Chapter LXXXIX: Part III: I.—old Jolyon Walks (3)

The expression on his mother's face confronting the man she had
once been married to, had sealed a resolution growing within him
ever since she left him the night before. It had put the
finishing touch of reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his
mother in the face; to betray his dead father! It was no good!
Jon had the least resentful of natures. He bore his parents no
grudge in this hour of his distress. For one so young there was a
rather strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of
proportion. It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother even,
than it was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up,
or to be the cause of some one you loved giving up for you. He
must not, would not behave grudgingly! While he stood watching
the tardy sunlight, he had again that sudden vision of the world
which had come to him the night before. Sea on sea, country on
country, millions on millions of people, all with their own
lives, energies, joys, griefs, and suffering—all with things they
had to give up, and separate struggles for existence. Even though
he might be willing to give up all else for the one thing he
couldn't have, he would be a fool to think his feelings mattered
much in so vast a world, and to behave like a cry-baby or a cad.
He pictured the people who had nothing—the millions who had given
up life in the War, the millions whom the War had left with life
and little else; the hungry children he had read of, the
shattered men; people in prison, every kind of unfortunate.
And—they did not help him much. If one had to miss a meal, what
comfort in the knowledge that many others had to miss it too?
There was more distraction in the thought of getting away out
into this vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He could not
go on staying here, walled in and sheltered, with everything so
slick and comfortable, and nothing to do but brood and think what
might have been. He could not go back to Wansdon, and the
memories of Fleur. If he saw her again he could not trust
himself; and if he stayed here or went back there, he would
surely see her. While they were within reach of each other that
must happen. To go far away and quickly was the only thing to do.
But, however much he loved his mother, he did not want to go away
with her. Then feeling that was brutal, he made up his mind
desperately to propose that they should go to Italy. For two
hours in that melancholy room he tried to master himself, then
dressed solemnly for dinner.

His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length,
and talked of his father's catalogue. The show was arranged for
October, and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do.

After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a
little, talked a little, till they were standing silent at last
beneath the oak-tree. Ruled by the thought: 'If I show anything,
I show all,' Jon put his arm through hers and said quite
casually:

“Mother, let's go to Italy.”

Irene pressed his arm, and said as casually:

“It would be very nice; but I've been thinking you ought to see
and do more than you would if I were with you.”

“But then you'd be alone.”

“I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should
like to be here for the opening of Father's show.”

Jon's grip tightened round her arm; he was not deceived.

“You couldn't stay here all by yourself; it's too big.”

“Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the
show opens. You ought to have a year at least, Jon, and see the
world.”

“Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it. But I don't want to
leave you all alone.”

“My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll
be for mine. Why not start tomorrow? You've got your passport.”

“Yes; if I'm going it had better be at once. Only—Mother—if—if I
wanted to stay out somewhere—America or anywhere, would you mind
coming presently?”

“Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you
really want me.”

Jon drew a deep breath.

“I feel England's choky.”

They stood a few minutes longer under the oak-tree—looking out to
where the grand stand at Epsom was veiled in evening. The
branches kept the moonlight from them, so that it only fell
everywhere else—over the fields and far away, and on the windows
of the creepered house behind, which soon would be to let.

X.—FLEUR'S WEDDING

The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsyte to
Michael Mont hardly conveyed the symbolic significance of this
event. In the union of the great-granddaughter of “Superior
Dosset” with the heir of a ninth baronet was the outward and
visible sign of that merger of class in class which buttresses
the political stability of a realm. The time had come when the
Forsytes might resign their natural resentment against a
“flummery” not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more
natural due of their possessive instincts. Besides, they had to
mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich. In that
quiet but tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square, and afterward
among the furniture in Green Street, it had been impossible for
those not in the know to distinguish the Forsyte troop from the
Mont contingent—so far away was “Superior Dosset” now. Was there,
in the crease of his trousers, the expression of his moustache,
his accent, or the shine on his top-hat, a pin to choose between
Soames and the ninth baronet himself? Was not Fleur as
self-possessed, quick, glancing, pretty, and hard as the
likeliest Muskham, Mont, or Charwell filly present? If anything,
the Forsytes had it in dress and looks and manners. They had
become “upper class” and now their name would be formally
recorded in the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether
this was a little late in the day, and those rewards of the
possessive instinct, lands and money, destined for the
melting-pot—was still a question so moot that it was not mooted.
After all, Timothy had said Consols were goin' up. Timothy, the
last, the missing link; Timothy, in extremis on the Bayswater
Road—so Francie had reported. It was whispered, too, that this
young Mont was a sort of socialist—strangely wise of him, and in
the nature of insurance, considering the days they lived in.
There was no uneasiness on that score. The landed classes
produced that sort of amiable foolishness at times, turned to
safe uses and confined to theory. As George remarked to his
sister Francie: “They'll soon be having puppies—that'll give him
pause.”

