"He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur's father
without love I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage, Jon, can play
such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You are fearfully young,
my darling, and fearfully loving. Do you think you can possibly be
happy with this girl?"
Staring at her dark eyes, darker now from pain, Jon answered:
"Yes; oh! yes--if YOU could be."
Irene smiled.
"Admiration of beauty, and longing for possession are not love. If
yours were another case like mine, Jon--where the deepest things are
stifled; the flesh joined, and the spirit at war!"
"Why should it, Mother? You think she must be like her father, but
she's not. I've seen him."
Again the smile came on Irene's lips, and in Jon something wavered;
there was such irony and experience in that smile.
"You are a giver, Jon; she is a taker."
That unworthy doubt, that haunting uncertainty again! He said with
vehemence:
"She isn't--she isn't. It's only because I can't bear to make you
unhappy, Mother, now that Father--" He thrust his fists against his
forehead.
Irene got up.
"I told you that night, dear, not to mind me. I meant it. Think of
yourself and your own happiness! I can stand what's left--I've brought
it on myself."
Again the word: "Mother!" burst from Jon's lips.
She came over to him and put her hands over his.
"Do you feel your head, darling?"
Jon shook it. What he felt was in his chest--a sort of tearing asunder
of the tissue there, by the two loves.
"I shall always love you the same, Jon, whatever you do. You won't lose
anything." She smoothed his hair gently, and walked away.
He heard the door shut; and, rolling over on the bed, lay, stifling his
breath, with an awful held-up feeling within him.
VII
EMBASSY
Enquiring for her at tea time Soames learned that Fleur had been out in
the car since two. Three hours! Where had she gone? Up to London
without a word to him? He had never become quite reconciled with cars.
He had embraced them in principle--like the born empiricist, or
Forsyte, that he was--adopting each symptom of progress as it came
along with: "Well, we couldn't do without them now." But in fact he
found them tearing, great, smelly things. Obliged by Annette to have
one--a Rollhard with pearl-grey cushions, electric light, little
mirrors, trays for the ashes of cigarettes, flower vases--all smelling
of petrol and stephanotis--he regarded it much as he used to regard his
brother-in-law, Montague Dartie. The thing typified all that was fast,
insecure, and subcutaneously oily in modern life. As modern life became
faster, looser, younger, Soames was becoming older, slower, tighter,
more and more in thought and language like his father James before him.
He was almost aware of it himself. Pace and progress pleased him less
and less; there was an ostentation, too, about a car which he
considered provocative in the prevailing mood of Labour. On one
occasion that fellow Sims had driven over the only vested interest of a
working man. Soames had not forgotten the behaviour of its master, when
not many people would have stopped to put up with it. He had been sorry
for the dog, and quite prepared to take its part against the car, if
that ruffian hadn't been so outrageous. With four hours fast becoming
five, and still no Fleur, all the old car-wise feelings he had
experienced in person and by proxy balled within him, and sinking
sensations troubled the pit of his stomach. At seven he telephoned to
Winifred by trunk call. No! Fleur had not been to Green Street. Then
where was she? Visions of his beloved daughter rolled up in her pretty
frills, all blood-and-dust-stained, in some hideous catastrophe, began
to haunt him. He went to her room and spied among her things. She had
taken nothing--no dressing-case, no jewellery. And this, a relief in
one sense, increased his fears of an accident. Terrible to be helpless
when his loved one was missing, especially when he couldn't bear fuss
or publicity of any kind! What should he do, if she were not back by
nightfall?
At a quarter to eight he heard the car. A great weight lifted from off
his heart; he hurried down. She was getting out--pale and
tired-looking, but nothing wrong. He met her in the hall.
"You've frightened me. Where have you been?"
"To Robin Hill. I'm sorry, dear. I had to go; I'll tell you
afterwards." And, with a flying kiss, she ran up-stairs.
Soames waited in the drawing-room. To Robin Hill! What did that portend?
It was not a subject they could discuss at dinner--consecrated to the
susceptibilities of the butler. The agony of nerves Soames had been
through, the relief he felt at her safety, softened his power to
condemn what she had done, or resist what she was going to do; he
waited in a relaxed stupor for her revelation. Life was a queer
business. There he was at sixty-five and no more in command of things
than if he had not spent forty years in building up security--always
something one couldn't get on terms with! In the pocket of his
dinner-jacket was a letter from Annette. She was coming back in a
fortnight. He knew nothing of what she had been doing out there. And he
was glad that he did not. Her absence had been a relief. Out of sight
was out of mind! And now she was coming back. Another worry! And the
Bolderby Old Crome was gone--Dumetrius had got it--all because that
anonymous letter had put it out of his thoughts. He furtively remarked
the strained look on his daughter's face, as if she too were gazing at
a picture that she couldn't buy. He almost wished the war back. Worries
didn't seem, then, quite so worrying. From the caress in her voice, the
look on her face, he became certain that she wanted something from him,
uncertain whether it would be wise of him to give it her. He pushed his
savoury away uneaten, and even joined her in a cigarette.
After dinner she set the electric piano-player going. And he augured
the worst when she sat down on a cushion footstool at his knee, and put
her hand on his.
"Darling, be nice to me. I had to see Jon--he wrote to me. He's going
to try what he can do with his mother. But I've been thinking. But it's
really in YOUR hands, Father. If you'd persuade her that it doesn't
mean renewing the past in any way! That I shall stay yours, and Jon
will stay hers; that you need never see him or her, and she need never
see you or me! Only you could persuade her, dear, because only you
could promise. One can't promise for other people. Surely it wouldn't
be too awkward for you to see her just this once--now that Jon's father
is dead?"
"Too awkward?" Soames repeated. "The whole thing's preposterous."
"You know," said Fleur, without looking up, "you wouldn't mind seeing
her, really."
Soames was silent. Her words had expressed a truth too deep for him to
admit. She slipped her fingers between his own--hot, slim, eager, they
clung there. This child of his would corkscrew her way into a brick
wall!
"What am I to do, if you won't, Father?" she said very softly.
"I'll do anything for your happiness," said Soames; "but this isn't for
your happiness."
"Oh! it is; it is!"
"It'll only stir things up," he said grimly.
"But they are stirred up. The thing is to quiet them. To make her feel
that this is just OUR lives, and has nothing to do with yours or hers.
You can do it, Father, I know you can."
"You know a great deal, then," was Soames' glum answer.
"If you will, Jon and I will wait a year--two years if you like."
"It seems to me," murmured Soames, "that you care nothing about what I
feel."
Fleur pressed his hand against her cheek.
"I do, darling. But you wouldn't like me to be awfully miserable." How
she wheedled to get her ends! And trying with all his might to think
she really cared for him--he was not sure--not sure. All she cared for
was this boy! Why should he help her to get this boy, who was killing
her affection for himself? Why should he? By the laws of the Forsytes
it was foolish! There was nothing to be had out of it--nothing! To give
her to that boy! To pass her into the enemy's camp, under the influence
of the woman who had injured him so deeply! Slowly--inevitably--he
would lose this flower of his life! And suddenly he was conscious that
his hand was wet. His heart gave a little painful jump. He couldn't
bear her to cry. He put his other hand quickly over hers, and a tear
dropped on that, too. He couldn't go on like this! "Well, well," he
said, "I'll think it over, and do what I can. Come, come!" If she must
have it for her happiness--she must; he couldn't refuse to help her.
