CHAPTER I THE THIRD GENERATION

Produced by David Widger

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FORSYTE SAGA

IN CHANCERY

By John Galsworthy

Contents

INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE

I

II

III

IV

V

IN CHANCERY

PART 1

CHAPTER I—AT TIMOTHY’S

CHAPTER II—EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD

CHAPTER III—SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS

CHAPTER IV—SOHO

CHAPTER V—JAMES SEES VISIONS

CHAPTER VI—NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME

CHAPTER VII—THE COLT AND THE FILLY

CHAPTER VIII—JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP

CHAPTER IX—VAL HEARS THE NEWS

CHAPTER X—SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE

CHAPTER XI—AND VISITS THE PAST

CHAPTER XII—ON FORSYTE ’CHANGE

CHAPTER XIII—JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS

CHAPTER XIV—SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS

PART II

CHAPTER I—THE THIRD GENERATION

CHAPTER II—SOAMES PUTS IT TO THE TOUCH

CHAPTER III—VISIT TO IRENE

CHAPTER IV—WHERE FORSYTES FEAR TO TREAD

CHAPTER V—JOLLY SITS IN JUDGMENT

CHAPTER VI—JOLYON IN TWO MINDS

CHAPTER VII—DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE

CHAPTER VIII—THE CHALLENGE

CHAPTER IX—DINNER AT JAMES’

CHAPTER X—DEATH OF THE DOG BALTHASAR

CHAPTER XI—TIMOTHY STAYS THE ROT

CHAPTER XII—PROGRESS OF THE CHASE

CHAPTER XIII—“HERE WE ARE AGAIN!”

CHAPTER XIV—OUTLANDISH NIGHT

PART III

CHAPTER I—SOAMES IN PARIS

CHAPTER II—IN THE WEB

CHAPTER III—RICHMOND PARK

CHAPTER IV—OVER THE RIVER

CHAPTER V—SOAMES ACTS

CHAPTER VI—A SUMMER DAY

CHAPTER VII—A SUMMER NIGHT

CHAPTER VIII—JAMES IN WAITING

CHAPTER IX—OUT OF THE WEB

CHAPTER X—PASSING OF AN AGE

CHAPTER XI—SUSPENDED ANIMATION

CHAPTER XII—BIRTH OF A FORSYTE

CHAPTER XIII—JAMES IS TOLD

CHAPTER XIV—HIS

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THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME II

By John Galsworthy

TO ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON

INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE

“And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

—Shakespeare

I

In the last day of May in the early ’nineties, about six o’clock

of the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below

the terrace of his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the

midges to bite him, before abandoning the glory of the afternoon.

His thin brown hand, where blue veins stood out, held the end of

a cigar in its tapering, long-nailed fingers—a pointed polished

nail had survived with him from those earlier Victorian days when

to touch nothing, even with the tips of the fingers, had been so

distinguished. His domed forehead, great white moustache, lean

cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the westering

sunshine by an old brown Panama hat. His legs were crossed; in

all his attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an

old man who every morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk

handkerchief. At his feet lay a woolly brown-and-white dog trying

to be a Pomeranian—the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon

primal aversion had changed into attachment with the years. Close

to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of

Holly’s dolls—called “Duffer Alice”—with her body fallen over her

legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat. She was

never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat.

Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the

fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to

the pond, the coppice, and the prospect—“Fine, remarkable”—at

which Swithin Forsyte, from under this very tree, had stared five

years ago when he drove down with Irene to look at the house. Old

Jolyon had heard of his brother’s exploit—that drive which had

become quite celebrated on Forsyte ’Change. Swithin! And the

fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of only

seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for

ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away. Died! and

left only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas and Timothy,

Julia, Hester, Susan! And old Jolyon thought: “Eighty-five! I

don’t feel it—except when I get that pain.”

His memory went searching. He had not felt his age since he had

bought his nephew Soames’ ill-starred house and settled into it

here at Robin Hill over three years ago. It was as if he had been

getting younger every spring, living in the country with his son

and his grandchildren—June, and the little ones of the second

marriage, Jolly and Holly; living down here out of the racket of

London and the cackle of Forsyte ’Change, free of his boards, in

a delicious atmosphere of no work and all play, with plenty of

occupation in the perfecting and mellowing of the house and its

twenty acres, and in ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly.

All the knots and crankiness, which had gathered in his heart

during that long and tragic business of June, Soames, Irene his

wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out. Even June

had thrown off her melancholy at last—witness this travel in

Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother.

Curiously perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful,

yet blank, because his son was not there. Jo was never anything

but a comfort and a pleasure to him nowadays—an amiable chap; but

women, somehow—even the best—got a little on one’s nerves, unless

of course one admired them.

Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first

elm-tree in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had

sprung up after the last mowing! The wind had got into the sou’

west, too—a delicious air, sappy! He pushed his hat back and let

the sun fall on his chin and cheek. Somehow, to-day, he wanted

company—wanted a pretty face to look at. People treated the old

as if they wanted nothing. And with the un-Forsytean philosophy

which ever intruded on his soul, he thought: “One’s never had

enough. With a foot in the grave one’ll want something, I

shouldn’t be surprised!” Down here—away from the exigencies of

affairs—his grandchildren, and the flowers, trees, birds of his

little domain, to say nothing of sun and moon and stars above

them, said, “Open, sesame,” to him day and night. And sesame had

opened—how much, perhaps, he did not know. He had always been

responsive to what they had begun to call “Nature,” genuinely,

almost religiously responsive, though he had never lost his habit

of calling a sunset a sunset and a view a view, however deeply

they might move him. But nowadays Nature actually made him ache,

he appreciated it so. Every one of these calm, bright,

lengthening days, with Holly’s hand in his, and the dog Balthasar

in front looking studiously for what he never found, he would

stroll, watching the roses open, fruit budding on the walls,

sunlight brightening the oak leaves and saplings in the coppice,

watching the water-lily leaves unfold and glisten, and the

silvery young corn of the one wheat field; listening to the

starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud,

flicking slow their tufted tails; and every one of these fine

days he ached a little from sheer love of it all, feeling

perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much longer to enjoy it.

The thought that some day—perhaps not ten years hence, perhaps

not five—all this world would be taken away from him, before he

had exhausted his powers of loving it, seemed to him in the

nature of an injustice brooding over his horizon. If anything

came after this life, it wouldn’t be what he wanted; not Robin

Hill, and flowers and birds and pretty faces—too few, even now,

of those about him! With the years his dislike of humbug had

increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the ’sixties, as he had

worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance, had long dropped off,

leaving him reverent before three things alone—beauty, upright

conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now

was beauty. He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could

still read _The Times_, but he was liable at any moment to put it

down if he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct,

property—somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the

sunsets never tired him, only gave him an uneasy feeling that he

could not get enough of them. Staring into the stilly radiance of

the early evening and at the little gold and white flowers on the

lawn, a thought came to him: This weather was like the music of

“Orfeo,” which he had recently heard at Covent Garden. A

beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but,

in its way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of

the Golden Age about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli

“almost worthy of the old days”—highest praise he could bestow.

The yearning of Orpheus for the beauty he was losing, for his

love going down to Hades, as in life love and beauty did go—the

yearning which sang and throbbed through the golden music,

stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that evening.

And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot he

involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the

animal to wake and attack his fleas; for though he was supposed

to have none, nothing could persuade him of the fact. When he had

finished he rubbed the place he had been scratching against his

master’s calf, and settled down again with his chin over the

instep of the disturbing boot. And into old Jolyon’s mind came a

sudden recollection—a face he had seen at that opera three weeks

ago—Irene, the wife of his precious nephew Soames, that man of

property! Though he had not met her since the day of the “At

Home” in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which celebrated his

granddaughter June’s ill-starred engagement to young Bosinney, he

had remembered her at once, for he had always admired her—a very

pretty creature. After the death of young Bosinney, whose

mistress she had so reprehensibly become, he had heard that she

had left Soames at once. Goodness only knew what she had been

doing since. That sight of her face—a side view—in the row in

front, had been literally the only reminder these three years

that she was still alive. No one ever spoke of her. And yet Jo

had told him something once—something which had upset him

completely. The boy had got it from George Forsyte, he believed,

who had seen Bosinney in the fog the day he was run

over—something which explained the young fellow’s distress—an act

of Soames towards his wife—a shocking act. Jo had seen her, too,

that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment,

and his description had always lingered in old Jolyon’s

mind—“wild and lost” he had called her. And next day June had

gone there—bottled up her feelings and gone there, and the maid

had cried and told her how her mistress had slipped out in the

night and vanished. A tragic business altogether! One thing was

certain—Soames had never been able to lay hands on her again. And

he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and down—a fitting

fate, the man of property! For when he once took a dislike to

anyone—as he had to his nephew—old Jolyon never got over it. He

remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the

news of Irene’s disappearance. It had been shocking to think of

her a prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered

back, when Jo saw her, wandered back for a moment—like a wounded

animal to its hole after seeing that news, “Tragic death of an

Architect,” in the street. Her face had struck him very much the

other night—more beautiful than he had remembered, but like a

mask, with something going on beneath it. A young woman

still—twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had another

lover by now. But at this subversive thought—for married women

should never love: once, even, had been too much—his instep rose,

and with it the dog Balthasar’s head. The sagacious animal stood

up and looked into old Jolyon’s face. “Walk?” he seemed to say;

and old Jolyon answered: “Come on, old chap!”

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations

of buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature,

where very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below

the level of the lawn so that it might come up again on the level

of the other lawn and give the impression of irregularity, so

important in horticulture. Its rocks and earth were beloved of

the dog Balthasar, who sometimes found a mole there. Old Jolyon

made a point of passing through it because, though it was not

beautiful, he intended that it should be, some day, and he would

think: “I must get Varr to come down and look at it; he’s better

than Beech.” For plants, like houses and human complaints,

required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by

snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point

to one and tell them the story of the little boy who said: “Have

plummers got leggers, Mother?” “No, sonny.” “Then darned if I

haven’t been and swallowed a snileybob.” And when they skipped

and clutched his hand, thinking of the snileybob going down the

little boy’s “red lane,” his eyes would twinkle. Emerging from

the fernery, he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into

the first field, a large and park-like area, out of which, within

brick walls, the vegetable garden had been carved. Old Jolyon

avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made down the hill

towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two,

gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who

takes the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon

stood, noting another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would

show it to Holly to-morrow, when “his little sweet” had got over

the upset which had followed on her eating a tomato at lunch—her

little arrangements were very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone

to school—his first term—Holly was with him nearly all day long,

and he missed her badly. He felt that pain too, which often

bothered him now, a little dragging at his left side. He looked

back up the hill. Really, poor young Bosinney had made an

uncommonly good job of the house; he would have done very well

for himself if he had lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still

haunting this, the site of his last work, of his tragic love

affair. Or was Philip Bosinney’s spirit diffused in the general?

Who could say? That dog was getting his legs muddy! And he moved

towards the coppice. There had been the most delightful lot of

bluebells, and he knew where some still lingered like little

patches of sky fallen in between the trees, away out of the sun.

He passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there installed, and

pursued a path into the thick of the saplings, making for one of

the bluebell plots. Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered a

low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog

remained motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and

the hair rose slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether

from the growl and the look of the dog’s stivered hair, or from

the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt

something move along his spine. And then the path turned, and

there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting. Her face

was turned away, and he had just time to think: “She’s

trespassing—I must have a board put up!” before she turned.

Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera—the very woman he

had just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things

blurred, as if a spirit—queer effect—the slant of sunlight

perhaps on her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood

smiling, her head a little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: “How

pretty she is!” She did not speak, neither did he; and he

realized why with a certain admiration. She was here no doubt

because of some memory, and did not mean to try and get out of it

by vulgar explanation.

“Don’t let that dog touch your frock,” he said; “he’s got wet

feet. Come here, you!”

But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her

hand down and stroked his head. Old Jolyon said quickly:

“I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn’t notice me.”

“Oh, yes! I did.”

He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: “Do

you think one could miss seeing you?”

“They’re all in Spain,” he remarked abruptly. “I’m alone; I drove

up for the opera. The Ravogli’s good. Have you seen the

cow-houses?”

In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like

emotion he moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and

she moved beside him. Her figure swayed faintly, like the best

kind of French figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French

grey. He noticed two or three silver threads in her

amber-coloured hair, strange hair with those dark eyes of hers,

and that creamy-pale face. A sudden sidelong look from the

velvety brown eyes disturbed him. It seemed to come from deep and

far, from another world almost, or at all events from some one

not living very much in this. And he said mechanically:

“Where are you living now?”

“I have a little flat in Chelsea.”

He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear

anything; but the perverse word came out:

“Alone?”

She nodded. It was a relief to know that. And it came into his

mind that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress

of this coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.

“All Alderneys,” he muttered; “they give the best milk. This

one’s a pretty creature. Woa, Myrtle!”

The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene’s

own, was standing absolutely still, not having long been milked.

She looked round at them out of the corner of those lustrous,

mild, cynical eyes, and from her grey lips a little dribble of

saliva threaded its way towards the straw. The scent of hay and

vanilla and ammonia rose in the dim light of the cool cow-house;

and old Jolyon said:

“You must come up and have some dinner with me. I’ll send you

home in the carriage.”

He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt,

with her memories. But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a

charming figure, beauty! He had been alone all the afternoon.

Perhaps his eyes were wistful, for she answered: “Thank you,

Uncle Jolyon. I should like to.”

He rubbed his hands, and said:

“Capital! Let’s go up, then!” And, preceded by the dog Balthasar,

they ascended through the field. The sun was almost level in

their faces now, and he could see, not only those silver threads,

but little lines, just deep enough to stamp her beauty with a

coin-like fineness—the special look of life unshared with others.

“I’ll take her in by the terrace,” he thought: “I won’t make a

common visitor of her.”

“What do you do all day?” he said.

“Teach music; I have another interest, too.”

“Work!” said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing,

and smoothing its black petticoat. “Nothing like it, is there? I

don’t do any now. I’m getting on. What interest is that?”

“Trying to help women who’ve come to grief.” Old Jolyon did not

quite understand. “To grief?” he repeated; then realised with a

shock that she meant exactly what he would have meant himself if

he had used that expression. Assisting the Magdalenes of London!

What a weird and terrifying interest! And, curiosity overcoming

his natural shrinking, he asked:

“Why? What do you do for them?”

“Not much. I’ve no money to spare. I can only give sympathy and

food sometimes.”

Involuntarily old Jolyon’s hand sought his purse. He said

hastily: “How d’you get hold of them?”

“I go to a hospital.”

“A hospital! Phew!”

“What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of

beauty.”

Old Jolyon straightened the doll. “Beauty!” he ejaculated: “Ha!

Yes! A sad business!” and he moved towards the house. Through a

French window, under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her

into the room where he was wont to study _The Times_ and the

sheets of an agricultural magazine, with huge illustrations of

mangold wurzels, and the like, which provided Holly with material

for her paint brush.

“Dinner’s in half an hour. You’d like to wash your hands! I’ll

take you to June’s room.”

He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last

visited this house with her husband, or her lover, or both

perhaps—he did not know, could not say! All that was dark, and he

wished to leave it so. But what changes! And in the hall he said:

“My boy Jo’s a painter, you know. He’s got a lot of taste. It

isn’t mine, of course, but I’ve let him have his way.”

She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall

and music room, as it now was—all thrown into one, under the

great skylight. Old Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she

trying to conjure somebody from the shades of that space where

the colouring was all pearl-grey and silver? He would have had

gold himself; more lively and solid. But Jo had French tastes,

and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect as of the

fume of cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here and

there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour. It was not

_his_ dream! Mentally he had hung this space with those

gold-framed masterpieces of still and stiller life which he had

bought in days when quantity was precious. And now where were

they? Sold for a song! That something which made him, alone among

Forsytes, move with the times had warned him against the struggle

to retain them. But in his study he still had “Dutch Fishing

Boats at Sunset.”

He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his

side.

“These are the bathrooms,” he said, “and other arrangements. I’ve

had them tiled. The nurseries are along there. And this is Jo’s

and his wife’s. They all communicate. But you remember, I

expect.”

Irene nodded. They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large

room with a small bed, and several windows.

“This is mine,” he said. The walls were covered with the

photographs of children and watercolour sketches, and he added

doubtfully:

“These are Jo’s. The view’s first-rate. You can see the Grand

Stand at Epsom in clear weather.”

The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the “prospect” a

luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous

day. Few houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened,

away to a loom of downs.

“The country’s changing,” he said abruptly, “but there it’ll be

when we’re all gone. Look at those thrushes—the birds are sweet

here in the mornings. I’m glad to have washed my hands of

London.”

Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its

mournful look. “Wish I could make her look happy!” he thought. “A

pretty face, but sad!” And taking up his can of hot water he went

out into the gallery.

“This is June’s room,” he said, opening the next door and putting

the can down; “I think you’ll find everything.” And closing the

door behind her he went back to his own room. Brushing his hair

with his great ebony brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau

de Cologne, he mused. She had come so strangely—a sort of

visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as if his desire for

company, for beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever it was which

fulfilled that sort of thing. And before the mirror he

straightened his still upright figure, passed the brushes over

his great white moustache, touched up his eyebrows with eau de

Cologne, and rang the bell.

“I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me.

Let cook do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau

and pair at half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night. Is

Miss Holly asleep?”

The maid thought not. And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery,

stole on tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose

hinges he kept specially oiled that he might slip in and out in

the evenings without being heard.

But Holly _was_ asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that

type which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they

had completed her. Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on

her face was perfect peace—her little arrangements were evidently

all right again. And old Jolyon, in the twilight of the room,

stood adoring her! It was so charming, solemn, and loving—that

little face. He had more than his share of the blessed capacity

of living again in the young. They were to him his future

life—all of a future life that his fundamental pagan sanity

perhaps admitted. There she was with everything before her, and

his blood—some of it—in her tiny veins. There she was, his little

companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that

she knew nothing but love. His heart swelled, and he went out,

stilling the sound of his patent-leather boots. In the corridor

an eccentric notion attacked him: To think that children should

come to that which Irene had told him she was helping! Women who

were all, once, little things like this one sleeping there! “I

must give her a cheque!” he mused; “Can’t bear to think of them!”

They had never borne reflecting on, those poor outcasts; wounding

too deeply the core of true refinement hidden under layers of

conformity to the sense of property—wounding too grievously the

deepest thing in him—a love of beauty which could give him, even

now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the

society of a pretty woman. And he went downstairs, through the

swinging doors, to the back regions. There, in the wine-cellar,

was a hock worth at least two pounds a bottle, a Steinberg

Cabinet, better than any Johannisberg that ever went down throat;

a wine of perfect bouquet, sweet as a nectarine—nectar indeed! He

got a bottle out, handling it like a baby, and holding it level

to the light, to look. Enshrined in its coat of dust, that mellow

coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure. Three

years to settle down again since the move from Town—ought to be

in prime condition! Thirty-five years ago he had bought it—thank

God he had kept his palate, and earned the right to drink it. She

would appreciate this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen. He

wiped the bottle, drew the cork with his own hands, put his nose

down, inhaled its perfume, and went back to the music room.

Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a

lace scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair

was visible, and the pallor of her neck. In her grey frock she

made a pretty picture for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the

piano.

He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went. The room, which had

been designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort,

held now but a little round table. In his present solitude the

big dining-table oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be

removed till his son came back. Here in the company of two really

good copies of Raphael Madonnas he was wont to dine alone. It was

the only disconsolate hour of his day, this summer weather. He

had never been a large eater, like that great chap Swithin, or

Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those cronies of past

times; and to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas, was to him

but a sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly, that he

might come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and

cigar. But this evening was a different matter! His eyes twinkled

at her across the little table and he spoke of Italy and

Switzerland, telling her stories of his travels there, and other

experiences which he could no longer recount to his son and

grand-daughter because they knew them. This fresh audience was

precious to him; he had never become one of those old men who

ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence. Himself

quickly fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively avoided

fatiguing others, and his natural flirtatiousness towards beauty

guarded him specially in his relations with a woman. He would

have liked to draw her out, but though she murmured and smiled

and seemed to be enjoying what he told her, he remained conscious

of that mysterious remoteness which constituted half her

fascination. He could not bear women who threw their shoulders

and eyes at you, and chattered away; or hard-mouthed women who

laid down the law and knew more than you did. There was only one

quality in a woman that appealed to him—charm; and the quieter it

was, the more he liked it. And this one had charm, shadowy as

afternoon sunlight on those Italian hills and valleys he had

loved. The feeling, too, that she was, as it were, apart,

cloistered, made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely

desirable companion. When a man is very old and quite out of the

running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of youth, for

he would still be first in the heart of beauty. And he drank his

hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly young. But the dog

Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising in his heart

the interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those

greenish glasses full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to

him.

The light was just failing when they went back into the

music-room. And, cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:

“Play me some Chopin.”

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall

know the texture of men’s souls. Old Jolyon could not bear a

strong cigar or Wagner’s music. He loved Beethoven and Mozart,

Handel and Gluck, and Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the

operas of Meyerbeer; but of late years he had been seduced by

Chopin, just as in painting he had succumbed to Botticelli. In

yielding to these tastes he had been conscious of divergence from

the standard of the Golden Age. Their poetry was not that of

Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and Titian; Mozart and

Beethoven. It was, as it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no

one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and

turned and twisted, and melted up the heart. And, never certain

that this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could

see the pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.

Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned

with pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could

see her, crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar. She sat a

few moments with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her

mind for what to give him. Then she began and within old Jolyon

there arose a sorrowful pleasure, not quite like anything else in

the world. He fell slowly into a trance, interrupted only by the

movements of taking the cigar out of his mouth at long intervals,

and replacing it. She was there, and the hock within him, and the

scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world of sunshine

lingering into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them, and

bluish trees above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and

fields of lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and a

woman all shadowy, with dark eyes and a white neck, smiled,

holding out her arms; and through air which was like music a star

dropped and was caught on a cow’s horn. He opened his eyes.

Beautiful piece; she played well—the touch of an angel! And he

closed them again. He felt miraculously sad and happy, as one

does, standing under a lime-tree in full honey flower. Not live

one’s own life again, but just stand there and bask in the smile

of a woman’s eyes, and enjoy the bouquet! And he jerked his hand;

the dog Balthasar had reached up and licked it.

“Beautiful!” He said: “Go on—more Chopin!”

She began to play again. This time the resemblance between her

and “Chopin” struck him. The swaying he had noticed in her walk

was in her playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the

soft darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight

from a golden moon. Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her

or in that music. A long blue spiral from his cigar ascended and

dispersed. “So we go out!” he thought. “No more beauty! Nothing?”

Again Irene stopped.

“Would you like some Gluck? He used to write his music in a

sunlit garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him.”

“Ah! yes. Let’s have ‘Orfeo.’” Round about him now were fields of

gold and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight,

bright birds flying to and fro. All was summer. Lingering waves

of sweetness and regret flooded his soul. Some cigar ash dropped,

and taking out a silk handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a

mingled scent as of snuff and eau de Cologne. “Ah!” he thought,

“Indian summer—that’s all!” and he said: “You haven’t played me

‘Che faro.’”

She did not answer; did not move. He was conscious of

something—some strange upset. Suddenly he saw her rise and turn

away, and a pang of remorse shot through him. What a clumsy chap!

Like Orpheus, she of course—she too was looking for her lost one

in the hall of memory! And disturbed to the heart, he got up from

his chair. She had gone to the great window at the far end.

Gingerly he followed. Her hands were folded over her breast; he

could just see her cheek, very white. And, quite emotionalized,

he said:

“There, there, my love!” The words had escaped him mechanically,

for they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but

their effect was instantaneously distressing. She raised her

arms, covered her face with them, and wept.

Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age. The

passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike

the control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had

never before broken down in the presence of another being.

“There, there—there, there!” he murmured, and putting his hand

out reverently, touched her. She turned, and leaned the arms

which covered her face against him. Old Jolyon stood very still,

keeping one thin hand on her shoulder. Let her cry her heart

out—it would do her good.

And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine

them.

The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the

last of daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from

the lamp within; there was a scent of new-mown grass. With the

wisdom of a long life old Jolyon did not speak. Even grief sobbed

itself out in time; only Time was good for sorrow—Time who saw

the passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the

layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: “As panteth

the hart after cooling streams”—but they were of no use to him.

Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her

eyes. He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her

forehead, and felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body,

as of a tree which shakes itself free of raindrops. She put his

hand to her lips, as if saying: “All over now! Forgive me!”

The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to

where she had been so upset. And the dog Balthasar, following,

laid the bone of one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.

Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think

of nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from

cabinet to cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and

Lowestoft and Chelsea, turning them round and round with his

thin, veined hands, whose skin, faintly freckled, had such an

aged look.

“I bought this at Jobson’s,” he would say; “cost me thirty

pounds. It’s very old. That dog leaves his bones all over the

place. This old ‘ship-bowl’ I picked up at the sale when that

precious rip, the Marquis, came to grief. But you don’t remember.

Here’s a nice piece of Chelsea. Now, what would you say _this_

was?” And he was comforted, feeling that, with her taste, she was

taking a real interest in these things; for, after all, nothing

better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of china.

When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he

said:

“You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you

these by daylight, and my little sweet—she’s a dear little thing.

This dog seems to have taken a fancy to you.”

For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing

his side against her leg. Going out under the porch with her, he

said:

“He’ll get you up in an hour and a quarter. Take this for your

_protégées_,” and he slipped a cheque for fifty pounds into her

hand. He saw her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: “Oh!

Uncle Jolyon!” and a real throb of pleasure went through him.

That meant one or two poor creatures helped a little, and it

meant that she would come again. He put his hand in at the window

and grasped hers once more. The carriage rolled away. He stood

looking at the moon and the shadows of the trees, and thought: “A

sweet night! She...!”

II

Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny. Old Jolyon

walked and talked with Holly. At first he felt taller and full of

a new vigour; then he felt restless. Almost every afternoon they

would enter the coppice, and walk as far as the log. “Well, she’s

not there!” he would think, “of course not!” And he would feel a

little shorter, and drag his feet walking up the hill home, with

his hand clapped to his left side. Now and then the thought would

move in him: “Did she come—or did I dream it?” and he would stare

at space, while the dog Balthasar stared at him. Of course she

would not come again! He opened the letters from Spain with less

excitement. They were not returning till July; he felt, oddly,

that he could bear it. Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes

and looked at where she had sat. She was not there, so he

unscrewed his eyes again.

On the seventh afternoon he thought: “I must go up and get some

boots.” He ordered Beacon, and set out. Passing from Putney

towards Hyde Park he reflected: “I might as well go to Chelsea

and see her.” And he called out: “Just drive me to where you took

that lady the other night.” The coachman turned his broad red

face, and his juicy lips answered: “The lady in grey, sir?”

“Yes, the lady in grey.” What other ladies were there! Stodgy

chap!

The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats,

standing a little back from the river. With a practised eye old

Jolyon saw that they were cheap. “I should think about sixty

pound a year,” he mused; and entering, he looked at the

name-board. The name “Forsyte” was not on it, but against “First

Floor, Flat C” were the words: “Mrs. Irene Heron.” Ah! She had

taken her maiden name again! And somehow this pleased him. He

went upstairs slowly, feeling his side a little. He stood a

moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and

fluttering there. She would not be in! And then—Boots! The

thought was black. What did he want with boots at his age? He

could not wear out all those he had.

“Your mistress at home?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”

“Yes, sir, will you come this way?”

Old Jolyon followed a very little maid—not more than sixteen one

would say—into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds

were drawn. It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague

fragrance and good taste. He stood in the middle, with his top

hat in his hand, and thought: “I expect she’s very badly off!”

There was a mirror above the fireplace, and he saw himself

reflected. An old-looking chap! He heard a rustle, and turned

round. She was so close that his moustache almost brushed her

forehead, just under her hair.

“I was driving up,” he said. “Thought I’d look in on you, and ask

you how you got up the other night.”

And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved. She was really

glad to see him, perhaps.

“Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the

Park?”

But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned. The Park!

James and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his

precious family would be there very likely, prancing up and down.

