The Forsyte Saga(6)

She thought of June’s father, young Jolyon, who had. run away with that foreign girl. Ah! what a sad blow to his father and to them all. Such a promising young fellow! A sad blow, though there had been no public scandal, most fortunately, Jo’s wife seeking for no divorce! A long time ago! And when June’s mother died, six years ago, Jo had married that woman, and they had two children now, so she had heard. Still, he had forfeited his right to be there, had cheated her of the complete fulfilment of her family pride, deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing and kissing him of whom she had been so proud, such a promising young fellow! The thought rankled with the bitterness of long-inflicted injury in her tenacious old heart. A little water stood in her eyes. With a handkerchief of the finest lawn she wiped them stealthily.

‘Well, Aunt Ann?’ said a voice behind.

Soames Forsyte, flat-shouldered, clean-shaven, flat-cheeked, flat-waisted, yet with something round and secret about his whole appearance, looked downwards and aslant at Aunt Ann, as though trying to see through the side of his own nose.

‘And what do you think of the engagement?’ he asked.

Aunt Ann’s eyes rested on him proudly; the eldest of the nephews since young Jolyon’s departure from the family nest, he was now her favourite, for she recognized in him a sure trustee of the family soul that must so soon slip beyond her keeping.

‘Very nice for the young man,’ she said; ‘and he’s a good-looking young fellow; but I doubt if he’s quite the right lover for dear June.’

Soames touched the edge of a gold-lacquered lustre.

‘She’ll tame him,’ he said, stealthily wetting his finger and rubbing it on the knobby bulbs. ‘That’s genuine old lacquer; you can’t get it nowadays. It’d do well in a sale at Jobson’s.’ He spoke with relish, as though he felt that he was cheering up his old aunt. It was seldom he was so confidential. ‘I wouldn’t mind having it myself,’ he added; ‘you can always get your price for old lacquer.’

‘You’re so clever with all those things,’ said Aunt Ann. ‘And how is dear Irene?’

Soames’s smile died.

‘Pretty well,’ he said. ‘Complains she can’t sleep; she sleeps a great deal better than I do,’ and he looked at his wife, who was talking to Bosinney by the door.

Aunt Ann sighed.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘it will be just as well for her not to see so much of June. She’s such a decided character, dear June!’

Soames flushed; his flushes passed rapidly over his flat cheeks and centred between his eyes, where they remained, the stamp of disturbing thoughts.

‘I don’t know what she sees in that little flibbertigibbet,’ he burst out, but noticing that they were no longer alone, he turned and again began examining the lustre.

‘They tell me Jolyon’s bought another house,’ said his father’s voice close by; ‘he must have a lot of money – he must have more money than he knows what to do with! Montpelier Square, they say; close to Soames! They never told me – Irene never tells me anything!’

‘Capital position, not two minutes from me,’ said the voice of Swithin, ‘and from my rooms I can drive to the Club in eight.’

The position of their houses was of vital importance to the Forsytes, nor was this remarkable, since the whole spirit of their success was embodied therein.

Their father, of farming stock, had come from Dorsetshire near the beginning of the century.

‘Superior Dosset Forsyte’, as he was called by his intimates, had been a stonemason by trade, and risen to the position of a master-builder. Towards the end of his life he moved to London, where, building on until he died, he was buried at Highgate. He left over thirty thousand pounds between his ten children. Old Jolyon alluded to him, if at all, as ‘A hard, thick sort of man; not much refinement about him’. The second generation of Forsytes felt indeed that he was not greatly to their credit The only aristocratic trait they could find in his character was a habit of drinking Madeira.

Aunt Hester, an authority on family history, described him thus:

‘I don’t recollect that he ever did anything; at least, not in my time. He was er – an owner of houses, my dear. His hair about your Uncle Swithin’s colour; rather a square build. Tall? No-ot very tall’ (he had been five feet five, with a mottled face); ‘a fresh-coloured man. I remember he used to drink Madeira; but ask your Aunt Ann. What was his father? He – er – had to do with the land down in Dorsetshire, by the sea.’

James once went down to see for himself what sort of place this was that they had come from. He found two old farms, with a cart-track rutted into the pink earth, leading down to a mill by the beach; a little grey church with a buttressed outer wall and a smaller and greyer chapel. The stream which worked the mill came bubbling down in a dozen rivulets, and pigs were hunting round that estuary. A haze hovered over the prospect. Down this hollow, with their feet deep in the mud and their faces towards the sea, it appeared that the primeval Forsytes had been content to walk Sunday after Sunday for hundreds of years.