And lest she should begin to thank him he got out of his chair and went
up to the piano-player--making that noise! It ran down, as he reached
it, with a faint buzz. That musical box of his nursery days: "The
Harmonious Blacksmith," "Glorious Port"--the thing had always made him
miserable when his mother set it going on Sunday afternoons. Here it
was again--the same thing, only larger, more expensive, and now it
played: "The Wild Wild Women" and "The Policeman's Holiday," and he was
no longer in black velvet with a sky-blue collar. 'Profond's right,' he
thought, 'there's nothing in it! We're all progressing to the grave!'
And with that surprising mental comment he walked out.
He did not see Fleur again that night. But, at breakfast, her eyes
followed him about with an appeal he could not escape--not that he
intended to try. No! He had made up his mind to the nerve-racking
business. He would go to Robin Hill--to that house of memories. A
pleasant memory--the last! Of going down to keep that boy's father and
Irene apart by threatening divorce. He had often thought, since, that
it had clenched their union. And, now, he was going to clench the union
of that boy with his girl. 'I don't know what I've done,' he thought,
'to have such things thrust on me!' He went up by train and down by
train, and from the station walked by the long rising lane, still very
much as he remembered it over thirty years ago. Funny--so near London!
Some one evidently was holding on to the land there. This speculation
soothed him, moving between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get
overheated, though the day was chill enough. After all was said and
done there was something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and
good pictures! The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they
were always going up--worth holding on to, in a world where there was
such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a
"Here to-day and gone to-morrow" spirit. The French were right,
perhaps, with their peasant proprietorship, though he had no opinion of
the French. One's bit of land! Something solid in it! He had heard
peasant-proprietors described as a pig-headed lot; had heard young Mont
call his father a pig-headed Morning Poster--disrespectful young devil.
Well, there were worse things than being pig-headed or reading The
Morning Post. There was Profond and his tribe, and all these Labour
chaps, and loud-mouthed politicians, and "wild, wild women"! A lot of
worse things! And, suddenly, Soames became conscious of feeling weak,
and hot, and shaky. Sheer nerves at the meeting before him! As Aunt
Juley might have said--quoting "Superior Dosset"--his nerves were "in a
proper fantigue." He could see the house now among its trees, the house
he had watched being built, intending it for himself and this woman,
who, by such strange fate, had lived in it with another after all! He
began to think of Dumetrius, Local Loans, and other forms of
investment. He could not afford to meet her with his nerves all
shaking; he who represented the Day of Judgment for her on earth as it
was in heaven; he, legal ownership, personified, meeting lawless
beauty, incarnate. His dignity demanded impassivity during this embassy
designed to link their offspring, who, if she had behaved herself,
would have been brother and sister. That wretched tune: "The Wild Wild
Women" kept running in his head, perversely, for tunes did not run
there as a rule. Passing the poplars in front of the house, he thought:
'How they've grown; I had them planted!'
A maid answered his ring.
"Will you say--Mr. Forsyte, on a very special matter."
If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him. 'By
George!' he thought, hardening as the tug came: 'It's a topsyturvy
affair!'
The maid came back. Would the gentleman state his business, please?
"Say it concerns Mr. Jon," said Soames.
And once more he was alone in that hall with the pool of grey-white
marble designed by her first lover. Ah! she had been a bad lot--had
loved two men, and not himself! He must remember that when he came face
to face with her once more. And suddenly he saw her in the opening
chink between the long heavy purple curtains, swaying, as if in
hesitation; the old perfect poise and line, the old startled dark-eyed
gravity; the old calm defensive voice: "Will you come in, please?"
He passed through that opening. As in the picture-gallery and the
confectioner's shop, she seemed to him still beautiful. And this was
the first time--the very first--since he married her five and thirty
years ago, that he was speaking to her without the legal right to call
her his. She was not wearing black--one of that fellow's radical
notions, he supposed.
"I apologise for coming," he said glumly; "but this business must be
settled one way or the other."
"Won't you sit down?"
"No, thank you."
Anger at his false position, impatience of ceremony between them,
mastered him, and words came tumbling out:
"It's an infernal mischance; I've done my best to discourage it. I
consider my daughter crazy, but I've got into the habit of indulging
her; that's why I'm here. I suppose you're fond of your son."
"Devotedly."
"Well?"
"It rests with him."
He had a sense of being met and baffled. Always--always she had baffled
him, even in those old first married days.
"It's a mad notion," he said.
"It is."
"If you had only--! Well--they might have been--" he did not finish
that sentence "brother and sister and all this saved," but he saw her
shudder as if he had, and stung by the sight, he crossed over to the
window. Out THERE the trees had not grown--they couldn't, they were old!
"So far as I'm concerned," he said, "you may make your mind easy. I
desire to see neither you nor your son if this marriage comes about.
Young people in these days are--are unaccountable. But I can't bear to
see my daughter unhappy. What am I to say to her when I go back?"
"Please say to her, as I said to you, that it rests with Jon."
"You don't oppose it?"
"With all my heart; not with my lips."
Soames stood, biting his finger.
"I remember an evening--" he said suddenly; and was silent. What was
there--what was there in this woman that would not fit into the four
comers of his hate or condemnation? "Where is he--your son?"
"Up in his father's studio, I think."
"Perhaps you'd have him down."
He watched her ring the bell, he watched the maid come in.
"Please tell Mr. Jon that I want him."
"If it rests with him," said Soames hurriedly, when the maid was gone,
"I suppose I may take it for granted that this unnatural marriage will
take place: in that case there'll be formalities. Whom do I deal
with--Herring's?" Irene nodded.
"You don't propose to live with them?"
Irene shook her head.
"What happens to this house?"
"It will be as Jon wishes."
"This house," said Soames suddenly: "I had hopes when I began it. If
THEY live in it--their children! They say there's such a thing as
Nemesis. Do you believe in it?"
"Yes."
"Oh! You do!" He had come back from the window, and was standing close
to her, who, in the curve of her grand piano, was, as it were, embayed.
"I'm not likely to see you again," he said slowly: "Will you shake
hands," his lip quivered, the words came out jerkily, "and let the past
die?" He held out his hand. Her pale face grew paler, her eyes so dark,
rested immovably on his, but her hands remained clasped in front of
her. He heard a sound and turned. That boy was standing in the opening
of the curtains. Very queer he looked, hardly recognisable as the young
fellow he had seen in the Gallery off Cork Street--very queer; much
older, no youth in the face at all--haggard, rigid, his hair ruffled,
his eyes deep in his head. Soames made an effort, and said with a lift
of his lip, not quite a smile nor quite a sneer:
"Well, young man! I'm here for my daughter; it rests with you, it
seems--this matter. Your mother leaves it in your hands."
The boy continued staring at his mother's face, and made no answer.
"For my daughter's sake I've brought myself to come," said Soames.
"What am I to say to her when I go back?"
Still looking at his mother, the boy said, quietly:
"Tell Fleur that it's no good, please; I must do as my father wished
before he died."
"Jon!"
"It's all right, Mother."
In a kind of stupefaction Soames looked from one to the other; then,
taking up hat and umbrella, which he had put down on a chair, he walked
towards the curtains. The boy stood aside for him to go by. He passed
through and heard the grate of the rings as the curtains were drawn
behind him. The sound liberated something in his chest.
'So that's that!' he thought, and passed out of the front door.
VIII
THE DARK TUNE
As Soames walked away from the house at Robin Hill the sun broke
through the grey of that chill afternoon, in smoky radiance. So
absorbed in landscape-painting that he seldom looked seriously for
effects of Nature out-of-doors, he was struck by that moody
effulgence--it mourned with a triumph suited to his own feeling.
