The Forsyte saga - Complete
she doesn’t care twopence about you, and, you’ll find it out. But
you won’t see so much of her in future; we’re going to live in
the country.”
He had been glad to get his news out under cover of this burst of
irritation. He had expected a cry of dismay; the silence with
which his pronouncement was received alarmed him.
“You don’t seem interested,” he was obliged to add.
“I knew it already.”
He looked at her sharply.
“Who told you?”
“June.”
“How did she know?”
Irene did not answer. Baffled and uncomfortable, he said:
“It’s a fine thing for Bosinney, it’ll be the making of him. I
suppose she’s told you all about it?”
“Yes.”
There was another pause, and then Soames said:
“I suppose you don’t want to, go?”
Irene made no reply.
“Well, I can’t tell what you want. You never seem contented
here.”
“Have my wishes anything to do with it?”
She took the vase of roses and left the room. Soames remained
seated. Was it for this that he had signed that contract? Was it
for this that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds?
Bosinney’s phrase came back to him: “Women are the devil!”
But presently he grew calmer. It might have been worse. She might
have flared up. He had expected something more than this. It was
lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him. She must
have wormed it out of Bosinney; he might have known she would.
He lighted his cigarette. After all, Irene had not made a scene!
She would come round—that was the best of her; she was cold, but
not sulky. And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a lady-bird on the
shining table, he plunged into a reverie about the house. It was
no good worrying; he would go and make it up presently. She would
be sitting out there in the dark, under the Japanese sunshade,
knitting. A beautiful, warm night....
In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining eyes, and
the words: “Soames is a brick! It’s splendid for Phil—the very
thing for him!”
Irene’s face remaining dark and puzzled, she went on:
“Your new house at Robin Hill, of course. What? Don’t you know?”
Irene did not know.
“Oh! then, I suppose I oughtn’t to have told you!” Looking
impatiently at her friend, she cried: “You look as if you didn’t
care. Don’t you see, it’s what I’ve been praying for—the very
chance he’s been wanting all this time. Now you’ll see what he
can do;” and thereupon she poured out the whole story.
Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested in
her friend’s position; the hours she spent with Irene were given
to confidences of her own; and at times, for all her affectionate
pity, it was impossible to keep out of her smile a trace of
compassionate contempt for the woman who had made such a mistake
in her life—such a vast, ridiculous mistake.
“He’s to have all the decorations as well—a free hand. It’s
perfect—” June broke into laughter, her little figure quivered
gleefully; she raised her hand, and struck a blow at a muslin
curtain. “Do you, know I even asked Uncle James....” But, with a
sudden dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped; and
presently, finding her friend so unresponsive, went away. She
looked back from the pavement, and Irene was still standing in
the doorway. In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her hand
to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door....
Soames went to the drawing-room presently, and peered at her
through the window.
Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade she was sitting very
still, the lace on her white shoulders stirring with the soft
rise and fall of her bosom.
But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless, in
the dark, there seemed a warmth, a hidden fervour of feeling, as
if the whole of her being had been stirred, and some change were
taking place in its very depths.
He stole back to the dining-room unnoticed.
CHAPTER VI JAMES AT LARGE
It was not long before Soames’s determination to build went the
round of the family, and created the flutter that any decision
connected with property should make among Forsytes.
It was not his fault, for he had been determined that no one
should know. June, in the fulness of her heart, had told Mrs.
Small, giving her leave only to tell Aunt Ann—she thought it
would cheer her, the poor old sweet! for Aunt Ann had kept her
room now for many days.
Mrs. Small told Aunt Ann at once, who, smiling as she lay back on
her pillows, said in her distinct, trembling old voice:
“It’s very nice for dear June; but I hope they will be
careful—it’s rather dangerous!”
When she was left alone again, a frown, like a cloud presaging a
rainy morrow, crossed her face.
While she was lying there so many days the process of recharging
her will went on all the time; it spread to her face, too, and
tightening movements were always in action at the corners of her
lips.
The maid Smither, who had been in her service since girlhood, and
was spoken of as “Smither—a good girl—but so slow!”—the maid
Smither performed every morning with extreme punctiliousness the
crowning ceremony of that ancient toilet. Taking from the
recesses of their pure white band-box those flat, grey curls, the
insignia of personal dignity, she placed them securely in her
mistress’s hands, and turned her back.
