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Title:      On Forsyte 'Change (1930)
Author:     John Galsworthy
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.:  0300111.txt
Edition:    1
Language:   English
Character set encoding:     Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit
Date first posted:          February 2003
Date most recently updated: February 2003

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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      On Forsyte 'Change (1930)
Author:     John Galsworthy







TO H. VINCENT MARROT



CONTENTS

1.  THE BUCKLES OF SUPERIOR DOSSET, 1821-63

2.  SANDS OF TIME, 1821-63

3.  HESTER'S LITTLE TOUR, 1845

4.  TIMOTHY'S NARROW SQUEAK, 1851

5.  AUNT JULEY'S COURTSHIP, 1855

6.  NICHOLAS REX, 1864

7.  A SAD AFFAIR, 1867

8.  REVOLT AT ROGER'S, 1870

9.  JUNE'S FIRST LAME DUCK, 1876

10.  DOG AT TIMOTHY'S, 1878

11.  MIDSUMMER MADNESS, 1880

12.  THE HONDEKOETER, 1880

13.  CRY OF PEACOCK, 1883

14.  FRANCIE'S FOURPENNY FOREIGNER, 1888

15.  FOUR-IN-HAND FORSYTE, 1890

16.  THE SORROWS OF TWEETYMAN, 1895

17.  THE DROMIOS, 1900

18.  A FORSYTE ENCOUNTERS THE PEOPLE, 1917

19.  SOAMES AND THE FLAG, 1914-1918




FOREWORD

TO

'ON FORSYTE 'CHANGE'


Before a long suffering public and still more long suffering
critics, I lay this volume of apocryphal Forsyte tales, pleading
the two excuses:  That it is hard to part suddenly and finally from
those with whom one has lived so long; and, that these footnotes do
really, I think, help to fill in and round out the chronicles of
the Forsyte family.

They have all been written since 'Swan Song' was finished, but in
place they come between the Saga and the Comedy, for without the
Saga they would not be understood, and they are over before the
Comedy begins.  In the hope of forgiveness I send them forth.

JOHN GALSWORTHY.




THE BUCKLES OF SUPERIOR DOSSET, 1821-1863


In the year 1821 'Superior Dosset' Forsyte came to Town--if not
precisely on a milk-white pony.  According to the testimony of Aunt
Ann, noted for precision, to young Jolyon on holiday from Eton, the
migration from Bosport was in fact tribal and effected in two post-
shays and the Highflyer coach.

"It was after our dear Mother's death, and our father--that is your
grandfather, Jo dear,--was very taciturn on the journey; he was
never a man who showed his feelings.  I had your Aunt Susan in
arms, and your Uncle Timothy--two years old, such an interesting
child, in the first post-shay with your grandfather.  And your dear
father, he was so dependable and very like you--he must have been
fifteen then, just your age--he had your Aunts Juley and Hester
with him and your Uncle Nicholas, who was four, in the second post-
shay; and your Uncles James and Swithin and Roger were on the
coach.  I am afraid Swithin was very naughty with his pea-shooter
on the journey.  We started early in the morning, and we all went
for the night to your Great-Uncle Edgar's at Primrose Hill.  I
remember he still wore knee-breeches and a very large bunch of
seals.  Of course, WE were all in black.  Your grandfather wore
black for two years after our dear mother's death; he felt it very
much, though he never said anything."

"What was he like, Auntie?"

"Strongly-built, my dear, with a high colour.  In those days they
drank a great deal of wine, especially Madeira."

"But what was he?"

"He began as a mason, dear."

"A Freemason?"

"Not at first.  A stonemason.  You see, HIS father was a farmer,
and he apprenticed your grandfather to a stonemason, so that he
should learn all about building.  I think it was a very wise
decision, because in those days there were such opportunities for
builders, so your grandfather soon made his way.  He was becoming
quite a warm man when we came to London."  And Aunt Ann's shrewd
eyes appraised her nephew.

He had risen, and was standing, slender in his first tailcoat,
against the mantelpiece, looking downward at his boots.  Elegant
the dear boy looked, but a little embarrassed, as if his nerves had
received a shock.  Of course, he was at Eton among the nobility.
And she said with decision:

"We should never be ashamed of our origin, dear Jo.  The Forsytes
are very good country stock, and have always been men of their
word, and that is the great thing.  And our dear mother was a lady
in every respect.  Her name was Pierce--a Devonshire family--and
she was the daughter of a solicitor at Bosport who was very
respected.  He died bankrupt because his partner ran away with some
funds, and all his fortune went to make up the loss.  She had a
sweet face and was most particular how we spoke and behaved.  This
is her miniature."

Young Jolyon moved over and saw an oval face with fair hair parted
in the middle and drawn in curves across the forehead, dark grey
eyes looking up at him from rather deep beneath the brows, a chin
with a delicate point, and shoulders shrouded in lace.

"Your grandfather was devoted to her in his way.  For years after
we first came to London he worked all day long, and at night I used
to see him sitting up in his little study with his plans and his
estimates--he couldn't bear to go to bed.  And then he took to
horse exercise.  It was such a mercy."

Young Jolyon looked up.  His brow had cleared, as if his
grandfather had at last done something creditable.

"Of course, on the farm, when he was a boy, he used to ride.  And
when he took to it again, he went riding every day until his gout
got too bad."

"Oh! had he gout, too, Aunt Ann?"

"Yes, dear, gout was much more prevalent then than it is now.  In
some ways your grandfather was rather like your Uncle Swithin, only
much shorter.  He was fond of a horse, and quite a judge of wine."

Young Jolyon caressed his waistcoat, as if smothering emotion at
these marks of gentility, subtle enough to see that his Aunt was
watching him for signs of snobbery.

"Where did you live, Auntie?"

"Well, at first, dear, we took a house on Primrose Hill close to
your Great-Uncle Edgar.  We lived there many years till we moved
into a house of our own that your grandfather built, in St. John's
Wood; and there we lived till his death in 1850, when we came here,
of course, with your Uncle Timothy."

"What sort of houses did my grandfather build, Auntie?"

"I don't know that I ever saw any, dear, except the one we lived
in.  But I believe they were always very good value.  At first I
think they were mostly out Fulham way, and some were at Brighton,
but later they were in St. John's Wood.  That was then the coming
part of London.  He was not at all what is called a Jerry-builder.
He had a funny nickname among his cronies--'Superior Dosset'."

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing he never liked being called a Dorsetshire man,
he always said he was born just over the border in Devonshire,
though the parish was in Dorset and the Church, but he always
looked down on Dorsetshire people--he used to say they were a cocky
lot--he had funny expressions; and that made them tease him.  He
was quite a character.  Some people, of course, might have called
him perverse."

"And how did he dress, Auntie?"

Aunt Ann replaced the miniature with her long thin fingers, and
from the little drawer took forth another.

"That is your grandfather, my dear--painted in 1820 just before our
dear mother's death."

Young Jolyon saw a florid face, clean-shaven, with eyebrows running
a little up and bumps above them, a wide rather fleshy mouth, a
straight broad nose, a broad cleft chin; light eyes that seemed to
hold a jape under their thick lids; brown hair brushed back from a
well-formed forehead, a neck swathed in a white stock, a blue coat
short-waisted and with tails, a double waistcoat light-coloured, a
bunch of seals on a black ribbon--no lower half to him at all.

"Did he wear trousers?"

"Yes, dear, generally buff, I think, till after our mother death.
But in the evening he wore knee-breeches, and his shoes had
buckles.  I still have them.  Some day I shall give them to you,
because after your dear father you will be the head of the family,
just as my father was in his day."

"Oh! was my grandfather the eldest too?"

"Yes, like his father before him; the name Jolyon goes with that.
You must never forget that, dear Jo.  It is a great responsibility."

"I'd rather have the buckles without the responsibility, Auntie."

His Aunt lowered her spectacles till they were below the aquilinity
of her nose.  So, she could see her nephew better, and her thin
fingers with three rings and pointed nails interlaced slowly, as if
tatting some slow conclusion.  Dear Jo!  Was he being taught to
take things lightly?  Eton--it was nice, of course, and very
distinguished, but perhaps a little dangerous!  And her eyes chased
him down from the wave of fair hair on his forehead to the straps
confining his trousers to his boots.  Was he not becoming a little
foppish?

"Your grandfather, dear, always took his position seriously.  I
could tell you a story--"

"Hooray!"

Aunt Ann frowned.  Yes!  It WOULD do him good to hear.

"It was in the year when your dear father and his friend Nick
Treffry had just set up for themselves in tea.  That would be about
six years after we came to London.  Your grandfather had done very
well with his building, so that he had been able to give all the
boys a good education; your Uncle Nicholas especially was such a
promising little chap, and your Uncle James was just in his
articles--he was admitted a solicitor afterwards on his twenty-
first birthday, and that is the earliest possible.  But in spite of
all the expense we were to him, your grandfather had put by quite a
lot of money; though we were still living on Primrose Hill and so
we saw a great deal of your Uncle Edgar; and, indeed, your
grandfather had invested some of his money in your Uncle's
business--"

"What was that, Auntie?"

"Jute, dear.  Your grandfather was not a partner with him, but he
was interested.  Uncle Edgar was not at all like your grandfather;
he was a very amiable man, but rather weak, and I am afraid he paid
too much attention to other people's advice.  Anyway he was tempted
to gamble for what I think is called 'the rise.'  And very
foolishly he did not consult your grandfather.  So, of course, when
your grandfather heard of it, he was in a regular stew.  You see I
took a little of our dear mother's place, and I can remember him
saying:  'What on earth is the chap about--weak-kneed beggar--
gambling for a rise!  Mark my words, Ann, he'll be in Queer Street
in no time!'"

Aunt Ann paused, recalling that far scene.  The stocky figure of
her father bent forward over the mahogany of the old dining table
now in the room below, his broad, short-fingered hand suddenly
clenching, the flush of blood below his eyes, screwed up in the
visioning of Queer Street.

"And was he, Auntie?"

"Yes, dear.  It was that dreadful year when everything went down
suddenly, especially jute.  Poor Uncle Edgar was so amiable that he
never seemed to realise that other people could be hard and
greedy."

"Was he ruined, Auntie?"

"I was going to tell you.  As I said, your grandfather was not in
partnership with Uncle Edgar, and as soon as he heard what Uncle
had done, he sold his investment and saved his bacon, as he would
have called it.  And then jute went down instead of up, and Uncle
Edgar was threatened with bankruptcy.  Your grandfather went
through a dreadful time making up his mind whether to help him or
not.  You see, he knew it would mean years of set-back for him in
his building business, and for all of us great economy and going
without things that we were accustomed to.  And he felt your
uncle's conduct in not consulting him very much--he used to say
bitter things about him.  It all came to a head one evening when
your Uncle Edgar cried--he was not a strong character.  I can see
him now: he had large red bandana handkerchiefs, and he sat there
with his face all buried in one.  Your grandfather was walking up
and down talking about his expecting him to pull the chestnuts out
of the fire for him, and he wasn't going to, not he.  I thought he
would have had a fit.  And then, suddenly, he stopped and looked a
long time at Uncle Edgar.  'Edgar,' he said, 'you're a poor fish.
But I'm the head of the family, and I'm not going to see the name
dishonoured.  Here, get out, and to-morrow I'll see you through.'"

"And did he, Auntie?"

"Yes, Jo.  It was a terrible sacrifice.  But I think we were all
glad; we were fond of Uncle Edgar, and it would have made such a
scandal to have him go bankrupt, especially as he had not been
quite straight.  We never saw very much of him after, but he died
better off than ever, entirely owing to your grandfather.  So you
see, dear, it doesn't do to take responsibility lightly."  Her
nephew had ceased to look at her, as if he had suddenly perceived
why he had been told the story.

"I should have thought it did, Auntie, if he died better off than
ever."

Aunt Ann smiled.  Really, the dear boy was very naughty!

"Jo," she said, grave again, "I can tell you another story of your
grandfather."

"Oh! do, Auntie!"

"This was in the thirties, very hard years for everybody; and your
grandfather was building some houses in Brighton.  He was always a
man who cut his coat to fit his cloth; but he used to tell me that
if he made five per cent. on his money with those houses, it would
be all he could hope for.  I remember it all very clearly because
just then I was SO hoping he would do well, I had a special
reason."  Aunt Ann paused, seeing again her special reason in
pegtop trousers looking down at her all braided and crinolined on
the sofa; hearing again his voice, so manly, saying:  'Dear Ann,
may I speak to your father?' hearing again her own answer:  'Please
wait, dear Edward, Papa is so preoccupied just now.  But if, as I
hope, things go well--next year I shall, I trust, be able to leave
him and the dear children.'

"What special reason, Auntie?"

"Oh! never mind that, dear.  As I was saying, your grandfather was
extremely anxious because those houses meant turning the corner of
all his difficulties.  It was a dreadful year, and I am sorry to
say there was a great deal of chicanery."

"What is chicanery?"

"Chicanery, dear, means trying to get the better of your neighbour
at all costs."

"Did grandfather get the better of anyone?"

Aunt Ann looked at her nephew sharply.

"No," she said, "they got the better of him, Jo."

"Oh!  Go on, Auntie.  How interesting!  I do want to hear."

"Well, one day your grandfather came home from Brighton in a
dreadful taking.  It was a long time before I could quieten him
down to tell me what had happened.  It seems that three of those
houses wouldn't dry.  The first houses were all right, so of course
your grandfather never suspected anything.  But the man who
supplied the building material had taken advantage to mix some of
it with sea water instead of fresh.  I could never make out what he
gained by it, or whether he had done it out of ignorance, but your
grandfather was convinced that he was a rascal.  'They won't dry,
they won't dry,' he kept on saying.  I think if he had died that
moment those words would have been printed on his heart.  You see,
it meant ruination to his reputation as a builder.  And then it
seems somebody showed him a way by which he could make the houses
seem dry although in wet weather they never really would be.  That
night I heard him, long after I went to bed, walking about in his
room next door; but in the morning I heard him mutter:  'No, I'm
jiggered if I will!'  He had made up his mind, after a dreadful
struggle, not to be party to any trick."

