PART I

Produced by David Widger

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FORSYTE SAGA AWAKENING AND TO LET

By John Galsworthy

Contents

AWAKENING

TO LET

PART I

I.—ENCOUNTER

II.—FINE FLEUR FORSYTE

III.—AT ROBIN HILL

IV.—THE MAUSOLEUM

V.—THE NATIVE HEATH

VI.—JON

VII.—FLEUR

VIII.—IDYLL ON GRASS

IX. GOYA

X.—TRIO

XI.—DUET

XII.—CAPRICE

PART II

I.—MOTHER AND SON

II.—FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

III.—MEETINGS

IV.—IN GREEN STREET

V.—PURELY FORSYTE AFFAIRS

VI.—SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE

VII.—JUNE TAKES A HAND

VIII.—THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH

IX.—THE FAT IN THE FIRE

X.—DECISION

XI.—TIMOTHY PROPHESIES

PART III

I.—OLD JOLYON WALKS

II.—CONFESSION

III.—IRENE

IV.—SOAMES COGITATES

V.—THE FIXED IDEA

VI.—DESPERATE

VII.—EMBASSY

VIII.—THE DARK TUNE

IX.—UNDER THE OAK-TREE

X.—FLEUR'S WEDDING

XI.—THE LAST OF THE OLD FORSYTES

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THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME III. By John Galsworthy

AWAKENING

TO CHARLES SCRIBNER

AWAKENING

Through the massive skylight illuminating the hall at Robin Hill, the

July sunlight at five o'clock fell just where the broad stairway turned;

and in that radiant streak little Jon Forsyte stood, blue-linen-suited.

His hair was shining, and his eyes, from beneath a frown, for he was

considering how to go downstairs, this last of innumerable times, before

the car brought his father and mother home. Four at a time, and five

at the bottom? Stale! Down the banisters? But in which fashion? On his

face, feet foremost? Very stale. On his stomach, sideways? Paltry! On

his back, with his arms stretched down on both sides? Forbidden! Or on

his face, head foremost, in a manner unknown as yet to any but himself?

Such was the cause of the frown on the illuminated face of little

Jon....

In that Summer of 1909 the simple souls who even then desired to

simplify the English tongue, had, of course, no cognizance of little

Jon, or they would have claimed him for a disciple. But one can be too

simple in this life, for his real name was Jolyon, and his living father

and dead half-brother had usurped of old the other shortenings, Jo and

Jolly. As a fact little Jon had done his best to conform to convention

and spell himself first Jhon, then John; not till his father had

explained the sheer necessity, had he spelled his name Jon.

Up till now that father had possessed what was left of his heart by the

groom, Bob, who played the concertina, and his nurse “Da,” who wore

the violet dress on Sundays, and enjoyed the name of Spraggins in that

private life lived at odd moments even by domestic servants. His mother

had only appeared to him, as it were in dreams, smelling delicious,

smoothing his forehead just before he fell asleep, and sometimes docking

his hair, of a golden brown colour. When he cut his head open against

the nursery fender she was there to be bled over; and when he had

nightmare she would sit on his bed and cuddle his head against her neck.

She was precious but remote, because “Da” was so near, and there is

hardly room for more than one woman at a time in a man's heart. With his

father, too, of course, he had special bonds of union; for little

Jon also meant to be a painter when he grew up—with the one small

difference, that his father painted pictures, and little Jon intended to

paint ceilings and walls, standing on a board between two step-ladders,

in a dirty-white apron, and a lovely smell of whitewash. His father also

took him riding in Richmond Park, on his pony, Mouse, so-called because

it was so-coloured.

Little Jon had been born with a silver spoon in a mouth which was rather

curly and large. He had never heard his father or his mother speak in an

angry voice, either to each other, himself, or anybody else; the groom,

Bob, Cook, Jane, Bella and the other servants, even “Da,” who alone

restrained him in his courses, had special voices when they talked to

him. He was therefore of opinion that the world was a place of perfect

and perpetual gentility and freedom.

A child of 1901, he had come to consciousness when his country, just

over that bad attack of scarlet fever, the Boer War, was preparing for

the Liberal revival of 1906. Coercion was unpopular, parents had exalted

notions of giving their offspring a good time. They spoiled their rods,

spared their children, and anticipated the results with enthusiasm. In

choosing, moreover, for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had

already lost an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight,

whose first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely.

What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a little

prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for even little Jon

could see that she was not merely just his mother, and that he played

second fiddle to her in his father's heart: What he played in his

mother's heart he knew not yet. As for “Auntie” June, his half-sister

(but so old that she had grown out of the relationship) she loved him,

of course, but was too sudden. His devoted “Da,” too, had a Spartan

touch. His bath was cold and his knees were bare; he was not encouraged

to be sorry for himself. As to the vexed question of his education,

little Jon shared the theory of those who considered that children

should not be forced. He rather liked the Mademoiselle who came for two

hours every morning to teach him her language, together with history,

geography and sums; nor were the piano lessons which his mother gave him

disagreeable, for she had a way of luring him from tune to tune, never

making him practise one which did not give him pleasure, so that he

remained eager to convert ten thumbs into eight fingers. Under his

father he learned to draw pleasure-pigs and other animals. He was not a

highly educated little boy. Yet, on the whole, the silver spoon stayed

in his mouth without spoiling it, though “Da” sometimes said that other

children would do him a “world of good.”

It was a disillusionment, then, when at the age of nearly seven she held

him down on his back, because he wanted to do something of which she did

not approve. This first interference with the free individualism of a

Forsyte drove him almost frantic. There was something appalling in the

utter helplessness of that position, and the uncertainty as to whether

it would ever come to an end. Suppose she never let him get up any more!

He suffered torture at the top of his voice for fifty seconds. Worse

than anything was his perception that “Da” had taken all that time

to realise the agony of fear he was enduring. Thus, dreadfully, was

revealed to him the lack of imagination in the human being.

When he was let up he remained convinced that “Da” had done a dreadful

thing. Though he did not wish to bear witness against her, he had been

compelled, by fear of repetition, to seek his mother and say: “Mum,

don't let 'Da' hold me down on my back again.”

His mother, her hands held up over her head, and in them two plaits of

hair—“couleur de feuille morte,” as little Jon had not yet learned to

call it—had looked at him with eyes like little bits of his brown velvet

tunic, and answered:

“No, darling, I won't.”

She, being in the nature of a goddess, little Jon was satisfied;

especially when, from under the dining-table at breakfast, where he

happened to be waiting for a mushroom, he had overheard her say to his

father:

“Then, will you tell 'Da,' dear, or shall I? She's so devoted to him”;

and his father's answer:

“Well, she mustn't show it that way. I know exactly what it feels like

to be held down on one's back. No Forsyte can stand it for a minute.”

Conscious that they did not know him to be under the table, little Jon

was visited by the quite new feeling of embarrassment, and stayed where

he was, ravaged by desire for the mushroom.

Such had been his first dip into the dark abysses of existence. Nothing

much had been revealed to him after that, till one day, having gone down

to the cow-house for his drink of milk fresh from the cow, after Garratt

had finished milking, he had seen Clover's calf, dead. Inconsolable,

and followed by an upset Garratt, he had sought “Da”; but suddenly

aware that she was not the person he wanted, had rushed away to find his

father, and had run into the arms of his mother.

“Clover's calf's dead! Oh! Oh! It looked so soft!”

His mother's clasp, and her:

“Yes, darling, there, there!” had stayed his sobbing. But if Clover's

calf could die, anything could—not only bees, flies, beetles and

chickens—and look soft like that! This was appalling—and soon forgotten!

The next thing had been to sit on a bumble bee, a poignant experience,

which his mother had understood much better than “Da”; and nothing of

vital importance had happened after that till the year turned; when,

following a day of utter wretchedness, he had enjoyed a disease composed

of little spots, bed, honey in a spoon, and many Tangerine oranges.

It was then that the world had flowered. To “Auntie” June he owed that

flowering, for no sooner was he a little lame duck than she came rushing

down from London, bringing with her the books which had nurtured her

own Berserker spirit, born in the noted year of 1869. Aged, and of many

colours, they were stored with the most formidable happenings. Of

these she read to little Jon, till he was allowed to read to himself;

whereupon she whisked back to London and left them with him in a heap.

Those books cooked his fancy, till he thought and dreamed of nothing but

midshipmen and dhows, pirates, rafts, sandal-wood traders, iron horses,

sharks, battles, Tartars, Red Indians, balloons, North Poles and other

extravagant delights. The moment he was suffered to get up, he rigged

his bed fore and aft, and set out from it in a narrow bath across green

seas of carpet, to a rock, which he climbed by means of its mahogany

drawer knobs, to sweep the horizon with his drinking tumbler screwed to

his eye, in search of rescuing sails. He made a daily raft out of the

towel stand, the tea tray, and his pillows. He saved the juice from his

French plums, bottled it in an empty medicine bottle, and provisioned

the raft with the rum that it became; also with pemmican made out of

little saved-up bits of chicken sat on and dried at the fire; and with

lime juice against scurvy, extracted from the peel of his oranges and a

little economised juice. He made a North Pole one morning from the whole

of his bedclothes except the bolster, and reached it in a birch-bark

canoe (in private life the fender), after a terrible encounter with a

polar bear fashioned from the bolster and four skittles dressed up

in “Da's” nightgown. After that, his father, seeking to steady his

imagination, brought him Ivanhoe, Bevis, a book about King Arthur, and

Tom Brown's Schooldays. He read the first, and for three days built,

defended and stormed Front de Boeuf's castle, taking every part in the

piece except those of Rebecca and Rowena; with piercing cries of: “En

avant, de Bracy!” and similar utterances. After reading the book about

King Arthur he became almost exclusively Sir Lamorac de Galis, because,

though there was very little about him, he preferred his name to that of

any other knight; and he rode his old rocking-horse to death, armed

with a long bamboo. Bevis he found tame; besides, it required woods and

animals, of which he had none in his nursery, except his two cats, Fitz

and Puck Forsyte, who permitted no liberties. For Tom Brown he was as

yet too young. There was relief in the house when, after the fourth

week, he was permitted to go down and out.

The month being March the trees were exceptionally like the masts of

ships, and for little Jon that was a wonderful Spring, extremely hard

on his knees, suits, and the patience of “Da,” who had the washing and

reparation of his clothes. Every morning the moment his breakfast was

over, he could be viewed by his mother and father, whose windows looked

out that way, coming from the study, crossing the terrace, climbing the

old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day

thus because there was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The

old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant

mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of the

swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to

the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French

plums—provision enough for a jolly-boat at least—and eat it in some

imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols, and sword,

he would begin the serious climbing of the morning, encountering by the

way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates, leopards, and bears. He was

seldom seen at that hour of the day without a cutlass in his teeth (like

Dick Needham) amid the rapid explosion of copper caps. And many were the

gardeners he brought down with yellow peas shot out of his little gun.

He lived a life of the most violent action.

“Jon,” said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, “is terrible.

I'm afraid he's going to turn out a sailor, or something hopeless. Do

you see any sign of his appreciating beauty?”

“Not the faintest.”

“Well, thank heaven he's no turn for wheels or engines! I can bear

anything but that. But I wish he'd take more interest in Nature.”

“He's imaginative, Jolyon.”

“Yes, in a sanguinary way. Does he love anyone just now?”

“No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or more

lovable than Jon.”

“Being your boy, Irene.”

At this moment little Jon, lying along a branch high above them, brought

them down with two peas; but that fragment of talk lodged, thick, in his

small gizzard. Loving, lovable, imaginative, sanguinary!

The leaves also were thick by now, and it was time for his birthday,

which, occurring every year on the twelfth of May, was always memorable

for his chosen dinner of sweetbread, mushrooms, macaroons, and ginger

beer.

Between that eighth birthday, however, and the afternoon when he stood

in the July radiance at the turning of the stairway, several important

things had happened.

“Da,” worn out by washing his knees, or moved by that mysterious

instinct which forces even nurses to desert their nurslings, left the

very day after his birthday in floods of tears “to be married”—of

all things—“to a man.” Little Jon, from whom it had been kept, was

inconsolable for an afternoon. It ought not to have been kept from him!

Two large boxes of soldiers and some artillery, together with The Young

Buglers, which had been among his birthday presents, cooperated with

his grief in a sort of conversion, and instead of seeking adventures in

person and risking his own life, he began to play imaginative games, in

which he risked the lives of countless tin soldiers, marbles, stones and

beans. Of these forms of “chair a canon” he made collections, and, using

them alternately, fought the Peninsular, the Seven Years, the Thirty

Years, and other wars, about which he had been reading of late in a big

History of Europe which had been his grandfather's. He altered them to

suit his genius, and fought them all over the floor in his day nursery,

so that nobody could come in, for fearing of disturbing Gustavus

Adolphus, King of Sweden, or treading on an army of Austrians. Because

of the sound of the word he was passionately addicted to the Austrians,

and finding there were so few battles in which they were successful

he had to invent them in his games. His favourite generals were

Prince Eugene, the Archduke Charles and Wallenstein. Tilly and Mack

(“music-hall turns” he heard his father call them one day, whatever that

might mean) one really could not love very much, Austrian though they

were. For euphonic reasons, too, he doted on Turenne.

This phase, which caused his parents anxiety, because it kept him

indoors when he ought to have been out, lasted through May and half of

June, till his father killed it by bringing home to him Tom Sawyer and

Huckleberry Finn. When he read those books something happened in him,

and he went out of doors again in passionate quest of a river. There

being none on the premises at Robin Hill, he had to make one out of

the pond, which fortunately had water lilies, dragonflies, gnats,

bullrushes, and three small willow trees. On this pond, after his father

and Garratt had ascertained by sounding that it had a reliable bottom

and was nowhere more than two feet deep, he was allowed a little

collapsible canoe, in which he spent hours and hours paddling, and lying

down out of sight of Indian Joe and other enemies. On the shore of the

pond, too, he built himself a wigwam about four feet square, of old

biscuit tins, roofed in by boughs. In this he would make little fires,

and cook the birds he had not shot with his gun, hunting in the coppice

and fields, or the fish he did not catch in the pond because there were

none. This occupied the rest of June and that July, when his father

and mother were away in Ireland. He led a lonely life of “make believe”

during those five weeks of summer weather, with gun, wigwam, water and

canoe; and, however hard his active little brain tried to keep the

sense of beauty away, she did creep in on him for a second now and then,

perching on the wing of a dragon-fly, glistening on the water lilies, or

brushing his eyes with her blue as he lay on his back in ambush.

