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Francie devoutly hoped he might soon get tired, and slip off to bed.
The three or four devoted girl friends who were staying in the house for this dance had partaken with her, in a small, abandoned room upstairs, of tea and cold chicken-legs, hurriedly served; the men had been sent out to dine at Eustace’s Club, it being felt that they must be fed up.
Punctually on the stroke of nine arrived Mrs. Small alone. She made elaborate apologies for the absence of Timothy, omitting all mention of Aunt Hester, who, at the last minute, had said she could not be bothered. Francie received her effusively, and placed her on a rout seat, where she left her, pouting and solitary in lavender-coloured satin – the first time she had worn colour since Aunt Ann’s death.
The devoted maiden friends came now from their rooms, each by magic arrangement in a differently coloured frock, but all with the same liberal allowance of tulle on the shoulders and at the bosom – for they were, by some fatality, lean to a girl. They were all taken up to Mrs. Small. None stayed with her more than a few seconds, but clustering together talked and twisted their programmes, looking secretly at the door for the first appearance of a man.
Then arrived in a group a number of Nicholases, always punctual – the fashion up Ladbroke Grove way; and close behind them Eustace and his men, gloomy and smelling rather of smoke.
Three or four of Francie’s lovers now appeared, one after the other; she had made each promise to come early. They were all clean-shaven and sprightly, with that peculiar kind of young-man sprightliness which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not seem to mind each other’s presence in the least, and wore their ties bunching out at the ends, white waistcoats, and socks with clocks. All had handkerchiefs concealed in their cuffs. They moved buoyantly, each armoured in professional gaiety, as though he had come to do great deeds. Their faces when they danced, far from wearing the traditional solemn look of the dancing Englishman, were irresponsible, charming, suave; they bounded, twirling their partners at great pace, without pedantic attention to the rhythm of the music.
At other dancers they looked with a kind of airy scorn – they, the light brigade, the heroes of a hundred Kensington ‘hops’ – from whom alone could the right manner and smile and step be hoped.
After this the stream came fast; chaperones silting up along the wall facing the entrance, the volatile element swelling the eddy in the larger room.
Men were scarce, and wallflowers[38] wore their peculiar, pathetic expression, a patient, sourish smile which seemed to say: “Oh, no! don’t mistake me, I know you are not coming up to me. I can hardly expect that!” And Francie would plead with one of her lovers, or with some callow youth: “Now, to please me, do let me introduce you to Miss Pink; such a nice girl, really!” and she would bring him up, and say: “Miss Pink – Mr. Gathercole. Can you spare him a dance?” Then Miss Pink, smiling her forced smile, colouring a little, answered: “Oh! I think so!” and screening her empty card, wrote on it the name of Gathercole, spelling it passionately in the district that he proposed, about the second extra.
But when the youth had murmured that it was hot, and passed, she relapsed into her attitude of hopeless expectation, into her patient, sourish smile.
Mothers, slowly fanning their faces, watched their daughters, and in their eyes could be read all the story of those daughters’ fortunes. As for themselves, to sit hour after hour, dead tired, silent, or talking spasmodically – what did it matter, so long as the girls were having a good time! But to see them neglected and passed by! Ah! they smiled, but their eyes stabbed like the eyes of an offended swan; they longed to pluck young Gathercole by the slack of his dandified breeches, and drag him to their daughters – the jackanapes!
And all the cruelties and hardness of life, its pathos and unequal chances, its conceit, self-forgetfulness, and patience, were presented on the battle-field of this Kensington ball-room.
Here and there, too, lovers – not lovers like Francie’s, a peculiar breed, but simply lovers – trembling, blushing, silent, sought each other by flying glances, sought to meet and touch in the mazes of the dance, and now and again dancing together, struck some beholder by the light in their eyes.
Not a second before ten o’clock came the Jameses – Emily, Rachel, Winifred (Dartie had been left behind, having on a former occasion drunk too much of Roger’s champagne), and Cicely, the youngest, making her debut; behind them, following in a hansom from the paternal mansion where they had dined, Soames and Irene.
All these ladies had shoulder-straps and no tulle – thus showing at once, by a bolder exposure of flesh, that they came from the more fashionable side of the Park.
Soames, sidling back from the contact of the dancers, took up a position against the wall. Guarding himself with his pale smile, he stood watching. Waltz after waltz began and ended, couple after couple brushed by with smiling lips, laughter, and snatches of talk; or with set lips, and eyes searching the throng; or again, with silent, parted lips, and eyes on each other. And the scent of festivity, the odour of flowers, and hair, of essences that women love, rose suffocatingly in the heat of the summer night.
Silent, with something of scorn in his smile, Soames seemed to notice nothing; but now and again his eyes, finding that which they sought, would fix themselves on a point in the shifting throng, and the smile die off his lips.
He danced with no one. Some fellows danced with their wives; his sense of ‘form’ had never permitted him to dance with Irene since their marriage, and the God of the Forsytes alone can tell whether this was a relief to him or not.
She passed, dancing with other men, her dress, iris-coloured, floating away from her feet. She danced well; he was tired of hearing women say with an acid smile: “How beautifully your wife dances, Mr. Forsyte – it’s quite a pleasure to watch her!” Tired of answering them with his sidelong glance: “You think so?”
A young couple close by flirted a fan by turns, making an unpleasant draught. Francie and one of her lovers stood near. They were talking of love.
He heard Roger’s voice behind, giving an order about supper to a servant. Everything was very second-class! He wished that he had not come! He had asked Irene whether she wanted him; she had answered with that maddening smile of hers “Oh, no!”
Why had he come? For the last quarter of an hour he had not even seen her. Here was George advancing with his Quilpish face; it was too late to get out of his way.
“Have you seen ‘The Buccaneer’?” said this licensed wag; “he’s on the warpath – hair cut and everything!”
Soames said he had not, and crossing the room, half-empty in an interval of the dance, he went out on the balcony, and looked down into the street.
A carriage had driven up with late arrivals, and round the door hung some of those patient watchers of the London streets who spring up to the call of light or music; their faces, pale and upturned above their black and rusty figures, had an air of stolid watching that annoyed Soames. Why were they allowed to hang about; why didn’t the bobby move them on?
But the policeman took no notice of them; his feet were planted apart on the strip of crimson carpet stretched across the pavement; his face, under the helmet, wore the same stolid, watching look as theirs.
Across the road, through the railings, Soames could see the branches of trees shining, faintly stirring in the breeze, by the gleam of the street lamps; beyond, again, the upper lights of the houses on the other side, so many eyes looking down on the quiet blackness of the garden; and over all, the sky, that wonderful London sky, dusted with the innumerable reflection of countless lamps; a dome woven over between its stars with the refraction of human needs and human fancies – immense mirror of pomp and misery that night after night stretches its kindly mocking over miles of houses and gardens, mansions and squalor, over Forsytes, policemen, and patient watchers in the streets.
Soames turned away, and, hidden in the recess, gazed into the lighted room. It was cooler out there. He saw the new arrivals, June and her grandfather, enter. What had made them so late? They stood by the doorway. They looked fagged. Fancy Uncle Jolyon turning out at this time of night! Why hadn’t June come to Irene, as she usually did, and it occurred to him suddenly that he had seen nothing of June for a long time now.
Watching her face with idle malice, he saw it change, grow so pale that he thought she would drop, then flame out crimson. Turning to see at what she was looking, he saw his wife on Bosinney’s arm, coming from the conservatory at the end of the room. Her eyes were raised to his, as though answering some question he had asked, and he was gazing at her intently.
Soames looked again at June. Her hand rested on old Jolyon’s arm; she seemed to be making a request. He saw a surprised look on his uncle’s face; they turned and passed through the door out of his sight.
The music began again – a waltz – and, still as a statue in the recess of the window, his face unmoved, but no smile on his lips, Soames waited. Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his wife and Bosinney passed. He caught the perfume of the gardenias that she wore, saw the rise and fall of her bosom, the languor in her eyes, her parted lips, and a look on her face that he did not know. To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and it seemed to him that they clung to each other; he saw her raise her eyes, soft and dark, to Bosinney’s, and drop them again.
