The Forsyte saga - Complete
many visitors. The family had always, one and all, had a real
respect for Aunt Ann, and now that she was gone, they were coming
far more frequently to The Bower, and staying longer.
Swithin had been the first to arrive, and seated torpid in a red
satin chair with a gilt back, he gave every appearance of lasting
the others out. And symbolizing Bosinney’s name “the big one,”
with his great stature and bulk, his thick white hair, his puffy
immovable shaven face, he looked more primeval than ever in the
highly upholstered room.
His conversation, as usual of late, had turned at once upon
Irene, and he had lost no time in giving Aunts Juley and Hester
his opinion with regard to this rumour he heard was going about.
No—as he said—she might want a bit of flirtation—a pretty woman
must have her fling; but more than that he did not believe.
Nothing open; she had too much good sense, too much proper
appreciation of what was due to her position, and to the family!
No sc—, he was going to say “scandal” but the very idea was so
preposterous that he waved his hand as though to say—“but let
that pass!”
Granted that Swithin took a bachelor’s view of the
situation—still what indeed was not due to that family in which
so many had done so well for themselves, had attained a certain
position? If he _had_ heard in dark, pessimistic moments the
words “yeomen” and “very small beer” used in connection with his
origin, did he believe them?
No! he cherished, hugging it pathetically to his bosom the secret
theory that there was something distinguished somewhere in his
ancestry.
“Must be,” he once said to young Jolyon, before the latter went
to the bad. “Look at us, _we’ve_ got on! There must be good blood
in us somewhere.”
He had been fond of young Jolyon: the boy had been in a good set
at College, had known that old ruffian Sir Charles Fiste’s sons—a
pretty rascal one of them had turned out, too; and there was
style about him—it was a thousand pities he had run off with that
half-foreign governess! If he must go off like that why couldn’t
he have chosen someone who would have done them credit! And what
was he now?—an underwriter at Lloyd’s; they said he even painted
pictures—pictures! Damme! he might have ended as Sir Jolyon
Forsyte, Bart., with a seat in Parliament, and a place in the
country!
It was Swithin who, following the impulse which sooner or later
urges thereto some member of every great family, went to the
Heralds’ Office, where they assured him that he was undoubtedly
of the same family as the well-known Forsites with an “i,” whose
arms were “three dexter buckles on a sable ground gules,” hoping
no doubt to get him to take them up.
Swithin, however, did not do this, but having ascertained that
the crest was a “pheasant proper,” and the motto “For Forsite,”
he had the pheasant proper placed upon his carriage and the
buttons of his coachman, and both crest and motto on his
writing-paper. The arms he hugged to himself, partly because, not
having paid for them, he thought it would look ostentatious to
put them on his carriage, and he hated ostentation, and partly
because he, like any practical man all over the country, had a
secret dislike and contempt for things he could not understand he
found it hard, as anyone might, to swallow “three dexter buckles
on a sable ground gules.”
He never forgot, however, their having told him that if he paid
for them he would be entitled to use them, and it strengthened
his conviction that he was a gentleman. Imperceptibly the rest of
the family absorbed the “pheasant proper,” and some, more serious
than others, adopted the motto; old Jolyon, however, refused to
use the latter, saying that it was humbug meaning nothing, so far
as he could see.
Among the older generation it was perhaps known at bottom from
what great historical event they derived their crest; and if
pressed on the subject, sooner than tell a lie—they did not like
telling lies, having an impression that only Frenchmen and
Russians told them—they would confess hurriedly that Swithin had
got hold of it somehow.
Among the younger generation the matter was wrapped in a
discretion proper. They did not want to hurt the feelings of
their elders, nor to feel ridiculous themselves; they simply used
the crest....
“No,” said Swithin, “he had had an opportunity of seeing for
himself, and what he should say was, that there was nothing in
her manner to that young Buccaneer or Bosinney or whatever his
name was, different from her manner to himself; in fact, he
should rather say....” But here the entrance of Frances and
Euphemia put an unfortunate stop to the conversation, for this
was not a subject which could be discussed before young people.
And though Swithin was somewhat upset at being stopped like this
on the point of saying something important, he soon recovered his
affability. He was rather fond of Frances—Francie, as she was
called in the family. She was so smart, and they told him she
made a pretty little pot of pin-money by her songs; he called it
very clever of her.
He rather prided himself indeed on a liberal attitude towards
women, not seeing any reason why they shouldn’t paint pictures,
or write tunes, or books even, for the matter of that, especially
if they could turn a useful penny by it; not at all—kept them out
of mischief. It was not as if they were men!
