Chapter I: The Third Generation

Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a
November afternoon; Val Dartie was strolling up. Jolly had just
changed out of boating flannels and was on his way to the
“Frying-pan,” to which he had recently been elected. Val had just
changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the fire—a
bookmaker’s in Cornmarket.

“Hallo!” said Jolly.

“Hallo!” replied Val.

The cousins had met but twice, Jolly, the second-year man, having
invited the freshman to breakfast; and last evening they had seen
each other again under somewhat exotic circumstances.

Over a tailor’s in the Cornmarket resided one of those privileged
young beings called minors, whose inheritances are large, whose
parents are dead, whose guardians are remote, and whose instincts
are vicious. At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers
attractive and inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single
bankruptcy is good as a feast. Already famous for having the only
roulette table then to be found in Oxford, he was anticipating
his expectations at a dazzling rate. He out-crummed Crum, though
of a sanguine and rather beefy type which lacked the latter’s
fascinating languor. For Val it had been in the nature of baptism
to be taken there to play roulette; in the nature of confirmation
to get back into college, after hours, through a window whose
bars were deceptive. Once, during that evening of delight,
glancing up from the seductive green before him, he had caught
sight, through a cloud of smoke, of his cousin standing opposite.
“_Rouge gagne, impair, et manque!_” He had not seen him again.

“Come in to the Frying-pan and have tea,” said Jolly, and they
went in.

A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an
unseizable resemblance between these second cousins of the third
generations of Forsytes; the same bone formation in face, though
Jolly’s eyes were darker grey, his hair lighter and more wavy.

“Tea and buttered buns, waiter, please,” said Jolly.

“Have one of my cigarettes?” said Val. “I saw you last night. How
did you do?”

“I didn’t play.”

“I won fifteen quid.”

Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling he
had once heard his father make—“When you’re fleeced you’re sick,
and when you fleece you’re sorry”—Jolly contented himself with:

“Rotten game, I think; I was at school with that chap. He’s an
awful fool.”

“Oh! I don’t know,” said Val, as one might speak in defence of a
disparaged god; “he’s a pretty good sport.”

They exchanged whiffs in silence.

“You met my people, didn’t you?” said Jolly. “They’re coming up
to-morrow.”

Val grew a little red.

“Really! I can give you a rare good tip for the Manchester
November handicap.”

“Thanks, I only take interest in the classic races.”

“You can’t make any money over them,” said Val.

“I hate the ring,” said Jolly; “there’s such a row and stink. I
like the paddock.”

“I like to back my judgment,” answered Val.

Jolly smiled; his smile was like his father’s.

“I haven’t got any. I always lose money if I bet.”

“You have to buy experience, of course.”

“Yes, but it’s all messed-up with doing people in the eye.”

“Of course, or they’ll do you—that’s the excitement.”

Jolly looked a little scornful.

“What do you do with yourself? Row?”

“No—ride, and drive about. I’m going to play polo next term, if I
can get my granddad to stump up.”

“That’s old Uncle James, isn’t it? What’s he like?”

“Older than forty hills,” said Val, “and always thinking he’s
going to be ruined.”

“I suppose my granddad and he were brothers.”

“I don’t believe any of that old lot were sportsmen,” said Val;
“they must have worshipped money.”

“Mine didn’t!” said Jolly warmly.

Val flipped the ash off his cigarette.

“Money’s only fit to spend,” he said; “I wish the deuce I had
more.”

Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgment which he had
inherited from old Jolyon: One didn’t talk about money! And again
there was silence, while they drank tea and ate the buttered
buns.

“Where are your people going to stay?” asked Val, elaborately
casual.

“‘Rainbow.’ What do you think of the war?”

“Rotten, so far. The Boers aren’t sports a bit. Why don’t they
come out into the open?”

“Why should they? They’ve got everything against them except
their way of fighting. I rather admire them.”

“They can ride and shoot,” admitted Val, “but they’re a lousy
lot. Do you know Crum?”

“Of Merton? Only by sight. He’s in that fast set too, isn’t he?
Rather La-di-da and Brummagem.”

Val said fixedly: “He’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh! Sorry!” And they sat awkwardly staring past each other,
having pitched on their pet points of snobbery. For Jolly was
forming himself unconsciously on a set whose motto was:

“We defy you to bore us. Life isn’t half long enough, and we’re
going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and
dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are
‘the best’—made of wire and whipcord.” And Val was unconsciously
forming himself on a set whose motto was: “We defy you to
interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we
haven’t, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that
no hours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with
equanimity. We have flown fast and are past everything. All is
cigarette smoke. Bismillah!” Competitive spirit, bone-deep in the
English, was obliging those two young Forsytes to have ideals;
and at the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy
had already in the main adopted the “jumping-Jesus” principle;
though here and there one like Crum—who was an “honourable”—stood
starkly languid for that gambler’s Nirvana which had been the
_summum bonum_ of the old “dandies” and of “the mashers” in the
eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of
blue-bloods with a plutocratic following.

