The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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


"Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d'you think?"

"They're just going in, Master Val. Mr. Forsyte will be very glad to see
you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you nowadays."

Val grinned.

"Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let's have fizz."

Warmson smiled faintly--in his opinion Val was a young limb.

"I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val."

"I say," Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, "I'm not at school any
more, you know."

Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond the
stag's-horn coat stand, with the words:

"Mr. Valerus, ma'am."

"Confound him!" thought Val, entering.

A warm embrace, a "Well, Val!" from Emily, and a rather quavery "So there
you are at last!" from James, restored his sense of dignity.

"Why didn't you let us know? There's only saddle of mutton. Champagne,
Warmson," said Emily. And they went in.

At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which so many
fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily at the other,
Val half-way between them; and something of the loneliness of his
grandparents, now that all their four children were flown, reached the
boy's spirit. 'I hope I shall kick the bucket long before I'm as old as
grandfather,' he thought. 'Poor old chap, he's as thin as a rail!' And
lowering his voice while his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion
about sugar in the soup, he said to Emily:

"It's pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know."

"Yes, dear boy."

"Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn't there anything to be
done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on it?"

"Hush, my dear!" murmured Emily; "we're keeping it from your
grandfather."

James' voice sounded from the other end.

"What's that? What are you talking about?"

"About Val's college," returned Emily. "Young Pariser was there, James;
you remember--he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo afterwards."

James muttered that he did not know--Val must look after himself up
there, or he'd get into bad ways. And he looked at his grandson with
gloom, out of which affection distrustfully glimmered.

"What I'm afraid of," said Val to his plate, "is of being hard up, you
know."

By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear of
insecurity for his grandchildren.

"Well," said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over, "you'll have
a good allowance; but you must keep within it."

"Of course," murmured Val; "if it is good. How much will it be,
Grandfather?"

"Three hundred and fifty; it's too much. I had next to nothing at your
age."

Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. "I don't
know what your young cousin has," said James; "he's up there. His
father's a rich man."

"Aren't you?" asked Val hardily.

"I?" replied James, flustered. "I've got so many expenses. Your
father...." and he was silent.

"Cousin Jolyon's got an awfully jolly place. I went down there with
Uncle Soames--ripping stables."

"Ah!" murmured James profoundly. "That house--I knew how it would be!"
And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones. His son's
tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the Forsyte family, had
still the power to draw him down into a whirlpool of doubts and
misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of Robin Hill, because Robin Hill
meant Holly, turned to Emily and said:

"Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?" And, receiving her nod,
went on: "I wish you'd tell me about him, Granny. What became of Aunt
Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully worked-up about something
to-night."

Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught James'
ear.

"What's that?" he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his lips.
"Who's been seeing her? I knew we hadn't heard the last of that."

"Now, James," said Emily, "eat your dinner. Nobody's been seeing
anybody."

James put down his fork.

"There you go," he said. "I might die before you'd tell me of it. Is
Soames getting a divorce?"

"Nonsense," said Emily with incomparable aplomb; "Soames is much too
sensible."

James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white whiskers
together on the skin and bone of it.

"She--she was always...." he said, and with that enigmatic remark the
conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later, when the
saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury, and dessert, and
Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and his grandfather's
kiss--like no other kiss in the world, from lips pushed out with a sort
of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to weakness--he returned to the
charge in the hall.

"Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on mother's
getting a divorce?"

"Your Uncle Soames," said Emily, and her voice had in it an exaggerated
assurance, "is a lawyer, my dear boy. He's sure to know best."

"Is he?" muttered Val. "But what did become of Aunt Irene? I remember
she was jolly good-looking."

"She--er...." said Emily, "behaved very badly. We don't talk about it."

"Well, I don't want everybody at Oxford to know about our affairs,"
ejaculated Val; "it's a brutal idea. Why couldn't father be prevented
without its being made public?"

Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of divorce,
owing to her fashionable proclivities--so many of those whose legs had
been under her table having gained a certain notoriety. When, however,
it touched her own family, she liked it no better than other people. But
she was eminently practical, and a woman of courage, who never pursued a
shadow in preference to its substance.

"Your mother," she said, "will be happier if she's quite free, Val.
Good-night, my dear boy; and don't wear loud waistcoats up at Oxford,
they're not the thing just now. Here's a little present."

With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his heart,
for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park Lane. A wind
had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were rustling, and the stars were
shining. With all that money in his pocket an impulse to 'see life'
beset him; but he had not gone forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly
when Holly's shy face, and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity,
came up before him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the
pressure of her warm gloved hand. 'No, dash it!' he thought, 'I'm going
home!'




