The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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


"I must see about his clothes," she said to Imogen; "I can't have him
going up to Oxford all anyhow. Those boys are so particular."

"Val's got heaps of things," Imogen answered.

"I know; but they want overhauling. I hope he'll come."

"He'll come like a shot, Mother. But he'll probably skew his Exam."

"I can't help that," said Winifred. "I want him."

With an innocent shrewd look at her mother's face, Imogen kept silence.
It was father, of course! Val did come 'like a shot' at six o'clock.

Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young Publius
Valerius Dartie. A youth so named could hardly turn out otherwise. When
he was born, Winifred, in the heyday of spirits, and the craving for
distinction, had determined that her children should have names such as
no others had ever had. (It was a mercy--she felt now--that she had
just not named Imogen Thisbe.) But it was to George Forsyte, always a
wag, that Val's christening was due. It so happened that Dartie, dining
with him a week after the birth of his son and heir, had mentioned this
aspiration of Winifred's.

"Call him Cato," said George, "it'll be damned piquant!" He had just won
a tenner on a horse of that name.

"Cato!" Dartie had replied--they were a little 'on' as the phrase was
even in those days--"it's not a Christian name."

"Halo you!" George called to a waiter in knee breeches. "Bring me the
Encyc'pedia Brit. from the Library, letter C."

The waiter brought it.

"Here you are!" said George, pointing with his cigar: "Cato Publius
Valerius by Virgil out of Lydia. That's what you want. Publius Valerius
is Christian enough."

Dartie, on arriving home, had informed Winifred. She had been charmed.
It was so 'chic.' And Publius Valerius became the baby's name, though it
afterwards transpired that they had got hold of the inferior Cato. In
1890, however, when little Publius was nearly ten, the word 'chic' went
out of fashion, and sobriety came in; Winifred began to have doubts.
They were confirmed by little Publius himself who returned from his first
term at school complaining that life was a burden to him--they called him
Pubby. Winifred--a woman of real decision--promptly changed his school
and his name to Val, the Publius being dropped even as an initial.

At nineteen he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth, light
eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile, considerable knowledge
of what he should not know, and no experience of what he ought to do.
Few boys had more narrowly escaped being expelled--the engaging rascal.
After kissing his mother and pinching Imogen, he ran upstairs three at a
time, and came down four, dressed for dinner. He was awfully sorry, but
his 'trainer,' who had come up too, had asked him to dine at the Oxford
and Cambridge; it wouldn't do to miss--the old chap would be hurt.
Winifred let him go with an unhappy pride. She had wanted him at home,
but it was very nice to know that his tutor was so fond of him. He went
out with a wink at Imogen, saying: "I say, Mother, could I have two
plover's eggs when I come in?--cook's got some. They top up so jolly
well. Oh! and look here--have you any money?--I had to borrow a fiver
from old Snobby."

Winifred, looking at him with fond shrewdness, answered:

"My dear, you are naughty about money. But you shouldn't pay him
to-night, anyway; you're his guest. How nice and slim he looked in his
white waistcoat, and his dark thick lashes!"

"Oh, but we may go to the theatre, you see, Mother; and I think I ought
to stand the tickets; he's always hard up, you know."

Winifred produced a five-pound note, saying:

"Well, perhaps you'd better pay him, but you mustn't stand the tickets
too."

Val pocketed the fiver.

"If I do, I can't," he said. "Good-night, Mum!"

He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously, sniffing the
air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into covert. Jolly good biz!
After that mouldy old slow hole down there!

He found his 'tutor,' not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but at the
Goat's Club. This 'tutor' was a year older than himself, a good-looking
youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a small mouth, an oval
face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree, one of those young men who
without effort establish moral ascendancy over their companions. He had
missed being expelled from school a year before Val, had spent that year
at Oxford, and Val could almost see a halo round his head. His name was
Crum, and no one could get through money quicker. It seemed to be his
only aim in life--dazzling to young Val, in whom, however, the Forsyte
would stand apart, now and then, wondering where the value for that money
was.

