The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(298)

The City had just begun to disgorge its daily life. Its denizens were scurrying out like rabbits; they didn’t scurry in like that, he would bet – work-shy, nowadays! Ten where it used to be nine; five where it used to be six. Still, with the telephone and one thing and another, they got through as much perhaps; and didn’t drink all the beer and sherry and eat all the chops they used to – a skimpier breed altogether, compared with that old boy whose effigy he had just been gazing at, a shadowy, narrow-headed lot, with a nervy, anxious look, as if they’d invested in life and found it a dropping stock. And not a tail-coat or a silk hat to be seen. Settling his own more firmly on his head, he got out at the familiar backwater off the Poultry, and entered the offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte.

Old Gradman was still there, his broad, bent back just divested of its workaday coat.

‘Ah! Mr Soames, I was just going. Excuse me while I put on my coat.’

A frock-coat made in the year one, to judge by the cut of it!

‘I go at half-past five now. There isn’t much to do as a rule. I like to get a nap before supper. It’s a pleasure to see you; you’re quite a stranger.’

‘Yes,’ said Soames. ‘I don’t come in much, but I’ve been thinking. If anything should happen to either or both of us, things would soon be in Queer Street, Gradman.’

‘Aow! We won’t think about tha-at!’

‘But we must; we’re neither of us young men.’

‘Well, I’m not a chicken, but you’re no age, Mr Soames.’

‘Seventy-one.’

‘Dear, dear! It seems only the other day since I took you down to school at Slough. I remember what happened then better than I do what happened yesterday.’

‘So do I, Gradman; and that’s a sign of age. Do you recollect that young chap who came here and told me about Elderson?’

‘Aow, yes! Nice young feller. Buttermilk or some such name.’

‘Butterfield. Well, I’m going to put him under you here, and I want you to get him au fait with everything.’

The old fellow seemed standing very still; his face, in its surround of grey beard and hair, was quite expressionless. Soames hurried on:

‘It’s just precautionary. Some day you’ll be wanting to retire.’

Gradman lifted his hand with a heavy gesture.

‘I’ll die in ’arness, I ’ope,’ he said.

‘That’s as you like, Gradman. You’ll remain as you always have been – in full charge; but you’ll have someone to rely on if you don’t feel well or want a holiday or what not.’

‘I’d rather not, Mr Soames. To have a young man about the place –’

‘A good young fellow, Gradman. And for some reason, grateful to me and to my son-in-law. He won’t give you any trouble. We none of us live for ever, you know.’

The old chap’s face had puckered queerly, his voice grated more than usual.

‘It seems going to meet trouble. I’m quite up to the work, Mr Soames.’

‘Oh! I know how you feel,’ said Soames. ‘I feel much the same myself but Time stands still for no man, and we must look to the future.’

A sigh escaped from its grizzled prison.

‘Well, Mr Soames, if you’ve made up your mind, we’ll say no more; but I don’t like it.’

‘Let me give you a lift to your station.’

‘I’d rather walk, thank you; I like the air. I’ll just lock up.’

Soames perceived that not only drawers but feelings required locking up, and went out.

Faithful old chap! One might go round to Polkingford’s and see if one could pick up that bit of plate.

In that emporium, so lined with silver and gold, that a man wondered whether anything had ever been sold there, Soames stood considering. Must be something that a man could swear by – nothing arty or elegant. He supposed the old chap didn’t drink punch – a chapel-goer! How about those camels in silver-gilt with two humps each and candles coming out of them? ‘Joseph Gradman, in gratitude from the Forsyte family’ engraved between the humps? Gradman lived somewhere near the Zoo. M’m! Camels? No! a bowl was better. If he didn’t drink punch he could put rose-leaves or flowers into it.

‘I want a bowl,’ he said, ‘a really good one.’

‘Yes, sir, I think we have the very article.’

They always had the very article!

‘How about this, sir – massive silver – a very chaste design.’

‘Chaste!’ said Soames. ‘I wouldn’t have it as a gift.’

‘No, sir; it isn’t perhaps exactly what you require. Now, this is a nice little bowl.’