Kitobni o'qish: «The Forsyte Saga - Complete», sahifa 30

CHAPTER V — JAMES SEES VISIONS

The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly, detained Soames on the inner mat.

“The master’s poorly, sir,” he murmured. “He wouldn’t go to bed till you came in. He’s still in the diningroom.”

Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now accustomed.

“What’s the matter with him, Warmson?”

“Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs. Dartie’s comin’ round this afternoon. I think he overheard something. I’ve took him in a negus. The mistress has just gone up.”

Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag’s-horn.

“All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I’ll take him up myself.” And he passed into the dining-room.

James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a camel-hair shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated shoulders, on to which his long white whiskers drooped. His white hair, still fairly thick, glistened in the lamplight; a little moisture from his fixed, light-grey eyes stained the cheeks, still quite well coloured, and the long deep furrows running to the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as if mumbling thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow’s, in shepherd’s plaid trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and glistening tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There he had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day. At eighty-eight he was still organically sound, but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything. It is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a grudge against his wife’s youth. He felt sometimes that he would never have married her if he had known that she would have so many years before her, when he had so few. It was not natural. She would live fifteen or twenty years after he was gone, and might spend a lot of money; she had always had extravagant tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy one of these motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young people — they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness knew where. And now Roger was gone. He didn’t know — couldn’t tell! The family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle had left. Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames’ uncle not as his own brother. Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot in a vanishing world. Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but he had no one to leave his money to. There it was! He didn’t know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain! For James’ political principles had been fixed between ‘70 and ‘85 when ‘that rascally Radical’ had been the chief thorn in the side of property and he distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion; he would get the country into a mess and make money go down before he had done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames? He had gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from him. He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son’s trousers. Roger! Roger in his coffin! He remembered how, when they came up from school together from the West, on the box seat of the old Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got into the ‘boot’ and gone to sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny fellow — Roger — an original! He didn’t know! Younger than himself, and in his coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val going to the university; he never came to see him now. He would cost a pretty penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before James’ eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged terribly the risk which the spending of that money might bring on them; he grudged the diminution of security. And now that Cicely had married, she might be having children too. He didn’t know — couldn’t tell! Nobody thought of anything but spending money in these days, and racing about, and having what they called ‘a good time.’ A motor-car went past the window. Ugly great lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the country rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they couldn’t even care for style — a neat turnout like his barouche and bays was worth all those new-fangled things. And consols at 116! There must be a lot of money in the country. And now there was this old Kruger! They had tried to keep old Kruger from him. But he knew better; there would be a pretty kettle of fish out there! He had known how it would be when that fellow Gladstone — dead now, thank God! made such a mess of it after that dreadful business at Majuba. He shouldn’t wonder if the Empire split up and went to pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled a full quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch that the real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing when he became aware of voices — low voices. Ah! they never told him anything! Winifred’s and her mother’s. “Monty!” That fellow Dartie — always that fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and James had been left alone, with his ears standing up like a hare’s, and fear creeping about his inwards. Why did they leave him alone? Why didn’t they come and tell him? And an awful thought, which through long years had haunted him, concreted again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone bankrupt — fraudulently bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children, he — James — would have to pay! Could he — could Soames turn him into a limited company? No, he couldn’t! There it was! With every minute before Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery! With eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall, James suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his grandchildren in the gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the doubted Turner being sold at Jobson’s, and all the majestic edifice of property in rags. He saw in fancy Winifred unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily’s voice saying: “Now, don’t fuss, James!” She was always saying: “Don’t fuss!” She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman eighteen years younger than himself. Then Emily’s real voice said:

“Have you had a nice nap, James?”

Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him that!

“What’s this about Dartie?” he said, and his eyes glared at her.

Emily’s self-possession never deserted her.

“What have you been hearing?” she asked blandly.

“What’s this about Dartie?” repeated James. “He’s gone bankrupt.”

“Fiddle!”

James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his stork-like figure.

“You never tell me anything,” he said; “he’s gone bankrupt.”

The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that mattered at the moment.

“He has not,” she answered firmly. “He’s gone to Buenos Aires.”

If she had said “He’s gone to Mars” she could not have dealt James a more stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in British securities, could as little grasp one place as the other.

“What’s he gone there for?” he said. “He’s got no money. What did he take?”

