said that Irene was not well; he felt he could no longer trust
himself. His mother kissed him with her large soft kiss, and he
pressed her hand, a flush of warmth in his cheeks. He walked away
in the cold wind, which whistled desolately round the corners of
the streets, under a sky of clear steel-blue, alive with stars;
he noticed neither their frosty greeting, nor the crackle of the
curled-up plane-leaves, nor the night-women hurrying in their
shabby furs, nor the pinched faces of vagabonds at street
corners. Winter was come! But Soames hastened home, oblivious;
his hands trembled as he took the late letters from the gilt wire
cage into which they had been thrust through the slit in the
door.
None from Irene!
He went into the dining-room; the fire was bright there, his
chair drawn up to it, slippers ready, spirit case, and carven
cigarette box on the table; but after staring at it all for a
minute or two, he turned out the light and went upstairs. There
was a fire too in his dressing-room, but her room was dark and
cold. It was into this room that Soames went.
He made a great illumination with candles, and for a long time
continued pacing up and down between the bed and the door. He
could not get used to the thought that she had really left him,
and as though still searching for some message, some reason, some
reading of all the mystery of his married life, he began opening
every recess and drawer.
There were her dresses; he had always liked, indeed insisted,
that she should be well-dressed—she had taken very few; two or
three at most, and drawer after drawer; full of linen and silk
things, was untouched.
Perhaps after all it was only a freak, and she had gone to the
seaside for a few days’ change. If only that were so, and she
were really coming back, he would never again do as he had done
that fatal night before last, never again run that risk—though it
was her duty, her duty as a wife; though she did belong to him—he
would never again run that risk; she was evidently not quite
right in her head!
He stooped over the drawer where she kept her jewels; it was not
locked, and came open as he pulled; the jewel box had the key in
it. This surprised him until he remembered that it was sure to be
empty. He opened it.
It was far from empty. Divided, in little green velvet
compartments, were all the things he had given her, even her
watch, and stuck into the recess that contained the watch was a
three-cornered note addressed “Soames Forsyte,” in Irene’s
handwriting:
“I think I have taken nothing that you or your people have given
me.” And that was all.
He looked at the clasps and bracelets of diamonds and pearls, at
the little flat gold watch with a great diamond set in sapphires,
at the chains and rings, each in its nest, and the tears rushed
up in his eyes and dropped upon them.
Nothing that she could have done, nothing that she _had_ done,
brought home to him like this the inner significance of her act.
For the moment, perhaps, he understood nearly all there was to
understand—understood that she loathed him, that she had loathed
him for years, that for all intents and purposes they were like
people living in different worlds, that there was no hope for
him, never had been; even, that she had suffered—that she was to
be pitied.
In that moment of emotion he betrayed the Forsyte in him—forgot
himself, his interests, his property—was capable of almost
anything; was lifted into the pure ether of the selfless and
unpractical.
Such moments pass quickly.
And as though with the tears he had purged himself of weakness,
he got up, locked the box, and slowly, almost trembling, carried
it with him into the other room.
CHAPTER VII JUNE’S VICTORY
June had waited for her chance, scanning the duller columns of
the journals, morning and evening with an assiduity which at
first puzzled old Jolyon; and when her chance came, she took it
with all the promptitude and resolute tenacity of her character.
She will always remember best in her life that morning when at
last she saw amongst the reliable Cause List of the _Times_
newspaper, under the heading of Court XIII, Mr. Justice Bentham,
the case of Forsyte _v_. Bosinney.
Like a gambler who stakes his last piece of money, she had
prepared to hazard her all upon this throw; it was not her nature
to contemplate defeat. How, unless with the instinct of a woman
in love, she knew that Bosinney’s discomfiture in this action was
assured, cannot be told—on this assumption, however, she laid her
plans, as upon a certainty.
Half past eleven found her at watch in the gallery of Court
XIII., and there she remained till the case of Forsyte _v_.
Bosinney was over. Bosinney’s absence did not disquiet her; she
had felt instinctively that he would not defend himself. At the
end of the judgment she hastened down, and took a cab to his
rooms.
She passed the open street-door and the offices on the three
lower floors without attracting notice; not till she reached the
top did her difficulties begin.
Her ring was not answered; she had now to make up her mind
whether she would go down and ask the caretaker in the basement
to let her in to await Mr. Bosinney’s return, or remain patiently
outside the door, trusting that no one would come up. She decided
on the latter course.
A quarter of an hour had passed in freezing vigil on the landing,
before it occurred to her that Bosinney had been used to leave
the key of his rooms under the door-mat. She looked and found it
there. For some minutes she could not decide to make use of it;
at last she let herself in and left the door open that anyone who
came might see she was there on business.
This was not the same June who had paid the trembling visit five
months ago; those months of suffering and restraint had made her
less sensitive; she had dwelt on this visit so long, with such
minuteness, that its terrors were discounted beforehand. She was
not there to fail this time, for if she failed no one could help
her.
