The Forsyte saga - Complete
He continued poring over the plans, while Bosinney went into his
bedroom to shave and dress.
The two walked back to Montpellier Square in silence, Soames
watching him out of the corner of his eye.
The Buccaneer was rather a good-looking fellow—so he thought—when
he was properly got up.
Irene was bending over her flowers when the two men came in.
She spoke of sending across the Park to fetch June.
“No, no,” said Soames, “we’ve still got business to talk over!”
At lunch he was almost cordial, and kept pressing Bosinney to
eat. He was pleased to see the architect in such high spirits,
and left him to spend the afternoon with Irene, while he stole
off to his pictures, after his Sunday habit. At tea-time he came
down to the drawing-room, and found them talking, as he expressed
it, nineteen to the dozen.
Unobserved in the doorway, he congratulated himself that things
were taking the right turn. It was lucky she and Bosinney got on;
she seemed to be falling into line with the idea of the new
house.
Quiet meditation among his pictures had decided him to spring the
five hundred if necessary; but he hoped that the afternoon might
have softened Bosinney’s estimates. It was so purely a matter
which Bosinney could remedy if he liked; there must be a dozen
ways in which he could cheapen the production of a house without
spoiling the effect.
He awaited, therefore, his opportunity till Irene was handing the
architect his first cup of tea. A chink of sunshine through the
lace of the blinds warmed her cheek, shone in the gold of her
hair, and in her soft eyes. Possibly the same gleam deepened
Bosinney’s colour, gave the rather startled look to his face.
Soames hated sunshine, and he at once got up, to draw the blind.
Then he took his own cup of tea from his wife, and said, more
coldly than he had intended:
“Can’t you see your way to do it for eight thousand after all?
There must be a lot of little things you could alter.”
Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his cup, and
answered:
“Not one!”
Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible
point of personal vanity.
“Well,” he agreed, with sulky resignation; “you must have it your
own way, I suppose.”
A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames rose too, to
see him off the premises. The architect seemed in absurdly high
spirits. After watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames
returned moodily to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting
away the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm of
curiosity, he asked:
“Well, what do you think of ‘The Buccaneer’?”
He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer, and he had
to wait some time.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.
“Do you think he’s good-looking?”
Irene smiled. And it seemed to Soames that she was mocking him.
“Yes,” she answered; “very.”
CHAPTER IX DEATH OF AUNT ANN
There came a morning at the end of September when Aunt Ann was
unable to take from Smither’s hands the insignia of personal
dignity. After one look at the old face, the doctor, hurriedly
sent for, announced that Miss Forsyte had passed away in her
sleep.
Aunts Juley and Hester were overwhelmed by the shock. They had
never imagined such an ending. Indeed, it is doubtful whether
they had ever realized that an ending was bound to come. Secretly
they felt it unreasonable of Ann to have left them like this
without a word, without even a struggle. It was unlike her.
Perhaps what really affected them so profoundly was the thought
that a Forsyte should have let go her grasp on life. If one, then
why not all!
It was a full hour before they could make up their minds to tell
Timothy. If only it could be kept from him! If only it could be
broken to him by degrees!
And long they stood outside his door whispering together. And
when it was over they whispered together again.
He would feel it more, they were afraid, as time went on. Still,
he had taken it better than could have been expected. He would
keep his bed, of course!
They separated, crying quietly.
Aunt Juley stayed in her room, prostrated by the blow. Her face,
discoloured by tears, was divided into compartments by the little
ridges of pouting flesh which had swollen with emotion. It was
impossible to conceive of life without Ann, who had lived with
her for seventy-three years, broken only by the short interregnum
of her married life, which seemed now so unreal. At fixed
intervals she went to her drawer, and took from beneath the
lavender bags a fresh pocket-handkerchief. Her warm heart could
not bear the thought that Ann was lying there so cold.
Aunt Hester, the silent, the patient, that backwater of the
family energy, sat in the drawing-room, where the blinds were
drawn; and she, too, had wept at first, but quietly, without
visible effect. Her guiding principle, the conservation of
energy, did not abandon her in sorrow. She sat, slim, motionless,
studying the grate, her hands idle in the lap of her black silk
dress. They would want to rouse her into doing something, no
doubt. As if there were any good in that! Doing something would
not bring back Ann! Why worry her?
