The Forsyte Saga, Volume II.

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Forsyte Saga, Volume II.


He closed his eyes; and at once he seemed to see Irene, in a dark street
below a church--passing, turning her neck so that he caught the gleam of
her eyes and her white forehead under a little dark hat, which had gold
spangles on it and a veil hanging down behind. He opened his eyes--so
vividly he had seen her! A woman was passing below, but not she! Oh no,
there was nothing there!




CHAPTER XIII--'HERE WE ARE AGAIN!'

Imogen's frocks for her first season exercised the judgment of her
mother and the purse of her grandfather all through the month of March.
With Forsyte tenacity Winifred quested for perfection. It took her
mind off the slowly approaching rite which would give her a freedom
but doubtfully desired; took her mind, too, off her boy and his
fast approaching departure for a war from which the news remained
disquieting. Like bees busy on summer flowers, or bright gadflies
hovering and darting over spiky autumn blossoms, she and her 'little
daughter,' tall nearly as herself and with a bust measurement not far
inferior, hovered in the shops of Regent Street, the establishments of
Hanover Square and of Bond Street, lost in consideration and the feel of
fabrics. Dozens of young women of striking deportment and peculiar
gait paraded before Winifred and Imogen, draped in 'creations.' The
models--'Very new, modom; quite the latest thing--' which those two
reluctantly turned down, would have filled a museum; the models which
they were obliged to have nearly emptied James' bank. It was no good
doing things by halves, Winifred felt, in view of the need for making
this first and sole untarnished season a conspicuous success. Their
patience in trying the patience of those impersonal creatures who swam
about before them could alone have been displayed by such as were moved
by faith. It was for Winifred a long prostration before her dear goddess
Fashion, fervent as a Catholic might make before the Virgin; for Imogen
an experience by no means too unpleasant--she often looked so nice, and
flattery was implicit everywhere: in a word it was 'amusing.'

On the afternoon of the 20th of March, having, as it were, gutted
Skywards, they had sought refreshment over the way at Caramel and
Baker's, and, stored with chocolate frothed at the top with cream,
turned homewards through Berkeley Square of an evening touched with
spring. Opening the door--freshly painted a light olive-green; nothing
neglected that year to give Imogen a good send-off--Winifred passed
towards the silver basket to see if anyone had called, and suddenly her
nostrils twitched. What was that scent?

Imogen had taken up a novel sent from the library, and stood absorbed.
Rather sharply, because of the queer feeling in her breast, Winifred
said:

"Take that up, dear, and have a rest before dinner."

Imogen, still reading, passed up the stairs. Winifred heard the door
of her room slammed to, and drew a long savouring breath. Was it spring
tickling her senses--whipping up nostalgia for her 'clown,' against all
wisdom and outraged virtue? A male scent! A faint reek of cigars and
lavender-water not smelt since that early autumn night six months ago,
when she had called him 'the limit.' Whence came it, or was it ghost of
scent--sheer emanation from memory? She looked round her. Nothing--not
a thing, no tiniest disturbance of her hall, nor of the diningroom. A
little day-dream of a scent--illusory, saddening, silly! In the silver
basket were new cards, two with 'Mr. and Mrs. Polegate Thom,' and one
with 'Mr. Polegate Thom' thereon; she sniffed them, but they smelled
severe. 'I must be tired,' she thought, 'I'll go and lie down.' Upstairs
the drawing-room was darkened, waiting for some hand to give it
evening light; and she passed on up to her bedroom. This, too, was
half-curtained and dim, for it was six o'clock. Winifred threw off her
coat--that scent again!--then stood, as if shot, transfixed against the
bed-rail. Something dark had risen from the sofa in the far corner. A
word of horror--in her family--escaped her: "God!"

"It's I--Monty," said a voice.

Clutching the bed-rail, Winifred reached up and turned the switch of the
light hanging above her dressing-table. He appeared just on the rim
of the light's circumference, emblazoned from the absence of his
watch-chain down to boots neat and sooty brown, but--yes!--split at the
toecap. His chest and face were shadowy. Surely he was thin--or was it a
trick of the light? He advanced, lighted now from toe-cap to the top of
his dark head--surely a little grizzled! His complexion had darkened,
sallowed; his black moustache had lost boldness, become sardonic; there
were lines which she did not know about his face. There was no pin in
his tie. His suit--ah!--she knew that--but how unpressed, unglossy! She
stared again at the toe-cap of his boot. Something big and relentless
had been 'at him,' had turned and twisted, raked and scraped him. And
she stayed, not speaking, motionless, staring at that crack across the
toe.

"Well!" he said, "I got the order. I'm back."

