The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2

by John Galsworthy

  ‘Mr Stainford, sir.’

  When Smither – very red – had withdrawn, Soames did not know how to begin, the fellow’s face, like old parchment, was as if it had come from some grave or other. At last he said:

  ‘I wanted to see you about a cheque. My nephew’s name’s been forged.’

  The eyebrows rose, the eyelids dropped still further.

  ‘Yes. Dartie won’t prosecute.’

  Soames’s gorge rose.

  ‘You seem very cocksure,’ he said; ‘my nephew has by no means made up his mind.’

  ‘We were at college together, Mr Forsyte.’

  ‘You trade on that, do you? There’s a limit, Mr Stainford. That was a very clever forgery, for a first.’

  There was just a flicker of the face; and Soames drew the forged cheque from his pocket. Inadequately protected, of course, not even automatically crossed! Val’s cheques would have to have the words ‘Not negotiable; Credit payee’ stamped on them in future. But how could he give this fellow a thorough scare?

  ‘I have a detective at hand,’ he said, ‘only waiting for me to ring. This sort of thing must stop. As you don’t seem to understand that –’ and he took a step towards the bell.

  A faint and bitter smile had come on those pale lips.

  ‘You’ve never been down and out, I imagine, Mr Forsyte?’

  ‘No,’ answered Soames, with a certain disgust.

  ‘I always am. It’s very wearing.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Soames, ‘you’ll find prison a rest.’ But even as he spoke them, the words seemed futile and a little brutal. The fellow wasn’t a man at all – he was a shade, a languid bitter shade. It was as if one were bullying a ghost.

  ‘Look here!’ he said. ‘As a gentleman by birth, give me your word not to try it on again with my nephew, or any of my family, and I won’t ring.’

  ‘Very well, you have my word – such as it is!’

  ‘We’ll leave it at that, then,’ said Soames. ‘But this is the last time. I shall keep the evidence of this.’

  ‘One must live, Mr Forsyte.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ said Soames.

  The ‘shade’ uttered a peculiar sound – presumably a laugh, and Soames was alone again. He went hastily to the door, and watched the fellow into the street. Live? Must one? Wouldn’t a fellow like that be better dead? Wouldn’t most people be better dead? And, astonished at so extravagant a thought, he went up to the drawing-room. Forty-five years since he had laid its foundations, and there it was, as full of marqueterie as ever. On the mantelpiece was a little old daguerreotype, slightly pinked in the cheeks, of his grandfather – ‘Superior Dosset’ set in a deep, enamelled frame. Soames contemplated it. The chin of the founder of the Forsyte clan was settled comfortably between the widely separated points of an old-fashioned collar. The eyes – with thick under-lids, were light and shrewd and rather japing; the side-whiskers grey; the mouth looked as if it could swallow a lot; the old-time tail-coat was of broadcloth; the hands those of a man of affairs. A stocky old boy, with a certain force, and a deal of character! Well-nigh a hundred years since that was taken of him. Refreshing to look at character, after that languid seedy specimen! He would like to see where that old chap had been born and bred before he emerged at the end of the eighteenth century and built the house of Forsyte. He would take Riggs, and go down, and if Fleur wouldn’t come – perhaps all the better! Be dull for her! Roots were nothing to young people. Yes, he would go and look at his roots while the weather was still fine. But first to put old Gradman in order. It would do him good to see the old fellow after this experience – he never left the office till half-past five. And, replacing the daguerreotype, Soames took a taxi to the Poultry, reflecting as he went. How difficult it was to keep things secure, with chaps like Elderson and this fellow Stainford always on the look-out. There was the country too, no sooner was it out of one than it was into another mess; the coal strike would end when people began to feel the winter pinch, but something else would crop up, some war or disturbance or other. And then there was Fleur – she had plenty of money of her own. Had he been wrong to make her so independent? And yet – the idea of controlling her through money had always been repulsive to him. Whatever she did – she was his only child, one might say his only love. If she couldn’t keep straight for love of her infant and himself, to say nothing of her husband – he couldn’t do it for her by threat of cutting her off or anything like that! Anyway, things were looking better with her, and perhaps he had been wrong.