"And what happened then, Auntie?"

"Well, he just took those three houses down and built them afresh--
it cost him thousands."

"Didn't he make the man who used the sea water pay?"

"He tried to, Jo; but the man went bankrupt.  It aged your
grandfather very much.  We ALL felt it dreadfully."

Aunt Ann was silent, lost in memory of how she had felt it.
Edward! . . .  Her nephew's voice recalled her.

"Grandfather didn't go bankrupt himself, did he, Auntie?"

"No, Jo; but very nearly.  Perhaps it was all for the best.  It
made him very respected, and in after years he was always glad that
he had been so above-board."

She looked up startled; young Jolyon was examining her face in a
peculiar manner.

"I expect YOU had a sad time, Auntie."

Aunt Ann's lips firmed themselves against the suspicion of being
pitied.

"So you see, dear," she said, "your grandfather had good
principles, and that is the great thing."

"Did he go to Church, and that?"

"Not very much.  He was brought up to be a Wesleyan, so he never
quite approved of Church.  He used to say the service was full of
fallals.  Of course, WE all liked Church much better than Chapel,
and he never interfered with our going."

"I expect he was glad not to go at all, really."

Aunt Ann covered her mouth with a little paper fan.

"You mustn't be flippant, dear."

"Oh! no, Auntie; I meant it."

"Well, Jo, I don't think I should call your grandfather a very
religious man after our dear mother's death.  He always grudged
that so much."

"Did my father get on well with him?"

"Not very.  Your father was so much our mother's boy."

"I see."

"Yes, dear, your grandfather was always so occupied that he hadn't
much time for us children.  I think he was perhaps fonder of me
than of any of us."

"I expect that was because you were so good, Auntie."

"Hssh!  Jo.  You mustn't make fun of me.  I was the only one old
enough to talk to when our mother died."

"I thought you said my father was my age."

"Yes but in those days people did not talk to children as they do
now."

Young Jolyon did not reply, but he tilted his chin slightly.
Children!

"How much money did he leave, Auntie, after all that?"

"Thirty thousand pounds, dear, divided equally amongst the ten of
us--he was very just."

Young Jolyon took out his watch; it was an old one of his father's,
and he liked to take it out.

"I must go now, Auntie; I'm meeting a man at Madame Tussaud's.  Oh!
might I have those buckles?"

Aunt Ann's eyes lingered on him; he was her favourite, though to
admit it was not in her character.

"Are you to be trusted with them, dear?"

"Of course I am."

"They're an heirloom, Jo.  Don't you think we'd better wait till
you're older?"

"Oh! Auntie, as if I wasn't--!"

Aunt Ann's fingers rummaged in the little drawer.

"Well, on condition that you take the greatest care of them.  And
you mustn't ever wear them, until you go to Court."

"Do they wear buckles at Court?"

"I believe so, dear.  I have never been.  Here they are."

From folds of tissue paper she took them out--of old blackish paste
set in silver.  Very discreetly, on the bit of black velvet to
which they were attached, the two buckles gleamed.

Young Jolyon took them in his hand.  Into which of his pockets
would they go without spoiling a man's figure?

"I like them, Auntie."

"Yes, dear, they are genuine old paste.  Have you somewhere safe to
keep them?"

"Oh! yes, I've got lots of drawers."  He placed the buckles in his
tail coat pocket, and bent over to kiss his Aunt.

"You won't sit on them, Jo?"

"We never sit on our tails, Auntie."

His Aunt's eyes followed him wistfully to the door, where he turned
to wave his hand.  Dear Jo!  He WAS growing up!  Such a pleasure to
see him always.  He would be quite a distinguished-looking man some
day, like his dear father, only with more advantages.  But had she
done right to give him the buckles?  Was he not too young to
realise the responsibility?  She closed the little drawer whence
she had taken them, and before her eyes there passed the pageant of
old days--days of her childhood and her womanhood with no youth in
between.  Days of her own responsibility--mother to all the family
from the age of twenty on!  Just that one abortive courtship--'a
lick and a promise,' Swithin would call it--snuffed out by sea
water and her father's reputation.  Did she regret it?  No!  How
could she?  If her father had not been honest about those houses--
a man of his word--then, why then she could not have given his
buckles to dear Jo, as symbols of headship and integrity.  Edward!
Well, he had married very happily after all.  She had not grudged
him the pleasure; his wife had soon had twins.  Perhaps it was all
for the best: they were always very good to her, her brothers and
sisters that she had been a mother to, and it was such a pleasure
to see their dear little children growing up.  Why, Soamey would be
coming in directly on his way back from the Zoo; it was his eighth
birthday and she had his present ready; a box of bricks, so that he
could build himself a house--like his grandfather, only not--not
with sea water . . .  Ah! . . .  Um! . . .  Just a little nap,
perhaps, before the dear little chap came--perhaps a little--um--
ah!--

The thin lips, so generally compressed, puffed slightly in their
breathing above that square chin resting on her cameo.  The
delicious surge of slumber swayed over the brain under the
corkscrewed curls; the lips opened once and a word came forth:
"Bub--Buckles."




SANDS OF TIME, 1821-1863


In the Spring of 1860, on the afternoon of the last day before his
son went to Eton, old Jolyon hung up his top hat on a wooden antler
in the hall at Stanhope Gate and went into the dining-room.  Young
Jolyon, who had hung up his top hat on a lower wooden antler,
followed, and so soon as his father was seated in his large leather
chair, perched himself on the arm thereof.  Whether from the
Egyptian mummies they had just been seeing in the British Museum,
or merely because the boy's venture to a new school, and a Public
school at that, loomed heavy before them, they were both feeling
old, for between the ages of fifty-four and thirteen there is not,
on occasions like this, a great gulf set.  And that physical
juxtaposition, which, until he first went to school at the age of
ten, had been constant between young Jolyon and his sire, was
resumed almost unconsciously under the boy's foreboding that to-
morrow he would be a man.  He leaned back until his head was tucked
down on his father's shoulder.  To old Jolyon moments like this,
getting rarer with the years, were precious as any that life
afforded him--an immense comfort that the boy was such an
affectionate chap.

"Well, Jo," he said, "what did you think of the mummies?"

"Horrible things, Dad."

"Um--yes.  Still, if we hadn't got 'em, somebody else would.  They
say they're worth a lot of money.  Queer thing, Jo, to think there
are descendants of those mummies still living, perhaps.  Well,
you'll be able to say you've seen them; I don't suppose many other
boys have.  You'll like Eton, I expect."  This he said because he
was afraid his boy would not.  He didn't know much about it, but it
was a great big place to send a little chap to.  The pressure of
the boy's cheek against the hollow between chest and arm was
increased; and he heard the treble voice, somewhat muffled, murmur:

"Tell me about YOUR school, Dad."

"My school, Jo?  It was no great shakes.  I went to school at
Epsom--used to go by coach up to London all the way from Bosport,
and then down by post-shay--no railways then, you know.  Put in
charge of the guard, great big red-faced chap with a horn.  Travel
all night--ten miles an hour--and change horses every hour--like
clockwork."

"Did you go outside, Dad?"

"Yes--there I was, a little shaver wedged up between the coachman
and a passenger; cold work--shawls there were in those days, over
your eyes.  My mother used to give me a mutton pie and a flask of
cherry brandy.  Good sort, the old coachman, hoarse as a crow and
round as a barrel; and see him drive--take a fly off the leader's
ear with his whip."

"Were there many boys?"

"No; a small school, about thirty.  But I left school at fifteen."

"Why?"

"My mother died when your Aunt Susan was born, so we left Bosport
and came up to London, and I was put to business."

"What was your mother like, Dad?"

"My mother?"  Old Jolyon was silent, tracing back in thought
through crowded memories.

"I was fond of her, Jo.  Eldest boy, you know; they say I took
after her.  Don't know about that; she was a pretty woman, refined
face.  Nick Treffry would tell you she was the prettiest woman in
the town--good woman, too--very good to me.  I felt her death very
much."

A little more pressure of the head in the hollow of his arm.  All
that he felt for the boy and that, he hoped and believed, the boy
felt for him, he had felt for his own mother all that time ago.
Only forty-one when she had died bearing her tenth child.  Tenth!
In those days they made nothing of that sort of thing till the
pitcher went once too often to the well.  Ah!  Losing her had been
a bitter business.

Young Jolyon got off the arm of the chair, as if he were sensing
his father's abstraction.

"I think I'd better go and pack, Dad."

"All right, my boy!  I shall have a cigar."

When the boy had gone--graceful little chap!--old Jolyon went to
the Chinese tea chest where his cigars reposed, and took one out.
He listened to it, clipped its end, lighted and placed it in his
mouth.  Drawing at the cigar, he took it out of his mouth again,
held it away from him between two rather tapering-nailed fingers,
and savoured with his nostrils the bluish smoke.  Not a bad weed,
but all the better for being smoked!  Returning to his chair, he
leaned back and crossed his legs.  A long time since he'd thought
of his mother.  He could see her face still; yes, could just see
it, the clear look up of her eyes from far back under the brows,
the rather pointed chin; and he could hear her voice--pleasant,
soft, refined.  Which of them took after her?  Ann, a bit; Hester,
yes; Susan, a little; Nicholas, perhaps, except that the fellow was
so sharp; he himself, they said--he didn't know, but he'd like to
think it; she had been a gentle creature.  And, suddenly, it was as
if her hand were passed over his forehead again, brushing his hair
up as she had liked to see it.  Ah!  How well he could remember
still, coming into his father's house at Bosport after the long
cold coach drive back from school--coming in and seeing his father
standing stocky in the hallway, with his legs a little apart and
his head bowed, as if somebody had just hit him over it--standing
there and not even noticing him, till he said:  "I've come,
Father."

"What!  You, Jo?"  His face was very red, his eyelids puffed so
that his eyes were hardly visible.  He had made a queer motion with
both hands and jerked his head towards the stairs.

"Go up," he had said.  "Your mother's very bad.  Go up, my boy; and
whatever you do, don't cry."

He had gone up with a sort of sinking fear in his heart.  His
sister Ann had met him at the door--a good-looking upstanding young
woman, then; yes, and a mother to them all, afterwards--had
sacrificed herself to bringing up the young ones.  Ah! a good
woman, Ann!

"Come in, Jo," she had said; "Mother would like to see you.  But,
Jo--oh! Jo!"  And he had seen two tears roll down her cheeks.  The
sight had impressed him terribly; Ann never cried.  In the big
four-poster his mother lay, white as the sheets, all but the brown
ringlets of her hair--the light dim, and a strange woman--a nurse--
sitting over by the window with a white bundle on her lap!  He had
gone up to the bed.  He could see her face now--without a line in
it, all smoothed out, like wax!  He hadn't made a sound, had just
stood looking; but her eyes had opened, and had turned a little,
without movement of the face, to gaze full at him.  And then her
lips had moved, and whispered:  "There's Jo, there's my darling
boy!"  And never in his life before or since had he had so great a
struggle to keep himself from crying out, from flinging himself
down.  But all he had said was:  "Mother!"  Her lips had moved
again.  "Kiss me, my boy."  And he had bent and kissed her
forehead, so smooth, so cold.  And then he had sunk on his knees;
and stayed there gazing at her closed eyes till Ann had come and
led him away.  And up in the attic that he shared with James and
Swithin, he had lain on his bed, face down, and sobbed and sobbed.
She had died that morning, not speaking any more, so Ann had told
him.  After forty years he could feel again the cold and empty
aching of those days, the awful silent choking when in the old
churchyard they put her away from him for ever.  The stone had been
raised over her only the day before they left for London.  He had
gone and stood there reading:


                        IN MEMORY OF

                            ANN,

                    The Beloved Wife of

                       Jolyon Forsyte.

            Born Feb. 1, 1780; Died April 16, 1821


A bright May day and no one in that crowded graveyard but himself.

Old Jolyon shifted in his chair; his cigar was out, his cheeks
above those grizzling whiskers--indispensable to the sixties--had
coloured suddenly, his eyes looked angrily from deep beneath his
frowning brows, for he was suddenly in the grip of another memory--
bitter, wrathful and ashamed--of only ten years back.

That was on a Spring day too, in 1851, the year after they had
buried their father up at Highgate, thirty years after their
mother's death.  That had put it into his mind, and he had gone
down to Bosport for the first time since, travelling by train, in a
Scotch cap.  He had hardly known the place, so changed and spread.
Having found the old parish church, he had made his way to the
corner of the graveyard where she had been buried, and had stood
aghast, rubbing his eyes.  That corner was no longer there!  The
trees, the graves, all were gone.  In place, a wall cut diagonally
across, and beyond it ran the railway line.  What in the name of
God had they done with his mother's grave?  Frowning, he had
searched, quartering the graveyard like a dog.  At least, they had
placed it somewhere else.  But no--not a sign!  And there had risen
in him a revengeful anger shot through with a shame which
heightened the passion in his blood.  The Goths, the Vandals, the
ruffians!  His mother--her bones scattered--her name defaced--her
rest annulled!  A stinking railway track across her grave.  What
right--!  Clasping the railing of a tomb his hands had trembled,
and sweat had broken out on his flushed forehead.  If there were
any law that he could put in motion, he would put it!  If there
were anyone he could punish, by Heaven he would punish him!  And
then, that shame, so foreign to his nature, came sweeping in on him
again.  What had his father been about--what had they all been
about that not one of them had come down in all those years to see
that all was well with her!  Too busy making money--like the age
itself, laying that sacrilegious railway track, scattering with its
progress the decency of death!  And he had bowed his head down on
his trembling hands.  His mother!  And he had not defended her, who
had lain defenceless!  But what had the parson been about not to
give notice of what they were going to do?  He raised his head
again, and stared around him.  Over on the far side was someone
weeding paths.  He moved forward and accosted him.

