Though for a time unconscious of the lowly ruffians presence, Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed. He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots, however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast. Swithins yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash the costermonger, but was saved from so far forgetting his dignity by a special intervention of Providence. A carriage driving out through a gate forced phaeton and donkey-cart into proximity; the wheels grated, the lighter vehicle skidded, and was overturned.
Swithin did not look round. On no account would he have pulled up to help the ruffian. Serve him right if he had broken his neck!
But he could not if he would. The greys had taken alarm. The phaeton swung from side to side, and people raised frightened faces as they went dashing past. Swithins great arms, stretched at full length, tugged at the reins. His cheeks were puffed, his lips compressed, his swollen face was of a dull, angry red.
Irene had her hand on the rail, and at every lurch she gripped it tightly. Swithin heard her ask:
Are we going to have an accident, Uncle Swithin?
He gasped out between his pants: Its nothing; a little fresh!
Ive never been in an accident.
Dont you move! He took a look at her. She was smiling, perfectly calm. Sit still, he repeated. Never fear, Ill get you home!
And in the midst of all his terrible efforts, he was surprised to hear her answer in a voice not like her own:
I dont care if I never get home!
The carriage giving a terrific lurch, Swithins exclamation was jerked back into his throat. The horses, winded by the rise of a hill, now steadied to a trot, and finally stopped of their own accord.
When Swithin described it at Timothys I pulled em up, there she was as cool as myself. God bless my soul! she behaved as if she didnt care whether she broke her neck or not! What was it she said: I dont care if I never get home? Leaning over the handle of his cane, he wheezed out, to Mrs. Smalls terror: And Im not altogether surprised, with a finickin feller like young Soames for a husband!
It did not occur to him to wonder what Bosinney had done after they had left him there alone; whether he had gone wandering about like the dog to which Swithin had compared him; wandering down to that copse where the spring was still in riot, the cuckoo still calling from afar; gone down there with her handkerchief pressed to lips, its fragrance mingling with the scent of mint and thyme. Gone down there with such a wild, exquisite pain in his heart that he could have cried out among the trees. Or what, indeed, the fellow had done. In fact, till he came to Timothys, Swithin had forgotten all about him.
Chapter IV
James Goes to See for Himself
Those ignorant of Forsyte Change would not, perhaps, foresee all the stir made by Irenes visit to the house.
After Swithin had related at Timothys the full story of his memorable drive, the same, with the least suspicion of curiosity, the merest touch of malice, and a real desire to do good, was passed on to June.
And what a dreadful thing to say, my dear! ended Aunt Juley; that about not going home. What did she mean?
It was a strange recital for the girl. She heard it flushing painfully, and, suddenly, with a curt handshake, took her departure.
Almost rude! Mrs. Small said to Aunt Hester, when June was gone.
The proper construction was put on her reception of the news. She was upset. Something was therefore very wrong. Odd! She and Irene had been such friends!
It all tallied too well with whispers and hints that had been going about for some time past. Recollections of Euphemias account of the visit to the theatre Mr. Bosinney always at Soamess? Oh, indeed! Yes, of course, he would be about the house! Nothing open. Only upon the greatest, the most important provocation was it necessary to say anything open on Forsyte Change. This machine was too nicely adjusted; a hint, the merest trifling expression of regret or doubt, sufficed to set the family soul so sympathetic vibrating. No one desired that harm should come of these vibrations far from it; they were set in motion with the best intentions, with the feeling, that each member of the family had a stake in the family soul.
And much kindness lay at the bottom of the gossip; it would frequently result in visits of condolence being made, in accordance with the customs of Society, thereby conferring a real benefit upon the sufferers, and affording consolation to the sound, who felt pleasantly that someone at all events was suffering from that from which they themselves were not suffering. In fact, it was simply a desire to keep things well-aired, the desire which animates the Public Press, that brought James, for instance, into communication with Mrs. Septimus, Mrs. Septimus, with the little Nicholases, the little Nicholases with who-knows-whom, and so on. That great class to which they had risen, and now belonged, demanded a certain candour, a still more certain reticence. This combination guaranteed their membership.
Many of the younger Forsytes felt, very naturally, and would openly declare, that they did not want their affairs pried into; but so powerful was the invisible, magnetic current of family gossip, that for the life of them they could not help knowing all about everything. It was felt to be hopeless.
One of them (young Roger) had made an heroic attempt to free the rising generation, by speaking of Timothy as an old cat. The effort had justly recoiled upon himself; the words, coming round in the most delicate way to Aunt Juleys ears, were repeated by her in a shocked voice to Mrs. Roger, whence they returned again to young Roger.
And, after all, it was only the wrong-doers who suffered; as, for instance, George, when he lost all that money playing billiards; or young Roger himself, when he was so dreadfully near to marrying the girl to whom, it was whispered, he was already married by the laws of Nature; or again Irene, who was thought, rather than said, to be in danger.
All this was not only pleasant but salutary. And it made so many hours go lightly at Timothys in the Bayswater Road; so many hours that must otherwise have been sterile and heavy to those three who lived there; and Timothys was but one of hundreds of such homes in this City of London the homes of neutral persons of the secure classes, who are out of the battle themselves, and must find their reason for existing, in the battles of others.
But for the sweetness of family gossip, it must indeed have been lonely there. Rumours and tales, reports, surmises were they not the children of the house, as dear and precious as the prattling babes the brother and sisters had missed in their own journey? To talk about them was as near as they could get to the possession of all those children and grandchildren, after whom their soft hearts yearned. For though it is doubtful whether Timothys heart yearned, it is indubitable that at the arrival of each fresh Forsyte child he was quite upset.
Useless for young Roger to say, Old cat! for Euphemia to hold up her hands and cry: Oh! those three! and break into her silent laugh with the squeak at the end. Useless, and not too kind.
The situation which at this stage might seem, and especially to Forsyte eyes, strange not to say impossible was, in view of certain facts, not so strange after all. Some things had been lost sight of. And first, in the security bred of many harmless marriages, it had been forgotten that Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild! And further the facts and figures of their own lives being against the perception of this truth it was not generally recognised by Forsytes that, where, this wild plant springs, men and women are but moths around the pale, flame-like blossom.
It was long since young Jolyons escapade there was danger of a tradition again arising that people in their position never cross the hedge to pluck that flower; that one could reckon on having love, like measles, once in due season, and getting over it comfortably for all time as with measles, on a soothing mixture of butter and honey in the arms of wedlock.
Of all those whom this strange rumour about Bosinney and Mrs. Soames reached, James was the most affected. He had long forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side whiskers of chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his own courtship. He had long forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair, where he had spent the early days of his married life, or rather, he had long forgotten the early days, not the small house, a Forsyte never forgot a house he had afterwards sold it at a clear profit of four hundred pounds.
Of all those whom this strange rumour about Bosinney and Mrs. Soames reached, James was the most affected. He had long forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side whiskers of chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his own courtship. He had long forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair, where he had spent the early days of his married life, or rather, he had long forgotten the early days, not the small house, a Forsyte never forgot a house he had afterwards sold it at a clear profit of four hundred pounds.
He had long forgotten those days, with their hopes and fears and doubts about the prudence of the match (for Emily, though pretty, had nothing, and he himself at that time was making a bare thousand a year), and that strange, irresistible attraction which had drawn him on, till he felt he must die if he could not marry the girl with the fair hair, looped so neatly back, the fair arms emerging from a skin-tight bodice, the fair form decorously shielded by a cage of really stupendous circumference.