The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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


"I shan't be able to give you very much," he had said, a formula to which
June was not unaccustomed. "Perhaps this What's-his-name will provide
the cocoa."

He had hardly seen anything of her since it began. A bad business! He
had no notion of giving her a lot of money to enable a fellow he knew
nothing about to live on in idleness. He had seen that sort of thing
before; no good ever came of it. Worst of all, he had no hope of shaking
her resolution; she was as obstinate as a mule, always had been from a
child. He didn't see where it was to end. They must cut their coat
according to their cloth. He would not give way till he saw young
Bosinney with an income of his own. That June would have trouble with
the fellow was as plain as a pikestaff; he had no more idea of money than
a cow. As to this rushing down to Wales to visit the young man's aunts,
he fully expected they were old cats.

And, motionless, old Jolyon stared at the wall; but for his open eyes, he
might have been asleep.... The idea of supposing that young cub Soames
could give him advice! He had always been a cub, with his nose in the
air! He would be setting up as a man of property next, with a place in
the country! A man of property! H'mph! Like his father, he was always
nosing out bargains, a cold-blooded young beggar!

He rose, and, going to the cabinet, began methodically stocking his
cigar-case from a bundle fresh in. They were not bad at the price, but
you couldn't get a good cigar, nowadays, nothing to hold a candle to
those old Superfinos of Hanson and Bridger's. That was a cigar!

The thought, like some stealing perfume, carried him back to those
wonderful nights at Richmond when after dinner he sat smoking on the
terrace of the Crown and Sceptre with Nicholas Treffry and Traquair and
Jack Herring and Anthony Thornworthy. How good his cigars were then!
Poor old Nick!--dead, and Jack Herring--dead, and Traquair--dead of that
wife of his, and Thornworthy--awfully shaky (no wonder, with his
appetite).

Of all the company of those days he himself alone seemed left, except
Swithin, of course, and he so outrageously big there was no doing
anything with him.

Difficult to believe it was so long ago; he felt young still! Of all his
thoughts, as he stood there counting his cigars, this was the most
poignant, the most bitter. With his white head and his loneliness he had
remained young and green at heart. And those Sunday afternoons on
Hampstead Heath, when young Jolyon and he went for a stretch along the
Spaniard's Road to Highgate, to Child's Hill, and back over the Heath
again to dine at Jack Straw's Castle--how delicious his cigars were then!
And such weather! There was no weather now.

When June was a toddler of five, and every other Sunday he took her to
the Zoo, away from the society of those two good women, her mother and
her grandmother, and at the top of the bear den baited his umbrella with
buns for her favourite bears, how sweet his cigars were then!

Cigars! He had not even succeeded in out-living his palate--the famous
palate that in the fifties men swore by, and speaking of him, said:
"Forsyte's the best palate in London!" The palate that in a sense had
made his fortune--the fortune of the celebrated tea men, Forsyte and
Treffry, whose tea, like no other man's tea, had a romantic aroma, the
charm of a quite singular genuineness. About the house of Forsyte and
Treffry in the City had clung an air of enterprise and mystery, of
special dealings in special ships, at special ports, with special
Orientals.

He had worked at that business! Men did work in those days! these young
pups hardly knew the meaning of the word. He had gone into every detail,
known everything that went on, sometimes sat up all night over it. And
he had always chosen his agents himself, prided himself on it. His eye
for men, he used to say, had been the secret of his success, and the
exercise of this masterful power of selection had been the only part of
it all that he had really liked. Not a career for a man of his ability.
Even now, when the business had been turned into a Limited Liability
Company, and was declining (he had got out of his shares long ago), he
felt a sharp chagrin in thinking of that time. How much better he might
have done! He would have succeeded splendidly at the Bar! He had even
thought of standing for Parliament. How often had not Nicholas Treffry
said to him:

"You could do anything, Jo, if you weren't so d-damned careful of
yourself!" Dear old Nick! Such a good fellow, but a racketty chap! The
notorious Treffry! He had never taken any care of himself. So he was
dead. Old Jolyon counted his cigars with a steady hand, and it came into
his mind to wonder if perhaps he had been too careful of himself.

He put the cigar-case in the breast of his coat, buttoned it in, and
walked up the long flights to his bedroom, leaning on one foot and the
other, and helping himself by the bannister. The house was too big.
After June was married, if she ever did marry this fellow, as he supposed
she would, he would let it and go into rooms. What was the use of
keeping half a dozen servants eating their heads off?

