Chapter IX: Val Hears the News

The keeping of engagements had not as yet been a conspicuous
feature in the life of young Val Dartie, so that when he broke
two and kept one, it was the latter event which caused him, if
anything, the greater surprise, while jogging back to town from
Robin Hill after his ride with Holly. She had been even prettier
than he had thought her yesterday, on her silver-roan,
long-tailed “palfrey”. and it seemed to him, self-critical in the
brumous October gloaming and the outskirts of London, that only
his boots had shone throughout their two-hour companionship. He
took out his new gold “hunter”—present from James—and looked not
at the time, but at sections of his face in the glittering back
of its opened case. He had a temporary spot over one eyebrow, and
it displeased him, for it must have displeased her. Crum never
had any spots. Together with Crum rose the scene in the promenade
of the Pandemonium. To-day he had not had the faintest desire to
unbosom himself to Holly about his father. His father lacked
poetry, the stirrings of which he was feeling for the first time
in his nineteen years. The Liberty, with Cynthia Dark, that
almost mythical embodiment of rapture; the Pandemonium, with the
woman of uncertain age—both seemed to Val completely “off,” fresh
from communion with this new, shy, dark-haired young cousin of
his. She rode “Jolly well,” too, so that it had been all the more
flattering that she had let him lead her where he would in the
long gallops of Richmond Park, though she knew them so much
better than he did. Looking back on it all, he was mystified by
the barrenness of his speech; he felt that he could say “an awful
lot of fetching things” if he had but the chance again, and the
thought that he must go back to Littlehampton on the morrow, and
to Oxford on the twelfth—“to that beastly exam,” too—without the
faintest chance of first seeing her again, caused darkness to
settle on his spirit even more quickly than on the evening. He
should write to her, however, and she had promised to answer.
Perhaps, too, she would come up to Oxford to see her brother.
That thought was like the first star, which came out as he rode
into Padwick’s livery stables in the purlieus of Sloane Square.
He got off and stretched himself luxuriously, for he had ridden
some twenty-five good miles. The Dartie within him made him
chaffer for five minutes with young Padwick concerning the
favourite for the Cambridgeshire; then with the words, “Put the
gee down to my account,” he walked away, a little wide at the
knees, and flipping his boots with his knotty little cane. “I
don’t feel a bit inclined to go out,” he thought. “I wonder if
mother will stand fizz for my last night!” With “fizz” and
recollection, he could well pass a domestic evening.

When he came down, speckless after his bath, he found his mother
scrupulous in a low evening dress, and, to his annoyance, his
Uncle Soames. They stopped talking when he came in; then his
uncle said:

“He’d better be told.”

At those words, which meant something about his father, of
course, Val’s first thought was of Holly. Was it anything
beastly? His mother began speaking.

“Your father,” she said in her fashionably appointed voice, while
her fingers plucked rather pitifully at sea-green brocade, “your
father, my dear boy, has—is not at Newmarket; he’s on his way to
South America. He—he’s left us.”

Val looked from her to Soames. Left them! Was he sorry? Was he
fond of his father? It seemed to him that he did not know. Then,
suddenly—as at a whiff of gardenias and cigars—his heart twitched
within him, and he _was_ sorry. One’s father belonged to one,
could not go off in this fashion—it was not done! Nor had he
always been the “bounder” of the Pandemonium promenade. There
were precious memories of tailors’ shops and horses, tips at
school, and general lavish kindness, when in luck.

“But why?” he said. Then, as a sportsman himself, was sorry he
had asked. The mask of his mother’s face was all disturbed; and
he burst out:

“All right, Mother, don’t tell me! Only, what does it mean?”

“A divorce, Val, I’m afraid.”

Val uttered a queer little grunt, and looked quickly at his
uncle—that uncle whom he had been taught to look on as a
guarantee against the consequences of having a father, even
against the Dartie blood in his own veins. The flat-checked
visage seemed to wince, and this upset him.

“It won’t be public, will it?”

So vividly before him had come recollection of his own eyes glued
to the unsavoury details of many a divorce suit in the Public
Press.

“Can’t it be done quietly somehow? It’s so disgusting for—for
mother, and—and everybody.”

“Everything will be done as quietly as it can, you may be sure.”

“Yes—but, why is it necessary at all? Mother doesn’t want to
marry again.”

Himself, the girls, their name tarnished in the sight of his
schoolfellows and of Crum, of the men at Oxford, of—Holly!
Unbearable! What was to be gained by it?

“Do you, Mother?” he said sharply.

Thus brought face to face with so much of her own feeling by the
one she loved best in the world, Winifred rose from the Empire
chair in which she had been sitting. She saw that her son would
be against her unless he was told everything; and, yet, how could
she tell him? Thus, still plucking at the green brocade, she
stared at Soames. Val, too, stared at Soames. Surely this
embodiment of respectability and the sense of property could not
wish to bring such a slur on his own sister!

Soames slowly passed a little inlaid paperknife over the smooth
surface of a marqueterie table; then, without looking at his
nephew, he began:

“You don’t understand what your mother has had to put up with
these twenty years. This is only the last straw, Val.” And
glancing up sideways at Winifred, he added:

“Shall I tell him?”