“Auntie” June, who had been left in charge, had a “grown-up” in the

house, with a cough and a large piece of putty which he was making

into a face; so she hardly ever came down to see him in the pond. Once,

however, she brought with her two other “grown-ups.” Little Jon, who

happened to have painted his naked self bright blue and yellow in

stripes out of his father's water-colour box, and put some duck's

feathers in his hair, saw them coming, and—ambushed himself among the

willows. As he had foreseen, they came at once to his wigwam and knelt

down to look inside, so that with a blood-curdling yell he was able to

take the scalps of “Auntie” June and the woman “grown-up” in an almost

complete manner before they kissed him. The names of the two grown-ups

were “Auntie” Holly and “Uncle” Val, who had a brown face and a little

limp, and laughed at him terribly. He took a fancy to “Auntie” Holly,

who seemed to be a sister too; but they both went away the same

afternoon and he did not see them again. Three days before his father

and mother were to come home “Auntie” June also went off in a great

hurry, taking the “grown-up” who coughed and his piece of putty; and

Mademoiselle said: “Poor man, he was veree ill. I forbid you to go into

his room, Jon.” Little Jon, who rarely did things merely because he was

told not to, refrained from going, though he was bored and lonely. In

truth the day of the pond was past, and he was filled to the brim of

his soul with restlessness and the want of something—not a tree, not a

gun—something soft. Those last two days had seemed months in spite of

Cast Up by the Sea, wherein he was reading about Mother Lee and her

terrible wrecking bonfire. He had gone up and down the stairs perhaps a

hundred times in those two days, and often from the day nursery, where

he slept now, had stolen into his mother's room, looked at everything,

without touching, and on into the dressing-room; and standing on one leg

beside the bath, like Slingsby, had whispered:

“Ho, ho, ho! Dog my cats!” mysteriously, to bring luck. Then, stealing

back, he had opened his mother's wardrobe, and taken a long sniff which

seemed to bring him nearer to—he didn't know what.

He had done this just before he stood in the streak of sunlight,

debating in which of the several ways he should slide down the

banisters. They all seemed silly, and in a sudden languor he began

descending the steps one by one. During that descent he could remember

his father quite distinctly—the short grey beard, the deep eyes

twinkling, the furrow between them, the funny smile, the thin figure

which always seemed so tall to little Jon; but his mother he couldn't

see. All that represented her was something swaying with two dark eyes

looking back at him; and the scent of her wardrobe.

Bella was in the hall, drawing aside the big curtains, and opening the

front door. Little Jon said, wheedling,

“Bella!”

“Yes, Master Jon.”

“Do let's have tea under the oak tree when they come; I know they'd like

it best.”

“You mean you'd like it best.”

Little Jon considered.

“No, they would, to please me.”

Bella smiled. “Very well, I'll take it out if you'll stay quiet here and

not get into mischief before they come.”

Little Jon sat down on the bottom step, and nodded. Bella came close,

and looked him over.

“Get up!” she said.

Little Jon got up. She scrutinized him behind; he was not green, and his

knees seemed clean.

“All right!” she said. “My! Aren't you brown? Give me a kiss!”

And little Jon received a peck on his hair.

“What jam?” he asked. “I'm so tired of waiting.”

“Gooseberry and strawberry.”

Num! They were his favourites!

When she was gone he sat still for quite a minute. It was quiet in the

big hall open to its East end so that he could see one of his trees,

a brig sailing very slowly across the upper lawn. In the outer hall

shadows were slanting from the pillars. Little Jon got up, jumped one of

them, and walked round the clump of iris plants which filled the pool

of grey-white marble in the centre. The flowers were pretty, but only

smelled a very little. He stood in the open doorway and looked out.

Suppose!—suppose they didn't come! He had waited so long that he felt he

could not bear that, and his attention slid at once from such finality

to the dust motes in the bluish sunlight coming in: Thrusting his hand

up, he tried to catch some. Bella ought to have dusted that piece of

air! But perhaps they weren't dust—only what sunlight was made of, and

he looked to see whether the sunlight out of doors was the same. It was

not. He had said he would stay quiet in the hall, but he simply couldn't

any more; and crossing the gravel of the drive he lay down on the grass

beyond. Pulling six daisies he named them carefully, Sir Lamorac, Sir

Tristram, Sir Lancelot, Sir Palimedes, Sir Bors, Sir Gawain, and fought

them in couples till only Sir Lamorac, whom he had selected for a

specially stout stalk, had his head on, and even he, after three

encounters, looked worn and waggly. A beetle was moving slowly in the

grass, which almost wanted cutting. Every blade was a small tree,

round whose trunk the beetle had to glide. Little Jon stretched out

Sir Lamorac, feet foremost, and stirred the creature up. It scuttled

painfully. Little Jon laughed, lost interest, and sighed. His heart felt

empty. He turned over and lay on his back. There was a scent of honey

from the lime trees in flower, and in the sky the blue was beautiful,

with a few white clouds which looked and perhaps tasted like lemon ice.

He could hear Bob playing: “Way down upon de Suwannee ribber” on his

concertina, and it made him nice and sad. He turned over again and put

his ear to the ground—Indians could hear things coming ever so far—but

he could hear nothing—only the concertina! And almost instantly he did

hear a grinding sound, a faint toot. Yes! it was a car—coming—coming!

Up he jumped. Should he wait in the porch, or rush upstairs, and as

they came in, shout: “Look!” and slide slowly down the banisters, head

foremost? Should he? The car turned in at the drive. It was too late!

And he only waited, jumping up and down in his excitement. The car came

quickly, whirred, and stopped. His father got out, exactly like life. He

bent down and little Jon bobbed up—they bumped. His father said,

“Bless us! Well, old man, you are brown!” Just as he would; and the

sense of expectation—of something wanted—bubbled unextinguished in

little Jon. Then, with a long, shy look he saw his mother, in a blue

dress, with a blue motor scarf over her cap and hair, smiling. He jumped

as high as ever he could, twined his legs behind her back, and hugged.

He heard her gasp, and felt her hugging back. His eyes, very dark blue

just then, looked into hers, very dark brown, till her lips closed on

his eyebrow, and, squeezing with all his might, he heard her creak and

laugh, and say:

“You are strong, Jon!”

He slid down at that, and rushed into the hall, dragging her by the

hand.

While he was eating his jam beneath the oak tree, he noticed things

about his mother that he had never seemed to see before, her cheeks for

instance were creamy, there were silver threads in her dark goldy hair,

her throat had no knob in it like Bella's, and she went in and out

softly. He noticed, too, some little lines running away from the corners

of her eyes, and a nice darkness under them. She was ever so beautiful,

more beautiful than “Da” or Mademoiselle, or “Auntie” June or even

“Auntie” Holly, to whom he had taken a fancy; even more beautiful than

Bella, who had pink cheeks and came out too suddenly in places. This new

beautifulness of his mother had a kind of particular importance, and he

ate less than he had expected to.

When tea was over his father wanted him to walk round the gardens.

He had a long conversation with his father about things in general,

avoiding his private life—Sir Lamorac, the Austrians, and the emptiness

he had felt these last three days, now so suddenly filled up. His father

told him of a place called Glensofantrim, where he and his mother had

been; and of the little people who came out of the ground there when it

was very quiet. Little Jon came to a halt, with his heels apart.

“Do you really believe they do, Daddy?” “No, Jon, but I thought you

might.”

“Why?”

“You're younger than I; and they're fairies.” Little Jon squared the

dimple in his chin.

“I don't believe in fairies. I never see any.” “Ha!” said his father.

“Does Mum?”

His father smiled his funny smile.

“No; she only sees Pan.”

“What's Pan?”

“The Goaty God who skips about in wild and beautiful places.”

“Was he in Glensofantrim?”

“Mum said so.”

Little Jon took his heels up, and led on.

“Did you see him?”

“No; I only saw Venus Anadyomene.”

Little Jon reflected; Venus was in his book about the Greeks and

Trojans. Then Anna was her Christian and Dyomene her surname?

But it appeared, on inquiry, that it was one word, which meant rising

from the foam.

“Did she rise from the foam in Glensofantrim?”

“Yes; every day.”

“What is she like, Daddy?”

“Like Mum.”

“Oh! Then she must be...” but he stopped at that, rushed at a wall,

scrambled up, and promptly scrambled down again. The discovery that his

mother was beautiful was one which he felt must absolutely be kept to

himself. His father's cigar, however, took so long to smoke, that at

last he was compelled to say:

“I want to see what Mum's brought home. Do you mind, Daddy?”

He pitched the motive low, to absolve him from unmanliness, and was a

little disconcerted when his father looked at him right through, heaved

an important sigh, and answered:

“All right, old man, you go and love her.”

He went, with a pretence of slowness, and then rushed, to make up. He

entered her bedroom from his own, the door being open. She was still

kneeling before a trunk, and he stood close to her, quite still.

She knelt up straight, and said:

“Well, Jon?”

“I thought I'd just come and see.”

Having given and received another hug, he mounted the window-seat, and

tucking his legs up under him watched her unpack. He derived a pleasure

from the operation such as he had not yet known, partly because she was

taking out things which looked suspicious, and partly because he liked

to look at her. She moved differently from anybody else, especially from

Bella; she was certainly the refinedest-looking person he had ever seen.

She finished the trunk at last, and knelt down in front of him.

“Have you missed us, Jon?”

Little Jon nodded, and having thus admitted his feelings, continued to

nod.

“But you had 'Auntie' June?”

“Oh! she had a man with a cough.”

His mother's face changed, and looked almost angry. He added hastily:

“He was a poor man, Mum; he coughed awfully; I—I liked him.”

His mother put her hands behind his waist.

“You like everybody, Jon?”

Little Jon considered.

“Up to a point,” he said: “Auntie June took me to church one Sunday.”

“To church? Oh!”

“She wanted to see how it would affect me.” “And did it?”

“Yes. I came over all funny, so she took me home again very quick. I

wasn't sick after all. I went to bed and had hot brandy and water, and

read The Boys of Beechwood. It was scrumptious.”

His mother bit her lip.

“When was that?”

“Oh! about—a long time ago—I wanted her to take me again, but she

wouldn't. You and Daddy never go to church, do you?”

“No, we don't.”

“Why don't you?”

His mother smiled.

“Well, dear, we both of us went when we were little. Perhaps we went

when we were too little.”

“I see,” said little Jon, “it's dangerous.”

“You shall judge for yourself about all those things as you grow up.”

Little Jon replied in a calculating manner:

“I don't want to grow up, much. I don't want to go to school.” A sudden

overwhelming desire to say something more, to say what he really felt,

turned him red. “I—I want to stay with you, and be your lover, Mum.”

Then with an instinct to improve the situation, he added quickly “I

don't want to go to bed to-night, either. I'm simply tired of going to

bed, every night.”

“Have you had any more nightmares?”

“Only about one. May I leave the door open into your room to-night,

Mum?”

“Yes, just a little.” Little Jon heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

“What did you see in Glensofantrim?”

“Nothing but beauty, darling.”

“What exactly is beauty?”

“What exactly is—Oh! Jon, that's a poser.”

“Can I see it, for instance?” His mother got up, and sat beside him.

“You do, every day. The sky is beautiful, the stars, and moonlit nights,

and then the birds, the flowers, the trees—they're all beautiful. Look

out of the window—there's beauty for you, Jon.”

“Oh! yes, that's the view. Is that all?”

“All? no. The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with their

foam flying back.”

“Did you rise from it every day, Mum?”

His mother smiled. “Well, we bathed.”

Little Jon suddenly reached out and caught her neck in his hands.

“I know,” he said mysteriously, “you're it, really, and all the rest is

make-believe.”

She sighed, laughed, said: “Oh! Jon!”

Little Jon said critically:

“Do you think Bella beautiful, for instance? I hardly do.”

“Bella is young; that's something.”

“But you look younger, Mum. If you bump against Bella she hurts.”

“I don't believe 'Da' was beautiful, when I come to think of it; and

Mademoiselle's almost ugly.”

“Mademoiselle has a very nice face.” “Oh! yes; nice. I love your little

rays, Mum.”

“Rays?”

Little Jon put his finger to the outer corner of her eye.

“Oh! Those? But they're a sign of age.”

“They come when you smile.”

“But they usen't to.”

“Oh! well, I like them. Do you love me, Mum?”

“I do—I do love you, darling.”

“Ever so?”

“Ever so!”

“More than I thought you did?”

“Much—much more.”

“Well, so do I; so that makes it even.”

Conscious that he had never in his life so given himself away, he felt

a sudden reaction to the manliness of Sir Lamorac, Dick Needham, Huck

Finn, and other heroes.

“Shall I show you a thing or two?” he said; and slipping out of her

arms, he stood on his head. Then, fired by her obvious admiration, he

mounted the bed, and threw himself head foremost from his feet on to

his back, without touching anything with his hands. He did this several

times.

That evening, having inspected what they had brought, he stayed up to

dinner, sitting between them at the little round table they used when

they were alone. He was extremely excited. His mother wore a French-grey

dress, with creamy lace made out of little scriggly roses, round her

neck, which was browner than the lace. He kept looking at her, till at

last his father's funny smile made him suddenly attentive to his slice

of pineapple. It was later than he had ever stayed up, when he went to

bed. His mother went up with him, and he undressed very slowly so as to

keep her there. When at last he had nothing on but his pyjamas, he said:

“Promise you won't go while I say my prayers!”

“I promise.”

Kneeling down and plunging his face into the bed, little Jon hurried

up, under his breath, opening one eye now and then, to see her standing

perfectly still with a smile on her face. “Our Father”—so went his last

prayer, “which art in heaven, hallowed be thy Mum, thy Kingdom Mum—on

Earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily Mum and forgive us

our trespasses on earth as it is in heaven and trespass against us, for

thine is the evil the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amum! Look

out!” He sprang, and for a long minute remained in her arms. Once in

bed, he continued to hold her hand.

“You won't shut the door any more than that, will you? Are you going to

be long, Mum?”

“I must go down and play to Daddy.”

“Oh! well, I shall hear you.”

“I hope not; you must go to sleep.”

“I can sleep any night.”

“Well, this is just a night like any other.”

“Oh! no—it's extra special.”

“On extra special nights one always sleeps soundest.”

“But if I go to sleep, Mum, I shan't hear you come up.”

“Well, when I do, I'll come in and give you a kiss, then if you're awake

you'll know, and if you're not you'll still know you've had one.”

Little Jon sighed, “All right!” he said: “I suppose I must put up with

that. Mum?”

“Yes?”

“What was her name that Daddy believes in? Venus Anna Diomedes?”

“Oh! my angel! Anadyomene.”

“Yes! but I like my name for you much better.”

“What is yours, Jon?”

Little Jon answered shyly:

“Guinevere! it's out of the Round Table—I've only just thought of it,

only of course her hair was down.”

His mother's eyes, looking past him, seemed to float.

“You won't forget to come, Mum?”

“Not if you'll go to sleep.”

“That's a bargain, then.” And little Jon screwed up his eyes.