Agitated within by Winifred’s news, and goaded by the constant reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:

“He took Winifred’s pearls and a dancer.”

“What!” said James, and sat down.

His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she said:

“Now, don’t fuss, James!”

A dusky red had spread over James’ cheeks and forehead.

“I paid for them,” he said tremblingly; “he’s a thief! I — I knew how it would be. He’ll be the death of me; he ...” Words failed him and he sat quite still. Emily, who thought she knew him so well, was alarmed, and went towards the sideboard where she kept some sal volatile. She could not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit working in that thin, tremulous shape against the extravagance of the emotion called up by this outrage on Forsyte principles — the Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying: ‘You mustn’t get into a fantod, it’ll never do. You won’t digest your lunch. You’ll have a fit!’ All unseen by her, it was doing better work in James than sal volatile.

“Drink this,” she said.

James waved it aside.

“What was Winifred about,” he said, “to let him take her pearls?” Emily perceived the crisis past.

“She can have mine,” she said comfortably. “I never wear them. She’d better get a divorce.”

“There you go!” said James. “Divorce! We’ve never had a divorce in the family. Where’s Soames?”

“He’ll be in directly.”

“No, he won’t,” said James, almost fiercely; “he’s at the funeral. You think I know nothing.”

“Well,” said Emily with calm, “you shouldn’t get into such fusses when we tell you things.” And plumping up his cushions, and putting the sal volatile beside him, she left the room.

But James sat there seeing visions — of Winifred in the Divorce Court, and the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on Roger’s coffin; of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he had paid for and would never see again; of money back at four per cent., and the country going to the dogs; and, as the afternoon wore into evening, and tea-time passed, and dinnertime, those visions became more and more mixed and menacing — of being told nothing, till he had nothing left of all his wealth, and they told him nothing of it. Where was Soames? Why didn’t he come in?.. His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little sigh of relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he said:

“There you are! Dartie’s gone to Buenos Aires.”

Soames nodded. “That’s all right,” he said; “good riddance.”

A wave of assuagement passed over James’ brain. Soames knew. Soames was the only one of them all who had sense. Why couldn’t he come and live at home? He had no son of his own. And he said plaintively:

“At my age I get nervous. I wish you were more at home, my boy.”

Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched his father’s shoulder.

“They sent their love to you at Timothy’s,” he said. “It went off all right. I’ve been to see Winifred. I’m going to take steps.” And he thought: ‘Yes, and you mustn’t hear of them.’

James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin throat between the points of his collar looked very gristly and naked.

“I’ve been very poorly all day,” he said; “they never tell me anything.”

Soames’ heart twitched.

“Well, it’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Will you come up now?” and he put his hand under his father’s arm.

James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together they went slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the firelight, and out to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.

“Good-night, my boy,” said James at his bedroom door.

“Good-night, father,” answered Soames. His hand stroked down the sleeve beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it, so thin was the arm. And, turning away from the light in the opening doorway, he went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.

‘I want a son,’ he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed; ‘I want a son.’

CHAPTER VI — NO-LONGER-YOUNG JOLYON AT HOME

Trees take little account of time, and the old oak on the upper lawn at Robin Hill looked no day older than when Bosinney sprawled under it and said to Soames: “Forsyte, I’ve found the very place for your house.” Since then Swithin had dreamed, and old Jolyon died, beneath its branches. And now, close to the swing, no-longer-young Jolyon often painted there. Of all spots in the world it was perhaps the most sacred to him, for he had loved his father.

