The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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She will always remember best in her life that morning when at last she
saw amongst the reliable Cause List of the Times newspaper, under the
heading of Court XIII, Mr. Justice Bentham, the case of Forsyte v.
Bosinney.

Like a gambler who stakes his last piece of money, she had prepared to
hazard her all upon this throw; it was not her nature to contemplate
defeat. How, unless with the instinct of a woman in love, she knew that
Bosinney's discomfiture in this action was assured, cannot be told--on
this assumption, however, she laid her plans, as upon a certainty.

Half past eleven found her at watch in the gallery of Court XIII., and
there she remained till the case of Forsyte v. Bosinney was over.
Bosinney's absence did not disquiet her; she had felt instinctively that
he would not defend himself. At the end of the judgment she hastened
down, and took a cab to his rooms.

She passed the open street-door and the offices on the three lower floors
without attracting notice; not till she reached the top did her
difficulties begin.

Her ring was not answered; she had now to make up her mind whether she
would go down and ask the caretaker in the basement to let her in to
await Mr. Bosinney's return, or remain patiently outside the door,
trusting that no one would, come up. She decided on the latter course.

A quarter of an hour had passed in freezing vigil on the landing, before
it occurred to her that Bosinney had been used to leave the key of his
rooms under the door-mat. She looked and found it there. For some
minutes she could not decide to make use of it; at last she let herself
in and left the door open that anyone who came might see she was there on
business.

This was not the same June who had paid the trembling visit five months
ago; those months of suffering and restraint had made her less sensitive;
she had dwelt on this visit so long, with such minuteness, that its
terrors were discounted beforehand. She was not there to fail this time,
for if she failed no one could help her.

Like some mother beast on the watch over her young, her little quick
figure never stood still in that room, but wandered from wall to wall,
from window to door, fingering now one thing, now another. There was
dust everywhere, the room could not have been cleaned for weeks, and
June, quick to catch at anything that should buoy up her hope, saw in it
a sign that he had been obliged, for economy's sake, to give up his
servant.

She looked into the bedroom; the bed was roughly made, as though by the
hand of man. Listening intently, she darted in, and peered into his
cupboards. A few shirts and collars, a pair of muddy boots--the room was
bare even of garments.

She stole back to the sitting-room, and now she noticed the absence of
all the little things he had set store by. The clock that had been his
mother's, the field-glasses that had hung over the sofa; two really
valuable old prints of Harrow, where his father had been at school, and
last, not least, the piece of Japanese pottery she herself had given him.
All were gone; and in spite of the rage roused within her championing
soul at the thought that the world should treat him thus, their
disappearance augured happily for the success of her plan.

It was while looking at the spot where the piece of Japanese pottery had
stood that she felt a strange certainty of being watched, and, turning,
saw Irene in the open doorway.

The two stood gazing at each other for a minute in silence; then June
walked forward and held out her hand. Irene did not take it.

When her hand was refused, June put it behind her. Her eyes grew steady
with anger; she waited for Irene to speak; and thus waiting, took in,
with who-knows-what rage of jealousy, suspicion, and curiosity, every
detail of her friend's face and dress and figure.

Irene was clothed in her long grey fur; the travelling cap on her head
left a wave of gold hair visible above her forehead. The soft fullness
of the coat made her face as small as a child's.

Unlike June's cheeks, her cheeks had no colour in them, but were ivory
white and pinched as if with cold. Dark circles lay round her eyes. In
one hand she held a bunch of violets.

She looked back at June, no smile on her lips; and with those great dark
eyes fastened on her, the girl, for all her startled anger, felt
something of the old spell.

She spoke first, after all.

"What have you come for?" But the feeling that she herself was being
asked the same question, made her add: "This horrible case. I came to
tell him--he has lost it."

Irene did not speak, her eyes never moved from June's face, and the girl
cried:

"Don't stand there as if you were made of stone!"

Irene laughed: "I wish to God I were!"

But June turned away: "Stop!" she cried, "don't tell me! I don't want to
hear! I don't want to hear what you've come for. I don't want to hear!"
And like some uneasy spirit, she began swiftly walking to and fro.
Suddenly she broke out:

"I was here first. We can't both stay here together!"