He felt her lips on his forehead, heard her footsteps; opened his eyes

to see her gliding through the doorway, and, sighing, screwed them up

again.

Then Time began.

For some ten minutes of it he tried loyally to sleep, counting a great

number of thistles in a row, “Da's” old recipe for bringing slumber. He

seemed to have been hours counting. It must, he thought, be nearly time

for her to come up now. He threw the bedclothes back. “I'm hot!” he

said, and his voice sounded funny in the darkness, like someone else's.

Why didn't she come? He sat up. He must look! He got out of bed, went to

the window and pulled the curtain a slice aside. It wasn't dark, but he

couldn't tell whether because of daylight or the moon, which was very

big. It had a funny, wicked face, as if laughing at him, and he did not

want to look at it. Then, remembering that his mother had said moonlit

nights were beautiful, he continued to stare out in a general way. The

trees threw thick shadows, the lawn looked like spilt milk, and a long,

long way he could see; oh! very far; right over the world, and it all

looked different and swimmy. There was a lovely smell, too, in his open

window.

'I wish I had a dove like Noah!' he thought.

“The moony moon was round and bright, It shone and shone and made it

light.”

After that rhyme, which came into his head all at once, he became

conscious of music, very soft-lovely! Mum playing! He bethought himself

of a macaroon he had, laid up in his chest of drawers, and, getting it,

came back to the window. He leaned out, now munching, now holding his

jaws to hear the music better. “Da” used to say that angels played on

harps in heaven; but it wasn't half so lovely as Mum playing in the

moony night, with him eating a macaroon. A cockchafer buzzed by, a moth

flew in his face, the music stopped, and little Jon drew his head in.

She must be coming! He didn't want to be found awake. He got back into

bed and pulled the clothes nearly over his head; but he had left a

streak of moonlight coming in. It fell across the floor, near the foot

of the bed, and he watched it moving ever so slowly towards him, as if

it were alive. The music began again, but he could only just hear it

now; sleepy music, pretty—sleepy—music—sleepy—slee.....

And time slipped by, the music rose, fell, ceased; the moonbeam crept

towards his face. Little Jon turned in his sleep till he lay on his

back, with one brown fist still grasping the bedclothes. The corners of

his eyes twitched—he had begun to dream. He dreamed he was drinking milk

out of a pan that was the moon, opposite a great black cat which watched

him with a funny smile like his father's. He heard it whisper: “Don't

drink too much!” It was the cat's milk, of course, and he put out his

hand amicably to stroke the creature; but it was no longer there; the

pan had become a bed, in which he was lying, and when he tried to get

out he couldn't find the edge; he couldn't find it—he—he—couldn't get

out! It was dreadful!

He whimpered in his sleep. The bed had begun to go round too; it was

outside him and inside him; going round and round, and getting fiery,

and Mother Lee out of Cast up by the Sea was stirring it! Oh! so

horrible she looked! Faster and faster!—till he and the bed and Mother

Lee and the moon and the cat were all one wheel going round and round

and up and up—awful—awful—awful!

He shrieked.

A voice saying: “Darling, darling!” got through the wheel, and he awoke,

standing on his bed, with his eyes wide open.

There was his mother, with her hair like Guinevere's, and, clutching

her, he buried his face in it.

“Oh! oh!”

“It's all right, treasure. You're awake now. There! There! It's

nothing!”

But little Jon continued to say: “Oh! oh!”

Her voice went on, velvety in his ear:

“It was the moonlight, sweetheart, coming on your face.”

Little Jon burbled into her nightgown

“You said it was beautiful. Oh!”

“Not to sleep in, Jon. Who let it in? Did you draw the curtains?”

“I wanted to see the time; I—I looked out, I—I heard you playing, Mum;

I—I ate my macaroon.” But he was growing slowly comforted; and the

instinct to excuse his fear revived within him.

“Mother Lee went round in me and got all fiery,” he mumbled.

“Well, Jon, what can you expect if you eat macaroons after you've gone

to bed?”

“Only one, Mum; it made the music ever so more beautiful. I was waiting

for you—I nearly thought it was to-morrow.”

“My ducky, it's only just eleven now.”

Little Jon was silent, rubbing his nose on her neck.

“Mum, is Daddy in your room?”

“Not to-night.”

“Can I come?”

“If you wish, my precious.”

Half himself again, little Jon drew back.

“You look different, Mum; ever so younger.”

“It's my hair, darling.”

Little Jon laid hold of it, thick, dark gold, with a few silver threads.

“I like it,” he said: “I like you best of all like this.”

Taking her hand, he had begun dragging her towards the door. He shut it

as they passed, with a sigh of relief.

“Which side of the bed do you like, Mum?”

“The left side.”

“All right.”

Wasting no time, giving her no chance to change her mind, little Jon got

into the bed, which seemed much softer than his own. He heaved another

sigh, screwed his head into the pillow and lay examining the battle of

chariots and swords and spears which always went on outside blankets,

where the little hairs stood up against the light.

“It wasn't anything, really, was it?” he said.

From before her glass his mother answered:

“Nothing but the moon and your imagination heated up. You mustn't get so

excited, Jon.”

But, still not quite in possession of his nerves, little Jon answered

boastfully:

“I wasn't afraid, really, of course!” And again he lay watching the

spears and chariots. It all seemed very long.

“Oh! Mum, do hurry up!”

“Darling, I have to plait my hair.”

“Oh! not to-night. You'll only have to unplait it again to-morrow. I'm

sleepy now; if you don't come, I shan't be sleepy soon.”

His mother stood up white and flowey before the winged mirror: he could

see three of her, with her neck turned and her hair bright under the

light, and her dark eyes smiling. It was unnecessary, and he said:

“Do come, Mum; I'm waiting.”

“Very well, my love, I'll come.”

Little Jon closed his eyes. Everything was turning out most

satisfactory, only she must hurry up! He felt the bed shake, she was

getting in. And, still with his eyes closed, he said sleepily: “It's

nice, isn't it?”

He heard her voice say something, felt her lips touching his nose, and,

snuggling up beside her who lay awake and loved him with her thoughts,

he fell into the dreamless sleep, which rounded off his past.

TO LET

“From out the fatal loins of those two foes A pair of star-crossed

lovers take their life.” —Romeo and Juliet.

TO CHARLES SCRIBNER

PART I

I.—ENCOUNTER

Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was

staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the intention

of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and

looking into the Future. He walked. Since the War he never took a cab

if he could help it. Their drivers were, in his view, an uncivil lot,

though now that the War was over and supply beginning to exceed demand

again, getting more civil in accordance with the custom of human nature.

Still, he had not forgiven them, deeply identifying them with gloomy

memories, and now, dimly, like all members, of their class, with

revolution. The considerable anxiety he had passed through during the

War, and the more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in the

Peace, had produced psychological consequences in a tenacious nature.

He had, mentally, so frequently experienced ruin, that he had ceased to

believe in its material probability. Paying away four thousand a year in

income and super tax, one could not very well be worse off! A fortune of

a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a wife and one daughter, and

very diversely invested, afforded substantial guarantee even against

that “wildcat notion” a levy on capital. And as to confiscation of war

profits, he was entirely in favour of it, for he had none, and “serve

the beggars right!” The price of pictures, moreover, had, if anything,

gone up, and he had done better with his collection since the War began

than ever before. Air-raids, also, had acted beneficially on a spirit

congenitally cautious, and hardened a character already dogged. To be in

danger of being entirely dispersed inclined one to be less apprehensive

of the more partial dispersions involved in levies and taxation, while

the habit of condemning the impudence of the Germans had led naturally

to condemning that of Labour, if not openly at least in the sanctuary of

his soul.

He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to meet him

at the Gallery at four o'clock, and it was as yet but half-past two.

It was good for him to walk—his liver was a little constricted, and his

nerves rather on edge. His wife was always out when she was in Town, and

his daughter would flibberty-gibbet all over the place like most young

women since the War. Still, he must be thankful that she had been too

young to do anything in that War itself. Not, of course, that he had

not supported the War from its inception, with all his soul, but between

that and supporting it with the bodies of his wife and daughter,

there had been a gap fixed by something old-fashioned within him which

abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for instance, strongly objected

to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only thirty-four, going to her

native France, her “chere patrie” as, under the stimulus of war, she had

begun to call it, to nurse her “braves poilus,” forsooth! Ruining

her health and her looks! As if she were really a nurse! He had put a

stopper on it. Let her do needlework for them at home, or knit! She had

not gone, therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A

bad tendency of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual little

ways, had grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the vexed problem

whether or not she should go to school. She was better away from her

mother in her war mood, from the chance of air-raids, and the impetus to

do extravagant things; so he had placed her in a seminary as far West

as had seemed to him compatible with excellence, and had missed her

horribly. Fleur! He had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name

by which at her birth he had decided so suddenly to call her—marked

concession though it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty name—a

pretty child! But restless—too restless; and wilful! Knowing her power

too over her father! Soames often reflected on the mistake it was to

dote on his daughter. To get old and dote! Sixty-five! He was getting

on; but he didn't feel it, for, fortunately perhaps, considering

Annette's youth and good looks, his second marriage had turned out a

cool affair. He had known but one real passion in his life—for that

first wife of his—Irene. Yes, and that fellow, his cousin Jolyon, who

had gone off with her, was looking very shaky, they said. No wonder, at

seventy-two, after twenty years of a third marriage!

Soames paused a moment in his march to lean over the railings of the

Row. A suitable spot for reminiscence, half-way between that house in

Park Lane which had seen his birth and his parents' deaths, and the

little house in Montpellier Square where thirty-five years ago he had

enjoyed his first edition of matrimony. Now, after twenty years of

his second edition, that old tragedy seemed to him like a previous

existence—which had ended when Fleur was born in place of the son he had

hoped for. For many years he had ceased regretting, even vaguely, the

son who had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After

all, she bore his name; and he was not looking forward at all to the

time when she would change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a

calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her

rich enough to purchase perhaps and extinguish the name of the fellow

who married her—why not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to men

nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced that they were not, passed his

curved hand over his face vigorously, till it reached the comfort of his

chin. Thanks to abstemious habits, he had not grown fat and gabby; his

nose was pale and thin, his grey moustache close-clipped, his eyesight

unimpaired. A slight stoop closened and corrected the expansion given to

his face by the heightening of his forehead in the recession of his

grey hair. Little change had Time wrought in the “warmest” of the young

Forsytes, as the last of the old Forsytes—Timothy-now in his hundred and

first year, would have phrased it.

The shade from the plane-trees fell on his neat Homburg hat; he had

given up top hats—it was no use attracting attention to wealth in days

like these. Plane-trees! His thoughts travelled sharply to Madrid—the

Easter before the War, when, having to make up his mind about that Goya

picture, he had taken a voyage of discovery to study the painter on his

spot. The fellow had impressed him—great range, real genius! Highly as

the chap ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished with

him. The second Goya craze would be greater even than the first;

oh, yes! And he had bought. On that visit he had—as never

before—commissioned a copy of a fresco painting called “La Vendimia,”

wherein was the figure of a girl with an arm akimbo, who had reminded

him of his daughter. He had it now in the Gallery at Mapledurham, and

rather poor it was—you couldn't copy Goya. He would still look at it,

however, if his daughter were not there, for the sake of something

irresistibly reminiscent in the light, erect balance of the figure, the

width between the arching eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark eyes.

Curious that Fleur should have dark eyes, when his own were grey—no

pure Forsyte had brown eyes—and her mother's blue! But of course her

grandmother Lamotte's eyes were dark as treacle!

He began to walk on again toward Hyde Park Corner. No greater change

in all England than in the Row! Born almost within hail of it, he

could remember it from 1860 on. Brought there as a child between the

crinolines to stare at tight-trousered dandies in whiskers, riding with

a cavalry seat; to watch the doffing of curly-brimmed and white top

hats; the leisurely air of it all, and the little bow-legged man in

a long red waistcoat who used to come among the fashion with dogs

on several strings, and try to sell one to his mother: King Charles

spaniels, Italian greyhounds, affectionate to her crinoline—you never

saw them now. You saw no quality of any sort, indeed, just working

people sitting in dull rows with nothing to stare at but a few young

bouncing females in pot hats, riding astride, or desultory Colonials

charging up and down on dismal-looking hacks; with, here and there,

little girls on ponies, or old gentlemen jogging their livers, or an

orderly trying a great galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no

grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no gossip—nothing; only the trees

the same—the trees indifferent to the generations and declensions of

mankind. A democratic England—dishevelled, hurried, noisy, and seemingly

without an apex. And that something fastidious in the soul of Soames

turned over within him. Gone forever, the close borough of rank and

polish! Wealth there was—oh, yes! wealth—he himself was a richer man

than his father had ever been; but manners, flavour, quality, all gone,

engulfed in one vast, ugly, shoulder-rubbing, petrol-smelling Cheerio.

Little half-beaten pockets of gentility and caste lurking here and

there, dispersed and chetif, as Annette would say; but nothing ever

again firm and coherent to look up to. And into this new hurly-burly of

bad manners and loose morals his daughter—flower of his life—was flung!

And when those Labour chaps got power—if they ever did—the worst was yet

to come.

He passed out under the archway, at last no longer—thank

goodness!—disfigured by the gungrey of its search-light. 'They'd better

put a search-light on to where they're all going,' he thought, 'and

light up their precious democracy!' And he directed his steps along the

Club fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of course, would be sitting

in the bay window of the Iseeum. The chap was so big now that he was

there nearly all his time, like some immovable, sardonic, humorous

eye noting the decline of men and things. And Soames hurried, ever

constitutionally uneasy beneath his cousin's glance. George, who, as he

had heard, had written a letter signed “Patriot” in the middle of the

War, complaining of the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of

race-horses. Yes, there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, clean-shaven,

with his smooth hair, hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best

hair-wash, and a pink paper in his hand. Well, he didn't change! And

for perhaps the first time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy

tapping in his waistcoat for that sardonic kinsman. With his weight, his

perfectly parted hair, and bull-like gaze, he was a guarantee that the

old order would take some shifting yet. He saw George move the pink

paper as if inviting him to ascend—the chap must want to ask something

about his property. It was still under Soames' control; for in the

adoption of a sleeping partnership at that painful period twenty

years back when he had divorced Irene, Soames had found himself almost

insensibly retaining control of all purely Forsyte affairs.

Hesitating for just a moment, he nodded and went in. Since the death

of his brother-in-law Montague Dartie, in Paris, which no one had quite

known what to make of, except that it was certainly not suicide—the

Iseeum Club had seemed more respectable to Soames. George, too, he knew,

had sown the last of his wild oats, and was committed definitely to the

joys of the table, eating only of the very best so as to keep his weight

down, and owning, as he said, “just one or two old screws to give me an

interest in life.” He joined his cousin, therefore, in the bay window

without the embarrassing sense of indiscretion he had been used to feel

up there. George put out a well-kept hand.

“Haven't seen you since the War,” he said. “How's your wife?”

“Thanks,” said Soames coldly, “well enough.”

Some hidden jest curved, for a moment, George's fleshy face, and gloated

from his eye.

“That Belgian chap, Profond,” he said, “is a member here now. He's a rum

customer.”

“Quite!” muttered Soames. “What did you want to see me about?”

“Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. I suppose he's

made his Will.”

“Yes.”

“Well, you or somebody ought to give him a look up—last of the old lot;

he's a hundred, you know. They say he's like a mummy. Where are you

goin' to put him? He ought to have a pyramid by rights.”

Soames shook his head. “Highgate, the family vault.”

“Well, I suppose the old girls would miss him, if he was anywhere else.

They say he still takes an interest in food. He might last on, you know.

Don't we get anything for the old Forsytes? Ten of them—average age

eighty-eight—I worked it out. That ought to be equal to triplets.”

“Is that all?” said Soames, “I must be getting on.”

'You unsociable devil,' George's eyes seemed to answer. “Yes, that's

all: Look him up in his mausoleum—the old chap might want to prophesy.”

The grin died on the rich curves of his face, and he added: “Haven't you

attorneys invented a way yet of dodging this damned income tax? It

hits the fixed inherited income like the very deuce. I used to have two

thousand five hundred a year; now I've got a beggarly fifteen hundred,

and the price of living doubled.”

“Ah!” murmured Soames, “the turf's in danger.”

Over George's face moved a gleam of sardonic self-defence.

“Well,” he said, “they brought me up to do nothing, and here I am in the

sear and yellow, getting poorer every day. These Labour chaps mean to

have the lot before they've done. What are you going to do for a living

when it comes? I shall work a six-hour day teaching politicians how to

see a joke. Take my tip, Soames; go into Parliament, make sure of your

four hundred—and employ me.”

And, as Soames retired, he resumed his seat in the bay window.

Soames moved along Piccadilly deep in reflections excited by his

cousin's words. He himself had always been a worker and a saver, George

always a drone and a spender; and yet, if confiscation once began,

it was he—the worker and the saver—who would be looted! That was the

negation of all virtue, the overturning of all Forsyte principles. Could

civilization be built on any other? He did not think so. Well, they

wouldn't confiscate his pictures, for they wouldn't know their worth.

But what would they be worth, if these maniacs once began to milk

capital? A drug on the market. 'I don't care about myself,' he thought;

'I could live on five hundred a year, and never know the difference, at

my age.' But Fleur! This fortune, so widely invested, these treasures

so carefully chosen and amassed, were all for—her. And if it should

turn out that he couldn't give or leave them to her—well, life had

no meaning, and what was the use of going in to look at this crazy,

futuristic stuff with the view of seeing whether it had any future?

Arriving at the Gallery off Cork Street, however, he paid his shilling,

picked up a catalogue, and entered. Some ten persons were prowling

round. Soames took steps and came on what looked to him like a lamp-post

bent by collision with a motor omnibus. It was advanced some three

paces from the wall, and was described in his catalogue as “Jupiter.” He

examined it with curiosity, having recently turned some of his attention

to sculpture. 'If that's Jupiter,' he thought, 'I wonder what Juno's

like.' And suddenly he saw her, opposite. She appeared to him like

nothing so much as a pump with two handles, lightly clad in snow. He

was still gazing at her, when two of the prowlers halted on his left.

“Epatant!” he heard one say.

“Jargon!” growled Soames to himself.

The other's boyish voice replied

“Missed it, old bean; he's pulling your leg. When Jove and Juno created

he them, he was saying: 'I'll see how much these fools will swallow.'

And they've lapped up the lot.”

“You young duffer! Vospovitch is an innovator. Don't you see that he's

brought satire into sculpture? The future of plastic art, of music,

painting, and even architecture, has set in satiric. It was bound to.

People are tired—the bottom's tumbled out of sentiment.”

“Well, I'm quite equal to taking a little interest in beauty. I was

through the War. You've dropped your handkerchief, sir.”

Soames saw a handkerchief held out in front of him. He took it with

some natural suspicion, and approached it to his nose. It had the right

scent—of distant Eau de Cologne—and his initials in a corner. Slightly

reassured, he raised his eyes to the young man's face. It had rather

fawn-like ears, a laughing mouth, with half a toothbrush growing out

of it on each side, and small lively eyes, above a normally dressed

appearance.

“Thank you,” he said; and moved by a sort of irritation, added: “Glad to

hear you like beauty; that's rare, nowadays.”

“I dote on it,” said the young man; “but you and I are the last of the

old guard, sir.”

Soames smiled.

“If you really care for pictures,” he said, “here's my card. I can show

you some quite good ones any Sunday, if you're down the river and care

to look in.”

“Awfully nice of you, sir. I'll drop in like a bird. My name's

Mont-Michael.” And he took off his hat.

Soames, already regretting his impulse, raised his own slightly in

response, with a downward look at the young man's companion, who had a

purple tie, dreadful little sluglike whiskers, and a scornful look—as if

he were a poet!

It was the first indiscretion he had committed for so long that he went

and sat down in an alcove. What had possessed him to give his card to a

rackety young fellow, who went about with a thing like that? And Fleur,

always at the back of his thoughts, started out like a filigree figure

from a clock when the hour strikes. On the screen opposite the alcove

was a large canvas with a great many square tomato-coloured blobs on

it, and nothing else, so far as Soames could see from where he sat.

He looked at his catalogue: “No. 32 'The Future Town'—Paul Post.” 'I

suppose that's satiric too,' he thought. 'What a thing!' But his second

impulse was more cautious. It did not do to condemn hurriedly. There had

been those stripey, streaky creations of Monet's, which had turned out

such trumps; and then the stippled school; and Gauguin. Why, even since

the Post-Impressionists there had been one or two painters not to be

sneezed at. During the thirty-eight years of his connoisseur's life,

indeed, he had marked so many “movements,” seen the tides of taste and

technique so ebb and flow, that there was really no telling anything

except that there was money to be made out of every change of fashion.

This too might quite well be a case where one must subdue primordial

instinct, or lose the market. He got up and stood before the picture,

trying hard to see it with the eyes of other people. Above the tomato

blobs was what he took to be a sunset, till some one passing said: “He's

got the airplanes wonderfully, don't you think!” Below the tomato blobs

was a band of white with vertical black stripes, to which he could

assign no meaning whatever, till some one else came by, murmuring: “What

expression he gets with his foreground!” Expression? Of what? Soames

went back to his seat. The thing was “rich,” as his father would have

said, and he wouldn't give a damn for it. Expression! Ah! they were all

Expressionists now, he had heard, on the Continent. So it was coming

here too, was it? He remembered the first wave of influenza in

1887—or '8—hatched in China, so they said. He wondered where this—this

Expressionism had been hatched. The thing was a regular disease!

He had become conscious of a woman and a youth standing between him and

the “Future Town.” Their backs were turned; but very suddenly Soames

put his catalogue before his face, and drawing his hat forward, gazed

through the slit between. No mistaking that back, elegant as ever though

the hair above had gone grey. Irene! His divorced wife—Irene! And this,

no doubt, was—her son—by that fellow Jolyon Forsyte—their boy, six

months older than his own girl! And mumbling over in his mind the bitter

days of his divorce, he rose to get out of sight, but quickly sat down

again. She had turned her head to speak to her boy; her profile was

still so youthful that it made her grey hair seem powdery, as if

fancy-dressed; and her lips were smiling as Soames, first possessor

of them, had never seen them smile. Grudgingly he admitted her still

beautiful and in figure almost as young as ever. And how that boy smiled

back at her! Emotion squeezed Soames' heart. The sight infringed his

sense of justice. He grudged her that boy's smile—it went beyond what

Fleur gave him, and it was undeserved. Their son might have been his

son; Fleur might have been her daughter, if she had kept straight! He

lowered his catalogue. If she saw him, all the better! A reminder of

her conduct in the presence of her son, who probably knew nothing of it,

would be a salutary touch from the finger of that Nemesis which surely

must soon or late visit her! Then, half-conscious that such a thought

was extravagant for a Forsyte of his age, Soames took out his watch.

Past four! Fleur was late. She had gone to his niece Imogen Cardigan's,

and there they would keep her smoking cigarettes and gossiping, and

that. He heard the boy laugh, and say eagerly: “I say, Mum, is this by

one of Auntie June's lame ducks?”

“Paul Post—I believe it is, darling.”

The word produced a little shock in Soames; he had never heard her use

it. And then she saw him. His eyes must have had in them something of

George Forsyte's sardonic look; for her gloved hand crisped the folds of

her frock, her eyebrows rose, her face went stony. She moved on.

“It is a caution,” said the boy, catching her arm again.

Soames stared after them. That boy was good-looking, with a Forsyte

chin, and eyes deep-grey, deep in; but with something sunny, like a

glass of old sherry spilled over him; his smile perhaps, his hair.

Better than they deserved—those two! They passed from his view into the

next room, and Soames continued to regard the Future Town, but saw it

not. A little smile snarled up his lips. He was despising the vehemence

of his own feelings after all these years. Ghosts! And yet as one grew

old—was there anything but what was ghost-like left? Yes, there was

Fleur! He fixed his eyes on the entrance. She was due; but she would

keep him waiting, of course! And suddenly he became aware of a sort of

human breeze—a short, slight form clad in a sea-green djibbah with a

metal belt and a fillet binding unruly red-gold hair all streaked with

grey. She was talking to the Gallery attendants, and something familiar

riveted his gaze—in her eyes, her chin, her hair, her spirit—something

which suggested a thin Skye terrier just before its dinner. Surely June

Forsyte! His cousin June—and coming straight to his recess! She sat down

beside him, deep in thought, took out a tablet, and made a pencil note.

Soames sat unmoving. A confounded thing, cousinship! “Disgusting!” he

heard her murmur; then, as if resenting the presence of an overhearing

stranger, she looked at him. The worst had happened.

“Soames!”

Soames turned his head a very little.

“How are you?” he said. “Haven't seen you for twenty years.”

“No. Whatever made you come here?”

“My sins,” said Soames. “What stuff!”

“Stuff? Oh, yes—of course; it hasn't arrived yet.

“It never will,” said Soames; “it must be making a dead loss.”

“Of course it is.”

“How d'you know?”

“It's my Gallery.”

Soames sniffed from sheer surprise.

“Yours? What on earth makes you run a show like this?”

“I don't treat Art as if it were grocery.”

Soames pointed to the Future Town. “Look at that! Who's going to live in

a town like that, or with it on his walls?”

June contemplated the picture for a moment.

“It's a vision,” she said.

“The deuce!”

There was silence, then June rose. 'Crazylooking creature!' he thought.

“Well,” he said, “you'll find your young stepbrother here with a woman I

used to know. If you take my advice, you'll close this exhibition.”

June looked back at him. “Oh! You Forsyte!” she said, and moved on.

About her light, fly-away figure, passing so suddenly away, was a look

of dangerous decisions. Forsyte! Of course, he was a Forsyte! And so was

she! But from the time when, as a mere girl, she brought Bosinney into

his life to wreck it, he had never hit it off with June and never

would! And here she was, unmarried to this day, owning a Gallery!... And

suddenly it came to Soames how little he knew now of his own family.

The old aunts at Timothy's had been dead so many years; there was

no clearing-house for news. What had they all done in the War? Young

Roger's boy had been wounded, St. John Hayman's second son killed; young

Nicholas' eldest had got an O. B. E., or whatever they gave them.

They had all joined up somehow, he believed. That boy of Jolyon's and

Irene's, he supposed, had been too young; his own generation, of course,

too old, though Giles Hayman had driven a car for the Red Cross—and

Jesse Hayman been a special constable—those “Dromios” had always been

of a sporting type! As for himself, he had given a motor ambulance, read

the papers till he was sick of them, passed through much anxiety, bought

no clothes, lost seven pounds in weight; he didn't know what more he

could have done at his age. Indeed, thinking it over, it struck him that

he and his family had taken this war very differently to that affair

with the Boers, which had been supposed to tax all the resources of

the Empire. In that old war, of course, his nephew Val Dartie had

been wounded, that fellow Jolyon's first son had died of enteric, “the

Dromios” had gone out on horses, and June had been a nurse; but all that

had seemed in the nature of a portent, while in this war everybody had

done “their bit,” so far as he could make out, as a matter of course. It

seemed to show the growth of something or other—or perhaps the decline

of something else. Had the Forsytes become less individual, or

more Imperial, or less provincial? Or was it simply that one hated

Germans?... Why didn't Fleur come, so that he could get away? He saw

those three return together from the other room and pass back along the

far side of the screen. The boy was standing before the Juno now.

And, suddenly, on the other side of her, Soames saw—his daughter, with

eyebrows raised, as well they might be. He could see her eyes glint

sideways at the boy, and the boy look back at her. Then Irene slipped

her hand through his arm, and drew him on. Soames saw him glancing

round, and Fleur looking after them as the three went out.

A voice said cheerfully: “Bit thick, isn't it, sir?”

The young man who had handed him his handkerchief was again passing.

Soames nodded.

“I don't know what we're coming to.”

“Oh! That's all right, sir,” answered the young man cheerfully; “they

don't either.”

Fleur's voice said: “Hallo, Father! Here you are!” precisely as if he

had been keeping her waiting.

The young man, snatching off his hat, passed on.

“Well,” said Soames, looking her up and down, “you're a punctual sort of

young woman!”

This treasured possession of his life was of medium height and colour,

with short, dark chestnut hair; her wide-apart brown eyes were set in

whites so clear that they glinted when they moved, and yet in repose

were almost dreamy under very white, black-lashed lids, held over them

in a sort of suspense. She had a charming profile, and nothing of her

father in her face save a decided chin. Aware that his expression

was softening as he looked at her, Soames frowned to preserve the

unemotionalism proper to a Forsyte. He knew she was only too inclined to

take advantage of his weakness.

Slipping her hand under his arm, she said:

“Who was that?”

“He picked up my handkerchief. We talked about the pictures.”

“You're not going to buy that, Father?”

“No,” said Soames grimly; “nor that Juno you've been looking at.”

Fleur dragged at his arm. “Oh! Let's go! It's a ghastly show.”

In the doorway they passed the young man called Mont and his partner.

But Soames had hung out a board marked “Trespassers will be prosecuted,”

and he barely acknowledged the young fellow's salute.

“Well,” he said in the street, “whom did you meet at Imogen's?”

“Aunt Winifred, and that Monsieur Profond.”

“Oh!” muttered Soames; “that chap! What does your aunt see in him?”

“I don't know. He looks pretty deep—mother says she likes him.”

Soames grunted.

