The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy


He himself had not fled, nor would he fly if it were all to come over
again. Yet he had gone further than Bosinney, had broken up his own
unhappy home, not someone else's: And the old saying came back to him: 'A
man's fate lies in his own heart.'

In his own heart! The proof of the pudding was in the eating--Bosinney
had still to eat his pudding.

His thoughts passed to the woman, the woman whom he did not know, but the
outline of whose story he had heard.

An unhappy marriage! No ill-treatment--only that indefinable malaise,
that terrible blight which killed all sweetness under Heaven; and so from
day to day, from night to night, from week to week, from year to year,
till death should end it.

But young Jolyon, the bitterness of whose own feelings time had assuaged,
saw Soames' side of the question too. Whence should a man like his
cousin, saturated with all the prejudices and beliefs of his class, draw
the insight or inspiration necessary to break up this life? It was a
question of imagination, of projecting himself into the future beyond the
unpleasant gossip, sneers, and tattle that followed on such separations,
beyond the passing pangs that the lack of the sight of her would cause,
beyond the grave disapproval of the worthy. But few men, and especially
few men of Soames' class, had imagination enough for that. A deal of
mortals in this world, and not enough imagination to go round! And sweet
Heaven, what a difference between theory and practice; many a man,
perhaps even Soames, held chivalrous views on such matters, who when the
shoe pinched found a distinguishing factor that made of himself an
exception.

Then, too, he distrusted his judgment. He had been through the
experience himself, had tasted too the dregs the bitterness of an unhappy
marriage, and how could he take the wide and dispassionate view of those
who had never been within sound of the battle? His evidence was too
first-hand--like the evidence on military matters of a soldier who has
been through much active service, against that of civilians who have not
suffered the disadvantage of seeing things too close. Most people would
consider such a marriage as that of Soames and Irene quite fairly
successful; he had money, she had beauty; it was a case for compromise.
There was no reason why they should not jog along, even if they hated
each other. It would not matter if they went their own ways a little so
long as the decencies were observed--the sanctity of the marriage tie, of
the common home, respected. Half the marriages of the upper classes were
conducted on these lines: Do not offend the susceptibilities of Society;
do not offend the susceptibilities of the Church. To avoid offending
these is worth the sacrifice of any private feelings. The advantages of
the stable home are visible, tangible, so many pieces of property; there
is no risk in the statu quo. To break up a home is at the best a
dangerous experiment, and selfish into the bargain.

This was the case for the defence, and young Jolyon sighed.

'The core of it all,' he thought, 'is property, but there are many people
who would not like it put that way. To them it is "the sanctity of the
marriage tie"; but the sanctity of the marriage tie is dependent on the
sanctity of the family, and the sanctity of the family is dependent on
the sanctity of property. And yet I imagine all these people are
followers of One who never owned anything. It is curious!

And again young Jolyon sighed.

'Am I going on my way home to ask any poor devils I meet to share my
dinner, which will then be too little for myself, or, at all events, for
my wife, who is necessary to my health and happiness? It may be that
after all Soames does well to exercise his rights and support by his
practice the sacred principle of property which benefits us all, with the
exception of those who suffer by the process.'

And so he left his chair, threaded his way through the maze of seats,
took his hat, and languidly up the hot streets crowded with carriages,
reeking with dusty odours, wended his way home.

Before reaching Wistaria Avenue he removed old Jolyon's letter from his
pocket, and tearing it carefully into tiny pieces, scattered them in the
dust of the road.

He let himself in with his key, and called his wife's name. But she had
gone out, taking Jolly and Holly, and the house was empty; alone in the
garden the dog Balthasar lay in the shade snapping at flies.

Young Jolyon took his seat there, too, under the pear-tree that bore no
fruit.




CHAPTER XI

BOSINNEY ON PAROLE

The day after the evening at Richmond Soames returned from Henley by a
morning train. Not constitutionally interested in amphibious sports, his
visit had been one of business rather than pleasure, a client of some
importance having asked him down.

He went straight to the City, but finding things slack, he left at three
o'clock, glad of this chance to get home quietly. Irene did not expect
him. Not that he had any desire to spy on her actions, but there was no
harm in thus unexpectedly surveying the scene.

