Charles Soames

“ Obliged by Annette to have one—a Rollhard with pearl-grey cushions, electric light, little mirrors, trays for the ashes of cigarettes, flower vases—all smelling of petrol and stephanotis—he regarded it much as he used to regard his brother-in-law, Montague Dartie. The thing typified all that was fast, insecure, and subcutaneously oily in modern life. As modern life became faster, looser, younger, Soames was becoming older, slower, tighter, more and more in thought and language like his father James before him. ”

“ Banks were not lending; people breaking contracts all over the place. There was a feeling in the air and a look on faces that he did not like. The country seemed in for a spell of gambling and bankruptcies. There was satisfaction in the thought that neither he nor his trusts had an investment which could be affected by anything less maniacal than national repudiation or a levy on capital. If Soames had faith, it was in what he called "English common sense"—or the power to have things, if not one way then another. ”

“ And when amid these ruminations, Jimmie's eyes had at last fixed themselves on the frayed dangling cord that hung from the ceiling over the trucklebed, it was because he had already explored all that the name Soames had stood for. Soames the butler—a black-clothed, tub-bellied, pompous man that might have been his Uncle Timothy's impoverished first cousin or illegitimate step-brother: Soames: Soames. ”

“ Annette stretched herself.
"Tar-brush?" she said. "What is that? His mother was Armenienne."
"That's it, then," muttered Soames. "Does he know anything about pictures?"
"He knows about everything—a man of the world."
"Well, get some one for Fleur. I want to distract her. She's going off on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; I don't like it."
"Why not?"
Since the reason could not be explained without going into family history, Soames merely answered:
"Racketing about. There's too much of it."
"I like that little Mrs. Val; she is very quiet and clever." ”

“ Had I known that he really and firmly believed in the greatness of what he as an artist had achieved, I might not have shunned him. No man who hasn’t lost his vanity can be held to have altogether failed. Soames’ dignity was an illusion of mine. ”

“ I asked.
"He has an income. He's all right." Harland was the most joyous of men and most generous of critics, and he hated to talk of anything about which he couldn't be enthusiastic. So I dropped the subject of Soames. The news that Soames had an income did take the edge off solicitude. I learned afterward that he was the son of an unsuccessful and deceased bookseller in Preston, but had inherited an annuity of three hundred pounds from a married aunt, and had no surviving relatives of any kind. ”

“ There was also a possibility of economy. The chambers at Doddington Mansions might be given up, and Soames might live on two hundred a year until his finances were on a proper footing again. There were certainly bachelors in London who got along on two hundred a year, and among the very poor there might even be some who got along on less. But Soames thought of this with horror; he had got used to his comfortable way of life and he did not want to change it. ”

“ Would she believe he had done his best? And under that sunlight faring on the elms, hazels, hollies of the lane and those unexploited fields, Soames felt dread. She would be terribly upset! He must appeal to her pride. That boy had given her up, declared part and lot with the woman who so long ago had given her father up! Soames clenched his hands. Given him up, and why? What had been wrong with him? And once more he felt the malaise of one who contemplates himself as seen by another—like a dog who chances on his refection in a mirror and is intrigued and anxious at the unseizable thing. ”

“ Champagne was handed, and then a bottle of James' prehistoric port, but as by the chill hand of some skeleton.
At ten o'clock Soames left; twice in reply to questions, he had said that Irene was not well; he felt he could no longer trust himself. His mother kissed him with her large soft kiss, and he pressed her hand, a flush of warmth in his cheeks. He walked away in the cold wind, which whistled desolately round the corners of the streets, under a sky of clear steel-blue, alive with stars ”

“ He handed out four bottles of the destructive whisky to them, and Nature did the rest. Five men were too hopelessly drunk to work that afternoon, and the foreman did not smile any more. The builder required measurements which could only be got by entering Soames's chambers; Soames refused to allow the man to come in. The Syndicate's builder's foreman then punched Soames's servant's head, and was given the usual option; Soames distributed the rest of his paralysis brand of whisky and got a new servant ”

“ Nothing that mattered surely. And yet something real enough in the world—unmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl! That expression Annette had caught from him: "Je m'en fiche!" A fatalistic chap! A Continental—a cosmopolitan—a product of the age! If there were condemnation more complete, Soames felt that he did not know it.
The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into some distance of their own. ”

“ She rose and came towards him. Tall as himself, strong in the cheekbones, well tailored, something in her face disturbed Soames. She crumpled the letter in her hand, but seemed to change her mind and held it out to him. He was her lawyer as well as her brother.
Soames read, on Iseeum Club paper, these words:
'You will not get chance to insult in my own again. I am leaving country to-morrow. It's played out. I'm tired of being insulted by you. You've brought on yourself. No self-respecting man can stand it. ”

“ After filling his mouth with household bread, stale, he at once began: "How are you going down to Robin Hill? You going to take Irene? You'd better take her. I should think there'll be a lot that'll want seeing to."
Without looking up, Soames answered: "She won't go."
"Won't go? What's the meaning of that? She's going to live in the house, isn't she?"
Soames made no reply.
"I don't know what's coming to women nowadays," mumbled James; "I never used to have any trouble with them. She's had too much liberty. She's spoiled...." ”

“ James reflected sourly that they had a nice house (rather small) in an excellent position, no children, and no money troubles. Soames was reserved about his affairs, but he must be getting a very warm man. He had a capital income from the business—for Soames, like his father, was a member of that well-known firm of solicitors, Forsyte, Bustard and Forsyte—and had always been very careful. ”

