He rose and went out into the breathless dark, retracing his steps to the stream, and through the blinded orchard to the summer-house. He groped and found the mallet and took it with him, stealing along past the lilacs, to the edge of the rhododendron clump bordering the lawn. Dark! It was more than dark, but he could just see the house. And, squatting on the grass, dry as tinder, he gazed up. Two first floor windows alone were lighted, open but curtained—hers—so well he knew the windows he had longed to enter! And he thought: ‘By Gad! I’ll have a shot!’ and going on his knees he searched for tiny pebbles in the shrubbery. Then drawing deep breaths to still the pounding of his heart he moved towards the house along the rhododendrons. But then he stopped as if he had been shot, and dropped to his knees on the grass. A curtain had been pulled aside; in the lighted window-space stood the figure of a half-dressed man. He was leaning there, inhaling the heavy night; he turned and spoke into the room. George saw his profile—Basset! Their voices carried to him in the stillness—his voice and hers. He saw a shimmer of white—flesh, drapery—pass across behind; saw the man’s arm go round it. And George pressed his face to the dry grass, stifling a groan. He heard a woman’s low laugh, the window shut down, and furious pain jerked him to his knees. To take the mallet—to climb up—to brain him—her—to—to—! He fell forward again, with arms outstretched. The smell of parched grass mixed itself with his agony, for how long—how long—till the night was rent with a blinding flash and thunder rolled round and round him. He staggered to his feet, ran into the dark; and stumbled among the orchard trees. Lightning flashed all round, he wanted it to strike. He wanted it to strike him, but he knew it wouldn’t. Then the rain fell—fell in a sheet, drenched him in a minute; fell and fell, and cooled him even to the heart. Like a drowned rat he came to where he lived, and let himself in. He went up to his bedroom, and tearing off his clothes, flung himself into bed. And behind and through the crashing of the thunder he heard that low soft laugh, and the window being shut down. He fell asleep at last.
When he woke the sun was shining in at his window; it shone across the room on to his boots—fourteen pairs of boots and shoes, treed, in triple rows, on the top of his chest-of-drawers. Boots and shoes of every kind—riding boots, shooting boots, town boots, tennis boots, pumps. George looked at them, with fish-like eyes. In those well-worn and polished boots, treed against decay, was life—his life—and in his heart, dragged from its drowned sleep, was death. That laugh! No! To hell with women! Boots! And, lying there, he ground his teeth and grinned.
THE HONDEKOETER, 1880
Encountering his old friend Traquair opposite the Horse Guards, in the summer of 1880, James Forsyte, who had taken an afternoon off from the City, proceeded alongside with the words:
“I’m not well.”
His friend answered: “You look bobbish enough. Going to the Club?”
“No,” said James. “I’m going to Jobson’s. They’re selling Smelter’s pictures. Don’t suppose there’s anything, but I thought I’d look in.”
“Smelter? Selling his ‘Cupid and Pish,’ as he used to call it? He never could speak the Queen’s English.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what made him die,” said James; “he wasn’t seventy. His ‘47 was good.”
“Ah! And his brown sherry.”
James shook his head.
“Liverish stuff. I’ve been walking from the Temple; got a touch of liver now.”
“You ought to go to Carlsbad; that’s the new place, they say.”
“Homburg,” said James, mechanically. “Emily likes it—too fashionable for me. I don’t know—I’m sixty-nine.” He pointed his umbrella at a lion.
“That chap Landseer must ha’ made a pretty penny,” he muttered: “They say Dizzy’s very shaky. HE won’t last long.”
“M’m! That old fool Gladstone’ll set us all by the ears yet. Going to bid at Jobson’s?”
“Bid? Haven’t got the money to throw away. My family’s growing up.”
“Ah! How’s your married daughter—Winifred?”
The furrow between James’ brows increased in depth.
“She never tells me. But I know that chap Dartie she married makes the money fly.”
“What is he?”
“An outside broker,” said James, gloomily: “But so far as I can see, he does nothing but gallivant about to races and that. He’ll do no good with himself.”
He halted at the pavement edge, where a crossing had been swept, for it had rained; and extracting a penny from his trouser pocket, gave it to the crossing-sweeper, who looked up at his long figure with a round and knowing eye.
“Well, good-bye, James. I’m going to the Club. Remember me to Emily.”
James Forsyte nodded, and moved, stork-like, on to the narrow crossing. Andy Traquair! He still looked very spry! Gingery chap! But that wife of his—fancy marrying again at his age! Well, no fool like an old one. And, incommoded by a passing four-wheeler, he instinctively raised his umbrella—they never looked where they were going.
Traversing St. James’ Square, he reflected gloomily that these new Clubs were thundering great places; and this asphalt pavement that was coming in-he didn’t know! London wasn’t what it used to be, with horses slipping about all over the place. He turned into Jobson’s. Three o’clock! They’d be just starting. Smelter must have cut up quite well.
Ascending the steps, he passed through the lobbies into the sale-room. Auction was in progress, but they had not yet reached the ‘property of William Smelter Esq.’
Putting on his tortoiseshell pince-nez, James studied the catalogue. Since his purchase of a Turner—some said ‘not a Turner’—all cordage and drowning men, he had not bought a picture, and he had a blank space on the stairs. It was a large space in a poor light; he often thought it looked very bare. If there were anything going at a bargain, he might think of it. H’m! There was the Bronzino: ‘Cupid and Pish’ that Smelter had been so proud of—a nude; he didn’t want nudes in Park Lane. His eye ran down the catalogue: “Claud Lorraine,” “Bosboem,” “Cornelis van Vos,” “Snyders”—“Snyders”—m’m! still life—all ducks and geese, hares, artichokes, onions, platters, oysters, grapes, turkeys, pears, and starved-looking greyhounds asleep under them. No. 17, “M. Hondekoeter.” Fowls, 11 foot by 6. What a whopping great thing! He took three mental steps into the middle of the picture and three steps out again. “Hondekoeter.” His brother Jolyon had one in the billiard room at Stanhope Gate—lot of fowls; not so big as that. “Snyders!” “Ary Scheffer”—bloodless-looking affair, he’d be bound! “Rosa Bonheur.” “Snyders.”
He took a seat at the side of the room, and fell into a reverie—with James a serious matter, indissolubly connected with investments. Soames—in partnership now—was shaping well; bringing in a lot of business. That house in Bryanston Square—the tenancy would be up in September—he ought to get another hundred on a re-let, with the improvements the tenant had put in. He’d have a couple of thousand to invest next Quarter Day. There was Cape Copper, but he didn’t know; Nicholas was always telling him to buy ‘Midland.’ That fellow Dartie, too, kept worrying him about Argentines—he wouldn’t touch them with a pair of tongs. And, leaning forward with his hands crossed on the handle of his umbrella, he gazed fixedly up at the skylight, as if seeing some annunciation or other, while his shaven lips, between his grey Dundrearys, filled sensually as though savouring a dividend.
“The collection of William Smelter, Esquire, of Russell Square.”
Now for the usual poppycock! “This well-known collector,” “masterpieces of the Dutch and French Schools”; “rare opportunity”; “Connoisseur”; all me eye and Betty Martin! Smelter used to buy ’em by the yard.