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James has just passed, with his female folk,” said young Jolyon.
His father looked black. “Did your uncle see us? Yes? Hmph! What’s he want, coming down into these parts?”
An empty cab drove up at this moment, and old Jolyon stopped it.
“I shall see you again before long, my boy!” he said. “Don’t you go paying any attention to what I’ve been saying about young Bosinney – I don’t believe a word of it!”
Kissing the children, who tried to detain him, he stepped in and was borne away.
Young Jolyon, who had taken Holly up in his arms, stood motionless at the corner, looking after the cab.
Chapter VII
Afternoon at Timothy’s
If old Jolyon, as he got into his cab, had said: ‘I won’t believe a word of it!’ he would more truthfully have expressed his sentiments.
The notion that James and his womankind had seen him in the company of his son had awakened in him not only the impatience he always felt when crossed, but that secret hostility natural between brothers, the roots of which – little nursery rivalries – sometimes toughen and deepen as life goes on, and, all hidden, support a plant capable of producing in season the bitterest fruits.
Hitherto there had been between these six brothers no more unfriendly feeling than that caused by the secret and natural doubt that the others might be richer than themselves; a feeling increased to the pitch of curiosity by the approach of death – that end of all handicaps – and the great ‘closeness’ of their man of business, who, with some sagacity, would profess to Nicholas ignorance of James’ income, to James ignorance of old Jolyon’s, to Jolyon ignorance of Roger’s, to Roger ignorance of Swithin’s, while to Swithin he would say most irritatingly that Nicholas must be a rich man. Timothy alone was exempt, being in gilt-edged securities.
But now, between two of them at least, had arisen a very different sense of injury. From the moment when James had the impertinence to pry into his affairs – as he put it – old Jolyon no longer chose to credit this story about Bosinney. His grand-daughter slighted through a member of ‘that fellow’s’ family! He made up his mind that Bosinney was maligned. There must be some other reason for his defection.
June had flown out at him, or something; she was as touchy as she could be!
He would, however, let Timothy have a bit of his mind, and see if he would go on dropping hints! And he would not let the grass grow under his feet either, he would go there at once, and take very good care that he didn’t have to go again on the same errand.
He saw James’ carriage blocking the pavement in front of ‘The Bower.’ So they had got there before him – cackling about having seen him, he dared say! And further on, Swithin’s greys were turning their noses towards the noses of James’ bays, as though in conclave over the family, while their coachmen were in conclave above.
Old Jolyon, depositing his hat on the chair in the narrow hall, where that hat of Bosinney’s had so long ago been mistaken for a cat, passed his thin hand grimly over his face with its great drooping white moustaches, as though to remove all traces of expression, and made his way upstairs.
He found the front drawing-room full. It was full enough at the best of times – without visitors – without any one in it – for Timothy and his sisters, following the tradition of their generation, considered that a room was not quite ‘nice’ unless it was ‘properly’ furnished. It held, therefore, eleven chairs, a sofa, three tables, two cabinets, innumerable knicknacks[35], and part of a large grand piano. And now, occupied by Mrs. Small, Aunt Hester, by Swithin, James, Rachel, Winifred, Euphemia, who had come in again to return ‘Passion and Paregoric’ which she had read at lunch, and her chum Frances, Roger’s daughter (the musical Forsyte, the one who composed songs), there was only one chair left unoccupied, except, of course, the two that nobody ever sat on – and the only standing room was occupied by the cat, on whom old Jolyon promptly stepped.
In these days it was by no means unusual for Timothy to have so many visitors. The family had always, one and all, had a real respect for Aunt Ann, and now that she was gone, they were coming far more frequently to The Bower, and staying longer.
Swithin had been the first to arrive, and seated torpid in a red satin chair with a gilt back, he gave every appearance of lasting the others out. And symbolizing Bosinney’s name ‘the big one,’ with his great stature and bulk, his thick white hair, his puffy immovable shaven face, he looked more primeval than ever in the highly upholstered room.
His conversation, as usual of late, had turned at once upon Irene, and he had lost no time in giving Aunts Juley and Hester his opinion with regard to this rumour he heard was going about. No – as he said – she might want a bit of flirtation – a pretty woman must have her fling; but more than that he did not believe. Nothing open; she had too much good sense, too much proper appreciation of what was due to her position, and to the family! No sc—, he was going to say ‘scandal’ but the very idea was so preposterous that he waved his hand as though to say – ‘but let that pass!’
Granted that Swithin took a bachelor’s view of the situation – still what indeed was not due to that family in which so many had done so well for themselves, had attained a certain position? If he had heard in dark, pessimistic moments the words ‘yeomen’ and ‘very small beer’ used in connection with his origin, did he believe them?
No! he cherished, hugging it pathetically to his bosom the secret theory that there was something distinguished somewhere in his ancestry.
“Must be,” he once said to young Jolyon, before the latter went to the bad. “Look at us, we’ve got on! There must be good blood in us somewhere.”
He had been fond of young Jolyon: the boy had been in a good set at College, had known that old ruffian Sir Charles Fiste’s sons – a pretty rascal one of them had turned out, too; and there was style about him – it was a thousand pities he had run off with that half-foreign governess! If he must go off like that why couldn’t he have chosen someone who would have done them credit! And what was he now? – an underwriter at Lloyd’s; they said he even painted pictures – pictures! Damme! he might have ended as Sir Jolyon Forsyte, Bart.[36], with a seat in Parliament, and a place in the country!
It was Swithin who, following the impulse which sooner or later urges thereto some member of every great family, went to the Heralds’ Office, where they assured him that he was undoubtedly of the same family as the well-known Forsites with an ‘i,’ whose arms were ‘three dexter buckles on a sable ground gules,’ hoping no doubt to get him to take them up.
Swithin, however, did not do this, but having ascertained that the crest was a ‘pheasant proper,’ and the motto ‘For Forsite,’ he had the pheasant proper placed upon his carriage and the buttons of his coachman, and both crest and motto on his writing-paper. The arms he hugged to himself, partly because, not having paid for them, he thought it would look ostentatious to put them on his carriage, and he hated ostentation, and partly because he, like any practical man all over the country, had a secret dislike and contempt for things he could not understand he found it hard, as anyone might, to swallow ‘three dexter buckles on a sable ground gules.’
He never forgot, however, their having told him that if he paid for them he would be entitled to use them, and it strengthened his conviction that he was a gentleman. Imperceptibly the rest of the family absorbed the ‘pheasant proper,’ and some, more serious than others, adopted the motto; old Jolyon, however, refused to use the latter, saying that it was humbug meaning nothing, so far as he could see.
Among the older generation it was perhaps known at bottom from what great historical event they derived their crest; and if pressed on the subject, sooner than tell a lie – they did not like telling lies, having an
knicknack – a dainty little trinket or ornament.
Bart. – a traditional abbreviation from