After changing to Park clothes he went into the drawing-room. She was
sitting idly in the corner of the sofa, her favourite seat; and there
were circles under her eyes, as though she had not slept.

He asked: "How is it you're in? Are you expecting somebody?"

"Yes that is, not particularly."

"Who?"

"Mr. Bosinney said he might come."

"Bosinney. He ought to be at work."

To this she made no answer.

"Well," said Soames, "I want you to come out to the Stores with me, and
after that we'll go to the Park."

"I don't want to go out; I have a headache."

Soames replied: "If ever I want you to do anything, you've always got a
headache. It'll do you good to come and sit under the trees."

She did not answer.

Soames was silent for some minutes; at last he said: "I don't know what
your idea of a wife's duty is. I never have known!"

He had not expected her to reply, but she did.

"I have tried to do what you want; it's not my fault that I haven't been
able to put my heart into it."

"Whose fault is it, then?" He watched her askance.

"Before we were married you promised to let me go if our marriage was not
a success. Is it a success?"

Soames frowned.

"Success," he stammered--"it would be a success if you behaved yourself
properly!"

"I have tried," said Irene. "Will you let me go?"

Soames turned away. Secretly alarmed, he took refuge in bluster.

"Let you go? You don't know what you're talking about. Let you go? How
can I let you go? We're married, aren't we? Then, what are you talking
about? For God's sake, don't let's have any of this sort of nonsense!
Get your hat on, and come and sit in the Park."

"Then, you won't let me go?"

He felt her eyes resting on him with a strange, touching look.

"Let you go!" he said; "and what on earth would you do with yourself if I
did? You've got no money!"

"I could manage somehow."

He took a swift turn up and down the room; then came and stood before
her.

"Understand," he said, "once and for all, I won't have you say this sort
of thing. Go and get your hat on!"

She did not move.

"I suppose," said Soames, "you don't want to miss Bosinney if he comes!"

Irene got up slowly and left the room. She came down with her hat on.

They went out.

In the Park, the motley hour of mid-afternoon, when foreigners and other
pathetic folk drive, thinking themselves to be in fashion, had passed;
the right, the proper, hour had come, was nearly gone, before Soames and
Irene seated themselves under the Achilles statue.

It was some time since he had enjoyed her company in the Park. That was
one of the past delights of the first two seasons of his married life,
when to feel himself the possessor of this gracious creature before all
London had been his greatest, though secret, pride. How many afternoons
had he not sat beside her, extremely neat, with light grey gloves and
faint, supercilious smile, nodding to acquaintances, and now and again
removing his hat.

His light grey gloves were still on his hands, and on his lips his smile
sardonic, but where the feeling in his heart?

The seats were emptying fast, but still he kept her there, silent and
pale, as though to work out a secret punishment. Once or twice he made
some comment, and she bent her head, or answered "Yes" with a tired
smile.

Along the rails a man was walking so fast that people stared after him
when he passed.

"Look at that ass!" said Soames; "he must be mad to walk like that in
this heat!"

He turned; Irene had made a rapid movement.

"Hallo!" he said: "it's our friend the Buccaneer!"

And he sat still, with his sneering smile, conscious that Irene was
sitting still, and smiling too.

"Will she bow to him?" he thought.

But she made no sign.

Bosinney reached the end of the rails, and came walking back amongst the
chairs, quartering his ground like a pointer. When he saw them he
stopped dead, and raised his hat.

The smile never left Soames' face; he also took off his hat.

Bosinney came up, looking exhausted, like a man after hard physical
exercise; the sweat stood in drops on his brow, and Soames' smile seemed
to say: "You've had a trying time, my friend ......What are you doing in
the Park?" he asked. "We thought you despised such frivolity!"

Bosinney did not seem to hear; he made his answer to Irene: "I've been
round to your place; I hoped I should find you in."

Somebody tapped Soames on the back, and spoke to him; and in the exchange
of those platitudes over his shoulder, he missed her answer, and took a
resolution.

"We're just going in," he said to Bosinney; "you'd better come back to
dinner with us." Into that invitation he put a strange bravado, a
stranger pathos: "You, can't deceive me," his look and voice seemed
saying, "but see--I trust you--I'm not afraid of you!"