On Irene's face a smile wandered up, and died out like a flicker of
firelight. She did not move. And then it was that June perceived under
the softness and immobility of this figure something desperate and
resolved; something not to be turned away, something dangerous. She tore
off her hat, and, putting both hands to her brow, pressed back the bronze
mass of her hair.

"You have no right here!" she cried defiantly.

Irene answered: "I have no right anywhere!

"What do you mean?"

"I have left Soames. You always wanted me to!"

June put her hands over her ears.

"Don't! I don't want to hear anything--I don't want to know anything.
It's impossible to fight with you! What makes you stand like that? Why
don't you go?"

Irene's lips moved; she seemed to be saying: "Where should I go?"

June turned to the window. She could see the face of a clock down in the
street. It was nearly four. At any moment he might come! She looked
back across her shoulder, and her face was distorted with anger.

But Irene had not moved; in her gloved hands she ceaselessly turned and
twisted the little bunch of violets.

The tears of rage and disappointment rolled down June's cheeks.

"How could you come?" she said. "You have been a false friend to me!"

Again Irene laughed. June saw that she had played a wrong card, and
broke down.

"Why have you come?" she sobbed. "You've ruined my life, and now you
want to ruin his!"

Irene's mouth quivered; her eyes met June's with a look so mournful that
the girl cried out in the midst of her sobbing, "No, no!"

But Irene's head bent till it touched her breast. She turned, and went
quickly out, hiding her lips with the little bunch of violets.

June ran to the door. She heard the footsteps going down and down. She
called out: "Come back, Irene! Come back!"

The footsteps died away....

Bewildered and torn, the girl stood at the top of the stairs. Why had
Irene gone, leaving her mistress of the field? What did it mean? Had
she really given him up to her? Or had she...? And she was the prey of
a gnawing uncertainty.... Bosinney did not come....

About six o'clock that afternoon old Jolyon returned from Wistaria
Avenue, where now almost every day he spent some hours, and asked if his
grand-daughter were upstairs. On being told that she had just come in,
he sent up to her room to request her to come down and speak to him.

He had made up his mind to tell her that he was reconciled with her
father. In future bygones must be bygones. He would no longer live
alone, or practically alone, in this great house; he was going to give it
up, and take one in the country for his son, where they could all go and
live together. If June did not like this, she could have an allowance
and live by herself. It wouldn't make much difference to her, for it was
a long time since she had shown him any affection.

But when June came down, her face was pinched and piteous; there was a
strained, pathetic look in her eyes. She snuggled up in her old attitude
on the arm of his chair, and what he said compared but poorly with the
clear, authoritative, injured statement he had thought out with much
care. His heart felt sore, as the great heart of a mother-bird feels
sore when its youngling flies and bruises its wing. His words halted, as
though he were apologizing for having at last deviated from the path of
virtue, and succumbed, in defiance of sounder principles, to his more
natural instincts.

He seemed nervous lest, in thus announcing his intentions, he should be
setting his granddaughter a bad example; and now that he came to the
point, his way of putting the suggestion that, if she didn't like it, she
could live by herself and lump it, was delicate in the extreme.'

"And if, by any chance, my darling," he said, "you found you didn't get
on--with them, why, I could make that all right. You could have what you
liked. We could find a little flat in London where you could set up, and
I could be running to continually. But the children," he added, "are dear
little things!"

Then, in the midst of this grave, rather transparent, explanation of
changed policy, his eyes twinkled. "This'll astonish Timothy's weak
nerves. That precious young thing will have something to say about this,
or I'm a Dutchman!"

June had not yet spoken. Perched thus on the arm of his chair, with her
head above him, her face was invisible. But presently he felt her warm
cheek against his own, and knew that, at all events, there was nothing
very alarming in her attitude towards his news. He began to take
courage.

"You'll like your father," he said--"an amiable chap. Never was much
push about him, but easy to get on with. You'll find him artistic and
all that."

And old Jolyon bethought him of the dozen or so water-colour drawings all
carefully locked up in his bedroom; for now that his son was going to
become a man of property he did not think them quite such poor things as
heretofore.

"As to your--your stepmother," he said, using the word with some little
difficulty, "I call her a refined woman--a bit of a Mrs. Gummidge, I
shouldn't wonder--but very fond of Jo. And the children," he
repeated--indeed, this sentence ran like music through all his solemn
self-justification--"are sweet little things!"