Very white, he turned back to the balcony, and leaning on it, gazed down on the Square; the figures were still there looking up at the light with dull persistency, the policeman’s face, too, upturned, and staring, but he saw nothing of them. Below, a carriage drew up, two figures got in, and drove away….
That evening June and old Jolyon sat down to dinner at the usual hour. The girl was in her customary high-necked frock, old Jolyon had not dressed.
At breakfast she had spoken of the dance at Uncle Roger’s, she wanted to go; she had been stupid enough, she said, not to think of asking anyone to take her. It was too late now.
Old Jolyon lifted his keen eyes. June was used to go to dances with Irene as a matter of course! and deliberately fixing his gaze on her, he asked: “Why don’t you get Irene?”
No! June did not want to ask Irene; she would only go if – if her grandfather wouldn’t mind just for once for a little time!
At her look, so eager and so worn, old Jolyon had grumblingly consented. He did not know what she wanted, he said, with going to a dance like this, a poor affair, he would wager; and she no more fit for it than a cat! What she wanted was sea air, and after his general meeting of the Globular Gold Concessions he was ready to take her. She didn’t want to go away? Ah! she would knock herself up! Stealing a mournful look at her, he went on with his breakfast.
June went out early, and wandered restlessly about in the heat. Her little light figure that lately had moved so languidly about its business, was all on fire. She bought herself some flowers. She wanted – she meant to look her best. He would be there! She knew well enough that he had a card. She would show him that she did not care. But deep down in her heart she resolved that evening to win him back. She came in flushed, and talked brightly all lunch; old Jolyon was there, and he was deceived.
In the afternoon she was overtaken by a desperate fit of sobbing. She strangled the noise against the pillows of her bed, but when at last it ceased she saw in the glass a swollen face with reddened eyes, and violet circles round them. She stayed in the darkened room till dinner time.
All through that silent meal the struggle went on within her.
She looked so shadowy and exhausted that old Jolyon told ‘Sankey’ to countermand the carriage, he would not have her going out…. She was to go to bed! She made no resistance. She went up to her room, and sat in the dark. At ten o’clock she rang for her maid.
“Bring some hot water, and go down and tell Mr. Forsyte that I feel perfectly rested. Say that if he’s too tired I can go to the dance by myself.”
The maid looked askance, and June turned on her imperiously. “Go,” she said, “bring the hot water at once!”
Her ball-dress still lay on the sofa, and with a sort of fierce care she arrayed herself, took the flowers in her hand, and went down, her small face carried high under its burden of hair. She could hear old Jolyon in his room as she passed.
Bewildered and vexed, he was dressing. It was past ten, they would not get there till eleven; the girl was mad. But he dared not cross her – the expression of her face at dinner haunted him.
With great ebony brushes he smoothed his hair till it shone like silver under the light; then he, too, came out on the gloomy staircase.
June met him below, and, without a word, they went to the carriage.
When, after that drive which seemed to last for ever, she entered Roger’s drawing-room, she disguised under a mask of resolution a very torment of nervousness and emotion. The feeling of shame at what might be called ‘running after him’ was smothered by the dread that he might not be there, that she might not see him after all, and by that dogged resolve – somehow, she did not know how – to win him back.
The sight of the ballroom, with its gleaming floor, gave her a feeling of joy, of triumph, for she loved dancing, and when dancing she floated, so light was she, like a strenuous, eager little spirit. He would surely ask her to dance, and if he danced with her it would all be as it was before. She looked about her eagerly.
The sight of Bosinney coming with Irene from the conservatory, with that strange look of utter absorption on his face, struck her too suddenly. They had not seen – no one should see – her distress, not even her grandfather.
She put her hand on Jolyon’s arm, and said very low:
“I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”
He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he had known how it would be.
To her he said nothing; only when they were once more in the carriage, which by some fortunate chance had lingered near the door, he asked her: “What is it, my darling?”
Feeling her whole slender body shaken by sobs, he was terribly alarmed. She must have Blank to-morrow. He would insist upon it. He could not have her like this…. There, there!
June mastered her sobs, and squeezing his hand feverishly, she lay back in her corner, her face muffled in a shawl.
He could only see her eyes, fixed and staring in the dark, but he did not cease to stroke her hand with his thin fingers.
Chapter IX
Chapter X
The three or four devoted girl friends who were staying in the house for this dance had partaken with her, in a small, abandoned room upstairs, of tea and cold chicken-legs, hurriedly served; the men had been sent out to dine at Eustace’s Club, it being felt that they must be fed up.
Punctually on the stroke of nine arrived Mrs. Small alone. She made elaborate apologies for the absence of Timothy, omitting all mention of Aunt Hester, who, at the last minute, had said she could not be bothered. Francie received her effusively, and placed her on a rout seat, where she left her, pouting and solitary in lavender-coloured satin – the first time she had worn colour since Aunt Ann’s death.
The devoted maiden friends came now from their rooms, each by magic arrangement in a differently coloured frock, but all with the same liberal allowance of tulle on the shoulders and at the bosom – for they were, by some fatality, lean to a girl. They were all taken up to Mrs. Small. None stayed with her more than a few seconds, but clustering together talked and twisted their programmes, looking secretly at the door for the first appearance of a man.
Then arrived in a group a number of Nicholases, always punctual – the fashion up Ladbroke Grove way; and close behind them Eustace and his men, gloomy and smelling rather of smoke.
Three or four of Francie’s lovers now appeared, one after the other; she had made each promise to come early. They were all clean-shaven and sprightly, with that peculiar kind of young-man sprightliness which had recently invaded Kensington; they did not seem to mind each other’s presence in the least, and wore their ties bunching out at the ends, white waistcoats, and socks with clocks. All had handkerchiefs concealed in their cuffs. They moved buoyantly, each armoured in professional gaiety, as though he had come to do great deeds. Their faces when they danced, far from wearing the traditional solemn look of the dancing Englishman, were irresponsible, charming, suave; they bounded, twirling their partners at great pace, without pedantic attention to the rhythm of the music.
At other dancers they looked with a kind of airy scorn – they, the light brigade, the heroes of a hundred Kensington ‘hops’ – from whom alone could the right manner and smile and step be hoped.
After this the stream came fast; chaperones silting up along the wall facing the entrance, the volatile element swelling the eddy in the larger room.
Men were scarce, and wallflowers[38] wore their peculiar, pathetic expression, a patient, sourish smile which seemed to say: “Oh, no! don’t mistake me, I know you are not coming up to me. I can hardly expect that!” And Francie would plead with one of her lovers, or with some callow youth: “Now, to please me, do let me introduce you to Miss Pink; such a nice girl, really!” and she would bring him up, and say: “Miss Pink – Mr. Gathercole. Can you spare him a dance?” Then Miss Pink, smiling her forced smile, colouring a little, answered: “Oh! I think so!” and screening her empty card, wrote on it the name of Gathercole, spelling it passionately in the district that he proposed, about the second extra.
But when the youth had murmured that it was hot, and passed, she relapsed into her attitude of hopeless expectation, into her patient, sourish smile.
Mothers, slowly fanning their faces, watched their daughters, and in their eyes could be read all the story of those daughters’ fortunes. As for themselves, to sit hour after hour, dead tired, silent, or talking spasmodically – what did it matter, so long as the girls were having a good time! But to see them neglected and passed by! Ah! they smiled, but their eyes stabbed like the eyes of an offended swan; they longed to pluck young Gathercole by the slack of his dandified breeches, and drag him to their daughters – the jackanapes!
And all the cruelties and hardness of life, its pathos and unequal chances, its conceit, self-forgetfulness, and patience, were presented on the battle-field of this Kensington ball-room.
Here and there, too, lovers – not lovers like Francie’s, a peculiar breed, but simply lovers – trembling, blushing, silent, sought each other by flying glances, sought to meet and touch in the mazes of the dance, and now and again dancing together, struck some beholder by the light in their eyes.
Not a second before ten o’clock came the Jameses – Emily, Rachel, Winifred (Dartie had been left behind, having on a former occasion drunk too much of Roger’s champagne), and Cicely, the youngest, making her debut; behind them, following in a hansom from the paternal mansion where they had dined, Soames and Irene.
