Old Jolyon disposed of his second Meeting—an ordinary
Board—summarily. He was so dictatorial that his fellow directors
were left in cabal over the increasing domineeringness of old
Forsyte, which they were far from intending to stand much longer,
they said.
He went out by Underground to Portland Road Station, whence he
took a cab and drove to the Zoo.
He had an assignation there, one of those assignations that had
lately been growing more frequent, to which his increasing
uneasiness about June and the “change in her,” as he expressed
it, was driving him.
She buried herself away, and was growing thin; if he spoke to her
he got no answer, or had his head snapped off, or she looked as
if she would burst into tears. She was as changed as she could
be, all through this Bosinney. As for telling him about anything,
not a bit of it!
And he would sit for long spells brooding, his paper unread
before him, a cigar extinct between his lips. She had been such a
companion to him ever since she was three years old! And he loved
her so!
Forces regardless of family or class or custom were beating down
his guard; impending events over which he had no control threw
their shadows on his head. The irritation of one accustomed to
have his way was roused against he knew not what.
Chafing at the slowness of his cab, he reached the Zoo door; but,
with his sunny instinct for seizing the good of each moment, he
forgot his vexation as he walked towards the tryst.
From the stone terrace above the bear-pit his son and his two
grandchildren came hastening down when they saw old Jolyon
coming, and led him away towards the lion-house. They supported
him on either side, holding one to each of his hands,—whilst
Jolly, perverse like his father, carried his grandfather’s
umbrella in such a way as to catch people’s legs with the crutch
of the handle.
Young Jolyon followed.
It was as good as a play to see his father with the children, but
such a play as brings smiles with tears behind. An old man and
two small children walking together can be seen at any hour of
the day; but the sight of old Jolyon, with Jolly and Holly seemed
to young Jolyon a special peep-show of the things that lie at the
bottom of our hearts. The complete surrender of that erect old
figure to those little figures on either hand was too poignantly
tender, and, being a man of an habitual reflex action, young
Jolyon swore softly under his breath. The show affected him in a
way unbecoming to a Forsyte, who is nothing if not
undemonstrative.
Thus they reached the lion-house.
There had been a morning fête at the Botanical Gardens, and a
large number of Forsy—that is, of well-dressed people who kept
carriages had brought them on to the Zoo, so as to have more, if
possible, for their money, before going back to Rutland Gate or
Bryanston Square.
“Let’s go on to the Zoo,” they had said to each other; “it’ll be
great fun!” It was a shilling day; and there would not be all
those horrid common people.
In front of the long line of cages they were collected in rows,
watching the tawny, ravenous beasts behind the bars await their
only pleasure of the four-and-twenty hours. The hungrier the
beast, the greater the fascination. But whether because the
spectators envied his appetite, or, more humanely, because it was
so soon to be satisfied, young Jolyon could not tell. Remarks
kept falling on his ears: “That’s a nasty-looking brute, that
tiger!” “Oh, what a love! Look at his little mouth!” “Yes, he’s
rather nice! Don’t go too near, mother.”
And frequently, with little pats, one or another would clap their
hands to their pockets behind and look round, as though expecting
young Jolyon or some disinterested-looking person to relieve them
of the contents.
A well-fed man in a white waistcoat said slowly through his
teeth: “It’s all greed; they can’t be hungry. Why, they take no
exercise.” At these words a tiger snatched a piece of bleeding
liver, and the fat man laughed. His wife, in a Paris model frock
and gold nose-nippers, reproved him: “How can you laugh, Harry?
Such a horrid sight!”
Young Jolyon frowned.
The circumstances of his life, though he had ceased to take a too
personal view of them, had left him subject to an intermittent
contempt; and the class to which he had belonged—the carriage
class—especially excited his sarcasm.
To shut up a lion or tiger in confinement was surely a horrible
barbarity. But no cultivated person would admit this.
The idea of its being barbarous to confine wild animals had
probably never even occurred to his father for instance; he
belonged to the old school, who considered it at once humanizing
and educational to confine baboons and panthers, holding the
view, no doubt, that in course of time they might induce these
creatures not so unreasonably to die of misery and heart-sickness
against the bars of their cages, and put the society to the
expense of getting others! In his eyes, as in the eyes of all
Forsytes, the pleasure of seeing these beautiful creatures in a
state of captivity far outweighed the inconvenience of
imprisonment to beasts whom God had so improvidently placed in a
state of freedom! It was for the animals’ good, removing them at
once from the countless dangers of open air and exercise, and
enabling them to exercise their functions in the guaranteed
seclusion of a private compartment! Indeed, it was doubtful what
wild animals were made for but to be shut up in cages!
But as young Jolyon had in his constitution the elements of
impartiality, he reflected that to stigmatize as barbarity that
which was merely lack of imagination must be wrong; for none who
held these views had been placed in a similar position to the
animals they caged, and could not, therefore, be expected to
enter into their sensations. It was not until they were leaving
the gardens—Jolly and Holly in a state of blissful delirium—that
old Jolyon found an opportunity of speaking to his son on the
matter next his heart. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he
said; “if she’s to go on as she’s going on now, I can’t tell
what’s to come. I wanted her to see the doctor, but she won’t.
She’s not a bit like me. She’s your mother all over. Obstinate as
a mule! If she doesn’t want to do a thing, she won’t, and there’s
an end of it!”
