The Forsyte Saga Page 6

And behind this outburst the inarticulate violence of primitive generations seemed to mutter and grumble.

  “Tell me what you think of my new star, Uncle Swithin,” said Irene softly.

  Among the lace in the bosom of her dress was shining a five-pointed star, made of eleven diamonds. Swithin looked at the star. He had a pretty taste in stones; no question could have been more sympathetically devised to distract his attention.

  “Who gave you that?” he asked.

  “Soames.”

  There was no change in her face, but Swithin’s pale eyes bulged as though he might suddenly have been afflicted with insight.

  “I dare say you’re dull at home,” he said. “Any day you like to come and dine with me, I’ll give you as good a bottle of wine as you’ll get in London.”

  “Miss June Forsyte—Mr. Jolyon Forsyte! . . . Mr. Bo-swainey! . . .”

  Swithin moved his arm, and said in a rumbling voice:

  “Dinner, now—dinner!”

  He took in Irene, on the ground that he had not entertained her since she was a bride. June was the portion of Bosinney, who was placed between Irene and his fiancée. On the other side of June was James with Mrs. Nicholas, then old Jolyon with Mrs. James, Nicholas with Hatty Chessman, Soames with Mrs. Small, completing, the circle to Swithin again.

  Family dinners of the Forsytes observe certain traditions. There are, for instance, no hors d’oeuvres. The reason for this is unknown. Theory among the younger members traces it to the disgraceful price of oysters; it is more probably due to a desire to come to the point, to a good practical sense deciding at once that hors d’oeuvres are but poor things. The Jameses alone, unable to withstand a custom almost universal in Park Lane, are now and then unfaithful.

  A silent, almost morose, inattention to each other succeeds to the subsidence into their seats, lasting till well into the first entree, but interspersed with remarks such as, “Tom’s bad again; I can’t tell what’s the matter with him!” “I suppose Ann doesn’t come down in the mornings?”—“What’s the name of your doctor, Fanny?” “Stubbs?” “He’s a quack!”—“Winifred? She’s got too many children. Four, isn’t it? She’s as thin as a lath!”—“What d’you give for this sherry, Swithin? Too dry for me!”

  With the second glass of champagne, a kind of hum makes itself heard, which, when divested of casual accessories and resolved into its primal element, is found to be James telling a story, and this goes on for a long time, encroaching sometimes even upon what must universally be recognised as the crowning point of a Forsyte feast—“the saddle of mutton.”

  No Forsyte has given a dinner without providing a saddle of mutton. There is something in its succulent solidity which makes it suitable to people “of a certain position.” It is nourishing and tasty; the sort of thing a man remembers eating. It has a past and a future, like a deposit paid into a bank; and it is something that can be argued about.

  Each branch of the family tenaciously held to a particular locality—old Jolyon swearing by Dartmoor, James by Welsh, Swithin by Southdown, Nicholas maintaining that people might sneer, but there was nothing like New Zealand! As for Roger, the “original” of the brothers, he had been obliged to invent a locality of his own, and with an ingenuity worthy of a man who had devised a new profession for his sons, he had discovered a shop where they sold German; on being remonstrated with, he had proved his point by producing a butcher’s bill, which showed that he paid more than any of the others. It was on this occasion that old Jolyon, turning to June, had said in one of his bursts of philosophy:

  “You may depend upon it, they’re a cranky lot, the Forsytes—and you’ll find it out, as you grow older!”

  Timothy alone held apart, for though he ate saddle of mutton heartily, he was, he said, afraid of it.

  To anyone interested psychologically in Forsytes, this great saddle-of-mutton trait is of prime importance; not only does it illustrate their tenacity, both collectively and as individuals, but it marks them as belonging in fibre and instincts to that great class which believes in nourishment and flavour, and yields to no sentimental craving for beauty.