They dined quietly, in style and taste; left the Club smoking cigars,
with just two bottles inside them, and dropped into stalls at the
Liberty. For Val the sound of comic songs, the sight of lovely legs were
fogged and interrupted by haunting fears that he would never equal Crum's
quiet dandyism. His idealism was roused; and when that is so, one is
never quite at ease. Surely he had too wide a mouth, not the best cut of
waistcoat, no braid on his trousers, and his lavender gloves had no thin
black stitchings down the back. Besides, he laughed too much--Crum never
laughed, he only smiled, with his regular dark brows raised a little so
that they formed a gable over his just drooped lids. No! he would never
be Crum's equal. All the same it was a jolly good show, and Cynthia Dark
simply ripping. Between the acts Crum regaled him with particulars of
Cynthia's private life, and the awful knowledge became Val's that, if he
liked, Crum could go behind. He simply longed to say: "I say, take me!"
but dared not, because of his deficiencies; and this made the last act or
two almost miserable. On coming out Crum said: "It's half an hour before
they close; let's go on to the Pandemonium." They took a hansom to
travel the hundred yards, and seats costing seven-and-six apiece because
they were going to stand, and walked into the Promenade. It was in these
little things, this utter negligence of money that Crum had such engaging
polish. The ballet was on its last legs and night, and the traffic of
the Promenade was suffering for the moment. Men and women were crowded
in three rows against the barrier. The whirl and dazzle on the stage,
the half dark, the mingled tobacco fumes and women's scent, all that
curious lure to promiscuity which belongs to Promenades, began to free
young Val from his idealism. He looked admiringly in a young woman's
face, saw she was not young, and quickly looked away. Shades of Cynthia
Dark! The young woman's arm touched his unconsciously; there was a scent
of musk and mignonette. Val looked round the corner of his lashes.
Perhaps she was young, after all. Her foot trod on his; she begged his
pardon. He said:

"Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn't it?"

"Oh, I'm tired of it; aren't you?"

Young Val smiled--his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he did
not go--not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for greater
certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its kaleidoscope of
snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and violet and seemed suddenly
to freeze into a stilly spangled pyramid. Applause broke out, and it was
over! Maroon curtains had cut it off. The semi-circle of men and women
round the barrier broke up, the young woman's arm pressed his. A little
way off disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink carnation;
Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking towards it.
Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The one in the centre
wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a dark moustache; he reeled a
little as he walked. Crum's voice said slow and level: "Look at that
bounder, he's screwed!" Val turned to look. The 'bounder' had
disengaged his arm, and was pointing straight at them. Crum's voice,
level as ever, said:

"He seems to know you!" The 'bounder' spoke:

"H'llo!" he said. "You f'llows, look! There's my young rascal of a
son!"

Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson carpet.
It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his father was
'screwed'; it was Crum's word 'bounder,' which, as by heavenly
revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes, his father
looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his pink carnation, and
his square, self-assertive walk. And without a word he ducked behind the
young woman and slipped out of the Promenade. He heard the word, "Val!"
behind him, and ran down deep-carpeted steps past the 'chuckersout,' into
the Square.

To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest experience a
young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying away, that his
career had ended before it had begun. How could he go up to Oxford now
amongst all those chaps, those splendid friends of Crum's, who would know
that his father was a 'bounder'! And suddenly he hated Crum. Who the
devil was Crum, to say that? If Crum had been beside him at that moment,
he would certainly have been jostled off the pavement. His own
father--his own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands
down deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild
idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the arm and
walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up at once and
pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman planted herself before
him. "Not so angry, darling!" He shied, dodged her, and suddenly became
quite cool. If Crum ever said a word, he would jolly well punch his
head, and there would be an end of it. He walked a hundred yards or
more, contented with that thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It
wasn't simple like that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent
came down who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow
afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why had
his mother married his father, if he was a 'bounder'? It was bitterly
unfair--jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a 'bounder' for father.
The worst of it was that now Crum had spoken the word, he realised that
he had long known subconsciously that his father was not 'the clean
potato.' It was the beastliest thing that had ever happened to
him--beastliest thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And,
down-hearted as he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let
himself in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover's
eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a little
whisky at the bottom of a decanter--just enough, as Winifred had
thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him sick to look at
them, and he went upstairs.

