The Forsyte saga - Complete
strange story of his father’s Indian summer became slowly clear
to him. She spoke of old Jolyon with reverence and tears in her
eyes. “He was so wonderfully kind to me; I don’t know why. He
looked so beautiful and peaceful sitting in that chair under the
tree; it was I who first came on him sitting there, you know.
Such a lovely day. I don’t think an end could have been happier.
We should all like to go out like that.”
“Quite right!” he had thought. “We should all like to go out in
full summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.”
And looking round the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had
asked her what she was going to do now. “I am going to live again
a little, Cousin Jolyon. It’s wonderful to have money of one’s
own. I’ve never had any. I shall keep this flat, I think; I’m
used to it; but I shall be able to go to Italy.”
“Exactly!” Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling
lips; and he had gone away thinking: “A fascinating woman! What a
waste! I’m glad the Dad left her that money.” He had not seen her
again, but every quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it
to her bank, with a note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had
done so; and always he had received a note in acknowledgment,
generally from the flat, but sometimes from Italy; so that her
personality had become embodied in slightly scented grey paper,
an upright fine handwriting, and the words, “Dear Cousin Jolyon.”
Man of property that he now was, the slender cheque he signed
often gave rise to the thought: “Well, I suppose she just
manages”; sliding into a vague wonder how she was faring
otherwise in a world of men not wont to let beauty go
unpossessed. At first Holly had spoken of her sometimes, but
“ladies in grey” soon fade from children’s memories; and the
tightening of June’s lips in those first weeks after her
grandfather’s death whenever her former friend’s name was
mentioned, had discouraged allusion. Only once, indeed, had June
spoken definitely: “I’ve forgiven her. I’m frightfully glad she’s
independent now....”
On receiving Soames’ card, Jolyon said to the maid—for he could
not abide butlers—“Show him into the study, please, and say I’ll
be there in a minute”; and then he looked at Holly and asked:
“Do you remember ‘the lady in grey,’ who used to give you
music-lessons?”
“Oh yes, why? Has she come?”
Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a
coat, was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not
for those young ears. His face, in fact, became whimsical
perplexity incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.
Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at
the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he
thought: “Who’s that boy? Surely they never had a child.”
The elder figure turned. The meeting of those two Forsytes of the
second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in
the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other,
was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at
cordiality. “Has he come about his wife?” Jolyon was thinking;
and Soames, “How shall I begin?” while Val, brought to break the
ice, stood negligently scrutinising this “bearded pard” from
under his dark, thick eyelashes.
“This is Val Dartie,” said Soames, “my sister’s son. He’s just
going up to Oxford. I thought I’d like him to know your boy.”
“Ah! I’m sorry Jolly’s away. What college?”
“B.N.C.,” replied Val.
“Jolly’s at the ‘House,’ but he’ll be delighted to look you up.”
“Thanks awfully.”
“Holly’s in—if you could put up with a female relation, she’d
show you round. You’ll find her in the hall if you go through the
curtains. I was just painting her.”
With another “Thanks, awfully!” Val vanished, leaving the two
cousins with the ice unbroken.
“I see you’ve some drawings at the ‘Water Colours,’” said Soames.
Jolyon winced. He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family
at large for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his
mind with Frith’s “Derby Day” and Landseer prints. He had heard
from June that Soames was a connoisseur, which made it worse. He
had become aware, too, of a curious sensation of repugnance.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said.
“No,” answered Soames between close lips, “not since—as a matter
of fact, it’s about that I’ve come. You’re her trustee, I’m
told.”
Jolyon nodded.
“Twelve years is a long time,” said Soames rapidly: “I—I’m tired
of it.”
Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:
“Won’t you smoke?”
“No, thanks.”
Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.
“I wish to be free,” said Soames abruptly.
“I don’t see her,” murmured Jolyon through the fume of his
cigarette.
“But you know where she lives, I suppose?”
Jolyon nodded. He did not mean to give her address without
permission. Soames seemed to divine his thought.
“I don’t want her address,” he said; “I know it.”
“What exactly do you want?”
“She deserted me. I want a divorce.”
“Rather late in the day, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Soames. And there was a silence.
“I don’t know much about these things—at least, I’ve forgotten,”
said Jolyon with a wry smile. He himself had had to wait for
death to grant him a divorce from the first Mrs. Jolyon. “Do you
wish me to see her about it?”
Soames raised his eyes to his cousin’s face. “I suppose there’s
someone,” he said.
A shrug moved Jolyon’s shoulders.
