SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE

It was full late for the river, but the weather was lovely, and summer lingered below the yellowing leaves. Soames took many looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that Sunday morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat, and equipped the punt, in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them on the river. Placing those Chinese-looking cushions, he could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone. She was so very pretty—could he trust himself not to say irrevocable words, passing beyond the limits of discretion? Roses on the veranda were still in bloom, and the hedges ever-green, so that there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood; yet was he nervous, fidgety, strangely distrustful of his powers to steer just the right course. This visit had been planned to produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions, so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture he might later be disposed to make. He dressed with great care, making himself neither too young nor too old, very thankful that his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it. Three times he went up to his picture-gallery. If they had any knowledge at all, they must see at once that his collection alone was worth at least thirty thousand pounds. He minutely inspected, too, the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would take off their hats. It would be her bedroom if—if the matter went through, and she became his wife. Going up to the dressing-table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured pincushion, into which were stuck all kinds of pins; a bowl of pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little. His wife! If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand, and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone through first; and with gloom puckered on his forehead, he looked out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn. Madame Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child; Annette would never resist her mother. If only he were free! He drove to the station to meet them. What taste Frenchwomen had! Madame Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour, Annette in greyish lilac linen, with cream coloured gloves and hat. Rather pale she looked and Londony; and her blue eyes were demure. Waiting for them to come down to lunch, Soames stood in the open french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when youth and beauty were there to share it with one. He had ordered the lunch with intense consideration; the wine was a very special Sauterne, the whole appointments of the meal perfect, the coffee served on the veranda super-excellent. Madame Lamotte accepted creme de menthe; Annette refused. Her manners were charming, with just a suspicion of ‘the conscious beauty’ creeping into them. ‘Yes, ’ thought Soames, ‘another year of London and that sort of life, and she’ll be spoiled.’

Madame was in sedate French raptures. “Adorable! Le soleil est si bon! How everything is chic, is it not, Annette? Monsieur is a real Monte Cristo.” Annette murmured assent, with a look up at Soames which he could not read. He proposed a turn on the river. But to punt two persons when one of them looked so ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a sense of lost opportunity; so they went but a short way towards Pangbourne, drifting slowly back, with every now and then an autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother’s black amplitude. And Soames was not happy, worried by the thought: ‘How—when—where—can I say—what? ’ They did not yet even know that he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand that he wished for Annette’s hand, it would be dropping into some other clutch before he was free to claim it.

At tea, which they both took with lemon, Soames spoke of the Transvaal.

“There’ll be war, ” he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.

“Ces pauvres gens bergers! ” Could they not be left to themselves?

Soames smiled—the question seemed to him absurd.

Surely as a woman of business she understood that the British could not abandon their legitimate commercial interests.

“Ah! that! ” But Madame Lamotte found that the English were a little hypocrite. They were talking of justice and the Uitlanders, not of business. Monsieur was the first who had spoken to her of that.

“The Boers are only half-civilised, ” remarked Soames; “they stand in the way of progress. It will never do to let our suzerainty go.”

“What does that mean to say? Suzerainty! ”

“What a strange word! ” Soames became eloquent, roused by these threats to the principle of possession, and stimulated by Annette’s eyes fixed on him. He was delighted when presently she said:

“I think Monsieur is right. They should be taught a lesson.” She was sensible!

“Of course, ” he said, “we must act with moderation. I’m no jingo. We must be firm without bullying. Will you come up and see my pictures? ” Moving from one to another of these treasures, he soon perceived that they knew nothing. They passed his last Mauve, that remarkable study of a ‘Hay-cart going Home, ’ as if it were a lithograph. He waited almost with awe to see how they would view the jewel of his collection—an Israels whose price he had watched ascending till he was now almost certain it had reached top value, and would be better on the market again. They did not view it at all. This was a shock; and yet to have in Annette a virgin taste to form would be better than to have the silly, half-baked predilections of the English middle-class to deal with. At the end of the gallery was a Meissonier of which he was rather ashamed—Meissonier was so steadily going down. Madame Lamotte stopped before it.

“Meissonier! Ah! What a jewel! ” Soames took advantage of that moment. Very gently touching Annette’s arm, he said:

“How do you like my place, Annette? ”

She did not shrink, did not respond; she looked at him full, looked down, and murmured:

“Who would not like it? It is so beautiful! ”

“Perhaps some day—” Soames said, and stopped.

