalls—an erect old figure
with a serene white head, a little figure, strenuous and eager,
with a red-gold head—they would sit through every kind of play,
and on the way home old Jolyon would say of the principal actor:
“Oh, he’s a poor stick! You should have seen little Bobson!”
She had looked forward to this evening with keen delight; it was
stolen, chaperone-less, undreamed of at Stanhope Gate, where she
was supposed to be at Soames’s. She had expected reward for her
subterfuge, planned for her lover’s sake; she had expected it to
break up the thick, chilly cloud, and make the relations between
them which of late had been so puzzling, so tormenting—sunny and
simple again as they had been before the winter. She had come
with the intention of saying something definite; and she looked
at the stage with a furrow between her brows, seeing nothing, her
hands squeezed together in her lap. A swarm of jealous suspicions
stung and stung her.
If Bosinney was conscious of her trouble he made no sign.
The curtain dropped. The first act had come to an end.
“It’s awfully hot here!” said the girl; “I should like to go
out.”
She was very white, and she knew—for with her nerves thus
sharpened she saw everything—that he was both uneasy and
compunctious.
At the back of the theatre an open balcony hung over the street;
she took possession of this, and stood leaning there without a
word, waiting for him to begin.
At last she could bear it no longer.
“I want to say something to you, Phil,” she said.
“Yes?”
The defensive tone of his voice brought the colour flying to her
cheek, the words flying to her lips: “You don’t give me a chance
to be nice to you; you haven’t for ages now!”
Bosinney stared down at the street. He made no answer....
June cried passionately: “You know I want to do everything for
you—that I want to be everything to you....”
A hum rose from the street, and, piercing it with a sharp “ping,”
the bell sounded for the raising of the curtain. June did not
stir. A desperate struggle was going on within her. Should she
put everything to the proof? Should she challenge directly that
influence, that attraction which was driving him away from her?
It was her nature to challenge, and she said: “Phil, take me to
see the house on Sunday!”
With a smile quivering and breaking on her lips, and trying, how
hard, not to show that she was watching, she searched his face,
saw it waver and hesitate, saw a troubled line come between his
brows, the blood rush into his face. He answered: “Not Sunday,
dear; some other day!”
“Why not Sunday? I shouldn’t be in the way on Sunday.”
He made an evident effort, and said: “I have an engagement.”
“You are going to take....”
His eyes grew angry; he shrugged his shoulders, and answered: “An
engagement that will prevent my taking you to see the house!”
June bit her lip till the blood came, and walked back to her seat
without another word, but she could not help the tears of rage
rolling down her face. The house had been mercifully darkened for
a crisis, and no one could see her trouble.
Yet in this world of Forsytes let no man think himself immune
from observation.
In the third row behind, Euphemia, Nicholas’s youngest daughter,
with her married-sister, Mrs. Tweetyman, were watching.
They reported at Timothy’s, how they had seen June and her fiancé
at the theatre.
“In the stalls?” “No, not in the....” “Oh! in the dress circle,
of course. That seemed to be quite fashionable nowadays with
young people!”
Well—not exactly. In the.... Anyway, _that_ engagement wouldn’t
last long. They had never seen anyone look so thunder and
lightningy as that little June! With tears of enjoyment in their
eyes, they related how she had kicked a man’s hat as she returned
to her seat in the middle of an act, and how the man had looked.
Euphemia had a noted, silent laugh, terminating most
disappointingly in squeaks; and when Mrs. Small, holding up her
hands, said: “My dear! Kicked a ha-at?” she let out such a number
of these that she had to be recovered with smelling-salts. As she
went away she said to Mrs. Tweetyman:
“Kicked a—ha-at! Oh! I shall die.”
For “that little June” this evening, that was to have been “her
treat,” was the most miserable she had ever spent. God knows she
tried to stifle her pride, her suspicion, her jealousy!
She parted from Bosinney at old Jolyon’s door without breaking
down; the feeling that her lover must be conquered was strong
enough to sustain her till his retiring footsteps brought home
the true extent of her wretchedness.
The noiseless “Sankey” let her in. She would have slipped up to
her own room, but old Jolyon, who had heard her entrance, was in
the dining-room doorway.
“Come in and have your milk,” he said. “It’s been kept hot for
you. You’re very late. Where have you been?”
June stood at the fireplace, with a foot on the fender and an arm
on the mantelpiece, as her grandfather had done when he came in
that night of the opera. She was too near a breakdown to care
what she told him.
“We dined at Soames’s.”
“H’m! the man of property! His wife there and Bosinney?”
“Yes.”
Old Jolyon’s glance was fixed on her with the penetrating gaze
from which it was difficult to hide; but she was not looking at
him, and when she turned her face, he dropped his scrutiny at
once. He had seen enough, and too much. He bent down to lift the
cup of milk for her from the hearth, and, turning away, grumbled:
“You oughtn’t to stay out so late; it makes you fit for nothing.”
He was invisible now behind his paper, which he turned with a
vicious crackle; but when June came up to kiss him, he said:
“Good-night, my darling,” in a tone so tremulous and unexpected,
that it was all the girl could do to get out of the room without
breaking into the fit of sobbing which lasted her well on into
the night.
When the door was closed, old Jolyon dropped his paper, and
stared long and anxiously in front of him.
“The beggar!” he thought. “I always knew she’d have trouble with
him!”
Uneasy doubts and suspicions, the more poignant that he felt
himself powerless to check or control the march of events, came
crowding upon him.
Was the fellow going to jilt her? He longed to go and say to him:
“Look here, you sir! Are you going to jilt my grand-daughter?”
But how could he? Knowing little or nothing, he was yet certain,
with his unerring astuteness, that there was something going on.
He suspected Bosinney of being too much at Montpellier Square.
“This fellow,” he thought, “may not be a scamp; his face is not a
bad one, but he’s a queer fish. I don’t know what to make of him.
I shall never know what to make of him! They tell me he works
like a nigger, but I see no good coming of it. He’s unpractical,
he has no method. When he comes here, he sits as glum as a
monkey. If I ask him what wine he’ll have, he says: ‘Thanks, any
wine.’ If I offer him a cigar, he smokes it as if it were a
twopenny German thing. I never see him looking at June as he
ought to look at her; and yet, he’s not after her money. If she
were to make a sign, he’d be off his bargain to-morrow. But she
won’t—not she! She’ll stick to him! She’s as obstinate as
fate—she’ll never let go!”
Sighing deeply, he turned the paper; in its columns, perchance he
might find consolation.
And upstairs in her room June sat at her open window, where the
spring wind came, after its revel across the Park, to cool her
hot cheeks and burn her heart.
CHAPTER III DRIVE WITH SWITHIN
Two lines of a certain song in a certain famous old school’s
songbook run as follows:
“How the buttons on his blue frock shone, tra-la-la!
How he carolled and he sang, like a bird!...”
Swithin did not exactly carol and sing like a bird, but he felt
almost like endeavouring to hum a tune, as he stepped out of Hyde
Park Mansions, and contemplated his horses drawn up before the
door.
The afternoon was as balmy as a day in June, and to complete the
simile of the old song, he had put on a blue frock-coat,
dispensing with an overcoat, after sending Adolf down three times
to make sure that there was not the least suspicion of east in
the wind; and the frock-coat was buttoned so tightly around his
personable form, that, if the buttons did not shine, they might
pardonably have done so. Majestic on the pavement he fitted on a
pair of dog-skin gloves; with his large bell-shaped top hat, and
his great stature and bulk he looked too primeval for a Forsyte.
His thick white hair, on which Adolf had bestowed a touch of
pomatum, exhaled the fragrance of opoponax and cigars—the
celebrated Swithin brand, for which he paid one hundred and forty
shillings the hundred, and of which old Jolyon had unkindly said,
he wouldn’t smoke them as a gift; they wanted the stomach of a
horse!
“Adolf!”
“Sare!”
“The new plaid rug!”
He would never teach that fellow to look smart; and Mrs. Soames
he felt sure, had an eye!
“The phaeton hood down; I am going—to—drive—a—lady!”
A pretty woman would want to show off her frock; and well—he was
going to drive a lady! It was like a new beginning to the good
old days.
Ages since he had driven a woman! The last time, if he
remembered, it had been Juley; the poor old soul had been as
nervous as a cat the whole time, and so put him out of patience
that, as he dropped her in the Bayswater Road, he had said: “Well
I’m d——d if I ever drive you again!” And he never had, not he!
Going up to his horses’ heads, he examined their bits; not that
he knew anything about bits—he didn’t pay his coachman sixty
pounds a year to do his work for him, that had never been his
principle. Indeed, his reputation as a horsey man rested mainly
on the fact that once, on Derby Day, he had been welshed by some
thimble-riggers. But someone at the Club, after seeing him drive
his greys up to the door—he always drove grey horses, you got
more style for the money, some thought—had called him
“Four-in-hand Forsyte.” The name having reached his ears through
that fellow Nicholas Treffry, old Jolyon’s dead partner, the
great driving man notorious for more carriage accidents than any
man in the kingdom—Swithin had ever after conceived it right to
act up to it. The name had taken his fancy, not because he had
ever driven four-in-hand, or was ever likely to, but because of
something distinguished in the sound. Four-in-hand Forsyte! Not
bad! Born too soon, Swithin had missed his vocation. Coming upon
London twenty years later, he could not have failed to have
become a stockbroker, but at the time when he was obliged to
select, this great profession had not as yet become the chief
glory of the upper-middle class. He had literally been forced
into auctioneering.
Once in the driving seat, with the reins handed to him, and
blinking over his pale old cheeks in the full sunlight, he took a
slow look round—Adolf was already up behind; the cockaded groom
at the horses’ heads stood ready to let go; everything was
prepared for the signal, and Swithin gave it. The equipage dashed
forward, and before you could say Jack Robinson, with a rattle
and flourish drew up at Soames’s door.
Irene came out at once, and stepped in—he afterward described it
at Timothy’s—“as light as—er—Taglioni, no fuss about it, no
wanting this or wanting that;” and above all, Swithin dwelt on
this, staring at Mrs. Septimus in a way that disconcerted her a
good deal, “no silly nervousness!” To Aunt Hester he portrayed
Irene’s hat. “Not one of your great flopping things, sprawling
about, and catching the dust, that women are so fond of nowadays,
but a neat little—” he made a circular motion of his hand, “white
veil—capital taste.”
“What was it made of?” inquired Aunt Hester, who manifested a
languid but permanent excitement at any mention of dress.
“Made of?” returned Swithin; “now how should I know?”
He sank into silence so profound that Aunt Hester began to be
afraid he had fallen into a trance. She did not try to rouse him
herself, it not being her custom.
“I wish somebody would come,” she thought; “I don’t like the look
of him!”
But suddenly Swithin returned to life. “Made of” he wheezed out
slowly, “what should it be made of?”
They had not gone four miles before Swithin received the
impression that Irene liked driving with him. Her face was so
soft behind that white veil, and her dark eyes shone so in the
spring light, and whenever he spoke she raised them to him and
smiled.
On Saturday morning Soames had found her at her writing-table
with a note written to Swithin, putting him off. Why did she want
to put him off? he asked. She might put her own people off when
she liked, he would not have her putting off _his_ people!
She had looked at him intently, had torn up the note, and said:
“Very well!”
And then she began writing another. He took a casual glance
presently, and saw that it was addressed to Bosinney.
“What are you writing to _him_ about?” he asked.
Irene, looking at him again with that intent look, said quietly:
“Something he wanted me to do for him!”
“Humph!” said Soames,—“Commissions!”
“You’ll have your work cut out if you begin that sort of thing!”
He said no more.
Swithin opened his eyes at the mention of Robin Hill; it was a
long way for his horses, and he always dined at half-past seven,
before the rush at the Club began; the new chef took more trouble
with an early dinner—a lazy rascal!
He would like to have a look at the house, however. A house
appealed to any Forsyte, and especially to one who had been an
auctioneer. After all he said the distance was nothing. When he
was a younger man he had had rooms at Richmond for many years,
kept his carriage and pair there, and drove them up and down to
business every day of his life.
Four-in-hand Forsyte they called him! His T-cart, his horses had
been known from Hyde Park Corner to the Star and Garter. The Duke
of Z.... wanted to get hold of them, would have given him double
the money, but he had kept them; know a good thing when you have
it, eh? A look of solemn pride came portentously on his shaven
square old face, he rolled his head in his stand-up collar, like
a turkey-cock preening himself.
She was really—a charming woman! He enlarged upon her frock
afterwards to Aunt Juley, who held up her hands at his way of
putting it.
Fitted her like a skin—tight as a drum; that was how he liked
’em, all of a piece, none of your daverdy, scarecrow women! He
gazed at Mrs. Septimus Small, who took after James—long and thin.
“There’s style about her,” he went on, “fit for a king! And she’s
so quiet with it too!”
“She seems to have made quite a conquest of you, any way,”
drawled Aunt Hester from her corner.
Swithin heard extremely well when anybody attacked him.
“What’s that?” he said. “I know a—pretty—woman when I see one,
and all I can say is, I don’t see the young man about that’s fit
for her; but perhaps—you—do, come, perhaps—you-do!”
“Oh?” murmured Aunt Hester, “ask Juley!”
Long before they reached Robin Hill, however, the unaccustomed
airing had made him terribly sleepy; he drove with his eyes
closed, a life-time of deportment alone keeping his tall and
bulky form from falling askew.
Bosinney, who was watching, came out to meet them, and all three
entered the house together; Swithin in front making play with a
stout gold-mounted Malacca cane, put into his hand by Adolf, for
his knees were feeling the effects of their long stay in the same
position. He had assumed his fur coat, to guard against the
draughts of the unfinished house.
The staircase—he said—was handsome! the baronial style! They
would want some statuary about! He came to a standstill between
the columns of the doorway into the inner court, and held out his
cane inquiringly.
What was this to be—this vestibule, or whatever they called it?
But gazing at the skylight, inspiration came to him.
“Ah! the billiard-room!”
When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in the centre,
he turned to Irene:
“Waste this on plants? You take my advice and have a billiard
table here!”
Irene smiled. She had lifted her veil, banding it like a nun’s
coif across her forehead, and the smile of her dark eyes below
this seemed to Swithin more charming than ever. He nodded. She
would take his advice he saw.
He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he
described as “spacious”; but fell into such raptures as he
permitted to a man of his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which
he descended by stone steps, Bosinney going first with a light.
“You’ll have room here,” he said, “for six or seven hundred
dozen—a very pooty little cellar!”
Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from
the copse below, Swithin came to a stop.
“There’s a fine view from here,” he remarked; “you haven’t such a
thing as a chair?”
A chair was brought him from Bosinney’s tent.
“You go down,” he said blandly; “you two! I’ll sit here and look
at the view.”
He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and upright, with
one hand stretched out, resting on the nob of his cane, the other
planted on his knee; his fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing
with its flat top the pale square of his face; his stare, very
blank, fixed on the landscape.
He nodded to them as they went off down through the fields. He
was, indeed, not sorry to be left thus for a quiet moment of
reflection. The air was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the
prospect a fine one, a remarka.... His head fell a little to one
side; he jerked it up and thought: Odd! He—ah! They were waving
to him from the bottom! He put up his hand, and moved it more
than once. They were active—the prospect was remar.... His head
fell to the left, he jerked it up at once; it fell to the right.
It remained there; he was asleep.
And asleep, a sentinel on the—top of the rise, he appeared to
rule over this prospect—remarkable—like some image blocked out by
the special artist, of primeval Forsytes in pagan days, to record
the domination of mind over matter!
And all the unnumbered generations of his yeoman ancestors, wont
of a Sunday to stand akimbo surveying their little plots of land,
their grey unmoving eyes hiding their instinct with its hidden
roots of violence, their instinct for possession to the exclusion
of all the world—all these unnumbered generations seemed to sit
there with him on the top of the rise.
But from him, thus slumbering, his jealous Forsyte spirit
travelled far, into God-knows-what jungle of fancies; with those
two young people, to see what they were doing down there in the
copse—in the copse where the spring was running riot with the
scent of sap and bursting buds, the song of birds innumerable, a
carpet of bluebells and sweet growing things, and the sun caught
like gold in the tops of the trees; to see what they were doing,
walking along there so close together on the path that was too
narrow; walking along there so close that they were always
touching; to watch Irene’s eyes, like dark thieves, stealing the
heart out of the spring. And a great unseen chaperon, his spirit
was there, stopping with them to look at the little furry corpse
of a mole, not dead an hour, with his mushroom-and-silver coat
untouched by the rain or dew; watching over Irene’s bent head,
and the soft look of her pitying eyes; and over that young man’s
head, gazing at her so hard, so strangely. Walking on with them,
too, across the open space where a wood-cutter had been at work,
where the bluebells were trampled down, and a trunk had swayed
and staggered down from its gashed stump. Climbing it with them,
over, and on to the very edge of the copse, whence there
stretched an undiscovered country, from far away in which came
the sounds, “Cuckoo-cuckoo!”
Silent, standing with them there, and uneasy at their silence!
Very queer, very strange!
Then back again, as though guilty, through the wood—back to the
cutting, still silent, amongst the songs of birds that never
ceased, and the wild scent—hum! what was it—like that herb they
put in—back to the log across the path....
And then unseen, uneasy, flapping above them, trying to make
noises, his Forsyte spirit watched her balanced on the log, her
pretty figure swaying, smiling down at that young man gazing up
with such strange, shining eyes, slipping now—a—ah! falling,
o—oh! sliding—down his breast; her soft, warm body clutched, her
head bent back from his lips; his kiss; her recoil; his cry: “You
must know—I love you!” Must know—indeed, a pretty...? Love! Hah!
Swithin awoke; virtue had gone out of him. He had a taste in his
mouth. Where was he?
Damme! He had been asleep!
He had dreamed something about a new soup, with a taste of mint
in it.
Those young people—where had they got to? His left leg had pins
and needles.
“Adolf!” The rascal was not there; the rascal was asleep
somewhere.
He stood up, tall, square, bulky in his fur, looking anxiously
down over the fields, and presently he saw them coming.
Irene was in front; that young fellow—what had they nicknamed
him—“The Buccaneer?” looked precious hangdog there behind her;
had got a flea in his ear, he shouldn’t wonder. Serve him right,
taking her down all that way to look at the house! The proper
place to look at a house from was the lawn.
They saw him. He extended his arm, and moved it spasmodically to
encourage them. But they had stopped. What were they standing
there for, talking—talking? They came on again. She had been
giving him a rub, he had not the least doubt of it, and no
wonder, over a house like that—a great ugly thing, not the sort
of house he was accustomed to.
He looked intently at their faces, with his pale, immovable
stare. That young man looked very queer!
“You’ll never make anything of this!” he said tartly, pointing at
the mansion;—“too newfangled!”
Bosinney gazed at him as though he had not heard; and Swithin
afterwards described him to Aunt Hester as “an extravagant sort
of fellow very odd way of looking at you—a bumpy beggar!”
What gave rise to this sudden piece of psychology he did not
state; possibly Bosinney’s prominent forehead and cheekbones and
chin, or something hungry in his face, which quarrelled with
Swithin’s conception of the calm satiety that should characterize
the perfect gentleman.
He brightened up at the mention of tea. He had a contempt for
tea—his brother Jolyon had been in tea; made a lot of money by
it—but he was so thirsty, and had such a taste in his mouth, that
he was prepared to drink anything. He longed to inform Irene of
the taste in his mouth—she was so sympathetic—but it would not be
a distinguished thing to do; he rolled his tongue round, and
faintly smacked it against his palate.
In a far corner of the tent Adolf was bending his cat-like
moustaches over a kettle. He left it at once to draw the cork of
a pint-bottle of champagne. Swithin smiled, and, nodding at
Bosinney, said: “Why, you’re quite a Monte Cristo!” This
celebrated novel—one of the half-dozen he had read—had produced
an extraordinary impression on his mind.
Taking his glass from the table, he held it away from him to
scrutinize the colour; thirsty as he was, it was not likely that
he was going to drink trash! Then, placing it to his lips, he
took a sip.
“A very nice wine,” he said at last, passing it before his nose;
“not the equal of my Heidsieck!”
It was at this moment that the idea came to him which he
afterwards imparted at Timothy’s in this nutshell: “I shouldn’t
wonder a bit if that architect chap were sweet upon Mrs. Soames!”
And from this moment his pale, round eyes never ceased to bulge
with the interest of his discovery.
“The fellow,” he said to Mrs. Septimus, “follows her about with
his eyes like a dog—the bumpy beggar! I don’t wonder at it—she’s
a very charming woman, and, I should say, the pink of
discretion!” A vague consciousness of perfume caging about Irene,
like that from a flower with half-closed petals and a passionate
heart, moved him to the creation of this image. “But I wasn’t
sure of it,” he said, “till I saw him pick up her handkerchief.”
Mrs. Small’s eyes boiled with excitement.
“And did he give it her back?” she asked.
“Give it back?” said Swithin: “I saw him slobber on it when he
thought I wasn’t looking!”
Mrs. Small gasped—too interested to speak.
“But _she_ gave him no encouragement,” went on Swithin; he
stopped, and stared for a minute or two in the way that alarmed
Aunt Hester so—he had suddenly recollected that, as they were
starting back in the phaeton, she had given Bosinney her hand a
second time, and let it stay there too.... He had touched his
horses smartly with the whip, anxious to get her all to himself.
But she had looked back, and she had not answered his first
question; neither had he been able to see her face—she had kept
it hanging down.
There is somewhere a picture, which Swithin has not seen, of a
man sitting on a rock, and by him, immersed in the still, green
water, a sea-nymph lying on her back, with her hand on her naked
breast. She has a half-smile on her face—a smile of hopeless
surrender and of secret joy.
Seated by Swithin’s side, Irene may have been smiling like that.
When, warmed by champagne, he had her all to himself, he
unbosomed himself of his wrongs; of his smothered resentment
against the new chef at the club; his worry over the house in
Wigmore Street, where the rascally tenant had gone bankrupt
through helping his brother-in-law as if charity did not begin at
home; of his deafness, too, and that pain he sometimes got in his
right side. She listened, her eyes swimming under their lids. He
thought she was thinking deeply of his troubles, and pitied
himself terribly. Yet in his fur coat, with frogs across the
breast, his top hat aslant, driving this beautiful woman, he had
never felt more distinguished.
A coster, however, taking his girl for a Sunday airing, seemed to
have the same impression about himself. This person had flogged
his donkey into a gallop alongside, and sat, upright as a
waxwork, in his shallopy chariot, his chin settled pompously on a
red handkerchief, like Swithin’s on his full cravat; while his
girl, with the ends of a fly-blown boa floating out behind, aped
a woman of fashion. Her swain moved a stick with a ragged bit of
string dangling from the end, reproducing with strange fidelity
the circular flourish of Swithin’s whip, and rolled his head at
his lady with a leer that had a weird likeness to Swithin’s
primeval stare.
Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian’s presence,
Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed.
He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots,
however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast.
Swithin’s yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash
the costermonger, but was saved from so far forgetting his
dignity by a special intervention of Providence. A carriage
driving out through a gate forced phaeton and donkey-cart into
proximity; the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle skidded, and
was overturned.
Swithin did not look round. On no account would he have pulled up
to help the ruffian. Serve him right if he had broken his neck!
But he could not if he would. The greys had taken alarm. The
phaeton swung from side to side, and people raised frightened
faces as they went dashing past. Swithin’s great arms, stretched
at full length, tugged at the reins. His cheeks were puffed, his
lips compressed, his swollen face was of a dull, angry red.
Irene had her hand on the rail, and at every lurch she gripped it
tightly. Swithin heard her ask:
“Are we going to have an accident, Uncle Swithin?”
He gasped out between his pants: “It’s nothing; a—little fresh!”
“I’ve never been in an accident.”
“Don’t you move!” He took a look at her. She was smiling,
perfectly calm. “Sit still,” he repeated. “Never fear, I’ll get
you home!”
And in the midst of all his terrible efforts, he was surprised to
hear her answer in a voice not like her own:
_“I don’t care if I never get home!”_
The carriage giving a terrific lurch, Swithin’s exclamation was
jerked back into his throat. The horses, winded by the rise of a
hill, now steadied to a trot, and finally stopped of their own
accord.
“When”—Swithin described it at Timothy’s—“I pulled ’em up, there
she was as cool as myself. God bless my soul! she behaved as if
she didn’t care whether she broke her neck or not! What was it
she said: ‘I don’t care if I never get home?’ Leaning over the
handle of his cane, he wheezed out, to Mrs. Small’s terror: “And
I’m not altogether surprised, with a finickin’ feller like young
Soames for a husband!”
It did not occur to him to wonder what Bosinney had done after
they had left him there alone; whether he had gone wandering
about like the dog to which Swithin had compared him; wandering
down to that copse where the spring was still in riot, the cuckoo
still calling from afar; gone down there with her handkerchief
pressed to lips, its fragrance mingling with the scent of mint
and thyme. Gone down there with such a wild, exquisite pain in
his heart that he could have cried out among the trees. Or what,
indeed, the fellow had done. In fact, till he came to Timothy’s,
Swithin had forgotten all about him.
CHAPTER IV JAMES GOES TO SEE FOR HIMSELF
Those ignorant of Forsyte ’Change would not, perhaps, foresee all
the stir made by Irene’s visit to the house.
After Swithin had related at Timothy’s the full story of his
memorable drive, the same, with the least suspicion of curiosity,
the merest touch of malice, and a real desire to do good, was
passed on to June.
“And what a _dreadful_ thing to say, my dear!” ended Aunt Juley;
“that about not going home. What did she mean?”
It was a strange recital for the girl. She heard it flushing
painfully, and, suddenly, with a curt handshake, took her
departure.
“Almost rude!” Mrs. Small said to Aunt Hester, when June was
gone.
The proper construction was put on her reception of the news. She
was upset. Something was therefore very wrong. Odd! She and Irene
had been such friends!
It all tallied too well with whispers and hints that had been
going about for some time past. Recollections of Euphemia’s
account of the visit to the theatre—Mr. Bosinney always at
Soames’s? Oh, indeed! Yes, of course, he _would_ be—about the
house! Nothing open. Only upon the greatest, the most important
provocation was it necessary to say anything open on Forsyte
’Change. This machine was too nicely adjusted; a hint, the merest
trifling expression of regret or doubt, sufficed to set the
family soul so sympathetic—vibrating. No one desired that harm
should come of these vibrations—far from it; they were set in
motion with the best intentions, with the feeling that each
member of the family had a stake in the family soul.
And much kindness lay at the bottom of the gossip; it would
frequently result in visits of condolence being made, in
accordance with the customs of Society, thereby conferring a real
benefit upon the sufferers, and affording consolation to the
sound, who felt pleasantly that someone at all events was
suffering from that from which they themselves were not
suffering. In fact, it was simply a desire to keep things
well-aired, the desire which animates the Public Press, that
brought James, for instance, into communication with Mrs.
Septimus, Mrs. Septimus, with the little Nicholases, the little
Nicholases with who-knows-whom, and so on. That great class to
which they had risen, and now belonged, demanded a certain
candour, a still more certain reticence. This combination
guaranteed their membership.
Many of the younger Forsytes felt, very naturally, and would
openly declare, that they did not want their affairs pried into;
but so powerful was the invisible, magnetic current of family
gossip, that for the life of them they could not help knowing all
about everything. It was felt to be hopeless.
One of them (young Roger) had made an heroic attempt to free the
rising generation, by speaking of Timothy as an “old cat.” The
effort had justly recoiled upon himself; the words, coming round
in the most delicate way to Aunt Juley’s ears, were repeated by
her in a shocked voice to Mrs. Roger, whence they returned again
to young Roger.
And, after all, it was only the wrong-doers who suffered; as, for
instance, George, when he lost all that money playing billiards;
or young Roger himself, when he was so dreadfully near to
marrying the girl to whom, it was whispered, he was already
married by the laws of Nature; or again Irene, who was thought,
rather than said, to be in danger.
All this was not only pleasant but salutary. And it made so many
hours go lightly at Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road; so many
hours that must otherwise have been sterile and heavy to those
three who lived there; and Timothy’s was but one of hundreds of
such homes in this City of London—the homes of neutral persons of
the secure classes, who are out of the battle themselves, and
must find their reason for existing, in the battles of others.
But for the sweetness of family gossip, it must indeed have been
lonely there. Rumours and tales, reports, surmises—were they not
the children of the house, as dear and precious as the prattling
babes the brother and sisters had missed in their own journey? To
talk about them was as near as they could get to the possession
of all those children and grandchildren, after whom their soft
hearts yearned. For though it is doubtful whether Timothy’s heart
yearned, it is indubitable that at the arrival of each fresh
Forsyte child he was quite upset.
Useless for young Roger to say, “Old cat!” for Euphemia to hold
up her hands and cry: “Oh! those three!” and break into her
silent laugh with the squeak at the end. Useless, and not too
kind.
The situation which at this stage might seem, and especially to
Forsyte eyes, strange—not to say “impossible”—was, in view of
certain facts, not so strange after all.
Some things had been lost sight of.
And first, in the security bred of many harmless marriages, it
had been forgotten that Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild
plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung
from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant
that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens,
we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but,
flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild!
And further—the facts and figures of their own lives being
against the perception of this truth—it was not generally
recognised by Forsytes that, where this wild plant springs, men
and women are but moths around the pale, flame-like blossom.
It was long since young Jolyon’s escapade—there was danger of a
tradition again arising that people in their position never cross
the hedge to pluck that flower; that one could reckon on having
love, like measles, once in due season, and getting over it
comfortably for all time—as with measles, on a soothing mixture
of butter and honey—in the arms of wedlock.
Of all those whom this strange rumour about Bosinney and Mrs.
Soames reached, James was the most affected. He had long
forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side whiskers of
chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his own courtship. He
had long forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair,
where he had spent the early days of his married life, or rather,
he had long forgotten the early days, not the small house,—a
Forsyte never forgot a house—he had afterwards sold it at a clear
profit of four hundred pounds.
He had long forgotten those days, with their hopes and fears and
doubts about the prudence of the match (for Emily, though pretty,
had nothing, and he himself at that time was making a bare
thousand a year), and that strange, irresistible attraction which
had drawn him on, till he felt he must die if he could not marry
the girl with the fair hair, looped so neatly back, the fair arms
emerging from a skin-tight bodice, the fair form decorously
shielded by a cage of really stupendous circumference.
James had passed through the fire, but he had passed also through
the river of years which washes out the fire; he had experienced
the saddest experience of all—forgetfulness of what it was like
to be in love.
Forgotten! Forgotten so long, that he had forgotten even that he
had forgotten.
And now this rumour had come upon him, this rumour about his
son’s wife; very vague, a shadow dodging among the palpable,
straightforward appearances of things, unreal, unintelligible as
a ghost, but carrying with it, like a ghost, inexplicable terror.
He tried to bring it home to his mind, but it was no more use
than trying to apply to himself one of those tragedies he read of
daily in his evening paper. He simply could not. There could be
nothing in it. It was all their nonsense. She didn’t get on with
Soames as well as she might, but she was a good little thing—a
good little thing!
Like the not inconsiderable majority of men, James relished a
nice little bit of scandal, and would say, in a matter-of-fact
tone, licking his lips, “Yes, yes—she and young Dyson; they tell
me they’re living at Monte Carlo!”
But the significance of an affair of this sort—of its past, its
present, or its future—had never struck him. What it meant, what
torture and raptures had gone to its construction, what slow,
overmastering fate had lurked within the facts, very naked,
sometimes sordid, but generally spicy, presented to his gaze. He
was not in the habit of blaming, praising, drawing deductions, or
generalizing at all about such things; he simply listened rather
greedily, and repeated what he was told, finding considerable
benefit from the practice, as from the consumption of a sherry
and bitters before a meal.
Now, however, that such a thing—or rather the rumour, the breath
of it—had come near him personally, he felt as in a fog, which
filled his mouth full of a bad, thick flavour, and made it
difficult to draw breath.
A scandal! A possible scandal!
To repeat this word to himself thus was the only way in which he
could focus or make it thinkable. He had forgotten the sensations
necessary for understanding the progress, fate, or meaning of any
such business; he simply could no longer grasp the possibilities
of people running any risk for the sake of passion.
Amongst all those persons of his acquaintance, who went into the
City day after day and did their business there, whatever it was,
and in their leisure moments bought shares, and houses, and ate
dinners, and played games, as he was told, it would have seemed
to him ridiculous to suppose that there were any who would run
risks for the sake of anything so recondite, so figurative, as
passion.
Passion! He seemed, indeed, to have heard of it, and rules such
as “A young man and a young woman ought never to be trusted
together” were fixed in his mind as the parallels of latitude are
fixed on a map (for all Forsytes, when it comes to “bed-rock”
matters of fact, have quite a fine taste in realism); but as to
anything else—well, he could only appreciate it at all through
the catch-word “scandal.”
Ah! but there was no truth in it—could not be. He was not afraid;
she was really a good little thing. But there it was when you got
a thing like that into your mind. And James was of a nervous
temperament—one of those men whom things will not leave alone,
who suffer tortures from anticipation and indecision. For fear of
letting something slip that he might otherwise secure, he was
physically unable to make up his mind until absolutely certain
that, by not making it up, he would suffer loss.
In life, however, there were many occasions when the business of
making up his mind did not even rest with himself, and this was
one of them.
What could he do? Talk it over with Soames? That would only make
matters worse. And, after all, there was nothing in it, he felt
sure.
It was all that house. He had mistrusted the idea from the first.
What did Soames want to go into the country for? And, if he must
go spending a lot of money building himself a house, why not have
a first-rate man, instead of this young Bosinney, whom nobody
knew anything about? He had told them how it would be. And he had
heard that the house was costing Soames a pretty penny beyond
what he had reckoned on spending.
This fact, more than any other, brought home to James the real
danger of the situation. It was always like this with these
“artistic” chaps; a sensible man should have nothing to say to
them. He had warned Irene, too. And see what had come of it!
And it suddenly sprang into James’s mind that he ought to go and
see for himself. In the midst of that fog of uneasiness in which
his mind was enveloped the notion that he could go and look at
the house afforded him inexplicable satisfaction. It may have
been simply the decision to do something—more possibly the fact
that he was going to look at a house—that gave him relief. He
felt that in staring at an edifice of bricks and mortar, of wood
and stone, built by the suspected man himself, he would be
looking into the heart of that rumour about Irene.
Without saying a word, therefore, to anyone, he took a hansom to
the station and proceeded by train to Robin Hill; thence—there
being no “flies,” in accordance with the custom of the
neighbourhood—he found himself obliged to walk.
He started slowly up the hill, his angular knees and high
shoulders bent complainingly, his eyes fixed on his feet, yet,
neat for all that, in his high hat and his frock-coat, on which
was the speckless gloss imparted by perfect superintendence.
Emily saw to that; that is, she did not, of course, see to
it—people of good position not seeing to each other’s buttons,
and Emily was of good position—but she saw that the butler saw to
it.
He had to ask his way three times; on each occasion he repeated
the directions given him, got the man to repeat them, then
repeated them a second time, for he was naturally of a talkative
disposition, and one could not be too careful in a new
neighbourhood.
He kept assuring them that it was a new house he was looking for;
it was only, however, when he was shown the roof through the
trees that he could feel really satisfied that he had not been
directed entirely wrong.
A heavy sky seemed to cover the world with the grey whiteness of
a whitewashed ceiling. There was no freshness or fragrance in the
air. On such a day even British workmen scarcely cared to do more
then they were obliged, and moved about their business without
the drone of talk which whiles away the pangs of labour.
Through spaces of the unfinished house, shirt-sleeved figures
worked slowly, and sounds arose—spasmodic knockings, the scraping
of metal, the sawing of wood, with the rumble of wheelbarrows
along boards; now and again the foreman’s dog, tethered by a
string to an oaken beam, whimpered feebly, with a sound like the
singing of a kettle.
The fresh-fitted window-panes, daubed each with a white patch in
the centre, stared out at James like the eyes of a blind dog.
And the building chorus went on, strident and mirthless under the
grey-white sky. But the thrushes, hunting amongst the
fresh-turned earth for worms, were silent quite.
James picked his way among the heaps of gravel—the drive was
being laid—till he came opposite the porch. Here he stopped and
raised his eyes. There was but little to see from this point of
view, and that little he took in at once; but he stayed in this
position many minutes, and who shall know of what he thought.
His china-blue eyes under white eyebrows that jutted out in
little horns, never stirred; the long upper lip of his wide
mouth, between the fine white whiskers, twitched once or twice;
it was easy to see from that anxious rapt expression, whence
Soames derived the handicapped look which sometimes came upon his
face. James might have been saying to himself: “I don’t
know—life’s a tough job.”
In this position Bosinney surprised him.
James brought his eyes down from whatever bird’s-nest they had
been looking for in the sky to Bosinney’s face, on which was a
kind of humorous scorn.
“How do you do, Mr. Forsyte? Come down to see for yourself?”
It was exactly what James, as we know, had come for, and he was
made correspondingly uneasy. He held out his hand, however,
saying:
“How are you?” without looking at Bosinney.
The latter made way for him with an ironical smile.
James scented something suspicious in this courtesy. “I should
like to walk round the outside first,” he said, “and see what
you’ve been doing!”
A flagged terrace of rounded stones with a list of two or three
inches to port had been laid round the south-east and south-west
sides of the house, and ran with a bevelled edge into mould,
which was in preparation for being turfed; along this terrace
James led the way.
“Now what did _this_ cost?” he asked, when he saw the terrace
extending round the corner.
“What should you think?” inquired Bosinney.
“How should I know?” replied James somewhat nonplussed; “two or
three hundred, I dare say!”
“The exact sum!”
James gave him a sharp look, but the architect appeared
unconscious, and he put the answer down to mishearing.
On arriving at the garden entrance, he stopped to look at the
view.
“That ought to come down,” he said, pointing to the oak-tree.
“You think so? You think that with the tree there you don’t get
enough view for your money.”
Again James eyed him suspiciously—this young man had a peculiar
way of putting things: “Well!” he said, with a perplexed,
nervous, emphasis, “I don’t see what you want with a tree.”
“It shall come down to-morrow,” said Bosinney.
James was alarmed. “Oh,” he said, “don’t go saying I said it was
to come down! _I_ know nothing about it!”
“No?”
James went on in a fluster: “Why, what should I know about it?
It’s nothing to do with me! You do it on your own
responsibility.”
“You’ll allow me to mention your name?”
James grew more and more alarmed: “I don’t know what you want
mentioning my name for,” he muttered; “you’d better leave the
tree alone. It’s not your tree!”
He took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. They entered
the house. Like Swithin, James was impressed by the inner
court-yard.
“You must have spent a deuce of a lot of money here,” he said,
after staring at the columns and gallery for some time. “Now,
what did it cost to put up those columns?”
“I can’t tell you off-hand,” thoughtfully answered Bosinney, “but
I know it was a deuce of a lot!”
“I should think so,” said James. “I should....” He caught the
architect’s eye, and broke off. And now, whenever he came to
anything of which he desired to know the cost, he stifled that
curiosity.
Bosinney appeared determined that he should see everything, and
had not James been of too “noticing” a nature, he would certainly
have found himself going round the house a second time. He seemed
so anxious to be asked questions, too, that James felt he must be
on his guard. He began to suffer from his exertions, for, though
wiry enough for a man of his long build, he was seventy-five
years old.
He grew discouraged; he seemed no nearer to anything, had not
obtained from his inspection any of the knowledge he had vaguely
hoped for. He had merely increased his dislike and mistrust of
this young man, who had tired him out with his politeness, and in
whose manner he now certainly detected mockery.
The fellow was sharper than he had thought, and better-looking
than he had hoped. He had a—a “don’t care” appearance that James,
to whom risk was the most intolerable thing in life, did not
appreciate; a peculiar smile, too, coming when least expected;
and very queer eyes. He reminded James, as he said afterwards, of
a hungry cat. This was as near as he could get, in conversation
with Emily, to a description of the peculiar exasperation,
velvetiness, and mockery, of which Bosinney’s manner had been
composed.
At last, having seen all that was to be seen, he came out again
at the door where he had gone in; and now, feeling that he was
wasting time and strength and money, all for nothing, he took the
courage of a Forsyte in both hands, and, looking sharply at
Bosinney, said:
“I dare say you see a good deal of my daughter-in-law; now, what
does _she_ think of the house? But she hasn’t seen it, I
suppose?”
This he said, knowing all about Irene’s visit not, of course,
that there was anything in the visit, except that extraordinary
remark she had made about “not caring to get home”—and the story
of how June had taken the news!
He had determined, by this way of putting the question, to give
Bosinney a chance, as he said to himself.
The latter was long in answering, but kept his eyes with
uncomfortable steadiness on James.
“She _has_ seen the house, but I can’t tell you what she thinks
of it.”
Nervous and baffled, James was constitutionally prevented from
letting the matter drop.
“Oh!” he said, “she has seen it? Soames brought her down, I
suppose?”
Bosinney smilingly replied: “Oh, no!”
“What, did she come down alone?”
“Oh, no!”
“Then—who brought her?”
“I really don’t know whether I ought to tell you who brought
her.”
To James, who knew that it was Swithin, this answer appeared
incomprehensible.
“Why!” he stammered, “you know that....” but he stopped, suddenly
perceiving his danger.
“Well,” he said, “if you don’t want to tell me I suppose you
won’t! Nobody tells me anything.”
Somewhat to his surprise Bosinney asked him a question.
“By the by,” he said, “could you tell me if there are likely to
be any more of you coming down? I should like to be on the spot!”
“Any more?” said James bewildered, “who should there be more? I
don’t know of any more. Good-bye.”
Looking at the ground he held out his hand, crossed the palm of
it with Bosinney’s, and taking his umbrella just above the silk,
walked away along the terrace.
Before he turned the corner he glanced back, and saw Bosinney
following him slowly—“slinking along the wall” as he put it to
himself, “like a great cat.” He paid no attention when the young
fellow raised his hat.
Outside the drive, and out of sight, he slackened his pace still
more. Very slowly, more bent than when he came, lean, hungry, and
disheartened, he made his way back to the station.
The Buccaneer, watching him go so sadly home, felt sorry perhaps
for his behaviour to the old man.
CHAPTER V SOAMES AND BOSINNEY CORRESPOND
James said nothing to his son of this visit to the house; but,
having occasion to go to Timothy’s one morning on a matter
connected with a drainage scheme which was being forced by the
sanitary authorities on his brother, he mentioned it there.
It was not, he said, a bad house. He could see that a good deal
could be made of it. The fellow was clever in his way, though
what it was going to cost Soames before it was done with he
didn’t know.
Euphemia Forsyte, who happened to be in the room—she had come
round to borrow the Rev. Mr. Scoles’ last novel, “Passion and
Paregoric”, which was having such a vogue—chimed in.
“I saw Irene yesterday at the Stores; she and Mr. Bosinney were
having a nice little chat in the Groceries.”
It was thus, simply, that she recorded a scene which had really
made a deep and complicated impression on her. She had been
hurrying to the silk department of the Church and Commercial
Stores—that Institution than which, with its admirable system,
admitting only guaranteed persons on a basis of payment before
delivery, no emporium can be more highly recommended to
Forsytes—to match a piece of prunella silk for her mother, who
was waiting in the carriage outside.
Passing through the Groceries her eye was unpleasantly attracted
by the back view of a very beautiful figure. It was so charmingly
proportioned, so balanced, and so well clothed, that Euphemia’s
instinctive propriety was at once alarmed; such figures, she
knew, by intuition rather than experience, were rarely connected
with virtue—certainly never in her mind, for her own back was
somewhat difficult to fit.
Her suspicions were fortunately confirmed. A young man coming
from the Drugs had snatched off his hat, and was accosting the
lady with the unknown back.
It was then that she saw with whom she had to deal; the lady was
undoubtedly Mrs. Soames, the young man Mr. Bosinney. Concealing
herself rapidly over the purchase of a box of Tunisian dates, for
she was impatient of awkwardly meeting people with parcels in her
hands, and at the busy time of the morning, she was quite
unintentionally an interested observer of their little interview.
Mrs. Soames, usually somewhat pale, had a delightful colour in
her cheeks; and Mr. Bosinney’s manner was strange, though
attractive (she thought him rather a distinguished-looking man,
and George’s name for him, “The Buccaneer”—about which there was
something romantic—quite charming). He seemed to be pleading.
Indeed, they talked so earnestly—or, rather, he talked so
earnestly, for Mrs. Soames did not say much—that they caused,
inconsiderately, an eddy in the traffic. One nice old General,
going towards Cigars, was obliged to step quite out of the way,
and chancing to look up and see Mrs. Soames’s face, he actually
took off his hat, the old fool! So like a man!
But it was Mrs. Soames’ eyes that worried Euphemia. She never
once looked at Mr. Bosinney until he moved on, and then she
looked after him. And, oh, that look!
On that look Euphemia had spent much anxious thought. It is not
too much to say that it had hurt her with its dark, lingering
softness, for all the world as though the woman wanted to drag
him back, and unsay something she had been saying.
Ah, well, she had had no time to go deeply into the matter just
then, with that prunella silk on her hands; but she was “very
_intriguée_”—very! She had just nodded to Mrs. Soames, to show
her that she had seen; and, as she confided, in talking it over
afterwards, to her chum Francie (Roger’s daughter), “Didn’t she
look caught out just?...”
James, most averse at the first blush to accepting any news
confirmatory of his own poignant suspicions, took her up at once.
“Oh” he said, “they’d be after wall-papers no doubt.”
Euphemia smiled. “In the Groceries?” she said softly; and, taking
“Passion and Paregoric” from the table, added: “And so you’ll
lend me this, dear Auntie? Good-bye!” and went away.
James left almost immediately after; he was late as it was.
When he reached the office of Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte, he
found Soames, sitting in his revolving, chair, drawing up a
defence. The latter greeted his father with a curt good-morning,
and, taking an envelope from his pocket, said:
“It may interest you to look through this.”
James read as follows:
“309D, SLOANE STREET,
“_May_ 15,
“DEAR FORSYTE,
“The construction of your house being now completed, my
duties as architect have come to an end. If I am to go on
with the business of decoration, which at your request I
undertook, I should like you to clearly understand that I
must have a free hand.
“You never come down without suggesting something that goes
counter to my scheme. I have here three letters from you,
each of which recommends an article I should never dream of
putting in. I had your father here yesterday afternoon, who
made further valuable suggestions.
“Please make up your mind, therefore, whether you want me to
decorate for you, or to retire which on the whole I should
prefer to do.
“But understand that, if I decorate, I decorate alone,
without interference of any sort.
“If I do the thing, I will do it thoroughly, but I must have
a free hand.
“Yours truly,
“PHILIP BOSINNEY.”
The exact and immediate cause of this letter cannot, of course,
be told, though it is not improbable that Bosinney may have been
moved by some sudden revolt against his position towards
Soames—that eternal position of Art towards Property—which is so
admirably summed up, on the back of the most indispensable of
modern appliances, in a sentence comparable to the very finest in
Tacitus:
THOS. T. SORROW,
Inventor.
BERT M. PADLAND,
Proprietor.
“What are you going to say to him?” James asked.
Soames did not even turn his head. “I haven’t made up my mind,”
he said, and went on with his defence.
A client of his, having put some buildings on a piece of ground
that did not belong to him, had been suddenly and most
irritatingly warned to take them off again. After carefully going
into the facts, however, Soames had seen his way to advise that
his client had what was known as a title by possession, and that,
though undoubtedly the ground did not belong to him, he was
entitled to keep it, and had better do so; and he was now
following up this advice by taking steps to—as the sailors
say—“make it so.”
He had a distinct reputation for sound advice; people saying of
him: “Go to young Forsyte—a long-headed fellow!” and he prized
this reputation highly.
His natural taciturnity was in his favour; nothing could be more
calculated to give people, especially people with property
(Soames had no other clients), the impression that he was a safe
man. And he was safe. Tradition, habit, education, inherited
aptitude, native caution, all joined to form a solid professional
honesty, superior to temptation—from the very fact that it was
built on an innate avoidance of risk. How could he fall, when his
soul abhorred circumstances which render a fall possible—a man
cannot fall off the floor!
And those countless Forsytes, who, in the course of innumerable
transactions concerned with property of all sorts (from wives to
water rights), had occasion for the services of a safe man, found
it both reposeful and profitable to confide in Soames. That
slight superciliousness of his, combined with an air of mousing
amongst precedents, was in his favour too—a man would not be
supercilious unless he knew!
He was really at the head of the business, for though James still
came nearly every day to, see for himself, he did little now but
sit in his chair, twist his legs, slightly confuse things already
decided, and presently go away again, and the other partner,
Bustard, was a poor thing, who did a great deal of work, but
whose opinion was never taken.
So Soames went steadily on with his defence. Yet it would be idle
to say that his mind was at ease. He was suffering from a sense
of impending trouble, that had haunted him for some time past. He
tried to think it physical—a condition of his liver—but knew that
it was not.
He looked at his watch. In a quarter of an hour he was due at the
General Meeting of the New Colliery Company—one of Uncle Jolyon’s
concerns; he should see Uncle Jolyon there, and say something to
him about Bosinney—he had not made up his mind what, but
something—in any case he should not answer this letter until he
had seen Uncle Jolyon. He got up and methodically put away the
draft of his defence. Going into a dark little cupboard, he
turned up the light, washed his hands with a piece of brown
Windsor soap, and dried them on a roller towel. Then he brushed
his hair, paying strict attention to the parting, turned down the
light, took his hat, and saying he would be back at half-past
two, stepped into the Poultry.
It was not far to the Offices of the New Colliery Company in
Ironmonger Lane, where, and not at the Cannon Street Hotel, in
accordance with the more ambitious practice of other companies,
the General Meeting was always held. Old Jolyon had from the
first set his face against the Press. What business—he said—had
the Public with his concerns!
Soames arrived on the stroke of time, and took his seat alongside
the Board, who, in a row, each Director behind his own ink-pot,
faced their Shareholders.
In the centre of this row old Jolyon, conspicuous in his black,
tightly-buttoned frock-coat and his white moustaches, was leaning
back with finger tips crossed on a copy of the Directors’ report
and accounts.
On his right hand, always a little larger than life, sat the
Secretary, “Down-by-the-starn” Hemmings; an all-too-sad sadness
beaming in his fine eyes; his iron-grey beard, in mourning like
the rest of him, giving the feeling of an all-too-black tie
behind it.
The occasion indeed was a melancholy one, only six weeks having
elapsed since that telegram had come from Scorrier, the mining
expert, on a private mission to the Mines, informing them that
Pippin, their Superintendent, had committed suicide in
endeavouring, after his extraordinary two years’ silence, to
write a letter to his Board. That letter was on the table now; it
would be read to the Shareholders, who would of course be put
into possession of all the facts.
Hemmings had often said to Soames, standing with his coat-tails
divided before the fireplace:
“What our Shareholders don’t know about our affairs isn’t worth
knowing. You may take that from me, Mr. Soames.”
On one occasion, old Jolyon being present, Soames recollected a
little unpleasantness. His uncle had looked up sharply and said:
“Don’t talk nonsense, Hemmings! You mean that what they _do_ know
isn’t worth knowing!” Old Jolyon detested humbug.
Hemmings, angry-eyed, and wearing a smile like that of a trained
poodle, had replied in an outburst of artificial applause: “Come,
now, that’s good, sir—that’s very good. Your uncle _will_ have
his joke!”
The next time he had seen Soames he had taken the opportunity of
saying to him: “The chairman’s getting very old!—I can’t get him
to understand things; and he’s so wilful—but what can you expect,
with a chin like his?”
Soames had nodded.
Everyone knew that Uncle Jolyon’s chin was a caution. He was
looking worried to-day, in spite of his General Meeting look; he
(Soames) should certainly speak to him about Bosinney.
Beyond old Jolyon on the left was little Mr. Booker, and he, too,
wore his General Meeting look, as though searching for some
particularly tender shareholder. And next him was the deaf
director, with a frown; and beyond the deaf director, again, was
old Mr. Bleedham, very bland, and having an air of conscious
virtue—as well he might, knowing that the brown-paper parcel he
always brought to the Board-room was concealed behind his hat
(one of that old-fashioned class, of flat-brimmed top-hats which
go with very large bow ties, clean-shaven lips, fresh cheeks, and
neat little, white whiskers).
Soames always attended the General Meeting; it was considered
better that he should do so, in case “anything should arise!” He
glanced round with his close, supercilious air at the walls of
the room, where hung plans of the mine and harbour, together with
a large photograph of a shaft leading to a working which had
proved quite remarkably unprofitable. This photograph—a witness
to the eternal irony underlying commercial enterprise—still
retained its position on the wall, an effigy of the directors’
pet, but dead, lamb.
And now old Jolyon rose, to present the report and accounts.
Veiling under a Jove-like serenity that perpetual antagonism
deep-seated in the bosom of a director towards his shareholders,
he faced them calmly. Soames faced them too. He knew most of them
by sight. There was old Scrubsole, a tar man, who always came, as
Hemmings would say, “to make himself nasty,” a
cantankerous-looking old fellow with a red face, a jowl, and an
enormous low-crowned hat reposing on his knee. And the Rev. Mr.
Boms, who always proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman, in
which he invariably expressed the hope that the Board would not
forget to elevate their employees, using the word with a double
e, as being more vigorous and Anglo-Saxon (he had the strong
Imperialistic tendencies of his cloth). It was his salutary
custom to buttonhole a director afterwards, and ask him whether
he thought the coming year would be good or bad; and, according
to the trend of the answer, to buy or sell three shares within
the ensuing fortnight.
And there was that military man, Major O’Bally, who could not
help speaking, if only to second the re-election of the auditor,
and who sometimes caused serious consternation by taking
toasts—proposals rather—out of the hands of persons who had been
flattered with little slips of paper, entrusting the said
proposals to their care.
These made up the lot, together with four or five strong, silent
shareholders, with whom Soames could sympathize—men of business,
who liked to keep an eye on their affairs for themselves, without
being fussy—good, solid men, who came to the City every day and
went back in the evening to good, solid wives.
Good, solid wives! There was something in that thought which
roused the nameless uneasiness in Soames again.
What should he say to his uncle? What answer should he make to
this letter?
. . . . “If any shareholder has any question to put, I shall be
glad to answer it.” A soft thump. Old Jolyon had let the report
and accounts fall, and stood twisting his tortoise-shell glasses
between thumb and forefinger.
The ghost of a smile appeared on Soames’s face. They had better
hurry up with their questions! He well knew his uncle’s method
(the ideal one) of at once saying: “I propose, then, that the
report and accounts be adopted!” Never let them get their
wind—shareholders were notoriously wasteful of time!
A tall, white-bearded man, with a gaunt, dissatisfied face,
arose:
“I believe I am in order, Mr. Chairman, in raising a question on
this figure of £5000 in the accounts. ‘To the widow and family’”
(he looked sourly round), “‘of our late superintendent,’ who
so—er—ill-advisedly (I say—ill-advisedly) committed suicide, at a
time when his services were of the utmost value to this Company.
You have stated that the agreement which he has so unfortunately
cut short with his own hand was for a period of five years, of
which one only had expired—I—”
Old Jolyon made a gesture of impatience.
“I believe I am in order, Mr. Chairman—I ask whether this amount
paid, or proposed to be paid, by the Board to the er—deceased—is
for services which might have been rendered to the Company—had he
not committed suicide?”
“It is in recognition of past services, which we all know—you as
well as any of us—to have been of vital value.”
“Then, sir, all I have to say is that the services being past,
the amount is too much.”
The shareholder sat down.
Old Jolyon waited a second and said: “I now propose that the
report and—”
The shareholder rose again: “May I ask if the Board realizes that
it is not their money which—I don’t hesitate to say that if it
were their money....”
A second shareholder, with a round, dogged face, whom Soames
recognised as the late superintendent’s brother-in-law, got up
and said warmly: “In my opinion, sir, the sum is not enough!”
The Rev. Mr. Boms now rose to his feet. “If I may venture to
express myself,” he said, “I should say that the fact of
the—er—deceased having committed suicide should weigh very
heavily—_very_ heavily with our worthy chairman. I have no doubt
it has weighed with him, for—I say this for myself and I think
for everyone present (hear, hear)—he enjoys our confidence in a
high degree. We all desire, I should hope, to be charitable. But
I feel sure” (he-looked severely at the late superintendent’s
brother-in-law) “that he will in some way, by some written
expression, or better perhaps by reducing the amount, record our
grave disapproval that so promising and valuable a life should
have been thus impiously removed from a sphere where both its own
interests and—if I may say so—our interests so imperatively
demanded its continuance. We should not—nay, we may
not—countenance so grave a dereliction of all duty, both human
and divine.”
The reverend gentleman resumed his seat. The late
superintendent’s brother-in-law again rose: “What I have said I
stick to,” he said; “the amount is not enough!”
The first shareholder struck in: “I challenge the legality of the
payment. In my opinion this payment is not legal. The Company’s
solicitor is present; I believe I am in order in asking him the
question.”
All eyes were now turned upon Soames. Something had arisen!
He stood up, close-lipped and cold; his nerves inwardly
fluttered, his attention tweaked away at last from contemplation
of that cloud looming on the horizon of his mind.
“The point,” he said in a low, thin voice, “is by no means clear.
As there is no possibility of future consideration being
received, it is doubtful whether the payment is strictly legal.
If it is desired, the opinion of the court could be taken.”
The superintendent’s brother-in-law frowned, and said in a
meaning tone: “We have no doubt the opinion of the court could be
taken. May I ask the name of the gentleman who has given us that
striking piece of information? Mr. Soames Forsyte? Indeed!” He
looked from Soames to old Jolyon in a pointed manner.
A flush coloured Soames’s pale cheeks, but his superciliousness
did not waver. Old Jolyon fixed his eyes on the speaker.
“If,” he said, “the late superintendents brother-in-law has
nothing more to say, I propose that the report and accounts....”
At this moment, however, there rose one of those five silent,
stolid shareholders, who had excited Soames’s sympathy. He said:
“I deprecate the proposal altogether. We are expected to give
charity to this man’s wife and children, who, you tell us, were
dependent on him. They may have been; I do not care whether they
were or not. I object to the whole thing on principle. It is high
time a stand was made against this sentimental humanitarianism.
The country is eaten up with it. I object to my money being paid
to these people of whom I know nothing, who have done nothing to
earn it. I object _in toto;_ it is not business. I now move that
the report and accounts be put back, and amended by striking out
the grant altogether.”
Old Jolyon had remained standing while the strong, silent man was
speaking. The speech awoke an echo in all hearts, voicing, as it
did, the worship of strong men, the movement against generosity,
which had at that time already commenced among the saner members
of the community.
The words “it is not business” had moved even the Board;
privately everyone felt that indeed it was not. But they knew
also the chairman’s domineering temper and tenacity. He, too, at
heart must feel that it was not business; but he was committed to
his own proposition. Would he go back upon it? It was thought to
be unlikely.
All waited with interest. Old Jolyon held up his hand;
dark-rimmed glasses depending between his finger and thumb
quivered slightly with a suggestion of menace.
He addressed the strong, silent shareholder.
“Knowing, as you do, the efforts of our late superintendent upon
the occasion of the explosion at the mines, do you seriously wish
me to put that amendment, sir?”
“I do.”
Old Jolyon put the amendment.
“Does anyone second this?” he asked, looking calmly round.
And it was then that Soames, looking at his uncle, felt the power
of will that was in that old man. No one stirred. Looking
straight into the eyes of the strong, silent shareholder, old
Jolyon said:
“I now move, ‘That the report and accounts for the year 1886 be
received and adopted.’ You second that? Those in favour signify
the same in the usual way. Contrary—no. Carried. The next
business, gentlemen....”
Soames smiled. Certainly Uncle Jolyon had a way with him!
But now his attention relapsed upon Bosinney.
Odd how that fellow haunted his thoughts, even in business hours.
Irene’s visit to the house—but there was nothing in that, except
that she might have told him; but then, again, she never did tell
him anything. She was more silent, more touchy, every day. He
wished to God the house were finished, and they were in it, away
from London. Town did not suit her; her nerves were not strong
enough. That nonsense of the separate room had cropped up again!
The meeting was breaking up now. Underneath the photograph of the
lost shaft Hemmings was buttonholed by the Rev. Mr. Boms. Little
Mr. Booker, his bristling eyebrows wreathed in angry smiles, was
having a parting turn-up with old Scrubsole. The two hated each
other like poison. There was some matter of a tar-contract
between them, little Mr. Booker having secured it from the Board
for a nephew of his, over old Scrubsole’s head. Soames had heard
that from Hemmings, who liked a gossip, more especially about his
directors, except, indeed, old Jolyon, of whom he was afraid.
Soames awaited his opportunity. The last shareholder was
vanishing through the door, when he approached his uncle, who was
putting on his hat.
“Can I speak to you for a minute, Uncle Jolyon?”
It is uncertain what Soames expected to get out of this
interview.
Apart from that somewhat mysterious awe in which Forsytes in
general held old Jolyon, due to his philosophic twist, or
perhaps—as Hemmings would doubtless have said—to his chin, there
was, and always had been, a subtle antagonism between the younger
man and the old. It had lurked under their dry manner of
greeting, under their non-committal allusions to each other, and
arose perhaps from old Jolyon’s perception of the quiet tenacity
(“obstinacy,” he rather naturally called it) of the young man, of
a secret doubt whether he could get his own way with him.
Both these Forsytes, wide asunder as the poles in many respects,
possessed in their different ways—to a greater degree than the
rest of the family—that essential quality of tenacious and
prudent insight into “affairs,” which is the highwater mark of
their great class. Either of them, with a little luck and
opportunity, was equal to a lofty career; either of them would
have made a good financier, a great contractor, a statesman,
though old Jolyon, in certain of his moods when under the
influence of a cigar or of Nature—would have been capable of, not
perhaps despising, but certainly of questioning, his own high
position, while Soames, who never smoked cigars, would not.
Then, too, in old Jolyon’s mind there was always the secret ache,
that the son of James—of James, whom he had always thought such a
poor thing, should be pursuing the paths of success, while his
own son...!
And last, not least—for he was no more outside the radiation of
family gossip than any other Forsyte—he had now heard the
sinister, indefinite, but none the less disturbing rumour about
Bosinney, and his pride was wounded to the quick.
Characteristically, his irritation turned not against Irene but
against Soames. The idea that his nephew’s wife (why couldn’t the
fellow take better care of her—Oh! quaint injustice! as though
Soames could possibly take more care!)—should be drawing to
herself Jun’s lover, was intolerably humiliating. And seeing the
danger, he did not, like James, hide it away in sheer
nervousness, but owned with the dispassion of his broader
outlook, that it was not unlikely; there was something very
attractive about Irene!
He had a presentiment on the subject of Soames’s communication as
they left the Board Room together, and went out into the noise
and hurry of Cheapside. They walked together a good minute
without speaking, Soames with his mousing, mincing step, and old
Jolyon upright and using his umbrella languidly as a
walking-stick.
They turned presently into comparative quiet, for old Jolyon’s
way to a second Board led him in the direction of Moorage Street.
Then Soames, without lifting his eyes, began: “I’ve had this
letter from Bosinney. You see what he says; I thought I’d let you
know. I’ve spent a lot more than I intended on this house, and I
want the position to be clear.”
Old Jolyon ran his eyes unwillingly over the letter: “What he
says is clear enough,” he said.
“He talks about ‘a free hand,’” replied Soames.
Old Jolyon looked at him. The long-suppressed irritation and
antagonism towards this young fellow, whose affairs were
beginning to intrude upon his own, burst from him.
“Well, if you don’t trust him, why do you employ him?”
Soames stole a sideway look: “It’s much too late to go into
that,” he said, “I only want it to be quite understood that if I
give him a free hand, he doesn’t let me in. I thought if you were
to speak to him, it would carry more weight!”
“No,” said old Jolyon abruptly; “I’ll have nothing to do with
it!”
The words of both uncle and nephew gave the impression of
unspoken meanings, far more important, behind. And the look they
interchanged was like a revelation of this consciousness.
“Well,” said Soames; “I thought, for Jun’s sake, I’d tell you,
that’s all; I thought you’d better know I shan’t stand any
nonsense!”
“What is that to me?” old Jolyon took him up.
“Oh! I don’t know,” said Soames, and flurried by that sharp look
he was unable to say more. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you,” he
added sulkily, recovering his composure.
“Tell me!” said old Jolyon; “I don’t know what you mean. You come
worrying me about a thing like this. _I_ don’t want to hear about
your affairs; you must manage them yourself!”
“Very well,” said Soames immovably, “I will!”
“Good-morning, then,” said old Jolyon, and they parted.
Soames retraced his steps, and going into a celebrated
eating-house, asked for a plate of smoked salmon and a glass of
Chablis; he seldom ate much in the middle of the day, and
generally ate standing, finding the position beneficial to his
liver, which was very sound, but to which he desired to put down
all his troubles.
When he had finished he went slowly back to his office, with bent
head, taking no notice of the swarming thousands on the
pavements, who in their turn took no notice of him.
The evening post carried the following reply to Bosinney:
“FORSYTE, BUSTARD AND FORSYTE,
“Commissioners for Oaths,
“92001, BRANCH LANE, POULTRY, E.C.,
“_May_ 17, 1887.
“DEAR BOSINNEY,
“I have, received your letter, the terms of which not a
little surprise me. I was under the impression that you had,
and have had all along, a “free hand”; for I do not recollect
that any suggestions I have been so unfortunate as to make
have met with your approval. In giving you, in accordance
with your request, this “free hand,” I wish you to clearly
understand that the total cost of the house as handed over to
me completely decorated, inclusive of your fee (as arranged
between us), must not exceed twelve thousand pounds—£12,000.
This gives you an ample margin, and, as you know, is far more
than I originally contemplated.
“I am,
“Yours truly,
“SOAMES FORSYTE.”
On the following day he received a note from Bosinney:
“PHILIP BAYNES BOSINNEY,
“Architect,
“309D, SLOANE STREET, S.W.,
“_May_ 18.
“DEAR FORSYTE,
“If you think that in such a delicate matter as decoration I
can bind myself to the exact pound, I am afraid you are
mistaken. I can see that you are tired of the arrangement,
and of me, and I had better, therefore, resign.
“Yours faithfully,
“PHILIP BAYNES BOSINNEY.”
Soames pondered long and painfully over his answer, and late at
night in the dining-room, when Irene had gone to bed, he composed
the following:
“62, MONTPELLIER SQUARE, S.W.,
“_May_ 19, 1887.
“DEAR BOSINNEY,
“I think that in both our interests it would be extremely
undesirable that matters should be so left at this stage. I
did not mean to say that if you should exceed the sum named
in my letter to you by ten or twenty or even fifty pounds,
there would be any difficulty between us. This being so, I
should like you to reconsider your answer. You have a “free
hand” in the terms of this correspondence, and I hope you
will see your way to completing the decorations, in the
matter of which I know it is difficult to be absolutely
exact.
“Yours truly,
“SOAMES FORSYTE.”
Bosinney’s answer, which came in the course of the next day, was:
“_May_ 20.
“DEAR FORSYTE,
“Very well.
“PH. BOSINNEY.”
CHAPTER VI OLD JOLYON AT THE ZOO
Old Jolyon disposed of his second Meeting—an ordinary
Board—summarily. He was so dictatorial that his fellow directors
were left in cabal over the increasing domineeringness of old
Forsyte, which they were far from intending to stand much longer,
they said.
He went out by Underground to Portland Road Station, whence he
took a cab and drove to the Zoo.
He had an assignation there, one of those assignations that had
lately been growing more frequent, to which his increasing
uneasiness about June and the “change in her,” as he expressed
it, was driving him.
She buried herself away, and was growing thin; if he spoke to her
he got no answer, or had his head snapped off, or she looked as
if she would burst into tears. She was as changed as she could
be, all through this Bosinney. As for telling him about anything,
not a bit of it!
And he would sit for long spells brooding, his paper unread
before him, a cigar extinct between his lips. She had been such a
companion to him ever since she was three years old! And he loved
her so!
Forces regardless of family or class or custom were beating down
his guard; impending events over which he had no control threw
their shadows on his head. The irritation of one accustomed to
have his way was roused against he knew not what.
Chafing at the slowness of his cab, he reached the Zoo door; but,
with his sunny instinct for seizing the good of each moment, he
forgot his vexation as he walked towards the tryst.
From the stone terrace above the bear-pit his son and his two
grandchildren came hastening down when they saw old Jolyon
coming, and led him away towards the lion-house. They supported
him on either side, holding one to each of his hands,—whilst
Jolly, perverse like his father, carried his grandfather’s
umbrella in such a way as to catch people’s legs with the crutch
of the handle.
Young Jolyon followed.
It was as good as a play to see his father with the children, but
such a play as brings smiles with tears behind. An old man and
two small children walking together can be seen at any hour of
the day; but the sight of old Jolyon, with Jolly and Holly seemed
to young Jolyon a special peep-show of the things that lie at the
bottom of our hearts. The complete surrender of that erect old
figure to those little figures on either hand was too poignantly
tender, and, being a man of an habitual reflex action, young
Jolyon swore softly under his breath. The show affected him in a
way unbecoming to a Forsyte, who is nothing if not
undemonstrative.
Thus they reached the lion-house.
There had been a morning fête at the Botanical Gardens, and a
large number of Forsy—that is, of well-dressed people who kept
carriages had brought them on to the Zoo, so as to have more, if
possible, for their money, before going back to Rutland Gate or
Bryanston Square.
“Let’s go on to the Zoo,” they had said to each other; “it’ll be
great fun!” It was a shilling day; and there would not be all
those horrid common people.
In front of the long line of cages they were collected in rows,
watching the tawny, ravenous beasts behind the bars await their
only pleasure of the four-and-twenty hours. The hungrier the
beast, the greater the fascination. But whether because the
spectators envied his appetite, or, more humanely, because it was
so soon to be satisfied, young Jolyon could not tell. Remarks
kept falling on his ears: “That’s a nasty-looking brute, that
tiger!” “Oh, what a love! Look at his little mouth!” “Yes, he’s
rather nice! Don’t go too near, mother.”
And frequently, with little pats, one or another would clap their
hands to their pockets behind and look round, as though expecting
young Jolyon or some disinterested-looking person to relieve them
of the contents.
A well-fed man in a white waistcoat said slowly through his
teeth: “It’s all greed; they can’t be hungry. Why, they take no
exercise.” At these words a tiger snatched a piece of bleeding
liver, and the fat man laughed. His wife, in a Paris model frock
and gold nose-nippers, reproved him: “How can you laugh, Harry?
Such a horrid sight!”
Young Jolyon frowned.
The circumstances of his life, though he had ceased to take a too
personal view of them, had left him subject to an intermittent
contempt; and the class to which he had belonged—the carriage
class—especially excited his sarcasm.
To shut up a lion or tiger in confinement was surely a horrible
barbarity. But no cultivated person would admit this.
The idea of its being barbarous to confine wild animals had
probably never even occurred to his father for instance; he
belonged to the old school, who considered it at once humanizing
and educational to confine baboons and panthers, holding the
view, no doubt, that in course of time they might induce these
creatures not so unreasonably to die of misery and heart-sickness
against the bars of their cages, and put the society to the
expense of getting others! In his eyes, as in the eyes of all
Forsytes, the pleasure of seeing these beautiful creatures in a
state of captivity far outweighed the inconvenience of
imprisonment to beasts whom God had so improvidently placed in a
state of freedom! It was for the animals’ good, removing them at
once from the countless dangers of open air and exercise, and
enabling them to exercise their functions in the guaranteed
seclusion of a private compartment! Indeed, it was doubtful what
wild animals were made for but to be shut up in cages!
But as young Jolyon had in his constitution the elements of
impartiality, he reflected that to stigmatize as barbarity that
which was merely lack of imagination must be wrong; for none who
held these views had been placed in a similar position to the
animals they caged, and could not, therefore, be expected to
enter into their sensations. It was not until they were leaving
the gardens—Jolly and Holly in a state of blissful delirium—that
old Jolyon found an opportunity of speaking to his son on the
matter next his heart. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he
said; “if she’s to go on as she’s going on now, I can’t tell
what’s to come. I wanted her to see the doctor, but she won’t.
She’s not a bit like me. She’s your mother all over. Obstinate as
a mule! If she doesn’t want to do a thing, she won’t, and there’s
an end of it!”
Young Jolyon smiled; his eyes had wandered to his father’s chin.
“A pair of you,” he thought, but he said nothing.
“And then,” went on old Jolyon, “there’s this Bosinney. I should
like to punch the fellow’s head, but I can’t, I suppose, though—I
don’t see why you shouldn’t,” he added doubtfully.
“What has he done? Far better that it should come to an end, if
they don’t hit it off!”
Old Jolyon looked at his son. Now they had actually come to
discuss a subject connected with the relations between the sexes
he felt distrustful. Jo would be sure to hold some loose view or
other.
“Well, I don’t know what you think,” he said; “I dare say your
sympathy’s with him—shouldn’t be surprised; but I think he’s
behaving precious badly, and if he comes my way I shall tell him
so.” He dropped the subject.
It was impossible to discuss with his son the true nature and
meaning of Bosinney’s defection. Had not his son done the very
same thing (worse, if possible) fifteen years ago? There seemed
no end to the consequences of that piece of folly.
Young Jolyon also was silent; he had quickly penetrated his
father’s thought, for, dethroned from the high seat of an obvious
and uncomplicated view of things, he had become both perceptive
and subtle.
The attitude he had adopted towards sexual matters fifteen years
before, however, was too different from his father’s. There was
no bridging the gulf.
He said coolly: “I suppose he’s fallen in love with some other
woman?”
Old Jolyon gave him a dubious look: “I can’t tell,” he said;
“they say so!”
“Then, it’s probably true,” remarked young Jolyon unexpectedly;
“and I suppose _they’ve_ told you who she is?”
“Yes,” said old Jolyon, “Soames’s wife!”
Young Jolyon did not whistle: The circumstances of his own life
had rendered him incapable of whistling on such a subject, but he
looked at his father, while the ghost of a smile hovered over his
face.
If old Jolyon saw, he took no notice.
“She and June were bosom friends!” he muttered.
“Poor little June!” said young Jolyon softly. He thought of his
daughter still as a babe of three.
Old Jolyon came to a sudden halt.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” he said, “it’s some old woman’s
tale. Get me a cab, Jo, I’m tired to death!”
They stood at a corner to see if an empty cab would come along,
while carriage after carriage drove past, bearing Forsytes of all
descriptions from the Zoo. The harness, the liveries, the gloss
on the horses’ coats, shone and glittered in the May sunlight,
and each equipage, landau, sociable, barouche, Victoria, or
brougham, seemed to roll out proudly from its wheels:
“I and my horses and my men you know,
Indeed the whole turn-out have cost a pot.
But we were worth it every penny. Look
At Master and at Missis now, the dawgs!
Ease with security—ah! that’s the ticket!”
And such, as everyone knows, is fit accompaniment for a
perambulating Forsyte.
Amongst these carriages was a barouche coming at a greater pace
than the others, drawn by a pair of bright bay horses. It swung
on its high springs, and the four people who filled it seemed
rocked as in a cradle.
This chariot attracted young Jolyon’s attention; and suddenly, on
the back seat, he recognised his Uncle James, unmistakable in
spite of the increased whiteness of his whiskers; opposite, their
backs defended by sunshades, Rachel Forsyte and her elder but
married sister, Winifred Dartie, in irreproachable toilettes, had
posed their heads haughtily, like two of the birds they had been
seeing at the Zoo; while by James’ side reclined Dartie, in a
brand-new frock-coat buttoned tight and square, with a large
expanse of carefully shot linen protruding below each wristband.
An extra, if subdued, sparkle, an added touch of the best gloss
or varnish characterized this vehicle, and seemed to distinguish
it from all the others, as though by some happy extravagance—like
that which marks out the real “work of art” from the ordinary
“picture”—it were designated as the typical car, the very throne
of Forsytedom.
Old Jolyon did not see them pass; he was petting poor Holly who
was tired, but those in the carriage had taken in the little
group; the ladies’ heads tilted suddenly, there was a spasmodic
screening movement of parasols; James’ face protruded naively,
like the head of a long bird, his mouth slowly opening. The
shield-like rounds of the parasols grew smaller and smaller, and
vanished.
Young Jolyon saw that he had been recognised, even by Winifred,
who could not have been more than fifteen when he had forfeited
the right to be considered a Forsyte.
There was not much change in _them!_ He remembered the exact look
of their turn-out all that time ago: Horses, men, carriage—all
different now, no doubt—but of the precise stamp of fifteen years
before; the same neat display, the same nicely calculated
arrogance ease with security! The swing exact, the pose of the
sunshades exact, exact the spirit of the whole thing.
And in the sunlight, defended by the haughty shields of parasols,
carriage after carriage went by.
“Uncle James has just passed, with his female folk,” said young
Jolyon.
His father looked black. “Did your uncle see us? Yes? Hmph!
What’s _he_ want, coming down into these parts?”
An empty cab drove up at this moment, and old Jolyon stopped it.
“I shall see you again before long, my boy!” he said. “Don’t you
go paying any attention to what I’ve been saying about young
Bosinney—I don’t believe a word of it!”
Kissing the children, who tried to detain him, he stepped in and
was borne away.
Young Jolyon, who had taken Holly up in his arms, stood
motionless at the corner, looking after the cab.
CHAPTER VII AFTERNOON AT TIMOTHY’S
If old Jolyon, as he got into his cab, had said: “I _won’t_
believe a word of it!” he would more truthfully have expressed
his sentiments.
The notion that James and his womankind had seen him in the
company of his son had awakened in him not only the impatience he
always felt when crossed, but that secret hostility natural
between brothers, the roots of which—little nursery
rivalries—sometimes toughen and deepen as life goes on, and, all
hidden, support a plant capable of producing in season the
bitterest fruits.
Hitherto there had been between these six brothers no more
unfriendly feeling than that caused by the secret and natural
doubt that the others might be richer than themselves; a feeling
increased to the pitch of curiosity by the approach of death—that
end of all handicaps—and the great “closeness” of their man of
business, who, with some sagacity, would profess to Nicholas
ignorance of James’ income, to James ignorance of old Jolyon’s,
to Jolyon ignorance of Roger’s, to Roger ignorance of Swithin’s,
while to Swithin he would say most irritatingly that Nicholas
must be a rich man. Timothy alone was exempt, being in gilt-edged
securities.
But now, between two of them at least, had arisen a very
different sense of injury. From the moment when James had the
impertinence to pry into his affairs—as he put it—old Jolyon no
longer chose to credit this story about Bosinney. His
grand-daughter slighted through a member of “that fellow’s”
family! He made up his mind that Bosinney was maligned. There
must be some other reason for his defection.
June had flown out at him, or something; she was as touchy as she
could be!
He would, however, let Timothy have a bit of his mind, and see if
he would go on dropping hints! And he would not let the grass
grow under his feet either, he would go there at once, and take
very good care that he didn’t have to go again on the same
errand.
He saw James’ carriage blocking the pavement in front of “The
Bower”. So they had got there before him—cackling about having
seen him, he dared say! And further on, Swithin’s greys were
turning their noses towards the noses of James’ bays, as though
in conclave over the family, while their coachmen were in
conclave above.
Old Jolyon, depositing his hat on the chair in the narrow hall,
where that hat of Bosinney’s had so long ago been mistaken for a
cat, passed his thin hand grimly over his face with its great
drooping white moustaches, as though to remove all traces of
expression, and made his way upstairs.
He found the front drawing-room full. It was full enough at the
best of times—without visitors—without any one in it—for Timothy
and his sisters, following the tradition of their generation,
considered that a room was not quite “nice” unless it was
“properly” furnished. It held, therefore, eleven chairs, a sofa,
three tables, two cabinets, innumerable knicknacks, and part of a
large grand piano. And now, occupied by Mrs. Small, Aunt Hester,
by Swithin, James, Rachel, Winifred, Euphemia, who had come in
again to return “Passion and Paregoric” which she had read at
lunch, and her chum Frances, Roger’s daughter (the musical
Forsyte, the one who composed songs), there was only one chair
left unoccupied, except, of course, the two that nobody ever sat
on—and the only standing room was occupied by the cat, on whom
old Jolyon promptly stepped.
In these days it was by no means unusual for Timothy to have so
many visitors. The family had always, one and all, had a real
respect for Aunt Ann, and now that she was gone, they were coming
far more frequently to The Bower, and staying longer.
Swithin had been the first to arrive, and seated torpid in a red
satin chair with a gilt back, he gave every appearance of lasting
the others out. And symbolizing Bosinney’s name “the big one,”
with his great stature and bulk, his thick white hair, his puffy
immovable shaven face, he looked more primeval than ever in the
highly upholstered room.
His conversation, as usual of late, had turned at once upon
Irene, and he had lost no time in giving Aunts Juley and Hester
his opinion with regard to this rumour he heard was going about.
No—as he said—she might want a bit of flirtation—a pretty woman
must have her fling; but more than that he did not believe.
Nothing open; she had too much good sense, too much proper
appreciation of what was due to her position, and to the family!
No sc—, he was going to say “scandal” but the very idea was so
preposterous that he waved his hand as though to say—“but let
that pass!”
Granted that Swithin took a bachelor’s view of the
situation—still what indeed was not due to that family in which
so many had done so well for themselves, had attained a certain
position? If he _had_ heard in dark, pessimistic moments the
words “yeomen” and “very small beer” used in connection with his
origin, did he believe them?
No! he cherished, hugging it pathetically to his bosom the secret
theory that there was something distinguished somewhere in his
ancestry.
“Must be,” he once said to young Jolyon, before the latter went
to the bad. “Look at us, _we’ve_ got on! There must be good blood
in us somewhere.”
He had been fond of young Jolyon: the boy had been in a good set
at College, had known that old ruffian Sir Charles Fiste’s sons—a
pretty rascal one of them had turned out, too; and there was
style about him—it was a thousand pities he had run off with that
half-foreign governess! If he must go off like that why couldn’t
he have chosen someone who would have done them credit! And what
was he now?—an underwriter at Lloyd’s; they said he even painted
pictures—pictures! Damme! he might have ended as Sir Jolyon
Forsyte, Bart., with a seat in Parliament, and a place in the
country!
It was Swithin who, following the impulse which sooner or later
urges thereto some member of every great family, went to the
Heralds’ Office, where they assured him that he was undoubtedly
of the same family as the well-known Forsites with an “i,” whose
arms were “three dexter buckles on a sable ground gules,” hoping
no doubt to get him to take them up.
Swithin, however, did not do this, but having ascertained that
the crest was a “pheasant proper,” and the motto “For Forsite,”
he had the pheasant proper placed upon his carriage and the
buttons of his coachman, and both crest and motto on his
writing-paper. The arms he hugged to himself, partly because, not
having paid for them, he thought it would look ostentatious to
put them on his carriage, and he hated ostentation, and partly
because he, like any practical man all over the country, had a
secret dislike and contempt for things he could not understand he
found it hard, as anyone might, to swallow “three dexter buckles
on a sable ground gules.”
He never forgot, however, their having told him that if he paid
for them he would be entitled to use them, and it strengthened
his conviction that he was a gentleman. Imperceptibly the rest of
the family absorbed the “pheasant proper,” and some, more serious
than others, adopted the motto; old Jolyon, however, refused to
use the latter, saying that it was humbug meaning nothing, so far
as he could see.
Among the older generation it was perhaps known at bottom from
what great historical event they derived their crest; and if
pressed on the subject, sooner than tell a lie—they did not like
telling lies, having an impression that only Frenchmen and
Russians told them—they would confess hurriedly that Swithin had
got hold of it somehow.
Among the younger generation the matter was wrapped in a
discretion proper. They did not want to hurt the feelings of
their elders, nor to feel ridiculous themselves; they simply used
the crest....
“No,” said Swithin, “he had had an opportunity of seeing for
himself, and what he should say was, that there was nothing in
her manner to that young Buccaneer or Bosinney or whatever his
name was, different from her manner to himself; in fact, he
should rather say....” But here the entrance of Frances and
Euphemia put an unfortunate stop to the conversation, for this
was not a subject which could be discussed before young people.
And though Swithin was somewhat upset at being stopped like this
on the point of saying something important, he soon recovered his
affability. He was rather fond of Frances—Francie, as she was
called in the family. She was so smart, and they told him she
made a pretty little pot of pin-money by her songs; he called it
very clever of her.
He rather prided himself indeed on a liberal attitude towards
women, not seeing any reason why they shouldn’t paint pictures,
or write tunes, or books even, for the matter of that, especially
if they could turn a useful penny by it; not at all—kept them out
of mischief. It was not as if they were men!
“Little Francie,” as she was usually called with good-natured
contempt, was an important personage, if only as a standing
illustration of the attitude of Forsytes towards the Arts. She
was not really “little,” but rather tall, with dark hair for a
Forsyte, which, together with a grey eye, gave her what was
called “a Celtic appearance.” She wrote songs with titles like
“Breathing Sighs,” or “Kiss me, Mother, ere I die,” with a
refrain like an anthem:
“Kiss me, Mother, ere I die;
Kiss me-kiss me, Mother, ah!
Kiss, ah! kiss me e-ere I—
Kiss me, Mother, ere I d-d-die!”
She wrote the words to them herself, and other poems. In lighter
moments she wrote waltzes, one of which, the “Kensington Coil,”
was almost national to Kensington, having a sweet dip in it.
Thus:
It was very original. Then there were her “Songs for Little
People,” at once educational and witty, especially “Gran’ma’s
Porgie,” and that ditty, almost prophetically imbued with the
coming Imperial spirit, entitled “Black Him In His Little Eye.”
Any publisher would take these, and reviews like “High Living,”
and the “Ladies’ Genteel Guide” went into raptures over: “Another
of Miss Francie Forsyte’s spirited ditties, sparkling and
pathetic. We ourselves were moved to tears and laughter. Miss
Forsyte should go far.”
With the true instinct of her breed, Francie had made a point of
knowing the right people—people who would write about her, and
talk about her, and people in Society, too—keeping a mental
register of just where to exert her fascinations, and an eye on
that steady scale of rising prices, which in her mind’s eye
represented the future. In this way she caused herself to be
universally respected.
Once, at a time when her emotions were whipped by an
attachment—for the tenor of Roger’s life, with its whole-hearted
collection of house property, had induced in his only daughter a
tendency towards passion—she turned to great and sincere work,
choosing the sonata form, for the violin. This was the only one
of her productions that troubled the Forsytes. They felt at once
that it would not sell.
Roger, who liked having a clever daughter well enough, and often
alluded to the amount of pocket-money she made for herself, was
upset by this violin sonata.
“Rubbish like that!” he called it. Francie had borrowed young
Flageoletti from Euphemia, to play it in the drawing-room at
Prince’s Gardens.
As a matter of fact Roger was right. It was rubbish,
but—annoying! the sort of rubbish that wouldn’t sell. As every
Forsyte knows, rubbish that sells is not rubbish at all—far from
it.
And yet, in spite of the sound common sense which fixed the worth
of art at what it would fetch, some of the Forsytes—Aunt Hester,
for instance, who had always been musical—could not help
regretting that Francie’s music was not “classical”. the same
with her poems. But then, as Aunt Hester said, they didn’t see
any poetry nowadays, all the poems were “little light things.”
There was nobody who could write a poem like “Paradise Lost,” or
“Childe Harold”; either of which made you feel that you really
had read something. Still, it was nice for Francie to have
something to occupy her; while other girls were spending money
shopping she was making it!
And both Aunt Hester and Aunt Juley were always ready to listen
to the latest story of how Francie had got her price increased.
They listened now, together with Swithin, who sat pretending not
to, for these young people talked so fast and mumbled so, he
never could catch what they said.
“And I can’t think,” said Mrs. Septimus, “how you do it. I should
never have the audacity!”
Francie smiled lightly. “I’d much rather deal with a man than a
woman. Women are so sharp!”
“My dear,” cried Mrs. Small, “I’m sure we’re not.”
Euphemia went off into her silent laugh, and, ending with the
squeak, said, as though being strangled: “Oh, you’ll kill me some
day, auntie.”
Swithin saw no necessity to laugh; he detested people laughing
when he himself perceived no joke. Indeed, he detested Euphemia
altogether, to whom he always alluded as “Nick’s daughter, what’s
she called—the pale one?” He had just missed being her
god-father—indeed, would have been, had he not taken a firm stand
against her outlandish name. He hated becoming a godfather.
Swithin then said to Francie with dignity: “It’s a fine
day—er—for the time of year.” But Euphemia, who knew perfectly
well that he had refused to be her godfather, turned to Aunt
Hester, and began telling her how she had seen Irene—Mrs.
Soames—at the Church and Commercial Stores.
“And Soames was with her?” said Aunt Hester, to whom Mrs. Small
had as yet had no opportunity of relating the incident.
“_Soames_ with her? Of _course_ not!”
“But was she all alone in London?”
“Oh, no; there was Mr. Bosinney with her. She was _perfectly_
dressed.”
But Swithin, hearing the name Irene, looked severely at Euphemia,
who, it is true, never did look well in a dress, whatever she may
have done on other occasions, and said:
“Dressed like a lady, I’ve no doubt. It’s a pleasure to see her.”
At this moment James and his daughters were announced. Dartie,
feeling badly in want of a drink, had pleaded an appointment with
his dentist, and, being put down at the Marble Arch, had got into
a hansom, and was already seated in the window of his club in
Piccadilly.
His wife, he told his cronies, had wanted to take him to pay some
calls. It was not in his line—not exactly. Haw!
Hailing the waiter, he sent him out to the hall to see what had
won the 4.30 race. He was dog-tired, he said, and that was a
fact; had been drivin’ about with his wife to “shows” all the
afternoon. Had put his foot down at last. A fellow must live his
own life.
At this moment, glancing out of the bay window—for he loved this
seat whence he could see everybody pass—his eye unfortunately, or
perhaps fortunately, chanced to light on the figure of Soames,
who was mousing across the road from the Green Park-side, with
the evident intention of coming in, for he, too, belonged to “The
Iseeum.”
Dartie sprang to his feet; grasping his glass, he muttered
something about “that 4.30 race,” and swiftly withdrew to the
card-room, where Soames never came. Here, in complete isolation
and a dim light, he lived his own life till half past seven, by
which hour he knew Soames must certainly have left the club.
It would not do, as he kept repeating to himself whenever he felt
the impulse to join the gossips in the bay-window getting too
strong for him—it absolutely would not do, with finances as low
as his, and the “old man” (James) rusty ever since that business
over the oil shares, which was no fault of his, to risk a row
with Winifred.
If Soames were to see him in the club it would be sure to come
round to her that he wasn’t at the dentist’s at all. He never
knew a family where things “came round” so. Uneasily, amongst the
green baize card-tables, a frown on his olive coloured face, his
check trousers crossed, and patent-leather boots shining through
the gloom, he sat biting his forefinger, and wondering where the
deuce he was to get the money if Erotic failed to win the
Lancashire Cup.
His thoughts turned gloomily to the Forsytes. What a set they
were! There was no getting anything out of them—at least, it was
a matter of extreme difficulty. They were so d—-d particular
about money matters; not a sportsman amongst the lot, unless it
were George. That fellow Soames, for instance, would have a fit
if you tried to borrow a tenner from him, or, if he didn’t have a
fit, he looked at you with his cursed supercilious smile, as if
you were a lost soul because you were in want of money.
And that wife of his (Dartie’s mouth watered involuntarily), he
had tried to be on good terms with her, as one naturally would
with any pretty sister-in-law, but he would be cursed if the (he
mentally used a coarse word)—would have anything to say to
him—she looked at him, indeed, as if he were dirt—and yet she
could go far enough, he wouldn’t mind betting. He knew women;
they weren’t made with soft eyes and figures like that for
nothing, as that fellow Soames would jolly soon find out, if
there were anything in what he had heard about this Buccaneer
Johnny.
Rising from his chair, Dartie took a turn across the room, ending
in front of the looking-glass over the marble chimney-piece; and
there he stood for a long time contemplating in the glass the
reflection of his face. It had that look, peculiar to some men,
of having been steeped in linseed oil, with its waxed dark
moustaches and the little distinguished commencements of side
whiskers; and concernedly he felt the promise of a pimple on the
side of his slightly curved and fattish nose.
In the meantime old Jolyon had found the remaining chair in
Timothy’s commodious drawing-room. His advent had obviously put a
stop to the conversation, decided awkwardness having set in. Aunt
Juley, with her well-known kindheartedness, hastened to set
people at their ease again.
“Yes, Jolyon,” she said, “we were just saying that you haven’t
been here for a long time; but we mustn’t be surprised. You’re
busy, of course? James was just saying what a busy time of
year....”
“Was he?” said old Jolyon, looking hard at James. “It wouldn’t be
half so busy if everybody minded their own business.”
James, brooding in a small chair from which his knees ran uphill,
shifted his feet uneasily, and put one of them down on the cat,
which had unwisely taken refuge from old Jolyon beside him.
“Here, you’ve got a cat here,” he said in an injured voice,
withdrawing his foot nervously as he felt it squeezing into the
soft, furry body.
“Several,” said old Jolyon, looking at one face and another; “I
trod on one just now.”
A silence followed.
Then Mrs. Small, twisting her fingers and gazing round with
“pathetic calm”, asked: “And how is dear June?”
A twinkle of humour shot through the sternness of old Jolyon’s
eyes. Extraordinary old woman, Juley! No one quite like her for
saying the wrong thing!
“Bad!” he said; “London don’t agree with her—too many people
about, too much clatter and chatter by half.” He laid emphasis on
the words, and again looked James in the face.
Nobody spoke.
A feeling of its being too dangerous to take a step in any
direction, or hazard any remark, had fallen on them all.
Something of the sense of the impending, that comes over the
spectator of a Greek tragedy, had entered that upholstered room,
filled with those white-haired, frock-coated old men, and
fashionably attired women, who were all of the same blood,
between all of whom existed an unseizable resemblance.
Not that they were conscious of it—the visits of such fateful,
bitter spirits are only felt.
Then Swithin rose. He would not sit there, feeling like that—he
was not to be put down by anyone! And, manoeuvring round the room
with added pomp, he shook hands with each separately.
“You tell Timothy from me,” he said, “that he coddles himself too
much!” Then, turning to Francie, whom he considered “smart,” he
added: “You come with me for a drive one of these days.” But this
conjured up the vision of that other eventful drive which had
been so much talked about, and he stood quite still for a second,
with glassy eyes, as though waiting to catch up with the
significance of what he himself had said; then, suddenly
recollecting that he didn’t care a damn, he turned to old Jolyon:
“Well, good-bye, Jolyon! You shouldn’t go about without an
overcoat; you’ll be getting sciatica or something!” And, kicking
the cat slightly with the pointed tip of his patent leather boot,
he took his huge form away.
When he had gone everyone looked secretly at the others, to see
how they had taken the mention of the word “drive”—the word which
had become famous, and acquired an overwhelming importance, as
the only official—so to speak—news in connection with the vague
and sinister rumour clinging to the family tongue.
Euphemia, yielding to an impulse, said with a short laugh: “I’m
glad Uncle Swithin doesn’t ask me to go for drives.”
Mrs. Small, to reassure her and smooth over any little
awkwardness the subject might have, replied: “My dear, he likes
to take somebody well dressed, who will do him a little credit. I
shall never forget the drive he took me. It was an experience!”
And her chubby round old face was spread for a moment with a
strange contentment; then broke into pouts, and tears came into
her eyes. She was thinking of that long ago driving tour she had
once taken with Septimus Small.
James, who had relapsed into his nervous brooding in the little
chair, suddenly roused himself: “He’s a funny fellow, Swithin,”
he said, but in a half-hearted way.
Old Jolyon’s silence, his stern eyes, held them all in a kind of
paralysis. He was disconcerted himself by the effect of his own
words—an effect which seemed to deepen the importance of the very
rumour he had come to scotch; but he was still angry.
He had not done with them yet—No, no—he would give them another
rub or two.
He did not wish to rub his nieces, he had no quarrel with them—a
young and presentable female always appealed to old Jolyon’s
clemency—but that fellow James, and, in a less degree perhaps,
those others, deserved all they would get. And he, too, asked for
Timothy.
As though feeling that some danger threatened her younger
brother, Aunt Juley suddenly offered him tea: “There it is,” she
said, “all cold and nasty, waiting for you in the back drawing
room, but Smither shall make you some fresh.”
Old Jolyon rose: “Thank you,” he said, looking straight at James,
“but I’ve no time for tea, and—scandal, and the rest of it! It’s
time I was at home. Good-bye, Julia; good-bye, Hester; good-bye,
Winifred.”
Without more ceremonious adieux, he marched out.
Once again in his cab, his anger evaporated, for so it ever was
with his wrath—when he had rapped out, it was gone. Sadness came
over his spirit. He had stopped their mouths, maybe, but at what
a cost! At the cost of certain knowledge that the rumour he had
been resolved not to believe was true. June was abandoned, and
for the wife of that fellow’s son! He felt it was true, and
hardened himself to treat it as if it were not; but the pain he
hid beneath this resolution began slowly, surely, to vent itself
in a blind resentment against James and his son.
The six women and one man left behind in the little drawing-room
began talking as easily as might be after such an occurrence, for
though each one of them knew for a fact that he or she never
talked scandal, each one of them also knew that the other six
did; all were therefore angry and at a loss. James only was
silent, disturbed, to the bottom of his soul.
Presently Francie said: “Do you know, I think Uncle Jolyon is
terribly changed this last year. What do you think, Aunt Hester?”
Aunt Hester made a little movement of recoil: “Oh, ask your Aunt
Julia!” she said; “I know nothing about it.”
No one else was afraid of assenting, and James muttered gloomily
at the floor: “He’s not half the man he was.”
“I’ve noticed it a long time,” went on Francie; “he’s aged
tremendously.”
Aunt Juley shook her head; her face seemed suddenly to have
become one immense pout.
“Poor dear Jolyon,” she said, “somebody ought to see to it for
him!”
There was again silence; then, as though in terror of being left
solitarily behind, all five visitors rose simultaneously, and
took their departure.
Mrs. Small, Aunt Hester, and their cat were left once more alone,
the sound of a door closing in the distance announced the
approach of Timothy.
That evening, when Aunt Hester had just got off to sleep in the
back bedroom that used to be Aunt Juley’s before Aunt Juley took
Aunt Ann’s, her door was opened, and Mrs. Small, in a pink
night-cap, a candle in her hand, entered: “Hester!” she said.
“Hester!”
Aunt Hester faintly rustled the sheet.
“Hester,” repeated Aunt Juley, to make quite sure that she had
awakened her, “I am quite troubled about poor dear Jolyon.
_What_,” Aunt Juley dwelt on the word, “do you think ought to be
done?”
Aunt Hester again rustled the sheet, her voice was heard faintly
pleading: “Done? How should I know?”
Aunt Juley turned away satisfied, and closing the door with extra
gentleness so as not to disturb dear Hester, let it slip through
her fingers and fall to with a “crack.”
Back in her own room, she stood at the window gazing at the moon
over the trees in the Park, through a chink in the muslin
curtains, close drawn lest anyone should see. And there, with her
face all round and pouting in its pink cap, and her eyes wet, she
thought of “dear Jolyon,” so old and so lonely, and how she could
be of some use to him; and how he would come to love her, as she
had never been loved since—since poor Septimus went away.
CHAPTER VIII DANCE AT ROGER’S
Roger’s house in Prince’s Gardens was brilliantly alight. Large
numbers of wax candles had been collected and placed in cut-glass
chandeliers, and the parquet floor of the long, double
drawing-room reflected these constellations. An appearance of
real spaciousness had been secured by moving out all the
furniture on to the upper landings, and enclosing the room with
those strange appendages of civilization known as “rout” seats.
In a remote corner, embowered in palms, was a cottage piano, with
a copy of the “Kensington Coil” open on the music-stand.
Roger had objected to a band. He didn’t see in the least what
they wanted with a band; he wouldn’t go to the expense, and there
was an end of it. Francie (her mother, whom Roger had long since
reduced to chronic dyspepsia, went to bed on such occasions), had
been obliged to content herself with supplementing the piano by a
young man who played the cornet, and she so arranged with palms
that anyone who did not look into the heart of things might
imagine there were several musicians secreted there. She made up
her mind to tell them to play loud—there was a lot of music in a
cornet, if the man would only put his soul into it.
In the more cultivated American tongue, she was “through” at
last—through that tortuous labyrinth of make-shifts, which must
be traversed before fashionable display can be combined with the
sound economy of a Forsyte. Thin but brilliant, in her
maize-coloured frock with much tulle about the shoulders, she
went from place to place, fitting on her gloves, and casting her
eye over it all.
To the hired butler (for Roger only kept maids) she spoke about
the wine. Did he quite understand that Mr. Forsyte wished a dozen
bottles of the champagne from Whiteley’s to be put out? But if
that were finished (she did not suppose it would be, most of the
ladies would drink water, no doubt), but if it were, there was
the champagne cup, and he must do the best he could with that.
She hated having to say this sort of thing to a butler, it was so
_infra dig.;_ but what could you do with father? Roger, indeed,
after making himself consistently disagreeable about the dance,
would come down presently, with his fresh colour and bumpy
forehead, as though he had been its promoter; and he would smile,
and probably take the prettiest woman in to supper; and at two
o’clock, just as they were getting into the swing, he would go up
secretly to the musicians and tell them to play “God Save the
Queen,” and go away.
Francie devoutly hoped he might soon get tired, and slip off to
bed.
The three or four devoted girl friends who were staying in the
house for this dance had partaken with her, in a small, abandoned
room upstairs, of tea and cold chicken-legs, hurriedly served;
the men had been sent out to dine at Eustace’s Club, it being
felt that they must be fed up.
Punctually on the stroke of nine arrived Mrs. Small alone. She
made elaborate apologies for the absence of Timothy, omitting all
mention of Aunt Hester, who, at the last minute, had said she
could not be bothered. Francie received her effusively, and
placed her on a rout seat, where she left her, pouting and
solitary in lavender-coloured satin—the first time she had worn
colour since Aunt Ann’s death.
The devoted maiden friends came now from their rooms, each by
magic arrangement in a differently coloured frock, but all with
the same liberal allowance of tulle on the shoulders and at the
bosom—for they were, by some fatality, lean to a girl. They were
all taken up to Mrs. Small. None stayed with her more than a few
seconds, but clustering together talked and twisted their
programmes, looking secretly at the door for the first appearance
of a man.
Then arrived in a group a number of Nicholases, always
punctual—the fashion up Ladbroke Grove way; and close behind them
Eustace and his men, gloomy and smelling rather of smoke.
Three or four of Francie’s lovers now appeared, one after the
other; she had made each promise to come early. They were all
clean-shaven and sprightly, with that peculiar kind of young-man
sprightliness which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not
seem to mind each other’s presence in the least, and wore their
ties bunching out at the ends, white waistcoats, and socks with
clocks. All had handkerchiefs concealed in their cuffs. They
moved buoyantly, each armoured in professional gaiety, as though
he had come to do great deeds. Their faces when they danced, far
from wearing the traditional solemn look of the dancing
Englishman, were irresponsible, charming, suave; they bounded,
twirling their partners at great pace, without pedantic attention
to the rhythm of the music.
At other dancers they looked with a kind of airy scorn—they, the
light brigade, the heroes of a hundred Kensington “hops”—from
whom alone could the right manner and smile and step be hoped.
After this the stream came fast; chaperones silting up along the
wall facing the entrance, the volatile element swelling the eddy
in the larger room.
Men were scarce, and wallflowers wore their peculiar, pathetic
expression, a patient, sourish smile which seemed to say: “Oh,
no! don’t mistake me, _I_ know you are not coming up to me. I can
hardly expect that!” And Francie would plead with one of her
lovers, or with some callow youth: “Now, to please me, do let me
introduce you to Miss Pink; such a nice girl, really!” and she
would bring him up, and say: “Miss Pink—Mr. Gathercole. Can you
spare him a dance?” Then Miss Pink, smiling her forced smile,
colouring a little, answered: “Oh! I think so!” and screening her
empty card, wrote on it the name of Gathercole, spelling it
passionately in the district that he proposed, about the second
extra.
But when the youth had murmured that it was hot, and passed, she
relapsed into her attitude of hopeless expectation, into her
patient, sourish smile.
Mothers, slowly fanning their faces, watched their daughters, and
in their eyes could be read all the story of those daughters’
fortunes. As for themselves, to sit hour after hour, dead tired,
silent, or talking spasmodically—what did it matter, so long as
the girls were having a good time! But to see them neglected and
passed by! Ah! they smiled, but their eyes stabbed like the eyes
of an offended swan; they longed to pluck young Gathercole by the
slack of his dandified breeches, and drag him to their
daughters—the jackanapes!
And all the cruelties and hardness of life, its pathos and
unequal chances, its conceit, self-forgetfulness, and patience,
were presented on the battle-field of this Kensington ball-room.
Here and there, too, lovers—not lovers like Francie’s, a peculiar
breed, but simply lovers—trembling, blushing, silent, sought each
other by flying glances, sought to meet and touch in the mazes of
the dance, and now and again dancing together, struck some
beholder by the light in their eyes.
Not a second before ten o’clock came the Jameses—Emily, Rachel,
Winifred (Dartie had been left behind, having on a former
occasion drunk too much of Roger’s champagne), and Cicely, the
youngest, making her debut; behind them, following in a hansom
from the paternal mansion where they had dined, Soames and Irene.
All these ladies had shoulder-straps and no tulle—thus showing at
once, by a bolder exposure of flesh, that they came from the more
fashionable side of the Park.
Soames, sidling back from the contact of the dancers, took up a
position against the wall. Guarding himself with his pale smile,
he stood watching. Waltz after waltz began and ended, couple
after couple brushed by with smiling lips, laughter, and snatches
of talk; or with set lips, and eyes searching the throng; or
again, with silent, parted lips, and eyes on each other. And the
scent of festivity, the odour of flowers, and hair, of essences
that women love, rose suffocatingly in the heat of the summer
night.
Silent, with something of scorn in his smile, Soames seemed to
notice nothing; but now and again his eyes, finding that which
they sought, would fix themselves on a point in the shifting
throng, and the smile die off his lips.
He danced with no one. Some fellows danced with their wives; his
sense of “form” had never permitted him to dance with Irene since
their marriage, and the God of the Forsytes alone can tell
whether this was a relief to him or not.
She passed, dancing with other men, her dress, iris-coloured,
floating away from her feet. She danced well; he was tired of
hearing women say with an acid smile: “How beautifully your wife
dances, Mr. Forsyte—it’s quite a pleasure to watch her!” Tired of
answering them with his sidelong glance: “You think so?”
A young couple close by flirted a fan by turns, making an
unpleasant draught. Francie and one of her lovers stood near.
They were talking of love.
He heard Roger’s voice behind, giving an order about supper to a
servant. Everything was very second-class! He wished that he had
not come! He had asked Irene whether she wanted him; she had
answered with that maddening smile of hers “Oh, no!”
Why _had_ he come? For the last quarter of an hour he had not
even seen her. Here was George advancing with his Quilpish face;
it was too late to get out of his way.
“Have you seen ‘The Buccaneer’.” said this licensed wag; “he’s on
the warpath—hair cut and everything!”
Soames said he had not, and crossing the room, half-empty in an
interval of the dance, he went out on the balcony, and looked
down into the street.
A carriage had driven up with late arrivals, and round the door
hung some of those patient watchers of the London streets who
spring up to the call of light or music; their faces, pale and
upturned above their black and rusty figures, had an air of
stolid watching that annoyed Soames. Why were they allowed to
hang about; why didn’t the bobby move them on?
But the policeman took no notice of them; his feet were planted
apart on the strip of crimson carpet stretched across the
pavement; his face, under the helmet, wore the same stolid,
watching look as theirs.
Across the road, through the railings, Soames could see the
branches of trees shining, faintly stirring in the breeze, by the
gleam of the street lamps; beyond, again, the upper lights of the
houses on the other side, so many eyes looking down on the quiet
blackness of the garden; and over all, the sky, that wonderful
London sky, dusted with the innumerable reflection of countless
lamps; a dome woven over between its stars with the refraction of
human needs and human fancies—immense mirror of pomp and misery
that night after night stretches its kindly mocking over miles of
houses and gardens, mansions and squalor, over Forsytes,
policemen, and patient watchers in the streets.
Soames turned away, and, hidden in the recess, gazed into the
lighted room. It was cooler out there. He saw the new arrivals,
June and her grandfather, enter. What had made them so late? They
stood by the doorway. They looked fagged. Fancy Uncle Jolyon
turning out at this time of night! Why hadn’t June come to Irene,
as she usually did, and it occurred to him suddenly that he had
seen nothing of June for a long time now.
Watching her face with idle malice, he saw it change, grow so
pale that he thought she would drop, then flame out crimson.
Turning to see at what she was looking, he saw his wife on
Bosinney’s arm, coming from the conservatory at the end of the
room. Her eyes were raised to his, as though answering some
question he had asked, and he was gazing at her intently.
Soames looked again at June. Her hand rested on old Jolyon’s arm;
she seemed to be making a request. He saw a surprised look on his
uncle’s face; they turned and passed through the door out of his
sight.
The music began again—a waltz—and, still as a statue in the
recess of the window, his face unmoved, but no smile on his lips,
Soames waited. Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his
wife and Bosinney passed. He caught the perfume of the gardenias
that she wore, saw the rise and fall of her bosom, the languor in
her eyes, her parted lips, and a look on her face that he did not
know. To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and it seemed
to him that they clung to each other; he saw her raise her eyes,
soft and dark, to Bosinney’s, and drop them again.
Very white, he turned back to the balcony, and leaning on it,
gazed down on the Square; the figures were still there looking up
at the light with dull persistency, the policeman’s face, too,
upturned, and staring, but he saw nothing of them. Below, a
carriage drew up, two figures got in, and drove away....
That evening June and old Jolyon sat down to dinner at the usual
hour. The girl was in her customary high-necked frock, old Jolyon
had not dressed.
At breakfast she had spoken of the dance at Uncle Roger’s, she
wanted to go; she had been stupid enough, she said, not to think
of asking anyone to take her. It was too late now.
Old Jolyon lifted his keen eyes. June was used to go to dances
with Irene as a matter of course! and deliberately fixing his
gaze on her, he asked: “Why don’t you get Irene?”
No! June did not want to ask Irene; she would only go if—if her
grandfather wouldn’t mind just for once for a little time!
At her look, so eager and so worn, old Jolyon had grumblingly
consented. He did not know what she wanted, he said, with going
to a dance like this, a poor affair, he would wager; and she no
more fit for it than a cat! What she wanted was sea air, and
after his general meeting of the Globular Gold Concessions he was
ready to take her. She didn’t want to go away? Ah! she would
knock herself up! Stealing a mournful look at her, he went on
with his breakfast.
June went out early, and wandered restlessly about in the heat.
Her little light figure that lately had moved so languidly about
its business, was all on fire. She bought herself some flowers.
She wanted—she meant to look her best. _He_ would be there! She
knew well enough that he had a card. She would show him that she
did not care. But deep down in her heart she resolved that
evening to win him back. She came in flushed, and talked brightly
all lunch; old Jolyon was there, and he was deceived.
In the afternoon she was overtaken by a desperate fit of sobbing.
She strangled the noise against the pillows of her bed, but when
at last it ceased she saw in the glass a swollen face with
reddened eyes, and violet circles round them. She stayed in the
darkened room till dinner time.
All through that silent meal the struggle went on within her.
She looked so shadowy and exhausted that old Jolyon told “Sankey”
to countermand the carriage, he would not have her going out....
She was to go to bed! She made no resistance. She went up to her
room, and sat in the dark. At ten o’clock she rang for her maid.
“Bring some hot water, and go down and tell Mr. Forsyte that I
feel perfectly rested. Say that if he’s too tired I can go to the
dance by myself.”
The maid looked askance, and June turned on her imperiously.
“Go,” she said, “bring the hot water at once!”
Her ball-dress still lay on the sofa, and with a sort of fierce
care she arrayed herself, took the flowers in her hand, and went
down, her small face carried high under its burden of hair. She
could hear old Jolyon in his room as she passed.
Bewildered and vexed, he was dressing. It was past ten, they
would not get there till eleven; the girl was mad. But he dared
not cross her—the expression of her face at dinner haunted him.
With great ebony brushes he smoothed his hair till it shone like
silver under the light; then he, too, came out on the gloomy
staircase.
June met him below, and, without a word, they went to the
carriage.
When, after that drive which seemed to last for ever, she entered
Roger’s drawing-room, she disguised under a mask of resolution a
very torment of nervousness and emotion. The feeling of shame at
what might be called “running after him” was smothered by the
dread that he might not be there, that she might not see him
after all, and by that dogged resolve—somehow, she did not know
how—to win him back.
The sight of the ballroom, with its gleaming floor, gave her a
feeling of joy, of triumph, for she loved dancing, and when
dancing she floated, so light was she, like a strenuous, eager
little spirit. He would surely ask her to dance, and if he danced
with her it would all be as it was before. She looked about her
eagerly.
The sight of Bosinney coming with Irene from the conservatory,
with that strange look of utter absorption on his face, struck
her too suddenly. They had not seen—no one should see—her
distress, not even her grandfather.
She put her hand on Jolyon’s arm, and said very low:
“I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”
He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he had known how
it would be.
To her he said nothing; only when they were once more in the
carriage, which by some fortunate chance had lingered near the
door, he asked her: “What is it, my darling?”
Feeling her whole slender body shaken by sobs, he was terribly
alarmed. She must have Blank to-morrow. He would insist upon it.
He could not have her like this.... There, there!
June mastered her sobs, and squeezing his hand feverishly, she
lay back in her corner, her face muffled in a shawl.
He could only see her eyes, fixed and staring in the dark, but he
did not cease to stroke her hand with his thin fingers.
CHAPTER IX EVENING AT RICHMOND
Other eyes besides the eyes of June and of Soames had seen “those
two” (as Euphemia had already begun to call them) coming from the
conservatory; other eyes had noticed the look on Bosinney’s face.
There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath
the careless calm of her ordinary moods—violent spring flashing
white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy,
moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate
blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing
dark guardian of some fiery secret.
There are moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted
by the casual spectator as “* * *Titian—remarkably fine,” breaks
through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than
his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There
are things, he feels—there are things here which—well, which are
things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he
tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it
eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is
slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He
feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue
has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse of what lay
under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he should
know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he
should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit
that, and where was he? One paid a shilling for entrance, and
another for the programme.
The look which June had seen, which other Forsytes had seen, was
like the sudden flashing of a candle through a hole in some
imaginary canvas, behind which it was being moved—the sudden
flaming-out of a vague, erratic glow, shadowy and enticing. It
brought home to onlookers the consciousness that dangerous forces
were at work. For a moment they noticed it with pleasure, with
interest, then felt they must not notice it at all.
It supplied, however, the reason of Jun’s coming so late and
disappearing again without dancing, without even shaking hands
with her lover. She was ill, it was said, and no wonder.
But here they looked at each other guiltily. They had no desire
to spread scandal, no desire to be ill-natured. Who would have?
And to outsiders no word was breathed, unwritten law keeping them
silent.
Then came the news that June had gone to the seaside with old
Jolyon.
He had carried her off to Broadstairs, for which place there was
just then a feeling, Yarmouth having lost caste, in spite of
Nicholas, and no Forsyte going to the sea without intending to
have an air for his money such as would render him bilious in a
week. That fatally aristocratic tendency of the first Forsyte to
drink Madeira had left his descendants undoubtedly accessible.
So June went to the sea. The family awaited developments; there
was nothing else to do.
But how far—how far had “those two” gone? How far were they going
to go? Could they really be going at all? Nothing could surely
come of it, for neither of them had any money. At the most a
flirtation, ending, as all such attachments should, at the proper
time.
Soames’s sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed with the
breezes of Mayfair—she lived in Green Street—more fashionable
principles in regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current,
for instance, in Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea of there
being anything in it. The “little thing”—Irene was taller than
herself, and it was real testimony to the solid worth of a
Forsyte that she should always thus be a “little thing”—the
little thing was bored. Why shouldn’t she amuse herself? Soames
was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney—only that buffoon
George would have called him the Buccaneer—she maintained that he
was very _chic_.
This dictum—that Bosinney was _chic_—caused quite a sensation. It
failed to convince. That he was “good-looking in a way” they were
prepared to admit, but that anyone could call a man with his
pronounced cheekbones, curious eyes, and soft felt hats _chic_
was only another instance of Winifred’s extravagant way of
running after something new.
It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable, when
the very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees spread with
blossom, and flowers drenched in perfume, as they had never been
before; when roses blew in every garden; and for the swarming
stars the nights had hardly space; when every day and all day
long the sun, in full armour, swung his brazen shield above the
Park, and people did strange things, lunching and dining in the
open air. Unprecedented was the tale of cabs and carriages that
streamed across the bridges of the shining river, bearing the
upper-middle class in thousands to the green glories of Bushey,
Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every family with any
pretensions to be of the carriage-class paid one visit that year
to the horse-chestnuts at Bushey, or took one drive amongst the
Spanish chestnuts of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily,
along, in a cloud of their own creation, they would stare
fashionably at the antlered heads which the great slow deer
raised out of a forest of bracken that promised to autumn lovers
such cover as was never seen before. And now and again, as the
amorous perfume of chestnut flowers and of fern was drifted too
near, one would say to the other: “My dear! What a peculiar
scent!”
And the lime-flowers that year were of rare prime, near
honey-coloured. At the corners of London squares they gave out,
as the sun went down, a perfume sweeter than the honey bees had
taken—a perfume that stirred a yearning unnamable in the hearts
of Forsytes and their peers, taking the cool after dinner in the
precincts of those gardens to which they alone had keys.
And that yearning made them linger amidst the dim shapes of
flower-beds in the failing daylight, made them turn, and turn,
and turn again, as though lovers were waiting for them—waiting
for the last light to die away under the shadow of the branches.
Some vague sympathy evoked by the scent of the limes, some
sisterly desire to see for herself, some idea of demonstrating
the soundness of her dictum that there was “nothing in it”; or
merely the craving to drive down to Richmond, irresistible that
summer, moved the mother of the little Darties (of little
Publius, of Imogen, Maud, and Benedict) to write the following
note to her sister-in-law:
“_June_ 30.
“DEAR IRENE,
“I hear that Soames is going to Henley tomorrow for the
night. I thought it would be great fun if we made up a little
party and drove down to, Richmond. Will you ask Mr. Bosinney,
and I will get young Flippard.
“Emily (they called their mother Emily—it was so chic) will
lend us the carriage. I will call for you and your young man
at seven o’clock.
“Your affectionate sister,
“WINIFRED DARTIE.
“Montague believes the dinner at the Crown and Sceptre to be
quite eatable.”
Montague was Dartie’s second and better known name—his first
being Moses; for he was nothing if not a man of the world.
Her plan met with more opposition from Providence than so
benevolent a scheme deserved. In the first place young Flippard
wrote:
“DEAR MRS. DARTIE,
“Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep.
“Yours,
“AUGUSTUS FLIPPARD.”
It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to remedy this
misfortune. With the promptitude and conduct of a mother,
Winifred fell back on her husband. She had, indeed, the decided
but tolerant temperament that goes with a good deal of profile,
fair hair, and greenish eyes. She was seldom or never at a loss;
or if at a loss, was always able to convert it into a gain.
Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had failed to win the
Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was
by a pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands
against him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours that
followed his scratching were among the darkest in Dartie’s life.
Visions of James haunted him day and night. Black thoughts about
Soames mingled with the faintest hopes. On the Friday night he
got drunk, so greatly was he affected. But on Saturday morning
the true Stock Exchange instinct triumphed within him. Owing some
hundreds, which by no possibility could he pay, he went into town
and put them all on Concertina for the Saltown Borough Handicap.
As he said to Major Scrotton, with whom he lunched at the Iseeum:
“That little Jew boy, Nathans, had given him the tip. He didn’t
care a cursh. He wash in—a mucker. If it didn’t come up—well
then, damme, the old man would have to pay!”
A bottle of Pol Roger to his own cheek had given him a new
contempt for James.
It came up. Concertina was squeezed home by her neck—a terrible
squeak! But, as Dartie said: There was nothing like pluck!
He was by no means averse to the expedition to Richmond. He would
“stand” it himself! He cherished an admiration for Irene, and
wished to be on more playful terms with her.
At half-past five the Park Lane footman came round to say: Mrs.
Forsyte was very sorry, but one of the horses was coughing!
Undaunted by this further blow, Winifred at once despatched
little Publius (now aged seven) with the nursery governess to
Montpellier Square.
They would go down in hansoms and meet at the Crown and Sceptre
at 7.45.
Dartie, on being told, was pleased enough. It was better than
going down with your back to the horses! He had no objection to
driving down with Irene. He supposed they would pick up the
others at Montpellier Square, and swop hansoms there?
Informed that the meet was at the Crown and Sceptre, and that he
would have to drive with his wife, he turned sulky, and said it
was d—-d slow!
At seven o’clock they started, Dartie offering to bet the driver
half-a-crown he didn’t do it in the three-quarters of an hour.
Twice only did husband and wife exchange remarks on the way.
Dartie said: “It’ll put Master Soames’s nose out of joint to hear
his wife’s been drivin’ in a hansom with Master Bosinney!”
Winifred replied: “Don’t talk such nonsense, Monty!”
“Nonsense!” repeated Dartie. “You don’t know women, my fine
lady!”
On the other occasion he merely asked: “How am I looking? A bit
puffy about the gills? That fizz old George is so fond of is a
windy wine!”
He had been lunching with George Forsyte at the Haversnake.
Bosinney and Irene had arrived before them. They were standing in
one of the long French windows overlooking the river.
Windows that summer were open all day long, and all night too,
and day and night the scents of flowers and trees came in, the
hot scent of parching grass, and the cool scent of the heavy
dews.
To the eye of the observant Dartie his two guests did not appear
to be making much running, standing there close together, without
a word. Bosinney was a hungry-looking creature—not much go about
_him!_
He left them to Winifred, however, and busied himself to order
the dinner.
A Forsyte will require good, if not delicate feeding, but a
Dartie will tax the resources of a Crown and Sceptre. Living as
he does, from hand to mouth, nothing is too good for him to eat;
and he will eat it. His drink, too, will need to be carefully
provided; there is much drink in this country “not good enough”
for a Dartie; he will have the best. Paying for things
vicariously, there is no reason why he should stint himself. To
stint yourself is the mark of a fool, not of a Dartie.
The best of everything! No sounder principle on which a man can
base his life, whose father-in-law has a very considerable
income, and a partiality for his grandchildren.
With his not unable eye Dartie had spotted this weakness in James
the very first year after little Publius’s arrival (an error); he
had profited by his perspicacity. Four little Darties were now a
sort of perpetual insurance.
The feature of the feast was unquestionably the red mullet. This
delectable fish, brought from a considerable distance in a state
of almost perfect preservation, was first fried, then boned, then
served in ice, with Madeira punch in place of sauce, according to
a recipe known to a few men of the world.
Nothing else calls for remark except the payment of the bill by
Dartie.
He had made himself extremely agreeable throughout the meal; his
bold, admiring stare seldom abandoning Irene’s face and figure.
As he was obliged to confess to himself, he got no change out of
her—she was cool enough, as cool as her shoulders looked under
their veil of creamy lace. He expected to have caught her out in
some little game with Bosinney; but not a bit of it, she kept up
her end remarkably well. As for that architect chap, he was as
glum as a bear with a sore head—Winifred could barely get a word
out of him; he ate nothing, but he certainly took his liquor, and
his face kept getting whiter, and his eyes looked queer.
It was all very amusing.
For Dartie himself was in capital form, and talked freely, with a
certain poignancy, being no fool. He told two or three stories
verging on the improper, a concession to the company, for his
stories were not used to verging. He proposed Irene’s health in a
mock speech. Nobody drank it, and Winifred said: “Don’t be such a
clown, Monty!”
At her suggestion they went after dinner to the public terrace
overlooking the river.
“I should like to see the common people making love,” she said,
“it’s such fun!”
There were numbers of them walking in the cool, after the day’s
heat, and the air was alive with the sound of voices, coarse and
loud, or soft as though murmuring secrets.
It was not long before Winifred’s better sense—she was the only
Forsyte present—secured them an empty bench. They sat down in a
row. A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads, and
the haze darkened slowly over the river.
Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then
Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the
world could feel Irene’s arm crushed against his own; he knew
that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this
amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would
bring her closer still. He thought: “That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t
have it all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit, certainly!”
From far down below on the dark river came drifting the tinkle of
a mandoline, and voices singing the old round:
“A boat, a boat, unto the ferry,
For we’ll go over and be merry;
And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!”
And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on
her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the
air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm
odour of the limes.
Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who was sitting
with his arms crossed, staring straight in front of him, and on
his face the look of a man being tortured.
And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled by the
overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker piece of the
darkness shaped and breathed on; soft, mysterious, enticing.
A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all the strollers
were thinking secrets too precious to be spoken.
And Dartie thought: “Women!”
The glow died above the river, the singing ceased; the young moon
hid behind a tree, and all was dark. He pressed himself against
Irene.
He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through the limbs
he touched, or at the troubled, scornful look of her eyes. He
felt her trying to draw herself away, and smiled.
It must be confessed that the man of the world had drunk quite as
much as was good for him.
With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches, and his
bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious look of a satyr.
Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the tree tops the
stars clustered forth; like mortals beneath, they seemed to shift
and swarm and whisper. Then on the terrace the buzz broke out
once more, and Dartie thought: “Ah! he’s a poor, hungry-looking
devil, that Bosinney!” and again he pressed himself against
Irene.
The movement deserved a better success. She rose, and they all
followed her.
The man of the world was more than ever determined to see what
she was made of. Along the terrace he kept close at her elbow. He
had within him much good wine. There was the long drive home, the
long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant closeness of the
hansom cab—with its insulation from the world devised by some
great and good man. That hungry architect chap might drive with
his wife—he wished him joy of her! And, conscious that his voice
was not too steady, he was careful not to speak; but a smile had
become fixed on his thick lips.
They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them at the farther
end. His plan had the merit of all great plans, an almost brutal
simplicity— he would merely keep at her elbow till she got in,
and get in quickly after her.
But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in; she slipped,
instead, to the horse’s head. Dartie was not at the moment
sufficiently master of his legs to follow. She stood stroking the
horse’s nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side
first. She turned and spoke to him rapidly, in a low voice; the
words “That man” reached Dartie. He stood stubbornly by the cab
step, waiting for her to come back. He knew a trick worth two of
that!
Here, in the lamp-light, his figure (no more than medium height),
well squared in its white evening waistcoat, his light overcoat
flung over his arm, a pink flower in his button-hole, and on his
dark face that look of confident, good-humoured insolence, he was
at his best—a thorough man of the world.
Winifred was already in her cab. Dartie reflected that Bosinney
would have a poorish time in that cab if he didn’t look sharp!
Suddenly he received a push which nearly overturned him in the
road. Bosinney’s voice hissed in his ear: “I am taking Irene
back; do you understand?” He saw a face white with passion, and
eyes that glared at him like a wild cat’s.
“Eh?” he stammered. “What? Not a bit. You take my wife!”
“Get away!” hissed Bosinney—“or I’ll throw you into the road!”
Dartie recoiled; he saw as plainly as possible that the fellow
meant it. In the space he made Irene had slipped by, her dress
brushed his legs. Bosinney stepped in after her.
“Go on!” he heard the Buccaneer cry. The cabman flicked his
horse. It sprang forward.
Dartie stood for a moment dumbfounded; then, dashing at the cab
where his wife sat, he scrambled in.
“Drive on!” he shouted to the driver, “and don’t you lose sight
of that fellow in front!”
Seated by his wife’s side, he burst into imprecations. Calming
himself at last with a supreme effort, he added: “A pretty mess
you’ve made of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why
on earth couldn’t you keep hold of him? He’s mad with love; any
fool can see that!”
He drowned Winifred’s rejoinder with fresh calls to the Almighty;
nor was it until they reached Barnes that he ceased a Jeremiad,
in the course of which he had abused her, her father, her
brother, Irene, Bosinney, the name of Forsyte, his own children,
and cursed the day when he had ever married.
Winifred, a woman of strong character, let him have his say, at
the end of which he lapsed into sulky silence. His angry eyes
never deserted the back of that cab, which, like a lost chance,
haunted the darkness in front of him.
Fortunately he could not hear Bosinney’s passionate pleading—that
pleading which the man of the world’s conduct had let loose like
a flood; he could not see Irene shivering, as though some garment
had been torn from her, nor her eyes, black and mournful, like
the eyes of a beaten child. He could not hear Bosinney
entreating, entreating, always entreating; could not hear her
sudden, soft weeping, nor see that poor, hungry-looking devil,
awed and trembling, humbly touching her hand.
In Montpellier Square their cabman, following his instructions to
the letter, faithfully drew up behind the cab in front. The
Darties saw Bosinney spring out, and Irene follow, and hasten up
the steps with bent head. She evidently had her key in her hand,
for she disappeared at once. It was impossible to tell whether
she had turned to speak to Bosinney.
The latter came walking past their cab; both husband and wife had
an admirable view of his face in the light of a street lamp. It
was working with violent emotion.
“Good-night, Mr. Bosinney!” called Winifred.
Bosinney started, clawed off his hat, and hurried on. He had
obviously forgotten their existence.
“There!” said Dartie, “did you see the beast’s face? What did I
say? Fine games!” He improved the occasion.
There had so clearly been a crisis in the cab that Winifred was
unable to defend her theory.
She said: “I shall say nothing about it. I don’t see any use in
making a fuss!”
With that view Dartie at once concurred; looking upon James as a
private preserve, he disapproved of his being disturbed by the
troubles of others.
“Quite right,” he said; “let Soames look after himself. He’s
jolly well able to!”
Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in Green Street,
the rent of which was paid by James, and sought a well-earned
rest. The hour was midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in
the streets to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him return
and stand against the rails of the Square garden, back from the
glow of the street lamp; to see him stand there in the shadow of
trees, watching the house where in the dark was hidden she whom
he would have given the world to see for a single minute—she who
was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the meaning of the
light and the darkness, the very beating of his own heart.
CHAPTER X DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE
It is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that he is a
Forsyte; but young Jolyon was well aware of being one. He had not
known it till after the decisive step which had made him an
outcast; since then the knowledge had been with him continually.
He felt it throughout his alliance, throughout all his dealings
with his second wife, who was emphatically not a Forsyte.
He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure the eye for
what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on to it, the sense of the
folly of wasting that for which he had given so big a price—in
other words, the “sense of property” he could never have retained
her (perhaps never would have desired to retain her) with him
through all the financial troubles, slights, and misconstructions
of those fifteen years; never have induced her to marry him on
the death of his first wife; never have lived it all through, and
come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.
He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like miniature
Chinese idols in the cages of their own hearts, are ever smiling
at themselves a doubting smile. Not that this smile, so intimate
and eternal, interfered with his actions, which, like his chin
and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of softness and
determination.
He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work, that
painting of water-colours to which he devoted so much energy,
always with an eye on himself, as though he could not take so
unpractical a pursuit quite seriously, and always with a certain
queer uneasiness that he did not make more money at it.
It was, then, this consciousness of what it meant to be a
Forsyte, that made him receive the following letter from old
Jolyon, with a mixture of sympathy and disgust:
“SHELDRAKE HOUSE,
“BROADSTAIRS,
“_July_ 1.
“MY DEAR JO,”
(The Dad’s handwriting had altered very little in the thirty
odd years that he remembered it.)
“We have been here now a fortnight, and have had good weather
on the whole. The air is bracing, but my liver is out of
order, and I shall be glad enough to get back to town. I
cannot say much for June, her health and spirits are very
indifferent, and I don’t see what is to come of it. She says
nothing, but it is clear that she is harping on this
engagement, which is an engagement and no engagement,
and—goodness knows what. I have grave doubts whether she
ought to be allowed to return to London in the present state
of affairs, but she is so self-willed that she might take it
into her head to come up at any moment. The fact is someone
ought to speak to Bosinney and ascertain what he means. I’m
afraid of this myself, for I should certainly rap him over
the knuckles, but I thought that you, knowing him at the
Club, might put in a word, and get to ascertain what the
fellow is about. You will of course in no way commit June. I
shall be glad to hear from you in the course of a few days
whether you have succeeded in gaining any information. The
situation is very distressing to me, I worry about it at
night. With my love to Jolly and Holly.
“I am,
“Your affect. father,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”
Young Jolyon pondered this letter so long and seriously that his
wife noticed his preoccupation, and asked him what was the
matter. He replied: “Nothing.”
It was a fixed principle with him never to allude to June. She
might take alarm, he did not know what she might think; he
hastened, therefore, to banish from his manner all traces of
absorption, but in this he was about as successful as his father
would have been, for he had inherited all old Jolyon’s
transparency in matters of domestic finesse; and young Mrs.
Jolyon, busying herself over the affairs of the house, went about
with tightened lips, stealing at him unfathomable looks.
He started for the Club in the afternoon with the letter in his
pocket, and without having made up his mind.
To sound a man as to “his intentions” was peculiarly unpleasant
to him; nor did his own anomalous position diminish this
unpleasantness. It was so like his family, so like all the people
they knew and mixed with, to enforce what they called their
rights over a man, to bring him up to the mark; so like them to
carry their business principles into their private relations.
And how that phrase in the letter—“You will, of course, in no way
commit June”—gave the whole thing away.
Yet the letter, with the personal grievance, the concern for
June, the “rap over the knuckles,” was all so natural. No wonder
his father wanted to know what Bosinney meant, no wonder he was
angry.
It was difficult to refuse! But why give the thing to him to do?
That was surely quite unbecoming; but so long as a Forsyte got
what he was after, he was not too particular about the means,
provided appearances were saved.
How should he set about it, or how refuse? Both seemed
impossible. So, young Jolyon!
He arrived at the Club at three o’clock, and the first person he
saw was Bosinney himself, seated in a corner, staring out of the
window.
Young Jolyon sat down not far off, and began nervously to
reconsider his position. He looked covertly at Bosinney sitting
there unconscious. He did not know him very well, and studied him
attentively for perhaps the first time; an unusual looking man,
unlike in dress, face, and manner to most of the other members of
the Club—young Jolyon himself, however different he had become in
mood and temper, had always retained the neat reticence of
Forsyte appearance. He alone among Forsytes was ignorant of
Bosinney’s nickname. The man was unusual, not eccentric, but
unusual; he looked worn, too, haggard, hollow in the cheeks
beneath those broad, high cheekbones, though without any
appearance of ill-health, for he was strongly built, with curly
hair that seemed to show all the vitality of a fine constitution.
Something in his face and attitude touched young Jolyon. He knew
what suffering was like, and this man looked as if he were
suffering.
He got up and touched his arm.
Bosinney started, but exhibited no sign of embarrassment on
seeing who it was.
Young Jolyon sat down.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said. “How are you
getting on with my cousin’s house?”
“It’ll be finished in about a week.”
“I congratulate you!”
“Thanks—I don’t know that it’s much of a subject for
congratulation.”
“No?” queried young Jolyon; “I should have thought you’d be glad
to get a long job like that off your hands; but I suppose you
feel it much as I do when I part with a picture—a sort of child?”
He looked kindly at Bosinney.
“Yes,” said the latter more cordially, “it goes out from you and
there’s an end of it. I didn’t know you painted.”
“Only water-colours; I can’t say I believe in my work.”
“Don’t believe in it? There—how can you do it? Work’s no use
unless you believe in it!”
“Good,” said young Jolyon; “it’s exactly what I’ve always said.
By-the-bye, have you noticed that whenever one says ‘Good,’ one
always adds ‘it’s exactly what I’ve always said’. But if you ask
me how I do it, I answer, because I’m a Forsyte.”
“A Forsyte! I never thought of you as one!”
“A Forsyte,” replied young Jolyon, “is not an uncommon animal.
There are hundreds among the members of this Club. Hundreds out
there in the streets; you meet them wherever you go!”
“And how do you tell them, may I ask?” said Bosinney.
“By their sense of property. A Forsyte takes a practical—one
might say a commonsense—view of things, and a practical view of
things is based fundamentally on a sense of property. A Forsyte,
you will notice, never gives himself away.”
“Joking?”
Young Jolyon’s eye twinkled.
“Not much. As a Forsyte myself, I have no business to talk. But
I’m a kind of thoroughbred mongrel; now, there’s no mistaking
you: You’re as different from me as I am from my Uncle James, who
is the perfect specimen of a Forsyte. His sense of property is
extreme, while you have practically none. Without me in between,
you would seem like a different species. I’m the missing link. We
are, of course, all of us the slaves of property, and I admit
that it’s a question of degree, but what I call a ‘Forsyte’ is a
man who is decidedly more than less a slave of property. He knows
a good thing, he knows a safe thing, and his grip on property—it
doesn’t matter whether it be wives, houses, money, or
reputation—is his hall-mark.”
“Ah!” murmured Bosinney. “You should patent the word.”
“I should like,” said young Jolyon, “to lecture on it:
“Properties and quality of a Forsyte: This little animal,
disturbed by the ridicule of his own sort, is unaffected in his
motions by the laughter of strange creatures (you or I).
Hereditarily disposed to myopia, he recognises only the persons
of his own species, amongst which he passes an existence of
competitive tranquillity.”
“You talk of them,” said Bosinney, “as if they were half
England.”
“They are,” repeated young Jolyon, “half England, and the better
half, too, the safe half, the three per cent. half, the half that
counts. It’s their wealth and security that makes everything
possible; makes your art possible, makes literature, science,
even religion, possible. Without Forsytes, who believe in none of
these things, and habitats but turn them all to use, where should
we be? My dear sir, the Forsytes are the middlemen, the
commercials, the pillars of society, the cornerstones of
convention; everything that is admirable!”
“I don’t know whether I catch your drift,” said Bosinney, “but I
fancy there are plenty of Forsytes, as you call them, in my
profession.”
“Certainly,” replied young Jolyon. “The great majority of
architects, painters, or writers have no principles, like any
other Forsytes. Art, literature, religion, survive by virtue of
the few cranks who really believe in such things, and the many
Forsytes who make a commercial use of them. At a low estimate,
three-fourths of our Royal Academicians are Forsytes,
seven-eighths of our novelists, a large proportion of the press.
Of science I can’t speak; they are magnificently represented in
religion; in the House of Commons perhaps more numerous than
anywhere; the aristocracy speaks for itself. But I’m not
laughing. It is dangerous to go against the majority and what a
majority!” He fixed his eyes on Bosinney: “It’s dangerous to let
anything carry you away—a house, a picture, a—woman!”
They looked at each other.—And, as though he had done that which
no Forsyte did—given himself away, young Jolyon drew into his
shell. Bosinney broke the silence.
“Why do you take your own people as the type?” said he.
“My people,” replied young Jolyon, “are not very extreme, and
they have their own private peculiarities, like every other
family, but they possess in a remarkable degree those two
qualities which are the real tests of a Forsyte—the power of
never being able to give yourself up to anything soul and body,
and the ‘sense of property’.”
Bosinney smiled: “How about the big one, for instance?”
“Do you mean Swithin?” asked young Jolyon. “Ah! in Swithin
there’s something primeval still. The town and middle-class life
haven’t digested him yet. All the old centuries of farm work and
brute force have settled in him, and there they’ve stuck, for all
he’s so distinguished.”
Bosinney seemed to ponder. “Well, you’ve hit your cousin Soames
off to the life,” he said suddenly. “_He’ll_ never blow his
brains out.”
Young Jolyon shot at him a penetrating glance.
“No,” he said; “he won’t. That’s why he’s to be reckoned with.
Look out for their grip! It’s easy to laugh, but don’t mistake
me. It doesn’t do to despise a Forsyte; it doesn’t do to
disregard them!”
“Yet you’ve done it yourself!”
Young Jolyon acknowledged the hit by losing his smile.
“You forget,” he said with a queer pride, “I can hold on, too—I’m
a Forsyte myself. We’re all in the path of great forces. The man
who leaves the shelter of the wall—well—you know what I mean. I
don’t,” he ended very low, as though uttering a threat,
“recommend every man to-go-my-way. It depends.”
The colour rushed into Bosinney’s face, but soon receded, leaving
it sallow-brown as before. He gave a short laugh, that left his
lips fixed in a queer, fierce smile; his eyes mocked young
Jolyon.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s deuced kind of you. But you’re not the
only chaps that can hold on.” He rose.
Young Jolyon looked after him as he walked away, and, resting his
head on his hand, sighed.
In the drowsy, almost empty room the only sounds were the rustle
of newspapers, the scraping of matches being struck. He stayed a
long time without moving, living over again those days when he,
too, had sat long hours watching the clock, waiting for the
minutes to pass—long hours full of the torments of uncertainty,
and of a fierce, sweet aching; and the slow, delicious agony of
that season came back to him with its old poignancy. The sight of
Bosinney, with his haggard face, and his restless eyes always
wandering to the clock, had roused in him a pity, with which was
mingled strange, irresistible envy.
He knew the signs so well. Whither was he going—to what sort of
fate? What kind of woman was it who was drawing him to her by
that magnetic force which no consideration of honour, no
principle, no interest could withstand; from which the only
escape was flight.
Flight! But why should Bosinney fly? A man fled when he was in
danger of destroying hearth and home, when there were children,
when he felt himself trampling down ideals, breaking something.
But here, so he had heard, it was all broken to his hand.
He himself had not fled, nor would he fly if it were all to come
over again. Yet he had gone further than Bosinney, had broken up
his own unhappy home, not someone else’s: And the old saying came
back to him: “A man’s fate lies in his own heart.”
In his own heart! The proof of the pudding was in the
eating—Bosinney had still to eat his pudding.
His thoughts passed to the woman, the woman whom he did not know,
but the outline of whose story he had heard.
An unhappy marriage! No ill-treatment—only that indefinable
malaise, that terrible blight which killed all sweetness under
Heaven; and so from day to day, from night to night, from week to
week, from year to year, till death should end it.
But young Jolyon, the bitterness of whose own feelings time had
assuaged, saw Soames’s side of the question too. Whence should a
man like his cousin, saturated with all the prejudices and
beliefs of his class, draw the insight or inspiration necessary
to break up this life? It was a question of imagination, of
projecting himself into the future beyond the unpleasant gossip,
sneers, and tattle that followed on such separations, beyond the
passing pangs that the lack of the sight of her would cause,
beyond the grave disapproval of the worthy. But few men, and
especially few men of Soames’s class, had imagination enough for
that. A deal of mortals in this world, and not enough imagination
to go round! And sweet Heaven, what a difference between theory
and practice; many a man, perhaps even Soames, held chivalrous
views on such matters, who when the shoe pinched found a
distinguishing factor that made of himself an exception.
Then, too, he distrusted his judgment. He had been through the
experience himself, had tasted to the dregs the bitterness of an
unhappy marriage, and how could he take the wide and
dispassionate view of those who had never been within sound of
the battle? His evidence was too first-hand—like the evidence on
military matters of a soldier who has been through much active
service, against that of civilians who have not suffered the
disadvantage of seeing things too close. Most people would
consider such a marriage as that of Soames and Irene quite fairly
successful; he had money, she had beauty; it was a case for
compromise. There was no reason why they should not jog along,
even if they hated each other. It would not matter if they went
their own ways a little so long as the decencies were
observed—the sanctity of the marriage tie, of the common home,
respected. Half the marriages of the upper classes were conducted
on these lines: Do not offend the susceptibilities of Society; do
not offend the susceptibilities of the Church. To avoid offending
these is worth the sacrifice of any private feelings. The
advantages of the stable home are visible, tangible, so many
pieces of property; there is no risk in the _statu quo_. To break
up a home is at the best a dangerous experiment, and selfish into
the bargain.
This was the case for the defence, and young Jolyon sighed.
“The core of it all,” he thought, “is property, but there are
many people who would not like it put that way. To them it is
‘the sanctity of the marriage tie’; but the sanctity of the
marriage tie is dependent on the sanctity of the family, and the
sanctity of the family is dependent on the sanctity of property.
And yet I imagine all these people are followers of One who never
owned anything. It is curious!”
And again young Jolyon sighed.
“Am I going on my way home to ask any poor devils I meet to share
my dinner, which will then be too little for myself, or, at all
events, for my wife, who is necessary to my health and happiness?
It may be that after all Soames does well to exercise his rights
and support by his practice the sacred principle of property
which benefits us all, with the exception of those who suffer by
the process.”
And so he left his chair, threaded his way through the maze of
seats, took his hat, and languidly up the hot streets crowded
with carriages, reeking with dusty odours, wended his way home.
Before reaching Wistaria Avenue he removed old Jolyon’s letter
from his pocket, and tearing it carefully into tiny pieces,
scattered them in the dust of the road.
He let himself in with his key, and called his wife’s name. But
she had gone out, taking Jolly and Holly, and the house was
empty; alone in the garden the dog Balthasar lay in the shade
snapping at flies.
Young Jolyon took his seat there, too, under the pear-tree that
bore no fruit.
CHAPTER XI BOSINNEY ON PAROLE
The day after the evening at Richmond Soames returned from Henley
by a morning train. Not constitutionally interested in amphibious
sports, his visit had been one of business rather than pleasure,
a client of some importance having asked him down.
He went straight to the City, but finding things slack, he left
at three o’clock, glad of this chance to get home quietly. Irene
did not expect him. Not that he had any desire to spy on her
actions, but there was no harm in thus unexpectedly surveying the
scene.
After changing to Park clothes he went into the drawing-room. She
was sitting idly in the corner of the sofa, her favourite seat;
and there were circles under her eyes, as though she had not
slept.
He asked: “How is it you’re in? Are you expecting somebody?”
“Yes—that is, not particularly.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Bosinney said he might come.”
“Bosinney. He ought to be at work.”
To this she made no answer.
“Well,” said Soames, “I want you to come out to the Stores with
me, and after that we’ll go to the Park.”
“I don’t want to go out; I have a headache.”
Soames replied: “If ever I want you to do anything, you’ve always
got a headache. It’ll do you good to come and sit under the
trees.”
She did not answer.
Soames was silent for some minutes; at last he said: “I don’t
know what your idea of a wife’s duty is. I never have known!”
He had not expected her to reply, but she did.
“I have tried to do what you want; it’s not my fault that I
haven’t been able to put my heart into it.”
“Whose fault is it, then?” He watched her askance.
“Before we were married you promised to let me go if our marriage
was not a success. Is it a success?”
Soames frowned.
“Success,” he stammered—“it would be a success if you behaved
yourself properly!”
“I have tried,” said Irene. “Will you let me go?”
Soames turned away. Secretly alarmed, he took refuge in bluster.
“Let you go? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Let you
go? How can I let you go? We’re married, aren’t we? Then, what
are you talking about? For God’s sake, don’t let’s have any of
this sort of nonsense! Get your hat on, and come and sit in the
Park.”
“Then, you won’t let me go?”
He felt her eyes resting on him with a strange, touching look.
“Let you go!” he said; “and what on earth would you do with
yourself if I did? You’ve got no money!”
“I could manage somehow.”
He took a swift turn up and down the room; then came and stood
before her.
“Understand,” he said, “once and for all, I won’t have you say
this sort of thing. Go and get your hat on!”
She did not move.
“I suppose,” said Soames, “you don’t want to miss Bosinney if he
comes!”
Irene got up slowly and left the room. She came down with her hat
on.
They went out.
In the Park, the motley hour of mid-afternoon, when foreigners
and other pathetic folk drive, thinking themselves to be in
fashion, had passed; the right, the proper, hour had come, was
nearly gone, before Soames and Irene seated themselves under the
Achilles statue.
It was some time since he had enjoyed her company in the Park.
That was one of the past delights of the first two seasons of his
married life, when to feel himself the possessor of this gracious
creature before all London had been his greatest, though secret,
pride. How many afternoons had he not sat beside her, extremely
neat, with light grey gloves and faint, supercilious smile,
nodding to acquaintances, and now and again removing his hat.
His light grey gloves were still on his hands, and on his lips
his smile sardonic, but where the feeling in his heart?
The seats were emptying fast, but still he kept her there, silent
and pale, as though to work out a secret punishment. Once or
twice he made some comment, and she bent her head, or answered
“Yes” with a tired smile.
Along the rails a man was walking so fast that people stared
after him when he passed.
“Look at that ass!” said Soames; “he must be mad to walk like
that in this heat!”
He turned; Irene had made a rapid movement.
“Hallo!” he said: “it’s our friend the Buccaneer!”
And he sat still, with his sneering smile, conscious that Irene
was sitting still, and smiling too.
“Will she bow to him?” he thought.
But she made no sign.
Bosinney reached the end of the rails, and came walking back
amongst the chairs, quartering his ground like a pointer. When he
saw them he stopped dead, and raised his hat.
The smile never left Soames’s face; he also took off his hat.
Bosinney came up, looking exhausted, like a man after hard
physical exercise; the sweat stood in drops on his brow, and
Soames’ smile seemed to say: “You’ve had a trying time, my
friend.... What are _you_ doing in the Park?” he asked. “We
thought you despised such frivolity!”
Bosinney did not seem to hear; he made his answer to Irene: “I’ve
been round to your place; I hoped I should find you in.”
Somebody tapped Soames on the back, and spoke to him; and in the
exchange of those platitudes over his shoulder, he missed her
answer, and took a resolution.
“We’re just going in,” he said to Bosinney; “you’d better come
back to dinner with us.” Into that invitation he put a strange
bravado, a stranger pathos: “You, can’t deceive me,” his look and
voice seemed saying, “but see—I trust you—I’m not afraid of you!”
They started back to Montpellier Square together, Irene between
them. In the crowded streets Soames went on in front. He did not
listen to their conversation; the strange resolution of
trustfulness he had taken seemed to animate even his secret
conduct. Like a gambler, he said to himself: “It’s a card I dare
not throw away—I must play it for what it’s worth. I have not too
many chances.”
He dressed slowly, heard her leave her room and go downstairs,
and, for full five minutes after, dawdled about in his
dressing-room. Then he went down, purposely shutting the door
loudly to show that he was coming. He found them standing by the
hearth, perhaps talking, perhaps not; he could not say.
He played his part out in the farce, the long evening through—his
manner to his guest more friendly than it had ever been before;
and when at last Bosinney went, he said: “You must come again
soon; Irene likes to have you to talk about the house!” Again his
voice had the strange bravado and the stranger pathos; but his
hand was cold as ice.
Loyal to his resolution, he turned away from their parting,
turned away from his wife as she stood under the hanging lamp to
say good-night—away from the sight of her golden head shining so
under the light, of her smiling mournful lips; away from the
sight of Bosinney’s eyes looking at her, so like a dog’s looking
at its master.
And he went to bed with the certainty that Bosinney was in love
with his wife.
The summer night was hot, so hot and still that through every
opened window came in but hotter air. For long hours he lay
listening to her breathing.
She could sleep, but he must lie awake. And, lying awake, he
hardened himself to play the part of the serene and trusting
husband.
In the small hours he slipped out of bed, and passing into his
dressing-room, leaned by the open window.
He could hardly breathe.
A night four years ago came back to him—the night but one before
his marriage; as hot and stifling as this.
He remembered how he had lain in a long cane chair in the window
of his sitting-room off Victoria Street. Down below in a side
street a man had banged at a door, a woman had cried out; he
remembered, as though it were now, the sound of the scuffle, the
slam of the door, the dead silence that followed. And then the
early water-cart, cleansing the reek of the streets, had
approached through the strange-seeming, useless lamp-light; he
seemed to hear again its rumble, nearer and nearer, till it
passed and slowly died away.
He leaned far out of the dressing-room window over the little
court below, and saw the first light spread. The outlines of dark
walls and roofs were blurred for a moment, then came out sharper
than before.
He remembered how that other night he had watched the lamps
paling all the length of Victoria Street; how he had hurried on
his clothes and gone down into the street, down past houses and
squares, to the street where she was staying, and there had stood
and looked at the front of the little house, as still and grey as
the face of a dead man.
And suddenly it shot through his mind; like a sick man’s fancy:
What’s _he_ doing?—that fellow who haunts me, who was here this
evening, who’s in love with my wife—prowling out there, perhaps,
looking for her as I know he was looking for her this afternoon;
watching my house now, for all I can tell!
He stole across the landing to the front of the house, stealthily
drew aside a blind, and raised a window.
The grey light clung about the trees of the square, as though
Night, like a great downy moth, had brushed them with her wings.
The lamps were still alight, all pale, but not a soul stirred—no
living thing in sight.
Yet suddenly, very faint, far off in the deathly stillness, he
heard a cry writhing, like the voice of some wandering soul
barred out of heaven, and crying for its happiness. There it was
again—again! Soames shut the window, shuddering.
Then he thought: “Ah! it’s only the peacocks, across the water.”
CHAPTER XII JUNE PAYS SOME CALLS
Jolyon stood in the narrow hall at Broadstairs, inhaling that
odour of oilcloth and herrings which permeates all respectable
seaside lodging-houses. On a chair—a shiny leather chair,
displaying its horsehair through a hole in the top left-hand
corner—stood a black despatch case. This he was filling with
papers, with the _Times_, and a bottle of Eau-de Cologne. He had
meetings that day of the “Globular Gold Concessions” and the “New
Colliery Company, Limited,” to which he was going up, for he
never missed a Board; to “miss a Board” would be one more piece
of evidence that he was growing old, and this his jealous Forsyte
spirit could not bear.
His eyes, as he filled that black despatch case, looked as if at
any moment they might blaze up with anger. So gleams the eye of a
schoolboy, baited by a ring of his companions; but he controls
himself, deterred by the fearful odds against him. And old Jolyon
controlled himself, keeping down, with his masterful restraint
now slowly wearing out, the irritation fostered in him by the
conditions of his life.
He had received from his son an unpractical letter, in which by
rambling generalities the boy seemed trying to get out of
answering a plain question. “I’ve seen Bosinney,” he said; “he is
not a criminal. The more I see of people the more I am convinced
that they are never good or bad—merely comic, or pathetic. You
probably don’t agree with me!”
Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so express
oneself; he had not yet reached that point of old age when even
Forsytes, bereft of those illusions and principles which they
have cherished carefully for practical purposes but never
believed in, bereft of all corporeal enjoyment, stricken to the
very heart by having nothing left to hope for—break through the
barriers of reserve and say things they would never have believed
themselves capable of saying.
Perhaps he did not believe in “goodness” and “badness” any more
than his son; but as he would have said: He didn’t know—couldn’t
tell; there might be something in it; and why, by an unnecessary
expression of disbelief, deprive yourself of possible advantage?
Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains, though
(like a true Forsyte) he had never attempted anything too
adventurous or too foolhardy, he had been passionately fond of
them. And when the wonderful view (mentioned in
Baedeker—“fatiguing but repaying”.—was disclosed to him after the
effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt the existence of some
great, dignified principle crowning the chaotic strivings, the
petty precipices, and ironic little dark chasms of life. This was
as near to religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had ever
gone.
But it was many years since he had been to the mountains. He had
taken June there two seasons running, after his wife died, and
had realized bitterly that his walking days were over.
To that old mountain—given confidence in a supreme order of
things he had long been a stranger.
He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and this troubled
him. It troubled and puzzled him, too, to think that he, who had
always been so careful, should be father and grandfather to such
as seemed born to disaster. He had nothing to say against Jo—who
could say anything against the boy, an amiable chap?—but his
position was deplorable, and this business of Jun’s nearly as
bad. It seemed like a fatality, and a fatality was one of those
things no man of his character could either understand or put up
with.
In writing to his son he did not really hope that anything would
come of it. Since the ball at Roger’s he had seen too clearly how
the land lay—he could put two and two together quicker than most
men—and, with the example of his own son before his eyes, knew
better than any Forsyte of them all that the pale flame singes
men’s wings whether they will or no.
In the days before Jun’s engagement, when she and Mrs. Soames
were always together, he had seen enough of Irene to feel the
spell she cast over men. She was not a flirt, not even a
coquette—words dear to the heart of his generation, which loved
to define things by a good, broad, inadequate word—but she was
dangerous. He could not say why. Tell him of a quality innate in
some women—a seductive power beyond their own control! He would
but answer: “Humbug!” She was dangerous, and there was an end of
it. He wanted to close his eyes to that affair. If it was, it
was; _he_ did not want to hear any more about it—he only wanted
to save Jun’s position and her peace of mind. He still hoped she
might once more become a comfort to himself.
And so he had written. He got little enough out of the answer. As
to what young Jolyon had made of the interview, there was
practically only the queer sentence: “I gather that he’s in the
stream.” The stream! What stream? What was this new-fangled way
of talking?
He sighed, and folded the last of the papers under the flap of
the bag; he knew well enough what was meant.
June came out of the dining-room, and helped him on with his
summer coat. From her costume, and the expression of her little
resolute face, he saw at once what was coming.
“I’m going with you,” she said.
“Nonsense, my dear; I go straight into the City. I can’t have you
racketting about!”
“I must see old Mrs. Smeech.”
“Oh, your precious ‘lame ducks’!” grumbled out old Jolyon. He did
not believe her excuse, but ceased his opposition. There was no
doing anything with that pertinacity of hers.
At Victoria he put her into the carriage which had been ordered
for himself—a characteristic action, for he had no petty
selfishnesses.