CHAPTER X

SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE

It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and summer
lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many looks at the day
from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that Sunday morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat, and
equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them on the
river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he could not tell whether
or no he wished to take Annette alone. She was so very pretty--could he
trust himself not to say irrevocable words, passing beyond the limits of
discretion? Roses on the veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges
ever-green, so that there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to
chill the mood; yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his
powers to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to
produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions, so that
they should be ready to receive with respect any overture he might later
be disposed to make. He dressed with great care, making himself neither
too young nor too old, very thankful that his hair was still thick and
smooth and had no grey in it. Three times he went up to his
picture-gallery. If they had any knowledge at all, they must see at once
that his collection alone was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He
minutely inspected, too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where
they would take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if--if the matter
went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the dressing-table he
passed his hand over the lilac-coloured pincushion, into which were stuck
all kinds of pins; a bowl of pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his
head turn just a little. His wife! If only the whole thing could be
settled out of hand, and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to
be gone through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked
out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame Lamotte
would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette would never
resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to the station to
meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame Lamotte was in black with
touches of lilac colour, Annette in greyish lilac linen, with cream
coloured gloves and hat. Rather pale she looked and Londony; and her
blue eyes were demure. Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames
stood in the open french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous
delight in sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full
when youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered
the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special
Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee served
on the veranda super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted creme de menthe;
Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with just a suspicion of
'the conscious beauty' creeping into them. 'Yes,' thought Soames,
'another year of London and that sort of life, and she'll be spoiled.'

Madame was in sedate French raptures. "Adorable! Le soleil est si bon!
How everything is chic, is it not, Annette? Monsieur is a real Monte
Cristo." Annette murmured assent, with a look up at Soames which he
could not read. He proposed a turn on the river. But to punt two persons
when one of them looked so ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely
to suffer from a sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way
towards Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an
autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother's black amplitude. And
Soames was not happy, worried by the thought: 'How--when--where--can I
say--what?' They did not yet even know that he was married. To tell them
he was married might jeopardise his every chance; yet, if he did not
definitely make them understand that he wished for Annette's hand, it
would be dropping into some other clutch before he was free to claim it.

At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the Transvaal.

"There'll be war," he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.

"Ces pauvres gens bergers!" Could they not be left to themselves?

Soames smiled--the question seemed to him absurd.

Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British could not
abandon their legitimate commercial interests.

"Ah! that!" But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a little
hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the Uitlanders, not of
business. Monsieur was the first who had spoken to her of that.

"The Boers are only half-civilised," remarked Soames; "they stand in the
way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty go."

"What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!"

"What a strange word!" Soames became eloquent, roused by these threats
to the principle of possession, and stimulated by Annette's eyes fixed on
him. He was delighted when presently she said:

"I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson." She was
sensible!

"Of course," he said, "we must act with moderation. I'm no jingo. We
must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my pictures?"
Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon perceived that
they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve, that remarkable study of
a 'Hay-cart going Home,' as if it were a lithograph. He waited almost
with awe to see how they would view the jewel of his collection--an
Israels whose price he had watched ascending till he was now almost
certain it had reached top value, and would be better on the market
again. They did not view it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have
in Annette a virgin taste to form would be better than to have the silly,
half-baked predilections of the English middle-class to deal with. At
the end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather ashamed
--Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte stopped before
it.

"Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!" Soames took advantage of that moment.
Very gently touching Annette's arm, he said:

"How do you like my place, Annette?"

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full, looked down,
and murmured:

"Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!"

"Perhaps some day--" Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed--she frightened him. Those
cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate
curves--she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must
be sure of one's ground--much surer! 'If I hold off,' he thought, 'it
will tantalise her.' And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was
still in front of the Meissonier.

"Yes, that's quite a good example of his later work. You must come
again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come and spend a
night."

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By moonlight
too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

"Thou art sentimental, Maman!"

Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of the
world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there was no
sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use sentiment?
And yet....!

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train. To the
tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette's fingers responded
just a little; her face smiled at him through the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding. "Go on home, Jordan," he said to
the coachman; "I'll walk." And he strode out into the darkening lanes,
caution and the desire of possession playing see-saw within him. 'Bon
soir, monsieur!' How softly she had said it. To know what was in her
mind! The French--they were like cats--one could tell nothing! But--how
pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one's arms! What a mother
for his heir! And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their
surprise at a French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would
play with it and buffet it confound them!

The, poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows deepened in
the water. 'I will and must be free,' he thought. 'I won't hang about
any longer. I'll go and see Irene. If you want things done, do them
yourself. I must live again--live and move and have my being.' And in
echo to that queer biblicality church-bells chimed the call to evening
prayer.




CHAPTER XI

AND VISITS THE PAST

On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do what
required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet
undertaken in his life--save perhaps his birth, and one other action. He
chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene was more likely to be in,
but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by
daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old Church,
uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it
hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read the name, 'Mrs.
Irene Heron'--Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so she used that again,
did she?--he stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the
first floor. Light was coming through in the corner fiat, and he could
hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly
borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her
piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not
enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at
last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing,
and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than ever.
Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt dry, his heart
beat fast. 'I have no cause to be afraid,' he thought. And then the
lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not
to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee? No!
Not before that fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He
crossed back into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of
his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When
the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent
which came--that perfume--from away back in the past, bringing muffled
remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter, of a house he
used to own--perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey!