Victory in defeat! His embassy had come to naught. But he was rid of
those people, had regained his daughter at the expense of--her
happiness. What would Fleur say to him? Would she believe he had done
his best? And under that sunlight flaring on the elms, hazels, hollies
of the lane and those unexploited fields, Soames felt dread. She would
be terribly upset! He must appeal to her pride. That boy had given her
up, declared part and lot with the woman who so long ago had given her
father up! Soames clenched his hands. Given him up, and why? What had
been wrong with him? And once more he felt the malaise of one who
contemplates himself as seen by another--like a dog who chances on his
reflection in a mirror, and is intrigued and anxious at the unseizable
thing.
Not in a hurry to get home, he dined in town at the Connoisseurs. While
eating a pear it suddenly occurred to him that, if he had not gone down
to Robin Hill, the boy might not have so decided. He remembered the
expression on his face while his mother was refusing the hand he had
held out. A strange, an awkward thought! Had Fleur cooked her own goose
by trying to make too sure?
He reached home at half-past nine. While the car was passing in at one
drive gate he heard the grinding sputter of a motor-cycle passing out
by the other. Young Mont, no doubt, so Fleur had not been lonely. But
he went in with a sinking heart. In the cream-panelled drawing-room she
was sitting with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her clasped
hands, in front of a white camellia plant which filled the fireplace.
That glance at her before she saw him renewed his dread. What was she
seeing among those white camellias?
"Well, Father!"
Soames shook his head. His tongue failed him. This was murderous work!
He saw her eyes dilate, her lips quivering.
"What? What? Quick, Father!"
"My dear," said Soames, "I--I did my best, but--" And again he shook
his head.
Fleur ran to him and put a hand on each of his shoulders.
"She?"
"No," muttered Soames; "he. I was to tell you that it was no use; he
must do what his father wished before he died." He caught her by the
waist. "Come, child, don't let them hurt you. They're not worth your
little finger."
Fleur tore herself from his grasp.
"You didn't--you couldn't have tried. You--you betrayed me, Father!"
Bitterly wounded, Soames gazed at her passionate figure writhing there
in front of him.
"You didn't try--you didn't--I was a fool--I won't believe he could--he
ever could! Only yesterday he--! Oh! why did I ask you?"
"Yes," said Soames quietly, "why did you? I swallowed my feelings; I
did my best for you, against my judgment--and this is my reward.
Good-night!"
With every nerve in his body twitching he went towards the door.
Fleur darted after him.
"He gives me up? You mean that? Father!"
Soames turned and forced himself to answer:
"Yes."
"Oh!" cried Fleur. "What did you--what could you have done in those old
days?"
The breathless sense of really monstrous injustice cut the power of
speech in Soames' throat. What had HE done! What had they done to him!
And with quite unconscious dignity he put his hand on his breast, and
looked at her.
"It's a shame!" cried Fleur passionately.
Soames went out. He mounted, slow and icy, to his picture-gallery, and
paced among his treasures. Outrageous! Oh! Outrageous! She was spoiled!
Ah! and who had spoiled her? He stood still before the Goya copy.
Accustomed to her own way in everything--Flower of his life! And now
that she couldn't have it. He turned to the window for some air.
Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the poplars! What
sound was that? Why! That piano thing! A dark tune, with a thrum and a
throb! She had set it going--what comfort could she get from that? His
eyes caught movement down there beyond the lawn, under the trellis of
rambler roses and young acacia-trees, where the moonlight fell. There
she was, roaming up and down. His heart gave a little sickening jump.
What would she do under this blow? How could he tell? What did he know
of her--he had only loved her all his life--looked on her as the apple
of his eye! He knew nothing--had no notion. There she was--and that
dark tune--and the river gleaming in the moonlight!
'I must go out,' he thought. He hastened down to the drawing-room,
lighted just as he had left it, with the piano thrumming out that
waltz, or fox-trot, or whatever they called it in these days, and
passed through on to the verandah. Where could he watch, without her
seeing him? And he stole down through the fruit garden to the
boat-house. He was between her and the river now, and his heart felt
lighter. She was his daughter, and Annette's--she wouldn't do anything
foolish; but there it was--he didn't know! From the boat-house window
he could see the last acacia and the spin of her skirt when she turned
in her restless march. That tune had run down at last--thank goodness!
He crossed the floor and looked through the farther window at the water
slow-flowing past the lilies. It made little bubbles against them,
bright where a moon-streak fell. He remembered suddenly that early
morning when he had slept in this boat-house after his father died, and
she had just been born--nearly nineteen years ago! Even now he recalled
the unaccustomed world when he woke up, the strange feeling it had
given him. That day the second passion of his life began--for this girl
of his, roaming under the acacias. What a comfort she had been to him!
And all the soreness and sense of outrage left him. If he could make
her happy again, he didn't care! An owl flew, queeking, queeking; a bat
flitted by; the moonlight brightened and broadened on the water. How
long was she going to roam about like this! He went back to the window,
and suddenly saw her coming down to the bank. She stood quite close, on
the landing-stage. And Soames watched, clenching his hands. Should he
speak to her? His excitement was intense. The stillness of her figure,
its youth, its absorption in despair, in longing, in--itself. He would
always remember it, moonlit like that; and the faint sweet reek of the
river and the shivering of the willow leaves. She had everything in the
world that he could give her, except the one thing that she could not
have because of him! The perversity of things hurt him at that moment,
as might a fish-bone in his throat. Then, with an infinite relief, he
saw her turn back towards the house. What could he give her to make
amends? Pearls, travel, horses, other young men--anything she
wanted--that he might lose the memory of her young figure lonely by the
water! There! She had set that tune going again! Why--it was a mania!
Dark, thrumming, faint, travelling from the house. It was as though she
had said: "If I can't have something to keep me going, I shall die of
this!" Soames dimly understood. Well, if it helped her, let her keep it
thrumming on all night! And, mousing back through the fruit garden, he
regained the verandah. Though he meant to go in and speak to her now,
he still hesitated, not knowing what to say, trying hard to recall how
it felt to be thwarted in love. He ought to know, ought to
remember--and he could not! Gone--all real recollection; except that it
had hurt him horribly. In this blankness he stood passing his
handkerchief over hands and lips, which were very dry. By craning his
head he could just see Fleur, standing with her back to that piano
still grinding out its tune, her arms tight crossed on her breast, a
lighted cigarette between her lips, whose smoke half veiled her face.
The expression on it was strange to Soames, the eyes shone and stared,
and every feature was alive with a sort of wretched scorn and anger.
Once or twice he had seen Annette look like that--the face was too
vivid, too naked, not HIS daughter's at that moment. And he dared not
go in, realising the futility of any attempt at consolation. He sat
down in the shadow of the ingle-nook. Monstrous trick, that Fate had
played him! Nemesis! That old unhappy marriage! And in God's name--why?
How was he to know, when he wanted Irene so violently, and she
consented to be his, that she would never love him? The tune died and
was renewed, and died again, and still Soames sat in the shadow,
waiting for he knew not what. The fag of Fleur's cigarette, flung
through the window, fell on the grass; he watched it glowing, burning
itself out. The moon had freed herself above the poplars, and poured
her unreality on the garden. Comfortless light, mysterious,
withdrawn--like the beauty of that woman who had never loved
him--dappling the nemesias and the stocks with a vesture not of earth.
