The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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Whether Annette had produced the revolution in his outlook, or that
outlook had produced Annette, he knew no more than we know where a circle
begins. It was intricate and deeply involved with the growing
consciousness that property without anyone to leave it to is the negation
of true Forsyteism. To have an heir, some continuance of self, who would
begin where he left off--ensure, in fact, that he would not leave
off--had quite obsessed him for the last year and more. After buying a
bit of Wedgwood one evening in April, he had dropped into Malta Street to
look at a house of his father's which had been turned into a
restaurant--a risky proceeding, and one not quite in accordance with the
terms of the lease. He had stared for a little at the outside painted a
good cream colour, with two peacock-blue tubs containing little bay-trees
in a recessed doorway--and at the words 'Restaurant Bretagne' above them
in gold letters, rather favourably impressed. Entering, he had noticed
that several people were already seated at little round green tables with
little pots of fresh flowers on them and Brittany-ware plates, and had
asked of a trim waitress to see the proprietor. They had shown him into
a back room, where a girl was sitting at a simple bureau covered with
papers, and a small round, table was laid for two. The impression of
cleanliness, order, and good taste was confirmed when the girl got up,
saying, "You wish to see Maman, Monsieur?" in a broken accent.

"Yes," Soames had answered, "I represent your landlord; in fact, I'm his
son."

"Won't you sit down, sir, please? Tell Maman to come to this gentleman."

He was pleased that the girl seemed impressed, because it showed business
instinct; and suddenly he noticed that she was remarkably pretty--so
remarkably pretty that his eyes found a difficulty in leaving her face.
When she moved to put a chair for him, she swayed in a curious subtle
way, as if she had been put together by someone with a special secret
skill; and her face and neck, which was a little bared, looked as fresh
as if they had been sprayed with dew. Probably at this moment Soames
decided that the lease had not been violated; though to himself and his
father he based the decision on the efficiency of those illicit
adaptations in the building, on the signs of prosperity, and the obvious
business capacity of Madame Lamotte. He did not, however, neglect to
leave certain matters to future consideration, which had necessitated
further visits, so that the little back room had become quite accustomed
to his spare, not unsolid, but unobtrusive figure, and his pale, chinny
face with clipped moustache and dark hair not yet grizzling at the sides.

"Un Monsieur tres distingue," Madame Lamotte found him; and presently,
"Tres amical, tres gentil," watching his eyes upon her daughter.

She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired
Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect
confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their knowledge
of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank balances.

After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits
ceased--without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like all
Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a born
empiricist. But it was this change in his mode of life which had
gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to alter his
condition from that of the unmarried married man to that of the married
man remarried.

Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899, he
bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of the Dreyfus
case--a question which he had always found useful in making closer
acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her daughter, who were Catholic
and anti-Dreyfusard.

Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed a
general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about the
Transvaal. He entered, thinking: 'War's a certainty. I shall sell my
consols.' Not that he had many, personally, the rate of interest was too
wretched; but he should advise his Companies--consols would assuredly go
down. A look, as he passed the doorways of the restaurant, assured him
that business was good as ever, and this, which in April would have
pleased him, now gave him a certain uneasiness. If the steps which he
had to take ended in his marrying Annette, he would rather see her mother
safely back in France, a move to which the prosperity of the Restaurant
Bretagne might become an obstacle. He would have to buy them out, of
course, for French people only came to England to make money; and it
would mean a higher price. And then that peculiar sweet sensation at the
back of his throat, and a slight thumping about the heart, which he
always experienced at the door of the little room, prevented his thinking
how much it would cost.

Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing through
the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her hands up to her
hair. It was the attitude in which of all others he admired her--so
beautifully straight and rounded and supple. And he said:

"I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that partition.
No, don't call her."

"Monsieur will have supper with us? It will be ready in ten minutes."
Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an impulse which
surprised him.

"You look so pretty to-night," he said, "so very pretty. Do you know how
pretty you look, Annette?"

Annette withdrew her hand, and blushed. "Monsieur is very good."

"Not a bit good," said Soames, and sat down gloomily.

Annette made a little expressive gesture with her hands; a smile was
crinkling her red lips untouched by salve.

And, looking at those lips, Soames said:

"Are you happy over here, or do you want to go back to France?"

"Oh, I like London. Paris, of course. But London is better than
Orleans, and the English country is so beautiful. I have been to
Richmond last Sunday."