And they would go and wag their tongues about having seen him

with her, afterwards. Better not! He did not wish to revive the

echoes of the past on Forsyte ’Change. He removed a white hair

from the lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed

his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin. It felt

very hollow there under the cheekbones. He had not been eating

much lately—he had better get that little whippersnapper who

attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she had come back and

when they were in the carriage, he said:

“Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?” and added

with a twinkle: “No prancing up and down there,” as if she had

been in the secret of his thoughts.

Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and

strolled towards the water.

“You’ve gone back to your maiden name, I see,” he said: “I’m not

sorry.”

She slipped her hand under his arm: “Has June forgiven me, Uncle

Jolyon?”

He answered gently: “Yes—yes; of course, why not?”

“And have you?”

“I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay.” And

perhaps he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the

beautiful.

She drew a deep breath. “I never regretted—I couldn’t. Did you

ever love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?”

At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him. Had he? He

did not seem to remember that he ever had. But he did not like to

say this to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm,

whose life was suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love.

And he thought: “If I had met you when I was young I—I might have

made a fool of myself, perhaps.” And a longing to escape in

generalities beset him.

“Love’s a queer thing,” he said, “fatal thing often. It was the

Greeks—wasn’t it?—made love into a goddess; they were right, I

dare say, but then they lived in the Golden Age.”

“Phil adored them.”

Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly—with his power to see all

round a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like

this. She wanted to talk about her lover! Well! If it was any

pleasure to her! And he said: “Ah! There was a bit of the

sculptor in him, I fancy.”

“Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted

way the Greeks gave themselves to art.”

Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for

symmetry—clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer

eyes of his, and high cheek-bones—Symmetry?

“You’re of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon.”

Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her

eyes were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why?

There was nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.

“Phil thought so. He used to say: ‘But I can never tell him that

I admire him.’”

Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of

him! And he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories,

half grateful, as if he recognised what a link they were between

herself and him.

“He was a very talented young fellow,” he murmured. “It’s hot; I

feel the heat nowadays. Let’s sit down.”

They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves

covered them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure

to sit there and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with

him. And the wish to increase that liking, if he could, made him

go on:

“I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He’d be at his

best with you. His ideas of art were a little new—to me”—he had

stiffed the word ‘fangled.’

“Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty.” Old

Jolyon thought: “The devil he did!” but answered with a twinkle:

“Well, I have, or I shouldn’t be sitting here with you.” She was

fascinating when she smiled with her eyes, like that!

“He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil

had real insight.”

He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out

of a longing to talk of her dead lover—not a bit; and yet it was

precious to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart

which—quite true!—had never grown old. Was that because—unlike

her and her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation, had

always kept his balance, his sense of symmetry. Well! It had left

him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty. And he thought, “If

I were a painter or a sculptor! But I’m an old chap. Make hay

while the sun shines.”

A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at

the edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly

on their pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. “We’re an ugly

lot!” said old Jolyon suddenly. “It amazes me to see how—love

triumphs over that.”

“Love triumphs over everything!”

“The young think so,” he muttered.

“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”

With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so

large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But

this extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he

said: “Well, if it had limits, we shouldn’t be born; for by

George! it’s got a lot to put up with.”

Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The

great clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often

got a rush of blood to the head—his circulation was not what it

had been.

She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she

murmured:

“It’s strange enough that _I’m_ alive.”

Those words of Jo’s “Wild and lost” came back to him.

“Ah!” he said: “my son saw you for a moment—that day.”

“Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a

second it was—Phil.”

Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took

it away again, and went on calmly: “That night I went to the

Embankment; a woman caught me by the dress. She told me about

herself. When one knows that others suffer, one’s ashamed.”

“One of _those?_”

She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of

one who has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost

against his will he muttered: “Tell me, won’t you?”

“I didn’t care whether I lived or died. When you’re like that,

Fate ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three

days—she never left me. I had no money. That’s why I do what I

can for them, now.”

But old Jolyon was thinking: “No money!” What fate could compare

with that? Every other was involved in it.

“I wish you had come to me,” he said. “Why didn’t you?” But Irene

did not answer.

“Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept

you away? How are you getting on now?” His eyes involuntarily

swept her body. Perhaps even now she was—! And yet she wasn’t

thin—not really!

“Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough.” The answer

did not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow

Soames! But his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she

would certainly have died rather than take another penny from

_him_. Soft as she looked, there must be strength in her

somewhere—strength and fidelity. But what business had young

Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded like this!

“Well, you must come to me now,” he said, “for anything you want,

or I shall be quite cut up.” And putting on his hat, he rose.

“Let’s go and get some tea. I told that lazy chap to put the

horses up for an hour, and come for me at your place. We’ll take

a cab presently; I can’t walk as I used to.”

He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens—the

sound of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty

of a charming form moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at

Ruffel’s in the High Street, and came out thence with a great box

of chocolates swung on his little finger. He enjoyed the drive

back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking his cigar. She had promised

to come down next Sunday and play to him again, and already in

thought he was plucking carnations and early roses for her to

carry back to town. It was a pleasure to give her a little

pleasure, if it _were_ pleasure from an old chap like him! The

carriage was already there when they arrived. Just like that

fellow, who was always late when he was wanted! Old Jolyon went

in for a minute to say good-bye. The little dark hall of the flat

was impregnated with a disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a

bench against the wall—its only furniture—he saw a figure

sitting. He heard Irene say softly: “Just one minute.” In the

little drawing-room when the door was shut, he asked gravely:

“One of your _protégées?_”

“Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something for her.”

He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had

frightened so many in its time. The idea of her thus actually in

contact with this outcast grieved and frightened him. What could

she do for them? Nothing. Only soil and make trouble for herself,

perhaps. And he said: “Take care, my dear! The world puts the

worst construction on everything.”

“I know that.”

He was abashed by her quiet smile. “Well then—Sunday,” he

murmured: “Good-bye.”

She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.

“Good-bye,” he said again; “take care of yourself.” And he went

out, not looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove home

by way of Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of

and tell them to send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy.

She must want picking-up sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he

remember that he had gone up to order himself some boots, and was

surprised that he could have had so paltry an idea.

III

The little spirits of the past which throng an old man’s days had

never pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy

hours elapsing before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with

the charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was

not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was

_coming to lunch_. There is wonderful finality about a meal; it

removes a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except for

reasons beyond control. He played many games with Holly on the

lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to be ready

to bowl to Jolly in the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte, but

Jolly was—and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and

reached the age of eighty-five. The dog Balthasar, in attendance,

lay on the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded,

till his face was like the harvest moon. And because the time was

getting shorter, each day was longer and more golden than the

last. On Friday night he took a liver pill, his side hurt him

rather, and though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy

like that. Anyone telling him that he had found a new excitement

in life and that excitement was not good for him, would have been

met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks of his

deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: “I know my own

business best.” He always had and always would.

On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to

church, he visited the strawberry beds. There, accompanied by the

dog Balthasar, he examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in

finding at least two dozen berries which were really ripe.

Stooping was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and red

in the forehead. Having placed the strawberries in a dish on the

dining-table, he washed his hands and bathed his forehead with

eau de Cologne. There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that

he was thinner. What a “threadpaper” he had been when he was

young! It was nice to be slim—he could not bear a fat chap; and

yet perhaps his cheeks were _too_ thin! She was to arrive by

train at half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road

past Drage’s farm at the far end of the coppice. And, having

looked into June’s room to see that there was hot water ready, he

set forth to meet her, leisurely, for his heart was beating. The

air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was

visible. A perfect day! On just such a one, no doubt, six years

ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him to look at

the site before they began to build. It was Bosinney who had

pitched on the exact spot for the house—as June had often told

him. In these days he was thinking much about that young fellow,

as if his spirit were really haunting the field of his last work,

on the chance of seeing—her. Bosinney—the one man who had

possessed her heart, to whom she had given her whole self with

rapture! At his age one could not, of course, imagine such

things, but there stirred in him a queer vague aching—as it were

the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling, too, more

generous, of pity for that love so early lost. All over in a few

poor months! Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering

the coppice—only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait! And

then, turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he

had seen her the first time, on the log; and realised that she

must have come by the earlier train to sit there alone for a

couple of hours at least. Two hours of her society missed! What

memory could make that log so dear to her? His face showed what

he was thinking, for she said at once:

“Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew.”

“Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like. You’re looking

a little Londony; you’re giving too many lessons.”

That she should have to give lessons worried him. Lessons to a

parcel of young girls thumping out scales with their thick

fingers.

“Where do you go to give them?” he asked.

“They’re mostly Jewish families, luckily.”

Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and

doubtful.

“They love music, and they’re very kind.”

“They had better be, by George!” He took her arm—his side always

hurt him a little going uphill—and said:

“Did you ever see anything like those buttercups? They came like

that in a night.”

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the

flowers and the honey. “I wanted you to see them—wouldn’t let

them turn the cows in yet.” Then, remembering that she had come

to talk about Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the

stables:

“I expect _he_ wouldn’t have let me put that there—had no notion

of time, if I remember.”

But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and

he knew it was done that he might not feel she came because of

her dead lover.

“The best flower I can show you,” he said, with a sort of

triumph, “is my little sweet. She’ll be back from Church

directly. There’s something about her which reminds me a little

of you,” and it did not seem to him peculiar that he had put it

thus, instead of saying: “There’s something about you which

reminds me a little of her.” Ah! And here she was!

Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose

digestion had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of

Strasbourg, came rushing towards them from under the oak tree.

She stopped about a dozen yards away, to pat Balthasar and

pretend that this was all she had in her mind. Old Jolyon, who

knew better, said:

“Well, my darling, here’s the lady in grey I promised you.”

Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them

with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave

inquiry, passing into a shy smile too, and then to something

deeper. She had a sense of beauty, that child—knew what was what!

He enjoyed the sight of the kiss between them.

“Mrs. Heron, Mam’zelle Beauce. Well, Mam’zelle—good sermon?”

For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part

of the service connected with this world absorbed what interest

in church remained to him. Mam’zelle Beauce stretched out a

spidery hand clad in a black kid glove—she had been in the best

families—and the rather sad eyes of her lean yellowish face

seemed to ask: “Are you well-brrred?” Whenever Holly or Jolly did

anything unpleasing to her—a not uncommon occurrence—she would

say to them: “The little Tayleurs never did that—they were such

well-brrred little children.” Jolly hated the little Tayleurs;

Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short of them.

“A thin rum little soul,” old Jolyon thought her—Mam’zelle

Beauce.

Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself

had picked in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and

another bottle of the Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain

aromatic spirituality, and a conviction that he would have a

touch of eczema to-morrow.

After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee.

It was no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce

withdrew to write her Sunday letter to her sister, whose future

had been endangered in the past by swallowing a pin—an event held

up daily in warning to the children to eat slowly and digest what

they had eaten. At the foot of the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly

and the dog Balthasar teased and loved each other, and in the

shade old Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar luxuriously

savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing. A light, vaguely

swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon

it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little

drooped. She looked content; surely it did her good to come and

see him! The selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on

him, for he could still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others,

realising that what he wanted, though much, was not quite all

that mattered.

“It’s quiet here,” he said; “you mustn’t come down if you find it

dull. But it’s a pleasure to see you. My little sweet is the only

face which gives me any pleasure, except yours.”

From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be

appreciated, and this reassured him. “That’s not humbug,” he

said. “I never told a woman I admired her when I didn’t. In fact

I don’t know when I’ve told a woman I admired her, except my wife

in the old days; and wives are funny.” He was silent, but resumed

abruptly:

“She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and

there we were.” Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and,

afraid that he had said something painful, he hurried on: “When

my little sweet marries, I hope she’ll find someone who knows

what women feel. I shan’t be here to see it, but there’s too much

topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don’t want her to pitch up against

that.” And, aware that he had made bad worse, he added: “That dog

_will_ scratch.”

A silence followed. Of what was she thinking, this pretty

creature whose life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet

was made for love? Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would

find another mate—not so disorderly as that young fellow who had

got himself run over. Ah! but her husband?

“Does Soames never trouble you?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her

softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a

glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies

strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian

civilisation—so much older than this of his old age—had never

thought about such primitive things.

“That’s a comfort,” he said. “You can see the Grand Stand to-day.

Shall we take a turn round?”

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer

walls peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through

the stables, the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds,

the rosery, the summer-house, he conducted her—even into the

kitchen garden to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to

scoop out of their pods with her finger, and lick up from the

palm of her little brown hand. Many delightful things he showed

her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar danced ahead, or came to

them at intervals for attention. It was one of the happiest

afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was glad to

sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special

little friend of Holly’s had come in—a fair child with short hair

like a boy’s. And the two sported in the distance, under the

stairs, on the stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged

for Chopin. She played studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two

children, creeping near, stood at the foot of the piano their

dark and golden heads bent forward, listening. Old Jolyon

watched.

“Let’s see you dance, you two!”

Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling,

earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to

the strains of that waltz. He watched them and the face of her

who was playing turned smiling towards those little dancers

thinking:

“Sweetest picture I’ve seen for ages.”

A voice said:

“Hollee! _Mais enfin—qu’est-ce que tu fais la—danser, le

dimanche! Viens, donc!_”

But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would

save them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly “caught

out.”

“Better the day, better the deed, Mam’zelle. It’s all my doing.

Trot along, chicks, and have your tea.”

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took

every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:

“Well, there we are! Aren’t they sweet? Have you any little ones

among your pupils?”

“Yes, three—two of them darlings.”

“Pretty?”

“Lovely!”

Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very

young. “My little sweet,” he said, “is devoted to music; she’ll

be a musician some day. You wouldn’t give me your opinion of her

playing, I suppose?”

“Of course I will.”

“You wouldn’t like—” but he stifled the words “to give her

lessons.” The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him;

yet it would mean that he would see her regularly. She left the

piano and came over to his chair.

“I would like, very much; but there is—June. When are they coming

back?”

Old Jolyon frowned. “Not till the middle of next month. What does

that matter?”

“You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle

Jolyon.”

Forget! She _must_ forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head. “You know she

couldn’t; one doesn’t forget.”

Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed

finality:

“Well, we shall see.”

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred

little things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And

when she had gone he went back to his chair, and sat there

smoothing his face and chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet

of paper. He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose

and stood under the masterpiece “Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.”

He was not thinking of that picture, but of his life. He was

going to leave her something in his Will; nothing could so have

stirred the stilly deeps of thought and memory. He was going to

leave her a portion of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds,

qualities, work—all that had made that wealth; going to leave

her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane and

steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? “Dutch Fishing

Boats” responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and

drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one

of last year’s oak leaves which had somehow survived the

gardener’s brooms, was dragging itself with a tiny clicking

rustle along the stone terrace in the twilight. Except for that

it was very quiet out there, and he could smell the heliotrope

watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird uttered its last

“cheep.” And right above the oak tree the first star shone. Faust

in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of youth.

Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was _real_

tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or

anything. Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while

you could, and leave it something in your Will. But how much?

And, as if he could not make that calculation looking out into

the mild freedom of the country night, he turned back and went up

to the chimney-piece. There were his pet bronzes—a Cleopatra with

the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound playing with her

puppy; a strong man reining in some horses. “They last!” he

thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a thousand

years of life before them!

“How much?” Well! enough at all events to save her getting old

before her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as

possible, and grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live

another five years. She would be well over thirty by then. “How

much?” She had none of his blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor

of his life for forty years and more, ever since he married and

founded that mysterious thing, a family, came this warning

thought—None of his blood, no right to anything! It was a luxury

then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old man’s

whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was

vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when

he was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at

the old leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many

hundreds of cigars. And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting

there in her grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful,

looking up at him. Why! She cared nothing for him, really; all

she cared for was that lost lover of hers. But she was there,

whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her beauty and

grace. One had no right to inflict an old man’s company, no right

to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her—for no

reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. “How much?”

After all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren

would never miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly

every penny; he could leave it where he liked, allow himself this

little pleasure. He went back to the bureau. “Well, I’m going

to,” he thought, “let them think what they like. I’m going to!”

And he sat down.

“How much?” Ten thousand, twenty thousand—how much? If only with

his money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled

by that thought, he wrote quickly:

“DEAR HERRING,—Draw me a codicil to this effect: “I leave to my

niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now

goes, fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy duty.”

“Yours faithfully,

“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the

window and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars

shone now.

IV

He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had

taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts.

Experience had also taught him that a further waking at the

proper hour of eight showed the folly of such panic. On this

particular morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum was

that if he became ill, at his age not improbable, he would not

see her. From this it was but a step to realisation that he would

be cut off, too, when his son and June returned from Spain. How

could he justify desire for the company of one who had

stolen—early morning does not mince words—June’s lover? That

lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing;

warm-hearted, but stubborn as wood, and—quite true—not one who

forgot! By the middle of next month they would be back. He had

barely five weeks left to enjoy the new interest which had come

into what remained of his life. Darkness showed up to him

absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration for beauty—a

craving to see that which delighted his eyes.

Preposterous, at his age! And yet—what other reason was there for

asking June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his

son and his son’s wife from thinking him very queer? He would be

reduced to sneaking up to London, which tired him; and the least

indisposition would cut him off even from that. He lay with eyes

open, setting his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself

an old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then seemed to stop

beating altogether. He had seen the dawn lighting the window

chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow,

before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five weeks

before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early

morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of

one who had always had his own way. He would see her as often as

he wished! Why not go up to town and make that codicil at his

solicitor’s instead of writing about it; she might like to go to

the opera! But, by train, for he would not have that fat chap

Beacon grinning behind his back. Servants were such fools; and,

as likely as not, they had known all the past history of Irene

and young Bosinney—servants knew everything, and suspected the

rest. He wrote to her that morning:

“MY DEAR IRENE,—I have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would

like to have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me

quietly ....”

But where? It was decades since he had dined anywhere in

London save at his Club or at a private house. Ah! that

new-fangled place close to Covent Garden....

“Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel

whether to expect you there at 7 o’clock.

“Yours affectionately,

“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little

pleasure; for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to

see her was instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly

that one so old should go out of his way to see beauty,

especially in a woman.

The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his

lawyer’s, tired him. It was hot too, and after dressing for

dinner he lay down on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little.

He must have had a sort of fainting fit, for he came to himself

feeling very queer; and with some difficulty rose and rang the

bell. Why! it was past seven! And there he was and she would be

waiting. But suddenly the dizziness came on again, and he was

obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the maid’s voice say:

“Did you ring, sir?”

“Yes, come here”; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in

front of his eyes. “I’m not well, I want some sal volatile.”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice sounded frightened.

Old Jolyon made an effort.

“Don’t go. Take this message to my niece—a lady waiting in the

hall—a lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well—the heat. He is

very sorry; if he is not down directly, she is not to wait

dinner.”

When she was gone, he thought feebly: “Why did I say a lady in

grey—she may be in anything. Sal volatile!” He did not go off

again, yet was not conscious of how Irene came to be standing

beside him, holding smelling salts to his nose, and pushing a

pillow up behind his head. He heard her say anxiously: “Dear

Uncle Jolyon, what is it?” was dimly conscious of the soft

pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of

smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and

sneezed.

“Ha!” he said, “it’s nothing. How did you get here? Go down and

dine—the tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be all right

in a minute.”

He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat

divided between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all

right.

“Why! You _are_ in grey!” he said. “Help me up.” Once on his feet

he gave himself a shake.

“What business had I to go off like that!” And he moved very

slowly to the glass. What a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind

him, murmured:

“You mustn’t come down, Uncle; you must rest.”

“Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne’ll soon set me to rights. I

can’t have you missing the opera.”

But the journey down the corridor was troublesome. What carpets

they had in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up

in them at every step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she

looked, and said with the ghost of a twinkle:

“I’m a pretty host.”

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to

prevent its slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of

champagne he felt much better, and began to enjoy an infirmity

which had brought such solicitude into her manner towards him.

“I should have liked you for a daughter,” he said suddenly; and

watching the smile in her eyes, went on:

“You mustn’t get wrapped up in the past at your time of life;

plenty of that when you get to my age. That’s a nice dress—I like

the style.”

“I made it myself.”

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost

her interest in life.

“Make hay while the sun shines,” he said; “and drink that up. I

want to see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn’t waste life; it

doesn’t do. There’s a new Marguerite to-night; let’s hope she

won’t be fat. And Mephisto—anything more dreadful than a fat chap

playing the Devil I can’t imagine.”

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up

from dinner the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted

on his staying quiet and going to bed early. When he parted from

her at the door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her

to Chelsea, he sat down again for a moment to enjoy the memory of

her words: “You _are_ such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!” Why!

Who wouldn’t be! He would have liked to stay up another day and

take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would bore her

to death. No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised to

come then. They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for

a month. It would be something. That little Mam’zelle Beauce

wouldn’t like it, but she would have to lump it. And crushing his

old opera hat against his chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to

say: “Drive me to Chelsea.” But his sense of proportion was too

strong. Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk

another aberration like that of last night, away from home.

Holly, too, was expecting him, and what he had in his bag for

her. Not that there was any cupboard love in his little sweet—she

was a bundle of affection. Then, with the rather bitter cynicism

of the old, he wondered for a second whether it was not cupboard

love which made Irene put up with him. No, she was not that sort

either. She had, if anything, too little notion of how to butter

her bread, no sense of property, poor thing! Besides, he had not

breathed a word about that codicil, nor should he—sufficient unto

the day was the good thereof.

In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was

restraining the dog Balthasar, and their caresses made “jubey”

his drive home. All the rest of that fine hot day and most of the

next he was content and peaceful, reposing in the shade, while

the long lingering sunshine showered gold on the lawns and the

flowers. But on Thursday evening at his lonely dinner he began to

count the hours; sixty-five till he would go down to meet her

again in the little coppice, and walk up through the fields at

her side. He had intended to consult the doctor about his

fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no

excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the

leg, did not want to be told of an infirmity—if there were one,

could not afford to hear of it at his time of life, now that this

new interest had come. And he carefully avoided making any

mention of it in a letter to his son. It would only bring them

back with a run! How far this silence was due to consideration

for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own, he did not

pause to consider.

That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was

dozing off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious

of a scent of violets. Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in

grey, standing by the fireplace, holding out her arms. The odd

thing was that, though those arms seemed to hold nothing, they

were curved as if round someone’s neck, and her own neck was bent

back, her lips open, her eyes closed. She vanished at once, and

there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes. But those bronzes and

the mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only the

fireplace and the wall! Shaken and troubled, he got up. “I must

take medicine,” he thought; “I can’t be well.” His heart beat too

fast, he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the

window, he opened it to get some air. A dog was barking far away,

one of the dogs at Gage’s farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A

beautiful still night, but dark. “I dropped off,” he mused,

“that’s it! And yet I’ll swear my eyes were open!” A sound like a

sigh seemed to answer.

“What’s that?” he said sharply, “who’s there?”

Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart,

he stepped out on the terrace. Something soft scurried by in the

dark. “Shoo!” It was that great grey cat. “Young Bosinney was

like a great cat!” he thought. “It was him in there, that

she—that she was—He’s got her still!” He walked to the edge of

the terrace, and looked down into the darkness; he could just see

the powdering of the daisies on the unmown lawn. Here to-day and

gone to-morrow! And there came the moon, who saw all, young and

old, alive and dead, and didn’t care a dump! His own turn soon.

For a single day of youth he would give what was left! And he

turned again towards the house. He could see the windows of the

night nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep. “Hope

that dog won’t wake her!” he thought. “What is it makes us love,

and makes us die! I must go to bed.”

And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he

passed back within.

V

How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his

well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating

warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the

gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should

distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should

watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of

summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the

Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,

slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his

wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning before

the world is aired, and they put on his tombstone: “In the

fulness of years!” Yea! If he preserve his principles in perfect

order, a Forsyte may live on long after he is dead.

Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him

that which transcended Forsyteism. For it is written that a

Forsyte shall not love beauty more than reason; nor his own way

more than his own health. And something beat within him in these

days that with each throb fretted at the thinning shell. His

sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he could not stop that

beating, nor would if he could. And yet, if you had told him he

was living on his capital, he would have stared you down. No, no;

a man did not live on his capital; it was not done! The

shibboleths of the past are ever more real than the actualities

of the present. And he, to whom living on one’s capital had

always been anathema, could not have borne to have applied so

gross a phrase to his own case. Pleasure is healthful; beauty

good to see; to live again in the youth of the young—and what

else on earth was he doing!

Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now

arranged his time. On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train;

Irene came and dined with him. And they went to the opera. On

Thursdays he drove to town, and, putting that fat chap and his

horses up, met her in Kensington Gardens, picking up the carriage

after he had left her, and driving home again in time for dinner.

He threw out the casual formula that he had business in London on

those two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she came down to give

Holly music lessons. The greater the pleasure he took in her

society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a

matter-of-fact and friendly uncle. Not even in feeling, really,

was he more—for, after all, there was his age. And yet, if she

were late he fidgeted himself to death. If she missed coming,

which happened twice, his eyes grew sad as an old dog’s, and he

failed to sleep.

And so a month went by—a month of summer in the fields, and in

his heart, with summer’s heat and the fatigue thereof. Who could

have believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward

to his son’s and his grand-daughter’s return with something like

dread! There was such a delicious freedom, such recovery of that

independence a man enjoys before he founds a family, about these

weeks of lovely weather, and this new companionship with one who

demanded nothing, and remained always a little unknown, retaining

the fascination of mystery. It was like a draught of wine to him

who has been drinking water for so long that he has almost

forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to his

brain. The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and

the sunlight had a living value—were no longer mere reminders of

past enjoyment. There was something now to live for which stirred

him continually to anticipation. He lived in that, not in

retrospection; the difference is considerable to any so old as

he. The pleasures of the table, never of much consequence to one

naturally abstemious, had lost all value. He ate little, without

knowing what he ate; and every day grew thinner and more worn to

look at. He was again a “threadpaper”. and to this thinned form

his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples, gave more

dignity than ever. He was very well aware that he ought to see

the doctor, but liberty was too sweet. He could not afford to pet

his frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the

expense of liberty. Return to the vegetable existence he had led

among the agricultural journals with the life-size mangold

wurzels, before this new attraction came into his life—no! He

exceeded his allowance of cigars. Two a day had always been his

rule. Now he smoked three and sometimes four—a man will when he

is filled with the creative spirit. But very often he thought: “I

must give up smoking, and coffee; I must give up rattling up to

town.” But he did not; there was no one in any sort of authority

to notice him, and this was a priceless boon. The servants

perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam’zelle

Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too

“well-brrred” to make personal allusions. Holly had not as yet an

eye for the relative appearance of him who was her plaything and

her god. It was left for Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to

rest in the hot part of the day, to take a tonic, and so forth.

But she did not tell him that she was the cause of his

thinness—for one cannot see the havoc oneself is working. A man

of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which produces

passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes which

crave the sight of Her.

On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter

from his son in Paris to say that they would all be back on

Friday. This had always been more sure than Fate; but, with the

pathetic improvidence given to the old, that they may endure to

the end, he had never quite admitted it. Now he did, and

something would have to be done. He had ceased to be able to

imagine life without this new interest, but that which is not

imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually finding to

their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the

letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar.

After to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be

abandoned. He could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the

pretext of seeing his man of business. But even that would be

dependent on his health, for now they would begin to fuss about

him. The lessons! The lessons must go on! She must swallow down

her scruples, and June must put her feelings in her pocket. She

had done so once, on the day after the news of Bosinney’s death;

what she had done then, she could surely do again now. Four years

since that injury was inflicted on her—not Christian to keep the

memory of old sores alive. June’s will was strong, but his was

stronger, for his sands were running out. Irene was soft, surely

she would do this for him, subdue her natural shrinking, sooner

than give him pain! The lessons must continue; for if they did,

he was secure. And lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to

shape out how to put it to them all, and explain this strange

intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away from the naked truth—that

he could not bear to be deprived of the sight of beauty. Ah!

Holly! Holly was fond of her, Holly liked her lessons. She would

save him—his little sweet! And with that happy thought he became

serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about so

fearfully. He must not worry, it left him always curiously weak,

and as if but half present in his own body.

That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness,

though he did not faint. He would not ring the bell, because he

knew it would mean a fuss, and make his going up on the morrow

more conspicuous. When one grew old, the whole world was in

conspiracy to limit freedom, and for what reason?—just to keep

the breath in him a little longer. He did not want it at such

cost. Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery from that

weakness; anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard and

drink some brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit. When at last

old Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed. And,

though still shaky next morning, the thought of the evening

sustained and strengthened him. It was always such a pleasure to

give her a good dinner—he suspected her of undereating when she

was alone; and, at the opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten,

the unconscious smiling of her lips. She hadn’t much pleasure,

and this was the last time he would be able to give her that

treat. But when he was packing his bag he caught himself wishing

that he had not the fatigue of dressing for dinner before him,

and the exertion, too, of telling her about June’s return.

