hid-examples (empty) → 0.1.0.0
raw patch · 25 files changed
+47130/−0 lines, 25 filesdep +Chartdep +Chart-diagramsdep +basesetup-changed
Dependencies added: Chart, Chart-diagrams, base, blaze-html, bytestring, cassava, fmt, hint, optparse-applicative, safe, text, time
Files
- ChangeLog.md +5/−0
- LICENSE +30/−0
- README.md +93/−0
- Setup.hs +2/−0
- data/quotes.csv +254/−0
- hid-examples.cabal +89/−0
- locator.hs +47/−0
- showexpr.hs +51/−0
- stack.yaml +4/−0
- stockquotes/BoundedEnum.hs +9/−0
- stockquotes/Charts.hs +21/−0
- stockquotes/HtmlReport.hs +58/−0
- stockquotes/Main.hs +43/−0
- stockquotes/Params.hs +36/−0
- stockquotes/QuoteData.hs +46/−0
- stockquotes/StatReport.hs +35/−0
- stockquotes/Statistics.hs +44/−0
- texts/Dracula.srt +3167/−0
- texts/forsyte.txt +37998/−0
- texts/hamlet.txt +4921/−0
- texts/phrase.txt +20/−0
- texts/rune-poem.txt +59/−0
- vocab1.hs +13/−0
- vocab2.hs +32/−0
- vocab3.hs +53/−0
+ ChangeLog.md view
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@+# Revision history for hid-examples++## 0.1.0.0 -- 2018-05-26++* Initial version. Examples for chapters 2 and 3.
+ LICENSE view
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@+Copyright (c) 2018, Vitaly Bragilevsky++All rights reserved.++Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without+modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:++ * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright+ notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.++ * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above+ copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following+ disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided+ with the distribution.++ * Neither the name of Vitaly Bragilevsky nor the names of other+ contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived+ from this software without specific prior written permission.++THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS+"AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT+LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR+A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT+OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,+SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT+LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,+DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY+THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT+(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE+OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
+ README.md view
@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@+This is the sample code to accompany the book *Haskell in Depth* (Vitaly Bragilevsky, Manning Publications 2019). ++To get the source code on your system, you may want to run:+```+cabal get hid-examples+```+Alternatively, you may clone [GitHub repository](https://github.com/bravit/hid-examples/) with the most current version.+++To work with the code on your system, you need either:++* [Stack](http://haskellstack.org)+* [A Minimal GHC installation](https://www.haskell.org/downloads)+* [The Haskell Platform](https://www.haskell.org/platform/)+++## Using Stack++### Building++```+stack build+```++### Running++```+stack exec <executable> [ -- <arguments>]+```+For example:++```+stack exec stockquotes -- data/quotes.csv -p -v+```++### Exploring in GHCi++```+stack ghci <module file>+```++For example:++```+stack ghci stockquotes/Statistics.hs+```++## Using Cabal sandbox++### Building++```+cabal sandox init+cabal install --only-dependencies+cabal configure+cabal build+```++### Running++```+cabal run <executable> [ -- <arguments>]+```++For example:++```+cabal run stockquotes -- data/quotes.csv -p -v+```++### Exploring in GHCi++```+cabal repl <executable>+```++For example:++```+cabal repl stockquotes+```++To work with particular module, you have to load it in GHCi with `:load`.+++## Using Cabal new-*++### Building++```+cabal new-build+```+
+ Setup.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@+import Distribution.Simple+main = defaultMain
+ data/quotes.csv view
@@ -0,0 +1,254 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+ hid-examples.cabal view
@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@+name: hid-examples+version: 0.1.0.0+synopsis: Examples to accompany the book "Haskell in Depth"+description:+ This package provides source code examples which accompany the book+ "Haskell in Depth" by Vitaly Bragilevsky (Manning Publications 2019).+ You may want to get this package via @cabal get hid-examples@+ and explore its content.++license: BSD3+license-file: LICENSE+author: Vitaly Bragilevsky+maintainer: Vitaly Bragilevsky <vit.bragilevsky@gmail.com>+copyright: (c) Vitaly Bragilevsky 2018+category: Sample Code+build-type: Simple+extra-source-files: ChangeLog.md+cabal-version: >=1.10++bug-reports: https://github.com/bravit/hid-examples/issues+homepage: https://github.com/bravit/hid-examples/++extra-source-files: ChangeLog.md+ LICENSE+ README.md+ stack.yaml++data-files: data/quotes.csv+ texts/Dracula.srt+ texts/*.txt++source-repository head+ type: git+ location: https://github.com/bravit/hid-examples.git++-- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------+-- Chapter 2++executable locator+ main-is: locator.hs+ build-depends: base >=4.10 && <4.12+ default-language: Haskell2010++executable vocab1+ main-is: vocab1.hs+ build-depends: base >=4.10 && <4.12+ , text >=1.2 && <1.3+ default-language: Haskell2010++executable vocab2+ main-is: vocab2.hs+ build-depends: base >=4.10 && <4.12+ , text >=1.2 && <1.3+ default-language: Haskell2010++executable vocab3+ main-is: vocab3.hs+ build-depends: base >=4.10 && <4.12+ , text >=1.2 && <1.3+ default-language: Haskell2010++executable showexpr+ main-is: showexpr.hs+ build-depends: base >=4.10 && <4.12+ , hint >=0.7 && <0.9+ default-language: Haskell2010++-- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------+-- Chapter 3++executable stockquotes+ hs-source-dirs: stockquotes+ main-is: Main.hs+ other-modules: BoundedEnum QuoteData Statistics StatReport+ Charts HtmlReport Params + other-extensions: RecordWildCards OverloadedStrings FlexibleInstances+ DeriveGeneric DeriveAnyClass+ build-depends: base >=4.10 && <4.11+ , bytestring >=0.10 && <0.11+ , blaze-html >=0.9 && <0.10+ , optparse-applicative >=0.14 && <0.15+ , time >=1.8 && <1.9+ , text >=1.2 && <1.3+ , fmt >=0.5 && <0.7+ , safe >=0.3 && <0.4+ , Chart >=1.8 && <1.9+ , Chart-diagrams >=1.8 && <1.9+ , cassava >=0.5 && <0.6+ default-language: Haskell2010
+ locator.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@+{-# LANGUAGE DeriveAnyClass #-}+{-# LANGUAGE StandaloneDeriving #-}++import Data.List (nub, sort)++class (Enum a, Bounded a) => BoundedEnum a where+ range :: [a]+ range = enumFrom minBound++class (Eq a, Enum a, Bounded a) => CyclicEnum a where+ cpred :: a -> a+ cpred d+ | d == minBound = maxBound+ | otherwise = pred d++ csucc :: a -> a+ csucc d+ | d == maxBound = minBound+ | otherwise = succ d++data Direction = North | East | South | West+ deriving (Eq, Enum, Bounded, CyclicEnum, Show)++--instance CyclicEnum Direction++data Turn = TNone | TLeft | TRight | TAround+ deriving (Eq, Enum, Bounded, BoundedEnum)+ +orient :: Turn -> Direction -> Direction+orient TNone = id+orient TLeft = cpred+orient TRight = csucc+orient TAround = cpred . cpred++findTurn :: Direction -> Direction -> Turn+findTurn d1 d2 = head $ filter (\t -> orient t d1 == d2) range++-- standalone deriving+deriving instance BoundedEnum Direction+deriving instance Ord Turn++test :: Bool+test = sort (nub [ findTurn d1 d2 | d1 <- range, d2 <- range ]) == range++main = do+ putStr "Locator test: "+ print test
+ showexpr.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@+import Text.Show+import Control.Monad+import Data.Foldable+import Language.Haskell.Interpreter++data Expr a = Lit a | Add (Expr a) (Expr a) | Mult (Expr a) (Expr a)++instance Show a => Show (Expr a) where+ showsPrec _ (Lit a) = shows a+ showsPrec p (Add e1 e2) = showParen (p > precAdd)+ $ showsPrec precAdd e1+ . showString "+" + . showsPrec precAdd e2+ where precAdd = 5+ showsPrec p (Mult e1 e2) = showParen (p > precMult)+ $ showsPrec precMult e1+ . showString "*"+ . showsPrec precMult e2+ where precMult = 6++myeval :: Num a => Expr a -> a+myeval (Lit e) = e+myeval (Add e1 e2) = myeval e1 + myeval e2+myeval (Mult e1 e2) = myeval e1 * myeval e2++testexpr e = do+ let e_str = show e+ e_val = myeval e+ putStr $ e_str ++ " = " ++ show e_val ++ " "+ r <- runInterpreter $ setImports ["Prelude"] >> eval e_str+ case r of+ Right r' -> if read r' == e_val+ then putStrLn "ok"+ else putStrLn "eval error" + _ -> putStrLn "interpreter error"++main = traverse_ testexpr exprs++exprs = [+ Mult (Add (Lit 2) (Mult (Lit 3) (Lit 3))) (Lit 5),+ Add (Add (Lit 1) (Mult (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2))+ (Add (Lit 2) (Mult (Lit 2) (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2))))))+ (Add (Lit 1) (Mult (Lit 3) (Lit 2))),+ Add (Add (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2)) (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2)))+ (Add (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2)) (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2))),+ Mult (Mult (Mult (Lit 1) (Lit 2)) (Mult (Lit 1) (Lit 2)))+ (Mult (Mult (Lit 1) (Lit 2)) (Mult (Lit 1) (Lit 2))),+ Add (Mult (Lit 1) (Mult (Add (Lit 1) (Lit 2))+ (Mult (Lit 2) (Add (Lit 2) (Mult (Lit 1) (Lit 2))))))+ (Add (Lit 1) (Add (Lit 3) (Lit 2)))+ ]
+ stack.yaml view
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@+resolver: lts-10.10++packages:+- .
+ stockquotes/BoundedEnum.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@+module BoundedEnum (+ BoundedEnum (range)+ ) where++import Prelude (Enum (enumFrom), Bounded (minBound))++class (Enum a, Bounded a) => BoundedEnum a where+ range :: [a]+ range = enumFrom minBound
+ stockquotes/Charts.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@+module Charts (plotChart) where++import Data.Foldable (traverse_, toList)+import Graphics.Rendering.Chart.Easy (plot, line, (.=), layout_title)+import Graphics.Rendering.Chart.Backend.Diagrams (toFile,+ loadSansSerifFonts,+ FileOptions (..),+ FileFormat (SVG))+import QuoteData++plotChart :: (Functor t, Foldable t) =>+ String -> t QuoteData -> [QField] -> FilePath -> IO ()+plotChart title quotes qfs fname = toFile fileOptions fname $ do+ layout_title .= title+ traverse_ plotLine qfs+ where+ fileOptions = FileOptions (800, 600) SVG loadSansSerifFonts+ plotLine qf = plot $ line (show qf)+ [toList $ fmap (qf2pd qf) quotes]+ qf2pd qf q = (day q,+ realToFrac $ field2fun qf q :: Double)
+ stockquotes/HtmlReport.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@+{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}+{-# LANGUAGE RecordWildCards #-}++module HtmlReport (htmlReport) where++import Data.Foldable (traverse_)+import Data.Semigroup ((<>))+import Data.ByteString.Lazy (ByteString)+import Text.Blaze.Html5 as H +import Text.Blaze.Html5.Attributes (src)+import Text.Blaze.Html.Renderer.Utf8 (renderHtml)++import QuoteData+import StatReport (showStatEntryValue)+import Statistics+import Fmt++htmlReport :: (Functor t, Foldable t) =>+ String -> t QuoteData -> StatInfo -> [FilePath] -> ByteString+htmlReport title quotes si images = renderHtml $ docTypeHtml $ do+ H.head $ do+ H.title $ string title+ H.style style+ body $ do+ renderDiagrams images+ renderStatInfo si+ renderData quotes+ where+ style = "table {border-collapse: collapse}" <>+ "td, th {border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px}"++ renderDiagrams [] = pure ()+ renderDiagrams images = do+ h1 "Diagrams"+ traverse_ ((img!).src.toValue) images++ renderStatInfo [] = pure ()+ renderStatInfo si@((_, ses):_) = do+ h1 "Statistics Report"+ table $ do+ thead $ tr $ traverse_ th+ $ "Quotes Field" : [text $ fmt $ build $ stat s | s <- ses]+ tbody $ traverse_ statData2TR si++ statData2TR (qf, entries) = tr $ do+ td $ string $ show qf+ traverse_ (td.string.showStatEntryValue) entries++ renderData quotes = do+ h1 "Stock Quotes Data"+ table $ do+ thead $ tr+ $ traverse_ th ["Day", "Close", "Volume", "Open", "High", "Low"]+ tbody $ traverse_ quoteData2TR quotes++ quoteData2TR QuoteData {..} = tr $ do+ td $ string $ show day+ traverse_ (td.string.show) [close, volume, open, high, low]
+ stockquotes/Main.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@+{-# LANGUAGE RecordWildCards #-}++module Main where++import Data.Bool (bool)+import Control.Monad (when, unless)+import qualified Data.Text.IO as TIO+import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy as BL (readFile, writeFile)+import Data.Csv (decodeByName)++import QuoteData+import Statistics+import StatReport+import Charts+import HtmlReport+import Params++generateReports :: (Functor t, Foldable t) => Params -> t QuoteData -> IO ()+generateReports Params {..} quotes = do+ unless no_text $ TIO.putStr $ statReport statInfo'+ when prices $ plotChart title quotes [Open, Close, High, Low] fname_prices+ when volumes $ plotChart title quotes [Volume] fname_volumes+ when html $ BL.writeFile fname_html $ htmlReport title quotes statInfo' images+ where+ statInfo' = statInfo quotes+ withCompany pref = if company /= "" then pref ++ company else ""+ img_suffix = withCompany "_" ++ ".svg"+ fname_prices = "prices" ++ img_suffix+ fname_volumes = "volumes" ++ img_suffix+ images = concat $ zipWith (bool []) [[fname_prices],[fname_volumes]]+ [prices, volumes]+ fname_html = "report" ++ withCompany "_" ++ ".html"+ title = "Historical Quotes" ++ withCompany " for "++work :: Params -> IO ()+work params = do + csvData <- BL.readFile (fname params)+ case decodeByName csvData of+ Left err -> putStrLn err+ Right (_, quotes) -> generateReports params quotes++main :: IO ()+main = cmdLineParser >>= work
+ stockquotes/Params.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@+module Params (Params (..), cmdLineParser) where++import Data.Semigroup ((<>))+import Options.Applicative++data Params = Params {+ fname :: FilePath+ , company :: String+ , prices :: Bool+ , volumes :: Bool+ , html :: Bool+ , no_text :: Bool+ }++mkParams :: Parser Params+mkParams =+ Params <$>+ strArgument+ (metavar "FILE" <> help "CSV file name")+ <*> strOption+ (long "company" <> short 'c'+ <> help "stock company's name" <> value "")+ <*> switch+ (long "prices" <> short 'p' <> help "create file with prices chart")+ <*> switch+ (long "volumes" <> short 'v' <> help "create file with volumes chart")+ <*> switch+ (long "html" <> help "create file with HTML report")+ <*> switch+ (long "no-text" <> short 'n' <> help "don't print statistics report")++cmdLineParser :: IO Params+cmdLineParser = execParser opts+ where+ opts = info (mkParams <**> helper)+ (fullDesc <> progDesc "Stock quotes data processing")
+ stockquotes/QuoteData.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@+{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}+{-# LANGUAGE DeriveGeneric, DeriveAnyClass #-}++module QuoteData where++import Data.Fixed (HasResolution (..), Fixed)+import Data.Time (Day, parseTimeM, defaultTimeLocale)+import Safe (readDef)+import Data.ByteString.Char8 (unpack)+import GHC.Generics (Generic)+import Data.Csv (FromNamedRecord, FromField (..))++import BoundedEnum++data E4+ +instance HasResolution E4 where+ resolution _ = 10000++type Fixed4 = Fixed E4++data QuoteData = QuoteData {+ day :: Day,+ close :: Fixed4,+ volume :: Fixed4,+ open :: Fixed4,+ high :: Fixed4,+ low :: Fixed4+ }+ deriving (Generic, FromNamedRecord)++instance FromField Fixed4 where+ parseField = pure . readDef 0 . unpack++instance FromField Day where+ parseField = parseTimeM False defaultTimeLocale "%Y/%m/%d" . unpack++data QField = Open | Close | High | Low | Volume+ deriving (Show, Enum, Bounded, BoundedEnum)++field2fun :: QField -> QuoteData -> Fixed4+field2fun Open = open+field2fun Close = close+field2fun High = high+field2fun Low = low+field2fun Volume = volume
+ stockquotes/StatReport.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@+{-# LANGUAGE RecordWildCards #-}+{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}+{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}++module StatReport (statReport, showStatEntryValue) where++import Data.Fixed (showFixed)+import Data.Text (Text)+import Fmt++import QuoteData+import Statistics++instance Buildable Statistic where+ build Mean = "Mean"+ build Min = "Minimum"+ build Max = "Maximum"+ build Days = "Days between Min/Max"++showStatEntryValue :: StatEntry -> String+showStatEntryValue StatEntry {..} = showFixed (removeTrailing stat qfield) value+ where+ removeTrailing Days _ = True+ removeTrailing Min Volume = True+ removeTrailing Max Volume = True+ removeTrailing _ _ = False++instance Buildable StatEntry where+ build se@StatEntry {..} = ""+|stat|+": "+|showStatEntryValue se|+""++instance Buildable StatQFieldData where+ build (qf, stats) = nameF ("Statistics for " +||qf||+"") $ unlinesF stats++statReport :: StatInfo -> Text+statReport = fmt . unlinesF
+ stockquotes/Statistics.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@+{-# LANGUAGE DeriveAnyClass #-}++module Statistics (Statistic(..), StatEntry (..),+ StatQFieldData, StatInfo, statInfo) where++import Data.Ord (comparing)+import Data.Foldable (minimumBy, maximumBy)+import Data.Time (diffDays)++import BoundedEnum+import QuoteData++data Statistic = Mean | Min | Max | Days+ deriving (Show, Eq, Enum, Bounded, BoundedEnum)++data StatEntry = StatEntry {+ stat :: Statistic,+ qfield :: QField,+ value :: Fixed4+ }++type StatQFieldData = (QField, [StatEntry])+type StatInfo = [StatQFieldData]++mean xs = sum xs / fromIntegral (length xs)++daysBetween qf quotes = fromIntegral $ abs $ diffDays dMinQuote dMaxQuote+ where+ cmp = comparing (field2fun qf)+ dMinQuote = day $ minimumBy cmp quotes+ dMaxQuote = day $ maximumBy cmp quotes++funcByField func qf = func . fmap (field2fun qf)++computeStatistic Mean = funcByField mean+computeStatistic Min = funcByField minimum+computeStatistic Max = funcByField maximum+computeStatistic Days = daysBetween++statInfo :: (Functor t, Foldable t) => t QuoteData -> StatInfo+statInfo quotes = map stQFData range+ where + stQFData qf = (qf, [ StatEntry st qf v | st <- range,+ let v = computeStatistic st qf quotes ])
+ texts/Dracula.srt view
@@ -0,0 +1,3167 @@+1 +00:01:15,880 --> 00:01:19,680 +''Among the rugged peaks +that frown down upon the Borgo Pass + +2 +00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:23,000 +are found crumbling castles +of a bygone age.'' + +3 +00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:25,960 +I say, driver, a bit slower. + +4 +00:01:26,040 --> 00:01:29,680 +Oh, no! We must reach +the inn before sundown. + +5 +00:01:29,760 --> 00:01:31,440 +And why, pray? + +6 +00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:36,800 +It is Walpurgis Night. +The Night of Evil! Nosferatu! + +7 +00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:43,200 +On this night, madam, +the doors, they are barred, + +8 +00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,240 +and to the Virgin we pray. + +9 +00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:50,640 +(incantation in Hungarian) + +10 +00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:56,080 +(woman speaks Hungarian) + +11 +00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:02,280 +(excited shout in Hungarian) + +12 +00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:31,480 +I say, porter, don't take my luggage down. +I'm going on to Borgo Pass tonight. + +13 +00:02:31,880 --> 00:02:34,000 +(speaks Hungarian) + +14 +00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:43,800 +No, no, please. Put that back up there. + +15 +00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:49,680 +The driver, he is afraid - Walpurgis Night. + +16 +00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:52,160 +Good fellow, he is. + +17 +00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:56,640 +He wants me to ask if you can wait +and go on after sunrise. + +18 +00:02:56,720 --> 00:03:00,800 +Well, I'm sorry, but there's a carriage +meeting me at Borgo Pass at midnight. + +19 +00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:02,840 +- Borgo Pass? +- Yes. + +20 +00:03:02,920 --> 00:03:05,720 +- Whose carriage? +- Count Dracula's. + +21 +00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,320 +- Count Dracula's? +- Yes. + +22 +00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:18,120 +Castle Dracula? + +23 +00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:20,840 +Yes. That's where I'm going. + +24 +00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:24,080 +- To the castle? +- Yes. + +25 +00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:27,680 +No. You mustn't go there. + +26 +00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:34,400 +We people of the mountains believe... +at the castle there are vampires. + +27 +00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:42,360 +Dracula and his wives, +they take the form of wolves and bats. + +28 +00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:49,800 +They leave their coffins at night +and they feed on the blood of the living. + +29 +00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:55,640 +Oh, but that's all superstition. +Why, I can't understand why... + +30 +00:03:55,720 --> 00:03:58,320 +(speaks Hungarian) + +31 +00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:01,480 +Look. The sun. + +32 +00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:07,480 +When it is gone, they leave their coffins. + +33 +00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:09,760 +Come. We must go indoors. + +34 +00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:12,560 +But wait... + +35 +00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:14,880 +I mean, just a minute. + +36 +00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:17,720 +What I'm trying to say +is that I'm not afraid. + +37 +00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:22,320 +I've explained to the driver +that it's a matter of business with me. + +38 +00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:24,480 +I've got to go. Really. + +39 +00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:29,200 +Well, good night. + +40 +00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:33,840 +Wait. Please. + +41 +00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:38,320 +If you must go, wear this. + +42 +00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:42,480 +For your mother's sake. It will protect you. + +43 +00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:56,680 +(cries of consternation) + +44 +00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:50,640 +(rats squeak and scurry) + +45 +00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:05,520 +(wolf howls) + +46 +00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:34,360 +(driver) Borgo. Borgo. + +47 +00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:36,120 +Hyah! + +48 +00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:03,600 +The coach from Count Dracula? + +49 +00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:52,280 +Hey, driver! + +50 +00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:16,400 +I say, driver, what do you mean +by going at this... + +51 +00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:23,600 +(clanking... door creaks open) + +52 +00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:06,480 +(squeaking) + +53 +00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:43,960 +I am... Dracula. + +54 +00:09:46,160 --> 00:09:48,000 +Oh, it's... + +55 +00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:50,400 +It's really good to see you. + +56 +00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:55,480 +I don't know what happened +to the driver and my luggage and... + +57 +00:09:55,880 --> 00:10:00,160 +Well, and with all this, +I thought I was in the wrong place. + +58 +00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:02,920 +I bid you welcome. + +59 +00:10:12,600 --> 00:10:14,800 +(wolf howls) + +60 +00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:21,960 +Listen to them. + +61 +00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:24,640 +Children of the night. + +62 +00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:28,120 +What music they make! + +63 +00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:11,360 +The spider spinning his web +for the unwary fly. + +64 +00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:15,840 +The blood is the life, Mr Renfield. + +65 +00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:19,520 +Why, er... + +66 +00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:23,040 +yes. + +67 +00:11:34,560 --> 00:11:38,440 +I'm sure you will find +this part of my castle more inviting. + +68 +00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:42,240 +Well, rather! It's quite +different from outside. + +69 +00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:46,840 +Oh, and the fire - it's so cheerful. + +70 +00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:50,760 +I didn't know but that +you might be hungry. + +71 +00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:53,320 +Thank you. That's very kind of you. + +72 +00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:57,280 +But I'm a bit worried about my luggage. +You see, all your papers were in... + +73 +00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:00,920 +I took the liberty of having +your luggage brought up. + +74 +00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,000 +Allow me. + +75 +00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:05,600 +Oh, yes. + +76 +00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:11,440 +Thanks. + +77 +00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:42,320 +(wolf howls) + +78 +00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:51,440 +I trust you have kept +your coming here a secret. + +79 +00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:54,560 +I've followed your instructions implicitly. + +80 +00:12:55,960 --> 00:12:58,040 +Excellent, Mr Renfield. + +81 +00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:00,880 +Excellent. + +82 +00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:03,240 +And now, if you're not too fatigued, + +83 +00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:06,960 +I would like to discuss +the lease on Carfax Abbey. + +84 +00:13:07,040 --> 00:13:11,880 +Oh, yes. Everything is in order, +awaiting your signature. + +85 +00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:20,800 +Look here. Here's the lease. + +86 +00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:30,960 +Oh, I... I hope I've brought +enough labels for your luggage. + +87 +00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:35,480 +I'm taking with me only three... boxes. + +88 +00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:39,040 +Very well. + +89 +00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:48,720 +I have chartered a ship +to take us to England. + +90 +00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:55,680 +We will be leaving... tomorrow evening. + +91 +00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:02,480 +Everything will be ready. + +92 +00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,720 +I hope you will find this comfortable. + +93 +00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:11,880 +Thanks. It looks very inviting. + +94 +00:14:11,960 --> 00:14:13,560 +Ouch! + +95 +00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:37,160 +Oh, it's nothing serious. +Just a small cut from that paperclip. + +96 +00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:40,600 +It's just a scratch. + +97 +00:14:48,800 --> 00:14:53,360 +This... is very old wine. + +98 +00:14:56,080 --> 00:14:58,800 +I hope you will like it. + +99 +00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:08,920 +Aren't you drinking? + +100 +00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:11,720 +I never drink... wine. + +101 +00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:16,960 +Well... + +102 +00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:26,000 +It's delicious. + +103 +00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:28,800 +And now I'll leave you. + +104 +00:15:29,880 --> 00:15:31,880 +Well, good night. + +105 +00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:43,800 +Good night... Mr Renfield. + +106 +00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:22,120 +(bat squeaks) + +107 +00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:47,160 +Master, the sun is gone. + +108 +00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:09,040 +You will keep your promise when +we get to London, won't you, master? + +109 +00:18:11,280 --> 00:18:13,680 +You will see that I get lives? + +110 +00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:19,640 +Not human lives, but... small ones. +With blood in them! + +111 +00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:23,040 +I'll be loyal to you, master. + +112 +00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:24,920 +I'll be loyal. + +113 +00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:57,440 +(men's voices) + +114 +00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:00,080 +(first man) Must be a Scandinavian ship. + +115 +00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:03,360 +(second man) Here, now. +Here, now. Get back. + +116 +00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:07,480 +Nobody goes aboard this here boat +but the authorities. + +117 +00:19:07,560 --> 00:19:10,760 +(third man) Captain dead, +tied to the wheel. + +118 +00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,080 +Horrible tragedy. A horrible tragedy. + +119 +00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:16,440 +Master! We're here! + +120 +00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:24,080 +You can't hear what I'm saying, +but we're here. + +121 +00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:26,920 +We're safe! + +122 +00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:33,080 +(third man) They must've come +through a terrible storm. + +123 +00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:35,760 +(deranged laughter) + +124 +00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:38,040 +What's that? + +125 +00:19:38,120 --> 00:19:40,120 +(footsteps) + +126 +00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:44,600 +Why, it's come from that hatchway. + +127 +00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:51,560 +(deranged guttural laughter) + +128 +00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:58,640 +Why, he's mad! Look at his eyes. + +129 +00:19:59,240 --> 00:20:01,360 +Why, the man's gone crazy. + +130 +00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:34,880 +(klaxon) + +131 +00:20:40,520 --> 00:20:42,520 +(car horns) + +132 +00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:48,320 +Violets! Violets! +Flower for your buttonhole, sir. + +133 +00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:53,680 +Flower for your buttonhole, sir. Flower +for your buttonhole. Here's a nice one. + +134 +00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:10,960 +(girl screams) + +135 +00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:22,760 +(police whistle) + +136 +00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:31,240 +(answering whistles) + +137 +00:21:56,080 --> 00:22:00,280 +(orchestra plays Wagner- +''Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg'') + +138 +00:22:37,120 --> 00:22:39,680 +(movement ends) + +139 +00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:52,600 +And after you've delivered the message, +you will remember nothing I now say. + +140 +00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:58,600 +Obey. + +141 +00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,440 +- Dr Seward? +- Yes? + +142 +00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:08,360 +You're wanted on the telephone. + +143 +00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,720 +Oh, thank you. Well, excuse me, dears... + +144 +00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:15,680 +Oh, Father, if it's from home, will you say +I'm spending the night in town with Lucy? + +145 +00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,040 +(chuckles) All right, dear. + +146 +00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:19,720 +- Pardon. +- Yes? + +147 +00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,440 +I could not help overhearing your name. + +148 +00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,760 +Might I inquire if you are the Dr Seward +whose sanitarium is at Whitby? + +149 +00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:28,640 +Why, yes. + +150 +00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:30,520 +I'm Count Dracula. + +151 +00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:37,120 +I have just leased Carfax Abbey. +I understand it adjoins your grounds. + +152 +00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,000 +Why, yes, it does. I'm very happy +to make your acquaintance. + +153 +00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:45,480 +May I present my daughter, Mina... + +154 +00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:48,000 +Count Dracula. + +155 +00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:52,240 +- Miss Weston... +- How do you do? + +156 +00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,040 +- And Mr Harker. +- How do you do? + +157 +00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,520 +Count Dracula has just +taken Carfax Abbey. + +158 +00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,440 +Oh, it'll be a relief to see life +in those dismal old windows. + +159 +00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:06,480 +It will indeed. You'll excuse me - +I'm wanted on the telephone. + +160 +00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:08,640 +The abbey could be very attractive. + +161 +00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,440 +But I should imagine it would need +quite extensive repairs. + +162 +00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:15,440 +I shall do very little repairing. + +163 +00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:22,360 +It reminds me of the broken battlements +of my own castle in Transylvania. + +164 +00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:26,160 +The abbey always reminds me +of that old toast: + +165 +00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:31,520 +''Above, lofty timbers, +The walls around are bare, + +166 +00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:37,080 +Echoing to our laughter, +As though