Джон Голсуорси - Лучшее из «Саги о Форсайтах» / The Best of The Forsyte Saga

That old pet name, disused for years and years, sent a shiver through Winifred.

‘What am I to do with him?’ she thought. ‘What in God’s name am I to do with him?’

“Got a cigarette?”

She gave him one from a little box she kept up there for when she couldn’t sleep at night, and lighted it. With that action the matter-of-fact side of her nature came to life again.

“Go and have a hot bath. I’ll put some clothes out for you in the dressing-room. We can talk later.”

He nodded, and fixed his eyes on her – they looked half-dead, or was it that the folds in the lids had become heavier?

‘He’s not the same,’ she thought. He would never be quite the same again! But what would he be?

“All right!” he said, and went towards the door. He even moved differently, like a man who has lost illusion and doubts whether it is worth while to move at all.

When he was gone, and she heard the water in the bath running, she put out a complete set of garments on the bed in his dressing-room, then went downstairs and fetched up the biscuit box and whisky. Putting on her coat again, and listening a moment at the bathroom door, she went down and out. In the street she hesitated. Past seven o’clock! Would Soames be at his Club or at Park Lane? She turned towards the latter. Back!

Soames had always feared it – she had sometimes hoped it…. Back! So like him – clown that he was – with this: ‘Here we are again!’ to make fools of them all – of the Law, of Soames, of herself!

Yet to have done with the Law, not to have that murky cloud hanging over her and the children! What a relief! Ah! but how to accept his return? That ‘woman’ had ravaged him, taken from him passion such as he had never bestowed on herself, such as she had not thought him capable of. There was the sting! That selfish, blatant ‘clown’ of hers, whom she herself had never really stirred, had been swept and ungarnished by another woman! Insulting! Too insulting! Not right, not decent to take him back! And yet she had asked for him; the Law perhaps would make her now! He was as much her husband as ever – she had put herself out of court! And all he wanted, no doubt, was money – to keep him in cigars and lavender-water! That scent! ‘After all, I’m not old,’ she thought, ‘not old yet!’ But that woman who had reduced him to those words: ‘I’ve been through it. I’ve been frightened – frightened, Freddie!’ She neared her father’s house, driven this way and that, while all the time the Forsyte undertow was drawing her to deep conclusion that after all he was her property, to be held against a robbing world. And so she came to James’.

“Mr. Soames? In his room? I’ll go up; don’t say I’m here.”

Her brother was dressing. She found him before a mirror, tying a black bow with an air of despising its ends.

“Hullo!” he said, contemplating her in the glass; “what’s wrong?”

“Monty!” said Winifred stonily.

Soames spun round. “What!”

“Back!”

“Hoist,” muttered Soames, “with our own petard. Why the deuce didn’t you let me try cruelty? I always knew it was too much risk this way.”

“Oh! Don’t talk about that! What shall I do?”

Soames answered, with a deep, deep sound.

“Well?” said Winifred impatiently.

“What has he to say for himself?”

“Nothing. One of his boots is split across the toe.”

Soames stared at her.

“Ah!” he said, “of course! On his beam ends. So – it begins again! This’ll about finish father.”

“Can’t we keep it from him?”

“Impossible. He has an uncanny flair for anything that’s worrying.”

And he brooded, with fingers hooked into his blue silk braces. “There ought to be some way in law,” he muttered, “to make him safe.”

“No,” cried Winifred, “I won’t be made a fool of again; I’d sooner put up with him.”

The two stared at each other. Their hearts were full of feeling, but they could give it no expression – Forsytes that they were.

“Where did you leave him?”

“In the bath,” and Winifred gave a little bitter laugh. “The only thing he’s brought back is lavender-water.”

“Steady!” said Soames, “you’re thoroughly upset. I’ll go back with you.”

“What’s the use?”

“We ought to make terms with him.”

“Terms! It’ll always be the same. When he recovers – cards and betting, drink and…!” She was silent, remembering the look on her husband’s face. The burnt child – the burnt child. Perhaps…!

“Recovers?” replied Soames: “Is he ill?”

“No; burnt out; that’s all.”

Soames took his waistcoat from a chair and put it on, he took his coat and got into it, he scented his handkerchief with eau-de-Cologne, threaded his watch-chain, and said: “We haven’t any luck.”

And in the midst of her own trouble Winifred was sorry for him, as if in that little saying he had revealed deep trouble of his own.

“I’d like to see mother,” she said.

“She’ll be with father in their room. Come down quietly to the study. I’ll get her.”

Winifred stole down to the little dark study, chiefly remarkable for a Canaletto too doubtful to be placed elsewhere, and a fine collection of Law Reports unopened for many years. Here she stood, with her back to maroon-coloured curtains close-drawn, staring at the empty grate, till her mother came in followed by Soames.

“Oh! my poor dear!” said Emily: “How miserable you look in here! This is too bad of him, really!”

As a family they had so guarded themselves from the expression of all unfashionable emotion that it was impossible to go up and give her daughter a good hug. But there was comfort in her cushioned voice, and her still dimpled shoulders under some rare black lace. Summoning pride and the desire not to distress her mother, Winifred said in her most off-hand voice:

“It’s all right, Mother; no good fussing.”

“I don’t see,” said Emily, looking at Soames, “why Winifred shouldn’t tell him that she’ll prosecute him if he doesn’t keep off the premises. He took her pearls; and if he’s not brought them back, that’s quite enough.”

Winifred smiled. They would all plunge about with suggestions of this and that, but she knew already what she would be doing, and that was – nothing. The feeling that, after all, she had won a sort of victory, retained her property, was every moment gaining ground in her. No! if she wanted to punish him, she could do it at home without the world knowing.

“Well,” said Emily, “come into the dining-room comfortably – you must stay and have dinner with us. Leave it to me to tell your father.” And, as Winifred moved towards the door, she turned out the light. Not till then did they see the disaster in the corridor.

There, attracted by light from a room never lighted, James was standing with his duncoloured camel-hair shawl folded about him, so that his arms were not free and his silvered head looked cut off from his fashionably trousered legs as if by an expanse of desert. He stood, inimitably stork-like, with an expression as if he saw before him a frog too large to swallow.

“What’s all this?” he said. “Tell your father? You never tell me anything.”

The moment found Emily without reply. It was Winifred who went up to him, and, laying one hand on each of his swathed, helpless arms, said:

“Monty’s not gone bankrupt, Father. He’s only come back.”

They all three expected something serious to happen, and were glad she had kept that grip of his arms, but they did not know the depth of root in that shadowy old Forsyte. Something wry occurred about his shaven mouth and chin, something scratchy between those long silvery whiskers. Then he said with a sort of dignity: “He’ll be the death of me. I knew how it would be.”