The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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Soames took out his watch.

"We must go," he said, "if we're to catch our train."

"Uncle Soames never misses a train," muttered Val, with his mouth full.

"Why should I?" Soames answered simply.

"Oh! I don't know," grumbled Val, "other people do."

At the front door he gave Holly's slim brown hand a long and
surreptitious squeeze.

"Look out for me to-morrow," he whispered; "three o'clock. I'll wait for
you in the road; it'll save time. We'll have a ripping ride." He gazed
back at her from the lodge gate, and, but for the principles of a man
about town, would have waved his hand. He felt in no mood to tolerate
his uncle's conversation. But he was not in danger. Soames preserved a
perfect muteness, busy with far-away thoughts.

The yellow leaves came down about those two walking the mile and a half
which Soames had traversed so often in those long-ago days when he came
down to watch with secret pride the building of the house--that house
which was to have been the home of him and her from whom he was now going
to seek release. He looked back once, up that endless vista of autumn
lane between the yellowing hedges. What an age ago! "I don't want to see
her," he had said to Jolyon. Was that true? 'I may have to,' he thought;
and he shivered, seized by one of those queer shudderings that they say
mean footsteps on one's grave. A chilly world! A queer world! And
glancing sidelong at his nephew, he thought: 'Wish I were his age! I
wonder what she's like now!'




CHAPTER VIII

JOLYON PROSECUTES TRUSTEESHIP

When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting, for
daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving unconsciously a
revival of that momentary vision of his father sitting in the old leather
chair with his knees crossed and his straight eyes gazing up from under
the dome of his massive brow. Often in this little room, cosiest in the
house, Jolyon would catch a moment of communion with his father. Not,
indeed, that he had definitely any faith in the persistence of the human
spirit--the feeling was not so logical--it was, rather, an atmospheric
impact, like a scent, or one of those strong animistic impressions from
forms, or effects of light, to which those with the artist's eye are
especially prone. Here only--in this little unchanged room where his
father had spent the most of his waking hours--could be retrieved the
feeling that he was not quite gone, that the steady counsel of that old
spirit and the warmth of his masterful lovability endured.

What would his father be advising now, in this sudden recrudescence of an
old tragedy--what would he say to this menace against her to whom he had
taken such a fancy in the last weeks of his life? 'I must do my best for
her,' thought Jolyon; 'he left her to me in his will. But what is the
best?'

And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd common
sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient chair and crossed
his knees. But he felt a mere shadow sitting there; nor did any
inspiration come, while the fingers of the wind tapped on the darkening
panes of the french-window.

'Go and see her?' he thought, 'or ask her to come down here? What's her
life been? What is it now, I wonder? Beastly to rake up things at this
time of day.' Again the figure of his cousin standing with a hand on a
front door of a fine olive-green leaped out, vivid, like one of those
figures from old-fashioned clocks when the hour strikes; and his words
sounded in Jolyon's ears clearer than any chime: "I manage my own
affairs. I've told you once, I tell you again: We are not at home." The
repugnance he had then felt for Soames--for his flat-cheeked, shaven face
full of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square, sleek figure
slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not digest--came now
again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase. 'I dislike him,' he
thought, 'I dislike him to the very roots of me. And that's lucky; it'll
make it easier for me to back his wife.' Half-artist, and half-Forsyte,
Jolyon was constitutionally averse from what he termed 'ructions'; unless
angered, he conformed deeply to that classic description of the she-dog,
'Er'd ruther run than fight.' A little smile became settled in his
beard. Ironical that Soames should come down here--to this house, built
for himself! How he had gazed and gaped at this ruin of his past
intention; furtively nosing at the walls and stairway, appraising
everything! And intuitively Jolyon thought: 'I believe the fellow even
now would like to be living here. He could never leave off longing for
what he once owned! Well, I must act, somehow or other; but it's a
bore--a great bore.'

Late that evening he wrote to the Chelsea flat, asking if Irene would see
him.

