The Forsyte saga - Complete
Outraged and on edge, Soames recoiled.
“Don’t make a scene!” he said sharply. And they both stood
motionless, staring at the little Niobe, whose greenish flesh the
sunlight was burnishing.
“That’s your last word, then,” muttered Soames, clenching his
hands; “you condemn us both.”
Irene bent her head. “I can’t come back. Good-bye!”
A feeling of monstrous injustice flared up in Soames.
“Stop!” he said, “and listen to me a moment. You gave me a sacred
vow—you came to me without a penny. You had all I could give you.
You broke that vow without cause, you made me a by-word; you
refused me a child; you’ve left me in prison; you—you still move
me so that I want you—I want you. Well, what do you think of
yourself?”
Irene turned, her face was deadly pale, her eyes burning dark.
“God made me as I am,” she said; “wicked if you like—but not so
wicked that I’ll give myself again to a man I hate.”
The sunlight gleamed on her hair as she moved away, and seemed to
lay a caress all down her clinging cream-coloured frock.
Soames could neither speak nor move. That word “hate”—so extreme,
so primitive—made all the Forsyte in him tremble. With a deep
imprecation he strode away from where she had vanished, and ran
almost into the arms of the lady sauntering back—the fool, the
shadowing fool!
He was soon dripping with perspiration, in the depths of the
Bois.
“Well,” he thought, “I need have no consideration for her now;
she has not a grain of it for me. I’ll show her this very day
that she’s my wife still.”
But on the way home to his hotel, he was forced to the conclusion
that he did not know what he meant. One could not make scenes in
public, and short of scenes in public what was there he could do?
He almost cursed his own thin-skinnedness. She might deserve no
consideration; but he—alas! deserved some at his own hands. And
sitting lunchless in the hall of his hotel, with tourists passing
every moment, Baedeker in hand, he was visited by black
dejection. In irons! His whole life, with every natural instinct
and every decent yearning gagged and fettered, and all because
Fate had driven him seventeen years ago to set his heart upon
this woman—so utterly, that even now he had no real heart to set
on any other! Cursed was the day he had met her, and his eyes for
seeing in her anything but the cruel Venus she was! And yet,
still seeing her with the sunlight on the clinging China crepe of
her gown, he uttered a little groan, so that a tourist who was
passing, thought: “Man in pain! Let’s see! what did I have for
lunch?”
Later, in front of a café near the Opera, over a glass of cold
tea with lemon and a straw in it, he took the malicious
resolution to go and dine at her hotel. If she were there, he
would speak to her; if she were not, he would leave a note. He
dressed carefully, and wrote as follows:
“Your idyll with that fellow Jolyon Forsyte is known to me at all
events. If you pursue it, understand that I will leave no stone
unturned to make things unbearable for him.
‘S. F.’”
He sealed this note but did not address it, refusing to write the
maiden name which she had impudently resumed, or to put the word
Forsyte on the envelope lest she should tear it up unread. Then
he went out, and made his way through the glowing streets,
abandoned to evening pleasure-seekers. Entering her hotel, he
took his seat in a far corner of the dining-room whence he could
see all entrances and exits. She was not there. He ate little,
quickly, watchfully. She did not come. He lingered in the lounge
over his coffee, drank two liqueurs of brandy. But still she did
not come. He went over to the keyboard and examined the names.
Number twelve, on the first floor! And he determined to take the
note up himself. He mounted red-carpeted stairs, past a little
salon; eight-ten-twelve! Should he knock, push the note under,
or...? He looked furtively round and turned the handle. The door
opened, but into a little space leading to another door; he
knocked on that—no answer. The door was locked. It fitted very
closely to the floor; the note would not go under. He thrust it
back into his pocket, and stood a moment listening. He felt
somehow certain that she was not there. And suddenly he came
away, passing the little salon down the stairs. He stopped at the
bureau and said:
“Will you kindly see that Mrs. Heron has this note?”
“Madame Heron left to-day, Monsieur—suddenly, about three
o’clock. There was illness in her family.”
Soames compressed his lips. “Oh!” he said; “do you know her
address?”
“_Non, Monsieur_. England, I think.”
Soames put the note back into his pocket and went out. He hailed
an open horse-cab which was passing.
“Drive me anywhere!”
The man, who, obviously, did not understand, smiled, and waved
his whip. And Soames was borne along in that little
yellow-wheeled Victoria all over star-shaped Paris, with here and
there a pause, and the question, “_C’est par ici, Monsieur?_”
“No, go on,” till the man gave it up in despair, and the
yellow-wheeled chariot continued to roll between the tall,
flat-fronted shuttered houses and plane-tree avenues—a little
Flying Dutchman of a cab.
“Like my life,” thought Soames, “without object, on and on!”
CHAPTER II IN THE WEB
Soames returned to England the following day, and on the third
morning received a visit from Mr. Polteed, who wore a flower and
carried a brown billycock hat. Soames motioned him to a seat.