So pretty she was, so self-possessed—she frightened him. Those cornflower-blue eyes, the turn of that creamy neck, her delicate curves—she was a standing temptation to indiscretion! No! No! One must be sure of one’s ground—much surer! ‘If I hold off, ’ he thought, ‘it will tantalise her.’ And he crossed over to Madame Lamotte, who was still in front of the Meissonier.

“Yes, that’s quite a good example of his later work. You must come again, Madame, and see them lighted up. You must both come and spend a night.”

Enchanted, would it not be beautiful to see them lighted? By moonlight too, the river must be ravishing!

Annette murmured:

“Thou art sentimental, Maman! ”

Sentimental! That black-robed, comely, substantial Frenchwoman of the world! And suddenly he was certain as he could be that there was no sentiment in either of them. All the better. Of what use sentiment? And yet…!

He drove to the station with them, and saw them into the train. To the tightened pressure of his hand it seemed that Annette’s fingers responded just a little; her face smiled at him through the dark.

He went back to the carriage, brooding. “Go on home, Jordan, ” he said to the coachman; “I’ll walk.” And he strode out into the darkening lanes, caution and the desire of possession playing see-saw within him. ‘Bon soir, monsieur! ’ How softly she had said it. To know what was in her mind! The French—they were like cats—one could tell nothing! But—how pretty! What a perfect young thing to hold in one’s arms! What a mother for his heir! And he thought, with a smile, of his family and their surprise at a French wife, and their curiosity, and of the way he would play with it and buffet it confound them!

The, poplars sighed in the darkness; an owl hooted. Shadows deepened in the water. ‘I will and must be free, ’ he thought. ‘I won’t hang about any longer. I’ll go and see Irene. If you want things done, do them yourself. I must live again—live and move and have my being.’ And in echo to that queer biblicality church-bells chimed the call to evening prayer.

Chapter XI.

AND VISITS THE PAST

On a Tuesday evening after dining at his club Soames set out to do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet undertaken in his life—save perhaps his birth, and one other action. He chose the evening, indeed, partly because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring.

He left his hansom on the Embankment, and walked up to the Old Church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion; and having read the name, ‘Mrs. Irene Heron’—Heron, forsooth! Her maiden name: so she used that again, did she? —he stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming through in the corner fiat, and he could hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not enter. Repulse! The long repulse, at first restrained and secret, at last open! Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her, he stood more undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him; his tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. ‘I have no cause to be afraid, ’ he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Ought he not to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee? No! Not before that fellow Jolyon, who sympathised with her! Never! He crossed back into the doorway, and, slowly, to keep down the beating of his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When the door was opened to him his sensations were regulated by the scent which came—that perfume—from away back in the past, bringing muffled remembrance: fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter, of a house he used to own—perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey!

“Say, Mr. Forsyte, ” he said, “your mistress will see me, I know.” He had thought this out; she would think it was Jolyon!

When the maid was gone and he was alone in the tiny hall, where the light was dim from one pearly-shaded sconce, and walls, carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled-in space all ghostly, he could only think ridiculously: ‘Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it off? ’ The music ceased; the maid said from the doorway:

“Will you walk in, sir? ”

Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still silvery, and that the upright piano was of satinwood. She had risen and stood recoiled against it; her hand, placed on the keys as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, held for a moment, and released. The light from the shaded piano-candle fell on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow. She was in a black evening dress, with a sort of mantilla over her shoulders—he did not remember ever having seen her in black, and the thought passed through him: ‘She dresses even when she’s alone.’

“You! ” he heard her whisper.

Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal served him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never thought that the sight of this woman whom he had once so passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not seen for twelve years, could affect him in this way. He had imagined himself speaking and acting, half as man of business, half as judge. And now it was as if he were in the presence not of a mere woman and erring wife, but of some force, subtle and elusive as atmosphere itself within him and outside. A kind of defensive irony welled up in him.

“Yes, it’s a queer visit! I hope you’re well.”

“Thank you. Will you sit down? ”

She had moved away from the piano, and gone over to a window-seat, sinking on to it, with her hands clasped in her lap. Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful.

He sat down on the edge of a satinwood chair, upholstered with silver-coloured stuff, close to where he was standing.

“You have not changed, ” he said.

“No? What have you come for? ”

“To discuss things.”

“I have heard what you want from your cousin.”

“Well? ”

“I am willing. I have always been.”