“Little Francie,” as she was usually called with good-natured
contempt, was an important personage, if only as a standing
illustration of the attitude of Forsytes towards the Arts. She
was not really “little,” but rather tall, with dark hair for a
Forsyte, which, together with a grey eye, gave her what was
called “a Celtic appearance.” She wrote songs with titles like
“Breathing Sighs,” or “Kiss me, Mother, ere I die,” with a
refrain like an anthem:
“Kiss me, Mother, ere I die;
Kiss me-kiss me, Mother, ah!
Kiss, ah! kiss me e-ere I—
Kiss me, Mother, ere I d-d-die!”
She wrote the words to them herself, and other poems. In lighter
moments she wrote waltzes, one of which, the “Kensington Coil,”
was almost national to Kensington, having a sweet dip in it.
Thus:
It was very original. Then there were her “Songs for Little
People,” at once educational and witty, especially “Gran’ma’s
Porgie,” and that ditty, almost prophetically imbued with the
coming Imperial spirit, entitled “Black Him In His Little Eye.”
Any publisher would take these, and reviews like “High Living,”
and the “Ladies’ Genteel Guide” went into raptures over: “Another
of Miss Francie Forsyte’s spirited ditties, sparkling and
pathetic. We ourselves were moved to tears and laughter. Miss
Forsyte should go far.”
With the true instinct of her breed, Francie had made a point of
knowing the right people—people who would write about her, and
talk about her, and people in Society, too—keeping a mental
register of just where to exert her fascinations, and an eye on
that steady scale of rising prices, which in her mind’s eye
represented the future. In this way she caused herself to be
universally respected.
Once, at a time when her emotions were whipped by an
attachment—for the tenor of Roger’s life, with its whole-hearted
collection of house property, had induced in his only daughter a
tendency towards passion—she turned to great and sincere work,
choosing the sonata form, for the violin. This was the only one
of her productions that troubled the Forsytes. They felt at once
that it would not sell.
Roger, who liked having a clever daughter well enough, and often
alluded to the amount of pocket-money she made for herself, was
upset by this violin sonata.
“Rubbish like that!” he called it. Francie had borrowed young
Flageoletti from Euphemia, to play it in the drawing-room at
Prince’s Gardens.
As a matter of fact Roger was right. It was rubbish,
but—annoying! the sort of rubbish that wouldn’t sell. As every
Forsyte knows, rubbish that sells is not rubbish at all—far from
it.
And yet, in spite of the sound common sense which fixed the worth
of art at what it would fetch, some of the Forsytes—Aunt Hester,
for instance, who had always been musical—could not help
regretting that Francie’s music was not “classical”. the same
with her poems. But then, as Aunt Hester said, they didn’t see
any poetry nowadays, all the poems were “little light things.”
There was nobody who could write a poem like “Paradise Lost,” or
“Childe Harold”; either of which made you feel that you really
had read something. Still, it was nice for Francie to have
something to occupy her; while other girls were spending money
shopping she was making it!
And both Aunt Hester and Aunt Juley were always ready to listen
to the latest story of how Francie had got her price increased.
They listened now, together with Swithin, who sat pretending not
to, for these young people talked so fast and mumbled so, he
never could catch what they said.
“And I can’t think,” said Mrs. Septimus, “how you do it. I should
never have the audacity!”
Francie smiled lightly. “I’d much rather deal with a man than a
woman. Women are so sharp!”
“My dear,” cried Mrs. Small, “I’m sure we’re not.”
Euphemia went off into her silent laugh, and, ending with the
squeak, said, as though being strangled: “Oh, you’ll kill me some
day, auntie.”
Swithin saw no necessity to laugh; he detested people laughing
when he himself perceived no joke. Indeed, he detested Euphemia
altogether, to whom he always alluded as “Nick’s daughter, what’s
she called—the pale one?” He had just missed being her
god-father—indeed, would have been, had he not taken a firm stand
against her outlandish name. He hated becoming a godfather.
Swithin then said to Francie with dignity: “It’s a fine
day—er—for the time of year.” But Euphemia, who knew perfectly
well that he had refused to be her godfather, turned to Aunt
Hester, and began telling her how she had seen Irene—Mrs.
Soames—at the Church and Commercial Stores.
“And Soames was with her?” said Aunt Hester, to whom Mrs. Small
had as yet had no opportunity of relating the incident.
“_Soames_ with her? Of _course_ not!”
“But was she all alone in London?”
“Oh, no; there was Mr. Bosinney with her. She was _perfectly_
dressed.”
But Swithin, hearing the name Irene, looked severely at Euphemia,
who, it is true, never did look well in a dress, whatever she may
have done on other occasions, and said:
“Dressed like a lady, I’ve no doubt. It’s a pleasure to see her.”
At this moment James and his daughters were announced. Dartie,
feeling badly in want of a drink, had pleaded an appointment with
his dentist, and, being put down at the Marble Arch, had got into