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Louey Chisholm - "Celtic Tales"

Thomas Chandler Haliburton - "The Clockmaker"

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The Forsyte Saga, Complete

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Forsyte Saga, Complete




Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the
piano--for to point with a finger was not 'well-brrred'--and said slyly:

"Look at the 'lady in grey,' Gran; isn't she pretty to-day?"

Old Jolyon's heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was
clouded; then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:

"Who's been dressing her up?"

"Mam'zelle."

"Hollee! Don't be foolish!"

That prim little Frenchwoman! She hadn't yet got over the music lessons
being taken away from her. That wouldn't help. His little sweet was
the only friend they had. Well, they were her lessons. And he shouldn't
budge shouldn't budge for anything. He stroked the warm wool on
Balthasar's head, and heard Holly say: "When mother's home, there won't
be any changes, will there? She doesn't like strangers, you know."

The child's words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of opposition
about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his new-found freedom.
Ah! He would have to resign himself to being an old man at the mercy of
care and love, or fight to keep this new and prized companionship;
and to fight tired him to death. But his thin, worn face hardened into
resolution till it appeared all Jaw. This was his house, and his affair;
he should not budge! He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself;
he had owned it fifty years. Past four already! And kissing the top of
Holly's head in passing, he went down to the hall. He wanted to get
hold of her before she went up to give her lesson. At the first sound of
wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the victoria
was empty.

"The train's in, sir; but the lady 'asn't come."

Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push away
that fat chap's curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter disappointment
he was feeling.

"Very well," he said, and turned back into the house. He went to his
study and sat down, quivering like a leaf. What did this mean? She might
have lost her train, but he knew well enough she hadn't. 'Good-bye, dear
Uncle Jolyon.' Why 'Good-bye' and not 'Good-night'? And that hand of
hers lingering in the air. And her kiss. What did it mean? Vehement
alarm and irritation took possession of him. He got up and began to pace
the Turkey carpet, between window and wall. She was going to give him
up! He felt it for certain--and he defenceless. An old man wanting to
look on beauty! It was ridiculous! Age closed his mouth, paralysed his
power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no right to
anything but memories and sorrow. He could not plead with her; even
an old man has his dignity. Defenceless! For an hour, lost to bodily
fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl of carnations he had
plucked, which mocked him with its scent. Of all things hard to bear,
the prostration of will-power is hardest, for one who has always had his
way. Nature had got him in its net, and like an unhappy fish he turned
and swam at the meshes, here and there, found no hole, no breaking
point. They brought him tea at five o'clock, and a letter. For a moment
hope beat up in him. He cut the envelope with the butter knife, and
read:


"DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,--I can't bear to write anything that may
disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night. I feel I
can't come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that June is coming
back. Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It has been such a joy to
see you and Holly. Perhaps I shall still see you sometimes when you
come up, though I'm sure it's not good for you; I can see you are tiring
yourself too much. I believe you ought to rest quite quietly all this
hot weather, and now you have your son and June coming back you will be
so happy. Thank you a million times for all your sweetness to me.

"Lovingly your IRENE."


So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he chiefly
cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable end of all
things, the approach of death with its stealthy, rustling footsteps.
Not good for him! Not even she could see how she was his new lease of
interest in life, the incarnation of all the beauty he felt slipping
from him.

His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he paced,
torn between his dignity and his hold on life. Intolerable to be
squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on when your
will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to the ground with
care and love. Intolerable! He would see what telling her the truth
would do--the truth that he wanted the sight of her more than just a
lingering on. He sat down at his old bureau and took a pen. But he could
not write. There was something revolting in having to plead like this;
plead that she should warm his eyes with her beauty. It was tantamount
to confessing dotage. He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:


"I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to
stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my little
grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims; they are
obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone sooner or later; and
perhaps the sooner the better.

"My love to you,

"JOLYON FORSYTE."


'Bitter,' he thought, 'but I can't help it. I'm tired.' He sealed and
dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it fall to the
bottom, thought: 'There goes all I've looked forward to!'