The old century which had seen the plant of individualism flower so
wonderfully was setting in a sky orange with coming storms. Rumours of
war added to the briskness of a London turbulent at the close of the
summer holidays. And the streets to Jolyon, who was not often up in
town, had a feverish look, due to these new motorcars and cabs, of which
he disapproved aesthetically. He counted these vehicles from his hansom,
and made the proportion of them one in twenty. 'They were one in thirty
about a year ago,' he thought; 'they've come to stay. Just so much more
rattling round of wheels and general stink'--for he was one of those
rather rare Liberals who object to anything new when it takes a material
form; and he instructed his driver to get down to the river quickly, out
of the traffic, desiring to look at the water through the mellowing
screen of plane-trees. At the little block of flats which stood back
some fifty yards from the Embankment, he told the cabman to wait, and
went up to the first floor.

Yes, Mrs. Heron was at home!

The effect of a settled if very modest income was at once apparent to him
remembering the threadbare refinement in that tiny flat eight years ago
when he announced her good fortune. Everything was now fresh, dainty,
and smelled of flowers. The general effect was silvery with touches of
black, hydrangea colour, and gold. 'A woman of great taste,' he thought.
Time had dealt gently with Jolyon, for he was a Forsyte. But with Irene
Time hardly seemed to deal at all, or such was his impression. She
appeared to him not a day older, standing there in mole-coloured velvet
corduroy, with soft dark eyes and dark gold hair, with outstretched hand
and a little smile.

"Won't you sit down?"

He had probably never occupied a chair with a fuller sense of
embarrassment.

"You look absolutely unchanged," he said.

"And you look younger, Cousin Jolyon."

Jolyon ran his hands through his hair, whose thickness was still a
comfort to him.

"I'm ancient, but I don't feel it. That's one thing about painting, it
keeps you young. Titian lived to ninety-nine, and had to have plague to
kill him off. Do you know, the first time I ever saw you I thought of a
picture by him?"

"When did you see me for the first time?"

"In the Botanical Gardens."

"How did you know me, if you'd never seen me before?"

"By someone who came up to you." He was looking at her hardily, but her
face did not change; and she said quietly:

"Yes; many lives ago."

"What is your recipe for youth, Irene?"

"People who don't live are wonderfully preserved."

H'm! a bitter little saying! People who don't live! But an opening, and
he took it. "You remember my Cousin Soames?"

He saw her smile faintly at that whimsicality, and at once went on:

"He came to see me the day before yesterday! He wants a divorce. Do
you?"

"I?" The word seemed startled out of her. "After twelve years? It's
rather late. Won't it be difficult?"

Jolyon looked hard into her face. "Unless...." he said.

"Unless I have a lover now. But I have never had one since."

What did he feel at the simplicity and candour of those words? Relief,
surprise, pity! Venus for twelve years without a lover!

"And yet," he said, "I suppose you would give a good deal to be free,
too?"

"I don't know. What does it matter, now?"

"But if you were to love again?"

"I should love." In that simple answer she seemed to sum up the whole
philosophy of one on whom the world had turned its back.

"Well! Is there anything you would like me to say to him?"

"Only that I'm sorry he's not free. He had his chance once. I don't
know why he didn't take it."

"Because he was a Forsyte; we never part with things, you know, unless we
want something in their place; and not always then."

Irene smiled. "Don't you, Cousin Jolyon?--I think you do."

"Of course, I'm a bit of a mongrel--not quite a pure Forsyte. I never
take the halfpennies off my cheques, I put them on," said Jolyon
uneasily.

"Well, what does Soames want in place of me now?"

"I don't know; perhaps children."

She was silent for a little, looking down.

"Yes," she murmured; "it's hard. I would help him to be free if I
could."

Jolyon gazed into his hat, his embarrassment was increasing fast; so was
his admiration, his wonder, and his pity. She was so lovely, and so
lonely; and altogether it was such a coil!

"Well," he said, "I shall have to see Soames. If there's anything I can
do for you I'm always at your service. You must think of me as a
wretched substitute for my father. At all events I'll let you know what
happens when I speak to Soames. He may supply the material himself."