Winifred's bosom began to heave. The nostalgia for her husband which had
rushed up with that scent was struggling with a deeper jealousy than any
she had felt yet. There he was--a dark, and as if harried, shadow of
his sleek and brazen self! What force had done this to him--squeezed him
like an orange to its dry rind! That woman!

"I'm back," he said again. "I've had a beastly time. By God! I came
steerage. I've got nothing but what I stand up in, and that bag."

"And who has the rest?" cried Winifred, suddenly alive. "How dared you
come? You knew it was just for divorce that you got that order to come
back. Don't touch me!"

They held each to the rail of the big bed where they had spent so many
years of nights together. Many times, yes--many times she had wanted him
back. But now that he had come she was filled with this cold and deadly
resentment. He put his hand up to his moustache; but did not frizz and
twist it in the old familiar way, he just pulled it downwards.

"Gad!" he said: "If you knew the time I've had!"

"I'm glad I don't!"

"Are the kids all right?"

Winifred nodded. "How did you get in?"

"With my key."

"Then the maids don't know. You can't stay here, Monty."

He uttered a little sardonic laugh.

"Where then?"

"Anywhere."

"Well, look at me! That--that damned...."

"If you mention her," cried Winifred, "I go straight out to Park Lane
and I don't come back."

Suddenly he did a simple thing, but so uncharacteristic that it moved
her. He shut his eyes. It was as if he had said: 'All right! I'm dead to
the world!'

"You can have a room for the night," she said; "your things are still
here. Only Imogen is at home."

He leaned back against the bed-rail. "Well, it's in your hands," and his
own made a writhing movement. "I've been through it. You needn't hit too
hard--it isn't worth while. I've been frightened; I've been frightened,
Freddie."

That old pet name, disused for years and years, sent a shiver through
Winifred.

'What am I to do with him?' she thought. 'What in God's name am I to do
with him?'

"Got a cigarette?"

She gave him one from a little box she kept up there for when
she couldn't sleep at night, and lighted it. With that action the
matter-of-fact side of her nature came to life again.

"Go and have a hot bath. I'll put some clothes out for you in the
dressing-room. We can talk later."

He nodded, and fixed his eyes on her--they looked half-dead, or was it
that the folds in the lids had become heavier?

'He's not the same,' she thought. He would never be quite the same
again! But what would he be?

"All right!" he said, and went towards the door. He even moved
differently, like a man who has lost illusion and doubts whether it is
worth while to move at all.

When he was gone, and she heard the water in the bath running, she put
out a complete set of garments on the bed in his dressing-room, then
went downstairs and fetched up the biscuit box and whisky. Putting on
her coat again, and listening a moment at the bathroom door, she went
down and out. In the street she hesitated. Past seven o'clock! Would
Soames be at his Club or at Park Lane? She turned towards the latter.
Back!

Soames had always feared it--she had sometimes hoped it.... Back! So
like him--clown that he was--with this: 'Here we are again!' to make
fools of them all--of the Law, of Soames, of herself!

Yet to have done with the Law, not to have that murky cloud hanging over
her and the children! What a relief! Ah! but how to accept his return?
That 'woman' had ravaged him, taken from him passion such as he had
never bestowed on herself, such as she had not thought him capable of.
There was the sting! That selfish, blatant 'clown' of hers, whom she
herself had never really stirred, had been swept and ungarnished by
another woman! Insulting! Too insulting! Not right, not decent to take
him back! And yet she had asked for him; the Law perhaps would make
her now! He was as much her husband as ever--she had put herself out of
court! And all he wanted, no doubt, was money--to keep him in cigars and
lavender-water! That scent! 'After all, I'm not old,' she thought, 'not
old yet!' But that woman who had reduced him to those words: 'I've been
through it. I've been frightened--frightened, Freddie!' She neared her
father's house, driven this way and that, while all the time the Forsyte
undertow was drawing her to deep conclusion that after all he was her
property, to be held against a robbing world. And so she came to James'.

"Mr. Soames? In his room? I'll go up; don't say I'm here."

Her brother was dressing. She found him before a mirror, tying a black
bow with an air of despising its ends.

"Hullo!" he said, contemplating her in the glass; "what's wrong?"

"Monty!" said Winifred stonily.

Soames spun round. "What!"

"Back!"

"Hoist," muttered Soames, "with our own petard. Why the deuce didn't you
let me try cruelty? I always knew it was too much risk this way."

"Oh! Don't talk about that! What shall I do?"

Soames answered, with a deep, deep sound.

"Well?" said Winifred impatiently.

"What has he to say for himself?"

"Nothing. One of his boots is split across the toe."

Soames stared at her.