“Cousin Val and his wife were there, too.”

“What!” said Soames. “I thought they were back in South Africa.”

“Oh, no! They've sold their farm. Cousin Val is going to train

race-horses on the Sussex Downs. They've got a jolly old manor-house;

they asked me down there.”

Soames coughed: the news was distasteful to him. “What's his wife like

now?”

“Very quiet, but nice, I think.”

Soames coughed again. “He's a rackety chap, your Cousin Val.”

“Oh! no, Father; they're awfully devoted. I promised to go—Saturday to

Wednesday next.”

“Training race-horses!” said Soames. It was extravagant, but not the

reason for his distaste. Why the deuce couldn't his nephew have stayed

out in South Africa? His own divorce had been bad enough, without his

nephew's marriage to the daughter of the co-respondent; a half-sister

too of June, and of that boy whom Fleur had just been looking at from

under the pump-handle. If he didn't look out, she would come to know

all about that old disgrace! Unpleasant things! They were round him this

afternoon like a swarm of bees!

“I don't like it!” he said.

“I want to see the race-horses,” murmured Fleur; “and they've promised

I shall ride. Cousin Val can't walk much, you know; but he can ride

perfectly. He's going to show me their gallops.”

“Racing!” said Soames. “It's a pity the War didn't knock that on the

head. He's taking after his father, I'm afraid.”

“I don't know anything about his father.”

“No,” said Soames, grimly. “He took an interest in horses and broke his

neck in Paris, walking down-stairs. Good riddance for your aunt.”

He frowned, recollecting the inquiry into those stairs which he had

attended in Paris six years ago, because Montague Dartie could not

attend it himself—perfectly normal stairs in a house where they played

baccarat. Either his winnings or the way he had celebrated them had gone

to his brother-in-law's head. The French procedure had been very loose;

he had had a lot of trouble with it.

A sound from Fleur distracted his attention. “Look! The people who were

in the Gallery with us.”

“What people?” muttered Soames, who knew perfectly well.

“I think that woman's beautiful.”

“Come into this pastry-cook's,” said Soames abruptly, and tightening

his grip on her arm he turned into a confectioner's. It was—for him—a

surprising thing to do, and he said rather anxiously: “What will you

have?”

“Oh! I don't want anything. I had a cocktail and a tremendous lunch.”

“We must have something now we're here,” muttered Soames, keeping hold

of her arm.

“Two teas,” he said; “and two of those nougat things.”

But no sooner was his body seated than his soul sprang up. Those

three—those three were coming in! He heard Irene say something to her

boy, and his answer:

“Oh! no, Mum; this place is all right. My stunt.” And the three sat

down.

At that moment, most awkward of his existence, crowded with ghosts and

shadows from his past, in presence of the only two women he had ever

loved—his divorced wife and his daughter by her successor—Soames was not

so much afraid of them as of his cousin June. She might make a scene—she

might introduce those two children—she was capable of anything. He bit

too hastily at the nougat, and it stuck to his plate. Working at it with

his finger, he glanced at Fleur. She was masticating dreamily, but her

eyes were on the boy. The Forsyte in him said: “Think, feel, and you're

done for!” And he wiggled his finger desperately. Plate! Did Jolyon wear

a plate? Did that woman wear a plate? Time had been when he had seen her

wearing nothing! That was something, anyway, which had never been

stolen from him. And she knew it, though she might sit there calm

and self-possessed, as if she had never been his wife. An acid humour

stirred in his Forsyte blood; a subtle pain divided by hair's breadth

from pleasure. If only June did not suddenly bring her hornets about his

ears! The boy was talking.

“Of course, Auntie June”—so he called his half-sister “Auntie,” did

he?—well, she must be fifty, if she was a day!—“it's jolly good of you

to encourage them. Only—hang it all!” Soames stole a glance. Irene's

startled eyes were bent watchfully on her boy. She—she had these

devotions—for Bosinney—for that boy's father—for this boy! He touched

Fleur's arm, and said:

“Well, have you had enough?”

“One more, Father, please.”

She would be sick! He went to the counter to pay. When he turned round

again he saw Fleur standing near the door, holding a handkerchief which

the boy had evidently just handed to her.

“F. F.,” he heard her say. “Fleur Forsyte—it's mine all right. Thank you

ever so.”

Good God! She had caught the trick from what he'd told her in the

Gallery—monkey!

“Forsyte? Why—that's my name too. Perhaps we're cousins.”

“Really! We must be. There aren't any others. I live at Mapledurham;

where do you?”

“Robin Hill.”

Question and answer had been so rapid that all was over before he could

lift a finger. He saw Irene's face alive with startled feeling, gave the

slightest shake of his head, and slipped his arm through Fleur's.

“Come along!” he said.

She did not move.

“Didn't you hear, Father? Isn't it queer—our name's the same. Are we

cousins?”

“What's that?” he said. “Forsyte? Distant, perhaps.”

“My name's Jolyon, sir. Jon, for short.”

“Oh! Ah!” said Soames. “Yes. Distant. How are you? Very good of you.

Good-bye!”

He moved on.

“Thanks awfully,” Fleur was saying. “Au revoir!”

“Au revoir!” he heard the boy reply.

II.—FINE FLEUR FORSYTE

Emerging from the “pastry-cook's,” Soames' first impulse was to vent

his nerves by saying to his daughter: 'Dropping your hand-kerchief!' to

which her reply might well be: 'I picked that up from you!' His second

impulse therefore was to let sleeping dogs lie. But she would surely

question him. He gave her a sidelong look, and found she was giving him

the same. She said softly:

“Why don't you like those cousins, Father?” Soames lifted the corner of

his lip.

“What made you think that?”

“Cela se voit.”

'That sees itself!' What a way of putting it! After twenty years of

a French wife Soames had still little sympathy with her language; a

theatrical affair and connected in his mind with all the refinements of

domestic irony.

“How?” he asked.

“You must know them; and you didn't make a sign. I saw them looking at

you.”

“I've never seen the boy in my life,” replied Soames with perfect truth.

“No; but you've seen the others, dear.”

Soames gave her another look. What had she picked up? Had her Aunt

Winifred, or Imogen, or Val Dartie and his wife, been talking? Every

breath of the old scandal had been carefully kept from her at home, and

Winifred warned many times that he wouldn't have a whisper of it reach

her for the world. So far as she ought to know, he had never been

married before. But her dark eyes, whose southern glint and clearness

often almost frightened him, met his with perfect innocence.

“Well,” he said, “your grandfather and his brother had a quarrel. The

two families don't know each other.”

“How romantic!”

'Now, what does she mean by that?' he thought. The word was to him

extravagant and dangerous—it was as if she had said: “How jolly!”

“And they'll continue not to know each, other,” he added, but instantly

regretted the challenge in those words. Fleur was smiling. In this age,

when young people prided themselves on going their own ways and paying

no attention to any sort of decent prejudice, he had said the very thing

to excite her wilfulness. Then, recollecting the expression on Irene's

face, he breathed again.

“What sort of a quarrel?” he heard Fleur say.

“About a house. It's ancient history for you. Your grandfather died the

day you were born. He was ninety.”

“Ninety? Are there many Forsytes besides those in the Red Book?”

“I don't know,” said Soames. “They're all dispersed now. The old ones

are dead, except Timothy.”

Fleur clasped her hands.

“Timothy? Isn't that delicious?”

“Not at all,” said Soames. It offended him that she should think

“Timothy” delicious—a kind of insult to his breed. This new generation

mocked at anything solid and tenacious. “You go and see the old boy. He

might want to prophesy.” Ah! If Timothy could see the disquiet England

of his great-nephews and great-nieces, he would certainly give tongue.

And involuntarily he glanced up at the Iseeum; yes—George was still in

the window, with the same pink paper in his hand.

“Where is Robin Hill, Father?”

Robin Hill! Robin Hill, round which all that tragedy had centred! What

did she want to know for?

“In Surrey,” he muttered; “not far from Richmond. Why?”

“Is the house there?”

“What house?”

“That they quarrelled about.”

“Yes. But what's all that to do with you? We're going home

to-morrow—you'd better be thinking about your frocks.”

“Bless you! They're all thought about. A family feud? It's like the

Bible, or Mark Twain—awfully exciting. What did you do in the feud,

Father?”

“Never you mind.”

“Oh! But if I'm to keep it up?”

“Who said you were to keep it up?”

“You, darling.”

“I? I said it had nothing to do with you.”

“Just what I think, you know; so that's all right.”

She was too sharp for him; fine, as Annette sometimes called her.

Nothing for it but to distract her attention.

“There's a bit of rosaline point in here,” he said, stopping before a

shop, “that I thought you might like.”

When he had paid for it and they had resumed their progress, Fleur said:

“Don't you think that boy's mother is the most beautiful woman of her

age you've ever seen?”

Soames shivered. Uncanny, the way she stuck to it!

“I don't know that I noticed her.”

“Dear, I saw the corner of your eye.”

“You see everything—and a great deal more, it seems to me!”

“What's her husband like? He must be your first cousin, if your fathers

were brothers.”

“Dead, for all I know,” said Soames, with sudden vehemence. “I haven't

seen him for twenty years.”

“What was he?”

“A painter.”

“That's quite jolly.”

The words: “If you want to please me you'll put those people out of your

head,” sprang to Soames' lips, but he choked them back—he must not let

her see his feelings.

“He once insulted me,” he said.

Her quick eyes rested on his face.

“I see! You didn't avenge it, and it rankles. Poor Father! You let me

have a go!”

It was really like lying in the dark with a mosquito hovering above his

face. Such pertinacity in Fleur was new to him, and, as they reached the

hotel, he said grimly:

“I did my best. And that's enough about these people. I'm going up till

dinner.”

“I shall sit here.”

With a parting look at her extended in a chair—a look half-resentful,

half-adoring—Soames moved into the lift and was transported to their

suite on the fourth floor. He stood by the window of the sitting-room

which gave view over Hyde Park, and drummed a finger on its pane. His

feelings were confused, tetchy, troubled. The throb of that old wound,

scarred over by Time and new interests, was mingled with displeasure

and anxiety, and a slight pain in his chest where that nougat stuff had

disagreed. Had Annette come in? Not that she was any good to him in such

a difficulty. Whenever she had questioned him about his first marriage,

he had always shut her up; she knew nothing of it, save that it had

been the great passion of his life, and his marriage with herself

but domestic makeshift. She had always kept the grudge of that up her

sleeve, as it were, and used it commercially. He listened. A sound—the

vague murmur of a woman's movements—was coming through the door. She was

in. He tapped.

“Who?”

“I,” said Soames.

She had been changing her frock, and was still imperfectly clothed; a

striking figure before her glass. There was a certain magnificence about

her arms, shoulders, hair, which had darkened since he first knew

her, about the turn of her neck, the silkiness of her garments, her

dark-lashed, greyblue eyes—she was certainly as handsome at forty as she

had ever been. A fine possession, an excellent housekeeper, a sensible

and affectionate enough mother. If only she weren't always so frankly

cynical about the relations between them! Soames, who had no more real

affection for her than she had for him, suffered from a kind of English

grievance in that she had never dropped even the thinnest veil of

sentiment over their partnership. Like most of his countrymen and women,

he held the view that marriage should be based on mutual love, but that

when from a marriage love had disappeared, or, been found never to have

really existed—so that it was manifestly not based on love—you must not

admit it. There it was, and the love was not—but there you were, and

must continue to be! Thus you had it both ways, and were not tarred

with cynicism, realism, and immorality like the French. Moreover, it was

necessary in the interests of property. He knew that she knew that they

both knew there was no love between them, but he still expected her not

to admit in words or conduct such a thing, and he could never understand

what she meant when she talked of the hypocrisy of the English. He said:

“Whom have you got at 'The Shelter' next week?”

Annette went on touching her lips delicately with salve—he always wished

she wouldn't do that.

“Your sister Winifred, and the Car-r-digans”—she took up a tiny stick of

black—“and Prosper Profond.”

“That Belgian chap? Why him?”

Annette turned her neck lazily, touched one eyelash, and said:

“He amuses Winifred.”

“I want some one to amuse Fleur; she's restive.”

“R-restive?” repeated Annette. “Is it the first time you see that, my

friend? She was born r-restive, as you call it.”

Would she never get that affected roll out of her r's?

He touched the dress she had taken off, and asked:

“What have you been doing?”

Annette looked at him, reflected in her glass. Her just-brightened lips

smiled, rather full, rather ironical.

“Enjoying myself,” she said.

“Oh!” answered Soames glumly. “Ribbandry, I suppose.”

It was his word for all that incomprehensible running in and out of

shops that women went in for. “Has Fleur got her summer dresses?”

“You don't ask if I have mine.”

“You don't care whether I do or not.”

“Quite right. Well, she has; and I have mine—terribly expensive.”

“H'm!” said Soames. “What does that chap Profond do in England?”

Annette raised the eyebrows she had just finished.

“He yachts.”

“Ah!” said Soames; “he's a sleepy chap.”

“Sometimes,” answered Annette, and her face had a sort of quiet

enjoyment. “But sometimes very amusing.”

“He's got a touch of the tar-brush about him.”

Annette stretched herself.

“Tar-brush?” she said. “What is that? His mother was Armenienne.”

“That's it, then,” muttered Soames. “Does he know anything about

pictures?”

“He knows about everything—a man of the world.”

“Well, get some one for Fleur. I want to distract her. She's going off

on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; I don't like it.”

“Why not?”

Since the reason could not be explained without going into family

history, Soames merely answered:

“Racketing about. There's too much of it.”

“I like that little Mrs. Val; she is very quiet and clever.”

“I know nothing of her except—This thing's new.” And Soames took up a

creation from the bed.

Annette received it from him.

“Would you hook me?” she said.

Soames hooked. Glancing once over her shoulder into the glass, he saw

the expression on her face, faintly amused, faintly contemptuous, as

much as to say: “Thanks! You will never learn!” No, thank God, he wasn't

a Frenchman! He finished with a jerk, and the words: “It's too low

here.” And he went to the door, with the wish to get away from her and

go down to Fleur again.

Annette stayed a powder-puff, and said with startling suddenness

“Que tu es grossier!”

He knew the expression—he had reason to. The first time she had used

it he had thought it meant “What a grocer you are!” and had not known

whether to be relieved or not when better informed. He resented the

word—he was not coarse! If he was coarse, what was that chap in the

room beyond his, who made those horrible noises in the morning when

he cleared his throat, or those people in the Lounge who thought it

well-bred to say nothing but what the whole world could hear at the top

of their voices—quacking inanity! Coarse, because he had said her dress

was low! Well, so it was! He went out without reply.

