The Forsyte saga - Complete
Jolyon’s pro-Boerism, too, Black Week had left its mark. And so
the end was reached before the beginning! Well, luckily he had
never made a sign!
When he came into the Gallery she was standing before the “Virgin
of the Rocks,” graceful, absorbed, smiling and unconscious. “Have
I to give up seeing _that?_” he thought. “It’s unnatural, so long
as she’s willing that I should see her.” He stood, unnoticed,
watching her, storing up the image of her figure, envying the
picture on which she was bending that long scrutiny. Twice she
turned her head towards the entrance, and he thought: “That’s for
me!” At last he went forward.
“Look!” he said.
She read the telegram, and he heard her sigh.
That sigh, too, was for him! His position was really cruel! To be
loyal to his son he must just shake her hand and go. To be loyal
to the feeling in his heart he must at least tell her what that
feeling was. Could she, would she understand the silence in which
he was gazing at that picture?
“I’m afraid I must go home at once,” he said at last. “I shall
miss all this awfully.”
“So shall I; but, of course, you must go.”
“Well!” said Jolyon holding out his hand.
Meeting her eyes, a flood of feeling nearly mastered him.
“Such is life!” he said. “Take care of yourself, my dear!”
He had a stumbling sensation in his legs and feet, as if his
brain refused to steer him away from her. From the doorway, he
saw her lift her hand and touch its fingers with her lips. He
raised his hat solemnly, and did not look back again.
CHAPTER VII DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE
The suit—Dartie _versus_ Dartie—for restitution of those conjugal
rights concerning which Winifred was at heart so deeply
undecided, followed the laws of subtraction towards day of
judgment. This was not reached before the Courts rose for
Christmas, but the case was third on the list when they sat
again. Winifred spent the Christmas holidays a thought more
fashionably than usual, with the matter locked up in her low-cut
bosom. James was particularly liberal to her that Christmas,
expressing thereby his sympathy, and relief, at the approaching
dissolution of her marriage with that “precious rascal,” which
his old heart felt but his old lips could not utter.
The disappearance of Dartie made the fall in Consols a
comparatively small matter; and as to the scandal—the real animus
he felt against that fellow, and the increasing lead which
property was attaining over reputation in a true Forsyte about to
leave this world, served to drug a mind from which all allusions
to the matter (except his own) were studiously kept. What worried
him as a lawyer and a parent was the fear that Dartie might
suddenly turn up and obey the Order of the Court when made. That
would be a pretty how-de-do! The fear preyed on him in fact so
much that, in presenting Winifred with a large Christmas cheque,
he said: “It’s chiefly for that chap out there; to keep him from
coming back.” It was, of course, to pitch away good money, but
all in the nature of insurance against that bankruptcy which
would no longer hang over him if only the divorce went through;
and he questioned Winifred rigorously until she could assure him
that the money had been sent. Poor woman!—it cost her many a pang
to send what must find its way into the vanity-bag of “that
creature!” Soames, hearing of it, shook his head. They were not
dealing with a Forsyte, reasonably tenacious of his purpose. It
was very risky without knowing how the land lay out there. Still,
it would look well with the Court; and he would see that Dreamer
brought it out. “I wonder,” he said suddenly, “where that ballet
goes after the Argentine”; never omitting a chance of reminder;
for he knew that Winifred still had a weakness, if not for
Dartie, at least for not laundering him in public. Though not
good at showing admiration, he admitted that she was behaving
extremely well, with all her children at home gaping like young
birds for news of their father—Imogen just on the point of coming
out, and Val very restive about the whole thing. He felt that Val
was the real heart of the matter to Winifred, who certainly loved
him beyond her other children. The boy could spoke the wheel of
this divorce yet if he set his mind to it. And Soames was very
careful to keep the proximity of the preliminary proceedings from
his nephew’s ears. He did more. He asked him to dine at the
Remove, and over Val’s cigar introduced the subject which he knew
to be nearest to his heart.
“I hear,” he said, “that you want to play polo up at Oxford.”
Val became less recumbent in his chair.
“Rather!” he said.
“Well,” continued Soames, “that’s a very expensive business. Your
grandfather isn’t likely to consent to it unless he can make sure
that he’s not got any other drain on him.” And he paused to see
whether the boy understood his meaning.
Val’s thick dark lashes concealed his eyes, but a slight grimace
appeared on his wide mouth, and he muttered:
“I suppose you mean my Dad!”
“Yes,” said Soames; “I’m afraid it depends on whether he
continues to be a drag or not;” and said no more, letting the boy
dream it over.