“ He accepted them, but coldly, and re-addressed himself to Soames.
"I am a man of business," he said, "and always I would put things through 'right now,' as they say in the States. You are a poet. Les affaires—you detest them. So be it. But with me you will deal, eh? What you have said just now gives me furiously to hope."
Soames had not moved except to light a fresh cigarette. He sat crouched forward, with his elbows squared on the table, and his head just above the level of his hands, staring up at the devil. ”

“ To one so secretive as Soames the thought of reentry into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away to the world was intensely alluring. 'No,' he mused, 'I'm glad I went to see that girl. I know now what I want most. If only Irene will come back I'll be as considerate as she wishes; she could live her own life; but perhaps—perhaps she would come round to me.' There was a lump in his throat. And doggedly along by the railings of the Green Park, towards his father's house, he went, trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant moonlight. ”

“ What did Soames want to go into the country for? And, if he must go spending a lot of money building himself a house, why not have a first-rate man, instead of this young Bosinney, whom nobody knew anything about? ”

“ He looked pink, and extraordinarily clean, in his setting of white sheet and pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, nightgowned shoulders emerged in small peaks. His eyes alone, grey and distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down, squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The room reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.
“All right!” said Soames, “it's not a fire. The Boers have declared war—that's all.” ”

“ Would you like me to come down to the Court to-morrow, Soames?”
Soames stretched out his hand for hers. The gesture so betrayed the loneliness in him that she pressed it between her two.
“Never mind, old boy. You’ll feel ever so much better when it’s all over.”
“I don’t know what I’ve done,” said Soames huskily; “I never have. It’s all upside down. I was fond of her; I’ve always been.” ”

“ He counted him a spiritless being, whose world was bounded by his book-shelves, and whose wife would be a fool if she did not avail herself of the liberty which his neglect invited her to enjoy. Soames felt himself, not a snake in the grass, but a benefactor—a friend in need—a champion come to the defense of an unhappy and persecuted woman.
He wondered when an opportunity should arise which would enable him to commence his chivalrous operations; almost daily he anticipated instructions to the effect that Mrs. Leroux would be leaving for Paris immediately. ”

“ And sitting there, high up on its most individual spot, Soames—like a figure of Investment—refused their restless sounds. Instinctively he would not fight them—there was in him too much primeval wisdom, of Man the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying; when the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently broken and dejected—they would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of change—the instinct of Home. ”

“ Soames walked upstairs. Passing the drawing-room without a look, he went straight up to his mother’s and father’s bedroom.
James, standing sideways, the concave lines of his tall, lean figure displayed to advantage in shirt-sleeves and evening waistcoat, his head bent, the end of his white tie peeping askew from underneath one white Dundreary whisker, his eyes peering with intense concentration, his lips pouting, was hooking the top hooks of his wife’s bodice. Soames stopped; he felt half-choked, whether because he had come upstairs too fast, or for some other reason. ”

“ What a lot of ants, all with a living to get, holding on by their eyelids in the great scramble! Perhaps for the first time in his life Soames thought: “I could let go if I liked! Nothing could touch me; I could snap my fingers, live as I wished—enjoy myself!” No! One could not live as he had and just drop it all—settle down in Capua, to spend the money and reputation he had made. A man’s life was what he possessed and sought to possess. Only fools thought otherwise—fools, and socialists, and libertines!
The cab was passing villas now, going a great pace. ”

“ Soames, I hope you don't think that. That man's worth half a million, and as far as his money's concerned he's all right. But he doesn't understand the ways of a place like this. He comes here half drunk and uses the most offensive language; he loses his temper without any reason, for it's not our fault he's grown so stout. He's Mr. Walter Chive, and one never heard of him till last year."
"Do anything?" asked Soames lazily.
"Oh, yes, he's one of the Anglo-Foreign Hotels Syndicate. Minting money, they tell me. ”

“ He remained to luncheon with the eccentric old recluse; by four o'clock in the afternoon, when he left, he had a very fair idea of the trap, and of how to put Mr. James Farshaw into it. Soames, as he travelled back to town, looked the very picture of a man who was at peace with the world.
For a man who tired easily Soames got a good deal done in the course of the next day. He called on Croft's agents in London and arranged to purchase Croft's field for considerably less than the sum that had originally been asked. ”

“ Dazed, I turned back at length into the little room, and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my dinner and luncheon and for Soames's; I hope so, for I never went to the Vingtieme again. Ever since that night I have avoided Greek Street altogether. And for years I did not set foot even in Soho Square, because on that same night it was there that I paced and loitered, long and long, with some such dull sense of hope as a man has in not straying far from the place where he has lost something. ”

“ Then commenced for Soames such an ordeal as all his previous life had not offered him; an ordeal beside which even the interview with Mr. King sank into insignificance. His one hope was in the cunning of Said’s disguise; but he knew that Scotland Yard men judged likenesses, not by complexions, which are alterable, not by the color of the hair, which can be dyed, but by certain features which are measurable, and which may be memorized because nature has fashioned them immutable. ”

“ But poor Soames! Doomed to pay without respite an eternal price for nothing but a fruitless search and a bitter disillusioning.
Odd and uncanny it seemed to me that he, Soames, in the flesh, in the waterproof cape, was at this moment living in the last decade of the next century, poring over books not yet written, and seeing and seen by men not yet born. Uncannier and odder still that to-night and evermore he would be in hell. Assuredly, truth was stranger than fiction. ”