Chapter I: At Timothy’s

The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence
and feud, frosts and fires, it followed the laws of progression
even in the Forsyte family which had believed it fixed for ever.
Nor can it be dissociated from environment any more than the
quality of potato from the soil.

The historian of the English eighties and nineties will, in his
good time, depict the somewhat rapid progression from
self-contented and contained provincialism to still more
self-contented if less contained imperialism—in other words, the
“possessive” instinct of the nation on the move. And so, as if in
conformity, was it with the Forsyte family. They were spreading
not merely on the surface, but within.

When, in 1895, Susan Hayman, the married Forsyte sister, followed
her husband at the ludicrously low age of seventy-four, and was
cremated, it made strangely little stir among the six old
Forsytes left. For this apathy there were three causes. First:
the almost surreptitious burial of old Jolyon in 1892 down at
Robin Hill—first of the Forsytes to desert the family grave at
Highgate. That burial, coming a year after Swithin’s entirely
proper funeral, had occasioned a great deal of talk on Forsyte
’Change, the abode of Timothy Forsyte on the Bayswater Road,
London, which still collected and radiated family gossip.
Opinions ranged from the lamentation of Aunt Juley to the
outspoken assertion of Francie that it was “a jolly good thing to
stop all that stuffy Highgate business.” Uncle Jolyon in his
later years—indeed, ever since the strange and lamentable affair
between his granddaughter June’s lover, young Bosinney, and
Irene, his nephew Soames Forsyte’s wife—had noticeably rapped the
family’s knuckles; and that way of his own which he had always
taken had begun to seem to them a little wayward. The philosophic
vein in him, of course, had always been too liable to crop out of
the strata of pure Forsyteism, so they were in a way prepared for
his interment in a strange spot. But the whole thing was an odd
business, and when the contents of his Will became current coin
on Forsyte ’Change, a shiver had gone round the clan. Out of his
estate (£145,304 gross, with liabilities £35 7s. 4d.) he had
actually left £15,000 to “whomever do you think, my dear? To
_Irene!_” that runaway wife of his nephew Soames; Irene, a woman
who had almost disgraced the family, and—still more amazing was
to him no blood relation. Not out and out, of course; only a life
interest—only the income from it! Still, there it was; and old
Jolyon’s claim to be the perfect Forsyte was ended once for all.
That, then, was the first reason why the burial of Susan
Hayman—at Woking—made little stir.

The second reason was altogether more expansive and imperial.
Besides the house on Campden Hill, Susan had a place (left her by
Hayman when he died) just over the border in Hants, where the
Hayman boys had learned to be such good shots and riders, as it
was believed, which was of course nice for them, and creditable
to everybody; and the fact of owning something really countrified
seemed somehow to excuse the dispersion of her remains—though
what could have put cremation into her head they could not think!
The usual invitations, however, had been issued, and Soames had
gone down and young Nicholas, and the Will had been quite
satisfactory so far as it went, for she had only had a life
interest; and everything had gone quite smoothly to the children
in equal shares.

The third reason why Susan’s burial made little stir was the most
expansive of all. It was summed up daringly by Euphemia, the
pale, the thin: “Well, _I_ think people have a right to their own
bodies, even when they’re dead.” Coming from a daughter of
Nicholas, a Liberal of the old school and most tyrannical, it was
a startling remark—showing in a flash what a lot of water had run
under bridges since the death of Aunt Ann in ’86, just when the
proprietorship of Soames over his wife’s body was acquiring the
uncertainty which had led to such disaster. Euphemia, of course,
spoke like a child, and had no experience; for though well over
thirty by now, her name was still Forsyte. But, making all
allowances, her remark did undoubtedly show expansion of the
principle of liberty, decentralisation and shift in the central
point of possession from others to oneself. When Nicholas heard
his daughter’s remark from Aunt Hester he had rapped out: “Wives
and daughters! There’s no end to their liberty in these days. I
knew that ‘Jackson’ case would lead to things—lugging in Habeas
Corpus like that!” He had, of course, never really forgiven the
Married Woman’s Property Act, which would so have interfered with
him if he had not mercifully married before it was passed. But,
in truth, there was no denying the revolt among the younger
Forsytes against being owned by others; that, as it were,
Colonial disposition to own oneself, which is the paradoxical
forerunner of Imperialism, was making progress all the time. They
were all now married, except George, confirmed to the Turf and
the Iseeum Club; Francie, pursuing her musical career in a studio
off the King’s Road, Chelsea, and still taking “lovers” to
dances; Euphemia, living at home and complaining of Nicholas; and
those two Dromios, Giles and Jesse Hayman. Of the third
generation there were not very many—young Jolyon had three,
Winifred Dartie four, young Nicholas six already, young Roger had
one, Marian Tweetyman one; St. John Hayman two. But the rest of
the sixteen married—Soames, Rachel and Cicely of James’ family;
Eustace and Thomas of Roger’s; Ernest, Archibald and Florence of
Nicholas’. Augustus and Annabel Spender of the Hayman’s—were
going down the years unreproduced.