She shook her head.

"You see, he has a lot to lose; and I have nothing. I should like him to
be free; but I don't see what I can do."

"Nor I at the moment," said Jolyon, and soon after took his leave. He
went down to his hansom. Half-past three! Soames would be at his office
still.

"To the Poultry," he called through the trap. In front of the Houses of
Parliament and in Whitehall, newsvendors were calling, "Grave situation
in the Transvaal!" but the cries hardly roused him, absorbed in
recollection of that very beautiful figure, of her soft dark glance, and
the words: "I have never had one since." What on earth did such a woman
do with her life, back-watered like this? Solitary, unprotected, with
every man's hand against her or rather--reaching out to grasp her at the
least sign. And year after year she went on like that!

The word 'Poultry' above the passing citizens brought him back to
reality.

'Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte,' in black letters on a ground the colour
of peasoup, spurred him to a sort of vigour, and he went up the stone
stairs muttering: "Fusty musty ownerships! Well, we couldn't do without
them!"

"I want Mr. Soames Forsyte," he said to the boy who opened the door.

"What name?"

"Mr. Jolyon Forsyte."

The youth looked at him curiously, never having seen a Forsyte with a
beard, and vanished.

The offices of 'Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte' had slowly absorbed the
offices of 'Tooting and Bowles,' and occupied the whole of the first
floor.

The firm consisted now of nothing but Soames and a number of managing and
articled clerks. The complete retirement of James some six years ago had
accelerated business, to which the final touch of speed had been imparted
when Bustard dropped off, worn out, as many believed, by the suit of
'Fryer versus Forsyte,' more in Chancery than ever and less likely to
benefit its beneficiaries. Soames, with his saner grasp of actualities,
had never permitted it to worry him; on the contrary, he had long
perceived that Providence had presented him therein with L200 a year net
in perpetuity, and--why not?

When Jolyon entered, his cousin was drawing out a list of holdings in
Consols, which in view of the rumours of war he was going to advise his
companies to put on the market at once, before other companies did the
same. He looked round, sidelong, and said:

"How are you? Just one minute. Sit down, won't you?" And having entered
three amounts, and set a ruler to keep his place, he turned towards
Jolyon, biting the side of his flat forefinger....

"Yes?" he said.

"I have seen her."

Soames frowned.

"Well?"

"She has remained faithful to memory."

Having said that, Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a dusky
yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute!

"I was to tell you she is sorry you are not free. Twelve years is a long
time. You know your law, and what chance it gives you." Soames uttered a
curious little grunt, and the two remained a full minute without
speaking. 'Like wax!' thought Jolyon, watching that close face, where
the flush was fast subsiding. 'He'll never give me a sign of what he's
thinking, or going to do. Like wax!' And he transferred his gaze to a
plan of that flourishing town, 'By-Street on Sea,' the future existence
of which lay exposed on the wall to the possessive instincts of the
firm's clients. The whimsical thought flashed through him: 'I wonder if
I shall get a bill of costs for this--"To attending Mr. Jolyon Forsyte in
the matter of my divorce, to receiving his account of his visit to my
wife, and to advising him to go and see her again, sixteen and
eightpence."'

Suddenly Soames said: "I can't go on like this. I tell you, I can't go
on like this." His eyes were shifting from side to side, like an
animal's when it looks for way of escape. 'He really suffers,' thought
Jolyon; 'I've no business to forget that, just because I don't like him.'

"Surely," he said gently, "it lies with yourself. A man can always put
these things through if he'll take it on himself."

Soames turned square to him, with a sound which seemed to come from
somewhere very deep.

"Why should I suffer more than I've suffered already? Why should I?"

Jolyon could only shrug his shoulders. His reason agreed, his instinct
rebelled; he could not have said why.

"Your father," went on Soames, "took an interest in her--why, goodness
knows! And I suppose you do too?" he gave Jolyon a sharp look. "It
seems to me that one only has to do another person a wrong to get all the
sympathy. I don't know in what way I was to blame--I've never known. I
always treated her well. I gave her everything she could wish for. I
wanted her."