the dead were there.'' + +167 +00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:41,560 +- Nice little sentiment! +- But there's more, even nicer. + +168 +00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:46,440 +''Quaff a cup to the dead already, +Hurrah for the next to die...'' + +169 +00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:48,720 +Oh, never mind the rest, dear! + +170 +00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,880 +To die, to be really dead... + +171 +00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:55,880 +that must be glorious. + +172 +00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,520 +Why, Count Dracula! + +173 +00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:06,160 +There are far worse things... +awaiting man... + +174 +00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,200 +than death. + +175 +00:25:24,360 --> 00:25:26,360 +(music box chimes) + +176 +00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:35,360 +(Mina, mimicking) It reminds me... +of the broken battlements... + +177 +00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:39,520 +of my own castle in Transylvania. + +178 +00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,120 +Oh, Lucy, you're so romantic! + +179 +00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,800 +Laugh all you like. I think he's fascinating. + +180 +00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:51,400 +Oh, I suppose he's all right. + +181 +00:25:52,360 --> 00:25:55,360 +But give me someone +a little more normal. + +182 +00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,120 +Like John? + +183 +00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,440 +Yes, dear. Like John. + +184 +00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:04,240 +Castle... Dracula. + +185 +00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,680 +Transylvania. + +186 +00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,680 +Well, er... Countess, + +187 +00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,640 +I'll leave you to your count +and his ruined abbey. + +188 +00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,280 +- Good night, Lucy. +- Good night, dear. + +189 +00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,760 +The fog seems to be +closing down a bit, sir. + +190 +00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:08,160 +Another death. + +191 +00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:10,240 +Dead? + +192 +00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:15,880 +Dr Seward, when did Miss Weston +have the last transfusion? + +193 +00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,240 +About four hours ago. + +194 +00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:24,960 +An unnatural loss of blood, +which we've been powerless to check. + +195 +00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:37,400 +On the throat of each victim +the same two marks. + +196 +00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:50,920 +- (nurse) Keep your hands covered. +- I don't want to keep my hands covered. + +197 +00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,040 +- But you said you would. +- I don't want to. + +198 +00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,320 +- Now please do as you said you would. +- I don't want to. + +199 +00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,080 +(man screams) + +200 +00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,240 +(patient) He probably wants +his flies again! (manic laughter) + +201 +00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:04,960 +(man) No, Martin, please! +Please don't, Martin! + +202 +00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,000 +No, Martin, please! Please, Martin! + +203 +00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,960 +No, Martin! Oh, Martin, please! + +204 +00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,360 +- Here, give it to me now, I tell you! +- No, Martin, please! + +205 +00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:18,240 +No, Martin. Martin, don't! +Don't throw my spider away from me! + +206 +00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,720 +Oh, Martin... Oh... + +207 +00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,280 +Ain't you ashamed now? Ain't you? + +208 +00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,040 +Spiders now, is it? +Flies ain't good enough? + +209 +00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,840 +Flies? Flies?! + +210 +00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,120 +Poor puny things! + +211 +00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,560 +Who wants to eat flies? + +212 +00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:43,480 +You do, ya loony! + +213 +00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:48,400 +Not when I can get nice fat spiders! + +214 +00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,360 +All right. Have it your own way. + +215 +00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:13,560 +Read, Dummkopf, where I have marked. + +216 +00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:20,000 +Deinde cum extractum +vesiculionis sanguine mixtum est, + +217 +00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,600 +sanguis puniceo color +amisso lactteus fit. + +218 +00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:31,600 +Gentlemen, we are dealing +with the... undead. + +219 +00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:34,840 +Nosferatu! + +220 +00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,920 +Yes, Nosferatu. The undead. The vampire. + +221 +00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,880 +The vampire attacks the throat. + +222 +00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:50,120 +It leaves two little wounds, +white with red centres. + +223 +00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:59,040 +Dr Seward, your patient Renfield, +whose blood I have just analysed, + +224 +00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:04,680 +is obsessed with the idea +that he must devour living things + +225 +00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:06,760 +in order to sustain his own life. + +226 +00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,000 +But, Professor Van Helsing, + +227 +00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,920 +modern medical science +does not admit of such a creature! + +228 +00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,320 +The vampire is a pure myth, superstition. + +229 +00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:22,720 +I may be able to bring you proof +that the superstition of yesterday + +230 +00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:27,240 +can become the scientific reality of today. + +231 +00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:34,080 +But, Professor, Renfield's cravings +have always been for small living things. + +232 +00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:37,480 +- Nothing human. +- As far as we know, Doctor. + +233 +00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:42,800 +But you tell me that he escapes +from his room. He's gone for hours. + +234 +00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:45,720 +Where does he go? + +235 +00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,040 +(voice approaches) + +236 +00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:50,960 +..so you won't have to eat flies. + +237 +00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,640 +Well, Mr Renfield, + +238 +00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:58,480 +you are looking much better than you did +this morning when I arrived. + +239 +00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,840 +Thanks. I'm feeling much better. + +240 +00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:05,640 +I am here to help you. + +241 +00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,120 +You understand that, do you not? + +242 +00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,480 +Why, of course. And I'm very grateful. + +243 +00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:20,880 +- Keep your filthy hands to yourself! +- Now now, Renfield. + +244 +00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:28,440 +Oh, Dr Seward, send me away +from this place! Send me far away! + +245 +00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,760 +Why are you so anxious to get away? + +246 +00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:39,080 +My cries at night - +they might disturb Miss Mina. + +247 +00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:40,760 +Yes? + +248 +00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,840 +They might give her bad dreams, +Professor Van Helsing. + +249 +00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:55,520 +Bad dreams. + +250 +00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,680 +(wolf howls) + +251 +00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:09,160 +(wolf howls) + +252 +00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,480 +(thud) + +253 +00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:28,680 +That sounded like a wolf. + +254 +00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,960 +Yes, it did. But I hardly think +there are wolves so near London. + +255 +00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:35,720 +He thinks they're wolves. + +256 +00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,720 +Me, I've heard 'em howl at night before. + +257 +00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,480 +He thinks they're talking to him! + +258 +00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:45,640 +He 'owls and 'owls back at 'em. +He's crazy! + +259 +00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:52,000 +I might have known. I might have known. + +260 +00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:59,840 +We know why the wolves talk, +do we not, Mr Renfield? + +261 +00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:05,440 +And we know how +we can make them stop. + +262 +00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,120 +Argh! + +263 +00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,360 +You know too much to live, Van Helsing! + +264 +00:34:10,720 --> 00:34:12,320 +Now now, Renfield. + +265 +00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,120 +We will get no more out of him now +for a while. + +266 +00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:18,680 +Take him away, Martin. + +267 +00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,000 +On your way, old fly-eater. + +268 +00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,840 +I'm warning you, Dr Seward, +if you don't send me away + +269 +00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,320 +you must answer +for what will happen to Miss Mina! + +270 +00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,760 +- All right, Martin. +- Come along now. Come along. + +271 +00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,600 +What was that herb that excited him so? + +272 +00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,840 +Wolfbane. It is a plant +that grows in central Europe. + +273 +00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:48,240 +The natives there use it to protect +themselves against vampires. + +274 +00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,480 +Renfield reacted very violently +to its scent. + +275 +00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:57,120 +Seward, I want you to have Renfield +closely watched by day and night. + +276 +00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:58,480 +Especially by night. + +277 +00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,160 +(sobs) + +278 +00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:07,160 +(wolf howls) + +279 +00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,000 +Yes, master. + +280 +00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,640 +Master, you've come back. + +281 +00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:36,240 +No, master, please... +Please don't ask me to do that. + +282 +00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,400 +Don't. Not her. + +283 +00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:46,040 +Please! Please don't, master! + +284 +00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:48,960 +Don't, please! + +285 +00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,440 +Please... + +286 +00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,280 +Oh, don't... + +287 +00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,800 +I laid in bed for quite a while... reading. + +288 +00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:42,760 +And just as I was commencing +to get drowsy, I heard dogs howling. + +289 +00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:47,640 +And when the dream came... + +290 +00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:51,200 +it seemed the whole room +was filled with mist. + +291 +00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,960 +It was so thick I could just +see the lamp by the bed, + +292 +00:36:57,000 --> 00:36:59,200 +a tiny spark in the fog. + +293 +00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,520 +And then I saw two red eyes +staring at me, + +294 +00:37:05,240 --> 00:37:09,040 +and a white, livid face +came down out of the mist. + +295 +00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,640 +It came closer... and closer. + +296 +00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:19,080 +I felt its breath on my face... + +297 +00:37:20,240 --> 00:37:22,240 +and then its lips! + +298 +00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,280 +Dear, it was only a dream. + +299 +00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,760 +And then in the morning I felt so weak. + +300 +00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,640 +It seemed as if all the life +had been drained out of me. + +301 +00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:36,480 +Darling, we're going to forget +all about these dreams + +302 +00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,800 +and think about something cheerful, +aren't we? + +303 +00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,520 +- Allow me? +- Oh. Certainly, Professor. + +304 +00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:45,600 +Think for a moment. + +305 +00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,520 +Is there anything that might +have brought this dream on? + +306 +00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:53,640 +No. + +307 +00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:59,280 +Doctor, there's something troubling Mina. +Something she won't tell us. + +308 +00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:06,200 +And the face in the dream - you say +it seemed to come closer and closer? + +309 +00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:09,520 +The lips touched you? + +310 +00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,120 +Where? + +311 +00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,720 +Is there anything the matter +with your throat? + +312 +00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:16,720 +- Oh, no. But I... +- Permit me. + +313 +00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,440 +- No, please... +- Yes. Yes. + +314 +00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,000 +How long have you had +those little marks? + +315 +00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,560 +- Marks? +- Please. + +316 +00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:35,640 +- Mina, why didn't you let us know? +- Do not excite her. + +317 +00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:40,040 +When, Miss Mina? + +318 +00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:44,920 +Since the morning after the dream. + +319 +00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:52,160 +- What could have caused them? +- (maid) Count Dracula. + +320 +00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:00,320 +It's good to see you back again, Doctor. + +321 +00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,200 +I heard you have just arrived. + +322 +00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:12,520 +And you, Miss Mina, +you're looking exceptionally... + +323 +00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,120 +(Van Helsing) Pardon me, Dr Seward... + +324 +00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,720 +but I think Miss Mina +should go to her room at once. + +325 +00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,560 +Professor Van Helsing, I don't believe +it's as important as you seem to think. + +326 +00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,640 +Excuse me. Count Dracula, +Professor Van Helsing. + +327 +00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:35,400 +Van Helsing. +A most distinguished scientist, + +328 +00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:40,680 +whose name we know... +even in the wilds of Transylvania. + +329 +00:39:43,240 --> 00:39:46,360 +I had a frightful dream a few nights ago. + +330 +00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:48,600 +I don't seem to be able +to get it out of my mind. + +331 +00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,760 +I hope you haven't taken +my stories too seriously? + +332 +00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:53,440 +Stories? + +333 +00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:56,160 +Yes. + +334 +00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:01,360 +In my humble effort +to amuse your fiancee, Mr Harker, + +335 +00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:06,760 +I was telling her some rather... grim tales +of my far-off country. + +336 +00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,040 +I can imagine. + +337 +00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,000 +Why, John! + +338 +00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,880 +I can quite understand +Mr Harker's concern. + +339 +00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,160 +I'm afraid it's quite serious. + +340 +00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,640 +My dear, I'm sure +Count Dracula will excuse you. + +341 +00:40:25,720 --> 00:40:29,520 +You must go to your room, +as Professor Van Helsing suggests. + +342 +00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,720 +Oh, but really, Father, +I'm feeling quite well. + +343 +00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,360 +You had better do as your father advises. + +344 +00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:42,560 +Very well. + +345 +00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:45,640 +Good night. + +346 +00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:47,680 +John. + +347 +00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:57,720 +Miss Mina, may I call later +and inquire how you are feeling? + +348 +00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,680 +Why, yes. Thank you. + +349 +00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:14,040 +I'm sorry, Doctor, +my visit was so ill-timed. + +350 +00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:15,440 +Not at all. + +351 +00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,240 +On the contrary, it may prove +to be most enlightening. + +352 +00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,560 +In fact, before you go, +you can be of definite service. + +353 +00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:26,800 +Anything I can do, gladly. + +354 +00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:37,560 +A moment ago I stumbled +upon a most amazing phenomenon. + +355 +00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:44,200 +Something so incredible +I mistrust my own judgment. + +356 +00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:47,080 +Look. + +357 +00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:09,160 +Dr Seward, my humble apology. + +358 +00:42:09,240 --> 00:42:11,640 +I dislike mirrors. + +359 +00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,760 +Van Helsing will explain. + +360 +00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,160 +For one who has not lived +even a single lifetime... + +361 +00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:35,040 +you are a wise man, Van Helsing. + +362 +00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:40,000 +Phew! + +363 +00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,240 +What on earth caused that? + +364 +00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,800 +Did you see the look on his face? +Like a wild animal! + +365 +00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:47,200 +Wild animal? Like a madman! + +366 +00:42:49,720 --> 00:42:54,120 +What's that, running across the lawn? +Looks like a huge dog! + +367 +00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,640 +Or a wolf? + +368 +00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:00,520 +A wolf? + +369 +00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,880 +- He was afraid we might follow. +- Follow? + +370 +00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:08,400 +Sometimes they take the form of wolves. +But generally of bats. + +371 +00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,080 +What are you talking about? + +372 +00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,360 +Dracula. + +373 +00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,400 +But what's Dracula got to do +with wolves and bats? + +374 +00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:19,720 +- Dracula is our vampire. +- But surely, Professor... + +375 +00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:26,160 +A vampire casts no reflection in the glass. +That is why Dracula smashed the mirror. + +376 +00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,160 +I don't mean to be rude, +but that's the sort of thing + +377 +00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:31,320 +I'd expect one +of the patients here to say. + +378 +00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:36,720 +Yes. And that is what your English +doctors would say, your police. + +379 +00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:43,320 +The strength of the vampire +is that people will not believe in him. + +380 +00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:18,320 +But, Professor, vampires +only exist in ghost stories. + +381 +00:44:18,720 --> 00:44:23,640 +A vampire, Mr Harker, +is a being that lives after its death + +382 +00:44:23,720 --> 00:44:28,200 +by drinking the blood of the living. +It must have blood or it dies. + +383 +00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,520 +Its power lasts only +from sunset to sunrise. + +384 +00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:36,760 +During the hours of the day it must rest +in the earth in which it was buried. + +385 +00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:41,240 +But then, if Dracula were a vampire, he'd +have to return every night to Transylvania. + +386 +00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:42,560 +And that's impossible! + +387 +00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:45,360 +Then he must have brought +his native soil with him. + +388 +00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,560 +Boxes of it. Boxes of earth +large enough for him to rest in. + +389 +00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,360 +(manic laughter) + +390 +00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:53,560 +Renfield?! + +391 +00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,120 +What are you doing there? Come here. + +392 +00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,640 +Did you hear what we were saying? + +393 +00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,280 +Yes, I heard something. + +394 +00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:06,640 +Enough. + +395 +00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,160 +Be guided by what he says. + +396 +00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,160 +It's your only hope. + +397 +00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,880 +It's her only hope. + +398 +00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:26,040 +I begged you to send me away, +but you wouldn't. + +399 +00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:28,760 +Now it's too late. It's happened again. + +400 +00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:31,040 +(Harker) What's happened? + +401 +00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:37,880 +Take her away from here. +Take her away before... + +402 +00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:40,360 +(squeaking) + +403 +00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,080 +No, no, master! +I wasn't going to say anything! + +404 +00:45:46,720 --> 00:45:50,400 +I told them nothing! +I'm loyal to you, master! + +405 +00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:53,120 +What have you to do with Dracula? + +406 +00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:55,120 +Dracula? + +407 +00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:05,120 +I never even heard the name before. + +408 +00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:09,960 +You will die in torment if you die +with innocent blood on your soul. + +409 +00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:12,400 +Oh, no. + +410 +00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:16,040 +God will not damn a lunatic's soul. + +411 +00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:21,840 +He knows that the powers of evil are +too great for those of us with weak minds. + +412 +00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:23,640 +(woman screams) + +413 +00:46:23,720 --> 00:46:26,080 +Oh, Mr Harker! Mr Harker, it's horrible! + +414 +00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:30,440 +Oh, it's horrible! Dr Seward! +Miss Mina... Out there, dead! + +415 +00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:32,920 +- Out where? +- Out there! + +416 +00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,800 +(Renfield laughs) + +417 +00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:03,800 +Thank heaven she's alive. +Thank heaven for that! + +418 +00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:07,840 +Alive, yes. But in greater danger, +for she's already under his influence. + +419 +00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,000 +Oh, it's horrible, Van Helsing, horrible! +Incredible! + +420 +00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:15,440 +Incredible, perhaps, but we must face it, +we must cope with it. + +421 +00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:19,720 +As these attacks continue, she comes +more and more under his power. + +422 +00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:26,320 +(child cries) + +423 +00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:47,360 +''Further attacks on small children, + +424 +00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:53,160 +committed after dark by the mysterious +woman in white, took place last night.'' + +425 +00:47:53,760 --> 00:48:01,560 +''Narratives of two small girls, each child +describing a 'bootiful lady in white' + +426 +00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:06,400 +who promised her chocolates, +enticed her to a secluded spot, + +427 +00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:09,360 +and there bit her slightly in the throat.'' + +428 +00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,640 +- Ghosts! +- Vampires. + +429 +00:48:13,720 --> 00:48:14,920 +And then, Miss Mina? + +430 +00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,200 +What could she know +about the woman in white? + +431 +00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,640 +- It's bad enough for her to read about it... +- Please, please, Mr Harker. + +432 +00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,680 +And when was the next time you saw +Miss Lucy after she was buried? + +433 +00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:37,880 +I was downstairs on the terrace. + +434 +00:48:39,720 --> 00:48:43,120 +She came out of the shadows +and stood looking at me. + +435 +00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:46,320 +I started to speak to her. + +436 +00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,040 +And then I remembered she was dead. + +437 +00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,760 +The most horrible expression +came over her face. + +438 +00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:00,240 +She looked like a hungry animal. A wolf. + +439 +00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:06,760 +And then she turned +and ran back into the dark. + +440 +00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,600 +Then you know the woman in white is... + +441 +00:49:14,240 --> 00:49:16,000 +Lucy. + +442 +00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:22,320 +Miss Mina, I promise you that +after tonight she will remain at rest, + +443 +00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,160 +her soul released from this horror. + +444 +00:49:25,240 --> 00:49:29,720 +If you can save Lucy's soul after death, +promise me you'll save mine. + +445 +00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:33,440 +Darling, you're not going to die. +You're going to live. + +446 +00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:36,560 +No, John. You mustn't touch me. + +447 +00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:40,800 +And you mustn't kiss me - ever again. + +448 +00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,480 +What are you trying to say? + +449 +00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:47,800 +You tell him. + +450 +00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,680 +You make him understand. I can't. + +451 +00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:58,920 +Professor... + +452 +00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,000 +It's all over, John. + +453 +00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:09,400 +Our love, our life together. + +454 +00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:12,640 +Oh, no. + +455 +00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:15,040 +No, no, don't look at me like that. + +456 +00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,760 +I love you, John. You. + +457 +00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,000 +But this horror... He wills it. + +458 +00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:30,080 +(Van Helsing) Miss Mina, +you must come indoors. + +459 +00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:33,360 +You must. + +460 +00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,800 +Do you know what you're doing to her, +Professor? You're driving her crazy! + +461 +00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:47,640 +Mr Harker, that is what +you should be worrying about. + +462 +00:50:47,720 --> 00:50:52,240 +The last rays of the day's sun will soon be +gone and another night will be upon us. + +463 +00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:54,520 +(door opens) + +464 +00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:58,960 +Dr Seward, I'm taking Mina with me +to London tonight, or I'll call in the police. + +465 +00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:02,160 +- But, John... +- Mina, please get your bags packed. + +466 +00:51:02,240 --> 00:51:05,320 +Seward, I must be master here +or I can do nothing. + +467 +00:51:05,720 --> 00:51:06,800 +Quite. + +468 +00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:10,520 +Miss Mina, both this room +and your bedroom + +469 +00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,760 +have been prepared with wolfbane. + +470 +00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,200 +You will be safe if Dracula returns. + +471 +00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:17,760 +She'll be safe all right, +because she's going with me! + +472 +00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:21,640 +- Mina, I'll be waiting for you in the library. +- Oh, John! + +473 +00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,400 +Father, talk to him. +Please don't let him go. + +474 +00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:30,320 +Oh, Briggs. + +475 +00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:36,000 +Miss Mina is to wear this wreath +of wolfbane when she goes to bed. + +476 +00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,680 +Watch her closely and see +that she does not remove it in her sleep. + +477 +00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:40,640 +I understand. + +478 +00:51:40,720 --> 00:51:44,360 +And under no circumstances +must these windows be opened tonight. + +479 +00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,440 +Very well, sir. + +480 +00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,280 +(wolf howls) + +481 +00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:02,720 +(thud) + +482 +00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:18,840 +You will recollect that Dracula +cast no reflection in the mirror. + +483 +00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:19,400 +Yes. + +484 +00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:22,680 +And that three boxes of earth +were delivered to him at Carfax Abbey. + +485 +00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:23,320 +Quite. + +486 +00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:27,720 +And, knowing that a vampire +must rest by day in his native soil, + +487 +00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,320 +I am convinced that +this Dracula is no legend, + +488 +00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:36,280 +but an undead creature whose life +has been unnaturally prolonged. + +489 +00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:40,920 +(Harker) Well, Dr Seward, what about it? +Is Mina going with me or not? + +490 +00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,400 +If you take her from under our protection, +you will kill her. + +491 +00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,080 +Now, John, please, please, be