Young Jolyon smiled; his eyes had wandered to his father’s chin.
“A pair of you,” he thought, but he said nothing.
“And then,” went on old Jolyon, “there’s this Bosinney. I should
like to punch the fellow’s head, but I can’t, I suppose, though—I
don’t see why you shouldn’t,” he added doubtfully.
“What has he done? Far better that it should come to an end, if
they don’t hit it off!”
Old Jolyon looked at his son. Now they had actually come to
discuss a subject connected with the relations between the sexes
he felt distrustful. Jo would be sure to hold some loose view or
other.
“Well, I don’t know what you think,” he said; “I dare say your
sympathy’s with him—shouldn’t be surprised; but I think he’s
behaving precious badly, and if he comes my way I shall tell him
so.” He dropped the subject.
It was impossible to discuss with his son the true nature and
meaning of Bosinney’s defection. Had not his son done the very
same thing (worse, if possible) fifteen years ago? There seemed
no end to the consequences of that piece of folly.
Young Jolyon also was silent; he had quickly penetrated his
father’s thought, for, dethroned from the high seat of an obvious
and uncomplicated view of things, he had become both perceptive
and subtle.
The attitude he had adopted towards sexual matters fifteen years
before, however, was too different from his father’s. There was
no bridging the gulf.
He said coolly: “I suppose he’s fallen in love with some other
woman?”
Old Jolyon gave him a dubious look: “I can’t tell,” he said;
“they say so!”
“Then, it’s probably true,” remarked young Jolyon unexpectedly;
“and I suppose _they’ve_ told you who she is?”
“Yes,” said old Jolyon, “Soames’s wife!”
Young Jolyon did not whistle: The circumstances of his own life
had rendered him incapable of whistling on such a subject, but he
looked at his father, while the ghost of a smile hovered over his
face.
If old Jolyon saw, he took no notice.
“She and June were bosom friends!” he muttered.
“Poor little June!” said young Jolyon softly. He thought of his
daughter still as a babe of three.
Old Jolyon came to a sudden halt.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” he said, “it’s some old woman’s
tale. Get me a cab, Jo, I’m tired to death!”
They stood at a corner to see if an empty cab would come along,
while carriage after carriage drove past, bearing Forsytes of all
descriptions from the Zoo. The harness, the liveries, the gloss
on the horses’ coats, shone and glittered in the May sunlight,
and each equipage, landau, sociable, barouche, Victoria, or
brougham, seemed to roll out proudly from its wheels:
“I and my horses and my men you know,
Indeed the whole turn-out have cost a pot.
But we were worth it every penny. Look
At Master and at Missis now, the dawgs!
Ease with security—ah! that’s the ticket!”
And such, as everyone knows, is fit accompaniment for a
perambulating Forsyte.
Amongst these carriages was a barouche coming at a greater pace
than the others, drawn by a pair of bright bay horses. It swung
on its high springs, and the four people who filled it seemed
rocked as in a cradle.
This chariot attracted young Jolyon’s attention; and suddenly, on
the back seat, he recognised his Uncle James, unmistakable in
spite of the increased whiteness of his whiskers; opposite, their
backs defended by sunshades, Rachel Forsyte and her elder but
married sister, Winifred Dartie, in irreproachable toilettes, had
posed their heads haughtily, like two of the birds they had been
seeing at the Zoo; while by James’ side reclined Dartie, in a
brand-new frock-coat buttoned tight and square, with a large
expanse of carefully shot linen protruding below each wristband.
An extra, if subdued, sparkle, an added touch of the best gloss
or varnish characterized this vehicle, and seemed to distinguish
it from all the others, as though by some happy extravagance—like
that which marks out the real “work of art” from the ordinary
“picture”—it were designated as the typical car, the very throne
of Forsytedom.
Old Jolyon did not see them pass; he was petting poor Holly who
was tired, but those in the carriage had taken in the little
group; the ladies’ heads tilted suddenly, there was a spasmodic
screening movement of parasols; James’ face protruded naively,
like the head of a long bird, his mouth slowly opening. The
shield-like rounds of the parasols grew smaller and smaller, and
vanished.
Young Jolyon saw that he had been recognised, even by Winifred,
who could not have been more than fifteen when he had forfeited
the right to be considered a Forsyte.
There was not much change in _them!_ He remembered the exact look
of their turn-out all that time ago: Horses, men, carriage—all
different now, no doubt—but of the precise stamp of fifteen years
before; the same neat display, the same nicely calculated
arrogance ease with security! The swing exact, the pose of the
sunshades exact, exact the spirit of the whole thing.
And in the sunlight, defended by the haughty shields of parasols,
carriage after carriage went by.
“Uncle James has just passed, with his female folk,” said young
Jolyon.
His father looked black. “Did your uncle see us? Yes? Hmph!
What’s _he_ want, coming down into these parts?”
An empty cab drove up at this moment, and old Jolyon stopped it.
“I shall see you again before long, my boy!” he said. “Don’t you
go paying any attention to what I’ve been saying about young
Bosinney—I don’t believe a word of it!”
Kissing the children, who tried to detain him, he stepped in and
was borne away.
Young Jolyon, who had taken Holly up in his arms, stood
motionless at the corner, looking after the cab.