‘Hallo, Soames! Come to measure me for my coffin?’
Soames put the suggestion away with a movement of his hand; he felt queer looking at that travesty of George. They had never got on, but –!
And in his flat, unemotional voice he said:
‘Well, George! You’ll pick up yet. You’re no age. Is there anything I can do for you?’
A grin twitched George’s pallid lips.
‘Make me a codicil. You’ll find paper in the dressing-table drawer.’
Soames took out a sheet of ‘Iseeum’ Club notepaper. Standing at the table, he inscribed the opening words of a codicil with his stylographic pen, and looked round at George. The words came with a hoarse relish.
‘My three screws to young Val Dartie, because he’s the only Forsyte that knows a horse from a donkey.’ A throaty chuckle sounded ghastly in the ears of Soames. ‘What have you said?’
Soames read: ‘I hereby leave my three racehorses to my kinsman, Valerius Dartie, of Wansdon, Sussex, because he has special knowledge of horses.’
Again the throaty chuckle. ‘You’re a dry, file, Soames. Go on. To Milly Moyle, of 12, Claremont Grove, twelve thousand pounds, free of legacy duty.’
Soames paused on the verge of a whistle.
The woman in the next room!
The japing in George’s eyes had turned to brooding gloom.
‘It’s a lot of money,’ Soames could not help saying.
George made a faint choleric sound.
‘Write it down, or I’ll leave her the lot.’
Soames wrote. ‘Is that all?’
‘Yes. Read it!’
Soames read. Again he heard that throaty chuckle.
‘That’s a pill. You won’t let that into the papers. Get that chap in, and you and he can witness.’
Before Soames reached the door, it was opened and the man himself came in.
‘The – er – vicar, sir,’ he said in a deprecating voice, ‘has called. He wants to know if you would like to see him.’
George turned his face, his fleshy grey eyes rolled.
‘Give him my compliments,’ he said, ‘and say I’ll see him at the funeral.’
With a bow the man went out, and there was silence.
‘Now,’ said George, ‘get him in again. I don’t know when the flag’ll fall.’
Soames beckoned the man in. When the codicil was signed and the man gone, George spoke:
‘Take it, and see she gets it. I can trust you, that’s one thing about you, Soames.’
Soames pocketed the codicil with a very queer sensation.
‘Would you like to see her again?’ he said.
George stared up at him a long time before he answered.
‘No. What’s the good? Give me a cigar from that drawer.’
Soames opened the drawer.
‘Ought you?’ he said.
George grinned. ‘Never in my life done what I ought; not going to begin now. Cut it for me.’
Soames nipped the end of the cigar. ‘Shan’t give him a match,’ he thought. ‘Can’t take the responsibility.’ But George did not ask for a match. He lay quite still, the unlighted cigar between his pale lips, the curved lids down over his eyes.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have a snooze.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Soames. ‘I – I hope – you – you’ll soon –’
George reopened his eyes – fixed, sad, jesting, they seemed to quench the shams of hope and consolation. Soames turned hastily and went out. He felt bad, and almost unconsciously turned again into the sitting-room. The woman was still in the same attitude; the same florid scent was in the air. Soames took up the umbrella he had left there, and went out.
‘This is my telephone number,’ he said to the servant waiting in the corridor; ‘let me know.’
The man bowed.
Soames turned out of Belville Row. Never had he left George’s presence without the sense of being laughed at. Had he been laughed at now? Was that codicil George’s last joke? If he had not gone in this afternoon, would George ever have made it, leaving a third of his property away from his family to that florid woman in the high-backed chair? Soames was beset by a sense of mystery. How could a man joke at death’s door? It was, in a way, heroic. Where would he be buried? Somebody would know – Francie or Eustace. And what would they think when they came to know about that woman in the chair – twelve thousand pounds! ‘If I can get hold of that white monkey, I will,’ he thought suddenly. ‘It’s a good thing.’ The monkey’s eyes, the squeezed-out fruit – was life all a bitter jest and George deeper than himself? He rang the Green Street bell.
Mrs Dartie was very sorry, but Mrs Cardigan had called for her to dine and make a fourth at the play.