That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his cigar
which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he went very
slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery. He sat down on the
window-seat. A night-light was burning, and he could just see Holly's
face, with one hand underneath the cheek. An early cockchafer buzzed in
the Japanese paper with which they had filled the grate, and one of the
horses in the stable stamped restlessly. To sleep like that child! He
pressed apart two rungs of the venetian blind and looked out. The moon
was rising, blood-red. He had never seen so red a moon. The woods and
fields out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the
summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked. 'I've had a long life,'
he thought, 'the best of nearly everything. I'm an ungrateful chap; I've
seen a lot of beauty in my time. Poor young Bosinney said I had a sense
of beauty. There's a man in the moon to-night!' A moth went by, another,
another. 'Ladies in grey!' He closed his eyes. A feeling that he would
never open them again beset him; he let it grow, let himself sink; then,
with a shiver, dragged the lids up. There was something wrong with him,
no doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.
It didn't much matter now! Into that coppice the moon-light would have
crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be the only
things awake. No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just the shadows
--moving; 'Ladies in grey!' Over that log they would climb; would
whisper together. She and Bosinney! Funny thought! And the frogs and
little things would whisper too! How the clock ticked, in here! It was
all eerie--out there in the light of that red moon; in here with
the little steady night-light and, the ticking clock and the nurse's
dressing-gown hanging from the edge of the screen, tall, like a woman's
figure. 'Lady in grey!' And a very odd thought beset him: Did she exist?
Had she ever come at all? Or was she but the emanation of all the beauty
he had loved and must leave so soon? The violet-grey spirit with the
dark eyes and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the
moonlight, and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was she, did she
exist? He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill, to give
him a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing towards the door. He
stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly, as if conscious of his eyes
fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and curled up closer in defence. He
tiptoed on and passed out into the dark passage; reached his room,
undressed at once, and stood before a mirror in his night-shirt. What a
scarecrow--with temples fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted his
own image, and a look of pride came on his face. All was in league
to pull him down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not
down--yet! He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping,
trying to reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and
disappointment were very bad for him.

He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he sent for
the doctor. After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face as long as your
arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up smoking. That was no
hardship; there was nothing to get up for, and when he felt ill,
tobacco always lost its savour. He spent the morning languidly with the
sun-blinds down, turning and re-turning The Times, not reading much, the
dog Balthasar lying beside his bed. With his lunch they brought him a
telegram, running thus:

'Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you at
four-thirty. Irene.'

Coming down! After all! Then she did exist--and he was not deserted.
Coming down! A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks and forehead felt
hot. He drank his soup, and pushed the tray-table away, lying very quiet
until they had removed lunch and left him alone; but every now and then
his eyes twinkled. Coming down! His heart beat fast, and then did
not seem to beat at all. At three o'clock he got up and dressed
deliberately, noiselessly. Holly and Mam'zelle would be in the
schoolroom, and the servants asleep after their dinner, he shouldn't
wonder. He opened his door cautiously, and went downstairs. In the hall
the dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon passed
into his study and out into the burning afternoon. He meant to go down
and meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he could not manage that
in this heat. He sat down instead under the oak tree by the swing, and
the dog Balthasar, who also felt the heat, lay down beside him. He sat
there smiling. What a revel of bright minutes! What a hum of insects,
and cooing of pigeons! It was the quintessence of a summer day. Lovely!
And he was happy--happy as a sand-boy, whatever that might be. She
was coming; she had not given him up! He had everything in life he
wanted--except a little more breath, and less weight--just here! He
would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying just a
little, a violet-grey figure passing over the daisies and dandelions and
'soldiers' on the lawn--the soldiers with their flowery crowns. He would
not move, but she would come up to him and say: 'Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am
sorry!' and sit in the swing and let him look at her and tell her that
he had not been very well but was all right now; and that dog would lick
her hand. That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a good
dog.

It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him, only
make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the Grand Stand
at Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows cropping the clover in
the field and swishing at the flies with their tails. He smelled the
scent of limes, and lavender. Ah! that was why there was such a racket
of bees. They were excited--busy, as his heart was busy and excited.
Drowsy, too, drowsy and drugged on honey and happiness; as his heart was
drugged and drowsy. Summer--summer--they seemed saying; great bees and
little bees, and the flies too!

The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here. He
would have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little sleep of
late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and beauty,
coming towards him across the sunlit lawn--lady in grey! And settling
back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some thistle-down came on what
little air there was, and pitched on his moustache more white than
itself. He did not know; but his breathing stirred it, caught there.
A ray of sunlight struck through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee
alighted and strolled on the crown of his Panama hat. And the delicious
surge of slumber reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head swayed
forward and rested on his breast. Summer--summer! So went the hum.

The stable clock struck the quarter past. The dog Balthasar stretched
and looked up at his master. The thistledown no longer moved. The dog
placed his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not stir. The dog withdrew
his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old Jolyon's lap, looked in his
face, whined; then, leaping down, sat on his haunches, gazing up. And
suddenly he uttered a long, long howl.

But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old master.