All these ladies had shoulder-straps and no tulle – thus showing at once, by a bolder exposure of flesh, that they came from the more fashionable side of the Park.
Soames, sidling back from the contact of the dancers, took up a position against the wall. Guarding himself with his pale smile, he stood watching. Waltz after waltz began and ended, couple after couple brushed by with smiling lips, laughter, and snatches of talk; or with set lips, and eyes searching the throng; or again, with silent, parted lips, and eyes on each other. And the scent of festivity, the odour of flowers, and hair, of essences that women love, rose suffocatingly in the heat of the summer night.
Silent, with something of scorn in his smile, Soames seemed to notice nothing; but now and again his eyes, finding that which they sought, would fix themselves on a point in the shifting throng, and the smile die off his lips.
He danced with no one. Some fellows danced with their wives; his sense of ‘form’ had never permitted him to dance with Irene since their marriage, and the God of the Forsytes alone can tell whether this was a relief to him or not.
She passed, dancing with other men, her dress, iris-coloured, floating away from her feet. She danced well; he was tired of hearing women say with an acid smile: “How beautifully your wife dances, Mr. Forsyte – it’s quite a pleasure to watch her!” Tired of answering them with his sidelong glance: “You think so?”
A young couple close by flirted a fan by turns, making an unpleasant draught. Francie and one of her lovers stood near. They were talking of love.
He heard Roger’s voice behind, giving an order about supper to a servant. Everything was very second-class! He wished that he had not come! He had asked Irene whether she wanted him; she had answered with that maddening smile of hers “Oh, no!”
Why had he come? For the last quarter of an hour he had not even seen her. Here was George advancing with his Quilpish face; it was too late to get out of his way.
“Have you seen ‘The Buccaneer’?” said this licensed wag; “he’s on the warpath – hair cut and everything!”
Soames said he had not, and crossing the room, half-empty in an interval of the dance, he went out on the balcony, and looked down into the street.
A carriage had driven up with late arrivals, and round the door hung some of those patient watchers of the London streets who spring up to the call of light or music; their faces, pale and upturned above their black and rusty figures, had an air of stolid watching that annoyed Soames. Why were they allowed to hang about; why didn’t the bobby move them on?
But the policeman took no notice of them; his feet were planted apart on the strip of crimson carpet stretched across the pavement; his face, under the helmet, wore the same stolid, watching look as theirs.
Across the road, through the railings, Soames could see the branches of trees shining, faintly stirring in the breeze, by the gleam of the street lamps; beyond, again, the upper lights of the houses on the other side, so many eyes looking down on the quiet blackness of the garden; and over all, the sky, that wonderful London sky, dusted with the innumerable reflection of countless lamps; a dome woven over between its stars with the refraction of human needs and human fancies – immense mirror of pomp and misery that night after night stretches its kindly mocking over miles of houses and gardens, mansions and squalor, over Forsytes, policemen, and patient watchers in the streets.
Soames turned away, and, hidden in the recess, gazed into the lighted room. It was cooler out there. He saw the new arrivals, June and her grandfather, enter. What had made them so late? They stood by the doorway. They looked fagged. Fancy Uncle Jolyon turning out at this time of night! Why hadn’t June come to Irene, as she usually did, and it occurred to him suddenly that he had seen nothing of June for a long time now.
Watching her face with idle malice, he saw it change, grow so pale that he thought she would drop, then flame out crimson. Turning to see at what she was looking, he saw his wife on Bosinney’s arm, coming from the conservatory at the end of the room. Her eyes were raised to his, as though answering some question he had asked, and he was gazing at her intently.
Soames looked again at June. Her hand rested on old Jolyon’s arm; she seemed to be making a request. He saw a surprised look on his uncle’s face; they turned and passed through the door out of his sight.
The music began again – a waltz – and, still as a statue in the recess of the window, his face unmoved, but no smile on his lips, Soames waited. Presently, within a yard of the dark balcony, his wife and Bosinney passed. He caught the perfume of the gardenias that she wore, saw the rise and fall of her bosom, the languor in her eyes, her parted lips, and a look on her face that he did not know. To the slow, swinging measure they danced by, and it seemed to him that they clung to each other; he saw her raise her eyes, soft and dark, to Bosinney’s, and drop them again.
Very white, he turned back to the balcony, and leaning on it, gazed down on the Square; the figures were still there looking up at the light with dull persistency, the policeman’s face, too, upturned, and staring, but he saw nothing of them. Below, a carriage drew up, two figures got in, and drove away….
That evening June and old Jolyon sat down to dinner at the usual hour. The girl was in her customary high-necked frock, old Jolyon had not dressed.
At breakfast she had spoken of the dance at Uncle Roger’s, she wanted to go; she had been stupid enough, she said, not to think of asking anyone to take her. It was too late now.
Old Jolyon lifted his keen eyes. June was used to go to dances with Irene as a matter of course! and deliberately fixing his gaze on her, he asked: “Why don’t you get Irene?”
No! June did not want to ask Irene; she would only go if – if her grandfather wouldn’t mind just for once for a little time!
At her look, so eager and so worn, old Jolyon had grumblingly consented. He did not know what she wanted, he said, with going to a dance like this, a poor affair, he would wager; and she no more fit for it than a cat! What she wanted was sea air, and after his general meeting of the Globular Gold Concessions he was ready to take her. She didn’t want to go away? Ah! she would knock herself up! Stealing a mournful look at her, he went on with his breakfast.
June went out early, and wandered restlessly about in the heat. Her little light figure that lately had moved so languidly about its business, was all on fire. She bought herself some flowers. She wanted – she meant to look her best. He would be there! She knew well enough that he had a card. She would show him that she did not care. But deep down in her heart she resolved that evening to win him back. She came in flushed, and talked brightly all lunch; old Jolyon was there, and he was deceived.
In the afternoon she was overtaken by a desperate fit of sobbing. She strangled the noise against the pillows of her bed, but when at last it ceased she saw in the glass a swollen face with reddened eyes, and violet circles round them. She stayed in the darkened room till dinner time.
All through that silent meal the struggle went on within her.
She looked so shadowy and exhausted that old Jolyon told ‘Sankey’ to countermand the carriage, he would not have her going out…. She was to go to bed! She made no resistance. She went up to her room, and sat in the dark. At ten o’clock she rang for her maid.
“Bring some hot water, and go down and tell Mr. Forsyte that I feel perfectly rested. Say that if he’s too tired I can go to the dance by myself.”
The maid looked askance, and June turned on her imperiously. “Go,” she said, “bring the hot water at once!”
Her ball-dress still lay on the sofa, and with a sort of fierce care she arrayed herself, took the flowers in her hand, and went down, her small face carried high under its burden of hair. She could hear old Jolyon in his room as she passed.
Bewildered and vexed, he was dressing. It was past ten, they would not get there till eleven; the girl was mad. But he dared not cross her – the expression of her face at dinner haunted him.
With great ebony brushes he smoothed his hair till it shone like silver under the light; then he, too, came out on the gloomy staircase.
June met him below, and, without a word, they went to the carriage.
When, after that drive which seemed to last for ever, she entered Roger’s drawing-room, she disguised under a mask of resolution a very torment of nervousness and emotion. The feeling of shame at what might be called ‘running after him’ was smothered by the dread that he might not be there, that she might not see him after all, and by that dogged resolve – somehow, she did not know how – to win him back.
The sight of the ballroom, with its gleaming floor, gave her a feeling of joy, of triumph, for she loved dancing, and when dancing she floated, so light was she, like a strenuous, eager little spirit. He would surely ask her to dance, and if he danced with her it would all be as it was before. She looked about her eagerly.
The sight of Bosinney coming with Irene from the conservatory, with that strange look of utter absorption on his face, struck her too suddenly. They had not seen – no one should see – her distress, not even her grandfather.
She put her hand on Jolyon’s arm, and said very low:
“I must go home, Gran; I feel ill.”
He hurried her away, grumbling to himself that he had known how it would be.