“Now, don’t you go tiring yourself, my darling,” he said, and
took a cab on into the city.
June went first to a back-street in Paddington, where Mrs.
Smeech, her “lame duck,” lived—an aged person, connected with the
charring interest; but after half an hour spent in hearing her
habitually lamentable recital, and dragooning her into temporary
comfort, she went on to Stanhope Gate. The great house was closed
and dark.
She had decided to learn something at all costs. It was better to
face the worst, and have it over. And this was her plan: To go
first to Phil’s aunt, Mrs. Baynes, and, failing information
there, to Irene herself. She had no clear notion of what she
would gain by these visits.
At three o’clock she was in Lowndes Square. With a woman’s
instinct when trouble is to be faced, she had put on her best
frock, and went to the battle with a glance as courageous as old
Jolyon’s itself. Her tremors had passed into eagerness.
Mrs. Baynes, Bosinney’s aunt (Louisa was her name), was in her
kitchen when June was announced, organizing the cook, for she was
an excellent housewife, and, as Baynes always said, there was “a
lot in a good dinner.” He did his best work after dinner. It was
Baynes who built that remarkably fine row of tall crimson houses
in Kensington which compete with so many others for the title of
“the ugliest in London.”
On hearing Jun’s name, she went hurriedly to her bedroom, and,
taking two large bracelets from a red morocco case in a locked
drawer, put them on her white wrists—for she possessed in a
remarkable degree that “sense of property,” which, as we know, is
the touchstone of Forsyteism, and the foundation of good
morality.
Her figure, of medium height and broad build, with a tendency to
embonpoint, was reflected by the mirror of her whitewood
wardrobe, in a gown made under her own organization, of one of
those half-tints, reminiscent of the distempered walls of
corridors in large hotels. She raised her hands to her hair,
which she wore _à la_ Princesse de Galles, and touched it here
and there, settling it more firmly on her head, and her eyes were
full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking in the
face one of life’s sordid facts, and making the best of it. In
youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were
mottled now by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness
came into her eyes as she dabbed a powder-puff across her
forehead. Putting the puff down, she stood quite still before the
glass, arranging a smile over her high, important nose, her chin,
(never large, and now growing smaller with the increase of her
neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth. Quickly, not to lose
the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly in both hands, and
went downstairs.
She 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 fiancée. 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 unless sure beforehand that
everything had been thoroughly organized.
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 academic.
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 power in upper middle-class society, with its hundred
sets and circles, 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.
She had been on the worst sort of terms with Bosinney’s father,
who had not infrequently made her the object of an unpardonable
ridicule. She alluded to him now that he was gone as her “poor,
dear, irreverend brother.”
She greeted June with the careful effusion of which she was a
mistress, a little afraid of her as far as a woman of her
eminence in the commercial and Christian world could be
afraid—for so slight a girl June had a great dignity, the
fearlessness of her eyes gave her that. And Mrs. Baynes, too,
shrewdly recognized that behind the uncompromising frankness of
Jun’s manner there was much of the Forsyte. If the girl had been
merely frank and courageous, Mrs. Baynes would have thought her
“cranky,” and despised her; if she had been merely a Forsyte,
like Francie—let us say—she would have patronized her from sheer
weight of metal; but June, small though she was—Mrs. Baynes
habitually admired quantity—gave her an uneasy feeling; and she
placed her in a chair opposite the light.
There was another reason for her respect which Mrs. Baynes, too
good a churchwoman to be worldly, would have been the last to
admit—she often heard her husband describe old Jolyon as
extremely well off, and was biassed towards his granddaughter for
the soundest of all reasons. To-day she felt the emotion with
which we read a novel describing a hero and an inheritance,
nervously anxious lest, by some frightful lapse of the novelist,
the young man should be left without it at the end.
Her manner was warm; she had never seen so clearly before how
distinguished and desirable a girl this was. She asked after old
Jolyon’s health. A wonderful man for his age; so upright, and
young looking, and how old was he? Eighty-one! She would never
have thought it! They were at the sea! Very nice for them; she
supposed June heard from Phil every day? Her light grey eyes
became more prominent as she asked this question; but the girl
met the glance without flinching.
“No,” she said, “he never writes!”
Mrs. Baynes’s eyes dropped; they had no intention of doing so,
but they did. They recovered immediately.
“Of course not. That’s Phil all over—he was always like that!”
“Was he?” said June.
The brevity of the answer caused Mrs. Baynes’s bright smile a
moment’s hesitation; she disguised it by a quick movement, and
spreading her skirts afresh, said: “Why, my dear—he’s quite the
most harum-scarum person; one never pays the slightest attention
to what _he_ does!”
The conviction came suddenly to June that she was wasting her
time; even were she to put a question point-blank, she would
never get anything out of this woman.
“Do you see him?” she asked, her face crimsoning.
The perspiration broke out on Mrs. Baynes’ forehead beneath the
powder.
“Oh, yes! I don’t remember when he was here last—indeed, we
haven’t seen much of him lately. He’s so busy with your cousin’s
house; I’m told it’ll be finished directly. We must organize a
little dinner to celebrate the event; do come and stay the night
with us!”
“Thank you,” said June. Again she thought: “I’m only wasting my
time. This woman will tell me nothing.”
She got up to go. A change came over Mrs. Baynes. She rose too;
her lips twitched, she fidgeted her hands. Something was
evidently very wrong, and she did not dare to ask this girl, who
stood there, a slim, straight little figure, with her decided
face, her set jaw, and resentful eyes. She was not accustomed to
be afraid of asking questions—all organization was based on the
asking of questions!
But the issue was so grave that her nerve, normally strong, was
fairly shaken; only that morning her husband had said: “Old Mr.
Forsyte must be worth well over a hundred thousand pounds!”
And this girl stood there, holding out her hand—holding out her
hand!
The chance might be slipping away—she couldn’t tell—the chance of
keeping her in the family, and yet she dared not speak.
Her eyes followed June to the door.
It closed.
Then with an exclamation Mrs. Baynes ran forward, wobbling her
bulky frame from side to side, and opened it again.
Too late! She heard the front door click, and stood still, an
expression of real anger and mortification on her face.
June went along the Square with her bird-like quickness. She
detested that woman now whom in happier days she had been
accustomed to think so kind. Was she always to be put off thus,
and forced to undergo this torturing suspense?
She would go to Phil himself, and ask him what he meant. She had
the right to know. She hurried on down Sloane Street till she
came to Bosinney’s number. Passing the swing-door at the bottom,
she ran up the stairs, her heart thumping painfully.
At the top of the third flight she paused for breath, and holding
on to the bannisters, stood listening. No sound came from above.
With a very white face she mounted the last flight. She saw the
door, with his name on the plate. And the resolution that had
brought her so far evaporated.
The full meaning of her conduct came to her. She felt hot all
over; the palms of her hands were moist beneath the thin silk
covering of her gloves.
She drew back to the stairs, but did not descend. Leaning against
the rail she tried to get rid of a feeling of being choked; and
she gazed at the door with a sort of dreadful courage. No! she
refused to go down. Did it matter what people thought of her?
They would never know! No one would help her if she did not help
herself! She would go through with it.
Forcing herself, therefore, to leave the support of the wall, she
rang the bell. The door did not open, and all her shame and fear
suddenly abandoned her; she rang again and again, as though in
spite of its emptiness she could drag some response out of that
closed room, some recompense for the shame and fear that visit
had cost her. It did not open; she left off ringing, and, sitting
down at the top of the stairs, buried her face in her hands.
Presently she stole down, out into the air. She felt as though
she had passed through a bad illness, and had no desire now but
to get home as quickly as she could. The people she met seemed to
know where she had been, what she had been doing; and
suddenly—over on the opposite side, going towards his rooms from
the direction of Montpellier Square—she saw Bosinney himself.
She made a movement to cross into the traffic. Their eyes met,
and he raised his hat. An omnibus passed, obscuring her view;
then, from the edge of the pavement, through a gap in the
traffic, she saw him walking on.
And June stood motionless, looking after him.
CHAPTER XIII PERFECTION OF THE HOUSE
“One mockturtle, clear; one oxtail; two glasses of port.”
In the upper room at French’s, where a Forsyte could still get
heavy English food, James and his son were sitting down to lunch.
Of all eating-places James liked best to come here; there was
something unpretentious, well-flavoured, and filling about it,
and though he had been to a certain extent corrupted by the
necessity for being fashionable, and the trend of habits keeping
pace with an income that _would_ increase, he still hankered in
quiet City moments after the tasty fleshpots of his earlier days.
Here you were served by hairy English waiters in aprons; there
was sawdust on the floor, and three round gilt looking-glasses
hung just above the line of sight. They had only recently done
away with the cubicles, too, in which you could have your chop,
prime chump, with a floury-potato, without seeing your
neighbours, like a gentleman.
He tucked the top corner of his napkin behind the third button of
his waistcoat, a practice he had been obliged to abandon years
ago in the West End. He felt that he should relish his soup—the
entire morning had been given to winding up the estate of an old
friend.
After filling his mouth with household bread, stale, he at once
began: “How are you going down to Robin Hill? You going to take
Irene? You’d better take her. I should think there’ll be a lot
that’ll want seeing to.”
Without looking up, Soames answered: “She won’t go.”
“Won’t go? What’s the meaning of that? She’s going to live in the
house, isn’t she?”
Soames made no reply.
“I don’t know what’s coming to women nowadays,” mumbled James; “I
never used to have any trouble with them. She’s had too much
liberty. She’s spoiled....”
Soames lifted his eyes: “I won’t have anything said against her,”
he said unexpectedly.
The silence was only broken now by the supping of James’s soup.
The waiter brought the two glasses of port, but Soames stopped
him.
“That’s not the way to serve port,” he said; “take them away, and
bring the bottle.”
Rousing himself from his reverie over the soup, James took one of
his rapid shifting surveys of surrounding facts.
“Your mother’s in bed,” he said; “you can have the carriage to
take you down. I should think Irene’d like the drive. This young
Bosinney’ll be there, I suppose, to show you over.”
Soames nodded.
“I should like to go and see for myself what sort of a job he’s
made finishing off,” pursued James. “I’ll just drive round and
pick you both up.”
“I am going down by train,” replied Soames. “If you like to drive
round and see, Irene might go with you, I can’t tell.”
He signed to the waiter to bring the bill, which James paid.
They parted at St. Paul’s, Soames branching off to the station,
James taking his omnibus westwards.
He had secured the corner seat next the conductor, where his long
legs made it difficult for anyone to get in, and at all who
passed him he looked resentfully, as if they had no business to
be using up his air.
He intended to take an opportunity this afternoon of speaking to
Irene. A word in time saved nine; and now that she was going to
live in the country there was a chance for her to turn over a new
leaf! He could see that Soames wouldn’t stand very much more of
her goings on!
It did not occur to him to define what he meant by her “goings
on”. the expression was wide, vague, and suited to a Forsyte. And
James had more than his common share of courage after lunch.
On reaching home, he ordered out the barouche, with special
instructions that the groom was to go too. He wished to be kind
to her, and to give her every chance.
When the door of No.62 was opened he could distinctly hear her
singing, and said so at once, to prevent any chance of being
denied entrance.
Yes, Mrs. Soames was in, but the maid did not know if she was
seeing people.
James, moving with the rapidity that ever astonished the
observers of his long figure and absorbed expression, went
forthwith into the drawing-room without permitting this to be
ascertained. He found Irene seated at the piano with her hands
arrested on the keys, evidently listening to the voices in the
hall. She greeted him without smiling.
“Your mother-in-law’s in bed,” he began, hoping at once to enlist
her sympathy. “I’ve got the carriage here. Now, be a good girl,
and put on your hat and come with me for a drive. It’ll do you
good!”
Irene looked at him as though about to refuse, but, seeming to
change her mind, went upstairs, and came down again with her hat
on.
“Where are you going to take me?” she asked.
“We’ll just go down to Robin Hill,” said James, spluttering out
his words very quick; “the horses want exercise, and I should
like to see what they’ve been doing down there.”
Irene hung back, but again changed her mind, and went out to the
carriage, James brooding over her closely, to make quite sure.
It was not before he had got her more than half way that he
began: “Soames is very fond of you—he won’t have anything said
against you; why don’t you show him more affection?”
Irene flushed, and said in a low voice: “I can’t show what I
haven’t got.”
James looked at her sharply; he felt that now he had her in his
own carriage, with his own horses and servants, he was really in
command of the situation. She could not put him off; nor would
she make a scene in public.
“I can’t think what you’re about,” he said. “He’s a very good
husband!”
Irene’s answer was so low as to be almost inaudible among the
sounds of traffic. He caught the words: “You are not married to
him!”
“What’s that got to do with it? He’s given you everything you
want. He’s always ready to take you anywhere, and now he’s built
you this house in the country. It’s not as if you had anything of
your own.”
“No.”
Again James looked at her; he could not make out the expression
on her face. She looked almost as if she were going to cry, and
yet....
“I’m sure,” he muttered hastily, “we’ve all tried to be kind to
you.”
Irene’s lips quivered; to his dismay James saw a tear steal down
her cheek. He felt a choke rise in his own throat.
“We’re all fond of you,” he said, “if you’d only”—he was going to
say, “behave yourself,” but changed it to—“if you’d only be more
of a wife to him.”
Irene did not answer, and James, too, ceased speaking. There was
something in her silence which disconcerted him; it was not the
silence of obstinacy, rather that of acquiescence in all that he
could find to say. And yet he felt as if he had not had the last
word. He could not understand this.
He was unable, however, to long keep silence.
“I suppose that young Bosinney,” he said, “will be getting
married to June now?”
Irene’s face changed. “I don’t know,” she said; “you should ask
_her_.”
“Does she write to you?”
“No.”
“No.”
“How’s that?” said James. “I thought you and she were such great
friends.”
Irene turned on him. “Again,” she said, “you should ask _her!_”
“Well,” flustered James, frightened by her look, “it’s very odd
that I can’t get a plain answer to a plain question, but there it
is.”
He sat ruminating over his rebuff, and burst out at last:
“Well, I’ve warned you. You won’t look ahead. Soames he doesn’t
say much, but I can see he won’t stand a great deal more of this
sort of thing. You’ll have nobody but yourself to blame, and,
what’s more, you’ll get no sympathy from anybody.”
Irene bent her head with a little smiling bow. “I am very much
obliged to you.”
James did not know what on earth to answer.
The bright hot morning had changed slowly to a grey, oppressive
afternoon; a heavy bank of clouds, with the yellow tinge of
coming thunder, had risen in the south, and was creeping up.
The branches of the trees dropped motionless across the road
without the smallest stir of foliage. A faint odour of glue from
the heated horses clung in the thick air; the coachman and groom,
rigid and unbending, exchanged stealthy murmurs on the box,
without ever turning their heads.
To James’ great relief they reached the house at last; the
silence and impenetrability of this woman by his side, whom he
had always thought so soft and mild, alarmed him.
The carriage put them down at the door, and they entered.
The hall was cool, and so still that it was like passing into a
tomb; a shudder ran down James’s spine. He quickly lifted the
heavy leather curtains between the columns into the inner court.
He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.
The decoration was really in excellent taste. The dull ruby tiles
that extended from the foot of the walls to the verge of a
circular clump of tall iris plants, surrounding in turn a sunken
basin of white marble filled with water, were obviously of the
best quality. He admired extremely the purple leather curtains
drawn along one entire side, framing a huge white-tiled stove.
The central partitions of the skylight had been slid back, and
the warm air from outside penetrated into the very heart of the
house.
He stood, his hands behind him, his head bent back on his high,
narrow shoulders, spying the tracery on the columns and the
pattern of the frieze which ran round the ivory-coloured walls
under the gallery. Evidently, no pains had been spared. It was
quite the house of a gentleman. He went up to the curtains, and,
having discovered how they were worked, drew them asunder and
disclosed the picture-gallery, ending in a great window taking up
the whole end of the room. It had a black oak floor, and its
walls, again, were of ivory white. He went on throwing open
doors, and peeping in. Everything was in apple-pie order, ready
for immediate occupation.
He turned round at last to speak to Irene, and saw her standing
over in the garden entrance, with her husband and Bosinney.
Though not remarkable for sensibility, James felt at once that
something was wrong. He went up to them, and, vaguely alarmed,
ignorant of the nature of the trouble, made an attempt to smooth
things over.
“How are you, Mr. Bosinney?” he said, holding out his hand.
“You’ve been spending money pretty freely down here, I should
say!”
Soames turned his back, and walked away.
James looked from Bosinney’s frowning face to Irene, and, in his
agitation, spoke his thoughts aloud: “Well, I can’t tell what’s
the matter. Nobody tells me anything!” And, making off after his
son, he heard Bosinney’s short laugh, and his “Well, thank God!
You look so....” Most unfortunately he lost the rest.
What had happened? He glanced back. Irene was very close to the
architect, and her face not like the face he knew of her. He
hastened up to his son.
Soames was pacing the picture-gallery.
“What’s the matter?” said James. “What’s all this?”
Soames looked at him with his supercilious calm unbroken, but
James knew well enough that he was violently angry.
“Our friend,” he said, “has exceeded his instructions again,
that’s all. So much the worse for him this time.”
He turned round and walked back towards the door. James followed
hurriedly, edging himself in front. He saw Irene take her finger
from before her lips, heard her say something in her ordinary
voice, and began to speak before he reached them.
“There’s a storm coming on. We’d better get home. We can’t take
you, I suppose, Mr. Bosinney? No, I suppose not. Then, good-bye!”
He held out his hand. Bosinney did not take it, but, turning with
a laugh, said:
“Good-bye, Mr. Forsyte. Don’t get caught in the storm!” and
walked away.
“Well,” began James, “I don’t know....”
But the sight of Irene’s face stopped him. Taking hold of his
daughter-in-law by the elbow, he escorted her towards the
carriage. He felt certain, quite certain, they had been making
some appointment or other....
Nothing in this world is more sure to upset a Forsyte than the
discovery that something on which he has stipulated to spend a
certain sum has cost more. And this is reasonable, for upon the
accuracy of his estimates the whole policy of his life is
ordered. If he cannot rely on definite values of property, his
compass is amiss; he is adrift upon bitter waters without a helm.
After writing to Bosinney in the terms that have already been
chronicled, Soames had dismissed the cost of the house from his
mind. He believed that he had made the matter of the final cost
so very plain that the possibility of its being again exceeded
had really never entered his head. On hearing from Bosinney that
his limit of twelve thousand pounds would be exceeded by
something like four hundred, he had grown white with anger. His
original estimate of the cost of the house completed had been ten
thousand pounds, and he had often blamed himself severely for
allowing himself to be led into repeated excesses. Over this last
expenditure, however, Bosinney had put himself completely in the
wrong. How on earth a fellow could make such an ass of himself
Soames could not conceive; but he had done so, and all the
rancour and hidden jealousy that had been burning against him for
so long was now focussed in rage at this crowning piece of
extravagance. The attitude of the confident and friendly husband
was gone. To preserve property—his wife—he had assumed it, to
preserve property of another kind he lost it now.
“Ah!” he had said to Bosinney when he could speak, “and I suppose
you’re perfectly contented with yourself. But I may as well tell
you that you’ve altogether mistaken your man!”
What he meant by those words he did not quite know at the time,
but after dinner he looked up the correspondence between himself
and Bosinney to make quite sure. There could be no two opinions
about it—the fellow had made himself liable for that extra four
hundred, or, at all events, for three hundred and fifty of it,
and he would have to make it good.
He was looking at his wife’s face when he came to this
conclusion. Seated in her usual seat on the sofa, she was
altering the lace on a collar. She had not once spoken to him all
the evening.
He went up to the mantelpiece, and contemplating his face in the
mirror said: “Your friend the Buccaneer has made a fool of
himself; he will have to pay for it!”
She looked at him scornfully, and answered: “I don’t know what
you are talking about!”
“You soon will. A mere trifle, quite beneath your contempt—four
hundred pounds.”
“Do you mean that you are going to make him pay that towards this
hateful, house?”
“I do.”
“And you know he’s got nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are meaner than I thought you.”
Soames turned from the mirror, and unconsciously taking a china
cup from the mantelpiece, clasped his hands around it as though
praying. He saw her bosom rise and fall, her eyes darkening with
anger, and taking no notice of the taunt, he asked quietly:
“Are you carrying on a flirtation with Bosinney?”
“No, I am not!”
Her eyes met his, and he looked away. He neither believed nor
disbelieved her, but he knew that he had made a mistake in
asking; he never had known, never would know, what she was
thinking. The sight of her inscrutable face, the thought of all
the hundreds of evenings he had seen her sitting there like that
soft and passive, but unreadable, unknown, enraged him beyond
measure.
“I believe you are made of stone,” he said, clenching his fingers
so hard that he broke the fragile cup. The pieces fell into the
grate. And Irene smiled.
“You seem to forget,” she said, “that cup is not!”
Soames gripped her arm. “A good beating,” he said, “is the only
thing that would bring you to your senses,” but turning on his
heel, he left the room.
CHAPTER XIV SOAMES SITS ON THE STAIRS
Soames went up-stairs that night with the feeling that he had
gone too far. He was prepared to offer excuses for his words.
He turned out the gas still burning in the passage outside their
room. Pausing, with his hand on the knob of the door, he tried to
shape his apology, for he had no intention of letting her see
that he was nervous.
But the door did not open, nor when he pulled it and turned the
handle firmly. She must have locked it for some reason, and
forgotten.
Entering his dressing-room, where the gas was also lighted and
burning low, he went quickly to the other door. That too was
locked. Then he noticed that the camp bed which he occasionally
used was prepared, and his sleeping-suit laid out upon it. He put
his hand up to his forehead, and brought it away wet. It dawned
on him that he was barred out.
He went back to the door, and rattling the handle stealthily,
called: “Unlock the door, do you hear? Unlock the door!”
There was a faint rustling, but no answer.
“Do you hear? Let me in at once—I insist on being let in!”
He could catch the sound of her breathing close to the door, like
the breathing of a creature threatened by danger.
There was something terrifying in this inexorable silence, in the
impossibility of getting at her. He went back to the other door,
and putting his whole weight against it, tried to burst it open.
The door was a new one—he had had them renewed himself, in
readiness for their coming in after the honeymoon. In a rage he
lifted his foot to kick in the panel; the thought of the servants
restrained him, and he felt suddenly that he was beaten.
Flinging himself down in the dressing-room, he took up a book.
But instead of the print he seemed to see his wife—with her
yellow hair flowing over her bare shoulders, and her great dark
eyes—standing like an animal at bay. And the whole meaning of her
act of revolt came to him. She meant it to be for good.
He could not sit still, and went to the door again. He could
still hear her, and he called: “Irene! Irene!”
He did not mean to make his voice pathetic.
In ominous answer, the faint sounds ceased. He stood with
clenched hands, thinking.
Presently he stole round on tiptoe, and running suddenly at the
other door, made a supreme effort to break it open. It creaked,
but did not yield. He sat down on the stairs and buried his face
in his hands.
For a long time he sat there in the dark, the moon through the
skylight above laying a pale smear which lengthened slowly
towards him down the stairway. He tried to be philosophical.
Since she had locked her doors she had no further claim as a
wife, and he would console himself with other women.
It was but a spectral journey he made among such delights—he had
no appetite for these exploits. He had never had much, and he had
lost the habit. He felt that he could never recover it. His
hunger could only be appeased by his wife, inexorable and
frightened, behind these shut doors. No other woman could help
him.
This conviction came to him with terrible force out there in the
dark.
His philosophy left him; and surly anger took its place. Her
conduct was immoral, inexcusable, worthy of any punishment within
his power. He desired no one but her, and she refused him!
She must really hate him, then! He had never believed it yet. He
did not believe it now. It seemed to him incredible. He felt as
though he had lost for ever his power of judgment. If she, so
soft and yielding as he had always judged her, could take this
decided step—what could not happen?
Then he asked himself again if she were carrying on an intrigue
with Bosinney. He did not believe that she was; he could not
afford to believe such a reason for her conduct—the thought was
not to be faced.
It would be unbearable to contemplate the necessity of making his
marital relations public property. Short of the most convincing
proofs he must still refuse to believe, for he did not wish to
punish himself. And all the time at heart—he _did_ believe.
The moonlight cast a greyish tinge over his figure, hunched
against the staircase wall.
Bosinney was in love with her! He hated the fellow, and would not
spare him now. He could and would refuse to pay a penny piece
over twelve thousand and fifty pounds—the extreme limit fixed in
the correspondence; or rather he would pay, he would pay and sue
him for damages. He would go to Jobling and Boulter and put the
matter in their hands. He would ruin the impecunious beggar! And
suddenly—though what connection between the thoughts?—he
reflected that Irene had no money either. They were both beggars.
This gave him a strange satisfaction.
The silence was broken by a faint creaking through the wall. She
was going to bed at last. Ah! Joy and pleasant dreams! If she
threw the door open wide he would not go in now!
But his lips, that were twisted in a bitter smile, twitched; he
covered his eyes with his hands....
It was late the following afternoon when Soames stood in the
dining-room window gazing gloomily into the Square.
The sunlight still showered on the plane-trees, and in the breeze
their gay broad leaves shone and swung in rhyme to a barrel organ
at the corner. It was playing a waltz, an old waltz that was out
of fashion, with a fateful rhythm in the notes; and it went on
and on, though nothing indeed but leaves danced to the tune.
The woman did not look too gay, for she was tired; and from the
tall houses no one threw her down coppers. She moved the organ
on, and three doors off began again.
It was the waltz they had played at Roger’s when Irene had danced
with Bosinney; and the perfume of the gardenias she had worn came
back to Soames, drifted by the malicious music, as it had been
drifted to him then, when she passed, her hair glistening, her
eyes so soft, drawing Bosinney on and on down an endless
ballroom.
The organ woman plied her handle slowly; she had been grinding
her tune all day—grinding it in Sloane Street hard by, grinding
it perhaps to Bosinney himself.
Soames turned, took a cigarette from the carven box, and walked
back to the window. The tune had mesmerized him, and there came
into his view Irene, her sunshade furled, hastening homewards
down the Square, in a soft, rose-coloured blouse with drooping
sleeves, that he did not know. She stopped before the organ, took
out her purse, and gave the woman money.
Soames shrank back and stood where he could see into the hall.
She came in with her latch-key, put down her sunshade, and stood
looking at herself in the glass. Her cheeks were flushed as if
the sun had burned them; her lips were parted in a smile. She
stretched her arms out as though to embrace herself, with a laugh
that for all the world was like a sob.
Soames stepped forward.
“Very-pretty!” he said.
But as though shot she spun round, and would have passed him up
the stairs. He barred the way.
“Why such a hurry?” he said, and his eyes fastened on a curl of
hair fallen loose across her ear....
He hardly recognised her. She seemed on fire, so deep and rich
the colour of her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, and of the unusual
blouse she wore.
She put up her hand and smoothed back the curl. She was breathing
fast and deep, as though she had been running, and with every
breath perfume seemed to come from her hair, and from her body,
like perfume from an opening flower.
“I don’t like that blouse,” he said slowly, “it’s a soft,
shapeless thing!”
He lifted his finger towards her breast, but she dashed his hand
aside.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried.
He caught her wrist; she wrenched it away.
“And where may you have been?” he asked.
“In heaven—out of this house!” With those words she fled
upstairs.
Outside—in thanksgiving—at the very door, the organ-grinder was
playing the waltz.
And Soames stood motionless. What prevented him from following
her?
Was it that, with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney looking down
from that high window in Sloane Street, straining his eyes for
yet another glimpse of Irene’s vanished figure, cooling his
flushed face, dreaming of the moment when she flung herself on
his breast—the scent of her still in the air around, and the
sound of her laugh that was like a sob?
PART III
CHAPTER I MRS. MACANDER’S EVIDENCE
Many people, no doubt, including the editor of the “Ultra
Vivisectionist,” then in the bloom of its first youth, would say
that Soames was less than a man not to have removed the locks
from his wife’s doors, and, after beating her soundly, resumed
wedded happiness.
Brutality is not so deplorably diluted by humaneness as it used
to be, yet a sentimental segment of the population may still be
relieved to learn that he did none of these things. For active
brutality is not popular with Forsytes; they are too circumspect,
and, on the whole, too softhearted. And in Soames there was some
common pride, not sufficient to make him do a really generous
action, but enough to prevent his indulging in an extremely mean
one, except, perhaps, in very hot blood. Above all this a true
Forsyte refused to feel himself ridiculous. Short of actually
beating his wife, he perceived nothing to be done; he therefore
accepted the situation without another word.
Throughout the summer and autumn he continued to go to the
office, to sort his pictures, and ask his friends to dinner.
He did not leave town; Irene refused to go away. The house at
Robin Hill, finished though it was, remained empty and ownerless.
Soames had brought a suit against the Buccaneer, in which he
claimed from him the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds.
A firm of solicitors, Messrs. Freak and Able, had put in a
defence on Bosinney’s behalf. Admitting the facts, they raised a
point on the correspondence which, divested of legal phraseology,
amounted to this: To speak of “a _free_ hand in the terms of this
correspondence” is an Irish bull.
By a chance, fortuitous but not improbable in the close borough
of legal circles, a good deal of information came to Soames’s ear
anent this line of policy, the working partner in his firm,
Bustard, happening to sit next at dinner at Walmisley’s, the
Taxing Master, to young Chankery, of the Common Law Bar.
The necessity for talking what is known as “shop,” which comes on
all lawyers with the removal of the ladies, caused Chankery, a
young and promising advocate, to propound an impersonal conundrum
to his neighbour, whose name he did not know, for, seated as he
permanently was in the background, Bustard had practically no
name.
He had, said Chankery, a case coming on with a “very nice point.”
He then explained, preserving every professional discretion, the
riddle in Soames’s case. Everyone, he said, to whom he had
spoken, thought it a nice point. The issue was small
unfortunately, “though d——d serious for his client he
believed”—Walmisley’s champagne was bad but plentiful. A Judge
would make short work of it, he was afraid. He intended to make a
big effort—the point was a nice one. What did his neighbour say?
Bustard, a model of secrecy, said nothing. He related the
incident to Soames however with some malice, for this quiet man
was capable of human feeling, ending with his own opinion that
the point _was_ “a very nice one.”
In accordance with his resolve, our Forsyte had put his interests
into the hands of Jobling and Boulter. From the moment of doing
so he regretted that he had not acted for himself. On receiving a
copy of Bosinney’s defence he went over to their offices.
Boulter, who had the matter in hand, Jobling having died some
years before, told him that in his opinion it was rather a nice
point; he would like counsel’s opinion on it.
Soames told him to go to a good man, and they went to Waterbuck,
Q.C., marking him ten and one, who kept the papers six weeks and
then wrote as follows:
“In my opinion the true interpretation of this correspondence
depends very much on the intention of the parties, and will turn
upon the evidence given at the trial. I am of opinion that an
attempt should be made to secure from the architect an admission
that he understood he was not to spend at the outside more than
twelve thousand and fifty pounds. With regard to the expression,
‘a free hand in the terms of this correspondence,’ to which my
attention is directed, the point is a nice one; but I am of
opinion that upon the whole the ruling in ‘Boileau _v_. The
Blasted Cement Co., Ltd.,’ will apply.”
Upon this opinion they acted, administering interrogatories, but
to their annoyance Messrs. Freak and Able answered these in so
masterly a fashion that nothing whatever was admitted and that
without prejudice.
It was on October 1 that Soames read Waterbuck’s opinion, in the
dining-room before dinner.
It made him nervous; not so much because of the case of “Boileau
_v_. The Blasted Cement Co., Ltd.,” as that the point had lately
begun to seem to him, too, a nice one; there was about it just
that pleasant flavour of subtlety so attractive to the best legal
appetites. To have his own impression confirmed by Waterbuck,
Q.C., would have disturbed any man.
He sat thinking it over, and staring at the empty grate, for
though autumn had come, the weather kept as gloriously fine that
jubilee year as if it were still high August. It was not pleasant
to be disturbed; he desired too passionately to set his foot on
Bosinney’s neck.
Though he had not seen the architect since the last afternoon at
Robin Hill, he was never free from the sense of his
presence—never free from the memory of his worn face with its
high cheek bones and enthusiastic eyes. It would not be too much
to say that he had never got rid of the feeling of that night
when he heard the peacock’s cry at dawn—the feeling that Bosinney
haunted the house. And every man’s shape that he saw in the dark
evenings walking past, seemed that of him whom George had so
appropriately named the Buccaneer.
Irene still met him, he was certain; where, or how, he neither
knew, nor asked; deterred by a vague and secret dread of too much
knowledge. It all seemed subterranean nowadays.
Sometimes when he questioned his wife as to where she had been,
which he still made a point of doing, as every Forsyte should,
she looked very strange. Her self-possession was wonderful, but
there were moments when, behind the mask of her face, inscrutable
as it had always been to him, lurked an expression he had never
been used to see there.
She had taken to lunching out too; when he asked Bilson if her
mistress had been in to lunch, as often as not she would answer:
“No, sir.”
He strongly disapproved of her gadding about by herself, and told
her so. But she took no notice. There was something that angered,
amazed, yet almost amused him about the calm way in which she
disregarded his wishes. It was really as if she were hugging to
herself the thought of a triumph over him.
He rose from the perusal of Waterbuck, Q.C.’s opinion, and, going
upstairs, entered her room, for she did not lock her doors till
bed-time—she had the decency, he found, to save the feelings of
the servants. She was brushing her hair, and turned to him with
strange fierceness.
“What do you want?” she said. “Please leave my room!”
He answered: “I want to know how long this state of things
between us is to last? I have put up with it long enough.”
“Will you please leave my room?”
“Will you treat me as your husband?”
“No.”
“Then, I shall take steps to make you.”
“Do!”
He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer. Her lips were
compressed in a thin line; her hair lay in fluffy masses on her
bare shoulders, in all its strange golden contrast to her dark
eyes—those eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt,
and odd, haunting triumph.
“Now, please, will you leave my room?” He turned round, and went
sulkily out.
He knew very well that he had no intention of taking steps, and
he saw that she knew too—knew that he was afraid to.
It was a habit with him to tell her the doings of his day: how
such and such clients had called; how he had arranged a mortgage
for Parkes; how that long-standing suit of Fryer _v_. Forsyte was
getting on, which, arising in the preternaturally careful
disposition of his property by his great uncle Nicholas, who had
tied it up so that no one could get at it at all, seemed likely
to remain a source of income for several solicitors till the Day
of Judgment.
And how he had called in at Jobson’s, and seen a Boucher sold,
which he had just missed buying of Talleyrand and Sons in Pall
Mall.
He had an admiration for Boucher, Watteau, and all that school.
It was a habit with him to tell her all these matters, and he
continued to do it even now, talking for long spells at dinner,
as though by the volubility of words he could conceal from
himself the ache in his heart.
Often, if they were alone, he made an attempt to kiss her when
she said good-night. He may have had some vague notion that some
night she would let him; or perhaps only the feeling that a
husband ought to kiss his wife. Even if she hated him, he at all
events ought not to put himself in the wrong by neglecting this
ancient rite.
And why did she hate him? Even now he could not altogether
believe it. It was strange to be hated!—the emotion was too
extreme; yet he hated Bosinney, that Buccaneer, that prowling
vagabond, that night-wanderer. For in his thoughts Soames always
saw him lying in wait—wandering. Ah, but he must be in very low
water! Young Burkitt, the architect, had seen him coming out of a
third-rate restaurant, looking terribly down in the mouth!
During all the hours he lay awake, thinking over the situation,
which seemed to have no end—unless she should suddenly come to
her senses—never once did the thought of separating from his wife
seriously enter his head....
And the Forsytes! What part did they play in this stage of
Soames’s subterranean tragedy?
Truth to say, little or none, for they were at the sea.
From hotels, hydropathics, or lodging-houses, they were bathing
daily; laying in a stock of ozone to last them through the
winter.
Each section, in the vineyard of its own choosing, grew and
culled and pressed and bottled the grapes of a pet sea-air.
The end of September began to witness their several returns.
In rude health and small omnibuses, with considerable colour in
their cheeks, they arrived daily from the various termini. The
following morning saw them back at their vocations.
On the next Sunday Timothy’s was thronged from lunch till dinner.
Amongst other gossip, too numerous and interesting to relate,
Mrs. Septimus Small mentioned that Soames and Irene had not been
away.
It remained for a comparative outsider to supply the next
evidence of interest.
It chanced that one afternoon late in September, Mrs. MacAnder,
Winifred Dartie’s greatest friend, taking a constitutional, with
young Augustus Flippard, on her bicycle in Richmond Park, passed
Irene and Bosinney walking from the bracken towards the Sheen
Gate.
Perhaps the poor little woman was thirsty, for she had ridden
long on a hard, dry road, and, as all London knows, to ride a
bicycle and talk to young Flippard will try the toughest
constitution; or perhaps the sight of the cool bracken grove,
whence “those two” were coming down, excited her envy. The cool
bracken grove on the top of the hill, with the oak boughs for
roof, where the pigeons were raising an endless wedding hymn, and
the autumn, humming, whispered to the ears of lovers in the fern,
while the deer stole by. The bracken grove of irretrievable
delights, of golden minutes in the long marriage of heaven and
earth! The bracken grove, sacred to stags, to strange tree-stump
fauns leaping around the silver whiteness of a birch-tree nymph
at summer dusk.
This lady knew all the Forsytes, and having been at Jun’s “at
home,” was not at a loss to see with whom she had to deal. Her
own marriage, poor thing, had not been successful, but having had
the good sense and ability to force her husband into pronounced
error, she herself had passed through the necessary divorce
proceedings without incurring censure.
She was therefore a judge of all that sort of thing, and lived in
one of those large buildings, where in small sets of apartments,
are gathered incredible quantities of Forsytes, whose chief
recreation out of business hours is the discussion of each
other’s affairs.
Poor little woman, perhaps she was thirsty, certainly she was
bored, for Flippard was a wit. To see “those two” in so unlikely
a spot was quite a merciful “pick-me-up.”
At the MacAnder, like all London, Time pauses.
This small but remarkable woman merits attention; her all-seeing
eye and shrewd tongue were inscrutably the means of furthering
the ends of Providence.
With an air of being in at the death, she had an almost
distressing power of taking care of herself. She had done more,
perhaps, in her way than any woman about town to destroy the
sense of chivalry which still clogs the wheel of civilization. So
smart she was, and spoken of endearingly as “the little
MacAnder!”
Dressing tightly and well, she belonged to a Woman’s Club, but
was by no means the neurotic and dismal type of member who was
always thinking of her rights. She took her rights unconsciously,
they came natural to her, and she knew exactly how to make the
most of them without exciting anything but admiration amongst
that great class to whom she was affiliated, not precisely
perhaps by manner, but by birth, breeding, and the true, the
secret gauge, a sense of property.
The daughter of a Bedfordshire solicitor, by the daughter of a
clergyman, she had never, through all the painful experience of
being married to a very mild painter with a cranky love of
Nature, who had deserted her for an actress, lost touch with the
requirements, beliefs, and inner feeling of Society; and, on
attaining her liberty, she placed herself without effort in the
very van of Forsyteism.
Always in good spirits, and “full of information,” she was
universally welcomed. She excited neither surprise nor
disapprobation when encountered on the Rhine or at Zermatt,
either alone, or travelling with a lady and two gentlemen; it was
felt that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself;
and the hearts of all Forsytes warmed to that wonderful instinct,
which enabled her to enjoy everything without giving anything
away. It was generally felt that to such women as Mrs. MacAnder
should we look for the perpetuation and increase of our best type
of woman. She had never had any children.
If there was one thing more than another that she could not stand
it was one of those soft women with what men called “charm” about
them, and for Mrs. Soames she always had an especial dislike.
Obscurely, no doubt, she felt that if charm were once admitted as
the criterion, smartness and capability must go to the wall; and
she hated—with a hatred the deeper that at times this so-called
charm seemed to disturb all calculations—the subtle seductiveness
which she could not altogether overlook in Irene.
She said, however, that she could see nothing in the woman—there
was no “go” about her—she would never be able to stand up for
herself—anyone could take advantage of her, that was plain—she
could not see in fact what men found to admire!
She was not really ill-natured, but, in maintaining her position
after the trying circumstances of her married life, she had found
it so necessary to be “full of information,” that the idea of
holding her tongue about “those two” in the Park never occurred
to her.
And it so happened that she was dining that very evening at
Timothy’s, where she went sometimes to “cheer the old things up,”
as she was wont to put it. The same people were always asked to
meet her: Winifred Dartie and her husband; Francie, because she
belonged to the artistic circles, for Mrs. MacAnder was known to
contribute articles on dress to “The Ladies Kingdom Come”. and
for her to flirt with, provided they could be obtained, two of
the Hayman boys, who, though they never said anything, were
believed to be fast and thoroughly intimate with all that was
latest in smart Society.
At twenty-five minutes past seven she turned out the electric
light in her little hall, and wrapped in her opera cloak with the
chinchilla collar, came out into the corridor, pausing a moment
to make sure she had her latch-key. These little self-contained
flats were convenient; to be sure, she had no light and no air,
but she could shut it up whenever she liked and go away. There
was no bother with servants, and she never felt tied as she used
to when poor, dear Fred was always about, in his mooney way. She
retained no rancour against poor, dear Fred, he was such a fool;
but the thought of that actress drew from her, even now, a
little, bitter, derisive smile.
Firmly snapping the door to, she crossed the corridor, with its
gloomy, yellow-ochre walls, and its infinite vista of brown,
numbered doors. The lift was going down; and wrapped to the ears
in the high cloak, with every one of her auburn hairs in its
place, she waited motionless for it to stop at her floor. The
iron gates clanked open; she entered. There were already three
occupants, a man in a great white waistcoat, with a large, smooth
face like a baby’s, and two old ladies in black, with mittened
hands.
Mrs. MacAnder smiled at them; she knew everybody; and all these
three, who had been admirably silent before, began to talk at
once. This was Mrs. MacAnder’s successful secret. She provoked
conversation.
Throughout a descent of five stories the conversation continued,
the lift boy standing with his back turned, his cynical face
protruding through the bars.
At the bottom they separated, the man in the white waistcoat
sentimentally to the billiard room, the old ladies to dine and
say to each other: “A dear little woman!” “Such a rattle!” and
Mrs. MacAnder to her cab.
When Mrs. MacAnder dined at Timothy’s, the conversation (although
Timothy himself could never be induced to be present) took that
wider, man-of-the-world tone current among Forsytes at large, and
this, no doubt, was what put her at a premium there.
Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester found it an exhilarating change. “If
only,” they said, “Timothy would meet her!” It was felt that she
would do him good. She could tell you, for instance, the latest
story of Sir Charles Fiste’s son at Monte Carlo; who was the real
heroine of Tynemouth Eddy’s fashionable novel that everyone was
holding up their hands over, and what they were doing in Paris
about wearing bloomers. She was so sensible, too, knowing all
about that vexed question, whether to send young Nicholas’ eldest
into the navy as his mother wished, or make him an accountant as
his father thought would be safer. She strongly deprecated the
navy. If you were not exceptionally brilliant or exceptionally
well connected, they passed you over so disgracefully, and what
was it after all to look forward to, even if you became an
admiral—a pittance! An accountant had many more chances, but let
him be put with a good firm, where there was no risk at starting!
Sometimes she would give them a tip on the Stock Exchange; not
that Mrs. Small or Aunt Hester ever took it. They had indeed no
money to invest; but it seemed to bring them into such exciting
touch with the realities of life. It was an event. They would ask
Timothy, they said. But they never did, knowing in advance that
it would upset him. Surreptitiously, however, for weeks after
they would look in that paper, which they took with respect on
account of its really fashionable proclivities, to see whether
“Bright’s Rubies” or “The Woollen Mackintosh Company” were up or
down. Sometimes they could not find the name of the company at
all; and they would wait until James or Roger or even Swithin
came in, and ask them in voices trembling with curiosity how that
“Bolivia Lime and Speltrate” was doing—they could not find it in
the paper.
And Roger would answer: “What do you want to know for? Some
trash! You’ll go burning your fingers—investing your money in
lime, and things you know nothing about! Who told you?” and
ascertaining what they had been told, he would go away, and,
making inquiries in the City, would perhaps invest some of his
own money in the concern.
It was about the middle of dinner, just in fact as the saddle of
mutton had been brought in by Smither, that Mrs. MacAnder,
looking airily round, said: “Oh! and whom do you think I passed
to-day in Richmond Park? You’ll never guess—Mrs. Soames and—Mr.
Bosinney. They must have been down to look at the house!”
Winifred Dartie coughed, and no one said a word. It was the piece
of evidence they had all unconsciously been waiting for.
To do Mrs. MacAnder justice, she had been to Switzerland and the
Italian lakes with a party of three, and had not heard of
Soames’s rupture with his architect. She could not tell,
therefore, the profound impression her words would make.
Upright and a little flushed, she moved her small, shrewd eyes
from face to face, trying to gauge the effect of her words. On
either side of her a Hayman boy, his lean, taciturn, hungry face
turned towards his plate, ate his mutton steadily.
These two, Giles and Jesse, were so alike and so inseparable that
they were known as the Dromios. They never talked, and seemed
always completely occupied in doing nothing. It was popularly
supposed that they were cramming for an important examination.
They walked without hats for long hours in the Gardens attached
to their house, books in their hands, a fox-terrier at their
heels, never saying a word, and smoking all the time. Every
morning, about fifty yards apart, they trotted down Campden Hill
on two lean hacks, with legs as long as their own, and every
morning about an hour later, still fifty yards apart, they
cantered up again. Every evening, wherever they had dined, they
might be observed about half-past ten, leaning over the
balustrade of the Alhambra promenade.
They were never seen otherwise than together; in this way passing
their lives, apparently perfectly content.
Inspired by some dumb stirring within them of the feelings of
gentlemen, they turned at this painful moment to Mrs. MacAnder,
and said in precisely the same voice: “Have you seen the...?”
Such was her surprise at being thus addressed that she put down
her fork; and Smither, who was passing, promptly removed her
plate. Mrs. MacAnder, however, with presence of mind, said
instantly: “I must have a little more of that nice mutton.”
But afterwards in the drawing—room she sat down by Mrs. Small,
determined to get to the bottom of the matter. And she began:
“What a charming woman, Mrs. Soames; such a sympathetic
temperament! Soames is a really lucky man!”
Her anxiety for information had not made sufficient allowance for
that inner Forsyte skin which refuses to share its troubles with
outsiders.
Mrs. Septimus Small, drawing herself up with a creak and rustle
of her whole person, said, shivering in her dignity:
“My dear, it is a subject we do not talk about!”
CHAPTER II NIGHT IN THE PARK
Although with her infallible instinct Mrs. Small had said the
very thing to make her guest “more intriguee than ever,” it is
difficult to see how else she could truthfully have spoken.
It was not a subject which the Forsytes could talk about even
among themselves—to use the word Soames had invented to
characterize to himself the situation, it was “subterranean.”
Yet, within a week of Mrs. MacAnder’s encounter in Richmond Park,
to all of them—save Timothy, from whom it was carefully kept—to
James on his domestic beat from the Poultry to Park Lane, to
George the wild one, on his daily adventure from the bow window
at the Haversnake to the billiard room at the “Red Pottle,” was
it known that “those two” had gone to extremes.
George (it was he who invented many of those striking expressions
still current in fashionable circles) voiced the sentiment more
accurately than any one when he said to his brother Eustace that
“the Buccaneer” was “going it”. he expected Soames was about “fed
up.”
It was felt that he must be, and yet, what could be done? He
ought perhaps to take steps; but to take steps would be
deplorable.
Without an open scandal which they could not see their way to
recommending, it was difficult to see what steps could be taken.
In this impasse, the only thing was to say nothing to Soames, and
nothing to each other; in fact, to pass it over.
By displaying towards Irene a dignified coldness, some impression
might be made upon her; but she was seldom now to be seen, and
there seemed a slight difficulty in seeking her out on purpose to
show her coldness. Sometimes in the privacy of his bedroom James
would reveal to Emily the real suffering that his son’s
misfortune caused him.
“_I_ can’t tell,” he would say; “it worries me out of my life.
There’ll be a scandal, and that’ll do him no good. I shan’t say
anything to him. There might be nothing in it. What do you think?
She’s very artistic, they tell me. What? Oh, you’re a ‘regular
Juley’! Well, I don’t know; I expect the worst. This is what
comes of having no children. I knew how it would be from the
first. They never told me they didn’t mean to have any
children—nobody tells me anything!”
On his knees by the side of the bed, his eyes open and fixed with
worry, he would breathe into the counterpane. Clad in his
nightshirt, his neck poked forward, his back rounded, he
resembled some long white bird.
“Our Father—,” he repeated, turning over and over again the
thought of this possible scandal.
Like old Jolyon, he, too, at the bottom of his heart set the
blame of the tragedy down to family interference. What business
had that lot—he began to think of the Stanhope Gate branch,
including young Jolyon and his daughter, as “that lot”—to
introduce a person like this Bosinney into the family? (He had
heard George’s soubriquet, “The Buccaneer,” but he could make
nothing of that—the young man was an architect.)
He began to feel that his brother Jolyon, to whom he had always
looked up and on whose opinion he had relied, was not quite what
he had expected.
Not having his eldest brother’s force of character, he was more
sad than angry. His great comfort was to go to Winifred’s, and
take the little Darties in his carriage over to Kensington
Gardens, and there, by the Round Pond, he could often be seen
walking with his eyes fixed anxiously on little Publius Dartie’s
sailing-boat, which he had himself freighted with a penny, as
though convinced that it would never again come to shore; while
little Publius—who, James delighted to say, was not a bit like
his father skipping along under his lee, would try to get him to
bet another that it never would, having found that it always did.
And James would make the bet; he always paid—sometimes as many as
three or four pennies in the afternoon, for the game seemed never
to pall on little Publius—and always in paying he said: “Now,
that’s for your money-box. Why, you’re getting quite a rich man!”
The thought of his little grandson’s growing wealth was a real
pleasure to him. But little Publius knew a sweet-shop, and a
trick worth two of that.
And they would walk home across the Park, James’ figure, with
high shoulders and absorbed and worried face, exercising its
tall, lean protectorship, pathetically unregarded, over the
robust child-figures of Imogen and little Publius.
But those Gardens and that Park were not sacred to James.
Forsytes and tramps, children and lovers, rested and wandered day
after day, night after night, seeking one and all some freedom
from labour, from the reek and turmoil of the streets.
The leaves browned slowly, lingering with the sun and summer-like
warmth of the nights.
On Saturday, October 5, the sky that had been blue all day
deepened after sunset to the bloom of purple grapes. There was no
moon, and a clear dark, like some velvety garment, was wrapped
around the trees, whose thinned branches, resembling plumes,
stirred not in the still, warm air. All London had poured into
the Park, draining the cup of summer to its dregs.
Couple after couple, from every gate, they streamed along the
paths and over the burnt grass, and one after another, silently
out of the lighted spaces, stole into the shelter of the feathery
trees, where, blotted against some trunk, or under the shadow of
shrubs, they were lost to all but themselves in the heart of the
soft darkness.
To fresh-comers along the paths, these forerunners formed but
part of that passionate dusk, whence only a strange murmur, like
the confused beating of hearts, came forth. But when that murmur
reached each couple in the lamp-light their voices wavered, and
ceased; their arms enlaced, their eyes began seeking, searching,
probing the blackness. Suddenly, as though drawn by invisible
hands, they, too, stepped over the railing, and, silent as
shadows, were gone from the light.
The stillness, enclosed in the far, inexorable roar of the town,
was alive with the myriad passions, hopes, and loves of
multitudes of struggling human atoms; for in spite of the
disapproval of that great body of Forsytes, the Municipal
Council—to whom Love had long been considered, next to the Sewage
Question, the gravest danger to the community—a process was going
on that night in the Park, and in a hundred other parks, without
which the thousand factories, churches, shops, taxes, and drains,
of which they were custodians, were as arteries without blood, a
man without a heart.
The instincts of self-forgetfulness, of passion, and of love,
hiding under the trees, away from the trustees of their
remorseless enemy, the “sense of property,” were holding a
stealthy revel, and Soames, returning from Bayswater—for he had
been alone to dine at Timothy’s walking home along the water,
with his mind upon that coming lawsuit, had the blood driven from
his heart by a low laugh and the sound of kisses. He thought of
writing to _The Times_ the next morning, to draw the attention of
the Editor to the condition of our parks. He did not, however,
for he had a horror of seeing his name in print.
But starved as he was, the whispered sounds in the stillness, the
half-seen forms in the dark, acted on him like some morbid
stimulant. He left the path along the water and stole under the
trees, along the deep shadow of little plantations, where the
boughs of chestnut trees hung their great leaves low, and there
was blacker refuge, shaping his course in circles which had for
their object a stealthy inspection of chairs side by side,
against tree-trunks, of enlaced lovers, who stirred at his
approach.
Now he stood still on the rise overlooking the Serpentine, where,
in full lamp-light, black against the silver water, sat a couple
who never moved, the woman’s face buried on the man’s neck—a
single form, like a carved emblem of passion, silent and
unashamed.
And, stung by the sight, Soames hurried on deeper into the shadow
of the trees.
In this search, who knows what he thought and what he sought?
Bread for hunger—light in darkness? Who knows what he expected to
find—impersonal knowledge of the human heart—the end of his
private subterranean tragedy—for, again, who knew, but that each
dark couple, unnamed, unnameable, might not be he and she?
But it could not be such knowledge as this that he was
seeking—the wife of Soames Forsyte sitting in the Park like a
common wench! Such thoughts were inconceivable; and from tree to
tree, with his noiseless step, he passed.
Once he was sworn at; once the whisper, “If only it could always
be like this!” sent the blood flying again from his heart, and he
waited there, patient and dogged, for the two to move. But it was
only a poor thin slip of a shop-girl in her draggled blouse who
passed him, clinging to her lover’s arm.
A hundred other lovers too whispered that hope in the stillness
of the trees, a hundred other lovers clung to each other.
But shaking himself with sudden disgust, Soames returned to the
path, and left that seeking for he knew not what.
CHAPTER III MEETING AT THE BOTANICAL
Young Jolyon, whose circumstances were not those of a Forsyte,
found at times a difficulty in sparing the money needful for
those country jaunts and researches into Nature, without having
prosecuted which no watercolour artist ever puts brush to paper.
He was frequently, in fact, obliged to take his colour-box into
the Botanical Gardens, and there, on his stool, in the shade of a
monkey-puzzler or in the lee of some India-rubber plant, he would
spend long hours sketching.
An Art critic who had recently been looking at his work had
delivered himself as follows:
“In a way your drawings are very good; tone and colour, in some
of them certainly quite a feeling for Nature. But, you see,
they’re so scattered; you’ll never get the public to look at
them. Now, if you’d taken a definite subject, such as ‘London by
Night,’ or ‘The Crystal Palace in the Spring,’ and made a regular
series, the public would have known at once what they were
looking at. I can’t lay too much stress upon that. All the men
who are making great names in Art, like Crum Stone or Bleeder,
are making them by avoiding the unexpected; by specializing and
putting their works all in the same pigeon-hole, so that the
public know at once where to go. And this stands to reason, for
if a man’s a collector he doesn’t want people to smell at the
canvas to find out whom his pictures are by; he wants them to be
able to say at once, ‘A capital Forsyte!’ It is all the more
important for you to be careful to choose a subject that they can
lay hold of on the spot, since there’s no very marked originality
in your style.”
Young Jolyon, standing by the little piano, where a bowl of dried
rose leaves, the only produce of the garden, was deposited on a
bit of faded damask, listened with his dim smile.
Turning to his wife, who was looking at the speaker with an angry
expression on her thin face, he said:
“You see, dear?”
“I do _not_,” she answered in her staccato voice, that still had
a little foreign accent; “your style _has_ originality.”
The critic looked at her, smiled’ deferentially, and said no
more. Like everyone else, he knew their history.
The words bore good fruit with young Jolyon; they were contrary
to all that he believed in, to all that he theoretically held
good in his Art, but some strange, deep instinct moved him
against his will to turn them to profit.
He discovered therefore one morning that an idea had come to him
for making a series of watercolour drawings of London. How the
idea had arisen he could not tell; and it was not till the
following year, when he had completed and sold them at a very
fair price, that in one of his impersonal moods, he found himself
able to recollect the Art critic, and to discover in his own
achievement another proof that he was a Forsyte.
He decided to commence with the Botanical Gardens, where he had
already made so many studies, and chose the little artificial
pond, sprinkled now with an autumn shower of red and yellow
leaves, for though the gardeners longed to sweep them off, they
could not reach them with their brooms. The rest of the gardens
they swept bare enough, removing every morning Nature’s rain of
leaves; piling them in heaps, whence from slow fires rose the
sweet, acrid smoke that, like the cuckoo’s note for spring, the
scent of lime trees for the summer, is the true emblem of the
fall. The gardeners’ tidy souls could not abide the gold and
green and russet pattern on the grass. The gravel paths must lie
unstained, ordered, methodical, without knowledge of the
realities of life, nor of that slow and beautiful decay which
flings crowns underfoot to star the earth with fallen glories,
whence, as the cycle rolls, will leap again wild spring.
Thus each leaf that fell was marked from the moment when it
fluttered a good-bye and dropped, slow turning, from its twig.
But on that little pond the leaves floated in peace, and praised
Heaven with their hues, the sunlight haunting over them.
And so young Jolyon found them.
Coming there one morning in the middle of October, he was
disconcerted to find a bench about twenty paces from his stand
occupied, for he had a proper horror of anyone seeing him at
work.
A lady in a velvet jacket was sitting there, with her eyes fixed
on the ground. A flowering laurel, however, stood between, and,
taking shelter behind this, young Jolyon prepared his easel.
His preparations were leisurely; he caught, as every true artist
should, at anything that might delay for a moment the effort of
his work, and he found himself looking furtively at this unknown
dame.
Like his father before him, he had an eye for a face. This face
was charming!
He saw a rounded chin nestling in a cream ruffle, a delicate face
with large dark eyes and soft lips. A black “picture” hat
concealed the hair; her figure was lightly poised against the
back of the bench, her knees were crossed; the tip of a
patent-leather shoe emerged beneath her skirt. There was
something, indeed, inexpressibly dainty about the person of this
lady, but young Jolyon’s attention was chiefly riveted by the
look on her face, which reminded him of his wife. It was as
though its owner had come into contact with forces too strong for
her. It troubled him, arousing vague feelings of attraction and
chivalry. Who was she? And what doing there, alone?
Two young gentlemen of that peculiar breed, at once forward and
shy, found in the Regent’s Park, came by on their way to lawn
tennis, and he noted with disapproval their furtive stares of
admiration. A loitering gardener halted to do something
unnecessary to a clump of pampas grass; he, too, wanted an excuse
for peeping. A gentleman, old, and, by his hat, a professor of
horticulture, passed three times to scrutinize her long and
stealthily, a queer expression about his lips.
With all these men young Jolyon felt the same vague irritation.
She looked at none of them, yet was he certain that every man who
passed would look at her like that.
Her face was not the face of a sorceress, who in every look holds
out to men the offer of pleasure; it had none of the “devil’s
beauty” so highly prized among the first Forsytes of the land;
neither was it of that type, no less adorable, associated with
the box of chocolate; it was not of the spiritually passionate,
or passionately spiritual order, peculiar to house-decoration and
modern poetry; nor did it seem to promise to the playwright
material for the production of the interesting and neurasthenic
figure, who commits suicide in the last act.
In shape and colouring, in its soft persuasive passivity, its
sensuous purity, this woman’s face reminded him of Titian’s
“Heavenly Love,” a reproduction of which hung over the sideboard
in his dining-room. And her attraction seemed to be in this soft
passivity, in the feeling she gave that to pressure she must
yield.
For what or whom was she waiting, in the silence, with the trees
dropping here and there a leaf, and the thrushes strutting close
on grass, touched with the sparkle of the autumn rime? Then her
charming face grew eager, and, glancing round, with almost a
lover’s jealousy, young Jolyon saw Bosinney striding across the
grass.
Curiously he watched the meeting, the look in their eyes, the
long clasp of their hands. They sat down close together, linked
for all their outward discretion. He heard the rapid murmur of
their talk; but what they said he could not catch.
He had rowed in the galley himself! He knew the long hours of
waiting and the lean minutes of a half-public meeting; the
tortures of suspense that haunt the unhallowed lover.
It required, however, but a glance at their two faces to see that
this was none of those affairs of a season that distract men and
women about town; none of those sudden appetites that wake up
ravening, and are surfeited and asleep again in six weeks. This
was the real thing! This was what had happened to himself! Out of
this anything might come!
Bosinney was pleading, and she so quiet, so soft, yet immovable
in her passivity, sat looking over the grass.
Was he the man to carry her off, that tender, passive being, who
would never stir a step for herself? Who had given him all
herself, and would die for him, but perhaps would never run away
with him!
It seemed to young Jolyon that he could hear her saying: “But,
darling, it would ruin you!” For he himself had experienced to
the full the gnawing fear at the bottom of each woman’s heart
that she is a drag on the man she loves.
And he peeped at them no more; but their soft, rapid talk came to
his ears, with the stuttering song of some bird who seemed trying
to remember the notes of spring: Joy—tragedy? Which—which?
And gradually their talk ceased; long silence followed.
“And where does Soames come in?” young Jolyon thought. “People
think she is concerned about the sin of deceiving her husband!
Little they know of women! She’s eating, after starvation—taking
her revenge! And Heaven help her—for he’ll take his.”
He heard the swish of silk, and, spying round the laurel, saw
them walking away, their hands stealthily joined....
At the end of July old Jolyon had taken his grand-daughter to the
mountains; and on that visit (the last they ever paid) June
recovered to a great extent her health and spirits. In the
hotels, filled with British Forsytes—for old Jolyon could not
bear a “set of Germans,” as he called all foreigners—she was
looked upon with respect—the only grand-daughter of that
fine-looking, and evidently wealthy, old Mr. Forsyte. She did not
mix freely with people—to mix freely with people was not Jun’s
habit—but she formed some friendships, and notably one in the
Rhone Valley, with a French girl who was dying of consumption.
Determining at once that her friend should not die, she forgot,
in the institution of a campaign against Death, much of her own
trouble.
Old Jolyon watched the new intimacy with relief and disapproval;
for this additional proof that her life was to be passed amongst
“lame ducks” worried him. Would she never make a friendship or
take an interest in something that would be of real benefit to
her?
“Taking up with a parcel of foreigners,” he called it. He often,
however, brought home grapes or roses, and presented them to
“Mam’zelle” with an ingratiating twinkle.
Towards the end of September, in spite of Jun’s disapproval,
Mademoiselle Vigor breathed her last in the little hotel at St.
Luc, to which they had moved her; and June took her defeat so
deeply to heart that old Jolyon carried her away to Paris. Here,
in contemplation of the “Venus de Milo” and the “Madeleine,” she
shook off her depression, and when, towards the middle of
October, they returned to town, her grandfather believed that he
had effected a cure.
No sooner, however, had they established themselves in Stanhope
Gate than he perceived to his dismay a return of her old absorbed
and brooding manner. She would sit, staring in front of her, her
chin on her hand, like a little Norse spirit, grim and intent,
while all around in the electric light, then just installed,
shone the great, drawing-room brocaded up to the frieze, full of
furniture from Baple and Pullbred’s. And in the huge gilt mirror
were reflected those Dresden china groups of young men in tight
knee breeches, at the feet of full-bosomed ladies nursing on
their laps pet lambs, which old Jolyon had bought when he was a
bachelor and thought so highly of in these days of degenerate
taste. He was a man of most open mind, who, more than any Forsyte
of them all, had moved with the times, but he could never forget
that he had bought these groups at Jobson’s, and given a lot of
money for them. He often said to June, with a sort of
disillusioned contempt:
“_You_ don’t care about them! They’re not the gimcrack things you
and your friends like, but they cost me seventy pounds!” He was
not a man who allowed his taste to be warped when he knew for
solid reasons that it was sound.
One of the first things that June did on getting home was to go
round to Timothy’s. She persuaded herself that it was her duty to
call there, and cheer him with an account of all her travels; but
in reality she went because she knew of no other place where, by
some random speech, or roundabout question, she could glean news
of Bosinney.
They received her most cordially: And how was her dear
grandfather? He had not been to see them since May. Her Uncle
Timothy was very poorly, he had had a lot of trouble with the
chimney-sweep in his bedroom; the stupid man had let the soot
down the chimney! It had quite upset her uncle.
June sat there a long time, dreading, yet passionately hoping,
that they would speak of Bosinney.
But paralyzed by unaccountable discretion, Mrs. Septimus Small
let fall no word, neither did she question June about him. In
desperation the girl asked at last whether Soames and Irene were
in town—she had not yet been to see anyone.
It was Aunt Hester who replied: Oh, yes, they were in town, they
had not been away at all. There was some little difficulty about
the house, she believed. June had heard, no doubt! She had better
ask her Aunt Juley!
June turned to Mrs. Small, who sat upright in her chair, her
hands clasped, her face covered with innumerable pouts. In answer
to the girl’s look she maintained a strange silence, and when she
spoke it was to ask June whether she had worn night-socks up in
those high hotels where it must be so cold of a night.
June answered that she had not, she hated the stuffy things; and
rose to leave.
Mrs. Small’s infallibly chosen silence was far more ominous to
her than anything that could have been said.
Before half an hour was over she had dragged the truth from Mrs.
Baynes in Lowndes Square, that Soames was bringing an action
against Bosinney over the decoration of the house.
Instead of disturbing her, the news had a strangely calming
effect; as though she saw in the prospect of this struggle new
hope for herself. She learnt that the case was expected to come
on in about a month, and there seemed little or no prospect of
Bosinney’s success.
“And whatever he’ll do I can’t think,” said Mrs. Baynes; “it’s
very dreadful for him, you know—he’s got no money—he’s very hard
up. And we can’t help him, I’m sure. I’m told the money-lenders
won’t lend if you have no security, and he has none—none at all.”
Her embonpoint had increased of late; she was in the full swing
of autumn organization, her writing-table literally strewn with
the menus of charity functions. She looked meaningly at June,
with her round eyes of parrot-grey.
The sudden flush that rose on the girl’s intent young face—she
must have seen spring up before her a great hope—the sudden
sweetness of her smile, often came back to Lady Baynes in after
years (Baynes was knighted when he built that public Museum of
Art which has given so much employment to officials, and so
little pleasure to those working classes for whom it was
designed).
The memory of that change, vivid and touching, like the breaking
open of a flower, or the first sun after long winter, the memory,
too, of all that came after, often intruded itself,
unaccountably, inopportunely on Lady Baynes, when her mind was
set upon the most important things.
This was the very afternoon of the day that young Jolyon
witnessed the meeting in the Botanical Gardens, and on this day,
too, old Jolyon paid a visit to his solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard,
and Forsyte, in the Poultry. Soames was not in, he had gone down
to Somerset House; Bustard was buried up to the hilt in papers
and that inaccessible apartment, where he was judiciously placed,
in order that he might do as much work as possible; but James was
in the front office, biting a finger, and lugubriously turning
over the pleadings in Forsyte _v_. Bosinney.
This sound lawyer had only a sort of luxurious dread of the “nice
point,” enough to set up a pleasurable feeling of fuss; for his
good practical sense told him that if he himself were on the
Bench he would not pay much attention to it. But he was afraid
that this Bosinney would go bankrupt and Soames would have to
find the money after all, and costs into the bargain. And behind
this tangible dread there was always that intangible trouble,
lurking in the background, intricate, dim, scandalous, like a bad
dream, and of which this action was but an outward and visible
sign.
He raised his head as old Jolyon came in, and muttered: “How are
you, Jolyon? Haven’t seen you for an age. You’ve been to
Switzerland, they tell me. This young Bosinney, he’s got himself
into a mess. I knew how it would be!” He held out the papers,
regarding his elder brother with nervous gloom.
Old Jolyon read them in silence, and while he read them James
looked at the floor, biting his fingers the while.
Old Jolyon pitched them down at last, and they fell with a thump
amongst a mass of affidavits in “_re_ Buncombe, deceased,” one of
the many branches of that parent and profitable tree, “Fryer _v_.
Forsyte.”
“I don’t know what Soames is about,” he said, “to make a fuss
over a few hundred pounds. I thought he was a man of property.”
James’ long upper lip twitched angrily; he could not bear his son
to be attacked in such a spot.
“It’s not the money,” he began, but meeting his brother’s glance,
direct, shrewd, judicial, he stopped.
There was a silence.
“I’ve come in for my Will,” said old Jolyon at last, tugging at
his moustache.
James’ curiosity was roused at once. Perhaps nothing in this life
was more stimulating to him than a Will; it was the supreme deal
with property, the final inventory of a man’s belongings, the
last word on what he was worth. He sounded the bell.
“Bring in Mr. Jolyon’s Will,” he said to an anxious, dark-haired
clerk.
“You going to make some alterations?” And through his mind there
flashed the thought: “Now, am I worth as much as he?”
Old Jolyon put the Will in his breast pocket, and James twisted
his long legs regretfully.
“You’ve made some nice purchases lately, they tell me,” he said.
“I don’t know where you get your information from,” answered old
Jolyon sharply. “When’s this action coming on? Next month? I
can’t tell what you’ve got in your minds. You must manage your
own affairs; but if you take my advice, you’ll settle it out of
Court. Good-bye!” With a cold handshake he was gone.
James, his fixed grey-blue eye corkscrewing round some secret
anxious image, began again to bite his finger.
Old Jolyon took his Will to the offices of the New Colliery
Company, and sat down in the empty Board Room to read it through.
He answered “Down-by-the-starn” Hemmings so tartly when the
latter, seeing his Chairman seated there, entered with the new
Superintendent’s first report, that the Secretary withdrew with
regretful dignity; and sending for the transfer clerk, blew him
up till the poor youth knew not where to look.
It was not—by George—as he (Down-by-the-starn) would have him
know, for a whippersnapper of a young fellow like him, to come
down to that office, and think that he was God Almighty. He
(Down-by-the-starn) had been head of that office for more years
than a boy like him could count, and if he thought that when he
had finished all his work, he could sit there doing nothing, he
did not know him, Hemmings (Down-by-the-starn), and so forth.
On the other side of the green baize door old Jolyon sat at the
long, mahogany-and-leather board table, his thick, loose-jointed,
tortoiseshell eye-glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, his
gold pencil moving down the clauses of his Will.
It was a simple affair, for there were none of those vexatious
little legacies and donations to charities, which fritter away a
man’s possessions, and damage the majestic effect of that little
paragraph in the morning papers accorded to Forsytes who die with
a hundred thousand pounds.
A simple affair. Just a bequest to his son of twenty thousand,
and “as to the residue of my property of whatsoever kind whether
realty or personalty, or partaking of the nature of either—upon
trust to pay the proceeds rents annual produce dividends or
interest thereof and thereon to my said grand-daughter June
Forsyte or her assigns during her life to be for her sole use and
benefit and without, etc... and from and after her death or
decease upon trust to convey assign transfer or make over the
said last-mentioned lands hereditaments premises trust moneys
stocks funds investments and securities or such as shall then
stand for and represent the same unto such person or persons
whether one or more for such intents purposes and uses and
generally in such manner way and form in all respects as the said
June Forsyte notwithstanding coverture shall by her last Will and
Testament or any writing or writings in the nature of a Will
testament or testamentary disposition to be by her duly made
signed and published direct appoint or make over give and dispose
of the same And in default etc.... Provided always...” and so on,
in seven folios of brief and simple phraseology.
The Will had been drawn by James in his palmy days. He had
foreseen almost every contingency.
Old Jolyon sat a long time reading this Will; at last he took
half a sheet of paper from the rack, and made a prolonged pencil
note; then buttoning up the Will, he caused a cab to be called
and drove to the offices of Paramor and Herring, in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields. Jack Herring was dead, but his nephew was still in the
firm, and old Jolyon was closeted with him for half an hour.
He had kept the hansom, and on coming out, gave the driver the
address—3, Wistaria Avenue.
He felt a strange, slow satisfaction, as though he had scored a
victory over James and the man of property. They should not poke
their noses into his affairs any more; he had just cancelled
their trusteeships of his Will; he would take the whole of his
business out of their hands, and put it into the hands of young
Herring, and he would move the business of his Companies too. If
that young Soames were such a man of property, he would never
miss a thousand a year or so; and under his great white moustache
old Jolyon grimly smiled. He felt that what he was doing was in
the nature of retributive justice, richly deserved.
Slowly, surely, with the secret inner process that works the
destruction of an old tree, the poison of the wounds to his
happiness, his will, his pride, had corroded the comely edifice
of his philosophy. Life had worn him down on one side, till, like
that family of which he was the head, he had lost balance.
To him, borne northwards towards his son’s house, the thought of
the new disposition of property, which he had just set in motion,
appeared vaguely in the light of a stroke of punishment, levelled
at that family and that Society, of which James and his son
seemed to him the representatives. He had made a restitution to
young Jolyon, and restitution to young Jolyon satisfied his
secret craving for revenge—revenge against Time, sorrow, and
interference, against all that incalculable sum of disapproval
that had been bestowed by the world for fifteen years on his only
son. It presented itself as the one possible way of asserting
once more the domination of his will; of forcing James, and
Soames, and the family, and all those hidden masses of Forsytes—a
great stream rolling against the single dam of his obstinacy—to
recognise once and for all that _he would be master_. It was
sweet to think that at last he was going to make the boy a richer
man by far than that son of James, that “man of property.” And it
was sweet to give to Jo, for he loved his son.
Neither young Jolyon nor his wife were in (young Jolyon indeed
was not back from the Botanical), but the little maid told him
that she expected the master at any moment:
“He’s always at ’ome to tea, sir, to play with the children.”
Old Jolyon said he would wait; and sat down patiently enough in
the faded, shabby drawing room, where, now that the summer
chintzes were removed, the old chairs and sofas revealed all
their threadbare deficiencies. He longed to send for the
children; to have them there beside him, their supple bodies
against his knees; to hear Jolly’s: “Hallo, Gran!” and see his
rush; and feel Holly’s soft little hand stealing up against his
cheek. But he would not. There was solemnity in what he had come
to do, and until it was over he would not play. He amused himself
by thinking how with two strokes of his pen he was going to
restore the look of caste so conspicuously absent from everything
in that little house; how he could fill these rooms, or others in
some larger mansion, with triumphs of art from Baple and
Pullbred’s; how he could send little Jolly to Harrow and Oxford
(he no longer had faith in Eton and Cambridge, for his son had
been there); how he could procure little Holly the best musical
instruction, the child had a remarkable aptitude.
As these visions crowded before him, causing emotion to swell his
heart, he rose, and stood at the window, looking down into the
little walled strip of garden, where the pear-tree, bare of
leaves before its time, stood with gaunt branches in the
slow-gathering mist of the autumn afternoon. The dog Balthasar,
his tail curled tightly over a piebald, furry back, was walking
at the farther end, sniffing at the plants, and at intervals
placing his leg for support against the wall.
And old Jolyon mused.
What pleasure was there left but to give? It was pleasant to
give, when you could find one who would be thankful for what you
gave—one of your own flesh and blood! There was no such
satisfaction to be had out of giving to those who did not belong
to you, to those who had no claim on you! Such giving as that was
a betrayal of the individualistic convictions and actions of his
life, of all his enterprise, his labour, and his moderation, of
the great and proud fact that, like tens of thousands of Forsytes
before him, tens of thousands in the present, tens of thousands
in the future, he had always made his own, and held his own, in
the world.
And, while he stood there looking down on the smut-covered
foliage of the laurels, the black-stained grass-plot, the
progress of the dog Balthasar, all the suffering of the fifteen
years during which he had been baulked of legitimate enjoyment
mingled its gall with the sweetness of the approaching moment.
Young Jolyon came at last, pleased with his work, and fresh from
long hours in the open air. On hearing that his father was in the
drawing room, he inquired hurriedly whether Mrs. Forsyte was at
home, and being informed that she was not, heaved a sigh of
relief. Then putting his painting materials carefully in the
little coat-closet out of sight, he went in.
With characteristic decision old Jolyon came at once to the
point. “I’ve been altering my arrangements, Jo,” he said. “You
can cut your coat a bit longer in the future—I’m settling a
thousand a year on you at once. June will have fifty thousand at
my death; and you the rest. That dog of yours is spoiling the
garden. I shouldn’t keep a dog, if I were you!”
The dog Balthasar, seated in the centre of the lawn, was
examining his tail.
Young Jolyon looked at the animal, but saw him dimly, for his
eyes were misty.
“Yours won’t come short of a hundred thousand, my boy,” said old
Jolyon; “I thought you’d better know. I haven’t much longer to
live at my age. I shan’t allude to it again. How’s your wife?
And—give her my love.”
Young Jolyon put his hand on his father’s shoulder, and, as
neither spoke, the episode closed.
Having seen his father into a hansom, young Jolyon came back to
the drawing-room and stood, where old Jolyon had stood, looking
down on the little garden. He tried to realize all that this
meant to him, and, Forsyte that he was, vistas of property were
opened out in his brain; the years of half rations through which
he had passed had not sapped his natural instincts. In extremely
practical form, he thought of travel, of his wife’s costume, the
children’s education, a pony for Jolly, a thousand things; but in
the midst of all he thought, too, of Bosinney and his mistress,
and the broken song of the thrush. Joy—tragedy! Which? Which?
The old past—the poignant, suffering, passionate, wonderful past,
that no money could buy, that nothing could restore in all its
burning sweetness—had come back before him.
When his wife came in he went straight up to her and took her in
his arms; and for a long time he stood without speaking, his eyes
closed, pressing her to him, while she looked at him with a
wondering, adoring, doubting look in her eyes.
CHAPTER IV VOYAGE INTO THE INFERNO
The morning after a certain night on which Soames at last
asserted his rights and acted like a man, he breakfasted alone.
He breakfasted by gaslight, the fog of late November wrapping the
town as in some monstrous blanket till the trees of the Square
even were barely visible from the dining-room window.
He ate steadily, but at times a sensation as though he could not
swallow attacked him. Had he been right to yield to his
overmastering hunger of the night before, and break down the
resistance which he had suffered now too long from this woman who
was his lawful and solemnly constituted helpmate?
He was strangely haunted by the recollection of her face, from
before which, to soothe her, he had tried to pull her hands—of
her terrible smothered sobbing, the like of which he had never
heard, and still seemed to hear; and he was still haunted by the
odd, intolerable feeling of remorse and shame he had felt, as he
stood looking at her by the flame of the single candle, before
silently slinking away.
And somehow, now that he had acted like this, he was surprised at
himself.
Two nights before, at Winifred Dartie’s, he had taken Mrs.
MacAnder into dinner. She had said to him, looking in his face
with her sharp, greenish eyes: “And so your wife is a great
friend of that Mr. Bosinney’s?”
Not deigning to ask what she meant, he had brooded over her
words.
They had roused in him a fierce jealousy, which, with the
peculiar perversion of this instinct, had turned to fiercer
desire.
Without the incentive of Mrs. MacAnder’s words he might never
have done what he had done. Without their incentive and the
accident of finding his wife’s door for once unlocked, which had
enabled him to steal upon her asleep.
Slumber had removed his doubts, but the morning brought them
again. One thought comforted him: No one would know—it was not
the sort of thing that she would speak about.
And, indeed, when the vehicle of his daily business life, which
needed so imperatively the grease of clear and practical thought,
started rolling once more with the reading of his letters, those
nightmare-like doubts began to assume less extravagant importance
at the back of his mind. The incident was really not of great
moment; women made a fuss about it in books; but in the cool
judgment of right-thinking men, of men of the world, of such as
he recollected often received praise in the Divorce Court, he had
but done his best to sustain the sanctity of marriage, to prevent
her from abandoning her duty, possibly, if she were still seeing
Bosinney, from....
No, he did not regret it.
Now that the first step towards reconciliation had been taken,
the rest would be comparatively—comparatively....
He, rose and walked to the window. His nerve had been shaken. The
sound of smothered sobbing was in his ears again. He could not
get rid of it.
He put on his fur coat, and went out into the fog; having to go
into the City, he took the underground railway from Sloane Square
station.
In his corner of the first-class compartment filled with City men
the smothered sobbing still haunted him, so he opened _The Times_
with the rich crackle that drowns all lesser sounds, and,
barricaded behind it, set himself steadily to con the news.
He read that a Recorder had charged a grand jury on the previous
day with a more than usually long list of offences. He read of
three murders, five manslaughters, seven arsons, and as many as
eleven rapes—a surprisingly high number—in addition to many less
conspicuous crimes, to be tried during a coming Sessions; and
from one piece of news he went on to another, keeping the paper
well before his face.
And still, inseparable from his reading, was the memory of
Irene’s tear-stained face, and the sounds from her broken heart.
The day was a busy one, including, in addition to the ordinary
affairs of his practice, a visit to his brokers, Messrs. Grin and
Grinning, to give them instructions to sell his shares in the New
Colliery Co., Ltd., whose business he suspected, rather than
knew, was stagnating (this enterprise afterwards slowly declined,
and was ultimately sold for a song to an American syndicate); and
a long conference at Waterbuck, Q.C.’s chambers, attended by
Boulter, by Fiske, the junior counsel, and Waterbuck, Q.C.,
himself.
The case of Forsyte _v_. Bosinney was expected to be reached on
the morrow, before Mr. Justice Bentham.
Mr. Justice Bentham, a man of common-sense rather than too great
legal knowledge, was considered to be about the best man they
could have to try the action. He was a “strong” Judge.
Waterbuck, Q.C., in pleasing conjunction with an almost rude
neglect of Boulter and Fiske paid to Soames a good deal of
attention, by instinct or the sounder evidence of rumour, feeling
him to be a man of property.
He held with remarkable consistency to the opinion he had already
expressed in writing, that the issue would depend to a great
extent on the evidence given at the trial, and in a few well
directed remarks he advised Soames not to be too careful in
giving that evidence. “A little bluffness, Mr. Forsyte,” he said,
“a little bluffness,” and after he had spoken he laughed firmly,
closed his lips tight, and scratched his head just below where he
had pushed his wig back, for all the world like the
gentleman-farmer for whom he loved to be taken. He was considered
perhaps the leading man in breach of promise cases.
Soames used the underground again in going home.
The fog was worse than ever at Sloane Square station. Through the
still, thick blur, men groped in and out; women, very few,
grasped their reticules to their bosoms and handkerchiefs to
their mouths; crowned with the weird excrescence of the driver,
haloed by a vague glow of lamp-light that seemed to drown in
vapour before it reached the pavement, cabs loomed dim-shaped
ever and again, and discharged citizens, bolting like rabbits to
their burrows.
And these shadowy figures, wrapped each in his own little shroud
of fog, took no notice of each other. In the great warren, each
rabbit for himself, especially those clothed in the more
expensive fur, who, afraid of carriages on foggy days, are driven
underground.
One figure, however, not far from Soames, waited at the station
door.
Some buccaneer or lover, of whom each Forsyte thought: “Poor
devil! looks as if he were having a bad time!” Their kind hearts
beat a stroke faster for that poor, waiting, anxious lover in the
fog; but they hurried by, well knowing that they had neither time
nor money to spare for any suffering but their own.
Only a policeman, patrolling slowly and at intervals, took an
interest in that waiting figure, the brim of whose slouch hat
half hid a face reddened by the cold, all thin, and haggard, over
which a hand stole now and again to smooth away anxiety, or renew
the resolution that kept him waiting there. But the waiting lover
(if lover he were) was used to policemen’s scrutiny, or too
absorbed in his anxiety, for he never flinched. A hardened case,
accustomed to long trysts, to anxiety, and fog, and cold, if only
his mistress came at last. Foolish lover! Fogs last until the
spring; there is also snow and rain, no comfort anywhere; gnawing
fear if you bring her out, gnawing fear if you bid her stay at
home!
“Serve him right; he should arrange his affairs better!”
So any respectable Forsyte. Yet, if that sounder citizen could
have listened at the waiting lover’s heart, out there in the fog
and the cold, he would have said again: “Yes, poor devil he’s
having a bad time!”
Soames got into his cab, and, with the glass down, crept along
Sloane Street, and so along the Brompton Road, and home. He
reached his house at five.
His wife was not in. She had gone out a quarter of an hour
before. Out at such a time of night, into this terrible fog! What
was the meaning of that?
He sat by the dining-room fire, with the door open, disturbed to
the soul, trying to read the evening paper. A book was no good—in
daily papers alone was any narcotic to such worry as his. From
the customary events recorded in the journal he drew some
comfort. “Suicide of an actress”—“Grave indisposition of a
Statesman” (that chronic sufferer)—“Divorce of an army
officer”—“Fire in a colliery”—he read them all. They helped him a
little—prescribed by the greatest of all doctors, our natural
taste.
It was nearly seven when he heard her come in.
The incident of the night before had long lost its importance
under stress of anxiety at her strange sortie into the fog. But
now that Irene was home, the memory of her broken-hearted sobbing
came back to him, and he felt nervous at the thought of facing
her.
She was already on the stairs; her grey fur coat hung to her
knees, its high collar almost hid her face, she wore a thick
veil.
She neither turned to look at him nor spoke. No ghost or stranger
could have passed more silently.
Bilson came to lay dinner, and told him that Mrs. Forsyte was not
coming down; she was having the soup in her room.
For once Soames did not “change”; it was, perhaps, the first time
in his life that he had sat down to dinner with soiled cuffs,
and, not even noticing them, he brooded long over his wine. He
sent Bilson to light a fire in his picture-room, and presently
went up there himself.
Turning on the gas, he heaved a deep sigh, as though amongst
these treasures, the backs of which confronted him in stacks,
around the little room, he had found at length his peace of mind.
He went straight up to the greatest treasure of them all, an
undoubted Turner, and, carrying it to the easel, turned its face
to the light. There had been a movement in Turners, but he had
not been able to make up his mind to part with it. He stood for a
long time, his pale, clean-shaven face poked forward above his
stand-up collar, looking at the picture as though he were adding
it up; a wistful expression came into his eyes; he found,
perhaps, that it came to too little. He took it down from the
easel to put it back against the wall; but, in crossing the room,
stopped, for he seemed to hear sobbing.
It was nothing—only the sort of thing that had been bothering him
in the morning. And soon after, putting the high guard before the
blazing fire, he stole downstairs.
Fresh for the morrow! was his thought. It was long before he went
to sleep....
It is now to George Forsyte that the mind must turn for light on
the events of that fog-engulfed afternoon.
The wittiest and most sportsmanlike of the Forsytes had passed
the day reading a novel in the paternal mansion at Princes’
Gardens. Since a recent crisis in his financial affairs he had
been kept on parole by Roger, and compelled to reside “at home.”
Towards five o’clock he went out, and took train at South
Kensington Station (for everyone to-day went Underground). His
intention was to dine, and pass the evening playing billiards at
the Red Pottle—that unique hostel, neither club, hotel, nor good
gilt restaurant.
He got out at Charing Cross, choosing it in preference to his
more usual St. James’s Park, that he might reach Jermyn Street by
better lighted ways.
On the platform his eyes—for in combination with a composed and
fashionable appearance, George had sharp eyes, and was always on
the look-out for fillips to his sardonic humour—his eyes were
attracted by a man, who, leaping from a first-class compartment,
staggered rather than walked towards the exit.
“So ho, my bird!” said George to himself; “why, it’s “the
Buccaneer!”” and he put his big figure on the trail. Nothing
afforded him greater amusement than a drunken man.
Bosinney, who wore a slouch hat, stopped in front of him, spun
around, and rushed back towards the carriage he had just left. He
was too late. A porter caught him by the coat; the train was
already moving on.
George’s practised glance caught sight of the face of a lady clad
in a grey fur coat at the carriage window. It was Mrs. Soames—and
George felt that this was interesting!
And now he followed Bosinney more closely than ever—up the
stairs, past the ticket collector into the street. In that
progress, however, his feelings underwent a change; no longer
merely curious and amused, he felt sorry for the poor fellow he
was shadowing. “The Buccaneer” was not drunk, but seemed to be
acting under the stress of violent emotion; he was talking to
himself, and all that George could catch were the words “Oh,
God!” Nor did he appear to know what he was doing, or where
going; but stared, hesitated, moved like a man out of his mind;
and from being merely a joker in search of amusement, George felt
that he must see the poor chap through.
He had “taken the knock”—“taken the knock!” And he wondered what
on earth Mrs. Soames had been saying, what on earth she had been
telling him in the railway carriage. She had looked bad enough
herself! It made George sorry to think of her travelling on with
her trouble all alone.
He followed close behind Bosinney’s elbow—tall, burly figure,
saying nothing, dodging warily—and shadowed him out into the fog.
There was something here beyond a jest! He kept his head
admirably, in spite of some excitement, for in addition to
compassion, the instincts of the chase were roused within him.
Bosinney walked right out into the thoroughfare—a vast muffled
blackness, where a man could not see six paces before him; where,
all around, voices or whistles mocked the sense of direction; and
sudden shapes came rolling slow upon them; and now and then a
light showed like a dim island in an infinite dark sea.
And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosinney, and
fast after him walked George. If the fellow meant to put his
“twopenny” under a ’bus, he would stop it if he could! Across the
street and back the hunted creature strode, not groping as other
men were groping in that gloom, but driven forward as though the
faithful George behind wielded a knout; and this chase after a
haunted man began to have for George the strangest fascination.
But it was now that the affair developed in a way which ever
afterwards caused it to remain green in his mind. Brought to a
stand-still in the fog, he heard words which threw a sudden light
on these proceedings. What Mrs. Soames had said to Bosinney in
the train was now no longer dark. George understood from those
mutterings that Soames had exercised his rights over an estranged
and unwilling wife in the greatest—the supreme act of property.
His fancy wandered in the fields of this situation; it impressed
him; he guessed something of the anguish, the sexual confusion
and horror in Bosinney’s heart. And he thought: “Yes, it’s a bit
thick! I don’t wonder the poor fellow is half-cracked!”
He had run his quarry to earth on a bench under one of the lions
in Trafalgar Square, a monster sphynx astray like themselves in
that gulf of darkness. Here, rigid and silent, sat Bosinney, and
George, in whose patience was a touch of strange brotherliness,
took his stand behind. He was not lacking in a certain delicacy—a
sense of form—that did not permit him to intrude upon this
tragedy, and he waited, quiet as the lion above, his fur collar
hitched above his ears concealing the fleshy redness of his
cheeks, concealing all but his eyes with their sardonic,
compassionate stare. And men kept passing back from business on
the way to their clubs—men whose figures shrouded in cocoons of
fog came into view like spectres, and like spectres vanished.
Then even in his compassion George’s Quilpish humour broke forth
in a sudden longing to pluck these spectres by the sleeve, and
say:
“Hi, you Johnnies! You don’t often see a show like this! Here’s a
poor devil whose mistress has just been telling him a pretty
little story of her husband; walk up, walk up! He’s taken the
knock, you see.”
In fancy he saw them gaping round the tortured lover; and grinned
as he thought of some respectable, newly-married spectre enabled
by the state of his own affections to catch an inkling of what
was going on within Bosinney; he fancied he could see his mouth
getting wider and wider, and the fog going down and down. For in
George was all that contempt of the middle-class—especially of
the married middle-class—peculiar to the wild and sportsmanlike
spirits in its ranks.
But he began to be bored. Waiting was not what he had bargained
for.
“After all,” he thought, “the poor chap will get over it; not the
first time such a thing has happened in this little city!” But
now his quarry again began muttering words of violent hate and
anger. And following a sudden impulse George touched him on the
shoulder.
Bosinney spun round.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
George could have stood it well enough in the light of the gas
lamps, in the light of that everyday world of which he was so
hardy a connoisseur; but in this fog, where all was gloomy and
unreal, where nothing had that matter-of-fact value associated by
Forsytes with earth, he was a victim to strange qualms, and as he
tried to stare back into the eyes of this maniac, he thought:
“If I see a bobby, I’ll hand him over; he’s not fit to be at
large.”
But waiting for no answer, Bosinney strode off into the fog, and
George followed, keeping perhaps a little further off, yet more
than ever set on tracking him down.
“He can’t go on long like this,” he thought. “It’s God’s own
miracle he’s not been run over already.” He brooded no more on
policemen, a sportsman’s sacred fire alive again within him.
Into a denser gloom than ever Bosinney held on at a furious pace;
but his pursuer perceived more method in his madness—he was
clearly making his way westwards.
“He’s really going for Soames!” thought George. The idea was
attractive. It would be a sporting end to such a chase. He had
always disliked his cousin.
The shaft of a passing cab brushed against his shoulder and made
him leap aside. He did not intend to be killed for the Buccaneer,
or anyone. Yet, with hereditary tenacity, he stuck to the trail
through vapour that blotted out everything but the shadow of the
hunted man and the dim moon of the nearest lamp.
Then suddenly, with the instinct of a town-stroller, George knew
himself to be in Piccadilly. Here he could find his way
blindfold; and freed from the strain of geographical uncertainty,
his mind returned to Bosinney’s trouble.
Down the long avenue of his man-about-town experience, bursting,
as it were, through a smirch of doubtful amours, there stalked to
him a memory of his youth. A memory, poignant still, that brought
the scent of hay, the gleam of moonlight, a summer magic, into
the reek and blackness of this London fog—the memory of a night
when in the darkest shadow of a lawn he had overheard from a
woman’s lips that he was not her sole possessor. And for a moment
George walked no longer in black Piccadilly, but lay again, with
hell in his heart, and his face to the sweet-smelling, dewy
grass, in the long shadow of poplars that hid the moon.
A longing seized him to throw his arm round the Buccaneer, and
say, “Come, old boy. Time cures all. Let’s go and drink it off!”
But a voice yelled at him, and he started back. A cab rolled out
of blackness, and into blackness disappeared. And suddenly George
perceived that he had lost Bosinney. He ran forward and back,
felt his heart clutched by a sickening fear, the dark fear which
lives in the wings of the fog. Perspiration started out on his
brow. He stood quite still, listening with all his might.
“And then,” as he confided to Dartie the same evening in the
course of a game of billiards at the Red Pottle, “I lost him.”
Dartie twirled complacently at his dark moustache. He had just
put together a neat break of twenty-three,—failing at a “Jenny.”
“And who was _she?_” he asked.
George looked slowly at the “man of the world’s” fattish, sallow
face, and a little grim smile lurked about the curves of his
cheeks and his heavy-lidded eyes.
“No, no, my fine fellow,” he thought, “I’m not going to tell
_you_.” For though he mixed with Dartie a good deal, he thought
him a bit of a cad.
“Oh, some little love-lady or other,” he said, and chalked his
cue.
“A love-lady!” exclaimed Dartie—he used a more figurative
expression. “I made sure it was our friend Soa....”
“Did you?” said George curtly. “Then damme you’ve made an error.”
He missed his shot. He was careful not to allude to the subject
again till, towards eleven o’clock, having, in his poetic
phraseology, “looked upon the drink when it was yellow,” he drew
aside the blind, and gazed out into the street. The murky
blackness of the fog was but faintly broken by the lamps of the
“Red Pottle,” and no shape of mortal man or thing was in sight.
“I can’t help thinking of that poor Buccaneer,” he said. “He may
be wandering out there now in that fog. If he’s not a corpse,” he
added with strange dejection.
“Corpse!” said Dartie, in whom the recollection of his defeat at
Richmond flared up. “_He’s_ all right. Ten to one if he wasn’t
tight!”
George turned on him, looking really formidable, with a sort of
savage gloom on his big face.
“Dry up!” he said. “Don’t I tell you he’s ‘taken the knock!’”
CHAPTER V THE TRIAL
In the morning of his case, which was second in the list, Soames
was again obliged to start without seeing Irene, and it was just
as well, for he had not as yet made up his mind what attitude to
adopt towards her.
He had been requested to be in court by half-past ten, to provide
against the event of the first action (a breach of promise)
collapsing, which however it did not, both sides showing a
courage that afforded Waterbuck, Q.C., an opportunity for
improving his already great reputation in this class of case. He
was opposed by Ram, the other celebrated breach of promise man.
It was a battle of giants.
The court delivered judgment just before the luncheon interval.
The jury left the box for good, and Soames went out to get
something to eat. He met James standing at the little
luncheon-bar, like a pelican in the wilderness of the galleries,
bent over a sandwich with a glass of sherry before him. The
spacious emptiness of the great central hall, over which father
and son brooded as they stood together, was marred now and then
for a fleeting moment by barristers in wig and gown hurriedly
bolting across, by an occasional old lady or rusty-coated man,
looking up in a frightened way, and by two persons, bolder than
their generation, seated in an embrasure arguing. The sound of
their voices arose, together with a scent as of neglected wells,
which, mingling with the odour of the galleries, combined to form
the savour, like nothing but the emanation of a refined cheese,
so indissolubly connected with the administration of British
Justice.
It was not long before James addressed his son.
“When’s your case coming on? I suppose it’ll be on directly. I
shouldn’t wonder if this Bosinney’d say anything; I should think
he’d have to. He’ll go bankrupt if it goes against him.” He took
a large bite at his sandwich and a mouthful of sherry. “Your
mother,” he said, “wants you and Irene to come and dine
to-night.”
A chill smile played round Soames’s lips; he looked back at his
father. Anyone who had seen the look, cold and furtive, thus
interchanged, might have been pardoned for not appreciating the
real understanding between them. James finished his sherry at a
draught.
“How much?” he asked.
On returning to the court Soames took at once his rightful seat
on the front bench beside his solicitor. He ascertained where his
father was seated with a glance so sidelong as to commit nobody.
James, sitting back with his hands clasped over the handle of his
umbrella, was brooding on the end of the bench immediately behind
counsel, whence he could get away at once when the case was over.
He considered Bosinney’s conduct in every way outrageous, but he
did not wish to run up against him, feeling that the meeting
would be awkward.
Next to the Divorce Court, this court was, perhaps, the favourite
emporium of justice, libel, breach of promise, and other
commercial actions being frequently decided there. Quite a
sprinkling of persons unconnected with the law occupied the back
benches, and the hat of a woman or two could be seen in the
gallery.
The two rows of seats immediately in front of James were
gradually filled by barristers in wigs, who sat down to make
pencil notes, chat, and attend to their teeth; but his interest
was soon diverted from these lesser lights of justice by the
entrance of Waterbuck, Q.C., with the wings of his silk gown
rustling, and his red, capable face supported by two short, brown
whiskers. The famous Q.C. looked, as James freely admitted, the
very picture of a man who could heckle a witness.
For all his experience, it so happened that he had never seen
Waterbuck, Q.C., before, and, like many Forsytes in the lower
branch of the profession, he had an extreme admiration for a good
cross-examiner. The long, lugubrious folds in his cheeks relaxed
somewhat after seeing him, especially as he now perceived that
Soames alone was represented by silk.
Waterbuck, Q.C., had barely screwed round on his elbow to chat
with his Junior before Mr. Justice Bentham himself appeared—a
thin, rather hen-like man, with a little stoop, clean-shaven
under his snowy wig. Like all the rest of the court, Waterbuck
rose, and remained on his feet until the judge was seated. James
rose but slightly; he was already comfortable, and had no opinion
of Bentham, having sat next but one to him at dinner twice at the
Bumley Tomms’. Bumley Tomm was rather a poor thing, though he had
been so successful. James himself had given him his first brief.
He was excited, too, for he had just found out that Bosinney was
not in court.
“Now, what’s he mean by that?” he kept on thinking.
The case having been called on, Waterbuck, Q.C., pushing back his
papers, hitched his gown on his shoulder, and, with a
semi-circular look around him, like a man who is going to bat,
arose and addressed the Court.
The facts, he said, were not in dispute, and all that his
Lordship would be asked was to interpret the correspondence which
had taken place between his client and the defendant, an
architect, with reference to the decoration of a house. He would,
however, submit that this correspondence could only mean one very
plain thing. After briefly reciting the history of the house at
Robin Hill, which he described as a mansion, and the actual facts
of expenditure, he went on as follows:
“My client, Mr. Soames Forsyte, is a gentleman, a man of
property, who would be the last to dispute any legitimate claim
that might be made against him, but he has met with such
treatment from his architect in the matter of this house, over
which he has, as your lordship has heard, already spent some
twelve—some twelve thousand pounds, a sum considerably in advance
of the amount he had originally contemplated, that as a matter of
principle—and this I cannot too strongly emphasize—as a matter of
principle, and in the interests of others, he has felt himself
compelled to bring this action. The point put forward in defence
by the architect I will suggest to your lordship is not worthy of
a moment’s serious consideration.” He then read the
correspondence.
His client, “a man of recognised position,” was prepared to go
into the box, and to swear that he never did authorize, that it
was never in his mind to authorize, the expenditure of any money
beyond the extreme limit of twelve thousand and fifty pounds,
which he had clearly fixed; and not further to waste the time of
the court, he would at once call Mr. Forsyte.
Soames then went into the box. His whole appearance was striking
in its composure. His face, just supercilious enough, pale and
clean-shaven, with a little line between the eyes, and compressed
lips; his dress in unostentatious order, one hand neatly gloved,
the other bare. He answered the questions put to him in a
somewhat low, but distinct voice. His evidence under
cross-examination savoured of taciturnity.
Had he not used the expression, “a free hand”? No.
“Come, come!”
The expression he had used was “a free hand in the terms of this
correspondence.”
“Would you tell the Court that that was English?”
“Yes!”
“What do you say it means?”
“What it says!”
“Are you prepared to deny that it is a contradiction in terms?”
“Yes.”
“You are not an Irishman?”
“No.”
“Are you a well-educated man?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you persist in that statement?”
“Yes.”
Throughout this and much more cross-examination, which turned
again and again around the “nice point,” James sat with his hand
behind his ear, his eyes fixed upon his son.
He was proud of him! He could not but feel that in similar
circumstances he himself would have been tempted to enlarge his
replies, but his instinct told him that this taciturnity was the
very thing. He sighed with relief, however, when Soames, slowly
turning, and without any change of expression, descended from the
box.
When it came to the turn of Bosinney’s Counsel to address the
Judge, James redoubled his attention, and he searched the Court
again and again to see if Bosinney were not somewhere concealed.
Young Chankery began nervously; he was placed by Bosinney’s
absence in an awkward position. He therefore did his best to turn
that absence to account.
He could not but fear—he said—that his client had met with an
accident. He had fully expected him there to give evidence; they
had sent round that morning both to Mr. Bosinney’s office and to
his rooms (though he knew they were one and the same, he thought
it was as well not to say so), but it was not known where he was,
and this he considered to be ominous, knowing how anxious Mr.
Bosinney had been to give his evidence. He had not, however, been
instructed to apply for an adjournment, and in default of such
instruction he conceived it his duty to go on. The plea on which
he somewhat confidently relied, and which his client, had he not
unfortunately been prevented in some way from attending, would
have supported by his evidence, was that such an expression as a
“free hand” could not be limited, fettered, and rendered
unmeaning, by any verbiage which might follow it. He would go
further and say that the correspondence showed that whatever he
might have said in his evidence, Mr. Forsyte had in fact never
contemplated repudiating liability on any of the work ordered or
executed by his architect. The defendant had certainly never
contemplated such a contingency, or, as was demonstrated by his
letters, he would never have proceeded with the work—a work of
extreme delicacy, carried out with great care and efficiency, to
meet and satisfy the fastidious taste of a connoisseur, a rich
man, a man of property. He felt strongly on this point, and
feeling strongly he used, perhaps, rather strong words when he
said that this action was of a most unjustifiable, unexpected,
indeed—unprecedented character. If his Lordship had had the
opportunity that he himself had made it his duty to take, to go
over this very fine house and see the great delicacy and beauty
of the decorations executed by his client—an artist in his most
honourable profession—he felt convinced that not for one moment
would his Lordship tolerate this, he would use no stronger word
than daring attempt to evade legitimate responsibility.
Taking the text of Soames’s letters, he lightly touched on
“Boileau _v_. The Blasted Cement Company, Limited.” “It is
doubtful,” he said, “what that authority has decided; in any case
I would submit that it is just as much in my favour as in my
friend’s.” He then argued the “nice point” closely. With all due
deference he submitted that Mr. Forsyte’s expression nullified
itself. His client not being a rich man, the matter was a serious
one for him; he was a very talented architect, whose professional
reputation was undoubtedly somewhat at stake. He concluded with a
perhaps too personal appeal to the Judge, as a lover of the arts,
to show himself the protector of artists, from what was
occasionally—he said occasionally—the too iron hand of capital.
“What,” he said, “will be the position of the artistic
professions, if men of property like this Mr. Forsyte refuse, and
are allowed to refuse, to carry out the obligations of the
commissions which they have given.” He would now call his client,
in case he should at the last moment have found himself able to
be present.
The name Philip Baynes Bosinney was called three times by the
Ushers, and the sound of the calling echoed with strange
melancholy throughout the Court and Galleries.
The crying of this name, to which no answer was returned, had
upon James a curious effect: it was like calling for your lost
dog about the streets. And the creepy feeling that it gave him,
of a man missing, grated on his sense of comfort and security—on
his cosiness. Though he could not have said why, it made him feel
uneasy.
He looked now at the clock—a quarter to three! It would be all
over in a quarter of an hour. Where could the young fellow be?
It was only when Mr. Justice Bentham delivered judgment that he
got over the turn he had received.
Behind the wooden erection, by which he was fenced from more
ordinary mortals, the learned Judge leaned forward. The electric
light, just turned on above his head, fell on his face, and
mellowed it to an orange hue beneath the snowy crown of his wig;
the amplitude of his robes grew before the eye; his whole figure,
facing the comparative dusk of the Court, radiated like some
majestic and sacred body. He cleared his throat, took a sip of
water, broke the nib of a quill against the desk, and, folding
his bony hands before him, began.
To James he suddenly loomed much larger than he had ever thought
Bentham would loom. It was the majesty of the law; and a person
endowed with a nature far less matter-of-fact than that of James
might have been excused for failing to pierce this halo, and
disinter therefrom the somewhat ordinary Forsyte, who walked and
talked in every-day life under the name of Sir Walter Bentham.
He delivered judgment in the following words:
“The facts in this case are not in dispute. On May 15 last the
defendant wrote to the plaintiff, requesting to be allowed to
withdraw from his professional position in regard to the
decoration of the plaintiff’s house, unless he were given ‘a free
hand.’ The plaintiff, on May 17, wrote back as follows: ‘In
giving you, in accordance with your request, this free hand, I
wish you to clearly understand that the total cost of the house
as handed over to me completely decorated, inclusive of your fee
(as arranged between us) must not exceed twelve thousand pounds.’
To this letter the defendant replied on May 18: ‘If you think
that in such a delicate matter as decoration I can bind myself to
the exact pound, I am afraid you are mistaken.’ On May 19 the
plaintiff wrote as follows: ‘I did not mean to say that if you
should exceed the sum named in my letter to you by ten or twenty
or even fifty pounds there would be any difficulty between us.
You have a free hand in the terms of this correspondence, and I
hope you will see your way to completing the decorations.’ On May
20 the defendant replied thus shortly: ‘Very well.’
“In completing these decorations, the defendant incurred
liabilities and expenses which brought the total cost of this
house up to the sum of twelve thousand four hundred pounds, all
of which expenditure has been defrayed by the plaintiff. This
action has been brought by the plaintiff to recover from the
defendant the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds expended by
him in excess of a sum of twelve thousand and fifty pounds,
alleged by the plaintiff to have been fixed by this
correspondence as the maximum sum that the defendant had
authority to expend.
“The question for me to decide is whether or no the defendant is
liable to refund to the plaintiff this sum. In my judgment he is
so liable.
“What in effect the plaintiff has said is this ‘I give you a free
hand to complete these decorations, provided that you keep within
a total cost to me of twelve thousand pounds. If you exceed that
sum by as much as fifty pounds, I will not hold you responsible;
beyond that point you are no agent of mine, and I shall repudiate
liability.’ It is not quite clear to me whether, had the
plaintiff in fact repudiated liability under his agent’s
contracts, he would, under all the circumstances, have been
successful in so doing; but he has not adopted this course. He
has accepted liability, and fallen back upon his rights against
the defendant under the terms of the latter’s engagement.
“In my judgment the plaintiff is entitled to recover this sum
from the defendant.
“It has been sought, on behalf of the defendant, to show that no
limit of expenditure was fixed or intended to be fixed by this
correspondence. If this were so, I can find no reason for the
plaintiff’s importation into the correspondence of the figures of
twelve thousand pounds and subsequently of fifty pounds. The
defendant’s contention would render these figures meaningless. It
is manifest to me that by his letter of May 20 he assented to a
very clear proposition, by the terms of which he must be held to
be bound.
“For these reasons there will be judgment for the plaintiff for
the amount claimed with costs.”
James sighed, and stooping, picked up his umbrella which had
fallen with a rattle at the words “importation into this
correspondence.”
Untangling his legs, he rapidly left the Court; without waiting
for his son, he snapped up a hansom cab (it was a clear, grey
afternoon) and drove straight to Timothy’s where he found
Swithin; and to him, Mrs. Septimus Small, and Aunt Hester, he
recounted the whole proceedings, eating two muffins not
altogether in the intervals of speech.
“Soames did very well,” he ended; “he’s got his head screwed on
the right way. This won’t please Jolyon. It’s a bad business for
that young Bosinney; he’ll go bankrupt, I shouldn’t wonder,” and
then after a long pause, during which he had stared disquietly
into the fire, he added:
“He wasn’t there—now why?”
There was a sound of footsteps. The figure of a thick-set man,
with the ruddy brown face of robust health, was seen in the back
drawing-room. The forefinger of his upraised hand was outlined
against the black of his frock coat. He spoke in a grudging
voice.
“Well, James,” he said, “I can’t—I can’t stop,” and turning
round, he walked out.
It was Timothy.
James rose from his chair. “There!” he said, “there! I knew there
was something wro....” He checked himself, and was silent,
staring before him, as though he had seen a portent.
CHAPTER VI SOAMES BREAKS THE NEWS
In leaving the Court Soames did not go straight home. He felt
disinclined for the City, and drawn by need for sympathy in his
triumph, he, too, made his way, but slowly and on foot, to
Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road.
His father had just left; Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester, in
possession of the whole story, greeted him warmly. They were sure
he was hungry after all that evidence. Smither should toast him
some more muffins, his dear father had eaten them all. He must
put his legs up on the sofa; and he must have a glass of prune
brandy too. It was so strengthening.
Swithin was still present, having lingered later than his wont,
for he felt in want of exercise. On hearing this suggestion, he
“pished.” A pretty pass young men were coming to! His own liver
was out of order, and he could not bear the thought of anyone
else drinking prune brandy.
He went away almost immediately, saying to Soames: “And how’s
your wife? You tell her from me that if she’s dull, and likes to
come and dine with me quietly, I’ll give her such a bottle of
champagne as she doesn’t get every day.” Staring down from his
height on Soames he contracted his thick, puffy, yellow hand as
though squeezing within it all this small fry, and throwing out
his chest he waddled slowly away.
Mrs. Small and Aunt Hester were left horrified. Swithin was so
droll!
They themselves were longing to ask Soames how Irene would take
the result, yet knew that they must not; he would perhaps say
something of his own accord, to throw some light on this, the
present burning question in their lives, the question that from
necessity of silence tortured them almost beyond bearing; for
even Timothy had now been told, and the effect on his health was
little short of alarming. And what, too, would June do? This,
also, was a most exciting, if dangerous speculation!
They had never forgotten old Jolyon’s visit, since when he had
not once been to see them; they had never forgotten the feeling
it gave all who were present, that the family was no longer what
it had been—that the family was breaking up.
But Soames gave them no help, sitting with his knees crossed,
talking of the Barbizon school of painters, whom he had just
discovered. These were the coming men, he said; he should not
wonder if a lot of money were made over them; he had his eye on
two pictures by a man called Corot, charming things; if he could
get them at a reasonable price he was going to buy them—they
would, he thought, fetch a big price some day.
Interested as they could not but be, neither Mrs. Septimus Small
nor Aunt Hester could entirely acquiesce in being thus put off.
It was interesting—most interesting—and then Soames was so clever
that they were sure he would do something with those pictures if
anybody could; but what was his plan now that he had won his
case; was he going to leave London at once, and live in the
country, or what was he going to do?
Soames answered that he did not know, he thought they should be
moving soon. He rose and kissed his aunts.
No sooner had Aunt Juley received this emblem of departure than a
change came over her, as though she were being visited by
dreadful courage; every little roll of flesh on her face seemed
trying to escape from an invisible, confining mask.
She rose to the full extent of her more than medium height, and
said: “It has been on my mind a long time, dear, and if nobody
else will tell you, I have made up my mind that....”
Aunt Hester interrupted her: “Mind, Julia, you do it....” she
gasped—“on your own responsibility!”
Mrs. Small went on as though she had not heard: “I think you
_ought_ to know, dear, that Mrs. MacAnder saw Irene walking in
Richmond Park with Mr. Bosinney.”
Aunt Hester, who had also risen, sank back in her chair, and
turned her face away. Really Juley was too—she should not do such
things when she—Aunt Hester, was in the room; and, breathless
with anticipation, she waited for what Soames would answer.
He had flushed the peculiar flush which always centred between
his eyes; lifting his hand, and, as it were, selecting a finger,
he bit a nail delicately; then, drawling it out between set lips,
he said: “Mrs. MacAnder is a cat!”
Without waiting for any reply, he left the room.
When he went into Timothy’s he had made up his mind what course
to pursue on getting home. He would go up to Irene and say:
“Well, I’ve won my case, and there’s an end of it! I don’t want
to be hard on Bosinney; I’ll see if we can’t come to some
arrangement; he shan’t be pressed. And now let’s turn over a new
leaf! We’ll let the house, and get out of these fogs. We’ll go
down to Robin Hill at once. I—I never meant to be rough with you!
Let’s shake hands—and—” Perhaps she would let him kiss her, and
forget!
When he came out of Timothy’s his intentions were no longer so
simple. The smouldering jealousy and suspicion of months blazed
up within him. He would put an end to that sort of thing once and
for all; he would not have her drag his name in the dirt! If she
could not or would not love him, as was her duty and his
right—she should not play him tricks with anyone else! He would
tax her with it; threaten to divorce her! That would make her
behave; she would never face that. But—but—what if she did? He
was staggered; this had not occurred to him.
What if she did? What if she made him a confession? How would he
stand then? He would have to bring a divorce!
A divorce! Thus close, the word was paralyzing, so utterly at
variance with all the principles that had hitherto guided his
life. Its lack of compromise appalled him; he felt—like the
captain of a ship, going to the side of his vessel, and, with his
own hands throwing over the most precious of his bales. This
jettisoning of his property with his own hand seemed uncanny to
Soames. It would injure him in his profession: He would have to
get rid of the house at Robin Hill, on which he had spent so much
money, so much anticipation—and at a sacrifice. And she! She
would no longer belong to him, not even in name! She would pass
out of his life, and he—he should never see her again!
He traversed in the cab the length of a street without getting
beyond the thought that he should never see her again!
But perhaps there was nothing to confess, even now very likely
there was nothing to confess. Was it wise to push things so far?
Was it wise to put himself into a position where he might have to
eat his words? The result of this case would ruin Bosinney; a
ruined man was desperate, but—what could he do? He might go
abroad, ruined men always went abroad. What could _they_ do—if
indeed it _was_ “_they_”—without money? It would be better to
wait and see how things turned out. If necessary, he could have
her watched. The agony of his jealousy (for all the world like
the crisis of an aching tooth) came on again; and he almost cried
out. But he must decide, fix on some course of action before he
got home. When the cab drew up at the door, he had decided
nothing.
He entered, pale, his hands moist with perspiration, dreading to
meet her, burning to meet her, ignorant of what he was to say or
do.
The maid Bilson was in the hall, and in answer to his question:
“Where is your mistress?” told him that Mrs. Forsyte had left the
house about noon, taking with her a trunk and bag.
Snatching the sleeve of his fur coat away from her grasp, he
confronted her:
“What?” he exclaimed; “what’s that you said?” Suddenly
recollecting that he must not betray emotion, he added: “What
message did she leave?” and noticed with secret terror the
startled look of the maid’s eyes.
“Mrs. Forsyte left no message, sir.”
“No message; very well, thank you, that will do. I shall be
dining out.”
The maid went downstairs, leaving him still in his fur coat, idly
turning over the visiting cards in the porcelain bowl that stood
on the carved oak rug chest in the hall.
Mr. and Mrs. Bareham Culcher.
Mrs. Septimus Small.
Mrs. Baynes.
Mr. Solomon Thornworthy.
Lady Bellis.
Miss Hermione Bellis.
Miss Winifred Bellis.
Miss Ella Bellis.
Who the devil were all these people? He seemed to have forgotten
all familiar things. The words “no message—a trunk, and a bag,”
played a hide-and-seek in his brain. It was incredible that she
had left no message, and, still in his fur coat, he ran upstairs
two steps at a time, as a young married man when he comes home
will run up to his wife’s room.
Everything was dainty, fresh, sweet-smelling; everything in
perfect order. On the great bed with its lilac silk quilt, was
the bag she had made and embroidered with her own hands to hold
her sleeping things; her slippers ready at the foot; the sheets
even turned over at the head as though expecting her.
On the table stood the silver-mounted brushes and bottles from
her dressing bag, his own present. There must, then, be some
mistake. What bag had she taken? He went to the bell to summon
Bilson, but remembered in time that he must assume knowledge of
where Irene had gone, take it all as a matter of course, and
grope out the meaning for himself.
He locked the doors, and tried to think, but felt his brain going
round; and suddenly tears forced themselves into his eyes.
Hurriedly pulling off his coat, he looked at himself in the
mirror.
He was too pale, a greyish tinge all over his face; he poured out
water, and began feverishly washing.
Her silver-mounted brushes smelt faintly of the perfumed lotion
she used for her hair; and at this scent the burning sickness of
his jealousy seized him again.
Struggling into his fur, he ran downstairs and out into the
street.
He had not lost all command of himself, however, and as he went
down Sloane Street he framed a story for use, in case he should
not find her at Bosinney’s. But if he should? His power of
decision again failed; he reached the house without knowing what
he should do if he did find her there.
It was after office hours, and the street door was closed; the
woman who opened it could not say whether Mr. Bosinney were in or
no; she had not seen him that day, not for two or three days; she
did not attend to him now, nobody attended to him, he....
Soames interrupted her, he would go up and see for himself. He
went up with a dogged, white face.
The top floor was unlighted, the door closed, no one answered his
ringing, he could hear no sound. He was obliged to descend,
shivering under his fur, a chill at his heart. Hailing a cab, he
told the man to drive to Park Lane.
On the way he tried to recollect when he had last given her a
cheque; she could not have more than three or four pounds, but
there were her jewels; and with exquisite torture he remembered
how much money she could raise on these; enough to take them
abroad; enough for them to live on for months! He tried to
calculate; the cab stopped, and he got out with the calculation
unmade.
The butler asked whether Mrs. Soames was in the cab, the master
had told him they were both expected to dinner.
Soames answered: “No. Mrs. Forsyte has a cold.”
The butler was sorry.
Soames thought he was looking at him inquisitively, and
remembering that he was not in dress clothes, asked: “Anybody
here to dinner, Warmson?”
“Nobody but Mr. and Mrs. Dartie, sir.”
Again it seemed to Soames that the butler was looking curiously
at him. His composure gave way.
“What are you looking at?” he said. “What’s the matter with me,
eh?”
The butler blushed, hung up the fur coat, murmured something that
sounded like: “Nothing, sir, I’m sure, sir,” and stealthily
withdrew.
Soames walked upstairs. Passing the drawing-room without a look,
he went straight up to his mother’s and father’s bedroom.
James, standing sideways, the concave lines of his tall, lean
figure displayed to advantage in shirt-sleeves and evening
waistcoat, his head bent, the end of his white tie peeping askew
from underneath one white Dundreary whisker, his eyes peering
with intense concentration, his lips pouting, was hooking the top
hooks of his wife’s bodice. Soames stopped; he felt half-choked,
whether because he had come upstairs too fast, or for some other
reason. He—he himself had never—never been asked to....
He heard his father’s voice, as though there were a pin in his
mouth, saying: “Who’s that? Who’s there? What d’you want?” His
mother’s: “Here, Félice, come and hook this; your master’ll never
get done.”
He put his hand up to his throat, and said hoarsely:
“It’s I—Soames!”
He noticed gratefully the affectionate surprise in Emily’s:
“Well, my dear boy?” and James’, as he dropped the hook: “What,
Soames! What’s brought you up? Aren’t you well?”
He answered mechanically: “I’m all right,” and looked at them,
and it seemed impossible to bring out his news.
James, quick to take alarm, began: “You don’t look well. I expect
you’ve taken a chill—it’s liver, I shouldn’t wonder. Your
mother’ll give you....”
But Emily broke in quietly: “Have you brought Irene?”
Soames shook his head.
“No,” he stammered, “she—she’s left me!”
Emily deserted the mirror before which she was standing. Her
tall, full figure lost its majesty and became very human as she
came running over to Soames.
“My dear boy! My _dear_ boy!”
She put her lips to his forehead, and stroked his hand.
James, too, had turned full towards his son; his face looked
older.
“Left you?” he said. “What d’you mean—left you? You never told me
she was going to leave you.”
Soames answered surlily: “How could I tell? What’s to be done?”
James began walking up and down; he looked strange and stork-like
without a coat. “What’s to be done!” he muttered. “How should I
know what’s to be done? What’s the good of asking me? Nobody
tells me anything, and then they come and ask me what’s to be
done; and I should like to know how I’m to tell them! Here’s your
mother, there she stands; _she_ doesn’t say anything. What _I_
should say you’ve got to do is to follow her..”
Soames smiled; his peculiar, supercilious smile had never before
looked pitiable.
“I don’t know where she’s gone,” he said.
“Don’t know where she’s gone!” said James. “How d’you mean, don’t
know where she’s gone? Where d’you suppose she’s gone? She’s gone
after that young Bosinney, that’s where she’s gone. I knew how it
would be.”
Soames, in the long silence that followed, felt his mother
pressing his hand. And all that passed seemed to pass as though
his own power of thinking or doing had gone to sleep.
His father’s face, dusky red, twitching as if he were going to
cry, and words breaking out that seemed rent from him by some
spasm in his soul.
“There’ll be a scandal; I always said so.” Then, no one saying
anything: “And there you stand, you and your mother!”
And Emily’s voice, calm, rather contemptuous: “Come, now, James!
Soames will do all that he can.”
And James, staring at the floor, a little brokenly: “Well, I
can’t help you; I’m getting old. Don’t you be in too great a
hurry, my boy.”
And his mother’s voice again: “Soames will do all he can to get
her back. We won’t talk of it. It’ll all come right, I dare say.”
And James: “Well, I can’t see how it can come right. And if she
hasn’t gone off with that young Bosinney, my advice to you is not
to listen to her, but to follow her and get her back.”
Once more Soames felt his mother stroking his hand, in token of
her approval, and as though repeating some form of sacred oath,
he muttered between his teeth: “I will!”
All three went down to the drawing-room together. There, were
gathered the three girls and Dartie; had Irene been present, the
family circle would have been complete.
James sank into his armchair, and except for a word of cold
greeting to Dartie, whom he both despised and dreaded, as a man
likely to be always in want of money, he said nothing till dinner
was announced. Soames, too, was silent; Emily alone, a woman of
cool courage, maintained a conversation with Winifred on trivial
subjects. She was never more composed in her manner and
conversation than that evening.
A decision having been come to not to speak of Irene’s flight, no
view was expressed by any other member of the family as to the
right course to be pursued; there can be little doubt, from the
general tone adopted in relation to events as they afterwards
turned out, that James’s advice: “Don’t you listen to her, follow
her and get her back!” would, with here and there an exception,
have been regarded as sound, not only in Park Lane, but amongst
the Nicholases, the Rogers, and at Timothy’s. Just as it would
surely have been endorsed by that wider body of Forsytes all over
London, who were merely excluded from judgment by ignorance of
the story.
In spite then of Emily’s efforts, the dinner was served by
Warmson and the footman almost in silence. Dartie was sulky, and
drank all he could get; the girls seldom talked to each other at
any time. James asked once where June was, and what she was doing
with herself in these days. No one could tell him. He sank back
into gloom. Only when Winifred recounted how little Publius had
given his bad penny to a beggar, did he brighten up.
“Ah!” he said, “that’s a clever little chap. I don’t know what’ll
become of him, if he goes on like this. An intelligent little
chap, I call him!” But it was only a flash.
The courses succeeded one another solemnly, under the electric
light, which glared down onto the table, but barely reached the
principal ornament of the walls, a so-called “Sea Piece by
Turner,” almost entirely composed of cordage and drowning men.
Champagne was handed, and then a bottle of James’ prehistoric
port, but as by the chill hand of some skeleton.
At ten o’clock Soames left; twice in reply to questions, he had
said that Irene was not well; he felt he could no longer trust
himself. His mother kissed him with her large soft kiss, and he
pressed her hand, a flush of warmth in his cheeks. He walked away
in the cold wind, which whistled desolately round the corners of
the streets, under a sky of clear steel-blue, alive with stars;
he noticed neither their frosty greeting, nor the crackle of the
curled-up plane-leaves, nor the night-women hurrying in their
shabby furs, nor the pinched faces of vagabonds at street
corners. Winter was come! But Soames hastened home, oblivious;
his hands trembled as he took the late letters from the gilt wire
cage into which they had been thrust through the slit in the
door.
None from Irene!
He went into the dining-room; the fire was bright there, his
chair drawn up to it, slippers ready, spirit case, and carven
cigarette box on the table; but after staring at it all for a
minute or two, he turned out the light and went upstairs. There
was a fire too in his dressing-room, but her room was dark and
cold. It was into this room that Soames went.
He made a great illumination with candles, and for a long time
continued pacing up and down between the bed and the door. He
could not get used to the thought that she had really left him,
and as though still searching for some message, some reason, some
reading of all the mystery of his married life, he began opening
every recess and drawer.
There were her dresses; he had always liked, indeed insisted,
that she should be well-dressed—she had taken very few; two or
three at most, and drawer after drawer; full of linen and silk
things, was untouched.
Perhaps after all it was only a freak, and she had gone to the
seaside for a few days’ change. If only that were so, and she
were really coming back, he would never again do as he had done
that fatal night before last, never again run that risk—though it
was her duty, her duty as a wife; though she did belong to him—he
would never again run that risk; she was evidently not quite
right in her head!
He stooped over the drawer where she kept her jewels; it was not
locked, and came open as he pulled; the jewel box had the key in
it. This surprised him until he remembered that it was sure to be
empty. He opened it.
It was far from empty. Divided, in little green velvet
compartments, were all the things he had given her, even her
watch, and stuck into the recess that contained the watch was a
three-cornered note addressed “Soames Forsyte,” in Irene’s
handwriting:
“I think I have taken nothing that you or your people have given
me.” And that was all.
He looked at the clasps and bracelets of diamonds and pearls, at
the little flat gold watch with a great diamond set in sapphires,
at the chains and rings, each in its nest, and the tears rushed
up in his eyes and dropped upon them.
Nothing that she could have done, nothing that she _had_ done,
brought home to him like this the inner significance of her act.
For the moment, perhaps, he understood nearly all there was to
understand—understood that she loathed him, that she had loathed
him for years, that for all intents and purposes they were like
people living in different worlds, that there was no hope for
him, never had been; even, that she had suffered—that she was to
be pitied.
In that moment of emotion he betrayed the Forsyte in him—forgot
himself, his interests, his property—was capable of almost
anything; was lifted into the pure ether of the selfless and
unpractical.
Such moments pass quickly.
And as though with the tears he had purged himself of weakness,
he got up, locked the box, and slowly, almost trembling, carried
it with him into the other room.
CHAPTER VII JUNE’S VICTORY
June had waited for her chance, scanning the duller columns of
the journals, morning and evening with an assiduity which at
first puzzled old Jolyon; and when her chance came, she took it
with all the promptitude and resolute tenacity of her character.
She will always remember best in her life that morning when at
last she saw amongst the reliable Cause List of the _Times_
newspaper, under the heading of Court XIII, Mr. Justice Bentham,
the case of Forsyte _v_. Bosinney.
Like a gambler who stakes his last piece of money, she had
prepared to hazard her all upon this throw; it was not her nature
to contemplate defeat. How, unless with the instinct of a woman
in love, she knew that Bosinney’s discomfiture in this action was
assured, cannot be told—on this assumption, however, she laid her
plans, as upon a certainty.
Half past eleven found her at watch in the gallery of Court
XIII., and there she remained till the case of Forsyte _v_.
Bosinney was over. Bosinney’s absence did not disquiet her; she
had felt instinctively that he would not defend himself. At the
end of the judgment she hastened down, and took a cab to his
rooms.
She passed the open street-door and the offices on the three
lower floors without attracting notice; not till she reached the
top did her difficulties begin.
Her ring was not answered; she had now to make up her mind
whether she would go down and ask the caretaker in the basement
to let her in to await Mr. Bosinney’s return, or remain patiently
outside the door, trusting that no one would come up. She decided
on the latter course.
A quarter of an hour had passed in freezing vigil on the landing,
before it occurred to her that Bosinney had been used to leave
the key of his rooms under the door-mat. She looked and found it
there. For some minutes she could not decide to make use of it;
at last she let herself in and left the door open that anyone who
came might see she was there on business.
This was not the same June who had paid the trembling visit five
months ago; those months of suffering and restraint had made her
less sensitive; she had dwelt on this visit so long, with such
minuteness, that its terrors were discounted beforehand. She was
not there to fail this time, for if she failed no one could help
her.
Like some mother beast on the watch over her young, her little
quick figure never stood still in that room, but wandered from
wall to wall, from window to door, fingering now one thing, now
another. There was dust everywhere, the room could not have been
cleaned for weeks, and June, quick to catch at anything that
should buoy up her hope, saw in it a sign that he had been
obliged, for economy’s sake, to give up his servant.
She looked into the bedroom; the bed was roughly made, as though
by the hand of man. Listening intently, she darted in, and peered
into his cupboards. A few shirts and collars, a pair of muddy
boots—the room was bare even of garments.
She stole back to the sitting-room, and now she noticed the
absence of all the little things he had set store by. The clock
that had been his mother’s, the field-glasses that had hung over
the sofa; two really valuable old prints of Harrow, where his
father had been at school, and last, not least, the piece of
Japanese pottery she herself had given him. All were gone; and in
spite of the rage roused within her championing soul at the
thought that the world should treat him thus, their disappearance
augured happily for the success of her plan.
It was while looking at the spot where the piece of Japanese
pottery had stood that she felt a strange certainty of being
watched, and, turning, saw Irene in the open doorway.
The two stood gazing at each other for a minute in silence; then
June walked forward and held out her hand. Irene did not take it.
When her hand was refused, June put it behind her. Her eyes grew
steady with anger; she waited for Irene to speak; and thus
waiting, took in, with who-knows-what rage of jealousy,
suspicion, and curiosity, every detail of her friend’s face and
dress and figure.
Irene was clothed in her long grey fur; the travelling cap on her
head left a wave of gold hair visible above her forehead. The
soft fullness of the coat made her face as small as a child’s.
Unlike Jun’s cheeks, her cheeks had no colour in them, but were
ivory white and pinched as if with cold. Dark circles lay round
her eyes. In one hand she held a bunch of violets.
She looked back at June, no smile on her lips; and with those
great dark eyes fastened on her, the girl, for all her startled
anger, felt something of the old spell.
She spoke first, after all.
“What have you come for?” But the feeling that she herself was
being asked the same question, made her add: “This horrible case.
I came to tell him—he has lost it.”
Irene did not speak, her eyes never moved from Jun’s face, and
the girl cried:
“Don’t stand there as if you were made of stone!”
Irene laughed: “I wish to God I were!”
But June turned away: “Stop!” she cried, “don’t tell me! I don’t
want to hear! I don’t want to hear what you’ve come for. I don’t
want to hear!” And like some uneasy spirit, she began swiftly
walking to and fro. Suddenly she broke out:
“I was here first. We can’t both stay here together!”
On Irene’s face a smile wandered up, and died out like a flicker
of firelight. She did not move. And then it was that June
perceived under the softness and immobility of this figure
something desperate and resolved; something not to be turned
away, something dangerous. She tore off her hat, and, putting
both hands to her brow, pressed back the bronze mass of her hair.
“You have no right here!” she cried defiantly.
Irene answered: “I have no right anywhere——”
“What do you mean?”
“I have left Soames. You always wanted me to!”
June put her hands over her ears.
“Don’t! I don’t want to hear anything—I don’t want to know
anything. It’s impossible to fight with you! What makes you stand
like that? Why don’t you go?”
Irene’s lips moved; she seemed to be saying: “Where should I go?”
June turned to the window. She could see the face of a clock down
in the street. It was nearly four. At any moment he might come!
She looked back across her shoulder, and her face was distorted
with anger.
But Irene had not moved; in her gloved hands she ceaselessly
turned and twisted the little bunch of violets.
The tears of rage and disappointment rolled down Jun’s cheeks.
“How _could_ you come?” she said. “You have been a false friend
to me!”
Again Irene laughed. June saw that she had played a wrong card,
and broke down.
“Why have you come?” she sobbed. “You’ve ruined my life, and now
you want to ruin his!”
Irene’s mouth quivered; her eyes met Jun’s with a look so
mournful that the girl cried out in the midst of her sobbing,
“No, no!”
But Irene’s head bent till it touched her breast. She turned, and
went quickly out, hiding her lips with the little bunch of
violets.
June ran to the door. She heard the footsteps going down and
down. She called out: “Come back, Irene! Come back!”
The footsteps died away....
Bewildered and torn, the girl stood at the top of the stairs. Why
had Irene gone, leaving her mistress of the field? What did it
mean? Had she really given him up to her? Or had she...? And she
was the prey of a gnawing uncertainty.... Bosinney did not
come....
About six o’clock that afternoon old Jolyon returned from
Wistaria Avenue, where now almost every day he spent some hours,
and asked if his grand-daughter were upstairs. On being told that
she had just come in, he sent up to her room to request her to
come down and speak to him.
He had made up his mind to tell her that he was reconciled with
her father. In future bygones must be bygones. He would no longer
live alone, or practically alone, in this great house; he was
going to give it up, and take one in the country for his son,
where they could all go and live together. If June did not like
this, she could have an allowance and live by herself. It
wouldn’t make much difference to her, for it was a long time
since she had shown him any affection.
But when June came down, her face was pinched and piteous; there
was a strained, pathetic look in her eyes. She snuggled up in her
old attitude on the arm of his chair, and what he said compared
but poorly with the clear, authoritative, injured statement he
had thought out with much care. His heart felt sore, as the great
heart of a mother-bird feels sore when its youngling flies and
bruises its wing. His words halted, as though he were apologizing
for having at last deviated from the path of virtue, and
succumbed, in defiance of sounder principles, to his more natural
instincts.
He seemed nervous lest, in thus announcing his intentions, he
should be setting his granddaughter a bad example; and now that
he came to the point, his way of putting the suggestion that, if
she didn’t like it, she could live by herself and lump it, was
delicate in the extreme.
“And if, by any chance, my darling,” he said, “you found you
didn’t get on—with them, why, I could make that all right. You
could have what you liked. We could find a little flat in London
where you could set up, and I could be running to continually.
But the children,” he added, “are dear little things!”
Then, in the midst of this grave, rather transparent, explanation
of changed policy, his eyes twinkled. “This’ll astonish Timothy’s
weak nerves. That precious young thing will have something to say
about this, or I’m a Dutchman!”
June had not yet spoken. Perched thus on the arm of his chair,
with her head above him, her face was invisible. But presently he
felt her warm cheek against his own, and knew that, at all
events, there was nothing very alarming in her attitude towards
his news. He began to take courage.
“You’ll like your father,” he said—“an amiable chap. Never was
much push about him, but easy to get on with. You’ll find him
artistic and all that.”
And old Jolyon bethought him of the dozen or so water-colour
drawings all carefully locked up in his bedroom; for now that his
son was going to become a man of property he did not think them
quite such poor things as heretofore.
“As to your—your stepmother,” he said, using the word with some
little difficulty, “I call her a refined woman—a bit of a Mrs.
Gummidge, I shouldn’t wonder—but very fond of Jo. And the
children,” he repeated—indeed, this sentence ran like music
through all his solemn self-justification—“are sweet little
things!”
If June had known, those words but reincarnated that tender love
for little children, for the young and weak, which in the past
had made him desert his son for her tiny self, and now, as the
cycle rolled, was taking him from her.
But he began to get alarmed at her silence, and asked
impatiently: “Well, what do you say?”
June slid down to his knee, and she in her turn began her tale.
She thought it would all go splendidly; she did not see any
difficulty, and she did not care a bit what people thought.
Old Jolyon wriggled. H’m! then people _would_ think! He had
thought that after all these years perhaps they wouldn’t! Well,
he couldn’t help it! Nevertheless, he could not approve of his
granddaughter’s way of putting it—she ought to mind what people
thought!
Yet he said nothing. His feelings were too mixed, too
inconsistent for expression.
No—went on June—she did not care; what business was it of theirs?
There was only one thing—and with her cheek pressing against his
knee, old Jolyon knew at once that this something was no trifle:
As he was going to buy a house in the country, would he not—to
please her—buy that splendid house of Soames’ at Robin Hill? It
was finished, it was perfectly beautiful, and no one would live
in it now. They would all be so happy there.
Old Jolyon was on the alert at once. Wasn’t the “man of property”
going to live in his new house, then? He never alluded to Soames
now but under this title.
“No”—June said—“he was not; she knew that he was not!”
How did she know?
She could not tell him, but she knew. She knew nearly for
certain! It was most unlikely; circumstances had changed! Irene’s
words still rang in her head: “I have left Soames. Where should I
go?”
But she kept silence about that.
If her grandfather would only buy it and settle that wretched
claim that ought never to have been made on Phil! It would be the
very best thing for everybody, and everything—everything might
come straight.
And June put her lips to his forehead, and pressed them close.
But old Jolyon freed himself from her caress, his face wore the
judicial look which came upon it when he dealt with affairs. He
asked: What did she mean? There was something behind all this—had
she been seeing Bosinney?
June answered: “No; but I have been to his rooms.”
“Been to his rooms? Who took you there?”
June faced him steadily. “I went alone. He has lost that case. I
don’t care whether it was right or wrong. I want to help him; and
_I will!_”
Old Jolyon asked again: “Have you seen him?” His glance seemed to
pierce right through the girl’s eyes into her soul.
Again June answered: “No; he was not there. I waited, but he did
not come.”
Old Jolyon made a movement of relief. She had risen and looked
down at him; so slight, and light, and young, but so fixed, and
so determined; and disturbed, vexed, as he was, he could not
frown away that fixed look. The feeling of being beaten, of the
reins having slipped, of being old and tired, mastered him.
“Ah!” he said at last, “you’ll get yourself into a mess one of
these days, I can see. You want your own way in everything.”
Visited by one of his strange bursts of philosophy, he added:
“Like that you were born; and like that you’ll stay until you
die!”
And he, who in his dealings with men of business, with Boards,
with Forsytes of all descriptions, with such as were not
Forsytes, had always had his own way, looked at his indomitable
grandchild sadly—for he felt in her that quality which above all
others he unconsciously admired.
“Do you know what they say is going on?” he said slowly.
June crimsoned.
“Yes—no! I know—and I don’t know—I don’t care!” and she stamped
her foot.
“I believe,” said old Jolyon, dropping his eyes, “that you’d have
him if he were dead!”
There was a long silence before he spoke again.
“But as to buying this house—you don’t know what you’re talking
about!”
June said that she did. She knew that he could get it if he
wanted. He would only have to give what it cost.
“What it cost! You know nothing about it. I won’t go to
Soames—I’ll have nothing more to do with that young man.”
“But you needn’t; you can go to Uncle James. If you can’t buy the
house, will you pay his lawsuit claim? I know he is terribly hard
up—I’ve seen it. You can stop it out of my money!”
A twinkle came into old Jolyon’s eyes.
“Stop it out of your money! A pretty way. And what will you do,
pray, without your money?”
But secretly, the idea of wresting the house from James and his
son had begun to take hold of him. He had heard on Forsyte
’Change much comment, much rather doubtful praise of this house.
It was “too artistic,” but a fine place. To take from the “man of
property” that on which he had set his heart, would be a crowning
triumph over James, practical proof that he was going to make a
man of property of Jo, to put him back in his proper position,
and there to keep him secure. Justice once for all on those who
had chosen to regard his son as a poor, penniless outcast.
He would see, he would see! It might be out of the question; he
was not going to pay a fancy price, but if it could be done, why,
perhaps he would do it!
And still more secretly he knew that he could not refuse her.
But he did not commit himself. He would think it over—he said to
June.
CHAPTER VIII BOSINNEY’S DEPARTURE
Old Jolyon was not given to hasty decisions; it is probable that
he would have continued to think over the purchase of the house
at Robin Hill, had not Jun’s face told him that he would have no
peace until he acted.
At breakfast next morning she asked him what time she should
order the carriage.
“Carriage!” he said, with some appearance of innocence; “what
for? _I’m_ not going out!”
She answered: “If you don’t go early, you won’t catch Uncle James
before he goes into the City.”
“James! what about your Uncle James?”
“The house,” she replied, in such a voice that he no longer
pretended ignorance.
“I’ve not made up my mind,” he said.
“You must! You must! Oh! Gran—think of me!”
Old Jolyon grumbled out: “Think of you—I’m always thinking of
you, but you don’t think of yourself; you don’t think what you’re
letting yourself in for. Well, order the carriage at ten!”
At a quarter past he was placing his umbrella in the stand at
Park Lane—he did not choose to relinquish his hat and coat;
telling Warmson that he wanted to see his master, he went,
without being announced, into the study, and sat down.
James was still in the dining-room talking to Soames, who had
come round again before breakfast. On hearing who his visitor
was, he muttered nervously: “Now, what’s _he_ want, I wonder?”
He then got up.
“Well,” he said to Soames, “don’t you go doing anything in a
hurry. The first thing is to find out where she is—I should go to
Stainer’s about it; they’re the best men, if they can’t find her,
nobody can.” And suddenly moved to strange softness, he muttered
to himself, “Poor little thing, _I_ can’t tell what she was
thinking about!” and went out blowing his nose.
Old Jolyon did not rise on seeing his brother, but held out his
hand, and exchanged with him the clasp of a Forsyte.
James took another chair by the table, and leaned his head on his
hand.
“Well,” he said, “how are you? We don’t see much of _you_
nowadays!”
Old Jolyon paid no attention to the remark.
“How’s Emily?” he asked; and waiting for no reply, went on “I’ve
come to see you about this affair of young Bosinney’s. I’m told
that new house of his is a white elephant.”
“I don’t know anything about a white elephant,” said James, “I
know he’s lost his case, and I should say he’ll go bankrupt.”
Old Jolyon was not slow to seize the opportunity this gave him.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit!” he agreed; “and if he goes bankrupt,
the ‘man of property’—that is, Soames’ll be out of pocket. Now,
what I was thinking was this: If he’s not going to live
there....”
Seeing both surprise and suspicion in James’ eye, he quickly went
on: “I don’t want to know anything; I suppose Irene’s put her
foot down—it’s not material to me. But I’m thinking of a house in
the country myself, not too far from London, and if it suited me
I don’t say that I mightn’t look at it, at a price.”
James listened to this statement with a strange mixture of doubt,
suspicion, and relief, merging into a dread of something behind,
and tinged with the remains of his old undoubted reliance upon
his elder brother’s good faith and judgment. There was anxiety,
too, as to what old Jolyon could have heard and how he had heard
it; and a sort of hopefulness arising from the thought that if
Jun’s connection with Bosinney were completely at an end, her
grandfather would hardly seem anxious to help the young fellow.
Altogether he was puzzled; as he did not like either to show
this, or to commit himself in any way, he said:
“They tell me you’re altering your Will in favour of your son.”
He had not been told this; he had merely added the fact of having
seen old Jolyon with his son and grandchildren to the fact that
he had taken his Will away from Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. The
shot went home.
“Who told you that?” asked old Jolyon.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said James; “I can’t remember names—I
know somebody told me Soames spent a lot of money on this house;
he’s not likely to part with it except at a good price.”
“Well,” said old Jolyon, “if, he thinks I’m going to pay a fancy
price, he’s mistaken. I’ve not got the money to throw away that
he seems to have. Let him try and sell it at a forced sale, and
see what he’ll get. It’s not every man’s house, I hear!”
James, who was secretly also of this opinion, answered: “It’s a
gentleman’s house. Soames is here now if you’d like to see him.”
“No,” said old Jolyon, “I haven’t got as far as that; and I’m not
likely to, I can see that very well if I’m met in this manner!”
James was a little cowed; when it came to the actual figures of a
commercial transaction he was sure of himself, for then he was
dealing with facts, not with men; but preliminary negotiations
such as these made him nervous—he never knew quite how far he
could go.
“Well,” he said, “I know nothing about it. Soames, he tells me
nothing; I should think he’d entertain it—it’s a question of
price.”
“Oh!” said old Jolyon, “don’t let him make a favour of it!” He
placed his hat on his head in dudgeon.
The door was opened and Soames came in.
“There’s a policeman out here,” he said with his half smile, “for
Uncle Jolyon.”
Old Jolyon looked at him angrily, and James said: “A policeman? I
don’t know anything about a policeman. But I suppose you know
something about him,” he added to old Jolyon with a look of
suspicion: “I suppose you’d better see him!”
In the hall an Inspector of Police stood stolidly regarding with
heavy-lidded pale-blue eyes the fine old English furniture picked
up by James at the famous Mavrojano sale in Portman Square.
“You’ll find my brother in there,” said James.
The Inspector raised his fingers respectfully to his peaked cap,
and entered the study.
James saw him go in with a strange sensation.
“Well,” he said to Soames, “I suppose we must wait and see what
he wants. Your uncle’s been here about the house!”
He returned with Soames into the dining-room, but could not rest.
“Now what _does_ he want?” he murmured again.
“Who?” replied Soames: “the Inspector? They sent him round from
Stanhope Gate, that’s all I know. That ‘nonconformist’ of Uncle
Jolyon’s has been pilfering, I shouldn’t wonder!”
But in spite of his calmness, he too was ill at ease.
At the end of ten minutes old Jolyon came in. He walked up to the
table, and stood there perfectly silent pulling at his long white
moustaches. James gazed up at him with opening mouth; he had
never seen his brother look like this.
Old Jolyon raised his hand, and said slowly:
“Young Bosinney has been run over in the fog and killed.”
Then standing above his brother and his nephew, and looking down
at him with his deep eyes:
“There’s—some—talk—of—suicide,” he said.
James’ jaw dropped. “_Suicide!_ What should he do that for?”
Old Jolyon answered sternly: “God knows, if you and your son
don’t!”
But James did not reply.
For all men of great age, even for all Forsytes, life has had
bitter experiences. The passer-by, who sees them wrapped in
cloaks of custom, wealth, and comfort, would never suspect that
such black shadows had fallen on their roads. To every man of
great age—to Sir Walter Bentham himself—the idea of suicide has
once at least been present in the ante-room of his soul; on the
threshold, waiting to enter, held out from the inmost chamber by
some chance reality, some vague fear, some painful hope. To
Forsytes that final renunciation of property is hard. Oh! it is
hard! Seldom—perhaps never—can they achieve, it; and yet, how
near have they not sometimes been!
So even with James! Then in the medley of his thoughts, he broke
out: “Why I saw it in the paper yesterday: ‘Run over in the fog!’
They didn’t know his name!” He turned from one face to the other
in his confusion of soul; but instinctively all the time he was
rejecting that rumour of suicide. He dared not entertain this
thought, so against his interest, against the interest of his
son, of every Forsyte. He strove against it; and as his nature
ever unconsciously rejected that which it could not with safety
accept, so gradually he overcame this fear. It was an accident!
It must have been!
Old Jolyon broke in on his reverie.
“Death was instantaneous. He lay all day yesterday at the
hospital. There was nothing to tell them who he was. I am going
there now; you and your son had better come too.”
No one opposing this command he led the way from the room.
The day was still and clear and bright, and driving over to Park
Lane from Stanhope Gate, old Jolyon had had the carriage open.
Sitting back on the padded cushions, finishing his cigar, he had
noticed with pleasure the keen crispness of the air, the bustle
of the cabs and people; the strange, almost Parisian, alacrity
that the first fine day will bring into London streets after a
spell of fog or rain. And he had felt so happy; he had not felt
like it for months. His confession to June was off his mind; he
had the prospect of his son’s, above all, of his grandchildren’s
company in the future—(he had appointed to meet young Jolyon at
the Hotch Potch that very morning to discuss it again); and there
was the pleasurable excitement of a coming encounter, a coming
victory, over James and the “man of property” in the matter of
the house.
He had the carriage closed now; he had no heart to look on
gaiety; nor was it right that Forsytes should be seen driving
with an Inspector of Police.
In that carriage the Inspector spoke again of the death:
“It was not so very thick—Just there. The driver says the
gentleman must have had time to see what he was about, he seemed
to walk right into it. It appears that he was very hard up, we
found several pawn tickets at his rooms, his account at the bank
is overdrawn, and there’s this case in to-day’s papers;” his cold
blue eyes travelled from one to another of the three Forsytes in
the carriage.
Old Jolyon watching from his corner saw his brother’s face
change, and the brooding, worried, look deepen on it. At the
Inspector’s words, indeed, all James’ doubts and fears revived.
Hard-up—pawn-tickets—an overdrawn account! These words that had
all his life been a far-off nightmare to him, seemed to make
uncannily real that suspicion of suicide which must on no account
be entertained. He sought his son’s eye; but lynx-eyed, taciturn,
immovable, Soames gave no answering look. And to old Jolyon
watching, divining the league of mutual defence between them,
there came an overmastering desire to have his own son at his
side, as though this visit to the dead man’s body was a battle in
which otherwise he must single-handed meet those two. And the
thought of how to keep Jun’s name out of the business kept
whirring in his brain. James had his son to support him! Why
should he not send for Jo?
Taking out his card-case, he pencilled the following message:
“Come round at once. I’ve sent the carriage for you.”
On getting out he gave this card to his coachman, telling him to
drive—as fast as possible to the Hotch Potch Club, and if Mr.
Jolyon Forsyte were there to give him the card and bring him at
once. If not there yet, he was to wait till he came.
He followed the others slowly up the steps, leaning on his
umbrella, and stood a moment to get his breath. The Inspector
said: “This is the mortuary, sir. But take your time.”
In the bare, white-walled room, empty of all but a streak of
sunshine smeared along the dustless floor, lay a form covered by
a sheet. With a huge steady hand the Inspector took the hem and
turned it back. A sightless face gazed up at them, and on either
side of that sightless defiant face the three Forsytes gazed
down; in each one of them the secret emotions, fears, and pity of
his own nature rose and fell like the rising, falling waves of
life, whose wash those white walls barred out now for ever from
Bosinney. And in each one of them the trend of his nature, the
odd essential spring, which moved him in fashions minutely,
unalterably different from those of every other human being,
forced him to a different attitude of thought. Far from the
others, yet inscrutably close, each stood thus, alone with death,
silent, his eyes lowered.
The Inspector asked softly:
“You identify the gentleman, sir?”
Old Jolyon raised his head and nodded. He looked at his brother
opposite, at that long lean figure brooding over the dead man,
with face dusky red, and strained grey eyes; and at the figure of
Soames white and still by his father’s side. And all that he had
felt against those two was gone like smoke in the long white
presence of Death. Whence comes it, how comes it—Death? Sudden
reverse of all that goes before; blind setting forth on a path
that leads to where? Dark quenching of the fire! The heavy,
brutal crushing-out that all men must go through, keeping their
eyes clear and brave unto the end! Small and of no import,
insects though they are! And across old Jolyon’s face there
flitted a gleam, for Soames, murmuring to the Inspector, crept
noiselessly away.
Then suddenly James raised his eyes. There was a queer appeal in
that suspicious troubled look: “I know I’m no match for you,” it
seemed to say. And, hunting for handkerchief he wiped his brow;
then, bending sorrowful and lank over the dead man, he too turned
and hurried out.
Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on the body. Who
shall tell of what he was thinking? Of himself, when his hair was
brown like the hair of that young fellow dead before him? Of
himself, with his battle just beginning, the long, long battle he
had loved; the battle that was over for this young man almost
before it had begun? Of his grand-daughter, with her broken
hopes? Of that other woman? Of the strangeness, and the pity of
it? And the irony, inscrutable, and bitter of that end? Justice!
There was no justice for men, for they were ever in the dark!
Or perhaps in his philosophy he thought: Better to be out of it
all! Better to have done with it, like this poor youth....
Some one touched him on the arm.
A tear started up and wetted his eyelash. “Well,” he said, “I’m
no good here. I’d better be going. You’ll come to me as soon as
you can, Jo,” and with his head bowed he went away.
It was young Jolyon’s turn to take his stand beside the dead man,
round whose fallen body he seemed to see all the Forsytes
breathless, and prostrated. The stroke had fallen too swiftly.
The forces underlying every tragedy—forces that take no denial,
working through cross currents to their ironical end, had met and
fused with a thunder-clap, flung out the victim, and flattened to
the ground all those that stood around.
Or so at all events young Jolyon seemed to see them, lying around
Bosinney’s body.
He asked the Inspector to tell him what had happened, and the
latter, like a man who does not every day get such a chance,
again detailed such facts as were known.
“There’s more here, sir, however,” he said, “than meets the eye.
I don’t believe in suicide, nor in pure accident, myself. It’s
more likely I think that he was suffering under great stress of
mind, and took no notice of things about him. Perhaps you can
throw some light on these.”
He took from his pocket a little packet and laid it on the table.
Carefully undoing it, he revealed a lady’s handkerchief, pinned
through the folds with a pin of discoloured Venetian gold, the
stone of which had fallen from the socket. A scent of dried
violets rose to young Jolyon’s nostrils.
“Found in his breast pocket,” said the Inspector; “the name has
been cut away!”
Young Jolyon with difficulty answered: “I’m afraid I cannot help
you!” But vividly there rose before him the face he had seen
light up, so tremulous and glad, at Bosinney’s coming! Of her he
thought more than of his own daughter, more than of them all—of
her with the dark, soft glance, the delicate passive face,
waiting for the dead man, waiting even at that moment, perhaps,
still and patient in the sunlight.
He walked sorrowfully away from the hospital towards his father’s
house, reflecting that this death would break up the Forsyte
family. The stroke had indeed slipped past their defences into
the very wood of their tree. They might flourish to all
appearance as before, preserving a brave show before the eyes of
London, but the trunk was dead, withered by the same flash that
had stricken down Bosinney. And now the saplings would take its
place, each one a new custodian of the sense of property.
Good forest of Forsytes! thought young Jolyon—soundest timber of
our land!
Concerning the cause of this death—his family would doubtless
reject with vigour the suspicion of suicide, which was so
compromising! They would take it as an accident, a stroke of
fate. In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention of
Providence, a retribution—had not Bosinney endangered their two
most priceless possessions, the pocket and the hearth? And they
would talk of “that unfortunate accident of young Bosinney’s,”
but perhaps they would not talk—silence might be better!
As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver’s account of the
accident as of very little value. For no one so madly in love
committed suicide for want of money; nor was Bosinney the sort of
fellow to set much store by a financial crisis. And so he too,
rejected this theory of suicide, the dead man’s face rose too
clearly before him. Gone in the heyday of his summer—and to
believe thus that an accident had cut Bosinney off in the full
sweep of his passion was more than ever pitiful to young Jolyon.
Then came a vision of Soames’ home as it now was, and must be
hereafter. The streak of lightning had flashed its clear uncanny
gleam on bare bones with grinning spaces between, the disguising
flesh was gone....
In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone
when his son came in. He looked very wan in his great armchair.
And his eyes travelling round the walls with their pictures of
still life, and the masterpiece “Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset”
seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its hopes,
its gains, its achievements.
“Ah! Jo!” he said, “is that you? I’ve told poor little June. But
that’s not all of it. Are you going to Soames’? _She’s_ brought
it on herself, I suppose; but somehow I can’t bear to think of
her, shut up there—and all alone.” And holding up his thin,
veined hand, he clenched it.
CHAPTER IX IRENE’S RETURN
After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the
hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.
The tragic event of Bosinney’s death altered the complexion of
everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a
minute would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the
fact of his wife’s flight to anyone till the inquest was over.
That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had
taken the first-post letters from the box himself, and, though
there had been none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of
telling Bilson that her mistress was at the sea; he would
probably, he said, be going down himself from Saturday to Monday.
This had given him time to breathe, time to leave no stone
unturned to find her.
But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney’s death—that
strange death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to
his heart, like lifting a great weight from it—he did not know
how to pass his day; and he wandered here and there through the
streets, looking at every face he met, devoured by a hundred
anxieties.
And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his
wandering, his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.
Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing the
identity of the dead man, and bought the papers to see what they
said. He would stop their mouths if he could, and he went into
the City, and was closeted with Boulter for a long time.
On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson’s about half past
four, he met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to
Soames, saying:
“Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?”
Soames answered stonily: “Yes.”
George stared at him. He had never liked Soames; he now held him
responsible for Bosinney’s death. Soames had done for him—done
for him by that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to
run amok that fatal afternoon.
