Chapter IV: Where Forsytes Fear to Tread

Quivering from the defeat of his hopes, with the green morocco
case still flat against his heart, Soames revolved thoughts
bitter as death. A spider’s web! Walking fast, and noting nothing
in the moonlight, he brooded over the scene he had been through,
over the memory of her figure rigid in his grasp. And the more he
brooded, the more certain he became that she had a lover—her
words, “I would sooner die!” were ridiculous if she had not. Even
if she had never loved him, she had made no fuss until Bosinney
came on the scene. No; she was in love again, or she would not
have made that melodramatic answer to his proposal, which in all
the circumstances was reasonable! Very well! That simplified
matters.

“I’ll take steps to know where I am,” he thought; “I’ll go to
Polteed’s the first thing tomorrow morning.”

But even in forming that resolution he knew he would have trouble
with himself. He had employed Polteed’s agency several times in
the routine of his profession, even quite lately over Dartie’s
case, but he had never thought it possible to employ them to
watch his own wife.

It was too insulting to himself!

He slept over that project and his wounded pride—or rather, kept
vigil. Only while shaving did he suddenly remember that she
called herself by her maiden name of Heron. Polteed would not
know, at first at all events, whose wife she was, would not look
at him obsequiously and leer behind his back. She would just be
the wife of one of his clients. And that would be true—for was he
not his own solicitor?

He was literally afraid not to put his design into execution at
the first possible moment, lest, after all, he might fail
himself. And making Warmson bring him an early cup of coffee; he
stole out of the house before the hour of breakfast. He walked
rapidly to one of those small West End streets where Polteed’s
and other firms ministered to the virtues of the wealthier
classes. Hitherto he had always had Polteed to see him in the
Poultry; but he well knew their address, and reached it at the
opening hour. In the outer office, a room furnished so cosily
that it might have been a money-lender’s, he was attended by a
lady who might have been a schoolmistress.

“I wish to see Mr. Claud Polteed. He knows me—never mind my
name.”

To keep everybody from knowing that he, Soames Forsyte, was
reduced to having his wife spied on, was the overpowering
consideration.

Mr. Claud Polteed—so different from Mr. Lewis Polteed—was one of
those men with dark hair, slightly curved noses, and quick brown
eyes, who might be taken for Jews but are really Phœnicians; he
received Soames in a room hushed by thickness of carpet and
curtains. It was, in fact, confidentially furnished, without
trace of document anywhere to be seen.

Greeting Soames deferentially, he turned the key in the only door
with a certain ostentation.

“If a client sends for me,” he was in the habit of saying, “he
takes what precaution he likes. If he comes here, we convince him
that we have no leakages. I may safely say we lead in security,
if in nothing else....Now, sir, what can I do for you?”

Soames’ gorge had risen so that he could hardly speak. It was
absolutely necessary to hide from this man that he had any but
professional interest in the matter; and, mechanically, his face
assumed its sideway smile.

“I’ve come to you early like this because there’s not an hour to
lose”—if he lost an hour he might fail himself yet! “Have you a
really trustworthy woman free?”

Mr. Polteed unlocked a drawer, produced a memorandum, ran his
eyes over it, and locked the drawer up again.

“Yes,” he said; “the very woman.”

Soames had seated himself and crossed his legs—nothing but a
faint flush, which might have been his normal complexion,
betrayed him.

“Send her off at once, then, to watch a Mrs. Irene Heron of Flat
C, Truro Mansions, Chelsea, till further notice.”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Polteed; “divorce, I presume?” and he blew
into a speaking-tube. “Mrs. Blanch in? I shall want to speak to
her in ten minutes.”

“Deal with any reports yourself,” resumed Soames, “and send them
to me personally, marked confidential, sealed and registered. My
client exacts the utmost secrecy.”

Mr. Polteed smiled, as though saying, “You are teaching your
grandmother, my dear sir;” and his eyes slid over Soames’ face
for one unprofessional instant.

“Make his mind perfectly easy,” he said. “Do you smoke?”

“No,” said Soames. “Understand me: Nothing may come of this. If a
name gets out, or the watching is suspected, it may have very
serious consequences.”

Mr. Polteed nodded. “I can put it into the cipher category. Under
that system a name is never mentioned; we work by numbers.”

He unlocked another drawer and took out two slips of paper, wrote
on them, and handed one to Soames.