The butler came to the ring of his bell--a large man with a beard, a soft
tread, and a peculiar capacity for silence. Old Jolyon told him to put
his dress clothes out; he was going to dine at the Club.

How long had the carriage been back from taking Miss June to the station?
Since two? Then let him come round at half-past six!

The Club which old Jolyon entered on the stroke of seven was one of those
political institutions of the upper middle class which have seen better
days. In spite of being talked about, perhaps in consequence of being
talked about, it betrayed a disappointing vitality. People had grown
tired of saying that the 'Disunion' was on its last legs. Old Jolyon
would say it, too, yet disregarded the fact in a manner truly irritating
to well-constituted Clubmen.

"Why do you keep your name on?" Swithin often asked him with profound
vexation. "Why don't you join the 'Polyglot'? You can't get a wine like
our Heidsieck under twenty shillin' a bottle anywhere in London;" and,
dropping his voice, he added: "There's only five hundred dozen left. I
drink it every night of my life."

"I'll think of it," old Jolyon would answer; but when he did think of it
there was always the question of fifty guineas entrance fee, and it would
take him four or five years to get in. He continued to think of it.

He was too old to be a Liberal, had long ceased to believe in the
political doctrines of his Club, had even been known to allude to them as
'wretched stuff,' and it afforded him pleasure to continue a member in
the teeth of principles so opposed to his own. He had always had a
contempt for the place, having joined it many years ago when they refused
to have him at the 'Hotch Potch' owing to his being 'in trade.' As if he
were not as good as any of them! He naturally despised the Club that did
take him. The members were a poor lot, many of them in the City
--stockbrokers, solicitors, auctioneers--what not! Like most men of
strong character but not too much originality, old Jolyon set small store
by the class to which he belonged. Faithfully he followed their customs,
social and otherwise, and secretly he thought them 'a common lot.'

Years and philosophy, of which he had his share, had dimmed the
recollection of his defeat at the 'Hotch Potch'; and now in his thoughts
it was enshrined as the Queen of Clubs. He would have been a member all
these years himself, but, owing to the slipshod way his proposer, Jack
Herring, had gone to work, they had not known what they were doing in
keeping him out. Why! they had taken his son Jo at once, and he believed
the boy was still a member; he had received a letter dated from there
eight years ago.

He had not been near the 'Disunion' for months, and the house had
undergone the piebald decoration which people bestow on old houses and
old ships when anxious to sell them.

'Beastly colour, the smoking-room!' he thought. 'The dining-room is
good!'

Its gloomy chocolate, picked out with light green, took his fancy.

He ordered dinner, and sat down in the very corner, at the very table
perhaps! (things did not progress much at the 'Disunion,' a Club of
almost Radical principles) at which he and young Jolyon used to sit
twenty-five years ago, when he was taking the latter to Drury Lane,
during his holidays.

The boy had loved the theatre, and old Jolyon recalled how he used to sit
opposite, concealing his excitement under a careful but transparent
nonchalance.

He ordered himself, too, the very dinner the boy had always chosen-soup,
whitebait, cutlets, and a tart. Ah! if he were only opposite now!

The two had not met for fourteen years. And not for the first time
during those fourteen years old Jolyon wondered whether he had been a
little to blame in the matter of his son. An unfortunate love-affair
with that precious flirt Danae Thornworthy (now Danae Pellew), Anthony
Thornworthy's daughter, had thrown him on the rebound into the arms of
June's mother. He ought perhaps to have put a spoke in the wheel of
their marriage; they were too young; but after that experience of Jo's
susceptibility he had been only too anxious to see him married. And in
four years the crash had come! To have approved his son's conduct in
that crash was, of course, impossible; reason and training--that
combination of potent factors which stood for his principles--told him of
this impossibility, and his heart cried out. The grim remorselessness of
that business had no pity for hearts. There was June, the atom with
flaming hair, who had climbed all over him, twined and twisted herself
about him--about his heart that was made to be the plaything and beloved
resort of tiny, helpless things. With characteristic insight he saw he
must part with one or with the other; no half-measures could serve in
such a situation. In that lay its tragedy. And the tiny, helpless thing
prevailed. He would not run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, and
so to his son he said good-bye.