But there was between the cousins another far less obvious
antipathy—coming from the unseizable family resemblance, which
each perhaps resented; or from some half-consciousness of that
old feud persisting still between their branches of the clan,
formed within them by odd words or half-hints dropped by their
elders. And Jolly, tinkling his teaspoon, was musing: “His
tie-pin and his waistcoat and his drawl and his betting—good
Lord!”

And Val, finishing his bun, was thinking: “He’s rather a young
beast!”

“I suppose you’ll be meeting your people?” he said, getting up.
“I wish you’d tell them I should like to show them over
B.N.C.—not that there’s anything much there—if they’d care to
come.”

“Thanks, I’ll ask them.”

“Would they lunch? I’ve got rather a decent scout.”

Jolly doubted if they would have time.

“You’ll ask them, though?”

“Very good of you,” said Jolly, fully meaning that they should
not go; but, instinctively polite, he added: “You’d better come
and have dinner with us to-morrow.”

“Rather. What time?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Dress?”

“No.” And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them.

Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It was her first
visit to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent,
looking almost shyly at the brother who was part of this
wonderful place. After lunch she wandered, examining his
household gods with intense curiosity. Jolly’s sitting-room was
panelled, and Art represented by a set of Bartolozzi prints which
had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college photographs—of young
men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be compared with her
memories of Val. Jolyon also scrutinised with care that evidence
of his boy’s character and tastes.

Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set
forth to the river. Holly, between her brother and her father,
felt elated when heads were turned and eyes rested on her. That
they might see him to the best advantage they left him at the
Barge and crossed the river to the towing-path. Slight in
build—for of all the Forsytes only old Swithin and George were
beefy—Jolly was rowing “Two” in a trial eight. He looked very
earnest and strenuous. With pride Jolyon thought him the
best-looking boy of the lot; Holly, as became a sister, was more
struck by one or two of the others, but would not have said so
for the world. The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows
lush, the trees still beautiful with colour. Distinguished peace
clung around the old city; Jolyon promised himself a day’s
sketching if the weather held. The Eight passed a second time,
spurting home along the Barges—Jolly’s face was very set, so as
not to show that he was blown. They returned across the river and
waited for him.

“Oh!” said Jolly in the Christ Church meadows, “I had to ask that
chap Val Dartie to dine with us to-night. He wanted to give you
lunch and show you B.N.C., so I thought I’d better; then you
needn’t go. I don’t like him much.”

Holly’s rather sallow face had become suffused with pink.

“Why not?”

“Oh! I don’t know. He seems to me rather showy and bad form. What
are his people like, Dad? He’s only a second cousin, isn’t he?”

Jolyon took refuge in a smile.

“Ask Holly,” he said; “she saw his uncle.”

“I _liked_ Val,” Holly answered, staring at the ground before
her; “his uncle looked—awfully different.” She stole a glance at
Jolly from under her lashes.

“Did you ever,” said Jolyon with whimsical intention, “hear our
family history, my dears? It’s quite a fairy tale. The first
Jolyon Forsyte—at all events the first we know anything of, and
that would be your great-great-grandfather—dwelt in the land of
Dorset on the edge of the sea, being by profession an
‘agriculturalist,’ as your great-aunt put it, and the son of an
agriculturist—farmers, in fact; your grandfather used to call
them, ‘Very small beer.’” He looked at Jolly to see how his
lordliness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly’s
malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother’s face.

“We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England as it
was before the Industrial Era began. The second Jolyon
Forsyte—your great-grandfather, Jolly; better known as Superior
Dosset Forsyte—built houses, so the chronicle runs, begat ten
children, and migrated to London town. It is known that he drank
sherry. We may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon’s
wars, and general unrest. The eldest of his six sons was the
third Jolyon, your grandfather, my dears—tea merchant and
chairman of companies, one of the soundest Englishmen who ever
lived—and to me the dearest.” Jolyon’s voice had lost its irony,
and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly, “He was just and
tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember him, and I
remember him. Pass to the others! Your great-uncle James, that’s
young Val’s grandfather, had a son called Soames—whereby hangs a
tale of no love lost, and I don’t think I’ll tell it you. James
and the other eight children of ‘Superior Dosset,’ of whom there
are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian
England, with its principles of trade and individualism at five
per cent. and your money back—if you know what that means. At all
events they’ve turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million
between them in the course of their long lives. They never did a
wild thing—unless it was your great-uncle Swithin, who I believe
was once swindled at thimble-rig, and was called ‘Four-in-hand
Forsyte’ because he drove a pair. Their day is passing, and their
type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were
pedestrian, but they too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon
Forsyte—a poor holder of the name—”

“No, Dad,” said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.

