 CHAPTER IV. Somes Foresight walked out of his green-painted front door three days after the dinner at Swithins, and looking back from across the square, confirmed his impression that his house wanted painting. He had left his wife sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room, her hands crossed in her lap, manifestly waiting for him to go out. This was not unusual. It happened, in fact, every day. He could not understand what she found wrong with him. It was not as if he drank. Did he run into debt, or gamble, or swear? Was he violent? Were his friends rackety? Did he stay out at night? On the contrary. The profound subdued aversion which he felt in his wife was a mystery to him, and a source of the most terrible irritation. That she had made a mistake, and did not love him, had tried to love him, and could not love him, was obviously no reason. He that could imagine so outlandish a cause for his wife's not getting on with him, was certainly no foresight. Somes was forced, therefore, to set the blame entirely down to his wife. He had never met a woman so capable of inspiring affection. They could not go anywhere without his seeing how all the men were attracted by her. Their looks, manners, voices betrayed it. Her behaviour under this attention had been beyond reproach. That she was one of those women, not too common in the Anglo-Saxon race, born to be loved and to love, who when not loving are not living, had certainly never even occurred to him. Her power of attraction he regarded as part of her value as his property. But it made him indeed suspect that she could give as well as receive, and she gave him nothing. Then why did she marry me, was his continual thought. He had forgotten his courtship, that year and a half when he had besieged and lain in wait for her, devising schemes for her entertainment, giving her presence, proposing to her periodically, and keeping her other admirers away with his perpetual presence. He had forgotten the day when, adroitly taking advantage of an acute phase of her dislike to her home surroundings, he crowned his labours with success. If he remembered anything, it was the dainty capriciousness with which the gold-haired dark-eyed girl had treated him. He certainly did not remember the look on her face, strange, passive, and appealing, when suddenly one day she had yielded it, and said that she would marry him. It had been one of those real devoted wooings which books and people praise, when the lover is at length rewarded for hammering the iron till it is malleable, and all must be happy ever after, as the wedding bells. Somes walked eastward, mousing doggedly along on the shady side. The house wanted doing up, unless he decided to move into the country and build. For the hundredth time that month he turned over this problem. There was no use in rushing into things. He was very comfortably off, with an increasing income getting on for three thousand a year, but his invested capital was not perhaps so large as his father believed. James had a tendency to expect that his children should be better off than they were. I can manage eight thousand easily enough, he thought, without calling in either Robertson's or Nicholls. He had stopped to look in at a picture shop, for Somes was an amateur of pictures, and had a little room in No. 62 Montpellier Square, full of canvases stacked against the wall, which he had no room to hang. He brought them home with him on his way back from the city, generally after dark, and would enter this room on Sunday afternoons to spend hours turning the pictures to the light, examining the marks on their backs, and occasionally making notes. They were nearly all landscapes with figures in the foreground, a sign of some mysterious revolt against London, its tall houses, its interminable streets, where his life and the lives of his breed and class were passed. Every now and then he would take one or two pictures away with him in a cab, and stop at Jobsons on his way into the city. He rarely showed them to any one. Irene, whose opinion he secretly respected, and perhaps for that reason never solicited, had only been into the room on rare occasions in discharge of some wifely duty. She was not asked to look at the pictures, and she never did. To Somes this was another grievance. He hated that pride of hers, and secretly dreaded it. In the plate-glass window of the picture shop his image stood and looked at him. His sleek hair under the brim of the tall hat had a sheen like the hat itself. His cheeks pale and flat, the line of his clean shaven lips, his firm chin with its grayish-shaven tinge, and the buttoned strictness of his black cutaway coat conveyed an appearance of reserve and secrecy, of imperturbable enforced composure. But his eyes, cold, gray, strained looking, with a line in the brow between them, examined him wistfully as if they knew of a secret weakness. He noted the subjects of the pictures, the names of the painters, made a calculation of their values, but without the satisfaction he usually derived from this inward appraisement. And walked on. Number sixty-two would do well enough for another year if he decided to build. The times were good for building, money had not been so dear for years, and the sight he had seen at Robin Hill when he had gone down there in the spring to inspect the nickel mortgage, what could be better? Within twelve miles of Hyde Park Corner the value of the land certain to go up would always fetch more than he gave for it, so that a house, if built in really good style, was a first-class investment. The notion of being the one member of his family with a country-house weighed but little with him, for to a true foresight, sentiment, even the sentiment of social position, was a luxury only to be indulged in after his appetite for more material pleasure had been satisfied. To get Irene out of London, away from opportunities of going about and seeing people, away from her friends, and those who put ideas into her head. That was the thing. She was too thick with June. June disliked him, and he returned the sentiment. They were of the same blood. It would be everything to get Irene out of town. The house would please her. She would enjoy messing about with the decoration. She was very artistic. The house must be in good style, something that would always be certain to command a price, something unique like that last house of parks which had a tower, but parks himself had said that his architect was ruinous. You never knew where you were with these fellows. If they had a name, they ran you into no end of expense and were conceited into the bargain. And a common architect was no good. The memory of parks' tower precluded the employment of a common architect. This was why he had thought of Bosini. Since the dinner at Swithins he had made enquiries, the result of which had been meager but encouraging, one of the new schools. Clever? As clever as you like. A bit up in the air. He had not been able to discover what houses Bosini had built nor what his charges were. The impression he gathered was that he would be able to make his own terms. The more he reflected on the idea, the more he liked it. It would be keeping the thing in the family, with foresight almost an instinct, and he would be able to get favoured nation, if not nominal terms. Only fair, considering the chance to Bosini of displaying his talents, for this house must be no common edifice. Somes reflected complacently on the work it would be sure to bring the young man. For, like every foresight, he could be a thorough optimist when there was anything to be had out of it. Bosini's office was in Sloan Street, close at hand, so that he would be able to keep his eye continually on the plans. Again, Irene would not be likely to object to leave London if her greatest friend's lover were given the job. June's marriage might depend on it. Irene could not decently stand in the way of June's marriage. She would never do that. He knew her too well. And June would be pleased. Of this, he saw the advantage. Bosini looked clever, but he had also, and it was one of his great attractions, an air as if he did not quite know on which side his bread were buttered. He should be easy to deal with in money-matters. Somes made this reflection in no defrauding spirit. It was the natural attitude of his mind, of the mind of any good businessman, of all those thousands of good businessmen through whom he was threading his way up Ludgate Hill. Thus he fulfilled the inscrutable laws of his great class, of human nature itself, when he reflected with a sense of comfort that Bosini would be easy to deal with in money-matters. While he elbowed his way on, his eyes, which he usually kept fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted upwards by the Dome of St. Paul's. It had a peculiar fascination for him, that old dome, and not once, but twice or three times a week, would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the names and epitaphs on the monuments. The attraction for him of this great church was inexplicable, unless it enabled him to concentrate his thoughts on the business of the day. If any affair of particular movement, or demanding peculiar acuteness, was weighing on his mind, he invariably went in to wander with mouse-like attention from epitaph to epitaph. Then retiring in the same noiseless way, he would hold steadily on up-cheap side, a thought more of dogged purpose in his gate, as though he had seen something which he had made up his mind to buy. He went in this morning, but instead of stealing from monument to monument, turned his eyes upward to the columns and spacings of the walls, and remained motionless. His uplifted face, with the odd and wistful look which faces take on themselves in church, was whitened to a chalky hue in the vast building. His gloved hands were clasped in front over the handle of his umbrella. He lifted them. Some sacred inspiration perhaps had come to him. Yes, he thought. I must have room to hang my pictures. That evening, on his return from the city, he called at Bosini's office. He found the architect in his shirt-sleeves smoking a pipe and ruling off lines on a plan. Somes refused to drink, and came at once to the point. If you have nothing better to do on Sunday, come down with me to Robin Hill and give me your opinion on a building site. Are you going to build? Perhaps, said Somes, but don't speak of it. I just want your opinion. Quite so, said the architect. Somes peered about the room. You're rather high up here, he remarked. Any information he could gather about the nature and scope of Bosini's business would be all to the good. It does well enough for me so far, answered the architect. You're accustomed to the swells. He knocked out his pipe, but replaced it empty between his teeth. It assisted him, perhaps, to carry on the conversation. Somes noted a hollow in each cheek, made as it were by suction. What do you pay for an office like this? said he. Fifty-two much, replied Bosini. This answer impressed Somes favorably. As opposed to his, dear, he said, I'll call for you on Sunday about eleven. The following Sunday, therefore, he called for Bosini in a handsome, and drove him to the station. On arriving at Robin Hill they found no cab, and started to walk the mile and a half to the site. It was the first of August, a perfect day with a burning sun and cloudless sky, and in the straight narrow road leading up the hill their feet kicked up a yellow dust. Gravel soil, remarked Somes, and sideways he glanced at the coat Bosini wore. Into the side pockets of this coat were thrust bundles of papers, and under one arm was carried a queer-looking stick. Somes noticed these and other peculiarities. No one but a clever man, or indeed a buccaneer would have taken such liberties with his appearance, and though these eccentricities were revolting to Somes, he derived a certain satisfaction from them, as evidence of qualities by which he must inevitably profit. If the fellow could build houses, what did his clothes matter? I told you, he said, that I want this house to be a surprise, so don't say anything about it. I never talk of my affairs until they're carried through. Bosini nodded. Let women into your plans, pursued Somes, and you never know where it'll end. Ah! said Bosini, women of the devil. This feeling had long been at the bottom of Somes' heart. He had never, however, put it into words. Oh! he muttered. So you're beginning to— He stopped, but added, with an uncontrollable burst of spite. June's got a temper of her own. Always had. A temper is not a bad thing in an angel. Somes had never called Irene an angel. He could not so have violated his best instincts, letting other people into the secret of her value, and giving