The Forsyte saga - Complete
neglect to leave certain matters to future consideration, which
had necessitated further visits, so that the little back room had
become quite accustomed to his spare, not unsolid, but
unobtrusive figure, and his pale, chinny face with clipped
moustache and dark hair not yet grizzling at the sides.
“_Un Monsieur très distingué_,” Madame Lamotte found him; and
presently, “_Très amical, très gentil_,” watching his eyes upon
her daughter.
She was one of those generously built, fine-faced, dark-haired
Frenchwomen, whose every action and tone of voice inspire perfect
confidence in the thoroughness of their domestic tastes, their
knowledge of cooking, and the careful increase of their bank
balances.
After those visits to the Restaurant Bretagne began, other visits
ceased—without, indeed, any definite decision, for Soames, like
all Forsytes, and the great majority of their countrymen, was a
born empiricist. But it was this change in his mode of life which
had gradually made him so definitely conscious that he desired to
alter his condition from that of the unmarried married man to
that of the married man remarried.
Turning into Malta Street on this evening of early October, 1899,
he bought a paper to see if there were any after-development of
the Dreyfus case—a question which he had always found useful in
making closer acquaintanceship with Madame Lamotte and her
daughter, who were Catholic and anti-Dreyfusard.
Scanning those columns, Soames found nothing French, but noticed
a general fall on the Stock Exchange and an ominous leader about
the Transvaal. He entered, thinking: “War’s a certainty. I shall
sell my consols.” Not that he had many, personally, the rate of
interest was too wretched; but he should advise his
Companies—consols would assuredly go down. A look, as he passed
the doorways of the restaurant, assured him that business was
good as ever, and this, which in April would have pleased him,
now gave him a certain uneasiness. If the steps which he had to
take ended in his marrying Annette, he would rather see her
mother safely back in France, a move to which the prosperity of
the Restaurant Bretagne might become an obstacle. He would have
to buy them out, of course, for French people only came to
England to make money; and it would mean a higher price. And then
that peculiar sweet sensation at the back of his throat, and a
slight thumping about the heart, which he always experienced at
the door of the little room, prevented his thinking how much it
would cost.
Going in, he was conscious of an abundant black skirt vanishing
through the door into the restaurant, and of Annette with her
hands up to her hair. It was the attitude in which of all others
he admired her—so beautifully straight and rounded and supple.
And he said:
“I just came in to talk to your mother about pulling down that
partition. No, don’t call her.”
“_Monsieur_ will have supper with us? It will be ready in ten
minutes.” Soames, who still held her hand, was overcome by an
impulse which surprised him.
“You look so pretty to-night,” he said, “so very pretty. Do you
know how pretty you look, Annette?”
Annette withdrew her hand, and blushed. “Monsieur is very good.”
“Not a bit good,” said Soames, and sat down gloomily.
Annette made a little expressive gesture with her hands; a smile
was crinkling her red lips untouched by salve.
And, looking at those lips, Soames said:
“Are you happy over here, or do you want to go back to France?”
“Oh, I like London. Paris, of course. But London is better than
Orleans, and the English country is so beautiful. I have been to
Richmond last Sunday.”
Soames went through a moment of calculating struggle.
Mapledurham! Dared he? After all, dared he go so far as that, and
show her what there was to look forward to! Still! Down there one
could say things. In this room it was impossible.
“I want you and your mother,” he said suddenly, “to come for the
afternoon next Sunday. My house is on the river, it’s not too
late in this weather; and I can show you some good pictures. What
do you say?”
Annette clasped her hands.
“It will be lovelee. The river is so beautiful”
“That’s understood, then. I’ll ask Madame.”
He need say no more to her this evening, and risk giving himself
away. But had he not already said too much? Did one ask
restaurant proprietors with pretty daughters down to one’s
country house without design? Madame Lamotte would see, if
Annette didn’t. Well! there was not much that Madame did not see.
Besides, this was the second time he had stayed to supper with
them; he owed them hospitality.