But Val was also dreaming in those days of a silver-roan palfrey
and a girl riding it. Though Crum was in town and an introduction
to Cynthia Dark to be had for the asking, Val did not ask;
indeed, he shunned Crum and lived a life strange even to himself,
except in so far as accounts with tailor and livery stable were
concerned. To his mother, his sisters, his young brother, he
seemed to spend this Vacation in “seeing fellows,” and his
evenings sleepily at home. They could not propose anything in
daylight that did not meet with the one response: “Sorry; I’ve
got to see a fellow”; and he was put to extraordinary shifts to
get in and out of the house unobserved in riding clothes; until,
being made a member of the Goat’s Club, he was able to transport
them there, where he could change unregarded and slip off on his
hack to Richmond Park. He kept his growing sentiment religiously
to himself. Not for a world would he breathe to the “fellows,”
whom he was not “seeing,” anything so ridiculous from the point
of view of their creed and his. But he could not help its
destroying his other appetites. It was coming between him and the
legitimate pleasures of youth at last on its own in a way which
must, he knew, make him a milksop in the eyes of Crum. All he
cared for was to dress in his last-created riding togs, and steal
away to the Robin Hill Gate, where presently the silver roan
would come demurely sidling with its slim and dark-haired rider,
and in the glades bare of leaves they would go off side by side,
not talking very much, riding races sometimes, and sometimes
holding hands. More than once of an evening, in a moment of
expansion, he had been tempted to tell his mother how this shy
sweet cousin had stolen in upon him and wrecked his “life.” But
bitter experience, that all persons above thirty-five were
spoil-sports, prevented him. After all, he supposed he would have
to go through with College, and she would have to “come out,”
before they could be married; so why complicate things, so long
as he could see her? Sisters were teasing and unsympathetic
beings, a brother worse, so there was no one to confide in. Ah!
And this beastly divorce business! What a misfortune to have a
name which other people hadn’t! If only he had been called Gordon
or Scott or Howard or something fairly common! But Dartie—there
wasn’t another in the directory! One might as well have been
named Morkin for all the covert it afforded! So matters went on,
till one day in the middle of January the silver-roan palfrey and
its rider were missing at the tryst. Lingering in the cold, he
debated whether he should ride on to the house: But Jolly might
be there, and the memory of their dark encounter was still fresh
within him. One could not be always fighting with her brother! So
he returned dismally to town and spent an evening plunged in
gloom. At breakfast next day he noticed that his mother had on an
unfamiliar dress and was wearing her hat. The dress was black
with a glimpse of peacock blue, the hat black and large—she
looked exceptionally well. But when after breakfast she said to
him, “Come in here, Val,” and led the way to the drawing-room, he
was at once beset by qualms. Winifred carefully shut the door and
passed her handkerchief over her lips; inhaling the violette de
Parme with which it had been soaked, Val thought: “Has she found
out about Holly?”
Her voice interrupted
“Are you going to be nice to me, dear boy?”
Val grinned doubtfully.
“Will you come with me this morning....”
“I’ve got to see....” began Val, but something in her face
stopped him. “I say,” he said, “you don’t mean....”
“Yes, I have to go to the Court this morning.” Already!—that d—-d
business which he had almost succeeded in forgetting, since
nobody ever mentioned it. In self-commiseration he stood picking
little bits of skin off his fingers. Then noticing that his
mother’s lips were all awry, he said impulsively: “All right,
mother; I’ll come. The brutes!” What brutes he did not know, but
the expression exactly summed up their joint feeling, and
restored a measure of equanimity.
“I suppose I’d better change into a ‘shooter,’” he muttered,
escaping to his room. He put on the “shooter,” a higher collar, a
pearl pin, and his neatest grey spats, to a somewhat blasphemous
accompaniment. Looking at himself in the glass, he said, “Well,
I’m damned if I’m going to show anything!” and went down. He
found his grandfather’s carriage at the door, and his mother in
furs, with the appearance of one going to a Mansion House
Assembly. They seated themselves side by side in the closed
barouche, and all the way to the Courts of Justice Val made but
one allusion to the business in hand. “There’ll be nothing about
those pearls, will there?”
The little tufted white tails of Winifred’s muff began to shiver.
“Oh, no,” she said, “it’ll be quite harmless to-day. Your
grandmother wanted to come too, but I wouldn’t let her. I thought
you could take care of me. You look so nice, Val. Just pull your
coat collar up a little more at the back—that’s right.”
“If they bully you....” began Val.
“Oh! they won’t. I shall be very cool. It’s the only way.”
“They won’t want me to give evidence or anything?”
“No, dear; it’s all arranged.” And she patted his hand. The
determined front she was putting on it stayed the turmoil in
Val’s chest, and he busied himself in drawing his gloves off and
on. He had taken what he now saw was the wrong pair to go with
his spats; they should have been grey, but were deerskin of a