Contemplating its great girth — crinkled and a little mossed, but not yet hollow — he would speculate on the passage of time. That tree had seen, perhaps, all real English history; it dated, he shouldn’t wonder, from the days of Elizabeth at least. His own fifty years were as nothing to its wood. When the house behind it, which he now owned, was three hundred years of age instead of twelve, that tree might still be standing there, vast and hollow — for who would commit such sacrilege as to cut it down? A Forsyte might perhaps still be living in that house, to guard it jealously. And Jolyon would wonder what the house would look like coated with such age. Wistaria was already about its walls — the new look had gone. Would it hold its own and keep the dignity Bosinney had bestowed on it, or would the giant London have lapped it round and made it into an asylum in the midst of a jerry-built wilderness? Often, within and without of it, he was persuaded that Bosinney had been moved by the spirit when he built. He had put his heart into that house, indeed! It might even become one of the ‘homes of England’ — a rare achievement for a house in these degenerate days of building. And the aesthetic spirit, moving hand in hand with his Forsyte sense of possessive continuity, dwelt with pride and pleasure on his ownership thereof. There was the smack of reverence and ancestor-worship (if only for one ancestor) in his desire to hand this house down to his son and his son’s son. His father had loved the house, had loved the view, the grounds, that tree; his last years had been happy there, and no one had lived there before him. These last eleven years at Robin Hill had formed in Jolyon’s life as a painter, the important period of success. He was now in the very van of water-colour art, hanging on the line everywhere. His drawings fetched high prices. Specialising in that one medium with the tenacity of his breed, he had ‘arrived’ — rather late, but not too late for a member of the family which made a point of living for ever. His art had really deepened and improved. In conformity with his position he had grown a short fair beard, which was just beginning to grizzle, and hid his Forsyte chin; his brown face had lost the warped expression of his ostracised period — he looked, if anything, younger. The loss of his wife in 1894 had been one of those domestic tragedies which turn out in the end for the good of all. He had, indeed, loved her to the last, for his was an affectionate spirit, but she had become increasingly difficult: jealous of her step-daughter June, jealous even of her own little daughter Holly, and making ceaseless plaint that he could not love her, ill as she was, and ‘useless to everyone, and better dead.’ He had mourned her sincerely, but his face had looked younger since she died. If she could only have believed that she made him happy, how much happier would the twenty years of their companionship have been!

June had never really got on well with her who had reprehensibly taken her own mother’s place; and ever since old Jolyon died she had been established in a sort of studio in London. But she had come back to Robin Hill on her stepmother’s death, and gathered the reins there into her small decided hands. Jolly was then at Harrow; Holly still learning from Mademoiselle Beauce. There had been nothing to keep Jolyon at home, and he had removed his grief and his paint-box abroad. There he had wandered, for the most part in Brittany, and at last had fetched up in Paris. He had stayed there several months, and come back with the younger face and the short fair beard. Essentially a man who merely lodged in any house, it had suited him perfectly that June should reign at Robin Hill, so that he was free to go off with his easel where and when he liked. She was inclined, it is true, to regard the house rather as an asylum for her proteges! but his own outcast days had filled Jolyon for ever with sympathy towards an outcast, and June’s ‘lame ducks’ about the place did not annoy him. By all means let her have them down — and feed them up; and though his slightly cynical humour perceived that they ministered to his daughter’s love of domination as well as moved her warm heart, he never ceased to admire her for having so many ducks. He fell, indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and brotherly attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with a sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly, he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate and ironical smile twisting up an eyebrow and curling his lips a little. And he was always careful to have money in his pocket, and to be modish in his dress, so that his son need not blush for him. They were perfect friends, but never seemed to have occasion for verbal confidences, both having the competitive self-consciousness of Forsytes. They knew they would stand by each other in scrapes, but there was no need to talk about it. Jolyon had a striking horror — partly original sin, but partly the result of his early immorality — of the moral attitude. The most he could ever have said to his son would have been:

“Look here, old man; don’t forget you’re a gentleman,” and then have wondered whimsically whether that was not a snobbish sentiment. The great cricket match was perhaps the most searching and awkward time they annually went through together, for Jolyon had been at Eton. They would be particularly careful during that match, continually saying: “Hooray! Oh! hard luck, old man!” or “Hooray! Oh! bad luck, Dad!” to each other, when some disaster at which their hearts bounded happened to the opposing school. And Jolyon would wear a grey top hat, instead of his usual soft one, to save his son’s feelings, for a black top hat he could not stomach. When Jolly went up to Oxford, Jolyon went up with him, amused, humble, and a little anxious not to discredit his boy amongst all these youths who seemed so much more assured and old than himself. He often thought, ‘Glad I’m a painter’ for he had long dropped under-writing at Lloyds — ’it’s so innocuous. You can’t look down on a painter — you can’t take him seriously enough.’ For Jolly, who had a sort of natural lordliness, had passed at once into a very small set, who secretly amused his father. The boy had fair hair which curled a little, and his grandfather’s deepset iron-grey eyes. He was well-built and very upright, and always pleased Jolyon’s aesthetic sense, so that he was a tiny bit afraid of him, as artists ever are of those of their own sex whom they admire physically. On that occasion, however, he actually did screw up his courage to give his son advice, and this was it:

“Look here, old man, you’re bound to get into debt; mind you come to me at once. Of course, I’ll always pay them. But you might remember that one respects oneself more afterwards if one pays one’s own way. And don’t ever borrow, except from me, will you?”