“Keep that, sir; it’s your key. I retain this duplicate. The case
we’ll call 7x. The party watched will be 17; the watcher 19; the
Mansions 25; yourself—I should say, your firm—31; my firm 32,
myself 2. In case you should have to mention your client in
writing I have called him 43; any person we suspect will be 47; a
second person 51. Any special hint or instruction while we’re
about it?”

“No,” said Soames; “that is—every consideration compatible.”

Again Mr. Polteed nodded. “Expense?”

Soames shrugged. “In reason,” he answered curtly, and got up.
“Keep it entirely in your own hands.”

“Entirely,” said Mr. Polteed, appearing suddenly between him and
the door. “I shall be seeing you in that other case before long.
Good morning, sir.” His eyes slid unprofessionally over Soames
once more, and he unlocked the door.

“Good morning,” said Soames, looking neither to right nor left.

Out in the street he swore deeply, quietly, to himself. A
spider’s web, and to cut it he must use this spidery, secret,
unclean method, so utterly repugnant to one who regarded his
private life as his most sacred piece of property. But the die
was cast, he could not go back. And he went on into the Poultry,
and locked away the green morocco case and the key to that cipher
destined to make crystal-clear his domestic bankruptcy.

Odd that one whose life was spent in bringing to the public eye
all the private coils of property, the domestic disagreements of
others, should dread so utterly the public eye turned on his own;
and yet not odd, for who should know so well as he the whole
unfeeling process of legal regulation.

He worked hard all day. Winifred was due at four o’clock; he was
to take her down to a conference in the Temple with Dreamer Q.C.,
and waiting for her he re-read the letter he had caused her to
write the day of Dartie’s departure, requiring him to return.

“DEAR MONTAGUE,
“I have received your letter with the news that you have left
me for ever and are on your way to Buenos Aires. It has
naturally been a great shock. I am taking this earliest
opportunity of writing to tell you that I am prepared to let
bygones be bygones if you will return to me at once. I beg
you to do so. I am very much upset, and will not say any more
now. I am sending this letter registered to the address you
left at your Club. Please cable to me.

“Your still affectionate wife,
“WINIFRED DARTIE.”

Ugh! What bitter humbug! He remembered leaning over Winifred
while she copied what he had pencilled, and how she had said,
laying down her pen, “Suppose he comes, Soames!” in such a
strange tone of voice, as if she did not know her own mind. “He
won’t come,” he had answered, “till he’s spent his money. That’s
why we must act at once.” Annexed to the copy of that letter was
the original of Dartie’s drunken scrawl from the Iseeum Club.
Soames could have wished it had not been so manifestly penned in
liquor. Just the sort of thing the Court would pitch on. He
seemed to hear the Judge’s voice say: “You took this seriously!
Seriously enough to write him as you did? Do you think he meant
it?” Never mind! The fact was clear that Dartie had sailed and
had not returned. Annexed also was his cabled answer: “Impossible
return. Dartie.” Soames shook his head. If the whole thing were
not disposed of within the next few months the fellow would turn
up again like a bad penny. It saved a thousand a year at least to
get rid of him, besides all the worry to Winifred and his father.
“I must stiffen Dreamer’s back,” he thought; “we must push it
on.”

Winifred, who had adopted a kind of half-mourning which became
her fair hair and tall figure very well, arrived in James’
barouche drawn by James’ pair. Soames had not seen it in the City
since his father retired from business five years ago, and its
incongruity gave him a shock. “Times are changing,” he thought;
“one doesn’t know what’ll go next!” Top hats even were scarcer.
He enquired after Val. Val, said Winifred, wrote that he was
going to play polo next term. She thought he was in a very good
set. She added with fashionably disguised anxiety: “Will there be
much publicity about my affair, Soames? _Must_ it be in the
papers? It’s so bad for him, and the girls.”

With his own calamity all raw within him, Soames answered:

“The papers are a pushing lot; it’s very difficult to keep things
out. They pretend to be guarding the public’s morals, and they
corrupt them with their beastly reports. But we haven’t got to
that yet. We’re only seeing Dreamer to-day on the restitution
question. Of course he understands that it’s to lead to a
divorce; but you must seem genuinely anxious to get Dartie
back—you might practise that attitude to-day.”

Winifred sighed.

“Oh! What a clown Monty’s been!” she said.