“I don’t know at all. I imagine you may have both lived as if the
other were dead. It’s usual in these cases.”
Soames turned to the window. A few early fallen oak-leaves
strewed the terrace already, and were rolling round in the wind.
Jolyon saw the figures of Holly and Val Dartie moving across the
lawn towards the stables. “I’m not going to run with the hare and
hunt with the hounds,” he thought. “I must act for her. The Dad
would have wished that.” And for a swift moment he seemed to see
his father’s figure in the old armchair, just beyond Soames,
sitting with knees crossed, _The Times_ in his hand. It vanished.
“My father was fond of her,” he said quietly.
“Why he should have been I don’t know,” Soames answered without
looking round. “She brought trouble to your daughter June; she
brought trouble to everyone. I gave her all she wanted. I would
have given her even—forgiveness—but she chose to leave me.”
In Jolyon compassion was checked by the tone of that close voice.
What was there in the fellow that made it so difficult to be
sorry for him?
“I can go and see her, if you like,” he said. “I suppose she
might be glad of a divorce, but I know nothing.”
Soames nodded.
“Yes, please go. As I say, I know her address; but I’ve no wish
to see her.” His tongue was busy with his lips, as if they were
very dry.
“You’ll have some tea?” said Jolyon, stifling the words: “And see
the house.” And he led the way into the hall. When he had rung
the bell and ordered tea, he went to his easel to turn his
drawing to the wall. He could not bear, somehow, that his work
should be seen by Soames, who was standing there in the middle of
the great room which had been designed expressly to afford wall
space for his own pictures. In his cousin’s face, with its
unseizable family likeness to himself, and its chinny, narrow,
concentrated look, Jolyon saw that which moved him to the
thought: “That chap could never forget anything—nor ever give
himself away. He’s pathetic!”
CHAPTER VII THE COLT AND THE FILLY
When young Val left the presence of the last generation he was
thinking: “This is jolly dull! Uncle Soames does take the bun. I
wonder what this filly’s like?” He anticipated no pleasure from
her society; and suddenly he saw her standing there looking at
him. Why, she was pretty! What luck!
“I’m afraid you don’t know me,” he said. “My name’s Val
Dartie—I’m once removed, second cousin, something like that, you
know. My mother’s name was Forsyte.”
Holly, whose slim brown hand remained in his because she was too
shy to withdraw it, said:
“I don’t know any of my relations. Are there many?”
“Tons. They’re awful—most of them. At least, I don’t know—some of
them. One’s relations always are, aren’t they?”
“I expect they think one awful too,” said Holly.
“I don’t know why they should. No one could think you awful, of
course.”
Holly looked at him—the wistful candour in those grey eyes gave
young Val a sudden feeling that he must protect her.
“I mean there are people and people,” he added astutely. “Your
dad looks awfully decent, for instance.”
“Oh yes!” said Holly fervently; “he is.”
A flush mounted in Val’s cheeks—that scene in the Pandemonium
promenade—the dark man with the pink carnation developing into
his own father! “But you know what the Forsytes are,” he said
almost viciously. “Oh! I forgot; you don’t.”
“What are they?”
“Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit. Look at Uncle
Soames!”
“I’d like to,” said Holly.
Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers. “Oh! no,” he
said, “let’s go out. You’ll see him quite soon enough. What’s
your brother like?”
Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without
answering. How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered
anything, had been her lord, master, and ideal?
“Does he sit on you?” said Val shrewdly. “I shall be knowing him
at Oxford. Have you got any horses?”
Holly nodded. “Would you like to see the stables?”
“Rather!”
They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into
the stable-yard. There under a clock-tower lay a fluffy
brown-and-white dog, so old that he did not get up, but faintly
waved the tail curled over his back.
“That’s Balthasar,” said Holly; “he’s so old—awfully old, nearly
as old as I am. Poor old boy! He’s devoted to Dad.”
“Balthasar! That’s a rum name. He isn’t purebred you know.”
“No! but he’s a darling,” and she bent down to stroke the dog.
Gentle and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck
and hands, she seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing
slipped between him and all previous knowledge.
“When grandfather died,” she said, “he wouldn’t eat for two days.
He saw him die, you know.”
“Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper.”
“He was,” said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.
In a loose-box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a
long black tail and mane. “This is mine—Fairy.”
“Ah!” said Val, “she’s a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her
tail. She’d look much smarter.” Then catching her wondering look,
he thought suddenly: “I don’t know—anything she likes!” And he