To her he said nothing; only when they were once more in the carriage, which by some fortunate chance had lingered near the door, he asked her: “What is it, my darling?”
Feeling her whole slender body shaken by sobs, he was terribly alarmed. She must have Blank to-morrow. He would insist upon it. He could not have her like this…. There, there!
June mastered her sobs, and squeezing his hand feverishly, she lay back in her corner, her face muffled in a shawl.
He could only see her eyes, fixed and staring in the dark, but he did not cease to stroke her hand with his thin fingers.
Chapter IX
Evening at Richmond
Other eyes besides the eyes of June and of Soames had seen ‘those two’ (as Euphemia had already begun to call them) coming from the conservatory; other eyes had noticed the look on Bosinney’s face.
There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods – violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret.
There are moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the casual spectator as ‘……Titian – remarkably fine,’ breaks through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels – there are things here which – well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse of what lay under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he should know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit that, and where was he? One paid a shilling for entrance, and another for the programme.
The look which June had seen, which other Forsytes had seen, was like the sudden flashing of a candle through a hole in some imaginary canvas, behind which it was being moved – the sudden flaming-out of a vague, erratic glow, shadowy and enticing. It brought home to onlookers the consciousness that dangerous forces were at work. For a moment they noticed it with pleasure, with interest, then felt they must not notice it at all.
It supplied, however, the reason of June’s coming so late and disappearing again without dancing, without even shaking hands with her lover. She was ill, it was said, and no wonder.
But here they looked at each other guiltily. They had no desire to spread scandal, no desire to be ill-natured. Who would have? And to outsiders no word was breathed, unwritten law keeping them silent.
Then came the news that June had gone to the seaside with old Jolyon.
He had carried her off to Broadstairs, for which place there was just then a feeling, Yarmouth having lost caste, in spite of Nicholas, and no Forsyte going to the sea without intending to have an air for his money such as would render him bilious in a week. That fatally aristocratic tendency of the first Forsyte to drink Madeira had left his descendants undoubtedly accessible.
So June went to the sea. The family awaited developments; there was nothing else to do.
But how far – how far had ‘those two’ gone? How far were they going to go? Could they really be going at all? Nothing could surely come of it, for neither of them had any money. At the most a flirtation, ending, as all such attachments should, at the proper time.
Soames’ sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed with the breezes of Mayfair – she lived in Green Street – more fashionable principles in regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current, for instance, in Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea of there being anything in it. The ‘little thing’ – Irene was taller than herself, and it was real testimony to the solid worth of a Forsyte that she should always thus be a ‘little thing’ – the little thing was bored. Why shouldn’t she amuse herself? Soames was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney – only that buffoon George would have called him the Buccaneer – she maintained that he was very chic.
This dictum – that Bosinney was chic – caused quite a sensation. It failed to convince. That he was ‘good-looking in a way’ they were prepared to admit, but that anyone could call a man with his pronounced cheekbones, curious eyes, and soft felt hats chic was only another instance of Winifred’s extravagant way of running after something new.
It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable, when the very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees spread with blossom, and flowers drenched in perfume, as they had never been before; when roses blew in every garden; and for the swarming stars the nights had hardly space; when every day and all day long the sun, in full armour, swung his brazen shield above the Park, and people did strange things, lunching and dining in the open air. Unprecedented was the tale of cabs and carriages that streamed across the bridges of the shining river, bearing the upper-middle class in thousands to the green glories of Bushey, Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every family with any pretensions to be of the carriage-class paid one visit that year to the horse-chestnuts at Bushey, or took one drive amongst the Spanish chestnuts of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily, along, in a cloud of their own creation, they would stare fashionably at the antlered heads which the great slow deer raised out of a forest of bracken that promised to autumn lovers such cover as was never seen before. And now and again, as the amorous perfume of chestnut flowers and of fern was drifted too near, one would say to the other: “My dear! What a peculiar scent!”
And the lime-flowers that year were of rare prime, near honey-coloured. At the corners of London squares they gave out, as the sun went down, a perfume sweeter than the honey bees had taken – a perfume that stirred a yearning unnamable in the hearts of Forsytes and their peers, taking the cool after dinner in the precincts of those gardens to which they alone had keys.
And that yearning made them linger amidst the dim shapes of flower-beds in the failing daylight, made them turn, and turn, and turn again, as though lovers were waiting for them – waiting for the last light to die away under the shadow of the branches.
Some vague sympathy evoked by the scent of the limes, some sisterly desire to see for herself, some idea of demonstrating the soundness of her dictum that there was ‘nothing in it’; or merely the craving to drive down to Richmond, irresistible that summer, moved the mother of the little Darties (of little Publius, of Imogen, Maud, and Benedict) to write the following note to her sister-in-law:
Her plan met with more opposition from Providence than so benevolent a scheme deserved. In the first place young Flippard wrote:
Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had failed to win the Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was by a pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands against him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours that followed his scratching were among the darkest in Dartie’s life.
Visions of James haunted him day and night. Black thoughts about Soames mingled with the faintest hopes. On the Friday night he got drunk, so greatly was he affected. But on Saturday morning the true Stock Exchange instinct triumphed within him. Owing some hundreds, which by no possibility could he pay, he went into town and put them all on Concertina for the Saltown Borough Handicap.
As he said to Major Scrotton, with whom he lunched at the Iseeum: “That little Jew boy, Nathans, had given him the tip. He didn’t care a cursh. He wash in – a mucker. If it didn’t come up – well then, damme, the old man would have to pay!”
A bottle of Pol Roger to his own cheek had given him a new contempt for James.
It came up. Concertina was squeezed home by her neck – a terrible squeak! But, as Dartie said: There was nothing like pluck!
He was by no means averse to the expedition to Richmond. He would ‘stand’ it himself! He cherished an admiration for Irene, and wished to be on more playful terms with her.
At half-past five the Park Lane footman came round to say: Mrs. Forsyte was very sorry, but one of the horses was coughing!
Undaunted by this further blow, Winifred at once despatched little Publius (now aged seven) with the nursery governess to Montpellier Square.
They would go down in hansoms and meet at the Crown and Sceptre at 7.45.
Dartie, on being told, was pleased enough. It was better than going down with your back to the horses! He had no objection to driving down with Irene. He supposed they would pick up the others at Montpellier Square, and swop hansoms there?
Informed that the meet was at the Crown and Sceptre, and that he would have to drive with his wife, he turned sulky, and said it was d – d slow!
At seven o’clock they started, Dartie offering to bet the driver half-a-crown he didn’t do it in the three-quarters of an hour.
Twice only did husband and wife exchange remarks on the way.
Dartie said: “It’ll put Master Soames’s nose out of joint to hear his wife’s been drivin’ in a hansom with Master Bosinney!”
Winifred replied: “Don’t talk such nonsense, Monty!”
“Nonsense!” repeated Dartie. “You don’t know women, my fine lady!”
On the other occasion he merely asked: “How am I looking? A bit puffy about the gills? That fizz old George is so fond of is a windy wine!”
He had been lunching with George Forsyte at the Haversnake.
Bosinney and Irene had arrived before them. They were standing in one of the long French windows overlooking the river.
Windows that summer were open all day long, and all night too, and day and night the scents of flowers and trees came in, the hot scent of parching grass, and the cool scent of the heavy dews.
To the eye of the observant Dartie his two guests did not appear to be making much running, standing there close together, without a word. Bosinney was a hungry-looking creature – not much go about him.
He left them to Winifred, however, and busied himself to order the dinner.
A Forsyte will require good, if not delicate feeding, but a Dartie will tax the resources of a Crown and Sceptre. Living as he does, from hand to mouth, nothing is too good for him to eat; and he will eat it. His drink, too, will need to be carefully provided; there is much drink in this country ‘not good enough’ for a Dartie; he will have the best. Paying for things vicariously, there is no reason why he should stint himself. To stint yourself is the mark of a fool, not of a Dartie.
The best of everything! No sounder principle on which a man can base his life, whose father-in-law has a very considerable income, and a partiality for his grandchildren.