The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her figure watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now. A thousand memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred, and…

“Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on which I can act. The law must be complied with.”

“I have none to give you that you don’t know of.”

“Twelve years! Do you suppose I can believe that? ”

“I don’t suppose you will believe anything I say; but it’s the truth.”

Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed; now he perceived that she had. Not in face, except that it was more beautiful; not in form, except that it was a little fuller—no! She had changed spiritually. There was more of her, as it were, something of activity and daring, where there had been sheer passive resistance. ‘Ah! ’ he thought, ‘that’s her independent income! Confound Uncle Jolyon! ’

“I suppose you’re comfortably off now? ” he said.

“Thank you, yes.”

“Why didn’t you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of everything.”

A faint smile came on her lips; but she did not answer.

“You are still my wife, ” said Soames. Why he said that, what he meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a truism almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She rose from the window-seat, and stood for a moment perfectly still, looking at him. He could see her bosom heaving. Then she turned to the window and threw it open.

“Why do that? ” he said sharply. “You’ll catch cold in that dress. I’m not dangerous.” And he uttered a little sad laugh.

She echoed it—faintly, bitterly.

“It was—habit.”

“Rather odd habit, ” said Soames as bitterly. “Shut the window! ”

She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this woman—this—wife of his! He felt it issuing from her as she sat there, in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously he rose and moved nearer; he wanted to see the expression on her face. Her eyes met his unflinching. Heavens! how clear they were, and what a dark brown against that white skin, and that burnt-amber hair! And how white her shoulders.

Funny sensation this! He ought to hate her.

“You had better tell me, ” he said; “it’s to your advantage to be free as well as to mine. That old matter is too old.”

“I have told you.”

“Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing—nobody? ”

“Nobody. You must go to your own life.”

Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to the hearth, to and fro, as he had been wont in the old days in their drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.

“That won’t do, ” he said. “You deserted me. In common justice it’s for you…”

He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur:

“Yes. Why didn’t you divorce me then? Should I have cared? ”

He stopped, and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity. What on earth did she do with herself, if she really lived quite alone? And why had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while he stared at her.

“Why couldn’t you have made me a good wife? ” he said.

“Yes; it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will find some way perhaps. You needn’t mind my name, I have none to lose. Now I think you had better go.”

A sense of defeat—of being defrauded of his self-justification, and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself, beset Soames like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he reached up, took from the mantel-shelf a little china bowl, reversed it, and said:

“Lowestoft. Where did you get this? I bought its fellow at Jobson’s.” And, visited by the sudden memory of how, those many years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained staring at the little bowl, as if it contained all the past. Her voice roused him.

“Take it. I don’t want it.”

Soames put it back on the shelf.

“Will you shake hands? ” he said.

A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand. It was cold to his rather feverish touch. ‘She’s made of ice, ’ he thought—‘she was always made of ice! ’ But even as that thought darted through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of her dress and body, as though the warmth within her, which had never been for him, were struggling to show its presence. And he turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if someone with a whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the empty Embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strewn shadows of the plane-tree leaves—confused, flurried, sore at heart, and vaguely disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him if instead of, ‘I think you had better go, ’ she had said, ‘I think you had better stay! ’ What should he have felt, what would he have done? That cursed attraction of her was there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount to his head at a sign, a touch. ‘I was a fool to go! ’ he muttered. ‘I’ve advanced nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought! ’ Memory, flown back to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks. She had not deserved to keep her beauty—the beauty he had owned and known so well. And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated the sight of her, as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son. And yet the mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly! It was some damned magnetism she had! And no wonder if, as she asserted; she had lived untouched these last twelve years. So Bosinney—cursed be his memory! —had lived on all this time with her! Soames could not tell whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.

Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline ran: ‘Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty! ’ Suzerainty! ‘Just like her! ’ he thought: ‘she always did. Suzerainty! I still have it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little flat! ’

Chapter XII.

ON FORSYTE ‘CHANGE

Soames belonged to two clubs, ‘The Connoisseurs, ’ which he put on his cards and seldom visited, and ‘The Remove, ’ which he did not put on his cards and frequented. He had joined this Liberal institution five years ago, having made sure that its members were now nearly all sound Conservatives in heart and pocket, if not in principle. Uncle Nicholas had put him up. The fine reading-room was decorated in the Adam style.