Like some mother beast on the watch over her young, her little
quick figure never stood still in that room, but wandered from
wall to wall, from window to door, fingering now one thing, now
another. There was dust everywhere, the room could not have been
cleaned for weeks, and June, quick to catch at anything that
should buoy up her hope, saw in it a sign that he had been
obliged, for economy’s sake, to give up his servant.
She looked into the bedroom; the bed was roughly made, as though
by the hand of man. Listening intently, she darted in, and peered
into his cupboards. A few shirts and collars, a pair of muddy
boots—the room was bare even of garments.
She stole back to the sitting-room, and now she noticed the
absence of all the little things he had set store by. The clock
that had been his mother’s, the field-glasses that had hung over
the sofa; two really valuable old prints of Harrow, where his
father had been at school, and last, not least, the piece of
Japanese pottery she herself had given him. All were gone; and in
spite of the rage roused within her championing soul at the
thought that the world should treat him thus, their disappearance
augured happily for the success of her plan.
It was while looking at the spot where the piece of Japanese
pottery had stood that she felt a strange certainty of being
watched, and, turning, saw Irene in the open doorway.
The two stood gazing at each other for a minute in silence; then
June walked forward and held out her hand. Irene did not take it.
When her hand was refused, June put it behind her. Her eyes grew
steady with anger; she waited for Irene to speak; and thus
waiting, took in, with who-knows-what rage of jealousy,
suspicion, and curiosity, every detail of her friend’s face and
dress and figure.
Irene was clothed in her long grey fur; the travelling cap on her
head left a wave of gold hair visible above her forehead. The
soft fullness of the coat made her face as small as a child’s.
Unlike Jun’s cheeks, her cheeks had no colour in them, but were
ivory white and pinched as if with cold. Dark circles lay round
her eyes. In one hand she held a bunch of violets.
She looked back at June, no smile on her lips; and with those
great dark eyes fastened on her, the girl, for all her startled
anger, felt something of the old spell.
She spoke first, after all.
“What have you come for?” But the feeling that she herself was
being asked the same question, made her add: “This horrible case.
I came to tell him—he has lost it.”
Irene did not speak, her eyes never moved from Jun’s face, and
the girl cried:
“Don’t stand there as if you were made of stone!”
Irene laughed: “I wish to God I were!”
But June turned away: “Stop!” she cried, “don’t tell me! I don’t
want to hear! I don’t want to hear what you’ve come for. I don’t
want to hear!” And like some uneasy spirit, she began swiftly
walking to and fro. Suddenly she broke out:
“I was here first. We can’t both stay here together!”
On Irene’s face a smile wandered up, and died out like a flicker
of firelight. She did not move. And then it was that June
perceived under the softness and immobility of this figure
something desperate and resolved; something not to be turned
away, something dangerous. She tore off her hat, and, putting
both hands to her brow, pressed back the bronze mass of her hair.
“You have no right here!” she cried defiantly.
Irene answered: “I have no right anywhere——”
“What do you mean?”
“I have left Soames. You always wanted me to!”
June put her hands over her ears.
“Don’t! I don’t want to hear anything—I don’t want to know
anything. It’s impossible to fight with you! What makes you stand
like that? Why don’t you go?”
Irene’s lips moved; she seemed to be saying: “Where should I go?”
June turned to the window. She could see the face of a clock down
in the street. It was nearly four. At any moment he might come!
She looked back across her shoulder, and her face was distorted
with anger.
But Irene had not moved; in her gloved hands she ceaselessly
turned and twisted the little bunch of violets.
The tears of rage and disappointment rolled down Jun’s cheeks.
“How _could_ you come?” she said. “You have been a false friend
to me!”
Again Irene laughed. June saw that she had played a wrong card,
and broke down.
“Why have you come?” she sobbed. “You’ve ruined my life, and now
you want to ruin his!”
Irene’s mouth quivered; her eyes met Jun’s with a look so
mournful that the girl cried out in the midst of her sobbing,
“No, no!”
But Irene’s head bent till it touched her breast. She turned, and
went quickly out, hiding her lips with the little bunch of
violets.
June ran to the door. She heard the footsteps going down and
down. She called out: “Come back, Irene! Come back!”
The footsteps died away....
Bewildered and torn, the girl stood at the top of the stairs. Why
had Irene gone, leaving her mistress of the field? What did it
mean? Had she really given him up to her? Or had she...? And she
was the prey of a gnawing uncertainty.... Bosinney did not
come....
About six o’clock that afternoon old Jolyon returned from
Wistaria Avenue, where now almost every day he spent some hours,
and asked if his grand-daughter were upstairs. On being told that
she had just come in, he sent up to her room to request her to
come down and speak to him.