“Yes,” repeated Jolyon, “a poor specimen, representing, I’m
afraid, nothing but the end of the century, unearned income,
amateurism, and individual liberty—a different thing from
individualism, Jolly. You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte, old man,
and you open the ball of the new century.”

As he spoke they turned in through the college gates, and Holly
said: “It’s fascinating, Dad.”

None of them quite knew what she meant. Jolly was grave.

The Rainbow, distinguished, as only an Oxford hostel can be, for
lack of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private
sitting-room, in which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy,
and alone, when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would touch
a moth, Val took her hand. And wouldn’t she wear this “measly
flower”. It would look ripping in her hair. He removed a gardenia
from his coat.

“Oh! No, thank you—I couldn’t!” But she took it and pinned it at
her neck, having suddenly remembered that word “showy”. Val’s
buttonhole would give offence; and she so much wanted Jolly to
like him. Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest
in her presence, and was that, perhaps, half the secret of his
attraction for her?

“I never said anything about our ride, Val.”

“Rather not! It’s just between us.”

By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he
was giving her a sense of power very delicious; a soft feeling
too—the wish to make him happy.

“Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so lovely.”

Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked;
the lectures were nothing; and there were some very good chaps.
“Only,” he added, “of course I wish I was in town, and could come
down and see you.”

Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped.

“You haven’t forgotten,” he said, suddenly gathering courage,
“that we’re going mad-rabbiting together?”

Holly smiled.

“Oh! That was only make-believe. One can’t do that sort of thing
after one’s grown up, you know.”

“Dash it! cousins can,” said Val. “Next Long Vac.—it begins in
June, you know, and goes on for ever—we’ll watch our chance.”

But, though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly
shook her head. “It won’t come off,” she murmured.

“Won’t it!” said Val fervently; “who’s going to stop it? Not your
father or your brother.”

At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in; and romance fled into
Val’s patent leather and Holly’s white satin toes, where it
itched and tingled during an evening not conspicuous for
open-heartedness.

Sensitive to atmosphere, Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism
between the boys, and was puzzled by Holly; so he became
unconsciously ironical, which is fatal to the expansiveness of
youth. A letter, handed to him after dinner, reduced him to a
silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go. He went out
with them, smoking his cigar, and walked with his son to the
gates of Christ Church. Turning back, he took out the letter and
read it again beneath a lamp.

“DEAR JOLYON,
“Soames came again to-night—my thirty-seventh birthday. You
were right, I mustn’t stay here. I’m going to-morrow to the
Piedmont Hotel, but I won’t go abroad without seeing you. I
feel lonely and down-hearted.

“Yours affectionately,
“IRENE.”

He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on,
astonished at the violence of his feelings. What had the fellow
said or done?

He turned into High Street, down the Turf, and on among a maze of
spires and domes and long college fronts and walls, bright or
dark-shadowed in the strong moonlight. In this very heart of
England’s gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely
woman could be importuned or hunted, but what else could her
letter mean? Soames must have been pressing her to go back to him
again, with public opinion and the Law on his side, too!
“Eighteen-ninety-nine!,” he thought, gazing at the broken glass
shining on the top of a villa garden wall; “but when it comes to
property we’re still a heathen people! I’ll go up to-morrow
morning. I dare say it’ll be best for her to go abroad.” Yet the
thought displeased him. Why should Soames hunt her out of
England! Besides, he might follow, and out there she would be
still more helpless against the attentions of her own husband! “I
must tread warily,” he thought; “that fellow could make himself
very nasty. I didn’t like his manner in the cab the other night.”
His thoughts turned to his daughter June. Could she help? Once on
a time Irene had been her greatest friend, and now she was a
“lame duck,” such as must appeal to June’s nature! He determined
to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station.
Retracing his steps towards the Rainbow he questioned his own
sensations. Would he be upsetting himself over every woman in
like case? No! he would not. The candour of this conclusion
discomfited him; and, finding that Holly had gone up to bed, he
sought his own room. But he could not sleep, and sat for a long
time at his window, huddled in an overcoat, watching the
moonlight on the roofs.

Next door Holly too was awake, thinking of the lashes above and
below Val’s eyes, especially below; and of what she could do to
make Jolly like him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong
in her little bedroom, and pleasant to her.

And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C., was
gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all, seeing
instead Holly, slim and white-frocked, as she sat beside the fire
when he first went in.

But Jolly, in his bedroom narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand
beneath his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat, rowing
a race against him, while his father was calling from the
towpath: “Two! Get your hands away there, bless you!”