The Forsyte Saga, Volume II. Indian Summer of a Forsyte. In Chancery. Galsworthy John
she begged his pardon. He said:
“Not at all; jolly good ballet, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m tired of it; aren’t you?”
Young Val smiled – his wide, rather charming smile. Beyond that he did not go – not yet convinced. The Forsyte in him stood out for greater certainty. And on the stage the ballet whirled its kaleidoscope of snow-white, salmon-pink, and emerald-green and violet and seemed suddenly to freeze into a stilly spangled pyramid. Applause broke out, and it was over! Maroon curtains had cut it off. The semi-circle of men and women round the barrier broke up, the young woman’s arm pressed his. A little way off disturbance seemed centring round a man with a pink carnation; Val stole another glance at the young woman, who was looking towards it. Three men, unsteady, emerged, walking arm in arm. The one in the centre wore the pink carnation, a white waistcoat, a dark moustache; he reeled a little as he walked. Crum’s voice said slow and level: “Look at that bounder, he’s screwed!” Val turned to look. The ‘bounder’ had disengaged his arm, and was pointing straight at them. Crum’s voice, level as ever, said:
“He seems to know you!” The ‘bounder’ spoke:
“H’llo!” he said. “You f’llows, look! There’s my young rascal of a son!”
Val saw. It was his father! He could have sunk into the crimson carpet. It was not the meeting in this place, not even that his father was ‘screwed’. it was Crum’s word ‘bounder,’ which, as by heavenly revelation, he perceived at that moment to be true. Yes, his father looked a bounder with his dark good looks, and his pink carnation, and his square, self-assertive walk. And without a word he ducked behind the young woman and slipped out of the Promenade. He heard the word, “Val!” behind him, and ran down deep-carpeted steps past the ‘chuckersout,’ into the Square.
To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest experience a young man can go through. It seemed to Val, hurrying away, that his career had ended before it had begun. How could he go up to Oxford now amongst all those chaps, those splendid friends of Crum’s, who would know that his father was a ‘bounder’. And suddenly he hated Crum. Who the devil was Crum, to say that? If Crum had been beside him at that moment, he would certainly have been jostled off the pavement. His own father – his own! A choke came up in his throat, and he dashed his hands down deep into his overcoat pockets. Damn Crum! He conceived the wild idea of running back and fending his father, taking him by the arm and walking about with him in front of Crum; but gave it up at once and pursued his way down Piccadilly. A young woman planted herself before him. “Not so angry, darling!” He shied, dodged her, and suddenly became quite cool. If Crum ever said a word, he would jolly well punch his head, and there would be an end of it. He walked a hundred yards or more, contented with that thought, then lost its comfort utterly. It wasn’t simple like that! He remembered how, at school, when some parent came down who did not pass the standard, it just clung to the fellow afterwards. It was one of those things nothing could remove. Why had his mother married his father, if he was a ‘bounder’. It was bitterly unfair – jolly low-down on a fellow to give him a ‘bounder’ for father. The worst of it was that now Crum had spoken the word, he realised that he had long known subconsciously that his father was not ‘the clean potato.’ It was the beastliest thing that had ever happened to him – beastliest thing that had ever happened to any fellow! And, down-hearted as he had never yet been, he came to Green Street, and let himself in with a smuggled latch-key. In the dining-room his plover’s eggs were set invitingly, with some cut bread and butter, and a little whisky at the bottom of a decanter – just enough, as Winifred had thought, for him to feel himself a man. It made him sick to look at them, and he went upstairs.
Winifred heard him pass, and thought: ‘The dear boy’s in. Thank goodness! If he takes after his father I don’t know what I shall do! But he won’t he’s like me. Dear Val!’
CHAPTER III – SOAMES PREPARES TO TAKE STEPS
When Soames entered his sister’s little Louis Quinze drawing-room, with its small balcony, always flowered with hanging geraniums in the summer, and now with pots of Lilium Auratum, he was struck by the immutability of human affairs. It looked just the same as on his first visit to the newly married Darties twenty-one years ago. He had chosen the furniture himself, and so completely that no subsequent purchase had ever been able to change the room’s atmosphere. Yes, he had founded his sister well, and she had wanted it. Indeed, it said a great deal for Winifred that after all this time with Dartie she remained well-founded. From the first Soames had nosed out Dartie’s nature from underneath the plausibility, savoir faire, and good looks which had dazzled Winifred, her mother, and even James, to the extent of permitting the fellow to marry his daughter without bringing anything but shares of no value into settlement.
Winifred, whom he noticed next to the furniture, was sitting at her Buhl bureau with a letter in her hand. She rose and came towards him. Tall as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well tailored, something in her face disturbed Soames. She crumpled the letter in her hand, but seemed to change her mind and held it out to him. He was her lawyer as well as her brother.
Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:
‘You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving country to-morrow. It’s played out. I’m tired of being insulted by you. You’ve brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can stand it. I shall not ask you for anything again. Good-bye. I took the photograph of the two girls. Give them my love. I don’t care what your family say. It’s all their doing. I’m going to live new life. ‘M.D.’
This after-dinner note had a splotch on it not yet quite dry. He looked at Winifred – the splotch had clearly come from her; and he checked the words: ‘Good riddance!’ Then it occurred to him that with this letter she was entering that very state which he himself so earnestly desired to quit – the state of a Forsyte who was not divorced.
Winifred had turned away, and was taking a long sniff from a little gold-topped bottle. A dull commiseration, together with a vague sense of injury, crept about Soames’ heart. He had come to her to talk of his own position, and get sympathy, and here was she in the same position, wanting of course to talk of it, and get sympathy from him. It was always like that! Nobody ever seemed to think that he had troubles and interests of his own. He folded up the letter with the splotch inside, and said:
“What’s it all about, now?”
Winifred recited the story of the pearls calmly.
“Do you think he’s really gone, Soames? You see the state he was in when he wrote that.”
Soames who, when he desired a thing, placated Providence by pretending that he did not think it likely to happen, answered:
“I shouldn’t think so. I might find out at his Club.”
“If George is there,” said Winifred, “he would know.”
“George?” said Soames; “I saw him at his father’s funeral.”
“Then he’s sure to be there.”
Soames, whose good sense applauded his sister’s acumen, said grudgingly: “Well, I’ll go round. Have you said anything in Park Lane?”
“I’ve told Emily,” returned Winifred, who retained that ‘chic’ way of describing her mother. “Father would have a fit.”
Indeed, anything untoward was now sedulously kept from James. With another look round at the furniture, as if to gauge his sister’s exact position, Soames went out towards Piccadilly. The evening was drawing in – a touch of chill in the October haze. He walked quickly, with his close and concentrated air. He must get through, for he wished to dine in Soho. On hearing from the hall porter at the Iseeum that Mr. Dartie had not been in to-day, he looked at the trusty fellow and decided only to ask if Mr. George Forsyte was in the Club. He was. Soames, who always looked askance at his cousin George, as one inclined to jest at his expense, followed the pageboy, slightly reassured by the thought that George had just lost his father. He must have come in for about thirty thousand, besides what he had under that settlement of Roger’s, which had avoided death duty. He found George in a bow-window, staring out across a half-eaten