The Forsyte saga - Complete
unconscious, primitive, deep and wild, that neither he nor any
knew whether they had joined in uttering it. Strange sound,
indeed! Tribute of an Age to its own death.... Ah! Ah!... The
hold on life had slipped. That which had seemed eternal was gone!
The Queen—God bless her!
It moved on with the bier, that travelling groan, as a fire moves
on over grass in a thin line; it kept step, and marched alongside
down the dense crowds mile after mile. It was a human sound, and
yet inhuman, pushed out by animal subconsciousness, by intimate
knowledge of universal death and change. None of us—none of us
can hold on for ever!
It left silence for a little—a very little time, till tongues
began, eager to retrieve interest in the show. Soames lingered
just long enough to gratify Annette, then took her out of the
Park to lunch at his father’s in Park Lane....
James had spent the morning gazing out of his bedroom window. The
last show he would see, last of so many! So she was gone! Well,
she was getting an old woman. Swithin and he had seen her
crowned—slim slip of a girl, not so old as Imogen! She had got
very stout of late. Jolyon and he had seen her married to that
German chap, her husband—he had turned out all right before he
died, and left her with that son of his. And he remembered the
many evenings he and his brothers and their cronies had wagged
their heads over their wine and walnuts and that fellow in his
salad days. And now he had come to the throne. They said he had
steadied down—he didn’t know—couldn’t tell! He’d make the money
fly still, he shouldn’t wonder. What a lot of people out there!
It didn’t seem so very long since he and Swithin stood in the
crowd outside Westminster Abbey when she was crowned, and Swithin
had taken him to Cremorne afterwards—racketty chap, Swithin; no,
it didn’t seem much longer ago than Jubilee Year, when he had
joined with Roger in renting a balcony in Piccadilly.
Jolyon, Swithin, Roger all gone, and he would be ninety in
August! And there was Soames married again to a French girl. The
French were a queer lot, but they made good mothers, he had
heard. Things changed! They said this German Emperor was here for
the funeral, his telegram to old Kruger had been in shocking
taste. He should not be surprised if that chap made trouble some
day. Change! H’m! Well, they must look after themselves when he
was gone: he didn’t know where he’d be! And now Emily had asked
Dartie to lunch, with Winifred and Imogen, to meet Soames’
wife—she was always doing something. And there was Irene living
with that fellow Jolyon, they said. He’d marry her now, he
supposed.
“My brother Jolyon,” he thought, “what would he have said to it
all?” And somehow the utter impossibility of knowing what his
elder brother, once so looked up to, would have said, so worried
James that he got up from his chair by the window, and began
slowly, feebly to pace the room.
“She was a pretty thing, too,” he thought; “I was fond of her.
Perhaps Soames didn’t suit her—I don’t know—I can’t tell. We
never had any trouble with _our_ wives.” Women had changed
everything had changed! And now the Queen was dead—well, there it
was! A movement in the crowd brought him to a standstill at the
window, his nose touching the pane and whitening from the chill
of it. They had got her as far as Hyde Park Corner—they were
passing now! Why didn’t Emily come up here where she could see,
instead of fussing about lunch. He missed her at that
moment—missed her! Through the bare branches of the plane-trees
he could just see the procession, could see the hats coming off
the people’s heads—a lot of them would catch colds, he shouldn’t
wonder! A voice behind him said:
“You’ve got a capital view here, James!”
“_There_ you are!” muttered James; “why didn’t you come before?
You might have missed it!”
And he was silent, staring with all his might.
“What’s the noise?” he asked suddenly.
“There’s no noise,” returned Emily; “what are you thinking
of?—they wouldn’t cheer.”
“I can hear it.”
“Nonsense, James!”
No sound came through those double panes; what James heard was
the groaning in his own heart at sight of his Age passing.
“Don’t you ever tell me where I’m buried,” he said suddenly. “I
shan’t want to know.” And he turned from the window. There she
went, the old Queen; she’d had a lot of anxiety—she’d be glad to
be out of it, he should think!
Emily took up the hair-brushes.
“There’ll be just time to brush your head,” she said, “before
they come. You must look your best, James.”
“Ah!” muttered James; “they say she’s pretty.”
The meeting with his new daughter-in-law took place in the
dining-room. James was seated by the fire when she was brought
in. He placed, his hands on the arms of the chair and slowly
raised himself. Stooping and immaculate in his frock-coat, thin
as a line in Euclid, he received Annette’s hand in his; and the
anxious eyes of his furrowed face, which had lost its colour now,
doubted above her. A little warmth came into them and into his
cheeks, refracted from her bloom.
“How are you?” he said. “You’ve been to see the Queen, I suppose?
Did you have a good crossing?”
In this way he greeted her from whom he hoped for a grandson of
his name.