"How long is it since they put that railway here?"

The old chap had paused, leaning on his spud.

"Ten year and more."

"What did they do with the graves in that corner?"

"Ah!  I never did 'old with that."

"What did they do with them?  I asked you."

"Why--just dug 'em up."

"And the coffins?"

"I dunno.  Ax parson.  They was old graves--an 'undred years or
more, mostly."

"They were not--one was my mother's.  1821."

"Ah!  I mind--there was a newish stone."

"What did they do with it?"

The old chap had gazed up at him, then, as if suddenly aware of the
abnormal on the path before him:

"I b'lieve they couldn't trace the owner--ax parson, 'e may know."

"How long has he been here?"

"Four year come Michaelmas.  Old parson's dead, but present parson
'e may 'ave some informashun."

Like some beast deprived of his kill old Jolyon stood.  Dead!  That
ruffian dead!

"Don't you know what they did with the coffins--with the bones?"

"Couldn' say--buried somewhere again, I suppose--maybe the doctors
got some--couldn' say.  As I tell you.  Vicar 'e may know."

And spitting on his hands he turned again to weeding.

The Vicar?  He had been no good, had known nothing, or so he had
said--no one had known!  Liars--yes, liars--he didn't believe a
word of what they said.  They hadn't wanted to trace the owner, for
fear of having a stopper put on them!  Gone, dispersed--all but the
entry of the burial!  Over the ground where she had lain that
railway sprawled, trains roared.  And he, by one of those trains,
had been forced to go back to that London which had enmeshed his
heart and soul so that, as it were, he had betrayed her who had
borne him!  But who would have thought of such a thing?  Sacred
ground!  Was nothing proof against the tide of Progress--not even
the dead committed to the earth?

He reached for a match, but his cigar tasted bitter and he pitched
it away.  He hadn't told Jo, he shouldn't tell Jo--not a thing for
a boy to hear.  A boy would never understand how life got hold of
you when you once began to make your way.  How one thing brought
another till the past went out of your head, and interests
multiplied in an ever-swelling tide lapping over sentiment and
memory, and the green things of youth.  A boy would never
comprehend how Progress marched inexorably on, transforming the
quiet places of the earth.  And yet, perhaps the boy ought to know--
might be a lesson to him.  No!  He shouldn't tell him--it would
hurt to let him know that one had let one's own mother--!  He took
up The Times.  Ah!  What a difference!  He could remember The Times
when he first came up to London--tiny print, such as they couldn't
read nowadays.  The Times--one double sheet with the Parliamentary
debates, and a few advertisements of places wanted, and people
wanting them.  And look at it now, a great crackling flourishing
affair with print twice the size!

The door creaked.  What was that?  Oh, yes--tea coming in!  His
wife was upstairs, unwell; and they had brought it to him here.

"Send some up to your mistress," he said, "and tell Master Jo."

Stirring his tea--his own firm's best Soochong--he read about the
health of Lord Palmerston and of how that precious mountebank of a
chap--the French Emperor--was expected to visit the Queen.  And
then the boy came in.  "Ah!  Here you are, Jo!  Tea's getting
strong."

And, as the little chap drank, old Jolyon looked at him.  To-morrow
he was going to that great place where they turned out Prime
Ministers and bishops and that, where they taught manners--at least
he hoped so--and how to despise trade.  H'm!  Would the boy learn
to despise his own father?  And suddenly there welled up in old
Jolyon all his primeval honesty, and that peculiar independence
which made him respected among men, and a little feared.

"You asked just now about your grandmother, Jo.  I didn't tell you
how, when I went down thirty years after her death, I found that
her grave had been dug up to make room for a railway.  There wasn't
a trace of it to be found, and nobody could or would tell me
anything about it."

The boy held his teaspoon above his cup, and gazed; how innocent
and untouched he looked; then suddenly his face went pinker and he
said:

"What a shame, Dad!"

"Yes; some ruffian of a parson allowed it, and never let us know.
But it was my fault, Jo; I ought to have been seeing to her grave
all along."

And again the boy said nothing, eating his cake, and looking at his
father.  And old Jolyon thought:  'Well, I've told him.'

Suddenly the boy piped up:

"That's what they did with the mummies, Dad."

The mummies!  What mummies?  Oh!  Those things they had been seeing
at the British Museum.  And old Jolyon was silent, staring back
over the sands of time.  Odd! how it hadn't occurred to him.  Odd!
Yet the boy had noticed it!  Um!  Now, what did that signify?  And
in old Jolyon there stirred some dim perception of mental movement
between his generation and his son's.  Two and two made four.  And
he hadn't seen it!  Queer!  But in Egypt they said it was all sand:
Perhaps things came up of their own accord.  And then--though there
might be, as he had said, descendants living, they were not sons or
grandsons.  Still!  The boy had seen the bearing of it and he
hadn't.  He said abruptly:

"Finished your packing, Jo?"

"Yes, Dad, only do you think I could take my white mice?"

"Well, my boy, I don't know--perhaps they're a bit young for Eton.
The place thinks a lot of itself, you know."

"Yes, Dad."

Old Jolyon's heart turned over within him.  Bless the little chap!
What he was in for!

"Did you have white mice, Dad?"

Old Jolyon shook his head.

"No, Jo; we weren't as civilised as all that in my young day."

"I wonder if those mummies had them," said young Jolyon.




HESTER'S LITTLE TOUR, 1845


Those who frequented Forsyte 'Change at Timothy's on the Bayswater
Road, and were accustomed to the sight of Aunt Hester sitting in
her chair to the left of the fireplace with a book on her lap which
she seemed almost too quiescent to be reading, must often have
wondered:  What, if any, adventures or emotional disturbances had
ever come the way of that still figure?  Had she ever loved, and if
so--whom?  Was she ever ill, and if so--where?  To whom had she
ever confided--what?  Not that she imparted to the observer the
impression of a sphinx.  That would hardly have been nice.  And
yet, curiously enough, of the three sisters who dwelled at
Timothy's, it was Aunt Hester who exhaled, in spite of all her
quietism, an atmosphere of--one would almost say free thought, but
for fear of going too far.  Better, perhaps, say that she conveyed
a feeling of having abandoned, out of love of a quiet life, more
desires, thoughts, hopes and dislikes, than either of her sisters
had ever been capable of entertaining.  People felt, in fact, not
that Aunt Hester owned a past, but that all her life she had been
renouncing a past which she might very well have had.  And they
felt, too, that she knew it, and found it somehow not tragic, but
comic, as if she were always saying to herself:  'To be like this
when you're so unlike this--droll, isn't it?'  When the Freudian
doctrine of complexes and inhibitions came in, younger members of
the family, such as Violet, given to pastels, Christopher,
inclining to the stage, and Maud Dartie, nothing if not daring,
would speculate on what had happened to Aunt Hester before she was
as she was.  And theory was divided between the assumption that she
had been dropped on her head when she was three, or chased by a
black man when she was thirteen.  In a word, it was widely felt
that there were strange potentialities in Aunt Hester, which she
had deliberately not developed.  The doctrine of 'balance
redressed' which had contrived out of a family containing so many
'characters' a sort of reserve or sinking fund in Hester and
Timothy, seemed to offer a sound biological explanation, and it was
only when she died in 1907 and left to Francie Forsyte her china,
that there came to at least one member of the family knowledge that
Aunt Hester had once 'tried herself out' before for good and all
she resigned a past.  For in a Lowestoft teapot Francie found a
little sheaf of yellowed leaves of paper, which seemingly Aunt
Hester had been too passive to destroy, before she entered a
passivity even more profound; leaves deeply buried beneath a pot-
pourri of very old cloves, and the dust of rose petals, together
with three boot buttons which appeared to have been dropped in at
moments when Aunt Hester couldn't be bothered to put them in any
other place.  The leaves had been detached as if pulled out of a
diary, and this alone gave food for thought, in its implication
that Aunt Hester must at one time have manifested energy, or there
would have been no diary to pull them out of.  That they came into
the hands of Francie was perhaps fortunate, for no other Forsyte
could have relished them adequately.  Indeed she so relished them
that she even fancied Aunt Hester had wished them to survive as a
sort of protest against her unspent life; and presently she dressed
them up anonymously in the form of a story which she sent to the
'Argonaut,' who did not accept it.  In her version the names were
altered, but are here restored to their pristine purity.  It was
entitled:  'Hester's Little Tour, being Leaves from a Very Early
Victorian Diary found in a Lowestoft teapot,' and it began
abruptly:

"Wednesday morning, early.  How entrancing it was last night to
stand in the moonlight with that beautiful Rhine flowing by my
feet, and to fancy that it wandered past castles and cities, only
to lose itself at last in the great blue sea!  How the moonbeams
glistened on the water!  To think that under this moon the Loreley
lured men to destruction, and the robber barons issued from their
fastnesses on their forays, with the soft moonlight gleaming on
their armour!  But was I, indeed, thinking of all this?  No, I had
but one thought:  Would he come?  Would he really come?  And what
would they say at home if they could see me standing there with the
hood drawn over my face, waiting for my lover?  Lover!  Oh, the
dear word!  If only, I thought, I do not forget all my German, so
that I can understand what he says to me in his dear voice, and not
weary him by having to talk English!  You must not think, my diary,
that I did not know how immodest it was of me to have come out.
Yes, I knew that, but I did not care.  I did not care.  Why should
I?  My heart tells me that I am in love with him.  My heart tells
me that he loves me.  And then he came, he came almost before I
knew he was there, wrapped in that flowing cloak which Swithin
would laugh at, but which looks so martial on him, he is so
upright.  How terribly my heart beat when without a word he took me
in his arms, wrapping his cloak right round me so that we seemed
one person.  Ah! it was divine; and strange how I had no fears or
misgivings.  I never once thought of home while I was standing
there in his embrace.  A nightingale was singing; so romantic, so
beautiful, I shall never forget.  Rolandseck, dear Rolandseck! . . .
When I was back in my room, fortunately quite unobserved, I felt
cold and sick at the thought that we were leaving on the morrow for
Bonn.  Would that not be too far for him to come, for he has his
military duties.  But if I can believe his words, or rather his
lips, he will not fail.  At six o'clock, he said, under the linden
trees in the Platz at Bonn.  Oh, my diary, where is your Hester
going?  When I was in his embrace last night I felt I could give up
the world for him; and of course he is of very good family.  But,
lying in my bed, everything seemed so difficult and to need such an
effort, for indeed I think it would give our dear father a fit to
think of me in Germany married, or perhaps not married--for I do
not even know if he has a wife already--to an Army officer.  And
soldiers are proverbially fickle; they love and ride away.  And
then what would become of me?  But the delight I felt when he put
his arms round me--can there be anything in the world more
beautiful than love?  And I have so often laughed at it; but indeed
I do not know myself any more, nor where my sense of humour has
gone.  To think that only three weeks ago we were in the packet
crossing to Calais--it seems a century; and all the towns and
people I have seen are faded as if I had dreamed them; and just
these last few days seem real.  Or perhaps this is the dream and I
shall wake up and find that I have never met him.  Fancy!  If we
had not gone into the Pump rooms that night at Ems, I never should
have met him.  Those divine valses we danced together--how
elegantly he dances!  It was love at first sight, and I have
behaved most immodestly, but that does not seem to me to matter at
all.  Yet sometimes I wonder what he thinks of me when I am not
with him.  After all, I am thirty years old, not just a young girl
as perhaps he believes, for he says I look so young.  His
Englisches M�dchen--he calls me!  Oh me!  How difficult is life!  I
am surprised to find that all the deportment and good conduct I
have been taught seem to count for nothing when I am with him.  I
am really naughty, for it makes me smile to think what John and
Eleanor would feel and say if they only knew where their 'dear
demure Hester' had been last night, and how all she is thinking
about now is how to get away from them again to-night and meet him
under the lime trees in the Platz at Bonn.  It is nearly seven by
my watch; I must close you now, my diary, and get ready for the
chaise. . . .

"Wednesday evening.  Oh! dear, how many stories I have told!  First
I said I had a headache after the jolting in the chaise, and was
going to lie down and sleep, so as to be fresh for dinner.  And
then I listened till I heard John and Eleanor in their room,
unpacking; and out I stole.  He was there already--all impatience,
and his boots all dusty; for he had ridden all the way and was
going to ride back for his inspection in the morning.  Ah! what a
beautiful hour; but not so beautiful as last night because there
were people about, and, though the linden trees were thick and
lovely, they didn't hide us as I would have liked.  Yes, I would--
I am quite abandoned!  To-night--dare I write it even in you, my
diary?--he says he will come to my window.  When I chose to be on
the ground floor, did I think of that?  Yes, I will be honest, I
did; so that's that!  I shall never smile again at people in love.
It is too sweet, and too upsetting.  It makes you do what you would
never dream of doing, and feel quite proud of it, so long as nobody
knows.  And then, when I was coming in, I met John and told him I
had been pining for air to cure my headache, and so I had gone for
a walk.  And I quite enjoyed seeing dear John so deceived!  Yes,
and I said I should be all right to-morrow if I went to bed EARLY
AFTER DINNER.  Poor John, he is very trustful, and has such nice
eyes.  Eleanor is very fortunate, I think.  It is all so smooth for
them!  Ah me!  It is so different and difficult for us.  It is too
cruel that he is not English.  Bernhard--the name is beautiful and
very strong--just what a name should be; only, I like it better
without the 'h.'  He is six feet tall and twenty-eight years old,
and he thinks I am twenty-four; and I have not told him that I am
not.  When he touches me nothing matters, not even the truth.  I
feel it is fortunate that we can only speak to each other in a
broken way; it seems to excuse me for deceiving him about my age.
Yet, after all--thirty and twenty-eight--there is not much
difference; and he is so big and strong and manly, I feel humble
enough with him to be the younger.  There is something so romantic
about this beautiful Rhineland that I do not feel as I should feel
in England; in England I could never act as I am acting now, indeed
no--I should be ashamed of having such violent, such delicious
feelings.  I am writing in bed, for fear dear Eleanor should come
and find me up, after I had said that I was going to bed at once.
But I think I can venture soon now to get up and lock my door, and
then I shall don my mauve n�glig�; it goes with my hair, and I
shall keep my hair down.  I know how daring that is, but sometimes
I feel as daring as a tigress defending her young; and then, all
suddenly, it is as if my heart would creep out at the soles of my
feet, to think that I have a sweetheart coming to my window.
'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?'  Oh!  Why is he not
English?  It would all be so much easier.  For then he could woo me
openly.  If anybody knew he was coming to-night, could I ever hold
up my head again?  And yet, if I were sure no one would ever know,
I should feel like a bird, free and happy, rejoicing that its mate
was coming to it in the moonlight.  Only birds do not come to their
mates in the moonlight.  How silly I am!  But oh! if he should be
seen!  I will not think of that; I will not.  Be brave, my heart!
He says I am 'so schone'--such a pretty word.  But I know I am not
really.  I have not the pink cheeks, the corn-coloured hair, the
coral lips of these German maidens.  I am dark, and thinner.
Perhaps that is why he admires me.  Oh! how my heart is beating!  I
must put you away now, my diary.  What--ah! what will have come to
me when I write in you again! . . .

