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

he was getting a round eight hundred a year and a little worried of late, because it was mostly collector’s commission on the rents, and with all this conversion of Forsyte property going on, it looked like drying up, and the price of living still so high; but it was no good worrying⁠—“The good God made us all”⁠—as he was in the habit of saying; still, house property in London⁠—he didn’t know what Mr. Roger or Mr. James would say if they could see it being sold like this⁠—seemed to show a lack of faith; but Mr. Soames⁠—he worried. Life and lives in being and twenty-one years after⁠—beyond that you couldn’t go; still, he kept his health wonderfully⁠—and Miss Fleur was a pretty little thing⁠—she was; she’d marry; but lots of people had no children nowadays⁠—he had had his first child at twenty-two; and Mr. Jolyon, married while he was at Cambridge, had his child the same year⁠—gracious Peter! That was back in ’69, a long time before old Mr. Jolyon⁠—fine judge of property⁠—had taken his will away from Mr. James⁠—dear, yes! Those were the days when they were buyin’ property right and left, and none of this khaki and fallin’ over one another to get out of things; and cucumbers at twopence; and a melon⁠—the old melons, that made your mouth water! Fifty years since he went into Mr. James’ office, and Mr. James had said to him: “Now, Gradman, you’re only a shaver⁠—you pay attention, and you’ll make your five hundred a year before you’ve done.” And he had, and feared God, and served the Forsytes, and kept a vegetable diet at night. And, buying a copy of John Bull⁠—not that he approved of it, an extravagant affair⁠—he entered the Tube elevator with his mere brown-paper parcel, and was borne down into the bowels of the earth. VI Soames’ Private Life

On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that he ought to go into Dumetrius’ in Suffolk Street about the possibility of the Bolderby Old Crome. Almost worth while to have fought the war to have the Bolderby Old Crome, as it were, in flux! Old Bolderby had died, his son and grandson had been killed⁠—a cousin was coming into the estate, who meant to sell it, some said because of the condition of England, others said because he had asthma.

If Dumetrius once got hold of it the price would become prohibitive; it was necessary for Soames to find out whether Dumetrius had got it, before he tried to get it himself. He therefore confined himself to discussing with Dumetrius whether Monticellis would come again now that it was the fashion for a picture to be anything except a picture; and the future of Johns, with a sideslip into Buxton Knights. It was only when leaving that he added: “So they’re not selling the Bolderby Old Crome, after all?” In sheer pride of racial superiority, as he had calculated would be the case, Dumetrius replied:

“Oh! I shall get it, Mr. Forsyte, sir!”

The flutter of his eyelid fortified Soames in a resolution to write direct to the new Bolderby, suggesting that the only dignified way of dealing with an Old Crome was to avoid dealers. He therefore said, “Well, good day!” and went, leaving Dumetrius the wiser.

At Green Street he found that Fleur was out and would be all the evening; she was staying one more night in London. He cabbed on dejectedly, and caught his train.

He reached his house about six o’clock. The air was heavy, midges biting, thunder about. Taking his letters he went up to his dressing-room to cleanse himself of London.

An uninteresting post. A receipt, a bill for purchases on behalf of Fleur. A circular about an exhibition of etchings. A letter beginning:

“Sir,

“I feel it my duty⁠ ⁠…”

That would be an appeal or something unpleasant. He looked at once for the signature. There was none! Incredulously he turned the page over and examined each corner. Not being a public man, Soames had never yet had an anonymous letter, and his first impulse was to tear it up, as a dangerous thing; his second to read it, as a thing still more dangerous.

“Sir,

“I feel it my duty to inform you that having no interest in the matter your lady is carrying on with a foreigner⁠—”

Reaching that word Soames stopped mechanically and examined the postmark. So far as he could pierce the impenetrable disguise in which the Post Office had wrapped it, there was something with a “sea” at the end and a “t” in it. Chelsea? No! Battersea? Perhaps! He read on.

“These foreigners are all the same. Sack the lot. This one meets your lady twice a week. I know it of my own knowledge⁠—and to see an Englishman put on goes against the grain. You watch it and see if what I say isn’t true. I shouldn’t meddle if it wasn’t a dirty foreigner that’s in it. Yours obedient.”

The sensation with which Soames dropped the letter was similar to that he would have had entering his bedroom and finding it full of black-beetles. The meanness of anonymity gave a shuddering obscenity to the moment. And the worst of it was that this shadow had been at the back of his mind ever since the Sunday evening when Fleur had pointed down at Prosper Profond strolling on the lawn, and said: “Prowling cat!” Had he not in connection therewith, this very day, perused his Will and Marriage Settlement? And now this anonymous ruffian, with nothing to gain, apparently, save the venting of his spite against foreigners, had wrenched it out of the obscurity in which he had hoped and wished it would remain. To have such knowledge forced on him, at his time of life, about Fleur’s mother! He picked the letter up from the carpet, tore it across, and then, when it hung together by just the fold at the back, stopped tearing, and reread it. He was taking at that moment one of