"Say, Mr. Forsyte," he said, "your mistress will see me, I know." He had
thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where the light
was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet, everything was
silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he could only think
ridiculously: 'Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it off?' The
music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:

"Will you walk in, sir?"

Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still silvery, and
that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had risen and stood
recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys as if groping for
support, had struck a sudden discord, held for a moment, and released.
The light from the shaded piano-candle fell on her neck, leaving her face
rather in shadow. She was in a black evening dress, with a sort of
mantilla over her shoulders--he did not remember ever having seen her in
black, and the thought passed through him: 'She dresses even when she's
alone.'

"You!" he heard her whisper.

Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal served
him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never thought that
the sight of this woman whom he had once so passionately desired, so
completely owned, and whom he had not seen for twelve years, could affect
him in this way. He had imagined himself speaking and acting, half as
man of business, half as judge. And now it was as if he were in the
presence not of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle
and elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind of
defensive irony welled up in him.

"Yes, it's a queer visit! I hope you're well."

"Thank you. Will you sit down?"

She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a window-seat,
sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap. Light fell on her
there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely as he
remembered them, strangely beautiful.

He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with
silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.

"You have not changed," he said.

"No? What have you come for?"

"To discuss things."

"I have heard what you want from your cousin."

"Well?"

"I am willing. I have always been."

The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her figure
watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A thousand memories
of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred, and....

"Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on which I
can act. The law must be complied with."

"I have none to give you that you don't know of."

"Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that?"

"I don't suppose you will believe anything I say; but it's the truth."

Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed; now he
perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was more beautiful;
not in form, except that it was a little fuller--no! She had changed
spiritually. There was more of her, as it were, something of activity
and daring, where there had been sheer passive resistance. 'Ah!' he
thought, 'that's her independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon!'

"I suppose you're comfortably off now?" he said.

"Thank you, yes."

"Why didn't you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of
everything."

A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.

"You are still my wife," said Soames. Why he said that, what he meant by
it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a truism almost
preposterous, but its effect was startling. She rose from the
window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly still, looking at him. He
could see her bosom heaving. Then she turned to the window and threw it
open.

"Why do that?" he said sharply. "You'll catch cold in that dress. I'm
not dangerous." And he uttered a little sad laugh.

She echoed it--faintly, bitterly.

"It was--habit."

"Rather odd habit," said Soames as bitterly. "Shut the window!"

She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this
woman--this--wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat there,
in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and moved nearer;
he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her eyes met his
unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what a dark brown against
that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair! And how white her shoulders.

Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.

"You had better tell me," he said; "it's to your advantage to be free as
well as to mine. That old matter is too old."

"I have told you."

"Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing--nobody?"

"Nobody. You must go to your own life."

Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to the
hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in their
drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.

"That won't do," he said. "You deserted me. In common justice it's for
you...."

He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:

"Yes. Why didn't you divorce me then? Should I have cared?"

He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity. What on
earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite alone? And why
had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she had never understood
him, never done him justice, bit him while he stared at her.

"Why couldn't you have made me a good wife?" he said.

"Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will find
some way perhaps. You needn't mind my name, I have none to lose. Now I
think you had better go."

A sense of defeat--of being defrauded of his self-justification, and of
something else beyond power of explanation to himself, beset Soames like
the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he reached up, took from the
mantel-shelf a little china bowl, reversed it, and said:

"Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at Jobson's."
And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many years ago, he and
she had bought china together, he remained staring at the little bowl, as
if it contained all the past. Her voice roused him.

"Take it. I don't want it."

Soames put it back on the shelf.

"Will you shake hands?" he said.

A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold to
his rather feverish touch. 'She's made of ice,' he thought--'she was
always made of ice!' But even as that thought darted through him, his
senses were assailed by the perfume of her dress and body, as though the
warmth within her, which had never been for him, were struggling to show
its presence. And he turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if
someone with a whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of
the empty Embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows of
the plane-tree leaves--confused, flurried, sore at heart, and vaguely
disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences he
could not foresee. And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him if
instead of, 'I think you had better go,' she had said, 'I think you had
better stay!' What should he have felt, what would he have done? That
cursed attraction of her was there for him even now, after all these
years of estrangement and bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount
to his head at a sign, a touch. 'I was a fool to go!' he muttered.
'I've advanced nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought!' Memory,
flown back to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing
tricks. She had not deserved to keep her beauty--the beauty he had owned
and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own
admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated the sight of her,
as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to
death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the mere sight of her, cold and
resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly! It was some
damned magnetism she had! And no wonder if, as she asserted; she had
lived untouched these last twelve years. So Bosinney--cursed be his
memory!--had lived on all this time with her! Soames could not tell
whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.