The Forsyte saga - Complete
note case from his dress coat pocket. Four hundred pounds, in
fives and tens—the remainder of the proceeds of his half of
Sleeve-links, sold last night, cash down, to George Forsyte, who,
having won over the race, had not conceived the sudden dislike to
the animal which he himself now felt. The ballet was going to
Buenos Aires the day after to-morrow, and he was going too. Full
value for the pearls had not yet been received; he was only at
the soup.
He stole upstairs. Not daring to have a bath, or shave (besides,
the water would be cold), he changed his clothes and packed
stealthily all he could. It was hard to leave so many shining
boots, but one must sacrifice something. Then, carrying a valise
in either hand, he stepped out onto the landing. The house was
very quiet—that house where he had begotten his four children. It
was a curious moment, this, outside the room of his wife, once
admired, if not perhaps loved, who had called him “the limit.” He
steeled himself with that phrase, and tiptoed on; but the next
door was harder to pass. It was the room his daughters slept in.
Maud was at school, but Imogen would be lying there; and moisture
came into Dartie’s early morning eyes. She was the most like him
of the four, with her dark hair, and her luscious brown glance.
Just coming out, a pretty thing! He set down the two valises.
This almost formal abdication of fatherhood hurt him. The morning
light fell on a face which worked with real emotion. Nothing so
false as penitence moved him; but genuine paternal feeling, and
that melancholy of “never again.” He moistened his lips; and
complete irresolution for a moment paralysed his legs in their
check trousers. It was hard—hard to be thus compelled to leave
his home! “D—-nit!” he muttered, “I never thought it would come
to this.” Noises above warned him that the maids were beginning
to get up. And grasping the two valises, he tiptoed on
downstairs. His cheeks were wet, and the knowledge of that was
comforting, as though it guaranteed the genuineness of his
sacrifice. He lingered a little in the rooms below, to pack all
the cigars he had, some papers, a crush hat, a silver cigarette
box, a Ruff’s Guide. Then, mixing himself a stiff whisky and
soda, and lighting a cigarette, he stood hesitating before a
photograph of his two girls, in a silver frame. It belonged to
Winifred. “Never mind,” he thought; “she can get another taken,
and I can’t!” He slipped it into the valise. Then, putting on his
hat and overcoat, he took two others, his best malacca cane, an
umbrella, and opened the front door. Closing it softly behind
him, he walked out, burdened as he had never been in all his
life, and made his way round the corner to wait there for an
early cab to come by.
Thus had passed Montague Dartie in the forty-fifth year of his
age from the house which he had called his own.
When Winifred came down, and realised that he was not in the
house, her first feeling was one of dull anger that he should
thus elude the reproaches she had carefully prepared in those
long wakeful hours. He had gone off to Newmarket or Brighton,
with that woman as likely as not. Disgusting! Forced to a
complete reticence before Imogen and the servants, and aware that
her father’s nerves would never stand the disclosure, she had
been unable to refrain from going to Timothy’s that afternoon,
and pouring out the story of the pearls to Aunts Juley and Hester
in utter confidence. It was only on the following morning that
she noticed the disappearance of that photograph. What did it
mean? Careful examination of her husband’s relics prompted the
thought that he had gone for good. As that conclusion hardened
she stood quite still in the middle of his dressing-room, with
all the drawers pulled out, to try and realise what she was
feeling. By no means easy! Though he was “the limit” he was yet
her property, and for the life of her she could not but feel the
poorer. To be widowed yet not widowed at forty-two; with four
children; made conspicuous, an object of commiseration! Gone to
the arms of a Spanish Jade! Memories, feelings, which she had
thought quite dead, revived within her, painful, sullen,
tenacious. Mechanically she closed drawer after drawer, went to
her bed, lay on it, and buried her face in the pillows. She did
not cry. What was the use of that? When she got off her bed to go
down to lunch she felt as if only one thing could do her good,
and that was to have Val home. He—her eldest boy—who was to go to
Oxford next month at James’ expense, was at Littlehampton taking
his final gallops with his trainer for Smalls, as he would have
phrased it following his father’s diction. She caused a telegram
to be sent to him.
“I must see about his clothes,” she said to Imogen; “I can’t have
him going up to Oxford all anyhow. Those boys are so particular.”
“Val’s got heaps of things,” Imogen answered.
“I know; but they want overhauling. I hope he’ll come.”
“He’ll come like a shot, Mother. But he’ll probably skew his
Exam.”
“I can’t help that,” said Winifred. “I want him.”
With an innocent shrewd look at her mother’s face, Imogen kept
silence. It was father, of course! Val did come “like a shot” at
six o’clock.
Imagine a cross between a pickle and a Forsyte and you have young
Publius Valerius Dartie. A youth so named could hardly turn out
otherwise. When he was born, Winifred, in the heyday of spirits,
and the craving for distinction, had determined that her children
should have names such as no others had ever had. (It was a
mercy—she felt now—that she had just not named Imogen Thisbe.)
