"Good-night!" said Soames abruptly, and turned away.  He put on his
fur coat.  Death!  It was a chilly business.  He smoked a cigarette
in the carriage--one of his rare cigarettes.  The night was windy
and flew on black wings; the carriage lights had to search out the
way.  His father!  That old, old man!  A comfortless night--to die!

The London train came in just as he reached the station, and Madame
Lamotte, substantial, dark-clothed, very yellow in the lamplight,
came towards the exit with a dressing-bag.

"This all you have?" asked Soames.

"But yes; I had not the time.  How is my little one?"

"Doing well--both.  A girl!"

"A girl!  What joy!  I had a frightful crossing!"

Her black bulk, solid, unreduced by the frightful crossing, climbed
into the brougham.

"And you, mon cher?"

"My father's dying," said Soames between his teeth.  "I'm going up.
Give my love to Annette."

"Tiens!"   murmured Madame Lamotte; "quel malheur!"

Soames took his hat off, and moved towards his train.  'The
French!'  he thought.




CHAPTER XIII

JAMES IS TOLD


A simple cold, caught in the room with double windows, where the
air and the people who saw him were filtered, as it were, the room
he had not left since the middle of September--and James was in
deep waters.  A little cold, passing his little strength and flying
quickly to his lungs.  "He mustn't catch cold," the doctor had
declared, and he had gone and caught it.  When he first felt it in
his throat he had said to his nurse--for he had one now--"There, I
knew how it would be, airing the room like that!"  For a whole day
he was highly nervous about himself and went in advance of all
precautions and remedies; drawing every breath with extreme care
and having his temperature taken every hour.  Emily was not
alarmed.

But next morning when she went in the nurse whispered: "He won't
have his temperature taken."

Emily crossed to the side of the bed where he was lying, and said
softly, "How do you feel, James?" holding the thermometer to his
lips.  James looked up at her.

"What's the good of that?" he murmured huskily; "I don't want to
know."

Then she was alarmed.  He breathed with difficulty, he looked
terribly frail, white, with faint red discolorations.  She had 'had
trouble' with him, Goodness knew; but he was James, had been James
for nearly fifty years; she couldn't remember or imagine life
without James--James, behind all his fussiness, his pessimism, his
crusty shell, deeply affectionate, really kind and generous to them
all!

All that day and the next he hardly uttered a word, but there was
in his eyes a noticing of everything done for him, a look on his
face which told her he was fighting; and she did not lose hope.
His very stillness, the way he conserved every little scrap of
energy, showed the tenacity with which he was fighting.  It touched
her deeply; and though her face was composed and comfortable in the
sick-room, tears ran down her cheeks when she was out of it.

About tea-time on the third day--she had just changed her dress,
keeping her appearance so as not to alarm him, because he noticed
everything--she saw a difference.  'It's no use; I'm tired,' was
written plainly across that white face, and when she went up to
him, he muttered: "Send for Soames."

"Yes, James," she said comfortably; "all right--at once."  And she
kissed his forehead.  A tear dropped there, and as she wiped it off
she saw that his eyes looked grateful.  Much upset, and without
hope now, she sent Soames the telegram.

When he entered out of the black windy night, the big house was
still as a grave.  Warmson's broad face looked almost narrow; he
took the fur coat with a sort of added care, saying:

"Will you have a glass of wine, sir?"

Soames shook his head, and his eyebrows made enquiry.

Warmson's lips twitched.  "He's asking for you, sir;" and suddenly
he blew his nose.  "It's a long time, sir," he said, "that I've
been with Mr. Forsyte--a long time."

Soames left him folding the coat, and began to mount the stairs.
This house, where he had been born and sheltered, had never seemed
to him so warm, and rich, and cosy, as during this last pilgrimage
to his father's room.  It was not his taste; but in its own sub-
stantial, lincrusta way it was the acme of comfort and security.
And the night was so dark and windy; the grave so cold and lonely

He paused outside the door.  No sound came from within.  He turned
the handle softly and was in the room before he was perceived.  The
light was shaded.  His mother and Winifred were sitting on the far
side of the bed; the nurse was moving away from the near side where
was an empty chair.  'For me!'  thought Soames.  As he moved from
the door his mother and sister rose, but he signed with his hand
and they sat down again.  He went up to the chair and stood looking
at his father.  James' breathing was as if strangled; his eyes were
closed.  And in Soames, looking on his father so worn and white and
wasted, listening to his strangled breathing, there rose a
passionate vehemence of anger against Nature, cruel, inexorable
Nature, kneeling on the chest of that wisp of a body, slowly
pressing out the breath, pressing out the life of the being who was
dearest to him in the world.  His father, of all men, had lived a
careful life, moderate, abstemious, and this was his reward--to
have life slowly, painfully squeezed out of him!  And, without
knowing that he spoke, he said: "It's cruel!"