He had made up his mind to tell her that he was reconciled with
her father. In future bygones must be bygones. He would no longer
live alone, or practically alone, in this great house; he was
going to give it up, and take one in the country for his son,
where they could all go and live together. If June did not like
this, she could have an allowance and live by herself. It
wouldn’t make much difference to her, for it was a long time
since she had shown him any affection.
But when June came down, her face was pinched and piteous; there
was a strained, pathetic look in her eyes. She snuggled up in her
old attitude on the arm of his chair, and what he said compared
but poorly with the clear, authoritative, injured statement he
had thought out with much care. His heart felt sore, as the great
heart of a mother-bird feels sore when its youngling flies and
bruises its wing. His words halted, as though he were apologizing
for having at last deviated from the path of virtue, and
succumbed, in defiance of sounder principles, to his more natural
instincts.
He seemed nervous lest, in thus announcing his intentions, he
should be setting his granddaughter a bad example; and now that
he came to the point, his way of putting the suggestion that, if
she didn’t like it, she could live by herself and lump it, was
delicate in the extreme.
“And if, by any chance, my darling,” he said, “you found you
didn’t get on—with them, why, I could make that all right. You
could have what you liked. We could find a little flat in London
where you could set up, and I could be running to continually.
But the children,” he added, “are dear little things!”
Then, in the midst of this grave, rather transparent, explanation
of changed policy, his eyes twinkled. “This’ll astonish Timothy’s
weak nerves. That precious young thing will have something to say
about this, or I’m a Dutchman!”
June had not yet spoken. Perched thus on the arm of his chair,
with her head above him, her face was invisible. But presently he
felt her warm cheek against his own, and knew that, at all
events, there was nothing very alarming in her attitude towards
his news. He began to take courage.
“You’ll like your father,” he said—“an amiable chap. Never was
much push about him, but easy to get on with. You’ll find him
artistic and all that.”
And old Jolyon bethought him of the dozen or so water-colour
drawings all carefully locked up in his bedroom; for now that his
son was going to become a man of property he did not think them
quite such poor things as heretofore.
“As to your—your stepmother,” he said, using the word with some
little difficulty, “I call her a refined woman—a bit of a Mrs.
Gummidge, I shouldn’t wonder—but very fond of Jo. And the
children,” he repeated—indeed, this sentence ran like music
through all his solemn self-justification—“are sweet little
things!”
If June had known, those words but reincarnated that tender love
for little children, for the young and weak, which in the past
had made him desert his son for her tiny self, and now, as the
cycle rolled, was taking him from her.
But he began to get alarmed at her silence, and asked
impatiently: “Well, what do you say?”
June slid down to his knee, and she in her turn began her tale.
She thought it would all go splendidly; she did not see any
difficulty, and she did not care a bit what people thought.
Old Jolyon wriggled. H’m! then people _would_ think! He had
thought that after all these years perhaps they wouldn’t! Well,
he couldn’t help it! Nevertheless, he could not approve of his
granddaughter’s way of putting it—she ought to mind what people
thought!
Yet he said nothing. His feelings were too mixed, too
inconsistent for expression.
No—went on June—she did not care; what business was it of theirs?
There was only one thing—and with her cheek pressing against his
knee, old Jolyon knew at once that this something was no trifle:
As he was going to buy a house in the country, would he not—to
please her—buy that splendid house of Soames’ at Robin Hill? It
was finished, it was perfectly beautiful, and no one would live
in it now. They would all be so happy there.
Old Jolyon was on the alert at once. Wasn’t the “man of property”
going to live in his new house, then? He never alluded to Soames
now but under this title.
“No”—June said—“he was not; she knew that he was not!”
How did she know?
She could not tell him, but she knew. She knew nearly for
certain! It was most unlikely; circumstances had changed! Irene’s
words still rang in her head: “I have left Soames. Where should I
go?”
But she kept silence about that.
If her grandfather would only buy it and settle that wretched
claim that ought never to have been made on Phil! It would be the
very best thing for everybody, and everything—everything might
come straight.
And June put her lips to his forehead, and pressed them close.
But old Jolyon freed himself from her caress, his face wore the
judicial look which came upon it when he dealt with affairs. He
asked: What did she mean? There was something behind all this—had
she been seeing Bosinney?
June answered: “No; but I have been to his rooms.”
“Been to his rooms? Who took you there?”
June faced him steadily. “I went alone. He has lost that case. I
don’t care whether it was right or wrong. I want to help him; and
_I will!_”
Old Jolyon asked again: “Have you seen him?” His glance seemed to
pierce right through the girl’s eyes into her soul.
Again June answered: “No; he was not there. I waited, but he did
not come.”
Old Jolyon made a movement of relief. She had risen and looked
down at him; so slight, and light, and young, but so fixed, and
so determined; and disturbed, vexed, as he was, he could not
frown away that fixed look. The feeling of being beaten, of the
reins having slipped, of being old and tired, mastered him.
“Ah!” he said at last, “you’ll get yourself into a mess one of
these days, I can see. You want your own way in everything.”