But it was to George Forsyte, always a wag, that Val’s
christening was due. It so happened that Dartie, dining with him
a week after the birth of his son and heir, had mentioned this
aspiration of Winifred’s.
“Call him Cato,” said George, “it’ll be damned piquant!” He had
just won a tenner on a horse of that name.
“Cato!” Dartie had replied—they were a little ‘on’ as the phrase
was even in those days—“it’s not a Christian name.”
“Halo you!” George called to a waiter in knee breeches. “Bring me
the _Encyc’pedia Brit_. from the Library, letter C.”
The waiter brought it.
“Here you are!” said George, pointing with his cigar: “Cato
Publius Valerius by Virgil out of Lydia. That’s what you want.
Publius Valerius is Christian enough.”
Dartie, on arriving home, had informed Winifred. She had been
charmed. It was so “chic.” And Publius Valerius became the baby’s
name, though it afterwards transpired that they had got hold of
the inferior Cato. In 1890, however, when little Publius was
nearly ten, the word “chic” went out of fashion, and sobriety
came in; Winifred began to have doubts. They were confirmed by
little Publius himself who returned from his first term at school
complaining that life was a burden to him—they called him Pubby.
Winifred—a woman of real decision—promptly changed his school and
his name to Val, the Publius being dropped even as an initial.
At nineteen he was a limber, freckled youth with a wide mouth,
light eyes, long dark lashes; a rather charming smile,
considerable knowledge of what he should not know, and no
experience of what he ought to do. Few boys had more narrowly
escaped being expelled—the engaging rascal. After kissing his
mother and pinching Imogen, he ran upstairs three at a time, and
came down four, dressed for dinner. He was awfully sorry, but his
“trainer,” who had come up too, had asked him to dine at the
Oxford and Cambridge; it wouldn’t do to miss—the old chap would
be hurt. Winifred let him go with an unhappy pride. She had
wanted him at home, but it was very nice to know that his tutor
was so fond of him. He went out with a wink at Imogen, saying: “I
say, Mother, could I have two plover’s eggs when I come
in?—cook’s got some. They top up so jolly well. Oh! and look
here—have you any money?—I had to borrow a fiver from old
Snobby.”
Winifred, looking at him with fond shrewdness, answered:
“My dear, you _are_ naughty about money. But you shouldn’t pay
him to-night, anyway; you’re his guest. How nice and slim he
looked in his white waistcoat, and his dark thick lashes!”
“Oh, but we may go to the theatre, you see, Mother; and I think I
ought to stand the tickets; he’s always hard up, you know.”
Winifred produced a five-pound note, saying:
“Well, perhaps you’d better pay him, but you mustn’t stand the
tickets too.”
Val pocketed the fiver.
“If I do, I can’t,” he said. “Good-night, Mum!”
He went out with his head up and his hat cocked joyously,
sniffing the air of Piccadilly like a young hound loosed into
covert. Jolly good biz! After that mouldy old slow hole down
there!
He found his “tutor,” not indeed at the Oxford and Cambridge, but
at the Goat’s Club. This “tutor” was a year older than himself, a
good-looking youth, with fine brown eyes, and smooth dark hair, a
small mouth, an oval face, languid, immaculate, cool to a degree,
one of those young men who without effort establish moral
ascendancy over their companions. He had missed being expelled
from school a year before Val, had spent that year at Oxford, and
Val could almost see a halo round his head. His name was Crum,
and no one could get through money quicker. It seemed to be his
only aim in life—dazzling to young Val, in whom, however, the
Forsyte would stand apart, now and then, wondering where the
value for that money was.
They dined quietly, in style and taste; left the Club smoking
cigars, with just two bottles inside them, and dropped into
stalls at the Liberty. For Val the sound of comic songs, the
sight of lovely legs were fogged and interrupted by haunting
fears that he would never equal Crum’s quiet dandyism. His
idealism was roused; and when that is so, one is never quite at
ease. Surely he had too wide a mouth, not the best cut of
waistcoat, no braid on his trousers, and his lavender gloves had
no thin black stitchings down the back. Besides, he laughed too
much—Crum never laughed, he only smiled, with his regular dark
brows raised a little so that they formed a gable over his just
drooped lids. No! he would never be Crum’s equal. All the same it
was a jolly good show, and Cynthia Dark simply ripping. Between
the acts Crum regaled him with particulars of Cynthia’s private
life, and the awful knowledge became Val’s that, if he liked,
Crum could go behind. He simply longed to say: “I say, take me!”
but dared not, because of his deficiencies; and this made the
last act or two almost miserable. On coming out Crum said: “It’s
half an hour before they close; let’s go on to the Pandemonium.”
They took a hansom to travel the hundred yards, and seats costing