Flowers! And his flower so unhappy! Ah, why could one not put happiness
into Local Loans, gild its edges, insure it against going down? Light
had ceased to flow out now from the drawing-room window. All was silent
and dark in there. Had she gone up? He rose, and, tiptoeing, peered in.
It seemed so! He entered. The verandah kept the moonlight out; and at
first he could see nothing but the outlines of furniture blacker than
the darkness. He groped towards the farther window to shut it. His foot
struck a chair, and he heard a gasp. There she was, curled and crushed
into the corner of the sofa! His hand hovered. Did she want his
consolation? He stood, gazing at that ball of crushed frills and hair
and graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out of sorrow. How leave
her there? At last he touched her hair, and said: "Come, darling,
better go to bed. I'll make it up to you, somehow." How fatuous! But
what could he have said?
IX
UNDER THE OAK-TREE
When their visitor had disappeared Jon and his mother stood without
speaking, till he said suddenly: "I ought to have seen him out." But
Soames was already walking down the drive, and Jon went up-stairs to
his father's studio, not trusting himself to go back. The expression on
his mother's face confronting the man she had once been married to, had
sealed a resolution growing within him ever since she left him the
night before. It had put the finishing touch of reality. To marry Fleur
would be to hit his mother in the face; to betray his dead father! It
was no good! Jon had the least resentful of natures. He bore his
parents no grudge in this hour of his distress. For one so young there
was a rather strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of
proportion. It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother even, than it
was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up, or to be the
cause of some one you loved giving up for you. He must not, would not
behave grudgingly! While he stood watching the tardy sunlight, he had
again that sudden vision of the world which had come to him the night
before. Sea on sea, country on country, millions on millions of people,
all with their own lives, energies, joys, griefs, and suffering--all
with things they had to give up, and separate struggles for existence.
Even though he might be willing to give up all else for the one thing
he couldn't have, he would be a fool to think his feelings mattered
much in so vast a world, and to behave like a cry-baby or a cad. He
pictured the people who had nothing--the millions who had given up life
in the war, the millions whom the war had left with life and little
else; the hungry children he had read of, the shattered men; people in
prison, every kind of unfortunate. And--they did not help him much. If
one had to miss a meal, what comfort in the knowledge that many others
had to miss it too? There was more distraction in the thought of
getting away out into this vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He
could not go on staying here, walled in and sheltered, with everything
so slick and comfortable, and nothing to do but brood and think what
might have been. He could not go back to Wansdon, and the memories of
Fleur. If he saw her again he could not trust himself; and if he stayed
here or went back there, he would surely see her. While they were
within reach of each other that must happen. To go far away and
quickly, was the only thing to do. But, however much he loved his
mother, he did not want to go away with her. Then feeling that was
brutal, he made up his mind desperately to propose that they should go
to Italy. For two hours in that melancholy room he tried to master
himself; then dressed solemnly for dinner.
His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length, and
talked of his father's catalogue. The Show was arranged for October,
and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do.
After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a little,
talked a little, till they were standing silent at last beneath the
oak-tree. Ruled by the thought: 'If I show anything, I show all,' Jon
put his arm through hers and said quite casually:
"Mother, let's go to Italy."
Irene pressed his arm, and said as casually:
"It would be very nice; but I've been thinking you ought to see and do
more than you would if I were with you."
"But then you'd be alone."
"I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should like to
be here for the opening of Father's show."
Jon's grip tightened round her arm; he was not deceived.
"You couldn't stay here all by yourself; it's too big."
"Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the show
opens. You ought to have a year at least, Jon, and see the world."
"Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it. But I don't want to leave
you all alone."
"My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll be for
mine. Why not start to-morrow? You've got your passport."
"Yes; if I'm going it had better be at once. Only--Mother--if--if I
wanted to stay out somewhere--America or anywhere, would you mind
coming presently?"
"Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you really
want me."
Jon drew a deep breath.
"I feel England's choky."
They stood a few minutes longer under the oak-tree--looking out to
where the grand stand at Epsom was veiled in evening. The branches kept
the moonlight from them, so that it only fell everywhere else--over the
fields and far away, and on the windows of the creepered house behind,
which soon would be to let.
X
FLEUR'S WEDDING
The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsyte to
Michael Mont hardly conveyed the symbolic significance of this event.
In the union of the great-granddaughter of "Superior Dosset" with the
heir of a ninth baronet was the outward and visible sign of that merger
of class in class which buttresses the political stability of a realm.
The time had come when the Forsytes might resign their natural
resentment against a "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as
the still more natural due of their possessive instincts. Besides, they
really had to mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich.
In that quiet but tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square, and afterwards
among the furniture in Green Street, it had been impossible for those
not in the know to distinguish the Forsyte troop from the Mont
contingent--so far away was "Superior Dosset" now. Was there, in the
crease of his trousers, the expression of his moustache, his accent, or
the shine on his top hat, a pin to choose between Soames and the ninth
baronet himself? Was not Fleur as self-possessed, quick, glancing,
pretty, and hard as the likeliest Muskham, Mont, or Charwell filly
present? If anything, the Forsytes had it in dress and looks and
manners. They had become "upper class" and now their name would be
formally recorded in the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether
this was a little late in the day, and those rewards of the possessive
instinct, lands and money destined for the melting-pot--was still a
question so moot that it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had said
Consols were goin' up. Timothy, the last, the missing link; Timothy in
extremis on the Bayswater Road--so Francie had reported. It was
whispered, too, that this young Mont was a sort of socialist--strangely
wise of him, and in the nature of insurance, considering the days they
lived in. There was no uneasiness on that score. The landed classes
produced that sort of amiable foolishness at times, turned to safe uses
and confined to theory. As George remarked to his sister Francie:
"They'll soon be having puppies--that'll give him pause."
The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of the
East window, looked extremely chaste, as though endeavouring to
counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service calculated to
keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes, Haymans, Tweetymans, sat
in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells, Muskhams in the right; while a
sprinkling of Fleur's fellow-sufferers at school, and of Mont's
fellow-sufferers in the war, gaped indiscriminately from either side,
and three maiden ladies, who had dropped in on their way from
Skyward's, brought up the rear, together with two Mont retainers and
Fleur's old nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a
house as could be expected.
Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row, squeezed
his hand more than once during the performance. To her, who knew the
plot of this tragi-comedy, its most dramatic moment was well-nigh
painful. 'I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she thought--Jon, out in
British Columbia. She had received a letter from him only that morning
which had made her smile and say:
"Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in California.
He thinks it's too nice there."
"Oh!" said Val, "so he's beginning to see a joke again."
"He's bought some land and sent for his mother."
"What on earth will she do out there?"
"All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy release?"
Val's shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pin-points between their dark lashes.
"Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bred right."
"Poor little Fleur!" sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange--this marriage!
The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of course, in the
reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. Such a plunge could
not but be--as Val put it--an outside chance. There was little to be
told from the back view of her young cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes
reviewed the general aspect of this Christian wedding. She who had made
a love-match which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy
marriages. This might not be one in the end--but it was clearly a
toss-up; and to consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured
unction before a crowd of fashionable free-thinkers--for who thought
otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were 'dolled'
up--seemed to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which had
abolished them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his robes (a
Charwell--the Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate) to Val,
beside her, thinking--she was certain of--the Mayfly filly at fifteen
to one for the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and caught the profile of
the ninth baronet, in counterfeitment of the kneeling process. She
could just see the neat ruck above his knees where he had pulled his
trousers up, and thought: 'Val's forgotten to pull up his!' Her eyes
passed to the pew in front of her, where Winifred's substantial form
was gowned with passion, and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling
side by side. A little smile came on her lips--Prosper Profond, back
from the South Seas of the Channel, would be kneeling too, about six
rows behind. Yes! This was a funny "small" business, however it turned
out; still it was in a proper church and would be in the proper papers
to-morrow morning.