himself away. He made no reply. They had struck into a half-made road across a warren. A cart-track led at right angles to a gravel-pit, beyond which the chimneys of a cottage rose amongst a clump of trees at the border of a thick wood. Tussocks of feathery grass covered the rough surface of the ground, and out of these the larks soared into the heat of sunshine. On the far horizon, over a countless succession of fields and hedges, rose a line of downs. Somes led till they had crossed to the far side, and there he stopped. It was the chosen site, but now that he was about to divulge the spot to another he had become uneasy. The agent lives in that cottage, he said. He'll give us some lunch. We'd better have lunch before we go into this matter. He again took the lead to the cottage, where the agent, a tall man named Oliver, with a heavy face and grizzled beard, welcomed them. During lunch, which Somes hardly touched, he kept looking at Bossini, and once or twice passed his silk handkerchief stealthily over his forehead. The meal came to an end at last, and Bossini rose. I dare say you've got business to talk over, he said. I'll just go and nose about a bit. Without waiting for a reply, he strolled off. Somes was solicitor to this estate, and he spent nearly an hour in the agent's company, looking at ground plans and discussing the nickel and other mortgages. It was as it were by an afterthought that he brought up the question of the building site. Your people, he said, ought to come down in their price to me, considering that I shall be the first to build. Oliver shook his head. The site you fixed on, sir, he said, is the cheapest we've got. Sites at the top of the slope are dearer by a good bit. Mine, said Somes, I've not decided. It's quite possible I shan't build at all. The ground rent's very high. Well, Mr. Forsyte, I shall be sorry if you go off, and I think you'll make a mistake, sir. There's not a bit of land near London with such a view as this, nor one that's cheaper all things considered. We have only to advertise to get a mob of people after it. They looked at each other. Their faces said very plainly, I respect you as a man of business, and you can't expect me to believe a word you say. Well, repeated Somes, I haven't made up my mind. The thing will very likely go off. With these words, taking up his umbrella, he put his chilly hand into the agents, withdrew it without the faintest pressure, and went out into the sun. He walked slowly back towards the site in deep thought. His instinct told him that what the agent had said was true—a cheap sight. And the beauty of it was that he knew the agent did not really think it cheap, so that his own intuitive knowledge was a victory over the agents. Cheap or not, I mean to have it, he thought. The larks sprang up in front of his feet. The air was full of butterflies, a sweet fragrance rose from the wild grasses. The sappy scent of the bracken stole forth from the wood, where hidden in the depths, pigeons were cooing, and from afar on the warm breeze came the rhythmic chiming of church bells. Somes walked with his eyes on the ground, his lips opening and closing as though in anticipation of a delicious morsel. But when he arrived at the site, Bosini was nowhere to be seen. After waiting some little time, he crossed the warren in the direction of the slope. He would have shouted, but dreaded the sound of his voice. The warren was as lonely as a prairie, its silence only broken by the rustle of rabbits bolting to their holes and the song of the larks. Somes, the pioneer leader of the great foresight army advancing to civilization of this wilderness, felt his spirit daunted by the loneliness, by the invisible singing and the hot, sweet air. He had begun to retrace his steps when he at last caught sight of Bosini. The architect was sprawling under a large oak tree, whose trunk, with a huge spread of bow and foliage, ragged with age, stood on the verge of the rise. Somes had to touch him on the shoulder before he looked up. Hello, foresight, he said. I've found the very place for your house. Look here. Somes stood and looked. Then he said coldly, You may be very clever, but this sight will cost me half as much again. Hang the cost, man, look at the view. Almost from their feet stretched ripe corn, dipping to a small dark corpse beyond. A plain of fields and hedges spread to the distant gray blue downs. In a silver streak to the right could be seen the line of the river. The sky was so blue, and the sun so bright, that an eternal summer seemed to rain over this prospect. Thistle-down floated round them, enraptured by the serenity of the ether. The heat danced over the corn, and pervading all was a soft, insensible hum like the murmur of bright minutes holding revo between earth and heaven. Somes looked. In spite of himself something swelled within his breast. To live here, in sight of all this, to be able to point it out to his friends, to talk of it, to possess it. His cheeks flushed. The warmth, the radiance, the glow were sinking into his senses as, four years before, Irene's beauty had sunk into his senses, and made him long for her. He stole a glance at Bosini, whose eyes, the eyes of the coachman's half-tamed leopard, seemed running wild over the landscape. The sunlight had caught the promontories of the fellow's face, the bumpy cheekbones, the point of his chin, the vertical ridges above his brow, and Somes watched this rugged, enthusiastic, careless face with an unpleasant feeling. A long, soft ripple of wind flowed over the corn, and brought a puff of warm air into their faces. I could build you a teaser here, said Bosini, breaking the silence at last. I dare say, replied Somes, Drilly, you haven't got to pay for it. For about eight thousand I could build you a palace. Somes had become very pale. A struggle was going on within him. He dropped his eyes, and said stubbornly, I can't afford it. And slowly, with his mousing walk, he led the way back to the first sight. They spent some time there going into particulars of the projected house, and then Somes returned to the agent's cottage. He came out in about half an hour, and joining Bosini started for the station. Well, he said, hardly opening his lips, I've taken that sight of yours after all. And again he was silent, confusedly debating how it was that this fellow, whom by habit he despised, should have overborn his own decision. Forcite Saga The Man of Property by John Gallsworthy Part 1 Chapter 5 A Forcite Minaage Like the enlightened thousands of his class and generation in this great city of London, who no longer believe in Red Velvet chairs and know that groups of modern Italian marble avigèes, Somes' Forcite inhabited a house which did what it could. It owned a copper door-knocker of individual design. Windows, which had been altered to open outwards. Hanging flower boxes filled with fuchsias. And at the back, a great feature. A little court, tiled with jade-green tiles, and surrounded by pink hydrangeas in peacock blue tubs. Here, under a parchment-coloured Japanese sunshade covering the whole end, inhabitants or visitors could be screened from the eyes of the curious, while they drank tea, and examined at their leisure the latest of Somes' little silver boxes. The inner decoration favoured the first emperor and William Morris. For its size, the house was commodious. There were countless nooks resembling birds' nests, and little things made of silver were deposited like eggs. In this general perfection, two kinds of fastidiousness were at war. There lived here a mistress who would have dwelt daintily on a desert island. A master whose daintiness was, as it were, an investment, cultivated by the owner for his advancement, in accordance with the laws of competition. This competitive daintiness had caused Somes in his Malbra days to be the first boy into white waistcoats in summer, and corduroy waistcoats in winter, had prevented him from ever appearing in public with his tie climbing up his collar, and induced him to dust his patent leather boots before a great multitude assembled on speech-day to hear him recite Malier. Skin-like immaculateness had grown over Somes, as over many Londoners. Impossible to conceive of him with hair out of place, a tie deviating one-eighth of an inch from the perpendicular, a collar unblossed. He would not have gone without a bath for worlds. It was the fashion to take baths, and how bitter was his scorn of people who omitted them. But Irene could be imagined, like some nymph, bathing in wayside streams for the joy of the freshness and of seeing her own fair body. In this conflict throughout the house, the woman had gone to the wall. As in the struggle between Saxon and Kelt still going on within the nation, the more impressionable and receptive temperament had had forced on it a conventional superstructure. Thus the house had acquired close resemblance to hundreds of other houses, with the same high aspirations, having become that very charming little house of the Somes foresight's quite individual idea really elegant. For Somes foresight read James Peabody, Thomas Atkins, or Emmanuel Spagnoletti, the name, in fact, of any upper middle-class Englishman in London, with any pretensions to taste, and though the decoration be different, the phrase is just. On the evening of August the 8th, a week after the expedition to Robin Hill, in the dining-room of this house, quite individual, my dear, really elegant Somes and Irene were seated at dinner. A hot dinner on Sundays was a little distinguishing elegance common to this house, and many others. Early in married life Somes had laid down the rule. The servants must give us hot dinner on Sundays. They have nothing to do but play the concertina. The custom had produced no revolution, for, to Somes a rather deplorable sign, servants were devoted to Irene who, in defiance of all safe tradition, appeared to recognize their right to a share in the weaknesses of human nature. The happy pair were seated not opposite each other, but rectangularly, at a handsome rosewood table. They dined without a cloth, a distinguishing elegance, and so far had not spoken a word. Somes liked to talk during dinner about business, or what he had been buying, and so long as he talked Irene's silence did not distress him. This evening he had found it impossible to talk. The decision to build had been weighing on his mind all the week, and he had made up his mind to tell her. His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him profoundly. She had no business to make him feel like that, a wife and a husband being one person. She had not looked at him once since they sat down, and he wondered what on earth she had been thinking about all the time. It was hard when a man worked, as he did, making money for her, yes, and with an ache in his heart, that she should sit there looking, looking as if she saw the walls of the room closing in. It was enough to make a man get up and leave the table. The light from the rose-shaded lamp fell on her neck and arms. Somes liked her to dine in a low dress. It gave him an inexpressible feeling of superiority to the majority of his acquaintance, whose wives were contented with their best high frocks or with teaguines when they dined at home. Under that rosy light her amber-coloured hair and fair skin made strange contrast with her dark brown eyes. Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep tints? The starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint silver furnishing, could a man own anything prettier than the woman who sat at it? Gratitude was no virtue among foresides, who, competitive and full of common sense, had no occasion for it, and Somes only experienced a sense of exasperation, amounting to pain, that he did not own her, as it was his right to own her, that he could not, as by stretching out his hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very secrets of her heart. Out of his other property, out of all the things he had collected, his silver, his pictures, his houses, his investments, he got a secret and intimate feeling. Out of her he got none. In this house of his there was writing on every wall. His business-like temperament protested against a mysterious warning that she was not made for him. He had married this woman, conquered her, made her his own, and it seemed to him, contrary to the most fundamental of all laws, the law of possession, that he could do no more than own her body, if indeed he could do that, which she was beginning to doubt. If any one had asked him if he wanted to own her soul, the question would have seemed to him both ridiculous and sentimental. But he did so want, and the writing said he never would. She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse, as though terrified lest by word, motion, or sign she might lead him to believe that she was fond of him, and he asked himself, must I always go on like this? Like most novel readers of his generation, and Somes was a great novel reader, literature coloured his view of life, and he had imbibed the belief that it was only a question of time. In the end the husband always gained the affection of his wife. Even in those cases, a class of book he was not very fond of, which ended in tragedy the wife always died with poignant regrets on her lips, or if it were the husband who died, unpleasant thought, threw herself on his body in an agony of remorse. He often took Irene to the theatre, instinctively choosing the modern society plays with the modern society conjugal problem, so fortunately different from any conjugal problem in real life. He found that they too always ended in the same way, even when there was a lover in the case. While he was watching the play, Somes often sympathised with the lover. But before he reached home again, driving with Irene in a handsome, he saw that this would not do, and he was glad the play had ended as it had. There was one class of husband that had just then come into fashion, the strong, rather rough, but extremely sound man who was peculiarly successful at the end of the play. With this person Somes was really not in sympathy, and had it not been for his own position would have expressed his disgust with the fellow. But he was so conscious of how vital to himself was the necessity for being a successful, even a strong husband, that he never spoke of a distaste born, perhaps by the perverse processes of nature, out of a secret fund of brutality in himself. But Irene's silence this evening was exceptional. He had never before seen such an expression on her face, and since it is always the unusual which alarms, Somes was alarmed. He ate his savoury, and hurried the maid as she swept off the crumbs with the silver sweeper. When she had left the room, he filled his glass with wine and said, Any body been here this afternoon? June, what did she want? It was an axiom with the foresight that people did not go anywhere unless they wanted something. Came to talk about her lover, I suppose? Irene made no reply. It looks to me, continued Somes, as if she was sweeter on him than he is on her. She is always following him about. Irene's eyes made him feel uncomfortable. You have no business to say such a thing, she exclaimed. Why not? Anybody can see it. They cannot, and if they could, it is disgraceful to say so. Somes' composure gave way. You're a pretty wife, he said. But secretly he wondered at the heat of her reply. It was unlike her. You're cracked about, June. I can tell you one thing. Now she has the buccaneer in tow. She doesn't care toughence about you, and you'll find it out. But you won't see so much of her in future. We're going to live in the country. He had been glad to get his news out, under cover of this burst of irritation. He had expected a cry of dismay. The silence with which his pronouncement was received alarmed him. You don't seem interested, he was obliged to add. I knew it already. He looked at her sharply. Who told you? June. How did she know? Irene did not answer. Baffled and uncomfortable, he said. It's a fine thing for Bossiny. It'll be the making of him. I suppose she's told you all about it. Yes. There was another pause, and then Somes said, I suppose you don't want to go. Irene made no reply. Well, I can't tell what you want. You never seem contented here. Have my wishes anything to do with it? She took the vase of roses and left the room. Somes remained seated. Was it for this that he'd signed that contract? Was it for this that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds? Bossiny's phrase came back to him. Women are the devil. But presently he grew calmer. It might have been worse. She might have flared up. He had expected something more than this. It was lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him. She must have wormed it out of Bossiny. He might have known she would. He lighted his cigarette. After all, Irene had not made a scene. She would come round. That was the best of her. She was cold, but not salky. And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a ladybird on the shining table, he plunged into a reverie about the house. It was no good worrying. He would go and make it up presently. She would be sitting out there in the dark under the Japanese sunshade, knitting. A beautiful, warm night. In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining eyes and the words, Somes is a brick. It splendid fulfil the very thing for him. Irene's face remained dark and puzzled. She went on. Your new house at Robin Hill, of course. What, didn't you know? Irene did not know. Oh! Then I suppose I shouldn't have told you. Looking impatiently at her friend, she cried, You look as if you didn't care. Don't you see? It's what I've been praying for. The very chance he's been wanting all this time. Now you'll see what he can do. And thereupon she poured out the whole story. Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested in her friend's position. The hours she spent with Irene were given to confidences of her own, and at times, for all her affection at pity, it was impossible to keep out of her smile a trace of compassionate contempt for the woman who had made such a mistake in her life. Such a vast, ridiculous mistake. He's to have all the decorations as well. A free hand. It's perfect! June broke into laughter. Her little figure quivered gleefully. She raised her hand and struck a blow at a Muslim curtain. Do you know? I even asked Uncle James. But, with a sudden dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped, and presently, finding her friend so unresponsive, went away. She looked back from the pavement, and Irene was still standing in the doorway. In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her hand to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door. Somes went to the drawing-room presently, and peered at her through the window. Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade, she was sitting very still, the lace on her white shoulders stirring, with the soft rise and fall of her bosom. But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless in the dark, there seemed warmth, a hidden fervour of feeling, as if the whole of her being had been stirred, and some change were taking place in its very depths. He stole back to the dining-room, unnoticed. End of Part 1, Chapter 5. Part 1, Chapter 6 of The Man of Property This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Foresight Saga, The Man of Property, by John Gallsworthy. Part 1, Chapter 6. James at Large It was not long before Somes's determination to build went the round of the family, and created the flutter that any decision connected with property should make among Foresights. It was not his fault, for he had been determined that no one should know. June, in the fullness of her heart, had told Mrs. Small, giving her leave only to tell Aunt Ann, she thought it would cheer her the poor old sweet, for Aunt Ann had kept her room now for many days. Mrs. Small told Aunt Ann at once, who, smiling as she lay back on her pillows, said in her distinct, trembling, old voice, it's very nice for dear June, but I hope they will be careful, it's rather dangerous. When she was left alone again, frown, like a cloud, presaging a rainy morrow, crossed her face. While she was lying there so many days, the process of recharging her will went on all the time. It spread to her face too, and tightening movements were always in action at the corners of her lips. The maid, Smyther, who had been in her service since girlhood, and was spoken of as Smyther, a good girl, but so slow. The maid, Smyther, performed every morning with extreme punctiliousness the crowning ceremony of that ancient toilet. Taking from the recesses of their pure white band box those flat gray curls, the insignia of personal dignity, she placed them securely in her mistresses' hands, and turned her back. And, every day, Aunt Julie and Hester were required to come and report on Timothy what news there was of Nicholas, whether dear June had succeeded in getting Jolly and to shorten the engagement, now that Mr. Bosson was building Sam's house, whether young Roger's wife was really expecting how the operation on Archie had succeeded, and what Swithin had done about that empty house in Whitmore Street, where the tenant had lost all his money and treated him so badly, above all about Sones, was Irene still asking for a separate room? And every morning Smyther was told, I shall be coming down this afternoon Smyther, about two o'clock, I shall want your arm after all these days in bed. After telling Aunt Anne, Mrs. Small had spoken of the house in the strictest confidence to Mrs. Nicholas, who, in her turn, had asked Winifred Darty for confirmation, supposing, of course, that being Sam's sister she would know all about it. Through her it had, in due course, come round to the ears of James. He had been a good deal agitated. Nobody, he said, told him anything, and rather than go direct to Sones himself of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and went round to Timothy's. He found Mrs. Septimus and Esther, who had been told, she was so safe, she found it tiring to talk, ready and indeed eager to discuss the news. It was very good of dear Sones, they thought, to employ Mr. Bosny, but rather risky. What had George named him? The Buccaneer? How droll! But George was always droll. However, it would be all in the family, they suppose, that they must really look upon Mr. Bosny as belonging to the family, though it seemed strange. James here broke in. Nobody knows anything about him. I don't see what Sones wants with a young man like that. I shouldn't be surprised if Irene had put her oar in. I shall speak to— Sones, interposed Aunt Julie, told Mr. Bosny that he didn't wish it mentioned. He wouldn't like it to be talked about, I'm sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed, I— James put his hand behind his ear. What, he said? I'm getting very deaf. I suppose I don't hear people. Emily's got a bad toe. We shan't be able to start for Wales till the end of the month. There's always something, and having got what he wanted, he took his hat and went away. It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the park towards Sones's, where he intended to dine, for Emily's toe kept her in bed, and Rachel and Cicely were on visit in the country. He took the slanting path from the bay's water side of the row to the night's bridge gate, and across a pasture of short, burnt grass dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with seated couples and strange waves lying grown on their faces, like corpses on a field over which the wave of battle has rolled. He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to the right nor left. The appearance of this park, the centre of his own battlefield, where he had all his life been fighting, excited no thought or speculation in his mind. These corpses flung down there from out the press and turmoil of the struggle. These pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jaw for an hour of idle illicium snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no fancies in his mind. He had outlived that kind of imagination. His nose, like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures on which he browsed. One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition to be behind hand in his rent, and it had become a grave question whether he had not better turn him out at once, and so run the risk of not re-letting before Christmas. Swithin had just been let in very badly, but it had served him right. He'd held on too long. He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his umbrella carefully by the wood, just below the crook of the handle. So as to keep the ferrule off the ground, and not fray the silk in the middle. And with his thin, high shoulders stooped, his long legs moving with swift mechanical precision, this passage through the park, where the sun shone with a clear flame on so much idleness, on so many human evidences of the remorseless battle of property raging beyond its ring, was like the flight of some land bird across the sea. He fell to touch on his arm as he came out at Albert Gate. It was Somes, who, crossing from the shady side of Piccadilly, where he'd been walking home from the office, had suddenly appeared alongside. Your mother's in bed, said James. I was just coming to you, but I suppose I shall be in the way. The outward relations between James and his son were marked by a lack