The Forsyte saga - Complete
lips together, and said:
“Good news, dear, good—Annette, a son.”
“Ah!” It was the queerest sound, ugly, relieved, pitiful,
triumphant—like the noise a baby makes getting what it wants. The
eyes closed, and that strangled sound of breathing began again.
Soames recoiled to the chair and stonily sat down. The lie he had
told, based, as it were, on some deep, temperamental instinct
that after death James would not know the truth, had taken away
all power of feeling for the moment. His arm brushed against
something. It was his father’s naked foot. In the struggle to
breathe he had pushed it out from under the clothes. Soames took
it in his hand, a cold foot, light and thin, white, very cold.
What use to put it back, to wrap up that which must be colder
soon! He warmed it mechanically with his hand, listening to his
father’s laboured breathing; while the power of feeling rose
again within him. A little sob, quickly smothered, came from
Winifred, but his mother sat unmoving with her eyes fixed on
James. Soames signed to the nurse.
“Where’s the doctor?” he whispered.
“He’s been sent for.”
“Can’t you do anything to ease his breathing?”
“Only an injection; and he can’t stand it. The doctor said, while
he was fighting....”
“He’s not fighting,” whispered Soames, “he’s being slowly
smothered. It’s awful.”
James stirred uneasily, as if he knew what they were saying.
Soames rose and bent over him. James feebly moved his two hands,
and Soames took them.
“He wants to be pulled up,” whispered the nurse.
Soames pulled. He thought he pulled gently, but a look almost of
anger passed over James’ face. The nurse plumped the pillows.
Soames laid the hands down, and bending over kissed his father’s
forehead. As he was raising himself again, James’ eyes bent on
him a look which seemed to come from the very depths of what was
left within. “I’m done, my boy,” it seemed to say, “take care of
them, take care of yourself; take care—I leave it all to you.”
“Yes, Yes,” Soames whispered, “yes, yes.”
Behind him the nurse did he knew not what, for his father made a
tiny movement of repulsion as if resenting that interference; and
almost at once his breathing eased away, became quiet; he lay
very still. The strained expression on his face passed, a curious
white tranquillity took its place. His eyelids quivered, rested;
the whole face rested; at ease. Only by the faint puffing of his
lips could they tell that he was breathing. Soames sank back on
his chair, and fell to cherishing the foot again. He heard the
nurse quietly crying over there by the fire; curious that she, a
stranger, should be the only one of them who cried! He heard the
quiet lick and flutter of the fire flames. One more old Forsyte
going to his long rest—wonderful, they were!—wonderful how he had
held on! His mother and Winifred were leaning forward, hanging on
the sight of James’ lips. But Soames bent sideways over the feet,
warming them both; they gave him comfort, colder and colder
though they grew. Suddenly he started up; a sound, a dreadful
sound such as he had never heard, was coming from his father’s
lips, as if an outraged heart had broken with a long moan. What a
strong heart, to have uttered that farewell! It ceased. Soames
looked into the face. No motion; no breath! Dead! He kissed the
brow, turned round and went out of the room. He ran upstairs to
the bedroom, his old bedroom, still kept for him; flung himself
face down on the bed, and broke into sobs which he stilled with
the pillow....
A little later he went downstairs and passed into the room. James
lay alone, wonderfully calm, free from shadow and anxiety, with
the gravity on his ravaged face which underlies great age, the
worn fine gravity of old coins.
Soames looked steadily at that face, at the fire, at all the room
with windows thrown open to the London night.
“Good-bye!” he whispered, and went out.
CHAPTER XIV HIS
He had much to see to, that night and all next day. A telegram at
breakfast reassured him about Annette, and he only caught the
last train back to Reading, with Emily’s kiss on his forehead and
in his ears her words:
“I don’t know what I should have done without you, my dear boy.”
He reached his house at midnight. The weather had changed, was
mild again, as though, having finished its work and sent a
Forsyte to his last account, it could relax. A second telegram,
received at dinner-time, had confirmed the good news of Annette,
and, instead of going in, Soames passed down through the garden
in the moonlight to his houseboat. He could sleep there quite
well. Bitterly tired, he lay down on the sofa in his fur coat and
fell asleep. He woke soon after dawn and went on deck. He stood
against the rail, looking west where the river swept round in a
wide curve under the woods. In Soames, appreciation of natural
beauty was curiously like that of his farmer ancestors, a sense
of grievance if it wasn’t there, sharpened, no doubt, and
civilised, by his researches among landscape painting. But dawn
has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision, and he was
stirred. It was another world from the river he knew, under that
remote cool light; a world into which man had not entered, an
unreal world, like some strange shore sighted by discovery. Its
colour was not the colour of convention, was hardly colour at
all; its shapes were brooding yet distinct; its silence stunning;
it had no scent. Why it should move him he could not tell, unless
it were that he felt so alone in it, bare of all relationship and
all possessions. Into such a world his father might be voyaging,
for all resemblance it had to the world he had left. And Soames
took refuge from it in wondering what painter could have done it
justice. The white-grey water was like—like the belly of a fish!