They started back to Montpellier Square together, Irene between them. In
the crowded streets Soames went on in front. He did not listen to their
conversation; the strange resolution of trustfulness he had taken seemed
to animate even his secret conduct. Like a gambler, he said to himself:
'It's a card I dare not throw away--I must play it for what it's worth.
I have not too many chances.'

He dressed slowly, heard her leave her room and go downstairs, and, for
full five minutes after, dawdled about in his dressing-room. Then he
went down, purposely shutting the door loudly to show that he was coming.
He found them standing by the hearth, perhaps talking, perhaps not; he
could not say.

He played his part out in the farce, the long evening through--his
manner to his guest more friendly than it had ever been before; and when
at last Bosinney went, he said: "You must come again soon; Irene likes to
have you to talk about the house!" Again his voice had the strange
bravado and the stranger pathos; but his hand was cold as ice.

Loyal to his resolution, he turned away from their parting, turned away
from his wife as she stood under the hanging lamp to say good-night--away
from the sight of her golden head shining so under the light, of her
smiling mournful lips; away from the sight of Bosinney's eyes looking at
her, so like a dog's looking at its master.

And he went to bed with the certainty that Bosinney was in love with his
wife.

The summer night was hot, so hot and still that through every opened
window came in but hotter air. For long hours he lay listening to her
breathing.

She could sleep, but he must lie awake. And, lying awake, he hardened
himself to play the part of the serene and trusting husband.

In the small hours he slipped out of bed, and passing into his
dressing-room, leaned by the open window.

He could hardly breathe.

A night four years ago came back to him--the night but one before his
marriage; as hot and stifling as this.

He remembered how he had lain in a long cane chair in the window of his
sitting-room off Victoria Street. Down below in a side street a man had
banged at a door, a woman had cried out; he remembered, as though it were
now, the sound of the scuffle, the slam of the door, the dead silence
that followed. And then the early water-cart, cleansing the reek of the
streets, had approached through the strange-seeming, useless lamp-light;
he seemed to hear again its rumble, nearer and nearer, till it passed and
slowly died away.

He leaned far out of the dressing-room window over the little court
below, and saw the first light spread. The outlines of dark walls and
roofs were blurred for a moment, then came out sharper than before.

He remembered how that other night he had watched the lamps paling all
the length of Victoria Street; how he had hurried on his clothes and gone
down into the street, down past houses and squares, to the street where
she was staying, and there had stood and looked at the front of the
little house, as still and grey as the face of a dead man.

And suddenly it shot through his mind; like a sick man's fancy: What's he
doing?--that fellow who haunts me, who was here this evening, who's in
love with my wife--prowling out there, perhaps, looking for her as I know
he was looking for her this afternoon; watching my house now, for all I
can tell!

He stole across the landing to the front of the house, stealthily drew
aside a blind, and raised a window.

The grey light clung about the trees of the square, as though Night, like
a great downy moth, had brushed them with her wings. The lamps were still
alight, all pale, but not a soul stirred--no living thing in sight.

Yet suddenly, very faint, far off in the deathly stillness, he heard a
cry writhing, like the voice of some wandering soul barred out of heaven,
and crying for its happiness. There it was again--again! Soames shut
the window, shuddering.

Then he thought: 'Ah! it's only the peacocks, across the water.'




CHAPTER XII

JUNE PAYS SOME CALLS

Jolyon stood in the narrow hall at Broadstairs, inhaling that odour of
oilcloth and herrings which permeates all respectable seaside
lodging-houses. On a chair--a shiny leather chair, displaying its
horsehair through a hole in the top left-hand corner--stood a black
despatch case. This he was filling with papers, with the Times, and a
bottle of Eau-de Cologne. He had meetings that day of the 'Globular Gold
Concessions' and the 'New Colliery Company, Limited,' to which he was
going up, for he never missed a Board; to 'miss a Board' would be one
more piece of evidence that he was growing old, and this his jealous
Forsyte spirit could not bear.

His eyes, as he filled that black despatch case, looked as if at any
moment they might blaze up with anger. So gleams the eye of a schoolboy,
baited by a ring of his companions; but he controls himself, deterred by
the fearful odds against him. And old Jolyon controlled himself, keeping
down, with his masterful restraint now slowly wearing out, the irritation
fostered in him by the conditions of his life.

