And every day Aunts Juley and Hester were required to come and report on Timothy; what news there was of Nicholas; whether dear June had succeeded in getting Jolyon to shorten the engagement, now that Mr Bosinney was building Soames a house; whether young Roger’s wife was really – expecting; how the operation on Archie had succeeded; and what Swithin had done about that empty house in Wigmore Street, where the tenant had lost all his money and treated him so badly; above all, about Soames; was Irene still – still asking for a separate room? And every morning Smither was told: ‘I shall be coming down this afternoon, Smither, about two o’clock. I shall want your arm, after all these days in bed!’
After telling Aunt Ann, Mrs Small had spoken of the house in the strictest confidence to Mrs Nicholas, who in her turn had asked Winifred Dartie for confirmation, supposing, of course, that, being Soames’s sister, she would know all about it. Through her it had in due course come round to the ears of James. He had been a good deal agitated.
Nobody, he said, told him anything. And, rather than go direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and went round to Timothy’s.
He found Mrs Septimus and Hester (who had been told – she was so safe, she found it tiring to talk) ready, and indeed eager, to discuss the news. It was very good of dear Soames, they thought, to employ Mr Bosinney, but rather risky. What had George named him? ‘The Buccaneer!’ How droll! But George was always droll! However, it would be all in the family – they supposed they must really look upon Mr Bosinney as belonging to the family, though it seemed strange.
James here broke in:
‘Nobody knows anything about him. I don’t see what Soames wants with a young man like that. I shouldn’t be surprised if Irene had put her oar in. I shall speak to –’
‘Soames,’ interposed Aunt Juley, ‘told Mr Bosinney that he didn’t wish it mentioned. He wouldn’t like it to be talked about, I’m sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed, I–’
James put his hand behind his ear:
‘What?’ he said. ‘I’m getting very deaf. I suppose I don’t hear people. Emily’s got a bad toe. We shan’t be able to start for Wales till the end of the month. There’s always something!’ And, having got what he wanted, he took his hat and went away.
It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the Park towards Soames’s, where he intended to dine, for Emily’s toe kept her in bed, and Rachel and Cicely were on a visit in the country. He took the slanting path from the Bayswater side of the Row to the Knightsbridge Gate, across a pasture of short, burnt grass, dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with seated couples and strange waifs lying prone on their faces, like corpses on a field over which the wave of battle has rolled.
He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to the right nor left. The appearance of this park, the centre of his own battlefield, where he had all his life been fighting, excited no thought or speculation in his mind. These corpses flung down there from out the press and turmoil of the struggle, these pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of idle Elysium snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no fancies in his mind; he had outlived that kind of imagination; his nose, like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures on which he browsed.
One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition to be behind-hand in his rent, and it had become a grave question whether he had not better turn him out at once, and so run the risk of not re-letting before Christmas. Swithin had just been let in very badly, but it had served him right – he had held on too long.
He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his umbrella carefully by the wood, just below the crook of the handle, so as to keep the ferrule off the ground, and not fray the silk in the middle. And, with his thin, high shoulders stooped, his long legs moving with swift mechanical precision, this passage through the Park, where the sun shone with a clear flame on so much idleness – on so many human evidences of the remorseless battle of Property raging beyond its ring – was like the flight of some landbird across the sea.
He felt a touch on the arm as he came out at Albert Gate.
It was Soames, who, crossing from the shady side of Piccadilly, where he had been walking home from the office, had suddenly appeared alongside.
‘Your mother’s in bed,’ said James; ‘I was just coming to you, but I suppose I shall be in the way.’
The outward relations between James and his son were marked by a lack of sentiment peculiarly Forsytean, but for all that the two were by no means unattached. Perhaps they regarded one another as an investment; certainly they were solicitous of each other’s welfare, glad of each other’s company. They had never exchanged two words upon the more intimate problems of life, or revealed in each other’s presence the existence of any deep feeling.