With his not unable eye Dartie had spotted this weakness in James the very first year after little Publius’s arrival (an error); he had profited by his perspicacity. Four little Darties were now a sort of perpetual insurance.
The feature of the feast was unquestionably the red mullet. This delectable fish, brought from a considerable distance in a state of almost perfect preservation, was first fried, then boned, then served in ice, with Madeira punch in place of sauce, according to a recipe known to a few men of the world.
Nothing else calls for remark except the payment of the bill by Dartie.
He had made himself extremely agreeable throughout the meal; his bold, admiring stare seldom abandoning Irene’s face and figure. As he was obliged to confess to himself, he got no change out of her – she was cool enough, as cool as her shoulders looked under their veil of creamy lace. He expected to have caught her out in some little game with Bosinney; but not a bit of it, she kept up her end remarkably well. As for that architect chap, he was as glum as a bear with a sore head – Winifred could barely get a word out of him; he ate nothing, but he certainly took his liquor, and his face kept getting whiter, and his eyes looked queer.
It was all very amusing.
For Dartie himself was in capital form, and talked freely, with a certain poignancy, being no fool. He told two or three stories verging on the improper, a concession to the company, for his stories were not used to verging. He proposed Irene’s health in a mock speech. Nobody drank it, and Winifred said: “Don’t be such a clown, Monty!”
At her suggestion they went after dinner to the public terrace overlooking the river.
“I should like to see the common people making love,” she said, “it’s such fun!”
There were numbers of them walking in the cool, after the day’s heat, and the air was alive with the sound of voices, coarse and loud, or soft as though murmuring secrets.
It was not long before Winifred’s better sense – she was the only Forsyte present – secured them an empty bench. They sat down in a row. A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads, and the haze darkened slowly over the river.
Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the world could feel Irene’s arm crushed against his own; he knew that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would bring her closer still. He thought: ‘That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t have it all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit, certainly!’
From far down below on the dark river came drifting the tinkle of a mandoline, and voices singing the old round:
‘A boat, a boat, unto the ferry, For we’ll go over and be merry; And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!’
And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm odour of the limes.
Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who was sitting with his arms crossed, staring straight in front of him, and on his face the look of a man being tortured.
And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled by the overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker piece of the darkness shaped and breathed on; soft, mysterious, enticing.
A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all the strollers were thinking secrets too precious to be spoken.
And Dartie thought: ‘Women!’
The glow died above the river, the singing ceased; the young moon hid behind a tree, and all was dark. He pressed himself against Irene.
He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through the limbs he touched, or at the troubled, scornful look of her eyes. He felt her trying to draw herself away, and smiled.
It must be confessed that the man of the world had drunk quite as much as was good for him.
With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches, and his bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious look of a satyr.
Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the tree tops the stars clustered forth; like mortals beneath, they seemed to shift and swarm and whisper. Then on the terrace the buzz broke out once more, and Dartie thought: ‘Ah! he’s a poor, hungry-looking devil, that Bosinney!’ and again he pressed himself against Irene.
The movement deserved a better success. She rose, and they all followed her.
The man of the world was more than ever determined to see what she was made of. Along the terrace he kept close at her elbow. He had within him much good wine. There was the long drive home, the long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant closeness of the hansom cab – with its insulation from the world devised by some great and good man. That hungry architect chap might drive with his wife – he wished him joy of her! And, conscious that his voice was not too steady, he was careful not to speak; but a smile had become fixed on his thick lips.
They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them at the farther end. His plan had the merit of all great plans, an almost brutal simplicity – he would merely keep at her elbow till she got in, and get in quickly after her.
But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in; she slipped, instead, to the horse’s head. Dartie was not at the moment sufficiently master of his legs to follow. She stood stroking the horse’s nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side first. She turned and spoke to him rapidly, in a low voice; the words ‘That man’ reached Dartie. He stood stubbornly by the cab step, waiting for her to come back. He knew a trick worth two of that!
Here, in the lamp-light, his figure (no more than medium height), well squared in its white evening waistcoat, his light overcoat flung over his arm, a pink flower in his button-hole, and on his dark face that look of confident, good-humoured insolence, he was at his best – a thorough man of the world.
Winifred was already in her cab. Dartie reflected that Bosinney would have a poorish time in that cab if he didn’t look sharp! Suddenly he received a push which nearly overturned him in the road. Bosinney’s voice hissed in his ear: “I am taking Irene back; do you understand?” He saw a face white with passion, and eyes that glared at him like a wild cat’s.
“Eh?” he stammered. “What? Not a bit. You take my wife!”
“Get away!” hissed Bosinney – “or I’ll throw you into the road!”
Dartie recoiled; he saw as plainly as possible that the fellow meant it. In the space he made Irene had slipped by, her dress brushed his legs. Bosinney stepped in after her.
“Go on!” he heard the Buccaneer cry. The cabman flicked his horse. It sprang forward.
Dartie stood for a moment dumbfounded; then, dashing at the cab where his wife sat, he scrambled in.
“Drive on!” he shouted to the driver, “and don’t you lose sight of that fellow in front!”
Seated by his wife’s side, he burst into imprecations. Calming himself at last with a supreme effort, he added: “A pretty mess you’ve made of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why on earth couldn’t you keep hold of him? He’s mad with love; any fool can see that!”
He drowned Winifred’s rejoinder with fresh calls to the Almighty; nor was it until they reached Barnes that he ceased a Jeremiad, in the course of which he had abused her, her father, her brother, Irene, Bosinney, the name of Forsyte, his own children, and cursed the day when he had ever married.
Winifred, a woman of strong character, let him have his say, at the end of which he lapsed into sulky silence. His angry eyes never deserted the back of that cab, which, like a lost chance, haunted the darkness in front of him.
Fortunately he could not hear Bosinney’s passionate pleading – that pleading which the man of the world’s conduct had let loose like a flood; he could not see Irene shivering, as though some garment had been torn from her, nor her eyes, black and mournful, like the eyes of a beaten child. He could not hear Bosinney entreating, entreating, always entreating; could not hear her sudden, soft weeping, nor see that poor, hungry-looking devil, awed and trembling, humbly touching her hand.
In Montpellier Square their cabman, following his instructions to the letter, faithfully drew up behind the cab in front. The Darties saw Bosinney spring out, and Irene follow, and hasten up the steps with bent head. She evidently had her key in her hand, for she disappeared at once. It was impossible to tell whether she had turned to speak to Bosinney.
The latter came walking past their cab; both husband and wife had an admirable view of his face in the light of a street lamp. It was working with violent emotion.
“Good-night, Mr. Bosinney!” called Winifred.
Bosinney started, clawed off his hat, and hurried on. He had obviously forgotten their existence.
“There!” said Dartie, “did you see the beast’s face? What did I say? Fine games!” He improved the occasion.
There had so clearly been a crisis in the cab that Winifred was unable to defend her theory.
She said: “I shall say nothing about it. I don’t see any use in making a fuss!”
With that view Dartie at once concurred; looking upon James as a private preserve, he disapproved of his being disturbed by the troubles of others.
“Quite right,” he said; “let Soames look after himself. He’s jolly well able to!”
Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in Green Street, the rent of which was paid by James, and sought a well-earned rest. The hour was midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in the streets to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him return and stand against the rails of the Square garden, back from the glow of the street lamp; to see him stand there in the shadow of trees, watching the house where in the dark was hidden she whom he would have given the world to see for a single minute – she who was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the meaning of the light and the darkness, the very beating of his own heart.
There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods – violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret.
There are moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the casual spectator as ‘……Titian – remarkably fine,’ breaks through the defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows, and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he feels – there are things here which – well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the glow of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse of what lay under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that he should know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit that, and where was he? One paid a shilling for entrance, and another for the programme.
The look which June had seen, which other Forsytes had seen, was like the sudden flashing of a candle through a hole in some imaginary canvas, behind which it was being moved – the sudden flaming-out of a vague, erratic glow, shadowy and enticing. It brought home to onlookers the consciousness that dangerous forces were at work. For a moment they noticed it with pleasure, with interest, then felt they must not notice it at all.
