Chapter LXXXVI: Part II: I.—mother and Son (4)

“There's a hat!” said Winifred. “I don't know—when you come to
think of the people killed and all that in the War, it's rather
wonderful, I think. There's no other country—Prosper says the
rest are all bankrupt, except America; and of course her men
always took their style in dress from us.”

“Is that chap,” said Soames, “really going to the South Seas?”

“Oh! one never knows where Prosper's going!”

“He's a sign of the times,” muttered Soames, “if you like.”

Winifred's hand gripped his arm.

“Don't turn your head,” she said in a low voice, “but look to
your right in the front row of the Stand.”

Soames looked as best he could under that limitation. A man in a
grey top hat, grey-bearded, with thin brown, folded cheeks, and a
certain elegance of posture, sat there with a woman in a
lawn-coloured frock, whose dark eyes were fixed on himself.
Soames looked quickly at his feet. How funnily feet moved, one
after the other like that! Winifred's voice said in his ear:

“Jolyon looks very ill; but he always had style. She doesn't
change—except her hair.”

“Why did you tell Fleur about that business?”

“I didn't; she picked it up. I always knew she would.”

“Well, it's a mess. She's set her heart upon their boy.”

“The little wretch,” murmured Winifred. “She tried to take me in
about that. What shall you do, Soames?”

“Be guided by events.”

They moved on, silent, in the almost solid crowd.

“Really,” said Winifred suddenly; “it almost seems like Fate.
Only that's so old-fashioned. Look! there are George and
Eustace!”

George Forsyte's lofty bulk had halted before them.

“Hallo, Soames!” he said. “Just met Profond and your wife. You'll
catch 'em if you put on pace. Did you ever go to see old
Timothy?”

Soames nodded, and the streams forced them apart.

“I always liked old George,” said Winifred. “He's so droll.”

“I never did,” said Soames. “Where's your seat? I shall go to
mine. Fleur may be back there.”

Having seen Winifred to her seat, he regained his own, conscious
of small, white, distant figures running, the click of the bat,
the cheers and counter-cheers. No Fleur, and no Annette! You
could expect nothing of women nowadays! They had the vote. They
were “emancipated,” and much good it was doing them! So Winifred
would go back, would she, and put up with Dartie all over again?
To have the past once more—to be sitting here as he had sat in
'83 and '84, before he was certain that his marriage with Irene
had gone all wrong, before her antagonism had become so glaring
that with the best will in the world he could not overlook it.
The sight of her with that fellow had brought all memory back.
Even now he could not understand why she had been so
impracticable. She could love other men; she had it in her! To
himself, the one person she ought to have loved, she had chosen
to refuse her heart. It seemed to him, fantastically, as he
looked back, that all this modern relaxation of marriage—though
its forms and laws were the same as when he married her—that all
this modern looseness had come out of her revolt; it seemed to
him, fantastically, that she had started it, till all decent
ownership of anything had gone, or was on the point of going. All
came from her! And now—a pretty state of things! Homes! How could
you have them without mutual ownership? Not that he had ever had
a real home! But had that been his fault? He had done his best.
And his rewards were—those two sitting in that Stand, and this
affair of Fleur's!

And overcome by loneliness he thought: 'Shan't wait any longer!
They must find their own way back to the hotel—if they mean to
come!' Hailing a cab outside the ground, he said:

“Drive me to the Bayswater Road.” His old aunts had never failed
him. To them he had meant an ever-welcome visitor. Though they
were gone, there, still, was Timothy!

Smither was standing in the open doorway.

“Mr. Soames! I was just taking the air. Cook will be so pleased.”

“How is Mr. Timothy?”

“Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he's been talking a
great deal. Only this morning he was saying: 'My brother James,
he's getting old.' His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will
talk of them. He troubles about their investments. The other day
he said: 'There's my brother Jolyon won't look at Consols'—he
seemed quite down about it. Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It's
such a pleasant change!”

“Well,” said Soames, “just for a few minutes.”

“No,” murmured Smither in the hall, where the air had the
singular freshness of the outside day, “we haven't been very
satisfied with him, not all this week. He's always been one to
leave a titbit to the end; but ever since Monday he's been eating
it first. If you notice a dog, Mr. Soames, at its dinner, it eats
the meat first. We've always thought it such a good sign of Mr.
Timothy at his age to leave it to the last, but now he seems to
have lost all his self-control; and, of course, it makes him
leave the rest. The doctor doesn't make anything of it,
but”—Smither shook her head—“he seems to think he's got to eat it
first, in case he shouldn't get to it. That and his talking makes
us anxious.”

“Has he said anything important?”

“I shouldn't like to say that, Mr. Soames; but he's turned
against his Will. He gets quite pettish—and after having had it
out every morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the
other day: 'They want my money.' It gave me such a turn, because,
as I said to him, nobody wants his money, I'm sure. And it does
seem a pity he should be thinking about money at his time of
life. I took my courage in my 'ands. 'You know, Mr. Timothy,' I
said, 'my dear mistress'—that's Miss Forsyte, Mr. Soames, Miss
Ann that trained me—'she never thought about money,' I said, 'it
was all character with her.' He looked at me, I can't tell you
how funny, and he said quite dry: 'Nobody wants my character.'
Think of his saying a thing like that! But sometimes he'll say
something as sharp and sensible as anything.”

Soames, who had been staring at an old print by the hat-rack,
thinking, 'That's got value!' murmured: “I'll go up and see him,
Smither.”

“Cook's with him,” answered Smither above her corsets; “she will
be pleased to see you.”

He mounted slowly, with the thought: 'Shan't care to live to be
that age.'