Coming into the Lounge from the far end, he at once saw Fleur where he

had left her. She sat with crossed knees, slowly balancing a foot in

silk stocking and grey shoe, sure sign that she was dreaming. Her eyes

showed it too—they went off like that sometimes. And then, in a moment,

she would come to life, and be as quick and restless as a monkey. And

she knew so much, so self-assured, and not yet nineteen. What was that

odious word? Flapper! Dreadful young creatures—squealing and squawking

and showing their legs! The worst of them bad dreams, the best of them

powdered angels! Fleur was not a flapper, not one of those slangy,

ill-bred young females. And yet she was frighteningly self-willed, and

full of life, and determined to enjoy it. Enjoy! The word brought

no puritan terror to Soames; but it brought the terror suited to his

temperament. He had always been afraid to enjoy to-day for fear he

might not enjoy tomorrow so much. And it was terrifying to feel that his

daughter was divested of that safeguard. The very way she sat in that

chair showed it—lost in her dream. He had never been lost in a dream

himself—there was nothing to be had out of it; and where she got it from

he did not know! Certainly not from Annette! And yet Annette, as a young

girl, when he was hanging about her, had once had a flowery look. Well,

she had lost it now!

Fleur rose from her chair-swiftly, restlessly; and flung herself down at

a writing-table. Seizing ink and writing paper, she began to write as

if she had not time to breathe before she got her letter written. And

suddenly she saw him. The air of desperate absorption vanished, she

smiled, waved a kiss, made a pretty face as if she were a little puzzled

and a little bored.

Ah! She was “fine”—“fine!”

III.—AT ROBIN HILL

Jolyon Forsyte had spent his boy's nineteenth birthday at Robin Hill,

quietly going into his affairs. He did everything quietly now, because

his heart was in a poor way, and, like all his family, he disliked the

idea of dying. He had never realised how much till one day, two years

ago, he had gone to his doctor about certain symptoms, and been told:

“At any moment, on any overstrain.”

He had taken it with a smile—the natural Forsyte reaction against an

unpleasant truth. But with an increase of symptoms in the train on the

way home, he had realised to the full the sentence hanging over him.

To leave Irene, his boy, his home, his work—though he did little enough

work now! To leave them for unknown darkness, for the unimaginable

state, for such nothingness that he would not even be conscious of wind

stirring leaves above his grave, nor of the scent of earth and grass.

Of such nothingness that, however hard he might try to conceive it, he

never could, and must still hover on the hope that he might see again

those he loved! To realise this was to endure very poignant spiritual

anguish. Before he reached home that day he had determined to keep it

from Irene. He would have to be more careful than man had ever been, for

the least thing would give it away and make her as wretched as himself,

almost. His doctor had passed him sound in other respects, and seventy

was nothing of an age—he would last a long time yet, if he could.

Such a conclusion, followed out for nearly two years, develops to the

full the subtler side of character. Naturally not abrupt, except when

nervously excited, Jolyon had become control incarnate. The sad patience

of old people who cannot exert themselves was masked by a smile which

his lips preserved even in private. He devised continually all manner of

cover to conceal his enforced lack of exertion.

Mocking himself for so doing, he counterfeited conversion to the Simple

Life; gave up wine and cigars, drank a special kind of coffee with no

coffee in it. In short, he made himself as safe as a Forsyte in

his condition could, under the rose of his mild irony. Secure from

discovery, since his wife and son had gone up to Town, he had spent the

fine May day quietly arranging his papers, that he might die to-morrow

without inconveniencing any one, giving in fact a final polish to his

terrestrial state. Having docketed and enclosed it in his father's

old Chinese cabinet, he put the key into an envelope, wrote the words

outside: “Key of the Chinese cabinet, wherein will be found the exact

state of me, J. F.,” and put it in his breast-pocket, where it would be

always about him, in case of accident. Then, ringing for tea, he went

out to have it under the old oak-tree.

All are under sentence of death; Jolyon, whose sentence was but a little

more precise and pressing, had become so used to it that he thought

habitually, like other people, of other things. He thought of his son

now.

Jon was nineteen that day, and Jon had come of late to a decision.

Educated neither at Eton like his father, nor at Harrow, like his dead

half-brother, but at one of those establishments which, designed to

avoid the evil and contain the good of the Public School system, may

or may not contain the evil and avoid the good, Jon had left in April

perfectly ignorant of what he wanted to become. The War, which had

promised to go on for ever, had ended just as he was about to join the

Army, six months before his time. It had taken him ever since to get

used to the idea that he could now choose for himself. He had held with

his father several discussions, from which, under a cheery show of being

ready for anything—except, of course, the Church, Army, Law, Stage,

Stock Exchange, Medicine, Business, and Engineering—Jolyon had gathered

rather clearly that Jon wanted to go in for nothing. He himself had felt

exactly like that at the same age. With him that pleasant vacuity had

soon been ended by an early marriage, and its unhappy consequences.

Forced to become an underwriter at Lloyd's, he had regained prosperity

before his artistic talent had outcropped. But having—as the simple

say—“learned” his boy to draw pigs and other animals, he knew that

Jon would never be a painter, and inclined to the conclusion that his

aversion from everything else meant that he was going to be a writer.

Holding, however, the view that experience was necessary even for that

profession, there seemed to Jolyon nothing in the meantime, for Jon, but

University, travel, and perhaps the eating of dinners for the Bar. After

that one would see, or more probably one would not. In face of these

proffered allurements, however, Jon had remained undecided.

Such discussions with his son had confirmed in Jolyon a doubt whether

the world had really changed. People said that it was a new age. With

the profundity of one not too long for any age, Jolyon perceived that

under slightly different surfaces the era was precisely what it had

been. Mankind was still divided into two species: The few who had

“speculation” in their souls, and the many who had none, with a belt of

hybrids like himself in the middle. Jon appeared to have speculation; it

seemed to his father a bad lookout.

With something deeper, therefore, than his usual smile, he had heard

the boy say, a fortnight ago: “I should like to try farming, Dad; if it

won't cost you too much. It seems to be about the only sort of life

that doesn't hurt anybody; except art, and of course that's out of the

question for me.”

Jolyon subdued his smile, and answered:

“All right; you shall skip back to where we were under the first Jolyon

in 1760. It'll prove the cycle theory, and incidentally, no doubt, you

may grow a better turnip than he did.”

A little dashed, Jon had answered:

“But don't you think it's a good scheme, Dad?”

“'Twill serve, my dear; and if you should really take to it, you'll do

more good than most men, which is little enough.”

To himself, however, he had said: 'But he won't take to it. I give him

four years. Still, it's healthy, and harmless.'

After turning the matter over and consulting with Irene, he wrote to his

daughter, Mrs. Val Dartie, asking if they knew of a farmer near them on

the Downs who would take Jon as an apprentice. Holly's answer had been

enthusiastic. There was an excellent man quite close; she and Val would

love Jon to live with them.

The boy was due to go to-morrow.

Sipping weak tea with lemon in it, Jolyon gazed through the leaves of

the old oak-tree at that view which had appeared to him desirable for

thirty-two years. The tree beneath which he sat seemed not a day

older! So young, the little leaves of brownish gold; so old, the

whitey-grey-green of its thick rough trunk. A tree of memories, which

would live on hundreds of years yet, unless some barbarian cut it

down—would see old England out at the pace things were going! He

remembered a night three years before, when, looking from his window,

with his arm close round Irene, he had watched a German aeroplane

hovering, it seemed, right over the old tree. Next day they had found a

bomb hole in a field on Gage's farm. That was before he knew that he

was under sentence of death. He could almost have wished the bomb had

finished him. It would have saved a lot of hanging about, many hours

of cold fear in the pit of his stomach. He had counted on living to the

normal Forsyte age of eighty-five or more, when Irene would be seventy.

As it was, she would miss him. Still there was Jon, more important in

her life than himself; Jon, who adored his mother.

Under that tree, where old Jolyon—waiting for Irene to come to him

across the lawn—had breathed his last, Jolyon wondered, whimsically,

whether, having put everything in such perfect order, he had not better

close his own eyes and drift away. There was something undignified in

parasitically clinging on to the effortless close of a life wherein

he regretted two things only—the long division between his father and

himself when he was young, and the lateness of his union with Irene.

From where he sat he could see a cluster of apple-trees in blossom.

Nothing in Nature moved him so much as fruit-trees in blossom; and

his heart ached suddenly because he might never see them flower again.

Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die while his heart was

still young enough to love beauty! Blackbirds sang recklessly in the

shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the leaves above him glistened;

and over the fields was every imaginable tint of early foliage,

burnished by the level sunlight, away to where the distant “smoke-bush”

blue was trailed along the horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow beds

had startling individuality that evening, little deep assertions of

gay life. Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps Leonardo, had

known how to get that startling little ego into each painted flower, and

bird, and beast—the ego, yet the sense of species, the universality of

life as well. They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing that will live!'

thought Jolyon; 'I've been an amateur—a mere lover, not a creator.

Still, I shall leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy

had not been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been

killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal. Jon would

do something some day—if the Age didn't spoil him—an imaginative chap!

His whim to take up farming was but a bit of sentiment, and about as

likely to last. And just then he saw them coming up the field: Irene and

the boy; walking from the station, with their arms linked. And getting

up, he strolled down through the new rose garden to meet them....

Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window. She sat

there without speaking till he said:

“What is it, my love?”

“We had an encounter to-day.”

“With whom?”

“Soames.”

Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two years;

conscious that it was bad for him. And, now, his heart moved in a

disconcerting manner, as if it had side-slipped within his chest.

Irene went on quietly:

“He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterward at the

confectioner's where we had tea.”

Jolyon went over and put his hand on her shoulder.

“How did he look?”

“Grey; but otherwise much the same.”

“And the daughter?”

“Pretty. At least, Jon thought so.”

Jolyon's heart side-slipped again. His wife's face had a strained and

puzzled look.

“You didn't-?” he began.

“No; but Jon knows their name. The girl dropped her handkerchief and he

picked it up.”

Jolyon sat down on his bed. An evil chance!

“June was with you. Did she put her foot into it?”

“No; but it was all very queer and strained, and Jon could see it was.”

Jolyon drew a long breath, and said:

“I've often wondered whether we've been right to keep it from him. He'll

find out some day.”

“The later the better, Jolyon; the young have such cheap, hard judgment.

When you were nineteen what would you have thought of your mother if she

had done what I have?”

Yes! There it was! Jon worshipped his mother; and knew nothing of the

tragedies, the inexorable necessities of life, nothing of the prisoned

grief in an unhappy marriage, nothing of jealousy or passion—knew

nothing at all, as yet!

“What have you told him?” he said at last.

“That they were relations, but we didn't know them; that you had never

cared much for your family, or they for you. I expect he will be asking

you.”

Jolyon smiled. “This promises to take the place of air-raids,” he said.

“After all, one misses them.”

Irene looked up at him.

“We've known it would come some day.”

He answered her with sudden energy:

“I could never stand seeing Jon blame you. He shan't do that, even in

thought. He has imagination; and he'll understand if it's put to

him properly. I think I had better tell him before he gets to know

otherwise.”

“Not yet, Jolyon.”

That was like her—she had no foresight, and never went to meet trouble.

Still—who knew?—she might be right. It was ill going against a mother's

instinct. It might be well to let the boy go on, if possible, till

experience had given him some touchstone by which he could judge the

values of that old tragedy; till love, jealousy, longing, had deepened

his charity. All the same, one must take precautions—every precaution

possible! And, long after Irene had left him, he lay awake turning over

those precautions. He must write to Holly, telling her that Jon knew

nothing as yet of family history. Holly was discreet, she would make

sure of her husband, she would see to it! Jon could take the letter with

him when he went to-morrow.

And so the day on which he had put the polish on his material estate

died out with the chiming of the stable clock; and another began for

Jolyon in the shadow of a spiritual disorder which could not be so

rounded off and polished....

But Jon, whose room had once been his day nursery, lay awake too, the

prey of a sensation disputed by those who have never known it, “love at

first sight!” He had felt it beginning in him with the glint of those

dark eyes gazing into his athwart the Juno—a conviction that this was

his 'dream'. so that what followed had seemed to him at once natural

and miraculous. Fleur! Her name alone was almost enough for one who was

terribly susceptible to the charm of words. In a homoeopathic Age, when

boys and girls were co-educated, and mixed up in early life till sex was

almost abolished, Jon was singularly old-fashioned. His modern school

took boys only, and his holidays had been spent at Robin Hill with boy

friends, or his parents alone. He had never, therefore, been inoculated

against the germs of love by small doses of the poison. And now in the

dark his temperature was mounting fast. He lay awake, featuring Fleur—as

they called it—recalling her words, especially that “Au revoir!” so soft

and sprightly.

He was still so wide awake at dawn that he got up, slipped on tennis

shoes, trousers, and a sweater, and in silence crept downstairs and out

through the study window. It was just light; there was a smell of grass.

'Fleur!' he thought; 'Fleur!' It was mysteriously white out of doors,

with nothing awake except the birds just beginning to chirp. 'I'll go

down into the coppice,' he thought. He ran down through the fields,

reached the pond just as the sun rose, and passed into the coppice.

Bluebells carpeted the ground there; among the larch-trees there was

mystery—the air, as it were, composed of that romantic quality. Jon

sniffed its freshness, and stared at the bluebells in the sharpening

light. Fleur! It rhymed with her! And she lived at Mapleduram—a jolly

name, too, on the river somewhere. He could find it in the atlas

presently. He would write to her. But would she answer? Oh! She must.

She had said “Au revoir!” Not good-bye! What luck that she had dropped

her handkerchief! He would never have known her but for that. And the

more he thought of that handkerchief, the more amazing his luck seemed.

Fleur! It certainly rhymed with her! Rhythm thronged his head; words

jostled to be joined together; he was on the verge of a poem.

Jon remained in this condition for more than half an hour, then returned

to the house, and getting a ladder, climbed in at his bedroom window out

of sheer exhilaration. Then, remembering that the study window was open,

he went down and shut it, first removing the ladder, so as to obliterate

all traces of his feeling. The thing was too deep to be revealed to

mortal soul-even-to his mother.

IV.—THE MAUSOLEUM

There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, leaving

their bodies in the limbo of London. Such was not quite the condition of

“Timothy's” on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's soul still had one foot

in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither kept the atmosphere unchanging,

of camphor and port wine and house whose windows are only opened to air

it twice a day.

To Forsyte imagination that house was now a sort of Chinese pill-box,

a series of layers in the last of which was Timothy. One did not reach

him, or so it was reported by members of the family who, out of old-time

habit or absentmindedness, would drive up once in a blue moon and ask

after their surviving uncle. Such were Francie, now quite emancipated

from God (she frankly avowed atheism), Euphemia, emancipated from old

Nicholas, and Winifred Dartie from her “man of the world.” But, after

all, everybody was emancipated now, or said they were—perhaps not quite

the same thing!

