LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

In writing to his son he did not really hope that anything would come of it. Since the ball at Roger's he had seen too clearly how the land lay--he could put two and two together quicker than most men--and, with the example of his own son before his eyes, knew better than any Forsyte of them all that the pale flame singes men's wings whether they will or no.

       In the days before June's engagement, when she and Mrs. Soames were always together, he had seen enough of Irene to feel the spell she cast over men. She was not a flirt, not even a coquette--words dear to the heart of his generation, which loved to define things by a good, broad, inadequate word--but she was dangerous. He could not say why. Tell him of a quality innate in some women--a seductive power beyond their own control! He would but answer: 'Humbug!' She was dangerous, and there was an end of it. He wanted to close his eyes to that affair. If it was, it was; he did not want to hear any more about it--he only wanted to save June's position and her peace of mind. He still hoped she might once more become a comfort to himself.

       And so he had written. He got little enough out of the answer. As to what young Jolyon had made of the interview, there was practi-

       cally only the queer sentence: 'I gather that he's in the stream.' The stream! What stream? What was this newfangled way of talking? He sighed, and folded the last of the papers under the flap of the bag; he knew well enough what was meant.

       June came out of the diningroom, and helped him on with his summer coat. From her costume, and the expression of her little

       resolute face, he saw at once what was coming. "I'm going with you," she said.

       "Nonsense, my dear; I go straight into the City. I can't have you racketting about!"

       "I must see old Mrs. Smeech."

       "Oh, your precious 'lame ducks!" grumbled out old Jolyon. He did not believe her excuse, but ceased his opposition. There was no

       doing anything with that pertinacity of hers.

       At Victoria he put her into the carriage which had been ordered for himself--a characteristic action, for he had no petty selfish-nesses.

       "Now, don't you go tiring yourself, my darling," he said, and took a cab on into the city.

       June went first to a back-street in Paddington, where Mrs. Smeech, her 'lame duck,' lived--an aged person, connected with the char-ring interest; but after half an hour spent in hearing her habitually lamentable recital, and dragooning her into temporary comfort, she went on to Stanhope Gate. The great house was closed and dark.

       She had decided to learn something at all costs. It was better to face the worst, and have it over. And this was her plan: To go first

       to Phil's aunt, Mrs. Baynes, and, failing information there, to Irene herself. She had no clear notion of what she would gain by these

       visits.

       At three o'clock she was in Lowndes Square. With a woman's instinct when trouble is to be faced, she had put on her best frock, and went to the battle with a glance as courageous as old Jolyon's itself. Her tremors had passed into eagerness.

       Mrs. Baynes, Bosinney's aunt (Louisa was her name), was in her kitchen when June was announced, organizing the cook, for she was an excellent housewife, and, as Baynes always said, there was 'a lot in a good dinner.' He did his best work after dinner. It was Baynes who built that remarkably fine row of tall crimson houses in Kensington which compete with so many others for the title of 'the ugliest in London.'

       On hearing June's name, she went hurriedly to her bedroom, and, taking two large bracelets from a red morocco case in a locked

       113

       drawer, put them on her white wrists--for she possessed in a remarkable degree that 'sense of property,' which, as we know, is the

       touchstone of Forsyteism, and the foundation of good morality.

       Her figure, of medium height and broad build, with a tendency to embonpoint, was reflected by the mirror of her whitewood wardrobe, in a gown made under her own organization, of one of those half-tints, reminiscent of the distempered walls of corridors in large hotels. She raised her hands to her hair, which she wore a la Princesse de Galles, and touched it here and there, settling it more firmly on her head, and her eyes were full of an unconscious realism, as though she were looking in the face one of life's sordid facts, and making the best of it. In youth her cheeks had been of cream and roses, but they were mottled now by middle-age, and again that hard, ugly directness came into her eyes as she dabbed a powder-puff across her forehead. Putting the puff down, she stood quite still before the glass, arranging a smile over her high, important nose, her chin, (never large, and now growing smaller

       with the increase of her neck), her thin-lipped, down-drooping mouth. Quickly, not to lose the effect, she grasped her skirts strongly in both hands, and went downstairs.

       She had been hoping for this visit for some time past. Whispers had reached her that things were not all right between her nephew and his fiancee. Neither of them had been near her for weeks. She had asked Phil to dinner many times; his invariable answer had been 'Too busy.'

       Her instinct was alarmed, and the instinct in such matters of this excellent woman was keen. She ought to have been a Forsyte; in

       young Jolyon's sense of the word, she certainly had that privilege, and merits description as such.

       She had married off her three daughters in a way that people said was beyond their deserts, for they had the professional plainness only to be found, as a rule, among the female kind of the more legal callings. Her name was upon the committees of numberless charities connected with the Church-dances, theatricals, or bazaars--and she never lent her name unless sure beforehand that everything had been thoroughly organized.

       She believed, as she often said, in putting things on a commercial basis; the proper function of the Church, of charity, indeed, of everything, was to strengthen the fabric of 'Society.' Individual action, therefore, she considered immoral. Organization was the only thing, for by organization alone could you feel sure that you were getting a return for your money. Organization--and again, organization! And there is no doubt that she was what old Jolyon called her--"a 'dab' at that"--he went further, he called her "a humbug."

       The enterprises to which she lent her name were organized so admirably that by the time the takings were handed over, they were indeed skim milk divested of all cream of human kindness. But as she often justly remarked, sentiment was to be deprecated. She was, in fact, a little academic.

       This great and good woman, so highly thought of in ecclesiastical circles, was one of the principal priestesses in the temple of

       Forsyteism, keeping alive day and night a sacred flame to the God of Property, whose altar is inscribed with those inspiring words:

       'Nothing for nothing, and really remarkably little for sixpence.'

       When she entered a room it was felt that something substantial had come in, which was probably the reason of her popularity as a patroness. People liked something substantial when they had paid money for it; and they would look at her--surrounded by her staff in charity ballrooms, with her high nose and her broad, square figure, attired in an uniform covered with sequins--as though she were a general.

       The only thing against her was that she had not a double name. She was a power in upper middle-class society, with its hundred sets and circles, all intersecting on the common battlefield of charity functions, and on that battlefield brushing skirts so pleasantly with the skirts of Society with the capital 'S.' She was a power in society with the smaller 's,' that larger, more significant, and more powerful body, where the commercially Christian institutions, maxims, and 'principle,' which Mrs. Baynes embodied, were real life-blood, circulating freely, real business currency, not merely the sterilized imitation that flowed in the veins of smaller Society with the larger

       'S.' People who knew her felt her to be sound--a sound woman, who never gave herself away, nor anything else, if she could pos-

       sibly help it.

       She had been on the worst sort of terms with Bosinney's father, who had not infrequently made her the object of an unpardonable ridicule. She alluded to him now that he was gone as her 'poor, dear, irreverend

Скачать книгу