Again Jolyon's reason nodded; again his instinct shook its head. 'What is
it?' he thought; 'there must be something wrong in me. Yet if there is,
I'd rather be wrong than right.'

"After all," said Soames with a sort of glum fierceness, "she was my
wife."

In a flash the thought went through his listener: 'There it is!
Ownerships! Well, we all own things. But--human beings! Pah!'

"You have to look at facts," he said drily, "or rather the want of them."

Soames gave him another quick suspicious look.

"The want of them?" he said. "Yes, but I am not so sure."

"I beg your pardon," replied Jolyon; "I've told you what she said. It was
explicit."

"My experience has not been one to promote blind confidence in her word.
We shall see."

Jolyon got up.

"Good-bye," he said curtly.

"Good-bye," returned Soames; and Jolyon went out trying to understand the
look, half-startled, half-menacing, on his cousin's face. He sought
Waterloo Station in a disturbed frame of mind, as though the skin of his
moral being had been scraped; and all the way down in the train he
thought of Irene in her lonely flat, and of Soames in his lonely office,
and of the strange paralysis of life that lay on them both. 'In
chancery!' he thought. 'Both their necks in chancery--and her's so
pretty!'




CHAPTER IX

VAL HEARS THE NEWS

The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous feature in
the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke two and kept one, it
was the latter event which caused him, if anything, the greater surprise,
while jogging back to town from Robin Hill after his ride with Holly.
She had been even prettier than he had thought her yesterday, on her
silver-roan, long-tailed 'palfrey'; and it seemed to him, self-critical
in the brumous October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that only
his boots had shone throughout their two-hour companionship. He took out
his new gold 'hunter'--present from James--and looked not at the time,
but at sections of his face in the glittering back of its opened case.
He had a temporary spot over one eyebrow, and it displeased him, for it
must have displeased her. Crum never had any spots. Together with Crum
rose the scene in the promenade of the Pandemonium. To-day he had not
had the faintest desire to unbosom himself to Holly about his father.
His father lacked poetry, the stirrings of which he was feeling for the
first time in his nineteen years. The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that
almost mythical embodiment of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the woman of
uncertain age--both seemed to Val completely 'off,' fresh from communion
with this new, shy, dark-haired young cousin of his. She rode 'Jolly
well,' too, so that it had been all the more flattering that she had let
him lead her where he would in the long gallops of Richmond Park, though
she knew them so much better than he did. Looking back on it all, he was
mystified by the barrenness of his speech; he felt that he could say 'an
awful lot of fetching things' if he had but the chance again, and the
thought that he must go back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and to
Oxford on the twelfth--'to that beastly exam,' too--without the faintest
chance of first seeing her again, caused darkness to settle on his spirit
even more quickly than on the evening. He should write to her, however,
and she had promised to answer. Perhaps, too, she would come up to
Oxford to see her brother. That thought was like the first star, which
came out as he rode into Padwick's livery stables in the purlieus of
Sloane Square. He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had
ridden some twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him
chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the favourite for
the Cambridgeshire; then with the words, "Put the gee down to my
account," he walked away, a little wide at the knees, and flipping his
boots with his knotty little cane. 'I don't feel a bit inclined to go
out,' he thought. 'I wonder if mother will stand fizz for my last night!'
With 'fizz' and recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.

When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother
scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his Uncle
Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his uncle said:

"He'd better be told."

At those words, which meant something about his father, of course, Val's
first thought was of Holly. Was it anything beastly? His mother began
speaking.

"Your father," she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while her
fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, "your father, my
dear boy, has--is not at Newmarket; he's on his way to South America.
He--he's left us."

Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of
his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly--as
at a whiff of gardenias and cigars--his heart twitched within him, and he
was sorry. One's father belonged to one, could not go off in this
fashion--it was not done! Nor had he always been the 'bounder' of the
Pandemonium promenade. There were precious memories of tailors' shops
and horses, tips at school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.