"Friday afternoon.  I am distraught.  I cannot tell what to do, I
cannot tell.  All to-day my mind has been going this way and that,
ever since I had his dear letter.  I have made it all out with the
help of the dictionary.  His regiment is marching to-morrow to
Frankfort, and he begs me to come to him there.  He says we will be
married, and he will make me 'ever happy.'  But until he goes he is
so busy that he cannot come again.  I know it is my besetting
weakness not to be able to act for myself; Ann is always at me
about it.  I wonder what she would say if she knew that if I could
act now I should go to him and disregard the consequences.  It is
not that I am afraid of the consequences, but it is so difficult to
act all by myself; there are so many things I must do if I am to
go.  Ah! if only someone could do them for me.  It is not my soul,
but my body that lags and lags.  I wish I were like Ann, who always
does at once what she feels to be right.  Is it that I am ashamed
of what has happened?  No, not to myself.  How can I be ashamed of
obeying the dictates of my heart and his?  But I cannot face having
to explain to John and Eleanor.  They would be so horrified, and
how could I make them understand?  And then there is the arranging
for my journey and selling my necklace, for I have not enough
money.  He would send me money if he knew, but I could not ask him.
Oh dear! it is all so difficult.  Yesterday I was intoxicated on
the memory of our night, it still makes me burn; but to-day my
courage and my energy is all run out of me.  Our night!  Never,
never could I write of it, even in you, my diary.  It was too
wonderful, and terrifying, and sweet.  Did I care then what I was
doing, do I care now what I did?  A thousand times no!  If he were
here at this moment it should be again as it was.  I think I must
be wanton by nature, for I am proud of it to myself.  But to the
world--and then John and Eleanor!  After all their kindness in
taking me this tour, how can I leave them without a word?  And if I
do not, how can I ever tell them what I have done--what we have
done!  I should die of shame!  But if I cannot make up my mind to
leave them without a word, and do all those other things that are
necessary, I must go on with them to Cologne, and back to London,
and never see him again.  Soon he will not remember me.  I shall be
just a night of love.  Perhaps one of many nights, for what do I
know of him but that I love him, and that he seems to me brave and
beautiful?  If I look up I can see him there leaning above me in
the moonlight.  O God!  I was wicked, but I was happy.  There is
the bell for supper.  Yes!  I am distracted.  Perhaps in the night
I shall gain courage to act, because I shall want him so! . . .

"Sunday, Cologne.  All has moved on as it seemed without me, and my
body has come here with John and Eleanor.  I have just written to
him.  I have told him that if he really loves me, he will come to
England to claim me; but I know he will not come.  I feel it is the
end.  I am not a fool.  John and Eleanor think I have a touch of
the sun; it was very hot in the chaise.  It is a touch of the moon
I have.  The moon!  I, Hester, who always laughed--!  Ah me!  I
have a lump of lead in my chest.  Eleanor came to my room early
yesterday morning and insisted on helping me to pack; she is so
kind; we started at eight o'clock and drove all day.  Now we shall
go to the Cathedral and to-morrow travel by train, and in four days
we shall be home.  John said to-night:  'Well, I think it has been
a very enjoyable little tour.'  He is a dear nice fellow, but quite
blind!  When I go home I shall kiss them all and say:  'Oh!  such a
lovely tour!'  As I sit here in my bedroom writing, I seem to see
myself with malice:  Dear prim proper little Hester!  Ugh!  I have
not cried at all, but an' I would--!  To-morrow morning we shall
travel on and on and on away from him.  All my mind and will feel
paralysed, my heart only is alive and sore; I know that if it came
over again I should act just the same.  And my nature will always
be like this; always want love and freedom, always be free in
thought but not in deed . . .

"Saturday.  I have not written in you for days, my diary.  What was
the use?  Yesterday we crossed in the packet and came up to London.
I laughed when I saw our house, but I was not amused.  It looked so
pokey, and like other houses.  Oh!  Rolandseck! and the moonlight
on the river!  There was no letter from him.  I have been a fool; I
know it now.  My pride is hurt, and I am sore--sore.  Ann looked at
me so hard, I could not help smiling bitterly.  Poor Ann!  And
Juley gushed about my looking pale.  She is a fool.  I feel much
older than them both.  And now I shall go on day after day doing
exactly what we have always done; but I shall never feel the same
again, for I have been where they have not.  I have had my little
tour . . ."

In her capacity of editress Francie had added:  "This is surely a
curious little sidelight on the nature of our Victorian
foremothers."

"F. F."




TIMOTHY'S NARROW SQUEAK, 1851


In 1920 Soames Forsyte on the death of his uncle Timothy, proved
that will which but for the law against accumulations would in
course of time have produced such astounding results.  He had been
at pains to explain to Timothy how, owing to that law, what Timothy
intended would not come about; but Timothy had merely stared at him
very hard and said:  "Rubbage!  Make it so!"  And Soames had made
it.  In any case the legal limit of accumulation would be reached,
and that was as near to what the old chap wanted as could be.
When, as executor, he came to the examination of the papers left
behind by Timothy, he had fresh confirmation of his uncle's
lifelong passion for safety.  Practically nothing had been
destroyed.  Seventy years and more of receipted bills, and cheque
books with the paid-out cheque forms carefully returned to them in
order of date, were found, and--since Timothy had been spoon-fed
and incapable of paying a bill since before the War--burned out of
hand.  There was a mass of papers referring to the publishing
business, which he had abandoned for Consols in 1879, and which had
died, very fortunately for Soames, a natural death not long after.
All these were committed to the fire.  But then--a far more serious
matter--there were whole drawers full of private letters and odds
and ends not only Timothy's, but of the three sisters who had made
house with him since their father's death in 1850.  And with
that conscientiousness, which ever distinguished him in an
unconscientious world, Soames had decided to go through them first
and destroy them afterwards.  It was no mean task.  He sneezed his
way through it doggedly, reading the spidery calligraphy of the
Victorian era, in bundle after dirty bundle of yellowed letters;
cheered slightly now and then, among the mass of sententious
gossip, by little streaks of side light on this member of his
family or on that.  The fifteenth evening of his perusal, for he
had had the lot conveyed by motor lorry down to Mapledurham, he
came on the letter which forms the starting point of this
narration.  It was enclosed in a yellowed envelope bearing the
address, "Miss Hatty Beecher;" was in Timothy's handwriting; bore
the date, "May the twenty-seventh 1851," and had obviously never
been posted.  Hatty Beecher!  Why that had been the maiden name of
Hatty Chessman, the lively, elderly, somewhat raddled widow and
friend of the family in his youth.  He remembered her death in the
Spring of 1899.  She had left his Aunts Juley and Hester five
hundred pounds apiece.  Soames began to read the letter with an
ashamed curiosity, though it was nearly seventy years old and
everybody dead; he continued to read it with a sort of emotion, as
of one coming on blood in the tissue of a mummy.


"MY DEAR HATTY," (it began),

"I hope it will not surprise you to receive from me," ('obviously
she never did,' thought Soames), "this missive which has caused me
much anxiety, for I am not one of those lighthearted gentry who
take the gravest steps in life without due consideration.  Only the
conviction that my best interests, indeed my happiness, and, I
trust, your happiness, are involved, have caused me to write this
letter.  I have not, I hope, obtruded my attentions upon you, but
you will not I equally hope have failed to notice that the charms
of your person and your character have made a great impression upon
me and that I seek your company with an ever growing ardour.  I
cannot, then, think that it will be in the nature of a shock to you
when, with all the gravity born of long consideration and many
heart searchings, I ask for the honour of your hand.  If I am so
fortunate as to meet with your approval as a suitor, it will be my
earnest endeavour to provide for you a happy and prosperous home,
to surround you with every attention, and to make you a good
husband.  As you know, I think, I am thirty-one years old, and my
business is increasing, I am indeed slowly, I am happy to say,
becoming a warm man; so that in material matters you will have all
the comfort and indeed luxury with which I feel you should be
surrounded.  In the words of, I think, the Marquis of Montrose:


     'He either fears his fate too much
      Or his deserts are small
      Who dares not put it to the touch
      To win or lose it all.'


"As I say, I have not taken this step lightly, and if, my dear
Hatty, it pleases you to crown my aspirations with success, I think
you may rely on me to make you happy.  I shall be on tenterhooks
until I have your reply which I hope will not be delayed beyond the
morrow.  I express to you my devoted admiration and am, my dear
Hatty,

"Your faithful and attached Suitor,

"TIMOTHY FORSYTE."


With a faint grin Soames dropped the yellowed letter--six years
older than himself--on his knee, and sat brooding.  Poor old
Timothy!  And he had never sent it.  Why not?  Never 'put it to the
touch' after all.  If he remembered Hatty Chessman the old boy had
been well out of it.  Bit of a dasher Hatty Chessman in her time,
from all that he had heard!

Still!  There was the letter!  Irrefutable evidence that Timothy
had been human once upon a time.  1851?--the year of the Great
Exhibition!  Yes, they had been in the Bayswater Road by then,
Timothy and the girls, Ann, Juley, Hester!  Fancy a thing like that
letter coming out of the blue at this time of day!  What had Hatty
done that he didn't send the letter?  Or what had Timothy done?
Eaten something that disagreed with him--he shouldn't wonder, had a
scare of some sort.  The envelope had just Hatty's name but no
address; was she then staying with them at the time or what--she
had been a great friend, he knew, of Juley and of Hester!  He put
the letter back into its yellowed envelope with Timothy's cypher in
an oval medallion on the flap, dropped it into a tray, and went on
with his task of conning over his Uncle's remains.

Hallo!  What were these?

Three thin red notebooks held together by a bit of dingy rainbow-
coloured ribbon tied in a bow.  Whose writing?  Aunt Ann's
undoubtedly, more upright, more distinct than any other in the
family.  A diary, by George, and pretty old!  Yes, begun when they
went to 'the Nook,' "November 1850," and going on to "1855," the
year that old Aunt Juley married Septimus Small.  It would be old-
fashioned twaddle!  But suddenly Soames' eye lighted again on the
yellowed letter in the tray and taking up the second volume of the
diary he turned its pages till he came to April 1851.

"April 3.  We are all agog about the Great Exhibition that is to be
opened in Hyde Park.  James says he doesn't know, but he thinks it
will be a failure.  They are making a great to-do and the Park does
not look itself at all.  It has quite upset dear Timothy.  He is
afraid that it will attract many rogues and foreigners and that our
house will be burgled.  He has become very distrait and never talks
to us about his business, but we think from what James said on
Sunday that he must be in doubt whether or not to publish a new
edition of the rhymes of Dr. Watts.  They are very improving, but
James says that Timothy does not know whether anyone will want to
read them at this time of day."  'H'm!' thought Soames:  '"How doth
the little busy bee!"'  If Timothy had really baulked at
republishing that dreadful stuff, he must have regretted it all his
life!'  His eyes scanned on over the thin precise pages till he
came to this:

"May 3.  Hatty Beecher ('Ah! here it was!') came on April 30th to
spend a month with us.  She is a fine figure of a girl and has
become quite buxom.  We all went to the opening of the Exhibition.
It was such a crowd, and the dear little Queen was so becomingly
dressed.  It was an occasion I shall never forget.  How the people
cheered!  Timothy attended us, he seems quite taken with Hatty, he
can hardly look at her.  I hope she is really nice.  Hester and
Juley are already full of her praises.  They all went to walk in
the Park to-day, and look at the crowd going into the Exhibition,
though there was a windy drizzle; but as our dear father used to
say it was only 'pride of the morning,' for it soon cleared, and
the sun shone . . .

"May 7.  We all went to the opera.  Dear Jolyon sent us his box--he
put it so drolly.  'Take care Timothy doesn't lose his heart to
Taglioni, she wouldn't make him a good wife.'  I must say it is
really wonderful how she supports herself on one toe, but Timothy
seemed quite preoccupied.  He was staring at Hatty's back all
through the ballet.  Mario was ravishing.  I have never heard
singing so like an angel's.  We had great difficulty coming away.
It rained and our crinolines got wet, the stupid coachman took
someone else for Timothy and we missed our turn and had to walk
outside the portico.  But Hatty was in such spirits that it did not
seem to matter.  She is such a rattle.  I wonder whether it is
quite wise for dear Timothy to see so much of her.  I am sure she
is very well intentioned, but I feel her evening dresses are lower
than is quite nice.  I have given her my Brussels fichu.

