The Forsyte saga - Complete
glory of the upper-middle class. He had literally been forced
into auctioneering.
Once in the driving seat, with the reins handed to him, and
blinking over his pale old cheeks in the full sunlight, he took a
slow look round—Adolf was already up behind; the cockaded groom
at the horses’ heads stood ready to let go; everything was
prepared for the signal, and Swithin gave it. The equipage dashed
forward, and before you could say Jack Robinson, with a rattle
and flourish drew up at Soames’s door.
Irene came out at once, and stepped in—he afterward described it
at Timothy’s—“as light as—er—Taglioni, no fuss about it, no
wanting this or wanting that;” and above all, Swithin dwelt on
this, staring at Mrs. Septimus in a way that disconcerted her a
good deal, “no silly nervousness!” To Aunt Hester he portrayed
Irene’s hat. “Not one of your great flopping things, sprawling
about, and catching the dust, that women are so fond of nowadays,
but a neat little—” he made a circular motion of his hand, “white
veil—capital taste.”
“What was it made of?” inquired Aunt Hester, who manifested a
languid but permanent excitement at any mention of dress.
“Made of?” returned Swithin; “now how should I know?”
He sank into silence so profound that Aunt Hester began to be
afraid he had fallen into a trance. She did not try to rouse him
herself, it not being her custom.
“I wish somebody would come,” she thought; “I don’t like the look
of him!”
But suddenly Swithin returned to life. “Made of” he wheezed out
slowly, “what should it be made of?”
They had not gone four miles before Swithin received the
impression that Irene liked driving with him. Her face was so
soft behind that white veil, and her dark eyes shone so in the
spring light, and whenever he spoke she raised them to him and
smiled.
On Saturday morning Soames had found her at her writing-table
with a note written to Swithin, putting him off. Why did she want
to put him off? he asked. She might put her own people off when
she liked, he would not have her putting off _his_ people!
She had looked at him intently, had torn up the note, and said:
“Very well!”
And then she began writing another. He took a casual glance
presently, and saw that it was addressed to Bosinney.
“What are you writing to _him_ about?” he asked.
Irene, looking at him again with that intent look, said quietly:
“Something he wanted me to do for him!”
“Humph!” said Soames,—“Commissions!”
“You’ll have your work cut out if you begin that sort of thing!”
He said no more.
Swithin opened his eyes at the mention of Robin Hill; it was a
long way for his horses, and he always dined at half-past seven,
before the rush at the Club began; the new chef took more trouble
with an early dinner—a lazy rascal!
He would like to have a look at the house, however. A house
appealed to any Forsyte, and especially to one who had been an
auctioneer. After all he said the distance was nothing. When he
was a younger man he had had rooms at Richmond for many years,
kept his carriage and pair there, and drove them up and down to
business every day of his life.
Four-in-hand Forsyte they called him! His T-cart, his horses had
been known from Hyde Park Corner to the Star and Garter. The Duke
of Z.... wanted to get hold of them, would have given him double
the money, but he had kept them; know a good thing when you have
it, eh? A look of solemn pride came portentously on his shaven
square old face, he rolled his head in his stand-up collar, like
a turkey-cock preening himself.
She was really—a charming woman! He enlarged upon her frock
afterwards to Aunt Juley, who held up her hands at his way of
putting it.
Fitted her like a skin—tight as a drum; that was how he liked
’em, all of a piece, none of your daverdy, scarecrow women! He
gazed at Mrs. Septimus Small, who took after James—long and thin.
“There’s style about her,” he went on, “fit for a king! And she’s
so quiet with it too!”
“She seems to have made quite a conquest of you, any way,”
drawled Aunt Hester from her corner.
Swithin heard extremely well when anybody attacked him.
“What’s that?” he said. “I know a—pretty—woman when I see one,
and all I can say is, I don’t see the young man about that’s fit
for her; but perhaps—you—do, come, perhaps—you-do!”
“Oh?” murmured Aunt Hester, “ask Juley!”
Long before they reached Robin Hill, however, the unaccustomed
airing had made him terribly sleepy; he drove with his eyes
closed, a life-time of deportment alone keeping his tall and
bulky form from falling askew.
Bosinney, who was watching, came out to meet them, and all three
entered the house together; Swithin in front making play with a
stout gold-mounted Malacca cane, put into his hand by Adolf, for
his knees were feeling the effects of their long stay in the same
position. He had assumed his fur coat, to guard against the
draughts of the unfinished house.
The staircase—he said—was handsome! the baronial style! They
would want some statuary about! He came to a standstill between
the columns of the doorway into the inner court, and held out his
cane inquiringly.
What was this to be—this vestibule, or whatever they called it?
But gazing at the skylight, inspiration came to him.
“Ah! the billiard-room!”