Thus, of the ten old Forsytes twenty-one young Forsytes had been
born; but of the twenty-one young Forsytes there were as yet only
seventeen descendants; and it already seemed unlikely that there
would be more than a further unconsidered trifle or so. A student
of statistics must have noticed that the birth rate had varied in
accordance with the rate of interest for your money. Grandfather
“Superior Dosset” Forsyte in the early nineteenth century had
been getting ten per cent. for his, hence ten children. Those
ten, leaving out the four who had not married, and Juley, whose
husband Septimus Small had, of course, died almost at once, had
averaged from four to five per cent. for theirs, and produced
accordingly. The twenty-one whom they produced were now getting
barely three per cent. in the Consols to which their father had
mostly tied the Settlements they made to avoid death duties, and
the six of them who had been reproduced had seventeen children,
or just the proper two and five-sixths per stem.

There were other reasons, too, for this mild reproduction. A
distrust of their earning powers, natural where a sufficiency is
guaranteed, together with the knowledge that their fathers did
not die, kept them cautious. If one had children and not much
income, the standard of taste and comfort must of necessity go
down; what was enough for two was not enough for four, and so
on—it would be better to wait and see what Father did. Besides,
it was nice to be able to take holidays unhampered. Sooner in
fact than own children, they preferred to concentrate on the
ownership of themselves, conforming to the growing tendency _fin
de siècle_, as it was called. In this way, little risk was run,
and one would be able to have a motor-car. Indeed, Eustace
already had one, but it had shaken him horribly, and broken one
of his eye teeth; so that it would be better to wait till they
were a little safer. In the meantime, no more children! Even
young Nicholas was drawing in his horns, and had made no addition
to his six for quite three years.

The corporate decay, however, of the Forsytes, their dispersion
rather, of which all this was symptomatic, had not advanced so
far as to prevent a rally when Roger Forsyte died in 1899. It had
been a glorious summer, and after holidays abroad and at the sea
they were practically all back in London, when Roger with a touch
of his old originality had suddenly breathed his last at his own
house in Princes Gardens. At Timothy’s it was whispered sadly
that poor Roger had always been eccentric about his digestion—had
he not, for instance, preferred German mutton to all the other
brands?