Soames went through a moment of calculating struggle. Mapledurham! Dared
he? After all, dared he go so far as that, and show her what there was
to look forward to! Still! Down there one could say things. In this
room it was impossible.

"I want you and your mother," he said suddenly, "to come for the
afternoon next Sunday. My house is on the river, it's not too late in
this weather; and I can show you some good pictures. What do you say?"

Annette clasped her hands.

"It will be lovelee. The river is so beautiful"

"That's understood, then. I'll ask Madame."

He need say no more to her this evening, and risk giving himself away.
But had he not already said too much? Did one ask restaurant proprietors
with pretty daughters down to one's country house without design? Madame
Lamotte would see, if Annette didn't. Well! there was not much that
Madame did not see. Besides, this was the second time he had stayed to
supper with them; he owed them hospitality.

Walking home towards Park Lane--for he was staying at his father's--with
the impression of Annette's soft clever hand within his own, his thoughts
were pleasant, slightly sensual, rather puzzled. Take steps! What
steps? How? Dirty linen washed in public? Pah! With his reputation for
sagacity, for far-sightedness and the clever extrication of others, he,
who stood for proprietary interests, to become the plaything of that Law
of which he was a pillar! There was something revolting in the thought!
Winifred's affair was bad enough! To have a double dose of publicity in
the family! Would not a liaison be better than that--a liaison, and a
son he could adopt? But dark, solid, watchful, Madame Lamotte blocked
the avenue of that vision. No! that would not work. It was not as if
Annette could have a real passion for him; one could not expect that at
his age. If her mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly
great--perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he thought:
'I'm not a villain. I don't want to hurt her; and I don't want anything
underhand. But I do want her, and I want a son! There's nothing for it
but divorce--somehow--anyhow--divorce!' Under the shadow of the
plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed slowly along the railings of the
Green Park. Mist clung there among the bluish tree shapes, beyond range
of the lamps. How many hundred times he had walked past those trees from
his father's house in Park Lane, when he was quite a young man; or from
his own house in Montpellier Square in those four years of married life!
And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself if he could of that
long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk on, in at Hyde Park
Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he used to when going home to
Irene in the old days. What could she be like now?--how had she passed
the years since he last saw her, twelve years in all, seven already since
Uncle Jolyon left her that money? Was she still beautiful? Would he
know her if he saw her? 'I've not changed much,' he thought; 'I expect
she has. She made me suffer.' He remembered suddenly one night, the
first on which he went out to dinner alone--an old Malburian dinner--the
first year of their marriage. With what eagerness he had hurried back;
and, entering softly as a cat, had heard her playing. Opening the
drawing-room door noiselessly, he had stood watching the expression on
her face, different from any he knew, so much more open, so confiding, as
though to her music she was giving a heart he had never seen. And he
remembered how she stopped and looked round, how her face changed back to
that which he did know, and what an icy shiver had gone through him, for
all that the next moment he was fondling her shoulders. Yes, she had
made him suffer! Divorce! It seemed ridiculous, after all these years of
utter separation! But it would have to be. No other way! 'The
question,' he thought with sudden realism, 'is--which of us? She or me?
She deserted me. She ought to pay for it. There'll be someone, I
suppose.' Involuntarily he uttered a little snarling sound, and,
turning, made his way back to Park Lane.




CHAPTER V

JAMES SEES VISIONS

The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly, detained
Soames on the inner mat.

"The master's poorly, sir," he murmured. "He wouldn't go to bed till you
came in. He's still in the diningroom."

Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.

"What's the matter with him, Warmson?"

"Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs. Dartie's
comin' round this afternoon. I think he overheard something. I've took
him in a negus. The mistress has just gone up."

Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag's-horn.

"All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I'll take him up myself." And he
passed into the dining-room.

