“Can’t you see your way to do it for eight
thousand after all? There must be a lot of little
things you could alter.”
Bosinney drank off his tea at a gulp, put down his
cup, and answered:
“Not one!”
Soames saw that his suggestion had touched some unintelligible
point of personal vanity.
“Well,” he agreed, with sulky resignation;
“you must have it your own way, I suppose.”
A few minutes later Bosinney rose to go, and Soames
rose too, to see him off the premises. The architect
seemed in absurdly high spirits. After watching
him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames returned moodily
to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting away
the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm of
curiosity, he asked:
“Well, what do you think of ’The Buccaneer’?”
He looked at the carpet while waiting for her answer,
and he had to wait some time.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.
“Do you think he’s good-looking?”
Irene smiled. And it seemed to Soames that she
was mocking him.
“Yes,” she answered; “very.”
DEATH OF AUNT ANN
There came a morning at the end of September when
Aunt Ann was unable to take from Smither’s hands
the insignia of personal dignity. After one
look at the old face, the doctor, hurriedly sent for,
announced that Miss Forsyte had passed away in her
sleep.
Aunts Juley and Hester were overwhelmed by the shock.
They had never imagined such an ending. Indeed,
it is doubtful whether they had ever realized that
an ending was bound to come. Secretly they felt
it unreasonable of Ann to have left them like this
without a word, without even a struggle. It
was unlike her.
Perhaps what really affected them so profoundly was
the thought that a Forsyte should have let go her
grasp on life. If one, then why not all!
It was a full hour before they could make up their
minds to tell Timothy. If only it could be kept
from him! If only it could be broken to him by
degrees!
And long they stood outside his door whispering together.
And when it was over they whispered together again.
He would feel it more, they were afraid, as time went
on. Still, he had taken it better than could
have been expected. He would keep his bed, of
course!
They separated, crying quietly.
Aunt Juley stayed in her room, prostrated by the blow.
Her face, discoloured by tears, was divided into
compartments by the little ridges of pouting flesh
which had swollen with emotion. It was impossible
to conceive of life without Ann, who had lived with
her for seventy-three years, broken only by the short
interregnum of her married life, which seemed now
so unreal. At fixed intervals she went to her
drawer, and took from beneath the lavender bags a
fresh pocket-handkerchief. Her warm heart could
not bear the thought that Ann was lying there so cold.