Be that as it may, his funeral at Highgate had been perfect, and
coming away from it Soames Forsyte made almost mechanically for
his Uncle Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. The “Old Things”—Aunt
Juley and Aunt Hester—would like to hear about it. His
father—James—at eighty-eight had not felt up to the fatigue of
the funeral; and Timothy himself, of course, had not gone; so
that Nicholas had been the only brother present. Still, there had
been a fair gathering; and it would cheer Aunts Juley and Hester
up to know. The kindly thought was not unmixed with the
inevitable longing to get something out of everything you do,
which is the chief characteristic of Forsytes, and indeed of the
saner elements in every nation. In this practice of taking family
matters to Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road, Soames was but
following in the footsteps of his father, who had been in the
habit of going at least once a week to see his sisters at
Timothy’s, and had only given it up when he lost his nerve at
eighty-six, and could not go out without Emily. To go with Emily
was of no use, for who could really talk to anyone in the
presence of his own wife? Like James in the old days, Soames
found time to go there nearly every Sunday, and sit in the little
drawing-room into which, with his undoubted taste, he had
introduced a good deal of change and china not quite up to his
own fastidious mark, and at least two rather doubtful Barbizon
pictures, at Christmastides. He himself, who had done extremely
well with the Barbizons, had for some years past moved towards
the Marises, Israels, and Mauve, and was hoping to do better. In
the riverside house which he now inhabited near Mapledurham he
had a gallery, beautifully hung and lighted, to which few London
dealers were strangers. It served, too, as a Sunday afternoon
attraction in those week-end parties which his sisters, Winifred
or Rachel, occasionally organised for him. For though he was but
a taciturn showman, his quiet collected determinism seldom failed
to influence his guests, who knew that his reputation was
grounded not on mere aesthetic fancy, but on his power of gauging
the future of market values. When he went to Timothy’s he almost
always had some little tale of triumph over a dealer to unfold,
and dearly he loved that coo of pride with which his aunts would
greet it. This afternoon, however, he was differently animated,
coming from Roger’s funeral in his neat dark clothes—not quite
black, for after all an uncle was but an uncle, and his soul
abhorred excessive display of feeling. Leaning back in a
marqueterie chair and gazing down his uplifted nose at the
sky-blue walls plastered with gold frames, he was noticeably
silent. Whether because he had been to a funeral or not, the
peculiar Forsyte build of his face was seen to the best advantage
this afternoon—a face concave and long, with a jaw which divested
of flesh would have seemed extravagant: altogether a chinny face
though not at all ill-looking. He was feeling more strongly than
ever that Timothy’s was hopelessly “rum-ti-too” and the souls of
his aunts dismally mid-Victorian. The subject on which alone he
wanted to talk—his own undivorced position—was unspeakable. And
yet it occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else. It was
only since the Spring that this had been so and a new feeling
grown up which was egging him on towards what he knew might well
be folly in a Forsyte of forty-five. More and more of late he had
been conscious that he was “getting on.” The fortune already
considerable when he conceived the house at Robin Hill which had
finally wrecked his marriage with Irene, had mounted with
surprising vigour in the twelve lonely years during which he had
devoted himself to little else. He was worth to-day well over a
hundred thousand pounds, and had no one to leave it to—no real
object for going on with what was his religion. Even if he were
to relax his efforts, money made money, and he felt that he would
have a hundred and fifty thousand before he knew where he was.
There had always been a strongly domestic, philoprogenitive side
to Soames; baulked and frustrated, it had hidden itself away, but
now had crept out again in this his “prime of life.” Concreted
and focussed of late by the attraction of a girl’s undoubted
beauty, it had become a veritable prepossession.

And this girl was French, not likely to lose her head, or accept
any unlegalised position. Moreover, Soames himself disliked the
thought of that. He had tasted of the sordid side of sex during
those long years of forced celibacy, secretively, and always with
disgust, for he was fastidious, and his sense of law and order
innate. He wanted no hole and corner liaison. A marriage at the
Embassy in Paris, a few months’ travel, and he could bring
Annette back quite separated from a past which in truth was not
too distinguished, for she only kept the accounts in her mother’s
Soho Restaurant; he could bring her back as something very new
and chic with her French taste and self-possession, to reign at
“The Shelter” near Mapledurham. On Forsyte ’Change and among his
riverside friends it would be current that he had met a charming
French girl on his travels and married her. There would be the
flavour of romance, and a certain _cachet_ about a French wife.
No! He was not at all afraid of that. It was only this cursed
undivorced condition of his, and—and the question whether Annette
would take him, which he dared not put to the touch until he had
a clear and even dazzling future to offer her.

