The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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


The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion rather,
of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so far as to prevent
a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had been a glorious summer,
and after holidays abroad and at the sea they were practically all back
in London, when Roger with a touch of his old originality had suddenly
breathed his last at his own house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy's it
was whispered sadly that poor Roger had always been eccentric about his
digestion--had he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the
other brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and coming
away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for his Uncle
Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. The 'Old Things'--Aunt Juley and Aunt
Hester--would like to hear about it. His father--James--at eighty-eight
had not felt up to the fatigue of the funeral; and Timothy himself, of
course, had not gone; so that Nicholas had been the only brother present.
Still, there had been a fair gathering; and it would cheer Aunts Juley
and Hester up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed with the
inevitable longing to get something out of everything you do, which is
the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the saner elements in
every nation. In this practice of taking family matters to Timothy's in
the Bayswater Road, Soames was but following in the footsteps of his
father, who had been in the habit of going at least once a week to see
his sisters at Timothy's, and had only given it up when he lost his nerve
at eighty-six, and could not go out without Emily. To go with Emily was
of no use, for who could really talk to anyone in the presence of his own
wife? Like James in the old days, Soames found time to go there nearly
every Sunday, and sit in the little drawing-room into which, with his
undoubted taste, he had introduced a good deal of change and china not
quite up to his own fastidious mark, and at least two rather doubtful
Barbizon pictures, at Christmastides. He himself, who had done extremely
well with the Barbizons, had for some years past moved towards the
Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was hoping to do better. In the
riverside house which he now inhabited near Mapledurham he had a gallery,
beautifully hung and lighted, to which few London dealers were strangers.
It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon attraction in those week-end
parties which his sisters, Winifred or Rachel, occasionally organised for
him. For though he was but a taciturn showman, his quiet collected
determinism seldom failed to influence his guests, who knew that his
reputation was grounded not on mere aesthetic fancy, but on his power of
gauging the future of market values. When he went to Timothy's he almost
always had some little tale of triumph over a dealer to unfold, and
dearly he loved that coo of pride with which his aunts would greet it.
This afternoon, however, he was differently animated, coming from Roger's
funeral in his neat dark clothes--not quite black, for after all an uncle
was but an uncle, and his soul abhorred excessive display of feeling.
Leaning back in a marqueterie chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at
the sky-blue walls plastered with gold frames, he was noticeably silent.
Whether because he had been to a funeral or not, the peculiar Forsyte
build of his face was seen to the best advantage this afternoon--a face
concave and long, with a jaw which divested of flesh would have seemed
extravagant: altogether a chinny face though not at all ill-looking. He
was feeling more strongly than ever that Timothy's was hopelessly
'rum-ti-too' and the souls of his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The
subject on which alone he wanted to talk--his own undivorced
position--was unspeakable. And yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion
of all else. It was only since the Spring that this had been so and a
new feeling grown up which was egging him on towards what he knew might
well be folly in a Forsyte of forty-five. More and more of late he had
been conscious that he was 'getting on.' The fortune already
considerable when he conceived the house at Robin Hill which had finally
wrecked his marriage with Irene, had mounted with surprising vigour in
the twelve lonely years during which he had devoted himself to little
else. He was worth to-day well over a hundred thousand pounds, and had
no one to leave it to--no real object for going on with what was his
religion. Even if he were to relax his efforts, money made money, and he
felt that he would have a hundred and fifty thousand before he knew where
he was. There had always been a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side
to Soames; baulked and frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but now had
crept out again in this his 'prime of life.' Concreted and focussed of
late by the attraction of a girl's undoubted beauty, it had become a
veritable prepossession.