James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a camel-hair
shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated shoulders, on to which
his long white whiskers drooped. His white hair, still fairly thick,
glistened in the lamplight; a little moisture from his fixed, light-grey
eyes stained the cheeks, still quite well coloured, and the long deep
furrows running to the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as
if mumbling thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow's, in shepherd's
plaid trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and glistening
tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a half-finished glass
of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There he had been sitting, with
intervals for meals, all day. At eighty-eight he was still organically
sound, but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him
anything. It is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was
being buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a grudge
against his wife's youth. He felt sometimes that he would never have
married her if he had known that she would have so many years before her,
when he had so few. It was not natural. She would live fifteen or
twenty years after he was gone, and might spend a lot of money; she had
always had extravagant tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy one
of these motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young
people--they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness knew
where. And now Roger was gone. He didn't know--couldn't tell! The
family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle had left.
Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames' uncle not as his own brother.
Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot in a vanishing world.
Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but he had no one to leave his
money to. There it was! He didn't know! And there was that fellow
Chamberlain! For James' political principles had been fixed between '70
and '85 when 'that rascally Radical' had been the chief thorn in the side
of property and he distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion;
he would get the country into a mess and make money go down before he had
done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames? He had gone
to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from him. He knew
that perfectly well; he had seen his son's trousers. Roger! Roger in his
coffin! He remembered how, when they came up from school together from
the West, on the box seat of the old Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got
into the 'boot' and gone to sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny
fellow--Roger--an original! He didn't know! Younger than himself, and
in his coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val going to the
university; he never came to see him now. He would cost a pretty penny
up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty pennies that
his four grandchildren would cost him danced before James' eyes. He did
not grudge them the money, but he grudged terribly the risk which the
spending of that money might bring on them; he grudged the diminution of
security. And now that Cicely had married, she might be having children
too. He didn't know--couldn't tell! Nobody thought of anything but
spending money in these days, and racing about, and having what they
called 'a good time.' A motor-car went past the window. Ugly great
lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the country
rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they couldn't even
care for style--a neat turnout like his barouche and bays was worth all
those new-fangled things. And consols at 116! There must be a lot of
money in the country. And now there was this old Kruger! They had tried
to keep old Kruger from him. But he knew better; there would be a pretty
kettle of fish out there! He had known how it would be when that fellow
Gladstone--dead now, thank God! made such a mess of it after that
dreadful business at Majuba. He shouldn't wonder if the Empire split up
and went to pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled a
full quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He
had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch that the
real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing when he became
aware of voices--low voices. Ah! they never told him anything!
Winifred's and her mother's. "Monty!" That fellow Dartie--always that
fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and James had been left alone,
with his ears standing up like a hare's, and fear creeping about his
inwards. Why did they leave him alone? Why didn't they come and tell
him? And an awful thought, which through long years had haunted
him, concreted again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone
bankrupt--fraudulently bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children,
he--James--would have to pay! Could he--could Soames turn him into a
limited company? No, he couldn't! There it was! With every minute
before Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery!
With eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall, James
suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his grandchildren in the
gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the doubted Turner being sold at
Jobson's, and all the majestic edifice of property in rags. He saw in
fancy Winifred unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily's voice
saying: "Now, don't fuss, James!" She was always saying: "Don't fuss!"
She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman eighteen years
younger than himself. Then Emily's real voice said:

"Have you had a nice nap, James?"

Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him that!

"What's this about Dartie?" he said, and his eyes glared at her.

Emily's self-possession never deserted her.

"What have you been hearing?" she asked blandly.

"What's this about Dartie?" repeated James. "He's gone bankrupt."

"Fiddle!"

James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his stork-like
figure.

"You never tell me anything," he said; "he's gone bankrupt."

The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that mattered at
the moment.

"He has not," she answered firmly. "He's gone to Buenos Aires."

If she had said "He's gone to Mars" she could not have dealt James a more
stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in British securities,
could as little grasp one place as the other.

"What's he gone there for?" he said. "He's got no money. What did he
take?"

Agitated within by Winifred's news, and goaded by the constant
reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:

"He took Winifred's pearls and a dancer."

"What!" said James, and sat down.

His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she said:

"Now, don't fuss, James!"

A dusky red had spread over James' cheeks and forehead.

"I paid for them," he said tremblingly; "he's a thief! I--I knew how it
would be. He'll be the death of me; he ...." Words failed him and he
sat quite still. Emily, who thought she knew him so well, was alarmed,
and went towards the sideboard where she kept some sal volatile. She
could not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit working in that thin,
tremulous shape against the extravagance of the emotion called up by this
outrage on Forsyte principles--the Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying:
'You mustn't get into a fantod, it'll never do. You won't digest your
lunch. You'll have a fit!' All unseen by her, it was doing better work
in James than sal volatile.

"Drink this," she said.

James waved it aside.

"What was Winifred about," he said, "to let him take her pearls?" Emily
perceived the crisis past.

"She can have mine," she said comfortably. "I never wear them. She'd
better get a divorce."

"There you go!" said James. "Divorce! We've never had a divorce in the
family. Where's Soames?"

"He'll be in directly."

"No, he won't," said James, almost fiercely; "he's at the funeral. You
think I know nothing."