patient. + +492 +00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:51,160 +Mr Harker, please, come here. + +493 +00:52:52,720 --> 00:52:54,400 +Well? + +494 +00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:56,880 +John, I know you love her. + +495 +00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:01,440 +But don't forget she's my daughter, +and I must do what I think is best. + +496 +00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:08,920 +Mr Harker, I have devoted my lifetime +to the study of many strange things - + +497 +00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:13,240 +little-known facts which the world +is perhaps better off for not knowing. + +498 +00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,880 +I know. But, Professor, all I want +is to get Mina away from all of this. + +499 +00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:19,960 +That will do no good. + +500 +00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,560 +Our only chance of saving Miss Mina's life + +501 +00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:27,200 +is to find the hiding place +of Dracula's living corpse + +502 +00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:29,640 +and to drive a stake through its heart. + +503 +00:53:29,720 --> 00:53:34,480 +(Renfield) Isn't this a strange conversation +for men who aren't crazy? + +504 +00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:37,960 +Renfield! You're compelling me +to put you in a straitjacket. + +505 +00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:42,240 +You forget, Doctor, +that madmen have great strength. + +506 +00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:46,360 +Dracula has great strength, eh, Renfield? + +507 +00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:48,240 +Words, words, words! + +508 +00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:50,880 +Oh, Martin. Didn't I warn you +to keep a strict watch? + +509 +00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:52,440 +What? + +510 +00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:54,400 +What, again?! + +511 +00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:56,480 +Yes, sir. At once, sir. + +512 +00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:59,240 +Yes, sir. Right away, sir. + +513 +00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,760 +Here, the doctor's pet loony +is loose again. + +514 +00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:08,320 +He came and stood below +my window in the moonlight. + +515 +00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:12,120 +And he promised me things. + +516 +00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:16,840 +Not in words, but by doing them. + +517 +00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:19,280 +Doing them? + +518 +00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:22,080 +By making them happen. + +519 +00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:33,360 +A red mist spread over the lawn, +coming on like a flame of fire. + +520 +00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,240 +And then he parted it. + +521 +00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:43,720 +And I could see that +there were thousands of rats, + +522 +00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:49,520 +with their eyes blazing red - +like his, only smaller. + +523 +00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:54,640 +And then he held up his hand +and they all stopped. + +524 +00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,800 +And I thought he seemed to be saying... + +525 +00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:06,120 +''Rats, rats... rats!'' + +526 +00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:11,360 +''Thousands... millions of them!'' + +527 +00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:14,240 +''All red blood!'' + +528 +00:55:14,720 --> 00:55:18,160 +''All these will I give you... + +529 +00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:21,840 +if you will obey me.'' + +530 +00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:24,760 +What did he want you to do? + +531 +00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,800 +That which has already been done. + +532 +00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:34,920 +Strike me down dead, Doctor! +He's got me going! + +533 +00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:38,800 +Now he's twisted and broken +them iron bars as if they was cheese. + +534 +00:55:39,240 --> 00:55:42,080 +- Dracula is in the house! +- In the house?! + +535 +00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:46,680 +Doctor, this time he can do no harm. +We are ready for him. + +536 +00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:50,800 +Martin, come. I'll show you where we can +put Mr Renfield where he won't escape. + +537 +00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:54,520 +Maybe you're right, but I have me doubts. +Come along, old fly-eater. + +538 +00:55:54,600 --> 00:55:59,600 +Now you mustn't get out of it this time. +You've got to stay in your room... + +539 +00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:02,560 +Van Helsing! + +540 +00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,080 +Now that you have learned +what you have learned, + +541 +00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:12,640 +it would be well for you +to return to your own country. + +542 +00:56:12,720 --> 00:56:18,720 +I prefer to remain, and protect +those whom you would destroy. + +543 +00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:21,600 +You are too late. + +544 +00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,680 +My blood now flows through her veins. + +545 +00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,760 +She will live through +the centuries to come... + +546 +00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:33,760 +as I have lived. + +547 +00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:36,840 +Should you escape us, Dracula, + +548 +00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:40,840 +we know how to save Miss Mina's soul, +if not her life. + +549 +00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:43,240 +If she dies by day. + +550 +00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:46,840 +But I shall see that she dies by night. + +551 +00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:51,840 +And I will have Carfax Abbey +torn down stone by stone, + +552 +00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,160 +excavated a mile around. + +553 +00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:58,640 +I will find your earth box +and drive that stake through your heart. + +554 +00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:02,000 +Come here. + +555 +00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:19,240 +Come... + +556 +00:57:20,360 --> 00:57:21,960 +here. + +557 +00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:56,240 +Your will is strong, + +558 +00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:58,640 +Van Helsing. + +559 +00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,040 +More wolfbane? + +560 +00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,000 +More effective than wolfbane, Count. + +561 +00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:12,560 +Indeed? + +562 +00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:14,240 +(snarls) + +563 +00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:22,280 +(Mina) Open the windows, Briggs, +let in some air! + +564 +00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:26,840 +The odour in the room from that horrible +weed! It's stifling! I can't stand it! + +565 +00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:30,080 +- But the professor gave orders. +- Never mind the professor now. + +566 +00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:34,080 +Now, please, go back to bed at once. +I'm going to call your father. + +567 +00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:36,720 +What is it, Briggs? + +568 +00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:38,800 +I don't know, Mr Harker. + +569 +00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:41,560 +I felt strangely dizzy. + +570 +00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:45,360 +And when it cleared away, Miss Mina was +up and dressed and out on the terrace. + +571 +00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:49,200 +- And I can't get her to go to bed. +- Well, let me see her. Tell her I'm here. + +572 +00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:50,840 +John? + +573 +00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:53,680 +Oh, John, I'm so glad you're here. + +574 +00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:56,200 +What have they been doing to me, dear? + +575 +00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:02,560 +Locking me in my room! Oh, and +the horrible smell of that awful weed. + +576 +00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:04,800 +It's been like a nightmare. + +577 +00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:07,840 +What's been the matter? + +578 +00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:10,200 +Why are you looking at me like that? + +579 +00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:12,200 +Mina... + +580 +00:59:12,680 --> 00:59:16,080 +You're so... like a changed girl. + +581 +00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:18,880 +Oh, you look wonderful! + +582 +00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:23,000 +I feel wonderful. +I've never felt better in my life. + +583 +00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:27,560 +I'm so glad to see you like this. +I've been awfully worried about you. + +584 +00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:31,240 +Mr Harker, you'd better +bring Miss Mina inside. + +585 +00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:34,000 +That's all right, Briggs - now that I'm here. + +586 +00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:36,320 +Run along, Briggs. Don't worry. + +587 +00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,800 +John... Look, the fog's lifting. + +588 +00:59:44,560 --> 00:59:46,800 +See how plain you can see the stars. + +589 +00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:48,880 +Yes. + +590 +00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:50,880 +Millions of them. + +591 +00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:53,480 +I've never seen them so close. + +592 +00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:56,760 +Why, it looks as if you could +reach out and touch them. + +593 +00:59:57,280 --> 00:59:59,480 +Would you like me to get you a ha... + +594 +01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:03,280 +Why, what's the matter? + +595 +01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:05,800 +Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. + +596 +01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:10,560 +Come. Let's sit down. + +597 +01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:15,520 +Van Helsing. + +598 +01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:19,520 +Seward. That which I feared +from the beginning has happened. + +599 +01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:20,680 +What? + +600 +01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:24,600 +Dracula boasts that he has fused +his blood with that of Miss Mina. + +601 +01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:27,920 +In life she will now become +the foul thing of the night that he is. + +602 +01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:29,880 +- But Van Helsing... +- Come, Seward. + +603 +01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:31,920 +There's not a moment to be lost. + +604 +01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:35,920 +Oh, but I love the fog! +I love nights with fog. + +605 +01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:39,960 +Well, only yesterday you said +you were afraid of the night. + +606 +01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:44,440 +But, darling, I could never have said +anything so silly! I couldn't! + +607 +01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:48,840 +I love the night. +Why, it's the only time I feel really alive. + +608 +01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:52,640 +- There's that bat again! +- (bat squeaks) + +609 +01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:54,960 +- Yes? +- Shoo! + +610 +01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:57,240 +- Look out. He'll get in your hair. +- (squeaking) + +611 +01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:58,800 +Yes? + +612 +01:01:01,720 --> 01:01:04,040 +- My, that was a big bat. +- (squeaking) + +613 +01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:06,120 +I will. + +614 +01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:10,480 +You will what? + +615 +01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:12,640 +Why, I didn't say anything. + +616 +01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:14,520 +Yes, you did. You said ''I will''. + +617 +01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:16,400 +Oh, no, I didn't. + +618 +01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,080 +John... Come, sit down. + +619 +01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:23,760 +There must be some way, +some way to save her. + +620 +01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:25,440 +There is only one... + +621 +01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:30,520 +(Mina) John, that funny little old +professor... He has a crucifix. + +622 +01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:34,560 +Now I want you to get it +away from him and hide it. + +623 +01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:36,960 +But why, dear? + +624 +01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:39,800 +Oh, he'll be wanting to protect me again - + +625 +01:01:39,880 --> 01:01:43,040 +from the night, or Count Dracula, +or whatever it is. + +626 +01:01:43,120 --> 01:01:46,600 +Well, I don't know. He may be right, Mina. + +627 +01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:53,080 +Your eyes! + +628 +01:01:57,040 --> 01:01:59,200 +They look at me so strangely. + +629 +01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:08,240 +Mina! + +630 +01:02:09,360 --> 01:02:11,720 +- Mina, you're... +- No, Mina, no! + +631 +01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:13,680 +(Mina screams) + +632 +01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:16,720 +Give me that! +What's the idea? Have you gone crazy? + +633 +01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:20,160 +- Are you trying to frighten her to death?! +- No, I was trying to save her. + +634 +01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:22,120 +Save her? That's a fine way! + +635 +01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:24,040 +It's all right, darling. + +636 +01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:27,200 +Oh, John, darling! +You must go away from me! + +637 +01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:29,680 +(wails) + +638 +01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:32,160 +The cross! Put it away! + +639 +01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:35,320 +After what's happened +I can't bear to look at it. + +640 +01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:38,280 +- What's happened? +- I can't tell you. I can't. + +641 +01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:41,520 +But you must. You must tell me. +I have a right to know. + +642 +01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:45,040 +Oh, John... + +643 +01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:48,760 +You can believe everything he says. +It's all the truth. + +644 +01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:51,160 +Dracula, he... + +645 +01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:52,880 +Dracula?! + +646 +01:02:52,960 --> 01:02:55,840 +What's he done to you, dear? Tell me. + +647 +01:02:56,560 --> 01:02:58,760 +He came to me. + +648 +01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:02,600 +He opened a vein in his arm... +and he made me drink. + +649 +01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:04,680 +(gunshot) + +650 +01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:09,480 +What is it? Who is it, Martin? + +651 +01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:12,280 +It's that big grey bat again, sir. + +652 +01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:17,440 +There's no use wasting your bullets, +Martin. They cannot harm that bat. + +653 +01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:22,880 +No, sir. + +654 +01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:26,040 +He's crazy! + +655 +01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:29,120 +They're all crazy. + +656 +01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:32,920 +They're all crazy except you and me. + +657 +01:03:33,000 --> 01:03:35,800 +Sometimes I have me doubts about you. + +658 +01:03:36,920 --> 01:03:38,800 +Yes. + +659 +01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:39,280 +(creaking) + +660 +01:05:23,040 --> 01:05:26,400 +(Harker) That's Renfield! +What's he doing at the abbey? + +661 +01:05:28,920 --> 01:05:30,920 +Come, Mr Harker. + +662 +01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:46,440 +(creaking) + +663 +01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:57,960 +(clanking) + +664 +01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:09,080 +Master! Master, I'm here! + +665 +01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:20,520 +Where else would he be going +but to Dracula? + +666 +01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:27,360 +What is it, master? +What do you want me to do? + +667 +01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:29,560 +Look! Here's an opening. + +668 +01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:35,600 +(Harker) Mina! + +669 +01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:38,080 +Mina! + +670 +01:06:39,320 --> 01:06:43,720 +I didn't lead them here, master! +I didn't know, I swear! + +671 +01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:47,280 +No! No! + +672 +01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:49,360 +(Dracula) Wait! + +673 +01:07:01,320 --> 01:07:03,320 +I'm loyal to you, master. + +674 +01:07:03,680 --> 01:07:06,680 +I'm your slave. I didn't betray you! + +675 +01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:11,920 +Oh, no, don't! Don't kill me! + +676 +01:07:12,000 --> 01:07:13,800 +Let me live, please! + +677 +01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:16,640 +Punish me, torture me, but let me live! + +678 +01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:19,680 +I can't die with all those lives +on my conscience! + +679 +01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:21,880 +All that blood on my hands! + +680 +01:07:21,960 --> 01:07:24,440 +Argh! Argh! + +681 +01:07:44,440 --> 01:07:46,440 +Mina! Mina! + +682 +01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:55,880 +- He'll kill her if we don't get to her! +- (Van Helsing) We must not be too late. + +683 +01:07:57,000 --> 01:08:00,760 +We have him trapped! Day is breaking! +We have him trapped! + +684 +01:08:00,840 --> 01:08:01,760 +(woman screams) + +685 +01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:05,080 +He's killing her! +Mina! Mina, where are you? + +686 +01:08:05,960 --> 01:08:07,960 +Mina! Mina! + +687 +01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:12,000 +Mina, where are you? + +688 +01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:15,320 +Mina? + +689 +01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:19,320 +Mina? + +690 +01:08:20,120 --> 01:08:22,120 +Mina! Mina! + +691 +01:08:24,720 --> 01:08:26,440 +Harker! Harker! + +692 +01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:28,720 +- See her? +- Come. + +693 +01:08:30,480 --> 01:08:32,160 +Where? Where are you? + +694 +01:08:32,240 --> 01:08:34,880 +Here. Here, Harker. I have found them. + +695 +01:09:05,080 --> 01:09:08,040 +Get me a piece of stone - anything - + +696 +01:09:08,120 --> 01:09:11,440 +to help me drive the stake +through their hearts. + +697 +01:09:16,000 --> 01:09:18,000 +(banging) + +698 +01:09:38,600 --> 01:09:41,000 +Is she...? How does she...? + +699 +01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:47,000 +She is not here. + +700 +01:09:47,440 --> 01:09:50,000 +Then... then she may be alive! + +701 +01:09:51,160 --> 01:09:53,160 +Mina! Mina! + +702 +01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:55,680 +Mina! + +703 +01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:01,400 +Mina! + +704 +01:10:01,480 --> 01:10:03,240 +- (hammer blow) +- (groan) + +705 +01:10:03,320 --> 01:10:05,520 +Aarghh... + +706 +01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:11,040 +(groan trails off into silence) + +707 +01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:21,880 +(Mina shrieks) + +708 +01:10:22,240 --> 01:10:23,920 +Mina! + +709 +01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:27,000 +Mina! Mina! + +710 +01:10:28,760 --> 01:10:31,240 +Oh, John! John, darling! + +711 +01:10:33,440 --> 01:10:36,640 +I heard you calling, +but I couldn't say anything. + +712 +01:10:36,720 --> 01:10:38,600 +We thought he'd killed you, dear. + +713 +01:10:38,680 --> 01:10:40,600 +The daylight stopped him. + +714 +01:10:40,680 --> 01:10:42,920 +Oh, if you could have seen +the look on his face! + +715 +01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:46,920 +There's nothing more to fear, Miss Mina. +Dracula is dead for ever. + +716 +01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:48,760 +No, no, no. You must go. + +717 +01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:53,000 +- But aren't you coming with us? +- Not yet. Presently. Come, John. + +718 +01:10:56,480 --> 01:10:58,480 +(church bells) +
+ texts/forsyte.txt view
@@ -0,0 +1,37998 @@+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 MENAGE + +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 + + +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, +June’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 June’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 June’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 June’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’s. +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 June’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 June’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 L500. 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 (L500) 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. + +“June’s not here,” said his father hastily: “went of 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 June’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 fiancee. 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’oeuvre. 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’oeuvre 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. Scole, 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 June’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 naivete” + +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. June’s marriage might depend +on it. Irene could not decently stand in the way of June’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: “June’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 MENAGE + +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 Moliere. + +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 +soiree, 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 we’re +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 +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’oeuvre 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 June’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’ 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....” + +June’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 June’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 charlottes 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’. 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 fiance 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 became the chief glory +of the upper-middle class. He had literally been forced into land +agency. + +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’ 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’ 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 intriguee’—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’ 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 L5000 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’ 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’ 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 (’.bstinacy,’ 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 June’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’ 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 June’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—L12,000. 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 fete 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. + +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 June’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’ 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: + +‘DEAR IRENE, ‘June 30. + +‘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’ 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’ 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 too 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’ 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 June’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 June’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 +June’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 June’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 a 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 +fiancee. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked Phil +to dinner many times; his invariable answer had been ‘Too busy.’ + +Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of this +excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte; in young +Jolyon’s sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege, and merits +description as such. + +She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said was +beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be +found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her +name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with +the Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars—and she never lent her name +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 June’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’ 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’ 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.’. 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’ +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 June’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’ 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 June’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 June’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.’. 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’ 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’ 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, +Felice, 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 June’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 June’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 June’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 June’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 June’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 June’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 manning 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 June’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. + +================= + + + + + + + +titlpage2 (51K) + + + +frontis2 (109K) + + + +THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME II By John Galsworthy + + + +TO ANDRE 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 +protegees,” 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 protegees?” + +“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. + +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 ‘wellbrrred’ +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 moon-light 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 (L145,304 +gross, with liabilities L35 7s. 4d.) he had actually left L15,000 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 siecle, 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 o’ 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 tres distingue,” Madame Lamotte found him; and presently, +“Tres amical, tres 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 proteges! 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 L430 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 a 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 L200 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 clientele,’ 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 +breath 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 moon-light +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 Phoenicians; 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 practice 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.’. 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 cafes 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 +Opera-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 reve! Elle est ton reve! 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—” (’.hat’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 Vivandiere; 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 loney—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 cafe 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! ca—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, + +“June 13. + +“RICHMOND. “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-’.he 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 ‘renter’ +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 tres distinguee!” + +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-la!” + +“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 etes 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 etes ma belle femme.” + +Annette went off into a little fit of laughter. + +“Oh, non!” she said. “Oh, non! ne parlez pas Francais, 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 cafe?” + +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!
+ texts/hamlet.txt view
