Chapter V: James Sees Visions

The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly,
detained Soames on the inner mat.

“The master’s poorly, sir,” he murmured. “He wouldn’t go to bed
till you came in. He’s still in the diningroom.”

Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.

“What’s the matter with him, Warmson?”

“Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs.
Dartie’s comin’ round this afternoon. I think he overheard
something. I’ve took him in a negus. The mistress has just gone
up.”

Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag’s-horn.

“All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I’ll take him up myself.”
And he passed into the dining-room.

James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a
camel-hair shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated
shoulders, on to which his long white whiskers drooped. His white
hair, still fairly thick, glistened in the lamplight; a little
moisture from his fixed, light-grey eyes stained the cheeks,
still quite well coloured, and the long deep furrows running to
the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as if mumbling
thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow’s, in shepherd’s plaid
trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and
glistening tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a
half-finished glass of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There
he had been sitting, with intervals for meals, all day. At
eighty-eight he was still organically sound, but suffering
terribly from the thought that no one ever told him anything. It
is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was being
buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a
grudge against his wife’s youth. He felt sometimes that he would
never have married her if he had known that she would have so
many years before her, when he had so few. It was not natural.
She would live fifteen or twenty years after he was gone, and
might spend a lot of money; she had always had extravagant
tastes. For all he knew she might want to buy one of these
motor-cars. Cicely and Rachel and Imogen and all the young
people—they all rode those bicycles now and went off Goodness
knew where. And now Roger was gone. He didn’t know—couldn’t tell!
The family was breaking up. Soames would know how much his uncle
had left. Curiously he thought of Roger as Soames’ uncle not as
his own brother. Soames! It was more and more the one solid spot
in a vanishing world. Soames was careful; he was a warm man; but
he had no one to leave his money to. There it was! He didn’t
know! And there was that fellow Chamberlain! For James’ political
principles had been fixed between ’70 and ’85 when “that rascally
Radical” had been the chief thorn in the side of property and he
distrusted him to this day in spite of his conversion; he would
get the country into a mess and make money go down before he had
done with it. A stormy petrel of a chap! Where was Soames? He had
gone to the funeral of course which they had tried to keep from
him. He knew that perfectly well; he had seen his son’s trousers.
Roger! Roger in his coffin! He remembered how, when they came up
from school together from the West, on the box seat of the old
Slowflyer in 1824, Roger had got into the “boot” and gone to
sleep. James uttered a thin cackle. A funny fellow—Roger—an
original! He didn’t know! Younger than himself, and in his
coffin! The family was breaking up. There was Val going to the
university; he never came to see him now. He would cost a pretty
penny up there. It was an extravagant age. And all the pretty
pennies that his four grandchildren would cost him danced before
James’ eyes. He did not grudge them the money, but he grudged
terribly the risk which the spending of that money might bring on
them; _he grudged the diminution of security_. And now that
Cicely had married, she might be having children too. He didn’t
know—couldn’t tell! Nobody thought of anything but spending money
in these days, and racing about, and having what they called “a
good time.” A motor-car went past the window. Ugly great
lumbering thing, making all that racket! But there it was, the
country rattling to the dogs! People in such a hurry that they
couldn’t even care for style—a neat turnout like his barouche and
bays was worth all those new-fangled things. And consols at 116!
There must be a lot of money in the country. And now there was
this old Kruger! They had tried to keep old Kruger from him. But
he knew better; there would be a pretty kettle of fish out there!
He had known how it would be when that fellow Gladstone—dead now,
thank God! made such a mess of it after that dreadful business at
Majuba. He shouldn’t wonder if the Empire split up and went to
pot. And this vision of the Empire going to pot filled a full
quarter of an hour with qualms of the most serious character. He
had eaten a poor lunch because of them. But it was after lunch
that the real disaster to his nerves occurred. He had been dozing
when he became aware of voices—low voices. Ah! they never told
him anything! Winifred’s and her mother’s. “Monty!” That fellow
Dartie—always that fellow Dartie! The voices had receded; and
James had been left alone, with his ears standing up like a
hare’s, and fear creeping about his inwards. Why did they leave
him alone? Why didn’t they come and tell him? And an awful
thought, which through long years had haunted him, concreted
again swiftly in his brain. Dartie had gone bankrupt—fraudulently
bankrupt, and to save Winifred and the children, he—James—would
have to pay! Could he—could Soames turn him into a limited
company? No, he couldn’t! There it was! With every minute before
Emily came back the spectre fiercened. Why, it might be forgery!
With eyes fixed on the doubted Turner in the centre of the wall,
James suffered tortures. He saw Dartie in the dock, his
grandchildren in the gutter, and himself in bed. He saw the
doubted Turner being sold at Jobson’s, and all the majestic
edifice of property in rags. He saw in fancy Winifred
unfashionably dressed, and heard in fancy Emily’s voice saying:
“Now, don’t fuss, James!” She was always saying: “Don’t fuss!”
She had no nerves; he ought never to have married a woman
eighteen years younger than himself. Then Emily’s real voice
said:

“Have you had a nice nap, James?”