“The news from the war is not so bad, is it?” said Mr. Polteed.
“I hope I see you well, sir.”
“Thanks! quite.”
Mr. Polteed leaned forward, smiled, opened his hand, looked into
it, and said softly:
“I think we’ve done your business for you at last.”
“What?” ejaculated Soames.
“Nineteen reports quite suddenly what I think we shall be
justified in calling conclusive evidence,” and Mr. Polteed
paused.
“Well?”
“On the 10th instant, after witnessing an interview between 17
and a party, earlier in the day, 19 can swear to having seen him
coming out of her bedroom in the hotel about ten o’clock in the
evening. With a little care in the giving of the evidence that
will be enough, especially as 17 has left Paris—no doubt with the
party in question. In fact, they both slipped off, and we haven’t
got on to them again, yet; but we shall—we shall. She’s worked
hard under very difficult circumstances, and I’m glad she’s
brought it off at last.” Mr. Polteed took out a cigarette, tapped
its end against the table, looked at Soames, and put it back. The
expression on his client’s face was not encouraging.
“Who is this new person?” said Soames abruptly.
“That we don’t know. She’ll swear to the fact, and she’s got his
appearance pat.”
Mr. Polteed took out a letter, and began reading:
“‘Middle-aged, medium height, blue dittoes in afternoon, evening
dress at night, pale, dark hair, small dark moustache, flat
cheeks, good chin, grey eyes, small feet, guilty look....’”
Soames rose and went to the window. He stood there in sardonic
fury. Congenital idiot—spidery congenital idiot! Seven months at
fifteen pounds a week—to be tracked down as his own wife’s lover!
Guilty look! He threw the window open.
“It’s hot,” he said, and came back to his seat.
Crossing his knees, he bent a supercilious glance on Mr. Polteed.
“I doubt if that’s quite good enough,” he said, drawling the
words, “with no name or address. I think you may let that lady
have a rest, and take up our friend 47 at this end.” Whether
Polteed had spotted him he could not tell; but he had a mental
vision of him in the midst of his cronies dissolved in
inextinguishable laughter. “Guilty look!” Damnation!
Mr. Polteed said in a tone of urgency, almost of pathos: “I
assure you we have put it through sometimes on less than that.
It’s Paris, you know. Attractive woman living alone. Why not risk
it, sir? We might screw it up a peg.”
Soames had sudden insight. The fellow’s professional zeal was
stirred: “Greatest triumph of my career; got a man his divorce
through a visit to his own wife’s bedroom! Something to talk of
there, when I retire!” And for one wild moment he thought: “Why
not?” After all, hundreds of men of medium height had small feet
and a guilty look!
“I’m not authorised to take any risk!” he said shortly.
Mr. Polteed looked up.
“Pity,” he said, “quite a pity! That other affair seemed very
costive.”
Soames rose.
“Never mind that. Please watch 47, and take care not to find a
mare’s nest. Good-morning!”
Mr. Polteed’s eye glinted at the words “mare’s nest!”
“Very good. You shall be kept informed.”
And Soames was alone again. The spidery, dirty, ridiculous
business! Laying his arms on the table, he leaned his forehead on
them. Full ten minutes he rested thus, till a managing clerk
roused him with the draft prospectus of a new issue of shares,
very desirable, in Manifold and Topping’s. That afternoon he left
work early and made his way to the Restaurant Bretagne. Only
Madame Lamotte was in. Would _Monsieur_ have tea with her?
Soames bowed.
When they were seated at right angles to each other in the little
room, he said abruptly:
“I want a talk with you, _Madame_.”
The quick lift of her clear brown eyes told him that she had long
expected such words.
“I have to ask you something first: That young doctor—what’s his
name? Is there anything between him and Annette?”
Her whole personality had become, as it were, like jet—clear-cut,
black, hard, shining.
“Annette is young,” she said; “so is _monsieur le docteur_.
Between young people things move quickly; but Annette is a good
daughter. Ah! what a jewel of a nature!”
The least little smile twisted Soames’ lips.
“Nothing definite, then?”
“But definite—no, indeed! The young man is veree nice, but—what
would you? There is no money at present.”
She raised her willow-patterned tea-cup; Soames did the same.
Their eyes met.
“I am a married man,” he said, “living apart from my wife for
many years. I am seeking to divorce her.”
Madame Lamotte put down her cup. Indeed! What tragic things there
were! The entire absence of sentiment in her inspired a queer
species of contempt in Soames.
“I am a rich man,” he added, fully conscious that the remark was
not in good taste. “It is useless to say more at present, but I
think you understand.”
Madame’s eyes, so open that the whites showed above them, looked
at him very straight.
“_Ah! ça—mais nous avons le temps!_” was all she said. “Another
little cup?” Soames refused, and, taking his leave, walked
westward.
He had got that off his mind; she would not let Annette commit