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Old Jolyon stood, still as death, his eyes fixed on the body. Who shall tell of what he was thinking? Of himself, when his hair was brown like the hair of that young fellow dead before him? Of himself, with his battle just begi
Or perhaps in his philosophy he thought: Better to be out of, it all! Better to have done with it, like this poor youth…
Some one touched him on the arm.
A tear started up and wetted his eyelash. “Well,” he said, “I’m no good here. I’d better be going. You’ll come to me as soon as you can, Jo,” and with his head bowed he went away.
It was young Jolyon’s turn to take his stand beside the dead man, round whose fallen body he seemed to see all the Forsytes breathless, and prostrated. The stroke had fallen too swiftly.
The forces underlying every tragedy—forces that take no denial, working through cross currents to their ironical end, had met and fused with a thunder-clap, flung out the victim, and flattened to the ground all those that stood around.
Or so at all events young Jolyon seemed to see them, lying around Bosi
He asked the Inspector to tell him what had happened, and the latter, like a man who does not every day get such a chance, again detailed such facts as were known.
“There’s more here, sir, however,” he said, “than meets the eye. I don’t believe in suicide, nor in pure accident, myself. It’s more likely I think that he was suffering under great stress of mind, and took no notice of things about him. Perhaps you can throw some light on these.”
He took from his pocket a little packet and laid it on the table. Carefully undoing it, he revealed a lady’s handkerchief, pi
“Found in his breast pocket,” said the Inspector; “the name has been cut away!”
Young Jolyon with difficulty answered: “I’m afraid I ca
He walked sorrowfully away from the hospital towards his father’s house, reflecting that this death would break up the Forsyte family. The stroke had indeed slipped past their defences into the very wood of their tree. They might flourish to all appearance as before, preserving a brave show before the eyes of London, but the trunk was dead, withered by the same flash that had stricken down Bosi
Good forest of Forsytes! thought young Jolyon—soundest timber of our land!
Concerning the cause of this death—his family would doubtless reject with vigour the suspicion of suicide, which was so compromising! They would take it as an accident, a stroke of fate. In their hearts they would even feel it an intervention of Providence, a retribution—had not Bosi
As for himself, he regarded the bus-driver’s account of the accident as of very little value. For no one so madly in love committed suicide for want of money; nor was Bosi
Then came a vision of Soames’ home as it now was, and must be hereafter. The streak of lightning had flashed its clear unca
In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone when his son came in. He looked very wan in his great armchair. And his eyes travelling round the walls with their pictures of still life, and the masterpiece ‘Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset’ seemed as though passing their gaze over his life with its hopes, its gains, its achievements.
“Ah! Jo!” he said, “is that you? I’ve told poor little June. But that’s not all of it. Are you going to Soames’? She’s brought it on herself, I suppose; but somehow I can’t bear to think of her, shut up there—and all alone.” And holding up his thin, veined hand, he clenched it.
Chapter IX.
IRENE’S RETURN
After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.
The tragic event of Bosi
That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had taken the first-post letters from the box himself, and, though there had been none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of telling Bilson that her mistress was at the sea; he would probably, he said, be going down himself from Saturday to Monday. This had given him time to breathe, time to leave no stone unturned to find her.
But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosi
And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his wandering, his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.
Already in the afternoon he passed posters a
On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson’s about half past four, he met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to Soames, saying:
“Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?”
Soames answered stonily: “Yes.”
George stared at him. He had never liked Soames; he now held him responsible for Bosi
‘The poor fellow,’ he was thinking, ‘was so cracked with jealousy, so cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of the omnibus in that infernal fog.’
Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George’s eyes.
“They talk of suicide here,” he said at last. “That cat won’t jump.”
Soames shook his head. “An accident,” he muttered.
Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his pocket. He could not resist a parting shot.
“H’mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?”
With a face as white as the steps of Jobson’s, and a lip raised as if snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone…
On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife’s gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.