Winifred was silent. If he were not told, he would be against
her! Yet, how dreadful to be told such things of his own father!
Clenching her lips, she nodded.

Soames spoke in a rapid, even voice:

“He has always been a burden round your mother’s neck. She has
paid his debts over and over again; he has often been drunk,
abused and threatened her; and now he is gone to Buenos Aires
with a dancer.” And, as if distrusting the efficacy of those
words on the boy, he went on quickly:

“He took your mother’s pearls to give to her.”

Val jerked up his hand, then. At that signal of distress Winifred
cried out:

“That’ll do, Soames—stop!”

In the boy, the Dartie and the Forsyte were struggling. For
debts, drink, dancers, he had a certain sympathy; but the
pearls—no! That was too much! And suddenly he found his mother’s
hand squeezing his.

“You see,” he heard Soames say, “we can’t have it all begin over
again. There’s a limit; we must strike while the iron’s hot.”

Val freed his hand.

“But—you’re—never going to bring out that about the pearls! I
couldn’t stand that—I simply couldn’t!”

Winifred cried out:

“No, no, Val—oh no! That’s only to show you how impossible your
father is!” And his uncle nodded. Somewhat assuaged, Val took out
a cigarette. His father had bought him that thin curved case. Oh!
it was unbearable—just as he was going up to Oxford!

“Can’t mother be protected without?” he said. “I could look after
her. It could always be done later if it was really necessary.”

A smile played for a moment round Soames’ lips, and became
bitter.

“You don’t know what you’re talking of; nothing’s so fatal as
delay in such matters.”

“Why?”

“I tell you, boy, nothing’s so fatal. I know from experience.”

His voice had the ring of exasperation. Val regarded him
round-eyed, never having known his uncle express any sort of
feeling. Oh! Yes—he remembered now—there had been an Aunt Irene,
and something had happened—something which people kept dark; he
had heard his father once use an unmentionable word of her.

“I don’t want to speak ill of your father,” Soames went on
doggedly, “but I know him well enough to be sure that he’ll be
back on your mother’s hands before a year’s over. You can imagine
what that will mean to her and to all of you after this. The only
thing is to cut the knot for good.”

In spite of himself, Val was impressed; and, happening to look at
his mother’s face, he got what was perhaps his first real insight
into the fact that his own feelings were not always what mattered
most.

“All right, mother,” he said; “we’ll back you up. Only I’d like
to know when it’ll be. It’s my first term, you know. I don’t want
to be up there when it comes off.”

“Oh! my dear boy,” murmured Winifred, “it _is_ a bore for you.”
So, by habit, she phrased what, from the expression of her face,
was the most poignant regret. “When will it be, Soames?”

“Can’t tell—not for months. We must get restitution first.”

“What the deuce is that?” thought Val. “What silly brutes lawyers
are! Not for months! I know one thing: I’m not going to dine in!”
And he said:

“Awfully sorry, mother, I’ve got to go out to dinner now.”

Though it was his last night, Winifred nodded almost gratefully;
they both felt that they had gone quite far enough in the
expression of feeling.

Val sought the misty freedom of Green Street, reckless and
depressed. And not till he reached Piccadilly did he discover
that he had only eighteen-pence. One couldn’t dine off
eighteen-pence, and he was very hungry. He looked longingly at
the windows of the Iseeum Club, where he had often eaten of the
best with his father! Those pearls! There was no getting over
them! But the more he brooded and the further he walked the
hungrier he naturally became. Short of trailing home, there were
only two places where he could go—his grandfather’s in Park Lane,
and Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less
deplorable? At his grandfather’s he would probably get a better
dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy’s they gave you a
jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided
on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford
without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly
fair to either of them. His mother would hear he had been there,
of course, and might think it funny; but he couldn’t help that.
He rang the bell.

“Hullo, Warmson, any dinner for me, d’you think?”

“They’re just going in, Master Val. Mr. Forsyte will be very glad
to see you. He was saying at lunch that he never saw you
nowadays.”

Val grinned.

“Well, here I am. Kill the fatted calf, Warmson, let’s have
fizz.”

Warmson smiled faintly—in his opinion Val was a young limb.

“I will ask Mrs. Forsyte, Master Val.”

“I say,” Val grumbled, taking off his overcoat, “I’m not at
school any more, you know.”

Warmson, not without a sense of humour, opened the door beyond
the stag’s-horn coat stand, with the words:

“Mr. Valerus, ma’am.”

“Confound him!” thought Val, entering.

A warm embrace, a “Well, Val!” from Emily, and a rather quavery
“So there you are at last!” from James, restored his sense of
dignity.

“Why didn’t you let us know? There’s only saddle of mutton.
Champagne, Warmson,” said Emily. And they went in.

