The Forsyte saga - Complete

family gossip than any other Forsyte—he had now heard the sinister, indefinite, but none the less disturbing rumour about Bosinney, and his pride was wounded to the quick. Characteristically, his irritation turned not against Irene but against Soames. The idea that his nephew’s wife (why couldn’t the fellow take better care of her—Oh! quaint injustice! as though Soames could possibly take more care!)—should be drawing to herself Jun’s lover, was intolerably humiliating. And seeing the danger, he did not, like James, hide it away in sheer nervousness, but owned with the dispassion of his broader outlook, that it was not unlikely; there was something very attractive about Irene! He had a presentiment on the subject of Soames’s communication as they left the Board Room together, and went out into the noise and hurry of Cheapside. They walked together a good minute without speaking, Soames with his mousing, mincing step, and old Jolyon upright and using his umbrella languidly as a walking-stick. They turned presently into comparative quiet, for old Jolyon’s way to a second Board led him in the direction of Moorage Street. Then Soames, without lifting his eyes, began: “I’ve had this letter from Bosinney. You see what he says; I thought I’d let you know. I’ve spent a lot more than I intended on this house, and I want the position to be clear.” Old Jolyon ran his eyes unwillingly over the letter: “What he says is clear enough,” he said. “He talks about ‘a free hand,’” replied Soames. Old Jolyon looked at him. The long-suppressed irritation and antagonism towards this young fellow, whose affairs were beginning to intrude upon his own, burst from him. “Well, if you don’t trust him, why do you employ him?” Soames stole a sideway look: “It’s much too late to go into that,” he said, “I only want it to be quite understood that if I give him a free hand, he doesn’t let me in. I thought if you were to speak to him, it would carry more weight!” “No,” said old Jolyon abruptly; “I’ll have nothing to do with it!” The words of both uncle and nephew gave the impression of unspoken meanings, far more important, behind. And the look they interchanged was like a revelation of this consciousness. “Well,” said Soames; “I thought, for Jun’s sake, I’d tell you, that’s all; I thought you’d better know I shan’t stand any nonsense!” “What is that to me?” old Jolyon took him up. “Oh! I don’t know,” said Soames, and flurried by that sharp look he was unable to say more. “Don’t say I didn’t tell you,” he added sulkily, recovering his composure. “Tell me!” said old Jolyon; “I don’t know what you mean. You come worrying me about a thing like this. _I_ don’t want to hear about your affairs; you must manage them yourself!” “Very well,” said Soames immovably, “I will!” “Good-morning, then,” said old Jolyon, and they parted. Soames retraced his steps, and going into a celebrated eating-house, asked for a plate of smoked salmon and a glass of Chablis; he seldom ate much in the middle of the day, and generally ate standing, finding the position beneficial to his liver, which was very sound, but to which he desired to put down all his troubles. When he had finished he went slowly back to his office, with bent head, taking no notice of the swarming thousands on the pavements, who in their turn took no notice of him. The evening post carried the following reply to Bosinney: “FORSYTE, BUSTARD AND FORSYTE, “Commissioners for Oaths, “92001, BRANCH LANE, POULTRY, E.C., “_May_ 17, 1887. “DEAR BOSINNEY, “I have, received your letter, the terms of which not a little surprise me. I was under the impression that you had, and have had all along, a “free hand”; for I do not recollect that any suggestions I have been so unfortunate as to make have met with your approval. In giving you, in accordance with your request, this “free hand,” I wish you to clearly understand that the total cost of the house as handed over to me completely decorated, inclusive of your fee (as arranged between us), must not exceed twelve thousand pounds—£12,000. This gives you an ample margin, and, as you know, is far more than I originally contemplated. “I am, “Yours truly, “SOAMES FORSYTE.” On the following day he received a note from Bosinney: “PHILIP BAYNES BOSINNEY, “Architect, “309D, SLOANE STREET, S.W., “_May_ 18. “DEAR FORSYTE, “If you think that in such a delicate matter as decoration I can bind myself to the exact pound, I am afraid you are mistaken. I can see that you are tired of the arrangement, and of me, and I had better, therefore, resign. “Yours faithfully, “PHILIP BAYNES BOSINNEY.” Soames pondered long and painfully over his answer, and late at night in the dining-room, when Irene had gone to bed, he composed the following: “62, MONTPELLIER SQUARE, S.W., “_May_ 19, 1887. “DEAR BOSINNEY, “I think that in both our interests it would be extremely undesirable that matters should be so left at this stage. I did not mean to say that if you should exceed the sum named in my letter to you by ten or twenty or even fifty pounds, there would be any difficulty between us. This being so, I should like you to reconsider your answer. You