On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news about the Transvaal, and noted that Consols were down seven-sixteenths since the morning. He was turning away to seek the reading-room when a voice behind him said:

“Well, Soames, that went off all right.”

It was Uncle Nicholas, in a frock-coat and his special cut-away collar, with a black tie passed through a ring. Heavens! How young and dapper he looked at eighty-two!

“I think Roger’d have been pleased, ” his uncle went on. “The thing was very well done. Blackley’s? I’ll make a note of them. Buxton’s done me no good. These Boers are upsetting me—that fellow Chamberlain’s driving the country into war. What do you think? ”

“Bound to come, ” murmured Soames.

Nicholas passed his hand over his thin, clean-shaven cheeks, very rosy after his summer cure; a slight pout had gathered on his lips. This business had revived all his Liberal principles.

“I mistrust that chap; he’s a stormy petrel. House-property will go down if there’s war. You’ll have trouble with Roger’s estate. I often told him he ought to get out of some of his houses. He was an opinionated beggar.”

‘There was a pair of you! ’ thought Soames. But he never argued with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as ‘a long-headed chap, ’ and the legal care of their property.

“They tell me at Timothy’s, ” said Nicholas, lowering his voice, “that Dartie has gone off at last. That’ll be a relief to your father. He was a rotten egg.”

Again Soames nodded. If there was a subject on which the Forsytes really agreed, it was the character of Montague Dartie.

“You take care, ” said Nicholas, “or he’ll turn up again. Winifred had better have the tooth out, I should say. No use preserving what’s gone bad.”

Soames looked at him sideways. His nerves, exacerbated by the interview he had just come through, disposed him to see a personal allusion in those words.

“I’m advising her, ” he said shortly.

“Well, ” said Nicholas, “the brougham’s waiting; I must get home. I’m very poorly. Remember me to your father.”

And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down the steps at his youthful gait and was wrapped into his fur coat by the junior porter.

‘I’ve never known Uncle Nicholas other than “very poorly, ”’ mused Soames, ‘or seen him look other than everlasting. What a family! Judging by him, I’ve got thirty-eight years of health before me. Well, I’m not going to waste them.’ And going over to a mirror he stood looking at his face. Except for a line or two, and three or four grey hairs in his little dark moustache, had he aged any more than Irene? The prime of life—he and she in the very prime of life! And a fantastic thought shot into his mind. Absurd! Idiotic! But again it came. And genuinely alarmed by the recurrence, as one is by the second fit of shivering which presages a feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine. Eleven stone! He had not varied two pounds in twenty years. What age was she? Nearly thirty-seven—not too old to have a child—not at all! Thirty-seven on the ninth of next month. He remembered her birthday well—he had always observed it religiously, even that last birthday so soon before she left him, when he was almost certain she was faithless. Four birthdays in his house. He had looked forward to them, because his gifts had meant a semblance of gratitude, a certain attempt at warmth. Except, indeed, that last birthday—which had tempted him to be too religious! And he shied away in thought. Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense. And then he thought suddenly: ‘I could send her a present for her birthday. After all, we’re Christians! Couldn’t! —couldn’t we join up again! ’ And he uttered a deep sigh sitting there. Annette! Ah! but between him and Annette was the need for that wretched divorce suit! And how?

“A man can always work these things, if he’ll take it on himself, ” Jolyon had said.

But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole career as a pillar of the law at stake? It was not fair! It was quixotic! Twelve years’ separation in which he had taken no steps to free himself put out of court the possibility of using her conduct with Bosinney as a ground for divorcing her. By doing nothing to secure relief he had acquiesced, even if the evidence could now be gathered, which was more than doubtful. Besides, his own pride would never let him use that old incident, he had suffered from it too much. No! Nothing but fresh misconduct on her part—but she had denied it; and—almost—he had believed her. Hung up! Utterly hung up!

He rose from the scooped-out red velvet seat with a feeling of constriction about his vitals. He would never sleep with this going on in him! And, taking coat and hat again, he went out, moving eastward. In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some special commotion travelling towards him out of the mouth of the Strand. It materialised in newspaper men calling out so loudly that no words whatever could be heard. He stopped to listen, and one came by.