Visited by one of his strange bursts of philosophy, he added:
“Like that you were born; and like that you’ll stay until you
die!”
And he, who in his dealings with men of business, with Boards,
with Forsytes of all descriptions, with such as were not
Forsytes, had always had his own way, looked at his indomitable
grandchild sadly—for he felt in her that quality which above all
others he unconsciously admired.
“Do you know what they say is going on?” he said slowly.
June crimsoned.
“Yes—no! I know—and I don’t know—I don’t care!” and she stamped
her foot.
“I believe,” said old Jolyon, dropping his eyes, “that you’d have
him if he were dead!”
There was a long silence before he spoke again.
“But as to buying this house—you don’t know what you’re talking
about!”
June said that she did. She knew that he could get it if he
wanted. He would only have to give what it cost.
“What it cost! You know nothing about it. I won’t go to
Soames—I’ll have nothing more to do with that young man.”
“But you needn’t; you can go to Uncle James. If you can’t buy the
house, will you pay his lawsuit claim? I know he is terribly hard
up—I’ve seen it. You can stop it out of my money!”
A twinkle came into old Jolyon’s eyes.
“Stop it out of your money! A pretty way. And what will you do,
pray, without your money?”
But secretly, the idea of wresting the house from James and his
son had begun to take hold of him. He had heard on Forsyte
’Change much comment, much rather doubtful praise of this house.
It was “too artistic,” but a fine place. To take from the “man of
property” that on which he had set his heart, would be a crowning
triumph over James, practical proof that he was going to make a
man of property of Jo, to put him back in his proper position,
and there to keep him secure. Justice once for all on those who
had chosen to regard his son as a poor, penniless outcast.
He would see, he would see! It might be out of the question; he
was not going to pay a fancy price, but if it could be done, why,
perhaps he would do it!
And still more secretly he knew that he could not refuse her.
But he did not commit himself. He would think it over—he said to
June.
CHAPTER VIII BOSINNEY’S DEPARTURE
Old Jolyon was not given to hasty decisions; it is probable that
he would have continued to think over the purchase of the house
at Robin Hill, had not Jun’s face told him that he would have no
peace until he acted.
At breakfast next morning she asked him what time she should
order the carriage.
“Carriage!” he said, with some appearance of innocence; “what
for? _I’m_ not going out!”
She answered: “If you don’t go early, you won’t catch Uncle James
before he goes into the City.”
“James! what about your Uncle James?”
“The house,” she replied, in such a voice that he no longer
pretended ignorance.
“I’ve not made up my mind,” he said.
“You must! You must! Oh! Gran—think of me!”
Old Jolyon grumbled out: “Think of you—I’m always thinking of
you, but you don’t think of yourself; you don’t think what you’re
letting yourself in for. Well, order the carriage at ten!”
At a quarter past he was placing his umbrella in the stand at
Park Lane—he did not choose to relinquish his hat and coat;
telling Warmson that he wanted to see his master, he went,
without being announced, into the study, and sat down.
James was still in the dining-room talking to Soames, who had
come round again before breakfast. On hearing who his visitor
was, he muttered nervously: “Now, what’s _he_ want, I wonder?”
He then got up.
“Well,” he said to Soames, “don’t you go doing anything in a
hurry. The first thing is to find out where she is—I should go to
Stainer’s about it; they’re the best men, if they can’t find her,
nobody can.” And suddenly moved to strange softness, he muttered
to himself, “Poor little thing, _I_ can’t tell what she was
thinking about!” and went out blowing his nose.
Old Jolyon did not rise on seeing his brother, but held out his
hand, and exchanged with him the clasp of a Forsyte.
James took another chair by the table, and leaned his head on his
hand.
“Well,” he said, “how are you? We don’t see much of _you_
nowadays!”
Old Jolyon paid no attention to the remark.
“How’s Emily?” he asked; and waiting for no reply, went on “I’ve
come to see you about this affair of young Bosinney’s. I’m told
that new house of his is a white elephant.”
“I don’t know anything about a white elephant,” said James, “I
know he’s lost his case, and I should say he’ll go bankrupt.”
Old Jolyon was not slow to seize the opportunity this gave him.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit!” he agreed; “and if he goes bankrupt,
the ‘man of property’—that is, Soames’ll be out of pocket. Now,
what I was thinking was this: If he’s not going to live
there....”
Seeing both surprise and suspicion in James’ eye, he quickly went
on: “I don’t want to know anything; I suppose Irene’s put her
foot down—it’s not material to me. But I’m thinking of a house in
the country myself, not too far from London, and if it suited me
I don’t say that I mightn’t look at it, at a price.”
James listened to this statement with a strange mixture of doubt,
suspicion, and relief, merging into a dread of something behind,
and tinged with the remains of his old undoubted reliance upon
his elder brother’s good faith and judgment. There was anxiety,
too, as to what old Jolyon could have heard and how he had heard
it; and a sort of hopefulness arising from the thought that if
Jun’s connection with Bosinney were completely at an end, her
grandfather would hardly seem anxious to help the young fellow.
Altogether he was puzzled; as he did not like either to show
this, or to commit himself in any way, he said:
“They tell me you’re altering your Will in favour of your son.”
He had not been told this; he had merely added the fact of having
seen old Jolyon with his son and grandchildren to the fact that
he had taken his Will away from Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. The
shot went home.
“Who told you that?” asked old Jolyon.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said James; “I can’t remember names—I
know somebody told me Soames spent a lot of money on this house;
he’s not likely to part with it except at a good price.”
“Well,” said old Jolyon, “if, he thinks I’m going to pay a fancy
price, he’s mistaken. I’ve not got the money to throw away that
he seems to have. Let him try and sell it at a forced sale, and
see what he’ll get. It’s not every man’s house, I hear!”
James, who was secretly also of this opinion, answered: “It’s a
gentleman’s house. Soames is here now if you’d like to see him.”
“No,” said old Jolyon, “I haven’t got as far as that; and I’m not
likely to, I can see that very well if I’m met in this manner!”
James was a little cowed; when it came to the actual figures of a
commercial transaction he was sure of himself, for then he was
dealing with facts, not with men; but preliminary negotiations
such as these made him nervous—he never knew quite how far he
could go.
“Well,” he said, “I know nothing about it. Soames, he tells me
nothing; I should think he’d entertain it—it’s a question of
price.”
“Oh!” said old Jolyon, “don’t let him make a favour of it!” He
placed his hat on his head in dudgeon.
The door was opened and Soames came in.
“There’s a policeman out here,” he said with his half smile, “for
Uncle Jolyon.”
Old Jolyon looked at him angrily, and James said: “A policeman? I
don’t know anything about a policeman. But I suppose you know
something about him,” he added to old Jolyon with a look of
suspicion: “I suppose you’d better see him!”
In the hall an Inspector of Police stood stolidly regarding with
heavy-lidded pale-blue eyes the fine old English furniture picked
up by James at the famous Mavrojano sale in Portman Square.
“You’ll find my brother in there,” said James.
The Inspector raised his fingers respectfully to his peaked cap,
and entered the study.
James saw him go in with a strange sensation.
“Well,” he said to Soames, “I suppose we must wait and see what
he wants. Your uncle’s been here about the house!”
He returned with Soames into the dining-room, but could not rest.
“Now what _does_ he want?” he murmured again.
“Who?” replied Soames: “the Inspector? They sent him round from
Stanhope Gate, that’s all I know. That ‘nonconformist’ of Uncle
Jolyon’s has been pilfering, I shouldn’t wonder!”
But in spite of his calmness, he too was ill at ease.
At the end of ten minutes old Jolyon came in. He walked up to the
table, and stood there perfectly silent pulling at his long white
moustaches. James gazed up at him with opening mouth; he had
never seen his brother look like this.
Old Jolyon raised his hand, and said slowly:
“Young Bosinney has been run over in the fog and killed.”
Then standing above his brother and his nephew, and looking down
at him with his deep eyes:
“There’s—some—talk—of—suicide,” he said.
James’ jaw dropped. “_Suicide!_ What should he do that for?”
Old Jolyon answered sternly: “God knows, if you and your son
don’t!”
But James did not reply.
For all men of great age, even for all Forsytes, life has had
bitter experiences. The passer-by, who sees them wrapped in
cloaks of custom, wealth, and comfort, would never suspect that
such black shadows had fallen on their roads. To every man of
great age—to Sir Walter Bentham himself—the idea of suicide has
once at least been present in the ante-room of his soul; on the
threshold, waiting to enter, held out from the inmost chamber by
some chance reality, some vague fear, some painful hope. To
Forsytes that final renunciation of property is hard. Oh! it is
hard! Seldom—perhaps never—can they achieve, it; and yet, how
near have they not sometimes been!
So even with James! Then in the medley of his thoughts, he broke
out: “Why I saw it in the paper yesterday: ‘Run over in the fog!’
They didn’t know his name!” He turned from one face to the other
in his confusion of soul; but instinctively all the time he was
rejecting that rumour of suicide. He dared not entertain this
thought, so against his interest, against the interest of his
son, of every Forsyte. He strove against it; and as his nature
ever unconsciously rejected that which it could not with safety
accept, so gradually he overcame this fear. It was an accident!
It must have been!
Old Jolyon broke in on his reverie.
“Death was instantaneous. He lay all day yesterday at the
hospital. There was nothing to tell them who he was. I am going
there now; you and your son had better come too.”
No one opposing this command he led the way from the room.
The day was still and clear and bright, and driving over to Park
Lane from Stanhope Gate, old Jolyon had had the carriage open.