He had received from his son an unpractical letter, in which by rambling
generalities the boy seemed trying to get out of answering a plain
question. 'I've seen Bosinney,' he said; 'he is not a criminal. The
more I see of people the more I am convinced that they are never good or
bad--merely comic, or pathetic. You probably don't agree with me!'

Old Jolyon did not; he considered it cynical to so express oneself; he
had not yet reached that point of old age when even Forsytes, bereft of
those illusions and principles which they have cherished carefully for
practical purposes but never believed in, bereft of all corporeal
enjoyment, stricken to the very heart by having nothing left to hope
for--break through the barriers of reserve and say things they would
never have believed themselves capable of saying.

Perhaps he did not believe in 'goodness' and 'badness' any more than his
son; but as he would have said: He didn't know--couldn't tell; there
might be something in it; and why, by an unnecessary expression of
disbelief, deprive yourself of possible advantage?

Accustomed to spend his holidays among the mountains, though (like a true
Forsyte) he had never attempted anything too adventurous or too
foolhardy, he had been passionately fond of them. And when the wonderful
view (mentioned in Baedeker--'fatiguing but repaying')--was disclosed to
him after the effort of the climb, he had doubtless felt the existence of
some great, dignified principle crowning the chaotic strivings, the petty
precipices, and ironic little dark chasms of life. This was as near to
religion, perhaps, as his practical spirit had ever gone.

But it was many years since he had been to the mountains. He had taken
June there two seasons running, after his wife died, and had realized
bitterly that his walking days were over.

To that old mountain--given confidence in a supreme order of things he
had long been a stranger.

He knew himself to be old, yet he felt young; and this troubled him. It
troubled and puzzled him, too, to think that he, who had always been so
careful, should be father and grandfather to such as seemed born to
disaster. He had nothing to say against Jo--who could say anything
against the boy, an amiable chap?--but his position was deplorable, and
this business of June's nearly as bad. It seemed like a fatality, and a
fatality was one of those things no man of his character could either
understand or put up with.

In writing to his son he did not really hope that anything would come of
it. Since the ball at Roger's he had seen too clearly how the land
lay--he could put two and two together quicker than most men--and, with
the example of his own son before his eyes, knew better than any Forsyte
of them all that the pale flame singes men's wings whether they will or
no.

In the days before June's engagement, when she and Mrs. Soames were
always together, he had seen enough of Irene to feel the spell she cast
over men. She was not a flirt, not even a coquette--words dear to the
heart of his generation, which loved to define things by a good, broad,
inadequate word--but she was dangerous. He could not say why. Tell him
of a quality innate in some women--a seductive power beyond their own
control! He would but answer: 'Humbug!' She was dangerous, and there
was an end of it. He wanted to close his eyes to that affair. If it
was, it was; he did not want to hear any more about it--he only wanted to
save June's position and her peace of mind. He still hoped she might
once more become a comfort to himself.

And so he had written. He got little enough out of the answer. As to
what young Jolyon had made of the interview, there was practically only
the queer sentence: 'I gather that he's in the stream.' The stream! What
stream? What was this new-fangled way of talking?

He sighed, and folded the last of the papers under the flap of the bag;
he knew well enough what was meant.

June came out of the dining-room, and helped him on with his summer coat.
From her costume, and the expression of her little resolute face, he saw
at once what was coming.

"I'm going with you," she said.

"Nonsense, my dear; I go straight into the City. I can't have you
racketting about!"

"I must see old Mrs. Smeech."

"Oh, your precious 'lame ducks!" grumbled out old Jolyon. He did not
believe her excuse, but ceased his opposition. There was no doing
anything with that pertinacity of hers.

At Victoria he put her into the carriage which had been ordered for
himself--a characteristic action, for he had no petty selfishnesses.

"Now, don't you go tiring yourself, my darling," he said, and took a cab
on into the city.

June went first to a back-street in Paddington, where Mrs. Smeech, her
'lame duck,' lived--an aged person, connected with the charring interest;
but after half an hour spent in hearing her habitually lamentable
recital, and dragooning her into temporary comfort, she went on to
Stanhope Gate. The great house was closed and dark.