Gazing at him, so old, thin, white, and spotless, Annette
murmured something in French which James did not understand.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “you want your lunch, I expect. Soames, ring
the bell; we won’t wait for that chap Dartie.” But just then they
arrived. Dartie had refused to go out of his way to see “the old
girl.” With an early cocktail beside him, he had taken a “squint”
from the smoking-room of the Iseeum, so that Winifred and Imogen
had been obliged to come back from the Park to fetch him thence.
His brown eyes rested on Annette with a stare of almost startled
satisfaction. The second beauty that fellow Soames had picked up!
What women could see in him! Well, she would play him the same
trick as the other, no doubt; but in the meantime he was a lucky
devil! And he brushed up his moustache, having in nine months of
Green Street domesticity regained almost all his flesh and his
assurance. Despite the comfortable efforts of Emily, Winifred’s
composure, Imogen’s enquiring friendliness, Dartie’s showing-off,
and James’ solicitude about her food, it was not, Soames felt, a
successful lunch for his bride. He took her away very soon.
“That Monsieur Dartie,” said Annette in the cab, “_je n’aime pas
ce type-là!_”
“No, by George!” said Soames.
“Your sister is veree amiable, and the girl is pretty. Your
father is veree old. I think your mother has trouble with him; I
should not like to be her.”
Soames nodded at the shrewdness, the clear hard judgment in his
young wife; but it disquieted him a little. The thought may have
just flashed through him, too: “When I’m eighty she’ll be
fifty-five, having trouble with me!”
“There’s just one other house of my relations I must take you
to,” he said; “you’ll find it funny, but we must get it over; and
then we’ll dine and go to the theatre.”
In this way he prepared her for Timothy’s. But Timothy’s was
different. They were _delighted_ to see dear Soames after this
long long time; and so this was Annette!
“You are _so_ pretty, my dear; almost too young and pretty for
dear Soames, aren’t you? But he’s very attentive and careful—such
a good hush....” Aunt Juley checked herself, and placed her lips
just under each of Annette’s eyes—she afterwards described them
to Francie, who dropped in, as: “Cornflower-blue, so pretty, I
quite wanted to kiss them. I must say dear Soames is a perfect
connoisseur. In her French way, and not so very French either, I
think she’s as pretty—though not so distinguished, not so
alluring—as Irene. Because she was alluring, wasn’t she? with
that white skin and those dark eyes, and that hair, _couleur
de_—what was it? I always forget.”
“_Feuille morte_,” Francie prompted.
“Of course, dead leaves—so strange. I remember when I was a girl,
before we came to London, we had a foxhound puppy—to ‘walk’ it
was called then; it had a tan top to its head and a white chest,
and beautiful dark brown eyes, and it was a lady.”
“Yes, auntie,” said Francie, “but I don’t see the connection.”
“Oh!” replied Aunt Juley, rather flustered, “it was so alluring,
and her eyes and hair, you know....” She was silent, as if
surprised in some indelicacy. “_Feuille morte_,” she added
suddenly; “Hester—do remember that!”....
Considerable debate took place between the two sisters whether
Timothy should or should not be summoned to see Annette.
“Oh, don’t bother!” said Soames.
“But it’s no trouble, only of course Annette’s being French might
upset him a little. He was so scared about Fashoda. I think
perhaps we had better not run the risk, Hester. It’s nice to have
her all to ourselves, isn’t it? And how are you, Soames? Have you
quite got over your....”
Hester interposed hurriedly:
“What do you think of London, Annette?”
Soames, disquieted, awaited the reply. It came, sensible,
composed: “Oh! I know London. I have visited before.”
He had never ventured to speak to her on the subject of the
restaurant. The French had different notions about gentility, and
to shrink from connection with it might seem to her ridiculous;
he had waited to be married before mentioning it; and now he
wished he hadn’t.
“And what part do you know best?” said Aunt Juley.
“Soho,” said Annette simply.
Soames snapped his jaw.
“Soho?” repeated Aunt Juley; “Soho?”
“That’ll go round the family,” thought Soames.
“It’s very French, and interesting,” he said.
“Yes,” murmured Aunt Juley, “your Uncle Roger had some houses
there once; he was always having to turn the tenants out, I
remember.”
Soames changed the subject to Mapledurham.
“Of course,” said Aunt Juley, “you will be going down there soon
to settle in. We are all so looking forward to the time when
Annette has a dear little....”
“Juley!” cried Aunt Hester desperately, “ring tea!”
Soames dared not wait for tea, and took Annette away.
“I shouldn’t mention Soho if I were you,” he said in the cab.
“It’s rather a shady part of London; and you’re altogether above
that restaurant business now; I mean,” he added, “I want you to
know nice people, and the English are fearful snobs.”
Annette’s clear eyes opened; a little smile came on her lips.
“Yes?” she said.
“H’m!” thought Soames, “that’s meant for me!” and he looked at
her hard. “She’s got good business instincts,” he thought. “I
must make her grasp it once for all!”
“Look here, Annette! it’s very simple, only it wants