The opera that evening was “Carmen,” and he chose the last

_entr’acte_ to break the news, instinctively putting it off till

the latest moment.

She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she

had taken it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence

became necessary. The mask was down over her face, that mask

behind which so much went on that he could not see. She wanted

time to think it over, no doubt! He would not press her, for she

would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow afternoon, and he

should see her then when she had got used to the idea. In the cab

he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old days,

but this one was not bad at all. When he took her hand to say

good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.

“Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me.”

“To-morrow then,” he said. “Good-night. Sleep well.” She echoed

softly: “Sleep well” and from the cab window, already moving

away, he saw her face screwed round towards him, and her hand put

out in a gesture which seemed to linger.

He sought his room slowly. They never gave him the same, and he

could not get used to these “spick-and-spandy” bedrooms with new

furniture and grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink

roses. He was wakeful and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing

in his head.

His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he

knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing—wild and unaccountable.

Well, there _was_ in life something which upset all your care and

plans—something which made men and women dance to its pipes. And

he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the

unaccountable held sway. You thought you had hold of life, but it

slipped away behind you, took you by the scruff of the neck,

forced you here and forced you there, and then, likely as not,

squeezed life out of you! It took the very stars like that, he

shouldn’t wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them

apart; it had never done playing its pranks. Five million people

in this great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy

of that Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about

on a board when you struck your fist on it. Ah, well! Himself

would not hop much longer—a good long sleep would do him good!

How hot it was up here!—how noisy! His forehead burned; she had

kissed it just where he always worried; just there—as if she had

known the very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him. But,

instead, her lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness. She had

never spoken in quite that voice, had never before made that

lingering gesture or looked back at him as she drove away.

He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced

down over the river. There was little air, but the sight of that

breadth of water flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him. “The

great thing,” he thought “is not to make myself a nuisance. I’ll

think of my little sweet, and go to sleep.” But it was long

before the heat and throbbing of the London night died out into

the short slumber of the summer morning. And old Jolyon had but

forty winks.

When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden,

and with the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers,

gathered a great bunch of carnations. They were, he told her, for

“the lady in grey”—a name still bandied between them; and he put

them in a bowl in his study where he meant to tackle Irene the

moment she came, on the subject of June and future lessons. Their

fragrance and colour would help. After lunch he lay down, for he

felt very tired, and the carriage would not bring her from the

station till four o’clock. But as the hour approached he grew

restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.

The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle

Beauce, sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending

to their silkworms. Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these

methodical creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of

elephants; who nibbled such quantities of holes in nice green

leaves; and smelled, as he thought, horrid. He sat down on a

chintz-covered windowseat whence he could see the drive, and get

what air there was; and the dog Balthasar who appreciated chintz

on hot days, jumped up beside him. Over the cottage piano a

violet dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and on it

the first lavender, whose scent filled the room. In spite of the

coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life

vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses. Each sunbeam which

came through the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled

very strong; the lavender perfume was overpowering; those

silkworms heaving up their grey-green backs seemed horribly

alive; and Holly’s dark head bent over them had a wonderfully

silky sheen. A marvellous cruelly strong thing was life when you

were old and weak; it seemed to mock you with its multitude of

forms and its beating vitality. He had never, till those last few

weeks, had this curious feeling of being with one half of him

eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and with the other

half left on the bank, watching that helpless progress. Only when

Irene was with him did he lose this double consciousness.

Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the

piano—for to point with a finger was not “well-brrred”—and said

slyly:

“Look at the ‘lady in grey,’ Gran; isn’t she pretty to-day?”

Old Jolyon’s heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was

clouded; then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:

“Who’s been dressing her up?”

“Mam’zelle.”

“Hollee! Don’t be foolish!”

That prim little Frenchwoman! She hadn’t yet got over the music

lessons being taken away from her. That wouldn’t help. His little

sweet was the only friend they had. Well, they were her lessons.

And he shouldn’t budge shouldn’t budge for anything. He stroked

the warm wool on Balthasar’s head, and heard Holly say: “When

mother’s home, there won’t be any changes, will there? She

doesn’t like strangers, you know.”

The child’s words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of

opposition about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his

new-found freedom. Ah! He would have to resign himself to being

an old man at the mercy of care and love, or fight to keep this

new and prized companionship; and to fight tired him to death.

But his thin, worn face hardened into resolution till it appeared

all Jaw. This was his house, and his affair; he should not budge!

He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself; he had owned

it fifty years. Past four already! And kissing the top of Holly’s

head in passing, he went down to the hall. He wanted to get hold

of her before she went up to give her lesson. At the first sound

of wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the

victoria was empty.

“The train’s in, sir; but the lady ’asn’t come.”

Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push

away that fat chap’s curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter

disappointment he was feeling.

“Very well,” he said, and turned back into the house. He went to

his study and sat down, quivering like a leaf. What did this

mean? She might have lost her train, but he knew well enough she

hadn’t. “Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon.” Why “Good-bye” and not

“Good-night”. And that hand of hers lingering in the air. And her

kiss. What did it mean? Vehement alarm and irritation took

possession of him. He got up and began to pace the Turkey carpet,

between window and wall. She was going to give him up! He felt it

for certain—and he defenceless. An old man wanting to look on

beauty! It was ridiculous! Age closed his mouth, paralysed his

power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no

right to anything but memories and sorrow. He could not plead

with her; even an old man has his dignity. Defenceless! For an

hour, lost to bodily fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl

of carnations he had plucked, which mocked him with its scent. Of

all things hard to bear, the prostration of will-power is

hardest, for one who has always had his way. Nature had got him

in its net, and like an unhappy fish he turned and swam at the

meshes, here and there, found no hole, no breaking point. They

brought him tea at five o’clock, and a letter. For a moment hope

beat up in him. He cut the envelope with the butter knife, and

read:

“DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,—I can’t bear to write anything that may

disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night. I

feel I can’t come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that

June is coming back. Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It

has been such a joy to see you and Holly. Perhaps I shall still

see you sometimes when you come up, though I’m sure it’s not good

for you; I can see you are tiring yourself too much. I believe

you ought to rest quite quietly all this hot weather, and now you

have your son and June coming back you will be so happy. Thank

you a million times for all your sweetness to me.

“Lovingly your

IRENE.”

So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he

chiefly cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable

end of all things, the approach of death with its stealthy,

rustling footsteps. Not good for him! Not even she could see how

she was his new lease of interest in life, the incarnation of all

the beauty he felt slipping from him.

His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he

paced, torn between his dignity and his hold on life. Intolerable

to be squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on

when your will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to

the ground with care and love. Intolerable! He would see what

telling her the truth would do—the truth that he wanted the sight

of her more than just a lingering on. He sat down at his old

bureau and took a pen. But he could not write. There was

something revolting in having to plead like this; plead that she

should warm his eyes with her beauty. It was tantamount to

confessing dotage. He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:

“I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to

stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my

little grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims;

they are obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone

sooner or later; and perhaps the sooner the better.

“My love to you,

“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

“Bitter,” he thought, “but I can’t help it. I’m tired.” He sealed

and dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it

fall to the bottom, thought: “There goes all I’ve looked forward

to!”

That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his

cigar which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he

went very slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery. He

sat down on the window-seat. A night-light was burning, and he

could just see Holly’s face, with one hand underneath the cheek.

An early cockchafer buzzed in the Japanese paper with which they

had filled the grate, and one of the horses in the stable stamped

restlessly. To sleep like that child! He pressed apart two rungs

of the venetian blind and looked out. The moon was rising,

blood-red. He had never seen so red a moon. The woods and fields

out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the

summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked. “I’ve had a long

life,” he thought, “the best of nearly everything. I’m an

ungrateful chap; I’ve seen a lot of beauty in my time. Poor young

Bosinney said I had a sense of beauty. There’s a man in the moon

to-night!” A moth went by, another, another. “Ladies in grey!” He

closed his eyes. A feeling that he would never open them again

beset him; he let it grow, let himself sink; then, with a shiver,

dragged the lids up. There was something wrong with him, no

doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.

It didn’t much matter now! Into that coppice the moonlight would

have crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be

the only things awake. No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just

the shadows —moving; “Ladies in grey!” Over that log they would

climb; would whisper together. She and Bosinney! Funny thought!

And the frogs and little things would whisper too! How the clock

ticked, in here! It was all eerie—out there in the light of that

red moon; in here with the little steady night-light and, the

ticking clock and the nurse’s dressing-gown hanging from the edge

of the screen, tall, like a woman’s figure. “Lady in grey!” And a

very odd thought beset him: Did she exist? Had she ever come at

all? Or was she but the emanation of all the beauty he had loved

and must leave so soon? The violet-grey spirit with the dark eyes

and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the

moonlight, and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was she, did

she exist? He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill,

to give him a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing

towards the door. He stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly,

as if conscious of his eyes fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and

curled up closer in defence. He tiptoed on and passed out into

the dark passage; reached his room, undressed at once, and stood

before a mirror in his night-shirt. What a scarecrow—with temples

fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted his own image, and a

look of pride came on his face. All was in league to pull him

down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not down—yet!

He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping, trying to

reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and

disappointment were very bad for him.

He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he

sent for the doctor. After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face

as long as your arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up

smoking. That was no hardship; there was nothing to get up for,

and when he felt ill, tobacco always lost its savour. He spent

the morning languidly with the sun-blinds down, turning and

re-turning _The Times_, not reading much, the dog Balthasar lying

beside his bed. With his lunch they brought him a telegram,

running thus:

“Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you

at four-thirty. Irene.”

Coming down! After all! Then she did exist—and he was not

deserted. Coming down! A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks

and forehead felt hot. He drank his soup, and pushed the

tray-table away, lying very quiet until they had removed lunch

and left him alone; but every now and then his eyes twinkled.

Coming down! His heart beat fast, and then did not seem to beat

at all. At three o’clock he got up and dressed deliberately,

noiselessly. Holly and Mam’zelle would be in the schoolroom, and

the servants asleep after their dinner, he shouldn’t wonder. He

opened his door cautiously, and went downstairs. In the hall the

dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon

passed into his study and out into the burning afternoon. He

meant to go down and meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he

could not manage that in this heat. He sat down instead under the

oak tree by the swing, and the dog Balthasar, who also felt the

heat, lay down beside him. He sat there smiling. What a revel of

bright minutes! What a hum of insects, and cooing of pigeons! It

was the quintessence of a summer day. Lovely! And he was

happy—happy as a sand-boy, whatever that might be. She was

coming; she had not given him up! He had everything in life he

wanted—except a little more breath, and less weight—just here! He

would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying

just a little, a violet-grey figure passing over the daisies and

dandelions and “soldiers” on the lawn—the soldiers with their

flowery crowns. He would not move, but she would come up to him

and say: “Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am sorry!” and sit in the swing

and let him look at her and tell her that he had not been very

well but was all right now; and that dog would lick her hand.

That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a good

dog.

It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him,

only make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the

Grand Stand at Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows

cropping the clover in the field and swishing at the flies with

their tails. He smelled the scent of limes, and lavender. Ah!

that was why there was such a racket of bees. They were

excited—busy, as his heart was busy and excited. Drowsy, too,

drowsy and drugged on honey and happiness; as his heart was

drugged and drowsy. Summer—summer—they seemed saying; great bees

and little bees, and the flies too!

The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here.

He would have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little

sleep of late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for

youth and beauty, coming towards him across the sunlit lawn—lady

in grey! And settling back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some

thistle-down came on what little air there was, and pitched on

his moustache more white than itself. He did not know; but his

breathing stirred it, caught there. A ray of sunlight struck

through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee alighted and

strolled on the crown of his Panama hat. And the delicious surge

of slumber reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head

swayed forward and rested on his breast. Summer—summer! So went

the hum.

The stable clock struck the quarter past. The dog Balthasar

stretched and looked up at his master. The thistledown no longer

moved. The dog placed his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not

stir. The dog withdrew his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old

Jolyon’s lap, looked in his face, whined; then, leaping down, sat

on his haunches, gazing up. And suddenly he uttered a long, long

howl.

But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old

master.

Summer—summer—summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! 1917

IN CHANCERY

Two households both alike in dignity,

From ancient grudge, break into new mutiny.

—_Romeo and Juliet_

TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD

PART 1

CHAPTER I AT TIMOTHY’S

The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence

and feud, frosts and fires, it followed the laws of progression

even in the Forsyte family which had believed it fixed for ever.

Nor can it be dissociated from environment any more than the

quality of potato from the soil.

The historian of the English eighties and nineties will, in his

good time, depict the somewhat rapid progression from

self-contented and contained provincialism to still more

self-contented if less contained imperialism—in other words, the

“possessive” instinct of the nation on the move. And so, as if in

conformity, was it with the Forsyte family. They were spreading

not merely on the surface, but within.

When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed

her husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was

cremated, it made strangely little stir among the six old

Forsytes left. For this apathy there were three causes. First:

the almost surreptitious burial of old Jolyon in 1892 down at

Robin Hill—first of the Forsytes to desert the family grave at

Highgate. That burial, coming a year after Swithin’s entirely

proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk on Forsyte

’Change, the abode of Timothy Forsyte on the Bayswater Road,

London, which still collected and radiated family gossip.

Opinions ranged from the lamentation of Aunt Juley to the

outspoken assertion of Francie that it was “a jolly good thing to

stop all that stuffy Highgate business.” Uncle Jolyon in his

later years—indeed, ever since the strange and lamentable affair

between his granddaughter June’s lover, young Bosinney, and

Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte’s wife—had noticeably rapped the

family’s knuckles; and that way of his own which he had always

taken had begun to seem to them a little wayward. The philosophic

vein in him, of course, had always been too liable to crop out of

the strata of pure Forsyteism, so they were in a way prepared for

his interment in a strange spot. But the whole thing was an odd

business, and when the contents of his Will became current coin

on Forsyte ’Change, a shiver had gone round the clan. Out of his

estate (£145,304 gross, with liabilities £35 7s. 4d.) he had

actually left £15,000 to “whomever do you think, my dear? To

_Irene!_” that runaway wife of his nephew Soames; Irene, a woman

who had almost disgraced the family, and—still more amazing was

to him no blood relation. Not out and out, of course; only a life

interest—only the income from it! Still, there it was; and old

Jolyon’s claim to be the perfect Forsyte was ended once for all.

That, then, was the first reason why the burial of Susan

Hayman—at Woking—made little stir.

The second reason was altogether more expansive and imperial.

Besides the house on Campden Hill, Susan had a place (left her by

Hayman when he died) just over the border in Hants, where the

Hayman boys had learned to be such good shots and riders, as it

was believed, which was of course nice for them, and creditable

to everybody; and the fact of owning something really countrified

seemed somehow to excuse the dispersion of her remains—though

what could have put cremation into her head they could not think!

The usual invitations, however, had been issued, and Soames had

gone down and young Nicholas, and the Will had been quite

satisfactory so far as it went, for she had only had a life

interest; and everything had gone quite smoothly to the children

in equal shares.

The third reason why Susan’s burial made little stir was the most

expansive of all. It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the

pale, the thin: “Well, _I_ think people have a right to their own

bodies, even when they’re dead.” Coming from a daughter of

Nicholas, a Liberal of the old school and most tyrannical, it was

a startling remark—showing in a flash what a lot of water had run

under bridges since the death of Aunt Ann in ’86, just when the

proprietorship of Soames over his wife’s body was acquiring the

uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia, of course,

spoke like a child, and had no experience; for though well over

thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte. But, making all

allowances, her remark did undoubtedly show expansion of the

principle of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central

point of possession from others to oneself. When Nicholas heard

his daughter’s remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: “Wives

and daughters! There’s no end to their liberty in these days. I

knew that ‘Jackson’ case would lead to things—lugging in Habeas

Corpus like that!” He had, of course, never really forgiven the

Married Woman’s Property Act, which would so have interfered with

him if he had not mercifully married before it was passed. But,

in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the younger

Forsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were,

Colonial disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxical

forerunner of Imperialism, was making progress all the time. They

were all now married, except George, confirmed to the Turf and

the Iseeum Club; Francie, pursuing her musical career in a studio

off the King’s Road, Chelsea, and still taking “lovers” to

dances; Euphemia, living at home and complaining of Nicholas; and

those two Dromios, Giles and Jesse Hayman. Of the third

generation there were not very many—young Jolyon had three,

Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas six already, young Roger had

one, Marian Tweetyman one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of

the sixteen married—Soames, Rachel and Cicely of James’ family;

Eustace and Thomas of Roger’s; Ernest, Archibald and Florence of

Nicholas’. Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman’s—were

going down the years unreproduced.

Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been

born; but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only

seventeen descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there

would be more than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A student

of statistics must have noticed that the birth rate had varied in

accordance with the rate of interest for your money. Grandfather

“Superior Dosset” Forsyte in the early nineteenth century had

been getting ten per cent. for his, hence ten children. Those

ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and Juley, whose

husband Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at once, had

averaged from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced

accordingly. The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting

barely three per cent. in the Consols to which their father had

mostly tied the Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and

the six of them who had been reproduced had seventeen children,

or just the proper two and five-sixths per stem.

There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction. A

distrust of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is

guaranteed, together with the knowledge that their fathers did

not die, kept them cautious. If one had children and not much

income, the standard of taste and comfort must of necessity go

down; what was enough for two was not enough for four, and so

on—it would be better to wait and see what Father did. Besides,

it was nice to be able to take holidays unhampered. Sooner in

fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on the

ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing tendency _fin

de siècle_, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run,

and one would be able to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace

already had one, but it had shaken him horribly, and broken one

of his eye teeth; so that it would be better to wait till they

were a little safer. In the meantime, no more children! Even

young Nicholas was drawing in his horns, and had made no addition

to his six for quite three years.

The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion

rather, of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so

far as to prevent a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had

been a glorious summer, and after holidays abroad and at the sea

they were practically all back in London, when Roger with a touch

of his old originality had suddenly breathed his last at his own

house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy’s it was whispered sadly

that poor Roger had always been eccentric about his digestion—had

he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the other

brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and

coming away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for

his Uncle Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. The “Old Things”—Aunt

Juley and Aunt Hester—would like to hear about it. His

father—James—at eighty-eight had not felt up to the fatigue of

the funeral; and Timothy himself, of course, had not gone; so

that Nicholas had been the only brother present. Still, there had

been a fair gathering; and it would cheer Aunts Juley and Hester

up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed with the

inevitable longing to get something out of everything you do,

which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the

saner elements in every nation. In this practice of taking family

matters to Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but

following in the footsteps of his father, who had been in the

habit of going at least once a week to see his sisters at

Timothy’s, and had only given it up when he lost his nerve at

eighty-six, and could not go out without Emily. To go with Emily

was of no use, for who could really talk to anyone in the

presence of his own wife? Like James in the old days, Soames

found time to go there nearly every Sunday, and sit in the little

drawing-room into which, with his undoubted taste, he had

introduced a good deal of change and china not quite up to his

own fastidious mark, and at least two rather doubtful Barbizon

pictures, at Christmastides. He himself, who had done extremely

well with the Barbizons, had for some years past moved towards

the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was hoping to do better. In

the riverside house which he now inhabited near Mapledurham he

had a gallery, beautifully hung and lighted, to which few London

dealers were strangers. It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon

attraction in those week-end parties which his sisters, Winifred

or Rachel, occasionally organised for him. For though he was but

a taciturn showman, his quiet collected determinism seldom failed

to influence his guests, who knew that his reputation was

grounded not on mere aesthetic fancy, but on his power of gauging

the future of market values. When he went to Timothy’s he almost

always had some little tale of triumph over a dealer to unfold,

and dearly he loved that coo of pride with which his aunts would

greet it. This afternoon, however, he was differently animated,

coming from Roger’s funeral in his neat dark clothes—not quite

black, for after all an uncle was but an uncle, and his soul

abhorred excessive display of feeling. Leaning back in a

marqueterie chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at the

sky-blue walls plastered with gold frames, he was noticeably

silent. Whether because he had been to a funeral or not, the

peculiar Forsyte build of his face was seen to the best advantage

this afternoon—a face concave and long, with a jaw which divested

of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a chinny face

though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly than

ever that Timothy’s was hopelessly “rum-ti-too” and the souls of

his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he

wanted to talk—his own undivorced position—was unspeakable. And

yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was

only since the Spring that this had been so and a new feeling

grown up which was egging him on towards what he knew might well

be folly in a Forsyte of forty-five. More and more of late he had

been conscious that he was “getting on.” The fortune already

considerable when he conceived the house at Robin Hill which had

finally wrecked his marriage with Irene, had mounted with

surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during which he had

devoted himself to little else. He was worth to-day well over a

hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to—no real

object for going on with what was his religion. Even if he were

to relax his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would

have a hundred and fifty thousand before he knew where he was.

There had always been a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side

to Soames; baulked and frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but

now had crept out again in this his “prime of life.” Concreted

and focussed of late by the attraction of a girl’s undoubted

beauty, it had become a veritable prepossession.

And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept

any unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the

thought of that. He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during

those long years of forced celibacy, secretively, and always with

disgust, for he was fastidious, and his sense of law and order

innate. He wanted no hole and corner liaison. A marriage at the

Embassy in Paris, a few months’ travel, and he could bring

Annette back quite separated from a past which in truth was not

too distinguished, for she only kept the accounts in her mother’s

Soho Restaurant; he could bring her back as something very new

and chic with her French taste and self-possession, to reign at

“The Shelter” near Mapledurham. On Forsyte ’Change and among his

riverside friends it would be current that he had met a charming

French girl on his travels and married her. There would be the

flavour of romance, and a certain _cachet_ about a French wife.

No! He was not at all afraid of that. It was only this cursed

undivorced condition of his, and—and the question whether Annette

would take him, which he dared not put to the touch until he had

a clear and even dazzling future to offer her.

In his aunts’ drawing-room he heard with but muffled ears those

usual questions: How was his dear father? Not going out, of

course, now that the weather was turning chilly? Would Soames be

sure to tell him that Hester had found boiled holly leaves most

comforting for that pain in her side; a poultice every three

hours, with red flannel afterwards. And could he relish just a

little pot of their very best prune preserve—it was so delicious

this year, and had such a wonderful effect. Oh! and about the

Darties—_had_ Soames heard that dear Winifred was having a most

distressing time with Montague? Timothy thought she really ought

to have protection It was said—but Soames mustn’t take this for

certain—that he had given some of Winifred’s jewellery to a

dreadful dancer. It was such a bad example for dear Val just as

he was going to college. Soames had not heard? Oh, but he must go

and see his sister and look into it at once! And did he think

these Boers were really going to resist? Timothy was in quite a

stew about it. The price of Consols was so high, and he had such

a lot of money in them. Did Soames think they must go down if

there was a war? Soames nodded. But it would be over very

quickly. It would be so bad for Timothy if it wasn’t. And of

course Soames’ dear father would feel it very much at his age.

Luckily poor dear Roger had been spared this dreadful anxiety.

And Aunt Juley with a little handkerchief wiped away the large

tear trying to climb the permanent pout on her now quite withered

left cheek; she was remembering dear Roger, and all his

originality, and how he used to stick pins into her when they

were little together. Aunt Hester, with her instinct for avoiding

the unpleasant, here chimed in: Did Soames think they would make

Mr. Chamberlain Prime Minister at once? He would settle it all so

quickly. She would like to see that old Kruger sent to St.

Helena. She could remember so well the news of Napoleon’s death,

and what a relief it had been to his grandfather. Of course she

and Juley—“We were in pantalettes then, my dear”—had not felt it

much at the time.

Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly, and ate

three of those macaroons for which Timothy’s was famous. His

faint, pale, supercilious smile had deepened just a little.

Really, his family remained hopelessly provincial, however much

of London they might possess between them. In these go-ahead days

their provincialism stared out even more than it used to. Why,

old Nicholas was still a Free Trader, and a member of that

antediluvian home of Liberalism, the Remove Club—though, to be

sure, the members were pretty well all Conservatives now, or he

himself could not have joined; and Timothy, they said, still wore

a nightcap. Aunt Juley spoke again. Dear Soames was looking so

well, hardly a day older than he did when dear Ann died, and they

were all there together, dear Jolyon, and dear Swithin, and dear

Roger. She paused and caught the tear which had climbed the pout

on her right cheek. Did he—did he ever hear anything of Irene

nowadays? Aunt Hester visibly interposed her shoulder. Really,

Juley was always saying something! The smile left Soames’ face,

and he put his cup down. Here was his subject broached for him,

and for all his desire to expand, he could not take advantage.

Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:

“They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen thousand out

and out; then of course he saw it would not be right, and made it

for her life only.”

Had Soames heard that?

Soames nodded.

“Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now. He is her trustee; you knew

that, of course?”

Soames shook his head. He did know, but wished to show no

interest. Young Jolyon and he had not met since the day of

Bosinney’s death.

“He must be quite middle-aged by now,” went on Aunt Juley

dreamily. “Let me see, he was born when your dear uncle lived in

Mount Street; long before they went to Stanhope Gate in December.

Just before that dreadful Commune. Over fifty! Fancy that! Such a

pretty baby, and we were all so proud of him; the very first of

you all.” Aunt Juley sighed, and a lock of not quite her own hair

came loose and straggled, so that Aunt Hester gave a little

shiver. Soames rose, he was experiencing a curious piece of

self-discovery. That old wound to his pride and self-esteem was

not yet closed. He had come thinking he could talk of it, even

wanting to talk of his fettered condition, and—behold! he was

shrinking away from this reminder by Aunt Juley, renowned for her

Malapropisms.

Oh, Soames was not going already!

Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:

“Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle Timothy!” And, leaving a

cold kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and

cling to his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left them

looking brightly after him—dear Soames, it had been so good of

him to come to-day, when they were not feeling very...!

With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the

stairs, where was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor

and port wine, and house where draughts are not permitted. The

poor old things—he had not meant to be unkind! And in the street

he instantly forgot them, repossessed by the image of Annette and

the thought of the cursed coil around him. Why had he not pushed

the thing through and obtained divorce when that wretched

Bosinney was run over, and there was evidence galore for the

asking! And he turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie’s

residence in Green Street, Mayfair.

CHAPTER II EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD

That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of

fortunes as Montague Dartie should still be living in a house he

had inhabited twenty years at least would have been more

noticeable if the rent, rates, taxes, and repairs of that house

had not been defrayed by his father-in-law. By that simple if

wholesale device James Forsyte had secured a certain stability in

the lives of his daughter and his grandchildren. After all, there

is something invaluable about a safe roof over the head of a

sportsman so dashing as Dartie. Until the events of the last few

days he had been almost-supernaturally steady all this year. The

fact was he had acquired a half share in a filly of George

Forsyte’s, who had gone irreparably on the turf, to the horror of

Roger, now stilled by the grave. Sleeve-links, by Martyr, out of

Shirt-on-fire, by Suspender, was a bay filly, three years old,

who for a variety of reasons had never shown her true form. With

half ownership of this hopeful animal, all the idealism latent

somewhere in Dartie, as in every other man, had put up its head,

and kept him quietly ardent for months past. When a man has some

thing good to live for it is astonishing how sober he becomes;

and what Dartie had was really good—a three to one chance for an

autumn handicap, publicly assessed at twenty-five to one. The

old-fashioned heaven was a poor thing beside it, and his shirt

was on the daughter of Shirt-on-fire. But how much more than his

shirt depended on this granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving

age of forty-five, trying to Forsytes—and, though perhaps less

distinguishable from any other age, trying even to

Darties—Montague had fixed his current fancy on a dancer. It was

no mean passion, but without money, and a good deal of it, likely

to remain a love as airy as her skirts; and Dartie never had any

money, subsisting miserably on what he could beg or borrow from

Winifred—a woman of character, who kept him because he was the

father of her children, and from a lingering admiration for those

now-dying Wardour Street good looks which in their youth had

fascinated her. She, together with anyone else who would lend him

anything, and his losses at cards and on the turf (extraordinary

how some men make a good thing out of losses!) were his whole

means of subsistence; for James was now too old and nervous to

approach, and Soames too formidably adamant. It is not too much

to say that Dartie had been living on hope for months. He had

never been fond of money for itself, had always despised the

Forsytes with their investing habits, though careful to make such

use of them as he could. What he liked about money was what it

bought—personal sensation.