"May 13.  To-day we went to the Zoo.  Hatty had never seen it.  In
some ways she is quite provincial, but she picks things up very
fast.  Dear Timothy came all the way from his office to meet us.  I
fear it was Hatty's beaux yeux rather than the animals which
brought him.  I confess that the Zoo does not give me much
pleasure, it is very common; and the monkeys are so human, and not
at all nice in their habits.  Hatty insisted on mounting the
elephant, and of course Timothy was obliged to be her squire of
dames, but I am sure he did not really enjoy it, and, indeed, he
looked so grave bobbing behind her in the howdah that I could not
help smiling, and Hester laughed so that I thought she would burst
her bonnet strings.  I was obliged to check her, for fear dear
Timothy should see.  I am glad we arrived too late to see the lions
fed.  The seal was very droll . . .

"May 17.  James came to tea.  He told us that Swithin has bought a
new pair of greys, very spirited, and that he doesn't know what
will happen.  He advised Hatty not to venture if Swithin asks her
to go driving.  But Hatty said:  'I should adore it.'  She
certainly has a great deal of courage, indeed she is inclined to be
rash.  I was not sorry that Timothy should have the opportunity of
seeing that she is so venturesome, for I feel more and more that he
is attracted by her.  I do not remember when he has behaved quite
as he has this last fortnight.  And though in some ways she is
attractive, I do not really think she would make him a good wife.
I cannot disguise from myself, too, that it would cause a great
disturbance in all our lives; but I tell myself constantly that I
ought not to be selfish, and if it were for dear Timothy's good, I
hope I should not 'care a brass farden' as Nicholas would put it in
his droll way.  The girls are very fond of her and they do not see
the little things that I see, and which make me uneasy.  I must
hope for the best.  I spoke to my dear Jolyon about it yesterday,
he is the head of the family now that our dear father is gone, and
he has good judgment.  He said I was not to worry, Timothy would
never 'come up to the scratch.'  I thought it such a peculiar
expression.

"May 20.  A Mr. Chessman has been to call.  He came with Swithin.
Juley thought he was elegantly dressed, but for my part, I do not
care for these large shepherd's plaid checks which seem to be all
the rage now for gentlemen.  Hester and Hatty came in while we were
still at tea, and Mr. Chessman was very attentive to Hatty.  I hope
I am not being unjust to her when I say that she made eyes at him
in a way that I thought very forward.  I was quite glad dear
Timothy was not there.  At least, to be honest, I am not sure that
it would not have been for the best if he could have seen her.
Swithin says that Mr. Chessman has to do with stocks and shares and
is very clever in his profession.  I must say that he seems to me
much better suited to Hatty than Timothy could ever be.  So perhaps
it is providential that he came.  Swithin has asked her and Hester
to make four at the Royal Toxophilite Society's Meeting on
Saturday.  He pooh-poohed James about the new horses and said that
he was an old woman.  I shall not tell James, it would only put him
about.  In the evening after dinner I read Cowper aloud to the
girls and Timothy.  I chose his celebrated poem, 'The Task,' which
begins with that daring line 'I sing the sofa.'  I did not read
very long because Timothy seemed so sleepy: he works too hard all
day in his stuffy office.  I must say Hatty did not behave at all
nicely.  She made faces behind my back, which I could see perfectly
well in the mirror; but of course, I took no notice, because she is
our guest.  For myself I find Cowper very sonorous and improving,
though to be quite honest I prefer 'John Gilpin' to any of his more
serious poems . . .

"May 23.  We have had quite a to-do, and I am not at all sure where
my duty lies.  This morning after Timothy had gone to the office I
went to his study to dust the books which he bought with dear James
when we came to live here.  They each bought a complete little
library, containing Humboldt's Cosmos, Hudibras and all the best
works of the past; and who should I find there but Hatty, sitting
in Timothy's own arm chair, reading a book which I at once
recognised as one of the little calf-bound volumes of Lord Byron.
She was so absorbed that she did not see me till I was close to
her.  I received quite a shock when I apprehended that the book was
that dreadful 'Don Juan' that one has heard so much about.  She did
not even try to hide it but said in a flippant way:  'Who'd have
thought Timothy would have this book!'  I am afraid I forgot
myself, and spoke sharply.

"'I think, my dear Hatty,' I said, 'it is hardly genteel to come
into a gentleman's room and sit in his own armchair and read a book
like that.  I am surprised at you.'  She took me up quite rudely.

"'Why?  Have you read it?'

"'Of course I have not read it,' I replied.

"'Then,' she said, pertly, 'what do you know about it?'

"'It is common knowledge,' I answered, 'that it is not a book for
ladies.'

"She tossed her head with a very high colour; but I continued to
stand there looking at her, and she got up and put the book back
whence she had taken it.  It was in my mind to improve the
occasion, but I remembered in time that she has no mother, and is
our guest, so I only said:  'You know, dear Hatty, Timothy does not
like his books touched.'  She laughed and said flippantly:  'No,
they don't look as if they were meant to be read.'  I could have
shaken her, but I controlled myself.  After all she is young and
high-spirited, and I daresay it is rather quiet for her in our
little house.  She flung out of the room, and I have not seen her
since.  I cannot make up my mind whether to tell Timothy or not.  I
feel sure that he is seriously �pris.  He looks at her so much when
he thinks nobody sees him, and he has been biting his fingers, and
has not answered any question for some days; indeed, he does not
seem to hear us when we speak to him.  I should tell him at once if
I only knew how he would take it; but men are so funny and I am not
quite sure that it might not inflame his feelings rather than allay
them.  I feel more and more, however, that Hatty would not prove
the ideal mate for him.  He needs a more womanly woman, and
especially one who would not laugh at him.  I think I must just
wait and see, as our dear father used to say so often . . .

"May 25.  Swithin sent his brougham this evening for Hester and
Hatty and they dined with him to meet Mr. Chessman and Mr. and Mrs.
Traquair.  Timothy looked very blue; all the evening he sat as glum
as glum; and I noticed that when the girls came back in the highest
spirits he was in such a fluster that he gave Hatty his own negus
by mistake.  When she was going to bed she left her shawl on the
back of her chair, and when Timothy took it up to restore it to
her, I saw him put it to his nose.  I very much fear that it is not
the highest side of him that she appeals to.  This makes it very
difficult for me to say anything.  I have a feeling that Mr.
Chessman is providential.  I questioned Hester closely about him
and from what she says he and Hatty get on together like a house on
fire.  I do not suppose from what Swithin told us that he is so
warm a man as dear Timothy, who has always been of a saving
disposition and is doing so very well now with his primers, and I
am sure he cannot be so safe a man, but to do Hatty justice I do
not think she is of a mercenary turn of mind.  It is very
agitating, and I can only pray that all will turn out for the
best . . .

"May 28.  Timothy sent a message to me this morning that he was
going to Brighton for some sea air and would not be back for a
fortnight.  YOU CANNOT IMAGINE WHAT A RELIEF IT WAS TO ME for,
after what happened last night, I was dreading having to do my
duty.  I cannot but think he knows what I had to tell him and that
it is all over for the best.  He took a cab and caught the early
train without saying good-bye or indeed seeing any of us.  I must
put it all down as clearly as I can.

"Yesterday evening Mr. and Mrs. Traquair called for Hatty to take
her to dine and to their box at the opera afterwards.  We four had
a cosy little dinner at home just to ourselves, the first time
since Hatty came.  Cook had made some mincepies specially, and the
pulled-bread was more delicious than I ever remember it.  Timothy
got up a bottle of the special brown sherry, and he filled our
glasses himself; then he held his up and screwed up his eyes and
said:  'Well, here's to home and beauty!'  He looked quite waggish.
But he was very distrait afterwards and went off to his study.  I
confess that I felt quite nervous, for I have never known him
propose a toast or screw up his eyes like that; and knowing what I
did I could not help fearing that he was making up his mind to a
proposal.  Juley and I played b�zique for some time, and I got more
and more anxious, and when the negus came I took Timothy's glass
down to the study.  He was sitting at his desk with a pen in his
mouth and his eyes fixed on the ceiling; and I noticed that he had
been tearing up paper.  It was all strewn about, and when I
ventured to pick up some pieces and put them into the wastepaper
basket I saw the word 'Hatty' on one of them.  He was quite cross
at being interrupted.  'What's the matter with you, Ann?' he said:
'I'm busy.'  And then he went off again into a brown study.  I did
not know what to do for the best.  So I went away and sat in the
drawing-room waiting for him to come up.  The girls had gone to
bed, and I took my tatting into the window, it was such a warm
night.  I confess that I prayed to God while I was sitting there.
Timothy has always been my baby since our dear mother died when
Susan was born, and it was dreadful to me to think that he might be
taking a step that would lead to his unhappiness.  I could not see
what he could be writing and tearing up to Hatty except a proposal
of marriage.  His forehead had been flushed, and his eyes looked
quite glassy.  It seemed a very long time that I sat there.  The
Bayswater Road was quite quiet, and the lights of the Exhibition in
the Park were so pretty, and there were stars in the sky, I always
think they are wonderful, so bright and so far off.  I could not
tatt properly for thinking of dear Timothy.  And still he did not
come up, though it grew very late.  I knew that he must be sitting
up to let Hetty in; and that probably he would then give her the
letter he had been writing.  I was in despair till I thought:  When
she comes I will go down myself and open the door to her, and
perhaps Timothy will let me talk to him before he puts the 'fat in
the fire' as James would say.  My nerves became all fiddlestrings,
so at last I took up the works of Mr. Cowper, and tried to calm
myself.  The carriages and cabs were coming now bringing back
people from the theatres and the Exhibition, and I knew I had not
long to wait.  I was just reading those clever little verses on
'The high price of fish' when I saw a hansom cab stopping at our
door.  I must say it gave me quite a shock, and I rubbed my eyes,
because I had made sure that the Traquairs would bring Hatty back
in their carriage.  A man got out first in an opera cloak and hat,
and then I saw him quite plainly assisting Hatty to alight.  He
placed her on the ground and lifted her hand to his lips, and I
could see her look at him so archly.  He got back into the cab and
drove away.  It was Mr. Chessman.  At first I was so paralysed at
the thought that she had driven all the way with him from the
opera, ALONE IN THE CAB, that I could not move.  Then I wondered
whether Timothy also had seen what I had seen.  In my disturbance I
ran down stairs into the hall.  The door of his room was shut and
there was the bell ringing.  He did not come out, so then I knew
that he must have seen.  I am afraid I did a very unladylike thing,
for I stood outside his door and listened.  From my own feelings I
could tell what a shock it must have been to him to know that the
lady to whom he was about to offer his hand had driven alone at
night with a comparative stranger in one of those new cabs which
are so private.  I could hear a noise, indeed, as if someone were
breathing very hard--it was a dreadful moment; then, afraid that he
might do something violent, I ran to the front door and opened it.
There was Hatty, as cool as a cucumber.  I am thankful now that I
said nothing to her, but she must have seen from my face that I
knew everything.  'Well,' she said, pertly, 'here we are again!
Such a treat, dear Papa!  Good-night, Miss Forsyte!' and ran
upstairs.  My heart bled for Timothy.  I listened again at his
door, and could hear him walking up and down just like an animal in
the Zoo.  He went on for quite a long time, for though he does not
show them, he has always had very deep feelings.  You cannot
imagine what a relief it was when suddenly I heard him begin to
whistle 'Pop goes the weasel!'  I knew, then, that the worst was
over; and, though he was still walking up and down, I stole
upstairs as quietly as a mouse.  I am sure I was right in thinking
that discretion was the better part of valour.  Timothy cannot bear
anyone to see him affected in any way, it puts him into a perfect
fantod.  When I got to my room I fell on my knees, and thanked God
for this providential escape: though, when I think of Hatty in that
cab, I feel that the ways of Providence are indeed inscrutable.
It is a great relief to me to think that by now Timothy must be
on the Pier at Brighton with the good sea air, and all the
distractions . . .

"June 1.  Hatty left us to-day.  I should be sorry to say that I
think her 'fast,' I am sure she really has a good heart, but I
confess that I feel her influence on Juley and Hester has been
unsettling--she is of course much younger than they, and the young
people of to-day seem to have no deportment, and very little sense
of duty or indeed of manners.  I really find it difficult to
forgive her for the flippant thing she said at the last minute:
'Tell Timothy that I'm sorry if I astonished his weak nerves.'  And
she whisked off before I could even answer . . .

"June 6.  Timothy is still at Brighton.  Hester had a letter from
him yesterday in which he said that he had walked up to the Devil's
Punchbowl and that it had done his liver good.  He has seen the
performing fleas too, and the aquarium.  Swithin has been down, he
says, driving his new greys--he--Timothy--does not think much of
them; but, of course, he is not the judge of a horse that Swithin
is.  He made no allusion to Hatty in his letter, so I hope the
wound is beginning to heal.  Jolyon came in this afternoon when the
girls were out, and told me of a picture he had bought 'Dutch
fishing boats at Sunset'--he has such good judgment.  He was so
genial that I opened my heart to him about Timothy and Hatty.  He
twinkled and said:

"'H'm!  Timothy had a narrow squeak.'  It was so well put, I
think . . .

"June 11.  Everybody says the Exhibition is a great success, in
spite of all the foreigners that it has attracted.  Prince Albert
has become quite popular.  Hester had a letter from Hatty this
morning.  Fancy!  She has received an offer of marriage from Mr.
Chessman.  It is such a relief, because quite apart from dear
Timothy, it has always been on my conscience that it was from our
house that she behaved as she did.  And now that Timothy comes home
to-morrow everything is for the best, if only this news does not
reopen his wound . . ."


Soames let the little red volume drop and took up the yellowed
letter.  He balanced it in his hand, feeling its thin and slightly
greasy texture.  So that was that!  He cackled faintly.  The quaint
old things!  But suddenly his veins tingled with a flush of
loyalty.  Nobody should laugh at them except himself!  No, by Jove!
And, taking the little volumes and the letter, he pitched them one
by one into the wood fire.