Sitting back on the padded cushions, finishing his cigar, he had
noticed with pleasure the keen crispness of the air, the bustle
of the cabs and people; the strange, almost Parisian, alacrity
that the first fine day will bring into London streets after a
spell of fog or rain. And he had felt so happy; he had not felt
like it for months. His confession to June was off his mind; he
had the prospect of his son’s, above all, of his grandchildren’s
company in the future—(he had appointed to meet young Jolyon at
the Hotch Potch that very morning to discuss it again); and there
was the pleasurable excitement of a coming encounter, a coming
victory, over James and the “man of property” in the matter of
the house.
He had the carriage closed now; he had no heart to look on
gaiety; nor was it right that Forsytes should be seen driving
with an Inspector of Police.
In that carriage the Inspector spoke again of the death:
“It was not so very thick—Just there. The driver says the
gentleman must have had time to see what he was about, he seemed
to walk right into it. It appears that he was very hard up, we
found several pawn tickets at his rooms, his account at the bank
is overdrawn, and there’s this case in to-day’s papers;” his cold
blue eyes travelled from one to another of the three Forsytes in
the carriage.
Old Jolyon watching from his corner saw his brother’s face
change, and the brooding, worried, look deepen on it. At the
Inspector’s words, indeed, all James’ doubts and fears revived.
Hard-up—pawn-tickets—an overdrawn account! These words that had
all his life been a far-off nightmare to him, seemed to make
uncannily real that suspicion of suicide which must on no account
be entertained. He sought his son’s eye; but lynx-eyed, taciturn,
immovable, Soames gave no answering look. And to old Jolyon
watching, divining the league of mutual defence between them,
there came an overmastering desire to have his own son at his
side, as though this visit to the dead man’s body was a battle in
which otherwise he must single-handed meet those two. And the
thought of how to keep Jun’s name out of the business kept
whirring in his brain. James had his son to support him! Why
should he not send for Jo?
Taking out his card-case, he pencilled the following message:
“Come round at once. I’ve sent the carriage for you.”
On getting out he gave this card to his coachman, telling him to
drive—as fast as possible to the Hotch Potch Club, and if Mr.
Jolyon Forsyte were there to give him the card and bring him at
once. If not there yet, he was to wait till he came.
He followed the others slowly up the steps, leaning on his
umbrella, and stood a moment to get his breath. The Inspector
said: “This is the mortuary, sir. But take your time.”
In the bare, white-walled room, empty of all but a streak of
sunshine smeared along the dustless floor, lay a form covered by
a sheet. With a huge steady hand the Inspector took the hem and
turned it back. A sightless face gazed up at them, and on either
side of that sightless defiant face the three Forsytes gazed
down; in each one of them the secret emotions, fears, and pity of
his own nature rose and fell like the rising, falling waves of
life, whose wash those white walls barred out now for ever from
Bosinney. And in each one of them the trend of his nature, the
odd essential spring, which moved him in fashions minutely,
unalterably different from those of every other human being,
forced him to a different attitude of thought. Far from the
others, yet inscrutably close, each stood thus, alone with death,
silent, his eyes lowered.
The Inspector asked softly:
“You identify the gentleman, sir?”
Old Jolyon raised his head and nodded. He looked at his brother
opposite, at that long lean figure brooding over the dead man,
with face dusky red, and strained grey eyes; and at the figure of
Soames white and still by his father’s side. And all that he had
felt against those two was gone like smoke in the long white
presence of Death. Whence comes it, how comes it—Death? Sudden
reverse of all that goes before; blind setting forth on a path
that leads to where? Dark quenching of the fire! The heavy,
brutal crushing-out that all men must go through, keeping their
eyes clear and brave unto the end! Small and of no import,
insects though they are! And across old Jolyon’s face there
flitted a gleam, for Soames, murmuring to the Inspector, crept
noiselessly away.
Then suddenly James raised his eyes. There was a queer appeal in
that suspicious troubled look: “I know I’m no match for you,” it
seemed to say. And, hunting for handkerchief he wiped his brow;
then, bending sorrowful and lank over the dead man, he too turned
and hurried out.
Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on the body. Who
shall tell of what he was thinking? Of himself, when his hair was
brown like the hair of that young fellow dead before him? Of
himself, with his battle just beginning, the long, long battle he
had loved; the battle that was over for this young man almost
before it had begun? Of his grand-daughter, with her broken
hopes? Of that other woman? Of the strangeness, and the pity of
it? And the irony, inscrutable, and bitter of that end? Justice!
There was no justice for men, for they were ever in the dark!
Or perhaps in his philosophy he thought: Better to be out of it
all! Better to have done with it, like this poor youth....
Some one touched him on the arm.
A tear started up and wetted his eyelash. “Well,” he said, “I’m
no good here. I’d better be going. You’ll come to me as soon as
you can, Jo,” and with his head bowed he went away.
It was young Jolyon’s turn to take his stand beside the dead man,
round whose fallen body he seemed to see all the Forsytes
breathless, and prostrated. The stroke had fallen too swiftly.
