The Forsyte saga - Complete
trouble, and it was some satisfaction to see them getting into a
stew at last lest the whole thing might come down with a run—and
land them in the soup.
The offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte occupied the ground
and first floors of a house on the right-hand side; and,
ascending to his room, Soames thought: 'Time we had a coat of
paint.'
His old clerk Gradman was seated, where he always was, at a huge
bureau with countless pigeonholes. Half-the-clerk stood beside
him, with a broker's note recording investment of the proceeds
from sale of the Bryanston Square house, in Roger Forsyte's
estate. Soames took it, and said:
“Vancouver City Stock. H'm. It's down today!”
With a sort of grating ingratiation old Gradman answered him:
“Ye-es; but everything's down, Mr. Soames.” And half-the-clerk
withdrew.
Soames skewered the document on to a number of other papers and
hung up his hat.
“I want to look at my Will and Marriage Settlement, Gradman.”
Old Gradman, moving to the limit of his swivel chair, drew out
two drafts from the bottom lefthand drawer. Recovering his body,
he raised his grizzle-haired face, very red from stooping.
“Copies, Sir.”
Soames took them. It struck him suddenly how like Gradman was to
the stout brindled yard dog they had been wont to keep on his
chain at The Shelter, till one day Fleur had come and insisted it
should be let loose, so that it had at once bitten the cook and
been destroyed. If you let Gradman off his chain, would he bite
the cook?
Checking this frivolous fancy, Soames unfolded his Marriage
Settlement. He had not looked at it for over eighteen years, not
since he remade his Will when his father died and Fleur was born.
He wanted to see whether the words “during coverture” were in.
Yes, they were—odd expression, when you thought of it, and
derived perhaps from horse-breeding! Interest on fifteen thousand
pounds (which he paid her without deducting income tax) so long
as she remained his wife, and afterward during widowhood “dum
casta”—old-fashioned and rather pointed words, put in to insure
the conduct of Fleur's mother. His Will made it up to an annuity
of a thousand under the same conditions. All right! He returned
the copies to Gradman, who took them without looking up, swung
the chair, restored the papers to their drawer, and went on
casting up.
“Gradman! I don't like the condition of the country; there are a
lot of people about without any common sense. I want to find a
way by which I can safeguard Miss Fleur against anything which
might arise.”
Gradman wrote the figure “2” on his blotting-paper.
“Ye-es,” he said; “there's a nahsty spirit.”
“The ordinary restraint against anticipation doesn't meet the
case.”
“Nao,” said Gradman.
“Suppose those Labour fellows come in, or worse! It's these
people with fixed ideas who are the danger. Look at Ireland!”
“Ah!” said Gradman.
“Suppose I were to make a settlement on her at once with myself
as beneficiary for life, they couldn't take anything but the
interest from me, unless of course they alter the law.”
Gradman moved his head and smiled.
“Ah!” he said, “they wouldn't do tha-at!”
“I don't know,” muttered Soames; “I don't trust them.”
“It'll take two years, sir, to be valid against death duties.”
Soames sniffed. Two years! He was only sixty-five!
“That's not the point. Draw a form of settlement that passes all
my property to Miss Fleur's children in equal shares, with
antecedent life-interests first to myself and then to her without
power of anticipation, and add a clause that in the event of
anything happening to divert her life-interest, that interest
passes to the trustees, to apply for her benefit, in their
absolute discretion.”
Gradman grated: “Rather extreme at your age, sir; you lose
control.”
“That's my business,” said Soames sharply.
Gradman wrote on a piece of paper:
“Life-interest—anticipation—divert interest—absolute
discretion....” and said:
“What trustees? There's young Mr. Kingson; he's a nice steady
young fellow.”
“Yes, he might do for one. I must have three. There isn't a
Forsyte now who appeals to me.”
“Not young Mr. Nicholas? He's at the Bar. We've given 'im
briefs.”
“He'll never set the Thames on fire,” said Soames.
A smile oozed out on Gradman's face, greasy from countless
mutton-chops, the smile of a man who sits all day.
“You can't expect it, at his age, Mr. Soames.”
“Why? What is he? Forty?”
“Ye-es, quite a young fellow.”
“Well, put him in; but I want somebody who'll take a personal
interest. There's no one that I can see.”
“What about Mr. Valerius, now he's come home?”
“Val Dartie? With that father?”
“We-ell,” murmured Gradman, “he's been dead seven years—the
Statute runs against him.”
“No,” said Soames. “I don't like the connection.” He rose.
Gradman said suddenly:
“If they were makin' a levy on capital, they could come on the
trustees, sir. So there you'd be just the same. I'd think it
over, if I were you.”
“That's true,” said Soames. “I will. What have you done about
that dilapidation notice in Vere Street?”
“I 'aven't served it yet. The party's very old. She won't want to
go out at her age.”