“The poor fellow,” he was thinking, “was so cracked with
jealousy, so cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of
the omnibus in that infernal fog.”
Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George’s eyes.
“They talk of suicide here,” he said at last. “_That_ cat won’t
jump.”
Soames shook his head. “An accident,” he muttered.
Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his
pocket. He could not resist a parting shot.
“H’mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?”
With a face as white as the steps of Jobson’s, and a lip raised
as if snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone....
On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his
latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife’s
gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his
fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.
The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of
cedar-logs burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene
sitting in her usual corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly,
and went towards her. She did not move, and did not seem to see
him.
“So you’ve come back?” he said. “Why are you sitting here in the
dark?”
Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it
seemed as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her
veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide,
startled brown eyes of an owl.
Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a
strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft
feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her
figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise;
as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful,
and supple, and erect.
“So you’ve come back,” he repeated.
She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over
her motionless figure.
Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then
that he understood.
She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing
where to turn, not knowing what she was doing. The sight of her
figure, huddled in the fur, was enough.
He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew
that she had seen the report of his death—perhaps, like himself,
had bought a paper at the draughty corner of a street, and read
it.
She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage she had
pined to be free of—and taking in all the tremendous significance
of this, he longed to cry: “Take your hated body, that I love,
out of my house! Take away that pitiful white face, so cruel and
soft—before I crush it. Get out of my sight; never let me see you
again!”
And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her rise and move
away, like a woman in a terrible dream, from which she was
fighting to awake—rise and go out into the dark and cold, without
a thought of him, without so much as the knowledge of his
presence.
Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken, “No;
stay there!” And turning away from her, he sat down in his
accustomed chair on the other side of the hearth.
They sat in silence.
And Soames thought: “Why is all this? Why should I suffer so?
What have I done? It is not my fault!”
Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is shot and
dying, whose poor breast you see panting as the air is taken from
it, whose poor eyes look at you who have shot it, with a slow,
soft, unseeing look, taking farewell of all that is good—of the
sun, and the air, and its mate.
So they sat, by the firelight, in the silence, one on each side
of the hearth.
And the fume of the burning cedar logs, that he loved so well,
seemed to grip Soames by the throat till he could bear it no
longer. And going out into the hall he flung the door wide, to
gulp down the cold air that came in; then without hat or overcoat
went out into the Square.
Along the garden rails a half-starved cat came rubbing her way
towards him, and Soames thought: “Suffering! when will it cease,
my suffering?”
At a front door across the way was a man of his acquaintance
named Rutter, scraping his boots, with an air of “I am master
here.” And Soames walked on.
From far in the clear air the bells of the church where he and
Irene had been married were pealing in “practice” for the advent
of Christ, the chimes ringing out above the sound of traffic. He
felt a craving for strong drink, to lull him to indifference, or
rouse him to fury. If only he could burst out of himself, out of
this web that for the first time in his life he felt around him.
If only he could surrender to the thought: “Divorce her—turn her
out! She has forgotten you. Forget her!”
If only he could surrender to the thought: “Let her go—she has
suffered enough!”
If only he could surrender to the desire: “Make a slave of
her—she is in your power!”
If only even he could surrender to the sudden vision: “What does
it all matter?” Forget himself for a minute, forget that it
mattered what he did, forget that whatever he did he must
sacrifice something.
If only he could act on an impulse!
He could forget nothing; surrender to no thought, vision, or
desire; it was all too serious; too close around him, an
unbreakable cage.
On the far side of the Square newspaper boys were calling their
evening wares, and the ghoulish cries mingled and jangled with
the sound of those church bells.
Soames covered his ears. The thought flashed across him that but
for a chance, he himself, and not Bosinney, might be lying dead,
and she, instead of crouching there like a shot bird with those
dying eyes....
Something soft touched his legs, the cat was rubbing herself
against them. And a sob that shook him from head to foot burst
from Soames’ chest. Then all was still again in the dark, where
the houses seemed to stare at him, each with a master and
mistress of its own, and a secret story of happiness or sorrow.
And suddenly he saw that his own door was open, and black against
the light from the hall a man standing with his back turned.
Something slid too in his breast, and he stole up close behind.
He could see his own fur coat flung across the carved oak chair;
the Persian rugs; the silver bowls, the rows of porcelain plates
arranged along the walls, and this unknown man who was standing
there.
And sharply he asked: “What is it you want, sir?”
The visitor turned. It was young Jolyon.
“The door was open,” he said. “Might I see your wife for a
minute, I have a message for her?”
Soames gave him a strange, sidelong stare.
“My wife can see no one,” he muttered doggedly.
Young Jolyon answered gently: “I shouldn’t keep her a minute.”
Soames brushed by him and barred the way.
“She can see no one,” he said again.
Young Jolyon’s glance shot past him into the hall, and Soames
turned. There in the drawing-room doorway stood Irene, her eyes
were wild and eager, her lips were parted, her hands
outstretched. In the sight of both men that light vanished from
her face; her hands dropped to her sides; she stood like stone.
Soames spun round, and met his visitor’s eyes, and at the look he
saw in them, a sound like a snarl escaped him. He drew his lips
back in the ghost of a smile.
“This is my house,” he said; “I manage my own affairs. I’ve told
you once—I tell you again; we are not at home.”
And in young Jolyon’s face he slammed the door.
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THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME II
By John Galsworthy
TO ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE
“And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
—Shakespeare
I
In the last day of May in the early ’nineties, about six o’clock
of the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below
the terrace of his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the
midges to bite him, before abandoning the glory of the afternoon.
His thin brown hand, where blue veins stood out, held the end of
a cigar in its tapering, long-nailed fingers—a pointed polished
nail had survived with him from those earlier Victorian days when
to touch nothing, even with the tips of the fingers, had been so
distinguished. His domed forehead, great white moustache, lean
cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the westering
sunshine by an old brown Panama hat. His legs were crossed; in
all his attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an
old man who every morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk
handkerchief. At his feet lay a woolly brown-and-white dog trying
to be a Pomeranian—the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon
primal aversion had changed into attachment with the years. Close
to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of
Holly’s dolls—called “Duffer Alice”—with her body fallen over her
legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat. She was
never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat.
Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the
fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to
the pond, the coppice, and the prospect—“Fine, remarkable”—at
which Swithin Forsyte, from under this very tree, had stared five
years ago when he drove down with Irene to look at the house. Old
Jolyon had heard of his brother’s exploit—that drive which had
become quite celebrated on Forsyte ’Change. Swithin! And the
fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of only
seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for
ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away. Died! and
left only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas and Timothy,
Julia, Hester, Susan! And old Jolyon thought: “Eighty-five! I
don’t feel it—except when I get that pain.”
His memory went searching. He had not felt his age since he had
bought his nephew Soames’ ill-starred house and settled into it
here at Robin Hill over three years ago. It was as if he had been
getting younger every spring, living in the country with his son
and his grandchildren—June, and the little ones of the second
marriage, Jolly and Holly; living down here out of the racket of
London and the cackle of Forsyte ’Change, free of his boards, in
a delicious atmosphere of no work and all play, with plenty of
occupation in the perfecting and mellowing of the house and its
twenty acres, and in ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly.
All the knots and crankiness, which had gathered in his heart
during that long and tragic business of June, Soames, Irene his
wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out. Even June
had thrown off her melancholy at last—witness this travel in
Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother.
Curiously perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful,
yet blank, because his son was not there. Jo was never anything
but a comfort and a pleasure to him nowadays—an amiable chap; but
women, somehow—even the best—got a little on one’s nerves, unless
of course one admired them.
Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first
elm-tree in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had
sprung up after the last mowing! The wind had got into the sou’
west, too—a delicious air, sappy! He pushed his hat back and let
the sun fall on his chin and cheek. Somehow, to-day, he wanted
company—wanted a pretty face to look at. People treated the old
as if they wanted nothing. And with the un-Forsytean philosophy
which ever intruded on his soul, he thought: “One’s never had
enough. With a foot in the grave one’ll want something, I
shouldn’t be surprised!” Down here—away from the exigencies of
affairs—his grandchildren, and the flowers, trees, birds of his
little domain, to say nothing of sun and moon and stars above
them, said, “Open, sesame,” to him day and night. And sesame had
opened—how much, perhaps, he did not know. He had always been
responsive to what they had begun to call “Nature,” genuinely,
almost religiously responsive, though he had never lost his habit
of calling a sunset a sunset and a view a view, however deeply
they might move him. But nowadays Nature actually made him ache,
he appreciated it so. Every one of these calm, bright,
lengthening days, with Holly’s hand in his, and the dog Balthasar
in front looking studiously for what he never found, he would
stroll, watching the roses open, fruit budding on the walls,
sunlight brightening the oak leaves and saplings in the coppice,
watching the water-lily leaves unfold and glisten, and the
silvery young corn of the one wheat field; listening to the
starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud,
flicking slow their tufted tails; and every one of these fine
days he ached a little from sheer love of it all, feeling
perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much longer to enjoy it.
The thought that some day—perhaps not ten years hence, perhaps
not five—all this world would be taken away from him, before he
had exhausted his powers of loving it, seemed to him in the
nature of an injustice brooding over his horizon. If anything
came after this life, it wouldn’t be what he wanted; not Robin
Hill, and flowers and birds and pretty faces—too few, even now,
of those about him! With the years his dislike of humbug had
increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the ’sixties, as he had
worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance, had long dropped off,
leaving him reverent before three things alone—beauty, upright
conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now
was beauty. He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could
still read _The Times_, but he was liable at any moment to put it
down if he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct,
property—somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the
sunsets never tired him, only gave him an uneasy feeling that he
could not get enough of them. Staring into the stilly radiance of
the early evening and at the little gold and white flowers on the
lawn, a thought came to him: This weather was like the music of
“Orfeo,” which he had recently heard at Covent Garden. A
beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but,
in its way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of
the Golden Age about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli
“almost worthy of the old days”—highest praise he could bestow.
The yearning of Orpheus for the beauty he was losing, for his
love going down to Hades, as in life love and beauty did go—the
yearning which sang and throbbed through the golden music,
stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that evening.
And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot he
involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the
animal to wake and attack his fleas; for though he was supposed
to have none, nothing could persuade him of the fact. When he had
finished he rubbed the place he had been scratching against his
master’s calf, and settled down again with his chin over the
instep of the disturbing boot. And into old Jolyon’s mind came a
sudden recollection—a face he had seen at that opera three weeks
ago—Irene, the wife of his precious nephew Soames, that man of
property! Though he had not met her since the day of the “At
Home” in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which celebrated his
granddaughter June’s ill-starred engagement to young Bosinney, he
had remembered her at once, for he had always admired her—a very
pretty creature. After the death of young Bosinney, whose
mistress she had so reprehensibly become, he had heard that she
had left Soames at once. Goodness only knew what she had been
doing since. That sight of her face—a side view—in the row in
front, had been literally the only reminder these three years
that she was still alive. No one ever spoke of her. And yet Jo
had told him something once—something which had upset him
completely. The boy had got it from George Forsyte, he believed,
who had seen Bosinney in the fog the day he was run
over—something which explained the young fellow’s distress—an act
of Soames towards his wife—a shocking act. Jo had seen her, too,
that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment,
and his description had always lingered in old Jolyon’s
mind—“wild and lost” he had called her. And next day June had
gone there—bottled up her feelings and gone there, and the maid
had cried and told her how her mistress had slipped out in the
night and vanished. A tragic business altogether! One thing was
certain—Soames had never been able to lay hands on her again. And
he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and down—a fitting
fate, the man of property! For when he once took a dislike to
anyone—as he had to his nephew—old Jolyon never got over it. He
remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the
news of Irene’s disappearance. It had been shocking to think of
her a prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered
back, when Jo saw her, wandered back for a moment—like a wounded
animal to its hole after seeing that news, “Tragic death of an
Architect,” in the street. Her face had struck him very much the
other night—more beautiful than he had remembered, but like a
mask, with something going on beneath it. A young woman
still—twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had another
lover by now. But at this subversive thought—for married women
should never love: once, even, had been too much—his instep rose,
and with it the dog Balthasar’s head. The sagacious animal stood
up and looked into old Jolyon’s face. “Walk?” he seemed to say;
and old Jolyon answered: “Come on, old chap!”
Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations
of buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature,
where very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below
the level of the lawn so that it might come up again on the level
of the other lawn and give the impression of irregularity, so
important in horticulture. Its rocks and earth were beloved of
the dog Balthasar, who sometimes found a mole there. Old Jolyon
made a point of passing through it because, though it was not
beautiful, he intended that it should be, some day, and he would
think: “I must get Varr to come down and look at it; he’s better
than Beech.” For plants, like houses and human complaints,
required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by
snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point
to one and tell them the story of the little boy who said: “Have
plummers got leggers, Mother?” “No, sonny.” “Then darned if I
haven’t been and swallowed a snileybob.” And when they skipped
and clutched his hand, thinking of the snileybob going down the
little boy’s “red lane,” his eyes would twinkle. Emerging from
the fernery, he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into
the first field, a large and park-like area, out of which, within
brick walls, the vegetable garden had been carved. Old Jolyon
avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made down the hill
towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two,
gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who
takes the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon
stood, noting another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would
show it to Holly to-morrow, when “his little sweet” had got over
the upset which had followed on her eating a tomato at lunch—her
little arrangements were very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone
to school—his first term—Holly was with him nearly all day long,
and he missed her badly. He felt that pain too, which often
bothered him now, a little dragging at his left side. He looked
back up the hill. Really, poor young Bosinney had made an
uncommonly good job of the house; he would have done very well
for himself if he had lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still
haunting this, the site of his last work, of his tragic love
affair. Or was Philip Bosinney’s spirit diffused in the general?
Who could say? That dog was getting his legs muddy! And he moved
towards the coppice. There had been the most delightful lot of
bluebells, and he knew where some still lingered like little
patches of sky fallen in between the trees, away out of the sun.
He passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there installed, and
pursued a path into the thick of the saplings, making for one of
the bluebell plots. Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered a
low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog
remained motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and
the hair rose slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether
from the growl and the look of the dog’s stivered hair, or from
the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt
something move along his spine. And then the path turned, and
there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting. Her face
was turned away, and he had just time to think: “She’s
trespassing—I must have a board put up!” before she turned.
Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera—the very woman he
had just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things
blurred, as if a spirit—queer effect—the slant of sunlight
perhaps on her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood
smiling, her head a little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: “How
pretty she is!” She did not speak, neither did he; and he
realized why with a certain admiration. She was here no doubt
because of some memory, and did not mean to try and get out of it
by vulgar explanation.
“Don’t let that dog touch your frock,” he said; “he’s got wet
feet. Come here, you!”
But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her
hand down and stroked his head. Old Jolyon said quickly:
“I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn’t notice me.”
“Oh, yes! I did.”
He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: “Do
you think one could miss seeing you?”
“They’re all in Spain,” he remarked abruptly. “I’m alone; I drove
up for the opera. The Ravogli’s good. Have you seen the
cow-houses?”
In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like
emotion he moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and
she moved beside him. Her figure swayed faintly, like the best
kind of French figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French
grey. He noticed two or three silver threads in her
amber-coloured hair, strange hair with those dark eyes of hers,
and that creamy-pale face. A sudden sidelong look from the
velvety brown eyes disturbed him. It seemed to come from deep and
far, from another world almost, or at all events from some one
not living very much in this. And he said mechanically:
“Where are you living now?”
“I have a little flat in Chelsea.”
He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear
anything; but the perverse word came out:
“Alone?”
She nodded. It was a relief to know that. And it came into his
mind that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress
of this coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.
“All Alderneys,” he muttered; “they give the best milk. This
one’s a pretty creature. Woa, Myrtle!”
The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene’s
own, was standing absolutely still, not having long been milked.
She looked round at them out of the corner of those lustrous,
mild, cynical eyes, and from her grey lips a little dribble of
saliva threaded its way towards the straw. The scent of hay and
vanilla and ammonia rose in the dim light of the cool cow-house;
and old Jolyon said:
“You must come up and have some dinner with me. I’ll send you
home in the carriage.”
He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt,
with her memories. But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a
charming figure, beauty! He had been alone all the afternoon.
Perhaps his eyes were wistful, for she answered: “Thank you,
Uncle Jolyon. I should like to.”
He rubbed his hands, and said:
“Capital! Let’s go up, then!” And, preceded by the dog Balthasar,
they ascended through the field. The sun was almost level in
their faces now, and he could see, not only those silver threads,
but little lines, just deep enough to stamp her beauty with a
coin-like fineness—the special look of life unshared with others.
“I’ll take her in by the terrace,” he thought: “I won’t make a
common visitor of her.”
“What do you do all day?” he said.
“Teach music; I have another interest, too.”
“Work!” said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing,
and smoothing its black petticoat. “Nothing like it, is there? I
don’t do any now. I’m getting on. What interest is that?”
“Trying to help women who’ve come to grief.” Old Jolyon did not
quite understand. “To grief?” he repeated; then realised with a
shock that she meant exactly what he would have meant himself if
he had used that expression. Assisting the Magdalenes of London!
What a weird and terrifying interest! And, curiosity overcoming
his natural shrinking, he asked:
“Why? What do you do for them?”
“Not much. I’ve no money to spare. I can only give sympathy and
food sometimes.”
Involuntarily old Jolyon’s hand sought his purse. He said
hastily: “How d’you get hold of them?”
“I go to a hospital.”
“A hospital! Phew!”
“What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of
beauty.”
Old Jolyon straightened the doll. “Beauty!” he ejaculated: “Ha!
Yes! A sad business!” and he moved towards the house. Through a
French window, under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her
into the room where he was wont to study _The Times_ and the
sheets of an agricultural magazine, with huge illustrations of
mangold wurzels, and the like, which provided Holly with material
for her paint brush.
“Dinner’s in half an hour. You’d like to wash your hands! I’ll
take you to June’s room.”
He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last
visited this house with her husband, or her lover, or both
perhaps—he did not know, could not say! All that was dark, and he
wished to leave it so. But what changes! And in the hall he said:
“My boy Jo’s a painter, you know. He’s got a lot of taste. It
isn’t mine, of course, but I’ve let him have his way.”
She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall
and music room, as it now was—all thrown into one, under the
great skylight. Old Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she
trying to conjure somebody from the shades of that space where
the colouring was all pearl-grey and silver? He would have had
gold himself; more lively and solid. But Jo had French tastes,
and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect as of the
fume of cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here and
there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour. It was not
_his_ dream! Mentally he had hung this space with those
gold-framed masterpieces of still and stiller life which he had
bought in days when quantity was precious. And now where were
they? Sold for a song! That something which made him, alone among
Forsytes, move with the times had warned him against the struggle
to retain them. But in his study he still had “Dutch Fishing
Boats at Sunset.”
He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his
side.
“These are the bathrooms,” he said, “and other arrangements. I’ve
had them tiled. The nurseries are along there. And this is Jo’s
and his wife’s. They all communicate. But you remember, I
expect.”
Irene nodded. They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large
room with a small bed, and several windows.
“This is mine,” he said. The walls were covered with the
photographs of children and watercolour sketches, and he added
doubtfully:
“These are Jo’s. The view’s first-rate. You can see the Grand
Stand at Epsom in clear weather.”
The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the “prospect” a
luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous
day. Few houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened,
away to a loom of downs.
“The country’s changing,” he said abruptly, “but there it’ll be
when we’re all gone. Look at those thrushes—the birds are sweet
here in the mornings. I’m glad to have washed my hands of
London.”
Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its
mournful look. “Wish I could make her look happy!” he thought. “A
pretty face, but sad!” And taking up his can of hot water he went
out into the gallery.
“This is June’s room,” he said, opening the next door and putting
the can down; “I think you’ll find everything.” And closing the
door behind her he went back to his own room. Brushing his hair
with his great ebony brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau
de Cologne, he mused. She had come so strangely—a sort of
visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as if his desire for
company, for beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever it was which
fulfilled that sort of thing. And before the mirror he
straightened his still upright figure, passed the brushes over
his great white moustache, touched up his eyebrows with eau de
Cologne, and rang the bell.
“I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me.
Let cook do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau
and pair at half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night. Is
Miss Holly asleep?”
The maid thought not. And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery,
stole on tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose
hinges he kept specially oiled that he might slip in and out in
the evenings without being heard.
But Holly _was_ asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that
type which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they
had completed her. Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on
her face was perfect peace—her little arrangements were evidently
all right again. And old Jolyon, in the twilight of the room,
stood adoring her! It was so charming, solemn, and loving—that
little face. He had more than his share of the blessed capacity
of living again in the young. They were to him his future
life—all of a future life that his fundamental pagan sanity
perhaps admitted. There she was with everything before her, and
his blood—some of it—in her tiny veins. There she was, his little
companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that
she knew nothing but love. His heart swelled, and he went out,
stilling the sound of his patent-leather boots. In the corridor
an eccentric notion attacked him: To think that children should
come to that which Irene had told him she was helping! Women who
were all, once, little things like this one sleeping there! “I
must give her a cheque!” he mused; “Can’t bear to think of them!”
They had never borne reflecting on, those poor outcasts; wounding
too deeply the core of true refinement hidden under layers of
conformity to the sense of property—wounding too grievously the
deepest thing in him—a love of beauty which could give him, even
now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the
society of a pretty woman. And he went downstairs, through the
swinging doors, to the back regions. There, in the wine-cellar,
was a hock worth at least two pounds a bottle, a Steinberg
Cabinet, better than any Johannisberg that ever went down throat;
a wine of perfect bouquet, sweet as a nectarine—nectar indeed! He
got a bottle out, handling it like a baby, and holding it level
to the light, to look. Enshrined in its coat of dust, that mellow
coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure. Three
years to settle down again since the move from Town—ought to be
in prime condition! Thirty-five years ago he had bought it—thank
God he had kept his palate, and earned the right to drink it. She
would appreciate this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen. He
wiped the bottle, drew the cork with his own hands, put his nose
down, inhaled its perfume, and went back to the music room.
Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a
lace scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair
was visible, and the pallor of her neck. In her grey frock she
made a pretty picture for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the
piano.
He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went. The room, which had
been designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort,
held now but a little round table. In his present solitude the
big dining-table oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be
removed till his son came back. Here in the company of two really
good copies of Raphael Madonnas he was wont to dine alone. It was
the only disconsolate hour of his day, this summer weather. He
had never been a large eater, like that great chap Swithin, or
Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those cronies of past
times; and to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas, was to him
but a sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly, that he
might come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and
cigar. But this evening was a different matter! His eyes twinkled
at her across the little table and he spoke of Italy and
Switzerland, telling her stories of his travels there, and other
experiences which he could no longer recount to his son and
grand-daughter because they knew them. This fresh audience was
precious to him; he had never become one of those old men who
ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence. Himself
quickly fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively avoided
fatiguing others, and his natural flirtatiousness towards beauty
guarded him specially in his relations with a woman. He would
have liked to draw her out, but though she murmured and smiled
and seemed to be enjoying what he told her, he remained conscious
of that mysterious remoteness which constituted half her
fascination. He could not bear women who threw their shoulders
and eyes at you, and chattered away; or hard-mouthed women who
laid down the law and knew more than you did. There was only one
quality in a woman that appealed to him—charm; and the quieter it
was, the more he liked it. And this one had charm, shadowy as
afternoon sunlight on those Italian hills and valleys he had
loved. The feeling, too, that she was, as it were, apart,
cloistered, made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely
desirable companion. When a man is very old and quite out of the
running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of youth, for
he would still be first in the heart of beauty. And he drank his
hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly young. But the dog
Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising in his heart
the interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those
greenish glasses full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to
him.
The light was just failing when they went back into the
music-room. And, cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:
“Play me some Chopin.”
By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall
know the texture of men’s souls. Old Jolyon could not bear a
strong cigar or Wagner’s music. He loved Beethoven and Mozart,
Handel and Gluck, and Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the
operas of Meyerbeer; but of late years he had been seduced by
Chopin, just as in painting he had succumbed to Botticelli. In
yielding to these tastes he had been conscious of divergence from
the standard of the Golden Age. Their poetry was not that of
Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and Titian; Mozart and
Beethoven. It was, as it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no
one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and
turned and twisted, and melted up the heart. And, never certain
that this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could
see the pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.
Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned
with pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could
see her, crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar. She sat a
few moments with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her
mind for what to give him. Then she began and within old Jolyon
there arose a sorrowful pleasure, not quite like anything else in
the world. He fell slowly into a trance, interrupted only by the
movements of taking the cigar out of his mouth at long intervals,
and replacing it. She was there, and the hock within him, and the
scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world of sunshine
lingering into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them, and
bluish trees above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and
fields of lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and a
woman all shadowy, with dark eyes and a white neck, smiled,
holding out her arms; and through air which was like music a star
dropped and was caught on a cow’s horn. He opened his eyes.
Beautiful piece; she played well—the touch of an angel! And he
closed them again. He felt miraculously sad and happy, as one
does, standing under a lime-tree in full honey flower. Not live
one’s own life again, but just stand there and bask in the smile
of a woman’s eyes, and enjoy the bouquet! And he jerked his hand;
the dog Balthasar had reached up and licked it.
“Beautiful!” He said: “Go on—more Chopin!”
She began to play again. This time the resemblance between her
and “Chopin” struck him. The swaying he had noticed in her walk
was in her playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the
soft darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight
from a golden moon. Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her
or in that music. A long blue spiral from his cigar ascended and
dispersed. “So we go out!” he thought. “No more beauty! Nothing?”
Again Irene stopped.
“Would you like some Gluck? He used to write his music in a
sunlit garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him.”
“Ah! yes. Let’s have ‘Orfeo.’” Round about him now were fields of
gold and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight,
bright birds flying to and fro. All was summer. Lingering waves
of sweetness and regret flooded his soul. Some cigar ash dropped,
and taking out a silk handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a
mingled scent as of snuff and eau de Cologne. “Ah!” he thought,
“Indian summer—that’s all!” and he said: “You haven’t played me
‘Che faro.’”
She did not answer; did not move. He was conscious of
something—some strange upset. Suddenly he saw her rise and turn
away, and a pang of remorse shot through him. What a clumsy chap!
Like Orpheus, she of course—she too was looking for her lost one
in the hall of memory! And disturbed to the heart, he got up from
his chair. She had gone to the great window at the far end.
Gingerly he followed. Her hands were folded over her breast; he
could just see her cheek, very white. And, quite emotionalized,
he said:
“There, there, my love!” The words had escaped him mechanically,
for they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but
their effect was instantaneously distressing. She raised her
arms, covered her face with them, and wept.
Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age. The
passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike
the control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had
never before broken down in the presence of another being.
“There, there—there, there!” he murmured, and putting his hand
out reverently, touched her. She turned, and leaned the arms
which covered her face against him. Old Jolyon stood very still,
keeping one thin hand on her shoulder. Let her cry her heart
out—it would do her good.
And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine
them.
The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the
last of daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from
the lamp within; there was a scent of new-mown grass. With the
wisdom of a long life old Jolyon did not speak. Even grief sobbed
itself out in time; only Time was good for sorrow—Time who saw
the passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the
layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: “As panteth
the hart after cooling streams”—but they were of no use to him.
Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her
eyes. He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her
forehead, and felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body,
as of a tree which shakes itself free of raindrops. She put his
hand to her lips, as if saying: “All over now! Forgive me!”
The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to
where she had been so upset. And the dog Balthasar, following,
laid the bone of one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.
Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think
of nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from
cabinet to cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and
Lowestoft and Chelsea, turning them round and round with his
thin, veined hands, whose skin, faintly freckled, had such an
aged look.
“I bought this at Jobson’s,” he would say; “cost me thirty
pounds. It’s very old. That dog leaves his bones all over the
place. This old ‘ship-bowl’ I picked up at the sale when that
precious rip, the Marquis, came to grief. But you don’t remember.
Here’s a nice piece of Chelsea. Now, what would you say _this_
was?” And he was comforted, feeling that, with her taste, she was
taking a real interest in these things; for, after all, nothing
better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of china.
When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he
said:
“You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you
these by daylight, and my little sweet—she’s a dear little thing.
This dog seems to have taken a fancy to you.”
For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing
his side against her leg. Going out under the porch with her, he
said:
“He’ll get you up in an hour and a quarter. Take this for your
_protégées_,” and he slipped a cheque for fifty pounds into her
hand. He saw her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: “Oh!
Uncle Jolyon!” and a real throb of pleasure went through him.
That meant one or two poor creatures helped a little, and it
meant that she would come again. He put his hand in at the window
and grasped hers once more. The carriage rolled away. He stood
looking at the moon and the shadows of the trees, and thought: “A
sweet night! She...!”
II
Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny. Old Jolyon
walked and talked with Holly. At first he felt taller and full of
a new vigour; then he felt restless. Almost every afternoon they
would enter the coppice, and walk as far as the log. “Well, she’s
not there!” he would think, “of course not!” And he would feel a
little shorter, and drag his feet walking up the hill home, with
his hand clapped to his left side. Now and then the thought would
move in him: “Did she come—or did I dream it?” and he would stare
at space, while the dog Balthasar stared at him. Of course she
would not come again! He opened the letters from Spain with less
excitement. They were not returning till July; he felt, oddly,
that he could bear it. Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes
and looked at where she had sat. She was not there, so he
unscrewed his eyes again.
On the seventh afternoon he thought: “I must go up and get some
boots.” He ordered Beacon, and set out. Passing from Putney
towards Hyde Park he reflected: “I might as well go to Chelsea
and see her.” And he called out: “Just drive me to where you took
that lady the other night.” The coachman turned his broad red
face, and his juicy lips answered: “The lady in grey, sir?”
“Yes, the lady in grey.” What other ladies were there! Stodgy
chap!
The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats,
standing a little back from the river. With a practised eye old
Jolyon saw that they were cheap. “I should think about sixty
pound a year,” he mused; and entering, he looked at the
name-board. The name “Forsyte” was not on it, but against “First
Floor, Flat C” were the words: “Mrs. Irene Heron.” Ah! She had
taken her maiden name again! And somehow this pleased him. He
went upstairs slowly, feeling his side a little. He stood a
moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and
fluttering there. She would not be in! And then—Boots! The
thought was black. What did he want with boots at his age? He
could not wear out all those he had.
“Your mistress at home?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”
“Yes, sir, will you come this way?”
Old Jolyon followed a very little maid—not more than sixteen one
would say—into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds
were drawn. It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague
fragrance and good taste. He stood in the middle, with his top
hat in his hand, and thought: “I expect she’s very badly off!”
There was a mirror above the fireplace, and he saw himself
reflected. An old-looking chap! He heard a rustle, and turned
round. She was so close that his moustache almost brushed her
forehead, just under her hair.
“I was driving up,” he said. “Thought I’d look in on you, and ask
you how you got up the other night.”
And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved. She was really
glad to see him, perhaps.
“Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the
Park?”
But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned. The Park!
James and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his
precious family would be there very likely, prancing up and down.
And they would go and wag their tongues about having seen him
with her, afterwards. Better not! He did not wish to revive the
echoes of the past on Forsyte ’Change. He removed a white hair
from the lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed
his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin. It felt
very hollow there under the cheekbones. He had not been eating
much lately—he had better get that little whippersnapper who
attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she had come back and
when they were in the carriage, he said:
“Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?” and added
with a twinkle: “No prancing up and down there,” as if she had
been in the secret of his thoughts.
Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and
strolled towards the water.
“You’ve gone back to your maiden name, I see,” he said: “I’m not
sorry.”
She slipped her hand under his arm: “Has June forgiven me, Uncle
Jolyon?”
He answered gently: “Yes—yes; of course, why not?”
“And have you?”
“I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay.” And
perhaps he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the
beautiful.
She drew a deep breath. “I never regretted—I couldn’t. Did you
ever love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?”
At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him. Had he? He
did not seem to remember that he ever had. But he did not like to
say this to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm,
whose life was suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love.
And he thought: “If I had met you when I was young I—I might have
made a fool of myself, perhaps.” And a longing to escape in
generalities beset him.
“Love’s a queer thing,” he said, “fatal thing often. It was the
Greeks—wasn’t it?—made love into a goddess; they were right, I
dare say, but then they lived in the Golden Age.”
“Phil adored them.”
Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly—with his power to see all
round a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like
this. She wanted to talk about her lover! Well! If it was any
pleasure to her! And he said: “Ah! There was a bit of the
sculptor in him, I fancy.”
“Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted
way the Greeks gave themselves to art.”
Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for
symmetry—clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer
eyes of his, and high cheek-bones—Symmetry?
“You’re of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon.”
Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her
eyes were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why?
There was nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.
“Phil thought so. He used to say: ‘But I can never tell him that
I admire him.’”
Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of
him! And he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories,
half grateful, as if he recognised what a link they were between
herself and him.
“He was a very talented young fellow,” he murmured. “It’s hot; I
feel the heat nowadays. Let’s sit down.”
They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves
covered them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure
to sit there and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with
him. And the wish to increase that liking, if he could, made him
go on:
“I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He’d be at his
best with you. His ideas of art were a little new—to me”—he had
stiffed the word ‘fangled.’
“Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty.” Old
Jolyon thought: “The devil he did!” but answered with a twinkle:
“Well, I have, or I shouldn’t be sitting here with you.” She was
fascinating when she smiled with her eyes, like that!
“He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil
had real insight.”
He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out
of a longing to talk of her dead lover—not a bit; and yet it was
precious to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart
which—quite true!—had never grown old. Was that because—unlike
her and her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation, had
always kept his balance, his sense of symmetry. Well! It had left
him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty. And he thought, “If
I were a painter or a sculptor! But I’m an old chap. Make hay
while the sun shines.”
A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at
the edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly
on their pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. “We’re an ugly
lot!” said old Jolyon suddenly. “It amazes me to see how—love
triumphs over that.”
“Love triumphs over everything!”
“The young think so,” he muttered.
“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”
With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so
large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But
this extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he
said: “Well, if it had limits, we shouldn’t be born; for by
George! it’s got a lot to put up with.”
Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The
great clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often
got a rush of blood to the head—his circulation was not what it
had been.
She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she
murmured:
“It’s strange enough that _I’m_ alive.”
Those words of Jo’s “Wild and lost” came back to him.
“Ah!” he said: “my son saw you for a moment—that day.”
“Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a
second it was—Phil.”
Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took
it away again, and went on calmly: “That night I went to the
Embankment; a woman caught me by the dress. She told me about
herself. When one knows that others suffer, one’s ashamed.”
“One of _those?_”
She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of
one who has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost
against his will he muttered: “Tell me, won’t you?”
“I didn’t care whether I lived or died. When you’re like that,
Fate ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three
days—she never left me. I had no money. That’s why I do what I
can for them, now.”
But old Jolyon was thinking: “No money!” What fate could compare
with that? Every other was involved in it.
“I wish you had come to me,” he said. “Why didn’t you?” But Irene
did not answer.
“Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept
you away? How are you getting on now?” His eyes involuntarily
swept her body. Perhaps even now she was—! And yet she wasn’t
thin—not really!
“Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough.” The answer
did not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow
Soames! But his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she
would certainly have died rather than take another penny from
_him_. Soft as she looked, there must be strength in her
somewhere—strength and fidelity. But what business had young
Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded like this!
“Well, you must come to me now,” he said, “for anything you want,
or I shall be quite cut up.” And putting on his hat, he rose.
“Let’s go and get some tea. I told that lazy chap to put the
horses up for an hour, and come for me at your place. We’ll take
a cab presently; I can’t walk as I used to.”
He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens—the
sound of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty
of a charming form moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at
Ruffel’s in the High Street, and came out thence with a great box
of chocolates swung on his little finger. He enjoyed the drive
back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking his cigar. She had promised
to come down next Sunday and play to him again, and already in
thought he was plucking carnations and early roses for her to
carry back to town. It was a pleasure to give her a little
pleasure, if it _were_ pleasure from an old chap like him! The
carriage was already there when they arrived. Just like that
fellow, who was always late when he was wanted! Old Jolyon went
in for a minute to say good-bye. The little dark hall of the flat
was impregnated with a disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a
bench against the wall—its only furniture—he saw a figure
sitting. He heard Irene say softly: “Just one minute.” In the
little drawing-room when the door was shut, he asked gravely:
“One of your _protégées?_”
“Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something for her.”
He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had
frightened so many in its time. The idea of her thus actually in
contact with this outcast grieved and frightened him. What could
she do for them? Nothing. Only soil and make trouble for herself,
perhaps. And he said: “Take care, my dear! The world puts the
worst construction on everything.”
“I know that.”
He was abashed by her quiet smile. “Well then—Sunday,” he
murmured: “Good-bye.”
She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.
“Good-bye,” he said again; “take care of yourself.” And he went
out, not looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove home
by way of Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of
and tell them to send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy.
She must want picking-up sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he
remember that he had gone up to order himself some boots, and was
surprised that he could have had so paltry an idea.
III
The little spirits of the past which throng an old man’s days had
never pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy
hours elapsing before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with
the charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was
not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was
_coming to lunch_. There is wonderful finality about a meal; it
removes a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except for
reasons beyond control. He played many games with Holly on the
lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to be ready
to bowl to Jolly in the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte, but
Jolly was—and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and
reached the age of eighty-five. The dog Balthasar, in attendance,
lay on the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded,
till his face was like the harvest moon. And because the time was
getting shorter, each day was longer and more golden than the
last. On Friday night he took a liver pill, his side hurt him
rather, and though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy
like that. Anyone telling him that he had found a new excitement
in life and that excitement was not good for him, would have been
met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks of his
deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: “I know my own
business best.” He always had and always would.
On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to
church, he visited the strawberry beds. There, accompanied by the
dog Balthasar, he examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in
finding at least two dozen berries which were really ripe.
Stooping was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and red
in the forehead. Having placed the strawberries in a dish on the
dining-table, he washed his hands and bathed his forehead with
eau de Cologne. There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that
he was thinner. What a “threadpaper” he had been when he was
young! It was nice to be slim—he could not bear a fat chap; and
yet perhaps his cheeks were _too_ thin! She was to arrive by
train at half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road
past Drage’s farm at the far end of the coppice. And, having
looked into June’s room to see that there was hot water ready, he
set forth to meet her, leisurely, for his heart was beating. The
air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was
visible. A perfect day! On just such a one, no doubt, six years
ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him to look at
the site before they began to build. It was Bosinney who had
pitched on the exact spot for the house—as June had often told
him. In these days he was thinking much about that young fellow,
as if his spirit were really haunting the field of his last work,
on the chance of seeing—her. Bosinney—the one man who had
possessed her heart, to whom she had given her whole self with
rapture! At his age one could not, of course, imagine such
things, but there stirred in him a queer vague aching—as it were
the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling, too, more
generous, of pity for that love so early lost. All over in a few
poor months! Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering
the coppice—only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait! And
then, turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he
had seen her the first time, on the log; and realised that she
must have come by the earlier train to sit there alone for a
couple of hours at least. Two hours of her society missed! What
memory could make that log so dear to her? His face showed what
he was thinking, for she said at once:
“Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew.”
“Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like. You’re looking
a little Londony; you’re giving too many lessons.”
That she should have to give lessons worried him. Lessons to a
parcel of young girls thumping out scales with their thick
fingers.
“Where do you go to give them?” he asked.
“They’re mostly Jewish families, luckily.”
Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and
doubtful.
“They love music, and they’re very kind.”
“They had better be, by George!” He took her arm—his side always
hurt him a little going uphill—and said:
“Did you ever see anything like those buttercups? They came like
that in a night.”
Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the
flowers and the honey. “I wanted you to see them—wouldn’t let
them turn the cows in yet.” Then, remembering that she had come
to talk about Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the
stables:
“I expect _he_ wouldn’t have let me put that there—had no notion
of time, if I remember.”
But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and
he knew it was done that he might not feel she came because of
her dead lover.
“The best flower I can show you,” he said, with a sort of
triumph, “is my little sweet. She’ll be back from Church
directly. There’s something about her which reminds me a little
of you,” and it did not seem to him peculiar that he had put it
thus, instead of saying: “There’s something about you which
reminds me a little of her.” Ah! And here she was!
Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose
digestion had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of
Strasbourg, came rushing towards them from under the oak tree.
She stopped about a dozen yards away, to pat Balthasar and
pretend that this was all she had in her mind. Old Jolyon, who
knew better, said:
“Well, my darling, here’s the lady in grey I promised you.”
Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them
with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave
inquiry, passing into a shy smile too, and then to something
deeper. She had a sense of beauty, that child—knew what was what!
He enjoyed the sight of the kiss between them.
“Mrs. Heron, Mam’zelle Beauce. Well, Mam’zelle—good sermon?”
For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part
of the service connected with this world absorbed what interest
in church remained to him. Mam’zelle Beauce stretched out a
spidery hand clad in a black kid glove—she had been in the best
families—and the rather sad eyes of her lean yellowish face
seemed to ask: “Are you well-brrred?” Whenever Holly or Jolly did
anything unpleasing to her—a not uncommon occurrence—she would
say to them: “The little Tayleurs never did that—they were such
well-brrred little children.” Jolly hated the little Tayleurs;
Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short of them.
“A thin rum little soul,” old Jolyon thought her—Mam’zelle
Beauce.
Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself
had picked in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and
another bottle of the Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain
aromatic spirituality, and a conviction that he would have a
touch of eczema to-morrow.
After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee.
It was no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce
withdrew to write her Sunday letter to her sister, whose future
had been endangered in the past by swallowing a pin—an event held
up daily in warning to the children to eat slowly and digest what
they had eaten. At the foot of the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly
and the dog Balthasar teased and loved each other, and in the
shade old Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar luxuriously
savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing. A light, vaguely
swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon
it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little
drooped. She looked content; surely it did her good to come and
see him! The selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on
him, for he could still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others,
realising that what he wanted, though much, was not quite all
that mattered.
“It’s quiet here,” he said; “you mustn’t come down if you find it
dull. But it’s a pleasure to see you. My little sweet is the only
face which gives me any pleasure, except yours.”
From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be
appreciated, and this reassured him. “That’s not humbug,” he
said. “I never told a woman I admired her when I didn’t. In fact
I don’t know when I’ve told a woman I admired her, except my wife
in the old days; and wives are funny.” He was silent, but resumed
abruptly:
“She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and
there we were.” Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and,
afraid that he had said something painful, he hurried on: “When
my little sweet marries, I hope she’ll find someone who knows
what women feel. I shan’t be here to see it, but there’s too much
topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don’t want her to pitch up against
that.” And, aware that he had made bad worse, he added: “That dog
_will_ scratch.”
A silence followed. Of what was she thinking, this pretty
creature whose life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet
was made for love? Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would
find another mate—not so disorderly as that young fellow who had
got himself run over. Ah! but her husband?
“Does Soames never trouble you?” he asked.
She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her
softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a
glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies
strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian
civilisation—so much older than this of his old age—had never
thought about such primitive things.
“That’s a comfort,” he said. “You can see the Grand Stand to-day.
Shall we take a turn round?”
Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer
walls peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through
the stables, the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds,
the rosery, the summer-house, he conducted her—even into the
kitchen garden to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to
scoop out of their pods with her finger, and lick up from the
palm of her little brown hand. Many delightful things he showed
her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar danced ahead, or came to
them at intervals for attention. It was one of the happiest
afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was glad to
sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special
little friend of Holly’s had come in—a fair child with short hair
like a boy’s. And the two sported in the distance, under the
stairs, on the stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged
for Chopin. She played studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two
children, creeping near, stood at the foot of the piano their
dark and golden heads bent forward, listening. Old Jolyon
watched.
“Let’s see you dance, you two!”
Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling,
earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to
the strains of that waltz. He watched them and the face of her
who was playing turned smiling towards those little dancers
thinking:
“Sweetest picture I’ve seen for ages.”
A voice said:
“Hollee! _Mais enfin—qu’est-ce que tu fais la—danser, le
dimanche! Viens, donc!_”
But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would
save them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly “caught
out.”
“Better the day, better the deed, Mam’zelle. It’s all my doing.
Trot along, chicks, and have your tea.”
And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took
every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:
“Well, there we are! Aren’t they sweet? Have you any little ones
among your pupils?”
“Yes, three—two of them darlings.”
“Pretty?”
“Lovely!”
Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very
young. “My little sweet,” he said, “is devoted to music; she’ll
be a musician some day. You wouldn’t give me your opinion of her
playing, I suppose?”
“Of course I will.”
“You wouldn’t like—” but he stifled the words “to give her
lessons.” The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him;
yet it would mean that he would see her regularly. She left the
piano and came over to his chair.
“I would like, very much; but there is—June. When are they coming
back?”
Old Jolyon frowned. “Not till the middle of next month. What does
that matter?”
“You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle
Jolyon.”
Forget! She _must_ forget, if he wanted her to.
But as if answering, Irene shook her head. “You know she
couldn’t; one doesn’t forget.”
Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed
finality:
“Well, we shall see.”
He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred
little things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And
when she had gone he went back to his chair, and sat there
smoothing his face and chin, dreaming over the day.
That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet
of paper. He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose
and stood under the masterpiece “Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.”
He was not thinking of that picture, but of his life. He was
going to leave her something in his Will; nothing could so have
stirred the stilly deeps of thought and memory. He was going to
leave her a portion of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds,
qualities, work—all that had made that wealth; going to leave
her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane and
steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? “Dutch Fishing
Boats” responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and
drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one
of last year’s oak leaves which had somehow survived the
gardener’s brooms, was dragging itself with a tiny clicking
rustle along the stone terrace in the twilight. Except for that
it was very quiet out there, and he could smell the heliotrope
watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird uttered its last
“cheep.” And right above the oak tree the first star shone. Faust
in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of youth.
Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was _real_
tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or
anything. Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while
you could, and leave it something in your Will. But how much?
And, as if he could not make that calculation looking out into
the mild freedom of the country night, he turned back and went up
to the chimney-piece. There were his pet bronzes—a Cleopatra with
the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound playing with her
puppy; a strong man reining in some horses. “They last!” he
thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a thousand
years of life before them!
“How much?” Well! enough at all events to save her getting old
before her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as
possible, and grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live
another five years. She would be well over thirty by then. “How
much?” She had none of his blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor
of his life for forty years and more, ever since he married and
founded that mysterious thing, a family, came this warning
thought—None of his blood, no right to anything! It was a luxury
then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old man’s
whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was
vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when
he was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at
the old leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many
hundreds of cigars. And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting
there in her grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful,
looking up at him. Why! She cared nothing for him, really; all
she cared for was that lost lover of hers. But she was there,
whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her beauty and
grace. One had no right to inflict an old man’s company, no right
to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her—for no
reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. “How much?”
After all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren
would never miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly
every penny; he could leave it where he liked, allow himself this
little pleasure. He went back to the bureau. “Well, I’m going
to,” he thought, “let them think what they like. I’m going to!”
And he sat down.
“How much?” Ten thousand, twenty thousand—how much? If only with
his money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled
by that thought, he wrote quickly:
“DEAR HERRING,—Draw me a codicil to this effect: “I leave to my
niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now
goes, fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy duty.”
“Yours faithfully,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”
When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the
window and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars
shone now.
IV
He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had
taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts.
Experience had also taught him that a further waking at the
proper hour of eight showed the folly of such panic. On this
particular morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum was
that if he became ill, at his age not improbable, he would not
see her. From this it was but a step to realisation that he would
be cut off, too, when his son and June returned from Spain. How
could he justify desire for the company of one who had
stolen—early morning does not mince words—June’s lover? That
lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing;
warm-hearted, but stubborn as wood, and—quite true—not one who
forgot! By the middle of next month they would be back. He had
barely five weeks left to enjoy the new interest which had come
into what remained of his life. Darkness showed up to him
absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration for beauty—a
craving to see that which delighted his eyes.
Preposterous, at his age! And yet—what other reason was there for
asking June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his
son and his son’s wife from thinking him very queer? He would be
reduced to sneaking up to London, which tired him; and the least
indisposition would cut him off even from that. He lay with eyes
open, setting his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself
an old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then seemed to stop
beating altogether. He had seen the dawn lighting the window
chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow,
before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five weeks
before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early
morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of
one who had always had his own way. He would see her as often as
he wished! Why not go up to town and make that codicil at his
solicitor’s instead of writing about it; she might like to go to
the opera! But, by train, for he would not have that fat chap
Beacon grinning behind his back. Servants were such fools; and,
as likely as not, they had known all the past history of Irene
and young Bosinney—servants knew everything, and suspected the
rest. He wrote to her that morning:
“MY DEAR IRENE,—I have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would
like to have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me
quietly ....”
But where? It was decades since he had dined anywhere in
London save at his Club or at a private house. Ah! that
new-fangled place close to Covent Garden....
“Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel
whether to expect you there at 7 o’clock.
“Yours affectionately,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”
She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little
pleasure; for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to
see her was instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly
that one so old should go out of his way to see beauty,
especially in a woman.
The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his
lawyer’s, tired him. It was hot too, and after dressing for
dinner he lay down on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little.
He must have had a sort of fainting fit, for he came to himself
feeling very queer; and with some difficulty rose and rang the
bell. Why! it was past seven! And there he was and she would be
waiting. But suddenly the dizziness came on again, and he was
obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the maid’s voice say:
“Did you ring, sir?”
“Yes, come here”; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in
front of his eyes. “I’m not well, I want some sal volatile.”
“Yes, sir.” Her voice sounded frightened.
Old Jolyon made an effort.
“Don’t go. Take this message to my niece—a lady waiting in the
hall—a lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well—the heat. He is
very sorry; if he is not down directly, she is not to wait
dinner.”
When she was gone, he thought feebly: “Why did I say a lady in
grey—she may be in anything. Sal volatile!” He did not go off
again, yet was not conscious of how Irene came to be standing
beside him, holding smelling salts to his nose, and pushing a
pillow up behind his head. He heard her say anxiously: “Dear
Uncle Jolyon, what is it?” was dimly conscious of the soft
pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of
smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and
sneezed.
“Ha!” he said, “it’s nothing. How did you get here? Go down and
dine—the tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be all right
in a minute.”
He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat
divided between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all
right.
“Why! You _are_ in grey!” he said. “Help me up.” Once on his feet
he gave himself a shake.
“What business had I to go off like that!” And he moved very
slowly to the glass. What a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind
him, murmured:
“You mustn’t come down, Uncle; you must rest.”
“Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne’ll soon set me to rights. I
can’t have you missing the opera.”
But the journey down the corridor was troublesome. What carpets
they had in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up
in them at every step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she
looked, and said with the ghost of a twinkle:
“I’m a pretty host.”
When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to
prevent its slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of
champagne he felt much better, and began to enjoy an infirmity
which had brought such solicitude into her manner towards him.
“I should have liked you for a daughter,” he said suddenly; and
watching the smile in her eyes, went on:
“You mustn’t get wrapped up in the past at your time of life;
plenty of that when you get to my age. That’s a nice dress—I like
the style.”
“I made it myself.”
Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost
her interest in life.
“Make hay while the sun shines,” he said; “and drink that up. I
want to see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn’t waste life; it
doesn’t do. There’s a new Marguerite to-night; let’s hope she
won’t be fat. And Mephisto—anything more dreadful than a fat chap
playing the Devil I can’t imagine.”
But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up
from dinner the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted
on his staying quiet and going to bed early. When he parted from
her at the door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her
to Chelsea, he sat down again for a moment to enjoy the memory of
her words: “You _are_ such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!” Why!
Who wouldn’t be! He would have liked to stay up another day and
take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would bore her
to death. No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised to
come then. They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for
a month. It would be something. That little Mam’zelle Beauce
wouldn’t like it, but she would have to lump it. And crushing his
old opera hat against his chest he sought the lift.
He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to
say: “Drive me to Chelsea.” But his sense of proportion was too
strong. Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk
another aberration like that of last night, away from home.
Holly, too, was expecting him, and what he had in his bag for
her. Not that there was any cupboard love in his little sweet—she
was a bundle of affection. Then, with the rather bitter cynicism
of the old, he wondered for a second whether it was not cupboard
love which made Irene put up with him. No, she was not that sort
either. She had, if anything, too little notion of how to butter
her bread, no sense of property, poor thing! Besides, he had not
breathed a word about that codicil, nor should he—sufficient unto
the day was the good thereof.
In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was
restraining the dog Balthasar, and their caresses made “jubey”
his drive home. All the rest of that fine hot day and most of the
next he was content and peaceful, reposing in the shade, while
the long lingering sunshine showered gold on the lawns and the
flowers. But on Thursday evening at his lonely dinner he began to
count the hours; sixty-five till he would go down to meet her
again in the little coppice, and walk up through the fields at
her side. He had intended to consult the doctor about his
fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no
excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the
leg, did not want to be told of an infirmity—if there were one,
could not afford to hear of it at his time of life, now that this
new interest had come. And he carefully avoided making any
mention of it in a letter to his son. It would only bring them
back with a run! How far this silence was due to consideration
for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own, he did not
pause to consider.
That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was
dozing off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious
of a scent of violets. Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in
grey, standing by the fireplace, holding out her arms. The odd
thing was that, though those arms seemed to hold nothing, they
were curved as if round someone’s neck, and her own neck was bent
back, her lips open, her eyes closed. She vanished at once, and
there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes. But those bronzes and
the mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only the
fireplace and the wall! Shaken and troubled, he got up. “I must
take medicine,” he thought; “I can’t be well.” His heart beat too
fast, he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the
window, he opened it to get some air. A dog was barking far away,
one of the dogs at Gage’s farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A
beautiful still night, but dark. “I dropped off,” he mused,
“that’s it! And yet I’ll swear my eyes were open!” A sound like a
sigh seemed to answer.
“What’s that?” he said sharply, “who’s there?”
Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart,
he stepped out on the terrace. Something soft scurried by in the
dark. “Shoo!” It was that great grey cat. “Young Bosinney was
like a great cat!” he thought. “It was him in there, that
she—that she was—He’s got her still!” He walked to the edge of
the terrace, and looked down into the darkness; he could just see
the powdering of the daisies on the unmown lawn. Here to-day and
gone to-morrow! And there came the moon, who saw all, young and
old, alive and dead, and didn’t care a dump! His own turn soon.
For a single day of youth he would give what was left! And he
turned again towards the house. He could see the windows of the
night nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep. “Hope
that dog won’t wake her!” he thought. “What is it makes us love,
and makes us die! I must go to bed.”
And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he
passed back within.
V
How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his
well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating
warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the
gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should
distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should
watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of
summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the
Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,
slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his
wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning before
the world is aired, and they put on his tombstone: “In the
fulness of years!” Yea! If he preserve his principles in perfect
order, a Forsyte may live on long after he is dead.
Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him
that which transcended Forsyteism. For it is written that a
Forsyte shall not love beauty more than reason; nor his own way
more than his own health. And something beat within him in these
days that with each throb fretted at the thinning shell. His
sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he could not stop that
beating, nor would if he could. And yet, if you had told him he
was living on his capital, he would have stared you down. No, no;
a man did not live on his capital; it was not done! The
shibboleths of the past are ever more real than the actualities
of the present. And he, to whom living on one’s capital had
always been anathema, could not have borne to have applied so
gross a phrase to his own case. Pleasure is healthful; beauty
good to see; to live again in the youth of the young—and what
else on earth was he doing!
Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now
arranged his time. On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train;
Irene came and dined with him. And they went to the opera. On
Thursdays he drove to town, and, putting that fat chap and his
horses up, met her in Kensington Gardens, picking up the carriage
after he had left her, and driving home again in time for dinner.
He threw out the casual formula that he had business in London on
those two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she came down to give
Holly music lessons. The greater the pleasure he took in her
society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a
matter-of-fact and friendly uncle. Not even in feeling, really,
was he more—for, after all, there was his age. And yet, if she
were late he fidgeted himself to death. If she missed coming,
which happened twice, his eyes grew sad as an old dog’s, and he
failed to sleep.
And so a month went by—a month of summer in the fields, and in
his heart, with summer’s heat and the fatigue thereof. Who could
have believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward
to his son’s and his grand-daughter’s return with something like
dread! There was such a delicious freedom, such recovery of that
independence a man enjoys before he founds a family, about these
weeks of lovely weather, and this new companionship with one who
demanded nothing, and remained always a little unknown, retaining
the fascination of mystery. It was like a draught of wine to him
who has been drinking water for so long that he has almost
forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to his
brain. The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and
the sunlight had a living value—were no longer mere reminders of
past enjoyment. There was something now to live for which stirred
him continually to anticipation. He lived in that, not in
retrospection; the difference is considerable to any so old as
he. The pleasures of the table, never of much consequence to one
naturally abstemious, had lost all value. He ate little, without
knowing what he ate; and every day grew thinner and more worn to
look at. He was again a “threadpaper”. and to this thinned form
his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples, gave more
dignity than ever. He was very well aware that he ought to see
the doctor, but liberty was too sweet. He could not afford to pet
his frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the
expense of liberty. Return to the vegetable existence he had led
among the agricultural journals with the life-size mangold
wurzels, before this new attraction came into his life—no! He
exceeded his allowance of cigars. Two a day had always been his
rule. Now he smoked three and sometimes four—a man will when he
is filled with the creative spirit. But very often he thought: “I
must give up smoking, and coffee; I must give up rattling up to
town.” But he did not; there was no one in any sort of authority
to notice him, and this was a priceless boon. The servants
perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam’zelle
Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too
“well-brrred” to make personal allusions. Holly had not as yet an
eye for the relative appearance of him who was her plaything and
her god. It was left for Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to
rest in the hot part of the day, to take a tonic, and so forth.
But she did not tell him that she was the cause of his
thinness—for one cannot see the havoc oneself is working. A man
of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which produces
passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes which
crave the sight of Her.
On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter
from his son in Paris to say that they would all be back on
Friday. This had always been more sure than Fate; but, with the
pathetic improvidence given to the old, that they may endure to
the end, he had never quite admitted it. Now he did, and
something would have to be done. He had ceased to be able to
imagine life without this new interest, but that which is not
imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually finding to
their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the
letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar.
After to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be
abandoned. He could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the
pretext of seeing his man of business. But even that would be
dependent on his health, for now they would begin to fuss about
him. The lessons! The lessons must go on! She must swallow down
her scruples, and June must put her feelings in her pocket. She
had done so once, on the day after the news of Bosinney’s death;
what she had done then, she could surely do again now. Four years
since that injury was inflicted on her—not Christian to keep the
memory of old sores alive. June’s will was strong, but his was
stronger, for his sands were running out. Irene was soft, surely
she would do this for him, subdue her natural shrinking, sooner
than give him pain! The lessons must continue; for if they did,
he was secure. And lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to
shape out how to put it to them all, and explain this strange
intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away from the naked truth—that
he could not bear to be deprived of the sight of beauty. Ah!
Holly! Holly was fond of her, Holly liked her lessons. She would
save him—his little sweet! And with that happy thought he became
serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about so
fearfully. He must not worry, it left him always curiously weak,
and as if but half present in his own body.
That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness,
though he did not faint. He would not ring the bell, because he
knew it would mean a fuss, and make his going up on the morrow
more conspicuous. When one grew old, the whole world was in
conspiracy to limit freedom, and for what reason?—just to keep
the breath in him a little longer. He did not want it at such
cost. Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery from that
weakness; anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard and
drink some brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit. When at last
old Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed. And,
though still shaky next morning, the thought of the evening
sustained and strengthened him. It was always such a pleasure to
give her a good dinner—he suspected her of undereating when she
was alone; and, at the opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten,
the unconscious smiling of her lips. She hadn’t much pleasure,
and this was the last time he would be able to give her that
treat. But when he was packing his bag he caught himself wishing
that he had not the fatigue of dressing for dinner before him,
and the exertion, too, of telling her about June’s return.
The opera that evening was “Carmen,” and he chose the last
_entr’acte_ to break the news, instinctively putting it off till
the latest moment.
She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she
had taken it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence
became necessary. The mask was down over her face, that mask
behind which so much went on that he could not see. She wanted
time to think it over, no doubt! He would not press her, for she
would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow afternoon, and he
should see her then when she had got used to the idea. In the cab
he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old days,
but this one was not bad at all. When he took her hand to say
good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.
“Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me.”
“To-morrow then,” he said. “Good-night. Sleep well.” She echoed
softly: “Sleep well” and from the cab window, already moving
away, he saw her face screwed round towards him, and her hand put
out in a gesture which seemed to linger.
He sought his room slowly. They never gave him the same, and he
could not get used to these “spick-and-spandy” bedrooms with new
furniture and grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink
roses. He was wakeful and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing
in his head.
His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he
knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing—wild and unaccountable.
Well, there _was_ in life something which upset all your care and
plans—something which made men and women dance to its pipes. And
he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the
unaccountable held sway. You thought you had hold of life, but it
slipped away behind you, took you by the scruff of the neck,
forced you here and forced you there, and then, likely as not,
squeezed life out of you! It took the very stars like that, he
shouldn’t wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them
apart; it had never done playing its pranks. Five million people
in this great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy
of that Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about
on a board when you struck your fist on it. Ah, well! Himself
would not hop much longer—a good long sleep would do him good!
How hot it was up here!—how noisy! His forehead burned; she had
kissed it just where he always worried; just there—as if she had
known the very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him. But,
instead, her lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness. She had
never spoken in quite that voice, had never before made that
lingering gesture or looked back at him as she drove away.
He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced
down over the river. There was little air, but the sight of that
breadth of water flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him. “The
great thing,” he thought “is not to make myself a nuisance. I’ll
think of my little sweet, and go to sleep.” But it was long
before the heat and throbbing of the London night died out into
the short slumber of the summer morning. And old Jolyon had but
forty winks.
When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden,
and with the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers,
gathered a great bunch of carnations. They were, he told her, for
“the lady in grey”—a name still bandied between them; and he put
them in a bowl in his study where he meant to tackle Irene the
moment she came, on the subject of June and future lessons. Their
fragrance and colour would help. After lunch he lay down, for he
felt very tired, and the carriage would not bring her from the
station till four o’clock. But as the hour approached he grew
restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.
The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle
Beauce, sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending
to their silkworms. Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these
methodical creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of
elephants; who nibbled such quantities of holes in nice green
leaves; and smelled, as he thought, horrid. He sat down on a
chintz-covered windowseat whence he could see the drive, and get
what air there was; and the dog Balthasar who appreciated chintz
on hot days, jumped up beside him. Over the cottage piano a
violet dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and on it
the first lavender, whose scent filled the room. In spite of the
coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life
vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses. Each sunbeam which
came through the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled
very strong; the lavender perfume was overpowering; those
silkworms heaving up their grey-green backs seemed horribly
alive; and Holly’s dark head bent over them had a wonderfully
silky sheen. A marvellous cruelly strong thing was life when you
were old and weak; it seemed to mock you with its multitude of
forms and its beating vitality. He had never, till those last few
weeks, had this curious feeling of being with one half of him
eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and with the other
half left on the bank, watching that helpless progress. Only when
Irene was with him did he lose this double consciousness.
Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the
piano—for to point with a finger was not “well-brrred”—and said
slyly:
“Look at the ‘lady in grey,’ Gran; isn’t she pretty to-day?”
Old Jolyon’s heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was
clouded; then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:
“Who’s been dressing her up?”
“Mam’zelle.”
“Hollee! Don’t be foolish!”
That prim little Frenchwoman! She hadn’t yet got over the music
lessons being taken away from her. That wouldn’t help. His little
sweet was the only friend they had. Well, they were her lessons.
And he shouldn’t budge shouldn’t budge for anything. He stroked
the warm wool on Balthasar’s head, and heard Holly say: “When
mother’s home, there won’t be any changes, will there? She
doesn’t like strangers, you know.”
The child’s words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of
opposition about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his
new-found freedom. Ah! He would have to resign himself to being
an old man at the mercy of care and love, or fight to keep this
new and prized companionship; and to fight tired him to death.
But his thin, worn face hardened into resolution till it appeared
all Jaw. This was his house, and his affair; he should not budge!
He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself; he had owned
it fifty years. Past four already! And kissing the top of Holly’s
head in passing, he went down to the hall. He wanted to get hold
of her before she went up to give her lesson. At the first sound
of wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the
victoria was empty.
“The train’s in, sir; but the lady ’asn’t come.”
Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push
away that fat chap’s curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter
disappointment he was feeling.
“Very well,” he said, and turned back into the house. He went to
his study and sat down, quivering like a leaf. What did this
mean? She might have lost her train, but he knew well enough she
hadn’t. “Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon.” Why “Good-bye” and not
“Good-night”. And that hand of hers lingering in the air. And her
kiss. What did it mean? Vehement alarm and irritation took
possession of him. He got up and began to pace the Turkey carpet,
between window and wall. She was going to give him up! He felt it
for certain—and he defenceless. An old man wanting to look on
beauty! It was ridiculous! Age closed his mouth, paralysed his
power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no
right to anything but memories and sorrow. He could not plead
with her; even an old man has his dignity. Defenceless! For an
hour, lost to bodily fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl
of carnations he had plucked, which mocked him with its scent. Of
all things hard to bear, the prostration of will-power is
hardest, for one who has always had his way. Nature had got him
in its net, and like an unhappy fish he turned and swam at the
meshes, here and there, found no hole, no breaking point. They
brought him tea at five o’clock, and a letter. For a moment hope
beat up in him. He cut the envelope with the butter knife, and
read:
“DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,—I can’t bear to write anything that may
disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night. I
feel I can’t come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that
June is coming back. Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It
has been such a joy to see you and Holly. Perhaps I shall still
see you sometimes when you come up, though I’m sure it’s not good
for you; I can see you are tiring yourself too much. I believe
you ought to rest quite quietly all this hot weather, and now you
have your son and June coming back you will be so happy. Thank
you a million times for all your sweetness to me.
“Lovingly your
IRENE.”
So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he
chiefly cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable
end of all things, the approach of death with its stealthy,
rustling footsteps. Not good for him! Not even she could see how
she was his new lease of interest in life, the incarnation of all
the beauty he felt slipping from him.
His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he
paced, torn between his dignity and his hold on life. Intolerable
to be squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on
when your will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to
the ground with care and love. Intolerable! He would see what
telling her the truth would do—the truth that he wanted the sight
of her more than just a lingering on. He sat down at his old
bureau and took a pen. But he could not write. There was
something revolting in having to plead like this; plead that she
should warm his eyes with her beauty. It was tantamount to
confessing dotage. He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:
“I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to
stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my
little grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims;
they are obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone
sooner or later; and perhaps the sooner the better.
“My love to you,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”
“Bitter,” he thought, “but I can’t help it. I’m tired.” He sealed
and dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it
fall to the bottom, thought: “There goes all I’ve looked forward
to!”
That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his
cigar which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he
went very slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery. He
sat down on the window-seat. A night-light was burning, and he
could just see Holly’s face, with one hand underneath the cheek.
An early cockchafer buzzed in the Japanese paper with which they
had filled the grate, and one of the horses in the stable stamped
restlessly. To sleep like that child! He pressed apart two rungs
of the venetian blind and looked out. The moon was rising,
blood-red. He had never seen so red a moon. The woods and fields
out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the
summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked. “I’ve had a long
life,” he thought, “the best of nearly everything. I’m an
ungrateful chap; I’ve seen a lot of beauty in my time. Poor young
Bosinney said I had a sense of beauty. There’s a man in the moon
to-night!” A moth went by, another, another. “Ladies in grey!” He
closed his eyes. A feeling that he would never open them again
beset him; he let it grow, let himself sink; then, with a shiver,
dragged the lids up. There was something wrong with him, no
doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.
It didn’t much matter now! Into that coppice the moonlight would
have crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be
the only things awake. No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just
the shadows —moving; “Ladies in grey!” Over that log they would
climb; would whisper together. She and Bosinney! Funny thought!
And the frogs and little things would whisper too! How the clock
ticked, in here! It was all eerie—out there in the light of that
red moon; in here with the little steady night-light and, the
ticking clock and the nurse’s dressing-gown hanging from the edge
of the screen, tall, like a woman’s figure. “Lady in grey!” And a
very odd thought beset him: Did she exist? Had she ever come at
all? Or was she but the emanation of all the beauty he had loved
and must leave so soon? The violet-grey spirit with the dark eyes
and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the
moonlight, and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was she, did
she exist? He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill,
to give him a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing
towards the door. He stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly,
as if conscious of his eyes fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and
curled up closer in defence. He tiptoed on and passed out into
the dark passage; reached his room, undressed at once, and stood
before a mirror in his night-shirt. What a scarecrow—with temples
fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted his own image, and a
look of pride came on his face. All was in league to pull him
down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not down—yet!
He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping, trying to
reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and
disappointment were very bad for him.
He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he
sent for the doctor. After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face
as long as your arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up
smoking. That was no hardship; there was nothing to get up for,
and when he felt ill, tobacco always lost its savour. He spent
the morning languidly with the sun-blinds down, turning and
re-turning _The Times_, not reading much, the dog Balthasar lying
beside his bed. With his lunch they brought him a telegram,
running thus:
“Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you
at four-thirty. Irene.”
Coming down! After all! Then she did exist—and he was not
deserted. Coming down! A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks
and forehead felt hot. He drank his soup, and pushed the
tray-table away, lying very quiet until they had removed lunch
and left him alone; but every now and then his eyes twinkled.
Coming down! His heart beat fast, and then did not seem to beat
at all. At three o’clock he got up and dressed deliberately,
noiselessly. Holly and Mam’zelle would be in the schoolroom, and
the servants asleep after their dinner, he shouldn’t wonder. He
opened his door cautiously, and went downstairs. In the hall the
dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon
passed into his study and out into the burning afternoon. He
meant to go down and meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he
could not manage that in this heat. He sat down instead under the
oak tree by the swing, and the dog Balthasar, who also felt the
heat, lay down beside him. He sat there smiling. What a revel of
bright minutes! What a hum of insects, and cooing of pigeons! It
was the quintessence of a summer day. Lovely! And he was
happy—happy as a sand-boy, whatever that might be. She was
coming; she had not given him up! He had everything in life he
wanted—except a little more breath, and less weight—just here! He
would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying
just a little, a violet-grey figure passing over the daisies and
dandelions and “soldiers” on the lawn—the soldiers with their
flowery crowns. He would not move, but she would come up to him
and say: “Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am sorry!” and sit in the swing
and let him look at her and tell her that he had not been very
well but was all right now; and that dog would lick her hand.
That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a good
dog.
It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him,
only make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the
Grand Stand at Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows
cropping the clover in the field and swishing at the flies with
their tails. He smelled the scent of limes, and lavender. Ah!
that was why there was such a racket of bees. They were
excited—busy, as his heart was busy and excited. Drowsy, too,
drowsy and drugged on honey and happiness; as his heart was
drugged and drowsy. Summer—summer—they seemed saying; great bees
and little bees, and the flies too!
The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here.
He would have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little
sleep of late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for
youth and beauty, coming towards him across the sunlit lawn—lady
in grey! And settling back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some
thistle-down came on what little air there was, and pitched on
his moustache more white than itself. He did not know; but his
breathing stirred it, caught there. A ray of sunlight struck
through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee alighted and
strolled on the crown of his Panama hat. And the delicious surge
of slumber reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head
swayed forward and rested on his breast. Summer—summer! So went
the hum.
The stable clock struck the quarter past. The dog Balthasar
stretched and looked up at his master. The thistledown no longer
moved. The dog placed his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not
stir. The dog withdrew his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old
Jolyon’s lap, looked in his face, whined; then, leaping down, sat
on his haunches, gazing up. And suddenly he uttered a long, long
howl.
But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old
master.
Summer—summer—summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! 1917
IN CHANCERY
Two households both alike in dignity,
From ancient grudge, break into new mutiny.
—_Romeo and Juliet_
TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD
PART 1
CHAPTER I AT TIMOTHY’S
The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence
and feud, frosts and fires, it followed the laws of progression
even in the Forsyte family which had believed it fixed for ever.
Nor can it be dissociated from environment any more than the
quality of potato from the soil.
The historian of the English eighties and nineties will, in his
good time, depict the somewhat rapid progression from
self-contented and contained provincialism to still more
self-contented if less contained imperialism—in other words, the
“possessive” instinct of the nation on the move. And so, as if in
conformity, was it with the Forsyte family. They were spreading
not merely on the surface, but within.
When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed
her husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was
cremated, it made strangely little stir among the six old
Forsytes left. For this apathy there were three causes. First:
the almost surreptitious burial of old Jolyon in 1892 down at
Robin Hill—first of the Forsytes to desert the family grave at
Highgate. That burial, coming a year after Swithin’s entirely
proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk on Forsyte
’Change, the abode of Timothy Forsyte on the Bayswater Road,
London, which still collected and radiated family gossip.
Opinions ranged from the lamentation of Aunt Juley to the
outspoken assertion of Francie that it was “a jolly good thing to
stop all that stuffy Highgate business.” Uncle Jolyon in his
later years—indeed, ever since the strange and lamentable affair
between his granddaughter June’s lover, young Bosinney, and
Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte’s wife—had noticeably rapped the
family’s knuckles; and that way of his own which he had always
taken had begun to seem to them a little wayward. The philosophic
vein in him, of course, had always been too liable to crop out of
the strata of pure Forsyteism, so they were in a way prepared for
his interment in a strange spot. But the whole thing was an odd
business, and when the contents of his Will became current coin
on Forsyte ’Change, a shiver had gone round the clan. Out of his
estate (£145,304 gross, with liabilities £35 7s. 4d.) he had
actually left £15,000 to “whomever do you think, my dear? To
_Irene!_” that runaway wife of his nephew Soames; Irene, a woman
who had almost disgraced the family, and—still more amazing was
to him no blood relation. Not out and out, of course; only a life
interest—only the income from it! Still, there it was; and old
Jolyon’s claim to be the perfect Forsyte was ended once for all.
That, then, was the first reason why the burial of Susan
Hayman—at Woking—made little stir.
The second reason was altogether more expansive and imperial.
Besides the house on Campden Hill, Susan had a place (left her by
Hayman when he died) just over the border in Hants, where the
Hayman boys had learned to be such good shots and riders, as it
was believed, which was of course nice for them, and creditable
to everybody; and the fact of owning something really countrified
seemed somehow to excuse the dispersion of her remains—though
what could have put cremation into her head they could not think!
The usual invitations, however, had been issued, and Soames had
gone down and young Nicholas, and the Will had been quite
satisfactory so far as it went, for she had only had a life
interest; and everything had gone quite smoothly to the children
in equal shares.
The third reason why Susan’s burial made little stir was the most
expansive of all. It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the
pale, the thin: “Well, _I_ think people have a right to their own
bodies, even when they’re dead.” Coming from a daughter of
Nicholas, a Liberal of the old school and most tyrannical, it was
a startling remark—showing in a flash what a lot of water had run
under bridges since the death of Aunt Ann in ’86, just when the
proprietorship of Soames over his wife’s body was acquiring the
uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia, of course,
spoke like a child, and had no experience; for though well over
thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte. But, making all
allowances, her remark did undoubtedly show expansion of the
principle of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central
point of possession from others to oneself. When Nicholas heard
his daughter’s remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: “Wives
and daughters! There’s no end to their liberty in these days. I
knew that ‘Jackson’ case would lead to things—lugging in Habeas
Corpus like that!” He had, of course, never really forgiven the
Married Woman’s Property Act, which would so have interfered with
him if he had not mercifully married before it was passed. But,
in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the younger
Forsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were,
Colonial disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxical
forerunner of Imperialism, was making progress all the time. They
were all now married, except George, confirmed to the Turf and
the Iseeum Club; Francie, pursuing her musical career in a studio
off the King’s Road, Chelsea, and still taking “lovers” to
dances; Euphemia, living at home and complaining of Nicholas; and
those two Dromios, Giles and Jesse Hayman. Of the third
generation there were not very many—young Jolyon had three,
Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas six already, young Roger had
one, Marian Tweetyman one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of
the sixteen married—Soames, Rachel and Cicely of James’ family;
Eustace and Thomas of Roger’s; Ernest, Archibald and Florence of
Nicholas’. Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman’s—were
going down the years unreproduced.
Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been
born; but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only
seventeen descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there
would be more than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A student
of statistics must have noticed that the birth rate had varied in
accordance with the rate of interest for your money. Grandfather
“Superior Dosset” Forsyte in the early nineteenth century had
been getting ten per cent. for his, hence ten children. Those
ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and Juley, whose
husband Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at once, had
averaged from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced
accordingly. The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting
barely three per cent. in the Consols to which their father had
mostly tied the Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and
the six of them who had been reproduced had seventeen children,
or just the proper two and five-sixths per stem.
There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction. A
distrust of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is
guaranteed, together with the knowledge that their fathers did
not die, kept them cautious. If one had children and not much
income, the standard of taste and comfort must of necessity go
down; what was enough for two was not enough for four, and so
on—it would be better to wait and see what Father did. Besides,
it was nice to be able to take holidays unhampered. Sooner in
fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on the
ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing tendency _fin
de siècle_, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run,
and one would be able to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace
already had one, but it had shaken him horribly, and broken one
of his eye teeth; so that it would be better to wait till they
were a little safer. In the meantime, no more children! Even
young Nicholas was drawing in his horns, and had made no addition
to his six for quite three years.
The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion
rather, of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so
far as to prevent a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had
been a glorious summer, and after holidays abroad and at the sea
they were practically all back in London, when Roger with a touch
of his old originality had suddenly breathed his last at his own
house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy’s it was whispered sadly
that poor Roger had always been eccentric about his digestion—had
he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the other
brands?
Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and
coming away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for
his Uncle Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. The “Old Things”—Aunt
Juley and Aunt Hester—would like to hear about it. His
father—James—at eighty-eight had not felt up to the fatigue of
the funeral; and Timothy himself, of course, had not gone; so
that Nicholas had been the only brother present. Still, there had
been a fair gathering; and it would cheer Aunts Juley and Hester
up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed with the
inevitable longing to get something out of everything you do,
which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the
saner elements in every nation. In this practice of taking family
matters to Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but
following in the footsteps of his father, who had been in the
habit of going at least once a week to see his sisters at
Timothy’s, and had only given it up when he lost his nerve at
eighty-six, and could not go out without Emily. To go with Emily
was of no use, for who could really talk to anyone in the
presence of his own wife? Like James in the old days, Soames
found time to go there nearly every Sunday, and sit in the little
drawing-room into which, with his undoubted taste, he had
introduced a good deal of change and china not quite up to his
own fastidious mark, and at least two rather doubtful Barbizon
pictures, at Christmastides. He himself, who had done extremely
well with the Barbizons, had for some years past moved towards
the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was hoping to do better. In
the riverside house which he now inhabited near Mapledurham he
had a gallery, beautifully hung and lighted, to which few London
dealers were strangers. It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon
attraction in those week-end parties which his sisters, Winifred
or Rachel, occasionally organised for him. For though he was but
a taciturn showman, his quiet collected determinism seldom failed
to influence his guests, who knew that his reputation was
grounded not on mere aesthetic fancy, but on his power of gauging
the future of market values. When he went to Timothy’s he almost
always had some little tale of triumph over a dealer to unfold,
and dearly he loved that coo of pride with which his aunts would
greet it. This afternoon, however, he was differently animated,
coming from Roger’s funeral in his neat dark clothes—not quite
black, for after all an uncle was but an uncle, and his soul
abhorred excessive display of feeling. Leaning back in a
marqueterie chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at the
sky-blue walls plastered with gold frames, he was noticeably
silent. Whether because he had been to a funeral or not, the
peculiar Forsyte build of his face was seen to the best advantage
this afternoon—a face concave and long, with a jaw which divested
of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a chinny face
though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly than
ever that Timothy’s was hopelessly “rum-ti-too” and the souls of
his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he
wanted to talk—his own undivorced position—was unspeakable. And
yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was
only since the Spring that this had been so and a new feeling
grown up which was egging him on towards what he knew might well
be folly in a Forsyte of forty-five. More and more of late he had
been conscious that he was “getting on.” The fortune already
considerable when he conceived the house at Robin Hill which had
finally wrecked his marriage with Irene, had mounted with
surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during which he had
devoted himself to little else. He was worth to-day well over a
hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to—no real
object for going on with what was his religion. Even if he were
to relax his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would
have a hundred and fifty thousand before he knew where he was.
There had always been a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side
to Soames; baulked and frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but
now had crept out again in this his “prime of life.” Concreted
and focussed of late by the attraction of a girl’s undoubted
beauty, it had become a veritable prepossession.
And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept
any unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the
thought of that. He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during
those long years of forced celibacy, secretively, and always with
disgust, for he was fastidious, and his sense of law and order
innate. He wanted no hole and corner liaison. A marriage at the
Embassy in Paris, a few months’ travel, and he could bring
Annette back quite separated from a past which in truth was not
too distinguished, for she only kept the accounts in her mother’s
Soho Restaurant; he could bring her back as something very new
and chic with her French taste and self-possession, to reign at
“The Shelter” near Mapledurham. On Forsyte ’Change and among his
riverside friends it would be current that he had met a charming
French girl on his travels and married her. There would be the
flavour of romance, and a certain _cachet_ about a French wife.
No! He was not at all afraid of that. It was only this cursed
undivorced condition of his, and—and the question whether Annette
would take him, which he dared not put to the touch until he had
a clear and even dazzling future to offer her.
In his aunts’ drawing-room he heard with but muffled ears those
usual questions: How was his dear father? Not going out, of
course, now that the weather was turning chilly? Would Soames be
sure to tell him that Hester had found boiled holly leaves most
comforting for that pain in her side; a poultice every three
hours, with red flannel afterwards. And could he relish just a
little pot of their very best prune preserve—it was so delicious
this year, and had such a wonderful effect. Oh! and about the
Darties—_had_ Soames heard that dear Winifred was having a most
distressing time with Montague? Timothy thought she really ought
to have protection It was said—but Soames mustn’t take this for
certain—that he had given some of Winifred’s jewellery to a
dreadful dancer. It was such a bad example for dear Val just as
he was going to college. Soames had not heard? Oh, but he must go
and see his sister and look into it at once! And did he think
these Boers were really going to resist? Timothy was in quite a
stew about it. The price of Consols was so high, and he had such
a lot of money in them. Did Soames think they must go down if
there was a war? Soames nodded. But it would be over very
quickly. It would be so bad for Timothy if it wasn’t. And of
course Soames’ dear father would feel it very much at his age.
Luckily poor dear Roger had been spared this dreadful anxiety.
And Aunt Juley with a little handkerchief wiped away the large
tear trying to climb the permanent pout on her now quite withered
left cheek; she was remembering dear Roger, and all his
originality, and how he used to stick pins into her when they
were little together. Aunt Hester, with her instinct for avoiding
the unpleasant, here chimed in: Did Soames think they would make
Mr. Chamberlain Prime Minister at once? He would settle it all so
quickly. She would like to see that old Kruger sent to St.
Helena. She could remember so well the news of Napoleon’s death,
and what a relief it had been to his grandfather. Of course she
and Juley—“We were in pantalettes then, my dear”—had not felt it
much at the time.
Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly, and ate
three of those macaroons for which Timothy’s was famous. His
faint, pale, supercilious smile had deepened just a little.
Really, his family remained hopelessly provincial, however much
of London they might possess between them. In these go-ahead days
their provincialism stared out even more than it used to. Why,
old Nicholas was still a Free Trader, and a member of that
antediluvian home of Liberalism, the Remove Club—though, to be
sure, the members were pretty well all Conservatives now, or he
himself could not have joined; and Timothy, they said, still wore
a nightcap. Aunt Juley spoke again. Dear Soames was looking so
well, hardly a day older than he did when dear Ann died, and they
were all there together, dear Jolyon, and dear Swithin, and dear
Roger. She paused and caught the tear which had climbed the pout
on her right cheek. Did he—did he ever hear anything of Irene
nowadays? Aunt Hester visibly interposed her shoulder. Really,
Juley was always saying something! The smile left Soames’ face,
and he put his cup down. Here was his subject broached for him,
and for all his desire to expand, he could not take advantage.
Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:
“They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen thousand out
and out; then of course he saw it would not be right, and made it
for her life only.”
Had Soames heard that?
Soames nodded.
“Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now. He is her trustee; you knew
that, of course?”
Soames shook his head. He did know, but wished to show no
interest. Young Jolyon and he had not met since the day of
Bosinney’s death.
“He must be quite middle-aged by now,” went on Aunt Juley
dreamily. “Let me see, he was born when your dear uncle lived in
Mount Street; long before they went to Stanhope Gate in December.
Just before that dreadful Commune. Over fifty! Fancy that! Such a
pretty baby, and we were all so proud of him; the very first of
you all.” Aunt Juley sighed, and a lock of not quite her own hair
came loose and straggled, so that Aunt Hester gave a little
shiver. Soames rose, he was experiencing a curious piece of
self-discovery. That old wound to his pride and self-esteem was
not yet closed. He had come thinking he could talk of it, even
wanting to talk of his fettered condition, and—behold! he was
shrinking away from this reminder by Aunt Juley, renowned for her
Malapropisms.
Oh, Soames was not going already!
Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:
“Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle Timothy!” And, leaving a
cold kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and
cling to his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left them
looking brightly after him—dear Soames, it had been so good of
him to come to-day, when they were not feeling very...!
With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the
stairs, where was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor
and port wine, and house where draughts are not permitted. The
poor old things—he had not meant to be unkind! And in the street
he instantly forgot them, repossessed by the image of Annette and
the thought of the cursed coil around him. Why had he not pushed
the thing through and obtained divorce when that wretched
Bosinney was run over, and there was evidence galore for the
asking! And he turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie’s
residence in Green Street, Mayfair.
CHAPTER II EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD
That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of
fortunes as Montague Dartie should still be living in a house he
had inhabited twenty years at least would have been more
noticeable if the rent, rates, taxes, and repairs of that house
had not been defrayed by his father-in-law. By that simple if
wholesale device James Forsyte had secured a certain stability in
the lives of his daughter and his grandchildren. After all, there
is something invaluable about a safe roof over the head of a
sportsman so dashing as Dartie. Until the events of the last few
days he had been almost-supernaturally steady all this year. The
fact was he had acquired a half share in a filly of George
Forsyte’s, who had gone irreparably on the turf, to the horror of
Roger, now stilled by the grave. Sleeve-links, by Martyr, out of
Shirt-on-fire, by Suspender, was a bay filly, three years old,
who for a variety of reasons had never shown her true form. With
half ownership of this hopeful animal, all the idealism latent
somewhere in Dartie, as in every other man, had put up its head,
and kept him quietly ardent for months past. When a man has some
thing good to live for it is astonishing how sober he becomes;
and what Dartie had was really good—a three to one chance for an
autumn handicap, publicly assessed at twenty-five to one. The
old-fashioned heaven was a poor thing beside it, and his shirt
was on the daughter of Shirt-on-fire. But how much more than his
shirt depended on this granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving
age of forty-five, trying to Forsytes—and, though perhaps less
distinguishable from any other age, trying even to
Darties—Montague had fixed his current fancy on a dancer. It was
no mean passion, but without money, and a good deal of it, likely
to remain a love as airy as her skirts; and Dartie never had any
money, subsisting miserably on what he could beg or borrow from
Winifred—a woman of character, who kept him because he was the
father of her children, and from a lingering admiration for those
now-dying Wardour Street good looks which in their youth had
fascinated her. She, together with anyone else who would lend him
anything, and his losses at cards and on the turf (extraordinary
how some men make a good thing out of losses!) were his whole
means of subsistence; for James was now too old and nervous to
approach, and Soames too formidably adamant. It is not too much
to say that Dartie had been living on hope for months. He had
never been fond of money for itself, had always despised the
Forsytes with their investing habits, though careful to make such
use of them as he could. What he liked about money was what it
bought—personal sensation.
“No real sportsman cares for money,” he would say, borrowing a
“pony” if it was no use trying for a “monkey.” There was
something delicious about Montague Dartie. He was, as George
Forsyte said, a “daisy.”
The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day
of September, and Dartie who had travelled to Newmarket the night
before, arrayed himself in spotless checks and walked to an
eminence to see his half of the filly take her final canter: If
she won he would be a cool three thou. in pocket—a poor enough
recompense for the sobriety and patience of these weeks of hope,
while they had been nursing her for this race. But he had not
been able to afford more. Should he “lay it off” at the eight to
one to which she had advanced? This was his single thought while
the larks sang above him, and the grassy downs smelled sweet, and
the pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing like satin.
After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid, and to “lay it
off” would reduce his winnings to some fifteen hundred—hardly
enough to purchase a dancer out and out. Even more potent was the
itch in the blood of all the Darties for a real flutter. And
turning to George he said: “She’s a clipper. She’ll win hands
down; I shall go the whole hog.” George, who had laid off every
penny, and a few besides, and stood to win, however it came out,
grinned down on him from his bulky height, with the words: “So
ho, my wild one!” for after a chequered apprenticeship weathered
with the money of a deeply complaining Roger, his Forsyte blood
was beginning to stand him in good stead in the profession of
owner.
There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from
which the sensitive recorder shrinks. Suffice it to say that the
good thing fell down. Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie’s
shirt was lost.
Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames
turned his face towards Green Street, what had not happened!
When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised
self-control for months from religious motives, and remains
unrewarded, he does not curse God and die, he curses God and
lives, to the distress of his family.
Winifred—a plucky woman, if a little too fashionable—who had
borne the brunt of him for exactly twenty-one years, had never
really believed that he would do what he now did. Like so many
wives, she thought she knew the worst, but she had not yet known
him in his forty-fifth year, when he, like other men, felt that
it was now or never. Paying on the 2nd of October a visit of
inspection to her jewel case, she was horrified to observe that
her woman’s crown and glory was gone—the pearls which Montague
had given her in ’86, when Benedict was born, and which James had
been compelled to pay for in the spring of ’87, to save scandal.
She consulted her husband at once. He “pooh-poohed” the matter.
They would turn up! Nor till she said sharply: “Very well, then,
Monty, I shall go down to Scotland Yard _myself_,” did he consent
to take the matter in hand. Alas! that the steady and resolved
continuity of design necessary to the accomplishment of sweeping
operations should be liable to interruption by drink. That night
Dartie returned home without a care in the world or a particle of
reticence. Under normal conditions Winifred would merely have
locked her door and let him sleep it off, but torturing suspense
about her pearls had caused her to wait up for him. Taking a
small revolver from his pocket and holding on to the dining
table, he told her at once that he did not care a cursh whether
she lived s’long as she was quiet; but he himself wash tired
orsdquo; life. Winifred, holding onto the other side of the
dining table, answered:
“Don’t be a clown, Monty. Have you been to Scotland Yard?”
Placing the revolver against his chest, Dartie had pulled the
trigger several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an
imprecation, he had muttered: “For shake o’ the children,” and
sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave
him some soda water. The liquor had a magical effect. Life had
illused him; Winifred had never “unshtood’m.” If he hadn’t the
right to take the pearls he had given her himself, who had? That
Spanish filly had got’m. If Winifred had any ’jection he w’d
cut—her—throat. What was the matter with that? (Probably the
first use of that celebrated phrase—so obscure are the origins of
even the most classical language!)
Winifred, who had learned self-containment in a hard school,
looked up at him, and said: “Spanish filly! Do you mean that girl
we saw dancing in the Pandemonium Ballet? Well, you are a thief
and a blackguard.” It had been the last straw on a sorely loaded
consciousness; reaching up from his chair Dartie seized his
wife’s arm, and recalling the achievements of his boyhood,
twisted it. Winifred endured the agony with tears in her eyes,
but no murmur. Watching for a moment of weakness, she wrenched it
free; then placing the dining table between them, said between
her teeth: “You are the limit, Monty.” (Undoubtedly the inception
of that phrase—so is English formed under the stress of
circumstances.) Leaving Dartie with foam on his dark moustache
she went upstairs, and, after locking her door and bathing her
arm in hot water, lay awake all night, thinking of her pearls
adorning the neck of another, and of the consideration her
husband had presumably received therefor.
The man of the world awoke with a sense of being lost to that
world, and a dim recollection of having been called a “limit.” He
sat for half an hour in the dawn and the armchair where he had
slept—perhaps the unhappiest half-hour he had ever spent, for
even to a Dartie there is something tragic about an end. And he
knew that he had reached it. Never again would he sleep in his
dining-room and wake with the light filtering through those
curtains bought by Winifred at Nickens and Jarveys with the money
of James. Never again eat a devilled kidney at that rose-wood
table, after a roll in the sheets and a hot bath. He took his
note case from his dress coat pocket. Four hundred pounds, in
fives and tens—the remainder of the proceeds of his half of
Sleeve-links, sold last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who,
having won over the race, had not conceived the sudden dislike to
the animal which he himself now felt. The ballet was going to
Buenos Aires the day after to-morrow, and he was going too. Full
value for the pearls had not yet been received; he was only at
the soup.
He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides,
the water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed
stealthily all he could. It was hard to leave so many shining
boots, but one must sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise
in either hand, he stepped out onto the landing. The house was
very quiet—that house where he had begotten his four children. It
was a curious moment, this, outside the room of his wife, once
admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him “the limit.” He
steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but the next
door was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters slept in.
Maud was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture
came into Dartie’s early morning eyes. She was the most like him
of the four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance.
Just coming out, a pretty thing! He set down the two valises.
This almost formal abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning
light fell on a face which worked with real emotion. Nothing so
false as penitence moved him; but genuine paternal feeling, and
that melancholy of “never again.” He moistened his lips; and
complete irresolution for a moment paralysed his legs in their
check trousers. It was hard—hard to be thus compelled to leave
his home! “D—-nit!” he muttered, “I never thought it would come
to this.” Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning
to get up. And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on
downstairs. His cheeks were wet, and the knowledge of that was
comforting, as though it guaranteed the genuineness of his
sacrifice. He lingered a little in the rooms below, to pack all
the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat, a silver cigarette
box, a Ruff’s Guide. Then, mixing himself a stiff whisky and
soda, and lighting a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a
photograph of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged to
Winifred. “Never mind,” he thought; “she can get another taken,
and I can’t!” He slipped it into the valise. Then, putting on his
hat and overcoat, he took two others, his best malacca cane, an
umbrella, and opened the front door. Closing it softly behind
him, he walked out, burdened as he had never been in all his
life, and made his way round the corner to wait there for an
early cab to come by.
Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his
age from the house which he had called his own.
When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the
house, her first feeling was one of dull anger that he should
thus elude the reproaches she had carefully prepared in those
long wakeful hours. He had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton,
with that woman as likely as not. Disgusting! Forced to a
complete reticence before Imogen and the servants, and aware that
her father’s nerves would never stand the disclosure, she had
been unable to refrain from going to Timothy’s that afternoon,
and pouring out the story of the pearls to Aunts Juley and Hester
in utter confidence. It was only on the following morning that
she noticed the disappearance of that photograph. What did it
mean? Careful examination of her husband’s relics prompted the
thought that he had gone for good. As that conclusion hardened
she stood quite still in the middle of his dressing-room, with
all the drawers pulled out, to try and realise what she was
feeling. By no means easy! Though he was “the limit” he was yet
her property, and for the life of her she could not but feel the
poorer. To be widowed yet not widowed at forty-two; with four
children; made conspicuous, an object of commiseration! Gone to
the arms of a Spanish Jade! Memories, feelings, which she had
thought quite dead, revived within her, painful, sullen,
tenacious. Mechanically she closed drawer after drawer, went to
her bed, lay on it, and buried her face in the pillows. She did
not cry. What was the use of that? When she got off her bed to go
down to lunch she felt as if only one thing could do her good,
and that was to have Val home. He—her eldest boy—who was to go to
Oxford next month at James’ expense, was at Littlehampton taking
his final gallops with his trainer for Smalls, as he would have
phrased it following his father’s diction. She caused a telegram
to be sent to him.
“I must see about his clothes,” she said to Imogen; “I can’t have
him going up to Oxford all anyhow. Those boys are so particular.”
“Val’s got heaps of things,” Imogen answered.
“I know; but they want overhauling. I hope he’ll come.”
“He’ll come like a shot, Mother. But he’ll probably skew his
Exam.”
“I can’t help that,” said Winifred. “I want him.”
With an innocent shrewd look at her mother’s face, Imogen kept
silence. It was father, of course! Val did come “like a shot” at
six o’clock.
Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young
Publius Valerius Dartie. A youth so named could hardly turn out
otherwise. When he was born, Winifred, in the heyday of spirits,
and the craving for distinction, had determined that her children
should have names such as no others had ever had. (It was a
mercy—she felt now—that she had just not named Imogen Thisbe.)
But it was to George Forsyte, always a wag, that Val’s
christening was due. It so happened that Dartie, dining with him
a week after the birth of his son and heir, had mentioned this
aspiration of Winifred’s.
“Call him Cato,” said George, “it’ll be damned piquant!” He had
just won a tenner on a horse of that name.
“Cato!” Dartie had replied—they were a little ‘on’ as the phrase
was even in those days—“it’s not a Christian name.”
“Halo you!” George called to a waiter in knee breeches. “Bring me
the _Encyc’pedia Brit_. from the Library, letter C.”
The waiter brought it.
“Here you are!” said George, pointing with his cigar: “Cato
Publius Valerius by Virgil out of Lydia. That’s what you want.
Publius Valerius is Christian enough.”
Dartie, on arriving home, had informed Winifred. She had been
charmed. It was so “chic.” And Publius Valerius became the baby’s
name, though it afterwards transpired that they had got hold of
the inferior Cato. In 1890, however, when little Publius was
nearly ten, the word “chic” went out of fashion, and sobriety
came in; Winifred began to have doubts. They were confirmed by
little Publius himself who returned from his first term at school
complaining that life was a burden to him—they called him Pubby.
Winifred—a woman of real decision—promptly changed his school and
his name to Val, the Publius being dropped even as an initial.
At nineteen he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth,
light eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile,
considerable knowledge of what he should not know, and no
experience of what he ought to do. Few boys had more narrowly
escaped being expelled—the engaging rascal. After kissing his
mother and pinching Imogen, he ran upstairs three at a time, and
came down four, dressed for dinner. He was awfully sorry, but his
“trainer,” who had come up too, had asked him to dine at the
Oxford and Cambridge; it wouldn’t do to miss—the old chap would
be hurt. Winifred let him go with an unhappy pride. She had
wanted him at home, but it was very nice to know that his tutor
was so fond of him. He went out with a wink at Imogen, saying: “I
say, Mother, could I have two plover’s eggs when I come
in?—cook’s got some. They top up so jolly well. Oh! and look
here—have you any money?—I had to borrow a fiver from old
Snobby.”
Winifred, looking at him with fond shrewdness, answered:
“My dear, you _are_ naughty about money. But you shouldn’t pay
him to-night, anyway; you’re his guest. How nice and slim he
looked in his white waistcoat, and his dark thick lashes!”
“Oh, but we may go to the theatre, you see, Mother; and I think I
ought to stand the tickets; he’s always hard up, you know.”
Winifred produced a five-pound note, saying:
“Well, perhaps you’d better pay him, but you mustn’t stand the
tickets too.”
Val pocketed the fiver.
“If I do, I can’t,” he said. “Good-night, Mum!”
He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously,
sniffing the air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into
covert. Jolly good biz! After that mouldy old slow hole down
there!
He found his “tutor,” not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but
at the Goat’s Club. This “tutor” was a year older than himself, a
good-looking youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a
small mouth, an oval face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree,
one of those young men who without effort establish moral
ascendancy over their companions. He had missed being expelled
from school a year before Val, had spent that year at Oxford, and
Val could almost see a halo round his head. His name was Crum,
and no one could get through money quicker. It seemed to be his
only aim in life—dazzling to young Val, in whom, however, the
Forsyte would stand apart, now and then, wondering where the
value for that money was.
They dined quietly, in style and taste; left the Club smoking
cigars, with just two bottles inside them, and dropped into
stalls at the Liberty. For Val the sound of comic songs, the
sight of lovely legs were fogged and interrupted by haunting
fears that he would never equal Crum’s quiet dandyism. His
idealism was roused; and when that is so, one is never quite at
ease. Surely he had too wide a mouth, not the best cut of
waistcoat, no braid on his trousers, and his lavender gloves had
no thin black stitchings down the back. Besides, he laughed too
much—Crum never laughed, he only smiled, with his regular dark
brows raised a little so that they formed a gable over his just
drooped lids. No! he would never be Crum’s equal. All the same it
was a jolly good show, and Cynthia Dark simply ripping. Between
the acts Crum regaled him with particulars of Cynthia’s private
life, and the awful knowledge became Val’s that, if he liked,
Crum could go behind. He simply longed to say: “I say, take me!”
but dared not, because of his deficiencies; and this made the
last act or two almost miserable. On coming out Crum said: “It’s
half an hour before they close; let’s go on to the Pandemonium.”
They took a hansom to travel the hundred yards, and seats costing
seven-and-six apiece because they were going to stand, and walked
into the Promenade. It was in these little things, this utter
negligence of money that Crum had such engaging polish. The
ballet was on its last legs and night, and the traffic of the
Promenade was suffering for the moment. Men and women were
crowded in three rows against the barrier. The whirl and dazzle
on the stage, the half dark, the mingled tobacco fumes and
women’s scent, all that curious lure to promiscuity which belongs
to Promenades, began to free young Val from his idealism. He
looked admiringly in a young woman’s face, saw she was not young,
and quickly looked away. Shades of Cynthia Dark! The young
woman’s arm touched his unconsciously; there was a scent of musk
and mignonette. Val looked round the corner of his lashes.
Perhaps she _was_ young, after all. Her foot trod on his; she
begged his pardon. He said:
“Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m tired of it; aren’t you?”
Young Val smiled—his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he
did not go—not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for
greater certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its
kaleidoscope of snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and
violet and seemed suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled
pyramid. Applause broke out, and it was over! Maroon curtains had
cut it off. The semi-circle of men and women round the barrier
broke up, the young woman’s arm pressed his. A little way off
disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink carnation;
Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking
towards it. Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The
one in the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a
dark moustache; he reeled a little as he walked. Crum’s voice
said slow and level: “Look at that bounder, he’s screwed!” Val
turned to look. The “bounder” had disengaged his arm, and was
pointing straight at them. Crum’s voice, level as ever, said:
“He seems to know you!” The “bounder” spoke:
“H’llo!” he said. “You f’llows, look! There’s my young rascal of
a son!”
Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson
carpet. It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his
father was “screwed”. it was Crum’s word “bounder,” which, as by
heavenly revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes,
his father looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his
pink carnation, and his square, self-assertive walk. And without
a word he ducked behind the young woman and slipped out of the
Promenade. He heard the word, “Val!” behind him, and ran down
deep-carpeted steps past the “chuckersout,” into the Square.
To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest
experience a young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying
away, that his career had ended before it had begun. How could he
go up to Oxford now amongst all those chaps, those splendid
friends of Crum’s, who would know that his father was a
“bounder”. And suddenly he hated Crum. Who the devil was Crum, to
say that? If Crum had been beside him at that moment, he would
certainly have been jostled off the pavement. His own father—his
own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands down
deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild
idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the
arm and walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up
at once and pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman
planted herself before him. “Not so angry, darling!” He shied,
dodged her, and suddenly became quite cool. If Crum ever said a
word, he would jolly well punch his head, and there would be an
end of it. He walked a hundred yards or more, contented with that
thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It wasn’t simple like
that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent came down
who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow
afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why
had his mother married his father, if he was a “bounder”. It was
bitterly unfair—jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a
“bounder” for father. The worst of it was that now Crum had
spoken the word, he realised that he had long known
subconsciously that his father was not “the clean potato.” It was
the beastliest thing that had ever happened to him—beastliest
thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And, down-hearted as
he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let himself
in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover’s
eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a
little whisky at the bottom of a decanter—just enough, as
Winifred had thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him
sick to look at them, and he went upstairs.
Winifred heard him pass, and thought: “The dear boy’s in. Thank
goodness! If he takes after his father I don’t know what I shall
do! But he won’t he’s like me. Dear Val!”
CHAPTER III SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS
When Soames entered his sister’s little Louis Quinze
drawing-room, with its small balcony, always flowered with
hanging geraniums in the summer, and now with pots of Lilium
Auratum, he was struck by the immutability of human affairs. It
looked just the same as on his first visit to the newly married
Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture
himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever
been able to change the room’s atmosphere. Yes, he had founded
his sister well, and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great
deal for Winifred that after all this time with Dartie she
remained well-founded. From the first Soames had nosed out
Dartie’s nature from underneath the plausibility, _savoir faire_,
and good looks which had dazzled Winifred, her mother, and even
James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to marry his
daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into
settlement.
Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at
her Buhl bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came
towards him. Tall as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well
tailored, something in her face disturbed Soames. She crumpled
the letter in her hand, but seemed to change her mind and held it
out to him. He was her lawyer as well as her brother.
Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:
‘You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving
country to-morrow. It’s played out. I’m tired of being insulted
by you. You’ve brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can
stand it. I shall not ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I
took the photograph of the two girls. Give them my love. I don’t
care what your family say. It’s all their doing. I’m going to
live new life.
‘M.D.’
This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry. He
looked at Winifred—the splotch had clearly come from her; and he
checked the words: “Good riddance!” Then it occurred to him that
with this letter she was entering that very state which he
himself so earnestly desired to quit—the state of a Forsyte who
was not divorced.
Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a
little gold-topped bottle. A dull commiseration, together with a
vague sense of injury, crept about Soames’ heart. He had come to
her to talk of his own position, and get sympathy, and here was
she in the same position, wanting of course to talk of it, and
get sympathy from him. It was always like that! Nobody ever
seemed to think that he had troubles and interests of his own. He
folded up the letter with the splotch inside, and said:
“What’s it all about, now?”
Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.
“Do you think he’s really gone, Soames? You see the state he was
in when he wrote that.”
Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by
pretending that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:
“I shouldn’t think so. I might find out at his Club.”
“If George is there,” said Winifred, “he would know.”
“George?” said Soames; “I saw him at his father’s funeral.”
“Then he’s sure to be there.”
Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister’s acumen, said
grudgingly: “Well, I’ll go round. Have you said anything in Park
Lane?”
“I’ve told Emily,” returned Winifred, who retained that “chic”
way of describing her mother. “Father would have a fit.”
Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James.
With another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his
sister’s exact position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly. The
evening was drawing in—a touch of chill in the October haze. He
walked quickly, with his close and concentrated air. He must get
through, for he wished to dine in Soho. On hearing from the hall
porter at the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie had not been in to-day, he
looked at the trusty fellow and decided only to ask if Mr. George
Forsyte was in the Club. He was. Soames, who always looked
askance at his cousin George, as one inclined to jest at his
expense, followed the pageboy, slightly reassured by the thought
that George had just lost his father. He must have come in for
about thirty thousand, besides what he had under that settlement
of Roger’s, which had avoided death duty. He found George in a
bow-window, staring out across a half-eaten plate of muffins. His
tall, bulky, black-clothed figure loomed almost threatening,
though preserving still the supernatural neatness of the racing
man. With a faint grin on his fleshy face, he said:
“Hallo, Soames! Have a muffin?”
“No, thanks,” murmured Soames; and, nursing his hat, with the
desire to say something suitable and sympathetic, added:
“How’s your mother?”
“Thanks,” said George; “so-so. Haven’t seen you for ages. You
never go racing. How’s the City?”
Soames, scenting the approach of a jest, closed up, and answered:
“I wanted to ask you about Dartie. I hear he’s....”
“Flitted, made a bolt to Buenos Aires with the fair Lola. Good
for Winifred and the little Darties. He’s a treat.”
Soames nodded. Naturally inimical as these cousins were, Dartie
made them kin.
“Uncle James’ll sleep in his bed now,” resumed George; “I suppose
he’s had a lot off you, too.”
Soames smiled.
“Ah! You saw him further,” said George amicably. “He’s a real
rouser. Young Val will want a bit of looking after. I was always
sorry for Winifred. She’s a plucky woman.”
Again Soames nodded. “I must be getting back to her,” he said;
“she just wanted to know for certain. We may have to take steps.
I suppose there’s no mistake?”
“It’s quite O.K.,” said George—it was he who invented so many of
those quaint sayings which have been assigned to other sources.
“He was drunk as a lord last night; but he went off all right
this morning. His ship’s the _Tuscarora;_” and, fishing out a
card, he read mockingly:
“‘Mr. Montague Dartie, Poste Restante, Buenos Aires.’ I should
hurry up with the steps, if I were you. He fairly fed me up last
night.”
“Yes,” said Soames; “but it’s not always easy.” Then, conscious
from George’s eyes that he had roused reminiscence of his own
affair, he got up, and held out his hand. George rose too.
“Remember me to Winifred.... You’ll enter her for the Divorce
Stakes straight off if you ask me.”
Soames took a sidelong look back at him from the doorway. George
had seated himself again and was staring before him; he looked
big and lonely in those black clothes. Soames had never known him
so subdued. “I suppose he feels it in a way,” he thought. “They
must have about fifty thousand each, all told. They ought to keep
the estate together. If there’s a war, house property will go
down. Uncle Roger was a good judge, though.” And the face of
Annette rose before him in the darkening street; her brown hair
and her blue eyes with their dark lashes, her fresh lips and
cheeks, dewy and blooming in spite of London, her perfect French
figure. “Take steps!” he thought. Re-entering Winifred’s house he
encountered Val, and they went in together. An idea had occurred
to Soames. His cousin Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, the first step
would be to go down and see him at Robin Hill. Robin Hill! The
odd—the very odd feeling those words brought back! Robin Hill—the
house Bosinney had built for him and Irene—the house they had
never lived in—the fatal house! And Jolyon lived there now! H’m!
And suddenly he thought: “They say he’s got a boy at Oxford! Why
not take young Val down and introduce them! It’s an excuse! Less
bald—very much less bald!” So, as they went upstairs, he said to
Val:
“You’ve got a cousin at Oxford; you’ve never met him. I should
like to take you down with me to-morrow to where he lives and
introduce you. You’ll find it useful.”
Val, receiving the idea with but moderate transports, Soames
clinched it.
“I’ll call for you after lunch. It’s in the country—not far;
you’ll enjoy it.”
On the threshold of the drawing-room he recalled with an effort
that the steps he contemplated concerned Winifred at the moment,
not himself.
Winifred was still sitting at her Buhl bureau.
“It’s quite true,” he said; “he’s gone to Buenos Aires, started
this morning—we’d better have him shadowed when he lands. I’ll
cable at once. Otherwise we may have a lot of expense. The sooner
these things are done the better. I’m always regretting that I
didn’t...” he stopped, and looked sidelong at the silent
Winifred. “By the way,” he went on, “can you prove cruelty?”
Winifred said in a dull voice:
“I don’t know. What is cruelty?”
“Well, has he struck you, or anything?”
Winifred shook herself, and her jaw grew square.
“He twisted my arm. Or would pointing a pistol count? Or being
too drunk to undress himself, or—No—I can’t bring in the
children.”
“No,” said Soames; “no! I wonder! Of course, there’s legal
separation—we can get that. But separation! Um!”
“What does it mean?” asked Winifred desolately.
“That he can’t touch you, or you him; you’re both of you married
and unmarried.” And again he grunted. What was it, in fact, but
his own accursed position, legalised! No, he would not put her
into that!
“It must be divorce,” he said decisively; “failing cruelty,
there’s desertion. There’s a way of shortening the two years,
now. We get the Court to give us restitution of conjugal rights.
Then if he doesn’t obey, we can bring a suit for divorce in six
months’ time. Of course you don’t want him back. But they won’t
know that. Still, there’s the risk that he might come. I’d rather
try cruelty.”
Winifred shook her head. “It’s so beastly.”
“Well,” Soames murmured, “perhaps there isn’t much risk so long
as he’s infatuated and got money. Don’t say anything to anybody,
and don’t pay any of his debts.”
Winifred sighed. In spite of all she had been through, the sense
of loss was heavy on her. And this idea of not paying his debts
any more brought it home to her as nothing else yet had. Some
richness seemed to have gone out of life. Without her husband,
without her pearls, without that intimate sense that she made a
brave show above the domestic whirlpool, she would now have to
face the world. She felt bereaved indeed.
And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put
more than his usual warmth.
“I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow,” he said, “to see
young Jolyon on business. He’s got a boy at Oxford. I’d like to
take Val with me and introduce him. Come down to ‘The Shelter’
for the week-end and bring the children. Oh! by the way, no, that
won’t do; I’ve got some other people coming.” So saying, he left
her and turned towards Soho.
CHAPTER IV SOHO
Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London,
Soho is perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit. “So-ho, my
wild one!” George would have said if he had seen his cousin going
there. Untidy, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians,
tomatoes, restaurants, organs, coloured stuffs, queer names,
people looking out of upper windows, it dwells remote from the
British Body Politic. Yet has it haphazard proprietary instincts
of its own, and a certain possessive prosperity which keeps its
rents up when those of other quarters go down. For long years
Soames’ acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its
Western bastion, Wardour Street. Many bargains had he picked up
there. Even during those seven years at Brighton after Bosinney’s
death and Irene’s flight, he had bought treasures there
sometimes, though he had no place to put them; for when the
conviction that his wife had gone for good at last became firm
within him, he had caused a board to be put up in Montpellier
Square:
FOR SALE
THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE
Enquire of Messrs. Lesson and Tukes, Court Street, Belgravia.
It had sold within a week—that desirable residence, in the shadow
of whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.
Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down,
Soames had gone there once more, and stood against the Square
railings, looking at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of
possessive memories which had turned so bitter in the mouth. Why
had she never loved him? Why? She had been given all she had
wanted, and in return had given him, for three long years, all he
had wanted—except, indeed, her heart. He had uttered a little
involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced
suspiciously at him who no longer possessed the right to enter
that green door with the carved brass knocker beneath the board
“For Sale!” A choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he
had hurried away into the mist. That evening he had gone to
Brighton to live....
Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne,
where Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her
accounts, Soames thought with wonder of those seven years at
Brighton. How had he managed to go on so long in that town devoid
of the scent of sweetpeas, where he had not even space to put his
treasures? True, those had been years with no time at all for
looking at them—years of almost passionate money-making, during
which Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte had become solicitors to more
limited Companies than they could properly attend to. Up to the
City of a morning in a Pullman car, down from the City of an
evening in a Pullman car. Law papers again after dinner, then the
sleep of the tired, and up again next morning. Saturday to Monday
was spent at his Club in town—curious reversal of customary
procedure, based on the deep and careful instinct that while
working so hard he needed sea air to and from the station twice a
day, and while resting must indulge his domestic affections. The
Sunday visit to his family in Park Lane, to Timothy’s, and to
Green Street; the occasional visits elsewhere had seemed to him
as necessary to health as sea air on weekdays. Even since his
migration to Mapledurham he had maintained those habits until—he
had known Annette.
Whether Annette had produced the revolution in his outlook, or
that outlook had produced Annette, he knew no more than we know
where a circle begins. It was intricate and deeply involved with
the growing consciousness that property without anyone to leave
it to is the negation of true Forsyteism. To have an heir, some
continuance of self, who would begin where he left off—ensure, in
fact, that he would not leave off—had quite obsessed him for the
last year and more. After buying a bit of Wedgwood one evening in
April, he had dropped into Malta Street to look at a house of his
father’s which had been turned into a restaurant—a risky
proceeding, and one not quite in accordance with the terms of the
lease. He had stared for a little at the outside painted a good
cream colour, with two peacock-blue tubs containing little
bay-trees in a recessed doorway—and at the words “Restaurant
Bretagne” above them in gold letters, rather favourably
impressed. Entering, he had noticed that several people were
already seated at little round green tables with little pots of
fresh flowers on them and Brittany-ware plates, and had asked of
a trim waitress to see the proprietor. They had shown him into a
back room, where a girl was sitting at a simple bureau covered
with papers, and a small round, table was laid for two. The
impression of cleanliness, order, and good taste was confirmed
when the girl got up, saying, “You wish to see _Maman,
Monsieur?_” in a broken accent.
“Yes,” Soames had answered, “I represent your landlord; in fact,
I’m his son.”
“Won’t you sit down, sir, please? Tell _Maman_ to come to this
gentleman.”
He was pleased that the girl seemed impressed, because it showed
business instinct; and suddenly he noticed that she was
remarkably pretty—so remarkably pretty that his eyes found a
difficulty in leaving her face. When she moved to put a chair for
him, she swayed in a curious subtle way, as if she had been put
together by someone with a special secret skill; and her face and
neck, which was a little bared, looked as fresh as if they had
been sprayed with dew. Probably at this moment Soames decided
that the lease had not been violated; though to himself and his
father he based the decision on the efficiency of those illicit
adaptations in the building, on the signs of prosperity, and the
obvious business capacity of Madame Lamotte. He did not, however,
neglect to leave certain matters to future consideration, which
had necessitated further visits, so that the little back room had
become quite accustomed to his spare, not unsolid, but
unobtrusive figure, and his pale, chinny face with clipped
moustache and dark hair not yet grizzling at the sides.
“_Un Monsieur très distingué_,” Madame Lamotte found him; and
presently, “_Très amical, très gentil_,” watching his eyes upon
her daughter.
She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired
Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect
confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their
knowledge of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank
balances.
After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits
ceased—without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like
all Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a
born empiricist. But it was this change in his mode of life which
had gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to
alter his condition from that of the unmarried married man to
that of the married man remarried.
Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899,
he bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of
the Dreyfus case—a question which he had always found useful in
making closer acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her
daughter, who were Catholic and anti-Dreyfusard.
Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed
a general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about
the Transvaal. He entered, thinking: “War’s a certainty. I shall
sell my consols.” Not that he had many, personally, the rate of
interest was too wretched; but he should advise his
Companies—consols would assuredly go down. A look, as he passed
the doorways of the restaurant, assured him that business was
good as ever, and this, which in April would have pleased him,
now gave him a certain uneasiness. If the steps which he had to
take ended in his marrying Annette, he would rather see her
mother safely back in France, a move to which the prosperity of
the Restaurant Bretagne might become an obstacle. He would have
to buy them out, of course, for French people only came to
England to make money; and it would mean a higher price. And then
that peculiar sweet sensation at the back of his throat, and a
slight thumping about the heart, which he always experienced at
the door of the little room, prevented his thinking how much it
would cost.
Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing
through the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her
hands up to her hair. It was the attitude in which of all others
he admired her—so beautifully straight and rounded and supple.
And he said:
“I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that
partition. No, don’t call her.”
“_Monsieur_ will have supper with us? It will be ready in ten
minutes.” Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an
impulse which surprised him.
“You look so pretty to-night,” he said, “so very pretty. Do you
know how pretty you look, Annette?”
Annette withdrew her hand, and blushed. “Monsieur is very good.”
“Not a bit good,” said Soames, and sat down gloomily.
Annette made a little expressive gesture with her hands; a smile
was crinkling her red lips untouched by salve.
And, looking at those lips, Soames said:
“Are you happy over here, or do you want to go back to France?”
“Oh, I like London. Paris, of course. But London is better than
Orleans, and the English country is so beautiful. I have been to
Richmond last Sunday.”
Soames went through a moment of calculating struggle.
Mapledurham! Dared he? After all, dared he go so far as that, and
show her what there was to look forward to! Still! Down there one
could say things. In this room it was impossible.
“I want you and your mother,” he said suddenly, “to come for the
afternoon next Sunday. My house is on the river, it’s not too
late in this weather; and I can show you some good pictures. What
do you say?”
Annette clasped her hands.
“It will be lovelee. The river is so beautiful”
“That’s understood, then. I’ll ask Madame.”
He need say no more to her this evening, and risk giving himself
away. But had he not already said too much? Did one ask
restaurant proprietors with pretty daughters down to one’s
country house without design? Madame Lamotte would see, if
Annette didn’t. Well! there was not much that Madame did not see.
Besides, this was the second time he had stayed to supper with
them; he owed them hospitality.
Walking home towards Park Lane—for he was staying at his
father’s—with the impression of Annette’s soft clever hand within
his own, his thoughts were pleasant, slightly sensual, rather
puzzled. Take steps! What steps? How? Dirty linen washed in
public? Pah! With his reputation for sagacity, for
far-sightedness and the clever extrication of others, he, who
stood for proprietary interests, to become the plaything of that
Law of which he was a pillar! There was something revolting in
the thought! Winifred’s affair was bad enough! To have a double
dose of publicity in the family! Would not a liaison be better
than that—a liaison, and a son he could adopt? But dark, solid,
watchful, Madame Lamotte blocked the avenue of that vision. No!
that would not work. It was not as if Annette could have a real
passion for him; one could not expect that at his age. If her
mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly
great—perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he
thought: “I’m not a villain. I don’t want to hurt her; and I
don’t want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a
son! There’s nothing for it but divorce—somehow—anyhow—divorce!”
Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed
slowly along the railings of the Green Park. Mist clung there
among the bluish tree shapes, beyond range of the lamps. How many
hundred times he had walked past those trees from his father’s
house in Park Lane, when he was quite a young man; or from his
own house in Montpellier Square in those four years of married
life! And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself if he
could of that long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk
on, in at Hyde Park Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he
used to when going home to Irene in the old days. What could she
be like now?—how had she passed the years since he last saw her,
twelve years in all, seven already since Uncle Jolyon left her
that money? Was she still beautiful? Would he know her if he saw
her? “I’ve not changed much,” he thought; “I expect she has. She
made me suffer.” He remembered suddenly one night, the first on
which he went out to dinner alone—an old Malburian dinner—the
first year of their marriage. With what eagerness he had hurried
back; and, entering softly as a cat, had heard her playing.
Opening the drawing-room door noiselessly, he had stood watching
the expression on her face, different from any he knew, so much
more open, so confiding, as though to her music she was giving a
heart he had never seen. And he remembered how she stopped and
looked round, how her face changed back to that which he did
know, and what an icy shiver had gone through him, for all that
the next moment he was fondling her shoulders. Yes, she had made
him suffer! Divorce! It seemed ridiculous, after all these years
of utter separation! But it would have to be. No other way! “The
question,” he thought with sudden realism, “is—which of us? She
or me? She deserted me. She ought to pay for it. There’ll be
someone, I suppose.” Involuntarily he uttered a little snarling
sound, and, turning, made his way back to Park Lane.
CHAPTER V JAMES SEES VISIONS
The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly,
detained Soames on the inner mat.
“The master’s poorly, sir,” he murmured. “He wouldn’t go to bed
till you came in. He’s still in the diningroom.”
Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.
“What’s the matter with him, Warmson?”
“Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs.
Dartie’s comin’ round this afternoon. I think he overheard
something. I’ve took him in a negus. The mistress has just gone
up.”
Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag’s-horn.
“All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I’ll take him up myself.”
And he passed into the dining-room.
James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a
camel-hair shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated
shoulders, on to which his long white whiskers drooped. His white
hair, still fairly thick, glistened in the lamplight; a little
moisture from his fixed, light-grey eyes stained the cheeks,
still quite well coloured, and the long deep furrows running to
the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as if mumbling
thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow’s, in shepherd’s plaid
trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and
glistening tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a
half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There
he had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day. At
eighty-eight he was still organically sound, but suffering
terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything. It
is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being
buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a
grudge against his wife’s youth. He felt sometimes that he would
never have married her if he had known that she would have so
many years before her, when he had so few. It was not natural.
She would live fifteen or twenty years after he was gone, and
might spend a lot of money; she had always had extravagant
tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy one of these
motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young
people—they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness
knew where. And now Roger was gone. He didn’t know—couldn’t tell!
The family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle
had left. Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames’ uncle not as
his own brother. Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot
in a vanishing world. Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but
he had no one to leave his money to. There it was! He didn’t
know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain! For James’ political
principles had been fixed between ’70 and ’85 when “that rascally
Radical” had been the chief thorn in the side of property and he
distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion; he would
get the country into a mess and make money go down before he had
done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames? He had
gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from
him. He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son’s trousers.
Roger! Roger in his coffin! He remembered how, when they came up
from school together from the West, on the box seat of the old
Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got into the “boot” and gone to
sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny fellow—Roger—an
original! He didn’t know! Younger than himself, and in his
coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val going to the
university; he never came to see him now. He would cost a pretty
penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty
pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before
James’ eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged
terribly the risk which the spending of that money might bring on
them; _he grudged the diminution of security_. And now that
Cicely had married, she might be having children too. He didn’t
know—couldn’t tell! Nobody thought of anything but spending money
in these days, and racing about, and having what they called “a
good time.” A motor-car went past the window. Ugly great
lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the
country rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they
couldn’t even care for style—a neat turnout like his barouche and
bays was worth all those new-fangled things. And consols at 116!
There must be a lot of money in the country. And now there was
this old Kruger! They had tried to keep old Kruger from him. But
he knew better; there would be a pretty kettle of fish out there!
He had known how it would be when that fellow Gladstone—dead now,
thank God! made such a mess of it after that dreadful business at
Majuba. He shouldn’t wonder if the Empire split up and went to
pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled a full
quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He
had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch
that the real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing
when he became aware of voices—low voices. Ah! they never told
him anything! Winifred’s and her mother’s. “Monty!” That fellow
Dartie—always that fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and
James had been left alone, with his ears standing up like a
hare’s, and fear creeping about his inwards. Why did they leave
him alone? Why didn’t they come and tell him? And an awful
thought, which through long years had haunted him, concreted
again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone bankrupt—fraudulently
bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children, he—James—would
have to pay! Could he—could Soames turn him into a limited
company? No, he couldn’t! There it was! With every minute before
Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery!
With eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall,
James suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his
grandchildren in the gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the
doubted Turner being sold at Jobson’s, and all the majestic
edifice of property in rags. He saw in fancy Winifred
unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily’s voice saying:
“Now, don’t fuss, James!” She was always saying: “Don’t fuss!”
She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman
eighteen years younger than himself. Then Emily’s real voice
said:
“Have you had a nice nap, James?”
Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him that!
“What’s this about Dartie?” he said, and his eyes glared at her.
Emily’s self-possession never deserted her.
“What have you been hearing?” she asked blandly.
“What’s this about Dartie?” repeated James. “He’s gone bankrupt.”
“Fiddle!”
James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his
stork-like figure.
“You never tell me anything,” he said; “he’s gone bankrupt.”
The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that
mattered at the moment.
“He has not,” she answered firmly. “He’s gone to Buenos Aires.”
If she had said “He’s gone to Mars” she could not have dealt
James a more stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in
British securities, could as little grasp one place as the other.
“What’s he gone there for?” he said. “He’s got no money. What did
he take?”
Agitated within by Winifred’s news, and goaded by the constant
reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:
“He took Winifred’s pearls and a dancer.”
“What!” said James, and sat down.
His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she
said:
“Now, don’t fuss, James!”
A dusky red had spread over James’ cheeks and forehead.
“I paid for them,” he said tremblingly; “he’s a thief! I—I knew
how it would be. He’ll be the death of me; he ....” Words failed
him and he sat quite still. Emily, who thought she knew him so
well, was alarmed, and went towards the sideboard where she kept
some sal volatile. She could not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit
working in that thin, tremulous shape against the extravagance of
the emotion called up by this outrage on Forsyte principles—the
Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying: “You mustn’t get into a
fantod, it’ll never do. You won’t digest your lunch. You’ll have
a fit!” All unseen by her, it was doing better work in James than
sal volatile.
“Drink this,” she said.
James waved it aside.
“What was Winifred about,” he said, “to let him take her pearls?”
Emily perceived the crisis past.
“She can have mine,” she said comfortably. “I never wear them.
She’d better get a divorce.”
“There you go!” said James. “Divorce! We’ve never had a divorce
in the family. Where’s Soames?”
“He’ll be in directly.”
“No, he won’t,” said James, almost fiercely; “he’s at the
funeral. You think I know nothing.”
“Well,” said Emily with calm, “you shouldn’t get into such fusses
when we tell you things.” And plumping up his cushions, and
putting the sal volatile beside him, she left the room.
But James sat there seeing visions—of Winifred in the Divorce
Court, and the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on
Roger’s coffin; of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he
had paid for and would never see again; of money back at four per
cent., and the country going to the dogs; and, as the afternoon
wore into evening, and tea-time passed, and dinnertime, those
visions became more and more mixed and menacing—of being told
nothing, till he had nothing left of all his wealth, and they
told him nothing of it. Where was Soames? Why didn’t he come
in?... His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to
drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little
sigh of relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he
said:
“There you are! Dartie’s gone to Buenos Aires.”
Soames nodded. “That’s all right,” he said; “good riddance.”
A wave of assuagement passed over James’ brain. Soames knew.
Soames was the only one of them all who had sense. Why couldn’t
he come and live at home? He had no son of his own. And he said
plaintively:
“At my age I get nervous. I wish you were more at home, my boy.”
Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no
understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched
his father’s shoulder.
“They sent their love to you at Timothy’s,” he said. “It went off
all right. I’ve been to see Winifred. I’m going to take steps.”
And he thought: “Yes, and you mustn’t hear of them.”
James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin
throat between the points of his collar looked very gristly and
naked.
“I’ve been very poorly all day,” he said; “they never tell me
anything.”
Soames’ heart twitched.
“Well, it’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Will you
come up now?” and he put his hand under his father’s arm.
James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together
they went slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the
firelight, and out to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.
“Good-night, my boy,” said James at his bedroom door.
“Good-night, father,” answered Soames. His hand stroked down the
sleeve beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it,
so thin was the arm. And, turning away from the light in the
opening doorway, he went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.
“I want a son,” he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed; “_I
want a son_.”
CHAPTER VI NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME
Trees take little account of time, and the old oak on the upper
lawn at Robin Hill looked no day older than when Bosinney
sprawled under it and said to Soames: “Forsyte, I’ve found the
very place for your house.” Since then Swithin had dreamed, and
old Jolyon died, beneath its branches. And now, close to the
swing, no-longer-young Jolyon often painted there. Of all spots
in the world it was perhaps the most sacred to him, for he had
loved his father.
Contemplating its great girth—crinkled and a little mossed, but
not yet hollow—he would speculate on the passage of time. That
tree had seen, perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he
shouldn’t wonder, from the days of Elizabeth at least. His own
fifty years were as nothing to its wood. When the house behind
it, which he now owned, was three hundred years of age instead of
twelve, that tree might still be standing there, vast and
hollow—for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it down? A
Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it
jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like
coated with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls—the
new look had gone. Would it hold its own and keep the dignity
Bosinney had bestowed on it, or would the giant London have
lapped it round and made it into an asylum in the midst of a
jerry-built wilderness? Often, within and without of it, he was
persuaded that Bosinney had been moved by the spirit when he
built. He had put his heart into that house, indeed! It might
even become one of the “homes of England”—a rare achievement for
a house in these degenerate days of building. And the aesthetic
spirit, moving hand in hand with his Forsyte sense of possessive
continuity, dwelt with pride and pleasure on his ownership
thereof. There was the smack of reverence and ancestor-worship
(if only for one ancestor) in his desire to hand this house down
to his son and his son’s son. His father had loved the house, had
loved the view, the grounds, that tree; his last years had been
happy there, and no one had lived there before him. These last
eleven years at Robin Hill had formed in Jolyon’s life as a
painter, the important period of success. He was now in the very
van of water-colour art, hanging on the line everywhere. His
drawings fetched high prices. Specialising in that one medium
with the tenacity of his breed, he had “arrived”—rather late, but
not too late for a member of the family which made a point of
living for ever. His art had really deepened and improved. In
conformity with his position he had grown a short fair beard,
which was just beginning to grizzle, and hid his Forsyte chin;
his brown face had lost the warped expression of his ostracised
period—he looked, if anything, younger. The loss of his wife in
1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies which turn out in
the end for the good of all. He had, indeed, loved her to the
last, for his was an affectionate spirit, but she had become
increasingly difficult: jealous of her step-daughter June,
jealous even of her own little daughter Holly, and making
ceaseless plaint that he could not love her, ill as she was, and
“useless to everyone, and better dead.” He had mourned her
sincerely, but his face had looked younger since she died. If she
could only have believed that she made him happy, how much
happier would the twenty years of their companionship have been!
June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly
taken her own mother’s place; and ever since old Jolyon died she
had been established in a sort of studio in London. But she had
come back to Robin Hill on her stepmother’s death, and gathered
the reins there into her small decided hands. Jolly was then at
Harrow; Holly still learning from Mademoiselle Beauce. There had
been nothing to keep Jolyon at home, and he had removed his grief
and his paint-box abroad. There he had wandered, for the most
part in Brittany, and at last had fetched up in Paris. He had
stayed there several months, and come back with the younger face
and the short fair beard. Essentially a man who merely lodged in
any house, it had suited him perfectly that June should reign at
Robin Hill, so that he was free to go off with his easel where
and when he liked. She was inclined, it is true, to regard the
house rather as an asylum for her _protégés;_ but his own outcast
days had filled Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast,
and June’s “lame ducks” about the place did not annoy him. By all
means let her have them down—and feed them up; and though his
slightly cynical humour perceived that they ministered to his
daughter’s love of domination as well as moved her warm heart, he
never ceased to admire her for having so many ducks. He fell,
indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and brotherly
attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with a
sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see
Jolly, he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would
sit eating cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an
affectionate and ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and
curling his lips a little. And he was always careful to have
money in his pocket, and to be modish in his dress, so that his
son need not blush for him. They were perfect friends, but never
seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both having the
competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they would
stand by each other in scrapes, but there was no need to talk
about it. Jolyon had a striking horror—partly original sin, but
partly the result of his early immorality—of the moral attitude.
The most he could ever have said to his son would have been:
“Look here, old man; don’t forget you’re a gentleman,” and then
have wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish
sentiment. The great cricket match was perhaps the most searching
and awkward time they annually went through together, for Jolyon
had been at Eton. They would be particularly careful during that
match, continually saying: “Hooray! Oh! hard luck, old man!” or
“Hooray! Oh! bad luck, Dad!” to each other, when some disaster at
which their hearts bounded happened to the opposing school. And
Jolyon would wear a grey top hat, instead of his usual soft one,
to save his son’s feelings, for a black top hat he could not
stomach. When Jolly went up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him,
amused, humble, and a little anxious not to discredit his boy
amongst all these youths who seemed so much more assured and old
than himself. He often thought, “Glad I’m a painter” for he had
long dropped under-writing at Lloyds—“it’s so innocuous. You
can’t look down on a painter—you can’t take him seriously
enough.” For Jolly, who had a sort of natural lordliness, had
passed at once into a very small set, who secretly amused his
father. The boy had fair hair which curled a little, and his
grandfather’s deepset iron-grey eyes. He was well-built and very
upright, and always pleased Jolyon’s aesthetic sense, so that he
was a tiny bit afraid of him, as artists ever are of those of
their own sex whom they admire physically. On that occasion,
however, he actually did screw up his courage to give his son
advice, and this was it:
“Look here, old man, you’re bound to get into debt; mind you come
to me at once. Of course, I’ll always pay them. But you might
remember that one respects oneself more afterwards if one pays
one’s own way. And don’t ever borrow, except from me, will you?”
And Jolly had said:
“All right, Dad, I won’t,” and he never had.
“And there’s just one other thing. I don’t know much about
morality and that, but there is this: It’s always worth while
before you do anything to consider whether it’s going to hurt
another person more than is absolutely necessary.”
Jolly had looked thoughtful, and nodded, and presently had
squeezed his father’s hand. And Jolyon had thought: “I wonder if
I had the right to say that?” He always had a sort of dread of
losing the dumb confidence they had in each other; remembering
how for long years he had lost his own father’s, so that there
had been nothing between them but love at a great distance. He
under-estimated, no doubt, the change in the spirit of the age
since he himself went up to Cambridge in ’65; and perhaps he
underestimated, too, his boy’s power of understanding that he was
tolerant to the very bone. It was that tolerance of his, and
possibly his scepticism, which ever made his relations towards
June so queerly defensive. She was such a decided mortal; knew
her own mind so terribly well; wanted things so inexorably until
she got them—and then, indeed, often dropped them like a hot
potato. Her mother had been like that, whence had come all those
tears. Not that his incompatibility with his daughter was
anything like what it had been with the first Mrs. Young Jolyon.
One could be amused where a daughter was concerned; in a wife’s
case one could not be amused. To see June set her heart and jaw
on a thing until she got it was all right, because it was never
anything which interfered fundamentally with Jolyon’s liberty—the
one thing on which his jaw was also absolutely rigid, a
considerable jaw, under that short grizzling beard. Nor was there
ever any necessity for real heart-to-heart encounters. One could
break away into irony—as indeed he often had to. But the real
trouble with June was that she had never appealed to his
aesthetic sense, though she might well have, with her red-gold
hair and her viking-coloured eyes, and that touch of the
Berserker in her spirit. It was very different with Holly, soft
and quiet, shy and affectionate, with a playful imp in her
somewhere. He watched this younger daughter of his through the
duckling stage with extraordinary interest. Would she come out a
swan? With her sallow oval face and her grey wistful eyes and
those long dark lashes, she might, or she might not. Only this
last year had he been able to guess. Yes, she would be a
swan—rather a dark one, always a shy one, but an authentic swan.
She was eighteen now, and Mademoiselle Beauce was gone—the
excellent lady had removed, after eleven years haunted by her
continuous reminiscences of the “well-brrred little Tayleurs,” to
another family whose bosom would now be agitated by her
reminiscences of the “well-brrred little Forsytes.” She had
taught Holly to speak French like herself.
Portraiture was not Jolyon’s forte, but he had already drawn his
younger daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on
the afternoon of October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to
him which caused his eyebrows to go up:
MR. SOAMES FORSYTE
THE SHELTER, CONNOISSEURS CLUB, MAPLEDURHAM.
ST. JAMES’S.
But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again....
To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a
little daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved
father lying peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was
never likely to be, forgotten by so impressionable and
warm-hearted a man as Jolyon. A sense as of mystery, too, clung
to that sad day, and about the end of one whose life had been so
well-ordered, balanced, and above-board. It seemed incredible
that his father could thus have vanished without, as it were,
announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and due
farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to “the
lady in grey,” of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it
sounded) involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he
read his father’s will and the codicil thereto. It had been his
duty as executor of that will and codicil to inform Irene, wife
of his cousin Soames, of her life interest in fifteen thousand
pounds. He had called on her to explain that the existing
investment in India Stock, ear-marked to meet the charge, would
produce for her the interesting net sum of £430 odd a year, clear
of income tax. This was but the third time he had seen his cousin
Soames’ wife—if indeed she was still his wife, of which he was
not quite sure. He remembered having seen her sitting in the
Botanical Gardens waiting for Bosinney—a passive, fascinating
figure, reminding him of Titian’s “Heavenly Love,” and again,
when, charged by his father, he had gone to Montpellier Square on
the afternoon when Bosinney’s death was known. He still recalled
vividly her sudden appearance in the drawing-room doorway on that
occasion—her beautiful face, passing from wild eagerness of hope
to stony despair; remembered the compassion he had felt, Soames’
snarling smile, his words, “We are not at home!” and the slam of
the front door.
This third time he saw a face and form more beautiful—freed from
that warp of wild hope and despair. Looking at her, he thought:
“Yes, you are just what the Dad would have admired!” And the
strange story of his father’s Indian summer became slowly clear
to him. She spoke of old Jolyon with reverence and tears in her
eyes. “He was so wonderfully kind to me; I don’t know why. He
looked so beautiful and peaceful sitting in that chair under the
tree; it was I who first came on him sitting there, you know.
Such a lovely day. I don’t think an end could have been happier.
We should all like to go out like that.”
“Quite right!” he had thought. “We should all like to go out in
full summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.”
And looking round the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had
asked her what she was going to do now. “I am going to live again
a little, Cousin Jolyon. It’s wonderful to have money of one’s
own. I’ve never had any. I shall keep this flat, I think; I’m
used to it; but I shall be able to go to Italy.”
“Exactly!” Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling
lips; and he had gone away thinking: “A fascinating woman! What a
waste! I’m glad the Dad left her that money.” He had not seen her
again, but every quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it
to her bank, with a note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had
done so; and always he had received a note in acknowledgment,
generally from the flat, but sometimes from Italy; so that her
personality had become embodied in slightly scented grey paper,
an upright fine handwriting, and the words, “Dear Cousin Jolyon.”
Man of property that he now was, the slender cheque he signed
often gave rise to the thought: “Well, I suppose she just
manages”; sliding into a vague wonder how she was faring
otherwise in a world of men not wont to let beauty go
unpossessed. At first Holly had spoken of her sometimes, but
“ladies in grey” soon fade from children’s memories; and the
tightening of June’s lips in those first weeks after her
grandfather’s death whenever her former friend’s name was
mentioned, had discouraged allusion. Only once, indeed, had June
spoken definitely: “I’ve forgiven her. I’m frightfully glad she’s
independent now....”
On receiving Soames’ card, Jolyon said to the maid—for he could
not abide butlers—“Show him into the study, please, and say I’ll
be there in a minute”; and then he looked at Holly and asked:
“Do you remember ‘the lady in grey,’ who used to give you
music-lessons?”
“Oh yes, why? Has she come?”
Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a
coat, was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not
for those young ears. His face, in fact, became whimsical
perplexity incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.
Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at
the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he
thought: “Who’s that boy? Surely they never had a child.”
The elder figure turned. The meeting of those two Forsytes of the
second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in
the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other,
was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at
cordiality. “Has he come about his wife?” Jolyon was thinking;
and Soames, “How shall I begin?” while Val, brought to break the
ice, stood negligently scrutinising this “bearded pard” from
under his dark, thick eyelashes.
“This is Val Dartie,” said Soames, “my sister’s son. He’s just
going up to Oxford. I thought I’d like him to know your boy.”
“Ah! I’m sorry Jolly’s away. What college?”
“B.N.C.,” replied Val.
“Jolly’s at the ‘House,’ but he’ll be delighted to look you up.”
“Thanks awfully.”
“Holly’s in—if you could put up with a female relation, she’d
show you round. You’ll find her in the hall if you go through the
curtains. I was just painting her.”
With another “Thanks, awfully!” Val vanished, leaving the two
cousins with the ice unbroken.
“I see you’ve some drawings at the ‘Water Colours,’” said Soames.
Jolyon winced. He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family
at large for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his
mind with Frith’s “Derby Day” and Landseer prints. He had heard
from June that Soames was a connoisseur, which made it worse. He
had become aware, too, of a curious sensation of repugnance.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said.
“No,” answered Soames between close lips, “not since—as a matter
of fact, it’s about that I’ve come. You’re her trustee, I’m
told.”
Jolyon nodded.
“Twelve years is a long time,” said Soames rapidly: “I—I’m tired
of it.”
Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:
“Won’t you smoke?”
“No, thanks.”
Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.
“I wish to be free,” said Soames abruptly.
“I don’t see her,” murmured Jolyon through the fume of his
cigarette.
“But you know where she lives, I suppose?”
Jolyon nodded. He did not mean to give her address without
permission. Soames seemed to divine his thought.
“I don’t want her address,” he said; “I know it.”
“What exactly do you want?”
“She deserted me. I want a divorce.”
“Rather late in the day, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Soames. And there was a silence.
“I don’t know much about these things—at least, I’ve forgotten,”
said Jolyon with a wry smile. He himself had had to wait for
death to grant him a divorce from the first Mrs. Jolyon. “Do you
wish me to see her about it?”
Soames raised his eyes to his cousin’s face. “I suppose there’s
someone,” he said.
A shrug moved Jolyon’s shoulders.
“I don’t know at all. I imagine you may have both lived as if the
other were dead. It’s usual in these cases.”
Soames turned to the window. A few early fallen oak-leaves
strewed the terrace already, and were rolling round in the wind.
Jolyon saw the figures of Holly and Val Dartie moving across the
lawn towards the stables. “I’m not going to run with the hare and
hunt with the hounds,” he thought. “I must act for her. The Dad
would have wished that.” And for a swift moment he seemed to see
his father’s figure in the old armchair, just beyond Soames,
sitting with knees crossed, _The Times_ in his hand. It vanished.
“My father was fond of her,” he said quietly.
“Why he should have been I don’t know,” Soames answered without
looking round. “She brought trouble to your daughter June; she
brought trouble to everyone. I gave her all she wanted. I would
have given her even—forgiveness—but she chose to leave me.”
In Jolyon compassion was checked by the tone of that close voice.
What was there in the fellow that made it so difficult to be
sorry for him?
“I can go and see her, if you like,” he said. “I suppose she
might be glad of a divorce, but I know nothing.”
Soames nodded.
“Yes, please go. As I say, I know her address; but I’ve no wish
to see her.” His tongue was busy with his lips, as if they were
very dry.
“You’ll have some tea?” said Jolyon, stifling the words: “And see
the house.” And he led the way into the hall. When he had rung
the bell and ordered tea, he went to his easel to turn his
drawing to the wall. He could not bear, somehow, that his work
should be seen by Soames, who was standing there in the middle of
the great room which had been designed expressly to afford wall
space for his own pictures. In his cousin’s face, with its
unseizable family likeness to himself, and its chinny, narrow,
concentrated look, Jolyon saw that which moved him to the
thought: “That chap could never forget anything—nor ever give
himself away. He’s pathetic!”
CHAPTER VII THE COLT AND THE FILLY
When young Val left the presence of the last generation he was
thinking: “This is jolly dull! Uncle Soames does take the bun. I
wonder what this filly’s like?” He anticipated no pleasure from
her society; and suddenly he saw her standing there looking at
him. Why, she was pretty! What luck!
“I’m afraid you don’t know me,” he said. “My name’s Val
Dartie—I’m once removed, second cousin, something like that, you
know. My mother’s name was Forsyte.”
Holly, whose slim brown hand remained in his because she was too
shy to withdraw it, said:
“I don’t know any of my relations. Are there many?”
“Tons. They’re awful—most of them. At least, I don’t know—some of
them. One’s relations always are, aren’t they?”
“I expect they think one awful too,” said Holly.
“I don’t know why they should. No one could think you awful, of
course.”
Holly looked at him—the wistful candour in those grey eyes gave
young Val a sudden feeling that he must protect her.
“I mean there are people and people,” he added astutely. “Your
dad looks awfully decent, for instance.”
“Oh yes!” said Holly fervently; “he is.”
A flush mounted in Val’s cheeks—that scene in the Pandemonium
promenade—the dark man with the pink carnation developing into
his own father! “But you know what the Forsytes are,” he said
almost viciously. “Oh! I forgot; you don’t.”
“What are they?”
“Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit. Look at Uncle
Soames!”
“I’d like to,” said Holly.
Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers. “Oh! no,” he
said, “let’s go out. You’ll see him quite soon enough. What’s
your brother like?”
Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without
answering. How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered
anything, had been her lord, master, and ideal?
“Does he sit on you?” said Val shrewdly. “I shall be knowing him
at Oxford. Have you got any horses?”
Holly nodded. “Would you like to see the stables?”
“Rather!”
They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into
the stable-yard. There under a clock-tower lay a fluffy
brown-and-white dog, so old that he did not get up, but faintly
waved the tail curled over his back.
“That’s Balthasar,” said Holly; “he’s so old—awfully old, nearly
as old as I am. Poor old boy! He’s devoted to Dad.”
“Balthasar! That’s a rum name. He isn’t purebred you know.”
“No! but he’s a darling,” and she bent down to stroke the dog.
Gentle and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck
and hands, she seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing
slipped between him and all previous knowledge.
“When grandfather died,” she said, “he wouldn’t eat for two days.
He saw him die, you know.”
“Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper.”
“He was,” said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.
In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a
long black tail and mane. “This is mine—Fairy.”
“Ah!” said Val, “she’s a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her
tail. She’d look much smarter.” Then catching her wondering look,
he thought suddenly: “I don’t know—anything she likes!” And he
took a long sniff of the stable air. “Horses are ripping, aren’t
they? My Dad...” he stopped.
“Yes?” said Holly.
An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him—but not quite.
“Oh! I don’t know he’s often gone a mucker over them. I’m jolly
keen on them too—riding and hunting. I like racing awfully, as
well; I should like to be a gentleman rider.” And oblivious of
the fact that he had but one more day in town, with two
engagements, he plumped out:
“I say, if I hire a gee to-morrow, will you come a ride in
Richmond Park?”
Holly clasped her hands.
“Oh yes! I simply love riding. But there’s Jolly’s horse; why
don’t you ride him? Here he is. We could go after tea.”
Val looked doubtfully at his trousered legs.
He had imagined them immaculate before her eyes in high brown
boots and Bedford cords.
“I don’t much like riding his horse,” he said. “He mightn’t like
it. Besides, Uncle Soames wants to get back, I expect. Not that I
believe in buckling under to him, you know. You haven’t got an
uncle, have you? This is rather a good beast,” he added,
scrutinising Jolly’s horse, a dark brown, which was showing the
whites of its eyes. “You haven’t got any hunting here, I
suppose?”
“No; I don’t know that I want to hunt. It must be awfully
exciting, of course; but it’s cruel, isn’t it? June says so.”
“Cruel?” ejaculated Val. “Oh! that’s all rot. Who’s June?”
“My sister—my half-sister, you know—much older than me.” She had
put her hands up to both cheeks of Jolly’s horse, and was rubbing
her nose against its nose with a gentle snuffling noise which
seemed to have an hypnotic effect on the animal. Val contemplated
her cheek resting against the horse’s nose, and her eyes gleaming
round at him. “She’s really a duck,” he thought.
They returned to the house less talkative, followed this time by
the dog Balthasar, walking more slowly than anything on earth,
and clearly expecting them not to exceed his speed limit.
“This is a ripping place,” said Val from under the oak tree,
where they had paused to allow the dog Balthasar to come up.
“Yes,” said Holly, and sighed. “Of course I want to go
everywhere. I wish I were a gipsy.”
“Yes, gipsies are jolly,” replied Val, with a conviction which
had just come to him; “you’re rather like one, you know.”
Holly’s face shone suddenly and deeply, like dark leaves gilded
by the sun.
“To go mad-rabbiting everywhere and see everything, and live in
the open—oh! wouldn’t it be fun?”
“Let’s do it!” said Val.
“Oh yes, let’s!”
“It’d be grand sport, just you and I.”
Then Holly perceived the quaintness and gushed.
“Well, we’ve got to do it,” said Val obstinately, but reddening
too.
“I believe in doing things you want to do. What’s down there?”
“The kitchen-garden, and the pond and the coppice, and the farm.”
“Let’s go down!”
Holly glanced back at the house.
“It’s tea-time, I expect; there’s Dad beckoning.”
Val, uttering a growly sound, followed her towards the house.
When they re-entered the hall gallery the sight of two
middle-aged Forsytes drinking tea together had its magical
effect, and they became quite silent. It was, indeed, an
impressive spectacle. The two were seated side by side on an
arrangement in marqueterie which looked like three silvery pink
chairs made one, with a low tea-table in front of them. They
seemed to have taken up that position, as far apart as the seat
would permit, so that they need not look at each other too much;
and they were eating and drinking rather than talking—Soames with
his air of despising the tea-cake as it disappeared, Jolyon of
finding himself slightly amusing. To the casual eye neither would
have seemed greedy, but both were getting through a good deal of
sustenance. The two young ones having been supplied with food,
the process went on silent and absorbative, till, with the advent
of cigarettes, Jolyon said to Soames:
“And how’s Uncle James?”
“Thanks, very shaky.”
“We’re a wonderful family, aren’t we? The other day I was
calculating the average age of the ten old Forsytes from my
father’s family Bible. I make it eighty-four already, and five
still living. They ought to beat the record;” and looking
whimsically at Soames, he added:
“We aren’t the men they were, you know.”
Soames smiled. “Do you really think I shall admit that I’m not
their equal”. he seemed to be saying, “or that I’ve got to give
up anything, especially life?”
“We may live to their age, perhaps,” pursued Jolyon, “but
self-consciousness is a handicap, you know, and that’s the
difference between us. We’ve lost conviction. How and when
self-consciousness was born I never can make out. My father had a
little, but I don’t believe any other of the old Forsytes ever
had a scrap. Never to see yourself as others see you, it’s a
wonderful preservative. The whole history of the last century is
in the difference between us. And between us and you,” he added,
gazing through a ring of smoke at Val and Holly, uncomfortable
under his quizzical regard, “there’ll be—another difference. I
wonder what.”
Soames took out his watch.
“We must go,” he said, “if we’re to catch our train.”
“Uncle Soames never misses a train,” muttered Val, with his mouth
full.
“Why should I?” Soames answered simply.
“Oh! I don’t know,” grumbled Val, “other people do.”
At the front door he gave Holly’s slim brown hand a long and
surreptitious squeeze.
“Look out for me to-morrow,” he whispered; “three o’clock. I’ll
wait for you in the road; it’ll save time. We’ll have a ripping
ride.” He gazed back at her from the lodge gate, and, but for the
principles of a man about town, would have waved his hand. He
felt in no mood to tolerate his uncle’s conversation. But he was
not in danger. Soames preserved a perfect muteness, busy with
far-away thoughts.
The yellow leaves came down about those two walking the mile and
a half which Soames had traversed so often in those long-ago days
when he came down to watch with secret pride the building of the
house—that house which was to have been the home of him and her
from whom he was now going to seek release. He looked back once,
up that endless vista of autumn lane between the yellowing
hedges. What an age ago! “I don’t want to see her,” he had said
to Jolyon. Was that true? “I may have to,” he thought; and he
shivered, seized by one of those queer shudderings that they say
mean footsteps on one’s grave. A chilly world! A queer world! And
glancing sidelong at his nephew, he thought: “Wish I were his
age! I wonder what she’s like now!”
CHAPTER VIII JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP
When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting,
for daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving
unconsciously a revival of that momentary vision of his father
sitting in the old leather chair with his knees crossed and his
straight eyes gazing up from under the dome of his massive brow.
Often in this little room, cosiest in the house, Jolyon would
catch a moment of communion with his father. Not, indeed, that he
had definitely any faith in the persistence of the human
spirit—the feeling was not so logical—it was, rather, an
atmospheric impact, like a scent, or one of those strong
animistic impressions from forms, or effects of light, to which
those with the artist’s eye are especially prone. Here only—in
this little unchanged room where his father had spent the most of
his waking hours—could be retrieved the feeling that he was not
quite gone, that the steady counsel of that old spirit and the
warmth of his masterful lovability endured.
What would his father be advising now, in this sudden
recrudescence of an old tragedy—what would he say to this menace
against her to whom he had taken such a fancy in the last weeks
of his life? “I must do my best for her,” thought Jolyon; “he
left her to me in his will. But what _is_ the best?”
And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd
common sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient
chair and crossed his knees. But he felt a mere shadow sitting
there; nor did any inspiration come, while the fingers of the
wind tapped on the darkening panes of the french-window.
“Go and see her?” he thought, “or ask her to come down here?
What’s her life been? What is it now, I wonder? Beastly to rake
up things at this time of day.” Again the figure of his cousin
standing with a hand on a front door of a fine olive-green leaped
out, vivid, like one of those figures from old-fashioned clocks
when the hour strikes; and his words sounded in Jolyon’s ears
clearer than any chime: “I manage my own affairs. I’ve told you
once, I tell you again: We are not at home.” The repugnance he
had then felt for Soames—for his flat-cheeked, shaven face full
of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square, sleek figure
slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not
digest—came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase.
“I dislike him,” he thought, “I dislike him to the very roots of
me. And that’s lucky; it’ll make it easier for me to back his
wife.” Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally
averse from what he termed “ructions”; unless angered, he
conformed deeply to that classic description of the she-dog,
“Er’d ruther run than fight.” A little smile became settled in
his beard. Ironical that Soames should come down here—to this
house, built for himself! How he had gazed and gaped at this ruin
of his past intention; furtively nosing at the walls and
stairway, appraising everything! And intuitively Jolyon thought:
“I believe the fellow even now would like to be living here. He
could never leave off longing for what he once owned! Well, I
must act, somehow or other; but it’s a bore—a great bore.”
Late that evening he wrote to the Chelsea flat, asking if Irene
would see him.
The old century which had seen the plant of individualism flower
so wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms.
Rumours of war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at
the close of the summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who
was not often up in town, had a feverish look, due to these new
motorcars and cabs, of which he disapproved aesthetically. He
counted these vehicles from his hansom, and made the proportion
of them one in twenty. “They were one in thirty about a year
ago,” he thought; “they’ve come to stay. Just so much more
rattling round of wheels and general stink”—for he was one of
those rather rare Liberals who object to anything new when it
takes a material form; and he instructed his driver to get down
to the river quickly, out of the traffic, desiring to look at the
water through the mellowing screen of plane-trees. At the little
block of flats which stood back some fifty yards from the
Embankment, he told the cabman to wait, and went up to the first
floor.
Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!
The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once
apparent to him remembering the threadbare refinement in that
tiny flat eight years ago when he announced her good fortune.
Everything was now fresh, dainty, and smelled of flowers. The
general effect was silvery with touches of black, hydrangea
colour, and gold. “A woman of great taste,” he thought. Time had
dealt gently with Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte. But with Irene
Time hardly seemed to deal at all, or such was his impression.
She appeared to him not a day older, standing there in
mole-coloured velvet corduroy, with soft dark eyes and dark gold
hair, with outstretched hand and a little smile.