Winifred heard him pass, and thought: 'The dear boy's in. Thank
goodness! If he takes after his father I don't know what I shall do!
But he won't he's like me. Dear Val!'




CHAPTER III

SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS

When Soames entered his sister's little Louis Quinze drawing-room, with
its small balcony, always flowered with hanging geraniums in the summer,
and now with pots of Lilium Auratum, he was struck by the immutability of
human affairs. It looked just the same as on his first visit to the
newly married Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture
himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever been able
to change the room's atmosphere. Yes, he had founded his sister well,
and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great deal for Winifred that
after all this time with Dartie she remained well-founded. From the
first Soames had nosed out Dartie's nature from underneath the
plausibility, savoir faire, and good looks which had dazzled Winifred,
her mother, and even James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to
marry his daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into
settlement.

Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at her Buhl
bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came towards him. Tall
as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well tailored, something in her
face disturbed Soames. She crumpled the letter in her hand, but seemed
to change her mind and held it out to him. He was her lawyer as well as
her brother.

Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:

'You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving country
to-morrow. It's played out. I'm tired of being insulted by you. You've
brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can stand it. I shall not
ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I took the photograph of the two
girls. Give them my love. I don't care what your family say. It's all
their doing. I'm going to live new life.
'M.D.'

This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry. He looked
at Winifred--the splotch had clearly come from her; and he checked the
words: 'Good riddance!' Then it occurred to him that with this letter
she was entering that very state which he himself so earnestly desired to
quit--the state of a Forsyte who was not divorced.

Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a little
gold-topped bottle. A dull commiseration, together with a vague sense of
injury, crept about Soames' heart. He had come to her to talk of his own
position, and get sympathy, and here was she in the same position,
wanting of course to talk of it, and get sympathy from him. It was
always like that! Nobody ever seemed to think that he had troubles and
interests of his own. He folded up the letter with the splotch inside,
and said:

"What's it all about, now?"

Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.

"Do you think he's really gone, Soames? You see the state he was in when
he wrote that."

Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by pretending
that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:

"I shouldn't think so. I might find out at his Club."

"If George is there," said Winifred, "he would know."

"George?" said Soames; "I saw him at his father's funeral."

"Then he's sure to be there."

Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister's acumen, said grudgingly:
"Well, I'll go round. Have you said anything in Park Lane?"

"I've told Emily," returned Winifred, who retained that 'chic' way of
describing her mother. "Father would have a fit."

Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James. With
another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his sister's exact
position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly. The evening was drawing
in--a touch of chill in the October haze. He walked quickly, with his
close and concentrated air. He must get through, for he wished to dine
in Soho. On hearing from the hall porter at the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie
had not been in to-day, he looked at the trusty fellow and decided only
to ask if Mr. George Forsyte was in the Club. He was. Soames, who
always looked askance at his cousin George, as one inclined to jest at
his expense, followed the pageboy, slightly reassured by the thought that
George had just lost his father. He must have come in for about thirty
thousand, besides what he had under that settlement of Roger's, which had
avoided death duty. He found George in a bow-window, staring out across
a half-eaten plate of muffins. His tall, bulky, black-clothed figure
loomed almost threatening, though preserving still the supernatural
neatness of the racing man. With a faint grin on his fleshy face, he
said:

"Hallo, Soames! Have a muffin?"

