The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (acx book reading txt) 📕

“My little sweet,” he said, “is devoted to music; she’ll be a musician some day. You wouldn’t give me your opinion of her playing, I suppose?”

“Of course I will.”

“You wouldn’t like⁠—” but he stifled the words “to give her lessons.” The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him; yet it would mean that he would see her regularly. She left the piano and came over to his chair.

“I would like, very much; but there is⁠—June. When are they coming back?”

Old Jolyon frowned. “Not till the middle of next month. What does that matter?”

“You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle Jolyon.”

Forget! She must forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head. “You know she couldn’t; one doesn’t forget.”

Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed finality:

“Well, we shall see.”

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred little things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And when she had gone he went back to his chair, and sat there smoothing his face and chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet of paper. He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose and stood under the masterpiece Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset. He was not thinking of that picture, but of his life. He was going to leave her something in his will; nothing could so have stirred the stilly deeps of thought and memory. He was going to leave her a portion of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds, qualities, work⁠—all that had made that wealth; going to leave her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane and steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? Dutch Fishing Boats responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one of last year’s oak leaves which had somehow survived the gardener’s brooms, was dragging itself with a tiny clicking rustle along the stone terrace in the twilight. Except for that it was very quiet out there, and he could smell the heliotrope watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird uttered its last cheep. And right above the oak tree the first star shone. Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of youth. Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was real tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or anything. Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while you could, and leave it something in your will. But how much? And, as if he could not make that calculation looking out into the mild freedom of the country night, he turned back and went up to the chimneypiece. There were his pet bronzes⁠—a Cleopatra with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound playing with her puppy; a strong man reining in some horses. “They last!” he thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a thousand years of life before them!

“How much?” Well! enough at all events to save her getting old before her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as possible, and grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live another five years. She would be well over thirty by then. “How much?” She had none of his blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor of his life for forty years and more, ever since he married and founded that mysterious thing, a family, came this warning thought⁠—None of his blood, no right to anything! It was a luxury then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old man’s whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars. And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him. Why! She cared nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover of hers. But she was there, whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her beauty and grace. One had no right to inflict an old man’s company, no right to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her⁠—for no reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. “How much?” After all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren would never miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he could leave it where he liked, allow himself this little pleasure. He went back to the bureau. “Well, I’m going to,” he thought, “let them think what they like. I’m going to!” And he sat down.

“How much?” Ten thousand, twenty thousand⁠—how much? If only with his money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled by that thought, he wrote quickly:

“Dear Herring⁠—Draw me a codicil to this effect: ‘I leave to my niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes, fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy duty.’

“Yours faithfully,

“Jolyon Forsyte.”

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the window and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars shone now.

IV

He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts. Experience had also taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed the folly of such panic. On this particular morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum was that if he became