And Jolly had said:

“All right, Dad, I won’t,” and he never had.

“And there’s just one other thing. I don’t know much about morality and that, but there is this: It’s always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it’s going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary.”

Jolly had looked thoughtful, and nodded, and presently had squeezed his father’s hand. And Jolyon had thought: ‘I wonder if I had the right to say that?’ He always had a sort of dread of losing the dumb confidence they had in each other; remembering how for long years he had lost his own father’s, so that there had been nothing between them but love at a great distance. He under-estimated, no doubt, the change in the spirit of the age since he himself went up to Cambridge in ‘65; and perhaps he underestimated, too, his boy’s power of understanding that he was tolerant to the very bone. It was that tolerance of his, and possibly his scepticism, which ever made his relations towards June so queerly defensive. She was such a decided mortal; knew her own mind so terribly well; wanted things so inexorably until she got them — and then, indeed, often dropped them like a hot potato. Her mother had been like that, whence had come all those tears. Not that his incompatibility with his daughter was anything like what it had been with the first Mrs. Young Jolyon. One could be amused where a daughter was concerned; in a wife’s case one could not be amused. To see June set her heart and jaw on a thing until she got it was all right, because it was never anything which interfered fundamentally with Jolyon’s liberty — the one thing on which his jaw was also absolutely rigid, a considerable jaw, under that short grizzling beard. Nor was there ever any necessity for real heart-to-heart encounters. One could break away into irony — as indeed he often had to. But the real trouble with June was that she had never appealed to his aesthetic sense, though she might well have, with her red-gold hair and her viking-coloured eyes, and that touch of the Berserker in her spirit. It was very different with Holly, soft and quiet, shy and affectionate, with a playful imp in her somewhere. He watched this younger daughter of his through the duckling stage with extraordinary interest. Would she come out a swan? With her sallow oval face and her grey wistful eyes and those long dark lashes, she might, or she might not. Only this last year had he been able to guess. Yes, she would be a swan — rather a dark one, always a shy one, but an authentic swan. She was eighteen now, and Mademoiselle Beauce was gone — the excellent lady had removed, after eleven years haunted by her continuous reminiscences of the ‘well-brrred little Tayleurs,’ to another family whose bosom would now be agitated by her reminiscences of the ‘well-brrred little Forsytes.’ She had taught Holly to speak French like herself.

Portraiture was not Jolyon’s forte, but he had already drawn his younger daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on the afternoon of October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to him which caused his eyebrows to go up:

MR. SOAMES FORSYTE

THE SHELTER, CONNOISSEURS CLUB,

MAPLEDURHAM. ST. JAMES’S

But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again...

To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a little daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved father lying peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was never likely to be, forgotten by so impressionable and warm-hearted a man as Jolyon. A sense as of mystery, too, clung to that sad day, and about the end of one whose life had been so well-ordered, balanced, and above-board. It seemed incredible that his father could thus have vanished without, as it were, announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and due farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to ‘the lady in grey,’ of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded) involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father’s will and the codicil thereto. It had been his duty as executor of that will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her life interest in fifteen thousand pounds. He had called on her to explain that the existing investment in India Stock, ear-marked to meet the charge, would produce for her the interesting net sum of L430 odd a year, clear of income tax. This was but the third time he had seen his cousin Soames’ wife — if indeed she was still his wife, of which he was not quite sure. He remembered having seen her sitting in the Botanical Gardens waiting for Bosinney — a passive, fascinating figure, reminding him of Titian’s ‘Heavenly Love,’ and again, when, charged by his father, he had gone to Montpellier Square on the afternoon when Bosinney’s death was known. He still recalled vividly her sudden appearance in the drawing-room doorway on that occasion — her beautiful face, passing from wild eagerness of hope to stony despair; remembered the compassion he had felt, Soames’ snarling smile, his words, “We are not at home!” and the slam of the front door.

