The Forsyte saga - Complete
noticed with pleasure the keen crispness of the air, the bustle
of the cabs and people; the strange, almost Parisian, alacrity
that the first fine day will bring into London streets after a
spell of fog or rain. And he had felt so happy; he had not felt
like it for months. His confession to June was off his mind; he
had the prospect of his son’s, above all, of his grandchildren’s
company in the future—(he had appointed to meet young Jolyon at
the Hotch Potch that very morning to discuss it again); and there
was the pleasurable excitement of a coming encounter, a coming
victory, over James and the “man of property” in the matter of
the house.
He had the carriage closed now; he had no heart to look on
gaiety; nor was it right that Forsytes should be seen driving
with an Inspector of Police.
In that carriage the Inspector spoke again of the death:
“It was not so very thick—Just there. The driver says the
gentleman must have had time to see what he was about, he seemed
to walk right into it. It appears that he was very hard up, we
found several pawn tickets at his rooms, his account at the bank
is overdrawn, and there’s this case in to-day’s papers;” his cold
blue eyes travelled from one to another of the three Forsytes in
the carriage.
Old Jolyon watching from his corner saw his brother’s face
change, and the brooding, worried, look deepen on it. At the
Inspector’s words, indeed, all James’ doubts and fears revived.
Hard-up—pawn-tickets—an overdrawn account! These words that had
all his life been a far-off nightmare to him, seemed to make
uncannily real that suspicion of suicide which must on no account
be entertained. He sought his son’s eye; but lynx-eyed, taciturn,
immovable, Soames gave no answering look. And to old Jolyon
watching, divining the league of mutual defence between them,
there came an overmastering desire to have his own son at his
side, as though this visit to the dead man’s body was a battle in
which otherwise he must single-handed meet those two. And the
thought of how to keep Jun’s name out of the business kept
whirring in his brain. James had his son to support him! Why
should he not send for Jo?
Taking out his card-case, he pencilled the following message:
“Come round at once. I’ve sent the carriage for you.”
On getting out he gave this card to his coachman, telling him to
drive—as fast as possible to the Hotch Potch Club, and if Mr.
Jolyon Forsyte were there to give him the card and bring him at
once. If not there yet, he was to wait till he came.
He followed the others slowly up the steps, leaning on his
umbrella, and stood a moment to get his breath. The Inspector
said: “This is the mortuary, sir. But take your time.”
In the bare, white-walled room, empty of all but a streak of
sunshine smeared along the dustless floor, lay a form covered by
a sheet. With a huge steady hand the Inspector took the hem and
turned it back. A sightless face gazed up at them, and on either
side of that sightless defiant face the three Forsytes gazed
down; in each one of them the secret emotions, fears, and pity of
his own nature rose and fell like the rising, falling waves of
life, whose wash those white walls barred out now for ever from
Bosinney. And in each one of them the trend of his nature, the
odd essential spring, which moved him in fashions minutely,
unalterably different from those of every other human being,
forced him to a different attitude of thought. Far from the
others, yet inscrutably close, each stood thus, alone with death,
silent, his eyes lowered.
The Inspector asked softly:
“You identify the gentleman, sir?”
Old Jolyon raised his head and nodded. He looked at his brother
opposite, at that long lean figure brooding over the dead man,
with face dusky red, and strained grey eyes; and at the figure of
Soames white and still by his father’s side. And all that he had
felt against those two was gone like smoke in the long white
presence of Death. Whence comes it, how comes it—Death? Sudden
reverse of all that goes before; blind setting forth on a path
that leads to where? Dark quenching of the fire! The heavy,
brutal crushing-out that all men must go through, keeping their
eyes clear and brave unto the end! Small and of no import,
insects though they are! And across old Jolyon’s face there
flitted a gleam, for Soames, murmuring to the Inspector, crept
noiselessly away.
Then suddenly James raised his eyes. There was a queer appeal in
that suspicious troubled look: “I know I’m no match for you,” it
seemed to say. And, hunting for handkerchief he wiped his brow;
then, bending sorrowful and lank over the dead man, he too turned
and hurried out.
Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on the body. Who
shall tell of what he was thinking? Of himself, when his hair was
brown like the hair of that young fellow dead before him? Of
himself, with his battle just beginning, the long, long battle he
had loved; the battle that was over for this young man almost
before it had begun? Of his grand-daughter, with her broken
hopes? Of that other woman? Of the strangeness, and the pity of
it? And the irony, inscrutable, and bitter of that end? Justice!