"But why?" he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he had
asked. The mask of his mother's face was all disturbed; and he burst
out:

"All right, Mother, don't tell me! Only, what does it mean?"

"A divorce, Val, I'm afraid."

Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his uncle--that
uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a guarantee against the
consequences of having a father, even against the Dartie blood in his own
veins. The flat-checked visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.

"It won't be public, will it?"

So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued to the
unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public Press.

"Can't it be done quietly somehow? It's so disgusting for--for mother,
and--and everybody."

"Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure."

"Yes--but, why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn't want to marry
again."

Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his
schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of--Holly! Unbearable!
What was to be gained by it?

"Do you, Mother?" he said sharply.

Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the one she
loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire chair in which she
had been sitting. She saw that her son would be against her unless he
was told everything; and, yet, how could she tell him? Thus, still
plucking at the green brocade, she stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at
Soames. Surely this embodiment of respectability and the sense of
property could not wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!

Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth surface
of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his nephew, he began:

"You don't understand what your mother has had to put up with these
twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val." And glancing up
sideways at Winifred, he added:

"Shall I tell him?"

Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against her! Yet,
how dreadful to be told such things of his own father! Clenching her
lips, she nodded.

Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:

"He has always been a burden round your mother's neck. She has paid his
debts over and over again; he has often been drunk, abused and threatened
her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires with a dancer." And, as if
distrusting the efficacy of those words on the boy, he went on quickly:

"He took your mother's pearls to give to her."

Val jerked up his hand, then. At that signal of distress Winifred cried
out:

"That'll do, Soames--stop!"

In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For debts,
drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the pearls--no! That was
too much! And suddenly he found his mother's hand squeezing his.

"You see," he heard Soames say, "we can't have it all begin over again.
There's a limit; we must strike while the iron's hot."

Val freed his hand.

"But--you're--never going to bring out that about the pearls! I couldn't
stand that--I simply couldn't!"

Winifred cried out:

"No, no, Val--oh no! That's only to show you how impossible your father
is!" And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out a cigarette.
His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh! it was
unbearable--just as he was going up to Oxford!

"Can't mother be protected without?" he said. "I could look after her.
It could always be done later if it was really necessary."

A smile played for a moment round Soames' lips, and became bitter.

"You don't know what you're talking of; nothing's so fatal as delay in
such matters."

"Why?"

"I tell you, boy, nothing's so fatal. I know from experience."

His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him round-eyed,
never having known his uncle express any sort of feeling. Oh! Yes--he
remembered now--there had been an Aunt Irene, and something had
happened--something which people kept dark; he had heard his father once
use an unmentionable word of her.

"I don't want to speak ill of your father," Soames went on doggedly, "but
I know him well enough to be sure that he'll be back on your mother's
hands before a year's over. You can imagine what that will mean to her
and to all of you after this. The only thing is to cut the knot for
good."

In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at his
mother's face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight into the
fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered most.

"All right, mother," he said; "we'll back you up. Only I'd like to know
when it'll be. It's my first term, you know. I don't want to be up
there when it comes off."

"Oh! my dear boy," murmured Winifred, "it is a bore for you." So, by
habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face, was the most
poignant regret. "When will it be, Soames?"

"Can't tell--not for months. We must get restitution first."

'What the deuce is that?' thought Val. 'What silly brutes lawyers are!
Not for months! I know one thing: I'm not going to dine in!' And he
said:

"Awfully sorry, mother, I've got to go out to dinner now."

Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully; they
both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the expression of
feeling.

Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and depressed.
And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover that he had only
eighteen-pence. One couldn't dine off eighteen-pence, and he was very
hungry. He looked longingly at the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he
had often eaten of the best with his father! Those pearls! There was no
getting over them! But the more he brooded and the further he walked the
hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were only two
places where he could go--his grandfather's in Park Lane, and Timothy's
in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less deplorable? At his
grandfather's he would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the
moment. At Timothy's they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected
you, not otherwise. He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought
that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance to tip
him was hardly fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had been
there, of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn't help that.
He rang the bell.