The Forsyte saga - Complete
loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children
were flown, reached the boy’s spirit. “I hope I shall kick the
bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather,” he thought. “Poor
old chap, he’s as thin as a rail!” And lowering his voice while
his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the
soup, he said to Emily:
“It’s pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know.”
“Yes, dear boy.”
“Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn’t there anything
to be done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on
it?”
“Hush, my dear!” murmured Emily; “we’re keeping it from your
grandfather.”
James’ voice sounded from the other end.
“What’s that? What are you talking about?”
“About Val’s college,” returned Emily. “Young Pariser was there,
James; you remember—he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
afterwards.”
James muttered that he did not know—Val must look after himself
up there, or he’d get into bad ways. And he looked at his
grandson with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully
glimmered.
“What I’m afraid of,” said Val to his plate, “is of being hard
up, you know.”
By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear
of insecurity for his grandchildren.
“Well,” said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over,
“you’ll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it.”
“Of course,” murmured Val; “if it is good. How much will it be,
Grandfather?”
“Three hundred and fifty; it’s too much. I had next to nothing at
your age.”
Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. “I
don’t know what your young cousin has,” said James; “he’s up
there. His father’s a rich man.”
“Aren’t you?” asked Val hardily.
“I?” replied James, flustered. “I’ve got so many expenses. Your
father....” and he was silent.
“Cousin Jolyon’s got an awfully jolly place. I went down there
with Uncle Soames—ripping stables.”
“Ah!” murmured James profoundly. “That house—I knew how it would
be!” And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones.
His son’s tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the
Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a
whirlpool of doubts and misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of
Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and
said:
“Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?” And, receiving her
nod, went on: “I wish you’d tell me about him, Granny. What
became of Aunt Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully
worked-up about something to-night.”
Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught
James’ ear.
“What’s that?” he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his
lips. “Who’s been seeing her? I knew we hadn’t heard the last of
that.”
“Now, James,” said Emily, “eat your dinner. Nobody’s been seeing
anybody.”
James put down his fork.
“There you go,” he said. “I might die before you’d tell me of it.
Is Soames getting a divorce?”
“Nonsense,” said Emily with incomparable aplomb; “Soames is much
too sensible.”
James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white
whiskers together on the skin and bone of it.
“She—she was always....” he said, and with that enigmatic remark
the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later,
when the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury,
and dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and
his grandfather’s kiss—like no other kiss in the world, from lips
pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to
weakness—he returned to the charge in the hall.
“Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on
mother’s getting a divorce?”
“Your Uncle Soames,” said Emily, and her voice had in it an
exaggerated assurance, “is a lawyer, my dear boy. He’s sure to
know best.”
“Is he?” muttered Val. “But what did become of Aunt Irene? I
remember she was jolly good-looking.”
“She—er....” said Emily, “behaved very badly. We don’t talk about
it.”
“Well, I don’t want everybody at Oxford to know about our
affairs,” ejaculated Val; “it’s a brutal idea. Why couldn’t
father be prevented without its being made public?”
Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of
divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities—so many of those
whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain
notoriety. When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it
no better than other people. But she was eminently practical, and
a woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to
its substance.
“Your mother,” she said, “will be happier if she’s quite free,
Val. Good-night, my dear boy; and don’t wear loud waistcoats up
at Oxford, they’re not the thing just now. Here’s a little
present.”
With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his
heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park
Lane. A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were
rustling, and the stars were shining. With all that money in his
pocket an impulse to “see life” beset him; but he had not gone
forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly’s shy face,
and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before
him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure
of her warm gloved hand. “No, dash it!” he thought, “I’m going
home!”
CHAPTER X SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE
It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and
summer lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many
looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that
Sunday morning.
With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat,
and equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take
them on the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he
could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She
was so very pretty—could he trust himself not to say irrevocable
words, passing beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the
veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that
there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood;
yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers
to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to
produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions,
so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture
he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great care,
making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that
his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three
times he went up to his picture-gallery. If they had any
knowledge at all, they must see at once that his collection alone
was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected,
too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would
take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if—if the matter
went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the
dressing-table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured
pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of
pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little.
His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand,
and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone
through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked
out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame
Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette
would never resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to
the station to meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame
Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour, Annette in
greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and hat. Rather
pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure.
Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open
french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in
sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when
youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered
the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special
Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee
served on the veranda super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted
creme de menthe; Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with
just a suspicion of “the conscious beauty” creeping into them.
“Yes,” thought Soames, “another year of London and that sort of
life, and she’ll be spoiled.”
Madame was in sedate French raptures. “_Adorable! Le soleil est
si bon!_ How everything is _chic_, is it not, Annette? Monsieur
is a real Monte Cristo.” Annette murmured assent, with a look up
at Soames which he could not read. He proposed a turn on the
river. But to punt two persons when one of them looked so
ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a
sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way towards
Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an
autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother’s black
amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought:
“How—when—where—can I say—what?” They did not yet even know that
he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his
every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand
that he wished for Annette’s hand, it would be dropping into some
other clutch before he was free to claim it.
At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the
Transvaal.
“There’ll be war,” he said.
Madame Lamotte lamented.
“_Ces pauvres gens bergers!_” Could they not be left to
themselves?
Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.
Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British
could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.
“Ah! that!” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a
little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the
Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had
spoken to her of that.
“The Boers are only half-civilised,” remarked Soames; “they stand
in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty
go.”
“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!”
“What a strange word!” Soames became eloquent, roused by these
threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by
Annette’s eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she
said:
“I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson.” She
was sensible!
“Of course,” he said, “we must act with moderation. I’m no jingo.
We must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my
pictures?” Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon
perceived that they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve,