The Forsyte Saga (48 page)

Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught James's ear.

“What's that?” he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his lips. “Who's been seeing her? I knew we hadn't heard the last of that.”

“Now, James,” said Emily, “eat your dinner. Nobody's been seeing anybody.”

James put down his fork.

“There you go,” he said. “I might die before you'd tell me of it. Is Soames getting a divorce?”

“Nonsense,” said Emily with incomparable aplomb; “Soames is much too sensible.”

James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white whiskers together on the skin and bone of it.

“She—she was always. . . .” he said, and with that enigmatic remark the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later, when the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury, and dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and his grandfather's kiss—like no other kiss in the world, from lips pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to weakness—he returned to the charge in the hall.

“Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on mother's getting a divorce?”

“Your Uncle Soames,” said Emily, and her voice had in it an exaggerated assurance, “is a lawyer, my dear boy. He's sure to know best.”

“Is he?” muttered Val. “But what did become of Aunt Irene? I remember she was jolly good-looking.”

“She—er. . . .” said Emily, “behaved very badly. We don't talk about it.”

“Well, I don't want everybody at Oxford to know about our affairs,” ejaculated Val; “it's a brutal idea. Why couldn't father be prevented without its being made public?”

Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities—so many of those whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain notoriety. When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it no better than other people. But she was eminently practical, and a woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to its substance.

“Your mother,” she said, “will be happier if she's quite free, Val. Good night, my dear boy; and don't wear loud waistcoats up at Oxford, they're not the thing just now. Here's a little present.”

With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park Lane. A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were rustling, and the stars were shining. With all that money in his pocket an impulse to see life beset him; but he had not gone forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly's shy face, and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure of her warm gloved hand. “No, dash it!” he thought, “I'm going home!”

It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and summer lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that Sunday morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little houseboat, and equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them on the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She was so very pretty—could he trust himself not to say irrevocable words, passing beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood; yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions, so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great care, making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three times he went up to his picture gallery. If they had any knowledge at all, they must see at once that his collection alone was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected, too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if—if the matter went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the dressing table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of potpourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little. His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand, and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette would never resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to the station to meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour, Annette in greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and hat. Rather pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure. Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open French window of the dining room moved by that sensuous delight in sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee served on the veranda super—excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted crème de menthe; Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with just a suspicion of the conscious beauty creeping into them. “Yes,” thought Soames, “another year of London and that sort of life, and she'll be spoiled.”

Madame was in sedate French raptures. “
Adorable! Le soleil est si bon!
How everything is
chic
, is it not, Annette? Monsieur is a real Monte Cristo.” Annette murmured assent, with a look up at Soames which he could not read. He proposed a turn on the river. But to punt two persons when one of them looked so ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way towards Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother's black amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought: “How—when—where—can I say—what?” They did not yet even know that he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand that he wished for Annette's hand, it would be dropping into some other clutch before he was free to claim it.

At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the Transvaal.

“There'll be war,” he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.

“
Ces pauvres gens bergers!
” Could they not be left to themselves?

Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.

Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.

“Ah! that!” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had spoken to her of that.

“The Boers are only half-civilised,” remarked Soames; “they stand in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty go.”

“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty!”

“What a strange word!” Soames became eloquent, roused by these threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by Annette's eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she said:

“I think monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson.” She was sensible!

“Of course,” he said, “we must act with moderation. I'm no jingo. We must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my pictures?” Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon perceived that they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve, that remarkable study of a
Hay cart going Home
, as if it were a lithograph. He waited almost with awe to see how they would view the jewel of his collection—an Israels whose price he had watched ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top value, and would be better on the market again. They did not view it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin taste to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked predilections of the English middle-class to deal with. At the end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather ashamed—Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte stopped before it.

“Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!” Soames took advantage of that moment. Very gently touching Annette's arm, he said:

“How do you like my place, Annette?”

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full, looked down, and murmured:

“Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!”

“Perhaps someday—” Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must be sure of one's ground—much surer! “If I hold off,” he thought, “it will tantalise her.” And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.

“Yes, that's quite a good example of his later work. You must come again, madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come and spend a night.”

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

“Thou art sentimental, Maman!”

Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of the world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there was no sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use sentiment? And yet . . . !

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train. To the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette's fingers responded just a little; her face smiled at him through the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding. “Go on home, Jordan,” he said to the coachman; “I'll walk.” And he strode out into the darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing see-saw within him. “
Bon soir, monsieur!
” How softly she had said it. To know what was in her mind! The French—they were like cats—one could tell nothing! But—how pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one's arms! What a mother for his heir! And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play with it and buffet it confound them!