Five o’clock brought three of the brothers, Jolyon and James and
Swithin; Nicholas was at Yarmouth, and Roger had a bad attack of
gout. Mrs. Hayman had been by herself earlier in the day, and,
after seeing Ann, had gone away, leaving a message for
Timothy—which was kept from him—that she ought to have been told
sooner. In fact, there was a feeling amongst them all that they
ought to have been told sooner, as though they had missed
something; and James said:
“I knew how it’d be; I told you she wouldn’t last through the
summer.”
Aunt Hester made no reply; it was nearly October, but what was
the good of arguing; some people were never satisfied.
She sent up to tell her sister that the brothers were there. Mrs.
Small came down at once. She had bathed her face, which was still
swollen, and though she looked severely at Swithin’s trousers,
for they were of light blue—he had come straight from the club,
where the news had reached him—she wore a more cheerful
expression than usual, the instinct for doing the wrong thing
being even now too strong for her.
Presently all five went up to look at the body. Under the pure
white sheet a quilted counter-pane had been placed, for now, more
than ever, Aunt Ann had need of warmth; and, the pillows removed,
her spine and head rested flat, with the semblance of their
life-long inflexibility; the coif banding the top of her brow was
drawn on either side to the level of the ears, and between it and
the sheet her face, almost as white, was turned with closed eyes
to the faces of her brothers and sisters. In its extraordinary
peace the face was stronger than ever, nearly all bone now under
the scarce-wrinkled parchment of skin—square jaw and chin,
cheekbones, forehead with hollow temples, chiselled nose—the
fortress of an unconquerable spirit that had yielded to death,
and in its upward sightlessness seemed trying to regain that
spirit, to regain the guardianship it had just laid down.
Swithin took but one look at the face, and left the room; the
sight, he said afterwards, made him very queer. He went
downstairs shaking the whole house, and, seizing his hat,
clambered into his brougham, without giving any directions to the
coachman. He was driven home, and all the evening sat in his
chair without moving.
He could take nothing for dinner but a partridge, with an
imperial pint of champagne....
Old Jolyon stood at the bottom of the bed, his hands folded in
front of him. He alone of those in the room remembered the death
of his mother, and though he looked at Ann, it was of that he was
thinking. Ann was an old woman, but death had come to her at
last—death came to all! His face did not move, his gaze seemed
travelling from very far.
Aunt Hester stood beside him. She did not cry now, tears were
exhausted—her nature refused to permit a further escape of force;
she twisted her hands, looking not at Ann, but from side to side,
seeking some way of escaping the effort of realization.
Of all the brothers and sisters James manifested the most
emotion. Tears rolled down the parallel furrows of his thin face;
where he should go now to tell his troubles he did not know;
Juley was no good, Hester worse than useless! He felt Ann’s death
more than he had ever thought he should; this would upset him for
weeks!
Presently Aunt Hester stole out, and Aunt Juley began moving
about, doing “what was necessary,” so that twice she knocked
against something. Old Jolyon, roused from his reverie, that
reverie of the long, long past, looked sternly at her, and went
away. James alone was left by the bedside; glancing stealthily
round, to see that he was not observed, he twisted his long body
down, placed a kiss on the dead forehead, then he, too, hastily
left the room. Encountering Smither in the hall, he began to ask
her about the funeral, and, finding that she knew nothing,
complained bitterly that, if they didn’t take care, everything
would go wrong. She had better send for Mr. Soames—he knew all
about that sort of thing; her master was very much upset, he
supposed—he would want looking after; as for her mistresses, they
were no good—they had no gumption! They would be ill too, he
shouldn’t wonder. She had better send for the doctor; it was best
to take things in time. He didn’t think his sister Ann had had
the best opinion; if she’d had Blank she would have been alive
now. Smither might send to Park Lane any time she wanted advice.
Of course, his carriage was at their service for the funeral. He
supposed she hadn’t such a thing as a glass of claret and a
biscuit—he had had no lunch!
The days before the funeral passed quietly. It had long been
known, of course, that Aunt Ann had left her little property to
Timothy. There was, therefore, no reason for the slightest
agitation. Soames, who was sole executor, took charge of all
arrangements, and in due course sent out the following invitation
to every male member of the family:
_“To——
“Your presence is requested at the funeral of Miss Ann
Forsyte, in Highgate Cemetery, at noon of Oct. 1st. Carriages
will meet at ‘The Bower,’ Bayswater Road, at 10.45. No
flowers by request.
“R.S.V.P.”_
The morning came, cold, with a high, grey, London sky, and at
half-past ten the first carriage, that of James, drove up. It
contained James and his son-in-law Dartie, a fine man, with a
square chest, buttoned very tightly into a frock coat, and a
sallow, fattish face adorned with dark, well-curled moustaches,