The Forsyte saga - Complete
lending a hand to Death, that final enemy of Forsytes. “I must
tell mother,” he thought, “and when it comes on, we must keep the
papers from him somehow. He sees hardly anyone.” Letting himself
in with his latchkey, he was beginning to ascend he stairs when
he became conscious of commotion on the second-floor landing. His
mother’s voice was saying:
“Now, James, you’ll catch cold. Why can’t you wait quietly?”
His father’s answering
“Wait? I’m always waiting. Why doesn’t he come in?”
“You can speak to him to-morrow morning, instead of making a guy
of yourself on the landing.”
“He’ll go up to bed, I shouldn’t wonder. I shan’t sleep.”
“Now come back to bed, James.”
“Um! I might die before to-morrow morning for all you can tell.”
“You shan’t have to wait till to-morrow morning; I’ll go down and
bring him up. Don’t fuss!”
“There you go—always so cock-a-hoop. He mayn’t come in at all.”
“Well, if he doesn’t come in you won’t catch him by standing out
here in your dressing-gown.”
Soames rounded the last bend and came in sight of his father’s
tall figure wrapped in a brown silk quilted gown, stooping over
the balustrade above. Light fell on his silvery hair and
whiskers, investing his head with a sort of halo.
“Here he is!” he heard him say in a voice which sounded injured,
and his mother’s comfortable answer from the bedroom door:
“That’s all right. Come in, and I’ll brush your hair.” James
extended a thin, crooked finger, oddly like the beckoning of a
skeleton, and passed through the doorway of his bedroom.
“What is it?” thought Soames. “What has he got hold of now?”
His father was sitting before the dressing-table sideways to the
mirror, while Emily slowly passed two silver-backed brushes
through and through his hair. She would do this several times a
day, for it had on him something of the effect produced on a cat
by scratching between its ears.
“There you are!” he said. “I’ve been waiting.”
Soames stroked his shoulder, and, taking up a silver button-hook,
examined the mark on it.
“Well,” he said, “you’re looking better.”
James shook his head.
“I want to say something. Your mother hasn’t heard.” He announced
Emily’s ignorance of what he hadn’t told her, as if it were a
grievance.
“Your father’s been in a great state all the evening. I’m sure I
don’t know what about.”
The faint “whisk-whisk” of the brushes continued the soothing of
her voice.
“No! you know nothing,” said James. “Soames can tell me.” And,
fixing his grey eyes, in which there was a look of strain,
uncomfortable to watch, on his son, he muttered:
“I’m getting on, Soames. At my age I can’t tell. I might die any
time. There’ll be a lot of money. There’s Rachel and Cicely got
no children; and Val’s out there—that chap his father will get
hold of all he can. And somebody’ll pick up Imogen, I shouldn’t
wonder.”
Soames listened vaguely—he had heard all this before.
Whish-whish! went the brushes.
“If that’s all!” said Emily.
“All!” cried James; “it’s nothing. I’m coming to that.” And again
his eyes strained pitifully at Soames.
“It’s you, my boy,” he said suddenly; “you ought to get a
divorce.”
That word, from those of all lips, was almost too much for
Soames’ composure. His eyes reconcentrated themselves quickly on
the buttonhook, and as if in apology James hurried on:
“I don’t know what’s become of her—they say she’s abroad. Your
Uncle Swithin used to admire her—he was a funny fellow.” (So he
always alluded to his dead twin—“The Stout and the Lean of it,”
they had been called.) “She wouldn’t be alone, I should say.” And
with that summing-up of the effect of beauty on human nature, he
was silent, watching his son with eyes doubting as a bird’s.
Soames, too, was silent. Whish-whish went the brushes.
“Come, James! Soames knows best. It’s his business.”
“Ah!” said James, and the word came from deep down; “but there’s
all my money, and there’s his—who’s it to go to? And when he dies
the name goes out.”
Soames replaced the button-hook on the lace and pink silk of the
dressing-table coverlet.
“The name?” said Emily, “there are all the other Forsytes.”
“As if that helped me,” muttered James. “I shall be in my grave,
and there’ll be nobody, unless he marries again.”
“You’re quite right,” said Soames quietly; “I’m getting a
divorce.”
James’ eyes almost started from his head.
“What?” he cried. “There! nobody tells me anything.”
“Well,” said Emily, “who would have imagined you wanted it? My
dear boy, that _is_ a surprise, after all these years.”
“It’ll be a scandal,” muttered James, as if to himself; “but I
can’t help that. Don’t brush so hard. When’ll it come on?”
“Before the Long Vacation; it’s not defended.”
James’ lips moved in secret calculation. “I shan’t live to see my
grandson,” he muttered.
Emily ceased brushing. “Of course you will, James. Soames will be
as quick as he can.”
There was a long silence, till James reached out his arm.