AUNT JULEY'S COURTSHIP, 1855


The Crimean war and the marriage of Septimus Small with Miss Julia
Forsyte, which both occupied part of the year 1855, were linked by
a water picnic arranged for the entertainment of that 'hero,' Major
Small, a younger brother of Septimus, who had been wounded in the
leg.  What bound Septimus himself to the Forsyte family was
indubitably architecture, for he was a member of the firm of
Dewbridge, Small and Keyman, who specialised in the domestic
Gothic, which at that period was subjugating the taste of the
British Islands.  Roger Forsyte, in the course of his profession--
the collection of house property--had many dealings with this firm
which had designed for him a row of houses on a site he had picked
up in Kensington, then somewhat out of the world; and to Septimus
Small's riverside villa at Twickenham Roger sometimes repaired on
Sundays to consummate his plans over cigars and claret cup.  After
his marriage in 1853 he would be accompanied by Mrs. Roger, and
they would take her on the river, paddling with a rather deep-sea
stroke, in long whiskers, ducks, and shallow wide-brimmed straw
hats, while pretty little Mrs. Roger held the tiller and covered
the boat's stern and other matters with her crinoline.  In the
severe winter 1854 Septimus, a man of weak constitution,
inadvertently contracted bronchitis.  He emerged with the long full
beard and the cough which subsequently secured for him the cognomen
'Cough Lozenge' from the young Rogers, who all made their
appearance between the years of '53 and '62--George, inventor of
the nickname, having '56 to his vintage.  There can be no doubt
that it was this cough and long beard which won the heart of Julia,
then barely 'Aunt Juley,' since only young Jolyon, young Roger,
young Nicholas, Ernest, and St. John Hayman had been born, and were
still mostly in the cradle.  When, years later, she heard that dear
Septimus went about being called 'Cough Lozenge' in the family, she
nearly had a fit.

In 1855, at the age of forty, she had a certain pink and pouting
charm; but would have denied with vigour Roger's frequent remark to
Mrs. Roger:  "Juley's setting her cap at Sep."  The idea!  HER cap,
indeed, when it was entirely for HIS good, and his least cough set
her trembling with a sort of delighted pity!  He did so want
someone to look after him and see that he took care at night, and
to trim his beard, that was so manly and so sensible, covering his
chest.  To her the notion that anyone so interesting-looking,
almost handsome, should be a 'confirmed bachelor,' as Roger put it,
was painful.  Her sister Susan, too, seven years younger than
herself, and already for three years wedded to John Hayman, was
always telling her how John admired her in this dress or in that,
and had once gone so far as to imply that he admired her in
nothing--so daring of Susan--not quite nice!

When, then, in July of 1855 she was invited to come with Roger and
his wife to this water picnic, she was all of a flutter and gave
much thought to her costume.  She came out finally in pink with
green ribbons in her bonnet, and a perfectly new crinoline.  Roger,
living then in Bayswater, warming a house that he intended to sell
shortly at a reasonable profit--not till 'sixty-nine did he anchor
himself permanently in Prince's Gate--called for her with his
carriage of a new-fangled shape named 'Victoria' (always so
unusual, Roger--eccentric, some people called it).  On the way down
to Twickenham he had to sit back to the horses on a narrow little
seat that came out from below the high box, and was propped up with
an iron stand; and he was so cross that it was quite a relief to
them all three when they arrived, and dear Mr. Small met them at
the gate, looking most manly in a puggaree and white trousers--
'ducks,' Roger called them, he was so droll.  In his hand, too, he
had a bunch of picotees, and held them to her nose with quite an
air.  "These are for you, Miss Julia," he said.  Tucked into her
fichu they went beautifully with her dress, and were so fragrant;
it would have been perfect if Roger had not closed his left eye
quickly two or three times.  As if--!  Then they all went into the
house to meet Major Small and have light refreshment before going
on the river.

'Parsons' Villa' (Aunt Juley subsequently changed the name to
Sunninglea) had not been built by Dewbridge, Small and Keyman; it
was in fact Georgian, on two floors, with French windows from the
drawing-room on to the lawn, the river close below, and a little
island opposite.  In the drawing-room were four persons, making
eight in all for the picnic: Major Small, a fine, full-bearded
figure of a man, with a stiff leg, in a tussore suit; Hatty
Chessman, always the life and soul of any party, and--"Who do you
think, my dear?"--Augustus Perry; almost famous for those
delightful books with music and rhymes in them, and his recitals at
parties.  It was he who made up that 'Round' which became so
popular:


     "A boat, a boat unto the ferry,
      And we'll go over and be merry,
      And laugh and quaff and sing Down-derry."


And he had witty variations for the last line, such as:  "And laugh
and quaff and drink brown sherry," or:  "And laugh and quaff--
Augustus Perry."

Seated on a chintz-covered chair with a glass of sherry cobbler in
her hand, and a bowl of lavender close to her nose, Julia could not
help looking at Mrs. Augustus Perry and wondering a little if she
liked being the wife of anyone so popular, so sought after as Gus
Perry, who played the guitar, too.  She was hoping so much that she
herself would not be in a boat with Roger--he was such a tease,
especially if their dear host were in the same boat.  And she hoped
he was noticing how brightly she was talking with Major Small; and
indeed it was an honour to be talking to him, for after all it was
he who had the stiff leg, and was the hero; but all the time she
contrived to watch their dear host and to note that he looked a
little anxious.  Then they all went down across the lawn to the two
boats, so graceful, with striped cushions and brown varnish.  It
WAS a moment, not knowing in which boat she was to be, with
Augustus Perry cracking so many jokes.  But her arm was taken
gently, firmly, above the elbow by Mr. Septimus, and she was
stepping into a boat, and sitting down quite quickly beside her
sister-in-law on the stern seat.

"My dear," she said, "I hope I am not required to steer.  It's such
a responsibility."

"Oh!  I will steer, dear Juley," replied her sister-in-law.

Crinoline by crinoline they sat, and--so gratifying--who should
step into the boat but dear Mr. Septimus himself, and Augustus
Perry.  She could not help smiling when that droll Gus said:

"I shall take my coat off, Sep."

And Mr. Septimus, always courtly, asked:

"Do you mind, ladies?"  Indeed, they didn't!

So both took their coats off, and placed the oars in the rowlocks.
And then the boat glided out.  It WAS delightful!  Julia felt,
somehow, that not only herself, but dear little Mary beside her,
who was looking so pretty, was glad that dear Roger (even though he
was her husband) was not in their boat.  How beautifully they
rowed, almost together; Augustus Perry--his face was so round,
without whiskers or anything--kept popping it out from behind Mr.
Septimus's back, to make such amusing remarks.  And then he 'caught
a crab' on purpose!  How they did laugh; he looked so droll!  So
first they went up the stream, and then they came down the stream,
with the water all green and the swans all white--and landed on the
little island opposite Parson's Villa, where they found the picnic
baskets--fancy!  It WAS all beautifully planned, and so romantic
under the willow trees, with rugs for them to sit on, and Augustus
Perry's guitar, quite like a picture by Watteau.

The lunch was exquisite: lobster salad, pigeon pie, tipsy cake,
raspberries, and champagne: with plates and spoons, forks and
napkins, and a dear little water rat looking on.  She had never
enjoyed anything so much, and she was really quite relieved when
Major Small flirted outrageously with Hatty Chessman, and gave them
no more anxiety.  To be waited on by their dear host was such a
privilege, and Roger and Gus Perry were so droll; altogether it was
enchanting.  When they had all finished lunch and the gentlemen
were smoking their cigars, they sang some delightful 'rounds':  'A
boat, a boat,' 'Three blind mice,' 'White sand and grey sand.'  Mr.
Septimus's voice was so manly--deep and hollow, almost like an
organ.  Then they played hide-and-seek.  Each in turn was allowed
five minutes to hide from the others--such a clever idea, so
thoughtful.  She herself hid among some willow bushes, and who do
you think found her?  Mr. Septimus: he was so surprised!  When they
had all hidden it was time for tea, and such a to-do boiling the
kettle.  Roger, indeed--it was just like him--suggested that they
should leave the kettle and go over and have tea in the house; but
that would have destroyed all the romance.  And when at last the
kettle did boil, it would have been a delicious cup, only the water
was smoky.  But nobody minded, because, of course, it was a picnic.
Then came the moment when the other six got into one boat and rowed
away.  It seemed quite providential.  So she and their dear host
helped the servants to pack everything in the other boat to take
over to the house.  While they were doing that, she noticed that he
coughed three times.

"I am sure," she said, "dear Mr. Septimus, it's too damp for you on
the river so late.  It is past six."  How good he was about it!

"Let us sit on the lawn, then, Miss Julia," he said, "and wait for
the others to come back."

So they sat under the cedar tree where it was beautifully cool, and
quite private, for the branches came down very low.  She had quite
a fluttery feeling, sitting there all alone with him for the first
time.  But he was so considerate, talking about Southey.  Did she
like his poetry?  He himself preferred Milton.

"I must confess, Mr. Septimus," she said, "that I have not read
'Paradise Regained,' but Milton is certainly a very beautiful poet--
so sonorous."

"And what do you think of Wordsworth, Miss Julia?"

"Oh!  I love Mr. Wordsworth!  I always feel he must have had such a
beautiful character."

As she said this she could not help wondering if he would ask her
whether she read Byron.  If he did, she should be daring and say:
'Yes, indeed!'  She did not want to have secrets from him, and she
had been so impressed by 'Childe Harold,' and 'The Giaour.'  Of
course Lord Byron had NOT had good principles, but she was sure
dear Mr. Septimus would never suspect her of reading anything that
was not nice.  There was 'Don Juan' in Timothy's study--several
volumes.  Hester had read them and been horrified.  And when he did
not ask her she felt quite disappointed; it would have drawn them
closer together, she was sure.  But she could feel that he was shy
about it; because he asked her instead whether she liked the novels
of Charles Dickens.

"Of course," she said, "he is very clever, but I do think he writes
about such very peculiar, such very common characters; and there is
so much about drinking in 'The Pickwick Papers,' though most
people, I know, like them very much.  Do you admire 'The Pickwick
Papers,' Mr. Septimus?"

"No, Miss Julia; it seems to me a very extravagant book."

Time went so quickly under the cedar, and it would have been quite
perfect if the midges had not bitten her dreadfully through her
stockings; for, of course, she could not scratch, or even say "La!"
She did so wonder whether they were biting him, too.  The longer
they sat there the more she felt that he did not take enough care
of himself, with no scarf on, in the evening air; he did so need
someone to look after him.  And so the midges bit, and she smiled,
and the boat came back, with Augustus Perry singing to his guitar.
What an agreeable rattle he was, was he not?  And how romantic
always--music on the water!

Then it all came to an end, and she drove home alone with dear
little Mary in the Victoria, Roger refusing to sit back to the
horses on 'that knife-board' any more, and going off with Hatty
Chessman in her brougham.  Such a relief!  It had been such a--
such a holy afternoon, and she did so want not to be teased about
it. . . .

On the Bayswater Road that night she sat a long time at her window
thinking of Septimus's beard, and whether she would dare to come to
calling him 'Sep,' and whether he would ever ask her to let him go
and see her eldest brother, dear Jolyon--now that their father was
dead. . . .

And then came their correspondence; that WAS a delightful
experience.  His letters sometimes contained a sprig of lavender--
his favourite scent; they were beautifully written, because of
course he was an architect, and full of high principle, so refined.
Now and then, indeed, she would feel as if he might be too refined,
because she had often read the Marriage Service and--thought about
what it meant, as who indeed would not?  In her own letters she
tried hard not to be just gossipy, but like Maria Edgeworth.  All
that time she was knitting him a scarf.  It had to be quite a
secret, and done in her bedroom, because if Timothy saw it he would
be sure to say:  "Is that for me?"  And perhaps would add:  "I
don't want a great thing like that."  And if she said:  "No, it's
not for you," he would be quite upset and want to know whom it was
for; which would never do.

In August they went (Ann and Hester, herself and Timothy) to
Brighton for the sea air, and in a letter she happened to mention
it to Septimus--always Septimus in her thoughts.  Imagine her
surprise, then, when on the third day she saw him sitting on the
pier.  It gave her such a colour.  Timothy stopped short at once.

"Why!  That's Sep Small!  I'm off!"  It showed how little he
understood, or he would never have left her like that alone with
him.  But what an adorable hour that was, hanging over the pier by
his side.  He knew such a lot about marine things--he pressed
seaweed, and could not bear nigger-minstrels.  He told her, too,
that the sea air was good for his cough, and she was sure he had
noticed her hat, for he said in such a far-away voice:  "I dote on
these pork-pie hats you see about, Miss Julia, and the veils are so
sensible!"  And there was hers floating almost against his cheek.
It was all so friendly and delightful; and she did long to ask him
to come back with her to lunch at their hotel so that she could get
out his scarf and say:  "I have a little surprise for you, dear Mr.
Septimus," and clasp it round his neck; but she felt it would make
a 'how-de-do'!  It would be too dreadful if Timothy showed anything
by his manner; and sometimes he showed such a lot, especially if he
were kept waiting for meals.  For, of course, neither he nor dear
Ann, nor even Hester, knew anything about her feelings for dear
'Sep'; so on the whole it would be better not.  And then--so
providential!--HE asked if he might escort her back to her hotel,
and what COULD she say except that she would be flattered!  He
looked so tall and aristocratic walking beside her, with his full
beard, and a puggaree round his hat, and his white, green-lined
umbrella.  She hoped, indeed, that people might be thinking:  'What
a distinguished couple!'  Many hopes flitted in her mind while they
strolled along the front, and watched the common people eating
winkles, and smelled the tarry boats.  And something tender welled
up in her so that she could not help stopping to call his attention
to the sea, so blue with little white waves.

