The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(308)

Kingson Cuthcott & Forsyte,

Old Jewry.

May 17th, 1932.

MY DEAR MISS CHARWELL, –

I write to tell you that we have succeeded in coming to an arrangement by which the costs of the action will be met without making any call upon either Mr Croom or your sister. I shall be grateful if you could take an opportunity of relieving their minds and also your father’s mind in the matter.

Believe me, my dear Miss Charwell,

Very faithfully yours,

ROGER FORSYTE



Reaching her on a really warm morning, to sound of mowing machine and to scent of grass, it would have ‘intrigued’ her if she had not detested the word. She turned from the window and said:

‘The lawyers say we need none of us worry any more about those costs dad; they’ve come to an arrangement.’

‘How?’

‘They don’t say, but they want your mind relieved.’

‘I don’t understand lawyers,’ muttered the General, ‘but if they say it’s all right, I’m very glad. I’ve been worrying.’

‘Yes, dear. Coffee?’

But she resumed her meditations on that cryptic letter. Did something in Jerry Corven’s conduct force him to agree to this ‘arrangement’? Was there not someone called ‘The King’s Proctor’ who could stop decrees being granted? Or – what?

Abandoning her first idea of driving over to Tony Croom because of the questions he might ask, she wrote to him and to Clare instead. The more, however, she pondered over the wording of the solicitor’s letter, the more convinced she became that she must see ‘very young’ Roger. There was that at the back of her mind which refused quietus. She, therefore, arranged to see him at a teashop near the British Museum on his way homeward from the City, and went there direct from her train. The place was an ‘artifact,’ designed, so far as a Regency edifice could be, to reproduce such a ‘coffee house’ as Boswell and Johnson might have frequented. Its floor was not sanded, but looked as if it should be. There were no long clay pipes, but there were long cardboard cigarette-holders. The furniture was wooden, the light dim. No record having been discovered of what the ‘staff’ should look like, they looked sea-green. Prints of old coaching inns were hung on walls panelled by the Tottenham Court Road. Quite a few patrons were drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. None of them used the long cardboard holders. ‘Very young’ Roger, limping slightly, and with his customary air of not being quite what he ought to be, uncovered his sandyish head and smiled above his chin.

‘China or Indian?’ said Dinny.

‘Whatever you’re having.’

‘Then two coffees, please, and muffins.’

‘Muffins! This is a treat, dear papa. Those are quite good old copper bed-warmers, Miss Cherrell. I wonder if they’d sell them.’

‘Do you collect?’

‘Pick things up. No use having a Queen Anne house unless you can do something for it.’

‘Does your wife sympathize?’

‘No, she’s all for the T.C.R., bridge, golf, and the modernities. I never can keep my hands off old silver.’

‘I have to,’ murmured Dinny. ‘Your letter was a very pleasant relief. Did you really mean that we should none of us have to pay?’

‘I did.’

She considered her next question, scrutinizing him through her lashes. With all his æsthetic leanings, he looked uncommonly spry.

‘In confidence, Mr Forsyte, how did you manage to make that arrangement? Had it to do with my brother-in-law?’

‘Very young’ Roger laid his hand on his heart.

‘ “The tongue of Forsyte is his own,” cf. Marmion. But you needn’t worry.’

‘I need, or shall, unless I know it wasn’t that.’

‘Make your mind easy, then; it had nothing to do with Corven.’

Dinny ate a muffin in complete silence, then spoke of period silver. ‘Very young’ Roger gave an erudite dissertation on its mark – if she would come down for a weekend, he would turn her into a connoisseur.

They parted cordially, and Dinny went towards her Uncle Adrian’s. That uneasiness was still at the back of her mind. The trees had leaved enticingly these last warm days; the Square wherein he dwelled had an air quiet and green, as if inhabited by minds. Nobody was at home. ‘But,’ said the maid, ‘Mr Cherrell is sure to be in about six, miss.’

Dinny waited in a small panelled room full of books and pipes and photographs of Diana and the two Ferse children. An old collie kept her company, and through the opened window seeped the sounds of London streets. She was crumpling the dog’s ears when Adrian came in.