“Won’t you sit down?”
He had probably never occupied a chair with a fuller sense of
embarrassment.
“You look absolutely unchanged,” he said.
“And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon.”
Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still
a comfort to him.
“I’m ancient, but I don’t feel it. That’s one thing about
painting, it keeps you young. Titian lived to ninety-nine, and
had to have plague to kill him off. Do you know, the first time I
ever saw you I thought of a picture by him?”
“When did you see me for the first time?”
“In the Botanical Gardens.”
“How did you know me, if you’d never seen me before?”
“By someone who came up to you.” He was looking at her hardily,
but her face did not change; and she said quietly:
“Yes; many lives ago.”
“What is _your_ recipe for youth, Irene?”
“People who don’t _live_ are wonderfully preserved.”
H’m! a bitter little saying! People who don’t live! But an
opening, and he took it. “You remember my Cousin Soames?”
He saw her smile faintly at that whimsicality, and at once went
on:
“He came to see me the day before yesterday! He wants a divorce.
Do you?”
“I?” The word seemed startled out of her. “After twelve years?
It’s rather late. Won’t it be difficult?”
Jolyon looked hard into her face. “Unless....” he said.
“Unless I have a lover now. But I have never had one since.”
What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words?
Relief, surprise, pity! Venus for twelve years without a lover!
“And yet,” he said, “I suppose you would give a good deal to be
free, too?”
“I don’t know. What does it matter, now?”
“But if you were to love again?”
“I should love.” In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the
whole philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.
“Well! Is there anything you would like me to say to him?”
“Only that I’m sorry he’s not free. He had his chance once. I
don’t know why he didn’t take it.”
“Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things, you know,
unless we want something in their place; and not always then.”
Irene smiled. “Don’t you, Cousin Jolyon?—I think you do.”
“Of course, I’m a bit of a mongrel—not quite a pure Forsyte. I
never take the halfpennies off my cheques, I put them on,” said
Jolyon uneasily.
“Well, what does Soames want in place of me now?”
“I don’t know; perhaps children.”
She was silent for a little, looking down.
“Yes,” she murmured; “it’s hard. I would help him to be free if I
could.”
Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast;
so was his admiration, his wonder, and his pity. She was so
lovely, and so lonely; and altogether it was such a coil!
“Well,” he said, “I shall have to see Soames. If there’s anything
I can do for you I’m always at your service. You must think of me
as a wretched substitute for my father. At all events I’ll let
you know what happens when I speak to Soames. He may supply the
material himself.”
She shook her head.
“You see, he has a lot to lose; and I have nothing. I should like
him to be free; but I don’t see what I can do.”
“Nor I at the moment,” said Jolyon, and soon after took his
leave. He went down to his hansom. Half-past three! Soames would
be at his office still.
“To the Poultry,” he called through the trap. In front of the
Houses of Parliament and in Whitehall, newsvendors were calling,
“Grave situation in the Transvaal!” but the cries hardly roused
him, absorbed in recollection of that very beautiful figure, of
her soft dark glance, and the words: “I have never had one
since.” What on earth did such a woman do with her life,
back-watered like this? Solitary, unprotected, with every man’s
hand against her or rather—reaching out to grasp her at the least
sign. And year after year she went on like that!
The word “Poultry” above the passing citizens brought him back to
reality.
“Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte,” in black letters on a ground the
colour of peasoup, spurred him to a sort of vigour, and he went
up the stone stairs muttering: “Fusty musty ownerships! Well, we
couldn’t do without them!”
“I want Mr. Soames Forsyte,” he said to the boy who opened the
door.
“What name?”
“Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”
The youth looked at him curiously, never having seen a Forsyte
with a beard, and vanished.
The offices of “Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte” had slowly absorbed
the offices of “Tooting and Bowles,” and occupied the whole of
the first floor.
The firm consisted now of nothing but Soames and a number of
managing and articled clerks. The complete retirement of James
some six years ago had accelerated business, to which the final
touch of speed had been imparted when Bustard dropped off, worn
out, as many believed, by the suit of “Fryer _versus_ Forsyte,”
more in Chancery than ever and less likely to benefit its
beneficiaries. Soames, with his saner grasp of actualities, had
never permitted it to worry him; on the contrary, he had long
perceived that Providence had presented him therein with £200 a
year net in perpetuity, and—why not?
When Jolyon entered, his cousin was drawing out a list of
holdings in Consols, which in view of the rumours of war he was
going to advise his companies to put on the market at once,
before other companies did the same. He looked round, sidelong,
and said:
“How are you? Just one minute. Sit down, won’t you?” And having
entered three amounts, and set a ruler to keep his place, he
turned towards Jolyon, biting the side of his flat forefinger....
“Yes?” he said.
“I have seen her.”
Soames frowned.
“Well?”
“She has remained faithful to memory.”
Having said that, Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a
dusky yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute!
“I was to tell you she is sorry you are not free. Twelve years is
a long time. You know your law, and what chance it gives you.”
Soames uttered a curious little grunt, and the two remained a
full minute without speaking. “Like wax!” thought Jolyon,
watching that close face, where the flush was fast subsiding.
“He’ll never give me a sign of what he’s thinking, or going to
do. Like wax!” And he transferred his gaze to a plan of that
flourishing town, “By-Street on Sea,” the future existence of
which lay exposed on the wall to the possessive instincts of the
firm’s clients. The whimsical thought flashed through him: “I
wonder if I shall get a bill of costs for this—‘To attending Mr.
Jolyon Forsyte in the matter of my divorce, to receiving his
account of his visit to my wife, and to advising him to go and
see her again, sixteen and eightpence.’”
Suddenly Soames said: “I can’t go on like this. I tell you, I
can’t go on like this.” His eyes were shifting from side to side,
like an animal’s when it looks for way of escape. “He really
suffers,” thought Jolyon; “I’ve no business to forget that, just
because I don’t like him.”
“Surely,” he said gently, “it lies with yourself. A man can
always put these things through if he’ll take it on himself.”
Soames turned square to him, with a sound which seemed to come
from somewhere very deep.
“Why should I suffer more than I’ve suffered already? Why should
I?”
Jolyon could only shrug his shoulders. His reason agreed, his
instinct rebelled; he could not have said why.
“Your father,” went on Soames, “took an interest in her—why,
goodness knows! And I suppose you do too?” he gave Jolyon a sharp
look. “It seems to me that one only has to do another person a
wrong to get all the sympathy. I don’t know in what way I was to
blame—I’ve never known. I always treated her well. I gave her
everything she could wish for. I wanted her.”
Again Jolyon’s reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head.
“What is it?” he thought; “there must be something wrong in me.
Yet if there is, I’d rather be wrong than right.”
“After all,” said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, “she was
my wife.”
In a flash the thought went through his listener: “There it is!
Ownerships! Well, we all own things. But—human beings! Pah!”
“You have to look at facts,” he said drily, “or rather the want
of them.”
Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.
“The want of them?” he said. “Yes, but I am not so sure.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied Jolyon; “I’ve told you what she
said. It was explicit.”
“My experience has not been one to promote blind confidence in
her word. We shall see.”
Jolyon got up.
“Good-bye,” he said curtly.
“Good-bye,” returned Soames; and Jolyon went out trying to
understand the look, half-startled, half-menacing, on his
cousin’s face. He sought Waterloo Station in a disturbed frame of
mind, as though the skin of his moral being had been scraped; and
all the way down in the train he thought of Irene in her lonely
flat, and of Soames in his lonely office, and of the strange
paralysis of life that lay on them both. “In chancery!” he
thought. “Both their necks in chancery—and her’s so pretty!”
CHAPTER IX VAL HEARS THE NEWS
The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous
feature in the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke
two and kept one, it was the latter event which caused him, if
anything, the greater surprise, while jogging back to town from
Robin Hill after his ride with Holly. She had been even prettier
than he had thought her yesterday, on her silver-roan,
long-tailed “palfrey”. and it seemed to him, self-critical in the
brumous October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that only
his boots had shone throughout their two-hour companionship. He
took out his new gold “hunter”—present from James—and looked not
at the time, but at sections of his face in the glittering back
of its opened case. He had a temporary spot over one eyebrow, and
it displeased him, for it must have displeased her. Crum never
had any spots. Together with Crum rose the scene in the promenade
of the Pandemonium. To-day he had not had the faintest desire to
unbosom himself to Holly about his father. His father lacked
poetry, the stirrings of which he was feeling for the first time
in his nineteen years. The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that
almost mythical embodiment of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the
woman of uncertain age—both seemed to Val completely “off,” fresh
from communion with this new, shy, dark-haired young cousin of
his. She rode “Jolly well,” too, so that it had been all the more
flattering that she had let him lead her where he would in the
long gallops of Richmond Park, though she knew them so much
better than he did. Looking back on it all, he was mystified by
the barrenness of his speech; he felt that he could say “an awful
lot of fetching things” if he had but the chance again, and the
thought that he must go back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and
to Oxford on the twelfth—“to that beastly exam,” too—without the
faintest chance of first seeing her again, caused darkness to
settle on his spirit even more quickly than on the evening. He
should write to her, however, and she had promised to answer.
Perhaps, too, she would come up to Oxford to see her brother.
That thought was like the first star, which came out as he rode
into Padwick’s livery stables in the purlieus of Sloane Square.
He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had ridden
some twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him
chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the
favourite for the Cambridgeshire; then with the words, “Put the
gee down to my account,” he walked away, a little wide at the
knees, and flipping his boots with his knotty little cane. “I
don’t feel a bit inclined to go out,” he thought. “I wonder if
mother will stand fizz for my last night!” With “fizz” and
recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.
When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother
scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his
Uncle Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his
uncle said:
“He’d better be told.”
At those words, which meant something about his father, of
course, Val’s first thought was of Holly. Was it anything
beastly? His mother began speaking.
“Your father,” she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while
her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, “your
father, my dear boy, has—is not at Newmarket; he’s on his way to
South America. He—he’s left us.”
Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he
fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then,
suddenly—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars—his heart twitched
within him, and he _was_ sorry. One’s father belonged to one,
could not go off in this fashion—it was not done! Nor had he
always been the “bounder” of the Pandemonium promenade. There
were precious memories of tailors’ shops and horses, tips at
school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.
“But why?” he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he
had asked. The mask of his mother’s face was all disturbed; and
he burst out:
“All right, Mother, don’t tell me! Only, what does it mean?”
“A divorce, Val, I’m afraid.”
Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his
uncle—that uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a
guarantee against the consequences of having a father, even
against the Dartie blood in his own veins. The flat-checked
visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.
“It won’t be public, will it?”
So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued
to the unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public
Press.
“Can’t it be done quietly somehow? It’s so disgusting for—for
mother, and—and everybody.”
“Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure.”
“Yes—but, why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn’t want to
marry again.”
Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his
schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of—Holly!
Unbearable! What was to be gained by it?
“Do you, Mother?” he said sharply.
Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the
one she loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire
chair in which she had been sitting. She saw that her son would
be against her unless he was told everything; and, yet, how could
she tell him? Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she
stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at Soames. Surely this
embodiment of respectability and the sense of property could not
wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!
Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth
surface of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his
nephew, he began:
“You don’t understand what your mother has had to put up with
these twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val.” And
glancing up sideways at Winifred, he added:
“Shall I tell him?”
Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against
her! Yet, how dreadful to be told such things of his own father!
Clenching her lips, she nodded.
Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:
“He has always been a burden round your mother’s neck. She has
paid his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk,
abused and threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires
with a dancer.” And, as if distrusting the efficacy of those
words on the boy, he went on quickly:
“He took your mother’s pearls to give to her.”
Val jerked up his hand, then. At that signal of distress Winifred
cried out:
“That’ll do, Soames—stop!”
In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For
debts, drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the
pearls—no! That was too much! And suddenly he found his mother’s
hand squeezing his.
“You see,” he heard Soames say, “we can’t have it all begin over
again. There’s a limit; we must strike while the iron’s hot.”
Val freed his hand.
“But—you’re—never going to bring out that about the pearls! I
couldn’t stand that—I simply couldn’t!”
Winifred cried out:
“No, no, Val—oh no! That’s only to show you how impossible your
father is!” And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out
a cigarette. His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh!
it was unbearable—just as he was going up to Oxford!
“Can’t mother be protected without?” he said. “I could look after
her. It could always be done later if it was really necessary.”
A smile played for a moment round Soames’ lips, and became
bitter.
“You don’t know what you’re talking of; nothing’s so fatal as
delay in such matters.”
“Why?”
“I tell you, boy, nothing’s so fatal. I know from experience.”
His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him
round-eyed, never having known his uncle express any sort of
feeling. Oh! Yes—he remembered now—there had been an Aunt Irene,
and something had happened—something which people kept dark; he
had heard his father once use an unmentionable word of her.
“I don’t want to speak ill of your father,” Soames went on
doggedly, “but I know him well enough to be sure that he’ll be
back on your mother’s hands before a year’s over. You can imagine
what that will mean to her and to all of you after this. The only
thing is to cut the knot for good.”
In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at
his mother’s face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight
into the fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered
most.
“All right, mother,” he said; “we’ll back you up. Only I’d like
to know when it’ll be. It’s my first term, you know. I don’t want
to be up there when it comes off.”
“Oh! my dear boy,” murmured Winifred, “it _is_ a bore for you.”
So, by habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face,
was the most poignant regret. “When will it be, Soames?”
“Can’t tell—not for months. We must get restitution first.”
“What the deuce is that?” thought Val. “What silly brutes lawyers
are! Not for months! I know one thing: I’m not going to dine in!”
And he said:
“Awfully sorry, mother, I’ve got to go out to dinner now.”
Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully;
they both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the
expression of feeling.
Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and
depressed. And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover
that he had only eighteen-pence. One couldn’t dine off
eighteen-pence, and he was very hungry. He looked longingly at
the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he had often eaten of the
best with his father! Those pearls! There was no getting over
them! But the more he brooded and the further he walked the
hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were
only two places where he could go—his grandfather’s in Park Lane,
and Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less
deplorable? At his grandfather’s he would probably get a better
dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy’s they gave you a
jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided
on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford
without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly
fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had been there,
of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn’t help that.
He rang the bell.
“Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d’you think?”
“They’re just going in, Master Val. Mr. Forsyte will be very glad
to see you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you
nowadays.”
Val grinned.
“Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let’s have
fizz.”
Warmson smiled faintly—in his opinion Val was a young limb.
“I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val.”
“I say,” Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, “I’m not at
school any more, you know.”
Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond
the stag’s-horn coat stand, with the words:
“Mr. Valerus, ma’am.”
“Confound him!” thought Val, entering.
A warm embrace, a “Well, Val!” from Emily, and a rather quavery
“So there you are at last!” from James, restored his sense of
dignity.
“Why didn’t you let us know? There’s only saddle of mutton.
Champagne, Warmson,” said Emily. And they went in.
At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which
so many fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily
at the other, Val half-way between them; and something of the
loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children
were flown, reached the boy’s spirit. “I hope I shall kick the
bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather,” he thought. “Poor
old chap, he’s as thin as a rail!” And lowering his voice while
his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the
soup, he said to Emily:
“It’s pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know.”
“Yes, dear boy.”
“Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn’t there anything
to be done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on
it?”
“Hush, my dear!” murmured Emily; “we’re keeping it from your
grandfather.”
James’ voice sounded from the other end.
“What’s that? What are you talking about?”
“About Val’s college,” returned Emily. “Young Pariser was there,
James; you remember—he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
afterwards.”
James muttered that he did not know—Val must look after himself
up there, or he’d get into bad ways. And he looked at his
grandson with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully
glimmered.
“What I’m afraid of,” said Val to his plate, “is of being hard
up, you know.”
By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear
of insecurity for his grandchildren.
“Well,” said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over,
“you’ll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it.”
“Of course,” murmured Val; “if it is good. How much will it be,
Grandfather?”
“Three hundred and fifty; it’s too much. I had next to nothing at
your age.”
Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. “I
don’t know what your young cousin has,” said James; “he’s up
there. His father’s a rich man.”
“Aren’t you?” asked Val hardily.
“I?” replied James, flustered. “I’ve got so many expenses. Your
father....” and he was silent.
“Cousin Jolyon’s got an awfully jolly place. I went down there
with Uncle Soames—ripping stables.”
“Ah!” murmured James profoundly. “That house—I knew how it would
be!” And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones.
His son’s tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the
Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a
whirlpool of doubts and misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of
Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and
said:
“Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?” And, receiving her
nod, went on: “I wish you’d tell me about him, Granny. What
became of Aunt Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully
worked-up about something to-night.”
Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught
James’ ear.
“What’s that?” he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his
lips. “Who’s been seeing her? I knew we hadn’t heard the last of
that.”
“Now, James,” said Emily, “eat your dinner. Nobody’s been seeing
anybody.”
James put down his fork.
“There you go,” he said. “I might die before you’d tell me of it.
Is Soames getting a divorce?”
“Nonsense,” said Emily with incomparable aplomb; “Soames is much
too sensible.”
James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white
whiskers together on the skin and bone of it.
“She—she was always....” he said, and with that enigmatic remark
the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later,
when the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury,
and dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and
his grandfather’s kiss—like no other kiss in the world, from lips
pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to
weakness—he returned to the charge in the hall.
“Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on
mother’s getting a divorce?”
“Your Uncle Soames,” said Emily, and her voice had in it an
exaggerated assurance, “is a lawyer, my dear boy. He’s sure to
know best.”
“Is he?” muttered Val. “But what did become of Aunt Irene? I
remember she was jolly good-looking.”
“She—er....” said Emily, “behaved very badly. We don’t talk about
it.”
“Well, I don’t want everybody at Oxford to know about our
affairs,” ejaculated Val; “it’s a brutal idea. Why couldn’t
father be prevented without its being made public?”
Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of
divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities—so many of those
whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain
notoriety. When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it
no better than other people. But she was eminently practical, and
a woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to
its substance.
“Your mother,” she said, “will be happier if she’s quite free,
Val. Good-night, my dear boy; and don’t wear loud waistcoats up
at Oxford, they’re not the thing just now. Here’s a little
present.”
With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his
heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park
Lane. A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were
rustling, and the stars were shining. With all that money in his
pocket an impulse to “see life” beset him; but he had not gone
forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly’s shy face,
and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before
him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure
of her warm gloved hand. “No, dash it!” he thought, “I’m going
home!”
CHAPTER X SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE
It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and
summer lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many
looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that
Sunday morning.
With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat,
and equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take
them on the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he
could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She
was so very pretty—could he trust himself not to say irrevocable
words, passing beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the
veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that
there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood;
yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers
to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to
produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions,
so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture
he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great care,
making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that
his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three
times he went up to his picture-gallery. If they had any
knowledge at all, they must see at once that his collection alone
was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected,
too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would
take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if—if the matter
went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the
dressing-table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured
pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of
pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little.
His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand,
and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone
through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked
out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame
Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette
would never resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to
the station to meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame
Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour, Annette in
greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and hat. Rather
pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure.
Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open
french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in
sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when
youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered
the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special
Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee
served on the veranda super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted
creme de menthe; Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with
just a suspicion of “the conscious beauty” creeping into them.
“Yes,” thought Soames, “another year of London and that sort of
life, and she’ll be spoiled.”
Madame was in sedate French raptures. “_Adorable! Le soleil est
si bon!_ How everything is _chic_, is it not, Annette? Monsieur
is a real Monte Cristo.” Annette murmured assent, with a look up
at Soames which he could not read. He proposed a turn on the
river. But to punt two persons when one of them looked so
ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a
sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way towards
Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an
autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother’s black
amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought:
“How—when—where—can I say—what?” They did not yet even know that
he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his
every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand
that he wished for Annette’s hand, it would be dropping into some
other clutch before he was free to claim it.
At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the
Transvaal.
“There’ll be war,” he said.
Madame Lamotte lamented.
“_Ces pauvres gens bergers!_” Could they not be left to
themselves?
Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.
Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British
could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.
“Ah! that!” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a
little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the
Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had
spoken to her of that.
“The Boers are only half-civilised,” remarked Soames; “they stand
in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty
go.”
“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!”
“What a strange word!” Soames became eloquent, roused by these
threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by
Annette’s eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she
said:
“I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson.” She
was sensible!
“Of course,” he said, “we must act with moderation. I’m no jingo.
We must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my
pictures?” Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon
perceived that they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve,
that remarkable study of a “Hay-cart going Home,” as if it were a
lithograph. He waited almost with awe to see how they would view
the jewel of his collection—an Israels whose price he had watched
ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top
value, and would be better on the market again. They did not view
it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin
taste to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked
predilections of the English middle-class to deal with. At the
end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather
ashamed—Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte
stopped before it.
“Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!” Soames took advantage of that
moment. Very gently touching Annette’s arm, he said:
“How do you like my place, Annette?”
She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full,
looked down, and murmured:
“Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!”
“Perhaps some day—” Soames said, and stopped.
So pretty she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those
cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate
curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One
must be sure of one’s ground—much surer! “If I hold off,” he
thought, “it will tantalise her.” And he crossed over to Madame
Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.
“Yes, that’s quite a good example of his later work. You must
come again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come
and spend a night.”
Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By
moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!
Annette murmured:
“Thou art sentimental, _Maman!_”
Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of
the world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there
was no sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use
sentiment? And yet...!
He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train.
To the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette’s
fingers responded just a little; her face smiled at him through
the dark.
He went back to the carriage, brooding. “Go on home, Jordan,” he
said to the coachman; “I’ll walk.” And he strode out into the
darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing
see-saw within him. “_Bon soir, monsieur!_” How softly she had
said it. To know what was in her mind! The French—they were like
cats—one could tell nothing! But—how pretty! What a perfect young
thing to hold in one’s arms! What a mother for his heir! And he
thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a
French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play
with it and buffet it confound them!
The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows
deepened in the water. “I will and must be free,” he thought. “I
won’t hang about any longer. I’ll go and see Irene. If you want
things done, do them yourself. I must live again—live and move
and have my being.” And in echo to that queer biblicality
church-bells chimed the call to evening prayer.
CHAPTER XI AND VISITS THE PAST
On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to
do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than
anything he had yet undertaken in his life—save perhaps his
birth, and one other action. He chose the evening, indeed, partly
because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had
failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine
to give him extra daring.
He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old
Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived.
He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read
the name, “Mrs. Irene Heron”—Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so
she used that again, did she?—he stepped back into the road to
look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming
through in the corner flat, and he could hear a piano being
played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a
grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano,
making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not
enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret,
at last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she
playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more
undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his
tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. “_I_ have no cause to be
afraid,” he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was
he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not to have arranged a formal
meeting in the presence of her trustee? No! Not before that
fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He crossed back
into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his
heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell.
When the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by
the scent which came—that perfume—from away back in the past,
bringing muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used
to enter, of a house he used to own—perfume of dried rose-leaves
and honey!
“Say, Mr. Forsyte,” he said, “your mistress will see me, I know.”
He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!
When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where
the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls,
carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all
ghostly, he could only think ridiculously: “Shall I go in with my
overcoat on, or take it off?” The music ceased; the maid said
from the doorway:
“Will you walk in, sir?”
Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still
silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had
risen and stood recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys
as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, held for
a moment, and released. The light from the shaded piano-candle
fell on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow. She was in a
black evening dress, with a sort of mantilla over her
shoulders—he did not remember ever having seen her in black, and
the thought passed through him: “She dresses even when she’s
alone.”
“You!” he heard her whisper.
Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal
served him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never
thought that the sight of this woman whom he had once so
passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not
seen for twelve years, could affect him in this way. He had
imagined himself speaking and acting, half as man of business,
half as judge. And now it was as if he were in the presence not
of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle and
elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind of
defensive irony welled up in him.
“Yes, it’s a queer visit! I hope you’re well.”
“Thank you. Will you sit down?”
She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a
window-seat, sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap.
Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes,
hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.
He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with
silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.
“You have not changed,” he said.
“No? What have you come for?”
“To discuss things.”
“I have heard what you want from your cousin.”
“Well?”
“I am willing. I have always been.”
The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her
figure watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A
thousand memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred,
and....
“Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on
which I can act. The law must be complied with.”
“I have none to give you that you don’t know of.”
“Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that?”
“I don’t suppose you will believe anything I say; but it’s the
truth.”
Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed;
now he perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was
more beautiful; not in form, except that it was a little
fuller—no! She had changed spiritually. There was more of her, as
it were, something of activity and daring, where there had been
sheer passive resistance. “Ah!” he thought, “that’s her
independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon!”
“I suppose you’re comfortably off now?” he said.
“Thank you, yes.”
“Why didn’t you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of
everything.”
A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.
“You are still my wife,” said Soames. Why he said that, what he
meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a
truism almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She
rose from the window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly
still, looking at him. He could see her bosom heaving. Then she
turned to the window and threw it open.
“Why do that?” he said sharply. “You’ll catch cold in that dress.
I’m not dangerous.” And he uttered a little sad laugh.
She echoed it—faintly, bitterly.
“It was—habit.”
“Rather odd habit,” said Soames as bitterly. “Shut the window!”
She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this
woman—this—wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat
there, in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and
moved nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her
eyes met his unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what
a dark brown against that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair!
And how white her shoulders.
Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.
“You had better tell me,” he said; “it’s to your advantage to be
free as well as to mine. That old matter is too old.”
“I _have_ told you.”
“Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing—nobody?”
“Nobody. You must go to your own life.”
Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to
the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in
their drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.
“That won’t do,” he said. “You deserted me. In common justice
it’s for you....”
He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:
“Yes. Why didn’t you divorce me then? Should I have cared?”
He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity.
What on earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite
alone? And why had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she
had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while
he stared at her.
“Why couldn’t you have made me a good wife?” he said.
“Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will
find some way perhaps. You needn’t mind my name, I have none to
lose. Now I think you had better go.”
A sense of defeat—of being defrauded of his self-justification,
and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself,
beset Soames like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he
reached up, took from the mantel-shelf a little china bowl,
reversed it, and said:
“Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at
Jobson’s.” And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many
years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained
staring at the little bowl, as if it contained all the past. Her
voice roused him.
“Take it. I don’t want it.”
Soames put it back on the shelf.
“Will you shake hands?” he said.
A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold
to his rather feverish touch. “She’s made of ice,” he
thought—“she was always made of ice!” But even as that thought
darted through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of
her dress and body, as though the warmth within her, which had
never been for him, were struggling to show its presence. And he
turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if someone with a
whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the
empty Embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows
of the plane-tree leaves—confused, flurried, sore at heart, and
vaguely disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose
consequences he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought
suddenly assailed him if instead of, “I think you had better go,”
she had said, “I think you had better stay!” What should he have
felt, what would he have done? That cursed attraction of her was
there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and
bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount to his head at a
sign, a touch. “I was a fool to go!” he muttered. “I’ve advanced
nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought!” Memory, flown back
to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks.
She had not deserved to keep her beauty—the beauty he had owned
and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of
his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated
the sight of her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life,
wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the
mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to
upset him utterly! It was some damned magnetism she had! And no
wonder if, as she asserted; she had lived untouched these last
twelve years. So Bosinney—cursed be his memory!—had lived on all
this time with her! Soames could not tell whether he was glad of
that knowledge or no.
Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline
ran: “Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!” Suzerainty! “Just
like her!” he thought: “she always did. Suzerainty! I still have
it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little
flat!”
CHAPTER XII ON FORSYTE ’CHANGE
Soames belonged to two clubs, “The Connoisseurs,” which he put on
his cards and seldom visited, and “The Remove,” which he did not
put on his cards and frequented. He had joined this Liberal
institution five years ago, having made sure that its members
were now nearly all sound Conservatives in heart and pocket, if
not in principle. Uncle Nicholas had put him up. The fine
reading-room was decorated in the Adam style.
On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news
about the Transvaal, and noted that Consols were down
seven-sixteenths since the morning. He was turning away to seek
the reading-room when a voice behind him said:
“Well, Soames, that went off all right.”
It was Uncle Nicholas, in a frock-coat and his special cut-away
collar, with a black tie passed through a ring. Heavens! How
young and dapper he looked at eighty-two!
“I think Roger’d have been pleased,” his uncle went on. “The
thing was very well done. Blackley’s? I’ll make a note of them.
Buxton’s done me no good. These Boers are upsetting me—that
fellow Chamberlain’s driving the country into war. What do you
think?”
“Bound to come,” murmured Soames.
Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, clean-shaven cheeks, very
rosy after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his
lips. This business had revived all his Liberal principles.
“I mistrust that chap; he’s a stormy petrel. House-property will
go down if there’s war. You’ll have trouble with Roger’s estate.
I often told him he ought to get out of some of his houses. He
was an opinionated beggar.”
“There was a pair of you!” thought Soames. But he never argued
with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as “a
long-headed chap,” and the legal care of their property.
“They tell me at Timothy’s,” said Nicholas, lowering his voice,
“that Dartie has gone off at last. That’ll be a relief to your
father. He was a rotten egg.”
Again Soames nodded. If there was a subject on which the Forsytes
really agreed, it was the character of Montague Dartie.
“You take care,” said Nicholas, “or he’ll turn up again. Winifred
had better have the tooth out, I should say. No use preserving
what’s gone bad.”
Soames looked at him sideways. His nerves, exacerbated by the
interview he had just come through, disposed him to see a
personal allusion in those words.
“I’m advising her,” he said shortly.
“Well,” said Nicholas, “the brougham’s waiting; I must get home.
I’m very poorly. Remember me to your father.”
And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down
the steps at his youthful gait and was wrapped into his fur coat
by the junior porter.
“I’ve never known Uncle Nicholas other than ‘very poorly,’” mused
Soames, “or seen him look other than everlasting. What a family!
Judging by him, I’ve got thirty-eight years of health before me.
Well, I’m not going to waste them.” And going over to a mirror he
stood looking at his face. Except for a line or two, and three or
four grey hairs in his little dark moustache, had he aged any
more than Irene? The prime of life—he and she in the very prime
of life! And a fantastic thought shot into his mind. Absurd!
Idiotic! But again it came. And genuinely alarmed by the
recurrence, as one is by the second fit of shivering which
presages a feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine.
Eleven stone! He had not varied two pounds in twenty years. What
age was she? Nearly thirty-seven—not too old to have a child—not
at all! Thirty-seven on the ninth of next month. He remembered
her birthday well—he had always observed it religiously, even
that last birthday so soon before she left him, when he was
almost certain she was faithless. Four birthdays in his house. He
had looked forward to them, because his gifts had meant a
semblance of gratitude, a certain attempt at warmth. Except,
indeed, that last birthday—which had tempted him to be too
religious! And he shied away in thought. Memory heaps dead leaves
on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend
the sense. And then he thought suddenly: “I could send her a
present for her birthday. After all, we’re Christians!
Couldn’t!—couldn’t we join up again!” And he uttered a deep sigh
sitting there. Annette! Ah! but between him and Annette was the
need for that wretched divorce suit! And how?
“A man can always work these things, if he’ll take it on
himself,” Jolyon had said.
But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole
career as a pillar of the law at stake? It was not fair! It was
quixotic! Twelve years’ separation in which he had taken no steps
to free himself put out of court the possibility of using her
conduct with Bosinney as a ground for divorcing her. By doing
nothing to secure relief he had acquiesced, even if the evidence
could now be gathered, which was more than doubtful. Besides, his
own pride would never let him use that old incident, he had
suffered from it too much. No! Nothing but fresh misconduct on
her part—but she had denied it; and—almost—he had believed her.
Hung up! Utterly hung up!
He rose from the scooped-out red velvet seat with a feeling of
constriction about his vitals. He would never sleep with this
going on in him! And, taking coat and hat again, he went out,
moving eastward. In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some
special commotion travelling towards him out of the mouth of the
Strand. It materialised in newspaper men calling out so loudly
that no words whatever could be heard. He stopped to listen, and
one came by.
“Payper! Special! Ultimatium by Krooger! Declaration of war!”
Soames bought the paper. There it was in the stop press...! His
first thought was: “The Boers are committing suicide.” His
second: “Is there anything still I ought to sell?” If so he had
missed the chance—there would certainly be a slump in the city
to-morrow. He swallowed this thought with a nod of defiance. That
ultimatum was insolent—sooner than let it pass he was prepared to
lose money. They wanted a lesson, and they would get it; but it
would take three months at least to bring them to heel. There
weren’t the troops out there; always behind time, the Government!
Confound those newspaper rats! What was the use of waking
everybody up? Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough. And he
thought with alarm of his father. They would cry it down Park
Lane. Hailing a hansom, he got in and told the man to drive
there.
James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating
the news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow. He paused by
after-thought to say:
“What do you think of it, Warmson?”
The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames
had taken off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in
a low voice: “Well, sir, they ’aven’t a chance, of course; but
I’m told they’re very good shots. I’ve got a son in the
Inniskillings.”
“You, Warmson? Why, I didn’t know you were married.”
“No, sir. I don’t talk of it. I expect he’ll be going out.”
The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so
little of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the
slight shock of discovering that the war might touch one
personally. Born in the year of the Crimean War, he had only come
to consciousness by the time the Indian Mutiny was over; since
then the many little wars of the British Empire had been entirely
professional, quite unconnected with the Forsytes and all they
stood for in the body politic. This war would surely be no
exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of the
Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other—it had
always been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction
about the Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform
with silver about it, and rode horses. And Archibald, he
remembered, had once on a time joined the Militia, but had given
it up because his father, Nicholas, had made such a fuss about
his “wasting his time peacocking about in a uniform.” Recently he
had heard somewhere that young Nicholas’ eldest, very young
Nicholas, had become a Volunteer. “No,” thought Soames, mounting
the stairs slowly, “there’s nothing in that!”
He stood on the landing outside his parents’ bed and dressing
rooms, debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a
reassuring word. Opening the landing window, he listened. The
rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the
thought, “If these motor-cars increase, it’ll affect house
property,” he was about to pass on up to the room always kept
ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the hoarse rushing
call of a newsvendor. There it was, and coming past the house! He
knocked on his mother’s door and went in.
His father was sitting up in bed, with his ears pricked under the
white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut. He looked pink,
and extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and
pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned
shoulders emerged in small peaks. His eyes alone, grey and
distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the
window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down,
squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The room
reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.
“All right!” said Soames, “it’s not a fire. The Boers have
declared war—that’s all.”
Emily stopped her spraying.
“Oh!” was all she said, and looked at James.
Soames, too, looked at his father. He was taking it differently
from their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were
working in him.
“H’m!” he muttered suddenly, “I shan’t live to see the end of
this.”
“Nonsense, James! It’ll be over by Christmas.”
“What do you know about it?” James answered her with asperity.
“It’s a pretty mess at this time of night, too!” He lapsed into
silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him
to say: “I can’t tell—I don’t know; I knew how it would be!” But
he did not. The grey eyes shifted, evidently seeing nothing in
the room; then movement occurred under the bedclothes, and the
knees were drawn up suddenly to a great height.
“They ought to send out Roberts. It all comes from that fellow
Gladstone and his Majuba.”
The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice,
something of real anxiety. It was as if he had said: “I shall
never see the old country peaceful and safe again. I shall have
to die before I know she’s won.” And in spite of the feeling that
James must not be encouraged to be fussy, they were touched.
Soames went up to the bedside and stroked his father’s hand which
had emerged from under the bedclothes, long and wrinkled with
veins.
“Mark my words!” said James, “consols will go to par. For all I
know, Val may go and enlist.”
“Oh, come, James!” cried Emily, “you talk as if there were
danger.”
Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once.
“Well,” he muttered, “I told you how it would be. I don’t know,
I’m sure—nobody tells me anything. Are you sleeping here, my
boy?”
The crisis was past, he would now compose himself to his normal
degree of anxiety; and, assuring his father that he was sleeping
in the house, Soames pressed his hand, and went up to his room.
The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy’s
had known for many a year. On national occasions, such as this,
it was, indeed, almost impossible to avoid going there. Not that
there was any danger or rather only just enough to make it
necessary to assure each other that there was none.
Nicholas was there early. He had seen Soames the night
before—Soames had said it was bound to come. This old Kruger was
in his dotage—why, he must be seventy-five if he was a day!
(Nicholas was eighty-two.) What had Timothy said? He had had a
fit after Majuba. These Boers were a grasping lot! The
dark-haired Francie, who had arrived on his heels, with the
contradictious touch which became the free spirit of a daughter
of Roger, chimed in:
“Kettle and pot, Uncle Nicholas. What price the Uitlanders?” What
price, indeed! A new expression, and believed to be due to her
brother George.
Aunt Juley thought Francie ought not to say such a thing. Dear
Mrs. MacAnder’s boy, Charlie MacAnder, was one, and no one could
call him grasping. At this Francie uttered one of her _mots_,
scandalising, and so frequently repeated:
“Well, his father’s a Scotchman, and his mother’s a cat.”
Aunt Juley covered her ears, too late, but Aunt Hester smiled; as
for Nicholas, he pouted—witticism of which he was not the author
was hardly to his taste. Just then Marian Tweetyman arrived,
followed almost immediately by young Nicholas. On seeing his son,
Nicholas rose.
“Well, I must be going,” he said, “Nick here will tell you
what’ll win the race.” And with this hit at his eldest, who, as a
pillar of accountancy, and director of an insurance company, was
no more addicted to sport than his father had ever been, he
departed. Dear Nicholas! What race was that? Or was it only one
of his jokes? He was a wonderful man for his age! How many lumps
would dear Marian take? And how were Giles and Jesse? Aunt Juley
supposed their Yeomanry would be very busy now, guarding the
coast, though of course the Boers had no ships. But one never
knew what the French might do if they had the chance, especially
since that dreadful Fashoda scare, which had upset Timothy so
terribly that he had made no investments for months afterwards.
It was the ingratitude of the Boers that was so dreadful, after
everything had been done for them—Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he
was so nice, Mrs. MacAnder had always said. And Sir Alfred Milner
sent out to talk to them—such a clever man! She didn’t know what
they wanted.
But at this moment occurred one of those sensations—so precious
at Timothy’s—which great occasions sometimes bring forth:
“Miss June Forsyte.”
Aunts Juley and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from
smothered resentment, and old affection bubbling up, and pride at
the return of a prodigal June! Well, this _was_ a surprise! Dear
June—after all these years! And how well she was looking! Not
changed at all! It was almost on their lips to add, “And how is
your dear grandfather?” forgetting in that giddy moment that poor
dear Jolyon had been in his grave for seven years now.
Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June,
with her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like
flame, sat down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a
bead-worked seat, for all the world as if ten years had not
elapsed since she had been to see them—ten years of travel and
independence and devotion to lame ducks. Those ducks of late had
been all definitely painters, etchers, or sculptors, so that her
impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly inartistic
outlook had become intense. Indeed, she had almost ceased to
believe that her family existed, and looked round her now with a
sort of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort
to the roomful. She had not expected to meet any of them but “the
poor old things”; and why she had come to see _them_ she hardly
knew, except that, while on her way from Oxford Street to a
studio in Latimer Road, she had suddenly remembered them with
compunction as two long-neglected old lame ducks.
Aunt Juley broke the hush again. “We’ve just been saying, dear,
how dreadful it is about these Boers! And what an impudent thing
of that old Kruger!”
“Impudent!” said June. “I think he’s quite right. What business
have we to meddle with them? If he turned out all those wretched
Uitlanders it would serve them right. They’re only after money.”
The silence of sensation was broken by Francie saying:
“What? Are you a pro-Boer?” (undoubtedly the first use of that
expression).
“Well! Why can’t we leave them alone?” said June, just as, in the
open doorway, the maid said “Mr. Soames Forsyte.” Sensation on
sensation! Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how
June and he would take this encounter, for it was shrewdly
suspected, if not quite known, that they had not met since that
old and lamentable affair of her fiance Bosinney with Soames’
wife. They were seen to just touch each other’s hands, and look
each at the other’s left eye only. Aunt Juley came at once to the
rescue:
“Dear June is so original. Fancy, Soames, she thinks the Boers
are not to blame.”
“They only want their independence,” said June; “and why
shouldn’t they have it?”
“Because,” answered Soames, with his smile a little on one side,
“they happen to have agreed to our suzerainty.”
“Suzerainty!” repeated June scornfully; “we shouldn’t like
anyone’s suzerainty over us.”
“They got advantages in payment,” replied Soames; “a contract is
a contract.”
“Contracts are not always just,” fumed out June, “and when
they’re not, they ought to be broken. The Boers are much the
weaker. We could afford to be generous.”
Soames sniffed. “That’s mere sentiment,” he said.
Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of
disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively:
“What lovely weather it has been for the time of year?”
But June was not to be diverted.
“I don’t know why sentiment should be sneered at. It’s the best
thing in the world.” She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Juley
had to intervene again:
“Have you bought any pictures lately, Soames?”
Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed
her. Soames flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases
would be like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they
all knew of June’s predilection for “genius” not yet on its legs,
and her contempt for “success” unless she had had a finger in
securing it.
“One or two,” he muttered.
But June’s face had changed; the Forsyte within her was seeing
its chance. Why should not Soames buy some of the pictures of
Eric Cobbley—her last lame duck? And she promptly opened her
attack: Did Soames know his work? It was so wonderful. He was the
coming man.
Oh, yes, Soames knew his work. It was in his view “splashy,” and
would never get hold of the public.
June blazed up.
“Of course it won’t; that’s the last thing one would wish for. I
thought you were a connoisseur, not a picture-dealer.”
“Of course Soames is a connoisseur,” Aunt Juley said hastily; “he
has wonderful taste—he can always tell beforehand what’s going to
be successful.”
“Oh!” gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair, “I
hate that standard of success. Why can’t people buy things
because they like them?”
“You mean,” said Francie, “because _you_ like them.”
And in the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently
that Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn’t
know if they were any use.
“Well, good-bye, Auntie,” said June; “I must get on,” and kissing
her aunts, she looked defiantly round the room, said “Good-bye”
again, and went. A breeze seemed to pass out with her, as if
everyone had sighed.
The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak:
“Mr. James Forsyte.”
James came in using a stick slightly and wrapped in a fur coat
which gave him a fictitious bulk.
Everyone stood up. James was so old; and he had not been at
Timothy’s for nearly two years.
“It’s hot in here,” he said.
Soames divested him of his coat, and as he did so could not help
admiring the glossy way his father was turned out. James sat
down, all knees, elbows, frock-coat, and long white whiskers.
“What’s the meaning of that?” he said.
Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew
that he was referring to June. His eyes searched his son’s face.
“I thought I’d come and see for myself. What have they answered
Kruger?”
Soames took out an evening paper, and read the headline.
“‘Instant action by our Government—state of war existing!’”
“Ah!” said James, and sighed. “I was afraid they’d cut and run
like old Gladstone. We shall finish with them this time.”
All stared at him. James! Always fussy, nervous, anxious! James
with his continual, “I told you how it would be!” and his
pessimism, and his cautious investments. There was something
uncanny about such resolution in this the oldest living Forsyte.
“Where’s Timothy?” said James. “He ought to pay attention to
this.”
Aunt Juley said she didn’t know; Timothy had not said much at
lunch to-day. Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the
room, and Francie said rather maliciously:
“The Boers are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James.”
“H’m!” muttered James. “Where do you get your information? Nobody
tells me.”
Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick (his eldest)
was now going to drill regularly.
“Ah!” muttered James, and stared before him—his thoughts were on
Val. “He’s got to look after his mother,” he said, “he’s got no
time for drilling and that, with that father of his.” This
cryptic saying produced silence, until he spoke again.
“What did June want here?” And his eyes rested with suspicion on
all of them in turn. “Her father’s a rich man now.” The
conversation turned on Jolyon, and when he had been seen last. It
was supposed that he went abroad and saw all sorts of people now
that his wife was dead; his water-colours were on the line, and
he was a successful man. Francie went so far as to say:
“I should like to see him again; he was rather a dear.”
Aunt Juley recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day,
where James was sitting. He had always been very amiable; what
did Soames think?
Knowing that Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, all felt the delicacy of
this question, and looked at Soames with interest. A faint pink
had come up in his cheeks.
“He’s going grey,” he said.
Indeed! Had Soames seen him? Soames nodded, and the pink
vanished.
James said suddenly: “Well—I don’t know, I can’t tell.”
It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that
there was something behind everything, that nobody responded. But
at this moment Aunt Hester returned.
“Timothy,” she said in a low voice, “Timothy has bought a map,
and he’s put in—he’s put in three flags.”
Timothy had...! A sigh went round the company.
If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well!—it showed
what the nation could do when it was roused. The war was as good
as over.
CHAPTER XIII JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS
Jolyon stood at the window in Holly’s old night nursery,
converted into a studio, not because it had a north light, but
for its view over the prospect away to the Grand Stand at Epsom.
He shifted to the side window which overlooked the stableyard,
and whistled down to the dog Balthasar who lay for ever under the
clock tower. The old dog looked up and wagged his tail. “Poor old
boy!” thought Jolyon, shifting back to the other window.
He had been restless all this week, since his attempt to
prosecute trusteeship, uneasy in his conscience which was ever
acute, disturbed in his sense of compassion which was easily
excited, and with a queer sensation as if his feeling for beauty
had received some definite embodiment. Autumn was getting hold of
the old oak-tree, its leaves were browning. Sunshine had been
plentiful and hot this summer. As with trees, so with men’s
lives! “_I_ ought to live long,” thought Jolyon; “I’m getting
mildewed for want of heat. If I can’t work, I shall be off to
Paris.” But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how
could he go? He must stay and see what Soames was going to do.
“I’m her trustee. I can’t leave her unprotected,” he thought. It
had been striking him as curious how very clearly he could still
see Irene in her little drawing-room which he had only twice
entered. Her beauty must have a sort of poignant harmony! No
literal portrait would ever do her justice; the essence of her
was—ah I what?... The noise of hoofs called him back to the other
window. Holly was riding into the yard on her long-tailed
“palfrey.” She looked up and he waved to her. She had been rather
silent lately; getting old, he supposed, beginning to want her
future, as they all did—youngsters!
Time was certainly the devil! And with the feeling that to waste
this swift-travelling commodity was unforgivable folly, he took
up his brush. But it was no use; he could not concentrate his
eye—besides, the light was going. “I’ll go up to town,” he
thought. In the hall a servant met him.
“A lady to see you, sir; Mrs. Heron.”
Extraordinary coincidence! Passing into the picture-gallery, as
it was still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window.
She came towards him saying:
“I’ve been trespassing; I came up through the coppice and garden.
I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon.”
“You couldn’t trespass here,” replied Jolyon; “history makes that
impossible. I was just thinking of you.”
Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere
spirituality—serener, completer, more alluring.
“History!” she answered; “I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was
for ever. Well, it isn’t. Only aversion lasts.”
Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last?
“Yes!” he said, “aversion’s deeper than love or hate because it’s
a natural product of the nerves, and we don’t change them.”
“I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a
thing that frightened me. He said: ‘You are still my wife!’”
“What!” ejaculated Jolyon. “You ought not to live alone.” And he
continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where
Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was
why so many people looked on it as immoral.
“What more?”
“He asked me to shake hands.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. When he came in I’m sure he didn’t want to; he changed
while he was there.”
“Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone.”
“I know no woman I could ask; and I can’t take a lover to order,
Cousin Jolyon.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Jolyon. “What a damnable position! Will you
stay to dinner? No? Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted
to go up this evening.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music,
contrasting the English and French characters and the difference
in their attitude to Art. But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges
of the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept
pace with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the
turn of her neck, the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him
now and then, the lure of her whole figure, made a deeper
impression than the remarks they exchanged. Unconsciously he held
himself straighter, walked with a more elastic step.
In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what
she did with her days.
Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano,
translated from the French.
She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which
supplemented her income a little. She seldom went out in the
evening. “I’ve been living alone so long, you see, that I don’t
mind it a bit. I believe I’m naturally solitary.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Jolyon. “Do you know many people?”
“Very few.”
At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door
of her mansions. Squeezing her hand at parting, he said:
“You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill; you must
let me know everything that happens. Good-bye, Irene.”
“Good-bye,” she answered softly.
Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked
her to dine and go to the theatre with him. Solitary, starved,
hung-up life that she had! “Hotch Potch Club,” he said through
the trap-door. As his hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a
man in top-hat and overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to
the wall that he seemed to be scraping it.
“By Jove!” thought Jolyon; “Soames himself! What’s _he_ up to
now?” And, stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and
retraced his steps to where he could see the entrance to the
mansions. Soames had halted in front of them, and was looking up
at the light in her windows. “If he goes in,” thought Jolyon,
“what shall I do? What have I the right to do?” What the fellow
had said was true. She was still his wife, absolutely without
protection from annoyance! “Well, if he goes in,” he thought, “I
follow.” And he began moving towards the mansions. Again Soames
advanced; he was in the very entrance now. But suddenly he
stopped, spun round on his heel, and came back towards the river.
“What now?” thought Jolyon. “In a dozen steps he’ll recognise
me.” And he turned tail. His cousin’s footsteps kept pace with
his own. But he reached his cab, and got in before Soames had
turned the corner. “Go on!” he said through the trap. Soames’
figure ranged up alongside.
“Hansom!” he said. “Engaged? Hallo!”
“Hallo!” answered Jolyon. “You?”
The quick suspicion on his cousin’s face, white in the lamplight,
decided him.
“I can give you a lift,” he said, “if you’re going West.”
“Thanks,” answered Soames, and got in.
“I’ve been seeing Irene,” said Jolyon when the cab had started.
“Indeed!”
“You went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand.”
“I did,” said Soames; “she’s my wife, you know.”
The tone, the half-lifted sneering lip, roused sudden anger in
Jolyon; but he subdued it.
“You ought to know best,” he said, “but if you want a divorce
it’s not very wise to go seeing her, is it? One can’t run with
the hare and hunt with the hounds?”
“You’re very good to warn me,” said Soames, “but I have not made
up my mind.”
“_She_ has,” said Jolyon, looking straight before him; “you can’t
take things up, you know, as they were twelve years ago.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Look here!” said Jolyon, “she’s in a damnable position, and I am
the only person with any legal say in her affairs.”
“Except myself,” retorted Soames, “who am also in a damnable
position. Hers is what she made for herself; mine what she made
for me. I am not at all sure that in her own interests I shan’t
require her to return to me.”
“What!” exclaimed Jolyon; and a shiver went through his whole
body.
“I don’t know what you may mean by ‘what,’” answered Soames
coldly; “your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her
income; please bear that in mind. In choosing not to disgrace her
by a divorce, I retained my rights, and, as I say, I am not at
all sure that I shan’t require to exercise them.”
“My God!” ejaculated Jolyon, and he uttered a short laugh.
“Yes,” said Soames, and there was a deadly quality in his voice.
“I’ve not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, ‘The man of
property’. I’m not called names for nothing.”
“This is fantastic,” murmured Jolyon. Well, the fellow couldn’t
force his wife to live with him. Those days were past, anyway!
And he looked around at Soames with the thought: “Is he real,
this man?” But Soames looked very real, sitting square yet almost
elegant with the clipped moustache on his pale face, and a tooth
showing where a lip was lifted in a fixed smile. There was a long
silence, while Jolyon thought: “Instead of helping her, I’ve made
things worse.” Suddenly Soames said:
“It would be the best thing that could happen to her in many
ways.”
At those words such a turmoil began taking place in Jolyon that
he could barely sit still in the cab. It was as if he were boxed
up with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with
that something in the national character which had always been to
him revolting, something which he knew to be extremely natural
and yet which seemed to him inexplicable—their intense belief in
contracts and vested rights, their complacent sense of virtue in
the exaction of those rights. Here beside him in the cab was the
very embodiment, the corporeal sum as it were, of the possessive
instinct—his own kinsman, too! It was uncanny and intolerable!
“But there’s something more in it than that!” he thought with a
sick feeling. “The dog, they say, returns to his vomit! The sight
of her has reawakened something. Beauty! The devil’s in it!”
“As I say,” said Soames, “I have not made up my mind. I shall be
obliged if you will kindly leave her quite alone.”
Jolyon bit his lips; he who had always hated rows almost welcomed
the thought of one now.
“I can give you no such promise,” he said shortly.
“Very well,” said Soames, “then we know where we are. I’ll get
down here.” And stopping the cab he got out without word or sign
of farewell. Jolyon travelled on to his Club.
The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he
paid no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his
father were alive! _He_ could have done so much! But why could he
not do all that his father could have done? Was he not old
enough?—turned fifty and twice married, with grown-up daughters
and a son. “Queer,” he thought. “If she were plain I shouldn’t be
thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil, when you’re
sensitive to it!” And into the Club reading-room he went with a
disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one
summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and
secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of
June, the diagnosis of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he
had wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him
against. And now! He was almost in want of a warning himself.
“It’s deuced funny!” he thought, “really deuced funny!”
CHAPTER XIV SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS
It is so much easier to say, “Then we know where we are,” than to
mean anything particular by the words. And in saying them Soames
did but vent the jealous rankling of his instincts. He got out of
the cab in a state of wary anger—with himself for not having seen
Irene, with Jolyon for having seen her; and now with his
inability to tell exactly what he wanted.
He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain
seated beside his cousin, and walking briskly eastwards he
thought: “I wouldn’t trust that fellow Jolyon a yard. Once
outcast, always outcast!” The chap had a natural sympathy
with—with—laxity (he had shied at the word sin, because it was
too melodramatic for use by a Forsyte).
Indecision in desire was to him a new feeling. He was like a
child between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken
away from him; and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday
desire had seemed simple—just his freedom and Annette. “I’ll go
and dine there,” he thought. To see her might bring back his
singleness of intention, calm his exasperation, clear his mind.
The restaurant was fairly full—a good many foreigners and folk
whom, from their appearance, he took to be literary or artistic.
Scraps of conversation came his way through the clatter of plates
and glasses. He distinctly heard the Boers sympathised with, the
British Government blamed. “Don’t think much of their clientèle,”
he thought. He went stolidly through his dinner and special
coffee without making his presence known, and when at last he had
finished, was careful not to be seen going towards the sanctum of
Madame Lamotte. They were, as he entered, having supper—such a
much nicer-looking supper than the dinner he had eaten that he
felt a kind of grief—and they greeted him with a surprise so
seemingly genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion: “I
believe they knew I was here all the time.” He gave Annette a
look furtive and searching. So pretty, seemingly so candid; could
she be angling for him? He turned to Madame Lamotte and said:
“I’ve been dining here.”
Really! If she had only known! There were dishes she could have
recommended; what a pity! Soames was confirmed in his suspicion.
“I must look out what I’m doing!” he thought sharply.
“Another little cup of very special coffee, _monsieur;_ a
liqueur, Grand Marnier?” and Madame Lamotte rose to order these
delicacies.
Alone with Annette Soames said, “Well, Annette?” with a defensive
little smile about his lips.
The girl blushed. This, which last Sunday would have set his
nerves tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has
when a dog that he owns wriggles and looks at him. He had a
curious sense of power, as if he could have said to her, “Come
and kiss me,” and she would have come. And yet—it was strange—but
there seemed another face and form in the room too; and the itch
in his nerves, was it for that—or for this? He jerked his head
towards the restaurant and said: “You have some queer customers.
Do you like this life?”
Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down, and played
with her fork.
“No,” she said, “I do not like it.”
“I’ve got her,” thought Soames, “if I want her. But do I want
her?” She was graceful, she was pretty—very pretty; she was
fresh, she had taste of a kind. His eyes travelled round the
little room; but the eyes of his mind went another journey—a
half-light, and silvery walls, a satinwood piano, a woman
standing against it, reined back as it were from him—a woman with
white shoulders that he knew, and dark eyes that he had sought to
know, and hair like dull dark amber. And as in an artist who
strives for the unrealisable and is ever thirsty, so there rose
in him at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never
satisfied.
“Well,” he said calmly, “you’re young. There’s everything before
_you_.”
Annette shook her head.
“I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work. I am
not so in love with work as mother.”
“Your mother is a wonder,” said Soames, faintly mocking; “she
will never let failure lodge in her house.”
Annette sighed. “It must be wonderful to be rich.”
“Oh! You’ll be rich some day,” answered Soames, still with that
faint mockery; “don’t be afraid.”
Annette shrugged her shoulders. “_Monsieur_ is very kind.” And
between her pouting lips she put a chocolate.
“Yes, my dear,” thought Soames, “they’re very pretty.”
Madame Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that
colloquy. Soames did not stay long.
Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a
feeling of property improperly owned, he mused. If only Irene had
given him a son, he wouldn’t now be squirming after women! The
thought had jumped out of its little dark sentry-box in his inner
consciousness. A son—something to look forward to, something to
make the rest of life worth while, something to leave himself to,
some perpetuity of self. “If I had a son,” he thought bitterly,
“a proper legal son, I could make shift to go on as I used. One
woman’s much the same as another, after all.” But as he walked he
shook his head. No! One woman was not the same as another. Many a
time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted
married life; and he had always failed. He was failing now. He
was trying to think Annette the same as that other. But she was
not, she had not the lure of that old passion. “And Irene’s my
wife,” he thought, “my legal wife. I have done nothing to put her
away from me. Why shouldn’t she come back to me? It’s the right
thing, the lawful thing. It makes no scandal, no disturbance. If
it’s disagreeable to her—but why _should_ it be? I’m not a leper,
and she—she’s no longer in love!” Why should he be put to the
shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of the
Divorce Court, when there she was like an empty house only
waiting to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally
owned her? To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry
into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away
to the world was intensely alluring. “No,” he mused, “I’m glad I
went to see that girl. I know now what I want most. If only Irene
will come back I’ll be as considerate as she wishes; she could
live her own life; but perhaps—perhaps she would come round to
me.” There was a lump in his throat. And doggedly along by the
railings of the Green Park, towards his father’s house, he went,
trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant
moonlight.
PART II
CHAPTER I THE THIRD GENERATION
Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a
November afternoon; Val Dartie was strolling up. Jolly had just
changed out of boating flannels and was on his way to the
“Frying-pan,” to which he had recently been elected. Val had just
changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the fire—a
bookmaker’s in Cornmarket.
“Hallo!” said Jolly.
“Hallo!” replied Val.
The cousins had met but twice, Jolly, the second-year man, having
invited the freshman to breakfast; and last evening they had seen
each other again under somewhat exotic circumstances.
Over a tailor’s in the Cornmarket resided one of those privileged
young beings called minors, whose inheritances are large, whose
parents are dead, whose guardians are remote, and whose instincts
are vicious. At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers
attractive and inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single
bankruptcy is good as a feast. Already famous for having the only
roulette table then to be found in Oxford, he was anticipating
his expectations at a dazzling rate. He out-crummed Crum, though
of a sanguine and rather beefy type which lacked the latter’s
fascinating languor. For Val it had been in the nature of baptism
to be taken there to play roulette; in the nature of confirmation
to get back into college, after hours, through a window whose
bars were deceptive. Once, during that evening of delight,
glancing up from the seductive green before him, he had caught
sight, through a cloud of smoke, of his cousin standing opposite.
“_Rouge gagne, impair, et manque!_” He had not seen him again.
“Come in to the Frying-pan and have tea,” said Jolly, and they
went in.
A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an
unseizable resemblance between these second cousins of the third
generations of Forsytes; the same bone formation in face, though
Jolly’s eyes were darker grey, his hair lighter and more wavy.
“Tea and buttered buns, waiter, please,” said Jolly.
“Have one of my cigarettes?” said Val. “I saw you last night. How
did you do?”
“I didn’t play.”
“I won fifteen quid.”
Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling he
had once heard his father make—“When you’re fleeced you’re sick,
and when you fleece you’re sorry”—Jolly contented himself with:
“Rotten game, I think; I was at school with that chap. He’s an
awful fool.”
“Oh! I don’t know,” said Val, as one might speak in defence of a
disparaged god; “he’s a pretty good sport.”
They exchanged whiffs in silence.
“You met my people, didn’t you?” said Jolly. “They’re coming up
to-morrow.”
Val grew a little red.
“Really! I can give you a rare good tip for the Manchester
November handicap.”
“Thanks, I only take interest in the classic races.”
“You can’t make any money over them,” said Val.
“I hate the ring,” said Jolly; “there’s such a row and stink. I
like the paddock.”
“I like to back my judgment,” answered Val.
Jolly smiled; his smile was like his father’s.
“I haven’t got any. I always lose money if I bet.”
“You have to buy experience, of course.”
“Yes, but it’s all messed-up with doing people in the eye.”
“Of course, or they’ll do you—that’s the excitement.”
Jolly looked a little scornful.
“What do you do with yourself? Row?”
“No—ride, and drive about. I’m going to play polo next term, if I
can get my granddad to stump up.”
“That’s old Uncle James, isn’t it? What’s he like?”
“Older than forty hills,” said Val, “and always thinking he’s
going to be ruined.”
“I suppose my granddad and he were brothers.”
“I don’t believe any of that old lot were sportsmen,” said Val;
“they must have worshipped money.”
“Mine didn’t!” said Jolly warmly.
Val flipped the ash off his cigarette.
“Money’s only fit to spend,” he said; “I wish the deuce I had
more.”
Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgment which he had
inherited from old Jolyon: One didn’t talk about money! And again
there was silence, while they drank tea and ate the buttered
buns.
“Where are your people going to stay?” asked Val, elaborately
casual.
“‘Rainbow.’ What do you think of the war?”
“Rotten, so far. The Boers aren’t sports a bit. Why don’t they
come out into the open?”
“Why should they? They’ve got everything against them except
their way of fighting. I rather admire them.”
“They can ride and shoot,” admitted Val, “but they’re a lousy
lot. Do you know Crum?”
“Of Merton? Only by sight. He’s in that fast set too, isn’t he?
Rather La-di-da and Brummagem.”
Val said fixedly: “He’s a friend of mine.”
“Oh! Sorry!” And they sat awkwardly staring past each other,
having pitched on their pet points of snobbery. For Jolly was
forming himself unconsciously on a set whose motto was:
“We defy you to bore us. Life isn’t half long enough, and we’re
going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and
dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are
‘the best’—made of wire and whipcord.” And Val was unconsciously
forming himself on a set whose motto was: “We defy you to
interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we
haven’t, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that
no hours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with
equanimity. We have flown fast and are past everything. All is
cigarette smoke. Bismillah!” Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the
English, was obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals;
and at the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy
had already in the main adopted the “jumping-Jesus” principle;
though here and there one like Crum—who was an “honourable”—stood
starkly languid for that gambler’s Nirvana which had been the
_summum bonum_ of the old “dandies” and of “the mashers” in the
eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of
blue-bloods with a plutocratic following.
But there was between the cousins another far less obvious
antipathy—coming from the unseizable family resemblance, which
each perhaps resented; or from some half-consciousness of that
old feud persisting still between their branches of the clan,
formed within them by odd words or half-hints dropped by their
elders. And Jolly, tinkling his teaspoon, was musing: “His
tie-pin and his waistcoat and his drawl and his betting—good
Lord!”
And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: “He’s rather a young
beast!”
“I suppose you’ll be meeting your people?” he said, getting up.
“I wish you’d tell them I should like to show them over
B.N.C.—not that there’s anything much there—if they’d care to
come.”
“Thanks, I’ll ask them.”
“Would they lunch? I’ve got rather a decent scout.”
Jolly doubted if they would have time.
“You’ll ask them, though?”
“Very good of you,” said Jolly, fully meaning that they should
not go; but, instinctively polite, he added: “You’d better come
and have dinner with us to-morrow.”
“Rather. What time?”
“Seven-thirty.”
“Dress?”
“No.” And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them.
Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It was her first
visit to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent,
looking almost shyly at the brother who was part of this
wonderful place. After lunch she wandered, examining his
household gods with intense curiosity. Jolly’s sitting-room was
panelled, and Art represented by a set of Bartolozzi prints which
had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college photographs—of young
men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be compared with her
memories of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care that evidence
of his boy’s character and tastes.
Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set
forth to the river. Holly, between her brother and her father,
felt elated when heads were turned and eyes rested on her. That
they might see him to the best advantage they left him at the
Barge and crossed the river to the towing-path. Slight in
build—for of all the Forsytes only old Swithin and George were
beefy—Jolly was rowing “Two” in a trial eight. He looked very
earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought him the
best-looking boy of the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more
struck by one or two of the others, but would not have said so
for the world. The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows
lush, the trees still beautiful with colour. Distinguished peace
clung around the old city; Jolyon promised himself a day’s
sketching if the weather held. The Eight passed a second time,
spurting home along the Barges—Jolly’s face was very set, so as
not to show that he was blown. They returned across the river and
waited for him.
“Oh!” said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, “I had to ask that
chap Val Dartie to dine with us to-night. He wanted to give you
lunch and show you B.N.C., so I thought I’d better; then you
needn’t go. I don’t like him much.”
Holly’s rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.
“Why not?”
“Oh! I don’t know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What
are his people like, Dad? He’s only a second cousin, isn’t he?”
Jolyon took refuge in a smile.
“Ask Holly,” he said; “she saw his uncle.”
“I _liked_ Val,” Holly answered, staring at the ground before
her; “his uncle looked—awfully different.” She stole a glance at
Jolly from under her lashes.
“Did you ever,” said Jolyon with whimsical intention, “hear our
family history, my dears? It’s quite a fairy tale. The first
Jolyon Forsyte—at all events the first we know anything of, and
that would be your great-great-grandfather—dwelt in the land of
Dorset on the edge of the sea, being by profession an
‘agriculturalist,’ as your great-aunt put it, and the son of an
agriculturist—farmers, in fact; your grandfather used to call
them, ‘Very small beer.’” He looked at Jolly to see how his
lordliness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly’s
malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother’s face.
“We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England as it
was before the Industrial Era began. The second Jolyon
Forsyte—your great-grandfather, Jolly; better known as Superior
Dosset Forsyte—built houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten
children, and migrated to London town. It is known that he drank
sherry. We may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon’s
wars, and general unrest. The eldest of his six sons was the
third Jolyon, your grandfather, my dears—tea merchant and
chairman of companies, one of the soundest Englishmen who ever
lived—and to me the dearest.” Jolyon’s voice had lost its irony,
and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly, “He was just and
tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember him, and I
remember him. Pass to the others! Your great-uncle James, that’s
young Val’s grandfather, had a son called Soames—whereby hangs a
tale of no love lost, and I don’t think I’ll tell it you. James
and the other eight children of ‘Superior Dosset,’ of whom there
are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian
England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five
per cent. and your money back—if you know what that means. At all
events they’ve turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million
between them in the course of their long lives. They never did a
wild thing—unless it was your great-uncle Swithin, who I believe
was once swindled at thimble-rig, and was called ‘Four-in-hand
Forsyte’ because he drove a pair. Their day is passing, and their
type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were
pedestrian, but they too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon
Forsyte—a poor holder of the name—”
“No, Dad,” said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.
“Yes,” repeated Jolyon, “a poor specimen, representing, I’m
afraid, nothing but the end of the century, unearned income,
amateurism, and individual liberty—a different thing from
individualism, Jolly. You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old man,
and you open the ball of the new century.”
As he spoke they turned in through the college gates, and Holly
said: “It’s fascinating, Dad.”
None of them quite knew what she meant. Jolly was grave.
The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford hostel can be, for
lack of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private
sitting-room, in which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy,
and alone, when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would touch
a moth, Val took her hand. And wouldn’t she wear this “measly
flower”. It would look ripping in her hair. He removed a gardenia
from his coat.
“Oh! No, thank you—I couldn’t!” But she took it and pinned it at
her neck, having suddenly remembered that word “showy”. Val’s
buttonhole would give offence; and she so much wanted Jolly to
like him. Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest
in her presence, and was that, perhaps, half the secret of his
attraction for her?
“I never said anything about our ride, Val.”
“Rather not! It’s just between us.”
By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he
was giving her a sense of power very delicious; a soft feeling
too—the wish to make him happy.
“Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so lovely.”
Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked;
the lectures were nothing; and there were some very good chaps.
“Only,” he added, “of course I wish I was in town, and could come
down and see you.”
Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped.
“You haven’t forgotten,” he said, suddenly gathering courage,
“that we’re going mad-rabbiting together?”
Holly smiled.
“Oh! That was only make-believe. One can’t do that sort of thing
after one’s grown up, you know.”
“Dash it! cousins can,” said Val. “Next Long Vac.—it begins in
June, you know, and goes on for ever—we’ll watch our chance.”
But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly
shook her head. “It won’t come off,” she murmured.
“Won’t it!” said Val fervently; “who’s going to stop it? Not your
father or your brother.”
At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and romance fled into
Val’s patent leather and Holly’s white satin toes, where it
itched and tingled during an evening not conspicuous for
open-heartedness.
Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism
between the boys, and was puzzled by Holly; so he became
unconsciously ironical, which is fatal to the expansiveness of
youth. A letter, handed to him after dinner, reduced him to a
silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go. He went out
with them, smoking his cigar, and walked with his son to the
gates of Christ Church. Turning back, he took out the letter and
read it again beneath a lamp.
“DEAR JOLYON,
“Soames came again to-night—my thirty-seventh birthday. You
were right, I mustn’t stay here. I’m going to-morrow to the
Piedmont Hotel, but I won’t go abroad without seeing you. I
feel lonely and down-hearted.
“Yours affectionately,
“IRENE.”
He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on,
astonished at the violence of his feelings. What had the fellow
said or done?
He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and on among a maze of
spires and domes and long college fronts and walls, bright or
dark-shadowed in the strong moonlight. In this very heart of
England’s gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely
woman could be importuned or hunted, but what else could her
letter mean? Soames must have been pressing her to go back to him
again, with public opinion and the Law on his side, too!
“Eighteen-ninety-nine!,” he thought, gazing at the broken glass
shining on the top of a villa garden wall; “but when it comes to
property we’re still a heathen people! I’ll go up to-morrow
morning. I dare say it’ll be best for her to go abroad.” Yet the
thought displeased him. Why should Soames hunt her out of
England! Besides, he might follow, and out there she would be
still more helpless against the attentions of her own husband! “I
must tread warily,” he thought; “that fellow could make himself
very nasty. I didn’t like his manner in the cab the other night.”
His thoughts turned to his daughter June. Could she help? Once on
a time Irene had been her greatest friend, and now she was a
“lame duck,” such as must appeal to June’s nature! He determined
to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station.
Retracing his steps towards the Rainbow he questioned his own
sensations. Would he be upsetting himself over every woman in
like case? No! he would not. The candour of this conclusion
discomfited him; and, finding that Holly had gone up to bed, he
sought his own room. But he could not sleep, and sat for a long
time at his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the
moonlight on the roofs.
Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the lashes above and
below Val’s eyes, especially below; and of what she could do to
make Jolly like him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong
in her little bedroom, and pleasant to her.
And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C., was
gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all, seeing
instead Holly, slim and white-frocked, as she sat beside the fire
when he first went in.
But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand
beneath his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat, rowing
a race against him, while his father was calling from the
towpath: “Two! Get your hands away there, bless you!”
CHAPTER II SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH
Of all those radiant firms which emblazon with their windows the
West End of London, Gaves and Cortegal were considered by Soames
the most “attractive” word just coming into fashion. He had never
had his Uncle Swithin’s taste in precious stones, and the
abandonment by Irene when she left his house in 1887 of all the
glittering things he had given her had disgusted him with this
form of investment. But he still knew a diamond when he saw one,
and during the week before her birthday he had taken occasion, on
his way into the Poultry or his way out therefrom, to dally a
little before the greater jewellers where one got, if not one’s
money’s worth, at least a certain cachet with the goods.
Constant cogitation since his drive with Jolyon had convinced him
more and more of the supreme importance of this moment in his
life, the supreme need for taking steps and those not wrong. And,
alongside the dry and reasoned sense that it was now or never
with his self-preservation, now or never if he were to range
himself and found a family, went the secret urge of his senses
roused by the sight of her who had once been a passionately
desired wife, and the conviction that it was a sin against common
sense and the decent secrecy of Forsytes to waste the wife he
had.
In an opinion on Winifred’s case, Dreamer, Q.C.—he would much
have preferred Waterbuck, but they had made him a judge (so late
in the day as to rouse the usual suspicion of a political
job)—had advised that they should go forward and obtain
restitution of conjugal rights, a point which to Soames had never
been in doubt. When they had obtained a decree to that effect
they must wait to see if it was obeyed. If not, it would
constitute legal desertion, and they should obtain evidence of
misconduct and file their petition for divorce. All of which
Soames knew perfectly well. They had marked him ten and one. This
simplicity in his sister’s case only made him the more desperate
about the difficulty in his own. Everything, in fact, was driving
him towards the simple solution of Irene’s return. If it were
still against the grain with her, had _he_ not feelings to
subdue, injury to forgive, pain to forget? He at least had never
injured her, and this was a world of compromise! He could offer
her so much more than she had now. He would be prepared to make a
liberal settlement on her which could not be upset. He often
scrutinised his image in these days. He had never been a peacock
like that fellow Dartie, or fancied himself a woman’s man, but he
had a certain belief in his own appearance—not unjustly, for it
was well-coupled and preserved, neat, healthy, pale, unblemished
by drink or excess of any kind. The Forsyte jaw and the
concentration of his face were, in his eyes, virtues. So far as
he could tell there was no feature of him which need inspire
dislike.
Thoughts and yearnings, with which one lives daily, become
natural, even if far-fetched in their inception. If he could only
give tangible proof enough of his determination to let bygones be
bygones, and to do all in his power to please her, why should she
not come back to him?
He entered Gaves and Cortegal’s therefore, on the morning of
November the 9th, to buy a certain diamond brooch. “Four
twenty-five and dirt cheap, sir, at the money. It’s a lady’s
brooch.” There was that in his mood which made him accept without
demur. And he went on into the Poultry with the flat green
morocco case in his breast pocket. Several times that day he
opened it to look at the seven soft shining stones in their
velvet oval nest.
“If the lady doesn’t like it, sir, happy to exchange it any time.
But there’s no fear of that.” If only there were not! He got
through a vast amount of work, only soother of the nerves he
knew. A cablegram came while he was in the office with details
from the agent in Buenos Aires, and the name and address of a
stewardess who would be prepared to swear to what was necessary.
It was a timely spur to Soames, with his rooted distaste for the
washing of dirty linen in public. And when he set forth by
Underground to Victoria Station he received a fresh impetus
towards the renewal of his married life from the account in his
evening paper of a fashionable divorce suit. The homing instinct
of all true Forsytes in anxiety and trouble, the corporate
tendency which kept them strong and solid, made him choose to
dine at Park Lane. He neither could nor would breathe a word to
his people of his intention—too reticent and proud—but the
thought that at least they would be glad if they knew, and wish
him luck, was heartening.
James was in lugubrious mood, for the fire which the impudence of
Kruger’s ultimatum had lit in him had been cold-watered by the
poor success of the last month, and the exhortations to effort in
_The Times_. He didn’t know where it would end. Soames sought to
cheer him by the continual use of the word Buller. But James
couldn’t tell! There was Colley—and he got stuck on that hill,
and this Ladysmith was down in a hollow, and altogether it looked
to him a “pretty kettle of fish”; he thought they ought to be
sending the sailors—they were the chaps, they did a lot of good
in the Crimea. Soames shifted the ground of consolation. Winifred
had heard from Val that there had been a “rag” and a bonfire on
Guy Fawkes Day at Oxford, and that he had escaped detection by
blacking his face.
“Ah!” James muttered, “he’s a clever little chap.” But he shook
his head shortly afterwards and remarked that he didn’t know what
would become of him, and looking wistfully at his son, murmured
on that Soames had never had a boy. He would have liked a
grandson of his own name. And now—well, there it was!
Soames flinched. He had not expected such a challenge to disclose
the secret in his heart. And Emily, who saw him wince, said:
“Nonsense, James; don’t talk like that!”
But James, not looking anyone in the face, muttered on. There
were Roger and Nicholas and Jolyon; they all had grandsons. And
Swithin and Timothy had never married. He had done his best; but
he would soon be gone now. And, as though he had uttered words of
profound consolation, he was silent, eating brains with a fork
and a piece of bread, and swallowing the bread.
Soames excused himself directly after dinner. It was not really
cold, but he put on his fur coat, which served to fortify him
against the fits of nervous shivering to which he had been
subject all day. Subconsciously, he knew that he looked better
thus than in an ordinary black overcoat. Then, feeling the
morocco case flat against his heart, he sallied forth. He was no
smoker, but he lit a cigarette, and smoked it gingerly as he
walked along. He moved slowly down the Row towards Knightsbridge,
timing himself to get to Chelsea at nine-fifteen. What did she do
with herself evening after evening in that little hole? How
mysterious women were! One lived alongside and knew nothing of
them. What could she have seen in that fellow Bosinney to send
her mad? For there was madness after all in what she had
done—crazy moonstruck madness, in which all sense of values had
been lost, and her life and his life ruined! And for a moment he
was filled with a sort of exaltation, as though he were a man
read of in a story who, possessed by the Christian spirit, would
restore to her all the prizes of existence, forgiving and
forgetting, and becoming the godfather of her future. Under a
tree opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where the moonlight struck
down clear and white, he took out once more the morocco case, and
let the beams draw colour from those stones. Yes, they were of
the first water! But, at the hard closing snap of the case,
another cold shiver ran through his nerves; and he walked on
faster, clenching his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat,
almost hoping she would not be in. The thought of how mysterious
she was again beset him. Dining alone there night after night—in
an evening dress, too, as if she were making believe to be in
society! Playing the piano—to herself! Not even a dog or cat, so
far as he had seen. And that reminded him suddenly of the mare he
kept for station work at Mapledurham. If ever he went to the
stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her
home journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if
longing to be back and lonely in her stable! “I would treat her
well,” he thought incoherently. “I would be very careful.” And
all that capacity for home life of which a mocking Fate seemed
for ever to have deprived him swelled suddenly in Soames, so that
he dreamed dreams opposite South Kensington Station. In the
King’s Road a man came slithering out of a public house playing a
concertina. Soames watched him for a moment dance crazily on the
pavement to his own drawling jagged sounds, then crossed over to
avoid contact with this piece of drunken foolery. A night in the
lock-up! What asses people were! But the man had noticed his
movement of avoidance, and streams of genial blasphemy followed
him across the street. “I hope they’ll run him in,” thought
Soames viciously. “To have ruffians like that about, with women
out alone!” A woman’s figure in front had induced this thought.
Her walk seemed oddly familiar, and when she turned the corner
for which he was bound, his heart began to beat. He hastened on
to the corner to make certain. Yes! It was Irene; he could not
mistake her walk in that little drab street. She threaded two
more turnings, and from the last corner he saw her enter her
block of flats. To make sure of her now, he ran those few paces,
hurried up the stairs, and caught her standing at her door. He
heard the latchkey in the lock, and reached her side just as she
turned round, startled, in the open doorway.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said, breathless. “I happened to see you.
Let me come in a minute.”
She had put her hand up to her breast, her face was colourless,
her eyes widened by alarm. Then seeming to master herself, she
inclined her head, and said: “Very well.”
Soames closed the door. He, too, had need to recover, and when
she had passed into the sitting-room, waited a full minute,
taking deep breaths to still the beating of his heart. At this
moment, so fraught with the future, to take out that morocco case
seemed crude. Yet, not to take it out left him there before her
with no preliminary excuse for coming. And in this dilemma he was
seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia of excuse and
justification. This was a scene—it could be nothing else, and he
must face it. He heard her voice, uncomfortably, pathetically
soft:
“Why have you come again? Didn’t you understand that I would
rather you did not?”
He noticed her clothes—a dark brown velvet corduroy, a sable boa,
a small round toque of the same. They suited her admirably. She
had money to spare for dress, evidently! He said abruptly:
“It’s your birthday. I brought you this,” and he held out to her
the green morocco case.
“Oh! No-no!”
Soames pressed the clasp; the seven stones gleamed out on the
pale grey velvet.
“Why not?” he said. “Just as a sign that you don’t bear me
ill-feeling any longer.”
“I couldn’t.”
Soames took it out of the case.
“Let me just see how it looks.”
She shrank back.
He followed, thrusting his hand with the brooch in it against the
front of her dress. She shrank again.
Soames dropped his hand.
“Irene,” he said, “let bygones be bygones. If _I_ can, surely you
might. Let’s begin again, as if nothing had been. Won’t you?” His
voice was wistful, and his eyes, resting on her face, had in them
a sort of supplication.
She, who was standing literally with her back against the wall,
gave a little gulp, and that was all her answer. Soames went on:
“Can you really want to live all your days half-dead in this
little hole? Come back to me, and I’ll give you all you want. You
shall live your own life; I swear it.”
He saw her face quiver ironically.
“Yes,” he repeated, “but I mean it this time. I’ll only ask one
thing. I just want—I just want a son. Don’t look like that! I
want one. It’s hard.” His voice had grown hurried, so that he
hardly knew it for his own, and twice he jerked his head back as
if struggling for breath. It was the sight of her eyes fixed on
him, dark with a sort of fascinated fright, which pulled him
together and changed that painful incoherence to anger.
“Is it so very unnatural?” he said between his teeth, “Is it
unnatural to want a child from one’s own wife? You wrecked our
life and put this blight on everything. We go on only half alive,
and without any future. Is it so very unflattering to you that in
spite of everything I—I still want you for my wife? Speak, for
Goodness’ sake! do speak.”
Irene seemed to try, but did not succeed.
“I don’t want to frighten you,” said Soames more gently. “Heaven
knows. I only want you to see that I can’t go on like this. I
want you back. I want you.”
Irene raised one hand and covered the lower part of her face, but
her eyes never moved from his, as though she trusted in them to
keep him at bay. And all those years, barren and bitter,
since—ah! when?—almost since he had first known her, surged up in
one great wave of recollection in Soames; and a spasm that for
his life he could not control constricted his face.
“It’s not too late,” he said; “it’s not—if you’ll only believe
it.”
Irene uncovered her lips, and both her hands made a writhing
gesture in front of her breast. Soames seized them.
“Don’t!” she said under her breath. But he stood holding on to
them, trying to stare into her eyes which did not waver. Then she
said quietly:
“I am alone here. You won’t behave again as you once behaved.”
Dropping her hands as though they had been hot irons, he turned
away. Was it possible that there could be such relentless
unforgiveness! Could that one act of violent possession be still
alive within her? Did it bar him thus utterly? And doggedly he
said, without looking up:
“I am not going till you’ve answered me. I am offering what few
men would bring themselves to offer, I want a—a reasonable
answer.”
And almost with surprise he heard her say:
“You can’t have a reasonable answer. Reason has nothing to do
with it. You can only have the brutal truth: I would rather die.”
Soames stared at her.
“Oh!” he said. And there intervened in him a sort of paralysis of
speech and movement, the kind of quivering which comes when a man
has received a deadly insult, and does not yet know how he is
going to take it, or rather what it is going to do with him.
“Oh!” he said again, “as bad as that? Indeed! You would rather
die. That’s pretty!”
“I am sorry. You wanted me to answer. I can’t help the truth, can
I?”
At that queer spiritual appeal Soames turned for relief to
actuality. He snapped the brooch back into its case and put it in
his pocket.
“The truth!” he said; “there’s no such thing with women. It’s
nerves—nerves.”
He heard the whisper:
“Yes; nerves don’t lie. Haven’t you discovered that?” He was
silent, obsessed by the thought: “I _will_ hate this woman. I
_will_ hate her.” That was the trouble! If only he could! He shot
a glance at her who stood unmoving against the wall with her head
up and her hands clasped, for all the world as if she were going
to be shot. And he said quickly:
“I don’t believe a word of it. You have a lover. If you hadn’t,
you wouldn’t be such a—such a little idiot.” He was conscious,
before the expression in her eyes, that he had uttered something
of a non-sequitur, and dropped back too abruptly into the verbal
freedom of his connubial days. He turned away to the door. But he
could not go out. Something within him—that most deep and secret
Forsyte quality, the impossibility of letting go, the
impossibility of seeing the fantastic and forlorn nature of his
own tenacity—prevented him. He turned about again, and there
stood, with his back against the door, as hers was against the
wall opposite, quite unconscious of anything ridiculous in this
separation by the whole width of the room.
“Do you ever think of anybody but yourself?” he said.
Irene’s lips quivered; then she answered slowly:
“Do you ever think that I found out my mistake—my hopeless,
terrible mistake—the very first week of our marriage; that I went
on trying three years—you know I went on trying? Was it for
myself?”
Soames gritted his teeth. “God knows what it was. I’ve never
understood you; I shall never understand you. You had everything
you wanted; and you can have it again, and more. What’s the
matter with me? I ask you a plain question: What is it?”
Unconscious of the pathos in that enquiry, he went on
passionately: “I’m not lame, I’m not loathsome, I’m not a boor,
I’m not a fool. What is it? What’s the mystery about me?”
Her answer was a long sigh.
He clasped his hands with a gesture that for him was strangely
full of expression. “When I came here to-night I was—I hoped—I
meant everything that I could to do away with the past, and start
fair again. And you meet me with ‘nerves,’ and silence, and
sighs. There’s nothing tangible. It’s like—it’s like a spider’s
web.”
“Yes.”
That whisper from across the room maddened Soames afresh.
“Well, I don’t choose to be in a spider’s web. I’ll cut it.” He
walked straight up to her. “Now!” What he had gone up to her to
do he really did not know. But when he was close, the old
familiar scent of her clothes suddenly affected him. He put his
hands on her shoulders and bent forward to kiss her. He kissed
not her lips, but a little hard line where the lips had been
drawn in; then his face was pressed away by her hands; he heard
her say: “Oh! No!” Shame, compunction, sense of futility flooded
his whole being, he turned on his heel and went straight out.
CHAPTER III VISIT TO IRENE
Jolyon found June waiting on the platform at Paddington. She had
received his telegram while at breakfast. Her abode—a studio and
two bedrooms in a St. John’s Wood garden—had been selected by her
for the complete independence which it guaranteed. Unwatched by
Mrs. Grundy, unhindered by permanent domestics, she could receive
lame ducks at any hour of day or night, and not seldom had a duck
without studio of its own made use of June’s. She enjoyed her
freedom, and possessed herself with a sort of virginal passion;
the warmth which she would have lavished on Bosinney, and of
which—given her Forsyte tenacity—he must surely have tired, she
now expended in championship of the underdogs and budding
“geniuses” of the artistic world. She lived, in fact, to turn
ducks into the swans she believed they were. The very fervour of
her protection warped her judgments. But she was loyal and
liberal; her small eager hand was ever against the oppressions of
academic and commercial opinion, and though her income was
considerable, her bank balance was often a minus quantity.
She had come to Paddington Station heated in her soul by a visit
to Eric Cobbley. A miserable Gallery had refused to let that
straight-haired genius have his one-man show after all. Its
impudent manager, after visiting his studio, had expressed the
opinion that it would only be a “one-horse show from the selling
point of view.” This crowning example of commercial cowardice
towards her favourite lame duck—and he so hard up, with a wife
and two children, that he had caused her account to be
overdrawn—was still making the blood glow in her small, resolute
face, and her red-gold hair to shine more than ever. She gave her
father a hug, and got into a cab with him, having as many fish to
fry with him as he with her. It became at once a question which
would fry them first.
Jolyon had reached the words: “My dear, I want you to come with
me,” when, glancing at her face, he perceived by her blue eyes
moving from side to side—like the tail of a preoccupied cat—that
she was not attending. “Dad, is it true that I absolutely can’t
get at any of my money?”
“Only the income, fortunately, my love.”
“How perfectly beastly! Can’t it be done somehow? There must be a
way. I know I could buy a small Gallery for ten thousand pounds.”
“A small Gallery,” murmured Jolyon, “seems a modest desire. But
your grandfather foresaw it.”
“I think,” cried June vigorously, “that all this care about money
is awful, when there’s so much genius in the world simply crushed
out for want of a little. I shall never marry and have children;
why shouldn’t I be able to do some good instead of having it all
tied up in case of things which will never come off?”
“Our name is Forsyte, my dear,” replied Jolyon in the ironical
voice to which his impetuous daughter had never quite grown
accustomed; “and Forsytes, you know, are people who so settle
their property that their grandchildren, in case they should die
before their parents, have to make wills leaving the property
that will only come to themselves when their parents die. Do you
follow that? Nor do I, but it’s a fact, anyway; we live by the
principle that so long as there is a possibility of keeping
wealth in the family it must not go out; if you die unmarried,
your money goes to Jolly and Holly and their children if they
marry. Isn’t it pleasant to know that whatever you do you can
none of you be destitute?”
“But can’t I borrow the money?”
Jolyon shook his head. “You could rent a Gallery, no doubt, if
you could manage it out of your income.”
June uttered a contemptuous sound.
“Yes; and have no income left to help anybody with.”
“My dear child,” murmured Jolyon, “wouldn’t it come to the same
thing?”
“No,” said June shrewdly, “I could buy for ten thousand; that
would only be four hundred a year. But I should have to pay a
thousand a year rent, and that would only leave me five hundred.
If I had the Gallery, Dad, think what I could do. I could make
Eric Cobbley’s name in no time, and ever so many others.”
“Names worth making make themselves in time.”
“When they’re dead.”
“Did you ever know anybody living, my dear, improved by having
his name made?”
“Yes, you,” said June, pressing his arm.
Jolyon started. “I?” he thought. “Oh! Ah! Now she’s going to ask
me to do something. We take it out, we Forsytes, each in our
different ways.”
June came closer to him in the cab.
“Darling,” she said, “you buy the Gallery, and I’ll pay you four
hundred a year for it. Then neither of us will be any the worse
off. Besides, it’s a splendid investment.”
Jolyon wriggled. “Don’t you think,” he said, “that for an artist
to buy a Gallery is a bit dubious? Besides, ten thousand pounds
is a lump, and I’m not a commercial character.”
June looked at him with admiring appraisement.
“Of course you’re not, but you’re awfully businesslike. And I’m
sure we could make it pay. It’ll be a perfect way of scoring off
those wretched dealers and people.” And again she squeezed her
father’s arm.
Jolyon’s face expressed quizzical despair.
“Where is this desirable Gallery? Splendidly situated, I
suppose?”
“Just off Cork Street.”
“Ah!” thought Jolyon, “I knew it was just off somewhere. Now for
what I want out of _her!_”
“Well, I’ll think of it, but not just now. You remember Irene? I
want you to come with me and see her. Soames is after her again.
She might be safer if we could give her asylum somewhere.”
The word asylum, which he had used by chance, was of all most
calculated to rouse June’s interest.
“Irene! I haven’t seen her since! Of course! I’d love to help
her.”
It was Jolyon’s turn to squeeze her arm, in warm admiration for
this spirited, generous-hearted little creature of his begetting.
“Irene is proud,” he said, with a sidelong glance, in sudden
doubt of June’s discretion; “she’s difficult to help. We must
tread gently. This is the place. I wired her to expect us. Let’s
send up our cards.”
“I can’t bear Soames,” said June as she got out; “he sneers at
everything that isn’t successful.”
Irene was in what was called the “Ladies’ drawing-room” of the
Piedmont Hotel.
Nothing if not morally courageous, June walked straight up to her
former friend, kissed her cheek, and the two settled down on a
sofa never sat on since the hotel’s foundation. Jolyon could see
that Irene was deeply affected by this simple forgiveness.
“So Soames has been worrying you?” he said.
“I had a visit from him last night; he wants me to go back to
him.”
“You’re not going, of course?” cried June.
Irene smiled faintly and shook her head. “But his position is
horrible,” she murmured.
“It’s his own fault; he ought to have divorced you when he
could.”
Jolyon remembered how fervently in the old days June had hoped
that no divorce would smirch her dead and faithless lover’s name.
“Let us hear what Irene _is_ going to do,” he said.
Irene’s lips quivered, but she spoke calmly.
“I’d better give him fresh excuse to get rid of me.”
“How horrible!” cried June.
“What else can I do?”
“Out of the question,” said Jolyon very quietly, “_sans amour_.”
He thought she was going to cry; but, getting up quickly, she
half turned her back on them, and stood regaining control of
herself.
June said suddenly:
“Well, I shall go to Soames and tell him he must leave you alone.
What does he want at his age?”
“A child. It’s not unnatural”
“A child!” cried June scornfully. “Of course! To leave his money
to. If he wants one badly enough let him take somebody and have
one; then you can divorce him, and he can marry her.”
Jolyon perceived suddenly that he had made a mistake to bring
June—her violent partizanship was fighting Soames’ battle.
“It would be best for Irene to come quietly to us at Robin Hill,
and see how things shape.”
“Of course,” said June; “only....”
Irene looked full at Jolyon—in all his many attempts afterwards
to analyze that glance he never could succeed.
“No! I should only bring trouble on you all. I will go abroad.”
He knew from her voice that this was final. The irrelevant
thought flashed through him: “Well, I could see her there.” But
he said:
“Don’t you think you would be more helpless abroad, in case he
followed?”
“I don’t know. I can but try.”
June sprang up and paced the room. “It’s all horrible,” she said.
“Why should people be tortured and kept miserable and helpless
year after year by this disgusting sanctimonious law?” But
someone had come into the room, and June came to a standstill.
Jolyon went up to Irene:
“Do you want money?”
“No.”
“And would you like me to let your flat?”
“Yes, Jolyon, please.”
“When shall you be going?”
“To-morrow.”
“You won’t go back there in the meantime, will you?” This he said
with an anxiety strange to himself.
“No; I’ve got all I want here.”
“You’ll send me your address?”
She put out her hand to him. “I feel you’re a rock.”
“Built on sand,” answered Jolyon, pressing her hand hard; “but
it’s a pleasure to do anything, at any time, remember that. And
if you change your mind...! Come along, June; say good-bye.”
June came from the window and flung her arms round Irene.
“Don’t think of him,” she said under her breath; “enjoy yourself,
and bless you!”
With a memory of tears in Irene’s eyes, and of a smile on her
lips, they went away extremely silent, passing the lady who had
interrupted the interview and was turning over the papers on the
table.
Opposite the National Gallery June exclaimed:
“Of all undignified beasts and horrible laws!”
But Jolyon did not respond. He had something of his father’s
balance, and could see things impartially even when his emotions
were roused. Irene was right; Soames’ position was as bad or
worse than her own. As for the law—it catered for a human nature
of which it took a naturally low view. And, feeling that if he
stayed in his daughter’s company he would in one way or another
commit an indiscretion, he told her he must catch his train back
to Oxford; and hailing a cab, left her to Turner’s water-colours,
with the promise that he would think over that Gallery.
But he thought over Irene instead. Pity, they said, was akin to
love! If so he was certainly in danger of loving her, for he
pitied her profoundly. To think of her drifting about Europe so
handicapped and lonely! “I hope to goodness she’ll keep her
head!” he thought; “she might easily grow desperate.” In fact,
now that she had cut loose from her poor threads of occupation,
he couldn’t imagine how she would go on—so beautiful a creature,
hopeless, and fair game for anyone! In his exasperation was more
than a little fear and jealousy. Women did strange things when
they were driven into corners. “I wonder what Soames will do
now!” he thought. “A rotten, idiotic state of things! And I
suppose they would say it was her own fault.” Very preoccupied
and sore at heart, he got into his train, mislaid his ticket, and
on the platform at Oxford took his hat off to a lady whose face
he seemed to remember without being able to put a name to her,
not even when he saw her having tea at the Rainbow.
CHAPTER IV WHERE FORSYTES FEAR TO TREAD
Quivering from the defeat of his hopes, with the green morocco
case still flat against his heart, Soames revolved thoughts
bitter as death. A spider’s web! Walking fast, and noting nothing
in the moonlight, he brooded over the scene he had been through,
over the memory of her figure rigid in his grasp. And the more he
brooded, the more certain he became that she had a lover—her
words, “I would sooner die!” were ridiculous if she had not. Even
if she had never loved him, she had made no fuss until Bosinney
came on the scene. No; she was in love again, or she would not
have made that melodramatic answer to his proposal, which in all
the circumstances was reasonable! Very well! That simplified
matters.
“I’ll take steps to know where I am,” he thought; “I’ll go to
Polteed’s the first thing tomorrow morning.”
But even in forming that resolution he knew he would have trouble
with himself. He had employed Polteed’s agency several times in
the routine of his profession, even quite lately over Dartie’s
case, but he had never thought it possible to employ them to
watch his own wife.
It was too insulting to himself!
He slept over that project and his wounded pride—or rather, kept
vigil. Only while shaving did he suddenly remember that she
called herself by her maiden name of Heron. Polteed would not
know, at first at all events, whose wife she was, would not look
at him obsequiously and leer behind his back. She would just be
the wife of one of his clients. And that would be true—for was he
not his own solicitor?
He was literally afraid not to put his design into execution at
the first possible moment, lest, after all, he might fail
himself. And making Warmson bring him an early cup of coffee; he
stole out of the house before the hour of breakfast. He walked
rapidly to one of those small West End streets where Polteed’s
and other firms ministered to the virtues of the wealthier
classes. Hitherto he had always had Polteed to see him in the
Poultry; but he well knew their address, and reached it at the
opening hour. In the outer office, a room furnished so cosily
that it might have been a money-lender’s, he was attended by a
lady who might have been a schoolmistress.
“I wish to see Mr. Claud Polteed. He knows me—never mind my
name.”
To keep everybody from knowing that he, Soames Forsyte, was
reduced to having his wife spied on, was the overpowering
consideration.
Mr. Claud Polteed—so different from Mr. Lewis Polteed—was one of
those men with dark hair, slightly curved noses, and quick brown
eyes, who might be taken for Jews but are really Phœnicians; he
received Soames in a room hushed by thickness of carpet and
curtains. It was, in fact, confidentially furnished, without
trace of document anywhere to be seen.
Greeting Soames deferentially, he turned the key in the only door
with a certain ostentation.
“If a client sends for me,” he was in the habit of saying, “he
takes what precaution he likes. If he comes here, we convince him
that we have no leakages. I may safely say we lead in security,
if in nothing else....Now, sir, what can I do for you?”
Soames’ gorge had risen so that he could hardly speak. It was
absolutely necessary to hide from this man that he had any but
professional interest in the matter; and, mechanically, his face
assumed its sideway smile.
“I’ve come to you early like this because there’s not an hour to
lose”—if he lost an hour he might fail himself yet! “Have you a
really trustworthy woman free?”
Mr. Polteed unlocked a drawer, produced a memorandum, ran his
eyes over it, and locked the drawer up again.
“Yes,” he said; “the very woman.”
Soames had seated himself and crossed his legs—nothing but a
faint flush, which might have been his normal complexion,
betrayed him.
“Send her off at once, then, to watch a Mrs. Irene Heron of Flat
C, Truro Mansions, Chelsea, till further notice.”
“Precisely,” said Mr. Polteed; “divorce, I presume?” and he blew
into a speaking-tube. “Mrs. Blanch in? I shall want to speak to
her in ten minutes.”
“Deal with any reports yourself,” resumed Soames, “and send them
to me personally, marked confidential, sealed and registered. My
client exacts the utmost secrecy.”
Mr. Polteed smiled, as though saying, “You are teaching your
grandmother, my dear sir;” and his eyes slid over Soames’ face
for one unprofessional instant.
“Make his mind perfectly easy,” he said. “Do you smoke?”
“No,” said Soames. “Understand me: Nothing may come of this. If a
name gets out, or the watching is suspected, it may have very
serious consequences.”
Mr. Polteed nodded. “I can put it into the cipher category. Under
that system a name is never mentioned; we work by numbers.”
He unlocked another drawer and took out two slips of paper, wrote
on them, and handed one to Soames.
“Keep that, sir; it’s your key. I retain this duplicate. The case
we’ll call 7x. The party watched will be 17; the watcher 19; the
Mansions 25; yourself—I should say, your firm—31; my firm 32,
myself 2. In case you should have to mention your client in
writing I have called him 43; any person we suspect will be 47; a
second person 51. Any special hint or instruction while we’re
about it?”
“No,” said Soames; “that is—every consideration compatible.”
Again Mr. Polteed nodded. “Expense?”
Soames shrugged. “In reason,” he answered curtly, and got up.
“Keep it entirely in your own hands.”
“Entirely,” said Mr. Polteed, appearing suddenly between him and
the door. “I shall be seeing you in that other case before long.
Good morning, sir.” His eyes slid unprofessionally over Soames
once more, and he unlocked the door.
“Good morning,” said Soames, looking neither to right nor left.
Out in the street he swore deeply, quietly, to himself. A
spider’s web, and to cut it he must use this spidery, secret,
unclean method, so utterly repugnant to one who regarded his
private life as his most sacred piece of property. But the die
was cast, he could not go back. And he went on into the Poultry,
and locked away the green morocco case and the key to that cipher
destined to make crystal-clear his domestic bankruptcy.
Odd that one whose life was spent in bringing to the public eye
all the private coils of property, the domestic disagreements of
others, should dread so utterly the public eye turned on his own;
and yet not odd, for who should know so well as he the whole
unfeeling process of legal regulation.
He worked hard all day. Winifred was due at four o’clock; he was
to take her down to a conference in the Temple with Dreamer Q.C.,
and waiting for her he re-read the letter he had caused her to
write the day of Dartie’s departure, requiring him to return.
“DEAR MONTAGUE,
“I have received your letter with the news that you have left
me for ever and are on your way to Buenos Aires. It has
naturally been a great shock. I am taking this earliest
opportunity of writing to tell you that I am prepared to let
bygones be bygones if you will return to me at once. I beg
you to do so. I am very much upset, and will not say any more
now. I am sending this letter registered to the address you
left at your Club. Please cable to me.
“Your still affectionate wife,
“WINIFRED DARTIE.”
Ugh! What bitter humbug! He remembered leaning over Winifred
while she copied what he had pencilled, and how she had said,
laying down her pen, “Suppose he comes, Soames!” in such a
strange tone of voice, as if she did not know her own mind. “He
won’t come,” he had answered, “till he’s spent his money. That’s
why we must act at once.” Annexed to the copy of that letter was
the original of Dartie’s drunken scrawl from the Iseeum Club.
Soames could have wished it had not been so manifestly penned in
liquor. Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on. He
seemed to hear the Judge’s voice say: “You took this seriously!
Seriously enough to write him as you did? Do you think he meant
it?” Never mind! The fact was clear that Dartie had sailed and
had not returned. Annexed also was his cabled answer: “Impossible
return. Dartie.” Soames shook his head. If the whole thing were
not disposed of within the next few months the fellow would turn
up again like a bad penny. It saved a thousand a year at least to
get rid of him, besides all the worry to Winifred and his father.
“I must stiffen Dreamer’s back,” he thought; “we must push it
on.”
Winifred, who had adopted a kind of half-mourning which became
her fair hair and tall figure very well, arrived in James’
barouche drawn by James’ pair. Soames had not seen it in the City
since his father retired from business five years ago, and its
incongruity gave him a shock. “Times are changing,” he thought;
“one doesn’t know what’ll go next!” Top hats even were scarcer.
He enquired after Val. Val, said Winifred, wrote that he was
going to play polo next term. She thought he was in a very good
set. She added with fashionably disguised anxiety: “Will there be
much publicity about my affair, Soames? _Must_ it be in the
papers? It’s so bad for him, and the girls.”
With his own calamity all raw within him, Soames answered:
“The papers are a pushing lot; it’s very difficult to keep things
out. They pretend to be guarding the public’s morals, and they
corrupt them with their beastly reports. But we haven’t got to
that yet. We’re only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution
question. Of course he understands that it’s to lead to a
divorce; but you must seem genuinely anxious to get Dartie
back—you might practise that attitude to-day.”
Winifred sighed.
“Oh! What a clown Monty’s been!” she said.
Soames gave her a sharp look. It was clear to him that she could
not take her Dartie seriously, and would go back on the whole
thing if given half a chance. His own instinct had been firm in
this matter from the first. To save a little scandal now would
only bring on his sister and her children real disgrace and
perhaps ruin later on if Dartie were allowed to hang on to them,
going down-hill and spending the money James would leave his
daughter. Though it _was_ all tied up, that fellow would milk the
settlements somehow, and make his family pay through the nose to
keep him out of bankruptcy or even perhaps gaol! They left the
shining carriage, with the shining horses and the shining-hatted
servants on the Embankment, and walked up to Dreamer Q.C.’s
Chambers in Crown Office Row.
“Mr. Bellby is here, sir,” said the clerk; “Mr. Dreamer will be
ten minutes.”
Mr. Bellby, the junior—not as junior as he might have been, for
Soames only employed barristers of established reputation; it
was, indeed, something of a mystery to him how barristers ever
managed to establish that which made him employ them—Mr. Bellby
was seated, taking a final glance through his papers. He had come
from Court, and was in wig and gown, which suited a nose jutting
out like the handle of a tiny pump, his small shrewd blue eyes,
and rather protruding lower lip—no better man to supplement and
stiffen Dreamer.
The introduction to Winifred accomplished, they leaped the
weather and spoke of the war. Soames interrupted suddenly:
“If he doesn’t comply we can’t bring proceedings for six months.
I want to get on with the matter, Bellby.”
Mr. Bellby, who had the ghost of an Irish brogue, smiled at
Winifred and murmured: “The Law’s delays, Mrs. Dartie.”
“Six months!” repeated Soames; “it’ll drive it up to June! We
shan’t get the suit on till after the long vacation. We must put
the screw on, Bellby”—he would have all his work cut out to keep
Winifred up to the scratch.
“Mr. Dreamer will see you now, sir.”
They filed in, Mr. Bellby going first, and Soames escorting
Winifred after an interval of one minute by his watch.
Dreamer Q.C., in a gown but divested of wig, was standing before
the fire, as if this conference were in the nature of a treat; he
had the leathery, rather oily complexion which goes with great
learning, a considerable nose with glasses perched on it, and
little greyish whiskers; he luxuriated in the perpetual cocking
of one eye, and the concealment of his lower with his upper lip,
which gave a smothered turn to his speech. He had a way, too, of
coming suddenly round the corner on the person he was talking to;
this, with a disconcerting tone of voice, and a habit of growling
before he began to speak—had secured a reputation second in
Probate and Divorce to very few. Having listened, eye cocked, to
Mr. Bellby’s breezy recapitulation of the facts, he growled, and
said:
“I know all that;” and coming round the corner at Winifred,
smothered the words:
“We want to get him back, don’t we, Mrs. Dartie?”
Soames interposed sharply:
“My sister’s position, of course, is intolerable.”
Dreamer growled. “Exactly. Now, can we rely on the cabled
refusal, or must we wait till after Christmas to give him a
chance to have written—that’s the point, isn’t it?”
“The sooner....” Soames began.
“What do you say, Bellby?” said Dreamer, coming round his corner.
Mr. Bellby seemed to sniff the air like a hound.
“We won’t be on till the middle of December. We’ve no need to
give um more rope than that.”
“No,” said Soames, “why should my sister be incommoded by his
choosing to go...”
“To Jericho!” said Dreamer, again coming round his corner; “quite
so. People oughtn’t to go to Jericho, ought they, Mrs. Dartie?”
And he raised his gown into a sort of fantail. “I agree. We can
go forward. Is there anything more?”
“Nothing at present,” said Soames meaningly; “I wanted you to see
my sister.”
Dreamer growled softly: “Delighted. Good evening!” And let fall
the protection of his gown.
They filed out. Winifred went down the stairs. Soames lingered.
In spite of himself he was impressed by Dreamer.
“The evidence is all right, I think,” he said to Bellby. “Between
ourselves, if we don’t get the thing through quick, we never may.
D’you think _he_ understands that?”
“I’ll make um,” said Bellby. “Good man though—good man.”
Soames nodded and hastened after his sister. He found her in a
draught, biting her lips behind her veil, and at once said:
“The evidence of the stewardess will be very complete.”
Winifred’s face hardened; she drew herself up, and they walked to
the carriage. And, all through that silent drive back to Green
Street, the souls of both of them revolved a single thought:
“Why, oh! why should I have to expose my misfortune to the public
like this? Why have to employ spies to peer into my private
troubles? They were not of my making.”
CHAPTER V JOLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT
The possessive instinct, which, so determinedly balked, was
animating two members of the Forsyte family towards riddance of
what they could no longer possess, was hardening daily in the
British body politic. Nicholas, originally so doubtful concerning
a war which must affect property, had been heard to say that
these Boers were a pig-headed lot; they were causing a lot of
expense, and the sooner they had their lesson the better. _He_
would send out Wolseley! Seeing always a little further than
other people—whence the most considerable fortune of all the
Forsytes—he had perceived already that Buller was not the man—“a
bull of a chap, who just went butting, and if they didn’t look
out Ladysmith would fall.” This was early in December, so that
when Black Week came, he was enabled to say to everybody: “I told
you so.” During that week of gloom such as no Forsyte could
remember, very young Nicholas attended so many drills in his
corps, “The Devil’s Own,” that young Nicholas consulted the
family physician about his son’s health and was alarmed to find
that he was perfectly sound. The boy had only just eaten his
dinners and been called to the bar, at some expense, and it was
in a way a nightmare to his father and mother that he should be
playing with military efficiency at a time when military
efficiency in the civilian population might conceivably be
wanted. His grandfather, of course, pooh-poohed the notion, too
thoroughly educated in the feeling that no British war could be
other than little and professional, and profoundly distrustful of
Imperial commitments, by which, moreover, he stood to lose, for
he owned De Beers, now going down fast, more than a sufficient
sacrifice on the part of his grandson.
At Oxford, however, rather different sentiments prevailed. The
inherent effervescence of conglomerate youth had, during the two
months of the term before Black Week, been gradually
crystallising out into vivid oppositions. Normal adolescence,
ever in England of a conservative tendency though not taking
things too seriously, was vehement for a fight to a finish and a
good licking for the Boers. Of this larger faction Val Dartie was
naturally a member. Radical youth, on the other hand, a small but
perhaps more vocal body, was for stopping the war and giving the
Boers autonomy. Until Black Week, however, the groups were
amorphous, without sharp edges, and argument remained but
academic. Jolly was one of those who knew not where he stood. A
streak of his grandfather old Jolyon’s love of justice prevented,
him from seeing one side only. Moreover, in his set of “the best”
there was a “jumping-Jesus” of extremely advanced opinions and
some personal magnetism. Jolly wavered. His father, too, seemed
doubtful in his views. And though, as was proper at the age of
twenty, he kept a sharp eye on his father, watchful for defects
which might still be remedied, still that father had an “air”
which gave a sort of glamour to his creed of ironic tolerance.
Artists, of course, were notoriously Hamlet-like, and to this
extent one must discount for one’s father, even if one loved him.
But Jolyon’s original view, that to “put your nose in where you
aren’t wanted” (as the Uitlanders had done) “and then work the
oracle till you get on top is not being quite the clean potato,”
had, whether founded in fact or no, a certain attraction for his
son, who thought a deal about gentility. On the other hand Jolly
could not abide such as his set called “cranks,” and Val’s set
called “smugs,” so that he was still balancing when the clock of
Black Week struck. One—two—three, came those ominous repulses at
Stormberg, Magersfontein, Colenso. The sturdy English soul
reacting after the first cried, “Ah! but Methuen!” after the
second: “Ah! but Buller!” then, in inspissated gloom, hardened.
And Jolly said to himself: “No, damn it! We’ve got to lick the
beggars now; I don’t care whether we’re right or wrong.” And, if
he had known it, his father was thinking the same thought.
That next Sunday, last of the term, Jolly was bidden to wine with
“one of the best.” After the second toast, “Buller and damnation
to the Boers,” drunk—no heel taps—in the college Burgundy, he
noticed that Val Dartie, also a guest, was looking at him with a
grin and saying something to his neighbour. He was sure it was
disparaging. The last boy in the world to make himself
conspicuous or cause public disturbance, Jolly grew rather red
and shut his lips. The queer hostility he had always felt towards
his second-cousin was strongly and suddenly reinforced. “All
right!” he thought, “you wait, my friend!” More wine than was
good for him, as the custom was, helped him to remember, when
they all trooped forth to a secluded spot, to touch Val on the
arm.
“What did you say about me in there?”
“Mayn’t I say what I like?”
“No.”
“Well, I said you were a pro-Boer—and so you are!”
“You’re a liar!”
“D’you want a row?”
“Of course, but not here; in the garden.”
“All right. Come on.”
They went, eyeing each other askance, unsteady, and unflinching;
they climbed the garden railings. The spikes on the top slightly
ripped Val’s sleeve, and occupied his mind. Jolly’s mind was
occupied by the thought that they were going to fight in the
precincts of a college foreign to them both. It was not the
thing, but never mind—the young beast!
They passed over the grass into very nearly darkness, and took
off their coats.
“You’re not screwed, are you?” said Jolly suddenly. “I can’t
fight you if you’re screwed.”
“No more than you.”
“All right then.”
Without shaking hands, they put themselves at once into postures
of defence. They had drunk too much for science, and so were
especially careful to assume correct attitudes, until Jolly smote
Val almost accidentally on the nose. After that it was all a dark
and ugly scrimmage in the deep shadow of the old trees, with no
one to call “time,” till, battered and blown, they unclinched and
staggered back from each other, as a voice said:
“Your names, young gentlemen?”
At this bland query spoken from under the lamp at the garden
gate, like some demand of a god, their nerves gave way, and
snatching up their coats, they ran at the railings, shinned up
them, and made for the secluded spot whence they had issued to
the fight. Here, in dim light, they mopped their faces, and
without a word walked, ten paces apart, to the college gate. They
went out silently, Val going towards the Broad along the Brewery,
Jolly down the lane towards the High. His head, still fumed, was
busy with regret that he had not displayed more science, passing
in review the counters and knockout blows which he had not
delivered. His mind strayed on to an imagined combat, infinitely
unlike that which he had just been through, infinitely gallant,
with sash and sword, with thrust and parry, as if he were in the
pages of his beloved Dumas. He fancied himself La Mole, and
Aramis, Bussy, Chicot, and D’Artagnan rolled into one, but he
quite failed to envisage Val as Coconnas, Brissac, or Rochefort.
The fellow was just a confounded cousin who didn’t come up to
Cocker. Never mind! He had given him one or two. “Pro-Boer!” The
word still rankled, and thoughts of enlisting jostled his aching
head; of riding over the veldt, firing gallantly, while the Boers
rolled over like rabbits. And, turning up his smarting eyes, he
saw the stars shining between the housetops of the High, and
himself lying out on the Karoo (whatever that was) rolled in a
blanket, with his rifle ready and his gaze fixed on a glittering
heaven.
He had a fearful “head” next morning, which he doctored, as
became one of “the best,” by soaking it in cold water, brewing
strong coffee which he could not drink, and only sipping a little
Hock at lunch. The legend that “some fool” had run into him round
a corner accounted for a bruise on his cheek. He would on no
account have mentioned the fight, for, on second thoughts, it
fell far short of his standards.
The next day he went “down,” and travelled through to Robin Hill.
Nobody was there but June and Holly, for his father had gone to
Paris. He spent a restless and unsettled Vacation, quite out of
touch with either of his sisters. June, indeed, was occupied with
lame ducks, whom, as a rule, Jolly could not stand, especially
that Eric Cobbley and his family, “hopeless outsiders,” who were
always littering up the house in the Vacation. And between Holly
and himself there was a strange division, as if she were
beginning to have opinions of her own, which was so—unnecessary.
He punched viciously at a ball, rode furiously but alone in
Richmond Park, making a point of jumping the stiff, high hurdles
put up to close certain worn avenues of grass—keeping his nerve
in, he called it. Jolly was more afraid of being afraid than most
boys are. He bought a rifle, too, and put a range up in the home
field, shooting across the pond into the kitchen-garden wall, to
the peril of gardeners, with the thought that some day, perhaps,
he would enlist and save South Africa for his country. In fact,
now that they were appealing for Yeomanry recruits the boy was
thoroughly upset. Ought he to go? None of “the best,” so far as
he knew—and he was in correspondence with several—were thinking
of joining. If they _had_ been making a move he would have gone
at once—very competitive, and with a strong sense of form, he
could not bear to be left behind in anything—but to do it off his
own bat might look like “swagger”. because of course it wasn’t
really necessary. Besides, he did not want to go, for the other
side of this young Forsyte recoiled from leaping before he
looked. It was altogether mixed pickles within him, hot and
sickly pickles, and he became quite unlike his serene and rather
lordly self.
And then one day he saw that which moved him to uneasy wrath—two
riders, in a glade of the Park close to the Ham Gate, of whom she
on the left-hand was most assuredly Holly on her silver roan, and
he on the right-hand as assuredly that “squirt” Val Dartie. His
first impulse was to urge on his own horse and demand the meaning
of this portent, tell the fellow to “bunk,” and take Holly home.
His second—to feel that he would look a fool if they refused. He
reined his horse in behind a tree, then perceived that it was
equally impossible to spy on them. Nothing for it but to go home
and await her coming! Sneaking out with that young bounder! He
could not consult with June, because she had gone up that morning
in the train of Eric Cobbley and his lot. And his father was
still in “that rotten Paris.” He felt that this was emphatically
one of those moments for which he had trained himself,
assiduously, at school, where he and a boy called Brent had
frequently set fire to newspapers and placed them in the centre
of their studies to accustom them to coolness in moments of
danger. He did not feel at all cool waiting in the stable-yard,
idly stroking the dog Balthasar, who queasy as an old fat monk,
and sad in the absence of his master, turned up his face, panting
with gratitude for this attention. It was half an hour before
Holly came, flushed and ever so much prettier than she had any
right to look. He saw her look at him quickly—guiltily of
course—then followed her in, and, taking her arm, conducted her
into what had been their grandfather’s study. The room, not much
used now, was still vaguely haunted for them both by a presence
with which they associated tenderness, large drooping white
moustaches, the scent of cigar smoke, and laughter. Here Jolly,
in the prime of his youth, before he went to school at all, had
been wont to wrestle with his grandfather, who even at eighty had
an irresistible habit of crooking his leg. Here Holly, perched on
the arm of the great leather chair, had stroked hair curving
silvery over an ear into which she would whisper secrets. Through
that window they had all three sallied times without number to
cricket on the lawn, and a mysterious game called “Wopsy-doozle,”
not to be understood by outsiders, which made old Jolyon very
hot. Here once on a warm night Holly had appeared in her
“nighty,” having had a bad dream, to have the clutch of it
released. And here Jolly, having begun the day badly by
introducing fizzy magnesia into Mademoiselle Beauce’s new-laid
egg, and gone on to worse, had been sent down (in the absence of
his father) to the ensuing dialogue:
“Now, my boy, you mustn’t go on like this.”
“Well, she boxed my ears, Gran, so I only boxed hers, and then
she boxed mine again.”
“Strike a lady? That’ll never do! Have you begged her pardon?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you must go and do it at once. Come along.”
“But she began it, Gran; and she had two to my one.”
“My dear, it was an outrageous thing to do.”
“Well, she lost her temper; and I didn’t lose mine.”
“Come along.”
“You come too, then, Gran.”
“Well—this time only.”
And they had gone hand in hand.
Here—where the Waverley novels and Byron’s works and Gibbon’s
_Roman Empire_ and Humboldt’s _Cosmos_, and the bronzes on the
mantelpiece, and that masterpiece of the oily school, “Dutch
Fishing-Boats at Sunset,” were fixed as fate, and for all sign of
change old Jolyon might have been sitting there still, with legs
crossed, in the arm chair, and domed forehead and deep eyes grave
above _The Times_—here they came, those two grandchildren. And
Jolly said:
“I saw you and that fellow in the Park.”
The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some
satisfaction; she _ought_ to be ashamed!
“Well?” she said.
Jolly was surprised; he had expected more, or less.
“Do you know,” he said weightily, “that he called me a pro-Boer
last term? And I had to fight him.”
“Who won?”
Jolly wished to answer: “I should have,” but it seemed beneath
him.
“Look here!” he said, “what’s the meaning of it? Without telling
anybody!”
“Why should I? Dad isn’t here; why shouldn’t I ride with him?”
“You’ve got me to ride with. I think he’s an awful young rotter.”
Holly went pale with anger.
“He isn’t. It’s your own fault for not liking him.”
And slipping past her brother she went out, leaving him staring
at the bronze Venus sitting on a tortoise, which had been
shielded from him so far by his sister’s dark head under her soft
felt riding hat. He felt queerly disturbed, shaken to his young
foundations. A lifelong domination lay shattered round his feet.
He went up to the Venus and mechanically inspected the tortoise.
Why didn’t he like Val Dartie? He could not tell. Ignorant of
family history, barely aware of that vague feud which had started
thirteen years before with Bosinney’s defection from June in
favour of Soames’ wife, knowing really almost nothing about Val
he was at sea. He just _did_ dislike him. The question, however,
was: What should he do? Val Dartie, it was true, was a
second-cousin, but it was not the thing for Holly to go about
with him. And yet to “tell” of what he had chanced on was against
his creed. In this dilemma he went and sat in the old leather
chair and crossed his legs. It grew dark while he sat there
staring out through the long window at the old oak-tree, ample
yet bare of leaves, becoming slowly just a shape of deeper dark
printed on the dusk.
“Grandfather!” he thought without sequence, and took out his
watch. He could not see the hands, but he set the repeater going.
“Five o’clock!” His grandfather’s first gold hunter watch,
butter-smooth with age—all the milling worn from it, and dented
with the mark of many a fall. The chime was like a little voice
from out of that golden age, when they first came from St. John’s
Wood, London, to this house—came driving with grandfather in his
carriage, and almost instantly took to the trees. Trees to climb,
and grandfather watering the geranium-beds below! What was to be
done? Tell Dad he must come home? Confide in June?—only she was
so—so sudden! Do nothing and trust to luck? After all, the Vac.
would soon be over. Go up and see Val and warn him off? But how
get his address? Holly wouldn’t give it him! A maze of paths, a
cloud of possibilities! He lit a cigarette. When he had smoked it
halfway through his brow relaxed, almost as if some thin old hand
had been passed gently over it; and in his ear something seemed
to whisper: “Do nothing; be nice to Holly, be nice to her, my
dear!” And Jolly heaved a sigh of contentment, blowing smoke
through his nostrils....
But up in her room, divested of her habit, Holly was still
frowning. “He is _not_—he is _not!_” were the words which kept
forming on her lips.
CHAPTER VI JOLYON IN TWO MINDS
A little private hotel over a well-known restaurant near the Gare
St. Lazare was Jolyon’s haunt in Paris. He hated his fellow
Forsytes abroad—vapid as fish out of water in their well-trodden
runs, the Opera, Rue de Rivoli, and Moulin Rouge. Their air of
having come because they wanted to be somewhere else as soon as
possible annoyed him. But no other Forsyte came near this haunt,
where he had a wood fire in his bedroom and the coffee was
excellent. Paris was always to him more attractive in winter. The
acrid savour from woodsmoke and chestnut-roasting braziers, the
sharpness of the wintry sunshine on bright rays, the open cafés
defying keen-aired winter, the self-contained brisk boulevard
crowds, all informed him that in winter Paris possessed a soul
which, like a migrant bird, in high summer flew away.
He spoke French well, had some friends, knew little places where
pleasant dishes could be met with, queer types observed. He felt
philosophic in Paris, the edge of irony sharpened; life took on a
subtle, purposeless meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a
darkness shot with shifting gleams of light.
When in the first week of December he decided to go to Paris, he
was far from admitting that Irene’s presence was influencing him.
He had not been there two days before he owned that the wish to
see her had been more than half the reason. In England one did
not admit what was natural. He had thought it might be well to
speak to her about the letting of her flat and other matters, but
in Paris he at once knew better. There was a glamour over the
city. On the third day he wrote to her, and received an answer
which procured him a pleasurable shiver of the nerves:
“MY DEAR JOLYON,
“It will be a happiness for me to see you.
“IRENE.”
He took his way to her hotel on a bright day with a feeling such
as he had often had going to visit an adored picture. No woman,
so far as he remembered, had ever inspired in him this special
sensuous and yet impersonal sensation. He was going to sit and
feast his eyes, and come away knowing her no better, but ready to
go and feast his eyes again to-morrow. Such was his feeling, when
in the tarnished and ornate little lounge of a quiet hotel near
the river she came to him preceded by a small page-boy who
uttered the word, “_Madame_,” and vanished. Her face, her smile,
the poise of her figure, were just as he had pictured, and the
expression of her face said plainly: “A friend!”
“Well,” he said, “what news, poor exile?”
“None.”
“Nothing from Soames?”
“Nothing.”
“I have let the flat for you, and like a good steward I bring you
some money. How do you like Paris?”
While he put her through this catechism, it seemed to him that he
had never seen lips so fine and sensitive, the lower lip curving
just a little upwards, the upper touched at one corner by the
least conceivable dimple. It was like discovering a woman in what
had hitherto been a sort of soft and breathed-on statue, almost
impersonally admired. She owned that to be alone in Paris was a
little difficult; and yet, Paris was so full of its own life that
it was often, she confessed, as innocuous as a desert. Besides,
the English were not liked just now!
“That will hardly be your case,” said Jolyon; “you should appeal
to the French.”
“It has its disadvantages.”
Jolyon nodded.
“Well, you must let _me_ take you about while I’m here. We’ll
start to-morrow. Come and dine at my pet restaurant; and we’ll go
to the Opéra-Comique.”
It was the beginning of daily meetings.
Jolyon soon found that for those who desired a static condition
of the affections, Paris was at once the first and last place in
which to be friendly with a pretty woman. Revelation was
alighting like a bird in his heart, singing: “_Elle est ton rêve!
Elle est ton rêve!_” Sometimes this seemed natural, sometimes
ludicrous—a bad case of elderly rapture. Having once been
ostracised by Society, he had never since had any real regard for
conventional morality; but the idea of a love which she could
never return—and how could she at his age?—hardly mounted beyond
his subconscious mind. He was full, too, of resentment, at the
waste and loneliness of her life. Aware of being some comfort to
her, and of the pleasure she clearly took in their many little
outings, he was amiably desirous of doing and saying nothing to
destroy that pleasure. It was like watching a starved plant draw
up water, to see her drink in his companionship. So far as they
could tell, no one knew her address except himself; she was
unknown in Paris, and he but little known, so that discretion
seemed unnecessary in those walks, talks, visits to concerts,
picture-galleries, theatres, little dinners, expeditions to
Versailles, St. Cloud, even Fontainebleau. And time fled—one of
those full months without past to it or future. What in his youth
would certainly have been headlong passion, was now perhaps as
deep a feeling, but far gentler, tempered to protective
companionship by admiration, hopelessness, and a sense of
chivalry—arrested in his veins at least so long as she was there,
smiling and happy in their friendship, and always to him more
beautiful and spiritually responsive: for her philosophy of life
seemed to march in admirable step with his own, conditioned by
emotion more than by reason, ironically mistrustful, susceptible
to beauty, almost passionately humane and tolerant, yet subject
to instinctive rigidities of which as a mere man he was less
capable. And during all this companionable month he never quite
lost that feeling with which he had set out on the first day as
if to visit an adored work of art, a well-nigh impersonal desire.
The future—inexorable pendant to the present he took care not to
face, for fear of breaking up his untroubled manner; but he made
plans to renew this time in places still more delightful, where
the sun was hot and there were strange things to see and paint.
The end came swiftly on the 20th of January with a telegram:
“Have enlisted in Imperial Yeomanry.—JOLLY.”
Jolyon received it just as he was setting out to meet her at the
Louvre. It brought him up with a round turn. While he was
lotus-eating here, his boy, whose philosopher and guide he ought
to be, had taken this great step towards danger, hardship,
perhaps even death. He felt disturbed to the soul, realising
suddenly how Irene had twined herself round the roots of his
being. Thus threatened with severance, the tie between them—for
it had become a kind of tie—no longer had impersonal quality. The
tranquil enjoyment of things in common, Jolyon perceived, was
gone for ever. He saw his feeling as it was, in the nature of an
infatuation. Ridiculous, perhaps, but so real that sooner or
later it must disclose itself. And now, as it seemed to him, he
could not, must not, make any such disclosure. The news of Jolly
stood inexorably in the way. He was proud of this enlistment;
proud of his boy for going off to fight for the country; for on
Jolyon’s pro-Boerism, too, Black Week had left its mark. And so
the end was reached before the beginning! Well, luckily he had
never made a sign!
When he came into the Gallery she was standing before the “Virgin
of the Rocks,” graceful, absorbed, smiling and unconscious. “Have
I to give up seeing _that?_” he thought. “It’s unnatural, so long
as she’s willing that I should see her.” He stood, unnoticed,
watching her, storing up the image of her figure, envying the
picture on which she was bending that long scrutiny. Twice she
turned her head towards the entrance, and he thought: “That’s for
me!” At last he went forward.
“Look!” he said.
She read the telegram, and he heard her sigh.
That sigh, too, was for him! His position was really cruel! To be
loyal to his son he must just shake her hand and go. To be loyal
to the feeling in his heart he must at least tell her what that
feeling was. Could she, would she understand the silence in which
he was gazing at that picture?
“I’m afraid I must go home at once,” he said at last. “I shall
miss all this awfully.”
“So shall I; but, of course, you must go.”
“Well!” said Jolyon holding out his hand.
Meeting her eyes, a flood of feeling nearly mastered him.
“Such is life!” he said. “Take care of yourself, my dear!”
He had a stumbling sensation in his legs and feet, as if his
brain refused to steer him away from her. From the doorway, he
saw her lift her hand and touch its fingers with her lips. He
raised his hat solemnly, and did not look back again.
CHAPTER VII DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE
The suit—Dartie _versus_ Dartie—for restitution of those conjugal
rights concerning which Winifred was at heart so deeply
undecided, followed the laws of subtraction towards day of
judgment. This was not reached before the Courts rose for
Christmas, but the case was third on the list when they sat
again. Winifred spent the Christmas holidays a thought more
fashionably than usual, with the matter locked up in her low-cut
bosom. James was particularly liberal to her that Christmas,
expressing thereby his sympathy, and relief, at the approaching
dissolution of her marriage with that “precious rascal,” which
his old heart felt but his old lips could not utter.
The disappearance of Dartie made the fall in Consols a
comparatively small matter; and as to the scandal—the real animus
he felt against that fellow, and the increasing lead which
property was attaining over reputation in a true Forsyte about to
leave this world, served to drug a mind from which all allusions
to the matter (except his own) were studiously kept. What worried
him as a lawyer and a parent was the fear that Dartie might
suddenly turn up and obey the Order of the Court when made. That
would be a pretty how-de-do! The fear preyed on him in fact so
much that, in presenting Winifred with a large Christmas cheque,
he said: “It’s chiefly for that chap out there; to keep him from
coming back.” It was, of course, to pitch away good money, but
all in the nature of insurance against that bankruptcy which
would no longer hang over him if only the divorce went through;
and he questioned Winifred rigorously until she could assure him
that the money had been sent. Poor woman!—it cost her many a pang
to send what must find its way into the vanity-bag of “that
creature!” Soames, hearing of it, shook his head. They were not
dealing with a Forsyte, reasonably tenacious of his purpose. It
was very risky without knowing how the land lay out there. Still,
it would look well with the Court; and he would see that Dreamer
brought it out. “I wonder,” he said suddenly, “where that ballet
goes after the Argentine”; never omitting a chance of reminder;
for he knew that Winifred still had a weakness, if not for
Dartie, at least for not laundering him in public. Though not
good at showing admiration, he admitted that she was behaving
extremely well, with all her children at home gaping like young
birds for news of their father—Imogen just on the point of coming
out, and Val very restive about the whole thing. He felt that Val
was the real heart of the matter to Winifred, who certainly loved
him beyond her other children. The boy could spoke the wheel of
this divorce yet if he set his mind to it. And Soames was very
careful to keep the proximity of the preliminary proceedings from
his nephew’s ears. He did more. He asked him to dine at the
Remove, and over Val’s cigar introduced the subject which he knew
to be nearest to his heart.
“I hear,” he said, “that you want to play polo up at Oxford.”
Val became less recumbent in his chair.
“Rather!” he said.
“Well,” continued Soames, “that’s a very expensive business. Your
grandfather isn’t likely to consent to it unless he can make sure
that he’s not got any other drain on him.” And he paused to see
whether the boy understood his meaning.
Val’s thick dark lashes concealed his eyes, but a slight grimace
appeared on his wide mouth, and he muttered:
“I suppose you mean my Dad!”
“Yes,” said Soames; “I’m afraid it depends on whether he
continues to be a drag or not;” and said no more, letting the boy
dream it over.
But Val was also dreaming in those days of a silver-roan palfrey
and a girl riding it. Though Crum was in town and an introduction
to Cynthia Dark to be had for the asking, Val did not ask;
indeed, he shunned Crum and lived a life strange even to himself,
except in so far as accounts with tailor and livery stable were
concerned. To his mother, his sisters, his young brother, he
seemed to spend this Vacation in “seeing fellows,” and his
evenings sleepily at home. They could not propose anything in
daylight that did not meet with the one response: “Sorry; I’ve
got to see a fellow”; and he was put to extraordinary shifts to
get in and out of the house unobserved in riding clothes; until,
being made a member of the Goat’s Club, he was able to transport
them there, where he could change unregarded and slip off on his
hack to Richmond Park. He kept his growing sentiment religiously
to himself. Not for a world would he breathe to the “fellows,”
whom he was not “seeing,” anything so ridiculous from the point
of view of their creed and his. But he could not help its
destroying his other appetites. It was coming between him and the
legitimate pleasures of youth at last on its own in a way which
must, he knew, make him a milksop in the eyes of Crum. All he
cared for was to dress in his last-created riding togs, and steal
away to the Robin Hill Gate, where presently the silver roan
would come demurely sidling with its slim and dark-haired rider,
and in the glades bare of leaves they would go off side by side,
not talking very much, riding races sometimes, and sometimes
holding hands. More than once of an evening, in a moment of
expansion, he had been tempted to tell his mother how this shy
sweet cousin had stolen in upon him and wrecked his “life.” But
bitter experience, that all persons above thirty-five were
spoil-sports, prevented him. After all, he supposed he would have
to go through with College, and she would have to “come out,”
before they could be married; so why complicate things, so long
as he could see her? Sisters were teasing and unsympathetic
beings, a brother worse, so there was no one to confide in. Ah!
And this beastly divorce business! What a misfortune to have a
name which other people hadn’t! If only he had been called Gordon
or Scott or Howard or something fairly common! But Dartie—there
wasn’t another in the directory! One might as well have been
named Morkin for all the covert it afforded! So matters went on,
till one day in the middle of January the silver-roan palfrey and
its rider were missing at the tryst. Lingering in the cold, he
debated whether he should ride on to the house: But Jolly might
be there, and the memory of their dark encounter was still fresh
within him. One could not be always fighting with her brother! So
he returned dismally to town and spent an evening plunged in
gloom. At breakfast next day he noticed that his mother had on an
unfamiliar dress and was wearing her hat. The dress was black
with a glimpse of peacock blue, the hat black and large—she
looked exceptionally well. But when after breakfast she said to
him, “Come in here, Val,” and led the way to the drawing-room, he
was at once beset by qualms. Winifred carefully shut the door and
passed her handkerchief over her lips; inhaling the violette de
Parme with which it had been soaked, Val thought: “Has she found
out about Holly?”
Her voice interrupted
“Are you going to be nice to me, dear boy?”
Val grinned doubtfully.
“Will you come with me this morning....”
“I’ve got to see....” began Val, but something in her face
stopped him. “I say,” he said, “you don’t mean....”
“Yes, I have to go to the Court this morning.” Already!—that d—-d
business which he had almost succeeded in forgetting, since
nobody ever mentioned it. In self-commiseration he stood picking
little bits of skin off his fingers. Then noticing that his
mother’s lips were all awry, he said impulsively: “All right,
mother; I’ll come. The brutes!” What brutes he did not know, but
the expression exactly summed up their joint feeling, and
restored a measure of equanimity.
“I suppose I’d better change into a ‘shooter,’” he muttered,
escaping to his room. He put on the “shooter,” a higher collar, a
pearl pin, and his neatest grey spats, to a somewhat blasphemous
accompaniment. Looking at himself in the glass, he said, “Well,
I’m damned if I’m going to show anything!” and went down. He
found his grandfather’s carriage at the door, and his mother in
furs, with the appearance of one going to a Mansion House
Assembly. They seated themselves side by side in the closed
barouche, and all the way to the Courts of Justice Val made but
one allusion to the business in hand. “There’ll be nothing about
those pearls, will there?”
The little tufted white tails of Winifred’s muff began to shiver.
“Oh, no,” she said, “it’ll be quite harmless to-day. Your
grandmother wanted to come too, but I wouldn’t let her. I thought
you could take care of me. You look so nice, Val. Just pull your
coat collar up a little more at the back—that’s right.”
“If they bully you....” began Val.
“Oh! they won’t. I shall be very cool. It’s the only way.”
“They won’t want me to give evidence or anything?”
“No, dear; it’s all arranged.” And she patted his hand. The
determined front she was putting on it stayed the turmoil in
Val’s chest, and he busied himself in drawing his gloves off and
on. He had taken what he now saw was the wrong pair to go with
his spats; they should have been grey, but were deerskin of a
dark tan; whether to keep them on or not he could not decide.
They arrived soon after ten. It was his first visit to the Law
Courts, and the building struck him at once.
“By Jove!” he said as they passed into the hall, “this’d make
four or five jolly good racket courts.”
Soames was awaiting them at the foot of some stairs.
“Here you are!” he said, without shaking hands, as if the event
had made them too familiar for such formalities. “It’s Happerly
Browne, Court I. We shall be on first.”
A sensation such as he had known when going in to bat was playing
now in the top of Val’s chest, but he followed his mother and
uncle doggedly, looking at no more than he could help, and
thinking that the place smelled “fuggy.” People seemed to be
lurking everywhere, and he plucked Soames by the sleeve.
“I say, Uncle, you’re not going to let those beastly papers in,
are you?”
Soames gave him the sideway look which had reduced many to
silence in its time.
“In here,” he said. “You needn’t take off your furs, Winifred.”
Val entered behind them, nettled and with his head up. In this
confounded hole everybody—and there were a good many of
them—seemed sitting on everybody else’s knee, though really
divided from each other by pews; and Val had a feeling that they
might all slip down together into the well. This, however, was
but a momentary vision—of mahogany, and black gowns, and white
blobs of wigs and faces and papers, all rather secret and
whispery—before he was sitting next his mother in the front row,
with his back to it all, glad of her violette de Parme, and
taking off his gloves for the last time. His mother was looking
at him; he was suddenly conscious that she had really wanted him
there next to her, and that he counted for something in this
business.
All right! He would show them! Squaring his shoulders, he crossed
his legs and gazed inscrutably at his spats. But just then an
“old Johnny” in a gown and long wig, looking awfully like a funny
raddled woman, came through a door into the high pew opposite,
and he had to uncross his legs hastily, and stand up with
everybody else.
“Dartie _versus_ Dartie!”
It seemed to Val unspeakably disgusting to have one’s name called
out like this in public! And, suddenly conscious that someone
nearly behind him had begun talking about his family, he screwed
his face round to see an old be-wigged buffer, who spoke as if he
were eating his own words—queer-looking old cuss, the sort of man
he had seen once or twice dining at Park Lane and punishing the
port; he knew now where they “dug them up.” All the same he found
the old buffer quite fascinating, and would have continued to
stare if his mother had not touched his arm. Reduced to gazing
before him, he fixed his eyes on the Judge’s face instead. Why
should that old “sportsman” with his sarcastic mouth and his
quick-moving eyes have the power to meddle with their private
affairs—hadn’t he affairs of his own, just as many, and probably
just as nasty? And there moved in Val, like an illness, all the
deep-seated individualism of his breed. The voice behind him
droned along: “Differences about money matters—extravagance of
the respondent” (What a word! Was that his father?)—“strained
situation—frequent absences on the part of Mr. Dartie. My client,
very rightly, your Ludship will agree, was anxious to check a
course—but lead to ruin—remonstrated—gambling at cards and on the
racecourse—” (“That’s right!” thought Val, “pile it on!”) “Crisis
early in October, when the respondent wrote her this letter from
his Club.” Val sat up and his ears burned. “I propose to read it
with the emendations necessary to the epistle of a gentleman who
has been—shall we say dining, me Lud?”
“Old brute!” thought Val, flushing deeper; “you’re not paid to
make jokes!”
“‘You will not get the chance to insult me again in my own house.
I am leaving the country to-morrow. It’s played out’—an
expression, your Ludship, not unknown in the mouths of those who
have not met with conspicuous success.”
“Sniggering owls!” thought Val, and his flush deepened.
“‘I am tired of being insulted by you.’ My client will tell your
Ludship that these so-called insults consisted in her calling him
‘the limit’,—a very mild expression, I venture to suggest, in all
the circumstances.”
Val glanced sideways at his mother’s impassive face, it had a
hunted look in the eyes. “Poor mother,” he thought, and touched
her arm with his own. The voice behind droned on.
“‘I am going to live a new life. M. D.’”
“And next day, me Lud, the respondent left by the steamship
_Tuscarora_ for Buenos Aires. Since then we have nothing from him
but a cabled refusal in answer to the letter which my client
wrote the following day in great distress, begging him to return
to her. With your Ludship’s permission. I shall now put Mrs.
Dartie in the box.”
When his mother rose, Val had a tremendous impulse to rise too
and say: “Look here! I’m going to see you jolly well treat her
decently.” He subdued it, however; heard her saying, “the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” and looked up. She
made a rich figure of it, in her furs and large hat, with a
slight flush on her cheek-bones, calm, matter-of-fact; and he
felt proud of her thus confronting all these “confounded
lawyers.” The examination began. Knowing that this was only the
preliminary to divorce, Val followed with a certain glee the
questions framed so as to give the impression that she really
wanted his father back. It seemed to him that they were “foxing
Old Bagwigs finely.”
And he received a most unpleasant jar when the Judge said
suddenly:
“Now, why did your husband leave you—not because you called him
‘the limit,’ you know?”
Val saw his uncle lift his eyes to the witness box, without
moving his face; heard a shuffle of papers behind him; and
instinct told him that the issue was in peril. Had Uncle Soames
and the old buffer behind made a mess of it? His mother was
speaking with a slight drawl.
“No, my Lord, but it had gone on a long time.”
“What had gone on?”
“Our differences about money.”
“But you supplied the money. Do you suggest that he left you to
better his position?”
“The brute! The old brute, and nothing but the brute!” thought
Val suddenly. “He smells a rat he’s trying to get at the pastry!”
And his heart stood still. If—if he did, then, of course, he
would know that his mother didn’t really want his father back.
His mother spoke again, a thought more fashionably.
“No, my Lord, but you see I had refused to give him any more
money. It took him a long time to believe that, but he did at
last—and when he did....”
“I see, you had refused. But you’ve sent him some since.”
“My Lord, I wanted him back.”
“And you thought that would bring him?”
“I don’t know, my Lord, I acted on my father’s advice.”
Something in the Judge’s face, in the sound of the papers behind
him, in the sudden crossing of his uncle’s legs, told Val that
she had made just the right answer. “Crafty!” he thought; “by
Jove, what humbug it all is!”
The Judge was speaking:
“Just one more question, Mrs. Dartie. Are you still fond of your
husband?”
Val’s hands, slack behind him, became fists. What business had
that Judge to make things human suddenly? To make his mother
speak out of her heart, and say what, perhaps, she didn’t know
herself, before all these people! It wasn’t decent. His mother
answered, rather low: “Yes, my Lord.” Val saw the Judge nod.
“Wish I could take a cock-shy at your head!” he thought
irreverently, as his mother came back to her seat beside him.
Witnesses to his father’s departure and continued absence
followed—one of their own maids even, which struck Val as
particularly beastly; there was more talking, all humbug; and
then the Judge pronounced the decree for restitution, and they
got up to go. Val walked out behind his mother, chin squared,
eyelids drooped, doing his level best to despise everybody. His
mother’s voice in the corridor roused him from an angry trance.
“You behaved beautifully, dear. It was such a comfort to have
you. Your uncle and I are going to lunch.”
“All right,” said Val; “I shall have time to go and see that
fellow.” And, parting from them abruptly, he ran down the stairs
and out into the air. He bolted into a hansom, and drove to the
Goat’s Club. His thoughts were on Holly and what he must do
before her brother showed her this thing in to-morrow’s paper.
When Val had left them Soames and Winifred made their way to the
Cheshire Cheese. He had suggested it as a meeting place with Mr.
Bellby. At that early hour of noon they would have it to
themselves, and Winifred had thought it would be “amusing” to see
this far-famed hostelry. Having ordered a light repast, to the
consternation of the waiter, they awaited its arrival together
with that of Mr. Bellby, in silent reaction after the hour and a
half’s suspense on the tenterhooks of publicity. Mr. Bellby
entered presently, preceded by his nose, as cheerful as they were
glum. Well! they had got the decree of restitution, and what was
the matter with that!
“Quite,” said Soames in a suitably low voice, “but we shall have
to begin again to get evidence. He’ll probably try the divorce—it
will look fishy if it comes out that we knew of misconduct from
the start. His questions showed well enough that he doesn’t like
this restitution dodge.”
“Pho!” said Mr. Bellby cheerily, “he’ll forget! Why, man, he’ll
have tried a hundred cases between now and then. Besides, he’s
bound by precedent to give ye your divorce, if the evidence is
satisfactory. We won’t let um know that Mrs. Dartie had knowledge
of the facts. Dreamer did it very nicely—he’s got a fatherly
touch about um!”
Soames nodded.
“And I compliment ye, Mrs. Dartie,” went on Mr. Bellby; “ye’ve a
natural gift for giving evidence. Steady as a rock.”
Here the waiter arrived with three plates balanced on one arm,
and the remark: “I ’urried up the pudden, sir. You’ll find plenty
o’ lark in it to-day.”
Mr. Bellby applauded his forethought with a dip of his nose. But
Soames and Winifred looked with dismay at their light lunch of
gravified brown masses, touching them gingerly with their forks
in the hope of distinguishing the bodies of the tasty little
song-givers. Having begun, however, they found they were hungrier
than they thought, and finished the lot, with a glass of port
apiece. Conversation turned on the war. Soames thought Ladysmith
would fall, and it might last a year. Bellby thought it would be
over by the summer. Both agreed that they wanted more men. There
was nothing for it but complete victory, since it was now a
question of prestige. Winifred brought things back to more solid
ground by saying that she did not want the divorce suit to come
on till after the summer holidays had begun at Oxford, then the
boys would have forgotten about it before Val had to go up again;
the London season too would be over. The lawyers reassured her,
an interval of six months was necessary—after that the earlier
the better. People were now beginning to come in, and they
parted—Soames to the city, Bellby to his chambers, Winifred in a
hansom to Park Lane to let her mother know how she had fared. The
issue had been so satisfactory on the whole that it was
considered advisable to tell James, who never failed to say day
after day that he didn’t know about Winifred’s affair, he
couldn’t tell. As his sands ran out; the importance of mundane
matters became increasingly grave to him, as if he were feeling:
“I must make the most of it, and worry well; I shall soon have
nothing to worry about.”
He received the report grudgingly. It was a new-fangled way of
going about things, and he didn’t know! But he gave Winifred a
cheque, saying:
“I expect you’ll have a lot of expense. That’s a new hat you’ve
got on. Why doesn’t Val come and see us?”
Winifred promised to bring him to dinner soon. And, going home,
she sought her bedroom where she could be alone. Now that her
husband had been ordered back into her custody with a view to
putting him away from her for ever, she would try once more to
find out from her sore and lonely heart what she really wanted.
CHAPTER VIII THE CHALLENGE
The morning had been misty, verging on frost, but the sun came
out while Val was jogging towards the Roehampton Gate, whence he
would canter on to the usual tryst. His spirits were rising
rapidly. There had been nothing so very terrible in the morning’s
proceedings beyond the general disgrace of violated privacy. “If
we were engaged!” he thought, “what happens wouldn’t matter.” He
felt, indeed, like human society, which kicks and clamours at the
results of matrimony, and hastens to get married. And he galloped
over the winter-dried grass of Richmond Park, fearing to be late.
But again he was alone at the trysting spot, and this second
defection on the part of Holly upset him dreadfully. He could not
go back without seeing her to-day! Emerging from the Park, he
proceeded towards Robin Hill. He could not make up his mind for
whom to ask. Suppose her father were back, or her sister or
brother were in! He decided to gamble, and ask for them all
first, so that if he were in luck and they were not there, it
would be quite natural in the end to ask for Holly; while if any
of them _were_ in—an “excuse for a ride” must be his saving
grace.
“Only Miss Holly is in, sir.”
“Oh! thanks. Might I take my horse round to the stables? And
would you say—her cousin, Mr. Val Dartie.”
When he returned she was in the hall, very flushed and shy. She
led him to the far end, and they sat down on a wide window-seat.
“I’ve been awfully anxious,” said Val in a low voice. “What’s the
matter?”
“Jolly knows about our riding.”
“Is he in?”
“No; but I expect he will be soon.”
“Then!” cried Val, and diving forward, he seized her hand. She
tried to withdraw it, failed, gave up the attempt, and looked at
him wistfully.
“First of all,” he said, “I want to tell you something about my
family. My Dad, you know, isn’t altogether—I mean, he’s left my
mother and they’re trying to divorce him; so they’ve ordered him
to come back, you see. You’ll see that in the paper to-morrow.”
Her eyes deepened in colour and fearful interest; her hand
squeezed his. But the gambler in Val was roused now, and he
hurried on:
“Of course there’s nothing very much at present, but there will
be, I expect, before it’s over; divorce suits are beastly, you
know. I wanted to tell you, because—because—you ought to
know—if—” and he began to stammer, gazing at her troubled eyes,
“if—if you’re going to be a darling and love me, Holly. I love
you—ever so; and I want to be engaged.” He had done it in a
manner so inadequate that he could have punched his own head; and
dropping on his knees, he tried to get nearer to that soft,
troubled face. “You do love me—don’t you? If you don’t I....”
There was a moment of silence and suspense, so awful that he
could hear the sound of a mowing-machine far out on the lawn
pretending there was grass to cut. Then she swayed forward; her
free hand touched his hair, and he gasped: “Oh, Holly!”
Her answer was very soft: “Oh, Val!”
He had dreamed of this moment, but always in an imperative mood,
as the masterful young lover, and now he felt humble, touched,
trembly. He was afraid to stir off his knees lest he should break
the spell; lest, if he did, she should shrink and deny her own
surrender—so tremulous was she in his grasp, with her eyelids
closed and his lips nearing them. Her eyes opened, seemed to swim
a little; he pressed his lips to hers. Suddenly he sprang up;
there had been footsteps, a sort of startled grunt. He looked
round. No one! But the long curtains which barred off the outer
hall were quivering.
“My God! Who was that?”
Holly too was on her feet.
“Jolly, I expect,” she whispered.
Val clenched fists and resolution.
“All right!” he said, “I don’t care a bit now we’re engaged,” and
striding towards the curtains, he drew them aside. There at the
fireplace in the hall stood Jolly, with his back elaborately
turned. Val went forward. Jolly faced round on him.
“I beg your pardon for hearing,” he said.
With the best intentions in the world, Val could not help
admiring him at that moment; his face was clear, his voice quiet,
he looked somehow distinguished, as if acting up to principle.
“Well!” Val said abruptly, “it’s nothing to you.”
“Oh!” said Jolly; “you come this way,” and he crossed the hall.
Val followed. At the study door he felt a touch on his arm;
Holly’s voice said:
“I’m coming too.”
“No,” said Jolly.
“Yes,” said Holly.
Jolly opened the door, and they all three went in. Once in the
little room, they stood in a sort of triangle on three corners of
the worn Turkey carpet; awkwardly upright, not looking at each
other, quite incapable of seeing any humour in the situation.
Val broke the silence.
“Holly and I are engaged.”
Jolly stepped back and leaned against the lintel of the window.
“This is our house,” he said; “I’m not going to insult you in it.
But my father’s away. I’m in charge of my sister. You’ve taken
advantage of me.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Val hotly.
“I think you did,” said Jolly. “If you hadn’t meant to, you’d
have spoken to me, or waited for my father to come back.”
“There were reasons,” said Val.
“What reasons?”
“About my family—I’ve just told her. I wanted her to know before
things happen.”
Jolly suddenly became less distinguished.
“You’re kids,” he said, “and you know you are.
“I am _not_ a kid,” said Val.
“You are—you’re not twenty.”
“Well, what are you?”
“I _am_ twenty,” said Jolly.
“Only just; anyway, I’m as good a man as you.”
Jolly’s face crimsoned, then clouded. Some struggle was evidently
taking place in him; and Val and Holly stared at him, so clearly
was that struggle marked; they could even hear him breathing.
Then his face cleared up and became oddly resolute.
“We’ll see that,” he said. “I dare you to do what I’m going to
do.”
“Dare me?”
Jolly smiled. “Yes,” he said, “dare you; and I know very well you
won’t.”
A stab of misgiving shot through Val; this was riding very blind.
“I haven’t forgotten that you’re a fire-eater,” said Jolly
slowly, “and I think that’s about all you are; or that you called
me a pro-Boer.”
Val heard a gasp above the sound of his own hard breathing, and
saw Holly’s face poked a little forward, very pale, with big
eyes.
“Yes,” went on Jolly with a sort of smile, “we shall soon see.
I’m going to join the Imperial Yeomanry, and I dare you to do the
same, Mr. Val Dartie.”
Val’s head jerked on its stem. It was like a blow between the
eyes, so utterly unthought of, so extreme and ugly in the midst
of his dreaming; and he looked at Holly with eyes grown suddenly,
touchingly haggard.
“Sit down!” said Jolly. “Take your time! Think it over well.” And
he himself sat down on the arm of his grandfather’s chair.
Val did not sit down; he stood with hands thrust deep into his
breeches’ pockets—hands clenched and quivering. The full
awfulness of this decision one way or the other knocked at his
mind with double knocks as of an angry postman. If he did not
take that “dare” he was disgraced in Holly’s eyes, and in the
eyes of that young enemy, her brute of a brother. Yet if he took
it, ah! then all would vanish—her face, her eyes, her hair, her
kisses just begun!
“Take your time,” said Jolly again; “I don’t want to be unfair.”
And they both looked at Holly. She had recoiled against the
bookshelves reaching to the ceiling; her dark head leaned against
Gibbon’s _Roman Empire_, her eyes in a sort of soft grey agony
were fixed on Val. And he, who had not much gift of insight, had
suddenly a gleam of vision. She would be proud of her
brother—that enemy! She would be ashamed of him! His hands came
out of his pockets as if lifted by a spring.
“All right!” he said. “Done!”
Holly’s face—oh! it was queer! He saw her flush, start forward.
He had done the right thing—her face was shining with wistful
admiration. Jolly stood up and made a little bow as who should
say: “You’ve passed.”
“To-morrow, then,” he said, “we’ll go together.”
Recovering from the impetus which had carried him to that
decision, Val looked at him maliciously from under his lashes.
“All right,” he thought, “one to you. I shall have to join—but
I’ll get back on you somehow.” And he said with dignity: “I shall
be ready.”
“We’ll meet at the main Recruiting Office, then,” said Jolly, “at
twelve o’clock.” And, opening the window, he went out on to the
terrace, conforming to the creed which had made him retire when
he surprised them in the hall.
The confusion in the mind of Val thus left alone with her for
whom he had paid this sudden price was extreme. The mood of
“showing-off” was still, however, uppermost. One must do the
wretched thing with an air.
“We shall get plenty of riding and shooting, anyway,” he said;
“that’s one comfort.” And it gave him a sort of grim pleasure to
hear the sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart.
“Oh! the war’ll soon be over,” he said; “perhaps we shan’t even
have to go out. I don’t care, except for you.” He would be out of
the way of that beastly divorce. It was an ill-wind! He felt her
warm hand slip into his. Jolly thought he had stopped their
loving each other, did he? He held her tightly round the waist,
looking at her softly through his lashes, smiling to cheer her
up, promising to come down and see her soon, feeling somehow six
inches taller and much more in command of her than he had ever
dared feel before. Many times he kissed her before he mounted and
rode back to town. So, swiftly, on the least provocation, does
the possessive instinct flourish and grow.
CHAPTER IX DINNER AT JAMES’
Dinner parties were not now given at James’ in Park Lane—to every
house the moment comes when Master or Mistress is no longer “up
to it”. no more can nine courses be served to twenty mouths above
twenty fine white expanses; nor does the household cat any longer
wonder why she is suddenly shut up.
So with something like excitement Emily—who at seventy would
still have liked a little feast and fashion now and then—ordered
dinner for six instead of two, herself wrote a number of foreign
words on cards, and arranged the flowers—mimosa from the Riviera,
and white Roman hyacinths not from Rome. There would only be, of
course, James and herself, Soames, Winifred, Val, and Imogen—but
she liked to pretend a little and dally in imagination with the
glory of the past. She so dressed herself that James remarked:
“What are you putting on that thing for? You’ll catch cold.”
But Emily knew that the necks of women are protected by love of
shining, unto fourscore years, and she only answered:
“Let me put you on one of those dickies I got you, James; then
you’ll only have to change your trousers, and put on your velvet
coat, and there you’ll be. Val likes you to look nice.”
“Dicky!” said James. “You’re always wasting your money on
something.”
But he suffered the change to be made till his neck also shone,
murmuring vaguely:
“He’s an extravagant chap, I’m afraid.”
A little brighter in the eye, with rather more colour than usual
in his cheeks, he took his seat in the drawing-room to wait for
the sound of the front-door bell.