He saw his mother cover her eyes and Winifred bow her face towards
the bed.  Women!  They put up with things so much.  better than
men.  He took a step nearer to his father.  For three days James
had not been shaved, and his lips and chin were covered with hair,
hardly more snowy than his forehead.  It softened his face, gave it
a queer look already not of this world.  His eyes opened.  Soames
went quite close and bent over.  The lips moved.

"Here I am, Father:"

"Um--what--what news?  They never tell...."  the voice died, and a
flood of emotion made Soames' face work so that he could not speak.
Tell him?--yes.  But what?  He made a great effort, got his lips
together, and said:

"Good news, dear, good--Annette, a son."

"Ah!"  It was the queerest sound, ugly, relieved, pitiful,
triumphant--like the noise a baby makes getting what it wants.  The
eyes closed, and that strangled sound of breathing began again.
Soames recoiled to the chair and stonily sat down.  The lie he had
told, based, as it were, on some deep, temperamental instinct that
after death James would not know the truth, had taken away all
power of feeling for the moment.  His arm brushed against
something.  It was his father's naked foot.  In the struggle to
breathe he had pushed it out from under the clothes.  Soames took
it in his hand, a cold foot, light and thin, white, very cold.
What use to put it back, to wrap up that which must be colder soon!
He warmed it mechanically with his hand, listening to his father's
laboured breathing; while the power of feeling rose again within
him.  A little sob, quickly smothered, came from Winifred, but his
mother sat unmoving with her eyes fixed on James.  Soames signed to
the nurse.

"Where's the doctor?" he whispered.

"He's been sent for."

"Can't you do anything to ease his breathing?"

"Only an injection; and he can't stand it.  The doctor said, while
he was fighting...."

"He's not fighting," whispered Soames, "he's being slowly
smothered.  It's awful."

James stirred uneasily, as if he knew what they were saying.
Soames rose and bent over him.  James feebly moved his two hands,
and Soames took them.

"He wants to be pulled up," whispered the nurse.

Soames pulled.  He thought he pulled gently, but a look almost of
anger passed over James' face.  The nurse plumped the pillows.
Soames laid the hands down, and bending over kissed his father's
forehead.  As he was raising himself again, James' eyes bent on him
a look which seemed to come from the very depths of what was left
within.  'I'm done, my boy,' it seemed to say, 'take care of them,
take care of yourself; take care--I leave it all to you.'

"Yes, Yes," Soames whispered, "yes, yes."

Behind him the nurse did he knew, not what, for his father made a
tiny movement of repulsion as if resenting that interference; and
almost at once his breathing eased away, became quiet; he lay very
still.  The strained expression on his face passed, a curious white
tranquillity took its place.  His eyelids quivered, rested; the
whole face rested; at ease.  Only by the faint puffing of his lips
could they tell that he was breathing.  Soames sank back on his
chair, and fell to cherishing the foot again.  He heard the nurse
quietly crying over there by the fire; curious that she, a
stranger, should be the only one of them who cried!  He heard the
quiet lick and flutter of the fire flames.  One more old Forsyte
going to his long rest--wonderful, they were!--wonderful how he had
held on!  His mother and Winifred were leaning forward, hanging on
the sight of James' lips.  But Soames bent sideways over the feet,
warming them both; they gave him comfort, colder and colder though
they grew.  Suddenly he started up; a sound, a dreadful sound such
as he had never heard, was coming from his father's lips, as if an
outraged heart had broken with a long moan.  What a strong heart,
to have uttered that farewell!  It ceased.  Soaines looked into the
face.  No motion; no breath!  Dead!  He kissed the brow, turned
round and went out of the room.  He ran upstairs to the bedroom,
his old bedroom, still kept for him; flung himself face down on the
bed, and broke into sobs which he stilled with the pillow....

A little later he went downstairs and passed into the room.  James
lay alone, wonderfully calm, free from shadow and anxiety, with the
gravity on his ravaged face which underlies great age, the worn
fine gravity of old coins.

Soames looked steadily at that face, at the fire, at all the room
with windows thrown open to the London night.

"Good-bye!" he whispered, and went out.




CHAPTER XIV

HIS


He had much to see to, that night and all next day.  A telegram at
breakfast reassured him about Annette, and he only caught the last
train back to Reading, with Emily's kiss on his forehead and in his
ears her words:

"I don't know what I should have done without you, my dear boy."