And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept any
unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the thought of
that. He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during those long years of
forced celibacy, secretively, and always with disgust, for he was
fastidious, and his sense of law and order innate. He wanted no hole and
corner liaison. A marriage at the Embassy in Paris, a few months'
travel, and he could bring Annette back quite separated from a past which
in truth was not too distinguished, for she only kept the accounts in her
mother's Soho Restaurant; he could bring her back as something very new
and chic with her French taste and self-possession, to reign at 'The
Shelter' near Mapledurham. On Forsyte 'Change and among his riverside
friends it would be current that he had met a charming French girl on his
travels and married her. There would be the flavour of romance, and a
certain cachet about a French wife. No! He was not at all afraid of
that. It was only this cursed undivorced condition of his, and--and the
question whether Annette would take him, which he dared not put to the
touch until he had a clear and even dazzling future to offer her.

In his aunts' drawing-room he heard with but muffled ears those usual
questions: How was his dear father? Not going out, of course, now that
the weather was turning chilly? Would Soames be sure to tell him that
Hester had found boiled holly leaves most comforting for that pain in her
side; a poultice every three hours, with red flannel afterwards. And
could he relish just a little pot of their very best prune preserve--it
was so delicious this year, and had such a wonderful effect. Oh! and
about the Darties--had Soames heard that dear Winifred was having a most
distressing time with Montague? Timothy thought she really ought to have
protection It was said--but Soames mustn't take this for certain--that he
had given some of Winifred's jewellery to a dreadful dancer. It was such
a bad example for dear Val just as he was going to college. Soames had
not heard? Oh, but he must go and see his sister and look into it at
once! And did he think these Boers were really going to resist? Timothy
was in quite a stew about it. The price of Consols was so high, and he
had such a lot of money in them. Did Soames think they must go down if
there was a war? Soames nodded. But it would be over very quickly. It
would be so bad for Timothy if it wasn't. And of course Soames' dear
father would feel it very much at his age. Luckily poor dear Roger had
been spared this dreadful anxiety. And Aunt Juley with a little
handkerchief wiped away the large tear trying to climb the permanent pout
on her now quite withered left cheek; she was remembering dear Roger, and
all his originality, and how he used to stick pins into her when they
were little together. Aunt Hester, with her instinct for avoiding the
unpleasant, here chimed in: Did Soames think they would make Mr.
Chamberlain Prime Minister at once? He would settle it all so quickly.
She would like to see that old Kruger sent to St. Helena. She could
remember so well the news of Napoleon's death, and what a, relief it had
been to his grandfather. Of course she and Juley--"We were in
pantalettes then, my dear"--had not felt it much at the time.

Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly, and ate three of
those macaroons for which Timothy's was famous. His faint, pale,
supercilious smile had deepened just a little. Really, his family
remained hopelessly provincial, however much of London they might possess
between them. In these go-ahead days their provincialism stared out even
more than it used to. Why, old Nicholas was still a Free Trader, and a
member of that antediluvian home of Liberalism, the Remove Club--though,
to be sure, the members were pretty well all Conservatives now, or he
himself could not have joined; and Timothy, they said, still wore a
nightcap. Aunt Juley spoke again. Dear Soames was looking so well,
hardly a day older than he did when dear Ann died, and they were all
there together, dear Jolyon, and dear Swithin, and dear Roger. She
paused and caught the tear which had climbed the pout on her right cheek.
Did he--did he ever hear anything of Irene nowadays? Aunt Hester visibly
interposed her shoulder. Really, Juley was always saying something! The
smile left Soames' face, and he put his cup down. Here was his subject
broached for him, and for all his desire to expand, he could not take
advantage.

Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:

"They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen thousand out and out;
then of course he saw it would not be right, and made it for her life
only."

Had Soames heard that?

Soames nodded.

"Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now. He is her trustee; you knew that,
of course?"

Soames shook his head. He did know, but wished to show no interest.
Young Jolyon and he had not met since the day of Bosinney's death.