On the second floor, he paused, and tapped. The door was opened,
and he saw the round homely face of a woman about sixty.

“Mr. Soames!” she said: “Why! Mr. Soames!”

Soames nodded. “All right, Cook!” and entered.

Timothy was propped up in bed, with his hands joined before his
chest, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, where a fly was
standing upside down. Soames stood at the foot of the bed, facing
him.

“Uncle Timothy,” he said, raising his voice. “Uncle Timothy!”

Timothy's eyes left the fly, and levelled themselves on his
visitor. Soames could see his pale tongue passing over his
darkish lips.

“Uncle Timothy,” he said again, “is there anything I can do for
you? Is there anything you'd like to say?”

“Ha!” said Timothy.

“I've come to look you up and see that everything's all right.”

Timothy nodded. He seemed trying to get used to the apparition
before him.

“Have you got everything you want?”

“No,” said Timothy.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No,” said Timothy.

“I'm Soames, you know; your nephew, Soames Forsyte. Your brother
James' son.”

Timothy nodded.

“I shall be delighted to do anything I can for you.”

Timothy beckoned. Soames went close to him:

“You—” said Timothy in a voice which seemed to have outlived
tone, “you tell them all from me—you tell them all—” and his
finger tapped on Soames' arm, “to hold on—hold on—Consols are
goin' up,” and he nodded thrice.

“All right!” said Soames; “I will.”

“Yes,” said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling,
he added: “That fly!”

Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook's pleasant fattish
face, all little puckers from staring at fires.

“That'll do him a world of good, sir,” she said.

A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to
himself, and Soames went out with the cook.

“I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old
days; you did so relish them. Good-bye, sir; it has been a
pleasure.”

“Take care of him, Cook, he is old.”

And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went down-stairs. Smither was
still taking the air in the doorway.

“What do you think of him, Mr. Soames?”

“H'm!” Soames murmured: “He's lost touch.”

“Yes,” said Smither, “I was afraid you'd think that coming fresh
out of the world to see him like.”

“Smither,” said Soames, “we're all indebted to you.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Soames, don't say that! It's a pleasure—he's such a
wonderful man.”

“Well, good-bye!” said Soames, and got into his taxi.

'Going up!' he thought; 'going up!'

Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their
sitting-room, and rang for tea. Neither of them were in. And
again that sense of loneliness came over him. These hotels. What
monstrous great places they were now! He could remember when
there was nothing bigger than Long's or Brown's, Morley's or the
Tavistock, and the heads that were shaken over the Langham and
the Grand. Hotels and Clubs—Clubs and Hotels; no end to them now!
And Soames, who had just been watching at Lord's a miracle of
tradition and continuity, fell into reverie over the changes in
that London where he had been born five-and-sixty years before.
Whether Consols were going up or not, London had become a
terrific property. No such property in the world, unless it were
New York! There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but
any one who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago,
and see it now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth.
They had only to keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he
remembered cobblestones, and stinking straw on the floor of your
cab. And old Timothy—what could he not have told them, if he had
kept his memory! Things were unsettled, people in a funk or in a
hurry, but here were London and the Thames, and out there the
British Empire, and the ends of the earth. “Consols are goin'
up!” He should n't be a bit surprised. It was the breed that
counted. And all that was bull-dogged in Soames stared for a
moment out of his grey eyes, till diverted by the print of a
Victorian picture on the walls. The hotel had bought three dozen
of that little lot! The old hunting or “Rake's Progress” prints
in the old inns were worth looking at—but this sentimental
stuff—well, Victorianism had gone! “Tell them to hold on!” old
Timothy had said. But to what were they to hold on in this modern
welter of the “democratic principle”? Why, even privacy was
threatened! And at the thought that privacy might perish, Soames
pushed back his teacup and went to the window. Fancy owning no
more of Nature than the crowd out there owned of the flowers and
trees and waters of Hyde Park! No, no! Private possession
underlay everything worth having. The world had slipped its
sanity a bit, as dogs now and again at full moon slipped theirs
and went off for a night's rabbiting; but the world, like the
dog, knew where its bread was buttered and its bed warm, and
would come back sure enough to the only home worth having—to
private ownership. The world was in its second childhood for the
moment, like old Timothy—eating its titbit first!

He heard a sound behind him, and saw that his wife and daughter
had come in.

“So you're back!” he said.

Fleur did not answer; she stood for a moment looking at him and
her mother, then passed into her bedroom. Annette poured herself
out a cup of tea.

“I am going to Paris, to my mother, Soames.”

“Oh! To your mother?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“I do not know.”

“And when are you going?”

“On Monday.”

Was she really going to her mother? Odd, how indifferent he felt!
Odd, how clearly she had perceived the indifference he would feel
so long as there was no scandal. And suddenly between her and
himself he saw distinctly the face he had seen that
afternoon—Irene's.

“Will you want money?”

“Thank you; I have enough.”

“Very well. Let us know when you are coming back.”

Annette put down the cake she was fingering, and, looking up
through darkened lashes, said:

“Shall I give Maman any message?”

“My regards.”

Annette stretched herself, her hands on her waist, and said in
French:

“What luck that you have never loved me, Soames!” Then rising,
she too left the room. Soames was glad she had spoken it in
French—it seemed to require no dealing with. Again that other
face—pale, dark-eyed, beautiful still! And there stirred far down
within him the ghost of warmth, as from sparks lingering beneath
a mound of flaky ash. And Fleur infatuated with her boy! Queer
chance! Yet, was there such a thing as chance? A man went down a
street, a brick fell on his head. Ah! that was chance, no doubt.
But this! “Inherited,” his girl had said. She—she was “holding
on”!