“No real sportsman cares for money,” he would say, borrowing a

“pony” if it was no use trying for a “monkey.” There was

something delicious about Montague Dartie. He was, as George

Forsyte said, a “daisy.”

The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day

of September, and Dartie who had travelled to Newmarket the night

before, arrayed himself in spotless checks and walked to an

eminence to see his half of the filly take her final canter: If

she won he would be a cool three thou. in pocket—a poor enough

recompense for the sobriety and patience of these weeks of hope,

while they had been nursing her for this race. But he had not

been able to afford more. Should he “lay it off” at the eight to

one to which she had advanced? This was his single thought while

the larks sang above him, and the grassy downs smelled sweet, and

the pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing like satin.

After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid, and to “lay it

off” would reduce his winnings to some fifteen hundred—hardly

enough to purchase a dancer out and out. Even more potent was the

itch in the blood of all the Darties for a real flutter. And

turning to George he said: “She’s a clipper. She’ll win hands

down; I shall go the whole hog.” George, who had laid off every

penny, and a few besides, and stood to win, however it came out,

grinned down on him from his bulky height, with the words: “So

ho, my wild one!” for after a chequered apprenticeship weathered

with the money of a deeply complaining Roger, his Forsyte blood

was beginning to stand him in good stead in the profession of

owner.

There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from

which the sensitive recorder shrinks. Suffice it to say that the

good thing fell down. Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie’s

shirt was lost.

Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames

turned his face towards Green Street, what had not happened!

When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised

self-control for months from religious motives, and remains

unrewarded, he does not curse God and die, he curses God and

lives, to the distress of his family.

Winifred—a plucky woman, if a little too fashionable—who had

borne the brunt of him for exactly twenty-one years, had never

really believed that he would do what he now did. Like so many

wives, she thought she knew the worst, but she had not yet known

him in his forty-fifth year, when he, like other men, felt that

it was now or never. Paying on the 2nd of October a visit of

inspection to her jewel case, she was horrified to observe that

her woman’s crown and glory was gone—the pearls which Montague

had given her in ’86, when Benedict was born, and which James had

been compelled to pay for in the spring of ’87, to save scandal.

She consulted her husband at once. He “pooh-poohed” the matter.

They would turn up! Nor till she said sharply: “Very well, then,

Monty, I shall go down to Scotland Yard _myself_,” did he consent

to take the matter in hand. Alas! that the steady and resolved

continuity of design necessary to the accomplishment of sweeping

operations should be liable to interruption by drink. That night

Dartie returned home without a care in the world or a particle of

reticence. Under normal conditions Winifred would merely have

locked her door and let him sleep it off, but torturing suspense

about her pearls had caused her to wait up for him. Taking a

small revolver from his pocket and holding on to the dining

table, he told her at once that he did not care a cursh whether

she lived s’long as she was quiet; but he himself wash tired

orsdquo; life. Winifred, holding onto the other side of the

dining table, answered:

“Don’t be a clown, Monty. Have you been to Scotland Yard?”

Placing the revolver against his chest, Dartie had pulled the

trigger several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an

imprecation, he had muttered: “For shake o’ the children,” and

sank into a chair. Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave

him some soda water. The liquor had a magical effect. Life had

illused him; Winifred had never “unshtood’m.” If he hadn’t the

right to take the pearls he had given her himself, who had? That

Spanish filly had got’m. If Winifred had any ’jection he w’d

cut—her—throat. What was the matter with that? (Probably the

first use of that celebrated phrase—so obscure are the origins of

even the most classical language!)

Winifred, who had learned self-containment in a hard school,

looked up at him, and said: “Spanish filly! Do you mean that girl

we saw dancing in the Pandemonium Ballet? Well, you are a thief

and a blackguard.” It had been the last straw on a sorely loaded

consciousness; reaching up from his chair Dartie seized his

wife’s arm, and recalling the achievements of his boyhood,

twisted it. Winifred endured the agony with tears in her eyes,

but no murmur. Watching for a moment of weakness, she wrenched it

free; then placing the dining table between them, said between

her teeth: “You are the limit, Monty.” (Undoubtedly the inception

of that phrase—so is English formed under the stress of

circumstances.) Leaving Dartie with foam on his dark moustache

she went upstairs, and, after locking her door and bathing her

arm in hot water, lay awake all night, thinking of her pearls

adorning the neck of another, and of the consideration her

husband had presumably received therefor.

The man of the world awoke with a sense of being lost to that

world, and a dim recollection of having been called a “limit.” He

sat for half an hour in the dawn and the armchair where he had

slept—perhaps the unhappiest half-hour he had ever spent, for

even to a Dartie there is something tragic about an end. And he

knew that he had reached it. Never again would he sleep in his

dining-room and wake with the light filtering through those

curtains bought by Winifred at Nickens and Jarveys with the money

of James. Never again eat a devilled kidney at that rose-wood

table, after a roll in the sheets and a hot bath. He took his

note case from his dress coat pocket. Four hundred pounds, in

fives and tens—the remainder of the proceeds of his half of

Sleeve-links, sold last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who,

having won over the race, had not conceived the sudden dislike to

the animal which he himself now felt. The ballet was going to

Buenos Aires the day after to-morrow, and he was going too. Full

value for the pearls had not yet been received; he was only at

the soup.

He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides,

the water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed

stealthily all he could. It was hard to leave so many shining

boots, but one must sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise

in either hand, he stepped out onto the landing. The house was

very quiet—that house where he had begotten his four children. It

was a curious moment, this, outside the room of his wife, once

admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him “the limit.” He

steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but the next

door was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters slept in.

Maud was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture

came into Dartie’s early morning eyes. She was the most like him

of the four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance.

Just coming out, a pretty thing! He set down the two valises.

This almost formal abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning

light fell on a face which worked with real emotion. Nothing so

false as penitence moved him; but genuine paternal feeling, and

that melancholy of “never again.” He moistened his lips; and

complete irresolution for a moment paralysed his legs in their

check trousers. It was hard—hard to be thus compelled to leave

his home! “D—-nit!” he muttered, “I never thought it would come

to this.” Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning

to get up. And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on

downstairs. His cheeks were wet, and the knowledge of that was

comforting, as though it guaranteed the genuineness of his

sacrifice. He lingered a little in the rooms below, to pack all

the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat, a silver cigarette

box, a Ruff’s Guide. Then, mixing himself a stiff whisky and

soda, and lighting a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a

photograph of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged to

Winifred. “Never mind,” he thought; “she can get another taken,

and I can’t!” He slipped it into the valise. Then, putting on his

hat and overcoat, he took two others, his best malacca cane, an

umbrella, and opened the front door. Closing it softly behind

him, he walked out, burdened as he had never been in all his

life, and made his way round the corner to wait there for an

early cab to come by.

Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his

age from the house which he had called his own.

When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the

house, her first feeling was one of dull anger that he should

thus elude the reproaches she had carefully prepared in those

long wakeful hours. He had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton,

with that woman as likely as not. Disgusting! Forced to a

complete reticence before Imogen and the servants, and aware that

her father’s nerves would never stand the disclosure, she had

been unable to refrain from going to Timothy’s that afternoon,

and pouring out the story of the pearls to Aunts Juley and Hester

in utter confidence. It was only on the following morning that

she noticed the disappearance of that photograph. What did it

mean? Careful examination of her husband’s relics prompted the

thought that he had gone for good. As that conclusion hardened

she stood quite still in the middle of his dressing-room, with

all the drawers pulled out, to try and realise what she was

feeling. By no means easy! Though he was “the limit” he was yet

her property, and for the life of her she could not but feel the

poorer. To be widowed yet not widowed at forty-two; with four

children; made conspicuous, an object of commiseration! Gone to

the arms of a Spanish Jade! Memories, feelings, which she had

thought quite dead, revived within her, painful, sullen,

tenacious. Mechanically she closed drawer after drawer, went to

her bed, lay on it, and buried her face in the pillows. She did

not cry. What was the use of that? When she got off her bed to go

down to lunch she felt as if only one thing could do her good,

and that was to have Val home. He—her eldest boy—who was to go to

Oxford next month at James’ expense, was at Littlehampton taking

his final gallops with his trainer for Smalls, as he would have

phrased it following his father’s diction. She caused a telegram

to be sent to him.

“I must see about his clothes,” she said to Imogen; “I can’t have

him going up to Oxford all anyhow. Those boys are so particular.”

“Val’s got heaps of things,” Imogen answered.

“I know; but they want overhauling. I hope he’ll come.”

“He’ll come like a shot, Mother. But he’ll probably skew his

Exam.”

“I can’t help that,” said Winifred. “I want him.”

With an innocent shrewd look at her mother’s face, Imogen kept

silence. It was father, of course! Val did come “like a shot” at

six o’clock.

Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young

Publius Valerius Dartie. A youth so named could hardly turn out

otherwise. When he was born, Winifred, in the heyday of spirits,

and the craving for distinction, had determined that her children

should have names such as no others had ever had. (It was a

mercy—she felt now—that she had just not named Imogen Thisbe.)

But it was to George Forsyte, always a wag, that Val’s

christening was due. It so happened that Dartie, dining with him

a week after the birth of his son and heir, had mentioned this

aspiration of Winifred’s.

“Call him Cato,” said George, “it’ll be damned piquant!” He had

just won a tenner on a horse of that name.

“Cato!” Dartie had replied—they were a little ‘on’ as the phrase

was even in those days—“it’s not a Christian name.”

“Halo you!” George called to a waiter in knee breeches. “Bring me

the _Encyc’pedia Brit_. from the Library, letter C.”

The waiter brought it.

“Here you are!” said George, pointing with his cigar: “Cato

Publius Valerius by Virgil out of Lydia. That’s what you want.

Publius Valerius is Christian enough.”

Dartie, on arriving home, had informed Winifred. She had been

charmed. It was so “chic.” And Publius Valerius became the baby’s

name, though it afterwards transpired that they had got hold of

the inferior Cato. In 1890, however, when little Publius was

nearly ten, the word “chic” went out of fashion, and sobriety

came in; Winifred began to have doubts. They were confirmed by

little Publius himself who returned from his first term at school

complaining that life was a burden to him—they called him Pubby.

Winifred—a woman of real decision—promptly changed his school and

his name to Val, the Publius being dropped even as an initial.

At nineteen he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth,

light eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile,

considerable knowledge of what he should not know, and no

experience of what he ought to do. Few boys had more narrowly

escaped being expelled—the engaging rascal. After kissing his

mother and pinching Imogen, he ran upstairs three at a time, and

came down four, dressed for dinner. He was awfully sorry, but his

“trainer,” who had come up too, had asked him to dine at the

Oxford and Cambridge; it wouldn’t do to miss—the old chap would

be hurt. Winifred let him go with an unhappy pride. She had

wanted him at home, but it was very nice to know that his tutor

was so fond of him. He went out with a wink at Imogen, saying: “I

say, Mother, could I have two plover’s eggs when I come

in?—cook’s got some. They top up so jolly well. Oh! and look

here—have you any money?—I had to borrow a fiver from old

Snobby.”

Winifred, looking at him with fond shrewdness, answered:

“My dear, you _are_ naughty about money. But you shouldn’t pay

him to-night, anyway; you’re his guest. How nice and slim he

looked in his white waistcoat, and his dark thick lashes!”

“Oh, but we may go to the theatre, you see, Mother; and I think I

ought to stand the tickets; he’s always hard up, you know.”

Winifred produced a five-pound note, saying:

“Well, perhaps you’d better pay him, but you mustn’t stand the

tickets too.”

Val pocketed the fiver.

“If I do, I can’t,” he said. “Good-night, Mum!”

He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously,

sniffing the air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into

covert. Jolly good biz! After that mouldy old slow hole down

there!

He found his “tutor,” not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but

at the Goat’s Club. This “tutor” was a year older than himself, a

good-looking youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a

small mouth, an oval face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree,

one of those young men who without effort establish moral

ascendancy over their companions. He had missed being expelled

from school a year before Val, had spent that year at Oxford, and

Val could almost see a halo round his head. His name was Crum,

and no one could get through money quicker. It seemed to be his

only aim in life—dazzling to young Val, in whom, however, the

Forsyte would stand apart, now and then, wondering where the

value for that money was.

They dined quietly, in style and taste; left the Club smoking

cigars, with just two bottles inside them, and dropped into

stalls at the Liberty. For Val the sound of comic songs, the

sight of lovely legs were fogged and interrupted by haunting

fears that he would never equal Crum’s quiet dandyism. His

idealism was roused; and when that is so, one is never quite at

ease. Surely he had too wide a mouth, not the best cut of

waistcoat, no braid on his trousers, and his lavender gloves had

no thin black stitchings down the back. Besides, he laughed too

much—Crum never laughed, he only smiled, with his regular dark

brows raised a little so that they formed a gable over his just

drooped lids. No! he would never be Crum’s equal. All the same it

was a jolly good show, and Cynthia Dark simply ripping. Between

the acts Crum regaled him with particulars of Cynthia’s private

life, and the awful knowledge became Val’s that, if he liked,

Crum could go behind. He simply longed to say: “I say, take me!”

but dared not, because of his deficiencies; and this made the

last act or two almost miserable. On coming out Crum said: “It’s

half an hour before they close; let’s go on to the Pandemonium.”

They took a hansom to travel the hundred yards, and seats costing

seven-and-six apiece because they were going to stand, and walked

into the Promenade. It was in these little things, this utter

negligence of money that Crum had such engaging polish. The

ballet was on its last legs and night, and the traffic of the

Promenade was suffering for the moment. Men and women were

crowded in three rows against the barrier. The whirl and dazzle

on the stage, the half dark, the mingled tobacco fumes and

women’s scent, all that curious lure to promiscuity which belongs

to Promenades, began to free young Val from his idealism. He

looked admiringly in a young woman’s face, saw she was not young,

and quickly looked away. Shades of Cynthia Dark! The young

woman’s arm touched his unconsciously; there was a scent of musk

and mignonette. Val looked round the corner of his lashes.

Perhaps she _was_ young, after all. Her foot trod on his; she

begged his pardon. He said:

“Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’m tired of it; aren’t you?”

Young Val smiled—his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he

did not go—not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for

greater certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its

kaleidoscope of snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and

violet and seemed suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled

pyramid. Applause broke out, and it was over! Maroon curtains had

cut it off. The semi-circle of men and women round the barrier

broke up, the young woman’s arm pressed his. A little way off

disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink carnation;

Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking

towards it. Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The

one in the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a

dark moustache; he reeled a little as he walked. Crum’s voice

said slow and level: “Look at that bounder, he’s screwed!” Val

turned to look. The “bounder” had disengaged his arm, and was

pointing straight at them. Crum’s voice, level as ever, said:

“He seems to know you!” The “bounder” spoke:

“H’llo!” he said. “You f’llows, look! There’s my young rascal of

a son!”

Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson

carpet. It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his

father was “screwed”. it was Crum’s word “bounder,” which, as by

heavenly revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes,

his father looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his

pink carnation, and his square, self-assertive walk. And without

a word he ducked behind the young woman and slipped out of the

Promenade. He heard the word, “Val!” behind him, and ran down

deep-carpeted steps past the “chuckersout,” into the Square.

To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest

experience a young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying

away, that his career had ended before it had begun. How could he

go up to Oxford now amongst all those chaps, those splendid

friends of Crum’s, who would know that his father was a

“bounder”. And suddenly he hated Crum. Who the devil was Crum, to

say that? If Crum had been beside him at that moment, he would

certainly have been jostled off the pavement. His own father—his

own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands down

deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild

idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the

arm and walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up

at once and pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman

planted herself before him. “Not so angry, darling!” He shied,

dodged her, and suddenly became quite cool. If Crum ever said a

word, he would jolly well punch his head, and there would be an

end of it. He walked a hundred yards or more, contented with that

thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It wasn’t simple like

that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent came down

who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow

afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why

had his mother married his father, if he was a “bounder”. It was

bitterly unfair—jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a

“bounder” for father. The worst of it was that now Crum had

spoken the word, he realised that he had long known

subconsciously that his father was not “the clean potato.” It was

the beastliest thing that had ever happened to him—beastliest

thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And, down-hearted as

he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let himself

in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover’s

eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a

little whisky at the bottom of a decanter—just enough, as

Winifred had thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him

sick to look at them, and he went upstairs.

Winifred heard him pass, and thought: “The dear boy’s in. Thank

goodness! If he takes after his father I don’t know what I shall

do! But he won’t he’s like me. Dear Val!”

CHAPTER III SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS

When Soames entered his sister’s little Louis Quinze

drawing-room, with its small balcony, always flowered with

hanging geraniums in the summer, and now with pots of Lilium

Auratum, he was struck by the immutability of human affairs. It

looked just the same as on his first visit to the newly married

Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture

himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever

been able to change the room’s atmosphere. Yes, he had founded

his sister well, and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great

deal for Winifred that after all this time with Dartie she

remained well-founded. From the first Soames had nosed out

Dartie’s nature from underneath the plausibility, _savoir faire_,

and good looks which had dazzled Winifred, her mother, and even

James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to marry his

daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into

settlement.

Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at

her Buhl bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came

towards him. Tall as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well

tailored, something in her face disturbed Soames. She crumpled

the letter in her hand, but seemed to change her mind and held it

out to him. He was her lawyer as well as her brother.

Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:

‘You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving

country to-morrow. It’s played out. I’m tired of being insulted

by you. You’ve brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can

stand it. I shall not ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I

took the photograph of the two girls. Give them my love. I don’t

care what your family say. It’s all their doing. I’m going to

live new life.

‘M.D.’

This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry. He

looked at Winifred—the splotch had clearly come from her; and he

checked the words: “Good riddance!” Then it occurred to him that

with this letter she was entering that very state which he

himself so earnestly desired to quit—the state of a Forsyte who

was not divorced.

Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a

little gold-topped bottle. A dull commiseration, together with a

vague sense of injury, crept about Soames’ heart. He had come to

her to talk of his own position, and get sympathy, and here was

she in the same position, wanting of course to talk of it, and

get sympathy from him. It was always like that! Nobody ever

seemed to think that he had troubles and interests of his own. He

folded up the letter with the splotch inside, and said:

“What’s it all about, now?”

Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.

“Do you think he’s really gone, Soames? You see the state he was

in when he wrote that.”

Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by

pretending that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:

“I shouldn’t think so. I might find out at his Club.”

“If George is there,” said Winifred, “he would know.”

“George?” said Soames; “I saw him at his father’s funeral.”

“Then he’s sure to be there.”

Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister’s acumen, said

grudgingly: “Well, I’ll go round. Have you said anything in Park

Lane?”

“I’ve told Emily,” returned Winifred, who retained that “chic”

way of describing her mother. “Father would have a fit.”

Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James.

With another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his

sister’s exact position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly. The

evening was drawing in—a touch of chill in the October haze. He

walked quickly, with his close and concentrated air. He must get

through, for he wished to dine in Soho. On hearing from the hall

porter at the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie had not been in to-day, he

looked at the trusty fellow and decided only to ask if Mr. George

Forsyte was in the Club. He was. Soames, who always looked

askance at his cousin George, as one inclined to jest at his

expense, followed the pageboy, slightly reassured by the thought

that George had just lost his father. He must have come in for

about thirty thousand, besides what he had under that settlement

of Roger’s, which had avoided death duty. He found George in a

bow-window, staring out across a half-eaten plate of muffins. His

tall, bulky, black-clothed figure loomed almost threatening,

though preserving still the supernatural neatness of the racing

man. With a faint grin on his fleshy face, he said:

“Hallo, Soames! Have a muffin?”

“No, thanks,” murmured Soames; and, nursing his hat, with the

desire to say something suitable and sympathetic, added:

“How’s your mother?”

“Thanks,” said George; “so-so. Haven’t seen you for ages. You

never go racing. How’s the City?”

Soames, scenting the approach of a jest, closed up, and answered:

“I wanted to ask you about Dartie. I hear he’s....”

“Flitted, made a bolt to Buenos Aires with the fair Lola. Good

for Winifred and the little Darties. He’s a treat.”

Soames nodded. Naturally inimical as these cousins were, Dartie

made them kin.

“Uncle James’ll sleep in his bed now,” resumed George; “I suppose

he’s had a lot off you, too.”

Soames smiled.

“Ah! You saw him further,” said George amicably. “He’s a real

rouser. Young Val will want a bit of looking after. I was always

sorry for Winifred. She’s a plucky woman.”

Again Soames nodded. “I must be getting back to her,” he said;

“she just wanted to know for certain. We may have to take steps.

I suppose there’s no mistake?”

“It’s quite O.K.,” said George—it was he who invented so many of

those quaint sayings which have been assigned to other sources.

“He was drunk as a lord last night; but he went off all right

this morning. His ship’s the _Tuscarora;_” and, fishing out a

card, he read mockingly:

“‘Mr. Montague Dartie, Poste Restante, Buenos Aires.’ I should

hurry up with the steps, if I were you. He fairly fed me up last

night.”

“Yes,” said Soames; “but it’s not always easy.” Then, conscious

from George’s eyes that he had roused reminiscence of his own

affair, he got up, and held out his hand. George rose too.

“Remember me to Winifred.... You’ll enter her for the Divorce

Stakes straight off if you ask me.”

Soames took a sidelong look back at him from the doorway. George

had seated himself again and was staring before him; he looked

big and lonely in those black clothes. Soames had never known him

so subdued. “I suppose he feels it in a way,” he thought. “They

must have about fifty thousand each, all told. They ought to keep

the estate together. If there’s a war, house property will go

down. Uncle Roger was a good judge, though.” And the face of

Annette rose before him in the darkening street; her brown hair

and her blue eyes with their dark lashes, her fresh lips and

cheeks, dewy and blooming in spite of London, her perfect French

figure. “Take steps!” he thought. Re-entering Winifred’s house he

encountered Val, and they went in together. An idea had occurred

to Soames. His cousin Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, the first step

would be to go down and see him at Robin Hill. Robin Hill! The

odd—the very odd feeling those words brought back! Robin Hill—the

house Bosinney had built for him and Irene—the house they had

never lived in—the fatal house! And Jolyon lived there now! H’m!

And suddenly he thought: “They say he’s got a boy at Oxford! Why

not take young Val down and introduce them! It’s an excuse! Less

bald—very much less bald!” So, as they went upstairs, he said to

Val:

“You’ve got a cousin at Oxford; you’ve never met him. I should

like to take you down with me to-morrow to where he lives and

introduce you. You’ll find it useful.”

Val, receiving the idea with but moderate transports, Soames

clinched it.

“I’ll call for you after lunch. It’s in the country—not far;

you’ll enjoy it.”

On the threshold of the drawing-room he recalled with an effort

that the steps he contemplated concerned Winifred at the moment,

not himself.

Winifred was still sitting at her Buhl bureau.

“It’s quite true,” he said; “he’s gone to Buenos Aires, started

this morning—we’d better have him shadowed when he lands. I’ll

cable at once. Otherwise we may have a lot of expense. The sooner

these things are done the better. I’m always regretting that I

didn’t...” he stopped, and looked sidelong at the silent

Winifred. “By the way,” he went on, “can you prove cruelty?”

Winifred said in a dull voice:

“I don’t know. What is cruelty?”

“Well, has he struck you, or anything?”

Winifred shook herself, and her jaw grew square.

“He twisted my arm. Or would pointing a pistol count? Or being

too drunk to undress himself, or—No—I can’t bring in the

children.”

“No,” said Soames; “no! I wonder! Of course, there’s legal

separation—we can get that. But separation! Um!”

“What does it mean?” asked Winifred desolately.

“That he can’t touch you, or you him; you’re both of you married

and unmarried.” And again he grunted. What was it, in fact, but

his own accursed position, legalised! No, he would not put her

into that!

“It must be divorce,” he said decisively; “failing cruelty,

there’s desertion. There’s a way of shortening the two years,

now. We get the Court to give us restitution of conjugal rights.

Then if he doesn’t obey, we can bring a suit for divorce in six

months’ time. Of course you don’t want him back. But they won’t

know that. Still, there’s the risk that he might come. I’d rather

try cruelty.”

Winifred shook her head. “It’s so beastly.”

“Well,” Soames murmured, “perhaps there isn’t much risk so long

as he’s infatuated and got money. Don’t say anything to anybody,

and don’t pay any of his debts.”

Winifred sighed. In spite of all she had been through, the sense

of loss was heavy on her. And this idea of not paying his debts

any more brought it home to her as nothing else yet had. Some

richness seemed to have gone out of life. Without her husband,

without her pearls, without that intimate sense that she made a

brave show above the domestic whirlpool, she would now have to

face the world. She felt bereaved indeed.

And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put

more than his usual warmth.

“I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow,” he said, “to see

young Jolyon on business. He’s got a boy at Oxford. I’d like to

take Val with me and introduce him. Come down to ‘The Shelter’

for the week-end and bring the children. Oh! by the way, no, that

won’t do; I’ve got some other people coming.” So saying, he left

her and turned towards Soho.

CHAPTER IV SOHO

Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London,

Soho is perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit. “So-ho, my

wild one!” George would have said if he had seen his cousin going

there. Untidy, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians,

tomatoes, restaurants, organs, coloured stuffs, queer names,

people looking out of upper windows, it dwells remote from the

British Body Politic. Yet has it haphazard proprietary instincts

of its own, and a certain possessive prosperity which keeps its

rents up when those of other quarters go down. For long years

Soames’ acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its

Western bastion, Wardour Street. Many bargains had he picked up

there. Even during those seven years at Brighton after Bosinney’s

death and Irene’s flight, he had bought treasures there

sometimes, though he had no place to put them; for when the

conviction that his wife had gone for good at last became firm

within him, he had caused a board to be put up in Montpellier

Square:

FOR SALE

THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE

Enquire of Messrs. Lesson and Tukes, Court Street, Belgravia.

It had sold within a week—that desirable residence, in the shadow

of whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.

Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down,

Soames had gone there once more, and stood against the Square

railings, looking at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of

possessive memories which had turned so bitter in the mouth. Why

had she never loved him? Why? She had been given all she had

wanted, and in return had given him, for three long years, all he

had wanted—except, indeed, her heart. He had uttered a little

involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced

suspiciously at him who no longer possessed the right to enter

that green door with the carved brass knocker beneath the board

“For Sale!” A choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he

had hurried away into the mist. That evening he had gone to

Brighton to live....

Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne,

where Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her

accounts, Soames thought with wonder of those seven years at

Brighton. How had he managed to go on so long in that town devoid

of the scent of sweetpeas, where he had not even space to put his

treasures? True, those had been years with no time at all for

looking at them—years of almost passionate money-making, during

which Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte had become solicitors to more

limited Companies than they could properly attend to. Up to the

City of a morning in a Pullman car, down from the City of an

evening in a Pullman car. Law papers again after dinner, then the

sleep of the tired, and up again next morning. Saturday to Monday

was spent at his Club in town—curious reversal of customary

procedure, based on the deep and careful instinct that while

working so hard he needed sea air to and from the station twice a

day, and while resting must indulge his domestic affections. The

Sunday visit to his family in Park Lane, to Timothy’s, and to

Green Street; the occasional visits elsewhere had seemed to him

as necessary to health as sea air on weekdays. Even since his

migration to Mapledurham he had maintained those habits until—he

had known Annette.

Whether Annette had produced the revolution in his outlook, or

that outlook had produced Annette, he knew no more than we know

where a circle begins. It was intricate and deeply involved with

the growing consciousness that property without anyone to leave

it to is the negation of true Forsyteism. To have an heir, some

continuance of self, who would begin where he left off—ensure, in

fact, that he would not leave off—had quite obsessed him for the

last year and more. After buying a bit of Wedgwood one evening in

April, he had dropped into Malta Street to look at a house of his

father’s which had been turned into a restaurant—a risky

proceeding, and one not quite in accordance with the terms of the

lease. He had stared for a little at the outside painted a good

cream colour, with two peacock-blue tubs containing little

bay-trees in a recessed doorway—and at the words “Restaurant

Bretagne” above them in gold letters, rather favourably

impressed. Entering, he had noticed that several people were

already seated at little round green tables with little pots of

fresh flowers on them and Brittany-ware plates, and had asked of

a trim waitress to see the proprietor. They had shown him into a

back room, where a girl was sitting at a simple bureau covered

with papers, and a small round, table was laid for two. The

impression of cleanliness, order, and good taste was confirmed

when the girl got up, saying, “You wish to see _Maman,

Monsieur?_” in a broken accent.