The forces underlying every tragedy—forces that take no denial,
working through cross currents to their ironical end, had met and
fused with a thunder-clap, flung out the victim, and flattened to
the ground all those that stood around.
Or so at all events young Jolyon seemed to see them, lying around
Bosinney’s body.
He asked the Inspector to tell him what had happened, and the
latter, like a man who does not every day get such a chance,
again detailed such facts as were known.
“There’s more here, sir, however,” he said, “than meets the eye.
I don’t believe in suicide, nor in pure accident, myself. It’s
more likely I think that he was suffering under great stress of
mind, and took no notice of things about him. Perhaps you can
throw some light on these.”
He took from his pocket a little packet and laid it on the table.
Carefully undoing it, he revealed a lady’s handkerchief, pinned
through the folds with a pin of discoloured Venetian gold, the
stone of which had fallen from the socket. A scent of dried
violets rose to young Jolyon’s nostrils.
“Found in his breast pocket,” said the Inspector; “the name has
been cut away!”
Young Jolyon with difficulty answered: “I’m afraid I cannot help
you!” But vividly there rose before him the face he had seen
light up, so tremulous and glad, at Bosinney’s coming! Of her he
thought more than of his own daughter, more than of them all—of
her with the dark, soft glance, the delicate passive face,
waiting for the dead man, waiting even at that moment, perhaps,
still and patient in the sunlight.
He walked sorrowfully away from the hospital towards his father’s
house, reflecting that this death would break up the Forsyte
family. The stroke had indeed slipped past their defences into
the very wood of their tree. They might flourish to all
appearance as before, preserving a brave show before the eyes of
London, but the trunk was dead, withered by the same flash that
had stricken down Bosinney. And now the saplings would take its
place, each one a new custodian of the sense of property.
Good forest of Forsytes! thought young Jolyon—soundest timber of
our land!
Concerning the cause of this death—his family would doubtless
reject with vigour the suspicion of suicide, which was so
compromising! They would take it as an accident, a stroke of
fate. In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention of
Providence, a retribution—had not Bosinney endangered their two
most priceless possessions, the pocket and the hearth? And they
would talk of “that unfortunate accident of young Bosinney’s,”
but perhaps they would not talk—silence might be better!
As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver’s account of the
accident as of very little value. For no one so madly in love
committed suicide for want of money; nor was Bosinney the sort of
fellow to set much store by a financial crisis. And so he too,
rejected this theory of suicide, the dead man’s face rose too
clearly before him. Gone in the heyday of his summer—and to
believe thus that an accident had cut Bosinney off in the full
sweep of his passion was more than ever pitiful to young Jolyon.
Then came a vision of Soames’ home as it now was, and must be
hereafter. The streak of lightning had flashed its clear uncanny
gleam on bare bones with grinning spaces between, the disguising
flesh was gone....
In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone
when his son came in. He looked very wan in his great armchair.
And his eyes travelling round the walls with their pictures of
still life, and the masterpiece “Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset”
seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its hopes,
its gains, its achievements.
“Ah! Jo!” he said, “is that you? I’ve told poor little June. But
that’s not all of it. Are you going to Soames’? _She’s_ brought
it on herself, I suppose; but somehow I can’t bear to think of
her, shut up there—and all alone.” And holding up his thin,
veined hand, he clenched it.
CHAPTER IX IRENE’S RETURN
After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the
hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.
The tragic event of Bosinney’s death altered the complexion of
everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a
minute would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the
fact of his wife’s flight to anyone till the inquest was over.
That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had
taken the first-post letters from the box himself, and, though
there had been none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of
telling Bilson that her mistress was at the sea; he would
probably, he said, be going down himself from Saturday to Monday.
This had given him time to breathe, time to leave no stone
unturned to find her.
But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney’s death—that
strange death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to
his heart, like lifting a great weight from it—he did not know
how to pass his day; and he wandered here and there through the
streets, looking at every face he met, devoured by a hundred
anxieties.
And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his
wandering, his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.
Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing the
identity of the dead man, and bought the papers to see what they
said. He would stop their mouths if he could, and he went into
the City, and was closeted with Boulter for a long time.
On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson’s about half past
four, he met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to
Soames, saying:
“Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?”
Soames answered stonily: “Yes.”
George stared at him. He had never liked Soames; he now held him
responsible for Bosinney’s death. Soames had done for him—done
for him by that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to
run amok that fatal afternoon.
“The poor fellow,” he was thinking, “was so cracked with
jealousy, so cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of
the omnibus in that infernal fog.”
Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George’s eyes.
“They talk of suicide here,” he said at last. “_That_ cat won’t
jump.”
Soames shook his head. “An accident,” he muttered.
Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his
pocket. He could not resist a parting shot.
“H’mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?”
With a face as white as the steps of Jobson’s, and a lip raised
as if snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone....
On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his
latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife’s
gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his
fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.