When Soames, therefore, took it on his way to Paddington station on

the morning after that encounter, it was hardly with the expectation of

seeing Timothy in the flesh. His heart made a faint demonstration within

him while he stood in full south sunlight on the newly whitened doorstep

of that little house where four Forsytes had once lived, and now but one

dwelt on like a winter fly; the house into which Soames had come and

out of which he had gone times without number, divested of, or burdened

with, fardels of family gossip; the house of the “old people” of another

century, another age.

The sight of Smither—still corseted up to the armpits because the new

fashion which came in as they were going out about 1903 had never been

considered “nice” by Aunts Juley and Hester—brought a pale friendliness

to Soames' lips; Smither, still faithfully arranged to old pattern in

every detail, an invaluable servant—none such left—smiling back at him,

with the words: “Why! it's Mr. Soames, after all this time! And how are

you, sir? Mr. Timothy will be so pleased to know you've been.”

“How is he?”

“Oh! he keeps fairly bobbish for his age, sir; but of course he's a

wonderful man. As I said to Mrs. Dartie when she was here last: It

would please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see how he

relishes a baked apple still. But he's quite deaf. And a mercy, I always

think. For what we should have done with him in the air-raids, I don't

know.”

“Ah!” said Soames. “What did you do with him?”

“We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the cellar,

so that Cook and I could hear him if he rang. It would never have done

to let him know there was a war on. As I said to Cook, 'If Mr. Timothy

rings, they may do what they like—I'm going up. My dear mistresses would

have a fit if they could see him ringing and nobody going to him.' But

he slept through them all beautiful. And the one in the daytime he

was having his bath. It was a mercy, because he might have noticed the

people in the street all looking up—he often looks out of the window.”

“Quite!” murmured Soames. Smither was getting garrulous! “I just want to

look round and see if there's anything to be done.”

“Yes, sir. I don't think there's anything except a smell of mice in the

dining-room that we don't know how to get rid of. It's funny they should

be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy took to not coming down,

just before the War. But they're nasty little things; you never know

where they'll take you next.”

“Does he leave his bed?”—

“Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the window in

the morning, not to risk a change of air. And he's quite comfortable in

himself; has his Will out every day regular. It's a great consolation to

him—that.”

“Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has anything to

say to me.”

Smither coloured up above her corsets.

“It will be an occasion!” she said. “Shall I take you round the house,

sir, while I send Cook to break it to him?”

“No, you go to him,” said Soames. “I can go round the house by myself.”

One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames felt that

he was going to be sentimental nosing round those rooms so saturated

with the past. When Smither, creaking with excitement, had left him,

Soames entered the dining-room and sniffed. In his opinion it wasn't

mice, but incipient wood-rot, and he examined the panelling. Whether it

was worth a coat of paint, at Timothy's age, he was not sure. The room

had always been the most modern in the house; and only a faint smile

curled Soames' lips and nostrils. Walls of a rich green surmounted

the oak dado; a heavy metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling

divided by imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by Timothy, a

bargain, one day at Jobson's sixty years ago—three Snyder “still lifes,”

two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and a girl, rather charming,

which bore the initials “J. R.”—Timothy had always believed they might

turn out to be Joshua Reynolds, but Soames, who admired them, had

discovered that they were only John Robinson; and a doubtful Morland of

a white pony being shod. Deep-red plush curtains, ten high-backed

dark mahogany chairs with deep-red plush seats, a Turkey carpet, and

a mahogany dining-table as large as the room was small, such was an

apartment which Soames could remember unchanged in soul or body since

he was four years old. He looked especially at the two drawings, and

thought: 'I shall buy those at the sale.'

From the dining-room he passed into Timothy's study. He did not remember

ever having been in that room. It was lined from floor to ceiling with

volumes, and he looked at them with curiosity. One wall seemed devoted

to educational books, which Timothy's firm had published two generations

back-sometimes as many as twenty copies of one book. Soames read their

titles and shuddered. The middle wall had precisely the same books as

used to be in the library at his own father's in Park Lane, from which

he deduced the fancy that James and his youngest brother had gone out

together one day and bought a brace of small libraries. The third wall

he approached with more excitement. Here, surely, Timothy's own taste

would be found. It was. The books were dummies. The fourth wall was all

heavily curtained window. And turned toward it was a large chair with a

mahogany reading-stand attached, on which a yellowish and folded copy

of The Times, dated July 6, 1914, the day Timothy first failed to come

down, as if in preparation for the War, seemed waiting for him still.

In a corner stood a large globe of that world never visited by Timothy,

deeply convinced of the unreality of everything but England, and

permanently upset by the sea, on which he had been very sick one Sunday

afternoon in 1836, out of a pleasure boat off the pier at Brighton, with

Juley and Hester, Swithin and Hatty Chessman; all due to Swithin, who

was always taking things into his head, and who, thank goodness, had

been sick too. Soames knew all about it, having heard the tale fifty

times at least from one or other of them. He went up to the globe,

and gave it a spin; it emitted a faint creak and moved about an inch,

bringing into his purview a daddy-long-legs which had died on it in

latitude 44.

'Mausoleum!' he thought. 'George was right!' And he went out and up

the stairs. On the half-landing he stopped before the case of stuffed

humming-birds which had delighted his childhood. They looked not a day

older, suspended on wires above pampas-grass. If the case were opened

the birds would not begin to hum, but the whole thing would crumble, he

suspected. It wouldn't be worth putting that into the sale! And suddenly

he was caught by a memory of Aunt Ann—dear old Aunt Ann—holding him by

the hand in front of that case and saying: “Look, Soamey! Aren't they

bright and pretty, dear little humming-birds!” Soames remembered his

own answer: “They don't hum, Auntie.” He must have been six, in a black

velveteen suit with a light-blue collar-he remembered that suit well!

Aunt Ann with her ringlets, and her spidery kind hands, and her grave

old aquiline smile—a fine old lady, Aunt Ann! He moved on up to

the drawing-room door. There on each side of it were the groups of

miniatures. Those he would certainly buy in! The miniatures of his

four aunts, one of his Uncle Swithin adolescent, and one of his Uncle

Nicholas as a boy. They had all been painted by a young lady friend of

the family at a time, 1830, about, when miniatures were considered very

genteel, and lasting too, painted as they were on ivory. Many a time had

he heard the tale of that young lady: “Very talented, my dear; she

had quite a weakness for Swithin, and very soon after she went into a

consumption and died: so like Keats—we often spoke of it.”

Well, there they were! Ann, Juley, Hester, Susan—quite a small

child; Swithin, with sky-blue eyes, pink cheeks, yellow curls, white

waistcoat-large as life; and Nicholas, like Cupid with an eye on heaven.

Now he came to think of it, Uncle Nick had always been rather like

that—a wonderful man to the last. Yes, she must have had talent, and

miniatures always had a certain back-watered cachet of their own, little

subject to the currents of competition on aesthetic Change. Soames

opened the drawing-room door. The room was dusted, the furniture

uncovered, the curtains drawn back, precisely as if his aunts still

dwelt there patiently waiting. And a thought came to him: When Timothy

died—why not? Would it not be almost a duty to preserve this house—like

Carlyle's—and put up a tablet, and show it? “Specimen of mid-Victorian

abode—entrance, one shilling, with catalogue.” After all, it was the

completest thing, and perhaps the deadest in the London of to-day.

Perfect in its special taste and culture, if, that is, he took down and

carried over to his own collection the four Barbizon pictures he had

given them. The still sky-blue walls, tile green curtains patterned

with red flowers and ferns; the crewel-worked fire-screen before the

cast-iron grate; the mahogany cupboard with glass windows, full of

little knickknacks; the beaded footstools; Keats, Shelley, Southey,

Cowper, Coleridge, Byron's Corsair (but nothing else), and the Victorian

poets in a bookshelf row; the marqueterie cabinet lined with dim red

plush, full of family relics: Hester's first fan; the buckles of their

mother's father's shoes; three bottled scorpions; and one very yellow

elephant's tusk, sent home from India by Great-uncle Edgar Forsyte, who

had been in jute; a yellow bit of paper propped up, with spidery

writing on it, recording God knew what! And the pictures crowding on

the walls—all water-colours save those four Barbizons looking like the

foreigners they were, and doubtful customers at that—pictures bright and

illustrative, “Telling the Bees,” “Hey for the Ferry!” and two in the

style of Frith, all thimblerig and crinolines, given them by Swithin.

Oh! many, many pictures at which Soames had gazed a thousand times in

supercilious fascination; a marvellous collection of bright, smooth gilt

frames.

And the boudoir-grand piano, beautifully dusted, hermetically sealed

as ever; and Aunt Juley's album of pressed seaweed on it. And the

gilt-legged chairs, stronger than they looked. And on one side of the

fireplace the sofa of crimson silk, where Aunt Ann, and after her Aunt

Juley, had been wont to sit, facing the light and bolt upright. And on

the other side of the fire the one really easy chair, back to the light,

for Aunt Hester. Soames screwed up his eyes; he seemed to see them

sitting there. Ah! and the atmosphere—even now, of too many stuffs and

washed lace curtains, lavender in bags, and dried bees' wings. 'No,' he

thought, 'there's nothing like it left; it ought to be preserved.' And,

by George, they might laugh at it, but for a standard of gentle life

never departed from, for fastidiousness of skin and eye and nose and

feeling, it beat to-day hollow—to-day with its Tubes and cars, its

perpetual smoking, its cross-legged, bare-necked girls visible up to the

knees and down to the waist if you took the trouble (agreeable to the

satyr within each Forsyte but hardly his idea of a lady), with their

feet, too, screwed round the legs of their chairs while they ate, and

their “So longs,” and their “Old Beans,” and their laughter—girls who

gave him the shudders whenever he thought of Fleur in contact with them;

and the hard-eyed, capable, older women who managed life and gave him

the shudders too. No! his old aunts, if they never opened their minds,

their eyes, or very much their windows, at least had manners, and a

standard, and reverence for past and future.

With rather a choky feeling he closed the door and went tiptoeing

upstairs. He looked in at a place on the way: H'm! in perfect order of

the eighties, with a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the walls. At the

top of the stairs he hesitated between four doors. Which of them was

Timothy's? And he listened. A sound, as of a child slowly dragging a

hobby-horse about, came to his ears. That must be Timothy! He tapped,

and a door was opened by Smither, very red in the face.

Mr. Timothy was taking his walk, and she had not been able to get him

to attend. If Mr. Soames would come into the back-room, he could see him

through the door.

Soames went into the back-room and stood watching.

The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the most

impressive slowness, and an air of perfect concentration on his own

affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed and the

window, a distance of some twelve feet. The lower part of his square

face, no longer clean-shaven, was covered with snowy beard clipped as

short as it could be, and his chin looked as broad as his brow where the

hair was also quite white, while nose and cheeks and brow were a good

yellow. One hand held a stout stick, and the other grasped the skirt of

his Jaeger dressing-gown, from under which could be seen his bed-socked

ankles and feet thrust into Jaeger slippers. The expression on his face

was that of a crossed child, intent on something that he has not got.

Each time he turned he stumped the stick, and then dragged it, as if to

show that he could do without it:

“He still looks strong,” said Soames under his breath.

“Oh! yes, sir. You should see him take his bath—it's wonderful; he does

enjoy it so.”

Those quite loud words gave Soames an insight. Timothy had resumed his

babyhood.

“Does he take any interest in things generally?” he said, also loud.

“Oh! yes, sir; his food and his Will. It's quite a sight to see him turn

it over and over, not to read it, of course; and every now and then he

asks the price of Consols, and I write it on a slate for him—very large.

Of course, I always write the same, what they were when he last took

notice, in 1914. We got the doctor to forbid him to read the paper when

the War broke out. Oh! he did take on about that at first. But he soon

came round, because he knew it tired him; and he's a wonder to conserve

energy as he used to call it when my dear mistresses were alive, bless

their hearts! How he did go on at them about that; they were always so

active, if you remember, Mr. Soames.”

“What would happen if I were to go in?” asked Soames: “Would he remember

me? I made his Will, you know, after Miss Hester died in 1907.”

“Oh! that, sir,” replied Smither doubtfully, “I couldn't take on me to

say. I think he might; he really is a wonderful man for his age.”

Soames moved into the doorway, and waiting for Timothy to turn, said in

a loud voice: “Uncle Timothy!”

Timothy trailed back half-way, and halted.

“Eh?” he said.

“Soames,” cried Soames at the top of his voice, holding out his hand,

“Soames Forsyte!”

“No!” said Timothy, and stumping his stick loudly on the floor, he

continued his walk.

“It doesn't seem to work,” said Soames.

“No, sir,” replied Smither, rather crestfallen; “you see, he hasn't

finished his walk. It always was one thing at a time with him. I expect

he'll ask me this afternoon if you came about the gas, and a pretty job

I shall have to make him understand.”

“Do you think he ought to have a man about him?”

Smither held up her hands. “A man! Oh! no. Cook and me can manage

perfectly. A strange man about would send him crazy in no time. And my

mistresses wouldn't like the idea of a man in the house. Besides, we're

so—proud of him.”

“I suppose the doctor comes?”

“Every morning. He makes special terms for such a quantity, and Mr.

Timothy's so used, he doesn't take a bit of notice, except to put out

his tongue.”

“Well,” said Soames, turning away, “it's rather sad and painful to me.”

“Oh! sir,” returned Smither anxiously, “you mustn't think that. Now that

he can't worry about things, he quite enjoys his life, really he does.

As I say to Cook, Mr. Timothy is more of a man than he ever was. You

see, when he's not walkin', or takin' his bath, he's eatin', and when

he's not eatin', he's sleepin'. and there it is. There isn't an ache or

a care about him anywhere.”

“Well,” said Soames, “there's something in that. I'll go down. By the

way, let me see his Will.”

“I should have to take my time about that, sir; he keeps it under his

pillow, and he'd see me, while he's active.”

“I only want to know if it's the one I made,” said Soames; “you take a

look at its date some time, and let me know.”

“Yes, sir; but I'm sure it's the same, because me and Cook witnessed,

you remember, and there's our names on it still, and we've only done it

once.”

“Quite,” said Soames. He did remember. Smither and Jane had been proper

witnesses, having been left nothing in the Will that they might have

no interest in Timothy's death. It had been—he fully admitted—an almost

improper precaution, but Timothy had wished it, and, after all, Aunt

Hester had provided for them amply.

“Very well,” he said; “good-bye, Smither. Look after him, and if he

should say anything at any time, put it down, and let me know.”

“Oh! yes, Mr. Soames; I'll be sure to do that. It's been such a pleasant

change to see you. Cook will be quite excited when I tell her.”

Soames shook her hand and went down-stairs. He stood for fully two

minutes by the hat-stand whereon he had hung his hat so many times.