The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of
the East window looked extremely chaste, as though endeavouring
to counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service
calculated to keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes,
Haymans, Tweetymans, sat in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells;
Muskhams in the right; while a sprinkling of Fleur's
fellow-sufferers at school, and of Mont's fellow-sufferers in,
the War, gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three
maiden ladies, who had dropped in on their way from Skyward's
brought up the rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's
old nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a house
as could be expected.

Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row,
squeezed his hand more than once during the performance. To her,
who knew the plot of this tragi-comedy, its most dramatic moment
was well-nigh painful. 'I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she
thought—Jon, out in British Columbia. She had received a letter
from him only that morning which had made her smile and say:

“Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in
California. He thinks it's too nice there.”

“Oh!” said Val, “so he's beginning to see a joke again.”

“He's bought some land and sent for his mother.”

“What on earth will she do out there?”

“All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy
release?”

Val's shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pin-points between their dark
lashes.

“Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bred right.”

“Poor little Fleur!” sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange—this
marriage. The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of
course, in the reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone
down. Such a plunge could not but be—as Val put it—an outside
chance. There was little to be told from the back view of her
young cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes reviewed the general aspect
of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a love-match which
had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This
might not be one in the end—but it was clearly a toss-up; and to
consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured unction
before a crowd of fashionable free-thinkers—for who thought
otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were “dolled”
up—seemed to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which
had abolished them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his
robes (a Charwell-the Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate)
to Val, beside her, thinking—she was certain—of the Mayfly filly
at fifteen to one for the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and
caught the profile of the ninth baronet, in counterfeitment of
the kneeling process. She could just see the neat ruck above his
knees where he had pulled his trousers up, and thought: 'Val's
forgotten to pull up his!' Her eyes passed to the pew in front of
her, where Winifred's substantial form was gowned with passion,
and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling side by side. A
little smile came on her lips—Prosper Profond, back from the
South Seas of the Channel, would be kneeling too, about six rows
behind. Yes! This was a funny “small” business, however it turned
out; still it was in a proper church and would be in the proper
papers to-morrow morning.

They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across
the aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger
touched Val's thumb—they were holding the same hymn-book—and a
tiny thrill passed through her, preserved—from twenty years ago.
He stooped and whispered:

“I say, d'you remember the rat?” The rat at their wedding in Cape
Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table at the
Registrar's! And between her little and third forgers she
squeezed his thumb hard.

The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his
discourse. He told them of the dangerous times they lived in, and
the awful conduct of the House of Lords in connection with
divorce. They were all soldiers—he said—in the trenches under the
poisonous gas of the Prince of Darkness, and must be manful. The
purpose of marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness.

An imp danced in Holly's eyes—Val's eyelashes were meeting.
Whatever happened; he must not snore. Her finger and thumb closed
on his thigh till he stirred uneasily.

The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the
vestry; and general relaxation had set in.

A voice behind her said:

“Will she stay the course?”

“Who's that?” she whispered.

“Old George Forsyte!”

Holly demurely scrutinized one of whom she had often heard. Fresh
from South Africa, and ignorant of her kith and kin, she never
saw one without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big,
and very dapper; his eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no
particular clothes.

“They're off!” she heard him say.

They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young
Mont's face. His lips and ears were twitching, his eyes, shifting
from his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before
them as if to face a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that
he was spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was
different. The girl was perfectly composed, prettier than ever,
in her white robes and veil over her banged dark chestnut hair;
her eyelids hovered demure over her dark hazel eyes. Outwardly,
she seemed all there. But inwardly, where was she? As those two
passed, Fleur raised her eyelids—the restless glint of those
clear whites remained on Holly's vision as might the flutter of
caged bird's wings.

