The Forsyte saga - Complete
heat, and the air was alive with the sound of voices, coarse and
loud, or soft as though murmuring secrets.
It was not long before Winifred’s better sense—she was the only
Forsyte present—secured them an empty bench. They sat down in a
row. A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads, and
the haze darkened slowly over the river.
Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then
Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the
world could feel Irene’s arm crushed against his own; he knew
that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this
amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would
bring her closer still. He thought: “That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t
have it all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit, certainly!”
From far down below on the dark river came drifting the tinkle of
a mandoline, and voices singing the old round:
“A boat, a boat, unto the ferry,
For we’ll go over and be merry;
And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!”
And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on
her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the
air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm
odour of the limes.
Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who was sitting
with his arms crossed, staring straight in front of him, and on
his face the look of a man being tortured.
And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled by the
overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker piece of the
darkness shaped and breathed on; soft, mysterious, enticing.
A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all the strollers
were thinking secrets too precious to be spoken.
And Dartie thought: “Women!”
The glow died above the river, the singing ceased; the young moon
hid behind a tree, and all was dark. He pressed himself against
Irene.
He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through the limbs
he touched, or at the troubled, scornful look of her eyes. He
felt her trying to draw herself away, and smiled.
It must be confessed that the man of the world had drunk quite as
much as was good for him.
With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches, and his
bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious look of a satyr.
Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the tree tops the
stars clustered forth; like mortals beneath, they seemed to shift
and swarm and whisper. Then on the terrace the buzz broke out
once more, and Dartie thought: “Ah! he’s a poor, hungry-looking
devil, that Bosinney!” and again he pressed himself against
Irene.
The movement deserved a better success. She rose, and they all
followed her.
The man of the world was more than ever determined to see what
she was made of. Along the terrace he kept close at her elbow. He
had within him much good wine. There was the long drive home, the
long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant closeness of the
hansom cab—with its insulation from the world devised by some
great and good man. That hungry architect chap might drive with
his wife—he wished him joy of her! And, conscious that his voice
was not too steady, he was careful not to speak; but a smile had
become fixed on his thick lips.
They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them at the farther
end. His plan had the merit of all great plans, an almost brutal
simplicity— he would merely keep at her elbow till she got in,
and get in quickly after her.
But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in; she slipped,
instead, to the horse’s head. Dartie was not at the moment
sufficiently master of his legs to follow. She stood stroking the
horse’s nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side
first. She turned and spoke to him rapidly, in a low voice; the
words “That man” reached Dartie. He stood stubbornly by the cab
step, waiting for her to come back. He knew a trick worth two of
that!
Here, in the lamp-light, his figure (no more than medium height),
well squared in its white evening waistcoat, his light overcoat
flung over his arm, a pink flower in his button-hole, and on his
dark face that look of confident, good-humoured insolence, he was
at his best—a thorough man of the world.
Winifred was already in her cab. Dartie reflected that Bosinney
would have a poorish time in that cab if he didn’t look sharp!
Suddenly he received a push which nearly overturned him in the
road. Bosinney’s voice hissed in his ear: “I am taking Irene
back; do you understand?” He saw a face white with passion, and
eyes that glared at him like a wild cat’s.
“Eh?” he stammered. “What? Not a bit. You take my wife!”
“Get away!” hissed Bosinney—“or I’ll throw you into the road!”
Dartie recoiled; he saw as plainly as possible that the fellow
meant it. In the space he made Irene had slipped by, her dress
brushed his legs. Bosinney stepped in after her.
“Go on!” he heard the Buccaneer cry. The cabman flicked his
horse. It sprang forward.
Dartie stood for a moment dumbfounded; then, dashing at the cab
where his wife sat, he scrambled in.
“Drive on!” he shouted to the driver, “and don’t you lose sight
of that fellow in front!”
Seated by his wife’s side, he burst into imprecations. Calming
himself at last with a supreme effort, he added: “A pretty mess
you’ve made of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why
on earth couldn’t you keep hold of him? He’s mad with love; any
fool can see that!”