  Younger members of the family indeed would have done without a joint altogether, preferring guinea fowl, or lobster salad—something which appealed to the imagination, and had less nourishment—but these were females; or, if not, had been corrupted by their wives, or by mothers, who having been forced to eat saddle of mutton throughout their married lives, had passed a secret hostility towards it into the fibre of their sons.

  The great saddle-of-mutton controversy at an end, a Tewkesbury ham commenced, together with the least touch of West Indian—Swithin was so long over this course that he caused a block in the progress of the dinner. To devote himself to it with better heart, he paused in his conversation.

  From his seat by Mrs. Septimus Small, Soames was watching. He had a reason of his own connected with a pet building scheme, for observing Bosinney. The architect might do for his purpose; he looked clever, as he sat leaning back in his chair, moodily making little ramparts with bread crumbs. Soames noted his dress clothes to be well cut, but too small, as though made many years ago.

  He saw him turn to Irene and say something and her face sparkle as he often saw it sparkle at other people—never at himself. He tried to catch what they were saying, but Aunt Juley was speaking.

  Hadn’t that always seemed very extraordinary to Soames? Only last Sunday dear Mr. Scole, had been so witty in his sermon, so sarcastic, “For what,” he had said, “shall it profit a man if he gain his own soul, but lose all his property?” That, he had said, was the motto of the middle-class; now, what had he meant by that? Of course, it might be what middle-class people believed—she didn’t know; what did Soames think?

  He answered abstractedly: “How should I know? Scoles is a humbug, though, isn’t he?” For Bosinney was looking round the table, as if pointing out the peculiarities of the guests, and Soames wondered what he was saying. By her smile Irene was evidently agreeing with his remarks. She seemed always to agree with other people.

  Her eyes were turned on himself; Soames dropped his glance at once. The smile had died off her lips.

  A humbug? But what did Soames mean? If Mr. Scoles was a humbug, a clergyman—then anybody might be—it was frightful!

  “Well, and so they are!” said Soames.

  During Aunt Juley’s momentary and horrified silence he caught some words of Irene’s that sounded like: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!”

  But Swithin had finished his ham.

  “Where do you go for your mushrooms?” he was saying to Irene in a voice like a courtier’s; “you ought to go to Snileybob’s—he’ll give ’em you fresh. These little men, they won’t take the trouble!”

  Irene turned to answer him, and Soames saw Bosinney watching her and smiling to himself. A curious smile the fellow had. A half-simple arrangement, like a child who smiles when he is pleased. As for George’s nickname—“The Buccaneer”—he did not think much of that. And, seeing Bosinney turn to June, Soames smiled too, but sardonically—he did not like June, who was not looking too pleased.

  This was not surprising, for she had just held the following conversation with James:

  “I stayed on the river on my way home, Uncle James, and saw a beautiful site for a house.”

  James, a slow and thorough eater, stopped the process of mastication.

  “Eh?” he said. “Now, where was that?”

  “Close to Pangbourne.”

  James placed a piece of ham in his mouth, and June waited.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t know whether the land about there was freehold?” he asked at last. “You wouldn’t know anything about the price of land about there?”

  “Yes,” said June; “I made inquiries.” Her little resolute face under its copper crown was suspiciously eager and aglow.

  James reg
arded her with the air of an inquisitor.

  “What? You’re not thinking of buying land!” he ejaculated, dropping his fork.

  June was greatly encouraged by his interest. It had long been her pet plan that her uncles should benefit themselves and Bosinney by building country houses.

  “Of course not,” she said. “I thought it would be such a splendid place for—you or—someone to build a country house!”

  James looked at her sideways, and placed a second piece of ham in his mouth. . . .

  “Land ought to be very dear about there,” he said.

  What June had taken for personal interest was only the impersonal excitement of every Forsyte who hears of something eligible in danger of passing into other hands. But she refused to see the disappearance of her chance, and continued to press her point.

  “You ought to go into the country, Uncle James. I wish I had a lot of money, I wouldn’t live another day in London.”