In Green Street Winifred stood to receive, just a little less
composed than usual. Soames' request for the use of her house had
come on her at a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence
of a remark of Prosper Profond, she had begun to exchange her
Empire for Expressionistic furniture. There were the most amusing
arrangements, with violet, green, and orange blobs and scriggles,
to be had at Mealard's. Another month and the change would have
been complete. Just now, the very “intriguing” recruits she had
enlisted, did not march too well with the old guard. It was as if
her regiment were half in khaki, half in scarlet and bearskins.
But her strong and comfortable character made the best of it in a
drawing-room which typified, perhaps, more perfectly than she
imagined, the semi-bolshevized imperialism of her country. After
all, this was a day of merger, and you couldn't have too much of
it! Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had
gripped the back of a buhl chair; young Mont was behind that
“awfully amusing” screen, which no one as yet had been able to
explain to her. The ninth baronet had shied violently at a round
scarlet table, inlaid under glass with blue Australian butteries'
wings, and was clinging to her Louis-Quinze cabinet; Francie
Forsyte had seized the new mantel-board, finely carved with
little purple grotesques on an ebony ground; George, over by the
old spinet, was holding a little sky-blue book as if about to
enter bets; Prosper Profond was twiddling the knob of the open
door, black with peacock-blue panels; and Annette's hands, close
by, were grasping her own waist; two Muskhams clung to the
balcony among the plants, as if feeling ill; Lady Mont, thin and
brave-looking, had taken up her long-handled glasses and was
gazing at the central light shade, of ivory and orange dashed
with deep magenta, as if the heavens had opened. Everybody, in
fact, seemed holding on to something. Only Fleur, still in her
bridal dress, was detached from all support, flinging her words
and glances to left and right.

The room was full of the bubble and the squeak of conversation.
Nobody could hear anything that anybody said; which seemed of
little consequence, since no one waited for anything so slow as
an answer. Modern conversation seemed to Winifred so different
from the days of her prime, when a drawl was all the vogue. Still
it was “amusing,” which, of course, was all that mattered. Even
the Forsytes were talking with extreme rapidity—Fleur and
Christopher, and Imogen, and young Nicholas's youngest, Patrick.
Soames, of course, was silent; but George, by the spinet, kept up
a running commentary, and Francie, by her mantel-shelf. Winifred
drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed to promise a certain
repose; his nose was fine and drooped a little, his grey
moustaches too; and she said, drawling through her smile:

“It's rather nice, isn't it?”

His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet

“D'you remember, in Frazer, the tribe that buries the bride up to
the waist?”

He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark lively little eyes, too,
all crinkled round like a Catholic priest's. Winifred felt
suddenly he might say things she would regret.

“They're always so amusing—weddings,” she murmured, and moved on
to Soames. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once what
was dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to
his left Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not move without
either seeing those two together, or the reflection of them in
George Forsyte's japing eyes. He was quite right not to be taking
notice.

“They say Timothy's sinking;” he said glumly.

“Where will you put him, Soames?”

“Highgate.” He counted on his fingers. “It'll make twelve of them
there, including wives. How do you think Fleur looks?”

“Remarkably well.”

Soames nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could
not rid himself of the impression that this business was
unnatural—remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into
the corner of the sofa. From that night to this day he had
received from her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that
she had made one more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blank—an
empty house, no one at home. He knew that she had received a
letter, but not what was in it, except that it had made her hide
herself and cry. He had remarked that she looked at him sometimes
when she thought he wasn't noticing, as if she were wondering
still what he had done—forsooth—to make those people hate him so.
Well, there it was! Annette had come back, and things had worn on
through the summer—very miserable, till suddenly Fleur had said
she was going to marry young Mont. She had shown him a little
more affection when she told him that. And he had yielded—what
was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never wished to
thwart her in anything! And the young man seemed quite delirious
about her. No doubt she was in a reckless mood, and she was
young, absurdly young. But if he opposed her, he didn't know what
she would do; for all he could tell she might want to take up a
profession, become a doctor or solicitor, some nonsense. She had
no aptitude for painting, writing, music, in his view the
legitimate occupations of unmarried women, if they must do
something in these days. On the whole, she was safer married, for
he could see too well how feverish and restless she was at home.
Annette, too, had been in favour of it—Annette, from behind the
veil of his refusal to know what she was about, if she was about
anything. Annette had said: “Let her marry this young man. He is
a nice boy—not so highty-flighty as he seems.” Where she got her
expressions, he didn't know—but her opinion soothed his doubts.
His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost
depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand
on Fleur, taking care that there was no cross settlement in case
it didn't turn out well. Could it turn out well? She had not got
over that other boy—he knew. They were to go to Spain for the
honeymoon. He would be even lonelier when she was gone. But
later, perhaps, she would forget, and turn to him again!
Winifred's voice broke on his reverie.

“Why! Of all wonders-June!”

There, in a djibbah—what things she wore!—with her hair straying
from under a fillet, Soames saw his cousin, and Fleur going
forward to greet her. The two passed from their view out on to
the stairway.

“Really,” said Winifred, “she does the most impossible things!
Fancy her coming!”

“What made you ask her?” muttered Soames.

“Because I thought she wouldn't accept, of course.”

Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of
character; or, in other words, omitted to remember that Fleur was
now a “lame duck.”

On receiving her invitation, June had first thought, 'I wouldn't
go near them for the world!' and then, one morning, had awakened
from a dream of Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild
unhappy gesture. And she had changed her mind.

When Fleur came forward and said to her, “Do come up while I'm
changing my dress,” she had followed up the stairs. The girl led
the way into Imogen's old bedroom, set ready for her toilet.

June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit
in the sear and yellow. Fleur locked the door.

The girl stood before her divested of her wedding dress. What a
pretty thing she was!

“I suppose you think me a fool,” she said, with quivering lips,
“when it was to have been Jon. But what does it matter? Michael
wants me, and I don't care. It'll get me away from home.” Diving
her hand into the frills on her breast, she brought out a letter.
“Jon wrote me this.”

June read: “Lake Okanagen, British Columbia. I'm not coming back
to England. Bless you always. Jon.”

“She's made safe, you see,” said Fleur.

June handed back the letter.

“That's not fair to Irene,” she said, “she always told Jon he
could do as he wished.”

Fleur smiled bitterly. “Tell me, didn't she spoil your life too?”
June looked up. “Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's
nonsense. Things happen, but we bob up.”

With a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and bury
her face in the djibbah. A strangled sob mounted to June's ears.

“It's all right—all right,” she murmured, “Don't! There, there!”

But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her
thigh, and the sound was dreadful of her sobbing.

Well, well! It had to come. She would feel better afterward! June
stroked the short hair of that shapely head; and all the
scattered mother-sense in her focussed itself and passed through
the tips of her fingers into the girl's brain.

“Don't sit down under it, my dear,” she said at last. “We can't
control life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. I've
had to. I held on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now.
And look at me!”

Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked
laugh. In truth it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit
she was looking at, but it had brave eyes.

“All right!” she said. “I'm sorry. I shall forget him, I suppose,
if I fly fast and far enough.”

And, scrambling to her feet, she went over to the wash-stand.

June watched her removing with cold water the traces of emotion.
Save for a little becoming pinkness there was nothing left when
she stood before the mirror. June got off the bed and took a
pin-cushion in her hand. To put two pins into the wrong places
was all the vent she found for sympathy.

“Give me a kiss,” she said when Fleur was ready, and dug her chin
into the girl's warm cheek.

“I want a whiff,” said Fleur; “don't wait.”

June left her, sitting on the bed with a cigarette between her
lips and her eyes half closed, and went down-stairs. In the
doorway of the drawing-room stood Soames as if unquiet at his
daughter's tardiness. June tossed her head and passed down on to
the half-landing. Her cousin Francie was standing there.

“Look!” said June, pointing with her chin at Soames. “That man's
fatal!”

“How do you mean,” said Francie, “fatal?”

June did not answer her. “I shan't wait to see them off,” she
said. “Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!” said Francie, and her eyes, of a Celtic grey,
goggled. That old feud! Really, it was quite romantic!

Soames, moving to the well of the staircase, saw June go, and
drew a breath of satisfaction. Why didn't Fleur come? They would
miss their train. That train would bear her away from him, yet he
could not help fidgeting at the thought that they would lose it.
And then she did come, running down in her tan-coloured frock and
black velvet cap, and passed him into the drawing-room. He saw
her kiss her mother, her aunt, Val's wife, Imogen, and then come
forth, quick and pretty as ever. How would she treat him at this
last moment of her girlhood? He couldn't hope for much!

Her lips pressed the middle of his cheek.

“Daddy!” she said, and was past and gone! Daddy! She hadn't
called him that for years. He drew a long breath and followed
slowly down. There was all the folly with that confetti stuff and
the rest of it to go through with yet. But he would like just to
catch her smile, if she leaned out, though they would hit her in
the eye with the shoe, if they didn't take care. Young Mont's
voice said fervently in his ear:

“Good-bye, sir; and thank you! I'm so fearfully bucked.”

“Good-bye,” he said; “don't miss your train.”

He stood on the bottom step but three, whence he could see above
the heads—the silly hats and heads. They were in the car now; and
there was that stuff, showering, and there went the shoe. A flood
of something welled up in Soames, and—he didn't know—he couldn't
see!

XI.—THE LAST OF THE OLD FORSYTES

When they came to prepare that terrific symbol Timothy
Forsyte—the one pure individualist left, the only man who hadn't
heard of the Great War—they found him wonderful—not even death
had undermined his soundness.