of sentiment, peculiarly foresightian, but for all that the two were by no means unattached. Perhaps they regarded one another as an investment. Certainly they were solicitors of each other's welfare, glad of each other's company. They had never exchanged two words upon the more intimate problems of life, or revealed in each other's presence the existence of any deep feeling. Something beyond the power of word analysis bound them together, something hidden deep in the fibre of nations and families, for blood, they say, is thicker than water, and neither of them was a cold-blooded man. Indeed, in James, love of his children was now the prime motive of his existence. To have creatures who were parts of himself, to whom he might transmit the money he saved, was at the root of his saving, and at seventy-five, what was left that could give him pleasure, but saving. The kernel of life was in this saving for his children. Then James foresight, notwithstanding all his jonaisms, there was no saner man, if the leading symptom of sanity, as we are told, is self-preservation. Though, without doubt, Timothy went too far, in all this London, of which he owned so much, and loved with such a dumb love as the centre of his opportunities. He had the marvellous instinctive sanity of the middle-class, in him more than in jolly and with his masterful will, and his moments of tenderness and philosophy, more than in swithing the martyr to crankiness, Nicholas the sufferer of ability, and Roger the victim of enterprise, beat the true pulse of compromise. Of all the brothers, he was the least remarkable in mind and person, and for that reason more likely to live forever. To James, more than to any of the others, was the family significant and dear. There had always been something primitive and cosy in his attitude towards life. He loved the family half, he loved gossip, and he loved grumbling. All his decisions were formed of a cream which he skimmed off the family mind, and, through that family, of the minds of thousands of other families of similar fibre. Year after year, week after week, he went to Timothy's, and in his brother's front drawing-room, his legs twisted, his long white whiskers framing his clean shaven mouth, would sit watching the family pot simmer, the cream rising to the top, and he would go away sheltered, refreshed, comforted, with an indefinable sense of comfort. Beneath the adamant of his self-preserving instinct there was much real softness in James. A visit to Timothy's was like an hour spent in the lap of a mother, and the deep craving he himself had for the protection of the family wing reacted in turn on his feelings towards his own children. It was a nightmare to him to think of them exposed to the treatment of the world in money, health, or reputation. When his old friend John Street's son volunteered for special service, he shook his head querrulously and wondered what John Street was about to allow it. And when young Street was as a guide, he took it so much to heart, that he made a point of calling everywhere with the special object of saying, he knew how it would be, he'd no patience with them. When his son-in-law, Darty, had that financial crisis due to speculation in oil shares, James made himself ill worrying over it. The knell of all prosperity seemed to have sounded. He took him three months and a visit to Barden-Baden to get better. There was something terrible in the idea that but for his James's money, Darty's name might have appeared in the bankruptcy list. Composed of a physiological mixture so sound that if he had an earache he thought he was dying, he regarded the occasional ailments of his wife and children as in the nature of personal grievances, special interventions of providence for the purpose of destroying his peace of mind. But he did not believe at all in the ailments of people outside his own immediate family, affirming them in every case to be due to neglected liver. His universal comment was, What can they expect? I'll have it myself if I'm not careful. When he went to Samus's that evening, he felt that life was hard on him. There was Emily with a bad tone, Rachel gadding about in the country. He got no sympathy from anybody, and Anne, she was ill. He did not believe she would last through the summer. He had called there three times now without her being able to see him. And this idea of Samus's building a house that would have to be looked into. As to the trouble with Irene, he didn't know what was to come of that. Anything might come of it. He entered 62 Montpellier Square with the fullest intentions of being miserable. It was already half past seven, and Irene, dressed for dinner, was seated in the drawing-room. She was wearing her gold-coloured frock, for having been displayed at a dinner-party, a soiree, and a dance, it was now to be worn at home. And she had adorned the bosom with a cascade of lace, on which James's eyes riveted themselves at once. Where do you get your things? he said, in an aggravated voice. I never see Rachel and Cecily looking half so well. That rose-point now. That's not real. Irene came close to prove to him that he was in error. And, in spite of himself, James felt the influence of her deference, of the faint seductive perfume excelling from her. No self-respecting foresight surrendered at a blow, so he merely said— he didn't know—he expected she was spending a pity penny on dress. The gong sounded, and, putting her white arm within his, Irene took him into the dining-room. She seated him in Somes's usual place round the corner on her left. The light fell softly there, so that he would not be worried by the gradual dying of the day, and she began to talk to him about himself. Presently over James came a change, like the mellowing that steals upon a fruit in the sun, a sense of being caressed and praised and petted, and all without the bestowal of a single caress or word of praise. He felt that what he was eating was agreeing with him. He could not get that feeling at home. He did not know when he had enjoyed a glass of champagne so much, and, on enquiring the brand and price, was surprised to find that it was one of which he had a large stock himself, but could never drink. He instantly formed the resolution to let his wine-merchant know that he had been swindled. Looking up from his food, he remarked, You have a lot of nice things about the place. Now, what did you give to that sugar-sifter? Shouldn't wonder if it was worth money. He was particularly pleased with the appearance of a picture on the wall opposite which he himself had given them. I had no idea it was so good, he said. They rose to go into the drawing-room and James followed Irene closely. That's what I call a capital little dinner, he murmured, breathing pleasantly down on her shoulder. Nothing heavy and not too frenchified, but I can't get it at home. I pay my cook sixty pounds a year, but she can't give me a dinner like that. He had, as yet, made no allusion to the building of the house, nor did he when Soames, pleading the excuse of business, betook himself to the room at the top, where he kept his pictures. James was left alone with his daughter-in-law. The glow of the wine and of an excellently cure was still within him. He felt quite warm toward her. She was really a taking little thing. She listened to you and seemed to understand what you were saying, and, while talking, he kept examining her figure, from her bronze-colored shoes to the waved gold of her hair. She was leaning back in an empire chair, her shoulders poised against the top, her body flexibly straight and unsupported from the hips, swaying when she moved as though giving to the arms of a lover. Her lips were smiling, her eyes half closed. It may have been a recognition of danger in the very charm of her attitude, or a twang of digestion that caused a sudden dumbness to fall on James. He did not remember ever having been quite alone with Irene before, and, as he looked at her, an odd feeling crept over him, as though he had come across something strange and foreign. Now, what was she thinking about sitting back like that? Thus, when he spoke, it was in a sharper voice, as if he had been awakened from a pleasant dream. What do you do with yourself all day? he said. You never come round to part lane. She seemed to be making very lame excuses, and James did not look at her. He did not want to believe that she was rarely avoiding them. It would mean too much. I expect the fact is you haven't time, he said. You're always about with tune. I expect you're useful to her with her young man, chaperoning, and one thing and another. They tell me she's never at home now. Your Uncle Jolly, and he doesn't like it, I fancy, being left so much alone as he is. They tell me she's always hanging about for this young bossony. I suppose he comes here every day. Now, what do you think of him? Do you think he knows his own mind? He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the grey mare was the better horse. The colour deepened in Irene's face, and James watched her suspiciously. Perhaps you don't quite understand, Mr. Bossony, she said. Don't understand him, James hurried out. Why not? You can see he's one of these artistic chaps. They say he's clever. They all think they're clever. You know more about him than I do, he added. And again his suspicious glance rested on her. He is designing a house for Somes, she said softly, evidently trying to smooth things over. That brings me to what I was going to say, continued James. I don't know what Somes wants with a young man like that. Why doesn't he go to a first rate man? Perhaps Mr. Bossony is first rate. James rose, and took a turn with bent head. That's it, he said. You young people, you all stick together, you all think you know best. Holding his tall, lank figure before her, he raised a finger and levelled it at her bosom as though bringing an indictment against her beauty. All I can say is, these artistic people, or whatever they call themselves, they're as unreliable as they can be, and my advice to you is this. Don't you have too much to do with him? Irene smiled, and in the curve of her lips was a strange provocation. She seemed to have lost her deference. Her breast rose and fell as though with secret anger. She drew her hands inward from their rest on the arms of her chair, until the tips of her fingers met, and her dark eyes looked unfathomably at James. The latter gloomily scrutinised the floor. I'll tell you my opinion, he said. It's a pity you haven't got a child to think about and occupy you. A brooding look came instantly on Irene's face, and even James became conscious of the rigidity that took possession of her whole figure beneath the softness of its silk and lace clothing. He was frightened by the effect he had produced, and, like most men with but little courage, he sought at once to justify himself by bullying. You don't seem to care what's going about. Why don't you drive down to Hurlingham with us, and go to the theatre now and then? At your time of life you ought to take an interest in things. You're a young woman. The brooding look darkened on her face. He grew nervous. Well, I know nothing about it, he said. Nobody tells me anything. Somes ought to be able to take care of himself. If he can't take care of himself, he mustn't look to me. That's all. Biting the corner of his forefinger, he stole a cold, sharp look at his daughter-in-law. He encountered her eyes fixed on his own, so dark and deep that he stopped, and broke into a gentle perspiration. Well, I must be going, he said after a short pause, and a minute later rose with a slight appearance of surprise as though he had expected to be asked to stop. Giving his hand to Irene, he allowed himself to be conducted to the door and let out into the street. He would not have a cab, he would walk. Irene was to say good night to Somes for him, and if she wanted a little gaiety, well, he would drive her down to Richmond any day. He walked home, and, going upstairs, woke Emily out of the first sleep she had had for four and twenty hours, to tell her that it was his impression things were in a bad way at Somes's. On this theme, he descanted for half an hour until at last, saying that he would not sleep a wink. He turned on his side, and instantly began to snore. In Montpellier Square, Somes, who had come from the picture-room, stood invisible at the top of the stairs, watching Irene sort the letters brought by the last post. She turned back into the drawing-room, but in a minute came out and stood as if listening. Then she came stealing up the stairs with a kitten in her arms. He could see her face bent over the little beast which was purring against her neck. Why couldn't she look at him like that? Suddenly she