  James was stirred to the depths of his long thin figure; he had no idea his niece held such downright views.

  “Why don’t you go into the country?” repeated June; “it would do you a lot of good.”

  “Why?” began James in a fluster. “Buying land—what good d’you suppose I can do buying land, building houses?—I couldn’t get four per cent for my money!”

  “What does that matter? You’d get fresh air.”

  “Fresh air!” exclaimed James; “what should I do with fresh air,”

  “I should have thought anybody liked to have fresh air,” said June scornfully.

  James wiped his napkin all over his mouth.

  “You don’t know the value of money,” he said, avoiding her eye.

  “No! and I hope I never shall!” and, biting her lip with inexpressible mortification, poor June was silent.

  Why were her own relations so rich, and Phil never knew where the money was coming from for tomorrow’s tobacco. Why couldn’t they do something for him? But they were so selfish. Why couldn’t they build country houses? She had all that naive dogmatism which is so pathetic, and sometimes achieves such great results. Bosinney, to whom she turned in her discomfiture, was talking to Irene, and a chill fell on June’s spirit. Her eyes grew steady with anger, like old Jolyon’s when his will was crossed.

  James, too, was much disturbed. He felt as though someone had threatened his right to invest his money at five per cent. Jolyon had spoiled her. None of his girls would have said such a thing. James had always been exceedingly liberal to his children, and the consciousness of this made him feel it all the more deeply. He trifled moodily with his strawberries, then, deluging them with cream, he ate them quickly; they, at all events, should not escape him.

  No wonder he was upset. Engaged for fifty-four years (he had been admitted a solicitor on the earliest day sanctioned by the law) in arranging mortgages, preserving investments at a dead level of high and safe interest, conducting negotiations on the principle of securing the utmost possible out of other people compatible with safety to his clients and himself, in calculations as to the exact pecuniary possibilities of all the relations of life, he had come at last to think purely in terms of money. Money was now his light, his medium for seeing, that without which he was really unable to see, really not cognisant of phenomena; and to have this thing, “I hope I shall never know the value of money!” said to his face, saddened and exasperated him. He knew it to be nonsense, or it would have frightened him. What was the world coming to! Suddenly recollecting the story of young Jolyon, however, he felt a little comforted, for what could you expect with a father like that! This turned his thoughts into a channel still less pleasant. What was all this talk about Soames and Irene?

  As in all self-respecting families, an emporium had been established where family secrets were bartered, and family stock priced. It was known on Forsyte ’Change that Irene regretted her marriage. Her regret was disapproved of. She ought to have known her own mind; no dependable woman made these mistakes.

  James reflected sourly that they had a nice house (rather small) in an excellent position, no children, and no money troubles. Soames was reserved about his affairs, but he must be getting a very warm man. He had a capital income from the business—for Soames, like his father, was a member of that well-known firm of solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte—and had always been very careful. He had done quite unusually well with some mortgages he had taken up, too—a little timely foreclosure—most lucky hits!

  There was no reason why Irene should not be happy, yet they said she’d been asking for a separate room. He knew where that ended. It wasn’t as if Soames drank.

  James looked at his daughter-in-law. That unseen glance of his was cold and dubious. Appeal and fear were in it, and a sense of personal grievance. Why should he be worried like this? It was very likely all nonsense; women were funny things! They exaggerated so, you didn’t know what to believe; and then, nobody told him anything, he had to find out everything for himself. Again he looked furtively at Irene, and across from her to Soames. The latter, listening to Aunt Juley, was looking up, under his brows in the direction of Bosinney.

  “He’s fond of her, I know,” thought James. “Look at the way he’s always giving her things.”

  And the extraordinary unreasonableness of her disaffection struck him with increased force. It was a pity, too, she was a taking little thing, and he, James, would be really quite fond of her if she’d only let him. She had taken up lately with June; that was doing her no good, that was certainly doing her no good. She was getting to have opinions of her own. He didn’t know what she wanted with anything of the sort. She’d a good home, and everything she could wish for. He felt that her friends ought to be chosen for her. To go on like this was dangerous.