To Smither and Cook that preparation came like final evidence of
what they had never believed possible—the end of the old Forsyte
family on earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing
in the company of Miss Forsyte, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester; with Mr.
Jolyon, Mr. Swithin, Mr. James, Mr. Roger, and Mr. Nicholas of
the party. Whether Mrs. Hayman would be there was more doubtful,
seeing that she had been cremated. Secretly Cook thought that Mr.
Timothy would be upset—he had always been so set against barrel
organs. How many times had she not said: “Drat the thing! There
it is again! Smither, you'd better run up and see what you can
do.” And in her heart she would so have enjoyed the tunes, if she
hadn't known that Mr. Timothy would ring the bell in a minute and
say: “Here, take him a halfpenny and tell him to move on.” Often
they had been obliged to add threepence of their own before the
man would go—Timothy had ever underrated the value of emotion.
Luckily he had taken the organs for blue-bottles in his last
years, which had been a comfort, and they had been able to enjoy
the tunes. But a harp! Cook wondered. It was a change! And Mr.
Timothy had never liked change. But she did not speak of this to
Smither, who did so take a line of her own in regard to heaven
that it quite put one about sometimes.

She cried while Timothy was being prepared, and they all had
sherry afterward out of the yearly Christmas bottle, which would
not be needed now. Ah! dear! She had been there five-and-forty
years and Smither three-and-forty! And now they would be going to
a tiny house in Tooting, to live on their savings and what Miss
Hester had so kindly left them—for to take fresh service after
the glorious past—No! But they would like just to see Mr. Soames
again, and Mrs. Dartie, and Miss Francie, and Miss Euphemia. And
even if they had to take their own cab, they felt they must go to
the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had been their baby,
getting younger and younger every day, till at last he had been
too young to live.

They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and
dusting, in catching the one mouse left, and asphyxiating the
last beetle so as to leave it nice, discussing with each other
what they would buy at the sale. Miss Ann's workbox; Miss Juley's
(that is Mrs. Julia's) seaweed album; the fire-screen Miss Hester
had crewelled; and Mr. Timothy's hair—little golden curls, glued
into a black frame. Oh! they must have those—only the price of
things had gone up so!

It fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral. He had
them drawn up by Gradman in his office—only blood relations, and
no flowers. Six carriages were ordered. The Will would be read
afterward at the house.

He arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready. At a
quarter past old Gradman came in black gloves and crape on his
hat. He and Soames stood in the drawing-room waiting. At
half-past eleven the carriages drew up in a long row. But no one
else appeared. Gradman said:

“It surprises me, Mr. Soames. I posted them myself.”

“I don't know,” said Soames; “he'd lost touch with the family.”
Soames had often noticed in old days how much more neighbourly
his family were to the dead than to the living. But, now, the way
they had flocked to Fleur's wedding and abstained from Timothy's
funeral, seemed to show some vital change. There might, of
course, be another reason; for Soames felt that if he had not
known the contents of Timothy's Will, he might have stayed away
himself through delicacy. Timothy had left a lot of money, with
nobody in particular to leave it to. They mightn't like to seem
to expect something.

At twelve o'clock the procession left the door; Timothy alone in
the first carriage under glass. Then Soames alone; then Gradman
alone; then Cook and Smither together. They started at a walk,
but were soon trotting under a bright sky. At the entrance to
Highgate Cemetery they were delayed by service in the Chapel.
Soames would have liked to stay outside in the sunshine. He
didn't believe a word of it; on the other hand, it was a form of
insurance which could not safely be neglected, in case there
might be something in it after all.

They walked up two and two—he and Gradman, Cook and Smither—to
the family vault. It was not very distinguished for the funeral
of the last old Forsyte.

He took Gradman into his carriage on the way back to the
Bayswater Road with a certain glow in his heart. He had a
surprise in pickle for the old chap who had served the Forsytes
four-and-fifty years-a treat that was entirely his doing. How
well he remembered saying to Timothy the day—after Aunt Hester's
funeral: “Well; Uncle Timothy, there's Gradman. He's taken a lot
of trouble for the family. What do you say to leaving him five
thousand?” and his surprise, seeing the difficulty there had been
in getting Timothy to leave anything, when Timothy had nodded.
And now the old chap would be as pleased as Punch, for Mrs.
Gradman, he knew, had a weak heart, and their son had lost a leg
in the War. It was extraordinarily gratifying to Soames to have
left him five thousand pounds of Timothy's money. They sat down
together in the little drawing-room, whose walls—like a vision of
heaven—were sky-blue and gold with every picture-frame
unnaturally bright, and every speck of dust removed from every
piece of furniture, to read that little masterpiece—the Will of
Timothy. With his back to the light in Aunt Hester's chair,
Soames faced Gradman with his face to the light, on Aunt Ann's
sofa; and, crossing his legs, began:

“This is the last Will and Testament of me Timothy Forsyte of The
Bower Bayswater Road, London I appoint my nephew Soames Forsyte
of The Shelter Mapleduram and Thomas Gradman of 159 Folly Road
Highgate (hereinafter called my Trustees) to be the trustees and
executors of this my Will To the said Soames Forsyte I leave the
sum of one thousand pounds free of legacy duty and to the said
Thomas Gradman I leave the sum of five thousand pounds free of
legacy duty.”