saw him, and her face changed. Any letters for me? he said. Three. He stood aside, and without another word, she passed on into the bedroom. End of Part 1, Chapter 6. Old Jolyon came out of Lord's Cricket Ground that same afternoon with the intention of going home. He had not reached Hamilton Terrace before he changed his mind, inhaling a cab, gave the driver an address, and was Staria Avenue. He had taken a resolution. June had hardly been at home at all that week. She had given him nothing of her company for a long time past, not in fact since she had become engaged to Buseni. He never asked her for her company. It was not his habit to ask people for things. She had just that one idea now, Buseni and his affairs, and she left him stranded in his great house with a parcel of servants and not a soul to speak to from morning to night. His club was closed for cleaning, his boards and recess. There was nothing therefore to take him into the city. June had wanted him to go away. She would not go herself because Buseni was in London. But where was he to go by himself? He could not go abroad alone. The sea upset his liver. He hated hotels. Roger went to a hydropathic. He was not going to begin that at his time of life. Those newfangled places were all humbug. With such formulas, he clothed to himself the desolation of his spirit, the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day looking forth with a melancholy which sat so strangely on a face want to be strong and serene. And so that afternoon he took his journey through St. John's Wood in the golden light that sprinkled the round green bushes of the Acacias before the little houses in the summer sunshine that seemed holding a revel over the little gardens. And he looked about him with interest, for this was a district which no foresight entered without open disapproval and secret curiosity. His cab stopped in front of a small house of that peculiar buff color which implies a long immunity from paint. It had an outer gate and rustic approach. He stepped out, his bearing extremely composed, his massive head with its drooping moustache and wings of white hair, very upright under an excessively large top hat. His glance firm, a little angry. He had been driven into this. Mrs. Jolyon foresighted home. Oh, yes, sir. What name shall I say if you please, sir? Oh, Jolyon could not help twinkling at the little maid as he gave his name. She seemed to him such a funny little toad. And he followed her through the dark hall into a small double drawing room where the furniture was covered in chents and the little maid placed him in a chair. They're all in the garden, sir. If you'll kindly take a seat, I'll tell them. Old Jolyon sat down in the chents-covered chair and looked around him. The whole place seemed to him as he would have expressed it pokey. There was a certain, he could not tell exactly what, air of shabbiness or rather of making two ends meet about everything. As far as he could see, not a single piece of furniture was worth a five-pound note. The walls, distempered rather a long time ago, were decorated with watercolor sketches. Across the ceiling, he entered a long crack. These little houses were all old, second-rate concerns. He should hope the rent was under a hundred a year. It hurt him more than he could have said to think of a foresight, his own son living in such a place. The little maid came back. Would he please to go down into the garden? Old Jolyon marched out through the French windows and, descending the steps, he noticed that they wanted painting. Young Jolyon, his wife, his two children, and his dog Balthazar were all out there under a pear tree. This walk towards them was the most courageous act of old Jolyon's life, but no muscle of his face moved, no nervous gesture betrayed him. He kept his deep-set eyes steadily on the enemy. In those two minutes, he demonstrated to perfection all that unconscious soundness, balance and vitality of fiber that made of him and so many others of his class the core of the nation. In the unauthenticious conduct of their own affairs, to the neglect of everything else, they typified the essential individualism born in the Britain from the natural isolation of his country's life. The dog Balthazar sniffed around the edges of his trousers. This friendly and cynical mongrel, offspring of a liaison between a Russian poodle and a fox terrier, had a nose for the unusual. The strange greetings over, old Jolyon seated himself in a wicker chair, and his two grandchildren, one on each side of his knees, looked at him silently, never having seen so old a man. They were unlike, as though recognizing the difference set between them by the circumstances of their births. Jolly, the child of sin, pudgy-faced with his toe-colored hair brushed off his forehead, and a dimple in his chin had an air of stubborn amiability and the eyes of a foresight. Little Holly, the child of wedlock, was a dark-skinned, solemn soul with her mother's gray and wistful eyes. The dog Balthazar, having walked around the three small flower beds to show his extreme contempt for things at large, had also taken a seat in front of old Jolyon, and, oscillating a tail curled by nature tightly over his back, was staring up with eyes that did not blink. Even in the garden, that sense of things being pokey haunted old Jolyon, the wicker chair creaked under his weight. The garden beds looked daffodile. On the far side, under the smut-stained wall, cats had made a path. While he and his grandchildren thus regarded each other with a peculiar scrutiny, curious yet trustful, that passes between the very young and the very old, young Jolyon watched his wife. The color had deepened in her thin oval face, with its straight brows and large gray eyes. Her hair, brushed in fine high curves back from her forehead, was going gray like his own, and this grayness made the sudden vivid color in her cheeks painfully pathetic. The look on her face, such as he had never seen there before, such as she had always hidden from him, was full of secret resentments and longings and fears. Her eyes under their twitching brows stared painfully, and she was silent. Jolyon alone sustained the conversation. He had many possessions and was anxious that his unknown friend with extremely large moustaches and hands all covered with blue veins who sat with legs crossed like his own father, a habit he was himself trying to acquire, should know it. But being a foresight, though not yet quite eight years old, he made no mention of the thing at the moment dearest to his heart, a camp of soldiers in a shop window which his father had promised to buy. No doubt it seemed to him too precious, attempting of providence to mention it yet. And the sunlight played through the leaves on that little party of the three generations' group tranquilly under the pear tree which had long borne no fruit. Old Jolyon's furrowed face was reddening patchily, as old men's faces reddened in the sun. He took one of Jolly's hands in his own. The boy climbed onto his knee and little Holly, mesmerized by this sight, crept up to them. The sound of the dog balthasar scratching arose rhythmically. Suddenly young Mrs. Jolyon got up and hurried indoors. A minute later her husband muttered an excuse and followed. Old Jolyon was left alone with his grandchildren. And nature with her quaint irony began working in him one of her strange revolutions, following her cyclic laws into the depths of his heart. And that tenderness for little children, that passion for the beginnings of life which had once made him forsake his son and followed June, now worked in him to forsake June and follow these littler things. Youth like a flame burned ever in his breast and to youth he turned, to the round little limbs so reckless that wanted care, to the small round faces so unreasonably solemn or bright, to the treble tongues and the shrill chuckling laughter, to the insistent tugging hands and the feel of small bodies against his legs, to all that was young and young and once more young. And his eyes grew soft, his voice and thin vain hands soft and soft his heart within him. And to those small creatures he became at once a place of pleasure, a place where they were secure and could talk and laugh and play. Till like sunshine they're radiated from old Jolyon's wicker chair, the perfect gaiety of three hearts. But with young Jolyon following to his wife's room it was different. He found her seated on a chair before her dressing glass with her hands before her face. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs. This passion of hers for suffering was mysterious to him. He had been through a hundred of these moods, how he had survived them he never knew, for he could never believe they were moods and that the last hour of his partnership had not struck. In the night she would be sure to throw her arms round his neck and say, oh, Jo, how I make you suffer, as she had done a hundred times before. He reached out his hand and unseen slipped his razor case into his pocket. I cannot stay here, he thought. I must go down. Without a word he left the room and went back to the lawn. Old Jolyon had little Holly on his knee. She had taken possession of his watch. Jolly, very red in the face, was trying to show that he could stand on his head. The dog Balthazar, as close as he might be to the tea table, has fixed his eyes on the cake. Young Jolyon felt a malicious desire to cut their enjoyment short. What business had his father to come and upset his wife like this? It was a shock after all these years. He ought to have known. He ought to have given them warning. But when did a foresight ever imagine that his conduct could upset anybody? And in his thoughts he did old Jolyon wrong. He spoke sharply to the children and told them to go into their tea. Greatly surprised, for they had never heard their father speak sharply before, they went off hand in hand, little Holly looking back over her shoulder. Young Jolyon poured out the tea. My wife's not the thing today, he said, but he knew well enough that his father had penetrated the cause of that sudden withdrawal and almost hated the old man for sitting there so calmly. You've got a nice little house here, said old Jolyon with a shrewd look. I suppose you've taken a lease of it. Young Jolyon nodded. I don't like the neighborhood, said old Jolyon. A ramshackle lot. Young Jolyon replied, Yes, we're a ramshackle lot. The silence was now only broken by the sound of the dog Balthazar scratching. Old Jolyon said simply, I suppose I oughtn't to have come here, Joe, but I get so lonely. At these words, young Jolyon got up and put his hand on his father's shoulder. In the next house, someone was playing over and over again, Ladonna Mobile, on an untuned piano, and the little garden had fallen into shade. The sun now only reached the wall at the end, whereon vast a crouching cat, her yellow eyes turned sleepily down on the dog Balthazar. There was a drowsy home of very distant traffic. The creepered trellis round the garden shut out everything but sky and house and pear tree, with its top branches still gilded by the sun. For some time they sat there, talking but little. Then old Jolyon rose to go, and not a word was said about his coming again. He walked away very sadly. What a poor, miserable place, and he thought of the great empty house in Stanhope Gate, fit residence for a foresight with its huge billiard room and drawing room that no one entered from one week's end to another. That woman whose face he'd rather liked was too thin skinned by half, she gave Jo a bad time he knew, and those sweet children, ah, what a piece of awful folly. He walked towards the edge where a road between rows of little houses, all suggesting to him, erroneously, no doubt, with the prejudices of a foresight or sacred, shady histories of some sort or kind. Society, forsoothed the chattering hags and jack-and-apps, had set themselves up to pass judgment on his flesh and blood, a parcel of old women. He stumped his umbrella on the ground as though to drive it into the heart of that unfortunate body, which had dared to ostracize his son and his son's son and whom he could have lived again. He stumped his umbrella fiercely, yet he himself had followed society's behavior for fifteen years, had only today been false to it. He thought of Joon and her dead mother and the whole story with all his old bitterness, a wretched business. He was a long time reaching Standhope Gate, for with native perversity, being extremely tired, he walked the whole way. After washing his hands in the lavatory downstairs, he went to the dining room to wait for dinner, the only room he used when Joon was out, it was less lonely so. The evening paper had not yet come, he had