That good-bye had lasted until now.

He had proposed to continue a reduced allowance to young Jolyon, but this
had been refused, and perhaps that refusal had hurt him more than
anything, for with it had gone the last outlet of his penned-in
affection; and there had come such tangible and solid proof of rupture as
only a transaction in property, a bestowal or refusal of such, could
supply.

His dinner tasted flat. His pint of champagne was dry and bitter stuff,
not like the Veuve Clicquots of old days.

Over his cup of coffee, he bethought him that he would go to the opera.
In the Times, therefore--he had a distrust of other papers--he read the
announcement for the evening. It was 'Fidelio.'

Mercifully not one of those new-fangled German pantomimes by that fellow
Wagner.

Putting on his ancient opera hat, which, with its brim flattened by use,
and huge capacity, looked like an emblem of greater days, and, pulling
out an old pair of very thin lavender kid gloves smelling strongly of
Russia leather, from habitual proximity to the cigar-case in the pocket
of his overcoat, he stepped into a hansom.

The cab rattled gaily along the streets, and old Jolyon was struck by
their unwonted animation.

'The hotels must be doing a tremendous business,' he thought. A few
years ago there had been none of these big hotels. He made a
satisfactory reflection on some property he had in the neighbourhood. It
must be going up in value by leaps and bounds! What traffic!

But from that he began indulging in one of those strange impersonal
speculations, so uncharacteristic of a Forsyte, wherein lay, in part, the
secret of his supremacy amongst them. What atoms men were, and what a lot
of them! And what would become of them all?

He stumbled as he got out of the cab, gave the man his exact fare, walked
up to the ticket office to take his stall, and stood there with his purse
in his hand--he always carried his money in a purse, never having
approved of that habit of carrying it loosely in the pockets, as so many
young men did nowadays. The official leaned out, like an old dog from a
kennel.

"Why," he said in a surprised voice, "it's Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! So it is!
Haven't seen you, sir, for years. Dear me! Times aren't what they were.
Why! you and your brother, and that auctioneer--Mr. Traquair, and Mr.
Nicholas Treffry--you used to have six or seven stalls here regular every
season. And how are you, sir? We don't get younger!"

The colour in old Jolyon's eyes deepened; he paid his guinea. They had
not forgotten him. He marched in, to the sounds of the overture, like an
old war-horse to battle.

Folding his opera hat, he sat down, drew out his lavender gloves in the
old way, and took up his glasses for a long look round the house.
Dropping them at last on his folded hat, he fixed his eyes on the
curtain. More poignantly than ever he felt that it was all over and done
with him. Where were all the women, the pretty women, the house used to
be so full of? Where was that old feeling in the heart as he waited for
one of those great singers? Where that sensation of the intoxication of
life and of his own power to enjoy it all?

The greatest opera-goer of his day! There was no opera now! That fellow
Wagner had ruined everything; no melody left, nor any voices to sing it.
Ah! the wonderful singers! Gone! He sat watching the old scenes acted,
a numb feeling at his heart.

From the curl of silver over his ear to the pose of his foot in its
elastic-sided patent boot, there was nothing clumsy or weak about old
Jolyon. He was as upright--very nearly--as in those old times when he
came every night; his sight was as good--almost as good. But what a
feeling of weariness and disillusion!

He had been in the habit all his life of enjoying things, even imperfect
things--and there had been many imperfect things--he had enjoyed them all
with moderation, so as to keep himself young. But now he was deserted by
his power of enjoyment, by his philosophy, and left with this dreadful
feeling that it was all done with. Not even the Prisoners' Chorus, nor
Florian's Song, had the power to dispel the gloom of his loneliness.

If Jo were only with him! The boy must be forty by now. He had wasted
fourteen years out of the life of his only son. And Jo was no longer a
social pariah. He was married. Old Jolyon had been unable to refrain
from marking his appreciation of the action by enclosing his son a cheque
for L500. The cheque had been returned in a letter from the 'Hotch
Potch,' couched in these words.

'MY DEAREST FATHER,

'Your generous gift was welcome as a sign that you might think worse of
me. I return it, but should you think fit to invest it for the benefit
of the little chap (we call him Jolly), who bears our Christian and, by
courtesy, our surname, I shall be very glad.

'I hope with all my heart that your health is as good as ever.