When told it was to be a tiled court with plants in the centre,
he turned to Irene:
“Waste this on plants? You take my advice and have a billiard
table here!”
Irene smiled. She had lifted her veil, banding it like a nun’s
coif across her forehead, and the smile of her dark eyes below
this seemed to Swithin more charming than ever. He nodded. She
would take his advice he saw.
He had little to say of the drawing or dining-rooms, which he
described as “spacious”; but fell into such raptures as he
permitted to a man of his dignity, in the wine-cellar, to which
he descended by stone steps, Bosinney going first with a light.
“You’ll have room here,” he said, “for six or seven hundred
dozen—a very pooty little cellar!”
Bosinney having expressed the wish to show them the house from
the copse below, Swithin came to a stop.
“There’s a fine view from here,” he remarked; “you haven’t such a
thing as a chair?”
A chair was brought him from Bosinney’s tent.
“You go down,” he said blandly; “you two! I’ll sit here and look
at the view.”
He sat down by the oak tree, in the sun; square and upright, with
one hand stretched out, resting on the nob of his cane, the other
planted on his knee; his fur coat thrown open, his hat, roofing
with its flat top the pale square of his face; his stare, very
blank, fixed on the landscape.
He nodded to them as they went off down through the fields. He
was, indeed, not sorry to be left thus for a quiet moment of
reflection. The air was balmy, not too much heat in the sun; the
prospect a fine one, a remarka.... His head fell a little to one
side; he jerked it up and thought: Odd! He—ah! They were waving
to him from the bottom! He put up his hand, and moved it more
than once. They were active—the prospect was remar.... His head
fell to the left, he jerked it up at once; it fell to the right.
It remained there; he was asleep.
And asleep, a sentinel on the—top of the rise, he appeared to
rule over this prospect—remarkable—like some image blocked out by
the special artist, of primeval Forsytes in pagan days, to record
the domination of mind over matter!
And all the unnumbered generations of his yeoman ancestors, wont
of a Sunday to stand akimbo surveying their little plots of land,
their grey unmoving eyes hiding their instinct with its hidden
roots of violence, their instinct for possession to the exclusion
of all the world—all these unnumbered generations seemed to sit
there with him on the top of the rise.
But from him, thus slumbering, his jealous Forsyte spirit
travelled far, into God-knows-what jungle of fancies; with those
two young people, to see what they were doing down there in the
copse—in the copse where the spring was running riot with the
scent of sap and bursting buds, the song of birds innumerable, a
carpet of bluebells and sweet growing things, and the sun caught
like gold in the tops of the trees; to see what they were doing,
walking along there so close together on the path that was too
narrow; walking along there so close that they were always
touching; to watch Irene’s eyes, like dark thieves, stealing the
heart out of the spring. And a great unseen chaperon, his spirit
was there, stopping with them to look at the little furry corpse
of a mole, not dead an hour, with his mushroom-and-silver coat
untouched by the rain or dew; watching over Irene’s bent head,
and the soft look of her pitying eyes; and over that young man’s
head, gazing at her so hard, so strangely. Walking on with them,
too, across the open space where a wood-cutter had been at work,
where the bluebells were trampled down, and a trunk had swayed
and staggered down from its gashed stump. Climbing it with them,
over, and on to the very edge of the copse, whence there
stretched an undiscovered country, from far away in which came
the sounds, “Cuckoo-cuckoo!”
Silent, standing with them there, and uneasy at their silence!
Very queer, very strange!
Then back again, as though guilty, through the wood—back to the
cutting, still silent, amongst the songs of birds that never
ceased, and the wild scent—hum! what was it—like that herb they
put in—back to the log across the path....
And then unseen, uneasy, flapping above them, trying to make
noises, his Forsyte spirit watched her balanced on the log, her
pretty figure swaying, smiling down at that young man gazing up
with such strange, shining eyes, slipping now—a—ah! falling,
o—oh! sliding—down his breast; her soft, warm body clutched, her
head bent back from his lips; his kiss; her recoil; his cry: “You
must know—I love you!” Must know—indeed, a pretty...? Love! Hah!
Swithin awoke; virtue had gone out of him. He had a taste in his
mouth. Where was he?
Damme! He had been asleep!
He had dreamed something about a new soup, with a taste of mint
in it.
Those young people—where had they got to? His left leg had pins
and needles.
“Adolf!” The rascal was not there; the rascal was asleep
somewhere.
He stood up, tall, square, bulky in his fur, looking anxiously
down over the fields, and presently he saw them coming.
Irene was in front; that young fellow—what had they nicknamed
him—“The Buccaneer?” looked precious hangdog there behind her;
had got a flea in his ear, he shouldn’t wonder. Serve him right,
taking her down all that way to look at the house! The proper
place to look at a house from was the lawn.