Towards evening, five days later, Swithin, yellow and travel-worn, was
ferried in a gondola to Danielli's Hotel. His brother, who was on the
steps, looked at him with an apprehensive curiosity.
“Why, it's you!” he mumbled. “So you've got here safe?”
“Safe?” growled Swithin.
James replied, “I thought you wouldn't leave your friends!” Then, with a
jerk of suspicion, “You haven't brought your friends?”
“What friends?” growled Swithin.
James changed the subject. “You don't look the thing,” he said.
“Really!” muttered Swithin; “what's that to you?”
He appeared at dinner that night, but fell asleep over his coffee.
Neither Traquair nor James asked him any further question, nor did they
allude to Salzburg; and during the four days which concluded the stay
in Venice Swithin went about with his head up, but his eyes half-closed
like a dazed man. Only after they had taken ship at Genoa did he show
signs of any healthy interest in life, when, finding that a man on board
was perpetually strumming, he locked the piano up and pitched the key
into the sea.
That winter in London he behaved much as usual, but fits of moroseness
would seize on him, during which he was not pleasant to approach.
One evening when he was walking with a friend in Piccadilly, a girl
coming from a side-street accosted him in German. Swithin, after staring
at her in silence for some seconds, handed her a five-pound note, to the
great amazement of his friend; nor could he himself have explained the
meaning of this freak of generosity.
Of Rozsi he never heard again....
This, then, was the substance of what he remembered as he lay ill in
bed. Stretching out his hand he pressed the bell. His valet appeared,
crossing the room like a cat; a Swede, who had been with Swithin many
years; a little man with a dried face and fierce moustache, morbidly
sharp nerves, and a queer devotion to his master.
Swithin made a feeble gesture. “Adolf,” he said, “I'm very bad.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Why do you stand there like a cow?” asked Swithin; “can't you see I'm
very bad?”
“Yes, sir!” The valet's face twitched as though it masked the dance of
obscure emotions.
“I shall feel better after dinner. What time is it?”
“Five o'clock.”
“I thought it was more. The afternoons are very long.”
“Yes, sir!” Swithin sighed, as though he had expected the consolation of
denial.
“Very likely I shall have a nap. Bring up hot water at half-past six and
shave me before dinner.”
The valet moved towards the door. Swithin raised himself.
“What did Mr. James say to you?”
“He said you ought to have another doctor; two doctors, he said, better
than one. He said, also, he would look in again on his way 'home.'”
Swithin grunted, “Umph! What else did he say?”
“He said you didn't take care of yourself.”
Swithin glared.
“Has anybody else been to see me?”
The valet turned away his eyes. “Mrs. Thomas Forsyte came last Monday
fortnight.”
“How long have I been ill?”
“Five weeks on Saturday.”
“Do you think I'm very bad?”
Adolf's face was covered suddenly with crow's-feet. “You have no
business to ask me question like that! I am not paid, sir, to answer
question like that.”
Swithin said faintly: “You're a peppery fool! Open a bottle of
champagne!”
Adolf took a bottle of champagne—from a cupboard and held nippers to it.
He fixed his eyes on Swithin. “The doctor said—”
“Open the bottle!”
“It is not—”
“Open the bottle—or I give you warning.”
Adolf removed the cork. He wiped a glass elaborately, filled it, and
bore it scrupulously to the bedside. Suddenly twirling his moustaches,
he wrung his hands, and burst out: “It is poison.”
Swithin grinned faintly. “You foreign fool!” he said. “Get out!”
The valet vanished.
'He forgot himself!' thought Swithin. Slowly he raised the glass, slowly
put it back, and sank gasping on his pillows. Almost at once he fell
asleep.
He dreamed that he was at his club, sitting after dinner in the crowded
smoking-room, with its bright walls and trefoils of light. It was there
that he sat every evening, patient, solemn, lonely, and sometimes fell
asleep, his square, pale old face nodding to one side. He dreamed that
he was gazing at the picture over the fireplace, of an old statesman
with a high collar, supremely finished face, and sceptical eyebrows—the
picture, smooth, and reticent as sealing-wax, of one who seemed for ever
exhaling the narrow wisdom of final judgments. All round him, his fellow
members were chattering. Only he himself, the old sick member, was
silent. If fellows only knew what it was like to sit by yourself and
feel ill all the time! What they were saying he had heard a hundred
times. They were talking of investments, of cigars, horses, actresses,
machinery. What was that? A foreign patent for cleaning boilers? There
was no such thing; boilers couldn't be cleaned, any fool knew that! If
an Englishman couldn't clean a boiler, no foreigner could clean one.
He appealed to the old statesman's eyes. But for once those eyes seemed
hesitating, blurred, wanting in finality. They vanished. In their place
were Rozsi's little deep-set eyes, with their wide and far-off look; and
as he gazed they seemed to grow bright as steel, and to speak to him.
Slowly the whole face grew to be there, floating on the dark background
of the picture; it was pink, aloof, unfathomable, enticing, with its
fluffy hair and quick lips, just as he had last seen it. “Are you
looking for something?” she seemed to say: “I could show you.”
“I have everything safe enough,” answered Swithin, and in his sleep he
groaned.
He felt the touch of fingers on his forehead. 'I'm dreaming,' he thought
in his dream.
She had vanished; and far away, from behind the picture, came a sound of
footsteps.
Aloud, in his sleep, Swithin muttered: “I've missed it.”
Again he heard the rustling of those light footsteps, and close in his
ear a sound, like a sob. He awoke; the sob was his own. Great drops of
perspiration stood on his forehead. 'What is it?' he thought; 'what have
I lost?' Slowly his mind travelled over his investments; he could not
think of any single one that was unsafe. What was it, then, that he had
lost? Struggling on his pillows, he clutched the wine-glass. His lips
touched the wine. 'This isn't the “Heidseck”!' he thought angrily, and
before the reality of that displeasure all the dim vision passed away.
But as he bent to drink, something snapped, and, with a sigh, Swithin
Forsyte died above the bubbles....
When James Forsyte came in again on his way home, the valet, trembling
took his hat and stick.
“How's your master?”
“My master is dead, sir!”
“Dead! He can't be! I left him safe an hour ago.”
On the bed Swithin's body was doubled like a sack; his hand still
grasped the glass.
James Forsyte paused. “Swithin!” he said, and with his hand to his ear
he waited for an answer; but none came, and slowly in the glass a last
bubble rose and burst.
December 1900.