"I DO love Nature," she said.

"Ah!  Miss Julia," he answered--she always remembered his words--
"the beauties of Nature are indeed only exceeded by those of--Tut!--
I have a fly in my eye!"

"Dear Mr. Septimus, let me take it out with the corner of my
handkerchief."

And he let her.  It took quite a long time; he was so brave,
keeping his eye open; and when at last she got it out, very black
and tiny, they both looked at it together; it seemed to her to draw
them quite close, as if they were looking into each other's souls.
Such a wonderful moment!  And then--her heart beat fast--he had
taken her hand.  Her knees felt weak; she looked up into his face,
so thin and high-minded and anxious, with a little streak where the
eye had watered; and something of adoration crept up among her
pinkness and her pouts, into her light grey eyes.  He lifted her
hand slowly till it reached his beard, and stooped his lips to it.
Fancy!  On the esplanade!  All went soft and sweet within her; her
lips trembled, and two large tears rolled out of her eyes.

"Miss Julia," he said, "Julia--may I hope?"

"Dear Septimus," she answered, "indeed, you MAY."

And through a mist she saw his puggaree float out in the delicious
breeze, and under one end of it a common man stop eating winkles,
to stare up at her, as if he had seen a rainbow.




NICHOLAS-REX, 1864


In the late seventies someone made the remark:  "Nicholas Forsyte--
cleverest man in London."  And with this dictum those who observed
him in his business and public capacity were frequently in
agreement.  It is in the hinterland of his existence that one must
look for qualifications of the statement.  Wherever he functioned
Nicholas was certainly cock of the walk--indeed he looked a little
like a cock, very natty, with a high forehead and his hair brushed
off it in a comb, erect, and with quick movements of his head and
neck.  His colouring too was fresh and sanguine and his hair almost
chestnut before it went grey.  When he rose at a meeting and opened
with one of his dry witticisms people sat forward, and seldom took
their ears off him till he resumed his seat.  He was almost
notorious for his power of making an opponent look foolish, and
than that no greater asset is in the balance sheet of a public man.
For Nicholas was a public man in the minor sense suitable to a
Forsyte.  He never aspired to extravagances of power or position--
never for instance went into Parliament.  He confined himself to
obtaining the practical, if not the nominal, control of any concern
in which he held interests; and he had a certain tempered public
spirit which led him almost insensibly to grasp the helm of two
utility corporations, the one concerned with tramways, and the
other with canals, although his holdings in them were not
considerable.  As a judge of an investment he was perhaps unique,
so much so that his five brothers felt it almost a relief when one
of his investments went wrong.  He could be sharp and he could be
genial, and no one ever knew beforehand which he was going to be;
and this in itself was a source of sovereignty.  One might say with
a reasonable amount of certainty that he had never had a friend.
Many men had tried it on with him, but he had always nipped them
off sooner or later and generally sooner.  He was perhaps
constitutionally unable to associate with people on terms of
equality.  On the other hand his integrity was admirable, for he
owed integrity to himself, and one could always follow him with a
feeling that one would not be let down.  Without knowing anything
at all about him one would have taken him, perhaps, for one of
those extremely high-class doctors who do not move out of their own
houses, and that only at a good many guineas.  With all this he had
not much health, or rather just the health of a Forsyte, which kept
him alive until he was ninety-one, and might better be termed
vitality.

Without being exactly close in money matters he was the most
guarded of the clan, partly no doubt because he had more children
and partly because of a certain austerity which had little patience
with fashion and fallals, and believed almost pitilessly in work
being good for the human being.  And this brings one to his
hinterland which began, one may suggest, with his marriage in 1848.
Whether in marrying at all he did justice to the truest instincts
of supremacy will ever remain a question; but the fact is he was a
man who had to be married and married somewhat young, given Queen
Victoria and his own constitution.  That he undoubtedly married
money,--and long before the Married Woman's Property Act, so that
he was able to make the most judicious use of it, and Mrs. Nicholas
to make none at all--must not be regarded as proof of a cold-
blooded selection.  On the contrary he was an ardent wooer, in peg-
top trousers, of a very pretty girl, the daughter of a county-town
banker with whom finance had thrown him into contact.  Limited by
her mother and possibly by her crinoline, the young lady had kept
Nicholas at a respectable distance until after a ceremony observed
with every circumstance including a really witty speech from her
bridegroom.  She had been the more surprised afterwards.

To this surprise must be attributed the inception of that "fronde"
which smouldered for so many decades behind the fa�ade of his
sovereignty.

We will not pause here to enquire whether the manners of the
twentieth century would have saved Nicholas, or rather Mrs.
Nicholas, from receiving the feeling that she was married.  The
fact remains that she received it.  As, one by one, she produced
little Nicholases the feeling if anything increased.  When she had
produced six in fourteen years, she flatly refused to produce any
more.  From a woman not quite thirty-five this seemed to Nicholas,
who had by then a considerable fortune, wholly unreasonable--the
more so as it was the first definite limit set to his prerogative.
And to this fettering of his complete freedom must be attributed
much of that nervous irritability which he undoubtedly developed.
But who, seeing Mrs. Nicholas, would have dreamed that she was in
any way responsible for the moods of her lord and master.  The fact
is that no one except Nicholas ever did see Mrs. Nicholas--'Fanny'
as she was called, because her real name was Elizabeth.  Her manner
in public was almost the opposite of her manner in private.  She is
described somewhere as entering a room behind Nicholas "with an air
of frightened jollity."  How true!  She did.  And why?  Because he
would aim at her wittily caustic shafts which she had never learned
to parry.  And she would smile and smile with that frightened look
in her eyes, and generally be so glad to get home before he had
aimed one.  But when she was home, and there was no one but herself
to hear him, that frightened look would disappear.  And in a
hundred womanly ways (without perhaps deliberately meaning to) she
avenged it.  Not before the children, no--mainly in the privacy of
the common bedroom, supremely in the privacy of the common bed.
There she would reduce Nicholas from sovereignty to supplication.
She did it not because he was repellent to her--he was never that--
but almost as it were on principle, because she had, after all, a
soul of her own, and there were no other means of asserting it.  In
all the manifest ways of life he was the perfect autocrat, paying
the piper--incidentally not altogether without what had been her
money--and calling the tune.  Who can blame her, then, for
reminding him that he was mortal, and that she was mortal too.  We
have here in miniature, indeed, a somewhat perfect illustration of
monarchy and the attempt of subjects at its limitation.

This continual strife to limit Nicholas was of course but vaguely
suspected on "Forsyte 'Change" and cannot therefore be recorded
with any precision; but, in spite of all the instinctive camouflage
lavished on the matter, there did come into the family consciousness
news of a phase of it worth commemorating for the light it throws
on the change in British institutions and the imperfection of human
judgments.  It began with a letter from Mrs. Nicholas dated:  "June
the twenty-fourth 1864:  The Chine Hotel, Bournemouth" which ran
thus:


"MY DEAR HUSBAND,--

"I have long wished to take a step which I fear will cause you some
anxiety and cannot fail to have roused your disapproval.  I came to
this nice hotel yesterday in this very charming spot with the
intention of remaining here for some weeks.  The sea air is
delicious, and there are several quite nice people in the hotel.
Please send me some of my money.  Indeed, I think it would be nice
if in future you paid me a regular allowance, out of the money that
my dear father left me.  Give my love to the dear children.

"Your affectionate wife,

"FANNY."


When Nicholas received this letter he was already in a state of
considerable confusion--not to say anxiety--and he read it with a
stupor unbecoming to the cleverest man in London.  That a wife
should have gone off by herself without giving notice had taken
him--as he would not have expressed to anybody else--"flat aback."
That, on the top of it, she should ask him to send her money and
make her a regular allowance seemed to him outrageous.  He went to
bed and passed a wretched night.  What was the woman about?  The
more he did not sleep the more he was inclined to think that he had
never heard of such a thing.  Next day he wrote in reply:


"MY DEAR FANNY,--

"I have received your letter.  Your going off like that gave me a
pretty surprise.  If you choose to take things into your own hands,
you must incur the consequences.  I shall certainly not send you
any money; and the best thing you can do is to come back home at
once.  As to a regular allowance what on earth do you want it for?
I give you everything you can reasonably require.  I suppose you
have been listening to some clap-trap about married women's
property.  The sooner you rid your mind of any of these new-fangled
notions the better it will be for both of us, and for the children.

"Now for goodness sake come to your senses, and come home.

"Your affectionate husband,

"NICHOLAS FORSYTE."


He went to a Board meeting irritably convinced that he had clinched
the matter and that she would be home to-morrow.  She was not, and
the day after he received a second letter.


"MY DEAR HUSBAND,--

"I am sorry that you do not see the reasonableness of my conduct
and of my requests.  I shall therefore continue to stay on here.
There is a very nice solicitor in the hotel, and he advises me that
you will be liable for any debts I may have to incur, which I
think, is quite reasonable.  Of course, I did not tell him that I
was speaking of myself.  I hope your indigestion is better.  Give
my love to the dear children.

"Your affectionate wife,

"FANNY."


Nicholas put the letter down with the remark:  "Well, for obstinacy
give me a woman!"  What on earth had come to her!  Debts, indeed!
Fiddlesticks!  He was none the less "in a regular stew."  To have
his attention on important matters disturbed in this way was
scandalous.  Why! if it went on he would have to go down and bring
her back!  And it did go on.  He answered the letter after waiting
another day to see if she would come to her senses.


"MY DEAR WIFE,--

"Will you please understand that I expect you to come back,
otherwise I shall be compelled to come down and fetch you.  I am
surprised and grieved at your conduct, especially at this moment
when I have important business on hand.  Now don't be silly, but
come home like a good girl.

"Your affectionate husband,

"NICHOLAS FORSYTE."


To this letter he received no answer.  Three days passed during
which he experienced every kind of mental and some physical
discomfort.  He even began to have dark thoughts about the nice
solicitor.  Fanny was only thirty-seven, and with a woman you never
knew.  At last, thoroughly alarmed, he cried off from a meeting of
the Central Canal Corporation, and went down to Bournemouth.  At
the hotel they told him that Mrs. Forsyte had left two days before.
No!  They had no address.  The callous indifference to his feelings
disclosed by this conduct upset Nicholas completely.  That he
should have to confront an almost grinning hotel manager and betray
the fact that his own wife was acting independently was--was
monstrous!  He did not even ask if she had paid her bill; but his
knowledge of hotels--he was on the Board of one--told him that she
had, or they would have presented him with it.  Where was she
getting money from--throwing away her jewellery he shouldn't be
surprised.  He returned to London--there was nothing else to do.
The next day he received a letter from her to say that she had
moved on to Weymouth, but it was not as nice as she expected and
she should not stay.  She did not say where she was going.  'H'm!'
thought Nicholas:  'Playing cat and mouse with me, is she?'  And he
went sullenly into the City.

Now a man may make the best resolutions about his wife, such as:
"I'll have nothing more to do with her," or:  "If she thinks she
can tire me out she's very much mistaken."  But when, like
Nicholas, he has given her six children--three of them at home;
when, like Nicholas, he has a reputation for always having had his
own way, and for being an irreproachable householder, it was
exceptionally galling not even to be able to say with truth that he
knew where his wife was, to have to avoid Forsyte 'Change as if it
were the devil--as perhaps it was--and to sneak about his own house
feeling that his children and his servants knew all about
everything.  He began to suffer severely from that kind of
dyspepsia which arises from the thwarting of one's will, one's
instincts, and one's self-esteem.  He often thought:  'If she could
see me, she wouldn't go on behaving like this.'

At the end of a fortnight he received from her a letter dated from
an hotel at Cheltenham which, though it seemed to show a certain
softening, mentioned a nice doctor who had given her some very kind
advice--Doctors, indeed, as if he didn't know them!--and ended with
the words:  "I trust that you are now prepared, my dear husband, to
make me a fixed and regular allowance, of course out of my own
money.  I think--do you not agree?--that �500 a year is the least
amount that would be proper.  I feel that if I had that I could
come home again.  In the meantime I have parted with my emerald
pendant.  Give my love to the dear children.  Your affectionate
wife, Fanny."

Parted with her emerald pendant!  The thing had cost him ninety
pounds, and he supposed she had got thirty or forty for it.  The
sheer folly of women had never seemed to him so patent.  Five
hundred a year, indeed, to throw away in fallals!  But a cloud had
undoubtedly been lifted from his brain by this letter.  Here was at
least a definite situation.  If he promised her a fixed five
hundred a year she would come home.  It all came of agitators
putting ideas into women's heads, a mischievous lot!  But the boys
would be back from school in another week or two; and it would look
extremely odd if their mother were not there to go to the seaside
with them.

An organ-grinder playing his confounded organ, had said to him only
yesterday:  "No, Guv'nor, I knows the valley of peace an'
quietness--I don't move on under 'arf-a-crown."  The impudence of
the ruffian had tickled Nicholas and he had given him the half-
crown.  Fanny was behaving just like that.  And who knew when she
wouldn't be off again to get out of him the rest of the thousand a
year he'd received with her.  No, on the whole, he didn't think
she'd be as unreasonable as that; but he continued to combat his
desire for peace and quietness at so considerable a price.  All the
time he had a dim feeling that it wasn't really the money she was
after.  She had never seemed to know or care much about money, in
fact he had often had occasion to reproach her with indifference to
its value.  What exactly she had in her head he hesitated to
characterize by a word which kept creeping nastily into his mind--
independence.  Fanny independent!  Why she'd be in the workhouse
to-morrow!  Nicholas, indeed, was not unlike most people: he could
not understand the need in others for that without which he himself
would have been wholly miserable.  What would be his own position
if he made her independent--he would be subject to her whims and
fancies and women's nonsense of all sorts!  And then--this was a
bright moment--the solution occurred to him:  Make her a fixed and
regular allowance, and stop it when he wanted to!  Everything
seemed suddenly clear, he wondered he hadn't thought of that
before; and by the evening post he wrote off to say that he had
reconsidered the matter and was prepared to pay her a regular
allowance of a hundred and twenty-five pounds a quarter, and he
would send the carriage to meet the five o'clock train the day
after to-morrow.