  The City had just begun to disgorge its daily life. Its denizens were scurrying out like rabbits; they didn’t scurry in like that, he would bet – work-shy, nowadays! Ten where it used to be nine; five where it used to be six. Still, with the telephone and one thing and another, they got through as much perhaps; and didn’t drink all the beer and sherry and eat all the chops they used to – a skimpier breed altogether, compared with that old boy whose effigy he had just been gazing at, a shadowy, narrow-headed lot, with a nervy, anxious look, as if they’d invested in life and found it a dropping stock. And not a tail-coat or a silk hat to be seen. Settling his own more firmly on his head, he got out at the familiar backwater off the Poultry, and entered the offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte.

  Old Gradman was still there, his broad, bent back just divested of its workaday coat.

  ‘Ah! Mr Soames, I was just going. Excuse me while I put on my coat.’

  A frock-coat made in the year one, to judge by the cut of it!

  ‘I go at half-past five now. There isn’t much to do as a rule. I like to get a nap before supper. It’s a pleasure to see you; you’re quite a stranger.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Soames. ‘I don’t come in much, but I’ve been thinking. If anything should happen to either or both of us, things would soon be in Queer Street, Gradman.’

  ‘Aow! We won’t think about tha-at!’

  ‘But we must; we’re neither of us young men.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a chicken, but you’re no age, Mr Soames.’

  ‘Seventy-one.’

  ‘Dear, dear! It seems only the other day since I took you down to school at Slough. I remember what happened then better than I do what happened yesterday.’

  ‘So do I, Gradman; and that’s a sign of age. Do you recollect that young chap who came here and told me about Elderson?’

  ‘Aow, yes! Nice young feller. Buttermilk or some such name.’

  ‘Butterfield. Well, I’m going to put him under you here, and I want you to get him au fait with everything.’

  The old fellow seemed standing very still; his face, in its surround of grey beard and hair, was quite expressionless. Soames hurried on:

  ‘It’s just precautionary. Some day you’ll be wanting to retire.’

  Gradman lifted his hand with a heavy gesture.

  ‘I’ll die in ’arness, I ’ope,’ he said.

  ‘That’s as you like, Gradman. You’ll remain as you always have been – in full charge; but you’ll have someone to rely on if you don’t feel well or want a holiday or what not.’

  ‘I’d rather not, Mr Soames. To have a young man about the place –’

  ‘A good young fellow, Gradman. And for some reason, grateful to me and to my son-in-law. He won’t give you any trouble. We none of us live for ever, you know.’

  The old chap’s face had puckered queerly, his voice grated more than usual.

  ‘It seems going to meet trouble. I’m quite up to the work, Mr Soames.’

  ‘Oh! I know how you feel,’ said Soames. ‘I feel much the same myself but Time stands still for no man, and we must look to the future.’

  A sigh escaped from its grizzled prison.

  ‘Well, Mr Soames, if you’ve made up your mind, we’ll say no more; but I don’t like it.’

  ‘Let me give you a lift to your station.’

  ‘I’d rather walk, thank you; I like the air. I’ll just lock up.’

  Soames perceived that not only drawers
but feelings required locking up, and went out.

  Faithful old chap! One might go round to Polkingford’s and see if one could pick up that bit of plate.

  In that emporium, so lined with silver and gold, that a man wondered whether anything had ever been sold there, Soames stood considering. Must be something that a man could swear by – nothing arty or elegant. He supposed the old chap didn’t drink punch – a chapel-goer! How about those camels in silver-gilt with two humps each and candles coming out of them? ‘Joseph Gradman, in gratitude from the Forsyte family’ engraved between the humps? Gradman lived somewhere near the Zoo. M’m! Camels? No! a bowl was better. If he didn’t drink punch he could put rose-leaves or flowers into it.

  ‘I want a bowl,’ he said, ‘a really good one.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I think we have the very article.’

  They always had the very article!

  ‘How about this, sir – massive silver – a very chaste design.’

  ‘Chaste!’ said Soames. ‘I wouldn’t have it as a gift.’

  ‘No, sir; it isn’t perhaps exactly what you require. Now, this is a nice little bowl.’