If June had known, those words but reincarnated that tender love for
little children, for the young and weak, which in the past had made him
desert his son for her tiny self, and now, as the cycle rolled, was
taking him from her.

But he began to get alarmed at her silence, and asked impatiently: "Well,
what do you say?"

June slid down to his knee, and she in her turn began her tale. She
thought it would all go splendidly; she did not see any difficulty, and
she did not care a bit what people thought.

Old Jolyon wriggled. H'm! then people would think! He had thought that
after all these years perhaps they wouldn't! Well, he couldn't help it!
Nevertheless, he could not approve of his granddaughter's way of putting
it--she ought to mind what people thought!

Yet he said nothing. His feelings were too mixed, too inconsistent for
expression.

No--went on June he did not care; what business was it of theirs? There
was only one thing--and with her cheek pressing against his knee, old
Jolyon knew at once that this something was no trifle: As he was going to
buy a house in the country, would he not--to please her--buy that
splendid house of Soames' at Robin Hill? It was finished, it was
perfectly beautiful, and no one would live in it now. They would all be
so happy there.

Old Jolyon was on the alert at once. Wasn't the 'man of property' going
to live in his new house, then? He never alluded to Soames now but under
this title.

"No"--June said--"he was not; she knew that he was not!"

How did she know?

She could not tell him, but she knew. She knew nearly for certain! It
was most unlikely; circumstances had changed! Irene's words still rang in
her head: "I have left Soames. Where should I go?"

But she kept silence about that.

If her grandfather would only buy it and settle that wretched claim that
ought never to have been made on Phil! It would be the very best thing
for everybody, and everything--everything might come straight.

And June put her lips to his forehead, and pressed them close.

But old Jolyon freed himself from her caress, his face wore the judicial
look which came upon it when he dealt with affairs. He asked: What did
she mean? There was something behind all this--had she been seeing
Bosinney?

June answered: "No; but I have been to his rooms."

"Been to his rooms? Who took you there?"

June faced him steadily. "I went alone. He has lost that case. I don't
care whether it was right or wrong. I want to help him; and I will!"

Old Jolyon asked again: "Have you seen him?" His glance seemed to pierce
right through the girl's eyes into her soul.

Again June answered: "No; he was not there. I waited, but he did not
come."

Old Jolyon made a movement of relief. She had risen and looked down at
him; so slight, and light, and young, but so fixed, and so determined;
and disturbed, vexed, as he was, he could not frown away that fixed look.
The feeling of being beaten, of the reins having slipped, of being old
and tired, mastered him.

"Ah!" he said at last, "you'll get yourself into a mess one of these
days, I can see. You want your own way in everything."

Visited by one of his strange bursts of philosophy, he added: "Like that
you were born; and like that you'll stay until you die!"

And he, who in his dealings with men of business, with Boards, with
Forsytes of all descriptions, with such as were not Forsytes, had always
had his own way, looked at his indomitable grandchild sadly--for he felt
in her that quality which above all others he unconsciously admired.

"Do you know what they say is going on?" he said slowly.

June crimsoned.

"Yes--no! I know--and I don't know--I don't care!" and she stamped her
foot.

"I believe," said old Jolyon, dropping his eyes, "that you'd have him if
he were dead!"

There was a long silence before he spoke again.

"But as to buying this house--you don't know what you're talking about!"

June said that she did. She knew that he could get it if he wanted. He
would only have to give what it cost.

"What it cost! You know nothing about it. I won't go to Soames--I'll
have nothing more to do with that young man."

"But you needn't; you can go to Uncle James. If you can't buy the house,
will you pay his lawsuit claim? I know he is terribly hard up--I've seen
it. You can stop it out of my money!"

A twinkle came into old Jolyon's eyes.

"Stop it out of your money! A pretty way. And what will you do, pray,
without your money?"

But secretly, the idea of wresting the house from James and his son had
begun to take hold of him. He had heard on Forsyte 'Change much comment,
much rather doubtful praise of this house. It was 'too artistic,' but a
fine place. To take from the 'man of property' that on which he had set
his heart, would be a crowning triumph over James, practical proof that
he was going to make a man of property of Jo, to put him back in his
proper position, and there to keep him secure. Justice once for all on
those who had chosen to regard his son as a poor, penniless outcast.