'Your loving son,

'Jo.'

The letter was like the boy. He had always been an amiable chap. Old
Jolyon had sent this reply:

'MY DEAR JO,

'The sum (L500) stands in my books for the benefit of your boy, under the
name of Jolyon Forsyte, and will be duly-credited with interest at 5 per
cent. I hope that you are doing well. My health remains good at
present.

'With love, I am, 'Your affectionate Father,
'JOLYON FORSYTE.'

And every year on the 1st of January he had added a hundred and the
interest. The sum was mounting up--next New Year's Day it would be
fifteen hundred and odd pounds! And it is difficult to say how much
satisfaction he had got out of that yearly transaction. But the
correspondence had ended.

In spite of his love for his son, in spite of an instinct, partly
constitutional, partly the result, as in thousands of his class, of the
continual handling and watching of affairs, prompting him to judge
conduct by results rather than by principle, there was at the bottom of
his heart a sort of uneasiness. His son ought, under the circumstances,
to have gone to the dogs; that law was laid down in all the novels,
sermons, and plays he had ever read, heard, or witnessed.

After receiving the cheque back there seemed to him to be something wrong
somewhere. Why had his son not gone to the dogs? But, then, who could
tell?

He had heard, of course--in fact, he had made it his business to find
out--that Jo lived in St. John's Wood, that he had a little house in
Wistaria Avenue with a garden, and took his wife about with him into
society--a queer sort of society, no doubt--and that they had two
children--the little chap they called Jolly (considering the
circumstances the name struck him as cynical, and old Jolyon both feared
and disliked cynicism), and a girl called Holly, born since the marriage.
Who could tell what his son's circumstances really were? He had
capitalized the income he had inherited from his mother's father
and joined Lloyd's as an underwriter; he painted pictures,
too--water-colours. Old Jolyon knew this, for he had surreptitiously
bought them from time to time, after chancing to see his son's name
signed at the bottom of a representation of the river Thames in a
dealer's window. He thought them bad, and did not hang them because of
the signature; he kept them locked up in a drawer.

In the great opera-house a terrible yearning came on him to see his son.
He remembered the days when he had been wont to slide him, in a brown
holland suit, to and fro under the arch of his legs; the times when he
ran beside the boy's pony, teaching him to ride; the day he first took
him to school. He had been a loving, lovable little chap! After he went
to Eton he had acquired, perhaps, a little too much of that desirable
manner which old Jolyon knew was only to be obtained at such places and
at great expense; but he had always been companionable. Always a
companion, even after Cambridge--a little far off, perhaps, owing to the
advantages he had received. Old Jolyon's feeling towards our public
schools and 'Varsities never wavered, and he retained touchingly his
attitude of admiration and mistrust towards a system appropriate to the
highest in the land, of which he had not himself been privileged to
partake.... Now that June had gone and left, or as good as left him, it
would have been a comfort to see his son again. Guilty of this treason
to his family, his principles, his class, old Jolyon fixed his eyes on
the singer. A poor thing--a wretched poor thing! And the Florian a
perfect stick!

It was over. They were easily pleased nowadays!

In the crowded street he snapped up a cab under the very nose of a stout
and much younger gentleman, who had already assumed it to be his own.
His route lay through Pall Mall, and at the corner, instead of going
through the Green Park, the cabman turned to drive up St. James's
Street. Old Jolyon put his hand through the trap (he could not bear
being taken out of his way); in turning, however, he found himself
opposite the 'Hotch Potch,' and the yearning that had been secretly with
him the whole evening prevailed. He called to the driver to stop. He
would go in and ask if Jo still belonged there.

He went in. The hall looked exactly as it did when he used to dine there
with Jack Herring, and they had the best cook in London; and he looked
round with the shrewd, straight glance that had caused him all his life
to be better served than most men.

"Mr. Jolyon Forsyte still a member here?"

"Yes, sir; in the Club now, sir. What name?"

Old Jolyon was taken aback.

"His father," he said.

And having spoken, he took his stand, back to the fireplace.

Young Jolyon, on the point of leaving the Club, had put on his hat, and
was in the act of crossing the hall, as the porter met him. He was no
longer young, with hair going grey, and face--a narrower replica of his
father's, with the same large drooping moustache--decidedly worn. He
turned pale. This meeting was terrible after all those years, for
nothing in the world was so terrible as a scene. They met and crossed
hands without a word. Then, with a quaver in his voice, the father said:

"How are you, my boy?"

