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

of a “Hay-Cart Going Home,” as if it were a lithograph. He waited almost with awe to see how they would view the jewel of his collection⁠—an Israels whose price he had watched ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top value, and would be better on the market again. They did not view it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin taste to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked predilections of the English middle class to deal with. At the end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather ashamed⁠—Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte stopped before it.

“Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel!” Soames took advantage of that moment. Very gently touching Annette’s arm, he said:

“How do you like my place, Annette?”

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full, looked down, and murmured:

“Who would not like it? It is so beautiful!”

“Perhaps some day⁠—” Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed⁠—she frightened him. Those cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate curves⁠—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must be sure of one’s ground⁠—much surer! “If I hold off,” he thought, “it will tantalise her.” And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.

“Yes, that’s quite a good example of his later work. You must come again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come and spend a night.”

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

“Thou art sentimental, Maman!”

Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of the world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there was no sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use sentiment? And yet⁠—!

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train. To the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette’s fingers responded just a little; her face smiled at him through the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding. “Go on home, Jordan,” he said to the coachman; “I’ll walk.” And he strode out into the darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing seesaw within him. “Bon soir, monsieur!” How softly she had said it. To know what was in her mind! The French⁠—they were like cats⁠—one could tell nothing! But⁠—how pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one’s arms! What a mother for his heir! And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play with it and buffet it⁠—confound them!

The poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows deepened in the water. “I will and must be free,” he thought. “I won’t hang about any longer. I’ll go and see Irene. If you want things done, do them yourself. I must live again⁠—live and move and have my being.” And in echo to that queer biblicality church-bells chimed the call to evening prayer.

XI And Visits the Past

On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet undertaken in his life⁠—save perhaps his birth, and one other action. He chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read the name, “Mrs. Irene Heron”⁠—Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so she used that again, did she?⁠—he stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming through in the corner flat, and he could hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. “I have no cause to be afraid,” he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee? No! Not before that fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He crossed back into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent which came⁠—that perfume⁠—from away back in the past, bringing muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter, of a house he used to own⁠—perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey!

“Say, Mr. Forsyte,” he said, “your mistress will see me, I know.” He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he could only think ridiculously: “Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it off?” The music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:

“Will you walk in, sir?”

Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She