  ‘No, no; something plain and solid that would hold about a gallon.’

  ‘Mr Bankwait – come here a minute. This gentleman wants an old-fashioned bowl.’

  ‘Yes, sir; I think we have the very thing.’

  Soames uttered an indistinguishable sound.

  ‘There isn’t much demand for the old-fashioned bowl; but we have a very fine second-hand, that used to be in the Rexborough family.’

  ‘With arms on?’ said Soames. ‘That won’t do. It must be new, or free from arms, anyway.’

  ‘Ah! Then this will be what you want, sir.’

  ‘My Lord!’ said Soames; and raising his umbrella he pointed in the opposite direction. ‘What’s that thing?’

  With a slightly chagrined air the shopman brought the article from its case.

  Upon a swelling base, with a waist above, a silver bowl sprang generously forth. Soames flipped it with his finger.

  ‘Pure silver, sir; and, as you see, very delicate edging; not too bacchanalian in design; the best gilt within. I should say the very thing you want.’

  ‘It might do. What’s the price?’

  The shopman examined a cabalistic sign.

  ‘Thirty-five pounds, sir.’

  ‘Quite enough,’ said Soames. Whether it would please old Gradman, he didn’t know, but the thing was in good taste, and would not do the family discredit. ‘I’ll have that, then,’ he said. ‘Engrave these words on it,’ and he wrote them down. ‘Send it to that address, and the account to me; and don’t be long about it.’

  ‘Very good sir. You wouldn’t like those goblets? – They’re perfect in their way.’

  ‘Nothing more!’ said Soames. ‘Good-evening!’ And, handing the shopman his card, with a cold circular glance, he went out. That was off his mind!

  September sun sprinkled him, threading his way west along Piccadilly into the Green Park. These gentle autumn days were very pleasant. He didn’t get hot, and he didn’t feel cold. And the plane trees looked their best, just making up their minds to turn; nice trees, shapely. And, crossing the grassy spaces, Soames felt almost mellow. A rather more rapid step behind impinged on his consciousness. A voice said:

  ‘Ah! Forsyte! Bound for the meeting at Michael’s? Might we go along together?’

  Old Mont, perky and talkative as ever! There he went – off at once!

  ‘What’s your view of all these London changes, Forsyte? You remember the peg-top trouser, and the crinoline – Leech in his prime – Old Pam on his horse – September makes one reminiscent.’

  ‘It’s all on the surface,’ said Soames.

  ‘On the surface? I sometimes have that feeling. But there is a real change. It’s the difference between the Austen and Trollope novels and these modern fellows. There are no parishes left. Classes? Yes, but divided by man, not by God, as in Trollope’s day.’

  Soames sniffed. The chap was always putting things in that sort of way!

  ‘At the rate we’re going, they’ll soon not be divided at all,’ he said.

  ‘I think you’re wrong there, Forsyte. I should never be surprised to see the horse come back.’

  ‘The horse,’ muttered Soames; ‘what’s he got to do with it?’

  ‘What we must look for,’ said Sir Lawrence, swinging his cane, ‘is the millennium. Then we shall soon be developing individuality again. And the millennium’s nearly here.’

  ‘I don’t in the least follow you,’ said Soames.

  ‘Education’s free; women have the vote; even the workman has or soon will have his car; the slums are doomed – thanks to you, Forsyte; amusement and news are in every home; the Liberal Party’s up the spout; Free Trade’s a movable feast; sport’s cheap and plentiful; dogma’s got the knock; so has the General Strike; Boy Scouts are increasing rapidly; dress is comfortable; and hair is short – it’s all millennial.’

  ‘What’s all that got to do with the horse?’

  ‘A symbol, my dear Forsyte. It’s impossible to standardize or socialize the horse. We’re beginning to react against uniformity. A little more millennium and we shall soon be cultivating our souls and driving tandem again.’

  ‘What’s that noise?’ said Soames. ‘Sounds like a person in distress.’

  Sir Lawrence cocked his eyebrow.

  ‘It’s a vacuum cleaner, in Buckingham Palace. Very human things those.’

  Soames grunted – the fellow couldn’t be serious! Well! He might have to be before long. If Fleur –! But he would not contemplate that ‘if’.

