The Forsyte Saga(332)

‘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 fat-tish 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 downstairs. 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 was 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 anyone who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago, and see it now, realized 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 tell 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 shouldn’t be a bit surprised. It was that 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.’