“I don't know. This spirit of unrest touches every one.”
“Still, I'm lookin' at things broadly, sir. She's eighty-one.”
“Better serve it,” said Soames, “and see what she says. Oh! and
Mr. Timothy? Is everything in order in case of—”
“I've got the inventory of his estate all ready; had the
furniture and pictures valued so that we know what reserves to
put on. I shall be sorry when he goes, though. Dear me! It is a
time since I first saw Mr. Timothy!”
“We can't live for ever,” said Soames, taking down his hat.
“Nao,” said Gradman; “but it'll be a pity—the last of the old
family! Shall I take up the matter of that nuisance in Old
Compton Street? Those organs—they're nahsty things.”
“Do. I must call for Miss Fleur and catch the four o'clock.
Good-day, Gradman.”
“Good-day, Mr. Soames. I hope Miss Fleur—”
“Well enough, but gads about too much.”
“Ye-es,” grated Gradman; “she's young.”
Soames went out, musing: “Old Gradman! If he were younger I'd put
him in the trust. There's nobody I can depend on to take a real
interest.”
Leaving the bilious and mathematical exactitude, the preposterous
peace of that backwater, he thought suddenly: 'During coverture!
Why can't they exclude fellows like Profond, instead of a lot of
hard-working Germans?' and was surprised at the depth of
uneasiness which could provoke so unpatriotic a thought. But
there it was! One never got a moment of real peace. There was
always something at the back of everything! And he made his way
toward Green Street.
Two hours later by his watch, Thomas Gradman, stirring in his
swivel chair, closed the last drawer of his bureau, and putting
into his waistcoat pocket a bunch of keys so fat that they gave
him a protuberance on the liver side, brushed his old top hat
round with his sleeve, took his umbrella, and descended. Thick,
short, and buttoned closely into his old frock coat, he walked
toward Covent Garden market. He never missed that daily promenade
to the Tube for Highgate, and seldom some critical transaction on
the way in connection with vegetables and fruit. Generations
might be born, and hats might change, wars be fought, and
Forsytes fade away, but Thomas Gradman, faithful and grey, would
take his daily walk and buy his daily vegetable. Times were not
what they were, and his son had lost a leg, and they never gave
him those nice little plaited baskets to carry the stuff in now,
and these Tubes were convenient things—still he mustn't complain;
his health was good considering his time of life, and after
fifty-four years in the Law he was getting a round eight hundred
a year and a little worried of late, because it was mostly
collector's commission on the rents, and with all this conversion
of Forsyte property going on, it looked like drying up, and the
price of living still so high; but it was no good worrying—“The
good God made us all”—as he was in the habit of saying; still,
house property in London—he didn't know what Mr. Roger or Mr.
James would say if they could see it being sold like this—seemed
to show a lack of faith; but Mr. Soames—he worried. Life and
lives in being and twenty-one years after—beyond that you
couldn't go; still, he kept his health wonderfully—and Miss Fleur
was a pretty little thing—she was; she'd marry; but lots of
people had no children nowadays—he had had his first child at
twenty-two; and Mr. Jolyon, married while he was at Cambridge,
had his child the same year—gracious Peter! That was back in '69,
a long time before old Mr. Jolyon—fine judge of property—had
taken his Will away from Mr. James—dear, yes! Those were the days
when they were buyin' property right and left, and none of this
khaki and fallin' over one another to get out of things; and
cucumbers at twopence; and a melon—the old melons, that made your
mouth water! Fifty years since he went into Mr. James' office,
and Mr. James had said to him: “Now, Gradman, you're only a
shaver—you pay attention, and you'll make your five hundred a
year before you've done.” And he had, and feared God, and served
the Forsytes, and kept a vegetable diet at night. And, buying a
copy of John Bull—not that he approved of it, an extravagant
affair—he entered the Tube elevator with his mere brown-paper
parcel, and was borne down into the bowels of the earth.
VI.—SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE
On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that he ought to
go into Dumetrius' in Suffolk Street about the possibility of the
Bolderby Old Crome. Almost worth while to have fought the war to
have the Bolderby Old Crome, as it were, in flux! Old Bolderby
had died, his son and grandson had been killed—a cousin was
coming into the estate, who meant to sell it, some said because
of the condition of England, others said because he had asthma.
If Dumetrius once got hold of it the price would become
prohibitive; it was necessary for Soames to find out whether
Dumetrius had got it, before he tried to get it himself. He
therefore confined himself to discussing with Dumetrius whether
Monticellis would come again now that it was the fashion for a
picture to be anything except a picture; and the future of Johns,
with a side-slip into Buxton Knights. It was only when leaving
that he added: “So they're not selling the Bolderby Old Crome,
after all?” In sheer pride of racial superiority, as he had
calculated would be the case, Dumetrius replied:
“Oh! I shall get it, Mr. Forsyte, sir!”