The Forsyte Saga(340)

He had to go up to Town that morning on Forsyte affairs, and was fully conscious of Gradman’s glance side-long over his spectacles. The old clerk had about him an aura of regretful congratulation. He smelled, as it were, of old days. One could almost hear him thinking: ‘Mr Jolyon, ye-es – just my age, and gone – dear, dear! I dare say she feels it. She was a naice-lookin’ woman. Flesh is flesh! They’ve given ‘im a notice in the papers. Fancy!’ His atmosphere in fact caused Soames to handle certain leases and conversions with exceptional swiftness.

‘About that settlement on Miss Fleur, Mr Soames?’

‘I’ve thought better of that,’ answered Soames shortly.

‘Aoh! I’m glad of that. I thought you were a little hasty. The times do change.’

How this death would affect Fleur had begun to trouble Soames. He was not certain that she knew of it – she seldom looked at the paper, never at the births, marriages, and deaths.

He pressed matters on, and made his way to Green Street for lunch. Winifred was almost doleful. Jack Cardigan had broken a splashboard, so far as one could make out, and would not be ‘fit’ for some time. She could not get used to the idea.

‘Did Profond ever get off?’ he said suddenly.

‘He got off,’ replied Winifred, ‘but where – I don’t know.’

Yes, there it was – impossible to tell anything! Not that he wanted to know. Letters from Annette were coming from Dieppe, where she and her mother were staying.

‘You saw that fellow’s death, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ said Winifred. ‘I’m sorry for – for his children. He was very amiable.’ Soames uttered a rather queer sound. A suspicion of the old deep truth – that men were judged in this world rather by what they were, than by what they did – crept and knocked resentfully at the back doors of his mind.

‘I know there was a superstition to that effect,’ he muttered.

‘One must do him justice now he’s dead.’

‘I should like to have done him justice before,’ said Soames; ‘but I never had the chance. Have you got a Baronetage here?’

‘Yes; in that bottom row.’

Soames took out a fat red book, and ran over the leaves.

‘Mont – Sir Lawrence, 9th Bt, cr. 1620, e.s. of Geoffrey, 8th Bt, and Lavinia, daur. of Sir Charles Muskham, Bt, of Muskham Hall, Shrops: marr. 1890 Emily, daur. of ConwayCharwell, Esq., of Condaford Grange, co. Oxon; 1 son, heir Michael Con-way, b. 1895, 2 daurs. Residence: Lippinghall Manor, Folwell, Bucks. Clubs: Snooks’: Coffee House: Aeroplane. See Bidlicott.’

‘H’m!’ he said. ‘Did you ever know a publisher?’

‘Uncle Timothy.’

‘Alive, I mean.’

‘Monty knew one at his club. He brought him here to dinner once. Monty was always thinking of writing a book, you know, about how to make money on the turf. He tried to interest that man.’

‘Well?’

‘He put him on to a horse – for the Two Thousand. We didn’t see him again. He was rather smart, if I remember.’

‘Did it win?’

‘No; it ran last, I think. You know Monty really was quite clever in his way.’

‘Was he?’ said Soames. ‘Can you see any connexion between a sucking baronet and publishing?’

‘People do all sorts of things nowadays,’ replied Winifred. ‘The great stunt seems not to be idle – so different from our time. To do nothing was the thing then. But I suppose it’ll come again.’

‘This young Mont that I’m speaking of is very sweet on Fleur. If it would put an end to that other affair, I might encourage it.’

‘Has he got style?’ asked Winifred.

‘He’s no beauty; pleasant enough, with some scattered brains. There’s a good deal of land, I believe. He seems genuinely attached. But I don’t know.’

‘No,’ murmured Winifred; ‘it’s very difficult. I always found it best to do nothing. It is such a bore about Jack; now we shan’t get away till after Bank Holiday. Well, the people are always amusing, I shall go into the Park and watch them.’

‘If I were you,’ said Soames, ‘I should have a country cottage, and be out of the way of holidays and strikes when you want.’

‘The country bores me,’ answered Winifred, ‘and I found the railway strike quite exciting.’

Winifred had always been noted for sang-froid.

Soames took his leave. All the way down to Reading he debated whether he should tell Fleur of that boy’s father’s death. It did not alter the situation except that he would be independent now, and only have his mother’s opposition to encounter. He would come into a lot of money, no doubt, and perhaps the house – the house built for Irene and himself – the house whose architect had wrought his domestic ruin. His daughter – mistress of that house! That would be poetic justice! Soames uttered a little mirthless laugh. He had designed that house to re-establish his failing union  , meant it for the seat of his descendants, if he could have induced Irene to give him one! Her son and Fleur! Their children would be, in some sort, offspring of the union   between himself and her!