They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across the
aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger touched Val's
thumb--they were holding the same hymn-book--and a tiny thrill passed
through her, preserved from twenty years ago. He stooped and whispered:
"I say, d'you remember the rat?" The rat at their wedding in Cape
Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table at the
Registrar's! And between her little and third finger she squeezed his
thumb hard.
The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his discourse. He
told them of the dangerous times they lived in, and the awful conduct
of the House of Lords in connection with divorce. They were all
soldiers--he said--in the trenches under the poisonous gas of the
Prince of Darkness, and must be manful. The purpose of marriage was
children, not mere sinful happiness.
An imp danced in Holly's eyes--Val's eyelashes were meeting. Whatever
happened, he must NOT snore. Her finger and thumb closed on his thigh;
till he stirred uneasily.
The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the
vestry; and general relaxation had set in.
A voice behind her said:
"Will she stay the course?"
"Who's that?" she whispered.
"Old George Forsyte!"
Holly demurely scrutinised one of whom she had often heard. Fresh from
South Africa, and ignorant of her kith and kin, she never saw one
without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big, and very dapper;
his eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no particular clothes.
"They're off!" she heard him say.
They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young
Mont's face. His lips and ears were twitching, his eyes, shifting from
his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before them as if
to face a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that he was
spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was different. The girl
was perfectly composed, prettier than ever, in her white robes and veil
over her banged dark chestnut hair; her eyelids hovered demure over her
dark hazel eyes. Outwardly, she seemed all there. But, inwardly, where
was she? As those two passed, Fleur raised her eyelids--the restless
glint of those clear whites remained on Holly's vision as might the
flutter of a caged bird's wings.
In Green Street Winifred stood to receive, just a little less composed
than usual. Soames' request for the use of her house had come on her at
a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence of a remark of
Prosper Profond, she had begun to exchange her Empire for
Expressionistic furniture. There were the most amusing arrangements,
with violet, green, and orange blobs and scriggles, to be had at
Mealard's. Another month and the change would have been complete. Just
now, the very "intriguing" recruits she had enlisted did not march too
well with the old guard. It was as if her regiment were half in khaki,
half in scarlet and bearskins. But her strong and comfortable character
made the best of it in a drawing-room which typified, perhaps, more
perfectly than she imagined, the semi-bolshevised imperialism of her
country. After all, this was a day of merger, and you couldn't have too
much of it! Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had
gripped the back of a buhl chair; young Mont was behind that "awfully
amusing" screen, which no one as yet had been able to explain to her.
The ninth baronet had shied violently at a round scarlet table, inlaid
tinder glass with blue Australian butterflies' wings, and was clinging
to her Louis-Quinze cabinet; Francie Forsyte had seized the new
mantel-board, finely carved with little purple grotesques on an ebony
ground; George, over by the old spinet, was holding a little sky-blue
book as if about to enter bets; Prosper Profond was twiddling the knob
of the open door, black with peacock-blue panels; and Annette's hands,
close by, were grasping her own waist; two Muskhams clung to the
balcony among the plants, as if feeling ill; Lady Mont, thin and
brave-looking, had taken up her long-handled glasses and was gazing at
the central light shade, of ivory and orange dashed with deep magenta,
as if the heavens had opened. Everybody, in fact, seemed holding on to
something. Only Fleur, still in her bridal dress, was detached from all
support, flinging her words and glances to left and right.
The room was full of the bubble and the squeak of conversation. Nobody
could hear anything that anybody said; which seemed of little
consequence, since no one waited for anything so slow as an answer.
Modern conversation seemed to Winifred so different from the days of
her prime, when a drawl was all the vogue. Still it was diverting,
which, of course, was all that mattered. Even the Forsytes were talking
with extreme rapidity--Fleur and Christopher, and Imogen, and young
Nicholas's youngest, Patrick. Soames, of course, was silent; but
George, by the spinet, kept up a running commentary, and Francie, by
her mantel-shelf. Winifred drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed
to promise a certain repose; his nose was fine and drooped a little,
his grey moustaches too; and she said, drawling through her smile;
"It's rather nice, isn't it?"
His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet:
"D'you remember, in Frazer, the tribe that buries the bride up to the
waist?"
He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark, lively little eyes, too, all
crinkled round like a Catholic priest's. Winifred felt suddenly he
might say things she would regret.
"They're always so diverting--weddings," she murmured, and moved on to
Soames. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once what was
dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to his left
Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not move without either seeing
those two together, or the reflection of them in George Forsyte's
japing eyes. He was quite right not to be taking notice.
"They say Timothy's sinking," he said glumly.
"Where will you put him, Soames?"
"Highgate." And counted on his fingers. "It'll make twelve of them
there, including wives. How do you think Fleur looks?"
"Remarkably well."
Soames nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could not
rid himself of the impression that this business was
unnatural--remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into the
corner of the sofa. From that night to this day he had received from
her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that she had made one
more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blank--an empty house, no one at
home. He knew that she had received a letter, but not what was in it,
except that it had made her hide herself and cry. He had remarked that
she looked at him sometimes when she thought he wasn't noticing, as if
she were wondering still what he had done--forsooth--to make those
people hate him so. Well, there it was! Annette had come back, and
things had worn on through the summer--very miserable, till suddenly
Fleur had said she was going to marry young Mont. She had shown him a
little more affection when she told Soames that. And he had
yielded--what was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never
wished to thwart her in anything! And the young man seemed quite
delirious about her. No doubt she was in a reckless mood, and she was
young, absurdly young. But if he opposed her, he didn't know what she
would do; for all he could tell she might want to take up a profession,
become a doctor or solicitor, some nonsense. She had no aptitude for
painting, writing, music, in his view the legitimate occupations of
unmarried women, if they must do something in these days. On the whole,
she was safer married, for he could see too well how feverish and
restless she was at home. Annette, too, had been in favour of
it--Annette, from behind the veil of his refusal to know what she was
about, if she was about anything. Annette had said: "Let her marry this
young man. He is a nice boy--not so highty-flighty as he seems." Where
she got her expressions, he didn't know--but her opinion soothed his
doubts. His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost
depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand on
Fleur, taking care that there was no cross settlement in case it didn't
turn out well. Could it turn out well? She had not got over that other
boy--he knew. They were to go to Spain for the honeymoon. He would be
even lonelier when she was gone. But later, perhaps, she would forget,
and turn to him again!
Winifred's voice broke on his reverie.
"Why! Of all wonders--June!"
There, in a djibbah--what things she wore!--with her hair straying from
under a fillet, Soames saw his cousin, and Fleur going forward to greet
her. The two passed from their view out on to the stairway.
"Really," said Winifred, "she does the most impossible things! Fancy
HER coming!"
"What made you ask her?" muttered Soames.
"Because I thought she wouldn't accept, of course."
Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of
character; or, in other words, omitted to remember that Fleur was now a
"lame duck."
On receiving her invitation, June had first thought: 'I wouldn't go
near them for the world!' and then, one morning, had awakened from a
dream of Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild unhappy gesture.
And she had changed her mind.
When Fleur came forward and said to her:
"Do come up while I'm changing my dress"; she had followed up the
stairs. The girl led the way into Imogen's old bedroom, set ready for
her toilet.