“Here! let’s have the eau-de-Cologne,” and, putting it to his
nose, he moved his forehead in the direction of his son. Soames
bent over and kissed that brow just where the hair began. A
relaxing quiver passed over James’ face, as though the wheels of
anxiety within were running down.
“I’ll get to bed,” he said; “I shan’t want to see the papers when
that comes. They’re a morbid lot; I can’t pay attention to them,
I’m too old.”
Queerly affected, Soames went to the door; he heard his father
say:
“Here, I’m tired. I’ll say a prayer in bed.”
And his mother answering
“That’s right, James; it’ll be ever so much more comfy.”
CHAPTER IX OUT OF THE WEB
On Forsyte ’Change the announcement of Jolly’s death, among a
batch of troopers, caused mixed sensation. Strange to read that
Jolyon Forsyte (fifth of the name in direct descent) had died of
disease in the service of his country, and not be able to feel it
personally. It revived the old grudge against his father for
having estranged himself. For such was still the prestige of old
Jolyon that the other Forsytes could never quite feel, as might
have been expected, that it was they who had cut off his
descendants for irregularity. The news increased, of course, the
interest and anxiety about Val; but then Val’s name was Dartie,
and even if he were killed in battle or got the Victoria Cross,
it would not be at all the same as if his name were Forsyte. Not
even casualty or glory to the Haymans would be really
satisfactory. Family pride felt defrauded.
How the rumour arose, then, that “something very dreadful, my
dear,” was pending, no one, least of all Soames, could tell,
secret as he kept everything. Possibly some eye had seen “Forsyte
_v._ Forsyte and Forsyte,” in the cause list; and had added it to
“Irene in Paris with a fair beard.” Possibly some wall at Park
Lane had ears. The fact remained that it _was_ known—whispered
among the old, discussed among the young—that family pride must
soon receive a blow.
Soames, paying one of his Sunday visits to Timothy’s—paying it
with the feeling that after the suit came on he would be paying
no more—felt knowledge in the air as he came in. Nobody, of
course, dared speak of it before him, but each of the four other
Forsytes present held their breath, aware that nothing could
prevent Aunt Juley from making them all uncomfortable. She looked
so piteously at Soames, she checked herself on the point of
speech so often, that Aunt Hester excused herself and said she
must go and bathe Timothy’s eye—he had a sty coming. Soames,
impassive, slightly supercilious, did not stay long. He went out
with a curse stifled behind his pale, just smiling lips.
Fortunately for the peace of his mind, cruelly tortured by the
coming scandal, he was kept busy day and night with plans for his
retirement—for he had come to that grim conclusion. To go on
seeing all those people who had known him as a “long-headed
chap,” an astute adviser—after _that_—no! The fastidiousness and
pride which was so strangely, so inextricably blended in him with
possessive obtuseness, revolted against the thought. He would
retire, live privately, go on buying pictures, make a great name
as a collector—after all, his heart was more in that than it had
ever been in Law. In pursuance of this now fixed resolve, he had
to get ready to amalgamate his business with another firm without
letting people know, for that would excite curiosity and make
humiliation cast its shadow before. He had pitched on the firm of
Cuthcott, Holliday and Kingson, two of whom were dead. The full
name after the amalgamation would therefore be Cuthcott,
Holliday, Kingson, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte. But after debate
as to which of the dead still had any influence with the living,
it was decided to reduce the title to Cuthcott, Kingson and
Forsyte, of whom Kingson would be the active and Soames the
sleeping partner. For leaving his name, prestige, and clients
behind him, Soames would receive considerable value.
One night, as befitted a man who had arrived at so important a
stage of his career, he made a calculation of what he was worth,
and after writing off liberally for depreciation by the war,
found his value to be some hundred and thirty thousand pounds. At
his father’s death, which could not, alas, be delayed much
longer, he must come into at least another fifty thousand, and
his yearly expenditure at present just reached two. Standing
among his pictures, he saw before him a future full of bargains
earned by the trained faculty of knowing better than other
people. Selling what was about to decline, keeping what was still
going up, and exercising judicious insight into future taste, he
would make a unique collection, which at his death would pass to
the nation under the title “Forsyte Bequest.”
If the divorce went through, he had determined on his line with
Madame Lamotte. She had, he knew, but one real ambition—to live
on her “_rentes_” in Paris near her grandchildren. He would buy
the goodwill of the Restaurant Bretagne at a fancy price. Madame
would live like a Queen-Mother in Paris on the interest, invested
as she would know how. (Incidentally Soames meant to put a
capable manager in her place, and make the restaurant pay good
interest on his money. There were great possibilities in Soho.)
On Annette he would promise to settle fifteen thousand pounds
(whether designedly or not), precisely the sum old Jolyon had
settled on “that woman.”
A letter from Jolyon’s solicitor to his own had disclosed the
fact that “those two” were in Italy. And an opportunity had been
duly given for noting that they had first stayed at an hotel in