The Forsyte Saga, Volume 1

by John Galsworthy

  He stood, his hands behind him, his head bent back on his high, narrow shoulders, spying the tracery on the columns and the pattern of the frieze which ran round the ivory-coloured walls under the gallery. Evidently, no pains had been spared. It was quite the house of a gentleman. He went up to the curtains, and, having discovered how they were worked, drew them asunder and disclosed the picture-gallery, ending in a great window taking up the whole end of the room. It had a black oak floor, and its walls, again, were of ivory white. He went on throwing open doors, and peeping in. Everything was in applepie order, ready for immediate occupation.

  He turned round at last to speak to Irene, and saw her standing over in the garden entrance, with her husband and Bosinney.

  Though not remarkable for sensibility, James felt at once that something was wrong. He went up to them, and, vaguely alarmed, ignorant of the nature of the trouble, made an attempt to smooth things over.

  ‘How are you, Mr Bosinney?’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘You’ve been spending money pretty freely down here, I should say!’

  Soames turned his back, and walked away. James looked from Bosinney’s frowning face to Irene’s, and, in his agitation, spoke his thoughts aloud: ‘Well, I can’t tell what’s the matter. Nobody tells me anything!’ And, making off after his son, he heard Bosinney’s short laugh, and his ‘Well, thank God! You look so –’ Most unfortunately he lost the rest.

  What had happened? He glanced back. Irene was very close to the architect, and her face not like the face he knew of her. He hastened up to his son.

  Soames was pacing the picture-gallery.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said James. ‘What’s all this?’ Soames looked at him with his supercilious calm unbroken, but James knew well enough that he was violently angry.

  ‘Our friend,’ he said, ‘has exceeded his instructions again, that’s all. So much the worse for him this time.’

  He turned round and walked back towards the door. James followed hurriedly, edging himself in front. He saw Irene take her finger from before her lips, heard her say something in her ordinary voice, and began to speak before he reached them:

  “There’s a storm coming on. We’d better get home. We can’t take you, I suppose, Mr Bosinney? No, I suppose not. Then, good-bye!’ He held out his hand. Bosinney did not take it, but, turning with a laugh, said:

  ‘Good-bye, Mr Forsyte. Don’t get caught in the storm!’ and walked away.

  ‘Well,’ began James, ‘I don’t know –’

  But the sight of Irene’s face stopped him. Taking hold of his daughter-in-law by the elbow, he escorted her towards the carriage. He felt certain, quite certain, they had been making some appointment or other.…

  Nothing in this world is more sure to upset a Forsyte than the discovery that something on which he has stipulated to spend a certain sum has cost more. And this is reasonable, for upon the accuracy of his estimates the whole policy of his life is ordered. If he cannot rely on definite values of property, his compass is amiss; he is adrift upon bitter waters without a helm.

  After writing to Bosinney in the terms that have already been chronicled, Soames had dismissed the cost of the house from his mind. He believed that he had made the matter of the final cost so very plain that the possibility of its being again exceeded had really never entered his head. On hearing from Bosinney that his limit of twelve thousand pounds would be exceeded by something like four hundred, he had grown white with anger. His original estimate of the cost of the house completed had been ten thousand pounds, and he had often blamed himself severely for allowing himself to be led into repeated excesses. Over this last expenditure, however, Bosinney had put himself completely in the wrong. How on earth a fellow could make such an ass of himself Soames could not conceive; but he had done so, and all the rancour and hidden jealousy that had been burning against him for so long was now focused in rage at this crowning piece of extravagance. The attitude of the confident and friendly husband was gone. To preserve property – his wife – he had assumed it, to preserve property of another kind he lost it now.

  ‘Ah!’ he had said to Bosinney when he could speak, ‘and I suppose you’re perfectly contented with yourself. But I may as well tell you that you’ve altogether mistaken your man!’

  What he meant by those words he did not quite know at the time, but after dinner he looked up the correspondence between himself and Bosinney to make quite sure. There could be no two opinions about it – the fellow had made himself liable for that extra four hundred, or, at all events, for three hundred and fifty of it, and he would have to make it good.

  He was looking at his wife’s face when he came to this conclusion. Seated in her usual seat on the sofa, she was altering the lace on a collar. She had not once spoken to him all the evening.

  He went up to the mantelpiece, and contemplating his face in the mirror said: ‘Your friend The Buccaneer has made a fool of himself; he will have to pay for it!’

  She looked at him scornfully, and answered: ‘I don’t know what you are talking about!’

  ‘You soon will. A mere trifle, quite beneath your contempt – four hundred pounds.’

  ‘Do you mean that you are going to make him pay that towards this hateful house?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And you know he’s got nothing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you are meaner than I thought you.’

  Soames turned from the mirror, and unconsciously taking a china cup from the mantelpiece, clasped his hands around it, as though praying. He saw her bosom rise and fall, her eyes darkening with anger, and taking no notice of the taunt, he asked quietly:

  ‘Are you carrying on a flirtation with Bosinney?’

  ‘No, I am not!’