"Ah!" he said, "of course! On his beam ends. So--it begins again!
This'll about finish father."

"Can't we keep it from him?"

"Impossible. He has an uncanny flair for anything that's worrying."

And he brooded, with fingers hooked into his blue silk braces. "There
ought to be some way in law," he muttered, "to make him safe."

"No," cried Winifred, "I won't be made a fool of again; I'd sooner put
up with him."

The two stared at each other. Their hearts were full of feeling, but
they could give it no expression--Forsytes that they were.

"Where did you leave him?"

"In the bath," and Winifred gave a little bitter laugh. "The only thing
he's brought back is lavender-water."

"Steady!" said Soames, "you're thoroughly upset. I'll go back with you."

"What's the use?"

"We ought to make terms with him."

"Terms! It'll always be the same. When he recovers--cards and betting,
drink and...!" She was silent, remembering the look on her husband's
face. The burnt child--the burnt child. Perhaps...!

"Recovers?" replied Soames: "Is he ill?"

"No; burnt out; that's all."

Soames took his waistcoat from a chair and put it on, he took his
coat and got into it, he scented his handkerchief with eau-de-Cologne,
threaded his watch-chain, and said: "We haven't any luck."

And in the midst of her own trouble Winifred was sorry for him, as if in
that little saying he had revealed deep trouble of his own.

"I'd like to see mother," she said.

"She'll be with father in their room. Come down quietly to the study.
I'll get her."

Winifred stole down to the little dark study, chiefly remarkable for a
Canaletto too doubtful to be placed elsewhere, and a fine collection of
Law Reports unopened for many years. Here she stood, with her back to
maroon-coloured curtains close-drawn, staring at the empty grate, till
her mother came in followed by Soames.

"Oh! my poor dear!" said Emily: "How miserable you look in here! This is
too bad of him, really!"

As a family they had so guarded themselves from the expression of all
unfashionable emotion that it was impossible to go up and give her
daughter a good hug. But there was comfort in her cushioned voice, and
her still dimpled shoulders under some rare black lace. Summoning pride
and the desire not to distress her mother, Winifred said in her most
off-hand voice:

"It's all right, Mother; no good fussing."

"I don't see," said Emily, looking at Soames, "why Winifred shouldn't
tell him that she'll prosecute him if he doesn't keep off the premises.
He took her pearls; and if he's not brought them back, that's quite
enough."

Winifred smiled. They would all plunge about with suggestions of
this and that, but she knew already what she would be doing, and
that was--nothing. The feeling that, after all, she had won a sort of
victory, retained her property, was every moment gaining ground in her.
No! if she wanted to punish him, she could do it at home without the
world knowing.

"Well," said Emily, "come into the dining-room comfortably--you must
stay and have dinner with us. Leave it to me to tell your father." And,
as Winifred moved towards the door, she turned out the light. Not till
then did they see the disaster in the corridor.

There, attracted by light from a room never lighted, James was standing
with his duncoloured camel-hair shawl folded about him, so that his arms
were not free and his silvered head looked cut off from his fashionably
trousered legs as if by an expanse of desert. He stood, inimitably
stork-like, with an expression as if he saw before him a frog too large
to swallow.

"What's all this?" he said. "Tell your father? You never tell me
anything."

The moment found Emily without reply. It was Winifred who went up to
him, and, laying one hand on each of his swathed, helpless arms, said:

"Monty's not gone bankrupt, Father. He's only come back."

They all three expected something serious to happen, and were glad she
had kept that grip of his arms, but they did not know the depth of root
in that shadowy old Forsyte. Something wry occurred about his shaven
mouth and chin, something scratchy between those long silvery whiskers.
Then he said with a sort of dignity: "He'll be the death of me. I knew
how it would be."

"You mustn't worry, Father," said Winifred calmly. "I mean to make him
behave."

"Ah!" said James. "Here, take this thing off, I'm hot." They unwound the
shawl. He turned, and walked firmly to the dining-room.

"I don't want any soup," he said to Warmson, and sat down in his chair.
They all sat down too, Winifred still in her hat, while Warmson laid
the fourth place. When he left the room, James said: "What's he brought
back?"

"Nothing, Father."

James concentrated his eyes on his own image in a tablespoon. "Divorce!"
he muttered; "rubbish! What was I about? I ought to have paid him an
allowance to stay out of England. Soames you go and propose it to him."

It seemed so right and simple a suggestion that even Winifred was
surprised when she said: "No, I'll keep him now he's back; he must just
behave--that's all."

They all looked at her. It had always been known that Winifred had
pluck.