“I’ve made it a proper dinner party,” Emily said comfortably; “I
thought it would be good practice for Imogen—she must get used to
it now she’s coming out.”
James uttered an indeterminate sound, thinking of Imogen as she
used to climb about his knee or pull Christmas crackers with him.
“She’ll be pretty,” he muttered, “I shouldn’t wonder.”
“She _is_ pretty,” said Emily; “she ought to make a good match.”
“There you go,” murmured James; “she’d much better stay at home
and look after her mother.” A second Dartie carrying off his
pretty granddaughter would finish him! He had never quite
forgiven Emily for having been as much taken in by Montague
Dartie as he himself had been.
“Where’s Warmson?” he said suddenly. “I should like a glass of
Madeira to-night.”
“There’s champagne, James.”
James shook his head. “No body,” he said; “I can’t get any good
out of it.”
Emily reached forward on her side of the fire and rang the bell.
“Your master would like a bottle of Madeira opened, Warmson.”
“No, no!” said James, the tips of his ears quivering with
vehemence, and his eyes fixed on an object seen by him alone.
“Look here, Warmson, you go to the inner cellar, and on the
middle shelf of the end bin on the left you’ll see seven bottles;
take the one in the centre, and don’t shake it. It’s the last of
the Madeira I had from Mr. Jolyon when we came in here—never been
moved; it ought to be in prime condition still; but I don’t know,
I can’t tell.”
“Very good, sir,” responded the withdrawing Warmson.
“I was keeping it for our golden wedding,” said James suddenly,
“but I shan’t live three years at my age.”
“Nonsense, James,” said Emily, “don’t talk like that.”
“I ought to have got it up myself,” murmured James, “he’ll shake
it as likely as not.” And he sank into silent recollection of
long moments among the open gas-jets, the cobwebs and the good
smell of wine-soaked corks, which had been appetiser to so many
feasts. In the wine from that cellar was written the history of
the forty odd years since he had come to the Park Lane house with
his young bride, and of the many generations of friends and
acquaintances who had passed into the unknown; its depleted bins
preserved the record of family festivity—all the marriages,
births, deaths of his kith and kin. And when he was gone there it
would be, and he didn’t know what would become of it. It’d be
drunk or spoiled, he shouldn’t wonder!
From that deep reverie the entrance of his son dragged him,
followed very soon by that of Winifred and her two eldest.
They went down arm-in-arm—James with Imogen, the debutante,
because his pretty grandchild cheered him; Soames with Winifred;
Emily with Val, whose eyes lighting on the oysters brightened.
This was to be a proper full “blowout” with “fizz” and port! And
he felt in need of it, after what he had done that day, as yet
undivulged. After the first glass or two it became pleasant to
have this bombshell up his sleeve, this piece of sensational
patriotism, or example, rather, of personal daring, to
display—for his pleasure in what he had done for his Queen and
Country was so far entirely personal. He was now a “blood,”
indissolubly connected with guns and horses; he had a right to
swagger—not, of course, that he was going to. He should just
announce it quietly, when there was a pause. And, glancing down
the menu, he determined on “Bombe aux fraises” as the proper
moment; there would be a certain solemnity while they were eating
that. Once or twice before they reached that rosy summit of the
dinner he was attacked by remembrance that his grandfather was
never told anything! Still, the old boy was drinking Madeira, and
looking jolly fit! Besides, he ought to be pleased at this
set-off to the disgrace of the divorce. The sight of his uncle
opposite, too, was a sharp incentive. He was so far from being a
sportsman that it would be worth a lot to see his face. Besides,
better to tell his mother in this way than privately, which might
upset them both! He was sorry for her, but after all one couldn’t
be expected to feel much for others when one had to part from
Holly.
His grandfather’s voice travelled to him thinly. “Val, try a
little of the Madeira with your ice. You won’t get that up at
college.”
Val watched the slow liquid filling his glass, the essential oil
of the old wine glazing the surface; inhaled its aroma, and
thought: “Now for it!” It was a rich moment. He sipped, and a
gentle glow spread in his veins, already heated. With a rapid
look round, he said, “I joined the Imperial Yeomanry to-day,
Granny,” and emptied his glass as though drinking the health of
his own act.
“What!” It was his mother’s desolate little word.
“Young Jolly Forsyte and I went down there together.”
“You didn’t sign?” from Uncle Soames.
“Rather! We go into camp on Monday.”
“I _say!_” cried Imogen.
All looked at James. He was leaning forward with his hand behind
his ear.
“What’s that?” he said. “What’s he saying? I can’t hear.”
Emily reached forward to pat Val’s hand.
“It’s only that Val has joined the Yeomanry, James; it’s very
nice for him. He’ll look his best in uniform.”
“Joined the—rubbish!” came from James, tremulously loud. “You
can’t see two yards before your nose. He—he’ll have to go out
there. Why! he’ll be fighting before he knows where he is.”
Val saw Imogen’s eyes admiring him, and his mother still and
fashionable with her handkerchief before her lips.
Suddenly his uncle spoke.
“You’re under age.”
“I thought of that,” smiled Val; “I gave my age as twenty-one.”
He heard his grandmother’s admiring, “Well, Val, that was plucky
of you;” was conscious of Warmson deferentially filling his
champagne glass; and of his grandfather’s voice moaning: “_I_
don’t know what’ll become of you if you go on like this.”
Imogen was patting his shoulder, his uncle looking at him
sidelong; only his mother sat unmoving, till, affected by her
stillness, Val said:
“It’s all right, you know; we shall soon have them on the run. I
only hope I shall come in for something.”
He felt elated, sorry, tremendously important all at once. This
would show Uncle Soames, and all the Forsytes, how to be
sportsmen. He had certainly done something heroic and exceptional
in giving his age as twenty-one.
Emily’s voice brought him back to earth.
“You mustn’t have a second glass, James. Warmson!”
“Won’t they be astonished at Timothy’s!” burst out Imogen. “I’d
give anything to see their faces. Do you have a sword, Val, or
only a popgun?”
“What made you?”
His uncle’s voice produced a slight chill in the pit of Val’s
stomach. Made him? How answer that? He was grateful for his
grandmother’s comfortable:
“Well, I think it’s very plucky of Val. I’m sure he’ll make a
splendid soldier; he’s just the figure for it. We shall all be
proud of him.”
“What had young Jolly Forsyte to do with it? Why did you go
together?” pursued Soames, uncannily relentless. “I thought you
weren’t friendly with him?”
“I’m not,” mumbled Val, “but I wasn’t going to be beaten by
_him_.” He saw his uncle look at him quite differently, as if
approving. His grandfather was nodding too, his grandmother
tossing her head. They all approved of his not being beaten by
that cousin of his. There must be a reason! Val was dimly
conscious of some disturbing point outside his range of vision;
as it might be, the unlocated centre of a cyclone. And, staring
at his uncle’s face, he had a quite unaccountable vision of a
woman with dark eyes, gold hair, and a white neck, who smelt
nice, and had pretty silken clothes which he had liked feeling
when he was quite small. By Jove, yes! Aunt Irene! She used to
kiss him, and he had bitten her arm once, playfully, because he
liked it—so soft. His grandfather was speaking:
“What’s his father doing?”
“He’s away in Paris,” Val said, staring at the very queer
expression on his uncle’s face, like—like that of a snarling dog.
“Artists!” said James. The word coming from the very bottom of
his soul, broke up the dinner.
Opposite his mother in the cab going home, Val tasted the
after-fruits of heroism, like medlars over-ripe.
She only said, indeed, that he must go to his tailor’s at once
and have his uniform properly made, and not just put up with what
they gave him. But he could feel that she was very much upset. It
was on his lips to console her with the spoken thought that he
would be out of the way of that beastly divorce, but the presence
of Imogen, and the knowledge that his mother would _not_ be out
of the way, restrained him. He felt aggrieved that she did not
seem more proud of him. When Imogen had gone to bed, he risked
the emotional.
“I’m awfully sorry to have to leave you, Mother.”
“Well, I must make the best of it. We must try and get you a
commission as soon as we can; then you won’t have to rough it so.
Do you know any drill, Val?”
“Not a scrap.”
“I hope they won’t worry you much. I must take you about to get
the things to-morrow. Good-night; kiss me.”
With that kiss, soft and hot, between his eyes, and those words,
“I hope they won’t worry you much,” in his ears, he sat down to a
cigarette, before a dying fire. The heat was out of him—the glow
of cutting a dash. It was all a damned heart-aching bore. “I’ll
be even with that chap Jolly,” he thought, trailing up the
stairs, past the room where his mother was biting her pillow to
smother a sense of desolation which was trying to make her sob.
And soon only one of the diners at James’ was awake—Soames, in
his bedroom above his father’s.
So that fellow Jolyon was in Paris—what was he doing there?
Hanging round Irene! The last report from Polteed had hinted that
there might be something soon. Could it be this? That fellow,
with his beard and his cursed amused way of speaking—son of the
old man who had given him the nickname “Man of Property,” and
bought the fatal house from him. Soames had ever resented having
had to sell the house at Robin Hill; never forgiven his uncle for
having bought it, or his cousin for living in it.
Reckless of the cold, he threw his window up and gazed out across
the Park. Bleak and dark the January night; little sound of
traffic; a frost coming; bare trees; a star or two. “I’ll see
Polteed to-morrow,” he thought. “By God! I’m mad, I think, to
want her still. That fellow! If...? Um! No!”
CHAPTER X DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR
Jolyon, who had crossed from Calais by night, arrived at Robin
Hill on Sunday morning. He had sent no word beforehand, so walked
up from the station, entering his domain by the coppice gate.
Coming to the log seat fashioned out of an old fallen trunk, he
sat down, first laying his overcoat on it.
“Lumbago!” he thought; “that’s what love ends in at my time of
life!” And suddenly Irene seemed very near, just as she had been
that day of rambling at Fontainebleau when they had sat on a log
to eat their lunch. Hauntingly near! Odour drawn out of fallen
leaves by the pale-filtering sunlight soaked his nostrils. “I’m
glad it isn’t spring,” he thought. With the scent of sap, and the
song of birds, and the bursting of the blossoms, it would have
been unbearable! “I hope I shall be over it by then, old fool
that I am!” and picking up his coat, he walked on into the field.
He passed the pond and mounted the hill slowly.
Near the top a hoarse barking greeted him. Up on the lawn above
the fernery he could see his old dog Balthasar. The animal, whose
dim eyes took his master for a stranger, was warning the world
against him. Jolyon gave his special whistle. Even at that
distance of a hundred yards and more he could see the dawning
recognition in the obese brown-white body. The old dog got off
his haunches, and his tail, close-curled over his back, began a
feeble, excited fluttering; he came waddling forward, gathered
momentum, and disappeared over the edge of the fernery. Jolyon
expected to meet him at the wicket gate, but Balthasar was not
there, and, rather alarmed, he turned into the fernery. On his
fat side, looking up with eyes already glazing, the old dog lay.
“What is it, my poor old man?” cried Jolyon. Balthasar’s curled
and fluffy tail just moved; his filming eyes seemed saying: “I
can’t get up, master, but I’m glad to see you.”
Jolyon knelt down; his eyes, very dimmed, could hardly see the
slowly ceasing heave of the dog’s side. He raised the head a
little—very heavy.
“What is it, dear man? Where are you hurt?” The tail fluttered
once; the eyes lost the look of life. Jolyon passed his hands all
over the inert warm bulk. There was nothing—the heart had simply
failed in that obese body from the emotion of his master’s
return. Jolyon could feel the muzzle, where a few whitish
bristles grew, cooling already against his lips. He stayed for
some minutes kneeling; with his hand beneath the stiffening head.
The body was very heavy when he bore it to the top of the field;
leaves had drifted there, and he strewed it with a covering of
them; there was no wind, and they would keep him from curious
eyes until the afternoon. “I’ll bury him myself,” he thought.
Eighteen years had gone since he first went into the St. John’s
Wood house with that tiny puppy in his pocket. Strange that the
old dog should die just now! Was it an omen? He turned at the
gate to look back at that russet mound, then went slowly towards
the house, very choky in the throat.
June was at home; she had come down hotfoot on hearing the news
of Jolly’s enlistment. His patriotism had conquered her feeling
for the Boers. The atmosphere of his house was strange and
pocketty when Jolyon came in and told them of the dog Balthasar’s
death. The news had a unifying effect. A link with the past had
snapped—the dog Balthasar! Two of them could remember nothing
before his day; to June he represented the last years of her
grandfather; to Jolyon that life of domestic stress and aesthetic
struggle before he came again into the kingdom of his father’s
love and wealth! And he was gone!
In the afternoon he and Jolly took picks and spades and went out
to the field. They chose a spot close to the russet mound, so
that they need not carry him far, and, carefully cutting off the
surface turf, began to dig. They dug in silence for ten minutes,
and then rested.
“Well, old man,” said Jolyon, “so you thought you ought?”
“Yes,” answered Jolly; “I don’t want to a bit, of course.”
How exactly those words represented Jolyon’s own state of mind
“I admire you for it, old boy. I don’t believe I should have done
it at your age—too much of a Forsyte, I’m afraid. But I suppose
the type gets thinner with each generation. Your son, if you have
one, may be a pure altruist; who knows?”
“He won’t be like me, then, Dad; I’m beastly selfish.”
“No, my dear, that you clearly are not.” Jolly shook his head,
and they dug again.
“Strange life a dog’s,” said Jolyon suddenly: “The only
four-footer with rudiments of altruism and a sense of God!”
Jolly looked at his father.
“Do you believe in God, Dad? I’ve never known.”
At so searching a question from one to whom it was impossible to
make a light reply, Jolyon stood for a moment feeling his back
tried by the digging.
“What do you mean by God?” he said; “there are two irreconcilable
ideas of God. There’s the Unknowable Creative Principle—one
believes in That. And there’s the Sum of altruism in
man—naturally one believes in That.”
“I see. That leaves out Christ, doesn’t it?”
Jolyon stared. Christ, the link between those two ideas! Out of
the mouth of babes! Here was orthodoxy scientifically explained
at last! The sublime poem of the Christ life was man’s attempt to
join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God. And since the
Sum of human altruism was as much a part of the Unknowable
Creative Principle as anything else in Nature and the Universe, a
worse link might have been chosen after all! Funny—how one went
through life without seeing it in that sort of way!
“What do _you_ think, old man?” he said.
Jolly frowned. “Of course, my first year we talked a good bit
about that sort of thing. But in the second year one gives it up;
I don’t know why—it’s awfully interesting.”
Jolyon remembered that he also had talked a good deal about it
his first year at Cambridge, and given it up in his second.
“I suppose,” said Jolly, “it’s the second God, you mean, that old
Balthasar had a sense of.”
“Yes, or he would never have burst his poor old heart because of
something outside himself.”
“But wasn’t that just selfish emotion, really?”
Jolyon shook his head. “No, dogs are not pure Forsytes, they love
something outside themselves.”
Jolly smiled.
“Well, I think I’m one,” he said. “You know, I only enlisted
because I dared Val Dartie to.”
“But why?”
“We bar each other,” said Jolly shortly.
“Ah!” muttered Jolyon. So the feud went on, unto the third
generation—this modern feud which had no overt expression?
“Shall I tell the boy about it?” he thought. But to what end—if
he had to stop short of his own part?
And Jolly thought: “It’s for Holly to let him know about that
chap. If she doesn’t, it means she doesn’t want him told, and I
should be sneaking. Anyway, I’ve stopped it. I’d better leave
well alone!”
So they dug on in silence, till Jolyon said:
“Now, old man, I think it’s big enough.” And, resting on their
spades, they gazed down into the hole where a few leaves had
drifted already on a sunset wind.
“I can’t bear this part of it,” said Jolyon suddenly.
“Let me do it, Dad. He never cared much for me.”
Jolyon shook his head.
“We’ll lift him very gently, leaves and all. I’d rather not see
him again. I’ll take his head. Now!”
With extreme care they raised the old dog’s body, whose faded tan
and white showed here and there under the leaves stirred by the
wind. They laid it, heavy, cold, and unresponsive, in the grave,
and Jolly spread more leaves over it, while Jolyon, deeply afraid
to show emotion before his son, began quickly shovelling the
earth on to that still shape. There went the past! If only there
were a joyful future to look forward to! It was like stamping
down earth on one’s own life. They replaced the turf carefully on
the smooth little mound, and, grateful that they had spared each
other’s feelings, returned to the house arm-in-arm.
CHAPTER XI TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT
On Forsyte ’Change news of the enlistment spread fast, together
with the report that June, not to be outdone, was going to become
a Red Cross nurse. These events were so extreme, so subversive of
pure Forsyteism, as to have a binding effect upon the family, and
Timothy’s was thronged next Sunday afternoon by members trying to
find out what they thought about it all, and exchange with each
other a sense of family credit. Giles and Jesse Hayman would no
longer defend the coast but go to South Africa quite soon; Jolly
and Val would be following in April; as to June—well, you never
knew what she would really do.
The retirement from Spion Kop and the absence of any good news
from the seat of war imparted an air of reality to all this,
clinched in startling fashion by Timothy. The youngest of the old
Forsytes—scarcely eighty, in fact popularly supposed to resemble
their father, “Superior Dosset,” even in his best-known
characteristic of drinking Sherry—had been invisible for so many
years that he was almost mythical. A long generation had elapsed
since the risks of a publisher’s business had worked on his
nerves at the age of forty, so that he had got out with a mere
thirty-five thousand pounds in the world, and started to make his
living by careful investment. Putting by every year, at compound
interest, he had doubled his capital in forty years without
having once known what it was like to shake in his shoes over
money matters. He was now putting aside some two thousand a year,
and, with the care he was taking of himself, expected, so Aunt
Hester said, to double his capital again before he died. What he
would do with it then, with his sisters dead and himself dead,
was often mockingly queried by free spirits such as Francie,
Euphemia, or young Nicholas’ second, Christopher, whose spirit
was so free that he had actually said he was going on the stage.
All admitted, however, that this was best known to Timothy
himself, and possibly to Soames, who never divulged a secret.
Those few Forsytes who had seen him reported a man of thick and
robust appearance, not very tall, with a brown-red complexion,
grey hair, and little of the refinement of feature with which
most of the Forsytes had been endowed by “Superior Dosset’s”
wife, a woman of some beauty and a gentle temperament. It was
known that he had taken surprising interest in the war, sticking
flags into a map ever since it began, and there was uneasiness as
to what would happen if the English were driven into the sea,
when it would be almost impossible for him to put the flags in
the right places. As to his knowledge of family movements or his
views about them, little was known, save that Aunt Hester was
always declaring that he was very upset. It was, then, in the
nature of a portent when Forsytes, arriving on the Sunday after
the evacuation of Spion Kop, became conscious, one after the
other, of a presence seated in the only really comfortable
armchair, back to the light, concealing the lower part of his
face with a large hand, and were greeted by the awed voice of
Aunt Hester:
“Your Uncle Timothy, my dear.”
Timothy’s greeting to them all was somewhat identical; and
rather, as it were, passed over by him than expressed:
“How de do? How de do? ’Xcuse me gettin’ up!”
Francie was present, and Eustace had come in his car; Winifred
had brought Imogen, breaking the ice of the restitution
proceedings with the warmth of family appreciation at Val’s
enlistment; and Marian Tweetyman with the last news of Giles and
Jesse. These with Aunt Juley and Hester, young Nicholas,
Euphemia, and—of all people!—George, who had come with Eustace in
the car, constituted an assembly worthy of the family’s palmiest
days. There was not one chair vacant in the whole of the little
drawing-room, and anxiety was felt lest someone else should
arrive.
The constraint caused by Timothy’s presence having worn off a
little, conversation took a military turn. George asked Aunt
Juley when she was going out with the Red Cross, almost reducing
her to a state of gaiety; whereon he turned to Nicholas and said:
“Young Nick’s a warrior bold, isn’t he? When’s he going to don
the wild khaki?”
Young Nicholas, smiling with a sort of sweet deprecation,
intimated that of course his mother was very anxious.
“The Dromios are off, I hear,” said George, turning to Marian
Tweetyman; “we shall all be there soon. _En avant_, the Forsytes!
Roll, bowl, or pitch! Who’s for a cooler?”
Aunt Juley gurgled, George was _so_ droll! Should Hester get
Timothy’s map? Then he could show them all where they were.
At a sound from Timothy, interpreted as assent, Aunt Hester left
the room.
George pursued his image of the Forsyte advance, addressing
Timothy as Field Marshal; and Imogen, whom he had noted at once
for “a pretty filly,”—as Vivandière; and holding his top hat
between his knees, he began to beat it with imaginary drumsticks.
The reception accorded to his fantasy was mixed. All
laughed—George was licensed; but all felt that the family was
being “rotted”; and this seemed to them unnatural, now that it
was going to give five of its members to the service of the
Queen. George might go too far; and there was relief when he got
up, offered his arm to Aunt Juley, marched up to Timothy, saluted
him, kissed his aunt with mock passion, said, “Oh! what a treat,
dear papa! Come on, Eustace!” and walked out, followed by the
grave and fastidious Eustace, who had never smiled.
Aunt Juley’s bewildered, “Fancy not waiting for the map! You
mustn’t mind him, Timothy. He’s _so_ droll!” broke the hush, and
Timothy removed the hand from his mouth.
“I don’t know what things are comin’ to,” he was heard to say.
“What’s all this about goin’ out there? That’s not the way to
beat those Boers.”
Francie alone had the hardihood to observe: “What is, then, Uncle
Timothy?”
“All this new-fangled volunteerin’ and expense—lettin’ money out
of the country.”
Just then Aunt Hester brought in the map, handling it like a baby
with eruptions. With the assistance of Euphemia it was laid on
the piano, a small Colwood grand, last played on, it was
believed, the summer before Aunt Ann died, thirteen years ago.
Timothy rose. He walked over to the piano, and stood looking at
his map while they all gathered round.
“There you are,” he said; “that’s the position up to date; and
very poor it is. H’m!”
“Yes,” said Francie, greatly daring, “but how are you going to
alter it, Uncle Timothy, without more men?”
“Men!” said Timothy; “you don’t want men—wastin’ the country’s
money. You want a Napoleon, he’d settle it in a month.”
“But if you haven’t got him, Uncle Timothy?”
“That’s their business,” replied Timothy. “What have we kept the
Army up for—to eat their heads off in time of peace! They ought
to be ashamed of themselves, comin’ on the country to help them
like this! Let every man stick to his business, and we shall get
on.”
And looking round him, he added almost angrily:
“Volunteerin’, indeed! Throwin’ good money after bad! We must
save! Conserve energy that’s the only way.” And with a prolonged
sound, not quite a sniff and not quite a snort, he trod on
Euphemia’s toe, and went out, leaving a sensation and a faint
scent of barley-sugar behind him.
The effect of something said with conviction by one who has
evidently made a sacrifice to say it is ever considerable. And
the eight Forsytes left behind, all women except young Nicholas,
were silent for a moment round the map. Then Francie said:
“Really, I think he’s right, you know. After all, what is the
Army for? They ought to have known. It’s only encouraging them.”
“My dear!” cried Aunt Juley, “but they’ve been so progressive.
Think of their giving up their scarlet. They were always so proud
of it. And now they all look like convicts. Hester and I were
saying only yesterday we were sure they must feel it very much.
Fancy what the Iron Duke would have said!”
“The new colour’s very smart,” said Winifred; “Val looks quite
nice in his.”
Aunt Juley sighed.
“I do so wonder what Jolyon’s boy is like. To think we’ve never
seen him! His father must be so proud of him.”
“His father’s in Paris,” said Winifred.
Aunt Hester’s shoulder was seen to mount suddenly, as if to ward
off her sister’s next remark, for Juley’s crumpled cheeks had
gushed.
“We had dear little Mrs. MacAnder here yesterday, just back from
Paris. And whom d’you think she saw there in the street? You’ll
never guess.”
“We shan’t try, Auntie,” said Euphemia.
“Irene! Imagine! After all this time; walking with a fair
beard....”
“Auntie! you’ll kill me! A fair beard....”
“I was going to say,” said Aunt Juley severely, “a fair-bearded
gentleman. And not a day older; she was always so pretty,” she
added, with a sort of lingering apology.
“Oh! tell us about her, Auntie,” cried Imogen; “I can just
remember her. She’s the skeleton in the family cupboard, isn’t
she? And they’re such fun.”
Aunt Hester sat down. Really, Juley had done it now!
“She wasn’t much of a skeleton as I remember her,” murmured
Euphemia, “extremely well-covered.”
“My dear!” said Aunt Juley, “what a peculiar way of putting
it—not very nice.”
“No, but what _was_ she like?” persisted Imogen.
“I’ll tell you, my child,” said Francie; “a kind of modern Venus,
very well-dressed.”
Euphemia said sharply: “Venus was never dressed, and she had blue
eyes of melting sapphire.”
At this juncture Nicholas took his leave.
“Mrs. Nick is awfully strict,” said Francie with a laugh.
“She has six children,” said Aunt Juley; “it’s very proper she
should be careful.”
“Was Uncle Soames awfully fond of her?” pursued the inexorable
Imogen, moving her dark luscious eyes from face to face.
Aunt Hester made a gesture of despair, just as Aunt Juley
answered:
“Yes, your Uncle Soames was very much attached to her.”
“I suppose she ran off with someone?”
“No, certainly not; that is—not precisely.”
“What did she do, then, Auntie?”
“Come along, Imogen,” said Winifred, “we must be getting back.”
But Aunt Juley interjected resolutely: “She—she didn’t behave at
all well.”
“Oh, bother!” cried Imogen; “that’s as far as I ever get.”
“Well, my dear,” said Francie, “she had a love affair which ended
with the young man’s death; and then she left your uncle. I
always rather liked her.”
“She used to give me chocolates,” murmured Imogen, “and smell
nice.”
“Of course!” remarked Euphemia.
“Not of course at all!” replied Francie, who used a particularly
expensive essence of gillyflower herself.
“I can’t think what we are about,” said Aunt Juley, raising her
hands, “talking of such things!”
“Was she divorced?” asked Imogen from the door.
“Certainly not,” cried Aunt Juley; “that is—certainly not.”
A sound was heard over by the far door. Timothy had re-entered
the back drawing-room. “I’ve come for my map,” he said. “Who’s
been divorced?”
“No one, Uncle,” replied Francie with perfect truth.
Timothy took his map off the piano.
“Don’t let’s have anything of that sort in the family,” he said.
“All this enlistin’s bad enough. The country’s breakin’ up; I
don’t know what we’re comin’ to.” He shook a thick finger at the
room: “Too many women nowadays, and they don’t know what they
want.”
So saying, he grasped the map firmly with both hands, and went
out as if afraid of being answered.
The seven women whom he had addressed broke into a subdued
murmur, out of which emerged Francie’s, “Really, the Forsytes!”
and Aunt Juley’s: “He must have his feet in mustard and hot water
to-night, Hester; will you tell Jane? The blood has gone to his
head again, I’m afraid....”
That evening, when she and Hester were sitting alone after
dinner, she dropped a stitch in her crochet, and looked up:
“Hester, I can’t think where I’ve heard that dear Soames wants
Irene to come back to him again. Who was it told us that George
had made a funny drawing of him with the words, ‘He won’t be
happy till he gets it’.”
“Eustace,” answered Aunt Hester from behind _The Times;_ “he had
it in his pocket, but he wouldn’t show it us.”
Aunt Juley was silent, ruminating. The clock ticked, _The Times_
crackled, the fire sent forth its rustling purr. Aunt Juley
dropped another stitch.
“Hester,” she said, “I have had such a dreadful thought.”
“Then don’t tell me,” said Aunt Hester quickly.
“Oh! but I must. You can’t think how dreadful!” Her voice sank to
a whisper:
“Jolyon—Jolyon, they say, has a—has a fair beard, now.”
CHAPTER XII PROGRESS OF THE CHASE
Two days after the dinner at James’, Mr. Polteed provided Soames
with food for thought.
“A gentleman,” he said, consulting the key concealed in his left
hand, “47 as we say, has been paying marked attention to 17
during the last month in Paris. But at present there seems to
have been nothing very conclusive. The meetings have all been in
public places, without concealment—restaurants, the Opera, the
Comique, the Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, lounge of the hotel, and
so forth. She has not yet been traced to his rooms, nor _vice
versa_. They went to Fontainebleau—but nothing of value. In
short, the situation is promising, but requires patience.” And,
looking up suddenly, he added:
“One rather curious point—47 has the same name as—er—31!”
“The fellow knows I’m her husband,” thought Soames.
“Christian name—an odd one—Jolyon,” continued Mr. Polteed. “We
know his address in Paris and his residence here. We don’t wish,
of course, to be running a wrong hare.”
“Go on with it, but be careful,” said Soames doggedly.
Instinctive certainty that this detective fellow had fathomed his
secret made him all the more reticent.
“Excuse me,” said Mr. Polteed, “I’ll just see if there’s anything
fresh in.”
He returned with some letters. Relocking the door, he glanced at
the envelopes.
“Yes, here’s a personal one from 19 to myself.”
“Well?” said Soames.
“Um!” said Mr. Polteed, “she says: ‘47 left for England to-day.
Address on his baggage: Robin Hill. Parted from 17 in Louvre
Gallery at 3.30; nothing very striking. Thought it best to stay
and continue observation of 17. You will deal with 47 in England
if you think desirable, no doubt.’” And Mr. Polteed lifted an
unprofessional glance on Soames, as though he might be storing
material for a book on human nature after he had gone out of
business. “Very intelligent woman, 19, and a wonderful make-up.
Not cheap, but earns her money well. There’s no suspicion of
being shadowed so far. But after a time, as you know, sensitive
people are liable to get the feeling of it, without anything
definite to go on. I should rather advise letting-up on 17, and
keeping an eye on 47. We can’t get at correspondence without
great risk. I hardly advise that at this stage. But you can tell
your client that it’s looking up very well.” And again his
narrowed eyes gleamed at his taciturn customer.
“No,” said Soames suddenly, “I prefer that you should keep the
watch going discreetly in Paris, and not concern yourself with
this end.”
“Very well,” replied Mr. Polteed, “we can do it.”
“What—what is the manner between them?”
“I’ll read you what she says,” said Mr. Polteed, unlocking a
bureau drawer and taking out a file of papers; “she sums it up
somewhere confidentially. Yes, here it is! ‘17 very
attractive—conclude 47, longer in the tooth’ (slang for age, you
know)—‘distinctly gone—waiting his time—17 perhaps holding off
for terms, impossible to say without knowing more. But inclined
to think on the whole—doesn’t know her mind—likely to act on
impulse some day. Both have style.’”
“What does that mean?” said Soames between close lips.
“Well,” murmured Mr. Polteed with a smile, showing many white
teeth, “an expression we use. In other words, it’s not likely to
be a weekend business—they’ll come together seriously or not at
all.”
“H’m!” muttered Soames, “that’s all, is it?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Polteed, “but quite promising.”
“Spider!” thought Soames. “Good-day!”
He walked into the Green Park that he might cross to Victoria
Station and take the Underground into the City. For so late in
January it was warm; sunlight, through the haze, sparkled on the
frosty grass—an illumined cobweb of a day.
Little spiders—and great spiders! And the greatest spinner of
all, his own tenacity, for ever wrapping its cocoon of threads
round any clear way out. What was that fellow hanging round Irene
for? Was it really as Polteed suggested? Or was Jolyon but taking
compassion on her loneliness, as he would call it—sentimental
radical chap that he had always been? If it were, indeed, as
Polteed hinted! Soames stood still. It could not be! The fellow
was seven years older than himself, no better looking! No richer!
What attraction had he?
“Besides, he’s come back,” he thought; “that doesn’t look—I’ll go
and see him!” and, taking out a card, he wrote:
“If you can spare half an hour some afternoon this week, I shall
be at the Connoisseurs any day between 5.30 and 6, or I could
come to the Hotch Potch if you prefer it. I want to see you.—S.
F.”
He walked up St. James’s Street and confided it to the porter at
the Hotch Potch.
“Give Mr. Jolyon Forsyte this as soon as he comes in,” he said,
and took one of the new motor cabs into the City....
Jolyon received that card the same afternoon, and turned his face
towards the Connoisseurs. What did Soames want now? Had he got
wind of Paris? And stepping across St. James’s Street, he
determined to make no secret of his visit. “But it won’t do,” he
thought, “to let him know _she’s_ there, unless he knows
already.” In this complicated state of mind he was conducted to
where Soames was drinking tea in a small bay-window.
“No tea, thanks,” said Jolyon, “but I’ll go on smoking if I may.”
The curtains were not yet drawn, though the lamps outside were
lighted; the two cousins sat waiting on each other.
“You’ve been in Paris, I hear,” said Soames at last.
“Yes; just back.”
“Young Val told me; he and your boy are going off, then?” Jolyon
nodded.
“You didn’t happen to see Irene, I suppose. It appears she’s
abroad somewhere.”
Jolyon wreathed himself in smoke before he answered: “Yes, I saw
her.”
“How was she?”
“Very well.”
There was another silence; then Soames roused himself in his
chair.
“When I saw you last,” he said, “I was in two minds. We talked,
and you expressed your opinion. I don’t wish to reopen that
discussion. I only wanted to say this: My position with her is
extremely difficult. I don’t want you to go using your influence
against me. What happened is a very long time ago. I’m going to
ask her to let bygones be bygones.”
“You have asked her, you know,” murmured Jolyon.
“The idea was new to her then; it came as a shock. But the more
she thinks of it, the more she must see that it’s the only way
out for both of us.”
“That’s not my impression of her state of mind,” said Jolyon with
particular calm. “And, forgive my saying, you misconceive the
matter if you think reason comes into it at all.”
He saw his cousin’s pale face grow paler—he had used, without
knowing it, Irene’s own words.
“Thanks,” muttered Soames, “but I see things perhaps more plainly
than you think. I only want to be sure that you won’t try to
influence her against me.”
“I don’t know what makes you think I have any influence,” said
Jolyon; “but if I have I’m bound to use it in the direction of
what I think is her happiness. I am what they call a ‘feminist,’
I believe.”
“Feminist!” repeated Soames, as if seeking to gain time. “Does
that mean that you’re against me?”
“Bluntly,” said Jolyon, “I’m against any woman living with any
man whom she definitely dislikes. It appears to me rotten.”
“And I suppose each time you see her you put your opinions into
her mind.”
“I am not likely to be seeing her.”
“Not going back to Paris?”
“Not so far as I know,” said Jolyon, conscious of the intent
watchfulness in Soames’ face.
“Well, that’s all I had to say. Anyone who comes between man and
wife, you know, incurs heavy responsibility.”
Jolyon rose and made him a slight bow.
“Good-bye,” he said, and, without offering to shake hands, moved
away, leaving Soames staring after him. “We Forsytes,” thought
Jolyon, hailing a cab, “are very civilised. With simpler folk
that might have come to a row. If it weren’t for my boy going to
the war....” The war! A gust of his old doubt swept over him. A
precious war! Domination of peoples or of women! Attempts to
master and possess those who did not want you! The negation of
gentle decency! Possession, vested rights; and anyone ‘agin’
’em—outcast! “Thank Heaven!” he thought, “_I always_ felt ‘agin’
’em, anyway!” Yes! Even before his first disastrous marriage he
could remember fuming over the bludgeoning of Ireland, or the
matrimonial suits of women trying to be free of men they loathed.
Parsons would have it that freedom of soul and body were quite
different things! Pernicious doctrine! Body and soul could not
thus be separated. Free will was the strength of any tie, and not
its weakness. “I ought to have told Soames,” he thought, “that I
think him comic. Ah! but he’s tragic, too!” Was there anything,
indeed, more tragic in the world than a man enslaved by his own
possessive instinct, who couldn’t see the sky for it, or even
enter fully into what another person felt! “I must write and warn
her,” he thought; “he’s going to have another try.” And all the
way home to Robin Hill he rebelled at the strength of that duty
to his son which prevented him from posting back to Paris....
But Soames sat long in his chair, the prey of a no less gnawing
ache—a jealous ache, as if it had been revealed to him that this
fellow held precedence of himself, and had spun fresh threads of
resistance to his way out. “Does that mean that you’re against
me?” he had got nothing out of that disingenuous question.
Feminist! Phrasey fellow! “I mustn’t rush things,” he thought. “I
have some breathing space; he’s not going back to Paris, unless
he was lying. I’ll let the spring come!” Though how the spring
could serve him, save by adding to his ache, he could not tell.
And gazing down into the street, where figures were passing from
pool to pool of the light from the high lamps, he thought:
“Nothing seems any good—nothing seems worth while. I’m
lonely—that’s the trouble.”
He closed his eyes; and at once he seemed to see Irene, in a dark
street below a church—passing, turning her neck so that he caught
the gleam of her eyes and her white forehead under a little dark
hat, which had gold spangles on it and a veil hanging down
behind. He opened his eyes—so vividly he had seen her! A woman
_was_ passing below, but not she! Oh no, there was nothing there!
CHAPTER XIII “HERE WE ARE AGAIN!”
Imogen’s frocks for her first season exercised the judgment of
her mother and the purse of her grandfather all through the month
of March. With Forsyte tenacity Winifred quested for perfection.
It took her mind off the slowly approaching rite which would give
her a freedom but doubtfully desired; took her mind, too, off her
boy and his fast approaching departure for a war from which the
news remained disquieting. Like bees busy on summer flowers, or
bright gadflies hovering and darting over spiky autumn blossoms,
she and her “little daughter,” tall nearly as herself and with a
bust measurement not far inferior, hovered in the shops of Regent
Street, the establishments of Hanover Square and of Bond Street,
lost in consideration and the feel of fabrics. Dozens of young
women of striking deportment and peculiar gait paraded before
Winifred and Imogen, draped in “creations.” The models—“Very new,
modom; quite the latest thing—” which those two reluctantly
turned down, would have filled a museum; the models which they
were obliged to have nearly emptied James’ bank. It was no good
doing things by halves, Winifred felt, in view of the need for
making this first and sole untarnished season a conspicuous
success. Their patience in trying the patience of those
impersonal creatures who swam about before them could alone have
been displayed by such as were moved by faith. It was for
Winifred a long prostration before her dear goddess Fashion,
fervent as a Catholic might make before the Virgin; for Imogen an
experience by no means too unpleasant—she often looked so nice,
and flattery was implicit everywhere: in a word it was “amusing.”
On the afternoon of the 20th of March, having, as it were, gutted
Skywards, they had sought refreshment over the way at Caramel and
Baker’s, and, stored with chocolate frothed at the top with
cream, turned homewards through Berkeley Square of an evening
touched with spring. Opening the door—freshly painted a light
olive-green; nothing neglected that year to give Imogen a good
send-off—Winifred passed towards the silver basket to see if
anyone had called, and suddenly her nostrils twitched. What was
that scent?
Imogen had taken up a novel sent from the library, and stood
absorbed. Rather sharply, because of the queer feeling in her
breast, Winifred said:
“Take that up, dear, and have a rest before dinner.”
Imogen, still reading, passed up the stairs. Winifred heard the
door of her room slammed to, and drew a long savouring breath.
Was it spring tickling her senses—whipping up nostalgia for her
“clown,” against all wisdom and outraged virtue? A male scent! A
faint reek of cigars and lavender-water not smelt since that
early autumn night six months ago, when she had called him “the
limit.” Whence came it, or was it ghost of scent—sheer emanation
from memory? She looked round her. Nothing—not a thing, no
tiniest disturbance of her hall, nor of the diningroom. A little
day-dream of a scent—illusory, saddening, silly! In the silver
basket were new cards, two with “Mr. and Mrs. Polegate Thom,” and
one with “Mr. Polegate Thom” thereon; she sniffed them, but they
smelled severe. “I must be tired,” she thought, “I’ll go and lie
down.” Upstairs the drawing-room was darkened, waiting for some
hand to give it evening light; and she passed on up to her
bedroom. This, too, was half-curtained and dim, for it was six
o’clock. Winifred threw off her coat—that scent again!—then
stood, as if shot, transfixed against the bed-rail. Something
dark had risen from the sofa in the far corner. A word of
horror—in her family—escaped her: “God!”
“It’s I—Monty,” said a voice.
Clutching the bed-rail, Winifred reached up and turned the switch
of the light hanging above her dressing-table. He appeared just
on the rim of the light’s circumference, emblazoned from the
absence of his watch-chain down to boots neat and sooty brown,
but—yes!—split at the toecap. His chest and face were shadowy.
Surely he was thin—or was it a trick of the light? He advanced,
lighted now from toe-cap to the top of his dark head—surely a
little grizzled! His complexion had darkened, sallowed; his black
moustache had lost boldness, become sardonic; there were lines
which she did not know about his face. There was no pin in his
tie. His suit—ah!—she knew that—but how unpressed, unglossy! She
stared again at the toe-cap of his boot. Something big and
relentless had been “at him,” had turned and twisted, raked and
scraped him. And she stayed, not speaking, motionless, staring at
that crack across the toe.
“Well!” he said, “I got the order. I’m back.”
Winifred’s bosom began to heave. The nostalgia for her husband
which had rushed up with that scent was struggling with a deeper
jealousy than any she had felt yet. There he was—a dark, and as
if harried, shadow of his sleek and brazen self! What force had
done this to him—squeezed him like an orange to its dry rind!
That woman!
“I’m back,” he said again. “I’ve had a beastly time. By God! I
came steerage. I’ve got nothing but what I stand up in, and that
bag.”
“And who has the rest?” cried Winifred, suddenly alive. “How
dared you come? You knew it was just for divorce that you got
that order to come back. Don’t touch me!”
They held each to the rail of the big bed where they had spent so
many years of nights together. Many times, yes—many times she had
wanted him back. But now that he had come she was filled with
this cold and deadly resentment. He put his hand up to his
moustache; but did not frizz and twist it in the old familiar
way, he just pulled it downwards.
“Gad!” he said: “If you knew the time I’ve had!”
“I’m glad I don’t!”
“Are the kids all right?”
Winifred nodded. “How did you get in?”
“With my key.”
“Then the maids don’t know. You can’t stay here, Monty.”
He uttered a little sardonic laugh.
“Where then?”
“Anywhere.”
“Well, look at me! That—that damned....”
“If you mention _her_,” cried Winifred, “I go straight out to
Park Lane and I don’t come back.”
Suddenly he did a simple thing, but so uncharacteristic that it
moved her. He shut his eyes. It was as if he had said: “All
right! I’m dead to the world!”
“You can have a room for the night,” she said; “your things are
still here. Only Imogen is at home.”
He leaned back against the bed-rail. “Well, it’s in your hands,”
and his own made a writhing movement. “I’ve been through it. You
needn’t hit too hard—it isn’t worth while. I’ve been frightened;
I’ve been frightened, Freddie.”
That old pet name, disused for years and years, sent a shiver
through Winifred.
“What am I to do with him?” she thought. “What in God’s name am I
to do with him?”
“Got a cigarette?”
She gave him one from a little box she kept up there for when she
couldn’t sleep at night, and lighted it. With that action the
matter-of-fact side of her nature came to life again.
“Go and have a hot bath. I’ll put some clothes out for you in the
dressing-room. We can talk later.”
He nodded, and fixed his eyes on her—they looked half-dead, or
was it that the folds in the lids had become heavier?
“He’s not the same,” she thought. He would never be quite the
same again! But what would he be?
“All right!” he said, and went towards the door. He even moved
differently, like a man who has lost illusion and doubts whether
it is worth while to move at all.
When he was gone, and she heard the water in the bath running,
she put out a complete set of garments on the bed in his
dressing-room, then went downstairs and fetched up the biscuit
box and whisky. Putting on her coat again, and listening a moment
at the bathroom door, she went down and out. In the street she
hesitated. Past seven o’clock! Would Soames be at his Club or at
Park Lane? She turned towards the latter. Back!
Soames had always feared it—she had sometimes hoped it.... Back!
So like him—clown that he was—with this: “Here we are again!” to
make fools of them all—of the Law, of Soames, of herself!
Yet to have done with the Law, not to have that murky cloud
hanging over her and the children! What a relief! Ah! but how to
accept his return? That “woman” had ravaged him, taken from him
passion such as he had never bestowed on herself, such as she had
not thought him capable of. There was the sting! That selfish,
blatant “clown” of hers, whom she herself had never really
stirred, had been swept and ungarnished by another woman!
Insulting! Too insulting! Not right, not decent to take him back!
And yet she had asked for him; the Law perhaps would make her
now! He was as much her husband as ever—she had put herself out
of court! And all he wanted, no doubt, was money—to keep him in
cigars and lavender-water! That scent! “After all, I’m not old,”
she thought, “not old yet!” But that woman who had reduced him to
those words: “I’ve been through it. I’ve been
frightened—frightened, Freddie!” She neared her father’s house,
driven this way and that, while all the time the Forsyte undertow
was drawing her to deep conclusion that after all he was her
property, to be held against a robbing world. And so she came to
James’.
“Mr. Soames? In his room? I’ll go up; don’t say I’m here.”
Her brother was dressing. She found him before a mirror, tying a
black bow with an air of despising its ends.
“Hullo!” he said, contemplating her in the glass; “what’s wrong?”
“Monty!” said Winifred stonily.
Soames spun round. “What!”
“Back!”
“Hoist,” muttered Soames, “with our own petard. Why the deuce
didn’t you let me try cruelty? I always knew it was too much risk
this way.”
“Oh! Don’t talk about that! What shall I do?”
Soames answered, with a deep, deep sound.
“Well?” said Winifred impatiently.
“What has he to say for himself?”
“Nothing. One of his boots is split across the toe.”
Soames stared at her.
“Ah!” he said, “of course! On his beam ends. So—it begins again!
This’ll about finish father.”
“Can’t we keep it from him?”
“Impossible. He has an uncanny flair for anything that’s
worrying.”
And he brooded, with fingers hooked into his blue silk braces.
“There ought to be some way in law,” he muttered, “to make him
safe.”
“No,” cried Winifred, “I won’t be made a fool of again; I’d
sooner put up with him.”
The two stared at each other. Their hearts were full of feeling,
but they could give it no expression—Forsytes that they were.
“Where did you leave him?”
“In the bath,” and Winifred gave a little bitter laugh. “The only
thing he’s brought back is lavender-water.”
“Steady!” said Soames, “you’re thoroughly upset. I’ll go back
with you.”
“What’s the use?”
“We ought to make terms with him.”
“Terms! It’ll always be the same. When he recovers—cards and
betting, drink and...!” She was silent, remembering the look on
her husband’s face. The burnt child—the burnt child. Perhaps...!
“Recovers?” replied Soames: “Is he ill?”
“No; burnt out; that’s all.”
Soames took his waistcoat from a chair and put it on, he took his
coat and got into it, he scented his handkerchief with
eau-de-Cologne, threaded his watch-chain, and said: “We haven’t
any luck.”
And in the midst of her own trouble Winifred was sorry for him,
as if in that little saying he had revealed deep trouble of his
own.
“I’d like to see mother,” she said.
“She’ll be with father in their room. Come down quietly to the
study. I’ll get her.”
Winifred stole down to the little dark study, chiefly remarkable
for a Canaletto too doubtful to be placed elsewhere, and a fine
collection of Law Reports unopened for many years. Here she
stood, with her back to maroon-coloured curtains close-drawn,
staring at the empty grate, till her mother came in followed by
Soames.
“Oh! my poor dear!” said Emily: “How miserable you look in here!
This is too bad of him, really!”
As a family they had so guarded themselves from the expression of
all unfashionable emotion that it was impossible to go up and
give her daughter a good hug. But there was comfort in her
cushioned voice, and her still dimpled shoulders under some rare
black lace. Summoning pride and the desire not to distress her
mother, Winifred said in her most off-hand voice:
“It’s all right, Mother; no good fussing.”
“I don’t see,” said Emily, looking at Soames, “why Winifred
shouldn’t tell him that she’ll prosecute him if he doesn’t keep
off the premises. He took her pearls; and if he’s not brought
them back, that’s quite enough.”
Winifred smiled. They would all plunge about with suggestions of
this and that, but she knew already what she would be doing, and
that was—nothing. The feeling that, after all, she had won a sort
of victory, retained her property, was every moment gaining
ground in her. No! if she wanted to punish him, she could do it
at home without the world knowing.
“Well,” said Emily, “come into the dining-room comfortably—you
must stay and have dinner with us. Leave it to me to tell your
father.” And, as Winifred moved towards the door, she turned out
the light. Not till then did they see the disaster in the
corridor.
There, attracted by light from a room never lighted, James was
standing with his duncoloured camel-hair shawl folded about him,
so that his arms were not free and his silvered head looked cut
off from his fashionably trousered legs as if by an expanse of
desert. He stood, inimitably stork-like, with an expression as if
he saw before him a frog too large to swallow.
“What’s all this?” he said. “Tell your father? You never tell me
anything.”
The moment found Emily without reply. It was Winifred who went up
to him, and, laying one hand on each of his swathed, helpless
arms, said:
“Monty’s not gone bankrupt, Father. He’s only come back.”
They all three expected something serious to happen, and were
glad she had kept that grip of his arms, but they did not know
the depth of root in that shadowy old Forsyte. Something wry
occurred about his shaven mouth and chin, something scratchy
between those long silvery whiskers. Then he said with a sort of
dignity: “He’ll be the death of me. I knew how it would be.”
“You mustn’t worry, Father,” said Winifred calmly. “I mean to
make him behave.”
“Ah!” said James. “Here, take this thing off, I’m hot.” They
unwound the shawl. He turned, and walked firmly to the
dining-room.
“I don’t want any soup,” he said to Warmson, and sat down in his
chair. They all sat down too, Winifred still in her hat, while
Warmson laid the fourth place. When he left the room, James said:
“What’s he brought back?”
“Nothing, Father.”
James concentrated his eyes on his own image in a tablespoon.
“Divorce!” he muttered; “rubbish! What was I about? I ought to
have paid him an allowance to stay out of England. Soames you go
and propose it to him.”
It seemed so right and simple a suggestion that even Winifred was
surprised when she said: “No, I’ll keep him now he’s back; he
must just behave—that’s all.”
They all looked at her. It had always been known that Winifred
had pluck.
“Out there!” said James elliptically, “who knows what
cut-throats! You look for his revolver! Don’t go to bed without.
You ought to have Warmson to sleep in the house. I’ll see him
myself tomorrow.”
They were touched by this declaration, and Emily said
comfortably: “That’s right, James, we won’t have any nonsense.”
“Ah!” muttered James darkly, “I can’t tell.”
The advent of Warmson with fish diverted conversation.
When, directly after dinner, Winifred went over to kiss her
father good-night, he looked up with eyes so full of question and
distress that she put all the comfort she could into her voice.
“It’s all right, Daddy, dear; don’t worry. I shan’t need
anyone—he’s quite bland. I shall only be upset if you worry.
Good-night, bless you!”
James repeated the words, “Bless you!” as if he did not quite
know what they meant, and his eyes followed her to the door.
She reached home before nine, and went straight upstairs.
Dartie was lying on the bed in his dressing-room, fully redressed
in a blue serge suit and pumps; his arms were crossed behind his
head, and an extinct cigarette drooped from his mouth.
Winifred remembered ridiculously the flowers in her window-boxes
after a blazing summer day; the way they lay, or rather
stood—parched, yet rested by the sun’s retreat. It was as if a
little dew had come already on her burnt-up husband.
He said apathetically: “I suppose you’ve been to Park Lane. How’s
the old man?”
Winifred could not help the bitter answer: “Not dead.”
He winced, actually he winced.
“Understand, Monty,” she said, “I will _not_ have him worried. If
you aren’t going to behave yourself, you may go back, you may go
anywhere. Have you had dinner?”
No.
“Would you like some?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Imogen offered me some. I didn’t want any.”
Imogen! In the plenitude of emotion Winifred had forgotten her.
“So you’ve seen her? What did she say?”
“She gave me a kiss.”
With mortification Winifred saw his dark sardonic face relaxed.
“Yes!” she thought, “he cares for her, not for me a bit.”
Dartie’s eyes were moving from side to side.
“Does she know about me?” he said.
It flashed through Winifred that here was the weapon she needed.
_He minded their knowing!_
“No. Val knows. The others don’t; they only know you went away.”
She heard him sigh with relief.
“But they _shall_ know,” she said firmly, “if you give me cause.”
“All right!” he muttered, “hit me! I’m down!”
Winifred went up to the bed. “Look here, Monty! I don’t want to
hit you. I don’t want to hurt you. I shan’t allude to anything.
I’m not going to worry. What’s the use?” She was silent a moment.
“I can’t stand any more, though, and I won’t! You’d better know.
You’ve made me suffer. But I used to be fond of you. For the sake
of that....” She met the heavy-lidded gaze of his brown eyes with
the downward stare of her green-grey eyes; touched his hand
suddenly, turned her back, and went into her room.
She sat there a long time before her glass, fingering her rings,
thinking of this subdued dark man, almost a stranger to her, on
the bed in the other room; resolutely not “worrying,” but gnawed
by jealousy of what he had been through, and now and again just
visited by pity.
CHAPTER XIV OUTLANDISH NIGHT
Soames doggedly let the spring come—no easy task for one
conscious that time was flying, his birds in the bush no nearer
the hand, no issue from the web anywhere visible. Mr. Polteed
reported nothing, except that his watch went on—costing a lot of
money. Val and his cousin were gone to the war, whence came news
more favourable; Dartie was behaving himself so far; James had
retained his health; business prospered almost terribly—there was
nothing to worry Soames except that he was “held up,” could make
no step in any direction.
He did not exactly avoid Soho, for he could not afford to let
them think that he had “piped off,” as James would have put it—he
might want to “pipe on” again at any minute. But he had to be so
restrained and cautious that he would often pass the door of the
Restaurant Bretagne without going in, and wander out of the
purlieus of that region which always gave him the feeling of
having been possessively irregular.
He wandered thus one May night into Regent Street and the most
amazing crowd he had ever seen; a shrieking, whistling, dancing,
jostling, grotesque and formidably jovial crowd, with false noses
and mouth-organs, penny whistles and long feathers, every
appanage of idiocy, as it seemed to him. Mafeking! Of course, it
had been relieved! Good! But was that an excuse? Who were these
people, what were they, where had they come from into the West
End? His face was tickled, his ears whistled into. Girls cried:
“Keep your hair on, stucco!” A youth so knocked off his top-hat
that he recovered it with difficulty. Crackers were exploding
beneath his nose, between his feet. He was bewildered,
exasperated, offended. This stream of people came from every
quarter, as if impulse had unlocked flood-gates, let flow waters
of whose existence he had heard, perhaps, but believed in never.
This, then, was the populace, the innumerable living negation of
gentility and Forsyteism. This was—egad!—Democracy! It stank,
yelled, was hideous! In the East End, or even Soho, perhaps—but
here in Regent Street, in Piccadilly! What were the police about!
In 1900, Soames, with his Forsyte thousands, had never seen the
cauldron with the lid off; and now looking into it, could hardly
believe his scorching eyes. The whole thing was unspeakable!
These people had no restraint, they seemed to think him funny;
such swarms of them, rude, coarse, laughing—and what laughter!
Nothing sacred to them! He shouldn’t be surprised if they began
to break windows. In Pall Mall, past those august dwellings, to
enter which people paid sixty pounds, this shrieking, whistling,
dancing dervish of a crowd was swarming. From the Club windows
his own kind were looking out on them with regulated amusement.
They didn’t realise! Why, this was serious—might come to
anything! The crowd was cheerful, but some day they would come in
different mood! He remembered there had been a mob in the late
eighties, when he was at Brighton; they had smashed things and
made speeches. But more than dread, he felt a deep surprise. They
were hysterical—it wasn’t English! And all about the relief of a
little town as big as—Watford, six thousand miles away.
Restraint, reserve! Those qualities to him more dear almost than
life, those indispensable attributes of property and culture,
where were they? It wasn’t English! No, it wasn’t English! So
Soames brooded, threading his way on. It was as if he had
suddenly caught sight of someone cutting the covenant “for quiet
possession” out of his legal documents; or of a monster lurking
and stalking out in the future, casting its shadow before. Their
want of stolidity, their want of reverence! It was like
discovering that nine-tenths of the people of England were
foreigners. And if that were so—then, anything might happen!
At Hyde Park Corner he ran into George Forsyte, very sunburnt
from racing, holding a false nose in his hand.
“Hallo, Soames!” he said, “have a nose!”
Soames responded with a pale smile.
“Got this from one of these sportsmen,” went on George, who had
evidently been dining; “had to lay him out—for trying to bash my
hat. I say, one of these days we shall have to fight these chaps,
they’re getting so damned cheeky—all radicals and socialists.
They want our goods. You tell Uncle James that, it’ll make him
sleep.”
“_In vino veritas_,” thought Soames, but he only nodded, and
passed on up Hamilton Place. There was but a trickle of
roysterers in Park Lane, not very noisy. And looking up at the
houses he thought: “After all, we’re the backbone of the country.
They won’t upset us easily. Possession’s nine points of the law.”
But, as he closed the door of his father’s house behind him, all
that queer outlandish nightmare in the streets passed out of his
mind almost as completely as if, having dreamed it, he had
awakened in the warm clean morning comfort of his
spring-mattressed bed.
Walking into the centre of the great empty drawing-room, he stood
still.
A wife! Somebody to talk things over with. One had a right! Damn
it! One had a right!
PART III
CHAPTER I SOAMES IN PARIS
Soames had travelled little. Aged nineteen he had made the “petty
tour” with his father, mother, and Winifred—Brussels, the Rhine,
Switzerland, and home by way of Paris. Aged twenty-seven, just
when he began to take interest in pictures, he had spent five hot
weeks in Italy, looking into the Renaissance—not so much in it as
he had been led to expect—and a fortnight in Paris on his way
back, looking into himself, as became a Forsyte surrounded by
people so strongly self-centred and “foreign” as the French. His
knowledge of their language being derived from his public school,
he did not understand them when they spoke. Silence he had found
better for all parties; one did not make a fool of oneself. He
had disliked the look of the men’s clothes, the closed-in cabs,
the theatres which looked like bee-hives, the Galleries which
smelled of beeswax. He was too cautious and too shy to explore
that side of Paris supposed by Forsytes to constitute its
attraction under the rose; and as for a collector’s bargain—not
one to be had! As Nicholas might have put it—they were a grasping
lot. He had come back uneasy, saying Paris was overrated.
When, therefore, in June of 1900 he went to Paris, it was but his
third attempt on the centre of civilisation. This time, however,
the mountain was going to Mahomet; for he felt by now more deeply
civilised than Paris, and perhaps he really was. Moreover, he had
a definite objective. This was no mere genuflexion to a shrine of
taste and immorality, but the prosecution of his own legitimate
affairs. He went, indeed, because things were getting past a
joke. The watch went on and on, and—nothing—nothing! Jolyon had
never returned to Paris, and no one else was “suspect!” Busy with
new and very confidential matters, Soames was realising more than
ever how essential reputation is to a solicitor. But at night and
in his leisure moments he was ravaged by the thought that time
was always flying and money flowing in, and his own future as
much “in irons” as ever. Since Mafeking night he had become aware
that a “young fool of a doctor” was hanging round Annette. Twice
he had come across him—a cheerful young fool, not more than
thirty.
Nothing annoyed Soames so much as cheerfulness—an indecent,
extravagant sort of quality, which had no relation to facts. The
mixture of his desires and hopes was, in a word, becoming
torture; and lately the thought had come to him that perhaps
Irene knew she was being shadowed: It was this which finally
decided him to go and see for himself; to go and once more try to
break down her repugnance, her refusal to make her own and his
path comparatively smooth once more. If he failed again—well, he
would see what she did with herself, anyway!
He went to an hotel in the Rue Caumartin, highly recommended to
Forsytes, where practically nobody spoke French. He had formed no
plan. He did not want to startle her; yet must contrive that she
had no chance to evade him by flight. And next morning he set out
in bright weather.
Paris had an air of gaiety, a sparkle over its star-shape which
almost annoyed Soames. He stepped gravely, his nose lifted a
little sideways in real curiosity. He desired now to understand
things French. Was not Annette French? There was much to be got
out of his visit, if he could only get it. In this laudable mood
and the Place de la Concorde he was nearly run down three times.
He came on the “Cours la Reine,” where Irene’s hotel was
situated, almost too suddenly, for he had not yet fixed on his
procedure. Crossing over to the river side, he noted the
building, white and cheerful-looking, with green sunblinds, seen
through a screen of plane-tree leaves. And, conscious that it
would be far better to meet her casually in some open place than
to risk a call, he sat down on a bench whence he could watch the
entrance. It was not quite eleven o’clock, and improbable that
she had yet gone out. Some pigeons were strutting and preening
their feathers in the pools of sunlight between the shadows of
the plane-trees. A workman in a blue blouse passed, and threw
them crumbs from the paper which contained his dinner. A
“_bonne_” coiffed with ribbon shepherded two little girls with
pig-tails and frilled drawers. A cab meandered by, whose _cocher_
wore a blue coat and a black-glazed hat. To Soames a kind of
affectation seemed to cling about it all, a sort of
picturesqueness which was out of date. A theatrical people, the
French! He lit one of his rare cigarettes, with a sense of injury
that Fate should be casting his life into outlandish waters. He
shouldn’t wonder if Irene quite enjoyed this foreign life; she
had never been properly English—even to look at! And he began
considering which of those windows could be hers under the green
sunblinds. How could he word what he had come to say so that it
might pierce the defence of her proud obstinacy? He threw the
fag-end of his cigarette at a pigeon, with the thought: “I can’t
stay here for ever twiddling my thumbs. Better give it up and
call on her in the late afternoon.” But he still sat on, heard
twelve strike, and then half-past. “I’ll wait till one,” he
thought, “while I’m about it.” But just then he started up, and
shrinkingly sat down again. A woman had come out in a
cream-coloured frock, and was moving away under a fawn-coloured
parasol. Irene herself! He waited till she was too far away to
recognise him, then set out after her. She was strolling as
though she had no particular objective; moving, if he remembered
rightly, toward the Bois de Boulogne. For half an hour at least
he kept his distance on the far side of the way till she had
passed into the Bois itself. Was she going to meet someone after
all? Some confounded Frenchman—one of those “Bel Ami” chaps,
perhaps, who had nothing to do but hang about women—for he had
read that book with difficulty and a sort of disgusted
fascination. He followed doggedly along a shady alley, losing
sight of her now and then when the path curved. And it came back
to him how, long ago, one night in Hyde Park he had slid and
sneaked from tree to tree, from seat to seat, hunting blindly,
ridiculously, in burning jealousy for her and young Bosinney. The
path bent sharply, and, hurrying, he came on her sitting in front
of a small fountain—a little green-bronze Niobe veiled in hair to
her slender hips, gazing at the pool she had wept: He came on her
so suddenly that he was past before he could turn and take off
his hat. She did not start up. She had always had great
self-command—it was one of the things he most admired in her, one
of his greatest grievances against her, because he had never been
able to tell what she was thinking. Had she realised that he was
following? Her self-possession made him angry; and, disdaining to
explain his presence, he pointed to the mournful little Niobe,
and said:
“That’s rather a good thing.”
He could see, then, that she was struggling to preserve her
composure.
“I didn’t want to startle you; is this one of your haunts?”
“Yes.”
“A little lonely.” As he spoke, a lady, strolling by, paused to
look at the fountain and passed on.
Irene’s eyes followed her.
“No,” she said, prodding the ground with her parasol, “never
lonely. One has always one’s shadow.”
Soames understood; and, looking at her hard, he exclaimed:
“Well, it’s your own fault. You can be free of it at any moment.
Irene, come back to me, and be free.”
Irene laughed.
“Don’t!” cried Soames, stamping his foot; “it’s inhuman. Listen!
Is there any condition I can make which will bring you back to
me? If I promise you a separate house—and just a visit now and
then?”
Irene rose, something wild suddenly in her face and figure.
“None! None! None! You may hunt me to the grave. I will not
come.”
Outraged and on edge, Soames recoiled.
“Don’t make a scene!” he said sharply. And they both stood
motionless, staring at the little Niobe, whose greenish flesh the
sunlight was burnishing.
“That’s your last word, then,” muttered Soames, clenching his
hands; “you condemn us both.”
Irene bent her head. “I can’t come back. Good-bye!”
A feeling of monstrous injustice flared up in Soames.
“Stop!” he said, “and listen to me a moment. You gave me a sacred
vow—you came to me without a penny. You had all I could give you.
You broke that vow without cause, you made me a by-word; you
refused me a child; you’ve left me in prison; you—you still move
me so that I want you—I want you. Well, what do you think of
yourself?”
Irene turned, her face was deadly pale, her eyes burning dark.
“God made me as I am,” she said; “wicked if you like—but not so
wicked that I’ll give myself again to a man I hate.”
The sunlight gleamed on her hair as she moved away, and seemed to
lay a caress all down her clinging cream-coloured frock.
Soames could neither speak nor move. That word “hate”—so extreme,
so primitive—made all the Forsyte in him tremble. With a deep
imprecation he strode away from where she had vanished, and ran
almost into the arms of the lady sauntering back—the fool, the
shadowing fool!
He was soon dripping with perspiration, in the depths of the
Bois.
“Well,” he thought, “I need have no consideration for her now;
she has not a grain of it for me. I’ll show her this very day
that she’s my wife still.”
But on the way home to his hotel, he was forced to the conclusion
that he did not know what he meant. One could not make scenes in
public, and short of scenes in public what was there he could do?
He almost cursed his own thin-skinnedness. She might deserve no
consideration; but he—alas! deserved some at his own hands. And
sitting lunchless in the hall of his hotel, with tourists passing
every moment, Baedeker in hand, he was visited by black
dejection. In irons! His whole life, with every natural instinct
and every decent yearning gagged and fettered, and all because
Fate had driven him seventeen years ago to set his heart upon
this woman—so utterly, that even now he had no real heart to set
on any other! Cursed was the day he had met her, and his eyes for
seeing in her anything but the cruel Venus she was! And yet,
still seeing her with the sunlight on the clinging China crepe of
her gown, he uttered a little groan, so that a tourist who was
passing, thought: “Man in pain! Let’s see! what did I have for
lunch?”
Later, in front of a café near the Opera, over a glass of cold
tea with lemon and a straw in it, he took the malicious
resolution to go and dine at her hotel. If she were there, he
would speak to her; if she were not, he would leave a note. He
dressed carefully, and wrote as follows:
“Your idyll with that fellow Jolyon Forsyte is known to me at all
events. If you pursue it, understand that I will leave no stone
unturned to make things unbearable for him.
‘S. F.’”
He sealed this note but did not address it, refusing to write the
maiden name which she had impudently resumed, or to put the word
Forsyte on the envelope lest she should tear it up unread. Then
he went out, and made his way through the glowing streets,
abandoned to evening pleasure-seekers. Entering her hotel, he
took his seat in a far corner of the dining-room whence he could
see all entrances and exits. She was not there. He ate little,
quickly, watchfully. She did not come. He lingered in the lounge
over his coffee, drank two liqueurs of brandy. But still she did
not come. He went over to the keyboard and examined the names.
Number twelve, on the first floor! And he determined to take the
note up himself. He mounted red-carpeted stairs, past a little
salon; eight-ten-twelve! Should he knock, push the note under,
or...? He looked furtively round and turned the handle. The door
opened, but into a little space leading to another door; he
knocked on that—no answer. The door was locked. It fitted very
closely to the floor; the note would not go under. He thrust it
back into his pocket, and stood a moment listening. He felt
somehow certain that she was not there. And suddenly he came
away, passing the little salon down the stairs. He stopped at the
bureau and said:
“Will you kindly see that Mrs. Heron has this note?”
“Madame Heron left to-day, Monsieur—suddenly, about three
o’clock. There was illness in her family.”
Soames compressed his lips. “Oh!” he said; “do you know her
address?”
“_Non, Monsieur_. England, I think.”
Soames put the note back into his pocket and went out. He hailed
an open horse-cab which was passing.
“Drive me anywhere!”
The man, who, obviously, did not understand, smiled, and waved
his whip. And Soames was borne along in that little
yellow-wheeled Victoria all over star-shaped Paris, with here and
there a pause, and the question, “_C’est par ici, Monsieur?_”
“No, go on,” till the man gave it up in despair, and the
yellow-wheeled chariot continued to roll between the tall,
flat-fronted shuttered houses and plane-tree avenues—a little
Flying Dutchman of a cab.
“Like my life,” thought Soames, “without object, on and on!”
CHAPTER II IN THE WEB
Soames returned to England the following day, and on the third
morning received a visit from Mr. Polteed, who wore a flower and
carried a brown billycock hat. Soames motioned him to a seat.
“The news from the war is not so bad, is it?” said Mr. Polteed.
“I hope I see you well, sir.”
“Thanks! quite.”
Mr. Polteed leaned forward, smiled, opened his hand, looked into
it, and said softly:
“I think we’ve done your business for you at last.”
“What?” ejaculated Soames.
“Nineteen reports quite suddenly what I think we shall be
justified in calling conclusive evidence,” and Mr. Polteed
paused.
“Well?”
“On the 10th instant, after witnessing an interview between 17
and a party, earlier in the day, 19 can swear to having seen him
coming out of her bedroom in the hotel about ten o’clock in the
evening. With a little care in the giving of the evidence that
will be enough, especially as 17 has left Paris—no doubt with the
party in question. In fact, they both slipped off, and we haven’t
got on to them again, yet; but we shall—we shall. She’s worked
hard under very difficult circumstances, and I’m glad she’s
brought it off at last.” Mr. Polteed took out a cigarette, tapped
its end against the table, looked at Soames, and put it back. The
expression on his client’s face was not encouraging.
“Who is this new person?” said Soames abruptly.
“That we don’t know. She’ll swear to the fact, and she’s got his
appearance pat.”
Mr. Polteed took out a letter, and began reading:
“‘Middle-aged, medium height, blue dittoes in afternoon, evening
dress at night, pale, dark hair, small dark moustache, flat
cheeks, good chin, grey eyes, small feet, guilty look....’”
Soames rose and went to the window. He stood there in sardonic
fury. Congenital idiot—spidery congenital idiot! Seven months at
fifteen pounds a week—to be tracked down as his own wife’s lover!
Guilty look! He threw the window open.
“It’s hot,” he said, and came back to his seat.
Crossing his knees, he bent a supercilious glance on Mr. Polteed.
“I doubt if that’s quite good enough,” he said, drawling the
words, “with no name or address. I think you may let that lady
have a rest, and take up our friend 47 at this end.” Whether
Polteed had spotted him he could not tell; but he had a mental
vision of him in the midst of his cronies dissolved in
inextinguishable laughter. “Guilty look!” Damnation!
Mr. Polteed said in a tone of urgency, almost of pathos: “I
assure you we have put it through sometimes on less than that.
It’s Paris, you know. Attractive woman living alone. Why not risk
it, sir? We might screw it up a peg.”
Soames had sudden insight. The fellow’s professional zeal was
stirred: “Greatest triumph of my career; got a man his divorce
through a visit to his own wife’s bedroom! Something to talk of
there, when I retire!” And for one wild moment he thought: “Why
not?” After all, hundreds of men of medium height had small feet
and a guilty look!
“I’m not authorised to take any risk!” he said shortly.
Mr. Polteed looked up.
“Pity,” he said, “quite a pity! That other affair seemed very
costive.”
Soames rose.
“Never mind that. Please watch 47, and take care not to find a
mare’s nest. Good-morning!”
Mr. Polteed’s eye glinted at the words “mare’s nest!”
“Very good. You shall be kept informed.”
And Soames was alone again. The spidery, dirty, ridiculous
business! Laying his arms on the table, he leaned his forehead on
them. Full ten minutes he rested thus, till a managing clerk
roused him with the draft prospectus of a new issue of shares,
very desirable, in Manifold and Topping’s. That afternoon he left
work early and made his way to the Restaurant Bretagne. Only
Madame Lamotte was in. Would _Monsieur_ have tea with her?
Soames bowed.
When they were seated at right angles to each other in the little
room, he said abruptly:
“I want a talk with you, _Madame_.”
The quick lift of her clear brown eyes told him that she had long
expected such words.
“I have to ask you something first: That young doctor—what’s his
name? Is there anything between him and Annette?”
Her whole personality had become, as it were, like jet—clear-cut,
black, hard, shining.
“Annette is young,” she said; “so is _monsieur le docteur_.
Between young people things move quickly; but Annette is a good
daughter. Ah! what a jewel of a nature!”
The least little smile twisted Soames’ lips.
“Nothing definite, then?”
“But definite—no, indeed! The young man is veree nice, but—what
would you? There is no money at present.”
She raised her willow-patterned tea-cup; Soames did the same.
Their eyes met.
“I am a married man,” he said, “living apart from my wife for
many years. I am seeking to divorce her.”
Madame Lamotte put down her cup. Indeed! What tragic things there
were! The entire absence of sentiment in her inspired a queer
species of contempt in Soames.
“I am a rich man,” he added, fully conscious that the remark was
not in good taste. “It is useless to say more at present, but I
think you understand.”
Madame’s eyes, so open that the whites showed above them, looked
at him very straight.
“_Ah! ça—mais nous avons le temps!_” was all she said. “Another
little cup?” Soames refused, and, taking his leave, walked
westward.
He had got that off his mind; she would not let Annette commit
herself with that cheerful young ass until...! But what chance of
his ever being able to say: “I’m free?” What chance? The future
had lost all semblance of reality. He felt like a fly, entangled
in cobweb filaments, watching the desirable freedom of the air
with pitiful eyes.
He was short of exercise, and wandered on to Kensington Gardens,
and down Queen’s Gate towards Chelsea. Perhaps she had gone back
to her flat. That at all events he could find out. For since that
last and most ignominious repulse his wounded self-respect had
taken refuge again in the feeling that she must have a lover. He
arrived before the little Mansions at the dinner-hour. No need to
enquire! A grey-haired lady was watering the flower-boxes in her
window. It was evidently let. And he walked slowly past again,
along the river—an evening of clear, quiet beauty, all harmony
and comfort, except within his heart.
CHAPTER III RICHMOND PARK
On the afternoon that Soames crossed to France a cablegram was
received by Jolyon at Robin Hill:
“Your son down with enteric no immediate danger will cable
again.”
It reached a household already agitated by the imminent departure
of June, whose berth was booked for the following day. She was,
indeed, in the act of confiding Eric Cobbley and his family to
her father’s care when the message arrived.
The resolution to become a Red Cross nurse, taken under stimulus
of Jolly’s enlistment, had been loyally fulfilled with the
irritation and regret which all Forsytes feel at what curtails
their individual liberties. Enthusiastic at first about the
“wonderfulness” of the work, she had begun after a month to feel
that she could train herself so much better than others could
train her. And if Holly had not insisted on following her
example, and being trained too, she must inevitably have “cried
off.” The departure of Jolly and Val with their troop in April
had further stiffened her failing resolve. But now, on the point
of departure, the thought of leaving Eric Cobbley, with a wife
and two children, adrift in the cold waters of an unappreciative
world weighed on her so that she was still in danger of backing
out. The reading of that cablegram, with its disquieting reality,
clinched the matter. She saw herself already nursing Jolly—for of
course they would let her nurse her own brother! Jolyon—ever wide
and doubtful—had no such hope. Poor June!
Could any Forsyte of her generation grasp how rude and brutal
life was? Ever since he knew of his boy’s arrival at Cape Town
the thought of him had been a kind of recurrent sickness in
Jolyon. He could not get reconciled to the feeling that Jolly was
in danger all the time. The cablegram, grave though it was, was
almost a relief. He was now safe from bullets, anyway. And
yet—this enteric was a virulent disease! _The Times_ was full of
deaths therefrom. Why could _he_ not be lying out there in that
up-country hospital, and his boy safe at home? The un-Forsytean
self-sacrifice of his three children, indeed, had quite
bewildered Jolyon. He would eagerly change places with Jolly,
because he loved his boy; but no such personal motive was
influencing _them_. He could only think that it marked the
decline of the Forsyte type.
Late that afternoon Holly came out to him under the old oak-tree.
She had grown up very much during these last months of hospital
training away from home. And, seeing her approach, he thought:
“She has more sense than June, child though she is; more wisdom.
Thank God _she_ isn’t going out.” She had seated herself in the
swing, very silent and still. “She feels this,” thought Jolyon,
“as much as I” and, seeing her eyes fixed on him, he said: “Don’t
take it to heart too much, my child. If he weren’t ill, he might
be in much greater danger.”
Holly got out of the swing.
“I want to tell you something, Dad. It was through me that Jolly
enlisted and went out.”
“How’s that?”
“When you were away in Paris, Val Dartie and I fell in love. We
used to ride in Richmond Park; we got engaged. Jolly found it
out, and thought he ought to stop it; so he dared Val to enlist.
It was all my fault, Dad; and I want to go out too. Because if
anything happens to either of them I should feel awful. Besides,
I’m just as much trained as June.”
Jolyon gazed at her in a stupefaction that was tinged with irony.
So this was the answer to the riddle he had been asking himself;
and his three children were Forsytes after all. Surely Holly
might have told him all this before! But he smothered the
sarcastic sayings on his lips. Tenderness to the young was
perhaps the most sacred article of his belief. He had got, no
doubt, what he deserved. Engaged! So this was why he had so lost
touch with her! And to young Val Dartie—nephew of Soames—in the
other camp! It was all terribly distasteful. He closed his easel,
and set his drawing against the tree.
“Have you told June?”
“Yes; she says she’ll get me into her cabin somehow. It’s a
single cabin; but one of us could sleep on the floor. If you
consent, she’ll go up now and get permission.”
“Consent?” thought Jolyon. “Rather late in the day to ask for
that!” But again he checked himself.
“You’re too young, my dear; they won’t let you.”
“June knows some people that she helped to go to Cape Town. If
they won’t let me nurse yet, I could stay with them and go on
training there. Let me go, Dad!”
Jolyon smiled because he could have cried.
“I never stop anyone from doing anything,” he said.
Holly flung her arms round his neck.
“Oh! Dad, you are the best in the world.”
“That means the worst,” thought Jolyon. If he had ever doubted
his creed of tolerance he did so then.
“I’m not friendly with Val’s family,” he said, “and I don’t know
Val, but Jolly didn’t like him.”
Holly looked at the distance and said:
“I love him.”
“That settles it,” said Jolyon dryly, then catching the
expression on her face, he kissed her, with the thought: “Is
anything more pathetic than the faith of the young?” Unless he
actually forbade her going it was obvious that he must make the
best of it, so he went up to town with June. Whether due to her
persistence, or the fact that the official they saw was an old
school friend of Jolyon’s, they obtained permission for Holly to
share the single cabin. He took them to Surbiton station the
following evening, and they duly slid away from him, provided
with money, invalid foods, and those letters of credit without
which Forsytes do not travel.
He drove back to Robin Hill under a brilliant sky to his late
dinner, served with an added care by servants trying to show him
that they sympathised, eaten with an added scrupulousness to show
them that he appreciated their sympathy. But it was a real relief
to get to his cigar on the terrace of flag-stones—cunningly
chosen by young Bosinney for shape and colour—with night closing
in around him, so beautiful a night, hardly whispering in the
trees, and smelling so sweet that it made him ache. The grass was
drenched with dew, and he kept to those flagstones, up and down,
till presently it began to seem to him that he was one of three,
not wheeling, but turning right about at each end, so that his
father was always nearest to the house, and his son always
nearest to the terrace edge. Each had an arm lightly within his
arm; he dared not lift his hand to his cigar lest he should
disturb them, and it burned away, dripping ash on him, till it
dropped from his lips, at last, which were getting hot. They left
him then, and his arms felt chilly. Three Jolyons in one Jolyon
they had walked.
He stood still, counting the sounds—a carriage passing on the
highroad, a distant train, the dog at Gage’s farm, the whispering
trees, the groom playing on his penny whistle. A multitude of
stars up there—bright and silent, so far off! No moon as yet!
Just enough light to show him the dark flags and swords of the
iris flowers along the terrace edge—his favourite flower that had
the night’s own colour on its curving crumpled petals. He turned
round to the house. Big, unlighted, not a soul beside himself to
live in all that part of it. Stark loneliness! He could not go on
living here alone. And yet, so long as there was beauty, why
should a man feel lonely? The answer—as to some idiot’s
riddle—was: Because he did. The greater the beauty, the greater
the loneliness, for at the back of beauty was harmony, and at the
back of harmony was—union. Beauty could not comfort if the soul
were out of it. The night, maddeningly lovely, with bloom of
grapes on it in starshine, and the breath of grass and honey
coming from it, he could not enjoy, while she who was to him the
life of beauty, its embodiment and essence, was cut off from him,
utterly cut off now, he felt, by honourable decency.
He made a poor fist of sleeping, striving too hard after that
resignation which Forsytes find difficult to reach, bred to their
own way and left so comfortably off by their fathers. But after
dawn he dozed off, and soon was dreaming a strange dream.
He was on a stage with immensely high rich curtains—high as the
very stars—stretching in a semi-circle from footlights to
footlights. He himself was very small, a little black restless
figure roaming up and down; and the odd thing was that he was not
altogether himself, but Soames as well, so that he was not only
experiencing but watching. This figure of himself and Soames was
trying to find a way out through the curtains, which, heavy and
dark, kept him in. Several times he had crossed in front of them
before he saw with delight a sudden narrow rift—a tall chink of
beauty the colour of iris flowers, like a glimpse of Paradise,
remote, ineffable. Stepping quickly forward to pass into it, he
found the curtains closing before him. Bitterly disappointed
he—or was it Soames?—moved on, and there was the chink again
through the parted curtains, which again closed too soon. This
went on and on and he never got through till he woke with the
word “Irene” on his lips. The dream disturbed him badly,
especially that identification of himself with Soames.
Next morning, finding it impossible to work, he spent hours
riding Jolly’s horse in search of fatigue. And on the second day
he made up his mind to move to London and see if he could not get
permission to follow his daughters to South Africa. He had just
begun to pack the following morning when he received this letter:
“GREEN HOTEL,
“RICHMOND.
“_June_ 13.
“MY DEAR JOLYON,
“You will be surprised to see how near I am to you. Paris
became impossible—and I have come here to be within reach of
your advice. I would so love to see you again. Since you left
Paris I don’t think I have met anyone I could really talk to.
Is all well with you and with your boy? No one knows, I
think, that I am here at present.
“Always your friend,
“IRENE.”
Irene within three miles of him!—and again in flight! He stood
with a very queer smile on his lips. This was more than he had
bargained for!
About noon he set out on foot across Richmond Park, and as he
went along, he thought: “Richmond Park! By Jove, it suits us
Forsytes!” Not that Forsytes lived there—nobody lived there save
royalty, rangers, and the deer—but in Richmond Park Nature was
allowed to go so far and no further, putting up a brave show of
being natural, seeming to say: “Look at my instincts—they are
almost passions, very nearly out of hand, but not quite, of
course; the very hub of possession is to possess oneself.” Yes!
Richmond Park possessed itself, even on that bright day of June,
with arrowy cuckoos shifting the tree-points of their calls, and
the wood doves announcing high summer.
The Green Hotel, which Jolyon entered at one o’clock, stood
nearly opposite that more famous hostelry, the Crown and Sceptre;
it was modest, highly respectable, never out of cold beef,
gooseberry tart, and a dowager or two, so that a carriage and
pair was almost always standing before the door.
In a room draped in chintz so slippery as to forbid all emotion,
Irene was sitting on a piano stool covered with crewel work,
playing “Hansel and Gretel” out of an old score. Above her on a
wall, not yet Morris-papered, was a print of the Queen on a pony,
amongst deer-hounds, Scotch caps, and slain stags; beside her in
a pot on the window-sill was a white and rosy fuchsia. The
Victorianism of the room almost talked; and in her clinging frock
Irene seemed to Jolyon like Venus emerging from the shell of the
past century.
“If the proprietor had eyes,” he said, “he would show you the
door; you have broken through his decorations.” Thus lightly he
smothered up an emotional moment. Having eaten cold beef, pickled
walnut, gooseberry tart, and drunk stone-bottle ginger-beer, they
walked into the Park, and light talk was succeeded by the silence
Jolyon had dreaded.
“You haven’t told me about Paris,” he said at last.
“No. I’ve been shadowed for a long time; one gets used to that.
But then Soames came. By the little Niobe—the same story; would I
go back to him?”
“Incredible!”
She had spoken without raising her eyes, but she looked up now.
Those dark eyes clinging to his said as no words could have: “I
have come to an end; if you want me, here I am.”
For sheer emotional intensity had he ever—old as he was—passed
through such a moment?
The words: “Irene, I adore you!” almost escaped him. Then, with a
clearness of which he would not have believed mental vision
capable, he saw Jolly lying with a white face turned to a white
wall.
“My boy is very ill out there,” he said quietly.
Irene slipped her arm through his.
“Let’s walk on; I understand.”
No miserable explanation to attempt! She had understood! And they
walked on among the bracken, knee-high already, between the
rabbit-holes and the oak-trees, talking of Jolly. He left her two
hours later at the Richmond Hill Gate, and turned towards home.
“She knows of my feeling for her, then,” he thought. Of course!
One could not keep knowledge of that from such a woman!
CHAPTER IV OVER THE RIVER
Jolly was tired to death of dreams. They had left him now too wan
and weak to dream again; left him to lie torpid, faintly
remembering far-off things; just able to turn his eyes and gaze
through the window near his cot at the trickle of river running
by in the sands, at the straggling milk-bush of the Karoo beyond.
He knew what the Karoo was now, even if he had not seen a Boer
roll over like a rabbit, or heard the whine of flying bullets.
This pestilence had sneaked on him before he had smelled powder.
A thirsty day and a rash drink, or perhaps a tainted fruit—who
knew? Not he, who had not even strength left to grudge the evil
thing its victory—just enough to know that there were many lying
here with him, that he was sore with frenzied dreaming; just
enough to watch that thread of river and be able to remember
faintly those far-away things....
The sun was nearly down. It would be cooler soon. He would have
liked to know the time—to feel his old watch, so butter-smooth,
to hear the repeater strike. It would have been friendly,
home-like. He had not even strength to remember that the old
watch was last wound the day he began to lie here. The pulse of
his brain beat so feebly that faces which came and went, nurse’s,
doctor’s, orderly’s, were indistinguishable, just one indifferent
face; and the words spoken about him meant all the same thing,
and that almost nothing. Those things he used to do, though far
and faint, were more distinct—walking past the foot of the old
steps at Harrow “bill”—“Here, sir! Here, sir!”—wrapping boots in
the Westminster Gazette, greenish paper, shining
boots—grandfather coming from somewhere dark—a smell of earth—the
mushroom house! Robin Hill! Burying poor old Balthasar in the
leaves! Dad! Home....
Consciousness came again with noticing that the river had no
water in it—someone was speaking too. Want anything? No. What
could one want? Too weak to want—only to hear his watch
strike....
Holly! She wouldn’t bowl properly. Oh! Pitch them up! Not
sneaks!... “Back her, Two and Bow!” He was Two!... Consciousness
came once more with a sense of the violet dusk outside, and a
rising blood-red crescent moon. His eyes rested on it fascinated;
in the long minutes of brain-nothingness it went moving up and
up....
“He’s going, doctor!” Not pack boots again? Never? “Mind your
form, Two!” Don’t cry! Go quietly—over the river—sleep!... Dark?
If somebody would—strike—his—watch!...
CHAPTER V SOAMES ACTS
A sealed letter in the handwriting of Mr. Polteed remained
unopened in Soames’ pocket throughout two hours of sustained
attention to the affairs of the “New Colliery Company,” which,
declining almost from the moment of old Jolyon’s retirement from
the Chairmanship, had lately run down so fast that there was now
nothing for it but a “winding-up.” He took the letter out to
lunch at his City Club, sacred to him for the meals he had eaten
there with his father in the early seventies, when James used to
like him to come and see for himself the nature of his future
life.
Here in a remote corner before a plate of roast mutton and mashed
potato, he read:
“DEAR SIR,
“In accordance with your suggestion we have duly taken the
matter up at the other end with gratifying results.
Observation of 47 has enabled us to locate 17 at the Green
Hotel, Richmond. The two have been observed to meet daily
during the past week in Richmond Park. Nothing absolutely
crucial has so far been notified. But in conjunction with
what we had from Paris at the beginning of the year, I am
confident we could now satisfy the Court. We shall, of
course, continue to watch the matter until we hear from you.
“Very faithfully yours,
“CLAUD POLTEED.”
Soames read it through twice and beckoned to the waiter:
“Take this away; it’s cold.”
“Shall I bring you some more, sir?”
“No. Get me some coffee in the other room.”
And, paying for what he had not eaten, he went out, passing two
acquaintances without sign of recognition.
“Satisfy the Court!” he thought, sitting at a little round marble
table with the coffee before him. That fellow Jolyon! He poured
out his coffee, sweetened and drank it. He would disgrace him in
the eyes of his own children! And rising, with that resolution
hot within him, he found for the first time the inconvenience of
being his own solicitor. He could not treat this scandalous
matter in his own office. He must commit the soul of his private
dignity to a stranger, some other professional dealer in family
dishonour. Who was there he could go to? Linkman and Laver in
Budge Row, perhaps—reliable, not too conspicuous, only nodding
acquaintances. But before he saw them he must see Polteed again.
But at this thought Soames had a moment of sheer weakness. To
part with his secret? How find the words? How subject himself to
contempt and secret laughter? Yet, after all, the fellow knew
already—oh yes, he knew! And, feeling that he must finish with it
now, he took a cab into the West End.
In this hot weather the window of Mr. Polteed’s room was
positively open, and the only precaution was a wire gauze,
preventing the intrusion of flies. Two or three had tried to come
in, and been caught, so that they seemed to be clinging there
with the intention of being devoured presently. Mr. Polteed,
following the direction of his client’s eye, rose apologetically
and closed the window.
“Posing ass!” thought Soames. Like all who fundamentally believe
in themselves he was rising to the occasion, and, with his little
sideway smile, he said: “I’ve had your letter. I’m going to act.
I suppose you know who the lady you’ve been watching really is?”
Mr. Polteed’s expression at that moment was a masterpiece. It so
clearly said: “Well, what do you think? But mere professional
knowledge, I assure you—pray forgive it!” He made a little half
airy movement with his hand, as who should say: “Such things—such
things will happen to us all!”
“Very well, then,” said Soames, moistening his lips: “there’s no
need to say more. I’m instructing Linkman and Laver of Budge Row
to act for me. I don’t want to hear your evidence, but kindly
make your report to them at five o’clock, and continue to observe
the utmost secrecy.”
Mr. Polteed half closed his eyes, as if to comply at once. “My
dear sir,” he said.
“Are you convinced,” asked Soames with sudden energy, “that there
is enough?”
The faintest movement occurred to Mr. Polteed’s shoulders.
“You can risk it,” he murmured; “with what we have, and human
nature, you can risk it.”
Soames rose. “You will ask for Mr. Linkman. Thanks; don’t get
up.” He could not bear Mr. Polteed to slide as usual between him
and the door. In the sunlight of Piccadilly he wiped his
forehead. This had been the worst of it—he could stand the
strangers better. And he went back into the City to do what still
lay before him.
That evening in Park Lane, watching his father dine, he was
overwhelmed by his old longing for a son—a son, to watch _him_
eat as he went down the years, to be taken on _his_ knee as James
on a time had been wont to take him; a son of his own begetting,
who could understand him because he was the same flesh and
blood—understand, and comfort him, and become more rich and
cultured than himself because he would start even better off. To
get old—like that thin, grey wiry-frail figure sitting there—and
be quite alone with possessions heaping up around him; to take no
interest in anything because it had no future and must pass away
from him to hands and mouths and eyes for whom he cared no jot!
No! He would force it through now, and be free to marry, and have
a son to care for him before he grew to be like the old old man
his father, wistfully watching now his sweetbread, now his son.
In that mood he went up to bed. But, lying warm between those
fine linen sheets of Emily’s providing, he was visited by
memories and torture. Visions of Irene, almost the solid feeling
of her body, beset him. Why had he ever been fool enough to see
her again, and let this flood back on him so that it was pain to
think of her with that fellow—that stealing fellow.
CHAPTER VI A SUMMER DAY
His boy was seldom absent from Jolyon’s mind in the days which
followed the first walk with Irene in Richmond Park. No further
news had come; enquiries at the War Office elicited nothing; nor
could he expect to hear from June and Holly for three weeks at
least. In these days he felt how insufficient were his memories
of Jolly, and what an amateur of a father he had been. There was
not a single memory in which anger played a part; not one
reconciliation, because there had never been a rupture; nor one
heart-to-heart confidence, not even when Jolly’s mother died.
Nothing but half-ironical affection. He had been too afraid of
committing himself in any direction, for fear of losing his
liberty, or interfering with that of his boy.
Only in Irene’s presence had he relief, highly complicated by the
ever-growing perception of how divided he was between her and his
son. With Jolly was bound up all that sense of continuity and
social creed of which he had drunk deeply in his youth and again
during his boy’s public school and varsity life—all that sense of
not going back on what father and son expected of each other.
With Irene was bound up all his delight in beauty and in Nature.
And he seemed to know less and less which was the stronger within
him. From such sentimental paralysis he was rudely awakened,
however, one afternoon, just as he was starting off to Richmond,
by a young man with a bicycle and a face oddly familiar, who came
forward faintly smiling.
“Mr. Jolyon Forsyte? Thank you!” Placing an envelope in Jolyon’s
hand he wheeled off the path and rode away. Bewildered, Jolyon
opened it.
“Admiralty Probate and Divorce, Forsyte _v._ Forsyte and
Forsyte!”
A sensation of shame and disgust was followed by the instant
reaction “Why, here’s the very thing you want, and you don’t like
it!” But she must have had one too; and he must go to her at
once. He turned things over as he went along. It was an ironical
business. For, whatever the Scriptures said about the heart, it
took more than mere longings to satisfy the law. They could
perfectly well defend this suit, or at least in good faith try
to. But the idea of doing so revolted Jolyon. If not her lover in
deed he was in desire, and he knew that she was ready to come to
him. Her face had told him so. Not that he exaggerated her
feeling for him. She had had her grand passion, and he could not
expect another from her at his age. But she had trust in him,
affection for him, and must feel that he would be a refuge.
Surely she would not ask him to defend the suit, knowing that he
adored her! Thank Heaven she had not that maddening British
conscientiousness which refused happiness for the sake of
refusing! She must rejoice at this chance of being free after
seventeen years of death in life! As to publicity, the fat was in
the fire! To defend the suit would not take away the slur. Jolyon
had all the proper feeling of a Forsyte whose privacy is
threatened: If he was to be hung by the Law, by all means let it
be for a sheep! Moreover the notion of standing in a witness box
and swearing to the truth that no gesture, not even a word of
love had passed between them seemed to him more degrading than to
take the tacit stigma of being an adulterer—more truly degrading,
considering the feeling in his heart, and just as bad and painful
for his children. The thought of explaining away, if he could,
before a judge and twelve average Englishmen, their meetings in
Paris, and the walks in Richmond Park, horrified him. The
brutality and hypocritical censoriousness of the whole process;
the probability that they would not be believed—the mere vision
of her, whom he looked on as the embodiment of Nature and of
Beauty, standing there before all those suspicious, gloating eyes
was hideous to him. No, no! To defend a suit only made a London
holiday, and sold the newspapers. A thousand times better accept
what Soames and the gods had sent!
“Besides,” he thought honestly, “who knows whether, even for my
boy’s sake, I could have stood this state of things much longer?
Anyway, her neck will be out of chancery at last!” Thus absorbed,
he was hardly conscious of the heavy heat. The sky had become
overcast, purplish with little streaks of white. A heavy
heat-drop plashed a little star pattern in the dust of the road
as he entered the Park. “Phew!” he thought, “thunder! I hope
she’s not come to meet me; there’s a ducking up there!” But at
that very minute he saw Irene coming towards the Gate. “We must
scuttle back to Robin Hill,” he thought.
The storm had passed over the Poultry at four o’clock, bringing
welcome distraction to the clerks in every office. Soames was
drinking a cup of tea when a note was brought in to him:
“DEAR SIR,
_Forsyte v. Forsyte and Forsyte_
“In accordance with your instructions, we beg to inform you
that we personally served the respondent and co-respondent in
this suit to-day, at Richmond, and Robin Hill, respectively.
“Faithfully yours,
“LINKMAN AND LAVER.”
For some minutes Soames stared at that note. Ever since he had
given those instructions he had been tempted to annul them. It
was so scandalous, such a general disgrace! The evidence, too,
what he had heard of it, had never seemed to him conclusive;
somehow, he believed less and less that those two had gone all
lengths. But this, of course, would drive them to it; and he
suffered from the thought. That fellow to have her love, where he
had failed! Was it too late? Now that they had been brought up
sharp by service of this petition, had he not a lever with which
he could force them apart? “But if I don’t act at once,” he
thought, “it will be too late, now they’ve had this thing. I’ll
go and see him; I’ll go down!”
And, sick with nervous anxiety, he sent out for one of the
“new-fangled” motor-cabs. It might take a long time to run that
fellow to ground, and Goodness knew what decision they might come
to after such a shock! “If I were a theatrical ass,” he thought,
“I suppose I should be taking a horse-whip or a pistol or
something!” He took instead a bundle of papers in the case of
“Magentie versus Wake,” intending to read them on the way down.
He did not even open them, but sat quite still, jolted and
jarred, unconscious of the draught down the back of his neck, or
the smell of petrol. He must be guided by the fellow’s attitude;
the great thing was to keep his head!
London had already begun to disgorge its workers as he neared
Putney Bridge; the ant-heap was on the move outwards. What a lot
of ants, all with a living to get, holding on by their eyelids in
the great scramble! Perhaps for the first time in his life Soames
thought: “_I_ could let go if I liked! Nothing could touch me; I
could snap my fingers, live as I wished—enjoy myself!” No! One
could not live as he had and just drop it all—settle down in
Capua, to spend the money and reputation he had made. A man’s
life was what he possessed and sought to possess. Only fools
thought otherwise—fools, and socialists, and libertines!
The cab was passing villas now, going a great pace. “Fifteen
miles an hour, I should think!” he mused; “this’ll take people
out of town to live!” and he thought of its bearing on the
portions of London owned by his father—he himself had never taken
to that form of investment, the gambler in him having all the
outlet needed in his pictures. And the cab sped on, down the hill
past Wimbledon Common. This interview! Surely a man of fifty-two
with grown-up children, and hung on the line, would not be
reckless. “He won’t want to disgrace the family,” he thought; “he
was as fond of his father as I am of mine, and they were
brothers. That woman brings destruction—what is it in her? I’ve
never known.” The cab branched off, along the side of a wood, and
he heard a late cuckoo calling, almost the first he had heard
that year. He was now almost opposite the site he had originally
chosen for his house, and which had been so unceremoniously
rejected by Bosinney in favour of his own choice. He began
passing his handkerchief over his face and hands, taking deep
breaths to give him steadiness. “Keep one’s head,” he thought,
“keep one’s head!”
The cab turned in at the drive which might have been his own, and
the sound of music met him. He had forgotten the fellow’s
daughters.
“I may be out again directly,” he said to the driver, “or I may
be kept some time”; and he rang the bell.
Following the maid through the curtains into the inner hall, he
felt relieved that the impact of this meeting would be broken by
June or Holly, whichever was playing in there, so that with
complete surprise he saw Irene at the piano, and Jolyon sitting
in an armchair listening. They both stood up. Blood surged into
Soames’ brain, and all his resolution to be guided by this or
that left him utterly. The look of his farmer forbears—dogged
Forsytes down by the sea, from “Superior Dosset” back—grinned out
of his face.
“Very pretty!” he said.
He heard the fellow murmur:
“This is hardly the place—we’ll go to the study, if you don’t
mind.” And they both passed him through the curtain opening. In
the little room to which he followed them, Irene stood by the
open window, and the “fellow” close to her by a big chair. Soames
pulled the door to behind him with a slam; the sound carried him
back all those years to the day when he had shut out Jolyon—shut
him out for meddling with his affairs.
“Well,” he said, “what have you to say for yourselves?”
The fellow had the effrontery to smile.
“What we have received to-day has taken away your right to ask. I
should imagine you will be glad to have your neck out of
chancery.”
“Oh!” said Soames; “you think so! I came to tell you that I’ll
divorce her with every circumstance of disgrace to you both,
unless you swear to keep clear of each other from now on.”
He was astonished at his fluency, because his mind was stammering
and his hands twitching. Neither of them answered; but their
faces seemed to him as if contemptuous.
“Well,” he said; “you—Irene?”
Her lips moved, but Jolyon laid his hand on her arm.
“Let her alone!” said Soames furiously. “Irene, will you swear
it?”
“No.”
“Oh! and you?”
“Still less.”
“So then you’re guilty, are you?”
“Yes, guilty.” It was Irene speaking in that serene voice, with
that unreached air which had maddened him so often; and, carried
beyond himself, he cried:
“_You_ are a devil.”
“Go out! Leave this house, or I’ll do you an injury.”
That fellow to talk of injuries! Did he know how near his throat
was to being scragged?
“A trustee,” he said, “embezzling trust property! A thief,
stealing his cousin’s wife.”
“Call me what you like. You have chosen your part, we have chosen
ours. Go out!”
If he had brought a weapon Soames might have used it at that
moment.
“I’ll make you pay!” he said.
“I shall be very happy.”
At that deadly turning of the meaning of his speech by the son of
him who had nicknamed him “the man of property,” Soames stood
glaring. It was ridiculous!
There they were, kept from violence by some secret force. No blow
possible, no words to meet the case. But he could not, did not
know how to turn and go away. His eyes fastened on Irene’s
face—the last time he would ever see that fatal face—the last
time, no doubt!
“You,” he said suddenly, “I hope you’ll treat him as you treated
me—that’s all.”
He saw her wince, and with a sensation not quite triumph, not
quite relief, he wrenched open the door, passed out through the
hall, and got into his cab. He lolled against the cushion with
his eyes shut. Never in his life had he been so near to murderous
violence, never so thrown away the restraint which was his second
nature. He had a stripped and naked feeling, as if all virtue had
gone out of him—life meaningless, mind-striking work. Sunlight
streamed in on him, but he felt cold. The scene he had passed
through had gone from him already, what was before him would not
materialise, he could catch on to nothing; and he felt
frightened, as if he had been hanging over the edge of a
precipice, as if with another turn of the screw sanity would have
failed him. “I’m not fit for it,” he thought; “I mustn’t—I’m not
fit for it.” The cab sped on, and in mechanical procession trees,
houses, people passed, but had no significance. “I feel very
queer,” he thought; “I’ll take a Turkish bath.—I’ve been very
near to something. It won’t do.” The cab whirred its way back
over the bridge, up the Fulham Road, along the Park.
“To the Hammam,” said Soames.
Curious that on so warm a summer day, heat should be so
comforting! Crossing into the hot room he met George Forsyte
coming out, red and glistening.
“Hallo!” said George; “what are you training for? You’ve not got
much superfluous.”
Buffoon! Soames passed him with his sideway smile. Lying back,
rubbing his skin uneasily for the first signs of perspiration, he
thought: “Let them laugh! I _won’t_ feel anything! I can’t stand
violence! It’s not good for me!”
CHAPTER VII A SUMMER NIGHT
Soames left dead silence in the little study. “Thank you for that
good lie,” said Jolyon suddenly. “Come out—the air in here is not
what it was!”
In front of a long high southerly wall on which were trained
peach-trees the two walked up and down in silence. Old Jolyon had
planted some cupressus-trees, at intervals, between this grassy
terrace and the dipping meadow full of buttercups and ox-eyed
daisies; for twelve years they had flourished, till their dark
spiral shapes had quite a look of Italy. Birds fluttered softly
in the wet shrubbery; the swallows swooped past, with a
steel-blue sheen on their swift little bodies; the grass felt
springy beneath the feet, its green refreshed; butterflies chased
each other. After that painful scene the quiet of Nature was
wonderfully poignant. Under the sun-soaked wall ran a narrow
strip of garden-bed full of mignonette and pansies, and from the
bees came a low hum in which all other sounds were set—the mooing
of a cow deprived of her calf, the calling of a cuckoo from an
elm-tree at the bottom of the meadow. Who would have thought that
behind them, within ten miles, London began—that London of the
Forsytes, with its wealth, its misery; its dirt and noise; its
jumbled stone isles of beauty, its grey sea of hideous brick and
stucco? That London which had seen Irene’s early tragedy, and
Jolyon’s own hard days; that web; that princely workhouse of the
possessive instinct!
And while they walked Jolyon pondered those words: “I hope you’ll
treat him as you treated me.” That would depend on himself. Could
he trust himself? Did Nature permit a Forsyte not to make a slave
of what he adored? Could beauty be confided to him? Or should she
not be just a visitor, coming when she would, possessed for
moments which passed, to return only at her own choosing? “We are
a breed of spoilers!” thought Jolyon, “close and greedy; the
bloom of life is not safe with us. Let her come to me as she
will, when she will, not at all if she will not. Let me be just
her stand-by, her perching-place; never—never her cage!”
She was the chink of beauty in his dream. Was he to pass through
the curtains now and reach her? Was the rich stuff of many
possessions, the close encircling fabric of the possessive
instinct walling in that little black figure of himself, and
Soames—was it to be rent so that he could pass through into his
vision, find there something not of the senses only? “Let me,” he
thought, “ah! let me only know how not to grasp and destroy!”
But at dinner there were plans to be made. To-night she would go
back to the hotel, but tomorrow he would take her up to London.
He must instruct his solicitor—Jack Herring. Not a finger must be
raised to hinder the process of the Law. Damages exemplary,
judicial strictures, costs, what they liked—let it go through at
the first moment, so that her neck might be out of chancery at
last! To-morrow he would see Herring—they would go and see him
together. And then—abroad, leaving no doubt, no difficulty about
evidence, making the lie she had told into the truth. He looked
round at her; and it seemed to his adoring eyes that more than a
woman was sitting there. The spirit of universal beauty, deep,
mysterious, which the old painters, Titian, Giorgione,
Botticelli, had known how to capture and transfer to the faces of
their women—this flying beauty seemed to him imprinted on her
brow, her hair, her lips, and in her eyes.
“And this is to be mine!” he thought. “It frightens me!”
After dinner they went out on to the terrace to have coffee. They
sat there long, the evening was so lovely, watching the summer
night come very slowly on. It was still warm and the air smelled
of lime blossom—early this summer. Two bats were flighting with
the faint mysterious little noise they make. He had placed the
chairs in front of the study window, and moths flew past to visit
the discreet light in there. There was no wind, and not a whisper
in the old oak-tree twenty yards away! The moon rose from behind
the copse, nearly full; and the two lights struggled, till
moonlight conquered, changing the colour and quality of all the
garden, stealing along the flagstones, reaching their feet,
climbing up, changing their faces.
“Well,” said Jolyon at last, “you’ll be tired, dear; we’d better
start. The maid will show you Holly’s room,” and he rang the
study bell. The maid who came handed him a telegram. Watching her
take Irene away, he thought: “This must have come an hour or more
ago, and she didn’t bring it out to us! That shows! Well, we’ll
be hung for a sheep soon!” And, opening the telegram, he read:
“JOLYON FORSYTE, Robin Hill.—Your son passed painlessly away on
June 20th. Deep sympathy”—some name unknown to him.
He dropped it, spun round, stood motionless. The moon shone in on
him; a moth flew in his face. The first day of all that he had
not thought almost ceaselessly of Jolly. He went blindly towards
the window, struck against the old armchair—his father’s—and sank
down on to the arm of it. He sat there huddled forward, staring
into the night. Gone out like a candle flame; far from home, from
love, all by himself, in the dark! His boy! From a little chap
always so good to him—so friendly! Twenty years old, and cut down
like grass—to have no life at all! “I didn’t really know him,” he
thought, “and he didn’t know me; but we loved each other. It’s
only love that matters.”
To die out there—lonely—wanting them—wanting home! This seemed to
his Forsyte heart more painful, more pitiful than death itself.
No shelter, no protection, no love at the last! And all the
deeply rooted clanship in him, the family feeling and essential
clinging to his own flesh and blood which had been so strong in
old Jolyon was so strong in all the Forsytes—felt outraged, cut,
and torn by his boy’s lonely passing. Better far if he had died
in battle, without time to long for them to come to him, to call
out for them, perhaps, in his delirium!
The moon had passed behind the oak-tree now, endowing it with
uncanny life, so that it seemed watching him—the oak-tree his boy
had been so fond of climbing, out of which he had once fallen and
hurt himself, and hadn’t cried!
The door creaked. He saw Irene come in, pick up the telegram and
read it. He heard the faint rustle of her dress. She sank on her
knees close to him, and he forced himself to smile at her. She
stretched up her arms and drew his head down on her shoulder. The
perfume and warmth of her encircled him; her presence gained
slowly his whole being.
CHAPTER VIII JAMES IN WAITING
Sweated to serenity, Soames dined at the Remove and turned his
face toward Park Lane. His father had been unwell lately. This
would have to be kept from him! Never till that moment had he
realised how much the dread of bringing James’ grey hairs down
with sorrow to the grave had counted with him; how intimately it
was bound up with his own shrinking from scandal. His affection
for his father, always deep, had increased of late years with the
knowledge that James looked on him as the real prop of his
decline. It seemed pitiful that one who had been so careful all
his life and done so much for the family name—so that it was
almost a byword for solid, wealthy respectability—should at his
last gasp have to see it in all the newspapers. This was like
lending a hand to Death, that final enemy of Forsytes. “I must
tell mother,” he thought, “and when it comes on, we must keep the
papers from him somehow. He sees hardly anyone.” Letting himself
in with his latchkey, he was beginning to ascend he stairs when
he became conscious of commotion on the second-floor landing. His
mother’s voice was saying:
“Now, James, you’ll catch cold. Why can’t you wait quietly?”
His father’s answering
“Wait? I’m always waiting. Why doesn’t he come in?”
“You can speak to him to-morrow morning, instead of making a guy
of yourself on the landing.”
“He’ll go up to bed, I shouldn’t wonder. I shan’t sleep.”
“Now come back to bed, James.”
“Um! I might die before to-morrow morning for all you can tell.”
“You shan’t have to wait till to-morrow morning; I’ll go down and
bring him up. Don’t fuss!”
“There you go—always so cock-a-hoop. He mayn’t come in at all.”
“Well, if he doesn’t come in you won’t catch him by standing out
here in your dressing-gown.”
Soames rounded the last bend and came in sight of his father’s
tall figure wrapped in a brown silk quilted gown, stooping over
the balustrade above. Light fell on his silvery hair and
whiskers, investing his head with a sort of halo.
“Here he is!” he heard him say in a voice which sounded injured,
and his mother’s comfortable answer from the bedroom door:
“That’s all right. Come in, and I’ll brush your hair.” James
extended a thin, crooked finger, oddly like the beckoning of a
skeleton, and passed through the doorway of his bedroom.
“What is it?” thought Soames. “What has he got hold of now?”
His father was sitting before the dressing-table sideways to the
mirror, while Emily slowly passed two silver-backed brushes
through and through his hair. She would do this several times a
day, for it had on him something of the effect produced on a cat
by scratching between its ears.
“There you are!” he said. “I’ve been waiting.”
Soames stroked his shoulder, and, taking up a silver button-hook,
examined the mark on it.
“Well,” he said, “you’re looking better.”
James shook his head.
“I want to say something. Your mother hasn’t heard.” He announced
Emily’s ignorance of what he hadn’t told her, as if it were a
grievance.
“Your father’s been in a great state all the evening. I’m sure I
don’t know what about.”
The faint “whisk-whisk” of the brushes continued the soothing of
her voice.
“No! you know nothing,” said James. “Soames can tell me.” And,
fixing his grey eyes, in which there was a look of strain,
uncomfortable to watch, on his son, he muttered:
“I’m getting on, Soames. At my age I can’t tell. I might die any
time. There’ll be a lot of money. There’s Rachel and Cicely got
no children; and Val’s out there—that chap his father will get
hold of all he can. And somebody’ll pick up Imogen, I shouldn’t
wonder.”
Soames listened vaguely—he had heard all this before.
Whish-whish! went the brushes.
“If that’s all!” said Emily.
“All!” cried James; “it’s nothing. I’m coming to that.” And again
his eyes strained pitifully at Soames.
“It’s you, my boy,” he said suddenly; “you ought to get a
divorce.”
That word, from those of all lips, was almost too much for
Soames’ composure. His eyes reconcentrated themselves quickly on
the buttonhook, and as if in apology James hurried on:
“I don’t know what’s become of her—they say she’s abroad. Your
Uncle Swithin used to admire her—he was a funny fellow.” (So he
always alluded to his dead twin—“The Stout and the Lean of it,”
they had been called.) “She wouldn’t be alone, I should say.” And
with that summing-up of the effect of beauty on human nature, he
was silent, watching his son with eyes doubting as a bird’s.
Soames, too, was silent. Whish-whish went the brushes.
“Come, James! Soames knows best. It’s his business.”
“Ah!” said James, and the word came from deep down; “but there’s
all my money, and there’s his—who’s it to go to? And when he dies
the name goes out.”
Soames replaced the button-hook on the lace and pink silk of the
dressing-table coverlet.
“The name?” said Emily, “there are all the other Forsytes.”
“As if that helped me,” muttered James. “I shall be in my grave,
and there’ll be nobody, unless he marries again.”
“You’re quite right,” said Soames quietly; “I’m getting a
divorce.”
James’ eyes almost started from his head.
“What?” he cried. “There! nobody tells me anything.”
“Well,” said Emily, “who would have imagined you wanted it? My
dear boy, that _is_ a surprise, after all these years.”
“It’ll be a scandal,” muttered James, as if to himself; “but I
can’t help that. Don’t brush so hard. When’ll it come on?”
“Before the Long Vacation; it’s not defended.”
James’ lips moved in secret calculation. “I shan’t live to see my
grandson,” he muttered.
Emily ceased brushing. “Of course you will, James. Soames will be
as quick as he can.”
There was a long silence, till James reached out his arm.
“Here! let’s have the eau-de-Cologne,” and, putting it to his
nose, he moved his forehead in the direction of his son. Soames
bent over and kissed that brow just where the hair began. A
relaxing quiver passed over James’ face, as though the wheels of
anxiety within were running down.
“I’ll get to bed,” he said; “I shan’t want to see the papers when
that comes. They’re a morbid lot; I can’t pay attention to them,
I’m too old.”
Queerly affected, Soames went to the door; he heard his father
say:
“Here, I’m tired. I’ll say a prayer in bed.”
And his mother answering
“That’s right, James; it’ll be ever so much more comfy.”
CHAPTER IX OUT OF THE WEB
On Forsyte ’Change the announcement of Jolly’s death, among a
batch of troopers, caused mixed sensation. Strange to read that
Jolyon Forsyte (fifth of the name in direct descent) had died of
disease in the service of his country, and not be able to feel it
personally. It revived the old grudge against his father for
having estranged himself. For such was still the prestige of old
Jolyon that the other Forsytes could never quite feel, as might
have been expected, that it was they who had cut off his
descendants for irregularity. The news increased, of course, the
interest and anxiety about Val; but then Val’s name was Dartie,
and even if he were killed in battle or got the Victoria Cross,
it would not be at all the same as if his name were Forsyte. Not
even casualty or glory to the Haymans would be really
satisfactory. Family pride felt defrauded.
How the rumour arose, then, that “something very dreadful, my
dear,” was pending, no one, least of all Soames, could tell,
secret as he kept everything. Possibly some eye had seen “Forsyte
_v._ Forsyte and Forsyte,” in the cause list; and had added it to
“Irene in Paris with a fair beard.” Possibly some wall at Park
Lane had ears. The fact remained that it _was_ known—whispered
among the old, discussed among the young—that family pride must
soon receive a blow.
Soames, paying one of his Sunday visits to Timothy’s—paying it
with the feeling that after the suit came on he would be paying
no more—felt knowledge in the air as he came in. Nobody, of
course, dared speak of it before him, but each of the four other
Forsytes present held their breath, aware that nothing could
prevent Aunt Juley from making them all uncomfortable. She looked
so piteously at Soames, she checked herself on the point of
speech so often, that Aunt Hester excused herself and said she
must go and bathe Timothy’s eye—he had a sty coming. Soames,
impassive, slightly supercilious, did not stay long. He went out
with a curse stifled behind his pale, just smiling lips.
Fortunately for the peace of his mind, cruelly tortured by the
coming scandal, he was kept busy day and night with plans for his
retirement—for he had come to that grim conclusion. To go on
seeing all those people who had known him as a “long-headed
chap,” an astute adviser—after _that_—no! The fastidiousness and
pride which was so strangely, so inextricably blended in him with
possessive obtuseness, revolted against the thought. He would
retire, live privately, go on buying pictures, make a great name
as a collector—after all, his heart was more in that than it had
ever been in Law. In pursuance of this now fixed resolve, he had
to get ready to amalgamate his business with another firm without
letting people know, for that would excite curiosity and make
humiliation cast its shadow before. He had pitched on the firm of
Cuthcott, Holliday and Kingson, two of whom were dead. The full
name after the amalgamation would therefore be Cuthcott,
Holliday, Kingson, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. But after debate
as to which of the dead still had any influence with the living,
it was decided to reduce the title to Cuthcott, Kingson and
Forsyte, of whom Kingson would be the active and Soames the
sleeping partner. For leaving his name, prestige, and clients
behind him, Soames would receive considerable value.
One night, as befitted a man who had arrived at so important a
stage of his career, he made a calculation of what he was worth,
and after writing off liberally for depreciation by the war,
found his value to be some hundred and thirty thousand pounds. At
his father’s death, which could not, alas, be delayed much
longer, he must come into at least another fifty thousand, and
his yearly expenditure at present just reached two. Standing
among his pictures, he saw before him a future full of bargains
earned by the trained faculty of knowing better than other
people. Selling what was about to decline, keeping what was still
going up, and exercising judicious insight into future taste, he
would make a unique collection, which at his death would pass to
the nation under the title “Forsyte Bequest.”
If the divorce went through, he had determined on his line with
Madame Lamotte. She had, he knew, but one real ambition—to live
on her “_rentes_” in Paris near her grandchildren. He would buy
the goodwill of the Restaurant Bretagne at a fancy price. Madame
would live like a Queen-Mother in Paris on the interest, invested
as she would know how. (Incidentally Soames meant to put a
capable manager in her place, and make the restaurant pay good
interest on his money. There were great possibilities in Soho.)
On Annette he would promise to settle fifteen thousand pounds
(whether designedly or not), precisely the sum old Jolyon had
settled on “that woman.”
A letter from Jolyon’s solicitor to his own had disclosed the
fact that “those two” were in Italy. And an opportunity had been
duly given for noting that they had first stayed at an hotel in
London. The matter was clear as daylight, and would be disposed
of in half an hour or so; but during that half-hour he, Soames,
would go down to hell; and after that half-hour all bearers of
the Forsyte name would feel the bloom was off the rose. He had no
illusions like Shakespeare that roses by any other name would
smell as sweet. The name was a possession, a concrete, unstained
piece of property, the value of which would be reduced some
twenty per cent. at least. Unless it were Roger, who had once
refused to stand for Parliament, and—oh, irony!—Jolyon, hung on
the line, there had never been a distinguished Forsyte. But that
very lack of distinction was the name’s greatest asset. It was a
private name, intensely individual, and his own property; it had
never been exploited for good or evil by intrusive report. He and
each member of his family owned it wholly, sanely, secretly,
without any more interference from the public than had been
necessitated by their births, their marriages, their deaths. And
during these weeks of waiting and preparing to drop the Law, he
conceived for that Law a bitter distaste, so deeply did he resent
its coming violation of his name, forced on him by the need he
felt to perpetuate that name in a lawful manner. The monstrous
injustice of the whole thing excited in him a perpetual
suppressed fury. He had asked no better than to live in spotless
domesticity, and now he must go into the witness box, after all
these futile, barren years, and proclaim his failure to keep his
wife—incur the pity, the amusement, the contempt of his kind. It
was all upside down. She and that fellow ought to be the
sufferers, and they—were in Italy! In these weeks the Law he had
served so faithfully, looked on so reverently as the guardian of
all property, seemed to him quite pitiful. What could be more
insane than to tell a man that he owned his wife, and punish him
when someone unlawfully took her away from him? Did the Law not
know that a man’s name was to him the apple of his eye, that it
was far harder to be regarded as cuckold than as seducer? He
actually envied Jolyon the reputation of succeeding where he,
Soames, had failed. The question of damages worried him, too. He
wanted to make that fellow suffer, but he remembered his cousin’s
words, “I shall be very happy,” with the uneasy feeling that to
claim damages would make not Jolyon but himself suffer; he felt
uncannily that Jolyon would rather like to pay them—the chap was
so loose. Besides, to claim damages was not the thing to do. The
claim, indeed, had been made almost mechanically; and as the hour
drew near Soames saw in it just another dodge of this insensitive
and topsy-turvy Law to make him ridiculous; so that people might
sneer and say: “Oh, yes, he got quite a good price for her!” And
he gave instructions that his Counsel should state that the money
would be given to a Home for Fallen Women. He was a long time
hitting off exactly the right charity; but, having pitched on it,
he used to wake up in the night and think: “It won’t do, too
lurid; it’ll draw attention. Something quieter—better taste.” He
did not care for dogs, or he would have named them; and it was in
desperation at last—for his knowledge of charities was
limited—that he decided on the blind. That could not be
inappropriate, and it would make the Jury assess the damages
high.
A good many suits were dropping out of the list, which happened
to be exceptionally thin that summer, so that his case would be
reached before August. As the day grew nearer, Winifred was his
only comfort. She showed the fellow-feeling of one who had been
through the mill, and was the “femme-sole” in whom he confided,
well knowing that she would not let Dartie into her confidence.
That ruffian would be only too rejoiced! At the end of July, on
the afternoon before the case, he went in to see her. They had
not yet been able to leave town, because Dartie had already spent
their summer holiday, and Winifred dared not go to her father for
more money while he was waiting not to be told anything about
this affair of Soames.
Soames found her with a letter in her hand.
“That from Val,” he asked gloomily. “What does he say?”
“He says he’s married,” said Winifred.
“Whom to, for Goodness’ sake?”
Winifred looked up at him.
“To Holly Forsyte, Jolyon’s daughter.”
“What?”
“He got leave and did it. I didn’t even know he knew her.
Awkward, isn’t it?”
Soames uttered a short laugh at that characteristic minimisation.
“Awkward! Well, I don’t suppose they’ll hear about this till they
come back. They’d better stay out there. That fellow will give
her money.”
“But I want Val back,” said Winifred almost piteously; “I miss
him, he helps me to get on.”
“I know,” murmured Soames. “How’s Dartie behaving now?”
“It might be worse; but it’s always money. Would you like me to
come down to the Court to-morrow, Soames?”
Soames stretched out his hand for hers. The gesture so betrayed
the loneliness in him that she pressed it between her two.
“Never mind, old boy. You’ll feel ever so much better when it’s
all over.”
“I don’t know what I’ve done,” said Soames huskily; “I never
have. It’s all upside down. I was fond of her; I’ve always been.”
Winifred saw a drop of blood ooze out of his lip, and the sight
stirred her profoundly.
“Of course,” she said, “it’s been _too_ bad of her all along! But
what shall I do about this marriage of Val’s, Soames? I don’t
know how to write to him, with this coming on. You’ve seen that
child. Is she pretty?”
“Yes, she’s pretty,” said Soames. “Dark—lady-like enough.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” thought Winifred. “Jolyon had
style.”
“It is a coil,” she said. “What will father say?
“Mustn’t be told,” said Soames. “The war’ll soon be over now,
you’d better let Val take to farming out there.”
It was tantamount to saying that his nephew was lost.
“I haven’t told Monty,” Winifred murmured desolately.
The case was reached before noon next day, and was over in little
more than half an hour. Soames—pale, spruce, sad-eyed in the
witness-box—had suffered so much beforehand that he took it all
like one dead. The moment the decree nisi was pronounced he left
the Courts of Justice.
Four hours until he became public property! “Solicitor’s divorce
suit!” A surly, dogged anger replaced that dead feeling within
him. “Damn them all!” he thought; “I won’t run away. I’ll act as
if nothing had happened.” And in the sweltering heat of Fleet
Street and Ludgate Hill he walked all the way to his City Club,
lunched, and went back to his office. He worked there stolidly
throughout the afternoon.
On his way out he saw that his clerks knew, and answered their
involuntary glances with a look so sardonic that they were
immediately withdrawn. In front of St. Paul’s, he stopped to buy
the most gentlemanly of the evening papers. Yes! there he was!
“Well-known solicitor’s divorce. Cousin co-respondent. Damages
given to the blind”—so, they had got that in! At every other
face, he thought: “I wonder if you know!” And suddenly he felt
queer, as if something were racing round in his head.
What was this? He was letting it get hold of him! He mustn’t! He
would be ill. He mustn’t think! He would get down to the river
and row about, and fish. “I’m not going to be laid up,” he
thought.
It flashed across him that he had something of importance to do
before he went out of town. Madame Lamotte! He must explain the
Law. Another six months before he was really free! Only he did
not want to see Annette! And he passed his hand over the top of
his head—it was very hot.
He branched off through Covent Garden. On this sultry day of late
July the garbage-tainted air of the old market offended him, and
Soho seemed more than ever the disenchanted home of
rapscallionism. Alone, the Restaurant Bretagne, neat, daintily
painted, with its blue tubs and the dwarf trees therein, retained
an aloof and Frenchified self-respect. It was the slack hour, and
pale trim waitresses were preparing the little tables for dinner.
Soames went through into the private part. To his discomfiture
Annette answered his knock. She, too, looked pale and dragged
down by the heat.
“You are quite a stranger,” she said languidly.
Soames smiled.
“I haven’t wished to be; I’ve been busy.”
“Where’s your mother, Annette? I’ve got some news for her.”
“Mother is not in.”
It seemed to Soames that she looked at him in a queer way. What
did she know? How much had her mother told her? The worry of
trying to make that out gave him an alarming feeling in the head.
He gripped the edge of the table, and dizzily saw Annette come
forward, her eyes clear with surprise. He shut his own and said:
“It’s all right. I’ve had a touch of the sun, I think.” The sun!
What he had was a touch of darkness! Annette’s voice, French and
composed, said:
“Sit down, it will pass, then.” Her hand pressed his shoulder,
and Soames sank into a chair. When the dark feeling dispersed,
and he opened his eyes, she was looking down at him. What an
inscrutable and odd expression for a girl of twenty!
“Do you feel better?”
“It’s nothing,” said Soames. Instinct told him that to be feeble
before her was not helping him—age was enough handicap without
that. Will-power was his fortune with Annette, he had lost ground
these latter months from indecision—he could not afford to lose
any more. He got up, and said:
“I’ll write to your mother. I’m going down to my river house for
a long holiday. I want you both to come there presently and stay.
It’s just at its best. You will, won’t you?”
“It will be veree nice.” A pretty little roll of that “r” but no
enthusiasm. And rather sadly he added:
“You’re feeling the heat, too, aren’t you, Annette? It’ll do you
good to be on the river. Good-night.” Annette swayed forward.
There was a sort of compunction in the movement.
“Are you fit to go? Shall I give you some coffee?”
“No,” said Soames firmly. “Give me your hand.”
She held out her hand, and Soames raised it to his lips. When he
looked up, her face wore again that strange expression. “I can’t
tell,” he thought, as he went out; “but I mustn’t think—I mustn’t
worry.”
But worry he did, walking toward Pall Mall. English, not of her
religion, middle-aged, scarred as it were by domestic tragedy,
what had he to give her? Only wealth, social position, leisure,
admiration! It was much, but was it enough for a beautiful girl
of twenty? He felt so ignorant about Annette. He had, too, a
curious fear of the French nature of her mother and herself. They
knew so well what they wanted. They were almost Forsytes. They
would never grasp a shadow and miss a substance.
The tremendous effort it was to write a simple note to Madame
Lamotte when he reached his Club warned him still further that he
was at the end of his tether.
“MY DEAR MADAME (he said),
“You will see by the enclosed newspaper cutting that I
obtained my decree of divorce to-day. By the English Law I
shall not, however, be free to marry again till the decree is
confirmed six months hence. In the meanwhile I have the honor
to ask to be considered a formal suitor for the hand of your
daughter. I shall write again in a few days and beg you both
to come and stay at my river house.
“I am, dear Madame,
“Sincerely yours,
“SOAMES FORSYTE.”
Having sealed and posted this letter, he went into the
dining-room. Three mouthfuls of soup convinced him that he could
not eat; and, causing a cab to be summoned, he drove to
Paddington Station and took the first train to Reading. He
reached his house just as the sun went down, and wandered out on
to the lawn. The air was drenched with the scent of pinks and
picotees in his flower-borders. A stealing coolness came off the
river.
Rest—peace! Let a poor fellow rest! Let not worry and shame and
anger chase like evil night-birds in his head! Like those doves
perched half-sleeping on their dovecot, like the furry creatures
in the woods on the far side, and the simple folk in their
cottages, like the trees and the river itself, whitening fast in
twilight, like the darkening cornflower-blue sky where stars were
coming up—let him cease _from himself_, and rest!
CHAPTER X PASSING OF AN AGE
The marriage of Soames with Annette took place in Paris on the
last day of January, 1901, with such privacy that not even Emily
was told until it was accomplished.
The day after the wedding he brought her to one of those quiet
hotels in London where greater expense can be incurred for less
result than anywhere else under heaven. Her beauty in the best
Parisian frocks was giving him more satisfaction than if he had
collected a perfect bit of china, or a jewel of a picture; he
looked forward to the moment when he would exhibit her in Park
Lane, in Green Street, and at Timothy’s.
If some one had asked him in those days, “In confidence—are you
in love with this girl?” he would have replied: “In love? What is
love? If you mean do I feel to her as I did towards Irene in
those old days when I first met her and she would not have me;
when I sighed and starved after her and couldn’t rest a minute
until she yielded—no! If you mean do I admire her youth and
prettiness, do my senses ache a little when I see her moving
about—yes! Do I think she will keep me straight, make me a
creditable wife and a good mother for my children?—again, yes!”
“What more do I need? and what more do three-quarters of the
women who are married get from the men who marry them?” And if
the enquirer had pursued his query, “And do you think it was fair
to have tempted this girl to give herself to you for life unless
you have really touched her heart?” he would have answered: “The
French see these things differently from us. They look at
marriage from the point of view of establishments and children;
and, from my own experience, I am not at all sure that theirs is
not the sensible view. I shall not expect this time more than I
can get, or she can give. Years hence I shouldn’t be surprised if
I have trouble with her; but I shall be getting old, I shall have
children by then. I shall shut my eyes. I have had my great
passion; hers is perhaps to come—I don’t suppose it will be for
me. I offer her a great deal, and I don’t expect much in return,
except children, or at least a son. But one thing I am sure
of—she has very good sense!”
And if, insatiate, the enquirer had gone on, “You do not look,
then, for spiritual union in this marriage?” Soames would have
lifted his sideway smile, and rejoined: “That’s as it may be. If
I get satisfaction for my senses, perpetuation of myself; good
taste and good humour in the house; it is all I can expect at my
age. I am not likely to be going out of my way towards any
far-fetched sentimentalism.” Whereon, the enquirer must in good
taste have ceased enquiry.
The Queen was dead, and the air of the greatest city upon earth
grey with unshed tears. Fur-coated and top-hatted, with Annette
beside him in dark furs, Soames crossed Park Lane on the morning
of the funeral procession, to the rails in Hyde Park. Little
moved though he ever was by public matters, this event, supremely
symbolical, this summing-up of a long rich period, impressed his
fancy. In ’37, when she came to the throne, “Superior Dosset” was
still building houses to make London hideous; and James, a
stripling of twenty-six, just laying the foundations of his
practice in the Law. Coaches still ran; men wore stocks, shaved
their upper lips, ate oysters out of barrels; “tigers” swung
behind cabriolets; women said, “La!” and owned no property; there
were manners in the land, and pigsties for the poor; unhappy
devils were hanged for little crimes, and Dickens had but just
begun to write. Well-nigh two generations had slipped by—of
steamboats, railways, telegraphs, bicycles, electric light,
telephones, and now these motorcars—of such accumulated wealth,
that eight per cent. had become three, and Forsytes were numbered
by the thousand! Morals had changed, manners had changed, men had
become monkeys twice-removed, God had become Mammon—Mammon so
respectable as to deceive himself: Sixty-four years that favoured
property, and had made the upper middle class; buttressed,
chiselled, polished it, till it was almost indistinguishable in
manners, morals, speech, appearance, habit, and soul from the
nobility. An epoch which had gilded individual liberty so that if
a man had money, he was free in law and fact, and if he had not
money he was free in law and not in fact. An era which had
canonised hypocrisy, so that to seem to be respectable was to be.
A great Age, whose transmuting influence nothing had escaped save
the nature of man and the nature of the Universe.
And to witness the passing of this Age, London—its pet and
fancy—was pouring forth her citizens through every gate into Hyde
Park, hub of Victorianism, happy hunting-ground of Forsytes.
Under the grey heavens, whose drizzle just kept off, the dark
concourse gathered to see the show. The “good old” Queen, full of
years and virtue, had emerged from her seclusion for the last
time to make a London holiday. From Houndsditch, Acton, Ealing,
Hampstead, Islington, and Bethnal Green; from Hackney, Hornsey,
Leytonstone, Battersea, and Fulham; and from those green pastures
where Forsytes flourish—Mayfair and Kensington, St. James’ and
Belgravia, Bayswater and Chelsea and the Regent’s Park, the
people swarmed down on to the roads where death would presently
pass with dusky pomp and pageantry. Never again would a Queen
reign so long, or people have a chance to see so much history
buried for their money. A pity the war dragged on, and that the
Wreath of Victory could not be laid upon her coffin! All else
would be there to follow and commemorate—soldiers, sailors,
foreign princes, half-masted bunting, tolling bells, and above
all the surging, great, dark-coated crowd, with perhaps a simple
sadness here and there deep in hearts beneath black clothes put
on by regulation. After all, more than a Queen was going to her
rest, a woman who had braved sorrow, lived well and wisely
according to her lights.
Out in the crowd against the railings, with his arm hooked in
Annette’s, Soames waited. Yes! the Age was passing! What with
this Trade Unionism, and Labour fellows in the House of Commons,
with continental fiction, and something in the general feel of
everything, not to be expressed in words, things were very
different; he recalled the crowd on Mafeking night, and George
Forsyte saying: “They’re all socialists, they want our goods.”
Like James, Soames didn’t know, he couldn’t tell—with Edward on
the throne! Things would never be as safe again as under good old
Viccy! Convulsively he pressed his young wife’s arm. There, at
any rate, was something substantially his own, domestically
certain again at last; something which made property worth
while—a real thing once more. Pressed close against her and
trying to ward others off, Soames was content. The crowd swayed
round them, ate sandwiches and dropped crumbs; boys who had
climbed the plane-trees chattered above like monkeys, threw twigs
and orange-peel. It was past time; they should be coming soon!
And, suddenly, a little behind them to the left, he saw a tallish
man with a soft hat and short grizzling beard, and a tallish
woman in a little round fur cap and veil. Jolyon and Irene
talking, smiling at each other, close together like Annette and
himself! They had not seen him; and stealthily, with a very queer
feeling in his heart, Soames watched those two. They looked
happy! What had they come here for—inherently illicit creatures,
rebels from the Victorian ideal? What business had they in this
crowd? Each of them twice exiled by morality—making a boast, as
it were, of love and laxity! He watched them fascinated;
admitting grudgingly even with his arm thrust through Annette’s
that—that she—Irene—No! he would _not_ admit it; and he turned
his eyes away. He would _not_ see them, and let the old
bitterness, the old longing rise up within him! And then Annette
turned to him and said: “Those two people, Soames; they know you,
I am sure. Who are they?”
Soames nosed sideways.
“What people?”
“There, you see them; just turning away. They know you.”
“No,” Soames answered; “a mistake, my dear.”
“A lovely face! And how she walk! _Elle est très distinguée!_”
Soames looked then. Into his life, out of his life she had walked
like that swaying and erect, remote, unseizable; ever eluding the
contact of his soul! He turned abruptly from that receding vision
of the past.
“You’d better attend,” he said, “they’re coming now!”
But while he stood, grasping her arm, seemingly intent on the
head of the procession, he was quivering with the sense of always
missing something, with instinctive regret that he had not got
them both.
Slow came the music and the march, till, in silence, the long
line wound in through the Park gate. He heard Annette whisper,
“How sad it is and beautiful!” felt the clutch of her hand as she
stood up on tiptoe; and the crowd’s emotion gripped him. There it
was—the bier of the Queen, coffin of the Age slow passing! And as
it went by there came a murmuring groan from all the long line of
those who watched, a sound such as Soames had never heard, so
unconscious, primitive, deep and wild, that neither he nor any
knew whether they had joined in uttering it. Strange sound,
indeed! Tribute of an Age to its own death.... Ah! Ah!... The
hold on life had slipped. That which had seemed eternal was gone!
The Queen—God bless her!
It moved on with the bier, that travelling groan, as a fire moves
on over grass in a thin line; it kept step, and marched alongside
down the dense crowds mile after mile. It was a human sound, and
yet inhuman, pushed out by animal subconsciousness, by intimate
knowledge of universal death and change. None of us—none of us
can hold on for ever!
It left silence for a little—a very little time, till tongues
began, eager to retrieve interest in the show. Soames lingered
just long enough to gratify Annette, then took her out of the
Park to lunch at his father’s in Park Lane....
James had spent the morning gazing out of his bedroom window. The
last show he would see, last of so many! So she was gone! Well,
she was getting an old woman. Swithin and he had seen her
crowned—slim slip of a girl, not so old as Imogen! She had got
very stout of late. Jolyon and he had seen her married to that
German chap, her husband—he had turned out all right before he
died, and left her with that son of his. And he remembered the
many evenings he and his brothers and their cronies had wagged
their heads over their wine and walnuts and that fellow in his
salad days. And now he had come to the throne. They said he had
steadied down—he didn’t know—couldn’t tell! He’d make the money
fly still, he shouldn’t wonder. What a lot of people out there!
It didn’t seem so very long since he and Swithin stood in the
crowd outside Westminster Abbey when she was crowned, and Swithin
had taken him to Cremorne afterwards—racketty chap, Swithin; no,
it didn’t seem much longer ago than Jubilee Year, when he had
joined with Roger in renting a balcony in Piccadilly.
Jolyon, Swithin, Roger all gone, and he would be ninety in
August! And there was Soames married again to a French girl. The
French were a queer lot, but they made good mothers, he had
heard. Things changed! They said this German Emperor was here for
the funeral, his telegram to old Kruger had been in shocking
taste. He should not be surprised if that chap made trouble some
day. Change! H’m! Well, they must look after themselves when he
was gone: he didn’t know where he’d be! And now Emily had asked
Dartie to lunch, with Winifred and Imogen, to meet Soames’
wife—she was always doing something. And there was Irene living
with that fellow Jolyon, they said. He’d marry her now, he
supposed.
“My brother Jolyon,” he thought, “what would he have said to it
all?” And somehow the utter impossibility of knowing what his
elder brother, once so looked up to, would have said, so worried
James that he got up from his chair by the window, and began
slowly, feebly to pace the room.
“She was a pretty thing, too,” he thought; “I was fond of her.
Perhaps Soames didn’t suit her—I don’t know—I can’t tell. We
never had any trouble with _our_ wives.” Women had changed
everything had changed! And now the Queen was dead—well, there it
was! A movement in the crowd brought him to a standstill at the
window, his nose touching the pane and whitening from the chill
of it. They had got her as far as Hyde Park Corner—they were
passing now! Why didn’t Emily come up here where she could see,
instead of fussing about lunch. He missed her at that
moment—missed her! Through the bare branches of the plane-trees
he could just see the procession, could see the hats coming off
the people’s heads—a lot of them would catch colds, he shouldn’t
wonder! A voice behind him said:
“You’ve got a capital view here, James!”
“_There_ you are!” muttered James; “why didn’t you come before?
You might have missed it!”
And he was silent, staring with all his might.
“What’s the noise?” he asked suddenly.
“There’s no noise,” returned Emily; “what are you thinking
of?—they wouldn’t cheer.”
“I can hear it.”
“Nonsense, James!”
No sound came through those double panes; what James heard was
the groaning in his own heart at sight of his Age passing.
“Don’t you ever tell me where I’m buried,” he said suddenly. “I
shan’t want to know.” And he turned from the window. There she
went, the old Queen; she’d had a lot of anxiety—she’d be glad to
be out of it, he should think!
Emily took up the hair-brushes.
“There’ll be just time to brush your head,” she said, “before
they come. You must look your best, James.”
“Ah!” muttered James; “they say she’s pretty.”
The meeting with his new daughter-in-law took place in the
dining-room. James was seated by the fire when she was brought
in. He placed, his hands on the arms of the chair and slowly
raised himself. Stooping and immaculate in his frock-coat, thin
as a line in Euclid, he received Annette’s hand in his; and the
anxious eyes of his furrowed face, which had lost its colour now,
doubted above her. A little warmth came into them and into his
cheeks, refracted from her bloom.
“How are you?” he said. “You’ve been to see the Queen, I suppose?
Did you have a good crossing?”
In this way he greeted her from whom he hoped for a grandson of
his name.
Gazing at him, so old, thin, white, and spotless, Annette
murmured something in French which James did not understand.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “you want your lunch, I expect. Soames, ring
the bell; we won’t wait for that chap Dartie.” But just then they
arrived. Dartie had refused to go out of his way to see “the old
girl.” With an early cocktail beside him, he had taken a “squint”
from the smoking-room of the Iseeum, so that Winifred and Imogen
had been obliged to come back from the Park to fetch him thence.
His brown eyes rested on Annette with a stare of almost startled
satisfaction. The second beauty that fellow Soames had picked up!
What women could see in him! Well, she would play him the same
trick as the other, no doubt; but in the meantime he was a lucky
devil! And he brushed up his moustache, having in nine months of
Green Street domesticity regained almost all his flesh and his
assurance. Despite the comfortable efforts of Emily, Winifred’s
composure, Imogen’s enquiring friendliness, Dartie’s showing-off,
and James’ solicitude about her food, it was not, Soames felt, a
successful lunch for his bride. He took her away very soon.
“That Monsieur Dartie,” said Annette in the cab, “_je n’aime pas
ce type-là!_”
“No, by George!” said Soames.
“Your sister is veree amiable, and the girl is pretty. Your
father is veree old. I think your mother has trouble with him; I
should not like to be her.”
Soames nodded at the shrewdness, the clear hard judgment in his
young wife; but it disquieted him a little. The thought may have
just flashed through him, too: “When I’m eighty she’ll be
fifty-five, having trouble with me!”
“There’s just one other house of my relations I must take you
to,” he said; “you’ll find it funny, but we must get it over; and
then we’ll dine and go to the theatre.”
In this way he prepared her for Timothy’s. But Timothy’s was
different. They were _delighted_ to see dear Soames after this
long long time; and so this was Annette!
“You are _so_ pretty, my dear; almost too young and pretty for
dear Soames, aren’t you? But he’s very attentive and careful—such
a good hush....” Aunt Juley checked herself, and placed her lips
just under each of Annette’s eyes—she afterwards described them
to Francie, who dropped in, as: “Cornflower-blue, so pretty, I
quite wanted to kiss them. I must say dear Soames is a perfect
connoisseur. In her French way, and not so very French either, I
think she’s as pretty—though not so distinguished, not so
alluring—as Irene. Because she was alluring, wasn’t she? with
that white skin and those dark eyes, and that hair, _couleur
de_—what was it? I always forget.”
“_Feuille morte_,” Francie prompted.
“Of course, dead leaves—so strange. I remember when I was a girl,
before we came to London, we had a foxhound puppy—to ‘walk’ it
was called then; it had a tan top to its head and a white chest,
and beautiful dark brown eyes, and it was a lady.”
“Yes, auntie,” said Francie, “but I don’t see the connection.”
“Oh!” replied Aunt Juley, rather flustered, “it was so alluring,
and her eyes and hair, you know....” She was silent, as if
surprised in some indelicacy. “_Feuille morte_,” she added
suddenly; “Hester—do remember that!”....
Considerable debate took place between the two sisters whether
Timothy should or should not be summoned to see Annette.
“Oh, don’t bother!” said Soames.
“But it’s no trouble, only of course Annette’s being French might
upset him a little. He was so scared about Fashoda. I think
perhaps we had better not run the risk, Hester. It’s nice to have
her all to ourselves, isn’t it? And how are you, Soames? Have you
quite got over your....”
Hester interposed hurriedly:
“What do you think of London, Annette?”
Soames, disquieted, awaited the reply. It came, sensible,
composed: “Oh! I know London. I have visited before.”
He had never ventured to speak to her on the subject of the
restaurant. The French had different notions about gentility, and
to shrink from connection with it might seem to her ridiculous;
he had waited to be married before mentioning it; and now he
wished he hadn’t.
“And what part do you know best?” said Aunt Juley.
“Soho,” said Annette simply.
Soames snapped his jaw.
“Soho?” repeated Aunt Juley; “Soho?”
“That’ll go round the family,” thought Soames.
“It’s very French, and interesting,” he said.
“Yes,” murmured Aunt Juley, “your Uncle Roger had some houses
there once; he was always having to turn the tenants out, I
remember.”
Soames changed the subject to Mapledurham.
“Of course,” said Aunt Juley, “you will be going down there soon
to settle in. We are all so looking forward to the time when
Annette has a dear little....”
“Juley!” cried Aunt Hester desperately, “ring tea!”
Soames dared not wait for tea, and took Annette away.
“I shouldn’t mention Soho if I were you,” he said in the cab.
“It’s rather a shady part of London; and you’re altogether above
that restaurant business now; I mean,” he added, “I want you to
know nice people, and the English are fearful snobs.”
Annette’s clear eyes opened; a little smile came on her lips.
“Yes?” she said.
“H’m!” thought Soames, “that’s meant for me!” and he looked at
her hard. “She’s got good business instincts,” he thought. “I
must make her grasp it once for all!”
“Look here, Annette! it’s very simple, only it wants
understanding. Our professional and leisured classes still think
themselves a cut above our business classes, except of course the
very rich. It may be stupid, but there it is, you see. It isn’t
advisable in England to let people know that you ran a restaurant
or kept a shop or were in any kind of trade. It may have been
extremely creditable, but it puts a sort of label on you; you
don’t have such a good time, or meet such nice people—that’s
all.”
“I see,” said Annette; “it is the same in France.”
“Oh!” murmured Soames, at once relieved and taken aback. “Of
course, class is everything, really.”
“Yes,” said Annette; “_comme vous êtes sage_.”
“That’s all right,” thought Soames, watching her lips, “only
she’s pretty cynical.” His knowledge of French was not yet such
as to make him grieve that she had not said “tu.” He slipped his
arm round her, and murmured with an effort:
“_Et vous êtes ma belle femme_.”
Annette went off into a little fit of laughter.
“_Oh, non!_” she said. “_Oh, non! ne parlez pas Français_,
Soames. What is that old lady, your aunt, looking forward to?”
Soames bit his lip. “God knows!” he said; “she’s always saying
something;” but he knew better than God.
CHAPTER XI SUSPENDED ANIMATION
The war dragged on. Nicholas had been heard to say that it would
cost three hundred millions if it cost a penny before they’d done
with it! The income-tax was seriously threatened. Still, there
would be South Africa for their money, once for all. And though
the possessive instinct felt badly shaken at three o’clock in the
morning, it recovered by breakfast-time with the recollection
that one gets nothing in this world without paying for it. So, on
the whole, people went about their business much as if there were
no war, no concentration camps, no slippery de Wet, no feeling on
the Continent, no anything unpleasant. Indeed, the attitude of
the nation was typified by Timothy’s map, whose animation was
suspended—for Timothy no longer moved the flags, and they could
not move themselves, not even backwards and forwards as they
should have done.
Suspended animation went further; it invaded Forsyte ’Change, and
produced a general uncertainty as to what was going to happen
next. The announcement in the marriage column of _The Times_,
“Jolyon Forsyte to Irene, only daughter of the late Professor
Heron,” had occasioned doubt whether Irene had been justly
described. And yet, on the whole, relief was felt that she had
not been entered as “Irene, late the wife,” or “the divorced
wife,” “of Soames Forsyte.” Altogether, there had been a kind of
sublimity from the first about the way the family had taken that
“affair.” As James had phrased it, “There it was!” No use to
fuss! Nothing to be had out of admitting that it had been a
“nasty jar”—in the phraseology of the day.
But what would happen now that both Soames and Jolyon were
married again? That was very intriguing. George was known to have
laid Eustace six to four on a little Jolyon before a little
Soames. George was so droll! It was rumoured, too, that he and
Dartie had a bet as to whether James would attain the age of
ninety, though which of them had backed James no one knew.
Early in May, Winifred came round to say that Val had been
wounded in the leg by a spent bullet, and was to be discharged.
His wife was nursing him. He would have a little limp—nothing to
speak of. He wanted his grandfather to buy him a farm out there
where he could breed horses. Her father was giving Holly eight
hundred a year, so they could be quite comfortable, because his
grandfather would give Val five, he had said; but as to the farm,
he didn’t know—couldn’t tell: he didn’t want Val to go throwing
away his money.
“But you know,” said Winifred, “he must do something.”
Aunt Hester thought that perhaps his dear grandfather was wise,
because if he didn’t buy a farm it couldn’t turn out badly.
“But Val loves horses,” said Winifred. “It’d be such an
occupation for him.”
Aunt Juley thought that horses were very uncertain, had not
Montague found them so?
“Val’s different,” said Winifred; “he takes after me.”
Aunt Juley was sure that dear Val was very clever. “I always
remember,” she added, “how he gave his bad penny to a beggar. His
dear grandfather was so pleased. He thought it showed such
presence of mind. I remember his saying that he ought to go into
the Navy.”
Aunt Hester chimed in: Did not Winifred think that it was much
better for the young people to be secure and not run any risk at
their age?
“Well,” said Winifred, “if they were in London, perhaps; in
London it’s amusing to do nothing. But out there, of course,
he’ll simply get bored to death.”
Aunt Hester thought that it would be nice for him to work, if he
were quite sure not to lose by it. It was not as if they had no
money. Timothy, of course, had done so well by retiring. Aunt
Juley wanted to know what Montague had said.
Winifred did not tell her, for Montague had merely remarked:
“Wait till the old man dies.”
At this moment Francie was announced. Her eyes were brimming with
a smile.
“Well,” she said, “what do you think of it?”
“Of what, dear?”
“In _The Times_ this morning.”
“We haven’t seen it, we always read it after dinner; Timothy has
it till then.”
Francie rolled her eyes.
“Do you think you _ought_ to tell us?” said Aunt Juley. “What
_was_ it?”
“Irene’s had a son at Robin Hill.”
Aunt Juley drew in her breath. “But,” she said, “they were only
married in March!”
“Yes, Auntie; isn’t it interesting?”
“Well,” said Winifred, “I’m glad. I was sorry for Jolyon losing
his boy. It might have been Val.”
Aunt Juley seemed to go into a sort of dream. “I wonder,” she
murmured, “what dear Soames will think? He has so wanted to have
a son himself. A little bird has always told me that.”
“Well,” said Winifred, “he’s going to—bar accidents.”
Gladness trickled out of Aunt Juley’s eyes.
“How delightful!” she said. “When?”
“November.”
Such a lucky month! But she did wish it could be sooner. It was a
long time for James to wait, at his age!
To wait! They dreaded it for James, but they were used to it
themselves. Indeed, it was their great distraction. To wait! For
_The Times_ to read; for one or other of their nieces or nephews
to come in and cheer them up; for news of Nicholas’ health; for
that decision of Christopher’s about going on the stage; for
information concerning the mine of Mrs. MacAnder’s nephew; for
the doctor to come about Hester’s inclination to wake up early in
the morning; for books from the library which were always out;
for Timothy to have a cold; for a nice quiet warm day, not too
hot, when they could take a turn in Kensington Gardens. To wait,
one on each side of the hearth in the drawing-room, for the clock
between them to strike; their thin, veined, knuckled hands plying
knitting-needles and crochet-hooks, their hair ordered to
stop—like Canute’s waves—from any further advance in colour. To
wait in their black silks or satins for the Court to say that
Hester might wear her dark green, and Juley her darker maroon. To
wait, slowly turning over and over, in their old minds the little
joys and sorrows, events and expectancies, of their little family
world, as cows chew patient cuds in a familiar field. And this
new event was so well worth waiting for. Soames had always been
their pet, with his tendency to give them pictures, and his
almost weekly visits which they missed so much, and his need for
their sympathy evoked by the wreck of his first marriage. This
new event—the birth of an heir to Soames—was so important for
him, and for his dear father, too, that James might not have to
die without some certainty about things. James did so dislike
uncertainty; and with Montague, of course, he could not feel
really satisfied to leave no grand-children but the young
Darties. After all, one’s own name did count! And as James’
ninetieth birthday neared they wondered what precautions he was
taking. He would be the first of the Forsytes to reach that age,
and set, as it were, a new standard in holding on to life. That
was so important, they felt, at their ages eighty-seven and
eighty-five; though they did not want to think of themselves when
they had Timothy, who was not yet eighty-two, to think of. There
was, of course, a better world. “In my Father’s house are many
mansions” was one of Aunt Juley’s favourite sayings—it always
comforted her, with its suggestion of house property, which had
made the fortune of dear Roger. The Bible was, indeed, a great
resource, and on _very_ fine Sundays there was church in the
morning; and sometimes Juley would steal into Timothy’s study
when she was sure he was out, and just put an open New Testament
casually among the books on his little table—he was a great
reader, of course, having been a publisher. But she had noticed
that Timothy was always cross at dinner afterwards. And Smither
had told her more than once that she had picked books off the
floor in doing the room. Still, with all that, they did feel that
heaven could not be quite so cosy as the rooms in which they and
Timothy had been waiting so long. Aunt Hester, especially, could
not bear the thought of the exertion. Any change, or rather the
thought of a change—for there never _was_ any—always upset her
very much. Aunt Juley, who had more spirit, sometimes thought it
would be quite exciting; she had so enjoyed that visit to
Brighton the year dear Susan died. But then Brighton one knew was
nice, and it was so difficult to tell what heaven would be like,
so on the whole she was more than content to wait.
On the morning of James’ birthday, August the 5th, they felt
extraordinary animation, and little notes passed between them by
the hand of Smither while they were having breakfast in their
beds. Smither must go round and take their love and little
presents and find out how Mr. James was, and whether he had
passed a good night with all the excitement. And on the way back
would Smither call in at Green Street—it was a little out of her
way, but she could take the bus up Bond Street afterwards; it
would be a nice little change for her—and ask dear Mrs. Dartie to
be sure and look in before she went out of town.
All this Smither did—an undeniable servant trained many years ago
under Aunt Ann to a perfection not now procurable. Mr. James, so
Mrs. James said, had passed an excellent night, he sent his love;
Mrs. James had said he was very funny and had complained that he
didn’t know what all the fuss was about. Oh! and Mrs. Dartie sent
her love, and she would come to tea.
Aunts Juley and Hester, rather hurt that their presents had not
received special mention—they forgot every year that James could
not bear to receive presents, “throwing away their money on him,”
as he always called it—were “delighted”; it showed that James was
in good spirits, and that was so important for him. And they
began to wait for Winifred. She came at four, bringing Imogen,
and Maud, just back from school, and “getting such a pretty girl,
too,” so that it was extremely difficult to ask for news about
Annette. Aunt Juley, however, summoned courage to enquire whether
Winifred had heard anything, and if Soames was anxious.
“Uncle Soames is always anxious, Auntie,” interrupted Imogen; “he
can’t be happy now he’s got it.”
The words struck familiarly on Aunt Juley’s ears. Ah! yes; that
funny drawing of George’s, which had _not_ been shown them! But
what did Imogen mean? That her uncle always wanted more than he
could have? It was not at all nice to think like that.
Imogen’s voice rose clear and clipped:
“Imagine! Annette’s only two years older than me; it must be
awful for her, married to Uncle Soames.”
Aunt Juley lifted her hands in horror.
“My dear,” she said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Your Uncle Soames is a match for anybody. He’s a very clever man,
and good-looking and wealthy, and most considerate and careful,
and not at all old, considering everything.”
Imogen, turning her luscious glance from one to the other of the
“old dears,” only smiled.
“I hope,” said Aunt Juley quite severely, “that _you_ will marry
as good a man.”
“_I_ shan’t marry a good man, Auntie,” murmured Imogen; “they’re
dull.”
“If you go on like this,” replied Aunt Juley, still very much
upset, “you won’t marry anybody. We’d better not pursue the
subject;” and turning to Winifred, she said: “How is Montague?”
That evening, while they were waiting for dinner, she murmured:
“I’ve told Smither to get up half a bottle of the sweet
champagne, Hester. I think we ought to drink dear James’ health,
and—and the health of Soames’ wife; only, let’s keep that quite
secret. I’ll just say like this, ‘And _you know_, Hester!’ and
then we’ll drink. It might upset Timothy.”
“It’s more likely to upset us,” said Aunt Nester. “But we must, I
suppose; for such an occasion.”