Soames paused. Old Gradman was leaning forward, convulsively
gripping a stout black knee with each of his thick hands; his
mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth
gleamed; his eyes were blinking, two tears rolled slowly out of
them. Soames read hastily on.

“All the rest of my property of whatsoever description I bequeath
to my Trustees upon Trust to convert and hold the same upon the
following trusts namely To pay thereout all my debts funeral
expenses and outgoings of any kind in connection with my Will and
to hold the residue thereof in trust for that male lineal
descendant of my father Jolyon Forsyte by his marriage with Ann
Pierce who after the decease of all lineal descendants whether
male or female of my said father by his said marriage in being at
the time of my death shall last attain the age of twenty-one
years absolutely it being my desire that my property shall be
nursed to the extreme limit permitted by the laws of England for
the benefit of such male lineal descendant as aforesaid.”

Soames read the investment and attestation clauses, and, ceasing,
looked at Gradman. The old fellow was wiping his brow with a
large handkerchief, whose brilliant colour supplied a sudden
festive tinge to the proceedings.

“My word, Mr. Soames!” he said, and it was clear that the lawyer
in him had utterly wiped out the man: “My word! Why, there are
two babies now, and some quite young children—if one of them
lives to be eighty—it's not a great age—and add twenty-one—that's
a hundred years; and Mr. Timothy worth a hundred and fifty
thousand pound net if he's worth a penny. Compound interest at
five per cent. doubles you in fourteen years. In fourteen years
three hundred thousand-six hundred thousand in
twenty-eight—twelve hundred thousand in forty-two—twenty-four
hundred thousand in fifty-six—four million eight hundred thousand
in seventy—nine million six hundred thousand in eighty-four—Why,
in a hundred years it'll be twenty million! And we shan't live to
use it! It is a Will!”

Soames said dryly: “Anything may happen. The State might take the
lot; they're capable of anything in these days.”

“And carry five,” said Gradman to himself. “I forgot—Mr.
Timothy's in Consols; we shan't get more than two per cent. with
this income tax. To be on the safe side, say eight millions.
Still, that's a pretty penny.”

Soames rose and handed him the Will. “You're going into the City.
Take care of that, and do what's necessary. Advertise; but there
are no debts. When's the sale?”

“Tuesday week,” said Gradman. “Life or lives in bein' and
twenty-one years afterward—it's a long way off. But I'm glad he's
left it in the family....”

The sale—not at Jobson's, in view of the Victorian nature of the
effects—was far more freely attended than the funeral, though not
by Cook and Smither, for Soames had taken it on himself to give
them their heart's desires. Winifred was present, Euphemia, and
Francie, and Eustace had come in his car. The miniatures,
Barbizons, and J. R. drawings had been bought in by Soames; and
relics of no marketable value were set aside in an off-room for
members of the family who cared to have mementoes. These were the
only restrictions upon bidding characterised by an almost tragic
languor. Not one piece of furniture, no picture or porcelain
figure appealed to modern taste. The humming birds had fallen
like autumn leaves when taken from where they had not hummed for
sixty years. It was painful to Soames to see the chairs his aunts
had sat on, the little grand piano they had practically never
played, the books whose outsides they had gazed at, the china
they had dusted, the curtains they had drawn, the hearth-rug
which had warmed their feet; above all, the beds they had lain
and died in—sold to little dealers, and the housewives of Fulham.
And yet—what could one do? Buy them and stick them in a
lumber-room? No; they had to go the way of all flesh and
furniture, and be worn out. But when they put up Aunt Ann's sofa
and were going to knock it down for thirty shillings, he cried
out, suddenly: “Five pounds!” The sensation was considerable, and
the sofa his.