He would see, he would see! It might be out of the question; he was not
going to pay a fancy price, but if it could be done, why, perhaps he
would do it!

And still more secretly he knew that he could not refuse her.

But he did not commit himself. He would think it over--he said to June.




CHAPTER VIII

BOSINNEY'S DEPARTURE

Old Jolyon was not given to hasty decisions; it is probable that he
would have continued to think over the purchase of the house at Robin
Hill, had not June's face told him that he would have no peace until he
acted.

At breakfast next morning she asked him what time she should order the
carriage.

"Carriage!" he said, with some appearance of innocence; "what for? I'm
not going out!"

She answered: "If you don't go early, you won't catch Uncle James before
he goes into the City."

"James! what about your Uncle James?"

"The house," she replied, in such a voice that he no longer pretended
ignorance.

"I've not made up my mind," he said.

"You must! You must! Oh! Gran--think of me!"

Old Jolyon grumbled out: "Think of you--I'm always thinking of you, but
you don't think of yourself; you don't think what you're letting yourself
in for. Well, order the carriage at ten!"

At a quarter past he was placing his umbrella in the stand at Park
Lane--he did not choose to relinquish his hat and coat; telling Warmson
that he wanted to see his master, he went, without being announced, into
the study, and sat down.

James was still in the dining-room talking to Soames, who had come round
again before breakfast. On hearing who his visitor was, he muttered
nervously: "Now, what's he want, I wonder?"

He then got up.

"Well," he said to Soames, "don't you go doing anything in a hurry. The
first thing is to find out where she is--I should go to Stainer's about
it; they're the best men, if they can't find her, nobody can." And
suddenly moved to strange softness, he muttered to himself, "Poor little
thing, I can't tell what she was thinking about!" and went out blowing
his nose.

Old Jolyon did not rise on seeing his brother, but held out his hand, and
exchanged with him the clasp of a Forsyte.

James took another chair by the table, and leaned his head on his hand.

"Well," he said, "how are you? We don't see much of you nowadays!"

Old Jolyon paid no attention to the remark.

"How's Emily?" he asked; and waiting for no reply, went on "I've come to
see you about this affair of young Bosinney's. I'm told that new house
of his is a white elephant."

"I don't know anything about a white elephant," said James, "I know he's
lost his case, and I should say he'll go bankrupt."

Old Jolyon was not slow to seize the opportunity this gave him.

"I shouldn't wonder a bit!" he agreed; "and if he goes bankrupt, the 'man
of property'--that is, Soames'll be out of pocket. Now, what I was
thinking was this: If he's not going to live there...."

Seeing both surprise and suspicion in James' eye, he quickly went on: "I
don't want to know anything; I suppose Irene's put her foot down--it's
not material to me. But I'm thinking of a house in the country myself,
not too far from London, and if it suited me I don't say that I mightn't
look at it, at a price."

James listened to this statement with a strange mixture of doubt,
suspicion, and relief, merging into a dread of something behind, and
tinged with the remains of his old undoubted reliance upon his elder
brother's good faith and judgment. There was anxiety, too, as to what
old Jolyon could have heard and how he had heard it; and a sort of
hopefulness arising from the thought that if June's connection with
Bosinney were completely at an end, her grandfather would hardly seem
anxious to help the young fellow. Altogether he was puzzled; as he did
not like either to show this, or to commit himself in any way, he said:

"They tell me you're altering your Will in favour of your son."

He had not been told this; he had merely added the fact of having seen
old Jolyon with his son and grandchildren to the fact that he had taken
his Will away from Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. The shot went home.

"Who told you that?" asked old Jolyon.

"I'm sure I don't know," said James; "I can't remember names--I know
somebody told me Soames spent a lot of money on this house; he's not
likely to part with it except at a good price."

"Well," said old Jolyon, "if, he thinks I'm going to pay a fancy price,
he's mistaken. I've not got the money to throw away that he seems to
have. Let him try and sell it at a forced sale, and see what he'll get.
It's not every man's house, I hear!"

James, who was secretly also of this opinion, answered: "It's a
gentleman's house. Soames is here now if you'd like to see him."

"No," said old Jolyon, "I haven't got as far as that; and I'm not likely
to, I can see that very well if I'm met in this manner!"