  June, indeed, with her habit of championing the unfortunate, had dragged from Irene a confession, and, in return, had preached the necessity of facing the evil, by separation, if need be. But in the face of these exhortations, Irene had kept a brooding silence, as though she found terrible the thought of this struggle carried through in cold blood. He would never give her up, she had said to June.

  “Who cares?” June cried; “let him do what he likes—you’ve only to stick to it!” And she had not scrupled to say something of this sort at Timothy’s; James, when he heard of it, had felt a natural indignation and horror.

  What if Irene were to take it into her head to—he could hardly frame the thought—to leave Soames? But he felt this thought so unbearable that he at once put it away; the shady visions it conjured up, the sound of family tongues buzzing in his ears, the horror of the conspicuous happening so close to him, to one of his own children! Luckily, she had no money—a beggarly fifty pound a year! And he thought of the deceased Heron, who had had nothing to leave her, with contempt. Brooding over his glass, his long legs twisted under the table, he quite omitted to rise when the ladies left the room. He would have to speak to Soames—would have to put him on his guard; they could not go on like this, now that such a contingency had occurred to him. And he noticed with sour disfavour that June had left her wineglasses full of wine.

  “That little thing’s at the bottom of it all,” he mused; “Irene’d never have thought of it herself.” James was a man of imagination.

  The voice of Swithin roused him from his reverie.

  “I gave four hundred pounds for it,” he was saying. “Of course it’s a regular work of art.”

  “Four hundred! H’m! that’s a lot of money!” chimed in Nicholas.

  The object alluded to was an elaborate group of statuary in Italian marble, which, placed upon a lofty stand (also of marble), diffused an atmosphere of culture throughout the room. The subsidiary figures, of which there were six, female, nude, and of highly ornate workmanship, were all pointing towards the central figure, also nude, and female, who was pointing at herself; and all this gave the observer a very pleasant s
ense of her extreme value. Aunt Juley, nearly opposite, had had the greatest difficulty in not looking at it all the evening.

  Old Jolyon spoke; it was he who had started the discussion.

  “Four hundred fiddlesticks! Don’t tell me you gave four hundred for that?”

  Between the points of his collar Swithin’s chin made the second painful oscillatory movement of the evening.

  “Four—hundred—pounds, of English money; not a farthing less. I don’t regret it. It’s not common English—it’s genuine modern Italian!”

  Soames raised the corner of his lip in a smile, and looked across at Bosinney. The architect was grinning behind the fumes of his cigarette. Now, indeed, he looked more like a buccaneer.

  “There’s a lot of work about it,” remarked James hastily, who was really moved by the size of the group. “It’d sell well at Jobson’s.”

  “The poor foreign dey-vil that made it,” went on Swithin, “asked me five hundred—I gave him four. It’s worth eight. Looked half-starved, poor dey-vil!”

  “Ah!” chimed in Nicholas suddenly, “poor, seedy-lookin’ chaps, these artists; it’s a wonder to me how they live. Now, there’s young Flageoletti, that Fanny and the girls are always hav’in’ in, to play the fiddle; if he makes a hundred a year it’s as much as ever he does!”

  James shook his head. “Ah!” he said, “I don’t know how they live!”

  Old Jolyon had risen, and, cigar in mouth, went to inspect the group at close quarters.

  “Wouldn’t have given two for it!” he pronounced at last.

  Soames saw his father and Nicholas glance at each other anxiously; and, on the other side of Swithin, Bosinney, still shrouded in smoke.

  “I wonder what he thinks of it?” thought Soames, who knew well enough that this group was hopelessly vieux jeu; hopelessly of the last generation. There was no longer any sale at Jobson’s for such works of art.

  Swithin’s answer came at last. “You never knew anything about a statue. You’ve got your pictures, and that’s all!”