“Yes,” said Aunt Juley rapturously, “it _is_ an occasion! Only
fancy if he has a dear little boy, to carry the family on! I do
feel it so important, now that Irene has had a son. Winifred says
George is calling Jolyon ‘The Three-Decker,’ because of his three
families, you know! George _is_ droll. And fancy! Irene is living
after all in the house Soames had built for them both. It does
seem hard on dear Soames; and he’s always been so regular.”
That night in bed, excited and a little flushed still by her
glass of wine and the secrecy of the second toast, she lay with
her prayer-book opened flat, and her eyes fixed on a ceiling
yellowed by the light from her reading-lamp. Young things! It was
so nice for them all! And she would be so happy if she could see
dear Soames happy. But, of course, he must be now, in spite of
what Imogen had said. He would have all that he wanted: property,
and wife, and children! And he would live to a green old age,
like his dear father, and forget all about Irene and that
dreadful case. If only she herself could be here to buy his
children their first rocking-horse! Smither should choose it for
her at the stores, nice and dappled. Ah! how Roger used to rock
her until she fell off! Oh dear! that was a long time ago! It
_was!_ “In my Father’s house are many mansions—”A little
scrattling noise caught her ear—“but no mice!” she thought
mechanically. The noise increased. There! it _was_ a mouse! How
naughty of Smither to say there wasn’t! It would be eating
through the wainscot before they knew where they were, and they
would have to have the builders in. They were such destructive
things! And she lay, with her eyes just moving, following in her
mind that little scrattling sound, and waiting for sleep to
release her from it.
CHAPTER XII BIRTH OF A FORSYTE
Soames walked out of the garden door, crossed the lawn, stood on
the path above the river, turned round and walked back to the
garden door, without having realised that he had moved. The sound
of wheels crunching the drive convinced him that time had passed,
and the doctor gone. What, exactly, had he said?
“This is the position, Mr. Forsyte. I can make pretty certain of
her life if I operate, but the baby will be born dead. If I don’t
operate, the baby will most probably be born alive, but it’s a
great risk for the mother—a great risk. In either case I don’t
think she can ever have another child. In her state she obviously
can’t decide for herself, and we can’t wait for her mother. It’s
for you to make the decision, while I’m getting what’s necessary.
I shall be back within the hour.”
The decision! What a decision! No time to get a specialist down!
No time for anything!
The sound of wheels died away, but Soames still stood intent;
then, suddenly covering his ears, he walked back to the river. To
come before its time like this, with no chance to foresee
anything, not even to get her mother here! It was for her mother
to make that decision, and she couldn’t arrive from Paris till
to-night! If only he could have understood the doctor’s jargon,
the medical niceties, so as to be sure he was weighing the
chances properly; but they were Greek to him—like a legal problem
to a layman. And yet he _must_ decide! He brought his hand away
from his brow wet, though the air was chilly. These sounds which
came from her room! To go back there would only make it more
difficult. He must be calm, clear. On the one hand life, nearly
certain, of his young wife, death quite certain, of his child;
and—no more children afterwards! On the other, death _perhaps_ of
his wife, nearly certain life for the child; and—no more children
afterwards! Which to choose?.... It had rained this last
fortnight—the river was very full, and in the water, collected
round the little house-boat moored by his landing-stage, were
many leaves from the woods above, brought off by a frost. Leaves
fell, lives drifted down—Death! To decide about death! And no one
to give him a hand. Life lost was lost for good. Let nothing go
that you could keep; for, if it went, you couldn’t get it back.
It left you bare, like those trees when they lost their leaves;
barer and barer until you, too, withered and came down. And, by a
queer somersault of thought, he seemed to see not Annette lying
up there behind that window-pane on which the sun was shining,
but Irene lying in their bedroom in Montpellier Square, as it
might conceivably have been her fate to lie, sixteen years ago.
Would he have hesitated then? Not a moment! Operate, operate!
Make certain of her life! No decision—a mere instinctive cry for
help, in spite of his knowledge, even then, that she did not love
him! But this! Ah! there was nothing overmastering in his feeling
for Annette! Many times these last months, especially since she
had been growing frightened, he had wondered. She had a will of
her own, was selfish in her French way. And yet—so pretty! What
would she wish—to take the risk. “I know she wants the child,” he
thought. “If it’s born dead, and no more chance afterwards—it’ll
upset her terribly. No more chance! All for nothing! Married life
with her for years and years without a child. Nothing to steady
her! She’s too young. Nothing to look forward to, for her—for me!
_For me!_” He struck his hands against his chest! Why couldn’t he
think without bringing himself in—get out of himself and see what
he ought to do? The thought hurt him, then lost edge, as if it
had come in contact with a breastplate. Out of oneself!
Impossible! Out into soundless, scentless, touchless, sightless
space! The very idea was ghastly, futile! And touching there the
bedrock of reality, the bottom of his Forsyte spirit, Soames
rested for a moment. When one ceased, all ceased; it might go on,
but there’d be nothing in it!
He looked at his watch. In half an hour the doctor would be back.
He _must_ decide! If against the operation and she died, how face
her mother and the doctor afterwards? How face his own
conscience? It was _his_ child that she was having. If for the
operation—then he condemned them both to childlessness. And for
what else had he married her but to have a lawful heir? And his
father—at death’s door, waiting for the news! “It’s cruel!” he
thought; “I ought never to have such a thing to settle! It’s
cruel!” He turned towards the house. Some deep, simple way of
deciding! He took out a coin, and put it back. If he spun it, he
knew he would not abide by what came up! He went into the
dining-room, furthest away from that room whence the sounds
issued. The doctor had said there was a chance. In here that
chance seemed greater; the river did not flow, nor the leaves
fall. A fire was burning. Soames unlocked the tantalus. He hardly
ever touched spirits, but now—he poured himself out some whisky
and drank it neat, craving a faster flow of blood. “That fellow
Jolyon,” he thought; “he had children already. He has the woman I
really loved; and now a son by her! And I—I’m asked to destroy my
only child! Annette _can’t_ die; it’s not possible. She’s
strong!”
He was still standing sullenly at the sideboard when he heard the
doctor’s carriage, and went out to him. He had to wait for him to
come downstairs.
“Well, doctor?”
“The situation’s the same. Have you decided?”
“Yes,” said Soames; “don’t operate!”
“Not? You understand—the risk’s great?”
In Soames’ set face nothing moved but the lips.
“You said there was a chance?”
“A chance, yes; not much of one.”
“You say the baby _must_ be born dead if you do?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still think that in any case she can’t have another?”
“One can’t be absolutely sure, but it’s most unlikely.”
“She’s strong,” said Soames; “we’ll take the risk.”
The doctor looked at him very gravely. “It’s on your shoulders,”
he said; “with my own wife, I couldn’t.”
Soames’ chin jerked up as if someone had hit him.
“Am I of any use up there?” he asked.
“No; keep away.”
“I shall be in my picture-gallery, then; you know where.”
The doctor nodded, and went upstairs.
Soames continued to stand, listening. “By this time to-morrow,”
he thought, “I may have her death on my hands.” No! it was
unfair—monstrous, to put it that way! Sullenness dropped on him
again, and he went up to the gallery. He stood at the window. The
wind was in the north; it was cold, clear; very blue sky, heavy
ragged white clouds chasing across; the river blue, too, through
the screen of goldening trees; the woods all rich with colour,
glowing, burnished—an early autumn. If it were his own life,
would he be taking that risk? “But _she’d_ take the risk of
losing me,” he thought, “sooner than lose her child! She doesn’t
really love me!” What could one expect—a girl and French? The one
thing really vital to them both, vital to their marriage and
their futures, was a child! “I’ve been through a lot for this,”
he thought, “I’ll hold on—hold on. There’s a chance of keeping
both—a chance!” One kept till things were taken—one naturally
kept! He began walking round the gallery. He had made one
purchase lately which he knew was a fortune in itself, and he
halted before it—a girl with dull gold hair which looked like
filaments of metal gazing at a little golden monster she was
holding in her hand. Even at this tortured moment he could just
feel the extraordinary nature of the bargain he had made—admire
the quality of the table, the floor, the chair, the girl’s
figure, the absorbed expression on her face, the dull gold
filaments of her hair, the bright gold of the little monster.
Collecting pictures; growing richer, richer! What use, if...! He
turned his back abruptly on the picture, and went to the window.
Some of his doves had flown up from their perches round the
dovecot, and were stretching their wings in the wind. In the
clear sharp sunlight their whiteness almost flashed. They flew
far, making a flung-up hieroglyphic against the sky. Annette fed
the doves; it was pretty to see her. They took it out of her
hand; they knew she was matter-of-fact. A choking sensation came
into his throat. She would not—could not die! She was too—too
sensible; and she was strong, really strong, like her mother, in
spite of her fair prettiness.
It was already growing dark when at last he opened the door, and
stood listening. Not a sound! A milky twilight crept about the
stairway and the landings below. He had turned back when a sound
caught his ear. Peering down, he saw a black shape moving, and
his heart stood still. What was it? Death? The shape of Death
coming from her door? No! only a maid without cap or apron. She
came to the foot of his flight of stairs and said breathlessly:
“The doctor wants to see you, sir.”
He ran down. She stood flat against the wall to let him pass, and
said:
“Oh, Sir! it’s over.”
“Over?” said Soames, with a sort of menace; “what d’you mean?”
“It’s born, sir.”
He dashed up the four steps in front of him, and came suddenly on
the doctor in the dim passage. The man was wiping his brow.
“Well?” he said; “quick!”
“Both living; it’s all right, I think.”
Soames stood quite still, covering his eyes.
“I congratulate you,” he heard the doctor say; “it was touch and
go.”
Soames let fall the hand which was covering his face.
“Thanks,” he said; “thanks very much. What is it?”
“Daughter—luckily; a son would have killed her—the head.”
A daughter!
“The utmost care of both,” he hears the doctor say, “and we shall
do. When does the mother come?”
“To-night, between nine and ten, I hope.”
“I’ll stay till then. Do you want to see them?”
“Not now,” said Soames; “before you go. I’ll have dinner sent up
to you.” And he went downstairs.
Relief unspeakable, and yet—a daughter! It seemed to him unfair.
To have taken that risk—to have been through this agony—and what
agony!—for a daughter! He stood before the blazing fire of wood
logs in the hall, touching it with his toe and trying to readjust
himself. “My father!” he thought. A bitter disappointment, no
disguising it! One never got all one wanted in this life! And
there was no other—at least, if there was, it was no use!
While he was standing there, a telegram was brought him.
“Come up at once, your father sinking fast.—MOTHER.”
He read it with a choking sensation. One would have thought he
couldn’t feel anything after these last hours, but he felt this.
Half-past seven, a train from Reading at nine, and madame’s
train, if she had caught it, came in at eight-forty—he would meet
that, and go on. He ordered the carriage, ate some dinner
mechanically, and went upstairs. The doctor came out to him.
“They’re sleeping.”
“I won’t go in,” said Soames with relief. “My father’s dying; I
have to—go up. Is it all right?”
The doctor’s face expressed a kind of doubting admiration. “If
they were all as unemotional” he might have been saying.
“Yes, I think you may go with an easy mind. You’ll be down soon?”
“To-morrow,” said Soames. “Here’s the address.”
The doctor seemed to hover on the verge of sympathy.
“Good-night!” said Soames abruptly, and turned away. He put on
his fur coat. Death! It was a chilly business. He smoked a
cigarette in the carriage—one of his rare cigarettes. The night
was windy and flew on black wings; the carriage lights had to
search out the way. His father! That old, old man! A comfortless
night—to die!
The London train came in just as he reached the station, and
Madame Lamotte, substantial, dark-clothed, very yellow in the
lamplight, came towards the exit with a dressing-bag.
“This all you have?” asked Soames.
“But yes; I had not the time. How is my little one?”
“Doing well—both. A girl!”
“A girl! What joy! I had a frightful crossing!”
Her black bulk, solid, unreduced by the frightful crossing,
climbed into the brougham.
“And you, _mon cher?_”
“My father’s dying,” said Soames between his teeth. “I’m going
up. Give my love to Annette.”
“_Tiens!_” murmured Madame Lamotte; “_quel malheur!_”
Soames took his hat off, and moved towards his train. “The
French!” he thought.
CHAPTER XIII JAMES IS TOLD
A simple cold, caught in the room with double windows, where the
air and the people who saw him were filtered, as it were, the
room he had not left since the middle of September—and James was
in deep waters. A little cold, passing his little strength and
flying quickly to his lungs. “He mustn’t catch cold,” the doctor
had declared, and he had gone and caught it. When he first felt
it in his throat he had said to his nurse—for he had one
now—“There, I knew how it would be, airing the room like that!”
For a whole day he was highly nervous about himself and went in
advance of all precautions and remedies; drawing every breath
with extreme care and having his temperature taken every hour.
Emily was not alarmed.
But next morning when she went in the nurse whispered: “He won’t
have his temperature taken.”
Emily crossed to the side of the bed where he was lying, and said
softly, “How do you feel, James?” holding the thermometer to his
lips. James looked up at her.
“What’s the good of that?” he murmured huskily; “I don’t want to
know.”
Then she _was_ alarmed. He breathed with difficulty, he looked
terribly frail, white, with faint red discolorations. She had
“had trouble” with him, Goodness knew; but he was James, had been
James for nearly fifty years; she couldn’t remember or imagine
life without James—James, behind all his fussiness, his
pessimism, his crusty shell, deeply affectionate, really kind and
generous to them all!
All that day and the next he hardly uttered a word, but there was
in his eyes a noticing of everything done for him, a look on his
face which told her he was fighting; and she did not lose hope.
His very stillness, the way he conserved every little scrap of
energy, showed the tenacity with which he was fighting. It
touched her deeply; and though her face was composed and
comfortable in the sick-room, tears ran down her cheeks when she
was out of it.
About tea-time on the third day—she had just changed her dress,
keeping her appearance so as not to alarm him, because he noticed
everything—she saw a difference. “It’s no use; I’m tired,” was
written plainly across that white face, and when she went up to
him, he muttered: “Send for Soames.”
“Yes, James,” she said comfortably; “all right—at once.” And she
kissed his forehead. A tear dropped there, and as she wiped it
off she saw that his eyes looked grateful. Much upset, and
without hope now, she sent Soames the telegram.
When he entered out of the black windy night, the big house was
still as a grave. Warmson’s broad face looked almost narrow; he
took the fur coat with a sort of added care, saying:
“Will you have a glass of wine, sir?”
Soames shook his head, and his eyebrows made enquiry.
Warmson’s lips twitched. “He’s asking for you, sir;” and suddenly
he blew his nose. “It’s a long time, sir,” he said, “that I’ve
been with Mr. Forsyte—a long time.”
Soames left him folding the coat, and began to mount the stairs.
This house, where he had been born and sheltered, had never
seemed to him so warm, and rich, and cosy, as during this last
pilgrimage to his father’s room. It was not his taste; but in its
own substantial, lincrusta way it was the acme of comfort and
security. And the night was so dark and windy; the grave so cold
and lonely!
He paused outside the door. No sound came from within. He turned
the handle softly and was in the room before he was perceived.
The light was shaded. His mother and Winifred were sitting on the
far side of the bed; the nurse was moving away from the near side
where was an empty chair. “For me!” thought Soames. As he moved
from the door his mother and sister rose, but he signed with his
hand and they sat down again. He went up to the chair and stood
looking at his father. James’ breathing was as if strangled; his
eyes were closed. And in Soames, looking on his father so worn
and white and wasted, listening to his strangled breathing, there
rose a passionate vehemence of anger against Nature, cruel,
inexorable Nature, kneeling on the chest of that wisp of a body,
slowly pressing out the breath, pressing out the life of the
being who was dearest to him in the world. His father, of all
men, had lived a careful life, moderate, abstemious, and this was
his reward—to have life slowly, painfully squeezed out of him!
And, without knowing that he spoke, he said: “It’s cruel!”
He saw his mother cover her eyes and Winifred bow her face
towards the bed. Women! They put up with things so much better
than men. He took a step nearer to his father. For three days
James had not been shaved, and his lips and chin were covered
with hair, hardly more snowy than his forehead. It softened his
face, gave it a queer look already not of this world. His eyes
opened. Soames went quite close and bent over. The lips moved.
“Here I am, Father:”
“Um—what—what news? They never tell....” the voice died, and a
flood of emotion made Soames’ face work so that he could not
speak. Tell him?—yes. But what? He made a great effort, got his
lips together, and said:
“Good news, dear, good—Annette, a son.”
“Ah!” It was the queerest sound, ugly, relieved, pitiful,
triumphant—like the noise a baby makes getting what it wants. The
eyes closed, and that strangled sound of breathing began again.
Soames recoiled to the chair and stonily sat down. The lie he had
told, based, as it were, on some deep, temperamental instinct
that after death James would not know the truth, had taken away
all power of feeling for the moment. His arm brushed against
something. It was his father’s naked foot. In the struggle to
breathe he had pushed it out from under the clothes. Soames took
it in his hand, a cold foot, light and thin, white, very cold.
What use to put it back, to wrap up that which must be colder
soon! He warmed it mechanically with his hand, listening to his
father’s laboured breathing; while the power of feeling rose
again within him. A little sob, quickly smothered, came from
Winifred, but his mother sat unmoving with her eyes fixed on
James. Soames signed to the nurse.
“Where’s the doctor?” he whispered.
“He’s been sent for.”
“Can’t you do anything to ease his breathing?”
“Only an injection; and he can’t stand it. The doctor said, while
he was fighting....”
“He’s not fighting,” whispered Soames, “he’s being slowly
smothered. It’s awful.”
James stirred uneasily, as if he knew what they were saying.
Soames rose and bent over him. James feebly moved his two hands,
and Soames took them.
“He wants to be pulled up,” whispered the nurse.
Soames pulled. He thought he pulled gently, but a look almost of
anger passed over James’ face. The nurse plumped the pillows.
Soames laid the hands down, and bending over kissed his father’s
forehead. As he was raising himself again, James’ eyes bent on
him a look which seemed to come from the very depths of what was
left within. “I’m done, my boy,” it seemed to say, “take care of
them, take care of yourself; take care—I leave it all to you.”
“Yes, Yes,” Soames whispered, “yes, yes.”
Behind him the nurse did he knew not what, for his father made a
tiny movement of repulsion as if resenting that interference; and
almost at once his breathing eased away, became quiet; he lay
very still. The strained expression on his face passed, a curious
white tranquillity took its place. His eyelids quivered, rested;
the whole face rested; at ease. Only by the faint puffing of his
lips could they tell that he was breathing. Soames sank back on
his chair, and fell to cherishing the foot again. He heard the
nurse quietly crying over there by the fire; curious that she, a
stranger, should be the only one of them who cried! He heard the
quiet lick and flutter of the fire flames. One more old Forsyte
going to his long rest—wonderful, they were!—wonderful how he had
held on! His mother and Winifred were leaning forward, hanging on
the sight of James’ lips. But Soames bent sideways over the feet,
warming them both; they gave him comfort, colder and colder
though they grew. Suddenly he started up; a sound, a dreadful
sound such as he had never heard, was coming from his father’s
lips, as if an outraged heart had broken with a long moan. What a
strong heart, to have uttered that farewell! It ceased. Soames
looked into the face. No motion; no breath! Dead! He kissed the
brow, turned round and went out of the room. He ran upstairs to
the bedroom, his old bedroom, still kept for him; flung himself
face down on the bed, and broke into sobs which he stilled with
the pillow....
A little later he went downstairs and passed into the room. James
lay alone, wonderfully calm, free from shadow and anxiety, with
the gravity on his ravaged face which underlies great age, the
worn fine gravity of old coins.
Soames looked steadily at that face, at the fire, at all the room
with windows thrown open to the London night.
“Good-bye!” he whispered, and went out.
CHAPTER XIV HIS
He had much to see to, that night and all next day. A telegram at
breakfast reassured him about Annette, and he only caught the
last train back to Reading, with Emily’s kiss on his forehead and
in his ears her words:
“I don’t know what I should have done without you, my dear boy.”
He reached his house at midnight. The weather had changed, was
mild again, as though, having finished its work and sent a
Forsyte to his last account, it could relax. A second telegram,
received at dinner-time, had confirmed the good news of Annette,
and, instead of going in, Soames passed down through the garden
in the moonlight to his houseboat. He could sleep there quite
well. Bitterly tired, he lay down on the sofa in his fur coat and
fell asleep. He woke soon after dawn and went on deck. He stood
against the rail, looking west where the river swept round in a
wide curve under the woods. In Soames, appreciation of natural
beauty was curiously like that of his farmer ancestors, a sense
of grievance if it wasn’t there, sharpened, no doubt, and
civilised, by his researches among landscape painting. But dawn
has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision, and he was
stirred. It was another world from the river he knew, under that
remote cool light; a world into which man had not entered, an
unreal world, like some strange shore sighted by discovery. Its
colour was not the colour of convention, was hardly colour at
all; its shapes were brooding yet distinct; its silence stunning;
it had no scent. Why it should move him he could not tell, unless
it were that he felt so alone in it, bare of all relationship and
all possessions. Into such a world his father might be voyaging,
for all resemblance it had to the world he had left. And Soames
took refuge from it in wondering what painter could have done it
justice. The white-grey water was like—like the belly of a fish!
Was it possible that this world on which he looked was all
private property, except the water—and even that was tapped! No
tree, no shrub, not a blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not
even a fish that was not owned. And once on a time all this was
jungle and marsh and water, and weird creatures roamed and
sported without human cognizance to give them names; rotting
luxuriance had rioted where those tall, carefully planted woods
came down to the water, and marsh-misted reeds on that far side
had covered all the pasture. Well! they had got it under,
kennelled it all up, labelled it, and stowed it in lawyers’
offices. And a good thing too! But once in a way, as now, the
ghost of the past came out to haunt and brood and whisper to any
human who chanced to be awake: “Out of my unowned loneliness you
all came, into it some day you will all return.”
And Soames, who felt the chill and the eeriness of that world—new
to him and so very old: the world, unowned, visiting the scene of
its past—went down and made himself tea on a spirit-lamp. When he
had drunk it, he took out writing materials and wrote two
paragraphs:
“On the 20th instant at his residence in Park Lane, James
Forsyte, in his ninety-first year. Funeral at noon on the 24th at
Highgate. No flowers by request.”
“On the 20th instant at The Shelter; Mapledurham, Annette, wife
of Soames Forsyte, of a daughter.” And underneath on the
blottingpaper he traced the word “son.”
It was eight o’clock in an ordinary autumn world when he went
across to the house. Bushes across the river stood round and
bright-coloured out of a milky haze; the wood-smoke went up blue
and straight; and his doves cooed, preening their feathers in the
sunlight.
He stole up to his dressing-room, bathed, shaved, put on fresh
linen and dark clothes.
Madame Lamotte was beginning her breakfast when he went down.
She looked at his clothes, said, “Don’t tell me!” and pressed his
hand. “Annette is prettee well. But the doctor say she can never
have no more children. You knew that?” Soames nodded. “It’s a
pity. _Mais la petite est adorable. Du café?_”
Soames got away from her as soon as he could. She offended
him—solid, matter-of-fact, quick, clear—_French_. He could not
bear her vowels, her “r’s”. he resented the way she had looked at
him, as if it were his fault that Annette could never bear him a
son! His fault! He even resented her cheap adoration of the
daughter he had not yet seen.
Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!
One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first
moment. On the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from
it—fastidious possessor that he was. He was afraid of what
Annette was thinking of him, author of her agonies, afraid of the
look of the baby, afraid of showing his disappointment with the
present and—the future.
He spent an hour walking up and down the drawing-room before he
could screw his courage up to mount the stairs and knock on the
door of their room.
Madame Lamotte opened it.
“Ah! At last you come! _Elle vous attend!_” She passed him, and
Soames went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set, his
eyes furtive.
Annette was very pale and very pretty lying there. The baby was
hidden away somewhere; he could not see it. He went up to the
bed, and with sudden emotion bent and kissed her forehead.
“Here you are then, Soames,” she said. “I am not so bad now. But
I suffered terribly, terribly. I am glad I cannot have any more.
Oh! how I suffered!”
Soames stood silent, stroking her hand; words of endearment, of
sympathy, absolutely would not come; the thought passed through
him: “An English girl wouldn’t have said that!” At this moment he
knew with certainty that he would never be near to her in spirit
and in truth, nor she to him. He had collected her—that was all!
And Jolyon’s words came rushing into his mind: “I should imagine
you will be glad to have your neck out of chancery.” Well, he had
got it out! Had he got it in again?
“We must feed you up,” he said, “you’ll soon be strong.”
“Don’t you want to see baby, Soames? She is asleep.”
“Of course,” said Soames, “very much.”
He passed round the foot of the bed to the other side and stood
staring. For the first moment what he saw was much what he had
expected to see—a baby. But as he stared and the baby breathed
and made little sleeping movements with its tiny features, it
seemed to assume an individual shape, grew to be like a picture,
a thing he would know again; not repulsive, strangely bud-like
and touching. It had dark hair. He touched it with his finger, he
wanted to see its eyes. They opened, they were dark—whether blue
or brown he could not tell. The eyes winked, stared, they had a
sort of sleepy depth in them. And suddenly his heart felt queer,
warm, as if elated.
“_Ma petite fleur!_” Annette said softly.
“Fleur,” repeated Soames: “Fleur! we’ll call her that.”
The sense of triumph and renewed possession swelled within him.
By God! this—this thing was his! By God! this—this thing was
_his!_
titlepage3 (37K)
frontis3 (120K)
THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME III.
By John Galsworthy
AWAKENING
TO CHARLES SCRIBNER
AWAKENING
Through the massive skylight illuminating the hall at Robin Hill,
the July sunlight at five o'clock fell just where the broad
stairway turned; and in that radiant streak little Jon Forsyte
stood, blue-linen-suited. His hair was shining, and his eyes,
from beneath a frown, for he was considering how to go
downstairs, this last of innumerable times, before the car
brought his father and mother home. Four at a time, and five at
the bottom? Stale! Down the banisters? But in which fashion? On
his face, feet foremost? Very stale. On his stomach, sideways?
Paltry! On his back, with his arms stretched down on both sides?
Forbidden! Or on his face, head foremost, in a manner unknown as
yet to any but himself? Such was the cause of the frown on the
illuminated face of little Jon....
In that Summer of 1909 the simple souls who even then desired to
simplify the English tongue, had, of course, no cognizance of
little Jon, or they would have claimed him for a disciple. But
one can be too simple in this life, for his real name was Jolyon,
and his living father and dead half-brother had usurped of old
the other shortenings, Jo and Jolly. As a fact little Jon had
done his best to conform to convention and spell himself first
Jhon, then John; not till his father had explained the sheer
necessity, had he spelled his name Jon.
Up till now that father had possessed what was left of his heart
by the groom, Bob, who played the concertina, and his nurse “Da,”
who wore the violet dress on Sundays, and enjoyed the name of
Spraggins in that private life lived at odd moments even by
domestic servants. His mother had only appeared to him, as it
were in dreams, smelling delicious, smoothing his forehead just
before he fell asleep, and sometimes docking his hair, of a
golden brown colour. When he cut his head open against the
nursery fender she was there to be bled over; and when he had
nightmare she would sit on his bed and cuddle his head against
her neck. She was precious but remote, because “Da” was so near,
and there is hardly room for more than one woman at a time in a
man's heart. With his father, too, of course, he had special
bonds of union; for little Jon also meant to be a painter when he
grew up—with the one small difference, that his father painted
pictures, and little Jon intended to paint ceilings and walls,
standing on a board between two step-ladders, in a dirty-white
apron, and a lovely smell of whitewash. His father also took him
riding in Richmond Park, on his pony, Mouse, so-called because it
was so-coloured.
Little Jon had been born with a silver spoon in a mouth which was
rather curly and large. He had never heard his father or his
mother speak in an angry voice, either to each other, himself, or
anybody else; the groom, Bob, Cook, Jane, Bella and the other
servants, even “Da,” who alone restrained him in his courses, had
special voices when they talked to him. He was therefore of
opinion that the world was a place of perfect and perpetual
gentility and freedom.
A child of 1901, he had come to consciousness when his country,
just over that bad attack of scarlet fever, the Boer War, was
preparing for the Liberal revival of 1906. Coercion was
unpopular, parents had exalted notions of giving their offspring
a good time. They spoiled their rods, spared their children, and
anticipated the results with enthusiasm. In choosing, moreover,
for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had already lost
an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight, whose
first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely.
What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a
little prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for
even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his
mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's
heart: What he played in his mother's heart he knew not yet. As
for “Auntie” June, his half-sister (but so old that she had grown
out of the relationship) she loved him, of course, but was too
sudden. His devoted “Da,” too, had a Spartan touch. His bath was
cold and his knees were bare; he was not encouraged to be sorry
for himself. As to the vexed question of his education, little
Jon shared the theory of those who considered that children
should not be forced. He rather liked the Mademoiselle who came
for two hours every morning to teach him her language, together
with history, geography and sums; nor were the piano lessons
which his mother gave him disagreeable, for she had a way of
luring him from tune to tune, never making him practise one which
did not give him pleasure, so that he remained eager to convert
ten thumbs into eight fingers. Under his father he learned to
draw pleasure-pigs and other animals. He was not a highly
educated little boy. Yet, on the whole, the silver spoon stayed
in his mouth without spoiling it, though “Da” sometimes said that
other children would do him a “world of good.”
It was a disillusionment, then, when at the age of nearly seven
she held him down on his back, because he wanted to do something
of which she did not approve. This first interference with the
free individualism of a Forsyte drove him almost frantic. There
was something appalling in the utter helplessness of that
position, and the uncertainty as to whether it would ever come to
an end. Suppose she never let him get up any more! He suffered
torture at the top of his voice for fifty seconds. Worse than
anything was his perception that “Da” had taken all that time to
realise the agony of fear he was enduring. Thus, dreadfully, was
revealed to him the lack of imagination in the human being.
When he was let up he remained convinced that “Da” had done a
dreadful thing. Though he did not wish to bear witness against
her, he had been compelled, by fear of repetition, to seek his
mother and say: “Mum, don't let 'Da' hold me down on my back
again.”
His mother, her hands held up over her head, and in them two
plaits of hair—“couleur de feuille morte,” as little Jon had not
yet learned to call it—had looked at him with eyes like little
bits of his brown velvet tunic, and answered:
“No, darling, I won't.”
She, being in the nature of a goddess, little Jon was satisfied;
especially when, from under the dining-table at breakfast, where
he happened to be waiting for a mushroom, he had overheard her
say to his father:
“Then, will you tell 'Da,' dear, or shall I? She's so devoted to
him”; and his father's answer:
“Well, she mustn't show it that way. I know exactly what it feels
like to be held down on one's back. No Forsyte can stand it for a
minute.”
Conscious that they did not know him to be under the table,
little Jon was visited by the quite new feeling of embarrassment,
and stayed where he was, ravaged by desire for the mushroom.
Such had been his first dip into the dark abysses of existence.
Nothing much had been revealed to him after that, till one day,
having gone down to the cow-house for his drink of milk fresh
from the cow, after Garratt had finished milking, he had seen
Clover's calf, dead. Inconsolable, and followed by an upset
Garratt, he had sought “Da”; but suddenly aware that she was not
the person he wanted, had rushed away to find his father, and had
run into the arms of his mother.
“Clover's calf's dead! Oh! Oh! It looked so soft!”
His mother's clasp, and her:
“Yes, darling, there, there!” had stayed his sobbing. But if
Clover's calf could die, anything could—not only bees, flies,
beetles and chickens—and look soft like that! This was
appalling—and soon forgotten!
The next thing had been to sit on a bumble bee, a poignant
experience, which his mother had understood much better than
“Da”; and nothing of vital importance had happened after that
till the year turned; when, following a day of utter
wretchedness, he had enjoyed a disease composed of little spots,
bed, honey in a spoon, and many Tangerine oranges. It was then
that the world had flowered. To “Auntie” June he owed that
flowering, for no sooner was he a little lame duck than she came
rushing down from London, bringing with her the books which had
nurtured her own Berserker spirit, born in the noted year of
1869. Aged, and of many colours, they were stored with the most
formidable happenings. Of these she read to little Jon, till he
was allowed to read to himself; whereupon she whisked back to
London and left them with him in a heap. Those books cooked his
fancy, till he thought and dreamed of nothing but midshipmen and
dhows, pirates, rafts, sandal-wood traders, iron horses, sharks,
battles, Tartars, Red Indians, balloons, North Poles and other
extravagant delights. The moment he was suffered to get up, he
rigged his bed fore and aft, and set out from it in a narrow bath
across green seas of carpet, to a rock, which he climbed by means
of its mahogany drawer knobs, to sweep the horizon with his
drinking tumbler screwed to his eye, in search of rescuing sails.
He made a daily raft out of the towel stand, the tea tray, and
his pillows. He saved the juice from his French plums, bottled it
in an empty medicine bottle, and provisioned the raft with the
rum that it became; also with pemmican made out of little
saved-up bits of chicken sat on and dried at the fire; and with
lime juice against scurvy, extracted from the peel of his oranges
and a little economised juice. He made a North Pole one morning
from the whole of his bedclothes except the bolster, and reached
it in a birch-bark canoe (in private life the fender), after a
terrible encounter with a polar bear fashioned from the bolster
and four skittles dressed up in “Da's” nightgown. After that, his
father, seeking to steady his imagination, brought him Ivanhoe,
Bevis, a book about King Arthur, and Tom Brown's Schooldays. He
read the first, and for three days built, defended and stormed
Front de Boeuf's castle, taking every part in the piece except
those of Rebecca and Rowena; with piercing cries of: “En avant,
de Bracy!” and similar utterances. After reading the book about
King Arthur he became almost exclusively Sir Lamorac de Galis,
because, though there was very little about him, he preferred his
name to that of any other knight; and he rode his old
rocking-horse to death, armed with a long bamboo. Bevis he found
tame; besides, it required woods and animals, of which he had
none in his nursery, except his two cats, Fitz and Puck Forsyte,
who permitted no liberties. For Tom Brown he was as yet too
young. There was relief in the house when, after the fourth week,
he was permitted to go down and out.
The month being March the trees were exceptionally like the masts
of ships, and for little Jon that was a wonderful Spring,
extremely hard on his knees, suits, and the patience of “Da,” who
had the washing and reparation of his clothes. Every morning the
moment his breakfast was over, he could be viewed by his mother
and father, whose windows looked out that way, coming from the
study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face
resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there
was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's
variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant
mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of
the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to
the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French
plums—provision enough for a jolly-boat at least—and eat it in
some imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols,
and sword, he would begin the serious climbing of the morning,
encountering by the way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates,
leopards, and bears. He was seldom seen at that hour of the day
without a cutlass in his teeth (like Dick Needham) amid the rapid
explosion of copper caps. And many were the gardeners he brought
down with yellow peas shot out of his little gun. He lived a life
of the most violent action.
“Jon,” said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, “is
terrible. I'm afraid he's going to turn out a sailor, or
something hopeless. Do you see any sign of his appreciating
beauty?”
“Not the faintest.”
“Well, thank heaven he's no turn for wheels or engines! I can
bear anything but that. But I wish he'd take more interest in
Nature.”
“He's imaginative, Jolyon.”
“Yes, in a sanguinary way. Does he love anyone just now?”
“No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or
more lovable than Jon.”
“Being your boy, Irene.”
At this moment little Jon, lying along a branch high above them,
brought them down with two peas; but that fragment of talk
lodged, thick, in his small gizzard. Loving, lovable,
imaginative, sanguinary!
The leaves also were thick by now, and it was time for his
birthday, which, occurring every year on the twelfth of May, was
always memorable for his chosen dinner of sweetbread, mushrooms,
macaroons, and ginger beer.
Between that eighth birthday, however, and the afternoon when he
stood in the July radiance at the turning of the stairway,
several important things had happened.
“Da,” worn out by washing his knees, or moved by that mysterious
instinct which forces even nurses to desert their nurslings, left
the very day after his birthday in floods of tears “to be
married”—of all things—“to a man.” Little Jon, from whom it had
been kept, was inconsolable for an afternoon. It ought not to
have been kept from him! Two large boxes of soldiers and some
artillery, together with The Young Buglers, which had been among
his birthday presents, cooperated with his grief in a sort of
conversion, and instead of seeking adventures in person and
risking his own life, he began to play imaginative games, in
which he risked the lives of countless tin soldiers, marbles,
stones and beans. Of these forms of “chair a canon” he made
collections, and, using them alternately, fought the Peninsular,
the Seven Years, the Thirty Years, and other wars, about which he
had been reading of late in a big History of Europe which had
been his grandfather's. He altered them to suit his genius, and
fought them all over the floor in his day nursery, so that nobody
could come in, for fearing of disturbing Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, or treading on an army of Austrians. Because of the
sound of the word he was passionately addicted to the Austrians,
and finding there were so few battles in which they were
successful he had to invent them in his games. His favourite
generals were Prince Eugene, the Archduke Charles and
Wallenstein. Tilly and Mack (“music-hall turns” he heard his
father call them one day, whatever that might mean) one really
could not love very much, Austrian though they were. For euphonic
reasons, too, he doted on Turenne.
This phase, which caused his parents anxiety, because it kept him
indoors when he ought to have been out, lasted through May and
half of June, till his father killed it by bringing home to him
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. When he read those books
something happened in him, and he went out of doors again in
passionate quest of a river. There being none on the premises at
Robin Hill, he had to make one out of the pond, which fortunately
had water lilies, dragonflies, gnats, bullrushes, and three small
willow trees. On this pond, after his father and Garratt had
ascertained by sounding that it had a reliable bottom and was
nowhere more than two feet deep, he was allowed a little
collapsible canoe, in which he spent hours and hours paddling,
and lying down out of sight of Indian Joe and other enemies. On
the shore of the pond, too, he built himself a wigwam about four
feet square, of old biscuit tins, roofed in by boughs. In this he
would make little fires, and cook the birds he had not shot with
his gun, hunting in the coppice and fields, or the fish he did
not catch in the pond because there were none. This occupied the
rest of June and that July, when his father and mother were away
in Ireland. He led a lonely life of “make believe” during those
five weeks of summer weather, with gun, wigwam, water and canoe;
and, however hard his active little brain tried to keep the sense
of beauty away, she did creep in on him for a second now and
then, perching on the wing of a dragon-fly, glistening on the
water lilies, or brushing his eyes with her blue as he lay on his
back in ambush.
“Auntie” June, who had been left in charge, had a “grown-up” in
the house, with a cough and a large piece of putty which he was
making into a face; so she hardly ever came down to see him in
the pond. Once, however, she brought with her two other
“grown-ups.” Little Jon, who happened to have painted his naked
self bright blue and yellow in stripes out of his father's
water-colour box, and put some duck's feathers in his hair, saw
them coming, and—ambushed himself among the willows. As he had
foreseen, they came at once to his wigwam and knelt down to look
inside, so that with a blood-curdling yell he was able to take
the scalps of “Auntie” June and the woman “grown-up” in an almost
complete manner before they kissed him. The names of the two
grown-ups were “Auntie” Holly and “Uncle” Val, who had a brown
face and a little limp, and laughed at him terribly. He took a
fancy to “Auntie” Holly, who seemed to be a sister too; but they
both went away the same afternoon and he did not see them again.
Three days before his father and mother were to come home
“Auntie” June also went off in a great hurry, taking the
“grown-up” who coughed and his piece of putty; and Mademoiselle
said: “Poor man, he was veree ill. I forbid you to go into his
room, Jon.” Little Jon, who rarely did things merely because he
was told not to, refrained from going, though he was bored and
lonely. In truth the day of the pond was past, and he was filled
to the brim of his soul with restlessness and the want of
something—not a tree, not a gun—something soft. Those last two
days had seemed months in spite of Cast Up by the Sea, wherein he
was reading about Mother Lee and her terrible wrecking bonfire.
He had gone up and down the stairs perhaps a hundred times in
those two days, and often from the day nursery, where he slept
now, had stolen into his mother's room, looked at everything,
without touching, and on into the dressing-room; and standing on
one leg beside the bath, like Slingsby, had whispered:
“Ho, ho, ho! Dog my cats!” mysteriously, to bring luck. Then,
stealing back, he had opened his mother's wardrobe, and taken a
long sniff which seemed to bring him nearer to—he didn't know
what.
He had done this just before he stood in the streak of sunlight,
debating in which of the several ways he should slide down the
banisters. They all seemed silly, and in a sudden languor he
began descending the steps one by one. During that descent he
could remember his father quite distinctly—the short grey beard,
the deep eyes twinkling, the furrow between them, the funny
smile, the thin figure which always seemed so tall to little Jon;
but his mother he couldn't see. All that represented her was
something swaying with two dark eyes looking back at him; and the
scent of her wardrobe.
Bella was in the hall, drawing aside the big curtains, and
opening the front door. Little Jon said, wheedling,
“Bella!”
“Yes, Master Jon.”
“Do let's have tea under the oak tree when they come; I know
they'd like it best.”
“You mean you'd like it best.”
Little Jon considered.
“No, they would, to please me.”
Bella smiled. “Very well, I'll take it out if you'll stay quiet
here and not get into mischief before they come.”
Little Jon sat down on the bottom step, and nodded. Bella came
close, and looked him over.
“Get up!” she said.
Little Jon got up. She scrutinized him behind; he was not green,
and his knees seemed clean.
“All right!” she said. “My! Aren't you brown? Give me a kiss!”
And little Jon received a peck on his hair.
“What jam?” he asked. “I'm so tired of waiting.”
“Gooseberry and strawberry.”
Num! They were his favourites!
When she was gone he sat still for quite a minute. It was quiet
in the big hall open to its East end so that he could see one of
his trees, a brig sailing very slowly across the upper lawn. In
the outer hall shadows were slanting from the pillars. Little Jon
got up, jumped one of them, and walked round the clump of iris
plants which filled the pool of grey-white marble in the centre.
The flowers were pretty, but only smelled a very little. He stood
in the open doorway and looked out. Suppose!—suppose they didn't
come! He had waited so long that he felt he could not bear that,
and his attention slid at once from such finality to the dust
motes in the bluish sunlight coming in: Thrusting his hand up, he
tried to catch some. Bella ought to have dusted that piece of
air! But perhaps they weren't dust—only what sunlight was made
of, and he looked to see whether the sunlight out of doors was
the same. It was not. He had said he would stay quiet in the
hall, but he simply couldn't any more; and crossing the gravel of
the drive he lay down on the grass beyond. Pulling six daisies he
named them carefully, Sir Lamorac, Sir Tristram, Sir Lancelot,
Sir Palimedes, Sir Bors, Sir Gawain, and fought them in couples
till only Sir Lamorac, whom he had selected for a specially stout
stalk, had his head on, and even he, after three encounters,
looked worn and waggly. A beetle was moving slowly in the grass,
which almost wanted cutting. Every blade was a small tree, round
whose trunk the beetle had to glide. Little Jon stretched out Sir
Lamorac, feet foremost, and stirred the creature up. It scuttled
painfully. Little Jon laughed, lost interest, and sighed. His
heart felt empty. He turned over and lay on his back. There was a
scent of honey from the lime trees in flower, and in the sky the
blue was beautiful, with a few white clouds which looked and
perhaps tasted like lemon ice. He could hear Bob playing: “Way
down upon de Suwannee ribber” on his concertina, and it made him
nice and sad. He turned over again and put his ear to the
ground—Indians could hear things coming ever so far—but he could
hear nothing—only the concertina! And almost instantly he did
hear a grinding sound, a faint toot. Yes! it was a
car—coming—coming! Up he jumped. Should he wait in the porch, or
rush upstairs, and as they came in, shout: “Look!” and slide
slowly down the banisters, head foremost? Should he? The car
turned in at the drive. It was too late! And he only waited,
jumping up and down in his excitement. The car came quickly,
whirred, and stopped. His father got out, exactly like life. He
bent down and little Jon bobbed up—they bumped. His father said,
“Bless us! Well, old man, you are brown!” Just as he would; and
the sense of expectation—of something wanted—bubbled
unextinguished in little Jon. Then, with a long, shy look he saw
his mother, in a blue dress, with a blue motor scarf over her cap
and hair, smiling. He jumped as high as ever he could, twined his
legs behind her back, and hugged. He heard her gasp, and felt her
hugging back. His eyes, very dark blue just then, looked into
hers, very dark brown, till her lips closed on his eyebrow, and,
squeezing with all his might, he heard her creak and laugh, and
say:
“You are strong, Jon!”
He slid down at that, and rushed into the hall, dragging her by
the hand.
While he was eating his jam beneath the oak tree, he noticed
things about his mother that he had never seemed to see before,
her cheeks for instance were creamy, there were silver threads in
her dark goldy hair, her throat had no knob in it like Bella's,
and she went in and out softly. He noticed, too, some little
lines running away from the corners of her eyes, and a nice
darkness under them. She was ever so beautiful, more beautiful
than “Da” or Mademoiselle, or “Auntie” June or even “Auntie”
Holly, to whom he had taken a fancy; even more beautiful than
Bella, who had pink cheeks and came out too suddenly in places.
This new beautifulness of his mother had a kind of particular
importance, and he ate less than he had expected to.
When tea was over his father wanted him to walk round the
gardens. He had a long conversation with his father about things
in general, avoiding his private life—Sir Lamorac, the Austrians,
and the emptiness he had felt these last three days, now so
suddenly filled up. His father told him of a place called
Glensofantrim, where he and his mother had been; and of the
little people who came out of the ground there when it was very
quiet. Little Jon came to a halt, with his heels apart.
“Do you really believe they do, Daddy?” “No, Jon, but I thought
you might.”
“Why?”
“You're younger than I; and they're fairies.” Little Jon squared
the dimple in his chin.
“I don't believe in fairies. I never see any.” “Ha!” said his
father.
“Does Mum?”
His father smiled his funny smile.
“No; she only sees Pan.”
“What's Pan?”
“The Goaty God who skips about in wild and beautiful places.”
“Was he in Glensofantrim?”
“Mum said so.”
Little Jon took his heels up, and led on.
“Did you see him?”
“No; I only saw Venus Anadyomene.”
Little Jon reflected; Venus was in his book about the Greeks and
Trojans. Then Anna was her Christian and Dyomene her surname?
But it appeared, on inquiry, that it was one word, which meant
rising from the foam.
“Did she rise from the foam in Glensofantrim?”
“Yes; every day.”
“What is she like, Daddy?”
“Like Mum.”
“Oh! Then she must be...” but he stopped at that, rushed at a
wall, scrambled up, and promptly scrambled down again. The
discovery that his mother was beautiful was one which he felt
must absolutely be kept to himself. His father's cigar, however,
took so long to smoke, that at last he was compelled to say:
“I want to see what Mum's brought home. Do you mind, Daddy?”
He pitched the motive low, to absolve him from unmanliness, and
was a little disconcerted when his father looked at him right
through, heaved an important sigh, and answered:
“All right, old man, you go and love her.”
He went, with a pretence of slowness, and then rushed, to make
up. He entered her bedroom from his own, the door being open. She
was still kneeling before a trunk, and he stood close to her,
quite still.
She knelt up straight, and said:
“Well, Jon?”
“I thought I'd just come and see.”
Having given and received another hug, he mounted the
window-seat, and tucking his legs up under him watched her
unpack. He derived a pleasure from the operation such as he had
not yet known, partly because she was taking out things which
looked suspicious, and partly because he liked to look at her.
She moved differently from anybody else, especially from Bella;
she was certainly the refinedest-looking person he had ever seen.
She finished the trunk at last, and knelt down in front of him.
“Have you missed us, Jon?”
Little Jon nodded, and having thus admitted his feelings,
continued to nod.
“But you had 'Auntie' June?”
“Oh! she had a man with a cough.”
His mother's face changed, and looked almost angry. He added
hastily:
“He was a poor man, Mum; he coughed awfully; I—I liked him.”
His mother put her hands behind his waist.
“You like everybody, Jon?”
Little Jon considered.
“Up to a point,” he said: “Auntie June took me to church one
Sunday.”
“To church? Oh!”
“She wanted to see how it would affect me.” “And did it?”
“Yes. I came over all funny, so she took me home again very
quick. I wasn't sick after all. I went to bed and had hot brandy
and water, and read The Boys of Beechwood. It was scrumptious.”
His mother bit her lip.
“When was that?”
“Oh! about—a long time ago—I wanted her to take me again, but she
wouldn't. You and Daddy never go to church, do you?”
“No, we don't.”
“Why don't you?”
His mother smiled.
“Well, dear, we both of us went when we were little. Perhaps we
went when we were too little.”
“I see,” said little Jon, “it's dangerous.”
“You shall judge for yourself about all those things as you grow
up.”
Little Jon replied in a calculating manner:
“I don't want to grow up, much. I don't want to go to school.” A
sudden overwhelming desire to say something more, to say what he
really felt, turned him red. “I—I want to stay with you, and be
your lover, Mum.”
Then with an instinct to improve the situation, he added quickly
“I don't want to go to bed to-night, either. I'm simply tired of
going to bed, every night.”
“Have you had any more nightmares?”
“Only about one. May I leave the door open into your room
to-night, Mum?”
“Yes, just a little.” Little Jon heaved a sigh of satisfaction.
“What did you see in Glensofantrim?”
“Nothing but beauty, darling.”
“What exactly is beauty?”
“What exactly is—Oh! Jon, that's a poser.”
“Can I see it, for instance?” His mother got up, and sat beside
him. “You do, every day. The sky is beautiful, the stars, and
moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the
trees—they're all beautiful. Look out of the window—there's
beauty for you, Jon.”
“Oh! yes, that's the view. Is that all?”
“All? no. The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with
their foam flying back.”
“Did you rise from it every day, Mum?”
His mother smiled. “Well, we bathed.”
Little Jon suddenly reached out and caught her neck in his hands.
“I know,” he said mysteriously, “you're it, really, and all the
rest is make-believe.”
She sighed, laughed, said: “Oh! Jon!”
Little Jon said critically:
“Do you think Bella beautiful, for instance? I hardly do.”
“Bella is young; that's something.”
“But you look younger, Mum. If you bump against Bella she hurts.”
“I don't believe 'Da' was beautiful, when I come to think of it;
and Mademoiselle's almost ugly.”
“Mademoiselle has a very nice face.” “Oh! yes; nice. I love your
little rays, Mum.”
“Rays?”
Little Jon put his finger to the outer corner of her eye.
“Oh! Those? But they're a sign of age.”
“They come when you smile.”
“But they usen't to.”
“Oh! well, I like them. Do you love me, Mum?”
“I do—I do love you, darling.”
“Ever so?”
“Ever so!”
“More than I thought you did?”
“Much—much more.”
“Well, so do I; so that makes it even.”
Conscious that he had never in his life so given himself away, he
felt a sudden reaction to the manliness of Sir Lamorac, Dick
Needham, Huck Finn, and other heroes.
“Shall I show you a thing or two?” he said; and slipping out of
her arms, he stood on his head. Then, fired by her obvious
admiration, he mounted the bed, and threw himself head foremost
from his feet on to his back, without touching anything with his
hands. He did this several times.
That evening, having inspected what they had brought, he stayed
up to dinner, sitting between them at the little round table they
used when they were alone. He was extremely excited. His mother
wore a French-grey dress, with creamy lace made out of little
scriggly roses, round her neck, which was browner than the lace.
He kept looking at her, till at last his father's funny smile
made him suddenly attentive to his slice of pineapple. It was
later than he had ever stayed up, when he went to bed. His mother
went up with him, and he undressed very slowly so as to keep her
there. When at last he had nothing on but his pyjamas, he said:
“Promise you won't go while I say my prayers!”
“I promise.”
Kneeling down and plunging his face into the bed, little Jon
hurried up, under his breath, opening one eye now and then, to
see her standing perfectly still with a smile on her face. “Our
Father”—so went his last prayer, “which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy Mum, thy Kingdom Mum—on Earth as it is in heaven, give us
this day our daily Mum and forgive us our trespasses on earth as
it is in heaven and trespass against us, for thine is the evil
the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amum! Look out!” He
sprang, and for a long minute remained in her arms. Once in bed,
he continued to hold her hand.
“You won't shut the door any more than that, will you? Are you
going to be long, Mum?”
“I must go down and play to Daddy.”
“Oh! well, I shall hear you.”
“I hope not; you must go to sleep.”
“I can sleep any night.”
“Well, this is just a night like any other.”
“Oh! no—it's extra special.”
“On extra special nights one always sleeps soundest.”
“But if I go to sleep, Mum, I shan't hear you come up.”
“Well, when I do, I'll come in and give you a kiss, then if
you're awake you'll know, and if you're not you'll still know
you've had one.”
Little Jon sighed, “All right!” he said: “I suppose I must put up
with that. Mum?”
“Yes?”
“What was her name that Daddy believes in? Venus Anna Diomedes?”
“Oh! my angel! Anadyomene.”
“Yes! but I like my name for you much better.”
“What is yours, Jon?”
Little Jon answered shyly:
“Guinevere! it's out of the Round Table—I've only just thought of
it, only of course her hair was down.”
His mother's eyes, looking past him, seemed to float.
“You won't forget to come, Mum?”
“Not if you'll go to sleep.”
“That's a bargain, then.” And little Jon screwed up his eyes.
He felt her lips on his forehead, heard her footsteps; opened his
eyes to see her gliding through the doorway, and, sighing,
screwed them up again.
Then Time began.
For some ten minutes of it he tried loyally to sleep, counting a
great number of thistles in a row, “Da's” old recipe for bringing
slumber. He seemed to have been hours counting. It must, he
thought, be nearly time for her to come up now. He threw the
bedclothes back. “I'm hot!” he said, and his voice sounded funny
in the darkness, like someone else's. Why didn't she come? He sat
up. He must look! He got out of bed, went to the window and
pulled the curtain a slice aside. It wasn't dark, but he couldn't
tell whether because of daylight or the moon, which was very big.
It had a funny, wicked face, as if laughing at him, and he did
not want to look at it. Then, remembering that his mother had
said moonlit nights were beautiful, he continued to stare out in
a general way. The trees threw thick shadows, the lawn looked
like spilt milk, and a long, long way he could see; oh! very far;
right over the world, and it all looked different and swimmy.
There was a lovely smell, too, in his open window.
'I wish I had a dove like Noah!' he thought.
“The moony moon was round and bright, It shone and shone and made
it light.”
After that rhyme, which came into his head all at once, he became
conscious of music, very soft-lovely! Mum playing! He bethought
himself of a macaroon he had, laid up in his chest of drawers,
and, getting it, came back to the window. He leaned out, now
munching, now holding his jaws to hear the music better. “Da”
used to say that angels played on harps in heaven; but it wasn't
half so lovely as Mum playing in the moony night, with him eating
a macaroon. A cockchafer buzzed by, a moth flew in his face, the
music stopped, and little Jon drew his head in. She must be
coming! He didn't want to be found awake. He got back into bed
and pulled the clothes nearly over his head; but he had left a
streak of moonlight coming in. It fell across the floor, near the
foot of the bed, and he watched it moving ever so slowly towards
him, as if it were alive. The music began again, but he could
only just hear it now; sleepy music,
pretty—sleepy—music—sleepy—slee.....
And time slipped by, the music rose, fell, ceased; the moonbeam
crept towards his face. Little Jon turned in his sleep till he
lay on his back, with one brown fist still grasping the
bedclothes. The corners of his eyes twitched—he had begun to
dream. He dreamed he was drinking milk out of a pan that was the
moon, opposite a great black cat which watched him with a funny
smile like his father's. He heard it whisper: “Don't drink too
much!” It was the cat's milk, of course, and he put out his hand
amicably to stroke the creature; but it was no longer there; the
pan had become a bed, in which he was lying, and when he tried to
get out he couldn't find the edge; he couldn't find
it—he—he—couldn't get out! It was dreadful!
He whimpered in his sleep. The bed had begun to go round too; it
was outside him and inside him; going round and round, and
getting fiery, and Mother Lee out of Cast up by the Sea was
stirring it! Oh! so horrible she looked! Faster and faster!—till
he and the bed and Mother Lee and the moon and the cat were all
one wheel going round and round and up and up—awful—awful—awful!
He shrieked.
A voice saying: “Darling, darling!” got through the wheel, and he
awoke, standing on his bed, with his eyes wide open.
There was his mother, with her hair like Guinevere's, and,
clutching her, he buried his face in it.
“Oh! oh!”
“It's all right, treasure. You're awake now. There! There! It's
nothing!”
But little Jon continued to say: “Oh! oh!”
Her voice went on, velvety in his ear:
“It was the moonlight, sweetheart, coming on your face.”
Little Jon burbled into her nightgown
“You said it was beautiful. Oh!”
“Not to sleep in, Jon. Who let it in? Did you draw the curtains?”
“I wanted to see the time; I—I looked out, I—I heard you playing,
Mum; I—I ate my macaroon.” But he was growing slowly comforted;
and the instinct to excuse his fear revived within him.
“Mother Lee went round in me and got all fiery,” he mumbled.
“Well, Jon, what can you expect if you eat macaroons after you've
gone to bed?”
“Only one, Mum; it made the music ever so more beautiful. I was
waiting for you—I nearly thought it was to-morrow.”
“My ducky, it's only just eleven now.”
Little Jon was silent, rubbing his nose on her neck.
“Mum, is Daddy in your room?”
“Not to-night.”
“Can I come?”
“If you wish, my precious.”
Half himself again, little Jon drew back.
“You look different, Mum; ever so younger.”
“It's my hair, darling.”
Little Jon laid hold of it, thick, dark gold, with a few silver
threads.
“I like it,” he said: “I like you best of all like this.”
Taking her hand, he had begun dragging her towards the door. He
shut it as they passed, with a sigh of relief.
“Which side of the bed do you like, Mum?”
“The left side.”
“All right.”
Wasting no time, giving her no chance to change her mind, little
Jon got into the bed, which seemed much softer than his own. He
heaved another sigh, screwed his head into the pillow and lay
examining the battle of chariots and swords and spears which
always went on outside blankets, where the little hairs stood up
against the light.
“It wasn't anything, really, was it?” he said.
From before her glass his mother answered:
“Nothing but the moon and your imagination heated up. You mustn't
get so excited, Jon.”
But, still not quite in possession of his nerves, little Jon
answered boastfully:
“I wasn't afraid, really, of course!” And again he lay watching
the spears and chariots. It all seemed very long.
“Oh! Mum, do hurry up!”
“Darling, I have to plait my hair.”
“Oh! not to-night. You'll only have to unplait it again
to-morrow. I'm sleepy now; if you don't come, I shan't be sleepy
soon.”
His mother stood up white and flowey before the winged mirror: he
could see three of her, with her neck turned and her hair bright
under the light, and her dark eyes smiling. It was unnecessary,
and he said:
“Do come, Mum; I'm waiting.”
“Very well, my love, I'll come.”
Little Jon closed his eyes. Everything was turning out most
satisfactory, only she must hurry up! He felt the bed shake, she
was getting in. And, still with his eyes closed, he said
sleepily: “It's nice, isn't it?”
He heard her voice say something, felt her lips touching his
nose, and, snuggling up beside her who lay awake and loved him
with her thoughts, he fell into the dreamless sleep, which
rounded off his past.
TO LET
“From out the fatal loins of those two foes A pair of star-crossed
lovers take their life.” —Romeo and Juliet.
TO CHARLES SCRIBNER
PART I
I.—ENCOUNTER
Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was
staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the
intention of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off
Cork Street, and looking into the Future. He walked. Since the
War he never took a cab if he could help it. Their drivers were,
in his view, an uncivil lot, though now that the War was over and
supply beginning to exceed demand again, getting more civil in
accordance with the custom of human nature. Still, he had not
forgiven them, deeply identifying them with gloomy memories, and
now, dimly, like all members, of their class, with revolution.
The considerable anxiety he had passed through during the War,
and the more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in the
Peace, had produced psychological consequences in a tenacious
nature. He had, mentally, so frequently experienced ruin, that he
had ceased to believe in its material probability. Paying away
four thousand a year in income and super tax, one could not very
well be worse off! A fortune of a quarter of a million,
encumbered only by a wife and one daughter, and very diversely
invested, afforded substantial guarantee even against that
“wildcat notion” a levy on capital. And as to confiscation of war
profits, he was entirely in favour of it, for he had none, and
“serve the beggars right!” The price of pictures, moreover, had,
if anything, gone up, and he had done better with his collection
since the War began than ever before. Air-raids, also, had acted
beneficially on a spirit congenitally cautious, and hardened a
character already dogged. To be in danger of being entirely
dispersed inclined one to be less apprehensive of the more
partial dispersions involved in levies and taxation, while the
habit of condemning the impudence of the Germans had led
naturally to condemning that of Labour, if not openly at least in
the sanctuary of his soul.
He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to
meet him at the Gallery at four o'clock, and it was as yet but
half-past two. It was good for him to walk—his liver was a little
constricted, and his nerves rather on edge. His wife was always
out when she was in Town, and his daughter would flibberty-gibbet
all over the place like most young women since the War. Still, he
must be thankful that she had been too young to do anything in
that War itself. Not, of course, that he had not supported the
War from its inception, with all his soul, but between that and
supporting it with the bodies of his wife and daughter, there had
been a gap fixed by something old-fashioned within him which
abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for instance, strongly
objected to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only thirty-four,
going to her native France, her “chere patrie” as, under the
stimulus of war, she had begun to call it, to nurse her “braves
poilus,” forsooth! Ruining her health and her looks! As if she
were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let her do
needlework for them at home, or knit! She had not gone,
therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A bad
tendency of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual
little ways, had grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the
vexed problem whether or not she should go to school. She was
better away from her mother in her war mood, from the chance of
air-raids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so he had
placed her in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him
compatible with excellence, and had missed her horribly. Fleur!
He had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name by which at
her birth he had decided so suddenly to call her—marked
concession though it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty
name—a pretty child! But restless—too restless; and wilful!
Knowing her power too over her father! Soames often reflected on
the mistake it was to dote on his daughter. To get old and dote!
Sixty-five! He was getting on; but he didn't feel it, for,
fortunately perhaps, considering Annette's youth and good looks,
his second marriage had turned out a cool affair. He had known
but one real passion in his life—for that first wife of
his—Irene. Yes, and that fellow, his cousin Jolyon, who had gone
off with her, was looking very shaky, they said. No wonder, at
seventy-two, after twenty years of a third marriage!
Soames paused a moment in his march to lean over the railings of
the Row. A suitable spot for reminiscence, half-way between that
house in Park Lane which had seen his birth and his parents'
deaths, and the little house in Montpellier Square where
thirty-five years ago he had enjoyed his first edition of
matrimony. Now, after twenty years of his second edition, that
old tragedy seemed to him like a previous existence—which had
ended when Fleur was born in place of the son he had hoped for.
For many years he had ceased regretting, even vaguely, the son
who had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After
all, she bore his name; and he was not looking forward at all to
the time when she would change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of
such a calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he
could make her rich enough to purchase perhaps and extinguish the
name of the fellow who married her—why not, since, as it seemed,
women were equal to men nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced
that they were not, passed his curved hand over his face
vigorously, till it reached the comfort of his chin. Thanks to
abstemious habits, he had not grown fat and gabby; his nose was
pale and thin, his grey moustache close-clipped, his eyesight
unimpaired. A slight stoop closened and corrected the expansion
given to his face by the heightening of his forehead in the
recession of his grey hair. Little change had Time wrought in the
“warmest” of the young Forsytes, as the last of the old
Forsytes—Timothy-now in his hundred and first year, would have
phrased it.
The shade from the plane-trees fell on his neat Homburg hat; he
had given up top hats—it was no use attracting attention to
wealth in days like these. Plane-trees! His thoughts travelled
sharply to Madrid—the Easter before the War, when, having to make
up his mind about that Goya picture, he had taken a voyage of
discovery to study the painter on his spot. The fellow had
impressed him—great range, real genius! Highly as the chap
ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished with
him. The second Goya craze would be greater even than the first;
oh, yes! And he had bought. On that visit he had—as never
before—commissioned a copy of a fresco painting called “La
Vendimia,” wherein was the figure of a girl with an arm akimbo,
who had reminded him of his daughter. He had it now in the
Gallery at Mapledurham, and rather poor it was—you couldn't copy
Goya. He would still look at it, however, if his daughter were
not there, for the sake of something irresistibly reminiscent in
the light, erect balance of the figure, the width between the
arching eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark eyes. Curious
that Fleur should have dark eyes, when his own were grey—no pure
Forsyte had brown eyes—and her mother's blue! But of course her
grandmother Lamotte's eyes were dark as treacle!
He began to walk on again toward Hyde Park Corner. No greater
change in all England than in the Row! Born almost within hail of
it, he could remember it from 1860 on. Brought there as a child
between the crinolines to stare at tight-trousered dandies in
whiskers, riding with a cavalry seat; to watch the doffing of
curly-brimmed and white top hats; the leisurely air of it all,
and the little bow-legged man in a long red waistcoat who used to
come among the fashion with dogs on several strings, and try to
sell one to his mother: King Charles spaniels, Italian
greyhounds, affectionate to her crinoline—you never saw them now.
You saw no quality of any sort, indeed, just working people
sitting in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few young
bouncing females in pot hats, riding astride, or desultory
Colonials charging up and down on dismal-looking hacks; with,
here and there, little girls on ponies, or old gentlemen jogging
their livers, or an orderly trying a great galumphing cavalry
horse; no thoroughbreds, no grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no
gossip—nothing; only the trees the same—the trees indifferent to
the generations and declensions of mankind. A democratic
England—dishevelled, hurried, noisy, and seemingly without an
apex. And that something fastidious in the soul of Soames turned
over within him. Gone forever, the close borough of rank and
polish! Wealth there was—oh, yes! wealth—he himself was a richer
man than his father had ever been; but manners, flavour, quality,
all gone, engulfed in one vast, ugly, shoulder-rubbing,
petrol-smelling Cheerio. Little half-beaten pockets of gentility
and caste lurking here and there, dispersed and chetif, as
Annette would say; but nothing ever again firm and coherent to
look up to. And into this new hurly-burly of bad manners and
loose morals his daughter—flower of his life—was flung! And when
those Labour chaps got power—if they ever did—the worst was yet
to come.
He passed out under the archway, at last no longer—thank
goodness!—disfigured by the gungrey of its search-light. 'They'd
better put a search-light on to where they're all going,' he
thought, 'and light up their precious democracy!' And he directed
his steps along the Club fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of
course, would be sitting in the bay window of the Iseeum. The
chap was so big now that he was there nearly all his time, like
some immovable, sardonic, humorous eye noting the decline of men
and things. And Soames hurried, ever constitutionally uneasy
beneath his cousin's glance. George, who, as he had heard, had
written a letter signed “Patriot” in the middle of the War,
complaining of the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of
race-horses. Yes, there he was, tall, ponderous, neat,
clean-shaven, with his smooth hair, hardly thinned, smelling, no
doubt, of the best hair-wash, and a pink paper in his hand. Well,
he didn't change! And for perhaps the first time in his life
Soames felt a kind of sympathy tapping in his waistcoat for that
sardonic kinsman. With his weight, his perfectly parted hair, and
bull-like gaze, he was a guarantee that the old order would take
some shifting yet. He saw George move the pink paper as if
inviting him to ascend—the chap must want to ask something about
his property. It was still under Soames' control; for in the
adoption of a sleeping partnership at that painful period twenty
years back when he had divorced Irene, Soames had found himself
almost insensibly retaining control of all purely Forsyte
affairs.
Hesitating for just a moment, he nodded and went in. Since the
death of his brother-in-law Montague Dartie, in Paris, which no
one had quite known what to make of, except that it was certainly
not suicide—the Iseeum Club had seemed more respectable to
Soames. George, too, he knew, had sown the last of his wild oats,
and was committed definitely to the joys of the table, eating
only of the very best so as to keep his weight down, and owning,
as he said, “just one or two old screws to give me an interest in
life.” He joined his cousin, therefore, in the bay window without
the embarrassing sense of indiscretion he had been used to feel
up there. George put out a well-kept hand.
“Haven't seen you since the War,” he said. “How's your wife?”
“Thanks,” said Soames coldly, “well enough.”
Some hidden jest curved, for a moment, George's fleshy face, and
gloated from his eye.
“That Belgian chap, Profond,” he said, “is a member here now.
He's a rum customer.”
“Quite!” muttered Soames. “What did you want to see me about?”
“Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. I suppose
he's made his Will.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you or somebody ought to give him a look up—last of the
old lot; he's a hundred, you know. They say he's like a mummy.
Where are you goin' to put him? He ought to have a pyramid by
rights.”
Soames shook his head. “Highgate, the family vault.”
“Well, I suppose the old girls would miss him, if he was anywhere
else. They say he still takes an interest in food. He might last
on, you know. Don't we get anything for the old Forsytes? Ten of
them—average age eighty-eight—I worked it out. That ought to be
equal to triplets.”
“Is that all?” said Soames, “I must be getting on.”
'You unsociable devil,' George's eyes seemed to answer. “Yes,
that's all: Look him up in his mausoleum—the old chap might want
to prophesy.” The grin died on the rich curves of his face, and
he added: “Haven't you attorneys invented a way yet of dodging
this damned income tax? It hits the fixed inherited income like
the very deuce. I used to have two thousand five hundred a year;
now I've got a beggarly fifteen hundred, and the price of living
doubled.”
“Ah!” murmured Soames, “the turf's in danger.”
Over George's face moved a gleam of sardonic self-defence.
“Well,” he said, “they brought me up to do nothing, and here I am
in the sear and yellow, getting poorer every day. These Labour
chaps mean to have the lot before they've done. What are you
going to do for a living when it comes? I shall work a six-hour
day teaching politicians how to see a joke. Take my tip, Soames;
go into Parliament, make sure of your four hundred—and employ
me.”
And, as Soames retired, he resumed his seat in the bay window.
Soames moved along Piccadilly deep in reflections excited by his
cousin's words. He himself had always been a worker and a saver,
George always a drone and a spender; and yet, if confiscation
once began, it was he—the worker and the saver—who would be
looted! That was the negation of all virtue, the overturning of
all Forsyte principles. Could civilization be built on any other?
He did not think so. Well, they wouldn't confiscate his pictures,
for they wouldn't know their worth. But what would they be worth,
if these maniacs once began to milk capital? A drug on the
market. 'I don't care about myself,' he thought; 'I could live on
five hundred a year, and never know the difference, at my age.'
But Fleur! This fortune, so widely invested, these treasures so
carefully chosen and amassed, were all for—her. And if it should
turn out that he couldn't give or leave them to her—well, life
had no meaning, and what was the use of going in to look at this
crazy, futuristic stuff with the view of seeing whether it had
any future?
Arriving at the Gallery off Cork Street, however, he paid his
shilling, picked up a catalogue, and entered. Some ten persons
were prowling round. Soames took steps and came on what looked to
him like a lamp-post bent by collision with a motor omnibus. It
was advanced some three paces from the wall, and was described in
his catalogue as “Jupiter.” He examined it with curiosity, having
recently turned some of his attention to sculpture. 'If that's
Jupiter,' he thought, 'I wonder what Juno's like.' And suddenly
he saw her, opposite. She appeared to him like nothing so much as
a pump with two handles, lightly clad in snow. He was still
gazing at her, when two of the prowlers halted on his left.
“Epatant!” he heard one say.
“Jargon!” growled Soames to himself.
The other's boyish voice replied
“Missed it, old bean; he's pulling your leg. When Jove and Juno
created he them, he was saying: 'I'll see how much these fools
will swallow.' And they've lapped up the lot.”
“You young duffer! Vospovitch is an innovator. Don't you see that
he's brought satire into sculpture? The future of plastic art, of
music, painting, and even architecture, has set in satiric. It
was bound to. People are tired—the bottom's tumbled out of
sentiment.”
“Well, I'm quite equal to taking a little interest in beauty. I
was through the War. You've dropped your handkerchief, sir.”
Soames saw a handkerchief held out in front of him. He took it
with some natural suspicion, and approached it to his nose. It
had the right scent—of distant Eau de Cologne—and his initials in
a corner. Slightly reassured, he raised his eyes to the young
man's face. It had rather fawn-like ears, a laughing mouth, with
half a toothbrush growing out of it on each side, and small
lively eyes, above a normally dressed appearance.
“Thank you,” he said; and moved by a sort of irritation, added:
“Glad to hear you like beauty; that's rare, nowadays.”
“I dote on it,” said the young man; “but you and I are the last
of the old guard, sir.”
Soames smiled.
“If you really care for pictures,” he said, “here's my card. I
can show you some quite good ones any Sunday, if you're down the
river and care to look in.”
“Awfully nice of you, sir. I'll drop in like a bird. My name's
Mont-Michael.” And he took off his hat.
Soames, already regretting his impulse, raised his own slightly
in response, with a downward look at the young man's companion,
who had a purple tie, dreadful little sluglike whiskers, and a
scornful look—as if he were a poet!
It was the first indiscretion he had committed for so long that
he went and sat down in an alcove. What had possessed him to give
his card to a rackety young fellow, who went about with a thing
like that? And Fleur, always at the back of his thoughts, started
out like a filigree figure from a clock when the hour strikes. On
the screen opposite the alcove was a large canvas with a great
many square tomato-coloured blobs on it, and nothing else, so far
as Soames could see from where he sat. He looked at his
catalogue: “No. 32 'The Future Town'—Paul Post.” 'I suppose
that's satiric too,' he thought. 'What a thing!' But his second
impulse was more cautious. It did not do to condemn hurriedly.
There had been those stripey, streaky creations of Monet's, which
had turned out such trumps; and then the stippled school; and
Gauguin. Why, even since the Post-Impressionists there had been
one or two painters not to be sneezed at. During the thirty-eight
years of his connoisseur's life, indeed, he had marked so many
“movements,” seen the tides of taste and technique so ebb and
flow, that there was really no telling anything except that there
was money to be made out of every change of fashion. This too
might quite well be a case where one must subdue primordial
instinct, or lose the market. He got up and stood before the
picture, trying hard to see it with the eyes of other people.
Above the tomato blobs was what he took to be a sunset, till some
one passing said: “He's got the airplanes wonderfully, don't you
think!” Below the tomato blobs was a band of white with vertical
black stripes, to which he could assign no meaning whatever, till
some one else came by, murmuring: “What expression he gets with
his foreground!” Expression? Of what? Soames went back to his
seat. The thing was “rich,” as his father would have said, and he
wouldn't give a damn for it. Expression! Ah! they were all
Expressionists now, he had heard, on the Continent. So it was
coming here too, was it? He remembered the first wave of
influenza in 1887—or '8—hatched in China, so they said. He
wondered where this—this Expressionism had been hatched. The
thing was a regular disease!
He had become conscious of a woman and a youth standing between
him and the “Future Town.” Their backs were turned; but very
suddenly Soames put his catalogue before his face, and drawing
his hat forward, gazed through the slit between. No mistaking
that back, elegant as ever though the hair above had gone grey.
Irene! His divorced wife—Irene! And this, no doubt, was—her
son—by that fellow Jolyon Forsyte—their boy, six months older
than his own girl! And mumbling over in his mind the bitter days
of his divorce, he rose to get out of sight, but quickly sat down
again. She had turned her head to speak to her boy; her profile
was still so youthful that it made her grey hair seem powdery, as
if fancy-dressed; and her lips were smiling as Soames, first
possessor of them, had never seen them smile. Grudgingly he
admitted her still beautiful and in figure almost as young as
ever. And how that boy smiled back at her! Emotion squeezed
Soames' heart. The sight infringed his sense of justice. He
grudged her that boy's smile—it went beyond what Fleur gave him,
and it was undeserved. Their son might have been his son; Fleur
might have been her daughter, if she had kept straight! He
lowered his catalogue. If she saw him, all the better! A reminder
of her conduct in the presence of her son, who probably knew
nothing of it, would be a salutary touch from the finger of that
Nemesis which surely must soon or late visit her! Then,
half-conscious that such a thought was extravagant for a Forsyte
of his age, Soames took out his watch. Past four! Fleur was late.
She had gone to his niece Imogen Cardigan's, and there they would
keep her smoking cigarettes and gossiping, and that. He heard the
boy laugh, and say eagerly: “I say, Mum, is this by one of Auntie
June's lame ducks?”
“Paul Post—I believe it is, darling.”
The word produced a little shock in Soames; he had never heard
her use it. And then she saw him. His eyes must have had in them
something of George Forsyte's sardonic look; for her gloved hand
crisped the folds of her frock, her eyebrows rose, her face went
stony. She moved on.
“It is a caution,” said the boy, catching her arm again.
Soames stared after them. That boy was good-looking, with a
Forsyte chin, and eyes deep-grey, deep in; but with something
sunny, like a glass of old sherry spilled over him; his smile
perhaps, his hair. Better than they deserved—those two! They
passed from his view into the next room, and Soames continued to
regard the Future Town, but saw it not. A little smile snarled up
his lips. He was despising the vehemence of his own feelings
after all these years. Ghosts! And yet as one grew old—was there
anything but what was ghost-like left? Yes, there was Fleur! He
fixed his eyes on the entrance. She was due; but she would keep
him waiting, of course! And suddenly he became aware of a sort of
human breeze—a short, slight form clad in a sea-green djibbah
with a metal belt and a fillet binding unruly red-gold hair all
streaked with grey. She was talking to the Gallery attendants,
and something familiar riveted his gaze—in her eyes, her chin,
her hair, her spirit—something which suggested a thin Skye
terrier just before its dinner. Surely June Forsyte! His cousin
June—and coming straight to his recess! She sat down beside him,
deep in thought, took out a tablet, and made a pencil note.
Soames sat unmoving. A confounded thing, cousinship!
“Disgusting!” he heard her murmur; then, as if resenting the
presence of an overhearing stranger, she looked at him. The worst
had happened.
“Soames!”
Soames turned his head a very little.
“How are you?” he said. “Haven't seen you for twenty years.”
“No. Whatever made you come here?”
“My sins,” said Soames. “What stuff!”
“Stuff? Oh, yes—of course; it hasn't arrived yet.
“It never will,” said Soames; “it must be making a dead loss.”
“Of course it is.”
“How d'you know?”
“It's my Gallery.”
Soames sniffed from sheer surprise.
“Yours? What on earth makes you run a show like this?”
“I don't treat Art as if it were grocery.”
Soames pointed to the Future Town. “Look at that! Who's going to
live in a town like that, or with it on his walls?”
June contemplated the picture for a moment.
“It's a vision,” she said.
“The deuce!”
There was silence, then June rose. 'Crazylooking creature!' he
thought.
“Well,” he said, “you'll find your young stepbrother here with a
woman I used to know. If you take my advice, you'll close this
exhibition.”
June looked back at him. “Oh! You Forsyte!” she said, and moved
on. About her light, fly-away figure, passing so suddenly away,
was a look of dangerous decisions. Forsyte! Of course, he was a
Forsyte! And so was she! But from the time when, as a mere girl,
she brought Bosinney into his life to wreck it, he had never hit
it off with June and never would! And here she was, unmarried to
this day, owning a Gallery!... And suddenly it came to Soames how
little he knew now of his own family. The old aunts at Timothy's
had been dead so many years; there was no clearing-house for
news. What had they all done in the War? Young Roger's boy had
been wounded, St. John Hayman's second son killed; young
Nicholas' eldest had got an O. B. E., or whatever they gave them.
They had all joined up somehow, he believed. That boy of Jolyon's
and Irene's, he supposed, had been too young; his own generation,
of course, too old, though Giles Hayman had driven a car for the
Red Cross—and Jesse Hayman been a special constable—those
“Dromios” had always been of a sporting type! As for himself, he
had given a motor ambulance, read the papers till he was sick of
them, passed through much anxiety, bought no clothes, lost seven
pounds in weight; he didn't know what more he could have done at
his age. Indeed, thinking it over, it struck him that he and his
family had taken this war very differently to that affair with
the Boers, which had been supposed to tax all the resources of
the Empire. In that old war, of course, his nephew Val Dartie had
been wounded, that fellow Jolyon's first son had died of enteric,
“the Dromios” had gone out on horses, and June had been a nurse;
but all that had seemed in the nature of a portent, while in this
war everybody had done “their bit,” so far as he could make out,
as a matter of course. It seemed to show the growth of something
or other—or perhaps the decline of something else. Had the
Forsytes become less individual, or more Imperial, or less
provincial? Or was it simply that one hated Germans?... Why
didn't Fleur come, so that he could get away? He saw those three
return together from the other room and pass back along the far
side of the screen. The boy was standing before the Juno now.
And, suddenly, on the other side of her, Soames saw—his daughter,
with eyebrows raised, as well they might be. He could see her
eyes glint sideways at the boy, and the boy look back at her.
Then Irene slipped her hand through his arm, and drew him on.
Soames saw him glancing round, and Fleur looking after them as
the three went out.
A voice said cheerfully: “Bit thick, isn't it, sir?”
The young man who had handed him his handkerchief was again
passing. Soames nodded.
“I don't know what we're coming to.”
“Oh! That's all right, sir,” answered the young man cheerfully;
“they don't either.”
Fleur's voice said: “Hallo, Father! Here you are!” precisely as
if he had been keeping her waiting.
The young man, snatching off his hat, passed on.
“Well,” said Soames, looking her up and down, “you're a punctual
sort of young woman!”
This treasured possession of his life was of medium height and
colour, with short, dark chestnut hair; her wide-apart brown eyes
were set in whites so clear that they glinted when they moved,
and yet in repose were almost dreamy under very white,
black-lashed lids, held over them in a sort of suspense. She had
a charming profile, and nothing of her father in her face save a
decided chin. Aware that his expression was softening as he
looked at her, Soames frowned to preserve the unemotionalism
proper to a Forsyte. He knew she was only too inclined to take
advantage of his weakness.
Slipping her hand under his arm, she said:
“Who was that?”
“He picked up my handkerchief. We talked about the pictures.”
“You're not going to buy that, Father?”
“No,” said Soames grimly; “nor that Juno you've been looking at.”
Fleur dragged at his arm. “Oh! Let's go! It's a ghastly show.”
In the doorway they passed the young man called Mont and his
partner. But Soames had hung out a board marked “Trespassers will
be prosecuted,” and he barely acknowledged the young fellow's
salute.
“Well,” he said in the street, “whom did you meet at Imogen's?”
“Aunt Winifred, and that Monsieur Profond.”
“Oh!” muttered Soames; “that chap! What does your aunt see in
him?”
“I don't know. He looks pretty deep—mother says she likes him.”
Soames grunted.
“Cousin Val and his wife were there, too.”
“What!” said Soames. “I thought they were back in South Africa.”
“Oh, no! They've sold their farm. Cousin Val is going to train
race-horses on the Sussex Downs. They've got a jolly old
manor-house; they asked me down there.”
Soames coughed: the news was distasteful to him. “What's his wife
like now?”
“Very quiet, but nice, I think.”
Soames coughed again. “He's a rackety chap, your Cousin Val.”
“Oh! no, Father; they're awfully devoted. I promised to
go—Saturday to Wednesday next.”
“Training race-horses!” said Soames. It was extravagant, but not
the reason for his distaste. Why the deuce couldn't his nephew
have stayed out in South Africa? His own divorce had been bad
enough, without his nephew's marriage to the daughter of the
co-respondent; a half-sister too of June, and of that boy whom
Fleur had just been looking at from under the pump-handle. If he
didn't look out, she would come to know all about that old
disgrace! Unpleasant things! They were round him this afternoon
like a swarm of bees!
“I don't like it!” he said.
“I want to see the race-horses,” murmured Fleur; “and they've
promised I shall ride. Cousin Val can't walk much, you know; but
he can ride perfectly. He's going to show me their gallops.”
“Racing!” said Soames. “It's a pity the War didn't knock that on
the head. He's taking after his father, I'm afraid.”
“I don't know anything about his father.”
“No,” said Soames, grimly. “He took an interest in horses and
broke his neck in Paris, walking down-stairs. Good riddance for
your aunt.” He frowned, recollecting the inquiry into those
stairs which he had attended in Paris six years ago, because
Montague Dartie could not attend it himself—perfectly normal
stairs in a house where they played baccarat. Either his winnings
or the way he had celebrated them had gone to his
brother-in-law's head. The French procedure had been very loose;
he had had a lot of trouble with it.
A sound from Fleur distracted his attention. “Look! The people
who were in the Gallery with us.”
“What people?” muttered Soames, who knew perfectly well.
“I think that woman's beautiful.”
“Come into this pastry-cook's,” said Soames abruptly, and
tightening his grip on her arm he turned into a confectioner's.
It was—for him—a surprising thing to do, and he said rather
anxiously: “What will you have?”
“Oh! I don't want anything. I had a cocktail and a tremendous
lunch.”
“We must have something now we're here,” muttered Soames, keeping
hold of her arm.
“Two teas,” he said; “and two of those nougat things.”
But no sooner was his body seated than his soul sprang up. Those
three—those three were coming in! He heard Irene say something to
her boy, and his answer:
“Oh! no, Mum; this place is all right. My stunt.” And the three
sat down.
At that moment, most awkward of his existence, crowded with
ghosts and shadows from his past, in presence of the only two
women he had ever loved—his divorced wife and his daughter by her
successor—Soames was not so much afraid of them as of his cousin
June. She might make a scene—she might introduce those two
children—she was capable of anything. He bit too hastily at the
nougat, and it stuck to his plate. Working at it with his finger,
he glanced at Fleur. She was masticating dreamily, but her eyes
were on the boy. The Forsyte in him said: “Think, feel, and
you're done for!” And he wiggled his finger desperately. Plate!
Did Jolyon wear a plate? Did that woman wear a plate? Time had
been when he had seen her wearing nothing! That was something,
anyway, which had never been stolen from him. And she knew it,
though she might sit there calm and self-possessed, as if she had
never been his wife. An acid humour stirred in his Forsyte blood;
a subtle pain divided by hair's breadth from pleasure. If only
June did not suddenly bring her hornets about his ears! The boy
was talking.
“Of course, Auntie June”—so he called his half-sister “Auntie,”
did he?—well, she must be fifty, if she was a day!—“it's jolly
good of you to encourage them. Only—hang it all!” Soames stole a
glance. Irene's startled eyes were bent watchfully on her boy.
She—she had these devotions—for Bosinney—for that boy's
father—for this boy! He touched Fleur's arm, and said:
“Well, have you had enough?”
“One more, Father, please.”
She would be sick! He went to the counter to pay. When he turned
round again he saw Fleur standing near the door, holding a
handkerchief which the boy had evidently just handed to her.
“F. F.,” he heard her say. “Fleur Forsyte—it's mine all right.
Thank you ever so.”
Good God! She had caught the trick from what he'd told her in the
Gallery—monkey!
“Forsyte? Why—that's my name too. Perhaps we're cousins.”
“Really! We must be. There aren't any others. I live at
Mapledurham; where do you?”
“Robin Hill.”
Question and answer had been so rapid that all was over before he
could lift a finger. He saw Irene's face alive with startled
feeling, gave the slightest shake of his head, and slipped his
arm through Fleur's.
“Come along!” he said.
She did not move.
“Didn't you hear, Father? Isn't it queer—our name's the same. Are
we cousins?”
“What's that?” he said. “Forsyte? Distant, perhaps.”
“My name's Jolyon, sir. Jon, for short.”
“Oh! Ah!” said Soames. “Yes. Distant. How are you? Very good of
you. Good-bye!”
He moved on.
“Thanks awfully,” Fleur was saying. “Au revoir!”
“Au revoir!” he heard the boy reply.
II.—FINE FLEUR FORSYTE
Emerging from the “pastry-cook's,” Soames' first impulse was to
vent his nerves by saying to his daughter: 'Dropping your
hand-kerchief!' to which her reply might well be: 'I picked that
up from you!' His second impulse therefore was to let sleeping
dogs lie. But she would surely question him. He gave her a
sidelong look, and found she was giving him the same. She said
softly:
“Why don't you like those cousins, Father?” Soames lifted the
corner of his lip.
“What made you think that?”
“Cela se voit.”
'That sees itself!' What a way of putting it! After twenty years
of a French wife Soames had still little sympathy with her
language; a theatrical affair and connected in his mind with all
the refinements of domestic irony.
“How?” he asked.
“You must know them; and you didn't make a sign. I saw them
looking at you.”
“I've never seen the boy in my life,” replied Soames with perfect
truth.
“No; but you've seen the others, dear.”
Soames gave her another look. What had she picked up? Had her
Aunt Winifred, or Imogen, or Val Dartie and his wife, been
talking? Every breath of the old scandal had been carefully kept
from her at home, and Winifred warned many times that he wouldn't
have a whisper of it reach her for the world. So far as she ought
to know, he had never been married before. But her dark eyes,
whose southern glint and clearness often almost frightened him,
met his with perfect innocence.
“Well,” he said, “your grandfather and his brother had a quarrel.
The two families don't know each other.”
“How romantic!”
'Now, what does she mean by that?' he thought. The word was to
him extravagant and dangerous—it was as if she had said: “How
jolly!”
“And they'll continue not to know each, other,” he added, but
instantly regretted the challenge in those words. Fleur was
smiling. In this age, when young people prided themselves on
going their own ways and paying no attention to any sort of
decent prejudice, he had said the very thing to excite her
wilfulness. Then, recollecting the expression on Irene's face, he
breathed again.
“What sort of a quarrel?” he heard Fleur say.
“About a house. It's ancient history for you. Your grandfather
died the day you were born. He was ninety.”
“Ninety? Are there many Forsytes besides those in the Red Book?”
“I don't know,” said Soames. “They're all dispersed now. The old
ones are dead, except Timothy.”
Fleur clasped her hands.
“Timothy? Isn't that delicious?”
“Not at all,” said Soames. It offended him that she should think
“Timothy” delicious—a kind of insult to his breed. This new
generation mocked at anything solid and tenacious. “You go and
see the old boy. He might want to prophesy.” Ah! If Timothy could
see the disquiet England of his great-nephews and great-nieces,
he would certainly give tongue. And involuntarily he glanced up
at the Iseeum; yes—George was still in the window, with the same
pink paper in his hand.
“Where is Robin Hill, Father?”
Robin Hill! Robin Hill, round which all that tragedy had centred!
What did she want to know for?
“In Surrey,” he muttered; “not far from Richmond. Why?”
“Is the house there?”
“What house?”
“That they quarrelled about.”
“Yes. But what's all that to do with you? We're going home
to-morrow—you'd better be thinking about your frocks.”
“Bless you! They're all thought about. A family feud? It's like
the Bible, or Mark Twain—awfully exciting. What did you do in the
feud, Father?”
“Never you mind.”
“Oh! But if I'm to keep it up?”
“Who said you were to keep it up?”
“You, darling.”
“I? I said it had nothing to do with you.”
“Just what I think, you know; so that's all right.”
She was too sharp for him; fine, as Annette sometimes called her.
Nothing for it but to distract her attention.
“There's a bit of rosaline point in here,” he said, stopping
before a shop, “that I thought you might like.”
When he had paid for it and they had resumed their progress,
Fleur said:
“Don't you think that boy's mother is the most beautiful woman of
her age you've ever seen?”
Soames shivered. Uncanny, the way she stuck to it!
“I don't know that I noticed her.”
“Dear, I saw the corner of your eye.”
“You see everything—and a great deal more, it seems to me!”
“What's her husband like? He must be your first cousin, if your
fathers were brothers.”
“Dead, for all I know,” said Soames, with sudden vehemence. “I
haven't seen him for twenty years.”
“What was he?”
“A painter.”
“That's quite jolly.”
The words: “If you want to please me you'll put those people out
of your head,” sprang to Soames' lips, but he choked them back—he
must not let her see his feelings.
“He once insulted me,” he said.
Her quick eyes rested on his face.
“I see! You didn't avenge it, and it rankles. Poor Father! You
let me have a go!”
It was really like lying in the dark with a mosquito hovering
above his face. Such pertinacity in Fleur was new to him, and, as
they reached the hotel, he said grimly:
“I did my best. And that's enough about these people. I'm going
up till dinner.”
“I shall sit here.”
With a parting look at her extended in a chair—a look
half-resentful, half-adoring—Soames moved into the lift and was
transported to their suite on the fourth floor. He stood by the
window of the sitting-room which gave view over Hyde Park, and
drummed a finger on its pane. His feelings were confused, tetchy,
troubled. The throb of that old wound, scarred over by Time and
new interests, was mingled with displeasure and anxiety, and a
slight pain in his chest where that nougat stuff had disagreed.
Had Annette come in? Not that she was any good to him in such a
difficulty. Whenever she had questioned him about his first
marriage, he had always shut her up; she knew nothing of it, save
that it had been the great passion of his life, and his marriage
with herself but domestic makeshift. She had always kept the
grudge of that up her sleeve, as it were, and used it
commercially. He listened. A sound—the vague murmur of a woman's
movements—was coming through the door. She was in. He tapped.
“Who?”
“I,” said Soames.
She had been changing her frock, and was still imperfectly
clothed; a striking figure before her glass. There was a certain
magnificence about her arms, shoulders, hair, which had darkened
since he first knew her, about the turn of her neck, the
silkiness of her garments, her dark-lashed, greyblue eyes—she was
certainly as handsome at forty as she had ever been. A fine
possession, an excellent housekeeper, a sensible and affectionate
enough mother. If only she weren't always so frankly cynical
about the relations between them! Soames, who had no more real
affection for her than she had for him, suffered from a kind of
English grievance in that she had never dropped even the thinnest
veil of sentiment over their partnership. Like most of his
countrymen and women, he held the view that marriage should be
based on mutual love, but that when from a marriage love had
disappeared, or, been found never to have really existed—so that
it was manifestly not based on love—you must not admit it. There
it was, and the love was not—but there you were, and must
continue to be! Thus you had it both ways, and were not tarred
with cynicism, realism, and immorality like the French. Moreover,
it was necessary in the interests of property. He knew that she
knew that they both knew there was no love between them, but he
still expected her not to admit in words or conduct such a thing,
and he could never understand what she meant when she talked of
the hypocrisy of the English. He said:
“Whom have you got at 'The Shelter' next week?”
Annette went on touching her lips delicately with salve—he always
wished she wouldn't do that.
“Your sister Winifred, and the Car-r-digans”—she took up a tiny
stick of black—“and Prosper Profond.”
“That Belgian chap? Why him?”
Annette turned her neck lazily, touched one eyelash, and said:
“He amuses Winifred.”
“I want some one to amuse Fleur; she's restive.”
“R-restive?” repeated Annette. “Is it the first time you see
that, my friend? She was born r-restive, as you call it.”
Would she never get that affected roll out of her r's?
He touched the dress she had taken off, and asked:
“What have you been doing?”
Annette looked at him, reflected in her glass. Her
just-brightened lips smiled, rather full, rather ironical.
“Enjoying myself,” she said.
“Oh!” answered Soames glumly. “Ribbandry, I suppose.”
It was his word for all that incomprehensible running in and out
of shops that women went in for. “Has Fleur got her summer
dresses?”
“You don't ask if I have mine.”
“You don't care whether I do or not.”
“Quite right. Well, she has; and I have mine—terribly expensive.”
“H'm!” said Soames. “What does that chap Profond do in England?”
Annette raised the eyebrows she had just finished.
“He yachts.”
“Ah!” said Soames; “he's a sleepy chap.”
“Sometimes,” answered Annette, and her face had a sort of quiet
enjoyment. “But sometimes very amusing.”
“He's got a touch of the tar-brush about him.”
Annette stretched herself.
“Tar-brush?” she said. “What is that? His mother was Armenienne.”
“That's it, then,” muttered Soames. “Does he know anything about
pictures?”
“He knows about everything—a man of the world.”
“Well, get some one for Fleur. I want to distract her. She's
going off on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; I don't like
it.”
“Why not?”
Since the reason could not be explained without going into family
history, Soames merely answered:
“Racketing about. There's too much of it.”
“I like that little Mrs. Val; she is very quiet and clever.”
“I know nothing of her except—This thing's new.” And Soames took
up a creation from the bed.
Annette received it from him.
“Would you hook me?” she said.
Soames hooked. Glancing once over her shoulder into the glass, he
saw the expression on her face, faintly amused, faintly
contemptuous, as much as to say: “Thanks! You will never learn!”
No, thank God, he wasn't a Frenchman! He finished with a jerk,
and the words: “It's too low here.” And he went to the door, with
the wish to get away from her and go down to Fleur again.
Annette stayed a powder-puff, and said with startling suddenness
“Que tu es grossier!”
He knew the expression—he had reason to. The first time she had
used it he had thought it meant “What a grocer you are!” and had
not known whether to be relieved or not when better informed. He
resented the word—he was not coarse! If he was coarse, what was
that chap in the room beyond his, who made those horrible noises
in the morning when he cleared his throat, or those people in the
Lounge who thought it well-bred to say nothing but what the whole
world could hear at the top of their voices—quacking inanity!
Coarse, because he had said her dress was low! Well, so it was!
He went out without reply.
Coming into the Lounge from the far end, he at once saw Fleur
where he had left her. She sat with crossed knees, slowly
balancing a foot in silk stocking and grey shoe, sure sign that
she was dreaming. Her eyes showed it too—they went off like that
sometimes. And then, in a moment, she would come to life, and be
as quick and restless as a monkey. And she knew so much, so
self-assured, and not yet nineteen. What was that odious word?
Flapper! Dreadful young creatures—squealing and squawking and
showing their legs! The worst of them bad dreams, the best of
them powdered angels! Fleur was not a flapper, not one of those
slangy, ill-bred young females. And yet she was frighteningly
self-willed, and full of life, and determined to enjoy it. Enjoy!
The word brought no puritan terror to Soames; but it brought the
terror suited to his temperament. He had always been afraid to
enjoy to-day for fear he might not enjoy tomorrow so much. And it
was terrifying to feel that his daughter was divested of that
safeguard. The very way she sat in that chair showed it—lost in
her dream. He had never been lost in a dream himself—there was
nothing to be had out of it; and where she got it from he did not
know! Certainly not from Annette! And yet Annette, as a young
girl, when he was hanging about her, had once had a flowery look.
Well, she had lost it now!
Fleur rose from her chair-swiftly, restlessly; and flung herself
down at a writing-table. Seizing ink and writing paper, she began
to write as if she had not time to breathe before she got her
letter written. And suddenly she saw him. The air of desperate
absorption vanished, she smiled, waved a kiss, made a pretty face
as if she were a little puzzled and a little bored.
Ah! She was “fine”—“fine!”
III.—AT ROBIN HILL
Jolyon Forsyte had spent his boy's nineteenth birthday at Robin
Hill, quietly going into his affairs. He did everything quietly
now, because his heart was in a poor way, and, like all his
family, he disliked the idea of dying. He had never realised how
much till one day, two years ago, he had gone to his doctor about
certain symptoms, and been told:
“At any moment, on any overstrain.”
He had taken it with a smile—the natural Forsyte reaction against
an unpleasant truth. But with an increase of symptoms in the
train on the way home, he had realised to the full the sentence
hanging over him. To leave Irene, his boy, his home, his
work—though he did little enough work now! To leave them for
unknown darkness, for the unimaginable state, for such
nothingness that he would not even be conscious of wind stirring
leaves above his grave, nor of the scent of earth and grass. Of
such nothingness that, however hard he might try to conceive it,
he never could, and must still hover on the hope that he might
see again those he loved! To realise this was to endure very
poignant spiritual anguish. Before he reached home that day he
had determined to keep it from Irene. He would have to be more
careful than man had ever been, for the least thing would give it
away and make her as wretched as himself, almost. His doctor had
passed him sound in other respects, and seventy was nothing of an
age—he would last a long time yet, if he could.
Such a conclusion, followed out for nearly two years, develops to
the full the subtler side of character. Naturally not abrupt,
except when nervously excited, Jolyon had become control
incarnate. The sad patience of old people who cannot exert
themselves was masked by a smile which his lips preserved even in
private. He devised continually all manner of cover to conceal
his enforced lack of exertion.
Mocking himself for so doing, he counterfeited conversion to the
Simple Life; gave up wine and cigars, drank a special kind of
coffee with no coffee in it. In short, he made himself as safe as
a Forsyte in his condition could, under the rose of his mild
irony. Secure from discovery, since his wife and son had gone up
to Town, he had spent the fine May day quietly arranging his
papers, that he might die to-morrow without inconveniencing any
one, giving in fact a final polish to his terrestrial state.
Having docketed and enclosed it in his father's old Chinese
cabinet, he put the key into an envelope, wrote the words
outside: “Key of the Chinese cabinet, wherein will be found the
exact state of me, J. F.,” and put it in his breast-pocket, where
it would be always about him, in case of accident. Then, ringing
for tea, he went out to have it under the old oak-tree.
All are under sentence of death; Jolyon, whose sentence was but a
little more precise and pressing, had become so used to it that
he thought habitually, like other people, of other things. He
thought of his son now.
Jon was nineteen that day, and Jon had come of late to a
decision. Educated neither at Eton like his father, nor at
Harrow, like his dead half-brother, but at one of those
establishments which, designed to avoid the evil and contain the
good of the Public School system, may or may not contain the evil
and avoid the good, Jon had left in April perfectly ignorant of
what he wanted to become. The War, which had promised to go on
for ever, had ended just as he was about to join the Army, six
months before his time. It had taken him ever since to get used
to the idea that he could now choose for himself. He had held
with his father several discussions, from which, under a cheery
show of being ready for anything—except, of course, the Church,
Army, Law, Stage, Stock Exchange, Medicine, Business, and
Engineering—Jolyon had gathered rather clearly that Jon wanted to
go in for nothing. He himself had felt exactly like that at the
same age. With him that pleasant vacuity had soon been ended by
an early marriage, and its unhappy consequences. Forced to become
an underwriter at Lloyd's, he had regained prosperity before his
artistic talent had outcropped. But having—as the simple
say—“learned” his boy to draw pigs and other animals, he knew
that Jon would never be a painter, and inclined to the conclusion
that his aversion from everything else meant that he was going to
be a writer. Holding, however, the view that experience was
necessary even for that profession, there seemed to Jolyon
nothing in the meantime, for Jon, but University, travel, and
perhaps the eating of dinners for the Bar. After that one would
see, or more probably one would not. In face of these proffered
allurements, however, Jon had remained undecided.
Such discussions with his son had confirmed in Jolyon a doubt
whether the world had really changed. People said that it was a
new age. With the profundity of one not too long for any age,
Jolyon perceived that under slightly different surfaces the era
was precisely what it had been. Mankind was still divided into
two species: The few who had “speculation” in their souls, and
the many who had none, with a belt of hybrids like himself in the
middle. Jon appeared to have speculation; it seemed to his father
a bad lookout.
With something deeper, therefore, than his usual smile, he had
heard the boy say, a fortnight ago: “I should like to try
farming, Dad; if it won't cost you too much. It seems to be about
the only sort of life that doesn't hurt anybody; except art, and
of course that's out of the question for me.”
Jolyon subdued his smile, and answered:
“All right; you shall skip back to where we were under the first
Jolyon in 1760. It'll prove the cycle theory, and incidentally,
no doubt, you may grow a better turnip than he did.”
A little dashed, Jon had answered:
“But don't you think it's a good scheme, Dad?”
“'Twill serve, my dear; and if you should really take to it,
you'll do more good than most men, which is little enough.”
To himself, however, he had said: 'But he won't take to it. I
give him four years. Still, it's healthy, and harmless.'
After turning the matter over and consulting with Irene, he wrote
to his daughter, Mrs. Val Dartie, asking if they knew of a farmer
near them on the Downs who would take Jon as an apprentice.
Holly's answer had been enthusiastic. There was an excellent man
quite close; she and Val would love Jon to live with them.
The boy was due to go to-morrow.
Sipping weak tea with lemon in it, Jolyon gazed through the
leaves of the old oak-tree at that view which had appeared to him
desirable for thirty-two years. The tree beneath which he sat
seemed not a day older! So young, the little leaves of brownish
gold; so old, the whitey-grey-green of its thick rough trunk. A
tree of memories, which would live on hundreds of years yet,
unless some barbarian cut it down—would see old England out at
the pace things were going! He remembered a night three years
before, when, looking from his window, with his arm close round
Irene, he had watched a German aeroplane hovering, it seemed,
right over the old tree. Next day they had found a bomb hole in a
field on Gage's farm. That was before he knew that he was under
sentence of death. He could almost have wished the bomb had
finished him. It would have saved a lot of hanging about, many
hours of cold fear in the pit of his stomach. He had counted on
living to the normal Forsyte age of eighty-five or more, when
Irene would be seventy. As it was, she would miss him. Still
there was Jon, more important in her life than himself; Jon, who
adored his mother.
Under that tree, where old Jolyon—waiting for Irene to come to
him across the lawn—had breathed his last, Jolyon wondered,
whimsically, whether, having put everything in such perfect
order, he had not better close his own eyes and drift away. There
was something undignified in parasitically clinging on to the
effortless close of a life wherein he regretted two things
only—the long division between his father and himself when he was
young, and the lateness of his union with Irene.
From where he sat he could see a cluster of apple-trees in
blossom. Nothing in Nature moved him so much as fruit-trees in
blossom; and his heart ached suddenly because he might never see
them flower again. Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die
while his heart was still young enough to love beauty! Blackbirds
sang recklessly in the shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the
leaves above him glistened; and over the fields was every
imaginable tint of early foliage, burnished by the level
sunlight, away to where the distant “smoke-bush” blue was trailed
along the horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow beds had
startling individuality that evening, little deep assertions of
gay life. Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps
Leonardo, had known how to get that startling little ego into
each painted flower, and bird, and beast—the ego, yet the sense
of species, the universality of life as well. They were the
fellows! 'I've made nothing that will live!' thought Jolyon;
'I've been an amateur—a mere lover, not a creator. Still, I shall
leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy had not
been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been
killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal.
Jon would do something some day—if the Age didn't spoil him—an
imaginative chap! His whim to take up farming was but a bit of
sentiment, and about as likely to last. And just then he saw them
coming up the field: Irene and the boy; walking from the station,
with their arms linked. And getting up, he strolled down through
the new rose garden to meet them....
Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window.
She sat there without speaking till he said:
“What is it, my love?”
“We had an encounter to-day.”
“With whom?”
“Soames.”
Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two
years; conscious that it was bad for him. And, now, his heart
moved in a disconcerting manner, as if it had side-slipped within
his chest.
Irene went on quietly:
“He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterward at the
confectioner's where we had tea.”
Jolyon went over and put his hand on her shoulder.
“How did he look?”
“Grey; but otherwise much the same.”
“And the daughter?”
“Pretty. At least, Jon thought so.”
Jolyon's heart side-slipped again. His wife's face had a strained
and puzzled look.
“You didn't-?” he began.
“No; but Jon knows their name. The girl dropped her handkerchief
and he picked it up.”
Jolyon sat down on his bed. An evil chance!
“June was with you. Did she put her foot into it?”
“No; but it was all very queer and strained, and Jon could see it
was.”
Jolyon drew a long breath, and said:
“I've often wondered whether we've been right to keep it from
him. He'll find out some day.”
“The later the better, Jolyon; the young have such cheap, hard
judgment. When you were nineteen what would you have thought of
your mother if she had done what I have?”
Yes! There it was! Jon worshipped his mother; and knew nothing of
the tragedies, the inexorable necessities of life, nothing of the
prisoned grief in an unhappy marriage, nothing of jealousy or
passion—knew nothing at all, as yet!
“What have you told him?” he said at last.
“That they were relations, but we didn't know them; that you had
never cared much for your family, or they for you. I expect he
will be asking you.”
Jolyon smiled. “This promises to take the place of air-raids,” he
said. “After all, one misses them.”
Irene looked up at him.
“We've known it would come some day.”
He answered her with sudden energy:
“I could never stand seeing Jon blame you. He shan't do that,
even in thought. He has imagination; and he'll understand if it's
put to him properly. I think I had better tell him before he gets
to know otherwise.”
“Not yet, Jolyon.”
That was like her—she had no foresight, and never went to meet
trouble. Still—who knew?—she might be right. It was ill going
against a mother's instinct. It might be well to let the boy go
on, if possible, till experience had given him some touchstone by
which he could judge the values of that old tragedy; till love,
jealousy, longing, had deepened his charity. All the same, one
must take precautions—every precaution possible! And, long after
Irene had left him, he lay awake turning over those precautions.
He must write to Holly, telling her that Jon knew nothing as yet
of family history. Holly was discreet, she would make sure of her
husband, she would see to it! Jon could take the letter with him
when he went to-morrow.
And so the day on which he had put the polish on his material
estate died out with the chiming of the stable clock; and another
began for Jolyon in the shadow of a spiritual disorder which
could not be so rounded off and polished....
But Jon, whose room had once been his day nursery, lay awake too,
the prey of a sensation disputed by those who have never known
it, “love at first sight!” He had felt it beginning in him with
the glint of those dark eyes gazing into his athwart the Juno—a
conviction that this was his 'dream'. so that what followed had
seemed to him at once natural and miraculous. Fleur! Her name
alone was almost enough for one who was terribly susceptible to
the charm of words. In a homoeopathic Age, when boys and girls
were co-educated, and mixed up in early life till sex was almost
abolished, Jon was singularly old-fashioned. His modern school
took boys only, and his holidays had been spent at Robin Hill
with boy friends, or his parents alone. He had never, therefore,
been inoculated against the germs of love by small doses of the
poison. And now in the dark his temperature was mounting fast. He
lay awake, featuring Fleur—as they called it—recalling her words,
especially that “Au revoir!” so soft and sprightly.
He was still so wide awake at dawn that he got up, slipped on
tennis shoes, trousers, and a sweater, and in silence crept
downstairs and out through the study window. It was just light;
there was a smell of grass. 'Fleur!' he thought; 'Fleur!' It was
mysteriously white out of doors, with nothing awake except the
birds just beginning to chirp. 'I'll go down into the coppice,'
he thought. He ran down through the fields, reached the pond just
as the sun rose, and passed into the coppice. Bluebells carpeted
the ground there; among the larch-trees there was mystery—the
air, as it were, composed of that romantic quality. Jon sniffed
its freshness, and stared at the bluebells in the sharpening
light. Fleur! It rhymed with her! And she lived at Mapleduram—a
jolly name, too, on the river somewhere. He could find it in the
atlas presently. He would write to her. But would she answer? Oh!
She must. She had said “Au revoir!” Not good-bye! What luck that
she had dropped her handkerchief! He would never have known her
but for that. And the more he thought of that handkerchief, the
more amazing his luck seemed. Fleur! It certainly rhymed with
her! Rhythm thronged his head; words jostled to be joined
together; he was on the verge of a poem.
Jon remained in this condition for more than half an hour, then
returned to the house, and getting a ladder, climbed in at his
bedroom window out of sheer exhilaration. Then, remembering that
the study window was open, he went down and shut it, first
removing the ladder, so as to obliterate all traces of his
feeling. The thing was too deep to be revealed to mortal
soul-even-to his mother.
IV.—THE MAUSOLEUM
There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time,
leaving their bodies in the limbo of London. Such was not quite
the condition of “Timothy's” on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's
soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither
kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine and
house whose windows are only opened to air it twice a day.
To Forsyte imagination that house was now a sort of Chinese
pill-box, a series of layers in the last of which was Timothy.
One did not reach him, or so it was reported by members of the
family who, out of old-time habit or absentmindedness, would
drive up once in a blue moon and ask after their surviving uncle.
Such were Francie, now quite emancipated from God (she frankly
avowed atheism), Euphemia, emancipated from old Nicholas, and
Winifred Dartie from her “man of the world.” But, after all,
everybody was emancipated now, or said they were—perhaps not
quite the same thing!
When Soames, therefore, took it on his way to Paddington station
on the morning after that encounter, it was hardly with the
expectation of seeing Timothy in the flesh. His heart made a
faint demonstration within him while he stood in full south
sunlight on the newly whitened doorstep of that little house
where four Forsytes had once lived, and now but one dwelt on like
a winter fly; the house into which Soames had come and out of
which he had gone times without number, divested of, or burdened
with, fardels of family gossip; the house of the “old people” of
another century, another age.
The sight of Smither—still corseted up to the armpits because the
new fashion which came in as they were going out about 1903 had
never been considered “nice” by Aunts Juley and Hester—brought a
pale friendliness to Soames' lips; Smither, still faithfully
arranged to old pattern in every detail, an invaluable
servant—none such left—smiling back at him, with the words: “Why!
it's Mr. Soames, after all this time! And how are you, sir? Mr.
Timothy will be so pleased to know you've been.”
“How is he?”
“Oh! he keeps fairly bobbish for his age, sir; but of course he's
a wonderful man. As I said to Mrs. Dartie when she was here last:
It would please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to
see how he relishes a baked apple still. But he's quite deaf. And
a mercy, I always think. For what we should have done with him in
the air-raids, I don't know.”
“Ah!” said Soames. “What did you do with him?”
“We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the
cellar, so that Cook and I could hear him if he rang. It would
never have done to let him know there was a war on. As I said to
Cook, 'If Mr. Timothy rings, they may do what they like—I'm going
up. My dear mistresses would have a fit if they could see him
ringing and nobody going to him.' But he slept through them all
beautiful. And the one in the daytime he was having his bath. It
was a mercy, because he might have noticed the people in the
street all looking up—he often looks out of the window.”
“Quite!” murmured Soames. Smither was getting garrulous! “I just
want to look round and see if there's anything to be done.”
“Yes, sir. I don't think there's anything except a smell of mice
in the dining-room that we don't know how to get rid of. It's
funny they should be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy
took to not coming down, just before the War. But they're nasty
little things; you never know where they'll take you next.”
“Does he leave his bed?”—
“Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the
window in the morning, not to risk a change of air. And he's
quite comfortable in himself; has his Will out every day regular.
It's a great consolation to him—that.”
“Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has
anything to say to me.”
Smither coloured up above her corsets.
“It will be an occasion!” she said. “Shall I take you round the
house, sir, while I send Cook to break it to him?”
“No, you go to him,” said Soames. “I can go round the house by
myself.”
One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames
felt that he was going to be sentimental nosing round those rooms
so saturated with the past. When Smither, creaking with
excitement, had left him, Soames entered the dining-room and
sniffed. In his opinion it wasn't mice, but incipient wood-rot,
and he examined the panelling. Whether it was worth a coat of
paint, at Timothy's age, he was not sure. The room had always
been the most modern in the house; and only a faint smile curled
Soames' lips and nostrils. Walls of a rich green surmounted the
oak dado; a heavy metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling
divided by imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by
Timothy, a bargain, one day at Jobson's sixty years ago—three
Snyder “still lifes,” two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and
a girl, rather charming, which bore the initials “J. R.”—Timothy
had always believed they might turn out to be Joshua Reynolds,
but Soames, who admired them, had discovered that they were only
John Robinson; and a doubtful Morland of a white pony being shod.
Deep-red plush curtains, ten high-backed dark mahogany chairs
with deep-red plush seats, a Turkey carpet, and a mahogany
dining-table as large as the room was small, such was an
apartment which Soames could remember unchanged in soul or body
since he was four years old. He looked especially at the two
drawings, and thought: 'I shall buy those at the sale.'
From the dining-room he passed into Timothy's study. He did not
remember ever having been in that room. It was lined from floor
to ceiling with volumes, and he looked at them with curiosity.
One wall seemed devoted to educational books, which Timothy's
firm had published two generations back-sometimes as many as
twenty copies of one book. Soames read their titles and
shuddered. The middle wall had precisely the same books as used
to be in the library at his own father's in Park Lane, from which
he deduced the fancy that James and his youngest brother had gone
out together one day and bought a brace of small libraries. The
third wall he approached with more excitement. Here, surely,
Timothy's own taste would be found. It was. The books were
dummies. The fourth wall was all heavily curtained window. And
turned toward it was a large chair with a mahogany reading-stand
attached, on which a yellowish and folded copy of The Times,
dated July 6, 1914, the day Timothy first failed to come down, as
if in preparation for the War, seemed waiting for him still. In a
corner stood a large globe of that world never visited by
Timothy, deeply convinced of the unreality of everything but
England, and permanently upset by the sea, on which he had been
very sick one Sunday afternoon in 1836, out of a pleasure boat
off the pier at Brighton, with Juley and Hester, Swithin and
Hatty Chessman; all due to Swithin, who was always taking things
into his head, and who, thank goodness, had been sick too. Soames
knew all about it, having heard the tale fifty times at least
from one or other of them. He went up to the globe, and gave it a
spin; it emitted a faint creak and moved about an inch, bringing
into his purview a daddy-long-legs which had died on it in
latitude 44.
'Mausoleum!' he thought. 'George was right!' And he went out and
up the stairs. On the half-landing he stopped before the case of
stuffed humming-birds which had delighted his childhood. They
looked not a day older, suspended on wires above pampas-grass. If
the case were opened the birds would not begin to hum, but the
whole thing would crumble, he suspected. It wouldn't be worth
putting that into the sale! And suddenly he was caught by a
memory of Aunt Ann—dear old Aunt Ann—holding him by the hand in
front of that case and saying: “Look, Soamey! Aren't they bright
and pretty, dear little humming-birds!” Soames remembered his own
answer: “They don't hum, Auntie.” He must have been six, in a
black velveteen suit with a light-blue collar-he remembered that
suit well! Aunt Ann with her ringlets, and her spidery kind
hands, and her grave old aquiline smile—a fine old lady, Aunt
Ann! He moved on up to the drawing-room door. There on each side
of it were the groups of miniatures. Those he would certainly buy
in! The miniatures of his four aunts, one of his Uncle Swithin
adolescent, and one of his Uncle Nicholas as a boy. They had all
been painted by a young lady friend of the family at a time,
1830, about, when miniatures were considered very genteel, and
lasting too, painted as they were on ivory. Many a time had he
heard the tale of that young lady: “Very talented, my dear; she
had quite a weakness for Swithin, and very soon after she went
into a consumption and died: so like Keats—we often spoke of it.”
Well, there they were! Ann, Juley, Hester, Susan—quite a small
child; Swithin, with sky-blue eyes, pink cheeks, yellow curls,
white waistcoat-large as life; and Nicholas, like Cupid with an
eye on heaven. Now he came to think of it, Uncle Nick had always
been rather like that—a wonderful man to the last. Yes, she must
have had talent, and miniatures always had a certain back-watered
cachet of their own, little subject to the currents of
competition on aesthetic Change. Soames opened the drawing-room
door. The room was dusted, the furniture uncovered, the curtains
drawn back, precisely as if his aunts still dwelt there patiently
waiting. And a thought came to him: When Timothy died—why not?
Would it not be almost a duty to preserve this house—like
Carlyle's—and put up a tablet, and show it? “Specimen of
mid-Victorian abode—entrance, one shilling, with catalogue.”
After all, it was the completest thing, and perhaps the deadest
in the London of to-day. Perfect in its special taste and
culture, if, that is, he took down and carried over to his own
collection the four Barbizon pictures he had given them. The
still sky-blue walls, tile green curtains patterned with red
flowers and ferns; the crewel-worked fire-screen before the
cast-iron grate; the mahogany cupboard with glass windows, full
of little knickknacks; the beaded footstools; Keats, Shelley,
Southey, Cowper, Coleridge, Byron's Corsair (but nothing else),
and the Victorian poets in a bookshelf row; the marqueterie
cabinet lined with dim red plush, full of family relics: Hester's
first fan; the buckles of their mother's father's shoes; three
bottled scorpions; and one very yellow elephant's tusk, sent home
from India by Great-uncle Edgar Forsyte, who had been in jute; a
yellow bit of paper propped up, with spidery writing on it,
recording God knew what! And the pictures crowding on the
walls—all water-colours save those four Barbizons looking like
the foreigners they were, and doubtful customers at that—pictures
bright and illustrative, “Telling the Bees,” “Hey for the Ferry!”
and two in the style of Frith, all thimblerig and crinolines,
given them by Swithin. Oh! many, many pictures at which Soames
had gazed a thousand times in supercilious fascination; a
marvellous collection of bright, smooth gilt frames.
And the boudoir-grand piano, beautifully dusted, hermetically
sealed as ever; and Aunt Juley's album of pressed seaweed on it.
And the gilt-legged chairs, stronger than they looked. And on one
side of the fireplace the sofa of crimson silk, where Aunt Ann,
and after her Aunt Juley, had been wont to sit, facing the light
and bolt upright. And on the other side of the fire the one
really easy chair, back to the light, for Aunt Hester. Soames
screwed up his eyes; he seemed to see them sitting there. Ah! and
the atmosphere—even now, of too many stuffs and washed lace
curtains, lavender in bags, and dried bees' wings. 'No,' he
thought, 'there's nothing like it left; it ought to be
preserved.' And, by George, they might laugh at it, but for a
standard of gentle life never departed from, for fastidiousness
of skin and eye and nose and feeling, it beat to-day
hollow—to-day with its Tubes and cars, its perpetual smoking, its
cross-legged, bare-necked girls visible up to the knees and down
to the waist if you took the trouble (agreeable to the satyr
within each Forsyte but hardly his idea of a lady), with their
feet, too, screwed round the legs of their chairs while they ate,
and their “So longs,” and their “Old Beans,” and their
laughter—girls who gave him the shudders whenever he thought of
Fleur in contact with them; and the hard-eyed, capable, older
women who managed life and gave him the shudders too. No! his old
aunts, if they never opened their minds, their eyes, or very much
their windows, at least had manners, and a standard, and
reverence for past and future.
With rather a choky feeling he closed the door and went tiptoeing
upstairs. He looked in at a place on the way: H'm! in perfect
order of the eighties, with a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the
walls. At the top of the stairs he hesitated between four doors.
Which of them was Timothy's? And he listened. A sound, as of a
child slowly dragging a hobby-horse about, came to his ears. That
must be Timothy! He tapped, and a door was opened by Smither,
very red in the face.
Mr. Timothy was taking his walk, and she had not been able to get
him to attend. If Mr. Soames would come into the back-room, he
could see him through the door.
Soames went into the back-room and stood watching.
The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the
most impressive slowness, and an air of perfect concentration on
his own affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed
and the window, a distance of some twelve feet. The lower part of
his square face, no longer clean-shaven, was covered with snowy
beard clipped as short as it could be, and his chin looked as
broad as his brow where the hair was also quite white, while nose
and cheeks and brow were a good yellow. One hand held a stout
stick, and the other grasped the skirt of his Jaeger
dressing-gown, from under which could be seen his bed-socked
ankles and feet thrust into Jaeger slippers. The expression on
his face was that of a crossed child, intent on something that he
has not got. Each time he turned he stumped the stick, and then
dragged it, as if to show that he could do without it:
“He still looks strong,” said Soames under his breath.
“Oh! yes, sir. You should see him take his bath—it's wonderful;
he does enjoy it so.”
Those quite loud words gave Soames an insight. Timothy had
resumed his babyhood.
“Does he take any interest in things generally?” he said, also
loud.
“Oh! yes, sir; his food and his Will. It's quite a sight to see
him turn it over and over, not to read it, of course; and every
now and then he asks the price of Consols, and I write it on a
slate for him—very large. Of course, I always write the same,
what they were when he last took notice, in 1914. We got the
doctor to forbid him to read the paper when the War broke out.
Oh! he did take on about that at first. But he soon came round,
because he knew it tired him; and he's a wonder to conserve
energy as he used to call it when my dear mistresses were alive,
bless their hearts! How he did go on at them about that; they
were always so active, if you remember, Mr. Soames.”
“What would happen if I were to go in?” asked Soames: “Would he
remember me? I made his Will, you know, after Miss Hester died in
1907.”
“Oh! that, sir,” replied Smither doubtfully, “I couldn't take on
me to say. I think he might; he really is a wonderful man for his
age.”
Soames moved into the doorway, and waiting for Timothy to turn,
said in a loud voice: “Uncle Timothy!”
Timothy trailed back half-way, and halted.
“Eh?” he said.
“Soames,” cried Soames at the top of his voice, holding out his
hand, “Soames Forsyte!”
“No!” said Timothy, and stumping his stick loudly on the floor,
he continued his walk.
“It doesn't seem to work,” said Soames.
“No, sir,” replied Smither, rather crestfallen; “you see, he
hasn't finished his walk. It always was one thing at a time with
him. I expect he'll ask me this afternoon if you came about the
gas, and a pretty job I shall have to make him understand.”
“Do you think he ought to have a man about him?”
Smither held up her hands. “A man! Oh! no. Cook and me can manage
perfectly. A strange man about would send him crazy in no time.
And my mistresses wouldn't like the idea of a man in the house.
Besides, we're so—proud of him.”
“I suppose the doctor comes?”
“Every morning. He makes special terms for such a quantity, and
Mr. Timothy's so used, he doesn't take a bit of notice, except to
put out his tongue.”
“Well,” said Soames, turning away, “it's rather sad and painful
to me.”
“Oh! sir,” returned Smither anxiously, “you mustn't think that.
Now that he can't worry about things, he quite enjoys his life,
really he does. As I say to Cook, Mr. Timothy is more of a man
than he ever was. You see, when he's not walkin', or takin' his
bath, he's eatin', and when he's not eatin', he's sleepin'. and
there it is. There isn't an ache or a care about him anywhere.”
“Well,” said Soames, “there's something in that. I'll go down. By
the way, let me see his Will.”
“I should have to take my time about that, sir; he keeps it under
his pillow, and he'd see me, while he's active.”
“I only want to know if it's the one I made,” said Soames; “you
take a look at its date some time, and let me know.”
“Yes, sir; but I'm sure it's the same, because me and Cook
witnessed, you remember, and there's our names on it still, and
we've only done it once.”
“Quite,” said Soames. He did remember. Smither and Jane had been
proper witnesses, having been left nothing in the Will that they
might have no interest in Timothy's death. It had been—he fully
admitted—an almost improper precaution, but Timothy had wished
it, and, after all, Aunt Hester had provided for them amply.
“Very well,” he said; “good-bye, Smither. Look after him, and if
he should say anything at any time, put it down, and let me
know.”
“Oh! yes, Mr. Soames; I'll be sure to do that. It's been such a
pleasant change to see you. Cook will be quite excited when I
tell her.”
Soames shook her hand and went down-stairs. He stood for fully
two minutes by the hat-stand whereon he had hung his hat so many
times. 'So it all passes,' he was thinking; 'passes and begins
again. Poor old chap!' And he listened, if perchance the sound of
Timothy trailing his hobby-horse might come down the well of the
stairs; or some ghost of an old face show over the bannisters,
and an old voice say: 'Why, it's dear Soames, and we were only
saying that we hadn't seen him for a week!'
Nothing—nothing! Just the scent of camphor, and dust-motes in a
sunbeam through the fanlight over the door. The little old house!
A mausoleum! And, turning on his heel, he went out, and caught
his train.
V.—THE NATIVE HEATH
“His foot's upon his native heath, His name's—Val Dartie.”
With some such feeling did Val Dartie, in the fortieth year of
his age, set out that same Thursday morning very early from the
old manor-house he had taken on the north side of the Sussex
Downs. His destination was Newmarket, and he had not been there
since the autumn of 1899, when he stole over from Oxford for the
Cambridgeshire. He paused at the door to give his wife a kiss,
and put a flask of port into his pocket.
“Don't overtire your leg, Val, and don't bet too much.”
With the pressure of her chest against his own, and her eyes
looking into his, Val felt both leg and pocket safe. He should be
moderate; Holly was always right—she had a natural aptitude. It
did not seem so remarkable to him, perhaps, as it might to
others, that—half Dartie as he was—he should have been perfectly
faithful to his young first cousin during the twenty years since
he married her romantically out in the Boer War; and faithful
without any feeling of sacrifice or boredom—she was so quick, so
slyly always a little in front of his mood. Being first cousins
they had decided, rather needlessly, to have no children; and,
though a little sallower, she had kept her looks, her slimness,
and the colour of her dark hair. Val particularly admired the
life of her own she carried on, besides carrying on his, and
riding better every year. She kept up her music, she read an
awful lot—novels, poetry, all sorts of stuff. Out on their farm
in Cape colony she had looked after all the “nigger” babies and
women in a miraculous manner. She was, in fact, clever; yet made
no fuss about it, and had no “side.” Though not remarkable for
humility, Val had come to have the feeling that she was his
superior, and he did not grudge it—a great tribute. It might be
noted that he never looked at Holly without her knowing of it,
but that she looked at him sometimes unawares.
He had kissed her in the porch because he should not be doing so
on the platform, though she was going to the station with him, to
drive the car back. Tanned and wrinkled by Colonial weather and
the wiles inseparable from horses, and handicapped by the leg
which, weakened in the Boer War, had probably saved his life in
the War just past, Val was still much as he had been in the days
of his courtship; his smile as wide and charming, his eyelashes,
if anything, thicker and darker, his eyes screwed up under them,
as bright a grey, his freckles rather deeper, his hair a little
grizzled at the sides. He gave the impression of one who has
lived actively with horses in a sunny climate.
Twisting the car sharp round at the gate, he said:
“When is young Jon coming?”
“To-day.”
“Is there anything you want for him? I could bring it down on
Saturday.”
“No; but you might come by the same train as Fleur—one-forty.”
Val gave the Ford full rein; he still drove like a man in a new
country on bad roads, who refuses to compromise, and expects
heaven at every hole.
“That's a young woman who knows her way about,” he said. “I say,
has it struck you?”
“Yes,” said Holly.
“Uncle Soames and your Dad—bit awkward, isn't it?”
“She won't know, and he won't know, and nothing must be said, of
course. It's only for five days, Val.”
“Stable secret! Righto!” If Holly thought it safe, it was.
Glancing slyly round at him, she said: “Did you notice how
beautifully she asked herself?”
“No!”
“Well, she did. What do you think of her, Val?”
“Pretty and clever; but she might run out at any corner if she
got her monkey up, I should say.”
“I'm wondering,” Holly murmured, “whether she is the modern young
woman. One feels at sea coming home into all this.”
“You? You get the hang of things so quick.”
Holly slid her hand into his coat-pocket.
“You keep one in the know,” said Val encouraged. “What do you
think of that Belgian fellow, Profond?”
“I think he's rather 'a good devil.'”
Val grinned.
“He seems to me a queer fish for a friend of our family. In fact,
our family is in pretty queer waters, with Uncle Soames marrying
a Frenchwoman, and your Dad marrying Soames's first. Our
grandfathers would have had fits!”
“So would anybody's, my dear.”
“This car,” Val said suddenly, “wants rousing; she doesn't get
her hind legs under her uphill. I shall have to give her her head
on the slope if I'm to catch that train.”
There was that about horses which had prevented him from ever
really sympathising with a car, and the running of the Ford under
his guidance compared with its running under that of Holly was
always noticeable. He caught the train.
“Take care going home; she'll throw you down if she can.
Good-bye, darling.”
“Good-bye,” called Holly, and kissed her hand.
In the train, after quarter of an hour's indecision between
thoughts of Holly, his morning paper, the look of the bright day,
and his dim memory of Newmarket, Val plunged into the recesses of
a small square book, all names, pedigrees, tap-roots, and notes
about the make and shape of horses. The Forsyte in him was bent
on the acquisition of a certain strain of blood, and he was
subduing resolutely as yet the Dartie hankering for a Nutter. On
getting back to England, after the profitable sale of his South
African farm and stud, and observing that the sun seldom shone,
Val had said to himself: “I've absolutely got to have an interest
in life, or this country will give me the blues. Hunting's not
enough, I'll breed and I'll train.” With just that extra pinch of
shrewdness and decision imparted by long residence in a new
country, Val had seen the weak point of modern breeding. They
were all hypnotised by fashion and high price. He should buy for
looks, and let names go hang! And here he was already, hypnotised
by the prestige of a certain strain of blood! Half-consciously,
he thought: 'There's something in this damned climate which makes
one go round in a ring. All the same, I must have a strain of
Mayfly blood.'
In this mood he reached the Mecca of his hopes. It was one of
those quiet meetings favourable to such as wish to look into
horses, rather than into the mouths of bookmakers; and Val clung
to the paddock. His twenty years of Colonial life, divesting him
of the dandyism in which he had been bred, had left him the
essential neatness of the horseman, and given him a queer and
rather blighting eye over what he called “the silly haw-haw” of
some Englishmen, the “flapping cockatoory” of some
English-women—Holly had none of that and Holly was his model.
Observant, quick, resourceful, Val went straight to the heart of
a transaction, a horse, a drink; and he was on his way to the
heart of a Mayfly filly, when a slow voice said at his elbow:
“Mr. Val Dartie? How's Mrs. Val Dartie? She's well, I hope.” And
he saw beside him the Belgian he had met at his sister Imogen's.
“Prosper Profond—I met you at lunch,” said the voice.
“How are you?” murmured Val.
“I'm very well,” replied Monsieur Profond, smiling with a certain
inimitable slowness. “A good devil,” Holly had called him. Well!
He looked a little like a devil, with his dark, clipped, pointed
beard; a sleepy one though, and good-humoured, with fine eyes,
unexpectedly intelligent.
“Here's a gentleman wants to know you—cousin of yours—Mr. George
Forsyde.”
Val saw a large form, and a face clean-shaven, bull-like, a
little lowering, with sardonic humour bubbling behind a full grey
eye; he remembered it dimly from old days when he would dine with
his father at the Iseeum Club.
“I used to go racing with your father,” George was saying: “How's
the stud? Like to buy one of my screws?”
Val grinned, to hide the sudden feeling that the bottom had
fallen out of breeding. They believed in nothing over here, not
even in horses. George Forsyte, Prosper Profond! The devil
himself was not more disillusioned than those two.
“Didn't know you were a racing man,” he said to Monsieur Profond.
“I'm not. I don't care for it. I'm a yachtin' man. I don't care
for yachtin' either, but I like to see my friends. I've got some
lunch, Mr. Val Dartie, just a small lunch, if you'd like to 'ave
some; not much—just a small one—in my car.”
“Thanks,” said Val; “very good of you. I'll come along in about
quarter of an hour.”
“Over there. Mr. Forsyde's comin',” and Monsieur Profond
“poinded” with a yellow-gloved finger; “small car, with a small
lunch”; he moved on, groomed, sleepy, and remote, George Forsyte
following, neat, huge, and with his jesting air.
Val remained gazing at the Mayfly filly. George Forsyte, of
course, was an old chap, but this Profond might be about his own
age; Val felt extremely young, as if the Mayfly filly were a toy
at which those two had laughed. The animal had lost reality.
“That 'small' mare”—he seemed to hear the voice of Monsieur
Profond—“what do you see in her?—we must all die!”
And George Forsyte, crony of his father, racing still! The Mayfly
strain—was it any better than any other? He might just as well
have a flutter with his money instead.
“No, by gum!” he muttered suddenly, “if it's no good breeding
horses, it's no good doing anything. What did I come for? I'll
buy her.”
He stood back and watched the ebb of the paddock visitors toward
the stand. Natty old chips, shrewd portly fellows, Jews, trainers
looking as if they had never been guilty of seeing a horse in
their lives; tall, flapping, languid women, or brisk, loud-voiced
women; young men with an air as if trying to take it
seriously—two or three of them with only one arm.
'Life over here's a game!' thought Val. 'Muffin bell rings,
horses run, money changes hands; ring again, run again, money
changes back.'
But, alarmed at his own philosophy, he went to the paddock gate
to watch the Mayfly filly canter down. She moved well; and he
made his way over to the “small” car. The “small” lunch was the
sort a man dreams of but seldom gets; and when it was concluded
Monsieur Profond walked back with him to the paddock.
“Your wife's a nice woman,” was his surprising remark.
“Nicest woman I know,” returned Val dryly.
“Yes,” said Monsieur Profond; “she has a nice face. I admire nice
women.”
Val looked at him suspiciously, but something kindly and direct
in the heavy diabolism of his companion disarmed him for the
moment.
“Any time you like to come on my yacht, I'll give her a small
cruise.”
“Thanks,” said Val, in arms again, “she hates the sea.”
“So do I,” said Monsieur Profond.
“Then why do you yacht?”
The Belgian's eyes smiled. “Oh! I don't know. I've done
everything; it's the last thing I'm doin'.”
“It must be d-d expensive. I should want more reason than that.”
Monsieur Prosper Profond raised his eyebrows, and puffed out a
heavy lower lip.
“I'm an easy-goin' man,” he said.
“Were you in the War?” asked Val.
“Ye-es. I've done that too. I was gassed; it was a small bit
unpleasant.” He smiled with a deep and sleepy air of prosperity,
as if he had caught it from his name.
Whether his saying “small” when he ought to have said “little”
was genuine mistake or affectation Val could not decide; the
fellow was evidently capable of anything.
Among the ring of buyers round the Mayfly filly who had won her
race, Monsieur Profond said:
“You goin' to bid?”
Val nodded. With this sleepy Satan at his elbow, he felt in need
of faith. Though placed above the ultimate blows of Providence by
the forethought of a grand-father who had tied him up a thousand
a year to which was added the thousand a year tied up for Holly
by her grand-father, Val was not flush of capital that he could
touch, having spent most of what he had realised from his South
African farm on his establishment in Sussex. And very soon he was
thinking: 'Dash it! she's going beyond me!' His limit-six
hundred-was exceeded; he dropped out of the bidding. The Mayfly
filly passed under the hammer at seven hundred and fifty guineas.
He was turning away vexed when the slow voice of Monsieur Profond
said in his ear:
“Well, I've bought that small filly, but I don't want her; you
take her and give her to your wife.”
Val looked at the fellow with renewed suspicion, but the good
humour in his eyes was such that he really could not take
offence.
“I made a small lot of money in the War,” began Monsieur Profond
in answer to that look. “I 'ad armament shares. I like to give it
away. I'm always makin' money. I want very small lot myself. I
like my friends to 'ave it.”
“I'll buy her of you at the price you gave,” said Val with sudden
resolution.
“No,” said Monsieur Profond. “You take her. I don' want her.”
“Hang it! one doesn't—”
“Why not?” smiled Monsieur Profond. “I'm a friend of your
family.”
“Seven hundred and fifty guineas is not a box of cigars,” said
Val impatiently.
“All right; you keep her for me till I want her, and do what you
like with her.”
“So long as she's yours,” said Val. “I don't mind that.”
“That's all right,” murmured Monsieur Profond, and moved away.
Val watched; he might be “a good devil,” but then again he might
not. He saw him rejoin George Forsyte, and thereafter saw him no
more.
He spent those nights after racing at his mother's house in Green
Street.
Winifred Dartie at sixty-two was marvellously preserved,
considering the three-and-thirty years during which she had put
up with Montague Dartie, till almost happily released by a French
staircase. It was to her a vehement satisfaction to have her
favourite son back from South Africa after all this time, to feel
him so little changed, and to have taken a fancy to his wife.
Winifred, who in the late seventies, before her marriage, had
been in the vanguard of freedom, pleasure, and fashion, confessed
her youth outclassed by the donzellas of the day. They seemed,
for instance, to regard marriage as an incident, and Winifred
sometimes regretted that she had not done the same; a second,
third, fourth incident might have secured her a partner of less
dazzling inebriety; though, after all, he had left her Val,
Imogen, Maud, Benedict (almost a colonel and unharmed by the
War)—none of whom had been divorced as yet. The steadiness of her
children often amazed one who remembered their father; but, as
she was fond of believing, they were really all Forsytes,
favouring herself, with the exception, perhaps, of Imogen. Her
brother's “little girl” Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child
was as restless as any of these modern young women—“She's a small
flame in a draught,” Prosper Profond had said one day after
dinner—but she did not flap, or talk at the top of her voice. The
steady Forsyteism in Winifred's own character instinctively
resented the feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her
motto: “All's much of a muchness! Spend, to-morrow we shall be
poor!” She found it a saving grace in Fleur that, having set her
heart on a thing, she had no change of heart until she got
it—though—what happened after, Fleur was, of course, too young to
have made evident. The child was a “very pretty little thing,”
too, and quite a credit to take about, with her mother's French
taste and gift for wearing clothes; everybody turned to look at
Fleur—great consideration to Winifred, a lover of the style and
distinction which had so cruelly deceived her in the case of
Montague Dartie.
In discussing her with Val, at breakfast on Saturday morning,
Winifred dwelt on the family skeleton.
“That little affair of your father-in-law and your Aunt Irene,
Val—it's old as the hills, of course, Fleur need know nothing
about it—making a fuss. Your Uncle Soames is very particular
about that. So you'll be careful.”
“Yes! But it's dashed awkward—Holly's young half-brother is
coming to live with us while he learns farming. He's there
already.”
“Oh!” said Winifred. “That is a gaff! What is he like?”
“Only saw him once—at Robin Hill, when we were home in 1909; he
was naked and painted blue and yellow in stripes—a jolly little
chap.”
Winifred thought that “rather nice,” and added comfortably:
“Well, Holly's sensible; she'll know how to deal with it. I
shan't tell your uncle. It'll only bother him. It's a great
comfort to have you back, my dear boy, now that I'm getting on.”
“Getting on! Why! you're as young as ever. That chap Profond,
Mother, is he all right?”
“Prosper Profond! Oh! the most amusing man I know.”
Val grunted, and recounted the story of the Mayfly filly.
“That's so like him,” murmured Winifred. “He does all sorts of
things.”
“Well,” said Val shrewdly, “our family haven't been too lucky
with that kind of cattle; they're too light-hearted for us.”
It was true, and Winifred's blue study lasted a full minute
before she answered:
“Oh! well! He's a foreigner, Val; one must make allowances.”
“All right, I'll use his filly and make it up to him, somehow.”
And soon after he gave her his blessing, received a kiss, and
left her for his bookmaker's, the Iseeum Club, and Victoria
station.
VI.—JON
Mrs. Val Dartie, after twenty years of South Africa, had fallen
deeply in love, fortunately with something of her own, for the
object of her passion was the prospect in front of her windows,
the cool clear light on the green Downs. It was England again, at
last! England more beautiful than she had dreamed. Chance had, in
fact, guided the Val Darties to a spot where the South Downs had
real charm when the sun shone. Holly had enough of her father's
eye to apprehend the rare quality of their outlines and chalky
radiance; to go up there by the ravine-like lane and wander along
toward Chanctonbury or Amberley, was still a delight which she
hardly attempted to share with Val, whose admiration of Nature
was confused by a Forsyte's instinct for getting something out of
it, such as the condition of the turf for his horses' exercise.
Driving the Ford home with a certain humouring, smoothness, she
promised herself that the first use she would make of Jon would
be to take him up there, and show him “the view” under this
May-day sky.
She was looking forward to her young half-brother with a
motherliness not exhausted by Val. A three-day visit to Robin
Hill, soon after their arrival home, had yielded no sight of
him—he was still at school; so that her recollection, like Val's,
was of a little sunny-haired boy, striped blue and yellow, down
by the pond.
Those three days at Robin Hill had been exciting, sad,
embarrassing. Memories of her dead brother, memories of Val's
courtship; the ageing of her father, not seen for twenty years,
something funereal in his ironic gentleness which did not escape
one who had much subtle instinct; above all, the presence of her
stepmother, whom she could still vaguely remember as the “lady in
grey” of days when she was little and grandfather alive and
Mademoiselle Beauce so cross because that intruder gave her music
lessons—all these confused and tantalised a spirit which had
longed to find Robin Hill untroubled. But Holly was adept at
keeping things to herself, and all had seemed to go quite well.
Her father had kissed her when she left him, with lips which she
was sure had trembled.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “the War hasn't changed Robin Hill, has
it? If only you could have brought Jolly back with you! I say,
can you stand this spiritualistic racket? When the oak-tree dies,
it dies, I'm afraid.”
From the warmth of her embrace he probably divined that he had
let the cat out of the bag, for he rode off at once on irony.
“Spiritualism—queer word, when the more they manifest the more
they prove that they've got hold of matter.”
“How?” said Holly.
“Why! Look at their photographs of auric presences. You must have
something material for light and shade to fall on before you can
take a photograph. No, it'll end in our calling all matter
spirit, or all spirit matter—I don't know which.”
“But don't you believe in survival, Dad?”
Jolyon had looked at her, and the sad whimsicality of his face
impressed her deeply.
“Well, my dear, I should like to get something out of death. I've
been looking into it a bit. But for the life of me I can't find
anything that telepathy, sub-consciousness, and emanation from
the storehouse of this world can't account for just as well. Wish
I could! Wishes father thought but they don't breed evidence.”
Holly had pressed her lips again to his forehead with the feeling
that it confirmed his theory that all matter was becoming
spirit—his brow felt, somehow, so insubstantial.
But the most poignant memory of that little visit had been
watching, unobserved, her stepmother reading to herself a letter
from Jon. It was—she decided—the prettiest sight she had ever
seen. Irene, lost as it were in the letter of her boy, stood at a
window where the light fell on her face and her fine grey hair;
her lips were moving, smiling, her dark eyes laughing, dancing,
and the hand which did not hold the letter was pressed against
her breast. Holly withdrew as from a vision of perfect love,
convinced that Jon must be nice.
When she saw him coming out of the station with a kit-bag in
either hand, she was confirmed in her predisposition. He was a
little like Jolly, that long-lost idol of her childhood, but
eager-looking and less formal, with deeper eyes and
brighter-coloured hair, for he wore no hat; altogether a very
interesting “little” brother!
His tentative politeness charmed one who was accustomed to
assurance in the youthful manner; he was disturbed because she
was to drive him home, instead of his driving her. Shouldn't he
have a shot? They hadn't a car at Robin Hill since the War, of
course, and he had only driven once, and landed up a bank, so she
oughtn't to mind his trying. His laugh, soft and infectious, was
very attractive, though that word, she had heard, was now quite
old-fashioned. When they reached the house he pulled out a
crumpled letter which she read while he was washing—a quite short
letter, which must have cost her father many a pang to write.
“MY DEAR,
“You and Val will not forget, I trust, that Jon knows nothing of
family history. His mother and I think he is too young at
present. The boy is very dear, and the apple of her eye. Verbum
sapientibus,
“Your loving father,
“J. F.”
That was all; but it renewed in Holly an uneasy regret that Fleur
was coming.
After tea she fulfilled that promise to herself and took Jon up
the hill. They had a long talk, sitting above an old chalk-pit
grown over with brambles and goosepenny. Milkwort and liverwort
starred the green slope, the larks sang, and thrushes in the
brake, and now and then a gull flighting inland would wheel very
white against the paling sky, where the vague moon was coming up.
Delicious fragrance came to them, as if little invisible
creatures were running and treading scent out of the blades of
grass.
Jon, who had fallen silent, said rather suddenly:
“I say, this is wonderful! There's no fat on it at all. Gull's
flight and sheep-bells.”
“'Gull's flight and sheep-bells'. You're a poet, my dear!”
Jon sighed.
“Oh, Golly! No go!”
“Try! I used to at your age.”
“Did you? Mother says 'try' too; but I'm so rotten. Have you any
of yours for me to see?”
“My dear,” Holly murmured, “I've been married nineteen years. I
only wrote verses when I wanted to be.”
“Oh!” said Jon, and turned over on his face: the one cheek she
could see was a charming colour. Was Jon “touched in the wind,”
then, as Val would have called it? Already? But, if so, all the
better, he would take no notice of young Fleur. Besides, on
Monday he would begin his farming. And she smiled. Was it Burns
who followed the plough, or only Piers Plowman? Nearly every
young man and most young women seemed to be poets now, judging
from the number of their books she had read out in South Africa,
importing them from Hatchus and Bumphards; and quite good—oh!
quite; much better than she had been herself! But then poetry had
only really come in since her day—with motor-cars. Another long
talk after dinner over a wood fire in the low hall, and there
seemed little left to know about Jon except anything of real
importance. Holly parted from him at his bedroom door, having
seen twice over that he had everything, with the conviction that
she would love him, and Val would like him. He was eager, but did
not gush; he was a splendid listener, sympathetic, reticent about
himself. He evidently loved their father, and adored his mother.
He liked riding, rowing, and fencing better than games. He saved
moths from candles, and couldn't bear spiders, but put them out
of doors in screws of paper sooner than kill them. In a word, he
was amiable. She went to sleep, thinking that he would suffer
horribly if anybody hurt him; but who would hurt him?
Jon, on the other hand, sat awake at his window with a bit of
paper and a pencil, writing his first “real poem” by the light of
a candle because there was not enough moon to see by, only enough
to make the night seem fluttery and as if engraved on silver.
Just the night for Fleur to walk, and turn her eyes, and lead
on-over the hills and far away. And Jon, deeply furrowed in his
ingenuous brow, made marks on the paper and rubbed them out and
wrote them in again, and did all that was necessary for the
completion of a work of art; and he had a feeling such as the
winds of Spring must have, trying their first songs among the
coming blossom. Jon was one of those boys (not many) in whom a
home-trained love of beauty had survived school life. He had had
to keep it to himself, of course, so that not even the
drawing-master knew of it; but it was there, fastidious and clear
within him. And his poem seemed to him as lame and stilted as the
night was winged. But he kept it, all the same. It was a “beast,”
but better than nothing as an expression of the inexpressible.
And he thought with a sort of discomfiture: 'I shan't be able to
show it to Mother.' He slept terribly well, when he did sleep,
overwhelmed by novelty.
VII.—FLEUR
To avoid the awkwardness of questions which could not be
answered, all that had been told Jon was:
“There's a girl coming down with Val for the week-end.”
For the same reason, all that had been told Fleur was: “We've got
a youngster staying with us.”
The two yearlings, as Val called them in his thoughts, met
therefore in a manner which for unpreparedness left nothing to be
desired. They were thus introduced by Holly:
“This is Jon, my little brother; Fleur's a cousin of ours, Jon.”
Jon, who was coming in through a French window out of strong
sunlight, was so confounded by the providential nature of this
miracle, that he had time to hear Fleur say calmly: “Oh, how do
you do?” as if he had never seen her, and to understand dimly
from the quickest imaginable little movement of her head that he
never had seen her. He bowed therefore over her hand in an
intoxicated manner, and became more silent than the grave. He
knew better than to speak. Once in his early life, surprised
reading by a nightlight, he had said fatuously “I was just
turning over the leaves, Mum,” and his mother had replied: “Jon,
never tell stories, because of your face nobody will ever believe
them.”
The saying had permanently undermined the confidence necessary to
the success of spoken untruth. He listened therefore to Fleur's
swift and rapt allusions to the jolliness of everything, plied
her with scones and jam, and got away as soon as might be. They
say that in delirium tremens you see a fixed object, preferably
dark, which suddenly changes shape and position. Jon saw the
fixed object; it had dark eyes and passably dark hair, and
changed its position, but never its shape. The knowledge that
between him and that object there was already a secret
understanding (however impossible to understand) thrilled him so
that he waited feverishly, and began to copy out his poem—which
of course he would never dare to—show her—till the sound of
horses' hoofs roused him, and, leaning from his window, he saw
her riding forth with Val. It was clear that she wasted no time,
but the sight filled him with grief. He wasted his. If he had not
bolted, in his fearful ecstasy, he might have been asked to go
too. And from his window he sat and watched them disappear,
appear again in the chine of the road, vanish, and emerge once
more for a minute clear on the outline of the Down. 'Silly
brute!' he thought; 'I always miss my chances.'
Why couldn't he be self-confident and ready? And, leaning his
chin on his hands, he imagined the ride he might have had with
her. A week-end was but a week-end, and he had missed three hours
of it. Did he know any one except himself who would have been
such a flat? He did not.
He dressed for dinner early, and was first down. He would miss no
more. But he missed Fleur, who came down last. He sat opposite
her at dinner, and it was terrible—impossible to say anything for
fear of saying the wrong thing, impossible to keep his eyes fixed
on her in the only natural way; in sum, impossible to treat
normally one with whom in fancy he had already been over the
hills and far away; conscious, too, all the time, that he must
seem to her, to all of them, a dumb gawk. Yes, it was terrible!
And she was talking so well—swooping with swift wing this way and
that. Wonderful how she had learned an art which he found so
disgustingly difficult. She must think him hopeless indeed!
His sister's eyes, fixed on him with a certain astonishment,
obliged him at last to look at Fleur; but instantly her eyes,
very wide and eager, seeming to say, “Oh! for goodness' sake!”
obliged him to look at Val, where a grin obliged him to look at
his cutlet—that, at least, had no eyes, and no grin, and he ate
it hastily.
“Jon is going to be a farmer,” he heard Holly say; “a farmer and
a poet.”
He glanced up reproachfully, caught the comic lift of her eyebrow
just like their father's, laughed, and felt better.
Val recounted the incident of Monsieur Prosper Profond; nothing
could have been more favourable, for, in relating it, he regarded
Holly, who in turn regarded him, while Fleur seemed to be
regarding with a slight frown some thought of her own, and Jon
was really free to look at her at last. She had on a white frock,
very simple and well made; her arms were bare, and her hair had a
white rose in it. In just that swift moment of free vision, after
such intense discomfort, Jon saw her sublimated, as one sees in
the dark a slender white fruit-tree; caught her like a verse of
poetry flashed before the eyes of the mind, or a tune which
floats out in the distance and dies. He wondered giddily how old
she was—she seemed so much more self-possessed and experienced
than himself. Why mustn't he say they had met? He remembered
suddenly his mother's face; puzzled, hurt-looking, when she
answered: “Yes, they're relations, but we don't know them.”
Impossible that his mother, who loved beauty, should not admire
Fleur if she did know her.
Alone with Val after dinner, he sipped port deferentially and
answered the advances of this new-found brother-in-law. As to
riding (always the first consideration with Val) he could have
the young chestnut, saddle and unsaddle it himself, and generally
look after it when he brought it in. Jon said he was accustomed
to all that at home, and saw that he had gone up one in his
host's estimation.
“Fleur,” said Val, “can't ride much yet, but she's keen. Of
course, her father doesn't know a horse from a cart-wheel. Does
your Dad ride?”
“He used to; but now he's—you know, he's—” He stopped, so hating
the word “old.” His father was old, and yet not old; no—never!
“Quite,” muttered Val. “I used to know your brother up at Oxford,
ages ago, the one who died in the Boer War. We had a fight in New
College Gardens. That was a queer business,” he added, musing; “a
good deal came out of it.”
Jon's eyes opened wide; all was pushing him toward historical
research, when his sister's voice said gently from the doorway:
“Come along, you two,” and he rose, his heart pushing him toward
something far more modern.
Fleur having declared that it was “simply too wonderful to stay
indoors,” they all went out. Moonlight was frosting the dew, and
an old sundial threw a long shadow. Two box hedges at right
angles, dark and square, barred off the orchard. Fleur turned
through that angled opening.
“Come on!” she called. Jon glanced at the others, and followed.
She was running among the trees like a ghost. All was lovely and
foamlike above her, and there was a scent of old trunks, and of
nettles. She vanished. He thought he had lost her, then almost
ran into her standing quite still.
“Isn't it jolly?” she cried, and Jon answered:
“Rather!”
She reached up, twisted off a blossom and, twirling it in her
fingers, said:
“I suppose I can call you Jon?”
“I should think so just.”
“All right! But you know there's a feud between our families?”
Jon stammered: “Feud? Why?”
“It's ever so romantic and silly. That's why I pretended we
hadn't met. Shall we get up early to-morrow morning and go for a
walk before breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about
things, don't you?”
Jon murmured a rapturous assent.
“Six o'clock, then. I think your mother's beautiful”
Jon said fervently: “Yes, she is.”
“I love all kinds of beauty,” went on Fleur, “when it's exciting.
I don't like Greek things a bit.”
“What! Not Euripides?”
“Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I
think beauty's always swift. I like to look at one picture, for
instance, and then run off. I can't bear a lot of things
together. Look!” She held up her blossom in the moonlight.
“That's better than all the orchard, I think.”
And, suddenly, with her other hand she caught Jon's.
“Of all things in the world, don't you think caution's the most
awful? Smell the moonlight!”
She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that
of all things in the world caution was the worst, and bending
over, kissed the hand which held his.
“That's nice and old-fashioned,” said Fleur calmly. “You're
frightfully silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's swift.”
She let go his hand. “Did you think I dropped my handkerchief on
purpose?”
“No!” cried Jon, intensely shocked.
“Well, I did, of course. Let's get back, or they'll think we're
doing this on purpose too.” And again she ran like a ghost among
the trees. Jon followed, with love in his heart, Spring in his
heart, and over all the moonlit white unearthly blossom. They
came out where they had gone in, Fleur walking demurely.
“It's quite wonderful in there,” she said dreamily to Holly.
Jon preserved silence, hoping against hope that she might be
thinking it swift.
She bade him a casual and demure good-night, which made him think
he had been dreaming....
In her bedroom Fleur had flung off her gown, and, wrapped in a
shapeless garment, with the white flower still in her hair, she
looked like a mousme, sitting cross-legged on her bed, writing by
candlelight.
“DEAREST CHERRY,
“I believe I'm in love. I've got it in the neck, only the feeling
is really lower down. He's a second cousin-such a child, about
six months older and ten years younger than I am. Boys always
fall in love with their seniors, and girls with their juniors or
with old men of forty. Don't laugh, but his eyes are the truest
things I ever saw; and he's quite divinely silent! We had a most
romantic first meeting in London under the Vospovitch Juno. And
now he's sleeping in the next room and the moonlight's on the
blossom; and to-morrow morning, before anybody's awake, we're
going to walk off into Down fairyland. There's a feud between our
families, which makes it really exciting. Yes! and I may have to
use subterfuge and come on you for invitations—if so, you'll know
why! My father doesn't want us to know each other, but I can't
help that. Life's too short. He's got the most beautiful mother,
with lovely silvery hair and a young face with dark eyes. I'm
staying with his sister—who married my cousin; it's all mixed up,
but I mean to pump her to-morrow. We've often talked about love
being a spoil-sport; well, that's all tosh, it's the beginning of
sport, and the sooner you feel it, my dear, the better for you.