June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit in the
sere and yellow. Fleur locked the door.
The girl stood before her divested of her wedding-dress. What a pretty
thing she was!
"I suppose you think me a fool," she said, with quivering lips, "when
it was to have been Jon. But what does it matter? Michael wants me, and
I don't care. It'll get me away from home." Diving her hand into the
frills on her breast, she brought out a letter. "Jon wrote me this."
June read: "Lake Okanagen, British Columbia. I'm not coming back to
England. Bless you always. Jon."
"She's made safe, you see," said Fleur.
June handed back the letter.
"That's not fair to Irene; she always told Jon he could do as he
wished."
Fleur smiled bitterly. "Didn't she spoil your life too?"
"Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's nonsense. Things happen, but
we bob up."
Then with a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and bury
her face in the djibbah, with a strangled sob.
"It's all right--all right," June murmured: "Don't! There, there!"
But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her
thigh, and the sound was dreadful of her sobbing. Well, well! It had to
come. She would feel better afterwards! June stroked the short hair of
that shapely head and all the scattered mother-sense in her focussed
itself and passed through the tips of her fingers into the girl's brain.
"Don't sit down under it, my dear," she said at last. "We can't control
life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. I've had to. I held
on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now. And look at me!"
Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked
laugh. In truth it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit she was
looking at, but it had brave eyes.
"All right!" she said. "I'm sorry. I shall forget him, I suppose, if I
fly fast and far enough."
And, scrambling to her feet, she went over to the washstand.
June watched her removing with cold water the traces of emotion. Save
for a little becoming pinkness there was nothing left when she stood
before the mirror. June got off the bed and took a pin-cushion in her
hand. To put two pins into the wrong places was all the vent she found
for sympathy.
"Give me a kiss," she said when Fleur was ready, and dug her chin into
the girl's warm cheek.
"I want a whiff," said Fleur; "don't wait."
June left her, sitting on the bed with a cigarette between her lips and
her eyes half closed, and went down-stairs. In the doorway of the
drawing-room stood Soames as if unquiet at his daughter's tardiness.
June tossed her head and passed down on to the half landing. Her cousin
Francie was standing there.
"Look!" said June, pointing with her chin at Soames. "That man's fatal!"
"How do you mean," said Francie, "fatal?"
June did not answer her. "I shan't wait to see them off," she said.
"Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" And Francie's eyes, of a Celtic grey, goggled. That old
feud! Really, it was quite romantic!
Soames, moving to the well of the staircase, saw June go, and drew a
breath of satisfaction. But why didn't Fleur come? They would miss
their train. That train would bear her away from him, yet he could not
help fidgeting at the thought that they would lose it. And then she did
come, running down in her tan-coloured frock and black velvet cap, and
passed him into the drawing-room. He saw her kiss her mother, her aunt,
Val's wife, Imogen, and then come forth, quick and pretty as ever. How
would she treat him at this last moment of her girlhood? He couldn't
hope for much!
Her lips pressed the middle of his cheek.
"Daddy!" she said, and was past and gone. Daddy! She hadn't called him
that for years. He drew a long breath and followed slowly down. There
was all the folly with that confetti stuff and the rest of it to go
through with, yet. But he would like just to catch her smile, if she
leaned out, though they would hit her in the eye with the shoe, if they
didn't take care. Young Mont's voice said fervently in his ear:
"Good-bye, sir; and thank you! I'm so fearfully bucked."
"Good-bye," he said; "don't miss your train."
He stood on the bottom step but three, whence he could see above the
heads--the silly hats and heads. They were in the car now; and there
was that stuff, showering, and there went the shoe. A flood of
something welled up in Soames, and--he didn't know--he couldn't see!
XI
THE LAST OF THE FORSYTES
When they came to prepare that terrific symbol Timothy Forsyte--the one
pure individualist left, the only man who hadn't heard of the Great
War--they found him wonderful--not even death had undermined his
soundness.
To Smither and Cook that preparation came like final evidence of what
they had never believed possible--the end of the old Forsyte family on
earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing in the company of
Miss Forsyte, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester; with Mr. Jolyon, Mr. Swithin,
Mr. James, Mr. Roger, and Mr. Nicholas of the party. Whether Mrs.
Hayman would be there was more doubtful, seeing that she had been
cremated. Secretly Cook thought that Mr. Timothy would be upset--he had
always been so set against barrel organs. How many times had she not
said: "Drat the thing! There it is again! Smither, you'd better run up
and see what you can do." And in her heart she would so have enjoyed
the tunes, if she hadn't known that Mr. Timothy would ring the bell in
a minute and say: "Here, take him a halfpenny and tell him to move on."
Often they had been obliged to add threepence of their own before the
man would go--Timothy had ever underrated the value of emotion. Luckily
he had taken the organs for blue-bottles in his last years, which had
been a comfort, and they had been able to enjoy the tunes. But a harp!
Cook wondered. It WAS a change! And Mr. Timothy had never liked change.
But she did not speak of this to Smither, who did so take a line of her
own in regard to heaven that it quite put one about sometimes.
She cried while Timothy was being prepared, and they all had sherry
afterwards out of the yearly Christmas bottle, which would not be
needed now. Ah! dear! She had been there five-and-forty years and
Smither nine-and-thirty! And now they would be going to a tiny house in
Tooting, to live on their savings and what Miss Hester had so kindly
left them--for to take fresh service after the glorious past--No! But
they WOULD like just to see Mr. Soames again, and Mrs. Dartie, and Miss
Francie, and Miss Euphemia. And even if they had to take their own cab,
they felt they must go to the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had
been their baby, getting younger and younger every day, till at last he
had been too young to live.
They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and dusting, in
catching the one mouse left, and asphyxiating the last beetle, so as to
leave it nice, discussing with each other what they would buy at the
sale. Miss Ann's work-box; Miss Juley's (that is Mrs. Julia's) seaweed
album; the fire-screen Miss Hester had crewelled; and Mr. Timothy's
hair--little golden curls, glued into a black frame. Oh! they must have
those--only the price of things had gone up so!
It fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral. He had them
drawn up by Gradman in his office--only blood relations, and no
flowers. Six carriages were ordered. The Will would be read afterwards
at the house.
He arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready. At a quarter
past old Gradman came in black gloves and crape on his hat. He and
Soames stood in the drawing-room waiting. At half-past eleven the
carriages drew up in a long row. But no one else appeared. Gradman said:
"It surprises me, Mr. Soames. I posted them myself."
"I don't know," said Soames; "he'd lost touch with the family."
Soames had often noticed in old days how much more neighbourly his
family were to the dead than to the living. But, now, the way they had
flocked to Fleur's wedding and abstained from Timothy's funeral, seemed
to show some vital change. There might, of course, be another reason;
for Soames felt that if he had not known the contents of Timothy's
Will, he might have stayed away himself through delicacy. Timothy had
left a lot of money, with nobody in particular to leave it to. They
mightn't like to seem to expect something.
At twelve o'clock the procession left the door; Timothy alone in the
first carriage under glass. Then Soames alone; then Gradman alone; then
Cook and Smither together. They started at a walk, but were soon
trotting under a bright sky. At the entrance to Highgate Cemetery they
were delayed by service in the Chapel. Soames would have liked to stay
outside in the sunshine. He didn't believe a word of it; on the other
hand, it was a form of insurance which could not safely be neglected,
in case there might be something in it after all.