He reached his house at midnight.  The weather had changed, was
mild again, as though, having finished its work and sent a Forsyte
to his last account, it could relax.  A second telegram, received
at dinner-time, had confirmed the good news of Annette, and,
instead of going in, Soames passed down through the garden in the
moonlight to his houseboat.  He could sleep there quite well.
Bitterly tired, he lay down on the sofa in his fur coat and fell
asleep.  He woke soon after dawn and went on deck.  He stood
against the rail, looking west where the river swept round in a
wide curve under the woods.  In Soames, appreciation of natural
beauty was curiously like that of his farmer ancestors, a sense of
grievance if it wasn't there, sharpened, no doubt, and civilised,
by his researches among landscape painting.  But dawn has power to
fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision, and he was stirred.  It
was another world from the river he knew, under that remote cool
light; a world into which man had not entered, an unreal world,
like some strange shore sighted by discovery.  Its colour was not
the colour of convention, was hardly colour at all; its shapes were
brooding yet distinct; its silence stunning; it had no scent.  Why
it should move him he could not tell, unless it were that he felt
so alone in it, bare of all relationship and all possessions.  Into
such a world his father might be voyaging, for all resemblance it
had to the world he had left.  And Soames took refuge from it in
wondering what painter could have done it justice.  The white-grey
water was like--like the belly of a fish!  Was it possible that
this world on which he looked was all private property, except the
water--and even that was tapped!  No tree, no shrub, not a blade of
grass, not a bird or beast, not even a fish that was not owned.
And once on a time all this was jungle and marsh and water, and
weird creatures roamed and sported without human cognizance to give
them names; rotting luxuriance had rioted where those tall, care-
fully planted woods came down to the water, and marsh-misted reeds
on that far side had covered all the pasture.  Well! they had got
it under, kennelled it all up, labelled it, and stowed it in
lawyers' offices.  And a good thing too!  But once in a way, as
now, the ghost of the past came out to haunt and brood and whisper
to any human who chanced to be awake: 'Out of my unowned loneliness
you all came, into it some day you will all return.'

And Soames, who felt the chill and the eeriness of that world-new
to him and so very old: the world, unowned, visiting the scene of
its past--went down and made himself tea on a spirit-lamp.  When he
had drunk it, he took out writing materials and wrote two
paragraphs:

"On the 20th instant at his residence in Park Lane, James Forsyte,
in his ninety-first year.  Funeral at noon on the 24th at Highgate.
No flowers by request."

"On the 20th instant at The Shelter; Mapledurham, Annette, wife of
Soames Forsyte, of a daughter."  And underneath on the
blottingpaper he traced the word "son."

It was eight o'clock in an ordinary autumn world when he went
across to the house.  Bushes across the river stood round and
bright-coloured out of a milky haze; the wood-smoke went up blue
and straight; and his doves cooed, preening their feathers in the
sunlight.

He stole up to his dressing-room, bathed, shaved, put on fresh
linen and dark clothes.

Madame Lamotte was beginning her breakfast when he went down.

She looked at his clothes, said, "Don't tell me!" and pressed his
hand.  "Annette is prettee well.  But the doctor say she can never
have no more children.  You knew that?" Soames nodded.  "It's a
pity.  Mais la petite est adorable.  Du cafe?"

Soames got away from her as soon as he could.  She offended him--
solid, matter-of-fact, quick, clear--French.  He could not bear her
vowels, her 'r's'; he resented the way she had looked at him, as if
it were his fault that Annette could never bear him a son!  His
fault!  He even resented her cheap adoration of the daughter he had
not yet seen.

Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!

One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first moment.
On the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from it--
fastidious possessor that he was.  He was afraid of what Annette
was thinking of him, author of her agonies, afraid of the look of
the baby, afraid of showing his disappointment with the present
and--the future.

He spent an hour walking up and down the drawing-room before he
could screw his courage up to mount the stairs and knock on the
door of their room.

Madame Lamotte opened it.

"Ah!  At last you come!  Elle vous attend!"  She passed him, and
Soames went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set, his
eyes furtive.

Annette was very pale and very pretty lying there.  The baby was
hidden away somewhere; he could not see it.  He went up to the bed,
and with sudden emotion bent and kissed her forehead.

"Here you are then, Soames," she said.  "I am not so bad now.  But
I suffered terribly, terribly.  I am glad I cannot have any more.
Oh! how I suffered!"

Soames stood silent, stroking her hand; words of endearment, of
sympathy, absolutely would not come; the thought passed through
him: 'An English girl wouldn't have said that!'  At this moment he
knew with certainty that he would never be near to her in spirit
and in truth, nor she to him.  He had collected her--that was all!
And Jolyon's words came rushing into his mind: "I should imagine
you will be glad to have your neck out of chancery."  Well, he had
got it out!  Had he got it in again?

"We must feed you up," he said, "you'll soon be strong."

"Don't you want to see baby, Soames?  She is asleep."

"Of course," said Soames, "very much."

He passed round the foot of the bed to the other side and stood
staring.  For the first moment what he saw was much what he had
expected to see--a baby.  But as he stared and the baby breathed
and made little sleeping movements with its tiny features, it
seemed to assume an individual shape, grew to be like a picture, a
thing he would know again; not repulsive, strangely bud-like and
touching.  It had dark hair.  He touched it with his finger, he
wanted to see its eyes.  They opened, they were dark--whether blue
or brown he could not tell.  The eyes winked, stared, they had a
sort of sleepy depth in them.  And suddenly his heart felt queer,
warm, as if elated.

"Ma petite fleur!" Annette said softly.

"Fleur," repeated Soames: "Fleur!  we'll call her that."

The sense of triumph and renewed possession swelled within him.

By God!  this--this thing was his!

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