When that little sale was over in the fusty saleroom, and those
Victorian ashes scattered, he went out into the misty October
sunshine feeling as if cosiness had died out of the world, and
the board “To Let” was up, indeed. Revolutions on the horizon;
Fleur in Spain; no comfort in Annette; no Timothy's on the
Bayswater Road. In the irritable desolation of his soul he went
into the Goupenor Gallery. That chap Jolyon's watercolours were
on view there. He went in to look down his nose at them—it might
give him some faint satisfaction. The news had trickled through
from June to Val's wife, from her to Val, from Val to his mother,
from her to Soames, that the house—the fatal house at Robin
Hill—was for sale, and Irene going to join her boy out in British
Columbia, or some such place. For one wild moment the thought had
come to Soames: 'Why shouldn't I buy it back? I meant it for my!'
No sooner come than gone. Too lugubrious a triumph; with too many
humiliating memories for himself and Fleur. She would never live
there after what had happened. No, the place must go its way to
some peer or profiteer. It had been a bone of contention from the
first, the shell of the feud; and with the woman gone, it was an
empty shell. “For Sale or To Let.” With his mind's eye he could
see that board raised high above the ivied wall which he had
built.

He passed through the first of the two rooms in the Gallery.
There was certainly a body of work! And now that the fellow was
dead it did not seem so trivial. The drawings were pleasing
enough, with quite a sense of atmosphere, and something
individual in the brush work. 'His father and my father; he and
I; his child and mine!' thought Soames. So it had gone on! And
all about that woman! Softened by the events of the past week,
affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came
nearer than he had ever been to realisation of that truth—passing
the understanding of a Forsyte pure—that the body of Beauty has a
spiritual essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks
not of self. After all, he was near that truth in his devotion to
his daughter; perhaps that made him understand a little how he
had missed the prize. And there, among the drawings of his
kinsman, who had attained to that which he had found beyond his
reach, he thought of him and her with a tolerance which surprised
him. But he did not buy a drawing.

Just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer
air he met with a contingency which had not been entirely absent
from his mind when he went into the Gallery—Irene, herself,
coming in. So she had not gone yet, and was still paying farewell
visits to that fellow's remains! He subdued the little
involuntary leap of his subconsciousness, the mechanical reaction
of his senses to the charm of this once-owned woman, and passed
her with averted eyes. But when he had gone by he could not for
the life of him help looking back. This, then, was finality—the
heat and stress of his life, the madness and the longing thereof,
the only defeat he had known, would be over when she faded from
his view this time; even such memories had their own queer aching
value.

She, too, was looking back. Suddenly she lifted her gloved hand,
her lips smiled faintly, her dark eyes seemed to speak. It was
the turn of Soames to make no answer to that smile and that
little farewell wave; he went out into the fashionable street
quivering from head to foot. He knew what she had meant to say:
“Now that I am going for ever out of the reach of you and
yours—forgive me; I wish you well.” That was the meaning; last
sign of that terrible reality—passing morality, duty, common
sense—her aversion from him who had owned her body, but had never
touched her spirit or her heart. It hurt; yes—more than if she
had kept her mask unmoved, her hand unlifted.

Three days later, in that fast-yellowing October, Soames took a
taxi-cab to Highgate Cemetery and mounted through its white
forest to the Forsyte vault. Close to the cedar, above catacombs
and columbaria, tall, ugly, and individual, it looked like an
apex of the competitive system. He could remember a discussion
wherein Swithin had advocated the addition to its face of the
pheasant proper. The proposal had been rejected in favour of a
wreath in stone, above the stark words: “The family vault of
Jolyon Forsyte: 1850.” It was in good order. All trace of the
recent interment had been removed, and its sober grey gloomed
reposefully in the sunshine. The whole family lay there now,
except old Jolyon's wife, who had gone back under a contract to
her own family vault in Suffolk; old Jolyon himself lying at
Robin Hill; and Susan Hayman, cremated so that none knew where
she might be. Soames gazed at it with satisfaction—massive,
needing little attention; and this was important, for he was well
aware that no one would attend to it when he himself was gone,
and he would have to be looking out for lodgings soon. He might
have twenty years before him, but one never knew. Twenty years
without an aunt or uncle, with a wife of whom one had better not
know anything, with a daughter gone from home. His mood inclined
to melancholy and retrospection.