The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows deepened in the water. “I will and must be free,” he thought. “I won't hang about any longer. I'll go and see Irene. If you want things done, do them yourself. I must live again—live and move and have my being.” And in echo to that queer biblicality church bells chimed the call to evening prayer.

On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet undertaken in his life—save perhaps his birth, and one other action. He chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the embankment, and walked up to the Old Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read the name, “Mrs. Irene Heron”—Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so she used that again, did she?—he stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming through in the corner flat, and he could hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. “
I
have no cause to be afraid,” he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee? No! Not before that fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He crossed back into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent which came—that perfume—from away back in the past, bringing muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing room he used to enter, of a house he used to own—perfume of dried rose leaves and honey!

“Say, Mr. Forsyte,” he said, “your mistress will see me, I know.” He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he could only think ridiculously: “Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it off?” The music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:

“Will you walk in, sir?”

Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had risen and stood recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, held for a moment, and released. The light from the shaded piano candle fell on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow. She was in a black evening dress, with a sort of mantilla over her shoulders—he did not remember ever having seen her in black, and the thought passed through him: “She dresses even when she's alone.”

“You!” he heard her whisper.

Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal served him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never thought that the sight of this woman whom he had once so passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not seen for twelve years, could affect him in this way. He had imagined himself speaking and acting, half as man of business, half as judge. And now it was as if he were in the presence not of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle and elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind of defensive irony welled up in him.

“Yes, it's a queer visit! I hope you're well.”

“Thank you. Will you sit down?”

She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a window seat, sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap. Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.

He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.

“You have not changed,” he said.

“No? What have you come for?”

“To discuss things.”

“I have heard what you want from your cousin.”

“Well?”

“I am willing. I have always been.”

The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her figure watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A thousand memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred, and. . . .

“Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on which I can act. The law must be complied with.”

“I have none to give you that you don't know of.”

“Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that?”

“I don't suppose you will believe anything I say; but it's the truth.”

Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed; now he perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was more beautiful; not in form, except that it was a little fuller—no! She had changed spiritually. There was more of her, as it were, something of activity and daring, where there had been sheer passive resistance. “Ah!” he thought, “that's her independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon!”

“I suppose you're comfortably off now?” he said.

“Thank you, yes.”

“Why didn't you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of everything.”

A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.

“You are still my wife,” said Soames. Why he said that, what he meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a truism almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She rose from the window seat, and stood for a moment perfectly still, looking at him. He could see her bosom heaving. Then she turned to the window and threw it open.

“Why do that?” he said sharply. “You'll catch cold in that dress. I'm not dangerous.” And he uttered a little sad laugh.

She echoed it—faintly, bitterly.

“It was—habit.”

“Rather odd habit,” said Soames as bitterly. “Shut the window!”

She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this woman—this—wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat there, in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and moved nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her eyes met his unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what a dark brown against that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair! And how white her shoulders.

Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.

“You had better tell me,” he said; “it's to your advantage to be free as well as to mine. That old matter is too old.”

“I
have
told you.”

“Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing—nobody?”

“Nobody. You must go to your own life.”

Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in their drawing room when his feelings were too much for him.

“That won't do,” he said. “You deserted me. In common justice it's for you. . . .”

He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:

“Yes. Why didn't you divorce me then? Should I have cared?”

He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity. What on earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite alone? And why had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while he stared at her.

“Why couldn't you have made me a good wife?” he said.

“Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will find some way perhaps. You needn't mind my name, I have none to lose. Now I think you had better go.”

A sense of defeat—of being defrauded of his self-justification, and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself, beset Soames like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he reached up, took from the mantelshelf a little china bowl, reversed it, and said:

“Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at Jobson's.” And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained staring at the little bowl, as if it contained all the past. Her voice roused him.

“Take it. I don't want it.”

Soames put it back on the shelf.

“Will you shake hands?” he said.

A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold to his rather feverish touch. “She's made of ice,” he thought—“she was always made of ice!” But even as that thought darted through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of her dress and body, as though the warmth within her, which had never been for him, were struggling to show its presence. And he turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if someone with a whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the empty embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows of the plane tree leaves—confused, flurried, sore at heart, and vaguely disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him if instead of, “I think you had better go,” she had said, “I think you had better stay!” What should he have felt, what would he have done? That cursed attraction of her was there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount to his head at a sign, a touch. “I was a fool to go!” he muttered. “I've advanced nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought!” Memory, flown back to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks. She had not deserved to keep her beauty—the beauty he had owned and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated the sight of her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly! It was some damned magnetism she had! And no wonder if, as she asserted; she had lived untouched these last twelve years. So Bosinney—cursed be his memory!—had lived on all this time with her! Soames could not tell whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.

Nearing his club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline ran: “Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!” Suzerainty! “Just like her!” he thought: “she always did. Suzerainty! I still have it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little flat!”