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

and gone tomorrow” spirit. The French were right, perhaps, with their peasant proprietorship, though he had no opinion of the French. One’s bit of land! Something solid in it! He had heard peasant proprietors described as a pigheaded lot; had heard young Mont call his father a pigheaded Morning Poster⁠—disrespectful young devil. Well, there were worse things than being pigheaded or reading the Morning Post. There was Profond and his tribe, and all these Labour chaps, and loud-mouthed politicians and “wild, wild women.” A lot of worse things! And suddenly Soames became conscious of feeling weak, and hot, and shaky. Sheer nerves at the meeting before him! As Aunt Juley might have said⁠—quoting Superior Dosset⁠—his nerves were “in a proper fautigue.” He could see the house now among its trees, the house he had watched being built, intending it for himself and this woman, who, by such strange fate, had lived in it with another after all! He began to think of Dumetrius, Local Loans, and other forms of investment. He could not afford to meet her with his nerves all shaking; he who represented the Day of Judgment for her on earth as it was in heaven; he, legal ownership, personified, meeting lawless beauty, incarnate. His dignity demanded impassivity during this embassy designed to link their offspring, who, if she had behaved herself, would have been brother and sister. That wretched tune, “The Wild, Wild Women,” kept running in his head, perversely, for tunes did not run there as a rule. Passing the poplars in front of the house, he thought: “How they’ve grown; I had them planted!” A maid answered his ring.

“Will you say⁠—Mr. Forsyte, on a very special matter.”

If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him. “By George!” he thought, hardening as the tug came. “It’s a topsy-turvy affair!”

The maid came back. “Would the gentleman state his business, please?”

“Say it concerns Mr. Jon,” said Soames.

And once more he was alone in that hall with the pool of grey-white marble designed by her first lover. Ah! she had been a bad lot⁠—had loved two men, and not himself! He must remember that when he came face to face with her once more. And suddenly he saw her in the opening chink between the long heavy purple curtains, swaying, as if in hesitation; the old perfect poise and line, the old startled dark-eyed gravity, the old calm defensive voice: “Will you come in, please?”

He passed through that opening. As in the picture-gallery and the confectioner’s shop, she seemed to him still beautiful. And this was the first time⁠—the very first⁠—since he married her seven-and-thirty years ago, that he was speaking to her without the legal right to call her his. She was not wearing black⁠—one of that fellow’s radical notions, he supposed.

“I apologise for coming,” he said glumly; “but this business must be settled one way or the other.”

“Won’t you sit down?”

“No, thank you.”

Anger at his false position, impatience of ceremony between them, mastered him, and words came tumbling out:

“It’s an infernal mischance; I’ve done my best to discourage it. I consider my daughter crazy, but I’ve got into the habit of indulging her; that’s why I’m here. I suppose you’re fond of your son.”

“Devotedly.”

“Well?”

“It rests with him.”

He had a sense of being met and baffled. Always⁠—always she had baffled him, even in those old first married days.

“It’s a mad notion,” he said.

“It is.”

“If you had only⁠—! Well⁠—they might have been⁠—” he did not finish that sentence “brother and sister and all this saved,” but he saw her shudder as if he had, and stung by the sight he crossed over to the window. Out there the trees had not grown⁠—they couldn’t, they were old!

“So far as I’m concerned,” he said, “you may make your mind easy. I desire to see neither you nor your son if this marriage comes about. Young people in these days are⁠—are unaccountable. But I can’t bear to see my daughter unhappy. What am I to say to her when I go back?”

“Please say to her as I said to you, that it rests with Jon.”

“You don’t oppose it?”

“With all my heart; not with my lips.”

Soames stood, biting his finger.

“I remember an evening⁠—” he said suddenly; and was silent. What was there⁠—what was there in this woman that would not fit into the four corners of his hate or condemnation? “Where is he⁠—your son?”

“Up in his father’s studio, I think.”

“Perhaps you’d have him down.”

He watched her ring the bell, he watched the maid come in.

“Please tell Mr. Jon that I want him.”

“If it rests with him,” said Soames hurriedly, when the maid was gone, “I suppose I may take it for granted that this unnatural marriage will take place; in that case there’ll be formalities. Whom do I deal with⁠—Herring’s?”

Irene nodded.

“You don’t propose to live with them?”

Irene shook her head.

“What happens to this house?”

“It will be as Jon wishes.”

“This house,” said Soames suddenly: “I had hopes when I began it. If they live in it⁠—their children! They say there’s such a thing as Nemesis. Do you believe in it?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! You do!”

He had come back from the window, and was standing close to her, who, in the curve of her grand piano, was, as it were, embayed.

“I’m not likely to see you again,” he said slowly. “Will you shake hands”⁠—his lip quivered, the words came out jerkily⁠—“and let the past die.” He held out his hand. Her pale face grew paler, her eyes so dark, rested immovably on his, her hands remained clasped in front of her. He heard a sound and turned. That boy was standing in the opening of the curtains. Very queer he looked, hardly recognisable as the young fellow he had seen in the Gallery off Cork Street⁠—very queer; much older, no youth in the face at all⁠—haggard, rigid, his hair ruffled, his eyes deep in his head. Soames made an effort, and said with a lift of his lip, not quite a smile nor quite a