“Jon (not simplified spelling, but short for Jolyon, which is a
name in my family, they say) is the sort that lights up and goes
out; about five feet ten, still growing, and I believe he's going
to be a poet. If you laugh at me I've done with you forever. I
perceive all sorts of difficulties, but you know when I really
want a thing I get it. One of the chief effects of love is that
you see the air sort of inhabited, like seeing a face in the
moon; and you feel—you feel dancey and soft at the same time,
with a funny sensation—like a continual first sniff of
orange—blossom—Just above your stays. This is my first, and I
feel as if it were going to be my last, which is absurd, of
course, by all the laws of Nature and morality. If you mock me I
will smite you, and if you tell anybody I will never forgive you.
So much so, that I almost don't think I'll send this letter.
Anyway, I'll sleep over it. So good-night, my Cherry—oh!
“Your,
“FLEUR.”
VIII.—IDYLL ON GRASS
When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine lane, and
set their faces east toward the sun, there was not a cloud in
heaven, and the Downs were dewy. They had come at a good bat up
the slope and were a little out of breath; if they had anything
to say they did not say it, but marched in the early awkwardness
of unbreakfasted morning under the songs of the larks. The
stealing out had been fun, but with the freedom of the tops the
sense of conspiracy ceased, and gave place to dumbness.
“We've made one blooming error,” said Fleur, when they had gone
half a mile. “I'm hungry.”
Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their
tongues were loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes
and previous existences, which had a kind of fascinating
unreality up on that lonely height. There remained but one thing
solid in Jon's past—his mother; but one thing solid in
Fleur's—her father; and of these figures, as though seen in the
distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.
The Down dipped and rose again toward Chanctonbury Ring; a
sparkle of far sea came into view, a sparrow-hawk hovered in the
sun's eye so that the blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed
nearly red. Jon had a passion for birds, and an aptitude for
sitting very still to watch them; keen-sighted, and with a memory
for what interested him, on birds he was almost worth listening
to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there were none—its great beech
temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early hour;
they came out willingly again into the sun on the far side. It
was Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people
treated them. It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would
like to flog people who did that. Jon was astonished to find her
so humanitarian. She knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer
near her home kept chained up at the end of his chicken run, in
all weathers, till it had almost lost its voice from barking!
“And the misery is,” she said vehemently, “that if the poor thing
didn't bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I
do think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the
sly; it's nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes simply
mad with joy; but it always runs back home at last, and they
chain it up again. If I had my way, I'd chain that man up.” Jon
saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. “I'd brand him on his forehead
with the word 'Brute'. that would teach him!”
Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy.
“It's their sense of property,” he said, “which makes people
chain things. The last generation thought of nothing but
property; and that's why there was the War.”
“Oh!” said Fleur, “I never thought of that. Your people and mine
quarrelled about property. And anyway we've all got it—at least,
I suppose your people have.”
“Oh! yes, luckily; I don't suppose I shall be any good at making
money.”
“If you were, I don't believe I should like you.”
Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm. Fleur looked
straight before her and chanted:
“Jon, Jon, the farmer's son, Stole a pig, and away he run!”
Jon's arm crept round her waist.
“This is rather sudden,” said Fleur calmly; “do you often do it?”
Jon dropped his arm. But when she laughed his arm stole back
again; and Fleur began to sing:
“O who will oer the downs so free, O who will with me ride? O who
will up and follow me—-”
“Sing, Jon!”
Jon sang. The larks joined in, sheep-bells, and an early morning
church far away over in Steyning. They went on from tune to tune,
till Fleur said:
“My God! I am hungry now!”
“Oh! I am sorry!”
She looked round into his face.
“Jon, you're rather a darling.”
And she pressed his hand against her waist. Jon almost reeled
from happiness. A yellow-and-white dog coursing a hare startled
them apart. They watched the two vanish down the slope, till
Fleur said with a sigh: “He'll never catch it, thank goodness!
What's the time? Mine's stopped. I never wound it.”
Jon looked at his watch. “By Jove!” he said, “mine's stopped;
too.”
They walked on again, but only hand in hand.
“If the grass is dry,” said Fleur, “let's sit down for half a
minute.”
Jon took off his coat, and they shared it.
“Smell! Actually wild thyme!”
With his arm round her waist again, they sat some minutes in
silence.
“We are goats!” cried Fleur, jumping up; “we shall be most
fearfully late, and look so silly, and put them on their guard.
Look here, Jon We only came out to get an appetite for breakfast,
and lost our way. See?”
“Yes,” said Jon.
“It's serious; there'll be a stopper put on us. Are you a good
liar?”
“I believe not very; but I can try.”
Fleur frowned.
“You know,” she said, “I realize that they don't mean us to be
friends.”
“Why not?”
“I told you why.”
“But that's silly.”
“Yes; but you don't know my father!”
“I suppose he's fearfully fond of you.”
“You see, I'm an only child. And so are you—of your mother. Isn't
it a bore? There's so much expected of one. By the time they've
done expecting, one's as good as dead.”
“Yes,” muttered Jon, “life's beastly short. One wants to live
forever, and know everything.”
“And love everybody?”
“No,” cried Jon; “I only want to love once—you.”
“Indeed! You're coming on! Oh! Look! There's the chalk-pit; we
can't be very far now. Let's run.”
Jon followed, wondering fearfully if he had offended her.
The chalk-pit was full of sunshine and the murmuration of bees.
Fleur flung back her hair.
“Well,” she said, “in case of accidents, you may give me one
kiss, Jon,” and she pushed her cheek forward. With ecstasy he
kissed that hot soft cheek.
“Now, remember! We lost our way; and leave it to me as much as
you can. I'm going to be rather beastly to you; it's safer; try
and be beastly to me!”
Jon shook his head. “That's impossible.”
“Just to please me; till five o'clock, at all events.”
“Anybody will be able to see through it,” said Jon gloomily.
“Well, do your best. Look! There they are! Wave your hat! Oh! you
haven't got one. Well, I'll cooee! Get a little away from me, and
look sulky.”
Five minutes later, entering the house and doing his utmost to
look sulky, Jon heard her clear voice in the dining-room:
“Oh! I'm simply ravenous! He's going to be a farmer—and he loses
his way! The boy's an idiot!”
IX. GOYA
Lunch was over and Soames mounted to the picture-gallery in his
house near Mapleduram. He had what Annette called “a grief.”
Fleur was not yet home. She had been expected on Wednesday; had
wired that it would be Friday; and again on Friday that it would
be Sunday afternoon; and here were her aunt, and her cousins the
Cardigans, and this fellow Profond, and everything flat as a
pancake for the want of her. He stood before his Gauguin—sorest
point of his collection. He had bought the ugly great thing with
two early Matisses before the War, because there was such a fuss
about those Post-Impressionist chaps. He was wondering whether
Profond would take them off his hands—the fellow seemed not to
know what to do with his money—when he heard his sister's voice
say: “I think that's a horrid thing, Soames,” and saw that
Winifred had followed him up.
“Oh! you do?” he said dryly; “I gave five hundred for it.”
“Fancy! Women aren't made like that even if they are black.”
Soames uttered a glum laugh. “You didn't come up to tell me
that.”
“No. Do you know that Jolyon's boy is staying with Val and his
wife?”
Soames spun round.
“What?”
“Yes,” drawled Winifred; “he's gone to live with them there while
he learns farming.”
Soames had turned away, but her voice pursued him as he walked up
and down. “I warned Val that neither of them was to be spoken to
about old matters.”
“Why didn't you tell me before?”
Winifred shrugged her substantial shoulders.
“Fleur does what she likes. You've always spoiled her. Besides,
my dear boy, what's the harm?”
“The harm!” muttered Soames. “Why, she—” he checked himself. The
Juno, the handkerchief, Fleur's eyes, her questions, and now this
delay in her return—the symptoms seemed to him so sinister that,
faithful to his nature, he could not part with them.
“I think you take too much care,” said Winifred. “If I were you,
I should tell her of that old matter. It's no good thinking that
girls in these days are as they used to be. Where they pick up
their knowledge I can't tell, but they seem to know everything.”
Over Soames' face, closely composed, passed a sort of spasm, and
Winifred added hastily:
“If you don't like to speak of it, I could for you.”
Soames shook his head. Unless there was absolute necessity the
thought that his adored daughter should learn of that old scandal
hurt his pride too much.
“No,” he said, “not yet. Never if I can help it.
“Nonsense, my dear. Think what people are!”
“Twenty years is a long time,” muttered Soames. “Outside our
family, who's likely to remember?”
Winifred was silenced. She inclined more and more to that peace
and quietness of which Montague Dartie had deprived her in her
youth. And, since pictures always depressed her, she soon went
down again.
Soames passed into the corner where, side by side, hung his real
Goya and the copy of the fresco “La Vendimia.” His acquisition of
the real Goya rather beautifully illustrated the cobweb of vested
interests and passions which mesh the bright-winged fly of human
life. The real Goya's noble owner's ancestor had come into
possession of it during some Spanish war—it was in a word loot.
The noble owner had remained in ignorance of its value until in
the nineties an enterprising critic discovered that a Spanish
painter named Goya was a genius. It was only a fair Goya, but
almost unique in England, and the noble owner became a marked
man. Having many possessions and that aristocratic culture which,
independent of mere sensuous enjoyment, is founded on the sounder
principle that one must know everything and be fearfully
interested in life, he had fully intended to keep an article
which contributed to his reputation while he was alive, and to
leave it to the nation after he was dead. Fortunately for Soames,
the House of Lords was violently attacked in 1909, and the noble
owner became alarmed and angry. 'If,' he said to himself, 'they
think they can have it both ways they are very much mistaken. So
long as they leave me in quiet enjoyment the nation can have some
of my pictures at my death. But if the nation is going to bait
me, and rob me like this, I'm damned if I won't sell the lot.
They can't have my private property and my public spirit-both.'
He brooded in this fashion for several months till one morning,
after reading the speech of a certain statesman, he telegraphed
to his agent to come down and bring Bodkin. On going over the
collection Bodkin, than whose opinion on market values none was
more sought, pronounced that with a free hand to sell to America,
Germany, and other places where there was an interest in art, a
lot more money could be made than by selling in England. The
noble owner's public spirit—he said—was well known but the
pictures were unique. The noble owner put this opinion in his
pipe and smoked it for a year. At the end of that time he read
another speech by the same statesman, and telegraphed to his
agents: “Give Bodkin a free hand.” It was at this juncture that
Bodkin conceived the idea which saved the Goya and two other
unique pictures for the native country of the noble owner. With
one hand Bodkin proffered the pictures to the foreign market,
with the other he formed a list of private British collectors.
Having obtained what he considered the highest possible bids from
across the seas, he submitted pictures and bids to the private
British collectors, and invited them, of their public spirit, to
outbid. In three instances (including the Goya) out of twenty-one
he was successful. And why? One of the private collectors made
buttons—he had made so many that he desired that his wife should
be called Lady “Buttons.” He therefore bought a unique picture at
great cost, and gave it to the nation. It was “part,” his friends
said, “of his general game.” The second of the private collectors
was an Americophobe, and bought an unique picture to “spite the
damned Yanks.” The third of the private collectors was Soames,
who—more sober than either of the, others—bought after a visit to
Madrid, because he was certain that Goya was still on the up
grade. Goya was not booming at the moment, but he would come
again; and, looking at that portrait, Hogarthian, Manetesque in
its directness, but with its own queer sharp beauty of paint, he
was perfectly satisfied still that he had made no error, heavy
though the price had been—heaviest he had ever paid. And next to
it was hanging the copy of “La Vendimia.” There she was—the
little wretch—looking back at him in her dreamy mood, the mood he
loved best because he felt so much safer when she looked like
that.
He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on his
nostrils, and a voice said:
“Well, Mr. Forsyde, what you goin' to do with this small lot?”
That Belgian chap, whose mother—as if Flemish blood were not
enough—had been Armenian! Subduing a natural irritation, he said:
“Are you a judge of pictures?”
“Well, I've got a few myself.”
“Any Post-Impressionists?”
“Ye-es, I rather like them.”
“What do you think of this?” said Soames, pointing to the
Gauguin.
Monsieur Profond protruded his lower lip and short pointed beard.
“Rather fine, I think,” he said; “do you want to sell it?”
Soames checked his instinctive “Not particularly”—he would not
chaffer with this alien.
“Yes,” he said.
“What do you want for it?”
“What I gave.”
“All right,” said Monsieur Profond. “I'll be glad to take that
small picture. Post-Impressionists—they're awful dead, but
they're amusin'. I don' care for pictures much, but I've got
some, just a small lot.”
“What do you care for?”
Monsieur Profond shrugged his shoulders.
“Life's awful like a lot of monkeys scramblin' for empty nuts.”
“You're young,” said Soames. If the fellow must make a
generalization, he needn't suggest that the forms of property
lacked solidity!
“I don' worry,” replied Monsieur Profond smiling; “we're born,
and we die. Half the world's starvin'. I feed a small lot of
babies out in my mother's country; but what's the use? Might as
well throw my money in the river.”
Soames looked at him, and turned back toward his Goya. He didn't
know what the fellow wanted.
“What shall I make my cheque for?” pursued Monsieur Profond.
“Five hundred,” said Soames shortly; “but I don't want you to
take it if you don't care for it more than that.”
“That's all right,” said Monsieur Profond; “I'll be 'appy to 'ave
that picture.”
He wrote a cheque with a fountain-pen heavily chased with gold.
Soames watched the process uneasily. How on earth had the fellow
known that he wanted to sell that picture? Monsieur Profond held
out the cheque.
“The English are awful funny about pictures,” he said. “So are
the French, so are my people. They're all awful funny.”
“I don't understand you,” said Soames stiffly.
“It's like hats,” said Monsieur Profond enigmatically, “small or
large, turnin' up or down—just the fashion. Awful funny.” And,
smiling, he drifted out of the gallery again, blue and solid like
the smoke of his excellent cigar.
Soames had taken the cheque, feeling as if the intrinsic value of
ownership had been called in question. 'He's a cosmopolitan,' he
thought, watching Profond emerge from under the verandah with
Annette, and saunter down the lawn toward the river. What his
wife saw in the fellow he didn't know, unless it was that he
could speak her language; and there passed in Soames what
Monsieur Profond would have called a “small doubt” whether
Annette was not too handsome to be walking with any one so
“cosmopolitan.” Even at that distance he could see the blue fumes
from Profond's cigar wreath out in the quiet sunlight; and his
grey buckskin shoes, and his grey hat—the fellow was a dandy! And
he could see the quick turn of his wife's head, so very straight
on her desirable neck and shoulders. That turn of her neck always
seemed to him a little too showy, and in the “Queen of all I
survey” manner—not quite distinguished. He watched them walk
along the path at the bottom of the garden. A young man in
flannels joined them down there—a Sunday caller no doubt, from up
the river. He went back to his Goya. He was still staring at that
replica of Fleur, and worrying over Winifred's news, when his
wife's voice said:
“Mr. Michael Mont, Soames. You invited him to see your pictures.”
There was the cheerful young man of the Gallery off Cork Street!
“Turned up, you see, sir; I live only four miles from Pangbourne.
Jolly day, isn't it?”
Confronted with the results of his expansiveness, Soames
scrutinized his visitor. The young man's mouth was excessively
large and curly—he seemed always grinning. Why didn't he grow the
rest of those idiotic little moustaches, which made him look like
a music-hall buffoon? What on earth were young men about,
deliberately lowering their class with these tooth-brushes, or
little slug whiskers? Ugh! Affected young idiots! In other
respects he was presentable, and his flannels very clean.
“Happy to see you!” he said.
The young man, who had been turning his head from side to side,
became transfixed. “I say!” he said, “'some' picture!”
Soames saw, with mixed sensations, that he had addressed the
remark to the Goya copy.
“Yes,” he said dryly, “that's not a Goya. It's a copy. I had it
painted because it reminded me of my daughter.”
“By Jove! I thought I knew the face, sir. Is she here?”
The frankness of his interest almost disarmed Soames.
“She'll be in after tea,” he said. “Shall we go round the
pictures?”
And Soames began that round which never tired him. He had not
anticipated much intelligence from one who had mistaken a copy
for an original, but as they passed from section to section,
period to period, he was startled by the young man's frank and
relevant remarks. Natively shrewd himself, and even sensuous
beneath his mask, Soames had not spent thirty-eight years over
his one hobby without knowing something more about pictures than
their market values. He was, as it were, the missing link between
the artist and the commercial public. Art for art's sake and all
that, of course, was cant. But aesthetics and good taste were
necessary. The appreciation of enough persons of good taste was
what gave a work of art its permanent market value, or in other
words made it “a work of art.” There was no real cleavage. And he
was sufficiently accustomed to sheep-like and unseeing visitors,
to be intrigued by one who did not hesitate to say of Mauve:
“Good old haystacks!” or of James Maris: “Didn't he just paint
and paper 'em! Mathew was the real swell, sir; you could dig into
his surfaces!” It was after the young man had whistled before a
Whistler, with the words, “D'you think he ever really saw a naked
woman, sir?” that Soames remarked:
“What are you, Mr. Mont, if I may ask?”
“I, sir? I was going to be a painter, but the War knocked that.
Then in the trenches, you know, I used to dream of the Stock
Exchange, snug and warm and just noisy enough. But the Peace
knocked that, shares seem off, don't they? I've only been
demobbed about a year. What do you recommend, sir?”
“Have you got money?”
“Well,” answered the young man, “I've got a father; I kept him
alive during the War, so he's bound to keep me alive now. Though,
of course, there's the question whether he ought to be allowed to
hang on to his property. What do you think about that, sir?”
Soames, pale and defensive, smiled.
“The old man has fits when I tell him he may have to work yet.
He's got land, you know; it's a fatal disease.”
“This is my real Goya,” said Soames dryly.
“By George! He was a swell. I saw a Goya in Munich once that
bowled me middle stump. A most evil-looking old woman in the most
gorgeous lace. He made no compromise with the public taste. That
old boy was 'some' explosive; he must have smashed up a lot of
convention in his day. Couldn't he just paint! He makes Velasquez
stiff, don't you think?”
“I have no Velasquez,” said Soames.
The young man stared. “No,” he said; “only nations or profiteers
can afford him, I suppose. I say, why shouldn't all the bankrupt
nations sell their Velasquez and Titians and other swells to the
profiteers by force, and then pass a law that any one who holds a
picture by an Old Master—see schedule—must hang it in a public
gallery? There seems something in that.”
“Shall we go down to tea?” said Soames.
The young man's ears seemed to droop on his skull. 'He's not
dense,' thought Soames, following him off the premises.
Goya, with his satiric and surpassing precision, his original
“line,” and the daring of his light and shade, could have
reproduced to admiration the group assembled round Annette's
tea-tray in the inglenook below. He alone, perhaps, of painters
would have done justice to the sunlight filtering through a
screen of creeper, to the lovely pallor of brass, the old cut
glasses, the thin slices of lemon in pale amber tea; justice to
Annette in her black lacey dress; there was something of the fair
Spaniard in her beauty, though it lacked the spirituality of that
rare type; to Winifred's grey-haired, corseted solidity; to
Soames, of a certain grey and flat-cheeked distinction; to the
vivacious Michael Mont, pointed in ear and eye; to Imogen, dark,
luscious of glance, growing a little stout; to Prosper Profond,
with his expression as who should say, “Well, Mr. Goya, what's
the use of paintin' this small party?” finally, to Jack Cardigan,
with his shining stare and tanned sanguinity betraying the moving
principle: “I'm English, and I live to be fit.”
Curious, by the way, that Imogen, who as a girl had declared
solemnly one day at Timothy's that she would never marry a good
man—they were so dull—should have married Jack Cardigan, in whom
health had so destroyed all traces of original sin, that she
might have retired to rest with ten thousand other Englishmen
without knowing the difference from the one she had chosen to
repose beside. “Oh!” she would say of him, in her “amusing” way,
“Jack keeps himself so fearfully fit; he's never had a day's
illness in his life. He went right through the War without a
finger-ache. You really can't imagine how fit he is!” Indeed, he
was so “fit” that he couldn't see when she was flirting, which
was such a comfort in a way. All the same she was quite fond of
him, so far as one could be of a sports-machine, and of the two
little Cardigans made after his pattern. Her eyes just then were
comparing him maliciously with Prosper Profond. There was no
“small” sport or game which Monsieur Profond had not played at
too, it seemed, from skittles to tarpon-fishing, and worn out
every one. Imogen would sometimes wish that they had worn out
Jack, who continued to play at them and talk of them with the
simple zeal of a school-girl learning hockey; at the age of
Great-uncle Timothy she well knew that Jack would be playing
carpet golf in her bedroom, and “wiping somebody's eye.”
He was telling them now how he had “pipped the pro—a charmin'
fellow, playin' a very good game,” at the last hole this morning;
and how he had pulled down to Caversham since lunch, and trying
to incite Prosper Profond to play him a set of tennis after
tea—do him good—“keep him fit.
“But what's the use of keepin' fit?” said Monsieur Profond.
“Yes, sir,” murmured Michael Mont, “what do you keep fit for?”
“Jack,” cried Imogen, enchanted, “what do you keep fit for?”
Jack Cardigan stared with all his health. The questions were like
the buzz of a mosquito, and he put up his hand to wipe them away.
During the War, of course, he had kept fit to kill Germans; now
that it was over he either did not know, or shrank in delicacy
from explanation of his moving principle.
“But he's right,” said Monsieur Profond unexpectedly, “there's
nothin' left but keepin' fit.”
The saying, too deep for Sunday afternoon, would have passed
unanswered, but for the mercurial nature of young Mont.
“Good!” he cried. “That's the great discovery of the War. We all
thought we were progressing—now we know we're only changing.”
“For the worse,” said Monsieur Profond genially.
“How you are cheerful, Prosper!” murmured Annette.
“You come and play tennis!” said Jack Cardigan; “you've got the
hump. We'll soon take that down. D'you play, Mr. Mont?”
“I hit the ball about, sir.”
At this juncture Soames rose, ruffled in that deep instinct of
preparation for the future which guided his existence.
“When Fleur comes—” he heard Jack Cardigan say.
Ah! and why didn't she come? He passed through drawing-room,
hall, and porch out on to the drive, and stood there listening
for the car. All was still and Sundayfied; the lilacs in full
flower scented the air. There were white clouds, like the
feathers of ducks gilded by the sunlight. Memory of the day when
Fleur was born, and he had waited in such agony with her life and
her mother's balanced in his hands, came to him sharply. He had
saved her then, to be the flower of his life. And now! was she
going to give him trouble—pain—give him trouble? He did not like
the look of things! A blackbird broke in on his reverie with an
evening song—a great big fellow up in that acacia-tree. Soames
had taken quite an interest in his birds of late years; he and
Fleur would walk round and watch them; her eyes were sharp as
needles, and she knew every nest. He saw her dog, a retriever,
lying on the drive in a patch of sunlight, and called to him.
“Hallo, old fellow-waiting for her too!” The dog came slowly with
a grudging tail, and Soames mechanically laid a pat on his head.
The dog, the bird, the lilac, all were part of Fleur for him; no
more, no less. 'Too fond of her!' he thought, 'too fond!' He was
like a man uninsured, with his ships at sea. Uninsured again—as
in that other time, so long ago, when he would wander dumb and
jealous in the wilderness of London, longing for that woman—his
first wife—the mother of this infernal boy. Ah! There was the car
at last! It drew up, it had luggage, but no Fleur.
“Miss Fleur is walking up, sir, by the towing-path.”
Walking all those miles? Soames stared. The man's face had the
beginning of a smile on it. What was he grinning at? And very
quickly he turned, saying, “All right, Sims!” and went into the
house. He mounted to the picture-gallery once more. He had from
there a view of the river bank, and stood with his eyes fixed on
it, oblivious of the fact that it would be an hour at least
before her figure showed there. Walking up! And that fellow's
grin! The boy—! He turned abruptly from the window. He couldn't
spy on her. If she wanted to keep things from him—she must; he
could not spy on her. His heart felt empty, and bitterness
mounted from it into his very mouth. The staccato shouts of Jack
Cardigan pursuing the ball, the laugh of young Mont rose in the
stillness and came in. He hoped they were making that chap
Profond run. And the girl in “La Vendimia” stood with her arm
akimbo and her dreamy eyes looking past him. 'I've done all I
could for you,' he thought, 'since you were no higher than my
knee. You aren't going to—to—hurt me, are you?'
But the Goya copy answered not, brilliant in colour just
beginning to tone down. 'There's no real life in it,' thought
Soames. 'Why doesn't she come?'
X.—TRIO
Among those four Forsytes of the third, and, as one might say,
fourth generation, at Wansdon under the Downs, a week-end
prolonged unto the ninth day had stretched the crossing threads
of tenacity almost to snapping-point. Never had Fleur been so
“fine,” Holly so watchful, Val so stable-secretive, Jon so silent
and disturbed. What he learned of farming in that week might have
been balanced on the point of a penknife and puffed off. He,
whose nature was essentially averse from intrigue, and whose
adoration of Fleur disposed him to think that any need for
concealing it was “skittles,” chafed and fretted, yet obeyed,
taking what relief he could in the few moments when they were
alone. On Thursday, while they were standing in the bay window of
the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, she said to him:
“Jon, I'm going home on Sunday by the 3.40 from Paddington; if
you were to go home on Saturday you could come up on Sunday and
take me down, and just get back here by the last train, after.
You were going home anyway, weren't you?”
Jon nodded.
“Anything to be with you,” he said; “only why need I pretend—”
Fleur slipped her little finger into his palm:
“You have no instinct, Jon; you must leave things to me. It's
serious about our people. We've simply got to be secret at
present, if we want to be together.” The door was opened, and she
added loudly: “You are a duffer, Jon.”
Something turned over within Jon; he could not bear this
subterfuge about a feeling so natural, so overwhelming, and so
sweet.
On Friday night about eleven he had packed his bag, and was
leaning out of his window, half miserable, and half lost in a
dream of Paddington station, when he heard a tiny sound, as of a
finger-nail tapping on his door. He rushed to it and listened.
Again the sound. It was a nail. He opened. Oh! What a lovely
thing came in!
“I wanted to show you my fancy dress,” it said, and struck an
attitude at the foot of his bed.
Jon drew a long breath and leaned against the door. The
apparition wore white muslin on its head, a fichu round its bare
neck over a wine-coloured dress, fulled out below its slender
waist.
It held one arm akimbo, and the other raised, right-angled,
holding a fan which touched its head.
“This ought to be a basket of grapes,” it whispered, “but I
haven't got it here. It's my Goya dress. And this is the attitude
in the picture. Do you like it?”
“It's a dream.”
The apparition pirouetted. “Touch it, and see.”
Jon knelt down and took the skirt reverently.
“Grape colour,” came the whisper, “all grapes—La Vendimia—the
vintage.”
Jon's fingers scarcely touched each side of the waist; he looked
up, with adoring eyes.
“Oh! Jon,” it whispered; bent, kissed his forehead, pirouetted
again, and, gliding out, was gone.
Jon stayed on his knees, and his head fell forward against the
bed. How long he stayed like that he did not know. The little
noises—of the tapping nail, the feet, the skirts rustling—as in a
dream—went on about him; and before his closed eyes the figure
stood and smiled and whispered, a faint perfume of narcissus
lingering in the air. And his forehead where it had been kissed
had a little cool place between the brows, like the imprint of a
flower. Love filled his soul, that love of boy for girl which
knows so little, hopes so much, would not brush the down off for
the world, and must become in time a fragrant memory—a searing
passion—a humdrum mateship—or, once in many times, vintage full
and sweet with sunset colour on the grapes.
Enough has been said about Jon Forsyte here and in another place
to show what long marches lay between him and his
great-great-grandfather, the first Jolyon, in Dorset down by the
sea. Jon was sensitive as a girl, more sensitive than nine out of
ten girls of the day; imaginative as one of his half-sister
June's “lame duck” painters; affectionate as a son of his father
and his mother naturally would be. And yet, in his inner tissue,
there was something of the old founder of his family, a secret
tenacity of soul, a dread of showing his feelings, a
determination not to know when he was beaten. Sensitive,
imaginative, affectionate boys get a bad time at school, but Jon
had instinctively kept his nature dark, and been but normally
unhappy there. Only with his mother had he, up till then, been
absolutely frank and natural; and when he went home to Robin Hill
that Saturday his heart was heavy because Fleur had said that he
must not be frank and natural with her from whom he had never yet
kept anything, must not even tell her that they had met again,
unless he found that she knew already. So intolerable did this
seem to him that he was very near to telegraphing an excuse and
staying up in London. And the first thing his mother said to him
was:
“So you've had our little friend of the confectioner's there,
Jon. What is she like on second thoughts?”
With relief, and a high colour, Jon answered:
“Oh! awfully jolly, Mum.”
Her arm pressed his.
Jon had never loved her so much as in that minute which seemed to
falsify Fleur's fears and to release his soul. He turned to look
at her, but something in her smiling face—something which only he
perhaps would have caught—stopped the words bubbling up in him.
Could fear go with a smile? If so, there was fear in her face.
And out of Jon tumbled quite other words, about farming, Holly,
and the Downs. Talking fast, he waited for her to come back to
Fleur. But she did not. Nor did his father mention her, though of
course he, too, must know. What deprivation, and killing of
reality was in his silence about Fleur—when he was so full of
her; when his mother was so full of Jon, and his father so full
of his mother! And so the trio spent the evening of that
Saturday.
After dinner his mother played; she seemed to play all the things
he liked best, and he sat with one knee clasped, and his hair
standing up where his fingers had run through it. He gazed at his
mother while she played, but he saw Fleur—Fleur in the moonlit
orchard, Fleur in the sunlit gravel-pit, Fleur in that fancy
dress, swaying, whispering, stooping, kissing his forehead. Once,
while he listened, he forgot himself and glanced at his father in
that other easy chair. What was Dad looking like that for? The
expression on his face was so sad and puzzling. It filled him
with a sort of remorse, so that he got up and went and sat on the
arm of his father's chair. From there he could not see his face;
and again he saw Fleur—in his mother's hands, slim and white on
the keys, in the profile of her face and her powdery hair; and
down the long room in the open window where the May night walked
outside.
When he went up to bed his mother came into his room. She stood
at the window, and said:
“Those cypresses your grandfather planted down there have done
wonderfully. I always think they look beautiful under a dropping
moon. I wish you had known your grandfather, Jon.”
“Were you married to father when he was alive?” asked Jon
suddenly.
“No, dear; he died in '92—very old—eighty-five, I think.”
“Is Father like him?”
“A little, but more subtle, and not quite so solid.”
“I know, from grandfather's portrait; who painted that?”
“One of June's 'lame ducks.' But it's quite good.”
Jon slipped his hand through his mother's arm. “Tell me about the
family quarrel, Mum.”
He felt her arm quivering. “No, dear; that's for your Father some
day, if he thinks fit.”
“Then it was serious,” said Jon, with a catch in his breath.
“Yes.” And there was a silence, during which neither knew whether
the arm or the hand within it were quivering most.
“Some people,” said Irene softly, “think the moon on her back is
evil; to me she's always lovely. Look at those cypress shadows!
Jon, Father says we may go to Italy, you and I, for two months.
Would you like?”
Jon took his hand from under her arm; his sensation was so sharp
and so confused. Italy with his mother! A fortnight ago it would
have been perfection; now it filled him with dismay; he felt that
the sudden suggestion had to do with Fleur. He stammered out:
“Oh! yes; only—I don't know. Ought I—now I've just begun? I'd
like to think it over.”
Her voice answered, cool and gentle:
“Yes, dear; think it over. But better now than when you've begun
farming seriously. Italy with you! It would be nice!”
Jon put his arm round her waist, still slim and firm as a girl's.
“Do you think you ought to leave Father?” he said feebly, feeling
very mean.
“Father suggested it; he thinks you ought to see Italy at least
before you settle down to anything.”
The sense of meanness died in Jon; he knew, yes—he knew—that his
father and his mother were not speaking frankly, no more than he
himself. They wanted to keep him from Fleur. His heart hardened.
And, as if she felt that process going on, his mother said:
“Good-night, darling. Have a good sleep and think it over. But it
would be lovely!”
She pressed him to her so quickly that he did not see her face.
Jon stood feeling exactly as he used to when he was a naughty
little boy; sore because he was not loving, and because he was
justified in his own eyes.
But Irene, after she had stood a moment in her own room, passed
through the dressing-room between it and her husband's.
“Well?”
“He will think it over, Jolyon.”
Watching her lips that wore a little drawn smile, Jolyon said
quietly:
“You had better let me tell him, and have done with it. After
all, Jon has the instincts of a gentleman. He has only to
understand—”
“Only! He can't understand; that's impossible.”
“I believe I could have at his age.”
Irene caught his hand. “You were always more of a realist than
Jon; and never so innocent.”
“That's true,” said Jolyon. “It's queer, isn't it? You and I
would tell our stories to the world without a particle of shame;
but our own boy stumps us.”
“We've never cared whether the world approves or not.”
“Jon would not disapprove of us!”
“Oh! Jolyon, yes. He's in love, I feel he's in love. And he'd
say: 'My mother once married without love! How could she have!'
It'll seem to him a crime! And so it was!”
Jolyon took her hand, and said with a wry smile:
“Ah! why on earth are we born young? Now, if only we were born
old and grew younger year by year, we should understand how
things happen, and drop all our cursed intolerance. But you know
if the boy is really in love, he won't forget, even if he goes to
Italy. We're a tenacious breed; and he'll know by instinct why
he's being sent. Nothing will really cure him but the shock of
being told.”
“Let me try, anyway.”
Jolyon stood a moment without speaking. Between this devil and
this deep sea—the pain of a dreaded disclosure and the grief of
losing his wife for two months—he secretly hoped for the devil;
yet if she wished for the deep sea he must put up with it. After
all, it would be training for that departure from which there
would be no return. And, taking her in his arms, he kissed her
eyes, and said:
“As you will, my love.”
XI.—DUET
That “small” emotion, love, grows amazingly when threatened with
extinction. Jon reached Paddington station half an hour before
his time and a full week after, as it seemed to him. He stood at
the appointed bookstall, amid a crowd of Sunday travellers, in a
Harris tweed suit exhaling, as it were, the emotion of his
thumping heart. He read the names of the novels on the
book-stall, and bought one at last, to avoid being regarded with
suspicion by the book-stall clerk. It was called “The Heart of
the Trail!” which must mean something, though it did not seem to.
He also bought “The Lady's Mirror” and “The Landsman.” Every
minute was an hour long, and full of horrid imaginings. After
nineteen had passed, he saw her with a bag and a porter wheeling
her luggage. She came swiftly; she came cool. She greeted him as
if he were a brother.
“First class,” she said to the porter, “corner seats; opposite.”
Jon admired her frightful self-possession.
“Can't we get a carriage to ourselves,” he whispered.
“No good; it's a stopping train. After Maidenhead perhaps. Look
natural, Jon.”
Jon screwed his features into a scowl. They got in—with two other
beasts!—oh! heaven! He tipped the porter unnaturally, in his
confusion. The brute deserved nothing for putting them in there,
and looking as if he knew all about it into the bargain.
Fleur hid herself behind “The Lady's Mirror.” Jon imitated her
behind “The Landsman.” The train started. Fleur let “The Lady's
Mirror” fall and leaned forward.
“Well?” she said.
“It's seemed about fifteen days.”
She nodded, and Jon's face lighted up at once.
“Look natural,” murmured Fleur, and went off into a bubble of
laughter. It hurt him. How could he look natural with Italy
hanging over him? He had meant to break it to her gently, but now
he blurted it out.
“They want me to go to Italy with Mother for two months.”
Fleur drooped her eyelids; turned a little pale, and bit her
lips. “Oh!” she said. It was all, but it was much.
That “Oh!” was like the quick drawback of the wrist in fencing
ready for riposte. It came.
“You must go!”
“Go?” said Jon in a strangled voice.
“Of course.”
“But—two months—it's ghastly.”
“No,” said Fleur, “six weeks. You'll have forgotten me by then.
We'll meet in the National Gallery the day after you get back.”
Jon laughed.
“But suppose you've forgotten me,” he muttered into the noise of
the train.
Fleur shook her head.
“Some other beast—” murmured Jon.
Her foot touched his.
“No other beast,” she said, lifting “The Lady's Mirror.”
The train stopped; two passengers got out, and one got in.
'I shall die,' thought Jon, 'if we're not alone at all.'
The train went on; and again Fleur leaned forward.
“I never let go,” she said; “do you?”
Jon shook his head vehemently.
“Never!” he said. “Will you write to me?”
“No; but you can—to my Club.”
She had a Club; she was wonderful!
“Did you pump Holly?” he muttered.
“Yes, but I got nothing. I didn't dare pump hard.”
“What can it be?” cried Jon.
“I shall find out all right.”
A long silence followed till Fleur said: “This is Maidenhead;
stand by, Jon!”
The train stopped. The remaining passenger got out. Fleur drew
down her blind.
“Quick!” she cried. “Hang out! Look as much of a beast as you
can.”
Jon blew his nose, and scowled; never in all his life had he
scowled like that! An old lady recoiled, a young one tried the
handle. It turned, but the door would not open. The train moved,
the young lady darted to another carriage.
“What luck!” cried Jon. “It Jammed.”
“Yes,” said Fleur; “I was holding it.”
The train moved out, and Jon fell on his knees.
“Look out for the corridor,” she whispered; “and—quick!”
Her lips met his. And though their kiss only lasted perhaps ten
seconds, Jon's soul left his body and went so far beyond, that,
when he was again sitting opposite that demure figure, he was
pale as death. He heard her sigh, and the sound seemed to him the
most precious he had ever heard—an exquisite declaration that he
meant something to her.
“Six weeks isn't really long,” she said; “and you can easily make
it six if you keep your head out there, and never seem to think
of me.”
Jon gasped.
“This is just what's really wanted, Jon, to convince them, don't
you see? If we're just as bad when you come back they'll stop
being ridiculous about it. Only, I'm sorry it's not Spain;
there's a girl in a Goya picture at Madrid who's like me, Father
says. Only she isn't—we've got a copy of her.”
It was to Jon like a ray of sunshine piercing through a fog.
“I'll make it Spain,” he said, “Mother won't mind; she's never
been there. And my Father thinks a lot of Goya.”
“Oh! yes, he's a painter—isn't he?”
“Only water-colour,” said Jon, with honesty.
“When we come to Reading, Jon, get out first and go down to
Caversham lock and wait for me. I'll send the car home and we'll
walk by the towing-path.”
Jon seized her hand in gratitude, and they sat silent, with the
world well lost, and one eye on the corridor. But the train
seemed to run twice as fast now, and its sound was almost lost in
that of Jon's sighing.
“We're getting near,” said Fleur; “the towing-path's awfully
exposed. One more! Oh! Jon, don't forget me.”
Jon answered with his kiss. And very soon, a flushed,
distracted-looking youth could have been seen—as they say—leaping
from the train and hurrying along the platform, searching his
pockets for his ticket.
When at last she rejoined him on the towing-path a little beyond
Caversham lock he had made an effort, and regained some measure
of equanimity. If they had to part, he would not make a scene! A
breeze by the bright river threw the white side of the willow
leaves up into the sunlight, and followed those two with its
faint rustle.
“I told our chauffeur that I was train-giddy,” said Fleur. “Did
you look pretty natural as you went out?”
“I don't know. What is natural?”
“It's natural to you to look seriously happy. When I first saw
you I thought you weren't a bit like other people.”
“Exactly what I thought when I saw you. I knew at once I should
never love anybody else.”
Fleur laughed.
“We're absurdly young. And love's young dream is out of date,
Jon. Besides, it's awfully wasteful. Think of all the fun you
might have. You haven't begun, even; it's a shame, really. And
there's me. I wonder!”
Confusion came on Jon's spirit. How could she say such things
just as they were going to part?
“If you feel like that,” he said, “I can't go. I shall tell
Mother that I ought to try and work. There's always the condition
of the world!”
“The condition of the world!”
Jon thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
“But there is,” he said; “think of the people starving!”
Fleur shook her head. “No, no, I never, never will make myself
miserable for nothing.”
“Nothing! But there's an awful state of things, and of course one
ought to help.”
“Oh! yes, I know all that. But you can't help people, Jon;
they're hopeless. When you pull them out they only get into
another hole. Look at them, still fighting and plotting and
struggling, though they're dying in heaps all the time. Idiots!”
“Aren't you sorry for them?”
“Oh! sorry—yes, but I'm not going to make myself unhappy about
it; that's no good.”
And they were silent, disturbed by this first glimpse of each
other's natures.
“I think people are brutes and idiots,” said Fleur stubbornly.
“I think they're poor wretches,” said Jon. It was as if they had
quarrelled—and at this supreme and awful moment, with parting
visible out there in that last gap of the willows!
“Well, go and help your poor wretches, and don't think of me.”
Jon stood still. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his limbs
trembled. Fleur too had stopped, and was frowning at the river.
“I must believe in things,” said Jon with a sort of agony; “we're
all meant to enjoy life.”
Fleur laughed. “Yes; and that's what you won't do, if you don't
take care. But perhaps your idea of enjoyment is to make yourself
wretched. There are lots of people like that, of course.”
She was pale, her eyes had darkened, her lips had thinned. Was it
Fleur thus staring at the water? Jon had an unreal feeling as if
he were passing through the scene in a book where the lover has
to choose between love and duty. But just then she looked round
at him. Never was anything so intoxicating as that vivacious
look. It acted on him exactly as the tug of a chain acts on a
dog—brought him up to her with his tail wagging and his tongue
out.
“Don't let's be silly,” she said, “time's too short. Look, Jon,
you can just see where I've got to cross the river. There, round
the bend, where the woods begin.”
Jon saw a gable, a chimney or two, a patch of wall through the
trees—and felt his heart sink.
“I mustn't dawdle any more. It's no good going beyond the next
hedge, it gets all open. Let's get on to it and say good-bye.”
They went side by side, hand in hand, silently toward the hedge,
where the may-flower, both pink and white, was in full bloom.
“My Club's the 'Talisman,' Stratton Street, Piccadilly. Letters
there will be quite safe, and I'm almost always up once a week.”
Jon nodded. His face had become extremely set, his eyes stared
straight before him.
“To-day's the twenty-third of May,” said Fleur; “on the ninth of
July I shall be in front of the 'Bacchus and Ariadne' at three
o'clock; will you?”
“I will.”
“If you feel as bad as I it's all right. Let those people pass!”
A man and woman airing their children went by strung out in
Sunday fashion.
The last of them passed the wicket gate.
“Domesticity!” said Fleur, and blotted herself against the
hawthorn hedge. The blossom sprayed out above her head, and one
pink cluster brushed her cheek. Jon put up his hand jealously to
keep it off.
“Good-bye, Jon.” For a second they stood with hands hard clasped.
Then their lips met for the third time, and when they parted
Fleur broke away and fled through the wicket gate. Jon stood
where she had left him, with his forehead against that pink
cluster. Gone! For an eternity—for seven weeks all but two days!
And here he was, wasting the last sight of her! He rushed to the
gate. She was walking swiftly on the heels of the straggling
children. She turned her head, he saw her hand make a little
flitting gesture; then she sped on, and the trailing family
blotted her out from his view.
The words of a comic song—
“Paddington groan-worst ever known He gave a sepulchral
Paddington groan—”
came into his head, and he sped incontinently back to Reading
station. All the way up to London and down to Wansdon he sat with
“The Heart of the Trail” open on his knee, knitting in his head a
poem so full of feeling that it would not rhyme.
XII.—CAPRICE
Fleur sped on. She had need of rapid motion; she was late, and
wanted all her wits about her when she got in. She passed the
islands, the station, and hotel, and was about to take the ferry,
when she saw a skiff with a young man standing up in it, and
holding to the bushes.
“Miss Forsyte,” he said; “let me put you across. I've come on
purpose.”
She looked at him in blank amazement.
“It's all right, I've been having tea with your people. I thought
I'd save you the last bit. It's on my way, I'm just off back to
Pangbourne. My name's Mont. I saw you at the picture-gallery—you
remember—when your father invited me to see his pictures.”
“Oh!” said Fleur; “yes—the handkerchief.”
To this young man she owed Jon; and, taking his hand, she stepped
down into the skiff. Still emotional, and a little out of breath,
she sat silent; not so the young man. She had never heard any one
say so much in so short a time. He told her his age, twenty-four;
his weight, ten stone eleven; his place of residence, not far
away; described his sensations under fire, and what it felt like
to be gassed; criticized the Juno, mentioned his own conception
of that goddess; commented on the Goya copy, said Fleur was not
too awfully like it; sketched in rapidly the condition of
England; spoke of Monsieur Profond—or whatever his name was—as
“an awful sport”; thought her father had some “ripping” pictures
and some rather “dug-up”; hoped he might row down again and take
her on the river because he was quite trustworthy; inquired her
opinion of Tchekov, gave her his own; wished they could go to the
Russian ballet together some time—considered the name Fleur
Forsyte simply topping; cursed his people for giving him the name
of Michael on the top of Mont; outlined his father, and said that
if she wanted a good book she should read “Job”; his father was
rather like Job while Job still had land.
“But Job didn't have land,” Fleur murmured; “he only had flocks
and herds and moved on.”
“Ah!” answered Michael Mont, “I wish my gov'nor would move on.
Not that I want his land. Land's an awful bore in these days,
don't you think?”
“We never have it in my family,” said Fleur. “We have everything
else. I believe one of my great-uncles once had a sentimental
farm in Dorset, because we came from there originally, but it
cost him more than it made him happy.”
“Did he sell it?”
“No; he kept it.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody would buy it.”
“Good for the old boy!”
“No, it wasn't good for him. Father says it soured him. His name
was Swithin.”
“What a corking name!”
“Do you know that we're getting farther off, not nearer? This
river flows.”
“Splendid!” cried Mont, dipping his sculls vaguely; “it's good to
meet a girl who's got wit.”
“But better to meet a young man who's got it in the plural.”
Young Mont raised a hand to tear his hair.
“Look out!” cried Fleur. “Your scull!”
“All right! It's thick enough to bear a scratch.”
“Do you mind sculling?” said Fleur severely. “I want to get in.”
“Ah!” said Mont; “but when you get in, you see, I shan't see you
any more to-day. Fini, as the French girl said when she jumped on
her bed after saying her prayers. Don't you bless the day that
gave you a French mother, and a name like yours?”
“I like my name, but Father gave it me. Mother wanted me called
Marguerite.”
“Which is absurd. Do you mind calling me M. M. and letting me
call you F. F.? It's in the spirit of the age.”
“I don't mind anything, so long as I get in.”
Mont caught a little crab, and answered: “That was a nasty one!”
“Please row.”
“I am.” And he did for several strokes, looking at her with
rueful eagerness. “Of course, you know,” he ejaculated, pausing,
“that I came to see you, not your father's pictures.”
Fleur rose.
“If you don't row, I shall get out and swim.”
“Really and truly? Then I could come in after you.”
“Mr. Mont, I'm late and tired; please put me on shore at once.”
When she stepped out on to the garden landing-stage he rose, and
grasping his hair with both hands, looked at her.
Fleur smiled.
“Don't!” cried the irrepressible Mont. “I know you're going to
say: 'Out, damned hair!'”
Fleur whisked round, threw him a wave of her hand. “Good-bye, Mr.
M.M.!” she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked
at her wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as
curiously uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering
to roost, and sunlight slanted on the dovecot, on their snowy
feathers, and beyond in a shower on the top boughs of the woods.
The click of billiard-balls came from the ingle-nook—Jack
Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling, too, from an
eucalyptus-tree, startling Southerner in this old English garden.
She reached the verandah and was passing in, but stopped at the
sound of voices from the drawing-room to her left. Mother!
Monsieur Profond! From behind the verandah screen which fenced
the ingle-nook she heard these words:
“I don't, Annette.”
Did Father know that he called her mother “Annette”? Always on
the side of her Father—as children are ever on one side or the
other in houses where relations are a little strained—she stood,
uncertain. Her mother was speaking in her low, pleasing, slightly
metallic voice—one word she caught: “Demain.” And Profond's
answer: “All right.” Fleur frowned. A little sound came out into
the stillness. Then Profond's voice: “I'm takin' a small stroll.”
Fleur darted through the window into the morning-room. There he
came from the drawing-room, crossing the verandah, down the lawn;
and the click of billiard-balls which, in listening for other
sounds, she had ceased to hear, began again. She shook herself,
passed into the hall, and opened the drawing-room door. Her
mother was sitting on the sofa between the windows, her knees
crossed, her head resting on a cushion, her lips half parted, her
eyes half closed. She looked extraordinarily handsome.
“Ah! Here you are, Fleur! Your father is beginning to fuss.”
“Where is he?”
“In the picture-gallery. Go up!”
“What are you going to do to-morrow, Mother?”
“To-morrow? I go up to London with your aunt.”
“I thought you might be. Will you get me a quite plain parasol?”
“What colour?”
“Green. They're all going back, I suppose.”
“Yes, all; you will console your father. Kiss me, then.”
Fleur crossed the room, stooped, received a kiss on her forehead,
and went out past the impress of a form on the sofa-cushions in
the other corner. She ran up-stairs.
Fleur was by no means the old-fashioned daughter who demands the
regulation of her parents' lives in accordance with the standard
imposed upon herself. She claimed to regulate her own life, not
those of others; besides, an unerring instinct for what was
likely to advantage her own case was already at work. In a
disturbed domestic atmosphere the heart she had set on Jon would
have a better chance. None the less was she offended, as a flower
by a crisping wind. If that man had really been kissing her
mother it was—serious, and her father ought to know. “Demain!”
“All right!” And her mother going up to Town! She turned into her
bedroom and hung out of the window to cool her face, which had
suddenly grown very hot. Jon must be at the station by now! What
did her father know about Jon? Probably everything—pretty nearly!
She changed her dress, so as to look as if she had been in some
time, and ran up to the gallery.
Soames was standing stubbornly still before his Alfred
Stevens—the picture he loved best. He did not turn at the sound
of the door, but she knew he had heard, and she knew he was hurt.
She came up softly behind him, put her arms round his neck, and
poked her face over his shoulder till her cheek lay against his.
It was an advance which had never yet failed, but it failed her
now, and she augured the worst. “Well,” he said stonily, “so
you've come!”
“Is that all,” murmured Fleur, “from a bad parent?” And she
rubbed her cheek against his.
Soames shook his head so far as that was possible.
“Why do you keep me on tenterhooks like this, putting me off and
off?”
“Darling, it was very harmless.”
“Harmless! Much you know what's harmless and what isn't.”
Fleur dropped her arms.
“Well, then, dear, suppose you tell me; and be quite frank about
it.”
And she went over to the window-seat.
Her father had turned from his picture, and was staring at his
feet. He looked very grey. 'He has nice small feet,' she thought,
catching his eye, at once averted from her.
“You're my only comfort,” said Soames suddenly, “and you go on
like this.”
Fleur's heart began to beat.
“Like what, dear?”
Again Soames gave her a look which, but for the affection in it,
might have been called furtive.
“You know what I told you,” he said. “I don't choose to have
anything to do with that branch of our family.”
“Yes, ducky, but I don't know why I shouldn't.”
Soames turned on his heel.
“I'm not going into the reasons,” he said; “you ought to trust
me, Fleur!”
The way he spoke those words affected Fleur, but she thought of
Jon, and was silent, tapping her foot against the wainscot.
Unconsciously she had assumed a modern attitude, with one leg
twisted in and out of the other, with her chin on one bent wrist,
her other arm across her chest, and its hand hugging her elbow;
there was not a line of her that was not involuted, and yet—in
spite of all—she retained a certain grace.
“You knew my wishes,” Soames went on, “and yet you stayed on
there four days. And I suppose that boy came with you to-day.”
Fleur kept her eyes on him.
“I don't ask you anything,” said Soames; “I make no inquisition
where you're concerned.”
Fleur suddenly stood up, leaning out at the window with her chin
on her hands. The sun had sunk behind trees, the pigeons were
perched, quite still, on the edge of the dove-cot; the click of
the billiard-balls mounted, and a faint radiance shone out below
where Jack Cardigan had turned the light up.
“Will it make you any happier,” she said suddenly, “if I promise
you not to see him for say—the next six weeks?” She was not
prepared for a sort of tremble in the blankness of his voice.
“Six weeks? Six years—sixty years more like. Don't delude
yourself, Fleur; don't delude yourself!”
Fleur turned in alarm.
“Father, what is it?”
Soames came close enough to see her face.
“Don't tell me,” he said, “that you're foolish enough to have any
feeling beyond caprice. That would be too much!” And he laughed.
Fleur, who had never heard him laugh like that, thought: 'Then it
is deep! Oh! what is it?' And putting her hand through his arm
she said lightly:
“No, of course; caprice. Only, I like my caprices and I don't
like yours, dear.”
“Mine!” said Soames bitterly, and turned away.
The light outside had chilled, and threw a chalky whiteness on
the river. The trees had lost all gaiety of colour. She felt a
sudden hunger for Jon's face, for his hands, and the feel of his
lips again on hers. And pressing her arms tight across her breast
she forced out a little light laugh.
“O la! la! What a small fuss! as Profond would say. Father, I
don't like that man.”
She saw him stop, and take something out of his breast pocket.
“You don't?” he said. “Why?”
“Nothing,” murmured Fleur; “just caprice!”
“No,” said Soames; “not caprice!” And he tore what was in his
hands across. “You're right. I don't like him either!”
“Look!” said Fleur softly. “There he goes! I hate his shoes; they
don't make any noise.”
Down in the failing light Prosper Profond moved, his hands in his
side pockets, whistling softly in his beard; he stopped, and
glanced up at the sky, as if saying: “I don't think much of that
small moon.”
Fleur drew back. “Isn't he a great cat?” she whispered; and the
sharp click of the billiard-balls rose, as if Jack Cardigan had
capped the cat, the moon, caprice, and tragedy with: “In off the
red!”
Monsieur Profond had resumed his stroll, to a teasing little tune
in his beard. What was it? Oh! yes, from “Rigoletto”: “Donna a
mobile.” Just what he would think! She squeezed her father's arm.
“Prowling!” she muttered, as he turned the corner of the house.
It was past that disillusioned moment which divides the day and
night-still and lingering and warm, with hawthorn scent and lilac
scent clinging on the riverside air. A blackbird suddenly burst
out. Jon would be in London by now; in the Park perhaps, crossing
the Serpentine, thinking of her! A little sound beside her made
her turn her eyes; her father was again tearing the paper in his
hands. Fleur saw it was a cheque.
“I shan't sell him my Gauguin,” he said. “I don't know what your
aunt and Imogen see in him.”
“Or Mother.”
“Your mother!” said Soames.
'Poor Father!' she thought. 'He never looks happy—not really
happy. I don't want to make him worse, but of course I shall have
to, when Jon comes back. Oh! well, sufficient unto the night!'
“I'm going to dress,” she said.
In her room she had a fancy to put on her “freak” dress. It was
of gold tissue with little trousers of the same, tightly drawn in
at the ankles, a page's cape slung from the shoulders, little
gold shoes, and a gold-winged Mercury helmet; and all over her
were tiny gold bells, especially on the helmet; so that if she
shook her head she pealed. When she was dressed she felt quite
sick because Jon could not see her; it even seemed a pity that
the sprightly young man Michael Mont would not have a view. But
the gong had sounded, and she went down.
She made a sensation in the drawing-room. Winifred thought it
“Most amusing.” Imogen was enraptured. Jack Cardigan called it
“stunning,” “ripping,” “topping,” and “corking.”
Monsieur Profond, smiling with his eyes, said: “That's a nice
small dress!” Her mother, very handsome in black, sat looking at
her, and said nothing. It remained for her father to apply the
test of common sense. “What did you put on that thing for? You're
not going to dance.”
Fleur spun round, and the bells pealed.
“Caprice!”
Soames stared at her, and, turning away, gave his arm to
Winifred. Jack Cardigan took her mother. Prosper Profond took
Imogen. Fleur went in by herself, with her bells jingling....
The “small” moon had soon dropped down, and May night had fallen
soft and warm, enwrapping with its grape-bloom colour and its
scents the billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and
regrets of men and women. Happy was Jack Cardigan who snored into
Imogen's white shoulder, fit as a flea; or Timothy in his
“mausoleum,” too old for anything but baby's slumber. For so many
lay awake, or dreamed, teased by the criss-cross of the world.
The dew fell and the flowers closed; cattle grazed on in the
river meadows, feeling with their tongues for the grass they
could not see; and the sheep on the Downs lay quiet as stones.
Pheasants in the tall trees of the Pangbourne woods, larks on
their grassy nests above the gravel-pit at Wansdon, swallows in
the eaves at Robin Hill, and the sparrows of Mayfair, all made a
dreamless night of it, soothed by the lack of wind. The Mayfly
filly, hardly accustomed to her new quarters, scraped at her
straw a little; and the few night-flitting things—bats, moths,
owls—were vigorous in the warm darkness; but the peace of night
lay in the brain of all day-time Nature, colourless and still.
Men and women, alone, riding the hobby-horses of anxiety or love,
burned their wavering tapers of dream and thought into the lonely
hours.
Fleur, leaning out of her window, heard the hall clock's muffled
chime of twelve, the tiny splash of a fish, the sudden shaking of
an aspen's leaves in the puffs of breeze that rose along the
river, the distant rumble of a night train, and time and again
the sounds which none can put a name to in the darkness, soft
obscure expressions of uncatalogued emotions from man and beast,
bird and machine, or, maybe, from departed Forsytes, Darties,
Cardigans, taking night strolls back into a world which had once
suited their embodied spirits. But Fleur heeded not these sounds;
her spirit, far from disembodied, fled with swift wing from
railway-carriage to flowery hedge, straining after Jon, tenacious
of his forbidden image, and the sound of his voice, which was
taboo. And she crinkled her nose, retrieving from the perfume of
the riverside night that moment when his hand slipped between the
mayflowers and her cheek. Long she leaned out in her freak dress,
keen to burn her wings at life's candle; while the moths brushed
her cheeks on their pilgrimage to the lamp on her dressing-table,
ignorant that in a Forsyte's house there is no open flame. But at
last even she felt sleepy, and, forgetting her bells, drew
quickly in.
Through the open window of his room, alongside Annette's, Soames,
wakeful too, heard their thin faint tinkle, as it might be shaken
from stars, or the dewdrops falling from a flower, if one could
hear such sounds.
'Caprice!' he thought. 'I can't tell. She's wilful. What shall I
do? Fleur!'
And long into the “small” night he brooded.
PART II
I.—MOTHER AND SON
To say that Jon Forsyte accompanied his mother to Spain
unwillingly would scarcely have been adequate. He went as a
well-natured dog goes for a walk with its mistress, leaving a
choice mutton-bone on the lawn. He went looking back at it.
Forsytes deprived of their mutton-bones are wont to sulk. But Jon
had little sulkiness in his composition. He adored his mother,
and it was his first travel. Spain had become Italy by his simply
saying: “I'd rather go to Spain, Mum; you've been to Italy so
many times; I'd like it new to both of us.”
The fellow was subtle besides being naive. He never forgot that
he was going to shorten the proposed two months into six weeks,
and must therefore show no sign of wishing to do so. For one with
so enticing a mutton-bone and so fixed an idea, he made a good
enough travelling companion, indifferent to where or when he
arrived, superior to food, and thoroughly appreciative of a
country strange to the most travelled Englishman. Fleur's wisdom
in refusing to write to him was profound, for he reached each new
place entirely without hope or fever, and could concentrate
immediate attention on the donkeys and tumbling bells, the
priests, patios, beggars, children, crowing cocks, sombreros,
cactus-hedges, old high white villages, goats, olive-trees,
greening plains, singing birds in tiny cages, watersellers,
sunsets, melons, mules, great churches, pictures, and swimming
grey-brown mountains of a fascinating land.
It was already hot, and they enjoyed an absence of their
compatriots. Jon, who, so far as he knew, had no blood in him
which was not English, was often innately unhappy in the presence
of his own countrymen. He felt they had no nonsense about them,
and took a more practical view of things than himself. He
confided to his mother that he must be an unsociable beast—it was
jolly to be away from everybody who could talk about the things
people did talk about. To which Irene had replied simply:
“Yes, Jon, I know.”
In this isolation he had unparalleled opportunities of
appreciating what few sons can apprehend, the whole-heartedness
of a mother's love. Knowledge of something kept from her made
him, no doubt, unduly sensitive; and a Southern people stimulated
his admiration for her type of beauty, which he had been
accustomed to hear called Spanish, but which he now perceived to
be no such thing. Her beauty was neither English, French,
Spanish, nor Italian—it was special! He appreciated, too, as
never before, his mother's subtlety of instinct. He could not
tell, for instance, whether she had noticed his absorption in
that Goya picture, “La Vendimia,” or whether she knew that he had
slipped back there after lunch and again next morning, to stand
before it full half an hour, a second and third time. It was not
Fleur, of course, but like enough to give him heartache—so dear
to lovers—remembering her standing at the foot of his bed with
her hand held above her head. To keep a postcard reproduction of
this picture in his pocket and slip it out to look at became for
Jon one of those bad habits which soon or late disclose
themselves to eyes sharpened by love, fear, or jealousy. And his
mother's were sharpened by all three. In Granada he was fairly
caught, sitting on a sun-warmed stone bench in a little
battlemented garden on the Alhambra hill, whence he ought to have
been looking at the view. His mother, he had thought, was
examining the potted stocks between the polled acacias, when her
voice said:
“Is that your favourite Goya, Jon?”
He checked, too late, a movement such as he might have made at
school to conceal some surreptitious document, and answered:
“Yes.”
“It certainly is most charming; but I think I prefer the
'Quitasol' Your father would go crazy about Goya; I don't believe
he saw them when he was in Spain in '92.”
In '92—nine years before he had been born! What had been the
previous existences of his father and his mother? If they had a
right to share in his future, surely he had a right to share in
their pasts. He looked up at her. But something in her face—a
look of life hard-lived, the mysterious impress of emotions,
experience, and suffering-seemed, with its incalculable depth,
its purchased sanctity, to make curiosity impertinent. His mother
must have had a wonderfully interesting life; she was so
beautiful, and so—so—but he could not frame what he felt about
her. He got up, and stood gazing down at the town, at the plain
all green with crops, and the ring of mountains glamorous in
sinking sunlight. Her life was like the past of this old Moorish
city, full, deep, remote—his own life as yet such a baby of a
thing, hopelessly ignorant and innocent! They said that in those
mountains to the West, which rose sheer from the blue-green
plain, as if out of a sea, Phoenicians had dwelt—a dark, strange,
secret race, above the land! His mother's life was as unknown to
him, as secret, as that Phoenician past was to the town down
there, whose cocks crowed and whose children played and clamoured
so gaily, day in, day out. He felt aggrieved that she should know
all about him and he nothing about her except that she loved him
and his father, and was beautiful. His callow ignorance—he had
not even had the advantage of the War, like nearly everybody
else!—made him small in his own eyes.
That night, from the balcony of his bedroom, he gazed down on the
roof of the town—as if inlaid with honeycomb of jet, ivory, and
gold; and, long after, he lay awake, listening to the cry of the
sentry as the hours struck, and forming in his head these lines:
“Voice in the night crying, down in the old sleeping Spanish city
darkened under her white stars!
“What says the voice-its clear-lingering anguish? Just the
watchman, telling his dateless tale of safety? Just a road-man,
flinging to the moon his song?
“No! Tis one deprived, whose lover's heart is weeping, Just his
cry: 'How long?'”
The word “deprived” seemed to him cold and unsatisfactory, but
“bereaved” was too final, and no other word of two syllables
short-long came to him, which would enable him to keep “whose
lover's heart is weeping.” It was past two by the time he had
finished it, and past three before he went to sleep, having said
it over to himself at least twenty-four times. Next day he wrote
it out and enclosed it in one of those letters to Fleur which he
always finished before he went down, so as to have his mind free
and companionable.
About noon that same day, on the tiled terrace of their hotel, he
felt a sudden dull pain in the back of his head, a queer
sensation in the eyes, and sickness. The sun had touched him too
affectionately. The next three days were passed in semi-darkness,
and a dulled, aching indifference to all except the feel of ice
on his forehead and his mother's smile. She never moved from his
room, never relaxed her noiseless vigilance, which seemed to Jon
angelic. But there were moments when he was extremely sorry for
himself, and wished terribly that Fleur could see him. Several
times he took a poignant imaginary leave of her and of the earth,
tears oozing out of his eyes. He even prepared the message he
would send to her by his mother—who would regret to her dying day
that she had ever sought to separate them—his poor mother! He was
not slow, however, in perceiving that he had now his excuse for
going home.
Toward half-past six each evening came a “gasgacha” of bells—a
cascade of tumbling chimes, mounting from the city below and
falling back chime on chime. After listening to them on the
fourth day he said suddenly:
“I'd like to be back in England, Mum, the sun's too hot.”
“Very well, darling. As soon as you're fit to travel” And at once
he felt better, and—meaner.
They had been out five weeks when they turned toward home. Jon's
head was restored to its pristine clarity, but he was confined to
a hat lined by his mother with many layers of orange and green
silk and he still walked from choice in the shade. As the long
struggle of discretion between them drew to its close, he
wondered more and more whether she could see his eagerness to get
back to that which she had brought him away from. Condemned by
Spanish Providence to spend a day in Madrid between their trains,
it was but natural to go again to the Prado. Jon was elaborately
casual this time before his Goya girl. Now that he was going back
to her, he could afford a lesser scrutiny. It was his mother who
lingered before the picture, saying:
“The face and the figure of the girl are exquisite.”
Jon heard her uneasily. Did she understand? But he felt once more
that he was no match for her in self-control and subtlety. She
could, in some supersensitive way, of which he had not the
secret, feel the pulse of his thoughts; she knew by instinct what
he hoped and feared and wished. It made him terribly
uncomfortable and guilty, having, beyond most boys, a conscience.
He wished she would be frank with him, he almost hoped for an
open struggle. But none came, and steadily, silently, they
travelled north. Thus did he first learn how much better than men
women play a waiting game. In Paris they had again to pause for a
day. Jon was grieved because it lasted two, owing to certain
matters in connection with a dressmaker; as if his mother, who
looked beautiful in anything, had any need of dresses! The
happiest moment of his travel was that when he stepped on to the
Folkestone boat.
Standing by the bulwark rail, with her arm in his, she said
“I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed it much, Jon. But you've been
very sweet to me.”
Jon squeezed her arm.
“Oh! yes, I've enjoyed it awfully-except for my head lately.”
And now that the end had come, he really had, feeling a sort of
glamour over the past weeks—a kind of painful pleasure, such as
he had tried to screw into those lines about the voice in the
night crying; a feeling such as he had known as a small boy
listening avidly to Chopin, yet wanting to cry. And he wondered
why it was that he couldn't say to her quite simply what she had
said to him:
“You were very sweet to me.” Odd—one never could be nice and
natural like that! He substituted the words: “I expect we shall
be sick.”
They were, and reached London somewhat attenuated, having been
away six weeks and two days, without a single allusion to the
subject which had hardly ever ceased to occupy their minds.
II.—FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
Deprived of his wife and son by the Spanish adventure, Jolyon
found the solitude at Robin Hill intolerable. A philosopher when
he has all that he wants is different from a philosopher when he
has not. Accustomed, however, to the idea, if not to the reality
of resignation, he would perhaps have faced it out but for his
daughter June. He was a “lame duck” now, and on her conscience.
Having achieved—momentarily—the rescue of an etcher in low
circumstances, which she happened to have in hand, she appeared
at Robin Hill a fortnight after Irene and Jon had gone. June was
living now in a tiny house with a big studio at Chiswick. A
Forsyte of the best period, so far as the lack of responsibility
was concerned, she had overcome the difficulty of a reduced
income in a manner satisfactory to herself and her father. The
rent of the Gallery off Cork Street which he had bought for her
and her increased income tax happening to balance, it had been
quite simple—she no longer paid him the rent. The Gallery might
be expected now at any time, after eighteen years of barren
usufruct, to pay its way, so that she was sure her father would
not feel it. Through this device she still had twelve hundred a
year, and by reducing what she ate, and, in place of two Belgians
in a poor way, employing one Austrian in a poorer, practically
the same surplus for the relief of genius. After three days at
Robin Hill she carried her father back with her to Town. In those
three days she had stumbled on the secret he had kept for two
years, and had instantly decided to cure him. She knew, in fact,
the very man. He had done wonders with. Paul Post—that painter a
little in advance of Futurism; and she was impatient with her
father because his eyebrows would go up, and because he had heard
of neither. Of course, if he hadn't “faith” he would never get
well! It was absurd not to have faith in the man who had healed
Paul Post so that he had only just relapsed, from having
overworked, or overlived, himself again. The great thing about
this healer was that he relied on Nature. He had made a special
study of the symptoms of Nature—when his patient failed in any
natural symptom he supplied the poison which caused it—and there
you were! She was extremely hopeful. Her father had clearly not
been living a natural life at Robin Hill, and she intended to
provide the symptoms. He was—she felt—out of touch with the
times, which was not natural; his heart wanted stimulating. In
the little Chiswick house she and the Austrian—a grateful soul,
so devoted to June for rescuing her that she was in danger of
decease from overwork—stimulated Jolyon in all sorts of ways,
preparing him for his cure. But they could not keep his eyebrows
down; as, for example, when the Austrian woke him at eight
o'clock just as he was going to sleep, or June took The Times
away from him, because it was unnatural to read “that stuff” when
he ought to be taking an interest in “life.” He never failed,
indeed, to be astonished at her resource, especially in the
evenings. For his benefit, as she declared, though he suspected
that she also got something out of it, she assembled the Age so
far as it was satellite to genius; and with some solemnity it
would move up and down the studio before him in the Fox-trot, and
that more mental form of dancing—the One-step—which so pulled
against the music, that Jolyon's eyebrows would be almost lost in
his hair from wonder at the strain it must impose on the dancer's
will-power. Aware that, hung on the line in the Water Colour
Society, he was a back number to those with any pretension to be
called artists, he would sit in the darkest corner he could find,
and wonder about rhythm, on which so long ago he had been raised.
And when June brought some girl or young man up to him, he would
rise humbly to their level so far as that was possible, and
think: 'Dear me! This is very dull for them!' Having his father's
perennial sympathy with Youth, he used to get very tired from
entering into their points of view. But it was all stimulating,
and he never failed in admiration of his daughter's indomitable
spirit. Even genius itself attended these gatherings now and
then, with its nose on one side; and June always introduced it to
her father. This, she felt, was exceptionally good for him, for
genius was a natural symptom he had never had—fond as she was of
him.
Certain as a man can be that she was his own daughter, he often
wondered whence she got herself—her red-gold hair, now greyed
into a special colour; her direct, spirited face, so different
from his own rather folded and subtilised countenance, her little
lithe figure, when he and most of the Forsytes were tall. And he
would dwell on the origin of species, and debate whether she
might be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he thought, from her
pugnacity, and her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It was not too
much to say that he preferred her to the Age with which she was
surrounded, youthful though, for the greater part, it was. She
took, however, too much interest in his teeth, for he still had
some of those natural symptoms. Her dentist at once found
“Staphylococcus aureus present in pure culture” (which might
cause boils, of course), and wanted to take out all the teeth he
had and supply him with two complete sets of unnatural symptoms.
Jolyon's native tenacity was roused, and in the studio that
evening he developed his objections. He had never had any boils,
and his own teeth would last his time. Of course—June
admitted—they would last his time if he didn't have them out! But
if he had more teeth he would have a better heart and his time
would be longer. His recalcitrance—she said—was a symptom of his
whole attitude; he was taking it lying down. He ought to be
fighting. When was he going to see the man who had cured Paul
Post? Jolyon was very sorry, but the fact was he was not going to
see him. June chafed. Pondridge—she said—the healer, was such a
fine man, and he had such difficulty in making two ends meet, and
getting his theories recognised. It was just such indifference
and prejudice as her father manifested which was keeping him
back. It would be so splendid for both of them!
“I perceive,” said Jolyon, “that you are trying to kill two birds
with one stone.”
“To cure, you mean!” cried June.
“My dear, it's the same thing.”
June protested. It was unfair to say that without a trial.
Jolyon thought he might not have the chance, of saying it after.
“Dad!” cried June, “you're hopeless.”
“That,” said Jolyon, “is a fact, but I wish to remain hopeless as
long as possible. I shall let sleeping dogs lie, my child. They
are quiet at present.”
“That's not giving science a chance,” cried June. “You've no idea
how devoted Pondridge is. He puts his science before everything.”
“Just,” replied Jolyon, puffing the mild cigarette to which he
was reduced, “as Mr. Paul Post puts his art, eh? Art for Art's
sake—Science for the sake of Science. I know those enthusiastic
egomaniac gentry. They vivisect you without blinking. I'm enough
of a Forsyte to give them the go-by, June.”
“Dad,” said June, “if you only knew how old-fashioned that
sounds! Nobody can afford to be half-hearted nowadays.”
“I'm afraid,” murmured Jolyon, with his smile, “that's the only
natural symptom with which Mr. Pondridge need not supply me. We
are born to be extreme or to be moderate, my dear; though, if
you'll forgive my saying so, half the people nowadays who believe
they're extreme are really very moderate. I'm getting on as well
as I can expect, and I must leave it at that.”
June was silent, having experienced in her time the inexorable
character of her father's amiable obstinacy so far as his own
freedom of action was concerned.
How he came to let her know why Irene had taken Jon to Spain
puzzled Jolyon, for he had little confidence in her discretion.
After she had brooded on the news, it brought a rather sharp
discussion, during which he perceived to the full the fundamental
opposition between her active temperament and his wife's
passivity. He even gathered that a little soreness still remained
from that generation-old struggle between them over the body of
Philip Bosinney, in which the passive had so signally triumphed
over the active principle.
According to June, it was foolish and even cowardly to hide the
past from Jon. Sheer opportunism, she called it.
“Which,” Jolyon put in mildly, “is the working principle of real
life, my dear.”
“Oh!” cried June, “you don't really defend her for not telling
Jon, Dad. If it were left to you, you would.”
“I might, but simply because I know he must find out, which will
be worse than if we told him.”
“Then why don't you tell him? It's just sleeping dogs again.”
“My dear,” said Jolyon, “I wouldn't for the world go against
Irene's instinct. He's her boy.”
“Yours too,” cried June.
“What is a man's instinct compared with a mother's?”
“Well, I think it's very weak of you.”
“I dare say,” said Jolyon, “I dare say.”
And that was all she got from him; but the matter rankled in her
brain. She could not bear sleeping dogs. And there stirred in her
a tortuous impulse to push the matter toward decision. Jon ought
to be told, so that either his feeling might be nipped in the
bud, or, flowering in spite of the past, come to fruition. And
she determined to see Fleur, and judge for herself. When June
determined on anything, delicacy became a somewhat minor
consideration. After all, she was Soames' cousin, and they were
both interested in pictures. She would go and tell him that he
ought to buy a Paul Post, or perhaps a piece of sculpture by
Boris Strumolowski, and of course she would say nothing to her
father. She went on the following Sunday, looking so determined
that she had some difficulty in getting a cab at Reading station.
The river country was lovely in those days of her own month, and
June ached at its loveliness. She who had passed through this
life without knowing what union was had a love of natural beauty
which was almost madness. And when she came to that choice spot
where Soames had pitched his tent, she dismissed her cab,
because, business over, she wanted to revel in the bright water
and the woods. She appeared at his front door, therefore, as a
mere pedestrian, and sent in her card. It was in June's character
to know that when her nerves were fluttering she was doing
something worth while. If one's nerves did not flutter, she was
taking the line of least resistance, and knew that nobleness was
not obliging her. She was conducted to a drawing-room, which,
though not in her style, showed every mark of fastidious
elegance. Thinking, 'Too much taste—too many knick-knacks,' she
saw in an old lacquer-framed mirror the figure of a girl coming
in from the verandah. Clothed in white, and holding some white
roses in her hand, she had, reflected in that silvery-grey pool
of glass, a vision-like appearance, as if a pretty ghost had come
out of the green garden.
“How do you do?” said June, turning round. “I'm a cousin of your
father's.”
“Oh, yes; I saw you in that confectioner's.”
“With my young stepbrother. Is your father in?”
“He will be directly. He's only gone for a little walk.”
June slightly narrowed her blue eyes, and lifted her decided
chin.
“Your name's Fleur, isn't it? I've heard of you from Holly. What
do you think of Jon?”
The girl lifted the roses in her hand, looked at them, and
answered calmly:
“He's quite a nice boy.”
“Not a bit like Holly or me, is he?”
“Not a bit.”
'She's cool,' thought June.
And suddenly the girl said: “I wish you'd tell me why our
families don't get on?”
Confronted with the question she had advised her father to
answer, June was silent; whether because this girl was trying to
get something out of her, or simply because what one would do
theoretically is not always what one will do when it comes to the
point.
“You know,” said the girl, “the surest way to make people find
out the worst is to keep them ignorant. My father's told me it
was a quarrel about property. But I don't believe it; we've both
got heaps. They wouldn't have been so bourgeois as all that.”
June flushed. The word applied to her grandfather and father
offended her.
“My grandfather,” she said, “was very generous, and my father is,
too; neither of them was in the least bourgeois.”
“Well, what was it then?” repeated the girl: Conscious that this
young Forsyte meant having what she wanted, June at once
determined to prevent her, and to get something for herself
instead.
“Why do you want to know?”
The girl smelled at her roses. “I only want to know because they
won't tell me.”
“Well, it was about property, but there's more than one kind.”
“That makes it worse. Now I really must know.”
June's small and resolute face quivered. She was wearing a round
cap, and her hair had fluffed out under it. She looked quite
young at that moment, rejuvenated by encounter.
“You know,” she said, “I saw you drop your handkerchief. Is there
anything between you and Jon? Because, if so, you'd better drop
that too.”
The girl grew paler, but she smiled.
“If there were, that isn't the way to make me.”
At the gallantry of that reply, June held out her hand.
“I like you; but I don't like your father; I never have. We may
as well be frank.”
“Did you come down to tell him that?”
June laughed. “No; I came down to see you.”
“How delightful of you.”
This girl could fence.
“I'm two and a half times your age,” said June, “but I quite
sympathize. It's horrid not to have one's own way.”
The girl smiled again. “I really think you might tell me.”
How the child stuck to her point
“It's not my secret. But I'll see what I can do, because I think
both you and Jon ought to be told. And now I'll say good-bye.”
“Won't you wait and see Father?”
June shook her head. “How can I get over to the other side?”
“I'll row you across.”
“Look!” said June impulsively, “next time you're in London, come
and see me. This is where I live. I generally have young people
in the evening. But I shouldn't tell your father that you're
coming.”
The girl nodded.
Watching her scull the skiff across, June thought: 'She's awfully
pretty and well made. I never thought Soames would have a
daughter as pretty as this. She and Jon would make a lovely
couple.
The instinct to couple, starved within herself, was always at
work in June. She stood watching Fleur row back; the girl took
her hand off a scull to wave farewell, and June walked languidly
on between the meadows and the river, with an ache in her heart.
Youth to youth, like the dragon-flies chasing each other, and
love like the sun warming them through and through. Her youth! So
long ago—when Phil and she—And since? Nothing—no one had been
quite what she had wanted. And so she had missed it all. But what
a coil was round those two young things, if they really were in
love, as Holly would have it—as her father, and Irene, and Soames
himself seemed to dread. What a coil, and what a barrier! And the
itch for the future, the contempt, as it were, for what was
overpast, which forms the active principle, moved in the heart of
one who ever believed that what one wanted was more important
than what other people did not want. From the bank, awhile, in
the warm summer stillness, she watched the water-lily plants and
willow leaves, the fishes rising; sniffed the scent of grass and
meadow-sweet, wondering how she could force everybody to be
happy. Jon and Fleur! Two little lame ducks—charming callow
yellow little ducks! A great pity! Surely something could be
done! One must not take such situations lying down. She walked
on, and reached a station, hot and cross.
That evening, faithful to the impulse toward direct action, which
made many people avoid her, she said to her father:
“Dad, I've been down to see young Fleur. I think she's very
attractive. It's no good hiding our heads under our wings, is
it?”
The startled Jolyon set down his barley-water, and began
crumbling his bread.
“It's what you appear to be doing,” he said. “Do you realise
whose daughter she is?”
“Can't the dead past bury its dead?”
Jolyon rose.
“Certain things can never be buried.”
“I disagree,” said June. “It's that which stands in the way of
all happiness and progress. You don't understand the Age, Dad.
It's got no use for outgrown things. Why do you think it matters
so terribly that Jon should know about his mother? Who pays any
attention to that sort of thing now? The marriage laws are just
as they were when Soames and Irene couldn't get a divorce, and
you had to come in. We've moved, and they haven't. So nobody
cares. Marriage without a decent chance of relief is only a sort
of slave-owning; people oughtn't to own each other. Everybody
sees that now. If Irene broke such laws, what does it matter?”
“It's not for me to disagree there,” said Jolyon; “but that's all
quite beside the mark. This is a matter of human feeling.”
“Of course it is,” cried June, “the human feeling of those two
young things.”
“My dear,” said Jolyon with gentle exasperation; “you're talking
nonsense.”
“I'm not. If they prove to be really fond of each other, why
should they be made unhappy because of the past?”
“You haven't lived that past. I have—through the feelings of my
wife; through my own nerves and my imagination, as only one who
is devoted can.”
June, too, rose, and began to wander restlessly.
“If,” she said suddenly, “she were the daughter of Philip
Bosinney, I could understand you better. Irene loved him, she
never loved Soames.”
Jolyon uttered a deep sound-the sort of noise an Italian peasant
woman utters to her mule. His heart had begun beating furiously,
but he paid no attention to it, quite carried away by his
feelings.
“That shows how little you understand. Neither I nor Jon, if I
know him, would mind a love-past. It's the brutality of a union
without love. This girl is the daughter of the man who once owned
Jon's mother as a negro-slave was owned. You can't lay that
ghost; don't try to, June! It's asking us to see Jon joined to
the flesh and blood of the man who possessed Jon's mother against
her will. It's no good mincing words; I want it clear once for
all. And now I mustn't talk any more, or I shall have to sit up
with this all night.” And, putting his hand over his heart,
Jolyon turned his back on his daughter and stood looking at the
river Thames.
June, who by nature never saw a hornet's nest until she had put
her head into it, was seriously alarmed. She came and slipped her
arm through his. Not convinced that he was right, and she herself
wrong, because that was not natural to her, she was yet
profoundly impressed by the obvious fact that the subject was
very bad for him. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, and
said nothing.
After taking her elderly cousin across, Fleur did not land at
once, but pulled in among the reeds, into the sunshine. The
peaceful beauty of the afternoon seduced for a little one not
much given to the vague and poetic. In the field beyond the bank
where her skiff lay up, a machine drawn by a grey horse was
turning an early field of hay. She watched the grass cascading
over and behind the light wheels with fascination—it looked so
cool and fresh. The click and swish blended with the rustle of
the willows and the poplars, and the cooing of a wood-pigeon, in
a true river song. Alongside, in the deep green water, weeds,
like yellow snakes, were writhing and nosing with the current;
pied cattle on the farther side stood in the shade lazily
swishing their tails. It was an afternoon to dream. And she took
out Jon's letters—not flowery effusions, but haunted in their
recital of things seen and done by a longing very agreeable to
her, and all ending “Your devoted J.” Fleur was not sentimental,
her desires were ever concrete and concentrated, but what poetry
there was in the daughter of Soames and Annette had certainly in
those weeks of waiting gathered round her memories of Jon. They
all belonged to grass and blossom, flowers and running water. She
enjoyed him in the scents absorbed by her crinkling nose. The
stars could persuade her that she was standing beside him in the
centre of the map of Spain; and of an early morning the dewy
cobwebs, the hazy sparkle and promise of the day down in the
garden, were Jon personified to her.
Two white swans came majestically by, while she was reading his
letters, followed by their brood of six young swans in a line,
with just so much water between each tail and head, a flotilla of
grey destroyers. Fleur thrust her letters back, got out her
sculls, and pulled up to the landing-stage. Crossing the lawn,
she wondered whether she should tell her father of June's visit.
If he learned of it from the butler, he might think it odd if she
did not. It gave her, too, another chance to startle out of him
the reason of the feud. She went, therefore, up the road to meet
him.
Soames had gone to look at a patch of ground on which the Local
Authorities were proposing to erect a Sanatorium for people with
weak lungs. Faithful to his native individualism, he took no part
in local affairs, content to pay the rates which were always
going up. He could not, however, remain indifferent to this new
and dangerous scheme. The site was not half a mile from his own
house. He was quite of opinion that the country should stamp out
tuberculosis; but this was not the place. It should be done
farther away. He took, indeed, an attitude common to all true
Forsytes, that disability of any sort in other people was not his
affair, and the State should do its business without prejudicing
in any way the natural advantages which he had acquired or
inherited. Francie, the most free-spirited Forsyte of his
generation (except perhaps that fellow Jolyon) had once asked him
in her malicious way: “Did you ever see the name Forsyte in a
subscription list, Soames?” That was as it might be, but a
Sanatorium would depreciate the neighbourhood, and he should
certainly sign the petition which was being got up against it.
Returning with this decision fresh within him, he saw Fleur
coming.
She was showing him more affection of late, and the quiet time
down here with her in this summer weather had been making him
feel quite young; Annette was always running up to Town for one
thing or another, so that he had Fleur to himself almost as much
as he could wish. To be sure, young Mont had formed a habit of
appearing on his motor-cycle almost every other day. Thank
goodness, the young fellow had shaved off his half-toothbrushes,
and no longer looked like a mountebank! With a girl friend of
Fleur's who was staying in the house, and a neighbouring youth or
so, they made two couples after dinner, in the hall, to the music
of the electric pianola, which performed Fox-trots unassisted,
with a surprised shine on its expressive surface. Annette, even,
now and then passed gracefully up and down in the arms of one or
other of the young men. And Soames, coming to the drawing-room
door, would lift his nose a little sideways, and watch them,
waiting to catch a smile from Fleur; then move back to his chair
by the drawing-room hearth, to peruse The Times or some other
collector's price list. To his ever-anxious eyes Fleur showed no
signs of remembering that caprice of hers.
When she reached him on the dusty road, he slipped his hand
within her arm.
“Who, do you think, has been to see you, Dad? She couldn't wait!
Guess!”
“I never guess,” said Soames uneasily. “Who?”
“Your cousin, June Forsyte.”
Quite unconsciously Soames gripped her arm. “What did she want?”
“I don't know. But it was rather breaking through the feud,
wasn't it?”
“Feud? What feud?”
“The one that exists in your imagination, dear.”
Soames dropped her arm. Was she mocking, or trying to draw him
on?
“I suppose she wanted me to buy a picture,” he said at last.
“I don't think so. Perhaps it was just family affection.”
“She's only a first cousin once removed,” muttered Soames.
“And the daughter of your enemy.”
“What d'you mean by that?”
“I beg your pardon, dear; I thought he was.”
“Enemy!” repeated Soames. “It's ancient history. I don't know
where you get your notions.”
“From June Forsyte.”
It had come to her as an inspiration that if he thought she knew,
or were on the edge of knowledge, he would tell her.
Soames was startled, but she had underrated his caution and
tenacity.
“If you know,” he said coldly, “why do you plague me?”
Fleur saw that she had overreached herself.
“I don't want to plague you, darling. As you say, why want to
know more? Why want to know anything of that 'small' mystery—Je
m'en fiche, as Profond says?”
“That chap!” said Soames profoundly.
That chap, indeed, played a considerable, if invisible, part this
summer—for he had not turned up again. Ever since the Sunday when
Fleur had drawn attention to him prowling on the lawn, Soames had
thought of him a good deal, and always in connection with
Annette, for no reason, except that she was looking handsomer
than for some time past. His possessive instinct, subtle, less
formal, more elastic since the War, kept all misgiving
underground. As one looks on some American river, quiet and
pleasant, knowing that an alligator perhaps is lying in the mud
with his snout just raised and indistinguishable from a snag of
wood—so Soames looked on the river of his own existence,
subconscious of Monsieur Profond, refusing to see more than the
suspicion of his snout. He had at this epoch in his life
practically all he wanted, and was as nearly happy as his nature
would permit. His senses were at rest; his affections found all
the vent they needed in his daughter; his collection was well
known, his money well invested; his health excellent, save for a
touch of liver now and again; he had not yet begun to worry
seriously about what would happen after death, inclining to think
that nothing would happen. He resembled one of his own gilt-edged
securities, and to knock the gilt off by seeing anything he could
avoid seeing would be, he felt instinctively, perverse and
retrogressive. Those two crumpled rose-leaves, Fleur's caprice
and Monsieur Profond's snout, would level away if he lay on them
industriously.
That evening Chance, which visits the lives of even the
best-invested Forsytes, put a clue into Fleur's hands. Her father
came down to dinner without a handkerchief, and had occasion to
blow his nose.
“I'll get you one, dear,” she had said, and ran upstairs. In the
sachet where she sought for it—an old sachet of very faded
silk—there were two compartments: one held handkerchiefs; the
other was buttoned, and contained something flat and hard. By
some childish impulse Fleur unbuttoned it. There was a frame and
in it a photograph of herself as a little girl. She gazed at it,
fascinated, as one is by one's own presentment. It slipped under
her fidgeting thumb, and she saw that another photograph was
behind. She pressed her own down further, and perceived a face,
which she seemed to know, of a young woman, very good-looking, in
a very old style of evening dress. Slipping her own photograph up
over it again, she took out a handkerchief and went down. Only on
the stairs did she identify that face. Surely—surely Jon's
mother! The conviction came as a shock. And she stood still in a
flurry of thought. Why, of course! Jon's father had married the
woman her father had wanted to marry, had cheated him out of her,
perhaps. Then, afraid of showing by her manner that she had
lighted on his secret, she refused to think further, and, shaking
out the silk handkerchief, entered the dining-room.
“I chose the softest, Father.”
“H'm!” said Soames; “I only use those after a cold. Never mind!”
That evening passed for Fleur in putting two and two together;
recalling the look on her father's face in the confectioner's
shop—a look strange and coldly intimate, a queer look. He must
have loved that woman very much to have kept her photograph all
this time, in spite of having lost her. Unsparing and
matter-of-fact, her mind darted to his relations with her own
mother. Had he ever really loved her? She thought not. Jon was
the son of the woman he had really loved. Surely, then, he ought
not to mind his daughter loving him; it only wanted getting used
to. And a sigh of sheer relief was caught in the folds of her
nightgown slipping over her head.
III.—MEETINGS
Youth only recognises Age by fits and starts. Jon, for one, had
never really seen his father's age till he came back from Spain.
The face of the fourth Jolyon, worn by waiting, gave him quite a
shock—it looked so wan and old. His father's mask had been forced
awry by the emotion of the meeting, so that the boy suddenly
realised how much he must have felt their absence. He summoned to
his aid the thought: 'Well, I didn't want to go!' It was out of
date for Youth to defer to Age. But Jon was by no means typically
modern. His father had always been “so jolly” to him, and to feel
that one meant to begin again at once the conduct which his
father had suffered six weeks' loneliness to cure was not
agreeable.
At the question, “Well, old man, how did the great Goya strike
you?” his conscience pricked him badly. The great Goya only
existed because he had created a face which resembled Fleur's.
On the night of their return, he went to bed full of compunction;
but awoke full of anticipation. It was only the fifth of July,
and no meeting was fixed with Fleur until the ninth. He was to
have three days at home before going back to farm. Somehow he
must contrive to see her!
In the lives of men an inexorable rhythm, caused by the need for
trousers, not even the fondest parents can deny. On the second
day, therefore, Jon went to Town, and having satisfied his
conscience by ordering what was indispensable in Conduit Street,
turned his face toward Piccadilly. Stratton Street, where her
Club was, adjoined Devonshire House. It would be the merest
chance that she should be at her Club. But he dawdled down Bond
Street with a beating heart, noticing the superiority of all
other young men to himself. They wore their clothes with such an
air; they had assurance; they were old. He was suddenly
overwhelmed by the conviction that Fleur must have forgotten him.
Absorbed in his own feeling for her all these weeks, he had
mislaid that possibility. The corners of his mouth drooped, his
hands felt clammy. Fleur with the pick of youth at the beck of
her smile-Fleur incomparable! It was an evil moment. Jon,
however, had a great idea that one must be able to face anything.
And he braced himself with that dour reflection in front of a
bric-a-brac shop. At this high-water mark of what was once the
London season, there was nothing to mark it out from any other
except a grey top hat or two, and the sun. Jon moved on, and
turning the corner into Piccadilly, ran into Val Dartie moving
toward the Iseeum Club, to which he had just been elected.
“Hallo! young man! Where are you off to?”
Jon gushed. “I've just been to my tailor's.”
Val looked him up and down. “That's good! I'm going in here to
order some cigarettes; then come and have some lunch.”
Jon thanked him. He might get news of her from Val!
The condition of England, that nightmare of its Press and Public
men, was seen in different perspective within the tobacconist's
which they now entered.
“Yes, sir; precisely the cigarette I used to supply your father
with. Bless me! Mr. Montague Dartie was a customer here from—let
me see—the year Melton won the Derby. One of my very best
customers he was.” A faint smile illumined the tobacconist's
face. “Many's the tip he's given me, to be sure! I suppose he
took a couple of hundred of these every week, year in, year out,
and never changed his cigarette. Very affable gentleman, brought
me a lot of custom. I was sorry he met with that accident. One
misses an old customer like him.”
Val smiled. His father's decease had closed an account which had
been running longer, probably, than any other; and in a ring of
smoke puffed out from that time-honoured cigarette he seemed to
see again his father's face, dark, good-looking, moustachioed, a
little puffy, in the only halo it had earned. His father had his
fame here, anyway—a man who smoked two hundred cigarettes a week,
who could give tips, and run accounts for ever! To his
tobacconist a hero! Even that was some distinction to inherit!
“I pay cash,” he said; “how much?”
“To his son, sir, and cash—ten and six. I shall never forget Mr.
Montague Dartie. I've known him stand talkin' to me half an hour.
We don't get many like him now, with everybody in such a hurry.
The War was bad for manners, sir—it was bad for manners. You were
in it, I see.”
“No,” said Val, tapping his knee, “I got this in the war before.
Saved my life, I expect. Do you want any cigarettes, Jon?”
Rather ashamed, Jon murmured, “I don't smoke, you know,” and saw
the tobacconist's lips twisted, as if uncertain whether to say
“Good God!” or “Now's your chance, sir!”
“That's right,” said Val; “keep off it while you can. You'll want
it when you take a knock. This is really the same tobacco, then?”
“Identical, sir; a little dearer, that's all. Wonderful staying
power—the British Empire, I always say.”
“Send me down a hundred a week to this address, and invoice it
monthly. Come on, Jon.”
Jon entered the Iseeum with curiosity. Except to lunch now and
then at the Hotch-Potch with his father, he had never been in a
London Club. The Iseeum, comfortable and unpretentious, did not
move, could not, so long as George Forsyte sat on its Committee,
where his culinary acumen was almost the controlling force. The
Club had made a stand against the newly rich, and it had taken
all George Forsyte's prestige, and praise of him as a “good
sportsman,” to bring in Prosper Profond.
The two were lunching together when the half-brothers-in-law
entered the dining-room, and attracted by George's forefinger,
sat down at their table, Val with his shrewd eyes and charming
smile, Jon with solemn lips and an attractive shyness in his
glance. There was an air of privilege around that corner table,
as though past masters were eating there. Jon was fascinated by
the hypnotic atmosphere. The waiter, lean in the chaps, pervaded
with such free-masonical deference. He seemed to hang on George
Forsyte's lips, to watch the gloat in his eye with a kind of
sympathy, to follow the movements of the heavy club-marked silver
fondly. His liveried arm and confidential voice alarmed Jon, they
came so secretly over his shoulder.
Except for George's “Your grandfather tipped me once; he was a
deuced good judge of a cigar!” neither he nor the other past
master took any notice of him, and he was grateful for this. The
talk was all about the breeding, points, and prices of horses,
and he listened to it vaguely at first, wondering how it was
possible to retain so much knowledge in a head. He could not take
his eyes off the dark past master—what he said was so deliberate
and discouraging—such heavy, queer, smiled-out words. Jon was
thinking of butterflies, when he heard him say:
“I want to see Mr. Soames Forsyde take an interest in 'orses.”
“Old Soames! He's too dry a file!”
With all his might Jon tried not to grow red, while the dark past
master went on.
“His daughter's an attractive small girl. Mr. Soames Forsyde is a
bit old-fashioned. I want to see him have a pleasure some day.”
George Forsyte grinned.
“Don't you worry; he's not so miserable as he looks. He'll never
show he's enjoying anything—they might try and take it from him.
Old Soames! Once bit, twice shy!”
“Well, Jon,” said Val, hastily, “if you've finished, we'll go and
have coffee.”
“Who were those?” Jon asked, on the stairs. “I didn't quite—-”
“Old George Forsyte is a first cousin of your father's and of my
Uncle Soames. He's always been here. The other chap, Profond, is
a queer fish. I think he's hanging round Soames' wife, if you ask
me!”
Jon looked at him, startled. “But that's awful,” he said: “I
mean—for Fleur.”
“Don't suppose Fleur cares very much; she's very up-to-date.”
“Her mother!”
“You're very green, Jon.”
Jon grew red. “Mothers,” he stammered angrily, “are different.”
“You're right,” said Val suddenly; “but things aren't what they
were when I was your age. There's a 'To-morrow we die' feeling.
That's what old George meant about my Uncle Soames. He doesn't
mean to die to-morrow.”
Jon said, quickly: “What's the matter between him and my father?”
“Stable secret, Jon. Take my advice, and bottle up. You'll do no
good by knowing. Have a liqueur?”
Jon shook his head.
“I hate the way people keep things from one,” he muttered, “and
then sneer at one for being green.”
“Well, you can ask Holly. If she won't tell you, you'll believe
it's for your own good, I suppose.”
Jon got up. “I must go now; thanks awfully for the lunch.”
Val smiled up at him half-sorry, and yet amused. The boy looked
so upset.
“All right! See you on Friday.”
“I don't know,” murmured Jon.
And he did not. This conspiracy of silence made him desperate. It
was humiliating to be treated like a child! He retraced his moody
steps to Stratton Street. But he would go to her Club now, and
find out the worst! To his enquiry the reply was that Miss
Forsyte was not in the Club. She might be in perhaps later. She
was often in on Monday—they could not say. Jon said he would call
again, and, crossing into the Green Park, flung himself down
under a tree. The sun was bright, and a breeze fluttered the
leaves of the young lime-tree beneath which he lay; but his heart
ached. Such darkness seemed gathered round his happiness. He
heard Big Ben chime “Three” above the traffic. The sound moved
something in him, and, taking out a piece of paper, he began to
scribble on it with a pencil. He had jotted a stanza, and was
searching the grass for another verse, when something hard
touched his shoulder-a green parasol. There above him stood
Fleur!
“They told me you'd been, and were coming back. So I thought you
might be out here; and you are—it's rather wonderful!”
“Oh, Fleur! I thought you'd have forgotten me.”
“When I told you that I shouldn't!”
Jon seized her arm.
“It's too much luck! Let's get away from this side.” He almost
dragged her on through that too thoughtfully regulated Park, to
find some cover where they could sit and hold each other's hands.
“Hasn't anybody cut in?” he said, gazing round at her lashes, in
suspense above her cheeks.
“There is a young idiot, but he doesn't count.”
Jon felt a twitch of compassion for the-young idiot.
“You know I've had sunstroke; I didn't tell you.”
“Really! Was it interesting?”
“No. Mother was an angel. Has anything happened to you?”
“Nothing. Except that I think I've found out what's wrong between
our families, Jon.”
His heart began beating very fast.
“I believe my father wanted to marry your mother, and your father
got her instead.”
“Oh!”
“I came on a photo of her; it was in a frame behind a photo of
me. Of course, if he was very fond of her, that would have made
him pretty mad, wouldn't it?”
Jon thought for a minute. “Not if she loved my father best.”
“But suppose they were engaged?”
“If we were engaged, and you found you loved somebody better, I
might go cracked, but I shouldn't grudge it you.”
“I should. You mustn't ever do that with me, Jon.
“My God! Not much!”
“I don't believe that he's ever really cared for my mother.”
Jon was silent. Val's words—the two past masters in the Club!
“You see, we don't know,” went on Fleur; “it may have been a
great shock. She may have behaved badly to him. People do.”
“My mother wouldn't.”
Fleur shrugged her shoulders. “I don't think we know much about
our fathers and mothers. We just see them in the light of the way
they treat us; but they've treated other people, you know, before
we were born-plenty, I expect. You see, they're both old. Look at
your father, with three separate families!”
“Isn't there any place,” cried Jon, “in all this beastly London
where we can be alone?”
“Only a taxi.”
“Let's get one, then.”
When they were installed, Fleur asked suddenly: “Are you going
back to Robin Hill? I should like to see where you live, Jon. I'm
staying with my aunt for the night, but I could get back in time
for dinner. I wouldn't come to the house, of course.”
Jon gazed at her enraptured.
“Splendid! I can show it you from the copse, we shan't meet
anybody. There's a train at four.”
The god of property and his Forsytes great and small, leisured,
official, commercial, or professional, like the working classes,
still worked their seven hours a day, so that those two of the
fourth generation travelled down to Robin Hill in an empty
first-class carriage, dusty and sun-warmed, of that too early
train. They travelled in blissful silence, holding each other's
hands.
At the station they saw no one except porters, and a villager or
two unknown to Jon, and walked out up the lane, which smelled of
dust and honeysuckle.
For Jon—sure of her now, and without separation before him—it was
a miraculous dawdle, more wonderful than those on the Downs, or
along the river Thames. It was love-in-a-mist—one of those
illumined pages of Life, where every word and smile, and every
light touch they gave each other were as little gold and red and
blue butterflies and flowers and birds scrolled in among the
text—a happy communing, without afterthought, which lasted
thirty-seven minutes. They reached the coppice at the milking
hour. Jon would not take her as far as the farmyard; only to
where she could see the field leading up to the gardens, and the
house beyond. They turned in among the larches, and suddenly, at
the winding of the path, came on Irene, sitting on an old log
seat.
There are various kinds of shocks: to the vertebrae; to the
nerves; to moral sensibility; and, more potent and permanent, to
personal dignity. This last was the shock Jon received, coming
thus on his mother. He became suddenly conscious that he was
doing an indelicate thing. To have brought Fleur down openly—yes!
But to sneak her in like this! Consumed with shame, he put on a
front as brazen as his nature would permit.
Fleur was smiling, a little defiantly; his mother's startled face
was changing quickly to the impersonal and gracious. It was she
who uttered the first words:
“I'm very glad to see you. It was nice of Jon to think of
bringing you down to us.”
“We weren't coming to the house,” Jon blurted out. “I just wanted
Fleur to see where I lived.”
His mother said quietly:
“Won't you come up and have tea?”
Feeling that he had but aggravated his breach of breeding, he
heard Fleur answer:
“Thanks very much; I have to get back to dinner. I met Jon by
accident, and we thought it would be rather jolly just to see his
home.”
How self-possessed she was!
“Of course; but you must have tea. We'll send you down to the
station. My husband will enjoy seeing you.”
The expression of his mother's eyes, resting on him for a moment,
cast Jon down level with the ground—a true worm. Then she led on,
and Fleur followed her. He felt like a child, trailing after
those two, who were talking so easily about Spain and Wansdon,
and the house up there beyond the trees and the grassy slope. He
watched the fencing of their eyes, taking each other in—the two
beings he loved most in the world.
He could see his father sitting under the oaktree; and suffered
in advance all the loss of caste he must go through in the eyes
of that tranquil figure, with his knees crossed, thin, old, and
elegant; already he could feel the faint irony which would come
into his voice and smile.
“This is Fleur Forsyte, Jolyon; Jon brought her down to see the
house. Let's have tea at once—she has to catch a train. Jon, tell
them, dear, and telephone to the Dragon for a car.”
To leave her alone with them was strange, and yet, as no doubt
his mother had foreseen, the least of evils at the moment; so he
ran up into the house. Now he would not see Fleur alone again—not
for a minute, and they had arranged no further meeting! When he
returned under cover of the maids and teapots, there was not a
trace of awkwardness beneath the tree; it was all within himself,
but not the less for that. They were talking of the Gallery off
Cork Street.
“We back numbers,” his father was saying, “are awfully anxious to
find out why we can't appreciate the new stuff; you and Jon must
tell us.”
“It's supposed to be satiric, isn't it?” said Fleur.
He saw his father's smile.
“Satiric? Oh! I think it's more than that. What do you say, Jon?”
“I don't know at all,” stammered Jon. His father's face had a
sudden grimness.
“The young are tired of us, our gods and our ideals. Off with
their heads, they say—smash their idols! And let's get back
to-nothing! And, by Jove, they've done it! Jon's a poet. He'll be
going in, too, and stamping on what's left of us. Property,
beauty, sentiment—all smoke. We mustn't own anything nowadays,
not even our feelings. They stand in the way of—Nothing.”
Jon listened, bewildered, almost outraged by his father's words,
behind which he felt a meaning that he could not reach. He didn't
want to stamp on anything!
“Nothing's the god of to-day,” continued Jolyon; “we're back
where the Russians were sixty years ago, when they started
Nihilism.”
“No, Dad,” cried Jon suddenly, “we only want to live, and we
don't know how, because of the Past—that's all!”
“By George!” said Jolyon, “that's profound, Jon. Is it your own?
The Past! Old ownerships, old passions, and their aftermath.
Let's have cigarettes.”
Conscious that his mother had lifted her hand to her lips,
quickly, as if to hush something, Jon handed the cigarettes. He
lighted his father's and Fleur's, then one for himself. Had he
taken the knock that Val had spoken of? The smoke was blue when
he had not puffed, grey when he had; he liked the sensation in
his nose, and the sense of equality it gave him. He was glad no
one said: “So you've begun!” He felt less young.
Fleur looked at her watch, and rose. His mother went with her
into the house. Jon stayed with his father, puffing at the
cigarette.
“See her into the car, old man,” said Jolyon; “and when she's
gone, ask your mother to come back to me.”
Jon went. He waited in the hall. He saw her into the car. There
was no chance for any word; hardly for a pressure of the hand. He
waited all that evening for something to be said to him. Nothing
was said. Nothing might have happened. He went up to bed, and in
the mirror on his dressing-table met himself. He did not speak,
nor did the image; but both looked as if they thought the more.
IV.—IN GREEN STREET
Uncertain whether the impression that Prosper Profond was
dangerous should be traced to his attempt to give Val the Mayfly
filly; to a remark of Fleur's: “He's like the hosts of Midian—he
prowls and prowls around”; to his preposterous inquiry of Jack
Cardigan: “What's the use of keepin' fit?” or, more simply, to
the fact that he was a foreigner, or alien as it was now called.
Certain, that Annette was looking particularly handsome, and that
Soames—had sold him a Gauguin and then torn up the cheque, so
that Monsieur Profond himself had said: “I didn't get that small
picture I bought from Mr. Forsyde.”
However suspiciously regarded, he still frequented Winifred's
evergreen little house in Green Street, with a good-natured
obtuseness which no one mistook for naivete, a word hardly
applicable to Monsieur Prosper Profond. Winifred still found him
“amusing,” and would write him little notes saying: “Come and
have a 'jolly' with us”—it was breath of life to her to keep up
with the phrases of the day.
The mystery, with which all felt him to be surrounded, was due to
his having done, seen, heard, and known everything, and found
nothing in it—which was unnatural. The English type of
disillusionment was familiar enough to Winifred, who had always
moved in fashionable circles. It gave a certain cachet or
distinction, so that one got something out of it. But to see
nothing in anything, not as a pose, but because there was nothing
in anything, was not English; and that which was not English one
could not help secretly feeling dangerous, if not precisely bad
form. It was like having the mood which the War had left,
seated—dark, heavy, smiling, indifferent—in your Empire chair; it
was like listening to that mood talking through thick pink lips
above a little diabolic beard. It was, as Jack Cardigan expressed
it—for the English character at large—“a bit too thick”—for if
nothing was really worth getting excited about, there were always
games, and one could make it so! Even Winifred, ever a Forsyte at
heart, felt that there was nothing to be had out of such a mood
of disillusionment, so that it really ought not to be there.
Monsieur Profond, in fact, made the mood too plain in a country
which decently veiled such realities.
When Fleur, after her hurried return from Robin Hill, came down
to dinner that evening, the mood was standing at the window of
Winifred's little drawing-room, looking out into Green Street,
with an air of seeing nothing in it. And Fleur gazed promptly
into the fireplace with an air of seeing a fire which was not
there.
Monsieur Profond came from the window. He was in full fig, with a
white waistcoat and a white flower in his buttonhole.
“Well, Miss Forsyde,” he said, “I'm awful pleased to see you. Mr.
Forsyde well? I was sayin' to-day I want to see him have some
pleasure. He worries.”
“You think so?” said Fleur shortly.
“Worries,” repeated Monsieur Profond, burring the r's.
Fleur spun round. “Shall I tell you,” she said, “what would give
him pleasure?” But the words, “To hear that you had cleared out,”
died at the expression on his face. All his fine white teeth were
showing.
“I was hearin' at the Club to-day about his old trouble.” Fleur
opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Monsieur Profond moved his sleek head as if to minimize his
statement.
“Before you were born,” he said; “that small business.”
Though conscious that he had cleverly diverted her from his own
share in her father's worry, Fleur was unable to withstand a rush
of nervous curiosity. “Tell me what you heard.”
“Why!” murmured Monsieur Profond, “you know all that.”
“I expect I do. But I should like to know that you haven't heard
it all wrong.”
“His first wife,” murmured Monsieur Profond.
Choking back the words, “He was never married before,” she said:
“Well, what about her?”
“Mr. George Forsyde was tellin' me about your father's first wife
marryin' his cousin Jolyon afterward. It was a small bit
unpleasant, I should think. I saw their boy—nice boy!”
Fleur looked up. Monsieur Profond was swimming, heavily
diabolical, before her. That—the reason! With the most heroic
effort of her life so far, she managed to arrest that swimming
figure. She could not tell whether he had noticed. And just then
Winifred came in.
“Oh! here you both are already; Imogen and I have had the most
amusing afternoon at the Babies' bazaar.”
“What babies?” said Fleur mechanically.
“The 'Save the Babies.' I got such a bargain, my dear. A piece of
old Armenian work—from before the Flood. I want your opinion on
it, Prosper.”
“Auntie,” whispered Fleur suddenly.
At the tone in the girl's voice Winifred closed in on her.'
“What's the matter? Aren't you well?”
Monsieur Profond had withdrawn into the window, where he was
practically out of hearing.
“Auntie, he-he told me that father has been married before. Is it
true that he divorced her, and she married Jon Forsyte's father?”
Never in all the life of the mother of four little Darties had
Winifred felt more seriously embarrassed. Her niece's face was so
pale, her eyes so dark, her voice so whispery and strained.
“Your father didn't wish you to hear,” she said, with all the
aplomb she could muster. “These things will happen. I've often
told him he ought to let you know.”
“Oh!” said Fleur, and that was all, but it made Winifred pat her
shoulder—a firm little shoulder, nice and white! She never could
help an appraising eye and touch in the matter of her niece, who
would have to be married, of course—though not to that boy Jon.
“We've forgotten all about it years and years ago,” she said
comfortably. “Come and have dinner!”
“No, Auntie. I don't feel very well. May I go upstairs?”
“My dear!” murmured Winifred, concerned, “you're not taking this
to heart? Why, you haven't properly come out yet! That boy's a
child!”
“What boy? I've only got a headache. But I can't stand that man
to-night.”
“Well, well,” said Winifred, “go and lie down. I'll send you some
bromide, and I shall talk to Prosper Profond. What business had
he to gossip? Though I must say I think it's much better you
should know.”
Fleur smiled. “Yes,” she said, and slipped from the room.
She went up with her head whirling, a dry sensation in her
throat, a guttered frightened feeling in her breast. Never in her
life as yet had she suffered from even momentary fear that she
would not get what she had set her heart on. The sensations of
the afternoon had been full and poignant, and this gruesome
discovery coming on the top of them had really made her head
ache. No wonder her father had hidden that photograph, so
secretly behind her own-ashamed of having kept it! But could he
hate Jon's mother and yet keep her photograph? She pressed her
hands over her forehead, trying to see things clearly. Had they
told Jon—had her visit to Robin Hill forced them to tell him?
Everything now turned on that! She knew, they all knew,
except—perhaps—Jon!
She walked up and down, biting her lip and thinking desperately
hard. Jon loved his mother. If they had told him, what would he
do? She could not tell. But if they had not told him, should she
not—could she not get him for herself—get married to him, before
he knew? She searched her memories of Robin Hill. His mother's
face so passive—with its dark eyes and as if powdered hair, its
reserve, its smile—baffled her; and his father's—kindly, sunken,
ironic. Instinctively she felt they would shrink from telling
Jon, even now, shrink from hurting him—for of course it would
hurt him awfully to know!
Her aunt must be made not to tell her father that she knew. So
long as neither she herself nor Jon were supposed to know, there
was still a chance—freedom to cover one's tracks, and get what
her heart was set on. But she was almost overwhelmed by her
isolation. Every one's hand was against her—every one's! It was
as Jon had said—he and she just wanted to live and the past was
in their way, a past they hadn't shared in, and didn't
understand! Oh! What a shame! And suddenly she thought of June.
Would she help them? For somehow June had left on her the
impression that she would be sympathetic with their love,
impatient of obstacle. Then, instinctively, she thought: 'I won't
give anything away, though, even to her. I daren't. I mean to
have Jon; against them all.'
Soup was brought up to her, and one of Winifred's pet headache
cachets. She swallowed both. Then Winifred herself appeared.
Fleur opened her campaign with the words:
“You know, Auntie, I do wish people wouldn't think I'm in love
with that boy. Why, I've hardly seen him!”
Winifred, though experienced, was not “fine.” She accepted the
remark with considerable relief. Of course, it was not pleasant
for the girl to hear of the family scandal, and she set herself
to minimise the matter, a task for which she was eminently
qualified, “raised” fashionably under a comfortable mother and a
father whose nerves might not be shaken, and for many years the
wife of Montague Dartie. Her description was a masterpiece of
understatement. Fleur's father's first wife had been very
foolish. There had been a young man who had got run over, and she
had left Fleur's father. Then, years after, when it might all
have come—right again, she had taken up with their cousin Jolyon;
and, of course, her father had been obliged to have a divorce.
Nobody remembered anything of it now, except just the family.
And, perhaps, it had all turned out for the best; her father had
Fleur; and Jolyon and Irene had been quite happy, they said, and
their boy was a nice boy. “Val having Holly, too, is a sort of
plaster, don't you know?” With these soothing words, Winifred
patted her niece's shoulder; thought: 'She's a nice, plump little
thing!' and went back to Prosper Profond, who, in spite of his
indiscretion, was very “amusing” this evening.
For some minutes after her aunt had gone Fleur remained under
influence of bromide material and spiritual. But then reality
came back. Her aunt had left out all that mattered—all the
feeling, the hate, the love, the unforgivingness of passionate
hearts. She, who knew so little of life, and had touched only the
fringe of love, was yet aware by instinct that words have as
little relation to fact and feeling as coin to the bread it buys.
'Poor Father!' she thought. 'Poor me! Poor Jon! But I don't care,
I mean to have him!' From the window of her darkened room she saw
“that man” issue from the door below and “prowl” away. If he and
her mother—how would that affect her chance? Surely it must make
her father cling to her more closely, so that he would consent in
the end to anything she wanted, or become reconciled the sooner
to what she did without his knowledge.
She took some earth from the flower-box in the window, and with
all her might flung it after that disappearing figure. It fell
short, but the action did her good.
And a little puff of air came up from Green Street, smelling of
petrol, not sweet.
V.—PURELY FORSYTE AFFAIRS
Soames, coming up to the City, with the intention of calling in
at Green Street at the end of his day and taking Fleur back home
with him, suffered from rumination. Sleeping partner that he was,
he seldom visited the City now, but he still had a room of his
own at Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte's, and one special clerk and
a half assigned to the management of purely Forsyte affairs. They
were somewhat in flux just now—an auspicious moment for the
disposal of house property. And Soames was unloading the estates
of his father and Uncle Roger, and to some extent of his Uncle
Nicholas. His shrewd and matter-of-course probity in all money
concerns had made him something of an autocrat in connection with
these trusts. If Soames thought this or thought that, one had
better save oneself the bother of thinking too. He guaranteed, as
it were, irresponsibility to numerous Forsytes of the third and
fourth generations. His fellow trustees, such as his cousins
Roger or Nicholas, his cousins-in-law Tweetyman and Spender, or
his sister Cicely's husband, all trusted him; he signed first,
and where he signed first they signed after, and nobody was a
penny the worse. Just now they were all a good many pennies the
better, and Soames was beginning to see the close of certain
trusts, except for distribution of the income from securities as
gilt-edged as was compatible with the period.
Passing the more feverish parts of the City toward the most
perfect backwater in London, he ruminated. Money was
extraordinarily tight; and morality extraordinarily loose! The
War had done it. Banks were not lending; people breaking
contracts all over the place. There was a feeling in the air and
a look on faces that he did not like. The country seemed in for a
spell of gambling and bankruptcies. There was satisfaction in the
thought that neither he nor his trusts had an investment which
could be affected by anything less maniacal than national
repudiation or a levy on capital. If Soames had faith, it was in
what he called “English common sense”—or the power to have
things, if not one way then another. He might—like his father
James before him—say he didn't know what things were coming to,
but he never in his heart believed they were. If it rested with
him, they wouldn't—and, after all, he was only an Englishman like
any other, so quietly tenacious of what he had that he knew he
would never really part with it without something more or less
equivalent in exchange. His mind was essentially equilibristic in
material matters, and his way of putting the national situation
difficult to refute in a world composed of human beings. Take his
own case, for example! He was well off. Did that do anybody harm?
He did not eat ten meals a day; he ate no more than, perhaps not
so much as, a poor man. He spent no money on vice; breathed no
more air, used no more water to speak of than the mechanic or the
porter. He certainly had pretty things about him, but they had
given employment in the making, and somebody must use them. He
bought pictures, but Art must be encouraged. He was, in fact, an
accidental channel through which money flowed, employing labour.
What was there objectionable in that? In his charge money was in
quicker and more useful flux than it would be in charge of the
State and a lot of slow-fly money-sucking officials. And as to
what he saved each year—it was just as much in flux as what he
didn't save, going into Water Board or Council Stocks, or
something sound and useful. The State paid him no salary for
being trustee of his own or other people's money he did all that
for nothing. Therein lay the whole case against
nationalisation—owners of private property were unpaid, and yet
had every incentive to quicken up the flux. Under
nationalisation—just the opposite! In a country smarting from
officialism he felt that he had a strong case.
It particularly annoyed him, entering that backwater of perfect
peace, to think that a lot of unscrupulous Trusts and
Combinations had been cornering the market in goods of all kinds,
and keeping prices at an artificial height. Such abusers of the
individualistic system were the ruffians who caused all the
trouble, and it was some satisfaction to see them getting into a
stew at last lest the whole thing might come down with a run—and
land them in the soup.
The offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte occupied the ground
and first floors of a house on the right-hand side; and,
ascending to his room, Soames thought: 'Time we had a coat of
paint.'
His old clerk Gradman was seated, where he always was, at a huge
bureau with countless pigeonholes. Half-the-clerk stood beside
him, with a broker's note recording investment of the proceeds
from sale of the Bryanston Square house, in Roger Forsyte's
estate. Soames took it, and said:
“Vancouver City Stock. H'm. It's down today!”
With a sort of grating ingratiation old Gradman answered him:
“Ye-es; but everything's down, Mr. Soames.” And half-the-clerk
withdrew.
Soames skewered the document on to a number of other papers and
hung up his hat.
“I want to look at my Will and Marriage Settlement, Gradman.”
Old Gradman, moving to the limit of his swivel chair, drew out
two drafts from the bottom lefthand drawer. Recovering his body,
he raised his grizzle-haired face, very red from stooping.
“Copies, Sir.”
Soames took them. It struck him suddenly how like Gradman was to
the stout brindled yard dog they had been wont to keep on his
chain at The Shelter, till one day Fleur had come and insisted it
should be let loose, so that it had at once bitten the cook and
been destroyed. If you let Gradman off his chain, would he bite
the cook?
Checking this frivolous fancy, Soames unfolded his Marriage
Settlement. He had not looked at it for over eighteen years, not
since he remade his Will when his father died and Fleur was born.
He wanted to see whether the words “during coverture” were in.
Yes, they were—odd expression, when you thought of it, and
derived perhaps from horse-breeding! Interest on fifteen thousand
pounds (which he paid her without deducting income tax) so long
as she remained his wife, and afterward during widowhood “dum
casta”—old-fashioned and rather pointed words, put in to insure
the conduct of Fleur's mother. His Will made it up to an annuity
of a thousand under the same conditions. All right! He returned
the copies to Gradman, who took them without looking up, swung
the chair, restored the papers to their drawer, and went on
casting up.
“Gradman! I don't like the condition of the country; there are a
lot of people about without any common sense. I want to find a
way by which I can safeguard Miss Fleur against anything which
might arise.”
Gradman wrote the figure “2” on his blotting-paper.
“Ye-es,” he said; “there's a nahsty spirit.”
“The ordinary restraint against anticipation doesn't meet the
case.”
“Nao,” said Gradman.
“Suppose those Labour fellows come in, or worse! It's these
people with fixed ideas who are the danger. Look at Ireland!”
“Ah!” said Gradman.
“Suppose I were to make a settlement on her at once with myself
as beneficiary for life, they couldn't take anything but the
interest from me, unless of course they alter the law.”
Gradman moved his head and smiled.
“Ah!” he said, “they wouldn't do tha-at!”
“I don't know,” muttered Soames; “I don't trust them.”
“It'll take two years, sir, to be valid against death duties.”
Soames sniffed. Two years! He was only sixty-five!
“That's not the point. Draw a form of settlement that passes all
my property to Miss Fleur's children in equal shares, with
antecedent life-interests first to myself and then to her without
power of anticipation, and add a clause that in the event of
anything happening to divert her life-interest, that interest
passes to the trustees, to apply for her benefit, in their
absolute discretion.”
Gradman grated: “Rather extreme at your age, sir; you lose
control.”
“That's my business,” said Soames sharply.
Gradman wrote on a piece of paper:
“Life-interest—anticipation—divert interest—absolute
discretion....” and said:
“What trustees? There's young Mr. Kingson; he's a nice steady
young fellow.”
“Yes, he might do for one. I must have three. There isn't a
Forsyte now who appeals to me.”
“Not young Mr. Nicholas? He's at the Bar. We've given 'im
briefs.”
“He'll never set the Thames on fire,” said Soames.
A smile oozed out on Gradman's face, greasy from countless
mutton-chops, the smile of a man who sits all day.
“You can't expect it, at his age, Mr. Soames.”
“Why? What is he? Forty?”
“Ye-es, quite a young fellow.”
“Well, put him in; but I want somebody who'll take a personal
interest. There's no one that I can see.”
“What about Mr. Valerius, now he's come home?”
“Val Dartie? With that father?”
“We-ell,” murmured Gradman, “he's been dead seven years—the
Statute runs against him.”
“No,” said Soames. “I don't like the connection.” He rose.
Gradman said suddenly:
“If they were makin' a levy on capital, they could come on the
trustees, sir. So there you'd be just the same. I'd think it
over, if I were you.”
“That's true,” said Soames. “I will. What have you done about
that dilapidation notice in Vere Street?”
“I 'aven't served it yet. The party's very old. She won't want to
go out at her age.”
“I don't know. This spirit of unrest touches every one.”
“Still, I'm lookin' at things broadly, sir. She's eighty-one.”
“Better serve it,” said Soames, “and see what she says. Oh! and
Mr. Timothy? Is everything in order in case of—”
“I've got the inventory of his estate all ready; had the
furniture and pictures valued so that we know what reserves to
put on. I shall be sorry when he goes, though. Dear me! It is a
time since I first saw Mr. Timothy!”
“We can't live for ever,” said Soames, taking down his hat.
“Nao,” said Gradman; “but it'll be a pity—the last of the old
family! Shall I take up the matter of that nuisance in Old
Compton Street? Those organs—they're nahsty things.”
“Do. I must call for Miss Fleur and catch the four o'clock.
Good-day, Gradman.”
“Good-day, Mr. Soames. I hope Miss Fleur—”
“Well enough, but gads about too much.”
“Ye-es,” grated Gradman; “she's young.”
Soames went out, musing: “Old Gradman! If he were younger I'd put
him in the trust. There's nobody I can depend on to take a real
interest.”
Leaving the bilious and mathematical exactitude, the preposterous
peace of that backwater, he thought suddenly: 'During coverture!
Why can't they exclude fellows like Profond, instead of a lot of
hard-working Germans?' and was surprised at the depth of
uneasiness which could provoke so unpatriotic a thought. But
there it was! One never got a moment of real peace. There was
always something at the back of everything! And he made his way
toward Green Street.
Two hours later by his watch, Thomas Gradman, stirring in his
swivel chair, closed the last drawer of his bureau, and putting
into his waistcoat pocket a bunch of keys so fat that they gave
him a protuberance on the liver side, brushed his old top hat
round with his sleeve, took his umbrella, and descended. Thick,
short, and buttoned closely into his old frock coat, he walked
toward Covent Garden market. He never missed that daily promenade
to the Tube for Highgate, and seldom some critical transaction on
the way in connection with vegetables and fruit. Generations
might be born, and hats might change, wars be fought, and
Forsytes fade away, but Thomas Gradman, faithful and grey, would
take his daily walk and buy his daily vegetable. Times were not
what they were, and his son had lost a leg, and they never gave
him those nice little plaited baskets to carry the stuff in now,
and these Tubes were convenient things—still he mustn't complain;
his health was good considering his time of life, and after
fifty-four years in the Law he was getting a round eight hundred
a year and a little worried of late, because it was mostly
collector's commission on the rents, and with all this conversion
of Forsyte property going on, it looked like drying up, and the
price of living still so high; but it was no good worrying—“The
good God made us all”—as he was in the habit of saying; still,
house property in London—he didn't know what Mr. Roger or Mr.
James would say if they could see it being sold like this—seemed
to show a lack of faith; but Mr. Soames—he worried. Life and
lives in being and twenty-one years after—beyond that you
couldn't go; still, he kept his health wonderfully—and Miss Fleur
was a pretty little thing—she was; she'd marry; but lots of
people had no children nowadays—he had had his first child at
twenty-two; and Mr. Jolyon, married while he was at Cambridge,
had his child the same year—gracious Peter! That was back in '69,
a long time before old Mr. Jolyon—fine judge of property—had
taken his Will away from Mr. James—dear, yes! Those were the days
when they were buyin' property right and left, and none of this
khaki and fallin' over one another to get out of things; and
cucumbers at twopence; and a melon—the old melons, that made your
mouth water! Fifty years since he went into Mr. James' office,
and Mr. James had said to him: “Now, Gradman, you're only a
shaver—you pay attention, and you'll make your five hundred a
year before you've done.” And he had, and feared God, and served
the Forsytes, and kept a vegetable diet at night. And, buying a
copy of John Bull—not that he approved of it, an extravagant
affair—he entered the Tube elevator with his mere brown-paper
parcel, and was borne down into the bowels of the earth.
VI.—SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE
On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that he ought to
go into Dumetrius' in Suffolk Street about the possibility of the
Bolderby Old Crome. Almost worth while to have fought the war to
have the Bolderby Old Crome, as it were, in flux! Old Bolderby
had died, his son and grandson had been killed—a cousin was
coming into the estate, who meant to sell it, some said because
of the condition of England, others said because he had asthma.
If Dumetrius once got hold of it the price would become
prohibitive; it was necessary for Soames to find out whether
Dumetrius had got it, before he tried to get it himself. He
therefore confined himself to discussing with Dumetrius whether
Monticellis would come again now that it was the fashion for a
picture to be anything except a picture; and the future of Johns,
with a side-slip into Buxton Knights. It was only when leaving
that he added: “So they're not selling the Bolderby Old Crome,
after all?” In sheer pride of racial superiority, as he had
calculated would be the case, Dumetrius replied:
“Oh! I shall get it, Mr. Forsyte, sir!”
The flutter of his eyelid fortified Soames in a resolution to
write direct to the new Bolderby, suggesting that the only
dignified way of dealing with an Old Crome was to avoid dealers.
He therefore said, “Well, good-day!” and went, leaving Dumetrius
the wiser.
At Green Street he found that Fleur was out and would be all the
evening; she was staying one more night in London. He cabbed on
dejectedly, and caught his train.
He reached his house about six o'clock. The air was heavy, midges
biting, thunder about. Taking his letters he went up to his
dressing-room to cleanse himself of London.
An uninteresting post. A receipt, a bill for purchases on behalf
of Fleur. A circular about an exhibition of etchings. A letter
beginning:
“SIR,
“I feel it my duty...”
That would be an appeal or something unpleasant. He looked at
once for the signature. There was none! Incredulously he turned
the page over and examined each corner. Not being a public man,
Soames had never yet had an anonymous letter, and his first
impulse was to tear it up, as a dangerous thing; his second to
read it, as a thing still more dangerous.
“SIR,
“I feel it my duty to inform you that having no interest in the
matter your lady is carrying on with a foreigner—”
Reaching that word Soames stopped mechanically and examined the
postmark. So far as he could pierce the impenetrable disguise in
which the Post Office had wrapped it, there was something with a
“sea” at the end and a “t” in it. Chelsea? No! Battersea?
Perhaps! He read on.
“These foreigners are all the same. Sack the lot. This one meets
your lady twice a week. I know it of my own knowledge—and to see
an Englishman put on goes against the grain. You watch it and see
if what I say isn't true. I shouldn't meddle if it wasn't a dirty
foreigner that's in it.
“Yours obedient.”
The sensation with which Soames dropped the letter was similar to
that he would have had entering his bedroom and finding it full
of black-beetles. The meanness of anonymity gave a shuddering
obscenity to the moment. And the worst of it was that this shadow
had been at the back of his mind ever since the Sunday evening
when Fleur had pointed down at Prosper Profond strolling on the
lawn, and said: “Prowling cat!” Had he not in connection
therewith, this very day, perused his Will and Marriage
Settlement? And now this anonymous ruffian, with nothing to gain,
apparently, save the venting of his spite against foreigners, had
wrenched it out of the obscurity in which he had hoped and wished
it would remain. To have such knowledge forced on him, at his
time of life, about Fleur's mother! He picked the letter up from
the carpet, tore it across, and then, when it hung together by
just the fold at the back, stopped tearing, and reread it. He was
taking at that moment one of the decisive resolutions of his
life. He would not be forced into another scandal. No! However he
decided to deal with this matter—and it required the most
far-sighted and careful consideration he would do nothing that
might injure Fleur. That resolution taken, his mind answered the
helm again, and he made his ablutions. His hands trembled as he
dried them. Scandal he would not have, but something must be done
to stop this sort of thing! He went into his wife's room and
stood looking around him. The idea of searching for anything
which would incriminate, and entitle him to hold a menace over
her, did not even come to him. There would be nothing—she was
much too practical. The idea of having her watched had been
dismissed before it came—too well he remembered his previous
experience of that. No! He had nothing but this torn-up letter
from some anonymous ruffian, whose impudent intrusion into his
private life he so violently resented. It was repugnant to him to
make use of it, but he might have to. What a mercy Fleur was not
at home to-night! A tap on the door broke up his painful
cogitations.
“Mr. Michael Mont, sir, is in the drawing-room. Will you see
him?”
“No,” said Soames; “yes. I'll come down.”
Anything that would take his mind off for a few minutes!
Michael Mont in flannels stood on the verandah smoking a
cigarette. He threw it away as Soames came up, and ran his hand
through his hair.
Soames' feeling toward this young man was singular. He was no
doubt a rackety, irresponsible young fellow according to old
standards, yet somehow likeable, with his extraordinarily
cheerful way of blurting out his opinions.
“Come in,” he said; “have you had tea?”
Mont came in.
“I thought Fleur would have been back, sir; but I'm glad she
isn't. The fact is, I—I'm fearfully gone on her; so fearfully
gone that I thought you'd better know. It's old-fashioned, of
course, coming to fathers first, but I thought you'd forgive
that. I went to my own Dad, and he says if I settle down he'll
see me through. He rather cottons to the idea, in fact. I told
him about your Goya.”
“Oh!” said Soames, inexpressibly dry. “He rather cottons?”
“Yes, sir; do you?”
Soames smiled faintly.
“You see,” resumed Mont, twiddling his straw hat, while his hair,
ears, eyebrows, all seemed to stand up from excitement, “when
you've been through the War you can't help being in a hurry.”
“To get married; and unmarried afterward,” said Soames slowly.
“Not from Fleur, sir. Imagine, if you were me!”
Soames cleared his throat. That way of putting it was forcible
enough.
“Fleur's too young,” he said.
“Oh! no, sir. We're awfully old nowadays. My Dad seems to me a
perfect babe; his thinking apparatus hasn't turned a hair. But
he's a Baronight, of course; that keeps him back.”
“Baronight,” repeated Soames; “what may that be?”
“Bart, sir. I shall be a Bart some day. But I shall live it down,
you know.”
“Go away and live this down,” said Soames.
Young Mont said imploringly: “Oh! no, sir. I simply must hang
around, or I shouldn't have a dog's chance. You'll let Fleur do
what she likes, I suppose, anyway. Madame passes me.”
“Indeed!” said Soames frigidly.
“You don't really bar me, do you?” and the young man looked so
doleful that Soames smiled.
“You may think you're very old,” he said; “but you strike me as
extremely young. To rattle ahead of everything is not a proof of
maturity.”
“All right, sir; I give you our age. But to show you I mean
business—I've got a job.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Joined a publisher; my governor is putting up the stakes.”
Soames put his hand over his mouth—he had so very nearly said:
“God help the publisher!” His grey eyes scrutinised the agitated
young man.
“I don't dislike you, Mr. Mont, but Fleur is everything to me:
Everything—do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I know; but so she is to me.”
“That's as may be. I'm glad you've told me, however. And now I
think there's nothing more to be said.”
“I know it rests with her, sir.”
“It will rest with her a long time, I hope.”
“You aren't cheering,” said Mont suddenly.
“No,” said Soames, “my experience of life has not made me anxious
to couple people in a hurry. Good-night, Mr. Mont. I shan't tell
Fleur what you've said.”
“Oh!” murmured Mont blankly; “I really could knock my brains out
for want of her. She knows that perfectly well.”
“I dare say.” And Soames held out his hand. A distracted squeeze,
a heavy sigh, and soon after sounds from the young man's
motor-cycle called up visions of flying dust and broken bones.
'The younger generation!' he thought heavily, and went out on to
the lawn. The gardeners had been mowing, and there was still the
smell of fresh-cut grass—the thundery air kept all scents close
to earth. The sky was of a purplish hue—the poplars black. Two or
three boats passed on the river, scuttling, as it were, for
shelter before the storm. 'Three days' fine weather,' thought
Soames, 'and then a storm!' Where was Annette? With that chap,
for all he knew—she was a young woman! Impressed with the queer
charity of that thought, he entered the summerhouse and sat down.
The fact was—and he admitted it—Fleur was so much to him that his
wife was very little—very little; French—had never been much more
than a mistress, and he was getting indifferent to that side of
things! It was odd how, with all this ingrained care for
moderation and secure investment, Soames ever put his emotional
eggs into one basket. First Irene—now Fleur. He was dimly
conscious of it, sitting there, conscious of its odd
dangerousness. It had brought him to wreck and scandal once, but
now—now it should save him! He cared so much for Fleur that he
would have no further scandal. If only he could get at that
anonymous letter-writer, he would teach him not to meddle and
stir up mud at the bottom of water which he wished should remain
stagnant!... A distant flash, a low rumble, and large drops of
rain spattered on the thatch above him. He remained indifferent,
tracing a pattern with his finger on the dusty surface of a
little rustic table. Fleur's future! 'I want fair sailing for
her,' he thought. 'Nothing else matters at my time of life.' A
lonely business—life! What you had you never could keep to
yourself! As you warned one off, you let another in. One could
make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler rose
from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and
dropped—Nature was a queer thing! The thunder rumbled and
crashed, travelling east along a river, the paling flashes
flicked his eyes; the poplar tops showed sharp and dense against
the sky, a heavy shower rustled and rattled and veiled in the
little house wherein he sat, indifferent, thinking.
When the storm was over, he left his retreat and went down the
wet path to the river bank.
Two swans had come, sheltering in among the reeds. He knew the
birds well, and stood watching the dignity in the curve of those
white necks and formidable snake-like heads. 'Not dignified—what
I have to do!' he thought. And yet it must be tackled, lest worse
befell. Annette must be back by now from wherever she had gone,
for it was nearly dinner-time, and as the moment for seeing her
approached, the difficulty of knowing what to say and how to say
it had increased. A new and scaring thought occurred to him.
Suppose she wanted her liberty to marry this fellow! Well, if she
did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that. The
image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a
marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He
had better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel
represented—-! But what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing
that mattered surely. And yet something real enough in the
world—unmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl!
That expression Annette had caught from him: “Je m'en fiche!” A
fatalistic chap! A continental—a cosmopolitan—a product of the
age! If there were condemnation more complete, Soames felt that
he did not know it.
The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into
some distance of their own. One of them uttered a little hiss,
wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam
away. The other followed. Their white bodies, their stately
necks, passed out of his sight, and he went toward the house.
Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he
thought as he went up-stairs 'Handsome is as handsome does.'
Handsome! Except for remarks about the curtains in the
drawing-room, and the storm, there was practically no
conversation during a meal distinguished by exactitude of
quantity and perfection of quality. Soames drank nothing. He
followed her into the drawing-room afterward, and found her
smoking a cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows.
She was leaning back, almost upright, in a low black frock, with
her knees crossed and her blue eyes half-closed; grey-blue smoke
issued from her red, rather full lips, a fillet bound her
chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk stockings, and shoes
with very high heels showing off her instep. A fine piece in any
room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand thrust deep
into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said:
“I'm going to shut the window; the damp's lifting in.”
He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the
cream-panelled wall close by.
What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his
life—except Fleur—and Fleur not always! His heart beat fast. But
if he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David
Cox, he took out the torn letter.
“I've had this.”
Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened.
Soames handed her the letter.
“It's torn, but you can read it.” And he turned back to the David
Cox—a sea-piece, of good tone—but without movement enough. 'I
wonder what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll
astonish him yet.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette
holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side
under her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyes. She dropped
the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled, and said:
“Dirrty!”
“I quite agree,” said Soames; “degrading. Is it true?”
A tooth fastened on her red lower lip. “And what if it were?”
She was brazen!
“Is that all you have to say?”
“No.”
“Well, speak out!”
“What is the good of talking?”
Soames said icily: “So you admit it?”
“I admit nothing. You are a fool to ask. A man like you should
not ask. It is dangerous.”
Soames made a tour of the room, to subdue his rising anger.
“Do you remember,” he said, halting in front of her, “what you
were when I married you? Working at accounts in a restaurant.”
“Do you remember that I was not half your age?”
Soames broke off the hard encounter of their eyes, and went back
to the David Cox.
“I am not going to bandy words. I require you to give up
this—friendship. I think of the matter entirely as it affects
Fleur.”
“Ah!—Fleur!”
“Yes,” said Soames stubbornly; “Fleur. She is your child as well
as mine.”
“It is kind to admit that!”
“Are you going to do what I say?”
“I refuse to tell you.”
“Then I must make you.”
Annette smiled.
“No, Soames,” she said. “You are helpless. Do not say things that
you will regret.”
Anger swelled the veins on his forehead. He opened his mouth to
vent that emotion, and could not. Annette went on:
“There shall be no more such letters, I promise you. That is
enough.”
Soames writhed. He had a sense of being treated like a child by
this woman who had deserved he did not know what.
“When two people have married, and lived like us, Soames, they
had better be quiet about each other. There are things one does
not drag up into the light for people to laugh at. You will be
quiet, then; not for my sake for your own. You are getting old; I
am not, yet. You have made me ver-ry practical”
Soames, who had passed through all the sensations of being
choked, repeated dully:
“I require you to give up this friendship.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then—then I will cut you out of my Will.”
Somehow it did not seem to meet the case. Annette laughed.
“You will live a long time, Soames.”
“You—you are a bad woman,” said Soames suddenly.
Annette shrugged her shoulders.
“I do not think so. Living with you has killed things in me, it
is true; but I am not a bad woman. I am sensible—that is all. And
so will you be when you have thought it over.”
“I shall see this man,” said Soames sullenly, “and warn him off.”
“Mon cher, you are funny. You do not want me, you have as much of
me as you want; and you wish the rest of me to be dead. I admit
nothing, but I am not going to be dead, Soames, at my age; so you
had better be quiet, I tell you. I myself will make no scandal;
none. Now, I am not saying any more, whatever you do.”
She reached out, took a French novel off a little table, and
opened it. Soames watched her, silenced by the tumult of his
feelings. The thought of that man was almost making him want her,
and this was a revelation of their relationship, startling to one
little given to introspective philosophy. Without saying another
word he went out and up to the picture-gallery. This came of
marrying a Frenchwoman! And yet, without her there would have
been no Fleur! She had served her purpose.
'She's right,' he thought; 'I can do nothing. I don't even know
that there's anything in it.' The instinct of self-preservation
warned him to batten down his hatches, to smother the fire with
want of air. Unless one believed there was something in a thing,
there wasn't.
That night he went into her room. She received him in the most
matter-of-fact way, as if there had been no scene between them.
And he returned to his own room with a curious sense of peace. If
one didn't choose to see, one needn't. And he did not choose—in
future he did not choose. There was nothing to be gained by
it—nothing! Opening the drawer he took from the sachet a
handkerchief, and the framed photograph of Fleur. When he had
looked at it a little he slipped it down, and there was that
other one—that old one of Irene. An owl hooted while he stood in
his window gazing at it. The owl hooted, the red climbing roses
seemed to deepen in colour, there came a scent of lime-blossom.
God! That had been a different thing! Passion—Memory! Dust!
VII.—JUNE TAKES A HAND
One who was a sculptor, a Slav, a sometime resident in New York,
an egoist, and impecunious, was to be found of an evening in June
Forsyte's studio on the bank of the Thames at Chiswick. On the
evening of July 6, Boris Strumolowski—several of whose works were
on show there because they were as yet too advanced to be on show
anywhere else—had begun well, with that aloof and rather
Christ-like silence which admirably suited his youthful, round,
broad cheek-boned countenance framed in bright hair banged like a
girl's. June had known him three weeks, and he still seemed to
her the principal embodiment of genius, and hope of the future; a
sort of Star of the East which had strayed into an unappreciative
West. Until that evening he had conversationally confined himself
to recording his impressions of the United States, whose dust he
had just shaken from off his feet—a country, in his opinion, so
barbarous in every way that he had sold practically nothing
there, and become an object of suspicion to the police; a
country, as he said, without a race of its own, without liberty,
equality, or fraternity, without principles, traditions, taste,
without—in a word—a soul. He had left it for his own good, and
come to the only other country where he could live well. June had
dwelt unhappily on him in her lonely moments, standing before his
creations—frightening, but powerful and symbolic once they had
been explained! That he, haloed by bright hair like an early
Italian painting, and absorbed in his genius to the exclusion of
all else—the only sign of course by which real genius could be
told—should still be a “lame duck” agitated her warm heart almost
to the exclusion of Paul Post. And she had begun to take steps to
clear her Gallery, in order to fill it with Strumolowski
masterpieces. She had at once encountered trouble. Paul Post had
kicked; Vospovitch had stung. With all the emphasis of a genius
which she did not as yet deny them, they had demanded another six
weeks at least of her Gallery. The American stream, still flowing
in, would soon be flowing out. The American stream was their
right, their only hope, their salvation—since nobody in this
“beastly” country cared for Art. June had yielded to the
demonstration. After all Boris would not mind their having the
full benefit of an American stream, which he himself so violently
despised.
This evening she had put that to Boris with nobody else present,
except Hannah Hobdey, the mediaeval black-and-whitist, and Jimmy
Portugal, editor of the Neo-Artist. She had put it to him with
that sudden confidence which continual contact with the
neo-artistic world had never been able to dry up in her warm and
generous nature. He had not broken his Christ-like silence,
however, for more than two minutes before she began to move her
blue eyes from side to side, as a cat moves its tail. This—he
said—was characteristic of England, the most selfish country in
the world; the country which sucked the blood of other countries;
destroyed the brains and hearts of Irishmen, Hindus, Egyptians,
Boers, and Burmese, all the best races in the world; bullying,
hypocritical England! This was what he had expected, coming to,
such a country, where the climate was all fog, and the people all
tradesmen perfectly blind to Art, and sunk in profiteering and
the grossest materialism. Conscious that Hannah Hobdey was
murmuring, “Hear, hear!” and Jimmy Portugal sniggering, June grew
crimson, and suddenly rapped out:
“Then why did you ever come? We didn't ask you.”
The remark was so singularly at variance with all she had led him
to expect from her, that Strumolowski stretched out his hand and
took a cigarette.
“England never wants an idealist,” he said.
But in June something primitively English was thoroughly upset;
old Jolyon's sense of justice had risen, as it were, from bed.
“You come and sponge on us,” she said, “and then abuse us. If you
think that's playing the game, I don't.”
She now discovered that which others had discovered before
her—the thickness of hide beneath which the sensibility of genius
is sometimes veiled. Strumolowski's young and ingenuous face
became the incarnation of a sneer.
“Sponge, one does not sponge, one takes what is owing—a tenth
part of what is owing. You will repent to say that, Miss
Forsyte.”
“Oh, no,” said June, “I shan't.”
“Ah! We know very well, we artists—you take us to get what you
can out of us. I want nothing from you”—and he blew out a cloud
of June's smoke.
Decision rose in an icy puff from the turmoil of insulted shame
within her. “Very well, then, you can take your things away.”
And, almost in the same moment, she thought: 'Poor boy! He's only
got a garret, and probably not a taxi fare. In front of these
people, too; it's positively disgusting!'
Young Strumolowski shook his head violently; his hair, thick,
smooth, close as a golden plate, did not fall off.
“I can live on nothing,” he said shrilly; “I have often had to
for the sake of my Art. It is you bourgeois who force us to spend
money.”
The words hit June like a pebble, in the ribs. After all she had
done for Art, all her identification with its troubles and lame
ducks. She was struggling for adequate words when the door was
opened, and her Austrian murmured:
“A young lady, gnadiges Fraulein.”
“Where?”
“In the little meal-room.”
With a glance at Boris Strumolowski, at Hannah Hobdey, at Jimmy
Portugal, June said nothing, and went out, devoid of equanimity.
Entering the “little meal-room,” she perceived the young lady to
be Fleur—looking very pretty, if pale. At this disenchanted
moment a little lame duck of her own breed was welcome to June,
so homoeopathic by instinct.
The girl must have come, of course, because of Jon; or, if not,
at least to get something out of her. And June felt just then
that to assist somebody was the only bearable thing.
“So you've remembered to come,” she said.
“Yes. What a jolly little duck of a house! But please don't let
me bother you, if you've got people.”
“Not at all,” said June. “I want to let them stew in their own
juice for a bit. Have you come about Jon?”
“You said you thought we ought to be told. Well, I've found out.”
“Oh!” said June blankly. “Not nice, is it?”
They were standing one on each side of the little bare table at
which June took her meals. A vase on it was full of Iceland
poppies; the girl raised her hand and touched them with a gloved
finger. To her new-fangled dress, frilly about the hips and tight
below the knees, June took a sudden liking—a charming colour,
flax-blue.
'She makes a picture,' thought June. Her little room, with its
whitewashed walls, its floor and hearth of old pink brick, its
black paint, and latticed window athwart which the last of the
sunlight was shining, had never looked so charming, set off by
this young figure, with the creamy, slightly frowning face. She
remembered with sudden vividness how nice she herself had looked
in those old days when her heart was set on Philip Bosinney, that
dead lover, who had broken from her to destroy for ever Irene's
allegiance to this girl's father. Did Fleur know of that, too?
“Well,” she said, “what are you going to do?”
It was some seconds before Fleur answered.
“I don't want Jon to suffer. I must see him once more to put an
end to it.”
“You're going to put an end to it!”
“What else is there to do?”
The girl seemed to June, suddenly, intolerably spiritless.
“I suppose you're right,” she muttered. “I know my father thinks
so; but—I should never have done it myself. I can't take things
lying down.”
How poised and watchful that girl looked; how unemotional her
voice sounded!
“People will assume that I'm in love.”
“Well, aren't you?”
Fleur shrugged her shoulders. 'I might have known it,' thought
June; 'she's Soames' daughter—fish! And yet—he!'
“What do you want me to do then?” she said with a sort of
disgust.
“Could I see Jon here to-morrow on his way down to Holly's? He'd
come if you sent him a line to-night. And perhaps afterward you'd
let them know quietly at Robin Hill that it's all over, and that
they needn't tell Jon about his mother.”
“All right!” said June abruptly. “I'll write now, and you can
post it. Half-past two tomorrow. I shan't be in, myself.”
She sat down at the tiny bureau which filled one corner. When she
looked round with the finished note Fleur was still touching the
poppies with her gloved finger.
June licked a stamp. “Well, here it is. If you're not in love, of
course, there's no more to be said. Jon's lucky.”
Fleur took the note. “Thanks awfully!”
'Cold-blooded little baggage!' thought June. Jon, son of her
father, to love, and not to be loved by the daughter of—Soames!
It was humiliating!
“Is that all?”
Fleur nodded; her frills shook and trembled as she swayed toward
the door.
“Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!... Little piece of fashion!” muttered June, closing
the door. “That family!” And she marched back toward her studio.
Boris Strumolowski had regained his Christ-like silence and Jimmy
Portugal was damning everybody, except the group in whose behalf
he ran the Neo-Artist. Among the condemned were Eric Cobbley, and
several other “lame-duck” genii who at one time or another had
held first place in the repertoire of June's aid and adoration.
She experienced a sense of futility and disgust, and went to the
window to let the river-wind blow those squeaky words away.
But when at length Jimmy Portugal had finished, and gone with
Hannah Hobdey, she sat down and mothered young Strumolowski for
half an hour, promising him a month, at least, of the American
stream; so that he went away with his halo in perfect order. 'In
spite of all,' June thought, 'Boris is wonderful.'
VIII.—THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH
To know that your hand is against every one's is—for some
natures—to experience a sense of moral release. Fleur felt no
remorse when she left June's house. Reading condemnatory
resentment in her little kinswoman's blue eyes-she was glad that
she had fooled her, despising June because that elderly idealist
had not seen what she was after.
End it, forsooth! She would soon show them all that she was only
just beginning. And she smiled to herself on the top of the bus
which carried her back to Mayfair. But the smile died, squeezed
out by spasms of anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to
manage Jon? She had taken the bit between her teeth, but could
she make him take it too? She knew the truth and the real danger
of delay—he knew neither; therein lay all the difference in the
world.
'Suppose I tell him,' she thought; 'wouldn't it really be safer?'
This hideous luck had no right to spoil their love; he must see
that! They could not let it! People always accepted an
accomplished fact in time! From that piece of philosophy—profound
enough at her age—she passed to another consideration less
philosophic. If she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret marriage,
and he found out afterward that she had known the truth. What
then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not be better
to tell him? But the memory of his mother's face kept intruding
on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power over him;
more power perhaps than she herself. Who could tell? It was too
great a risk. Deep-sunk in these instinctive calculations she was
carried on past Green Street as far as the Ritz Hotel. She got
down there, and walked back on the Green Park side. The storm had
washed every tree; they still dripped. Heavy drops fell on to her
frills, and to avoid them she crossed over under the eyes of the
Iseeum Club. Chancing to look up she saw Monsieur Profond with a
tall stout man in the bay window. Turning into Green Street she
heard her name called, and saw “that prowler” coming up. He took
off his hat—a glossy “bowler” such as she particularly detested.
“Good evenin'. Miss Forsyde. Isn't there a small thing I can do
for you?”
“Yes, pass by on the other side.”
“I say! Why do you dislike me?”
“Do I?”
“It looks like it.”
“Well, then, because you make me feel life isn't worth living.”
Monsieur Profond smiled.
“Look here, Miss Forsyde, don't worry. It'll be all right.
Nothing lasts.”
“Things do last,” cried Fleur; “with me anyhow—especially likes
and dislikes.”
“Well, that makes me a bit un'appy.”
“I should have thought nothing could ever make you happy or
unhappy.”
“I don't like to annoy other people. I'm goin' on my yacht.”
Fleur looked at him, startled.
“Where?”
“Small voyage to the South Seas or somewhere,” said Monsieur
Profond.
Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to
convey that he was breaking with her mother. How dared he have
anything to break, and yet how dared he break it?
“Good-night, Miss Forsyde! Remember me to Mrs. Dartie. I'm not so
bad really. Good-night!” Fleur left him standing there with his
hat raised. Stealing a look round, she saw him stroll—immaculate
and heavy—back toward his Club.
'He can't even love with conviction,' she thought. 'What will
Mother do?'
Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and
unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker's Almanac. A
Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of
any situation. She might conquer Jon's prejudice, but without
exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing
would happen. From the invaluable tome she learned that they must
each be twenty-one; or some one's consent would be necessary,
which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in
directions concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts,
coming finally to the word “perjury.” But that was nonsense! Who
would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married
for love! She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to
Whitaker. The more she studied the less sure she became; till,
idly turning the pages, she came to Scotland. People could be
married there without any of this nonsense. She had only to go
and stay there twenty-one days, then Jon could come, and in front
of two people they could declare themselves married. And what was
more—they would be! It was far the best way; and at once she ran
over her schoolfellows. There was Mary Lambe who lived in
Edinburgh and was “quite a sport!”
She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with
her brother would serve for witnesses. She well knew that some
girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon
need do was to go away together for a weekend and then say to
their people: “We are married by Nature, we must now be married
by Law.” But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding
dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard of it.
Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an
opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary
Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to
Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took
a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens.
She found no peace among its flower-beds, labelled trees, and
broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy-paste
sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June's bell.
The Austrian admitted her to the “little meal-room.” Now that she
knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had
increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or
dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a
child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and
all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must
and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over
the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in
it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept
passing through her nerves. Then she heard the bell ring, and,
stealing to the window, saw him standing on the doorstep
smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue
the fluttering of his nerves.
She was sitting on one of the two rush-seated chairs, with her
back to the door, when he came in, and she said at once—
“Sit down, Jon, I want to talk seriously.”
Jon sat on the table by her side, and without looking at him she
went on:
“If you don't want to lose me, we must get married.”
Jon gasped.
“Why? Is there anything new?”
“No, but I felt it at Robin Hill, and among my people.”
“But—” stammered Jon, “at Robin Hill—it was all smooth—and
they've said nothing to me.”
“But they mean to stop us. Your mother's face was enough. And my
father's.”
“Have you seen him since?”
Fleur nodded. What mattered a few supplementary lies?
“But,” said Jon eagerly, “I can't see how they can feel like that
after all these years.”
Fleur looked up at him.
“Perhaps you don't love me enough.” “Not love you enough! Why—!”
“Then make sure of me.”
“Without telling them?”
“Not till after.”
Jon was silent. How much older he looked than on that day, barely
two months ago, when she first saw him—quite two years older!
“It would hurt Mother awfully,” he said.
Fleur drew her hand away.
“You've got to choose.”
Jon slid off the table on to his knees.
“But why not tell them? They can't really stop us, Fleur!”
“They can! I tell you, they can.”
“How?”
“We're utterly dependent—by putting money pressure, and all sorts
of other pressure. I'm not patient, Jon.”
“But it's deceiving them.”
Fleur got up.
“You can't really love me, or you wouldn't hesitate. 'He either
fears his fate too much!'”
Lifting his hands to her waist, Jon forced her to sit down again.
She hurried on:
“I've planned it all out. We've only to go to Scotland. When
we're married they'll soon come round. People always come round
to facts. Don't you see, Jon?”
“But to hurt them so awfully!”
So he would rather hurt her than those people of his! “All right,
then; let me go!”
Jon got up and put his back against the door.
“I expect you're right,” he said slowly; “but I want to think it
over.”
She could see that he was seething with feelings he wanted to
express; but she did not mean to help him. She hated herself at
this moment and almost hated him. Why had she to do all the work
to secure their love? It wasn't fair. And then she saw his eyes,
adoring and distressed.
“Don't look like that! I only don't want to lose you, Jon.”
“You can't lose me so long as you want me.”
“Oh, yes, I can.”
Jon put his hands on her shoulders.
“Fleur, do you know anything you haven't told me?”
It was the point-blank question she had dreaded. She looked
straight at him, and answered: “No.” She had burnt her boats; but
what did it matter, if she got him? He would forgive her. And
throwing her arms round his neck, she kissed him on the lips. She
was winning! She felt it in the beating of his heart against her,
in the closing of his eyes. “I want to make sure! I want to make
sure!” she whispered. “Promise!”