'So it all passes,' he was thinking; 'passes and begins again. Poor old

chap!' And he listened, if perchance the sound of Timothy trailing his

hobby-horse might come down the well of the stairs; or some ghost of an

old face show over the bannisters, and an old voice say: 'Why, it's dear

Soames, and we were only saying that we hadn't seen him for a week!'

Nothing—nothing! Just the scent of camphor, and dust-motes in a sunbeam

through the fanlight over the door. The little old house! A mausoleum!

And, turning on his heel, he went out, and caught his train.

V.—THE NATIVE HEATH

“His foot's upon his native heath, His name's—Val Dartie.”

With some such feeling did Val Dartie, in the fortieth year of his age,

set out that same Thursday morning very early from the old manor-house

he had taken on the north side of the Sussex Downs. His destination was

Newmarket, and he had not been there since the autumn of 1899, when he

stole over from Oxford for the Cambridgeshire. He paused at the door to

give his wife a kiss, and put a flask of port into his pocket.

“Don't overtire your leg, Val, and don't bet too much.”

With the pressure of her chest against his own, and her eyes looking

into his, Val felt both leg and pocket safe. He should be moderate;

Holly was always right—she had a natural aptitude. It did not seem so

remarkable to him, perhaps, as it might to others, that—half Dartie as

he was—he should have been perfectly faithful to his young first cousin

during the twenty years since he married her romantically out in the

Boer War; and faithful without any feeling of sacrifice or boredom—she

was so quick, so slyly always a little in front of his mood. Being first

cousins they had decided, rather needlessly, to have no children; and,

though a little sallower, she had kept her looks, her slimness, and the

colour of her dark hair. Val particularly admired the life of her own

she carried on, besides carrying on his, and riding better every year.

She kept up her music, she read an awful lot—novels, poetry, all sorts

of stuff. Out on their farm in Cape colony she had looked after all

the “nigger” babies and women in a miraculous manner. She was, in

fact, clever; yet made no fuss about it, and had no “side.” Though not

remarkable for humility, Val had come to have the feeling that she was

his superior, and he did not grudge it—a great tribute. It might be

noted that he never looked at Holly without her knowing of it, but that

she looked at him sometimes unawares.

He had kissed her in the porch because he should not be doing so on the

platform, though she was going to the station with him, to drive the car

back. Tanned and wrinkled by Colonial weather and the wiles inseparable

from horses, and handicapped by the leg which, weakened in the Boer War,

had probably saved his life in the War just past, Val was still much

as he had been in the days of his courtship; his smile as wide and

charming, his eyelashes, if anything, thicker and darker, his eyes

screwed up under them, as bright a grey, his freckles rather deeper, his

hair a little grizzled at the sides. He gave the impression of one who

has lived actively with horses in a sunny climate.

Twisting the car sharp round at the gate, he said:

“When is young Jon coming?”

“To-day.”

“Is there anything you want for him? I could bring it down on Saturday.”

“No; but you might come by the same train as Fleur—one-forty.”

Val gave the Ford full rein; he still drove like a man in a new country

on bad roads, who refuses to compromise, and expects heaven at every

hole.

“That's a young woman who knows her way about,” he said. “I say, has it

struck you?”

“Yes,” said Holly.

“Uncle Soames and your Dad—bit awkward, isn't it?”

“She won't know, and he won't know, and nothing must be said, of course.

It's only for five days, Val.”

“Stable secret! Righto!” If Holly thought it safe, it was. Glancing

slyly round at him, she said: “Did you notice how beautifully she asked

herself?”

“No!”

“Well, she did. What do you think of her, Val?”

“Pretty and clever; but she might run out at any corner if she got her

monkey up, I should say.”

“I'm wondering,” Holly murmured, “whether she is the modern young woman.

One feels at sea coming home into all this.”

“You? You get the hang of things so quick.”

Holly slid her hand into his coat-pocket.

“You keep one in the know,” said Val encouraged. “What do you think of

that Belgian fellow, Profond?”

“I think he's rather 'a good devil.'”

Val grinned.

“He seems to me a queer fish for a friend of our family. In fact,

our family is in pretty queer waters, with Uncle Soames marrying a

Frenchwoman, and your Dad marrying Soames's first. Our grandfathers

would have had fits!”

“So would anybody's, my dear.”

“This car,” Val said suddenly, “wants rousing; she doesn't get her hind

legs under her uphill. I shall have to give her her head on the slope if

I'm to catch that train.”

There was that about horses which had prevented him from ever really

sympathising with a car, and the running of the Ford under his guidance

compared with its running under that of Holly was always noticeable. He

caught the train.

“Take care going home; she'll throw you down if she can. Good-bye,

darling.”

“Good-bye,” called Holly, and kissed her hand.

In the train, after quarter of an hour's indecision between thoughts of

Holly, his morning paper, the look of the bright day, and his dim memory

of Newmarket, Val plunged into the recesses of a small square book,

all names, pedigrees, tap-roots, and notes about the make and shape

of horses. The Forsyte in him was bent on the acquisition of a certain

strain of blood, and he was subduing resolutely as yet the Dartie

hankering for a Nutter. On getting back to England, after the profitable

sale of his South African farm and stud, and observing that the sun

seldom shone, Val had said to himself: “I've absolutely got to have an

interest in life, or this country will give me the blues. Hunting's

not enough, I'll breed and I'll train.” With just that extra pinch of

shrewdness and decision imparted by long residence in a new country, Val

had seen the weak point of modern breeding. They were all hypnotised by

fashion and high price. He should buy for looks, and let names go hang!

And here he was already, hypnotised by the prestige of a certain strain

of blood! Half-consciously, he thought: 'There's something in this

damned climate which makes one go round in a ring. All the same, I must

have a strain of Mayfly blood.'

In this mood he reached the Mecca of his hopes. It was one of those

quiet meetings favourable to such as wish to look into horses, rather

than into the mouths of bookmakers; and Val clung to the paddock. His

twenty years of Colonial life, divesting him of the dandyism in which he

had been bred, had left him the essential neatness of the horseman,

and given him a queer and rather blighting eye over what he called “the

silly haw-haw” of some Englishmen, the “flapping cockatoory” of some

English-women—Holly had none of that and Holly was his model. Observant,

quick, resourceful, Val went straight to the heart of a transaction, a

horse, a drink; and he was on his way to the heart of a Mayfly filly,

when a slow voice said at his elbow:

“Mr. Val Dartie? How's Mrs. Val Dartie? She's well, I hope.” And he saw

beside him the Belgian he had met at his sister Imogen's.

“Prosper Profond—I met you at lunch,” said the voice.

“How are you?” murmured Val.

“I'm very well,” replied Monsieur Profond, smiling with a certain

inimitable slowness. “A good devil,” Holly had called him. Well! He

looked a little like a devil, with his dark, clipped, pointed beard;

a sleepy one though, and good-humoured, with fine eyes, unexpectedly

intelligent.

“Here's a gentleman wants to know you—cousin of yours—Mr. George

Forsyde.”

Val saw a large form, and a face clean-shaven, bull-like, a little

lowering, with sardonic humour bubbling behind a full grey eye; he

remembered it dimly from old days when he would dine with his father at

the Iseeum Club.

“I used to go racing with your father,” George was saying: “How's the

stud? Like to buy one of my screws?”

Val grinned, to hide the sudden feeling that the bottom had fallen out

of breeding. They believed in nothing over here, not even in horses.

George Forsyte, Prosper Profond! The devil himself was not more

disillusioned than those two.

“Didn't know you were a racing man,” he said to Monsieur Profond.

“I'm not. I don't care for it. I'm a yachtin' man. I don't care for

yachtin' either, but I like to see my friends. I've got some lunch,

Mr. Val Dartie, just a small lunch, if you'd like to 'ave some; not

much—just a small one—in my car.”

“Thanks,” said Val; “very good of you. I'll come along in about quarter

of an hour.”

“Over there. Mr. Forsyde's comin',” and Monsieur Profond “poinded” with

a yellow-gloved finger; “small car, with a small lunch”; he moved on,

groomed, sleepy, and remote, George Forsyte following, neat, huge, and

with his jesting air.

Val remained gazing at the Mayfly filly. George Forsyte, of course,

was an old chap, but this Profond might be about his own age; Val felt

extremely young, as if the Mayfly filly were a toy at which those two

had laughed. The animal had lost reality.

“That 'small' mare”—he seemed to hear the voice of Monsieur

Profond—“what do you see in her?—we must all die!”

And George Forsyte, crony of his father, racing still! The Mayfly

strain—was it any better than any other? He might just as well have a

flutter with his money instead.

“No, by gum!” he muttered suddenly, “if it's no good breeding horses,

it's no good doing anything. What did I come for? I'll buy her.”

He stood back and watched the ebb of the paddock visitors toward the

stand. Natty old chips, shrewd portly fellows, Jews, trainers looking

as if they had never been guilty of seeing a horse in their lives; tall,

flapping, languid women, or brisk, loud-voiced women; young men with an

air as if trying to take it seriously—two or three of them with only one

arm.

'Life over here's a game!' thought Val. 'Muffin bell rings, horses run,

money changes hands; ring again, run again, money changes back.'

But, alarmed at his own philosophy, he went to the paddock gate to watch

the Mayfly filly canter down. She moved well; and he made his way over

to the “small” car. The “small” lunch was the sort a man dreams of but

seldom gets; and when it was concluded Monsieur Profond walked back with

him to the paddock.

“Your wife's a nice woman,” was his surprising remark.

“Nicest woman I know,” returned Val dryly.

“Yes,” said Monsieur Profond; “she has a nice face. I admire nice

women.”

Val looked at him suspiciously, but something kindly and direct in the

heavy diabolism of his companion disarmed him for the moment.

“Any time you like to come on my yacht, I'll give her a small cruise.”

“Thanks,” said Val, in arms again, “she hates the sea.”

“So do I,” said Monsieur Profond.

“Then why do you yacht?”

The Belgian's eyes smiled. “Oh! I don't know. I've done everything; it's

the last thing I'm doin'.”

“It must be d-d expensive. I should want more reason than that.”

Monsieur Prosper Profond raised his eyebrows, and puffed out a heavy

lower lip.

“I'm an easy-goin' man,” he said.

“Were you in the War?” asked Val.

“Ye-es. I've done that too. I was gassed; it was a small bit

unpleasant.” He smiled with a deep and sleepy air of prosperity, as if

he had caught it from his name.

Whether his saying “small” when he ought to have said “little” was

genuine mistake or affectation Val could not decide; the fellow was

evidently capable of anything.

Among the ring of buyers round the Mayfly filly who had won her race,

Monsieur Profond said:

“You goin' to bid?”

Val nodded. With this sleepy Satan at his elbow, he felt in need of

faith. Though placed above the ultimate blows of Providence by the

forethought of a grand-father who had tied him up a thousand a year

to which was added the thousand a year tied up for Holly by her

grand-father, Val was not flush of capital that he could touch, having

spent most of what he had realised from his South African farm on his

establishment in Sussex. And very soon he was thinking: 'Dash it! she's

going beyond me!' His limit-six hundred-was exceeded; he dropped out of

the bidding. The Mayfly filly passed under the hammer at seven hundred

and fifty guineas. He was turning away vexed when the slow voice of

Monsieur Profond said in his ear:

“Well, I've bought that small filly, but I don't want her; you take her

and give her to your wife.”

Val looked at the fellow with renewed suspicion, but the good humour in

his eyes was such that he really could not take offence.

“I made a small lot of money in the War,” began Monsieur Profond in

answer to that look. “I 'ad armament shares. I like to give it away. I'm

always makin' money. I want very small lot myself. I like my friends to

'ave it.”

“I'll buy her of you at the price you gave,” said Val with sudden

resolution.

“No,” said Monsieur Profond. “You take her. I don' want her.”

“Hang it! one doesn't—”

“Why not?” smiled Monsieur Profond. “I'm a friend of your family.”

“Seven hundred and fifty guineas is not a box of cigars,” said Val

impatiently.

“All right; you keep her for me till I want her, and do what you like

with her.”

“So long as she's yours,” said Val. “I don't mind that.”

“That's all right,” murmured Monsieur Profond, and moved away.

Val watched; he might be “a good devil,” but then again he might not. He

saw him rejoin George Forsyte, and thereafter saw him no more.

He spent those nights after racing at his mother's house in Green

Street.

Winifred Dartie at sixty-two was marvellously preserved, considering the

three-and-thirty years during which she had put up with Montague Dartie,

till almost happily released by a French staircase. It was to her a

vehement satisfaction to have her favourite son back from South Africa

after all this time, to feel him so little changed, and to have taken

a fancy to his wife. Winifred, who in the late seventies, before her

marriage, had been in the vanguard of freedom, pleasure, and fashion,

confessed her youth outclassed by the donzellas of the day. They seemed,

for instance, to regard marriage as an incident, and Winifred sometimes

regretted that she had not done the same; a second, third, fourth

incident might have secured her a partner of less dazzling inebriety;

though, after all, he had left her Val, Imogen, Maud, Benedict (almost a

colonel and unharmed by the War)—none of whom had been divorced as yet.

The steadiness of her children often amazed one who remembered their

father; but, as she was fond of believing, they were really all

Forsytes, favouring herself, with the exception, perhaps, of Imogen. Her

brother's “little girl” Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child was

as restless as any of these modern young women—“She's a small flame in a

draught,” Prosper Profond had said one day after dinner—but she did

not flap, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady Forsyteism in

Winifred's own character instinctively resented the feeling in the

air, the modern girl's habits and her motto: “All's much of a muchness!

Spend, to-morrow we shall be poor!” She found it a saving grace in Fleur

that, having set her heart on a thing, she had no change of heart until

she got it—though—what happened after, Fleur was, of course, too young

to have made evident. The child was a “very pretty little thing,” too,

and quite a credit to take about, with her mother's French taste and

gift for wearing clothes; everybody turned to look at Fleur—great

consideration to Winifred, a lover of the style and distinction which

had so cruelly deceived her in the case of Montague Dartie.

In discussing her with Val, at breakfast on Saturday morning, Winifred

dwelt on the family skeleton.

“That little affair of your father-in-law and your Aunt Irene, Val—it's

old as the hills, of course, Fleur need know nothing about it—making

a fuss. Your Uncle Soames is very particular about that. So you'll be

careful.”

“Yes! But it's dashed awkward—Holly's young half-brother is coming to

live with us while he learns farming. He's there already.”

“Oh!” said Winifred. “That is a gaff! What is he like?”

“Only saw him once—at Robin Hill, when we were home in 1909; he was

naked and painted blue and yellow in stripes—a jolly little chap.”

Winifred thought that “rather nice,” and added comfortably: “Well,

Holly's sensible; she'll know how to deal with it. I shan't tell your

uncle. It'll only bother him. It's a great comfort to have you back, my

dear boy, now that I'm getting on.”