When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his Uncle Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his uncle said:
‘He’d better be told.’
At those words, which meant something about his father, of course, Val’s first thought was of Holly. Was it anything beastly? His mother began speaking.
‘Your father,’ she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, ‘your father, my dear boy, has – is not at Newmarket; he’s on his way to South America. He – he’s left us.’
Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then, suddenly – as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars – his heart twitched within him, and he was sorry. One’s father belonged to one, could not go off in this fashion – it was not done! Nor had he always been the ‘bounder’ of the Pandemonium promenade. There were precious memories of tailors’ shops and horses, tips at school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.
‘But why?’ he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he had asked. The mask of his mother’s face was all disturbed; and he burst out:
‘All right, Mother, don’t tell me! Only, what does it mean?’
‘A divorce, Val, I’m afraid.’
Val uttered a queer little grunt and looked quickly at his uncle – that uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a guarantee against the consequences of having a father, even against the Dartie blood in his own veins. The flat-cheeked visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.
‘It won’t be public, will it?’
So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued to the unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the public Press.
‘Can’t it be done quietly somehow? It’s so disgusting for – for mother, and – and everybody.’
‘Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure.’
‘Yes – but why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn’t want to marry again.’
Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his school-fellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of – Holly! Unbearable. What was to be gained by it?
‘Do you, Mother?’ he said sharply.
Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the one she loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire chair in which she had been sitting. She saw that her son would be against her unless he was told everything; and yet, how could she tell him? Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at Soames. Surely this embodiment of respectability and the sense of property could not wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!
Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paper-knife over the smooth surface of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his nephew, he began:
‘You don’t understand what your mother has had to put up with these twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val.’ And glancing up sideways at Winifred, he added:
‘Shall I tell him?’
Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against her! Yet, how dreadful to be told such things of his own father I Clenching her lips, she nodded.
Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:
‘He has always been a burden round your mother’s neck. She has paid his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk, abused and threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires with a dancer.’ And, as if distrusting the efficacy of those words on the boy, he went on quickly:
‘He took your mother’s pearls to give to her.’
Val jerked up his hand then. At that signal of distress Winifred cried out:
‘That’ll do, Soames – stop!’
In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For debts, drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the pearls – no! That was too much! And suddenly he found his mother’s hand squeezing his.
‘You see,’ he heard Soames say, ‘we can’t have it all begin over again. There’s a limit; we must strike while the iron’s hot.’
Val freed his hand.
‘But – you’re never going to bring out that about the pearls! I couldn’t stand that – I simply couldn’t!’
Winifred cried out:
‘No, no, Val – oh no! That’s only to show you how impossible your father is!’ And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out a cigarette. His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh! it was unbearable – just as he was going up to Oxford!
‘Can’t mother be protected without?’ he said. ‘I could look after her. It could always be done later if it was really necessary.’
A smile played for a moment round Soames’s lips, and became bitter.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking of; nothing’s so fatal as delay in such matters.’
‘Why?’
‘I tell you, boy, nothing’s so fatal. I know from experience.’
His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him round-eyed, never having known his uncle express any sort of feeling. Oh! Yes – he remembered now – there had been an Aunt Irene, and something had happened – something which people kept dark; he had heard his father once use an unmentionable word of her.
‘I don’t want to speak ill of your father,’ Soames went on doggedly, ‘but I know him well enough to be sure that he’ll be back on your mother’s hands before a year’s over. You can imagine what that will mean to her and to all of you after this. The only thing is to cut the knot for good.’
In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at his mother’s face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight into the fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered most.
‘All right, Mother,’ he said; ‘we’ll back you up. Only, I’d like to know when it’ll be. It’s my first term, you know. I don’t want to be up there when it comes off.’
‘Oh! my dear boy,’ murmured Winifred, ‘it is a bore for you.’ So, by habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face, was the most poignant regret. ‘When will it be, Soames?’
‘Can’t tell – not for months. We must get restitution first.’
‘What the deuce is that?’ thought Val. ‘What silly brutes lawyers are! Not for months! I know one thing: I’m not going to dine in!’ And he said:
‘Awfully sorry, Mother, I’ve got to go out to dinner now.’
Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully; they both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the expression of feeling.
Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and depressed. And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover that he had only eighteen pence. One couldn’t dine off eighteen pence, and he was very hungry. He looked longingly at the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he had often eaten of the best with his father! Those pearls! There was no getting over them! But the more he brooded and the farther he walked the hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were only two places where he could go: his grandfather’s in Park Lane, and Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less deplorable? At his grandfather’s he would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy’s they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had been there, of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn’t help that. He rang the bell.
‘Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d’you think?’
‘They’re just going in, Master Val. Mr Forsyte will be very glad to see you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you nowadays.’
Val grinned.
‘Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let’s have fizz.’
Warmson smiled faintly – in his opin
ion Val was a young limb.
‘I will ask Mrs Forsyte, Master Val.’
‘I say,’ Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, ‘I’m not at school any more, you know.’
Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond the stag’s horn coat-stand, with the words:
‘Mr Valerus, ma’am.’
‘Confound him!’ thought Val, entering.
A warm embrace, a ‘Well, Val!’ from Emily, and a rather quavery ‘So there you are at last!’ from James, restored his sense of dignity.
‘Why didn’t you let us know? There’s only saddle of mutton. Champagne, Warmson,’ said Emily. And they went in.
At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which so many fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily at the other, Val half-way between them; and something of the loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children were flown, reached the boy’s spirit. ‘I hope I shall kick the bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather,’ he thought. ‘Poor old chap, he’s as thin as a rail!’ And lowering his voice while his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the soup, he said to Emily:
‘It’s pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know.’
‘Yes, dear boy.’
‘Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn’t there anything to be done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on it?’
‘Hush, my dear,’ murmured Emily; ‘we’re keeping it from your grandfather.’
James’s voice sounded from the other end.
‘What’s that? What are you talking about?’
‘About Val’s college,’ returned Emily. ‘Young Pariser was there, James; you remember – he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo afterwards.’
James muttered that he did not know – Val must look after himself up there, or he’d get into bad ways. And he looked at his grandson with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully glimmered.
‘What I’m afraid of,’ said Val to his plate, ‘is of being hard up, you know.’
By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear of insecurity for his grandchildren.
‘Well,’ said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over, ‘you’ll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it.’
‘Of course,’ murmured Val; ‘if it is good. How much will it be, Grandfather?’
‘Three hundred and fifty; it’s too much. I had next to nothing at your age.’
Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. ‘I don’t know what your young cousin has,’ said James; ‘he’s up there. His father’s a rich man.’
‘Aren’t you?’ asked Val hardily.
‘I?’ replied James, flustered. ‘I’ve got so many expenses. Your father –’ and he was silent.
‘Cousin Jolyon’s got an awfully jolly place. I went down there with Uncle Soames – ripping stables.’
‘Ah!’ murmured James profoundly. ‘That house – I knew how it would be!’ And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones. His son’s tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a whirlpool of doubts and misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and said:
‘Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?’ And, receiving her nod, went on: ‘I wish you’d tell me about him, Granny. What became of Aunt Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully worked up about something tonight.’
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. 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!’
Chapter Ten
SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE
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 house-boat, 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 evergreen, so that there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood; yet he was 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 pin-cushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of pot-pourri 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.’
The Forsyte Saga, Volume 1 Page 47