It supplied, however, the reason of June’s coming so late and disappearing again without dancing, without even shaking hands with her lover. She was ill, it was said, and no wonder.
But here they looked at each other guiltily. They had no desire to spread scandal, no desire to be ill-natured. Who would have? And to outsiders no word was breathed, unwritten law keeping them silent.
Then came the news that June had gone to the seaside with old Jolyon.
He had carried her off to Broadstairs, for which place there was just then a feeling, Yarmouth having lost caste, in spite of Nicholas, and no Forsyte going to the sea without intending to have an air for his money such as would render him bilious in a week. That fatally aristocratic tendency of the first Forsyte to drink Madeira had left his descendants undoubtedly accessible.
So June went to the sea. The family awaited developments; there was nothing else to do.
But how far – how far had ‘those two’ gone? How far were they going to go? Could they really be going at all? Nothing could surely come of it, for neither of them had any money. At the most a flirtation, ending, as all such attachments should, at the proper time.
Soames’ sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed with the breezes of Mayfair – she lived in Green Street – more fashionable principles in regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current, for instance, in Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea of there being anything in it. The ‘little thing’ – Irene was taller than herself, and it was real testimony to the solid worth of a Forsyte that she should always thus be a ‘little thing’ – the little thing was bored. Why shouldn’t she amuse herself? Soames was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney – only that buffoon George would have called him the Buccaneer – she maintained that he was very chic.
This dictum – that Bosinney was chic – caused quite a sensation. It failed to convince. That he was ‘good-looking in a way’ they were prepared to admit, but that anyone could call a man with his pronounced cheekbones, curious eyes, and soft felt hats chic was only another instance of Winifred’s extravagant way of running after something new.
It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable, when the very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees spread with blossom, and flowers drenched in perfume, as they had never been before; when roses blew in every garden; and for the swarming stars the nights had hardly space; when every day and all day long the sun, in full armour, swung his brazen shield above the Park, and people did strange things, lunching and dining in the open air. Unprecedented was the tale of cabs and carriages that streamed across the bridges of the shining river, bearing the upper-middle class in thousands to the green glories of Bushey, Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every family with any pretensions to be of the carriage-class paid one visit that year to the horse-chestnuts at Bushey, or took one drive amongst the Spanish chestnuts of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily, along, in a cloud of their own creation, they would stare fashionably at the antlered heads which the great slow deer raised out of a forest of bracken that promised to autumn lovers such cover as was never seen before. And now and again, as the amorous perfume of chestnut flowers and of fern was drifted too near, one would say to the other: “My dear! What a peculiar scent!”
And the lime-flowers that year were of rare prime, near honey-coloured. At the corners of London squares they gave out, as the sun went down, a perfume sweeter than the honey bees had taken – a perfume that stirred a yearning unnamable in the hearts of Forsytes and their peers, taking the cool after dinner in the precincts of those gardens to which they alone had keys.
And that yearning made them linger amidst the dim shapes of flower-beds in the failing daylight, made them turn, and turn, and turn again, as though lovers were waiting for them – waiting for the last light to die away under the shadow of the branches.
Some vague sympathy evoked by the scent of the limes, some sisterly desire to see for herself, some idea of demonstrating the soundness of her dictum that there was ‘nothing in it’; or merely the craving to drive down to Richmond, irresistible that summer, moved the mother of the little Darties (of little Publius, of Imogen, Maud, and Benedict) to write the following note to her sister-in-law:
‘DEAR IRENE, ‘June 30.Montague was Dartie’s second and better known name – his first being Moses; for he was nothing if not a man of the world.
‘I hear that Soames is going to Henley tomorrow for the night. I thought it would be great fun if we made up a little party and drove down to Richmond. Will you ask Mr. Bosinney, and I will get young Flippard.
‘Emily (they called their mother Emily – it was so chic) will lend us the carriage. I will call for you and your young man at seven o’clock.
‘Your affectionate sister,
‘WINIFRED DARTIE.
‘Montague believes the dinner at the Crown and Sceptre to be quite eatable.’
Her plan met with more opposition from Providence than so benevolent a scheme deserved. In the first place young Flippard wrote:
‘DEAR Mrs. DARTIE,It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to remedy this misfortune. With the promptitude and conduct of a mother, Winifred fell back on her husband. She had, indeed, the decided but tolerant temperament that goes with a good deal of profile, fair hair, and greenish eyes. She was seldom or never at a loss; or if at a loss, was always able to convert it into a gain.
‘Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep.
‘Yours,
‘AUGUSTUS FLIPPARD.’
Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had failed to win the Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was by a pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands against him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours that followed his scratching were among the darkest in Dartie’s life.
Visions of James haunted him day and night. Black thoughts about Soames mingled with the faintest hopes. On the Friday night he got drunk, so greatly was he affected. But on Saturday morning the true Stock Exchange instinct triumphed within him. Owing some hundreds, which by no possibility could he pay, he went into town and put them all on Concertina for the Saltown Borough Handicap.
As he said to Major Scrotton, with whom he lunched at the Iseeum: “That little Jew boy, Nathans, had given him the tip. He didn’t care a cursh. He wash in – a mucker. If it didn’t come up – well then, damme, the old man would have to pay!”
A bottle of Pol Roger to his own cheek had given him a new contempt for James.
It came up. Concertina was squeezed home by her neck – a terrible squeak! But, as Dartie said: There was nothing like pluck!
He was by no means averse to the expedition to Richmond. He would ‘stand’ it himself! He cherished an admiration for Irene, and wished to be on more playful terms with her.
At half-past five the Park Lane footman came round to say: Mrs. Forsyte was very sorry, but one of the horses was coughing!
Undaunted by this further blow, Winifred at once despatched little Publius (now aged seven) with the nursery governess to Montpellier Square.
They would go down in hansoms and meet at the Crown and Sceptre at 7.45.
Dartie, on being told, was pleased enough. It was better than going down with your back to the horses! He had no objection to driving down with Irene. He supposed they would pick up the others at Montpellier Square, and swop hansoms there?
Informed that the meet was at the Crown and Sceptre, and that he would have to drive with his wife, he turned sulky, and said it was d – d slow!
At seven o’clock they started, Dartie offering to bet the driver half-a-crown he didn’t do it in the three-quarters of an hour.
Twice only did husband and wife exchange remarks on the way.
Dartie said: “It’ll put Master Soames’s nose out of joint to hear his wife’s been drivin’ in a hansom with Master Bosinney!”
Winifred replied: “Don’t talk such nonsense, Monty!”
“Nonsense!” repeated Dartie. “You don’t know women, my fine lady!”
On the other occasion he merely asked: “How am I looking? A bit puffy about the gills? That fizz old George is so fond of is a windy wine!”
He had been lunching with George Forsyte at the Haversnake.
Bosinney and Irene had arrived before them. They were standing in one of the long French windows overlooking the river.
Windows that summer were open all day long, and all night too, and day and night the scents of flowers and trees came in, the hot scent of parching grass, and the cool scent of the heavy dews.
To the eye of the observant Dartie his two guests did not appear to be making much running, standing there close together, without a word. Bosinney was a hungry-looking creature – not much go about him.
He left them to Winifred, however, and busied himself to order the dinner.
A Forsyte will require good, if not delicate feeding, but a Dartie will tax the resources of a Crown and Sceptre. Living as he does, from hand to mouth, nothing is too good for him to eat; and he will eat it. His drink, too, will need to be carefully provided; there is much drink in this country ‘not good enough’ for a Dartie; he will have the best. Paying for things vicariously, there is no reason why he should stint himself. To stint yourself is the mark of a fool, not of a Dartie.
The best of everything! No sounder principle on which a man can base his life, whose father-in-law has a very considerable income, and a partiality for his grandchildren.
With his not unable eye Dartie had spotted this weakness in James the very first year after little Publius’s arrival (an error); he had profited by his perspicacity. Four little Darties were now a sort of perpetual insurance.
The feature of the feast was unquestionably the red mullet. This delectable fish, brought from a considerable distance in a state of almost perfect preservation, was first fried, then boned, then served in ice, with Madeira punch in place of sauce, according to a recipe known to a few men of the world.
