The Forsyte saga - Complete
“He was drunk as a lord last night; but he went off all right
this morning. His ship’s the _Tuscarora;_” and, fishing out a
card, he read mockingly:
“‘Mr. Montague Dartie, Poste Restante, Buenos Aires.’ I should
hurry up with the steps, if I were you. He fairly fed me up last
night.”
“Yes,” said Soames; “but it’s not always easy.” Then, conscious
from George’s eyes that he had roused reminiscence of his own
affair, he got up, and held out his hand. George rose too.
“Remember me to Winifred.... You’ll enter her for the Divorce
Stakes straight off if you ask me.”
Soames took a sidelong look back at him from the doorway. George
had seated himself again and was staring before him; he looked
big and lonely in those black clothes. Soames had never known him
so subdued. “I suppose he feels it in a way,” he thought. “They
must have about fifty thousand each, all told. They ought to keep
the estate together. If there’s a war, house property will go
down. Uncle Roger was a good judge, though.” And the face of
Annette rose before him in the darkening street; her brown hair
and her blue eyes with their dark lashes, her fresh lips and
cheeks, dewy and blooming in spite of London, her perfect French
figure. “Take steps!” he thought. Re-entering Winifred’s house he
encountered Val, and they went in together. An idea had occurred
to Soames. His cousin Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, the first step
would be to go down and see him at Robin Hill. Robin Hill! The
odd—the very odd feeling those words brought back! Robin Hill—the
house Bosinney had built for him and Irene—the house they had
never lived in—the fatal house! And Jolyon lived there now! H’m!
And suddenly he thought: “They say he’s got a boy at Oxford! Why
not take young Val down and introduce them! It’s an excuse! Less
bald—very much less bald!” So, as they went upstairs, he said to
Val:
“You’ve got a cousin at Oxford; you’ve never met him. I should
like to take you down with me to-morrow to where he lives and
introduce you. You’ll find it useful.”
Val, receiving the idea with but moderate transports, Soames
clinched it.
“I’ll call for you after lunch. It’s in the country—not far;
you’ll enjoy it.”
On the threshold of the drawing-room he recalled with an effort
that the steps he contemplated concerned Winifred at the moment,
not himself.
Winifred was still sitting at her Buhl bureau.
“It’s quite true,” he said; “he’s gone to Buenos Aires, started
this morning—we’d better have him shadowed when he lands. I’ll
cable at once. Otherwise we may have a lot of expense. The sooner
these things are done the better. I’m always regretting that I
didn’t...” he stopped, and looked sidelong at the silent
Winifred. “By the way,” he went on, “can you prove cruelty?”
Winifred said in a dull voice:
“I don’t know. What is cruelty?”
“Well, has he struck you, or anything?”
Winifred shook herself, and her jaw grew square.
“He twisted my arm. Or would pointing a pistol count? Or being
too drunk to undress himself, or—No—I can’t bring in the
children.”
“No,” said Soames; “no! I wonder! Of course, there’s legal
separation—we can get that. But separation! Um!”
“What does it mean?” asked Winifred desolately.
“That he can’t touch you, or you him; you’re both of you married
and unmarried.” And again he grunted. What was it, in fact, but
his own accursed position, legalised! No, he would not put her
into that!
“It must be divorce,” he said decisively; “failing cruelty,
there’s desertion. There’s a way of shortening the two years,
now. We get the Court to give us restitution of conjugal rights.
Then if he doesn’t obey, we can bring a suit for divorce in six
months’ time. Of course you don’t want him back. But they won’t
know that. Still, there’s the risk that he might come. I’d rather
try cruelty.”
Winifred shook her head. “It’s so beastly.”
“Well,” Soames murmured, “perhaps there isn’t much risk so long
as he’s infatuated and got money. Don’t say anything to anybody,
and don’t pay any of his debts.”
Winifred sighed. In spite of all she had been through, the sense
of loss was heavy on her. And this idea of not paying his debts
any more brought it home to her as nothing else yet had. Some
richness seemed to have gone out of life. Without her husband,
without her pearls, without that intimate sense that she made a
brave show above the domestic whirlpool, she would now have to
face the world. She felt bereaved indeed.
And into the chilly kiss he placed on her forehead, Soames put
more than his usual warmth.
“I have to go down to Robin Hill to-morrow,” he said, “to see
young Jolyon on business. He’s got a boy at Oxford. I’d like to
take Val with me and introduce him. Come down to ‘The Shelter’
for the week-end and bring the children. Oh! by the way, no, that
won’t do; I’ve got some other people coming.” So saying, he left
her and turned towards Soho.