“Yes,” Soames had answered, “I represent your landlord; in fact,

I’m his son.”

“Won’t you sit down, sir, please? Tell _Maman_ to come to this

gentleman.”

He was pleased that the girl seemed impressed, because it showed

business instinct; and suddenly he noticed that she was

remarkably pretty—so remarkably pretty that his eyes found a

difficulty in leaving her face. When she moved to put a chair for

him, she swayed in a curious subtle way, as if she had been put

together by someone with a special secret skill; and her face and

neck, which was a little bared, looked as fresh as if they had

been sprayed with dew. Probably at this moment Soames decided

that the lease had not been violated; though to himself and his

father he based the decision on the efficiency of those illicit

adaptations in the building, on the signs of prosperity, and the

obvious business capacity of Madame Lamotte. He did not, however,

neglect to leave certain matters to future consideration, which

had necessitated further visits, so that the little back room had

become quite accustomed to his spare, not unsolid, but

unobtrusive figure, and his pale, chinny face with clipped

moustache and dark hair not yet grizzling at the sides.

“_Un Monsieur très distingué_,” Madame Lamotte found him; and

presently, “_Très amical, très gentil_,” watching his eyes upon

her daughter.

She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired

Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect

confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their

knowledge of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank

balances.

After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits

ceased—without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like

all Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a

born empiricist. But it was this change in his mode of life which

had gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to

alter his condition from that of the unmarried married man to

that of the married man remarried.

Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899,

he bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of

the Dreyfus case—a question which he had always found useful in

making closer acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her

daughter, who were Catholic and anti-Dreyfusard.

Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed

a general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about

the Transvaal. He entered, thinking: “War’s a certainty. I shall

sell my consols.” Not that he had many, personally, the rate of

interest was too wretched; but he should advise his

Companies—consols would assuredly go down. A look, as he passed

the doorways of the restaurant, assured him that business was

good as ever, and this, which in April would have pleased him,

now gave him a certain uneasiness. If the steps which he had to

take ended in his marrying Annette, he would rather see her

mother safely back in France, a move to which the prosperity of

the Restaurant Bretagne might become an obstacle. He would have

to buy them out, of course, for French people only came to

England to make money; and it would mean a higher price. And then

that peculiar sweet sensation at the back of his throat, and a

slight thumping about the heart, which he always experienced at

the door of the little room, prevented his thinking how much it

would cost.

Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing

through the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her

hands up to her hair. It was the attitude in which of all others

he admired her—so beautifully straight and rounded and supple.

And he said:

“I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that

partition. No, don’t call her.”

“_Monsieur_ will have supper with us? It will be ready in ten

minutes.” Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an

impulse which surprised him.

“You look so pretty to-night,” he said, “so very pretty. Do you

know how pretty you look, Annette?”

Annette withdrew her hand, and blushed. “Monsieur is very good.”

“Not a bit good,” said Soames, and sat down gloomily.

Annette made a little expressive gesture with her hands; a smile

was crinkling her red lips untouched by salve.

And, looking at those lips, Soames said:

“Are you happy over here, or do you want to go back to France?”

“Oh, I like London. Paris, of course. But London is better than

Orleans, and the English country is so beautiful. I have been to

Richmond last Sunday.”

Soames went through a moment of calculating struggle.

Mapledurham! Dared he? After all, dared he go so far as that, and

show her what there was to look forward to! Still! Down there one

could say things. In this room it was impossible.

“I want you and your mother,” he said suddenly, “to come for the

afternoon next Sunday. My house is on the river, it’s not too

late in this weather; and I can show you some good pictures. What

do you say?”

Annette clasped her hands.

“It will be lovelee. The river is so beautiful”

“That’s understood, then. I’ll ask Madame.”

He need say no more to her this evening, and risk giving himself

away. But had he not already said too much? Did one ask

restaurant proprietors with pretty daughters down to one’s

country house without design? Madame Lamotte would see, if

Annette didn’t. Well! there was not much that Madame did not see.

Besides, this was the second time he had stayed to supper with

them; he owed them hospitality.

Walking home towards Park Lane—for he was staying at his

father’s—with the impression of Annette’s soft clever hand within

his own, his thoughts were pleasant, slightly sensual, rather

puzzled. Take steps! What steps? How? Dirty linen washed in

public? Pah! With his reputation for sagacity, for

far-sightedness and the clever extrication of others, he, who

stood for proprietary interests, to become the plaything of that

Law of which he was a pillar! There was something revolting in

the thought! Winifred’s affair was bad enough! To have a double

dose of publicity in the family! Would not a liaison be better

than that—a liaison, and a son he could adopt? But dark, solid,

watchful, Madame Lamotte blocked the avenue of that vision. No!

that would not work. It was not as if Annette could have a real

passion for him; one could not expect that at his age. If her

mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly

great—perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he

thought: “I’m not a villain. I don’t want to hurt her; and I

don’t want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a

son! There’s nothing for it but divorce—somehow—anyhow—divorce!”

Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed

slowly along the railings of the Green Park. Mist clung there

among the bluish tree shapes, beyond range of the lamps. How many

hundred times he had walked past those trees from his father’s

house in Park Lane, when he was quite a young man; or from his

own house in Montpellier Square in those four years of married

life! And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself if he

could of that long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk

on, in at Hyde Park Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he

used to when going home to Irene in the old days. What could she

be like now?—how had she passed the years since he last saw her,

twelve years in all, seven already since Uncle Jolyon left her

that money? Was she still beautiful? Would he know her if he saw

her? “I’ve not changed much,” he thought; “I expect she has. She

made me suffer.” He remembered suddenly one night, the first on

which he went out to dinner alone—an old Malburian dinner—the

first year of their marriage. With what eagerness he had hurried

back; and, entering softly as a cat, had heard her playing.

Opening the drawing-room door noiselessly, he had stood watching

the expression on her face, different from any he knew, so much

more open, so confiding, as though to her music she was giving a

heart he had never seen. And he remembered how she stopped and

looked round, how her face changed back to that which he did

know, and what an icy shiver had gone through him, for all that

the next moment he was fondling her shoulders. Yes, she had made

him suffer! Divorce! It seemed ridiculous, after all these years

of utter separation! But it would have to be. No other way! “The

question,” he thought with sudden realism, “is—which of us? She

or me? She deserted me. She ought to pay for it. There’ll be

someone, I suppose.” Involuntarily he uttered a little snarling

sound, and, turning, made his way back to Park Lane.

CHAPTER V JAMES SEES VISIONS

The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly,

detained Soames on the inner mat.

“The master’s poorly, sir,” he murmured. “He wouldn’t go to bed

till you came in. He’s still in the diningroom.”

Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now

accustomed.

“What’s the matter with him, Warmson?”

“Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs.

Dartie’s comin’ round this afternoon. I think he overheard

something. I’ve took him in a negus. The mistress has just gone

up.”

Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag’s-horn.

“All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I’ll take him up myself.”

And he passed into the dining-room.

James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a

camel-hair shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated

shoulders, on to which his long white whiskers drooped. His white

hair, still fairly thick, glistened in the lamplight; a little

moisture from his fixed, light-grey eyes stained the cheeks,

still quite well coloured, and the long deep furrows running to

the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as if mumbling

thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow’s, in shepherd’s plaid

trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a

spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and

glistening tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a

half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There

he had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day. At

eighty-eight he was still organically sound, but suffering

terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything. It

is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being

buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always

keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a

grudge against his wife’s youth. He felt sometimes that he would

never have married her if he had known that she would have so

many years before her, when he had so few. It was not natural.

She would live fifteen or twenty years after he was gone, and

might spend a lot of money; she had always had extravagant

tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy one of these

motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young

people—they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness

knew where. And now Roger was gone. He didn’t know—couldn’t tell!

The family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle

had left. Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames’ uncle not as

his own brother. Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot

in a vanishing world. Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but

he had no one to leave his money to. There it was! He didn’t

know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain! For James’ political

principles had been fixed between ’70 and ’85 when “that rascally

Radical” had been the chief thorn in the side of property and he

distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion; he would

get the country into a mess and make money go down before he had

done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames? He had

gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from

him. He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son’s trousers.

Roger! Roger in his coffin! He remembered how, when they came up

from school together from the West, on the box seat of the old

Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got into the “boot” and gone to

sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny fellow—Roger—an

original! He didn’t know! Younger than himself, and in his

coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val going to the

university; he never came to see him now. He would cost a pretty

penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty

pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before

James’ eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged

terribly the risk which the spending of that money might bring on

them; _he grudged the diminution of security_. And now that

Cicely had married, she might be having children too. He didn’t

know—couldn’t tell! Nobody thought of anything but spending money

in these days, and racing about, and having what they called “a

good time.” A motor-car went past the window. Ugly great

lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the

country rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they

couldn’t even care for style—a neat turnout like his barouche and

bays was worth all those new-fangled things. And consols at 116!

There must be a lot of money in the country. And now there was

this old Kruger! They had tried to keep old Kruger from him. But

he knew better; there would be a pretty kettle of fish out there!

He had known how it would be when that fellow Gladstone—dead now,

thank God! made such a mess of it after that dreadful business at

Majuba. He shouldn’t wonder if the Empire split up and went to

pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled a full

quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He

had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch

that the real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing

when he became aware of voices—low voices. Ah! they never told

him anything! Winifred’s and her mother’s. “Monty!” That fellow

Dartie—always that fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and

James had been left alone, with his ears standing up like a

hare’s, and fear creeping about his inwards. Why did they leave

him alone? Why didn’t they come and tell him? And an awful

thought, which through long years had haunted him, concreted

again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone bankrupt—fraudulently

bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children, he—James—would

have to pay! Could he—could Soames turn him into a limited

company? No, he couldn’t! There it was! With every minute before

Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery!

With eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall,

James suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his

grandchildren in the gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the

doubted Turner being sold at Jobson’s, and all the majestic

edifice of property in rags. He saw in fancy Winifred

unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily’s voice saying:

“Now, don’t fuss, James!” She was always saying: “Don’t fuss!”

She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman

eighteen years younger than himself. Then Emily’s real voice

said:

“Have you had a nice nap, James?”

Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him that!

“What’s this about Dartie?” he said, and his eyes glared at her.

Emily’s self-possession never deserted her.

“What have you been hearing?” she asked blandly.

“What’s this about Dartie?” repeated James. “He’s gone bankrupt.”

“Fiddle!”

James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his

stork-like figure.

“You never tell me anything,” he said; “he’s gone bankrupt.”

The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that

mattered at the moment.

“He has not,” she answered firmly. “He’s gone to Buenos Aires.”

If she had said “He’s gone to Mars” she could not have dealt

James a more stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in

British securities, could as little grasp one place as the other.

“What’s he gone there for?” he said. “He’s got no money. What did

he take?”

Agitated within by Winifred’s news, and goaded by the constant

reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:

“He took Winifred’s pearls and a dancer.”

“What!” said James, and sat down.

His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she

said:

“Now, don’t fuss, James!”

A dusky red had spread over James’ cheeks and forehead.

“I paid for them,” he said tremblingly; “he’s a thief! I—I knew

how it would be. He’ll be the death of me; he ....” Words failed

him and he sat quite still. Emily, who thought she knew him so

well, was alarmed, and went towards the sideboard where she kept

some sal volatile. She could not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit

working in that thin, tremulous shape against the extravagance of

the emotion called up by this outrage on Forsyte principles—the

Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying: “You mustn’t get into a

fantod, it’ll never do. You won’t digest your lunch. You’ll have

a fit!” All unseen by her, it was doing better work in James than

sal volatile.

“Drink this,” she said.

James waved it aside.

“What was Winifred about,” he said, “to let him take her pearls?”

Emily perceived the crisis past.

“She can have mine,” she said comfortably. “I never wear them.

She’d better get a divorce.”

“There you go!” said James. “Divorce! We’ve never had a divorce

in the family. Where’s Soames?”

“He’ll be in directly.”

“No, he won’t,” said James, almost fiercely; “he’s at the

funeral. You think I know nothing.”

“Well,” said Emily with calm, “you shouldn’t get into such fusses

when we tell you things.” And plumping up his cushions, and

putting the sal volatile beside him, she left the room.

But James sat there seeing visions—of Winifred in the Divorce

Court, and the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on

Roger’s coffin; of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he

had paid for and would never see again; of money back at four per

cent., and the country going to the dogs; and, as the afternoon

wore into evening, and tea-time passed, and dinnertime, those

visions became more and more mixed and menacing—of being told

nothing, till he had nothing left of all his wealth, and they

told him nothing of it. Where was Soames? Why didn’t he come

in?... His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to

drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little

sigh of relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he

said:

“There you are! Dartie’s gone to Buenos Aires.”

Soames nodded. “That’s all right,” he said; “good riddance.”

A wave of assuagement passed over James’ brain. Soames knew.

Soames was the only one of them all who had sense. Why couldn’t

he come and live at home? He had no son of his own. And he said

plaintively:

“At my age I get nervous. I wish you were more at home, my boy.”

Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no

understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched

his father’s shoulder.

“They sent their love to you at Timothy’s,” he said. “It went off

all right. I’ve been to see Winifred. I’m going to take steps.”

And he thought: “Yes, and you mustn’t hear of them.”

James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin

throat between the points of his collar looked very gristly and

naked.

“I’ve been very poorly all day,” he said; “they never tell me

anything.”

Soames’ heart twitched.

“Well, it’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Will you

come up now?” and he put his hand under his father’s arm.

James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together

they went slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the

firelight, and out to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.

“Good-night, my boy,” said James at his bedroom door.

“Good-night, father,” answered Soames. His hand stroked down the

sleeve beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it,

so thin was the arm. And, turning away from the light in the

opening doorway, he went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.

“I want a son,” he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed; “_I

want a son_.”

CHAPTER VI NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME

Trees take little account of time, and the old oak on the upper

lawn at Robin Hill looked no day older than when Bosinney

sprawled under it and said to Soames: “Forsyte, I’ve found the

very place for your house.” Since then Swithin had dreamed, and

old Jolyon died, beneath its branches. And now, close to the

swing, no-longer-young Jolyon often painted there. Of all spots

in the world it was perhaps the most sacred to him, for he had

loved his father.

Contemplating its great girth—crinkled and a little mossed, but

not yet hollow—he would speculate on the passage of time. That

tree had seen, perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he

shouldn’t wonder, from the days of Elizabeth at least. His own

fifty years were as nothing to its wood. When the house behind

it, which he now owned, was three hundred years of age instead of

twelve, that tree might still be standing there, vast and

hollow—for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it down? A

Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it

jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like

coated with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls—the

new look had gone. Would it hold its own and keep the dignity

Bosinney had bestowed on it, or would the giant London have

lapped it round and made it into an asylum in the midst of a

jerry-built wilderness? Often, within and without of it, he was

persuaded that Bosinney had been moved by the spirit when he

built. He had put his heart into that house, indeed! It might

even become one of the “homes of England”—a rare achievement for

a house in these degenerate days of building. And the aesthetic

spirit, moving hand in hand with his Forsyte sense of possessive

continuity, dwelt with pride and pleasure on his ownership

thereof. There was the smack of reverence and ancestor-worship

(if only for one ancestor) in his desire to hand this house down

to his son and his son’s son. His father had loved the house, had

loved the view, the grounds, that tree; his last years had been

happy there, and no one had lived there before him. These last

eleven years at Robin Hill had formed in Jolyon’s life as a

painter, the important period of success. He was now in the very

van of water-colour art, hanging on the line everywhere. His

drawings fetched high prices. Specialising in that one medium

with the tenacity of his breed, he had “arrived”—rather late, but

not too late for a member of the family which made a point of

living for ever. His art had really deepened and improved. In

conformity with his position he had grown a short fair beard,

which was just beginning to grizzle, and hid his Forsyte chin;

his brown face had lost the warped expression of his ostracised

period—he looked, if anything, younger. The loss of his wife in

1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies which turn out in

the end for the good of all. He had, indeed, loved her to the

last, for his was an affectionate spirit, but she had become

increasingly difficult: jealous of her step-daughter June,

jealous even of her own little daughter Holly, and making

ceaseless plaint that he could not love her, ill as she was, and

“useless to everyone, and better dead.” He had mourned her

sincerely, but his face had looked younger since she died. If she

could only have believed that she made him happy, how much

happier would the twenty years of their companionship have been!

June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly

taken her own mother’s place; and ever since old Jolyon died she

had been established in a sort of studio in London. But she had

come back to Robin Hill on her stepmother’s death, and gathered

the reins there into her small decided hands. Jolly was then at

Harrow; Holly still learning from Mademoiselle Beauce. There had

been nothing to keep Jolyon at home, and he had removed his grief

and his paint-box abroad. There he had wandered, for the most

part in Brittany, and at last had fetched up in Paris. He had

stayed there several months, and come back with the younger face

and the short fair beard. Essentially a man who merely lodged in

any house, it had suited him perfectly that June should reign at

Robin Hill, so that he was free to go off with his easel where

and when he liked. She was inclined, it is true, to regard the

house rather as an asylum for her _protégés;_ but his own outcast

days had filled Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast,

and June’s “lame ducks” about the place did not annoy him. By all

means let her have them down—and feed them up; and though his

slightly cynical humour perceived that they ministered to his

daughter’s love of domination as well as moved her warm heart, he

never ceased to admire her for having so many ducks. He fell,

indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and brotherly

attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with a

sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see

Jolly, he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would

sit eating cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an

affectionate and ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and

curling his lips a little. And he was always careful to have

money in his pocket, and to be modish in his dress, so that his

son need not blush for him. They were perfect friends, but never

seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both having the

competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they would

stand by each other in scrapes, but there was no need to talk

about it. Jolyon had a striking horror—partly original sin, but

partly the result of his early immorality—of the moral attitude.

The most he could ever have said to his son would have been:

“Look here, old man; don’t forget you’re a gentleman,” and then

have wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish

sentiment. The great cricket match was perhaps the most searching

and awkward time they annually went through together, for Jolyon

had been at Eton. They would be particularly careful during that

match, continually saying: “Hooray! Oh! hard luck, old man!” or

“Hooray! Oh! bad luck, Dad!” to each other, when some disaster at

which their hearts bounded happened to the opposing school. And

Jolyon would wear a grey top hat, instead of his usual soft one,

to save his son’s feelings, for a black top hat he could not

stomach. When Jolly went up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him,

amused, humble, and a little anxious not to discredit his boy

amongst all these youths who seemed so much more assured and old

than himself. He often thought, “Glad I’m a painter” for he had

long dropped under-writing at Lloyds—“it’s so innocuous. You

can’t look down on a painter—you can’t take him seriously

enough.” For Jolly, who had a sort of natural lordliness, had

passed at once into a very small set, who secretly amused his

father. The boy had fair hair which curled a little, and his

grandfather’s deepset iron-grey eyes. He was well-built and very

upright, and always pleased Jolyon’s aesthetic sense, so that he

was a tiny bit afraid of him, as artists ever are of those of

their own sex whom they admire physically. On that occasion,

however, he actually did screw up his courage to give his son

advice, and this was it:

“Look here, old man, you’re bound to get into debt; mind you come

to me at once. Of course, I’ll always pay them. But you might

remember that one respects oneself more afterwards if one pays

one’s own way. And don’t ever borrow, except from me, will you?”

And Jolly had said:

“All right, Dad, I won’t,” and he never had.

“And there’s just one other thing. I don’t know much about

morality and that, but there is this: It’s always worth while

before you do anything to consider whether it’s going to hurt

another person more than is absolutely necessary.”

Jolly had looked thoughtful, and nodded, and presently had

squeezed his father’s hand. And Jolyon had thought: “I wonder if

I had the right to say that?” He always had a sort of dread of

losing the dumb confidence they had in each other; remembering

how for long years he had lost his own father’s, so that there

had been nothing between them but love at a great distance. He

under-estimated, no doubt, the change in the spirit of the age

since he himself went up to Cambridge in ’65; and perhaps he

underestimated, too, his boy’s power of understanding that he was

tolerant to the very bone. It was that tolerance of his, and

possibly his scepticism, which ever made his relations towards

June so queerly defensive. She was such a decided mortal; knew

her own mind so terribly well; wanted things so inexorably until

she got them—and then, indeed, often dropped them like a hot

potato. Her mother had been like that, whence had come all those

tears. Not that his incompatibility with his daughter was

anything like what it had been with the first Mrs. Young Jolyon.

One could be amused where a daughter was concerned; in a wife’s

case one could not be amused. To see June set her heart and jaw

on a thing until she got it was all right, because it was never

anything which interfered fundamentally with Jolyon’s liberty—the

one thing on which his jaw was also absolutely rigid, a

considerable jaw, under that short grizzling beard. Nor was there

ever any necessity for real heart-to-heart encounters. One could

break away into irony—as indeed he often had to. But the real

trouble with June was that she had never appealed to his

aesthetic sense, though she might well have, with her red-gold

hair and her viking-coloured eyes, and that touch of the

Berserker in her spirit. It was very different with Holly, soft

and quiet, shy and affectionate, with a playful imp in her

somewhere. He watched this younger daughter of his through the

duckling stage with extraordinary interest. Would she come out a

swan? With her sallow oval face and her grey wistful eyes and

those long dark lashes, she might, or she might not. Only this

last year had he been able to guess. Yes, she would be a

swan—rather a dark one, always a shy one, but an authentic swan.

She was eighteen now, and Mademoiselle Beauce was gone—the

excellent lady had removed, after eleven years haunted by her

continuous reminiscences of the “well-brrred little Tayleurs,” to

another family whose bosom would now be agitated by her

reminiscences of the “well-brrred little Forsytes.” She had

taught Holly to speak French like herself.

Portraiture was not Jolyon’s forte, but he had already drawn his

younger daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on

the afternoon of October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to

him which caused his eyebrows to go up:

MR. SOAMES FORSYTE

THE SHELTER, CONNOISSEURS CLUB, MAPLEDURHAM.

ST. JAMES’S.

But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again....

To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a

little daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved

father lying peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was

never likely to be, forgotten by so impressionable and

warm-hearted a man as Jolyon. A sense as of mystery, too, clung

to that sad day, and about the end of one whose life had been so

well-ordered, balanced, and above-board. It seemed incredible

that his father could thus have vanished without, as it were,

announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and due

farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to “the

lady in grey,” of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it

sounded) involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he

read his father’s will and the codicil thereto. It had been his

duty as executor of that will and codicil to inform Irene, wife

of his cousin Soames, of her life interest in fifteen thousand

pounds. He had called on her to explain that the existing

investment in India Stock, ear-marked to meet the charge, would

produce for her the interesting net sum of £430 odd a year, clear

of income tax. This was but the third time he had seen his cousin

Soames’ wife—if indeed she was still his wife, of which he was

not quite sure. He remembered having seen her sitting in the

Botanical Gardens waiting for Bosinney—a passive, fascinating

figure, reminding him of Titian’s “Heavenly Love,” and again,

when, charged by his father, he had gone to Montpellier Square on

the afternoon when Bosinney’s death was known. He still recalled

vividly her sudden appearance in the drawing-room doorway on that

occasion—her beautiful face, passing from wild eagerness of hope

to stony despair; remembered the compassion he had felt, Soames’

snarling smile, his words, “We are not at home!” and the slam of

the front door.

This third time he saw a face and form more beautiful—freed from

that warp of wild hope and despair. Looking at her, he thought:

“Yes, you are just what the Dad would have admired!” And the

strange story of his father’s Indian summer became slowly clear

to him. She spoke of old Jolyon with reverence and tears in her

eyes. “He was so wonderfully kind to me; I don’t know why. He

looked so beautiful and peaceful sitting in that chair under the

tree; it was I who first came on him sitting there, you know.

Such a lovely day. I don’t think an end could have been happier.

We should all like to go out like that.”

“Quite right!” he had thought. “We should all like to go out in

full summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.”

And looking round the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had

asked her what she was going to do now. “I am going to live again

a little, Cousin Jolyon. It’s wonderful to have money of one’s

own. I’ve never had any. I shall keep this flat, I think; I’m

used to it; but I shall be able to go to Italy.”

“Exactly!” Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling

lips; and he had gone away thinking: “A fascinating woman! What a

waste! I’m glad the Dad left her that money.” He had not seen her

again, but every quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it

to her bank, with a note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had

done so; and always he had received a note in acknowledgment,

generally from the flat, but sometimes from Italy; so that her

personality had become embodied in slightly scented grey paper,

an upright fine handwriting, and the words, “Dear Cousin Jolyon.”

Man of property that he now was, the slender cheque he signed

often gave rise to the thought: “Well, I suppose she just

manages”; sliding into a vague wonder how she was faring

otherwise in a world of men not wont to let beauty go

unpossessed. At first Holly had spoken of her sometimes, but

“ladies in grey” soon fade from children’s memories; and the

tightening of June’s lips in those first weeks after her

grandfather’s death whenever her former friend’s name was

mentioned, had discouraged allusion. Only once, indeed, had June

spoken definitely: “I’ve forgiven her. I’m frightfully glad she’s

independent now....”

On receiving Soames’ card, Jolyon said to the maid—for he could

not abide butlers—“Show him into the study, please, and say I’ll

be there in a minute”; and then he looked at Holly and asked:

“Do you remember ‘the lady in grey,’ who used to give you

music-lessons?”

“Oh yes, why? Has she come?”

Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a

coat, was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not

for those young ears. His face, in fact, became whimsical

perplexity incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.

Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at

the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he

thought: “Who’s that boy? Surely they never had a child.”

The elder figure turned. The meeting of those two Forsytes of the

second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in

the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other,

was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at

cordiality. “Has he come about his wife?” Jolyon was thinking;

and Soames, “How shall I begin?” while Val, brought to break the

ice, stood negligently scrutinising this “bearded pard” from

under his dark, thick eyelashes.

“This is Val Dartie,” said Soames, “my sister’s son. He’s just

going up to Oxford. I thought I’d like him to know your boy.”

“Ah! I’m sorry Jolly’s away. What college?”

“B.N.C.,” replied Val.

“Jolly’s at the ‘House,’ but he’ll be delighted to look you up.”

“Thanks awfully.”

“Holly’s in—if you could put up with a female relation, she’d

show you round. You’ll find her in the hall if you go through the

curtains. I was just painting her.”

With another “Thanks, awfully!” Val vanished, leaving the two

cousins with the ice unbroken.

“I see you’ve some drawings at the ‘Water Colours,’” said Soames.

Jolyon winced. He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family

at large for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his

mind with Frith’s “Derby Day” and Landseer prints. He had heard

from June that Soames was a connoisseur, which made it worse. He

had become aware, too, of a curious sensation of repugnance.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said.

“No,” answered Soames between close lips, “not since—as a matter

of fact, it’s about that I’ve come. You’re her trustee, I’m

told.”

Jolyon nodded.

“Twelve years is a long time,” said Soames rapidly: “I—I’m tired

of it.”

Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:

“Won’t you smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.

“I wish to be free,” said Soames abruptly.

“I don’t see her,” murmured Jolyon through the fume of his

cigarette.

“But you know where she lives, I suppose?”

Jolyon nodded. He did not mean to give her address without

permission. Soames seemed to divine his thought.

“I don’t want her address,” he said; “I know it.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“She deserted me. I want a divorce.”

“Rather late in the day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Soames. And there was a silence.

“I don’t know much about these things—at least, I’ve forgotten,”

said Jolyon with a wry smile. He himself had had to wait for

death to grant him a divorce from the first Mrs. Jolyon. “Do you

wish me to see her about it?”

Soames raised his eyes to his cousin’s face. “I suppose there’s

someone,” he said.

A shrug moved Jolyon’s shoulders.

“I don’t know at all. I imagine you may have both lived as if the

other were dead. It’s usual in these cases.”

Soames turned to the window. A few early fallen oak-leaves

strewed the terrace already, and were rolling round in the wind.