Soames gave her a sharp look. It was clear to him that she could
not take her Dartie seriously, and would go back on the whole
thing if given half a chance. His own instinct had been firm in
this matter from the first. To save a little scandal now would
only bring on his sister and her children real disgrace and
perhaps ruin later on if Dartie were allowed to hang on to them,
going down-hill and spending the money James would leave his
daughter. Though it _was_ all tied up, that fellow would milk the
settlements somehow, and make his family pay through the nose to
keep him out of bankruptcy or even perhaps gaol! They left the
shining carriage, with the shining horses and the shining-hatted
servants on the Embankment, and walked up to Dreamer Q.C.’s
Chambers in Crown Office Row.

“Mr. Bellby is here, sir,” said the clerk; “Mr. Dreamer will be
ten minutes.”

Mr. Bellby, the junior—not as junior as he might have been, for
Soames only employed barristers of established reputation; it
was, indeed, something of a mystery to him how barristers ever
managed to establish that which made him employ them—Mr. Bellby
was seated, taking a final glance through his papers. He had come
from Court, and was in wig and gown, which suited a nose jutting
out like the handle of a tiny pump, his small shrewd blue eyes,
and rather protruding lower lip—no better man to supplement and
stiffen Dreamer.

The introduction to Winifred accomplished, they leaped the
weather and spoke of the war. Soames interrupted suddenly:

“If he doesn’t comply we can’t bring proceedings for six months.
I want to get on with the matter, Bellby.”

Mr. Bellby, who had the ghost of an Irish brogue, smiled at
Winifred and murmured: “The Law’s delays, Mrs. Dartie.”

“Six months!” repeated Soames; “it’ll drive it up to June! We
shan’t get the suit on till after the long vacation. We must put
the screw on, Bellby”—he would have all his work cut out to keep
Winifred up to the scratch.

“Mr. Dreamer will see you now, sir.”

They filed in, Mr. Bellby going first, and Soames escorting
Winifred after an interval of one minute by his watch.

Dreamer Q.C., in a gown but divested of wig, was standing before
the fire, as if this conference were in the nature of a treat; he
had the leathery, rather oily complexion which goes with great
learning, a considerable nose with glasses perched on it, and
little greyish whiskers; he luxuriated in the perpetual cocking
of one eye, and the concealment of his lower with his upper lip,
which gave a smothered turn to his speech. He had a way, too, of
coming suddenly round the corner on the person he was talking to;
this, with a disconcerting tone of voice, and a habit of growling
before he began to speak—had secured a reputation second in
Probate and Divorce to very few. Having listened, eye cocked, to
Mr. Bellby’s breezy recapitulation of the facts, he growled, and
said:

“I know all that;” and coming round the corner at Winifred,
smothered the words:

“We want to get him back, don’t we, Mrs. Dartie?”

Soames interposed sharply:

“My sister’s position, of course, is intolerable.”

Dreamer growled. “Exactly. Now, can we rely on the cabled
refusal, or must we wait till after Christmas to give him a
chance to have written—that’s the point, isn’t it?”

“The sooner....” Soames began.

“What do you say, Bellby?” said Dreamer, coming round his corner.

Mr. Bellby seemed to sniff the air like a hound.

“We won’t be on till the middle of December. We’ve no need to
give um more rope than that.”

“No,” said Soames, “why should my sister be incommoded by his
choosing to go...”

“To Jericho!” said Dreamer, again coming round his corner; “quite
so. People oughtn’t to go to Jericho, ought they, Mrs. Dartie?”
And he raised his gown into a sort of fantail. “I agree. We can
go forward. Is there anything more?”

“Nothing at present,” said Soames meaningly; “I wanted you to see
my sister.”

Dreamer growled softly: “Delighted. Good evening!” And let fall
the protection of his gown.

They filed out. Winifred went down the stairs. Soames lingered.
In spite of himself he was impressed by Dreamer.

“The evidence is all right, I think,” he said to Bellby. “Between
ourselves, if we don’t get the thing through quick, we never may.
D’you think _he_ understands that?”

“I’ll make um,” said Bellby. “Good man though—good man.”

Soames nodded and hastened after his sister. He found her in a
draught, biting her lips behind her veil, and at once said:

“The evidence of the stewardess will be very complete.”

Winifred’s face hardened; she drew herself up, and they walked to
the carriage. And, all through that silent drive back to Green
Street, the souls of both of them revolved a single thought:
“Why, oh! why should I have to expose my misfortune to the public
like this? Why have to employ spies to peer into my private
troubles? They were not of my making.”