@@ -0,0 +1,4921 @@+The Tragedie of Hamlet + +Actus Primus. Scoena Prima. + +Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels. + + Barnardo. Who's there? + Fran. Nay answer me: Stand & vnfold +your selfe + + Bar. Long liue the King + + Fran. Barnardo? + Bar. He + + Fran. You come most carefully vpon your houre + + Bar. 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed Francisco + + Fran. For this releefe much thankes: 'Tis bitter cold, +And I am sicke at heart + + Barn. Haue you had quiet Guard? + Fran. Not a Mouse stirring + + Barn. Well, goodnight. If you do meet Horatio and +Marcellus, the Riuals of my Watch, bid them make hast. +Enter Horatio and Marcellus. + + Fran. I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there? + Hor. Friends to this ground + + Mar. And Leige-men to the Dane + + Fran. Giue you good night + + Mar. O farwel honest Soldier, who hath relieu'd you? + Fra. Barnardo ha's my place: giue you goodnight. + +Exit Fran. + + Mar. Holla Barnardo + + Bar. Say, what is Horatio there? + Hor. A peece of him + + Bar. Welcome Horatio, welcome good Marcellus + + Mar. What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to night + + Bar. I haue seene nothing + + Mar. Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie, +And will not let beleefe take hold of him +Touching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs, +Therefore I haue intreated him along +With vs, to watch the minutes of this Night, +That if againe this Apparition come, +He may approue our eyes, and speake to it + + Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare + + Bar. Sit downe a-while, +And let vs once againe assaile your eares, +That are so fortified against our Story, +What we two Nights haue seene + + Hor. Well, sit we downe, +And let vs heare Barnardo speake of this + + Barn. Last night of all, +When yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole +Had made his course t' illume that part of Heauen +Where now it burnes, Marcellus and my selfe, +The Bell then beating one + + Mar. Peace, breake thee of: +Enter the Ghost. + +Looke where it comes againe + + Barn. In the same figure, like the King that's dead + + Mar. Thou art a Scholler; speake to it Horatio + + Barn. Lookes it not like the King? Marke it Horatio + + Hora. Most like: It harrowes me with fear & wonder + Barn. It would be spoke too + + Mar. Question it Horatio + + Hor. What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night, +Together with that Faire and Warlike forme +In which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke +Did sometimes march: By Heauen I charge thee speake + + Mar. It is offended + + Barn. See, it stalkes away + + Hor. Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake. + +Exit the Ghost. + + Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer + + Barn. How now Horatio? You tremble & look pale: +Is not this something more then Fantasie? +What thinke you on't? + Hor. Before my God, I might not this beleeue +Without the sensible and true auouch +Of mine owne eyes + + Mar. Is it not like the King? + Hor. As thou art to thy selfe, +Such was the very Armour he had on, +When th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: +So frown'd he once, when in an angry parle +He smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice. +'Tis strange + + Mar. Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre, +With Martiall stalke, hath he gone by our Watch + + Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not: +But in the grosse and scope of my Opinion, +This boades some strange erruption to our State + + Mar. Good now sit downe, & tell me he that knowes +Why this same strict and most obseruant Watch, +So nightly toyles the subiect of the Land, +And why such dayly Cast of Brazon Cannon +And Forraigne Mart for Implements of warre: +Why such impresse of Ship-wrights, whose sore Taske +Do's not diuide the Sunday from the weeke, +What might be toward, that this sweaty hast +Doth make the Night ioynt-Labourer with the day: +Who is't that can informe me? + Hor. That can I, +At least the whisper goes so: Our last King, +Whose Image euen but now appear'd to vs, +Was (as you know) by Fortinbras of Norway, +(Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate Pride) +Dar'd to the Combate. In which, our Valiant Hamlet, +(For so this side of our knowne world esteem'd him) +Did slay this Fortinbras: who by a Seal'd Compact, +Well ratified by Law, and Heraldrie, +Did forfeite (with his life) all those his Lands +Which he stood seiz'd on, to the Conqueror: +Against the which, a Moity competent +Was gaged by our King: which had return'd +To the Inheritance of Fortinbras, +Had he bin Vanquisher, as by the same Cou'nant +And carriage of the Article designe, +His fell to Hamlet. Now sir, young Fortinbras, +Of vnimproued Mettle, hot and full, +Hath in the skirts of Norway, heere and there, +Shark'd vp a List of Landlesse Resolutes, +For Foode and Diet, to some Enterprize +That hath a stomacke in't: which is no other +(And it doth well appeare vnto our State) +But to recouer of vs by strong hand +And termes Compulsatiue, those foresaid Lands +So by his Father lost: and this (I take it) +Is the maine Motiue of our Preparations, +The Sourse of this our Watch, and the cheefe head +Of this post-hast, and Romage in the Land. +Enter Ghost againe. + +But soft, behold: Loe, where it comes againe: +Ile crosse it, though it blast me. Stay Illusion: +If thou hast any sound, or vse of Voyce, +Speake to me. If there be any good thing to be done, +That may to thee do ease, and grace to me; speak to me. +If thou art priuy to thy Countries Fate +(Which happily foreknowing may auoyd) Oh speake. +Or, if thou hast vp-hoorded in thy life +Extorted Treasure in the wombe of Earth, +(For which, they say, you Spirits oft walke in death) +Speake of it. Stay, and speake. Stop it Marcellus + + Mar. Shall I strike at it with my Partizan? + Hor. Do, if it will not stand + + Barn. 'Tis heere + + Hor. 'Tis heere + + Mar. 'Tis gone. + +Exit Ghost. + +We do it wrong, being so Maiesticall +To offer it the shew of Violence, +For it is as the Ayre, invulnerable, +And our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery + + Barn. It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew + + Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing +Vpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard, +The Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day, +Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate +Awake the God of Day: and at his warning, +Whether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre, +Th' extrauagant, and erring Spirit, hyes +To his Confine. And of the truth heerein, +This present Obiect made probation + + Mar. It faded on the crowing of the Cocke. +Some sayes, that euer 'gainst that Season comes +Wherein our Sauiours Birch is celebrated, +The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long: +And then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad, +The nights are wholsome, then no Planets strike, +No Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme: +So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time + + Hor. So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it. +But looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad, +Walkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill, +Breake we our Watch vp, and by my aduice +Let vs impart what we haue seene to night +Vnto yong Hamlet. For vpon my life, +This Spirit dumbe to vs, will speake to him: +Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, +As needfull in our Loues, fitting our Duty? + Mar. Let do't I pray, and I this morning know +Where we shall finde him most conueniently. + +Exeunt. + +Scena Secunda. + +Enter Claudius King of Denmarke, Gertrude the Queene, Hamlet, +Polonius, +Laertes, and his Sister Ophelia, Lords Attendant. + + King. Though yet of Hamlet our deere Brothers death +The memory be greene: and that it vs befitted +To beare our hearts in greefe, and our whole Kingdome +To be contracted in one brow of woe: +Yet so farre hath Discretion fought with Nature, +That we with wisest sorrow thinke on him, +Together with remembrance of our selues. +Therefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queene, +Th' imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State, +Haue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy, +With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye, +With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage, +In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole +Taken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd +Your better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone +With this affaire along, for all our Thankes. +Now followes, that you know young Fortinbras, +Holding a weake supposall of our worth; +Or thinking by our late deere Brothers death, +Our State to be disioynt, and out of Frame, +Colleagued with the dreame of his Aduantage; +He hath not fayl'd to pester vs with Message, +Importing the surrender of those Lands +Lost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law +To our most valiant Brother. So much for him. +Enter Voltemand and Cornelius. + +Now for our selfe, and for this time of meeting +Thus much the businesse is. We haue heere writ +To Norway, Vncle of young Fortinbras, +Who Impotent and Bedrid, scarsely heares +Of this his Nephewes purpose, to suppresse +His further gate heerein. In that the Leuies, +The Lists, and full proportions are all made +Out of his subiect: and we heere dispatch +You good Cornelius, and you Voltemand, +For bearing of this greeting to old Norway, +Giuing to you no further personall power +To businesse with the King, more then the scope +Of these dilated Articles allow: +Farewell, and let your hast commend your duty + + Volt. In that, and all things, will we shew our duty + + King. We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell. + +Exit Voltemand and Cornelius. + +And now Laertes, what's the newes with you? +You told vs of some suite. What is't Laertes? +You cannot speake of Reason to the Dane, +And loose your voyce. What would'st thou beg Laertes, +That shall not be my Offer, not thy Asking? +The Head is not more Natiue to the Heart, +The Hand more instrumentall to the Mouth, +Then is the Throne of Denmarke to thy Father. +What would'st thou haue Laertes? + Laer. Dread my Lord, +Your leaue and fauour to returne to France, +From whence, though willingly I came to Denmarke +To shew my duty in your Coronation, +Yet now I must confesse, that duty done, +My thoughts and wishes bend againe towards France, +And bow them to your gracious leaue and pardon + + King. Haue you your Fathers leaue? +What sayes Pollonius? + Pol. He hath my Lord: +I do beseech you giue him leaue to go + + King. Take thy faire houre Laertes, time be thine, +And thy best graces spend it at thy will: +But now my Cosin Hamlet, and my Sonne? + Ham. A little more then kin, and lesse then kinde + + King. How is it that the Clouds still hang on you? + Ham. Not so my Lord, I am too much i'th' Sun + + Queen. Good Hamlet cast thy nightly colour off, +And let thine eye looke like a Friend on Denmarke. +Do not for euer with thy veyled lids +Seeke for thy Noble Father in the dust; +Thou know'st 'tis common, all that liues must dye, +Passing through Nature, to Eternity + + Ham. I Madam, it is common + + Queen. If it be; +Why seemes it so particular with thee + + Ham. Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes: +'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother) +Nor Customary suites of solemne Blacke, +Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, +No, nor the fruitfull Riuer in the Eye, +Nor the deiected hauiour of the Visage, +Together with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe, +That can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme, +For they are actions that a man might play: +But I haue that Within, which passeth show; +These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe + + King. 'Tis sweet and commendable +In your Nature Hamlet, +To giue these mourning duties to your Father: +But you must know, your Father lost a Father, +That Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound +In filiall Obligation, for some terme +To do obsequious Sorrow. But to perseuer +In obstinate Condolement, is a course +Of impious stubbornnesse. 'Tis vnmanly greefe, +It shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen, +A Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient, +An Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd: +For, what we know must be, and is as common +As any the most vulgar thing to sence, +Why should we in our peeuish Opposition +Take it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen, +A fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature, +To Reason most absurd, whose common Theame +Is death of Fathers, and who still hath cried, +From the first Coarse, till he that dyed to day, +This must be so. We pray you throw to earth +This vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs +As of a Father; For let the world take note, +You are the most immediate to our Throne, +And with no lesse Nobility of Loue, +Then that which deerest Father beares his Sonne, +Do I impart towards you. For your intent +In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg, +It is most retrograde to our desire: +And we beseech you, bend you to remaine +Heere in the cheere and comfort of our eye, +Our cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne + + Qu. Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers Hamlet: +I prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg + + Ham. I shall in all my best +Obey you Madam + + King. Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply, +Be as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come, +This gentle and vnforc'd accord of Hamlet +Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, +No iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day, +But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell, +And the Kings Rouce, the Heauens shall bruite againe, +Respeaking earthly Thunder. Come away. + +Exeunt. + +Manet Hamlet. + + Ham. Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would melt, +Thaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew: +Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt +His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O God, O God! +How weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable +Seemes to me all the vses of this world? +Fie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden +That growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in Nature +Possesse it meerely. That it should come to this: +But two months dead: Nay, not so much; not two, +So excellent a King, that was to this +Hiperion to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother, +That he might not beteene the windes of heauen +Visit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth +Must I remember: why she would hang on him, +As if encrease of Appetite had growne +By what is fed on; and yet within a month? +Let me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman. +A little Month, or ere those shooes were old, +With which she followed my poore Fathers body +Like Niobe, all teares. Why she, euen she. +(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse of Reason +Would haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle, +My Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father, +Then I to Hercules. Within a Moneth? +Ere yet the salt of most vnrighteous Teares +Had left the flushing of her gauled eyes, +She married. O most wicked speed, to post +With such dexterity to Incestuous sheets: +It is not, nor it cannot come to good. +But breake my heart, for I must hold my tongue. +Enter Horatio, Barnardo, and Marcellus. + + Hor. Haile to your Lordship + + Ham. I am glad to see you well: +Horatio, or I do forget my selfe + + Hor. The same my Lord, +And your poore Seruant euer + + Ham. Sir my good friend, +Ile change that name with you: +And what make you from Wittenberg Horatio? +Marcellus + + Mar. My good Lord + + Ham. I am very glad to see you: good euen Sir. +But what in faith make you from Wittemberge? + Hor. A truant disposition, good my Lord + + Ham. I would not haue your Enemy say so; +Nor shall you doe mine eare that violence, +To make it truster of your owne report +Against your selfe. I know you are no Truant: +But what is your affaire in Elsenour? +Wee'l teach you to drinke deepe, ere you depart + + Hor. My Lord, I came to see your Fathers Funerall + + Ham. I pray thee doe not mock me (fellow Student) +I thinke it was to see my Mothers Wedding + + Hor. Indeed my Lord, it followed hard vpon + + Ham. Thrift thrift Horatio: the Funerall Bakt-meats +Did coldly furnish forth the Marriage Tables; +Would I had met my dearest foe in heauen, +Ere I had euer seene that day Horatio. +My father, me thinkes I see my father + + Hor. Oh where my Lord? + Ham. In my minds eye (Horatio) + Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly King + + Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all: +I shall not look vpon his like againe + + Hor. My Lord, I thinke I saw him yesternight + + Ham. Saw? Who? + Hor. My Lord, the King your Father + + Ham. The King my Father? + Hor. Season your admiration for a while +With an attent eare; till I may deliuer +Vpon the witnesse of these Gentlemen, +This maruell to you + + Ham. For Heauens loue let me heare + + Hor. Two nights together, had these Gentlemen +(Marcellus and Barnardo) on their Watch +In the dead wast and middle of the night +Beene thus encountred. A figure like your Father, +Arm'd at all points exactly, Cap a Pe, +Appeares before them, and with sollemne march +Goes slow and stately: By them thrice he walkt, +By their opprest and feare-surprized eyes, +Within his Truncheons length; whilst they bestil'd +Almost to Ielly with the Act of feare, +Stand dumbe and speake not to him. This to me +In dreadfull secrecie impart they did, +And I with them the third Night kept the Watch, +Whereas they had deliuer'd both in time, +Forme of the thing; each word made true and good, +The Apparition comes. I knew your Father: +These hands are not more like + + Ham. But where was this? + Mar. My Lord vpon the platforme where we watcht + + Ham. Did you not speake to it? + Hor. My Lord, I did; +But answere made it none: yet once me thought +It lifted vp it head, and did addresse +It selfe to motion, like as it would speake: +But euen then, the Morning Cocke crew lowd; +And at the sound it shrunke in hast away, +And vanisht from our sight + + Ham. Tis very strange + + Hor. As I doe liue my honourd Lord 'tis true; +And we did thinke it writ downe in our duty +To let you know of it + + Ham. Indeed, indeed Sirs; but this troubles me. +Hold you the watch to Night? + Both. We doe my Lord + + Ham. Arm'd, say you? + Both. Arm'd, my Lord + + Ham. From top to toe? + Both. My Lord, from head to foote + + Ham. Then saw you not his face? + Hor. O yes, my Lord, he wore his Beauer vp + + Ham. What, lookt he frowningly? + Hor. A countenance more in sorrow then in anger + + Ham. Pale, or red? + Hor. Nay very pale + + Ham. And fixt his eyes vpon you? + Hor. Most constantly + + Ham. I would I had beene there + + Hor. It would haue much amaz'd you + + Ham. Very like, very like: staid it long? + Hor. While one with moderate hast might tell a hundred + + All. Longer, longer + + Hor. Not when I saw't + + Ham. His Beard was grisly? no + + Hor. It was, as I haue seene it in his life, +A Sable Siluer'd + + Ham. Ile watch to Night; perchance 'twill wake againe + + Hor. I warrant you it will + + Ham. If it assume my noble Fathers person, +Ile speake to it, though Hell it selfe should gape +And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, +If you haue hitherto conceald this sight; +Let it bee treble in your silence still: +And whatsoeuer els shall hap to night, +Giue it an vnderstanding but no tongue; +I will requite your loues; so fare ye well: +Vpon the Platforme twixt eleuen and twelue, +Ile visit you + + All. Our duty to your Honour. + +Exeunt + + Ham. Your loue, as mine to you: farewell. +My Fathers Spirit in Armes? All is not well: +I doubt some foule play: would the Night were come; +Till then sit still my soule; foule deeds will rise, +Though all the earth orewhelm them to mens eies. +Enter. + + +Scena Tertia + + +Enter Laertes and Ophelia. + + Laer. My necessaries are imbark't; Farewell: +And Sister, as the Winds giue Benefit, +And Conuoy is assistant; doe not sleepe, +But let me heare from you + + Ophel. Doe you doubt that? + Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his fauours, +Hold it a fashion and a toy in Bloude; +A Violet in the youth of Primy Nature; +Froward, not permanent; sweet not lasting +The suppliance of a minute? No more + + Ophel. No more but so + + Laer. Thinke it no more: +For nature cressant does not grow alone, +In thewes and Bulke: but as his Temple waxes, +The inward seruice of the Minde and Soule +Growes wide withall. Perhaps he loues you now, +And now no soyle nor cautell doth besmerch +The vertue of his feare: but you must feare +His greatnesse weigh'd, his will is not his owne; +For hee himselfe is subiect to his Birth: +Hee may not, as vnuallued persons doe, +Carue for himselfe; for, on his choyce depends +The sanctity and health of the whole State. +And therefore must his choyce be circumscrib'd +Vnto the voyce and yeelding of that Body, +Whereof he is the Head. Then if he sayes he loues you, +It fits your wisedome so farre to beleeue it; +As he in his peculiar Sect and force +May giue his saying deed: which is no further, +Then the maine voyce of Denmarke goes withall. +Then weight what losse your Honour may sustaine, +If with too credent eare you list his Songs; +Or lose your Heart; or your chast Treasure open +To his vnmastred importunity. +Feare it Ophelia, feare it my deare Sister, +And keepe within the reare of your Affection; +Out of the shot and danger of Desire. +The chariest Maid is Prodigall enough, +If she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone: +Vertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes, +The Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring +Too oft before the buttons be disclos'd, +And in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth, +Contagious blastments are most imminent. +Be wary then, best safety lies in feare; +Youth to it selfe rebels, though none else neere + + Ophe. I shall th' effect of this good Lesson keepe, +As watchmen to my heart: but good my Brother +Doe not as some vngracious Pastors doe, +Shew me the steepe and thorny way to Heauen; +Whilst like a puft and recklesse Libertine +Himselfe, the Primrose path of dalliance treads, +And reaks not his owne reade + + Laer. Oh, feare me not. +Enter Polonius. + +I stay too long; but here my Father comes: +A double blessing is a double grace; +Occasion smiles vpon a second leaue + + Polon. Yet heere Laertes? Aboord, aboord for shame, +The winde sits in the shoulder of your saile, +And you are staid for there: my blessing with you; +And these few Precepts in thy memory, +See thou Character. Giue thy thoughts no tongue, +Nor any vnproportion'd thoughts his Act: +Be thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar: +The friends thou hast, and their adoption tride, +Grapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele: +But doe not dull thy palme, with entertainment +Of each vnhatch't, vnfledg'd Comrade. Beware +Of entrance to a quarrell: but being in +Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. +Giue euery man thine eare; but few thy voyce: +Take each mans censure; but reserue thy iudgement: +Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy; +But not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie: +For the Apparell oft proclaimes the man. +And they in France of the best ranck and station, +Are of a most select and generous cheff in that. +Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; +For lone oft loses both it selfe and friend: +And borrowing duls the edge of Husbandry. +This aboue all; to thine owne selfe be true: +And it must follow, as the Night the Day, +Thou canst not then be false to any man. +Farewell: my Blessing season this in thee + + Laer. Most humbly doe I take my leaue, my Lord + + Polon. The time inuites you, goe, your seruants tend + + Laer. Farewell Ophelia, and remember well +What I haue said to you + + Ophe. Tis in my memory lockt, +And you your selfe shall keepe the key of it + + Laer. Farewell. + +Exit Laer. + + Polon. What ist Ophelia he hath said to you? + Ophe. So please you, somthing touching the L[ord]. Hamlet + + Polon. Marry, well bethought: +Tis told me he hath very oft of late +Giuen priuate time to you; and you your selfe +Haue of your audience beene most free and bounteous. +If it be so, as so tis put on me; +And that in way of caution: I must tell you, +You doe not vnderstand your selfe so cleerely, +As it behoues my Daughter, and your Honour. +What is betweene you, giue me vp the truth? + Ophe. He hath my Lord of late, made many tenders +Of his affection to me + + Polon. Affection, puh. You speake like a greene Girle, +Vnsifted in such perillous Circumstance. +Doe you beleeue his tenders, as you call them? + Ophe. I do not know, my Lord, what I should thinke + + Polon. Marry Ile teach you; thinke your selfe a Baby, +That you haue tane his tenders for true pay, +Which are not starling. Tender your selfe more dearly; +Or not to crack the winde of the poore Phrase, +Roaming it thus, you'l tender me a foole + + Ophe. My Lord, he hath importun'd me with loue, +In honourable fashion + + Polon. I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too + + Ophe. And hath giuen countenance to his speech, +My Lord, with all the vowes of Heauen + + Polon. I, Springes to catch Woodcocks. I doe know +When the Bloud burnes, how Prodigall the Soule +Giues the tongue vowes: these blazes, Daughter, +Giuing more light then heate; extinct in both, +Euen in their promise, as it is a making; +You must not take for fire. For this time Daughter, +Be somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence; +Set your entreatments at a higher rate, +Then a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, +Beleeue so much in him, that he is young, +And with a larger tether may he walke, +Then may be giuen you. In few, Ophelia, +Doe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers, +Not of the eye, which their Inuestments show: +But meere implorators of vnholy Sutes, +Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds, +The better to beguile. This is for all: +I would not, in plaine tearmes, from this time forth, +Haue you so slander any moment leisure, +As to giue words or talke with the Lord Hamlet: +Looke too't, I charge you; come your wayes + + Ophe. I shall obey my Lord. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus. + + Ham. The Ayre bites shrewdly: is it very cold? + Hor. It is a nipping and an eager ayre + + Ham. What hower now? + Hor. I thinke it lacks of twelue + + Mar. No, it is strooke + + Hor. Indeed I heard it not: then it drawes neere the season, +Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke. +What does this meane my Lord? + Ham. The King doth wake to night, and takes his rouse, +Keepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles, +And as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe, +The kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out +The triumph of his Pledge + + Horat. Is it a custome? + Ham. I marry ist; +And to my mind, though I am natiue heere, +And to the manner borne: It is a Custome +More honour'd in the breach, then the obseruance. +Enter Ghost. + + Hor. Looke my Lord, it comes + + Ham. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs: +Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd, +Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell, +Be thy euents wicked or charitable, +Thou com'st in such a questionable shape +That I will speake to thee. Ile call thee Hamlet, +King, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me, +Let me not burst in Ignorance; but tell +Why thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed in death, +Haue burst their cerments, why the Sepulcher +Wherein we saw thee quietly enurn'd, +Hath op'd his ponderous and Marble iawes, +To cast thee vp againe? What may this meane? +That thou dead Coarse againe in compleat steele, +Reuisits thus the glimpses of the Moone, +Making Night hidious? And we fooles of Nature, +So horridly to shake our disposition, +With thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules, +Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we doe? + +Ghost beckens Hamlet. + + Hor. It beckons you to goe away with it, +As if it some impartment did desire +To you alone + + Mar. Looke with what courteous action +It wafts you to a more remoued ground: +But doe not goe with it + + Hor. No, by no meanes + + Ham. It will not speake: then will I follow it + + Hor. Doe not my Lord + + Ham. Why, what should be the feare? +I doe not set my life at a pins fee; +And for my Soule, what can it doe to that? +Being a thing immortall as it selfe: +It waues me forth againe; Ile follow it + + Hor. What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord? +Or to the dreadfull Sonnet of the Cliffe, +That beetles o're his base into the Sea, +And there assumes some other horrible forme, +Which might depriue your Soueraignty of Reason, +And draw you into madnesse thinke of it? + Ham. It wafts me still: goe on, Ile follow thee + + Mar. You shall not goe my Lord + + Ham. Hold off your hand + + Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not goe + + Ham. My fate cries out, +And makes each petty Artire in this body, +As hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue: +Still am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen: +By Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me: +I say away, goe on, Ile follow thee. + +Exeunt. Ghost & Hamlet. + + Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination + + Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him + + Hor. Haue after, to what issue will this come? + Mar. Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke + + Hor. Heauen will direct it + + Mar. Nay, let's follow him. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Ghost and Hamlet. + + Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further + + Gho. Marke me + + Ham. I will + + Gho. My hower is almost come, +When I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames +Must render vp my selfe + + Ham. Alas poore Ghost + + Gho. Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing +To what I shall vnfold + + Ham. Speake, I am bound to heare + + Gho. So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare + + Ham. What? + Gho. I am thy Fathers Spirit, +Doom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night; +And for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers, +Till the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature +Are burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid +To tell the secrets of my Prison-House; +I could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word +Would harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood, +Make thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres, +Thy knotty and combined lockes to part, +And each particular haire to stand an end, +Like Quilles vpon the fretfull Porpentine: +But this eternall blason must not be +To eares of flesh and bloud; list Hamlet, oh list, +If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue + + Ham. Oh Heauen! + Gho. Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther + + Ham. Murther? + Ghost. Murther most foule, as in the best it is; +But this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall + + Ham. Hast, hast me to know it, +That with wings as swift +As meditation, or the thoughts of Loue, +May sweepe to my Reuenge + + Ghost. I finde thee apt, +And duller should'st thou be then the fat weede +That rots it selfe in ease, on Lethe Wharfe, +Would'st thou not stirre in this. Now Hamlet heare: +It's giuen out, that sleeping in mine Orchard, +A Serpent stung me: so the whole eare of Denmarke, +Is by a forged processe of my death +Rankly abus'd: But know thou Noble youth, +The Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life, +Now weares his Crowne + + Ham. O my Propheticke soule: mine Vncle? + Ghost. I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast +With witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts. +Oh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power +So to seduce? Won to this shamefull Lust +The will of my most seeming vertuous Queene: +Oh Hamlet, what a falling off was there, +From me, whose loue was of that dignity, +That it went hand in hand, euen with the Vow +I made to her in Marriage; and to decline +Vpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore +To those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued, +Though Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen: +So Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd, +Will sate it selfe in a Celestiall bed, & prey on Garbage. +But soft, me thinkes I sent the Mornings Ayre; +Briefe let me be: Sleeping within mine Orchard, +My custome alwayes in the afternoone; +Vpon my secure hower thy Vncle stole +With iuyce of cursed Hebenon in a Violl, +And in the Porches of mine eares did poure +The leaperous Distilment; whose effect +Holds such an enmity with bloud of Man, +That swift as Quick-siluer, it courses through +The naturall Gates and Allies of the body; +And with a sodaine vigour it doth posset +And curd, like Aygre droppings into Milke, +The thin and wholsome blood: so did it mine; +And a most instant Tetter bak'd about, +Most Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, +All my smooth Body. +Thus was I, sleeping, by a Brothers hand, +Of Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht; +Cut off euen in the Blossomes of my Sinne, +Vnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld, +No reckoning made, but sent to my account +With all my imperfections on my head; +Oh horrible Oh horrible, most horrible: +If thou hast nature in thee beare it not; +Let not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be +A Couch for Luxury and damned Incest. +But howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act, +Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue +Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen, +And to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge, +To pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once; +The Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere, +And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire: +Adue, adue, Hamlet: remember me. +Enter. + + Ham. Oh all you host of Heauen! Oh Earth; what els? +And shall I couple Hell? Oh fie: hold my heart; +And you my sinnewes, grow not instant Old; +But beare me stiffely vp: Remember thee? +I, thou poore Ghost, while memory holds a seate +In this distracted Globe: Remember thee? +Yea, from the Table of my Memory, +Ile wipe away all triuiall fond Records, +All sawes of Bookes, all formes, all presures past, +That youth and obseruation coppied there; +And thy Commandment all alone shall liue +Within the Booke and Volume of my Braine, +Vnmixt with baser matter; yes yes, by Heauen: +Oh most pernicious woman! +Oh Villaine, Villaine, smiling damned Villaine! +My Tables, my Tables; meet it is I set it downe, +That one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine; +At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmarke; +So Vnckle there you are: now to my word; +It is; Adue, Adue, Remember me: I haue sworn't + + Hor. & Mar. within. My Lord, my Lord. +Enter Horatio and Marcellus. + + Mar. Lord Hamlet + + Hor. Heauen secure him + + Mar. So be it + + Hor. Illo, ho, ho, my Lord + + Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come bird, come + + Mar. How ist my Noble Lord? + Hor. What newes, my Lord? + Ham. Oh wonderfull! + Hor. Good my Lord tell it + + Ham. No you'l reueale it + + Hor. Not I, my Lord, by Heauen + + Mar. Nor I, my Lord + + Ham. How say you then, would heart of man once think it? +But you'l be secret? + Both. I, by Heau'n, my Lord + + Ham. There's nere a villaine dwelling in all Denmarke +But hee's an arrant knaue + + Hor. There needs no Ghost my Lord, come from the +Graue, to tell vs this + + Ham. Why right, you are i'th' right; +And so, without more circumstance at all, +I hold it fit that we shake hands, and part: +You, as your busines and desires shall point you: +For euery man ha's businesse and desire, +Such as it is: and for mine owne poore part, +Looke you, Ile goe pray + + Hor. These are but wild and hurling words, my Lord + + Ham. I'm sorry they offend you heartily: +Yes faith, heartily + + Hor. There's no offence my Lord + + Ham. Yes, by Saint Patricke, but there is my Lord, +And much offence too, touching this Vision heere: +It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you: +For your desire to know what is betweene vs, +O'remaster't as you may. And now good friends, +As you are Friends, Schollers and Soldiers, +Giue me one poore request + + Hor. What is't my Lord? we will + + Ham. Neuer make known what you haue seen to night + + Both. My Lord, we will not + + Ham. Nay, but swear't + + Hor. Infaith my Lord, not I + + Mar. Nor I my Lord: in faith + + Ham. Vpon my sword + + Marcell. We haue sworne my Lord already + + Ham. Indeed, vpon my sword, Indeed + + Gho. Sweare. + +Ghost cries vnder the Stage. + + Ham. Ah ha boy, sayest thou so. Art thou there truepenny? +Come one you here this fellow in the selleredge +Consent to sweare + + Hor. Propose the Oath my Lord + + Ham. Neuer to speake of this that you haue seene. +Sweare by my sword + + Gho. Sweare + + Ham. Hic & vbique? Then wee'l shift for grownd, +Come hither Gentlemen, +And lay your hands againe vpon my sword, +Neuer to speake of this that you haue heard: +Sweare by my Sword + + Gho. Sweare + + Ham. Well said old Mole, can'st worke i'th' ground so fast? +A worthy Pioner, once more remoue good friends + + Hor. Oh day and night: but this is wondrous strange + + Ham. And therefore as a stranger giue it welcome. +There are more things in Heauen and Earth, Horatio, +Then are dream't of in our Philosophy. But come, +Here as before, neuer so helpe you mercy, +How strange or odde so ere I beare my selfe; +(As I perchance heereafter shall thinke meet +To put an Anticke disposition on:) +That you at such time seeing me, neuer shall +With Armes encombred thus, or thus, head shake; +Or by pronouncing of some doubtfull Phrase; +As well, we know, or we could and if we would, +Or if we list to speake; or there be and if there might, +Or such ambiguous giuing out to note, +That you know ought of me; this not to doe: +So grace and mercy at your most neede helpe you: +Sweare + + Ghost. Sweare + + Ham. Rest, rest perturbed Spirit: so Gentlemen, +With all my loue I doe commend me to you; +And what so poore a man as Hamlet is, +May doe t' expresse his loue and friending to you, +God willing shall not lacke: let vs goe in together, +And still your fingers on your lippes I pray, +The time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight, +That euer I was borne to set it right. +Nay, come let's goe together. + +Exeunt. + + +Actus Secundus. + +Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo. + + Polon. Giue him his money, and these notes Reynoldo + + Reynol. I will my Lord + + Polon. You shall doe maruels wisely: good Reynoldo, +Before you visite him you make inquiry +Of his behauiour + + Reynol. My Lord, I did intend it + + Polon. Marry, well said; +Very well said. Looke you Sir, +Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; +And how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe: +What company, at what expence: and finding +By this encompassement and drift of question, +That they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer +Then your particular demands will touch it, +Take you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him, +And thus I know his father and his friends, +And in part him. Doe you marke this Reynoldo? + Reynol. I, very well my Lord + + Polon. And in part him, but you may say not well; +But if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde; +Addicted so and so; and there put on him +What forgeries you please; marry, none so ranke, +As may dishonour him; take heed of that: +But Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips, +As are Companions noted and most knowne +To youth and liberty + + Reynol. As gaming my Lord + + Polon. I, or drinking, fencing, swearing, +Quarelling, drabbing. You may goe so farre + + Reynol. My Lord that would dishonour him + + Polon. Faith no, as you may season it in the charge; +You must not put another scandall on him, +That hee is open to Incontinencie; +That's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly, +That they may seeme the taints of liberty; +The flash and out-breake of a fiery minde, +A sauagenes in vnreclaim'd bloud of generall assault + + Reynol. But my good Lord + + Polon. Wherefore should you doe this? + Reynol. I my Lord, I would know that + + Polon. Marry Sir, heere's my drift, +And I belieue it is a fetch of warrant: +You laying these slight sulleyes on my Sonne, +As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th' working: +Marke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound, +Hauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes, +The youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd +He closes with you in this consequence: +Good sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman. +According to the Phrase and the Addition, +Of man and Country + + Reynol. Very good my Lord + + Polon. And then Sir does he this? +He does: what was I about to say? +I was about say somthing: where did I leaue? + Reynol. At closes in the consequence: +At friend, or so, and Gentleman + + Polon. At closes in the consequence, I marry, +He closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman, +I saw him yesterday, or tother day; +Or then or then, with such and such; and as you say, +There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse, +There falling out at Tennis; or perchance, +I saw him enter such a house of saile; +Videlicet, a Brothell, or so forth. See you now; +Your bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth; +And thus doe we of wisedome and of reach +With windlesses, and with assaies of Bias, +By indirections finde directions out: +So by my former Lecture and aduice +Shall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not? + Reynol. My Lord I haue + + Polon. God buy you; fare you well + + Reynol. Good my Lord + + Polon. Obserue his inclination in your selfe + + Reynol. I shall my Lord + + Polon. And let him plye his Musicke + + Reynol. Well, my Lord. +Enter. + +Enter Ophelia. + + Polon. Farewell: +How now Ophelia, what's the matter? + Ophe. Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted + + Polon. With what, in the name of Heauen? + Ophe. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber, +Lord Hamlet with his doublet all vnbrac'd, +No hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd, +Vngartred, and downe giued to his Anckle, +Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, +And with a looke so pitious in purport, +As if he had been loosed out of hell, +To speake of horrors: he comes before me + + Polon. Mad for thy Loue? + Ophe. My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it + + Polon. What said he? + Ophe. He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard; +Then goes he to the length of all his arme; +And with his other hand thus o're his brow, +He fals to such perusall of my face, +As he would draw it. Long staid he so, +At last, a little shaking of mine Arme: +And thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe; +He rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound, +That it did seeme to shatter all his bulke, +And end his being. That done, he lets me goe, +And with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd, +He seem'd to finde his way without his eyes, +For out adores he went without their helpe; +And to the last, bended their light on me + + Polon. Goe with me, I will goe seeke the King, +This is the very extasie of Loue, +Whose violent property foredoes it selfe, +And leads the will to desperate Vndertakings, +As oft as any passion vnder Heauen, +That does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie, +What haue you giuen him any hard words of late? + Ophe. No my good Lord: but as you did command, +I did repell his Letters, and deny'de +His accesse to me + + Pol. That hath made him mad. +I am sorrie that with better speed and iudgement +I had not quoted him. I feare he did but trifle, +And meant to wracke thee: but beshrew my iealousie: +It seemes it is as proper to our Age, +To cast beyond our selues in our Opinions, +As it is common for the yonger sort +To lacke discretion. Come, go we to the King, +This must be knowne, being kept close might moue +More greefe to hide, then hate to vtter loue. + +Exeunt. + + +Scena Secunda. + +Enter King, Queene, Rosincrane, and Guildensterne Cum alijs. + + King. Welcome deere Rosincrance and Guildensterne. +Moreouer, that we much did long to see you, +The neede we haue to vse you, did prouoke +Our hastie sending. Something haue you heard +Of Hamlets transformation: so I call it, +Since not th' exterior, nor the inward man +Resembles that it was. What it should bee +More then his Fathers death, that thus hath put him +So much from th' vnderstanding of himselfe, +I cannot deeme of. I intreat you both, +That being of so young dayes brought vp with him: +And since so Neighbour'd to his youth, and humour, +That you vouchsafe your rest heere in our Court +Some little time: so by your Companies +To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather +So much as from Occasions you may gleane, +That open'd lies within our remedie + + Qu. Good Gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you, +And sure I am, two men there are not liuing, +To whom he more adheres. If it will please you +To shew vs so much Gentrie, and good will, +As to expend your time with vs a-while, +For the supply and profit of our Hope, +Your Visitation shall receiue such thankes +As fits a Kings remembrance + + Rosin. Both your Maiesties +Might by the Soueraigne power you haue of vs, +Put your dread pleasures, more into Command +Then to Entreatie + + Guil. We both obey, +And here giue vp our selues, in the full bent, +To lay our Seruices freely at your feete, +To be commanded + + King. Thankes Rosincrance, and gentle Guildensterne + + Qu. Thankes Guildensterne and gentle Rosincrance. +And I beseech you instantly to visit +My too much changed Sonne. +Go some of ye, +And bring the Gentlemen where Hamlet is + + Guil. Heauens make our presence and our practises +Pleasant and helpfull to him. +Enter. + + Queene. Amen. +Enter Polonius. + + Pol. Th' Ambassadors from Norwey, my good Lord, +Are ioyfully return'd + + King. Thou still hast bin the father of good Newes + + Pol. Haue I, my Lord? Assure you, my good Liege, +I hold my dutie, as I hold my Soule, +Both to my God, one to my gracious King: +And I do thinke, or else this braine of mine +Hunts not the traile of Policie, so sure +As I haue vs'd to do: that I haue found +The very cause of Hamlets Lunacie + + King. Oh speake of that, that I do long to heare + + Pol. Giue first admittance to th' Ambassadors, +My Newes shall be the Newes to that great Feast + + King. Thy selfe do grace to them, and bring them in. +He tels me my sweet Queene, that he hath found +The head and sourse of all your Sonnes distemper + + Qu. I doubt it is no other, but the maine, +His Fathers death, and our o're-hasty Marriage. +Enter Polonius, Voltumand, and Cornelius. + + King. Well, we shall sift him. Welcome good Frends: +Say Voltumand, what from our Brother Norwey? + Volt. Most faire returne of Greetings, and Desires. +Vpon our first, he sent out to suppresse +His Nephewes Leuies, which to him appear'd +To be a preparation 'gainst the Poleak: +But better look'd into, he truly found +It was against your Highnesse, whereat greeued, +That so his Sicknesse, Age, and Impotence +Was falsely borne in hand, sends out Arrests +On Fortinbras, which he (in breefe) obeyes, +Receiues rebuke from Norwey: and in fine, +Makes Vow before his Vnkle, neuer more +To giue th' assay of Armes against your Maiestie. +Whereon old Norwey, ouercome with ioy, +Giues him three thousand Crownes in Annuall Fee, +And his Commission to imploy those Soldiers +So leuied as before, against the Poleak: +With an intreaty heerein further shewne, +That it might please you to giue quiet passe +Through your Dominions, for his Enterprize, +On such regards of safety and allowance, +As therein are set downe + + King. It likes vs well: +And at our more consider'd time wee'l read, +Answer, and thinke vpon this Businesse. +Meane time we thanke you, for your well-tooke Labour. +Go to your rest, at night wee'l Feast together. +Most welcome home. + +Exit Ambass. + + Pol. This businesse is very well ended. +My Liege, and Madam, to expostulate +What Maiestie should be, what Dutie is, +Why day is day; night, night; and time is time, +Were nothing but to waste Night, Day, and Time. +Therefore, since Breuitie is the Soule of Wit, +And tediousnesse, the limbes and outward flourishes, +I will be breefe. Your Noble Sonne is mad: +Mad call I it; for to define true Madnesse, +What is't, but to be nothing else but mad. +But let that go + + Qu. More matter, with lesse Art + + Pol. Madam, I sweare I vse no Art at all: +That he is mad, 'tis true: 'Tis true 'tis pittie, +And pittie it is true: A foolish figure, +But farewell it: for I will vse no Art. +Mad let vs grant him then: and now remaines +That we finde out the cause of this effect, +Or rather say, the cause of this defect; +For this effect defectiue, comes by cause, +Thus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend, +I haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine, +Who in her Dutie and Obedience, marke, +Hath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise. + +The Letter. + +To the Celestiall, and my Soules Idoll, the most beautifed Ophelia. +That's an ill Phrase, a vilde Phrase, beautified is a vilde +Phrase: but you shall heare these in her excellent white +bosome, these + + Qu. Came this from Hamlet to her + + Pol. Good Madam stay awhile, I will be faithfull. +Doubt thou, the Starres are fire, +Doubt, that the Sunne doth moue: +Doubt Truth to be a Lier, +But neuer Doubt, I loue. +O deere Ophelia, I am ill at these Numbers: I haue not Art to +reckon my grones; but that I loue thee best, oh most Best beleeue +it. Adieu. +Thine euermore most deere Lady, whilst this +Machine is to him, Hamlet. +This in Obedience hath my daughter shew'd me: +And more aboue hath his soliciting, +As they fell out by Time, by Meanes, and Place, +All giuen to mine eare + + King. But how hath she receiu'd his Loue? + Pol. What do you thinke of me? + King. As of a man, faithfull and Honourable + + Pol. I wold faine proue so. But what might you think? +When I had seene this hot loue on the wing, +As I perceiued it, I must tell you that +Before my Daughter told me what might you +Or my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think, +If I had playd the Deske or Table-booke, +Or giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe, +Or look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight, +What might you thinke? No, I went round to worke, +And (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake +Lord Hamlet is a Prince out of thy Starre, +This must not be: and then, I Precepts gaue her, +That she should locke her selfe from his Resort, +Admit no Messengers, receiue no Tokens: +Which done, she tooke the Fruites of my Aduice, +And he repulsed. A short Tale to make, +Fell into a Sadnesse, then into a Fast, +Thence to a Watch, thence into a Weaknesse, +Thence to a Lightnesse, and by this declension +Into the Madnesse whereon now he raues, +And all we waile for + + King. Do you thinke 'tis this? + Qu. It may be very likely + + Pol. Hath there bene such a time, I'de fain know that, +That I haue possitiuely said, 'tis so, +When it prou'd otherwise? + King. Not that I know + + Pol. Take this from this; if this be otherwise, +If Circumstances leade me, I will finde +Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeede +Within the Center + + King. How may we try it further? + Pol. You know sometimes +He walkes foure houres together, heere +In the Lobby + + Qu. So he ha's indeed + + Pol. At such a time Ile loose my Daughter to him, +Be you and I behinde an Arras then, +Marke the encounter: If he loue her not, +And be not from his reason falne thereon; +Let me be no Assistant for a State, +And keepe a Farme and Carters + + King. We will try it. +Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke. + + Qu. But looke where sadly the poore wretch +Comes reading + + Pol. Away I do beseech you, both away, +Ile boord him presently. + +Exit King & Queen. + +Oh giue me leaue. How does my good Lord Hamlet? + Ham. Well, God-a-mercy + + Pol. Do you know me, my Lord? + Ham. Excellent, excellent well: y'are a Fishmonger + + Pol. Not I my Lord + + Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man + + Pol. Honest, my Lord? + Ham. I sir, to be honest as this world goes, is to bee +one man pick'd out of two thousand + + Pol. That's very true, my Lord + + Ham. For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead dogge, +being a good kissing Carrion- +Haue you a daughter? + Pol. I haue my Lord + + Ham. Let her not walke i'thSunne: Conception is a +blessing, but not as your daughter may conceiue. Friend +looke too't + + Pol. How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: +yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a Fishmonger: +he is farre gone, farre gone: and truly in my youth, +I suffred much extreamity for loue: very neere this. Ile +speake to him againe. What do you read my Lord? + Ham. Words, words, words + + Pol. What is the matter, my Lord? + Ham. Betweene who? + Pol. I meane the matter you meane, my Lord + + Ham. Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue saies here, +that old men haue gray Beards; that their faces are wrinkled; +their eyes purging thicke Amber, or Plum-Tree +Gumme: and that they haue a plentifull locke of Wit, +together with weake Hammes. All which Sir, though I +most powerfully, and potently beleeue; yet I holde it +not Honestie to haue it thus set downe: For you your +selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab you could +go backward + + Pol. Though this be madnesse, +Yet there is Method in't: will you walke +Out of the ayre my Lord? + Ham. Into my Graue? + Pol. Indeed that is out o'th' Ayre: +How pregnant (sometimes) his Replies are? +A happinesse, +That often Madnesse hits on, +Which Reason and Sanitie could not +So prosperously be deliuer'd of. +I will leaue him, +And sodainely contriue the meanes of meeting +Betweene him, and my daughter. +My Honourable Lord, I will most humbly +Take my leaue of you + + Ham. You cannot Sir take from me any thing, that I +will more willingly part withall, except my life, my +life + + Polon. Fare you well my Lord + + Ham. These tedious old fooles + + Polon. You goe to seeke my Lord Hamlet; there +hee is. +Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne. + + Rosin. God saue you Sir + + Guild. Mine honour'd Lord? + Rosin. My most deare Lord? + Ham. My excellent good friends? How do'st thou +Guildensterne? Oh, Rosincrane; good Lads: How doe ye +both? + Rosin. As the indifferent Children of the earth + + Guild. Happy, in that we are not ouer-happy: on Fortunes +Cap, we are not the very Button + + Ham. Nor the Soales of her Shoo? + Rosin. Neither my Lord + + Ham. Then you liue about her waste, or in the middle +of her fauour? + Guil. Faith, her priuates, we + + Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true: +she is a Strumpet. What's the newes? + Rosin. None my Lord; but that the World's growne +honest + + Ham. Then is Doomesday neere: But your newes is +not true. Let me question more in particular: what haue +you my good friends, deserued at the hands of Fortune, +that she sends you to Prison hither? + Guil. Prison, my Lord? + Ham. Denmark's a Prison + + Rosin. Then is the World one + + Ham. A goodly one, in which there are many Confines, +Wards, and Dungeons; Denmarke being one o'th' +worst + + Rosin. We thinke not so my Lord + + Ham. Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing +either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is +a prison + + Rosin. Why then your Ambition makes it one: 'tis +too narrow for your minde + + Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and +count my selfe a King of infinite space; were it not that +I haue bad dreames + + Guil. Which dreames indeed are Ambition: for the +very substance of the Ambitious, is meerely the shadow +of a Dreame + + Ham. A dreame it selfe is but a shadow + + Rosin. Truely, and I hold Ambition of so ayry and +light a quality, that it is but a shadowes shadow + + Ham. Then are our Beggers bodies; and our Monarchs +and out-stretcht Heroes the Beggers Shadowes: +shall wee to th' Court: for, by my fey I cannot reason? + Both. Wee'l wait vpon you + + Ham. No such matter. I will not sort you with the +rest of my seruants: for to speake to you like an honest +man: I am most dreadfully attended; but in the beaten +way of friendship, What make you at Elsonower? + Rosin. To visit you my Lord, no other occasion + + Ham. Begger that I am, I am euen poore in thankes; +but I thanke you: and sure deare friends my thanks +are too deare a halfepeny; were you not sent for? Is it +your owne inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, +deale iustly with me: come, come; nay speake + + Guil. What should we say my Lord? + Ham. Why any thing. But to the purpose; you were +sent for; and there is a kinde confession in your lookes; +which your modesties haue not craft enough to color, +I know the good King & Queene haue sent for you + + Rosin. To what end my Lord? + Ham. That you must teach me: but let mee coniure +you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of +our youth, by the Obligation of our euer-preserued loue, +and by what more deare, a better proposer could charge +you withall; be euen and direct with me, whether you +were sent for or no + + Rosin. What say you? + Ham. Nay then I haue an eye of you: if you loue me +hold not off + + Guil. My Lord, we were sent for + + Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation +preuent your discouery of your secricie to the King and +Queene: moult no feather, I haue of late, but wherefore +I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; +and indeed, it goes so heauenly with my disposition; +that this goodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill +Promontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre, +look you, this braue ore-hanging, this Maiesticall Roofe, +fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no other thing +to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation of vapours. +What a piece of worke is a man! how Noble in +Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing +how expresse and admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? +in apprehension, how like a God? the beauty of the +world, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is +this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights not me; no, +nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seeme +to say so + + Rosin. My Lord, there was no such stuffe in my +thoughts + + Ham. Why did you laugh, when I said, Man delights +not me? + Rosin. To thinke, my Lord, if you delight not in Man, +what Lenton entertainment the Players shall receiue +from you: wee coated them on the way, and hither are +they comming to offer you Seruice + + Ham. He that playes the King shall be welcome; his +Maiesty shall haue Tribute of mee: the aduenturous +Knight shal vse his Foyle and Target: the Louer shall +not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in +peace: the Clowne shall make those laugh whose lungs +are tickled a'th' sere: and the Lady shall say her minde +freely; or the blanke Verse shall halt for't: what Players +are they? + Rosin. Euen those you were wont to take delight in +the Tragedians of the City + + Ham. How chances it they trauaile? their residence +both in reputation and profit was better both +wayes + + Rosin. I thinke their Inhibition comes by the meanes +of the late Innouation? + Ham. Doe they hold the same estimation they did +when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd? + Rosin. No indeed, they are not + + Ham. How comes it? doe they grow rusty? + Rosin. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the wonted +pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children, little +Yases, that crye out on the top of question; and +are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are now the +fashion, and so be-ratled the common Stages (so they +call them) that many wearing Rapiers, are affraide of +Goose-quils, and dare scarse come thither + + Ham. What are they Children? Who maintains 'em? +How are they escorted? Will they pursue the Quality no +longer then they can sing? Will they not say afterwards +if they should grow themselues to common Players (as +it is most like if their meanes are not better) their Writers +do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their +owne Succession + + Rosin. Faith there ha's bene much to do on both sides: +and the Nation holds it no sinne, to tarre them to Controuersie. +There was for a while, no mony bid for argument, +vnlesse the Poet and the Player went to Cuffes in +the Question + + Ham. Is't possible? + Guild. Oh there ha's beene much throwing about of +Braines + + Ham. Do the Boyes carry it away? + Rosin. I that they do my Lord. Hercules & his load too + + Ham. It is not strange: for mine Vnckle is King of +Denmarke, and those that would make mowes at him +while my Father liued; giue twenty, forty, an hundred +Ducates a peece, for his picture in Little. There is something +in this more then Naturall, if Philosophie could +finde it out. + +Flourish for the Players. + + Guil. There are the Players + + Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcom to Elsonower: your +hands, come: The appurtenance of Welcome, is Fashion +and Ceremony. Let me comply with you in the Garbe, +lest my extent to the Players (which I tell you must shew +fairely outward) should more appeare like entertainment +then yours. You are welcome: but my Vnckle Father, +and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd + + Guil. In what my deere Lord? + Ham. I am but mad North, North-West: when the +Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a Handsaw. +Enter Polonius. + + Pol. Well be with you Gentlemen + + Ham. Hearke you Guildensterne, and you too: at each +eare a hearer: that great Baby you see there, is not yet +out of his swathing clouts + + Rosin. Happily he's the second time come to them: for +they say, an old man is twice a childe + + Ham. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me of the +Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a Monday morning +'twas so indeed + + Pol. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you + + Ham. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you. +When Rossius an Actor in Rome- + Pol. The Actors are come hither my Lord + + Ham. Buzze, buzze + + Pol. Vpon mine Honor + + Ham. Then can each Actor on his Asse- + Polon. The best Actors in the world, either for Tragedie, +Comedie, Historie, Pastorall: +Pastoricall-Comicall-Historicall-Pastorall: +Tragicall-Historicall: Tragicall-Comicall-Historicall-Pastorall: +Scene indiuidible: or Poem +vnlimited. Seneca cannot be too heauy, nor Plautus +too light, for the law of Writ, and the Liberty. These are +the onely men + + Ham. O Iephta Iudge of Israel, what a Treasure had'st +thou? + Pol. What a Treasure had he, my Lord? + Ham. Why one faire Daughter, and no more, +The which he loued passing well + + Pol. Still on my Daughter + + Ham. Am I not i'th' right old Iephta? + Polon. If you call me Iephta my Lord, I haue a daughter +that I loue passing well + + Ham. Nay that followes not + + Polon. What followes then, my Lord? + Ha. Why, As by lot, God wot: and then you know, It +came to passe, as most like it was: The first rowe of the +Pons Chanson will shew you more. For looke where my +Abridgements come. +Enter foure or fiue Players. + +Y'are welcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad to see +thee well: Welcome good Friends. Oh my olde Friend? +Thy face is valiant since I saw thee last: Com'st thou to +beard me in Denmarke? What, my yong Lady and Mistris? +Byrlady your Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when +I saw you last, by the altitude of a Choppine. Pray God +your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be not crack'd +within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome: wee'l e'ne +to't like French Faulconers, flie at any thing we see: wee'l +haue a Speech straight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality: +come, a passionate speech + + 1.Play. What speech, my Lord? + Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was +neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once, for the Play I +remember pleas'd not the Million, 'twas Cauiarie to the +Generall: but it was (as I receiu'd it, and others, whose +iudgement in such matters, cried in the top of mine) an +excellent Play; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe +with as much modestie, as cunning. I remember one said, +there was no Sallets in the lines, to make the matter sauory; +nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite the +Author of affectation, but cal'd it an honest method. One +cheefe Speech in it, I cheefely lou'd, 'twas Aeneas Tale +to Dido, and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks +of Priams slaughter. If it liue in your memory, begin at +this Line, let me see, let me see: The rugged Pyrrhus like +th'Hyrcanian Beast. It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus +The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose Sable Armes +Blacke as his purpose, did the night resemble +When he lay couched in the Ominous Horse, +Hath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'd +With Heraldry more dismall: Head to foote +Now is he to take Geulles, horridly Trick'd +With blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes, +Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets, +That lend a tyrannous, and damned light +To their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire, +And thus o're-sized with coagulate gore, +With eyes like Carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus +Olde Grandsire Priam seekes + + Pol. Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent, +and good discretion + + 1.Player. Anon he findes him, +Striking too short at Greekes. His anticke Sword, +Rebellious to his Arme, lyes where it falles +Repugnant to command: vnequall match, +Pyrrhus at Priam driues, in Rage strikes wide: +But with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword, +Th' vnnerued Father fals. Then senselesse Illium, +Seeming to feele his blow, with flaming top +Stoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash +Takes Prisoner Pyrrhus eare. For loe, his Sword +Which was declining on the Milkie head +Of Reuerend Priam, seem'd i'th' Ayre to sticke: +So as a painted Tyrant Pyrrhus stood, +And like a Newtrall to his will and matter, did nothing. +But as we often see against some storme, +A silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still, +The bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe below +As hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder +Doth rend the Region. So after Pyrrhus pause, +A rowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke, +And neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall +On Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne, +With lesse remorse then Pyrrhus bleeding sword +Now falles on Priam. +Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods, +In generall Synod take away her power: +Breake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele, +And boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen, +As low as to the Fiends + + Pol. This is too long + + Ham. It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard. Prythee +say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of Baudry, or hee +sleepes. Say on; come to Hecuba + + 1.Play. But who, O who, had seen the inobled Queen + + Ham. The inobled Queene? + Pol. That's good: Inobled Queene is good + + 1.Play. Run bare-foot vp and downe, +Threatning the flame +With Bisson Rheume: A clout about that head, +Where late the Diadem stood, and for a Robe +About her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines, +A blanket in th' Alarum of feare caught vp. +Who this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd, +'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd? +But if the Gods themselues did see her then, +When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport +In mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes, +The instant Burst of Clamour that she made +(Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all) +Would haue made milche the Burning eyes of Heauen, +And passion in the Gods + + Pol. Looke where he ha's not turn'd his colour, and +ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more + + Ham. 'Tis well, Ile haue thee speake out the rest, +soone. Good my Lord, will you see the Players wel bestow'd. +Do ye heare, let them be well vs'd: for they are +the Abstracts and breefe Chronicles of the time. After +your death, you were better haue a bad Epitaph, then +their ill report while you liued + + Pol. My Lord, I will vse them according to their desart + + Ham. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie man +after his desart, and who should scape whipping: vse +them after your own Honor and Dignity. The lesse they +deserue, the more merit is in your bountie. Take them +in + + Pol. Come sirs. + +Exit Polon. + + Ham. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play to morrow. +Dost thou heare me old Friend, can you play the +murther of Gonzago? + Play. I my Lord + + Ham. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could for a +need study a speech of some dosen or sixteene lines, which +I would set downe, and insert in't? Could ye not? + Play. I my Lord + + Ham. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke you +mock him not. My good Friends, Ile leaue you til night +you are welcome to Elsonower? + Rosin. Good my Lord. + +Exeunt. + +Manet Hamlet. + + Ham. I so, God buy'ye: Now I am alone. +Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I? +Is it not monstrous that this Player heere, +But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion, +Could force his soule so to his whole conceit, +That from her working, all his visage warm'd; +Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, +A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting +With Formes, to his Conceit? And all for nothing? +For Hecuba? +What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, +That he should weepe for her? What would he doe, +Had he the Motiue and the Cue for passion +That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares, +And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech: +Make mad the guilty, and apale the free, +Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, +The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, +A dull and muddy-metled Rascall, peake +Like Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause, +And can say nothing: No, not for a King, +Vpon whose property, and most deere life, +A damn'd defeate was made. Am I a Coward? +Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse? +Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face? +Tweakes me by'th' Nose? giues me the Lye i'th' Throate, +As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this? +Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be, +But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall +To make Oppression bitter, or ere this, +I should haue fatted all the Region Kites +With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine, +Remorselesse, Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles villaine! +Oh Vengeance! +Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue, +That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, +Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell, +Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words, +And fall a Cursing like a very Drab. +A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine. +I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play, +Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene, +Bene strooke so to the soule, that presently +They haue proclaim'd their Malefactions. +For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake +With most myraculous Organ. Ile haue these Players, +Play something like the murder of my Father, +Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes, +Ile rent him to the quicke: If he but blench +I know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene +May be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power +T' assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps +Out of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly, +As he is very potent with such Spirits, +Abuses me to damne me. Ile haue grounds +More Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing, +Wherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King. + +Exit + +Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, +Guildenstern, and +Lords. + + King. And can you by no drift of circumstance +Get from him why he puts on this Confusion: +Grating so harshly all his dayes of quiet +With turbulent and dangerous Lunacy + + Rosin. He does confesse he feeles himselfe distracted, +But from what cause he will by no meanes speake + + Guil. Nor do we finde him forward to be sounded, +But with a crafty Madnesse keepes aloofe: +When we would bring him on to some Confession +Of his true state + + Qu. Did he receiue you well? + Rosin. Most like a Gentleman + + Guild. But with much forcing of his disposition + + Rosin. Niggard of question, but of our demands +Most free in his reply + + Qu. Did you assay him to any pastime? + Rosin. Madam, it so fell out, that certaine Players +We ore-wrought on the way: of these we told him, +And there did seeme in him a kinde of ioy +To heare of it: They are about the Court, +And (as I thinke) they haue already order +This night to play before him + + Pol. 