finished the times, there was therefore nothing to do. The room faced the backwater of traffic and was very silent. He disliked dogs, but a dog even would have been company. His gaze, traveling around the walls, rested on a picture entitled Group of Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset, the chef duvre of his collection. It gave him no pleasure. He closed his eyes. He was lonely. He oughtn't to complain he knew, but he couldn't help it. He was a poor thing, had always been a poor thing, no pluck. Such was his thought. The butler came to lay the table for dinner, and seeing his master apparently asleep, exercised extreme caution in his movements. This bearded man also wore a moustache, which had given rise to grave doubts in the minds of many members of the family, especially those who, like Soames, had been to public schools and were accustomed to niceness in such matters. Could he really be considered a butler? Playful spirits alluded to him as Uncle Jolien's nonconformist, George the Acknowledged Wag, had named him Sanky. He moved to and fro between the great polished sideboard and the great polished table, inimitably sleek and soft. Old Jolien watched him, feigning sleep. The fellow was a sneak, he had always thought so, who cared about nothing but rattling through his work and getting out to his bedding or his woman or goodness knew what, a slug, fat too, and didn't care a pen about his master. But then against his will came one of those moments of philosophy which made Old Jolien different from other foresight. After all, why should the man care? He wasn't paid to care and why expect it, and this world people couldn't look for affection unless they paid for it. It might be different in the next, he didn't know, couldn't tell, and again he shut his eyes. Relentless and stealthy, the butler pursued his labors, taking things from the various compartments on the sideboard. His back seemed always churned to Old Jolien, thus he robbed his operations of the unseemliness of being carried on in his master's presence. Now and then he furtively breathed on the silver and wiped it with a piece of chamois leather. He appeared to pour over the quantities of wine in the decanters which he carried carefully and rather high, letting his head droop over them protectingly. When he had finished he stood for over a minute watching his master, and in his greenish eyes there was a look of contempt. After all, this master of his was an old buffer who hadn't much left in him. Soft as a tomcat he crossed the room to press the bell. His orders were dinner at seven. What if his master were asleep? He would soon have him out of that, there was the night to sleep in. He had himself to think of, for he was due at his club at half-past eight. An answer to the ring appeared a page-boy with a silver-soup terrine. The butler took it from his hands and placed it on the table. Then standing by the open door, as though about to usher company into the room, he sat in a solemn voice. Dinner is on the table, sir. Slowly Old Jolien got up out of his chair and sat down at the table to eat his dinner. End of Part One, Chapter Seven Recording by Leanne Howlett Chapter Eight of The Man of Property This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett The Foresight Saga, The Man of Property, by John Galsworthy Part One, Chapter Eight, Plans of the House Foresights, as is generally admitted, have shells, like that extremely useful little animal which is made into Turkish delight. In other words, they are never seen, or if seen would not be recognized, without habitats composed of circumstance, property, acquaintances and wives, which seem to move along with them in their passage through a world composed of thousands of other foresights with their habitats. Without a habitat, a foresight is inconceivable. He would be like a novel without a plot, which is well known to be an anomaly. To foresight eyes, Bassini appeared to have no habitat. He seemed one of those rare unfortunate men who go through life surrounded by circumstance, property, acquaintances and wives that do not belong to them. His rooms in Sloan Street, on the top floor, outside which on a plate was his name, Philip Baines Bassini, architect, were not those of a foresight. He had no sitting room apart from his office, but a large recess had been screened off to conceal the necessaries of life. A couch, an easy chair, his pipes, spirit case, novels and slippers. The business part of the room had the usual furniture, an open cupboard with pigeonholes, a round oak table, a folding wash stand, some hard chairs, a standing desk of large dimensions covered with drawings and designs. June had twice been to tea there under the chappernage of his aunt. He was believed to have a bedroom at the back. As far as the family had been able to ascertain his income, it consisted of two consulting appointments at twenty pounds a year, together with an odd fee once in a way and more worthy item, a private annuity under his father's will of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. What it transpired concerning that father was not so reassuring. It appeared that he had been a Lincolnshire country doctor of Cornish extraction, striking appearance and bironic tendencies, a well-known figure, in fact, in his county. Bassini's uncle by marriage, Baines, of Baines and Buildaboy, a foresighted instincts, if not in name, had but little that was worthy to relate to his brother-in-law. An odd fellow, he would say, always spoke of his three oldest boys as good creatures, but so dull they're all doing capitally in the Indian civil. Philip was the only one he liked. I've heard him talk in the queerest way. He once said to me, My dear fellow, never let your poor wife know what you're thinking of. But I didn't follow his advice, not I, an eccentric man. He would say to Phil, Whether you live like a gentleman or not, my boy, be sure you die like one. And he had himself embalmed in a frock coat suit with a satin cravat and a diamond pen. Oh, quite an original, I can assure you. Of Bassini himself, Baines would speak warmly with a certain compassion. He's got a streak of his father's Byronism. While I look at the way he threw up his chances when he left my office, going off like that for six months with a knapsack, and all for what? To study foreign architecture, foreign. What could he expect? And there he is, a clever young fellow. Doesn't make his hundred a year. Now this engagement is the best thing that could have happened. Keep him steady. He's one of those that go to bed all day and stay up all night, simply because they have no method. But no vice about him, not an ounce of vice. Oh, foresight's a rich man. Mr. Baines made himself extremely pleasant to June, who frequently visited his house in Lowndes Square at this period. This house of your cousins, what a capital man of business, is the very thing for Philip, he would say to her. You mustn't expect to see too much of him just now, my dear young lady. The good cause, the good cause. The young man must make his way. When I was his age, I was at work day and night. My dear wife used to say to me, Bobby, don't work too hard. Think of your health, but I never spared myself. June had complained that her lover found no time to come to Stanhope Gate. The first time he came again, they had not been together a quarter of an hour before by one of those coincidences of which she was a mistress, Mrs. Septimus Small arrived. Thereon, Bessini rose and hid himself, according to previous arrangement in the little study to wait for her departure. My dear, said Aunt Julie, how thin he is. I've often noticed it with engaged people, but you mustn't let it get worse. There's Barlow's extract of veal. It did your uncle's swithin' a lot of good. June, her little figure erect before the hearth, her small face quivering grimly, for she regarded her aunt's untimely visit in the light of a personal injury, replied with scorn. It's because he's busy. People who can do anything worth doing are never fat. Aunt Julie pouted. She herself had always been thin, but the only pleasure she derived from the fact was the opportunity of longing to be stouter. I don't think, she said mournfully, that you ought to let them call him the buccaneer. People might think it odd, now that he's going to build a house for Somes. I do hope he will be careful. It's so important for him. Somes has such good taste. Taste, cried June, flaring up at once, wouldn't give that for his taste or any of the families. Mrs. Small was taken aback. Your uncle's swithin', she said, always had beautiful taste, and Somes's little house is lovely. You don't mean to say you don't think so. Humph, said June. That's only because Irene's there. Aunt Julie tried to say something pleasant. And how will dear Irene like living in the country? June gazed at her intently, with a look in her eyes as if her conscience had suddenly leaped up into them. It passed, and an even more intent look took its place, as if she had stared that conscience out of countenance. She replied imperiously. Of course she'll like it. Why shouldn't she? Mrs. Small grew nervous. I didn't know, she said. I thought she mightn't like to leave her friends. Your uncle James says she doesn't take enough interest in life. We think, I mean, Timothy thinks, she ought to go out more. I expect you'll miss her very much. June clasped her hands behind her neck. I do wish, she cried, Uncle Timothy wouldn't talk about what doesn't concern him. Aunt Julie rose to the full height of her tall figure. He never talks about what doesn't concern him, she said. June was instantly compunctious. She ran to her aunt and came back. She ran to her aunt and kissed her. I'm very sorry, auntie, but I wish they'd let Irene alone. Aunt Julie unable to think of anything further on the subject that would be suitable was silent. She prepared for departure, hooking her black silk cape across her chest and taking up her green reticule. And how is your dear grandfather? She asked in the hall. I expect he's very lonely now that all your time is taken up with Mr. Bassini. She bent and kissed her niece hungrily and with little mincing steps passed away. The tears sprang up in June's eyes. Running into the little study where Bassini was sitting at the table drawing birds on the back of an envelope, she sank down by his side and cried, Oh, Phil, it's all so horrid. Her heart was as warm as the color of her hair. On the following Sunday morning, while Somes was shaving, a message was brought him to the effect that Mr. Bassini was below and would be glad to see him. Opening the door into his wife's room, he said, Bassini's downstairs. Just go and entertain him while I finish shaving. I'll be down in a minute. It's about the plans, I expect. Irene looked at him without reply, put the finishing touch to her dress, and went downstairs. He could not make her out about this house. She had said nothing against it, and as far as Bassini was concerned, seemed friendly enough. From the window of his dressing room, he could see them talking together in the little court below. He hurried on with his shaving, cutting his chin twice. He heard them laugh and thought to himself, well, they get on all right anyway. As he expected, Bassini had come round to fetch him to look at the plans. He took his hat and went over. The plans were spread on the oak table in the architect's room, and pale, impeturbable, inquiring songs bent over them for a long time without speaking. He said it last in a puzzled voice. It's an odd sort of house. A rectangular house of two stories was designed in a quadrangle round a covered-in court. This court, encircled by a gallery on the upper floor, was roofed with a glass roof, supported by eight columns running up from the ground. It was indeed, to foresight eyes, an odd house. There's a lot of room cut to waste, pursued Somes. Bassini began to walk about, and Somes did not like the expression on his face. The principle of this house of the architect was that you should have room to breathe, like a gentleman. Somes extended his finger and thumb as if measuring the extent of the distinction he should acquire and replied, oh, yes, I see. The peculiar look came into Bassini's face, which marked all his enthousiasms. I've tried to plan you a house here with some self-respect of its own. If you don't like it, you'd better say so. It's certainly the last thing to be considered. Who wants self-respect in a house when you can squeeze in an extra lavatory? He put his finger suddenly down on the left division of the center oblong. You can swing a cat here. This is for your pictures. Divided from this court by curtains, drawn them back, and you'll have a space of 51 by 23-6. This double-faced