"Out there!" said James elliptically, "who knows what cut-throats!
You look for his revolver! Don't go to bed without. You ought to have
Warmson to sleep in the house. I'll see him myself tomorrow."

They were touched by this declaration, and Emily said comfortably:
"That's right, James, we won't have any nonsense."

"Ah!" muttered James darkly, "I can't tell."

The advent of Warmson with fish diverted conversation.

When, directly after dinner, Winifred went over to kiss her father
good-night, he looked up with eyes so full of question and distress that
she put all the comfort she could into her voice.

"It's all right, Daddy, dear; don't worry. I shan't need anyone--he's
quite bland. I shall only be upset if you worry. Good-night, bless you!"

James repeated the words, "Bless you!" as if he did not quite know what
they meant, and his eyes followed her to the door.

She reached home before nine, and went straight upstairs.

Dartie was lying on the bed in his dressing-room, fully redressed in a
blue serge suit and pumps; his arms were crossed behind his head, and an
extinct cigarette drooped from his mouth.

Winifred remembered ridiculously the flowers in her window-boxes after
a blazing summer day; the way they lay, or rather stood--parched, yet
rested by the sun's retreat. It was as if a little dew had come already
on her burnt-up husband.

He said apathetically: "I suppose you've been to Park Lane. How's the
old man?"

Winifred could not help the bitter answer: "Not dead."

He winced, actually he winced.

"Understand, Monty," she said, "I will not have him worried. If you
aren't going to behave yourself, you may go back, you may go anywhere.
Have you had dinner?"

No.

"Would you like some?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Imogen offered me some. I didn't want any."

Imogen! In the plenitude of emotion Winifred had forgotten her.

"So you've seen her? What did she say?"

"She gave me a kiss."

With mortification Winifred saw his dark sardonic face relaxed. 'Yes!'
she thought, 'he cares for her, not for me a bit.'

Dartie's eyes were moving from side to side.

"Does she know about me?" he said.

It flashed through Winifred that here was the weapon she needed. He
minded their knowing!

"No. Val knows. The others don't; they only know you went away."

She heard him sigh with relief.

"But they shall know," she said firmly, "if you give me cause."

"All right!" he muttered, "hit me! I'm down!"

Winifred went up to the bed. "Look here, Monty! I don't want to hit you.
I don't want to hurt you. I shan't allude to anything. I'm not going
to worry. What's the use?" She was silent a moment. "I can't stand any
more, though, and I won't! You'd better know. You've made me suffer.
But I used to be fond of you. For the sake of that...." She met the
heavy-lidded gaze of his brown eyes with the downward stare of her
green-grey eyes; touched his hand suddenly, turned her back, and went
into her room.

She sat there a long time before her glass, fingering her rings,
thinking of this subdued dark man, almost a stranger to her, on the bed
in the other room; resolutely not 'worrying,' but gnawed by jealousy of
what he had been through, and now and again just visited by pity.




CHAPTER XIV--OUTLANDISH NIGHT

Soames doggedly let the spring come--no easy task for one conscious that
time was flying, his birds in the bush no nearer the hand, no issue from
the web anywhere visible. Mr. Polteed reported nothing, except that his
watch went on--costing a lot of money. Val and his cousin were gone to
the war, whence came news more favourable; Dartie was behaving himself
so far; James had retained his health; business prospered almost
terribly--there was nothing to worry Soames except that he was 'held
up,' could make no step in any direction.

He did not exactly avoid Soho, for he could not afford to let them think
that he had 'piped off,' as James would have put it--he might want
to 'pipe on' again at any minute. But he had to be so restrained and
cautious that he would often pass the door of the Restaurant Bretagne
without going in, and wander out of the purlieus of that region which
always gave him the feeling of having been possessively irregular.

He wandered thus one May night into Regent Street and the most amazing
crowd he had ever seen; a shrieking, whistling, dancing, jostling,
grotesque and formidably jovial crowd, with false noses and
mouth-organs, penny whistles and long feathers, every appanage of
idiocy, as it seemed to him. Mafeking! Of course, it had been relieved!
Good! But was that an excuse? Who were these people, what were they,
where had they come from into the West End? His face was tickled, his
ears whistled into. Girls cried: 'Keep your hair on, stucco!' A youth so
knocked off his top-hat that he recovered it with difficulty. Crackers
were exploding beneath his nose, between his feet. He was bewildered,
exasperated, offended. This stream of people came from every quarter, as
if impulse had unlocked flood-gates, let flow waters of whose existence
he had heard, perhaps, but believed in never. This, then, was the
populace, the innumerable living negation of gentility and Forsyteism.
This was--egad!--Democracy! It stank, yelled, was hideous! In the East
End, or even Soho, perhaps--but here in Regent Street, in Piccadilly!
What were the police about! In 1900, Soames, with his Forsyte thousands,
had never seen the cauldron with the lid off; and now looking into
it, could hardly believe his scorching eyes. The whole thing was
unspeakable! These people had no restraint, they seemed to think him
funny; such swarms of them, rude, coarse, laughing--and what laughter!

