The Forsyte saga - Complete
between us is to last? I have put up with it long enough.”
“Will you please leave my room?”
“Will you treat me as your husband?”
“No.”
“Then, I shall take steps to make you.”
“Do!”
He stared, amazed at the calmness of her answer. Her lips were
compressed in a thin line; her hair lay in fluffy masses on her
bare shoulders, in all its strange golden contrast to her dark
eyes—those eyes alive with the emotions of fear, hate, contempt,
and odd, haunting triumph.
“Now, please, will you leave my room?” He turned round, and went
sulkily out.
He knew very well that he had no intention of taking steps, and
he saw that she knew too—knew that he was afraid to.
It was a habit with him to tell her the doings of his day: how
such and such clients had called; how he had arranged a mortgage
for Parkes; how that long-standing suit of Fryer _v_. Forsyte was
getting on, which, arising in the preternaturally careful
disposition of his property by his great uncle Nicholas, who had
tied it up so that no one could get at it at all, seemed likely
to remain a source of income for several solicitors till the Day
of Judgment.
And how he had called in at Jobson’s, and seen a Boucher sold,
which he had just missed buying of Talleyrand and Sons in Pall
Mall.
He had an admiration for Boucher, Watteau, and all that school.
It was a habit with him to tell her all these matters, and he
continued to do it even now, talking for long spells at dinner,
as though by the volubility of words he could conceal from
himself the ache in his heart.
Often, if they were alone, he made an attempt to kiss her when
she said good-night. He may have had some vague notion that some
night she would let him; or perhaps only the feeling that a
husband ought to kiss his wife. Even if she hated him, he at all
events ought not to put himself in the wrong by neglecting this
ancient rite.
And why did she hate him? Even now he could not altogether
believe it. It was strange to be hated!—the emotion was too
extreme; yet he hated Bosinney, that Buccaneer, that prowling
vagabond, that night-wanderer. For in his thoughts Soames always
saw him lying in wait—wandering. Ah, but he must be in very low
water! Young Burkitt, the architect, had seen him coming out of a
third-rate restaurant, looking terribly down in the mouth!
During all the hours he lay awake, thinking over the situation,
which seemed to have no end—unless she should suddenly come to
her senses—never once did the thought of separating from his wife
seriously enter his head....
And the Forsytes! What part did they play in this stage of
Soames’s subterranean tragedy?
Truth to say, little or none, for they were at the sea.
From hotels, hydropathics, or lodging-houses, they were bathing
daily; laying in a stock of ozone to last them through the
winter.
Each section, in the vineyard of its own choosing, grew and
culled and pressed and bottled the grapes of a pet sea-air.
The end of September began to witness their several returns.
In rude health and small omnibuses, with considerable colour in
their cheeks, they arrived daily from the various termini. The
following morning saw them back at their vocations.
On the next Sunday Timothy’s was thronged from lunch till dinner.
Amongst other gossip, too numerous and interesting to relate,
Mrs. Septimus Small mentioned that Soames and Irene had not been
away.
It remained for a comparative outsider to supply the next
evidence of interest.
It chanced that one afternoon late in September, Mrs. MacAnder,
Winifred Dartie’s greatest friend, taking a constitutional, with
young Augustus Flippard, on her bicycle in Richmond Park, passed
Irene and Bosinney walking from the bracken towards the Sheen
Gate.
Perhaps the poor little woman was thirsty, for she had ridden
long on a hard, dry road, and, as all London knows, to ride a
bicycle and talk to young Flippard will try the toughest
constitution; or perhaps the sight of the cool bracken grove,
whence “those two” were coming down, excited her envy. The cool
bracken grove on the top of the hill, with the oak boughs for
roof, where the pigeons were raising an endless wedding hymn, and
the autumn, humming, whispered to the ears of lovers in the fern,
while the deer stole by. The bracken grove of irretrievable
delights, of golden minutes in the long marriage of heaven and
earth! The bracken grove, sacred to stags, to strange tree-stump
fauns leaping around the silver whiteness of a birch-tree nymph
at summer dusk.
This lady knew all the Forsytes, and having been at Jun’s “at
home,” was not at a loss to see with whom she had to deal. Her
own marriage, poor thing, had not been successful, but having had
the good sense and ability to force her husband into pronounced
error, she herself had passed through the necessary divorce
proceedings without incurring censure.
She was therefore a judge of all that sort of thing, and lived in
one of those large buildings, where in small sets of apartments,
are gathered incredible quantities of Forsytes, whose chief
recreation out of business hours is the discussion of each
other’s affairs.