stove in the center here looks one way towards the court, one way towards the picture room. This end wall is all window. You've a southeast light from that, a north light from the court. The rest of your pictures you can hang around the gallery upstairs or any other rooms. In architecture, he went on, and though looking at Sums, he did not seem to see him, which gave Sums an unpleasant feeling. As in life, you'll get no self-respect without regularity. Fellows tell you that's old-fashioned. It appears to be peculiar anyway. It never occurs to us to embody the main principle of life in our buildings. We load our houses with decoration, Jim Crack's corners, anything to distract the eye. On the contrary, the eye should rest. Get your effects with a few strong lines. The whole thing is regularity. There's no self-respect without it. Sums, the unconscious ironist, fixed his gaze on Bassini's tie, which was far from being in the perpendicular. He was unshaven, too, and his dress not remarkable for order. Architecture appeared to have exhausted his regularity. Won't it look like a barrack, he inquired? He did not at once receive a reply. I can see what it is, said Bassini. You want one of Little Master's houses, one of the pretty and comodious sort where the servants will live in garrets and the front door be sunk so that you may come up again. By all means, try Little Master. You'll find him a capital fellow. I've known him all my life. Sums was alarmed. He'd really been struck by the plans, and the concealment of his satisfaction had been merely instinctive. It was difficult for him to pay a compliment. He despised people who were lavish with their praises. He found himself now in the embarrassing position of one who must pay a compliment or run the risk of losing a good thing. Bassini was just a fellow who might tear up the plans and refuse to act for him, a kind of grown-up child. This grown-up childishness to which he felt so superior exercised a peculiar and almost mesmeric effect on Sums for he had never felt anything like it in himself. Well, he stammered at last. It's certainly original. He had such a private distrust and even dislike of the word original that he felt he had not really given himself away by this remark. Bassini seemed pleased. It was the sort of thing that would please a fellow like that, and his success encouraged Sums. It's a big place, he said. Space, air, light, he heard Bassini murmur, you can't live like a gentleman in one of little masters he builds for manufacturers. Sums made a deprecating movement. He'd been identified with a gentleman. Not for a good deal of money now would he be classed with manufacturers, but his innate distrust of general principles revived. What the deuce was the good of talking about regularity and self-respect. It looked to him as if the house would be cold. Irene can't stand the cold, he said. Ah, said Bassini sarcastically. Your wife? She doesn't like the cold? I'll see to that. She shouldn't be cold. Look here. He pointed to four marks at regular intervals on the walls of the court. I've given you hot water pipes and aluminum casings. You can get them with very good designs. Sums looked suspiciously at these marks. It's all very well all this, he said, but what's it going to cost? The architect took a sheet of paper from his pocket. The house, of course, should be built entirely of stone, but as I thought you wouldn't stand that, I've compromised for a facing. It ought to have a copper roof, but I've made it green slate. As it is, including metal work, it'll cost you $8,500. $8,500, said Sums. Why I gave you an outside limit of eight? Can't be done for a penny less, replied Bassini coolly. You must take it or leave it. It was the only way, probably, that such a proposition could have been made to Sums. He was nonplussed. Conscience told him to throw the whole thing up, but the design was good and he knew it. There was completeness about it and dignity. The servants' apartments were excellent, too. He would gain credit by living in a house like that with such individual features, yet perfectly well arranged. He continued pouring over the plans while Bassini went into his bedroom to shave and dress. The two walked back to Mount Pellier Square in silence. Sums was watching him out of the corner of his eye. The buccaneer was rather a good-looking fellow, so he thought, when he was properly got up. Irene was bending over her flowers when the two men came in. She spoke of sending across the park to fetch June. No, no, said Sums. We've still got business to talk over. At lunch, he was almost cordial and kept pressing Bassini to eat. He was pleased to see the architects in such high spirits, and left him to spend the afternoon with Irene while he stole off to his pictures after his Sunday habit. At tea time, he came down to the drawing room and found them talking as he expressed it, 19 to the dozen. Unobserved in the doorway, he congratulated himself that things were taking the right turn. It was lucky she and Bassini got on. She seemed to be falling into line with the idea of the new house. Quiet meditation among his pictures had decided him to spring the 500 if necessary, but he hoped that the afternoon might have softened Bassini's estimates. It was so purely a matter which Bassini could remedy if he liked. There must be a dozen ways in which he could cheap in the production of a house without spoiling the effect. He awaited, therefore, his opportunity till Irene was handing the architect his first cup of tea. A chink of sunshine through the lace of the blinds warmed her cheek, shown in the gold of her hair, and in her soft eyes. Possibly the same gleam deep in Bassini's color gave the rather startled look to his face. Sums hated sunshine, and he at once got up to draw the blind. Then he took his own cup of tea from his wife and said more coldly than he had intended, can't you see your way to do it for 8,000 after all? There must be a lot of little things you could alter. Bassini drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his cup, and answered, not one. Sums saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible point of personal vanity. Well, he agreed with sulky resignation, you must have it your own way, I suppose. A few minutes later, Bassini rose to go, and Sums rose too to see him off the premises. The architect seemed in absurdly high spirits. After watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Sums returned moodily to the drawing room, where Irene was putting away the music, and moved by an uncontrollable spasm of curiosity, he asked. Well, what do you think of the buccaneer? He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer, and he had to wait some time. I don't know, she said at last. Do you think he's good-looking? Irene smiled, and it seemed to Sums that she was mocking him. Yes, she answered, very. End of Part 1 Chapter 8 Recording by Leanne Hallett Chapter 9 OF THE MAN OF PROPERTY This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Janet West The Foresight Saga The Man of Property By John Gullsworthy Part 1 Chapter 9 THE DEATH OF ANT ANNE There came a morning at the end of September, when Aunt Anne was unable to take from Smither's hands the insignia of personal dignity. After one look at the old face, the doctor, hurriedly sent for, announced that Miss Foresight had passed away in her sleep. Anne's Julie and Hester were overwhelmed by the shock. They had never imagined such an ending. Indeed, it is doubtful whether they had ever realised that an ending was bound to come. Secretly they felt it unreasonable of Anne to have left them like this, without a word, without even a struggle. It was unlike her. Perhaps what really affected them so profoundly was the thought that a foresight should have let go her grasp on life. If one, then why not all? It was a full hour before they could make up their minds to tell Timothy. If only it could be kept from him. If only it could be broken to him by degrees. And long they stood outside his door whispering together. And when it was over they whispered together again. He would feel it more, they were afraid, as time went on. Still he had taken it better than could have been expected. He would keep his bed, of course. They separated, crying quietly. Anne Julie stayed in her room, prostrated by the blow. Her face, discoloured by tears, was divided into compartments by the little ridges of pouting flesh which had swollen with emotion. It was impossible to conceive of life without Anne, who had lived with her for seventy-three years, broken only by the short interregnum of her married life, which now seemed so unreal. At fixed intervals she went to her drawer and took from beneath the lavender bags a fresh pocket handkerchief. Her warm heart could not bear the thought that Anne was lying there so cold. Aunt Hester, the silent, the patient, that backwater of the family energy, sat in the drawing-room where the blinds were drawn. And she too had wept at first, but quietly, without visible effect. Her guiding principle, the conservation of energy, did not abandon her in sorrow. She sat, slim, motionless, studying the great, her hands idle in the lap of her black silk dress. They would want a rouser into doing something, no doubt, as if there were any good in that. Doing something would not bring back Anne. Why worry her? Five o'clock brought three of the brothers, Jolian and James, and Swithin. Nicholas was at Yarmouth, and Roger had a bad attack of gout. Mrs. Heyman had been there by herself earlier in the day, and, after seeing Anne, had gone away, leaving a message for Timothy, which was kept from him, that she ought to have been told sooner. In fact, there was a feeling amongst them all that they ought to have been told sooner, as though they had missed something. And James said, I knew how it be, I told you she wouldn't last through the summer. Anne Hester made no reply. It was nearly October, but what was the good of our arguing? Some people were never satisfied. She sent up to tell her sister that the brothers were there. Mrs. Small came down at once. She had bathed her face, which was still swollen, and though she looked severely at Swithin's trousers, for they were of light blue, he had come straight from the club, where the news had reached him. She wore a more cheerful expression than usual, the instinct for doing the wrong thing, being even now too strong for her. Presently all five went up to look at the body. Under the pure white sheet, a quilted counterpane had been placed. For now more than ever, and Anne had need of warmth. Anne, the pillows removed, her spine and head rested flat, with the semblance of their lifelong inflexibility. The quaff banding the top of her brow was drawn on either side to the level of the ears, and between it and the sheet, her face, almost as white, was turned with closed eyes to the faces of her brothers and sisters. In its extraordinary piece the face was stronger than ever, nearly all bone now under the scarce wrinkled parchment of her skin, square jaw and chin, cheekbones, forehead with hollow temples, chiseled nose, the fortress of an unconquerable spirit that had yielded to death, and in its upward sightlessness seemed trying to regain that spirit, to regain the guardianship it had just laid down. Swithin took but one look at the face, and left the room. The sight, he said afterwards, made him very queer. He went downstairs, shaking the whole house, Anne, seizing his hat, clambered into his brow, without giving any direction to the coachman. He was driven home, and all the evening sat in his chair without moving. He could take nothing for dinner but a partridge, with an imperial pint of champagne. Old Jolien stood at the bottom of the bed, his hands folded in front of him. He alone of those in this room remembered the death of his mother, and though he looked at Anne, it was of that he was thinking. Anne was an old woman, but death had come to her at last. Death came to all. His face did not move, his gaze seemed travelling from very far. Anne Hester stood beside him. She did not cry now, tears were exhausted. Her nature refused to permit a further escape of force. She twisted her hands, looking not at Anne, but from side to side, seeking some way of escaping the effort of realization. Of all the brothers and sisters, James manifested the most emotion. Tears rolled down the parallel furrows of his thin face, where he should now go to tell his troubles he did not know. Julie was now good, Hester was worse than useless. He felt Anne's death more than he had ever thought he should. This would upset him for weeks. Presently Anne Hester stole out. And Anne Julie began moving about, doing what was necessary, so that twice she knocked against something. Old Jolien, roused from his reverie, that reverie of the long, long past, looked sternly at her and went away. James alone was left by the bedside. Glancing stealthily round, to see that he was not observed, he twisted his long body down, placed a kiss on the dead forehead. Then he, too, hastily left the room. Encountering Smither in the hall, he began to ask her about the funeral, and finding she knew nothing, complained bitterly that, if they didn't take care, everything would go wrong. She had better send for Mr. Somes, he knew about that sort of thing. Her master was very much upset, he supposed. He would want looking after. As for her mistresses, they were no good. They had no gumption. They would be ill, too, he shouldn't wonder. She'd better send for the doctor. It was best to take things in time. He didn't think his sister Anne had had the best opinion. If she'd had blank, she would have been alive now. Smither might send to Park Lane any time she wanted advice. Of course, his carriage was at their service for the funeral. He supposed she hadn't such a thing as a glass of claret and a biscuit. He had had no lunch. The days before the funeral passed quietly. It had long been known, of course, that Aunt Anne had left her little property to Timothy. There was, therefore, no reason for the slightest agitation. Somes, who was sole executor, took charge of all arrangements. An in-do course sent out the following invitation to every male member of the family. 