“Payper! Special! Ultimatium by Krooger! Declaration of war! ” Soames bought the paper. There it was in the stop press…! His first thought was: ‘The Boers are committing suicide.’ His second: ‘Is there anything still I ought to sell? ’ If so he had missed the chance—there would certainly be a slump in the city to-morrow. He swallowed this thought with a nod of defiance. That ultimatum was insolent—sooner than let it pass he was prepared to lose money. They wanted a lesson, and they would get it; but it would take three months at least to bring them to heel. There weren’t the troops out there; always behind time, the Government! Confound those newspaper rats! What was the use of waking everybody up? Breakfast to-morrow was quite soon enough. And he thought with alarm of his father. They would cry it down Park Lane. Hailing a hansom, he got in and told the man to drive there.

James and Emily had just gone up to bed, and after communicating the news to Warmson, Soames prepared to follow. He paused by after-thought to say:

“What do you think of it, Warmson? ”

The butler ceased passing a hat brush over the silk hat Soames had taken off, and, inclining his face a little forward, said in a low voice: “Well, sir, they ‘aven’t a chance, of course; but I’m told they’re very good shots. I’ve got a son in the Inniskillings.”

“You, Warmson? Why, I didn’t know you were married.”

“No, sir. I don’t talk of it. I expect he’ll be going out.”

The slighter shock Soames had felt on discovering that he knew so little of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the slight shock of discovering that the war might touch one personally. Born in the year of the Crimean War, he had only come to consciousness by the time the Indian Mutiny was over; since then the many little wars of the British Empire had been entirely professional, quite unconnected with the Forsytes and all they stood for in the body politic. This war would surely be no exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of the Haymans, he had heard, were in some Yeomanry or other—it had always been a pleasant thought, there was a certain distinction about the Yeomanry; they wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform with silver about it, and rode horses. And Archibald, he remembered, had once on a time joined the Militia, but had given it up because his father, Nicholas, had made such a fuss about his ‘wasting his time peacocking about in a uniform.’ Recently he had heard somewhere that young Nicholas’ eldest, very young Nicholas, had become a Volunteer. ‘No, ’ thought Soames, mounting the stairs slowly, ‘there’s nothing in that! ’

He stood on the landing outside his parents’ bed and dressing rooms, debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a reassuring word. Opening the landing window, he listened. The rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the thought, ‘If these motor-cars increase, it’ll affect house property, ’ he was about to pass on up to the room always kept ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the hoarse rushing call of a newsvendor. There it was, and coming past the house! He knocked on his mother’s door and went in.

His father was sitting up in bed, with his ears pricked under the white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut. He looked pink, and extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned shoulders emerged in small peaks. His eyes alone, grey and distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down, squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The room reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.

“All right! ” said Soames, “it’s not a fire. The Boers have declared war—that’s all.”

Emily stopped her spraying.

“Oh! ” was all she said, and looked at James.

Soames, too, looked at his father. He was taking it differently from their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were working in him.

“H’m! ” he muttered suddenly, “I shan’t live to see the end of this.”

“Nonsense, James! It’ll be over by Christmas.”

“What do you know about it? ” James answered her with asperity. “It’s a pretty mess at this time of night, too! ” He lapsed into silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him to say: ‘I can’t tell—I don’t know; I knew how it would be! ’ But he did not. The grey eyes shifted, evidently seeing nothing in the room; then movement occurred under the bedclothes, and the knees were drawn up suddenly to a great height.

“They ought to send out Roberts. It all comes from that fellow Gladstone and his Majuba.”

The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice, something of real anxiety. It was as if he had said: ‘I shall never see the old country peaceful and safe again. I shall have to die before I know she’s won.’ And in spite of the feeling that James must not be encouraged to be fussy, they were touched. Soames went up to the bedside and stroked his father’s hand which had emerged from under the bedclothes, long and wrinkled with veins.

“Mark my words! ” said James, “consols will go to par. For all I know, Val may go and enlist.”

“Oh, come, James! ” cried Emily, “you talk as if there were danger.”

Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once.

“Well, ” he muttered, “I told you how it would be. I don’t know, I’m sure—nobody tells me anything. Are you sleeping here, my boy? ”

The crisis was past, he would now compose himself to his normal degree of anxiety; and, assuring his father that he was sleeping in the house, Soames pressed his hand, and went up to his room.

The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy’s had known for many a year. On national occasions, such as this, it was, indeed, almost impossible to avoid going there. Not that there was any danger or rather only just enough to make it necessary to assure each other that there was none.

