The Forsyte Saga(7)
Whether or no James had cherished hopes of an inheritance, or of something rather distinguished to be found down there, he came back to town in a poor way, and went about with a pathetic attempt at making the best of a bad job.
‘There’s very little to be had out of that,’ he said; ‘regular country little place, old as the hills.’
Its age was felt to be a comfort. Old Jolyon, in whom a desperate honesty welled up at times, would allude to his ancestors as: ‘Yeomen – I suppose very small beer.’ Yet he would repeat the word ‘yeomen’ as if it afforded him consolation.
They had all done so well for themselves, these Forsytes, that they were all what is called ‘of a certain position’. They had shares in all sorts of things, not as yet – with the exception of Timothy – in Consols, for they had no dread in life like that of 3 per cent for their money. They collected pictures, too, and were supporters of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial to their sick domestics. From their father, the builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and mortar. Originally, perhaps, members of some primitive sect, they were now in the natural course of things members of the Church of England, and caused their wives and children to attend with some regularity the more fashionable churches of the Metropolis. To have doubted their Christianity would have caused them both pain and surprise. Some of them paid for pews, thus expressing in the most practical form their sympathy with the teachings of Christ.
Their residences, placed at stated intervals round the Park, watched like sentinels, lest the fair heart of this London, where their desires were fixed, should slip from their clutches, and leave them lower in their own estimations.
There was old Jolyon in Stanhope Place; the Jameses in Park Lane; Swithin in the lonely glory of orange and blue chambers in Hyde Park Mansions – he had never married, not he! – the Soameses in their nest off Knightsbridge; the Rogers in Prince’s Gardens (Roger was that remarkable Forsyte who had conceived and carried out the notion of bringing up his four sons to a new profession. ‘Collect house property – nothing like it!’ he would say; ‘I never did anything else!’).
The Haymans again – Mrs Hayman was the one married Forsyte sister – in a house high up on Campden Hill, shaped like a giraffe, and so tall that it gave the observer a crick in the neck; the Nicholases in Ladbroke Grove, a spacious abode and a great bargain; and last, but not least, Timothy’s on the Bays-water Road, where Ann, and Juley, and Hester lived under his protection.
But all this time James was musing, and now he inquired of his host and brother what he had given for that house in Montpelier Square. He himself had had his eye on a house there for the last two years, but they wanted such a price.
Old Jolyon recounted the details of his purchase.
‘Twenty-two years to run?’ repeated James; ‘the very house I was after – you’ve given too much for it!’
Old Jolyon frowned.
‘It’s not that I want it,’ said James hastily; ‘wouldn’t suit my purpose at that price. Soames knows the house, well – he’ll tell you it’s too dear – his opinion’s worth having.’
‘I don’t,’ said old Jolyon, ‘care a fig for his opinion.’
‘Well,’ murmured James, ‘you will have your own way – it’s a good opinion. Good-bye! We’re going to drive down to Hurlingham. They tell me June’s going to Wales. You’ll be lonely tomorrow. What’ll you do with yourself? You’d better come and dine with us!’
Old Jolyon refused. He went down to the front door and saw them into their barouche, and twinkled at them, having already forgotten his spleen – Mrs James facing the horses, tall and majestic with auburn hair; on her left, Irene – the two husbands, father and son, sitting forward, as though they expected something, opposite their wives. Bobbing and bounding upon the spring cushions, silent, swaying to each motion of their chariot, old Jolyon watched them drive away under the sunlight.
During the drive the silence was broken by Mrs James.
‘Did you ever see such a collection of rumty-too people?’
Soames, glancing at her beneath his eyelids, nodded, and he saw Irene steal at him one of her unfathomable looks. It is likely enough that each branch of the Forsyte family made that remark as they drove away from old Jolyon’s ‘at home’.
Amongst the last of the departing guests the fourth and fifth brothers, Nicholas and Roger, walked away together, directing their steps alongside Hyde Park towards the Praed Street station of the Underground. Like all other Forsytes of a certain age they kept carriages of their own, and never took cabs if by any means they could avoid it.