"He must be quite middle-aged by now," went on Aunt Juley dreamily. "Let
me see, he was born when your dear uncle lived in Mount Street; long
before they went to Stanhope Gate in December. Just before that dreadful
Commune. Over fifty! Fancy that! Such a pretty baby, and we were all
so proud of him; the very first of you all." Aunt Juley sighed, and a
lock of not quite her own hair came loose and straggled, so that Aunt
Hester gave a little shiver. Soames rose, he was experiencing a curious
piece of self-discovery. That old wound to his pride and self-esteem was
not yet closed. He had come thinking he could talk of it, even wanting
to talk of his fettered condition, and--behold! he was shrinking away
from this reminder by Aunt Juley, renowned for her Malapropisms.

Oh, Soames was not going already!

Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:

"Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle Timothy!" And, leaving a cold
kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and cling to his lips
as if longing to be kissed away, he left them looking brightly after
him--dear Soames, it had been so good of him to come to-day, when they
were not feeling very....!

With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the stairs, where
was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor and port wine, and house
where draughts are not permitted. The poor old things--he had not meant
to be unkind! And in the street he instantly forgot them, repossessed by
the image of Annette and the thought of the cursed coil around him. Why
had he not pushed the thing through and obtained divorce when that
wretched Bosinney was run over, and there was evidence galore for the
asking! And he turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie's residence in
Green Street, Mayfair.




CHAPTER II

EXIT A MAN OF THE WORLD

That a man of the world so subject to the vicissitudes of fortunes as
Montague Dartie should still be living in a house he had inhabited twenty
years at least would have been more noticeable if the rent, rates, taxes,
and repairs of that house had not been defrayed by his father-in-law. By
that simple if wholesale device James Forsyte had secured a certain
stability in the lives of his daughter and his grandchildren. After all,
there is something invaluable about a safe roof over the head of a
sportsman so dashing as Dartie. Until the events of the last few days he
had been almost-supernaturally steady all this year. The fact was he had
acquired a half share in a filly of George Forsyte's, who had gone
irreparably on the turf, to the horror of Roger, now stilled by the
grave. Sleeve-links, by Martyr, out of Shirt-on-fire, by Suspender, was
a bay filly, three years old, who for a variety of reasons had never
shown her true form. With half ownership of this hopeful animal, all the
idealism latent somewhere in Dartie, as in every other man, had put up
its head, and kept him quietly ardent for months past. When a man has
some thing good to live for it is astonishing how sober he becomes; and
what Dartie had was really good--a three to one chance for an autumn
handicap, publicly assessed at twenty-five to one. The old-fashioned
heaven was a poor thing beside it, and his shirt was on the daughter of
Shirt-on-fire. But how much more than his shirt depended on this
granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving age of forty-five, trying to
Forsytes--and, though perhaps less distinguishable from any other age,
trying even to Darties--Montague had fixed his current fancy on a dancer.
It was no mean passion, but without money, and a good deal of it, likely
to remain a love as airy as her skirts; and Dartie never had any money,
subsisting miserably on what he could beg or borrow from Winifred--a
woman of character, who kept him because he was the father of her
children, and from a lingering admiration for those now-dying Wardour
Street good looks which in their youth had fascinated her. She, together
with anyone else who would lend him anything, and his losses at cards and
on the turf (extraordinary how some men make a good thing out of losses!)
were his whole means of subsistence; for James was now too old and
nervous to approach, and Soames too formidably adamant. It is not too
much to say that Dartie had been living on hope for months. He had never
been fond of money for itself, had always despised the Forsytes with
their investing habits, though careful to make such use of them as he
could. What he liked about money was what it bought--personal sensation.

"No real sportsman cares for money," he would say, borrowing a 'pony' if
it was no use trying for a 'monkey.' There was something delicious about
Montague Dartie. He was, as George Forsyte said, a 'daisy.'

The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day of
September, and Dartie who had travelled to Newmarket the night before,
arrayed himself in spotless checks and walked to an eminence to see his
half of the filly take her final canter: If she won he would be a cool
three thou. in pocket--a poor enough recompense for the sobriety and
patience of these weeks of hope, while they had been nursing her for this
race. But he had not been able to afford more. Should he 'lay it off'
at the eight to one to which she had advanced? This was his single
thought while the larks sang above him, and the grassy downs smelled
sweet, and the pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing like
satin.

