Swithin Forsyte, tall, square, and broad, with a chest like a pouter pigeons in its plumage of bright waistcoats, came strutting towards them.
Er how are you? he said in his dandified way, aspirating the h strongly (this difficult letter was almost absolutely safe in his keeping) how are you?
Each brother wore an air of aggravation as he looked at the other two, knowing by experience that they would try to eclipse his ailments.
We were just saying, said James, that you dont get any thinner.
Swithin protruded his pale round eyes with the effort of hearing.
Thinner? Im in good case, he said, leaning a little forward, not one of your thread-papers like you!
But, afraid of losing the expansion of his chest, he leaned back again into a state of immobility, for he prized nothing so highly as a distinguished appearance.
Aunt Ann turned her old eyes from one to the other. Indulgent and severe was her look. In turn the three brothers looked at Ann. She was getting shaky. Wonderful woman! Eighty-six if a day; might live another ten years, and had never been strong. Swithin and James, the twins, were only seventy-five, Nicholas a mere baby of seventy or so. All were strong, and the inference was comforting. Of all forms of property their respective healths naturally concerned them most.
Im very well in myself, proceeded James, but my nerves are out of order. The least thing worries me to death. I shall have to go to Bath.
Bath! said Nicholas. Ive tried Harrogate. Thats no good. What I want is sea air. Theres nothing like Yarmouth. Now, when I go there I sleep.
My livers very bad, interrupted Swithin slowly. Dreadful pain here; and he placed his hand on his right side.
Want of exercise, muttered James, his eyes on the china. He quickly added: I get a pain there, too.
Swithin reddened, a resemblance to a turkey-cock coming upon his old face.
Exercise! he said. I take plenty: I never use the lift at the Club.
I didnt know, James hurried out. I know nothing about anybody; nobody tells me anything.
Swithin fixed him with a stare:
What do you do for a pain there?
James brightened.
I take a compound.
How are you, uncle?
June stood before him, her resolute small face raised from her little height to his great height, and her hand outheld.
The brightness faded from Jamess visage.
How are you? he said, brooding over her. So youre going to Wales to-morrow to visit your young mans aunts? Youll have a lot of rain there. This isnt real old Worcester. He tapped the bowl. Now, that set I gave your mother when she married was the genuine thing.
June shook hands one by one with her three great-uncles, and turned to Aunt Ann. A very sweet look had come into the old ladys face, she kissed the girls check with trembling fervour.
Well, my dear, she said, and so youre going for a whole month!
The girl passed on, and Aunt Ann looked after her slim little figure. The old ladys round, steel grey eyes, over which a film like a birds was beginning to come, followed her wistfully amongst the bustling crowd, for people were beginning to say good-bye; and her finger-tips, pressing and pressing against each other, were busy again with the recharging of her will against that inevitable ultimate departure of her own.
Yes, she thought, everybodys been most kind; quite a lot of people come to congratulate her. She ought to be very happy. Amongst the throng of people by the door, the well-dressed throng drawn from the families of lawyers and doctors, from the Stock Exchange, and all the innumerable avocations of the upper-middle class there were only some twenty percent of Forsytes; but to Aunt Ann they seemed all Forsytes and certainly there was not much difference she saw only her own flesh and blood. It was her world, this family, and she knew no other, had never perhaps known any other. All their little secrets, illnesses, engagements, and marriages, how they were getting on, and whether they were making money all this was her property, her delight, her life; beyond this only a vague, shadowy mist of facts and persons of no real significance. This it was that she would have to lay down when it came to her turn to die; this which gave to her that importance, that secret self-importance, without which none of us can bear to live; and to this she clung wistfully, with a greed that grew each day! If life were slipping away from her, this she would retain to the end.
She thought of Junes father, young Jolyon, who had run away with that foreign girl. And what a sad blow to his father and to them all. Such a promising young fellow! A sad blow, though there had been no public scandal, most fortunately, Jos wife seeking for no divorce! A long time ago! And when Junes mother died, six years ago, Jo had married that woman, and they had two children now, so she had heard. Still, he had forfeited his right to be there, had cheated her of the complete fulfilment of her family pride, deprived her of the rightful pleasure of seeing and kissing him of whom she had been so proud, such a promising young fellow! The thought rankled with the bitterness of a long-inflicted injury in her tenacious old heart. A little water stood in her eyes. With a handkerchief of the finest lawn she wiped them stealthily.
Well, Aunt Ann? said a voice behind.
Soames Forsyte, flat-shouldered, clean-shaven, flat-cheeked, flat-waisted, yet with something round and secret about his whole appearance, looked downwards and aslant at Aunt Ann, as though trying to see through the side of his own nose.