The son answered:

"How are you, Dad?"

Old Jolyon's hand trembled in its thin lavender glove.

"If you're going my way," he said, "I can give you a lift."

And as though in the habit of taking each other home every night they
went out and stepped into the cab.

To old Jolyon it seemed that his son had grown. 'More of a man
altogether,' was his comment. Over the natural amiability of that son's
face had come a rather sardonic mask, as though he had found in the
circumstances of his life the necessity for armour. The features were
certainly those of a Forsyte, but the expression was more the
introspective look of a student or philosopher. He had no doubt been
obliged to look into himself a good deal in the course of those fifteen
years.

To young Jolyon the first sight of his father was undoubtedly a shock--he
looked so worn and old. But in the cab he seemed hardly to have changed,
still having the calm look so well remembered, still being upright and
keen-eyed.

"You look well, Dad."

"Middling," old Jolyon answered.

He was the prey of an anxiety that he found he must put into words.
Having got his son back like this, he felt he must know what was his
financial position.

"Jo," he said, "I should like to hear what sort of water you're in. I
suppose you're in debt?"

He put it this way that his son might find it easier to confess.

Young Jolyon answered in his ironical voice:

"No! I'm not in debt!"

Old Jolyon saw that he was angry, and touched his hand. He had run a
risk. It was worth it, however, and Jo had never been sulky with him.
They drove on, without speaking again, to Stanhope Gate. Old Jolyon
invited him in, but young Jolyon shook his head.

"June's not here," said his father hastily: "went of to-day on a visit.
I suppose you know that she's engaged to be married?"

"Already?" murmured young Jolyon'.

Old Jolyon stepped out, and, in paying the cab fare, for the first time
in his life gave the driver a sovereign in mistake for a shilling.

Placing the coin in his mouth, the cabman whipped his horse secretly on
the underneath and hurried away.

Old Jolyon turned the key softly in the lock, pushed open the door, and
beckoned. His son saw him gravely hanging up his coat, with an
expression on his face like that of a boy who intends to steal cherries.

The door of the dining-room was open, the gas turned low; a spirit-urn
hissed on a tea-tray, and close to it a cynical looking cat had fallen
asleep on the dining-table. Old Jolyon 'shoo'd' her off at once. The
incident was a relief to his feelings; he rattled his opera hat behind
the animal.

"She's got fleas," he said, following her out of the room. Through the
door in the hall leading to the basement he called "Hssst!" several
times, as though assisting the cat's departure, till by some strange
coincidence the butler appeared below.

"You can go to bed, Parfitt," said old Jolyon. "I will lock up and put
out."

When he again entered the dining-room the cat unfortunately preceded him,
with her tail in the air, proclaiming that she had seen through this
manouevre for suppressing the butler from the first....

A fatality had dogged old Jolyon's domestic stratagems all his life.

Young Jolyon could not help smiling. He was very well versed in irony,
and everything that evening seemed to him ironical. The episode of the
cat; the announcement of his own daughter's engagement. So he had no
more part or parcel in her than he had in the Puss! And the poetical
justice of this appealed to him.

"What is June like now?" he asked.

"She's a little thing," returned old Jolyon; they say she's like me, but
that's their folly. She's more like your mother--the same eyes and
hair."

"Ah! and she is pretty?"

Old Jolyon was too much of a Forsyte to praise anything freely;
especially anything for which he had a genuine admiration.

"Not bad looking--a regular Forsyte chin. It'll be lonely here when
she's gone, Jo."

The look on his face again gave young Jolyon the shock he had felt on
first seeing his father.

"What will you do with yourself, Dad? I suppose she's wrapped up in
him?"

"Do with myself?" repeated old Jolyon with an angry break in his voice.
"It'll be miserable work living here alone. I don't know how it's to
end. I wish to goodness...." He checked himself, and added: "The
question is, what had I better do with this house?"

Young Jolyon looked round the room. It was peculiarly vast and dreary,
decorated with the enormous pictures of still life that he remembered as
a boy--sleeping dogs with their noses resting on bunches of carrots,
together with onions and grapes lying side by side in mild surprise. The
house was a white elephant, but he could not conceive of his father
living in a smaller place; and all the more did it all seem ironical.