The Forsyte saga - Complete
seven-and-six apiece because they were going to stand, and walked
into the Promenade. It was in these little things, this utter
negligence of money that Crum had such engaging polish. The
ballet was on its last legs and night, and the traffic of the
Promenade was suffering for the moment. Men and women were
crowded in three rows against the barrier. The whirl and dazzle
on the stage, the half dark, the mingled tobacco fumes and
women’s scent, all that curious lure to promiscuity which belongs
to Promenades, began to free young Val from his idealism. He
looked admiringly in a young woman’s face, saw she was not young,
and quickly looked away. Shades of Cynthia Dark! The young
woman’s arm touched his unconsciously; there was a scent of musk
and mignonette. Val looked round the corner of his lashes.
Perhaps she _was_ young, after all. Her foot trod on his; she
begged his pardon. He said:
“Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m tired of it; aren’t you?”
Young Val smiled—his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he
did not go—not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for
greater certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its
kaleidoscope of snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and
violet and seemed suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled
pyramid. Applause broke out, and it was over! Maroon curtains had
cut it off. The semi-circle of men and women round the barrier
broke up, the young woman’s arm pressed his. A little way off
disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink carnation;
Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking
towards it. Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The
one in the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a
dark moustache; he reeled a little as he walked. Crum’s voice
said slow and level: “Look at that bounder, he’s screwed!” Val
turned to look. The “bounder” had disengaged his arm, and was
pointing straight at them. Crum’s voice, level as ever, said:
“He seems to know you!” The “bounder” spoke:
“H’llo!” he said. “You f’llows, look! There’s my young rascal of
a son!”
Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson
carpet. It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his
father was “screwed”. it was Crum’s word “bounder,” which, as by
heavenly revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes,
his father looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his
pink carnation, and his square, self-assertive walk. And without
a word he ducked behind the young woman and slipped out of the
Promenade. He heard the word, “Val!” behind him, and ran down
deep-carpeted steps past the “chuckersout,” into the Square.
To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest
experience a young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying
away, that his career had ended before it had begun. How could he
go up to Oxford now amongst all those chaps, those splendid
friends of Crum’s, who would know that his father was a
“bounder”. And suddenly he hated Crum. Who the devil was Crum, to
say that? If Crum had been beside him at that moment, he would
certainly have been jostled off the pavement. His own father—his
own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands down
deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild
idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the
arm and walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up
at once and pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman
planted herself before him. “Not so angry, darling!” He shied,
dodged her, and suddenly became quite cool. If Crum ever said a
word, he would jolly well punch his head, and there would be an
end of it. He walked a hundred yards or more, contented with that
thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It wasn’t simple like
that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent came down
who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow
afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why
had his mother married his father, if he was a “bounder”. It was
bitterly unfair—jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a
“bounder” for father. The worst of it was that now Crum had
spoken the word, he realised that he had long known
subconsciously that his father was not “the clean potato.” It was
the beastliest thing that had ever happened to him—beastliest
thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And, down-hearted as
he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let himself
in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover’s
eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a
little whisky at the bottom of a decanter—just enough, as
Winifred had thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him
sick to look at them, and he went upstairs.
Winifred heard him pass, and thought: “The dear boy’s in. Thank
goodness! If he takes after his father I don’t know what I shall
do! But he won’t he’s like me. Dear Val!”
CHAPTER III SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS
When Soames entered his sister’s little Louis Quinze
drawing-room, with its small balcony, always flowered with
hanging geraniums in the summer, and now with pots of Lilium
Auratum, he was struck by the immutability of human affairs. It
looked just the same as on his first visit to the newly married
Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture
himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever
been able to change the room’s atmosphere. Yes, he had founded
his sister well, and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great
deal for Winifred that after all this time with Dartie she
remained well-founded. From the first Soames had nosed out
Dartie’s nature from underneath the plausibility, _savoir faire_,
and good looks which had dazzled Winifred, her mother, and even
James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to marry his
daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into
settlement.
Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at
her Buhl bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came
towards him. Tall as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well
tailored, something in her face disturbed Soames. She crumpled
the letter in her hand, but seemed to change her mind and held it
out to him. He was her lawyer as well as her brother.
Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:
‘You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving
country to-morrow. It’s played out. I’m tired of being insulted
by you. You’ve brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can
stand it. I shall not ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I
took the photograph of the two girls. Give them my love. I don’t
care what your family say. It’s all their doing. I’m going to
live new life.
‘M.D.’
This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry. He
looked at Winifred—the splotch had clearly come from her; and he
checked the words: “Good riddance!” Then it occurred to him that
with this letter she was entering that very state which he
himself so earnestly desired to quit—the state of a Forsyte who
was not divorced.
Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a
little gold-topped bottle. A dull commiseration, together with a
vague sense of injury, crept about Soames’ heart. He had come to
her to talk of his own position, and get sympathy, and here was
she in the same position, wanting of course to talk of it, and
get sympathy from him. It was always like that! Nobody ever
seemed to think that he had troubles and interests of his own. He
folded up the letter with the splotch inside, and said:
“What’s it all about, now?”
Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.
“Do you think he’s really gone, Soames? You see the state he was
in when he wrote that.”
Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by
pretending that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:
“I shouldn’t think so. I might find out at his Club.”
“If George is there,” said Winifred, “he would know.”
“George?” said Soames; “I saw him at his father’s funeral.”
“Then he’s sure to be there.”
Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister’s acumen, said
grudgingly: “Well, I’ll go round. Have you said anything in Park
Lane?”
“I’ve told Emily,” returned Winifred, who retained that “chic”
way of describing her mother. “Father would have a fit.”
Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James.
With another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his
sister’s exact position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly. The
evening was drawing in—a touch of chill in the October haze. He
walked quickly, with his close and concentrated air. He must get
through, for he wished to dine in Soho. On hearing from the hall
porter at the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie had not been in to-day, he
looked at the trusty fellow and decided only to ask if Mr. George
Forsyte was in the Club. He was. Soames, who always looked
askance at his cousin George, as one inclined to jest at his
expense, followed the pageboy, slightly reassured by the thought
that George had just lost his father. He must have come in for
about thirty thousand, besides what he had under that settlement
of Roger’s, which had avoided death duty. He found George in a
bow-window, staring out across a half-eaten plate of muffins. His
tall, bulky, black-clothed figure loomed almost threatening,
though preserving still the supernatural neatness of the racing
man. With a faint grin on his fleshy face, he said:
“Hallo, Soames! Have a muffin?”
“No, thanks,” murmured Soames; and, nursing his hat, with the
desire to say something suitable and sympathetic, added:
“How’s your mother?”
“Thanks,” said George; “so-so. Haven’t seen you for ages. You
never go racing. How’s the City?”
Soames, scenting the approach of a jest, closed up, and answered:
“I wanted to ask you about Dartie. I hear he’s....”
“Flitted, made a bolt to Buenos Aires with the fair Lola. Good
for Winifred and the little Darties. He’s a treat.”
Soames nodded. Naturally inimical as these cousins were, Dartie
made them kin.
“Uncle James’ll sleep in his bed now,” resumed George; “I suppose
he’s had a lot off you, too.”
Soames smiled.
“Ah! You saw him further,” said George amicably. “He’s a real
rouser. Young Val will want a bit of looking after. I was always
sorry for Winifred. She’s a plucky woman.”
Again Soames nodded. “I must be getting back to her,” he said;
“she just wanted to know for certain. We may have to take steps.
I suppose there’s no mistake?”
“It’s quite O.K.,” said George—it was he who invented so many of
those quaint sayings which have been assigned to other sources.