have a “free hand” in the terms of this correspondence, and I hope you will see your way to completing the decorations, in the matter of which I know it is difficult to be absolutely exact. “Yours truly, “SOAMES FORSYTE.” Bosinney’s answer, which came in the course of the next day, was: “_May_ 20. “DEAR FORSYTE, “Very well. “PH. BOSINNEY.” CHAPTER VI OLD JOLYON AT THE ZOO Old Jolyon disposed of his second Meeting—an ordinary Board—summarily. He was so dictatorial that his fellow directors were left in cabal over the increasing domineeringness of old Forsyte, which they were far from intending to stand much longer, they said. He went out by Underground to Portland Road Station, whence he took a cab and drove to the Zoo. He had an assignation there, one of those assignations that had lately been growing more frequent, to which his increasing uneasiness about June and the “change in her,” as he expressed it, was driving him. She buried herself away, and was growing thin; if he spoke to her he got no answer, or had his head snapped off, or she looked as if she would burst into tears. She was as changed as she could be, all through this Bosinney. As for telling him about anything, not a bit of it! And he would sit for long spells brooding, his paper unread before him, a cigar extinct between his lips. She had been such a companion to him ever since she was three years old! And he loved her so! Forces regardless of family or class or custom were beating down his guard; impending events over which he had no control threw their shadows on his head. The irritation of one accustomed to have his way was roused against he knew not what. Chafing at the slowness of his cab, he reached the Zoo door; but, with his sunny instinct for seizing the good of each moment, he forgot his vexation as he walked towards the tryst. From the stone terrace above the bear-pit his son and his two grandchildren came hastening down when they saw old Jolyon coming, and led him away towards the lion-house. They supported him on either side, holding one to each of his hands,—whilst Jolly, perverse like his father, carried his grandfather’s umbrella in such a way as to catch people’s legs with the crutch of the handle. Young Jolyon followed. It was as good as a play to see his father with the children, but such a play as brings smiles with tears behind. An old man and two small children walking together can be seen at any hour of the day; but the sight of old Jolyon, with Jolly and Holly seemed to young Jolyon a special peep-show of the things that lie at the bottom of our hearts. The complete surrender of that erect old figure to those little figures on either hand was too poignantly tender, and, being a man of an habitual reflex action, young Jolyon swore softly under his breath. The show affected him in a way unbecoming to a Forsyte, who is nothing if not undemonstrative. Thus they reached the lion-house. There had been a morning fête at the Botanical Gardens, and a large number of Forsy—that is, of well-dressed people who kept carriages had brought them on to the Zoo, so as to have more, if possible, for their money, before going back to Rutland Gate or Bryanston Square. “Let’s go on to the Zoo,” they had said to each other; “it’ll be great fun!” It was a shilling day; and there would not be all those horrid common people. In front of the long line of cages they were collected in rows, watching the tawny, ravenous beasts behind the bars await their only pleasure of the four-and-twenty hours. The hungrier the beast, the greater the fascination. But whether because the spectators envied his appetite, or, more humanely, because it was so soon to be satisfied, young Jolyon could not tell. Remarks kept falling on his ears: “That’s a nasty-looking brute, that tiger!” “Oh, what a love! Look at his little mouth!” “Yes, he’s rather nice! Don’t go too near, mother.” And frequently, with little pats, one or another would clap their hands to their pockets behind and look round, as though expecting young Jolyon or some disinterested-looking person to relieve them of the contents. A well-fed man in a white waistcoat said slowly through his teeth: “It’s all greed; they can’t be hungry. Why, they take no exercise.” At these words a tiger snatched a piece of bleeding liver, and the fat man laughed. His wife, in a Paris model frock and gold nose-nippers, reproved him: “How can you laugh, Harry? Such a horrid sight!” Young Jolyon frowned. The circumstances of his life, though he had ceased to take a too personal view of them, had left him subject to an intermittent contempt; and the class to which he had belonged—the carriage class—especially excited his sarcasm. To shut up a lion or tiger in confinement was surely a horrible barbarity. But no cultivated person would admit this. The idea of its being barbarous to confine wild animals had probably never even occurred to his father for instance; he belonged to the old school, who considered it at once humanizing and educational to confine baboons and panthers, holding the view, no doubt, that in course of time they might induce these creatures not so unreasonably to die of misery and heart-sickness