To James, more than to any of the others, was “the family” significant and dear. There had always been something primitive and cosy in his attitude towards life; he loved the family hearth, he loved gossip, and he loved grumbling. All his decisions were formed of a cream which he skimmed off the family mind; and, through that family, off the minds of thousands of other families of similar fibre. Year after year, week after week, he went to Timothy’s, and in his brother’s front drawing-room – his legs twisted, his long white whiskers framing his clean-shaven mouth – would sit watching the family pot simmer, the cream rising to the top; and he would go away sheltered, refreshed, comforted, with an indefinable sense of comfort.
Beneath the adamant of his self-preserving instinct there was much real softness in James; a visit to Timothy’s was like an hour spent in the lap of a mother; and the deep craving he himself had for the protection of the family wing reacted in turn on his feelings towards his own children; it was a nightmare to him to think of them exposed to the treatment of the world, in money, health, or reputation. When his old friend John Street’s son volunteered for special service, he shook his head querulously, and wondered what John Street was about to allow it; and when young Street was assagaied, he took it so much to heart that he made a point of calling everywhere with the special object of saying: He knew how it would be – he’d no patience with them!
When his son-in-law Dartie had that financial crisis, due to speculation in Oil Shares, James made himself ill worrying over it; the knell of all prosperity seemed to have sounded. It took him three months and a visit to Baden-Baden to get better; there was something terrible in the idea that but for his, James’s, money, Dartie’s name might have appeared in the Bankruptcy List.
Composed of a physiological mixture so sound that if he had an earache he thought he was dying, he regarded the occasional ailments of his wife and children as in the nature of personal grievances, special interventions of Providence for the purpose of destroying his peace of mind; but he did not believe at all in the ailments of people outside his own immediate family, affirming them in every case to be due to neglected liver.
His universal comment was: “What can they expect? I have it myself, if I’m not careful!”
When he went to Soames’s that evening he felt that life was hard on him: There was Emily with a bad toe, and Rachel gadding about in the country; he got no sympathy from anybody; and Ann, she was ill – he did not believe she would last through the summer; he had called there three times now without her being able to see him! And this idea of Soames’s, building a house, that would have to be looked into. As to the trouble with Irene, he didn’t know what was to come of that – anything might come of it!
He entered 62, Montpellier Square with the fullest intentions of being miserable. It was already half-past seven, and Irene, dressed for dinner, was seated in the drawing-room. She was wearing her gold-coloured frock – for, having been displayed at a dinner-party, a soiree, and a dance, it was now to be worn at home – and she had adorned the bosom with a cascade of lace, on which James’s eyes riveted themselves at once.
“Where do you get your things?” he said in an aggravated voice. “I never see Rachel and Cicely looking half so well. That rose-point, now – that’s not real!”
Irene came close, to prove to him that he was in error.
And, in spite of himself, James felt the influence of her deference, of the faint seductive perfume exhaling from her. No self-respecting Forsyte surrendered at a blow; so he merely said: He didn’t know – he expected she was spending a pretty penny on dress.
The gong sounded, and, putting her white arm within his, Irene took him into the dining-room. She seated him in Soames’s usual place, round the corner on her left. The light fell softly there, so that he would not be worried by the gradual dying of the day; and she began to talk to him about himself.
Presently, over James came a change, like the mellowing that steals upon a fruit in the sun; a sense of being caressed, and praised, and petted, and all without the bestowal of a single caress or word of praise. He felt that what he was eating was agreeing with him; he could not get that feeling at home; he did not know when he had enjoyed a glass of champagne so much, and, on inquiring the brand and price, was surprised to find that it was one of which he had a large stock himself, but could never drink; he instantly formed the resolution to let his wine merchant know that he had been swindled.
Looking up from his food, he remarked:
“You’ve a lot of nice things about the place. Now, what did you give for that sugar-sifter? Shouldn’t wonder if it was worth money!”
He was particularly pleased with the appearance of a picture, on the wall opposite, which he himself had given them:
“I’d no idea it was so good!” he said.
They rose to go into the drawing-room, and James followed Irene closely.
“That’s what I call a capital little dinner,” he murmured, breathing pleasantly down on her shoulder; “nothing heavy – and not too Frenchified. But I can’t get it at home. I pay my cook sixty pounds a year, but she can’t give me a dinner like that!”
He had as yet made no allusion to the building of the house, nor did he when Soames, pleading the excuse of business, betook himself to the room at the top, where he kept his pictures.
James was left alone with his daughter-in-law. The glow of the wine, and of an excellent liqueur, was still within him. He felt quite warm towards her. She was really a taking little thing; she listened to you, and seemed to understand what you were saying; and, while talking, he kept examining her figure, from her bronze-coloured shoes to the waved gold of her hair. She was leaning back in an Empire chair, her shoulders poised against the top – her body, flexibly straight and unsupported from the hips, swaying when she moved, as though giving to the arms of a lover. Her lips were smiling, her eyes half-closed.
It may have been a recognition of danger in the very charm of her attitude, or a twang of digestion, that caused a sudden dumbness to fall on James. He did not remember ever having been quite alone with Irene before. And, as he looked at her, an odd feeling crept over him, as though he had come across something strange and foreign.
Now what was she thinking about – sitting back like that?
Thus when he spoke it was in a sharper voice, as if he had been awakened from a pleasant dream.
“What d’you do with yourself all day?” he said. “You never come round to Park Lane!”
She seemed to be making very lame excuses, and James did not look at her. He did not want to believe that she was really avoiding them – it would mean too much.
“I expect the fact is, you haven’t time,” he said; “You’re always about with June. I expect you’re useful to her with her young man, chaperoning, and one thing and another. They tell me she’s never at home now; your Uncle Jolyon he doesn’t like it, I fancy, being left so much alone as he is. They tell me she’s always hanging about for this young Bosinney; I suppose he comes here every day. Now, what do you think of him? D’you think he knows his own mind? He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the grey mare was the better horse!”
The colour deepened in Irene’s face; and James watched her suspiciously.
“Perhaps you don’t quite understand Mr. Bosinney,” she said.
“Don’t understand him!” James hummed out: “Why not? – you can see he’s one of these artistic chaps. They say he’s clever – they all think they’re clever. You know more about him than I do,” he added; and again his suspicious glance rested on her.
“He is designing a house for Soames,” she said softly, evidently trying to smooth things over.
“That brings me to what I was going to say,” continued James; “I don’t know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why doesn’t he go to a first-rate man?”
“Perhaps