Nothing else calls for remark except the payment of the bill by Dartie.
He had made himself extremely agreeable throughout the meal; his bold, admiring stare seldom abandoning Irene’s face and figure. As he was obliged to confess to himself, he got no change out of her – she was cool enough, as cool as her shoulders looked under their veil of creamy lace. He expected to have caught her out in some little game with Bosinney; but not a bit of it, she kept up her end remarkably well. As for that architect chap, he was as glum as a bear with a sore head – Winifred could barely get a word out of him; he ate nothing, but he certainly took his liquor, and his face kept getting whiter, and his eyes looked queer.
It was all very amusing.
For Dartie himself was in capital form, and talked freely, with a certain poignancy, being no fool. He told two or three stories verging on the improper, a concession to the company, for his stories were not used to verging. He proposed Irene’s health in a mock speech. Nobody drank it, and Winifred said: “Don’t be such a clown, Monty!”
At her suggestion they went after dinner to the public terrace overlooking the river.
“I should like to see the common people making love,” she said, “it’s such fun!”
There were numbers of them walking in the cool, after the day’s heat, and the air was alive with the sound of voices, coarse and loud, or soft as though murmuring secrets.
It was not long before Winifred’s better sense – she was the only Forsyte present – secured them an empty bench. They sat down in a row. A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads, and the haze darkened slowly over the river.
Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the world could feel Irene’s arm crushed against his own; he knew that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would bring her closer still. He thought: ‘That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t have it all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit, certainly!’
From far down below on the dark river came drifting the tinkle of a mandoline, and voices singing the old round:
‘A boat, a boat, unto the ferry, For we’ll go over and be merry; And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!’
And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm odour of the limes.
Over his cigar Dartie peered round at Bosinney, who was sitting with his arms crossed, staring straight in front of him, and on his face the look of a man being tortured.
And Dartie shot a glance at the face between, so veiled by the overhanging shadow that it was but like a darker piece of the darkness shaped and breathed on; soft, mysterious, enticing.
A hush had fallen on the noisy terrace, as if all the strollers were thinking secrets too precious to be spoken.
And Dartie thought: ‘Women!’
The glow died above the river, the singing ceased; the young moon hid behind a tree, and all was dark. He pressed himself against Irene.
He was not alarmed at the shuddering that ran through the limbs he touched, or at the troubled, scornful look of her eyes. He felt her trying to draw herself away, and smiled.
It must be confessed that the man of the world had drunk quite as much as was good for him.
With thick lips parted under his well-curled moustaches, and his bold eyes aslant upon her, he had the malicious look of a satyr.
Along the pathway of sky between the hedges of the tree tops the stars clustered forth; like mortals beneath, they seemed to shift and swarm and whisper. Then on the terrace the buzz broke out once more, and Dartie thought: ‘Ah! he’s a poor, hungry-looking devil, that Bosinney!’ and again he pressed himself against Irene.
The movement deserved a better success. She rose, and they all followed her.
The man of the world was more than ever determined to see what she was made of. Along the terrace he kept close at her elbow. He had within him much good wine. There was the long drive home, the long drive and the warm dark and the pleasant closeness of the hansom cab – with its insulation from the world devised by some great and good man. That hungry architect chap might drive with his wife – he wished him joy of her! And, conscious that his voice was not too steady, he was careful not to speak; but a smile had become fixed on his thick lips.
They strolled along toward the cabs awaiting them at the farther end. His plan had the merit of all great plans, an almost brutal simplicity – he would merely keep at her elbow till she got in, and get in quickly after her.
But when Irene reached the cab she did not get in; she slipped, instead, to the horse’s head. Dartie was not at the moment sufficiently master of his legs to follow. She stood stroking the horse’s nose, and, to his annoyance, Bosinney was at her side first. She turned and spoke to him rapidly, in a low voice; the words ‘That man’ reached Dartie. He stood stubbornly by the cab step, waiting for her to come back. He knew a trick worth two of that!
Here, in the lamp-light, his figure (no more than medium height), well squared in its white evening waistcoat, his light overcoat flung over his arm, a pink flower in his button-hole, and on his dark face that look of confident, good-humoured insolence, he was at his best – a thorough man of the world.
Winifred was already in her cab. Dartie reflected that Bosinney would have a poorish time in that cab if he didn’t look sharp! Suddenly he received a push which nearly overturned him in the road. Bosinney’s voice hissed in his ear: “I am taking Irene back; do you understand?” He saw a face white with passion, and eyes that glared at him like a wild cat’s.
“Eh?” he stammered. “What? Not a bit. You take my wife!”
“Get away!” hissed Bosinney – “or I’ll throw you into the road!”
Dartie recoiled; he saw as plainly as possible that the fellow meant it. In the space he made Irene had slipped by, her dress brushed his legs. Bosinney stepped in after her.
“Go on!” he heard the Buccaneer cry. The cabman flicked his horse. It sprang forward.
Dartie stood for a moment dumbfounded; then, dashing at the cab where his wife sat, he scrambled in.
“Drive on!” he shouted to the driver, “and don’t you lose sight of that fellow in front!”
Seated by his wife’s side, he burst into imprecations. Calming himself at last with a supreme effort, he added: “A pretty mess you’ve made of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why on earth couldn’t you keep hold of him? He’s mad with love; any fool can see that!”
He drowned Winifred’s rejoinder with fresh calls to the Almighty; nor was it until they reached Barnes that he ceased a Jeremiad, in the course of which he had abused her, her father, her brother, Irene, Bosinney, the name of Forsyte, his own children, and cursed the day when he had ever married.
Winifred, a woman of strong character, let him have his say, at the end of which he lapsed into sulky silence. His angry eyes never deserted the back of that cab, which, like a lost chance, haunted the darkness in front of him.
Fortunately he could not hear Bosinney’s passionate pleading – that pleading which the man of the world’s conduct had let loose like a flood; he could not see Irene shivering, as though some garment had been torn from her, nor her eyes, black and mournful, like the eyes of a beaten child. He could not hear Bosinney entreating, entreating, always entreating; could not hear her sudden, soft weeping, nor see that poor, hungry-looking devil, awed and trembling, humbly touching her hand.
In Montpellier Square their cabman, following his instructions to the letter, faithfully drew up behind the cab in front. The Darties saw Bosinney spring out, and Irene follow, and hasten up the steps with bent head. She evidently had her key in her hand, for she disappeared at once. It was impossible to tell whether she had turned to speak to Bosinney.
The latter came walking past their cab; both husband and wife had an admirable view of his face in the light of a street lamp. It was working with violent emotion.
“Good-night, Mr. Bosinney!” called Winifred.
Bosinney started, clawed off his hat, and hurried on. He had obviously forgotten their existence.
“There!” said Dartie, “did you see the beast’s face? What did I say? Fine games!” He improved the occasion.
There had so clearly been a crisis in the cab that Winifred was unable to defend her theory.
She said: “I shall say nothing about it. I don’t see any use in making a fuss!”
With that view Dartie at once concurred; looking upon James as a private preserve, he disapproved of his being disturbed by the troubles of others.
“Quite right,” he said; “let Soames look after himself. He’s jolly well able to!”
Thus speaking, the Darties entered their habitat in Green Street, the rent of which was paid by James, and sought a well-earned rest. The hour was midnight, and no Forsytes remained abroad in the streets to spy out Bosinney’s wanderings; to see him return and stand against the rails of the Square garden, back from the glow of the street lamp; to see him stand there in the shadow of trees, watching the house where in the dark was hidden she whom he would have given the world to see for a single minute – she who was now to him the breath of the lime-trees, the meaning of the light and the darkness, the very beating of his own heart.
Chapter X
Diagnosis of a Forsyte
It is in the nature of a Forsyte to be ignorant that he is a Forsyte; but young Jolyon was well aware of being one. He had not known it till after the decisive step which had made him an outcast; since then the knowledge had been with him continually. He felt it throughout his alliance, throughout all his dealings with his second wife, who was emphatically not a Forsyte.