They walked up two and two--he and Gradman, Cook and Smither--to the
family vault. It was not very distinguished for the funeral of the last
old Forsyte.
He took Gradman into his carriage on the way back to the Bayswater Road
with a certain glow in his heart. He had a surprise in pickle for the
old chap who had served the Forsytes four-and-fifty years--a treat that
was entirely his doing. How well he remembered saying to Timothy the
day after Aunt Hester's funeral: "Well, Uncle Timothy, there's Gradman.
He's taken a lot of trouble for the family. What do you say to leaving
him five thousand?" and his surprise, seeing the difficulty there had
been in getting Timothy to leave anything, when Timothy had nodded. And
now the old chap would be as pleased as Punch, for Mrs. Gradman, he
knew, had a weak heart, and their son had lost a leg in the war. It was
extraordinarily gratifying to Soames to have left him five thousand
pounds of Timothy's money. They sat down together in the little
drawing-room, whose walls--like a vision of heaven--were sky-blue and
gold, with every picture-frame unnaturally bright, and every speck of
dust removed from every piece of furniture, to read that little
masterpiece,--the Will of Timothy. With his back to the light in Aunt
Hester's chair, Soames faced Gradman with his face to the light on Aunt
Ann's sofa; and, crossing his legs, began:
"This is the last Will and Testament of me Timothy Forsyte of The Bower
Bayswater Road London I appoint my nephew Soames Forsyte of The Shelter
Mapledurham and Thomas Gradman of 159 Folly Road Highgate (hereinafter
called my Trustees) to be the trustees and executors of this my Will.
To the said Soames Forsyte I leave the sum of one thousand pounds free
of legacy duty and to the said Thomas Gradman I leave the sum of five
thousand pounds free of legacy duty."
Soames paused. Old Gradman was leaning forward, convulsively gripping a
stout black knee with each of his thick hands; his mouth had fallen
open so that the gold fillings of three teeth gleamed; his eyes were
blinking; two tears rolled slowly out of them. Soames read hastily on.
"All the rest of my property of whatsoever description I bequeath to my
Trustees upon Trust to convert and hold the same upon the following
trusts namely. To pay thereout all my debts funeral expenses and
outgoings of any kind in connection with my Will and to hold the
residue thereof in trust for that male lineal descendant of my father
Jolyon Forsyte by his marriage with Ann Pierce who after the decease of
all lineal descendants whether male or female of my said father by his
said marriage in being at the time of my death shall last attain the
age of twenty-one years absolutely it being my desire that my property
shall be nursed to the extreme limit permitted by the laws of England
for the benefit of such male lineal descendant as aforesaid."
Soames read the investment and attestation clauses, and, ceasing,
looked at Gradman. The old fellow was wiping his brow with a large
handkerchief, whose brilliant colour supplied a sudden festive tinge to
the proceedings.
"My word, Mr. Soames!" he said, and it was clear that the lawyer in him
had utterly wiped out the man: "My word! Why, there are two babies now,
and some quite young children--if one of them lives to be eighty--it's
not a great age--and add twenty-one--that's a hundred years; and Mr.
Timothy worth a hundred and fifty thousand pound if he's worth a penny.
Compound interest at five per cent doubles you in fourteen years. In
fourteen years three hundred thousand--six hundred thousand in
twenty-eight--twelve hundred thousand in forty-two--twenty-four hundred
thousand in fifty-six--four million eight hundred thousand in
seventy--nine million six hundred thousand in eighty-four--Why, in a
hundred years it'll be twenty million! And we shan't live to see it! It
IS a Will!"
Soames said dryly: "Anything may happen. The State might take the lot;
they're capable of anything in these days."
"And carry five," said Gradman to himself. "I forgot--Mr. Timothy's in
Consols; we shan't get more than two per cent with this income tax. To
be on the safe side, say seven million. Still, that's a pretty penny."
Soames rose and handed him the Will. "You're going into the City. Take
care of that, and do what's necessary. Advertise; but there are no
debts. When's the sale?"
"Tuesday week," said Gradman. "Life or lives in bein' and twenty-one
years afterwards--it's a long way off. But I'm glad he's left it in the
family." ...
The sale--not at Jobson's, in view of the Victorian nature of the
effects--was far more freely attended than the funeral, though not by
Cook and Smither, for Soames had taken it on himself to give them their
hearts' desires. Winifred was present, Euphemia, and Francie, and
Eustace had come in his car. The miniatures, Barbizons, and J. R.
drawings had been bought in by Soames; and relics of no marketable
value were set aside in an off-room for members of the family who cared
to have mementos. These were the only restrictions upon bidding
characterised by an almost tragic langour. Not one piece of furniture,
no picture or porcelain figure appealed to modern taste. The
humming-birds had fallen like autumn leaves when taken from where they
had not hummed for sixty years. It was painful to Soames to see the
chairs his aunts had sat on, the little grand piano they had
practically never played, the books whose outsides they had gazed at,
the china they had dusted, the curtains they had drawn, the hearth-rug
which had warmed their feet; above all, the beds they had lain and died
in--sold to little dealers, and the housewives of Fulham. And yet--what
could one do? Buy them and stick them in a lumber-room? No; they had to
go the way of all flesh and furniture, and be worn out. But when they
put up Aunt Ann's sofa and were going to knock it down for thirty
shillings, he cried out, suddenly: "Five pounds!" The sensation was
considerable, and the sofa his.
When that little sale was over in the fusty saleroom, and those
Victorian ashes scattered, he went out into the misty October sunshine
feeling as if cosiness had died out of the world, and the board "To
Let" was up, indeed. Revolutions on the horizon; Fleur in Spain; no
comfort in Annette; no Timothy's on the Bayswater Road. In the
irritable desolation of his soul he went into the Goupenor Gallery.
That chap Jolyon's water-colours were on view there. He went in to look
down his nose at them--it might give him some faint satisfaction. The
news had trickled through from June to Val's wife, from her to Val,
from Val to his mother, from her to Soames, that the house--the fatal
house at Robin Hill--was for sale, and Irene going to join her boy out
in British Columbia, or some such place. For one wild moment the
thought had come to Soames: 'Why shouldn't I buy it back? I meant it
for my--!' No sooner come than gone. Too lugubrious a triumph; with two
many humiliating memories for himself and Fleur. She would never live
there after what had happened. No, the place must go its way to some
peer or profiteer. It had been a bone of contention from the first, the
shell of the feud and with the woman gone, it was an empty shell. "For
Sale or To Let." With his mind's eye he could see that board raised
high above the ivied wall which he had built.
He passed through the first of the two rooms in the Gallery. There was
certainly a body of work! And now that the fellow was dead it did not
seem so trivial. The drawings were pleasing enough, with quite a sense
of atmosphere, and something individual in the brush work. 'His father
and my father; he and I; his child and mine!' thought Soames. So it had
gone on! And all about that woman! Softened by the events of the past
week, affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came
nearer than he had ever been to realisation of that truth--passing the
understanding of a Forsyte pure--that the body of Beauty has a
spiritual essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks not of
self. After all, he was near that truth in his devotion to his
daughter; perhaps that made him understand a little how he had missed
the prize. And there, among the drawings of his kinsman, who had
attained to that which he had found beyond his reach, he thought of him
and her with a tolerance which surprised him. But he did not buy a
drawing.