Was it possible that this world on which he looked was all
private property, except the water—and even that was tapped! No
tree, no shrub, not a blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not
even a fish that was not owned. And once on a time all this was
jungle and marsh and water, and weird creatures roamed and
sported without human cognizance to give them names; rotting
luxuriance had rioted where those tall, carefully planted woods
came down to the water, and marsh-misted reeds on that far side
had covered all the pasture. Well! they had got it under,
kennelled it all up, labelled it, and stowed it in lawyers’
offices. And a good thing too! But once in a way, as now, the
ghost of the past came out to haunt and brood and whisper to any
human who chanced to be awake: “Out of my unowned loneliness you
all came, into it some day you will all return.”
And Soames, who felt the chill and the eeriness of that world—new
to him and so very old: the world, unowned, visiting the scene of
its past—went down and made himself tea on a spirit-lamp. When he
had drunk it, he took out writing materials and wrote two
paragraphs:
“On the 20th instant at his residence in Park Lane, James
Forsyte, in his ninety-first year. Funeral at noon on the 24th at
Highgate. No flowers by request.”
“On the 20th instant at The Shelter; Mapledurham, Annette, wife
of Soames Forsyte, of a daughter.” And underneath on the
blottingpaper he traced the word “son.”
It was eight o’clock in an ordinary autumn world when he went
across to the house. Bushes across the river stood round and
bright-coloured out of a milky haze; the wood-smoke went up blue
and straight; and his doves cooed, preening their feathers in the
sunlight.
He stole up to his dressing-room, bathed, shaved, put on fresh
linen and dark clothes.
Madame Lamotte was beginning her breakfast when he went down.
She looked at his clothes, said, “Don’t tell me!” and pressed his
hand. “Annette is prettee well. But the doctor say she can never
have no more children. You knew that?” Soames nodded. “It’s a
pity. _Mais la petite est adorable. Du café?_”
Soames got away from her as soon as he could. She offended
him—solid, matter-of-fact, quick, clear—_French_. He could not
bear her vowels, her “r’s”. he resented the way she had looked at
him, as if it were his fault that Annette could never bear him a
son! His fault! He even resented her cheap adoration of the
daughter he had not yet seen.
Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!
One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first
moment. On the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from
it—fastidious possessor that he was. He was afraid of what
Annette was thinking of him, author of her agonies, afraid of the
look of the baby, afraid of showing his disappointment with the
present and—the future.
He spent an hour walking up and down the drawing-room before he
could screw his courage up to mount the stairs and knock on the
door of their room.
Madame Lamotte opened it.
“Ah! At last you come! _Elle vous attend!_” She passed him, and
Soames went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set, his
eyes furtive.
Annette was very pale and very pretty lying there. The baby was
hidden away somewhere; he could not see it. He went up to the
bed, and with sudden emotion bent and kissed her forehead.
“Here you are then, Soames,” she said. “I am not so bad now. But
I suffered terribly, terribly. I am glad I cannot have any more.
Oh! how I suffered!”
Soames stood silent, stroking her hand; words of endearment, of
sympathy, absolutely would not come; the thought passed through
him: “An English girl wouldn’t have said that!” At this moment he
knew with certainty that he would never be near to her in spirit
and in truth, nor she to him. He had collected her—that was all!
And Jolyon’s words came rushing into his mind: “I should imagine
you will be glad to have your neck out of chancery.” Well, he had
got it out! Had he got it in again?
“We must feed you up,” he said, “you’ll soon be strong.”
“Don’t you want to see baby, Soames? She is asleep.”
“Of course,” said Soames, “very much.”
He passed round the foot of the bed to the other side and stood
staring. For the first moment what he saw was much what he had
expected to see—a baby. But as he stared and the baby breathed
and made little sleeping movements with its tiny features, it
seemed to assume an individual shape, grew to be like a picture,
a thing he would know again; not repulsive, strangely bud-like
and touching. It had dark hair. He touched it with his finger, he
wanted to see its eyes. They opened, they were dark—whether blue
or brown he could not tell. The eyes winked, stared, they had a
sort of sleepy depth in them. And suddenly his heart felt queer,
warm, as if elated.
“_Ma petite fleur!_” Annette said softly.