Summer--summer--summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! 1917





IN CHANCERY

Two households both alike in dignity,
From ancient grudge, break into new mutiny.
--Romeo and Juliet


TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD




PART 1




CHAPTER I--AT TIMOTHY'S

The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence and
feud, frosts and fires, it followed the laws of progression even in
the Forsyte family which had believed it fixed for ever. Nor can it be
dissociated from environment any more than the quality of potato from
the soil.

The historian of the English eighties and nineties will, in his good
time, depict the somewhat rapid progression from self-contented and
contained provincialism to still more self-contented if less contained
imperialism--in other words, the 'possessive' instinct of the nation on
the move. And so, as if in conformity, was it with the Forsyte family.
They were spreading not merely on the surface, but within.

When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed her
husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was cremated,
it made strangely little stir among the six old Forsytes left. For this
apathy there were three causes. First: the almost surreptitious burial
of old Jolyon in 1892 down at Robin Hill--first of the Forsytes to
desert the family grave at Highgate. That burial, coming a year after
Swithin's entirely proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk
on Forsyte 'Change, the abode of Timothy Forsyte on the Bayswater Road,
London, which still collected and radiated family gossip. Opinions
ranged from the lamentation of Aunt Juley to the outspoken assertion of
Francie that it was 'a jolly good thing to stop all that stuffy Highgate
business.' Uncle Jolyon in his later years--indeed, ever since the
strange and lamentable affair between his granddaughter June's lover,
young Bosinney, and Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte's wife--had
noticeably rapped the family's knuckles; and that way of his own which
he had always taken had begun to seem to them a little wayward. The
philosophic vein in him, of course, had always been too liable to crop
out of the strata of pure Forsyteism, so they were in a way prepared
for his interment in a strange spot. But the whole thing was an odd
business, and when the contents of his Will became current coin on
Forsyte 'Change, a shiver had gone round the clan. Out of his estate
(L145,304 gross, with liabilities L35 7s. 4d.) he had actually left
L15,000 to "whomever do you think, my dear? To Irene!" that runaway
wife of his nephew Soames; Irene, a woman who had almost disgraced the
family, and--still more amazing was to him no blood relation. Not out
and out, of course; only a life interest--only the income from it!
Still, there it was; and old Jolyon's claim to be the perfect Forsyte
was ended once for all. That, then, was the first reason why the burial
of Susan Hayman--at Woking--made little stir.

The second reason was altogether more expansive and imperial. Besides
the house on Campden Hill, Susan had a place (left her by Hayman when he
died) just over the border in Hants, where the Hayman boys had learned
to be such good shots and riders, as it was believed, which was of
course nice for them, and creditable to everybody; and the fact of
owning something really countrified seemed somehow to excuse the
dispersion of her remains--though what could have put cremation into
her head they could not think! The usual invitations, however, had been
issued, and Soames had gone down and young Nicholas, and the Will had
been quite satisfactory so far as it went, for she had only had a life
interest; and everything had gone quite smoothly to the children in
equal shares.

The third reason why Susan's burial made little stir was the most
expansive of all. It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the pale, the
thin: "Well, I think people have a right to their own bodies, even when
they're dead." Coming from a daughter of Nicholas, a Liberal of the
old school and most tyrannical, it was a startling remark--showing in a
flash what a lot of water had run under bridges since the death of Aunt
Ann in '86, just when the proprietorship of Soames over his wife's body
was acquiring the uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia,
of course, spoke like a child, and had no experience; for though
well over thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte. But, making all
allowances, her remark did undoubtedly show expansion of the principle
of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central point of
possession from others to oneself. When Nicholas heard his daughter's
remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: "Wives and daughters! There's
no end to their liberty in these days. I knew that 'Jackson' case would
lead to things--lugging in Habeas Corpus like that!" He had, of course,
never really forgiven the Married Woman's Property Act, which would so
have interfered with him if he had not mercifully married before it was
passed. But, in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the younger
Forsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were, Colonial
disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxical forerunner of
Imperialism, was making progress all the time. They were all now
married, except George, confirmed to the Turf and the Iseeum Club;
Francie, pursuing her musical career in a studio off the King's Road,
Chelsea, and still taking 'lovers' to dances; Euphemia, living at home
and complaining of Nicholas; and those two Dromios, Giles and Jesse
Hayman. Of the third generation there were not very many--young Jolyon
had three, Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas six already, young Roger
had one, Marian Tweetyman one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of the
sixteen married--Soames, Rachel and Cicely of James' family; Eustace and
Thomas of Roger's; Ernest, Archibald and Florence of Nicholas';
Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman's--were going down the years
unreproduced.

Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been born;
but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only seventeen
descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there would be more
than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A student of statistics must
have noticed that the birth rate had varied in accordance with the rate
of interest for your money. Grandfather 'Superior Dosset' Forsyte in the
early nineteenth century had been getting ten per cent. for his, hence
ten children. Those ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and
Juley, whose husband Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at
once, had averaged from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced
accordingly. The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting barely
three per cent. in the Consols to which their father had mostly tied the
Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and the six of them who
had been reproduced had seventeen children, or just the proper two and
five-sixths per stem.

There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction. A distrust
of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is guaranteed,
together with the knowledge that their fathers did not die, kept them
cautious. If one had children and not much income, the standard of taste
and comfort must of necessity go down; what was enough for two was not
enough for four, and so on--it would be better to wait and see what
Father did. Besides, it was nice to be able to take holidays unhampered.
Sooner in fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on
the ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing tendency fin
de siecle, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run, and one
would be able to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace already had one, but
it had shaken him horribly, and broken one of his eye teeth; so that it
would be better to wait till they were a little safer. In the meantime,
no more children! Even young Nicholas was drawing in his horns, and had
made no addition to his six for quite three years.

The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion rather,
of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so far as to prevent
a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had been a glorious summer,
and after holidays abroad and at the sea they were practically all back
in London, when Roger with a touch of his old originality had suddenly
breathed his last at his own house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy's it
was whispered sadly that poor Roger had always been eccentric about his
digestion--had he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the
other brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and coming
away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for his Uncle
Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. The 'Old Things'--Aunt Juley and Aunt
Hester--would like to hear about it. His father--James--at eighty-eight
had not felt up to the fatigue of the funeral; and Timothy himself,
of course, had not gone; so that Nicholas had been the only brother
present. Still, there had been a fair gathering; and it would cheer
Aunts Juley and Hester up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed
with the inevitable longing to get something out of everything you do,
which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the saner
elements in every nation. In this practice of taking family matters
to Timothy's in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but following in the
footsteps of his father, who had been in the habit of going at least
once a week to see his sisters at Timothy's, and had only given it
up when he lost his nerve at eighty-six, and could not go out without
Emily. To go with Emily was of no use, for who could really talk to
anyone in the presence of his own wife? Like James in the old days,
Soames found time to go there nearly every Sunday, and sit in the little
drawing-room into which, with his undoubted taste, he had introduced a
good deal of change and china not quite up to his own fastidious mark,
and at least two rather doubtful Barbizon pictures, at Christmastides.
He himself, who had done extremely well with the Barbizons, had for some
years past moved towards the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was
hoping to do better. In the riverside house which he now inhabited near
Mapledurham he had a gallery, beautifully hung and lighted, to which
few London dealers were strangers. It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon
attraction in those week-end parties which his sisters, Winifred or
Rachel, occasionally organised for him. For though he was but a taciturn
showman, his quiet collected determinism seldom failed to influence his
guests, who knew that his reputation was grounded not on mere aesthetic
fancy, but on his power of gauging the future of market values. When he
went to Timothy's he almost always had some little tale of triumph over
a dealer to unfold, and dearly he loved that coo of pride with which
his aunts would greet it. This afternoon, however, he was differently
animated, coming from Roger's funeral in his neat dark clothes--not
quite black, for after all an uncle was but an uncle, and his soul
abhorred excessive display of feeling. Leaning back in a marqueterie
chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at the sky-blue walls plastered
with gold frames, he was noticeably silent. Whether because he had been
to a funeral or not, the peculiar Forsyte build of his face was seen to
the best advantage this afternoon--a face concave and long, with a jaw
which divested of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a
chinny face though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly
than ever that Timothy's was hopelessly 'rum-ti-too' and the souls of
his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he wanted
to talk--his own undivorced position--was unspeakable. And yet it
occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was only since the
Spring that this had been so and a new feeling grown up which was
egging him on towards what he knew might well be folly in a Forsyte
of forty-five. More and more of late he had been conscious that he was
'getting on.' The fortune already considerable when he conceived the
house at Robin Hill which had finally wrecked his marriage with Irene,
had mounted with surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during
which he had devoted himself to little else. He was worth to-day well
over a hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to--no real
object for going on with what was his religion. Even if he were to relax
his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would have a hundred
and fifty thousand before he knew where he was. There had always been
a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side to Soames; baulked and
frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but now had crept out again
in this his 'prime of life.' Concreted and focussed of late by the
attraction of a girl's undoubted beauty, it had become a veritable
prepossession.