  Her eyes met his, and he looked away. He neither believed nor disbelieved her, but he knew that he had made a mistake in asking; he never had known, never would know, what she was thinking. The sight of her inscrutable face, the thought of all the hundreds of evenings he had seen her sitting there like that, soft and passive, but so unreadable, unknown, enraged him beyond measure.

  ‘I believe you are made of stone,’ he said, clenching his fingers so hard that he broke the fragile cup. The pieces fell into the grate. And Irene smiled.

  ‘You seem to forget,’ she said, ‘that cup is not!’

  Soames gripped her arm. ‘A good beating,’ he said, ‘is the only thing that would bring you to your senses,’ but turning on his heel, he left the room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  SOAMES SITS ON THE STAIRS

  SOAMES went upstairs that night with the feeling that he had gone too far. He was prepared to offer excuses for his words.

  He turned out the gas still burning in the passage outside their room. Pausing, with his hand on the knob of the door, he tried to shape his apology, for he had no intention of letting her see that he was nervous.

  But the door did not open, nor when he pulled it and turned the handle firmly. She must have locked it for some reason, and forgotten.

  Entering his dressing-room, where the gas was also lit and burning low, he went quickly to the other door. That too was locked. Then he noticed that the camp bed which he occasionally used was prepared, and his sleeping-suit laid out upon it. He put his hand up to his forehead, and brought it away wet. It dawned on him that he was barred out.

  He went back to the door, and rattling the handle stealthily, called: ‘Unlock the door, do you hear. Unlock the door!’

  There was a faint rustling, but no answer.

  ‘Do you hear? Let me in at once – I insist on being let in!’

  He could catch the sound of her breathing close to the door, like the breathing of a creature threatened by danger.

  There was something terrifying in this inexorable silence, in the impossibility of getting at her. He went back to the other door, and putting his whole weight against it, tried to burst it open. The door was a new one – he had had them renewed himself, in readiness for
their coming in after the honeymoon. In a rage he lifted his foot to kick in the panel; the thought of the servants restrained him, and he felt suddenly that he was beaten.

  Flinging himself down in the dressing-room, he took up a book.

  But instead of the print he seemed to see his wife – with her yellow hair flowing over her bare shoulders, and her great dark eyes – standing like an animal at bay. And the whole meaning of her act of revolt came to him. She meant it to be for good.

  He could not sit still, and went to the door again. He could still hear her, and he called: ‘Irene! Irene!’

  He did not mean to make his voice pathetic. In ominous answer, the faint sounds ceased. He stood with clenched hands, thinking.

  Presently he stole round on tiptoe, and running suddenly at the other door, made a supreme effort to break it open. It creaked, but did not yield. He sat down on the stairs and buried his face in his hands.

  For a long time he sat there in the dark, the moon through the skylight above laying a pale smear that lengthened slowly towards him down the stairway. He tried to be philosophical.

  Since she had locked her doors she had no further claim as a wife and he would console himself with other women!

  It was but a spectral journey he made among such delights – he had no appetite for these exploits. He had never had much, and he had lost the habit. He felt that he could never recover it. His hunger could only be appeased by his wife, inexorable and frightened, behind these shut doors. No other woman could help him.

  This conviction came to him with terrible force out there in the dark.

  His philosophy left him; and surly anger took its place. Her conduct was immoral, inexcusable, worthy of any punishment within his power. He desired no one but her, and she refused him!

  She must really hate him, then! He had never believed it yet. He did not believe it now. It seemed to him incredible. He felt as though he had lost for ever his power of judgement. If she, so soft and yielding as he had always judged her, could take this decided step – what could not happen?

  Then he asked himself again if she were carrying on an intrigue with Bosinney. He did not believe that she was; he could not afford to believe such a reason for her conduct – the thought was not to be faced.

  It would be unbearable to contemplate the necessity of making his marital relations public property. Short of the most convincing proofs he must still refuse to believe, for he did not wish to punish himself. And all the time at heart – he did believe.

  The moonlight cast a greyish tinge over his figure, hunched against the staircase wall.

  Bosinney was in love with her! He hated the fellow, and would not spare him now. He could and would refuse to pay a penny piece over twelve thousand and fifty pounds – the extreme limit fixed in the correspondence; or rather he would pay, he would pay and sue him for damages. He would go to Jobling and Boulter and put the matter in their hands. He would ruin the impecunious beggar! And suddenly – though what connexion between the thoughts? – he reflected that Irene had no money either. They were both beggars. This gave him a strange satisfaction.

  The silence was broken by a faint creaking through the wall. She was going to bed at last. Ah! Joy and pleasant dreams! If she threw the door open wide he would not go in now!

  But his lips, that were twisted in a bitter smile, twitched; he covered his eyes with his hands.…

  It was late the following afternoon when Soames stood in the dining-room window gazing gloomily into the Square.

  The sunlight still showered on the plane-trees, and in the breeze their gay broad leaves shone and swung in rhyme to a barrel organ at the corner. It was playing a waltz, an old waltz that was out of fashion, with a fateful rhythm in the notes; and it went on and on, though nothing indeed but leaves danced to the tune.

  The woman did not look too gay, for she was tired; and from the tall houses no one threw her down coppers. She moved the organ on, and three doors off began again.