2. Your presence is requested at the funeral of Miss Anne Forsyte in Highgate Cemetery at noon of October 1st. Carriages will meet at the Bower Bayswater Road at 10.45, no flowers by request, RSVP. The morning came cold, with a high gray London sky, and at half-past 10 the first carriage that of James drove up. It contained James and his son-in-law, Dartie, a fine man with a square chest, buttoned very tightly into a frockcoat, and a sallow, fattish face adorned with dark, well-curled moustaches, and that incorrigible commencement of whisker, of which, eluding the strictest attempts at shaving, seems the mark of something deeply ingrained in the personality of the shaver, being especially noticeable in men who speculate. 3. Soames, in his capacity as executor, received the guests, for Timothy still kept his bed. He would get up after the funeral. And Anne's Julie and Hester would not be coming down until it was all over, when it was understood there would be lunch for anyone who cared to come back. The next to arrive was Roger, still limping from the gout, and encircled by three of his sons, Young Roger, Eustace, and Thomas. George, the remaining son, arrived almost immediately afterwards in a handsome, and paused in the hall to ask Soames how he found undertaking pay. They disliked each other. Then came two Heymans, Giles and Jesse, perfectly silent, and very well dressed, with special creases down their evening trousers. Then old Jolien alone. Next Nicholas, with a healthy colour in his face, and a carefully veiled sprightliness in every movement of his head and body. One of his sons followed him, meek and subdued. Swithin foresight, and Bissini arrived at the same moment, and stood, bowing precedents to each other, but on the door opening they tried to enter together. They renewed their apologies in the hall, and Swithin, setting his stock, which had become disarranged in the struggle, very slowly mounted the stairs. The other Heyman, two married sons of Nicholas, together with Tweedyman, Spender, and Wary, the husbands of married foresight and Heyman daughters. The company was then complete, twenty-one in all, not a male member of the family being absent, but Timothy and Young Jolien. Entering the scarlet and green drawing room, whose apparel made so vivid a setting for their unaccustomed costumes, each tried nervously to find a seat, desirous of hiding the emphatic blackness of his trousers. There seemed a sort of indecency in that blackness, and in the colour of their gloves, a sort of exaggeration of the feelings, and many cast-shocked looks of secret envy at the buccaneer, who had no gloves, and was wearing grey trousers. A subdued hum of conversation rose, no one speaking of the departed, but each asking after the other, as though thereby casting an indirect libation to this event, which they had come to honour. And presently James said, Well, I think we ought to be starting. They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had been told off in strict precedence, mounted the carriages. The hearse started at a foot's pace. The carriages moved slowly after. In the first went Old Jolien with Nicholas. In the second the twins Swithin and James. In the third, Roger and Young Roger. Somes, Young Nicholas, George, and Bassini followed in the fourth. Each of the other carriages, eight in all, held three or four of the family. Behind them came the Drs. Browne. Then, at a decent interval, cabs containing family clerks and servants. And, at the very end, one containing nobody at all, but bringing the total cortège up to the number of thirteen. So long as the procession kept to the highway of the base-water road, it retained the foot's pace. But, turning into less important thoroughfares, it soon broke into a trot, and so proceeded, with intervals of walking in the more fashionable streets, until it arrived. In the first carriage Old Jolien and Nicholas were talking of their wills. In the second the twins, after a single attempt, had lapsed into complete silence. Both were rather deaf, and the exertion of making themselves heard was too great. Only once James broke this silence. I shall have to be looking about for some ground somewhere. What arrangements have you made, Swithin? And Swithin, fixing him with a dreadful stare, answered, Don't talk to me about such things. In the third carriage a disjointed conversation was carried on in the intervals of looking out to see how far they had got. George remarking, Well, it was really time that the poor old lady went. He didn't believe in people living beyond seventy. Young Nicholas replied mildly that the rule didn't seem to apply to the foresight. George said he himself intended to commit suicide at sixty. Young Nicholas, smiling and stroking a long chin, didn't think his father would like that theory. He had made a lot of money since he was sixty. Well, seventy was the outside limit. It was then time, George said, for them to go and leave their money to their children. Somes, hitherto silent, here joined in. He had not forgotten the remark about the undertaking, and lifting his eyelids almost imperceptibly, said it was all very well for people who had never made money to talk. He himself intended to live as long as he could. This was a hit at George, who was notoriously hard up. Bissini muttered abstractly, Here, here! and George yawning, the conversation dropped. Upon arriving, the coffin was born into the chapel, and, two by two, the mourners filed in behind it. This guard of men, all attached to the dead by the bond of kenship, was an impressive and singular sight in the great city of London, with its overwhelming diversity of life, its innumerable vocations, pleasures, duties, its terrible hardness, its terrible call to individualism. The family had gathered to triumph over all this, to give a show of tenacious unity, to illustrate gloriously that law of property underlying the growth of their tree, by which it had thriven in spread, trunk, and branches, the sap flowing through all, the full growth reached at the appointed time. The spirit of the old woman lying in her last sleep had called them to this demonstration. It was her final appeal to that unity which had been their strength. It was her final triumph that she had died while the tree was yet whole. She was spared the watching of the branches jut out beyond the point of balance. She could not look into the hearts of her followers. The same law that had worked in her, bringing her up from a tall, straight-backed slip of a girl, to a woman strong and grown, from a woman grown to a woman old, angular, feeble, almost witch-like, with individuality all sharpened and sharpened, as all rounding from the world's contact fell off from her. That same law would work, was working, in the family she had watched like a mother. She had seen it young and growing. She had seen it strong and grown. And before her old eyes had time or strength to see any more, she died. She would have tried. And who knows but she might have kept it young and strong, with her old fingers, her trembling kisses, a little longer. Alas, not even Aunt Anne could fight with nature. Pride comes before a fall. In accordance with this, the greatest of nature's ironies, the Forsyte family had gathered for a last proud pageant before they fell. Their faces to right and left, in single lines, were turned for the most part impassively towards the ground, guardians of their thoughts. But here and there, one looking upward, with a line between his brows, searched to see some sight on the chapel walls too much for him, to be listening to something that appalled. And the responses, low-moddered and voices, through which rose the same tone, the same unceasable family ring, sounded weird, as though murmured in hurried duplication by a single person. The service in the chapel over, the mourners filed up again to guard the body to the tomb. The vaults stood open, and, round it, men in black were waiting. From that high and sacred field, where thousands of the upper middle class lay in their last sleep, the eyes of the Forsytes travelled down across the flocks of graves. There, spreading to the distance, lay London, with no son over it, mourning the loss of its daughter, mourning with this family so dear, the loss of her who was mother and guardian. A hundred thousand spires and houses, blurred in the great grey web of property, lay there like prostrate worshippers before the grave of this, the oldest foresight of them all. A few words, a sprinkle of earth, the thrusting of the coffin home, and Aunt Anne had passed to her last rest. Round the vault, trustees of that passing, the five brothers stood with white heads bowed. They would see that Anne was comfortable where she was going. Her little property must stay behind, but otherwise all that could be should be done. Then, severally, each stood aside, and putting on his hat, turned back to inspect the new inscription on the marble of the family vault. Sacred to the memory of Anne Forsyte, the daughter of the above Jolian and Anne Forsyte, who departed this life the 27th day of September 1886, aged 87 years and four days. Soon perhaps someone else would be wanting an inscription. It was strange and intolerable, for they had not thought somehow that Forsytes could die. And one and all they had a longing to get away from this painfulness, this ceremony which had reminded them of things they could not bear to think about, to get away quickly and to go about their business and forget. It was cold, too. The wind, like some slow disintegrating force, blowing up the hill over the graves, struck them with its chilly breath. They began to split into groups, and as quickly as possible to fill the waiting carriages. Swithin said he should go back to lunch at Timothy's, and he offered to take anybody with him in his brawl. It was considered a doubtful privilege to drive with Swithin in his brawl, which was not a large one. Nobody accepted, and he went off alone. James and Roger followed immediately after. They would also drop into lunch. The others gradually melted away, old Jolian taking three nephews to fill up his carriage. He had a want of those young faces. Soames, who had to arrange some details in the cemetery office, walked away with Besenny. He had much to talk over with him, and, having finished his business, they strolled to Hampstead, lunched together at the Spaniards Inn, and spent a long time in going into practical details connected with the building of the house. They then proceeded to the tram line, and came as far as the marble arch, where Besenny went off to Stanhope Gate to see June. Soames felt in excellent spirits when he arrived home, and confided to Irene at dinner that he'd had a good talk with Besenny, who really seemed a sensible fellow. They had had a capital walk, too, which had done his liver good. He had been short of exercise for a long time, and altogether a very satisfactory day. If only it hadn't been for poor Aunt Anne, he would have taken her to the theatre. As it was, they must make the best of an evening at home. Buccaneer asked after you more than once, he said suddenly, and, moved by some inexplicable desire to assert his proprietorship, he rose from his chair and planted a kiss on his wife's shoulder.