Poor little woman, perhaps she was thirsty, certainly she was
bored, for Flippard was a wit. To see “those two” in so unlikely
a spot was quite a merciful “pick-me-up.”
At the MacAnder, like all London, Time pauses.
This small but remarkable woman merits attention; her all-seeing
eye and shrewd tongue were inscrutably the means of furthering
the ends of Providence.
With an air of being in at the death, she had an almost
distressing power of taking care of herself. She had done more,
perhaps, in her way than any woman about town to destroy the
sense of chivalry which still clogs the wheel of civilization. So
smart she was, and spoken of endearingly as “the little
MacAnder!”
Dressing tightly and well, she belonged to a Woman’s Club, but
was by no means the neurotic and dismal type of member who was
always thinking of her rights. She took her rights unconsciously,
they came natural to her, and she knew exactly how to make the
most of them without exciting anything but admiration amongst
that great class to whom she was affiliated, not precisely
perhaps by manner, but by birth, breeding, and the true, the
secret gauge, a sense of property.
The daughter of a Bedfordshire solicitor, by the daughter of a
clergyman, she had never, through all the painful experience of
being married to a very mild painter with a cranky love of
Nature, who had deserted her for an actress, lost touch with the
requirements, beliefs, and inner feeling of Society; and, on
attaining her liberty, she placed herself without effort in the
very van of Forsyteism.
Always in good spirits, and “full of information,” she was
universally welcomed. She excited neither surprise nor
disapprobation when encountered on the Rhine or at Zermatt,
either alone, or travelling with a lady and two gentlemen; it was
felt that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself;
and the hearts of all Forsytes warmed to that wonderful instinct,
which enabled her to enjoy everything without giving anything
away. It was generally felt that to such women as Mrs. MacAnder
should we look for the perpetuation and increase of our best type
of woman. She had never had any children.
If there was one thing more than another that she could not stand
it was one of those soft women with what men called “charm” about
them, and for Mrs. Soames she always had an especial dislike.
Obscurely, no doubt, she felt that if charm were once admitted as
the criterion, smartness and capability must go to the wall; and
she hated—with a hatred the deeper that at times this so-called
charm seemed to disturb all calculations—the subtle seductiveness
which she could not altogether overlook in Irene.
She said, however, that she could see nothing in the woman—there
was no “go” about her—she would never be able to stand up for
herself—anyone could take advantage of her, that was plain—she
could not see in fact what men found to admire!
She was not really ill-natured, but, in maintaining her position
after the trying circumstances of her married life, she had found
it so necessary to be “full of information,” that the idea of
holding her tongue about “those two” in the Park never occurred
to her.
And it so happened that she was dining that very evening at
Timothy’s, where she went sometimes to “cheer the old things up,”
as she was wont to put it. The same people were always asked to
meet her: Winifred Dartie and her husband; Francie, because she
belonged to the artistic circles, for Mrs. MacAnder was known to
contribute articles on dress to “The Ladies Kingdom Come”. and
for her to flirt with, provided they could be obtained, two of
the Hayman boys, who, though they never said anything, were
believed to be fast and thoroughly intimate with all that was
latest in smart Society.
At twenty-five minutes past seven she turned out the electric
light in her little hall, and wrapped in her opera cloak with the
chinchilla collar, came out into the corridor, pausing a moment
to make sure she had her latch-key. These little self-contained
flats were convenient; to be sure, she had no light and no air,
but she could shut it up whenever she liked and go away. There
was no bother with servants, and she never felt tied as she used
to when poor, dear Fred was always about, in his mooney way. She
retained no rancour against poor, dear Fred, he was such a fool;
but the thought of that actress drew from her, even now, a
little, bitter, derisive smile.
Firmly snapping the door to, she crossed the corridor, with its
gloomy, yellow-ochre walls, and its infinite vista of brown,
numbered doors. The lift was going down; and wrapped to the ears
in the high cloak, with every one of her auburn hairs in its
place, she waited motionless for it to stop at her floor. The
iron gates clanked open; she entered. There were already three
occupants, a man in a great white waistcoat, with a large, smooth
face like a baby’s, and two old ladies in black, with mittened
hands.
Mrs. MacAnder smiled at them; she knew everybody; and all these
three, who had been admirably silent before, began to talk at
once. This was Mrs. MacAnder’s successful secret. She provoked
conversation.
Throughout a descent of five stories the conversation continued,
the lift boy standing with his back turned, his cynical face
protruding through the bars.
At the bottom they separated, the man in the white waistcoat
sentimentally to the billiard room, the old ladies to dine and
say to each other: “A dear little woman!” “Such a rattle!” and