In his aunts’ drawing-room he heard with but muffled ears those
usual questions: How was his dear father? Not going out, of
course, now that the weather was turning chilly? Would Soames be
sure to tell him that Hester had found boiled holly leaves most
comforting for that pain in her side; a poultice every three
hours, with red flannel afterwards. And could he relish just a
little pot of their very best prune preserve—it was so delicious
this year, and had such a wonderful effect. Oh! and about the
Darties—_had_ Soames heard that dear Winifred was having a most
distressing time with Montague? Timothy thought she really ought
to have protection It was said—but Soames mustn’t take this for
certain—that he had given some of Winifred’s jewellery to a
dreadful dancer. It was such a bad example for dear Val just as
he was going to college. Soames had not heard? Oh, but he must go
and see his sister and look into it at once! And did he think
these Boers were really going to resist? Timothy was in quite a
stew about it. The price of Consols was so high, and he had such
a lot of money in them. Did Soames think they must go down if
there was a war? Soames nodded. But it would be over very
quickly. It would be so bad for Timothy if it wasn’t. And of
course Soames’ dear father would feel it very much at his age.
Luckily poor dear Roger had been spared this dreadful anxiety.
And Aunt Juley with a little handkerchief wiped away the large
tear trying to climb the permanent pout on her now quite withered
left cheek; she was remembering dear Roger, and all his
originality, and how he used to stick pins into her when they
were little together. Aunt Hester, with her instinct for avoiding
the unpleasant, here chimed in: Did Soames think they would make
Mr. Chamberlain Prime Minister at once? He would settle it all so
quickly. She would like to see that old Kruger sent to St.
Helena. She could remember so well the news of Napoleon’s death,
and what a relief it had been to his grandfather. Of course she
and Juley—“We were in pantalettes then, my dear”—had not felt it
much at the time.

Soames took a cup of tea from her, drank it quickly, and ate
three of those macaroons for which Timothy’s was famous. His
faint, pale, supercilious smile had deepened just a little.
Really, his family remained hopelessly provincial, however much
of London they might possess between them. In these go-ahead days
their provincialism stared out even more than it used to. Why,
old Nicholas was still a Free Trader, and a member of that
antediluvian home of Liberalism, the Remove Club—though, to be
sure, the members were pretty well all Conservatives now, or he
himself could not have joined; and Timothy, they said, still wore
a nightcap. Aunt Juley spoke again. Dear Soames was looking so
well, hardly a day older than he did when dear Ann died, and they
were all there together, dear Jolyon, and dear Swithin, and dear
Roger. She paused and caught the tear which had climbed the pout
on her right cheek. Did he—did he ever hear anything of Irene
nowadays? Aunt Hester visibly interposed her shoulder. Really,
Juley was always saying something! The smile left Soames’ face,
and he put his cup down. Here was his subject broached for him,
and for all his desire to expand, he could not take advantage.

Aunt Juley went on rather hastily:

“They say dear Jolyon first left her that fifteen thousand out
and out; then of course he saw it would not be right, and made it
for her life only.”

Had Soames heard that?

Soames nodded.

“Your cousin Jolyon is a widower now. He is her trustee; you knew
that, of course?”

Soames shook his head. He did know, but wished to show no
interest. Young Jolyon and he had not met since the day of
Bosinney’s death.

“He must be quite middle-aged by now,” went on Aunt Juley
dreamily. “Let me see, he was born when your dear uncle lived in
Mount Street; long before they went to Stanhope Gate in December.
Just before that dreadful Commune. Over fifty! Fancy that! Such a
pretty baby, and we were all so proud of him; the very first of
you all.” Aunt Juley sighed, and a lock of not quite her own hair
came loose and straggled, so that Aunt Hester gave a little
shiver. Soames rose, he was experiencing a curious piece of
self-discovery. That old wound to his pride and self-esteem was
not yet closed. He had come thinking he could talk of it, even
wanting to talk of his fettered condition, and—behold! he was
shrinking away from this reminder by Aunt Juley, renowned for her
Malapropisms.

Oh, Soames was not going already!

Soames smiled a little vindictively, and said:

“Yes. Good-bye. Remember me to Uncle Timothy!” And, leaving a
cold kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and
cling to his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left them
looking brightly after him—dear Soames, it had been so good of
him to come to-day, when they were not feeling very...!

With compunction tweaking at his chest Soames descended the
stairs, where was always that rather pleasant smell of camphor
and port wine, and house where draughts are not permitted. The
poor old things—he had not meant to be unkind! And in the street
he instantly forgot them, repossessed by the image of Annette and
the thought of the cursed coil around him. Why had he not pushed
the thing through and obtained divorce when that wretched
Bosinney was run over, and there was evidence galore for the
asking! And he turned towards his sister Winifred Dartie’s
residence in Green Street, Mayfair.