The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy (best english novels for beginners .txt) 📗

while he was looking at that face. The word scribbled on the page! The farewell word! Now his mother had no one but himself! He went up close to the dead face⁠—not changed at all, and yet completely changed. He had heard his father say once that he did not believe in consciousness surviving death, or that if it did it might be just survival till the natural age limit of the body had been reached⁠—the natural term of its inherent vitality; so that if the body were broken by accident, excess, violent disease, consciousness might still persist till, in the course of Nature uninterfered with, it would naturally have faded out. It had struck him because he had never heard anyone else suggest it. When the heart failed like this⁠—surely it was not quite natural! Perhaps his father’s consciousness was in the room with him. Above the bed hung a picture of his father’s father. Perhaps his consciousness, too, was still alive; and his brother’s⁠—his half-brother, who had died in the Transvaal. Were they all gathered round this bed? Jon kissed the forehead, and stole back to his own room. The door between it and his mother’s was ajar; she had evidently been in⁠—everything was ready for him, even some biscuits and hot milk, and the letter no longer on the floor. He ate and drank, watching the last light fade. He did not try to see into the future⁠—just stared at the dark branches of the oak-tree, level with his window, and felt as if life had stopped. Once in the night, turning in his heavy sleep, he was conscious of something white and still, beside his bed, and started up.

His mother’s voice said:

“It’s only I, Jon dear!” Her hand pressed his forehead gently back; her white figure disappeared.

Alone! He fell heavily asleep again, and dreamed he saw his mother’s name crawling on his bed.

IV Soames Cogitates

The announcement in the Times of his cousin Jolyon’s death affected Soames quite simply. So that chap was gone! There had never been a time in their two lives when love had not been lost between them. That quick-blooded sentiment hatred had run its course long since in Soames’ heart, and he had refused to allow any recrudescence, but he considered this early decease a piece of poetic justice. For twenty years the fellow had enjoyed the reversion of his wife and house, and⁠—he was dead! The obituary notice, which appeared a little later, paid Jolyon⁠—he thought⁠—too much attention. It spoke of that “diligent and agreeable painter whose work we have come to look on as typical of the best late-Victorian watercolour art.” Soames, who had almost mechanically preferred Mole, Morpin, and Caswell Baye, and had always sniffed quite audibly when he came to one of his cousin’s on the line, turned the Times with a crackle.

He had to go up to Town that morning on Forsyte affairs, and was fully conscious of Gradman’s glance sidelong over his spectacles. The old clerk had about him an aura of regretful congratulation. He smelled, as it were, of old days. One could almost hear him thinking: “Mr. Jolyon, ye-es⁠—just my age, and gone⁠—dear, dear! I dare say she feels it. She was a nice-lookin’ woman. Flesh is flesh! They’ve given ’im a notice in the papers. Fancy!” His atmosphere in fact caused Soames to handle certain leases and conversions with exceptional swiftness.

“About that settlement on Miss Fleur, Mr. Soames?”

“I’ve thought better of that,” answered Soames shortly.

“Ah! I’m glad of that. I thought you were a little hasty. The times do change.”

How this death would affect Fleur had begun to trouble Soames. He was not certain that she knew of it⁠—she seldom looked at the paper, never at the births, marriages, and deaths.

He pressed matters on, and made his way to Green Street for lunch. Winifred was almost doleful. Jack Cardigan had broken a splashboard, so far as one could make out, and would not be “fit” for some time. She could not get used to the idea.

“Did Profond ever get off?” he said suddenly.

“He got off,” replied Winifred, “but where⁠—I don’t know.”

Yes, there it was⁠—impossible to tell anything! Not that he wanted to know. Letters from Annette were coming from Dieppe, where she and her mother were staying.

“You saw that fellow’s death, I suppose?”

“Yes,” said Winifred. “I’m sorry for⁠—for his children. He was very amiable.” Soames uttered a rather queer sound. A suspicion of the old deep truth⁠—that men were judged in this world rather by what they were than by what they did⁠—crept and knocked resentfully at the back doors of his mind.

“I know there was a superstition to that effect,” he muttered.

“One must do him justice now he’s dead.”

“I should like to have done him justice before,” said Soames; “but I never had the chance. Have you got a Baronetage here?”

“Yes; in that bottom row.”

Soames took out a fat red book, and ran over the leaves.

“Mont-Sir Lawrence, 9th Bt., cr. 1620, e. s. of Geoffrey, 8th Bt., and Lavinia, daur. of Sir Charles Muskham, Bt., of Muskham Hall, Shrops: marr. 1890 Emily, daur. of Conway Charwell, Esq., of Condaford Grange, co. Oxon; 1 son, heir Michael Conway, b. 1895, 2 daurs. Residence: Lippinghall Manor, Folwell, Bucks. Clubs: Snooks’. Coffee House: Aeroplane. See Bidicott.”

“H’m!” he said. “Did you ever know a publisher?”

“Uncle Timothy.”

“Alive, I mean.”

“Monty knew one at his Club. He brought him here to dinner once. Monty was always thinking of writing a book, you know, about how to make money on the turf. He tried to interest that man.”

“Well?”

“He put him on to a horse⁠—for the Two Thousand. We didn’t see him again. He was rather smart, if I remember.”

“Did it win?”

“No; it ran last, I think. You know Monty really was quite clever in his way.”

“Was he?” said Soames. “Can you see any connection between a sucking baronet and publishing?”

“People do all sorts of things nowadays,” replied Winifred. “The great stunt seems not to be