At the great dining-table, shortened to its utmost, under which
so many fashionable legs had rested, James sat at one end, Emily
at the other, Val half-way between them; and something of the
loneliness of his grandparents, now that all their four children
were flown, reached the boy’s spirit. “I hope I shall kick the
bucket long before I’m as old as grandfather,” he thought. “Poor
old chap, he’s as thin as a rail!” And lowering his voice while
his grandfather and Warmson were in discussion about sugar in the
soup, he said to Emily:

“It’s pretty brutal at home, Granny. I suppose you know.”

“Yes, dear boy.”

“Uncle Soames was there when I left. I say, isn’t there anything
to be done to prevent a divorce? Why is he so beastly keen on
it?”

“Hush, my dear!” murmured Emily; “we’re keeping it from your
grandfather.”

James’ voice sounded from the other end.

“What’s that? What are you talking about?”

“About Val’s college,” returned Emily. “Young Pariser was there,
James; you remember—he nearly broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
afterwards.”

James muttered that he did not know—Val must look after himself
up there, or he’d get into bad ways. And he looked at his
grandson with gloom, out of which affection distrustfully
glimmered.

“What I’m afraid of,” said Val to his plate, “is of being hard
up, you know.”

By instinct he knew that the weak spot in that old man was fear
of insecurity for his grandchildren.

“Well,” said James, and the soup in his spoon dribbled over,
“you’ll have a good allowance; but you must keep within it.”

“Of course,” murmured Val; “if it is good. How much will it be,
Grandfather?”

“Three hundred and fifty; it’s too much. I had next to nothing at
your age.”

Val sighed. He had hoped for four, and been afraid of three. “I
don’t know what your young cousin has,” said James; “he’s up
there. His father’s a rich man.”

“Aren’t you?” asked Val hardily.

“I?” replied James, flustered. “I’ve got so many expenses. Your
father....” and he was silent.

“Cousin Jolyon’s got an awfully jolly place. I went down there
with Uncle Soames—ripping stables.”

“Ah!” murmured James profoundly. “That house—I knew how it would
be!” And he lapsed into gloomy meditation over his fish-bones.
His son’s tragedy, and the deep cleavage it had caused in the
Forsyte family, had still the power to draw him down into a
whirlpool of doubts and misgivings. Val, who hankered to talk of
Robin Hill, because Robin Hill meant Holly, turned to Emily and
said:

“Was that the house built for Uncle Soames?” And, receiving her
nod, went on: “I wish you’d tell me about him, Granny. What
became of Aunt Irene? Is she still going? He seems awfully
worked-up about something to-night.”

Emily laid her finger on her lips, but the word Irene had caught
James’ ear.

“What’s that?” he said, staying a piece of mutton close to his
lips. “Who’s been seeing her? I knew we hadn’t heard the last of
that.”

“Now, James,” said Emily, “eat your dinner. Nobody’s been seeing
anybody.”

James put down his fork.

“There you go,” he said. “I might die before you’d tell me of it.
Is Soames getting a divorce?”

“Nonsense,” said Emily with incomparable aplomb; “Soames is much
too sensible.”

James had sought his own throat, gathering the long white
whiskers together on the skin and bone of it.

“She—she was always....” he said, and with that enigmatic remark
the conversation lapsed, for Warmson had returned. But later,
when the saddle of mutton had been succeeded by sweet, savoury,
and dessert, and Val had received a cheque for twenty pounds and
his grandfather’s kiss—like no other kiss in the world, from lips
pushed out with a sort of fearful suddenness, as if yielding to
weakness—he returned to the charge in the hall.

“Tell us about Uncle Soames, Granny. Why is he so keen on
mother’s getting a divorce?”

“Your Uncle Soames,” said Emily, and her voice had in it an
exaggerated assurance, “is a lawyer, my dear boy. He’s sure to
know best.”

“Is he?” muttered Val. “But what did become of Aunt Irene? I
remember she was jolly good-looking.”

“She—er....” said Emily, “behaved very badly. We don’t talk about
it.”

“Well, I don’t want everybody at Oxford to know about our
affairs,” ejaculated Val; “it’s a brutal idea. Why couldn’t
father be prevented without its being made public?”

Emily sighed. She had always lived rather in an atmosphere of
divorce, owing to her fashionable proclivities—so many of those
whose legs had been under her table having gained a certain
notoriety. When, however, it touched her own family, she liked it
no better than other people. But she was eminently practical, and
a woman of courage, who never pursued a shadow in preference to
its substance.

“Your mother,” she said, “will be happier if she’s quite free,
Val. Good-night, my dear boy; and don’t wear loud waistcoats up
at Oxford, they’re not the thing just now. Here’s a little
present.”

With another five pounds in his hand, and a little warmth in his
heart, for he was fond of his grandmother, he went out into Park
Lane. A wind had cleared the mist, the autumn leaves were
rustling, and the stars were shining. With all that money in his
pocket an impulse to “see life” beset him; but he had not gone
forty yards in the direction of Piccadilly when Holly’s shy face,
and her eyes with an imp dancing in their gravity, came up before
him, and his hand seemed to be tingling again from the pressure
of her warm gloved hand. “No, dash it!” he thought, “I’m going
home!”