'Tis most true: +And he beseech'd me to intreate your Maiesties +To heare, and see the matter + + King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me +To heare him so inclin'd. Good Gentlemen, +Giue him a further edge, and driue his purpose on +To these delights + + Rosin. We shall my Lord. + +Exeunt. + + King. Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too, +For we haue closely sent for Hamlet hither, +That he, as 'twere by accident, may there +Affront Ophelia. Her Father, and my selfe (lawful espials) +Will so bestow our selues, that seeing vnseene +We may of their encounter frankely iudge, +And gather by him, as he is behaued, +If't be th' affliction of his loue, or no. +That thus he suffers for + + Qu. I shall obey you, +And for your part Ophelia, I do wish +That your good Beauties be the happy cause +Of Hamlets wildenesse: so shall I hope your Vertues +Will bring him to his wonted way againe, +To both your Honors + + Ophe. Madam, I wish it may + + Pol. Ophelia, walke you heere. Gracious so please ye +We will bestow our selues: Reade on this booke, +That shew of such an exercise may colour +Your lonelinesse. We are oft too blame in this, +'Tis too much prou'd, that with Deuotions visage, +And pious Action, we do surge o're +The diuell himselfe + + King. Oh 'tis true: +How smart a lash that speech doth giue my Conscience? +The Harlots Cheeke beautied with plaist'ring Art +Is not more vgly to the thing that helpes it, +Then is my deede, to my most painted word. +Oh heauie burthen! + Pol. I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Hamlet. + + Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the Question: +Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer +The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, +Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles, +And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe +No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end +The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes +That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation +Deuoutly to be wish'd. To dye to sleepe, +To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there's the rub, +For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come, +When we haue shuffel'd off this mortall coile, +Must giue vs pawse. There's the respect +That makes Calamity of so long life: +For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, +The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, +The pangs of dispriz'd Loue, the Lawes delay, +The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes +That patient merit of the vnworthy takes, +When he himselfe might his Quietus make +With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare +To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life, +But that the dread of something after death, +The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne +No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will, +And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue, +Then flye to others that we know not of. +Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all, +And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution +Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought, +And enterprizes of great pith and moment, +With this regard their Currants turne away, +And loose the name of Action. Soft you now, +The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons +Be all my sinnes remembred + + Ophe. Good my Lord, +How does your Honor for this many a day? + Ham. I humbly thanke you: well, well, well + + Ophe. My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours, +That I haue longed long to re-deliuer. +I pray you now, receiue them + + Ham. No, no, I neuer gaue you ought + + Ophe. My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did, +And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd, +As made the things more rich, then perfume left: +Take these againe, for to the Noble minde +Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde. +There my Lord + + Ham. Ha, ha: Are you honest? + Ophe. My Lord + + Ham. Are you faire? + Ophe. What meanes your Lordship? + Ham. That if you be honest and faire, your Honesty +should admit no discourse to your Beautie + + Ophe. Could Beautie my Lord, haue better Comerce +then your Honestie? + Ham. I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will sooner +transforme Honestie from what is, to a Bawd, then the +force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse. +This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time giues it +proofe. I did loue you once + + Ophe. Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so + + Ham. You should not haue beleeued me. For vertue +cannot so innocculate our old stocke, but we shall rellish +of it. I loued you not + + Ophe. I was the more deceiued + + Ham. Get thee to a Nunnerie. Why would'st thou +be a breeder of Sinners? I am my selfe indifferent honest, +but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better +my Mother had not borne me. I am very prowd, reuengefull, +Ambitious, with more offences at my becke, +then I haue thoughts to put them in imagination, to giue +them shape, or time to acte them in. What should such +Fellowes as I do, crawling betweene Heauen and Earth. +We are arrant Knaues all, beleeue none of vs. Goe thy +wayes to a Nunnery. Where's your Father? + Ophe. At home, my Lord + + Ham. Let the doores be shut vpon him, that he may +play the Foole no way, but in's owne house. Farewell + + Ophe. O helpe him, you sweet Heauens + + Ham. If thou doest Marry, Ile giue thee this Plague +for thy Dowrie. Be thou as chast as Ice, as pure as Snow, +thou shalt not escape Calumny. Get thee to a Nunnery. +Go, Farewell. Or if thou wilt needs Marry, marry a fool: +for Wise men know well enough, what monsters you +make of them. To a Nunnery go, and quickly too. Farwell + + Ophe. O heauenly Powers, restore him + + Ham. I haue heard of your pratlings too wel enough. +God has giuen you one pace, and you make your selfe another: +you gidge, you amble, and you lispe, and nickname +Gods creatures, and make your Wantonnesse, your Ignorance. +Go too, Ile no more on't, it hath made me mad. +I say, we will haue no more Marriages. Those that are +married already, all but one shall liue, the rest shall keep +as they are. To a Nunnery, go. + +Exit Hamlet. + + Ophe. O what a Noble minde is heere o're-throwne? +The Courtiers, Soldiers, Schollers: Eye, tongue, sword, +Th' expectansie and Rose of the faire State, +The glasse of Fashion, and the mould of Forme, +Th' obseru'd of all Obseruers, quite, quite downe. +Haue I of Ladies most deiect and wretched, +That suck'd the Honie of his Musicke Vowes: +Now see that Noble, and most Soueraigne Reason, +Like sweet Bels iangled out of tune, and harsh, +That vnmatch'd Forme and Feature of blowne youth, +Blasted with extasie. Oh woe is me, +T'haue seene what I haue seene: see what I see. +Enter King, and Polonius. + + King. Loue? His affections do not that way tend, +Nor what he spake, though it lack'd Forme a little, +Was not like Madnesse. There's something in his soule? +O're which his Melancholly sits on brood, +And I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose +Will be some danger, which to preuent +I haue in quicke determination +Thus set it downe. He shall with speed to England +For the demand of our neglected Tribute: +Haply the Seas and Countries different +With variable Obiects, shall expell +This something setled matter in his heart: +Whereon his Braines still beating, puts him thus +From fashion of himselfe. What thinke you on't? + Pol. It shall do well. But yet do I beleeue +The Origin and Commencement of this greefe +Sprung from neglected loue. How now Ophelia? +You neede not tell vs, what Lord Hamlet saide, +We heard it all. My Lord, do as you please, +But if you hold it fit after the Play, +Let his Queene Mother all alone intreat him +To shew his Greefes: let her be round with him, +And Ile be plac'd so, please you in the eare +Of all their Conference. If she finde him not, +To England send him: Or confine him where +Your wisedome best shall thinke + + King. It shall be so: +Madnesse in great Ones, must not vnwatch'd go. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players. + + Ham. Speake the Speech I pray you, as I pronounc'd +it to you trippingly on the Tongue: But if you mouth it, +as many of your Players do, I had as liue the Town-Cryer +had spoke my Lines: Nor do not saw the Ayre too much +your hand thus, but vse all gently; for in the verie Torrent, +Tempest, and (as I say) the Whirle-winde of +Passion, you must acquire and beget a Temperance that +may giue it Smoothnesse. O it offends mee to the Soule, +to see a robustious Pery-wig-pated Fellow, teare a Passion +to tatters, to verie ragges, to split the eares of the +Groundlings: who (for the most part) are capeable of +nothing, but inexplicable dumbe shewes, & noise: I could +haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing Termagant: it +outHerod's Herod. Pray you auoid it + + Player. I warrant your Honor + + Ham. Be not too tame neyther: but let your owne +Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action to the Word, +the Word to the Action, with this speciall obseruance: +That you ore-stop not the modestie of Nature; for any +thing so ouer-done, is fro[m] the purpose of Playing, whose +end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer +the Mirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne +Feature, Scorne her owne Image, and the verie Age and +Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure. Now, this +ouer-done, or come tardie off, though it make the vnskilfull +laugh, cannot but make the Iudicious greeue; The +censure of the which One, must in your allowance o'reway +a whole Theater of Others. Oh, there bee Players +that I haue seene Play, and heard others praise, and that +highly (not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing +the accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian, Pagan, +or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed, that I haue +thought some of Natures Iouerney-men had made men, +and not made them well, they imitated Humanity so abhominably + + Play. I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently with +vs, Sir + + Ham. O reforme it altogether. And let those that +play your Clownes, speake no more then is set downe for +them. For there be of them, that will themselues laugh, +to set on some quantitie of barren Spectators to laugh +too, though in the meane time, some necessary Question +of the Play be then to be considered: that's Villanous, & +shewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Foole that vses +it. Go make you readie. + +Exit Players. + +Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne. + +How now my Lord, +Will the King heare this peece of Worke? + Pol. And the Queene too, and that presently + + Ham. Bid the Players make hast. + +Exit Polonius. + +Will you two helpe to hasten them? + Both. We will my Lord. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Horatio. + + Ham. What hoa, Horatio? + Hora. Heere sweet Lord, at your Seruice + + Ham. Horatio, thou art eene as iust a man +As ere my Conuersation coap'd withall + + Hora. O my deere Lord + + Ham. Nay, do not thinke I flatter: +For what aduancement may I hope from thee, +That no Reuennew hast, but thy good spirits +To feed & cloath thee. Why shold the poor be flatter'd? +No, let the Candied tongue, like absurd pompe, +And crooke the pregnant Hindges of the knee, +Where thrift may follow faining? Dost thou heare, +Since my deere Soule was Mistris of my choyse, +And could of men distinguish, her election +Hath seal'd thee for her selfe. For thou hast bene +As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing. +A man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards +Hath 'tane with equall Thankes. And blest are those, +Whose Blood and Iudgement are so well co-mingled, +That they are not a Pipe for Fortunes finger. +To sound what stop she please. Giue me that man, +That is not Passions Slaue, and I will weare him +In my hearts Core. I, in my Heart of heart, +As I do thee. Something too much of this. +There is a Play to night to before the King. +One Scoene of it comes neere the Circumstance +Which I haue told thee, of my Fathers death. +I prythee, when thou see'st that Acte a-foot, +Euen with the verie Comment of my Soule +Obserue mine Vnkle: If his occulted guilt, +Do not it selfe vnkennell in one speech, +It is a damned Ghost that we haue seene: +And my Imaginations are as foule +As Vulcans Stythe. Giue him needfull note, +For I mine eyes will riuet to his Face: +And after we will both our iudgements ioyne, +To censure of his seeming + + Hora. Well my Lord. +If he steale ought the whil'st this Play is Playing, +And scape detecting, I will pay the Theft. +Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, +Guildensterne, and +other Lords attendant with his Guard carrying Torches. Danish +March. Sound +a Flourish. + + Ham. They are comming to the Play: I must be idle. +Get you a place + + King. How fares our Cosin Hamlet? + Ham. Excellent Ifaith, of the Camelions dish: I eate +the Ayre promise-cramm'd, you cannot feed Capons so + + King. I haue nothing with this answer Hamlet, these +words are not mine + + Ham. No, nor mine. Now my Lord, you plaid once +i'th' Vniuersity, you say? + Polon. That I did my Lord, and was accounted a good +Actor + + Ham. And what did you enact? + Pol. I did enact Iulius Caesar, I was kill'd i'th' Capitol: +Brutus kill'd me + + Ham. It was a bruite part of him, to kill so Capitall a +Calfe there. Be the Players ready? + Rosin. I my Lord, they stay vpon your patience + + Qu. Come hither my good Hamlet, sit by me + + Ha. No good Mother, here's Mettle more attractiue + + Pol. Oh ho, do you marke that? + Ham. Ladie, shall I lye in your Lap? + Ophe. No my Lord + + Ham. I meane, my Head vpon your Lap? + Ophe. I my Lord + + Ham. Do you thinke I meant Country matters? + Ophe. I thinke nothing, my Lord + + Ham. That's a faire thought to ly betweene Maids legs + Ophe. What is my Lord? + Ham. Nothing + + Ophe. You are merrie, my Lord? + Ham. Who I? + Ophe. I my Lord + + Ham. Oh God, your onely Iigge-maker: what should +a man do, but be merrie. For looke you how cheerefully +my Mother lookes, and my Father dyed within's two +Houres + + Ophe. Nay, 'tis twice two moneths, my Lord + + Ham. So long? Nay then let the Diuel weare blacke, +for Ile haue a suite of Sables. Oh Heauens! dye two moneths +ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a +great mans Memorie, may out-liue his life halfe a yeare: +But byrlady he must builde Churches then: or else shall +he suffer not thinking on, with the Hoby-horsse, whose +Epitaph is, For o, For o, the Hoby-horse is forgot. + +Hoboyes play. The dumbe shew enters. + +Enter a King and Queene, very louingly; the Queene embracing +him. She +kneeles, and makes shew of Protestation vnto him. He takes her +vp, and +declines his head vpon her neck. Layes him downe vpon a Banke +of Flowers. +She seeing him a-sleepe, leaues him. Anon comes in a Fellow, +takes off his +Crowne, kisses it, and powres poyson in the Kings eares, and +Exits. The +Queene returnes, findes the King dead, and makes passionate +Action. The +Poysoner, with some two or three Mutes comes in againe, seeming +to lament +with her. The dead body is carried away: The Poysoner Wooes the +Queene with +Gifts, she seemes loath and vnwilling awhile, but in the end, +accepts his +loue. + +Exeunt. + + Ophe. What meanes this, my Lord? + Ham. Marry this is Miching Malicho, that meanes +Mischeefe + + Ophe. Belike this shew imports the Argument of the +Play? + Ham. We shall know by these Fellowes: the Players +cannot keepe counsell, they'l tell all + + Ophe. Will they tell vs what this shew meant? + Ham. I, or any shew that you'l shew him. Bee not +you asham'd to shew, hee'l not shame to tell you what it +meanes + + Ophe. You are naught, you are naught, Ile marke the +Play. +Enter Prologue. + +For vs, and for our Tragedie, +Heere stooping to your Clemencie: +We begge your hearing Patientlie + + Ham. Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie of a Ring? + Ophe. 'Tis briefe my Lord + + Ham. As Womans loue. +Enter King and his Queene. + + King. Full thirtie times hath Phoebus Cart gon round, +Neptunes salt Wash, and Tellus Orbed ground: +And thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene, +About the World haue times twelue thirties beene, +Since loue our hearts, and Hymen did our hands +Vnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands + + Bap. So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone +Make vs againe count o're, ere loue be done. +But woe is me, you are so sicke of late, +So farre from cheere, and from your former state, +That I distrust you: yet though I distrust, +Discomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must: +For womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie, +In neither ought, or in extremity: +Now what my loue is, proofe hath made you know, +And as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so + + King. Faith I must leaue thee Loue, and shortly too: +My operant Powers my Functions leaue to do: +And thou shalt liue in this faire world behinde, +Honour'd, belou'd, and haply, one as kinde. +For Husband shalt thou- + Bap. Oh confound the rest: +Such Loue, must needs be Treason in my brest: +In second Husband, let me be accurst, +None wed the second, but who kill'd the first + + Ham. Wormwood, Wormwood + + Bapt. The instances that second Marriage moue, +Are base respects of Thrift, but none of Loue. +A second time, I kill my Husband dead, +When second Husband kisses me in Bed + + King. I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak: +But what we do determine, oft we breake: +Purpose is but the slaue to Memorie, +Of violent Birth, but poore validitie: +Which now like Fruite vnripe stickes on the Tree, +But fall vnshaken, when they mellow bee. +Most necessary 'tis, that we forget +To pay our selues, what to our selues is debt: +What to our selues in passion we propose, +The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. +The violence of other Greefe or Ioy, +Their owne ennactors with themselues destroy: +Where Ioy most Reuels, Greefe doth most lament; +Greefe ioyes, Ioy greeues on slender accident. +This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange +That euen our Loues should with our Fortunes change. +For 'tis a question left vs yet to proue, +Whether Loue lead Fortune, or else Fortune Loue. +The great man downe, you marke his fauourites flies, +The poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies: +And hitherto doth Loue on Fortune tend, +For who not needs, shall neuer lacke a Frend: +And who in want a hollow Friend doth try, +Directly seasons him his Enemie. +But orderly to end, where I begun, +Our Willes and Fates do so contrary run, +That our Deuices still are ouerthrowne, +Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne. +So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed. +But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead + + Bap. Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light, +Sport and repose locke from me day and night: +Each opposite that blankes the face of ioy, +Meet what I would haue well, and it destroy: +Both heere, and hence, pursue me lasting strife, +If once a Widdow, euer I be Wife + + Ham. If she should breake it now + + King. 'Tis deepely sworne: +Sweet, leaue me heere a while, +My spirits grow dull, and faine I would beguile +The tedious day with sleepe + + Qu. Sleepe rocke thy Braine, + +Sleepes + +And neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine. + +Exit + + Ham. Madam, how like you this Play? + Qu. The Lady protests to much me thinkes + + Ham. Oh but shee'l keepe her word + + King. Haue you heard the Argument, is there no Offence +in't? + Ham. No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest, no Offence +i'th' world + + King. What do you call the Play? + Ham. The Mouse-trap: Marry how? Tropically: +This Play is the Image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago +is the Dukes name, his wife Baptista: you shall see +anon: 'tis a knauish peece of worke: But what o'that? +Your Maiestie, and wee that haue free soules, it touches +vs not: let the gall'd iade winch: our withers are vnrung. +Enter Lucianus. + +This is one Lucianus nephew to the King + + Ophe. You are a good Chorus, my Lord + + Ham. I could interpret betweene you and your loue: +if I could see the Puppets dallying + + Ophe. You are keene my Lord, you are keene + + Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my +edge + + Ophe. Still better and worse + + Ham. So you mistake Husbands. +Begin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces, and +begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow for Reuenge + + Lucian. Thoughts blacke, hands apt, +Drugges fit, and Time agreeing: +Confederate season, else, no Creature seeing: +Thou mixture ranke, of Midnight Weeds collected, +With Hecats Ban, thrice blasted, thrice infected, +Thy naturall Magicke, and dire propertie, +On wholsome life, vsurpe immediately. + +Powres the poyson in his eares. + + Ham. He poysons him i'th' Garden for's estate: His +name's Gonzago: the Story is extant and writ in choyce +Italian. You shall see anon how the Murtherer gets the +loue of Gonzago's wife + + Ophe. The King rises + + Ham. What, frighted with false fire + + Qu. How fares my Lord? + Pol. Giue o're the Play + + King. Giue me some Light. Away + + All. Lights, Lights, Lights. + +Exeunt. + +Manet Hamlet & Horatio. + + Ham. Why let the strucken Deere go weepe, +The Hart vngalled play: +For some must watch, while some must sleepe; +So runnes the world away. +Would not this Sir, and a Forrest of Feathers, if the rest of +my Fortunes turne Turke with me; with two Prouinciall +Roses on my rac'd Shooes, get me a Fellowship in a crie +of Players sir + + Hor. Halfe a share + + Ham. A whole one I, +For thou dost know: Oh Damon deere, +This Realme dismantled was of Ioue himselfe, +And now reignes heere. +A verie verie Paiocke + + Hora. You might haue Rim'd + + Ham. Oh good Horatio, Ile take the Ghosts word for +a thousand pound. Did'st perceiue? + Hora. Verie well my Lord + + Ham. Vpon the talke of the poysoning? + Hora. I did verie well note him. +Enter Rosincrance and Guildensterne. + + Ham. Oh, ha? Come some Musick. Come y Recorders: +For if the King like not the Comedie, +Why then belike he likes it not perdie. +Come some Musicke + + Guild. Good my Lord, vouchsafe me a word with you + + Ham. Sir, a whole History + + Guild. The King, sir + + Ham. I sir, what of him? + Guild. Is in his retyrement, maruellous distemper'd + + Ham. With drinke Sir? + Guild. No my Lord, rather with choller + + Ham. Your wisedome should shew it selfe more richer, +to signifie this to his Doctor: for for me to put him +to his Purgation, would perhaps plundge him into farre +more Choller + + Guild. Good my Lord put your discourse into some +frame, and start not so wildely from my affayre + + Ham. I am tame Sir, pronounce + + Guild. The Queene your Mother, in most great affliction +of spirit, hath sent me to you + + Ham. You are welcome + + Guild. Nay, good my Lord, this courtesie is not of +the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholsome +answer, I will doe your Mothers command'ment: +if not, your pardon, and my returne shall bee the end of +my Businesse + + Ham. Sir, I cannot + + Guild. What, my Lord? + Ham. Make you a wholsome answere: my wits diseas'd. +But sir, such answers as I can make, you shal command: +or rather you say, my Mother: therfore no more +but to the matter. My Mother you say + + Rosin. Then thus she sayes: your behauior hath stroke +her into amazement, and admiration + + Ham. Oh wonderfull Sonne, that can so astonish a +Mother. But is there no sequell at the heeles of this Mothers +admiration? + Rosin. She desires to speake with you in her Closset, +ere you go to bed + + Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our Mother. +Haue you any further Trade with vs? + Rosin. My Lord, you once did loue me + + Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers + + Rosin. Good my Lord, what is your cause of distemper? +You do freely barre the doore of your owne Libertie, +if you deny your greefes to your Friend + + Ham. Sir I lacke Aduancement + + Rosin. How can that be, when you haue the voyce of +the King himselfe, for your Succession in Denmarke? + Ham. I, but while the grasse growes, the Prouerbe is +something musty. +Enter one with a Recorder. + +O the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with you, why +do you go about to recouer the winde of mee, as if you +would driue me into a toyle? + Guild. O my Lord, if my Dutie be too bold, my loue +is too vnmannerly + + Ham. I do not well vnderstand that. Will you play +vpon this Pipe? + Guild. My Lord, I cannot + + Ham. I pray you + + Guild. Beleeue me, I cannot + + Ham. I do beseech you + + Guild. I know no touch of it, my Lord + + Ham. 'Tis as easie as lying: gouerne these Ventiges +with your finger and thumbe, giue it breath with your +mouth, and it will discourse most excellent Musicke. +Looke you, these are the stoppes + + Guild. But these cannot I command to any vtterance +of hermony, I haue not the skill + + Ham. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a thing +you make of me: you would play vpon mee; you would +seeme to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart +of my Mysterie; you would sound mee from my lowest +Note, to the top of my Compasse: and there is much Musicke, +excellent Voice, in this little Organe, yet cannot +you make it. Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee +plaid on, then a Pipe? Call me what Instrument you will, +though you can fret me, you cannot play vpon me. God +blesse you Sir. +Enter Polonius. + + Polon. My Lord; the Queene would speak with you, +and presently + + Ham. Do you see that Clowd? that's almost in shape +like a Camell + + Polon. By'th' Masse, and it's like a Camell indeed + + Ham. Me thinkes it is like a Weazell + + Polon. It is back'd like a Weazell + + Ham. Or like a Whale? + Polon. Verie like a Whale + + Ham. Then will I come to my Mother, by and by: +They foole me to the top of my bent. +I will come by and by + + Polon. I will say so. +Enter. + + Ham. By and by, is easily said. Leaue me Friends: +'Tis now the verie witching time of night, +When Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out +Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, +And do such bitter businesse as the day +Would quake to looke on. Soft now, to my Mother: +Oh Heart, loose not thy Nature; let not euer +The Soule of Nero, enter this firme bosome: +Let me be cruell, not vnnaturall, +I will speake Daggers to her, but vse none: +My Tongue and Soule in this be Hypocrites. +How in my words someuer she be shent, +To giue them Seales, neuer my Soule consent. +Enter King, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne. + + King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with vs, +To let his madnesse range. Therefore prepare you, +I your Commission will forthwith dispatch, +And he to England shall along with you: +The termes of our estate, may not endure +Hazard so dangerous as doth hourely grow +Out of his Lunacies + + Guild. We will our selues prouide: +Most holie and Religious feare it is +To keepe those many many bodies safe +That liue and feede vpon your Maiestie + + Rosin. The single +And peculiar life is bound +With all the strength and Armour of the minde, +To keepe it selfe from noyance: but much more, +That Spirit, vpon whose spirit depends and rests +The liues of many, the cease of Maiestie +Dies not alone; but like a Gulfe doth draw +What's neere it, with it. It is a massie wheele +Fixt on the Somnet of the highest Mount. +To whose huge Spoakes, ten thousand lesser things +Are mortiz'd and adioyn'd: which when it falles, +Each small annexment, pettie consequence +Attends the boystrous Ruine. Neuer alone +Did the King sighe, but with a generall grone + + King. Arme you, I pray you to this speedie Voyage; +For we will Fetters put vpon this feare, +Which now goes too free-footed + + Both. We will haste vs. + +Exeunt. Gent. + +Enter Polonius. + + Pol. My Lord, he's going to his Mothers Closset: +Behinde the Arras Ile conuey my selfe +To heare the Processe. Ile warrant shee'l tax him home, +And as you said, and wisely was it said, +'Tis meete that some more audience then a Mother, +Since Nature makes them partiall, should o're-heare +The speech of vantage. Fare you well my Liege, +Ile call vpon you ere you go to bed, +And tell you what I know + + King. Thankes deere my Lord. +Oh my offence is ranke, it smels to heauen, +It hath the primall eldest curse vpon't, +A Brothers murther. Pray can I not, +Though inclination be as sharpe as will: +My stronger guilt, defeats my strong intent, +And like a man to double businesse bound, +I stand in pause where I shall first begin, +And both neglect; what if this cursed hand +Were thicker then it selfe with Brothers blood, +Is there not Raine enough in the sweet Heauens +To wash it white as Snow? Whereto serues mercy, +But to confront the visage of Offence? +And what's in Prayer, but this two-fold force, +To be fore-stalled ere we come to fall, +Or pardon'd being downe? Then Ile looke vp, +My fault is past. But oh, what forme of Prayer +Can serue my turne? Forgiue me my foule Murther: +That cannot be, since I am still possest +Of those effects for which I did the Murther. +My Crowne, mine owne Ambition, and my Queene: +May one be pardon'd, and retaine th' offence? +In the corrupted currants of this world, +Offences gilded hand may shoue by Iustice, +And oft 'tis seene, the wicked prize it selfe +Buyes out the Law; but 'tis not so aboue, +There is no shuffling, there the Action lyes +In his true Nature, and we our selues compell'd +Euen to the teeth and forehead of our faults, +To giue in euidence. What then? What rests? +Try what Repentance can. What can it not? +Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? +Oh wretched state! Oh bosome, blacke as death! +Oh limed soule, that strugling to be free, +Art more ingag'd: Helpe Angels, make assay: +Bow stubborne knees, and heart with strings of Steele, +Be soft as sinewes of the new-borne Babe, +All may be well. +Enter Hamlet. + + Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying, +And now Ile doo't, and so he goes to Heauen, +And so am I reueng'd: that would be scann'd, +A Villaine killes my Father, and for that +I his foule Sonne, do this same Villaine send +To heauen. Oh this is hyre and Sallery, not Reuenge. +He tooke my Father grossely, full of bread, +With all his Crimes broad blowne, as fresh as May, +And how his Audit stands, who knowes, saue Heauen: +But in our circumstance and course of thought +'Tis heauie with him: and am I then reueng'd, +To take him in the purging of his Soule, +When he is fit and season'd for his passage? No. +Vp Sword, and know thou a more horrid hent +When he is drunke asleepe: or in his Rage, +Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed, +At gaming, swearing, or about some acte +That ha's no rellish of Saluation in't, +Then trip him, that his heeles may kicke at Heauen, +And that his Soule may be as damn'd and blacke +As Hell, whereto it goes. My Mother stayes, +This Physicke but prolongs thy sickly dayes. +Enter. + + King. My words flye vp, my thoughts remain below, +Words without thoughts, neuer to Heauen go. +Enter. + +Enter Queene and Polonius. + + Pol. He will come straight: +Looke you lay home to him, +Tell him his prankes haue been too broad to beare with, +And that your Grace hath screen'd, and stoode betweene +Much heate, and him. Ile silence me e'ene heere: +Pray you be round with him + + Ham. within. Mother, mother, mother + + Qu. Ile warrant you, feare me not. +Withdraw, I heare him coming. +Enter Hamlet. + + Ham. Now Mother, what's the matter? + Qu. Hamlet, thou hast thy Father much offended + + + Ham. Mother, you haue my Father much offended + + Qu. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue + + Ham. Go, go, you question with an idle tongue + + Qu. Why how now Hamlet? + Ham. Whats the matter now? + Qu. Haue you forgot me? + Ham. No by the Rood, not so: +You are the Queene, your Husbands Brothers wife, +But would you were not so. You are my Mother + + Qu. Nay, then Ile set those to you that can speake + + Ham. Come, come, and sit you downe, you shall not +boudge: +You go not till I set you vp a glasse, +Where you may see the inmost part of you? + Qu. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther me? +Helpe, helpe, hoa + + Pol. What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe + + Ham. How now, a Rat? dead for a Ducate, dead + + Pol. Oh I am slaine. + +Killes Polonius + + Qu. Oh me, what hast thou done? + Ham. Nay I know not, is it the King? + Qu. Oh what a rash, and bloody deed is this? + Ham. A bloody deed, almost as bad good Mother, +As kill a King, and marrie with his Brother + + Qu. As kill a King? + Ham. I Lady, 'twas my word. +Thou wretched, rash, intruding foole farewell, +I tooke thee for thy Betters, take thy Fortune, +Thou find'st to be too busie, is some danger. +Leaue wringing of your hands, peace, sit you downe, +And let me wring your heart, for so I shall +If it be made of penetrable stuffe; +If damned Custome haue not braz'd it so, +That it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense + + Qu. What haue I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tong, +In noise so rude against me? + Ham. Such an Act +That blurres the grace and blush of Modestie, +Cals Vertue Hypocrite, takes off the Rose +From the faire forehead of an innocent loue, +And makes a blister there. Makes marriage vowes +As false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed, +As from the body of Contraction pluckes +The very soule, and sweete Religion makes +A rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow, +Yea this solidity and compound masse, +With tristfull visage as against the doome, +Is thought-sicke at the act + + Qu. Aye me; what act, that roares so lowd, & thunders +in the Index + + Ham. Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this, +The counterfet presentment of two Brothers: +See what a grace was seated on his Brow, +Hyperions curles, the front of Ioue himselfe, +An eye like Mars, to threaten or command +A Station, like the Herald Mercurie +New lighted on a heauen-kissing hill: +A Combination, and a forme indeed, +Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale, +To giue the world assurance of a man. +This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. +Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare +Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? +Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, +And batten on this Moore? Ha? Haue you eyes? +You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, +The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, +And waites vpon the Iudgement: and what Iudgement +Would step from this, to this? What diuell was't, +That thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde? +O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell, +If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones, +To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe. +And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame, +When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge, +Since Frost it selfe, as actiuely doth burne, +As Reason panders Will + + Qu. O Hamlet, speake no more. +Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule, +And there I see such blacke and grained spots, +As will not leaue their Tinct + + Ham. Nay, but to liue +In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, +Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue +Ouer the nasty Stye + + Qu. Oh speake to me, no more, +These words like Daggers enter in mine eares. +No more sweet Hamlet + + Ham. A Murderer, and a Villaine: +A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe +Of your precedent Lord. A vice of Kings, +A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule. +That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole, +And put it in his Pocket + + Qu. No more. +Enter Ghost. + + Ham. A King of shreds and patches. +Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings +You heauenly Guards. What would your gracious figure? + Qu. Alas he's mad + + Ham. Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide, +That laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by +Th' important acting of your dread command? Oh say + + Ghost. Do not forget: this Visitation +Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. +But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits; +O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule, +Conceit in weakest bodies, strongest workes. +Speake to her Hamlet + + Ham. How is it with you Lady? + Qu. Alas, how is't with you? +That you bend your eye on vacancie, +And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse. +Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe, +And as the sleeping Soldiours in th' Alarme, +Your bedded haire, like life in excrements, +Start vp, and stand an end. Oh gentle Sonne, +Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemper +Sprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke? + Ham. On him, on him: look you how pale he glares, +His forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones, +Would make them capeable. Do not looke vpon me, +Least with this pitteous action you conuert +My sterne effects: then what I haue to do, +Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood + + Qu. To who do you speake this? + Ham. Do you see nothing there? + Qu. Nothing at all, yet all that is I see + + Ham. Nor did you nothing heare? + Qu. No, nothing but our selues + + Ham. Why look you there: looke how it steals away: +My Father in his habite, as he liued, +Looke where he goes euen now out at the Portall. +Enter. + + Qu. This is the very coynage of your Braine, +This bodilesse Creation extasie is very cunning in + + Ham. Extasie? +My Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time, +And makes as healthfull Musicke. It is not madnesse +That I haue vttered; bring me to the Test +And I the matter will re-word: which madnesse +Would gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace, +Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule, +That not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes: +It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place, +Whil'st ranke Corruption mining all within, +Infects vnseene. Confesse your selfe to Heauen, +Repent what's past, auoyd what is to come, +And do not spred the Compost on the Weedes, +To make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue, +For in the fatnesse of this pursie times, +Vertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge, +Yea courb, and woe, for leaue to do him good + + Qu. Oh Hamlet, +Thou hast cleft my heart in twaine + + Ham. O throw away the worser part of it, +And liue the purer with the other halfe. +Good night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed, +Assume a Vertue, if you haue it not, refraine to night, +And that shall lend a kinde of easinesse +To the next abstinence. Once more goodnight, +And when you are desirous to be blest, +Ile blessing begge of you. For this same Lord, +I do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so, +To punish me with this, and this with me, +That I must be their Scourge and Minister. +I will bestow him, and will answer well +The death I gaue him: so againe, good night. +I must be cruell, onely to be kinde; +Thus bad begins and worse remaines behinde + + Qu. What shall I do? + Ham. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do: +Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed, +Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse, +And let him for a paire of reechie kisses, +Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers, +Make you to rauell all this matter out, +That I essentially am not in madnesse, +But made in craft. 'Twere good you let him know, +For who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise, +Would from a Paddocke, from a Bat, a Gibbe, +Such deere concernings hide, Who would do so, +No in despight of Sense and Secrecie, +Vnpegge the Basket on the houses top: +Let the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape +To try Conclusions in the Basket, creepe +And breake your owne necke downe + + Qu. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, +And breath of life: I haue no life to breath +What thou hast saide to me + + Ham. I must to England, you know that? + Qu. Alacke I had forgot: 'Tis so concluded on + + Ham. This man shall set me packing: +Ile lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome, +Mother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor +Is now most still, most secret, and most graue, +Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue. +Come sir, to draw toward an end with you. +Good night Mother. +Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius. + +Enter King. + + King. There's matters in these sighes. +These profound heaues +You must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them. +Where is your Sonne? + Qu. Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night? + King. What Gertrude? How do's Hamlet? + Qu. Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend +Which is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit +Behinde the Arras, hearing something stirre, +He whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat, +And in his brainish apprehension killes +The vnseene good old man + + King. Oh heauy deed: +It had bin so with vs had we beene there: +His Liberty is full of threats to all, +To you your selfe, to vs, to euery one. +Alas, how shall this bloody deede be answered? +It will be laide to vs, whose prouidence +Should haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, +This mad yong man. But so much was our loue, +We would not vnderstand what was most fit, +But like the Owner of a foule disease, +To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede +Euen on the pith of life. Where is he gone? + Qu. To draw apart the body he hath kild, +O're whom his very madnesse like some Oare +Among a Minerall of Mettels base +Shewes it selfe pure. He weepes for what is done + + King. Oh Gertrude, come away: +The Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch, +But we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed, +We must with all our Maiesty and Skill +Both countenance, and excuse. +Enter Ros. & Guild. + +Ho Guildenstern: +Friends both go ioyne you with some further ayde: +Hamlet in madnesse hath Polonius slaine, +And from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him. +Go seeke him out, speake faire, and bring the body +Into the Chappell. I pray you hast in this. +Exit Gent. + +Come Gertrude, wee'l call vp our wisest friends, +To let them know both what we meane to do, +And what's vntimely done. Oh come away, +My soule is full of discord and dismay. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Hamlet. + + Ham. Safely stowed + + Gentlemen within. Hamlet, Lord Hamlet + + Ham. What noise? Who cals on Hamlet? +Oh heere they come. +Enter Ros. and Guildensterne. + + Ro. What haue you done my Lord with the dead body? + Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis Kinne + + Rosin. Tell vs where 'tis, that we may take it thence, +And beare it to the Chappell + + Ham. Do not beleeue it + + Rosin. Beleeue what? + Ham. That I can keepe your counsell, and not mine +owne. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge, what replication +should be made by the Sonne of a King + + Rosin. Take you me for a Spundge, my Lord? + Ham. I sir, that sokes vp the Kings Countenance, his +Rewards, his Authorities (but such Officers do the King +best seruice in the end. He keepes them like an Ape in +the corner of his iaw, first mouth'd to be last swallowed, +when he needes what you haue glean'd, it is but squeezing +you, and Spundge you shall be dry againe + + Rosin. I vnderstand you not my Lord + + Ham. I am glad of it: a knauish speech sleepes in a +foolish eare + + Rosin. My Lord, you must tell vs where the body is, +and go with vs to the King + + Ham. The body is with the King, but the King is not +with the body. The King, is a thing- + Guild. A thing my Lord? + Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him, hide Fox, and all +after. + +Exeunt. + +Enter King. + + King. I haue sent to seeke him, and to find the bodie: +How dangerous is it that this man goes loose: +Yet must not we put the strong Law on him: +Hee's loued of the distracted multitude, +Who like not in their iudgement, but their eyes: +And where 'tis so, th' Offenders scourge is weigh'd +But neerer the offence: to beare all smooth, and euen, +This sodaine sending him away, must seeme +Deliberate pause, diseases desperate growne, +By desperate appliance are releeued, +Or not at all. +Enter Rosincrane. + +How now? What hath befalne? + Rosin. Where the dead body is bestow'd my Lord, +We cannot get from him + + King. But where is he? + Rosin. Without my Lord, guarded to know your +pleasure + + King. Bring him before vs + + Rosin. Hoa, Guildensterne? Bring in my Lord. +Enter Hamlet and Guildensterne. + + King. Now Hamlet, where's Polonius? + Ham. At Supper + + King. At Supper? Where? + Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten, a certaine +conuocation of wormes are e'ne at him. Your worm +is your onely Emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else +to fat vs, and we fat our selfe for Magots. Your fat King, +and your leane Begger is but variable seruice to dishes, +but to one Table that's the end + + King. What dost thou meane by this? + Ham. Nothing but to shew you how a King may go +a Progresse through the guts of a Begger + + King. Where is Polonius + + Ham. In heauen, send thither to see. If your Messenger +finde him not there, seeke him i'th other place your +selfe: but indeed, if you finde him not this moneth, you +shall nose him as you go vp the staires into the Lobby + + King. Go seeke him there + + Ham. He will stay till ye come + + K. Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety +Which we do tender, as we deerely greeue +For that which thou hast done, must send thee hence +With fierie Quicknesse. Therefore prepare thy selfe, +The Barke is readie, and the winde at helpe, +Th' Associates tend, and euery thing at bent +For England + + Ham. For England? + King. I Hamlet + + Ham. Good + + King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes + + Ham. I see a Cherube that see's him: but come, for +England. Farewell deere Mother + + King. Thy louing Father Hamlet + + Hamlet. My Mother: Father and Mother is man and +wife: man & wife is one flesh, and so my mother. Come, +for England. + +Exit + + King. Follow him at foote, +Tempt him with speed aboord: +Delay it not, Ile haue him hence to night. +Away, for euery thing is Seal'd and done +That else leanes on th' Affaire, pray you make hast. +And England, if my loue thou holdst at ought, +As my great power thereof may giue thee sense, +Since yet thy Cicatrice lookes raw and red +After the Danish Sword, and thy free awe +Payes homage to vs; thou maist not coldly set +Our Soueraigne Processe, which imports at full +By Letters coniuring to that effect +The present death of Hamlet. Do it England, +For like the Hecticke in my blood he rages, +And thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done, +How ere my happes, my ioyes were ne're begun. + +Exit + +Enter Fortinbras with an Armie. + + For. Go Captaine, from me greet the Danish King, +Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras +Claimes the conueyance of a promis'd March +Ouer his Kingdome. You know the Rendeuous: +If that his Maiesty would ought with vs, +We shall expresse our dutie in his eye, +And let him know so + + Cap. I will doo't, my Lord + + For. Go safely on. +Enter. + +Enter Queene and Horatio. + + Qu. I will not speake with her + + Hor. She is importunate, indeed distract, her moode +will needs be pittied + + Qu. What would she haue? + Hor. She speakes much of her Father; saies she heares +There's trickes i'th' world, and hems, and beats her heart, +Spurnes enuiously at Strawes, speakes things in doubt, +That carry but halfe sense: Her speech is nothing, +Yet the vnshaped vse of it doth moue +The hearers to Collection; they ayme at it, +And botch the words vp fit to their owne thoughts, +Which as her winkes, and nods, and gestures yeeld them, +Indeed would make one thinke there would be thought, +Though nothing sure, yet much vnhappily + + Qu. 'Twere good she were spoken with, +For she may strew dangerous coniectures +In ill breeding minds. Let her come in. +To my sicke soule (as sinnes true Nature is) +Each toy seemes Prologue, to some great amisse, +So full of Artlesse iealousie is guilt, +It spill's it selfe, in fearing to be spilt. +Enter Ophelia distracted. + + Ophe. Where is the beauteous Maiesty of Denmark + + Qu. How now Ophelia? + Ophe. How should I your true loue know from another one? +By his Cockle hat and staffe, and his Sandal shoone + + Qu. Alas sweet Lady: what imports this Song? + Ophe. Say you? Nay pray you marke. +He is dead and gone Lady, he is dead and gone, +At his head a grasse-greene Turfe, at his heeles a stone. +Enter King. + + Qu. Nay but Ophelia + + Ophe. Pray you marke. +White his Shrow'd as the Mountaine Snow + + Qu. Alas, looke heere my Lord + + Ophe. Larded with sweet Flowers: +Which bewept to the graue did not go, +With true-loue showres + + King. How do ye, pretty Lady? + Ophe. Well, God dil'd you. They say the Owle was +a Bakers daughter. Lord, wee know what we are, but +know not what we may be. God be at your Table + + King. Conceit vpon her Father + + Ophe. Pray you let's haue no words of this: but when +they aske you what it meanes, say you this: +To morrow is S[aint]. Valentines day, all in the morning betime, +And I a Maid at your Window, to be your Valentine. +Then vp he rose, & don'd his clothes, & dupt the chamber dore, +Let in the Maid, that out a Maid, neuer departed more + + King. Pretty Ophelia + + Ophe. Indeed la? without an oath Ile make an end ont. +By gis, and by S[aint]. Charity, +Alacke, and fie for shame: +Yong men wil doo't, if they come too't, +By Cocke they are too blame. +Quoth she before you tumbled me, +You promis'd me to Wed: +So would I ha done by yonder Sunne, +And thou hadst not come to my bed + + King. How long hath she bin thus? + Ophe. I hope all will be well. We must bee patient, +but I cannot choose but weepe, to thinke they should +lay him i'th' cold ground: My brother shall knowe of it, +and so I thanke you for your good counsell. Come, my +Coach: Goodnight Ladies: Goodnight sweet Ladies: +Goodnight, goodnight. +Enter. + + King. Follow her close, +Giue her good watch I pray you: +Oh this is the poyson of deepe greefe, it springs +All from her Fathers death. Oh Gertrude, Gertrude, +When sorrowes comes, they come not single spies, +But in Battalians. First, her Father slaine, +Next your Sonne gone, and he most violent Author +Of his owne iust remoue: the people muddied, +Thicke and vnwholsome in their thoughts, and whispers +For good Polonius death; and we haue done but greenly +In hugger mugger to interre him. Poore Ophelia +Diuided from her selfe, and her faire Iudgement, +Without the which we are Pictures, or meere Beasts. +Last, and as much containing as all these, +Her Brother is in secret come from France, +Keepes on his wonder, keepes himselfe in clouds, +And wants not Buzzers to infect his eare +With pestilent Speeches of his Fathers death, +Where in necessitie of matter Beggard, +Will nothing sticke our persons to Arraigne +In eare and eare. O my deere Gertrude, this, +Like to a murdering Peece in many places, +Giues me superfluous death. + +A Noise within. + +Enter a Messenger. + + Qu. Alacke, what noyse is this? + King. Where are my Switzers? +Let them guard the doore. What is the matter? + Mes. Saue your selfe, my Lord. +The Ocean (ouer-peering of his List) +Eates not the Flats with more impittious haste +Then young Laertes, in a Riotous head, +Ore-beares your Officers, the rabble call him Lord, +And as the world were now but to begin, +Antiquity forgot, Custome not knowne, +The Ratifiers and props of euery word, +They cry choose we? Laertes shall be King, +Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, +Laertes shall be King, Laertes King + + Qu. How cheerefully on the false Traile they cry, +Oh this is Counter you false Danish Dogges. + +Noise within. Enter Laertes. + + King. The doores are broke + + Laer. Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without + + All. No, let's come in + + Laer. I pray you giue me leaue + + Al. We will, we will + + Laer. I thanke you: Keepe the doore. +Oh thou vilde King, giue me my Father + + Qu. Calmely good Laertes + + Laer. That drop of blood, that calmes +Proclaimes me Bastard: +Cries Cuckold to my Father, brands the Harlot +Euen heere betweene the chaste vnsmirched brow +Of my true Mother + + King. What is the cause Laertes, +That thy Rebellion lookes so Gyant-like? +Let him go Gertrude: Do not feare our person: +There's such Diuinity doth hedge a King, +That Treason can but peepe to what it would, +Acts little of his will. Tell me Laertes, +Why thou art thus Incenst? Let him go Gertrude. +Speake man + + Laer. Where's my Father? + King. Dead + + Qu. But not by him + + King. Let him demand his fill + + Laer. How came he dead? Ile not be Iuggel'd with. +To hell Allegeance: Vowes, to the blackest diuell. +Conscience and Grace, to the profoundest Pit. +I dare Damnation: to this point I stand, +That both the worlds I giue to negligence, +Let come what comes: onely Ile be reueng'd +Most throughly for my Father + + King. Who shall stay you? + Laer. My Will, not all the world, +And for my meanes, Ile husband them so well, +They shall go farre with little + + King. Good Laertes: +If you desire to know the certaintie +Of your deere Fathers death, if writ in your reuenge, +That Soop-stake you will draw both Friend and Foe, +Winner and Looser + + Laer. None but his Enemies + + King. Will you know them then + + La. To his good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes: +And like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician, +Repast them with my blood + + King. Why now you speake +Like a good Childe, and a true Gentleman. +That I am guiltlesse of your Fathers death, +And am most sensible in greefe for it, +It shall as leuell to your Iudgement pierce +As day do's to your eye. + +A noise within. Let her come in. + +Enter Ophelia. + + Laer. How now? what noise is that? +Oh heate drie vp my Braines, teares seuen times salt, +Burne out the Sence and Vertue of mine eye. +By Heauen, thy madnesse shall be payed by waight, +Till our Scale turnes the beame. Oh Rose of May, +Deere Maid, kinde Sister, sweet Ophelia: +Oh Heauens, is't possible, a yong Maids wits, +Should be as mortall as an old mans life? +Nature is fine in Loue, and where 'tis fine, +It sends some precious instance of it selfe +After the thing it loues + + Ophe. They bore him bare fac'd on the Beer, +Hey non nony, nony, hey nony: +And on his graue raines many a teare, +Fare you well my Doue + + Laer. Had'st thou thy wits, and did'st perswade Reuenge, +it could not moue thus + + Ophe. You must sing downe a-downe, and you call +him a-downe-a. Oh, how the wheele becomes it? It is +the false Steward that stole his masters daughter + + Laer. This nothings more then matter + + Ophe. There's Rosemary, that's for Remembraunce. +Pray loue remember: and there is Paconcies, that's for +Thoughts + + Laer. A document in madnesse, thoughts & remembrance +fitted + + Ophe. There's Fennell for you, and Columbines: ther's +Rew for you, and heere's some for me. Wee may call it +Herbe-Grace a Sundaies: Oh you must weare your Rew +with a difference. There's a Daysie, I would giue you +some Violets, but they wither'd all when my Father dyed: +They say, he made a good end; +For bonny sweet Robin is all my ioy + + Laer. Thought, and Affliction, Passion, Hell it selfe: +She turnes to Fauour, and to prettinesse + + Ophe. And will he not come againe, +And will he not come againe: +No, no, he is dead, go to thy Death-bed, +He neuer wil come againe. +His Beard as white as Snow, +All Flaxen was his Pole: +He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away mone, +Gramercy on his Soule. +And of all Christian Soules, I pray God. +God buy ye. + +Exeunt. Ophelia + + Laer. Do you see this, you Gods? + King. Laertes, I must common with your greefe, +Or you deny me right: go but apart, +Make choice of whom your wisest Friends you will, +And they shall heare and iudge 'twixt you and me; +If by direct or by Colaterall hand +They finde vs touch'd, we will our Kingdome giue, +Our Crowne, our Life, and all that we call Ours +To you in satisfaction. But if not, +Be you content to lend your patience to vs, +And we shall ioyntly labour with your soule +To giue it due content + + Laer. Let this be so: +His meanes of death, his obscure buriall; +No Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones, +No Noble rite, nor formall ostentation, +Cry to be heard, as 'twere from Heauen to Earth, +That I must call in question + + King. So you shall: +And where th' offence is, let the great Axe fall. +I pray you go with me. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Horatio, with an Attendant. + + Hora. What are they that would speake with me? + Ser. Saylors sir, they say they haue Letters for you + + Hor. Let them come in, +I do not know from what part of the world +I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet. +Enter Saylor. + + Say. God blesse you Sir + + Hor. Let him blesse thee too + + Say. Hee shall Sir, and't please him. There's a Letter +for you Sir: It comes from th' Ambassadours that was +bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I am let +to know it is. + +Reads the Letter. + +Horatio, When thou shalt haue ouerlook'd this, giue these +Fellowes some meanes to the King: They haue Letters +for him. Ere we were two dayes old at Sea, a Pyrate of very +Warlicke appointment gaue vs Chace. Finding our selues too +slow of Saile, we put on a compelled Valour. In the Grapple, I +boorded them: On the instant they got cleare of our Shippe, so +I alone became their Prisoner. They haue dealt with mee, like +Theeues of Mercy, but they knew what they did. I am to doe +a good turne for them. Let the King haue the Letters I haue +sent, and repaire thou to me with as much hast as thou wouldest +flye death. I haue words to speake in your eare, will make thee +dumbe, yet are they much too light for the bore of the Matter. +These good Fellowes will bring thee where I am. Rosincrance +and Guildensterne, hold their course for England. Of them +I haue much to tell thee, Farewell. +He that thou knowest thine, +Hamlet. +Come, I will giue you way for these your Letters, +And do't the speedier, that you may direct me +To him from whom you brought them. +Enter. + +Enter King and Laertes. + + King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, +And you must put me in your heart for Friend, +Sith you haue heard, and with a knowing eare, +That he which hath your Noble Father slaine, +Pursued my life + + Laer. It well appeares. But tell me, +Why you proceeded not against these feates, +So crimefull, and so Capitall in Nature, +As by your Safety, Wisedome, all things else, +You mainly were stirr'd vp? + King. O for two speciall Reasons, +Which may to you (perhaps) seeme much vnsinnowed, +And yet to me they are strong. The Queen his Mother, +Liues almost by his lookes: and for my selfe, +My Vertue or my Plague, be it either which, +She's so coniunctiue to my life, and soule; +That as the Starre moues not but in his Sphere, +I could not but by her. The other Motiue, +Why to a publike count I might not go, +Is the great loue the generall gender beare him, +Who dipping all his Faults in their affection, +Would like the Spring that turneth Wood to Stone, +Conuert his Gyues to Graces. So that my Arrowes +Too slightly timbred for so loud a Winde, +Would haue reuerted to my Bow againe, +And not where I had arm'd them + + Laer. And so haue I a Noble Father lost, +A Sister driuen into desperate tearmes, +Who was (if praises may go backe againe) +Stood Challenger on mount of all the Age +For her perfections. But my reuenge will come + + King. Breake not your sleepes for that, +You must not thinke +That we are made of stuffe, so flat, and dull, +That we can let our Beard be shooke with danger, +And thinke it pastime. You shortly shall heare more, +I lou'd your Father, and we loue our Selfe, +And that I hope will teach you to imagine- +Enter a Messenger. + +How now? What Newes? + Mes. Letters my Lord from Hamlet, This to your +Maiesty: this to the Queene + + King. From Hamlet? Who brought them? + Mes. Saylors my Lord they say, I saw them not: +They were giuen me by Claudio, he receiu'd them + + King. Laertes you shall heare them: +Leaue vs. + +Exit Messenger + +High and Mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your +Kingdome. To morrow shall I begge leaue to see your Kingly +Eyes. When I shall (first asking your Pardon thereunto) recount +th' Occasions of my sodaine, and more strange returne. +Hamlet. +What should this meane? Are all the rest come backe? +Or is it some abuse? Or no such thing? + Laer. Know you the hand? + Kin. 'Tis Hamlets Character, naked and in a Postscript +here he sayes alone: Can you aduise me? + Laer. I'm lost in it my Lord; but let him come, +It warmes the very sicknesse in my heart, +That I shall liue and tell him to his teeth; +Thus diddest thou + + Kin. If it be so Laertes, as how should it be so: +How otherwise will you be rul'd by me? + Laer. If so you'l not o'rerule me to a peace + + Kin. To thine owne peace: if he be now return'd, +As checking at his Voyage, and that he meanes +No more to vndertake it; I will worke him +To an exployt now ripe in my Deuice, +Vnder the which he shall not choose but fall; +And for his death no winde of blame shall breath, +But euen his Mother shall vncharge the practice, +And call it accident: Some two Monthes hence +Here was a Gentleman of Normandy, +I'ue seene my selfe, and seru'd against the French, +And they ran well on Horsebacke; but this Gallant +Had witchcraft in't; he grew into his Seat, +And to such wondrous doing brought his Horse, +As had he beene encorps't and demy-Natur'd +With the braue Beast, so farre he past my thought, +That I in forgery of shapes and trickes, +Come short of what he did + + Laer. A Norman was't? + Kin. A Norman + + Laer. Vpon my life Lamound + + Kin. The very same + + Laer. I know him well, he is the Brooch indeed, +And Iemme of all our Nation + + Kin. Hee mad confession of you, +And gaue you such a Masterly report, +For Art and exercise in your defence; +And for your Rapier most especiall, +That he cryed out, t'would be a sight indeed, +If one could match you Sir. This report of his +Did Hamlet so envenom with his Enuy, +That he could nothing doe but wish and begge, +Your sodaine comming ore to play with him; +Now out of this + + Laer. Why out of this, my Lord? + Kin. Laertes was your Father deare to you? +Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, +A face without a heart? + Laer. Why aske you this? + Kin. Not that I thinke you did not loue your Father, +But that I know Loue is begun by Time: +And that I see in passages of proofe, +Time qualifies the sparke and fire of it: +Hamlet comes backe: what would you vndertake, +To show your selfe your Fathers sonne indeed, +More then in words? + Laer. To cut his throat i'th' Church + + Kin. No place indeed should murder Sancturize; +Reuenge should haue no bounds: but good Laertes +Will you doe this, keepe close within your Chamber, +Hamlet return'd, shall know you are come home: +Wee'l put on those shall praise your excellence, +And set a double varnish on the fame +The Frenchman gaue you, bring you in fine together, +And wager on your heads, he being remisse, +Most generous, and free from all contriuing, +Will not peruse the Foiles? So that with ease, +Or with a little shuffling, you may choose +A Sword vnbaited, and in a passe of practice, +Requit him for your Father + + Laer. I will doo't. +And for that purpose Ile annoint my Sword: +I bought an Vnction of a Mountebanke +So mortall, I but dipt a knife in it, +Where it drawes blood, no Cataplasme so rare, +Collected from all Simples that haue Vertue +Vnder the Moone, can saue the thing from death, +That is but scratcht withall: Ile touch my point, +With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, +It may be death + + Kin. Let's further thinke of this, +Weigh what conuenience both of time and meanes +May fit vs to our shape, if this should faile; +And that our drift looke through our bad performance, +'Twere better not assaid; therefore this Proiect +Should haue a backe or second, that might hold, +If this should blast in proofe: Soft, let me see +Wee'l make a solemne wager on your commings, +I ha't: when in your motion you are hot and dry, +As make your bowts more violent to the end, +And that he cals for drinke; Ile haue prepar'd him +A Challice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, +If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, +Our purpose may hold there; how sweet Queene. +Enter Queene. + + Queen. One woe doth tread vpon anothers heele, +So fast they'l follow: your Sister's drown'd Laertes + + Laer. Drown'd! O where? + Queen. There is a Willow growes aslant a Brooke, +That shewes his hore leaues in the glassie streame: +There with fantasticke Garlands did she come, +Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daysies, and long Purples, +That liberall Shepheards giue a grosser name; +But our cold Maids doe Dead Mens Fingers call them: +There on the pendant boughes, her Coronet weeds +Clambring to hang; an enuious sliuer broke, +When downe the weedy Trophies, and her selfe, +Fell in the weeping Brooke, her cloathes spred wide, +And Mermaid-like, a while they bore her vp, +Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes, +As one incapable of her owne distresse, +Or like a creature Natiue, and indued +Vnto that Element: but long it could not be, +Till that her garments, heauy with her drinke, +Pul'd the poore wretch from her melodious buy, +To muddy death + + Laer. Alas then, is she drown'd? + Queen. Drown'd, drown'd + + Laer. Too much of water hast thou poore Ophelia, +And therefore I forbid my teares: but yet +It is our tricke, Nature her custome holds, +Let shame say what it will; when these are gone +The woman will be out: Adue my Lord, +I haue a speech of fire, that faine would blaze, +But that this folly doubts it. +Enter. + + Kin. Let's follow, Gertrude: +How much I had to doe to calme his rage? +Now feare I this will giue it start againe; +Therefore let's follow. + +Exeunt. + +Enter two Clownes. + + Clown. Is she to bee buried in Christian buriall, that +wilfully seekes her owne saluation? + Other. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her Graue +straight, the Crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian +buriall + + Clo. How can that be, vnlesse she drowned her selfe in +her owne defence? + Other. Why 'tis found so + + Clo. It must be Se offendendo, it cannot bee else: for +heere lies the point; If I drowne my selfe wittingly, it argues +an Act: and an Act hath three branches. It is an +Act to doe and to performe; argall she drown'd her selfe +wittingly + + Other. Nay but heare you Goodman Deluer + + Clown. Giue me leaue; heere lies the water; good: +heere stands the man; good: If the man goe to this water +and drowne himselfe; it is will he nill he, he goes; +marke you that? But if the water come to him & drowne +him; hee drownes not himselfe. Argall, hee that is not +guilty of his owne death, shortens not his owne life + + Other. But is this law? + Clo. I marry is't, Crowners Quest Law + + Other. Will you ha the truth on't: if this had not +beene a Gentlewoman, shee should haue beene buried +out of Christian Buriall + + Clo. Why there thou say'st. And the more pitty that +great folke should haue countenance in this world to +drowne or hang themselues, more then their euen Christian. +Come, my Spade; there is no ancient Gentlemen, +but Gardiners, Ditchers and Graue-makers; they hold vp +Adams Profession + + Other. Was he a Gentleman? + Clo. He was the first that euer bore Armes + + Other. Why he had none + + Clo. What, ar't a Heathen? how doth thou vnderstand +the Scripture? the Scripture sayes Adam dig'd; +could hee digge without Armes? Ile put another question +to thee; if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confesse +thy selfe- + Other. Go too + + Clo. What is he that builds stronger then either the +Mason, the Shipwright, or the Carpenter? + Other. The Gallowes maker; for that Frame outliues a +thousand Tenants + + Clo. I like thy wit well in good faith, the Gallowes +does well; but how does it well? it does well to those +that doe ill: now, thou dost ill to say the Gallowes is +built stronger then the Church: Argall, the Gallowes +may doe well to thee. Too't againe, Come + + Other. Who builds stronger then a Mason, a Shipwright, +or a Carpenter? + Clo. I, tell me that, and vnyoake + + Other. Marry, now I can tell + + Clo. Too't + + Other. Masse, I cannot tell. +Enter Hamlet and Horatio a farre off. + + Clo. Cudgell thy braines no more about it; for your +dull Asse will not mend his pace with beating; and when +you are ask't this question next, say a Graue-maker: the +Houses that he makes, lasts till Doomesday: go, get thee +to Yaughan, fetch me a stoupe of Liquor. + +Sings. + +In youth when I did loue, did loue, +me thought it was very sweete: +To contract O the time for a my behoue, +O me thought there was nothing meete + + Ham. Ha's this fellow no feeling of his businesse, that +he sings at Graue-making? + Hor. Custome hath made it in him a property of easinesse + + Ham. 'Tis ee'n so; the hand of little Imployment hath +the daintier sense + + Clowne sings. But Age with his stealing steps +hath caught me in his clutch: +And hath shipped me intill the Land, +as if I had neuer beene such + + Ham. That Scull had a tongue in it, and could sing +once: how the knaue iowles it to th' grownd, as if it +were Caines Iaw-bone, that did the first murther: It +might be the Pate of a Polititian which this Asse o're Offices: +one that could circumuent God, might it not? + Hor. It might, my Lord + + Ham. Or of a Courtier, which could say, Good Morrow +sweet Lord: how dost thou, good Lord? this +might be my Lord such a one, that prais'd my Lord such +a ones Horse, when he meant to begge it; might it not? + Hor. I, my Lord + + Ham. Why ee'n so: and now my Lady Wormes, +Chaplesse, and knockt about the Mazard with a Sextons +Spade; heere's fine Reuolution, if wee had the tricke to +see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but +to play at Loggets with 'em? mine ake to thinke +on't + + Clowne sings. A Pickhaxe and a Spade, a Spade, +for and a shrowding-Sheete: +O a Pit of Clay for to be made, +for such a Guest is meete + + Ham. There's another: why might not that bee the +Scull of a Lawyer? where be his Quiddits now? his +Quillets? his Cases? his Tenures, and his Tricks? why +doe's he suffer this rude knaue now to knocke him about +the Sconce with a dirty Shouell, and will not tell him of +his Action of Battery? hum. This fellow might be in's +time a great buyer of Land, with his Statutes, his Recognizances, +his Fines, his double Vouchers, his Recoueries: +Is this the fine of his Fines, and the recouery of his Recoueries, +to haue his fine Pate full of fine Dirt? will his +Vouchers vouch him no more of his Purchases, and double +ones too, then the length and breadth of a paire of +Indentures? the very Conueyances of his Lands will +hardly lye in this Boxe; and must the Inheritor himselfe +haue no more? ha? + Hor. Not a iot more, my Lord + + Ham. Is not Parchment made of Sheep-skinnes? + Hor. I my Lord, and of Calue-skinnes too + + Ham. They are Sheepe and Calues that seek out assurance +in that. I will speake to this fellow: whose Graue's +this Sir? + Clo. Mine Sir: +O a Pit of Clay for to be made, +for such a Guest is meete + + Ham. I thinke it be thine indeed: for thou liest in't + + Clo. You lye out on't Sir, and therefore it is not yours: +for my part, I doe not lye in't; and yet it is mine + + Ham. Thou dost lye in't, to be in't and say 'tis thine: +'tis for the dead, not for the quicke, therefore thou +lyest + + Clo. 'Tis a quicke lye Sir, 'twill away againe from me +to you + + Ham. What man dost thou digge it for? + Clo. For no man Sir + + Ham. What woman then? + Clo. For none neither + + Ham. Who is to be buried in't? + Clo. One that was a woman Sir; but rest her Soule, +shee's dead + + Ham. How absolute the knaue is? wee must speake +by the Carde, or equiuocation will vndoe vs: by the +Lord Horatio, these three yeares I haue taken note of it, +the Age is growne so picked, that the toe of the Pesant +comes so neere the heeles of our Courtier, hee galls his +Kibe. How long hast thou been a Graue-maker? + Clo. Of all the dayes i'th' yeare, I came too't that day +that our last King Hamlet o'recame Fortinbras + + Ham. How long is that since? + Clo. Cannot you tell that? euery foole can tell that: +It was the very day, that young Hamlet was borne, hee +that was mad, and sent into England + + Ham. I marry, why was he sent into England? + Clo. Why, because he was mad; hee shall recouer his +wits there; or if he do not, it's no great matter there + + Ham. Why? + Clo. 'Twill not be seene in him, there the men are as +mad as he + + Ham. How came he mad? + Clo. Very strangely they say + + Ham. How strangely? + Clo. Faith e'ene with loosing his wits + + Ham. Vpon what ground? + Clo. Why heere in Denmarke: I haue bin sixeteene +heere, man and Boy thirty yeares + + Ham. How long will a man lie i'th' earth ere he rot? + Clo. Ifaith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we haue +many pocky Coarses now adaies, that will scarce hold +the laying in) he will last you some eight yeare, or nine +yeare. A Tanner will last you nine yeare + + Ham. Why he, more then another? + Clo. Why sir, his hide is so tan'd with his Trade, that +he will keepe out water a great while. And your water, +is a sore Decayer of your horson dead body. Heres a Scull +now: this Scul, has laine in the earth three & twenty years + + Ham. Whose was it? + Clo. A whoreson mad Fellowes it was; +Whose doe you thinke it was? + Ham. Nay, I know not + + Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad Rogue, a pour'd a +Flaggon of Renish on my head once. This same Scull +Sir, this same Scull sir, was Yoricks Scull, the Kings Iester + + Ham. This? + Clo. E'ene that + + Ham. Let me see. Alas poore Yorick, I knew him Horatio, +a fellow of infinite Iest; of most excellent fancy, he +hath borne me on his backe a thousand times: And how +abhorred my Imagination is, my gorge rises at it. Heere +hung those lipps, that I haue kist I know not how oft. +Where be your Iibes now? Your Gambals? Your +Songs? Your flashes of Merriment that were wont to +set the Table on a Rore? No one now to mock your own +Ieering? Quite chopfalne? Now get you to my Ladies +Chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thicke, to this +fauour she must come. Make her laugh at that: prythee +Horatio tell me one thing + + Hor. What's that my Lord? + Ham. Dost thou thinke Alexander lookt o'this fashion +i'th' earth? + Hor. E'ene so + + Ham. And smelt so? Puh + + Hor. E'ene so, my Lord + + Ham. To what base vses we may returne Horatio. +Why may not Imagination trace the Noble dust of Alexander, +till he find it stopping a bunghole + + Hor. 'Twere to consider: to curiously to consider so + + Ham. No faith, not a iot. But to follow him thether +with modestie enough, & likeliehood to lead it; as thus. +Alexander died: Alexander was buried: Alexander returneth +into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make +Lome, and why of that Lome (whereto he was conuerted) +might they not stopp a Beere-barrell? +Imperiall Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, +Might stop a hole to keepe the winde away. +Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, +Should patch a Wall, t' expell the winters flaw. +But soft, but soft, aside; heere comes the King. +Enter King, Queene, Laertes, and a Coffin, with Lords attendant. + +The Queene, the Courtiers. Who is that they follow, +And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken, +The Coarse they follow, did with disperate hand, +Fore do it owne life; 'twas some Estate. +Couch we a while, and mark + + Laer. What Cerimony else? + Ham. That is Laertes, a very Noble youth: Marke + + Laer. What Cerimony else? + Priest. Her Obsequies haue bin as farre inlarg'd. +As we haue warrantie, her death was doubtfull, +And but that great Command, o're-swaies the order, +She should in ground vnsanctified haue lodg'd, +Till the last Trumpet. For charitable praier, +Shardes, Flints, and Peebles, should be throwne on her: +Yet heere she is allowed her Virgin Rites, +Her Maiden strewments, and the bringing home +Of Bell and Buriall + + Laer. Must there no more be done ? + Priest. No more be done: +We should prophane the seruice of the dead, +To sing sage Requiem, and such rest to her +As to peace-parted Soules + + Laer. Lay her i'th' earth, +And from her faire and vnpolluted flesh, +May Violets spring. I tell thee (churlish Priest) +A Ministring Angell shall my Sister be, +When thou liest howling? + Ham. What, the faire Ophelia? + Queene. Sweets, to the sweet farewell. +I hop'd thou should'st haue bin my Hamlets wife: +I thought thy Bride-bed to haue deckt (sweet Maid) +And not t'haue strew'd thy Graue + + Laer. Oh terrible woer, +Fall ten times trebble, on that cursed head +Whose wicked deed, thy most Ingenious sence +Depriu'd thee of. Hold off the earth a while, +Till I haue caught her once more in mine armes: + +Leaps in the graue. + +Now pile your dust, vpon the quicke, and dead, +Till of this flat a Mountaine you haue made, +To o're top old Pelion, or the skyish head +Of blew Olympus + + Ham. What is he, whose griefes +Beares such an Emphasis? whose phrase of Sorrow +Coniure the wandring Starres, and makes them stand +Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, +Hamlet the Dane + + Laer. The deuill take thy soule + + Ham. Thou prai'st not well, +I prythee take thy fingers from my throat; +Sir though I am not Spleenatiue, and rash, +Yet haue I something in me dangerous, +Which let thy wisenesse feare. Away thy hand + + King. Pluck them asunder + + Qu. Hamlet, Hamlet + + Gen. Good my Lord be quiet + + Ham. Why I will fight with him vppon this Theme. +Vntill my eielids will no longer wag + + Qu. Oh my Sonne, what Theame? + Ham. I lou'd Ophelia; fortie thousand Brothers +Could not (with all there quantitie of Loue) +Make vp my summe. What wilt thou do for her? + King. Oh he is mad Laertes, + Qu. For loue of God forbeare him + + Ham. Come show me what thou'lt doe. +Woo't weepe? Woo't fight? Woo't teare thy selfe? +Woo't drinke vp Esile, eate a Crocodile? +Ile doo't. Dost thou come heere to whine; +To outface me with leaping in her Graue? +Be buried quicke with her, and so will I. +And if thou prate of Mountaines; let them throw +Millions of Akers on vs; till our ground +Sindging his pate against the burning Zone, +Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, and thou'lt mouth, +Ile rant as well as thou + + Kin. This is meere Madnesse: +And thus awhile the fit will worke on him: +Anon as patient as the female Doue, +When that her Golden Cuplet are disclos'd; +His silence will sit drooping + + Ham. Heare you Sir: +What is the reason that you vse me thus? +I lou'd you euer; but it is no matter: +Let Hercules himselfe doe what he may, +The Cat will Mew, and Dogge will haue his day. +Enter. + + Kin. I pray you good Horatio wait vpon him, +Strengthen your patience in our last nights speech, +Wee'l put the matter to the present push: +Good Gertrude set some watch ouer your Sonne, +This Graue shall haue a liuing Monument: +An houre of quiet shortly shall we see; +Till then, in patience our proceeding be. + +Exeunt. + +Enter Hamlet and Horatio + + Ham. So much for this Sir; now let me see the other, +You doe remember all the Circumstance + + Hor. Remember it my Lord? + Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kinde of fighting, +That would not let me sleepe; me thought I lay +Worse then the mutines in the Bilboes, rashly, +(And praise be rashnesse for it) let vs know, +Our indiscretion sometimes serues vs well, +When our deare plots do paule, and that should teach vs, +There's a Diuinity that shapes our ends, +Rough-hew them how we will + + Hor. That is most certaine + + Ham. Vp from my Cabin +My sea-gowne scarft about me in the darke, +Grop'd I to finde out them; had my desire, +Finger'd their Packet, and in fine, withdrew +To mine owne roome againe, making so bold, +(My feares forgetting manners) to vnseale +Their grand Commission, where I found Horatio, +Oh royall knauery: An exact command, +Larded with many seuerall sorts of reason; +Importing Denmarks health, and Englands too, +With hoo, such Bugges and Goblins in my life, +That on the superuize no leasure bated, +No not to stay the grinding of the Axe, +My head should be struck off + + Hor. Ist possible? + Ham. Here's the Commission, read it at more leysure: +But wilt thou heare me how I did proceed? + Hor. I beseech you + + Ham. Being thus benetted round with Villaines, +Ere I could make a Prologue to my braines, +They had begun the Play. I sate me downe, +Deuis'd a new Commission, wrote it faire, +I once did hold it as our Statists doe, +A basenesse to write faire; and laboured much +How to forget that learning: but Sir now, +It did me Yeomans seriuce: wilt thou know +The effects of what I wrote? + Hor. I, good my Lord + + Ham. An earnest Coniuration from the King, +As England was his faithfull Tributary, +As loue betweene them, as the Palme should flourish, +As Peace should still her wheaten Garland weare, +And stand a Comma 'tweene their amities, +And many such like Assis of great charge, +That on the view and know of these Contents, +Without debatement further, more or lesse, +He should the bearers put to sodaine death, +Not shriuing time allowed + + Hor. How was this seal'd? + Ham. Why, euen in that was Heauen ordinate; +I had my fathers Signet in my Purse, +Which was the Modell of that Danish Seale: +Folded the Writ vp in forme of the other, +Subscrib'd it, gau't th' impression, plac't it safely, +The changeling neuer knowne: Now, the next day +Was our Sea Fight, and what to this was sement, +Thou know'st already + + Hor. So Guildensterne and Rosincrance, go too't + + Ham. Why man, they did make loue to this imployment +They are not neere my Conscience; their debate +Doth by their owne insinuation grow: +'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes +Betweene the passe, and fell incensed points +Of mighty opposites + + Hor. Why, what a King is this? + Ham. Does it not, thinkst thee, stand me now vpon +He that hath kil'd my King, and whor'd my Mother, +Popt in betweene th' election and my hopes, +Throwne out his Angle for my proper life, +And with such coozenage; is't not perfect conscience, +To quit him with this arme? And is't not to be damn'd +To let this Canker of our nature come +In further euill + + Hor. It must be shortly knowne to him from England +What is the issue of the businesse there + + Ham. It will be short, +The interim's mine, and a mans life's no more +Then to say one: but I am very sorry good Horatio, +That to Laertes I forgot my selfe; +For by the image of my Cause, I see +The Portraiture of his; Ile count his fauours: +But sure the brauery of his griefe did put me +Into a Towring passion + + Hor. Peace, who comes heere? +Enter young Osricke. + + Osr. Your Lordship is right welcome back to Denmarke + + Ham. I humbly thank you Sir, dost know this waterflie? + Hor. No my good Lord + + Ham. Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to +know him: he hath much Land, and fertile; let a Beast +be Lord of Beasts, and his Crib shall stand at the Kings +Messe; 'tis a Chowgh; but as I saw spacious in the possession +of dirt + + Osr. Sweet Lord, if your friendship were at leysure, +I should impart a thing to you from his Maiesty + + Ham. I will receiue it with all diligence of spirit; put +your Bonet to his right vse, 'tis for the head + + Osr. I thanke your Lordship, 'tis very hot + + Ham. No, beleeue mee 'tis very cold, the winde is +Northerly + + Osr. It is indifferent cold my Lord indeed + + Ham. Mee thinkes it is very soultry, and hot for my +Complexion + + Osr. Exceedingly, my Lord, it is very soultry, as 'twere +I cannot tell how: but my Lord, his Maiesty bad me signifie +to you, that he ha's laid a great wager on your head: +Sir, this is the matter + + Ham. I beseech you remember + + Osr. Nay, in good faith, for mine ease in good faith: +Sir, you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is at +his weapon + + Ham. What's his weapon? + Osr. Rapier and dagger + + Ham. That's two of his weapons; but well + + Osr. The sir King ha's wag'd with him six Barbary horses, +against the which he impon'd as I take it, sixe French +Rapiers and Poniards, with their assignes, as Girdle, +Hangers or so: three of the Carriages infaith are very +deare to fancy, very responsiue to the hilts, most delicate +carriages, and of very liberall conceit + + Ham. What call you the Carriages? + Osr. The Carriages Sir, are the hangers + + Ham. The phrase would bee more Germaine to the +matter: If we could carry Cannon by our sides; I would +it might be Hangers till then; but on sixe Barbary Horses +against sixe French Swords: their Assignes, and three +liberall conceited Carriages, that's the French but against +the Danish; why is this impon'd as you call it? + Osr. The King Sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes betweene +you and him, hee shall not exceed you three hits; +He hath one twelue for mine, and that would come to +imediate tryall, if your Lordship would vouchsafe the +Answere + + Ham. How if I answere no? + Osr. I meane my Lord, the opposition of your person +in tryall + + Ham. Sir, I will walke heere in the Hall; if it please +his Maiestie, 'tis the breathing time of day with me; let +the Foyles bee brought, the Gentleman willing, and the +King hold his purpose; I will win for him if I can: if +not, Ile gaine nothing but my shame, and the odde hits + + Osr. Shall I redeliuer you ee'n so? + Ham. To this effect Sir, after what flourish your nature +will + + Osr. I commend my duty to your Lordship + + Ham. Yours, yours; hee does well to commend it +himselfe, there are no tongues else for's tongue + + Hor. This Lapwing runs away with the shell on his +head + + Ham. He did Complie with his Dugge before hee +suck't it: thus had he and mine more of the same Beauty +that I know the drossie age dotes on; only got the tune of +the time, and outward habite of encounter, a kinde of +yesty collection, which carries them through & through +the most fond and winnowed opinions; and doe but blow +them to their tryalls: the Bubbles are out + + Hor. You will lose this wager, my Lord + + Ham. I doe not thinke so, since he went into France, +I haue beene in continuall practice; I shall winne at the +oddes: but thou wouldest not thinke how all heere about +my heart: but it is no matter + + Hor. Nay, good my Lord + + Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kinde of +gain-giuing as would perhaps trouble a woman + + Hor. If your minde dislike any thing, obey. I will forestall +their repaire hither, and say you are not fit + + Ham. Not a whit, we defie Augury; there's a speciall +Prouidence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not +to come: if it bee not to come, it will bee now: if it +be not now; yet it will come; the readinesse is all, since no +man ha's ought of what he leaues. What is't to leaue betimes? +Enter King, Queene, Laertes and Lords, with other Attendants with +Foyles, +and Gauntlets, a Table and Flagons of Wine on it. + + Kin. Come Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me + + Ham. Giue me your pardon Sir, I'ue done you wrong, +But pardon't as you are a Gentleman. +This presence knowes, +And you must needs haue heard how I am punisht +With sore distraction? What I haue done +That might your nature honour, and exception +Roughly awake, I heere proclaime was madnesse: +Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Neuer Hamlet. +If Hamlet from himselfe be tane away: +And when he's not himselfe, do's wrong Laertes, +Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it: +Who does it then? His Madnesse? If't be so, +Hamlet is of the Faction that is wrong'd, +His madnesse is poore Hamlets Enemy. +Sir, in this Audience, +Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd euill, +Free me so farre in your most generous thoughts, +That I haue shot mine Arrow o're the house, +And hurt my Mother + + Laer. I am satisfied in Nature, +Whose motiue in this case should stirre me most +To my Reuenge. But in my termes of Honor +I stand aloofe, and will no reconcilement, +Till by some elder Masters of knowne Honor, +I haue a voyce, and president of peace +To keepe my name vngorg'd. But till that time, +I do receiue your offer'd loue like loue, +And wil not wrong it + + Ham. I do embrace it freely, +And will this Brothers wager frankely play. +Giue vs the Foyles: Come on + + Laer. Come one for me + + Ham. Ile be your foile Laertes, in mine ignorance, +Your Skill shall like a Starre i'th' darkest night, +Sticke fiery off indeede + + Laer. You mocke me Sir + + Ham. No by this hand + + King. Giue them the Foyles yong Osricke, +Cousen Hamlet, you know the wager + + Ham. Verie well my Lord, +Your Grace hath laide the oddes a'th' weaker side + + King. I do not feare it, +I haue seene you both: +But since he is better'd, we haue therefore oddes + + Laer. This is too heauy, +Let me see another + + Ham. This likes me well, +These Foyles haue all a length. + +Prepare to play. + + Osricke. I my good Lord + + King. Set me the Stopes of wine vpon that Table: +If Hamlet giue the first, or second hit, +Or quit in answer of the third exchange, +Let all the Battlements their Ordinance fire, +The King shal drinke to Hamlets better breath, +And in the Cup an vnion shal he throw +Richer then that, which foure successiue Kings +In Denmarkes Crowne haue worne. +Giue me the Cups, +And let the Kettle to the Trumpets speake, +The Trumpet to the Cannoneer without, +The Cannons to the Heauens, the Heauen to Earth, +Now the King drinkes to Hamlet. Come, begin, +And you the Iudges beare a wary eye + + Ham. Come on sir + + Laer. Come on sir. + +They play. + + Ham. One + + Laer. No + + Ham. Iudgement + + Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit + + Laer. Well: againe + + King. Stay, giue me drinke. +Hamlet, this Pearle is thine, +Here's to thy health. Giue him the cup, + +Trumpets sound, and shot goes off. + + Ham. Ile play this bout first, set by a-while. +Come: Another hit; what say you? + Laer. A touch, a touch, I do confesse + + King. Our Sonne shall win + + Qu. He's fat, and scant of breath. +Heere's a Napkin, rub thy browes, +The Queene Carowses to thy fortune, Hamlet + + Ham. Good Madam + + King. Gertrude, do not drinke + + Qu. I will my Lord; +I pray you pardon me + + King. It is the poyson'd Cup, it is too late + + Ham. I dare not drinke yet Madam, +By and by + + Qu. Come, let me wipe thy face + + Laer. My Lord, Ile hit him now + + King. I do not thinke't + + Laer. And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience + + Ham. Come for the third. +Laertes, you but dally, +I pray you passe with your best violence, +I am affear'd you make a wanton of me + + Laer. Say you so? Come on. + +Play. + + Osr. Nothing neither way + + Laer. Haue at you now. + +In scuffling they change Rapiers. + + King. Part them, they are incens'd + + Ham. Nay come, againe + + Osr. Looke to the Queene there hoa + + Hor. They bleed on both sides. How is't my Lord? + Osr. How is't Laertes? + Laer. Why as a Woodcocke +To mine Sprindge, Osricke, +I am iustly kill'd with mine owne Treacherie + + Ham. How does the Queene? + King. She sounds to see them bleede + + Qu. No, no, the drinke, the drinke. +Oh my deere Hamlet, the drinke, the drinke, +I am poyson'd + + Ham. Oh Villany! How? Let the doore be lock'd. +Treacherie, seeke it out + + Laer. It is heere Hamlet. +Hamlet, thou art slaine, +No Medicine in the world can do thee good. +In thee, there is not halfe an houre of life; +The Treacherous Instrument is in thy hand, +Vnbated and envenom'd: the foule practise +Hath turn'd it selfe on me. Loe, heere I lye, +Neuer to rise againe: Thy Mothers poyson'd: +I can no more, the King, the King's too blame + + Ham. The point envenom'd too, +Then venome to thy worke. + +Hurts the King. + + All. Treason, Treason + + King. O yet defend me Friends, I am but hurt + + Ham. Heere thou incestuous, murdrous, +Damned Dane, +Drinke off this Potion: Is thy Vnion heere? +Follow my Mother. + +King Dyes. + + Laer. He is iustly seru'd. +It is a poyson temp'red by himselfe: +Exchange forgiuenesse with me, Noble Hamlet; +Mine and my Fathers death come not vpon thee, +Nor thine on me. + +Dyes. + + Ham. Heauen make thee free of it, I follow thee. +I am dead Horatio, wretched Queene adiew, +You that looke pale, and tremble at this chance, +That are but Mutes or audience to this acte: +Had I but time (as this fell Sergeant death +Is strick'd in his Arrest) oh I could tell you. +But let it be: Horatio, I am dead, +Thou liu'st, report me and my causes right +To the vnsatisfied + + Hor. Neuer beleeue it. +I am more an Antike Roman then a Dane: +Heere's yet some Liquor left + + Ham. As th'art a man, giue me the Cup. +Let go, by Heauen Ile haue't. +Oh good Horatio, what a wounded name, +(Things standing thus vnknowne) shall liue behind me. +If thou did'st euer hold me in thy heart, +Absent thee from felicitie awhile, +And in this harsh world draw thy breath in paine, +To tell my Storie. + +March afarre off, and shout within. + +What warlike noyse is this? +Enter Osricke. + + Osr. Yong Fortinbras, with conquest come fro[m] Poland +To th' Ambassadors of England giues this warlike volly + + Ham. O I dye Horatio: +The potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit, +I cannot liue to heare the Newes from England, +But I do prophesie th' election lights +On Fortinbras, he ha's my dying voyce, +So tell him with the occurrents more and lesse, +Which haue solicited. The rest is silence. O, o, o, o. + +Dyes + + Hora. Now cracke a Noble heart: +Goodnight sweet Prince, +And flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest, +Why do's the Drumme come hither? +Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassador, with Drumme, Colours, +and +Attendants. + + Fortin. Where is this sight? + Hor. What is it ye would see; +If ought of woe, or wonder, cease your search + + For. His quarry cries on hauocke. Oh proud death, +What feast is toward in thine eternall Cell. +That thou so many Princes, at a shoote, +So bloodily hast strooke + + Amb. The sight is dismall, +And our affaires from England come too late, +The eares are senselesse that should giue vs hearing, +To tell him his command'ment is fulfill'd, +That Rosincrance and Guildensterne are dead: +Where should we haue our thankes? + Hor. Not from his mouth, +Had it th' abilitie of life to thanke you: +He neuer gaue command'ment for their death. +But since so iumpe vpon this bloodie question, +You from the Polake warres, and you from England +Are heere arriued. Giue order that these bodies +High on a stage be placed to the view, +And let me speake to th' yet vnknowing world, +How these things came about. So shall you heare +Of carnall, bloudie, and vnnaturall acts, +Of accidentall iudgements, casuall slaughters +Of death's put on by cunning, and forc'd cause, +And in this vpshot, purposes mistooke, +Falne on the Inuentors head. All this can I +Truly deliuer + + For. Let vs hast to heare it, +And call the Noblest to the Audience. +For me, with sorrow, I embrace my Fortune, +I haue some Rites of memory in this Kingdome, +Which are to claime, my vantage doth +Inuite me, + Hor. Of that I shall haue alwayes cause to speake, +And from his mouth +Whose voyce will draw on more: +But let this same be presently perform'd, +Euen whiles mens mindes are wilde, +Lest more mischance +On plots, and errors happen + + For. Let foure Captaines +Beare Hamlet like a Soldier to the Stage, +For he was likely, had he beene put on +To haue prou'd most royally: +And for his passage, +The Souldiours Musicke, and the rites of Warre +Speake lowdly for him. +Take vp the body; Such a sight as this +Becomes the Field, but heere shewes much amis. +Go, bid the Souldiers shoote. + +Exeunt. Marching: after the which, a Peale of Ordenance are shot +off. + + +FINIS. The tragedie of HAMLET, Prince of Denmarke.
+ texts/phrase.txt view
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@+外国語の学習と教授+Language Learning and Teaching+Изучение и обучение иностранных языков+Tere Daaheng Aneng Karimah+語文教學・语文教学+Enseñanza y estudio de idiomas+Изучаване и Преподаване на Чужди Езици+ქართული ენის შესწავლა და სწავლება+'læŋɡwidʒ 'lɘr:niŋ ænd 'ti:tʃiŋ+Lus kawm thaib qhia+Ngôn Ngữ, Sự học,+ללמוד וללמד את השֵפה+L'enseignement et l'étude des langues+말배우기와 가르치기+Nauka języków obcych+Γλωσσική Εκμὰθηση και Διδασκαλία+ﺗﺪﺭﯾﺲ ﻭ ﯾﺎﺩﮔﯿﺮﯼ ﺯﺑﺎﻥ+Sprachlernen und -lehren+ﺗﻌﻠﻢ ﻭﺗﺪﺭﻳﺲ ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ+เรียนและสอนภาษา
+ texts/rune-poem.txt view
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@+Two different forms of the first six verses of the "Anglo Saxon Rune Poem"+++Firstly, Latin-based Anglo-Saxon orthography.++ Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum;+ sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan+ gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan.++ Ur byþ anmod ond oferhyrned,+ felafrecne deor, feohteþ mid hornum+ mære morstapa; þæt is modig wuht.++ Ðorn byþ ðearle scearp; ðegna gehwylcum+ anfeng ys yfyl, ungemetum reþe+ manna gehwelcum, ðe him mid resteð.++ Os byþ ordfruma ælere spræce,+ wisdomes wraþu ond witena frofur+ and eorla gehwam eadnys ond tohiht.++ Rad byþ on recyde rinca gehwylcum+ sefte ond swiþhwæt, ðamðe sitteþ on ufan+ meare mægenheardum ofer milpaþas.++ Cen byþ cwicera gehwam, cuþ on fyre+ blac ond beorhtlic, byrneþ oftust+ ðær hi æþelingas inne restaþ.++Secondly, in Runic (Futhorc) Anglo-Saxon orthography++ ᚠᛇᚻ᛫ᛒᛦᚦ᛫ᚠᚱᚩᚠᚢᚱ᛫ᚠᛁᚱᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᛦᛚᚳᚢᛗ+ ᛋᚳᛖᚪᛚ᛫ᚦᛖᚪᚻ᛫ᛗᚪᚾᚾᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᛦᛚᚳ᛫ᛗᛁᚳᛚᚢᚾ᛫ᚻᛦᛏ᛫ᛞᚫᛚᚪᚾ+ ᚷᛁᚠ᛫ᚻᛖ᛫ᚹᛁᛚᛖ᛫ᚠᚩᚱ᛫ᛞᚱᛁᚻᛏᚾᛖ᛫ᛞᚩᛗᛖᛋ᛫ᚻᛚᛇᛏᚪᚾ᛬++ ᚢᚱ᛫ᛒᛦᚦ᛫ᚪᚾᛗᚩᛞ᛫ᚩᚾᛞ᛫ᚩᚠᛖᚱᚻᛦᚱᚾᛖᛞ+ ᚠᛖᛚᚪᚠᚱᛖᚳᚾᛖ᛫ᛞᛇᚱ᛫ᚠᛇᚻᛏᛖᚦ᛫ᛗᛁᛞ᛫ᚻᚩᚱᚾᚢᛗ+ ᛗᚫᚱᛖ᛫ᛗᚩᚱᛋᛏᚪᛈᚪ᛫ᚦᚫᛏ᛫ᛁᛋ᛫ᛗᚩᛞᛁᚷ᛫ᚹᚢᚻᛏ᛬++ ᚦᚩᚱᚾ᛫ᛒᛦᚦ᛫ᚦᛖᚪᚱᛚᛖ᛫ᛋᚳᛖᚪᚱᛈ᛫ᚦᛖᚷᚾᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᛦᛚᚳᚢᛗ+ ᚪᚾᚠᛖᛝ᛫ᛦᛋ᛫ᛦᚠᛦᛚ᛫ᚢᛝᛖᛗᛖᛏᚢᛗ᛫ᚱᛖᚦᛖ+ ᛗᚪᚾᚾᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᛖᛚᚳᚢᛗ᛫ᚦᛖ᛫ᚻᛁᛗ᛫ᛗᛁᛞ᛫ᚱᛖᛋᛏᛖᚦ᛬++ ᚩᛋ᛫ᛒᛦᚦ᛫ᚩᚱᛞᚠᚱᚢᛗᚪ᛫ᚫᛚᛖᚱᛖ᛫ᛋᛈᚱᚫᚳᛖ+ ᚹᛁᛋᛞᚩᛗᛖᛋ᛫ᚹᚱᚪᚦᚢ᛫ᚩᚾᛞ᛫ᚹᛁᛏᛖᚾᚪ᛫ᚠᚱᚩᚠᚢᚱ+ ᚪᚾᛞ᛫ᛇᚱᛚᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᚪᛗ᛫ᛖᚪᛞᚾᛦᛋ᛫ᚩᚾᛞ᛫ᛏᚩᚻᛁᚻᛏ᛬++ ᚱᚪᛞ᛫ᛒᛦᚦ᛫ᚩᚾ᛫ᚱᛖᚳᛦᛞᛖ᛫ᚱᛁᚾᚳᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᛦᛚᚳᚢᛗ+ ᛋᛖᚠᛏᛖ᛫ᚩᚾᛞ᛫ᛋᚹᛁᚦᚻᚹᚫᛏ᛫ᚦᚪᛗᚦᛖ᛫ᛋᛁᛏᛏᛖᚦ᛫ᚩᚾ᛫ᚢᚠᚪᚾ+ ᛗᛖᚪᚱᛖ᛫ᛗᚫᚷᛖᚾᚻᛖᚪᚱᛞᚢᛗ᛫ᚩᚠᛖᚱ᛫ᛗᛁᛚᛈᚪᚦᚪᛋ᛬++ ᚳᛖᚾ᛫ᛒᛦᚦ᛫ᚳᚹᛁᚳᛖᚱᚪ᛫ᚷᛖᚻᚹᚪᛗ᛫ᚳᚢᚦ᛫ᚩᚾ᛫ᚠᛦᚱᛖ+ ᛒᛚᚪᚳ᛫ᚩᚾᛞ᛫ᛒᛇᚱᚻᛏᛚᛁᚳ᛫ᛒᛦᚱᚾᛖᚦ᛫ᚩᚠᛏᚢᛋᛏ+ ᚦᚫᚱ᛫ᚻᛁ᛫ᚫᚦᛖᛚᛁᛝᚪᛋ᛫ᛁᚾᚾᛖ᛫ᚱᛖᛋᛏᚪᚦ᛬++See <http://www.ragweedforge.com/poems.html> for more rune poems.+++1999-11-08 Robert Brady <rwb197@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
+ vocab1.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@+import Data.Char+import Data.List+import qualified Data.Text as T+import qualified Data.Text.IO as TIO+import System.Environment++main = do+ [fname] <- getArgs+ text <- TIO.readFile fname+ let ws = map head $ group $ sort $ map T.toCaseFold $ filter (not . T.null)+ $ map (T.dropAround $ not . isLetter) $ T.words text+ TIO.putStrLn $ T.unwords ws+ print $ length ws
+ vocab2.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@+import Data.Char+import Data.List+import qualified Data.Text as T+import qualified Data.Text.IO as TIO+import System.Environment++type Entry = (T.Text, Int)+type Vocabulary = [Entry]++extractVocab :: T.Text -> Vocabulary+extractVocab t = map buildEntry $ group $ sort ws+ where+ ws = map T.toCaseFold $ filter (not . T.null) $ map cleanWord $ T.words t+ buildEntry ws@(w:_) = (w, length ws)+ cleanWord = T.dropAround (not . isLetter)++printAllWords :: Vocabulary -> IO ()+printAllWords vocab = do+ putStrLn "All words: "+ TIO.putStrLn $ T.unlines $ map fst vocab+ +processTextFile :: FilePath -> IO ()+processTextFile fname = do+ text <- TIO.readFile fname+ let vocab = extractVocab text+ printAllWords vocab++main = do+ args <- getArgs+ case args of+ [fname] -> processTextFile fname+ _ -> putStrLn "Usage: vocab2 filename"
+ vocab3.hs view
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@+{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}++import Data.Char+import Data.List+import Data.Ord+import qualified Data.Text as T+import qualified Data.Text.IO as TIO+import System.Environment++type Entry = (T.Text, Int)+type Vocabulary = [Entry]++extractVocab :: T.Text -> Vocabulary+extractVocab t = map buildEntry $ group $ sort ws+ where+ ws = map T.toCaseFold $ filter (not . T.null) $ map cleanWord $ T.words t+ buildEntry ws@(w:_) = (w, length ws)+ cleanWord = T.dropAround (not . isLetter)++allWordsReport :: Vocabulary -> T.Text+allWordsReport vocab = T.append "\nAll words:\n"+ $ T.unlines $ map fst vocab++wordsCount :: Vocabulary -> Int+wordsCount vocab = sum $ map snd vocab++wordsCountReport :: Vocabulary -> T.Text+wordsCountReport vocab = T.append "\nTotal number of words: "+ $ T.pack $ show $ wordsCount vocab++wordsByFrequency :: Vocabulary -> Vocabulary+wordsByFrequency = sortBy (comparing $ Down . snd)++frequentWordsReport :: Vocabulary -> Int -> T.Text+frequentWordsReport vocab n = T.append "\nFrequent words:\n" + $ T.unlines $ map showEntry $ take n+ $ wordsByFrequency vocab+ where+ showEntry (t, n) = T.append t $ T.pack $ " - " ++ show n++processTextFile :: FilePath -> Int -> IO ()+processTextFile fname n = do+ text <- TIO.readFile fname+ let vocab = extractVocab text+ TIO.putStrLn $ allWordsReport vocab+ TIO.putStrLn $ wordsCountReport vocab+ TIO.putStrLn $ frequentWordsReport vocab n++main = do+ args <- getArgs+ case args of+ [fname, n] -> processTextFile fname (read n)+ _ -> putStrLn "Usage: vocab3 filename number_of_frequent_words"