This third time he saw a face and form more beautiful — freed from that warp of wild hope and despair. Looking at her, he thought: ‘Yes, you are just what the Dad would have admired!’ And the strange story of his father’s Indian summer became slowly clear to him. She spoke of old Jolyon with reverence and tears in her eyes. “He was so wonderfully kind to me; I don’t know why. He looked so beautiful and peaceful sitting in that chair under the tree; it was I who first came on him sitting there, you know. Such a lovely day. I don’t think an end could have been happier. We should all like to go out like that.”

‘Quite right!’ he had thought. ‘We should all a like to go out in full summer with beauty stepping towards us across a lawn.’ And looking round the little, almost empty drawing-room, he had asked her what she was going to do now. “I am going to live again a little, Cousin Jolyon. It’s wonderful to have money of one’s own. I’ve never had any. I shall keep this flat, I think; I’m used to it; but I shall be able to go to Italy.”

“Exactly!” Jolyon had murmured, looking at her faintly smiling lips; and he had gone away thinking: ‘A fascinating woman! What a waste! I’m glad the Dad left her that money.’ He had not seen her again, but every quarter he had signed her cheque, forwarding it to her bank, with a note to the Chelsea flat to say that he had done so; and always he had received a note in acknowledgment, generally from the flat, but sometimes from Italy; so that her personality had become embodied in slightly scented grey paper, an upright fine handwriting, and the words, ‘Dear Cousin Jolyon.’ Man of property that he now was, the slender cheque he signed often gave rise to the thought: ‘Well, I suppose she just manages’. sliding into a vague wonder how she was faring otherwise in a world of men not wont to let beauty go unpossessed. At first Holly had spoken of her sometimes, but ‘ladies in grey’ soon fade from children’s memories; and the tightening of June’s lips in those first weeks after her grandfather’s death whenever her former friend’s name was mentioned, had discouraged allusion. Only once, indeed, had June spoken definitely: “I’ve forgiven her. I’m frightfully glad she’s independent now...”

On receiving Soames’ card, Jolyon said to the maid — for he could not abide butlers — “Show him into the study, please, and say I’ll be there in a minute”; and then he looked at Holly and asked:

“Do you remember ‘the lady in grey,’ who used to give you music-lessons?”

“Oh yes, why? Has she come?”

Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a coat, was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not for those young ears. His face, in fact, became whimsical perplexity incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.

Standing by the french-window, looking out across the terrace at the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he thought: ‘Who’s that boy? Surely they never had a child.’

The elder figure turned. The meeting of those two Forsytes of the second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other, was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at cordiality. ‘Has he come about his wife?’ Jolyon was thinking; and Soames, ‘How shall I begin?’ while Val, brought to break the ice, stood negligently scrutinising this ‘bearded pard’ from under his dark, thick eyelashes.

“This is Val Dartie,” said Soames, “my sister’s son. He’s just going up to Oxford. I thought I’d like him to know your boy.”

“Ah! I’m sorry Jolly’s away. What college?”

“B.N.C.,” replied Val.

“Jolly’s at the ‘House,’ but he’ll be delighted to look you up.”

“Thanks awfully.”

“Holly’s in — if you could put up with a female relation, she’d show you round. You’ll find her in the hall if you go through the curtains. I was just painting her.”

With another “Thanks, awfully!” Val vanished, leaving the two cousins with the ice unbroken.

“I see you’ve some drawings at the ‘Water Colours,’” said Soames.

Jolyon winced. He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family at large for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his mind with Frith’s ‘Derby Day’ and Landseer prints. He had heard from June that Soames was a connoisseur, which made it worse. He had become aware, too, of a curious sensation of repugnance.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said.

“No,” answered Soames between close lips, “not since — as a matter of fact, it’s about that I’ve come. You’re her trustee, I’m told.”

Jolyon nodded.

“Twelve years is a long time,” said Soames rapidly: “I — I’m tired of it.”

Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:

“Won’t you smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.

“I wish to be free,” said Soames abruptly.

“I don’t see her,” murmured Jolyon through the fume of his cigarette.

“But you know where she lives, I suppose?”

Jolyon nodded. He did not mean to give her address without permission. Soames seemed to divine his thought.