Nicholas was there early. He had seen Soames the night before—Soames had said it was bound to come. This old Kruger was in his dotage—why, he must be seventy-five if he was a day!

(Nicholas was eighty-two.) What had Timothy said? He had had a fit after Majuba. These Boers were a grasping lot! The dark-haired Francie, who had arrived on his heels, with the contradictious touch which became the free spirit of a daughter of Roger, chimed in:

“Kettle and pot, Uncle Nicholas. What price the Uitlanders? ” What price, indeed! A new expression, and believed to be due to her brother George.

Aunt Juley thought Francie ought not to say such a thing. Dear Mrs. MacAnder’s boy, Charlie MacAnder, was one, and no one could call him grasping. At this Francie uttered one of her mots, scandalising, and so frequently repeated:

“Well, his father’s a Scotchman, and his mother’s a cat.”

Aunt Juley covered her ears, too late, but Aunt Hester smiled; as for Nicholas, he pouted—witticism of which he was not the author was hardly to his taste. Just then Marian Tweetyman arrived, followed almost immediately by young Nicholas. On seeing his son, Nicholas rose.

“Well, I must be going, ” he said, “Nick here will tell you what’ll win the race.” And with this hit at his eldest, who, as a pillar of accountancy, and director of an insurance company, was no more addicted to sport than his father had ever been, he departed. Dear Nicholas! What race was that? Or was it only one of his jokes? He was a wonderful man for his age! How many lumps would dear Marian take? And how were Giles and Jesse? Aunt Juley supposed their Yeomanry would be very busy now, guarding the coast, though of course the Boers had no ships. But one never knew what the French might do if they had the chance, especially since that dreadful Fashoda scare, which had upset Timothy so terribly that he had made no investments for months afterwards. It was the ingratitude of the Boers that was so dreadful, after everything had been done for them—Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he was so nice, Mrs. MacAnder had always said. And Sir Alfred Milner sent out to talk to them—such a clever man! She didn’t know what they wanted.

But at this moment occurred one of those sensations—so precious at Timothy’s—which great occasions sometimes bring forth:

“Miss June Forsyte.”

Aunts Juley and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from smothered resentment, and old affection bubbling up, and pride at the return of a prodigal June! Well, this was a surprise! Dear June—after all these years! And how well she was looking! Not changed at all! It was almost on their lips to add, ‘And how is your dear grandfather? ’ forgetting in that giddy moment that poor dear Jolyon had been in his grave for seven years now.

Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June, with her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like flame, sat down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a bead-worked seat, for all the world as if ten years had not elapsed since she had been to see them—ten years of travel and independence and devotion to lame ducks. Those ducks of late had been all definitely painters, etchers, or sculptors, so that her impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly inartistic outlook had become intense. Indeed, she had almost ceased to believe that her family existed, and looked round her now with a sort of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort to the roomful. She had not expected to meet any of them but ‘the poor old things’; and why she had come to see them she hardly knew, except that, while on her way from Oxford Street to a studio in Latimer Road, she had suddenly remembered them with compunction as two long-neglected old lame ducks.

Aunt Juley broke the hush again. “We’ve just been saying, dear, how dreadful it is about these Boers! And what an impudent thing of that old Kruger! ”

“Impudent! ” said June. “I think he’s quite right. What business have we to meddle with them? If he turned out all those wretched Uitlanders it would serve them right. They’re only after money.”

The silence of sensation was broken by Francie saying:

“What? Are you a pro-Boer? ” (undoubtedly the first use of that expression).

“Well! Why can’t we leave them alone? ” said June, just as, in the open doorway, the maid said “Mr. Soames Forsyte.” Sensation on sensation! Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how June and he would take this encounter, for it was shrewdly suspected, if not quite known, that they had not met since that old and lamentable affair of her fiance Bosinney with Soames’ wife. They were seen to just touch each other’s hands, and look each at the other’s left eye only. Aunt Juley came at once to the rescue:

“Dear June is so original. Fancy, Soames, she thinks the Boers are not to blame.”

“They only want their independence, ” said June; “and why shouldn’t they have it? ”

“Because, ” answered Soames, with his smile a little on one side, “they happen to have agreed to our suzerainty.”

“Suzerainty! ” repeated June scornfully; “we shouldn’t like anyone’s suzerainty over us.”

“They got advantages in payment, ” replied Soames; “a contract is a contract.”

“Contracts are not always just, ” fumed out June, “and when they’re not, they ought to be broken. The Boers are much the weaker. We could afford to be generous.”