CHAPTER IV SOHO
Of all quarters in the queer adventurous amalgam called London,
Soho is perhaps least suited to the Forsyte spirit. “So-ho, my
wild one!” George would have said if he had seen his cousin going
there. Untidy, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians,
tomatoes, restaurants, organs, coloured stuffs, queer names,
people looking out of upper windows, it dwells remote from the
British Body Politic. Yet has it haphazard proprietary instincts
of its own, and a certain possessive prosperity which keeps its
rents up when those of other quarters go down. For long years
Soames’ acquaintanceship with Soho had been confined to its
Western bastion, Wardour Street. Many bargains had he picked up
there. Even during those seven years at Brighton after Bosinney’s
death and Irene’s flight, he had bought treasures there
sometimes, though he had no place to put them; for when the
conviction that his wife had gone for good at last became firm
within him, he had caused a board to be put up in Montpellier
Square:
FOR SALE
THE LEASE OF THIS DESIRABLE RESIDENCE
Enquire of Messrs. Lesson and Tukes, Court Street, Belgravia.
It had sold within a week—that desirable residence, in the shadow
of whose perfection a man and a woman had eaten their hearts out.
Of a misty January evening, just before the board was taken down,
Soames had gone there once more, and stood against the Square
railings, looking at its unlighted windows, chewing the cud of
possessive memories which had turned so bitter in the mouth. Why
had she never loved him? Why? She had been given all she had
wanted, and in return had given him, for three long years, all he
had wanted—except, indeed, her heart. He had uttered a little
involuntary groan, and a passing policeman had glanced
suspiciously at him who no longer possessed the right to enter
that green door with the carved brass knocker beneath the board
“For Sale!” A choking sensation had attacked his throat, and he
had hurried away into the mist. That evening he had gone to
Brighton to live....
Approaching Malta Street, Soho, and the Restaurant Bretagne,
where Annette would be drooping her pretty shoulders over her
accounts, Soames thought with wonder of those seven years at
Brighton. How had he managed to go on so long in that town devoid
of the scent of sweetpeas, where he had not even space to put his
treasures? True, those had been years with no time at all for
looking at them—years of almost passionate money-making, during
which Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte had become solicitors to more
limited Companies than they could properly attend to. Up to the
City of a morning in a Pullman car, down from the City of an
evening in a Pullman car. Law papers again after dinner, then the
sleep of the tired, and up again next morning. Saturday to Monday
was spent at his Club in town—curious reversal of customary
procedure, based on the deep and careful instinct that while
working so hard he needed sea air to and from the station twice a
day, and while resting must indulge his domestic affections. The
Sunday visit to his family in Park Lane, to Timothy’s, and to
Green Street; the occasional visits elsewhere had seemed to him
as necessary to health as sea air on weekdays. Even since his
migration to Mapledurham he had maintained those habits until—he
had known Annette.
Whether Annette had produced the revolution in his outlook, or
that outlook had produced Annette, he knew no more than we know
where a circle begins. It was intricate and deeply involved with
the growing consciousness that property without anyone to leave
it to is the negation of true Forsyteism. To have an heir, some
continuance of self, who would begin where he left off—ensure, in
fact, that he would not leave off—had quite obsessed him for the
last year and more. After buying a bit of Wedgwood one evening in
April, he had dropped into Malta Street to look at a house of his
father’s which had been turned into a restaurant—a risky
proceeding, and one not quite in accordance with the terms of the
lease. He had stared for a little at the outside painted a good
cream colour, with two peacock-blue tubs containing little
bay-trees in a recessed doorway—and at the words “Restaurant
Bretagne” above them in gold letters, rather favourably
impressed. Entering, he had noticed that several people were
already seated at little round green tables with little pots of
fresh flowers on them and Brittany-ware plates, and had asked of
a trim waitress to see the proprietor. They had shown him into a
back room, where a girl was sitting at a simple bureau covered
with papers, and a small round, table was laid for two. The
impression of cleanliness, order, and good taste was confirmed
when the girl got up, saying, “You wish to see _Maman,
Monsieur?_” in a broken accent.
“Yes,” Soames had answered, “I represent your landlord; in fact,
I’m his son.”
“Won’t you sit down, sir, please? Tell _Maman_ to come to this
gentleman.”
He was pleased that the girl seemed impressed, because it showed
business instinct; and suddenly he noticed that she was
remarkably pretty—so remarkably pretty that his eyes found a
difficulty in leaving her face. When she moved to put a chair for
him, she swayed in a curious subtle way, as if she had been put
together by someone with a special secret skill; and her face and
neck, which was a little bared, looked as fresh as if they had
been sprayed with dew. Probably at this moment Soames decided
that the lease had not been violated; though to himself and his
father he based the decision on the efficiency of those illicit
adaptations in the building, on the signs of prosperity, and the
obvious business capacity of Madame Lamotte. He did not, however,