Portraiture was not Jolyon's forte, but he had already drawn his younger

daughter three times, and was drawing her a fourth, on the afternoon

of October 4th, 1899, when a card was brought to him which caused his

eyebrows to go up:

Mr. SOAMES FORSYTE

THE SHELTER, CONNOISSEURS CLUB, MAPLEDURHAM. ST. JAMES'S.

But here the Forsyte Saga must digress again....

To return from a long travel in Spain to a darkened house, to a little

daughter bewildered with tears, to the sight of a loved father lying

peaceful in his last sleep, had never been, was never likely to be,

forgotten by so impressionable and warm-hearted a man as Jolyon. A sense

as of mystery, too, clung to that sad day, and about the end of one

whose life had been so well-ordered, balanced, and above-board. It

seemed incredible that his father could thus have vanished without, as

it were, announcing his intention, without last words to his son, and

due farewells. And those incoherent allusions of little Holly to 'the

lady in grey,' of Mademoiselle Beauce to a Madame Errant (as it sounded)

involved all things in a mist, lifted a little when he read his father's

will and the codicil thereto. It had been his duty as executor of that

will and codicil to inform Irene, wife of his cousin Soames, of her life

interest in fifteen thousand pounds. He had called on her to explain

that the existing investment in India Stock, ear-marked to meet the

charge, would produce for her the interesting net sum of L430 odd a

year, clear of income tax. This was but the third time he had seen his

cousin Soames' wife--if indeed she was still his wife, of which he was

not quite sure. He remembered having seen her sitting in the Botanical

Gardens waiting for Bosinney--a passive, fascinating figure, reminding

him of Titian's 'Heavenly Love,' and again, when, charged by his father,

he had gone to Montpellier Square on the afternoon when Bosinney's

death was known. He still recalled vividly her sudden appearance in the

drawing-room doorway on that occasion--her beautiful face, passing from

wild eagerness of hope to stony despair; remembered the compassion he

had felt, Soames' snarling smile, his words, "We are not at home!" and

the slam of the front door.

This third time he saw a face and form more beautiful--freed from that

warp of wild hope and despair. Looking at her, he thought: 'Yes, you

are just what the Dad would have admired!' And the strange story of

his father's Indian summer became slowly clear to him. She spoke of old

Jolyon with reverence and tears in her eyes. "He was so wonderfully kind

to me; I don't know why. He looked so beautiful and peaceful sitting in

that chair under the tree; it was I who first came on him sitting

there, you know. Such a lovely day. I don't think an end could have been

happier. We should all like to go out like that."




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