  It was the waltz they had played at Roger’s when Irene had danced with Bosinney; and the perfume of the gardenias she had worn came back to Soames, drifted by the malicious music, as it had been drifted to him then, when she passed, her hair glistening, her eyes so soft, drawing Bosinney on and on down an endless ballroom.

  The organ woman plied her handle slowly; she had been grinding her tune all day – grinding it in Sloane Street hard by, grinding it perhaps to Bosinney himself.

  Soames turned, took a cigarette from the carven box, and walked back to the window. The tune had mesmerized him, and there came into his view Irene, her sunshade furled, hastening homewards down the Square, in a soft, rose-coloured blouse with drooping sleeves, that he did not know. She stopped before the organ, took out her purse, and gave the woman money.

  Soames shrank back and stood where he could see into the hall.

  She came in with her latch-key, put down her sunshade, and stood looking at herself in the glass. Her cheeks were flushed as if the sun had burned them; her lips were parted in a smile. She stretched her arms out as though to embrace herself, with a laugh that for all the world was like a sob.

  Soames stepped forward.

  ‘Very – pretty!’ he said.

  But as though shot she spun round, and would have passed him up the stairs. He barred the way.

  ‘Why such a hurry?’ he said, and his eyes fastened on a curl of hair fallen loose across her ear.

  He hardly recognized her. She seemed on fire, so deep and rich the colour of her cheeks, her eyes, her lips, and of the unusual blouse she wore.

  She put up her hand and smoothed back the curl. She was breathing fast and deep, as though she had been running, and with every breath perfume seemed to come from her hair, and from her body, like perfume from an opening flower.

  ‘I don’t like that blouse,’ he said slowly, ‘it’s a soft, shapeless thing!’

  He lifted his finger towards her breast, but she dashed his hand aside.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried.

  He caught her wrist; she wrenched it away.

  ‘And where may you have been?’ he asked.

  ‘In heaven – out of this house!’ With those words she fled upstairs.

  Outside – in thanksgiving – at the very door, the organ-grinder was playing the waltz.

  And Soames stood motionless. What prevented him from following her?

  Was it that, with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney looking down from that high window in Sloane Street, straining his eyes for yet another glimpse of Irene’s vanished figure, cooling his flushed face, dreaming of the moment when she flung herself on his breast – the scent of her still in the air around, and the sound of her laugh that was like a sob?

  PART THREE

  Chapter One

  MRS MACANDER’S EVIDENCE

  MANY PEOPLE, no doubt, including the editor of the Ultra-Vivisectionist, then in the bloom of its first youth, would say that Soames was less than a man not to have removed the locks from his wife’s doors, and after beating her soundly resumed wedded happiness.

  Brutality is not so deplorably diluted by humaneness as it used to be, yet a sentimental segment of the population may still be relieved to learn that he did none of these things. For active brutality is not popular with Forsytes; they are too circumspect, and, on the whole, too soft-hearted. And in Soames there was some common pride, not sufficient to make him do a really generous action, but enough to prevent his indulging in an extremely mean one except, perhaps, in very hot blood. Above all this true Forsyte refused to feel himself ridiculous. Short of actually beating his wife, he perceived nothing to be done; he therefore accepted the situation without another word.

  Throughout the summer and autumn he continued to go to the office, to sort his pictures, and ask his friends to dinner.

  He did not leave town; Irene refused to go away. The house at Robin Hill, finished though it was, remained empty and ownerless. Soames had brought a suit against The Buccaneer, in which he c
laimed from him the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds.

  A firm of solicitors, Messrs Freak and Able, had put in a defence on Bosinney’s behalf. Admitting the facts, they raised a point on the correspondence which, divested of legal phraseology, amounted to this: To speak of ‘a free hand in the terms of this correspondence’ is an Irish bull.

  By a chance, fortuitous but not improbable in the close borough of legal circles, a good deal of information came to Soames’s ear anent this line of policy, the working partner in his firm, Bustard, happening to sit next at dinner at Walmisley’s, the Taxing Master, to young Chankery, of the Common Law Bar.

  The necessity for talking what is known as ‘shop’, which comes on all lawyers with the removal of the ladies, caused Chankery, a young and promising advocate, to propound an impersonal conundrum to his neighbour, whose name he did not know, for, seated as he permanently was in the background, Bustard had practically no name.

  He had, said Chankery, a case coming on with a ‘very nice point’. He then explained, preserving every professional discretion, the riddle in Soames’s case. Everyone, he said, to whom he had spoken, thought it a nice point. The issue was small unfortunately, ‘though d—d serious for his client, he believed’ – Walmisley’s champagne was bad but plentiful –. A judge would make short work of it, he was afraid. He intended to make a big effort – the point was a nice one. What did his neighbour say?

  Bustard, a model of secrecy, said nothing. He related the incident to Soames, however, with some malice, for this quiet man was capable of human feeling, ending with his own opinion that the point was ‘a very nice one’.

  In accordance with his resolve, our Forsyte had put his interests into the hands of Jobling and Boulter. From the moment of doing so he regretted that he had not acted for himself. On receiving a copy of Bosinney’s defence he went over to their offices.