Джон Голсуорси - Swan Song

“On HER conscience, Gradman.”

Gradman stared at a Dresden shepherdess.

“In a case of forgivin’, you never know. I wanted to speak to him too, about his steel shares; they’re not all they might be. But we must just take our chance, I suppose. I’m glad your father was spared, Mr. James WOULD have taken on. It won’t be like the same world again, if Mr. Soames—”

She had put her hand up to her mouth and turned away. Fashion had dropped from her thickened figure. Much affected, Gradman turned to the door.

“Shan’t leave my clothes off, in case I’m wanted. I’ve got everything here. Good-night!”

He went upstairs again, tiptoeing past the door, and, entering his room, switched on the light. They had taken away the pickles; turned his bed down, laid his flannel nightgown out. They took a lot of trouble! And, sinking on his knees, he prayed in a muffled murmur, varying the usual words, and ending: “And for Mr. Soames, O Lord, I specially commend him body and soul. Forgive him his trespasses, and deliver him from all ‘ardness of ’eart and impurities, before he goes ‘ence, and make him as a little lamb again, that he may find favour in Thy sight. They faithful servant. Amen.” And, for some time after he had finished, he remained kneeling on the very soft carpet, breathing-in the familiar reek of flannel and old times. He rose easier in his mind. Removing his boots, laced and square-toed, and his old frock coat, he put on his Jaeger gown, and shut the window, to keep out the night air. Then taking the eiderdown, he placed a large handkerchief over his bald head, and, switching off the light, sat down in the armchair, with the eiderdown over his knees.

What an ‘ush after London, to be sure, so quiet you could hear yourself think! For some reason he thought of Queen Victoria’s first Jubilee, when he was a youngster of forty, and Mr. James had given him and Mrs. G. two seats. They had seen the whole thing—first chop! – the Guards and the procession, the carriages, the horses, the Queen and the Royal family. A beautiful summer day—a real summer that; not like the summers lately. And everything going on, as if it’d go on for ever, with three per cents at nearly par if he remembered, and all going to church regular. And only that same year, a bit later, Mr. Soames had had his first upset. And another memory came. Queer he should remember that to-night, with Mr. Soames lying there—must have been quite soon after the Jubilee, too! Going with a lease that wouldn’t bear to wait to Mr. Soames’s private house, Montpellier Square, and being shown into the dining-room, and hearing some one singing and playing on the “pianner.” He had opened the door to listen. Why—he could remember the words now! About “laying on the grass,” “I die, I faint, I fail,” “the champaign odours,” something “on your cheek” and something “pale.” Fancy that! And, suddenly, the door had opened and out she’d come—Mrs. Irene—in a frock—ah!

“Are you waiting for Mr. Forsyte? Won’t you come in and have some tea?” And he’d gone in and had tea, sitting on the edge of a chair that didn’t look too firm, all gilt and spindley. And she on the sofa in that frock, pouring it out, and saying:

“Are you fond of music, then, Mr. Gradman?” Soft, a soft look, with her dark eyes and her hair—not red and not what you’d call gold—but like a turned leaf—um? – a beautiful young woman, sad and sort of sympathetic in the face. He’d often thought of her—he could see her now! And then Mr. Soames coming in, and her face all closing up like—like a book. Queer to remember that to-night!… Dear me!… How dark and quiet it was! That poor young daughter, that it was all about! It was to be ‘oped she’d sleep! Ye-es! And what would Mrs. G. say if she could see HIM sitting in a chair like this, with his teeth in, too. Ah! Well—she’d never seen Mr. Soames, never seen the family—Maria hadn’t! But what an ‘ush! And slowly but surely old Gradman’s mouth fell open, and he broke the hush.

Beyond the closed window the moon rode up, a full and brilliant moon, so that the stilly darkened country dissolved into shape and shadow, and the owls hooted, and, far off, a dog bayed; and flowers in the garden became each a little presence in a night-time carnival graven into stillness; and on the gleaming river every fallen leaf that drifted down carried a moonbeam; while, above, the trees stayed, quiet, measured and illumined, quiet as the very sky, for the wind stirred not.

There was only just life in Soames. Two nights and two days they had waited, watching the unmoving bandaged head. Specialists had come, given their verdict: “Nothing to be done by way of operation”; and gone again. The doctor who had presided over Fleur’s birth was in charge. Though never quite forgiven by Soames for the anxiety he had caused on that occasion, “the fellow” had hung on, attending the family. By his instructions they watched the patient’s eyes; at any sign, they were to send for him at once.

Michael, from whom Fleur seemed inconsolably caught away, gave himself up to Kit, walking and talking and trying to keep the child unaware. He did not visit the still figure, not from indifference, but because he felt an intruder there. He had removed all the pictures left in the gallery, and, storing them with those which Soames had thrown from the window, had listed them carefully. The fire had destroyed eleven out of the eighty-four.

Annette had cried, and was feeling better. The thought of life without Soames was for her strange and—possible; precisely, in fact, like the thought of life with him. She wished him to recover, but if he didn’t she would live in France.

Winifred, who shared the watches, lived much and sadly in the past. Soames had been her mainstay throughout thirty-four years chequered by Montague Dartie, had continued her mainstay in the thirteen unchequered years since. She did not see how things could ever be cosy again. She had a heart, and could not look at that still figure without trying to remember how to cry. Letters came to her from the family worded with a sort of anxious astonishment that Soames should have had such a thing happen to him.

Gradman, who had taken a bath, and changed his trousers to black, was deep in calculations and correspondence with the Insurance firm. He walked, too, in the kitchen garden, out of sight of the house; for he could not get over the fact that Mr. James had lived to be ninety, and Mr. Timothy a hundred, to say nothing of the others. And, stopping mournfully before the seakail or the Brussels sprouts he would shake his head.

Smither had come down to be with Winifred, but was of little use, except to say: “Poor Mr. Soames! Poor dear Mr. Soames! To think of it! And he so careful of himself, and everybody!”

For that was it! Ignorant of the long and stealthy march of passion, and of the state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant of how Soames had watched her, seen that beloved young part of his very self fail, reach the edge of things and stand there balancing; ignorant of Fleur’s reckless desperation beneath that falling picture, and her father’s knowledge thereof—ignorant of all this everybody felt aggrieved. It seemed to them that a mere bolt from the blue, rather than the inexorable secret culmination of an old, old story, had striken one who of all men seemed the least liable to accident. How should they tell that it was not so accidental as all that!

But Fleur knew well enough that her desperate mood had destroyed her father, just as surely as if she had flung herself into the river and he had been drowned in saving her. Only too well she knew that on that night she had been capable of slipping down into the river, of standing before a rushing car, of anything not too deliberate and active, that would have put her out of her aching misery. She knew well enough that she had recklessly stood rooted when the picture toppled above her. And now, sobered to the very marrow by the shock, she could not forgive herself.