  ‘What I admire about the Englishman,’ said Sir Lawrence suddenly, ‘is his evolutionary character. He flows and ebbs, and flows again. Foreigners may think him a stick-in-the-mud, but he’s got continuity – a great quality, Forsyte. What are you going to do with your pictures when you take the ferry? Leave them to the nation?’

  ‘Depends on how they treat me. If they’re going to clap on any more death duties, I shall revoke the bequest.’

  ‘The principle of our ancestors, eh? Voluntary service, or none. Great fellows, our ancestors.’

  ‘I don’t know about yours,’ said Soames; ‘mine were just yeomen. I’m going down to have a look at them tomorrow,’ he added defiantly.

  ‘Splendid! I hope you’ll find them at home.’

  ‘We’re late,’ said Soames, glancing in at the dining-room window, where the committee were glancing out. ‘Half-past six! What a funny lot they look!’

  ‘We always look a funny lot,’ said Sir Lawrence, following him into the house, ‘except to ourselves. That’s the first principle of existence, Forsyte.’

  Chapter Seven

  TOMORROW

  FLEUR met them in the hall. After dropping Jon at Dorking she had exceeded the limit homewards, that she might appear to have nothing in her thoughts but the welfare of the slums. ‘The squire’ being among his partridges, the bishop was in the chair. Fleur went to the sideboard, and, while Michael was reading the minutes, began pouring out the tea. The bishop, Sir Godfrey Bedwin, Mr Montross, her father-in-law, and herself drank China tea; Sir Timothy – whisky and soda; Michael nothing; the Marquess, Hilary, and her father Indian tea; and each maintained that the others were destroying their digestions. Her father, indeed, was always telling her that she only drank China tea because it was the fashion – she couldn’t possibly like it. While she apportioned their beverages she wondered what they would think if they knew what, besides tea, was going on within her. Tomorrow was jon’s last sitting and she was going ‘over the top!’ All the careful possessing of her soul these two months since she had danced with him at Nettlefold would by this time tomorrow be ended. Tomorrow at this hour she would claim her own. The knowledge that there must be two parties to any contract did not trouble her. She had the faith of a pretty woman in love. What she willed would be accomplished, but none should know it! And, handing her cups, she
smiled, pitying the ignorance of these wise old men. They should not know, nor anyone else, least of all the young man who last night had held her in his arms. And, thinking of one not yet so holding her, she sat down by the hearth, with her tea and her tablets, while her pulses throbbed and her half-closed eyes saw Jon’s face turned round to her from the station door. Fulfilment! She, like Jacob, had served seven years – for the fulfilment of her love – seven long, long years! And – while she sat there listening to the edgeless booming of the bishop and Sir Godfrey, to the random ejaculations of Sir Timothy, to her father’s close and cautious comments – that something clear, precise, unflinching, woven into her nature with French blood, silently perfected the machinery of the stolen life, that should begin tomorrow after they had eaten of forbidden fruit. A stolen life was a safe life if there were no chicken-hearted hesitation, no squeamishness, and no remorse! She might have experienced a dozen stolen lives already from the certainty she felt about that. She alone would arrange – Jon should be spared all. And no one should know!

  ‘Fleur, would you take a note of that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And she wrote down on her tablets: ‘Ask Michael what I was to take a note of.’

  ‘Mrs Mont!’

  ‘Yes, Sir Timothy?’

  ‘Could you get up one of those what d’you call ‘ems for us?’

  ‘Matinees?’

  ‘No, no – jumble sales, don’t they call ‘em.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  The more she got up for them the more impeccable her reputation, the greater her freedom, and the more she would deserve, and ironically enjoy, her stolen life.

  Hilary speaking now. What would he think if he knew?

  ‘But I think we ought to have a matinee, Fleur. The public are so good, they’ll always pay a guinea to go to what most of them would give a guinea any day not to go to. What do you say, Bishop?’

  ‘A matinee – by all means!’

  ‘Matinees – dreadful things!’

  ‘Not if we got a pleasant play, Mr Forsyte – something a little old-fashioned – one of L.S.D.’s. It would advertise us, you know. What do you think, Lord Shropshire?’