The Forsyte Saga - Volume 3
Page 18Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was
staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the intention
of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and
looking into the Future. He walked. Since the War he never took a cab
if he could help it. Their drivers were, in his view, an uncivil lot,
though now that the War was over and supply beginning to exceed demand
again, getting more civil in accordance with the custom of human nature.
Still, he had not forgiven them, deeply identifying them with gloomy
memories, and now, dimly, like all members, of their class, with
revolution. The considerable anxiety he had passed through during the
War, and the more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in the
Peace, had produced psychological consequences in a tenacious nature.
He had, mentally, so frequently experienced ruin, that he had ceased to
believe in its material probability. Paying away four thousand a year in
income and super tax, one could not very well be worse off! A fortune of
a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a wife and one daughter, and
that "wildcat notion" a levy on capital. And as to confiscation of war
profits, he was entirely in favour of it, for he had none, and "serve
the beggars right!" The price of pictures, moreover, had, if anything,
gone up, and he had done better with his collection since the War began
than ever before. Air-raids, also, had acted beneficially on a spirit
congenitally cautious, and hardened a character already dogged. To be in
danger of being entirely dispersed inclined one to be less apprehensive
of the more partial dispersions involved in levies and taxation, while
the habit of condemning the impudence of the Germans had led naturally
to condemning that of Labour, if not openly at least in the sanctuary of
his soul.
He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to meet him
at the Gallery at four o'clock, and it was as yet but half-past two. It
was good for him to walk--his liver was a little constricted, and his
nerves rather on edge. His wife was always out when she was in Town, and
women since the War. Still, he must be thankful that she had been too
young to do anything in that War itself. Not, of course, that he had
not supported the War from its inception, with all his soul, but between
that and supporting it with the bodies of his wife and daughter,
there had been a gap fixed by something old-fashioned within him which
abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for instance, strongly objected
to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only thirty-four, going to her
native France, her "chere patrie" as, under the stimulus of war, she had
begun to call it, to nurse her "braves poilus," forsooth! Ruining
her health and her looks! As if she were really a nurse! He had put a
stopper on it. Let her do needlework for them at home, or knit! She had
not gone, therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A
bad tendency of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual little
ways, had grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the vexed problem
whether or not she should go to school. She was better away from her
do extravagant things; so he had placed her in a seminary as far West
as had seemed to him compatible with excellence, and had missed her
horribly. Fleur! He had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name
by which at her birth he had decided so suddenly to call her--marked
concession though it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty name--a
pretty child! But restless--too restless; and wilful! Knowing her power
too over her father! Soames often reflected on the mistake it was to
dote on his daughter. To get old and dote! Sixty-five! He was getting
on; but he didn't feel it, for, fortunately perhaps, considering
Annette's youth and good looks, his second marriage had turned out a
cool affair. He had known but one real passion in his life--for that
first wife of his--Irene. Yes, and that fellow, his cousin Jolyon, who
had gone off with her, was looking very shaky, they said. No wonder, at
seventy-two, after twenty years of a third marriage!