After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid, and to 'lay it off'
would reduce his winnings to some fifteen hundred--hardly enough to
purchase a dancer out and out. Even more potent was the itch in the
blood of all the Darties for a real flutter. And turning to George he
said: "She's a clipper. She'll win hands down; I shall go the whole
hog." George, who had laid off every penny, and a few besides, and stood
to win, however it came out, grinned down on him from his bulky height,
with the words: "So ho, my wild one!" for after a chequered
apprenticeship weathered with the money of a deeply complaining Roger,
his Forsyte blood was beginning to stand him in good stead in the
profession of owner.

There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from which the
sensitive recorder shrinks. Suffice it to say that the good thing fell
down. Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie's shirt was lost.

Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames turned his
face towards Green Street, what had not happened!

When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised
self-control for months from religious motives, and remains unrewarded,
he does not curse God and die, he curses God and lives, to the distress
of his family.

Winifred--a plucky woman, if a little too fashionable--who had borne the
brunt of him for exactly twenty-one years, had never really believed that
he would do what he now did. Like so many wives, she thought she knew
the worst, but she had not yet known him in his forty-fifth year, when
he, like other men, felt that it was now or never. Paying on the 2nd of
October a visit of inspection to her jewel case, she was horrified to
observe that her woman's crown and glory was gone--the pearls which
Montague had given her in '86, when Benedict was born, and which James
had been compelled to pay for in the spring of '87, to save scandal. She
consulted her husband at once. He 'pooh-poohed' the matter. They would
turn up! Nor till she said sharply: "Very well, then, Monty, I shall go
down to Scotland Yard myself," did he consent to take the matter in hand.
Alas! that the steady and resolved continuity of design necessary to the
accomplishment of sweeping operations should be liable to interruption by
drink. That night Dartie returned home without a care in the world or a
particle of reticence. Under normal conditions Winifred would merely
have locked her door and let him sleep it off, but torturing suspense
about her pearls had caused her to wait up for him. Taking a small
revolver from his pocket and holding on to the dining table, he told her
at once that he did not care a cursh whether she lived s'long as she was
quiet; but he himself wash tired o' life. Winifred, holding onto the
other side of the dining table, answered:

"Don't be a clown, Monty. Have you been to Scotland Yard?"

Placing the revolver against his chest, Dartie had pulled the trigger
several times. It was not loaded. Dropping it with an imprecation, he
had muttered: "For shake o' the children," and sank into a chair.
Winifred, having picked up the revolver, gave him some soda water. The
liquor had a magical effect. Life had illused him; Winifred had never
'unshtood'm.' If he hadn't the right to take the pearls he had given her
himself, who had? That Spanish filly had got'm. If Winifred had any
'jection he w'd cut--her--throat. What was the matter with that?
(Probably the first use of that celebrated phrase--so obscure are the
origins of even the most classical language!)

Winifred, who had learned self-containment in a hard school, looked up at
him, and said: "Spanish filly! Do you mean that girl we saw dancing in
the Pandemonium Ballet? Well, you are a thief and a blackguard." It had
been the last straw on a sorely loaded consciousness; reaching up from
his chair Dartie seized his wife's arm, and recalling the achievements of
his boyhood, twisted it. Winifred endured the agony with tears in her
eyes, but no murmur. Watching for a moment of weakness, she wrenched it
free; then placing the dining table between them, said between her teeth:
"You are the limit, Monty." (Undoubtedly the inception of that phrase
--so is English formed under the stress of circumstances.) Leaving Dartie
with foam on his dark moustache she went upstairs, and, after locking her
door and bathing her arm in hot water, lay awake all night, thinking of
her pearls adorning the neck of another, and of the consideration her
husband had presumably received therefor.