She had decided to learn something at all costs. It was better to face
the worst, and have it over. And this was her plan: To go first to
Phil's aunt, Mrs. Baynes, and, failing information there, to Irene
herself. She had no clear notion of what she would gain by these visits.

At three o'clock she was in Lowndes Square. With a woman's instinct when
trouble is to be faced, she had put on her best frock, and went to the
battle with a glance as courageous as old Jolyon's itself. Her tremors
had passed into eagerness.

Mrs. Baynes, Bosinney's aunt (Louisa was her name), was in her kitchen
when June was announced, organizing the cook, for she was an excellent
housewife, and, as Baynes always said, there was 'a lot in a good
dinner.' He did his best work after dinner. It was Baynes who built
that remarkably fine row of tall crimson houses in Kensington which
compete with so many others for the title of 'the ugliest in London.'

On hearing June's name, she went hurriedly to her bedroom, and, taking
two large bracelets from a red morocco case in a locked drawer, put them
on her white wrists--for she possessed in a remarkable degree that 'sense
of property,' which, as we know, is the touchstone of Forsyteism, and the
foundation of good morality.

Her figure, of medium height and broad build, with a tendency to
embonpoint, was reflected by the mirror of her whitewood wardrobe, in a
gown made under her own organization, of one of those half-tints,
reminiscent of the distempered walls of corridors in large hotels. She
raised her hands to her hair, which she wore a la Princesse de Galles,
and touched it here and there, settling it more firmly on her head, and
her eyes were full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking
in the face one of life's sordid facts, and making the best of it. In
youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were mottled now
by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness came into her eyes as
she dabbed a powder-puff across her forehead. Putting the puff down, she
stood quite still before the glass, arranging a smile over her high,
important nose, her, chin, (never large, and now growing smaller with the
increase of her neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth. Quickly,
not to lose the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly in both hands,
and went downstairs.

She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers had
reached her that things were not all right between her nephew and his
fiancee. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked Phil
to dinner many times; his invariable answer had been 'Too busy.'

Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of this
excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte; in young
Jolyon's sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege, and merits
description as such.

She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said was
beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be
found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her
name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with the
Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars--and she never lent her name
unless sure beforehand that everything had been thoroughly organized.

She believed, as she often said, in putting things on a commercial basis;
the proper function of the Church, of charity, indeed, of everything, was
to strengthen the fabric of 'Society.' Individual action, therefore, she
considered immoral. Organization was the only thing, for by organization
alone could you feel sure that you were getting a return for your money.
Organization--and again, organization! And there is no doubt that she
was what old Jolyon called her--"a 'dab' at that"--he went further, he
called her "a humbug."

The enterprises to which she lent her name were organized so admirably
that by the time the takings were handed over, they were indeed skim milk
divested of all cream of human kindness. But as she often justly
remarked, sentiment was to be deprecated. She was, in fact, a little
academic.

This great and good woman, so highly thought of in ecclesiastical
circles, was one of the principal priestesses in the temple of
Forsyteism, keeping alive day and night a sacred flame to the God of
Property, whose altar is inscribed with those inspiring words: 'Nothing
for nothing, and really remarkably little for sixpence.'

When she entered a room it was felt that something substantial had come
in, which was probably the reason of her popularity as a patroness.
People liked something substantial when they had paid money for it; and
they would look at her--surrounded by her staff in charity ballrooms,
with her high nose and her broad, square figure, attired in an uniform
covered with sequins--as though she were a general.

The only thing against her was that she had not a double name. She was a
power in upper middle-class society, with its hundred sets and circles,
all intersecting on the common battlefield of charity functions, and on
that battlefield brushing skirts so pleasantly with the skirts of Society
with the capital 'S.' She was a power in society with the smaller 's,'
that larger, more significant, and more powerful body, where the
commercially Christian institutions, maxims, and 'principle,' which Mrs.
Baynes embodied, were real life-blood, circulating freely, real business
currency, not merely the sterilized imitation that flowed in the veins of
smaller Society with the larger 'S.' People who knew her felt her to be
sound--a sound woman, who never gave herself away, nor anything else, if
she could possibly help it.