Jolyon saw the figures of Holly and Val Dartie moving across the

lawn towards the stables. “I’m not going to run with the hare and

hunt with the hounds,” he thought. “I must act for her. The Dad

would have wished that.” And for a swift moment he seemed to see

his father’s figure in the old armchair, just beyond Soames,

sitting with knees crossed, _The Times_ in his hand. It vanished.

“My father was fond of her,” he said quietly.

“Why he should have been I don’t know,” Soames answered without

looking round. “She brought trouble to your daughter June; she

brought trouble to everyone. I gave her all she wanted. I would

have given her even—forgiveness—but she chose to leave me.”

In Jolyon compassion was checked by the tone of that close voice.

What was there in the fellow that made it so difficult to be

sorry for him?

“I can go and see her, if you like,” he said. “I suppose she

might be glad of a divorce, but I know nothing.”

Soames nodded.

“Yes, please go. As I say, I know her address; but I’ve no wish

to see her.” His tongue was busy with his lips, as if they were

very dry.

“You’ll have some tea?” said Jolyon, stifling the words: “And see

the house.” And he led the way into the hall. When he had rung

the bell and ordered tea, he went to his easel to turn his

drawing to the wall. He could not bear, somehow, that his work

should be seen by Soames, who was standing there in the middle of

the great room which had been designed expressly to afford wall

space for his own pictures. In his cousin’s face, with its

unseizable family likeness to himself, and its chinny, narrow,

concentrated look, Jolyon saw that which moved him to the

thought: “That chap could never forget anything—nor ever give

himself away. He’s pathetic!”

CHAPTER VII THE COLT AND THE FILLY

When young Val left the presence of the last generation he was

thinking: “This is jolly dull! Uncle Soames does take the bun. I

wonder what this filly’s like?” He anticipated no pleasure from

her society; and suddenly he saw her standing there looking at

him. Why, she was pretty! What luck!

“I’m afraid you don’t know me,” he said. “My name’s Val

Dartie—I’m once removed, second cousin, something like that, you

know. My mother’s name was Forsyte.”

Holly, whose slim brown hand remained in his because she was too

shy to withdraw it, said:

“I don’t know any of my relations. Are there many?”

“Tons. They’re awful—most of them. At least, I don’t know—some of

them. One’s relations always are, aren’t they?”

“I expect they think one awful too,” said Holly.

“I don’t know why they should. No one could think you awful, of

course.”

Holly looked at him—the wistful candour in those grey eyes gave

young Val a sudden feeling that he must protect her.

“I mean there are people and people,” he added astutely. “Your

dad looks awfully decent, for instance.”

“Oh yes!” said Holly fervently; “he is.”

A flush mounted in Val’s cheeks—that scene in the Pandemonium

promenade—the dark man with the pink carnation developing into

his own father! “But you know what the Forsytes are,” he said

almost viciously. “Oh! I forgot; you don’t.”

“What are they?”

“Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit. Look at Uncle

Soames!”

“I’d like to,” said Holly.

Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers. “Oh! no,” he

said, “let’s go out. You’ll see him quite soon enough. What’s

your brother like?”

Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without

answering. How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered

anything, had been her lord, master, and ideal?

“Does he sit on you?” said Val shrewdly. “I shall be knowing him

at Oxford. Have you got any horses?”

Holly nodded. “Would you like to see the stables?”

“Rather!”

They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into

the stable-yard. There under a clock-tower lay a fluffy

brown-and-white dog, so old that he did not get up, but faintly

waved the tail curled over his back.

“That’s Balthasar,” said Holly; “he’s so old—awfully old, nearly

as old as I am. Poor old boy! He’s devoted to Dad.”

“Balthasar! That’s a rum name. He isn’t purebred you know.”

“No! but he’s a darling,” and she bent down to stroke the dog.

Gentle and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck

and hands, she seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing

slipped between him and all previous knowledge.

“When grandfather died,” she said, “he wouldn’t eat for two days.

He saw him die, you know.”

“Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper.”

“He was,” said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.

In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a

long black tail and mane. “This is mine—Fairy.”

“Ah!” said Val, “she’s a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her

tail. She’d look much smarter.” Then catching her wondering look,

he thought suddenly: “I don’t know—anything she likes!” And he

took a long sniff of the stable air. “Horses are ripping, aren’t

they? My Dad...” he stopped.

“Yes?” said Holly.

An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him—but not quite.

“Oh! I don’t know he’s often gone a mucker over them. I’m jolly

keen on them too—riding and hunting. I like racing awfully, as

well; I should like to be a gentleman rider.” And oblivious of

the fact that he had but one more day in town, with two

engagements, he plumped out:

“I say, if I hire a gee to-morrow, will you come a ride in

Richmond Park?”

Holly clasped her hands.

“Oh yes! I simply love riding. But there’s Jolly’s horse; why

don’t you ride him? Here he is. We could go after tea.”

Val looked doubtfully at his trousered legs.

He had imagined them immaculate before her eyes in high brown

boots and Bedford cords.

“I don’t much like riding his horse,” he said. “He mightn’t like

it. Besides, Uncle Soames wants to get back, I expect. Not that I

believe in buckling under to him, you know. You haven’t got an

uncle, have you? This is rather a good beast,” he added,

scrutinising Jolly’s horse, a dark brown, which was showing the

whites of its eyes. “You haven’t got any hunting here, I

suppose?”

“No; I don’t know that I want to hunt. It must be awfully

exciting, of course; but it’s cruel, isn’t it? June says so.”

“Cruel?” ejaculated Val. “Oh! that’s all rot. Who’s June?”

“My sister—my half-sister, you know—much older than me.” She had

put her hands up to both cheeks of Jolly’s horse, and was rubbing

her nose against its nose with a gentle snuffling noise which

seemed to have an hypnotic effect on the animal. Val contemplated

her cheek resting against the horse’s nose, and her eyes gleaming

round at him. “She’s really a duck,” he thought.

They returned to the house less talkative, followed this time by

the dog Balthasar, walking more slowly than anything on earth,

and clearly expecting them not to exceed his speed limit.

“This is a ripping place,” said Val from under the oak tree,

where they had paused to allow the dog Balthasar to come up.

“Yes,” said Holly, and sighed. “Of course I want to go

everywhere. I wish I were a gipsy.”

“Yes, gipsies are jolly,” replied Val, with a conviction which

had just come to him; “you’re rather like one, you know.”

Holly’s face shone suddenly and deeply, like dark leaves gilded

by the sun.

“To go mad-rabbiting everywhere and see everything, and live in

the open—oh! wouldn’t it be fun?”

“Let’s do it!” said Val.

“Oh yes, let’s!”

“It’d be grand sport, just you and I.”

Then Holly perceived the quaintness and gushed.

“Well, we’ve got to do it,” said Val obstinately, but reddening

too.

“I believe in doing things you want to do. What’s down there?”

“The kitchen-garden, and the pond and the coppice, and the farm.”

“Let’s go down!”

Holly glanced back at the house.

“It’s tea-time, I expect; there’s Dad beckoning.”

Val, uttering a growly sound, followed her towards the house.

When they re-entered the hall gallery the sight of two

middle-aged Forsytes drinking tea together had its magical

effect, and they became quite silent. It was, indeed, an

impressive spectacle. The two were seated side by side on an

arrangement in marqueterie which looked like three silvery pink

chairs made one, with a low tea-table in front of them. They

seemed to have taken up that position, as far apart as the seat

would permit, so that they need not look at each other too much;

and they were eating and drinking rather than talking—Soames with

his air of despising the tea-cake as it disappeared, Jolyon of

finding himself slightly amusing. To the casual eye neither would

have seemed greedy, but both were getting through a good deal of

sustenance. The two young ones having been supplied with food,

the process went on silent and absorbative, till, with the advent

of cigarettes, Jolyon said to Soames:

“And how’s Uncle James?”

“Thanks, very shaky.”

“We’re a wonderful family, aren’t we? The other day I was

calculating the average age of the ten old Forsytes from my

father’s family Bible. I make it eighty-four already, and five

still living. They ought to beat the record;” and looking

whimsically at Soames, he added:

“We aren’t the men they were, you know.”

Soames smiled. “Do you really think I shall admit that I’m not

their equal”. he seemed to be saying, “or that I’ve got to give

up anything, especially life?”

“We may live to their age, perhaps,” pursued Jolyon, “but

self-consciousness is a handicap, you know, and that’s the

difference between us. We’ve lost conviction. How and when

self-consciousness was born I never can make out. My father had a

little, but I don’t believe any other of the old Forsytes ever

had a scrap. Never to see yourself as others see you, it’s a

wonderful preservative. The whole history of the last century is

in the difference between us. And between us and you,” he added,

gazing through a ring of smoke at Val and Holly, uncomfortable

under his quizzical regard, “there’ll be—another difference. I

wonder what.”

Soames took out his watch.

“We must go,” he said, “if we’re to catch our train.”

“Uncle Soames never misses a train,” muttered Val, with his mouth

full.

“Why should I?” Soames answered simply.

“Oh! I don’t know,” grumbled Val, “other people do.”

At the front door he gave Holly’s slim brown hand a long and

surreptitious squeeze.

“Look out for me to-morrow,” he whispered; “three o’clock. I’ll

wait for you in the road; it’ll save time. We’ll have a ripping

ride.” He gazed back at her from the lodge gate, and, but for the

principles of a man about town, would have waved his hand. He

felt in no mood to tolerate his uncle’s conversation. But he was

not in danger. Soames preserved a perfect muteness, busy with

far-away thoughts.

The yellow leaves came down about those two walking the mile and

a half which Soames had traversed so often in those long-ago days

when he came down to watch with secret pride the building of the

house—that house which was to have been the home of him and her

from whom he was now going to seek release. He looked back once,

up that endless vista of autumn lane between the yellowing

hedges. What an age ago! “I don’t want to see her,” he had said

to Jolyon. Was that true? “I may have to,” he thought; and he

shivered, seized by one of those queer shudderings that they say

mean footsteps on one’s grave. A chilly world! A queer world! And

glancing sidelong at his nephew, he thought: “Wish I were his

age! I wonder what she’s like now!”

CHAPTER VIII JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP

When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting,

for daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving

unconsciously a revival of that momentary vision of his father

sitting in the old leather chair with his knees crossed and his

straight eyes gazing up from under the dome of his massive brow.

Often in this little room, cosiest in the house, Jolyon would

catch a moment of communion with his father. Not, indeed, that he

had definitely any faith in the persistence of the human

spirit—the feeling was not so logical—it was, rather, an

atmospheric impact, like a scent, or one of those strong

animistic impressions from forms, or effects of light, to which

those with the artist’s eye are especially prone. Here only—in

this little unchanged room where his father had spent the most of

his waking hours—could be retrieved the feeling that he was not

quite gone, that the steady counsel of that old spirit and the

warmth of his masterful lovability endured.

What would his father be advising now, in this sudden

recrudescence of an old tragedy—what would he say to this menace

against her to whom he had taken such a fancy in the last weeks

of his life? “I must do my best for her,” thought Jolyon; “he

left her to me in his will. But what _is_ the best?”

And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd

common sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient

chair and crossed his knees. But he felt a mere shadow sitting

there; nor did any inspiration come, while the fingers of the

wind tapped on the darkening panes of the french-window.

“Go and see her?” he thought, “or ask her to come down here?

What’s her life been? What is it now, I wonder? Beastly to rake

up things at this time of day.” Again the figure of his cousin

standing with a hand on a front door of a fine olive-green leaped

out, vivid, like one of those figures from old-fashioned clocks

when the hour strikes; and his words sounded in Jolyon’s ears

clearer than any chime: “I manage my own affairs. I’ve told you

once, I tell you again: We are not at home.” The repugnance he

had then felt for Soames—for his flat-cheeked, shaven face full

of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square, sleek figure

slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not

digest—came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase.

“I dislike him,” he thought, “I dislike him to the very roots of

me. And that’s lucky; it’ll make it easier for me to back his

wife.” Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally

averse from what he termed “ructions”; unless angered, he

conformed deeply to that classic description of the she-dog,

“Er’d ruther run than fight.” A little smile became settled in

his beard. Ironical that Soames should come down here—to this

house, built for himself! How he had gazed and gaped at this ruin

of his past intention; furtively nosing at the walls and

stairway, appraising everything! And intuitively Jolyon thought:

“I believe the fellow even now would like to be living here. He

could never leave off longing for what he once owned! Well, I

must act, somehow or other; but it’s a bore—a great bore.”

Late that evening he wrote to the Chelsea flat, asking if Irene

would see him.

The old century which had seen the plant of individualism flower

so wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms.

Rumours of war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at

the close of the summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who

was not often up in town, had a feverish look, due to these new

motorcars and cabs, of which he disapproved aesthetically. He

counted these vehicles from his hansom, and made the proportion

of them one in twenty. “They were one in thirty about a year

ago,” he thought; “they’ve come to stay. Just so much more

rattling round of wheels and general stink”—for he was one of

those rather rare Liberals who object to anything new when it

takes a material form; and he instructed his driver to get down

to the river quickly, out of the traffic, desiring to look at the

water through the mellowing screen of plane-trees. At the little

block of flats which stood back some fifty yards from the

Embankment, he told the cabman to wait, and went up to the first

floor.

Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!

The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once

apparent to him remembering the threadbare refinement in that

tiny flat eight years ago when he announced her good fortune.

Everything was now fresh, dainty, and smelled of flowers. The

general effect was silvery with touches of black, hydrangea

colour, and gold. “A woman of great taste,” he thought. Time had

dealt gently with Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte. But with Irene

Time hardly seemed to deal at all, or such was his impression.

She appeared to him not a day older, standing there in

mole-coloured velvet corduroy, with soft dark eyes and dark gold

hair, with outstretched hand and a little smile.

“Won’t you sit down?”

He had probably never occupied a chair with a fuller sense of

embarrassment.

“You look absolutely unchanged,” he said.

“And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon.”

Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still

a comfort to him.

“I’m ancient, but I don’t feel it. That’s one thing about

painting, it keeps you young. Titian lived to ninety-nine, and

had to have plague to kill him off. Do you know, the first time I

ever saw you I thought of a picture by him?”

“When did you see me for the first time?”

“In the Botanical Gardens.”

“How did you know me, if you’d never seen me before?”

“By someone who came up to you.” He was looking at her hardily,

but her face did not change; and she said quietly:

“Yes; many lives ago.”

“What is _your_ recipe for youth, Irene?”

“People who don’t _live_ are wonderfully preserved.”

H’m! a bitter little saying! People who don’t live! But an

opening, and he took it. “You remember my Cousin Soames?”

He saw her smile faintly at that whimsicality, and at once went

on:

“He came to see me the day before yesterday! He wants a divorce.

Do you?”

“I?” The word seemed startled out of her. “After twelve years?

It’s rather late. Won’t it be difficult?”

Jolyon looked hard into her face. “Unless....” he said.

“Unless I have a lover now. But I have never had one since.”

What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words?

Relief, surprise, pity! Venus for twelve years without a lover!

“And yet,” he said, “I suppose you would give a good deal to be

free, too?”

“I don’t know. What does it matter, now?”

“But if you were to love again?”

“I should love.” In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the

whole philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.

“Well! Is there anything you would like me to say to him?”

“Only that I’m sorry he’s not free. He had his chance once. I

don’t know why he didn’t take it.”

“Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things, you know,

unless we want something in their place; and not always then.”

Irene smiled. “Don’t you, Cousin Jolyon?—I think you do.”

“Of course, I’m a bit of a mongrel—not quite a pure Forsyte. I

never take the halfpennies off my cheques, I put them on,” said

Jolyon uneasily.

“Well, what does Soames want in place of me now?”

“I don’t know; perhaps children.”

She was silent for a little, looking down.

“Yes,” she murmured; “it’s hard. I would help him to be free if I

could.”

Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast;

so was his admiration, his wonder, and his pity. She was so

lovely, and so lonely; and altogether it was such a coil!

“Well,” he said, “I shall have to see Soames. If there’s anything

I can do for you I’m always at your service. You must think of me

as a wretched substitute for my father. At all events I’ll let

you know what happens when I speak to Soames. He may supply the

material himself.”

She shook her head.

“You see, he has a lot to lose; and I have nothing. I should like

him to be free; but I don’t see what I can do.”

“Nor I at the moment,” said Jolyon, and soon after took his

leave. He went down to his hansom. Half-past three! Soames would

be at his office still.

“To the Poultry,” he called through the trap. In front of the

Houses of Parliament and in Whitehall, newsvendors were calling,

“Grave situation in the Transvaal!” but the cries hardly roused

him, absorbed in recollection of that very beautiful figure, of

her soft dark glance, and the words: “I have never had one

since.” What on earth did such a woman do with her life,

back-watered like this? Solitary, unprotected, with every man’s

hand against her or rather—reaching out to grasp her at the least

sign. And year after year she went on like that!

The word “Poultry” above the passing citizens brought him back to

reality.

“Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte,” in black letters on a ground the

colour of peasoup, spurred him to a sort of vigour, and he went

up the stone stairs muttering: “Fusty musty ownerships! Well, we

couldn’t do without them!”

“I want Mr. Soames Forsyte,” he said to the boy who opened the

door.

“What name?”

“Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”

The youth looked at him curiously, never having seen a Forsyte

with a beard, and vanished.

The offices of “Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte” had slowly absorbed

the offices of “Tooting and Bowles,” and occupied the whole of

the first floor.

The firm consisted now of nothing but Soames and a number of

managing and articled clerks. The complete retirement of James

some six years ago had accelerated business, to which the final

touch of speed had been imparted when Bustard dropped off, worn

out, as many believed, by the suit of “Fryer _versus_ Forsyte,”

more in Chancery than ever and less likely to benefit its

beneficiaries. Soames, with his saner grasp of actualities, had

never permitted it to worry him; on the contrary, he had long

perceived that Providence had presented him therein with £200 a

year net in perpetuity, and—why not?

When Jolyon entered, his cousin was drawing out a list of

holdings in Consols, which in view of the rumours of war he was

going to advise his companies to put on the market at once,

before other companies did the same. He looked round, sidelong,

and said:

“How are you? Just one minute. Sit down, won’t you?” And having

entered three amounts, and set a ruler to keep his place, he

turned towards Jolyon, biting the side of his flat forefinger....

“Yes?” he said.

“I have seen her.”

Soames frowned.

“Well?”

“She has remained faithful to memory.”

Having said that, Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a

dusky yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute!

“I was to tell you she is sorry you are not free. Twelve years is

a long time. You know your law, and what chance it gives you.”

Soames uttered a curious little grunt, and the two remained a

full minute without speaking. “Like wax!” thought Jolyon,

watching that close face, where the flush was fast subsiding.

“He’ll never give me a sign of what he’s thinking, or going to

do. Like wax!” And he transferred his gaze to a plan of that

flourishing town, “By-Street on Sea,” the future existence of

which lay exposed on the wall to the possessive instincts of the

firm’s clients. The whimsical thought flashed through him: “I

wonder if I shall get a bill of costs for this—‘To attending Mr.

Jolyon Forsyte in the matter of my divorce, to receiving his

account of his visit to my wife, and to advising him to go and

see her again, sixteen and eightpence.’”

Suddenly Soames said: “I can’t go on like this. I tell you, I

can’t go on like this.” His eyes were shifting from side to side,

like an animal’s when it looks for way of escape. “He really

suffers,” thought Jolyon; “I’ve no business to forget that, just

because I don’t like him.”

“Surely,” he said gently, “it lies with yourself. A man can

always put these things through if he’ll take it on himself.”

Soames turned square to him, with a sound which seemed to come

from somewhere very deep.

“Why should I suffer more than I’ve suffered already? Why should

I?”

Jolyon could only shrug his shoulders. His reason agreed, his

instinct rebelled; he could not have said why.

“Your father,” went on Soames, “took an interest in her—why,

goodness knows! And I suppose you do too?” he gave Jolyon a sharp

look. “It seems to me that one only has to do another person a

wrong to get all the sympathy. I don’t know in what way I was to

blame—I’ve never known. I always treated her well. I gave her

everything she could wish for. I wanted her.”

Again Jolyon’s reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head.

“What is it?” he thought; “there must be something wrong in me.

Yet if there is, I’d rather be wrong than right.”

“After all,” said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, “she was

my wife.”

In a flash the thought went through his listener: “There it is!

Ownerships! Well, we all own things. But—human beings! Pah!”

“You have to look at facts,” he said drily, “or rather the want

of them.”

Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.

“The want of them?” he said. “Yes, but I am not so sure.”

“I beg your pardon,” replied Jolyon; “I’ve told you what she

said. It was explicit.”

“My experience has not been one to promote blind confidence in

her word. We shall see.”

Jolyon got up.

“Good-bye,” he said curtly.

“Good-bye,” returned Soames; and Jolyon went out trying to

understand the look, half-startled, half-menacing, on his

cousin’s face. He sought Waterloo Station in a disturbed frame of

mind, as though the skin of his moral being had been scraped; and

all the way down in the train he thought of Irene in her lonely

flat, and of Soames in his lonely office, and of the strange

paralysis of life that lay on them both. “In chancery!” he

thought. “Both their necks in chancery—and her’s so pretty!”

CHAPTER IX VAL HEARS THE NEWS

The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous

feature in the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke

two and kept one, it was the latter event which caused him, if

anything, the greater surprise, while jogging back to town from

Robin Hill after his ride with Holly. She had been even prettier

than he had thought her yesterday, on her silver-roan,

long-tailed “palfrey”. and it seemed to him, self-critical in the

brumous October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that only

his boots had shone throughout their two-hour companionship. He

took out his new gold “hunter”—present from James—and looked not

at the time, but at sections of his face in the glittering back

of its opened case. He had a temporary spot over one eyebrow, and

it displeased him, for it must have displeased her. Crum never

had any spots. Together with Crum rose the scene in the promenade

of the Pandemonium. To-day he had not had the faintest desire to

unbosom himself to Holly about his father. His father lacked

poetry, the stirrings of which he was feeling for the first time

in his nineteen years. The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that

almost mythical embodiment of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the

woman of uncertain age—both seemed to Val completely “off,” fresh

from communion with this new, shy, dark-haired young cousin of

his. She rode “Jolly well,” too, so that it had been all the more

flattering that she had let him lead her where he would in the

long gallops of Richmond Park, though she knew them so much

better than he did. Looking back on it all, he was mystified by

the barrenness of his speech; he felt that he could say “an awful

lot of fetching things” if he had but the chance again, and the

thought that he must go back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and

to Oxford on the twelfth—“to that beastly exam,” too—without the

faintest chance of first seeing her again, caused darkness to

settle on his spirit even more quickly than on the evening. He

should write to her, however, and she had promised to answer.

Perhaps, too, she would come up to Oxford to see her brother.

That thought was like the first star, which came out as he rode

into Padwick’s livery stables in the purlieus of Sloane Square.

He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had ridden

some twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him

chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the

favourite for the Cambridgeshire; then with the words, “Put the

gee down to my account,” he walked away, a little wide at the

knees, and flipping his boots with his knotty little cane. “I

don’t feel a bit inclined to go out,” he thought. “I wonder if

mother will stand fizz for my last night!” With “fizz” and

recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.

When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother

scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his

Uncle Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his

uncle said:

“He’d better be told.”

At those words, which meant something about his father, of

course, Val’s first thought was of Holly. Was it anything

beastly? His mother began speaking.

“Your father,” she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while

her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, “your

father, my dear boy, has—is not at Newmarket; he’s on his way to

South America. He—he’s left us.”

Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he

fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then,

suddenly—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars—his heart twitched

within him, and he _was_ sorry. One’s father belonged to one,

could not go off in this fashion—it was not done! Nor had he

always been the “bounder” of the Pandemonium promenade. There

were precious memories of tailors’ shops and horses, tips at

school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.

“But why?” he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he

had asked. The mask of his mother’s face was all disturbed; and

he burst out:

“All right, Mother, don’t tell me! Only, what does it mean?”

“A divorce, Val, I’m afraid.”

Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his

uncle—that uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a

guarantee against the consequences of having a father, even

against the Dartie blood in his own veins. The flat-checked

visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.

“It won’t be public, will it?”

So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued

to the unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public

Press.

“Can’t it be done quietly somehow? It’s so disgusting for—for

mother, and—and everybody.”

“Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure.”

“Yes—but, why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn’t want to

marry again.”

Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his

schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of—Holly!

Unbearable! What was to be gained by it?

“Do you, Mother?” he said sharply.

Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the

one she loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire

chair in which she had been sitting. She saw that her son would

be against her unless he was told everything; and, yet, how could

she tell him? Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she

stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at Soames. Surely this

embodiment of respectability and the sense of property could not

wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!

Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth

surface of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his

nephew, he began:

“You don’t understand what your mother has had to put up with

these twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val.” And

glancing up sideways at Winifred, he added:

“Shall I tell him?”

Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against

her! Yet, how dreadful to be told such things of his own father!

Clenching her lips, she nodded.

Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:

“He has always been a burden round your mother’s neck. She has

paid his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk,

abused and threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires

with a dancer.” And, as if distrusting the efficacy of those

words on the boy, he went on quickly:

“He took your mother’s pearls to give to her.”

Val jerked up his hand, then. At that signal of distress Winifred

cried out:

“That’ll do, Soames—stop!”

In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For

debts, drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the

pearls—no! That was too much! And suddenly he found his mother’s

hand squeezing his.

“You see,” he heard Soames say, “we can’t have it all begin over

again. There’s a limit; we must strike while the iron’s hot.”

Val freed his hand.

“But—you’re—never going to bring out that about the pearls! I

couldn’t stand that—I simply couldn’t!”

Winifred cried out:

“No, no, Val—oh no! That’s only to show you how impossible your

father is!” And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out

a cigarette. His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh!

it was unbearable—just as he was going up to Oxford!

“Can’t mother be protected without?” he said. “I could look after

her. It could always be done later if it was really necessary.”

A smile played for a moment round Soames’ lips, and became

bitter.

“You don’t know what you’re talking of; nothing’s so fatal as

delay in such matters.”

“Why?”

“I tell you, boy, nothing’s so fatal. I know from experience.”

His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him

round-eyed, never having known his uncle express any sort of

feeling. Oh! Yes—he remembered now—there had been an Aunt Irene,

and something had happened—something which people kept dark; he

had heard his father once use an unmentionable word of her.

“I don’t want to speak ill of your father,” Soames went on

doggedly, “but I know him well enough to be sure that he’ll be

back on your mother’s hands before a year’s over. You can imagine

what that will mean to her and to all of you after this. The only

thing is to cut the knot for good.”

In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at

his mother’s face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight

into the fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered

most.

“All right, mother,” he said; “we’ll back you up. Only I’d like

to know when it’ll be. It’s my first term, you know. I don’t want

to be up there when it comes off.”

“Oh! my dear boy,” murmured Winifred, “it _is_ a bore for you.”

So, by habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face,

was the most poignant regret. “When will it be, Soames?”

“Can’t tell—not for months. We must get restitution first.”

“What the deuce is that?” thought Val. “What silly brutes lawyers

are! Not for months! I know one thing: I’m not going to dine in!”

And he said:

“Awfully sorry, mother, I’ve got to go out to dinner now.”

Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully;

they both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the

expression of feeling.

Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and

depressed. And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover

that he had only eighteen-pence. One couldn’t dine off

eighteen-pence, and he was very hungry. He looked longingly at

the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he had often eaten of the

best with his father! Those pearls! There was no getting over

them! But the more he brooded and the further he walked the

hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were

only two places where he could go—his grandfather’s in Park Lane,

and Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less

deplorable? At his grandfather’s he would probably get a better

dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy’s they gave you a

jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided

on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford

without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly

fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had been there,

of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn’t help that.

He rang the bell.

“Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d’you think?”

“They’re just going in, Master Val. Mr. Forsyte will be very glad

to see you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you

nowadays.”

Val grinned.

“Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let’s have

fizz.”

Warmson smiled faintly—in his opinion Val was a young limb.

“I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val.”

“I say,” Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, “I’m not at

school any more, you know.”

Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond

the stag’s-horn coat stand, with the words:

“Mr. Valerus, ma’am.”

“Confound him!” thought Val, entering.

A warm embrace, a “Well, Val!” from Emily, and a rather quavery

“So there you are at last!” from James, restored his sense of

dignity.

“Why didn’t you let us know? There’s only saddle of mutton.

Champagne, Warmson,” said Emily. And they went in.

