His thoughts turned gloomily to the Forsytes. What a set they were! There was no getting anything out of them – at least, it was a matter of extreme difficulty. They were so d – d particular about money matters; not a sportsman amongst the lot, unless it were George. That fellow Soames, for instance, would have a fit if you tried to borrow a tenner from him, or, if he didn’t have a fit, he looked at you with his cursed supercilious smile, as if you were a lost soul because you were in want of money.
And that wife of his (Dartie’s mouth watered involuntarily), he had tried to be on good terms with her, as one naturally would with any pretty sister-in-law, but he would be cursed if the (he mentally used a coarse word) – would have anything to say to him – she looked at him, indeed, as if he were dirt – and yet she could go far enough, he wouldn’t mind betting. He knew women; they weren’t made with soft eyes and figures like that for nothing, as that fellow Soames would jolly soon find out, if there were anything in what he had heard about this Buccaneer Johnny.
Rising from his chair, Dartie took a turn across the room, ending in front of the looking-glass over the marble chimney-piece; and there he stood for a long time contemplating in the glass the reflection of his face. It had that look, peculiar to some men, of having been steeped in linseed oil, with its waxed dark moustaches and the little distinguished commencements of side whiskers; and concernedly he felt the promise of a pimple on the side of his slightly curved and fattish nose.
In the meantime old Jolyon had found the remaining chair in Timothy’s commodious drawing-room. His advent had obviously put a stop to the conversation, decided awkwardness having set in. Aunt Juley, with her well-known kindheartedness, hastened to set people at their ease again.
“Yes, Jolyon,” she said, “we were just saying that you haven’t been here for a long time; but we mustn’t be surprised. You’re busy, of course? James was just saying what a busy time of year….”
“Was he?” said old Jolyon, looking hard at James. “It wouldn’t be half so busy if everybody minded their own business.”
James, brooding in a small chair from which his knees ran uphill, shifted his feet uneasily, and put one of them down on the cat, which had unwisely taken refuge from old Jolyon beside him.
“Here, you’ve got a cat here,” he said in an injured voice, withdrawing his foot nervously as he felt it squeezing into the soft, furry body.
“Several,” said old Jolyon, looking at one face and another; “I trod on one just now.”
A silence followed.
Then Mrs. Small, twisting her fingers and gazing round with ‘pathetic calm’, asked: “And how is dear June?”
A twinkle of humour shot through the sternness of old Jolyon’s eyes. Extraordinary old woman, Juley! No one quite like her for saying the wrong thing!
“Bad!” he said; “London don’t agree with her – too many people about, too much clatter and chatter by half.” He laid emphasis on the words, and again looked James in the face.
Nobody spoke.
A feeling of its being too dangerous to take a step in any direction, or hazard any remark, had fallen on them all. Something of the sense of the impending, that comes over the spectator of a Greek tragedy, had entered that upholstered room, filled with those white-haired, frock-coated old men, and fashionably attired women, who were all of the same blood, between all of whom existed an unseizable resemblance.
Not that they were conscious of it – the visits of such fateful, bitter spirits are only felt.
Then Swithin rose. He would not sit there, feeling like that – he was not to be put down by anyone! And, manoeuvring round the room with added pomp, he shook hands with each separately.
“You tell Timothy from me,” he said, “that he coddles himself too much!” Then, turning to Francie, whom he considered ‘smart,’ he added: “You come with me for a drive one of these days.” But this conjured up the vision of that other eventful drive which had been so much talked about, and he stood quite still for a second, with glassy eyes, as though waiting to catch up with the significance of what he himself had said; then, suddenly recollecting that he didn’t care a damn, he turned to old Jolyon: “Well, good-bye, Jolyon! You shouldn’t go about without an overcoat; you’ll be getting sciatica or something!” And, kicking the cat slightly with the pointed tip of his patent leather boot, he took his huge form away.
When he had gone everyone looked secretly at the others, to see how they had taken the mention of the word ‘drive’ – the word which had become famous, and acquired an overwhelming importance, as the only official – so to speak – news in connection with the vague and sinister rumour clinging to the family tongue.
Euphemia, yielding to an impulse, said with a short laugh: “I’m glad Uncle Swithin doesn’t ask me to go for drives.”
Mrs. Small, to reassure her and smooth over any little awkwardness the subject might have, replied: “My dear, he likes to take somebody well dressed, who will do him a little credit. I shall never forget the drive he took me. It was an experience!” And her chubby round old face was spread for a moment with a strange contentment; then broke into pouts, and tears came into her eyes. She was thinking of that long ago driving tour she had once taken with Septimus Small.
James, who had relapsed into his nervous brooding in the little chair, suddenly roused himself: “He’s a funny fellow, Swithin,” he said, but in a half-hearted way.
Old Jolyon’s silence, his stern eyes, held them all in a kind of paralysis. He was disconcerted himself by the effect of his own words – an effect which seemed to deepen the importance of the very rumour he had come to scotch; but he was still angry.
He had not done with them yet – No, no – he would give them another rub or two.
He did not wish to rub his nieces, he had no quarrel with them – a young and presentable female always appealed to old Jolyon’s clemency – but that fellow James, and, in a less degree perhaps, those others, deserved all they would get. And he, too, asked for Timothy.
As though feeling that some danger threatened her younger brother, Aunt Juley suddenly offered him tea: “There it is,” she said, “all cold and nasty, waiting for you in the back drawing room, but Smither shall make you some fresh.”
Old Jolyon rose: “Thank you,” he said, looking straight at James, “but I’ve no time for tea, and – scandal, and the rest of it! It’s time I was at home. Good-bye, Julia; good-bye, Hester; good-bye, Winifred.”
Without more ceremonious adieux, he marched out.
Once again in his cab, his anger evaporated, for so it ever was with his wrath – when he had rapped out, it was gone. Sadness came over his spirit. He had stopped their mouths, maybe, but at what a cost! At the cost of certain knowledge that the rumour he had been resolved not to believe was true. June was abandoned, and for the wife of that fellow’s son! He felt it was true, and hardened himself to treat it as if it were not; but the pain he hid beneath this resolution began slowly, surely, to vent itself in a blind resentment against James and his son.
The six women and one man left behind in the little drawing-room began talking as easily as might be after such an occurrence, for though each one of them knew for a fact that he or she never talked scandal, each one of them also knew that the other six did; all were therefore angry and at a loss. James only was silent, disturbed, to the bottom of his soul.
Presently Francie said: “Do you know, I think Uncle Jolyon is terribly changed this last year. What do you think, Aunt Hester?”
Aunt Hester made a little movement of recoil: “Oh, ask your Aunt Julia!” she said; “I know nothing about it.”
No one else was afraid of assenting, and James muttered gloomily at the floor: “He’s not half the