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

was now a sort of Chinese pillbox, a series of layers in the last of which was Timothy. One did not reach him, or so it was reported by members of the family who, out of old-time habit or absentmindedness, would drive up once in a blue moon and ask after their surviving uncle. Such were Francie, now quite emancipated from God (she frankly avowed atheism), Euphemia, emancipated from old Nicholas, and Winifred Dartie from her “man of the world.” But, after all, everybody was emancipated now, or said they were⁠—perhaps not quite the same thing!

When Soames, therefore, took it on his way to Paddington station on the morning after that encounter, it was hardly with the expectation of seeing Timothy in the flesh. His heart made a faint demonstration within him while he stood in full south sunlight on the newly whitened doorstep of that little house where four Forsytes had once lived, and now but one dwelt on like a winter fly; the house into which Soames had come and out of which he had gone times without number, divested of, or burdened with, fardels of family gossip; the house of the “old people” of another century, another age.

The sight of Smither⁠—still corseted up to the armpits because the new fashion which came in as they were going out about 1903 had never been considered “nice” by Aunts Juley and Hester⁠—brought a pale friendliness to Soames’ lips; Smither, still faithfully arranged to old pattern in every detail, an invaluable servant⁠—none such left⁠—smiling back at him, with the words: “Why! it’s Mr. Soames, after all this time! And how are you, sir? Mr. Timothy will be so pleased to know you’ve been.”

“How is he?”

“Oh! he keeps fairly bobbish for his age, sir; but of course he’s a wonderful man. As I said to Mrs. Dartie when she was here last: It would please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see how he relishes a baked apple still. But he’s quite deaf. And a mercy, I always think. For what we should have done with him in the air-raids, I don’t know.”

“Ah!” said Soames. “What did you do with him?”

“We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the cellar, so that Cook and I could hear him if he rang. It would never have done to let him know there was a war on. As I said to Cook, ‘If Mr. Timothy rings, they may do what they like⁠—I’m going up. My dear mistresses would have a fit if they could see him ringing and nobody going to him.’ But he slept through them all beautiful. And the one in the daytime he was having his bath. It was a mercy, because he might have noticed the people in the street all looking up⁠—he often looks out of the window.”

“Quite!” murmured Soames. Smither was getting garrulous! “I just want to look round and see if there’s anything to be done.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t think there’s anything except a smell of mice in the dining-room that we don’t know how to get rid of. It’s funny they should be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy took to not coming down, just before the War. But they’re nasty little things; you never know where they’ll take you next.”

“Does he leave his bed?”

“Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the window in the morning, not to risk a change of air. And he’s quite comfortable in himself; has his will out every day regular. It’s a great consolation to him⁠—that.”

“Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has anything to say to me.”

Smither coloured up above her corsets.

“It will be an occasion!” she said. “Shall I take you round the house, sir, while I send Cook to break it to him?”

“No, you go to him,” said Soames. “I can go round the house by myself.”

One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames felt that he was going to be sentimental nosing round those rooms so saturated with the past. When Smither, creaking with excitement, had left him, Soames entered the dining-room and sniffed. In his opinion it wasn’t mice, but incipient wood-rot, and he examined the panelling. Whether it was worth a coat of paint, at Timothy’s age, he was not sure. The room had always been the most modern in the house; and only a faint smile curled Soames’ lips and nostrils. Walls of a rich green surmounted the oak dado; a heavy metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling divided by imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by Timothy, a bargain, one day at Jobson’s sixty years ago⁠—three Snyder still lifes, two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and a girl, rather charming, which bore the initials “J. R.”⁠—Timothy had always believed they might turn out to be Joshua Reynolds, but Soames, who admired them, had discovered that they were only John Robinson; and a doubtful Morland of a white pony being shod. Deep-red plush curtains, ten high-backed dark mahogany chairs with deep-red plush seats, a Turkey carpet, and a mahogany dining-table as large as the room was small, such was an apartment which Soames could remember unchanged in soul or body since he was four years old. He looked especially at the two drawings, and thought: “I shall buy those at the sale.”

From the dining-room he passed into Timothy’s study. He did not remember ever having been in that room. It was lined from floor to ceiling with volumes, and he looked at them with curiosity. One wall seemed devoted to educational books, which Timothy’s firm had published two generations back⁠—sometimes as many as twenty copies of one book. Soames read their titles and shuddered. The middle wall had precisely the same books as used to be in the library at his own father’s in Park Lane, from which he deduced the fancy that James and his youngest brother had