The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of
cedar-logs burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene
sitting in her usual corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly,
and went towards her. She did not move, and did not seem to see
him.
“So you’ve come back?” he said. “Why are you sitting here in the
dark?”
Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it
seemed as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her
veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide,
startled brown eyes of an owl.
Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a
strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft
feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her
figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise;
as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful,
and supple, and erect.
“So you’ve come back,” he repeated.
She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over
her motionless figure.
Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then
that he understood.
She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing
where to turn, not knowing what she was doing. The sight of her
figure, huddled in the fur, was enough.
He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew
that she had seen the report of his death—perhaps, like himself,
had bought a paper at the draughty corner of a street, and read
it.
She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage she had
pined to be free of—and taking in all the tremendous significance
of this, he longed to cry: “Take your hated body, that I love,
out of my house! Take away that pitiful white face, so cruel and
soft—before I crush it. Get out of my sight; never let me see you
again!”
And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her rise and move
away, like a woman in a terrible dream, from which she was
fighting to awake—rise and go out into the dark and cold, without
a thought of him, without so much as the knowledge of his
presence.
Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken, “No;
stay there!” And turning away from her, he sat down in his
accustomed chair on the other side of the hearth.
They sat in silence.
And Soames thought: “Why is all this? Why should I suffer so?
What have I done? It is not my fault!”
Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is shot and
dying, whose poor breast you see panting as the air is taken from
it, whose poor eyes look at you who have shot it, with a slow,
soft, unseeing look, taking farewell of all that is good—of the
sun, and the air, and its mate.
So they sat, by the firelight, in the silence, one on each side
of the hearth.
And the fume of the burning cedar logs, that he loved so well,
seemed to grip Soames by the throat till he could bear it no
longer. And going out into the hall he flung the door wide, to
gulp down the cold air that came in; then without hat or overcoat
went out into the Square.
Along the garden rails a half-starved cat came rubbing her way
towards him, and Soames thought: “Suffering! when will it cease,
my suffering?”
At a front door across the way was a man of his acquaintance
named Rutter, scraping his boots, with an air of “I am master
here.” And Soames walked on.
From far in the clear air the bells of the church where he and
Irene had been married were pealing in “practice” for the advent
of Christ, the chimes ringing out above the sound of traffic. He
felt a craving for strong drink, to lull him to indifference, or
rouse him to fury. If only he could burst out of himself, out of
this web that for the first time in his life he felt around him.
If only he could surrender to the thought: “Divorce her—turn her
out! She has forgotten you. Forget her!”
If only he could surrender to the thought: “Let her go—she has
suffered enough!”
If only he could surrender to the desire: “Make a slave of
her—she is in your power!”
If only even he could surrender to the sudden vision: “What does
it all matter?” Forget himself for a minute, forget that it
mattered what he did, forget that whatever he did he must
sacrifice something.
If only he could act on an impulse!
He could forget nothing; surrender to no thought, vision, or
desire; it was all too serious; too close around him, an
unbreakable cage.
On the far side of the Square newspaper boys were calling their
evening wares, and the ghoulish cries mingled and jangled with
the sound of those church bells.
Soames covered his ears. The thought flashed across him that but
for a chance, he himself, and not Bosinney, might be lying dead,
and she, instead of crouching there like a shot bird with those
dying eyes....
Something soft touched his legs, the cat was rubbing herself
against them. And a sob that shook him from head to foot burst
from Soames’ chest. Then all was still again in the dark, where
the houses seemed to stare at him, each with a master and
mistress of its own, and a secret story of happiness or sorrow.
And suddenly he saw that his own door was open, and black against
the light from the hall a man standing with his back turned.
Something slid too in his breast, and he stole up close behind.
He could see his own fur coat flung across the carved oak chair;
the Persian rugs; the silver bowls, the rows of porcelain plates
arranged along the walls, and this unknown man who was standing
there.
And sharply he asked: “What is it you want, sir?”
The visitor turned. It was young Jolyon.
“The door was open,” he said. “Might I see your wife for a
minute, I have a message for her?”
Soames gave him a strange, sidelong stare.
“My wife can see no one,” he muttered doggedly.
Young Jolyon answered gently: “I shouldn’t keep her a minute.”
Soames brushed by him and barred the way.
“She can see no one,” he said again.
Young Jolyon’s glance shot past him into the hall, and Soames
turned. There in the drawing-room doorway stood Irene, her eyes
were wild and eager, her lips were parted, her hands
outstretched. In the sight of both men that light vanished from
her face; her hands dropped to her sides; she stood like stone.
Soames spun round, and met his visitor’s eyes, and at the look he
saw in them, a sound like a snarl escaped him. He drew his lips
back in the ghost of a smile.
“This is my house,” he said; “I manage my own affairs. I’ve told
you once—I tell you again; we are not at home.”
And in young Jolyon’s face he slammed the door.
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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.