Soames sniffed. “That’s mere sentiment, ” he said.

Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively:

“What lovely weather it has been for the time of year? ”

But June was not to be diverted.

“I don’t know why sentiment should be sneered at. It’s the best thing in the world.” She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Juley had to intervene again:

“Have you bought any pictures lately, Soames? ”

Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed her. Soames flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases would be like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they all knew of June’s predilection for ‘genius’ not yet on its legs, and her contempt for ‘success’ unless she had had a finger in securing it.

“One or two, ” he muttered.

But June’s face had changed; the Forsyte within her was seeing its chance. Why should not Soames buy some of the pictures of Eric Cobbley—her last lame duck? And she promptly opened her attack: Did Soames know his work? It was so wonderful. He was the coming man.

Oh, yes, Soames knew his work. It was in his view ‘splashy, ’ and would never get hold of the public.

June blazed up.

“Of course it won’t; that’s the last thing one would wish for. I thought you were a connoisseur, not a picture-dealer.”

“Of course Soames is a connoisseur, ” Aunt Juley said hastily; “he has wonderful taste—he can always tell beforehand what’s going to be successful.”

“Oh! ” gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair, “I hate that standard of success. Why can’t people buy things because they like them? ”

“You mean, ” said Francie, “because you like them.”

And in the slight pause young Nicholas was heard saying gently that Violet (his fourth) was taking lessons in pastel, he didn’t know if they were any use.

“Well, good-bye, Auntie, ” said June; “I must get on, ” and kissing her aunts, she looked defiantly round the room, said “Good-bye” again, and went. A breeze seemed to pass out with her, as if everyone had sighed.

The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak:

“Mr. James Forsyte.”

James came in using a stick slightly and wrapped in a fur coat which gave him a fictitious bulk.

Everyone stood up. James was so old; and he had not been at Timothy’s for nearly two years.

“It’s hot in here, ” he said.

Soames divested him of his coat, and as he did so could not help admiring the glossy way his father was turned out. James sat down, all knees, elbows, frock-coat, and long white whiskers.

“What’s the meaning of that? ” he said.

Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew that he was referring to June. His eyes searched his son’s face.

“I thought I’d come and see for myself. What have they answered Kruger? ”

Soames took out an evening paper, and read the headline.

“‘Instant action by our Government—state of war existing! ’”

“Ah! ” said James, and sighed. “I was afraid they’d cut and run like old Gladstone. We shall finish with them this time.”

All stared at him. James! Always fussy, nervous, anxious! James with his continual, ‘I told you how it would be! ’ and his pessimism, and his cautious investments. There was something uncanny about such resolution in this the oldest living Forsyte.

“Where’s Timothy? ” said James. “He ought to pay attention to this.”

Aunt Juley said she didn’t know; Timothy had not said much at lunch to-day. Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the room, and Francie said rather maliciously:

“The Boers are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James.”

“H’m! ” muttered James. “Where do you get your information? Nobody tells me.”

Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick (his eldest) was now going to drill regularly.

“Ah! ” muttered James, and stared before him—his thoughts were on Val. “He’s got to look after his mother, ” he said, “he’s got no time for drilling and that, with that father of his.” This cryptic saying produced silence, until he spoke again.

“What did June want here? ” And his eyes rested with suspicion on all of them in turn. “Her father’s a rich man now.” The conversation turned on Jolyon, and when he had been seen last. It was supposed that he went abroad and saw all sorts of people now that his wife was dead; his water-colours were on the line, and he was a successful man. Francie went so far as to say:

“I should like to see him again; he was rather a dear.”

Aunt Juley recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day, where James was sitting. He had always been very amiable; what did Soames think?

Knowing that Jolyon was Irene’s trustee, all felt the delicacy of this question, and looked at Soames with interest. A faint pink had come up in his cheeks.

“He’s going grey, ” he said.

Indeed! Had Soames seen him? Soames nodded, and the pink vanished.

James said suddenly: “Well—I don’t know, I can’t tell.”

It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that there was something behind everything, that nobody responded. But at this moment Aunt Hester returned.

“Timothy, ” she said in a low voice, “Timothy has bought a map, and he’s put in—he’s put in three flags.”

Timothy had …! A sigh went round the company.

If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well! —it showed what the nation could do when it was roused. The war was as good as over.

Chapter XIII.

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