And what do you think of the engagement? he asked.
Aunt Anns eyes rested on him proudly; of all the nephews since young Jolyons departure from the family nest, he was now her favourite, for she recognised in him a sure trustee of the family soul that must so soon slip beyond her keeping.
Very nice for the young man, she said; and hes a good-looking young fellow; but I doubt if hes quite the right lover for dear June.
Soames touched the edge of a gold-lacquered lustre.
Shell tame him, he said, stealthily wetting his finger and rubbing it on the knobby bulbs. Thats genuine old lacquer; you cant get it nowadays. Itd do well in a sale at Jobsons. He spoke with relish, as though he felt that he was cheering up his old aunt. It was seldom he was so confidential. I wouldnt mind having it myself, he added; you can always get your price for old lacquer.
Youre so clever with all those things, said Aunt Ann. And how is dear Irene?
Soamess smile died.
Pretty well, he said. Complains she cant sleep; she sleeps a great deal better than I do, and he looked at his wife, who was talking to Bosinney by the door.
Aunt Ann sighed.
Perhaps, she said, it will be just as well for her not to see so much of June. Shes such a decided character, dear June!
Soames flushed; his flushes passed rapidly over his flat cheeks and centered between his eyes, where they remained, the stamp of disturbing thoughts.
I dont know what she sees in that little flibbertigibbet, he burst out, but noticing that they were no longer alone, he turned and again began examining the lustre.
They tell me Jolyons bought another house, said his fathers voice close by; he must have a lot of money he must have more money than he knows what to do with! Montpellier Square, they say; close to Soames! They never told me, Irene never tells me anything!
Capital position, not two minutes from me, said the voice of Swithin, and from my rooms I can drive to the Club in eight.
The position of their houses was of vital importance to the Forsytes, nor was this remarkable, since the whole spirit of their success was embodied therein.
Their father, of farming stock, had come from Dorsetshire near the beginning of the century.
Superior Dosset Forsyte, as he was called by his intimates, had been a stonemason by trade, and risen to the position of a master-builder.
Towards the end of his life he moved to London, where, building on until he died, he was buried at Highgate. He left over thirty thousand pounds between his ten children. Old Jolyon alluded to him, if at all, as A hard, thick sort of man; not much refinement about him. The second generation of Forsytes felt indeed that he was not greatly to their credit. The only aristocratic trait they could find in his character was a habit of drinking Madeira.
Aunt Hester, an authority on family history, described him thus: I dont recollect that he ever did anything; at least, not in my time. He was er an owner of houses, my dear. His hair about your Uncle Swithins colour; rather a square build. Tall? No not very tall (he had been five feet five, with a mottled face); a fresh-coloured man. I remember he used to drink Madeira; but ask your Aunt Ann. What was his father? He er had to do with the land down in Dorsetshire, by the sea.
James once went down to see for himself what sort of place this was that they had come from. He found two old farms, with a cart track rutted into the pink earth, leading down to a mill by the beach; a little grey church with a buttressed outer wall, and a smaller and greyer chapel. The stream which worked the mill came bubbling down in a dozen rivulets, and pigs were hunting round that estuary. A haze hovered over the prospect. Down this hollow, with their feet deep in the mud and their faces towards the sea, it appeared that the primeval Forsytes had been content to walk Sunday after Sunday for hundreds of years.
Whether or no James had cherished hopes of an inheritance, or of something rather distinguished to be found down there, he came back to town in a poor way, and went about with a pathetic attempt at making the best of a bad job.
Theres very little to be had out of that, he said; regular country little place, old as the hills.
Its age was felt to be a comfort. Old Jolyon, in whom a desperate honesty welled up at times, would allude to his ancestors as: Yeomen I suppose very small beer[6]. Yet he would repeat the word yeomen as if it afforded him consolation.
They had all done so well for themselves, these Forsytes, that they were all what is called of a certain position. They had shares in all sorts of things, not as yet with the exception of Timothy in consols, for they had no dread in life like that of 3 per cent. for their money. They collected pictures, too, and were supporters of such charitable institutions as might be beneficial to their sick domestics. From their father, the builder, they inherited a talent for bricks and mortar. Originally, perhaps, members of some primitive sect, they were now in the natural course of things members of the Church of England, and caused their wives and children to attend with some regularity the more fashionable churches of the Metropolis. To have doubted their Christianity would have caused them both pain and surprise. Some of them paid for pews, thus expressing in the most practical form their sympathy with the teachings of Christ.