"No, thanks," murmured Soames; and, nursing his hat, with the desire to
say something suitable and sympathetic, added:

"How's your mother?"

"Thanks," said George; "so-so. Haven't seen you for ages. You never go
racing. How's the City?"

Soames, scenting the approach of a jest, closed up, and answered:

"I wanted to ask you about Dartie. I hear he's...."

"Flitted, made a bolt to Buenos Aires with the fair Lola. Good for
Winifred and the little Darties. He's a treat."

Soames nodded. Naturally inimical as these cousins were, Dartie made
them kin.

"Uncle James'll sleep in his bed now," resumed George; "I suppose he's
had a lot off you, too."

Soames smiled.

"Ah! You saw him further," said George amicably. "He's a real rouser.
Young Val will want a bit of looking after. I was always sorry for
Winifred. She's a plucky woman."

Again Soames nodded. "I must be getting back to her," he said; "she just
wanted to know for certain. We may have to take steps. I suppose there's
no mistake?"

"It's quite O.K.," said George--it was he who invented so many of those
quaint sayings which have been assigned to other sources. "He was drunk
as a lord last night; but he went off all right this morning. His ship's
the Tuscarora;" and, fishing out a card, he read mockingly:

"'Mr. Montague Dartie, Poste Restante, Buenos Aires.' I should hurry up
with the steps, if I were you. He fairly fed me up last night."

"Yes," said Soames; "but it's not always easy." Then, conscious from
George's eyes that he had roused reminiscence of his own affair, he got
up, and held out his hand. George rose too.

"Remember me to Winifred.... You'll enter her for the Divorce Stakes
straight off if you ask me."

Soames took a sidelong look back at him from the doorway. George had
seated himself again and was staring before him; he looked big and lonely
in those black clothes. Soames had never known him so subdued. 'I
suppose he feels it in a way,' he thought. 'They must have about fifty
thousand each, all told. They ought to keep the estate together. If
there's a war, house property will go down. Uncle Roger was a good judge,
though.' And the face of Annette rose before him in the darkening
street; her brown hair and her blue eyes with their dark lashes, her
fresh lips and cheeks, dewy and blooming in spite of London, her perfect
French figure. 'Take steps!' he thought. Re-entering Winifred's house
he encountered Val, and they went in together. An idea had occurred to
Soames. His cousin Jolyon was Irene's trustee, the first step would be to
go down and see him at Robin Hill. Robin Hill! The odd--the very odd
feeling those words brought back! Robin Hill--the house Bosinney had
built for him and Irene--the house they had never lived in--the fatal
house! And Jolyon lived there now! H'm! And suddenly he thought: 'They
say he's got a boy at Oxford! Why not take young Val down and introduce
them! It's an excuse! Less bald--very much less bald!' So, as they went
upstairs, he said to Val:

"You've got a cousin at Oxford; you've never met him. I should like to
take you down with me to-morrow to where he lives and introduce you.
You'll find it useful."

Val, receiving the idea with but moderate transports, Soames clinched it.

"I'll call for you after lunch. It's in the country--not far; you'll
enjoy it."

On the threshold of the drawing-room he recalled with an effort that the
steps he contemplated concerned Winifred at the moment, not himself.

Winifred was still sitting at her Buhl bureau.

"It's quite true," he said; "he's gone to Buenos Aires, started this
morning--we'd better have him shadowed when he lands. I'll cable at
once. Otherwise we may have a lot of expense. The sooner these things
are done the better. I'm always regretting that I didn't..." he stopped,
and looked sidelong at the silent Winifred. "By the way," he went on,
"can you prove cruelty?"

Winifred said in a dull voice:

"I don't know. What is cruelty?"

"Well, has he struck you, or anything?"

Winifred shook herself, and her jaw grew square.

"He twisted my arm. Or would pointing a pistol count? Or being too
drunk to undress himself, or--No--I can't bring in the children."