There was no justice for men, for they were ever in the dark!
Or perhaps in his philosophy he thought: Better to be out of it
all! Better to have done with it, like this poor youth....
Some one touched him on the arm.
A tear started up and wetted his eyelash. “Well,” he said, “I’m
no good here. I’d better be going. You’ll come to me as soon as
you can, Jo,” and with his head bowed he went away.
It was young Jolyon’s turn to take his stand beside the dead man,
round whose fallen body he seemed to see all the Forsytes
breathless, and prostrated. The stroke had fallen too swiftly.
The forces underlying every tragedy—forces that take no denial,
working through cross currents to their ironical end, had met and
fused with a thunder-clap, flung out the victim, and flattened to
the ground all those that stood around.
Or so at all events young Jolyon seemed to see them, lying around
Bosinney’s body.
He asked the Inspector to tell him what had happened, and the
latter, like a man who does not every day get such a chance,
again detailed such facts as were known.
“There’s more here, sir, however,” he said, “than meets the eye.
I don’t believe in suicide, nor in pure accident, myself. It’s
more likely I think that he was suffering under great stress of
mind, and took no notice of things about him. Perhaps you can
throw some light on these.”
He took from his pocket a little packet and laid it on the table.
Carefully undoing it, he revealed a lady’s handkerchief, pinned
through the folds with a pin of discoloured Venetian gold, the
stone of which had fallen from the socket. A scent of dried
violets rose to young Jolyon’s nostrils.
“Found in his breast pocket,” said the Inspector; “the name has
been cut away!”
Young Jolyon with difficulty answered: “I’m afraid I cannot help
you!” But vividly there rose before him the face he had seen
light up, so tremulous and glad, at Bosinney’s coming! Of her he
thought more than of his own daughter, more than of them all—of
her with the dark, soft glance, the delicate passive face,
waiting for the dead man, waiting even at that moment, perhaps,
still and patient in the sunlight.
He walked sorrowfully away from the hospital towards his father’s
house, reflecting that this death would break up the Forsyte
family. The stroke had indeed slipped past their defences into
the very wood of their tree. They might flourish to all
appearance as before, preserving a brave show before the eyes of
London, but the trunk was dead, withered by the same flash that
had stricken down Bosinney. And now the saplings would take its
place, each one a new custodian of the sense of property.
Good forest of Forsytes! thought young Jolyon—soundest timber of
our land!
Concerning the cause of this death—his family would doubtless
reject with vigour the suspicion of suicide, which was so
compromising! They would take it as an accident, a stroke of
fate. In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention of
Providence, a retribution—had not Bosinney endangered their two
most priceless possessions, the pocket and the hearth? And they
would talk of “that unfortunate accident of young Bosinney’s,”
but perhaps they would not talk—silence might be better!
As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver’s account of the
accident as of very little value. For no one so madly in love
committed suicide for want of money; nor was Bosinney the sort of
fellow to set much store by a financial crisis. And so he too,
rejected this theory of suicide, the dead man’s face rose too
clearly before him. Gone in the heyday of his summer—and to
believe thus that an accident had cut Bosinney off in the full
sweep of his passion was more than ever pitiful to young Jolyon.
Then came a vision of Soames’ home as it now was, and must be
hereafter. The streak of lightning had flashed its clear uncanny
gleam on bare bones with grinning spaces between, the disguising
flesh was gone....
In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone
when his son came in. He looked very wan in his great armchair.
And his eyes travelling round the walls with their pictures of
still life, and the masterpiece “Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset”
seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its hopes,
its gains, its achievements.
“Ah! Jo!” he said, “is that you? I’ve told poor little June. But
that’s not all of it. Are you going to Soames’? _She’s_ brought
it on herself, I suppose; but somehow I can’t bear to think of
her, shut up there—and all alone.” And holding up his thin,
veined hand, he clenched it.
CHAPTER IX IRENE’S RETURN
After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the
hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.
The tragic event of Bosinney’s death altered the complexion of
everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a
minute would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the
fact of his wife’s flight to anyone till the inquest was over.
That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had
taken the first-post letters from the box himself, and, though
there had been none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of
telling Bilson that her mistress was at the sea; he would
probably, he said, be going down himself from Saturday to Monday.
This had given him time to breathe, time to leave no stone
unturned to find her.
But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney’s death—that
strange death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to