And every day Aunts Juley and Hester were required to come and
report on Timothy; what news there was of Nicholas; whether dear
June had succeeded in getting Jolyon to shorten the engagement,
now that Mr. Bosinney was building Soames a house; whether young
Roger’s wife was really—expecting; how the operation on Archie
had succeeded; and what Swithin had done about that empty house
in Wigmore Street, where the tenant had lost all his money and
treated him so badly; above all, about Soames; was Irene
still—still asking for a separate room? And every morning Smither
was told: “I shall be coming down this afternoon, Smither, about
two o’clock. I shall want your arm, after all these days in bed!”
After telling Aunt Ann, Mrs. Small had spoken of the house in the
strictest confidence to Mrs. Nicholas, who in her turn had asked
Winifred Dartie for confirmation, supposing, of course, that,
being Soames’s sister, she would know all about it. Through her
it had in due course come round to the ears of James. He had been
a good deal agitated.
“Nobody,” he said, “told him anything.” And, rather than go
direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he
took his umbrella and went round to Timothy’s.
He found Mrs. Septimus and Hester (who had been told—she was so
safe, she found it tiring to talk) ready, and indeed eager, to
discuss the news. It was very good of dear Soames, they thought,
to employ Mr. Bosinney, but rather risky. What had George named
him? “The Buccaneer!” How droll! But George was always droll!
However, it would be all in the family they supposed they must
really look upon Mr. Bosinney as belonging to the family, though
it seemed strange.
James here broke in:
“Nobody knows anything about him. I don’t see what Soames wants
with a young man like that. I shouldn’t be surprised if Irene had
put her oar in. I shall speak to....”
“Soames,” interposed Aunt Juley, “told Mr. Bosinney that he
didn’t wish it mentioned. He wouldn’t like it to be talked about,
I’m sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed, I....”
James put his hand behind his ear:
“What?” he said. “I’m getting very deaf. I suppose I don’t hear
people. Emily’s got a bad toe. We shan’t be able to start for
Wales till the end of the month. There’s always something!” And,
having got what he wanted, he took his hat and went away.
It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the Park towards
Soames’s, where he intended to dine, for Emily’s toe kept her in
bed, and Rachel and Cicely were on a visit to the country. He
took the slanting path from the Bayswater side of the Row to the
Knightsbridge Gate, across a pasture of short, burnt grass,
dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with seated couples and
strange waifs; lying prone on their faces, like corpses on a
field over which the wave of battle has rolled.
He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to right nor
left. The appearance of this park, the centre of his own
battle-field, where he had all his life been fighting, excited no
thought or speculation in his mind. These corpses flung down,
there, from out the press and turmoil of the struggle, these
pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of idle Elysium
snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no
fancies in his mind; he had outlived that kind of imagination;
his nose, like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures
on which he browsed.
One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition to be
behind-hand in his rent, and it had become a grave question
whether he had not better turn him out at once, and so run the
risk of not re-letting before Christmas. Swithin had just been
let in very badly, but it had served him right—he had held on too
long.
He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his umbrella
carefully by the wood, just below the crook of the handle, so as
to keep the ferule off the ground, and not fray the silk in the
middle. And, with his thin, high shoulders stooped, his long legs
moving with swift mechanical precision, this passage through the
Park, where the sun shone with a clear flame on so much
idleness—on so many human evidences of the remorseless battle of
Property, raging beyond its ring—was like the flight of some land
bird across the sea.
He felt a touch on the arm as he came out at Albert Gate.
It was Soames, who, crossing from the shady side of Piccadilly,
where he had been walking home from the office, had suddenly
appeared alongside.
“Your mother’s in bed,” said James; “I was just coming to you,
but I suppose I shall be in the way.”
The outward relations between James and his son were marked by a
lack of sentiment peculiarly Forsytean, but for all that the two
were by no means unattached. Perhaps they regarded one another as
an investment; certainly they were solicitous of each other’s
welfare, glad of each other’s company. They had never exchanged
two words upon the more intimate problems of life, or revealed in
each other’s presence the existence of any deep feeling.
Something beyond the power of word-analysis bound them together,
something hidden deep in the fibre of nations and families—for
blood, they say, is thicker than water—and neither of them was a
cold-blooded man. Indeed, in James love of his children was now
the prime motive of his existence. To have creatures who were