He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure the eye for what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on to it, the sense of the folly of wasting that for which he had given so big a price – in other words, the ‘sense of property’ he could never have retained her (perhaps never would have desired to retain her) with him through all the financial troubles, slights, and misconstructions of those fifteen years; never have induced her to marry him on the death of his first wife; never have lived it all through, and come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.
He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like miniature Chinese idols in the cages of their own hearts, are ever smiling at themselves a doubting smile. Not that this smile, so intimate and eternal, interfered with his actions, which, like his chin and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of softness and determination.
He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work, that painting of water-colours to which he devoted so much energy, always with an eye on himself, as though he could not take so unpractical a pursuit quite seriously, and always with a certain queer uneasiness that he did not make more money at it.
It was, then, this consciousness of what it meant to be a Forsyte, that made him receive the following letter from old Jolyon, with a mixture of sympathy and disgust:
It was a fixed principle with him never to allude to June. She might take alarm, he did not know what she might think; he hastened, therefore, to banish from his manner all traces of absorption, but in this he was about as successful as his father would have been, for he had inherited all old Jolyon’s transparency in matters of domestic finesse; and young Mrs. Jolyon, busying herself over the affairs of the house, went about with tightened lips, stealing at him unfathomable looks.
He started for the Club in the afternoon with the letter in his pocket, and without having made up his mind.
To sound a man as to ‘his intentions’ was peculiarly unpleasant to him; nor did his own anomalous position diminish this unpleasantness. It was so like his family, so like all the people they knew and mixed with, to enforce what they called their rights over a man, to bring him up to the mark; so like them to carry their business principles into their private relations.
And how that phrase in the letter – ‘You will, of course, in no way commit June’ – gave the whole thing away.
Yet the letter, with the personal grievance, the concern for June, the ‘rap over the knuckles,’ was all so natural. No wonder his father wanted to know what Bosinney meant, no wonder he was angry.
It was difficult to refuse! But why give the thing to him to do? That was surely quite unbecoming; but so long as a Forsyte got what he was after, he was not too particular about the means, provided appearances were saved.
How should he set about it, or how refuse? Both seemed impossible. So, young Jolyon!
He arrived at the Club at three o’clock, and the first person he saw was Bosinney himself, seated in a corner, staring out of the window.
Young Jolyon sat down not far off, and began nervously to reconsider his position. He looked covertly at Bosinney sitting there unconscious. He did not know him very well, and studied him attentively for perhaps the first time; an unusual looking man, unlike in dress, face, and manner to most of the other members of the Club – young Jolyon himself, however different he had become in mood and temper, had always retained the neat reticence of Forsyte appearance. He alone among Forsytes was ignorant of Bosinney’s nickname. The man was unusual, not eccentric, but unusual; he looked worn too, haggard, hollow in the cheeks beneath those broad, high cheekbones, though without any appearance of ill-health, for he was strongly built, with curly hair that seemed to show all the vitality of a fine constitution.
Something in his face and attitude touched young Jolyon. He knew what suffering was like, and this man looked as if he were suffering.
He got up and touched his arm.
Bosinney started, but exhibited no sign of embarrassment on seeing who it was.
Young Jolyon sat down.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said. “How are you getting on with my cousin’s house?”
“It’ll be finished in about a week.”
“I congratulate you!”
“Thanks – I don’t know that it’s much of a subject for congratulation.”
He knew that if he had not possessed in great measure the eye for what he wanted, the tenacity to hold on to it, the sense of the folly of wasting that for which he had given so big a price – in other words, the ‘sense of property’ he could never have retained her (perhaps never would have desired to retain her) with him through all the financial troubles, slights, and misconstructions of those fifteen years; never have induced her to marry him on the death of his first wife; never have lived it all through, and come up, as it were, thin, but smiling.
He was one of those men who, seated cross-legged like miniature Chinese idols in the cages of their own hearts, are ever smiling at themselves a doubting smile. Not that this smile, so intimate and eternal, interfered with his actions, which, like his chin and his temperament, were quite a peculiar blend of softness and determination.
He was conscious, too, of being a Forsyte in his work, that painting of water-colours to which he devoted so much energy, always with an eye on himself, as though he could not take so unpractical a pursuit quite seriously, and always with a certain queer uneasiness that he did not make more money at it.
It was, then, this consciousness of what it meant to be a Forsyte, that made him receive the following letter from old Jolyon, with a mixture of sympathy and disgust:
‘SHELDRAKE HOUSE,Young Jolyon pondered this letter so long and seriously that his wife noticed his preoccupation, and asked him what was the matter. He replied: “Nothing.”
‘BROADSTAIRS,
‘July 1. ‘MY DEAR JO,’
(The Dad’s handwriting had altered very little in the thirty odd years that he remembered it.)
‘We have been here now a fortnight, and have had good weather on the whole. The air is bracing, but my liver is out of order, and I shall be glad enough to get back to town. I cannot say much for June, her health and spirits are very indifferent, and I don’t see what is to come of it. She says nothing, but it is clear that she is harping on this engagement, which is an engagement and no engagement, and – goodness knows what. I have grave doubts whether she ought to be allowed to return to London in the present state of affairs, but she is so self-willed that she might take it into her head to come up at any moment. The fact is someone ought to speak to Bosinney and ascertain what he means. I’m afraid of this myself, for I should certainly rap him over the knuckles, but I thought that you, knowing him at the Club, might put in a word, and get to ascertain what the fellow is about. You will of course in no way commit June. I shall be glad to hear from you in the course of a few days whether you have succeeded in gaining any information. The situation is very distressing to me, I worry about it at night.
With my love to Jolly and Holly.
‘I am,
‘Your affect. father,
‘JOLYON FORSYTE.’
It was a fixed principle with him never to allude to June. She might take alarm, he did not know what she might think; he hastened, therefore, to banish from his manner all traces of absorption, but in this he was about as successful as his father would have been, for he had inherited all old Jolyon’s transparency in matters of domestic finesse; and young Mrs. Jolyon, busying herself over the affairs of the house, went about with tightened lips, stealing at him unfathomable looks.
He started for the Club in the afternoon with the letter in his pocket, and without having made up his mind.
To sound a man as to ‘his intentions’ was peculiarly unpleasant to him; nor did his own anomalous position diminish this unpleasantness. It was so like his family, so like all the people they knew and mixed with, to enforce what they called their rights over a man, to bring him up to the mark; so like them to carry their business principles into their private relations.
And how that phrase in the letter – ‘You will, of course, in no way commit June’ – gave the whole thing away.
Yet the letter, with the personal grievance, the concern for June, the ‘rap over the knuckles,’ was all so natural. No wonder his father wanted to know what Bosinney meant, no wonder he was angry.
It was difficult to refuse! But why give the thing to him to do? That was surely quite unbecoming; but so long as a Forsyte got what he was after, he was not too particular about the means, provided appearances were saved.
How should he set about it, or how refuse? Both seemed impossible. So, young Jolyon!
He arrived at the Club at three o’clock, and the first person he saw was Bosinney himself, seated in a corner, staring out of the window.
Young Jolyon sat down not far off, and began nervously to reconsider his position. He looked covertly at Bosinney sitting there unconscious. He did not know him very well, and studied him attentively for perhaps the first time; an unusual looking man, unlike in dress, face, and manner to most of the other members of the Club – young Jolyon himself, however different he had become in mood and temper, had always retained the neat reticence of Forsyte appearance. He alone among Forsytes was ignorant of Bosinney’s nickname. The man was unusual, not eccentric, but unusual; he looked worn too, haggard, hollow in the cheeks beneath those broad, high cheekbones, though without any appearance of ill-health, for he was strongly built, with curly hair that seemed to show all the vitality of a fine constitution.
Something in his face and attitude touched young Jolyon. He knew what suffering was like, and this man looked as if he were suffering.
He got up and touched his arm.
Bosinney started, but exhibited no sign of embarrassment on seeing who it was.
Young Jolyon sat down.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said. “How are you getting on with my cousin’s house?”
“It’ll be finished in about a week.”
“I congratulate you!”
“Thanks – I don’t know that it’s much of a subject for congratulation.”