James was a little cowed; when it came to the actual figures of a
commercial transaction he was sure of himself, for then he was dealing
with facts, not with men; but preliminary negotiations such as these made
him nervous--he never knew quite how far he could go.

"Well," he said, "I know nothing about it. Soames, he tells me nothing;
I should think he'd entertain it--it's a question of price."

"Oh!" said old Jolyon, "don't let him make a favour of it!" He placed his
hat on his head in dudgeon.

The door was opened and Soames came in.

"There's a policeman out here," he said with his half smile, "for Uncle
Jolyon."

Old Jolyon looked at him angrily, and James said: "A policeman? I don't
know anything about a policeman. But I suppose you know something about
him," he added to old Jolyon with a look of suspicion: "I suppose you'd
better see him!"

In the hall an Inspector of Police stood stolidly regarding with
heavy-lidded pale-blue eyes the fine old English furniture picked up by
James at the famous Mavrojano sale in Portman Square. "You'll find my
brother in there," said James.

The Inspector raised his fingers respectfully to his peaked cap, and
entered the study.

James saw him go in with a strange sensation.

"Well," he said to Soames, "I suppose we must wait and see what he wants.
Your uncle's been here about the house!"

He returned with Soames into the dining-room, but could not rest.

"Now what does he want?" he murmured again.

"Who?" replied Soames: "the Inspector? They sent him round from Stanhope
Gate, that's all I know. That 'nonconformist' of Uncle Jolyon's has been
pilfering, I shouldn't wonder!"

But in spite of his calmness, he too was ill at ease.

At the end of ten minutes old Jolyon came in. He walked up to the table,
and stood there perfectly silent pulling at his long white moustaches.
James gazed up at him with opening mouth; he had never seen his brother
look like this.

Old Jolyon raised his hand, and said slowly:

"Young Bosinney has been run over in the fog and killed."

Then standing above his brother and his nephew, and looking down at him
with his deep eyes:

"There's--some--talk--of--suicide," he said.

James' jaw dropped. "Suicide! What should he do that for?"

Old Jolyon answered sternly: "God knows, if you and your son don't!"

But James did not reply.

For all men of great age, even for all Forsytes, life has had bitter
experiences. The passer-by, who sees them wrapped in cloaks of custom,
wealth, and comfort, would never suspect that such black shadows had
fallen on their roads. To every man of great age--to Sir Walter Bentham
himself--the idea of suicide has once at least been present in the
ante-room of his soul; on the threshold, waiting to enter, held out from
the inmost chamber by some chance reality, some vague fear, some painful
hope. To Forsytes that final renunciation of property is hard. Oh! it
is hard! Seldom--perhaps never--can they achieve, it; and yet, how near
have they not sometimes been!

So even with James! Then in the medley of his thoughts, he broke out:
"Why I saw it in the paper yesterday: 'Run over in the fog!' They didn't
know his name!" He turned from one face to the other in his confusion of
soul; but instinctively all the time he was rejecting that rumour of
suicide. He dared not entertain this thought, so against his interest,
against the interest of his son, of every Forsyte. He strove against it;
and as his nature ever unconsciously rejected that which it could not
with safety accept, so gradually he overcame this fear. It was an
accident! It must have been!

Old Jolyon broke in on his reverie.

"Death was instantaneous. He lay all day yesterday at the hospital.
There was nothing to tell them who he was. I am going there now; you and
your son had better come too."

No one opposing this command he led the way from the room.

The day was still and clear and bright, and driving over to Park Lane
from Stanhope Gate, old Jolyon had had the carriage open. Sitting back on
the padded cushions, finishing his cigar, he had noticed with pleasure
the keen crispness of the air, the bustle of the cabs and people; the
strange, almost Parisian, alacrity that the first fine day will bring
into London streets after a spell of fog or rain. And he had felt so
happy; he had not felt like it for months. His confession to June was
off his mind; he had the prospect of his son's, above all, of his
grandchildren's company in the future--(he had appointed to meet young
Jolyon at the Hotch Potch that very manning to--discuss it again); and
there was the pleasurable excitement of a coming encounter, a coming
victory, over James and the 'man of property' in the matter of the house.

He had the carriage closed now; he had no heart to look on gaiety; nor
was it right that Forsytes should be seen driving with an Inspector of
Police.