"No," said Soames; "no! I wonder! Of course, there's legal
separation--we can get that. But separation! Um!"

"What does it mean?" asked Winifred desolately.

"That he can't touch you, or you him; you're both of you married and
unmarried." And again he grunted. What was it, in fact, but his own
accursed position, legalised! No, he would not put her into that!

"It must be divorce," he said decisively; "failing cruelty, there's
desertion. There's a way of shortening the two years, now. We get the
Court to give us restitution of conjugal rights. Then if he doesn't
obey, we can bring a suit for divorce in six months' time. Of course you
don't want him back. But they won't know that. Still, there's the risk
that he might come. I'd rather try cruelty."

Winifred shook her head. "It's so beastly."

"Well," Soames murmured, "perhaps there isn't much risk so long as he's
infatuated and got money. Don't say anything to anybody, and don't pay
any of his debts."

Winifred sighed. In spite of all she had been through, the sense of loss
was heavy on her. And this idea of not paying his debts any more brought
it home to her as nothing else yet had. Some richness seemed to have
gone out of life. Without her husband, without her pearls, without that
intimate sense that she made a brave show above the domestic whirlpool,
she would now have to face the world. She felt bereaved indeed.

And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put more than
his usual warmth.

"I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow," he said, "to see young
Jolyon on business. He's got a boy at Oxford. I'd like to take Val with
me and introduce him. Come down to 'The Shelter' for the week-end and
bring the children. Oh! by the way, no, that won't do; I've got some
other people coming." So saying, he left her and turned towards Soho.




CHAPTER IV

SOHO

Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London, Soho is
perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit. 'So-ho, my wild one!'
George would have said if he had seen his cousin going there. Untidy,
full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians, tomatoes, restaurants,
organs, coloured stuffs, queer names, people looking out of upper
windows, it dwells remote from the British Body Politic. Yet has it
haphazard proprietary instincts of its own, and a certain possessive
prosperity which keeps its rents up when those of other quarters go down.
For long years Soames' acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to
its Western bastion, Wardour Street. Many bargains had he picked up
there. Even during those seven years at Brighton after Bosinney's death
and Irene's flight, he had bought treasures there sometimes, though he
had no place to put them; for when the conviction that his wife had gone
for good at last became firm within him, he had caused a board to be put
up in Montpellier Square:

FOR SALE
THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE

Enquire of Messrs. Lesson and Tukes,
Court Street, Belgravia.

It had sold within a week--that desirable residence, in the shadow of
whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.

Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down, Soames
had gone there once more, and stood against the Square railings, looking
at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of possessive memories which
had turned so bitter in the mouth. Why had she never loved him? Why?
She had been given all she had wanted, and in return had given him, for
three long years, all he had wanted--except, indeed, her heart. He had
uttered a little involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced
suspiciously at him who no longer possessed the right to enter that green
door with the carved brass knocker beneath the board 'For Sale!' A
choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he had hurried away into
the mist. That evening he had gone to Brighton to live....

Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne, where
Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her accounts, Soames
thought with wonder of those seven years at Brighton. How had he managed
to go on so long in that town devoid of the scent of sweetpeas, where he
had not even space to put his treasures? True, those had been years with
no time at all for looking at them--years of almost passionate
money-making, during which Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte had become
solicitors to more limited Companies than they could properly attend to.
Up to the City of a morning in a Pullman car, down from the City of an
evening in a Pullman car. Law papers again after dinner, then the sleep
of the tired, and up again next morning. Saturday to Monday was spent at
his Club in town--curious reversal of customary procedure, based on the
deep and careful instinct that while working so hard he needed sea air to
and from the station twice a day, and while resting must indulge his
domestic affections. The Sunday visit to his family in Park Lane, to
Timothy's, and to Green Street; the occasional visits elsewhere had
seemed to him as necessary to health as sea air on weekdays. Even since
his migration to Mapledurham he had maintained those habits until--he had
known Annette.