Jon did not answer. His face had the stillness of extreme
trouble. At last he said:
“It's like hitting them. I must think a little, Fleur. I really
must.”
Fleur slipped out of his arms.
“Oh! Very well!” And suddenly she burst into tears of
disappointment, shame, and overstrain. Followed five minutes of
acute misery. Jon's remorse and tenderness knew no bounds; but he
did not promise. Despite her will to cry, “Very well, then, if
you don't love me enough-goodbye!” she dared not. From birth
accustomed to her own way, this check from one so young, so
tender, so devoted, baffled and surprised her. She wanted to push
him away from her, to try what anger and coldness would do, and
again she dared not. The knowledge that she was scheming to rush
him blindfold into the irrevocable weakened everything—weakened
the sincerity of pique, and the sincerity of passion; even her
kisses had not the lure she wished for them. That stormy little
meeting ended inconclusively.
“Will you some tea, gnadiges Fraulein?”
Pushing Jon from her, she cried out:
“No-no, thank you! I'm just going.”
And before he could prevent her she was gone.
She went stealthily, mopping her gushed, stained cheeks,
frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred Jon up so
fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the
more uncertain and hazardous the future, the more “the will to
have” worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heart—like some
burrowing tick!
No one was at Green Street. Winifred had gone with Imogen to see
a play which some said was allegorical, and others “very
exciting, don't you know.” It was because of what others said
that Winifred and Imogen had gone. Fleur went on to Paddington.
Through the carriage the air from the brick-kilns of West Drayton
and the late hayfields fanned her still gushed cheeks. Flowers
had seemed to be had for the picking; now they were all thorned
and prickled. But the golden flower within the crown of spikes
seemed to her tenacious spirit all the fairer and more desirable.
IX.—THE FAT IN THE FIRE
On reaching home Fleur found an atmosphere so peculiar that it
penetrated even the perplexed aura of her own private life. Her
mother was inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father
contemplating fate in the vinery. Neither of them had a word to
throw to a dog. 'Is it because of me?' thought Fleur. 'Or because
of Profond?' To her mother she said:
“What's the matter with Father?”
Her mother answered with a shrug of her shoulders.
To her father:
“What's the matter with Mother?”
Her father answered:
“Matter? What should be the matter?” and gave her a sharp look.
“By the way,” murmured Fleur, “Monsieur Profond is going a
'small' voyage on his yacht, to the South Seas.”
Soames examined a branch on which no grapes were growing.
“This vine's a failure,” he said. “I've had young Mont here. He
asked me something about you.”
“Oh! How do you like him, Father?”
“He—he's a product—like all these young people.”
“What were you at his age, dear?”
Soames smiled grimly.
“We went to work, and didn't play about—flying and motoring, and
making love.”
“Didn't you ever make love?”
She avoided looking at him while she said that, but she saw him
well enough. His pale face had reddened, his eyebrows, where
darkness was still mingled with the grey, had come close
together.
“I had no time or inclination to philander.”
“Perhaps you had a grand passion.”
Soames looked at her intently.
“Yes—if you want to know—and much good it did me.” He moved away,
along by the hot-water pipes. Fleur tiptoed silently after him.
“Tell me about it, Father!”
Soames became very still.
“What should you want to know about such things, at your age?”
“Is she alive?”
He nodded.
“And married?”
“Yes.”
“It's Jon Forsyte's mother, isn't it? And she was your wife
first.”
It was said in a flash of intuition. Surely his opposition came
from his anxiety that she should not know of that old wound to
his pride. But she was startled. To see some one so old and calm
wince as if struck, to hear so sharp a note of pain in his voice!
“Who told you that? If your aunt! I can't bear the affair talked
of.”
“But, darling,” said Fleur, softly, “it's so long ago.”
“Long ago or not, I....”
Fleur stood stroking his arm.
“I've tried to forget,” he said suddenly; “I don't wish to be
reminded.” And then, as if venting some long and secret
irritation, he added: “In these days people don't understand.
Grand passion, indeed! No one knows what it is.”
“I do,” said Fleur, almost in a whisper.
Soames, who had turned his back on her, spun round.
“What are you talking of—a child like you!”
“Perhaps I've inherited it, Father.”
“What?”
“For her son, you see.”
He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They
stood staring at each other in the steamy heat, redolent of the
mushy scent of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming
along fast.
“This is crazy,” said Soames at last, between dry lips.
Scarcely moving her own, she murmured:
“Don't be angry, Father. I can't help it.”
But she could see he wasn't angry; only scared, deeply scared.
“I thought that foolishness,” he stammered, “was all forgotten.”
“Oh, no! It's ten times what it was.”
Soames kicked at the hot-water pipe. The hapless movement touched
her, who had no fear of her father—none.
“Dearest!” she said. “What must be, must, you know.”
“Must!” repeated Soames. “You don't know what you're talking of.
Has that boy been told?”
The blood rushed into her cheeks.
“Not yet.”
He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little
raised, stood staring fixedly at a joint in the pipes.
“It's most distasteful to me,” he said suddenly; “nothing could
be more so. Son of that fellow! It's—it's—perverse!”
She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say “son of
that woman,” and again her intuition began working.
Did the ghost of that grand passion linger in some corner of his
heart?
She slipped her hand under his arm.
“Jon's father is quite ill and old; I saw him.”
“You—?”
“Yes, I went there with Jon; I saw them both.”
“Well, and what did they say to you?”
“Nothing. They were very polite.”
“They would be.” He resumed his contemplation of the pipe-joint,
and then said suddenly:
“I must think this over—I'll speak to you again to-night.”
She knew this was final for the moment, and stole away, leaving
him still looking at the pipe-joint. She wandered into the
fruit-garden, among the raspberry and currant bushes, without
impetus to pick and eat. Two months ago—she was light-hearted!
Even two days ago—light-hearted, before Prosper Profond told her.
Now she felt tangled in a web-of passions, vested rights,
oppressions and revolts, the ties of love and hate. At this dark
moment of discouragement there seemed, even to her hold-fast
nature, no way out. How deal with it—how sway and bend things to
her will, and get her heart's desire? And, suddenly, round the
corner of the high box hedge, she came plump on her mother,
walking swiftly, with an open letter in her hand. Her bosom was
heaving, her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed. Instantly Fleur
thought: 'The yacht! Poor Mother!'
Annette gave her a wide startled look, and said:
“J'ai la migraine.”
“I'm awfully sorry, Mother.”
“Oh, yes! you and your father—sorry!”
“But, Mother—I am. I know what it feels like.”
Annette's startled eyes grew wide, till the whites showed above
them.
“Poor innocent!” she said.
Her mother—so self-possessed, and commonsensical—to look and
speak like this! It was all frightening! Her father, her mother,
herself! And only two months back they had seemed to have
everything they wanted in this world.
Annette crumpled the letter in her hand. Fleur knew that she must
ignore the sight.
“Can't I do anything for your head, Mother?”
Annette shook that head and walked on, swaying her hips.
'It's cruel,' thought Fleur, 'and I was glad! That man! What do
men come prowling for, disturbing everything! I suppose he's
tired of her. What business has he to be tired of my mother? What
business!' And at that thought, so natural and so peculiar, she
uttered a little choked laugh.
She ought, of course, to be delighted, but what was there to be
delighted at? Her father didn't really care! Her mother did,
perhaps? She entered the orchard, and sat down under a
cherry-tree. A breeze sighed in the higher boughs; the sky seen
through their green was very blue and very white in cloud—those
heavy white clouds almost always present in river landscape.
Bees, sheltering out of the wind, hummed softly, and over the
lush grass fell the thick shade from those fruit-trees planted by
her father five-and-twenty, years ago. Birds were almost silent,
the cuckoos had ceased to sing, but wood-pigeons were cooing. The
breath and drone and cooing of high summer were not for long a
sedative to her excited nerves. Crouched over her knees she began
to scheme. Her father must be made to back her up. Why should he
mind so long as she was happy? She had not lived for nearly
nineteen years without knowing that her future was all he really
cared about. She had, then, only to convince him that her future
could not be happy without Jon. He thought it a mad fancy. How
foolish the old were, thinking they could tell what the young
felt! Had not he confessed that he—when young—had loved with a
grand passion? He ought to understand! 'He piles up his money for
me,' she thought; 'but what's the use, if I'm not going to be
happy?' Money, and all it bought, did not bring happiness. Love
only brought that. The ox-eyed daisies in this orchard, which
gave it such a moony look sometimes, grew wild and happy, and had
their hour. 'They oughtn't to have called me Fleur,' she mused,
'if they didn't mean me to have my hour, and be happy while it
lasts.' Nothing real stood in the way, like poverty, or
disease—sentiment only, a ghost from the unhappy past! Jon was
right. They wouldn't let you live, these old people! They made
mistakes, committed crimes, and wanted their children to go on
paying! The breeze died away; midges began to bite. She got up,
plucked a piece of honeysuckle, and went in.
It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin,
pale low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale. Fleur was struck
with the pale look of everything; her father's face, her mother's
shoulders; the pale panelled walls, the pale grey velvety carpet,
the lamp-shade, even the soup was pale. There was not one spot of
colour in the room, not even wine in the pale glasses, for no one
drank it. What was not pale was black—her father's clothes, the
butler's clothes, her retriever stretched out exhausted in the
window, the curtains black with a cream pattern. A moth came in,
and that was pale. And silent was that half-mourning dinner in
the heat.
Her father called her back as she was following her mother out.
She sat down beside him at the table, and, unpinning the pale
honeysuckle, put it to her nose.
“I've been thinking,” he said.
“Yes, dear?”
“It's extremely painful for me to talk, but there's no help for
it. I don't know if you understand how much you are to me I've
never spoken of it, I didn't think it necessary; but—but you're
everything. Your mother—” he paused, staring at his finger-bowl
of Venetian glass.
“Yes?”'
“I've only you to look to. I've never had—never wanted anything
else, since you were born.”
“I know,” Fleur murmured.
Soames moistened his lips.
“You may think this a matter I can smooth over and arrange for
you. You're mistaken. I'm helpless.”
Fleur did not speak.
“Quite apart from my own feelings,” went on Soames with more
resolution, “those two are not amenable to anything I can say.
They—they hate me, as people always hate those whom they have
injured.” “But he—Jon—”
“He's their flesh and blood, her only child. Probably he means to
her what you mean to me. It's a deadlock.”
“No,” cried Fleur, “no, Father!”
Soames leaned back, the image of pale patience, as if resolved on
the betrayal of no emotion.
“Listen!” he said. “You're putting the feelings of two months—two
months—against the feelings of thirty-five years! What chance do
you think you have? Two months—your very first love affair, a
matter of half a dozen meetings, a few walks and talks, a few
kisses—against, against what you can't imagine, what no one could
who hasn't been through it. Come, be reasonable, Fleur! It's
midsummer madness!”
Fleur tore the honeysuckle into little, slow bits.
“The madness is in letting the past spoil it all.
“What do we care about the past? It's our lives, not yours.”
Soames raised his hand to his forehead, where suddenly she saw
moisture shining.
“Whose child are you?” he said. “Whose child is he? The present
is linked with the past, the future with both. There's no getting
away from that.”
She had never heard philosophy pass those lips before. Impressed
even in her agitation, she leaned her elbows on the table, her
chin on her hands.
“But, Father, consider it practically. We want each other.
There's ever so much money, and nothing whatever in the way but
sentiment. Let's bury the past, Father.”
His answer was a sigh.
“Besides,” said Fleur gently, “you can't prevent us.”
“I don't suppose,” said Soames, “that if left to myself I should
try to prevent you; I must put up with things, I know, to keep
your affection. But it's not I who control this matter. That's
what I want you to realise before it's too late. If you go on
thinking you can get your way and encourage this feeling, the
blow will be much heavier when you find you can't.”
“Oh!” cried Fleur, “help me, Father; you can help me, you know.”
Soames made a startled movement of negation. “I?” he said
bitterly. “Help? I am the impediment—the just cause and
impediment—isn't that the jargon? You have my blood in your
veins.”
He rose.
“Well, the fat's in the fire. If you persist in your wilfulness
you'll have yourself to blame. Come! Don't be foolish, my
child—my only child!”
Fleur laid her forehead against his shoulder.
All was in such turmoil within her. But no good to show it! No
good at all! She broke away from him, and went out into the
twilight, distraught, but unconvinced. All was indeterminate and
vague within her, like the shapes and shadows in the garden,
except—her will to have. A poplar pierced up into the dark-blue
sky and touched a white star there. The dew wetted her shoes, and
chilled her bare shoulders. She went down to the river bank, and
stood gazing at a moonstreak on the darkening water. Suddenly she
smelled tobacco smoke, and a white figure emerged as if created
by the moon. It was young Mont in flannels, standing in his boat.
She heard the tiny hiss of his cigarette extinguished in the
water.
“Fleur,” came his voice, “don't be hard on a poor devil! I've
been waiting hours.”
“For what?”
“Come in my boat!”
“Not I.”
“Why not?”
“I'm not a water-nymph.”
“Haven't you any romance in you? Don't be modern, Fleur!”
He appeared on the path within a yard of her.
“Go away!”
“Fleur, I love you. Fleur!”
Fleur uttered a short laugh.
“Come again,” she said, “when I haven't got my wish.”
“What is your wish?”
“Ask another.”
“Fleur,” said Mont, and his voice sounded strange, “don't mock
me! Even vivisected dogs are worth decent treatment before
they're cut up for good.”
Fleur shook her head; but her lips were trembling.
“Well, you shouldn't make me jump. Give me a cigarette.”
Mont gave her one, lighted it, and another for himself.
“I don't want to talk rot,” he said, “but please imagine all the
rot that all the lovers that ever were have talked, and all my
special rot thrown in.”
“Thank you, I have imagined it. Good-night!” They stood for a
moment facing each other in the shadow of an acacia-tree with
very moonlit blossoms, and the smoke from their cigarettes
mingled in the air between them.
“Also ran: 'Michael Mont'.” he said. Fleur turned abruptly toward
the house. On the lawn she stopped to look back. Michael Mont was
whirling his arms above him; she could see them dashing at his
head; then waving at the moonlit blossoms of the acacia. His
voice just reached her. “Jolly-jolly!” Fleur shook herself. She
couldn't help him, she had too much trouble of her own! On the
verandah she stopped very suddenly again. Her mother was sitting
in the drawing-room at her writing bureau, quite alone. There was
nothing remarkable in the expression of her face except its utter
immobility. But she looked desolate! Fleur went upstairs. At the
door of her room she paused. She could hear her father walking up
and down, up and down the picture-gallery.
'Yes,' she thought, jolly! Oh, Jon!'
X.—DECISION
When Fleur left him Jon stared at the Austrian. She was a thin
woman with a dark face and the concerned expression of one who
has watched every little good that life once had slip from her,
one by one. “No tea?” she said.
Susceptible to the disappointment in her voice, Jon murmured:
“No, really; thanks.”
“A lil cup—it ready. A lil cup and cigarette.”
Fleur was gone! Hours of remorse and indecision lay before him!
And with a heavy sense of disproportion he smiled, and said:
“Well—thank you!”
She brought in a little pot of tea with two little cups, and a
silver box of cigarettes on a little tray.
“Sugar? Miss Forsyte has much sugar—she buy my sugar, my friend's
sugar also. Miss Forsyte is a veree kind lady. I am happy to
serve her. You her brother?”
“Yes,” said Jon, beginning to puff the second cigarette of his
life.
“Very young brother,” said the Austrian, with a little anxious
smile, which reminded him of the wag of a dog's tail.
“May I give you some?” he said. “And won't you sit down, please?”
The Austrian shook her head.
“Your father a very nice old man—the most nice old man I ever
see. Miss Forsyte tell me all about him. Is he better?”
Her words fell on Jon like a reproach. “Oh Yes, I think he's all
right.”
“I like to see him again,” said the Austrian, putting a hand on
her heart; “he have veree kind heart.”
“Yes,” said Jon. And again her words seemed to him a reproach.
“He never give no trouble to no one, and smile so gentle.”
“Yes, doesn't he?”
“He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my
story; he so sympatisch. Your mother—she nice and well?”
“Yes, very.”
“He have her photograph on his dressing-table. Veree beautiful”
Jon gulped down his tea. This woman, with her concerned face and
her reminding words, was like the first and second murderers.
“Thank you,” he said; “I must go now. May—may I leave this with
you?”
He put a ten-shilling note on the tray with a doubting hand and
gained the door. He heard the Austrian gasp, and hurried out. He
had just time to catch his train, and all the way to Victoria
looked at every face that passed, as lovers will, hoping against
hope. On reaching Worthing he put his luggage into the local
train, and set out across the Downs for Wansdon, trying to walk
off his aching irresolution. So long as he went full bat, he
could enjoy the beauty of those green slopes, stopping now and
again to sprawl on the grass, admire the perfection of a wild
rose or listen to a lark's song. But the war of motives within
him was but postponed—the longing for Fleur, and the hatred of
deception. He came to the old chalk-pit above Wansdon with his
mind no more made up than when he started. To see both sides of a
question vigorously was at once Jon's strength and weakness. He
tramped in, just as the first dinner-bell rang. His things had
already been brought up. He had a hurried bath and came down to
find Holly alone—Val had gone to Town and would not be back till
the last train.
Since Val's advice to him to ask his sister what was the matter
between the two families, so much had happened—Fleur's disclosure
in the Green Park, her visit to Robin Hill, to-day's meeting—that
there seemed nothing to ask. He talked of Spain, his sunstroke,
Val's horses, their father's health. Holly startled him by saying
that she thought their father not at all well. She had been twice
to Robin Hill for the week-end. He had seemed fearfully languid,
sometimes even in pain, but had always refused to talk about
himself.
“He's awfully dear and unselfish—don't you think, Jon?”
Feeling far from dear and unselfish himself, Jon answered:
“Rather!”
“I think, he's been a simply perfect father, so long as I can
remember.”
“Yes,” answered Jon, very subdued.
“He's never interfered, and he's always seemed to understand. I
shall never forget his letting me go to South Africa in the Boer
War when I was in love with Val.”
“That was before he married Mother, wasn't it?” said Jon
suddenly.
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh! nothing. Only, wasn't she engaged to Fleur's father first?”
Holly put down the spoon she was using, and raised her eyes. Her
stare was circumspect. What did the boy know? Enough to make it
better to tell him? She could not decide. He looked strained and
worried, altogether older, but that might be the sunstroke.
“There was something,” she said. “Of course we were out there,
and got no news of anything.” She could not take the risk.
It was not her secret. Besides, she was in the dark about his
feelings now. Before Spain she had made sure he was in love; but
boys were boys; that was seven weeks ago, and all Spain between.
She saw that he knew she was putting him off, and added:
“Have you heard anything of Fleur?”
“Yes.”
His face told her, then, more than the most elaborate
explanations. So he had not forgotten!
She said very quietly: “Fleur is awfully attractive, Jon, but you
know—Val and I don't really like her very much.”
“Why?”
“We think she's got rather a 'having' nature.”
“'Having'. I don't know what you mean. She—she—” he pushed his
dessert plate away, got up, and went to the window.
Holly, too, got up, and put her arm round his waist.
“Don't be angry, Jon dear. We can't all see people in the same
light, can we? You know, I believe each of us only has about one
or two people who can see the best that's in us, and bring it
out. For you I think it's your mother. I once saw her looking at
a letter of yours; it was wonderful to see her face. I think
she's the most beautiful woman I ever saw—Age doesn't seem to
touch her.”
Jon's face softened; then again became tense. Everybody—everybody
was against him and Fleur! It all strengthened the appeal of her
words: “Make sure of me—marry me, Jon!”
Here, where he had passed that wonderful week with her—the tug of
her enchantment, the ache in his heart increased with every
minute that she was not there to make the room, the garden, the
very air magical. Would he ever be able to live down here, not
seeing her? And he closed up utterly, going early to bed. It
would not make him healthy, wealthy, and wise, but it closeted
him with memory of Fleur in her fancy frock. He heard Val's
arrival—the Ford discharging cargo, then the stillness of the
summer night stole back—with only the bleating of very distant
sheep, and a night-Jar's harsh purring. He leaned far out. Cold
moon—warm air—the Downs like silver! Small wings, a stream
bubbling, the rambler roses! God—how empty all of it without her!
In the Bible it was written: Thou shalt leave father and mother
and cleave to—Fleur!
Let him have pluck, and go and tell them! They couldn't stop him
marrying her—they wouldn't want to stop him when they knew how he
felt. Yes! He would go! Bold and open—Fleur was wrong!
The night-jar ceased, the sheep were silent; the only sound in
the darkness was the bubbling of the stream. And Jon in his bed
slept, freed from the worst of life's evils—indecision.
XI.—TIMOTHY PROPHESIES
On the day of the cancelled meeting at the National Gallery began
the second anniversary of the resurrection of England's pride and
glory—or, more shortly, the top hat. “Lord's”—that festival which
the War had driven from the field—raised its light and dark blue
flags for the second time, displaying almost every feature of a
glorious past. Here, in the luncheon interval, were all species
of female and one species of male hat, protecting the multiple
types of face associated with “the classes.” The observing
Forsyte might discern in the free or unconsidered seats a certain
number of the squash-hatted, but they hardly ventured on the
grass; the old school—or schools—could still rejoice that the
proletariat was not yet paying the necessary half-crown. Here was
still a close borough, the only one left on a large scale—for the
papers were about to estimate the attendance at ten thousand. And
the ten thousand, all animated by one hope, were asking each
other one question: “Where are you lunching?” Something
wonderfully uplifting and reassuring in that query and the sight
of so many people like themselves voicing it! What reserve power
in the British realm—enough pigeons, lobsters, lamb, salmon
mayonnaise, strawberries, and bottles of champagne to feed the
lot! No miracle in prospect—no case of seven loaves and a few
fishes—faith rested on surer foundations. Six thousand top hats,
four thousand parasols would be doffed and furled, ten thousand
mouths all speaking the same English would be filled. There was
life in the old dog yet! Tradition! And again Tradition! How
strong and how elastic! Wars might rage, taxation prey, Trades
Unions take toll, and Europe perish of starvation; but the ten
thousand would be fed; and, within their ring fence, stroll upon
green turf, wear their top hats, and meet—themselves. The heart
was sound, the pulse still regular. E-ton! E-ton! Har-r-o-o-o-w!
Among the many Forsytes, present on a hunting-ground theirs, by
personal prescriptive right, or proxy, was Soames with his wife
and daughter. He had not been at either school, he took no
interest in cricket, but he wanted Fleur to show her frock, and
he wanted to wear his top hat parade it again in peace and plenty
among his peers. He walked sedately with Fleur between him and
Annette. No women equalled them, so far as he could see. They
could walk, and hold themselves up; there was substance in their
good looks; the modern woman had no build, no chest, no anything!
He remembered suddenly with what intoxication of pride he had
walked round with Irene in the first years of his first marriage.
And how they used to lunch on the drag which his mother would
make his father have, because it was so “chic”—all drags and
carriages in those days, not these lumbering great Stands! And
how consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed
that people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for
it there used to be. He remembered George Forsyte—whose brothers
Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton—towering up on the
top of the drag waving a light-blue flag with one hand and a
dark-blue flag with the other, and shouting “Etroow-Harrton!”
Just when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always
been; and Eustace got up to the nines below, too dandified to
wear any colour or take any notice. H'm! Old days, and Irene in
grey silk shot with palest green. He looked, sideways, at Fleur's
face. Rather colourless-no light, no eagerness! That love affair
was preying on her—a bad business! He looked beyond, at his
wife's face, rather more touched up than usual, a little
disdainful—not that she had any business to disdain, so far as he
could see. She was taking Profond's defection with curious
quietude; or was his “small” voyage just a blind? If so, he
should refuse to see it! Having promenaded round the pitch and in
front of the pavilion, they sought Winifred's table in the
Bedouin Club tent. This Club—a new “cock and hen”—had been
founded in the interests of travel, and of a gentleman with an
old Scottish name, whose father had somewhat strangely been
called Levi. Winifred had joined, not because she had travelled,
but because instinct told her that a Club with such a name and
such a founder was bound to go far; if one didn't join at once
one might never have the chance. Its tent, with a text from the
Koran on an orange ground, and a small green camel embroidered
over the entrance, was the most striking on the ground. Outside
it they found Jack Cardigan in a dark blue tie (he had once
played for Harrow), batting with a Malacca cane to show how that
fellow ought to have hit that ball. He piloted them in. Assembled
in Winifred's corner were Imogen, Benedict with his young wife,
Val Dartie without Holly, Maud and her husband, and, after Soames
and his two were seated, one empty place.
“I'm expecting Prosper,” said Winifred, “but he's so busy with
his yacht.”
Soames stole a glance. No movement in his wife's face! Whether
that fellow were coming or not, she evidently knew all about it.
It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother. If
Annette didn't respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur's!
The conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack Cardigan
talking about “mid-off.” He cited all the “great mid-offs” from
the beginning of time, as if they had been a definite racial
entity in the composition of the British people. Soames had
finished his lobster, and was beginning on pigeon-pie, when he
heard the words, “I'm a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie,” and saw
that there was no longer any empty place. That fellow was sitting
between Annette and Imogen. Soames ate steadily on, with an
occasional word to Maud and Winifred. Conversation buzzed around
him. He heard the voice of Profond say:
“I think you're mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde; I'll—I'll bet Miss
Forsyde agrees with me.”
“In what?” came Fleur's clear voice across the table.
“I was sayin', young gurls are much the same as they always
were—there's very small difference.”
“Do you know so much about them?”
That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved
uneasily on his thin green chair.
“Well, I don't know, I think they want their own small way, and I
think they always did.”
“Indeed!”
“Oh, but—Prosper,” Winifred interjected comfortably, “the girls
in the streets—the girls who've been in munitions, the little
flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in
the eye.”
At the word “hit” Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in
the silence Monsieur Profond said:
“It was inside before, now it's outside; that's all.”
“But their morals!” cried Imogen.
“Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they've got
more opportunity.”
The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from
Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan's mouth, and a creak
from Soames' chair.
Winifred said: “That's too bad, Prosper.”
“What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don't you think human nature's
always the same?”
Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow. He
heard his wife reply:
“Human nature is not the same in England as anywhere else.” That
was her confounded mockery!
“Well, I don't know much about this small country”—'No, thank
God!' thought Soames—“but I should say the pot was boilin' under
the lid everywhere. We all want pleasure, and we always did.”
Damn the fellow! His cynicism was—was outrageous!
When lunch was over they broke up into couples for the digestive
promenade. Too proud to notice, Soames knew perfectly that
Annette and that fellow had gone prowling round together. Fleur
was with Val; she had chosen him, no doubt, because he knew that
boy. He himself had Winifred for partner. They walked in the
bright, circling stream, a little flushed and sated, for some
minutes, till Winifred sighed:
“I wish we were back forty years, old boy!”
Before the eyes of her spirit an interminable procession of her
own “Lord's” frocks was passing, paid for with the money of her
father, to save a recurrent crisis. “It's been very amusing,
after all. Sometimes I even wish Monty was back. What do you
think of people nowadays, Soames?”
“Precious little style. The thing began to go to pieces with
bicycles and motor-cars; the War has finished it.”
“I wonder what's coming?” said Winifred in a voice dreamy from
pigeon-pie. “I'm not at all sure we shan't go back to crinolines
and pegtops. Look at that dress!”
Soames shook his head.
“There's money, but no faith in things. We don't lay by for the
future. These youngsters—it's all a short life and a merry one
with them.”
“There's a hat!” said Winifred. “I don't know—when you come to
think of the people killed and all that in the War, it's rather
wonderful, I think. There's no other country—Prosper says the
rest are all bankrupt, except America; and of course her men
always took their style in dress from us.”
“Is that chap,” said Soames, “really going to the South Seas?”
“Oh! one never knows where Prosper's going!”
“He's a sign of the times,” muttered Soames, “if you like.”
Winifred's hand gripped his arm.
“Don't turn your head,” she said in a low voice, “but look to
your right in the front row of the Stand.”
Soames looked as best he could under that limitation. A man in a
grey top hat, grey-bearded, with thin brown, folded cheeks, and a
certain elegance of posture, sat there with a woman in a
lawn-coloured frock, whose dark eyes were fixed on himself.
Soames looked quickly at his feet. How funnily feet moved, one
after the other like that! Winifred's voice said in his ear:
“Jolyon looks very ill; but he always had style. She doesn't
change—except her hair.”
“Why did you tell Fleur about that business?”
“I didn't; she picked it up. I always knew she would.”
“Well, it's a mess. She's set her heart upon their boy.”
“The little wretch,” murmured Winifred. “She tried to take me in
about that. What shall you do, Soames?”
“Be guided by events.”
They moved on, silent, in the almost solid crowd.
“Really,” said Winifred suddenly; “it almost seems like Fate.
Only that's so old-fashioned. Look! there are George and
Eustace!”
George Forsyte's lofty bulk had halted before them.
“Hallo, Soames!” he said. “Just met Profond and your wife. You'll
catch 'em if you put on pace. Did you ever go to see old
Timothy?”
Soames nodded, and the streams forced them apart.
“I always liked old George,” said Winifred. “He's so droll.”
“I never did,” said Soames. “Where's your seat? I shall go to
mine. Fleur may be back there.”
Having seen Winifred to her seat, he regained his own, conscious
of small, white, distant figures running, the click of the bat,
the cheers and counter-cheers. No Fleur, and no Annette! You
could expect nothing of women nowadays! They had the vote. They
were “emancipated,” and much good it was doing them! So Winifred
would go back, would she, and put up with Dartie all over again?
To have the past once more—to be sitting here as he had sat in
'83 and '84, before he was certain that his marriage with Irene
had gone all wrong, before her antagonism had become so glaring
that with the best will in the world he could not overlook it.
The sight of her with that fellow had brought all memory back.
Even now he could not understand why she had been so
impracticable. She could love other men; she had it in her! To
himself, the one person she ought to have loved, she had chosen
to refuse her heart. It seemed to him, fantastically, as he
looked back, that all this modern relaxation of marriage—though
its forms and laws were the same as when he married her—that all
this modern looseness had come out of her revolt; it seemed to
him, fantastically, that she had started it, till all decent
ownership of anything had gone, or was on the point of going. All
came from her! And now—a pretty state of things! Homes! How could
you have them without mutual ownership? Not that he had ever had
a real home! But had that been his fault? He had done his best.
And his rewards were—those two sitting in that Stand, and this
affair of Fleur's!
And overcome by loneliness he thought: 'Shan't wait any longer!
They must find their own way back to the hotel—if they mean to
come!' Hailing a cab outside the ground, he said:
“Drive me to the Bayswater Road.” His old aunts had never failed
him. To them he had meant an ever-welcome visitor. Though they
were gone, there, still, was Timothy!
Smither was standing in the open doorway.
“Mr. Soames! I was just taking the air. Cook will be so pleased.”
“How is Mr. Timothy?”
“Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he's been talking a
great deal. Only this morning he was saying: 'My brother James,
he's getting old.' His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will
talk of them. He troubles about their investments. The other day
he said: 'There's my brother Jolyon won't look at Consols'—he
seemed quite down about it. Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It's
such a pleasant change!”
“Well,” said Soames, “just for a few minutes.”
“No,” murmured Smither in the hall, where the air had the
singular freshness of the outside day, “we haven't been very
satisfied with him, not all this week. He's always been one to
leave a titbit to the end; but ever since Monday he's been eating
it first. If you notice a dog, Mr. Soames, at its dinner, it eats
the meat first. We've always thought it such a good sign of Mr.
Timothy at his age to leave it to the last, but now he seems to
have lost all his self-control; and, of course, it makes him
leave the rest. The doctor doesn't make anything of it,
but”—Smither shook her head—“he seems to think he's got to eat it
first, in case he shouldn't get to it. That and his talking makes
us anxious.”
“Has he said anything important?”
“I shouldn't like to say that, Mr. Soames; but he's turned
against his Will. He gets quite pettish—and after having had it
out every morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the
other day: 'They want my money.' It gave me such a turn, because,
as I said to him, nobody wants his money, I'm sure. And it does
seem a pity he should be thinking about money at his time of
life. I took my courage in my 'ands. 'You know, Mr. Timothy,' I
said, 'my dear mistress'—that's Miss Forsyte, Mr. Soames, Miss
Ann that trained me—'she never thought about money,' I said, 'it
was all character with her.' He looked at me, I can't tell you
how funny, and he said quite dry: 'Nobody wants my character.'
Think of his saying a thing like that! But sometimes he'll say
something as sharp and sensible as anything.”
Soames, who had been staring at an old print by the hat-rack,
thinking, 'That's got value!' murmured: “I'll go up and see him,
Smither.”
“Cook's with him,” answered Smither above her corsets; “she will
be pleased to see you.”
He mounted slowly, with the thought: 'Shan't care to live to be
that age.'
On the second floor, he paused, and tapped. The door was opened,
and he saw the round homely face of a woman about sixty.
“Mr. Soames!” she said: “Why! Mr. Soames!”
Soames nodded. “All right, Cook!” and entered.
Timothy was propped up in bed, with his hands joined before his
chest, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, where a fly was
standing upside down. Soames stood at the foot of the bed, facing
him.
“Uncle Timothy,” he said, raising his voice. “Uncle Timothy!”
Timothy's eyes left the fly, and levelled themselves on his
visitor. Soames could see his pale tongue passing over his
darkish lips.
“Uncle Timothy,” he said again, “is there anything I can do for
you? Is there anything you'd like to say?”
“Ha!” said Timothy.
“I've come to look you up and see that everything's all right.”
Timothy nodded. He seemed trying to get used to the apparition
before him.
“Have you got everything you want?”
“No,” said Timothy.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No,” said Timothy.
“I'm Soames, you know; your nephew, Soames Forsyte. Your brother
James' son.”
Timothy nodded.
“I shall be delighted to do anything I can for you.”
Timothy beckoned. Soames went close to him:
“You—” said Timothy in a voice which seemed to have outlived
tone, “you tell them all from me—you tell them all—” and his
finger tapped on Soames' arm, “to hold on—hold on—Consols are
goin' up,” and he nodded thrice.
“All right!” said Soames; “I will.”
“Yes,” said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling,
he added: “That fly!”
Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook's pleasant fattish
face, all little puckers from staring at fires.
“That'll do him a world of good, sir,” she said.
A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to
himself, and Soames went out with the cook.
“I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old
days; you did so relish them. Good-bye, sir; it has been a
pleasure.”
“Take care of him, Cook, he is old.”
And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went down-stairs. Smither was
still taking the air in the doorway.
“What do you think of him, Mr. Soames?”
“H'm!” Soames murmured: “He's lost touch.”
“Yes,” said Smither, “I was afraid you'd think that coming fresh
out of the world to see him like.”
“Smither,” said Soames, “we're all indebted to you.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Soames, don't say that! It's a pleasure—he's such a
wonderful man.”
“Well, good-bye!” said Soames, and got into his taxi.
'Going up!' he thought; 'going up!'
Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their
sitting-room, and rang for tea. Neither of them were in. And
again that sense of loneliness came over him. These hotels. What
monstrous great places they were now! He could remember when
there was nothing bigger than Long's or Brown's, Morley's or the
Tavistock, and the heads that were shaken over the Langham and
the Grand. Hotels and Clubs—Clubs and Hotels; no end to them now!
And Soames, who had just been watching at Lord's a miracle of
tradition and continuity, fell into reverie over the changes in
that London where he had been born five-and-sixty years before.
Whether Consols were going up or not, London had become a
terrific property. No such property in the world, unless it were
New York! There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but
any one who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago,
and see it now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth.
They had only to keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he
remembered cobblestones, and stinking straw on the floor of your
cab. And old Timothy—what could he not have told them, if he had
kept his memory! Things were unsettled, people in a funk or in a
hurry, but here were London and the Thames, and out there the
British Empire, and the ends of the earth. “Consols are goin'
up!” He should n't be a bit surprised. It was the breed that
counted. And all that was bull-dogged in Soames stared for a
moment out of his grey eyes, till diverted by the print of a
Victorian picture on the walls. The hotel had bought three dozen
of that little lot! The old hunting or “Rake's Progress” prints
in the old inns were worth looking at—but this sentimental
stuff—well, Victorianism had gone! “Tell them to hold on!” old
Timothy had said. But to what were they to hold on in this modern
welter of the “democratic principle”? Why, even privacy was
threatened! And at the thought that privacy might perish, Soames
pushed back his teacup and went to the window. Fancy owning no
more of Nature than the crowd out there owned of the flowers and
trees and waters of Hyde Park! No, no! Private possession
underlay everything worth having. The world had slipped its
sanity a bit, as dogs now and again at full moon slipped theirs
and went off for a night's rabbiting; but the world, like the
dog, knew where its bread was buttered and its bed warm, and
would come back sure enough to the only home worth having—to
private ownership. The world was in its second childhood for the
moment, like old Timothy—eating its titbit first!
He heard a sound behind him, and saw that his wife and daughter
had come in.
“So you're back!” he said.
Fleur did not answer; she stood for a moment looking at him and
her mother, then passed into her bedroom. Annette poured herself
out a cup of tea.
“I am going to Paris, to my mother, Soames.”
“Oh! To your mother?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I do not know.”
“And when are you going?”
“On Monday.”
Was she really going to her mother? Odd, how indifferent he felt!
Odd, how clearly she had perceived the indifference he would feel
so long as there was no scandal. And suddenly between her and
himself he saw distinctly the face he had seen that
afternoon—Irene's.
“Will you want money?”
“Thank you; I have enough.”
“Very well. Let us know when you are coming back.”
Annette put down the cake she was fingering, and, looking up
through darkened lashes, said:
“Shall I give Maman any message?”
“My regards.”
Annette stretched herself, her hands on her waist, and said in
French:
“What luck that you have never loved me, Soames!” Then rising,
she too left the room. Soames was glad she had spoken it in
French—it seemed to require no dealing with. Again that other
face—pale, dark-eyed, beautiful still! And there stirred far down
within him the ghost of warmth, as from sparks lingering beneath
a mound of flaky ash. And Fleur infatuated with her boy! Queer
chance! Yet, was there such a thing as chance? A man went down a
street, a brick fell on his head. Ah! that was chance, no doubt.
But this! “Inherited,” his girl had said. She—she was “holding
on”!
PART III
I.—OLD JOLYON WALKS
Twofold impulse had made Jolyon say to his wife at breakfast
“Let's go up to Lord's!”
“Wanted”—something to abate the anxiety in which those two had
lived during the sixty hours since Jon had brought Fleur down.
“Wanted”—too, that which might assuage the pangs of memory in one
who knew he might lose them any day!
Fifty-eight years ago Jolyon had become an Eton boy, for old
Jolyon's whim had been that he should be canonised at the
greatest possible expense. Year after year he had gone to Lord's
from Stanhope Gate with a father whose youth in the
eighteen-twenties had been passed without polish in the game of
cricket. Old Jolyon would speak quite openly of swipes, full
tosses, half and three-quarter balls; and young Jolyon with the
guileless snobbery of youth had trembled lest his sire should be
overheard. Only in this supreme matter of cricket he had been
nervous, for his father—in Crimean whiskers then—had ever
impressed him as the beau ideal. Though never canonised himself,
Old Jolyon's natural fastidiousness and balance had saved him
from the errors of the vulgar. How delicious, after bowling in a
top hat and a sweltering heat, to go home with his father in a
hansom cab, bathe, dress, and forth to the “Disunion” Club, to
dine off white bait, cutlets, and a tart, and go—two “swells,”
old and young, in lavender kid gloves—to the opera or play. And
on Sunday, when the match was over, and his top hat duly broken,
down with his father in a special hansom to the “Crown and
Sceptre,” and the terrace above the river—the golden sixties when
the world was simple, dandies glamorous, Democracy not born, and
the books of Whyte Melville coming thick and fast.
A generation later, with his own boy, Jolly, Harrow-buttonholed
with corn-flowers—by old Jolyon's whim his grandson had been
canonised at a trifle less expense—again Jolyon had experienced
the heat and counter-passions of the day, and come back to the
cool and the strawberry beds of Robin Hill, and billiards after
dinner, his boy making the most heart-breaking flukes and trying
to seem languid and grown-up. Those two days each year he and his
son had been alone together in the world, one on each side—and
Democracy just born!
And so, he had unearthed a grey top hat, borrowed a tiny bit of
light-blue ribbon from Irene, and gingerly, keeping cool, by car
and train and taxi, had reached Lord's Ground. There, beside her
in a lawn-coloured frock with narrow black edges, he had watched
the game, and felt the old thrill stir within him.
When Soames passed, the day was spoiled. Irene's face was
distorted by compression of the lips. No good to go on sitting
here with Soames or perhaps his daughter recurring in front of
them, like decimals. And he said:
“Well, dear, if you've had enough—let's go!”
That evening Jolyon felt exhausted. Not wanting her to see him
thus, he waited till she had begun to play, and stole off to the
little study. He opened the long window for air, and the door,
that he might still hear her music drifting in; and, settled in
his father's old armchair, closed his eyes, with his head against
the worn brown leather. Like that passage of the Cesar Franck
Sonata—so had been his life with her, a divine third movement.
And now this business of Jon's—this bad business! Drifted to the
edge of consciousness, he hardly knew if it were in sleep that he
smelled the scent of a cigar, and seemed to see his father in the
blackness before his closed eyes. That shape formed, went, and
formed again; as if in the very chair where he himself was
sitting, he saw his father, black-coated, with knees crossed,
glasses balanced between thumb and finger; saw the big white
moustaches, and the deep eyes looking up below a dome of forehead
and seeming to search his own, seeming to speak. “Are you facing
it, Jo? It's for you to decide. She's only a woman!” Ah! how well
he knew his father in that phrase; how all the Victorian Age came
up with it! And his answer “No, I've funked it—funked hurting her
and Jon and myself. I've got a heart; I've funked it.” But the
old eyes, so much older, so much younger than his own, kept at
it; “It's your wife, your son; your past. Tackle it, my boy!” Was
it a message from walking spirit; or but the instinct of his sire
living on within him? And again came that scent of cigar
smoke-from the old saturated leather. Well! he would tackle it,
write to Jon, and put the whole thing down in black and white!
And suddenly he breathed with difficulty, with a sense of
suffocation, as if his heart were swollen. He got up and went out
into the air. The stars were very bright. He passed along the
terrace round the corner of the house, till, through the window
of the music-room, he could see Irene at the piano, with
lamp-light falling on her powdery hair; withdrawn into herself
she seemed, her dark eyes staring straight before her, her hands
idle. Jolyon saw her raise those hands and clasp them over her
breast. 'It's Jon, with her,' he thought; 'all Jon! I'm dying out
of her—it's natural!'
And, careful not to be seen, he stole back.
Next day, after a bad night, he sat down to his task. He wrote
with difficulty and many erasures.
“MY DEAREST BOY,
“You are old enough to understand how very difficult it is for
elders to give themselves away to their young. Especially
when—like your mother and myself, though I shall never think of
her as anything but young—their hearts are altogether set on him
to whom they must confess. I cannot say we are conscious of
having sinned exactly—people in real life very seldom are, I
believe—but most persons would say we had, and at all events our
conduct, righteous or not, has found us out. The truth is, my
dear, we both have pasts, which it is now my task to make known
to you, because they so grievously and deeply affect your future.
Many, very many years ago, as far back indeed as 1883, when she
was only twenty, your mother had the great and lasting misfortune
to make an unhappy marriage—no, not with me, Jon. Without money
of her own, and with only a stepmother—closely related to
Jezebel—she was very unhappy in her home life. It was Fleur's
father that she married, my cousin Soames Forsyte. He had pursued
her very tenaciously and to do him justice was deeply in love
with her. Within a week she knew the fearful mistake she had
made. It was not his fault; it was her error of judgment—her
misfortune.”
So far Jolyon had kept some semblance of irony, but now his
subject carried him away.
“Jon, I want to explain to you if I can—and it's very hard—how it
is that an unhappy marriage such as this can so easily come
about. You will of course say: 'If she didn't really love him how
could she ever have married him?' You would be right if it were
not for one or two rather terrible considerations. From this
initial mistake of hers all the subsequent trouble, sorrow, and
tragedy have come, and so I must make it clear to you if I can.
You see, Jon, in those days and even to this day—indeed, I don't
see, for all the talk of enlightenment, how it can well be
otherwise—most girls are married ignorant of the sexual side of
life. Even if they know what it means they have not experienced
it. That's the crux. It is this actual lack of experience,
whatever verbal knowledge they have, which makes all the
difference and all the trouble. In a vast number of marriages-and
your mother's was one—girls are not and cannot be certain whether
they love the man they marry or not; they do not know until after
that act of union which makes the reality of marriage. Now, in
many, perhaps in most doubtful cases, this act cements and
strengthens the attachment, but in other cases, and your mother's
was one, it is a revelation of mistake, a destruction of such
attraction as there was. There is nothing more tragic in a
woman's life than such a revelation, growing daily, nightly
clearer. Coarse-grained and unthinking people are apt to laugh at
such a mistake, and say, 'What a fuss about nothing!' Narrow and
self-righteous people, only capable of judging the lives of
others by their own, are apt to condemn those who make this
tragic error, to condemn them for life to the dungeons they have
made for themselves. You know the expression: 'She has made her
bed, she must lie on it!' It is a hard-mouthed saying, quite
unworthy of a gentleman or lady in the best sense of those words;
and I can use no stronger condemnation. I have not been what is
called a moral man, but I wish to use no words to you, my dear,
which will make you think lightly of ties or contracts into which
you enter. Heaven forbid! But with the experience of a life
behind me I do say that those who condemn the victims of these
tragic mistakes, condemn them and hold out no hands to help them,
are inhuman, or rather they would be if they had the
understanding to know what they are doing. But they haven't! Let
them go! They are as much anathema to me as I, no doubt, am to
them. I have had to say all this, because I am going to put you
into a position to judge your mother, and you are very young,
without experience of what life is. To go on with the story.
After three years of effort to subdue her shrinking—I was going
to say her loathing and it's not too strong a word, for shrinking
soon becomes loathing under such circumstances—three years of
what to a sensitive, beauty-loving nature like your mother's,
Jon, was torment, she met a young man who fell in love with her.
He was the architect of this very house that we live in now, he
was building it for her and Fleur's father to live in, a new
prison to hold her, in place of the one she inhabited with him in
London. Perhaps that fact played some part in what came of it.
But in any case she, too, fell in love with him. I know it's not
necessary to explain to you that one does not precisely choose
with whom one will fall in love. It comes. Very well! It came. I
can imagine—though she never said much to me about it—the
struggle that then took place in her, because, Jon, she was
brought up strictly and was not light in her ideas—not at all.
However, this was an overwhelming feeling, and it came to pass
that they loved in deed as well as in thought. Then came a
fearful tragedy. I must tell you of it because if I don't you
will never understand the real situation that you have now to
face. The man whom she had married—Soames Forsyte, the father of
Fleur one night, at the height of her passion for this young man,
forcibly reasserted his rights over her. The next day she met her
lover and told him of it. Whether he committed suicide or whether
he was accidentally run over in his distraction, we never knew;
but so it was. Think of your mother as she was that evening when
she heard of his death. I happened to see her. Your grandfather
sent me to help her if I could. I only just saw her, before the
door was shut against me by her husband. But I have never
forgotten her face, I can see it now. I was not in love with her
then, not for twelve years after, but I have never forgotten. My
dear boy—it is not easy to write like this. But you see, I must.
Your mother is wrapped up in you, utterly, devotedly. I don't
wish to write harshly of Soames Forsyte. I don't think harshly of
him. I have long been sorry for him; perhaps I was sorry even
then. As the world judges she was in error, he within his rights.
He loved her—in his way. She was his property. That is the view
he holds of life—of human feelings and hearts—property. It's not
his fault—so was he born. To me it is a view that has always been
abhorrent—so was I born! Knowing you as I do, I feel it cannot be
otherwise than abhorrent to you. Let me go on with the story.
Your mother fled from his house that night; for twelve years she
lived quietly alone without companionship of any sort, until in
1899 her husband—you see, he was still her husband, for he did
not attempt to divorce her, and she of course had no right to
divorce him—became conscious, it seems, of the want of children,
and commenced a long attempt to induce her to go back to him and
give him a child. I was her trustee then, under your
Grandfather's Will, and I watched this going on. While watching,
I became attached to her, devotedly attached. His pressure
increased, till one day she came to me here and practically put
herself under my protection. Her husband, who was kept informed
of all her movements, attempted to force us apart by bringing a
divorce suit, or possibly he really meant it, I don't know; but
anyway our names were publicly joined. That decided us, and we
became united in fact. She was divorced, married me, and you were
born. We have lived in perfect happiness, at least I have, and I
believe your mother also. Soames, soon after the divorce, married
Fleur's mother, and she was born. That is the story, Jon. I have
told it you, because by the affection which we see you have
formed for this man's daughter you are blindly moving toward what
must utterly destroy your mother's happiness, if not your own. I
don't wish to speak of myself, because at my age there's no use
supposing I shall cumber the ground much longer, besides, what I
should suffer would be mainly on her account, and on yours. But
what I want you to realise is that feelings of horror and
aversion such as those can never be buried or forgotten. They are
alive in her to-day. Only yesterday at Lord's we happened to see
Soames Forsyte. Her face, if you had seen it, would have
convinced you. The idea that you should marry his daughter is a
nightmare to her, Jon. I have nothing to say against Fleur save
that she is his daughter. But your children, if you married her,
would be the grandchildren of Soames, as much as of your mother,
of a man who once owned your mother as a man might own a slave.
Think what that would mean. By such a marriage you enter the camp
which held your mother prisoner and wherein she ate her heart
out. You are just on the threshold of life, you have only known
this girl two months, and however deeply you think you love her,
I appeal to you to break it off at once. Don't give your mother
this rankling pain and humiliation during the rest of her life.
Young though she will always seem to me, she is fifty-seven.
Except for us two she has no one in the world. She will soon have
only you. Pluck up your spirit, Jon, and break away. Don't put
this cloud and barrier between you. Don't break her heart! Bless
you, my dear boy, and again forgive me for all the pain this
letter must bring you—we tried to spare it you, but Spain—it
seems—-was no good.
“Ever your devoted father,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”
Having finished his confession, Jolyon sat with a thin cheek on
his hand, re-reading. There were things in it which hurt him so
much, when he thought of Jon reading them, that he nearly tore
the letter up. To speak of such things at all to a boy—his own
boy—to speak of them in relation to his own wife and the boy's
own mother, seemed dreadful to the reticence of his Forsyte soul.
And yet without speaking of them how make Jon understand the
reality, the deep cleavage, the ineffaceable scar? Without them,
how justify this stiffing of the boy's love? He might just as
well not write at all!
He folded the confession, and put it in his pocket. It was—thank
Heaven!—Saturday; he had till Sunday evening to think it over;
for even if posted now it could not reach Jon till Monday. He
felt a curious relief at this delay, and at the fact that,
whether sent or not, it was written.
In the rose garden, which had taken the place of the old fernery,
he could see Irene snipping and pruning, with a little basket on
her arm. She was never idle, it seemed to him, and he envied her
now that he himself was idle nearly all his time. He went down to
her. She held up a stained glove and smiled. A piece of lace tied
under her chin concealed her hair, and her oval face with its
still dark brows looked very young.
“The green-fly are awful this year, and yet it's cold. You look
tired, Jolyon.”
Jolyon took the confession from his pocket. “I've been writing
this. I think you ought to see it?”
“To Jon?” Her whole face had changed, in that instant, becoming
almost haggard.
“Yes; the murder's out.”
He gave it to her, and walked away among the roses. Presently,
seeing that she had finished reading and was standing quite still
with the sheets of the letter against her skirt, he came back to
her.
“Well?”
“It's wonderfully put. I don't see how it could be put better.
Thank you, dear.”
“Is there anything you would like left out?”
She shook her head.
“No; he must know all, if he's to understand.”
“That's what I thought, but—I hate it!”
He had the feeling that he hated it more than she—to him sex was
so much easier to mention between man and woman than between man
and man; and she had always been more natural and frank, not
deeply secretive like his Forsyte self.
“I wonder if he will understand, even now, Jolyon? He's so young;
and he shrinks from the physical.”
“He gets that shrinking from my father, he was as fastidious as a
girl in all such matters. Would it be better to rewrite the whole
thing, and just say you hated Soames?”
Irene shook her head.
“Hate's only a word. It conveys nothing. No, better as it is.”
“Very well. It shall go to-morrow.”
She raised her face to his, and in sight of the big house's many
creepered windows, he kissed her.
II.—CONFESSION
Late that same afternoon, Jolyon had a nap in the old armchair.
Face down on his knee was La Rotisserie de la Refine Pedauque,
and just before he fell asleep he had been thinking: 'As a people
shall we ever really like the French? Will they ever really like
us!' He himself had always liked the French, feeling at home with
their wit, their taste, their cooking. Irene and he had paid many
visits to France before the War, when Jon had been at his private
school. His romance with her had begun in Paris—his last and most
enduring romance. But the French—no Englishman could like them
who could not see them in some sort with the detached aesthetic
eye! And with that melancholy conclusion he had nodded off.
When he woke he saw Jon standing between him and the window. The
boy had evidently come in from the garden and was waiting for him
to wake. Jolyon smiled, still half asleep. How nice the chap
looked—sensitive, affectionate, straight! Then his heart gave a
nasty jump; and a quaking sensation overcame him. Jon! That
confession! He controlled himself with an effort. “Why, Jon,
where did you spring from?”
Jon bent over and kissed his forehead.
Only then he noticed the look on the boy's face.
“I came home to tell you something, Dad.”
With all his might Jolyon tried to get the better of the jumping,
gurgling sensations within his chest.
“Well, sit down, old man. Have you seen your mother?”
“No.” The boy's flushed look gave place to pallor; he sat down on
the arm of the old chair, as, in old days, Jolyon himself used to
sit beside his own father, installed in its recesses. Right up to
the time of the rupture in their relations he had been wont to
perch there—had he now reached such a moment with his own son?
All his life he had hated scenes like poison, avoided rows, gone
on his own way quietly and let others go on theirs. But now—it
seemed—at the very end of things, he had a scene before him more
painful than any he had avoided. He drew a visor down over his
emotion, and waited for his son to speak.
“Father,” said Jon slowly, “Fleur and I are engaged.”
'Exactly!' thought Jolyon, breathing with difficulty.
“I know that you and Mother don't like the idea. Fleur says that
Mother was engaged to her father before you married her. Of
course I don't know what happened, but it must be ages ago. I'm
devoted to her, Dad, and she says she is to me.”
Jolyon uttered a queer sound, half laugh, half groan.
“You are nineteen, Jon, and I am seventy-two. How are we to
understand each other in a matter like this, eh?”
“You love Mother, Dad; you must know what we feel. It isn't fair
to us to let old things spoil our happiness, is it?”
Brought face to face with his confession, Jolyon resolved to do
without it if by any means he could. He laid his hand on the
boy's arm.
“Look, Jon! I might put you off with talk about your both being
too young and not knowing your own minds, and all that, but you
wouldn't listen, besides, it doesn't meet the case—Youth,
unfortunately, cures itself. You talk lightly about 'old things
like that,' knowing nothing—as you say truly—of what happened.
Now, have I ever given you reason to doubt my love for you, or my
word?”
At a less anxious moment he might have been amused by the
conflict his words aroused—the boy's eager clasp, to reassure him
on these points, the dread on his face of what that reassurance
would bring forth; but he could only feel grateful for the
squeeze.
“Very well, you can believe what I tell you. If you don't give up
this love affair, you will make Mother wretched to the end of her
days. Believe me, my dear, the past, whatever it was, can't be
buried—it can't indeed.”
Jon got off the arm of the chair.
'The girl'—thought Jolyon—'there she goes—starting up before
him—life itself—eager, pretty, loving!'
“I can't, Father; how can I—just because you say that? Of course,
I can't!”
“Jon, if you knew the story you would give this up without
hesitation; you would have to! Can't you believe me?”
“How can you tell what I should think? Father, I love her better
than anything in the world.”
Jolyon's face twitched, and he said with painful slowness:
“Better than your mother, Jon?”
From the boy's face, and his clenched fists Jolyon realised the
stress and struggle he was going through.
“I don't know,” he burst out, “I don't know! But to give Fleur up
for nothing—for something I don't understand, for something that
I don't believe can really matter half so much, will make me—make
me....”
“Make you feel us unjust, put a barrier—yes. But that's better
than going on with this.”
“I can't. Fleur loves me, and I love her. You want me to trust
you; why don't you trust me, Father? We wouldn't want to know
anything—we wouldn't let it make any difference. It'll only make
us both love you and Mother all the more.”
Jolyon put his hand into his breast pocket, but brought it out
again empty, and sat, clucking his tongue against his teeth.
“Think what your mother's been to you, Jon! She has nothing but
you; I shan't last much longer.”
“Why not? It isn't fair to—Why not?”
“Well,” said Jolyon, rather coldly, “because the doctors tell me
I shan't; that's all.”
“Oh, Dad!” cried Jon, and burst into tears.
This downbreak of his son, whom he had not seen cry since he was
ten, moved Jolyon terribly. He recognised to the full how
fearfully soft the boy's heart was, how much he would suffer in
this business, and in life generally. And he reached out his hand
helplessly—not wishing, indeed not daring to get up.
“Dear man,” he said, “don't—or you'll make me!”
Jon smothered down his paroxysm, and stood with face averted,
very still.
'What now?' thought Jolyon. 'What can I say to move him?'
“By the way, don't speak of that to Mother,” he said; “she has
enough to frighten her with this affair of yours. I know how you
feel. But, Jon, you know her and me well enough to be sure we
wouldn't wish to spoil your happiness lightly. Why, my dear boy,
we don't care for anything but your happiness—at least, with me
it's just yours and Mother's and with her just yours. It's all
the future for you both that's at stake.”
Jon turned. His face was deadly pale; his eyes, deep in his head,
seemed to burn.
“What is it? What is it? Don't keep me like this!”
Jolyon, who knew that he was beaten, thrust his hand again into
his breast pocket, and sat for a full minute, breathing with
difficulty, his eyes closed. The thought passed through his mind:
'I've had a good long innings—some pretty bitter moments—this is
the worst!' Then he brought his hand out with the letter, and
said with a sort of fatigue: “Well, Jon, if you hadn't come
to-day, I was going to send you this. I wanted to spare you—I
wanted to spare your mother and myself, but I see it's no good.
Read it, and I think I'll go into the garden.” He reached forward
to get up.
Jon, who had taken the letter, said quickly, “No, I'll go”; and
was gone.
Jolyon sank back in his chair. A blue-bottle chose that moment to
come buzzing round him with a sort of fury; the sound was homely,
better than nothing.... Where had the boy gone to read his
letter? The wretched letter—the wretched story! A cruel
business—cruel to her—to Soames—to those two children—to
himself!... His heart thumped and pained him. Life—its loves—its
work—its beauty—its aching, and—its end! A good time; a fine time
in spite of all; until—you regretted that you had ever been born.
Life—it wore you down, yet did not make you want to die—that was
the cunning evil! Mistake to have a heart! Again the blue-bottle
came buzzing—bringing in all the heat and hum and scent of
summer—yes, even the scent—as of ripe fruits, dried grasses,
sappy shrubs, and the vanilla breath of cows. And out there
somewhere in the fragrance Jon would be reading that letter,
turning and twisting its pages in his trouble, his bewilderment
and trouble—breaking his heart about it! The thought made Jolyon
acutely miserable. Jon was such a tender-hearted chap,
affectionate to his bones, and conscientious, too—it was so
unfair, so damned unfair! He remembered Irene saying to him once:
“Never was any one born more loving and lovable than Jon.” Poor
little Jon! His world gone up the spout, all of a summer
afternoon! Youth took things so hard! And stirred, tormented by
that vision of Youth taking things hard, Jolyon got out of his
chair, and went to the window. The boy was nowhere visible. And
he passed out. If one could take any help to him now—one must!
He traversed the shrubbery, glanced into the walled garden—no
Jon! Nor where the peaches and the apricots were beginning to
swell and colour. He passed the Cupressus trees, dark and spiral,
into the meadow. Where had the boy got to? Had he rushed down to
the coppice—his old hunting-ground? Jolyon crossed the rows of
hay. They would cock it on Monday and be carrying the day after,
if rain held off. Often they had crossed this field together—hand
in hand, when Jon was a little chap. Dash it! The golden age was
over by the time one was ten! He came to the pond, where flies
and gnats were dancing over a bright reedy surface; and on into
the coppice. It was cool there, fragrant of larches. Still no
Jon! He called. No answer! On the log seat he sat down, nervous,
anxious, forgetting his own physical sensations. He had been
wrong to let the boy get away with that letter; he ought to have
kept him under his eye from the start! Greatly troubled, he got
up to retrace his steps. At the farm-buildings he called again,
and looked into the dark cow-house. There in the cool, and the
scent of vanilla and ammonia, away from flies, the three
Alderneys were chewing the quiet cud; just milked, waiting for
evening, to be turned out again into the lower field. One turned
a lazy head, a lustrous eye; Jolyon could see the slobber on its
grey lower lip. He saw everything with passionate clearness, in
the agitation of his nerves—all that in his time he had adored
and tried to paint—wonder of light and shade and colour. No
wonder the legend put Christ into a manger—what more devotional
than the eyes and moon-white horns of a chewing cow in the warm
dusk! He called again. No answer! And he hurried away out of the
coppice, past the pond, up the hill. Oddly ironical—now he came
to think of it—if Jon had taken the gruel of his discovery down
in the coppice where his mother and Bosinney in those old days
had made the plunge of acknowledging their love. Where he
himself, on the log seat the Sunday morning he came back from
Paris, had realised to the full that Irene had become the world
to him. That would have been the place for Irony to tear the veil
from before the eyes of Irene's boy! But he was not here! Where
had he got to? One must find the poor chap!
A gleam of sun had come, sharpening to his hurrying senses all
the beauty of the afternoon, of the tall trees and lengthening
shadows, of the blue, and the white clouds, the scent of the hay,
and the cooing of the pigeons; and the flower shapes standing
tall. He came to the rosery, and the beauty of the roses in that
sudden sunlight seemed to him unearthly. “Rose, you Spaniard!”
Wonderful three words! There she had stood by that bush of dark
red roses; had stood to read and decide that Jon must know it
all! He knew all now! Had she chosen wrong? He bent and sniffed a
rose, its petals brushed his nose and trembling lips; nothing so
soft as a rose-leaf's velvet, except her neck—Irene! On across
the lawn he went, up the slope, to the oak-tree. Its top alone
was glistening, for the sudden sun was away over the house; the
lower shade was thick, blessedly cool—he was greatly overheated.
He paused a minute with his hand on the rope of the swing—Jolly,
Holly—Jon! The old swing! And suddenly, he felt horribly—deadly
ill. 'I've over done it!' he thought: 'by Jove! I've overdone
it—after all!' He staggered up toward the terrace, dragged
himself up the steps, and fell against the wall of the house. He
leaned there gasping, his face buried in the honey-suckle that he
and she had taken such trouble with that it might sweeten the air
which drifted in. Its fragrance mingled with awful pain. 'My
love!' he thought; 'the boy!' And with a great effort he tottered
in through the long window, and sank into old Jolyon's chair. The
book was there, a pencil in it; he caught it up, scribbled a word
on the open page.... His hand dropped.... So it was like this—was
it?...
There was a great wrench; and darkness....
III.—IRENE
When Jon rushed away with the letter in his hand, he ran along
the terrace and round the corner of the house, in fear and
confusion. Leaning against the creepered wall he tore open the
letter. It was long—very long! This added to his fear, and he
began reading. When he came to the words: “It was Fleur's father
that she married,” everything seemed to spin before him. He was
close to a window, and entering by it, he passed, through
music-room and hall, up to his bedroom. Dipping his face in cold
water, he sat on his bed, and went on reading, dropping each
finished page on the bed beside him. His father's writing was
easy to read—he knew it so well, though he had never had a letter
from him one quarter so long. He read with a dull
feeling—imagination only half at work. He best grasped, on that
first reading, the pain his father must have had in writing such
a letter. He let the last sheet fall, and in a sort of mental,
moral helplessness began to read the first again. It all seemed
to him disgusting—dead and disgusting. Then, suddenly, a hot wave
of horrified emotion tingled through him. He buried his face in
his hands. His mother! Fleur's father! He took up the letter
again, and read on mechanically. And again came the feeling that
it was all dead and disgusting; his own love so different! This
letter said his mother—and her father! An awful letter!
Property! Could there be men who looked on women as their
property? Faces seen in street and countryside came thronging up
before him—red, stock-fish faces; hard, dull faces; prim, dry
faces; violent faces; hundreds, thousands of them! How could he
know what men who had such faces thought and did? He held his
head in his hands and groaned. His mother! He caught up the
letter and read on again: “horror and aversion-alive in her
to-day.... your children.... grandchildren.... of a man who once
owned your mother as a man might own a slave....” He got up from
his bed. This cruel shadowy past, lurking there to murder his
love and Fleur's, was true, or his father could never have
written it. 'Why didn't they tell me the first thing,' he
thought, 'the day I first saw Fleur? They knew I'd seen her. They
were afraid, and—now—I've—got it!' Overcome by misery too acute
for thought or reason, he crept into a dusky corner of the room
and sat down on the floor. He sat there, like some unhappy little
animal. There was comfort in dusk, and the floor—as if he were
back in those days when he played his battles sprawling all over
it. He sat there huddled, his hair ruffled, his hands clasped
round his knees, for how long he did not know. He was wrenched
from his blank wretchedness by the sound of the door opening from
his mother's room. The blinds were down over the windows of his
room, shut up in his absence, and from where he sat he could only
hear a rustle, her footsteps crossing, till beyond the bed he saw
her standing before his dressing-table. She had something in her
hand. He hardly breathed, hoping she would not see him, and go
away. He saw her touch things on the table as if they had some
virtue in them, then face the window-grey from head to foot like
a ghost. The least turn of her head, and she must see him! Her
lips moved: “Oh! Jon!” She was speaking to herself; the tone of
her voice troubled Jon's heart. He saw in her hand a little
photograph. She held it toward the light, looking at it—very
small. He knew it—one of himself as a tiny boy, which she always
kept in her bag. His heart beat fast. And, suddenly as if she had
heard it, she turned her eyes and saw him. At the gasp she gave,
and the movement of her hands pressing the photograph against her
breast, he said:
“Yes, it's me.”
She moved over to the bed, and sat down on it, quite close to
him, her hands still clasping her breast, her feet among the
sheets of the letter which had slipped to the floor. She saw
them, and her hands grasped the edge of the bed. She sat very
upright, her dark eyes fixed on him. At last she spoke.
“Well, Jon, you know, I see.”
“Yes.”
“You've seen Father?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence, till she said:
“Oh! my darling!”
“It's all right.” The emotions in him were so, violent and so
mixed that he dared not move—resentment, despair, and yet a
strange yearning for the comfort of her hand on his forehead.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don't know.”
There was another long silence, then she got up. She stood a
moment, very still, made a little movement with her hand, and
said: “My darling boy, my most darling boy, don't think of
me—think of yourself,” and, passing round the foot of the bed,
went back into her room.
Jon turned—curled into a sort of ball, as might a hedgehog—into
the corner made by the two walls.
He must have been twenty minutes there before a cry roused him.
It came from the terrace below. He got up, scared. Again came the
cry: “Jon!” His mother was calling! He ran out and down the
stairs, through the empty dining-room into the study. She was
kneeling before the old armchair, and his father was lying back
quite white, his head on his breast, one of his hands resting on
an open book, with a pencil clutched in it—more strangely still
than anything he had ever seen. She looked round wildly, and
said:
“Oh! Jon—he's dead—he's dead!”
Jon flung himself down, and reaching over the arm of the chair,
where he had lately been sitting, put his lips to the forehead.
Icy cold! How could—how could Dad be dead, when only an hour
ago—! His mother's arms were round the knees; pressing her breast
against them. “Why—why wasn't I with him?” he heard her whisper.
Then he saw the tottering word “Irene” pencilled on the open
page, and broke down himself. It was his first sight of human
death, and its unutterable stillness blotted from him all other
emotion; all else, then, was but preliminary to this! All love
and life, and joy, anxiety, and sorrow, all movement, light and
beauty, but a beginning to this terrible white stillness. It made
a dreadful mark on him; all seemed suddenly little, futile,
short. He mastered himself at last, got up, and raised her.
“Mother! don't cry—Mother!”
Some hours later, when all was done that had to be, and his
mother was lying down, he saw his father alone, on the bed,
covered with a white sheet. He stood for a long time gazing at
that face which had never looked angry—always whimsical, and
kind. “To be kind and keep your end up—there's nothing else in
it,” he had once heard his father say. How wonderfully Dad had
acted up to that philosophy! He understood now that his father
had known for a long time past that this would come
suddenly—known, and not said a word. He gazed with an awed and
passionate reverence. The loneliness of it—just to spare his
mother and himself! His own trouble seemed small while he was
looking at that face. The word scribbled on the page! The
farewell word! Now his mother had no one but himself! He went up
close to the dead face—not changed at all, and yet completely
changed. He had heard his father say once that he did not believe
in consciousness surviving death, or that if it did it might be
just survival till the natural age limit of the body had been
reached—the natural term of its inherent vitality; so that if the
body were broken by accident, excess, violent disease,
consciousness might still persist till, in the course of Nature
uninterfered with, it would naturally have faded out. It had
struck him because he had never heard any one else suggest it.
When the heart failed like this—surely it was not quite natural!
Perhaps his father's consciousness was in the room with him.
Above the bed hung a picture of his father's father. Perhaps his
consciousness, too, was still alive; and his brother's—his
half-brother, who had died in the Transvaal. Were they all
gathered round this bed? Jon kissed the forehead, and stole back
to his own room. The door between it and his mother's was ajar;
she had evidently been in—everything was ready for him, even some
biscuits and hot milk, and the letter no longer on the floor. He
ate and drank, watching the last light fade. He did not try to
see into the future—just stared at the dark branches of the
oak-tree, level with his window, and felt as if life had stopped.
Once in the night, turning in his heavy sleep, he was conscious
of something white and still, beside his bed, and started up.
His mother's voice said:
“It's only I, Jon dear!” Her hand pressed his forehead gently
back; her white figure disappeared.
Alone! He fell heavily asleep again, and dreamed he saw his
mother's name crawling on his bed.
IV.—SOAMES COGITATES
The announcement in The Times of his cousin Jolyon's death
affected Soames quite simply. So that chap was gone! There had
never been a time in their two lives when love had not been lost
between them. That quick-blooded sentiment hatred had run its
course long since in Soames' heart, and he had refused to allow
any recrudescence, but he considered this early decease a piece
of poetic justice. For twenty years the fellow had enjoyed the
reversion of his wife and house, and—he was dead! The obituary
notice, which appeared a little later, paid Jolyon—he thought—too
much attention. It spoke of that “diligent and agreeable painter
whose work we have come to look on as typical of the best
late-Victorian water-colour art.” Soames, who had almost
mechanically preferred Mole, Morpin, and Caswell Baye, and had
always sniffed quite audibly when he came to one of his cousin's
on the line, turned The Times with a crackle.
He had to go up to Town that morning on Forsyte affairs, and was
fully conscious of Gradman's glance sidelong over his spectacles.
The old clerk had about him an aura of regretful congratulation.
He smelled, as it were, of old days. One could almost hear him
thinking: “Mr. Jolyon, ye-es—just my age, and gone—dear, dear! I
dare say she feels it. She was a nice-lookin' woman. Flesh is
flesh! They've given 'im a notice in the papers. Fancy!” His
atmosphere in fact caused Soames to handle certain leases and
conversions with exceptional swiftness.
“About that settlement on Miss Fleur, Mr. Soames?”
“I've thought better of that,” answered Soames shortly.
“Ah! I'm glad of that. I thought you were a little hasty. The
times do change.”
How this death would affect Fleur had begun to trouble Soames. He
was not certain that she knew of it—she seldom looked at the
paper, never at the births, marriages, and deaths.
He pressed matters on, and made his way to Green Street for
lunch. Winifred was almost doleful. Jack Cardigan had broken a
splashboard, so far as one could make out, and would not be “fit”
for some time. She could not get used to the idea.
“Did Profond ever get off?” he said suddenly.
“He got off,” replied Winifred, “but where—I don't know.”
Yes, there it was—impossible to tell anything! Not that he wanted
to know. Letters from Annette were coming from Dieppe, where she
and her mother were staying.
“You saw that fellow's death, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Winifred. “I'm sorry for—for his children. He was
very amiable.” Soames uttered a rather queer sound. A suspicion
of the old deep truth—that men were judged in this world rather
by what they were than by what they did—crept and knocked
resentfully at the back doors of his mind.
“I know there was a superstition to that effect,” he muttered.
“One must do him justice now he's dead.”
“I should like to have done him justice before,” said Soames;
“but I never had the chance. Have you got a 'Baronetage' here?”
“Yes; in that bottom row.”
Soames took out a fat red book, and ran over the leaves.
“Mont-Sir Lawrence, 9th Bt., cr. 1620, e. s. of Geoffrey, 8th
Bt., and Lavinia, daur. of Sir Charles Muskham, Bt., of Muskham
Hall, Shrops: marr. 1890 Emily, daur. of Conway Charwell, Esq.,
of Condaford Grange, co. Oxon; 1 son, heir Michael Conway, b.
1895, 2 daurs. Residence: Lippinghall Manor, Folwell, Bucks.
Clubs: Snooks'. Coffee House: Aeroplane. See Bidicott.”
“H'm!” he said. “Did you ever know a publisher?”
“Uncle Timothy.”
“Alive, I mean.”
“Monty knew one at his Club. He brought him here to dinner once.
Monty was always thinking of writing a book, you know, about how
to make money on the turf. He tried to interest that man.”
“Well?”
“He put him on to a horse—for the Two Thousand. We didn't see him
again. He was rather smart, if I remember.”
“Did it win?”
“No; it ran last, I think. You know Monty really was quite clever
in his way.”
“Was he?” said Soames. “Can you see any connection between a
sucking baronet and publishing?”
“People do all sorts of things nowadays,” replied Winifred. “The
great stunt seems not to be idle—so different from our time. To
do nothing was the thing then. But I suppose it'll come again.”
“This young Mont that I'm speaking of is very sweet on Fleur. If
it would put an end to that other affair I might encourage it.”
“Has he got style?” asked Winifred.
“He's no beauty; pleasant enough, with some scattered brains.
There's a good deal of land, I believe. He seems genuinely
attached. But I don't know.”
“No,” murmured Winifred; “it's—very difficult. I always found it
best to do nothing. It is such a bore about Jack; now we shan't
get away till after Bank Holiday. Well, the people are always
amusing, I shall go into the Park and watch them.”
“If I were you,” said Soames, “I should have a country cottage,
and be out of the way of holidays and strikes when you want.”
“The country bores me,” answered Winifred, “and I found the
railway strike quite exciting.”
Winifred had always been noted for sang-froid.
Soames took his leave. All the way down to Reading he debated
whether he should tell Fleur of that boy's father's death. It did
not alter the situation except that he would be independent now,
and only have his mother's opposition to encounter. He would come
into a lot of money, no doubt, and perhaps the house—the house
built for Irene and himself—the house whose architect had wrought
his domestic ruin. His daughter—mistress of that house! That
would be poetic justice! Soames uttered a little mirthless laugh.
He had designed that house to re-establish his failing union,
meant it for the seat of his descendants, if he could have
induced Irene to give him one! Her son and Fleur! Their children
would be, in some sort, offspring of the union between himself
and her!
The theatricality in that thought was repulsive to his sober
sense. And yet—it would be the easiest and wealthiest way out of
the impasse, now that Jolyon was gone. The juncture of two
Forsyte fortunes had a kind of conservative charm. And
she—Irene-would be linked to him once more. Nonsense! Absurd! He
put the notion from his head.
On arriving home he heard the click of billiard-balls, and
through the window saw young Mont sprawling over the table.
Fleur, with her cue akimbo, was watching with a smile. How pretty
she looked! No wonder that young fellow was out of his mind about
her. A title—land! There was little enough in land, these days;
perhaps less in a title. The old Forsytes had always had a kind
of contempt for titles, rather remote and artificial things—not
worth the money they cost, and having to do with the Court. They
had all had that feeling in differing measure—Soames remembered.
Swithin, indeed, in his most expansive days had once attended a
Levee. He had come away saying he shouldn't go again—“all that
small fry.” It was suspected that he had looked too big in
knee-breeches. Soames remembered how his own mother had wished to
be presented because of the fashionable nature of the
performance, and how his father had put his foot down with
unwonted decision. What did she want with that peacocking—wasting
time and money; there was nothing in it!
The instinct which had made and kept the English Commons the
chief power in the State, a feeling that their own world was good
enough and a little better than any other because it was their
world, had kept the old Forsytes singularly free of “flummery,”
as Nicholas had been wont to call it when he had the gout.
Soames' generation, more self-conscious and ironical, had been
saved by a sense of Swithin in knee-breeches. While the third and
the fourth generation, as it seemed to him, laughed at
everything.
However, there was no harm in the young fellow's being heir to a
title and estate—a thing one couldn't help. He entered quietly,
as Mont missed his shot. He noted the young man's eyes, fixed on
Fleur bending over in her turn; and the adoration in them almost
touched him.
She paused with the cue poised on the bridge of her slim hand,
and shook her crop of short dark chestnut hair.
“I shall never do it.”
“'Nothing venture.'”
“All right.” The cue struck, the ball rolled. “There!”
“Bad luck! Never mind!”
Then they saw him, and Soames said:
“I'll mark for you.”
He sat down on the raised seat beneath the marker, trim and
tired, furtively studying those two young faces. When the game
was over Mont came up to him.
“I've started in, sir. Rum game, business, isn't it? I suppose
you saw a lot of human nature as a solicitor.”
“I did.”
“Shall I tell you what I've noticed: People are quite on the
wrong tack in offering less than they can afford to give; they
ought to offer more, and work backward.”
Soames raised his eyebrows.
“Suppose the more is accepted?”
“That doesn't matter a little bit,” said Mont; “it's much more
paying to abate a price than to increase it. For instance, say we
offer an author good terms—he naturally takes them. Then we go
into it, find we can't publish at a decent profit and tell him
so. He's got confidence in us because we've been generous to him,
and he comes down like a lamb, and bears us no malice. But if we
offer him poor terms at the start, he doesn't take them, so we
have to advance them to get him, and he thinks us damned screws
into the bargain.
“Try buying pictures on that system,” said Soames; “an offer
accepted is a contract—haven't you learned that?”
Young Mont turned his head to where Fleur was standing in the
window.
“No,” he said, “I wish I had. Then there's another thing. Always
let a man off a bargain if he wants to be let off.”
“As advertisement?” said Soames dryly.
“Of course it is; but I meant on principle.”
“Does your firm work on those lines?”
“Not yet,” said Mont, “but it'll come.”
“And they will go.”
“No, really, sir. I'm making any number of observations, and they
all confirm my theory. Human nature is consistently underrated in
business, people do themselves out of an awful lot of pleasure
and profit by that. Of course, you must be perfectly genuine and
open, but that's easy if you feel it. The more human and generous
you are the better chance you've got in business.”
Soames rose.
“Are you a partner?”
“Not for six months, yet.”
“The rest of the firm had better make haste and retire.”
Mont laughed.
“You'll see,” he said. “There's going to be a big change. The
possessive principle has got its shutters up.”
“What?” said Soames.
“The house is to let! Good-bye, sir; I'm off now.”
Soames watched his daughter give her hand, saw her wince at the
squeeze it received, and distinctly heard the young man's sigh as
he passed out. Then she came from the window, trailing her finger
along the mahogany edge of the billiard-table. Watching her,
Soames knew that she was going to ask him something. Her finger
felt round the last pocket, and she looked up.
“Have you done anything to stop Jon writing to me, Father?”
Soames shook his head.
“You haven't seen, then?” he said. “His father died just a week
ago to-day.”
“Oh!”
In her startled, frowning face he saw the instant struggle to
apprehend what this would mean.
“Poor Jon! Why didn't you tell me, Father?”
“I never know!” said Soames slowly; “you don't confide in me.”
“I would, if you'd help me, dear.”
“Perhaps I shall.”
Fleur clasped her hands. “Oh! darling—when one wants a thing
fearfully, one doesn't think of other people. Don't be angry with
me.”
Soames put out his hand, as if pushing away an aspersion.
“I'm cogitating,” he said. What on earth had made him use a word
like that! “Has young Mont been bothering you again?”
Fleur smiled. “Oh! Michael! He's always bothering; but he's such
a good sort—I don't mind him.”
“Well,” said Soames, “I'm tired; I shall go and have a nap before
dinner.”
He went up to his picture-gallery, lay down on the couch there,
and closed his eyes. A terrible responsibility this girl of
his—whose mother was—ah! what was she? A terrible responsibility!
Help her—how could he help her? He could not alter the fact that
he was her father. Or that Irene—! What was it young Mont had
said—some nonsense about the possessive instinct—shutters up—To
let? Silly!
The sultry air, charged with a scent of meadow-sweet, of river
and roses, closed on his senses, drowsing them.
V.—THE FIXED IDEA
“The fixed idea,” which has outrun more constables than any other
form of human disorder, has never more speed and stamina than
when it takes the avid guise of love. To hedges and ditches, and
doors, to humans without ideas fixed or otherwise, to
perambulators and the contents sucking their fixed ideas, even to
the other sufferers from this fast malady—the fixed idea of love
pays no attention. It runs with eyes turned inward to its own
light, oblivious of all other stars. Those with the fixed ideas
that human happiness depends on their art, on vivisecting dogs,
on hating foreigners, on paying supertax, on remaining Ministers,
on making wheels go round, on preventing their neighbours from
being divorced, on conscientious objection, Greek roots, Church
dogma, paradox and superiority to everybody else, with other
forms of ego-mania—all are unstable compared with him or her
whose fixed idea is the possession of some her or him. And though
Fleur, those chilly summer days, pursued the scattered life of a
little Forsyte whose frocks are paid for, and whose business is
pleasure, she was—as Winifred would have said in the latest
fashion of speech—“honest to God” indifferent to it all. She
wished and wished for the moon, which sailed in cold skies above
the river or the Green Park when she went to Town. She even kept
Jon's letters, covered with pink silk, on her heart, than which
in days when corsets were so low, sentiment so despised, and
chests so out of fashion, there could, perhaps, have been no
greater proof of the fixity of her idea.
After hearing of his father's death, she wrote to Jon, and
received his answer three days later on her return from a river
picnic. It was his first letter since their meeting at June's.
She opened it with misgiving, and read it with dismay.
“Since I saw you I've heard everything about the past. I won't
tell it you—I think you knew when we met at June's. She says you
did. If you did, Fleur, you ought to have told me. I expect you
only heard your father's side of it. I have heard my mother's.
It's dreadful. Now that she's so sad I can't do anything to hurt
her more. Of course, I long for you all day, but I don't believe
now that we shall ever come together—there's something too strong
pulling us apart.”
So! Her deception had found her out. But Jon—she felt—had
forgiven that. It was what he said of his mother which caused the
guttering in her heart and the weak sensation in her legs.
Her first impulse was to reply—her second, not to reply. These
impulses were constantly renewed in the days which followed,
while desperation grew within her. She was not her father's child
for nothing. The tenacity which had at once made and undone
Soames was her backbone, too, frilled and embroidered by French
grace and quickness. Instinctively she conjugated the verb “to
have” always with the pronoun “I.” She concealed, however, all
signs of her growing desperation, and pursued such river
pleasures as the winds and rain of a disagreeable July permitted,
as if she had no care in the world; nor did any “sucking baronet”
ever neglect the business of a publisher more consistently than
her attendant spirit, Michael Mont.
To Soames she was a puzzle. He was almost deceived by this
careless gaiety. Almost—because he did not fail to mark her eyes
often fixed on nothing, and the film of light shining from her
bedroom window late at night. What was she thinking and brooding
over into small hours when she ought to have been asleep? But he
dared not ask what was in her mind; and, since that one little
talk in the billiard-room, she said nothing to him.
In this taciturn condition of affairs it chanced that Winifred
invited them to lunch and to go afterward to “a most amusing
little play, 'The Beggar's Opera'” and would they bring a man to
make four? Soames, whose attitude toward theatres was to go to
nothing, accepted, because Fleur's attitude was to go to
everything. They motored up, taking Michael Mont, who, being in
his seventh heaven, was found by Winifred “very amusing.” “The
Beggar's Opera” puzzled Soames. The people were very unpleasant,
the whole thing very cynical. Winifred was “intrigued”—by the
dresses. The music, too, did not displease her. At the Opera, the
night before, she had arrived too early for the Russian Ballet,
and found the stage occupied by singers, for a whole hour pale or
apoplectic from terror lest by some dreadful inadvertence they
might drop into a tune. Michael Mont was enraptured with the
whole thing. And all three wondered what Fleur was thinking of
it. But Fleur was not thinking of it. Her fixed idea stood on the
stage and sang with Polly Peachum, mimed with Filch, danced with
Jenny Diver, postured with Lucy Lockit, kissed, trolled, and
cuddled with Macheath. Her lips might smile, her hands applaud,
but the comic old masterpiece made no more impression on her than
if it had been pathetic, like a modern “Revue.” When they
embarked in the car to return, she ached because Jon was not
sitting next her instead of Michael Mont. When, at some jolt, the
young man's arm touched hers as if by accident, she only thought:
'If that were Jon's arm!' When his cheerful voice, tempered by
her proximity, murmured above the sound of the car's progress,
she smiled and answered, thinking: 'If that were Jon's voice!'
and when once he said, “Fleur, you look a perfect angel in that
dress!” she answered, “Oh, do you like it?” thinking, 'If only
Jon could see it!'
During this drive she took a resolution. She would go to Robin
Hill and see him—alone; she would take the car, without word
beforehand to him or to her father. It was nine days since his
letter, and she could wait no longer. On Monday she would go! The
decision made her well disposed toward young Mont. With something
to look forward to she could afford to tolerate and respond. He
might stay to dinner; propose to her as usual; dance with her,
press her hand, sigh—do what he liked. He was only a nuisance
when he interfered with her fixed idea. She was even sorry for
him so far as it was possible to be sorry for anybody but herself
just now. At dinner he seemed to talk more wildly than usual
about what he called “the death of the close borough”—she paid
little attention, but her father seemed paying a good deal, with
the smile on his face which meant opposition, if not anger.
“The younger generation doesn't think as you do, sir; does it,
Fleur?”
Fleur shrugged her shoulders—the younger generation was just Jon,
and she did not know what he was thinking.
“Young people will think as I do when they're my age, Mr. Mont.
Human nature doesn't change.”
“I admit that, sir; but the forms of thought change with the
times. The pursuit of self-interest is a form of thought that's
going out.”
“Indeed! To mind one's own business is not a form of thought, Mr.
Mont, it's an instinct.”
Yes, when Jon was the business!
“But what is one's business, sir? That's the point. Everybody's
business is going to be one's business. Isn't it, Fleur?”
Fleur only smiled.
“If not,” added young Mont, “there'll be blood.”
“People have talked like that from time immemorial”
“But you'll admit, sir, that the sense of property is dying out?”
“I should say increasing among those who have none.”
“Well, look at me! I'm heir to an entailed estate. I don't want
the thing; I'd cut the entail to-morrow.”
“You're not married, and you don't know what you're talking
about.”
Fleur saw the young man's eyes turn rather piteously upon her.
“Do you really mean that marriage—?” he began.
“Society is built on marriage,” came from between her father's
close lips; “marriage and its consequences. Do you want to do
away with it?”
Young Mont made a distracted gesture. Silence brooded over the
dinner table, covered with spoons bearing the Forsyte crest—a
pheasant proper—under the electric light in an alabaster globe.
And outside, the river evening darkened, charged with heavy
moisture and sweet scents.
'Monday,' thought Fleur; 'Monday!'
VI.—DESPERATE
The weeks which followed the death of his father were sad and
empty to the only Jolyon Forsyte left. The necessary forms and
ceremonies—the reading of the Will, valuation of the estate,
distribution of the legacies—were enacted over the head, as it
were, of one not yet of age. Jolyon was cremated. By his special
wish no one attended that ceremony, or wore black for him. The
succession of his property, controlled to some extent by old
Jolyon's Will, left his widow in possession of Robin Hill, with
two thousand five hundred pounds a year for life. Apart from this
the two Wills worked together in some complicated way to insure
that each of Jolyon's three children should have an equal share
in their grandfather's and father's property in the future as in
the present, save only that Jon, by virtue of his sex, would have
control of his capital when he was twenty-one, while June and
Holly would only have the spirit of theirs, in order that their
children might have the body after them. If they had no children,
it would all come to Jon if he outlived them; and since June was
fifty, and Holly nearly forty, it was considered in Lincoln's Inn
Fields that but for the cruelty of income tax, young Jon would be
as warm a man as his grandfather when he died. All this was
nothing to Jon, and little enough to his mother. It was June who
did everything needful for one who had left his affairs in
perfect order. When she had gone, and those two were alone again
in the great house, alone with death drawing them together, and
love driving them apart, Jon passed very painful days secretly
disgusted and disappointed with himself. His mother would look at
him with such a patient sadness which yet had in it an
instinctive pride, as if she were reserving her defence. If she
smiled he was angry that his answering smile should be so
grudging and unnatural. He did not judge or condemn her; that was
all too remote—indeed, the idea of doing so had never come to
him. No! he was grudging and unnatural because he couldn't have
what he wanted because of her. There was one alleviation—much to
do in connection with his father's career, which could not be
safely entrusted to June, though she had offered to undertake it.
Both Jon and his mother had felt that if she took his portfolios,
unexhibited drawings and unfinished matter, away with her, the
work would encounter such icy blasts from Paul Post and other
frequenters of her studio, that it would soon be frozen out even
of her warm heart. On its old-fashioned plane and of its kind the
work was good, and they could not bear the thought of its
subjection to ridicule. A one-man exhibition of his work was the
least testimony they could pay to one they had loved; and on
preparation for this they spent many hours together. Jon came to
have a curiously increased respect for his father. The quiet
tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent into
something really individual was disclosed by these researches.
There was a great mass of work with a rare continuity of growth
in depth and reach of vision. Nothing certainly went very deep,
or reached very high—but such as the work was, it was thorough,
conscientious, and complete. And, remembering his father's utter
absence of “side” or self-assertion, the chaffing humility with
which he had always spoken of his own efforts, ever calling
himself “an amateur,” Jon could not help feeling that he had
never really known his father. To take himself seriously, yet
never that he did so, seemed to have been his ruling principle.
There was something in this which appealed to the boy, and made
him heartily endorse his mother's comment: “He had true
refinement; he couldn't help thinking of others, whatever he did.
And when he took a resolution which went counter, he did it with
the minimum of defiance—not like the Age, is it? Twice in his
life he had to go against everything; and yet it never made him
bitter.” Jon saw tears running down her face, which she at once
turned away from him. She was so quiet about her loss that
sometimes he had thought she didn't feel it much. Now, as he
looked at her, he felt how far he fell short of the reserve power
and dignity in both his father and his mother. And, stealing up
to her, he put his arm round her waist. She kissed him swiftly,
but with a sort of passion, and went out of the room.
The studio, where they had been sorting and labelling, had once
been Holly's schoolroom, devoted to her silkworms, dried
lavender, music, and other forms of instruction. Now, at the end
of July, despite its northern and eastern aspects, a warm and
slumberous air came in between the long-faded lilac linen
curtains. To redeem a little the departed glory, as of a field
that is golden and gone, clinging to a room which its master has
left, Irene had placed on the paint-stained table a bowl of red
roses. This, and Jolyon's favourite cat, who still clung to the
deserted habitat, were the pleasant spots in that dishevelled,
sad workroom. Jon, at the north window, sniffing air mysteriously
scented with warm strawberries, heard a car drive up. The lawyers
again about some nonsense! Why did that scent so make one ache?
And where did it come from—there were no strawberry beds on this
side of the house. Instinctively he took a crumpled sheet of
paper from his pocket, and wrote down some broken words. A warmth
began spreading in his chest; he rubbed the palms of his hands
together. Presently he had jotted this:
“If I could make a little song A little song to soothe my heart!
I'd make it all of little things The plash of water, rub of
wings, The puffing-off of dandies crown, The hiss of raindrop
spilling down, The purr of cat, the trill of bird, And ev'ry
whispering I've heard From willy wind in leaves and grass, And
all the distant drones that pass. A song as tender and as light
As flower, or butterfly in flight; And when I saw it opening, I'd
let it fly and sing!”
He was still muttering it over to himself at the window, when he
heard his name called, and, turning round, saw Fleur. At that
amazing apparition, he made at first no movement and no sound,
while her clear vivid glance ravished his heart. Then he went
forward to the table, saying, “How nice of you to come!” and saw
her flinch as if he had thrown something at her.
“I asked for you,” she said, “and they showed me up here. But I
can go away again.”
Jon clutched the paint-stained table. Her face and figure in its
frilly frock photographed itself with such startling vividness
upon his eyes, that if she had sunk through the floor he must
still have seen her.
“I know I told you a lie, Jon. But I told it out of love.”
“Yes, oh! yes! That's nothing!”
“I didn't answer your letter. What was the use—there wasn't
anything to answer. I wanted to see you instead.” She held out
both her hands, and Jon grasped them across the table. He tried
to say something, but all his attention was given to trying not
to hurt her hands. His own felt so hard and hers so soft. She
said almost defiantly:
“That old story—was it so very dreadful?”
“Yes.” In his voice, too, there was a note of defiance.
She dragged her hands away. “I didn't think in these days boys
were tied to their mothers' apron-strings.”
Jon's chin went up as if he had been struck.
“Oh! I didn't mean it, Jon. What a horrible thing to say!”
Swiftly she came close to him. “Jon, dear; I didn't mean it.”
“All right.”
She had put her two hands on his shoulder, and her forehead down
on them; the brim of her hat touched his neck, and he felt it
quivering. But, in a sort of paralysis, he made no response. She
let go of his shoulder and drew away.
“Well, I'll go, if you don't want me. But I never thought you'd
have given me up.”
“I haven't,” cried Jon, coming suddenly to life. “I can't. I'll
try again.”
Her eyes gleamed, she swayed toward him. “Jon—I love you! Don't
give me up! If you do, I don't know what—I feel so desperate.
What does it matter—all that past-compared with this?”
She clung to him. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. But
while he kissed her he saw, the sheets of that letter fallen down
on the floor of his bedroom—his father's white dead face—his
mother kneeling before it. Fleur's whispered, “Make her! Promise!
Oh! Jon, try!” seemed childish in his ear. He felt curiously old.
“I promise!” he muttered. “Only, you don't understand.”
“She wants to spoil our lives, just because—”
“Yes, of what?”
Again that challenge in his voice, and she did not answer. Her
arms tightened round him, and he returned her kisses; but even
while he yielded, the poison worked in him, the poison of the
letter. Fleur did not know, she did not understand—she misjudged
his mother; she came from the enemy's camp! So lovely, and he
loved her so—yet, even in her embrace, he could not help the
memory of Holly's words: “I think she has a 'having' nature,” and
his mother's “My darling boy, don't think of me—think of
yourself!”
When she was gone like a passionate dream, leaving her image on
his eyes, her kisses on his lips, such an ache in his heart, Jon
leaned in the window, listening to the car bearing her away.
Still the scent as of warm strawberries, still the little summer
sounds that should make his song; still all the promise of youth
and happiness in sighing, floating, fluttering July—and his heart
torn; yearning strong in him; hope high in him yet with its eyes
cast down, as if ashamed. The miserable task before him! If Fleur
was desperate, so was he—watching the poplars swaying, the white
clouds passing, the sunlight on the grass.
He waited till evening, till after their almost silent dinner,
till his mother had played to him and still he waited, feeling
that she knew what he was waiting to say. She kissed him and went
up-stairs, and still he lingered, watching the moonlight and the
moths, and that unreality of colouring which steals along and
stains a summer night. And he would have given anything to be
back again in the past—barely three months back; or away forward,
years, in the future. The present with this dark cruelty of a
decision, one way or the other, seemed impossible. He realised
now so much more keenly what his mother felt than he had at
first; as if the story in that letter had been a poisonous germ
producing a kind of fever of partisanship, so that he really felt
there were two camps, his mother's and his—Fleur's and her
father's. It might be a dead thing, that old tragic ownership and
enmity, but dead things were poisonous till time had cleaned them
away. Even his love felt tainted, less illusioned, more of the
earth, and with a treacherous lurking doubt lest Fleur, like her
father, might want to own; not articulate, just a stealing haunt,
horribly unworthy, which crept in and about the ardour of his
memories, touched with its tarnishing breath the vividness and
grace of that charmed face and figure—a doubt, not real enough to
convince him of its presence, just real enough to deflower a
perfect faith. And perfect faith, to Jon, not yet twenty, was
essential. He still had Youth's eagerness to give with both
hands, to take with neither—to give lovingly to one who had his
own impulsive generosity. Surely she had! He got up from the
window-seat and roamed in the big grey ghostly room, whose walls
were hung with silvered canvas. This house his father said in
that death-bed letter—had been built for his mother to live
in—with Fleur's father! He put out his hand in the half-dark, as
if to grasp the shadowy hand of the dead. He clenched, trying to
feel the thin vanished fingers of his father; to squeeze them,
and reassure him that he—he was on his father's side. Tears,
prisoned within him, made his eyes feel dry and hot. He went back
to the window. It was warmer, not so eerie, more comforting
outside, where the moon hung golden, three days off full; the
freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur and he had met
on some desert island without a past—and Nature for their house!
Jon had still his high regard for desert islands, where
breadfruit grew, and the water was blue above the coral. The
night was deep, was free—there was enticement in it; a lure, a
promise, a refuge from entanglement, and love! Milksop tied to
his mother's...! His cheeks burned. He shut the window, drew
curtains over it, switched off the lighted sconce, and went
up-stairs.
The door of his room was open, the light turned up; his mother,
still in her evening gown, was standing at the window. She turned
and said:
“Sit down, Jon; let's talk.” She sat down on the window-seat, Jon
on his bed. She had her profile turned to him, and the beauty and
grace of her figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the
neck, the strange and as it were remote refinement of her, moved
him. His mother never belonged to her surroundings. She came into
them from somewhere—as it were! What was she going to say to him,
who had in his heart such things to say to her?
“I know Fleur came to-day. I'm not surprised.” It was as though
she had added: “She is her father's daughter!” And Jon's heart
hardened. Irene went on quietly:
“I have Father's letter. I picked it up that night and kept it.
Would you like it back, dear?”
Jon shook his head.
“I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn't
quite do justice to my criminality.”
“Mother!” burst from Jon's lips.
“He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur's
father without love I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage,
Jon, can play such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You
are fearfully young, my darling, and fearfully loving. Do you
think you can possibly be happy with this girl?”
Staring at her dark eyes, darker now from pain, Jon answered
“Yes; oh! yes—if you could be.”
Irene smiled.
“Admiration of beauty and longing for possession are not love. If
yours were another case like mine, Jon—where the deepest things
are stifled; the flesh joined, and the spirit at war!”
“Why should it, Mother? You think she must be like her father,
but she's not. I've seen him.”
Again the smile came on Irene's lips, and in Jon something
wavered; there was such irony and experience in that smile.
“You are a giver, Jon; she is a taker.”
That unworthy doubt, that haunting uncertainty again! He said
with vehemence:
“She isn't—she isn't. It's only because I can't bear to make you
unhappy, Mother, now that Father—” He thrust his fists against
his forehead.
Irene got up.
“I told you that night, dear, not to mind me. I meant it. Think
of yourself and your own happiness! I can stand what's left—I've
brought it on myself.”
Again the word “Mother!” burst from Jon's lips.
She came over to him and put her hands over his.
“Do you feel your head, darling?”
Jon shook it. What he felt was in his chest—a sort of tearing
asunder of the tissue there, by the two loves.
“I shall always love you the same, Jon, whatever you do. You
won't lose anything.” She smoothed his hair gently, and walked
away.
He heard the door shut; and, rolling over on the bed, lay,
stifling his breath, with an awful held-up feeling within him.
VII.—EMBASSY
Enquiring for her at tea time Soames learned that Fleur had been
out in the car since two. Three hours! Where had she gone? Up to
London without a word to him? He had never become quite
reconciled with cars. He had embraced them in principle—like the
born empiricist, or Forsyte, that he was—adopting each symptom of
progress as it came along with: “Well, we couldn't do without
them now.” But in fact he found them tearing, great, smelly
things. Obliged by Annette to have one—a Rollhard with pearl-grey
cushions, electric light, little mirrors, trays for the ashes of
cigarettes, flower vases—all smelling of petrol and
stephanotis—he regarded it much as he used to regard his
brother-in-law, Montague Dartie. The thing typified all that was
fast, insecure, and subcutaneously oily in modern life. As modern
life became faster, looser, younger, Soames was becoming older,
slower, tighter, more and more in thought and language like his
father James before him. He was almost aware of it himself. Pace
and progress pleased him less and less; there was an ostentation,
too, about a car which he considered provocative in the
prevailing mood of Labour. On one occasion that fellow Sims had
driven over the only vested interest of a working man. Soames had
not forgotten the behaviour of its master, when not many people
would have stopped to put up with it. He had been sorry for the
dog, and quite prepared to take its part against the car, if that
ruffian hadn't been so outrageous. With four hours fast becoming
five, and still no Fleur, all the old car-wise feelings he had
experienced in person and by proxy balled within him, and sinking
sensations troubled the pit of his stomach. At seven he
telephoned to Winifred by trunk call. No! Fleur had not been to
Green Street. Then where was she? Visions of his beloved daughter
rolled up in her pretty frills, all blood and dust-stained, in
some hideous catastrophe, began to haunt him. He went to her room
and spied among her things. She had taken nothing—no
dressing-case, no Jewellery. And this, a relief in one sense,
increased his fears of an accident. Terrible to be helpless when
his loved one was missing, especially when he couldn't bear fuss
or publicity of any kind! What should he do if she were not back
by nightfall?
At a quarter to eight he heard the car. A great weight lifted
from off his heart; he hurried down. She was getting out—pale and
tired-looking, but nothing wrong. He met her in the hall.
“You've frightened me. Where have you been?”
“To Robin Hill. I'm sorry, dear. I had to go; I'll tell you
afterward.” And, with a flying kiss, she ran up-stairs.
Soames waited in the drawing-room. To Robin Hill! What did that
portend?
It was not a subject they could discuss at dinner—consecrated to
the susceptibilities of the butler. The agony of nerves Soames
had been through, the relief he felt at her safety, softened his
power to condemn what she had done, or resist what she was going
to do; he waited in a relaxed stupor for her revelation. Life was
a queer business. There he was at sixty-five and no more in
command of things than if he had not spent forty years in
building up security-always something one couldn't get on terms
with! In the pocket of his dinner-jacket was a letter from
Annette. She was coming back in a fortnight. He knew nothing of
what she had been doing out there. And he was glad that he did
not. Her absence had been a relief. Out of sight was out of mind!
And now she was coming back. Another worry! And the Bolderby Old
Crome was gone—Dumetrius had got it—all because that anonymous
letter had put it out of his thoughts. He furtively remarked the
strained look on his daughter's face, as if she too were gazing
at a picture that she couldn't buy. He almost wished the War
back. Worries didn't seem, then, quite so worrying. From the
caress in her voice, the look on her face, he became certain that
she wanted something from him, uncertain whether it would be wise
of him to give it her. He pushed his savoury away uneaten, and
even joined her in a cigarette.
After dinner she set the electric piano-player going. And he
augured the worst when she sat down on a cushion footstool at his
knee, and put her hand on his.
“Darling, be nice to me. I had to see Jon—he wrote to me. He's
going to try what he can do with his mother. But I've been
thinking. It's really in your hands, Father. If you'd persuade
her that it doesn't mean renewing the past in any way! That I
shall stay yours, and Jon will stay hers; that you need never see
him or her, and she need never see you or me! Only you could
persuade her, dear, because only you could promise. One can't
promise for other people. Surely it wouldn't be too awkward for
you to see her just this once now that Jon's father is dead?”
“Too awkward?” Soames repeated. “The whole thing's preposterous.”
“You know,” said Fleur, without looking up, “you wouldn't mind
seeing her, really.”
Soames was silent. Her words had expressed a truth too deep for
him to admit. She slipped her fingers between his own—hot, slim,
eager, they clung there. This child of his would corkscrew her
way into a brick wall!
“What am I to do if you won't, Father?” she said very softly.
“I'll do anything for your happiness,” said Soanies; “but this
isn't for your happiness.”
“Oh! it is; it is!”
“It'll only stir things up,” he said grimly.
“But they are stirred up. The thing is to quiet them. To make her
feel that this is just our lives, and has nothing to do with
yours or hers. You can do it, Father, I know you can.”
“You know a great deal, then,” was Soames' glum answer.
“If you will, Jon and I will wait a year—two years if you like.”
“It seems to me,” murmured Soames, “that you care nothing about
what I feel.”
Fleur pressed his hand against her cheek.
“I do, darling. But you wouldn't like me to be awfully
miserable.”
How she wheedled to get her ends! And trying with all his might
to think she really cared for him—he was not sure—not sure. All
she cared for was this boy! Why should he help her to get this
boy, who was killing her affection for himself? Why should he? By
the laws of the Forsytes it was foolish! There was nothing to be
had out of it—nothing! To give her to that boy! To pass her into
the enemy's camp, under the influence of the woman who had
injured him so deeply! Slowly—inevitably—he would lose this
flower of his life! And suddenly he was conscious that his hand
was wet. His heart gave a little painful jump. He couldn't bear
her to cry. He put his other hand quickly over hers, and a tear
dropped on that, too. He couldn't go on like this! “Well, well,”
he said, “I'll think it over, and do what I can. Come, come!” If
she must have it for her happiness—she must; he couldn't refuse
to help her. And lest she should begin to thank him he got out of
his chair and went up to the piano-player—making that noise! It
ran down, as he reached it, with a faint buzz. That musical box
of his nursery days: “The Harmonious Blacksmith,” “Glorious
Port”—the thing had always made him miserable when his mother set
it going on Sunday afternoons. Here it was again—the same thing,
only larger, more expensive, and now it played “The Wild, Wild
Women,” and “The Policeman's Holiday,” and he was no longer in
black velvet with a sky blue collar. 'Profond's right,' he
thought, 'there's nothing in it! We're all progressing to the
grave!' And with that surprising mental comment he walked out.
He did not see Fleur again that night. But, at breakfast, her
eyes followed him about with an appeal he could not escape—not
that he intended to try. No! He had made up his mind to the
nerve-racking business. He would go to Robin Hill—to that house
of memories. Pleasant memory—the last! Of going down to keep that
boy's father and Irene apart by threatening divorce. He had often
thought, since, that it had clinched their union. And, now, he
was going to clinch the union of that boy with his girl. 'I don't
know what I've done,' he thought, 'to have such things thrust on
me!' He went up by train and down by train, and from the station
walked by the long rising lane, still very much as he remembered
it over thirty years ago. Funny—so near London! Some one
evidently was holding on to the land there. This speculation
soothed him, moving between the high hedges slowly, so as not to
get overheated, though the day was chill enough. After all was
said and done there was something real about land, it didn't
shift. Land, and good pictures! The values might fluctuate a bit,
but on the whole they were always going up—worth holding on to,
in a world where there was such a lot of unreality, cheap
building, changing fashions, such a “Here to-day and gone
to-morrow” spirit. The French were right, perhaps, with their
peasant proprietorship, though he had no opinion of the French.
One's bit of land! Something solid in it! He had heard peasant
proprietors described as a pig-headed lot; had heard young Mont
call his father a pigheaded Morning Poster—disrespectful young
devil. Well, there were worse things than being pig-headed or
reading the Morning Post. There was Profond and his tribe, and
all these Labour chaps, and loud-mouthed politicians and 'wild,
wild women'. A lot of worse things! And suddenly Soames became
conscious of feeling weak, and hot, and shaky. Sheer nerves at
the meeting before him! As Aunt Juley might have said—quoting
“Superior Dosset”—his nerves were “in a proper fautigue.” He
could see the house now among its trees, the house he had watched
being built, intending it for himself and this woman, who, by
such strange fate, had lived in it with another after all! He
began to think of Dumetrius, Local Loans, and other forms of
investment. He could not afford to meet her with his nerves all
shaking; he who represented the Day of Judgment for her on earth
as it was in heaven; he, legal ownership, personified, meeting
lawless beauty, incarnate. His dignity demanded impassivity
during this embassy designed to link their offspring, who, if she
had behaved herself, would have been brother and sister. That
wretched tune, “The Wild, Wild Women,” kept running in his head,
perversely, for tunes did not run there as a rule. Passing the
poplars in front of the house, he thought: 'How they've grown; I
had them planted!' A maid answered his ring.
“Will you say—Mr. Forsyte, on a very special matter.”
If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him.
'By George!' he thought, hardening as the tug came. 'It's a
topsy-turvy affair!'
The maid came back. “Would the gentleman state his business,
please?”
“Say it concerns Mr. Jon,” said Soames.
And once more he was alone in that hall with the pool of
grey-white marble designed by her first lover. Ah! she had been a
bad lot—had loved two men, and not himself! He must remember that
when he came face to face with her once more. And suddenly he saw
her in the opening chink between the long heavy purple curtains,
swaying, as if in hesitation; the old perfect poise and line, the
old startled dark-eyed gravity, the old calm defensive voice:
“Will you come in, please?”
He passed through that opening. As in the picture-gallery and the
confectioner's shop, she seemed to him still beautiful. And this
was the first time—the very first—since he married her
seven-and-thirty years ago, that he was speaking to her without
the legal right to call her his. She was not wearing black—one of
that fellow's radical notions, he supposed.
“I apologise for coming,” he said glumly; “but this business must
be settled one way or the other.”
“Won't you sit down?”
“No, thank you.”
Anger at his false position, impatience of ceremony between them,
mastered him, and words came tumbling out:
“It's an infernal mischance; I've done my best to discourage it.
I consider my daughter crazy, but I've got into the habit of
indulging her; that's why I'm here. I suppose you're fond of your
son.”
“Devotedly.”
“Well?”
“It rests with him.”
He had a sense of being met and baffled. Always—always she had
baffled him, even in those old first married days.
“It's a mad notion,” he said.
“It is.”
“If you had only—! Well—they might have been—” he did not finish
that sentence “brother and sister and all this saved,” but he saw
her shudder as if he had, and stung by the sight he crossed over
to the window. Out there the trees had not grown—they couldn't,
they were old!
“So far as I'm concerned,” he said, “you may make your mind easy.
I desire to see neither you nor your son if this marriage comes
about. Young people in these days are—are unaccountable. But I
can't bear to see my daughter unhappy. What am I to say to her
when I go back?”
“Please say to her as I said to you, that it rests with Jon.”
“You don't oppose it?”
“With all my heart; not with my lips.”
Soames stood, biting his finger.
“I remember an evening—” he said suddenly; and was silent. What
was there—what was there in this woman that would not fit into
the four corners of his hate or condemnation? “Where is he—your
son?”
“Up in his father's studio, I think.”
“Perhaps you'd have him down.”
He watched her ring the bell, he watched the maid come in.
“Please tell Mr. Jon that I want him.”
“If it rests with him,” said Soames hurriedly, when the maid was
gone, “I suppose I may take it for granted that this unnatural
marriage will take place; in that case there'll be formalities.
Whom do I deal with—Herring's?”
Irene nodded.
“You don't propose to live with them?”
Irene shook her head.
“What happens to this house?”
“It will be as Jon wishes.”
“This house,” said Soames suddenly: “I had hopes when I began it.
If they live in it—their children! They say there's such a thing
as Nemesis. Do you believe in it?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! You do!”
He had come back from the window, and was standing close to her,
who, in the curve of her grand piano, was, as it were, embayed.
“I'm not likely to see you again,” he said slowly. “Will you
shake hands”—his lip quivered, the words came out jerkily—“and
let the past die.” He held out his hand. Her pale face grew
paler, her eyes so dark, rested immovably on his, her hands
remained clasped in front of her. He heard a sound and turned.
That boy was standing in the opening of the curtains. Very queer
he looked, hardly recognisable as the young fellow he had seen in
the Gallery off Cork Street—very queer; much older, no youth in
the face at all—haggard, rigid, his hair ruffled, his eyes deep
in his head. Soames made an effort, and said with a lift of his
lip, not quite a smile nor quite a sneer:
“Well, young man! I'm here for my daughter; it rests with you, it
seems—this matter. Your mother leaves it in your hands.”
The boy continued staring at his mother's face, and made no
answer.
“For my daughter's sake I've brought myself to come,” said
Soames. “What am I to say to her when I go back?”
Still looking at his mother, the boy said, quietly:
“Tell Fleur that it's no good, please; I must do as my father
wished before he died.”
“Jon!”
“It's all right, Mother.”
In a kind of stupefaction Soames looked from one to the other;
then, taking up hat and umbrella which he had put down on a
chair, he walked toward the curtains. The boy stood aside for him
to go by. He passed through and heard the grate of the rings as
the curtains were drawn behind him. The sound liberated something
in his chest.
'So that's that!' he thought, and passed out of the front door.
VIII.—THE DARK TUNE
As Soames walked away from the house at Robin Hill the sun broke
through the grey of that chill afternoon, in smoky radiance. So
absorbed in landscape painting that he seldom looked seriously
for effects of Nature out of doors—he was struck by that moody
effulgence—it mourned with a triumph suited to his own feeling.
Victory in defeat. His embassy had come to naught. But he was rid
of those people, had regained his daughter at the expense of—her
happiness. What would Fleur say to him? Would she believe he had
done his best? And under that sunlight faring on the elms,
hazels, hollies of the lane and those unexploited fields, Soames
felt dread. She would be terribly upset! He must appeal to her
pride. That boy had given her up, declared part and lot with the
woman who so long ago had given her father up! Soames clenched
his hands. Given him up, and why? What had been wrong with him?
And once more he felt the malaise of one who contemplates himself
as seen by another—like a dog who chances on his refection in a
mirror and is intrigued and anxious at the unseizable thing.
Not in a hurry to get home, he dined in town at the Connoisseurs.
While eating a pear it suddenly occurred to him that, if he had
not gone down to Robin Hill, the boy might not have so decided.
He remembered the expression on his face while his mother was
refusing the hand he had held out. A strange, an awkward thought!
Had Fleur cooked her own goose by trying to make too sure?
He reached home at half-past nine. While the car was passing in
at one drive gate he heard the grinding sputter of a motor-cycle
passing out by the other. Young Mont, no doubt, so Fleur had not
been lonely. But he went in with a sinking heart. In the
cream-panelled drawing-room she was sitting with her elbows on
her knees, and her chin on her clasped hands, in front of a white
camellia plant which filled the fireplace. That glance at her
before she saw him renewed his dread. What was she seeing among
those white camellias?
“Well, Father!”
Soames shook his head. His tongue failed him. This was murderous
work! He saw her eyes dilate, her lips quivering.
“What? What? Quick, Father!”
“My dear,” said Soames, “I—I did my best, but—” And again he
shook his head.
Fleur ran to him, and put a hand on each of his shoulders.
“She?”
“No,” muttered Soames; “he. I was to tell you that it was no use;
he must do what his father wished before he died.” He caught her
by the waist. “Come, child, don't let them hurt you. They're not
worth your little finger.”
Fleur tore herself from his grasp.
“You didn't you—couldn't have tried. You—you betrayed me,
Father!”
Bitterly wounded, Soames gazed at her passionate figure writhing
there in front of him.
“You didn't try—you didn't—I was a fool! I won't believe he
could—he ever could! Only yesterday he—! Oh! why did I ask you?”
“Yes,” said Soames, quietly, “why did you? I swallowed my
feelings; I did my best for you, against my judgment—and this is
my reward. Good-night!”
With every nerve in his body twitching he went toward the door.
Fleur darted after him.
“He gives me up? You mean that? Father!”
Soames turned and forced himself to answer:
“Yes.”
“Oh!” cried Fleur. “What did you—what could you have done in
those old days?”
The breathless sense of really monstrous injustice cut the power
of speech in Soames' throat. What had he done! What had they done
to him!
And with quite unconscious dignity he put his hand on his breast,
and looked at her.
“It's a shame!” cried Fleur passionately.
Soames went out. He mounted, slow and icy, to his picture
gallery, and paced among his treasures. Outrageous! Oh!
Outrageous! She was spoiled! Ah! and who had spoiled her? He
stood still before the Goya copy. Accustomed to her own way in
everything. Flower of his life! And now that she couldn't have
it! He turned to the window for some air. Daylight was dying, the
moon rising, gold behind the poplars! What sound was that? Why!
That piano thing! A dark tune, with a thrum and a throb! She had
set it going—what comfort could she get from that? His eyes
caught movement down there beyond the lawn, under the trellis of
rambler roses and young acacia-trees, where the moonlight fell.
There she was, roaming up and down. His heart gave a little
sickening jump. What would she do under this blow? How could he
tell? What did he know of her—he had only loved her all his
life—looked on her as the apple of his eye! He knew nothing—had
no notion. There she was—and that dark tune—and the river
gleaming in the moonlight!
'I must go out,' he thought.
He hastened down to the drawing-room, lighted just as he had left
it, with the piano thrumming out that waltz, or fox-trot, or
whatever they called it in these days, and passed through on to
the verandah.
Where could he watch, without her seeing him? And he stole down
through the fruit garden to the boat-house. He was between her
and the river now, and his heart felt lighter. She was his
daughter, and Annette's—she wouldn't do anything foolish; but
there it was—he didn't know! From the boat house window he could
see the last acacia and the spin of her skirt when she turned in
her restless march. That tune had run down at last—thank
goodness! He crossed the floor and looked through the farther
window at the water slow-flowing past the lilies. It made little
bubbles against them, bright where a moon-streak fell. He
remembered suddenly that early morning when he had slept on the
house-boat after his father died, and she had just been
born—nearly nineteen years ago! Even now he recalled the
unaccustomed world when he woke up, the strange feeling it had
given him. That day the second passion of his life began—for this
girl of his, roaming under the acacias. What a comfort she had
been to him! And all the soreness and sense of outrage left him.
If he could make her happy again, he didn't care! An owl flew,
queeking, queeking; a bat flitted by; the moonlight brightened
and broadened on the water. How long was she going to roam about
like this! He went back to the window, and suddenly saw her
coming down to the bank. She stood quite close, on the
landing-stage. And Soames watched, clenching his hands. Should he
speak to her? His excitement was intense. The stillness of her
figure, its youth, its absorption in despair, in longing,
in—itself. He would always remember it, moonlit like that; and
the faint sweet reek of the river and the shivering of the willow
leaves. She had everything in the world that he could give her,
except the one thing that she could not have because of him! The
perversity of things hurt him at that moment, as might a
fish-bone in his throat.
Then, with an infinite relief, he saw her turn back toward the
house. What could he give her to make amends? Pearls, travel,
horses, other young men—anything she wanted—that he might lose
the memory of her young figure lonely by the water! There! She
had set that tune going again! Why—it was a mania! Dark,
thrumming, faint, travelling from the house. It was as though she
had said: “If I can't have something to keep me going, I shall
die of this!” Soames dimly understood. Well, if it helped her,
let her keep it thrumming on all night! And, mousing back through
the fruit garden, he regained the verandah. Though he meant to go
in and speak to her now, he still hesitated, not knowing what to
say, trying hard to recall how it felt to be thwarted in love. He
ought to know, ought to remember—and he could not! Gone—all real
recollection; except that it had hurt him horribly. In this
blankness he stood passing his handkerchief over hands and lips,
which were very dry. By craning his head he could just see Fleur,
standing with her back to that piano still grinding out its tune,
her arms tight crossed on her breast, a lighted cigarette between
her lips, whose smoke half veiled her face. The expression on it
was strange to Soames, the eyes shone and stared, and every
feature was alive with a sort of wretched scorn and anger. Once
or twice he had seen Annette look like that—the face was too
vivid, too naked, not his daughter's at that moment. And he dared
not go in, realising the futility of any attempt at consolation.
He sat down in the shadow of the ingle-nook.
Monstrous trick, that Fate had played him! Nemesis! That old
unhappy marriage! And in God's name-why? How was he to know, when
he wanted Irene so violently, and she consented to be his, that
she would never love him? The tune died and was renewed, and died
again, and still Soames sat in the shadow, waiting for he knew
not what. The fag of Fleur's cigarette, flung through the window,
fell on the grass; he watched it glowing, burning itself out. The
moon had freed herself above the poplars, and poured her
unreality on the garden. Comfortless light, mysterious,
withdrawn—like the beauty of that woman who had never loved
him—dappling the nemesias and the stocks with a vesture not of
earth. Flowers! And his flower so unhappy! Ah! Why could one not
put happiness into Local Loans, gild its edges, insure it against
going down?
Light had ceased to flow out now from the drawing-room window.
All was silent and dark in there. Had she gone up? He rose, and,
tiptoeing, peered in. It seemed so! He entered. The verandah kept
the moonlight out; and at first he could see nothing but the
outlines of furniture blacker than the darkness. He groped toward
the farther window to shut it. His foot struck a chair, and he
heard a gasp. There she was, curled and crushed into the corner
of the sofa! His hand hovered. Did she want his consolation? He
stood, gazing at that ball of crushed frills and hair and
graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out of sorrow. How leave
her there? At last he touched her hair, and said:
“Come, darling, better go to bed. I'll make it up to you,
somehow.” How fatuous! But what could he have said?
IX.—UNDER THE OAK-TREE
When their visitor had disappeared Jon and his mother stood
without speaking, till he said suddenly:
“I ought to have seen him out.”
But Soames was already walking down the drive, and Jon went
upstairs to his father's studio, not trusting himself to go back.
The expression on his mother's face confronting the man she had
once been married to, had sealed a resolution growing within him
ever since she left him the night before. It had put the
finishing touch of reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his
mother in the face; to betray his dead father! It was no good!
Jon had the least resentful of natures. He bore his parents no
grudge in this hour of his distress. For one so young there was a
rather strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of
proportion. It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother even,
than it was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up,
or to be the cause of some one you loved giving up for you. He
must not, would not behave grudgingly! While he stood watching
the tardy sunlight, he had again that sudden vision of the world
which had come to him the night before. Sea on sea, country on
country, millions on millions of people, all with their own
lives, energies, joys, griefs, and suffering—all with things they
had to give up, and separate struggles for existence. Even though
he might be willing to give up all else for the one thing he
couldn't have, he would be a fool to think his feelings mattered
much in so vast a world, and to behave like a cry-baby or a cad.
He pictured the people who had nothing—the millions who had given
up life in the War, the millions whom the War had left with life
and little else; the hungry children he had read of, the
shattered men; people in prison, every kind of unfortunate.
And—they did not help him much. If one had to miss a meal, what
comfort in the knowledge that many others had to miss it too?
There was more distraction in the thought of getting away out
into this vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He could not
go on staying here, walled in and sheltered, with everything so
slick and comfortable, and nothing to do but brood and think what
might have been. He could not go back to Wansdon, and the
memories of Fleur. If he saw her again he could not trust
himself; and if he stayed here or went back there, he would
surely see her. While they were within reach of each other that
must happen. To go far away and quickly was the only thing to do.
But, however much he loved his mother, he did not want to go away
with her. Then feeling that was brutal, he made up his mind
desperately to propose that they should go to Italy. For two
hours in that melancholy room he tried to master himself, then
dressed solemnly for dinner.
His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length,
and talked of his father's catalogue. The show was arranged for
October, and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do.
After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a
little, talked a little, till they were standing silent at last
beneath the oak-tree. Ruled by the thought: 'If I show anything,
I show all,' Jon put his arm through hers and said quite
casually:
“Mother, let's go to Italy.”
Irene pressed his arm, and said as casually:
“It would be very nice; but I've been thinking you ought to see
and do more than you would if I were with you.”
“But then you'd be alone.”
“I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should
like to be here for the opening of Father's show.”
Jon's grip tightened round her arm; he was not deceived.
“You couldn't stay here all by yourself; it's too big.”
“Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the
show opens. You ought to have a year at least, Jon, and see the
world.”
“Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it. But I don't want to
leave you all alone.”
“My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll
be for mine. Why not start tomorrow? You've got your passport.”
“Yes; if I'm going it had better be at once. Only—Mother—if—if I
wanted to stay out somewhere—America or anywhere, would you mind
coming presently?”
“Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you
really want me.”
Jon drew a deep breath.
“I feel England's choky.”
They stood a few minutes longer under the oak-tree—looking out to
where the grand stand at Epsom was veiled in evening. The
branches kept the moonlight from them, so that it only fell
everywhere else—over the fields and far away, and on the windows
of the creepered house behind, which soon would be to let.
X.—FLEUR'S WEDDING
The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsyte to
Michael Mont hardly conveyed the symbolic significance of this
event. In the union of the great-granddaughter of “Superior
Dosset” with the heir of a ninth baronet was the outward and
visible sign of that merger of class in class which buttresses
the political stability of a realm. The time had come when the
Forsytes might resign their natural resentment against a
“flummery” not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more
natural due of their possessive instincts. Besides, they had to
mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich. In that
quiet but tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square, and afterward
among the furniture in Green Street, it had been impossible for
those not in the know to distinguish the Forsyte troop from the
Mont contingent—so far away was “Superior Dosset” now. Was there,
in the crease of his trousers, the expression of his moustache,
his accent, or the shine on his top-hat, a pin to choose between
Soames and the ninth baronet himself? Was not Fleur as
self-possessed, quick, glancing, pretty, and hard as the
likeliest Muskham, Mont, or Charwell filly present? If anything,
the Forsytes had it in dress and looks and manners. They had
become “upper class” and now their name would be formally
recorded in the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether
this was a little late in the day, and those rewards of the
possessive instinct, lands and money, destined for the
melting-pot—was still a question so moot that it was not mooted.
After all, Timothy had said Consols were goin' up. Timothy, the
last, the missing link; Timothy, in extremis on the Bayswater
Road—so Francie had reported. It was whispered, too, that this
young Mont was a sort of socialist—strangely wise of him, and in
the nature of insurance, considering the days they lived in.
There was no uneasiness on that score. The landed classes
produced that sort of amiable foolishness at times, turned to
safe uses and confined to theory. As George remarked to his
sister Francie: “They'll soon be having puppies—that'll give him
pause.”
The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of
the East window looked extremely chaste, as though endeavouring
to counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service
calculated to keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes,
Haymans, Tweetymans, sat in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells;
Muskhams in the right; while a sprinkling of Fleur's
fellow-sufferers at school, and of Mont's fellow-sufferers in,
the War, gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three
maiden ladies, who had dropped in on their way from Skyward's
brought up the rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's
old nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a house
as could be expected.
Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row,
squeezed his hand more than once during the performance. To her,
who knew the plot of this tragi-comedy, its most dramatic moment
was well-nigh painful. 'I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she
thought—Jon, out in British Columbia. She had received a letter
from him only that morning which had made her smile and say:
“Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in
California. He thinks it's too nice there.”
“Oh!” said Val, “so he's beginning to see a joke again.”
“He's bought some land and sent for his mother.”
“What on earth will she do out there?”
“All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy
release?”
Val's shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pin-points between their dark
lashes.
“Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bred right.”
“Poor little Fleur!” sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange—this
marriage. The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of
course, in the reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone
down. Such a plunge could not but be—as Val put it—an outside
chance. There was little to be told from the back view of her
young cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes reviewed the general aspect
of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a love-match which
had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This
might not be one in the end—but it was clearly a toss-up; and to
consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured unction
before a crowd of fashionable free-thinkers—for who thought
otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were “dolled”
up—seemed to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which
had abolished them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his
robes (a Charwell-the Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate)
to Val, beside her, thinking—she was certain—of the Mayfly filly
at fifteen to one for the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and
caught the profile of the ninth baronet, in counterfeitment of
the kneeling process. She could just see the neat ruck above his
knees where he had pulled his trousers up, and thought: 'Val's
forgotten to pull up his!' Her eyes passed to the pew in front of
her, where Winifred's substantial form was gowned with passion,
and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling side by side. A
little smile came on her lips—Prosper Profond, back from the
South Seas of the Channel, would be kneeling too, about six rows
behind. Yes! This was a funny “small” business, however it turned
out; still it was in a proper church and would be in the proper
papers to-morrow morning.
They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across
the aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger
touched Val's thumb—they were holding the same hymn-book—and a
tiny thrill passed through her, preserved—from twenty years ago.
He stooped and whispered:
“I say, d'you remember the rat?” The rat at their wedding in Cape
Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table at the
Registrar's! And between her little and third forgers she
squeezed his thumb hard.
The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his
discourse. He told them of the dangerous times they lived in, and
the awful conduct of the House of Lords in connection with
divorce. They were all soldiers—he said—in the trenches under the
poisonous gas of the Prince of Darkness, and must be manful. The
purpose of marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness.
An imp danced in Holly's eyes—Val's eyelashes were meeting.
Whatever happened; he must not snore. Her finger and thumb closed
on his thigh till he stirred uneasily.
The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the
vestry; and general relaxation had set in.
A voice behind her said:
“Will she stay the course?”
“Who's that?” she whispered.
“Old George Forsyte!”
Holly demurely scrutinized one of whom she had often heard. Fresh
from South Africa, and ignorant of her kith and kin, she never
saw one without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big,
and very dapper; his eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no
particular clothes.
“They're off!” she heard him say.
They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young
Mont's face. His lips and ears were twitching, his eyes, shifting
from his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before
them as if to face a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that
he was spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was
different. The girl was perfectly composed, prettier than ever,
in her white robes and veil over her banged dark chestnut hair;
her eyelids hovered demure over her dark hazel eyes. Outwardly,
she seemed all there. But inwardly, where was she? As those two
passed, Fleur raised her eyelids—the restless glint of those
clear whites remained on Holly's vision as might the flutter of
caged bird's wings.
In Green Street Winifred stood to receive, just a little less
composed than usual. Soames' request for the use of her house had
come on her at a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence
of a remark of Prosper Profond, she had begun to exchange her
Empire for Expressionistic furniture. There were the most amusing
arrangements, with violet, green, and orange blobs and scriggles,
to be had at Mealard's. Another month and the change would have
been complete. Just now, the very “intriguing” recruits she had
enlisted, did not march too well with the old guard. It was as if
her regiment were half in khaki, half in scarlet and bearskins.
But her strong and comfortable character made the best of it in a
drawing-room which typified, perhaps, more perfectly than she
imagined, the semi-bolshevized imperialism of her country. After
all, this was a day of merger, and you couldn't have too much of
it! Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had
gripped the back of a buhl chair; young Mont was behind that
“awfully amusing” screen, which no one as yet had been able to
explain to her. The ninth baronet had shied violently at a round
scarlet table, inlaid under glass with blue Australian butteries'
wings, and was clinging to her Louis-Quinze cabinet; Francie
Forsyte had seized the new mantel-board, finely carved with
little purple grotesques on an ebony ground; George, over by the
old spinet, was holding a little sky-blue book as if about to
enter bets; Prosper Profond was twiddling the knob of the open
door, black with peacock-blue panels; and Annette's hands, close
by, were grasping her own waist; two Muskhams clung to the
balcony among the plants, as if feeling ill; Lady Mont, thin and
brave-looking, had taken up her long-handled glasses and was
gazing at the central light shade, of ivory and orange dashed
with deep magenta, as if the heavens had opened. Everybody, in
fact, seemed holding on to something. Only Fleur, still in her
bridal dress, was detached from all support, flinging her words
and glances to left and right.
The room was full of the bubble and the squeak of conversation.
Nobody could hear anything that anybody said; which seemed of
little consequence, since no one waited for anything so slow as
an answer. Modern conversation seemed to Winifred so different
from the days of her prime, when a drawl was all the vogue. Still
it was “amusing,” which, of course, was all that mattered. Even
the Forsytes were talking with extreme rapidity—Fleur and
Christopher, and Imogen, and young Nicholas's youngest, Patrick.
Soames, of course, was silent; but George, by the spinet, kept up
a running commentary, and Francie, by her mantel-shelf. Winifred
drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed to promise a certain
repose; his nose was fine and drooped a little, his grey
moustaches too; and she said, drawling through her smile:
“It's rather nice, isn't it?”
His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet
“D'you remember, in Frazer, the tribe that buries the bride up to
the waist?”
He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark lively little eyes, too,
all crinkled round like a Catholic priest's. Winifred felt
suddenly he might say things she would regret.
“They're always so amusing—weddings,” she murmured, and moved on
to Soames. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once what
was dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to
his left Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not move without
either seeing those two together, or the reflection of them in
George Forsyte's japing eyes. He was quite right not to be taking
notice.
“They say Timothy's sinking;” he said glumly.
“Where will you put him, Soames?”
“Highgate.” He counted on his fingers. “It'll make twelve of them
there, including wives. How do you think Fleur looks?”
“Remarkably well.”
Soames nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could
not rid himself of the impression that this business was
unnatural—remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into
the corner of the sofa. From that night to this day he had
received from her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that
she had made one more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blank—an
empty house, no one at home. He knew that she had received a
letter, but not what was in it, except that it had made her hide
herself and cry. He had remarked that she looked at him sometimes
when she thought he wasn't noticing, as if she were wondering
still what he had done—forsooth—to make those people hate him so.
Well, there it was! Annette had come back, and things had worn on
through the summer—very miserable, till suddenly Fleur had said
she was going to marry young Mont. She had shown him a little
more affection when she told him that. And he had yielded—what
was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never wished to
thwart her in anything! And the young man seemed quite delirious
about her. No doubt she was in a reckless mood, and she was
young, absurdly young. But if he opposed her, he didn't know what
she would do; for all he could tell she might want to take up a
profession, become a doctor or solicitor, some nonsense. She had
no aptitude for painting, writing, music, in his view the
legitimate occupations of unmarried women, if they must do
something in these days. On the whole, she was safer married, for
he could see too well how feverish and restless she was at home.
Annette, too, had been in favour of it—Annette, from behind the
veil of his refusal to know what she was about, if she was about
anything. Annette had said: “Let her marry this young man. He is
a nice boy—not so highty-flighty as he seems.” Where she got her
expressions, he didn't know—but her opinion soothed his doubts.
His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost
depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand
on Fleur, taking care that there was no cross settlement in case
it didn't turn out well. Could it turn out well? She had not got
over that other boy—he knew. They were to go to Spain for the
honeymoon. He would be even lonelier when she was gone. But
later, perhaps, she would forget, and turn to him again!
Winifred's voice broke on his reverie.
“Why! Of all wonders-June!”
There, in a djibbah—what things she wore!—with her hair straying
from under a fillet, Soames saw his cousin, and Fleur going
forward to greet her. The two passed from their view out on to
the stairway.
“Really,” said Winifred, “she does the most impossible things!
Fancy her coming!”
“What made you ask her?” muttered Soames.
“Because I thought she wouldn't accept, of course.”
Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of
character; or, in other words, omitted to remember that Fleur was
now a “lame duck.”
On receiving her invitation, June had first thought, 'I wouldn't
go near them for the world!' and then, one morning, had awakened
from a dream of Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild
unhappy gesture. And she had changed her mind.
When Fleur came forward and said to her, “Do come up while I'm
changing my dress,” she had followed up the stairs. The girl led
the way into Imogen's old bedroom, set ready for her toilet.
June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit
in the sear and yellow. Fleur locked the door.
The girl stood before her divested of her wedding dress. What a
pretty thing she was!
“I suppose you think me a fool,” she said, with quivering lips,
“when it was to have been Jon. But what does it matter? Michael
wants me, and I don't care. It'll get me away from home.” Diving
her hand into the frills on her breast, she brought out a letter.
“Jon wrote me this.”
June read: “Lake Okanagen, British Columbia. I'm not coming back
to England. Bless you always. Jon.”
“She's made safe, you see,” said Fleur.
June handed back the letter.
“That's not fair to Irene,” she said, “she always told Jon he
could do as he wished.”
Fleur smiled bitterly. “Tell me, didn't she spoil your life too?”
June looked up. “Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's
nonsense. Things happen, but we bob up.”
With a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and bury
her face in the djibbah. A strangled sob mounted to June's ears.
“It's all right—all right,” she murmured, “Don't! There, there!”
But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her
thigh, and the sound was dreadful of her sobbing.
Well, well! It had to come. She would feel better afterward! June
stroked the short hair of that shapely head; and all the
scattered mother-sense in her focussed itself and passed through
the tips of her fingers into the girl's brain.
“Don't sit down under it, my dear,” she said at last. “We can't
control life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. I've
had to. I held on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now.
And look at me!”
Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked
laugh. In truth it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit
she was looking at, but it had brave eyes.
“All right!” she said. “I'm sorry. I shall forget him, I suppose,
if I fly fast and far enough.”
And, scrambling to her feet, she went over to the wash-stand.
June watched her removing with cold water the traces of emotion.
Save for a little becoming pinkness there was nothing left when
she stood before the mirror. June got off the bed and took a
pin-cushion in her hand. To put two pins into the wrong places
was all the vent she found for sympathy.
“Give me a kiss,” she said when Fleur was ready, and dug her chin
into the girl's warm cheek.
“I want a whiff,” said Fleur; “don't wait.”
June left her, sitting on the bed with a cigarette between her
lips and her eyes half closed, and went down-stairs. In the
doorway of the drawing-room stood Soames as if unquiet at his
daughter's tardiness. June tossed her head and passed down on to
the half-landing. Her cousin Francie was standing there.
“Look!” said June, pointing with her chin at Soames. “That man's
fatal!”
“How do you mean,” said Francie, “fatal?”
June did not answer her. “I shan't wait to see them off,” she
said. “Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” said Francie, and her eyes, of a Celtic grey,
goggled. That old feud! Really, it was quite romantic!
Soames, moving to the well of the staircase, saw June go, and
drew a breath of satisfaction. Why didn't Fleur come? They would
miss their train. That train would bear her away from him, yet he
could not help fidgeting at the thought that they would lose it.
And then she did come, running down in her tan-coloured frock and
black velvet cap, and passed him into the drawing-room. He saw
her kiss her mother, her aunt, Val's wife, Imogen, and then come
forth, quick and pretty as ever. How would she treat him at this
last moment of her girlhood? He couldn't hope for much!
Her lips pressed the middle of his cheek.
“Daddy!” she said, and was past and gone! Daddy! She hadn't
called him that for years. He drew a long breath and followed
slowly down. There was all the folly with that confetti stuff and
the rest of it to go through with yet. But he would like just to
catch her smile, if she leaned out, though they would hit her in
the eye with the shoe, if they didn't take care. Young Mont's
voice said fervently in his ear:
“Good-bye, sir; and thank you! I'm so fearfully bucked.”
“Good-bye,” he said; “don't miss your train.”
He stood on the bottom step but three, whence he could see above
the heads—the silly hats and heads. They were in the car now; and
there was that stuff, showering, and there went the shoe. A flood
of something welled up in Soames, and—he didn't know—he couldn't
see!
XI.—THE LAST OF THE OLD FORSYTES
When they came to prepare that terrific symbol Timothy
Forsyte—the one pure individualist left, the only man who hadn't
heard of the Great War—they found him wonderful—not even death
had undermined his soundness.
To Smither and Cook that preparation came like final evidence of
what they had never believed possible—the end of the old Forsyte
family on earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing
in the company of Miss Forsyte, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester; with Mr.
Jolyon, Mr. Swithin, Mr. James, Mr. Roger, and Mr. Nicholas of
the party. Whether Mrs. Hayman would be there was more doubtful,
seeing that she had been cremated. Secretly Cook thought that Mr.
Timothy would be upset—he had always been so set against barrel
organs. How many times had she not said: “Drat the thing! There
it is again! Smither, you'd better run up and see what you can
do.” And in her heart she would so have enjoyed the tunes, if she
hadn't known that Mr. Timothy would ring the bell in a minute and
say: “Here, take him a halfpenny and tell him to move on.” Often
they had been obliged to add threepence of their own before the
man would go—Timothy had ever underrated the value of emotion.
Luckily he had taken the organs for blue-bottles in his last
years, which had been a comfort, and they had been able to enjoy
the tunes. But a harp! Cook wondered. It was a change! And Mr.
Timothy had never liked change. But she did not speak of this to
Smither, who did so take a line of her own in regard to heaven
that it quite put one about sometimes.
She cried while Timothy was being prepared, and they all had
sherry afterward out of the yearly Christmas bottle, which would
not be needed now. Ah! dear! She had been there five-and-forty
years and Smither three-and-forty! And now they would be going to
a tiny house in Tooting, to live on their savings and what Miss
Hester had so kindly left them—for to take fresh service after
the glorious past—No! But they would like just to see Mr. Soames
again, and Mrs. Dartie, and Miss Francie, and Miss Euphemia. And
even if they had to take their own cab, they felt they must go to
the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had been their baby,
getting younger and younger every day, till at last he had been
too young to live.
They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and
dusting, in catching the one mouse left, and asphyxiating the
last beetle so as to leave it nice, discussing with each other
what they would buy at the sale. Miss Ann's workbox; Miss Juley's
(that is Mrs. Julia's) seaweed album; the fire-screen Miss Hester
had crewelled; and Mr. Timothy's hair—little golden curls, glued
into a black frame. Oh! they must have those—only the price of
things had gone up so!
It fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral. He had
them drawn up by Gradman in his office—only blood relations, and
no flowers. Six carriages were ordered. The Will would be read
afterward at the house.
He arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready. At a
quarter past old Gradman came in black gloves and crape on his
hat. He and Soames stood in the drawing-room waiting. At
half-past eleven the carriages drew up in a long row. But no one
else appeared. Gradman said:
“It surprises me, Mr. Soames. I posted them myself.”
“I don't know,” said Soames; “he'd lost touch with the family.”
Soames had often noticed in old days how much more neighbourly
his family were to the dead than to the living. But, now, the way
they had flocked to Fleur's wedding and abstained from Timothy's
funeral, seemed to show some vital change. There might, of
course, be another reason; for Soames felt that if he had not
known the contents of Timothy's Will, he might have stayed away
himself through delicacy. Timothy had left a lot of money, with
nobody in particular to leave it to. They mightn't like to seem
to expect something.
At twelve o'clock the procession left the door; Timothy alone in
the first carriage under glass. Then Soames alone; then Gradman
alone; then Cook and Smither together. They started at a walk,
but were soon trotting under a bright sky. At the entrance to
Highgate Cemetery they were delayed by service in the Chapel.
Soames would have liked to stay outside in the sunshine. He
didn't believe a word of it; on the other hand, it was a form of
insurance which could not safely be neglected, in case there
might be something in it after all.
They walked up two and two—he and Gradman, Cook and Smither—to
the family vault. It was not very distinguished for the funeral
of the last old Forsyte.
He took Gradman into his carriage on the way back to the
Bayswater Road with a certain glow in his heart. He had a
surprise in pickle for the old chap who had served the Forsytes
four-and-fifty years-a treat that was entirely his doing. How
well he remembered saying to Timothy the day—after Aunt Hester's
funeral: “Well; Uncle Timothy, there's Gradman. He's taken a lot
of trouble for the family. What do you say to leaving him five
thousand?” and his surprise, seeing the difficulty there had been
in getting Timothy to leave anything, when Timothy had nodded.
And now the old chap would be as pleased as Punch, for Mrs.
Gradman, he knew, had a weak heart, and their son had lost a leg
in the War. It was extraordinarily gratifying to Soames to have
left him five thousand pounds of Timothy's money. They sat down
together in the little drawing-room, whose walls—like a vision of
heaven—were sky-blue and gold with every picture-frame
unnaturally bright, and every speck of dust removed from every
piece of furniture, to read that little masterpiece—the Will of
Timothy. With his back to the light in Aunt Hester's chair,
Soames faced Gradman with his face to the light, on Aunt Ann's
sofa; and, crossing his legs, began:
“This is the last Will and Testament of me Timothy Forsyte of The
Bower Bayswater Road, London I appoint my nephew Soames Forsyte
of The Shelter Mapleduram and Thomas Gradman of 159 Folly Road
Highgate (hereinafter called my Trustees) to be the trustees and
executors of this my Will To the said Soames Forsyte I leave the
sum of one thousand pounds free of legacy duty and to the said
Thomas Gradman I leave the sum of five thousand pounds free of
legacy duty.”
Soames paused. Old Gradman was leaning forward, convulsively
gripping a stout black knee with each of his thick hands; his
mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth
gleamed; his eyes were blinking, two tears rolled slowly out of
them. Soames read hastily on.
“All the rest of my property of whatsoever description I bequeath
to my Trustees upon Trust to convert and hold the same upon the
following trusts namely To pay thereout all my debts funeral
expenses and outgoings of any kind in connection with my Will and
to hold the residue thereof in trust for that male lineal
descendant of my father Jolyon Forsyte by his marriage with Ann
Pierce who after the decease of all lineal descendants whether
male or female of my said father by his said marriage in being at
the time of my death shall last attain the age of twenty-one
years absolutely it being my desire that my property shall be
nursed to the extreme limit permitted by the laws of England for
the benefit of such male lineal descendant as aforesaid.”
Soames read the investment and attestation clauses, and, ceasing,
looked at Gradman. The old fellow was wiping his brow with a
large handkerchief, whose brilliant colour supplied a sudden
festive tinge to the proceedings.
“My word, Mr. Soames!” he said, and it was clear that the lawyer
in him had utterly wiped out the man: “My word! Why, there are
two babies now, and some quite young children—if one of them
lives to be eighty—it's not a great age—and add twenty-one—that's
a hundred years; and Mr. Timothy worth a hundred and fifty
thousand pound net if he's worth a penny. Compound interest at
five per cent. doubles you in fourteen years. In fourteen years
three hundred thousand-six hundred thousand in
twenty-eight—twelve hundred thousand in forty-two—twenty-four
hundred thousand in fifty-six—four million eight hundred thousand
in seventy—nine million six hundred thousand in eighty-four—Why,
in a hundred years it'll be twenty million! And we shan't live to
use it! It is a Will!”
Soames said dryly: “Anything may happen. The State might take the
lot; they're capable of anything in these days.”
“And carry five,” said Gradman to himself. “I forgot—Mr.
Timothy's in Consols; we shan't get more than two per cent. with
this income tax. To be on the safe side, say eight millions.
Still, that's a pretty penny.”
Soames rose and handed him the Will. “You're going into the City.
Take care of that, and do what's necessary. Advertise; but there
are no debts. When's the sale?”
“Tuesday week,” said Gradman. “Life or lives in bein' and
twenty-one years afterward—it's a long way off. But I'm glad he's
left it in the family....”
The sale—not at Jobson's, in view of the Victorian nature of the
effects—was far more freely attended than the funeral, though not
by Cook and Smither, for Soames had taken it on himself to give
them their heart's desires. Winifred was present, Euphemia, and
Francie, and Eustace had come in his car. The miniatures,
Barbizons, and J. R. drawings had been bought in by Soames; and
relics of no marketable value were set aside in an off-room for
members of the family who cared to have mementoes. These were the
only restrictions upon bidding characterised by an almost tragic
languor. Not one piece of furniture, no picture or porcelain
figure appealed to modern taste. The humming birds had fallen
like autumn leaves when taken from where they had not hummed for
sixty years. It was painful to Soames to see the chairs his aunts
had sat on, the little grand piano they had practically never
played, the books whose outsides they had gazed at, the china
they had dusted, the curtains they had drawn, the hearth-rug
which had warmed their feet; above all, the beds they had lain
and died in—sold to little dealers, and the housewives of Fulham.
And yet—what could one do? Buy them and stick them in a
lumber-room? No; they had to go the way of all flesh and
furniture, and be worn out. But when they put up Aunt Ann's sofa
and were going to knock it down for thirty shillings, he cried
out, suddenly: “Five pounds!” The sensation was considerable, and
the sofa his.
When that little sale was over in the fusty saleroom, and those
Victorian ashes scattered, he went out into the misty October
sunshine feeling as if cosiness had died out of the world, and
the board “To Let” was up, indeed. Revolutions on the horizon;
Fleur in Spain; no comfort in Annette; no Timothy's on the
Bayswater Road. In the irritable desolation of his soul he went
into the Goupenor Gallery. That chap Jolyon's watercolours were
on view there. He went in to look down his nose at them—it might
give him some faint satisfaction. The news had trickled through
from June to Val's wife, from her to Val, from Val to his mother,
from her to Soames, that the house—the fatal house at Robin
Hill—was for sale, and Irene going to join her boy out in British
Columbia, or some such place. For one wild moment the thought had
come to Soames: 'Why shouldn't I buy it back? I meant it for my!'
No sooner come than gone. Too lugubrious a triumph; with too many
humiliating memories for himself and Fleur. She would never live
there after what had happened. No, the place must go its way to
some peer or profiteer. It had been a bone of contention from the
first, the shell of the feud; and with the woman gone, it was an
empty shell. “For Sale or To Let.” With his mind's eye he could
see that board raised high above the ivied wall which he had
built.
He passed through the first of the two rooms in the Gallery.
There was certainly a body of work! And now that the fellow was
dead it did not seem so trivial. The drawings were pleasing
enough, with quite a sense of atmosphere, and something
individual in the brush work. 'His father and my father; he and
I; his child and mine!' thought Soames. So it had gone on! And
all about that woman! Softened by the events of the past week,
affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came
nearer than he had ever been to realisation of that truth—passing
the understanding of a Forsyte pure—that the body of Beauty has a
spiritual essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks
not of self. After all, he was near that truth in his devotion to
his daughter; perhaps that made him understand a little how he
had missed the prize. And there, among the drawings of his
kinsman, who had attained to that which he had found beyond his
reach, he thought of him and her with a tolerance which surprised
him. But he did not buy a drawing.
Just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer
air he met with a contingency which had not been entirely absent
from his mind when he went into the Gallery—Irene, herself,
coming in. So she had not gone yet, and was still paying farewell
visits to that fellow's remains! He subdued the little
involuntary leap of his subconsciousness, the mechanical reaction
of his senses to the charm of this once-owned woman, and passed
her with averted eyes. But when he had gone by he could not for
the life of him help looking back. This, then, was finality—the
heat and stress of his life, the madness and the longing thereof,
the only defeat he had known, would be over when she faded from
his view this time; even such memories had their own queer aching
value.
She, too, was looking back. Suddenly she lifted her gloved hand,
her lips smiled faintly, her dark eyes seemed to speak. It was
the turn of Soames to make no answer to that smile and that
little farewell wave; he went out into the fashionable street
quivering from head to foot. He knew what she had meant to say:
“Now that I am going for ever out of the reach of you and
yours—forgive me; I wish you well.” That was the meaning; last
sign of that terrible reality—passing morality, duty, common
sense—her aversion from him who had owned her body, but had never
touched her spirit or her heart. It hurt; yes—more than if she
had kept her mask unmoved, her hand unlifted.
Three days later, in that fast-yellowing October, Soames took a
taxi-cab to Highgate Cemetery and mounted through its white
forest to the Forsyte vault. Close to the cedar, above catacombs
and columbaria, tall, ugly, and individual, it looked like an
apex of the competitive system. He could remember a discussion
wherein Swithin had advocated the addition to its face of the
pheasant proper. The proposal had been rejected in favour of a
wreath in stone, above the stark words: “The family vault of
Jolyon Forsyte: 1850.” It was in good order. All trace of the
recent interment had been removed, and its sober grey gloomed
reposefully in the sunshine. The whole family lay there now,
except old Jolyon's wife, who had gone back under a contract to
her own family vault in Suffolk; old Jolyon himself lying at
Robin Hill; and Susan Hayman, cremated so that none knew where
she might be. Soames gazed at it with satisfaction—massive,
needing little attention; and this was important, for he was well
aware that no one would attend to it when he himself was gone,
and he would have to be looking out for lodgings soon. He might
have twenty years before him, but one never knew. Twenty years
without an aunt or uncle, with a wife of whom one had better not
know anything, with a daughter gone from home. His mood inclined
to melancholy and retrospection.
This cemetery was full, they said—of people with extraordinary
names, buried in extraordinary taste. Still, they had a fine view
up here, right over London. Annette had once given him a story to
read by that Frenchman, Maupassant, most lugubrious concern,
where all the skeletons emerged from their graves one night, and
all the pious inscriptions on the stones were altered to
descriptions of their sins. Not a true story at all. He didn't
know about the French, but there was not much real harm in
English people except their teeth and their taste, which was
certainly deplorable. “The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte: 1850.”
A lot of people had been buried here since then—a lot of English
life crumbled to mould and dust! The boom of an airplane passing
under the gold-tinted clouds caused him to lift his eyes. The
deuce of a lot of expansion had gone on. But it all came back to
a cemetery—to a name and a date on a tomb. And he thought with a
curious pride that he and his family had done little or nothing
to help this feverish expansion. Good solid middlemen, they had
gone to work with dignity to manage and possess. “Superior
Dosset,” indeed, had built in a dreadful, and Jolyon painted in a
doubtful, period, but so far as he remembered not another of them
all had soiled his hands by creating anything—unless you counted
Val Dartie and his horse-breeding. Collectors, solicitors,
barristers, merchants, publishers, accountants, directors, land
agents, even soldiers—there they had been! The country had
expanded, as it were, in spite of them. They had checked,
controlled, defended, and taken advantage of the process and when
you considered how “Superior Dosset” had begun life with next to
nothing, and his lineal descendants already owned what old
Gradman estimated at between a million and a million and a half,
it was not so bad! And yet he sometimes felt as if the family
bolt was shot, their possessive instinct dying out. They seemed
unable to make money—this fourth generation; they were going into
art, literature, farming, or the army; or just living on what was
left them—they had no push and no tenacity. They would die out if
they didn't take care.
Soames turned from the vault and faced toward the breeze. The air
up here would be delicious if only he could rid his nerves of the
feeling that mortality was in it. He gazed restlessly at the
crosses and the urns, the angels, the “immortelles,” the flowers,
gaudy or withering; and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed
so different from anything else up there that he was obliged to
walk the few necessary yards and look at it. A sober corner, with
a massive queer-shaped cross of grey rough-hewn granite, guarded
by four dark yew-trees. The spot was free from the pressure of
the other graves, having a little box-hedged garden on the far
side, and in front a goldening birch-tree. This oasis in the
desert of conventional graves appealed to the aesthetic sense of
Soames, and he sat down there in the sunshine. Through those
trembling gold birch leaves he gazed out at London, and yielded
to the waves of memory. He thought of Irene in Montpellier
Square, when her hair was rusty-golden and her white shoulders
his—Irene, the prize of his love-passion, resistant to his
ownership. He saw Bosinney's body lying in that white mortuary,
and Irene sitting on the sofa looking at space with the eyes of a
dying bird. Again he thought of her by the little green Niobe in
the Bois de Boulogne, once more rejecting him. His fancy took him
on beside his drifting river on the November day when Fleur was
to be born, took him to the dead leaves floating on the
green-tinged water and the snake-headed weed for ever swaying and
nosing, sinuous, blind, tethered. And on again to the window
opened to the cold starry night above Hyde Park, with his father
lying dead. His fancy darted to that picture of “the future
town,” to that boy's and Fleur's first meeting; to the bluish
trail of Prosper Profond's cigar, and Fleur in the window
pointing down to where the fellow prowled. To the sight of Irene
and that dead fellow sitting side by side in the stand at Lord's.
To her and that boy at Robin Hill. To the sofa, where Fleur lay
crushed up in the corner; to her lips pressed into his cheek, and
her farewell “Daddy.” And suddenly he saw again Irene's
grey-gloved hand waving its last gesture of release.
He sat there a long time dreaming his career, faithful to the
scut of his possessive instinct, warming himself even with its
failures.
“To Let”—the Forsyte age and way of life, when a man owned his
soul, his investments, and his woman, without check or question.
And now the State had, or would have, his investments, his woman
had herself, and God knew who had his soul. “To Let”—that sane
and simple creed!
The waters of change were foaming in, carrying the promise of new
forms only when their destructive flood should have passed its
full. He sat there, subconscious of them, but with his thoughts
resolutely set on the past—as a man might ride into a wild night
with his face to the tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the
Victorian dykes the waters were rolling on property, manners, and
morals, on melody and the old forms of art—waters bringing to his
mouth a salt taste as of blood, lapping to the foot of this
Highgate Hill where Victorianism lay buried. And sitting there,
high up on its most individual spot, Soames—like a figure of
Investment—refused their restless sounds. Instinctively he would
not fight them—there was in him too much primeval wisdom, of Man
the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had
fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying; when
the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently
broken and defected—they would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms
would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of
change—the instinct of Home.
“Je m'en fiche,” said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say “Je
m'en fiche”—it was French, and the fellow was a thorn in his
side—but deep down he knew that change was only the interval of
death between two forms of life, destruction necessary to make
room for fresher property. What though the board was up, and
cosiness to let?—some one would come along and take it again some
day.
And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there—the
melancholy craving in his heart—because the sun was like
enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch
leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yewtree
green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky.
He might wish and wish and never get it—the beauty and the loving
in the world!
cutpages (132K)
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