"Well," said Emily with calm, "you shouldn't get into such fusses when we
tell you things." And plumping up his cushions, and putting the sal
volatile beside him, she left the room.

But James sat there seeing visions--of Winifred in the Divorce Court, and
the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on Roger's coffin; of
Val taking after his father; of the pearls he had paid for and would
never see again; of money back at four per cent., and the country going
to the dogs; and, as the afternoon wore into evening, and tea-time
passed, and dinnertime, those visions became more and more mixed and
menacing--of being told nothing, till he had nothing left of all his
wealth, and they told him nothing of it. Where was Soames? Why didn't
he come in?... His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to
drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little sigh of
relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he said:

"There you are! Dartie's gone to Buenos Aires."

Soames nodded. "That's all right," he said; "good riddance."

A wave of assuagement passed over James' brain. Soames knew. Soames was
the only one of them all who had sense. Why couldn't he come and live at
home? He had no son of his own. And he said plaintively:

"At my age I get nervous. I wish you were more at home, my boy."

Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no
understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched his
father's shoulder.

"They sent their love to you at Timothy's," he said. "It went off all
right. I've been to see Winifred. I'm going to take steps." And he
thought: 'Yes, and you mustn't hear of them.'

James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin throat
between the points of his collar looked very gristly and naked.

"I've been very poorly all day," he said; "they never tell me anything."

Soames' heart twitched.

"Well, it's all right. There's nothing to worry about. Will you come up
now?" and he put his hand under his father's arm.

James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together they went
slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the firelight, and out
to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.

"Good-night, my boy," said James at his bedroom door.

"Good-night, father," answered Soames. His hand stroked down the sleeve
beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it, so thin was
the arm. And, turning away from the light in the opening doorway, he
went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.

'I want a son,' he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed; 'I want a
son.'




CHAPTER VI

NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME

Trees take little account of time, and the old oak on the upper lawn at
Robin Hill looked no day older than when Bosinney sprawled under it and
said to Soames: "Forsyte, I've found the very place for your house."
Since then Swithin had dreamed, and old Jolyon died, beneath its
branches. And now, close to the swing, no-longer-young Jolyon often
painted there. Of all spots in the world it was perhaps the most sacred
to him, for he had loved his father.

Contemplating its great girth--crinkled and a little mossed, but not yet
hollow--he would speculate on the passage of time. That tree had seen,
perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he shouldn't wonder, from
the days of Elizabeth at least. His own fifty years were as nothing to
its wood. When the house behind it, which he now owned, was three
hundred years of age instead of twelve, that tree might still be standing
there, vast and hollow--for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it
down? A Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it
jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like coated
with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls--the new look had
gone. Would it hold its own and keep the dignity Bosinney had bestowed
on it, or would the giant London have lapped it round and made it into an
asylum in the midst of a jerry-built wilderness? Often, within and
without of it, he was persuaded that Bosinney had been moved by the
spirit when he built. He had put his heart into that house, indeed! It
might even become one of the 'homes of England'--a rare achievement for a
house in these degenerate days of building. And the aesthetic spirit,
moving hand in hand with his Forsyte sense of possessive continuity,
dwelt with pride and pleasure on his ownership thereof. There was the
smack of reverence and ancestor-worship (if only for one ancestor) in his
desire to hand this house down to his son and his son's son. His father
had loved the house, had loved the view, the grounds, that tree; his last
years had been happy there, and no one had lived there before him. These
last eleven years at Robin Hill had formed in Jolyon's life as a painter,
the important period of success. He was now in the very van of
water-colour art, hanging on the line everywhere. His drawings fetched
high prices. Specialising in that one medium with the tenacity of his
breed, he had 'arrived'--rather late, but not too late for a member of
the family which made a point of living for ever. His art had really
deepened and improved. In conformity with his position he had grown a
short fair beard, which was just beginning to grizzle, and hid his
Forsyte chin; his brown face had lost the warped expression of his
ostracised period--he looked, if anything, younger. The loss of his wife
in 1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies which turn out in the
end for the good of all. He had, indeed, loved her to the last, for his
was an affectionate spirit, but she had become increasingly difficult:
jealous of her step-daughter June, jealous even of her own little
daughter Holly, and making ceaseless plaint that he could not love her,
ill as she was, and 'useless to everyone, and better dead.' He had
mourned her sincerely, but his face had looked younger since she died.
If she could only have believed that she made him happy, how much happier
would the twenty years of their companionship have been!