The Forsyte saga - Complete
They saw him. He extended his arm, and moved it spasmodically to
encourage them. But they had stopped. What were they standing
there for, talking—talking? They came on again. She had been
giving him a rub, he had not the least doubt of it, and no
wonder, over a house like that—a great ugly thing, not the sort
of house he was accustomed to.
He looked intently at their faces, with his pale, immovable
stare. That young man looked very queer!
“You’ll never make anything of this!” he said tartly, pointing at
the mansion;—“too newfangled!”
Bosinney gazed at him as though he had not heard; and Swithin
afterwards described him to Aunt Hester as “an extravagant sort
of fellow very odd way of looking at you—a bumpy beggar!”
What gave rise to this sudden piece of psychology he did not
state; possibly Bosinney’s prominent forehead and cheekbones and
chin, or something hungry in his face, which quarrelled with
Swithin’s conception of the calm satiety that should characterize
the perfect gentleman.
He brightened up at the mention of tea. He had a contempt for
tea—his brother Jolyon had been in tea; made a lot of money by
it—but he was so thirsty, and had such a taste in his mouth, that
he was prepared to drink anything. He longed to inform Irene of
the taste in his mouth—she was so sympathetic—but it would not be
a distinguished thing to do; he rolled his tongue round, and
faintly smacked it against his palate.
In a far corner of the tent Adolf was bending his cat-like
moustaches over a kettle. He left it at once to draw the cork of
a pint-bottle of champagne. Swithin smiled, and, nodding at
Bosinney, said: “Why, you’re quite a Monte Cristo!” This
celebrated novel—one of the half-dozen he had read—had produced
an extraordinary impression on his mind.
Taking his glass from the table, he held it away from him to
scrutinize the colour; thirsty as he was, it was not likely that
he was going to drink trash! Then, placing it to his lips, he
took a sip.
“A very nice wine,” he said at last, passing it before his nose;
“not the equal of my Heidsieck!”
It was at this moment that the idea came to him which he
afterwards imparted at Timothy’s in this nutshell: “I shouldn’t
wonder a bit if that architect chap were sweet upon Mrs. Soames!”
And from this moment his pale, round eyes never ceased to bulge
with the interest of his discovery.
“The fellow,” he said to Mrs. Septimus, “follows her about with
his eyes like a dog—the bumpy beggar! I don’t wonder at it—she’s
a very charming woman, and, I should say, the pink of
discretion!” A vague consciousness of perfume caging about Irene,
like that from a flower with half-closed petals and a passionate
heart, moved him to the creation of this image. “But I wasn’t
sure of it,” he said, “till I saw him pick up her handkerchief.”
Mrs. Small’s eyes boiled with excitement.
“And did he give it her back?” she asked.
“Give it back?” said Swithin: “I saw him slobber on it when he
thought I wasn’t looking!”
Mrs. Small gasped—too interested to speak.
“But _she_ gave him no encouragement,” went on Swithin; he
stopped, and stared for a minute or two in the way that alarmed
Aunt Hester so—he had suddenly recollected that, as they were
starting back in the phaeton, she had given Bosinney her hand a
second time, and let it stay there too.... He had touched his
horses smartly with the whip, anxious to get her all to himself.
But she had looked back, and she had not answered his first
question; neither had he been able to see her face—she had kept
it hanging down.
There is somewhere a picture, which Swithin has not seen, of a
man sitting on a rock, and by him, immersed in the still, green
water, a sea-nymph lying on her back, with her hand on her naked
breast. She has a half-smile on her face—a smile of hopeless
surrender and of secret joy.
Seated by Swithin’s side, Irene may have been smiling like that.
When, warmed by champagne, he had her all to himself, he
unbosomed himself of his wrongs; of his smothered resentment
against the new chef at the club; his worry over the house in
Wigmore Street, where the rascally tenant had gone bankrupt
through helping his brother-in-law as if charity did not begin at
home; of his deafness, too, and that pain he sometimes got in his
right side. She listened, her eyes swimming under their lids. He
thought she was thinking deeply of his troubles, and pitied
himself terribly. Yet in his fur coat, with frogs across the
breast, his top hat aslant, driving this beautiful woman, he had
never felt more distinguished.
A coster, however, taking his girl for a Sunday airing, seemed to
have the same impression about himself. This person had flogged
his donkey into a gallop alongside, and sat, upright as a
waxwork, in his shallopy chariot, his chin settled pompously on a
red handkerchief, like Swithin’s on his full cravat; while his
girl, with the ends of a fly-blown boa floating out behind, aped
a woman of fashion. Her swain moved a stick with a ragged bit of
string dangling from the end, reproducing with strange fidelity
the circular flourish of Swithin’s whip, and rolled his head at
his lady with a leer that had a weird likeness to Swithin’s
primeval stare.
Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian’s presence,
Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed.
He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots,
however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast.
Swithin’s yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash
the costermonger, but was saved from so far forgetting his
dignity by a special intervention of Providence. A carriage
driving out through a gate forced phaeton and donkey-cart into
proximity; the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle skidded, and
was overturned.
Swithin did not look round. On no account would he have pulled up
to help the ruffian. Serve him right if he had broken his neck!
But he could not if he would. The greys had taken alarm. The
phaeton swung from side to side, and people raised frightened
faces as they went dashing past. Swithin’s great arms, stretched
at full length, tugged at the reins. His cheeks were puffed, his
lips compressed, his swollen face was of a dull, angry red.
Irene had her hand on the rail, and at every lurch she gripped it
tightly. Swithin heard her ask:
“Are we going to have an accident, Uncle Swithin?”
He gasped out between his pants: “It’s nothing; a—little fresh!”
“I’ve never been in an accident.”
“Don’t you move!” He took a look at her. She was smiling,
perfectly calm. “Sit still,” he repeated. “Never fear, I’ll get
you home!”
And in the midst of all his terrible efforts, he was surprised to
hear her answer in a voice not like her own:
_“I don’t care if I never get home!”_
The carriage giving a terrific lurch, Swithin’s exclamation was
jerked back into his throat. The horses, winded by the rise of a
hill, now steadied to a trot, and finally stopped of their own
accord.
“When”—Swithin described it at Timothy’s—“I pulled ’em up, there
she was as cool as myself. God bless my soul! she behaved as if
she didn’t care whether she broke her neck or not! What was it
she said: ‘I don’t care if I never get home?’ Leaning over the
handle of his cane, he wheezed out, to Mrs. Small’s terror: “And
I’m not altogether surprised, with a finickin’ feller like young
Soames for a husband!”
It did not occur to him to wonder what Bosinney had done after
they had left him there alone; whether he had gone wandering
about like the dog to which Swithin had compared him; wandering
down to that copse where the spring was still in riot, the cuckoo
still calling from afar; gone down there with her handkerchief
pressed to lips, its fragrance mingling with the scent of mint
and thyme. Gone down there with such a wild, exquisite pain in
his heart that he could have cried out among the trees. Or what,
indeed, the fellow had done. In fact, till he came to Timothy’s,
Swithin had forgotten all about him.
CHAPTER IV JAMES GOES TO SEE FOR HIMSELF
Those ignorant of Forsyte ’Change would not, perhaps, foresee all
the stir made by Irene’s visit to the house.
After Swithin had related at Timothy’s the full story of his
memorable drive, the same, with the least suspicion of curiosity,
the merest touch of malice, and a real desire to do good, was
passed on to June.
“And what a _dreadful_ thing to say, my dear!” ended Aunt Juley;
“that about not going home. What did she mean?”
It was a strange recital for the girl. She heard it flushing
painfully, and, suddenly, with a curt handshake, took her
departure.
“Almost rude!” Mrs. Small said to Aunt Hester, when June was
gone.
The proper construction was put on her reception of the news. She
was upset. Something was therefore very wrong. Odd! She and Irene
had been such friends!
It all tallied too well with whispers and hints that had been
going about for some time past. Recollections of Euphemia’s
account of the visit to the theatre—Mr. Bosinney always at
Soames’s? Oh, indeed! Yes, of course, he _would_ be—about the
house! Nothing open. Only upon the greatest, the most important
provocation was it necessary to say anything open on Forsyte
’Change. This machine was too nicely adjusted; a hint, the merest
trifling expression of regret or doubt, sufficed to set the
family soul so sympathetic—vibrating. No one desired that harm
should come of these vibrations—far from it; they were set in
motion with the best intentions, with the feeling that each
member of the family had a stake in the family soul.
And much kindness lay at the bottom of the gossip; it would
frequently result in visits of condolence being made, in
accordance with the customs of Society, thereby conferring a real
benefit upon the sufferers, and affording consolation to the
sound, who felt pleasantly that someone at all events was
suffering from that from which they themselves were not
suffering. In fact, it was simply a desire to keep things
well-aired, the desire which animates the Public Press, that
brought James, for instance, into communication with Mrs.
Septimus, Mrs. Septimus, with the little Nicholases, the little
Nicholases with who-knows-whom, and so on. That great class to
which they had risen, and now belonged, demanded a certain
candour, a still more certain reticence. This combination
guaranteed their membership.
Many of the younger Forsytes felt, very naturally, and would
openly declare, that they did not want their affairs pried into;
but so powerful was the invisible, magnetic current of family
gossip, that for the life of them they could not help knowing all