He drowned Winifred’s rejoinder with fresh calls to the Almighty;
nor was it until they reached Barnes that he ceased a Jeremiad,
in the course of which he had abused her, her father, her
brother, Irene, Bosinney, the name of Forsyte, his own children,
and cursed the day when he had ever married.
Winifred, a woman of strong character, let him have his say, at
the end of which he lapsed into sulky silence. His angry eyes
never deserted the back of that cab, which, like a lost chance,
haunted the darkness in front of him.
Fortunately he could not hear Bosinney’s passionate pleading—that
pleading which the man of the world’s conduct had let loose like
a flood; he could not see Irene shivering, as though some garment
had been torn from her, nor her eyes, black and mournful, like
the eyes of a beaten child. He could not hear Bosinney
entreating, entreating, always entreating; could not hear her
sudden, soft weeping, nor see that poor, hungry-looking devil,
awed and trembling, humbly touching her hand.
In Montpellier Square their cabman, following his instructions to
the letter, faithfully drew up behind the cab in front. The
Darties saw Bosinney spring out, and Irene follow, and hasten up
the steps with bent head. She evidently had her key in her hand,
for she disappeared at once. It was impossible to tell whether
she had turned to speak to Bosinney.
The latter came walking past their cab; both husband and wife had
an admirable view of his face in the light of a street lamp. It
was working with violent emotion.
“Good-night, Mr. Bosinney!” called Winifred.
Bosinney started, clawed off his hat, and hurried on. He had
obviously forgotten their existence.
“There!” said Dartie, “did you see the beast’s face? What did I
say? Fine games!” He improved the occasion.
There had so clearly been a crisis in the cab that Winifred was
unable to defend her theory.
She said: “I shall say nothing about it. I don’t see any use in
making a fuss!”
With that view Dartie at once concurred; looking upon James as a
private preserve, he disapproved of his being disturbed by the
troubles of others.
“Quite right,” he said; “let Soames look after himself. He’s
jolly well able to!”
Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in Green Street,
the rent of which was paid by James, and sought a well-earned
rest. The hour was midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in
the streets to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him return
and stand against the rails of the Square garden, back from the
glow of the street lamp; to see him stand there in the shadow of
trees, watching the house where in the dark was hidden she whom
he would have given the world to see for a single minute—she who
was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the meaning of the
light and the darkness, the very beating of his own heart.
CHAPTER X DIAGNOSIS OF A FORSYTE
It is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that he is a
Forsyte; but young Jolyon was well aware of being one. He had not
known it till after the decisive step which had made him an
outcast; since then the knowledge had been with him continually.
He felt it throughout his alliance, throughout all his dealings
with his second wife, who was emphatically not a Forsyte.
He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure the eye for
what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on to it, the sense of the
folly of wasting that for which he had given so big a price—in
other words, the “sense of property” he could never have retained
her (perhaps never would have desired to retain her) with him
through all the financial troubles, slights, and misconstructions
of those fifteen years; never have induced her to marry him on
the death of his first wife; never have lived it all through, and
come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.
He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like miniature
Chinese idols in the cages of their own hearts, are ever smiling
at themselves a doubting smile. Not that this smile, so intimate
and eternal, interfered with his actions, which, like his chin
and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of softness and
determination.
He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work, that
painting of water-colours to which he devoted so much energy,
always with an eye on himself, as though he could not take so
unpractical a pursuit quite seriously, and always with a certain
queer uneasiness that he did not make more money at it.
It was, then, this consciousness of what it meant to be a
Forsyte, that made him receive the following letter from old
Jolyon, with a mixture of sympathy and disgust:
“SHELDRAKE HOUSE,
“BROADSTAIRS,
“_July_ 1.
“MY DEAR JO,”
(The Dad’s handwriting had altered very little in the thirty
odd years that he remembered it.)
“We have been here now a fortnight, and have had good weather
on the whole. The air is bracing, but my liver is out of
order, and I shall be glad enough to get back to town. I
cannot say much for June, her health and spirits are very
indifferent, and I don’t see what is to come of it. She says
nothing, but it is clear that she is harping on this
engagement, which is an engagement and no engagement,