The man of the world awoke with a sense of being lost to that world, and
a dim recollection of having been called a 'limit.' He sat for half an
hour in the dawn and the armchair where he had slept--perhaps the
unhappiest half-hour he had ever spent, for even to a Dartie there is
something tragic about an end. And he knew that he had reached it.
Never again would he sleep in his dining-room and wake with the light
filtering through those curtains bought by Winifred at Nickens and
Jarveys with the money of James. Never again eat a devilled kidney at
that rose-wood table, after a roll in the sheets and a hot bath. He took
his note case from his dress coat pocket. Four hundred pounds, in fives
and tens--the remainder of the proceeds of his half of Sleeve-links, sold
last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who, having won over the race,
had not conceived the sudden dislike to the animal which he himself now
felt. The ballet was going to Buenos Aires the day after to-morrow, and
he was going too. Full value for the pearls had not yet been received;
he was only at the soup.

He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides, the
water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed stealthily all he
could. It was hard to leave so many shining boots, but one must
sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise in either hand, he stepped
out onto the landing. The house was very quiet--that house where he had
begotten his four children. It was a curious moment, this, outside the
room of his wife, once admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him
'the limit.' He steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but
the next door was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters slept
in. Maud was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture
came into Dartie's early morning eyes. She was the most like him of the
four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance. Just coming
out, a pretty thing! He set down the two valises. This almost formal
abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning light fell on a face
which worked with real emotion. Nothing so false as penitence moved him;
but genuine paternal feeling, and that melancholy of 'never again.' He
moistened his lips; and complete irresolution for a moment paralysed his
legs in their check trousers. It was hard--hard to be thus compelled to
leave his home! "D---nit!" he muttered, "I never thought it would come
to this." Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning to get
up. And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on downstairs. His cheeks
were wet, and the knowledge of that was comforting, as though it
guaranteed the genuineness of his sacrifice. He lingered a little in the
rooms below, to pack all the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat, a
silver cigarette box, a Ruff's Guide. Then, mixing himself a stiff
whisky and soda, and lighting a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a
photograph of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged to Winifred.
'Never mind,' he thought; 'she can get another taken, and I can't!' He
slipped it into the valise. Then, putting on his hat and overcoat, he
took two others, his best malacca cane, an umbrella, and opened the front
door. Closing it softly behind him, he walked out, burdened as he had
never been in all his life, and made his way round the corner to wait
there for an early cab to come by.

Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his age from
the house which he had called his own.

When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the house, her
first feeling was one of dull anger that he should thus elude the
reproaches she had carefully prepared in those long wakeful hours. He
had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton, with that woman as likely as not.
Disgusting! Forced to a complete reticence before Imogen and the
servants, and aware that her father's nerves would never stand the
disclosure, she had been unable to refrain from going to Timothy's that
afternoon, and pouring out the story of the pearls to Aunts Juley and
Hester in utter confidence. It was only on the following morning that
she noticed the disappearance of that photograph. What did it mean?
Careful examination of her husband's relics prompted the thought that he
had gone for good. As that conclusion hardened she stood quite still in
the middle of his dressing-room, with all the drawers pulled out, to try
and realise what she was feeling. By no means easy! Though he was 'the
limit' he was yet her property, and for the life of her she could not but
feel the poorer. To be widowed yet not widowed at forty-two; with four
children; made conspicuous, an object of commiseration! Gone to the arms
of a Spanish Jade! Memories, feelings, which she had thought quite dead,
revived within her, painful, sullen, tenacious. Mechanically she closed
drawer after drawer, went to her bed, lay on it, and buried her face in
the pillows. She did not cry. What was the use of that? When she got
off her bed to go down to lunch she felt as if only one thing could do
her good, and that was to have Val home. He--her eldest boy--who was to
go to Oxford next month at James' expense, was at Littlehampton taking
his final gallops with his trainer for Smalls, as he would have phrased
it following his father's diction. She caused a telegram to be sent to
him.