Nothing sacred to them! He shouldn't be surprised if they began to
break windows. In Pall Mall, past those august dwellings, to enter which
people paid sixty pounds, this shrieking, whistling, dancing dervish of
a crowd was swarming. From the Club windows his own kind were looking
out on them with regulated amusement. They didn't realise! Why, this was
serious--might come to anything! The crowd was cheerful, but some day
they would come in different mood! He remembered there had been a mob in
the late eighties, when he was at Brighton; they had smashed things and
made speeches. But more than dread, he felt a deep surprise. They were
hysterical--it wasn't English! And all about the relief of a little town
as big as--Watford, six thousand miles away. Restraint, reserve!
Those qualities to him more dear almost than life, those indispensable
attributes of property and culture, where were they? It wasn't English!
No, it wasn't English! So Soames brooded, threading his way on. It was
as if he had suddenly caught sight of someone cutting the covenant 'for
quiet possession' out of his legal documents; or of a monster lurking
and stalking out in the future, casting its shadow before. Their want
of stolidity, their want of reverence! It was like discovering that
nine-tenths of the people of England were foreigners. And if that were
so--then, anything might happen!

At Hyde Park Corner he ran into George Forsyte, very sunburnt from
racing, holding a false nose in his hand.

"Hallo, Soames!" he said, "have a nose!"

Soames responded with a pale smile.

"Got this from one of these sportsmen," went on George, who had
evidently been dining; "had to lay him out--for trying to bash my hat.
I say, one of these days we shall have to fight these chaps, they're
getting so damned cheeky--all radicals and socialists. They want our
goods. You tell Uncle James that, it'll make him sleep."

'In vino veritas,' thought Soames, but he only nodded, and passed on up
Hamilton Place. There was but a trickle of roysterers in Park Lane, not
very noisy. And looking up at the houses he thought: 'After all, we're
the backbone of the country. They won't upset us easily. Possession's
nine points of the law.'

But, as he closed the door of his father's house behind him, all that
queer outlandish nightmare in the streets passed out of his mind almost
as completely as if, having dreamed it, he had awakened in the warm
clean morning comfort of his spring-mattressed bed.

Walking into the centre of the great empty drawing-room, he stood still.

A wife! Somebody to talk things over with. One had a right! Damn it! One
had a right!




PART III




CHAPTER I--SOAMES IN PARIS

Soames had travelled little. Aged nineteen he had made the 'petty tour'
with his father, mother, and Winifred--Brussels, the Rhine, Switzerland,
and home by way of Paris. Aged twenty-seven, just when he began to take
interest in pictures, he had spent five hot weeks in Italy, looking into
the Renaissance--not so much in it as he had been led to expect--and a
fortnight in Paris on his way back, looking into himself, as became a
Forsyte surrounded by people so strongly self-centred and 'foreign'
as the French. His knowledge of their language being derived from his
public school, he did not understand them when they spoke. Silence he
had found better for all parties; one did not make a fool of oneself.
He had disliked the look of the men's clothes, the closed-in cabs, the
theatres which looked like bee-hives, the Galleries which smelled of
beeswax. He was too cautious and too shy to explore that side of Paris
supposed by Forsytes to constitute its attraction under the rose; and as
for a collector's bargain--not one to be had! As Nicholas might have put
it--they were a grasping lot. He had come back uneasy, saying Paris was
overrated.

When, therefore, in June of 1900 he went to Paris, it was but his third
attempt on the centre of civilisation. This time, however, the mountain
was going to Mahomet; for he felt by now more deeply civilised than
Paris, and perhaps he really was. Moreover, he had a definite objective.
This was no mere genuflexion to a shrine of taste and immorality, but
the prosecution of his own legitimate affairs. He went, indeed,
because things were getting past a joke. The watch went on and on,
and--nothing--nothing! Jolyon had never returned to Paris, and no one
else was 'suspect!' Busy with new and very confidential matters, Soames
was realising more than ever how essential reputation is to a solicitor.
But at night and in his leisure moments he was ravaged by the thought
that time was always flying and money flowing in, and his own future as
much 'in irons' as ever. Since Mafeking night he had become aware that
a 'young fool of a doctor' was hanging round Annette. Twice he had come
across him--a cheerful young fool, not more than thirty.