Walking home towards Park Lane—for he was staying at his
father’s—with the impression of Annette’s soft clever hand within
his own, his thoughts were pleasant, slightly sensual, rather
puzzled. Take steps! What steps? How? Dirty linen washed in
public? Pah! With his reputation for sagacity, for
far-sightedness and the clever extrication of others, he, who
stood for proprietary interests, to become the plaything of that
Law of which he was a pillar! There was something revolting in
the thought! Winifred’s affair was bad enough! To have a double
dose of publicity in the family! Would not a liaison be better
than that—a liaison, and a son he could adopt? But dark, solid,
watchful, Madame Lamotte blocked the avenue of that vision. No!
that would not work. It was not as if Annette could have a real
passion for him; one could not expect that at his age. If her
mother wished, if the worldly advantage were manifestly
great—perhaps! If not, refusal would be certain. Besides, he
thought: “I’m not a villain. I don’t want to hurt her; and I
don’t want anything underhand. But I do want her, and I want a
son! There’s nothing for it but divorce—somehow—anyhow—divorce!”
Under the shadow of the plane-trees, in the lamplight, he passed
slowly along the railings of the Green Park. Mist clung there
among the bluish tree shapes, beyond range of the lamps. How many
hundred times he had walked past those trees from his father’s
house in Park Lane, when he was quite a young man; or from his
own house in Montpellier Square in those four years of married
life! And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself if he
could of that long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk
on, in at Hyde Park Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he
used to when going home to Irene in the old days. What could she
be like now?—how had she passed the years since he last saw her,
twelve years in all, seven already since Uncle Jolyon left her
that money? Was she still beautiful? Would he know her if he saw
her? “I’ve not changed much,” he thought; “I expect she has. She
made me suffer.” He remembered suddenly one night, the first on
which he went out to dinner alone—an old Malburian dinner—the
first year of their marriage. With what eagerness he had hurried
back; and, entering softly as a cat, had heard her playing.
Opening the drawing-room door noiselessly, he had stood watching
the expression on her face, different from any he knew, so much
more open, so confiding, as though to her music she was giving a
heart he had never seen. And he remembered how she stopped and
looked round, how her face changed back to that which he did
know, and what an icy shiver had gone through him, for all that
the next moment he was fondling her shoulders. Yes, she had made
him suffer! Divorce! It seemed ridiculous, after all these years
of utter separation! But it would have to be. No other way! “The
question,” he thought with sudden realism, “is—which of us? She
or me? She deserted me. She ought to pay for it. There’ll be
someone, I suppose.” Involuntarily he uttered a little snarling
sound, and, turning, made his way back to Park Lane.
CHAPTER V JAMES SEES VISIONS
The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly,
detained Soames on the inner mat.
“The master’s poorly, sir,” he murmured. “He wouldn’t go to bed
till you came in. He’s still in the diningroom.”
Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.
“What’s the matter with him, Warmson?”
“Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs.
Dartie’s comin’ round this afternoon. I think he overheard
something. I’ve took him in a negus. The mistress has just gone
up.”
Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag’s-horn.
“All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I’ll take him up myself.”
And he passed into the dining-room.
James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a
camel-hair shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated
shoulders, on to which his long white whiskers drooped. His white
hair, still fairly thick, glistened in the lamplight; a little
moisture from his fixed, light-grey eyes stained the cheeks,
still quite well coloured, and the long deep furrows running to
the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as if mumbling
thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow’s, in shepherd’s plaid
trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and
glistening tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a
half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There
he had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day. At
eighty-eight he was still organically sound, but suffering
terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything. It
is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being
buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a
grudge against his wife’s youth. He felt sometimes that he would
never have married her if he had known that she would have so
many years before her, when he had so few. It was not natural.
She would live fifteen or twenty years after he was gone, and
might spend a lot of money; she had always had extravagant
tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy one of these
motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young
people—they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness
knew where. And now Roger was gone. He didn’t know—couldn’t tell!
The family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle
had left. Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames’ uncle not as
his own brother. Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot
in a vanishing world. Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but
he had no one to leave his money to. There it was! He didn’t
know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain! For James’ political
principles had been fixed between ’70 and ’85 when “that rascally
Radical” had been the chief thorn in the side of property and he