To say that he was surprised on receiving not Fanny, but another
letter--saying that she had meant of course that the five hundred a
year should be settled on her, with the word settled underlined--
would be a gross under-statement.  He would never have believed
that Fanny of all women could be so sordid.  He continued in this
mood of surprised disgust for fully an hour seated in his study
which specially faced north so that his head should never be heated
by the intrusion of the sun.  He was determined to do no such
thing, and yet extremely conscious that he could not go on much
longer in this wifeless condition.  She had been away now for
seventeen days, and every day his head was getting heavier and less
clear.  He would have to put an end to it somehow.  While he sat
thus, turning and turning the wheels of indecision, he was
conscious of a whirring noise gradually becoming articulate--that
confounded barrel organ, again, grinding out the popular song of
the moment:  "Up in a balloon boys, up in a balloon."

A flood of angry colour invaded Nicholas's clean-shaven face,
running almost up into the grizzled cock's-comb rising from his
forehead.  He went to the window and threw it wide open.  There was
the ruffian grinding away and grinning at him.  For a moment words
failed Nicholas and then a flash of caustic humour redeemed him
from his sober self.  The fellow's impudence was really laughable!
He grinned back and closed the window.  If he'd been the organ
grinder it was just what he would have done himself.  The beggar
seemed to recognise that Greek had met Greek, for, after playing
'Champagne Charlie,' he wheeled his organ away.

But in Nicholas the little incident had changed the current of
thought, or rather had swung the blood a little more to his head,
so that now it seemed to him worth while to get Fanny back even on
her own terms.  His speech for the General Meeting of the "United
Tramways Association" was due on Friday, and in the present heavy
state of his head, due to this persistent wifelessness, he would be
making a mess of it.

Five hundred a year--what was it after all--settled or not!  He
would go to James this very minute and get it over; then, with the
settlement in his pocket, he would pop down himself to-morrow and
bring her back.  Calling a hansom, he uttered the word "Poultry"
and got in.  It was a long drive from Ladbroke Grove, and while he
sat, behind the scuttling horse, erect, dapper, and shaken by the
cobblestones of the London of those days, he thought of how he
should put it to his brother James, in answer to the question the
fellow would be sure to ask:  "What d'you want to do that for?"
And he decided merely to say:  "What business is that of yours?"
James was always a bit of an old woman, and it was best to be sharp
with him.

With a certain dismay therefore he heard James say instead:

"I thought you'd be having to do that--they say Fanny's on the high
horse."

"WHO says?" barked Nicholas.

James ploughed through one of his ultra-Crimean whiskers:  "Oh!
They--Timothy and the girls."

"What business have they to gabble about what they know nothing
of?"

James cleared his throat.

"Well," he said, "I don't know, they never tell me anything."

"What!" snapped Nicholas.  "Why, you sit there and talk scandal by
the hour together.  Well, I've no time to waste.  Draw this
settlement and make yourself and old Bustard the trustees.  I want
it all ship-shape by eleven o'clock to-morrow.  You can put in
enough of my Great Western Stock to provide five hundred a year."

Cheltenham--there was something appropriate about the Stock; and to
himself he thought:  'Railways--I don't trust them; they'll be
inventing something else before long.'

He left James somewhat agitated over the hurry his brother was in.
The fellow however came up to the scratch, and with the settlement
all signed and sealed, Nicholas caught the afternoon train to
Cheltenham.  He spent the hours of travel in coining caustic
remonstrances against being treated in the way he had been, but
when he arrived and found her having tea in the hotel drawing-room
looking quite fresh and young, he decided to postpone them, and all
he said was:  "Well, Fanny, you look quite bobbish."

And she answered:  "What a long time, dear Nicholas!  How are the
dear children?"

"I've been bad with my head," said Nicholas, "the children are all
right.  I've brought you this," and he placed the settlement on the
tea-table, "it's all right--you won't understand a word of it."

"I'm sure, dear Nicholas, that you've done it beautifully."

And while she read it, wrinkling her brows, Nicholas watched her,
and thought:

'She's a better-looking woman than I remembered.'

Throughout the evening he was quite cheerful, not to say witty.  It
all seemed, indeed, a little like the days of their honeymoon at
Brighton.

Not until nearly midnight, did he turn on his elbow and say rather
suddenly:

"What on earth made you do it?"

"Oh, dear Nicholas," replied her voice, close to his own, "I did so
want a nice quiet rest."

"Rest?  What d'you want a rest from--you've got no work?"

She smiled.

"And now," she said, "I shall be able to go and have one whenever I
feel I want it."

"The deuce you will!"

"How nice it will be, too, never having to ask you for money.  It
does so annoy you sometimes."

And Nicholas thought:  'Well, I HAVE been and gone and done it.
Women!'  Turning still more on his elbow, he regarded her lying on
her back with that queer little smile on her lips as if she were
saying to herself:  'Dear Nicholas, the cleverest man in London!'

So was Nicholas, in common with other Kings, limited by his
Constitution.




A SAD AFFAIR, 1867


In 1866, at the age of nineteen, young Jolyon Forsyte left Eton and
went up to Cambridge, in the semi-whiskered condition of those
days.  An amiable youth of fair scholastic and athletic
attainments, and more susceptible to emotions, aesthetic and
otherwise, than most young barbarians, he went up a little
intoxicated on the novels of Whyte Melville.  From continually
reading about whiskered dandies, garbed to perfection and
imperturbably stoical in the trying circumstances of debt and
discomfiture, he had come to the conviction that to be whiskered
and unmoved by Fortune was quite the ultimate hope of existence.
There was something not altogether ignoble at the back of his
creed.  He passed imperceptibly into a fashionable set, and applied
himself to the study of whist.  All the heroes of Whyte Melville
played whist admirably; all rode horses to distraction.  Young
Jolyon joined the Drag, and began to canter over to Newmarket,
conveniently situated for Cambridge undergraduates.  Like many
youths before and after him, he had gone into residence with little
or no idea of the value of money; and in the main this 'sad affair'
must be traced to the fact that while he had no idea of the value
of money, and, in proportion to his standards, not much money, his
sire, Old Jolyon, had much idea of the value of money, and still
more money.  The hundred pounds placed to his credit for his first
term seemed to young Jolyon an important sum, and he had very soon
none of it left.  This surprised him, but was of no great
significance, because all Whyte Melville's dandies were in debt;
indeed, half their merit consisted in an imperturbable indifference
to mere financial liability.  Young Jolyon proceeded, therefore, to
get into debt.  It was easy, and 'the thing.'  At the end of his
first term he had spent just double his allowance.  He was not
vicious nor particularly extravagant--but what, after all, was
money?  Besides, to live on the edge of Fortune was the only way to
show that one could rise above it.  Not that he deliberately hired
horses, bought clothes, boots, wine and tobacco, for that purpose;
still, there was in a sense a principle involved.  This is made
plain, because it was exactly what was not plain to Old Jolyon
later on.  He, as a young man, with not half his son's allowance,
had never been in debt, had paid his way, and made it.  But then he
had not had the advantages of Eton, Cambridge, and the novels of
Whyte Melville.  He had simply gone into Tea.

Young Jolyon going up for his second term, with another hundred
pounds from an unconscious sire, at once perceived that if he paid
his debts, or any appreciable portion of them, he would have no
money for the term's expenses.  He therefore applied his means to
the more immediate ends of existence--College fees, 'wines,' whist,
riding, and so forth--and left his debts to grow.

At the end of his first year he was fully three hundred pounds to
the bad, and beginning to be reflective.  Unhappily, however, he
went up for his second year with longer whiskers and a more perfect
capacity for enjoyment than ever.  He had the best fellows in the
world for friends, life was sweet, Schools still far off.  He was
liked and he liked being liked; he had, in fact, a habit of
existence eminently unsuited to the drawing-in of horns.

Now his set were very pleasant young men from Eton and Harrow and
Winchester, some of whom had more worldly knowledge than young
Jolyon, and some of whom had more money, but none of whom had more
sense of responsibility.  It was in the rooms of 'Cuffs' Charwell
(the name was pronounced Cherrell, who was taking Divinity Schools,
and was afterwards the Bishop) that whist was first abandoned for
baccarat, under the auspices of 'Donny' Covercourt.  That young
scion of the Shropshire Covercourts had discovered this exhilarating
pastime, indissolubly connected with the figure Nine, at a French
watering-place during the Long Vacation, and when he returned to
Cambridge was brimming over with it, in his admirably impassive
manner.  Now, young Jolyon was not by rights a gambler; that is to
say, he was self-conscious about the thing, never properly carried
away.  Moreover, in spite of Whyte Melville, he was by this time
indubitably nervous about his monetary position--on all accounts,
therefore, inclined to lose rather than to win.  But when such
cronies as 'Cuffs' Cherrell, 'Feathers' Totteridge, Guy Winlow, and
'Donny' himself--best fellows in the world--were bent on baccarat,
who could be a 'worm' and wriggle away?

On the fourth evening his turn came to take the 'bank.'  What with
paying off his most pestiferous creditors and his College fees, so
unfeelingly exacted in advance, he had just fifteen pounds left--
the term being a fortnight spent.  He was called on to take a
'bank' of one hundred.  With a sinking heart and a marbled
countenance, therefore, he sat down at the head of the green board.
This was his best chance, so far, of living up to his whiskers--
come what would, he must not fail the shades of 'Digby Grand,'
'Daisy Waters,' and the 'Honble. Crasher '!

He lost from the first moment; with one or two momentary flickers
of fortune in his favour, his descent to Avernus was one of the
steadiest ever made.  He sat through it with his heart kept in by
very straight lips.  He rose languidly at the end of half an hour
with the 'bank' broken, and, wanly smiling, signed his I.O.U's,
including one to 'Donny' Covercourt for a cool eighty.  Restoring
himself with mulled claret, he resumed his seat at the board, but,
for the rest of the evening, neither won nor lost.  He went across
the Quad to his own rooms with a queasy feeling--he was seeing his
father's face.  For this was his first unpayable debt of honour, so
different from mere debts to tradesmen.  And, sitting on his narrow
bed in his six-foot by fifteen bedroom, he wrestled for the means
of payment.  Paid somehow it must be!  Would his Bank let him
overdraw to the amount?  He could see the stolid faces behind that
confounded counter.  Not they!  And if they didn't!  That brute
Davids?  Or--the Dad?  Which was worse?  Oh! the Dad was worse!
For, suddenly, young Jolyon was perceiving that from the beginning
he had lived up here a life that his father would not understand.
With a sort of horror he visualised his effort to explain it to
that high-domed forehead, and the straight glance that came from so
deep behind.  No!  Davids was the ticket!  After all, 'Daisy
Waters,' 'Digby Grand,' the 'Honble. Crasher,' and the rest of the
elect--had they jibbed at money-lenders?  Not so!  Did 'Feathers,'
did 'Donny'?  What else were money-lenders for but lending money?
Trying to cheer himself with that thought, he fell asleep from
sheer unhappiness.

Next morning, at his Bank, very tight lips assured him that an
overdraft without security was not in the day's work.  Young Jolyon
arched his eyebrows, ran fingers through a best whisker, drawled
the words:  "It's of no consequence!" and went away, stiffening his
fallen crest.  In front of him he saw again his father's face, and
he couldn't stand it.  He sought the rooms of 'Feathers'
Totteridge.  The engaging youth had just had his 'tosh' and was
seated over devilled kidneys, in his dressing-gown.

Young Jolyon said:

"Feathers, old cock, give me a note to that brute Davids!"

Feathers stared.  "What ho, friend!" he said.  "Plucked?  He'll
skin you, Jo."

"Can't be helped," said young Jolyon, glumly.

He went away armed with the note, and in the afternoon sought the
abode of Mr. Rufus Davids.  The Hebraic benefactor read the note,
and bent on young Jolyon the glance of criticism.

"How mutth do you want, Mithter Forthyte?" he said.

"One hundred and fifty."

"That will cotht you two hundred thicth month from now.  I give
good termth."

Good terms!  Young Jolyon checked the opening of his lips.  One
didn't chaffer.

"I like to know my cuthtomerth, you know, Mithter Forthyte.  I athk
a little bird or two.  Come in to-morrow."

"You can take me or leave me," said young Jolyon.

"Thatth all right, Mithter Forthyte.  To-morrow afternoon."

Young Jolyon nodded, and went out.

It hadn't been so bad, after all; and, cantering over to Newmarket,
he almost forgot how 'Post equitem sedet atra cura.'

In the afternoon of the following day he received one hundred and
fifty pounds for his autograph, and seeking out 'Donny' and the
others who held his I.O.U's, discharged the lot.  Not without a
sense of virtue did he sit down to an evening collation in his
rooms.  He was eating cold wild duck, when his door was knocked on.

"Come in!" he shouted.  And, there--in overcoat, top hat in hand--
his father stood. . . .

Sitting in the City offices of those great tea-men, 'Forsyte and
Treffry,' old Jolyon had been handed, with the country post, a
communication marked:  'Confidential.'


"Great Cury,
"Cambridge.

"DEAR SIR,--

"In accordance with your desire that we should advise you of
anything unusual, expressed to us when you opened your son's
account a year ago, we beg to notify you that Mr. Jolyon Forsyte,
Junr., made application to us to-day for an overdraft of one
hundred pounds.  We did not feel justified in granting this without
your permission, but shall be happy to act in accordance with your
decision in this matter.

"We are, dear Sir, with the compliments of the season,

"Your faithful servants,

"BROTHERTON AND DARN