This cemetery was full, they said—of people with extraordinary
names, buried in extraordinary taste. Still, they had a fine view
up here, right over London. Annette had once given him a story to
read by that Frenchman, Maupassant, most lugubrious concern,
where all the skeletons emerged from their graves one night, and
all the pious inscriptions on the stones were altered to
descriptions of their sins. Not a true story at all. He didn't
know about the French, but there was not much real harm in
English people except their teeth and their taste, which was
certainly deplorable. “The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte: 1850.”
A lot of people had been buried here since then—a lot of English
life crumbled to mould and dust! The boom of an airplane passing
under the gold-tinted clouds caused him to lift his eyes. The
deuce of a lot of expansion had gone on. But it all came back to
a cemetery—to a name and a date on a tomb. And he thought with a
curious pride that he and his family had done little or nothing
to help this feverish expansion. Good solid middlemen, they had
gone to work with dignity to manage and possess. “Superior
Dosset,” indeed, had built in a dreadful, and Jolyon painted in a
doubtful, period, but so far as he remembered not another of them
all had soiled his hands by creating anything—unless you counted
Val Dartie and his horse-breeding. Collectors, solicitors,
barristers, merchants, publishers, accountants, directors, land
agents, even soldiers—there they had been! The country had
expanded, as it were, in spite of them. They had checked,
controlled, defended, and taken advantage of the process and when
you considered how “Superior Dosset” had begun life with next to
nothing, and his lineal descendants already owned what old
Gradman estimated at between a million and a million and a half,
it was not so bad! And yet he sometimes felt as if the family
bolt was shot, their possessive instinct dying out. They seemed
unable to make money—this fourth generation; they were going into
art, literature, farming, or the army; or just living on what was
left them—they had no push and no tenacity. They would die out if
they didn't take care.

Soames turned from the vault and faced toward the breeze. The air
up here would be delicious if only he could rid his nerves of the
feeling that mortality was in it. He gazed restlessly at the
crosses and the urns, the angels, the “immortelles,” the flowers,
gaudy or withering; and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed
so different from anything else up there that he was obliged to
walk the few necessary yards and look at it. A sober corner, with
a massive queer-shaped cross of grey rough-hewn granite, guarded
by four dark yew-trees. The spot was free from the pressure of
the other graves, having a little box-hedged garden on the far
side, and in front a goldening birch-tree. This oasis in the
desert of conventional graves appealed to the aesthetic sense of
Soames, and he sat down there in the sunshine. Through those
trembling gold birch leaves he gazed out at London, and yielded
to the waves of memory. He thought of Irene in Montpellier
Square, when her hair was rusty-golden and her white shoulders
his—Irene, the prize of his love-passion, resistant to his
ownership. He saw Bosinney's body lying in that white mortuary,
and Irene sitting on the sofa looking at space with the eyes of a
dying bird. Again he thought of her by the little green Niobe in
the Bois de Boulogne, once more rejecting him. His fancy took him
on beside his drifting river on the November day when Fleur was
to be born, took him to the dead leaves floating on the
green-tinged water and the snake-headed weed for ever swaying and
nosing, sinuous, blind, tethered. And on again to the window
opened to the cold starry night above Hyde Park, with his father
lying dead. His fancy darted to that picture of “the future
town,” to that boy's and Fleur's first meeting; to the bluish
trail of Prosper Profond's cigar, and Fleur in the window
pointing down to where the fellow prowled. To the sight of Irene
and that dead fellow sitting side by side in the stand at Lord's.
To her and that boy at Robin Hill. To the sofa, where Fleur lay
crushed up in the corner; to her lips pressed into his cheek, and
her farewell “Daddy.” And suddenly he saw again Irene's
grey-gloved hand waving its last gesture of release.

He sat there a long time dreaming his career, faithful to the
scut of his possessive instinct, warming himself even with its
failures.

“To Let”—the Forsyte age and way of life, when a man owned his
soul, his investments, and his woman, without check or question.
And now the State had, or would have, his investments, his woman
had herself, and God knew who had his soul. “To Let”—that sane
and simple creed!

The waters of change were foaming in, carrying the promise of new
forms only when their destructive flood should have passed its
full. He sat there, subconscious of them, but with his thoughts
resolutely set on the past—as a man might ride into a wild night
with his face to the tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the
Victorian dykes the waters were rolling on property, manners, and
morals, on melody and the old forms of art—waters bringing to his
mouth a salt taste as of blood, lapping to the foot of this
Highgate Hill where Victorianism lay buried. And sitting there,
high up on its most individual spot, Soames—like a figure of
Investment—refused their restless sounds. Instinctively he would
not fight them—there was in him too much primeval wisdom, of Man
the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had
fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying; when
the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently
broken and defected—they would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms
would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of
change—the instinct of Home.

“Je m'en fiche,” said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say “Je
m'en fiche”—it was French, and the fellow was a thorn in his
side—but deep down he knew that change was only the interval of
death between two forms of life, destruction necessary to make
room for fresher property. What though the board was up, and
cosiness to let?—some one would come along and take it again some
day.

And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there—the
melancholy craving in his heart—because the sun was like
enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch
leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yewtree
green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky.

He might wish and wish and never get it—the beauty and the loving
in the world!

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