Just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer air he
met with a contingency which had not been entirely absent from his mind
when he went into the Gallery--Irene, herself, coming in. So she had
not gone yet, and was still paying farewell visits to that fellow's
remains! He subdued the little involuntary leap of his
subconsciousness, the mechanical reaction of his senses to the charm of
this once-owned woman, and passed her with averted eyes. But when he
had gone by he could not for the life of him help looking back. This,
then, was finality--the heat and stress of his life, the madness and
the longing thereof, the long, the only defeat he had known, would be
over when she faded from his view this time; even such memories had
their own queer aching value. She, too, was looking back. Suddenly she
lifted her gloved hand, her lips smiled faintly, her dark eyes seemed
to speak. It was the turn of Soames to make no answer to that smile and
that little farewell wave; he went out into the fashionable street
quivering from head to foot. He knew what she had meant to say: "Now
that I am going for ever out of the reach of you and yours--forgive me;
I wish you well." That was the meaning; last sign of that terrible
reality--passing morality, duty, common sense--her aversion from him
who had owned her body but had never touched her spirit or her heart.
It hurt; yes--more than if she had kept her mask unmoved, her hand
unlifted.
Three days later, in that fast-yellowing October, Soames took a
taxi-cab to Highgate Cemetery and mounted through its white forest to
the Forsyte vault. Close to the cedar, above catacombs and columbaria,
tall, ugly, and individual, it looked like an apex of the competitive
system. He could remember a discussion wherein Swithin had advocated
the addition to its face of the pheasant proper. The proposal had been
rejected in favour of a wreath in stone, above the stark words: "The
family vault of Jolyon Forsyte: 1850." It was in good order. All trace
of the recent interment had been removed, and its sober grey gloomed
reposefully in the sunshine. The whole family lay there now, except old
Jolyon's wife, who had gone back under a contract to her own family
vault in Suffolk; old Jolyon himself lying at Robin Hill; and Susan
Hayman, cremated so that none knew where she might be. Soames gazed at
it with satisfaction--massive, needing little attention; and this was
important, for he was well aware that no one would attend to it when he
himself was gone, and he would have to be looking out for lodgings
soon. He might have twenty years before him, but one never knew. Twenty
years without an aunt or uncle, with a wife of whom one had better not
know anything, with a daughter gone from home. His mood inclined to
melancholy and retrospection. This cemetery was quite full now--of
people with extraordinary names, buried in extraordinary taste. Still,
they had a fine view up here, right over London. Annette had once given
him a story to read by that Frenchman, Maupassant--a most lugubrious
concern, where all the skeletons emerged from their graves one night,
and all the pious inscriptions on the stones were altered to
descriptions of their sins. Not a true story at all. He didn't know
about the French, but there was not much real harm in English people
except their teeth and their taste, which were certainly deplorable.
"The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte, 1850." A lot of people had been
buried here since then--a lot of English life crumbled to mould and
dust! The boom of an airplane passing under the gold-tinted clouds
caused him to lift his eyes. The deuce of a lot of expansion had gone
on. But it all came back to a cemetery--to a name and a date on a tomb.
And he thought with a curious pride that he and his family had done
little or nothing to help this feverish expansion. Good solid
middlemen, they had gone to work with dignity to manage and possess.
"Superior Dosset," indeed, had built, in a dreadful, and Jolyon
painted, in a doubtful period, but so far as he remembered not another
of them all had soiled his hands by creating anything--unless you
counted Val Dartie and his horse-breeding. Collectors, solicitors,
barristers, merchants, publishers, accountants, directors, land agents,
even soldiers--there they had been! The country had expanded, as it
were, in spite of them. They had checked, controlled, defended, and
taken advantage of the process--and when you considered how "Superior
Dosset" had begun life with next to nothing, and his lineal descendants
already owned what old Gradman estimated at between a million and a
million and a half, it was not so bad! And yet he sometimes felt as if
the family bolt was shot, their possessive instinct dying out. They
seemed unable to make money--this fourth generation; they were going
into art, literature, farming, or the army; or just living on what was
left them--they had no push and no tenacity. They would die out if they
didn't take care.
Soames turned from the vault and faced towards the breeze. The air up
here would be delicious if only he could rid his nerves of the feeling
that mortality was in it. He gazed restlessly at the crosses and the
urns, the angels, the "immortelles," the flowers, gaudy or withering;
and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed so different from anything
else up there that he was obliged to walk the few necessary yards and
look at it. A sober corner, with a massive queer-shaped cross of grey
rough-hewn granite, guarded by four dark yew-trees. The spot was free
from the pressure of the other graves, having a little box-hedged
garden on the far side, arid in front a goldening birch-tree. This
oasis in the desert of conventional graves appealed to the aesthetic
sense of Soames, and he sat down there in the sunshine. Through those
trembling gold birch leaves he gazed out at London, and yielded to the
waves of memory. He thought of Irene in Montpellier Square, when her
hair was rusty-golden and her white shoulders his--Irene, the prize of
his love--passion, resistant to his ownership. He saw Bosinney's body
lying in that white mortuary, and Irene sitting on the sofa looking at
her picture with the eyes of a dying bird. Again he thought of her by
the little green Niobe in the Bois de Boulogne, once more rejecting
him. His fancy took him on beside his drifting river on the November
day when Fleur was to be born, took him to the dead leaves floating on
the green-tinged water and the snake-headed weed for ever swaying and
nosing, sinuous, blind, tethered. And on again to the window opened to
the cold starry night above Hyde Park, with his father lying dead. His
fancy darted to that picture of "The Future Town," to that boy's and
Fleur's first meeting; to the blueish trail of Prosper Profond's cigar,
and Fleur in the window pointing down to where the fellow prowled. To
the sight of Irene and that dead fellow sitting side by side in the
Stand at Lord's. To her and that boy at Robin Hill. To the sofa, where
Fleur lay crushed up in the corner; to her lips pressed into his cheek,
and her farewell "Daddy." And suddenly he saw again Irene's grey-gloved
hand waving its last gesture of release.
He sat there a long time dreaming his career, faithful to the scut of
his possessive instinct, warming himself even with its failures.
"To Let"--the Forsyte age and way of life, when a man owned his soul,
his investments, and his woman, without check or question. And now the
State had, or would have, his investments, his woman had herself, and
God knew who had his soul. "To Let"--that sane and simple creed!
The waters of change were foaming in, carrying the promise of new forms
only when their destructive flood should have passed its full. He sat
there, subconscious of them, but with his thoughts resolutely set on
the past--as a man might ride into a wild night with his face to the
tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the Victorian dykes the waters
were rolling on property, manners, and morals, on melody and the old
forms of art--waters bringing to his mouth a salt taste as of blood,
lapping to the foot of this Highgate Hill where Victorianism lay
buried. And sitting there, high up on its most individual spot,
Soames--like a figure of Investment--refused their restless sounds.
Instinctively he would not fight them--there was in him too much
primeval wisdom, of Man the possessive animal. They would quiet down
when they had fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and
destroying; when the creations and the properties of others were
sufficiently broken and dejected--they would lapse and ebb, and fresh
forms would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of
change--the instinct of Home.
"Je m'en fiche," said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say "Je m'en
fiche"--it was French, and the fellow was a thorn in his side--but deep
down he knew that change was only the interval of death between two
forms of life, destruction necessary to make room for fresher property.
What though the board was up, and cosiness to let?--some one would come
along and take it again some day.
And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there--the melancholy
craving in his heart--because the sun was like enchantment on his face
and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle
was so gentle, and the yew-tree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon
pale in the sky.
Ah! He might wish and wish and never get it--the beauty and the loving
in the world!
THE END