At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which

so many fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily

at the other, Val half-way between them; and something of the

loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children

were flown, reached the boy’s spirit. “I hope I shall kick the

bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather,” he thought. “Poor

old chap, he’s as thin as a rail!” And lowering his voice while

his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the

soup, he said to Emily:

“It’s pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know.”

“Yes, dear boy.”

“Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn’t there anything

to be done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on

it?”

“Hush, my dear!” murmured Emily; “we’re keeping it from your

grandfather.”

James’ voice sounded from the other end.

“What’s that? What are you talking about?”

“About Val’s college,” returned Emily. “Young Pariser was there,

James; you remember—he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo

afterwards.”

James muttered that he did not know—Val must look after himself

up there, or he’d get into bad ways. And he looked at his

grandson with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully

glimmered.

“What I’m afraid of,” said Val to his plate, “is of being hard

up, you know.”

By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear

of insecurity for his grandchildren.

“Well,” said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over,

“you’ll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it.”

“Of course,” murmured Val; “if it is good. How much will it be,

Grandfather?”

“Three hundred and fifty; it’s too much. I had next to nothing at

your age.”

Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. “I

don’t know what your young cousin has,” said James; “he’s up

there. His father’s a rich man.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Val hardily.

“I?” replied James, flustered. “I’ve got so many expenses. Your

father....” and he was silent.

“Cousin Jolyon’s got an awfully jolly place. I went down there

with Uncle Soames—ripping stables.”

“Ah!” murmured James profoundly. “That house—I knew how it would

be!” And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones.

His son’s tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the

Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a

whirlpool of doubts and misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of

Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and

said:

“Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?” And, receiving her

nod, went on: “I wish you’d tell me about him, Granny. What

became of Aunt Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully

worked-up about something to-night.”

Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught

James’ ear.

“What’s that?” he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his

lips. “Who’s been seeing her? I knew we hadn’t heard the last of

that.”

“Now, James,” said Emily, “eat your dinner. Nobody’s been seeing

anybody.”

James put down his fork.

“There you go,” he said. “I might die before you’d tell me of it.

Is Soames getting a divorce?”

“Nonsense,” said Emily with incomparable aplomb; “Soames is much

too sensible.”

James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white

whiskers together on the skin and bone of it.

“She—she was always....” he said, and with that enigmatic remark

the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later,

when the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury,

and dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and

his grandfather’s kiss—like no other kiss in the world, from lips

pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to

weakness—he returned to the charge in the hall.

“Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on

mother’s getting a divorce?”

“Your Uncle Soames,” said Emily, and her voice had in it an

exaggerated assurance, “is a lawyer, my dear boy. He’s sure to

know best.”

“Is he?” muttered Val. “But what did become of Aunt Irene? I

remember she was jolly good-looking.”

“She—er....” said Emily, “behaved very badly. We don’t talk about

it.”

“Well, I don’t want everybody at Oxford to know about our

affairs,” ejaculated Val; “it’s a brutal idea. Why couldn’t

father be prevented without its being made public?”

Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of

divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities—so many of those

whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain

notoriety. When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it

no better than other people. But she was eminently practical, and

a woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to

its substance.

“Your mother,” she said, “will be happier if she’s quite free,

Val. Good-night, my dear boy; and don’t wear loud waistcoats up

at Oxford, they’re not the thing just now. Here’s a little

present.”

With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his

heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park

Lane. A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were

rustling, and the stars were shining. With all that money in his

pocket an impulse to “see life” beset him; but he had not gone

forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly’s shy face,

and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before

him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure

of her warm gloved hand. “No, dash it!” he thought, “I’m going

home!”

CHAPTER X SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE

It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and

summer lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many

looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that

Sunday morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat,

and equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take

them on the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he

could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She

was so very pretty—could he trust himself not to say irrevocable

words, passing beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the

veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that

there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood;

yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers

to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to

produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions,

so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture

he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great care,

making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that

his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three

times he went up to his picture-gallery. If they had any

knowledge at all, they must see at once that his collection alone

was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected,

too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would

take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if—if the matter

went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the

dressing-table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured

pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of

pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little.

His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand,

and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone

through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked

out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame

Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette

would never resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to

the station to meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame

Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour, Annette in

greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and hat. Rather

pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure.

Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open

french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in

sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when

youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered

the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special

Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee

served on the veranda super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted

creme de menthe; Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with

just a suspicion of “the conscious beauty” creeping into them.

“Yes,” thought Soames, “another year of London and that sort of

life, and she’ll be spoiled.”

Madame was in sedate French raptures. “_Adorable! Le soleil est

si bon!_ How everything is _chic_, is it not, Annette? Monsieur

is a real Monte Cristo.” Annette murmured assent, with a look up

at Soames which he could not read. He proposed a turn on the

river. But to punt two persons when one of them looked so

ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a

sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way towards

Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an

autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother’s black

amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought:

“How—when—where—can I say—what?” They did not yet even know that

he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his

every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand

that he wished for Annette’s hand, it would be dropping into some

other clutch before he was free to claim it.

At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the

Transvaal.

“There’ll be war,” he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.

“_Ces pauvres gens bergers!_” Could they not be left to

themselves?

Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.

Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British

could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.

“Ah! that!” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a

little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the

Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had

spoken to her of that.

“The Boers are only half-civilised,” remarked Soames; “they stand

in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty

go.”

“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!”

“What a strange word!” Soames became eloquent, roused by these

threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by

Annette’s eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she

said:

“I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson.” She

was sensible!

“Of course,” he said, “we must act with moderation. I’m no jingo.

We must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my

pictures?” Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon

perceived that they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve,

that remarkable study of a “Hay-cart going Home,” as if it were a

lithograph. He waited almost with awe to see how they would view

the jewel of his collection—an Israels whose price he had watched

ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top

value, and would be better on the market again. They did not view

it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin

taste to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked

predilections of the English middle-class to deal with. At the

end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather

ashamed—Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte

stopped before it.

“Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!” Soames took advantage of that

moment. Very gently touching Annette’s arm, he said:

“How do you like my place, Annette?”

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full,

looked down, and murmured:

“Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!”

“Perhaps some day—” Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those

cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate

curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One

must be sure of one’s ground—much surer! “If I hold off,” he

thought, “it will tantalise her.” And he crossed over to Madame

Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.

“Yes, that’s quite a good example of his later work. You must

come again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come

and spend a night.”

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By

moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

“Thou art sentimental, _Maman!_”

Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of

the world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there

was no sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use

sentiment? And yet...!

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train.

To the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette’s

fingers responded just a little; her face smiled at him through

the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding. “Go on home, Jordan,” he

said to the coachman; “I’ll walk.” And he strode out into the

darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing

see-saw within him. “_Bon soir, monsieur!_” How softly she had

said it. To know what was in her mind! The French—they were like

cats—one could tell nothing! But—how pretty! What a perfect young

thing to hold in one’s arms! What a mother for his heir! And he

thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a

French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play

with it and buffet it confound them!

The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows

deepened in the water. “I will and must be free,” he thought. “I

won’t hang about any longer. I’ll go and see Irene. If you want

things done, do them yourself. I must live again—live and move

and have my being.” And in echo to that queer biblicality

church-bells chimed the call to evening prayer.

CHAPTER XI AND VISITS THE PAST

On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to

do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than

anything he had yet undertaken in his life—save perhaps his

birth, and one other action. He chose the evening, indeed, partly

because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had

failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine

to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old

Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived.

He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read

the name, “Mrs. Irene Heron”—Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so

she used that again, did she?—he stepped back into the road to

look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming

through in the corner flat, and he could hear a piano being

played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a

grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano,

making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not

enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret,

at last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she

playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more

undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his

tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. “_I_ have no cause to be

afraid,” he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was

he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not to have arranged a formal

meeting in the presence of her trustee? No! Not before that

fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He crossed back

into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his

heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell.

When the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by

the scent which came—that perfume—from away back in the past,

bringing muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used

to enter, of a house he used to own—perfume of dried rose-leaves

and honey!

“Say, Mr. Forsyte,” he said, “your mistress will see me, I know.”

He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where

the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls,

carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all

ghostly, he could only think ridiculously: “Shall I go in with my

overcoat on, or take it off?” The music ceased; the maid said

from the doorway:

“Will you walk in, sir?”

Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still

silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had

risen and stood recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys

as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, held for

a moment, and released. The light from the shaded piano-candle

fell on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow. She was in a

black evening dress, with a sort of mantilla over her

shoulders—he did not remember ever having seen her in black, and

the thought passed through him: “She dresses even when she’s

alone.”

“You!” he heard her whisper.

Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal

served him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never

thought that the sight of this woman whom he had once so

passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not

seen for twelve years, could affect him in this way. He had

imagined himself speaking and acting, half as man of business,

half as judge. And now it was as if he were in the presence not

of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle and

elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind of

defensive irony welled up in him.

“Yes, it’s a queer visit! I hope you’re well.”

“Thank you. Will you sit down?”

She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a

window-seat, sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap.

Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes,

hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.

He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with

silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.

“You have not changed,” he said.

“No? What have you come for?”

“To discuss things.”

“I have heard what you want from your cousin.”

“Well?”

“I am willing. I have always been.”

The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her

figure watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A

thousand memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred,

and....

“Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on

which I can act. The law must be complied with.”

“I have none to give you that you don’t know of.”

“Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that?”

“I don’t suppose you will believe anything I say; but it’s the

truth.”

Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed;

now he perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was

more beautiful; not in form, except that it was a little

fuller—no! She had changed spiritually. There was more of her, as

it were, something of activity and daring, where there had been

sheer passive resistance. “Ah!” he thought, “that’s her

independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon!”

“I suppose you’re comfortably off now?” he said.

“Thank you, yes.”

“Why didn’t you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of

everything.”

A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.

“You are still my wife,” said Soames. Why he said that, what he

meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a

truism almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She

rose from the window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly

still, looking at him. He could see her bosom heaving. Then she

turned to the window and threw it open.

“Why do that?” he said sharply. “You’ll catch cold in that dress.

I’m not dangerous.” And he uttered a little sad laugh.

She echoed it—faintly, bitterly.

“It was—habit.”

“Rather odd habit,” said Soames as bitterly. “Shut the window!”

She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this

woman—this—wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat

there, in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and

moved nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her

eyes met his unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what

a dark brown against that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair!

And how white her shoulders.

Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.

“You had better tell me,” he said; “it’s to your advantage to be

free as well as to mine. That old matter is too old.”

“I _have_ told you.”

“Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing—nobody?”

“Nobody. You must go to your own life.”

Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to

the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in

their drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.

“That won’t do,” he said. “You deserted me. In common justice

it’s for you....”

He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:

“Yes. Why didn’t you divorce me then? Should I have cared?”

He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity.

What on earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite

alone? And why had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she

had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while

he stared at her.

“Why couldn’t you have made me a good wife?” he said.

“Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will

find some way perhaps. You needn’t mind my name, I have none to

lose. Now I think you had better go.”

A sense of defeat—of being defrauded of his self-justification,

and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself,

beset Soames like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he

reached up, took from the mantel-shelf a little china bowl,

reversed it, and said:

“Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at

Jobson’s.” And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many

years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained

staring at the little bowl, as if it contained all the past. Her

voice roused him.

“Take it. I don’t want it.”

Soames put it back on the shelf.

“Will you shake hands?” he said.

A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold

to his rather feverish touch. “She’s made of ice,” he

thought—“she was always made of ice!” But even as that thought

darted through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of

her dress and body, as though the warmth within her, which had

never been for him, were struggling to show its presence. And he

turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if someone with a

whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the

empty Embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows

of the plane-tree leaves—confused, flurried, sore at heart, and

vaguely disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose

consequences he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought

suddenly assailed him if instead of, “I think you had better go,”

she had said, “I think you had better stay!” What should he have

felt, what would he have done? That cursed attraction of her was

there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and

bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount to his head at a

sign, a touch. “I was a fool to go!” he muttered. “I’ve advanced

nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought!” Memory, flown back

to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks.

She had not deserved to keep her beauty—the beauty he had owned

and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of

his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated

the sight of her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life,

wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the

mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to

upset him utterly! It was some damned magnetism she had! And no

wonder if, as she asserted; she had lived untouched these last

twelve years. So Bosinney—cursed be his memory!—had lived on all

this time with her! Soames could not tell whether he was glad of

that knowledge or no.

Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline

ran: “Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!” Suzerainty! “Just

like her!” he thought: “she always did. Suzerainty! I still have

it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little

flat!”

CHAPTER XII ON FORSYTE ’CHANGE

Soames belonged to two clubs, “The Connoisseurs,” which he put on

his cards and seldom visited, and “The Remove,” which he did not

put on his cards and frequented. He had joined this Liberal

institution five years ago, having made sure that its members

were now nearly all sound Conservatives in heart and pocket, if

not in principle. Uncle Nicholas had put him up. The fine

reading-room was decorated in the Adam style.

On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news

about the Transvaal, and noted that Consols were down

seven-sixteenths since the morning. He was turning away to seek

the reading-room when a voice behind him said:

“Well, Soames, that went off all right.”

It was Uncle Nicholas, in a frock-coat and his special cut-away

collar, with a black tie passed through a ring. Heavens! How

young and dapper he looked at eighty-two!

“I think Roger’d have been pleased,” his uncle went on. “The

thing was very well done. Blackley’s? I’ll make a note of them.

Buxton’s done me no good. These Boers are upsetting me—that

fellow Chamberlain’s driving the country into war. What do you

think?”

“Bound to come,” murmured Soames.

Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, clean-shaven cheeks, very

rosy after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his

lips. This business had revived all his Liberal principles.

“I mistrust that chap; he’s a stormy petrel. House-property will

go down if there’s war. You’ll have trouble with Roger’s estate.

I often told him he ought to get out of some of his houses. He

was an opinionated beggar.”

“There was a pair of you!” thought Soames. But he never argued

with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as “a

long-headed chap,” and the legal care of their property.

“They tell me at Timothy’s,” said Nicholas, lowering his voice,

“that Dartie has gone off at last. That’ll be a relief to your

father. He was a rotten egg.”

Again Soames nodded. If there was a subject on which the Forsytes

really agreed, it was the character of Montague Dartie.

“You take care,” said Nicholas, “or he’ll turn up again. Winifred

had better have the tooth out, I should say. No use preserving

what’s gone bad.”

Soames looked at him sideways. His nerves, exacerbated by the

interview he had just come through, disposed him to see a

personal allusion in those words.

“I’m advising her,” he said shortly.

“Well,” said Nicholas, “the brougham’s waiting; I must get home.

I’m very poorly. Remember me to your father.”

And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down

the steps at his youthful gait and was wrapped into his fur coat

by the junior porter.

“I’ve never known Uncle Nicholas other than ‘very poorly,’” mused

Soames, “or seen him look other than everlasting. What a family!

Judging by him, I’ve got thirty-eight years of health before me.

Well, I’m not going to waste them.” And going over to a mirror he

stood looking at his face. Except for a line or two, and three or

four grey hairs in his little dark moustache, had he aged any

more than Irene? The prime of life—he and she in the very prime

of life! And a fantastic thought shot into his mind. Absurd!

Idiotic! But again it came. And genuinely alarmed by the

recurrence, as one is by the second fit of shivering which

presages a feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine.

Eleven stone! He had not varied two pounds in twenty years. What

age was she? Nearly thirty-seven—not too old to have a child—not

at all! Thirty-seven on the ninth of next month. He remembered

her birthday well—he had always observed it religiously, even

that last birthday so soon before she left him, when he was

almost certain she was faithless. Four birthdays in his house. He

had looked forward to them, because his gifts had meant a

semblance of gratitude, a certain attempt at warmth. Except,

indeed, that last birthday—which had tempted him to be too

religious! And he shied away in thought. Memory heaps dead leaves

on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend

the sense. And then he thought suddenly: “I could send her a

present for her birthday. After all, we’re Christians!

Couldn’t!—couldn’t we join up again!” And he uttered a deep sigh

sitting there. Annette! Ah! but between him and Annette was the

need for that wretched divorce suit! And how?

“A man can always work these things, if he’ll take it on

himself,” Jolyon had said.

But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole

career as a pillar of the law at stake? It was not fair! It was

quixotic! Twelve years’ separation in which he had taken no steps

to free himself put out of court the possibility of using her

conduct with Bosinney as a ground for divorcing her. By doing

nothing to secure relief he had acquiesced, even if the evidence

could now be gathered, which was more than doubtful. Besides, his

own pride would never let him use that old incident, he had

suffered from it too much. No! Nothing but fresh misconduct on

her part—but she had denied it; and—almost—he had believed her.

Hung up! Utterly hung up!

He rose from the scooped-out red velvet seat with a feeling of

constriction about his vitals. He would never sleep with this

going on in him! And, taking coat and hat again, he went out,

moving eastward. In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some

special commotion travelling towards him out of the mouth of the

Strand. It materialised in newspaper men calling out so loudly

that no words whatever could be heard. He stopped to listen, and

one came by.

“Payper! Special! Ultimatium by Krooger! Declaration of war!”

Soames bought the paper. There it was in the stop press...! His

first thought was: “The Boers are committing suicide.” His

second: “Is there anything still I ought to sell?” If so he had

missed the chance—there would certainly be a slump in the city

to-morrow. He swallowed this thought with a nod of defiance. That

ultimatum was insolent—sooner than let it pass he was prepared to

lose money. They wanted a lesson, and they would get it; but it

would take three months at least to bring them to heel. There

weren’t the troops out there; always behind time, the Government!

Confound those newspaper rats! What was the use of waking

everybody up? Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough. And he

thought with alarm of his father. They would cry it down Park

Lane. Hailing a hansom, he got in and told the man to drive

there.

James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating

the news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow. He paused by

after-thought to say:

“What do you think of it, Warmson?”

The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames

had taken off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in

a low voice: “Well, sir, they ’aven’t a chance, of course; but

I’m told they’re very good shots. I’ve got a son in the

Inniskillings.”

“You, Warmson? Why, I didn’t know you were married.”

“No, sir. I don’t talk of it. I expect he’ll be going out.”

The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so

little of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the

slight shock of discovering that the war might touch one

personally. Born in the year of the Crimean War, he had only come

to consciousness by the time the Indian Mutiny was over; since

then the many little wars of the British Empire had been entirely

professional, quite unconnected with the Forsytes and all they

stood for in the body politic. This war would surely be no

exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of the

Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other—it had

always been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction

about the Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform

with silver about it, and rode horses. And Archibald, he

remembered, had once on a time joined the Militia, but had given

it up because his father, Nicholas, had made such a fuss about

his “wasting his time peacocking about in a uniform.” Recently he

had heard somewhere that young Nicholas’ eldest, very young

Nicholas, had become a Volunteer. “No,” thought Soames, mounting

the stairs slowly, “there’s nothing in that!”

He stood on the landing outside his parents’ bed and dressing

rooms, debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a

reassuring word. Opening the landing window, he listened. The

rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the

thought, “If these motor-cars increase, it’ll affect house

property,” he was about to pass on up to the room always kept

ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the hoarse rushing

call of a newsvendor. There it was, and coming past the house! He

knocked on his mother’s door and went in.

His father was sitting up in bed, with his ears pricked under the

white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut. He looked pink,

and extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and

pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned

shoulders emerged in small peaks. His eyes alone, grey and

distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the

window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down,

squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The room

reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.

“All right!” said Soames, “it’s not a fire. The Boers have

declared war—that’s all.”

Emily stopped her spraying.

“Oh!” was all she said, and looked at James.

Soames, too, looked at his father. He was taking it differently

from their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were

working in him.

“H’m!” he muttered suddenly, “I shan’t live to see the end of

this.”

“Nonsense, James! It’ll be over by Christmas.”

“What do you know about it?” James answered her with asperity.

“It’s a pretty mess at this time of night, too!” He lapsed into

silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him

to say: “I can’t tell—I don’t know; I knew how it would be!” But

he did not. The grey eyes shifted, evidently seeing nothing in

the room; then movement occurred under the bedclothes, and the

knees were drawn up suddenly to a great height.

“They ought to send out Roberts. It all comes from that fellow

Gladstone and his Majuba.”

The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice,

something of real anxiety. It was as if he had said: “I shall

never see the old country peaceful and safe again. I shall have

to die before I know she’s won.” And in spite of the feeling that

James must not be encouraged to be fussy, they were touched.

Soames went up to the bedside and stroked his father’s hand which

had emerged from under the bedclothes, long and wrinkled with

veins.

“Mark my words!” said James, “consols will go to par. For all I

know, Val may go and enlist.”

“Oh, come, James!” cried Emily, “you talk as if there were

danger.”

Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once.

“Well,” he muttered, “I told you how it would be. I don’t know,

I’m sure—nobody tells me anything. Are you sleeping here, my

boy?”

The crisis was past, he would now compose himself to his normal

degree of anxiety; and, assuring his father that he was sleeping

in the house, Soames pressed his hand, and went up to his room.

The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy’s

had known for many a year. On national occasions, such as this,

it was, indeed, almost impossible to avoid going there. Not that

there was any danger or rather only just enough to make it

necessary to assure each other that there was none.

Nicholas was there early. He had seen Soames the night

before—Soames had said it was bound to come. This old Kruger was

in his dotage—why, he must be seventy-five if he was a day!

(Nicholas was eighty-two.) What had Timothy said? He had had a

fit after Majuba. These Boers were a grasping lot! The

dark-haired Francie, who had arrived on his heels, with the

contradictious touch which became the free spirit of a daughter

of Roger, chimed in:

“Kettle and pot, Uncle Nicholas. What price the Uitlanders?” What

price, indeed! A new expression, and believed to be due to her

brother George.

Aunt Juley thought Francie ought not to say such a thing. Dear

Mrs. MacAnder’s boy, Charlie MacAnder, was one, and no one could

call him grasping. At this Francie uttered one of her _mots_,

scandalising, and so frequently repeated:

“Well, his father’s a Scotchman, and his mother’s a cat.”

Aunt Juley covered her ears, too late, but Aunt Hester smiled; as

for Nicholas, he pouted—witticism of which he was not the author

was hardly to his taste. Just then Marian Tweetyman arrived,

followed almost immediately by young Nicholas. On seeing his son,

Nicholas rose.

“Well, I must be going,” he said, “Nick here will tell you

what’ll win the race.” And with this hit at his eldest, who, as a

pillar of accountancy, and director of an insurance company, was

no more addicted to sport than his father had ever been, he

departed. Dear Nicholas! What race was that? Or was it only one

of his jokes? He was a wonderful man for his age! How many lumps

would dear Marian take? And how were Giles and Jesse? Aunt Juley

supposed their Yeomanry would be very busy now, guarding the

coast, though of course the Boers had no ships. But one never

knew what the French might do if they had the chance, especially

since that dreadful Fashoda scare, which had upset Timothy so

terribly that he had made no investments for months afterwards.

It was the ingratitude of the Boers that was so dreadful, after

everything had been done for them—Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he

was so nice, Mrs. MacAnder had always said. And Sir Alfred Milner

sent out to talk to them—such a clever man! She didn’t know what

they wanted.

But at this moment occurred one of those sensations—so precious

at Timothy’s—which great occasions sometimes bring forth:

“Miss June Forsyte.”

Aunts Juley and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from

smothered resentment, and old affection bubbling up, and pride at

the return of a prodigal June! Well, this _was_ a surprise! Dear

June—after all these years! And how well she was looking! Not

changed at all! It was almost on their lips to add, “And how is

your dear grandfather?” forgetting in that giddy moment that poor

dear Jolyon had been in his grave for seven years now.

Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June,

with her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like

flame, sat down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a

bead-worked seat, for all the world as if ten years had not

elapsed since she had been to see them—ten years of travel and

independence and devotion to lame ducks. Those ducks of late had

been all definitely painters, etchers, or sculptors, so that her

impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly inartistic

outlook had become intense. Indeed, she had almost ceased to

believe that her family existed, and looked round her now with a

sort of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort

to the roomful. She had not expected to meet any of them but “the

poor old things”; and why she had come to see _them_ she hardly

knew, except that, while on her way from Oxford Street to a

studio in Latimer Road, she had suddenly remembered them with

compunction as two long-neglected old lame ducks.

Aunt Juley broke the hush again. “We’ve just been saying, dear,

how dreadful it is about these Boers! And what an impudent thing

of that old Kruger!”

“Impudent!” said June. “I think he’s quite right. What business

have we to meddle with them? If he turned out all those wretched

Uitlanders it would serve them right. They’re only after money.”

The silence of sensation was broken by Francie saying:

“What? Are you a pro-Boer?” (undoubtedly the first use of that

expression).

“Well! Why can’t we leave them alone?” said June, just as, in the

open doorway, the maid said “Mr. Soames Forsyte.” Sensation on

sensation! Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how

June and he would take this encounter, for it was shrewdly

suspected, if not quite known, that they had not met since that

old and lamentable affair of her fiance Bosinney with Soames’

wife. They were seen to just touch each other’s hands, and look

each at the other’s left eye only. Aunt Juley came at once to the

rescue:

“Dear June is so original. Fancy, Soames, she thinks the Boers

are not to blame.”

“They only want their independence,” said June; “and why

shouldn’t they have it?”

“Because,” answered Soames, with his smile a little on one side,

“they happen to have agreed to our suzerainty.”

“Suzerainty!” repeated June scornfully; “we shouldn’t like

anyone’s suzerainty over us.”

“They got advantages in payment,” replied Soames; “a contract is

a contract.”

“Contracts are not always just,” fumed out June, “and when

they’re not, they ought to be broken. The Boers are much the

weaker. We could afford to be generous.”

Soames sniffed. “That’s mere sentiment,” he said.

Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of

disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively:

“What lovely weather it has been for the time of year?”

But June was not to be diverted.

“I don’t know why sentiment should be sneered at. It’s the best

thing in the world.” She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Juley

had to intervene again:

“Have you bought any pictures lately, Soames?”

Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed

her. Soames flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases

would be like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they

all knew of June’s predilection for “genius” not yet on its legs,

and her contempt for “success” unless she had had a finger in

securing it.

“One or two,” he muttered.

But June’s face had changed; the Forsyte within her was seeing

its chance. Why should not Soames buy some of the pictures of

Eric Cobbley—her last lame duck? And she promptly opened her

attack: Did Soames know his work? It was so wonderful. He was the

coming man.

Oh, yes, Soames knew his work. It was in his view “splashy,” and

would never get hold of the public.

June blazed up.

“Of course it won’t; that’s the last thing one would wish for. I

thought you were a connoisseur, not a picture-dealer.”

“Of course Soames is a connoisseur,” Aunt Juley said hastily; “he

has wonderful taste—he can always tell beforehand what’s going to

be successful.”

“Oh!” gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair, “I

hate that standard of success. Why can’t people buy things

because they like them?”

“You mean,” said Francie, “because _you_ like them.”

And in the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently

that Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn’t

know if they were any use.

“Well, good-bye, Auntie,” said June; “I must get on,” and kissing

her aunts, she looked defiantly round the room, said “Good-bye”

again, and went. A breeze seemed to pass out with her, as if

everyone had sighed.

The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak:

“Mr. James Forsyte.”

James came in using a stick slightly and wrapped in a fur coat

which gave him a fictitious bulk.

Everyone stood up. James was so old; and he had not been at

Timothy’s for nearly two years.

“It’s hot in here,” he said.

Soames divested him of his coat, and as he did so could not help

admiring the glossy way his father was turned out. James sat

down, all knees, elbows, frock-coat, and long white whiskers.

“What’s the meaning of that?” he said.

Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew

that he was referring to June. His eyes searched his son’s face.

“I thought I’d come and see for myself. What have they answered

Kruger?”

Soames took out an evening paper, and read the headline.

“‘Instant action by our Government—state of war existing!’”

“Ah!” said James, and sighed. “I was afraid they’d cut and run

like old Gladstone. We shall finish with them this time.”

All stared at him. James! Always fussy, nervous, anxious! James

with his continual, “I told you how it would be!” and his

pessimism, and his cautious investments. There was something

uncanny about such resolution in this the oldest living Forsyte.

“Where’s Timothy?” said James. “He ought to pay attention to

this.”

Aunt Juley said she didn’t know; Timothy had not said much at

lunch to-day. Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the

room, and Francie said rather maliciously:

“The Boers are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James.”

“H’m!” muttered James. “Where do you get your information? Nobody

tells me.”

Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick (his eldest)

was now going to drill regularly.

“Ah!” muttered James, and stared before him—his thoughts were on

Val. “He’s got to look after his mother,” he said, “he’s got no

time for drilling and that, with that father of his.” This

cryptic saying produced silence, until he spoke again.

“What did June want here?” And his eyes rested with suspicion on

all of them in turn. “Her father’s a rich man now.” The

conversation turned on Jolyon, and when he had been seen last. It

was supposed that he went abroad and saw all sorts of people now

that his wife was dead; his water-colours were on the line, and

he was a successful man. Francie went so far as to say:

“I should like to see him again; he was rather a dear.”

Aunt Juley recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day,

where James was sitting. He had always been very amiable; what

did Soames think?

Knowing that Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, all felt the delicacy of

this question, and looked at Soames with interest. A faint pink

had come up in his cheeks.

“He’s going grey,” he said.

Indeed! Had Soames seen him? Soames nodded, and the pink

vanished.

James said suddenly: “Well—I don’t know, I can’t tell.”

It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that

there was something behind everything, that nobody responded. But

at this moment Aunt Hester returned.

“Timothy,” she said in a low voice, “Timothy has bought a map,

and he’s put in—he’s put in three flags.”

Timothy had...! A sigh went round the company.

If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well!—it showed

what the nation could do when it was roused. The war was as good

as over.

CHAPTER XIII JOLYON FINDS OUT WHERE HE IS

Jolyon stood at the window in Holly’s old night nursery,

converted into a studio, not because it had a north light, but

for its view over the prospect away to the Grand Stand at Epsom.

He shifted to the side window which overlooked the stableyard,

and whistled down to the dog Balthasar who lay for ever under the

clock tower. The old dog looked up and wagged his tail. “Poor old

boy!” thought Jolyon, shifting back to the other window.

He had been restless all this week, since his attempt to

prosecute trusteeship, uneasy in his conscience which was ever

acute, disturbed in his sense of compassion which was easily

excited, and with a queer sensation as if his feeling for beauty

had received some definite embodiment. Autumn was getting hold of

the old oak-tree, its leaves were browning. Sunshine had been

plentiful and hot this summer. As with trees, so with men’s

lives! “_I_ ought to live long,” thought Jolyon; “I’m getting

mildewed for want of heat. If I can’t work, I shall be off to

Paris.” But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how

could he go? He must stay and see what Soames was going to do.

“I’m her trustee. I can’t leave her unprotected,” he thought. It

had been striking him as curious how very clearly he could still

see Irene in her little drawing-room which he had only twice

entered. Her beauty must have a sort of poignant harmony! No

literal portrait would ever do her justice; the essence of her

was—ah I what?... The noise of hoofs called him back to the other

window. Holly was riding into the yard on her long-tailed

“palfrey.” She looked up and he waved to her. She had been rather

silent lately; getting old, he supposed, beginning to want her

future, as they all did—youngsters!

Time was certainly the devil! And with the feeling that to waste

this swift-travelling commodity was unforgivable folly, he took

up his brush. But it was no use; he could not concentrate his

eye—besides, the light was going. “I’ll go up to town,” he

thought. In the hall a servant met him.

“A lady to see you, sir; Mrs. Heron.”

Extraordinary coincidence! Passing into the picture-gallery, as

it was still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window.

She came towards him saying:

“I’ve been trespassing; I came up through the coppice and garden.

I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon.”

“You couldn’t trespass here,” replied Jolyon; “history makes that

impossible. I was just thinking of you.”

Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere

spirituality—serener, completer, more alluring.

“History!” she answered; “I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was

for ever. Well, it isn’t. Only aversion lasts.”

Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last?

“Yes!” he said, “aversion’s deeper than love or hate because it’s

a natural product of the nerves, and we don’t change them.”

“I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a

thing that frightened me. He said: ‘You are still my wife!’”

“What!” ejaculated Jolyon. “You ought not to live alone.” And he

continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where

Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was

why so many people looked on it as immoral.

“What more?”

“He asked me to shake hands.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. When he came in I’m sure he didn’t want to; he changed

while he was there.”

“Ah! you certainly ought not to go on living there alone.”

“I know no woman I could ask; and I can’t take a lover to order,

Cousin Jolyon.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Jolyon. “What a damnable position! Will you

stay to dinner? No? Well, let me see you back to town; I wanted

to go up this evening.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

On that walk to the station they talked of pictures and music,

contrasting the English and French characters and the difference

in their attitude to Art. But to Jolyon the colours in the hedges

of the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffinches who kept

pace with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the

turn of her neck, the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him

now and then, the lure of her whole figure, made a deeper

impression than the remarks they exchanged. Unconsciously he held

himself straighter, walked with a more elastic step.

In the train he put her through a sort of catechism as to what

she did with her days.

Made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano,

translated from the French.

She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which

supplemented her income a little. She seldom went out in the

evening. “I’ve been living alone so long, you see, that I don’t

mind it a bit. I believe I’m naturally solitary.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Jolyon. “Do you know many people?”

“Very few.”

At Waterloo they took a hansom, and he drove with her to the door

of her mansions. Squeezing her hand at parting, he said:

“You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill; you must

let me know everything that happens. Good-bye, Irene.”

“Good-bye,” she answered softly.

Jolyon climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked

her to dine and go to the theatre with him. Solitary, starved,

hung-up life that she had! “Hotch Potch Club,” he said through

the trap-door. As his hansom debouched on to the Embankment, a

man in top-hat and overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to

the wall that he seemed to be scraping it.

“By Jove!” thought Jolyon; “Soames himself! What’s _he_ up to

now?” And, stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and

retraced his steps to where he could see the entrance to the

mansions. Soames had halted in front of them, and was looking up

at the light in her windows. “If he goes in,” thought Jolyon,

“what shall I do? What have I the right to do?” What the fellow

had said was true. She was still his wife, absolutely without

protection from annoyance! “Well, if he goes in,” he thought, “I

follow.” And he began moving towards the mansions. Again Soames

advanced; he was in the very entrance now. But suddenly he

stopped, spun round on his heel, and came back towards the river.

“What now?” thought Jolyon. “In a dozen steps he’ll recognise

me.” And he turned tail. His cousin’s footsteps kept pace with

his own. But he reached his cab, and got in before Soames had

turned the corner. “Go on!” he said through the trap. Soames’

figure ranged up alongside.

“Hansom!” he said. “Engaged? Hallo!”

“Hallo!” answered Jolyon. “You?”

The quick suspicion on his cousin’s face, white in the lamplight,

decided him.

“I can give you a lift,” he said, “if you’re going West.”

“Thanks,” answered Soames, and got in.

“I’ve been seeing Irene,” said Jolyon when the cab had started.

“Indeed!”

“You went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand.”

“I did,” said Soames; “she’s my wife, you know.”

The tone, the half-lifted sneering lip, roused sudden anger in

Jolyon; but he subdued it.

“You ought to know best,” he said, “but if you want a divorce

it’s not very wise to go seeing her, is it? One can’t run with

the hare and hunt with the hounds?”

“You’re very good to warn me,” said Soames, “but I have not made

up my mind.”

“_She_ has,” said Jolyon, looking straight before him; “you can’t

take things up, you know, as they were twelve years ago.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Look here!” said Jolyon, “she’s in a damnable position, and I am

the only person with any legal say in her affairs.”

“Except myself,” retorted Soames, “who am also in a damnable

position. Hers is what she made for herself; mine what she made

for me. I am not at all sure that in her own interests I shan’t

require her to return to me.”

“What!” exclaimed Jolyon; and a shiver went through his whole

body.

“I don’t know what you may mean by ‘what,’” answered Soames

coldly; “your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her

income; please bear that in mind. In choosing not to disgrace her

by a divorce, I retained my rights, and, as I say, I am not at

all sure that I shan’t require to exercise them.”

“My God!” ejaculated Jolyon, and he uttered a short laugh.

“Yes,” said Soames, and there was a deadly quality in his voice.

“I’ve not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, ‘The man of

property’. I’m not called names for nothing.”

“This is fantastic,” murmured Jolyon. Well, the fellow couldn’t

force his wife to live with him. Those days were past, anyway!

And he looked around at Soames with the thought: “Is he real,

this man?” But Soames looked very real, sitting square yet almost

elegant with the clipped moustache on his pale face, and a tooth

showing where a lip was lifted in a fixed smile. There was a long

silence, while Jolyon thought: “Instead of helping her, I’ve made

things worse.” Suddenly Soames said:

“It would be the best thing that could happen to her in many

ways.”

At those words such a turmoil began taking place in Jolyon that

he could barely sit still in the cab. It was as if he were boxed

up with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with

that something in the national character which had always been to

him revolting, something which he knew to be extremely natural

and yet which seemed to him inexplicable—their intense belief in

contracts and vested rights, their complacent sense of virtue in

the exaction of those rights. Here beside him in the cab was the

very embodiment, the corporeal sum as it were, of the possessive

instinct—his own kinsman, too! It was uncanny and intolerable!

“But there’s something more in it than that!” he thought with a

sick feeling. “The dog, they say, returns to his vomit! The sight

of her has reawakened something. Beauty! The devil’s in it!”

“As I say,” said Soames, “I have not made up my mind. I shall be

obliged if you will kindly leave her quite alone.”

Jolyon bit his lips; he who had always hated rows almost welcomed

the thought of one now.

“I can give you no such promise,” he said shortly.

“Very well,” said Soames, “then we know where we are. I’ll get

down here.” And stopping the cab he got out without word or sign

of farewell. Jolyon travelled on to his Club.

The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he

paid no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his

father were alive! _He_ could have done so much! But why could he

not do all that his father could have done? Was he not old

enough?—turned fifty and twice married, with grown-up daughters

and a son. “Queer,” he thought. “If she were plain I shouldn’t be

thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil, when you’re

sensitive to it!” And into the Club reading-room he went with a

disturbed heart. In that very room he and Bosinney had talked one

summer afternoon; he well remembered even now the disguised and

secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of

June, the diagnosis of the Forsytes he had hazarded; and how he

had wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him

against. And now! He was almost in want of a warning himself.

“It’s deuced funny!” he thought, “really deuced funny!”

CHAPTER XIV SOAMES DISCOVERS WHAT HE WANTS

It is so much easier to say, “Then we know where we are,” than to

mean anything particular by the words. And in saying them Soames

did but vent the jealous rankling of his instincts. He got out of

the cab in a state of wary anger—with himself for not having seen

Irene, with Jolyon for having seen her; and now with his

inability to tell exactly what he wanted.

He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain

seated beside his cousin, and walking briskly eastwards he

thought: “I wouldn’t trust that fellow Jolyon a yard. Once

outcast, always outcast!” The chap had a natural sympathy

with—with—laxity (he had shied at the word sin, because it was

too melodramatic for use by a Forsyte).

Indecision in desire was to him a new feeling. He was like a

child between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken

away from him; and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday

desire had seemed simple—just his freedom and Annette. “I’ll go

and dine there,” he thought. To see her might bring back his

singleness of intention, calm his exasperation, clear his mind.

The restaurant was fairly full—a good many foreigners and folk

whom, from their appearance, he took to be literary or artistic.

Scraps of conversation came his way through the clatter of plates

and glasses. He distinctly heard the Boers sympathised with, the

British Government blamed. “Don’t think much of their clientèle,”

he thought. He went stolidly through his dinner and special

coffee without making his presence known, and when at last he had

finished, was careful not to be seen going towards the sanctum of

Madame Lamotte. They were, as he entered, having supper—such a

much nicer-looking supper than the dinner he had eaten that he

felt a kind of grief—and they greeted him with a surprise so

seemingly genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion: “I

believe they knew I was here all the time.” He gave Annette a

look furtive and searching. So pretty, seemingly so candid; could

she be angling for him? He turned to Madame Lamotte and said:

“I’ve been dining here.”

Really! If she had only known! There were dishes she could have

recommended; what a pity! Soames was confirmed in his suspicion.

“I must look out what I’m doing!” he thought sharply.

“Another little cup of very special coffee, _monsieur;_ a

liqueur, Grand Marnier?” and Madame Lamotte rose to order these

delicacies.

Alone with Annette Soames said, “Well, Annette?” with a defensive

little smile about his lips.

The girl blushed. This, which last Sunday would have set his

nerves tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has

when a dog that he owns wriggles and looks at him. He had a

curious sense of power, as if he could have said to her, “Come

and kiss me,” and she would have come. And yet—it was strange—but

there seemed another face and form in the room too; and the itch

in his nerves, was it for that—or for this? He jerked his head

towards the restaurant and said: “You have some queer customers.

Do you like this life?”

Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down, and played

with her fork.

“No,” she said, “I do not like it.”

“I’ve got her,” thought Soames, “if I want her. But do I want

her?” She was graceful, she was pretty—very pretty; she was

fresh, she had taste of a kind. His eyes travelled round the

little room; but the eyes of his mind went another journey—a

half-light, and silvery walls, a satinwood piano, a woman

standing against it, reined back as it were from him—a woman with

white shoulders that he knew, and dark eyes that he had sought to

know, and hair like dull dark amber. And as in an artist who

strives for the unrealisable and is ever thirsty, so there rose

in him at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never

satisfied.

“Well,” he said calmly, “you’re young. There’s everything before

_you_.”

Annette shook her head.

“I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work. I am

not so in love with work as mother.”

“Your mother is a wonder,” said Soames, faintly mocking; “she

will never let failure lodge in her house.”

Annette sighed. “It must be wonderful to be rich.”

“Oh! You’ll be rich some day,” answered Soames, still with that

faint mockery; “don’t be afraid.”

Annette shrugged her shoulders. “_Monsieur_ is very kind.” And

between her pouting lips she put a chocolate.

“Yes, my dear,” thought Soames, “they’re very pretty.”

Madame Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that

colloquy. Soames did not stay long.

Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a

feeling of property improperly owned, he mused. If only Irene had

given him a son, he wouldn’t now be squirming after women! The

thought had jumped out of its little dark sentry-box in his inner

consciousness. A son—something to look forward to, something to

make the rest of life worth while, something to leave himself to,

some perpetuity of self. “If I had a son,” he thought bitterly,

“a proper legal son, I could make shift to go on as I used. One

woman’s much the same as another, after all.” But as he walked he

shook his head. No! One woman was not the same as another. Many a

time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted

married life; and he had always failed. He was failing now. He

was trying to think Annette the same as that other. But she was

not, she had not the lure of that old passion. “And Irene’s my

wife,” he thought, “my legal wife. I have done nothing to put her

away from me. Why shouldn’t she come back to me? It’s the right

thing, the lawful thing. It makes no scandal, no disturbance. If

it’s disagreeable to her—but why _should_ it be? I’m not a leper,

and she—she’s no longer in love!” Why should he be put to the

shifts and the sordid disgraces and the lurking defeats of the

Divorce Court, when there she was like an empty house only

waiting to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally

owned her? To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry

into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away

to the world was intensely alluring. “No,” he mused, “I’m glad I

went to see that girl. I know now what I want most. If only Irene

will come back I’ll be as considerate as she wishes; she could

live her own life; but perhaps—perhaps she would come round to

me.” There was a lump in his throat. And doggedly along by the

railings of the Green Park, towards his father’s house, he went,

trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant

moonlight.

PART II

CHAPTER I THE THIRD GENERATION

Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a

November afternoon; Val Dartie was strolling up. Jolly had just

changed out of boating flannels and was on his way to the

“Frying-pan,” to which he had recently been elected. Val had just

changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the fire—a

bookmaker’s in Cornmarket.

“Hallo!” said Jolly.

“Hallo!” replied Val.

The cousins had met but twice, Jolly, the second-year man, having

invited the freshman to breakfast; and last evening they had seen

each other again under somewhat exotic circumstances.

Over a tailor’s in the Cornmarket resided one of those privileged

young beings called minors, whose inheritances are large, whose

parents are dead, whose guardians are remote, and whose instincts

are vicious. At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers

attractive and inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single

bankruptcy is good as a feast. Already famous for having the only

roulette table then to be found in Oxford, he was anticipating

his expectations at a dazzling rate. He out-crummed Crum, though

of a sanguine and rather beefy type which lacked the latter’s

fascinating languor. For Val it had been in the nature of baptism

to be taken there to play roulette; in the nature of confirmation

to get back into college, after hours, through a window whose

bars were deceptive. Once, during that evening of delight,

glancing up from the seductive green before him, he had caught

sight, through a cloud of smoke, of his cousin standing opposite.

“_Rouge gagne, impair, et manque!_” He had not seen him again.

“Come in to the Frying-pan and have tea,” said Jolly, and they

went in.

A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an

unseizable resemblance between these second cousins of the third

generations of Forsytes; the same bone formation in face, though

Jolly’s eyes were darker grey, his hair lighter and more wavy.

“Tea and buttered buns, waiter, please,” said Jolly.

“Have one of my cigarettes?” said Val. “I saw you last night. How

did you do?”

“I didn’t play.”

“I won fifteen quid.”

Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling he

had once heard his father make—“When you’re fleeced you’re sick,

and when you fleece you’re sorry”—Jolly contented himself with:

“Rotten game, I think; I was at school with that chap. He’s an

awful fool.”

“Oh! I don’t know,” said Val, as one might speak in defence of a

disparaged god; “he’s a pretty good sport.”

They exchanged whiffs in silence.

“You met my people, didn’t you?” said Jolly. “They’re coming up

to-morrow.”

Val grew a little red.

“Really! I can give you a rare good tip for the Manchester

November handicap.”

“Thanks, I only take interest in the classic races.”

“You can’t make any money over them,” said Val.

“I hate the ring,” said Jolly; “there’s such a row and stink. I

like the paddock.”

“I like to back my judgment,” answered Val.

Jolly smiled; his smile was like his father’s.

“I haven’t got any. I always lose money if I bet.”

“You have to buy experience, of course.”

“Yes, but it’s all messed-up with doing people in the eye.”

“Of course, or they’ll do you—that’s the excitement.”

Jolly looked a little scornful.

“What do you do with yourself? Row?”

“No—ride, and drive about. I’m going to play polo next term, if I

can get my granddad to stump up.”

“That’s old Uncle James, isn’t it? What’s he like?”

“Older than forty hills,” said Val, “and always thinking he’s

going to be ruined.”

“I suppose my granddad and he were brothers.”

“I don’t believe any of that old lot were sportsmen,” said Val;

“they must have worshipped money.”

“Mine didn’t!” said Jolly warmly.

Val flipped the ash off his cigarette.

“Money’s only fit to spend,” he said; “I wish the deuce I had

more.”

Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgment which he had

inherited from old Jolyon: One didn’t talk about money! And again

there was silence, while they drank tea and ate the buttered

buns.

“Where are your people going to stay?” asked Val, elaborately

casual.

“‘Rainbow.’ What do you think of the war?”

“Rotten, so far. The Boers aren’t sports a bit. Why don’t they

come out into the open?”

“Why should they? They’ve got everything against them except

their way of fighting. I rather admire them.”

“They can ride and shoot,” admitted Val, “but they’re a lousy

lot. Do you know Crum?”

“Of Merton? Only by sight. He’s in that fast set too, isn’t he?

Rather La-di-da and Brummagem.”

Val said fixedly: “He’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh! Sorry!” And they sat awkwardly staring past each other,

having pitched on their pet points of snobbery. For Jolly was

forming himself unconsciously on a set whose motto was:

“We defy you to bore us. Life isn’t half long enough, and we’re

going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and

dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are

‘the best’—made of wire and whipcord.” And Val was unconsciously

forming himself on a set whose motto was: “We defy you to

interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we

haven’t, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that

no hours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with

equanimity. We have flown fast and are past everything. All is

cigarette smoke. Bismillah!” Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the

English, was obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals;

and at the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy

had already in the main adopted the “jumping-Jesus” principle;

though here and there one like Crum—who was an “honourable”—stood

starkly languid for that gambler’s Nirvana which had been the

_summum bonum_ of the old “dandies” and of “the mashers” in the

eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of

blue-bloods with a plutocratic following.

But there was between the cousins another far less obvious

antipathy—coming from the unseizable family resemblance, which

each perhaps resented; or from some half-consciousness of that

old feud persisting still between their branches of the clan,

formed within them by odd words or half-hints dropped by their

elders. And Jolly, tinkling his teaspoon, was musing: “His

tie-pin and his waistcoat and his drawl and his betting—good

Lord!”

And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: “He’s rather a young

beast!”

“I suppose you’ll be meeting your people?” he said, getting up.

“I wish you’d tell them I should like to show them over

B.N.C.—not that there’s anything much there—if they’d care to

come.”

“Thanks, I’ll ask them.”

“Would they lunch? I’ve got rather a decent scout.”

Jolly doubted if they would have time.

“You’ll ask them, though?”

“Very good of you,” said Jolly, fully meaning that they should

not go; but, instinctively polite, he added: “You’d better come

and have dinner with us to-morrow.”

“Rather. What time?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Dress?”

“No.” And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them.

Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It was her first

visit to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent,

looking almost shyly at the brother who was part of this

wonderful place. After lunch she wandered, examining his

household gods with intense curiosity. Jolly’s sitting-room was

panelled, and Art represented by a set of Bartolozzi prints which

had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college photographs—of young

men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be compared with her

memories of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care that evidence

of his boy’s character and tastes.

Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set

forth to the river. Holly, between her brother and her father,

felt elated when heads were turned and eyes rested on her. That

they might see him to the best advantage they left him at the

Barge and crossed the river to the towing-path. Slight in

build—for of all the Forsytes only old Swithin and George were

beefy—Jolly was rowing “Two” in a trial eight. He looked very

earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought him the

best-looking boy of the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more

struck by one or two of the others, but would not have said so

for the world. The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows

lush, the trees still beautiful with colour. Distinguished peace

clung around the old city; Jolyon promised himself a day’s

sketching if the weather held. The Eight passed a second time,

spurting home along the Barges—Jolly’s face was very set, so as

not to show that he was blown. They returned across the river and

waited for him.

“Oh!” said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, “I had to ask that

chap Val Dartie to dine with us to-night. He wanted to give you

lunch and show you B.N.C., so I thought I’d better; then you

needn’t go. I don’t like him much.”

Holly’s rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.

“Why not?”

“Oh! I don’t know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What

are his people like, Dad? He’s only a second cousin, isn’t he?”

Jolyon took refuge in a smile.

“Ask Holly,” he said; “she saw his uncle.”

“I _liked_ Val,” Holly answered, staring at the ground before

her; “his uncle looked—awfully different.” She stole a glance at

Jolly from under her lashes.

“Did you ever,” said Jolyon with whimsical intention, “hear our

family history, my dears? It’s quite a fairy tale. The first

Jolyon Forsyte—at all events the first we know anything of, and

that would be your great-great-grandfather—dwelt in the land of

Dorset on the edge of the sea, being by profession an

‘agriculturalist,’ as your great-aunt put it, and the son of an

agriculturist—farmers, in fact; your grandfather used to call

them, ‘Very small beer.’” He looked at Jolly to see how his

lordliness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly’s

malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother’s face.

“We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England as it

was before the Industrial Era began. The second Jolyon

Forsyte—your great-grandfather, Jolly; better known as Superior

Dosset Forsyte—built houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten

children, and migrated to London town. It is known that he drank

sherry. We may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon’s

wars, and general unrest. The eldest of his six sons was the

third Jolyon, your grandfather, my dears—tea merchant and

chairman of companies, one of the soundest Englishmen who ever

lived—and to me the dearest.” Jolyon’s voice had lost its irony,

and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly, “He was just and

tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember him, and I

remember him. Pass to the others! Your great-uncle James, that’s

young Val’s grandfather, had a son called Soames—whereby hangs a

tale of no love lost, and I don’t think I’ll tell it you. James

and the other eight children of ‘Superior Dosset,’ of whom there

are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian

England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five

per cent. and your money back—if you know what that means. At all

events they’ve turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million

between them in the course of their long lives. They never did a

wild thing—unless it was your great-uncle Swithin, who I believe

was once swindled at thimble-rig, and was called ‘Four-in-hand

Forsyte’ because he drove a pair. Their day is passing, and their

type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were

pedestrian, but they too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon

Forsyte—a poor holder of the name—”

“No, Dad,” said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.

“Yes,” repeated Jolyon, “a poor specimen, representing, I’m

afraid, nothing but the end of the century, unearned income,

amateurism, and individual liberty—a different thing from

individualism, Jolly. You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old man,

and you open the ball of the new century.”

As he spoke they turned in through the college gates, and Holly

said: “It’s fascinating, Dad.”

None of them quite knew what she meant. Jolly was grave.

The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford hostel can be, for

lack of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private

sitting-room, in which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy,

and alone, when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would touch

a moth, Val took her hand. And wouldn’t she wear this “measly

flower”. It would look ripping in her hair. He removed a gardenia

from his coat.

“Oh! No, thank you—I couldn’t!” But she took it and pinned it at

her neck, having suddenly remembered that word “showy”. Val’s

buttonhole would give offence; and she so much wanted Jolly to

like him. Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest

in her presence, and was that, perhaps, half the secret of his

attraction for her?

“I never said anything about our ride, Val.”

“Rather not! It’s just between us.”

By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he

was giving her a sense of power very delicious; a soft feeling

too—the wish to make him happy.

“Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so lovely.”

Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked;

the lectures were nothing; and there were some very good chaps.

“Only,” he added, “of course I wish I was in town, and could come

down and see you.”

Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped.

“You haven’t forgotten,” he said, suddenly gathering courage,

“that we’re going mad-rabbiting together?”

Holly smiled.

“Oh! That was only make-believe. One can’t do that sort of thing

after one’s grown up, you know.”

“Dash it! cousins can,” said Val. “Next Long Vac.—it begins in

June, you know, and goes on for ever—we’ll watch our chance.”

But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly

shook her head. “It won’t come off,” she murmured.

“Won’t it!” said Val fervently; “who’s going to stop it? Not your

father or your brother.”

At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and romance fled into

Val’s patent leather and Holly’s white satin toes, where it

itched and tingled during an evening not conspicuous for

open-heartedness.

Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism

between the boys, and was puzzled by Holly; so he became

unconsciously ironical, which is fatal to the expansiveness of

youth. A letter, handed to him after dinner, reduced him to a

silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go. He went out

with them, smoking his cigar, and walked with his son to the

gates of Christ Church. Turning back, he took out the letter and

read it again beneath a lamp.

“DEAR JOLYON,

“Soames came again to-night—my thirty-seventh birthday. You

were right, I mustn’t stay here. I’m going to-morrow to the

Piedmont Hotel, but I won’t go abroad without seeing you. I

feel lonely and down-hearted.

“Yours affectionately,

“IRENE.”

He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on,

astonished at the violence of his feelings. What had the fellow

said or done?

He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and on among a maze of

spires and domes and long college fronts and walls, bright or

dark-shadowed in the strong moonlight. In this very heart of

England’s gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely

woman could be importuned or hunted, but what else could her

letter mean? Soames must have been pressing her to go back to him

again, with public opinion and the Law on his side, too!

“Eighteen-ninety-nine!,” he thought, gazing at the broken glass

shining on the top of a villa garden wall; “but when it comes to

property we’re still a heathen people! I’ll go up to-morrow

morning. I dare say it’ll be best for her to go abroad.” Yet the

thought displeased him. Why should Soames hunt her out of

England! Besides, he might follow, and out there she would be

still more helpless against the attentions of her own husband! “I

must tread warily,” he thought; “that fellow could make himself

very nasty. I didn’t like his manner in the cab the other night.”

His thoughts turned to his daughter June. Could she help? Once on

a time Irene had been her greatest friend, and now she was a

“lame duck,” such as must appeal to June’s nature! He determined

to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station.

Retracing his steps towards the Rainbow he questioned his own

sensations. Would he be upsetting himself over every woman in

like case? No! he would not. The candour of this conclusion

discomfited him; and, finding that Holly had gone up to bed, he

sought his own room. But he could not sleep, and sat for a long

time at his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the

moonlight on the roofs.

Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the lashes above and

below Val’s eyes, especially below; and of what she could do to

make Jolly like him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong

in her little bedroom, and pleasant to her.

And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C., was

gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all, seeing

instead Holly, slim and white-frocked, as she sat beside the fire

when he first went in.

But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand

beneath his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat, rowing

a race against him, while his father was calling from the

towpath: “Two! Get your hands away there, bless you!”