Nap! He was in torment, and she asked him that!

“What’s this about Dartie?” he said, and his eyes glared at her.

Emily’s self-possession never deserted her.

“What have you been hearing?” she asked blandly.

“What’s this about Dartie?” repeated James. “He’s gone bankrupt.”

“Fiddle!”

James made a great effort, and rose to the full height of his
stork-like figure.

“You never tell me anything,” he said; “he’s gone bankrupt.”

The destruction of that fixed idea seemed to Emily all that
mattered at the moment.

“He has not,” she answered firmly. “He’s gone to Buenos Aires.”

If she had said “He’s gone to Mars” she could not have dealt
James a more stunning blow; his imagination, invested entirely in
British securities, could as little grasp one place as the other.

“What’s he gone there for?” he said. “He’s got no money. What did
he take?”

Agitated within by Winifred’s news, and goaded by the constant
reiteration of this jeremiad, Emily said calmly:

“He took Winifred’s pearls and a dancer.”

“What!” said James, and sat down.

His sudden collapse alarmed her, and smoothing his forehead, she
said:

“Now, don’t fuss, James!”

A dusky red had spread over James’ cheeks and forehead.

“I paid for them,” he said tremblingly; “he’s a thief! I—I knew
how it would be. He’ll be the death of me; he ....” Words failed
him and he sat quite still. Emily, who thought she knew him so
well, was alarmed, and went towards the sideboard where she kept
some sal volatile. She could not see the tenacious Forsyte spirit
working in that thin, tremulous shape against the extravagance of
the emotion called up by this outrage on Forsyte principles—the
Forsyte spirit deep in there, saying: “You mustn’t get into a
fantod, it’ll never do. You won’t digest your lunch. You’ll have
a fit!” All unseen by her, it was doing better work in James than
sal volatile.

“Drink this,” she said.

James waved it aside.

“What was Winifred about,” he said, “to let him take her pearls?”
Emily perceived the crisis past.

“She can have mine,” she said comfortably. “I never wear them.
She’d better get a divorce.”

“There you go!” said James. “Divorce! We’ve never had a divorce
in the family. Where’s Soames?”

“He’ll be in directly.”

“No, he won’t,” said James, almost fiercely; “he’s at the
funeral. You think I know nothing.”

“Well,” said Emily with calm, “you shouldn’t get into such fusses
when we tell you things.” And plumping up his cushions, and
putting the sal volatile beside him, she left the room.

But James sat there seeing visions—of Winifred in the Divorce
Court, and the family name in the papers; of the earth falling on
Roger’s coffin; of Val taking after his father; of the pearls he
had paid for and would never see again; of money back at four per
cent., and the country going to the dogs; and, as the afternoon
wore into evening, and tea-time passed, and dinnertime, those
visions became more and more mixed and menacing—of being told
nothing, till he had nothing left of all his wealth, and they
told him nothing of it. Where was Soames? Why didn’t he come
in?... His hand grasped the glass of negus, he raised it to
drink, and saw his son standing there looking at him. A little
sigh of relief escaped his lips, and putting the glass down, he
said:

“There you are! Dartie’s gone to Buenos Aires.”

Soames nodded. “That’s all right,” he said; “good riddance.”

A wave of assuagement passed over James’ brain. Soames knew.
Soames was the only one of them all who had sense. Why couldn’t
he come and live at home? He had no son of his own. And he said
plaintively:

“At my age I get nervous. I wish you were more at home, my boy.”

Again Soames nodded; the mask of his countenance betrayed no
understanding, but he went closer, and as if by accident touched
his father’s shoulder.

“They sent their love to you at Timothy’s,” he said. “It went off
all right. I’ve been to see Winifred. I’m going to take steps.”
And he thought: “Yes, and you mustn’t hear of them.”

James looked up; his long white whiskers quivered, his thin
throat between the points of his collar looked very gristly and
naked.

“I’ve been very poorly all day,” he said; “they never tell me
anything.”

Soames’ heart twitched.

“Well, it’s all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Will you
come up now?” and he put his hand under his father’s arm.

James obediently and tremulously raised himself, and together
they went slowly across the room, which had a rich look in the
firelight, and out to the stairs. Very slowly they ascended.

“Good-night, my boy,” said James at his bedroom door.

“Good-night, father,” answered Soames. His hand stroked down the
sleeve beneath the shawl; it seemed to have almost nothing in it,
so thin was the arm. And, turning away from the light in the
opening doorway, he went up the extra flight to his own bedroom.

“I want a son,” he thought, sitting on the edge of his bed; “_I
want a son_.”